Fic :: Supernatural :: Lashings of Ginger Beer
Lashings of Ginger Beer
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: G
Summary: Sam reads too much. Up to and including Enid Blyton.
Posting date: November 2007
*
They’ve been in town for about a week when Sammy comes home from school and declares, “I think there’s smugglers.”
“What?” says Dean.
“Smugglers,” he repeats seriously. He digs a hand into the box of Lucky Charms, flopping down next to Dean on the ratty couch as he sets about picking out all the marshmallows. “Or maybe an international kidnapping ring, I haven’t decided yet. But I think smugglers, most likely.”
Dean leans over and a snags a horseshoe, because his baby brother apparently being certifiably insane is no reason to get up off the couch.
“It would probably help if we got a dog,” Sammy adds.
Yeah, because that’s not suspicious at all. Dean narrows his eyes. “Dude, you haven’t been reading those books again, have you?”
Sammy’s face is an impenetrable mask of Lucky Charm-inhaling calm, which is a dead giveaway ‘cause Dean taught the little fucker that expression.
“Sammy, don’t be a bitch,” he reasons, democratically kicking his brother in the shin. “You know what I mean. Fabulous six. Fantastic three. Whatever. Point is, you’re not supposed to, not after what happened last time.”
“It’s the Famous Five,” Sammy admits, eyes sliding sideways in that guilty-brother way as he hastily adds, “and you know it’s the Famous Five because of the alliteration- which is a literary device, by the way- and I think they’re neat, okay, and don’t tell dad, will you?”
“Come on, man, you’re nearly the big one-three, time to grow a little taste. They’re written by an old, dead, British chick.” He reaches across and flicks Sammy’s ear, his special big bro code for ‘pay attention, fucker’. “They are, in fact, the exact opposite of neat.”
Sammy glowers and rubs at his ear. “I like them, jerk,” he snaps, accidentally-on-purpose elbowing Dean’s shoulder in a totally unsubtle way as he jumps up and stalks away.
Dean groans- who’d be a big brother?- and follows Sammy through into the kitchen to watch him clatter around with cupboards and bowls and cereal, his still kinda pudgy face all twisted up in what’s basically a full visual representation of ‘sulk’.
“C’mon,” Dean implores as Sammy slams the box of Lucky Charms down onto the rickety table with such force it wobbles. “Don’t be a bitch all your life.”
Okay, so it turns that’s probably not gonna appear in the Top Ten Things To Say To Your Brother chart any time soon. You live and learn.
“I am not a bitch, Dean,” Sammy snarls, hands on hips and his glare turned on full power. “I’m a boy and I’m almost thirteen and,” he stamps a foot, “there are smugglers, dammit!”
It’s the ‘dammit’ more than anything, awkward and foreign-sounding coming from Sammy’s mouth, that makes Dean raise his hands placatingly in the air, with a, “Whoa, hey- easy, Sammy. Sorry, man. You’re not a bitch, okay?”
And to prove it, just ‘cause he’s pretty awesome like that, he pours the Lucky Charms out for both of them with a winning smile. Sammy rolls his eyes, but the tension’s draining out of him, so Dean grabs the milk from the fridge too. It doesn’t smell too bad, not really. Groceries, Dean reminds himself, pouring and mopping up the over-spill with the edge of his sleeve. He pouts sorrowfully at his brother, eyes so wide it kind of hurts, and waves a tantalising spoon.
“I’m not a kid, Dean. You don’t need to make faces anymore,” Sammy mutters, but he takes the spoon anyway, and if that little head-duck isn’t to hide a grudging smile then Dean isn’t a Winchester.
“Hey, don’t stifle me, man.” Dean slurps up milk and cereal, wiping at his chin, while Sammy busies himself spooning out every damn marshmallow in the bowl to set aside for later. How the hell they ended up with such a neurotic geek-boy in the family, Dean just doesn’t know. “So tell me about these smugglers of yours.”
Sammy lines up all the hearts and swipes his sticky fingers on his jeans, shrugging. “Things have been. You know. Smuggled.”
“Smuggled.”
“Smuggled,” he confirms sternly, arranging the stars and clovers in an alternating row. “There’s a definite air of smuggled.”
“An air of... smuggled,” Dean repeats, feeling a bit like an echo. “So what you’re saying, Sammy, is that you can- sense- smuggling?”
Sammy glances up at him in that squinty-eyed kinda way he’s picked up over the last couple years, probably thinking it makes him look serious and grown-up. Dean’s not had the heart yet to tell him that it makes him look like he needs glasses- he’s saving it for a special occasion. “It feels mysterious.”
“You can sense smuggling.”
“Don’t make it sound so stupid,” Sammy protests, flicking a soggy horseshoe at him. “There’s something weird going on, honestly. People act funny. Dwayne-“
“What the hell kind of name’s Dwayne?”
