Title: Desert Island, Pt. 1: The Time's Coming Near
Author: Lee Stone
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: none
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1620
Warnings: none
Summary: We don't choose the soundtracks for our lives.
A/N: This is the first fic in a series called Desert Island-just short, stand-alone sketches of 5 songs that changed Dean's life. This first part came to me nearly whole last night; it may feel rushed and a bit rough. So it goes. Oh, and a cookie for anyone who spots the West Wing reference in here.
1. 1983: THE TIME'S COMING NEAR
Free To Be...You And Me, The New Seekers
Today Dean is four. There is a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes on the breakfast table. There is a stack of presents, each wrapped in funny paper Mommy has gathered from the house, comic pages and tinfoil and toilet paper, a Winchester birthday tradition. One of the presents is shaped exactly like the Matchbox collector's case Dean has wished and wished for. He knows that when he opens this box, it will contain exactly what he wants because his Mommy always guesses these things without being told.
She crowds close, her big belly nudging as she wraps her arms around him. "It's your day, my angel," she says. "How many candles?" Dean kisses her five times fast. She plants five candles in the pancakes, one to grow on, and lights them with a match. He watches her while they sing and thinks that his Mommy must be an angel too. That's how she looks to Dean, like the picture on his bedroom wall, so pretty and grown-up in the tiny flickering firelights.
A little brother, he says to himself just before he blows the candles out. Soon, please.
Mommy tells him that Daddy will be sad to miss Dean opening his presents. "I'll wait," Dean tells her, "I'll wait," because the three of them there together is what Dean wants most for his birthday. More than any Matchbox case, more even than a baby brother. He wants his father's big boots stomping snow off in the foyer and his big voice calling out Mare?, and his father's shoulders a big leathery landing block when Dean pounces at him from halfway up the staircase, always quiet enough to sneak up. Daddy likes it when you can surprise him. Dean doesn't often manage to, but he's getting better at it.
His Mommy just looks out the kitchen window at the snow banks, the big bare rectangle in the drive where Daddy's car lives. She says, "We'll see."
Dean listens very closely, watching her face, because sometimes (mostly when Daddy's car is gone) Mommy needs Dean to sneak up on her, too, in a gentler way. Dean knows that special silence well. He listens for the quiet that means his Mommy needs to be reminded Dean is in the room with her, that she is not alone. When Mommy forgets this she frightens Dean. If any one of them disappears the other two will get lost. Three was the year Dean learned the importance of the number 3, and he wonders why his parents have forgotten this, why one of them is continually going away from the other two. Now that Dean is four and the baby will make them four, too, maybe their family will fit better than a puzzle with a missing piece.
Today Dean is four and his Mommy is all right, she's smiling at him from the window and telling him Daddy will be home later, telling him to gobble his breakfast all up, soon it will be time for school. Because Mommy is all the way here, Dean is safe. Nobody is lost and nothing is forgotten except the whipped cream for his pancakes. When he looks up to remind his mother of this, she is standing over him with the can in her hand.
:::
You have to pick your best outfit for your birthday. Today Dean chooses his favorite sweater, green with a red train, and his red sneakers in his new, bigger size to match his new age. Sometimes he lets the laces come loose to show off how he can tie them by himself.
Tying your own shoelaces matters in preschool.
Dean has decided to like preschool. His teacher is Miss Vanessa, and he loves her more than any woman in the world besides his Mommy. Miss Vanessa is tall and fat, with thick brown hair and pink cheeks and round, interested brown eyes behind her tiny gold eyeglasses. Miss Vanessa is beautiful. She sometimes wears a full blue skirt that makes Dean zip around in tight little circles until he falls over, dizzy with love and excitement. When she wears this skirt, Dean tries to crawl up inside it. At first this worried Miss Vanessa. But after a few weeks she figured out that Dean's only interest was rubbing his cheek against the satiny blue fabric of the skirt, so they made a deal. Dean can touch the skirt as long as he likes from the outside if he remembers to share the yellow crane at playtime. Dean would trade a hundred yellow cranes for Miss Vanessa's blue skirt. As Dean's Daddy would say, that skirt could make a good dog break its leash.
