Two of a Kind (Supernatural, Sam & Dean)

[sierraplaid]

­Title: Two of a Kind
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean (gen)
Summary: Sick boys do laundry and play poker.
Time frame: Season 1 vaguely
Warnings: None

Two of a Kind

It’s some ungodly hour of the night in a fluorescent laundromat where three scuffed and dented coin-ops are churning their unsorted loads in increasingly murky suds. Outside a ferocious wind howls down the deserted street, lashing a few scattered showers of hail sharply against the floor-to-ceiling windows. But inside it’s comfortable and snug with welcome warmth thrown off by the old machines as they doggedly hum along, and on the broad, sturdy laundry folding counter along the side of the room Sam and Dean are cross-legged, sock-footed, sniffling over the first round of poker they’ve played together since Stanford, each exactly as full of cold as the other.

“haTXCHHuhh, ughh, jeez.” Dean sniffs hard and swipes his cuff at his red nose before turning back to the game. “Call.”

“Tens over nines,” Sam says.

“Ha. Jacks over tens.”

“Oh, come on.”

They’re on their twentieth hand—low stakes, penny ante—and Sam is getting his ass handed to him.

“You suck,” Dean points out, sniffling as he rakes in his haul.

Sam coughs into his sleeve.

“I know,” he says resignedly, all stuffed up.

“You’re rusty. Didn’t you play with your college buddies at all?”

“Yeah, but they weren’t much competition. Not like they have to do this to earn a living, you know?”

“Guess not,” Dean concedes, expertly shuffling the deck.

Sam flips his losing cards onto the counter, then knuckles the side of his nose and squints his eyes shut.

“Can’t concentrate…. hrEHXRSHoo!”

Dean shrugs.

“You’re sick.”

“huhEHRXSHh! So are you.”

“Huh,” Dean says. “Guess I’m just a better poker player, then.”

Sam smiles reluctantly and snags a tissue from the box they’re sharing between them.

“Shut up and de—…h…huhKXSHhoo! and deal.”

Dean grins and shuts up and deals.

***

An hour later the washers have long since whirred noisily through their final frenetic spin but Sam and Dean have been too lazy and too caught up in the game to move their clothes the ten feet they’d need to to get them into the dryers. “Gonna get wrinkly,” Sam had mentioned at one point, without showing any signs of getting up to do anything about it, and Dean had responded with a sneeze and the suggestion that Sam was gonna get wrinkly, but nothing had come of either observation and they’d kept right on playing.

Sam’s still losing badly but good-humoredly and Dean’s still cheerfully taking his little brother’s money, showing no mercy. The storm outside isn’t letting up any, either. The rain is coming down even harder than before, sheeting off the overflowing gutters and surrounding them in the tiny laundromat with a wall of water like they’re sloshing around in a washing machine themselves.

“Hey, you know,” Dean says, dealing out another round, and finally seeming to recall they’ve got laundry to do, “we’re three quarters shy for the dryers. Loser of this hand has to go get the rest from the car, what do you say?”

Sam aims a sneeze in his sleeve as if being sick might get him out of it, and then looks dubiously towards the window. He scoops up his new cards, takes one glance, realizes he’d have to try to bluff his way through a worthless hand he’s pretty sure his cardsharp brother somehow dealt him on purpose, makes a face, and says, “How about rock-paper-scissors instead?”

Dean smirks.

“Not looking good, huh, Sammy?"

Sam sneezes again and then says, “I’ll give you best out of five.”

“I don’t need your charity,” Dean says, with dignity. “Best of three like normal. But finish the hand first.”

When Dean promptly takes Sam for another twenty cents he says again, “You suck.”

“I know.”

Then Dean gets crushed, willingly, at rock-paper-scissors.

***

Sam has two of the dryers up and running and he’s wrestling a mass of tangled wet denim into the third by the time Dean races back in out of the wild night.

“D’you get ‘em?” Sam calls over his shoulder.

Dean nods distractedly, clamps an elbow across his face.

“hehTCSH…hahTCHXSHH! Ugh, yeah.”

He sniffs hard and shucks out of his sodden jacket, then pulls off his overshirt, darkened with wet patches across his shoulders, soaked straight through to his long-sleeved t-shirt. He uses a dry part of the overshirt to towel off his hair and face, then to muffle another sneeze.

“Here, gimme the quarters,” Sam says with outstretched palm, and Dean hands them over, then sneezes again.

“You’re gonna keep doing that until you change."

“Yeah, well… hehTCHSHHh! all my other shirts are even wetter at the moment. I’ll dry out in a minute.”

Dean perches on the edge of the counter, sniffling, fumbling with wet laces.

“You all right?” Sam asks.

“Peachy.” The boots finally come off and Dean goes for the tissues. “Cold, wet, and sick, but I’m up $3.40 in change so things are looking up. ‘Nother round?”

