sn:/second nature
Nov. 12th, 2006 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eighth_horizonBecause Maygra bunnied me awhile ago, and deserves much blame for this.
Dean knows how he feels about everything and everyone, on a basic level, without talking about it. And then one event brings it all to the surface.
Salvation AU, 3800 words, PG for language and drama, post-Disinterment. And don't forget that the whole series is here, on a kickass page, courtesy Maygra and Scarlett_O.
Second Nature
(c)2006 b stearns
_____________
May, 2030
Dean couldn’t think of a single time in his life, since May of 1983, that he hadn’t been happy to see Sam.
He’d always had a kind of internal barometer for everyone he knew, assigning them points on a scale of like/dislike/love/hate/ignore. Sometimes it was beyond his control; his body reacted on a gut level according to how he felt about that person. It rarely showed on his face anymore. Years earlier it had always been visible, but he’d toned things down. Mostly it was just a zing in his solar plexus that varied in intensity. There were people he dealt with on a regular basis that just begged to be mocked, with their too-serious approach and too-important ideas of themselves, and the urge in the back of his throat to say the wrong thing was always heeded. That needed a few more years of practice if there was going to be any toning down. There were people at the sites he visited that set him off, that raised the hair on the back of his neck or tightened his shoulders with their bullshit until he could barely keep from clocking them.
He was a visceral guy. Everything hit him on a gut level, one way or another.
He didn’t see his father that often; even in his seventies, John Winchester didn’t seem to grasp the concept of settling down. He had a permanent address, and with the things he knew, the guy could have done anything. He unofficially headed the nationwide hunting community and even the youngest punks treated him like king of the pride. Dean had little use for any of the hunting community, himself, but Sam kept in touch and passed along occasional gossip. Every so often, something went out of its way to track hunters, and it was good to keep an eye out.
When he and Sam went out for something, you could drop a goddamn box of pins in the resulting silence and it wasn’t because of their father.
When he did see his father, though, nothing had changed. The closest equivalent to what he felt unseen in his throat and chest was like wolf pups pleading obeisance, the laying back of ears in submission, the showing of throats and bellies. He would never show his father a hint of submission again, not in this lifetime, but the love and respect and deference was still wrapped in a bullet of feeling every time he opened a door and found his father appraising him.
His nieces each had their own assigned separate chimes of adoring glee that felt exactly the way their laughter sounded. He felt each of them in a specific compartment of heart and mind. They rang high and sweet and endlessly orchid-blossom new, each girl as different as the weather. The tones changed slightly as they aged and became the people they would be - louder, more specific, but never varying in intensity.
Sarah was the only one on the scale who confused him, and the last one who should have; wry amusement and earthy understanding and lofty sensibility. Had he grown up with a mother or sister somewhere in his periphery, he imagined she would have made sense to him. He trusted her with things he trusted to no one else; not Sam or Dani or his father, and it always startled him. Affection veered to love and lust but not to line-crossing and she took him and his defensive skittishness as if it was no big deal but never as if it didn’t matter.
Charlie could be around all day every day, and then leave the room for a moment or vanish outside to play, and when she came back the reaction was always the same: a gut-punch of joy somewhere in his center. Even when she drove him crazy, the sight of her was enough to make him blink with amazement. It was overwhelming and he wondered how the hell he had once gone an entire week at a time without laying eyes on her. There was still guilt attached to that idea that he tried to shove away, but if the long separation had harmed her, it didn’t show. She sighed over trying to decide what to keep, how to combine two rooms into one, was this permanent, did they have to kiss in front of her, gross. Were there books on being a sister, would it get into her room and touch her stuff, how soon could she feed it.
He and Dani had never intended to be back together. They had not intended to rekindle anything they’d thought stamped out; they had not intended to sleep together again; they had not intended to be having any more kids. Dani had taken Dean’s near-demise at the long-dead hands of what Dean had jokingly taken to calling The Ripper much harder than Dean had thought. When he’d healed enough to go back to work and the police had finally quit designating his apartment a crime scene and let him back in, he’d left Sam’s and gone straight to her office. The grouchy receptionist hadn’t so much as glanced at him, and yet again he’d just barged in without a knock or a greeting.
I haven’t changed, and I never will, he’d said, and she had shot back with I know, thank God. Then she had celebrated the fact that his bones were all still where they were supposed to be by jumping them. She had said hold still or you’ll pull your stitches and he’d said oh, yeah, fine by me.
She had always felt like his equal. That hadn’t changed. It was a shock to the system to be stepping sideways and returning to something that felt so familiar but so new. Moving back in had been a process that had continued over months because he never said it aloud but he was giving her a chance to snap back to her senses.
There they were seven months later waiting for a July baby, not knowing or caring if it was a boy or girl and not caring because they already knew he or she was healthy. Dani was still working just as hard and continuously shooing him away when he waffled about allowing himself to get too far from home. I’m surrounded with family, I’m fine, nothing’s going to happen, go. She hated coddling. Even when she wanted it she just wasn’t set up to be any good at accepting it. Women had babies in their forties and up all the time and were fine. But had there been any planning involved instead of the lunatic initial bout of celebratory monkey sex that had led them there, they might have elected to be more careful. There were so many damn risks, the older you got. Complications.
