I can’t quit you, Babe - 1/1
I can’t quit you, Babe
Rating: G, Gen
Characters: Dean/books, Sam
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 3,120
A/N: Crack! Another coda to 3.08 A Very Supernatural Christmas - I blame the eggnog.
Thanks to secret-seer for the fastest banner ever - it’s fabulous!
Title from Led Zeppelin’s “I can’t quit you babe.”
Setting: Ypsilanti, Michigan. 26th December, 2007 (and assorted flashbacks)
Summary: There are certain things Dean would rather his little brother didn’t know about him.
Like everything in life, it started out innocently.
Well, as innocently as anything Dean Winchester did. So, not very…
All Sammy’s fault. That’s what Dean told himself as he forced himself deeper into the dark, dank bowels of that dreadful place.
All Sammy’s fault. They could have been back at the motel, chilling out with some drinks in front of the TV, some crisps, some Ding Dongs, and all would have been right with the world, for today anyway. But, because of Sammy, Dean was stuck here, waiting. Hiding. From her.
All Sammy’s fault. ‘I’ll only be an hour, Dean.’ Huh! They’d been here three, and he knew it was going to take a crowbar to pry his brother out before closing time, if then. Meanwhile, Dean was rapidly running out of hiding places.
Fucking libraries.
Despite what that woman had said, he hadn’t been perving at all those naked women on the cover of the old issues of National Geographic in the far corner of the travel section. They’d been in a mess, and he’d simply been helpfully sorting them all out on the floor chronologically because he was awesome like that, and really had nothing else to do while his stupid little brother was doing some weird research for extra credit. Who voluntarily did more homework than they had to? Dean was convinced that Sammy’s brain was going to rot from the inside out from the mould off of some of these dusty books. Sammy was clearly insane, and had been for some time.
Dean wasn’t perving. So, what if the issues with the cover pictures of turtles, strange amoeba, and all the other sadly topless chick free issues were piled up accidentally behind his chair? He just hadn’t got to those ones yet!
Dean wasn’t perving. He’d merely paused for a moment to appreciate the wonders of Mother Nature. Then she’d come along.
Fucking librarians.
Even as Dean hid himself cunningly behind one of those stupid spinning book holder things that wouldn’t stop moving every time he goddamn breathed, he knew it was just a matter of time before he got…
‘Young man? If you’re not here to study, or to borrow a book, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
She wasn’t afraid at all. She was looking for an excuse to bust his butt out the doors and kick him down those hard concrete steps. And as for that sneer when she’d said the B word? She was implying he couldn’t even read. Dean knew that sneer. Dean could give her another B word - Bitch.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Dean smirked as he grabbed the closest paperback off the stand, ‘I want this one.’
Her lip was definitely curling as she reached out a hand to grab “Passion’s promise: a story of forbidden love” from him. ‘This one?’
‘Yeah!’ Dean gritted back. You want to make something of it?
She didn’t.
Well, he couldn’t let her win could he? A librarian beating a Winchester? No. Fucking. Way.
He followed her to the Loans Desk, coolly presented his library card, watched her carefully scrutinize the forged signature (thank you Sammy!) on it and compare it to the one he dashed off on the transaction card, before he smirked ‘Have a nice day!’ as she was grudgingly forced to hand the book over into his custody for the next fourteen days. Hah! Hah! And Hah!
She watched him suspiciously every step of the way as he walked over to the adjoining (damn it!) Reference Section to sit down beside his brother. He knew she was watching, but he didn’t turn his head once and give her the satisfaction of seeing his fear.
‘What are you doing, Dean?’ Sammy hissed from behind his crappy maths textbook. Nerds were nosy. That was printed in giant letters on the back of Sammy’s book right next to the words “Algebra is fun!”
