![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_skinTitle: A Pink Carnation and a Pickup Truck
Characters: Sam, John
Rating: PG, gen.
Words: 1497, beta'd by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quackaddict
Disclaimer: If I owned it I'd never share it. I'm greedy that way.
Prompt: I was a lonely teenaged bronkin' buck/ with a pink carnation and a pickup truck
Summary: John wasn't always as smooth as he is now.
Spoilers: References to the events of "Salvation", is a missing scene from the episode.
A/N: This is fic #1 for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
highwaymiles. I have to get the other one done by Tuesday (I started one but I just got another idea and don't know which to go with now). And I have a fic due for dooooooom that I haven't started and don't have much of an idea for but I'll run with it. And the fcukficathons fic due Tuesday. :| Um. Yeah. Insanity + Mari = BFF. I also have plans to go to the gym tomorrow and possibly to a movie with one of my managers (yes, a MANAGER. The COOL one. AND he wants to see Stick It, which looks horrendous, but I'm a girl so I'll love it). Sleep? Who needs it?!
Anyhoo, this fic started out as something slightly different, taking place as John met Mary but that got a little out of control in my head so I went the easier route. I'm not sure it really clicks the way I wanted it to, but I don't have the luxury of time to fiddle with it.
Sam wasn't really comfortable with the plan but he knew there was no other choice. The fact that their father trusted and believed in them enough that he was allowing them to kill the demon on their own- it was huge in his eyes. He wished John would be there with them, though, because this was something they all had been striving for, hunting, pouring their lives into since he could remember and his father deserved, had a right to be there. Had a right to face down the bastard that had killed his mother, taken away his innocence and Dean's childhood and his father's everything.
They didn't speak as John drove. Dean had gone to the antique shop to try and track down a Colt similar enough to the one they had to fool Meg. He worried even though the job was probably the easiest thing they would do all night. By morning it could all be over but that was well over twelve hours away and this life had proved to him that nothing was ever that simple.
He opened the glove box where John had stashed the Colt to look at it, to see if the realization would finally sink in that this was the key to killing the demon. When he pulled the gun out he saw something pink wrapped in a plastic baggie. He glanced at his father who was concentrating on navigating them to the meeting spot with Dean by the railway tracks, and pulled it out carefully. It was a dried flower, a carnation, in a baggie. He frowned and turned to John.
"Dad? What's this?" John looked over quickly at the bag Sam was holding up and instantly smiled softly.
"That was your mother's," He said quietly.
"Why is it here, then?" Sam asked, turning it over in his hands.
"Did I ever tell you how your mother and I met?" John slowed and turned onto the rough road by the tracks.
Sam shook his head. His father didn't actually talk about Mary much at all. It was if she had just died yesterday for him, the pain was still so fresh.
"I'd just returned from Vietnam in '71. Almost August- I had to spend a couple weeks in the hospital, having an operation to extract some shrapnel in my leg left over from an attack a few months earlier. The army flew me back and I was discharged. Great Bend hadn't changed much in the couple years I was gone. A few new buildings, addition to the school. But your mother's family had moved to town. And that... that changed my view of everything," John told him slowly, quietly as he looked at things out the window that Sam clearly couldn't see.
"So it was love at first sight?" Sam asked, eyebrow raised, disbelieving that his father would put faith in such a notion.
"Oh, no. I liked her, don't get me wrong. She was beautiful... just beautiful. But I couldn't work up the nerve to even talk to her for the first few weeks after I got home. I took a job at Steve's Autobody, got to watch her walk home from school damn near every day. I had no clue who she was and didn't have any way to talk to her. The week before my twentieth birthday she came in with her dad to book a wheel alignment or oil change, I don't even know. I took the order and she smiled at me." John smiled to himself as he brought the truck to a stop, killed the engine. Sam listened to the truck ping as it cooled down, while his dad thought about the order of events over thirty years earlier.
"Did you ask her out?" Sam finally asked. His father chuckled.
