Title: WBY – Ponies, Kittens and Boys, Oh My!
Characters: Dean and Jamie Winchester
Summary: Dean's POV to Jamie's Big Adventure. Some of you asked so here it is. This will contain parental spanking. Don't read if that offends.
The pony needed his stall reinforced. Again. It boggled Dean's mind how something so fat, sweet and low to the ground could manage to destroy his stall on a somewhat regular bases. Poe was the most unassuming of ponies, plain bay without a speck of white and even shaggy in Texas' limited winters. Jamie could climb over him and under him and lay on his back like Poe was his personal recliner. Once Dean had stepped into Poe's stall to find both pony and boy laying in the hay sound asleep. He was exactly the kind of pony that Dean wanted for Jamie. Poe's only fault was that he liked to kick his stall at feeding time. He wasn't mean about it but he was impatient, as if he didn't get fed enough, or like maybe Dean would forget Poe and feed all the other horses. Poe was old, at least twenty and being fed was not a new concept for him but it didn't seem to matter. He was also strong for such a fat, little ball of equine fur, so occasionally stall repair was in order.
That being said, Poe also was a great teacher. If Jamie didn't ask for a trot in the correct way, Poe would simply refuse to do it. If Jamie wanted to ride bareback like and Indian and gallop across the pasture, Poe was up for the fun. If Jamie decided to be extremely grumpy and particularly mean about something, which didn't happen that often, Poe had been known to simply deposit Jamie on the ground and stand there quietly grazing.
Dean approved.
Poe was the Winchester pony equivalent of love. Firm but forgiving.
Poe did love Jamie and Jamie loved Poe. But ponies were a responsibility and even at six, Dean wanted Jamie to know that so the latest stall repair required a trip into town and Dean expected Jamie to come.
Still, Bob's Hardware was not much fun for Jamie and Dean understood so they made an agreement. Man to man. Spit handshakes and everything. Jamie could wait outside under the little tree in front of the shop while Dean got the supplies. Then afterward, Jamie would "help" fix Poe's stall. In terms of Jamie waiting outside, it was no big deal. Jamie would never cross the street and Dean could see him from the store. Besides, forcing Jamie to come in to pick out appropriate nails and lumber might have driven home the responsibility thing, but Jamie in a hardware shop was a lesson in disaster.
Dean glanced at the window at Jamie. The kid was digging in the dirt. Not a problem. Dirty kids could get washed up eventually. Dean turned his attention to Bob as the looked for a suitable piece of wood that might be able to withstand Poe's starvation issues.
Another quick glance at the tree and Jamie was circling it, hand lightly touching the trunk. Whatever type kid stuff he was doing was apparently amusing him. Again, not a problem.
Bob was a talker, always had been, so when he got on the subject of the Cowboys chances for a Super Bowl win, it was only polite to engage in the conversation. Dean thought the Cowboys had as much of a chance of the Super Bowl as his father did taking up ballroom dancing. He said as much and that irritated Bob tremendously but apparently not enough to stop the sale and that amused the hell out of Dean. Dean pulled out his cash, dropped it with a flourish on the counter.
"How about we just agree to disagree, Bob?" Dean grinned when he said it and Bob returned it with a grimace. That was typical Bob.
Dean took a quick look out at the window.
Jamie was gone.
Dean left the lumber and nails and offered a quick semi apology to Bob.
"Jamie." The bells jingled as he opened the font door. A quick look to the right and left showed nothing but typical Main Street.
From behind him he heard Bob, "Is everything okay, Dean?"
"Jamie's gone."
"Need help?" Bob asked, suddenly not concerned about hardware or football.
"I got it, Bob – Thanks."
Dean's heart was pounding in his chest but he was pretty sure his voice didn't crack when he said it.
To the right was the diner. Jamie liked to eat, but just had breakfast. Probably not.
To the left was the barbershop. Yes. Jamie loved it there.
He walked quickly, feeling his pulse quicken with every storefront he passed that didn't hold Jamie. Dean was on automatic pilot, senses heightened and in hunter mode. For a brief beat he wished for the cold comfort of steel on the small of his back. He had a silver knife, never went anywhere without it, but Dean couldn't help but want more. Lot's more. Like angel killing knives and bazookas and tanks. He needed his boy safe and in his arms. Now.
