Work Text
PROLOGUE
DECEMBER 12, 2017
“Sorry, who is…?”
“Elizabeth A. Davis. She got a Tony nomination for that musical Once, back in ’12, with Steve Kazee and Cristin Milotti. She’s awesome. I actually got to see her production of King Lear , recently, where she played Goneril. The eldest daughter. A lot of people just pigeonhole that character as the villain of that play, but she isn’t. More on that later. Anyway, she was, like, super freaking pregnant there. Davis was. So, of course, lots of subtext and multifaceted layers there, especially with that text. Especially with that character. That moment early on when, um, when Lear curses Goneril’s progeny, and she’s standing there with this very big and very real pregnant belly? Just— argh! Just- ugh! Super juicy. You know? Sorry, you didn’t ask me out to hear me gush about my Broadway crushes. God, her voice, though!”
True, that isn’t why Dean asked his actress friend out for coffee. He’s not going to dock her a few ‘dateable’ points for going on about things she adores. What kind of asshat would do that? She’s a Shakespeare geek above all. Right now he just loves listening to her speak. He shifts his weight in his cushioned seat, the distinctive aroma of Starbucks all around them and Manhattan traffic as cacophonous as ever just beyond the glass and sidewalk behind them. He smiles, giving a little laugh because he notices how her body language shifts whenever she thinks she’s talking too much. They’ve known each other long enough. She loosens up. It’s like he can feel the self-consciousness leave her body and she’s right back into ‘perky stage actor’ mode. Actress-Laurel is his favorite Laurel, if you asked Dean. This career suits her so much better than a prosecuting attorney in that coastal place out West. He only wishes she’d switched careers before the earthquake that destroyed so much of Star City. 2012 wasn’t a very good year for a lot of people, he thinks. Honestly, he blames the Mayans.
“How have you been, Dean? I know these last few years haven’t been easy for either of us.”
Understatement.
He clears his throat and takes a sip of his coffee. Once he puts the cup down, his right thumb and index finger absently rub over the lighter skin of his left ring finger. He has yet to properly get used to it being bare. Two years today and it surprises him every morning.
“Better than I was,” he says honestly. “Considering I’ve cycled through AA three times, with varying degrees of success, for the last seventeen months, I’d say that’s good. I’m actually doing more than just going to the meetings this time.”
“That’s good, Dean, that’s really good. One day at a time. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” He’s never been the best at believing it when people say they’re proud of him. Something for him to work on. It means something coming from her, though, these words that in his experience are empty platitudes meant to ensure a temporary ego boost. They don’t need to get into all that right now. Today’s about the present, not the past. Possibly, if today goes well, the immediate future as well? He wouldn’t mind that. As he takes another sip of coffee, Laurel begins talking again.
“Can I ask, what made you decide to do this? I mean, I’m not complaining, but we’ve been friends for so long…”
He doesn’t care what’s coming out of her mouth, he could just sit and hear her talk all day. This, though, is a question requiring care and tact. His words could make or break not only this date but also their friendship with his next words.
“Don’t bullshit me, Winchester. I’m an actress and I used to be a lawyer, don’t forget. I’m like a living BS detector.”
They both laugh.
“I’m serious!”
At least he’s given time to formulate a response.
“Guess I’ll go for the honest answer: I have discovered a peculiar affinity for women nearly a decade my junior.”
Laurel guffaws. Man, he’s really using that old social worker speaking style, huh? Okay, six-and-a-quarter years are not a decade. He licks his lips and gives her what she wants.
“Really, Dean.” She’s blushing now and does not give a damn. “Tell me what I want to hear and maybe I’ll get you discounted tickets to the opening night of Iphigenia At Aulis next week?” She is playing the title role, because of course she is. He has not been shy about showering his friend with praise over her first leading role in an Off-Broadway production.
Dean inhales and tells her.