Still, the pregnancy had gone pretty much by the book. Dani got tired but otherwise it had been as easy as carrying Charlie.
With another two months to go and everything looking fine, Dean didn’t kick or scream when a case came up in Arizona. It was only Arizona, for Christ’s sake, a couple of hours by plane. Mummies in the desert, his favorite. A week at the most, and then he’d have the option of asking for local-only stuff for awhile.
The sight of Sam always came with the urge to touch, yet he usually didn’t in any but the most perfunctory ways, and that had nothing to do with what Sam was capable of doing to him with a simple touch. There was the urge to protect, which he didn’t bother to curb. A surge of simple, undiluted love and a sense of home. His history as a person lay with Sam, most of his earliest memories included Sam, many things that made him Dean all started because there was Sam. Something in Dean waited until Sam was in the same room, slept until he was close enough to touch, hoped for the sight or sound of him. Even furious-Sam was preferable to no Sam at all. Sulking, annoyed, sarcastic Sam still rated an oh my God, it’s Sam, hi Sam, I’m so glad to see you on Dean’s internal barometer even when his face did not change and the words were not spoken.
So looking up from rubbing his face and straightening from a crouch over a shallow grave surrounded by cops and techs on a dusty back road on the outskirts of Kaibito after nine p.m. to see a tall form coming straight for him should have been worthy of a shoulder punch and some remark about needing a break from the estrogen brigade. Sam had made a habit of joining him on the tougher cases - the lost kids, the plane crashes, the arsons. They didn’t talk about it. Maybe it was just that Sam was afraid Dean would lock down again. But Sam was headed toward him with purpose, gait stiff, brows knitted together, and Dean knew. He knew.
The fear had to show on his face as Sam approached him, because Sam’s own expression broke open into an apology.
Dean couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but stand there, eyes searching Sam’s face, trying to get a sense of how bad things were but unable to ask, needing just a few more seconds of being unaware of something that had brought Sam in person because it was too bad to be said over the phone. Something that had warranted Sam coming to collect him as harbinger and guide.
He was oblivious to the people around him and the fact that they had picked up on his mood and motions, had paused to stare.
Sam held his hands out as he got closer, palms outward, wait a minute hold on because Dean didn’t care what he showed anymore, he had not checked Sam’s face well enough to see that Sam had not been crying.
Dean was busy marking the first time he had ever been terrified of the sight of his brother.
“Everybody is okay,” Sam said inside earshot. “Dean. Look at me. Everybody’s okay. But you’ve gotta come back with me.”
Then Sam was gripping the shoulder of Dean’s shirt and pulling him away and the world snapped back into focus because Sam was using the motion to brush his fingers along Dean’s neck, purposely making contact, purposely closing the circuit.
“C’mon, Dean,” Sam said, voice openly worried, staring hard into Dean’s face.
“Just tell me,” Dean said, not shaking him off.
“Dani’s gone into labor,” Sam said, keeping his eyes trained on Dean’s.
“It’s too early,” Dean said, stating the obvious in an attempt to render it less powerful.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I called your boss, I already talked to the ME here and let them know you’re signing off. I’ve got tickets back, we’ll be home in a couple of hours. Sarah calls every fifteen minutes. Just walk out of here with me. It’ll be okay.”
Dean wanted to say dude quit trying to handle me but that required more air than he had. Plus, he really needed handling.
The walk to Sam’s rental car was charged, Dean just putting one foot in front of the other while Sam talked. Dani had been at Jason’s for dinner when her water broke. The words the baby’s in distress and caesarean might be necessary were no surprise and perfectly logical under the circumstances but only when used to describe what other people went through. Premature babies had health problems, preemies could die from infections, preemies had higher rates of crib death, underdeveloped lungs and digestive systems and -
“It’s not like it’s only five or even six months,” Dean said, sounding nearly normal. “It’s seven. It’s seven. That’s not so bad.”
“Right,” Sam said, and neither of them realized until they actually got in to the car that Sam still had a grip on Dean. “Right. It’ll be fine. We’ll get there and it’ll be fine.”
They were both scared to death and the only proof was that when Sam laid his hand over Dean’s as it white-knuckled the arm rest on the plane, Dean did not shake him off.
They hit the ground running.
They said almost nothing on their way to the hospital. Dean was counting off the things that could go wrong and Sam was waiting for Sarah to call, knowing the cell wouldn’t be allowed inside the hospital, knowing she wouldn’t go outside if something was going on with Danielle, knowing she’d prefer to call from a room if they put Danielle in one.
And bingo, when she did call it was from a room. Sam handed the phone over to Dean as miles away Sarah handed the phone over to Danielle.
“Hey,” Dean said, because anything else was going to come across as nervous and he didn’t want to be anything but solid while she was the one under fire.
“Hey,” Dani said back, doing exactly the same thing. “So, they were hoping to get the labor to stop, but just like everybody else in this family, kid’s not cooperating.”
False bravado still serves the same purpose as the real thing.
“They’re suggesting a caesarean,” Dani went on, “Because, um...I know Sarah told Sam. That tiny little heartrate is only supposed to go so high. Nobody’s sure why the baby’s in distress, but -“
“Then go,” Dean said, and his voice cracked even though he was trying so hard to keep it steady. Sam glanced away from the road to look at him, expression as worried as it had been when Dean had first seen him in Arizona. “Don’t wait. We’ll get there as soon as we can, so - “
“I can’t,” Dani said, breaking in. “I’m not alone, but? I need you here. I can’t do this without you here.”