He stopped just before the alley. As much as he wanted to barrel down into it, a lifetime of hunting dictated that he move in slowly. It might be nothing. He was sure it was nothing. But if his kid was in trouble he needed to make sure he didn't make anything worse.
He surveyed the alley within three seconds. Trash cans. A small fire escape. Some boxes. The exposed brick of both buildings that made up the alley. Jamie's legs sticking out of a drain pipe….Jamie's legs sticking out of a drainpipe? Once again Dean's heart redlined. All he could think about - instantly- was what was on the other side? What was pulling his boy into a drainpipe? Then in another split second a quick flash of Pennywise dragging kids to their deaths in drainpipes. With all the supernatural he had known in his life, the only thing he flashed to was a damn book.
Suddenly Sam's fear of clowns seemed prudent.
"JAMES MICHAEL" It came out loud and spontaneous, as if calling Jamie's name would immediately release whatever had him.
Dean ran to the pipe and grabbed Jamie's legs. There was no corresponding tug. Nothing was dragging his son anywhere. Then from inside the pipe he heard the hissing of a cat, kitten maybe and suddenly his racing heart calmed a notch or two.
Nothing supernatural. Jamie was trying to catch a cat.
He shoved his left hand over the waistband of Jamie's jeans, firmly holding the belt with it and then used his right to pull a dirty tennis shoe clad foot. With an audible pop the rest of Jamie's body came out and the boy landed with a thump in the dirty alley. His bottom hit hard but Jamie wasn't deterred.
"I got him, Daddy!" Jamie proudly held up what looked like the angriest, nastiest kitten Dean had ever seen. Its fur was matted and greasy and it was howling and scratching long slices down Jamie's arm. Jamie's arm was streaked with grease and blood, gouges deep enough to be dripping blood onto the alley.
With as much calmness as he could muster, Dean snatched the kitten and deposited it in a handy cardboard box. Then turned raging eyes at his tiny wandering troublemaker.
"Jamie Winchester!"
The boy was grinning from ear to ear and between one heartbeat and the next,
Dean went from hysterical to furious.
It wasn't Dean's style to just start spanking. It just wasn't. But apparently his style was flexible because he didn't lecture, didn't say a word just turned the boy up over his knee, using a crumbling stair step as a place to prop his foot up on.
He spanked his little boy and spanked him hard. It was probably the hardest the kid had ever been spanked in his short six years and if Dean was any judge of it, that included spankings from his own father. Normally spankings from Dean were short little wake up calls or once in a while, a sharp smack that would get his son's attention. Jamie wasn't a bad kid and had never been one. He was usually an obedient, if rambunctious little boy and typically a no nonsense look or a raised voice would be all it took to keep Jamie in line.
This time though? Jamie had disobeyed Dean and that in itself might have warranted a spanking - that was true enough - but the force of this spanking was directional proportional to the terror that sliced through Dean's heart when he noticed that Jamie was gone.
For the first time in his life as a father, Dean realized what had gone through his own father's head when the Striga had almost killed Sam. It was a little different, Jamie had never been in real danger but the truth of the matter was that Dean hadn't known it. Those moments of not knowing? He could never remember being so terrified in his life. Now, after the fact, he realized it was just normal kid doing something normally stupid. Nothing supernatural. But the fear that Dean had felt was real enough. If spanking Jamie made sure that Jamie didn't wander off like that again, well Dean was good with it.
Dean brought his hand down rapidly on Jamie's jean clad butt. Hard and fast, making the most out of every spank, turning up the fire quickly.
Dean wanted to make sure that Jamie knew. Really knew the consequences of his actions. Why Dean felt that he needed to spank him. Then, oddly enough, Dean decided that he wanted Jamie to explained himself. There was no explanation that would help the kid, but Dean felt like he wanted to know were the boy's headset had bee
"What do you have to say for yourself, young man?" Dean pulled the crying boy off of his lap and gave him a little shake. Dean had never done that either, not the shake or calling Jamie "young man". Dean had hated that himself when Dad had used that particular phrase with him. When he had been a young man, it made him feel like a baby and when he had been a little kid, he just knew his father was trying to shame him in some way. And yet he did it to Jamie…it was as natural as the spanking had been.
