You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Title: You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Author: ZanneS
Genre: CRACK/humor
Rating: PG
Characters: Sam and Dean
Summary: Dean has a run in with a witch that leads to something unexpectedly delicious.
Author's Notes: Thanks to 9thof9 for beta-ing! This is a rather silly, pointless story, but I hope you enjoy it. Both of the Boys are acting like they're 12, with an absurd fondness for toilet humor. And yes, "dick' is the word of the season. Kripke owns all.
You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Man
“You are such an idiot, Dean,” Sam announced to the windshield, his hands tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “For God’s sake, it was a classic set-up - Hansel and Gretel were practically knocking on the door. How could you not realize she was a witch?”
Sam turned to glare at Dean who was propped up in the passenger seat, the tiny gingerbread man’s mouth now a thin iced line of red. Dean’s green gumdrop eyes glittered under a V-shaped brow, his frozen expression indicating his displeasure at the turn of the conversation.
“We’re just lucky we managed to burn the place down while you still had working thumbs.”
Sam snorted and looked away, the sight of his brother in his blue icing jeans and brown iced coat making him fight off a fit of laughter. But no matter his restraint, a muffled chuckle managed to escape, and another quick glance at the passenger seat showed Dean’s cheeks sugared pink with anger.
“I wonder,” Sam began, with a pointed glare in Dean’s rather diminutive direction, the answer already clear in his gaze, “if all those gingerbread men you were stuffing in your mouth at the bakery were the missing people we were looking for.”
He glanced over to see Dean’s iced mouth a perfect O of horror, his bakery fresh cheeks covered with what looked like a faint coating of green mold. Sam averted his gaze to check for the street sign indicating the turn off to the motel. When Sam looked back at his brother leaning stiffly against the seat, a large puff of marshmallow fluff mixed with rainbow sprinkles was now decorating the leather at Dean’s feet, small spots of white dotting his iced shirtfront.
“Dude, did you just vomit marshmallow crème all over the car seat?”
Sam laughed, knowing all the while that he should be commiserating with Dean’s pain, but the idea of a seven-inch tall gingerbread man throwing up in the car was too much. Taking pity on his brother’s limited mobility and the random chance he might fall face first into the mess, Sam tossed an old diner napkin atop the mound.
“Didn’t want you to step in anything.”
The V-shaped brow and straight-lipped glower was back when he looked at Dean again.
Sam sniffed in Dean’s direction, the slight hint of citrus tinting the air around him. “Oh, that explains it.”
When Sam peeked over at Dean to see if that had caught his attention, he saw Dean’s eyebrows quirked with curiosity.
“You must have some kind of lemon flavoring; it would explain the puckered expression.”
If Dean had fingers, Sam was pretty sure Dean would be flipping him off right now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Stop staring at me like that!” Sam ordered his brother, Dean’s unblinking gumdrop gaze unnerving him more than a little. He tried to refocus on the laptop, searching for any way to transform his brother back into a human - hell, anything mammalian would be preferable to a gingerbread man - but gave up with the creepy sensation of Dean’s endless stare burning into the side of his face.
Sam quietly turned his full attention to Dean’s small gingerbread form, focusing on the man-shaped figure propped against the pillows on the bed - still the bed closest to the door, Sam was amused to see, as if a seven inch tall cookie would be any protection what-so-ever. Dean’s stiff-backed shape gave Sam the impression of a soldier on alert…if said solider had a cute little licorice whip necklace with a tiny amulet made of golden marzipan. He kept his eyes fixed on Dean, staring intently at his brother for any sign of movement. Sam had yet to see one flicker of an eyebrow in motion, only catching the change in expression after the fact, as if it had been iced in place while Dean was cooling on his metaphorical cookie sheet.
He knew Dean could move - his endlessly changing facial expressions proved that much - but he had yet to catch him in the act.
Sam stared until his eyes started to burn, and he purposefully widened his eyes as they began to twitch, trying desperately not to blink. Finally, eyes watering uncomfortably, he gave in and closed them, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he rubbed at the dry ache behind his lids.
When Sam opened his eyes once more, Dean was gone. It took Sam a moment to find him, settled comfortably on the chair in front of the TV, watching what looked to be Martha Stewart’s Living; she was busily making tissue wreaths out of leftover Christmas paper.
