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Whoever came up with the phrase “easy as pie” was either crazy or lying. Pie was not easy, pie was freaking difficult. Still, if there was one thing Sam was good at, it was research. He’d read ten cookery books, watched five YouTube videos, and persuaded Jodie to give him a crash course in bakery. (having sworn Jodie to eternal secrecy, Dean would not look kindly upon all the practice pies he had been denied) so Sam felt pretty damn confident when, several hours before Dean was likely to wake up, on the morning of his fortieth birthday, he began to cook.
Dean woke up slowly, head pounding from the unofficial funeral for his youth he’d had the previous night. Damn it he was getting too old for this shit, he was going to have to start drinking wine or something, whatever the hell old people (and Sam) had instead of fun. He sniffed the air groggily, just great, he’d only been old for a damn minute and he was already having a stroke. He pulled his covers back over his head and resolved to ignore the smell of smoke until it went away. Not like this was going to kill him, he supposed that was the silver lining of knowing how he was going to die, no need to sweat the small stuff anymore. He could eat all the burgers he liked and heart disease couldn’t get him, hah, take that Sam!
Ok so the burning smell was not going away and, when he rolled off his side, there were no longer pins and needles making his face tingle, and he was pretty sure he’d just heard yelling in the kitchen. He groaned and slowly stood up, waiting for his feet to remember how the ground worked. This was what he got for trying to out-drink Cas. He stumbled towards the kitchen, thoughts of coffee slowly being replaced with the realisation that there seemed to be smoke filling the bunker. Well at least that meant he probably wasn’t about to collapse on the floor, unless he was hallucinating, that was always a possibility.
“Sam? You didn’t try makin’ toast again did ya? Y'know you ain’t-”
“Dean? I, uh, I wouldn’t come in here if I were you.”
“What the damn hell are you…” Dean trailed off as the kitchen came into sight. Right, that was… Yep, okay…
“Uh… Happy Birthday? I made you a pie…”
Dean continued to blink in the doorway, mouth agape, staring as Sam attempted to use a rolling pin to fend off an eight foot tall, fire breathing, apple pie… man…thing. It had freaking legs! And arms, and a really nasty expression on its face, if that was a face, it was like a face? The hallucination theory was still holding up pretty damn strong.
A plume of fire shot from the creature’s mouth (why the hell did an apple pie have a mouth?) and singed the edges of Sam’s hair. Dean began to laugh and Sam glared at him, frantically patting out his flaming locks.
“A little-” Sam dodged as the pie swung a giant doughy fist at his head, “help would be nice.”
Dean grabbed his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture, “you slice it and I’ll get the ice cream.”
“We are not eating the monster, Dean!”
“But…pie.”
“Just find the spell books, I think I might have confused cinnamon and powdered dragon scale.”
“Yes chief.” Dean smirked, escaping before Sam could retort.
Cas carefully made his way down the stairs, balancing a large bakery box in his hands.
"Dean? Sam?”
“In here,” Dean called from the kitchen.
“Happy 40th year since your mother birthed you. I know you favour pie over cake but the woman at the bakery assured me that custom dictates… Ah, I see pie was already supplied.” Cas looked down at the cake in his hands, sadly reaching the conclusion that his efforts had been wasted, if the quantity of pie covering every inch of the kitchen was an accurate indicator. It seemed a little strange, but then Dean was an exceptionally messy eater. “Usually you are rather resistant to wasting pie, is this some kind of birthday tradition of which I was not made aware?”
“No, this is just the second worst example of why Sam should never cook.”
Sam cracked a smile. “Next time, I’m making cake.”