FIC - A Day In (Not) The Life
Title: A Day In (Not) The Life
Characters: Sam, Dean (gen)
W/C: ~1900
Summary: written for this prompt at spn_rambleon A fic about a teenage Dean dealing with his family and the hunting lifestyle; something about his routine, like packing up lunch for Sammy, going grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, preparing dinner and still training to be a hunter and make his father proud.
The alarm tone never got any less obnoxious.
Six a.m., again.
Dean nearly knocked the damn clock off the piece of shit table next to his temporary twin bed, but he hit the button and rolled to his feet.
He had things to do. John wouldn’t be back for weeks.
They’d been in this little apartment for almost two months, would be here for one more, at least. The school year had started six weeks ago, and thankfully he was no longer included in that. More important tasks at hand. Sam was in high school now, just past 14 and growing like a weed.
School didn’t start until eight, so there was no need to wake Sammy for at least another 45 minutes. Not that the kid had even stirred at the sound of the alarm. Dean looked over at his brother, still out like a light in the matching bed beside his. Let him get some more rest, he thought.
Walking out into the kitchen, Dean’s first task was to survey the contents of the fridge and pantry. Plenty for breakfast and lunch, probably not for dinner. That was all right.
He pulled their loaf of store-brand white bread from the top of the microwave and made a sandwich - a couple slices of ham, some of that individually-wrapped fake-cheese, and the last of their lettuce - then wrapped it in a plastic bag. Disposable ice pack from the freezer, check. The lettuce would get gross without it. That got tossed into Sam’s lunch bag with a small bottle of orange juice, one of those big green apples, then the sandwich on top so it wouldn’t get squished.
Dean checked the clock again. Six-twenty. Wiped down the counter, jotted down a list of things he’d need from the store. Dinner for tonight. He’d take Sammy with him tomorrow to get things for the weekend, let him pick out what he wanted.
Six-thirty. Back to the pantry. He measured out enough instant pancake batter and mixed it with water, pouring little circles onto the skillet on the stove. Waited ‘til the bubbles started popping up, then flipped the pancakes over and stacked them onto a plate.
Heading back down the hallway, he sat on his brother’s bed. “Wake up, kid.” The resulting groan and Sam’s instinctive move to burrow his head farther into his pillow were not unexpected.
“Your pancakes are going to get cold. It’s six-forty-five.”
The mention of pancakes got him one eye cracked open.
He ruffled Sam’s hair and said, “Get a move on, shrimp.”
When Sam appeared at six-fifty in the kitchen, Dean was covering his pancakes with syrup.
And there it was, that big dimpled grin. “Thanks, Dean.” Sam dug into his breakfast as Dean hurried to get dressed. He got back into the kitchen at seven-ten, urging his brother to rinse his plate in the sink and get his ass in the shower and ready for school.
Sam didn’t even roll his eyes for once. Dean counted that as a win.
Seven-thirty-seven. Sam was showered and dressed, with his backpack slung across his shoulder. Dean handed him his lunch bag and was rewarded with yet another sunny smile.
Maybe today was going to be a good day.
“Let’s go, kid.”
Sam got out of the car in front of the high school at seven-forty-nine, waving at Dean as he walked inside the brick building.
Dean showed up at the diner two minutes before his eight-o-clock shift started.
Time always got away from him while he was working. He had to concentrate on flashing his I’m so charming grin at the customers while he filled their drinks and took their orders and delivered their food. He got a glimpse at eleven-forty-five, when he got his thirty minute lunch break so he could eat discounted food from the diner. Sometimes the cook would slide him a free piece of pie when the manager wasn’t looking. The work wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t all that tough, either.
But when he was counting out his tips at two-ten, everything was fine.
He hit up the grocery store, picked up a gallon of milk, some strawberries on sale, a pound of ground beef, a box of instant mashed potatoes and a bag of frozen green beans before heading back to the apartment. With the phone number of the checkout girl scrawled onto the back of the receipt. The girl obviously didn’t figure this information was not something Dean had been interested in at the time. He kept it, though. Wouldn’t hurt to get out for a little while, maybe. If he could work it into his schedule somehow. He took a minute to daydream about it.
Just a minute.
Dean dropped Sam off at school every day because it was on his way to work, but Sam came home on the bus. By the time he heard the sound of the school bus clattering up their block at three-fifty, Dean had already stored the groceries, put away the dishes from breakfast and stuffed the rest of his tip money into an empty coffee can.
Sam had asked a couple of times if he could have coffee with his breakfast like Dean did. The answer was always no. Honestly, Dean really didn’t even like coffee, he just drank it for the sudden burst of energy the caffeine supplied.
As usual, Sam’s entrance was not exactly made of hunter-stealth. Slamming door, backpack hitting the floor with a thud. “How’s your day, Dean?”