For a stump-legged cookie, Dean could move damn fast.
Dean was propped against the back of the chair, the flickering light of the TV making his face appear oddly…mobile, his triumphant smirk even more noticeable with the subtle quirk of his iced lip.
“You’re trying to give me nightmares, aren’t you,” Sam stated. “Well, it’s not going to work. So you can sit there and be all creepy while I try to figure out how to keep you fresh for longer than a week.” He took a moment to see what Dean was watching and bit his lower lip to keep from chuckling as he saw Martha Stewart move onto her next segment and begin to decorate freshly baked gingerbread people, using looping swirls of pink to design the pattern of the gingerbread girl’s dress before plucking another naked gingerbread man from the pile on the counter beside her. “Is this like cookie porn?”
Sam got up and grabbed the remote off the chair by Dean, turning off the TV before placing the remote on the table next to his computer. “I can’t support your self-destructive habits, Dean,” Sam said with a grin. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”
His laugh was interrupted by his cell phone ringing and he swept it up, still chuckling as he answered. “Hey, Bobby….no, it’s nothing.” Sam wiped at his eye, trying to catch his breath. “No…no…you’ll never guess….. Wait…what? That actually happened?”
Sam fell silent for a second before replying, “No, Dean’s still in one piece.” His gaze flicked over to Dean, who was sulking in the chair still staring at the blank television, his mouth arched downwards in a perfect U of discontent and his eyebrows a straight line over his eyes. “Yeah, some might say they want to take a bite out of his ass.”
Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “It was a joke! For God’s sake, Bobby, he’s a cookie….. No! ‘Cookie’ is not some slang term for…..” Sam dropped his face into his hand, grumbling under his breath. “He’s literally a cookie…a gingerbread man, actually. No, really. Really, I mean it. No, I haven’t been drinking. You want me to send you a picture?”
He stalked over to where Dean was propped and flashed a quick picture with his phone, the sound of Bobby’s laughter spilling tinnily from the small contraption only seconds later.
Sam couldn’t help but join in. “I know! He’s even got little bootlaces iced on his shoes! That’s some quality witchcraft…. No, I already looked there. Very funny, Bobby. Sure, if I had her number I’d call her; Dean was just communing at her altar a minute ago. You will? Thanks. Talk to you later.”
He tossed his phone on the bed, walking towards the bathroom. “Bobby said he had an idea, so he’s going to research some possibilities. Give me a minute and I’ll go get us some dinner….er, you know what I mean.”
Sam disappeared into the bathroom, coming out only minutes later, grabbing the car keys off the table before turning around to snatch up his phone off the bed. He paused, brow furrowing as he pulled his hand back, studying the mess left on his cell. The small phone was striped with messy streaks of lemon yellow icing, making Sam grind his teeth as he looked around for any sign of his brother.
“Dean? If you peed on my phone, you’re having a bath in a hot cup of coffee tomorrow morning, you hear me? Decaffeinated!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam came back later that evening loaded with packages, eyes carefully skirting the room to place Dean’s location before he stepped inside. While he knew he had left Dean in the middle of the bed before leaving - safely protected from inadvertent breakage - Dean wasn’t there when Sam opened the door.
He caught sight of Dean leaning stiffly against the open bottle of beer Sam had left on the table by his laptop. The beer was now precariously perched on the edge of the table, only an inch from falling and spilling its contents over the laminate floor.
Sam set his bags on the chair with a sigh of annoyance. “Do you have any common sense at all, Dean? Or should I just get a glass of milk and let you lose a few more inches in height?”
Dean’s grim gumdrop-eyed look was amazingly expressive, even his cinnamon dusted hair looking dismayed at the realization he couldn’t have a sip of beer.
Sam felt a little guilty for pointing out the obvious. “Here…I got something to make up for being such a jerk earlier.”
He reached into one of the larger bags and pulled out a gingerbread house, the roof cracked in places and some of the icing icicles broken. “Holiday leftovers…thought it might be nice for you to have a home of your own.”
