[Supernatural] Give Me But This I Have (G, 1973 words)
Title: Give Me But This I Have
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: newredfic
Rating: G
Summary: March, 1986. Bobby receives some overnight guests, none of whom know how to say what they want.
Lucinda lifted her head. “Car’s pulling up,” she said, and Bobby put down his pen.
“Who do you think?” he murmured, peering through his blinds at the headlights spearing through the blackness.
Lucinda snorted softly, and padded lynx-quiet toward the front door. John Winchester and his children were already standing on the porch by the time Bobby caught up with his daemon.
“Evening, Bobby,” John said, charming, casual, looking worn and rawboned as ever. Sam lay pressed against his shoulder, floppy and exhausted, Vera nestled squirrel-shaped around his neck. Dean stood at John’s side, one hand clutching his father’s, the other buried in the fur at Imogen’s back. Adelaide trotted up from behind and peered forward into the house. “We’ve just come from some business in Boseman.”
“That’s a lot of driving,” Bobby said, and held the door open. “Come on in.” Dean chanced a grateful look up at Bobby; Imogen immediately slipped from husky to rabbit. Dean scooped her up in his arms and followed his father’s coonhound.
“Where can I put him?” John asked, stroking the back of Sammy’s head.
“Lemme unearth a couch, hang on a second.”
“Dean, you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You remember where it is?”
The boy hitched his daemon higher up on his chest. “Yes, sir.”
“How old is he now?” Bobby asked, setting aside the last of a pile of Lakota glossaries.
“Turned seven in January.” John disentangled his younger son, who began to protest as he was set down. Adelaide pushed past John’s knees and bumped her nose against Vera. Sammy sighed, and his eyelids fluttered, and a moment later he was boneless in the nook of the seat. John watched him, his expression half-hooded. “Sam’s three in May. I can’t believe that.”
Bobby readjusted his hold on his elbows. “You want something? Water, beer?”
“Is there a difference?”
“You got something against American beer?”
“Ha. Might as well, thanks.”
Adelaide sprawled on the floor, all long black and tan limbs. Lucinda followed Bobby halfway toward the kitchen, but paused in the hallway, ears swiveling. Dean stumbled back into the room, Imogen now a praying mantis perched on his shoulder. John gave him a slow smile. “Hey, dude. You want something before you go to bed?”
“Can I stay up and listen to you and Uncle Bobby talk?” He didn’t stifle a yawn, but the fatigue was writ clear in his eyes and posture.
“You need your sleep.”
“I slept in the car.”
“Dean.”
“I’m not tired!”
“Come on,” Adelaide rumbled. Dean wavered on his feet, then bent his neck.
“You’re letting Sam stay,” Imogen whispered, meant for Dean but loud enough for the grown-ups to hear.
John got to his feet. “Come on, now, little man, let’s get you bunked down.” The unlit room just beyond the short hall swallowed them up. Lucinda hopped up on the couch next to Sam and peered at him.
“He wants something,” she said, turning her gaze on Bobby.
He didn’t move, except to take a pull off his bottle. “Needs. John doesn’t come around otherwise.”
Sam shivered inside his hand-me-down coat. Vera stretched out, cat-shaped against his chest. Bobby set the beer on a side table and knelt down to unlace Sam’s tiny shoes. “Be careful with him,” Lucinda murmured.
“He’s not gonna leave ‘em here,” Bobby assured her.
“Good, ‘cause we’ve got work to do.”
“Quit making assumptions. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Vera pressed herself up under Sam’s chin as they slept.
“Sorry about that,” John said as he strolled back in. “He gets a little cranky when he thinks he’s being left out.”
Bobby nodded down at Sam. “You want to bring him in with Dean? He’s out like a light.”
“No. Leave him be. I don’t want to move him.” Lucinda glanced up at Bobby before hopping off the couch. John picked through the piles of books on the floor and sank into the spot she’d abandoned. “Long day,” he sighed, absently scratching behind Adelaide’s ear. Bobby handed him his beer. “Thanks.”
“What was in Boseman?” he asked, lowering himself into a tatty armchair.
“Would you believe it, a salamander. Ranch wells and apple trees as full of poison as Three Mile Island.” He nursed the beer. “Never gone up against one before. Tried to torch it before I realized what it was.”
Bobby chuckled. “Those suckers you’ve gotta stake.”
“Yeah, I know that now.”
“You get any on you?”
“The slime? No, I’m fine.”
“I can point you to a mikvah if you think-”
“I said I’m fine. But thanks.” He studied his son. “Sam’s a real chatterbug. He’s been talking in full sentences since October. Knows his whole alphabet too. You should see him go.”
