ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-01-26 08:53 am
ratherastory) wrote2010-01-26 08:53 am
Entry tags:
Take Me Home —Part 14
Title: Take Me Home
Summary: The Trickster decides to have some fun with Sam. Wackiness ensues, with a healthy helping of whump, because it's me and I can't leave the boys intact.
Spoilers: All aired episodes up to 5.10
Word Count: 1,788 for this chapter
Disclaimer: Luckily for them, I own nothing. Otherwise they'd be in for a world of hurt.
Warning: Utter crack. Language that is definitely not workplace-appropriate.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: No beta, written in such a hurry I'm amazed my fingers managed to connect with the keyboard.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #2:I take NO responsibility for this, because it's cracktastic and weird and I can't believe it came out of of my brain. If you are scarred for life after reading it, it's NOT my fault!
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #3: It's basically "Lassie Come-Home," Winchester-style. I dunno. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
Master Post
Part 13
Change of POV time again, but still no Dean. Sorry! ;)
*****
“Mama, please can I got outside now?”
Deborah Donnelly heaves a sigh, up to her elbows in dirty dishwater, and looks over her shoulder at where her daughter is standing near the back door, waiting expectantly. Katie-Anne is four feet and three inches of grim determination, holding her boots in one hand and her raincoat in the other. It's been raining steadily for four days now, and while it was easy enough to keep her inside on school days, it's Saturday now, and it's only a matter of time before she wins this particular battle of wills. There's no real reason to keep her inside, either, except for Deborah's maternal instincts which want to keep her daughter safe and dry and warm, none of which will be possible if she goes outside to play in the rain. Then again, playing in the rain and splashing in puddles is a time-honoured childhood rite of passage, and who is she to deny her daughter that pleasure?
“All right, fine. You can go out, but you have to wear all your rain gear. That includes your rain pants.”
“But Mama!” the voice is petulant, whiny, because rain pants are hot and uncomfortable and whatever other excuses a seven-year-old can come up with.
“Butts are for sitting. You want to go out, you follow my rules. Rain pants, or you stay inside and colour.”
“Fine.”
“I don't want you heading anywhere near the creek, either, you hear me?” Deborah puts as much command into her voice as she can muster. It's bad enough that the creek is cold at this time of year, but with all the rain it's probably swelled up beyond its banks, and she's heard too many horror stories of children drowning in less than two inches of water to feel comfortable letting her kid anywhere near it without supervision. “Stay close to the house.”
“Fine, Mama!”
Katie-Anne is already halfway out the door, having pulled on her rain pants and boots while her mother was still admonishing her to be safe and not go near the creek. At seven and three-quarters, she is old enough to have figured out that plausible deniability is the way to go (her older brother Keith taught her the phrase, and she enjoys trotting it out in front of grown-ups because it makes their eyes go really big). So if she can say she didn't hear her mother tell her to stay near the house, and not be lying, then she won't get into trouble.
While her mother is watching through the window she contents herself with staying nearby, jumping into the deepest puddles with both feet together to generate as big a splash as she can. The boots are new, bought at the end of the summer because, as her mother says, she's been growing like a weed and her old boots don't fit her. Keith's hand-me-downs are usually the norm when it comes to her clothes, but he was uncommonly hard on his boots as a kid, and this time her mother let her pick out her own boots, and she got a really pretty pair of pink ones with rainbows on them. She doesn't care that they don't go with her green rain gear: they're the kind of boots a princess would wear, and so she twirls on one toe, making believe that she's a kidnapped fairy trapped in a world where the sun doesn't shine, like Narnia, except that it's not winter here.
Kidnapped fairy princesses don't play in yards, so Katie-Anne slips out by the back fence through the gap that Keith showed her, and heads into the back forty. She's been going out there by herself for ever, and it's not like it's not allowed so long as she's careful. She knows exactly where she should go, too: the old barn on the Miller property. It's been abandoned for years, and Keith told her that there's a ghost there, which is why no one wants to buy the place: Old Man Miller, Keith likes to tell her when she sneaks into his room at night, illuminating his face with a flashlight, went insane after his wife died, and killed a half-dozen people before he was caught and hanged.
She's well on her way, picking her way along the overgrown path, when she sees something out of the corner of her eye. She stops, looks over, because whatever it is, it's glowing, and it's way too late in the year for it to be a firefly. It looks like it's near a small tree, just hovering, and she can't make it out, so she steps off the path, heads toward it, the rain pattering on her plastic cap. It's not as bad here in the shelter of the trees, but the rain is heavy enough that the canopy offers little protection against the damp. The glowing thing drifts away as she gets near, and she puts on a small burst of speed, trying to catch up. It's like a ball of light, but it's not like anything she's seen before, burning kind of cold, like a blue flame. She's not sure that it's blue, but that's the closest she can come to describing it.
