(no subject)

[ladyjanelly]

Title: Just Two days
Author: LadyJanelly
Rating: Teen - Gen
Pairing: None
Characters: Dean, John, Sam 
Spoilers: None
Disclaimers: SPN & characters are owned by their various creators.
Warnings: A fic about kids from a woman who doesn't have any.  AU.  The Sad.
Feedback: Is like sex.  Nothing wrong with a quickie, but long and hard is good.  Concrit the hell out of it.  Please.

 

"I'll be back Monday," Dad said as he shouldered his big black bag.  "I'll bring home some of those little square hamburgers you like, and we'll watch MacGyver.  Two days, Deano." 

 

It was Saturday morning, and Sammy was curled up in a blanket on the couch, half-asleep and watching Pee Wee's Playhouse.  He sniffled and wiped his nose from a tissue from the box he was cradling.

 

“Two days isn’t long, sir.”

 

"Take care of Sammy," Dad said, and stooped down to hug Dean, ruffling his hair as he stood again. 

 

"Yes Sir," Dean replied, and watched solemnly as their father walked out the door.

 

Two days passed, and Dad didn't come home.  Dean and Sammy watched MacGyver together.  Dean paid attention to that thing with the binoculars and cigarettes.  You never knew when you’d need to take out a laser array.

 

After two more days, Sam's sniffles turned into a cough.  There was a bottle of red syrup that tasted like plastic cherries that Dad had given Dean when he was sick the last time.  Dean read the directions, every word, and gave some to Sam. 

 

Two more days went by and the medicine ran out.  Dean brought Sam chips of ice, and glasses of juice, and tried to make him eat soup, but it didn't help.  He didn't know what else to do; he didn’t know anybody close that Dad trusted.  Bobby had always been nice to them, and he was the last one of Dad’s friends they’d seen so Dean called him, even if he lived way-far away.  Bobby sounded worried, and kept asking if Dean knew where John had gone, what he was hunting, and was Dean sure he'd said two days, not nine.

 

After Dean hung up the phone it started ringing again, but it wasn't the right ring-wait-ring code, so he hid under the kitchen sink with Sam until it stopped.

 

Sam was too sick to cry, but sometimes he coughed and couldn’t stop until he was choking so hard he peed himself. 

 

The next day the phone rang again, but the code was right that time, so Dean answered it.  Pastor Jim, and Dean had never been so happy to hear someone before.  He was way-far away too, but he asked a lot of questions about Sammy, how sick he was, how high his fever was, and how hard it was for him to breathe.  He sighed when Dean told him. 

 

"Sammy needs a hospital," Jim said.  "I'm going to call some nice people, and they'll come take care of you two."

 

The worst thing Dean could imagine was people—strangers—taking Sammy.  “Can’t you come get us? Can’t you help us?”   

 

Pastor Jim said no, that he was too far away, and Dean cried and begged and pleaded.  He tried to explain that Sammy was too sick to wait that long, to wait even half a day, but Dean couldn’t understand it. 

 

“I have to hang up now,” Jim said, “So I can get you help.  It’ll be okay, Dean.  I will be down to get you soon, I promise.”

 

When the phone went dead, Dean started to move.  He pulled Dad's biggest empty bag, the one with hockey guys on the side, over to the corner and put Sam in it, then piled a bunch of the camping gear against it.  He crawled in next to Sammy's dry-hot skin and zipped them up.  He pulled the big knife out of its sheath and waited for the strangers to come.

 

He could have hid forever, through the cops kicking in the door, through them searching the little apartment.  They would have probably never even come close, except that Sammy couldn't stop coughing, even when Dean rubbed his chest and petted his hair.

 

The bag unzipped and Dean fought.  He'd go down swinging and he didn't care what happened to him.  He stabbed one man in the leg before they saw the knife, but then there were too many hands on him, grabbing him, holding him.  His eyes were wet and he couldn’t see right.

 

He kicked and screamed and called them every bad word he knew while they took Sammy out of the bag and put him on one of those ambulance-bed-things--a mask over his face and the paramedic saying "Come on, little guy, don't do this to me tonight." They came back with a shot for Dean's arm, and he didn't know what came after that.

 

He woke up in a hospital bed with straps on his arms to keep him still.  Doctors came and went--the kind that checks your temperature and heart and stuff, and the kind that talks to you about your feelings.  They told him Sam would be okay, but they never let Dean go see him. 

 

He couldn't win if he fought them while they were ready for it, so he said he was sorry he stabbed the nice officer, that he was just scared, and he'd never do something like that again.  They moved him the next day, and he thought it'd be to a different place in the hospital that'd be easier to get out of, but instead it was like a jail for little boys.  It was hard, but he didn't get into any fights or any trouble, and two days later a foster-family came and got him.

 

It was a man and a woman and two girls, one younger than Dean and one older.  He was the only boy so he had his own room in their cheery little apartment. 