Sam’s bangs fell to shield his gaze as he set the house on the table. When he looked up, Dean’s red iced mouth was a wavy wriggle of suppressed emotion - just a hint of blue sprinkles were collected under one gumdrop eye. Sam sorted through the rest of the bags, giving Dean time to recoup, and when he glanced back at his brother, all signs of the traitorous blue sprinkles were gone, leaving an amused looking Dean with one iced eyebrow arched high.
“And,” Sam added with a grin, “I got you some new friends.” He propped another gingerbread man next to Dean, and a gingerbread woman on his other side, both with the generic features of mass-produced goods found in most nation-wide grocery stores. “Dean, meet Ken and Barbie.”
He started to chuckle, ducking his head to hide his glee, and when he glanced up Dean was gone, the graham cracker door of the gingerbread house shut firmly closed behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam woke, the scent of stale gingerbread strong in the air. He opened one eye, focusing on the blurry shape in front of him only to find Ken’s head impaled on a toothpick sticking out of a complimentary bar of motel soap just inches from his nose.
“Very mature, Dean,” Sam called out through a yawn.
He clumsily pushed himself upright, tossing Ken’s head in the direction of the trash can. Sam scanned the room, looking for any sign of his brother, but saw nothing. A shiver crept down his spine, and he had a flashback to that traumatizing Twilight Zone episode with the killer doll.
He’d have to watch out for staircases in the immediate future. Dean hadn’t exactly been happy being the butt of his jokes, and Bobby’s suggestion to keep Dean in a Ziploc for freshness hadn’t helped one bit.
Sam shoved back the covers, hiding a yawn with his hand as he stumbled over towards the gingerbread house taking up most of the small table. Barbie was still leaning crookedly against the corner of the house, as if she were some kind of cookie hooker staking out her spot on the nearest street corner. Sam hunched over, peeking in one window to see Dean propped stiffly against one wall. His mouth was a small iced o, Dean’s gumdrop eyes gone and replaced with tiny u’s, eyelashes defined by the light dusting of cinnamon under his closed lids.
Sam smiled at the sight of his sleeping brother.
After quietly getting dressed, Sam went out to grab some breakfast before Dean woke up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam clumsily tried to balance the Styrofoam take-out container with the coffee perched atop it under his arm while he unlocked the motel room door, the plastic-wrapped newspaper dangling from his teeth.
He set the box holding his breakfast on the table next to Dean’s gingerbread mansion. “Wake up!” Sam said cheerfully, tapping on the well-iced roof to awaken Dean from his slumber.
When he heard a small gasp behind him, he turned to see the young maid exiting the bathroom with the dirty towels, her hand guiltily clutching the gingerbread leg sticking out of her mouth.
Sam’s eyes widened in horror. “Dean!” He bounded over to the women and snatched at what was left of the spit-soggy cookie dangling from her lips.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the maid said, flushing a bright pink. “Please don’t tell my boss. I thought you didn’t want it; it was just lying on the table and I…I didn’t have any breakfast this morning….”
Sam stared mournfully at the masticated gingerbread limb lying in his palm, poking at it with his finger. “Dean?”
The maid paused, arching an eyebrow at his obvious grief over the stale cookie, and took a measured step towards the door. “I’ll…uh, be leaving now, sir. If you need anything, call the front desk.” She hustled outside and slammed the door behind her.
Once the door was closed, Sam heard the TV turn on, the morning newscaster’s voice filling the room with his overly cheerful storm predictions for the area. Dean stood propped against the cardboard cup of coffee that sat steaming on the table, the remote at his feet, his smiling face aimed towards the television.
“This is Barbie?” Sam asked incredulously. He threw the half-chewed leg at his brother, the cookie bouncing off the table in a shower of crumbs. “You’re a dick. And no, that’s my coffee. Suck it up, little man.”
Dean’s face was a frozen iced frown, gumdrop eyes glittering grumpily. He wasn’t the nicest person in the morning before his coffee.
Sam headed towards the bathroom to wash his hands, calling out over his shoulder, “And don’t eat my pancakes!”
He returned only minutes later, Dean leaning against the graham cracker fence around his house as he watched the entertainment reporter interviewing some of the hunky stars on some sci-fi show on some low-rated network, a smug smile firmly iced in place. Sam took his seat as he opened up his breakfast, frowning slightly at what he saw.