"No, still didn't even know her name. Her father came and went with his vehicle the next week and when she wasn't with him and I figured that was my chance blown. But then the next week she came back in alone with the payment. I damn near tripped over myself trying to get to the cash before Steve." John's smile deepened and Sam couldn't help laughing softly to himself as well, almost unable to ever think of his father as a bumbling, nervous young man.
"I managed to get my wits about me and somehow asked her out. She looked surprised but then she smiled and I swear, I'll never forget that moment or her smile or even the smell of the shop that day. I felt like it was the most important moment of my life. And then, as she was walking out, I asked her what her name was."
Sam laughed out loud then, unable to help it. "Smooth, dad. Really."
"Yeah, I know. If it was at all possible her smile got even bigger. Mary Sloane. Mary Sloane, a senior at Great Bend high school, with a younger sister and a dog named Barney and plans to go to teacher's college or cooking school or save the world. Whichever came first, she said."
"The first date?" Sam prompted.
"Oh," John shook his head. "That was something."
"Something...?"
"A total crapshoot, to be exact," John told him wryly.
"No way," Sam laughed.
"Oh, yes. Everything that could have gotten wrong did. The one nice restaurant in the town screwed up the reservations so I ended up taking her to the mom-and-pop shop, the movies were closed that night, there were no games that night at the high school- nothing. So, as a last resort I took her on a drive around the back roads to show her the sites I thought might have been interesting or romantic- something. I was grasping at straws, let me tell you that," John sighed. "And then even my truck failed me."
"This one?" Sam pointed at the dash.
"No, but one like this. A cherry red 1963 GMC half-ton, four-by-four," John said with a sigh.
Sam almost whistled low but stopped himself. "Nice."
"She was. Until her tire blew."
"Oh, man. That's harsh," Sam laughed again.
"I had to change the tire in the middle of nowhere, on a muddy, dark back road with pretty much no light. Mary tried to help, insisted, but I made her stay in the truck. I was determined to prove that I could get at least a tire change right."
Sam could sense where this was going. "And then what happened?"
"Fell into a mud puddle," John shook his head, grinning widely. "Nut was too tight, wrenched the tire iron the wrong way and down I went. I finished as quickly as I could and then went around to grab the tire gauge from the glove compartment. I apologised to Mary, told her everything I had planned instead. I was sure she was going to go home and never talk to me again. I opened the box and there was a pink carnation I bought for her and put inside for safekeeping."
"What did she say?" Sam asked. John fell silent again for a few moments, staring out the window with a faint smile.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"She leaned over and put her hands on my cheeks, smiled at me and then she kissed me," John blushed a little, voice soft. "I took her home and she asked me if I wanted to go to the mom-and-pop shop again that weekend. I brought her a pink carnation for every date we went on up until a couple years before Dean was born."
"And this?" Sam held up the dried flower.
John shook his head. "I found it in her things, her hope chest after... when we moved from Lawrence. She kept one of them after all those years." John's voice caught a little and he cleared it loudly, shifting in his seat. "It's the little things that keep her with me."
Sam reached out and put the flower back carefully, closing the glove box. He clutched the Colt tightly in his lap and looked over at his father. "Thank you for telling me that."
John nodded once. "You just like knowing your old man wasn't always as smooth as he is now," he joked.
Sam rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, that's it, Dad." John looked as if he was going to say something more but he cleared his throat again and opened his door.
"Let's get the equipment out of the back. Dean should be back soon." With that he got out of the truck, leaving Sam with the gun in his lap, staring out the window at things he'd never see.
Know what I would quite possibly kill to see? Or at least write fic for, possibly? A Winchester vid set to Barbra Streisand's "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" Yes, I AM that dorky.
Characters: Sam, John
Rating: PG, gen.
Words: 1497, beta'd by
quackaddictDisclaimer: If I owned it I'd never share it. I'm greedy that way.
