SPN FIC - Presenting... The Lincoln Bedroom
A whole bunch of you wanted this, in follow-up to Transient -- so here you go. Sam's room, courtesy of his brother.
Today, though, Dean's fidgeting is completely out of control. And he's wearing a frigging tuxedo.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: 8.12 - 8.14
LENGTH: 1524 words
PRESENTING... THE LINCOLN BEDROOM
By Carol Davis
First, he looms.
Wanders up and down the length of the room, behind Sam, then in a big circle around the library table.
Clears his throat.
Clears it again.
Clears it loudly.
"Dude, what's your problem?" Sam blurts, because it's just Dean being restless again, Dean being impatient with Sam's desire to spend the day studying. They've got a situation on their hands, Sam would very much like to remind his brother (again): with half the tablet still unavailable, any information he and Dean can uncover will be a help to Kevin, will put them closer to closing the gates of Hell once and for all.
To be fair, Dean's spent a considerable number of hours perusing old books, looking at titles and tables of contents for anything that's worth further examination. But that's where his participation has ended. He wants to move. Needs to move. That's been true for most of Dean's life, so for the most part Sam doesn't object to it.
Today, though, Dean's fidgeting is completely out of control.
And he's wearing a frigging tuxedo.
"What the -" Sam stammers. "Dude, what the hell. Still, with the old dead guy clothes?"
"Occasion called for it."
"Called for wearing a sixty-year-old tuxedo."
"Admit it. I look freaking awesome, Sammy. And it's older than that. Found a receipt in the pocket that says it's from 1924. Now get your ass up from there, if those beanstalk legs of yours still work, and come on. Gotta show you something."
"Can't it wait?"
"No, Sam, it cannot wait."
"What is it this time? You finally found the roomful of really old porn?"
Dean's left eyebrow twitches, just a little, and a knot of regret assembles itself in Sam's belly. Yes, Dean's been somewhat less than fully helpful with the research, but he's accomplished a lot in the few weeks they've been here: he's rewired a number of electrical outlets so they'll handle three-pronged plugs. (Sorely needed, because the old outlets wouldn't accommodate the laptop cord.) He's stocked the kitchen, and has produced at least a couple of incredibly tasty, nourishing meals every day they haven't been out on the road. He located the book Sam's been working at translating for the past three days, and a number of others that are awaiting Sam's attention.
He's been busy. Non-stop, pretty much.
"I -" Sam starts.
But Dean waves him off, the way he has for something like twenty years now. As much as his feelings are easily hurt, he's quick to dismiss an apology. Would rather shut it down, or walk away from it, than accept it outright.
"What is it?" Sam asks quietly.
Code has to work, where straightforwardness cannot. I'm sorry, man, said in tone of voice alone. In posture, in the ghost of a smile.
For a moment, Dean doesn't respond.
He's tired; that's evident in the way he carries himself. But he's also tickled with something, and wants to show it off. How he's managed to yet again find something worth showing off within the confines of this underground bunker - and that's all it is, really; not a shopping mall, or the innards of a fully-decked-out cruise ship - is honestly amazing. It's a little dependent on your point of view, of course, because there being a swimming pool here isn't all that eye-opening.
Or maybe it is.
Then, finally, Dean twitches a shoulder, his code for, If you don't want to see it, then screw you, I'll play by myself.
"Dude," Sam says.
Without a word, Dean turns on the heel of one of his gleaming, carefully buffed black dress shoes - someone's nearly hundred-year-old black dress shoes - and walks out of the room, headed for the staircase that leads down to the kitchen and bedroom level. Sam has little choice but to follow him, feeling a little under-dressed as he hustles along in his brother's crisp and elegant wake.
Dean's done something new to spruce up his bedroom, Sam figures as they reach the hallway where Dean's room lies, but that's wrong; Dean walks on past his room to the end of the hall and gestures to a room on the left, a room Sam hasn't bothered to investigate before.
"What's this?" Sam asks, frowning.
"Open the door and find out."
