Work Text:
Dean put the casserole dish down as quietly as she could, but she didn't turn the radio off. Her knife was in her boot, just the way it should be, but she took the sawed-off from the top of the fridge as she walked to the front door. It was too early for Sam to be home by almost two hours, too early for Dad by eight or nine days, the landlady always called before she came by, and there wasn't anyone else who had a reason to be walking up the stairs to their over-the-garage apartment. She reached the door before whoever-else did, and settled in so she'd be behind the door when it opened. She adjusted her grip on the weapon and waited.
They had a key. Dean wished the door had a peephole, or even a window, but then the door opened, and the guy walked on in, dropping a bag and closing the door behind them. Dean almost laughed, recognizing the set of Dad's shoulders, but he hadn't told her exactly what he'd been hunting, and if it'd been a shifter —
"It's me, Dean," he said, rolling his neck from side to side and then glancing over his shoulder. "Attagirl, though."
"Prove it," she said, moving her finger off the trigger but keeping it close.
"Christo," he said, then reached into his back pocket. Dean squared her shoulders, really not knowing if she could shoot something that looked that much like her dad, but he just pulled out his smallest silver knife and scratched his arm, right below his rolled-up sleeves.
Dean lowed the sawed-off and relaxed, satisfied. "You didn't tell us you were coming in early."
"Had to clear out of town fast," he said. "I left the phone charger in the room."
She nodded. "How'd the job go?"
"Almost a week better than I thought it would." He picked up his bag again and dropped it on the end of the fold-out couch, then headed to the kitchen. "You got dinner started?"
"Yessir," she said, putting the shotgun away and going back to the line of leftovers on the counter: rice still in a take-out box, and the last of the broccoli beef neither of them liked much, and a carton of eggs, and a packet of gravy mix, and a jug of milk. She cracked three more eggs than she'd planned on while John sat down behind her, and she was glad she and Sam had finished the last of the beer over the weekend, so there weren't any bottles for him to find in his underage children's fridge. "I hope you're not hungry now, though, because it's not going to be ready until Sam gets home."
He hummed. "When's that supposed to be?"
"Should be about six-thirty," she said, and checked her watch. "He's doing debate, and today's a meeting or a practice or something."
"Debate," Dad said slowly. Dean sighed and stirred everything together one last time, then put it in the oven and turned on the heat. "He needs to stay active in between growth spurts. None of the sports teams had a spot open?"
None of the teams he wanted, Dean thought, but didn't say. She shook her head as she filled two glasses of water at the sink instead, and joined Dad at the table. "There's some bit about speaking off the top of your head to it," she said. "I figured that'd be good for him."
John drank, then nodded. "Wouldn't have thought Sam needs to learn how to argue better," he said, and grinned briefly at her.
"Nossir," Dean said, laughing herself. "But don't you always say there's always room to improve?"
He snorted. "Never thought that'd come back to bite me in the ass."
"Should I get ready for us to head out pretty soon?" Dean asked after a moment, not even sure what she wanted the answer to be. A move was rarely worth the shit Sam pitched about it, but they'd been here for almost two months, a long time.
"There'd better not be some reason we need to clear out," he said, eying her.
Dean shook her head. "Just curious," she said, and held his gaze until he nodded and took another drink, finishing off his water.
"I figure we'll be here at least another week," he said. "The rent's paid up that far, and it'll give us time to find something else."
She nodded smiled a little — he'd said us, like they'd be picking it together or something.
"Looks like you and Sam've kept the place in decent shape," he said, glancing around the kitchen. "We should even get the deposit back."
"Hopefully," she said. "We're on pretty good terms with the landlady, too. I always make sure to give her free dessert when she comes in to work."
Dad raised an eyebrow at her. "You waiting tables, Deanna?"
She winced and shook shook her head automatically. That'd been a stupid slip. "Nossir," she said, then pulled a face and nodded instead. "Well, yes, I am, but it's not a bar, I swear," she said quickly, before he could interrupt. "It's this diner down the street. I do the early bird crowd, five to one-thirty. Nothing but little old ladies."
He was still eying her, and this time, Dean looked away. "It was the best-paying gig I could find. None of the body shops wanted me, and there's a temp agency that fills all the secretarial stuff around here, and they weren't taking on new girls when I talked to them."
"When've you been doing PT, then, if you're working in the morning?"
"After dinner," she said, "before bed. That way, Sam just eats the leftovers instead of making himself an entire other meal."
Dad hummed.
"Six miles a day," she volunteered. "And target practice on the weekends, and I make him do his Latin while he's doing school work."
"I'll come running with the two of you tonight," he said, and stood. He put his glass next to the sink and dropped a kiss onto the top of Dean's head before going back into the living room. "You've done a good job around here, Dean."
She wasn't looking forward to Sam's mood when he came home, but Dean smiled as she poured herself another glass of water.