His words secure a second date, a third, and a fourth over the next month. On the fifth, Dean asks if they want to make themselves official. Laurel responds by shoving her tongue down his throat. The following April, on the 6th, her 32nd birthday, they are in a church surrounded by friends and family. She gains a 1967 Chevy Impala, three stepchildren, a new last name, and a man with the biggest heart she’s ever met. It is her favorite Friday in all of existence.
FEBRUARY 24, 2020
This is embarrassing. Never before has she required help getting off her own freaking bed. Being 34 weeks pregnant is no joke. What a way to end an otherwise decent nap. Heaving a great sigh, she swallows her pride as she disentangles her legs from the body pillow.“Emma! Sweetheart, can you help me up, please?”
Silence. Does the girl have her earbuds in or something? Typical.
“Emma!” She calls again. “Please! Em-"The bedroom door, already ajar, almost slams into the wall behind it. Emma, all of twenty-two years old, has eyes almost big as saucers. She visibly deflates upon seeing Laurel appears relaxed. “What the fuck, Laurel? Your hugely pregnant ass cannot be freaking out the nursing major like that.” Oh, yeah, she definitely gets her mouth from her father. Having had two actresses for stepmothers just exacerbates the problem.“Well, I’m pretty sure this baby is not growing in my ass, Emma. Now, please?” She claps twice and, dutifully, Emma does as she is bid. Laurel’s “oof” does not go unnoticed by either. Laurel tries to divert attention from her ‘sound effects’ by raking her hands through her hair and stretching. It does not fool her stepdaughter for a second.“I’m fine, stop worrying. One day you’ll be growing a whole new person and understand. This is good, but there are always bad days. I tell you, I did not foresee a coffee date with one of my best friends ever resulting in this,” she coasts both hands over her bump. “God, I know I said I was going to work until I couldn’t anymore but I have never been happier to have a day off.”“I’m jealous. You guys always have Mondays off,” Emma teases. “That’s like the best day ever to have off.”“Yeah, but we do eight shows a week. You’re coming to the Saturday matinee, right?”“The Friday performance. Remember? Me, Dad, Aunt Alex, Aunt Sara, and Claire. The twins, too. We’re all coming to cheer you on.”“I’m playing Shelley, not performing brain surgery,” she laughs.Emma knows what a big fan of Sam Shepard her stepmother is, and so decides to continue hyping her up. Especially since she got this character, normally played by twenty-somethings, on the sheer strength of her audition.“You, Dinah Laurel Lance-Winchester, are going to be the best Shepard character in the history of however many times people have put on his plays. A lot. I’m proud of you. I look forward to seeing you waddle around that dusty set.”Laurel playfully punches Emma’s shoulder. “Wise-ass.” She’s only ever been credited as ‘Laurel Lance’ since coming to the Big Apple. ‘Dinah’, as she’s always insisted, is her mother’s name and her husband isn’t a popular stage actor.“You love me.”“I do. Hey, I do not waddle!”“You absolutely do.”“No!”“Just accept it. There is no escape.”“I think me being pregnant adds an extra dimension to the proceedings. Fine, whatever,” Laurel begrudges, slipping her feet into her fluffy black slippers. Those things, and her trusty compression socks, are a pregnant lady’s best friend. Anyone who says otherwise is a bald-faced liar. “Hey,” she yawns, “it’s what— 12:40? Would you mind walking the twins home from school today? I have a couple of errands to run and I probably won’t be back before school gets out. I take it one of your classes got canceled today. You have time.”“Laurel, the twins are fourteen. Fifteen in October. They don’t need to be walked home ten blocks like they’re little babies.”“Henry and Mary are still minors, Emma, in a big city.” She gives her best ‘Mom’ look, hands on her hips, and receives no further complaint from her eldest. “Good. I should be back around four or five. I may not get everything done today, depending on how tired I am. Your dad is cooking tonight, so if you want to save some money you are more than welcome to stick around. Oh, I have my midwife appointment with Thea at 5:30. Mama has a very busy day off.”