 

He started working on his escape the day after he got there.  He braced his feet against opposite walls in his closet and climbed up to the top shelf.  He used a pair of scissors to poke a hole in the ceiling.  It took a few days, and he had to be quiet and clean.  The hole wasn't much bigger than his head.  He waited until everybody was asleep and then climbed up and into the crawl-space.  His little flashlight wasn't much to see with, but he counted the spaces between the rafters.  After twenty, he started looking around for a door down.  When he found it, it wasn't the kind with stairs, just a piece of wood in the ceiling, but that was okay.  He hung from the opening in the dark, and dropped silently down.

 

The man who lived in the apartment he'd broken into caught him when he knocked over a lamp as he tried to move a chair over so he could get to the chain on the door.  The man called the people he lived with and they came to get him.  He tried to fight but they just held him and told him everything would be alright. 

 

The Andersons took him to the library the next week.  Pastor Jim was there; he told Dean that they were working on getting him back but it was hard since Jim lived in another state and John had lost his temper in front of the judge when the child advocate said the boys were abandoned, neglected and abused.  He didn’t smile like he usually did when he was teasing Dad about being stupid or stubborn.

 

Dean went to court once, dressed in a suit that itched his neck and was too tight across his shoulders.  Dean sat in a big chair next to the judge’s high desk.  The advocate asked him questions, and every time Dean tried to say the right thing, it came out wrong.  He tried to tell them how much Dad loved him and Sammy, but nothing came out right.

 

Dad’s lawyer asked questions too, about how they’re doing in school and other stupid stuff.  He looked bored and dumb and Dean hated him for not being as good as the other one.

 

The judge was a big fat man like Santa Clause, and his eyes were sad.  He told Dean he was a good boy and had done the right thing.  It didn’t seem right.  Dean asked if he’d get to see Dad or Sammy soon, and the Judge said he couldn’t promise anything.  Dean wanted to cry, but he held it in until they let him go to the bathroom.  Dad would have wanted him to be strong.

 

Dean had to plan for a while before he tried to get away again; there was a lock on his door and the people checked his room every day for a new tunnel.  A couple days later, he used rubber-bands to keep toilet paper pressed tight up against the light-bulb of his desk lamp, and buried it in a box of loosely packed notebook paper.  When it started to smoke, he opened the window and leaned out.  He used a pair of jeans to hook the neighbor's balcony, and hung there with his toes on the window sill while he closed the window behind him.  He made it to the neighbor's balcony, and then used the jeans to dangle down to the one below. 

 

He got to the third story without falling, but when he landed on the second-story balcony he slipped and fell.

 

His arm was broken between the wrist and elbow.  They caught him when he asked a bus-driver if the bus went to the hospital.  They thought he was trying to get his arm fixed, but he had been trying to get back to Sam.

 

They put his arm in a cast and sent him back.  The Andersons were nice, but sad then, like they didn't understand him or know how to fix him. 

 

A couple days later, there was a knock on the door.  "John Wilkins, Child Protective Services," he heard as the lady opened the door.  He started grabbing what he wanted to take with him, a few sets of clothes, not much else. He waited in the hall, listening for his cue to come out. 

 

Dad talked with the woman, telling her about a transfer, that they wanted to move Dean to somewhere he'd be safer from himself. 

 

"Just let me call and confirm that," Mrs. Anderson said, and Dad's voice went all serious.

 

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't let you do that."  Dad's gun clicked and the woman gasped.  "Dean, come on, time to go!" 

 

Dean came running out and towards the door, careful to stay out of Dad's line of fire.  He wanted to apologize to the lady as Dad blocked her in the closet with a chair.  She had tried to be nice, she just didn't understand.

 

They got in the car and Dad drove them away.  He looked different, old and thin, and it scared Dean in ways he didn’t understand.  A few miles later Dad stopped the car and leaned over and hugged Dean so hard it hurt. 

 

"Where's Sammy?"  Dean asked when he could breathe.  "Is he far?"

 

"Don't worry," Dad said and hugged Dean again.  "We'll find him.  I promise, we'll find him."

 

And no, that couldn't be right.  You only had to find things if they're lost, and if Sammy was lost, it was because Dean let the people take him. 

 

Dad gave him that look like he knew what Dean was thinking.  "You did good, Dean. You took care of Sammy for as long as anybody could have.  This isn't your fault.  I should have been there."

 

Dean frowned and nodded and looked out the front window.  Dad loved him enough to lie, and that was okay, but Sammy was gone, and it was his fault.  No matter what it would take, he'd find him.

 

 

 

Comments

[quellefromage.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. That was intense. I kinda hope nothing like that ever happened to Dean and Sam, but...damn, if it did, I'll bet it was a LOT like this. Really, really something. And please...continue. Thanks for sharing this.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Working on the second bit. It's sort of a "and fourteen years go by" sort of chapter.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i can actually kind of see this happening. i really like your wee!dean voice - he sounds wee, and he sounds like dean. and yeah, pretty damn intense.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I think there's something really screwed up with me that I can write kids like wee!Dean is in this, but not a well-adjusted 8 yr old from a nice stable two-parent middle-income family.

Love your icon, it is the cute.

-J.

[glorfinniel.livejournal.com]

Oooh,that was very good and very interesting! Can't wait until the next part :)

(And in terms of concrit....I don't think I have any to give!)

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. Thanks for the review.

