Corner of Your Eye (6/14)
Nope, not slowing down yet. I must really like these guys or something. ::thoughtful head tilt::
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate Xover!
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 1511 for this part
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
6
It was a murmuring sound, something like conversation, that gradually filtered through Dean's consciousness and slowly roused him from a deep sleep. For a while he just lay there, listening to the indistinct voices, rising and falling, a hushed hiss like a cheering crowd, a low cry like a victorious yell buried under six feet of snow. He was warm and comfortable, cocooned in something thick and just heavy enough to feel protective without smothering him. He didn't know where he was, exactly, but he didn't care, because he knew that it was safe. Someone was watching out for him. He was going to be okay.
Eventually, though, the dull ache at the back of his head sharpened to a throb, and then a stabbing pain. Dean grumbled irritably and tried to ignore it, tried to fall back into the comfort of sleep. But the pain was relentless, chasing him down into the warm gray and pulling him back into the waking world, cold and jagged and hard.
Dean huffed in displeasure and opened his sticky eyes, reaching up to rub away the sleep grit with a clumsy fist. After a moment the blurs that met his vision, dark brown, deep red, and warm yellow, resolved themselves into a crowded living area, full of cozily beaten-in pieces of furniture. The walls were rough-hewn logs, the lit lamps had red shades that made the quality of light somehow dark and masculine, and a man was sitting in the recliner in the corner, longneck beer in his hand, watching some kind of sports game on the television against the opposite wall.
As he watched, the man took a long swig from the beer bottle, then let it rest back on the arm of the chair. He was totally relaxed, sprawled in the recliner, feet up on a scuffed leather ottoman. And the game on the television… Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to make it out. Hockey. The sound was way down, so far down that he was surprised Jack could follow the game at all.
Jack. The man was Jack. This must be his place.
Dean got his arms beneath his body and pushed himself up, frowning when his elbows trembled and almost buckled beneath him. Damn, what had he done to himself? He felt like shit. A thick afghan fell from his shoulders as he leveraged himself up, then flopped into a sitting position on the sofa, the blanket bunched around his waist.
"Dude…" his voice felt rusty, disused. "I guess I should have pegged you for a hockey fan. The cold stadiums, the pointless fights…"
Jack looked over at him, gave a little smirk, and took another long pull at his beer. "Oh, yah," he said in an exaggeratedly lazy, flat Northern accent. "We just lav oor hockey hair in MinneSOHta, don chya know."
Dean blinked, scratched at his chest, and couldn't for the life of him figure out how to respond to that. There was definitely something wrong with him. He should have had ten witty things at the tip of his tongue by this point.
Then it all came back. The woods, the spirit, his complete and utter failure to do anything useful. Jack had carried him back here. Carried him. God.
"How's your head, kid?" Jack asked more seriously, dropping the accent.
Dean gave him a sunny grin and knocked a knuckle against his skull. "Hard as a rock, old guy. Takes more than that to take me down."
Jack nodded in a way that clearly expressed that he did not in any form believe that statement at all. "There's more Advil on the end table there." He looked back to the TV. "You can come watch the game, if you want."
Dean stared at the back of the guy's head for a moment, then shrugged and looked over at the table. Two brown pills rested there in the puddle of yellow light from the lamp, next to a tall glass of water. There really wasn't any point in pretending to be stoic with a guy who had carried him back to his place. Dean took the Advil and drank the water.
He stood, testing his balance carefully as he went. His stocking feet held him up well enough. Pleased with his steadiness, Dean made his way over to another recliner, catty-corner to Jack's, and plopped down. He tried to watch the game, but it didn't make any sense. He'd never been much on hockey.
More bits and pieces were coming back to him, as he watched the colorful shapes whir to and fro on the gray-white ice. Dammit, he'd told Jack his last name, hadn't he? His real last name. And he'd promised to tell him all about the thing in the woods. Obviously his concussed brain could not be trusted with anything. Stupid head wound, screwing everything up.
He looked sidelong over at the bottle dangling from Jack's fingers. "Umm, don't suppose I could have one of those?" He pointed diffidently, glancing up at the man. Alcohol could only make this better. And surely Jack didn't really think he was too young for beer, did he?
Jack frowned, but it wasn't the condescending look of a man disparaging minors for their obsession with forbidden substances. "I don't think that's a good idea, what with your head and all. Pretty sure ol' Doc Frasier would have had my hide if I ever tried that with a concussion, but she always locked me in the infirmary so I didn't get a chance to find out."
Dean felt his mouth drop open. Before he could say anything, though, Jack lurched out of his chair with a mumbled, "Be right back."
Dean watched him march purposefully off into another part of the house. He heard rattling and clinking, doors opening and closing, and then Jack was back, holding two longnecks in one fist, a pleased grin on his face. "IBC," he said cheerfully. "Good for what ails ya."
