Make Something Up, for viviansface
Sep. 1st, 2015 06:59 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
summergen-mod.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
spn_summergenTitle: Make Something Up
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
viviansface
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1818
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thank you to my ever-loving beta, you know who you are. For the prompt requesting stories behind old photos of the Winchesters we never see on the show. Hope you enjoy, viviansface!
Summary: When Sam is eleven, he's given an assignment at school - create a timeline of your life, using five family photos as a guide. Except the Winchester family photos went up in flames, and the few that still exist are with his father, god only knows where. So, Sam does what he does best - he improvises.
When Sam is eleven, he's given an assignment at school - create a timeline of your life, using five family photos as a guide.
Sam waits until the class is over to shuffle up to the front of the room, fingers clamped tightly around the strap of his bookbag. "Mr. Matthews," he says, waiting for his English teacher to raise his head, "I don't think I can do the homework."
Mr. Matthews places his pen down and folds his hands on top of his desk. "And why is that?"
"We don't really have any family photos." He bites his lip. He can't very well tell his teacher the truth. They were run out of the last town on the heels of a visit from CPS, they can't afford another one. "My dad - we move around a lot."
His teacher purses his lip when no further explanation is forthcoming. "Why don't you ask your father, and if it turns out you're right, we'll find some other way for you to do the assignment. Alright?"
Sam nods and scurries out of the room, sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor when the hall monitor yells at him not to run.
--
He asks Dean when they get home; their father’s out on a job, won’t be back for a few days. Dean makes them hot dogs and easy mac for dinner. Sam makes a face - they’ve had the same thing all week.
“You’ll eat it and you’ll like it,” Dean says, digging in with gusto.
Sam sighs. “Dean?”
His brother makes a sound of acknowledgement, too busy stuffing his face to answer.
Sam rolls his eyes, then bites his lip. “Do we have any pictures of Mom?”
Dean pauses with his fork hovering an inch from his mouth, cheesy noodles falling back to his plate. “Why do you wanna know?” he asks sharply.
Sam hesitates, knowing he’s stepped into a very active minefield. He doesn’t want one to blow up in his face. “For a school project.”
Dean chews slowly, eyes narrow as he glares at his younger brother.
Sam glares back when he doesn’t answer. “Well?”
He finally shrugs, shoulders stiff. “There’s only one. Dad keeps it in the back of his journal.”
The journal his father makes a point to never leave behind after he found out Sam stole it and read it behind his back last year.
Sam frowns. “Oh.” He stares down at his plate and picks at a piece of hot dog.
Dean sighs and his fork hits the plate with a soft clack. “It’s just a stupid project, Sammy,” he says, nudging his brother with his elbow. “Just skip it. We’ll be out of here soon anyway.”
He knows. That’s the problem.
--
Sam speaks to his teacher the next day, explaining the situation in fits and starts. It’s hard, trying to tell the truth while still avoiding the truth.
Mr. Matthews doesn’t let him off the hook, though, tells him that the assignment is required for everyone in their grade.
“You’re pretty smart, Sam,” he says, smiling. “I know you’ll come up with something.”
So Sam does what he does best, what he’s been doing his entire life - he improvises.
As Dean reminds him, he “can’t draw for shit,” but he does his best, cutting out pictures from magazines stolen out of the teacher’s lounge after the bell rang.
Dean’s footsteps are loud as he crosses the room, boots coming to a stop at Sam’s hip. Sam glances back with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t mind me,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, carefully pasting the first picture to a sheet of green construction paper: a serene woman dressed in white, eyes half shut as she looks down at the baby in her arms. Sam combed through the magazines until he found a blonde, stared at the look on her face, wondering if his mother loved him that much.
“101 Ways to Please Your Man,” Dean says, and Sam startles, yanked from his thoughts. He whips his head around to follow Dean’s gaze to an old issue of Vogue. “Sammy, I didn’t know you swung that way.”
Sam scowls, shoves the magazine across the floor, and lays back down, drawing a soccer ball in as much detail as he can manage.
The couch creaks loudly, pillows groaning under Dean’s weight. “Why do you care so much about this anyway?”
Sam grits his teeth, pressing down on the white colored pencil so hard, it breaks; he stole those, too. “All the other kids have pictures of their families. It’s normal.”
Dean scoffs. “We’re not like all the other kids.”
Sam tosses the pencil down, spinning around to face his brother. “Yeah, well, maybe we should be!”
It’s an old argument, one Sam doesn’t understand why he bothers to start anymore, except he doesn’t understand how his brother can be so happy with this life, where they never settle down, never make friends that they can keep, and bowhunting is more important than the state championship soccer game.
