But thinking makes it so Ch1
A/N: The boys, a beast, then beer and debate; leading to confession, concern, contemplation and care-taking. Wincest (it's fiction guys). Set early but no specific time and no spoilers. Rated for Dean's language and - oh, did I mention? - Wincest! Five chapters – one a day if you're good!
Disclaimer: This story is mine: Supernatural isn't; the M'kelebazantu is mine: Dean isn't, dammit!
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
Chapter One – The Winchester Debate
"Man, that was close!" Dean said as he fell into the Impala.
"For a moment I thought we wouldn't make it," agreed Sam as he folded himself into the front passenger seat, punctuating with a slam of the car door. "At least it was a daylight job. I wouldn't have wanted to chase that around after dark."
"No, but without the cover of darkness that thing was seriously fugly! Were those sticky-up things feathers? And the stench of that thing … what was it now?" Dean asked his brother, knowing that he would know because … well, he remembers shit like that.
"M'kelebazantu. God knows how it got out of The Congo and turned up here. We importing monsters now? I'd worry there might be more out there but they're nearly extinct in their natural habitat. I felt bad about ganking it. We should have at least tried to repatriate it." Sam sighed heavily.
"You felt bad about killing it?" Dean sounded incredulous as he started the motor.
"Well, it doesn't usually rip people to shreds on manicured lawns, Dean. It usually hangs out in West African grasslands. Its natural food source is wild pig, forest hogs, warthogs, that sort of thing. Although, there are rumours that they've been going for antelope recently, you know, like the okapi, puku and kudu ..."
"Yeah, puku and kudu, 'course," Dean mumbled, rolling his eyes, oblivious to the irony as he pulled the Impala onto the road away from the dead, now cremated, M'kelebazantu.
"Some of those species," Sam continued, shooting his brother an exasperated look, "are endangered, so maybe someone thought to ship a M'kelebazantu here before it did any more damage to the local fauna?"
"Extraordinary rendition on its arse," Dean mused, "that worked well."
"But it didn't deserve, you know, the ending we gave it," Sam said with a sigh as he rubbed his neck trying to get his muscles to relax before another headache set in.
"Sam, it nearly ate the entire contents of that gated retirement community."
"Yeah, but it didn't mean to," Sam explained lamely, "it was just doing what came naturally. It was confused, cut off from its normal food supply and out of its comfort zone; more than 5,000 miles outside it's comfort zone. "
"You're kidding me, right, Sam? We spend our lives outside of any known comfort zone but we don't chow down on retirees with pacemakers who dress for golf when they're not on the links."
"Just saying," Sam shrugged, sounding not quite half his 23 years.
"Well, I'm just saying that just 'cause this m'ukelele-batu-wotist was doing what comes naturally it doesn't make it right."
"Not from your perspective maybe, but for the M'kelebazantu," Sam stressed the name, "it was the right thing – for its survival. Nature equipped it with jaws that hinge back like that so it can feed itself on giant hogs and, um, people, it seems. Like a giraffe has an elongated neck to reach foliage high in the canopy of Acacia trees."
"Giraffes don't turn golfing widows into real widows and leave bits of the former hubby all over the landscaping. That's just wrong, dude."
"It depends on your concept of right and wrong."
"No Sam, it really doesn't. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. And eating people is wrong. End of!" Dean said shaking his head at his brother's ludicrous contention.
"It's not that simple, Dean."
"Um, yeah it is!"
"The concept of right and wrong is a construct of human consciousness that has no parallel in nature," Sam informed his brother.
"That was English, was it, dude?"
"I'm just saying that right and wrong don't have absolute values. My idea of what's right and your idea may be very different."
"Like your idea of English?"
"Dean, you can scoff …"
"Scoff? Who says 'scoff'? Sam, you're beginning to worry me."
"Well, if you don't want to have a sensible conversation …" Sam mumbled.
"You're the one that's short on 'sensible' here. I heard 'foliage' and 'tree canopy', when 'leaves on high up branches' would have got your point across just as well. And what's with the 'construct of consciousness' stuff? You're sounding a bit too much like 'Sam' even for you, Sam."
"I'm just trying to explain that not everybody agrees with what you or I may think is 'right' or 'wrong'. And nature doesn't give a shit either way."
"Yeah, I got that. We wouldn't have a job if nature had a better handle on right and wrong; good and bad."
Sam nodded solemnly at this.
"So," Dean asked, a moment later, "that bikers' bar on the road into town looked a bit of a dive, even by my standards, so you want I should swing past the gas station and get some beers to have back at the motel?"
"Yeah, sounds good. Besides, I don't really want to sit in a bar reeking of M'kelebazantu. So, back to the motel, then a shower, some beers and order in some pizza?"
"Sounds like a plan," Dean agreed as he put his foot on the accelerator a little more heavily at the thought of pizza. And a side of chicken wings, perhaps.
Their conversation about whether the M'kelebazantu was justified in its consumption of a sizeable swathe of the residents of 'Happy Briars Community for Retired Busy People' continued all the way to the gas station and then back to the motel. Nor was it deflected by two showers and a pizza delivery.
Early on, the brothers found common ground in their agreement with the action of the authorities in declaring the deaths as the work of an exotic disease. When in doubt blame something non-indigenous, because people readily accept that. An official from the Centres for Disease Control had been wheeled out to tell the public that a particularly virulent pathogen was shutting down bodily functions and then accelerating decomposition, causing gases to build rapidly in the body cavity with explosive results.
