SpN fic :It's All In The Game 1/2
3/14/13 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: It's All In The Game 1/2
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating:PG-13
Word Count: 3458
Summary: Young Sam Winchester spends a summer with his dad, learning the family business: reading things, saving people
Notes/Warnings: Totally for fun! I took the idea from ep 8X12, set the story back and sideways in time forty years. Sam and Dean are not closely related. I needed to write something not BB and I love writing stuff in the fifties!
The brassy clang of his alarm clock had Sam flailing right over the side of his bed. He hit the ground on his hands and knees, blinking around the room in total panic but blink all he wanted, he couldn't see. It was like…wearing sunglasses. In a cave. At night. What the heck…?
The alarm was still clanging so he crawled in the general direction of the noise. Banged his nose against a table. Realized it wasn't his eyes, it was the room—it was pitch black. He dragged himself upright and a light high on the wall blinked on, a pale, anemic amber that steadily brightened to a clear yellow glow. By the time the room was fully bright, he'd found the alarm and killed it. Well, not killed it…well, okay, killed it. Not his fault, if it couldn't survive a little bashing against the chilly tile floor, than it just wasn't built all that well, was it?
Dad was going to have a cow.
The alarm clock had it coming, though. Sam reached into a drawer in the table and pulled out a little travel alarm that would have to do duty as keeper of the time until he managed to get another clock. Dad really was going to be frosted. That was the third clock this year….
Sam sighed and slumped off to the bathroom. It was only six in the morning, he was out of school for the summer and the whole "getting up at the crack of dawn" thing just seemed kind of unfair. Living underground like a mole always took time to get used to. At home, the first thing he did winter, summer, rain or shine was open his window. He kind of missed that but at least in the Fortress of Solitude he could play the record player as loud as he wanted to. Solid cinderblock walls worked great to keep the noise in and Dad off his back….
Speaking of record player…Sam dropped the needle on a record that was a couple of years old but still his favorite, and cranked the knob up. Mickey asked Sylvia how she called her lover boy as Sam winked and popped an invisible shot off with his invisible finger gun at cowboy James Dean hanging on the wall opposite his bed. Momentary energy drained away as the last note faded in the air; he scratched luxuriously all over, and yawned a jaw-cracking yawn—and dropped the arm on the record again. The intercom on the desk buzzed and his dad's voice asked, "You awake, Sammy?"
Oh for Pete's sake. Sam dashed to turn the record down and whined, "Dad! I'm up already!"
"Watch the tone, kiddo. I'm just checking. Remember you've got KP today."
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Almost twenty years a civilian and Dad still talked like he was active service…KP. Gosh. Sam took his finger off the intercom button and considered beating the darn intercom with the remains of his clock. Having a huge, gusty, longsuffering sigh, he figured he'd better make his bed and straighten up—in case the Corporal decided to inspect his room. Sam yanked his sheets flat, and pulled the spread up over the bed, stacked the books he found tucked in his bedding back into the little bookcase that did double duty as a nightstand. Finished with his room, Sam grabbed clean underclothes and chinos out of his dresser drawer and a shirt and vest out of the closet. He pouted again at the monstrous injustice of having to dress like he was going to school when there was no school.
He unbuttoned his pajama shirt, rolled it into a tight ball and pitched it at the closet. "Mantle swings, annnnd it's a strike! The crowd goes wild! That rookie Winchester is a real up-and-comer, folks!" Take that, Yankees. With a grin, he grabbed his kit bag and a towel and washcloth and headed off to the communal showers. After a lightning-quick shower, he was back in his room and his little water closet. Brushed his teeth, gave up on taming his hair—no amount of Brylcreem would help, and that meant Dad was going to start pestering him to get a haircut. Nuts. He spent a few minutes trying to look like James Dean, tilting his head this way and that, before deciding if anything, he looked like the guy who played his dad.
With a groan, Sam headed down to the kitchen where he was expected to help out again.
A dozen eggs cracked and whisked and a mountain of potatoes peeled and buckets of oatmeal served and more dishes washed than there were people living there—Sam was one hundred per cent certain of that—he finally was free to do what he wanted for a few hours. He could play some records, listen to the radio, brush up on his Latin…or have a little quiet time with a locked door, some lotion and Jimmy Dean.