Sam didn’t remember ordering chocolate chip pancakes, but the place had been busy so it was possible he’d grabbed the wrong order. He shrugged, opening one of the syrup packets and pouring it over his lukewarm breakfast. Sam turned on his laptop, shoveling bites of pancake into his mouth as he surfed the ‘net single-handed, still hoping to find an answer to Dean’s current problem.
His phone rang and he flipped it open, taking another bite of his breakfast. “Mmph-o?” Sam swallowed it down with a large sip of his coffee, coughing slightly. “Just eating breakfast, Bobby. What…really? That’s it? You’re kidding, right?”
Sam’s eyes flicked over to where Dean still stood. “You want me to try it now?” He held the phone against his chest, took a deep breath, and said, “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me/Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!”
He stared expectantly at Dean, and when nothing happened he lifted the phone to his ear again. “It didn’t work, Bobby.” Sam stopped talking at the loud guffaws spilling out of the phone, and frowned at the mouthpiece. “Call when you’ve got a real plan, Bobby.”
He hesitated at the sudden rushed gabble of noise from the phone, nodding at whatever Bobby said. “It’s a timed curse? So it’ll wear off on its own?” Sam turned to stare at his brother, who was obviously doing his cookie best to ignore him. “Any idea when?”
Hearing the news, he sighed and snapped his phone shut, slamming his phone on the table. He knocked the unopened syrup off the table, the small packet bouncing under the nearby chair. Cursing under his breath, Sam ducked under the table to grab it off the floor. The table lurched above him, and when Sam peered over the edge, he saw Dean sitting in the crushed remains of the gingerbread house, trying to keep the table from teetering over.
Dean glanced at the syrup packet held loosely in Sam’s hand, a guilty expression crossing his face. “Uh, Sam…I owe you a new breakfast.”
Sam looked at his pancakes with a frown of confusion. “Why? These are fine.”
Dean just managed to look embarrassed, running a hand through his hair. “Let’s just say you didn’t order chocolate chip pancakes.”
Comprehension dawned slowly on Sam’s face, but Dean was already at the door with keys in hand.
“That’s disgusting! Dean!”
Dean laughed, “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!”
Author: ZanneS
Genre: CRACK/humor
Rating: PG
Characters: Sam and Dean
Summary: Dean has a run in with a witch that leads to something unexpectedly delicious.
Author's Notes: Thanks to 9thof9 for beta-ing! This is a rather silly, pointless story, but I hope you enjoy it. Both of the Boys are acting like they're 12, with an absurd fondness for toilet humor. And yes, "dick' is the word of the season. Kripke owns all.
You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Man
“You are such an idiot, Dean,” Sam announced to the windshield, his hands tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “For God’s sake, it was a classic set-up - Hansel and Gretel were practically knocking on the door. How could you not realize she was a witch?”
Sam turned to glare at Dean who was propped up in the passenger seat, the tiny gingerbread man’s mouth now a thin iced line of red. Dean’s green gumdrop eyes glittered under a V-shaped brow, his frozen expression indicating his displeasure at the turn of the conversation.
“We’re just lucky we managed to burn the place down while you still had working thumbs.”
Sam snorted and looked away, the sight of his brother in his blue icing jeans and brown iced coat making him fight off a fit of laughter. But no matter his restraint, a muffled chuckle managed to escape, and another quick glance at the passenger seat showed Dean’s cheeks sugared pink with anger.
“I wonder,” Sam began, with a pointed glare in Dean’s rather diminutive direction, the answer already clear in his gaze, “if all those gingerbread men you were stuffing in your mouth at the bakery were the missing people we were looking for.”
He glanced over to see Dean’s iced mouth a perfect O of horror, his bakery fresh cheeks covered with what looked like a faint coating of green mold. Sam averted his gaze to check for the street sign indicating the turn off to the motel. When Sam looked back at his brother leaning stiffly against the seat, a large puff of marshmallow fluff mixed with rainbow sprinkles was now decorating the leather at Dean’s feet, small spots of white dotting his iced shirtfront.
“Dude, did you just vomit marshmallow crème all over the car seat?”
Sam laughed, knowing all the while that he should be commiserating with Dean’s pain, but the idea of a seven-inch tall gingerbread man throwing up in the car was too much. Taking pity on his brother’s limited mobility and the random chance he might fall face first into the mess, Sam tossed an old diner napkin atop the mound.