“I genuinely don’t believe you know how to slow down,” Emma rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Before Laurel can give a witty retort, her stepdaughter is walking into the kitchen. She opens the refrigerator.Laurel often ponders the interesting family tree she married into twenty-two months ago. Emma is Dean’s daughter, born of a one-night stand with a sorority girl named Lydia on February 3, 1998. The pair never married. The twins are technically Dean’s nephew and niece, born when his younger brother Sam was also in college, left orphaned in 2008. Their mother, Sam’s college girlfriend Jessica Moore, met her untimely end by a serial killer’s carving knife when they were newborns. Hell, on November 5, 2005, they weren’t even a full month old. To make matters worse? The sick bastard was one of Sam’s college buddies, a classmate named Brady. He broke into their home near campus, slit her abdomen open, and set her on fire. Supposed ‘good ol’ Brady’, as it turned out, harbored religious delusions and thought of himself as a demon called Azazel, mentioned in the Lesser Key of Solomon. Being incredibly Catholic, that information disturbed Laurel, not an insignificant amount. As for their father? Well, the first case Sam tried out of law school turned out to be the wrong one. Police found him dead across the street from his Queens apartment three days after he won that case. It’s all very sad, to say nothing of everything that led to Dean’s divorce.——————“It’s good to see you again, Dean. Been too long.”“You, too. You, too.” His fingers drum on the screwed-in booth table while he awaits their admittedly very simple order. How long does it take to make breakfast foods for lunch in a tiny hoe-in-the-wall Australian cafe anyway? Apparently very long, even when they are the only two customers. Weird. It’s good to see her here. It’s doubly good to see her smile again.“I notice you paid with a twenty dollar bill. Don’t want your new wife to know you’re having brunch with your old one?”“Laurel’s been on my back about running up the debit card all the time.”“Sure, she is.”Dean knows how suspicious Amara can be. She’s always been that way, even before… everything. The years have been good to her; she looks refreshed. There’s actually a smile on her face. It was the first thing he noticed when he stepped into this establishment. She was here first, because she is always here first. Punctuality is a big thing with her. He watches how she chews her bottom lip, how she, with a marked hesitation at first and then all at once, reaches across the table to take his hand. To make him stop drumming. He’s not naive. Dean knows that look in her eye. She squeezes his hand. Reflexively, he squeezes back. Should he have done that?“Dean, I- I’m better now. I promise, I am. I’m in therapy and it’s… it’s just nice to not be in that place anymore.” The double meaning is not lost on him. “I was thinking maybe, maybe, we can try again?”He retracts his hand. Her face scrunches with confusion.“Amara, you know I’m always gonna care about you…” here we go “but” the dreaded b-word he knows she hates “you know I’m with Laurel now. We told you we’re having a baby, remember? Laurel is about to have a baby. Our baby. Hers and mine.”There’s a moment when it appears to Dean as though Amara is processing the information she has only just heard for the first time. Her demeanor shifts and her previously smiling face darkens for a very pointed blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash. The serenity now on her face is astronomically worse. Now it is her turn to pull her hand back under the table.“So, what, you’re gonna just forget? You’ll replace him with your new kid?”“Amara, that’s not-”“No! He’s not going to be Daniel!”“No, I- that’s… I know, all right? I know. No one can be Daniel.”“Then why are you going to the pet store to get a shiny new goldfish? Huh?”
Where the hell is their order?
“What am I not enough? Was I not? Is everything we went through some exercise? We were together for six years, Dean Winchester, married for five of those. That’s not nothing. I am not nothing.”“Amara…”“He was not nothing! Our boy… our son was special. He was important. You promised. You promised, Winchester, and you just fucking left!”Dean opens his mouth, to speak, to defend himself, to say anything at all, but he can’t. She’s gone before he can. For a moment, all he can do is sit there. He gets up and leaves, walking down the opposite way of this busy Manhattan street, without receiving the food he purchased.