SPN Fic: In manus tuas, Domine
Title: In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum
Characters: Dean
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Word count: 1044
Spoilers: None. Set pre-series.
Summary: Written for the current comment-fic meme at hoodie_time, for this prompt by sameuspegasus: Dean has to do a speech at school. Everyone's looking at him and it's HORRIBLE.
Notes: Originally posted anonymously.
The three-by-five cards he'd dug out of Sam's bookbag last night while his brother was in the shower were already curling at the edges, soft with the friction of continual shuffling, ink bleeding his messy writing into even more unintelligible swirls as the sweat slicked his palms. He didn't even know why he'd brought the damn things, because he sure as hell wasn't going to be able to read them, and by now he'd forgotten what order they even came in. Might as well just leave them on the desk. For that matter, leaving altogether had started to seem like an entirely reasonable and freaking awesome plan. It occurred to him for the first time that there had been nothing stopping him from skipping out entirely that morning. Could have been back in Toledo right now, helping Dad burn some nice old-fashioned widower bones. Could have been digging holes in the cold April mud, spilling lighter fluid on his jeans. Hell, he'd have settled for falling asleep in the city library over those goddamn county health records, even though he was convinced (forget what Sam said) that there was and never had been any Walter Skufca died 1843, end of story, Sam. And instead, like an idiot, he'd stepped on the bus and now here he was, hands trembling like a lightning victim's and his boxers so drenched in sweat he was surprised he hadn't slipped off the wooden chair.
Screw Western Civilization. Screw England and the Stuart monarchy. Fuck Mary Queen of Scots.
“Dean Winchester?”
Funny how sometimes people could say something you knew was your name, and it sounded like they meant a total stranger. Apparently his body was responding anyway, because he found himself moving past desks and avoiding people's slumped elbows (why the hell did anybody get to slouch like that when he was about to have a full-on heart attack?), and all of sudden the front of the classroom was there, all larger than life and precise in every detail. He could make out the tiniest scratches on the teacher's desk.
Maybe he could just stand up there and wait for someone to tell him it had all been a mistake. Maybe the ghost of some old principal who hadn't scared enough kids in life would choose this moment to make his appearance. Dean wondered wildly if the teacher might boost his grade if he ganked a spectral school official rather than mumbling about a dead Brit chick for five minutes.
Glancing at the impatient green tie and the watch-checking eyebrows squeezed into a front-row desk, he decided money was on no.
“Mary,” he started. No place like the beginning.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Crazy how different the room looked from this end. Like someone had knocked out a wall or something. Was that really what the limp guy with the haircut-worse-than-Sam's saw every morning? No wonder Dean always felt like they were inhabiting two different worlds. No wonder he felt so far away now, he had the sense he might just drift off into space. Distantly, he could feel his legs honest-to-god shaking.
But there was that word, suspended between him and thirty staring, roll-eyed faces. His mother's own name, and it sat on the air like a fart.
“Mary Queen of Scots,” he mumbled quickly, and the teacher spoke up from the front row.
“A little louder, Dean.”
He was not supposed to be here. So many things wrong with the picture, he couldn't even count them. Dean Winchester's knees didn't act like water balloons. Dean Winchester didn't talk to kids about English queens. Dean Winchester didn't blush (and oh God he hoped he was wrong about that one). Dean Winchester was not, repeat, was not going to introduce the ninth grade class to a sloppier version of his breakfast.
But if the absolute Sahara of his mouth was any indication, he wasn't going to be talking any time soon either.
The girl with the messy blond hair two rows over from his empty chair (the one who always wore shorts, no matter what the thermometer said) sighed audibly, scrunching herself backwards in her seat and flipping open the novel she kept stashed inside her desk. The entire back row was already engaged in casual conversation, completely ignoring the imminent out-of-body experience busy perspiring at the blackboard.
He squeezed the deck of notes one more time, and swallowed nothingness.
“Mary Queen of Scots was a Scottish chick.” The voice wasn't his own, but at least it worked. “Which you probably guessed by her name, huh?”
Okay, no laughers. Not a joke, apparently. Either that, or the whole friggin' room had the same sense of humor as his little brother.
“She was queen of France for a while, but it didn't go so hot, and she ended up back in Scotland, but no one wanted her. They put her kid in charge instead. So she went down south because she thought Queen Elizabeth would help her out, because she was her cousin. And ya gotta admit, made sense: family oughta help you out if you've got a bunch of kilt-wearing freaks gunning for ya,” he heard himself point out. “But that Elizabeth, man - she was a bitch.”
“Dean,” the teacher warned.
“Uh - well, Elizabeth said no, anyway. So Mary got put in this old tower and in the end they chopped her head off,” Dean finished, leaving out the stripped-down-to-underwear-first part, even though that was the only really good part of the whole damn story. He had a feeling the teacher wouldn't appreciate that particular detail, and for once Dean didn't care a whole awful lot about pissing the guy off. If he could get down the aisle and back to his seat before he fell over, that would be enough for today.
Tomorrow, he decided as he hunched gratefully at the suddenly luxurious safety of his desk, he was going to face something he could shoot at. Old Man Skufca might be a little eager with the razor blade, but at least you could send him smoking into oblivion with a little well-aimed rock salt.