He handed one frosty bottle to Dean and crashed down in his recliner with a satisfied sigh, already popping the top off his own drink. Dean glanced at the label on the one in his hand. Root beer. Well, better than nothing. He shrugged, and was just happy that he didn't have to struggle much to get the screw cap to release.
They sat there in companionable silence for a time, watching hockey, sipping their root beers. Dean noticed that Jack had carefully arranged a couple of ice packs on his raised knees, but he didn't say anything. "Old guy" was okay for a nickname, but it wasn't something you pointed out to someone in their own house while they were busy relaxing with a game and a cold one.
"So," Jack said, without any sort of preamble, glancing briefly at Dean before returning his eyes to the game. "I have this friend. Smart guy. I call him up and bother him when I have weird questions. He says that some people think that salt is good against, um, evil spirits. Something about symbolic purity or something, I don't know."
Dean felt a chill go down his spine, but then it dissipated and he relaxed completely, molding himself back into his recliner. Jack already knew. No point in worrying about it anymore.
"Um…" He cleared his throat, took another drink, then tried again, slowly, cautiously. "What exactly did you see, out there in the forest?"
Jack looked over at him seriously, meeting his eyes. "I'm not sure. It looked a little like a storm cloud that could move by itself, come down from the sky because it couldn't get close enough to hurt anyone up there. It grabbed you, held you against that tree. Like a spider in a web. It was gonna kill you. I shot it, and nothing happened. Not until I used your gun."
Dean looked down at his hands, loose in his lap, one curled limply around his root beer. "Yeah. Sounds about right."
"Your gun had salt in it."
"Yeah."
Jack shifted uncomfortably and looked back to the game. "This smart guy I know. He's usually right, even about the really weird stuff. Especially about the really weird stuff."
Dean hesitated, then took another swig of root beer and nodded wearily. "Yeah. Ghosts. They're real. So are werewolves, death omens, revenants, and practically everything else you've ever heard of."
He peered over at Jack, waiting for a reaction.
"Huh."
Jack drained his root beer in one more pull. And he stared at the TV, though Dean knew that now, Jack wasn't following the game any better than he had been. Yeah, this whole paradigm shift thing was a bitch, all right.
The older man clapped his hands on the arms of the recliner and stood up once more, letting the ice packs slide off his legs. He took the nearly empty bottle from Dean's light grip and started heading back toward the kitchen. "Real stuff coming right up. I think maybe you can handle it after all."
Part 7
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate Xover!
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 1511 for this part
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
6
It was a murmuring sound, something like conversation, that gradually filtered through Dean's consciousness and slowly roused him from a deep sleep. For a while he just lay there, listening to the indistinct voices, rising and falling, a hushed hiss like a cheering crowd, a low cry like a victorious yell buried under six feet of snow. He was warm and comfortable, cocooned in something thick and just heavy enough to feel protective without smothering him. He didn't know where he was, exactly, but he didn't care, because he knew that it was safe. Someone was watching out for him. He was going to be okay.
Eventually, though, the dull ache at the back of his head sharpened to a throb, and then a stabbing pain. Dean grumbled irritably and tried to ignore it, tried to fall back into the comfort of sleep. But the pain was relentless, chasing him down into the warm gray and pulling him back into the waking world, cold and jagged and hard.
Dean huffed in displeasure and opened his sticky eyes, reaching up to rub away the sleep grit with a clumsy fist. After a moment the blurs that met his vision, dark brown, deep red, and warm yellow, resolved themselves into a crowded living area, full of cozily beaten-in pieces of furniture. The walls were rough-hewn logs, the lit lamps had red shades that made the quality of light somehow dark and masculine, and a man was sitting in the recliner in the corner, longneck beer in his hand, watching some kind of sports game on the television against the opposite wall.
As he watched, the man took a long swig from the beer bottle, then let it rest back on the arm of the chair. He was totally relaxed, sprawled in the recliner, feet up on a scuffed leather ottoman. And the game on the television… Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to make it out. Hockey. The sound was way down, so far down that he was surprised Jack could follow the game at all.
Jack. The man was Jack. This must be his place.
Dean got his arms beneath his body and pushed himself up, frowning when his elbows trembled and almost buckled beneath him. Damn, what had he done to himself? He felt like shit. A thick afghan fell from his shoulders as he leveraged himself up, then flopped into a sitting position on the sofa, the blanket bunched around his waist.
"Dude…" his voice felt rusty, disused. "I guess I should have pegged you for a hockey fan. The cold stadiums, the pointless fights…"
Jack looked over at him, gave a little smirk, and took another long pull at his beer. "Oh, yah," he said in an exaggeratedly lazy, flat Northern accent. "We just lav oor hockey hair in MinneSOHta, don chya know."
