I have just discovered that Down Under is now producing its own version of 'Jersey Shore', called 'The Shire' (apparently their brains are halfling-sized). It has become apparent that somebody in this country has cloned that Snooki creature. I am so ashamed of my people; poor fella my country. I will have to jump on a boat, and flee to New Zealand to seek cultural asylum...


Chapter Eight

"So, how's the boy doing?" asked Kaz as she came back inside, followed by Sam, who was loaded down with bags of groceries and looking slightly green.

"I could ask you the same thing," replied Bobby, taking in the colour of Sam's face and his shell-shocked expression, "But Dean is awake, and moanin' like a ghost from a B-grade horror movie."

"I'll just go check on him, then if he's up to it, I'll heat him some soup," she said, putting down the pharmacy bag. "Or maybe he'd just like a lemon drink." She gave Sam a concerned look. "I think we'd better keep an eye on Sam, too," she opined, a note of worry in her voice, "I thought he was going to pass out at the pharmacy, then he started on the rum on the way back."

Bobby turned his attention to Sam, who sank slowly into a chair and wore the expression of a man who has dangled over the edge of the abyss of Hell by his jockstrap. "So, er, how did the supply run go?" he asked evenly.

"Bobby," replied Sam, the thousand-yard stare going straight through the older Hunter, "I can never go back to that pharmacy again. Ever. I can never be in the grid square of that pharmacy again. In fact, it might be best if I just never go into Sioux Falls ever again..."

"Well, you're back here with supplies, all your limbs attached and no police poundin' on the door asking for ya, so it can't have been that bad," Bobby joked.

Sam described the stop at the gas station, then the dreadful ordeal of the pharmacy visit, in as much detail as he could bear to relate.

"Then she said we had to go get groceries, because you have hardly anything in the cupboards," he said hollowly, "And I said okay, because I was pretty sure it couldn't get any worse..."

"So, er, what happened?" pressed Bobby.

Sam turned a tortured expression on him. "It did," he replied.

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Sam had been only too glad to get out of the pharmacy, clutching at the bag containing the shampoo, conditioner, soap-free skin wash ("I know how that cheap stuff can make you itchy, honey), some anti-fungal cortisone ointment ("Tinea is no laughing matter, Sam, you spend all that time on the road, and you do not launder your shorts often enough, what do you expect? You were squirming in your seat all the way back to Bobby's place"), chlorophyll/charcoal tablets ("Your brother has a point, sweetie, you can be pretty toxic after Mexican food – I don't need you scorching the upholstery with your gas when you're inside me") and packet of jelly beans ("Because you've been such a good boy!") that Kaz bought for him. He followed her, somewhat shell-shocked, as she headed for the supermarket.

On the way, though, she saw a store front that caught her attention:

UNDERCUTTERS EXPRESS HAIRDRESSING

Come on in! No appt. necessary.

"I think we've got time for this," she stated cheerfully, heading into the salon.

"Oh, er, okay," Sam said, following obediently, still in shock, "Uh, how about I go get us coffees or something while you get you hair done?"

"Oh, Sam, honey," Kaz laughed, "We're not here to get my hair done!"

"What?" he spluttered, as one of the hairdressers arrived at the front counter to serve them.

"This is my nephew Sam," Kaz explained, "And he needs to get his hair trimmed."

"No I don't!" Sam yelped, clutching his bag.

"Yes you do," Kaz countered, "Much longer and you'll need to put it into a pigtail, sweetheart."

"If it's just a trim, we can do that for you right away," said the obliging hairdresser, "Just come on through..."

"No, you can't!" yipped Sam.

"Yes she can," insisted Kaz, "Oh, he's always hated getting his hair cut," she explained to the hairdresser, gazing at her 'nephew' fondly, "Would you be happier sitting backwards on my lap, like Dean used to do for you?"

"That was when I was seven years old!" he burst out.

"Sam, I just want you to be comfortable," she told him soothingly, "And if you have to sit on me to do that, that's fine. It's okay," she reassured the slightly bewildered hairdresser, "He and his brother sit on me all the time, sometimes for hours, drinking beer and just watching the stars..."

"No we don't!" squeaked Sam.

"Yes you do!" smiled Kaz, "And I enjoy it too, you know, just as much as having the two of you bickering contentedly when you're both inside me. Now, come on through, Sam, it's just a trim." She took him by the elbow, and headed after the hairdresser.

"I don't want my hair cut," complained Sam, sounding like he was actually seven years old."

"Sam, it has to be done," said Kaz firmly, "You are starting to look decidedly shaggy, hon."

