AN: Happy Birthday Worm!
Another result of a twitter conversation. Some of the text has been lifted straight off of twitter ;-)
As this work is a gift for my usual beta, it has not been beta'd.
Part 4 - Brigham Yeti
Turns out that they did not, in fact, burn all the vegetation east of the East Fork Sevier River to a crisp. Somehow the rangers got there in time to stop the fire destroying much more than roughly a half mile radius around Osiris. Sam and Dean were keeping a look out for any more supernatural reports from the ghost town, but so far there hadn't been so much as a peep of anything weird. Well, other than the fact that the ruins had mysteriously burned down.
They'd handled the Woman in White relatively easily. Just your run-of-the-mill salt and burn, with a tragically sad backstory. Cheating husband, dead children, suicide. They were pretty sure that this Woman in White hadn't killed her children. It seemed as if their deaths had been entirely accidental, but she still hadn't been able to live with the guilt. They'd felt truly sorry for her, and in the end, the ghost had stood by while they burned her bones. She'd looked thankful as she went up in flames.
The skinwalkers in Grafton hadn't been as easy but only because those slippery bastards had been difficult to track. The boys had ended up spending two nights camped out in Grafton just trying to find them. Which hadn't been a problem at all for Dean. His phone was now full of selfies of him and Sam in front of places Dean insisted had been used in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, and he'd even figured out how to use the timer on his phone's camera so that Sam and him could strike some poses. Sam had nearly lost his patience but it was hard to stay mad at Dean when the guy was walking around with a grin on his face most people only saw on six year olds on Christmas morning. But they'd gotten the job done. Obviously.
All that was left on their Utah to-do list was the Sasquatch.
Which Dean could not believe they were taking seriously.
"I mean, there have been numerous reports, Dean," Sam tried to reason with him. "There are those sightings of 'bigfoot-like creatures' around Skinwalker Ranch—"
"I thought we'd decided that Skinwalker Ranch was a hoax," Dean interrupted.
"Sure, but these stories always start somewhere. The 'where there's smoke there's fire' sort of thing."
"But this is Bigfoot we're talking about here, Sam! The last time we came across a Bigfoot he was a giant teddy bear with suicidal ideation!"
He kind of had Sam there.
"Okay, but get this. There's a Mormon legend that Cain—as in Cain and Abel, that Cain—is wandering the earth. He wears no clothes and is covered in hair and an early Mormon apostle by the name of David W. Patten actually came across him. This creature told Patten that he was Cain. It's in that other apostle, Kimball, it's in one of his books."
Dean was still sceptical. "I dunno, man. It sounds kind of weak to me."
"I'm not saying it's for sure, I'm saying we should check it out."
Dean grudgingly agreed, which is how they found themselves driving north out of Salt Lake City towards the Wasatch Mountains. Because apparently, the majority of Bigfoot sightings in the area had been reported from the mountain range bordering the state of Utah in the north.
But once they were away from the buildings and crowds of the city and driving through the countryside, even Dean had to admit that things could be worse. The scenery was gorgeous and he thoroughly enjoyed the drive. He seriously considered finding a cabin in the area and just staying there with Sam for a couple of weeks. They deserved a vacation. Dean wondered how many days he could keep Sam naked before Sam started to complain about wanting to go hiking…
Pleasant thoughts like this made the time pass quickly, and soon enough they had parked the Impala at a small mountain lodge and were trudging through groves of what Sam told him were Blue Spruce and Aspen trees, and fields of the most glorious wildflowers Dean had ever seen. The carpets of color were breathtaking and Dean snapped photos with his phone whenever he thought Sam wasn't watching. How would he ever be able to explain taking so many pictures of flowers, for fuck's sake.
The (very) few locals who'd been willing to give them information about the Wasatch Sasquatch had pointed them in the direction of a particular trail, leading up to a particular peak. Word was that the Bigfoot roamed a specific area and if they spent enough time out there they were sure to run in to him. It wasn't a very detailed plan, but there were no other leads, so that's what they went with.
As far as Sam could find out, there wasn't anything particularly magical about Sasquatch, so killing them shouldn't be a problem. What Sam did have a problem with was the fact that there were no actual reports of violence linked with the Sasquatch. People who believed it existed were adamant that the beast must be killed but no-one could tell Sam what it had ever done to hurt anyone and thus deserve that fate.
Dean had asked Sam why they were even bothering if that was the case. Sam's answer had been something vague about "making sure" and "the potential danger" and blah blah blah. Dean was pretty sure that Sam just wanted to be able to write out an entry on 'Bigfoot' in John's journal. And he'd had to admit, being able to prove—even if only to themselves—one of the world's biggest myths as true, would sure be something.