The brothers agreed that this explanation was an adequate cover for the body parts strewn around the planted areas of the pensioners' enclave, and an infectious disease story was always good for keeping away prying eyes.
But even as the brothers began to mellow, commensurate with the beer consumed, they still could not agree on the essence of right and wrong; good and bad.
"Nature doesn't have a view on good or bad, Dean. Something happens or it doesn't."
"So nature thinks that the M'ukelele- thingy is right to go round slaughtering retirees?" Dean asked sceptically
"M'kelebazantu. It's not related to any Hawaiian musical instrument! Basically, nature's okay with whatever happens. It doesn't consider anything to be 'right' or to be 'wrong'. Everything just does what it needs to do to survive. From single-celled plants to M'kelebazantu. There are no value judgements in nature. It's only humans that put the right/wrong construct on things."
"So, we're in the wrong for wanting to stop it?" Dean asked, his voice heavy with disbelief.
"No, I'm saying that without applying conscious thought to classify something as being either right or wrong, it is neither. It just 'is'. Shakespeare has Hamlet say, 'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so'."
"Trust you to quote dead poets …" Dean grumbled, checking his empty pizza box for any leftover bits of burnt cheese.
"Dead playwright," Sam corrected amiably.
"Whatever. So if no-one knows a … monster, say, is killing people then that makes it okay?"
"No, Dean, and you know that isn't what I'm saying. In nature, the things that happen are just events, deeds, actions that are 'possible'. Physically, scientifically possible. Supernaturally possible even, I mean, just because we don't understand the mechanism doesn't prevent something from happening. But only our thoughts can see those actions as being either good or bad.
"I'm sorry, Sam, but some things are just plain wrong and that's an end of it," Dean argued, burping loudly as if to emphasise his point, as he lolled lazily against the headboard of his bed.
"No, Dean, you may hypothesise or even unequivocally believe that some things are inherently wrong, but that's not the same thing as them actually being wrong per se," Sam said from where he sat on the sofa facing Dean, waving his bottle of Bud back and forth.
"D'you do that on purpose? If you dropped the college talk once in a while then perhaps you'd get laid more often," Dean observed candidly.
"Drop the … Hey, what'd you mean, 'get laid more often'. What's one thing got to do with the other … and why is it any of your business?"
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, I only want what's best for you and, well, let's face it, you haven't got lucky since …" Dean, may have been slightly inebriated but he still had enough wits about him to baulk at mentioning Jessica's name.
"Hey, no fair!" Sam complained. "Just because I don't wanna rut like bunnies with every chick I meet like you do …"
"Dude, bunnies don't rut and they don't do it with chicks. You're the college geek who just gave me a lecture on nature – you oughta know shit like that."
"That's so not the point. You know nothing about my sex life."
"See that's where you're wrong, little bro," Dean said, sitting up a little straighter and pointing his beer at his companion. "See, I know you wanna pretend that you can take it or leave it, that being celibate isn't an issue for you, but I know different, dude. You're aching for it."
"I'm what?" Sam spluttered, dribbling beer down his chin and wiping it quickly with the back of his hand.
"Aching for it, bro, and you know it." Dean's smirk at his brother's discomfort was undisguised.
"That's just wrong. You know shit!"
"Really, Sammy? You gonna sit there and tell me you don't wanna get balls deep with some hot chick sometime soon?"
Sam's neck began to redden. Even in the paltry light given off by the nightstand lamp, the only light they'd bothered to switch on, Dean could easily see the redness travel up Sam's throat until his cheeks could have guided Santa's sleigh.
"I hit a nerve there, didn't I, huh, Sammy?" Dean quizzed, sounding self-satisfied with a dusting of smug sprinkles.
"But not the nerve you think," Sam muttered to himself.
"What's that?" Dean asked with unabashed curiosity.
"Nothing," Sam said quickly. "Look, Dean, you don't know anything about me and what I want."
"I know you need to get laid!" Dean popped the cap off another bottle.
"Jeez, Dean, I'm not like you."
"Meaning?"
"Just because I don't engage in end-to-end one night stands, like you, doesn't make me desperate to get laid." Sam rubbed his neck again and took another swig from his bottle. Somewhere in his brain he knew that beer was not the way to ward off a pending headache. But another part of his brain had said, 'who gives a fuck?' and was running the show.
"You say that like regular sex is a bad thing," Dean whined.
"But that's all it is, Dean, all your hook ups. It's just sex."
"And?"
"Don't you get it, Dean? There's so much more than sex out there. There's real intimacy – the sort that comes from really sharing yourself with someone."
"Intimacy? Check! Sharing? Check!"
"No, Dean, not the sort of intimacy that involves the sharing of bodily fluids. It's a psychological intimacy, an emotional intimacy if you like, more than a physical one." Sam shook his head sadly, which reminded him of the tense muscles in his neck and his hand went back up to massage the spot.
"Where's the fun in that?" Dean asked dryly.
"I'm sorry for you, Dean."
"You're sorry for me? Dude, you've got that arse-backwards."
"No, Dean, it's true. You've never been in love. Being in love, and having an intimate relationship with someone is the best feeling in the world. But it's more than just sex. And I feel sorry that you haven't ever experienced that."
"Hey, keep yer damn pity. I do just fine," Dean blustered. "At least I get some on a regular basis. When was the last time you got laid? C'mon, Sam, out with it. 'Fess up."