Notes on a Morning (1/1) Dean [PG]
A break from my depressing long story for my depressing short story...apparently I need hugz.
Title: Notes on a Morning
Fandom: SPN
Characters: Dean
Rating: PG (a smattering of swearing)
Word Count: about 3000
Summary: After everything, Dean's having a hard morning.
Warning: Trigger-y. Amnesia!Dean--might be kinda harsh.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sam. I also don't own Dean. Sometimes I just take out my life on them for fun.
Notes on a Morning
It'd be funny, really, if it didn't make Dean want to blow his friggin' head off.
It just..it shouldn't have been so damn hard, was the thing.
He’s locked in this brutal staring contest with the knobs on the oven. Bottom line is, he don't trust the thing, not one damn bit.
Well, alright, fine. If you want to split hairs, that’s not entirely true. But it's better, isn't it, to blame the appliances, or the electricity, or whatever isn't him.
Because some things? They're just too hard to...some things are just hard.
So now Dean’s on the edge of pissed off. And he's exhausted, though for the life of him he couldn't really tell you why.
No, there's a why.
He suspects it's because of the friggin’ day-glo little post-its every damn place he looks, fluttering around his head like pyschotic butterflies. Like they're chasing him nowhere.
Seriously, Sam has to got to get a grip on himself.
***
The notes started from the second he cracked his eyelids. First one was already there when he came to-fact, it was practically attached to his freakin’ forehead.
"Dean-At the teacher' s conference until tomorrow night,” it said. “Food's in the frige. Call Bobby if you have problems. Will call soon, pick up the damn phone. --Sam."
Sam. What a freaking matron. If the man had his way, he'd be dressing Dean too.
Dean had a smirk on when he peeled his body off the mattress-until he spotted the smoothly laid out clothes on his small desk. He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. Looked like Sam got his way after all.
Then, when didn't he?
Dean just shook his head and prayed Sam at least picked out man colors.
Dean stood up-fuck. Felt like he’d never done that before. Hell, he felt like Rip Van Winkle, like he'd slept away a few centuries. Dean arched his stiff long spine, flung his head back and--frowned. There was this blooming brown water stain looking down at him from the damn ceiling. It wasn't huge or nothing, but it was big enough for Dean to wonder why the hell hadn't he gotten his ass in gear and fixed it sooner.
He shook his head, worried about the state of the roof. There was a hardware store nearby. He was almost sure of it. Corner of...of...something 'n something else...whatever.
He was almost out the door to the bathroom when he noticed how much he wasn't wearing. He could care less, course, but there was that picture in his head, clear as day. Sam giving him that look, the one with the wince and the nose bridge pinch--like he was dealing with a dog that wasn't house-broken. Kid was too uptight, was the problem. Probably why he never got laid.
Say what you will, but Dean was a damn good brother, so, he went back for jeans. Except, he wasn’t exactly sure where the fuck they were. There wasn’t a lot of options in the closet of a room. Process of elimination, a little deductive reasoning. If he were a clean pair of pants, where would he be?
Turned out there was a fresh set of clothes, all laid out and waiting patiently for him. They sat on a little table that was supposed to be Dean's desk. Why Sam had to go ahead and waste precious space with a desk for him was beyond Dean. What was he gonna use it for?
Dean ran a hand over the soft fabric of the tee shirt. It was nice. Maybe it was new. Under it were jeans, shorts, socks...everything. Dean rolled his eyes.
Sam really did need to get a freakin' life.
Anyway, it could have been worse. Least the tee was black.
He was in the middle of yanking the jeans on when he noticed it. It was just a simple writing pad, with plain writing printed across the cover. "Dean's Notebook." As nonthreatening as it was, Dean scowled.
When the hell did he start keeping a diary all of a damn sudden?
For a minute, Dean couldn't do much more than stare at it, squinting a little. There was post-it on it.
Of course there was a fucking post-it on it.
All the note said was "Things to Remember,” and-Jesus F. Christ-it was in his handwriting. Or, least, it wasn't Sam's chicken scratch. He risked taking a peek inside, checking over his shoulder to be sure Sam wasn't gonna catch him with a god damn diary.