Dean shoves himself off of the couch, grabs his jacket where it’s draped over the back, and slams out of the house. Moments later, the crack of gunfire echoes through the yard, the ping of bullets hitting metal as he shoots soda cans off of the back fence.
Sam huffs, ignores the sound, and keeps working.
--
Dean doesn’t come inside until well after dark. Sam cracks open the last can of soup - split pea, Dean’s least favorite - splitting it evenly into two bowls.
The door creaks open, and Dean appears, shrugging out of his jacket.
Sam digs his toe into the linoleum, listening to it squeak. He hates when they fight. He still doesn’t apologize. “There’s soup if you want it.”
Dean grunts, pausing on his way towards the stove to look at Sam’s project, laid out on the rickety kitchen table. He takes in each picture, eyes skipping across the board until he comes to the last: two boys standing with their arms around each other, their faces obscured in favor of showing off the Batman and Superman logos on the front of their t-shirts.
“It’s supposed to be us,” Sam whispers, approaching him from the side. Dean thumbs the corner of the picture, fingers skimming to the one prior, a desk covered in books and a crudely drawn trucker cap.
Dean’s lip quirks up at the corner. “Uncle Bobby?” Sam nods.
Dean lowers his hand to the table. “Where’s Dad?” Sam points to the picture to the left and a little below, two boys in orange caps fishing with their father, his hand on either of their shoulders.
“What are you gonna say?” he asks, without taking his eyes off of the poster.
“I don’t know.” Sam rubs a hand through his hair. “I can’t exactly tell them the truth.”
“So make somethin’ up.”
“Can you help me?”
Dean stares at Sam out of the corner of his eye, while Sam fights the urge to squirm, folding his arms over his chest.
He points to the fishing picture. “Last summer. I caught a giant trout, and pushed you into the lake.”
“Why can’t I catch the fish and push you into the lake?”
Dean scoffs. “Yeah, right.” He hooks his elbow around Sam’s shoulders, rubbing his knuckles against the top of Sam’s head.
“Get off me!” Sam knees him in the chest, and Dean lets go, doubling over.
“Jerk,” Sam says, breathless.
“Bitch,” Dean wheezes.
Sam turns back to the table so Dean doesn’t see him grin.
Mr. Matthews pulls him aside after class, chases Dean away from the door with an ease that speaks of years of practice wrangling unruly students. He says he’s impressed with how well Sam pulled things together.
“You should be proud of yourself,” he says, using a wad of blue sticky tack to post Sam’s board up on the wall, front and center, right beside all the other kids’.
Sam smiles so hard, his face hurts.
--
Years later, he’ll think of that project for the first time since middle school, when in the wake of saving a family from a poltergeist and being confronted with their mother’s ghost, Jenny hands Dean a metal lockbox full of pictures that he hefts into the trunk with steady hands.
Some of the tension in Sam’s shoulders eases as they cross the state line, leaving Lawrence in the dust. They pull into the first motel they find with vacancy, and Sam offers to pick up dinner from the diner they passed just down the road.
“Get me some pie,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, shoving the twenty his brother hands him into his pocket.
He returns to find his brother standing in front of the window. The flashing neon vacancy sign flickers red against the glossy surface of the pictures strewn on the table in front of him.
“Wow,” Sam says quietly, dropping the bags of food onto the floor so he can get a better look. Some of the pictures are water damaged and crumbling from the passage of time, but they’re here, in his hands, the only family history he has left besides the man standing next to him.
Sam picks up one of the pictures, cradles it between his hands like it’s made of glass. His mother and father are standing in front of their house in Lawrence, Dad with his hand on a little Dean shoulder’s, the two of them grinning at each other. His mother holds baby Sam in her arms, looking down at him with a smile even more sweet and fond than the woman from the magazine all of those years ago.
Dean clears his throat, and Sam finally wrenches his eyes away to look at his brother.
“There’s - uh - there’s more in the box.” Sam nods. Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “Want me to tell you about them?”
“Do you even remember any of this? Sam asks, sharper than he means to. He winces.
Dean scoffs. “No.” To Sam’s surprise, he smiles, just a small tilt of his lips. “But I can make something up.”
Sam huffs a laugh and slides over a photo of Dean, standing in a muddy Little League uniform, red whiffle bat over one shoulder. There’s a small trophy cradled in his arms and a too-big helmet spattered with rain perched on his head.
Dean launches into a story about how it stormed so badly, he could barely see the field, but persevered even while the other team cried at the sound of thunder. “Seriously, Sammy, you should have seen them.” Dean clutches his chest and pretends to sob, and Sam laughs so hard, he cries. The story is totally far-fetched, made up to appease his little brother.
