Fic: Recipe for Winchester Friendship Bread (AKA Breadfic!) (part 1 of 2)
Title: Recipe for Winchester Friendship Bread (part 1 of 2)
Characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Bobby, bread bag
Ratings/Warnings: PG/Spoilers up to Head of a Pin
Word Count: 4,600
Summary: A bag of Amish friendship bread starter teaches the Winchester brothers to love again.
Notes: The recipe in the headers actually works, but I take no responsibility for any demon sieges that occur should you use it. This fic is, overall, sockkiah's fault.
Recipe for Winchester Friendship Bread
Day 1: Smoosh the bag.
“God, you saved my life. How can I ever thank you?” The busty brunette roped her arms around Dean’s neck, leaning against him. The shape shifter’s corpse was lying only feet away, on the sewer floor.
Dean shrugged heroically, a spatter of blood on his cheek. “It’s my job, ma’am. But if you want to thank me…”
Sam scoffed, and Dean shot him an annoyed look.
“Oh, I know!” the woman said, springing away from Dean. Pulling off her backpack, she yanked out something goopy in a gallon-sized freezer bag, a paper printout taped to it. “Amish friendship bread,” she announced, plopping the bag into Dean’s hands. “Thank you!” And with that, she flounced off.
Dean held the bag at arm’s length. “What is ‘Amish friendship bread’?”
“It’s a starter bread,” Sam said. “You cultivate the live yeast for ten days, mix it with other ingredients, bake a fraction of it into bread, and pass the rest on to friends so they can repeat the process. Bread from a starter bag today could have originated from a batch made years ago. Decades, even.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re the encyclopedia of cooking lore now?”
“There’s more to the internet than just monsters and porn, Dean.” Sam frowned. “You should toss that.”
“Dude, it’s food!”
“Yeah, but when are we going to be someplace with an oven?”
“Ten days, maybe?” Dean read the sheet of instructions taped to the bag. “‘Day 1: Smoosh the bag.’ Okay.” He smooshed the bag between his hands, starting to giggle. “Hey, this is kinda fun.”
And that’s how the Amish friendship bread starter bag ended up riding in the back seat of the Impala.
Day 2: Smoosh the bag.
The bread bag sat on the table by the motel room window, between the mustard yellow phone, complimentary moist towelette packets, and Sam’s laptop. In the glow of the eye-searing 70’s wallpaper, the bread starter looked almost orange.
Dean paced the middle of the room, rubbing his forehead. “There’s gotta be something we can do. Damn world is ending - you’d think there’d be no end of jobs for us.”
“Well, there aren’t,” Sam said, squinting at the computer screen. “Unless you want to investigate a rash of ‘mysterious dog disappearances’ in California.”
“That’s teen detective work, Sammy.” Dean groaned, plopping himself down at the table. “So what do we do now?”
“Well, we could…” Sam started, and paused, giving his brother a quizzical look. “Actually, I have no idea what you and I do on days off.” They stared at each other for a minute, neither knowing what to say. They’d been hunters at odds for so long that they’d forgotten how to be brothers.
Dean reached out to smoosh the bread bag and giggled as the liquid squelched under his fingers. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, then pressed a hand against the bag. His cro-magnon brow flattened, and he began to smile.
Then he began to giggle, too. They did that for a little while, and then Dean sat back, wiping tears from his eyes, and said, “So, how about a movie? Hell Hazers II is on Pay-Per-View.”
Day 3: Smoosh the bag.
“Dude, are you just gonna lie in here all day smooshing the bread bag and listening to Metallica?” Dean scowled, stretched out across the psychedelic comforter on his bed with one hand on the bread bag. “I would be using the Magic Fingers, too, if you weren’t such a quarter nazi.”
“Quarters are for laundry, Dean.”
“Whatever you say, Mein Fuhrer.”
Sam scrunched up his face and sighed before storming out. Outside, the Impala’s engine rumbled to life. Dean smooshed the bread bag, and suddenly everything felt okay again.
Day 4: Smoosh the bag.
“How come the bread bag gets to ride shotgun?”
“Because the bread bag didn’t eat two breakfast burritos.”