It was always the first question he asked, as if he’d get a different answer at some point.
“Stellar, Sam”, he replied as usual. “How much homework do you have?”
“Gotta finish up that book report on ‘A Separate Peace’, but I’m halfway done already. Stupid geometry worksheet, and two chapters in my civil war section for history. Piece of cake. Except the geometry. ” Just one more thing upon which Sam relied on Dean, without even really knowing it. Or acknowledging it.
Being a fourteen year old, Sam didn’t think about much beyond his own wants and desires. Dean knew this, it wasn’t that long ago that he was fourteen himself. As far as Dean could tell, his little brother never thought about where the money they lived off of came from. It’s not like Dean’s six-hour shifts waiting tables would pay rent and utilities. For starters, he was well aware of the fact that his brother didn’t need to know. Also, it was none of Sam’s concern. Sam was the little brother, the one to be looked after. His ego had no place here.
Sam had always had trouble with math. Of course, in his case, trouble meant he got a B+ instead of an A.
“Go on and get it started, then. I’ll give you a hand with the geometry if you need me to.” And sure, Dean had only gone to school until he’d turned seventeen in the middle of his junior year, but math came easy for him. He had no idea why. Maybe just a natural thing, like Sammy had with writing.
Hell, at the very least, it had allowed him to figure out whether someone was leaving a decent tip instead of a bad one.
Dean gathered their laundry and took it to the washing machines in the basement of their building, then moved into the unused space beside it and spent twenty five minutes doing push-ups, sit-ups and suicide sprints. It wouldn’t do for him to get out of practice just because he had some time off.
He took just a little more than ten minutes to go back upstairs, wash his face and change his t-shirt. When he was sure the clothes and towels were ready to get moved to the dryer, he told Sam, “I’m going to switch out the clothes, then I’ll be back to cook dinner.”
Eight minutes after five. Dean mixed the ground beef with homemade breadcrumbs (ripped-off bits of their white bread), some powdered seasonings, and an egg to hold it together. Just like he saw on some cooking show, he covered the bottom of a cookie sheet with foil and put the meatloaf into the oven, forty-five minutes at three hundred fifty degrees.
“Show me your worksheet”, he said to Sam at five-twenty, sitting down next to him at the coffee table in their living room. Sam showed Dean what he was having trouble with, and Dean let the gears in his head whirr and click over the theory behind the problems. Ten minutes explaining the concepts to Sam before he started to understand, then fifteen to watch over him while he put theory into practice. “Yeah, you’ve got it now, see, I told you it wasn’t that hard”, he smiled as he checked his watch.
Once he figured the meatloaf only had about another ten minutes, he walked back to the kitchen and started up the water for the instant mashed potatoes then steamed the green beans in the microwave. He washed the dishes as he went along, not wanting to leave much for later.
He wouldn’t have minded Sam helping him with that, probably, but that wasn’t Sam’s job. His job was to get his homework done.
Almost six o’clock on the dot.
“Dude, are you making meatloaf?”
“Sure am, Sammy.”
Even from the next room, Dean could tell Sam was smiling.
He thought he might call that girl from the grocery store the next day.
At six-fifteen, they sat down at their tiny kitchen table and had dinner. Sam told Dean about his day, how the geometry teacher was a hardass, but there was a really cute girl in the class who had asked to borrow a pencil from him three days in a row. Also, writing about Gene’s motivations in ‘A Separate Peace’ was boring as hell, even though the story itself was pretty good. Dean smiled and listened and let himself feel just a little bit of pride for being able to pull this off - his first chance at being responsible for his little brother for such an extended period of time.
So maybe there was no way to keep Sam from knowing about the life, the dangers, the monsters, the risk. But he could give him this. A couple of months to not worry about it, not think about it every minute of the day, not have to gamble his own young life on the rare occasions he was brought along on a hunt.
Ten minutes to seven, they walked two blocks to the video store and rented a movie. Sam made popcorn in the microwave and they drank their last two cans of soda. Root beer, brand name, the kind with no caffeine because Dean didn’t allow Sam to have anything caffeinated after dinner. Kid had enough trouble falling asleep already.
At a quarter after nine, once the movie was over, the dinner dishes were washed and put away and Dean had quizzed Sam on whether or not he was sure all his schoolwork was done, he announced bedtime.
For once, Sam didn’t even put up a perfunctory I’m fourteen, I don’t need to be sent to bed argument. He just stood and started making his way toward the bedroom. It’s not like Dean tucked him in these days, he didn’t treat Sam like a baby, just looked out for him.
After a few steps, though, he stopped and turned around. “Dean, I - um, thanks. You know, for…anyway, just thank you.” Then he was down the hallway and closing the bedroom door.
It was nine-eighteen.
Dean didn’t think he’d ever had a prouder moment in his life.