‘Just getting a book to read,’ he answered calmly. He wasn’t going to have his little brother laugh at him by telling him that creepy woman had stalked him all over the library for the past hour. Like most of Dean’s misadventures this one was on a need to know basis. It wasn’t that Sammy mightn’t manage to worm it out of him later, but Dean preferred to put off the horrible truth, and the resultant finger pointing, for as long as possible.
Dean settled back and tried not to shiver as he picked up the … thing.
With both Sammy’s and that damned librarian’s eyes on him, he didn’t have any choice did he?
He had to read the fucking book.
Why couldn’t he have chosen to hide behind the westerns instead of the romances? Why? Why? Why?
Fate, and whoever designed the placement of library stacks, was a bitch.
Huh. Forbidden love was a whole lot more interesting, and hotter, than Dean could ever have imagined.
‘Dean?’
So hot that Dean wasn’t surprised by the fact that the woman on the cover had ripped half her dress off to keep cool.
‘Dean?’
So scorchingly hot he was surprised they didn’t have an armed guard, or better yet, a fireman, standing next to the stacks in case of riots or spontaneous human combustion.
‘Dean?’
‘Hmmm?’ These books were … and people could borrow them … He could borrow them … anytime he wanted to….
‘Dean!’
‘What?’
Sammy was standing beside him, almost close enough to see what he was reading.
Dean slammed the book closed, and tried to hide as much of the titillating pink cover as discreetly as possible with his hands. That wasn’t as easy as it sounded, even for Dean Winchester.
‘What, Sammy?’ Dean went for distraction like Dad had taught him, in the moment his brother’s eyes flicked away Dean gathered a handful of vitally important leaflets put out by some society or other that he just had to take home (safely supported underneath by his nice sturdy, possibly totally hidden, book.)
Sammy nodded towards the door where that dreadful woman was standing flicking the lights on and off in a subtle demonstration of her desire to be rid of them, and Dean in particular. ‘Closing time.’
Oh. As Dean tried not to let his face drop with that disappointing announcement he suddenly realised one important fact.
He’d forgotten to use a bookmark, and he’d lost his place in the middle of a sex scene. Fuck.
‘So, did you like the book, Dean?’ Sammy asked eagerly on their way back to the motel, and Dad’s truly awful version of Tuna Surprise.
‘Book? What book?’ Dean was aiming for honest confusion, but clearly the result was nothing but guilt, guilt, and more guilt, judging by the look Sammy was giving him.
‘The book you hid in your backpack with all those leaflets on pruning roses,’ Sammy answered sarcastically.
Sometimes Sammy noticed a hell of a lot for a geek. Though Dean supposed it came with the territory; spotting a book from fifty paces was probably the first test in getting your nerd badge.
Dean shrugged. ‘That? I was just jerking her chain. I’ll take it back tomorrow.’
There had been more books just like that one in the library. A lot more books.
Over the years Dean spent a lot of time in libraries and bookstores with his brother.
He spent even longer bitching about it. Denial was everything, and deception was something else all the Winchesters excelled at.
It also turned out that once Sammy had his nose in his own book (or ten), he noticed virtually nothing that Dean may or may not have got up to in any of those back stacks…
He worked his way (albeit not very logically, because, while he now might read books, that still didn’t make him a nerd) through a number of romantic sub-genres that first year.
Bodice rippers turned out to be really, really hot interesting, once you got past all that historical crap. And no, even Dean didn’t think English gentlemen, highwaymen, or even pirates talked like that.
Dean even tried a Barbara Cartland (who turned out to be a whole other category all on her own) once. Just the once. Well, how was he supposed to have known? After he recovered from the pink haze he had suddenly and mysteriously slid into once it looked like there was finally going to be some action on the second-to-last page, Dean stole a bottle of Dad’s JD and tried to block the horror out. All that happened was that: he threw up all over his brother’s sneakers; Sammy told him he was an idiot while he held his head closer to the washbasin; Dad ordered him to do double the usual number of sit-ups in the morning; and he developed a lifelong hatred for poodles, and the colour pink.
