The Thurnstons, who answered the door when Dean and the Doctor knocked with the same excited smiles that they had shown Dean and Lisa when they had extended the invitation to dinner, didn't look like aliens, as far as Dean could tell. He knew better than to make assumptions, obviously, but the Doctor had described unibrows and red hair. And sure, there stood a couple of redheads, but they looked … normal.
Well, as normal as anyone could look when they were almost hungrily gesturing Dean and the Doctor in.
"Hey, sorry about the last-minute change in plans," Dean said. He hadn't set foot in the house yet but held up both hands.
The Thurnstons glanced at each other, and Mr. Thurnston—he'd never given his first name—pointed at the Doctor. "We haven't seen you around here before," he said in almost an accusation.
The Doctor grinned easily and pulled out his well-worn wallet. "Name's The Doctor," he said cheerfully. "Dreadfully sorry, but Lisa and Ben have come down with the beige fever, and we wanted to make sure it hasn't spread beyond that household."
Dean almost laughed as he watched the Thurnstons take measured steps back from the doorway, no longer actively trying to draw them in. "The beige fever?" Mrs. Thurnston asked, her hands twisted in a flour-covered apron.
"Nasty stuff," the Doctor said, pulling a dramatic face as he put on his glasses and made a big show of looking around the living room, while the Thurnstons scurried out of his way and looked like they weren't sure if they wanted to kick him out or not. "Absolutely horrendous. You definitely don't want to catch it."
"Well, what about him?" Mrs. Thurnston asked, pointing at Dean. "Why would you bring him here if he's infected?"
Dean held up both hands. "Hey now," he started to say, but in typical fashion, the Doctor had taken charge of the situation.
"Childhood immunity. I don't suppose either of you had it as kids?" The Doctor looked them both over. "No, you'd remember if you had," he said dismissively before either of the Thurnstons could respond.
"Yeah, got the scars to prove it," Dean said, deciding he might as well lean into it and go for the intimidation.
"Scars?" Mr. Thurnston repeated.
"Yeah, don't you know what the beige fever does to a person?" Dean said, perfectly straight-faced, though he almost ruined his poker face when he saw the Doctor cough a chuckle into his hand as he looked around the house.
"Look, we can reschedule the dinner party," Mr. Thurnston said. "If your family is sick, then that's all there is to it."
Dean thumbed over his shoulder at the Doctor, who was attacking the place with abandon, already starting to turn over cushions on the couch. "Tell that to him. He's the one trying to prevent an outbreak. But if you don't want to be sure you're safe…"
The Thurnstons once again glanced at each other. "How long is this going to take?" Mr. Thurnston said, his arms crossed and his foot tapping.
"Shouldn't be long," the Doctor said cheerfully as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and started to scan everything in sight.
Mr. Thurnston tapped his fingers, irritated, before he turned toward Dean. "You're not sick, right?" he said, pointing at him in almost an accusation.
"Well, no," Dean started to say, and that seemed to be enough for the would-be dinner host.
"Then you should at least eat with us," Mrs. Thurnston said, immediately switching from the off-kilter homeowner to the gracious host she had been when she first extended the dinner invitation. "I just tried a new recipe, and I need a local's opinion."
Dean glanced toward the Doctor, but the Doctor was already muttering to himself, fully focused on whatever he was doing with his sonic screwdriver. "I'm actually not a local," Dean started to say, but that didn't seem to matter to the Thurnstons, who had flanked him with unsettlingly polite smiles.
"Oh, but we insist," Mrs. Thurnston said.
Dean was very sure that he didn't want to try whatever recipe they had in mind, knowing what the Doctor had told him about their eating habits, but even he had to admit when he got to the dining room that everything smelled amazing. The spices smelled good, anyway, and they masked whatever meat was in the oven.
Yeah, I'm gonna need to douse my brain in bleach after this, Dean decided, even as Mrs. Thurnston went on and on about how badly they were going to miss the side dishes he and Lisa had promised to bring to the dinner party.
"Yeah, we'll send you the salad dressing recipe," Dean said, because this whole thing was too weird, and he was still mentally recovering from thinking the food smelled good.
"That would be perfect," Mrs. Thurnston said—and the weird part was that she sounded perfectly sincere. "My husband and I collect recipes, actually. We bring some back home from every new place we visit."
"Big travelers, then?"
"Yes, but probably nowhere you've heard of," Mr. Thurnston said, smirking.
"You'd be surprised," Dean said, returning the smirk with one of his own while his gaze roamed around the dining room. These people were, if nothing else, incredibly serious about their food. The dinner hadn't even been brought out yet, but the dining table looked meticulous, like everything on it was their most prized possession.
Actually, knowing what he did, Dean figured that wasn't too far from the truth.
"The people who owned this house before we did gave us a recipe for pulled pork," Mr. Thurnston said. "So, we had to try it for ourselves."
"Pulled pork, huh?" Dean said. He didn't trust that, but if that was true, at least he would feel a little better about the smell.
"Yes, I really think I've got it right this time," Mrs. Thurnston said. "The butcher gave us the whole pig when I told him I was going to try as many recipes as I was."
"Wow." Dean smirked to himself but didn't voice what he was thinking. Space foodies. You've somehow managed to make space foodies dangerous, Doc. How am I surprised?
"Come on, then," Mr. Thurnston said, though no sooner had he gestured for them to sit down at the dining room table than there was a huge thump from downstairs, followed by several more thuds and a sound that Dean only knew was laser fire because he'd faced a Sontaran before.
"Everything okay?" Dean asked, though he was ready for a fight.
The Thurnstons shared glances again and then, all at once, they switched from the gracious hosts they had been pretending to be until then into the aliens the Doctor had described. Mr. Thurnston lunged for Dean, his eyes wild and his hands reaching for Dean's throat—while Mrs. Thurnston rushed to check out whatever the Doctor had discovered.
But Dean had seen it coming, and he stepped back, letting Mr. Thurnston crash into the table.
As Mr. Thurnston turned to face Dean with a snarl on his lips, Dean smiled, settling into a fighting stance—and trying not to think about how much he'd missed this.