Sam’s okay with that.
Recipient:
viviansfaceRating: PG
Word Count: 1818
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thank you to my ever-loving beta, you know who you are. For the prompt requesting stories behind old photos of the Winchesters we never see on the show. Hope you enjoy, viviansface!
Summary: When Sam is eleven, he's given an assignment at school - create a timeline of your life, using five family photos as a guide. Except the Winchester family photos went up in flames, and the few that still exist are with his father, god only knows where. So, Sam does what he does best - he improvises.
When Sam is eleven, he's given an assignment at school - create a timeline of your life, using five family photos as a guide.
Sam waits until the class is over to shuffle up to the front of the room, fingers clamped tightly around the strap of his bookbag. "Mr. Matthews," he says, waiting for his English teacher to raise his head, "I don't think I can do the homework."
Mr. Matthews places his pen down and folds his hands on top of his desk. "And why is that?"
"We don't really have any family photos." He bites his lip. He can't very well tell his teacher the truth. They were run out of the last town on the heels of a visit from CPS, they can't afford another one. "My dad - we move around a lot."
His teacher purses his lip when no further explanation is forthcoming. "Why don't you ask your father, and if it turns out you're right, we'll find some other way for you to do the assignment. Alright?"
Sam nods and scurries out of the room, sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor when the hall monitor yells at him not to run.
--
He asks Dean when they get home; their father’s out on a job, won’t be back for a few days. Dean makes them hot dogs and easy mac for dinner. Sam makes a face - they’ve had the same thing all week.
“You’ll eat it and you’ll like it,” Dean says, digging in with gusto.
Sam sighs. “Dean?”
His brother makes a sound of acknowledgement, too busy stuffing his face to answer.
Sam rolls his eyes, then bites his lip. “Do we have any pictures of Mom?”
Dean pauses with his fork hovering an inch from his mouth, cheesy noodles falling back to his plate. “Why do you wanna know?” he asks sharply.
Sam hesitates, knowing he’s stepped into a very active minefield. He doesn’t want one to blow up in his face. “For a school project.”
Dean chews slowly, eyes narrow as he glares at his younger brother.
Sam glares back when he doesn’t answer. “Well?”
He finally shrugs, shoulders stiff. “There’s only one. Dad keeps it in the back of his journal.”
The journal his father makes a point to never leave behind after he found out Sam stole it and read it behind his back last year.
Sam frowns. “Oh.” He stares down at his plate and picks at a piece of hot dog.
Dean sighs and his fork hits the plate with a soft clack. “It’s just a stupid project, Sammy,” he says, nudging his brother with his elbow. “Just skip it. We’ll be out of here soon anyway.”
He knows. That’s the problem.
--
Sam speaks to his teacher the next day, explaining the situation in fits and starts. It’s hard, trying to tell the truth while still avoiding the truth.
Mr. Matthews doesn’t let him off the hook, though, tells him that the assignment is required for everyone in their grade.
“You’re pretty smart, Sam,” he says, smiling. “I know you’ll come up with something.”
So Sam does what he does best, what he’s been doing his entire life - he improvises.
As Dean reminds him, he “can’t draw for shit,” but he does his best, cutting out pictures from magazines stolen out of the teacher’s lounge after the bell rang.
Dean’s footsteps are loud as he crosses the room, boots coming to a stop at Sam’s hip. Sam glances back with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t mind me,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, carefully pasting the first picture to a sheet of green construction paper: a serene woman dressed in white, eyes half shut as she looks down at the baby in her arms. Sam combed through the magazines until he found a blonde, stared at the look on her face, wondering if his mother loved him that much.
“101 Ways to Please Your Man,” Dean says, and Sam startles, yanked from his thoughts. He whips his head around to follow Dean’s gaze to an old issue of Vogue. “Sammy, I didn’t know you swung that way.”
Sam scowls, shoves the magazine across the floor, and lays back down, drawing a soccer ball in as much detail as he can manage.
The couch creaks loudly, pillows groaning under Dean’s weight. “Why do you care so much about this anyway?”
Sam grits his teeth, pressing down on the white colored pencil so hard, it breaks; he stole those, too. “All the other kids have pictures of their families. It’s normal.”
Dean scoffs. “We’re not like all the other kids.”
Sam tosses the pencil down, spinning around to face his brother. “Yeah, well, maybe we should be!”
It’s an old argument, one Sam doesn’t understand why he bothers to start anymore, except he doesn’t understand how his brother can be so happy with this life, where they never settle down, never make friends that they can keep, and bowhunting is more important than the state championship soccer game.
