all8cylinders:

Dean

Sam manfully fending off the attack of tiny enemy donuts was every bit as entertaining as Dean hoped it would be.  As Sam bitched at him, seemingly unaware of the ridiculous things his hair was doing, Dean wheezed a laugh.  He wondered if he could’ve gotten away with sticking the donuts down Sam’s pants, or if Sam would’ve eaten them if he did.  Sloshing coffee into his own cup, Dean pushed the sugar and creamer packets closer to where Sam could get them, stepping to the side for him to pass only as much as he had to.

At Sam’s question, Dean rubbed the whiter area on his wrist where his watch usually stayed.  He’d taken it off last night to reset it for Pacific time and had no idea where it was.  Digging his cell phone out instead, he thumbed the display and said through a mouthful of donut, “Almost ten, lazybones.  Not sure how much we can do with the day when –”

Just as he was about to tell Sam about the situation around the compound, the scanner crackled again as a cop joked on his com that another chopper full of feds had just landed on the helipad if anyone wanted their autographs.  Dean gestured at the scanner in annoyance.  “They’ve been goin’ on about this all mornin’, dude.  It’s like an infestation out there.  Hey, an infedstation.”  Dean chuckled at his own joke and slapped Sam in the ribs.

Draining the rest of his slightly too-hot coffee from the cup, Dean crumpled it in his fist. “I don’t even know what we’re gonna do that won’t get us hauled in for questioning.” 

Aiming the dead paper cup at the wastebasket across the room and effortlessly tossing it inside, Dean turned to Sam, grinning smugly.  He stepped a little closer to him as he possessively retrieved his two remaining donuts off the counter, leveling a crooked half-grin at Sam as he stuck both in his mouth and licked powdered sugar off his thumb.  “But I got a few ideas on how we could pass the time.”

Sam

Dean gave him the time and Sam’s eyes widened a little, he wouldn’t’ve guessed it was that late, he looked out the curtained window as though that would tell him something. He listened as Dean’s sentence was cut off by the police scanner. As he took another sip of his coffee Dean tacked on a joke to the end of his comment and Sam shook his head and tried not to smile. It wasn’t a hard task as Dean smacked his side a little, he sat his cup down and rolled his eyes. 

When it came to what they could do Sam figured that they were still planning on the beach, he was about to say as much when Dean grinned at him. He smiled back a little, impossible not to, then watched his brother stuff two donuts in his mouth before licking his thumb.

He raised an eyebrow at Dean, who’d just laid out a suggestive comment with  a mouth full of food, and smiled fondly. Having grown up around Dean and witnessed his behavior first hand it was still surprising when those sorts of comments were directed at Sam. ”Oh,” He snorted, “I’m sure you do, but we’re going to the beach, remember?” 

Sam finished his coffee, “We should probably get, like, shorts and sunscreen.” It was winter, but that didn’t usually mean all that much in California.

all8cylinders:

Dean

The next morning, Dean woke up to a loud burst of static from the police scanner they’d rigged up on the small kitchen table the night before.  As the words sunk in, he quickly raised his head to blink sleepily at Sam, asleep in his own bed, and then relaxed.

From the transmissions going back and forth, the Fed presence in Arcata was alive and well, and bugging the shit out of the local cops.  That was basically what Dean expected, but “they caught the dude, he died in the struggle, can neither confirm nor deny blah blah blah” wouldn’t have gone amiss.  He’d fallen asleep filing through plans in his head, but none of them had stood up to the threat of federal interest in their business.  He knew that unless he heard about the feds taking the dude down, this job would sit in the back of his brain like an itch he couldn’t scratch. 

Usually, he stood firm about them handling this stuff.  Any other time, he would’ve been trying to out-fed a fed to get to the thing they needed to gank, whether it was a great idea or not, but this time…

He pushed himself upright, rolling the kinks out of his shoulders, and blinked at Sam again.

This time it would be nice if the feds got their heads out of their asses long enough to handle it themselves.  Not that the two of them wouldn’t step up if they couldn’t, but just this once…

Dean untangled himself from the covers and grabbed his jeans off the floor, pulling them on.  He walked over to the coffee pot, which was on the bathroom sink’s counter since they hadn’t gotten a room with a kitchen.  Dean opened the coffee pack with his teeth and started the pot.  As he splashed water on his face and haphazardly put his hair back into something resembling order, the smell of coffee started to fill the room.  Grabbing a towel off the bar, he mopped at his face, absently dropped it where he was standing and remembered a couple of vending machines they’d passed on their way in last night.