“Ha, yeah, right.”

“C’mon, Sam,” Dean cajoles. “I’ll deliberately lose every other hand to keep you interested.”

Sam gives him a sidelong glare and goes to start up the last of the dryers.

“Actually,” he says, slotting in the quarters, “we’ve got an hour and a half until the clothes are done. Might as well try to get some sleep in the meantime.”

“I’m not tired,” Dean says. “Are you?”

“I’m sick and down $3.40 so, yeah, I’m done for the night.”

“Well, I ain’t playing solitaire.”

“Suit yourself.”

With that, Sam starts the machine and comes back over, nudges the deck of cards and piles of change out of the way, and swings his legs onto the counter. He bundles up an empty duffel bag for a pillow and grabs a helping of tissues, then lies down flat on his back. Dean watches him, getting more and more tired by the second through the power of suggestion, and starts to reconsider. Hour and a half of sleep….

As Sam tries to get comfortable Dean gets up and hunts around until he finds the switch that kills the glaring overheads.

“Well,” he says, feeling his way back across the room and sliding onto the counter next to his brother, “as long as my mark is turning in.”

***

They take a while to get settled. Dean accidentally-on-purpose elbows Sam in the ribs as he lies down and Sam accidentally-on-purpose catches Dean in the shin as he rolls over. Sam sneezes into his handful of tissues and Dean fumbles around in the dark within arm’s reach until he finds the box and hands it over. Sam hands it right back when Dean curls forward with a sneeze thirty seconds later.

They lie still for a while, cozy and warm with the storm blustering outside, eyelids getting heavier, yawning, snuggling deeper into their pillows.

Sam fidgets and lets out a sigh.

“Y’okay?” Dean asks him sleepily.

“Mmm, yeah,” Sam answers. “M’fine. You?”

“M’good.”

Another minute passes. Maybe two.

“Hey,” Dean mumbles.

“Mm.”

“Wake me up when the laundry’s all folded.”

“Mm.”

They’re quiet then, drifting off, stretched out side by side on the hard counter, close enough to feel each other’s warmth. Before too long they fall asleep listening to the syncopated beat of buttons and snaps and grommets clacking against the metal dryers, the steady, drowsy hum of the machines a lullaby underneath

 

***

End

 

[SneezyHolmes]

This was so good! ?

[lilysneeze]

This is truly amazing!

[MissBayliss]

Descriptive imagery is clearly your calling. 

On 6 March 2017 at 5:10 PM, sierraplaid said:

Dean perches on the edge of the counter, sniffling, fumbling with wet laces.

 

“You all right?” Sam asks.

 

“Peachy.” The boots finally come off and Dean goes for the tissues. “Cold, wet, and sick, but I’m up $3.40 in change so things are looking up. ‘Nother round?”

 

 

The image of Dean's cold, shaking fingers wrestling with those boot laces does things to me. I love this part.

 

I love the entire thing though. It's beautiful. Your dialogue is spot on. 

And I love how this comes from Jensen's comment at a convention years ago that he just wants a scene in the show of the boys in their boxers, playing cards at a laundromat. (At least that's where I assume you got the idea from, otherwise you're just even more brilliant ). 

I wish I'd written this. So, so, so, so good. 

A+ and 50,000,000 gold stars. 

[sierraplaid]

On 3/6/2017 at 2:11 AM, SneezyHolmes said:

This was so good! ?

Thank you!! I'm glad you liked!

On 3/6/2017 at 10:55 AM, lilysneeze said:

This is truly amazing!

Ahhh, thanks!

On 3/10/2017 at 4:31 AM, MissBayliss said:

Descriptive imagery is clearly your calling. 

The image of Dean's cold, shaking fingers wrestling with those boot laces does things to me. I love this part.

 

I love the entire thing though. It's beautiful. Your dialogue is spot on. 

And I love how this comes from Jensen's comment at a convention years ago that he just wants a scene in the show of the boys in their boxers, playing cards at a laundromat. (At least that's where I assume you got the idea from, otherwise you're just even more brilliant ). 

I wish I'd written this. So, so, so, so good. 

A+ and 50,000,000 gold stars. 

Wow, that's a lot of gold stars. *Flings at least 47,000,000 of them right back at you because you are awesome*  Also, if you want to take "sick boys do laundry and play poker" as a prompt, you are more than welcome to do so, and furthermore, please do so, if you wanna.  I'd love to read your take on it.

Edited March 15, 2017 by sierraplaid

[Wow Really?]

8 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

Thank you!! I'm glad you liked!

Ahhh, thanks!

Wow, that's a lot of gold stars. *Flings at least 47,000,000 of them right back at you because you are awesome*  Also, if you want to take "sick boys do laundry and play poker" as a prompt, you are more than welcome to do so, and furthermore, please do so, if you wanna.  I'd love to read your take on it.

What she said, MissBayliss ⬆️