The light bobs up and down a few yards away, and she stamps her foot in irritation. “Hey, come back!” she calls out, and trots toward it again. It hovers, waiting, then moves away just as she thinks she might be about to grasp it in her fingers. She wants to see how it'll look when she cups it in her hands. Last summer she caught a bunch of fireflies with Keith to make a firefly lantern, and she held the last one she caught in her hand, staring at it in the dark as it glowed bright-dark, bright-dark, illuminating all the lines in the palm of her hand. It crawled along her lifeline, and it was the prettiest and ugliest thing she'd ever seen, both at the same time.
Her feet crunch on the leaves and pine needles on the ground, and she's getting wetter and kind of cold, and she's not sure now which way the path is, because the pretty blue light is dancing and twisting in and out of the trees, and she's running to keep up now. Every time she stops to catch her breath she feels something pulling at her, and so she starts running again, reaching toward the light. When it swoops back in, dangling tantalizingly right above her head she makes a last, desperate lunge for it, and her foot catches on a root. Her ankle twists painfully and she sprawls forward, skinning the palms of her hands and bumping her chin.
When she looks up, the light is gone, and it's dark out and she doesn't know where she is. So she does what every sensible seven-year-old lost in the woods does, and bursts into tears, scrubbing at her eyes with grubby fists. The sound of the undergrowth crunching nearby makes her look up with a gasp, and suddenly her mind is full of thoughts of all the scary things Keith told her live in the woods and eat little girls as snacks, and she scrambles backward until her back hits a tree. The rustling sound gets louder, and a giant black shape looms out from behind a fallen tree and she shrieks as loudly as she can.
There's a confused-sounding whine, and the shape comes toward her, steps into a pool of light where the trees aren't as thick, and her heart stops hammering quite so hard in her chest when she sees that it's a dog. A dog with a red collar, which means it's someone's pet. Pets are safe.
“Nice doggy,” she says, her voice quavering. Pets may be safe, but they aren't always friendly. Especially not farm dogs. This one seems pretty friendly: it wags its tail and comes over to nose at her. She reaches out and pats it with both hands, being careful not to pull on its ears. It licks her face, and she giggles, all her earlier fears forgotten. The tag on its collar reads 'Sam.' She doesn't remember any of their neighbours having a dog named Sam. “Are you lost too, Sam?”
Sam wags his tail, swipes his tongue over her face again. He doesn't seem lost, for some reason, not that she could explain why she thinks that. He puts his head down, nudges her injured ankle. He's got to be one of those super-smart dogs, like on TV.
“I twisted my ankle,” she explains to him. “Do you know the way back to the path?”
He whines and barks, but she's not sure what that means, so she pulls herself to her feet, finds that she can walk if she limps a little. Sam jams his shoulder against her, clearly inviting her to lean on him, and so she does, and he starts walking, slowly but surely. It takes a long, long time, and she's cold and her ankle hurts, but it's stopped raining, and she thinks he knows where he's going, although where that is is probably not her house. Maybe she'll at least find some people and use their phone. That's when she hears voices shouting, sees the beam from flashlights up ahead, and her heart swells up in her chest.
“Katie! Katie-Anne!”
They're looking for her! “Over here!” she shouts, waving her arms even though she knows they can't see her. “Dada! I'm over here!”
She limps faster toward the lights, still shouting, and hears the voices shout back, and soon she's being crushed in her Dada's arms, sobbing with relief. “God, Katie, we were so worried! Where were you?”
Katie rubs at her eyes with her fists. “There was a light, and I was trying to catch it but I got lost and I fell and I twisted my ankle. It really hurts,” she added meaningfully. “Then Sam showed me the way back to the path, so it was okay.”
“Who's Sam?” her father asks, carrying her away, propped up on his hip.
“He's a dog. He was right there.”
She points over his shoulder, but when he turns, there's no sign of a dog. Her father chucks her under the chin.
“C'mon, kiddo. Your mother's been worried sick. Let's get you home.”
She's safe, cradled against Dada's broad chest, but she gazes back at the path for a long time as he carries her away, watching for a black shape among the trees.
*****
I've always loved will-o'-the-wisps, ever since I was a little girl.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sinnerforhire has written a delightful wee!chester one-shot with one here: Light The Way. If there are similarities between our two stories, it's because I SHAMELESSLY COPIED HER. *cough* Okay, not really, but she's an awesome writer and it's a very inspiring little story. :)
Part 15
Summary: The Trickster decides to have some fun with Sam. Wackiness ensues, with a healthy helping of whump, because it's me and I can't leave the boys intact.