Dean shoves himself off of the couch, grabs his jacket where it’s draped over the back, and slams out of the house. Moments later, the crack of gunfire echoes through the yard, the ping of bullets hitting metal as he shoots soda cans off of the back fence.
Sam huffs, ignores the sound, and keeps working.
--
Dean doesn’t come inside until well after dark. Sam cracks open the last can of soup - split pea, Dean’s least favorite - splitting it evenly into two bowls.
The door creaks open, and Dean appears, shrugging out of his jacket.
Sam digs his toe into the linoleum, listening to it squeak. He hates when they fight. He still doesn’t apologize. “There’s soup if you want it.”
Dean grunts, pausing on his way towards the stove to look at Sam’s project, laid out on the rickety kitchen table. He takes in each picture, eyes skipping across the board until he comes to the last: two boys standing with their arms around each other, their faces obscured in favor of showing off the Batman and Superman logos on the front of their t-shirts.
“It’s supposed to be us,” Sam whispers, approaching him from the side. Dean thumbs the corner of the picture, fingers skimming to the one prior, a desk covered in books and a crudely drawn trucker cap.
Dean’s lip quirks up at the corner. “Uncle Bobby?” Sam nods.
Dean lowers his hand to the table. “Where’s Dad?” Sam points to the picture to the left and a little below, two boys in orange caps fishing with their father, his hand on either of their shoulders.
“What are you gonna say?” he asks, without taking his eyes off of the poster.
“I don’t know.” Sam rubs a hand through his hair. “I can’t exactly tell them the truth.”
“So make somethin’ up.”
“Can you help me?”
Dean stares at Sam out of the corner of his eye, while Sam fights the urge to squirm, folding his arms over his chest.
He points to the fishing picture. “Last summer. I caught a giant trout, and pushed you into the lake.”
“Why can’t I catch the fish and push you into the lake?”
Dean scoffs. “Yeah, right.” He hooks his elbow around Sam’s shoulders, rubbing his knuckles against the top of Sam’s head.
“Get off me!” Sam knees him in the chest, and Dean lets go, doubling over.
“Jerk,” Sam says, breathless.
“Bitch,” Dean wheezes.
Sam turns back to the table so Dean doesn’t see him grin.
Mr. Matthews pulls him aside after class, chases Dean away from the door with an ease that speaks of years of practice wrangling unruly students. He says he’s impressed with how well Sam pulled things together.
“You should be proud of yourself,” he says, using a wad of blue sticky tack to post Sam’s board up on the wall, front and center, right beside all the other kids’.
Sam smiles so hard, his face hurts.
--
Years later, he’ll think of that project for the first time since middle school, when in the wake of saving a family from a poltergeist and being confronted with their mother’s ghost, Jenny hands Dean a metal lockbox full of pictures that he hefts into the trunk with steady hands.
Some of the tension in Sam’s shoulders eases as they cross the state line, leaving Lawrence in the dust. They pull into the first motel they find with vacancy, and Sam offers to pick up dinner from the diner they passed just down the road.
“Get me some pie,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, shoving the twenty his brother hands him into his pocket.
He returns to find his brother standing in front of the window. The flashing neon vacancy sign flickers red against the glossy surface of the pictures strewn on the table in front of him.
“Wow,” Sam says quietly, dropping the bags of food onto the floor so he can get a better look. Some of the pictures are water damaged and crumbling from the passage of time, but they’re here, in his hands, the only family history he has left besides the man standing next to him.
Sam picks up one of the pictures, cradles it between his hands like it’s made of glass. His mother and father are standing in front of their house in Lawrence, Dad with his hand on a little Dean shoulder’s, the two of them grinning at each other. His mother holds baby Sam in her arms, looking down at him with a smile even more sweet and fond than the woman from the magazine all of those years ago.
Dean clears his throat, and Sam finally wrenches his eyes away to look at his brother.
“There’s - uh - there’s more in the box.” Sam nods. Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “Want me to tell you about them?”
“Do you even remember any of this? Sam asks, sharper than he means to. He winces.
Dean scoffs. “No.” To Sam’s surprise, he smiles, just a small tilt of his lips. “But I can make something up.”
Sam huffs a laugh and slides over a photo of Dean, standing in a muddy Little League uniform, red whiffle bat over one shoulder. There’s a small trophy cradled in his arms and a too-big helmet spattered with rain perched on his head.
Dean launches into a story about how it stormed so badly, he could barely see the field, but persevered even while the other team cried at the sound of thunder. “Seriously, Sammy, you should have seen them.” Dean clutches his chest and pretends to sob, and Sam laughs so hard, he cries. The story is totally far-fetched, made up to appease his little brother.
Sam’s okay with that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}