Sam Learns How To Cook And Cook ... He Does! - Tumblr Posts

Cabin Fever, chapter 2

Sam advances his retirement plans, makes a Dutch baby, and spills a few beans...

(Of course I take forever to get to the point. Slow belly burn, I guess?

This is my second installment for Get Beached!, the A Little Extra week, with these two mini-prompts: tubing/rafting and too-fat-for-last-year's-swimsuit, which I took a few liberties with. And didn't really focus on. Because I forgot which prompts I was using and it got to be a hot mess and feelier than I planned, but yeah. Enjoy, anyways? :D) Also on AO3...

June meandered into July. The weather got more sultry, and Sam found himself working in the cabin's kitchen to be an increasingly sweaty challenge. But he was also dedicated to the cause, and frankly, the temporary discomfort made for rewards that were obvious and visible. He knew he was on the right track.

They'd fallen into an easy pattern. Dean was starting to expect being fed three squares a day, navigating around a mid-afternoon siesta and fishing or leisurely canoeing or some other casual hobby, like making fancy lures. (The fastidiousness with which Dean could fashion an artificial fly was a marvel to behold, truly.) He'd putter around the cabin, doing odd jobs or the laundry or the dishes, while Sam planned next week's menu from old cookbooks left laying around the place. They'd met a few guys from the nearby village and had already gotten invited to their monthly poker game, which Sam was actually looking forward to. It was next Friday, in fact.

But for now, Sam was occupied with figuring out how to bake a Dutch baby, which was not, in truth, as grim as the name might've implied. It was some sort of hybrid pancake/crepe/popover thing, and Sam had sent Dean out in search of thimbleberries for the topping. Sam found the perfect, rounded cast iron skillet for the pastry among the eclectic array of pots and pans accumulated by the owners over the years, and he was just putting the experiment in the oven when Dean came in the door, the hem of his t-shirt lifted up to form a handy dandy thimbleberry sack.

He grinned a little sheepishly when Sam looked up. “Forgot a bag. So much for the shirt.” Which was true on more than one front: yes, the berries were staining the gray fabric purple, but also, the shirt was getting small … as witnessed by the distinct paunch Dean displayed over the tight pinch of his jeans. It was probably time to retire those, too, given the way his flanks squeezed over the top of the waistband. No need for a belt anymore.

He'd probably put on a good ten-fifteen pounds, if Sam had to guess. But it looked fitting on Dean. It smoothed his hard edges. He'd never seen Dean so laid-back, except that one time when he'd eaten the Leviathan-tainted turducken, and that sure as hell didn't count. This was genuine mellow. His cheeks were pink and his belly was soft and all was right with the world.

“There's a bowl on the table.” Sam pointed. “Brunch is in twenty. I hope.”

“What is this again? A <i>baby</i>?”

“That's what the book says.”

“Made with real babies?”

“Funny. Go change your shirt.”

Dean had just dumped the berries when his phone buzzed. Sam hoisted brows and Dean shrugged.

“Donna,” he said, after checking the caller ID. “Hey, D-light, gonna put you on speaker. Sam's here.” He hit a button and set the phone on the table.

“Heya, boys,” came her bright voice. “Got a question fer ya. Skunk apes. Whadya know?”

“Aren't they in Florida?” Dean noted, licking berry juice off his fingers.

“You don't think one could wander this far up north? From sightings, it's big and it's hairy and smells bad.”

“That there's a sasquatch spin-off. Sam's department.”

To which Sam gave Dean a look and wandered towards the table, wiping his hands on a towel. “Bipedal?”

“Yep.” “Sure it's not just some stoned hippie?”

Dean snorted and punched Sam in the shoulder.

“Yeah, smartypants,” Donna chuckled. “Terrified a whole 4-H camp last week. The parents are in a tizzy.”

“Okay, okay, serious business,” Sam continued, “well, the good part is, if it really is a skunk ape, they're easy to take out. Nothing special. Shotgun'll do the trick. They're scavengers, like to eat roadkill and carcasses and that sort of thing, so leave out some expired meat and … wait?”

“From a distance,” Dean volunteered.

“Ha ha, thanks, Captain Obvious,” Donna said.

“Why don't you tell Claire to tackle the fucker? Leave it to the noobs.”

“Y'know what? That's a great idea.”

Dean preened and Sam rolled his eyes. “Good luck, Donna.”

“Yeah, call us, let us know how it goes,” Dean added.

“You betcha. How you boys doing anyway? Enjoying your summer off?” Sam tried to be surreptitious, glancing sidelong at Dean. The proof was going to be in the pudding, as they say, and he left space for Dean to field the question. To Sam's relief, Dean didn't seem the wiser, and answered Donna with hardly a pause.