Spoilers: All aired episodes up to 5.10
Word Count: 1,788 for this chapter
Disclaimer: Luckily for them, I own nothing. Otherwise they'd be in for a world of hurt.
Warning: Utter crack. Language that is definitely not workplace-appropriate.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: No beta, written in such a hurry I'm amazed my fingers managed to connect with the keyboard.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #2:I take NO responsibility for this, because it's cracktastic and weird and I can't believe it came out of of my brain. If you are scarred for life after reading it, it's NOT my fault!
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #3: It's basically "Lassie Come-Home," Winchester-style. I dunno. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
Master Post
Part 13
Change of POV time again, but still no Dean. Sorry! ;)
“Mama, please can I got outside now?”
Deborah Donnelly heaves a sigh, up to her elbows in dirty dishwater, and looks over her shoulder at where her daughter is standing near the back door, waiting expectantly. Katie-Anne is four feet and three inches of grim determination, holding her boots in one hand and her raincoat in the other. It's been raining steadily for four days now, and while it was easy enough to keep her inside on school days, it's Saturday now, and it's only a matter of time before she wins this particular battle of wills. There's no real reason to keep her inside, either, except for Deborah's maternal instincts which want to keep her daughter safe and dry and warm, none of which will be possible if she goes outside to play in the rain. Then again, playing in the rain and splashing in puddles is a time-honoured childhood rite of passage, and who is she to deny her daughter that pleasure?
“All right, fine. You can go out, but you have to wear all your rain gear. That includes your rain pants.”
“But Mama!” the voice is petulant, whiny, because rain pants are hot and uncomfortable and whatever other excuses a seven-year-old can come up with.
“Butts are for sitting. You want to go out, you follow my rules. Rain pants, or you stay inside and colour.”
“Fine.”
“I don't want you heading anywhere near the creek, either, you hear me?” Deborah puts as much command into her voice as she can muster. It's bad enough that the creek is cold at this time of year, but with all the rain it's probably swelled up beyond its banks, and she's heard too many horror stories of children drowning in less than two inches of water to feel comfortable letting her kid anywhere near it without supervision. “Stay close to the house.”
“Fine, Mama!”
Katie-Anne is already halfway out the door, having pulled on her rain pants and boots while her mother was still admonishing her to be safe and not go near the creek. At seven and three-quarters, she is old enough to have figured out that plausible deniability is the way to go (her older brother Keith taught her the phrase, and she enjoys trotting it out in front of grown-ups because it makes their eyes go really big). So if she can say she didn't hear her mother tell her to stay near the house, and not be lying, then she won't get into trouble.
While her mother is watching through the window she contents herself with staying nearby, jumping into the deepest puddles with both feet together to generate as big a splash as she can. The boots are new, bought at the end of the summer because, as her mother says, she's been growing like a weed and her old boots don't fit her. Keith's hand-me-downs are usually the norm when it comes to her clothes, but he was uncommonly hard on his boots as a kid, and this time her mother let her pick out her own boots, and she got a really pretty pair of pink ones with rainbows on them. She doesn't care that they don't go with her green rain gear: they're the kind of boots a princess would wear, and so she twirls on one toe, making believe that she's a kidnapped fairy trapped in a world where the sun doesn't shine, like Narnia, except that it's not winter here.
Kidnapped fairy princesses don't play in yards, so Katie-Anne slips out by the back fence through the gap that Keith showed her, and heads into the back forty. She's been going out there by herself for ever, and it's not like it's not allowed so long as she's careful. She knows exactly where she should go, too: the old barn on the Miller property. It's been abandoned for years, and Keith told her that there's a ghost there, which is why no one wants to buy the place: Old Man Miller, Keith likes to tell her when she sneaks into his room at night, illuminating his face with a flashlight, went insane after his wife died, and killed a half-dozen people before he was caught and hanged.
She's well on her way, picking her way along the overgrown path, when she sees something out of the corner of her eye. She stops, looks over, because whatever it is, it's glowing, and it's way too late in the year for it to be a firefly. It looks like it's near a small tree, just hovering, and she can't make it out, so she steps off the path, heads toward it, the rain pattering on her plastic cap. It's not as bad here in the shelter of the trees, but the rain is heavy enough that the canopy offers little protection against the damp. The glowing thing drifts away as she gets near, and she puts on a small burst of speed, trying to catch up. It's like a ball of light, but it's not like anything she's seen before, burning kind of cold, like a blue flame. She's not sure that it's blue, but that's the closest she can come to describing it.
