Flies in the Vaseline
Genre: Gen, preseries
Length: About 1700 words
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Dean Winchester, John Winchester, Sam Winchester
Warnings: Gratuitous use of second person
Synopsis: The best hunters don't smoke. Inspired by a Tumblr post

. . . . . . .

The first time your father caught you smoking, you braced for impact, literally and figuratively. You half expected him to smack the cigarette out of your lips. You definitely expected an angry lecture. But he just looked at you, so calm it was almost scary.

"That's not your first one," he finally said. "How often are you doing that?"

Emboldened, you finished the cigarette in one long, last draw, tossing it onto the asphalt and grinding it out with the tip of your boot. "Not a lot. Not every day. Just… sometimes."

"Mmm hmmm." He was still unnaturally calm. "You think that's a good idea?"

You swallowed a laugh at the possibility that smoking might be what got you in the end, rather than a claw or a fang. "I'm not letting it get out of hand," you said.

"Oh, so you think you've got a handle on it." Ah, there it was. That patented John Winchester attitude, disappointment garnished with a dollop of sarcasm. And it pissed you off.

"Yessir, I think I do. I don't think one cigarette to help me relax every once in a while is going to hurt me." Not any more than the constant infusion of Jack Daniels is hurting you, you wanted to point out, but you were not stupid enough to say that out loud.

He stared at you a little bit longer. Maybe thinking you're old enough to make your own decisions, but more likely thinking you dumbass, I don't even know what to do with you. Finally he said "All right, if you think you've got this situation under control, let's see how that works out for you. But don't let Sam see you doing it. You know how the kid looks up to you."

You replayed every word in your mind, looking for the command. It wasn't there. "So you're not telling me to stop?"

"Would it matter if I did?"

That felt like a trap, and you didn't answer.

He didn't mention it again, and didn't see you smoking again, until a couple of months later. You'd successfully cleaned out a pack of ghouls with some friends of his (no, not friends, associates; John Winchester didn't really make friends), and when Ripley pulled out a Marlboro and then waved his pack at you, you took one. Your father watched and scowled and didn't say a word.

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Title: These are the days of miracle and wonder (this is the long distance call)
Genre: Gen, hell trauma
Length: ~10K
Rating: PG-13 for language, show-level gore
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, other canon characters
Spoilers: Through the end of s13
Synopsis: Sam Winchester's life has been touched by many things - love, loss, fear, hope, pain, and always, in the background, witchcraft. Written for the 2018 spn_summergen challenge for the amazing quickreaver and originally posted here.

Author's note: Just like last year, I was both thrilled and horrified when I saw who my prompts came from, because I love and adore Quickreaver and didn't know if I could come up with anything worthy. I'm afraid that I kind of gave her the opposite of what she asked for, but this is where the muse sent me.

Why is this the extended cut? Because it has an added scene. I couldn't get this bit to work until after I'd already submitted my fic, and I decided to add it after the fact. If you've already read the fic and don't want to read the whole thing again, it's the new chapter VIII.

Thanks so much to my lovely betas, gatorgurl94 and amberdreams on LJ and noxbait on Tumblr. The title is from "Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon.

~~~

I. Sandusky, Ohio. Sam Winchester is five years old.

Sam talks to things that other people don't talk to. He thanks the grass for being cool and soft under his feet. He tells the birds their songs are pretty. He doesn't use his voice; he talks to them in his head. And sometimes they answer.

(Not with words. That would be silly. Birds don't know words. Grass doesn't know words. But they answer, all the same.)

It never occurs to him that other people don't do the same thing until the day Dean kills a spider in the bathtub. "Why didn't you just ask him to leave?" he asks.

Dean laughs like it's a joke, and it makes Sam feel inexplicably hot and angry inside. "It's not funny," Sam says. "You didn't have to kill him. You could have just told him to get out of our bathtub."

Dean rolls his eyes dramatically. "People can't talk to insects, Spider-Man."

"Not the way you talk to people, but you can tell them things. You know." Surely Dean knows. Dean knows everything. It's just one of those things everyone can do and you don't talk need to talk about, like the way you can un-focus your eyes, or feel if it's going to rain. Isn't it?

But Dean takes a long time to answer, and Sam gets an uncomfortable feeling deep in his belly. "No, Sam," he finally says. "You can't tell them things. They're spiders. People can't talk to spiders. Not normal people." Something about Dean's expression - a little angry, a little worried, a little frightened - makes Sam think people aren't supposed to talk to spiders. "I mean, you don't think you're really talking to them, right?"

"No, I know," he says quickly. "I was just joking." He doesn't bring it up again. He feels like he did something bad, something wrong, and he doesn't want Dean to look angry-worried-frightened at him again.

~~~
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