In which they introduce Alec to Wal-Mart
[Cowritten with smart_alec494. Set after THIS.]
Jen pulled into the parking lot of the department store with a bit of a screech, coming to a stop with a sudden halt and throwing the car into park. The girl was a relatively safe driver, but she had a bit of a lead foot that made most of the other people around her nervous. Anna released her death grip on the dashboard as she did, before glancing back at Alec over her shoulder with a small smile. "This is it," she sighed. "Welcome to Wal-Mart."
"Huh." He was unphased by the lead foot. He'd been through worse. "It's very. . . .aw hell I dunno." He left it at that.
Anna chuckled slightly, before stretching slightly as she got out of the car, closing the door behind her. Jen followed her, grabbing her jacket out of the backseat and sliding it over her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. Wal-Mart isn't exactly considered inspiring."
"I'll consider it all worth it if I come out of this with a decent pair of boots." He climbed out and stretched as well.
"Sounds like a plan," Anna nodded as the two girls started making their way towards the store.
Alec dutifully followed, sticking pretty close. And looking around a little apprehensively at the people. It amazed him how much more intimidating everything could be when he didn't have the drive of a mission behind him and a task to complete.
Jen glanced around once they opened the door, before pointing off in one direction. "I'll be in the beauty section if you need me. I know I'm not doing this on Dean's dime, but no one said I couldn't go shopping for me."
Anna nodded slightly, before looking back at him. "Where do you want to start?"
"At the bottom. So. . .boots." He wanted foot wear that fit, pronto.
"Okay." She paused for a minute to orient herself, before pointing in the direction of the shoe department. "Think it's this way."
"Hey, your guess is most likely better than mine" He wedged his hands in to the pockets of his borrowed jeans and followed along.
Anna slowly navigated her way through the store, before landing in the shoe section. She didn't stop until she found her way to the men's boots, and then stopped at the head of the aisle. "There ya go."
"Awesome." He went right for the black ones, and quickly figured out the sorting system. Not long after he has a stack of boxes in the correct sized. After finding a bench, hey he can pick up cues from watching others, he set about trying them on.
Anna moved over one of the other benches and perched on it, looking over the other shoes as she did.
It took two pairs before he found some he liked, but as soon as he walked on the linoleum there was a squeak. And that was it for that pair. He kept trying. "I promise I'm not this picky about everything."
"Hey, they're you're shoes," Anna said with a shrug. "As a person who is on my feet a lot, I know how hard it is to find a pair that really works for you."
"Yeah? What do you do?" He found another pair he liked and stood up, bouncing in them.
"Different stuff here and there," she said with a shrug. "Sometimes I bartend, sometimes I waitress, but no matter what I do I'm usually on my feet. I rarely ever temp unless I have to. But I travel a lot too, and since I don't drive, there's a lot of walking involved between rides."
"I hate walking long distances. I mean, I can but it annoys the hell out of me." This pair didn't squeak, so there was a short run and a sudden stop. They didn't slip or make any noise.
She shrugged again. "For me, once I get going, after a while I don't really feel it anymore. And I've gotten to the point where I know enough people that I don't wind up walking far -- or often, for that matter."
"You just hitch rides?" He made his way back over to her bouncing a little again. He took a minute to makes sure that there was no one close enough to get kicked and did a back flip, just to see if they were flexible enough to let him. "Hey, I think we have a winner." He grinned at her.
Her eyebrows went up a bit at the back flip, but she returned the smile. "Impressive. And yes. I see who's going my way and see if I can catch a ride. Usually I chip in for stuff, though -- pay for gas or food. I'm not a total freeloader."
"What, like me?" But he was mostly joking. He shrugged at the compliment. "Built flexible."
She nodded slightly at that. "You're not a freeloader. Not yet. Camp out in the basement like the twins and not do anything but play video games all day, and then you'll be a freeloader."
"I think I'd explode with that much inactivity. Where to next?" He wasn't taking of the boots that fit, not now that he had them.
Anna reached over to grab the empty box so they had the price, before pointing towards the men's clothing section. "Clothes?"
"Yes." He was clearly pleased with his success probably more like Blake than the eighteen he actually was.
"Okay," she said with a nod, before starting to head in the right direction, not stopping until they hit the racks of clothes.