“Hey, you had one, too.”
“Dude, my insides are iron clad from years of truck stop food. You weakened your digestive tract being a civilian for four years. It’s ill-equipped - it smells like it. Plus the bread bag doesn’t make caveman brow at me for singing out loud in my own car.”
“Come on, Dean, this is humiliating. Taking backseat to a stupid bag of bread starter?”
“Don’t listen to him, baby. You’re not stupid.”
“Are you talking to the bread bag?”
“Yes, Sammy, because you know what the bread bag has going for it?”
“Yeast?”
“It doesn’t give me any crap.”
“I’m starting to think you care more about that bread bag than you do about your own brother.”
“Sometimes I think that, too, Sammy.”
“Man, screw you and your bread bag.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk. Dude, seriously, there are so many burger wrappers back here I don’t have anyplace to put my feet.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you made fun of my bread bag.”
Day 5: Smoosh the bag.
“I don’t know what to do with Sammy,” Dean told the bread bag, smooshing it quietly. It was the middle of the night, the lava lamp bathroom fixtures casting the only light in the motel room. He sat on the closed toilet lid, resting his cheek in his hand, the bag on the counter beside him. “I mean, sometimes we get along okay, but the rest of the time-dammit, bread bag, this whole thing is spinning out of control. It’s like all this demon and angel crap rose up and got between us, and Sam’s just letting it happen. I got sent to hell for the kid, and now I don’t even know him anymore. I miss my brother, bread bag.”
Fingers rapped at the door. “Dean?”
Dean sat upright, trying to look casual. “Yeah?”
“Are you talking to someone in there?”
“Uh…just…giving myself a pep talk.”
The door cracked open, and Sam frowned through the gap, his eyes landing on the bread bag. “Dean…”
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“So you’re not sitting in the bathroom at 2 a.m. talking to a bag of Amish friendship bread starter?”
“Nnnoo,” Dean answered, hiding the bag behind his back.
Sam looked at his innocent face and gave an exasperated sigh. “I’ll leave you to…whatever you’re doing, then.” He closed the door, going back to bed.
Dean laid the bread bag out on the counter again, letting a bubble of gas out of its zipper. “You see how accusatory he is?”
Day 6: Add: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Smoosh the bag.
Dean paced the motel room. “We need ingredients to add.”
“Dude, calm down.”
“This is important, Sammy! Haven’t you read the instructions? It’s day six! We need to add all that stuff to the mix, otherwise the yeast won’t have anything to feed on and it’ll die.”
“And where are we supposed to get all that stuff, plus measuring cups?” Sam asked, and shook his head. “All that’s out here is gas stations, and even if we found a place that sold baking supplies, do we really want to waste that money and then ride around with a sack of flour in the back of the Impala? We should’ve just thrown the stuff out on the first day.”
Dean grabbed his brother’s t-shirt collar in both fists and yanked him down to his eyeline. “Don’t you ever say that!”
“O-okay,” Sam stammered. “I think you might be getting a little too involved with this bread thing, Dean.”
“I think you’re not involved enough!” Dean yelled, and Sam recoiled.
“Dude, you’ve got major onion breath going on.”
“My onion breath is not the problem here! The problem is this dream is gonna die if we don’t do something about it right now!”
Sam looked into his brother’s panic-stricken eyes, and his face softened. Slouching, he said, “Okay, Dean. It’s okay. Go get the suits out of the car - I’ve got an idea.”
Twenty minutes later, the two of them were standing on the porch of a nearby farmhouse, showing the little old lady inside their fake IDs.
“This area has been reporting deadly insect infestations, ma’am,” Sam said.
“Oh my,” said the little old lady. “What kind of insects?”
“The, uh, deadly…Japanese…”
“Yeast worms,” Dean finished, eliciting an “ew” look from Sam. “They live in bread ingredients. Tell me, do you keep sugar, flour, and milk around the house?”
“Why, yes,” said the little old lady. “I make fresh bread every-”
“We’ll need you to step outside for a minute while we take samples from your kitchen,” Sam said, and Dean whipped the bread bag out of his suit coat pocket as they stepped inside. Ten minutes later, they walked out of the house, Dean smooshing a very full bread bag between his hands and looking relieved.