“Didn’t want you to step in anything.”
The V-shaped brow and straight-lipped glower was back when he looked at Dean again.
Sam sniffed in Dean’s direction, the slight hint of citrus tinting the air around him. “Oh, that explains it.”
When Sam peeked over at Dean to see if that had caught his attention, he saw Dean’s eyebrows quirked with curiosity.
“You must have some kind of lemon flavoring; it would explain the puckered expression.”
If Dean had fingers, Sam was pretty sure Dean would be flipping him off right now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Stop staring at me like that!” Sam ordered his brother, Dean’s unblinking gumdrop gaze unnerving him more than a little. He tried to refocus on the laptop, searching for any way to transform his brother back into a human - hell, anything mammalian would be preferable to a gingerbread man - but gave up with the creepy sensation of Dean’s endless stare burning into the side of his face.
Sam quietly turned his full attention to Dean’s small gingerbread form, focusing on the man-shaped figure propped against the pillows on the bed - still the bed closest to the door, Sam was amused to see, as if a seven inch tall cookie would be any protection what-so-ever. Dean’s stiff-backed shape gave Sam the impression of a soldier on alert…if said solider had a cute little licorice whip necklace with a tiny amulet made of golden marzipan. He kept his eyes fixed on Dean, staring intently at his brother for any sign of movement. Sam had yet to see one flicker of an eyebrow in motion, only catching the change in expression after the fact, as if it had been iced in place while Dean was cooling on his metaphorical cookie sheet.
He knew Dean could move - his endlessly changing facial expressions proved that much - but he had yet to catch him in the act.
Sam stared until his eyes started to burn, and he purposefully widened his eyes as they began to twitch, trying desperately not to blink. Finally, eyes watering uncomfortably, he gave in and closed them, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he rubbed at the dry ache behind his lids.
When Sam opened his eyes once more, Dean was gone. It took Sam a moment to find him, settled comfortably on the chair in front of the TV, watching what looked to be Martha Stewart’s Living; she was busily making tissue wreaths out of leftover Christmas paper.
For a stump-legged cookie, Dean could move damn fast.
Dean was propped against the back of the chair, the flickering light of the TV making his face appear oddly…mobile, his triumphant smirk even more noticeable with the subtle quirk of his iced lip.
“You’re trying to give me nightmares, aren’t you,” Sam stated. “Well, it’s not going to work. So you can sit there and be all creepy while I try to figure out how to keep you fresh for longer than a week.” He took a moment to see what Dean was watching and bit his lower lip to keep from chuckling as he saw Martha Stewart move onto her next segment and begin to decorate freshly baked gingerbread people, using looping swirls of pink to design the pattern of the gingerbread girl’s dress before plucking another naked gingerbread man from the pile on the counter beside her. “Is this like cookie porn?”
Sam got up and grabbed the remote off the chair by Dean, turning off the TV before placing the remote on the table next to his computer. “I can’t support your self-destructive habits, Dean,” Sam said with a grin. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”
His laugh was interrupted by his cell phone ringing and he swept it up, still chuckling as he answered. “Hey, Bobby….no, it’s nothing.” Sam wiped at his eye, trying to catch his breath. “No…no…you’ll never guess….. Wait…what? That actually happened?”
Sam fell silent for a second before replying, “No, Dean’s still in one piece.” His gaze flicked over to Dean, who was sulking in the chair still staring at the blank television, his mouth arched downwards in a perfect U of discontent and his eyebrows a straight line over his eyes. “Yeah, some might say they want to take a bite out of his ass.”
Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “It was a joke! For God’s sake, Bobby, he’s a cookie….. No! ‘Cookie’ is not some slang term for…..” Sam dropped his face into his hand, grumbling under his breath. “He’s literally a cookie…a gingerbread man, actually. No, really. Really, I mean it. No, I haven’t been drinking. You want me to send you a picture?”
He stalked over to where Dean was propped and flashed a quick picture with his phone, the sound of Bobby’s laughter spilling tinnily from the small contraption only seconds later.
