SPN FIC - Rest Stop
Happy birthday,
sparky_joe! Have some lunch with the boys.
Characters: Sam and Dean
Pairings: none
Length: 1906 words
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG, for language
Disclaimer: and yet again, I play with Kripke's toys.
Rest Stop
By Carol Davis
“This is really bad,” Dean said, studying his Supremo Bacon Melt with a furrow in his brow and a curl in his lower lip.
“Don’t eat it,” Sam shrugged.
“I paid three bucks for it.”
“Maybe that should’ve been your first clue.”
Dean put the remains of the Bacon Melt down on its grease-stained paper wrapper and turned his attention to Sam’s lunch: a turkey sandwich, a bag of chips and an apple. “How much d’you pay for that?”
“Seven something.”
“Seven dollars? It’s a freakin’ sandwich.”
In between bites, Sam told his brother, “You know what amazes me? The fact that we were brought up together - we’ve been together almost constantly my whole life, except for the time I was at Stanford, but for some reason I understand how much things cost and you act like you popped in here from 1957. Yeah, Dean, it was seven dollars. A decent sandwich is gonna cost that much. Or more.”
“Not from me, it’s not,” Dean groused.
“Or you could pay three bucks for something that’s completely inedible.”
Dean looked down his nose at the Bacon Melt, which was beginning to congeal into a gray and yellow mass. “I ate part of it.”
“Go back inside and get yourself something decent to eat.”
“There’s pizza.”
“Forget the pizza. It looks worse than that thing,” Sam said, nodding at the Bacon Melt.
“I’m not gettin’ some girly sandwich.”
“A turkey sandwich is ‘girly’?”
“With the artsy-fartsy bread and the weird-colored lettuce, yeah, it’s girly. Not payin’ seven bucks for that.”
Before Sam could respond, Dean had gotten up from the picnic table and was striding off toward the entrance to the rest stop’s food court. Sam watched him go with an indulgent shake of his head, then returned to his sandwich. After a couple of bites, the sight and smell of Dean’s Bacon Melt as it quietly decomposed into something that was definitely not food made him put his sandwich down, ball the remains of the Bacon Melt up inside its wrapper, and pitch it into the nearest trash can.
He had almost finished the turkey sandwich when Dean finally came wandering back carrying a white paper bag and an ice cream bar.
“I like these,” Dean announced, displaying the ice cream.
“No you don’t.”
“Do so.”
“You don’t,” Sam insisted. “You don’t like the way the chocolate falls off the outside and you have to pick it off your clothes.”
Dean scowled at him.
“You like ice cream sandwiches.”
Dean went on scowling.
“Give me that, and when I’m done, I’ll go get you an ice cream sandwich.”
“I’m not giving you my friggin’ ice cream, Sam.”
“Fine.”
“Get your own damn ice cream. Ask ‘em if they’ve got something girly, with rainbow sprinkles all over it.”
“Fine,” Sam said.
They sat in silence for several minutes, Sam taking the last few bites of his sandwich and Dean eating his ice cream, sullenly picking pieces of chocolate coating off the picnic table when they dropped off the bar. When Sam’s lunch was gone, he gathered up its wrapper and bag, tossed them into the trash, and headed off toward the food court. He returned with a banana split large enough for a family of six.
“See?” Dean challenged him. “Girly.”
“Since when is a banana split girly? Especially one this big.”
“How much was it?”
“None of your business.”
“It is my business. It’s my money.”
Sam sat down at the picnic table and dug into his ice cream. “Which you pretty much stole from that guy at the bar.”
“Not my fault he sucked at pool.”
“We could get jobs. Make a little money the honest way.”
Dean leaned his head toward the building. “Yeah. Like in there. There’s a Help Wanted sign at the pizza thing. Why don’t you get yourself a nice job serving crappy pizza to tourists in the middle of freakin’ Ohio. I’ll go handle the…you know… dead people situation, and I’ll swing by in a couple weeks and pick you up.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah? What did you mean?”
Sam thought the question over for a minute, then sighed and stuck his plastic spoon dejectedly into his ice cream. “I don’t know.”
“We do what we do, Sam. That’s it. It’s how things go.”
“I know.”
