Things the Winchesters Learned the Hard Way
AN: This will be a series of comedic oneshots, in which we get to spend some quality time with Dean and Sam and see the many lessons they've learned from life on the road. Because hey, we all gotta learn from our screwups, right? And a Winchester screwup generally tends to be far more epic than any normal person's screwup.
So, without further ado….
Winchester Life Lesson Number One: Don't try to hit on girls while doing post-hunt laundry. Especially with your brother there.
Wintertime hunts were always a huge pain. Obviously, it was cold, and that sucked—really really sucked, especially when it was some Big Ugly that had taken them days to find, whose lair was in the middle of the damn woods in Washington state miles away from any civilization, in January, in the rain—but what sucked the most?
Doing the laundry afterwards.
As if post-hunt laundry wasn't bad enough—dirt, sweat, gunpowder, oftentimes nasty gunk and body fluids from whatever the hell it was they'd been hunting, and blood.
Yeah, Dean would venture to say that the blood was the worst part.
Especially when you're at a Laundromat with your idiot little brother.
And trying to hit on a girl.
Now generally, when they were doing particularly nasty post-hunt laundry, they tried to take care of most of the ugly stuff back at the motel—the clothing that was particularly ripped, bloody, or covered with monster goo. Stuff that would raise both eyebrows and questions. Neither of them cared to repeat the Amarillo, Texas incident: back when they were both kids, some schmuck with admittedly good intentions took one glance at Dad's bloody laundry pile and called the cops on them. It had taken a great deal of smooth talking on Dad's part—and the irresistible cuteness of a four-year-old Sam—to keep them from getting arrested. They never made that mistake again, and since then, Dean and Sam had become laundry experts. And it was damn useful, too, because even though replacing your clothes more frequently than you'd like came with being a Hunter, they had a knack for clothing preservation. Not that Dean would ever admit to anybody the fact that he owned a sewing kit for this purpose….
But today just happened to be the one day that they'd been careless about it.
And—thanks a lot, Sammy—now this girl was staring at him like he could be an axe murderer.
Or…something else, he thought, noting how grossed out she looked as she gaped between Dean and Sam.
All because of Sam and that one damn pair of bloody boxers…
…Or three.
The Laundromat excursion had begun relatively well, despite the shit-tacular hunt that had ended the night before. The hunt had left them both exhausted, irritable, beat to hell, and pretty cut up, because this particular Big Ugly had had obnoxiously impressive claws and teeth and knew how to use them. So that night at the motel, the laundry was pretty much forgotten. They'd gotten to spend some quality time with stitches, antiseptic, and cheap liquor, with a bad kung fu movie playing in the background as a pathetic attempt to distract themselves. The fact that proper medical treatment was a luxury they couldn't usually afford was a testament to how much their lives could suck sometimes, but hey, could be worse. And at least the kung fu movie was the hilarious kind of bad, and not just bad bad.
At any rate, Dean had woken up today feeling much better and eager to get on the road again. Sam, on the other hand, who'd gotten attacked from behind yesterday and gotten his back slashed up pretty good, was still tired and exceedingly grouchy from a moderate amount of blood loss. But he declined Dean's offer to do both their laundry and let him get some sleep, adamant that he wanted to get the hell out of this town. Dean was with him on that one, so they'd gone together, ready to hit the highway immediately afterward.
Thankfully, it was a backwoods kind of town, because even though the mud masked some of the blood that had made it onto the outfit Dean had worn yesterday—some of it his but a lot of it Sam's—a blissfully uncrowded Laundromat meant that he didn't have to explain away the articles of clothing that looked like they ought to be pieces of evidence in a crime scene investigation. He'd done his best to get the worst of the stains out that morning in the motel, doing what he could with cold water and even a little bottle of the motel's shampoo, but even so he'd had to shove them in the washer quickly before anybody saw. He'd decide once they came out of the wash whether it was worth it to keep them or not.
Other than that, he saw no reason why he shouldn't be able to simultaneously wash the rest of his clothes and hit on the one hot girl who'd showed up to do her own laundry. Because, he figured, a guy doing laundry? Approachable. Hot guy doing laundry? Very approachable. Hot guy doing slightly worn-out, drifter-type laundry? Steve freaking McQueen.
And this girl was totally eating it up.
She was a pretty little blonde thing in that magical, unguessable age range between 20 and 25, named Mindy or Mandy—he wasn't sure which—and she probably couldn't guess the first thing about him if she tried. And she seemed to find that sexy. Huh. Must be a small-town-girl thing.
So he played along, giving her purposefully cryptic answers whenever she asked him something about himself, amused that she was so into the whole supposed "aura of mystery" thing.