But even the now infamous Barbara wasn’t enough to stop Dean delving surreptitiously into the delights of romance novels.
He tried to be fair (no poodles or Barbara on the back covers so that was a big plus) and gave Mills & Boon/Harlequin a shot (okay he gave them two very low-calibre shots) early on, but when he found there was very little sex, or nothing that he would describe as “acrobatic” then he soon learned to pass them over for other publisher’s series. Besides, those books in their doctors & nurses series? Really not politically correct at all, and Dean blamed his younger brother for even making him that socially aware.
Dean didn’t mind science fiction romances, because they usually had at least two awesome space battles in them between the sex scenes, and he’d always thought that was one thing missing from the Star Wars films (the sex that is, not the battles.)
Fantasy and time-travel romances? Well, it depended on the writer. If they could handle the sex, he didn’t mind what sort of weird costumes the hero and heroine dressed up in before they took them off again.
He did have to set some limits though, because the whole paranormal romance sub-genre? Totally unbelievable. Dean sincerely doubted that Dad had the time between hunts to have hot sex every fifteenth page, either that or Dad was really good at covering his tracks.
Regardless of the sort of romance books he got his hands on, if he was going to be honest, Dean would have said that he wasn’t reading them for their uplifting portrayals of romantic love, with the obligatory happy endings. It was all about the sex. Don’t judge him, he’s a guy, and they have different priorities (which are generally to be found on pages 37-9, 164-7, 202-15.)
Though, when he was in the mood to be critical, he still thought most of them could have been improved with the introduction of a few decent explosions.
Dean started light (and very, very, hot - which was his excuse to himself for many years) but he did expand his literary horizons eventually.
Though in most cases some of the more unusual books he read were in fact forced upon him by circumstances beyond his control.
Westerns he jumped into when he felt a desperate need to reassert his own masculinity. He soon jumped out of them quickly again when he found out that: most of them didn’t know squat about guns and were clearly making it up as they went along; and that cowboys never seemed to have time to have sex. It seemed wrong somehow, so Dean left westerns lying in their own laconic, and platonic dust.
Science fiction he dabbled with over the years, starting with Heinlein’s juveniles (fun) before moving up to his later stuff (weird even if they did have sex.) Forget fantasy (though the swords were awesome,) he liked his futures hard and bleak. Dean might like romance novels, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that the future was going to be anything other than uniformly bad for everyone concerned. Vonnegut suited Dean’s pessimistic worldview, but he did miss the sex.
“Cat’s Cradle” led him to “Moby Dick.” That was a mistake. A very long, and mind numbingly boring, mistake. On a positive note, Dean didn’t run out of the ingredients for paper planes to aim into Sammy’s weird hair for months after picking that book up for 15c in a discount bin outside a charity store in Lansing, Michigan.
He probably should have known better with “The Shipping News” many years later. In his defence the person at the bookstore had insisted it was going to be next up on Oprah’s Book Club, but it turned out that she knew nothing at all. Sure it had won some awards, but it didn’t ever get the big O’s approval, which Dean figured out for himself about half way through.
Jane Austen? “Pride and Prejudice” and all that chick lit jazz? He blamed on the school librarian at Walter Bailey High School in Tennessee who flat out refused all his vigorous attempts to blackmail her into loaning out her personal stash of Nora Roberts one boring winter, until he’d read “P&P” as she fondly called it, and answered a little informal quiz (that turned out to contain fifty-three in-depth questions.) He read it, aced (okay he only got 72%, but he was sure she’d deducted marks for his doodles about what Elizabeth and Mr Darcy should have been doing by page 37), and got what he’d been after, but it turned him off Austen for life.
So, Dean’s literary adventures had started out light (and totally hot, remember?) then they broadened, but no matter what he read over the years he always came back to the comforting safety of his favourites, and the guidance of Oprah in times of stress.
Deals with demons counted as stress. Lots of stress.
