State of the Union | Sam/Dean | PG13
Title: "State of the Union"
Author: girlguidejones
Pairing: Sam/Dean, 450 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, no spoilers
Disclaimer: Fictional story about fictional characters which I own only in my fictionalized reality. No profiteering here!
Author's note: This is a very small excerpt from a much larger fic that acts like it will never get written, but stands just fine on its own.
Dean’s on the stoop drinking canned beer when Sam gets back to the room.
To Sam, it’s a sign of the State of the Winchester Union, like the unemployment rate, or the price of barreled crude, or the hike in the fed. Dean and Dad had always done most of the providing, and Sam was content with the arrangement. His father and Dean seemed to dislike tainting the baby boy any more than strictly necessary by the criminal activities that kept him in Goodwill jeans, which was a source of much relief to Sam. Or it could be that he just sucked at it, and their decisions about the Hustle de Jour were solely pragmatic. He didn’t care. Sam didn’t mind picking the lock of a poltergeisted house, or hacking into the library database for research, but stealing a mill-worker’s credit card they find in the diner’s booth seat cushion makes a different sort of grumble start up in his belly that the all-you-can-eat pancakes can’t silence.
That semi-removal from day to day financial procurements meant that Sam’s only concept of how much money they’ve sharked or how many of the credit cards do not yet have security alerts on them was solely determined by the quality of their surroundings. The hotel has porn and a working pool? They’re doin’ okay. The sink and the bed and the toilet are all in one room and they’re eating cold bologna roll-ups straight from the package?
Dimes are thin on the ground.
Canned beer...well, canned beer is a step up from no beer, but one down from bottled Bud which is yet another below the bottles of Beck’s dark that Sam developed a taste for at Stanford. There’s a weird sort of comfort in the cans, he thinks. After all, the immediate crash-landing from the giddy high of Beck’s straight down to the no-beer-at-all basement is a steep and blurry one, and generally leaves marks both figurative and not so. The Winchester men know this from experience. But from Pabst Blue Ribbon to no beer at all? Not nearly so painful a fall.
“Save one for me, dude?”
“You know it, baby brother.” Dean produces a spare from the same place the extra aces come from -Sam swears he’s part marsupial and hiding a pouch- and they click sweaty cans on the desert-shimmered asphalt pad in front of their room.
“Winchester wind chimes!” He grins after the tinny snick and Dean snorts his brew through his nose, shaking his head and laughing all down deep and up from his belly. Sam takes a swallow, rolling his eyes at him, but decides he’d really rather hear Dean laughing than listen to the glassy clink of Beck’s necks.
Anytime.
Author: girlguidejones
Pairing: Sam/Dean, 450 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, no spoilers
Disclaimer: Fictional story about fictional characters which I own only in my fictionalized reality. No profiteering here!
Author's note: This is a very small excerpt from a much larger fic that acts like it will never get written, but stands just fine on its own.
Dean’s on the stoop drinking canned beer when Sam gets back to the room.
To Sam, it’s a sign of the State of the Winchester Union, like the unemployment rate, or the price of barreled crude, or the hike in the fed. Dean and Dad had always done most of the providing, and Sam was content with the arrangement. His father and Dean seemed to dislike tainting the baby boy any more than strictly necessary by the criminal activities that kept him in Goodwill jeans, which was a source of much relief to Sam. Or it could be that he just sucked at it, and their decisions about the Hustle de Jour were solely pragmatic. He didn’t care. Sam didn’t mind picking the lock of a poltergeisted house, or hacking into the library database for research, but stealing a mill-worker’s credit card they find in the diner’s booth seat cushion makes a different sort of grumble start up in his belly that the all-you-can-eat pancakes can’t silence.
That semi-removal from day to day financial procurements meant that Sam’s only concept of how much money they’ve sharked or how many of the credit cards do not yet have security alerts on them was solely determined by the quality of their surroundings. The hotel has porn and a working pool? They’re doin’ okay. The sink and the bed and the toilet are all in one room and they’re eating cold bologna roll-ups straight from the package?
Dimes are thin on the ground.
Canned beer...well, canned beer is a step up from no beer, but one down from bottled Bud which is yet another below the bottles of Beck’s dark that Sam developed a taste for at Stanford. There’s a weird sort of comfort in the cans, he thinks. After all, the immediate crash-landing from the giddy high of Beck’s straight down to the no-beer-at-all basement is a steep and blurry one, and generally leaves marks both figurative and not so. The Winchester men know this from experience. But from Pabst Blue Ribbon to no beer at all? Not nearly so painful a fall.
“Save one for me, dude?”
“You know it, baby brother.” Dean produces a spare from the same place the extra aces come from -Sam swears he’s part marsupial and hiding a pouch- and they click sweaty cans on the desert-shimmered asphalt pad in front of their room.
“Winchester wind chimes!” He grins after the tinny snick and Dean snorts his brew through his nose, shaking his head and laughing all down deep and up from his belly. Sam takes a swallow, rolling his eyes at him, but decides he’d really rather hear Dean laughing than listen to the glassy clink of Beck’s necks.
Anytime.