Jamie started babbling about monsters and cats and trips to see Mr. Mark and then he looked at Dean his green eyes wide and tears, running dirty streaks down Jamie's face. Dean scooped him up, carefully leaving Jamie's butt dangling a bit off the edge of his arm. He breathed in Jamie, all little boy smell, sweat and dirt with the traces of blood and what was probably the stench of ally cat. And it was wonderful. He could feel Jamie's heart racing next to his own and the boy shuddered with hiccupping gasps, a perfectly normal response to getting your butt warmed.
Then Dean took a hard deep breath two, not shocked to find his own face wet with tears. He'd lost his boy today – he'd found him too but those minutes of uncertainty had just about done him in.
"Jamie, you listen good, hear. Don't you ever do that to me again. I tell you to stay, you damn well better stay." Dean wasn't yelling his voice was really not much more than a whisper into Jamie's neck. But there was no nonsense in his tone. It was a deep rumble was etched with emotion.
"Jamie," Dean prompted.
"Yes, sir."
I felt good to hear him say it. It felt right. Then Dean surprised himself by apologizing, "I'm sorry, Jamie"
Jamie didn't get it, why Dean was sorry when Jamie had been disobedient. Dean could sense it in the subtle shift of Jamie's weight in his arms. The puzzled change in his crying. But it was important for Dean to share in the responsibility of making a mistake of leaving Jamie and to make sure that Jamie got it.
He was never going to be alone. Jamie was never going to be left in a no tell motel guarding his own little brother. The Winchesters lived in a safe town and Jamie knew everyone. But that didn't mean that bad stuff couldn't happen to good kids. It did every day, in little towns and big cities and rural farms all over. Kids disappeared all the time and sometimes it had nothing to do with anything supernatural. Jamie was Dean's responsibility, he'd always been. Jamie was Dean's job and it was the most important job Dean had ever had. Or ever wanted. More important than Sammy and Sammy? Well, Sammy was all that kept Dean alive for most of his younger years.
All the energy, love, and Winchester stubborn stick-to-it-iviness that Dean had lavished on Sammy as a kid had morphed into something inconceivable in his own boy. Sometimes Jamie suffered for it, but more often than not, the kid just took the hugs and love and occasional butt warmings as nothing more than Daddy being his Daddy.
Jamie was a smart kid. A really smart kid.
"Can we keep Godzilla?"
Dean furrowed his brow, thinking of the movie and how in the hell did a movie, even a really cool one, have anything to do with this?
"Huh?"
"My kitten. Godzilla."
Dean dropped his head toward the box on the ground. He could hear the murderous growls of what appeared to be a cougar in there. Not to mention the blood trail on the ground from Jamie's slashed up arm. Who in the hell would want that demon spawn feral tiger?
Dean was sure that Jamie could see the kitten's future was not likely to be living with the Winchesters. Immediately the boy started on what a great fighter he would be. And a ratter and God's gift to cats. And the underdog- and underdog cat was pretty cool and weren't Winchesters about second chances and third chances and fighting the good fight? Well, maybe he didn't say all those words but it was as close as a six year old could come up with.
Then Jamie cocked his head, green eyes meeting green. "Dad, don't be angry with Godzilla, he can't help that he was scared." Jamie flicked his eyes to the growling box with a patient glance, "When something is scared they can't help but go after whatever's got them so scared. That's the way it is."
Out of the mouths of babes. Sometimes that kid was too freakin' smart for words. It didn't mean that Dean wanted a skanky, rank, flea-ridden cat with psychotic tendencies.
But Jamie was always pretty good at getting what he wanted.
Dean shook his head. What had started off as a hardware trip ended up with Jamie getting his butt roasted in an alley and the Winchesters bringing home what was quite possibly was the meanest non-supernatural animal Dean had ever seen.
Dean deposited Jamie in the alley and picked up the sputtering box with one hand and firmly grasped Jamie's in the other.
At the end of the alley he stopped and turned left. They would drop Godzilla off at the vet and then they would grab the stuff from Bob's.
Despite the snarling cat in the box in his felt arm, it was Jamie's tiny hand in his that he felt.
And it felt perfect.
End.