Title: Five times Dean did the washing up (and once he didn't)
Author: Wysawyg
Disclaimer: The Winchesters belong to Kripke and the CW. All the washing up seems to belong to me.
Summary: Erm. The title pretty much says it all. Series of vignettes from Wee!Chester onwards.
Warning: Implied future-(hopefully not)-canon character death in sixth segment.
Notes: Written for the SPNDailylife challenge. Prompt was dishes. Beta'd by APreludeToAnEnd who made this fic twenty times better than it otherwise would've been.
1
"Mommy," Four year old Dean Winchester padded into the kitchen, one hand jamming a thumb in his mouth and the other trailing a battered stuffed bear along the floor.
Mary looked up from the pile of plates and cutlery which had been mocking her on the sideboard for the past half hour and turned towards her oldest boy. "Hey sweetie," She crouched by the boy, ruffling his hair and pulling him (and Semper Fi the bear) into a hug, "Thought you were napping."
"Thought Sammy was crying," Dean explained into her shoulder, "But he's asleep but I didn't want to sleep anymore. What'cha doing?"
"Mommy's trying to avoid the washing up." Mary explained, looking towards the piles of washing up again, swearing that it's managed to grow in the short time she's been talking to her boy.
Dean glanced up from his mother towards the sideboard, "S'it evil?" He asks.
Mary had to blink a couple of times and finally just asked, "What?"
"S'it evil?" Dean repeated like it was the most obvious thing to ask in the world, "Is that why you have to avoid it? Like the monsters in the stories."
Mary made a note to proof-read the bedtime stories John was reading to the boys from now on. It's not that she didn't love her husband but they had certain disagreements on what was and wasn't appropriate for children and had ever since she'd caught him and a two year old Dean curled together on the sofa watching a late night horror movie. Dean, traitorous spawn that he was, had shown absolutely no sign of being traumatised by the blood and had grinned from ear to ear instead which Mary argued was a big indicator of future trauma. John just said it meant he was a true Winchester and then kissed her and well, the argument had petered out there.
"It's not evil," Mary told him, "Well, not really. It just needs washing and Mommy doesn't want to wash it."
"Can I do it?" Dean asked eagerly.
Mary smiled and grabbed that memory close to her for the future teenage years when getting either of her boys to do chores would likely be a chore all of their own. "How about Mommy helps you wash up?" It wasn't like she particularly liked those plates anyway.
"Okay." Dean grinned up at her and damn is Mary glad he's finally got all his teeth. She's fairly sure a mother shouldn't think that about her own kids but Dean looked damn goofy when the teeth were still coming through and the huge gaps made him look like a deranged chipmunk.
Mary brought one of the tall chairs over to the sink and perched Dean up on it before standing behind, keeping Dean safe in the circle of her arms. She put the plug in the sink and started the water running, changing the mix from her usual preference to a cooler temperature. Sure, it'd take more work to get the plates clean but she had a feeling she's going to end up re-doing most of this washing up anyway. She handed the bottle of washing up liquid to Dean and he gripped it in both hands like the holy grail, "Gonna add soap to the water, sweetie?"
Dean studied the bottle like it's a puzzle before tugging off the red cap, twisting the bottle and squeezing hard, jets of green streaming into the rising liquid and creating what Mary suspected would be a tower of Babel sized poof of bubbles. "That's enough." She said and Dean pouted a little so she doesn't scold him when he keeps squeezing for a little longer.
"What's first?" Dean surveyed the stack of plates like a battleground and Mary really needed a word with John. Semper Fi the teddy was bad enough but her boy is not becoming a Marine junior.
Mary reached one of the side plates, small enough for Dean's little hands to grip unaided, "Start with this." She brought it down to his hands.
Dean took the plate, dipped one edge into the water and lifted it up, fluffy white from the tower of suds. He frowned at it a moment and dipped it under the water again, lifting it out quicker this time but still with soap clouds on it. He's scowled as he dipped it in and out faster and Mary could almost freeze frame the moment the slippery plate slid from swift hands and soared outward to smash against the wall. John would probably have just complimented his boy on the aim.
"I broked it." Dean said, the hitch of a sob in his voice, and Mary hastily turned her attention back from John in uniform to the upset toddler.
"It's alright, sweetie. I didn't really like that plate anyway. Want to try with another one?"