"So…" Mindy/Mandy had asked, very non-discreetly removing a lacy bra from a dryer and folding it, oh so slowly. "Where are you from…Steve?"
He grinned, eyes on that lacy bra, and shrugged. "Around."
"Really?" she giggled. "Where's around?"
He paused, trying to think of something equally ambiguous to tell her, but Mindy/Mandy's attention had drifted to Sam, who was doing his own laundry on the far side of the long room. He was giving Dean a spectacular bitchface, one that clearly said Stop hitting on girls because I wanna get out of here ASAP and there's no WAY I'm gonna hang out here another night waiting around while you're out getting laid.
"Um…who's your friend?" Mindy/Mandy asked uncertainly.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Eh, don't worry 'bout him. That's just Sammy. My little brother."
"He looks a little…" she trailed off, obviously trying to find a polite word to describe the look that Sam was directing at the two of them.
Dean shrugged. "He's just a little hung over, is all. Wants me to hurry up and finish so we can go and he can grab himself a Bloody Mary."
She blinked. "Oh. Then maybe…I should—"
"Nah, there's no rush," Dean said dismissively. "He can kiss my ass. Besides…" he gave her an appraising look. "I like laundry."
She smiled and blushed a little. "Me too." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "So Steve—"
But she was cut off by an abrupt call of "Hey, Dean!" from the back of the room.
Dean closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. Dammit, Sam…
Mindy/Mandy looked back at Sam, and then at Dean, eyes narrowing in confusion. "Um…Dean? But I thought your name was…"
Dean had a gift for smooth recoveries. He chuckled and shook his head. "It is. It's Steve. Sammy's the only one who calls me that, really. It's actually my middle name, and the kid watched Rebel Without a Cause one too many times growing up, and I guess the name kinda stuck. Stupid, I know, but yeah." He smiled for good measure.
Even so, he wasn't sure she'd buy it, but fortunately, her own face broke out into a smile. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"That's adorable."
Apparently, she was the type to go for endearing guys as well as mysterious.
Well, whatever works, I guess…
"Dean," Sam called again, a little more insistently. He looked pissed.
Dean bit back an agitated growl. Whatever it was Sam wanted, Dean knew he wasn't going to stop pestering him until he came, and then Mindy/Mandy time would be as good as over. It was the path of least resistance, really, to just go over and deal with him now.
"Erm, 'scuse me for a minute," he said with an apologetic grin. "Better go make sure he's not about to go put a red shirt in with his tighty whities. Kid probably can't see straight right now."
Mindy/Mandy nodded. "Sure. No problem."
"Dean!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," he grumbled, putting the laundry basket down on a nearby table and stalking to the back of the store. "I'm a little busy, Sammy," he said in an undertone when he reached his brother, who was loading wet clothes into a dryer. "What do you want?"
"What the hell are you doing?" Sam jerked his head in the direction of Mindy/Mandy, who was not-so-inconspicuously watching them from the front of the store.
"What the hell do you think?" Dean smirked. "Now if you don't mind, I'm a little busy—" He started to walk away, but Sam stepped in front of him.
"Doing what?"
Dean frowned. "Doing laundry. Move." He tried to sidestep him.
"Dude, you haven't even started a load yet. You put in like a shirt and one pair of pants. I've been watching."
"You've been watching?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Well. That's not pervy of you at all, is it, Sammy. I for one feel violated."
Sam ignored that. "So you've been busy with other stuff, then." He looked over at Mindy/Mandy, still folding her underwear.
"Yup."
"And how's that going for you?"
"Awesome. That is, until you interrupted."
"So what's her name?" Sam crossed his arms.
"Mindy. Or, er, Mandy. I'm not really sure, actually."
"Oh, it's really going awesome then, isn't it," Sam scoffed.
Dean glowered up at him. Didn't matter if the kid was 6'4". He was still a little smartass. "Yes, as a matter of fact it is. Now if you don't mind—"
Sam stepped out of his way. "Fine. Whatever. Just do your laundry, okay? I wanna get out of here."
"I woulda left you at the motel if I'd known you were gonna bitch at me the whole time, Sammy." Come to think of it, he probably really should have left Sam at the motel. He was a still pretty pale and looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
Sam raised his eyebrows. "If you had, you wouldn't have come back for me until dinnertime, at least." With another glance at Mindy/Mandy, he added, "or later."
"Yeah, well. Woulda been time well-spent. Seriously, though," he added, "you look dead on your feet, dude. You sure you're okay?"
He shrugged. "It's just laundry."