“And they got their nerve charging seven bucks for a sandwich, and however much you coughed up for that thing.”
Sam’s face twitched.
“You paid seven bucks for that, too?” Dean said shrilly.
“It’s the Deluxe Maxi Split.”
“Cryin’ out loud, Sam. Seven bucks for ice cream?”
“Everything’s expensive, Dean.”
Dean’s gaze shifted away from Sam. He let out a long, regretful sigh as he watched a parade of people go into and come out of the building. Families, mostly; some men traveling alone, a handful of women doing likewise. Most of them seemed to regard the rest stop as the Happiest Place on Earth only by virtue of the fact that it had a reasonably clean bathroom. Some of them had climbed out of new cars; others, out of vehicles that seemed held together only by sheer luck and large quantities of duct tape.
“We oughta charge,” Dean said idly.
“Absolutely. The next town we get to, we’ll go to Office Depot and get some business cards made. And we’ll get one of those big magnetic signs to stick on the side of the car.”
“I mean, we could drop a few hints, and -“
Sam swallowed a mouthful of ice cream and banana. “Like when the bellhop stands there in the doorway of your hotel room, giving you The Look until you tip him.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“I’m sure that’ll go over well.”
“When people drag somebody out of a burning building, or out of a flood or something, they get thanked.”
“Which would be fine, if we had any use for plaques.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we could find some rich old guy to - what do they call that?”
Sam smirked crookedly. “I’m afraid to suggest something. You mean like an art patron?”
“Yeah. Like that. If they can pay artists to turn out the crap like - you remember that art gallery in Dayton? They wanted people to pay money for that,” Dean announced with growing disgust. “Piled up fortune cookies in the corner and called it art. If there’s money for that, then we oughta be able to find some rich dude to foot the bills for what we do. Look at that old fossil that married Anna Nicole Smith. You know he wasn’t sleeping with her. The old freak was lucky he could breathe. About all that would’ve went on there was her flashing him some sunshine, and she came out of it with what, a billion dollars?”
“She never got any of it,” Sam pointed out. “And now she’s dead too. So…not such a good plan, in the long run.”
“Except for that baby. That’s gonna be one rich little kid.”
“Maybe you could get her dad to adopt you, too.”
Dean gestured at Sam with the now-clean stick from his ice cream bar. “Now, there’s a guy that landed his ass in a butter tub.”
“Then that would be your plan.”
“It might work.”
“The adoption, or fathering a child with Anna Nicole Smith?”
“I could stick around a while, and father a kid with Anna Nicole Smith’s kid.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam said. He was still working on the gigantic banana split, and didn’t fail to notice Dean’s sudden interest in the dessert. “You want me to go get another spoon?”
“Yeah. ‘Cause that wouldn’t look gay at all.”
“You could get your own.”
“Not for seven bucks, I’m not.”
“Okay, fine. But stop staring at mine.”
“I’m not starin’ at yours. Jerk.”
“Lame-ass.” Sam took a couple of huge bites and made a show out of savoring them as he tipped his head toward Dean’s white paper bag. “What’s in there?”
“Nothin’.”
“It’s a bagful of nothing.” Before Dean could move to stop him, Sam grabbed the bag and held it out of Dean’s reach as Dean scrambled to get it back. Batting Dean away with one hand, Sam got the bag open with the other and peered inside. “Girly, huh? You caved.”
Dean glowered at him. “Didn’t buy any frigging turkey sandwich.”
“No? Looks like it.”
“It’s roast beef,” Dean muttered sourly.
“You caved, man.”
“It’s a damn sandwich.”
“Exactly my point.” Smirking, Sam handed the bag back to his brother. “You totally caved.”
“Would you get off me?”
Still smiling, Sam went back to his ice cream as Dean grumpily unwrapped his sandwich and bit into it.
“How far are we from Judson?” Dean asked after a minute.
“Probably get there tomorrow morning, if we drove straight through.”
Dean chewed thoughtfully, watching strangers walk across the parking lot. “There’s this place Dad and me stayed at once. Little bit out of the way, but it’s decent. Doesn’t smell weird, and they put on a good breakfast in the morning.”
“All you can eat?” Sam guessed.
