anthology

tofu

standard tw for swearing because I Cannot clean up my language

word count: 846

notes: it's a bird! it's a plane! it's a light angst comedy fic! I actually managed to exercise restraint and not torture sam this time. this was all started because I am fucking obsessed with that scene with the bacon. why did he spit it out. why is he okay with veggie bacon and not pork bacon. is he a vegetarian. since when. why. there is so much There and this happened.

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"Hey! Sammy! Why do we have... tofu? tofu in the refrigerator?" Dean called from across the kitchen. Sam, who was sitting at the kitchen table, albeit quietly, flinched at the shout.

"Because I bought it, Dean." came Sam's response at a normal volume thank you very much. The older Winchester noticed, then, that Sam was sitting at the table, roughly ten feet away and took full advantage of his proximity to send his brother a Look.

Dean, of course, got a Look back.

"Yes, I got that, genius. Why did you buy tofu?" Dean spat 'tofu' in a similar way that one would say 'cockroach' or 'mitch mcconnell', which Sam found entirely unfounded.

Tofu was good! Well... tofu wasn't good, but the seasonings you put on it could make it good.

"Because I'm going vegetarian and need a protein source."

At this, Dean give him yet another Look, though this one was equal parts surprised, disappointed, and affronted. Sam wondered vaguely how he could fit all of that into one facial expression, and what it meant that he could read it that fast. Sometimes his brother was easier to understand than english, and sometimes it was all ancient greek (or rather, an early form any given Western European language, Latin or Germanic. That shit is complicated).

"And here I thought I raised you right." Dean shook his head clicked his tongue, looking the part of a mother who caught her son smoking (apron and all). Sam simply scoffed and turned back to his research, a fatal mistake as he didn't see the smile working it's way onto Dean's face.

"This means I am now within my rights to call you 'soy boy'."

Sam tried to keep a straight face, giving up on glaring because damn, Dean was right. Not that Dean needed to know that.

"I'm pretty sure that as not only a convicted felon, but a legally dead convicted felon, all of your rights have been revoked."

Dean just grumbled about "know it all little brothers" and the Geneva Convention. Which, of course, lead Sam's thoughts away from the 3rd century scripts he was reading and definitely not spilling coffee on, to the Geneva Convention. Before he had finished processing the thought, his sleep-deprived caffiene-overloaded brain had the sentence shooting out of his mouth.

"Dean, we've violated the Geneva Convention. Wait..." Sam trailed off, "does that mean we're international criminals?"

Dean shifted, visibly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going and Sam cursed himself. He was preparing an apology when Dean cut him off with an all-too-blithe response.

"Well, this war criminal is going to make some burgers and would like to know if his partner in crime would like his soybean mush in burger form."

So Dean had heard of tofu.

"That's not exactly how you prepare it, Dean." He spat curtly.

Which was the wrong thing to say, and Sam noted bitterly that he seemed to be on a roll. He wanted to blame stress or tiredness or even the conjugation of verbs across ancient dialogues being so fucking wonky, but he still felt like an asshole.

"Sorry," He began "'m tired. I appreciate it, though. There's black bean burgers in the freezer, if you wanna make those."

Dean shoulders lost some of the tension that could be seen from across the kitchen, and Sam cursed himself for a third time for putting it there.
"Fine, but they better not make my burgers taste like veggies and all that other shit."

But the older Winchester made his way over to the freezer and pulled out the box of patties, throwing them on the grill anyway. As his brother whistled something that may have been Back in Black, Sam was reminded with a pang of Bobby, which Sam quickly filed in the file cabinet with 'later' stuck messily over 'never' (as if labels would change the fact that it still served the same purpose).

"So... vegetarian. What made you give up meat? Was it the blood and guts or did you wake up one day and decide to complete your transformation into a hippie?"

Sam gave Dean an annoyed look, which served its purpose to make his brother smile because this was Dean forgiving him for his snapping and supposedly weird dining habits.

"Meat isn't very good for you, especially red meat. Animal husbandry is also bad for the environment and if we're saving the world, why would we kill it with an insatiable appetite for meat? Cows are one of the top greenhouse gas producers-"

"Point taken." Dean cut in, sensing a Sam Winchester Rambling Infodump even before the man himself did. "I guess I can let you finish your hippie-millineal-stegosaurus apotheosis or whatever."

Sam chuffed, knowing this was the closest to approval he was going to get from Dean "meat man" Winchester, and loving it.

"Glad you approve, oh wise patriarch."

"Damn right." Dean grumbled, and Sam knew: all was well, and he could go back to reading and transcribing these manuscripts into a less mind melting language.

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notes: in case you can't tell, I think romantic and germanic languages are definitely bullshit. also, I'm salty about how they treat documents. no GLOVES no ARCHIVAL SHEATHS no ARCHIVAL PAPER just EAT RIGHT OVER THE 500 YEAR OLD PIECE OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IT'LL BE J U S T  F I N E. they're gonna degrade the shit out of those books. the scene with the steins piling up the books and dousing them in gasoline hurt me on a very deep level. also, angsty explanation: on bad days, the line between human flesh and animal flesh blurs. mid-chew his mind will include bits of fabric and hair, and while sam knows it's not real, it's still not a pleasant experience he'd rather avoid. veggie power?

thoughts? opinions on sustainable farming methods in a post-green revolution world? requests?

thanks for reading luvs 💙