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K Hanna Korossy
There was a dirty sock on Sam's chair.
He wrinkled his nose at the depressingly familiar sight, then looked up at Dean. "Dude, seriously?"
"What?" Dean craned to see, and his confusion smoothed into sheepishness. "Oh. Yeah, I took 'em off there...two nights ago? When we were reading about the lamias? Here," he held up his hand's like a catcher. "Toss it."
"Get your own putrid sock—I'm not touching it," Sam declared, and pulled out the neighboring chair. "We don't have maid service here, Dean." Not that they often availed themselves of motel housekeeping on the road, with all the weapons and other questionable stuff they used to haul into motel rooms, but still. Sometimes Sam missed being able to leave all the muddy towels and sweaty bed sheets behind for someone else to deal with.
Dean shrugged. "Hey, I wanted to get a maid. You're the one who—" At the sight of whatever Sam's face was doing, Dean clammed up and quickly rose to claim his socks. But Sam was pretty sure he heard a muttered "OCD freak" as he passed.
Sam rolled his eyes. Dean kept the garage in perfect order. The Impala was always washed and waxed, stray wrappers and blood stains quickly dealt with. Weapons were cleaned and stored with military precision, and the kitchen was usually spotless, the beer always stocked. When Dean wanted to, he could totally be an OCD freak, too.
But his fastidiousness didn't extend to the rest of the bunker. After they'd moved in, Sam had noticed the slow creep of Dean's presence through the place: the piles of laundry in the bathroom, scattered research books in the library, pizza boxes in the crow's nest. Sam occasionally found a dirty mug that had escaped notice long enough to start its own ecosystem. And while Dean usually kept his room neat, its order generally reflected Dean's state of mind. It was cluttered after his return to Purgatory, practically sterile when that was all he could do during Sam's trials, untended while he was under the influence of the Mark. Sam had felt his brother was really coming back to him when Dean started cleaning his room again.
Outside the areas that were his domain, however, anything was fair game. Hence Sam's regular finds of dirty clothes, crumpled fast food bags, empty beer bottles, discarded magazines, and, one memorable time, a pair of panties. Dean had actually blushed when confronted about that last, and Sam...he didn't want to know.
"You want some coffee?" Dean abandoned whatever book he'd been disinterestedly flipping through and shoved to his feet. He took a step toward the kitchen before looking back at Sam. "Or, it's almost lunchtime—I could make burgers."
"Those really good ones?" Sam asked hopefully.
"Dude, I don't make bad burgers."
"Yeah, okay. I'll finish the research on the Ma Lai."
"Oh, right! That's what we were…" Oops. Dean quickly shut up. "Okay, yeah, you do that." Radiating innocence, he hurried off.
Sam sighed. He pushed himself halfway upright to check and, yup, Dean had left the sock behind.
Sam was reminded of his second year at Stanford, living with his roommate Ryan. His freshman roommate had simply not cared about life outside his computer, leaving Sam to clean up his trash in order to keep the roaches out. But Ryan hadn't been unsanitary, just…comfortable. Clothes on the floor, papers all over the desk, drawers pulled out and overflowing. He'd made himself at home, a foreign concept to his roomie, although Sam had learned to loosen up a little that year. Enough that once they moved in together, Jess only teased him a little about being a "Monica Geller," a reference he didn't get at the time.
Sam looked around the library, taking in the beer bottle sitting atop the mini-fridge, the jacket Dean had tossed over a chair and left there. A crumpled Doritos bag was tucked into the end of a bookshelf. Mess. But...
The obvious dawned on him belatedly: this was Dean with a home. Drinking as much as he wanted because he could let down his guard in the bunker. Leaving his bloody jacket out without worry about what a maid would think. Able to eat and doze and pull his socks off during research because the Winchesters weren't stuck in libraries and public spaces and other people's homes. Not having to worry about this one little aspect of his life anymore, even while Dean regularly carried the world's fate on his back.
Sam got up and circled the room gathering his brother's debris, followed by the crow's nest, bathroom, and Dean's room. Laundry went in the basket, trash in the trash, and finally he took four empty bottles into the kitchen to dump in the recycling bin.
Dean, manning a spatula at the stove, simply raised an eyebrow at his haul.
"Just getting comfortable," Sam said with a smile his brother quickly if uncomprehendingly returned.
And the burgers were awesome.
The End