The supermarket was chilly. Not cold, but a delightful respite from the Kansas heat and just enough to make Dean uncomfortably aware of the fact that his nipples were showing themselves off at their perkiest through his charcoal t-shirt. His flip-flops made a soft shuffling noise as Dean did indeed shuffle his way around the shop, his elbows propped on the handlebar of the cart and his eyes meandering over the shelves, looking for nothing in particular. He had all the time in the world, and today's slice of leisure would be spent stoking up the apartment. He and Sam had found themselves back in Kansas after a particularly vicious coven had vanished without a trace, and after a brief discussion they had decided it was time for some normalcy for a while. Insofar as normalcy is possible for a hunter, anyway.
The apartment Dean was now looking to fill with junkfood ("Yeah sure, Sam, I'll get fruit.") had permanently salted windows, doors and ventilation, a devil's trap in UV paint in the ceiling just outside the front door and a myriad of protective charms and wards in strategic places. But apart from that it was... just an apartment. After six weeks in [CITY], Dean found himself thinking less and less about hunting. Sam had gotten a job in a local vet's clinic, shuffling papers and petting dogs as far as Dean could tell, and was in the process of enrolling in the local college for night classes. Dean tended bar at night and was pondering making use of his skills as a mechanic. Neither of them felt the need to even look for things to hunt, and with Bobby gone there were few people who were likely to call for help. The other day Dean had been flipping through the paper after Sam had left for work and found a piece on a mysterious death not far out of town. Sam hadn't circled it, and Dean moves on to the funnies.
And now he was trying to choose a cereal. He'd come to a stop in the middle of the cereal aisle - a whole aisle just for cereal! On both sides! Shopping at local convenient stores and roadside gas stations for so long hadn't prepared him for this number of choices. Did people really need this many to choose from? As far as Dean could tell there were two core kinds. Cardboard and sugared cardboard. The sugared kind had way too many variations and Sam would complain if he picked any of them (except for Lucky Charms, he mused. Sam liked Lucky Charms...), and the plain cardboard came in cardboard boxed and tasted like cardboard and Dean himself wouldn't stop complaining if that's all there was to choose from. With a sigh he grabbed a box of cardboard and a two boxes of Lucky Charms. Sam would be happy there was some... Dean looked at the box, "All natural bran muesli" in the house, but would end up having the Lucky Charms anyway.
With a deep sigh at having to spend actual money on such nonsense, he dropped the box into his cart and made to shuffle on down the aisle to find the snacks as compensation. He looked up to find a man standing a few feet away, staring at him, almost expectantly. The man's blue eyes and soft smile made Dean pause for a moment, but when the man didn't move or speak, he continued walking down the aisle. The man's eyes followed him, and Dean could see out of the corner of his eye how his smile slowly turned into a frown. Just before Dean turned the corner he chanced a glance backwards and saw the man was still standing in the same place, head tilted curiously, eyes fixed on Dean.
The man's face stuck in Dean's mind as he moved on with his shopping. While picking up beer he wondered if he'd met the man somewhere on a hunt and he'd been rude not to remember. He shook it off, he was good with faces (Sam was the one to remember names). In any case, he was sure he'd have remembered this face since now that he'd seen it he couldn't forget it.
As he pulled crumpled bills out of his wallet to give to the frowning cashier, he thought of the man's eyes. A bright blue, even under the harsh and unforgiving fluorescent lights. Kind, interesting and curious eyes. Bright. Beautiful, even. Dean grabbed his bags, refusing the help offered by the scrawny teen, and made his way out to the car. He'd never thought another man's eyes were beautiful before. Hell, he doubted he'd actually thought a girl's eyes were beautiful, even if he'd told many of them that their eyes were the most beautiful he'd ever seen.
As he pulled the car into the lot behind their apartment block and carried the groceries up the stairs, he thought of the man's smile. It hadn't been a full on smile. The man hadn't been smiling as though something was funny, but rather as if he was happy. Who had reason to be happy in the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart?
When Sam walked through the door and flung his bag on the chair in the hallway, Dean stopped short, beer halfway to his lips and eyes on the turned-off TV, realising he'd been thinking about his brief encounter with Mr Blue Eyes for the better part of the day. If that wasn't fucked up, what was? He took a swig of his beer and picked up the remote. If Sam was home, that meant Dean would have to leave for the bar in an hour.
"Beer and rabbit food in the fridge for you," he announced unnecessarily. Their routine had been the same since they got here.
"I know," Sam folded up onto the couch next to Dean, the bowl of offensive food in one hand and two beers in his other. Dean took one of them, discarding his empty bottle on the floor. He hadn't turned on the TV yet.
"What?" Sam prompted.
"I met this guy today," Sam raised his eyebrow and a grin began spreading on his face. Dean decided to nip that in the bud quickly. "Dude, not like that. He just looked familiar."
Sam shrugged and tugged the remote out of Dean's hand to turn on the TV. "How many people have we met hunting? Thousands, easy. After a while, it's no wonder people start looking familiar wherever you go."
