A/N: Wow I haven't posted on here in a while. dang, man. I've just been lurking and watching things change. Buh. So. This isn't actually the first SPN thing I've written, but apparently it's the first one I've decided to publish here. Huh. Go figure. Initially I was gonna wait and finish up one of the 5 other stories I've got started, but uh. (And making one of those a casefic is always fun, right? Research, man. Studying like Sammy and all that.)
That said, hi, how is everyone, season 9 already hurts.
Written for FishyIcon; this is un-beta'd and kinda rushed and stuff. Set mid-Pac-Man Fever, so really only vague spoilers up until then in season 8? And I think I'm funny. And I'll stop now.
Cheers! I'll have an actual story up at some point, haha.
"You've never what?" Charlie just about screeches and Dean winces, casting a glance over at the table Sam's hunched over like he's glued to the thing. The younger's eyes flicker up to meet his for a brief second, brow knit in slight confusion before he gives a minute shaking of his head and it ducks back down to the technology he's poking at. Dean frowns because Sam looks a bit too invested in scouring through The Winchester Gospel databases on Charlie's iPad to help him out at all. Thanks, bro.
"I've been kind of busy," Dean says, like averting the apocalypse or battling evil almost 24/7 is some kind of adequate response. From where he's sitting on the other side of the room, Sam offers a snort. Double thanks.
Charlie still looks he just drop-kicked one of her favorite handmaidens. Wait, he was her handmaiden. Scratch that, like he'd just drop-kicked her favorite Hermione Granger collectible and laughed about it. Better.
"Well yeah, but—" she starts, pauses, stops, and then makes another valiant attempt at coherent speech. "How?"
Dean shrugs, kind of confused. Having figured his first response answered her question perfectly, he can't really see what it is that she doesn't seem to get. He'd been fairly blunt about it too, he thought.
"I just…didn't?" he tries again, wanting to just drop the conversation entirely. Maybe they could talk about something else. Like just what is it that Sam's reading that has him going huh. Or maybe dinner. Yeah, they could talk about dinner, because he's actually getting kind of hungry and good hosts are supposed to offer their guests food. That, and he really wants to try and see if he can get some actual food into Sam.
Charlie doesn't look like she's about to relent that easily, though, so Dean takes a deep breath in through his nose and shifts his stance, ready to let her have at it.
"I get why," she tries again. "I just…wow." Charlie shrugs. "I mean I figured even with all the world-saving and supreme butt kicking you guys would've at least had a little downtime."
The way Dean clears his throat sounds more like a grunt. "Yeah, well, I kinda think we had more important things do in our," he raises his hands for the appropriate air-quotes. "'downtime.'"
Charlie's still looking at him like he just drop-kicked her favorite Hermione Granger collectible and then ran it over with his car. Repeatedly.
"More important things to do or not, how you can not have played Pokémon?"
Dean's face probably twists into something Sam would probably call a pout, but luckily the former schools his face back into a cool expression before the latter can see it.
"Uh," Dean says eloquently. "didn't really have a reason to?" And he didn't, not really. As a child he'd been more concerned with keeping his baby brother fed and happy and being overly aware of just about everything that went bump in the night. Plus, one of those handheld electronics was just an added expense they hadn't needed. So there.
When his answer didn't seem to appease Charlie for the umpteenth time, he definitely did not whine, "Sam."
"I'm reading about your wonderful blanket-pancho," Sam supplies helpfully, glancing up from the PDF file of Chapter 6 of Frontierland.
Sam what the hell.
"Posse magnet." Charlie mutters. Sam friggin' snickers.
"Sarape," Dean corrects before he frowns again. "Look, I didn't play Pokémon, alright? You did. It's cool." He jerks his thumb in the general direction of the doorway. "Now can I go make dinner or are you gonna keep ripping into me for not knowing which one's Pikachu?"
Charlie's mouth quirks out of that shocked 'o' and into a smile at the mention of him making dinner and then back at that last remark, because "You don't know Pikachu?"