He heard her throat tighten and voice lower a notch in volume but rise an octave, and he knew she’d be pressing a hand to her forehead, eyes tightly closed while she tried to keep it together.
Jesus, Dean thought with some worry and a lot of pride, what a pair we are.
“There’s still a little time,” Dani was saying. “If there’s any danger, I’ll go. But...just get here. Hurry up and get here and we can do this together and everything will be okay.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Okay. We’re - “ he paused to glance at Sam.
“Twenty minutes,” Sam said, already knowing what Dean was asking.
“Twenty minutes out, because Sam’s seen Cannonball Run like a hundred times.”
“Don’t get in a goddamn accident or I’ll kill you both,” Dani said, sounding a little more relaxed. Dean heard a murmur in the background. “Sarah will salt and burn you after.”
“I’m not scared of either of you,” Dean said. “Today, anyway. Just click your heels together and think about how I’ll come through the door any moment now. Nothing ever goes the way it’s supposed to with us, does it.”
“I’m not going to say ‘there’s no place like Dean’,” Dani said. “You just think you’re hilarious.”
Nervous banter is still banter and as good as bravado.
“Your insults just encourage me,” Dean said. “Do we have a waiting room named after us yet?”
“We should,” Dani said, “...with the amount of time a whole crowd of us has been hanging out here this year. Jason’s got the girls playing Monopoly out there and Mary’s banker again, but Charlie insists she’s ‘laundering the money’. My parents are coming in. And Sarah called your dad.”
The talking was calming them both. It probably would have been easier for Dani’s brother Jason and his wife, Hope, to take their teens - Hannah and Trace - and the pack of various cousins and clear out, but that wasn’t how it was done. Being in this family was a team sport.
He was not going to ask her whether John was coming.
“Everybody can arm wrestle over who waits on you the most,” Dean said. “Just think about all the names we picked out and we can flip a coin when I get there.”
“I can do that,” Dani said on the exhale of a deep breath. “I’ll just think about names.”
“Everything else’ll be easy,” Dean said.
“I love you, Dean,” Dani said. “I always have.”
“I love you,” Dean said, dropping his voice into the same timbre he used when he was serious. “I’m almost there.”
-|-
He held her hand until he had to suit up to be with her in surgery, and then he held her hand again. It was a hell of a lot quicker than labor, he’d say that at least. But he hated the thought that she had to be split open in a way not far different from the way he had been seven months earlier, albeit for very different reasons, even if she didn’t feel it. They kept their eyes locked on each other’s faces, hands joined, view of the proceedings blocked by a tented sheet. Dean looked up when hands raised a bluish-gray handful above the edge of that sheet and announced that they had a son, but he didn’t quite register it because there was silence.
That tiny handful didn’t move, didn’t cry.
That moment passed as soon as the cord was cut and the baby was jostled upside down. He convulsed in an instinctive flail, knowing which way was up and reacting to being robbed of it. He got a rough once-over and his mouth and nose cleared before he was loosely wrapped, and then Dean was counting fingers and toes and laying him tummy-down across Dani’s chest.
Maybe they were both crying even if the kid wasn’t. That was fine. Somebody had to.
-|-
The first thing he really remembered seeing, focusing on, were his hands.
Tiny, tiny hands, the nails those of a doll’s, miniature, perfect. He was on his back, knees automatically bent like a frog’s, wrinkled skin a slightly jaundiced yellow and covered in a fine, light colored down from head to toe. All typical for a preemie. He was still except for the rapid rise and fall of his tiny chest. He was tougher than he looked. He wouldn’t need to be in the incubator more than a couple of days. All his blood tests had come back fine for organ function; Dean could see the tiny white spots where needles had punctured his heels. They would likely be his boy’s first scars.
Six pounds, two ounces meant he probably would have been a pretty good size at full term. As it stood, Dean didn’t need both hands to hold him but he used both anyway, cradling him close like he might be the last bit of a rarest kind of glass. He gently pulled the dark blue knit cap off the baby’s head so he could look at his hair, fine and dark and sparse. His eyelashes hadn’t finished coming in. The boy panted a little every so often, catching his breath, catching up with a world he hadn’t quite been ready for. He had yet to cry; he had the lungs for it, but he apparently hadn’t been uncomfortable enough to let it out. He squirmed a little and scrunched his face, legs kicking when he realized he needed something. He mewled and smacked and that was the most he could be bothered with.
Dean didn’t mean to be in there with him alone, but Dani needed some time to sleep. She would rest and heal and be fairly stubborn about it and he would make sure she did only what she was supposed to and nothing more.
And anyway, he wanted to talk to his son, man to man.
“There are rules to being a Winchester,” he said, looking down on the boy, snugging him a little closer. “You’re the only boy in this generation, so, you’ve got a long haul. All these girls are going to dress you weird and leave you behind when they go off to do girl things, and you have to pretend it’s normal. You have to pretend a lot of things are normal. Some of them you’ll never find out about, not if I can help it, so if I tell you a bunch of stuff now you just forget you heard it.”
