E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG-13
POSTED: March, 27, 2006
SUMMARY: For Dean, anyway, it does start with 'normal'.
NOTES: Monkie got me thinking about tossing. It started out with the boys tossing guns to each other, and quickly moved on the many other things they pass back and forth. So casual, competent, instinctive. And then this happened. Thanks to Ossian and Pouncer for their logic and eyes. With a lovely cover special-made by Tripoli.
DISCLAIMER: Read
Dean had a new mitt, a great mitt. It was too big for his hand, it slipped a little when the ball didn't hit, smack, and catch in the webbing, but he would grow into it. He was going to, Dad promised. Every day, Dean stretched his fingers as wide as they could go and hoped that would help.
He mostly used the mitt to catch tennis balls, because those would bounce. That was what Dad said at the park, when he told Dean not to rub at his forehead like that, he was just going to make it redder and make it look worse than it was, it didn't hurt much, right, because it bounced clean off, gone into the bushes, and next time Dad wouldn't throw so high and Dean wouldn't look straight at the sun, okay?
Mom wasn't happy. She tucked Dean in with two kisses that night, right on that spot that Dean wanted to tell her didn't hurt. But he also wanted the kisses, because it really did, so he didn't say anything except g'night.
Then she left, frowning at Dad in the doorway as she turned off the light, and it wasn't until later that she said that at least Dad had the sense to not conk his son on the head with a nice hard baseball. She said that downstairs, where the lights were still on, and it sounded to Dean sort of like she was laughing, like they both were. He let go of the railing posts and crept back past Sam's room and into bed.
~~
Dean's mitt didn't come out of their house, along with most of Dean's stuff and all of Sam's, but Sam hadn't really had anything that was special. Could you have special stuff when you didn't know what stuff was called? Sam had had that stuffed dog that he liked to drool on, maybe that. Dean never saw it again either, though.
Dad said they'd get new things, the old things were gone, and Dean just nodded his head and kept real still so he wouldn't wake Sam.
~~
Dean had stopped asking for anything, but something showed up on his pillow one night. After a long time staring, he picked it up. A used mitt. It was clean, hardly any scuffs on it at all, and it had someone else's name on it. There were big, black marker letters along the thumb: P-E-T-E-R. Dean wasn't Peter. He tried to cross the letters out with one of Dad's pens, but it was one of those hard pens, no soft tip, and it kind of dug a groove into the leather before Dean stopped.
Anyway, it fit okay and it worked fine, whether he was catching the baseball that Dad tossed right to him out in the hotel parking lot, or he was lunging for the tennis ball that Sam couldn't ever seem to push in a straight line across the floor of their room.
About a week later, when trees were finally totally green, he found a marker at the front desk that was dark enough to make the mitt look like it was nobody's.
~~
Dean had just turned nine when it was Sam's turn.
Dean had gotten real good at catching balls, clothes, ammunition boxes, anything at all, and doing it barehanded, too. It was easy to scoop up the stuff that Dad would lob underhand in Dean's direction. It was sometimes harder to snag the things that Dad would throw hard and straight, like Dean was the center of a target, but Dean only dropped the bottle of aspirin that once because he tripped over his shoelace, won't happen again.
When Dad tossed Dean one burger and Sam the other, and Sam ended up with a hand full of crumpled yellow paper and nothing else except a smear of ketchup on his jeans, Dad straightened up. He frowned at Dean, told him to stop laughing and dig out that old mitt of his, it was time to include Sammy in the next game of catch.
~~
Dean didn't plan to throw a book at Sam, but it was what was in his hand. And maybe Sam was hitting the Terrible Teens a couple years early, because he never did know when to shut up, but goddamnit. The one test that Dean really had to pass and--
The book smacked Sam square in the chest. He blinked and stopped chanting Dean's name, but then kept on blinking, all, What was that? Which made Dean growl and tell Sam that he damn well better catch this, and throw his right shoe at Sam's head.