He spent a lot of time after that reading books with Fabio on the cover, and just ever so occasionally watching his advice goddess on daytime TV.
He might also have cleverly worked out how to illegally download episodes of Oprah to Sam’s computer. But, because he wasn’t totally stupid, he sensibly buried them in a folder labelled Awesome1, that Sam couldn’t ever possibly find.
There are certain things Dean would rather his little brother didn’t know about him. Dean’s reading material (apart from his obvious and nothing to be ashamed of collection of Busty Asian Beauties, and car manuals) definitely came into that category.
And here’s the thing, the rub as it were. This joined at the hip life on the road he and Sam had now? It was great (demons and dead girlfriends notwithstanding,) and even if it meant Sam would have been safe, Dean never wished he’d not gone and collected Sam from Stanford two years ago.
Whatever happened, they were in it together.
It did, however, make finding some private time to read the latest Jayne Ann Krentz really goddamned hard. Fucking nosy little brothers.
This Christmas should have been perfect. He and Sam had finally offed the Carrigans in the most symbolic way possible. Their motel room was paid up for another two days, and the two of them had actually had a pretty awesome Christmas themselves (Sam’s toxic eggnog aside) where they both pretended everything was right with the world for one night at least.
So, who could blame Dean for taking advantage of the fact that he’d callously (and with brilliant forethought) sent Sam out into the snow to gather wood and rosebuds, and breakfast, and lots and lots of coffee the next morning?
He’d carefully calculated it would take his brother at least an hour to dig the Impala out of the snowdrift in the parking lot, get to the nearest diner, and make it back without spilling any of the precious brown fluid.
An hour was more than enough time for his own secret present to himself, a battered secondhand copy of a biography of Oprah that he’d been trying to get a hold of for ages.
And if Sam was slow, well, that just meant he got to dip into a few of the other books from the bottom of his duffel bag.
Unfortunately Sam had gotten taller and faster over the years. Damn it!
And you know what? It’s almost impossible to come up with a good excuse as to why you happened to have an assortment of romance novels all around you, and a book on Oprah actually in your hands.
Dean tried. Really he did. Unfortunately all that came out was what sounded suspiciously like a terrified whimper.
Fuck.
‘Coffee?’
What? That’s all? Caught red, or rather, pink-handed with the damning evidence in front of him, and all Sam said was, “Coffee?” as he sat down beside him on the bed?
Dean tried to sound casual as he replied, ‘About time, Bitch. Gimme.’
That day? Having breakfast with Sam, surrounded by all his books, was definitely one of the most frightening experiences of Dean’s life. Ever.
‘This is good, you know?’ Sam gestured incomprehensibly around the room.
Huh? Dean’s brain was on strike. Possibly it was hiding under the bed where he wished he’d left those damned books. Dean wondered if there was room for him under the bed too. ‘Good?’ he eventually choked out bravely.
‘Yeah,’ Sam was nodded happily, like the giant, totally impossible to understand person he was. ‘Now I know what to get you next year, if you’re really, really good.’
Presents? Oooh. Something better than this year’s? Was that even possible? And Sam was saying that as if there was going to be a next year. For that alone, Dean would have hugged him, but he really didn’t want to be the token girl here.
Sam grinned as if he could really read Dean’s mind. ‘Love you too, jerk.’
Dean shoved another donut in his mouth before he was tempted to respond.
Presents…
‘Uh huh,’ Sam answered. He flicked a finger at the one exposed corner of the book Dean had been uncomfortably sitting on all through the meal. ‘Oprah. I thought maybe tickets to Oprah’s Favourite Things Show?’
Oprah? Oprah! Oprah’s Favourite Things Show? The freaking motherload of Christmas specials where everyone got presents-lots of presents? It was more than good. It was fucking awesome!
As he sat bouncing excitedly up and down on the bed while his brother grinned at him, Dean made an early New Year’s resolution.