“Guy that owns it has this dog. Chester. Wouldn’t mind seeing him.”
“Him. No ‘her’ involved?”
“Might be.”
“It works, you know.”
Dean squinted. “What does?”
“Walking around with a dog. Girls love that.”
“You picked up chicks with somebody’s dog?”
“Did a lot of things you don’t have a clue about,” Sam said, poker-faced.
“Like so much hell.”
They finished their food at almost the same time. When Dean accepted his silent offer to clean up, Sam gathered everything into Dean’s paper bag and tossed the bag into the trash. They remained at the table for a minute, watching a woman in a red sweater lead an entire parade of small children into the food court.
“Sammy?” Dean ventured.
Sam raised a brow.
“Sorry about - you know. Before. I was an ass.”
“About the sandwich?”
Dean sputtered in annoyance. “Before.”
“You mean yesterday.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, man.” Sam paused, then said mildly, “I know you’re an ass.”
“I was friggin’ apologizing. Next time I won’t.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Leaving Dean to make odd guttural sounds by himself, Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled away from the picnic table toward the Impala, parked midway down the lot. He’d been standing with his face tipped to the sun for a minute when Dean showed up, keys in hand and a broad frown on his face.
“I don’t have the market cornered on ‘ass,’” Dean announced.
Sam sighed softly, moving closer to the car so a man leading a little boy by the hand could cut between the Impala and the SUV parked beside it. The boy’s face was blotchy and tear-streaked, the man’s reddened with frustration. They’d gotten only a few steps past the car when the boy let out a petulant shriek. “Hold on to it, Jeffrey!” the man moaned. “We’re almost there.”
“That thing I said about the kid?” Dean said when the father and son were out of earshot. “Thinkin’ maybe not.”
“It’d have its plusses,” Sam replied.
Dean looked at him steadily for a long while. The corner of his mouth quirked as he unlocked the car. “Maybe.”
“Nothing’s all bad, Dean. Except…maybe the Supremo Bacon Melt.”
“And this freakin’ job.”
Sam nodded at his brother. “Yeah.”
“Nah,” Dean said, and got into the car.
sparky_joe! Have some lunch with the boys.
Characters: Sam and Dean
Pairings: none
Length: 1906 words
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG, for language
Disclaimer: and yet again, I play with Kripke's toys.
Rest Stop
By Carol Davis
“This is really bad,” Dean said, studying his Supremo Bacon Melt with a furrow in his brow and a curl in his lower lip.
“Don’t eat it,” Sam shrugged.
“I paid three bucks for it.”
“Maybe that should’ve been your first clue.”
Dean put the remains of the Bacon Melt down on its grease-stained paper wrapper and turned his attention to Sam’s lunch: a turkey sandwich, a bag of chips and an apple. “How much d’you pay for that?”
“Seven something.”
“Seven dollars? It’s a freakin’ sandwich.”
In between bites, Sam told his brother, “You know what amazes me? The fact that we were brought up together - we’ve been together almost constantly my whole life, except for the time I was at Stanford, but for some reason I understand how much things cost and you act like you popped in here from 1957. Yeah, Dean, it was seven dollars. A decent sandwich is gonna cost that much. Or more.”
“Not from me, it’s not,” Dean groused.
“Or you could pay three bucks for something that’s completely inedible.”
Dean looked down his nose at the Bacon Melt, which was beginning to congeal into a gray and yellow mass. “I ate part of it.”
“Go back inside and get yourself something decent to eat.”
“There’s pizza.”
“Forget the pizza. It looks worse than that thing,” Sam said, nodding at the Bacon Melt.
“I’m not gettin’ some girly sandwich.”
“A turkey sandwich is ‘girly’?”
“With the artsy-fartsy bread and the weird-colored lettuce, yeah, it’s girly. Not payin’ seven bucks for that.”
Before Sam could respond, Dean had gotten up from the picnic table and was striding off toward the entrance to the rest stop’s food court. Sam watched him go with an indulgent shake of his head, then returned to his sandwich. After a couple of bites, the sight and smell of Dean’s Bacon Melt as it quietly decomposed into something that was definitely not food made him put his sandwich down, ball the remains of the Bacon Melt up inside its wrapper, and pitch it into the nearest trash can.