In the end, he decided to just hang out in the stacks. Not all the books were occult-oriented; the Men had a pretty decent mundane library as well. His dad and a few other Elders were in the library, seated at the tables or in the overstuffed leather chairs scattered around the room like some gentleman's club. His dad winked as Sam passed, a Pall-Mall hanging off his lip as usual, elbows resting on sheaves of notes and his ever present cup of coffee at the ready. The head switchboard operator, Doris, a tiny little blonde with an ever-present smile, waved at Sam as she made her way around the tables, topping off cups with the steaming pot she carried.
"How about you Sam? Cup of joe to take upstairs with you?"
He smiled and shook his head. Doris was the daughter of one of the Elders, an MOL in training, just like Sam. And not incidentally, free labor, just like Sam. She was pretty cool, had showed him how to operate the switchboard and everything. Which in retrospect might not have been as unselfishly nice as he'd thought since now he was called on whenever she needed a break. Sam had the feeling Doris wanted to teach him much, much more than the switchboard. He had the sneaking suspicion that his dad thought that she should, too. Or he should. Or they should…something…together. Sam shuddered. Like some arranged marriage. Legacy mating. He skirted Doris and dashed up the stairs to the rear of the stacks and blessed privacy.
Still, there were good points—between learning to work a switchboard and typing at a pretty decent speed, by the time this summer was over he'd have experience for an assortment of part time jobs when he headed off to college. Which was going to be law and Stanford and not dead languages and Yale, thank you very much. College—the college he chose—was going to be Sam's chance, finally, for a normal life. An average life, not one filled with monsters and the supernatural and…and…his dad's unreasonable expectations of him.
Sam was curled up in a nook in the upper level, deeply entrenched in the world of Odysseus, when the alarm sounded—a weird, low warble that made Sam's skin crawl. Red lights posted here and there on the main floor flashed on and off.
His dad looked up and caught his eye. He put his cigarette out and called, "Sammy, you wanna help getting the Hunters in?"
"Boy, would I," Sam was so gassed to actually meet real live Hunters he forgot to call his dad out on 'Sammy'. Sammy was a short fat nerdy kid—he was Sam, a tall…kinda scrawny…nerdy kid. Oh well. He shrugged and ran down the stairs to the main floor. Hunters! Real live Hunters, the guys who saw the monsters his dad and the other Elders wrote up and cataloged, who dealt with the spells and charms and lore that Sam knew in theory. He bet that they had tons of stories to tell, lots of adventures. They were the real deal. What they did really made a difference, saving people, hunting things that wanted to hurt people—out there on the front lines.
"They're coming in by the loading dock. Why don't you head down there now?" His dad said, and Sam took off without another word. He thundered down the stairs that led to the maze of corridors under the living quarters, where the lab and stores were, and where the Hunters would come in.
A guy Sam recognized as Marty, one of the Level Ones, stopped when Sam came racing down the hall. He gave Sam a look that was just short of an eye-roll, but his tone of voice was kind. "Here, kid." He dumped a load of clothes in Sam's arms. "These just came fresh out the laundry. Make sure you grab the clothes they stick in the lockers—there's some bags in the locker room you can put the dirty clothes in. Stuff that's, uhm, no good—you'll see what I mean—you leave in the drums in the discard room." At Sam's confused look, he snorted, pat him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll see the signs. Go. I know you're itchin' to."
Sam trotted down the hall, careful of his cargo, until he came to a set of double doors and backed through them struggling to keep a grip on the tower of laundry clutched in both arms. The doors opened onto a cavernous room, its high ceilings pierced with light wells made it surprisingly bright, combined with florescent lighting tubes all along the top of the walls. Summer sunlight poured in through another set of double doors, big iron things, at the far end of the room—more of a loading dock, actually. A group of men were at the doors, sauntering in like a group of Sunday strollers instead of the hard-bitten, barely literate men he'd been told Hunters were. Sam did a double take when he saw two of the men were actually women. An electric cart rolled along with them, something on the back of it under a tarp. One of the Hunters jumped off the back and walked to the group gathering by the lockers, his rolling swagger capturing Sam's attention.
Sam hung there at the doorway, mouth open. A tall bald guy snapped at him, "Hey, kid, if that's our stuff, bring it the hell over."
