There was something brewing in the Winchester family's kitchen.

It could only loosely be called a kitchen. It was more like a kitchenette, for the "home" the three currently occupied was just a motel room somewhere in the wilds of central Indiana. Empty fields and a long, curvy highway surrounded the little mom and pop inn. The Winchesters' neighbors were runaways seeking escape from their oh-so-hectic lives in the little hamlet down the road. In truth they were just there for drug deals and sexual encounters with people who were not their wives or husbands.

John never lied to the boys. The banging on the walls late at night incited questions. He answered them.

"None of our business, go back to sleep."

It wasn't until the age of ten that Dean saw through the subterfuge and told his father, quite frankly, that he was tired of them getting rooms next door to people doing the f-word all night long. He didn't say, "doing the f-word" he actually said the "f" word. John had no idea where Dean had learned not just the word, but its definition, and he would remain clueless until one night he came back from a hunt to find six-year-old Sam staring in slack-jawed awe at the television.

A man.

A woman.

Another woman.

All sans clothings and performing a rather wild example of the f-word.

John was horrified.

His children had discovered porn.

After that John engaged the parental controls on the television by unhooking the cable box and taking the remote with him whenever he left. The boys were left to watch whatever they could pick up without the cable – which was usually PBS. Nice. Safe. PBS.

It took Dean less than a year to figure out how to override said parental controls and unscramble the pay-per-view channels. John didn't know whether to be pissed or proud. Ultimately he was forced to sit the boys down and have THE talk a lot sooner than he'd anticipated. Son number one soaked up the information like a sponge, leading John to fret about all the illegitimate grandchildren he now saw in his future. Son number two was less than impressed, and expressed his opinion of the birds and the bees in a single word.

"Yuck."

Which didn't stop either of them from sneaking peeks whenever possible. They both became very adept at identifying augmented breasts from the real things. Again, John wasn't sure if he was supposed to be upset or proud of this fact. He was struck by this sentiment a third time when seven years later he discovered Sam had gotten over his initial repugnance regarding sex and lost his virginity. Sam was the first. He had sex before his older brother did. John laid down ground rules and passed out condoms. No diseases and no pregnancies.

Dean was a bitter virgin and at that point suggested Sam start taking the pill. Neither Sam nor John thought he was funny.

At seven and three, however, the boys remained innocent little angels.

More or less.

John discovered early on that his children sometimes had their own agenda separate from his own. Things were fine until Sammy started walking and talking. The minute Dean had a co-conspirator John found himself in trouble. It wasn't that they were bad, per se, but they definitely had their own ways of doing things, which sometimes conflicted with John's. (In his teen years Sam's ways would always conflict with John's.)

Dean, John quickly found out, was a suave little genius who, despite being inclined to follow his father's rules very obediently, could also find loopholes in the most iron-clad of them. He could talk his way in or out of just about anything. The only person who could out-manipulate the great manipulator was his little brother. Both John and Dean learned right away that Sam not only realized his status as the cute little baby, but knew how to use it to his advantage. When the puppy-dog eyes and the pouty-lip came out his father and brother immediately bestowed upon Sam anything he wanted. If he managed to squeeze out some tears as well, his power over them became quite God-like.

During puberty Sam lost his powers in favor of gangly limbs and pimples, but regained them later. At twenty-three he managed to pout Dean into taking a time-out from their road trip for a Marx Brothers movie marathon. If it were any other sort of movie marathon Dean would have been right there with him without hesitation. There was, however, a long-standing feud between them regarding the Marx Brothers vs. the Three Stooges. In this case Sam won out and Dean left the theater with a bruise on his side from Sam poking him with an elbow every time he made some disparaging comment regarding Groucho's mustache.

On this particular morning sex was still a mystery, neither boy had a clue who the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges were, and Sam's pout was not deemed necessary. Dean had hatched a plan his little brother found particularly intriguing. Sam had no issues with following right along as his brother assembled the items necessary for them to complete their mission. Their father was completely unaware of this hidden agenda.

John was still mostly asleep, lounging in the bed in the other room, only barely attending to the activities of his children. In the kitchenette both boys were at the counter, standing on chairs, surrounded by magical accouterments. One such item was a large bowl. It was into this bowl Dean carefully placed each secret ingredient handed to him by his small assistant.