Sam couldn’t help but join in. “I know! He’s even got little bootlaces iced on his shoes! That’s some quality witchcraft…. No, I already looked there. Very funny, Bobby. Sure, if I had her number I’d call her; Dean was just communing at her altar a minute ago. You will? Thanks. Talk to you later.”
He tossed his phone on the bed, walking towards the bathroom. “Bobby said he had an idea, so he’s going to research some possibilities. Give me a minute and I’ll go get us some dinner….er, you know what I mean.”
Sam disappeared into the bathroom, coming out only minutes later, grabbing the car keys off the table before turning around to snatch up his phone off the bed. He paused, brow furrowing as he pulled his hand back, studying the mess left on his cell. The small phone was striped with messy streaks of lemon yellow icing, making Sam grind his teeth as he looked around for any sign of his brother.
“Dean? If you peed on my phone, you’re having a bath in a hot cup of coffee tomorrow morning, you hear me? Decaffeinated!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam came back later that evening loaded with packages, eyes carefully skirting the room to place Dean’s location before he stepped inside. While he knew he had left Dean in the middle of the bed before leaving - safely protected from inadvertent breakage - Dean wasn’t there when Sam opened the door.
He caught sight of Dean leaning stiffly against the open bottle of beer Sam had left on the table by his laptop. The beer was now precariously perched on the edge of the table, only an inch from falling and spilling its contents over the laminate floor.
Sam set his bags on the chair with a sigh of annoyance. “Do you have any common sense at all, Dean? Or should I just get a glass of milk and let you lose a few more inches in height?”
Dean’s grim gumdrop-eyed look was amazingly expressive, even his cinnamon dusted hair looking dismayed at the realization he couldn’t have a sip of beer.
Sam felt a little guilty for pointing out the obvious. “Here…I got something to make up for being such a jerk earlier.”
He reached into one of the larger bags and pulled out a gingerbread house, the roof cracked in places and some of the icing icicles broken. “Holiday leftovers…thought it might be nice for you to have a home of your own.”
Sam’s bangs fell to shield his gaze as he set the house on the table. When he looked up, Dean’s red iced mouth was a wavy wriggle of suppressed emotion - just a hint of blue sprinkles were collected under one gumdrop eye. Sam sorted through the rest of the bags, giving Dean time to recoup, and when he glanced back at his brother, all signs of the traitorous blue sprinkles were gone, leaving an amused looking Dean with one iced eyebrow arched high.
“And,” Sam added with a grin, “I got you some new friends.” He propped another gingerbread man next to Dean, and a gingerbread woman on his other side, both with the generic features of mass-produced goods found in most nation-wide grocery stores. “Dean, meet Ken and Barbie.”
He started to chuckle, ducking his head to hide his glee, and when he glanced up Dean was gone, the graham cracker door of the gingerbread house shut firmly closed behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam woke, the scent of stale gingerbread strong in the air. He opened one eye, focusing on the blurry shape in front of him only to find Ken’s head impaled on a toothpick sticking out of a complimentary bar of motel soap just inches from his nose.
“Very mature, Dean,” Sam called out through a yawn.
He clumsily pushed himself upright, tossing Ken’s head in the direction of the trash can. Sam scanned the room, looking for any sign of his brother, but saw nothing. A shiver crept down his spine, and he had a flashback to that traumatizing Twilight Zone episode with the killer doll.
He’d have to watch out for staircases in the immediate future. Dean hadn’t exactly been happy being the butt of his jokes, and Bobby’s suggestion to keep Dean in a Ziploc for freshness hadn’t helped one bit.
Sam shoved back the covers, hiding a yawn with his hand as he stumbled over towards the gingerbread house taking up most of the small table. Barbie was still leaning crookedly against the corner of the house, as if she were some kind of cookie hooker staking out her spot on the nearest street corner. Sam hunched over, peeking in one window to see Dean propped stiffly against one wall. His mouth was a small iced o, Dean’s gumdrop eyes gone and replaced with tiny u’s, eyelashes defined by the light dusting of cinnamon under his closed lids.
Sam smiled at the sight of his sleeping brother.
After quietly getting dressed, Sam went out to grab some breakfast before Dean woke up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam clumsily tried to balance the Styrofoam take-out container with the coffee perched atop it under his arm while he unlocked the motel room door, the plastic-wrapped newspaper dangling from his teeth.