“Huh.” Bobby sat back. Women would have known what to say, would have started in on John’s baby genius, but they were alone the house with only their daemons for company. “You looking for something to do next?”
Adelaide twisted to gnaw at her haunch. “I was thinking of trying someplace new,” John said. “Georgia sounds nice this time of year.”
“Heard there was a rogue spiritualist had some trouble near Macon. Big job, though, might call for more than one hunter.”
John shook his head. “My boys are depending on me. It’d be better to stick to what I can get done.”
Bobby had to smile. “There’s no shame in teaming up, John. Might learn something.”
“Might get killed too. Got anything else?”
“I’ll look into it. How long you been on the road?”
“About three weeks.”
Bobby’s eyebrows rose. “Dean should be in school.”
“I know. Soon. Kids are on spring break now, I’ll put him in somewhere when their sessions start up again.” John threaded his fingers around the bottle. “He’s reading pretty good, but he spends most of his time with Sammy. He likes to color. Can’t buy him crayons, though, otherwise someone’ll leave ‘em on the seats.”
“Can’t have that.”
“Nope.”
The two men sat in silence, their daemons leveling blank expressions at each other. “How long you need to hole up here?” Bobby asked.
“We’ll be out of your hair in the morning. Thanks a lot, Bobby.”
“Sure,” he said. “Well.”
“You got work to do?”
Bobby nodded. “Translation.” He pushed himself to his feet and gestured toward his overcrowded desk. “I’ll just be over here.”
“Okay.”
He left John to his thoughts and his sleeping boy.
*
Dean appeared in front of his father with the suddenness of a ghost. Imogen stood pressed against his hip, mirroring Adelaide. John started at his son’s graveness. “What’s up, kiddo? What time is it?”
Imogen lowered her head; Adelaide sat up, all focus. “I don’t like sleeping by myself,” Dean said, his voice little more than a croaky whisper.
John frowned, but made no move. Adelaide settled into a sphinx position. She slid her back legs out to the side, her body curved into a cradle. “Come here,” she crooned at Imogen. Imogen crept towards her, her coloring shimmering from black and tan to redbone. Dean climbed onto the couch and burrowed in against his father’s side. Neither of them spoke.
“What’s wrong?” Adelaide asked, curling around the little hound.
“Nothing,” Imogen muttered, burying her face against Adelaide’s shoulder.
“Don’t lie,” she said, amicable. “It’s not becoming.” Dean sniffled, once. Imogen turned to catch his eye. He cast a nervous glance at his father.
“We were just thinking,” Imogen said at last.
“About what?”
“About Mom.”
John sucked in his breath. Imogen pressed herself to the floor.
“Should we go?” Dean asked, already squirming out of John’s grasp.
“No,” said Adelaide sharply. She glared at John. Dean waited, half-ready to flee. “Imogen, you settle right down,” she continued. “You’ve got a right not to forget.”
Tension rippled through her shoulders. “It’s been a really long time.”
“Yeah, it has.”
“Adelaide-”
“I’m making this decision for us,” John’s daemon snapped. “This isn’t something you get to protect.”
Next to him, Sam stirred. Vera’s eyes fluttered open. John moved fast, brushing back Sam’s hair and shushing him. Adelaide turned back to Imogen.
“Your mom’s daemon was a crane,” she began, low in her throat. “His name was Uriah. I loved him so much, like I love you. When we named you, he got to pick your name, like I picked Vera’s for Sam. We named you Imogen because Mary, your mother, loved the writer William Shakespeare. A very long time ago, he wrote a play called Cymbeline, and the heroine was called Imogen. In the play, she stands by what she believes, no matter what anyone thinks, and she does whatever it takes to be with her true love. She’s brave, like you, and she’s loyal, and she has a good heart.”
Dean kneaded his fingers in John’s shirt.
“I remember how when you were littler, Uriah used to sit with you, just like this, and you’d crawl under his wing and he’d just let you stay there, quiet as anything. You only ever did that with him.” She huffed softly. “Practically the only time you ever sat still.”
“Do ghosts have daemons?”
“No.” Imogen curled in a little tighter against Adelaide. “No, when a person dies, their daemon goes away. Ghosts happen when a person stays behind and their daemon doesn’t. They get lost, and frightened, and angry. Mostly this happens when they were like that alive. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Why?”
“Because you and Dean are tough. It won’t happen.”
“Why? What’s being tough have to do with it?”
“There are no ghosts in our family,” John interrupted. Adelaide looked up.