Dean Winchester promised himself that for the next year, he was going to be very, very, good.
Rating: G, Gen
Characters: Dean/books, Sam
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 3,120
A/N: Crack! Another coda to 3.08 A Very Supernatural Christmas - I blame the eggnog.
Thanks to secret-seer for the fastest banner ever - it’s fabulous!
Title from Led Zeppelin’s “I can’t quit you babe.”
Setting: Ypsilanti, Michigan. 26th December, 2007 (and assorted flashbacks)
Summary: There are certain things Dean would rather his little brother didn’t know about him.
Like everything in life, it started out innocently.
Well, as innocently as anything Dean Winchester did. So, not very…
All Sammy’s fault. That’s what Dean told himself as he forced himself deeper into the dark, dank bowels of that dreadful place.
All Sammy’s fault. They could have been back at the motel, chilling out with some drinks in front of the TV, some crisps, some Ding Dongs, and all would have been right with the world, for today anyway. But, because of Sammy, Dean was stuck here, waiting. Hiding. From her.
All Sammy’s fault. ‘I’ll only be an hour, Dean.’ Huh! They’d been here three, and he knew it was going to take a crowbar to pry his brother out before closing time, if then. Meanwhile, Dean was rapidly running out of hiding places.
Fucking libraries.
Despite what that woman had said, he hadn’t been perving at all those naked women on the cover of the old issues of National Geographic in the far corner of the travel section. They’d been in a mess, and he’d simply been helpfully sorting them all out on the floor chronologically because he was awesome like that, and really had nothing else to do while his stupid little brother was doing some weird research for extra credit. Who voluntarily did more homework than they had to? Dean was convinced that Sammy’s brain was going to rot from the inside out from the mould off of some of these dusty books. Sammy was clearly insane, and had been for some time.
Dean wasn’t perving. So, what if the issues with the cover pictures of turtles, strange amoeba, and all the other sadly topless chick free issues were piled up accidentally behind his chair? He just hadn’t got to those ones yet!
Dean wasn’t perving. He’d merely paused for a moment to appreciate the wonders of Mother Nature. Then she’d come along.
Fucking librarians.
Even as Dean hid himself cunningly behind one of those stupid spinning book holder things that wouldn’t stop moving every time he goddamn breathed, he knew it was just a matter of time before he got…
‘Young man? If you’re not here to study, or to borrow a book, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
She wasn’t afraid at all. She was looking for an excuse to bust his butt out the doors and kick him down those hard concrete steps. And as for that sneer when she’d said the B word? She was implying he couldn’t even read. Dean knew that sneer. Dean could give her another B word - Bitch.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Dean smirked as he grabbed the closest paperback off the stand, ‘I want this one.’
Her lip was definitely curling as she reached out a hand to grab “Passion’s promise: a story of forbidden love” from him. ‘This one?’
‘Yeah!’ Dean gritted back. You want to make something of it?
She didn’t.
Well, he couldn’t let her win could he? A librarian beating a Winchester? No. Fucking. Way.
He followed her to the Loans Desk, coolly presented his library card, watched her carefully scrutinize the forged signature (thank you Sammy!) on it and compare it to the one he dashed off on the transaction card, before he smirked ‘Have a nice day!’ as she was grudgingly forced to hand the book over into his custody for the next fourteen days. Hah! Hah! And Hah!
She watched him suspiciously every step of the way as he walked over to the adjoining (damn it!) Reference Section to sit down beside his brother. He knew she was watching, but he didn’t turn his head once and give her the satisfaction of seeing his fear.
‘What are you doing, Dean?’ Sammy hissed from behind his crappy maths textbook. Nerds were nosy. That was printed in giant letters on the back of Sammy’s book right next to the words “Algebra is fun!”
‘Just getting a book to read,’ he answered calmly. He wasn’t going to have his little brother laugh at him by telling him that creepy woman had stalked him all over the library for the past hour. Like most of Dean’s misadventures this one was on a need to know basis. It wasn’t that Sammy mightn’t manage to worm it out of him later, but Dean preferred to put off the horrible truth, and the resultant finger pointing, for as long as possible.