He set the box holding his breakfast on the table next to Dean’s gingerbread mansion. “Wake up!” Sam said cheerfully, tapping on the well-iced roof to awaken Dean from his slumber.
When he heard a small gasp behind him, he turned to see the young maid exiting the bathroom with the dirty towels, her hand guiltily clutching the gingerbread leg sticking out of her mouth.
Sam’s eyes widened in horror. “Dean!” He bounded over to the women and snatched at what was left of the spit-soggy cookie dangling from her lips.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the maid said, flushing a bright pink. “Please don’t tell my boss. I thought you didn’t want it; it was just lying on the table and I…I didn’t have any breakfast this morning….”
Sam stared mournfully at the masticated gingerbread limb lying in his palm, poking at it with his finger. “Dean?”
The maid paused, arching an eyebrow at his obvious grief over the stale cookie, and took a measured step towards the door. “I’ll…uh, be leaving now, sir. If you need anything, call the front desk.” She hustled outside and slammed the door behind her.
Once the door was closed, Sam heard the TV turn on, the morning newscaster’s voice filling the room with his overly cheerful storm predictions for the area. Dean stood propped against the cardboard cup of coffee that sat steaming on the table, the remote at his feet, his smiling face aimed towards the television.
“This is Barbie?” Sam asked incredulously. He threw the half-chewed leg at his brother, the cookie bouncing off the table in a shower of crumbs. “You’re a dick. And no, that’s my coffee. Suck it up, little man.”
Dean’s face was a frozen iced frown, gumdrop eyes glittering grumpily. He wasn’t the nicest person in the morning before his coffee.
Sam headed towards the bathroom to wash his hands, calling out over his shoulder, “And don’t eat my pancakes!”
He returned only minutes later, Dean leaning against the graham cracker fence around his house as he watched the entertainment reporter interviewing some of the hunky stars on some sci-fi show on some low-rated network, a smug smile firmly iced in place. Sam took his seat as he opened up his breakfast, frowning slightly at what he saw.
Sam didn’t remember ordering chocolate chip pancakes, but the place had been busy so it was possible he’d grabbed the wrong order. He shrugged, opening one of the syrup packets and pouring it over his lukewarm breakfast. Sam turned on his laptop, shoveling bites of pancake into his mouth as he surfed the ‘net single-handed, still hoping to find an answer to Dean’s current problem.
His phone rang and he flipped it open, taking another bite of his breakfast. “Mmph-o?” Sam swallowed it down with a large sip of his coffee, coughing slightly. “Just eating breakfast, Bobby. What…really? That’s it? You’re kidding, right?”
Sam’s eyes flicked over to where Dean still stood. “You want me to try it now?” He held the phone against his chest, took a deep breath, and said, “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me/Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!”
He stared expectantly at Dean, and when nothing happened he lifted the phone to his ear again. “It didn’t work, Bobby.” Sam stopped talking at the loud guffaws spilling out of the phone, and frowned at the mouthpiece. “Call when you’ve got a real plan, Bobby.”
He hesitated at the sudden rushed gabble of noise from the phone, nodding at whatever Bobby said. “It’s a timed curse? So it’ll wear off on its own?” Sam turned to stare at his brother, who was obviously doing his cookie best to ignore him. “Any idea when?”
Hearing the news, he sighed and snapped his phone shut, slamming his phone on the table. He knocked the unopened syrup off the table, the small packet bouncing under the nearby chair. Cursing under his breath, Sam ducked under the table to grab it off the floor. The table lurched above him, and when Sam peered over the edge, he saw Dean sitting in the crushed remains of the gingerbread house, trying to keep the table from teetering over.
Dean glanced at the syrup packet held loosely in Sam’s hand, a guilty expression crossing his face. “Uh, Sam…I owe you a new breakfast.”
Sam looked at his pancakes with a frown of confusion. “Why? These are fine.”
Dean just managed to look embarrassed, running a hand through his hair. “Let’s just say you didn’t order chocolate chip pancakes.”
Comprehension dawned slowly on Sam’s face, but Dean was already at the door with keys in hand.
“That’s disgusting! Dean!”
Dean laughed, “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!”