He paused to put the knit cap back on. He didn’t want the little guy getting cold. Hard to keep his body temp up.
“I hope you’re exempt,” he said softly. “I hope just one of us is exempt from all this and I hope it’s you. I hope you don’t have nightmares that are more than nightmares, or move things around without trying, or anything else. Also since you’re early, I’m not sure when the hell your real six month birthday will be so we’re probably gonna be jumpy from October to January just to be safe. We do a lot of things in this family just to be safe. Sooner or later we’ll explain the salt and the reason why you can’t move certain things around the house, and the shapes carved into the frames of your bedroom door and window. By the time you’re seven you’ll be able to handle a gun. Boys develop those motor skills a little earlier, which is why we waited until nine for the girls. Good luck learning to outshoot your sister. Don’t let her convince you of anything - she can con anybody, so if she tells you the sky is blue, look out the window before you go out. Otherwise I bet she’ll watch out for you like I’ve always watched out for your uncle. She won’t be able to help it. It’s what siblings do. So don’t complain.”
He shifted the infant a little, turning him in the light to look at him. The baby went on slumbering, tiny fingers twitching occasionally.
“I won’t even mind if you’re this boring all the time,” Dean said. “Be nice to see a boring Winchester.”
It was terrible to hope that being premature would mess up the cycle, would cause his brain to develop differently and make him less likely to have any gifts. But Dean did anyway.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “Whoever you are, whatever happens, you’re ours and we’re yours. We stick together. No matter what.”
No matter what.
Somewhere in those first few days, the little boy would cause a knee-jerk reaction in his father that would be just his own, that didn’t have shock or anxiety attached to it.
Years down the road, one of the most favored photos in the album would be the one of Sam-John nestled contentedly in one of his namesake’s huge palms.
-|-
Dean knows how he feels about everything and everyone, on a basic level, without talking about it. And then one event brings it all to the surface.
Salvation AU, 3800 words, PG for language and drama, post-Disinterment. And don't forget that the whole series is here, on a kickass page, courtesy Maygra and Scarlett_O.
Second Nature
(c)2006 b stearns
_____________
May, 2030
Dean couldn’t think of a single time in his life, since May of 1983, that he hadn’t been happy to see Sam.
He’d always had a kind of internal barometer for everyone he knew, assigning them points on a scale of like/dislike/love/hate/ignore. Sometimes it was beyond his control; his body reacted on a gut level according to how he felt about that person. It rarely showed on his face anymore. Years earlier it had always been visible, but he’d toned things down. Mostly it was just a zing in his solar plexus that varied in intensity. There were people he dealt with on a regular basis that just begged to be mocked, with their too-serious approach and too-important ideas of themselves, and the urge in the back of his throat to say the wrong thing was always heeded. That needed a few more years of practice if there was going to be any toning down. There were people at the sites he visited that set him off, that raised the hair on the back of his neck or tightened his shoulders with their bullshit until he could barely keep from clocking them.
He was a visceral guy. Everything hit him on a gut level, one way or another.
He didn’t see his father that often; even in his seventies, John Winchester didn’t seem to grasp the concept of settling down. He had a permanent address, and with the things he knew, the guy could have done anything. He unofficially headed the nationwide hunting community and even the youngest punks treated him like king of the pride. Dean had little use for any of the hunting community, himself, but Sam kept in touch and passed along occasional gossip. Every so often, something went out of its way to track hunters, and it was good to keep an eye out.
When he and Sam went out for something, you could drop a goddamn box of pins in the resulting silence and it wasn’t because of their father.
When he did see his father, though, nothing had changed. The closest equivalent to what he felt unseen in his throat and chest was like wolf pups pleading obeisance, the laying back of ears in submission, the showing of throats and bellies. He would never show his father a hint of submission again, not in this lifetime, but the love and respect and deference was still wrapped in a bullet of feeling every time he opened a door and found his father appraising him.
His nieces each had their own assigned separate chimes of adoring glee that felt exactly the way their laughter sounded. He felt each of them in a specific compartment of heart and mind. They rang high and sweet and endlessly orchid-blossom new, each girl as different as the weather. The tones changed slightly as they aged and became the people they would be - louder, more specific, but never varying in intensity.
Sarah was the only one on the scale who confused him, and the last one who should have; wry amusement and earthy understanding and lofty sensibility. Had he grown up with a mother or sister somewhere in his periphery, he imagined she would have made sense to him. He trusted her with things he trusted to no one else; not Sam or Dani or his father, and it always startled him. Affection veered to love and lust but not to line-crossing and she took him and his defensive skittishness as if it was no big deal but never as if it didn’t matter.
Charlie could be around all day every day, and then leave the room for a moment or vanish outside to play, and when she came back the reaction was always the same: a gut-punch of joy somewhere in his center. Even when she drove him crazy, the sight of her was enough to make him blink with amazement. It was overwhelming and he wondered how the hell he had once gone an entire week at a time without laying eyes on her. There was still guilt attached to that idea that he tried to shove away, but if the long separation had harmed her, it didn’t show. She sighed over trying to decide what to keep, how to combine two rooms into one, was this permanent, did they have to kiss in front of her, gross. Were there books on being a sister, would it get into her room and touch her stuff, how soon could she feed it.