Part 2
Characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Bobby, bread bag
Ratings/Warnings: PG/Spoilers up to Head of a Pin
Word Count: 4,600
Summary: A bag of Amish friendship bread starter teaches the Winchester brothers to love again.
Notes: The recipe in the headers actually works, but I take no responsibility for any demon sieges that occur should you use it. This fic is, overall, sockkiah's fault.
Recipe for Winchester Friendship Bread
Day 1: Smoosh the bag.
“God, you saved my life. How can I ever thank you?” The busty brunette roped her arms around Dean’s neck, leaning against him. The shape shifter’s corpse was lying only feet away, on the sewer floor.
Dean shrugged heroically, a spatter of blood on his cheek. “It’s my job, ma’am. But if you want to thank me…”
Sam scoffed, and Dean shot him an annoyed look.
“Oh, I know!” the woman said, springing away from Dean. Pulling off her backpack, she yanked out something goopy in a gallon-sized freezer bag, a paper printout taped to it. “Amish friendship bread,” she announced, plopping the bag into Dean’s hands. “Thank you!” And with that, she flounced off.
Dean held the bag at arm’s length. “What is ‘Amish friendship bread’?”
“It’s a starter bread,” Sam said. “You cultivate the live yeast for ten days, mix it with other ingredients, bake a fraction of it into bread, and pass the rest on to friends so they can repeat the process. Bread from a starter bag today could have originated from a batch made years ago. Decades, even.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re the encyclopedia of cooking lore now?”
“There’s more to the internet than just monsters and porn, Dean.” Sam frowned. “You should toss that.”
“Dude, it’s food!”
“Yeah, but when are we going to be someplace with an oven?”
“Ten days, maybe?” Dean read the sheet of instructions taped to the bag. “‘Day 1: Smoosh the bag.’ Okay.” He smooshed the bag between his hands, starting to giggle. “Hey, this is kinda fun.”
And that’s how the Amish friendship bread starter bag ended up riding in the back seat of the Impala.
Day 2: Smoosh the bag.
The bread bag sat on the table by the motel room window, between the mustard yellow phone, complimentary moist towelette packets, and Sam’s laptop. In the glow of the eye-searing 70’s wallpaper, the bread starter looked almost orange.
Dean paced the middle of the room, rubbing his forehead. “There’s gotta be something we can do. Damn world is ending - you’d think there’d be no end of jobs for us.”
“Well, there aren’t,” Sam said, squinting at the computer screen. “Unless you want to investigate a rash of ‘mysterious dog disappearances’ in California.”
“That’s teen detective work, Sammy.” Dean groaned, plopping himself down at the table. “So what do we do now?”
“Well, we could…” Sam started, and paused, giving his brother a quizzical look. “Actually, I have no idea what you and I do on days off.” They stared at each other for a minute, neither knowing what to say. They’d been hunters at odds for so long that they’d forgotten how to be brothers.
Dean reached out to smoosh the bread bag and giggled as the liquid squelched under his fingers. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, then pressed a hand against the bag. His cro-magnon brow flattened, and he began to smile.
Then he began to giggle, too. They did that for a little while, and then Dean sat back, wiping tears from his eyes, and said, “So, how about a movie? Hell Hazers II is on Pay-Per-View.”
Day 3: Smoosh the bag.
“Dude, are you just gonna lie in here all day smooshing the bread bag and listening to Metallica?” Dean scowled, stretched out across the psychedelic comforter on his bed with one hand on the bread bag. “I would be using the Magic Fingers, too, if you weren’t such a quarter nazi.”
“Quarters are for laundry, Dean.”
“Whatever you say, Mein Fuhrer.”
Sam scrunched up his face and sighed before storming out. Outside, the Impala’s engine rumbled to life. Dean smooshed the bread bag, and suddenly everything felt okay again.
Day 4: Smoosh the bag.
“How come the bread bag gets to ride shotgun?”
“Because the bread bag didn’t eat two breakfast burritos.”
“Hey, you had one, too.”