2
Dean was old enough to join his father on hunts, damnit. He hit the target ten times out of ten during target practice. He'd come close to taking his father down in their mock-battles. He could recite two different exorcisms in Latin as well as their translations in English and which situations they were appropriate for.
There was no point in him being here stuck in this stupid motel room. Sam was asleep and had been almost from the moment their father had walked out the door. Sam could've slept through an earthquake and Dean wasn't looking forward to the day he'd have to open his little brother's eyes to the world out there and steal peaceful sleep away from him forever.
Dad was late. That was hardly a surprise. Dean couldn't remember the last time his father had actually arrived back from a hunt when he said he would. He didn't know if his father thought that somehow saying he'd be away for less time would worry Dean less or whether he was just really terrible at time approximation. Dean assumed the former: his father had been a marine after all.
Finally Dean can't just sit around waiting anymore and he headed over to the sink where a pile of dishes had accumulated. It's not usually worth the bother of washing as they'll be moving on as soon as their Father is back however Dean has nothing better to do. The tap creaked as it gushed water out into the basin and Dean squeezed the mostly empty washing liquid bottle, just getting a ring of bubbles around the cap for his efforts.
He started by putting Sammy's plates in to soak at the bottom of the sink. Sammy was going through a sauce phase whereby he emptied out half the bottle of sauce onto his plate, leaving most of it untouched by the end of the meal. While at first Dean thought the habit was cute, it became incredibly annoying when he had two days worth of congealed sauce to scrub off the plates.
He had just finished the last of the Sammy plates and was watching the grey water swirl down the drain when he heard a thump against the door. When the thump repeated, he realised it was knock and he hurried over, pushing a chair against the door so he could clamber up and peer through the peephole. Dean got to see far more of his father's nostril that he'd ever wanted to.
Dean dragged the chair away from the door and flung it open, almost catapulting his father into himself as he removed the support. "Dad, you okay?"
"M'good, son." There was a slur in his father's voice that spoke otherwise, "Ghoul turned out to be a Draugr. Spent hours dragging the damn thing back into its grave." Dean supported his father over to the couch, wishing he was tall enough to be more help. "Think I got a concussion. You alright to wake me on the hour?" His father's eyes were unfocused but they tracked intently at Dean.
Dean nodded, "Yes, sir."
John reached up an uncoordinated hand to ruffle Dean's short hair and then let his eyes slide shut. Dean quickly checked his dozing father over for any other injuries, finding none, and settled in for the vigil.
3
Dean froze, soapy plate in hand as he heard the sound of laughter coming through the kitchen door. One of the blonde waitresses, Esme, had swung it open moments before to ferry orders out into the café. "Did you see the professor's face?" A masculine voice that Dean would recognise anywhere asks. "I thought he would explode."
"Sam, you fell asleep in the middle of his lecture." Dean frowned. Sam wasn't getting enough sleep? He'd checked Sam's new apartment and it seemed to be an ideal location. No noisy cars going past. He'd need to swing by and make sure there wasn't anything else going on.
"Everyone does at some point. I was up late studying."
"Everyone doesn't yell 'Dean, get the salt!' when they wake up. Only you are a big enough of a freak to dream about condiments." The voice talking to Sam was female and the teasing note spoke of familiarity. Dean wasn't sure whether to be glad Sam had someone around to tease him or be jealous that it wasn't him.
"Yeah," Sam didn't sound quite so amused anymore. "That's me."
"Who's Dean anyway?" The other person asked and Dean barely resisted the temptation to run out of the back of the kitchen, far away from an answer he probably didn't want to hear. Instead he just plunged the plate he was washing down into the water and scrubbed a little harder at the gravy and flecks of meat glued to the plate.
"He's…" Sam paused then and Dean subconsciously leant a little more towards the door in case Sam had answered too quiet for him to hear, "He's my brother."
"You have a brother?" The voice sounded completely surprised. Dean hoped this just meant that she was a new friend, not that Sam had been at Stanford a year and never mentioned his existence to his friends. A cold part of Dean wouldn't be surprised.
"Yeah. We haven't spoken for a while, you know how it goes. You grow apart." 'Or you just rip yourself away, not even bothering to cauterise the wound.' Dean thought bitterly, absently rubbing at a sore shoulder. The sink was far too low for him and the bottom half of his t-shirt was already drenched from dripping water.
"Wow. I don't think I could imagine not talking to my sister."