He followed and then had to stop and blink. He'd thought the shoes were miles of options. It was nothing compared to this. "Normal people don't find this daunting. Do they?"
"Depends on your department store savvy," Anna replied, before looking over at the clothes. "What do you like to wear?"
He took a minute to pull up all the memories of the times he'd been allowed into civi clothes. What felt comfortable to him and what didn't. "Jeans, cargo pants. T-shirts. Pullovers or sweaters. Nothing loose that'll get in my way."
"Okay," she said with a nod, before pointing in the direction of one of the stands with jeans of various sizes piled on top. "Jeans are over here."
He did better once she pointed him in the right direction. He pulled a few different pairs off the shelves a size smaller than the ones Dean had lent him. He couldn't help the snort that escaped as he skipped over the camo printed things. "Seriously?"
"It's been a fad for a while," Anna said with a shrug. "I personally don't get it."
"You wear it long enough and it gets old pretty quick." He moves on to shirts. And eventually gets annoyed. "Does everything have to have a logo or something?"
"Everything on the racks will," Anna said with a sigh, before heading over to another one of the tables, flipping through some of the t-shirts. "There are some just solid colored ones over here."
He gives her a grateful look and snatches up a few, sticking to mostly dark colors. "Okay so since I fail are department store navigations I'll just ask. Pull overs? Sweaters? Layers?"
She paused for a minute, holding up a finger as she looked around, before heading towards the heavier clothes. "I can't guarantee that you'll get just solid colors with these, though. They tend to have a lot of logos."
"Can't win them all?" He took more care here, looking for things that didn't look like a walking add. After he's found a few things that seemed to fit the bill he looked around. "Skivies, and then I think I'll be good." Modesty and embarrassment not really issues with him.
She nodded, before pushing herself up on her toes to look over one of the barriers. "I think they're on the other side of that wall"
He nods a head over. "You know. . .some of these are a little disturbing." He means the boxers that are hung on hangers with amusing little patterns or text. He manages to find the plain boxers on his own. Then socks.
"I think most of them are for gag gifts," she said with a bit of an amused smirk. "Or the guys that wear them are just major dorks."
"It's like the underwear version of birth control glasses." He shakes his head, amused.
She shrugged. "Something like that, yeah." She paused for a moment, before looking around. "Okay. We good to go on clothes?"
"Totally good." He had no notion on how to do laundry, but he figured he could sort that out in a few days when he ran out of clean boxers.
"Alright," she nodded, reaching out to grab an abandoned cart that was sitting in the middle of the section, so that they didn't have to carry everything. "Next we should probably hit the toiletries."
"I bow to your superior shopping wisdom. Lead on." He dumped things into the cart.
Anna pushed herself up on her toes, before turning and heading towards a different section of the store. She stopped in front of the long line of toothpastes, toothbrushes, soaps and shampoos and gestured for him to lead the way. "Knock yourself out."
He stood and stared a little for a second. "Dude, how can there even be this many options?" Then with true military efficiency he went for pretty much the first and simplest of each choice. After sneezing a couple of times at the overwhelming floral scent of the set of aisle. He dumped his selections in the care. "Seriously insane."
"Well, Americans love their variety," Anna sighed, looking the boxes over and grabbing a few things for herself. "In all it's shapes and sizes."
"Will you make the upset face again if I say I actually find it a little scary?"
"No," she said, giving him a small smile. "I find consumerism a lot scary. The fact that people need so many things -- it's insane." She paused for a minute before tilting her head to the side. "The upset face?"
"The one you made when you were looking up a name for me to use. Like," He shrugged. "I dunno, like I'm a victim or something."
"Oh," Anna said, her eyes falling to the box of toothpaste in her hand. "I didn't mean to -- make you uncomfortable or anything."
He made a face. "The truth of it that everything is making me uncomfortable, so don't worry about it. And I just say stuff. I don't know how to act unless I've been given a role so. . ." He shrugged.
She nodded a bit at that, before turning back to him. "Well, I, personally, don't mind if you're blunt. Sometimes blunt is better tact."
"Tact is a polite way to say lying a lot of the time."
"True," she said with a nod. "Because when you're trying to figure out the nice way to say it, you don't always get the point across."
"Exactly. It gets all lost in the politeness."
