Disclaimer, Summary, Rating: See Chapter 1.

THE SCENT OF YOU

Chapter 9

Dean blinked drowsily and slowly flopped over onto his back on autopilot while his brain ran through the who-where-why routine…He must have dozed off for a few minutes there…He squinted slightly because the lights were off but the room was still very bright, but he had an itch…He gave his chest a good scratch, then his belly…what the hell…he shoved his hand down his shorts and…oh yeah, that was the spot…there was no doubt about it, forget cattle prods and red hot slivers under your nails and Chinese water torture and even dentists, the dude who had invented itching powder was the ultimate sadist of all time.

Sam came out of the bathroom looking remarkably perky and fully dressed apart from his jacket and shoes. "Hey..."

"Mmm…what time is it?"

"It's…" Sam checked his wristwatch, "just gone 9:30."

"In the morning?" Dean hadn't slept until 9:30am since…since…never.

"Yup," Sam confirmed cheerfully, "I was gonna check if you were Velcro'd to that bed."

Dean sat up, Sam's damp hair and ruddy chin from shaving finally impinging on his attention…He felt a pang of anxiety as he realised that Sam had actually run a bath without him hearing him…what if he'd hit his head or something? Although Dean couldn't fully believe he'd actually slept through an entire Sammy splash and caterwauling extravaganza…On second thoughts, Sammy must have eliminated the Tammy Wynette/Dolly Parton covers from his repertoire this a.m. 'cause no way he'd have slept through that din.

Throwing back the covers he got up as Sam went over to the table where the laptop was on again…he needed coffee…even three floors up he could detect the siren scent of the Blue Mountain calling to him…He was distracted as Sam grunted disapprovingly at the sheaf of papers in his hand. "W'sup?"

Sam waved a hand around the pristine walls, "This room."

Dean looked around at it. "What's wrong with it?"

"Dean, when we're on a job, how to do we organise our research and try and see if there's a pattern we can fit together?"

"We just pin stuff to the wa-" Dean stopped. "Oh…"

"Exactly…"

Dean looked around; their normal base of operations on a Hunt was a sleazy motel where 'cleaning service' was a foreign language and where they could pay for a couple of weeks or even month in advance, pin their papers all over the walls (covering them up usually being a vast improvement on the décor), then go out for days at a time and return in the knowledge that nothing would have been touched in the interim. But here the rooms looked like they were cleaned every hour on the hour once the guests were out of the way for the day.

Following Dean's thoughts, Sam was saying, "…I stick this stuff up here and when we get back tonight we're going to find Sheriff Henson and half of Amarillo PD in here waiting for us, to either a) arrest us on eleven counts of homicide, b) act as an escort to the white-coat dudes taking us to the asylum or c) drive us out of town 'cause they think we're some devil-worshipping cultists on a ghoulish tourist trip."

"Let's see what Dad says when he emails us back first; then if we have to we can look for some place to creatively wallpaper." Dean suggested, although he understood Sam's frustration; that old hoary chestnut about a picture being worth a thousand words was true…they worked a lot better when they could spread out all their data and take it all in with one glance as they often paced the motel room, bouncing ideas off each other and able to rearrange bits as the jigsaw came together.

Eschewing a shave, Dean washed and dressed and they went down for breakfast, where they both had eggs, biscuits, sausage and pancakes. Ignoring Sam's amused look, Dean ordered a full cafetiere of the Blue Mountain, raising an eyebrow when Sam hesitated, as if thinking he was going to be allowed to share it, before his baby brother caught the clue bus and ordered a small cafetiere of Sumatran Tiger for himself.

Finishing breakfast, Dean folded the linen napkin neatly and stood up, only to frown in puzzlement as Sam headed outside instead of towards their room, and walked towards the golf clubhouse.

"Come on," Sam urged when he caught up, "It'll be lunch before Dad gets back to us. Let's play a round."

"Of golf?" Dean's lip curled in true bad-boy style as Sam pulled out their room key card so they didn't have to pay.

"No, Yahtzee," Sam rolled his eyes. "Of course, golf. Don't worry…I'll teach you how to play…I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time."