“Dude, my insides are iron clad from years of truck stop food. You weakened your digestive tract being a civilian for four years. It’s ill-equipped - it smells like it. Plus the bread bag doesn’t make caveman brow at me for singing out loud in my own car.”
“Come on, Dean, this is humiliating. Taking backseat to a stupid bag of bread starter?”
“Don’t listen to him, baby. You’re not stupid.”
“Are you talking to the bread bag?”
“Yes, Sammy, because you know what the bread bag has going for it?”
“Yeast?”
“It doesn’t give me any crap.”
“I’m starting to think you care more about that bread bag than you do about your own brother.”
“Sometimes I think that, too, Sammy.”
“Man, screw you and your bread bag.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk. Dude, seriously, there are so many burger wrappers back here I don’t have anyplace to put my feet.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you made fun of my bread bag.”
Day 5: Smoosh the bag.
“I don’t know what to do with Sammy,” Dean told the bread bag, smooshing it quietly. It was the middle of the night, the lava lamp bathroom fixtures casting the only light in the motel room. He sat on the closed toilet lid, resting his cheek in his hand, the bag on the counter beside him. “I mean, sometimes we get along okay, but the rest of the time-dammit, bread bag, this whole thing is spinning out of control. It’s like all this demon and angel crap rose up and got between us, and Sam’s just letting it happen. I got sent to hell for the kid, and now I don’t even know him anymore. I miss my brother, bread bag.”
Fingers rapped at the door. “Dean?”
Dean sat upright, trying to look casual. “Yeah?”
“Are you talking to someone in there?”
“Uh…just…giving myself a pep talk.”
The door cracked open, and Sam frowned through the gap, his eyes landing on the bread bag. “Dean…”
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“So you’re not sitting in the bathroom at 2 a.m. talking to a bag of Amish friendship bread starter?”
“Nnnoo,” Dean answered, hiding the bag behind his back.
Sam looked at his innocent face and gave an exasperated sigh. “I’ll leave you to…whatever you’re doing, then.” He closed the door, going back to bed.
Dean laid the bread bag out on the counter again, letting a bubble of gas out of its zipper. “You see how accusatory he is?”
Day 6: Add: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Smoosh the bag.
Dean paced the motel room. “We need ingredients to add.”
“Dude, calm down.”
“This is important, Sammy! Haven’t you read the instructions? It’s day six! We need to add all that stuff to the mix, otherwise the yeast won’t have anything to feed on and it’ll die.”
“And where are we supposed to get all that stuff, plus measuring cups?” Sam asked, and shook his head. “All that’s out here is gas stations, and even if we found a place that sold baking supplies, do we really want to waste that money and then ride around with a sack of flour in the back of the Impala? We should’ve just thrown the stuff out on the first day.”
Dean grabbed his brother’s t-shirt collar in both fists and yanked him down to his eyeline. “Don’t you ever say that!”
“O-okay,” Sam stammered. “I think you might be getting a little too involved with this bread thing, Dean.”
“I think you’re not involved enough!” Dean yelled, and Sam recoiled.
“Dude, you’ve got major onion breath going on.”
“My onion breath is not the problem here! The problem is this dream is gonna die if we don’t do something about it right now!”
Sam looked into his brother’s panic-stricken eyes, and his face softened. Slouching, he said, “Okay, Dean. It’s okay. Go get the suits out of the car - I’ve got an idea.”
Twenty minutes later, the two of them were standing on the porch of a nearby farmhouse, showing the little old lady inside their fake IDs.
“This area has been reporting deadly insect infestations, ma’am,” Sam said.
“Oh my,” said the little old lady. “What kind of insects?”
“The, uh, deadly…Japanese…”
“Yeast worms,” Dean finished, eliciting an “ew” look from Sam. “They live in bread ingredients. Tell me, do you keep sugar, flour, and milk around the house?”
“Why, yes,” said the little old lady. “I make fresh bread every-”
“We’ll need you to step outside for a minute while we take samples from your kitchen,” Sam said, and Dean whipped the bread bag out of his suit coat pocket as they stepped inside. Ten minutes later, they walked out of the house, Dean smooshing a very full bread bag between his hands and looking relieved.
Part 2