Preschool means Miss Vanessa, his favorite yellow crane, a big plastic crate of Tinker Toys, the felt board at story time, naps on scratchy squares of carpet. There are oranges for snack on bad days, cookies on good ones. Preschool means games of football and Duck Duck Goose with his friends. Everyone in class likes Dean and he mostly likes them back, except for the crybabies and anyone who bullies or gets too much attention from Miss Vanessa. He can't talk about Miss Vanessa with his friends Kevin and Mark, who only care about G.I. Joes and cars, but Dean doesn't mind keeping his feelings to himself. He likes listening better than he likes talking. Dean sticks his toes into the pool before he jumps.
Preschool also means music time. Sometimes this is fun, sometimes it isn't. It's fun when the records Miss Vanessa plays are funny or gross or good for dancing. It isn't fun when the songs are about Following Rules. Rules are things Dean already understands. His Daddy likes rules and has a lot of them, and the more Dean follows them the happier Daddy stays. When Daddy is happy, Mommy is happy. Dean doesn't need any song to tell him how important it is to follow rules.
Today Dean is four, so Miss Vanessa announces that she will play a brand-new record for his birthday. The class sings to him first and he stands there, feeling awkward but also special. Then she puts the album on the record player. For a second there is no sound but the scratchy noise of the needle on the record, a sound Dean knows from home and enjoys, and then a song begins. The kids join hands and move together in a circle, same as every other music time. But today the song is different and a funny, tingling warmth grows in Dean's belly as the music swells.
This is easily the best song Dean has ever heard. It is the first song where the words matter more than the music (though the music is great, too, happy and danceable), the first song to make Dean feel that the singer is talking right to him and telling him true, important things: She sings about a land where children are free, a land bright and clear, with horses and gum trees and shining seas. She tells Dean about a secret place, somewhere mysteriously Other but very near this world. At the sound of these words some unknown pressure bursts in Dean's chest like a dam, sending heat up to his cheeks, eyes popping wide and shocked with recognition while he skips.
And I say it ain't far to this land from where we are, the lady tells him. Take my hand...Come with me...
When Dean comes back to himself the song is done. The other kids have broken up and are playing in groups around the room but Dean's still standing there, panting and sweaty-palmed. It ain't far to this land from where we are, he thinks again. The time's coming near, it's coming near.
Miss Vanessa is saying his name. He looks up at her, a little unsteady on his feet, and says without thinking, "Play it again!"
She looks at him funny for a second and he's afraid she'll refuse. But she just smiles and says, "We can do that for the birthday boy." And she walks back to the record player and lifts the needle up.
The song washes over him again and somewhere in the deep mystery of it, Dean is thinking Birthday, it's my birthday...birth...coming near... Then all at once he knows: The baby! The baby is what's coming near!
His ears are ringing, the truth of it tossing him over like a big wave. He sees now that the baby is the key to everything, his parents' sadness and their disappearing trick, the magic land the woman is singing about, this wonderful Other place Dean has always sensed glittering in the shadows of his own, actual world. The missing puzzle piece that will finish them and fix them.
Dean recognizes the feeling in his chest now, though he doesn't know the word for it. It is expectation. Joy and expectation are glowing there like coals in a Christmas fire. He chants softly with the lady, the words a new and secret message for his brother, Take my hand, come with me...the time's coming near!
Today, January 24th, 1983, Dean is four. Miss Vanessa moves on to story time but he stays in his chair by the record player, singing and thinking. He watches the snow pile up outside the window. The shadows in the room grow long, stretching over the carpet to cover Dean's toes. He will be sitting there still when Mommy comes to bring him home, Daddy's black car in the driveway and that pile of presents shining in wonderful strange paper, hiding surprises Dean could never guess, never even imagine.