He pulled on his boots without tying them and walked outside, pulling the door closed as quietly as he could behind him.  He came back with cellophane-wrapped packages of mini-muffins and tiny donuts.  Dean had already ripped into his own powdered sugar donuts and had crammed two into his mouth.

Dean grinned slyly at Sam.  Working his lower lip in his teeth, Dean carefully put a package of cinnamon donuts on Sam’s forehead, took a couple of steps back and yelled loudly at him to wake up.

Sam

Once they got back to the motel for the night Sam found himself calling any number he could find, and trying everything he could think of to find Ava. There wasn’t a lot to go on seeing as how all that was left behind was Ava’s dead fiance, her engagement ring and some sulfur, and the last wasn’t anything new.

He tried not to think of it in terms of him being the one that sent her home instead of taking her with him, but it was hard. If he hadn’t pushed her back into her car and sent her on her way back home she would still be around. He had no idea what the demon had in store for him let alone the other people with abilities. 

After looking for a few hours, and exhausting every resource he had, he called it a night. He was worried and tired, trying to figure out how they could track down a missing person who they knew didn’t disappear under anything considered ordinary circumstances. Eventually he started getting ready for bed, talking to Dean about what he hadn’t found, knowing his frustration was evident in his voice. 

The next day, he reminded himself, they were going to take a breath, and go to the beach. Just the thought alone made him smile a little, it had been going on two years since he’d seen the Pacific ocean, let alone actually got to spend the day there. Dean probably hadn’t been to the beach in years. He wondered if maybe Dean went while he was at school, tried imagining him there but all he got in his head was a fuzzy picture of Dean at about nine or ten at the beach on the East Coast, not at all interested in getting in the water. If they went and things were simple for one day, and they actually got the entire day there, there was no way Dean was getting out of getting into the water. If Sam had to push him in he would, he grinned internally at the image as he drifted off to sleep.

Some mornings waking up was easy, there was a case and they had to move fast, or they were heading out of whatever motel to get on to the next state, city, county, who knew. But then there were all the times in which Dean was purposefully a pain in the ass. The next morning it was the latter.

Sam woke up to his name being yelled in a loud, deep, booming voice he recognized as Dean’s at full volume and he jumped awake, startled. There was something on his head and it jumped up with him only to land back on his face before rolling off onto the bed next to him. He groaned as he sat up quickly.

He opened up the package and bit into one of the donuts then rose from the bed, smelling coffee. “What time is it?” He asked absently, pouring himself a cup and fixing it up with sugar and that powered creamer crap that he had no idea actually consisted of, before taking a sip.

all8cylinders:

Dean

Hang back?  Dean just looked at him, eyebrow raised.  Hang back, how?  If it was Dean, he’d assume “have some fun in the room”, but Sam probably meant something else.

Dean shook his head.  “I don’t wanna give up on the job, Sammy.  I think there’s something to it, but…” 

He shrugged, frowning.  He himself had taken this gig with the thought of kicking back for a few days in California until the next job came along, just to lay low for awhile.  He meant after this job, but…

It went against staying on task, staying busy, but he figured the next hunt would find them on its own soon enough.  It always did.  And he never knew these days what was waiting for them around the next bend in the road.

“Hey, I don’t wanna just sit around while the feds thin out anymore than you.”  Dean scratched at the stubble on his chin.  “You’re kiddin’ about the beach though, right?”  

Dean thought about the coastline he’d seen on the way up, silhouettes of (he assumed) tanned women playing in the water.  He let his mind wander off the job.

As he looked at a point behind Sam, he felt his eyes go out of focus as he grinned.  “I don’t know, Sam.  Sometimes those volleyball games get fierce.  Wouldn’t wanna get caught in the middle of somethin’ like that.  Some chick pushes the other one into the sand to hit the ball, the girl on the ground trips her, they fall down and they’re all fightin’, gettin’ sand all over them, pinnin’ each other down.”  Dean licked his top lip, lost in it.  “One yanks the top off the other —”  

Sam

Sam listened to Dean speak, heard his voice trail off about the case, and was grateful. He figured, if anything, Bobby would alert them if something came up with the case, until then there wasn’t much they could do. They were good at a lot, but getting past all those men would be a pain in the ass, and they weren’t even sure this was their kind of job. 