[your-hero-died.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was--brilliant. I can just see exactly that happening: Dean looking after sick!Sam, fearing the paramedics and hiding, trying to escape to get to Sam, then feeling responsible when he realises Sammy's 'lost'. You captured Dean's "big brother, protective" character just right. I could easily take this as canon from the show if it wasn't--I'm guessing--about to descend into a big fat AU, right?
Please tell me there'll be more. Lots more. It would actually be one hell awesome fic.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

I could easily take this as canon from the show

Now that's a compliment. :) thanks.

And yeah, if I can figure out a destination for this fic, the road will definitely be an AU.

[justforspite.livejournal.com]

This was really very good. It was exactly as I'd imagined Dean's voice to be at that age. Wonderful work.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

This was my first writing of Wee!Dean (though I have done Wee!Connor MacManus before).

Just put the semi-final touches on chapter two. I think I want to finish chapter 3 and find a tough beta-reader before I post more though. I'm having Sam issues.

[venilia.livejournal.com]

The little square hamburgers are White Castle, are they not?

I adore mini!Dean's resourcefulness. He would do all those things, too.

I wonder being taken(in) by another family like that would cure Sam of his need for normalcy (or, more likely, the need for Dean and Dad would throw 'normaly' into a more reasonable light) or if it would just make him more hungry for it?

...you are writing a sequel, right?

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

The little square hamburgers are White Castle, are they not?</>

I had in mind Krystals. I'm pretty sure I remember those from Virginia when I was little. It was always exciting somehow to get the square ones. Left it a little vague so it could hit whatever nostalgia-button the reader had.

He would do all those things, too.


Thanks. I tried to keep him "just a kid," with human child physical limitations, but also with a fierce determination to get to Sammy and enough trained-in survival knowledge to get the job done. I know when I was around that age, I used to do the feet-against-opposite-walls climb up to the top of the hall, and when I'd go climbing I'd hang-drop from a tree limb around 8' up. I think adults forget how kids bounce, and the strength/weight ratio that they have. It'd be easy to underestimate a little Dean.


or, more likely, the need for Dean and Dad would throw 'normaly' into a more reasonable light

Good question. I think if he'd been a little older when he was taken (maybe 6-7 instead of 4), and kept for a short enough period of time, it might really intensify the family bond when they got back together.

I think this is ending up more as a first chapter than a complete story w/sequel. But chapter 2 is done, ch 3 is started. The monster's designed and the plot sketched out.

God I need a beta for this.

[venilia.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not the world's best beta, but if you want to run it past me feel free. Venilia at mail dot com.

Looking forward to more.

[lunardreamed.livejournal.com]

Oh God! Poor Dean! Poor Sam! I hope you continue writing this AU. I'm dying to find out what happens.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. It's definitely still on my to-write list.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

And you totally don't have to answer this, but I'm new to the SPN fandom, and trying to figure out where to post so that the largest number of people who would be interested in my fic can find my fic, without spammming all the groups, and I'm wondering how you found these?

[lunardreamed.livejournal.com]

I go through marathon fiction sections, so this question had me going, Hooo boy, was it this comm, or that rec list, or one of my old saved links? Fortunately, you replied to another of my comments and that totally solved the question. Unfortunately, I don't think the answer will help. I found your DA crossover fic on sn_crossovers. Seeing as how it was so fantastic, I decided to sift through your journal for other fic. I don't remember if I used tags or memories or just hunted which leads to my first suggestion.

Make sure that all your fic is easily found on your journal, through tags or memories or a post that you update to hold all your fics. You can even put a standard note in all fic posts that other fic can be found [here]. As a reader, I like those authors best. That way we find them all if we like the first one. I hate having to hunt through comms for parts of a story and usually just give up. I also don't enjoy sifting through an entire journal, so the easier it is, the more attention you should get.

I'm pretty new myself, getting up the guts to post my first, so I'm not sure how much help I can be, but the comms I know that seem to have high activity are: sn_fic, sn_gen. There's also dean_sam, but I haven't explored that one at all, so I don't know what their focus is. Other than SamandDean, of course. :) My other suggestion is not to worry too much about spamming.

Hope that's not way more than you wanted. I tend to do that.

[niccy07.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was really surreal. It's kinda like watching a building collapse in on itself. I like the voices. Their very Dean and very age appropriate. I was wondering if you were planning on continuing this? I'd love to read more, especially to see if they ever find Sammy.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled you liked it.

I've actually written like--13,000 words in this verse. It fails to be a satisfying fic with a beginning, middle and end, though. I sent it to a beta and seh was like "Um, nice prologue?" but after that point, the momentum of the fic is non-existant.

It ends up wincest. If you're interested, I'll send it to you.

[niccy07.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! Definitely! You can email me at nicj19@yahoo.com

I can't really give good constructive criticism (as with say a beta), but I can provide a general review ^_^ Nursing school killed what little skills I had in English.

[alchemie.livejournal.com]

I feel like you've just ripped my heart out and served it to me on a platter. Poor Dean - always feeling it's his fault.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for commenting on an old fic. I do appreciate it.

Poor Dean. I keep playing with the seperated-young theme, and almost every time, Dean blames himself in some way.