He and Dani had never intended to be back together. They had not intended to rekindle anything they’d thought stamped out; they had not intended to sleep together again; they had not intended to be having any more kids. Dani had taken Dean’s near-demise at the long-dead hands of what Dean had jokingly taken to calling The Ripper much harder than Dean had thought. When he’d healed enough to go back to work and the police had finally quit designating his apartment a crime scene and let him back in, he’d left Sam’s and gone straight to her office. The grouchy receptionist hadn’t so much as glanced at him, and yet again he’d just barged in without a knock or a greeting.
I haven’t changed, and I never will, he’d said, and she had shot back with I know, thank God. Then she had celebrated the fact that his bones were all still where they were supposed to be by jumping them. She had said hold still or you’ll pull your stitches and he’d said oh, yeah, fine by me.
She had always felt like his equal. That hadn’t changed. It was a shock to the system to be stepping sideways and returning to something that felt so familiar but so new. Moving back in had been a process that had continued over months because he never said it aloud but he was giving her a chance to snap back to her senses.
There they were seven months later waiting for a July baby, not knowing or caring if it was a boy or girl and not caring because they already knew he or she was healthy. Dani was still working just as hard and continuously shooing him away when he waffled about allowing himself to get too far from home. I’m surrounded with family, I’m fine, nothing’s going to happen, go. She hated coddling. Even when she wanted it she just wasn’t set up to be any good at accepting it. Women had babies in their forties and up all the time and were fine. But had there been any planning involved instead of the lunatic initial bout of celebratory monkey sex that had led them there, they might have elected to be more careful. There were so many damn risks, the older you got. Complications.
Still, the pregnancy had gone pretty much by the book. Dani got tired but otherwise it had been as easy as carrying Charlie.
With another two months to go and everything looking fine, Dean didn’t kick or scream when a case came up in Arizona. It was only Arizona, for Christ’s sake, a couple of hours by plane. Mummies in the desert, his favorite. A week at the most, and then he’d have the option of asking for local-only stuff for awhile.
The sight of Sam always came with the urge to touch, yet he usually didn’t in any but the most perfunctory ways, and that had nothing to do with what Sam was capable of doing to him with a simple touch. There was the urge to protect, which he didn’t bother to curb. A surge of simple, undiluted love and a sense of home. His history as a person lay with Sam, most of his earliest memories included Sam, many things that made him Dean all started because there was Sam. Something in Dean waited until Sam was in the same room, slept until he was close enough to touch, hoped for the sight or sound of him. Even furious-Sam was preferable to no Sam at all. Sulking, annoyed, sarcastic Sam still rated an oh my God, it’s Sam, hi Sam, I’m so glad to see you on Dean’s internal barometer even when his face did not change and the words were not spoken.
So looking up from rubbing his face and straightening from a crouch over a shallow grave surrounded by cops and techs on a dusty back road on the outskirts of Kaibito after nine p.m. to see a tall form coming straight for him should have been worthy of a shoulder punch and some remark about needing a break from the estrogen brigade. Sam had made a habit of joining him on the tougher cases - the lost kids, the plane crashes, the arsons. They didn’t talk about it. Maybe it was just that Sam was afraid Dean would lock down again. But Sam was headed toward him with purpose, gait stiff, brows knitted together, and Dean knew. He knew.
The fear had to show on his face as Sam approached him, because Sam’s own expression broke open into an apology.
Dean couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but stand there, eyes searching Sam’s face, trying to get a sense of how bad things were but unable to ask, needing just a few more seconds of being unaware of something that had brought Sam in person because it was too bad to be said over the phone. Something that had warranted Sam coming to collect him as harbinger and guide.
He was oblivious to the people around him and the fact that they had picked up on his mood and motions, had paused to stare.
Sam held his hands out as he got closer, palms outward, wait a minute hold on because Dean didn’t care what he showed anymore, he had not checked Sam’s face well enough to see that Sam had not been crying.
Dean was busy marking the first time he had ever been terrified of the sight of his brother.
“Everybody is okay,” Sam said inside earshot. “Dean. Look at me. Everybody’s okay. But you’ve gotta come back with me.”
Then Sam was gripping the shoulder of Dean’s shirt and pulling him away and the world snapped back into focus because Sam was using the motion to brush his fingers along Dean’s neck, purposely making contact, purposely closing the circuit.
“C’mon, Dean,” Sam said, voice openly worried, staring hard into Dean’s face.
“Just tell me,” Dean said, not shaking him off.
“Dani’s gone into labor,” Sam said, keeping his eyes trained on Dean’s.
“It’s too early,” Dean said, stating the obvious in an attempt to render it less powerful.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I called your boss, I already talked to the ME here and let them know you’re signing off. I’ve got tickets back, we’ll be home in a couple of hours. Sarah calls every fifteen minutes. Just walk out of here with me. It’ll be okay.”
Dean wanted to say dude quit trying to handle me but that required more air than he had. Plus, he really needed handling.
The walk to Sam’s rental car was charged, Dean just putting one foot in front of the other while Sam talked. Dani had been at Jason’s for dinner when her water broke. The words the baby’s in distress and caesarean might be necessary were no surprise and perfectly logical under the circumstances but only when used to describe what other people went through. Premature babies had health problems, preemies could die from infections, preemies had higher rates of crib death, underdeveloped lungs and digestive systems and -
“It’s not like it’s only five or even six months,” Dean said, sounding nearly normal. “It’s seven. It’s seven. That’s not so bad.”