Sam blushed deep red at the obscenity. There were girls in the room. He shuffled forward, trying to ignore the laughter he knew was directed at him. He was pretty sure one of the girls called him a nerd.
He dropped the pile of fresh clothes on a wide bench next to the rows of lockers flanking the benches. The Hunters were popping open what Sam figured must be their own lockers. He caught glimpses of nametags on them. He was impressed, feeling a little star struck. He didn't get that his dad and the other Elders looked down on Hunters. They were heroes to Sam, kind of John Wayne and Gregory Peck rolled into one. It was just, he'd never expected them to be young. Some of the Hunters, the girls included, didn't look much older than he was.
The bald guy glanced over at him, said, "Whose whelp are you?"
"Unh…John Winchester's my dad, sir," Sam replied. "My…unh, my name's Sam."
"Hunh. Well, Sam, I'm a Sam too. Samuel Campbell. These are some of my family. They'll make themselves known to you. And when you get back to your father, tell him I want to talk to him. "
"Yes sir."
One of the girls, a dark haired girl with a pointed, up-tilted nose smiled at him. "I'm Gwen. That's Christian, Mark, Marny and Dean. Campbell."
The one she pointed at and called Dean tilted his head out from behind his locker door. "What?" he asked. "You called me?"
Sam stopped…everything. Breathing, thinking, being. The guy was handsome. No, he was beautiful. If you could call a man beautiful. This Dean Campbell was…more beautiful than James Dean. And up until that moment, James Dean had been the pinnacle of young Sam's fantasy life. James Dean and Sam's right hand had led an especially satisfying life until this moment. Now Sam was never going to be able not to think of Dean Campbell. It was fate—two Deans.
Dean was glowering at Sam, hands on his hips and waiting for something. What, Sam couldn't imagine. Unless he wanted Sam to stop staring at him. Sam dropped his gaze and struggled not to flush. If he didn't watch himself better, he was going to be found out and…and that would be…disastrous, bad on a level of uncontained curse magic bad.
Sam stood to one side and watched their medics check out each Hunter, dispense aspirin, peroxide and bandages, one of them was sent to the medic station, but they went under their own power so Sam figured it couldn't have been too bad. Then stood in total jaw-dropping shock as they dropped their clothes and stood naked as jaybirds and as unconcerned about that as if they were alone…Sam's brain was in serious danger of blowing all its fuses. Sam whirled away from the group, quickly unloaded the cart that Marty had rolled up. Soap, shampoo, shaving kits…he fussed around with them, back turned to the Hunters as long as he could before finally turning to pass the kits out. His cheeks, neck, right up to the tip of his ears felt as if they'd had a blowtorch taken to them.
"Hey, Shortstuff," Dean said as he snatched a kit out of Sam's weak grip. "Roll that tongue up. Not digging the way you're eyeballing my cuz. And word to the wise, Marny and Gwen are dead shots. Can shoot the eye out of a crow at a mile…or a berry hanging off a twig, if you get my drift."
The girls laughed, low and lazy as they strolled off to the showers, hips rolling like sin…if that sort of sin jazzed him but it didn't so he whipped his eyes to the floor and hoped Dean hadn't seen where his eyes had really strayed. "No sir, not looking, I mean, not at girls. Anyone! Not…looking. Nothing."
"Yeea-ah, thanks kid, now am-scray."
Sam took off, trying to outrun Dean's laughter and hoping the embarrassment wouldn't kill him.
Later, much later that afternoon, Sam was called in to help catalogue what the Campbells had brought in with them. He was to make concise notes in the journal his dad handed him, with an injunction to pay attention to the lab tech, write clearly, and not let his fascination color any observations. Sam nodded and bit his tongue and headed to the lab.
Sven seemed pleased to see Sam. Sam shrugged on the lab coat he handed him and donned a pair of rubber coated gloves. Sven lectured on the importance of protection and caution as he opened a silver lined box whose lid was deeply carved with sealing sigils and carefully lifted out a jar holding a harpy's heart. Next, he unwrapped a canvas bag containing a set of filthy looking claws.