"Most people around here would prefer you be straight forward with them," Anna sighed. "Unless you're trying to persuade them to do something for you, in which case you better sweet talk them as best you can."
He grinned. "I'll remember that." He looked around. "What else?"
"Clothes, toiletries -- need something to carry it in." She paused for a moment before turning around and heading towards a different section of the store.
He followed dutifully. "I need a jacket, too."
"Okay. We'll double back on the way back to the register," she nodded.
He nods, nod having much else to say.
They landed in the luggage section, and Anna moved through the various bags. "You want something free-form to fit in the trunk. Maybe a duffel and a backpack."
He nodded and this time he was much more picky. He examined, and read labels and material lists. He was going for things that could take a lot of abuse and were easy to maintain. Eventually he tossed a backpack and midsized duffel into the cart.
"Okay, so -- jacket, and then -- we should be good to go," Anna nodded, before turning the cart and started heading back towards the clothing, glancing down at her watch. "We made good time."
"Does shopping usually take a long time?" He did a visual skim of the area until he spotted the outerwear. He started circling, clearly looking for something specific.
"Depends on what you're shopping for," Anna said with a nod. "And some people take longer than others. Too many options."
"I'm surprised it doesn't drive people pear-shaped." He stopped when he found what he was after. Leather jackets. He pulled on off its hanger and shrugged it on.
She smirked a bit. "Just -- part of life, I guess. Some things you can't order on the internet and really be able to vouch for their quality."
The first one didn't fit right so he put it back and tried on a second. "I suspect I'm behind on life."
"You'll catch up if you are -- it really isn't all that hard."
"Says the woman that knew what mashed potatoes were." It took him three tries and two styles before he found one he thought fit right. "Okay. I think that's everything?"
"Okay. I'm gonna call Jen and let her know we're finished."
He nodded, adding a cell phone to the things he needed but thought maybe he should ask Sam or Dean about first.
Anna put the phone to her ear and continued to make her way towards the registers, having a quick conversation before hanging up and sliding her phone back in her pocket.
He looked at the cart frowning. "I've never owned anything before."
Anna raised an eyebrow slightly at that before nodding. "Well -- this is a start."
Jen pulled into the parking lot of the department store with a bit of a screech, coming to a stop with a sudden halt and throwing the car into park. The girl was a relatively safe driver, but she had a bit of a lead foot that made most of the other people around her nervous. Anna released her death grip on the dashboard as she did, before glancing back at Alec over her shoulder with a small smile. "This is it," she sighed. "Welcome to Wal-Mart."
"Huh." He was unphased by the lead foot. He'd been through worse. "It's very. . . .aw hell I dunno." He left it at that.
Anna chuckled slightly, before stretching slightly as she got out of the car, closing the door behind her. Jen followed her, grabbing her jacket out of the backseat and sliding it over her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. Wal-Mart isn't exactly considered inspiring."
"I'll consider it all worth it if I come out of this with a decent pair of boots." He climbed out and stretched as well.
"Sounds like a plan," Anna nodded as the two girls started making their way towards the store.
Alec dutifully followed, sticking pretty close. And looking around a little apprehensively at the people. It amazed him how much more intimidating everything could be when he didn't have the drive of a mission behind him and a task to complete.
Jen glanced around once they opened the door, before pointing off in one direction. "I'll be in the beauty section if you need me. I know I'm not doing this on Dean's dime, but no one said I couldn't go shopping for me."
Anna nodded slightly, before looking back at him. "Where do you want to start?"
"At the bottom. So. . .boots." He wanted foot wear that fit, pronto.
"Okay." She paused for a minute to orient herself, before pointing in the direction of the shoe department. "Think it's this way."
"Hey, your guess is most likely better than mine" He wedged his hands in to the pockets of his borrowed jeans and followed along.
Anna slowly navigated her way through the store, before landing in the shoe section. She didn't stop until she found her way to the men's boots, and then stopped at the head of the aisle. "There ya go."
"Awesome." He went right for the black ones, and quickly figured out the sorting system. Not long after he has a stack of boxes in the correct sized. After finding a bench, hey he can pick up cues from watching others, he set about trying them on.
Anna moved over one of the other benches and perched on it, looking over the other shoes as she did.