He'd never hear the end of it.
No unicorns, no "I" statements, no i's dotted with hearts-not so bad. It was just names and numbers and dates, most of which didn’t really mean jack to Dean. Number for some guy called Jo, and there was Bobby’ s number and Sam’s cell, and the name of a few doctors he didn’t recognize.
His birthday was written down there, complete with the year. Dean didn’t bother with the math-he didn’t want to know how much older he’d gotten. His Dad’s birthday was down there, and there was some other date right next--
Oh.
Right. That was right.
Dean rubbed his chest a little-felt awful tight and sharp as he coughed a little laugh at himself. It was funny, the things a mind could manage to let slip away from it. He blinked hard and looked back at the scribbled up page, the numbers, dates and names.
Underneath all of it was an almost familiar scrawl: "The damn ceiling."
Dean was just wondering what the hell that was all about when he looked up. There was an ugly brown bruise of a water stain on the perfect white ceiling.
Son of a bitch.
He'd have to get on that. It shouldn’t be that hard to fix a damn leak.
Right after breakfast.
He buttoned his jeans and pulled on his shirt. Obnoxious bright red numbers told him it was nearly noon already. That took him off gaurd. Why did Sam just let him waste his whole damn morning? And if he just slept half the day away, then why the hell couldn’t he quit yawning? He had this feeling, like clouds got shoved between his brain and his skull. It shouldn’t be that hard to just wake up.
Well, that was it. Dean set about not being a slacker bum. On the way, he apparently forgot where the goddamn doorframe was and stubbed his toe. He didn't even care if Sam heard him, he cursed up a blue streak and felt a little better.
Soon as he got to the bathroom he let out a groan when a post-it blotted out his reflection in the mirror. He ripped the tiny memo off the glass with more force than might have been called for.
"Dear Dragonbreath-I'm away until tomorrow. Don't forget to brush your damn teeth. Love, Sam."
Dean used one hand to crumple the note and toss it over his shoulder while the other reached for a toothbrush, which was probably his. He managed to not snap it in half with frustration, and that was an act of friggin willpower.
He wasn't a god damn child here--he knew how to take care of himself. And once he found the ever-lovin' toothpaste, he'd be just fine.
He found the slightly messy, mangled tube sittin’ there in all its flouride beauty in the medicine cabinet. He also found the bottles. A lot of them. His eyes flicked over rows of labels that looked so impersonal, and they all said the same damn thing.
Winchester, Dean.
Winchester, Dean.
Winchester, Dean.
He swung the mirrored door shut with a little bang. His body jumped at the noise and he had to chuckle at himself, even if there was very little humor in it.
There was a fucking lot of pills in there.
Stood to reason he should probably be taking some of them. Maybe he did already. He tried to weigh out in his head missing a dose against a possible O.D. It would help if he knew what the fuck the drugs did.
The reflection of himself in the mirror looked faded. He leaned closer to the surface, half expecting to see the face on the other side pull away.
He pulled out a bottle and looked at it in his palm. He listened to the pills clack dully inside as he turned it. He didn't read the label. He put the bottle back. Sam would have said something.
When he looked down into the round gleam in the sink, he noticed two bottles of toothpaste. It was weird. Why two?
He shrugged and turned away from the sink. He had bigger fish to fry. There was that whole breakfast thing-he was not about to face an AM without coffee and something involving bacon.
Up and fuckin’ at ‘em.
--
As he headed down the stairs, he drug a hand along drab wallpaper and went slow. He studied the walls. Sam had practically smothered the damn things in framed photographs-the big girl. There were pictures of him and Sam fishing. Dean suspected these were false-Sam's fish was bigger than his. There was another of Dean with a car. It was nice. The both of them sat in another photo, grinning with some older-looking guy-Bobby, Dean remembered with a breath. No, not some guy, Bobby Singer.
Dean laughed at himself. Shouldn’t have been hard to remember that name. He ignored the rest of the pictures on the way down. He focused on the steps, and breathed.
On cue as he reached the kitchen, Dean’s stomach growled noisily. Like an amen in a prayer, there was another note on the fridge. Hell with that, Dean decided. If nothing else, if nothing else in the world, he was capable of feeding himself. For fuck’s sake, what possible instruction could Sam give him? “Food-it goes in your mouth.”