“Right,” Sam said, and neither of them realized until they actually got in to the car that Sam still had a grip on Dean. “Right. It’ll be fine. We’ll get there and it’ll be fine.”
They were both scared to death and the only proof was that when Sam laid his hand over Dean’s as it white-knuckled the arm rest on the plane, Dean did not shake him off.
They hit the ground running.
They said almost nothing on their way to the hospital. Dean was counting off the things that could go wrong and Sam was waiting for Sarah to call, knowing the cell wouldn’t be allowed inside the hospital, knowing she wouldn’t go outside if something was going on with Danielle, knowing she’d prefer to call from a room if they put Danielle in one.
And bingo, when she did call it was from a room. Sam handed the phone over to Dean as miles away Sarah handed the phone over to Danielle.
“Hey,” Dean said, because anything else was going to come across as nervous and he didn’t want to be anything but solid while she was the one under fire.
“Hey,” Dani said back, doing exactly the same thing. “So, they were hoping to get the labor to stop, but just like everybody else in this family, kid’s not cooperating.”
False bravado still serves the same purpose as the real thing.
“They’re suggesting a caesarean,” Dani went on, “Because, um...I know Sarah told Sam. That tiny little heartrate is only supposed to go so high. Nobody’s sure why the baby’s in distress, but -“
“Then go,” Dean said, and his voice cracked even though he was trying so hard to keep it steady. Sam glanced away from the road to look at him, expression as worried as it had been when Dean had first seen him in Arizona. “Don’t wait. We’ll get there as soon as we can, so - “
“I can’t,” Dani said, breaking in. “I’m not alone, but? I need you here. I can’t do this without you here.”
He heard her throat tighten and voice lower a notch in volume but rise an octave, and he knew she’d be pressing a hand to her forehead, eyes tightly closed while she tried to keep it together.
Jesus, Dean thought with some worry and a lot of pride, what a pair we are.
“There’s still a little time,” Dani was saying. “If there’s any danger, I’ll go. But...just get here. Hurry up and get here and we can do this together and everything will be okay.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Okay. We’re - “ he paused to glance at Sam.
“Twenty minutes,” Sam said, already knowing what Dean was asking.
“Twenty minutes out, because Sam’s seen Cannonball Run like a hundred times.”
“Don’t get in a goddamn accident or I’ll kill you both,” Dani said, sounding a little more relaxed. Dean heard a murmur in the background. “Sarah will salt and burn you after.”
“I’m not scared of either of you,” Dean said. “Today, anyway. Just click your heels together and think about how I’ll come through the door any moment now. Nothing ever goes the way it’s supposed to with us, does it.”
“I’m not going to say ‘there’s no place like Dean’,” Dani said. “You just think you’re hilarious.”
Nervous banter is still banter and as good as bravado.
“Your insults just encourage me,” Dean said. “Do we have a waiting room named after us yet?”
“We should,” Dani said, “...with the amount of time a whole crowd of us has been hanging out here this year. Jason’s got the girls playing Monopoly out there and Mary’s banker again, but Charlie insists she’s ‘laundering the money’. My parents are coming in. And Sarah called your dad.”
The talking was calming them both. It probably would have been easier for Dani’s brother Jason and his wife, Hope, to take their teens - Hannah and Trace - and the pack of various cousins and clear out, but that wasn’t how it was done. Being in this family was a team sport.
He was not going to ask her whether John was coming.
“Everybody can arm wrestle over who waits on you the most,” Dean said. “Just think about all the names we picked out and we can flip a coin when I get there.”
“I can do that,” Dani said on the exhale of a deep breath. “I’ll just think about names.”
“Everything else’ll be easy,” Dean said.
“I love you, Dean,” Dani said. “I always have.”
“I love you,” Dean said, dropping his voice into the same timbre he used when he was serious. “I’m almost there.”
-|-
He held her hand until he had to suit up to be with her in surgery, and then he held her hand again. It was a hell of a lot quicker than labor, he’d say that at least. But he hated the thought that she had to be split open in a way not far different from the way he had been seven months earlier, albeit for very different reasons, even if she didn’t feel it. They kept their eyes locked on each other’s faces, hands joined, view of the proceedings blocked by a tented sheet. Dean looked up when hands raised a bluish-gray handful above the edge of that sheet and announced that they had a son, but he didn’t quite register it because there was silence.
That tiny handful didn’t move, didn’t cry.
That moment passed as soon as the cord was cut and the baby was jostled upside down. He convulsed in an instinctive flail, knowing which way was up and reacting to being robbed of it. He got a rough once-over and his mouth and nose cleared before he was loosely wrapped, and then Dean was counting fingers and toes and laying him tummy-down across Dani’s chest.
Maybe they were both crying even if the kid wasn’t. That was fine. Somebody had to.
-|-
The first thing he really remembered seeing, focusing on, were his hands.