It was nice. But he still had a load of towels to fold.
Characters: Sam, Dean (gen)
W/C: ~1900
Summary: written for this prompt at spn_rambleon A fic about a teenage Dean dealing with his family and the hunting lifestyle; something about his routine, like packing up lunch for Sammy, going grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, preparing dinner and still training to be a hunter and make his father proud.
The alarm tone never got any less obnoxious.
Six a.m., again.
Dean nearly knocked the damn clock off the piece of shit table next to his temporary twin bed, but he hit the button and rolled to his feet.
He had things to do. John wouldn’t be back for weeks.
They’d been in this little apartment for almost two months, would be here for one more, at least. The school year had started six weeks ago, and thankfully he was no longer included in that. More important tasks at hand. Sam was in high school now, just past 14 and growing like a weed.
School didn’t start until eight, so there was no need to wake Sammy for at least another 45 minutes. Not that the kid had even stirred at the sound of the alarm. Dean looked over at his brother, still out like a light in the matching bed beside his. Let him get some more rest, he thought.
Walking out into the kitchen, Dean’s first task was to survey the contents of the fridge and pantry. Plenty for breakfast and lunch, probably not for dinner. That was all right.
He pulled their loaf of store-brand white bread from the top of the microwave and made a sandwich - a couple slices of ham, some of that individually-wrapped fake-cheese, and the last of their lettuce - then wrapped it in a plastic bag. Disposable ice pack from the freezer, check. The lettuce would get gross without it. That got tossed into Sam’s lunch bag with a small bottle of orange juice, one of those big green apples, then the sandwich on top so it wouldn’t get squished.
Dean checked the clock again. Six-twenty. Wiped down the counter, jotted down a list of things he’d need from the store. Dinner for tonight. He’d take Sammy with him tomorrow to get things for the weekend, let him pick out what he wanted.
Six-thirty. Back to the pantry. He measured out enough instant pancake batter and mixed it with water, pouring little circles onto the skillet on the stove. Waited ‘til the bubbles started popping up, then flipped the pancakes over and stacked them onto a plate.
Heading back down the hallway, he sat on his brother’s bed. “Wake up, kid.” The resulting groan and Sam’s instinctive move to burrow his head farther into his pillow were not unexpected.
“Your pancakes are going to get cold. It’s six-forty-five.”
The mention of pancakes got him one eye cracked open.
He ruffled Sam’s hair and said, “Get a move on, shrimp.”
When Sam appeared at six-fifty in the kitchen, Dean was covering his pancakes with syrup.
And there it was, that big dimpled grin. “Thanks, Dean.” Sam dug into his breakfast as Dean hurried to get dressed. He got back into the kitchen at seven-ten, urging his brother to rinse his plate in the sink and get his ass in the shower and ready for school.
Sam didn’t even roll his eyes for once. Dean counted that as a win.
Seven-thirty-seven. Sam was showered and dressed, with his backpack slung across his shoulder. Dean handed him his lunch bag and was rewarded with yet another sunny smile.
Maybe today was going to be a good day.
“Let’s go, kid.”
Sam got out of the car in front of the high school at seven-forty-nine, waving at Dean as he walked inside the brick building.
Dean showed up at the diner two minutes before his eight-o-clock shift started.
Time always got away from him while he was working. He had to concentrate on flashing his I’m so charming grin at the customers while he filled their drinks and took their orders and delivered their food. He got a glimpse at eleven-forty-five, when he got his thirty minute lunch break so he could eat discounted food from the diner. Sometimes the cook would slide him a free piece of pie when the manager wasn’t looking. The work wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t all that tough, either.
But when he was counting out his tips at two-ten, everything was fine.
He hit up the grocery store, picked up a gallon of milk, some strawberries on sale, a pound of ground beef, a box of instant mashed potatoes and a bag of frozen green beans before heading back to the apartment. With the phone number of the checkout girl scrawled onto the back of the receipt. The girl obviously didn’t figure this information was not something Dean had been interested in at the time. He kept it, though. Wouldn’t hurt to get out for a little while, maybe. If he could work it into his schedule somehow. He took a minute to daydream about it.
Just a minute.
Dean dropped Sam off at school every day because it was on his way to work, but Sam came home on the bus. By the time he heard the sound of the school bus clattering up their block at three-fifty, Dean had already stored the groceries, put away the dishes from breakfast and stuffed the rest of his tip money into an empty coffee can.
Sam had asked a couple of times if he could have coffee with his breakfast like Dean did. The answer was always no. Honestly, Dean really didn’t even like coffee, he just drank it for the sudden burst of energy the caffeine supplied.
As usual, Sam’s entrance was not exactly made of hunter-stealth. Slamming door, backpack hitting the floor with a thud. “How’s your day, Dean?”
It was always the first question he asked, as if he’d get a different answer at some point.