"Don’t touch," Sven said. "These claws are deeply grooved—they aren’t poisonous in themselves, but the dirt and filth imbedded in these grooves are a surefire way of contracting disease." He showed Sam another jar, in this sat a smallish gray blob. "Now these are poison sacks. They're under the harpy's tongue. They paralyze their prey so that they can take time eating. Small mouth. But sharp teeth and strong jaws."
Sam nodded, diligently scribbling away. Sven put the harpy bits in the deepfreeze, and asked Sam, in all sincerity, if he'd care for an Eskimo Pie. Sam just as sincerely thanked him and refused. Sven shrugged and shut the lid, thankfully cutting off sight of a bright blue-irised eyeball as big as a melon.
Next on the list were several curse boxes that Samuel Campbell had couriered in for them. Sven explained how they were made, why the wood they were made of was important, and then gave Sam a list of different specific types of wood, which Sam scribbled into his log, along with notes to look up regions and climates the individual woods came from. Sven also gave Sam a list of four different cursed objects with the assignment to describe the type of box necessary to contain them. Sam sighed, but decided in the long run, it was better than having to clean the lab. He wasn't overeager to eyeball that…eyeball again.
Sam headed back to his room. Decided he'd wash for dinner first and then, hang around his room or maybe hang out in the day room. The television here got better reception than their television at home….
Dean lay in a lazy sprawl on one of the day room couches when Sam came in, a book held up to his face. "Gwen's not here," he said.
"No, no," Sam stuttered.
"Marny's not here either," Dean growled and sat up.
"No, gosh, I'm not…I'm not looking for either of them. I mean, no one. Just." He held up a magazine. "Reading. Was gonna play some music if no one was around, catch some TV."
Dean looked at the cover of the magazine with interest, laid the book open over his knee. "Hunh. Amazing Stories. I don’t have that one. Hard to hold on to, what with the mostly traveling. "
Sam sat down; thrilled to find someone else interested in the SF stories he loved. "My dad says I'm being ridiculous with these. Werewolf, hydras, shucks—those are real. Little green men are not. In other words, SF's a waste of time."
"Well, we can't fight evil every second of the day, no matter what some think." Dean winked and Sam blushed.
"Yeah, I guess that's true. So, there's a—" Sam started before his dad chose that moment to interrupt him. It figured.
"There you are, Sammy." Sam glanced over at Dean who mouthed, 'Sammy?' with a grin so wide and pretty that Sam was almost inclined to forgive the mockery….
"Sven and Marty tell me you did an excellent job. I'm proud of you." His dad beamed at him, handing him a generous compliment. And then stepped on it. "Now, take yourself off to the reading room—your Enochian leaves a bit to be desired. Oh, and take your spell log. I looked it over and you're missing some vital base elements—"
"You were in my room?" Sam's voice cracked a bit on 'room', and he wanted to melt through the floor. Here he was trying to ask Dean if he wanted to walk down to the lake, a very private walk, so of course his dad had to come in treating him like a toddler and ruining any chance he might have had with the sexy, mysterious Hunter. "Dad—" he groaned and his dad stopped.
"What?" A puzzled look pulled his dad's eyebrows together and Sam bit his cheek. Of course his dad was confused. Of course he didn't get it. If he'd been talking to Doris, the little switchboard operator, his dad more than likely would have winked and walked away. Probably tossed him the keys to the car…and, and…rubbers. Jeepers, everyone was so set on him romancing that Doris…Sam felt that familiar fist knot his chest up, that brief deep wish that he wasn't. Wasn't like this. He sighed and turned to follow his dad.
"Hey, Sammy."
Sam whipped around. He hissed, "My name's not Sammy, it's Sam." And then wanted to smack himself. Dean was…something. Maybe flirting. Maybe. At least he wasn't pointing and laughing too much.
"Sure, whatever y'say. Save me a seat for dinner, I hear it's meatloaf and George's cooking tonight."
A little ball of heat expanded in Sam's chest until it filled him like hot champagne. He nodded, afraid to speak and further embarrass himself. When he got up the nerve to meet Dean's eyes, Dean winked and pointed. Horrified that maybe the wink was meant for someone not him, Sam slowly turned in the direction Dean was pointing—his dad was lengths ahead and he had to run to keep up. Even more embarrassing. But—he was going to have dinner with Dean. Well, he was going to sit next to Dean while Dean ate meatloaf but hey, his day was finally looking up.
on to part 2
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating:PG-13
Word Count: 3458
Summary: Young Sam Winchester spends a summer with his dad, learning the family business: reading things, saving people
Notes/Warnings: Totally for fun! I took the idea from ep 8X12, set the story back and sideways in time forty years. Sam and Dean are not closely related. I needed to write something not BB and I love writing stuff in the fifties!