Tiny, tiny hands, the nails those of a doll’s, miniature, perfect. He was on his back, knees automatically bent like a frog’s, wrinkled skin a slightly jaundiced yellow and covered in a fine, light colored down from head to toe. All typical for a preemie. He was still except for the rapid rise and fall of his tiny chest. He was tougher than he looked. He wouldn’t need to be in the incubator more than a couple of days. All his blood tests had come back fine for organ function; Dean could see the tiny white spots where needles had punctured his heels. They would likely be his boy’s first scars.
Six pounds, two ounces meant he probably would have been a pretty good size at full term. As it stood, Dean didn’t need both hands to hold him but he used both anyway, cradling him close like he might be the last bit of a rarest kind of glass. He gently pulled the dark blue knit cap off the baby’s head so he could look at his hair, fine and dark and sparse. His eyelashes hadn’t finished coming in. The boy panted a little every so often, catching his breath, catching up with a world he hadn’t quite been ready for. He had yet to cry; he had the lungs for it, but he apparently hadn’t been uncomfortable enough to let it out. He squirmed a little and scrunched his face, legs kicking when he realized he needed something. He mewled and smacked and that was the most he could be bothered with.
Dean didn’t mean to be in there with him alone, but Dani needed some time to sleep. She would rest and heal and be fairly stubborn about it and he would make sure she did only what she was supposed to and nothing more.
And anyway, he wanted to talk to his son, man to man.
“There are rules to being a Winchester,” he said, looking down on the boy, snugging him a little closer. “You’re the only boy in this generation, so, you’ve got a long haul. All these girls are going to dress you weird and leave you behind when they go off to do girl things, and you have to pretend it’s normal. You have to pretend a lot of things are normal. Some of them you’ll never find out about, not if I can help it, so if I tell you a bunch of stuff now you just forget you heard it.”
He paused to put the knit cap back on. He didn’t want the little guy getting cold. Hard to keep his body temp up.
“I hope you’re exempt,” he said softly. “I hope just one of us is exempt from all this and I hope it’s you. I hope you don’t have nightmares that are more than nightmares, or move things around without trying, or anything else. Also since you’re early, I’m not sure when the hell your real six month birthday will be so we’re probably gonna be jumpy from October to January just to be safe. We do a lot of things in this family just to be safe. Sooner or later we’ll explain the salt and the reason why you can’t move certain things around the house, and the shapes carved into the frames of your bedroom door and window. By the time you’re seven you’ll be able to handle a gun. Boys develop those motor skills a little earlier, which is why we waited until nine for the girls. Good luck learning to outshoot your sister. Don’t let her convince you of anything - she can con anybody, so if she tells you the sky is blue, look out the window before you go out. Otherwise I bet she’ll watch out for you like I’ve always watched out for your uncle. She won’t be able to help it. It’s what siblings do. So don’t complain.”
He shifted the infant a little, turning him in the light to look at him. The baby went on slumbering, tiny fingers twitching occasionally.
“I won’t even mind if you’re this boring all the time,” Dean said. “Be nice to see a boring Winchester.”
It was terrible to hope that being premature would mess up the cycle, would cause his brain to develop differently and make him less likely to have any gifts. But Dean did anyway.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “Whoever you are, whatever happens, you’re ours and we’re yours. We stick together. No matter what.”
No matter what.
Somewhere in those first few days, the little boy would cause a knee-jerk reaction in his father that would be just his own, that didn’t have shock or anxiety attached to it.
Years down the road, one of the most favored photos in the album would be the one of Sam-John nestled contentedly in one of his namesake’s huge palms.
-|-
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:19 am (UTC)This world, this future you've created for them is just pitch perfect and I was just as scared as Dean when Sam showed up.
And I will admit to teating up at the end and especially at the mental image you gave us with that last line.
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Date: 2006-12-06 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 10:23 pm (UTC)Tougher than me, anyway. ::points to scars on own heels:: XD
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:03 am (UTC)It's Sam isnt it? For splitsecond I thought maybe that might've been your way of telling us John came ... and my heart went KABOOM for millionth time reading this one fic :)
Thanks so much for this latest visit of the Salvation-verse - I absolutely adore that we have another Winchester man about town, and I hope we hear more about hm soon!
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:18 am (UTC)And of course Dean holding his newborn is just too sweet for words.
One other thing I want to say is that you did a good job communicating what it's like to have a preemie birth. My oldest daughter was a preemie, and I think you definitely captured how scary it can be to give birth so far ahead of your due date.
Favorite lines:
He trusted her with things he trusted to no one else; not Sam or Dani or his father, and it always startled him. Affection veered to love and lust but not to line-crossing and she took him and his defensive skittishness as if it was no big deal but never as if it didn’t matter.
I really like this insight into Dean and Sarah’s relationship. Nice.
Were there books on being a sister, would it get into her room and touch her stuff, how soon could she feed it.
Love Charlie’s conflicted feelings. That’s only natural for an only child who’s unexpectedly getting a much younger sibling.
Moving back in had been a process that had continued over months because he never said it aloud but he was giving her a chance to snap back to her senses.
I can so see this happening, because Dean so does not want to go through the pain of Dani splitting up with him again.
many things that made him Dean all started because there was Sam
Lovely, and true.
“Everybody is okay,” Sam said inside earshot. “Dean. Look at me. Everybody’s okay. But you’ve gotta come back with me.”
I so love Sam’s dialogue here, how he’s trying to quickly reassure Dean but convey urgency at the same time.