"I know Pikachu," Sam says and then smothers his laugh with his hand and a cough when Dean shoots him a look.
"I know Pikachu!" Dean shoots back. Yeah, he knows Pikachu. He's the…the yellow one that does the thing. That one. So yeah, he knows Pikachu. What of it.
"Oh my god," Charlie shakes her head and then downright laughs at him. "Holy frak."
Dean's eyebrows look like they're trying to form one supreme being on his forehead. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh my god," Charlie says again. "You have so much to learn, young Padawan."
At least he gets that reference.
Shut up, he totally knows Pokémon. And Pikachu. It's not his fault he's just having a major brainfart. He just has more important things to focus on at the moment. Like Sam hacking up his lungs like nobody's business and this whole closing the Gates of Hell thing they've got going on. Oh, and dinner, which he still wants. So.
In response, Dean folds his arms across his chest almost uncomfortably and says, "Don't…don't…I know things. A lot of…things."
Move over, Stanford Sammy, there's a new would-be lawyer in the family.
And dude, Dean totally knows things. Dean knows a lot of things, okay? Sam even said he was a genius and yeah, he totally is. Be that as it may, Dean just doesn't feel like he really needs to justify himself to these two.
Sam makes some amused sound from his side of the room and sick little brother or not, he's gonna get the noogie of a lifetime if he keeps it up.
Charlie raises her eyebrows. "Uh-uh."
"Yeah, I…" Dean begins. He cuts himself of and instead ends with: "Shut up."
"Eloquent."
Sam hums in response to Charlie's comment and moves on to Chapter 7 and gnaws at his lip when he reads about Rachel and Cas in some warehouse.
Dean figures he's had enough of this conversation. "Do you want dinner or not?"
Someone's stomach growls a few seconds after his question. Charlie then says, "Bro, you totally need a DS."
He waits a beat, and then concedes defeat with, "I don't even know what that is."
Sam snorts, half-listening and opens another tab to Google 'DS' while Charlie looks cross between confused and amused. Again.
"My god, you're such a dinosaur."
Okay, the conversation's supposed to be over now. Time to bring out the big guns. So Dean turns on his heel, aiming toward the general direction of the kitchen and calling over his shoulder:
"This dinosaur's making dinner and you're not gettin' any."
With an indignant hey Charlie trails after Dean, going off about some X and Y games that are due out in the fall, leaving Sam to snicker to himself in their wake.
When they finally come back into the library, Sam's uncomfortably reading about Cas sticking his hand up in Bobby's soul and Charlie's still prattling about Kanto versus Johto and which starters were her favorite. Dean rolls his eyes when his brother looks up at him questioningly and sets a bowl of stew in front of him that's been simmering for the better part of the day.
Ignoring Sam's huff, Dean pries the iPad out of his hands, setting it aside and telling him, "Eat, s'not like it's anything new, Sammy." Frontierland was fun and all, sure, but Bobby and Cas were in that picture and they're…kind of not, now. So. Ignoring that and eating dinner and instead seemed like a good enough solution.
Charlie plops down across from them and doesn't even bother to hide her grin at the 'broment.' Dean looks at her bowl of stew pointedly and the grin just grows. He's about to say something and decides against it before taking a seat next to his brother and just about daring the younger man to push his food away.
When he doesn't and Charlie makes a contented mhm at her food, Dean smirks to himself, even though he kinda wishes that chair next to her had someone sitting in it too. Still, he waits until everyone's settled and digging in to blurt, "I mean, Charizard's pretty cool though."
Sam laughs and Charlie laughs and Dean just smirks and goes back to his dinner.
Two weeks later, Sam has to laugh when Dean walks back into the bunker with an old Gameboy, Pokémon Red, and a note that says, Gotta start somewhere. Enjoy, bitches.
Dean totally does not spend the next three days earning badges and making his dream team. Definitely not.