The brassy clang of his alarm clock had Sam flailing right over the side of his bed. He hit the ground on his hands and knees, blinking around the room in total panic but blink all he wanted, he couldn't see. It was like…wearing sunglasses. In a cave. At night. What the heck…?
The alarm was still clanging so he crawled in the general direction of the noise. Banged his nose against a table. Realized it wasn't his eyes, it was the room—it was pitch black. He dragged himself upright and a light high on the wall blinked on, a pale, anemic amber that steadily brightened to a clear yellow glow. By the time the room was fully bright, he'd found the alarm and killed it. Well, not killed it…well, okay, killed it. Not his fault, if it couldn't survive a little bashing against the chilly tile floor, than it just wasn't built all that well, was it?
Dad was going to have a cow.
The alarm clock had it coming, though. Sam reached into a drawer in the table and pulled out a little travel alarm that would have to do duty as keeper of the time until he managed to get another clock. Dad really was going to be frosted. That was the third clock this year….
Sam sighed and slumped off to the bathroom. It was only six in the morning, he was out of school for the summer and the whole "getting up at the crack of dawn" thing just seemed kind of unfair. Living underground like a mole always took time to get used to. At home, the first thing he did winter, summer, rain or shine was open his window. He kind of missed that but at least in the Fortress of Solitude he could play the record player as loud as he wanted to. Solid cinderblock walls worked great to keep the noise in and Dad off his back….
Speaking of record player…Sam dropped the needle on a record that was a couple of years old but still his favorite, and cranked the knob up. Mickey asked Sylvia how she called her lover boy as Sam winked and popped an invisible shot off with his invisible finger gun at cowboy James Dean hanging on the wall opposite his bed. Momentary energy drained away as the last note faded in the air; he scratched luxuriously all over, and yawned a jaw-cracking yawn—and dropped the arm on the record again. The intercom on the desk buzzed and his dad's voice asked, "You awake, Sammy?"
Oh for Pete's sake. Sam dashed to turn the record down and whined, "Dad! I'm up already!"
"Watch the tone, kiddo. I'm just checking. Remember you've got KP today."
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Almost twenty years a civilian and Dad still talked like he was active service…KP. Gosh. Sam took his finger off the intercom button and considered beating the darn intercom with the remains of his clock. Having a huge, gusty, longsuffering sigh, he figured he'd better make his bed and straighten up—in case the Corporal decided to inspect his room. Sam yanked his sheets flat, and pulled the spread up over the bed, stacked the books he found tucked in his bedding back into the little bookcase that did double duty as a nightstand. Finished with his room, Sam grabbed clean underclothes and chinos out of his dresser drawer and a shirt and vest out of the closet. He pouted again at the monstrous injustice of having to dress like he was going to school when there was no school.
He unbuttoned his pajama shirt, rolled it into a tight ball and pitched it at the closet. "Mantle swings, annnnd it's a strike! The crowd goes wild! That rookie Winchester is a real up-and-comer, folks!" Take that, Yankees. With a grin, he grabbed his kit bag and a towel and washcloth and headed off to the communal showers. After a lightning-quick shower, he was back in his room and his little water closet. Brushed his teeth, gave up on taming his hair—no amount of Brylcreem would help, and that meant Dad was going to start pestering him to get a haircut. Nuts. He spent a few minutes trying to look like James Dean, tilting his head this way and that, before deciding if anything, he looked like the guy who played his dad.
With a groan, Sam headed down to the kitchen where he was expected to help out again.
A dozen eggs cracked and whisked and a mountain of potatoes peeled and buckets of oatmeal served and more dishes washed than there were people living there—Sam was one hundred per cent certain of that—he finally was free to do what he wanted for a few hours. He could play some records, listen to the radio, brush up on his Latin…or have a little quiet time with a locked door, some lotion and Jimmy Dean.