The light bobs up and down a few yards away, and she stamps her foot in irritation. “Hey, come back!” she calls out, and trots toward it again. It hovers, waiting, then moves away just as she thinks she might be about to grasp it in her fingers. She wants to see how it'll look when she cups it in her hands. Last summer she caught a bunch of fireflies with Keith to make a firefly lantern, and she held the last one she caught in her hand, staring at it in the dark as it glowed bright-dark, bright-dark, illuminating all the lines in the palm of her hand. It crawled along her lifeline, and it was the prettiest and ugliest thing she'd ever seen, both at the same time.
Her feet crunch on the leaves and pine needles on the ground, and she's getting wetter and kind of cold, and she's not sure now which way the path is, because the pretty blue light is dancing and twisting in and out of the trees, and she's running to keep up now. Every time she stops to catch her breath she feels something pulling at her, and so she starts running again, reaching toward the light. When it swoops back in, dangling tantalizingly right above her head she makes a last, desperate lunge for it, and her foot catches on a root. Her ankle twists painfully and she sprawls forward, skinning the palms of her hands and bumping her chin.
When she looks up, the light is gone, and it's dark out and she doesn't know where she is. So she does what every sensible seven-year-old lost in the woods does, and bursts into tears, scrubbing at her eyes with grubby fists. The sound of the undergrowth crunching nearby makes her look up with a gasp, and suddenly her mind is full of thoughts of all the scary things Keith told her live in the woods and eat little girls as snacks, and she scrambles backward until her back hits a tree. The rustling sound gets louder, and a giant black shape looms out from behind a fallen tree and she shrieks as loudly as she can.
There's a confused-sounding whine, and the shape comes toward her, steps into a pool of light where the trees aren't as thick, and her heart stops hammering quite so hard in her chest when she sees that it's a dog. A dog with a red collar, which means it's someone's pet. Pets are safe.
“Nice doggy,” she says, her voice quavering. Pets may be safe, but they aren't always friendly. Especially not farm dogs. This one seems pretty friendly: it wags its tail and comes over to nose at her. She reaches out and pats it with both hands, being careful not to pull on its ears. It licks her face, and she giggles, all her earlier fears forgotten. The tag on its collar reads 'Sam.' She doesn't remember any of their neighbours having a dog named Sam. “Are you lost too, Sam?”
Sam wags his tail, swipes his tongue over her face again. He doesn't seem lost, for some reason, not that she could explain why she thinks that. He puts his head down, nudges her injured ankle. He's got to be one of those super-smart dogs, like on TV.
“I twisted my ankle,” she explains to him. “Do you know the way back to the path?”
He whines and barks, but she's not sure what that means, so she pulls herself to her feet, finds that she can walk if she limps a little. Sam jams his shoulder against her, clearly inviting her to lean on him, and so she does, and he starts walking, slowly but surely. It takes a long, long time, and she's cold and her ankle hurts, but it's stopped raining, and she thinks he knows where he's going, although where that is is probably not her house. Maybe she'll at least find some people and use their phone. That's when she hears voices shouting, sees the beam from flashlights up ahead, and her heart swells up in her chest.
“Katie! Katie-Anne!”
They're looking for her! “Over here!” she shouts, waving her arms even though she knows they can't see her. “Dada! I'm over here!”
She limps faster toward the lights, still shouting, and hears the voices shout back, and soon she's being crushed in her Dada's arms, sobbing with relief. “God, Katie, we were so worried! Where were you?”
Katie rubs at her eyes with her fists. “There was a light, and I was trying to catch it but I got lost and I fell and I twisted my ankle. It really hurts,” she added meaningfully. “Then Sam showed me the way back to the path, so it was okay.”
“Who's Sam?” her father asks, carrying her away, propped up on his hip.
“He's a dog. He was right there.”
She points over his shoulder, but when he turns, there's no sign of a dog. Her father chucks her under the chin.
“C'mon, kiddo. Your mother's been worried sick. Let's get you home.”
She's safe, cradled against Dada's broad chest, but she gazes back at the path for a long time as he carries her away, watching for a black shape among the trees.
I've always loved will-o'-the-wisps, ever since I was a little girl.
sinnerforhire has written a delightful wee!chester one-shot with one here: Light The Way. If there are similarities between our two stories, it's because I SHAMELESSLY COPIED HER. *cough* Okay, not really, but she's an awesome writer and it's a very inspiring little story. :)Part 15
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It's too bad he couldn't stay around for some treats and snuggles of gratitude.
poor sammy. Out in the cold and the rain!
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So it's better to have the scenario be one of: "Who WAS that mysterious dog?" ;)
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I had fun with this one. :)
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You'd think he'd get kibble, but knowing humans he'd end up getting taken to the local pound, so I think he made the right decision by melting into the undergrowth.
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And saving people is the family business, no matter what form they're in.
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