Fanfic: The Language of Waffles (1/1)
AN: I have also made this an entry for Crossovers_100
Prompt #56 Breakfast
The Language of Waffles (1/1)
Author: Pen37
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Sam/Dean/Chloe Friendship
Rating: G
Summary: Chloe makes waffles. Sam wonders why.
Chloe doesn’t talk about her past, and that’s okay by the Winchester boys. They’re not big on sharing either. The three of them have an unspoken rule that disclosure is on a need-to-know basis. It keeps things from getting too complicated.
But there are things that the three of them know about each other without having to be told. Things they can figure out just because they are damn good investigators.
For example, the boys know that Chloe didn’t grow up with a mother. The evidence is in the way she doesn’t do any of the innately girly things that women learn from their mothers. Her makeup is a form of war paint. Her few dresses, power suits really, are as much a tool as Dean’s fake ID’s.
She experiments with girliness the way a twelve-year-old experiments with kissing: with tentative steps. Seeing for herself what all the excitement is about. Unsure if she’ll like it.
Once, Dean walked into her hotel room without knocking, only to find her painting her toenails cherry red. The next time he had the chance to see her barefoot; the polish was half-grown out and chipped from neglect. As if she couldn’t be bothered to remove it when there were more important things to do, like finding a priest to bless a super-soaker before their next demon encounter.
The first time she made waffles caused the boys some concern. She went out to Target and came back with a waffle iron, syrup, buttermilk and Bisquick.
“They’ve got a continental breakfast downstairs. Any idea why Chloe’s making waffles in the hotel room?” Sam whispered to his brother as Dean happily tore into his share.
“No idea,” Dean said between bites. His cheeks were stuffed with fluffy goodness, and he looked like he was storing food for the winter. “Dude, these are good.”
“Are you sure she’s not possessed?” Sam wondered. Chloe doesn’t cook. On slow days, she’ll lie on her belly at the foot of Sam’s bed and MST3K on Martha Stewart’s Living with Dean.
“Does dad’s journal say anything about waffle-making demons?” Dean looks intrigued by the idea.
“Not even.” Sam shook his head, and tentatively tried a bite of the waffle Chloe plopped in front of him. It was good. Way too good for it to have been an experiment.
“Where’d you learn to make waffles?” Sam asked her casually.
Chloe stiffened at his words, and her glance fell on a letter sitting on her bureau, before she shrugged, and went back to minding the batter. “My dad and I learned together. It was sort of a crash-course father-daughter thing.”
Bingo. Sam thought. Something was troubling her. Which meant that waffles were comfort food. One she and her dad probably learned to make once there wasn’t a mom in the picture.
Sam had hazy memories of early breakfasts with Dean and Dad that consisted of shell-ridden eggs, ground-studded coffee, burned toast and liberally peppered with their father’s colorful military swearing. Over the years, the three of them had their own share of crash-course father son breakfasts, and they’d gotten almost as good with eggs and coffee as Chloe probably had with waffles.
When they packed up for their next job, Sam made sure that the waffle iron was stowed away in the trunk. He wasn’t sure if Chloe would ever talk about what that letter contained, but there were a lot of miles ahead of them.
And if she would rather cook, that was okay too. Dean liked to eat, so the equation balanced nicely.