No, Dean had a handle on the situation. He swung open the refrigarator door and let out a low whistle of surprise.
The inside of the fridge looked like a commercial-everything sparkling so clean you could stick your head inside and eat off the shelves (Dean decided that would be a bad idea, though). Colored containers of pre-prepared food were neatly arranged, organized, with little stickies and small packets attached to each one.
It was like looking the intersection of intense obessessive-complusive disorder and...and total, utter, flaming gayness. Really, could Sam be more gay?
Dean rummaged through, looking for something resembling breakfast. He didn't mean to, but he got a picture in his head. It was of Sam. His hair was in curlers and he was wrapped up in a fluffy pink bathroom, flipping through a Tupperware catalouge and tapping fake nails on a formica table. Dean’s face cracked into a grin. Ugliest broad ever.
Shit, it was cold.
Dean realized he was in the middle of something, that something being a freakin’ refridgrator. He nabbed a container and tossed it on a counter. With a roll of the eyes and a barely audible huff, he yanked the note off the cover and the little packet with it. For an insane moment, Dean wondered if Sam was actually pathetic enough to have portioned out his salt and pepper. Turned out there were pills in there, next to Sam’s instruction to take them with food.
Dean stared at them, rolling into the cracks of his hand. There were three, all different shapes and sizes and colors. He looked at Sam’s writing one more time and swallowed them down without water. He was surprised by how easy it was.
Still, his stomach sank when he opened the little tupperware bowl.
Oatmeal. Fucking oatmeal.
Dean looked back into the beige mush and then quickly back at the post-it, sure that there was a joke he was missing the punchline to, cause this wasn’t funny.
"It's good for you."
Oh. Fan-fucking-tastic. Good for him. That meant he'd feel really fit, even after he kicked Sam's ass. Oatmeal. The fuck.
"Sam!" Dean called. He padded out to the living room, glanced at the stairs and decided it wasn't worth it. He went back to the kitchen and violently yanked the sticky from the fridge.
"Dean-At a teacher's conference. Be back tomorrow. Meals are in the fridge. Heat in the microwave for about two minutes. Call if you have problems. No, seriously, CALL IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS. --Sam."
Well. Fuck. That.
Dean ripped open the freezer like it did something to him. And there was-oh, thank sweet jesus-bacon. Dean pulled it out of the mountains of frozen vegetables and slabs of cold chicken and then he'd turned to the oven and experienced a sinking feeling in his gut. It sort of tickled, but he didn't laugh.
--
He isn't stupid. Dean knows there's reasons why Sam cooks his meals, why there's notes all over the place. There's a reason why he doesn't have a job. There's a reason why when he tries to think about yesterday, or last month, or last year, his throat closes a little and his eyes feel tired.
He just can't remember what that god damn fucking reason is.
So he stares at the stove and he hates it, because it's one of those things, one of those many, many fucking things that shouldn't be hard and it is, and he doesn't know why but god damn it so help him he's eating his damn bacon and that's that.
Skillet. Flame. How fucking hard could it be?
He flicks on the knob, and it takes a few turns back and forth for the pilot light to catch and then there's the little blue flames. At the same moment, a little white house in Dean's mind bursts into fire. A burning white house and bright green yeard and jesus, a crisp heat pressing into his neck and a terror clouding up his lungs. Dean presses his eyes shut and can't nail down a time or a place, but all the same he reaches over with almost steady fingers and kills the tiny fire with a quick twist of the knob.
Maybe the fire didn't happen--but it could. It would just take him walking away, for just a second, getting a little distracted...He's not that stupid.
He turns to the microwave, and shit, he's not even hungry anymore, but hell if he's walking away from this. He's making this bacon if it kills him-which seems like more of a possibility than it should be. And it occurs to him how insane it sounds but he's not insane, he's fine, god damn it. He just needs to know one thing.
Can you microwave bacon?
He walks over to the microwave, puts his fingertips lightly against the display of numbers, and even though he suspected there wouldn't be, he's still a little pissed when there is a "popcorn" button and a "potato" button but nothing mentioning breakfast meats.