In that respect alone, ghosts beat high schoolers any day.
Characters: Dean
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Word count: 1044
Spoilers: None. Set pre-series.
Summary: Written for the current comment-fic meme at hoodie_time, for this prompt by sameuspegasus: Dean has to do a speech at school. Everyone's looking at him and it's HORRIBLE.
Notes: Originally posted anonymously.
The three-by-five cards he'd dug out of Sam's bookbag last night while his brother was in the shower were already curling at the edges, soft with the friction of continual shuffling, ink bleeding his messy writing into even more unintelligible swirls as the sweat slicked his palms. He didn't even know why he'd brought the damn things, because he sure as hell wasn't going to be able to read them, and by now he'd forgotten what order they even came in. Might as well just leave them on the desk. For that matter, leaving altogether had started to seem like an entirely reasonable and freaking awesome plan. It occurred to him for the first time that there had been nothing stopping him from skipping out entirely that morning. Could have been back in Toledo right now, helping Dad burn some nice old-fashioned widower bones. Could have been digging holes in the cold April mud, spilling lighter fluid on his jeans. Hell, he'd have settled for falling asleep in the city library over those goddamn county health records, even though he was convinced (forget what Sam said) that there was and never had been any Walter Skufca died 1843, end of story, Sam. And instead, like an idiot, he'd stepped on the bus and now here he was, hands trembling like a lightning victim's and his boxers so drenched in sweat he was surprised he hadn't slipped off the wooden chair.
Screw Western Civilization. Screw England and the Stuart monarchy. Fuck Mary Queen of Scots.
“Dean Winchester?”
Funny how sometimes people could say something you knew was your name, and it sounded like they meant a total stranger. Apparently his body was responding anyway, because he found himself moving past desks and avoiding people's slumped elbows (why the hell did anybody get to slouch like that when he was about to have a full-on heart attack?), and all of sudden the front of the classroom was there, all larger than life and precise in every detail. He could make out the tiniest scratches on the teacher's desk.
Maybe he could just stand up there and wait for someone to tell him it had all been a mistake. Maybe the ghost of some old principal who hadn't scared enough kids in life would choose this moment to make his appearance. Dean wondered wildly if the teacher might boost his grade if he ganked a spectral school official rather than mumbling about a dead Brit chick for five minutes.
Glancing at the impatient green tie and the watch-checking eyebrows squeezed into a front-row desk, he decided money was on no.
“Mary,” he started. No place like the beginning.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Crazy how different the room looked from this end. Like someone had knocked out a wall or something. Was that really what the limp guy with the haircut-worse-than-Sam's saw every morning? No wonder Dean always felt like they were inhabiting two different worlds. No wonder he felt so far away now, he had the sense he might just drift off into space. Distantly, he could feel his legs honest-to-god shaking.
But there was that word, suspended between him and thirty staring, roll-eyed faces. His mother's own name, and it sat on the air like a fart.
“Mary Queen of Scots,” he mumbled quickly, and the teacher spoke up from the front row.
“A little louder, Dean.”
He was not supposed to be here. So many things wrong with the picture, he couldn't even count them. Dean Winchester's knees didn't act like water balloons. Dean Winchester didn't talk to kids about English queens. Dean Winchester didn't blush (and oh God he hoped he was wrong about that one). Dean Winchester was not, repeat, was not going to introduce the ninth grade class to a sloppier version of his breakfast.
But if the absolute Sahara of his mouth was any indication, he wasn't going to be talking any time soon either.
The girl with the messy blond hair two rows over from his empty chair (the one who always wore shorts, no matter what the thermometer said) sighed audibly, scrunching herself backwards in her seat and flipping open the novel she kept stashed inside her desk. The entire back row was already engaged in casual conversation, completely ignoring the imminent out-of-body experience busy perspiring at the blackboard.
He squeezed the deck of notes one more time, and swallowed nothingness.
“Mary Queen of Scots was a Scottish chick.” The voice wasn't his own, but at least it worked. “Which you probably guessed by her name, huh?”
Okay, no laughers. Not a joke, apparently. Either that, or the whole friggin' room had the same sense of humor as his little brother.
“She was queen of France for a while, but it didn't go so hot, and she ended up back in Scotland, but no one wanted her. They put her kid in charge instead. So she went down south because she thought Queen Elizabeth would help her out, because she was her cousin. And ya gotta admit, made sense: family oughta help you out if you've got a bunch of kilt-wearing freaks gunning for ya,” he heard himself point out. “But that Elizabeth, man - she was a bitch.”
“Dean,” the teacher warned.
“Uh - well, Elizabeth said no, anyway. So Mary got put in this old tower and in the end they chopped her head off,” Dean finished, leaving out the stripped-down-to-underwear-first part, even though that was the only really good part of the whole damn story. He had a feeling the teacher wouldn't appreciate that particular detail, and for once Dean didn't care a whole awful lot about pissing the guy off. If he could get down the aisle and back to his seat before he fell over, that would be enough for today.
Tomorrow, he decided as he hunched gratefully at the suddenly luxurious safety of his desk, he was going to face something he could shoot at. Old Man Skufca might be a little eager with the razor blade, but at least you could send him smoking into oblivion with a little well-aimed rock salt.
In that respect alone, ghosts beat high schoolers any day.