Mink (minkmix) wrote,

SPN Fic: Church Business

24 hours with no power sucks like a big old sucking thing that sucks a lot. However reading four books by candlelight has lent me a blindness I didn't think I'd achieve until I was well into my 90s. whoo!
Anyway, here, have some more Jim-ness.
r.i.p irwin

Title: Church Business
Author: Mink
Rating: PG - Gen - Wee! & Teen!Chesters - Pastor Jim
Spoilers: None
Disclaimers: SPN & characters are owned by their various creators.
Summary: Pastor Jim has a heart-to-heart with Dean about life, the universe and pretty girls.

Jim was usually the last person to leave any social gathering.

If it had been organized in his parish he was more than expected to not only attend, but provide a certain presence that he did when he was on hallowed ground.

Very much like after a service he was surrounded by the faces he saw every week sitting in his pews but just in other and more various settings. The VFW hall bingo games. The funerals and weddings he attended or presided. The social gatherings of any and utter sort that felt his company was just as essential as the right kind of napkins and assorted cold cuts.

Some just liked to touch his hands and greet him. Some where the elderly used him more as a doctor to discuss any current woes. Others were the younger mothers that liked to run the church events as efficiently as the corporate jobs they had left to steer their familles. Whoever they were, their words and wants always made sure that his small reasonably priced four door sedan was typically the only one left parked as everyone finally departed back to their homes.

Jim didn't mind.

He had always done his very best to be as available as possible. And that couldn't come to a halt with the boys staying with him for the mean time. So with a little thought behind just exactly how he would explain them, he decided to include the boys in his rounds. He warned them that they might be lingering a little longer than they may want to, but they had both shrugged in an automatic compliance that Jim sometimes forgot they had. Their first foray into it all was fairly pleasant enough. It was a BBQ in honor of the final friendly softball game between causally arranged teams that had competed all summer.

Dean had taken one look at the bright table cloths, smoking grills and children scrambling over the playground monkey bars and had said only one thing.

"Looks like some kinda... movie."

After a few prods, Sam stopped hovering around and behind Jim and soon vanished into the noisy herd of kids on the swing sets. Dean politely answered the various questions put to him by the church matrons about his school and family with an ease that almost made Jim wish he wasn't so good at it. The kids Dean's age were studying him from afar as any insulated group of friends confronted with a newcomer would do. The regular teenagers that came to these kind of things thought it was a cool as a teen should think it was. They could barely tolerate being there, hanging on the fringe of the beer drinking adults and conspiring just when and how to score a few bottles for themselves.

They were usually fairly respectful of Jim. Mostly because he spoke to them as if they weren't any particular age. Jim was very aware of the effect of what simple respect could do. He very offhandedly let it be known that Dean and Sam were his nephews from California. He choose California because it would make Dean instantly exotic to the younger of his farm bred flock, and he choose nephews because the truth was as usual, too exotic to be explained. Unsure of what exactly Dean would do around a small town set of his peers, Jim decided to watch quietly and find out.

As he expected, the bored teens begrudgingly surrounded Dean to ask his hows and whys, and help him bemoan a summer vacation away from somewhere as cool as the West coast. Sucked to be him out here with them all the way out here in the middle of nowhere huh? What was LA like? Did he surf? They had heard there were lots of gangs. At least, that's what they always showed in the movies.

The clergy man had never actually thought of the oldest Winchester boy in terms of shy until he saw him among people his own age. He didn't quite seem to know how to interact with them. Their banter and jokes he faked through well enough, but their complaints and worries, were so far away from his own experience that he had nothing to contribute back. However, to his credit, and whether Dean was aware of it or not, it leant him some kind of quiet appearance of aloofness that made a kid his age very interesting to others around him. That and besides what Jim already knew, which was Dean was just easy to like. Easy smiles. Easy jokes. A sincerity that came through all the stories and fabrications no matter how thick they got.

So, whether the kid wanted it or not, he soon had a small circle of people that looked forward to seeing him when he arrived with the Pastor to whatever shindig came along next. By the fifth church event Jim had brought the boys along to, it was Jim that was waiting by the car as Sammy rolled himself bored and groaning along the car's sides. The Pastor would wait patiently until Dean concluded his business with his new found group.

"Finally." Sam sighed when Dean eventually turned and started walking towards the car.

