No. Sam did not just say that.
"You're gonna what?" Dean's magazine landed on the bed, and his head swiveled around so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.
Sam was standing in front of the door to their motel room with his hands on his hips, laughing that disbelieving laugh he always gave when he couldn't comprehend how dumb somebody was being.
"An ashram. Yoga, you know? There's this place near Malibu, been in business since the eighties. They put you on this strict diet, send you out hiking 15 miles a day, weight training, meditation, the whole nine yards." He frowned, then looked down and patted his belly. "We have a few days off. I wanna work off some of those burgers you're always making me eat."
God, his brother was a ninny sometimes. "Let me get this straight," Dean said. "You get some free time and you're gonna go all lettuce-leaves-and-seaweed-wraps with a bunch of crunchy-granola hippie-dippies who think meditation is a spectator sport?" He rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man. We're in California. That means two things. Beaches and babes." He paused. "Oh. And beer."
Sam's brow furrowed. "Don't worry, posse magnet, I can drop you off in Laguna Beach so you can do…whatever it is you do," he said, looking like he'd bitten into a lemon. "I'll be back in a couple of days to pick you up."
Oh, Sam didn't just say that, either. Dean jumped to his feet. "Nuh-uh. No way. I'll drop you off at your ass-ram and go back to Laguna myself. You're not takin' my baby anywhere near that freak show."
Sam sighed. "Dean, that's almost two hundred more miles. It doesn't make any sense."
Dean crossed his arms and glared at his brother. "The answer is no."
~oOoOoOoOoO~
The sign read, "Aliso Beach Park." Here he was, finally. Sam had talked his ear off all the way to Malibu—it would be great to have some peace and quiet. Dean slowed the Impala and turned into the parking lot. This was supposed to be one of the nicest beaches in the area, not too busy, not too secluded. Someplace he could mind his own business and check out the scenery, 'til he was ready to not mind his own business.
Normally, he didn't do beaches. He'd told that little hiker girl back in Blackwater Ridge, "Oh, sweetheart…I don't do shorts," and that was totally true. But unless you wanted to look like a creeper, the only way to immerse yourself in bikinis if you weren't at an auto show or a strip club was to go and strip yourself, and get out on the sand with everybody else. It didn't happen often, but every once in a while, the urge struck him. Luckily he had his dad's coloring. His skin never got white enough to send all the chicks running for the hills.
He put the car in park and shut off the engine. Damn, did his legs look weird, sticking out of a pair of tan and green swim trunks. He stared at his toes, sticking out of his new flip-flops, and tried to remember the last time they'd seen the sun. Then got out of the car, rummaged in the back seat for the towel he'd borrowed from the front desk of the motel back in Laguna Beach, grabbed his cooler, and locked the car doors.
The crowd out on the sand was sparse, populated by a few blue umbrellas. There were a few teenagers surfing—mostly guys, of course, but a couple of girls, too. He pulled off his flip-flops and headed toward the ocean, aiming for a spot to the far left of everyone else, feeling the hot, dry sand squish up between his toes. About twenty feet shy of the water, he stopped and laid out his towel, then pulled a beer out of the cooler. He took a coupe of gulps, then laid back on the towel and put his arm over his eyes.
What the hell was wrong with Sammy, anyway? Ashrams? Meditation? Cleansing regimens? Hadn't Sam permanently avoided all that yuppy bullshit when he left Stanford? Oh, well. Dude's loss. Here he was, getting beer-drowsy in the sun on one of the nicest beaches in the state, and his brother was on a six-hundred-calorie diet, doing downward dog with a bunch of uptight suburban women in yoga pants.
"Hey, stranger."
Dean lifted his arm, squinted into the sun, and found himself looking up at two girls. They were a few years younger than him, and both in good shape. One had long, wavy brown hair and freckles, and was wearing a yellow one-piece. Whatever. The second one was a blonde in a bikini, but her face was like that pug's, that little dog that used to live next door to them back in Lawrence.
Oh, well. Might as well be polite. "Hey. What are you ladies up to?"
They'd brought their towels with them, so they sat down and accepted the beers he offered and made small talk for a while. The brunette was in school at UCSD and the blonde had just graduated from USC, and they'd decided to hit the beach for a couple of days after her graduation party. A psych major and a med student, probably Dean's List and in four years had never had a bong hit. Yawn.
Twenty minutes in, he started to get bored.
"Well," he said, raising his bottle, "I gotta meet my brother soon, and I need a long walk first, so I'll see you girls later."
"You have a brother?" the brunette asked, trying hard not to look excited. She probably figured she'd be the one to be left out, if he was gonna choose. She was wrong.
"Yeah, but he's not feeling too well, you know, I'm, uh, here to help look after him after he gets out of the hospital this evening. Kidney stone." Dean made a face.
"Oh." They both looked disappointed now.
He laughed to himself. Still got it.
He finished his goodbyes, smiled and waved, and walked back to the car to stow his stuff. Then he walked back out toward the water and headed south along the shoreline.
Sand and surf weren't really his thing, but you know, once in a while, it was nice to get away from the death and blood and things that went bump in the night. What was that quote, the one from Repo Man? "Ordinary fuckin' people. I hate 'em!" But you really couldn't blame them, all these people with no idea what the world was really like, who didn't see past the nose on their face and took their daily lives for granted.
He hadn't gotten far when a flash of color caught his eye. He'd been looking to his left, at the dark cliff walls, when…yep, there it was again. Red. Red…bikini. Whoa, wait a minute. Red hair.
Things were about to get a lot more interesting.