"Meanwhile back at the farm my pa hand his arm jammed in some cow's…." the excited teenager's voice filtered from the hotel room's television set.
"Whoa, wait, what the…hey Sammy, just what kind of show are you watching," Dean Winchester called out to his younger brother from behind the semi-closed bathroom door.
"How should I know," Sam answered back, "I haven't been watching. You're the one who turned the t.v. on then headed to the bathroom."
"Yeah, well you're the one out there. If you're not watching, just what exactly are you doing," Dean's voice carried his usual teasing tone.
"Well if you have to know," Sam huffed, taking his brother's bait and getting annoyed, "I'm researching our newest hunt. I'm not really convinced that what we're hunting is a Chupacabra. I mean come on Dean it could be a coyote, a wolf or even a wild dog."
Dean stepped out of the bathroom wiping his freshly shaven face with, what he hoped to be a clean, hotel, hand towel. He tossed the towel at his brother's head and laughed at Sam's disgusted eww when he unsuccessfully dodged the towel and it wound up smacking him in the face.
"Well, Samantha, those are all possibilities, but according to eyewitness accounts this thing doesn't look anything like a coyote, a wolf or even a wild dog. They all claim that this creature looks like nothing they've ever seen before," Dean slipped a clean t-shirt on then sat down on one of the beds so he could pull his boots on and continued, "besides it's not as if we have anything more pressing to look into at the moment. We're hunter's this is what we do, it can't hurt to check it out can it?"
Sam let out an exasperated sigh, "Dean, come on, yeah we're hunters but we hunt the supernatural, not the whacked out rambling's of a few spooked cattle farmer's. Seriously, I've read the police reports and they all agree that it's not a chupacabra, that it's something less sensational. They think that the farmer's who claim to have seen the thing had been drunk at the time and mistook an animal as something else; or that their trying to capitalize on this by drawing curious on lookers to the area. I really think it's nothing more than an animal."
"Ok, let's say I might be thinking you're right, well we're already here. Come on what can it hurt," Dean asked trying on his own version of the puppy dog eye's, "Please, Sammy. Please."
"Ok," Sam said trying to scowl but sensing the smile as it covered his lips, "Fine, I guess it won't hurt to check it out, but be forewarned I'm claiming the right to say I told you so."
Dean's eye's lit up and his face broke out in a smile. "Fair enough," he replied then slapped his own knee, "Hey, I'm hungry. Whatchya say we head out to that little diner we passed on the way into town."
"Yeah, sounds good. Let me turn the laptop off and I'll meet you in the car."
The two brothers sat in a booth in the far corner of the diner Sam's back to the door while his older sibling sat facing the entrance, his eye's constantly watching those who were coming and going.
Laughter blended in with the clink and clangs that were normally heard in a diner and the two men relaxed and settled in prepared to enjoy their meals when a conversation off to their right caught their attention.
At a table a group of, what were most obviously, cattle farmers sat huddled talking about the latest attacks on their cattle. A big burly man with a scruffy beard, someone had called Earl, was laughing and carrying on about the gullibility of the public, "It sure is amazin' what people are willin' to believe. I mean seriously, a chupacabra, they really believe a chupacabra is roamin' the area?"
"I know," another man who had been called Hank piped up, "It was easy to fake. I came across the murdered cows late at night and went about draining them of their blood, you know like one of those critters would do. It took a while but by the morning after they were found by those kids out roamin' the grasslands, well their reaction was well worth it. Oh, doggies, it was so funny. Did you see the interview with the boy, the news played this evening? He was so excited. Hell, the kid even claimed he saw it."
"You talkin' 'bout that Johnson boy," another man asked, "Yeah, I saw that interview. He was carrying on about how he and little Laura Wilden had been walking out on the prairie and they had found the dead cows and how he ran back to his farm to find his dad elbow deep in cow patties looking for the keys to his tractor he had dropped. I tell you those Johnson's sure are an odd family."
Sam looked at his brother trying to gauge his reaction to this interesting turn of events. He noticed the way Dean's jaw was clenched and the way his green eye's dangerously flashed and he put a hand on his brother's arm to draw his attention away from the farmer's and to him. "Dean, hey you alright man," Sam worriedly asked his brother.
"Yeah, Sammy, why wouldn't I be? I lost my appetite is all. Whatchya say we leave and go back to the motel, this place suddenly has a bad smell to it." Dean stood up and walked by the table full of farmers tossing them a pissed off look on his way out.
Sam pulled some money out of his wallet, walked up to the register and paid for their meals. He followed his brother out to the car and looked at him his face scrunched up with confusion. Sam couldn't figure out just what had his brother's boxers all in a twist.
The ride back to the motel felt a whole lot longer than the actual ten minutes it really was. Dean had gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles had turned white. That combined with the way he snapped the radio off let Sam know that his older brother was not in any mood for any type of discussion.
Sam sullenly followed Dean into their shared room and plopped down on his bed. After a few minutes of silence Sam couldn't help but ask his brother what was wrong. Dean replied with a huff that what those men did was what was wrong and that for once he wished someone would do something to show them that playing these kinds of tricks on people wasn't right.
"You know you sound a little bit like the Trickster there don't you?"
"Yeah, well I guess right now I understand where he's coming from," Dean replied. Later that night Dean snuck out of the room and headed off in the direction of Earl's farm, a plan firmly planted in his mind.
The next morning Sam woke up turned the television on and couldn't believe the report he was seeing. He saw a group of farm hands trying to corral run away cows and he heard the news reporter saying, "Meanwhile back at the farm Earl Harvey and his right hand man Hank were found huddled together in the basement babbling about how Bigfoot had come and set all their cows loose then had tried to break into the house. Earl said his wife Kaitie had saved them by scaring the creature away by shooting at it with a rifle."
Sam looked over to his still sleeping sibling and shook his head, he didn't, did he? Thinking it better to let sleeping dogs, or in this case a possible Bigfoot lie, Sam headed out to grab them some breakfast and Dean's very much needed coffee.
Dean was so caught up in the dream he was having that he didn't hear Sam leave. Dean was to busy reliving the moment he witnessed big burly Earl scream like a little girl and hide behind his wife. A smile crossed over his lips and he huddled further into the bed as the events of the previous night continued to play out in his dream.