Jim waited until they were well out of the parking lot and on the road before he spoke.

"So?" He asked. "Have fun?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah um, great um, clam bake thing. Didn't know you baked clams."

"Are you, will you be uh," Jim was trying really hard not to sound like exactly how he was sounding. "...going out tonight again?"

The teen shrugged while he played with the electric window. "Dunno, probably."

Jim took a deep breath. Time to drop the preverbal bomb. He tried to make his voice as causal as possible.

"I've seen you've been talking to Janis Mitchell quite a bit lately."

Dean looked over at him in semi surprise, a half guilty look and a quick study of the older man's face.

"Yeah, um, she's really nice."

Jim felt himself sigh. Ms. Mitchell had developed into full grown adulthood in about the span of one high school year, much to the interest of just about every living breathing male student within the city limits. Even Jim had to admit, if even to his very own deepest and most private thoughts, he couldn't really blame them.

Beauty was beauty.

Unfortunately, not all beauty was as equally virtuous as its aesthetic. The young woman had garnered something of a reputation.

"I'm the Pastor in this town Dean, I know how nice that girl is." He murmured in an attempt to keep Sam out of the conversation. "She's also about three years older than you are."

"Maybe I'm about three years older than me too." Dean said defensively. "I like her. She's really nice."

"And, just because I'm a Pastor doesn't mean I don't know what nice means."

"Why does everybody keep sayin' nice?" Sam asked from the back seat.

"Shut up Sammy." Dean grumbled.

"Am I nice?"

"Want me to shut it for you?"

"Yer definitely not very nice."

"Sammy, I swear to God--"

Jim cleared his throat.

"Oh uh, sorry Pastor Jim." Dean slumped back down into his seat.

He pulled the car over into a small parking lot that sat along a pleasant row of shops. It was a lot easier to shop in the mega-market store in the nearest biggest town, but Jim preferred using the much less labyrinth like fruit markets, butchers and pharmacies that most of his parish self owned and operated.

He paused after they had all gotten out of the car and pulled out his wallet.

"Sam, would you go buy something for later? Some dessert maybe." Jim handed him some money, enjoying the look in the kids eyes at the sound of the word. If only that kind of joy could still be as easily bought when you got on in years.

"What kind should I get?" Sam asked with something that sounded like worry.

"You decide."

From the next look on his face the clergy man could see that wasn't an option he was offered very often.

"Anything I want?" The child was dubious as to whether this deal could truly be legit.

"He's goin' to get something gross." Dean warned. "Like that rainbow sherbet shi- uh stuff."

Jim appreciated the effort to correct his language and made a private mental note to remind John that his children weren't deaf. When little Sam started using phrases meant for a bunch of jarheads in an Indonesian bar he was going to have to start saying some extra prayers at night.

"Whatever you want Sam, we'll be waiting for you right here."

Sending a child into these stores unattended was like sending them into a next door neighbors living room. He knew everyone and everyone knew each other.

Dean looked at the Pastor sideways in lukewarm suspicion as Sam eagerly took off.

"Are we gonna have some kind of eh, talk?"

"No." Jim half smiled.

He reached into his jacket and handed Dean a small bag.

Dean took it hesitantly and looked inside. His face flushed red.

"It's- it's not like that..." He stuttered.

"Well, just in case it ever gets like...that."

Dean looked around, flustered and embarrassed.

"Aren't you supposed to tell me to wait until I'm married and um, have sacred babies and all that?"

"I suppose." Jim sighed and sat back on the hood of his car. "But the world isn't quite exactly anything but what we choose to make of it. And maybe, unlike some of my peers, I have gained a better understanding that not all sin is indeed equal to one another."

The teenager looked over at him suddenly in open curiosity.

"Have you ever um...uh.."

It was Jim's turn to blush.


Dean's eyes widened.



"Not once?"

Jim laughed softly.

"That must surprise you."

"Yeah, I guess so." Dean admitted, rubbing a little at the back of his head. "I mean, it just seems like something, I dunno..."

"I'm sure it's nice."

Dean broke into a wide smile before he could stop himself.

"Oh man, you have no idea--"

Jim felt an eyebrow rise.

Dean quickly collected himself back into careful seriousness. "I mean- well... if I had an idea, then well--"

"Just get in the car Dean."


Tags: gen, pastor jim, spn one shot, wee & teen!chesters
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