“I didn’t name him, Dean, he’s a cleaner. He says there are strange noises and stuff.”
Dean licks the sugary coating off of his spoon, shaking his head seriously. Because, really, how did he get a kid like this for a brother? “So there’s strange noises and stuff, people acting funny, something weird going on, we’re ghost-hunters... and you think it’s smugglers?”
“Or kidnapping,” Sammy mutters, head down as he nudges the marshmallows into perfect order with a finger-nail.
“Only you, Sammy, could jump to the conclusion of smuggling.”
“Smuggling’s cool.”
“This is why dad won’t let you read those damn books anymore.” He throws his spoon, and mentally adds fifty points to the tally as it bounces off of Sammy’s head. “Dude, seriously, how can you live this life and still think smuggling’s the cooler option?”
Sammy flops back against his chair, the plastic back creaking distressingly, and glares down at his half-empty bowl. “This isn’t cool. We’ve been eating cereal for three days now ‘cause we can’t afford real food, and we’re living in a rubbish apartment that smells weird, and we have no idea where our dad is. This is,” he pauses, floundering, and looks up at Dean from under his scruffy bangs. “This is seriously uncool.”
Dean opens his mouth. Then he closes it again, because what the hell do you say to that?
Not a whole lot, is what. Sammy hunches forwards in the silence, his elbows knobbly on the table-top and smeared in marshmallow residue, and he adds, “And we never outwit kidnappings.”
“Sammy,” Dean says, helplessly. What the hell do you say to that? “You really wanna outwit kidnappings?”
He shrugs, head bent down so low all Dean can see is hair. “Yeah, I guess, maybe. Or eat proper food every day. Or ride a bike, or something.”
The silence stretches. Dean leans back in his chair, rocking it on to two legs, four legs, two legs as he weighs the options in the mind. He can’t steal a bike, not really, but he can hustle up some money for groceries. He can hunt down every copy of those fucking Famous whatever books and burn them all. He can...
“Okay,” he says, grabbing their bowls and dumping them in the sink. Sammy glances up, his expression wary and full of ‘am I in for it?’ So Dean pauses, letting the suspense build until he can almost taste it and Sammy’s squirming in his seat in dread, before he claps his hands together and announces, “Let’s go outwit some kidnappings.”
Sammy beams like the complete dork he is and practically trips over his own giant feet as he dashes to their bedroom to gather up all those essential smuggler-fighting supplies, but that’s okay. The Winchester family’s probably badass enough as it is.
*
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: G
Summary: Sam reads too much. Up to and including Enid Blyton.
Posting date: November 2007
*
They’ve been in town for about a week when Sammy comes home from school and declares, “I think there’s smugglers.”
“What?” says Dean.
“Smugglers,” he repeats seriously. He digs a hand into the box of Lucky Charms, flopping down next to Dean on the ratty couch as he sets about picking out all the marshmallows. “Or maybe an international kidnapping ring, I haven’t decided yet. But I think smugglers, most likely.”
Dean leans over and a snags a horseshoe, because his baby brother apparently being certifiably insane is no reason to get up off the couch.
“It would probably help if we got a dog,” Sammy adds.
Yeah, because that’s not suspicious at all. Dean narrows his eyes. “Dude, you haven’t been reading those books again, have you?”
Sammy’s face is an impenetrable mask of Lucky Charm-inhaling calm, which is a dead giveaway ‘cause Dean taught the little fucker that expression.
“Sammy, don’t be a bitch,” he reasons, democratically kicking his brother in the shin. “You know what I mean. Fabulous six. Fantastic three. Whatever. Point is, you’re not supposed to, not after what happened last time.”
“It’s the Famous Five,” Sammy admits, eyes sliding sideways in that guilty-brother way as he hastily adds, “and you know it’s the Famous Five because of the alliteration- which is a literary device, by the way- and I think they’re neat, okay, and don’t tell dad, will you?”
“Come on, man, you’re nearly the big one-three, time to grow a little taste. They’re written by an old, dead, British chick.” He reaches across and flicks Sammy’s ear, his special big bro code for ‘pay attention, fucker’. “They are, in fact, the exact opposite of neat.”
Sammy glowers and rubs at his ear. “I like them, jerk,” he snaps, accidentally-on-purpose elbowing Dean’s shoulder in a totally unsubtle way as he jumps up and stalks away.
Dean groans- who’d be a big brother?- and follows Sammy through into the kitchen to watch him clatter around with cupboards and bowls and cereal, his still kinda pudgy face all twisted up in what’s basically a full visual representation of ‘sulk’.
“C’mon,” Dean implores as Sammy slams the box of Lucky Charms down onto the rickety table with such force it wobbles. “Don’t be a bitch all your life.”
Okay, so it turns that’s probably not gonna appear in the Top Ten Things To Say To Your Brother chart any time soon. You live and learn.