When Dean asked if he was kidding about the beach Sam shook his head, face holding a hint of confusion. Why would he be? Just as he started thinking about the water and the way it smelled the closer it was, the calming affect it had always had on him during his time at Stanford, Dean started in with some fantasy. Sam turned his head to look at Dean, and coughed lightly until he made eye contact. 

He shook his head a little and gave his brother a hard look. “Dean,” he said, voice reprimanding, “Reality, not porn.” He held back a smile, because as inappropriate as Dean was at least it was consistent. 

all8cylinders:

Dean

He almost did it.  He almost decided to just keeping poking away at Sam and see what fell out.  Seducing Sam when he was cranky had become something of a pastime recently.  Sam just got so good and riled up, and it felt like more of a battle when he finally got him against the wall, with that moment where Sam’s resolve crumbled and let Dean in.

But when he looked up, the tight, pained expression on Sam’s face was just a couple of clicks south of “Please, Dean, not here.”  Sam was sincerely asking him to cut it out, and he knew that was when it was time to draw back.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean decided, face softening, but smirked and pointed at Sam.  “But you’re not gettin’ off that easy.  I mean, you do get off that easy, I’m just sayin’, we are gonna talk about it.”

Dean liked to get off as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy liked to get off whenever he was awake, but he had to admit that at least some of what had been going on was to keep Sam from too much downtime.  First Dad, then the nightmares, now Ava.  He thought maybe, just maybe, if he kept Sam tired and happy and exasperated, Dean could make himself bigger than all three.  When he locked his arm over Sam at night, sleeping lightly, he wondered if it was working, if it was doing any good.  He wondered if he was blocking any nightmares.

Whenever he got like this, he was afraid he’d accidentally started talking out loud, and blinked up at Sam for a moment to check.  

Shaking it off, he obliviously moaned and grunted his way through the rest of his fries before piling all the trash on top of the tray.  Dean scrubbed a napkin back and forth across his mouth.  “So, whaddaya say we gank ourselves some cannibals tonight?”  

It was the least sexy topic he could think of.

Sam

They each knew the other’s limits, and when they could push things, and Sam was grateful Dean backed off. He nodded absently, and leaned back more comfortably in the booth. Seeing as how he and Dean were both guys over six feet tall, it would be difficult, he imagined, for most people, but he dodged where Dean’s legs would be stretching out without knocking into him, only their knees touching.

The way in which Dean ate didn’t change, but Sam didn’t press it, just tuned out the noises unless they got ridiculous, in which case he’d give Dean a look he probably didn’t see, and shake his head. 

Once he’d finished and wiped his mouth off, Dean spoke. Sam thought over his idea briefly, his mind going back to the area they went to, swarming with feds, and he frowned.

“Dean, why don’t we just hang back?” Sam didn’t really see there being a way for them to do what they needed to with a minimal chance of getting into trouble. Besides, he needed to see if he could find anything else about Ava, and where the demon took her. His stomach dropped, a pang of guilt hitting him, he should’ve been looking harder to begin with.

“I need to get online, see if I can find anything else out about Ava,” He was worried, and more than that it was important to know. While Ava’s safety was at the top of his list, it also just came down to finding out how he was connected to all this.

“Why don’t we stay here for another day? We can find out what’s going on with the case, and go to the beach or something?” He smiled at Dean before he began to scoot out of the booth, grabbing his tray and cup and throwing them away.

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Dean

Carefully watching Sam, he waited for him to look up, the way he usually did.

When he had Sam’s attention, Dean stared right at him and licked the grease off his fingers in a more thorough and painstaking way than was necessary and laughed to himself.  “You know, you almost got one in the car earlier.”

Dean continued laughing softly to himself, thinking about it.  Maybe he should’ve felt weirder about wanting to give Sam one and not really having a lot of hang-ups about it.  To Dean, it was just another way to find out everything that made Sam tick, just by watching his face.