He had almost finished the turkey sandwich when Dean finally came wandering back carrying a white paper bag and an ice cream bar.
“I like these,” Dean announced, displaying the ice cream.
“No you don’t.”
“Do so.”
“You don’t,” Sam insisted. “You don’t like the way the chocolate falls off the outside and you have to pick it off your clothes.”
Dean scowled at him.
“You like ice cream sandwiches.”
Dean went on scowling.
“Give me that, and when I’m done, I’ll go get you an ice cream sandwich.”
“I’m not giving you my friggin’ ice cream, Sam.”
“Fine.”
“Get your own damn ice cream. Ask ‘em if they’ve got something girly, with rainbow sprinkles all over it.”
“Fine,” Sam said.
They sat in silence for several minutes, Sam taking the last few bites of his sandwich and Dean eating his ice cream, sullenly picking pieces of chocolate coating off the picnic table when they dropped off the bar. When Sam’s lunch was gone, he gathered up its wrapper and bag, tossed them into the trash, and headed off toward the food court. He returned with a banana split large enough for a family of six.
“See?” Dean challenged him. “Girly.”
“Since when is a banana split girly? Especially one this big.”
“How much was it?”
“None of your business.”
“It is my business. It’s my money.”
Sam sat down at the picnic table and dug into his ice cream. “Which you pretty much stole from that guy at the bar.”
“Not my fault he sucked at pool.”
“We could get jobs. Make a little money the honest way.”
Dean leaned his head toward the building. “Yeah. Like in there. There’s a Help Wanted sign at the pizza thing. Why don’t you get yourself a nice job serving crappy pizza to tourists in the middle of freakin’ Ohio. I’ll go handle the…you know… dead people situation, and I’ll swing by in a couple weeks and pick you up.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah? What did you mean?”
Sam thought the question over for a minute, then sighed and stuck his plastic spoon dejectedly into his ice cream. “I don’t know.”
“We do what we do, Sam. That’s it. It’s how things go.”
“I know.”
“And they got their nerve charging seven bucks for a sandwich, and however much you coughed up for that thing.”
Sam’s face twitched.
“You paid seven bucks for that, too?” Dean said shrilly.
“It’s the Deluxe Maxi Split.”
“Cryin’ out loud, Sam. Seven bucks for ice cream?”
“Everything’s expensive, Dean.”
Dean’s gaze shifted away from Sam. He let out a long, regretful sigh as he watched a parade of people go into and come out of the building. Families, mostly; some men traveling alone, a handful of women doing likewise. Most of them seemed to regard the rest stop as the Happiest Place on Earth only by virtue of the fact that it had a reasonably clean bathroom. Some of them had climbed out of new cars; others, out of vehicles that seemed held together only by sheer luck and large quantities of duct tape.
“We oughta charge,” Dean said idly.
“Absolutely. The next town we get to, we’ll go to Office Depot and get some business cards made. And we’ll get one of those big magnetic signs to stick on the side of the car.”
“I mean, we could drop a few hints, and -“
Sam swallowed a mouthful of ice cream and banana. “Like when the bellhop stands there in the doorway of your hotel room, giving you The Look until you tip him.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“I’m sure that’ll go over well.”
“When people drag somebody out of a burning building, or out of a flood or something, they get thanked.”
“Which would be fine, if we had any use for plaques.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we could find some rich old guy to - what do they call that?”
Sam smirked crookedly. “I’m afraid to suggest something. You mean like an art patron?”
“Yeah. Like that. If they can pay artists to turn out the crap like - you remember that art gallery in Dayton? They wanted people to pay money for that,” Dean announced with growing disgust. “Piled up fortune cookies in the corner and called it art. If there’s money for that, then we oughta be able to find some rich dude to foot the bills for what we do. Look at that old fossil that married Anna Nicole Smith. You know he wasn’t sleeping with her. The old freak was lucky he could breathe. About all that would’ve went on there was her flashing him some sunshine, and she came out of it with what, a billion dollars?”
“She never got any of it,” Sam pointed out. “And now she’s dead too. So…not such a good plan, in the long run.”