It's then that Sam remembers his offer to Dean of eleven days ago: that rather than choosing and fixing up a room for himself, he'd leave all of that in Dean's hands. Leave it entirely up to Dean's discretion, and Dean's imagination.
Dean, of course, has a very colorful imagination.
Clowns, Sam thinks.
Friggin' room's probably full of clowns. Clown wallpaper. Circus motif bedspread.
Dean steps aside, looking more than a little like one of those spruced-up servants on the Titanic, his face carefully neutral, one extended arm with flattened hand laying the path to what's inside.
His eyes are dancing, though.
There's a sign attached to the wall alongside the door, a small brass rectangle that Dean must have etched himself, as there's no reason whatsoever for it to have existed otherwise. In somewhat wobbly lettering it reads THE LINCOLN BEDROOM. Sam frowns at it, tries mightily to suss out the implications of those three words but comes up with nothing, and settles for seizing the knob and thrusting the door open.
Inside, there's just a bedroom.
A neatly made bed, covered not with a circus bedspread but a dark blue ribcord one. Two pillows in smooth white cases lie at the top of the bed, a folded plaid blanket at the bottom. Beside the bed is a small table bearing a lamp and an alarm clock. On the other side of the room, a desk and chair, with another lamp, a stack of notebooks and a row of pens. In the corner stands what has Dean has taken to calling "the good chair" because it's by and large the only truly comfortable one in the whole place (unless there's a roomful of them that Dean hasn't uncovered yet). The closet door is open; inside hangs Sam's entire wardrobe, plus a couple of shirts he doesn't recognize. New, apparently - from one of Dean's repeated trips to the Walmart in Great Bend.
Also from the Walmart, Sam guesses: the small Bose iPod dock that sits on top of the dresser.
"The Lincoln Bedroom?" Sam asks.
"Must've belonged to somebody tall," Dean says from behind him. "I measured every bed in the place, and this one's six inches longer than the rest of 'em."
"Seriously."
"Yeah."
"So - Abe Lincoln."
"Guy liked to read books. And, hey - got its own bathroom," Dean points out. "So you can do your thing, and not stink up the one I have to use. I fixed the plugs, too, so you can use the laptop down here and not run down the battery. And that thing there" - he nods toward the Bose unit - "that's so you can play your girly emo shit while you read."
A peek into the bathroom reveals a pedestal sink, a toilet, a shower stall. Lots of white tile.
Enough toilet paper to see Sam through the next twenty years.
And towels, a big stack of them, thick, fluffy, white.
The last thing he sees is the painting that hangs opposite the head of the bed, so it'll be what he looks at when he opens his eyes in the morning: a big, broad landscape of trees, a creek, a couple of small boys with a fishing pole, one of them dabbling his hand in the water. "Kinda looks like the creek out near Pastor Jim's," Dean says offhandedly. "Found it in a roomful of old junk downstairs. It was either that, or I can get you a nice Justin Beiber poster, next trip to Great Bend."
When Sam turns to look at him, Dean looks sheepish. Unsure. "It ain't much," he confesses.
"It's fine, man. It's fine."
The next thing, Dean blurts out in a way that reminds Sam of their run-in with Andy Gallagher, years ago, back when things seemed so much simpler, so much more straightforward.
Truth, tumbling out of him against his wishes, against his better judgment.
"I didn't know," he says. "Thirty friggin' years of living with you and I don't - I've got no idea what you like. Salad. How the hell do you decorate a room with salad?"
He looks stricken.
Heartbroken, in a way.
Sam takes another long look around, taking in the obvious care with which his brother assembled these few things. At first glance it's as barren as the dorm rooms he occupied at Stanford, before Jess led the way to their apartment off-campus. It bears no real stamp, displays no individuality, to the casual observer.
I don't know what I like, either, Sam thinks.
But there is so much of Dean in this - dammit, so much of Dean's love - in the neatly-made bed, the new shirts, that ridiculous stockpile of toilet paper.
In the little white iPod dock sitting on the dresser.
"I like this," Sam says to his tuxedo-clad brother.