The burger gone now, Dean looked at the paper dish like he wasn’t sure what had happened to it. Pulling the fries over, he dug into them with his fingers.  They were messy and getting all over his mouth, but he didn’t care.  He continued to talk through the mouthful in his jaw.  “I mean, at least we’re in the same boat, unless you’ve sucked someone off before.”  

Dean looked up at him pointedly, eyes narrowing a little.  “You haven’t, have you?”

Sam

Sure enough Dean was still looking right at him, and Sam fought the urge to lower himself in his seat, taking a bite of his food, finishing the burger, just as Dean began licking his fingers. It was intentional, that much was obvious, and Sam tried to get his expression to remain neutral. 

When Dean spoke his comment sounded so off-hand Sam didn’t know how to react. He could feel his cheeks heat under his skin, with the words his mind pictured it without permission and he cleared his throat, trying to wave off the image. Elbow resting on the table Sam brought his hand to his face, like he was trying to hide, embarrassment growing even though he was sure no one other than him heard Dean.

Dean continued to eat, and Sam finished the rest of his french fries, his entire body a little tenser than it was minutes before. When Dean spoke again, through his food, Sam looked at him. The idea of them being in the same boat when it came to anything about sex was unimaginable, really, to Sam. He almost laughed, but then Dean continued. At the wording and the casual tone in which Dean spoke Sam coughed, and began to shake his head the second Dean’s gaze became more pointed, tone almost accusing. 

“Me? No,” Sam realized his voice was a little bit louder than he intended, not enough to draw attention, but he’d meant to keep his voice to almost a whisper. He looked around, then back at Dean. His face felt hotter than before, and he could feel his heart pounding purely from how uncomfortable he was quickly becoming. He clenched his jaw and took a sip of his soda. 

He wondered if he’d mind, the idea of it wasn’t as bad as he figured it could be. But he liked having Dean all around him, just in general, next to him, curled around him, so while he didn’t think he’d be opposed to it, it also wasn’t something always at the forefront of his mind. 

“I don’t…” Sam glanced around quickly before speaking, “Dean, I don’t mind talking about it?” He wasn’t positive that, that was true, but it felt true, “But not right now okay?” Sam hoped Dean would drop it, at least for the time being, and gave him a tight smile, the heat finally fading from his face a little.

all8cylinders:

Dean 

The whole time Dean was eating, Sam was acting weird.  Dean was a few moments from narrowing down the causes when Sam said: Don’t look at me.

About a blowjob.

Dean was in the middle of gulp of his shake when Sam’s words hit him.  When his jaw dropped, the straw slipped out with it.  He licked milkshake off the corner of his mouth and set it down. 

It was a damn good milkshake, too.  He bet this is what the five dollar milkshake in Pulp Fiction tasted like.

But with this, he completely forgot about it.  Chewing, slurping, groaning, talking — all came to a sudden halt.  Dean was wondering when this would come up, so to speak.  The fact of the matter was, his skills weren’t perfected on his own gender and sooner or later, if this is how they were gonna be from now on… well, he’d need them to be, otherwise it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

If he had to bet which one of them would raise (Dean snorted to himself) this topic, it would’ve been him.  But here it was, out there, more interesting than how they were gonna manage this hunt, more compelling than the 10-digit access to Bianca that was burning a hole in his pocket and a hell of a lot more fascinating than food.  Though he supposed it was still on topic, since it concerned things Dean wanted to eat, and maybe even swallow.

He tilted his chin down slightly at Sam, raised his eyebrows and grinned so wide that he could feel it in his cheeks.  “Well, now I am lookin’ at you.  Who’s thinkin’ with their downstairs brain now?”

Sam

It only took a second for Sam to register that Dean’s expression had changed yet again, he’d stopped eating, and the straw from his milkshake had slipped out of his mouth. Sam stopped chewing, and looked at him, going back over his words in his head. 

Dean had made a comment, Sam merely responded to it. Why was Dean gawking at him like he’d just said something completely out of the blue?

If he was being honest with himself it was something that had crossed his mind a few times, fleeting thoughts. He figured they’d talk about all that, along with other things, at some point.

