Sock Issues by Luvscharlie

Warnings: None

A/N: Originally written for the prompt of "socks" at the fandom_fridays community on Live Journal.

When you travel around with two demon hunting brothers, you really don't expect things to go smoothly. Castiel realized that he still had a lot to learn about human interactions (strange creatures, humans, even under the best of circumstances), but even Cas, with his lack of understanding, didn't expect things to continuously run smooth. Those expectations would be unrealistic, and Cas preferred realistic expectations to the alternative.

It's not too far a leap to make to expect trouble in the demon hunting profession. Even when you weren't actively looking for trouble, trouble seemed to be actively looking for you… or, more specifically, for Sam and Dean Winchester. Trouble magnets, those two. Of course, on the up side, dull moments around them were few and far between.

Still when you worked as hunters, tensions ran high, and what with the apocalypse drawing nigh, well, he expected no less than a few brotherly arguments between his companions. Cas didn't claim to know much about the way families worked, but given the television shows that he'd watched during late nights spent in motel rooms with the Brothers Winchester, it seemed that most of the arguments he witnessed were considered "normal" among humans.

Still, "normal" notwithstanding, who knew that many of those daily arguments would center around socks? Why yes, he did say socks.

Apparently when you live out of motel rooms and a car, more or less, laundry becomes an issue. It was difficult for them to fight over clothes. They simply weren't the same size, so wearing one another's clothes was sort of out of the question. Thus, there was very little conflict in the area of clothes. Socks, however, were another matter. Dean insisted that every time it was Sam's turn to do laundry at whatever laundromat could be found on the side of the road of whatever town they were in (and Castiel noted that somehow it always seemed to be Sam's turn) that he intentionally lost all of Dean's socks. Sam swore the dryer ate them.

Thus, if you were Dean, finding a matching pair of socks each day was more challenging than you might think. So he would end up taking Sam's socks, and Sam apparently had a sinister big toe that liked to poke holes in his socks, so there were never many good pairs. Thus, it was a race to see who got the "good" socks first. This oftentimes led to tug-o-war games with a tube sock that Castiel thought were rather funny.

Dean rummaged through his overnight bag cursing, bringing up one sock then another, none of which came close to matching. There was a blue one and a red one, and a white one that Cas could smell from the opposite side of the room and Dean's nose curled up into a snarl.

"He does this on purpose. I swear he does. He goes and does the laundry with perfectly matched pairs of socks and comes back with nothing but orphans."

Cas's brow furrowed. "I have not witnessed Sam bringing children back with him from doing the laundry."

Dean just rolled his eyes. "I wasn't being literal. I meant socks without mates."

"Perhaps you should do your own laundry," Cas suggested.

"It doesn't work that way. I'm the oldest," Dean said, as though this should make perfect sense. It didn't.

"Is there, then, a rule that the youngest child in a family does the sock washing?" Cas asked, inquisitively. He'd never seen such a ritual on any of those late night television shows, but perhaps this was some family chore delegation that he simply hadn't heard of before. His interest was piqued.

Dean seemed at a small loss for words, but recovered quickly. "You see, Cas, there are these unwritten rules between brothers."

"I do not believe Sam is aware of this rule. Perhaps you should write it down so he will not be confused about such matters. I believe it would assist you in avoiding some of this conflict over missing socks, which seems to be never ending between the two of you."

Dean did that snarling thing again. "You have so much to learn about family relations, Cas, my friend. Brothers don't talk things out like that." Dean pulled open Sam's bag and found at least three of his missing socks. "I knew it! Little bastard was hiding them all along."

Cas suspected he was about to witness firsthand how brothers settled these sorts of "sock issues." He sighed loudly when Dean grabbed a pair of scissors and began to cut the toes out of Sam's socks. These were a new pack, just purchased after the last tug-o-war resulted in no one having socks that day.

"That'll show the sneaky little bastard," Dean said, replacing all of Sam's now toe-less socks back in his bag. He turned as Cas reached for the doorknob. "Where you going?"

"To get popcorn before Sam comes back. I'm told popcorn is called for during these kinds of events." He turned the knob and stepped outside, thought for a moment and turned back toward Dean. "If you could wait until I get back before the yelling starts?"

"No promises, Cas," Dean said with a smug smile, pulling on two matching socks, one which he had "rescued" from Sam's bag, and tugging a bit too roughly so that his toe punched through the end. "Well, damn."

Sam appeared at the door from a beer and snacks run. "Hey, what's going on?"

Cas took a bag of chips from Sam's hand in lieu of popcorn and sat down on the bed opposite Dean. "This'll do. You may begin now."