A/N: This is so old, from when I was still in love with Supernatural. I'm updating it anyway, though, because I'm sort of ridiculously proud of it…
Takes place early in the show, like first season.
Serious Like A Shark Attack
If you asked Dean what the difference was between Sam Winchester and a shark, he'd give you one answer—Sammy can't kill you.
Sharks are dangerous, unpredictable… man-eaters. That's what people believe, in any case.
People believe the same thing about Sam, too, but just like all those hippie marine biologists and "save the ocean" freaks who continue to insist that sharks are the real victims, Dean would counter those people with some well thought out—and true—excuse.
But Sam, Sam was not a killer, just like most of those sharks out there in the ocean weren't killers.
And Dean wanted to show people that.
"Let me go ooon, like I blister in the suuun," Dean sang loudly over the radio station that was slowly losing the battle with the static. They were somewhere in Texas, as far as he could tell, making their way slowly but surely to California.
"Dean, stop it," Sam protested, his eyes closed to ward off the bright beams of high noon sun. "You're voice is annoying me."
"Come on man, the Violent Femmes? Haven't heard them in forever." He started to sing the same verse and, frustrated, Sam leaned forward and slammed his palm against the beaten button that controlled the radio. The music cut off abruptly.
Dean pouted, but not for long. The sun was warm against his skin and the road in front stretched on for miles. His heart beat pounded low and dull in his chest, lulled by the hum of tires against tar, like it always was when he was on the road in the Impala. With Sam beside him, it felt like he was home. Truthfully, this was his home—the open road, travelling the states.
Dean liked it that way.
"Where are we headed?" Sam asked after a while, inserting one of Dean's worn cassettes into the slot. It was his way of apologizing for his earlier actions, Dean knew, and as Metallica filled the air lovingly, Dean forgave him.
"California," Dean said, slipping a piece of paper out of the fold of his jacket and handing it to Sam. Usually they shared plans ahead of time, but they had been—well, run out was the only word for it—at the last town, and had had very little time to plot their next move. "There have been a few suspicious attacks along a stretch of beaches over the last few years, and as far as I can tell there's a bit of a pattern."
"The ocean?" Sam said, looking over the paper, which contained an article detailing one of the attacks. Neither of them liked going to the ocean very much, it always felt too final, like there was nowhere else to go. The middle states were their favorites, where they could go in any direction and find adventure. The ocean… you couldn't do that in the ocean.
Silence fell, only to be interrupted again suddenly when Sam made a small humming noise, barely audible over the low thrum of the music. Dean turned his head slightly, his eyes trained on the road.
"What do you think it is, Sammy? Sea monster? That'd be cool… imagine shooting something like that." He smiled triumphantly. "Think we'd need big guns? Rocket launchers?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Sam said, his voice holding the stern tremble he only used when he was trying not to show his true amusement. It was one of those moments Dean really kind of loved, little brother scolding big brother.
It was all just false battles of bravado and maturity with them, honestly.
They stopped somewhere around San Francisco, in a small beach town filled with tanning salons and ice cream shops.
"Really," Dean exclaimed as they passed the fifth tanning salon. "They're two steps from a beach, why not just tan naturally?"
Sam shrugged, his mouth quirking up in that annoying Sam way. "I really can't see you living in the 21st century, Dean."
"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked, huffing. He glanced at Sam and then turned his eyes back to the road quickly to avoid hitting some random beach-bound pedestrian.
"Nothing," Sam said, raising his hands protectively. "Just, you know, have you ever really been to a beach? For a vacation?"
Dean shifted, the seat squeaking faintly. "I don't know, maybe? I'm not really the beach type, Sam."
"Or the vacation type, apparently," Sam smiled, watching as Dean shook his head once more as two bleach-blonde women walked by with miniature dogs yapping from their purses.
"Yeah, well…" Dean trailed off, finding a parking spot finally a little towards where the first attack had taken place. "We'll have to walk a bit to find it, I guess."