Prompt: I was a lonely teenaged bronkin' buck/ with a pink carnation and a pickup truck
Summary: John wasn't always as smooth as he is now.
Spoilers: References to the events of "Salvation", is a missing scene from the episode.
A/N: This is fic #1 for
highwaymiles. I have to get the other one done by Tuesday (I started one but I just got another idea and don't know which to go with now). And I have a fic due for dooooooom that I haven't started and don't have much of an idea for but I'll run with it. And the fcukficathons fic due Tuesday. :| Um. Yeah. Insanity + Mari = BFF. I also have plans to go to the gym tomorrow and possibly to a movie with one of my managers (yes, a MANAGER. The COOL one. AND he wants to see Stick It, which looks horrendous, but I'm a girl so I'll love it). Sleep? Who needs it?!Anyhoo, this fic started out as something slightly different, taking place as John met Mary but that got a little out of control in my head so I went the easier route. I'm not sure it really clicks the way I wanted it to, but I don't have the luxury of time to fiddle with it.
Sam wasn't really comfortable with the plan but he knew there was no other choice. The fact that their father trusted and believed in them enough that he was allowing them to kill the demon on their own- it was huge in his eyes. He wished John would be there with them, though, because this was something they all had been striving for, hunting, pouring their lives into since he could remember and his father deserved, had a right to be there. Had a right to face down the bastard that had killed his mother, taken away his innocence and Dean's childhood and his father's everything.
They didn't speak as John drove. Dean had gone to the antique shop to try and track down a Colt similar enough to the one they had to fool Meg. He worried even though the job was probably the easiest thing they would do all night. By morning it could all be over but that was well over twelve hours away and this life had proved to him that nothing was ever that simple.
He opened the glove box where John had stashed the Colt to look at it, to see if the realization would finally sink in that this was the key to killing the demon. When he pulled the gun out he saw something pink wrapped in a plastic baggie. He glanced at his father who was concentrating on navigating them to the meeting spot with Dean by the railway tracks, and pulled it out carefully. It was a dried flower, a carnation, in a baggie. He frowned and turned to John.
"Dad? What's this?" John looked over quickly at the bag Sam was holding up and instantly smiled softly.
"That was your mother's," He said quietly.
"Why is it here, then?" Sam asked, turning it over in his hands.
"Did I ever tell you how your mother and I met?" John slowed and turned onto the rough road by the tracks.
Sam shook his head. His father didn't actually talk about Mary much at all. It was if she had just died yesterday for him, the pain was still so fresh.
"I'd just returned from Vietnam in '71. Almost August- I had to spend a couple weeks in the hospital, having an operation to extract some shrapnel in my leg left over from an attack a few months earlier. The army flew me back and I was discharged. Great Bend hadn't changed much in the couple years I was gone. A few new buildings, addition to the school. But your mother's family had moved to town. And that... that changed my view of everything," John told him slowly, quietly as he looked at things out the window that Sam clearly couldn't see.
"So it was love at first sight?" Sam asked, eyebrow raised, disbelieving that his father would put faith in such a notion.
"Oh, no. I liked her, don't get me wrong. She was beautiful... just beautiful. But I couldn't work up the nerve to even talk to her for the first few weeks after I got home. I took a job at Steve's Autobody, got to watch her walk home from school damn near every day. I had no clue who she was and didn't have any way to talk to her. The week before my twentieth birthday she came in with her dad to book a wheel alignment or oil change, I don't even know. I took the order and she smiled at me." John smiled to himself as he brought the truck to a stop, killed the engine. Sam listened to the truck ping as it cooled down, while his dad thought about the order of events over thirty years earlier.
"Did you ask her out?" Sam finally asked. His father chuckled.
"No, still didn't even know her name. Her father came and went with his vehicle the next week and when she wasn't with him and I figured that was my chance blown. But then the next week she came back in alone with the payment. I damn near tripped over myself trying to get to the cash before Steve." John's smile deepened and Sam couldn't help laughing softly to himself as well, almost unable to ever think of his father as a bumbling, nervous young man.