Sam bobbled it, glared, and threw it back.
Nothing was broken when Dad got back with a folder full of photocopies recording the signs of a spirit big and mean enough to keep him from saying anything about the pillows all over the floor.
That night was the first night that Dad took them both with him on a job, and Dean didn't drop the car keys when they came flying through the dark -- he just slid in and across to get behind the wheel, snapping to Sammy to shut up and stay down back there, got it? Dean didn't get to start the car, either, never mind driving it. That was a relief, mostly.
~~
Dean had a system for packing his bag. It was a great system, perfected for this bag only a month after feeling the old one disintegrate in his hands. And Sam was screwing it up. Surprise, surprise. But balled-up socks, the pairs he'd rolled quickly and tightly so he could fit more than five, were not for bouncing against a wall like they were in a damn handball court.
Dean snagged the latest out of the air before it hit Sam's hand, scowled...and felt his eyes narrow when Sam smirked and shrugged and murmured, Slowpoke. Dad called out one word -- boys as effective as now -- and Sam's eyes slid over to look at his own bag, sitting there zipped on the other bed.
Yeah, that look right there was why Dean snapped his other hand out to cuff the back of Sam's head, and only then shoved that last pair of socks into his bag and slung it over his shoulder. It was that fucking smugness that totally deserved the Prick that Dean sneered on his way past. It had nothing to do with how he'd had to direct his glare just a little bit up.
~~
Dean was bored and had popcorn. The popcorn...standard, even when Dad wasn't God knows where, which had been happening an awful lot lately. The lack of anything to do, especially with Dad wherever...not.
Of course Sam was gonna get pelted.
Sam didn't notice the first two kernels arcing through the air, probably because they didn't connect. Him being nose-deep in homework with his back to the bed didn't hurt, either. Anyway, those two didn't need to be noticed; both landed right between the back legs of Sam's chair, so Dean knew he had the range. That was the important part. You never just assumed, and cheese popcorn was extra-tricky that way, something about its weight.
The next two kernels caught in the slight curl at the back of Sam's hair, one right after the other -- like bugs caught in a really greasy web, Dean thought with a smirk when Sam jerked his head without coming up for air and that didn't shake them loose.
It wasn't a surprise that Sam's stiff middle finger, presented with blind accuracy, made a great target for a few more tiny missiles.
Sam still didn't look over as the next kernel disappeared in his fist. Dean was about to launch again when Sam whipped around in his chair, a single smooth move, and Dean caught the pen just before it pegged him on the forehead.
Grinning wide, he stuck it behind his ear, settled deeper against the pillows stacked behind him, and munched on a handful of cheesy goodness. Sam rolled his eyes, all over-dramatic, with a rough sigh and everything, and went back to trying to trying to memorize French kings, or whatever was this week's gotta-learn lesson.
Dean gave it five minutes before he got a kernel good and wet, and fired it at Sam's ear.
~~
Dean had finally figured out not long before that Sam was happier with a blade than him. So when they ended up on the wrong ends of the barn, he yanked Dad's Ka-Bar from the door, shouted Sam's name, and flipped the knife end over end. The hilt slapped into Sam's palm, and maybe a second later the pistol Dean had dropped when the spell hit and his arm went numb was winging toward him.
He didn't see the slice that took the familiar's throat, cutting off its howl. But he sure as hell saw the bloody hole bloom between the eyes of the bastard who'd been setting that thing on anyone new, anyone who dared try to settle down in this town. Damn straight.
Then Dad hollered -- once, again, louder has he came out of the woods, worried and promising the hell that he'd unleash -- and Sam's eyes met Dean's.
Dean laughed. Sam huffed out a big breath and pressed his lips tight. Dean waved that off, the pistol glinting in the lamplight, and let out a whoop, because son of a bitch, you see that? And by the time Dad and his rifle burst through the door, there was a great, proud smile there on Sam's face, too.
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