In the end, he decided to just hang out in the stacks. Not all the books were occult-oriented; the Men had a pretty decent mundane library as well. His dad and a few other Elders were in the library, seated at the tables or in the overstuffed leather chairs scattered around the room like some gentleman's club. His dad winked as Sam passed, a Pall-Mall hanging off his lip as usual, elbows resting on sheaves of notes and his ever present cup of coffee at the ready. The head switchboard operator, Doris, a tiny little blonde with an ever-present smile, waved at Sam as she made her way around the tables, topping off cups with the steaming pot she carried.
"How about you Sam? Cup of joe to take upstairs with you?"
He smiled and shook his head. Doris was the daughter of one of the Elders, an MOL in training, just like Sam. And not incidentally, free labor, just like Sam. She was pretty cool, had showed him how to operate the switchboard and everything. Which in retrospect might not have been as unselfishly nice as he'd thought since now he was called on whenever she needed a break. Sam had the feeling Doris wanted to teach him much, much more than the switchboard. He had the sneaking suspicion that his dad thought that she should, too. Or he should. Or they should…something…together. Sam shuddered. Like some arranged marriage. Legacy mating. He skirted Doris and dashed up the stairs to the rear of the stacks and blessed privacy.
Still, there were good points—between learning to work a switchboard and typing at a pretty decent speed, by the time this summer was over he'd have experience for an assortment of part time jobs when he headed off to college. Which was going to be law and Stanford and not dead languages and Yale, thank you very much. College—the college he chose—was going to be Sam's chance, finally, for a normal life. An average life, not one filled with monsters and the supernatural and…and…his dad's unreasonable expectations of him.
Sam was curled up in a nook in the upper level, deeply entrenched in the world of Odysseus, when the alarm sounded—a weird, low warble that made Sam's skin crawl. Red lights posted here and there on the main floor flashed on and off.
His dad looked up and caught his eye. He put his cigarette out and called, "Sammy, you wanna help getting the Hunters in?"
"Boy, would I," Sam was so gassed to actually meet real live Hunters he forgot to call his dad out on 'Sammy'. Sammy was a short fat nerdy kid—he was Sam, a tall…kinda scrawny…nerdy kid. Oh well. He shrugged and ran down the stairs to the main floor. Hunters! Real live Hunters, the guys who saw the monsters his dad and the other Elders wrote up and cataloged, who dealt with the spells and charms and lore that Sam knew in theory. He bet that they had tons of stories to tell, lots of adventures. They were the real deal. What they did really made a difference, saving people, hunting things that wanted to hurt people—out there on the front lines.
"They're coming in by the loading dock. Why don't you head down there now?" His dad said, and Sam took off without another word. He thundered down the stairs that led to the maze of corridors under the living quarters, where the lab and stores were, and where the Hunters would come in.
A guy Sam recognized as Marty, one of the Level Ones, stopped when Sam came racing down the hall. He gave Sam a look that was just short of an eye-roll, but his tone of voice was kind. "Here, kid." He dumped a load of clothes in Sam's arms. "These just came fresh out the laundry. Make sure you grab the clothes they stick in the lockers—there's some bags in the locker room you can put the dirty clothes in. Stuff that's, uhm, no good—you'll see what I mean—you leave in the drums in the discard room." At Sam's confused look, he snorted, pat him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll see the signs. Go. I know you're itchin' to."
Sam trotted down the hall, careful of his cargo, until he came to a set of double doors and backed through them struggling to keep a grip on the tower of laundry clutched in both arms. The doors opened onto a cavernous room, its high ceilings pierced with light wells made it surprisingly bright, combined with florescent lighting tubes all along the top of the walls. Summer sunlight poured in through another set of double doors, big iron things, at the far end of the room—more of a loading dock, actually. A group of men were at the doors, sauntering in like a group of Sunday strollers instead of the hard-bitten, barely literate men he'd been told Hunters were. Sam did a double take when he saw two of the men were actually women. An electric cart rolled along with them, something on the back of it under a tarp. One of the Hunters jumped off the back and walked to the group gathering by the lockers, his rolling swagger capturing Sam's attention.
Sam hung there at the doorway, mouth open. A tall bald guy snapped at him, "Hey, kid, if that's our stuff, bring it the hell over."