"You do?"
"Yeah, man," Sam murmurs. "I do. I really do."
* * * * *
Today, though, Dean's fidgeting is completely out of control. And he's wearing a frigging tuxedo.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: 8.12 - 8.14
LENGTH: 1524 words
PRESENTING... THE LINCOLN BEDROOM
By Carol Davis
First, he looms.
Wanders up and down the length of the room, behind Sam, then in a big circle around the library table.
Clears his throat.
Clears it again.
Clears it loudly.
"Dude, what's your problem?" Sam blurts, because it's just Dean being restless again, Dean being impatient with Sam's desire to spend the day studying. They've got a situation on their hands, Sam would very much like to remind his brother (again): with half the tablet still unavailable, any information he and Dean can uncover will be a help to Kevin, will put them closer to closing the gates of Hell once and for all.
To be fair, Dean's spent a considerable number of hours perusing old books, looking at titles and tables of contents for anything that's worth further examination. But that's where his participation has ended. He wants to move. Needs to move. That's been true for most of Dean's life, so for the most part Sam doesn't object to it.
Today, though, Dean's fidgeting is completely out of control.
And he's wearing a frigging tuxedo.
"What the -" Sam stammers. "Dude, what the hell. Still, with the old dead guy clothes?"
"Occasion called for it."
"Called for wearing a sixty-year-old tuxedo."
"Admit it. I look freaking awesome, Sammy. And it's older than that. Found a receipt in the pocket that says it's from 1924. Now get your ass up from there, if those beanstalk legs of yours still work, and come on. Gotta show you something."
"Can't it wait?"
"No, Sam, it cannot wait."
"What is it this time? You finally found the roomful of really old porn?"
Dean's left eyebrow twitches, just a little, and a knot of regret assembles itself in Sam's belly. Yes, Dean's been somewhat less than fully helpful with the research, but he's accomplished a lot in the few weeks they've been here: he's rewired a number of electrical outlets so they'll handle three-pronged plugs. (Sorely needed, because the old outlets wouldn't accommodate the laptop cord.) He's stocked the kitchen, and has produced at least a couple of incredibly tasty, nourishing meals every day they haven't been out on the road. He located the book Sam's been working at translating for the past three days, and a number of others that are awaiting Sam's attention.
He's been busy. Non-stop, pretty much.
"I -" Sam starts.
But Dean waves him off, the way he has for something like twenty years now. As much as his feelings are easily hurt, he's quick to dismiss an apology. Would rather shut it down, or walk away from it, than accept it outright.
"What is it?" Sam asks quietly.
Code has to work, where straightforwardness cannot. I'm sorry, man, said in tone of voice alone. In posture, in the ghost of a smile.
For a moment, Dean doesn't respond.
He's tired; that's evident in the way he carries himself. But he's also tickled with something, and wants to show it off. How he's managed to yet again find something worth showing off within the confines of this underground bunker - and that's all it is, really; not a shopping mall, or the innards of a fully-decked-out cruise ship - is honestly amazing. It's a little dependent on your point of view, of course, because there being a swimming pool here isn't all that eye-opening.
Or maybe it is.
Then, finally, Dean twitches a shoulder, his code for, If you don't want to see it, then screw you, I'll play by myself.
"Dude," Sam says.
Without a word, Dean turns on the heel of one of his gleaming, carefully buffed black dress shoes - someone's nearly hundred-year-old black dress shoes - and walks out of the room, headed for the staircase that leads down to the kitchen and bedroom level. Sam has little choice but to follow him, feeling a little under-dressed as he hustles along in his brother's crisp and elegant wake.
Dean's done something new to spruce up his bedroom, Sam figures as they reach the hallway where Dean's room lies, but that's wrong; Dean walks on past his room to the end of the hall and gestures to a room on the left, a room Sam hasn't bothered to investigate before.
"What's this?" Sam asks, frowning.
"Open the door and find out."
It's then that Sam remembers his offer to Dean of eleven days ago: that rather than choosing and fixing up a room for himself, he'd leave all of that in Dean's hands. Leave it entirely up to Dean's discretion, and Dean's imagination.