Dean settled back and tried not to shiver as he picked up the … thing.
With both Sammy’s and that damned librarian’s eyes on him, he didn’t have any choice did he?
He had to read the fucking book.
Why couldn’t he have chosen to hide behind the westerns instead of the romances? Why? Why? Why?
Fate, and whoever designed the placement of library stacks, was a bitch.
Huh. Forbidden love was a whole lot more interesting, and hotter, than Dean could ever have imagined.
‘Dean?’
So hot that Dean wasn’t surprised by the fact that the woman on the cover had ripped half her dress off to keep cool.
‘Dean?’
So scorchingly hot he was surprised they didn’t have an armed guard, or better yet, a fireman, standing next to the stacks in case of riots or spontaneous human combustion.
‘Dean?’
‘Hmmm?’ These books were … and people could borrow them … He could borrow them … anytime he wanted to….
‘Dean!’
‘What?’
Sammy was standing beside him, almost close enough to see what he was reading.
Dean slammed the book closed, and tried to hide as much of the titillating pink cover as discreetly as possible with his hands. That wasn’t as easy as it sounded, even for Dean Winchester.
‘What, Sammy?’ Dean went for distraction like Dad had taught him, in the moment his brother’s eyes flicked away Dean gathered a handful of vitally important leaflets put out by some society or other that he just had to take home (safely supported underneath by his nice sturdy, possibly totally hidden, book.)
Sammy nodded towards the door where that dreadful woman was standing flicking the lights on and off in a subtle demonstration of her desire to be rid of them, and Dean in particular. ‘Closing time.’
Oh. As Dean tried not to let his face drop with that disappointing announcement he suddenly realised one important fact.
He’d forgotten to use a bookmark, and he’d lost his place in the middle of a sex scene. Fuck.
‘So, did you like the book, Dean?’ Sammy asked eagerly on their way back to the motel, and Dad’s truly awful version of Tuna Surprise.
‘Book? What book?’ Dean was aiming for honest confusion, but clearly the result was nothing but guilt, guilt, and more guilt, judging by the look Sammy was giving him.
‘The book you hid in your backpack with all those leaflets on pruning roses,’ Sammy answered sarcastically.
Sometimes Sammy noticed a hell of a lot for a geek. Though Dean supposed it came with the territory; spotting a book from fifty paces was probably the first test in getting your nerd badge.
Dean shrugged. ‘That? I was just jerking her chain. I’ll take it back tomorrow.’
There had been more books just like that one in the library. A lot more books.
Over the years Dean spent a lot of time in libraries and bookstores with his brother.
He spent even longer bitching about it. Denial was everything, and deception was something else all the Winchesters excelled at.
It also turned out that once Sammy had his nose in his own book (or ten), he noticed virtually nothing that Dean may or may not have got up to in any of those back stacks…
He worked his way (albeit not very logically, because, while he now might read books, that still didn’t make him a nerd) through a number of romantic sub-genres that first year.
Bodice rippers turned out to be really, really hot interesting, once you got past all that historical crap. And no, even Dean didn’t think English gentlemen, highwaymen, or even pirates talked like that.
Dean even tried a Barbara Cartland (who turned out to be a whole other category all on her own) once. Just the once. Well, how was he supposed to have known? After he recovered from the pink haze he had suddenly and mysteriously slid into once it looked like there was finally going to be some action on the second-to-last page, Dean stole a bottle of Dad’s JD and tried to block the horror out. All that happened was that: he threw up all over his brother’s sneakers; Sammy told him he was an idiot while he held his head closer to the washbasin; Dad ordered him to do double the usual number of sit-ups in the morning; and he developed a lifelong hatred for poodles, and the colour pink.