"That's nice for you." Sam's words are bitten off and sharp.
His friend obviously sensed something amiss as her voice is soft and more concerned now, "Sam, you alright?"
"M'fine." Sam mumbled, "S'just… Well, not talking to my brother wasn't entirely my choice."
Dean snorted and shoved the dish back into the water for a particularly hard scrub, sending a small tsunami of soapy water out of the sink and down his jeans. Figures.
"Really?" The friend pushed.
"My dad made it clear that I'd have to choose between college and the family business. I chose college. My brother made it fairly clear I'd chosen between college and family." There's a loud clatter of cutlery against crockery and Dean pulled back to make sure no part of himself is visible from the open kitchen door. "Look, just leave it, Jess. S'not important."
That evening Dean picked up his last pay check for the café and got back into the Impala, driving out of town and refusing to look in the rear view mirror.
4
It was the clatter and clink of plates which pulled Sam out of the unusually pleasant dream he'd been having. Even as his mind tried to grip onto the warm remembrance of the details they slipped out of his thought fingers leaving only reality in its wake.
Sam arched his back from the bed trying to work out the kinks in his back and stir himself out of a sleepy daze. His mind meandered in search of thoughts: what had woken him? The sound of dishes. Sam's mind stuttered to a halt there. Dean. Doing the washing up. Without being asked. Without being argued with. Without being damn right ordered to.
"Christo." Sam mumbled. He hadn't intended to mumble however his brain and his mouth weren't currently on speaking terms and his tongue, feeling at least three sizes bigger than normal, was being similarly uncooperative. He's not sure whether it was loud enough for Dean to hear. Either way Dean doesn't flinch, doesn't even acknowledge his brother as he continues with the domestic task.
Fortunately his mind didn't seem to be similarly inhibited and Sam raked through recent memories to try and explain things. There was a hunt. Unfortunately hunts were such frequent occurrences that it was hard to separate out exactly which one this was. The thick bitter taste in his mouth would usually mean a hangover but there's none of the skull-crushing pressure in his head which is a classic symptom of his hangovers.
Sam peels himself off the sweat-damp sheets and up onto unsteady feet. It takes him a moment to establish balance and he can feel a dull ache in his side. He lifts up the t-shirt on that side, establishing a purpling bruise that spreads across his side. He tentatively pokes at it, wincing at the pain but at least fairly sure it's not a sign of broken ribs.
His own minor injuries established, he glances towards his potentially possessed brother and picks up a bottle of holy water just in case. He walks up behind his brother and taps him on the shoulder, "Dean?" The unspoken inquiry of 'What the hell are you doing?' clear in his voice.
"G'back to bed, Sammy. S'not morning yet." Dean's voice is slurred and he doesn't even shift an inch from the rhythm of washing up that he'd set.
Sam has had enough. He grips one large hand on his brother's shoulder, prepares himself for midnight-dark eyes and tugs his brother around. Instead of dark, Dean's eyes are glassy bright and somewhat unfocused. Dean's slack hands drips soap suds onto the ground and still shift compulsively in the movements of washing up despite the lack of anything to do. Sam drops the bottle of holy water down and presses a hand to his brother's sweat beaded forehead, feeling the heat radiating off it, "Shit, Dean. You got a fever."
Dean tries to twist back to the sink, "Go to bed. Y'got school in the morning. Dad'll be back soon." His brother absently brings a soapy hand to Sam's cheek and pats it before turning back to the sink. There's something so young in his brother's voice, Sam wants to pick him up and tuck him into bed like no-one ever did when Dean was younger. The only thing that stops him is the thought of whatever injury is causing this fever, an injury which would likely be exacerbated by Sam manhandling him like an idiot.
Sam can remember the hunt now. Or rather he can remember the first twenty minutes of the hunt before the thing they were hunting managed to blind-side Sam and slam him into a tree. Usually that wouldn't be enough to get Sam out of the fight but he'd managed to knock himself out something spectacular on a branch.
His first memory after that was coming to just as his brother was pushing him into the car, just enough for his startled movements to clock his own head against the doorframe. After that it was blank up 'til now apart from the vague fuzzy memory of his brother waking him with a litany of pointless questions that he had to answer before he could slip back into sleep.
It seems that Dean, professional martyr, had been hiding an injury of his own. Sam gently pulls his brother away from the sink again. "Washing up is done, Dean." He lies, "Time for bed."