It took two pairs before he found some he liked, but as soon as he walked on the linoleum there was a squeak. And that was it for that pair. He kept trying. "I promise I'm not this picky about everything."
"Hey, they're you're shoes," Anna said with a shrug. "As a person who is on my feet a lot, I know how hard it is to find a pair that really works for you."
"Yeah? What do you do?" He found another pair he liked and stood up, bouncing in them.
"Different stuff here and there," she said with a shrug. "Sometimes I bartend, sometimes I waitress, but no matter what I do I'm usually on my feet. I rarely ever temp unless I have to. But I travel a lot too, and since I don't drive, there's a lot of walking involved between rides."
"I hate walking long distances. I mean, I can but it annoys the hell out of me." This pair didn't squeak, so there was a short run and a sudden stop. They didn't slip or make any noise.
She shrugged again. "For me, once I get going, after a while I don't really feel it anymore. And I've gotten to the point where I know enough people that I don't wind up walking far -- or often, for that matter."
"You just hitch rides?" He made his way back over to her bouncing a little again. He took a minute to makes sure that there was no one close enough to get kicked and did a back flip, just to see if they were flexible enough to let him. "Hey, I think we have a winner." He grinned at her.
Her eyebrows went up a bit at the back flip, but she returned the smile. "Impressive. And yes. I see who's going my way and see if I can catch a ride. Usually I chip in for stuff, though -- pay for gas or food. I'm not a total freeloader."
"What, like me?" But he was mostly joking. He shrugged at the compliment. "Built flexible."
She nodded slightly at that. "You're not a freeloader. Not yet. Camp out in the basement like the twins and not do anything but play video games all day, and then you'll be a freeloader."
"I think I'd explode with that much inactivity. Where to next?" He wasn't taking of the boots that fit, not now that he had them.
Anna reached over to grab the empty box so they had the price, before pointing towards the men's clothing section. "Clothes?"
"Yes." He was clearly pleased with his success probably more like Blake than the eighteen he actually was.
"Okay," she said with a nod, before starting to head in the right direction, not stopping until they hit the racks of clothes.
He followed and then had to stop and blink. He'd thought the shoes were miles of options. It was nothing compared to this. "Normal people don't find this daunting. Do they?"
"Depends on your department store savvy," Anna replied, before looking over at the clothes. "What do you like to wear?"
He took a minute to pull up all the memories of the times he'd been allowed into civi clothes. What felt comfortable to him and what didn't. "Jeans, cargo pants. T-shirts. Pullovers or sweaters. Nothing loose that'll get in my way."
"Okay," she said with a nod, before pointing in the direction of one of the stands with jeans of various sizes piled on top. "Jeans are over here."
He did better once she pointed him in the right direction. He pulled a few different pairs off the shelves a size smaller than the ones Dean had lent him. He couldn't help the snort that escaped as he skipped over the camo printed things. "Seriously?"
"It's been a fad for a while," Anna said with a shrug. "I personally don't get it."
"You wear it long enough and it gets old pretty quick." He moves on to shirts. And eventually gets annoyed. "Does everything have to have a logo or something?"
"Everything on the racks will," Anna said with a sigh, before heading over to another one of the tables, flipping through some of the t-shirts. "There are some just solid colored ones over here."
He gives her a grateful look and snatches up a few, sticking to mostly dark colors. "Okay so since I fail are department store navigations I'll just ask. Pull overs? Sweaters? Layers?"
She paused for a minute, holding up a finger as she looked around, before heading towards the heavier clothes. "I can't guarantee that you'll get just solid colors with these, though. They tend to have a lot of logos."
"Can't win them all?" He took more care here, looking for things that didn't look like a walking add. After he's found a few things that seemed to fit the bill he looked around. "Skivies, and then I think I'll be good." Modesty and embarrassment not really issues with him.
She nodded, before pushing herself up on her toes to look over one of the barriers. "I think they're on the other side of that wall"
He nods a head over. "You know. . .some of these are a little disturbing." He means the boxers that are hung on hangers with amusing little patterns or text. He manages to find the plain boxers on his own. Then socks.
"I think most of them are for gag gifts," she said with a bit of an amused smirk. "Or the guys that wear them are just major dorks."
"It's like the underwear version of birth control glasses." He shakes his head, amused.
