Work Text:
Dean carefully laid out his implements on the counter before getting to work.
He’d been thinking about doing this for awhile, and today felt like the day. It was snowing and miserable outside - he knew, he’d just been out in it. One of those crappy cold days where you try not to go anywhere and try not to do anything.
He had gone out and bought the fattiest, Ho-Mo-iest milk he could find at the store. Heavy whipping cream. Belgian chocolate. White chocolate. Fresh spices. Gourmet coffee.
Sam acted like he didn’t have a sweet tooth, but the guy was lying through his sugar-addicted teeth. Yeah yeah, his body’s a temple and all that, he didn’t like eating junk. But high-quality junk? Sam was all over that. Dean had seen it before. Sam would eat half an organic cheesecake in one sitting (Dean filed that away for a different afternoon of cooking). Not that Sam wanted dessert every day or anything. But mostly, he wanted to avoid the chemicals and preservatives they’d been eating with their convenience store and diner food their whole lives.
Dean set a pot of milk on to simmer. Low-medium heat. It was important to do this slow - he’d learned the hard way that nothing tasted worse than scorched milk. He’d have to watch it, stir it. Let it slowly rise to a simmer, not quite boiling.
After several minutes of heartily resisting walking away to do something else and trying not to die of boredom, the milk was hot enough for the next step. Grater in hand, Dean grated in half a bar of Belgian chocolate. The guy at the store said it was the good shit. Then half a bar of white chocolate. Stir. Stir. Let it all melt and blend together.
So apparently, just chocolate and hot milk was good and all, but not a deep flavor. Whatever “deep” meant. The recipe suggested spices for more “complexity”, instead of just straightforward sweetness.
Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger. The freshest he could find. A generous shake of the first, two pinches of the second, one pinch each of the third and fourth. It was easy to go too hard with the spices. You want to go just hard enough, apparently. Stir.
Once Dean was confident everything was melted and blended - and it smelled awesome - he turned the burner down to low and started the final step.
Whipping cream, a spoonful of ground coffee, some sugar. Dean took the electric mixer and went at it until he had a small mound of tan-colored whipped cream.
Ladle the hot chocolate into mugs - not those tiny-ass mugs Sam always used, real mugs. Top with a dollop of caffeinated whipped cream, then a few shavings of dark and white chocolate. Dean was pretty proud of himself. Looked like something Starbucks would serve.
Dean walked into the main room with his prizes. Sam was right where he’d left him earlier - hunched over a bunch of books, trying to figure out something or other. Sam barely glanced up at Dean’s approach, but did a double-take when he realized Dean wasn’t holding a pair of beers like he’d expected. His eyes went wide.
“Dean, what-”
“I promise it’ll be worth the sugar, Sammy. But not in here, not with all the books. Come into my room, we still got Mando to finish off."
Dean had never seen Sam abandon a project so quickly in his life.