It would be funny if it wasn't making him want to shoot something.
He's not sure, not too sure, he thinks that maybe he microwaved bacon before but maybe he's just making that up because he wants to now and he can't quite tell the difference between his imagination and the things that have already happened. Did the fire happen, or did he just figure out what would go down if he set his breakfast to frying and happened to wander away and forgot he ever started making anything? The smoke seemed real. His skin blistering felt real. He's trying to grab it in his head and it's too damn thin to weave together, like making a tapestry out of smoke. He's trying hard, and keeps on coming up short but he knows that he's smarter than this, that there is a difference between processing information and retaining it. It doesn't make him feel a damn bit better though because he still feels like a helpless jackass and fuck he just wants to make breakfast and can you microwave bacon or can't you?!
He plants hands on either side of the stupid metal box and pulls. When he feels the cord snap free of the wall, Dean heaves. He watches the slow, lazy arc of the microwave as it takes a short trip through the air and touches down on the linoleum floor. It doesn't do enough damage to the stupid ass machine to really satisfy Dean, but still, he feels a little bit relieved.
He just stares at it on the floor, and leans back against the kitchen counter with a hand clamped over his mouth. It's the first time in his memory that he's chucked a household appliance. Course, that doesn't really mean much.
Dean laughs hoarsely.
He sees what's going to happen. Right now he'll walk away, and hours later he'll return, and want to know why the microwave is on the floor. He'll be afraid something bad happened-that something's wrong with Sam, or that someone or thing is in the house with him.
Maybe he should write a note.
Dean laughs again, a harsh little breath through his nose. He's not hungry anymore, but sweet Mary and Joseph, he's tired, so very tired, and his hands don't want to quit shaking. Feels like he's already dreaming. Dean decides he's not going to get much done if he's too damn sleepy to see straight, so, yah, naptime sounds just awesome right about now. Long as he doesn't have any bad dreams-he thinks maybe he's been having bad dreams. But, hey, if he does, Sam will be home soon to wake him up.
As he lies down, he wonders where Sam got to, after all.
Title: Notes on a Morning
Fandom: SPN
Characters: Dean
Rating: PG (a smattering of swearing)
Word Count: about 3000
Summary: After everything, Dean's having a hard morning.
Warning: Trigger-y. Amnesia!Dean--might be kinda harsh.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sam. I also don't own Dean. Sometimes I just take out my life on them for fun.
Notes on a Morning
It'd be funny, really, if it didn't make Dean want to blow his friggin' head off.
It just..it shouldn't have been so damn hard, was the thing.
He’s locked in this brutal staring contest with the knobs on the oven. Bottom line is, he don't trust the thing, not one damn bit.
Well, alright, fine. If you want to split hairs, that’s not entirely true. But it's better, isn't it, to blame the appliances, or the electricity, or whatever isn't him.
Because some things? They're just too hard to...some things are just hard.
So now Dean’s on the edge of pissed off. And he's exhausted, though for the life of him he couldn't really tell you why.
No, there's a why.
He suspects it's because of the friggin’ day-glo little post-its every damn place he looks, fluttering around his head like pyschotic butterflies. Like they're chasing him nowhere.
Seriously, Sam has to got to get a grip on himself.
***
The notes started from the second he cracked his eyelids. First one was already there when he came to-fact, it was practically attached to his freakin’ forehead.
"Dean-At the teacher' s conference until tomorrow night,” it said. “Food's in the frige. Call Bobby if you have problems. Will call soon, pick up the damn phone. --Sam."
Sam. What a freaking matron. If the man had his way, he'd be dressing Dean too.
Dean had a smirk on when he peeled his body off the mattress-until he spotted the smoothly laid out clothes on his small desk. He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. Looked like Sam got his way after all.
Then, when didn't he?
Dean just shook his head and prayed Sam at least picked out man colors.
Dean stood up-fuck. Felt like he’d never done that before. Hell, he felt like Rip Van Winkle, like he'd slept away a few centuries. Dean arched his stiff long spine, flung his head back and--frowned. There was this blooming brown water stain looking down at him from the damn ceiling. It wasn't huge or nothing, but it was big enough for Dean to wonder why the hell hadn't he gotten his ass in gear and fixed it sooner.