“It's pretty damned amazing. Hate to admit it, but I could get used to this. You should come over and visit some weekend.” And then he flashed a smile at Sam.

Sam wasn't sure how to read that. Did Dean … know? Or was this an earnest realization? Did it matter, either way? Sam returned the gesture on the bite of a lip. “Yeah, we've got an empty loft and enough beer to serve a small army. We'd love to have you.”

“Maybe I will! Be good, you guys.”

After Donna hung up, Dean lingered at the table, picking at the berries.

“You should maybe wash them? Could have bear pee—”

Dean immediately abandoned snacking and went to the sink with the bowl.

“So, Dean … ”

“Hmm?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Sam plunged forward. “Did you mean that? You could get used to this? Because …”

Dean threw a glimpse to Sam, over his shoulder. “Yeah, dude. We should make this an annual thing!”

“Oh. Um, yeah.” “Like the Vegas trip, right?” “Right.”

Dean shook the berries into a colander and continued nibbling, offering Sam a handful.

“Thanks.” But really, what Sam meant was, 'Hey, we could move here and leave the biz and this could be our forever thing.' Guess he still had a little more coercing to do.

The timer on the oven buzzed and Dean perked up. When Sam took the pancake out of the oven, it was perhaps the most glorious thing he'd ever seen, short of the living, swirling iridescence of the human soul.

“Holy crap, Sam, that's … quite a baby.”

And it was. Once covered in berries and a sprinkle of powdered sugar per the recipe, Sam had every right to brag. It was rich as sin too, and while he managed to stuff down a goodly slice, Dean easily polished off the rest. And a big glass of milk. And the last of the berries. One Dutch baby: success.

Meanwhile, the sun had reached its apex, heating up the cabin to a fair swelter.

“You know what I want?” Sam said lazily, hands behind his head at the table.

“A poster of Vince Vincente for over your bed?”

“Well, apart from that. A swim.”

Dean looked vaguely surprised, rubbing the soft swell of his middle. “Aren't we supposed to wait an hour?”

“Not if we're just tubing.”

The surprise turned to appreciation. “I like the way you think, Sammy!”

Sam owned swim trunks, because of course he did, but Dean defiantly rebuked anything that resembled shorts. Until today.

At first he made noises about cutting off jeans, but Sam asserted the wise observation that they just didn't look comfortable, especially sopping wet. Dean couldn't argue.

“Try a pair of my trunks.” And he tossed his spare pair at Dean's head. “No one's gonna care if they've got flowers on 'em.”

“Gimme the striped ones.”

“Nope. I'm already wearing them. Too late. They've got my germs.”

Again, Dean couldn't argue. So he huffed a sigh and went off to the bedroom to change, mumbling something like, “Yeah, you're (something something) germs (something) …”

When he returned, he looked none too pleased, a beach towel wrapped around his waist and tucked under his belly.

“What?” Sam demanded, at Dean's stinkface.

“You gave me the small ones.”

“I did not! Why would I do that? They're the same size.”

“Liar.”

“DEAN.”

Dean sighed and flipped off the towel. The trunks pinched tautly around his waist and just barely covered his ass.

For the most part, they used to wear a similar size pants because of Sam's stupidly long torso, but there was no denying that Dean had gotten a good couple sizes stouter. He palmed his robust belly grimly, giving it a jiggle that rippled all the way to the doughy lovehandles on his sides. There were even a few tiny stretchmarks growing around his navel.

“Dean.” Sam softened. “Dude, who cares?”

“What if I care,” Dean said with a touch of petulance.

“Do you?”

“I dunno—”

“Look. Okay. Hear me out. You're happy, right? You're enjoying yourself. You're … on vacation. We're supposed to indulge and not worry about all the crap that fucks us up, on the regular,” Sam said, feeling his heart leak out of his mouth in the form of pleading. “We don't have to run away from some weird cryptid. Squeeze through sewer drains, climb fences. Do any of that shit anymore if we don't wanna. Just … let's grab some beers and a couple inner tubes and hit the lake and … drift. If only for today.”

Dean blinked, his towel curled in one hand. He might've even seemed a bit alarmed at the degree of Sam's sincerity. Hell, Sam was alarmed by it, for that matter. He might've gone and jumped the gun with this whole revelation that he didn't so much as ask Dean about. Sam just started cooking and sneakily appealing to Dean's hedonistic side and chose a direction <i>for them</i>. It wasn't exactly fair. But they could always turn it around again, and if Dean decided as much? Sam would follow.

For a few clumsy moments, they stared at each other. Sam pressed his lips tightly, probably wasn't even breathing.

Finally, Dean let himself consider the here-and-now, and shrugged. Slinging his towel across his shoulders, he shot Sam a crooked, thoroughly rakish grin.

“Alrighty then. Let's float these sonofabitches.” (to be continued!)