She shrugged. "Something like that, yeah." She paused for a moment, before looking around. "Okay. We good to go on clothes?"
"Totally good." He had no notion on how to do laundry, but he figured he could sort that out in a few days when he ran out of clean boxers.
"Alright," she nodded, reaching out to grab an abandoned cart that was sitting in the middle of the section, so that they didn't have to carry everything. "Next we should probably hit the toiletries."
"I bow to your superior shopping wisdom. Lead on." He dumped things into the cart.
Anna pushed herself up on her toes, before turning and heading towards a different section of the store. She stopped in front of the long line of toothpastes, toothbrushes, soaps and shampoos and gestured for him to lead the way. "Knock yourself out."
He stood and stared a little for a second. "Dude, how can there even be this many options?" Then with true military efficiency he went for pretty much the first and simplest of each choice. After sneezing a couple of times at the overwhelming floral scent of the set of aisle. He dumped his selections in the care. "Seriously insane."
"Well, Americans love their variety," Anna sighed, looking the boxes over and grabbing a few things for herself. "In all it's shapes and sizes."
"Will you make the upset face again if I say I actually find it a little scary?"
"No," she said, giving him a small smile. "I find consumerism a lot scary. The fact that people need so many things -- it's insane." She paused for a minute before tilting her head to the side. "The upset face?"
"The one you made when you were looking up a name for me to use. Like," He shrugged. "I dunno, like I'm a victim or something."
"Oh," Anna said, her eyes falling to the box of toothpaste in her hand. "I didn't mean to -- make you uncomfortable or anything."
He made a face. "The truth of it that everything is making me uncomfortable, so don't worry about it. And I just say stuff. I don't know how to act unless I've been given a role so. . ." He shrugged.
She nodded a bit at that, before turning back to him. "Well, I, personally, don't mind if you're blunt. Sometimes blunt is better tact."
"Tact is a polite way to say lying a lot of the time."
"True," she said with a nod. "Because when you're trying to figure out the nice way to say it, you don't always get the point across."
"Exactly. It gets all lost in the politeness."
"Most people around here would prefer you be straight forward with them," Anna sighed. "Unless you're trying to persuade them to do something for you, in which case you better sweet talk them as best you can."
He grinned. "I'll remember that." He looked around. "What else?"
"Clothes, toiletries -- need something to carry it in." She paused for a moment before turning around and heading towards a different section of the store.
He followed dutifully. "I need a jacket, too."
"Okay. We'll double back on the way back to the register," she nodded.
He nods, nod having much else to say.
They landed in the luggage section, and Anna moved through the various bags. "You want something free-form to fit in the trunk. Maybe a duffel and a backpack."
He nodded and this time he was much more picky. He examined, and read labels and material lists. He was going for things that could take a lot of abuse and were easy to maintain. Eventually he tossed a backpack and midsized duffel into the cart.
"Okay, so -- jacket, and then -- we should be good to go," Anna nodded, before turning the cart and started heading back towards the clothing, glancing down at her watch. "We made good time."
"Does shopping usually take a long time?" He did a visual skim of the area until he spotted the outerwear. He started circling, clearly looking for something specific.
"Depends on what you're shopping for," Anna said with a nod. "And some people take longer than others. Too many options."
"I'm surprised it doesn't drive people pear-shaped." He stopped when he found what he was after. Leather jackets. He pulled on off its hanger and shrugged it on.
She smirked a bit. "Just -- part of life, I guess. Some things you can't order on the internet and really be able to vouch for their quality."
The first one didn't fit right so he put it back and tried on a second. "I suspect I'm behind on life."
"You'll catch up if you are -- it really isn't all that hard."
"Says the woman that knew what mashed potatoes were." It took him three tries and two styles before he found one he thought fit right. "Okay. I think that's everything?"
"Okay. I'm gonna call Jen and let her know we're finished."
He nodded, adding a cell phone to the things he needed but thought maybe he should ask Sam or Dean about first.
Anna put the phone to her ear and continued to make her way towards the registers, having a quick conversation before hanging up and sliding her phone back in her pocket.
He looked at the cart frowning. "I've never owned anything before."
Anna raised an eyebrow slightly at that before nodding. "Well -- this is a start."