"Magic wheat powder," he intoned gravely.

Sam handed over a bag of flour with a cough and a sneeze. He wiped his nose on his shirt as his brother requested the next component.

"Essence of Moo."

"Mooooo," Sam giggled, and passed the milk.

"Chicken butt thingie."

This item caused both boys to crack up laughing (no pun intended) and several chicken butt thingies ended up on the floor as a result. It took them a while to stop giggling so they could continue. Even then Sam kept interrupting with "chicken butt" from time to time, which started them up again. Dean finally laid down the law and banned Sam from using the word "butt." Plain old "chicken" wasn't quite as funny. The giggling ceased begrudgingly.

"A sprinkle of candy stuff..."

"Huh?" Sam blinked up at his brother. His face was streaked with magic wheat powder and a trickle of chicken butt thingie innards ran down his forehead. "Don't have any canny."

"Sugar," Dean hissed. His pretend role of Magus the Magnificent Magician was in jeopardy if he had to use the real names of things. "I need a C of sugar."

"Whassa see?"

"I dunno, just gimmee the bag."

"'kay."

Magus the Magnificent stared down at the super secret magic spell he'd stolen from the great and powerful Wizard Julia Child, whom he'd seen performing the spell in his magic crystal. (i.e. on television) The Magnificent was having a hard time reading his own handwriting. Considering he was only seven and the spell had been written on the back of a paper hamburger wrapper with one of his apprentice's big fat crayons, this was understandable.

"What's 'bak pow'?" he asked.

"Dunno," replied Sammy the Simple. Magus had taken the poor boy on as his apprentice out of pity. He wasn't too bright. Couldn't read.

"We'll skip it." While wrestling with the giant spoon with which he stirred his potion, Magus studied the smudged and wrinkled bit of paper with its large purple hieroglyphs. "Blood of a lemon."

"Ew."

"It's not real blood, dummy. It's juice. Go get it."

"'kay." Sammy climbed down from his chair and hurried to the little-bitty dorm-sized fridge. He pulled it open and stuck in his head. "No juice," he announced.

"What's in there?"

"Beer."

Magus the Magnificent pondered. Beer might be a good addition, but the big bad giant asleep in the other room might get really pissed off if his beer supply came up one short.

"What else?"

"Kool-Aid."

"What kind?"

"Red kind."

"No yellow?"

"What's yell-yo 'gain?"

"The sun's yellow." Dean rolled his eyes. Sammy was sure simple all right. The big fat crayons were supposed to be helping him learn his colors.

"No yell-yo kind." Sam declared loudly.

"Shh..." Magus glanced over at the giant, who rolled over with a snort. "You'll wake Dad up."

Sam pitched his voice down into a whisper not much quieter than his normal speaking voice. "No yell-yo kind."

"Just bring it then."

"Bring what?"

"The Kool-Aid."

"'kay."

The cracked plastic container sloshed as Sam struggled with it across the floor. He left a trail of the sweet, sticky beverage from the refrigerator to the counter and down the front of his t-shirt. From then on he smelled strongly of artificial strawberry flavoring.

Dean added a giant spoon full of Kool-Aid to his potion. Sammy climbed back up onto his chair to peer over his brother's arm.

"Pink pancakes?" he said critically. "Not pink on teevee."

"That's 'cause they used the yellow juice."

"Ooooh."

"Besides," Magus the Magnificent Magician said in his best mysterious magician voice. "These are special pancakes."

"Prize inside?"

In mid stir, Dean stopped and gave his brother a hard stare. "You don't put prizes in pancakes."

"Why not?"

" 'cause you don't."

"Why?"

"Because...you...you just don't."

"Prizes in cereal." Sam said haughtily. "Prizes ken go in pancakes."

Struggling to follow his brother's three-year-old logic, Dean shook his head. "Look, you don't get a prize in bacon do you?"

"Noooo."

"Or toast."

"Yeah-huh."

"No you don't."

"Do. Got's toos in toast."

Sam was right on that one. They'd gotten some Wonder Bread once that had a sheet of temporary tattoos inside as a promotion. Dean, however, wasn't about to concede defeat. He was oldest, and a great and powerful magician, therefore he was always right.