Dean stared straight in front of him. “Okay.” Imogen shifted, coonhound to raccoon, and clambered up into Dean’s lap. Adelaide grunted, and tucked her legs back in.
John slipped his arm into his lap, studying Dean. “What is this? You have a bad dream or something?”
“I want Sam to sleep in my room,” he grumbled. John recognized the retreat into crabbiness for what it was. He settled for nodding.
“Okay. You go on ahead and get the bed ready.”
Dean slid off the couch, and Imogen spilled out of his arms onto the floor. John watched them lurch out of the room and into the dark hallway.
“You butted in,” Adelaide said, shooting John a reproachful look.
“He is tough.” He hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He’s a good kid.”
She curled her lip. “He needed his father.”
“We’re not starting this,” he snapped. Adelaide narrowed her eyes and stood up.
“Get Sam and Vera together. We need an early start tomorrow.”
“Don’t need to tell me that.” He slipped both hands under the sleeping toddler, gathering him and his daemon close. Vera’s cat paws brushed against his chest; John felt his ribcage thud as he bore them all into the dark.
*
“He didn’t want anything,” Lucinda remarked, keeping sentry on the porch as John started up the Impala.
Bobby squinted. “He did. I didn’t give it to him.”
In the back seat, two small daemons were perched above the headrests, one batting at the other. Adelaide’s large shape reared up in the front. The car pulled away before they could see any more. “He wanted to keep Sam in there,” said Lucinda.
“He didn’t want to talk about hunting.”
“Huh.” She glanced sidelong at him. “We’re not that smart.”
“Well.”
“If you don’t talk about hunting, what is there to talk about?”
Bobby watched his breath fog in the early spring chill. The property was terribly quiet. “Come on,” he said, bowing his head. “We’ve almost got that text worked out.” Lucinda paused, then dropped silently off the porch rails. He opened the door, and she followed him inside.
* * *
Notes: Adelaide, black and tan coonhound. (Imogen as a redbone.) Her name means noble. Lucinda, a lynx, solitary and secretive. Cranes symbolize good luck, long life, and a happy marriage. In the Bible, Uriah was sent to the frontlines of a battle so he'd be killed and David could have his wife. Salamanders have nasty side effects. Title comes from Cymbeline, I.i.115.
Thanks so much to lindensphinx for the quick'n'dirty read-through! Feedback is lovely and deeply appreciated.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: newredfic
Rating: G
Summary: March, 1986. Bobby receives some overnight guests, none of whom know how to say what they want.
Lucinda lifted her head. “Car’s pulling up,” she said, and Bobby put down his pen.
“Who do you think?” he murmured, peering through his blinds at the headlights spearing through the blackness.
Lucinda snorted softly, and padded lynx-quiet toward the front door. John Winchester and his children were already standing on the porch by the time Bobby caught up with his daemon.
“Evening, Bobby,” John said, charming, casual, looking worn and rawboned as ever. Sam lay pressed against his shoulder, floppy and exhausted, Vera nestled squirrel-shaped around his neck. Dean stood at John’s side, one hand clutching his father’s, the other buried in the fur at Imogen’s back. Adelaide trotted up from behind and peered forward into the house. “We’ve just come from some business in Boseman.”
“That’s a lot of driving,” Bobby said, and held the door open. “Come on in.” Dean chanced a grateful look up at Bobby; Imogen immediately slipped from husky to rabbit. Dean scooped her up in his arms and followed his father’s coonhound.
“Where can I put him?” John asked, stroking the back of Sammy’s head.
“Lemme unearth a couch, hang on a second.”
“Dean, you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You remember where it is?”
The boy hitched his daemon higher up on his chest. “Yes, sir.”
“How old is he now?” Bobby asked, setting aside the last of a pile of Lakota glossaries.
“Turned seven in January.” John disentangled his younger son, who began to protest as he was set down. Adelaide pushed past John’s knees and bumped her nose against Vera. Sammy sighed, and his eyelids fluttered, and a moment later he was boneless in the nook of the seat. John watched him, his expression half-hooded. “Sam’s three in May. I can’t believe that.”
Bobby readjusted his hold on his elbows. “You want something? Water, beer?”
“Is there a difference?”
“You got something against American beer?”
“Ha. Might as well, thanks.”
Adelaide sprawled on the floor, all long black and tan limbs. Lucinda followed Bobby halfway toward the kitchen, but paused in the hallway, ears swiveling. Dean stumbled back into the room, Imogen now a praying mantis perched on his shoulder. John gave him a slow smile. “Hey, dude. You want something before you go to bed?”