"How will we know?"
"Crime scene tape, just about all that a cop's good for in cases like this. The last attack was only a week ago, the beach is still closed."
"Then how will we get in?" Sam asked, eyeing the crooked fence warily, the golden sand visible in between the slats. Dean smiled at him and punched his shoulder genially.
"No imagination, Sammy. Give me a little credit."
They headed straight for the beach, foregoing their usual trip to the arsenal in the trunk. Dean didn't think they would find anything there at the moment, and if it was a spirit it probably wouldn't attack them in the open. Although, the beach was pretty secluded behind the short fence, and all those other people had seemed so involved in their selves…
Dean coughed. "Maybe we should have stopped for some guns or something. A little rock salt, some holy water…"
Sam smiled at him and handed over a small packet. "Here, rock salt. Pre-packed. And no, Dean, you can't carry a gun at a beach." He laughed as Dean stumbled over a rock that had been near buried beneath the sand. He pointed at Dean's shoes. "You might want to take those off."
As Sam reached down to follow his own advice, Dean swore and slipped off his shoes, peeling off his socks as well. The sand burned his feet, the itchy grains embedding themselves in his sweaty soles. Dean scowled and tried to brush off some of the sand, to no avail.
"Look how white your feet are, seriously?" Sam asked, laughing. "Their blinding me."
"Yeah, shut up, Bigfoot. You're no better off yourself, college boy." Dean gave Sam a rough shove, which was soon returned, only to send Dean sprawling into the sand.
"Man!" Dean exclaimed, staring down mournfully at the thin coat of sand that now dusted his clothing. "This had better be worth it."
"You're the one who suggested it," Sam said. "Don't forget that."
Suddenly, he took off running down the beach. "Hey, race you to the crime scene!" Sam called back. Dean stared at him in shock for a few moments, before shaking his head.
"We are messed up," he observed, before taking off. There was no way he was going to let his little brother beat him.
There was not much to see at the beach, and after staring mournfully at the yellow crime scene tape enclosing a small square of mussed sand for a few minutes, Sam suggested they try their luck at the morgue.
They got lucky, actually, if that's what you could call it. The secretary bought their fake police badges and led them to the back room, where the assistant had left for lunch. They assured her that they could take care of what they needed without him, and mercifully she believed them and left.
"That was a sweet old lady," Dean said. Sam scoffed and moved to pull out the drawer containing one Mr. J. Morgan.
"She was hardly ten years older than you," Sam replied, scowling down at the box containing the poor man's remains. They both peered over it as he lifted the blanket off.
"Ouch," Dean said, backing away. Sam turned and took a few deep breaths. It wasn't anything they hadn't seen before, but it was still kind of awful to remember that this had once been a person.
"So, what's the story Dean? Seems like you did all the research for this one."
"He was a college student, about twenty-two, went to the beach with his girlfriend for a party or something. Went missing around midnight and washed up ashore a few hours later, just like this." Dean coughed. "Classic Jaws if you ask me. Seems like this spirit has watched a little too much Spielberg."
"If it is a spirit," Sam said, pointing to the remains. "Look at these bite marks. They're definitely not human, and ghosts don't usually take a bite out of their victims. Sure we're not just dealing with a shark?"
"I told you Sammy, something's fishy about this." Dean paused and laughed at his own unintentional joke. He turned serious again, though, when Sam didn't join in. "Like I said in the car, this could be a sea monster or something. You know, like Nessie, only Cali style."
"Sure, Dean, I'm sure that's what it is. Hey, maybe once we kill this monster we can head on down to Scotland and take care of their little problem."
Dean punched Sam on the arm and covered the remains again, pushing the drawer in. "Let's just get out of here," he said, turning to the door.
Sam sighed and followed.
Sam was harmless, he really was, unless you were some supernatural freak—or Dean.
He didn't hurt Dean intentionally, of course. In fact, he probably never even knew he had the facility to hurt Dean, who always seemed so stoic and strong.