But even the now infamous Barbara wasn’t enough to stop Dean delving surreptitiously into the delights of romance novels.
He tried to be fair (no poodles or Barbara on the back covers so that was a big plus) and gave Mills & Boon/Harlequin a shot (okay he gave them two very low-calibre shots) early on, but when he found there was very little sex, or nothing that he would describe as “acrobatic” then he soon learned to pass them over for other publisher’s series. Besides, those books in their doctors & nurses series? Really not politically correct at all, and Dean blamed his younger brother for even making him that socially aware.
Dean didn’t mind science fiction romances, because they usually had at least two awesome space battles in them between the sex scenes, and he’d always thought that was one thing missing from the Star Wars films (the sex that is, not the battles.)
Fantasy and time-travel romances? Well, it depended on the writer. If they could handle the sex, he didn’t mind what sort of weird costumes the hero and heroine dressed up in before they took them off again.
He did have to set some limits though, because the whole paranormal romance sub-genre? Totally unbelievable. Dean sincerely doubted that Dad had the time between hunts to have hot sex every fifteenth page, either that or Dad was really good at covering his tracks.
Regardless of the sort of romance books he got his hands on, if he was going to be honest, Dean would have said that he wasn’t reading them for their uplifting portrayals of romantic love, with the obligatory happy endings. It was all about the sex. Don’t judge him, he’s a guy, and they have different priorities (which are generally to be found on pages 37-9, 164-7, 202-15.)
Though, when he was in the mood to be critical, he still thought most of them could have been improved with the introduction of a few decent explosions.
Dean started light (and very, very, hot - which was his excuse to himself for many years) but he did expand his literary horizons eventually.
Though in most cases some of the more unusual books he read were in fact forced upon him by circumstances beyond his control.
Westerns he jumped into when he felt a desperate need to reassert his own masculinity. He soon jumped out of them quickly again when he found out that: most of them didn’t know squat about guns and were clearly making it up as they went along; and that cowboys never seemed to have time to have sex. It seemed wrong somehow, so Dean left westerns lying in their own laconic, and platonic dust.
Science fiction he dabbled with over the years, starting with Heinlein’s juveniles (fun) before moving up to his later stuff (weird even if they did have sex.) Forget fantasy (though the swords were awesome,) he liked his futures hard and bleak. Dean might like romance novels, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that the future was going to be anything other than uniformly bad for everyone concerned. Vonnegut suited Dean’s pessimistic worldview, but he did miss the sex.
“Cat’s Cradle” led him to “Moby Dick.” That was a mistake. A very long, and mind numbingly boring, mistake. On a positive note, Dean didn’t run out of the ingredients for paper planes to aim into Sammy’s weird hair for months after picking that book up for 15c in a discount bin outside a charity store in Lansing, Michigan.
He probably should have known better with “The Shipping News” many years later. In his defence the person at the bookstore had insisted it was going to be next up on Oprah’s Book Club, but it turned out that she knew nothing at all. Sure it had won some awards, but it didn’t ever get the big O’s approval, which Dean figured out for himself about half way through.
Jane Austen? “Pride and Prejudice” and all that chick lit jazz? He blamed on the school librarian at Walter Bailey High School in Tennessee who flat out refused all his vigorous attempts to blackmail her into loaning out her personal stash of Nora Roberts one boring winter, until he’d read “P&P” as she fondly called it, and answered a little informal quiz (that turned out to contain fifty-three in-depth questions.) He read it, aced (okay he only got 72%, but he was sure she’d deducted marks for his doodles about what Elizabeth and Mr Darcy should have been doing by page 37), and got what he’d been after, but it turned him off Austen for life.
So, Dean’s literary adventures had started out light (and totally hot, remember?) then they broadened, but no matter what he read over the years he always came back to the comforting safety of his favourites, and the guidance of Oprah in times of stress.
Deals with demons counted as stress. Lots of stress.