“Can I stay up and listen to you and Uncle Bobby talk?” He didn’t stifle a yawn, but the fatigue was writ clear in his eyes and posture.
“You need your sleep.”
“I slept in the car.”
“Dean.”
“I’m not tired!”
“Come on,” Adelaide rumbled. Dean wavered on his feet, then bent his neck.
“You’re letting Sam stay,” Imogen whispered, meant for Dean but loud enough for the grown-ups to hear.
John got to his feet. “Come on, now, little man, let’s get you bunked down.” The unlit room just beyond the short hall swallowed them up. Lucinda hopped up on the couch next to Sam and peered at him.
“He wants something,” she said, turning her gaze on Bobby.
He didn’t move, except to take a pull off his bottle. “Needs. John doesn’t come around otherwise.”
Sam shivered inside his hand-me-down coat. Vera stretched out, cat-shaped against his chest. Bobby set the beer on a side table and knelt down to unlace Sam’s tiny shoes. “Be careful with him,” Lucinda murmured.
“He’s not gonna leave ‘em here,” Bobby assured her.
“Good, ‘cause we’ve got work to do.”
“Quit making assumptions. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Vera pressed herself up under Sam’s chin as they slept.
“Sorry about that,” John said as he strolled back in. “He gets a little cranky when he thinks he’s being left out.”
Bobby nodded down at Sam. “You want to bring him in with Dean? He’s out like a light.”
“No. Leave him be. I don’t want to move him.” Lucinda glanced up at Bobby before hopping off the couch. John picked through the piles of books on the floor and sank into the spot she’d abandoned. “Long day,” he sighed, absently scratching behind Adelaide’s ear. Bobby handed him his beer. “Thanks.”
“What was in Boseman?” he asked, lowering himself into a tatty armchair.
“Would you believe it, a salamander. Ranch wells and apple trees as full of poison as Three Mile Island.” He nursed the beer. “Never gone up against one before. Tried to torch it before I realized what it was.”
Bobby chuckled. “Those suckers you’ve gotta stake.”
“Yeah, I know that now.”
“You get any on you?”
“The slime? No, I’m fine.”
“I can point you to a mikvah if you think-”
“I said I’m fine. But thanks.” He studied his son. “Sam’s a real chatterbug. He’s been talking in full sentences since October. Knows his whole alphabet too. You should see him go.”
“Huh.” Bobby sat back. Women would have known what to say, would have started in on John’s baby genius, but they were alone the house with only their daemons for company. “You looking for something to do next?”
Adelaide twisted to gnaw at her haunch. “I was thinking of trying someplace new,” John said. “Georgia sounds nice this time of year.”
“Heard there was a rogue spiritualist had some trouble near Macon. Big job, though, might call for more than one hunter.”
John shook his head. “My boys are depending on me. It’d be better to stick to what I can get done.”
Bobby had to smile. “There’s no shame in teaming up, John. Might learn something.”
“Might get killed too. Got anything else?”
“I’ll look into it. How long you been on the road?”
“About three weeks.”
Bobby’s eyebrows rose. “Dean should be in school.”
“I know. Soon. Kids are on spring break now, I’ll put him in somewhere when their sessions start up again.” John threaded his fingers around the bottle. “He’s reading pretty good, but he spends most of his time with Sammy. He likes to color. Can’t buy him crayons, though, otherwise someone’ll leave ‘em on the seats.”
“Can’t have that.”
“Nope.”
The two men sat in silence, their daemons leveling blank expressions at each other. “How long you need to hole up here?” Bobby asked.
“We’ll be out of your hair in the morning. Thanks a lot, Bobby.”
“Sure,” he said. “Well.”
“You got work to do?”
Bobby nodded. “Translation.” He pushed himself to his feet and gestured toward his overcrowded desk. “I’ll just be over here.”
“Okay.”
He left John to his thoughts and his sleeping boy.
*
Dean appeared in front of his father with the suddenness of a ghost. Imogen stood pressed against his hip, mirroring Adelaide. John started at his son’s graveness. “What’s up, kiddo? What time is it?”
Imogen lowered her head; Adelaide sat up, all focus. “I don’t like sleeping by myself,” Dean said, his voice little more than a croaky whisper.
John frowned, but made no move. Adelaide settled into a sphinx position. She slid her back legs out to the side, her body curved into a cradle. “Come here,” she crooned at Imogen. Imogen crept towards her, her coloring shimmering from black and tan to redbone. Dean climbed onto the couch and burrowed in against his father’s side. Neither of them spoke.
“What’s wrong?” Adelaide asked, curling around the little hound.
