A/N: Hello there. This is my first Supernatural fic and the first fic of any kind I've written in about ten years. So pardon me for being a little rusty! It may be helpful to watch the kitchen scene from Dark Side of the Moon before you read this. Enjoy!
Cling
"It's OK, Mom. Dad still loves you. I love you, too," the 4-year-old mumbles into her dress, arms fastened tight around her hips. "I'll never leave you."
She kneels and cups her son's freckled cheeks in her hands. "You are my little angel," she murmurs, marveling at the sincerity in his green eyes, wide and glassy and already too understanding. When did his eyes get so old?
She smiles, for him, and pulls away from his gaze before she drowns in it. "How about some pie?" As if pie fixes everything. As if it fixes waking up next to a cold pillow and getting phone calls from a motel room in Topeka. As if it fixes a little boy who's already trying to be a man.
His big green eyes get bigger and greener and younger again, and she thinks maybe pie does fix everything. He bounces back to his chair as she carves an oozy sliver of cherry pie. It's not perfect; her baking skills are still "a work in progress," as John says, one of their ongoing jokes. Like when he took a bite of the chocolate cake she baked on their first anniversary, and it was grainy and tasted like chalk dust, and he choked it down and kissed her and told her chalk-late cake was actually his favorite. And they both laughed and drank cheap wine instead, and the next week she asked their neighbor how to bake a moist chocolate cake.
She's improved since then, but her son doesn't care about the progress of her baking skills. He plunges into the pie like it's the first thing he's eaten in days, and she almost forgets about the phone call that he wasn't supposed to understand. "You and pie," she muses aloud to distract herself, and he stops shoveling long enough to give her a cherry-spattered grin.
"I like pie," he says simply, and digs for another bite.
But the fork pauses before it reaches his mouth, and suddenly he's looking at her with those too-old eyes again and she knows the pie hasn't fixed everything.
"You won't ever leave us, will you, Mommy?"
She blinks and her eyes burn. "Of course not, sweetheart." Damn John and his stupid motel room in Topeka and his stupid phone call. Look at the mess you've made. We've made.
"Promise?"
He's still staring at her with those eyes. Her eyes.
"I promise. I'll never leave you."
"Never ever?"
"Never ever." She's never ever meant anything as much as she means those two words.
"OK good. Just making sure." His eyes leave her face and the fork moves again and he smacks loudly around the reddish mush in his mouth. "I don't wanna change Sammy's diapers all by myself."
She laughs because damn, she loves him. She wants to hug him again and tell him that she loves him, that Daddy loves him too, that everything will be OK. "Chew with your mouth closed, Dean," she says instead, rising from the table. "I've got to go check on your brother."
She pauses in the doorway and looks back at her son, who's now determinedly wiping the cherry smudges from his plate with his forefinger. "Sammy probably needs a diaper change. Are you sure you don't want to help?"
He looks up, face crinkling under his messy blonde bangs, gooey fingers still stuck to the plate. "Gross! No thank you!"
"OK, but you're missing out." Her voice is sing-song, teasing.
"Ew, Mom!" She listens to him sucking his sticky fingers as she smiles her way upstairs. Maybe she'll make another pie next week for Sammy's 6-month birthday. Because pie fixes some things.
. . . .
"Where's Mom? Why isn't she here? Where's Mom?"
He squeezes his bundle of blankets and brother to his chest and stares up at his father, needing to know, needing to understand. She promised.
But his dad's face is blank, just flickering and glowing like the fire that's eating away their home.
"Dad? Daddy? Where's Mom?"
He bumps against his dad's leg and still gets no answer, but he stays pressed there to keep his dad from going away again. Because when Mom comes back from wherever she is, she'll be sad if Dad's gone.
So he clings to his dad and clings to his brother and clings to his mom's promise and tries to hold them all together.
Then he feels his dad's hand on his shoulder. It's the same hand that seemed so big when it curled around his on the steering wheel that one time Dad let him drive, the same hand that seemed so strong and so gentle when it placed baby Sammy into his arms for the first time. Now it just shakes. The shaking hand squeezes his shoulder, and it's not strong or big anymore. He wants the hand to stop. But he doesn't want his dad to go away.
"What's wrong, Daddy? Where's Mom?"
When his dad's eyes finally turn away from the fire to look down at him, they're shiny and sad. He wishes those eyes would look away again so he can pretend that nothing's wrong at all. But the shaking hand keeps squeezing his shoulder and everything keeps getting wronger and wronger.
"It's going to be OK, Dean. I promise."
His dad's voice shakes like the hand. So he clings harder to his dad and hopes he can make them both big and strong again.
And when his dad starts to cry, he cries too, because he feels like he can't cling hard enough.