"No!" somehow, the Seven-Year-Old Within found the wherewithal to cut through the sheer shock of what was happening, and offer resistance. "And you can't make me!" he added, for good measure. "I'm bigger than you!"

Kaz fixed him with a doting smile. "Sam," she patted his arm affectionately, "I generate nearly 400 brake horsepower at the crank. I could tow ten of you and not even need low gear, and I can definitely haul one of you into a hairdresser's chair"

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

"So, er, what happened then?" asked Bobby.

"She did," replied Sam mournfully.

"I thought you looked a bit tidier," Bobby nodded, cocking his head. "Your legs are longer than hers," he observed, "You could've made a run for it."

"She'd probably just have reminded me that she has a tweaked V8," sighed Sam gloomily, "And that she's wearing sensible shoes. My ears are cold," he complained.

"It'll grow back quick enough," Bobby reminded him gruffly, "Grows like weeds, your hair." He peered into a bag of shopping. "At least we got plenty of supplies," he commented, starting to unpack, "Looks like she's plannin' on feeding a small army."

"Or just Dean, once he gets his appetite back," noted Sam.

"At least she didn't happen to anybody in the supermarket," commented Bobby.

"No," replied Sam, "Well, unless you count the guy with the trolley..."

"What guy with the trolley?" queried Bobby.

"The guy who was in a hurry," Sam answered, "On his way to a party or something, trolley full of beer and snacks. He was kinda rude about it, he wanted to get past, so he yelled at her and tried to ram his trolley into her."

"What happened?" asked Bobby.

"What would you expect to happen when a small appliance made of aluminium wire runs into nearly two tons of Detroit steel? It crumpled against her. He crumpled against her. Then he lay there on the floor, surrounded by broken beer bottles, and she just smiled, and, and, she ran over his foot."

"She ran over his foot with her trolley?" gawped Bobby.

"She ran over him with one of her sensible shoes. I think she broke his foot."

"Yeah, havin' a Classic run over your foot can do that," conceded Bobby. "Still, it serves him right, bein' so rude and all."

"Yeah." Sam opened the refrigerator and started putting items away. "And that kid who tried to pick her pocket, she grabbed him, and put one hand against his chest and pinned him to the shelf while she lectured him about honesty and self-respect. She was freaking him out; by the time the store detective came to investigate, his eyes were bugging out of his head and he was gasping like a fish out of water. Some sort of panic attack at being caught, I suppose."

"Sam," Bobby asked, "Have you ever been pinned to a wall, at the chest, by a car?"

"Er, no, can't say I have," conceded Sam.

"Well, I have, once," Bobby told him, "And if all that happened was that the kid's eyes bugged, he was doin' well." He smiled as fished a peaked cap out of the bottom of a bag; it had 'Hunters Do It With A Bang' on it.

"She thought you might like that," commented Sam, as Bobby tried on the hat. "She found one for Dean, too." He held up another hat. It said 'Mechanics Do It With Plenty Of Grease'."

"Did you get one too?" chuckled Bobby. "What does yours say? 'Bookworms Do It With The Bedside Light On'? 'Geeks Do It With A Hard Drive' 'Nerds Do It Over The Internet'?"

"Er, I didn't get a trucker hat," Sam explained a bit sheepishly. "I got something a bit different..." With a long-suffering expression, he pulled out a pale blue knitted beanie, with ear flaps and a cheerful pom-pom, and pulled it onto his head. "She picked this for me. After I complained about my ears being cold."

To his credit, Bobby did his best not to laugh. "Well, practical, that," he commented finally, "When the weather is cold. Sensible."

"She got me a pair of matching socks, too," sighed Sam, holding aloft the awful evidence.

Bobby cleared his throat carefully. "Yes, well," he said, "You'll be glad for those, next time you're holed up in some crappy motel with no heating and blankets as thin as paper. You keep your head and your feet warm, you keep the rest of you warm."

"It gets worse," sighed Sam, "She specifically found me a pair of matching shorts. Sky blue shorts. Thank God there wasn't a pair knitted in the same yarn." He peered into another bag. "Mind you, I think we now have enough socks and shorts to keep us going until we're in our sixties."

"Why don't you go check in with your brother," suggested Bobby, "Then we can get back to tryin' to figure out what the hell happened."

"Sounds like a plan," nodded Sam, taking off his hat and heading upstairs. As an afterthought, he grabbed one of the new boxes of tissues, and took it with him.