"I managed to get my wits about me and somehow asked her out. She looked surprised but then she smiled and I swear, I'll never forget that moment or her smile or even the smell of the shop that day. I felt like it was the most important moment of my life. And then, as she was walking out, I asked her what her name was."
Sam laughed out loud then, unable to help it. "Smooth, dad. Really."
"Yeah, I know. If it was at all possible her smile got even bigger. Mary Sloane. Mary Sloane, a senior at Great Bend high school, with a younger sister and a dog named Barney and plans to go to teacher's college or cooking school or save the world. Whichever came first, she said."
"The first date?" Sam prompted.
"Oh," John shook his head. "That was something."
"Something...?"
"A total crapshoot, to be exact," John told him wryly.
"No way," Sam laughed.
"Oh, yes. Everything that could have gotten wrong did. The one nice restaurant in the town screwed up the reservations so I ended up taking her to the mom-and-pop shop, the movies were closed that night, there were no games that night at the high school- nothing. So, as a last resort I took her on a drive around the back roads to show her the sites I thought might have been interesting or romantic- something. I was grasping at straws, let me tell you that," John sighed. "And then even my truck failed me."
"This one?" Sam pointed at the dash.
"No, but one like this. A cherry red 1963 GMC half-ton, four-by-four," John said with a sigh.
Sam almost whistled low but stopped himself. "Nice."
"She was. Until her tire blew."
"Oh, man. That's harsh," Sam laughed again.
"I had to change the tire in the middle of nowhere, on a muddy, dark back road with pretty much no light. Mary tried to help, insisted, but I made her stay in the truck. I was determined to prove that I could get at least a tire change right."
Sam could sense where this was going. "And then what happened?"
"Fell into a mud puddle," John shook his head, grinning widely. "Nut was too tight, wrenched the tire iron the wrong way and down I went. I finished as quickly as I could and then went around to grab the tire gauge from the glove compartment. I apologised to Mary, told her everything I had planned instead. I was sure she was going to go home and never talk to me again. I opened the box and there was a pink carnation I bought for her and put inside for safekeeping."
"What did she say?" Sam asked. John fell silent again for a few moments, staring out the window with a faint smile.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"She leaned over and put her hands on my cheeks, smiled at me and then she kissed me," John blushed a little, voice soft. "I took her home and she asked me if I wanted to go to the mom-and-pop shop again that weekend. I brought her a pink carnation for every date we went on up until a couple years before Dean was born."
"And this?" Sam held up the dried flower.
John shook his head. "I found it in her things, her hope chest after... when we moved from Lawrence. She kept one of them after all those years." John's voice caught a little and he cleared it loudly, shifting in his seat. "It's the little things that keep her with me."
Sam reached out and put the flower back carefully, closing the glove box. He clutched the Colt tightly in his lap and looked over at his father. "Thank you for telling me that."
John nodded once. "You just like knowing your old man wasn't always as smooth as he is now," he joked.
Sam rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, that's it, Dad." John looked as if he was going to say something more but he cleared his throat again and opened his door.
"Let's get the equipment out of the back. Dean should be back soon." With that he got out of the truck, leaving Sam with the gun in his lap, staring out the window at things he'd never see.
Know what I would quite possibly kill to see? Or at least write fic for, possibly? A Winchester vid set to Barbra Streisand's "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" Yes, I AM that dorky.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 01:37 pm (UTC)I really liked this .. seeing a glimpse into their relationship, it's cool :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 03:32 pm (UTC)And yes, to John talking about Mary to Sam, at least a little - love the images of John fumbling around just like Sam does *g* and like how they, well, share something and then go on. They must have talked about something as they were waiting for Dean, and I'd love to think this was it.
Thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 11:32 pm (UTC)Loved this. Loved the complete and utter Murphy's Law that was John and Mary's first date and loved John relating it to Sam. Much love for this one.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 04:34 am (UTC)