Chocolate Chip -- SN fic - PG13

[tigriswolf]

Title: Chocolate Chip 
Fandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Just for fun. 
Warnings: spoilers for pilot; AU for “Devil’s Trap” 
Pairings: John/Mary, Sam/Jessica
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1080
Point of view: third
Notes: The italics are the present. Everything else is pre-pilot.  Don’t let the first sentence fool you. Parts of this are—dare I say?—cute. 

John holds out his hands in supplication, but the demon still kills his boy.

-

Jessica didn’t know how to make chocolate chip cookies till Sam taught her.

“My mom didn’t do the whole June Cleaver thing,” she laughed, cheeks tinged slightly red.

He smiled gently and asked, “Want me to teach you? It isn’t that hard.”

“Don’t you just follow the directions on the back of the bag?” she replied, following him nonetheless to the kitchen.

At that, he did laugh. “The first few times, sure. But after that, you get to have fun.”

Sam didn’t even glance at the bag. “Two sticks of butter,” he told her, “and 3/4’s a cup of brown and white sugar.” She measured out the sugar and put it in the bowl while he cut the butter into small cubes. She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. “Always done it this way,” he explained. She cracked the two eggs and he added the teaspoon of vanilla, then the flour while she finished with the salt and baking soda.

He let her sample the chip-less dough and off her beatific smile he added them.

Jessica’s cookies never did equal Sam’s, but they still had a grand old time.

-

John’s entire world narrows to the smiling face of the demon’s host and his son’s body hitting the ground.

-

“Dean, can we get a dog?” Sam watched his big brother with wide, hopeful eyes.

Dean shook his head and went back to his book.

“Please, Dean? I don’t care what kind.” He pulled out the puppy-eyes and wobbly chin.

Dean didn’t look up.

“Dean?” Now he added a tremor to his voice.

“Sam. Ask Dad.” Dean’s voice was steel. Absolute.

He would not break.

“But he’ll say no.”

Dean turned a page. “We don’t need a dog, Sammy,” he said. “We’ve got you.”

Seven-year-old Sam stormed away, back to their room, and slammed the door. Dean watched him go with regret. “I want a dog, too, little brother,” he whispered, and returned to D'Artagnan’s adventures.

-

A hole opens up in his heart and a scream fills his ears, and he recognizes the voice as his and he just can’t stop.

-

“Daddy, can Mommy see us?” Dean asked quietly, burrowing underneath the blanket next to his father. Sammy slept peacefully and Dean kept a hand near his little brother while Daddy ran his fingers through Dean’s hair.

“Sure can, Dean,” Daddy answered, his voice soft. “She’s real proud of you.”

“Really?” Dean looked up at Daddy, almost afraid to smile because Daddy had been so sad recently.

“Really,” Daddy assured him and kissed his forehead. “Now, go to sleep, Dean. We’ve got to head out in the morning.”

It’d been almost a month since Dean hugged Mommy and he couldn’t really remember her voice, but he remembered that she’d said to be careful with Sammy, so he was.

Daddy needed help, needed Dean to be a big boy and look out for Sammy. So he’d make Mommy even prouder of him and be the best big brother ever in the whole wide world.

-

John falls to his knees, staring into his son’s dead eyes, and feels himself shattering into a thousand pieces.

-

Sam learned how to make chocolate chip cookies in the two weeks they spent at Pastor Jim’s. Dad had left them for a serious hunt down in the bayous of Louisiana, too dangerous for an eight-year-old and a twelve-year-old with something to prove.

Jim let them have the run of the place; the only two rules were: clean up any messes made and attend church on Sunday. Dean had no problem with either, and Sam followed his lead like always.

“Pastor Jim?” Dean asked the fifth day there, after hot dogs and crinkly cuts(his favorite type of fry), “Can I make cookies?”

Jim looked up from the book of Esther with an amused smile. “You know how to make cookies, Dean?”

“Yes’r,” Dean answered, nodding. “Mom taught me.”

“So long as you clean up any mess after, my kitchen is yours.”

Dean’s grin could have outshone the sun and he practically sprinted to the kitchen. This child, Jim thought, reminded him that even in the darkest of times, God let angels shed light on humanity.

Or, it could just be that Dean rarely had the chance to bake. Even the hardest men Jim had ever known loved something one would think incongruous.

Sam tailed Dean into the kitchen and stood in the background for a moment. Dean called questions to Jim about where everything was. “Do you remember the recipe?” Jim asked and Dean replied, “Yes’r.”

Slowly, Sam stepped up next to Dean as he spread the ingredients on the counter. “Can I help?”

Dean looked down at Sam. “Mom used to bake cookies,” he said. “She’d let me help. Let me stir the dough and measure the flour…” his voice trailed off and he glanced away. “Ask Pastor Jim where the measuring cups are.”

Sam ran off and Pastor Jim had to come find them, but when the kitchen was covered in flour and the boys had eaten themselves sick on the dough, leaving enough for only one batch, Jim could see that innocence still clung to them. They weren’t fully hardened yet.

He could pray that they never would be, but he knew that they wouldn’t survive if that were so.

-

“Oh, Johnny, what is in your blood that makes your pain so delicious?” the demon asks, dropping to its’ host’s knees beside him.

He looks into Mary’s hazel eyes, staring at him out of Dean’s grinning face, and wonders which of them hurts more.

-

John taught his boys to fight, to escape, to kill, and to survive. He taught them to follow his instructions to the letter and to look out for each other.

Dean learned everything. Sam didn’t.

Sam stalked away and didn’t look back; Dean stood in the doorway and watched him go.

“It’s better this way,” John told him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“I know,” Dean said. “I know.”

-

John hasn’t cried since the year Mary burned.

Sam’s body lays on the ground before him, Dean’s body is laughing beside him, and the tears won’t stop.

-

Sam smiled at Jessica as she dropped the dough onto the pan and remembered Dean teaching him years before, whispered words of their mother on the air.

Comments

[dodger-winslow.livejournal.com]

It is in California. ;)

And you're not only invited to the wedding, you're officiating. So bring your frakking bible. :D

Oh yeah, and I rec'ed this one over on my LJ cause, well, it's amazing, that's why.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for the rec.

Officiating? I don't think I'm qualified. We may need puppies for that.