Much to Dean's delight they discovered a very rustic hiking cabin in which to spend the foreseeable future while they searched for Bigfoot. It wasn't quite what he'd had in mind, but he'd take it. While Dean was not a fan of cold showers—there was no water heater at the cabin, hell there was no electricity—showering with Sam definitely made up for that, and helped him maintain a certain amount of… heat. Besides, the weather was relatively warm during the day, and the fire at night added to the general mood Dean was trying to create. Sam kept up the argument that they were "working a case" but Dean still managed to keep him naked for a whole two and a half days before Sam started to feel guilty about neglecting the job.
And in the end, they didn't need to go looking for Bigfoot at all. He found them.
It had been early on the morning of the third day when they'd been woken up by someone knocking on the door. Which surprised them, because they hadn't seen or heard anyone in the area since they'd arrived. The knocking wasn't frantic, which might have indicated some sort of emergency. In fact, it sounded rather polite, as knocking went.
Sam went to open the door, and Dean heard a deep baritone voice say, "Pardon me, I was wondering whether I might trouble you for a cup of brown sugar?"
Dean heard Sam start to choke and rushed over to smack him on the back.
There were clans. Bigfoot clans. All over the United States.
Dean had struggled to wrap his brain around the fact that they were talking to a Sasquatch, but then the creature had insisted that they join him and his family for breakfast. Unfortunately they hadn't had any brown sugar for the beast, but they had brought what coffee and milk they had with them. The Sasquatch had thanked them for the milk and politely declined the coffee. Sitting down to a rough hewn table in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by many large, hairy, naked (aside from the aprons—"don't you dare ask," Sam had hissed at him) females, and even more small, hairy children, was something Dean just wasn't sure he would ever get over. He kept asking Sam to pinch him, because there was no way this was really happening, but after Sam got annoyed and pinched a bruise into his arm that would last for at least a week, he stopped.
It was Sam who had noticed that the Bigfoot that had come to their cabin, who had introduced himself as Brigham (and wasn't that just a kick in the pants), was the only male in the clearing. Being Sam, he naturally asked about it.
"Well, naturally," hairy Brigham had replied. "We're polygamists."
Dean was hitting Sam on the back again as Brigham continued, "It's a very old and sacred custom among our people. Have you ever heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?"
Although he was still patting Sam on the back, while Sam struggled to catch his breath, Dean managed to say, with an absolutely straight face, that yes, they had in fact heard of that particular church.
Brigham was gratified to discover the church was going strong. "We keep to ourselves, so we don't hear much from the outside world you see," he explained.
Dean nodded his head seriously.
The large creature went on to explain how one of his forefathers had run into an apostle from the church and been converted a long time ago, and since then they had followed the teachings of Brigham Young and the Book of Mormon to the letter. "All the males in my family since then have been named after the males of the Young family. It's a great honor. And it's a great honor to be granted a plural wife."
"Sure," Sam gasped, still taking deep breaths. "Uh… and you say, there are many clans? All over the country? Are they all, um… Followers?"
Brigham sniffed. "Well they claim to be. But you know, I really think we are lacking in true believers. Some Sasquatch have moved away from the teachings." He leaned in towards Sam and whispered furtively, "I don't like to talk about it among the womenfolk, but the colony in the Yakima Valley, for example, are snobs and drunkards. All they ever speak about is wine. Wine! It's scandalous. Go to a clan gathering there, and you'll always get stuck in a debate about Pinot noirs versus Syrrahs—I understand they have excellent palates, but of course I know nothing about that sort of thing. They continually try to convince you which vintage goes best with a kill, be it human or animal." Sam looked alarmed, and Brigham quickly hastened to add, "Although, there hasn't been a human killing reported for years. We do try to discourage that sort of thing." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I have been made to understand that a good red blend, like a claret, is best to serve with quail and squirrel…"
It was at that point that Sam had started to giggle rather hysterically, and Dean had thought it best to say their goodbyes, and get Sam somewhere far away from either the Wasatch Mountains or the Yakima Valley as quickly as possible. Florida sounded good. The Sunshine State had its fair share of weird monsters and hauntings to distract Sam. And if that didn't do the trick, there were things he could do with his tongue that were sure to make Sam forget about this entire non-hunt. Dean thought he'd probably do those things anyway.
They never did ask Brigham if his ancestor had indeed been the real Cain. And Dean was okay with that.