Dean knew the faint hint of fraternal doubt in the last bit of the sentence was deliberately infused just to provoke him but he couldn't stop himself being piqued, and so he let Sam grab them each a caddy of clubs and selection of golf balls. He snorted derisively as he looked around the first green; golf was a game for middle-aged business tycoons whose years of corporate raiding and tax evasion had given them ulcers, not out-on-the-edge living large Hunters of the supernatural for cryin' out loud! Had anyone ever seen W. Axl Rose twirling a five-iron or James Hatfield going on about potting a hole in one? No!

"The aim is to get the little white ball into the hole where the flag is; you hit the ball with this stick, called a club," Sam was saying in the sort of tone used to address naughty puppies and not very bright two-year-olds.

"I know what I'm gonna club in a minute," warned Dean.

Sam's tee-off was perfect, and as he intended, his skill at the game rapidly roused Dean's competitive streak and big-brother determination not to be bested by his little brother. One thing about Hunting was that it did wonders in producing lighting reflexes, athletic grace, and superb hand-eye co-ordination, all of which enabled Dean to pick up a lot just from observing the way Sam held the club and swung for the ball.

Of course, Sam kept things interesting by outrageous gamesmanship, such as sniffing loudly just as Dean swung at the fifth hole and making him miss the ball completely, or trying to distract Dean's attention long enough to nudge his own ball into the hole with his foot. Then there was the fact that he had golf balls in his pockets and when he hit one into the rough or a stand of trees he just plucked one from his pocket and strolled back out while Dean diligently worked in the sand-trap to flirt his ball out again.

Finally Dean advanced with narrowed eyes and a low-voiced command, "Empty your pockets."

Having foreseen such a contingency, Sam put his hands in both pockets, palmed the golf balls and then pulled the lining inside out as he lifted his hands, raising his eyebrows at his brother.

Dean bit his lip. "Open your hands…!"

With a dramatic sigh, Sam raised his arms up to shoulder height as if someone were pointing a gun at him, swiftly letting the golf balls slide down his sleeves as he did so and waggling the fingers of his now empty hands. "Are you finished?"

Dean glowered in frustration but then they both ducked instinctively as a golf ball shot between them to ricochet off a couple of tree trunks, and a fat forty-something dude in appalling check trousers and a daffodil yellow sweater trundled up puffing heavily and full of apologies. Unfortunately in ducking Sam had brought his arms down and the golf balls all fell out onto the grass; by the time Dean had soothed the guy and turned back, Sam had smartly legged it for the next green, within clear sight of a group of businessmen whose presence constrained Dean from doling out summary punishment.

Sam wasn't in the slightest bit scared of Dean's whispered threats of retribution, and indeed was highly delighted with the morning as they reached the final green. They had never in their lives had a vacation and you could guarantee any break they did try and take would end up as a busman's holiday. Similarly, the odds of either of them, but especially Dean, ever being able to stay again at a place like the Lake Meredith and enjoy such facilities could be summed up as 'none and falling'.

Sam was determined to take advantage of the closest thing to a real vacation either of them was ever likely to have; as he surreptitiously noted Dean's bright eyes, broad grin and the way his body was as relaxed as Dean ever got, Sam intended to continue squeezing every drop of opportunity from this week to act like normal guys who would go home to the office on Saturday instead of jumping into the Impala and driving to someplace where sentences had a tendency to start along the lines of, 'So, this poltergeist/werewolf/monster/demon/mega-evil…'

"Wow, golf," Dean commented as they headed back to the clubhouse for lunch, "I can see why Dad was worried about you being at college on your own, with such a crazy out-on-the-edge lifestyle. Did you play Whist in the evenings too?"

"Golf wasn't a game at Stanford," Sam admitted, "It was work. Forget the boardroom, most business deals are done and dusted by the eighteenth hole. I learned to play, and learned to know when to win and when to lose." Somewhat sheepishly he confessed, "That law school interview I had - on the Monday? - was pretty much a cosmetic formality. I did the real interview the Sunday before on the fairway."

"So those guys who worked their asses off but never took up golf ended up as the mailroom boy and the frat boys who never opened a textbook but who could shoot the birdie over the par or whatever ended up as Vice-Chairman of the Board on their second day?" challenged Dean. "And you dare to go on about how our world is warped and twisted?"

Sam had no answer – it was certainly something he wasn't proud of, but it was the way the world worked; in another universe Dean had never come, and he had attended his law school interview successfully, gotten engaged to Jessica and booked Stanford's famous Memorial Church, affectionately known as MemChu, for their wedding, wrapped up in his normal, safe life.

Continued in Chapter 10…

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart