Together in a Bubble (Het, G)
Title: Together in a Bubble
Rating: G
Category: Pre-series oneshot
Word Count: 1361
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean, and John
Spoilers: None
Summary: It starts with cookies and laughter in the jungle gym.
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Written for spn_het_love’s Challenge #5: Puppy Love about the wee!chesters. Thanks to equinox_blue for the quick beta. All remaining mistakes are mine alone. Crossposted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Dad drops them off at the local park, tells them he won’t be too long, and shoots Dean a look when he reminds them to behave themselves. Both boys nod and dash from the car to the playground where they’ll wait for Dad’s return.
Dean sees a group of boys playing marbles, and he asks Sam if he wants to join. Silently Sam shakes his head, floppy hair falling in his eyes. Marbles are boring, and he knows Dean will win them all anyway. There’s no point in watching when he knows how the game will end.
“Can I go on the jungle gym?” Sam asks, looking over his shoulder at the structure rising nearly as high as the treetops. He has never been on a jungle gym so big. His old school’s was less than half this size, not as bright and with only one slide instead of three.
Dean follows Sam’s gaze to the colored structure of monkey bars and rope ladders. “Yeah,” he says. “Just be careful. I’ll be right here if you need anything, okay?”
Sam grins, then mumbles, “Thanks, Dean,” before he hurries off.
At the jungle gym, Sam climbs through secret tunnels and swishes through covered slides. The other children gather in groups that he’s not a part of, and instead of trying to push his way in with them, he scales a ladder to find himself creeping into a small hidden room at the top of one of the towers. He’s happy for the chance to be alone, away from the hubbub and pressure of his peers. As he climbs into the room on hands and knees, he notices a girl sitting by the plastic bubble window that looks down on the playground.
Hearing the soft smack of his hands on the plastic floor, she twists around when he enters.
“Oh,” he says, soft and surprised. “I-you’re-I’ll go away.” He doesn’t want to bother her. She was here first; this is her place for the claiming.
But she says, “Don’t go. You can stay with me.”
Sam stops in the curved entranceway and then crawls toward her. “Okay,” he replies, happy to be invited and welcomed by someone his own age. Once he’s reached the window, he sits with his legs crossed Indian style. The little room is silent except for the soft rise and fall of their breaths. Outside the other kids’ screams and giggles are muted notes of excitement.
“My sisters didn’t want to play with me. They said the jungle gym is for little kids,” the girl tells Sam. She has a brown paper sack sitting next to her that crinkles when she shifts against it. Sam wonders what’s inside.
“My brother’s playing marbles,” he says. He wants her to know that he understands what it’s like to be left behind by older siblings.
“Marbles are dumb.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “But Dean likes them. He likes to win and get more. He gives me some if he gets too many.”
The girl smiles, and Sam feels something warm in his belly. Something a bit funny and new and he can’t help but smile back at her. He bends his head and picks at the fraying hem on his grass-stained blue jeans that used to be Dean’s not too long ago.
“Want one?” she suddenly asks him, and he looks up as she pulls a chocolate chip cookie from her paper sack. “My mom helped me make them.”
Sam takes the cookie from her hand with its painted pink fingernails. He bites and chews, savoring the taste. “Thanks,” he says, remembering Dad’s words to always “mind your manners.” Sam swallows, doesn’t want to talk with a full mouth and be rude to her. “It’s really good.”
She has a cookie of her own. “My mom says it’s her secret recipe. She makes them all the time for Dad. Does your mom make cookies too?” She smiles with crumbs on the corners of her lips.
“No,” Sam admits, “my mom doesn’t make cookies.” He’s old enough now to know better than to tell anyone that he doesn’t have a mom. It only makes people sad. So he continues, “Dean makes cookies though. Except he likes to put gross things in there just so I don’t eat them and he can. Dad gets really mad at him.”
“Like what gross things?” She’s curious now with eyes wide and watching, her cookie forgotten.
Sam leans closer and whispers as if afraid that Dean will somehow manage to hear him so far away, “Pickles.”
“Pickles!” she exclaims.
“Yeah.” Sam nods eagerly. “Pickles and, um, pepper and sometimes cheese. And worms, but I don’t think Dean really did because when Dad got home, I told him that Dean put worms in the cookies, and Dad made Dean eat them!”
“Wormy cookies! Oh, ew!” she cries, but she’s giggling, caught between horror and amusement. “Did he puke?”
“No!” Sam tells her excitedly, remembering how Dean had just smiled and licked his fingers afterward. “Dad yelled at him a lot for that. Dean had to take out the trash for a month.”
Suddenly Sam, who has never been able to talk freely with anyone except Dean and Dad, finds himself telling her everything. About Dean and his baking. When Dad tried to repair the toaster once, and it leapt across the countertop onto the floor. The time that Dean snuck a frog in the house and Dad found it in the shower the next morning.
She tells him how her sisters tried to paint their dog’s nails for practice. When her dad fell asleep outside next to the sprinklers and woke up in the puddles. About her mom’s bad singing.
They laugh together until Sam’s sides hurt and she’s crying with tears running down her rosy cheeks. The warm and funny feeling in Sam’s stomach is hotter now, but not so funny anymore. Almost like it belongs there.
As she wipes her eyes and then her hands on the front of her bib overalls, he tells her abruptly, “My name’s Sam.”
She looks up and grins with blonde wavy hair pulled back by a pink scrunchie. “I’m Jessica.”
“I knew a Jessica,” Sam says, “but she was ugly and smelled like feet. Bad feet like when you don’t wash for a day.”
“But I don’t smell,” she tells him stubbornly, bottom lip jutting out in annoyance that he dare compare her to a smelly girl.
“No, no,” he replies, feels that wave inside him again, “you’re a pretty Jessica.”
She smiles, all innocence and happiness. She offers him another cookie. When he accepts, she breaks the cookie in half. They can share, she says. She only shares with people she likes, and she likes him. A lot.
- - - - -
Back in the car, Sam asks Dad if they can come back soon. Dad glances up from the map to the rearview mirror to look at Sam. “Why’s that?” he asks.
“Oh. Well. I met this girl-”
“A girl?” Dean grins mischievously as he buckles his seatbelt in the front.
“Yeah,” Sam shoots back with an angry glare. “And she was really nice and I liked her.”
“If you like her so much, maybe you should marry her,” Dean laughs. He’s been using that line for the past week on everything that Sam likes from ice cream to his new t-shirt.
Sam sticks out his tongue. “Maybe I will. So there, Mr. Smarty-Pants.”
“Boys…” Dad warns as he starts the car. Sam and Dean quiet down, but not before Dean puckers up his lips and makes mock kissing faces at Sam.
As the Impala creeps out of the parking lot, Sam twists around in his backseat to watch her-Jessica-walk away with her sisters. She doesn’t look back, but he can’t stop thinking of her. Even though he knows he will never see her again, he can’t help but wonder what the rest of her life will hold. He wonders if there will be more stories and laughter. More chocolate chip secret recipe cookies. Above all he wonders who will be a part of it with her.
End
Rating: G
Category: Pre-series oneshot
Word Count: 1361
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean, and John
Spoilers: None
Summary: It starts with cookies and laughter in the jungle gym.
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Written for spn_het_love’s Challenge #5: Puppy Love about the wee!chesters. Thanks to equinox_blue for the quick beta. All remaining mistakes are mine alone. Crossposted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Dad drops them off at the local park, tells them he won’t be too long, and shoots Dean a look when he reminds them to behave themselves. Both boys nod and dash from the car to the playground where they’ll wait for Dad’s return.
Dean sees a group of boys playing marbles, and he asks Sam if he wants to join. Silently Sam shakes his head, floppy hair falling in his eyes. Marbles are boring, and he knows Dean will win them all anyway. There’s no point in watching when he knows how the game will end.
“Can I go on the jungle gym?” Sam asks, looking over his shoulder at the structure rising nearly as high as the treetops. He has never been on a jungle gym so big. His old school’s was less than half this size, not as bright and with only one slide instead of three.
Dean follows Sam’s gaze to the colored structure of monkey bars and rope ladders. “Yeah,” he says. “Just be careful. I’ll be right here if you need anything, okay?”
Sam grins, then mumbles, “Thanks, Dean,” before he hurries off.
At the jungle gym, Sam climbs through secret tunnels and swishes through covered slides. The other children gather in groups that he’s not a part of, and instead of trying to push his way in with them, he scales a ladder to find himself creeping into a small hidden room at the top of one of the towers. He’s happy for the chance to be alone, away from the hubbub and pressure of his peers. As he climbs into the room on hands and knees, he notices a girl sitting by the plastic bubble window that looks down on the playground.
Hearing the soft smack of his hands on the plastic floor, she twists around when he enters.
“Oh,” he says, soft and surprised. “I-you’re-I’ll go away.” He doesn’t want to bother her. She was here first; this is her place for the claiming.
But she says, “Don’t go. You can stay with me.”
Sam stops in the curved entranceway and then crawls toward her. “Okay,” he replies, happy to be invited and welcomed by someone his own age. Once he’s reached the window, he sits with his legs crossed Indian style. The little room is silent except for the soft rise and fall of their breaths. Outside the other kids’ screams and giggles are muted notes of excitement.
“My sisters didn’t want to play with me. They said the jungle gym is for little kids,” the girl tells Sam. She has a brown paper sack sitting next to her that crinkles when she shifts against it. Sam wonders what’s inside.
“My brother’s playing marbles,” he says. He wants her to know that he understands what it’s like to be left behind by older siblings.
“Marbles are dumb.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “But Dean likes them. He likes to win and get more. He gives me some if he gets too many.”
The girl smiles, and Sam feels something warm in his belly. Something a bit funny and new and he can’t help but smile back at her. He bends his head and picks at the fraying hem on his grass-stained blue jeans that used to be Dean’s not too long ago.
“Want one?” she suddenly asks him, and he looks up as she pulls a chocolate chip cookie from her paper sack. “My mom helped me make them.”
Sam takes the cookie from her hand with its painted pink fingernails. He bites and chews, savoring the taste. “Thanks,” he says, remembering Dad’s words to always “mind your manners.” Sam swallows, doesn’t want to talk with a full mouth and be rude to her. “It’s really good.”
She has a cookie of her own. “My mom says it’s her secret recipe. She makes them all the time for Dad. Does your mom make cookies too?” She smiles with crumbs on the corners of her lips.
“No,” Sam admits, “my mom doesn’t make cookies.” He’s old enough now to know better than to tell anyone that he doesn’t have a mom. It only makes people sad. So he continues, “Dean makes cookies though. Except he likes to put gross things in there just so I don’t eat them and he can. Dad gets really mad at him.”
“Like what gross things?” She’s curious now with eyes wide and watching, her cookie forgotten.
Sam leans closer and whispers as if afraid that Dean will somehow manage to hear him so far away, “Pickles.”
“Pickles!” she exclaims.
“Yeah.” Sam nods eagerly. “Pickles and, um, pepper and sometimes cheese. And worms, but I don’t think Dean really did because when Dad got home, I told him that Dean put worms in the cookies, and Dad made Dean eat them!”
“Wormy cookies! Oh, ew!” she cries, but she’s giggling, caught between horror and amusement. “Did he puke?”
“No!” Sam tells her excitedly, remembering how Dean had just smiled and licked his fingers afterward. “Dad yelled at him a lot for that. Dean had to take out the trash for a month.”
Suddenly Sam, who has never been able to talk freely with anyone except Dean and Dad, finds himself telling her everything. About Dean and his baking. When Dad tried to repair the toaster once, and it leapt across the countertop onto the floor. The time that Dean snuck a frog in the house and Dad found it in the shower the next morning.
She tells him how her sisters tried to paint their dog’s nails for practice. When her dad fell asleep outside next to the sprinklers and woke up in the puddles. About her mom’s bad singing.
They laugh together until Sam’s sides hurt and she’s crying with tears running down her rosy cheeks. The warm and funny feeling in Sam’s stomach is hotter now, but not so funny anymore. Almost like it belongs there.
As she wipes her eyes and then her hands on the front of her bib overalls, he tells her abruptly, “My name’s Sam.”
She looks up and grins with blonde wavy hair pulled back by a pink scrunchie. “I’m Jessica.”
“I knew a Jessica,” Sam says, “but she was ugly and smelled like feet. Bad feet like when you don’t wash for a day.”
“But I don’t smell,” she tells him stubbornly, bottom lip jutting out in annoyance that he dare compare her to a smelly girl.
“No, no,” he replies, feels that wave inside him again, “you’re a pretty Jessica.”
She smiles, all innocence and happiness. She offers him another cookie. When he accepts, she breaks the cookie in half. They can share, she says. She only shares with people she likes, and she likes him. A lot.
- - - - -
Back in the car, Sam asks Dad if they can come back soon. Dad glances up from the map to the rearview mirror to look at Sam. “Why’s that?” he asks.
“Oh. Well. I met this girl-”
“A girl?” Dean grins mischievously as he buckles his seatbelt in the front.
“Yeah,” Sam shoots back with an angry glare. “And she was really nice and I liked her.”
“If you like her so much, maybe you should marry her,” Dean laughs. He’s been using that line for the past week on everything that Sam likes from ice cream to his new t-shirt.
Sam sticks out his tongue. “Maybe I will. So there, Mr. Smarty-Pants.”
“Boys…” Dad warns as he starts the car. Sam and Dean quiet down, but not before Dean puckers up his lips and makes mock kissing faces at Sam.
As the Impala creeps out of the parking lot, Sam twists around in his backseat to watch her-Jessica-walk away with her sisters. She doesn’t look back, but he can’t stop thinking of her. Even though he knows he will never see her again, he can’t help but wonder what the rest of her life will hold. He wonders if there will be more stories and laughter. More chocolate chip secret recipe cookies. Above all he wonders who will be a part of it with her.
End