Just them being how they were was enough for him at that time, he didn’t feel some intense need to push anything. Then again, Sam didn’t find himself attached to the same things as Dean the way Dean was attached to them. He’d been in one serious relationship and had, before he and Dean started this whole thing, gone without for quite some time, but it wasn’t something he worried about.

Dean was looking at him with a wide grin and Sam raised one eyebrow, about to ask what he was doing when Dean spoke.

Sam opened his mouth, then closed it before speaking. 

“You’re the one who…you said, I just commented,” Sam knew he probably looked a little uncomfortable. He and Dean were on opposite ends on the spectrum when it came to stuff like this. Figures this would come up while they were in public. Sam’s spoke like it was the end of the conversation. If Dean wanted to talk about they could later…

He glanced down at his food, then back at Dean to see if he was still looking at him, then swallowed reflexively. 

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Dean

Grinning crookedly and shrugging, Dean honestly answered, “Not really.  And hey, she was flirtin’ with me, too.”

He glanced sideways at Sam for a second, wondering if it was possible that his brother was jealous.  Sam had a glare of judgment that was kinda like a blast wave; he’d been honing it to perfection since he was a teenager, but… jealousy didn’t seem to come into it, just disapproval and bitchiness.  Briefly, Dean wondered what that meant, that Sam wasn’t — 

Yeah, that train don’t go anywhere I wanna visit. 

Shrugging again to push the thought away, he leveled his attention back at Bianca with a smile.  It helped that she was already looking at him.  Dean couldn’t help it: when a pretty girl reacted to him, he got hit with visuals, like what she’d look like with her hair all messed up, if she was a screamer or not, what her face might look like when she was coming.  His voice would drop thinking about it and he’d just want to have.  What’d Sam call it?  “Downstairs brain” or something?  Well, maybe so.  Dad had even bought him a t-shirt when he was 17 that said “I’m the man your mama warned you about” and Dean had worn it ‘til it fell apart, but it hadn’t hurt his pick-up rate. 

Hell, women knew exactly what they wanted from Dean the second he opened his mouth, and he was more than happy to give it to ‘em.

Bianca pushed red trays toward them.  Dean’s tray contained a burger with so much meat and melted cheese between the two buns that the flimsy paper dish could barely keep it together.  It was halfway wrapped in paper to soak up all the juice dripping off.  In the other dish, somewhere under a mess of cheese, onions and what looked like thousand island dressing was a pile of French fries.  His stomach rumbled in anticipation.

With a pink-frosted fingernail, Bianca pushed their receipt at him, face down.  On the back, she’d written her name with ten digits under it.  Dean tilted his head at her, winked, and slipped it in his pocket.  He turned around with the tray in one hand and chose the booth with the best sightline to the car.

Dean picked up the mess of beef, cheese, grilled onions (lots of them, just the way he asked) and whatever else they put on this behemoth and gestured at Sam with it.  “All right, man, I admit, I’m impressed, but it’s just a burger.”  Dean opened his mouth wide and took a huge bite, distending his jaw as he continued to speak through it.  “I mean, I’m sure it’s good, but I d’know what’s so special ‘bout —”  All at once, the flavors in his mouth were so pleasurable that he swore he got hard.  Big-eyed, he held the burger away from him, a quarter of it already gone, gazing at it with new appreciation.  “Oh my god.”

Quickly shoving the next bite into his mouth, Dean grunted loudly and sucked the juice off of one thumb.  In the next bite of beef was a burst of what Dean happily recognized as unchecked levels of fat mixed with cheese and it was fucking delicious.  “Son of a bitch!” he said loudly.  Dean chewed it reverently, moaned and licked grease off his lips.  “Sammy, the only thing that could make this burger any better is if I was gettin’ a blowjob while I ate it.” 

Sam

The grin that went along with Dean’s answer made Sam laugh under his breath and shake his head disapprovingly. Sure, the girl flirted back, but it wasn’t that surprising. Sam had seen very few girls in his life that didn’t react to Dean’s particular brand of charm, and when they didn’t both he, and Dean, were often taken aback. He could remember the feeling of shock that went through him when Dean informed him, a little less than a year before, that Sarah had been interested in him, and not Dean. 

“That doesn’t make it okay for you to take advantage of it,” Sam said, but he was pretty sure Dean stopped listening. 