He shook his head, worried about the state of the roof. There was a hardware store nearby. He was almost sure of it. Corner of...of...something 'n something else...whatever.
He was almost out the door to the bathroom when he noticed how much he wasn't wearing. He could care less, course, but there was that picture in his head, clear as day. Sam giving him that look, the one with the wince and the nose bridge pinch--like he was dealing with a dog that wasn't house-broken. Kid was too uptight, was the problem. Probably why he never got laid.
Say what you will, but Dean was a damn good brother, so, he went back for jeans. Except, he wasn’t exactly sure where the fuck they were. There wasn’t a lot of options in the closet of a room. Process of elimination, a little deductive reasoning. If he were a clean pair of pants, where would he be?
Turned out there was a fresh set of clothes, all laid out and waiting patiently for him. They sat on a little table that was supposed to be Dean's desk. Why Sam had to go ahead and waste precious space with a desk for him was beyond Dean. What was he gonna use it for?
Dean ran a hand over the soft fabric of the tee shirt. It was nice. Maybe it was new. Under it were jeans, shorts, socks...everything. Dean rolled his eyes.
Sam really did need to get a freakin' life.
Anyway, it could have been worse. Least the tee was black.
He was in the middle of yanking the jeans on when he noticed it. It was just a simple writing pad, with plain writing printed across the cover. "Dean's Notebook." As nonthreatening as it was, Dean scowled.
When the hell did he start keeping a diary all of a damn sudden?
For a minute, Dean couldn't do much more than stare at it, squinting a little. There was post-it on it.
Of course there was a fucking post-it on it.
All the note said was "Things to Remember,” and-Jesus F. Christ-it was in his handwriting. Or, least, it wasn't Sam's chicken scratch. He risked taking a peek inside, checking over his shoulder to be sure Sam wasn't gonna catch him with a god damn diary.
He'd never hear the end of it.
No unicorns, no "I" statements, no i's dotted with hearts-not so bad. It was just names and numbers and dates, most of which didn’t really mean jack to Dean. Number for some guy called Jo, and there was Bobby’ s number and Sam’s cell, and the name of a few doctors he didn’t recognize.
His birthday was written down there, complete with the year. Dean didn’t bother with the math-he didn’t want to know how much older he’d gotten. His Dad’s birthday was down there, and there was some other date right next--
Oh.
Right. That was right.
Dean rubbed his chest a little-felt awful tight and sharp as he coughed a little laugh at himself. It was funny, the things a mind could manage to let slip away from it. He blinked hard and looked back at the scribbled up page, the numbers, dates and names.
Underneath all of it was an almost familiar scrawl: "The damn ceiling."
Dean was just wondering what the hell that was all about when he looked up. There was an ugly brown bruise of a water stain on the perfect white ceiling.
Son of a bitch.
He'd have to get on that. It shouldn’t be that hard to fix a damn leak.
Right after breakfast.
He buttoned his jeans and pulled on his shirt. Obnoxious bright red numbers told him it was nearly noon already. That took him off gaurd. Why did Sam just let him waste his whole damn morning? And if he just slept half the day away, then why the hell couldn’t he quit yawning? He had this feeling, like clouds got shoved between his brain and his skull. It shouldn’t be that hard to just wake up.
Well, that was it. Dean set about not being a slacker bum. On the way, he apparently forgot where the goddamn doorframe was and stubbed his toe. He didn't even care if Sam heard him, he cursed up a blue streak and felt a little better.
Soon as he got to the bathroom he let out a groan when a post-it blotted out his reflection in the mirror. He ripped the tiny memo off the glass with more force than might have been called for.
"Dear Dragonbreath-I'm away until tomorrow. Don't forget to brush your damn teeth. Love, Sam."
Dean used one hand to crumple the note and toss it over his shoulder while the other reached for a toothbrush, which was probably his. He managed to not snap it in half with frustration, and that was an act of friggin willpower.