He spent a lot of time after that reading books with Fabio on the cover, and just ever so occasionally watching his advice goddess on daytime TV.
He might also have cleverly worked out how to illegally download episodes of Oprah to Sam’s computer. But, because he wasn’t totally stupid, he sensibly buried them in a folder labelled Awesome1, that Sam couldn’t ever possibly find.
There are certain things Dean would rather his little brother didn’t know about him. Dean’s reading material (apart from his obvious and nothing to be ashamed of collection of Busty Asian Beauties, and car manuals) definitely came into that category.
And here’s the thing, the rub as it were. This joined at the hip life on the road he and Sam had now? It was great (demons and dead girlfriends notwithstanding,) and even if it meant Sam would have been safe, Dean never wished he’d not gone and collected Sam from Stanford two years ago.
Whatever happened, they were in it together.
It did, however, make finding some private time to read the latest Jayne Ann Krentz really goddamned hard. Fucking nosy little brothers.
This Christmas should have been perfect. He and Sam had finally offed the Carrigans in the most symbolic way possible. Their motel room was paid up for another two days, and the two of them had actually had a pretty awesome Christmas themselves (Sam’s toxic eggnog aside) where they both pretended everything was right with the world for one night at least.
So, who could blame Dean for taking advantage of the fact that he’d callously (and with brilliant forethought) sent Sam out into the snow to gather wood and rosebuds, and breakfast, and lots and lots of coffee the next morning?
He’d carefully calculated it would take his brother at least an hour to dig the Impala out of the snowdrift in the parking lot, get to the nearest diner, and make it back without spilling any of the precious brown fluid.
An hour was more than enough time for his own secret present to himself, a battered secondhand copy of a biography of Oprah that he’d been trying to get a hold of for ages.
And if Sam was slow, well, that just meant he got to dip into a few of the other books from the bottom of his duffel bag.
Unfortunately Sam had gotten taller and faster over the years. Damn it!
And you know what? It’s almost impossible to come up with a good excuse as to why you happened to have an assortment of romance novels all around you, and a book on Oprah actually in your hands.
Dean tried. Really he did. Unfortunately all that came out was what sounded suspiciously like a terrified whimper.
Fuck.
‘Coffee?’
What? That’s all? Caught red, or rather, pink-handed with the damning evidence in front of him, and all Sam said was, “Coffee?” as he sat down beside him on the bed?
Dean tried to sound casual as he replied, ‘About time, Bitch. Gimme.’
That day? Having breakfast with Sam, surrounded by all his books, was definitely one of the most frightening experiences of Dean’s life. Ever.
‘This is good, you know?’ Sam gestured incomprehensibly around the room.
Huh? Dean’s brain was on strike. Possibly it was hiding under the bed where he wished he’d left those damned books. Dean wondered if there was room for him under the bed too. ‘Good?’ he eventually choked out bravely.
‘Yeah,’ Sam was nodded happily, like the giant, totally impossible to understand person he was. ‘Now I know what to get you next year, if you’re really, really good.’
Presents? Oooh. Something better than this year’s? Was that even possible? And Sam was saying that as if there was going to be a next year. For that alone, Dean would have hugged him, but he really didn’t want to be the token girl here.
Sam grinned as if he could really read Dean’s mind. ‘Love you too, jerk.’
Dean shoved another donut in his mouth before he was tempted to respond.
Presents…
‘Uh huh,’ Sam answered. He flicked a finger at the one exposed corner of the book Dean had been uncomfortably sitting on all through the meal. ‘Oprah. I thought maybe tickets to Oprah’s Favourite Things Show?’
Oprah? Oprah! Oprah’s Favourite Things Show? The freaking motherload of Christmas specials where everyone got presents-lots of presents? It was more than good. It was fucking awesome!
As he sat bouncing excitedly up and down on the bed while his brother grinned at him, Dean made an early New Year’s resolution.
Dean Winchester promised himself that for the next year, he was going to be very, very, good.