Dean was still in bed, letting out the occasional moan. He had a damp flannel laid across his forehead, and Jimi huddled against him for moral support. He gave Kaz a beseeching look as she coaxed him into taking some tablets, then proffered a small measure of cough syrup.

"It hurts to swallow," he said in a small wistful voice.

"I know, honey," she smiled, stroking his hair, "But it will make you feel better."

"That stuff tastes nastyyyyyyyy," Dean whined, wrinkling his nose.

"But it will help with your throat, and your cough," Kaz pointed out reasonably, "Which will mean that you'll be able to have some soup!"

"Don't want soup," Dean pouted, "I'm not hungry."

"Oh, that's a shame," she told him regretfully, "Because I bought the ingredients to make some apple tarts, and thought you might like some of those if you could manage soup okay..."

"I want soup!" he piped up, a hopeful look on his face before he broke out coughing, then sneezed.

Kaz turned to Sam, and gratefully took the new pack of tissues, pulling one out and holding to to Dean's nose. He honked into it obediently. "Thank you, Sam," she smiled up at him, "I'm just going downstairs to heat up some soup for your brother. As soon as he's taken his cough syrup."

She waggled the small cup again, and Dean reluctantly took it and downed it, pulling a melodramatically disgusted face. "They make that on the same processing line that makes rat poison," he muttered, collapsing back against his pillows. "How did your shopping trip go?" he asked.

"It was good," answered Sam, hoping his brother was too tired to press for details. "We got lots of stuff."

"Your brother was very helpful," Kaz patted Dean's arm reassuringly, "Although for a second there, I thought he was going to have a dizzy spell at the pharmacy..."

Dean's eyes became concerned. "You okay, Sam?" he asked, The Big Brother That Never Sleeps breaking through is sickness.

No, Sam thought, I am not okay, I am feeling thoroughly discombobulated after watching your humanised car drink gas from the pump, with a chaser of fuel conditioner, then I thought I was going to die of embarrassment when she stood there giving the pharmacist the impression that you're screwing your aunt, when she's not screwing me, while the hairdresser no doubt formed the view that we've got some weird BDSM threesome thing going on, and I've been Trimmed With Extreme Prejudice, then presented with a woolly hat that makes me look like a pre-schooler who's being dressed up before being allowed out to play in the snow, oh, and by the way, I have matching socks and shorts to go with that hat, although who she thinks I'm supposed to parade around in front of wearing matching socks, shorts, and my woolly hat, I just don't want to think about, possibly a member of a sub-committee of the BDSM club that the shopkeepers of Sioux Falls are by now convinced we all belong to, the Fluffy Fetish Faction perhaps, so since you ask, no, I am NOT okay...

But he looked at his brothers anxious, flushed face, then smiled and answered,

"I'm fine, Dean, just a bit tired. I'll get an early night tonight."

They both did. After she cooked Bobby and Sam a delicious dinner, and coaxed Dean into eating some more soup (he didn't need any coaxing to down some of the small apple pastries she baked), Kaz chivvied Sam up to bed like a bossy bantam hen flapping after someone else's much larger chick, much to Bobby's amusement. Once they were both in bed, she brought in a tray with Dean's meds, and two steaming mugs.

Sam looked at her, confused, as she put one of the mugs in his hand.

"Oh, Sam," she smiled at him, ruffling his hair, "You didn't think I'd bring your brother a lemon drink and not make you one too, did you?"

He smiled back. "Thanks, Kaz."

After they'd finished their drinks, she read to Dean from his magazine for a little, then when he was snoring gently and Sam was yawning, she turned out the light.

"Night, boys."

Goodnight, Kaz."

"Snaaaaaaargh."

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Sam woke up a couple of hours later from a strange dream, in which he was watching hundreds of blue socks dance in a field whilst a band of hairdressers played a waltz by clacking together different sized pairs of scissors. He realised that his brother's restlessness was what had woken him.

"You okay, Dean?" he asked.

"I'mb finde," snuffled Dean, shuffling again, "It's just coldb. Go back to sleebp."

Sam got out of his own bed, and pulled the blue duckie blanket from the top of the bedclothes.

"Well, warm up and stop fidgeting," he instructed, laying the blanket over Dean's bed, "You fidget really loudly."

"Sorry, bitdch," Dean said. "Thangks bro."

"Just get some rest, jerk," Sam told him. He was pretty sure he could hear Dean grinning in the dark.


Ermahgerd, it's fluffier than Sam's new blue hat...

Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice Wearing The Adorable Knitted Hat of Life!*

*If you want him to parade around in the matching socks and jocks, make sure the heating is turned up.