Sam blushed deep red at the obscenity. There were girls in the room. He shuffled forward, trying to ignore the laughter he knew was directed at him. He was pretty sure one of the girls called him a nerd.
He dropped the pile of fresh clothes on a wide bench next to the rows of lockers flanking the benches. The Hunters were popping open what Sam figured must be their own lockers. He caught glimpses of nametags on them. He was impressed, feeling a little star struck. He didn't get that his dad and the other Elders looked down on Hunters. They were heroes to Sam, kind of John Wayne and Gregory Peck rolled into one. It was just, he'd never expected them to be young. Some of the Hunters, the girls included, didn't look much older than he was.
The bald guy glanced over at him, said, "Whose whelp are you?"
"Unh…John Winchester's my dad, sir," Sam replied. "My…unh, my name's Sam."
"Hunh. Well, Sam, I'm a Sam too. Samuel Campbell. These are some of my family. They'll make themselves known to you. And when you get back to your father, tell him I want to talk to him. "
"Yes sir."
One of the girls, a dark haired girl with a pointed, up-tilted nose smiled at him. "I'm Gwen. That's Christian, Mark, Marny and Dean. Campbell."
The one she pointed at and called Dean tilted his head out from behind his locker door. "What?" he asked. "You called me?"
Sam stopped…everything. Breathing, thinking, being. The guy was handsome. No, he was beautiful. If you could call a man beautiful. This Dean Campbell was…more beautiful than James Dean. And up until that moment, James Dean had been the pinnacle of young Sam's fantasy life. James Dean and Sam's right hand had led an especially satisfying life until this moment. Now Sam was never going to be able not to think of Dean Campbell. It was fate—two Deans.
Dean was glowering at Sam, hands on his hips and waiting for something. What, Sam couldn't imagine. Unless he wanted Sam to stop staring at him. Sam dropped his gaze and struggled not to flush. If he didn't watch himself better, he was going to be found out and…and that would be…disastrous, bad on a level of uncontained curse magic bad.
Sam stood to one side and watched their medics check out each Hunter, dispense aspirin, peroxide and bandages, one of them was sent to the medic station, but they went under their own power so Sam figured it couldn't have been too bad. Then stood in total jaw-dropping shock as they dropped their clothes and stood naked as jaybirds and as unconcerned about that as if they were alone…Sam's brain was in serious danger of blowing all its fuses. Sam whirled away from the group, quickly unloaded the cart that Marty had rolled up. Soap, shampoo, shaving kits…he fussed around with them, back turned to the Hunters as long as he could before finally turning to pass the kits out. His cheeks, neck, right up to the tip of his ears felt as if they'd had a blowtorch taken to them.
"Hey, Shortstuff," Dean said as he snatched a kit out of Sam's weak grip. "Roll that tongue up. Not digging the way you're eyeballing my cuz. And word to the wise, Marny and Gwen are dead shots. Can shoot the eye out of a crow at a mile…or a berry hanging off a twig, if you get my drift."
The girls laughed, low and lazy as they strolled off to the showers, hips rolling like sin…if that sort of sin jazzed him but it didn't so he whipped his eyes to the floor and hoped Dean hadn't seen where his eyes had really strayed. "No sir, not looking, I mean, not at girls. Anyone! Not…looking. Nothing."
"Yeea-ah, thanks kid, now am-scray."
Sam took off, trying to outrun Dean's laughter and hoping the embarrassment wouldn't kill him.
Later, much later that afternoon, Sam was called in to help catalogue what the Campbells had brought in with them. He was to make concise notes in the journal his dad handed him, with an injunction to pay attention to the lab tech, write clearly, and not let his fascination color any observations. Sam nodded and bit his tongue and headed to the lab.
Sven seemed pleased to see Sam. Sam shrugged on the lab coat he handed him and donned a pair of rubber coated gloves. Sven lectured on the importance of protection and caution as he opened a silver lined box whose lid was deeply carved with sealing sigils and carefully lifted out a jar holding a harpy's heart. Next, he unwrapped a canvas bag containing a set of filthy looking claws.
"Don’t touch," Sven said. "These claws are deeply grooved—they aren’t poisonous in themselves, but the dirt and filth imbedded in these grooves are a surefire way of contracting disease." He showed Sam another jar, in this sat a smallish gray blob. "Now these are poison sacks. They're under the harpy's tongue. They paralyze their prey so that they can take time eating. Small mouth. But sharp teeth and strong jaws."