Dean wanted to say dude quit trying to handle me but that required more air than he had. Plus, he really needed handling.
Oh, Dean.
“Hey,” Dean said, because anything else was going to come across as nervous and he didn’t want to be anything but solid while she was the one under fire.
Love how Dean is trying to be strong for her even though he’s barely holding it together.
“There are rules to being a Winchester,” he said, looking down on the boy, snugging him a little closer. “You’re the only boy in this generation, so, you’ve got a long haul. All these girls are going to dress you weird and leave you behind when they go off to do girl things, and you have to pretend it’s normal. You have to pretend a lot of things are normal. Some of them you’ll never find out about, not if I can help it, so if I tell you a bunch of stuff now you just forget you heard it.”
Love, love, love this. It’s so Dean. It made me go “aww” and laugh … very nice.
It was terrible to hope that being premature would mess up the cycle, would cause his brain to develop differently and make him less likely to have any gifts. But Dean did anyway.
Yeah, I can see Dean having that thought.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “Whoever you are, whatever happens, you’re ours and we’re yours. We stick together. No matter what.”
Aww. Such a good daddy. *hugs him*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 11:44 am (UTC)*curls up at your feet* at 6:45am...i got nothin'. you know how i feel about this 'verse... *happy sigh*
pee.ess how do you feel about the whole winchester clan huddled around a tv with all the little tykes sick and sniffly...watching a disney marathon?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:27 am (UTC)Also, Sam-John? Hee.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 11:59 pm (UTC)i don't think dean would've been as good a father to a son if all the girls hadn't come first.
Oh, that makes perfect sense, though. All the ideas and assumptions he started out with before Charlie was born were just blown to hell once she actually came along, because yeah Sam's girls totally corrupted him prior to that, but...well, he would have had expectations of how his own kid should be. RUINED. LOL
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:52 am (UTC)I adored this. You make this universe just hum and breathe, and be real. It's amazing.
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Date: 2006-12-07 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:01 am (UTC)Thank you, doll. :)
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Date: 2006-11-13 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 08:53 am (UTC)Dean talking to his son *sniff*
Lovely, thankyou :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 09:38 am (UTC)That's all i got...
no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 12:10 am (UTC)Second Nature
Date: 2006-11-13 10:09 am (UTC)So, I've read all your stories maybe twice now, okay maybe a little bit more and when I saw you posted today, I had to go refill my coffee first, so I wouldn't have to stop till I finished the story and you didn't disappoint, not a bit.
So yeah, I love this Dean and I so want to meet this family (the one you gave him) and I'll just wait here till you have another tle to tell.
Re: Second Nature
Date: 2006-12-07 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 11:34 am (UTC)I loved the description of what Dean felt when Sam came to his work site. That was awesome.
*nubs little Sam*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 11:45 am (UTC)*curls up at your feet* at 6:45am...i got nothin'. you know how i feel about this 'verse... *happy sigh*
pee.ess how do you feel about the whole winchester clan huddled around a tv with all the little tykes sick and sniffly...watching a disney marathon?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 12:26 pm (UTC)However, I need to ask something. Because, well, I'm a John-girl first and foremost (and I adore what you made of him in this 'verse): did he go to the hospital?
Please, tell me he did. No, really, did he? Do his grand-daughters love him a little?Sorry :)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 01:16 pm (UTC)Excellent job with the preemie birth description, luv. *wibble*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 01:25 pm (UTC)Oh, hi, Barb! Were you listening. Oops. Sorry. Let me grab that bunny and put it right back in it's cage.
I adore this. I love that they all have sound and feel that registers only on the Dean-o-meter. I love that Sam was right there for Dean, that Dena need him there. I love that Dani was so brave and so stubborn. I love Mary the Money-launderer. And Uncle Jason! And you know all Sarah's and Sam's girls call him Uncle Jason too and he's good natured and laid back like Dani isn't and lets them all ride in the back of his open pick-up truck even though it's illegal because he thinks it's funny. And Jason thinks they are all weird but good people and it's always handy to have a lawyer in the family.
And yes, I agree that the descent of the granddaughters on Grandpa John is a story begging to be written. And they will run all over the place and John will just be bemused.
:::runs:::
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 02:24 pm (UTC)Good, good, schmoopy stuff.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 02:50 pm (UTC)I owe you and maygra mountains and mountains of feedback. Not owe, want to leave. MoOD ripped me open like no fic ever has, and I've been devouring this 'verse ever since. I find myself thinking of your fics as episodes, and then am startled to remember that no, I've never seen that happen on screen. This 'verse is canon in my heart. I love it. You have amazing insight into the characters, and they are all so real, even and especially the ones you've created.
Well done. Well, well, well done.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 04:01 pm (UTC)I have no words! I just... Samuel-John! Or is it Samuel Johnatan? Oh God! It doesn't matter. It was wonderful and lovely and oh god, I lvoed Dani here, absolutely loved how much of a Winchester she really is here and Dean his little boy - the only boy in this generation, a calm and quiet child in contrast with the other noisy and overactive girls. He's just gonna be a lovely kid and so much like his Dad and yet so different, maybe a lot like Sam, too, because most of the kids are like Dean.
I so love this, I have no words to describe my love for this!
Thank you for once more sharing this gift with us!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 05:05 pm (UTC)