Dean blinks at his brother, expression far too open, "S'bedtime already?" He asks.
"Yep. Got to get up early for school." Sam isn't sure whether he should be entertaining his brother's fever-sprung delusions but it seemed far easier than arguing with him. Getting Dean into bed so Sam could find the injury was the most important bit.
"Okay, Sammy." Dean pats his brother's cheek again, leaving another trail of suds. The fact that li'l Sammy was 6'5" hadn't seemed to occur to Dean.
Sam follows close behind his brother's footsteps, ready to catch or steady him if he started to falter. Perhaps fortunately Dean makes it to the bed without any help and flings himself down on top of the blankets in a solid thump which makes Sam hope the injury wasn't on Dean's front. "Night night, Sammy."
When Sam lifts up the back of Dean's shirt to try and locate the injury, his brother lifts himself up from the sprawl to stare muzzily at Sam, "What'cha doing, Sammy?"
"You told me you got hurt," Sam lies, "I was just making sure it wasn't too serious."
"Oh, I did?" Dean blinks several times, "Guess I did." Dean drops back to lying on his stomach.
Sam has to pause for many moments in shock that that actually worked and then decides not to push his luck, lifting up Dean's shirt more while his brother was too out of it to be objectionable. Dean's back is sticky with dried blood that trails out from beneath a makeshift bandage, the haphazard wrapping of tape telling Sam it was probably Dean himself who fastened it.
Sam grabs a pair of scissors and quietly cuts up the back of Dean's shirt to get better access to the wound, hoping his brother wouldn't mind too much once the fever was done. He peels off the bandage and winces as the full extent of the wound is revealed. A long slash runs from just beneath Dean's right shoulder blade diagonally down to just below his lower ribs on the left side. It definitely needed stitches and the flesh already had the puffy red signs of infection, seeping pus where the flesh hadn't knit together.
Dean's back is hot to the touch. Sam fills a small basin with lukewarm water and sets about removing the lines of blood. Dean stirs and mutters at the first press of the cloth to skin but then settles back into steady breathing on the edge of sleep but not quite there. Sam moves the cloth in gentle strokes, trying his best to let his brother rest.
When Dean murmurs, "That's it, Candy, right there," Sam recoils because…. No, just no. He waits for Dean to fall silent again and then returns to his task, this time with broad, masculine strokes.
It takes Sam about an hour to finish placing careful stitches in his brother's back and covering them up with clean gauze. Dean stirs a little during the stitches and makes quiet noises that he'll swear blind in the morning were not whimpers. Moments after Sam seals the last corner of the gauze to Dean's back, his brother's breath finally settles into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Sam checks their supplies for antibiotics and sets the bottle out on the stand ready for Dean once he was awake then Sam makes his way to his own bed and sits Indian-style on the blankets, starting his own vigil on his brother.
5
Bobby was a slob. That never really bothered Dean much when they'd stayed there as a kid. Hell, the fact that there was always cold pizza in the fridge and Bobby would sometimes leave a half-full beer bottle around was always a plus to the adventurous Winchester.
Dean wasn't quite sure why it was bothering him so much now. He'd come in from his latest work on rebuilding the Impala and his hands were caked in grease and dirt from the car. He'd gone to the kitchen sink to scrub his hands only to find them full of plates and cups.
He growled softly and glanced around the small building for any sign of his brother or Bobby. There's a scribbled note on the kitchen table, something about supplies. Dean scrunched it up in one black-smeared hand and tossed the ball against the wall. He headed into the bathroom, turned on the tap and rubbed at his hands until they were clean.
When he left the room, neither of the others were back so he headed over to the kitchen sink and took the plates out, stacking them on the sideboard. Underneath the pile of washing up, the sink was disgusted: orange rust discoloured from where the water had settled. Dean took a scourer and cleaned up the worst of it before filling the sink full of hot water and soap.
He didn't plan on doing all the washing up, just enough to clear out the sink but as soon as he started, the repetitive motion came back to him and before he knew it, there was a stack of clean plates in the rack. The clean plates were joined by clean cutlery, clean cups, clean glasses then he cleaned the sink, the cupboards and finally the kitchen table.
When he'd cleaned everything in sight and he still wasn't clean, he headed out to the car and settled back to trying to rebuild himself.
6
The dishes pile up unwashed in the sink.
The year has gone.