Author's notes: Okay, this fic is just weird. I was very tired, but wanted to write. I didn't have enough brain power for anything plotty so I didn't attempt the next chapter of 'Truth', but scribbled down something anyway using the challenge word for this week. The result is the weird fic you see below. I'm not really sure what to make of it, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. It is standalone, there are no cliffhangers. Many, many thanks to Gaelicspirit for the beta.
Rock
By Gumnut
18 May 2007
It was a chunk of quartz. Not a large piece, only about half the size of his palm, in fact. It had one of those almost perfect crystals sticking out of one side, the small shaft flawed beyond ever being perfect. It had been caught by his flashlight and had sparkled at him, snatching his attention on one of those long night treks into the middle of nowhere to kill one of those ugly assed hermit types that just weren't hermit enough to stay away from virgin sacrifices.
He had smiled when his father had stuck a hole in the cretin, finally ending its reign of terror.
But before that, there had been the hike and on the hike that tiny crystal had grabbed his attention.
He pocketed it.
He was a kid after all, and kids like to collect shiny things. Almost like some of those birds that steal trinkets off the back porch of houses to make their nests. He didn't have many shiny things and he liked it for some unknown and little considered reason.
It went through the wash several times before he came across it again. But then at least it was clean.
It was white. None of those sissy pink flushes or the like. No, this was white with the majority of the crystal itself transparent. On one of the few lazy days they had, he could remember holding it up to his eye and peering into its glassy depths. There were shapes and shadows in there. An imaginative mind could construct anything out of it if it wanted to.
One morning he left it in a motel room. He realised it an hour or so later and was a little annoyed, but then it was only a chunk of rock. What did he care? It wouldn't be worth going back for and it would be some time before they would end up in this corner of the country again. He didn't even bother to ask his father, the thought was just ridiculous.
Was it circumstance that five hours later they were back in that same motel room, his father bleeding all over the place, Sammy crying and Dean running around doing his best to help the both of them?
At least he was able to pick up his rock.
But he could have done without the bleeding.
He wasn't superstitious. After all, how could you be superstitious when you had to believe in the supernatural to even be considered for the title? He didn't believe in the supernatural. He knew it existed. And that was a whole different kettle of fish.
So he kept the rock.
He didn't carry it on him. That would be just plain over the top. After all, he wasn't a Yanni lover and that just stank of ohms and ahhs and bending body parts in directions they were never designed to go in some vague attempt for an endocrine high.
No, he didn't do crystals.
But his rock sat on the back ledge of the Impala just the same. His car. His rock.
Interestingly enough, Sam never said anything about it. It may have had something to do with the glare Dean had shot his brother the one time the younger man had picked up the thing. Sam's forehead had done that origami impression it was so fond of and he had hastily put the crystal down.
Sometimes words weren't needed.
And yeah, they were brothers and they communicated well and all that jazz, but hey, he wasn't psychic boy. Reading Sam's mind was a learnt skill required to keep the little squirt alive when he was off running in all directions in the middle of a fire fight. Someone had to keep his ass in line and his Sam radar had been the result.
Certainly helped in the prank department.
But no, Sam had never asked about the crystal and Dean had never offered any explanations.
And the rock sat on the back ledge apparently forgotten.
The night the Impala was hit by that damn truck, his last memory was of seeing that chunk of quartz flying across his vision. It may have landed in his lap, it may have not. He never really found out, because his head hit the window and it was pretty much blank from there on out.
But one of the first things he searched for when he returned to his beloved car was his rock.
Sam did that same frown thing as Dean bent awkwardly and fossicked through the wreckage of the back seat, looking. Dean didn't comment. He was still having enough trouble with comprehending the damage done to his beauty. The rock was only a distraction, or so he told himself. Nothing of importance as his fingers caressed jagged metal, broken seals and torn vinyl. When he finally found the thing, the relief he felt verged on embarrassing and he wrapped his fingers around it, hiding it from his brother.