“Stellar, Sam”, he replied as usual. “How much homework do you have?”
“Gotta finish up that book report on ‘A Separate Peace’, but I’m halfway done already. Stupid geometry worksheet, and two chapters in my civil war section for history. Piece of cake. Except the geometry. ” Just one more thing upon which Sam relied on Dean, without even really knowing it. Or acknowledging it.
Being a fourteen year old, Sam didn’t think about much beyond his own wants and desires. Dean knew this, it wasn’t that long ago that he was fourteen himself. As far as Dean could tell, his little brother never thought about where the money they lived off of came from. It’s not like Dean’s six-hour shifts waiting tables would pay rent and utilities. For starters, he was well aware of the fact that his brother didn’t need to know. Also, it was none of Sam’s concern. Sam was the little brother, the one to be looked after. His ego had no place here.
Sam had always had trouble with math. Of course, in his case, trouble meant he got a B+ instead of an A.
“Go on and get it started, then. I’ll give you a hand with the geometry if you need me to.” And sure, Dean had only gone to school until he’d turned seventeen in the middle of his junior year, but math came easy for him. He had no idea why. Maybe just a natural thing, like Sammy had with writing.
Hell, at the very least, it had allowed him to figure out whether someone was leaving a decent tip instead of a bad one.
Dean gathered their laundry and took it to the washing machines in the basement of their building, then moved into the unused space beside it and spent twenty five minutes doing push-ups, sit-ups and suicide sprints. It wouldn’t do for him to get out of practice just because he had some time off.
He took just a little more than ten minutes to go back upstairs, wash his face and change his t-shirt. When he was sure the clothes and towels were ready to get moved to the dryer, he told Sam, “I’m going to switch out the clothes, then I’ll be back to cook dinner.”
Eight minutes after five. Dean mixed the ground beef with homemade breadcrumbs (ripped-off bits of their white bread), some powdered seasonings, and an egg to hold it together. Just like he saw on some cooking show, he covered the bottom of a cookie sheet with foil and put the meatloaf into the oven, forty-five minutes at three hundred fifty degrees.
“Show me your worksheet”, he said to Sam at five-twenty, sitting down next to him at the coffee table in their living room. Sam showed Dean what he was having trouble with, and Dean let the gears in his head whirr and click over the theory behind the problems. Ten minutes explaining the concepts to Sam before he started to understand, then fifteen to watch over him while he put theory into practice. “Yeah, you’ve got it now, see, I told you it wasn’t that hard”, he smiled as he checked his watch.
Once he figured the meatloaf only had about another ten minutes, he walked back to the kitchen and started up the water for the instant mashed potatoes then steamed the green beans in the microwave. He washed the dishes as he went along, not wanting to leave much for later.
He wouldn’t have minded Sam helping him with that, probably, but that wasn’t Sam’s job. His job was to get his homework done.
Almost six o’clock on the dot.
“Dude, are you making meatloaf?”
“Sure am, Sammy.”
Even from the next room, Dean could tell Sam was smiling.
He thought he might call that girl from the grocery store the next day.
At six-fifteen, they sat down at their tiny kitchen table and had dinner. Sam told Dean about his day, how the geometry teacher was a hardass, but there was a really cute girl in the class who had asked to borrow a pencil from him three days in a row. Also, writing about Gene’s motivations in ‘A Separate Peace’ was boring as hell, even though the story itself was pretty good. Dean smiled and listened and let himself feel just a little bit of pride for being able to pull this off - his first chance at being responsible for his little brother for such an extended period of time.
So maybe there was no way to keep Sam from knowing about the life, the dangers, the monsters, the risk. But he could give him this. A couple of months to not worry about it, not think about it every minute of the day, not have to gamble his own young life on the rare occasions he was brought along on a hunt.
Ten minutes to seven, they walked two blocks to the video store and rented a movie. Sam made popcorn in the microwave and they drank their last two cans of soda. Root beer, brand name, the kind with no caffeine because Dean didn’t allow Sam to have anything caffeinated after dinner. Kid had enough trouble falling asleep already.
At a quarter after nine, once the movie was over, the dinner dishes were washed and put away and Dean had quizzed Sam on whether or not he was sure all his schoolwork was done, he announced bedtime.
For once, Sam didn’t even put up a perfunctory I’m fourteen, I don’t need to be sent to bed argument. He just stood and started making his way toward the bedroom. It’s not like Dean tucked him in these days, he didn’t treat Sam like a baby, just looked out for him.
After a few steps, though, he stopped and turned around. “Dean, I - um, thanks. You know, for…anyway, just thank you.” Then he was down the hallway and closing the bedroom door.
It was nine-eighteen.
Dean didn’t think he’d ever had a prouder moment in his life.
It was nice. But he still had a load of towels to fold.