They were driving to the nearest, cheapest hotel, after staking out the beach for nearly four hours. It was 2 AM, and Dean had a headache. Sam was driving, so Dean's hands were free. He brought them up and began to rub his temples in smooth, soothing circles.
"What are you doing?" Sam's voice cut through, a lightning strike in the arid desert that was Dean's mind right now. Dean did not look up.
"I'm trying to do that Vulcan mind meld thingy."
Sam laughed; Dean knew he would. Sam was so into geeky things like Star Trek.
"That's not how you do it, you know," Sam replied, seemingly oblivious to Dean's sarcasm. "You hold your hands to the other person's head."
Dean smirked and reached one hand over to Sam's head. Once his pointer finger hovered just to the left of Sam's thick eyebrow, Dean held up his other hand and began to wave it around.
"I'm sensing… I'm sensing… nothing. Sorry, I can't seem to get the signal." He tapped his finger to Sam's head, smirking when his brother swiped his hand blindly away.
"You're so stupid, Dean," Sam said, his eyes never leaving the road. Dean's smirk slid off.
He was quiet for the rest of the car ride.
Sam never meant a word, and Dean knew that, but still… it hurt. Sam was Mr. College, the one with the education. Dean was Mr. Drop-out, with more street smarts than book smarts. He did not think that Sam thought of him as stupid, or beneath him, but when he said stuff like that…
It kind of made Dean believe him.
"Did I upset you?" Sam asked once they were in the hotel room. Dean grinned.
"You think I care about what you say, Samantha?"
"Dean, shut up." Sam scoffed and turned away, and Dean felt sorry, like he always did when he came off too cold, too mean.
But Dean was mean, and Sammy knew that, and so it didn't bother him all that much. He tore off his shirt and crawled under the scratchy hotel covers.
Sam turned on the news and the last thing Dean heard before falling asleep was a female news reporter trading some joke with her partner.
In the morning they went back to the beach and just sat in the sand for a while, watching the tide go out.
"It's very peaceful," Dean said. Sam looked at him like he had grown a second head.
"Just saying. I don't like the beach or anything, but… its weird thinking that something out there can kill you."
Sam took a deep breath. "Yeah. You always were good at ignoring danger."
Dean felt that there was some hidden meaning there, but he didn't want to look into it. Instead, he picked a fight.
"Hey! I don't ignore nothin' around me, Samsquatch. I'm like a goddamn Batman—ever vigilant and stuff, you know?"
Sam laughed dryly. "Sure, yeah."
But Dean didn't feel like he had won.
They decided to stay at the beach for a while, which turned out to be a good move. Once the beach became more crowded, and more people went into the water, someone reported seeing something in the water that seemed strange.
Dean and Sam went to check it out.
It was some kind of shark beast. It had stood up in the water and grumbled something in its weird shark language and then Dean had shot it.
And then Sam had shot it.
And then it was pretty much dead.
"Well," Dean had said. "That was surprisingly easy."
And then they turned around, with their guns still out, and everyone screamed.
They were back on the road, heading North again. It was still the same country they had driven on just a week earlier, still the same air they had been breathing in for their whole lives.
It was still the same Dean, still the same old Impala.
Dean knew Sam thought he was different than others. But he wasn't. He was a hunter, through and through, trained by the best.
All he had now was a fancy college education that should have made him a little rusty with a gun, even though it didn't.
Dean wasn't jealous of Sam. He had always known that Sam was smarter—in book smarts if nothing else—but Dean had his own way of doing things, and so it never bothered him.
Even now, it didn't bother him. People who saw Sam as different must have been dropped on their head as a baby. They were stupid for thinking something was wrong with him.
Sam was stupid for thinking something was wrong with him.
There were a lot of dangerous things in the world. Sharks were dangerous—sharks could kill people.
Sam was dangerous too, but he was not a killer.
And Dean was going to show him that.