Before their food showed up Sam went to go get their drinks, setting Dean’s on the counter while they waited for their burgers. When they did arrive they were pushed toward them by the same girl, and Sam eyed the receipt the girl handed Dean before rolling them. 

He didn’t say anything as they walked to a booth and sat down. Sam immediately picked up one of his fries and tossed it in his mouth before moving to add more salt to them. Dean’s comment made Sam look up, “You’ll see,” he laughed, smirked as Dean bit into it, his face losing all signs of skepticism. He laughed a little more, unwrapping his own burger, when Dean spoke up. Happy that Dean liked it, Sam began to eat his own food, missing the particular taste. 

Sam watched Dean lick his thumb, and shifted in his seat. When the loud curse left Dean’s mouth a few people glanced over at them, and Sam made a ‘sh’ing noise, but it was covered up by Dean’s grunting and moaning sounds. Trying not to let his mind connect those sounds back to the bathroom a few hours before Sam took a sip of his soda. Dean’s words made Sam sputter a little, some soda threatening to go down the wrong pipe. He wondered how things that we’re socially acceptable just didn’t register with Dean, Sam put his attention back on his own food. 

“Don’t look at me,” Sam voiced, freeing himself from any ideas Dean might’ve had flying through his head at that moment.

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Dean

Sam stepped up to the counter first and started talking to the girl at the counter.  The very cute girl at the front counter, he couldn’t help but notice.  Dean took a few seconds to appreciate her: Long dark hair in a high ponytail, big brown eyes, pink lip gloss and a very nice rack under her “Bianca” name tag.  He smiled at her and looked up at the menu board.

Standard burgers, fries, shakes and sodas, he thought with a shrug.  Not that there was anything wrong with that, he just couldn’t figure out what made this place more special than the ten places that were closer.

Dean heard Sam say “animal-style” and blinked up at the menu board, mouth opening slightly.  He’d missed something.  

He looked back down at Bianca, trying to figure out if she was jailbait or not, before deciding that he didn’t really care.  ”What’s animal-style?”

As if Dean’s question made her happy, she launched into a full list of some kind of “secret menu” that was reserved usually for people in-the-know.  As she spoke, Dean put his elbows on the counter, leaning more toward her, listening to each new option, growing more fascinated as she continued.  Bianca leaned toward him as she spoke and Dean played with her name tag.  She smelled like apples and if she kept talking to him about beef, especially four patties of it on one burger, he was gonna do her right on the counter.

Eyes getting bigger, he wondered if other places had secret menus, and he just hadn’t known about it all this time.  Every place should have a secret menu.  All of them.

He ended up with a 4x4 with cheese and extra grilled onions, animal-style fries and a Neapolitan shake, because deciding on one shake flavor was for suckers.  He liked the way Bianca said “animal-style”, as if she was rolling the term suggestively just like Dean was.  As Bianca nicely bounced away, with the promise of making his fries as “animal-style as possible”, Dean grinned over at Sam.

Sam

The smile on Sam’s face turned into a disapproving expression as Dean and the girl talked. In all honesty Sam thought she looked like she was still in high school, and he was tempted to elbow Dean to get him to cut it out. 

Twenty-seven year old guy making a pass at a girl who’s probably about seventeen, that’s just… Sam put his hand over his face, then dragged it down. He noted Dean reaching out to touch the girl’s name tag and his eyes grew wide. Was he seriously doing that? The answer, of course, was yes, but it never ceased to astound Sam that Dean could do shit like that and not feel even the slightest amount of shame.

Finally Dean ordered, he was still eyeing the girl and by that point Sam would hardly be surprised with anything. 

Naturally Dean ordered the most unhealthy meal he could possibly get and Sam only wished he could’ve told the girl ahead of time not to give too much away. But by then it was too late and Sam just sighed.

Once she walked away, and Dean looked at him, Sam gave Dean the strongest, ‘what the hell was that?’ expression he could muster.

“Dude. Do the words ‘inappropriate’, and ‘jailbait’, mean anything to you?!” Sam whispered loudly, looking at Dean incredulously.

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Dean

In and Out would’ve been a great name for a sex club, Dean thought.  But this was Sam talking so the chances of it being a sex club were about as likely as it being a clown car.