Dean blinked, scratched at his chest, and couldn't for the life of him figure out how to respond to that. There was definitely something wrong with him. He should have had ten witty things at the tip of his tongue by this point.
Then it all came back. The woods, the spirit, his complete and utter failure to do anything useful. Jack had carried him back here. Carried him. God.
"How's your head, kid?" Jack asked more seriously, dropping the accent.
Dean gave him a sunny grin and knocked a knuckle against his skull. "Hard as a rock, old guy. Takes more than that to take me down."
Jack nodded in a way that clearly expressed that he did not in any form believe that statement at all. "There's more Advil on the end table there." He looked back to the TV. "You can come watch the game, if you want."
Dean stared at the back of the guy's head for a moment, then shrugged and looked over at the table. Two brown pills rested there in the puddle of yellow light from the lamp, next to a tall glass of water. There really wasn't any point in pretending to be stoic with a guy who had carried him back to his place. Dean took the Advil and drank the water.
He stood, testing his balance carefully as he went. His stocking feet held him up well enough. Pleased with his steadiness, Dean made his way over to another recliner, catty-corner to Jack's, and plopped down. He tried to watch the game, but it didn't make any sense. He'd never been much on hockey.
More bits and pieces were coming back to him, as he watched the colorful shapes whir to and fro on the gray-white ice. Dammit, he'd told Jack his last name, hadn't he? His real last name. And he'd promised to tell him all about the thing in the woods. Obviously his concussed brain could not be trusted with anything. Stupid head wound, screwing everything up.
He looked sidelong over at the bottle dangling from Jack's fingers. "Umm, don't suppose I could have one of those?" He pointed diffidently, glancing up at the man. Alcohol could only make this better. And surely Jack didn't really think he was too young for beer, did he?
Jack frowned, but it wasn't the condescending look of a man disparaging minors for their obsession with forbidden substances. "I don't think that's a good idea, what with your head and all. Pretty sure ol' Doc Frasier would have had my hide if I ever tried that with a concussion, but she always locked me in the infirmary so I didn't get a chance to find out."
Dean felt his mouth drop open. Before he could say anything, though, Jack lurched out of his chair with a mumbled, "Be right back."
Dean watched him march purposefully off into another part of the house. He heard rattling and clinking, doors opening and closing, and then Jack was back, holding two longnecks in one fist, a pleased grin on his face. "IBC," he said cheerfully. "Good for what ails ya."
He handed one frosty bottle to Dean and crashed down in his recliner with a satisfied sigh, already popping the top off his own drink. Dean glanced at the label on the one in his hand. Root beer. Well, better than nothing. He shrugged, and was just happy that he didn't have to struggle much to get the screw cap to release.
They sat there in companionable silence for a time, watching hockey, sipping their root beers. Dean noticed that Jack had carefully arranged a couple of ice packs on his raised knees, but he didn't say anything. "Old guy" was okay for a nickname, but it wasn't something you pointed out to someone in their own house while they were busy relaxing with a game and a cold one.
"So," Jack said, without any sort of preamble, glancing briefly at Dean before returning his eyes to the game. "I have this friend. Smart guy. I call him up and bother him when I have weird questions. He says that some people think that salt is good against, um, evil spirits. Something about symbolic purity or something, I don't know."
Dean felt a chill go down his spine, but then it dissipated and he relaxed completely, molding himself back into his recliner. Jack already knew. No point in worrying about it anymore.
"Um…" He cleared his throat, took another drink, then tried again, slowly, cautiously. "What exactly did you see, out there in the forest?"
Jack looked over at him seriously, meeting his eyes. "I'm not sure. It looked a little like a storm cloud that could move by itself, come down from the sky because it couldn't get close enough to hurt anyone up there. It grabbed you, held you against that tree. Like a spider in a web. It was gonna kill you. I shot it, and nothing happened. Not until I used your gun."
Dean looked down at his hands, loose in his lap, one curled limply around his root beer. "Yeah. Sounds about right."
"Your gun had salt in it."
"Yeah."
Jack shifted uncomfortably and looked back to the game. "This smart guy I know. He's usually right, even about the really weird stuff. Especially about the really weird stuff."
Dean hesitated, then took another swig of root beer and nodded wearily. "Yeah. Ghosts. They're real. So are werewolves, death omens, revenants, and practically everything else you've ever heard of."
He peered over at Jack, waiting for a reaction.
"Huh."
Jack drained his root beer in one more pull. And he stared at the TV, though Dean knew that now, Jack wasn't following the game any better than he had been. Yeah, this whole paradigm shift thing was a bitch, all right.
The older man clapped his hands on the arms of the recliner and stood up once more, letting the ice packs slide off his legs. He took the nearly empty bottle from Dean's light grip and started heading back toward the kitchen. "Real stuff coming right up. I think maybe you can handle it after all."
Part 7