"That was bread, not toast."

"Same thing."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is not, toast is cooked. Bread isn't."

"Oh."

Dean gave the spoon one last turn around the bowl. "Okay, we're ready."

"'bout time."

"Shuddup."

Magus the Magnificent was getting a little tired of the criticism being dished out by Sammy the Simple who, it might best be recalled, was not long out of diapers. He didn't need to be told how to conduct his magic spelling by someone who was pooping in his pants only a few short months ago.

"Abracadabra. Poof! Fire!" Dean turned on the hotplate.

It was all rather anticlimactic. The hotplate was slow to warm up, and the orange glow of its rings was far less impressive than a bonfire springing to life on command. Oh well.

"Not 'posed to play with that." Sammy supplied.

"I'm not playing. I'm cooking."

Sam appeared dubious but he kept his mouth shut this time, which was a good thing because Dean was tempted to dump the whole bowl of pancake batter on his head if he said one more word.

"Stand back," Magus warned, as he liberally prepared the griddle of doom with solidified oil of canola. Steam rose up from the melting margarine. "Now watch me work my spell, and you might learn something."

"Ooooh! 'kay." Sam stared intently at the griddle as if he were expecting it to rise up off the hotplate like a flying saucer. He was a little disappointed when it didn't.

Wizard Julia had flipped her pancakes out of a frying pan with just a quick twitch of her wrist. Magus just had a little flat griddle on top of a hotplate, not a frying pan. It took a few tries before he got the hang of turning his pancakes over with a spatula. The mutilated mass of glop he produced from the failed attempts was handed over to his apprentice for taste testing. Said apprentice had to have the maple syrup revoked when he proceeded to drown his mutant flap-jacks thus making a mess all over the kitchen counter.

And the floor.

And himself.

And his brother when he protested the master magician's repossession of Mrs. Butterworth and a wrestling match broke out.

Dean won. "Save some for Dad!"

Sam pouted, but his powers were sorely diminished due to stickiness.

Meanwhile the giant, aka John, aka Dad, was coming to full consciousness. He was actually somewhat relieved to find consciousness knocking at his door because he was dreaming. It was a good dream, but he recognized it as a dream, which therefore made it sad. He was dreaming that his present life was all just a bad dream and that he was back in his first apartment in Topeka with his old dog Barney and a very new, very lovely young bride. She was in the kitchen dressed in nothing but one of his shirts and holding a spatula very suggestively – if one could hold a spatula suggestively. She was making pancakes. Strawberry pancakes.

John cracked open one eyelid and sniffed.

Weren't strawberries an aphrodisiac?

Very reluctantly his brain reminded him that if the spirit of his dead wife was in the kitchenette of his motel room making pancakes he would probably be forced to shoot her with rock salt, and he really didn't want to do that.

He heard a clatter, and a child's voice said, "Oops."

Ah. No new bride, no spirit either, just two little kids probably needing fed.

With a groan, John rolled out of bed. First he stumbled into the bathroom to take care of business. Secondly he shuffled out into the kitchenette, rubbing his hand through his wildly mussed hair and yawning. It took him a minute to realize he really did smell pancakes.

This got his eyes open.

"Surprise!" Dean shouted.

"'prize!" Sammy echoed, and suddenly turned to his brother with a scowl. "You said no prizes!"

Dean rolled his eyes.

But both were beaming as John approached them there at the table. Sam was a gummy mess of flour, egg and maple syrup. Dean's hair stuck up in funny little clumps all over his head where it had been pulled by small syrupy hands during the Butterworth repo.

The table was set with a mismatched trio of plates along with a glass, a mug and a plastic sippy cup all filled with milk. Beside each plate was a plastic fork. At the center of the table was another plate piled high with odd, misshapen, pink pancakes.

John chose to disregard the absolutely disastrous mess spread all across the counter and piled in the sink.

"Breakfass!" Sam clapped his sticky hands. "We made it. All ourselfs."

"So you wouldn't hafta, since you got in so late." Dean explained. "They're pancakes. Magic French pancakes."