Ugh, “In and Out” would be a terrifying name for a clown car.  Do they name clown cars?

Dean was glad Sam couldn’t hear his thoughts at times like this.

After calling up 411 on the cell phone and getting a general idea of where they needed to be, Dean got them past all the “undercover” feds and back out onto a freeway.

Sam seemed stupidly happy about this specific place, but Dean still looked longingly at potential diners as they passed.  But the woman from 411 had called it “In and Out Burger.”  Burger.  “Why do you like a burger place?” Dean asked when he hit the button to end the call.  ”Are they organic burgers, or tofu with free range-cheese or something?”  

Free-range cheese?  Dean snorted to himself.  Yeah, Dean, the cheese was allowed to roam in the wild before — what the fuck?  God, I need to eat.

Finally, after a few more miles, Sam had spotted the sign for them, red and yellow with some kind of arrow.  The whole place was red and white, with some kind of crooked-looking palm tree on everything, and tables with umbrellas outside.  Dean had to admit that it smelled great.  

As if his stomach knew red meat was nearby, he got even hungrier.

Sam

As they drove to In-N-Out Dean asked Sam why he liked a burger joint, wondering if it was some organic place and Sam made an expression like he was searching for an explanation.

“Not exactly, it’s just, it’s better ingredients and really just good,” Sam answered, “And I’m allowed to like a burger place!” Sam’s voice got defensive. He ate healthy, excuse him for not wanting to send himself into an early grave due to a blocked artery.

As they got to the location Sam wandered in alongside Dean, heading to the counter without hesitation. There wasn’t a line, people scattered about within the seating area though.

“Hi,” He smiled at the girl behind the counter who was probably in her late teens, then ordered from memory, not bothering to look up at the menu. “Can I get an animal style #1 with light grilled onions and extra lettuce?” She punched in the order on the touch screen in front of her, “Fries animal style too, or just the burger?” She smiled up at him. “Just the burger, thanks.” 

He looked at Dean, grinning, and moved over just enough to let him order.

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Dean

Sam was right, even if Dean managed to get onto that access road without sending up a red flag for any agent with a pulse, this was a bad idea.

A better idea was for both of them to come back after dark, find a hole in the fed’s perimeter somewhere and come at the compound from the back.  The agents would be making some noise — radios, earpieces, flashlights, maps being unfolded, chit-chat.  They were feds, not commandos.  Dean was familiar with their rules and their bad habits.

If this Blasevic guy was smart, he’d have equal amounts of security on both the easiest and the stupidest ways to get into the compound.  No one worried about the pain in the ass ways to get in, but Dean had found those were the best.  If someone’s muscle didn’t think they could get in that way, they wouldn’t guard it too hard against anyone else.

Dean also knew cannibals. Whether they were monsters or humans, they both had the same problem: their food supply made lots of noise and so did their food supply’s loved ones.  All you had to do was stand between them and food long enough without becoming food yourself.  Surround it, trap it, give it a day or so to get good and hungry, give it enough space to think you’re gone, then gank it.

This, combined with Sam talking about food, made Dean’s stomach growl loud enough for him to hear it over the music.  He could just imagine them lugging their camping gear, wearing everything black they owned, quietly navigating through dense tree cover and overgrowth… just for Dean’s stomach to give away their location.

And he could’ve sworn he just heard Sam say —

“In and out?”  Dean found a long stretch of road where no other cars were coming, and turned the Impala around.  ”What is that, a sex club?”

Sam

Dean’s questioning tone made it clear to Sam he’d never been there, and his follow up question made Sam groan lightly. He shook his head, “No, Dean, it’s a burger place, only in California and I think parts of Arizona or something.” The idea of introducing Dean to one of the best fast food chains, ever, was ridiculously appealing.

“It’s awesome, I swear,” His voice was sure and he smiled, pretty certain Dean wasn’t going to say no to going somewhere with good hamburgers. Sam didn’t talk about food, or even think about food, like Dean did. If it was good, and not swimming in chemicals and nasty grease he was content. He and Jess had made a habit of going, as most people, he figured, in California did, he loved it, and Dean would too.

He didn’t know the area they were in that well, or at all really, but he was sure they could find one relatively close by.