Sam didn't question him. He was far too worried about his state of health as Dean asked for a hand up. That was quickly followed by a reprimand for over-exerting himself. Dean told him where to get off.
In return, Sam chewed his ear off for an hour.
Sometimes being the one who nearly died really got tiresome.
Consequently it took him until several hours later to discover that his rock had lost one of its bobbly little eyes. He cursed and kicked a piece of furniture. The result of that was yet another issue of Hovering Brother Daily with a feature article on 'What's wrong? Are you okay?'
He didn't comment after that.
He fixed the car. He couldn't do anything but. The rock stayed in his pocket, but the moment his girl was back on the road, it returned to its quiet corner on the back ledge, catching the sun and bouncing it around like it always had.
When Sam went missing, Dean was left alone with the rock. It wasn't the first time and he didn't talk to it. He wasn't a pussy. But he was aware of it. Occasionally he cursed it. After all, what good is a nice bout of profanity if there was no one to hear it?
Of course, rocks don't have ears, and he knew it didn't hear him, and why the hell don't you mind your own business and shut the hell up?
Talking to yourself is even worse.
But talking to the phone wasn't getting him any further either.
Until Sammy called.
Oh god, the relief, the fear, the speed in which he jumped into the car and tore up the highway...he had to be okay, godamnit. What the hell had happened? And why?
That question was answered soon enough and Dean had a creative collection of new scars to remind him should he ever forget.
But Sammy was safe.
That was the important factor.
The second time Sam disappeared, the rock heard it all, including several new phrases he'd learnt from a whale of a woman in Cincinnati. If her cussing hadn't knocked him senseless, her backhand certainly made up for it. It had taken both Dean and Sam to floor the woman. He was almost glad she had been possessed by a minor demon at the time. It relieved his conscience of having to knock her senseless.
He was a gentleman after all.
But this time Sam had taken off on his own. Betrayed his brother's trust and gone renegade. Well, more renegade than they already were. Non-older-brother-directed renegade and because he was the oldest he got to say what they should do.
The rock just stared at him with its one bobbly eye and exposed him to his own childishness.
Screw you.
The rock ended up chucked in the backseat.
It wasn't the first time. It was also one of the reasons why he usually left it on the back ledge. At least then there wasn't the scrabble to find where it had fallen and to make sure he wasn't going to lose it again.
Dean wasn't sentimental. Sentiment was for wusses.
He found Sam. Who had apparently found himself a girl to play with. Way to go Sammy. He'd congratulate him right after he tore him a new one.
His plans as usual were rather rudely interrupted. His rock didn't get to hear the swearing that time. It may have had something to do with the gag and the fact he'd left the rock in the car.
There was a reason why he left the rock in the car.
And it was Sam's turn to save him.
While that was all well and good, he could have done without the terror of little brother blowing up, not once, but twice, only to be followed by an excerpt out of a bad kung fu movie.
That bastard was so dead.
Or not.
His brother is a geek, but he has a sense of timing.
But it wasn't until Sam disappeared the third time that he realised he had a problem.
If the decimated café wasn't enough, the empty Impala just screamed at him. He turned up the music, but still he found himself muttering.
To a rock.
If he hadn't been terrified, he would have laughed at himself.
The great Dean Winchester, bane of the underworld, outlaw on a rampage and kickass gorgeous protector of the innocent...was talking to a rock.
Well, at least it wasn't talking back.
Wouldn't matter if I was, you never listen anyway.
At least he hadn't given it a name.
Oh, and here I was thinking 'piece of shit' was an endearment.
Shut up.
You wanna make me?
The music volume increased rapidly until he couldn't hear himself think anymore. Damnit, Sammy, where the hell are you?
He had found him before and he found him again.
It was just what he found that hurt more than he thought anything ever possibly could.
And it wouldn't stop.
Afterwards he gave the rock a name.
After all, every hero needs a sidekick.
And although he could do this alone.
He didn't really want to.
-o-o-o-