Sam nodded, diligently scribbling away. Sven put the harpy bits in the deepfreeze, and asked Sam, in all sincerity, if he'd care for an Eskimo Pie. Sam just as sincerely thanked him and refused. Sven shrugged and shut the lid, thankfully cutting off sight of a bright blue-irised eyeball as big as a melon.
Next on the list were several curse boxes that Samuel Campbell had couriered in for them. Sven explained how they were made, why the wood they were made of was important, and then gave Sam a list of different specific types of wood, which Sam scribbled into his log, along with notes to look up regions and climates the individual woods came from. Sven also gave Sam a list of four different cursed objects with the assignment to describe the type of box necessary to contain them. Sam sighed, but decided in the long run, it was better than having to clean the lab. He wasn't overeager to eyeball that…eyeball again.
Sam headed back to his room. Decided he'd wash for dinner first and then, hang around his room or maybe hang out in the day room. The television here got better reception than their television at home….
Dean lay in a lazy sprawl on one of the day room couches when Sam came in, a book held up to his face. "Gwen's not here," he said.
"No, no," Sam stuttered.
"Marny's not here either," Dean growled and sat up.
"No, gosh, I'm not…I'm not looking for either of them. I mean, no one. Just." He held up a magazine. "Reading. Was gonna play some music if no one was around, catch some TV."
Dean looked at the cover of the magazine with interest, laid the book open over his knee. "Hunh. Amazing Stories. I don’t have that one. Hard to hold on to, what with the mostly traveling. "
Sam sat down; thrilled to find someone else interested in the SF stories he loved. "My dad says I'm being ridiculous with these. Werewolf, hydras, shucks—those are real. Little green men are not. In other words, SF's a waste of time."
"Well, we can't fight evil every second of the day, no matter what some think." Dean winked and Sam blushed.
"Yeah, I guess that's true. So, there's a—" Sam started before his dad chose that moment to interrupt him. It figured.
"There you are, Sammy." Sam glanced over at Dean who mouthed, 'Sammy?' with a grin so wide and pretty that Sam was almost inclined to forgive the mockery….
"Sven and Marty tell me you did an excellent job. I'm proud of you." His dad beamed at him, handing him a generous compliment. And then stepped on it. "Now, take yourself off to the reading room—your Enochian leaves a bit to be desired. Oh, and take your spell log. I looked it over and you're missing some vital base elements—"
"You were in my room?" Sam's voice cracked a bit on 'room', and he wanted to melt through the floor. Here he was trying to ask Dean if he wanted to walk down to the lake, a very private walk, so of course his dad had to come in treating him like a toddler and ruining any chance he might have had with the sexy, mysterious Hunter. "Dad—" he groaned and his dad stopped.
"What?" A puzzled look pulled his dad's eyebrows together and Sam bit his cheek. Of course his dad was confused. Of course he didn't get it. If he'd been talking to Doris, the little switchboard operator, his dad more than likely would have winked and walked away. Probably tossed him the keys to the car…and, and…rubbers. Jeepers, everyone was so set on him romancing that Doris…Sam felt that familiar fist knot his chest up, that brief deep wish that he wasn't. Wasn't like this. He sighed and turned to follow his dad.
"Hey, Sammy."
Sam whipped around. He hissed, "My name's not Sammy, it's Sam." And then wanted to smack himself. Dean was…something. Maybe flirting. Maybe. At least he wasn't pointing and laughing too much.
"Sure, whatever y'say. Save me a seat for dinner, I hear it's meatloaf and George's cooking tonight."
A little ball of heat expanded in Sam's chest until it filled him like hot champagne. He nodded, afraid to speak and further embarrass himself. When he got up the nerve to meet Dean's eyes, Dean winked and pointed. Horrified that maybe the wink was meant for someone not him, Sam slowly turned in the direction Dean was pointing—his dad was lengths ahead and he had to run to keep up. Even more embarrassing. But—he was going to have dinner with Dean. Well, he was going to sit next to Dean while Dean ate meatloaf but hey, his day was finally looking up.
on to part 2
(no subject)
3/14/13 09:47 pm (UTC)