Dean, of course, has a very colorful imagination.
Clowns, Sam thinks.
Friggin' room's probably full of clowns. Clown wallpaper. Circus motif bedspread.
Dean steps aside, looking more than a little like one of those spruced-up servants on the Titanic, his face carefully neutral, one extended arm with flattened hand laying the path to what's inside.
His eyes are dancing, though.
There's a sign attached to the wall alongside the door, a small brass rectangle that Dean must have etched himself, as there's no reason whatsoever for it to have existed otherwise. In somewhat wobbly lettering it reads THE LINCOLN BEDROOM. Sam frowns at it, tries mightily to suss out the implications of those three words but comes up with nothing, and settles for seizing the knob and thrusting the door open.
Inside, there's just a bedroom.
A neatly made bed, covered not with a circus bedspread but a dark blue ribcord one. Two pillows in smooth white cases lie at the top of the bed, a folded plaid blanket at the bottom. Beside the bed is a small table bearing a lamp and an alarm clock. On the other side of the room, a desk and chair, with another lamp, a stack of notebooks and a row of pens. In the corner stands what has Dean has taken to calling "the good chair" because it's by and large the only truly comfortable one in the whole place (unless there's a roomful of them that Dean hasn't uncovered yet). The closet door is open; inside hangs Sam's entire wardrobe, plus a couple of shirts he doesn't recognize. New, apparently - from one of Dean's repeated trips to the Walmart in Great Bend.
Also from the Walmart, Sam guesses: the small Bose iPod dock that sits on top of the dresser.
"The Lincoln Bedroom?" Sam asks.
"Must've belonged to somebody tall," Dean says from behind him. "I measured every bed in the place, and this one's six inches longer than the rest of 'em."
"Seriously."
"Yeah."
"So - Abe Lincoln."
"Guy liked to read books. And, hey - got its own bathroom," Dean points out. "So you can do your thing, and not stink up the one I have to use. I fixed the plugs, too, so you can use the laptop down here and not run down the battery. And that thing there" - he nods toward the Bose unit - "that's so you can play your girly emo shit while you read."
A peek into the bathroom reveals a pedestal sink, a toilet, a shower stall. Lots of white tile.
Enough toilet paper to see Sam through the next twenty years.
And towels, a big stack of them, thick, fluffy, white.
The last thing he sees is the painting that hangs opposite the head of the bed, so it'll be what he looks at when he opens his eyes in the morning: a big, broad landscape of trees, a creek, a couple of small boys with a fishing pole, one of them dabbling his hand in the water. "Kinda looks like the creek out near Pastor Jim's," Dean says offhandedly. "Found it in a roomful of old junk downstairs. It was either that, or I can get you a nice Justin Beiber poster, next trip to Great Bend."
When Sam turns to look at him, Dean looks sheepish. Unsure. "It ain't much," he confesses.
"It's fine, man. It's fine."
The next thing, Dean blurts out in a way that reminds Sam of their run-in with Andy Gallagher, years ago, back when things seemed so much simpler, so much more straightforward.
Truth, tumbling out of him against his wishes, against his better judgment.
"I didn't know," he says. "Thirty friggin' years of living with you and I don't - I've got no idea what you like. Salad. How the hell do you decorate a room with salad?"
He looks stricken.
Heartbroken, in a way.
Sam takes another long look around, taking in the obvious care with which his brother assembled these few things. At first glance it's as barren as the dorm rooms he occupied at Stanford, before Jess led the way to their apartment off-campus. It bears no real stamp, displays no individuality, to the casual observer.
I don't know what I like, either, Sam thinks.
But there is so much of Dean in this - dammit, so much of Dean's love - in the neatly-made bed, the new shirts, that ridiculous stockpile of toilet paper.
In the little white iPod dock sitting on the dresser.
"I like this," Sam says to his tuxedo-clad brother.
"You do?"
"Yeah, man," Sam murmurs. "I do. I really do."
* * * * *