Grocery Shopping
Summary: Dean had never liked grocery shopping. It always reminded him of the constant truth he loathed from the bottom of his heart – he couldn't possibly save them all.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. :3 Kind of lacking Kripke's genius. HAHA.
A/N: OKAY! So. I decided to try my hand at Supernatural fanfiction, because frankly, everyone knows Supernatural is awesome. :D Hahaha. Anyway, I've never written anything for Supernatural, so please go easy on me. :X I hope I didn't put Dean out of character by accident here. :X Right, that's the end of my rant. READ ON~!
Dean had never liked grocery shopping. (Even if the cashiers and some of the other lady shoppers were sometimes hot, and made for good 'bed buddies'.)
First of all, there were the smells. Too many too strong. Fish, fresh vegetables, dairy products, meat, bread. It was impossible to pick out the smell of sulphur or something equally supernaturally pungent; there was nothing abnormal about the smell of rotten eggs in a supermarket. Sometimes it stank of animal blood too, and Dean disliked how the scent of iron was more than familiar in his nostrils.
Then there were the rows upon rows of food items and other daily necessities; soap, hair spray, medical supplies, condiments, beer, salt, things like that. Ordinary things. Things he hated unless necessary, because they only served to be reminders of the ordinary things he would never have. Besides, 'ordinary' was just an illusion. Hunters – and anyone who had experience with what was really out there – knew that, and they were smart enough not to get lost in it.
Dean also hated the long rows, the narrow aisles between them. It was too easy to lose Sam between them, and sometimes the shopping carts parked along the shelves of detergents clogged up the aisle and he couldn't get to Sam fast enough if there was trouble - heck, he couldn't get anywhere damn near fast enough.
The furtive looks people always gave him when he was buying salt and medical supplies - usually after a more dangerous and/or pain-inflicting hunt - in bulk weren't exactly friendly either. No-one in their right mind would purchase that amount of salt for cooking or seasoning uses and/or bandages and Tylenol, aspirins or thread for skin stitching at one go. It probably made him come off as some kind of drug-addicted murderer or organ thief who preserved the bodies and organs of his victims in salt. There would be no other use for the salt other than his job, and he sure as hell wasn't a chef, even if he was a decent - if not excellent - cook from all the meals he had prepared to feed both himself and his brother with in the not-so-distant past. It wasn't that Dean wasn't one hell of a BAMF – good looks, charm and a way with the ladies included. It was just that, sometimes, even these things couldn't help the impression he had on the other grocery shoppers.
Not to mention that it reminded him of his non-existent future in eating something that was not hastily warmed up at Wal-Mart or a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Even if he and Sam ate at diners, home cooked food every once in a while would have been nice - a small attempt at normalcy. But there was never enough time, and it wasn't as if motels provided kitchenettes in every room for their occupants.
Dean comforted himself with the idea that, heck, normalcy was overrated anyway. A bottle and feminine company did the job too.
There were also the sounds. Loud sounds, harsh on his hunter's attentive ears, and it made it hard to pick out the things he needed to detect in order to try and do his job. It put him on edge. Too many kids screaming meant he couldn't tell where the actual danger was; they all sounded the same. Unusual things became common, like the sound of meat being hacked to pieces with a machete. Dean wouldn't know the difference, wouldn't know where to look. Not until it was already too late.
Other sounds included laughter, children and parents conversing or arguing over the kind of cereal they ought to buy, and the bickering of couples, young or old. Time and again, Dean had to swallow the un-manly lump in his throat. That would not be his future - there wasn't even the slightest chance that it would be - and he would – had accepted it. He had himself, and Sam and Bobby were there to watch his back if necessary, and that was all he needed. (Including his baby, of course, but that was a given if there ever was one.) It was at times like these that he always had to remind himself to think of a reason for Sammy to do the salt and supplies shopping the next time around.
And then there were the memories. A kid of two or three years of age in the seat of a shopping cart as his mom picked out just the right cereal - complete with free toy - for him, her blonde hair pale under the fluorescent lights. A dad picking them up at the drop-off/pickup point and helping them load the groceries into the trunk of their black Chevy, kissing his wife and kid with a tenderness Dean could no longer remember. Sometimes it got him lost in fantasy, and, stupidly enough, made his eyes moist for a childhood lost for his younger brother, for the life he could never have, and Dean hated it. Only wimps got all soft when it came to such things, and he was definitely not a wimp. (What wimp could handle a shotgun in the same - or even barely comparable - badass manner that he could?) He could have done without the reminders too, and really, fantasizing about the impossible really wasn't how he rolled.
But worst of all, there were always too many kids running around, too many families. It was too dangerous to have that many people in one place. Too many potential victims, too many potential assailants. You couldn't tell who was a demon and who wasn't, and it wasn't easy to spot the supernatural in a place where they could so easily hide, good hunter or not. And when it - whatever it was at that point in time - made its move, Dean knew and dreaded the one constant truth in his life.
He couldn't possibly save them all.
A/N: If you made it all the way down here, I hope you enjoyed it~! Care to leave a review on your way out? I'd really appreciate it. (: I need some pointers for my writing. :X Thanks for reading~!