"Magic French pancakes?" John managed gruffly as he sank down into a chair. He was touched to his core, and was at a loss as to how to express it. He had gotten in late, and had been exhausted – still was – and to have the boys be so perceptive made his heart swell with pride, among other things. "Is that why they're pink?"

"No. It's 'cause we dint have the yell...ow!" Sam scowled as Dean poked him to shut up.

They were a little flat, and a little crispy around the edges – some were underdone in the middle – but as John piled pancakes on his plate and drizzled them with syrup, his stomach growled greedily. They smelled delicious. They tasted good too – very sweet, with a hint of strawberry. The three of them ate all of the pancakes and drank up all of the milk.

John leaned back in his chair and eyed the messy counter. He had an appointment later that afternoon with a gunsmith. He had also heard of a nasty poltergeist in Minnesota. When he got back from his appointment it would be time to pack up and move again.

But...

Maybe...

Maybe it could all wait.

Suddenly John didn't want to think about ghosts, demons, or vengeance. He needed goodness for a change, and here it sat before him with freckled noses and large, round eyes full of innocence. All he wanted to do today was be with his children. By damn, that is what he would do too. They'd go do something fun, something frivilous. For a day at least he could step out of the darkness and into the light.

"Boys," he said after long, silent contemplation. "Go get cleaned up. I think it's a good day to go fishing."

Dean looked at Sam.

Sam looked at Dean.

Both broke for the bathroom at full speed.

"YAY!!!!"

John smiled as he heard them fighting over the soap. "Behold..." he whispered, twirling his fork in a puddle of maple syrup. "...the power of magic pink pancakes."

And for the first time in months, perhaps years, John Winchester laughed.

---

Sam came in from outside and brushed the snow off of his shoulders. The powdery stuff fluttered to the worn, red carpeting in glistening flakes and lay there like shimmering rhinestones. It was pretty, but Sam didn't notice. He put the paper bag he held down on the kitchenette counter and crossed the room to where his brother lay sprawled out asleep on one of the double beds.

There was snow caught in the hood of his coat. He shook it down over his slumbering sibling. The shrieking yelp cold snow on bare back produced was immensely satisfying.

"SAM! Dammit..." Dean shivered as he pulled a blanket over his head and flopped back down on the pillow. "Son-of-a-bitch that's cold."

"At least a foot fell last night. Impala is buried. Battery is dead."

Dean's voice was muffled. Only one eye was visible beneath the blanket. "Christ on a fucking crutch."

"Wow, don't we have a potty mouth this morning." Chuckling, Sam shrugged out of his coat and dropped it across one of the chairs before plopping down on his bed. He jerked his head toward the bag he'd brought in. "I hiked a few doors down to the convenience store. Check it out."

Dean grunted, rolling out of bed with marked reluctance. He pulled on a shirt and poured himself a cup of coffee from the room's little coffee maker before shuffling sleepily over to the bag. As he examined the contents he paused, and turned to look at his brother with a raised eyebrow. "Pancakes?"

Sam grinned. "Pancakes."

It had been a rough couple of days for both of them. All lot of emotional baggage had been dredged up and drug around until they were both a complete mess. Sam was tormented by fears so badly he was sorely tempted to put a bullet in his own head. At least it would spare Dean from having to do it, if things were to come down to that. God only knew what Dean was thinking. They hadn't spoken to each other for nearly a day after leaving New England, but Sam was well aware of Dean's clenched jaw and the deep-set worry line etched across his forehead.

When it became apparent they would be snowed in for a couple of days, Sam felt he had to do something to break the grim mood before they both went insane.

And there was nothing else in the Winchester playbook that could make cares go away like pancakes.

Diving happily into the bag, Dean giggled like a little kid. He paused to fire up the hotplate and began whistling as he hunted down a bowl. Returning to the bag he began pulling out groceries with a broad grin spread across his face. The worry line had vanished. The tension was broken. A box of Bisquick and Dean was in ecstasy.

"Mmmm, pancakes! Hot damn, Sammy, I'm loving you right now!"

Sam sighed. He watched his brother bustle around the kitchenette for a moment before he made any sort of reply. Dean wasn't paying attention. Sam didn't mind.

"I know," he whispered, and made his addendum silently - just in case Dean did hear him and accuse him of being girly.

I love you too.