“Nothing,” Imogen muttered, burying her face against Adelaide’s shoulder.
“Don’t lie,” she said, amicable. “It’s not becoming.” Dean sniffled, once. Imogen turned to catch his eye. He cast a nervous glance at his father.
“We were just thinking,” Imogen said at last.
“About what?”
“About Mom.”
John sucked in his breath. Imogen pressed herself to the floor.
“Should we go?” Dean asked, already squirming out of John’s grasp.
“No,” said Adelaide sharply. She glared at John. Dean waited, half-ready to flee. “Imogen, you settle right down,” she continued. “You’ve got a right not to forget.”
Tension rippled through her shoulders. “It’s been a really long time.”
“Yeah, it has.”
“Adelaide-”
“I’m making this decision for us,” John’s daemon snapped. “This isn’t something you get to protect.”
Next to him, Sam stirred. Vera’s eyes fluttered open. John moved fast, brushing back Sam’s hair and shushing him. Adelaide turned back to Imogen.
“Your mom’s daemon was a crane,” she began, low in her throat. “His name was Uriah. I loved him so much, like I love you. When we named you, he got to pick your name, like I picked Vera’s for Sam. We named you Imogen because Mary, your mother, loved the writer William Shakespeare. A very long time ago, he wrote a play called Cymbeline, and the heroine was called Imogen. In the play, she stands by what she believes, no matter what anyone thinks, and she does whatever it takes to be with her true love. She’s brave, like you, and she’s loyal, and she has a good heart.”
Dean kneaded his fingers in John’s shirt.
“I remember how when you were littler, Uriah used to sit with you, just like this, and you’d crawl under his wing and he’d just let you stay there, quiet as anything. You only ever did that with him.” She huffed softly. “Practically the only time you ever sat still.”
“Do ghosts have daemons?”
“No.” Imogen curled in a little tighter against Adelaide. “No, when a person dies, their daemon goes away. Ghosts happen when a person stays behind and their daemon doesn’t. They get lost, and frightened, and angry. Mostly this happens when they were like that alive. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Why?”
“Because you and Dean are tough. It won’t happen.”
“Why? What’s being tough have to do with it?”
“There are no ghosts in our family,” John interrupted. Adelaide looked up.
Dean stared straight in front of him. “Okay.” Imogen shifted, coonhound to raccoon, and clambered up into Dean’s lap. Adelaide grunted, and tucked her legs back in.
John slipped his arm into his lap, studying Dean. “What is this? You have a bad dream or something?”
“I want Sam to sleep in my room,” he grumbled. John recognized the retreat into crabbiness for what it was. He settled for nodding.
“Okay. You go on ahead and get the bed ready.”
Dean slid off the couch, and Imogen spilled out of his arms onto the floor. John watched them lurch out of the room and into the dark hallway.
“You butted in,” Adelaide said, shooting John a reproachful look.
“He is tough.” He hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He’s a good kid.”
She curled her lip. “He needed his father.”
“We’re not starting this,” he snapped. Adelaide narrowed her eyes and stood up.
“Get Sam and Vera together. We need an early start tomorrow.”
“Don’t need to tell me that.” He slipped both hands under the sleeping toddler, gathering him and his daemon close. Vera’s cat paws brushed against his chest; John felt his ribcage thud as he bore them all into the dark.
*
“He didn’t want anything,” Lucinda remarked, keeping sentry on the porch as John started up the Impala.
Bobby squinted. “He did. I didn’t give it to him.”
In the back seat, two small daemons were perched above the headrests, one batting at the other. Adelaide’s large shape reared up in the front. The car pulled away before they could see any more. “He wanted to keep Sam in there,” said Lucinda.
“He didn’t want to talk about hunting.”
“Huh.” She glanced sidelong at him. “We’re not that smart.”
“Well.”
“If you don’t talk about hunting, what is there to talk about?”
Bobby watched his breath fog in the early spring chill. The property was terribly quiet. “Come on,” he said, bowing his head. “We’ve almost got that text worked out.” Lucinda paused, then dropped silently off the porch rails. He opened the door, and she followed him inside.
* * *
Notes: Adelaide, black and tan coonhound. (Imogen as a redbone.) Her name means noble. Lucinda, a lynx, solitary and secretive. Cranes symbolize good luck, long life, and a happy marriage. In the Bible, Uriah was sent to the frontlines of a battle so he'd be killed and David could have his wife. Salamanders have nasty side effects. Title comes from Cymbeline, I.i.115.
Thanks so much to lindensphinx for the quick'n'dirty read-through! Feedback is lovely and deeply appreciated.