“I am not a bitch, Dean,” Sammy snarls, hands on hips and his glare turned on full power. “I’m a boy and I’m almost thirteen and,” he stamps a foot, “there are smugglers, dammit!”
It’s the ‘dammit’ more than anything, awkward and foreign-sounding coming from Sammy’s mouth, that makes Dean raise his hands placatingly in the air, with a, “Whoa, hey- easy, Sammy. Sorry, man. You’re not a bitch, okay?”
And to prove it, just ‘cause he’s pretty awesome like that, he pours the Lucky Charms out for both of them with a winning smile. Sammy rolls his eyes, but the tension’s draining out of him, so Dean grabs the milk from the fridge too. It doesn’t smell too bad, not really. Groceries, Dean reminds himself, pouring and mopping up the over-spill with the edge of his sleeve. He pouts sorrowfully at his brother, eyes so wide it kind of hurts, and waves a tantalising spoon.
“I’m not a kid, Dean. You don’t need to make faces anymore,” Sammy mutters, but he takes the spoon anyway, and if that little head-duck isn’t to hide a grudging smile then Dean isn’t a Winchester.
“Hey, don’t stifle me, man.” Dean slurps up milk and cereal, wiping at his chin, while Sammy busies himself spooning out every damn marshmallow in the bowl to set aside for later. How the hell they ended up with such a neurotic geek-boy in the family, Dean just doesn’t know. “So tell me about these smugglers of yours.”
Sammy lines up all the hearts and swipes his sticky fingers on his jeans, shrugging. “Things have been. You know. Smuggled.”
“Smuggled.”
“Smuggled,” he confirms sternly, arranging the stars and clovers in an alternating row. “There’s a definite air of smuggled.”
“An air of... smuggled,” Dean repeats, feeling a bit like an echo. “So what you’re saying, Sammy, is that you can- sense- smuggling?”
Sammy glances up at him in that squinty-eyed kinda way he’s picked up over the last couple years, probably thinking it makes him look serious and grown-up. Dean’s not had the heart yet to tell him that it makes him look like he needs glasses- he’s saving it for a special occasion. “It feels mysterious.”
“You can sense smuggling.”
“Don’t make it sound so stupid,” Sammy protests, flicking a soggy horseshoe at him. “There’s something weird going on, honestly. People act funny. Dwayne-“
“What the hell kind of name’s Dwayne?”
“I didn’t name him, Dean, he’s a cleaner. He says there are strange noises and stuff.”
Dean licks the sugary coating off of his spoon, shaking his head seriously. Because, really, how did he get a kid like this for a brother? “So there’s strange noises and stuff, people acting funny, something weird going on, we’re ghost-hunters... and you think it’s smugglers?”
“Or kidnapping,” Sammy mutters, head down as he nudges the marshmallows into perfect order with a finger-nail.
“Only you, Sammy, could jump to the conclusion of smuggling.”
“Smuggling’s cool.”
“This is why dad won’t let you read those damn books anymore.” He throws his spoon, and mentally adds fifty points to the tally as it bounces off of Sammy’s head. “Dude, seriously, how can you live this life and still think smuggling’s the cooler option?”
Sammy flops back against his chair, the plastic back creaking distressingly, and glares down at his half-empty bowl. “This isn’t cool. We’ve been eating cereal for three days now ‘cause we can’t afford real food, and we’re living in a rubbish apartment that smells weird, and we have no idea where our dad is. This is,” he pauses, floundering, and looks up at Dean from under his scruffy bangs. “This is seriously uncool.”
Dean opens his mouth. Then he closes it again, because what the hell do you say to that?
Not a whole lot, is what. Sammy hunches forwards in the silence, his elbows knobbly on the table-top and smeared in marshmallow residue, and he adds, “And we never outwit kidnappings.”
“Sammy,” Dean says, helplessly. What the hell do you say to that? “You really wanna outwit kidnappings?”
He shrugs, head bent down so low all Dean can see is hair. “Yeah, I guess, maybe. Or eat proper food every day. Or ride a bike, or something.”
The silence stretches. Dean leans back in his chair, rocking it on to two legs, four legs, two legs as he weighs the options in the mind. He can’t steal a bike, not really, but he can hustle up some money for groceries. He can hunt down every copy of those fucking Famous whatever books and burn them all. He can...
“Okay,” he says, grabbing their bowls and dumping them in the sink. Sammy glances up, his expression wary and full of ‘am I in for it?’ So Dean pauses, letting the suspense build until he can almost taste it and Sammy’s squirming in his seat in dread, before he claps his hands together and announces, “Let’s go outwit some kidnappings.”
Sammy beams like the complete dork he is and practically trips over his own giant feet as he dashes to their bedroom to gather up all those essential smuggler-fighting supplies, but that’s okay. The Winchester family’s probably badass enough as it is.
*