Title: Lunchmeat and Lore
Characters:Dean (10 and a third) and Sam (barely 6)
Rating: GEN, PG, kidfic
Word Count: 940-ish
Disclaimer: The boys are Kripke's.
Warnings: Extremely pointless wee!chester cuteness
Summary: The boys make sandwiches for the road.
A/N: This in its original form was pre-Kripked by A Very Supernatural Christmas. I tried to fix it to match current canon, but I'm not sure how well it worked. I'm posting it anyways because I was unpacking some stuff from my desk and found the notes for this. And I need some cute today.
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Lunchmeat and Lore
by CaffieneKitty
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Dean took the plastic clip off the bread bag and upended it. The entire loaf slid out onto the kitchenette table.
Sam turned the package of baloney over in his hands. "I can't open it, Dean."
"Yes you can Sammy, here." Dean set the empty bread bag aside and pushed his jacknife over to his little brother. "It's quicker if you just cut it open."
"No, that's cheating." Sam pouted. "You gotta pull it open. It says so, and I can't do it."
Since Sam had learned to read last year, he tried to read everything. Cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, meat packages... Anything with letters on it was fair game, and anything with instructions on it he could understand, like 'Pull to Open' had to be obeyed. Dean heaved a long-suffering sigh and reached across the table for the package of baloney. "Fine. You've got to pull on the two sides at the-"
"I'll do the mustard instead!" Sam said, gleefully grabbing the bright yellow bottle while Dean was occupied with the baloney package.
"Hey!"
"It's okay, Dean," said Sam, looking big-eyed at his brother through his eyelashes like he was making the world's hugest sacrifice ever. "You can do the b'loney, I don't mind."
Dean heaved an even longer-suffering sigh. Sneaky little brat.
They settled into the assembly line of making a loaf of sandwiches for the road.
"Where we going again, Dean?" said Sam, shaking the mustard bottle.
Dean finished peeling open the baloney package. "I think Dad said Minnesota."
"Does it rain lots in Minny-soda?" Sam squeezed mustard onto a slice of bread and pushed it over to Dean. "B'loney me!"
Dean slapped a slice of baloney on the bread. "Dunno. Don't think so, probably not as much as here anyway." The spring Oregon rain rattled against the window.
"'S there gonna be puddles?" Sam passed the next mustard-drizzled slice to Dean who completed the first sandwich and slid it back into the bread bag.
"Of course there's gonna be puddles. Maybe not all the time though."
"Aw." Sam drooped as he drew wiggly lines on the next slice. "How'm I gonna play rivers-and-dams when there's no puddles?"
"There'll be puddles sometimes."
"Not all the time though. There's always puddles here, 'coz it's always raining here."
It probably didn't actually rain all the time in Oregon, really, but it had nearly every day for the three months they had been there. "It'll rain in Minnesota, Sammy. Just maybe not as often."
Sam looked concerned. "But how's it gonna know to rain when I want to play rivers-n-dams, Dean?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeesh. I can make puddles for you, Sammy. There'll be a hose or a bucket or something. You won't need to wait for rain."
Sam considered the offer as he fiddled with the mustard nozzle. "Okay. S'not the same though. Why do we gotta move to Minny-soda?"
"Dad's gotta go there for work."
"Oh."
They completed another three sandwiches in silence. Sammy dealt out slices of bread and applied mustard. Dean put on baloney, closed each sandwich and put it back into the bread bag, reforming a rough loaf-shape.
Sam concentrated on making an 'S' with the mustard on the next bread slice, and said "There's windy-goes in Minny-soda, you know."
Dean stopped still with a slice of baloney in mid-air above a slice of bread. "There's what?"
"Windy-goes."
Dean carefully placed the baloney slice on the bread, considering how to respond. Sammy wasn't supposed to know anything about hunting. How did he hear about the wendigo Dad was going after? "Where'd you hear that Sammy?"
"Dunno." Sam shrugged and pushed more mustardy bread across the table. "Somewheres. What's a windy-go, Dean?"
Maybe Sam hadn't heard anything but the name. "Nothin' you need to know about."
"It's a kinda monster, isn't it?"
Crap. "Um..."
"Why're we goin' to Minny-soda if there's monsters there, Dean?" Sam looked up at Dean.
Taking an extra second of trying to get the latest sandwich squared up with the rest of the loaf, Dean thought quickly, frowning.
"It's just a story about a monster. Dad wouldn't take us there if it wasn't safe."
"But how do you know it's just a story?"
"'Coz it is." Dean shifted a bit in his chair.
"But what if it's not? What if a windy-go comes while Dad's out working and eats us?" Sam pushed another slice of bread over, the mustard lines a big zigzag, like teeth.
"It won't," said Dean with finality. Dad hadn't told Dean much, but he had showed him what to draw around the cabin they'd be living in. They'd be safe.
"But how do you know, Dean?" A little pinched line had appeared between Sammy's eyebrows; he was edging from curious into worried.
"'Coz." Dean tapped the bread tag, making it jump. Dad would kill him. "There's a way to keep it away, in the story," he admitted.
"There is? How?" Sammy leaned forward, eyes wide.
"The people that tell the stories about the wendigos are the..." he paused briefly to remember the name. "Anasazi."
"Anna-Stacey?"
"Yeah. Anasazi. In the stories, there's this thing you can draw. It keeps the wendigos away."
"How's it go? The Anna-Stacey thing?"
Dean drew on the table with a finger. "Kind of a circle, with an x in the middle."
Sam's face squinched up in concentration as he carefully looped a line of mustard around the bread slice, tongue peeking out as he squirted lines across the middle.
"Like that, Dean?"
Dean grinned lopsidedly and slapped a piece of baloney over the yellow swirls. "Congratulations, Sammy, that sandwich is safe from wendigos. And because it's the last one in the bag, it'll protect all the rest."
"Yay! Take that, windy-goes! No b'loney for you!"
"Yeah. If, y'know, it wasn't all just a story." Dean slid the sandwich into the bag with the rest of the converted loaf, and clipped it shut with the bread tag. "C'mon. Let's get the stuff packed up."
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(that's it)