“Except for that baby. That’s gonna be one rich little kid.”
“Maybe you could get her dad to adopt you, too.”
Dean gestured at Sam with the now-clean stick from his ice cream bar. “Now, there’s a guy that landed his ass in a butter tub.”
“Then that would be your plan.”
“It might work.”
“The adoption, or fathering a child with Anna Nicole Smith?”
“I could stick around a while, and father a kid with Anna Nicole Smith’s kid.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam said. He was still working on the gigantic banana split, and didn’t fail to notice Dean’s sudden interest in the dessert. “You want me to go get another spoon?”
“Yeah. ‘Cause that wouldn’t look gay at all.”
“You could get your own.”
“Not for seven bucks, I’m not.”
“Okay, fine. But stop staring at mine.”
“I’m not starin’ at yours. Jerk.”
“Lame-ass.” Sam took a couple of huge bites and made a show out of savoring them as he tipped his head toward Dean’s white paper bag. “What’s in there?”
“Nothin’.”
“It’s a bagful of nothing.” Before Dean could move to stop him, Sam grabbed the bag and held it out of Dean’s reach as Dean scrambled to get it back. Batting Dean away with one hand, Sam got the bag open with the other and peered inside. “Girly, huh? You caved.”
Dean glowered at him. “Didn’t buy any frigging turkey sandwich.”
“No? Looks like it.”
“It’s roast beef,” Dean muttered sourly.
“You caved, man.”
“It’s a damn sandwich.”
“Exactly my point.” Smirking, Sam handed the bag back to his brother. “You totally caved.”
“Would you get off me?”
Still smiling, Sam went back to his ice cream as Dean grumpily unwrapped his sandwich and bit into it.
“How far are we from Judson?” Dean asked after a minute.
“Probably get there tomorrow morning, if we drove straight through.”
Dean chewed thoughtfully, watching strangers walk across the parking lot. “There’s this place Dad and me stayed at once. Little bit out of the way, but it’s decent. Doesn’t smell weird, and they put on a good breakfast in the morning.”
“All you can eat?” Sam guessed.
“Guy that owns it has this dog. Chester. Wouldn’t mind seeing him.”
“Him. No ‘her’ involved?”
“Might be.”
“It works, you know.”
Dean squinted. “What does?”
“Walking around with a dog. Girls love that.”
“You picked up chicks with somebody’s dog?”
“Did a lot of things you don’t have a clue about,” Sam said, poker-faced.
“Like so much hell.”
They finished their food at almost the same time. When Dean accepted his silent offer to clean up, Sam gathered everything into Dean’s paper bag and tossed the bag into the trash. They remained at the table for a minute, watching a woman in a red sweater lead an entire parade of small children into the food court.
“Sammy?” Dean ventured.
Sam raised a brow.
“Sorry about - you know. Before. I was an ass.”
“About the sandwich?”
Dean sputtered in annoyance. “Before.”
“You mean yesterday.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, man.” Sam paused, then said mildly, “I know you’re an ass.”
“I was friggin’ apologizing. Next time I won’t.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Leaving Dean to make odd guttural sounds by himself, Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled away from the picnic table toward the Impala, parked midway down the lot. He’d been standing with his face tipped to the sun for a minute when Dean showed up, keys in hand and a broad frown on his face.
“I don’t have the market cornered on ‘ass,’” Dean announced.
Sam sighed softly, moving closer to the car so a man leading a little boy by the hand could cut between the Impala and the SUV parked beside it. The boy’s face was blotchy and tear-streaked, the man’s reddened with frustration. They’d gotten only a few steps past the car when the boy let out a petulant shriek. “Hold on to it, Jeffrey!” the man moaned. “We’re almost there.”
“That thing I said about the kid?” Dean said when the father and son were out of earshot. “Thinkin’ maybe not.”
“It’d have its plusses,” Sam replied.
Dean looked at him steadily for a long while. The corner of his mouth quirked as he unlocked the car. “Maybe.”
“Nothing’s all bad, Dean. Except…maybe the Supremo Bacon Melt.”
“And this freakin’ job.”
Sam nodded at his brother. “Yeah.”
“Nah,” Dean said, and got into the car.