He wasn't a god damn child here--he knew how to take care of himself. And once he found the ever-lovin' toothpaste, he'd be just fine.
He found the slightly messy, mangled tube sittin’ there in all its flouride beauty in the medicine cabinet. He also found the bottles. A lot of them. His eyes flicked over rows of labels that looked so impersonal, and they all said the same damn thing.
Winchester, Dean.
Winchester, Dean.
Winchester, Dean.
He swung the mirrored door shut with a little bang. His body jumped at the noise and he had to chuckle at himself, even if there was very little humor in it.
There was a fucking lot of pills in there.
Stood to reason he should probably be taking some of them. Maybe he did already. He tried to weigh out in his head missing a dose against a possible O.D. It would help if he knew what the fuck the drugs did.
The reflection of himself in the mirror looked faded. He leaned closer to the surface, half expecting to see the face on the other side pull away.
He pulled out a bottle and looked at it in his palm. He listened to the pills clack dully inside as he turned it. He didn't read the label. He put the bottle back. Sam would have said something.
When he looked down into the round gleam in the sink, he noticed two bottles of toothpaste. It was weird. Why two?
He shrugged and turned away from the sink. He had bigger fish to fry. There was that whole breakfast thing-he was not about to face an AM without coffee and something involving bacon.
Up and fuckin’ at ‘em.
--
As he headed down the stairs, he drug a hand along drab wallpaper and went slow. He studied the walls. Sam had practically smothered the damn things in framed photographs-the big girl. There were pictures of him and Sam fishing. Dean suspected these were false-Sam's fish was bigger than his. There was another of Dean with a car. It was nice. The both of them sat in another photo, grinning with some older-looking guy-Bobby, Dean remembered with a breath. No, not some guy, Bobby Singer.
Dean laughed at himself. Shouldn’t have been hard to remember that name. He ignored the rest of the pictures on the way down. He focused on the steps, and breathed.
On cue as he reached the kitchen, Dean’s stomach growled noisily. Like an amen in a prayer, there was another note on the fridge. Hell with that, Dean decided. If nothing else, if nothing else in the world, he was capable of feeding himself. For fuck’s sake, what possible instruction could Sam give him? “Food-it goes in your mouth.”
No, Dean had a handle on the situation. He swung open the refrigarator door and let out a low whistle of surprise.
The inside of the fridge looked like a commercial-everything sparkling so clean you could stick your head inside and eat off the shelves (Dean decided that would be a bad idea, though). Colored containers of pre-prepared food were neatly arranged, organized, with little stickies and small packets attached to each one.
It was like looking the intersection of intense obessessive-complusive disorder and...and total, utter, flaming gayness. Really, could Sam be more gay?
Dean rummaged through, looking for something resembling breakfast. He didn't mean to, but he got a picture in his head. It was of Sam. His hair was in curlers and he was wrapped up in a fluffy pink bathroom, flipping through a Tupperware catalouge and tapping fake nails on a formica table. Dean’s face cracked into a grin. Ugliest broad ever.
Shit, it was cold.
Dean realized he was in the middle of something, that something being a freakin’ refridgrator. He nabbed a container and tossed it on a counter. With a roll of the eyes and a barely audible huff, he yanked the note off the cover and the little packet with it. For an insane moment, Dean wondered if Sam was actually pathetic enough to have portioned out his salt and pepper. Turned out there were pills in there, next to Sam’s instruction to take them with food.
Dean stared at them, rolling into the cracks of his hand. There were three, all different shapes and sizes and colors. He looked at Sam’s writing one more time and swallowed them down without water. He was surprised by how easy it was.
Still, his stomach sank when he opened the little tupperware bowl.
Oatmeal. Fucking oatmeal.
Dean looked back into the beige mush and then quickly back at the post-it, sure that there was a joke he was missing the punchline to, cause this wasn’t funny.
"It's good for you."
Oh. Fan-fucking-tastic. Good for him. That meant he'd feel really fit, even after he kicked Sam's ass. Oatmeal. The fuck.
"Sam!" Dean called. He padded out to the living room, glanced at the stairs and decided it wasn't worth it. He went back to the kitchen and violently yanked the sticky from the fridge.
