The Runt of the Litter

When All Else Fails, Blame Sammy

Note: Here it is, short and sweet. Couldn't get this idea out of my head, so I had to write it down. Hopefully it makes someone smile.

When All Else Fails, Blame Sammy

"I think you're doin' it wrong."

"Well, then you do it."

In a flash, Anna put her hands up in surrender, backing away from the spatula Sam was trying to hand her. "No way, man. I'm useless with that thing."

"Then stop telling me how to do it."

"I'm not telling you how you should do it. I'm just saying that ain't it."

"Which is worse," Sam pointed out, waving the spatula at her in a gesture of annoyance.

"Smoke!"

Sam spun back toward the frying pan on the stove. "Shit," he grumbled under his breath.

"How is this so hard?" Anna grouched as he turned the burner off and picked up the pan.

"I don't know, but I've been manning the spatula for twenty minutes and we've burned almost a full dozen of eggs. It's your turn."

Anna tentatively accepted the spatula this time as he held it out to her. "Okay, if it's burning every time maybe we should, like, turn the heat lower this time..." She turned the burner back on as Sam put the pan down on it, and instead of putting it on high, she put it on medium. "Okay, eggs," she commanded, almost appearing to imitate Dean in the kitchen as she straightened her posture and took the eggs Sam handed her. "Let's just do two this time in case I screw it up."

"Good idea," Sam agreed seriously, taking back one of the eggs he'd handed her. He watched as Anna cracked the eggs into the pan one-handed. She had been baking pretty frequently since they moved into the bunker, but she had no experience working with the stove top. Still, her ability to make chewy chocolate chip cookies had to mean something for her egg-scrambling skills, right? Wrong.

"Why are they sticking so bad?" Anna asked a couple minutes later, scrunching her nose as she tried to scrape a layer of burning egg from the bottom of the pan. She finally succeeded in getting the crispy layer from the bottom of the pan, but the spatula made a terrible screeching sound as it scraped against the frying pan, and both Anna and Sam cringed bodily. "I can't. I can't do it," Anna said fervently and handed the spatula back to Sam before he could refuse.

There was smoke beginning to furl upward from the pan again, and it was not an encouraging sight in the slightest. "Don't hand it off to me when they're burning!" Sam gave her an accusatory glare and tried to give the spatula back but Anna shook her head vehemently and backed away from him, reaching instead for her cup of coffee sitting on the shelf beside the stove.

"Take it back," Sam ordered, trying to sound bossy like Dean, trying to sound like he wasn't panicking over something as simple as a pan of eggs.

When Anna looked his way again, cradling her coffee in both hands like it were a comforting stuffed animal and looking prepared to argue, her eyes suddenly went wide enough to startle her brother. She pointed frantically in the direction of the stove, "Sammy!"

Sam turned to see that the smoke was coming more steadily, and there was a distinct burning smell filling the air around them.

"Turn it off!" Anna exclaimed loudly. They both flinched when an alarm started going off somewhere with a loud beep beep beep before she'd even finished speaking. Her coffee sloshed over the sides of the cup, effectively soaking one hand. It was merely warm by this point and didn't burn her, because they'd both been too focused on the task of cooking breakfast for their older brother to drink their coffee. "Okay, epic fail. We gotta call it quits," Anna said with finality over the beeping of the alarm.

Sam looked disheartened at the prospect, but he nodded in agreement. "Where's that alarm?"

"Probably close. I don't think we made enough smoke to travel to another room." They both began searching, hands over their ears so they wouldn't have to listen to the incessant beeping. "It's gonna wake Dean up."

"I'm up." Dean's voice caught them both off guard as it boomed over the beeping of the smoke detector. He marched past Anna in his dead guy robe and slippers and slapped at a round thingy high on the wall behind her. Like magic, the beeping stopped, and Anna grinned, gladdened that they were good now.

"Oh, that was-" Sam started but then frowned curiously at what Dean had hit. "What is that thing?"

"Smoke detector," Dean answered tersely, then he wrinkled his nose and squinted in the direction of the stove. "Move," he told Sam as he shoved by him to get to the stove. He urgently turned the burner off that Sam had apparently forgotten about in his rush to find the alarm and turn it off. His next move was to bring the frying pan to the sink and start cold water flowing into it. Finally he let it clatter in the bottom of the sink and turned off the faucet. "Seriously?" he then demanded, going full Dad-mode as he glared between both his younger siblings.

"I told him to shut the burner off," Anna defended, gesturing at Sam as she threw him under the bus. She lived by a motto and that was: When all else fails, blame Sammy.

Sam looked at her like he wanted to say something, but then his expression just fell into a bitch face and he stayed quiet.

Dean did shoot Sam an extra fiery glare after receiving that tidbit from Anna, but then he looked back at their sister. "If you're gonna burn the bunker down, then stay out of the kitchen," he told both of them. Then, to Anna, "I would've expected better from you. I mean, I knew Sam was helpless, but I would have trusted you in the kitchen, Rugrat."

"That's just 'cause I make pie," Anna said, crossing her arms in frustration. "Eggs are harder."

"Eggs are a hundred times easier," Dean argued, looking at her like she'd just suggested demons were nice people. Making pie meant crust that had to be rolled and fit to a pan, making filling on the stovetop or that had to be chilled, and baking for up to forty five minutes. Pie could take hours. Dean often made breakfast in under twenty minutes.

"Yeah but they burn way faster," Sam pointed out solemnly.

"Are you-?" Dean stopped himself before this little debate could go any further. "What did you put in them?"

Anna and Sam exchanged a look of confusion. "Uh... eggs," Sam answered as both their gazes panned slowly back to Dean.

"And?" Dean asked expectantly.

"There's another ingredient to scrambled eggs?" Anna asked, squinting suspiciously at him. "I mean they're... eggs."

Dean's face fell into dull disappointment and he sighed heavily. If they didn't know to put anything else in then that meant they hadn't added butter which meant the eggs were sticking to the pan and burning, hence the smoke alarm. "Alright new rule," he said tiredly. "You," he pointed at Anna. "Stick to baking. And you," he turned on Sam. "Stick to geekhood."

"Gladly," Sam said, hands raised in mock surrender. As soon as he saw Dean going for the sink to take care of the pan, he left to do precisely as had been suggested and do some research.

Anna wrinkled her nose as he left. How Sam could always find something to research, she had no clue. "So, what does go in eggs?"

"Butter. Little bit of milk. Cheese. Bacon if you're doin' it right."

Anna suddenly realized that she should have known that. Everytime they ate Dean's scrambled eggs there was bacon and cheese involved. Of course, it was more difficult to tell the butter thing from eating them, but she should've known some of that.

"Wow. We're pretty useless, huh?" she remarked.

"In the best way, Rugrat. Now get outta here so I can make something edible."

La Fin