"You can sit down, if you want. I can finish these," he said with a nod at Sam's laundry basket.
Sam shook his head, looking amused. "Then we really will be here 'till dinner time. I got it. Just get yours done, okay?"
"Yeah, okay." He started to walk back toward the front but stopped when he heard, barely audible over the thrum of the few running machines—
"Uh…Dean?"
He turned around. "Yeah?"
"Actually, can you, uh, help me out with something real quick?" He glanced around furtively as he said this, as if to make sure none of the other occupants of the Laundromat were looking their way.
"What?"
"Uh, there's some blood on some of my…uh, stuff…that I can't figure out how to get out."
"What stuff?" Dean asked suspiciously.
"Well…" Sam rummaged through his bag of dirty clothes, and as discreetly as he could, produced a wad of boxer shorts. There were three of them, and all were soaked through with big, dried blotches of blood.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Oh, God…"
Sam just frowned at him.
"Those look like personal stains to me," Dean drawled, though he looked up to make sure Mindy/Mandy was looking elsewhere. "You're a big boy now, Sammy. Gotta handle this stuff on your own."
"Dean, come on," Sam growled, though he looked more than a little embarrassed. "We're kinda low on cash right now and we can't really afford to replace this stuff. And besides, some of it's your blood anyway."
Dean snatched the boxers from him. "Geez, Sam, can you not say that so loud?" he said in a harsh whisper. "And what do you mean my blood?" he added incredulously.
"Well these are the ones I was wearing yesterday," he said, jabbing a finger at one of the pairs. "The blood from those gashes kinda got everywhere, and I mean everywhere. You already know I had to throw the shirt and the jacket away 'cause they were beyond hope. But those other two?" he asked, annoyance leaking into his voice, "If you remember, you grabbed 'em out of my bag yesterday when we got back to the room to mop yourself up with, even though there was a bathroom full of clean towels…"
"Eh, the bathroom was too far away," Dean said simply. It was true, though. He'd literally stumbled toward the bed and almost passed out when they'd gotten back, he'd been so tired. Sam's bag happened to be within arms' reach and he hadn't wanted to bleed all over the sheets. He looked back down at the boxers. "Sorry 'bout that, though." Sam was right. They really shouldn't be shelling out the money to get new ones.
"It's fine, I guess, but can you help me get the stains out? They dried. Nothing's working."
Dean held up the half-empty bottle of Shout on the table. "This didn't work?"
"No."
"Cold water?"
"Nope."
"Salt water?"
"Uh-uh."
"Peroxide?"
"We're out of peroxide."
"Huh." Dean held up one of the pairs to get a better look at the stain. "Maybe you should try—" But his head whipped up when a female voice interrupted him.
"Hey, Steve?"
It was Mindy/Mandy.
Dean froze, all too aware that he was standing there, in front of the girl he'd just been chatting, next to another dude, scrutinizing a pair of bloody boxers.
A very awkward silence ensued. Mindy/Mandy's eyes got huge as she took in the scene before her, her gaze coming to rest on the boxers.
Dean cleared his throat after a second and not-very-smoothly shoved the boxers behind his back. "Uh…yeah, Mindy?"
"It's Mandy," she said, a little coldly. "I was just gonna ask if you had any dryer sheets I could borrow, but…" Her eyes drifted to Sam.
"Oh," Dean said, a little too loudly. "Uh, yeah. Sure thing."
"No, that's okay," Mandy said, sounding more than a little freaked out. "Obviously and your—" she cleared her throat—"brother are busy right now. I'll go ask somebody else." She turned on her heel and walked away.
Very quickly.
"Mandy, wait, we're just—" Dean called after her, but it was no good. "We're just brothers," he added uselessly at her hastily retreating back.
Sam snorted.
Dean wheeled around. "What's so funny?"
"That was." Sam looked like he was barely holding back gales of laughter.
"Dude, that was totally your fault," Dean snarled, throwing the boxers at Sam.
Sam caught them, now laughing in earnest. "How was it my fault?"
"Just…shut up, okay?" He ran an agitated hand through his hair. "Come on, why does everyone have think we're gay all the time?"
Sam brandished the boxers. "Well… Can't really blame her, I guess."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Looks like we're gonna get out of here before dinnertime after all, huh?" Sam chuckled.
"Shut up." Without another word, he started transferring Sam's clothes from washer to dryer rather more violently than necessary. A minute or so of silence passed, Dean red in the face and Sam trying and failing to suppress more laughter.
"Got one question for you, though," Sam finally said.
"What?"
"Who's Steve?"
*End*
Coming soon…
Winchester Life Lesson Number Two: Don't let your big brother play matchmaker.