"Dean-At a teacher's conference. Be back tomorrow. Meals are in the fridge. Heat in the microwave for about two minutes. Call if you have problems. No, seriously, CALL IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS. --Sam."
Well. Fuck. That.
Dean ripped open the freezer like it did something to him. And there was-oh, thank sweet jesus-bacon. Dean pulled it out of the mountains of frozen vegetables and slabs of cold chicken and then he'd turned to the oven and experienced a sinking feeling in his gut. It sort of tickled, but he didn't laugh.
--
He isn't stupid. Dean knows there's reasons why Sam cooks his meals, why there's notes all over the place. There's a reason why he doesn't have a job. There's a reason why when he tries to think about yesterday, or last month, or last year, his throat closes a little and his eyes feel tired.
He just can't remember what that god damn fucking reason is.
So he stares at the stove and he hates it, because it's one of those things, one of those many, many fucking things that shouldn't be hard and it is, and he doesn't know why but god damn it so help him he's eating his damn bacon and that's that.
Skillet. Flame. How fucking hard could it be?
He flicks on the knob, and it takes a few turns back and forth for the pilot light to catch and then there's the little blue flames. At the same moment, a little white house in Dean's mind bursts into fire. A burning white house and bright green yeard and jesus, a crisp heat pressing into his neck and a terror clouding up his lungs. Dean presses his eyes shut and can't nail down a time or a place, but all the same he reaches over with almost steady fingers and kills the tiny fire with a quick twist of the knob.
Maybe the fire didn't happen--but it could. It would just take him walking away, for just a second, getting a little distracted...He's not that stupid.
He turns to the microwave, and shit, he's not even hungry anymore, but hell if he's walking away from this. He's making this bacon if it kills him-which seems like more of a possibility than it should be. And it occurs to him how insane it sounds but he's not insane, he's fine, god damn it. He just needs to know one thing.
Can you microwave bacon?
He walks over to the microwave, puts his fingertips lightly against the display of numbers, and even though he suspected there wouldn't be, he's still a little pissed when there is a "popcorn" button and a "potato" button but nothing mentioning breakfast meats.
It would be funny if it wasn't making him want to shoot something.
He's not sure, not too sure, he thinks that maybe he microwaved bacon before but maybe he's just making that up because he wants to now and he can't quite tell the difference between his imagination and the things that have already happened. Did the fire happen, or did he just figure out what would go down if he set his breakfast to frying and happened to wander away and forgot he ever started making anything? The smoke seemed real. His skin blistering felt real. He's trying to grab it in his head and it's too damn thin to weave together, like making a tapestry out of smoke. He's trying hard, and keeps on coming up short but he knows that he's smarter than this, that there is a difference between processing information and retaining it. It doesn't make him feel a damn bit better though because he still feels like a helpless jackass and fuck he just wants to make breakfast and can you microwave bacon or can't you?!
He plants hands on either side of the stupid metal box and pulls. When he feels the cord snap free of the wall, Dean heaves. He watches the slow, lazy arc of the microwave as it takes a short trip through the air and touches down on the linoleum floor. It doesn't do enough damage to the stupid ass machine to really satisfy Dean, but still, he feels a little bit relieved.
He just stares at it on the floor, and leans back against the kitchen counter with a hand clamped over his mouth. It's the first time in his memory that he's chucked a household appliance. Course, that doesn't really mean much.
Dean laughs hoarsely.
He sees what's going to happen. Right now he'll walk away, and hours later he'll return, and want to know why the microwave is on the floor. He'll be afraid something bad happened-that something's wrong with Sam, or that someone or thing is in the house with him.
Maybe he should write a note.
Dean laughs again, a harsh little breath through his nose. He's not hungry anymore, but sweet Mary and Joseph, he's tired, so very tired, and his hands don't want to quit shaking. Feels like he's already dreaming. Dean decides he's not going to get much done if he's too damn sleepy to see straight, so, yah, naptime sounds just awesome right about now. Long as he doesn't have any bad dreams-he thinks maybe he's been having bad dreams. But, hey, if he does, Sam will be home soon to wake him up.
As he lies down, he wonders where Sam got to, after all.