Standard disclaimer still applies. Bummer.
Additional note: This story isn't serialized the way most is on this site - meaning, there won't be cliffies at every chapter end. I do adore cliffies, but the plot ran away with me on this one. There's a lot of mystery-building before the action really starts, so I really, really, really hope people don't get bored with that kind of thing! If so, no worries. You don't have to keep reading. I sure wish you would, though. ;)
Sweet Caroline, Chapter 1
Dean Winchester stared at the miserable stretch of road before him. It wasn't that he had some deep-seated hatred for Minnesota, or for the case at hand. On the contrary, he was all for investigating Meghan Schmidt's mysterious, untimely death. Given the other choices Sam had dug up, any sane guy would choose the college gig. Hello, was there a better place to have hundreds of pretty girls all in one location? Rhetorical. No, he thought, none of that bothered him. What he didn't like were the papers in Sam's hands.
"Man, I'm glad it's not winter," he said, transferring his gaze to the vast expanses of empty, ploughed fields on either side of the road. "Baby doesn't like snow."
Sam gave a muted snort, but didn't say anything. They fell back into the particular quiet that had lingered during the trip. Silence between them happened more often than not. Spending nearly every moment with someone, waking and sleeping, reduced the need for constant chatter, and neither of them were big talkers anyway. Well, he wasn't. Sam was more of a chick that way.
After months on the road together, the quiet on their cross-country drives had gone from awkward to comfortable. He knew Sam still didn't really want to be hunting with him, though his brother had finally agreed there was more to it than avenging Jess and their mom. Sam did want to help people; he probably thought he was hiding his deeper, darker reasons for sticking around. Well, Dean wasn't going to be the one to tell him that wasn't the case. If Sam needed to think his motives for staying weren't written in his eyes every moment of the day, then Dean wasn't going to burst the bubble.
"Actually, I've heard it can snow here into spring," Sam said at last, reaching over to turn the radio up.
It was the third time Sam had raised the volume in the past ten miles. Goddamned emo college, public or country stations were the only things that tuned in out here in the sticks. None of those options made Dean happy. He clenched his jaw, taking an instant dislike to the song that came on after the annoying DJ stopped yapping.
"Sometimes the end of April even sees snow showers, so we could still run into it in March."
"Dude, you totally just jinxed us," Dean said. He reached over and turned the irritating music down two notches. "Nice."
"So you believe in jinxes but not chupacabras?" Sam turned the crap back up. "Now that I find hard to believe."
"It shouldn't really be that shocking." Dean turned the radio all the way off. "I've said it before. People talk about el freaking chupacabra, but no one's ever actually seen one. On the other hand, I got jinxed by a hoodoo priestess once and have the scars to prove it."
"Yes, because your jinx scars look different from your regular scars."
Sam turned the radio back on. From what Dean could tell some guy with a whiny voice was singing about some Japanese girl fighting big robots. He wondered how in hell the US was still a world power if its college students were rotting their brains with this stuff.
"Anyway, I didn't jinx anything," Sam said. "I was just saying it could happen, and we should be ready for it."
Dean grabbed a tape (any tape, he wasn't fussy at this point), shoved it into the deck and hit play. The soothing sounds of Motorhead replaced the grating indie pop. He instantly relaxed a little, but he saw Sam reach for the radio again. Oh, no. No, no, no. He batted Sam's hand away with enough force it was clear he meant business. The quiet drive had been nice until Sam had found the stupid station. After that, Dean had developed a near-headache feeling behind his right eye, with some queasiness to go with it. Not even the hilarious call letters, KUMM (the only station that puts KUMM in your ears!), made it okay enough to actually listen to the crap. Sam gave a yelp, clutching at his wounded hand theatrically. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Dude, knock it off. I am not listening to that crap anymore," Dean said. "You know the car rule. I've let you get away with that for long enough."
"Hey, man, I was just listening to the college station to see if they would mention anything about the girl's death," Sam said. "They might hold a memorial service or something. It'd be a good place to talk to people."
"Oh." Now Dean felt like a jackass. Yet he also felt no compunction to stop the tape and put the crap back on. "Why didn't you just say that?"
Sam didn't answer him at first. Ah, shit, Dean knew that meant his little brother was upset. Things had been going so well. Dean braced himself, waiting for his brother to waylay him with some out of the blue emotional crap about Dean's insensitivity or whatever. It would undoubtedly end up making them talk about other Stuff. He wished he'd sucked it up and just let the bad music play on. Bad music beat talking about Stuff any day of the week.
"Actually, because it was kind of fun watching you freak out," Sam said. "You're so touchy about your music."
"You're hilarious." Dean could hear the damned smile in Sam's voice. He cranked Motorhead up and glared at Sam, who did indeed have a shit-eating grin on his face. It was all Dean had in him not to thwap the smile off the guy. "A real wisenheimer."
"Did you really just call me a wisenheimer? Whatever, Grandpa." Sam started laughing. "It's not my fault your buttons are so easy to push."
"Shut up or I'll…" Dean said, drew a complete blank, and fizzled with the finish, "…push your buttons."
Sam let out one last laugh at Dean's lame comeback, but did shut up for the rest of the trip. Morris, Minnesota was soon on the very flat horizon. Dean navigated through the blink-and-miss-it town, noting the biggest attraction on the main street seemed to be the Dairy Queen. Exciting. Campus was on the outskirts, part of town but separate enough to provide its own atmosphere. He drove the car slowly around the grassy mall in the center of the campus. Class must have just let out or something. There were people roaming the sidewalks and jaywalking across the narrow streets. Many of them stared, their attention drawn by the growl of the Impala's engine.
"The admissions office is in Behmler Hall. It closes at four," Sam said. "I see i…no, that's Blakely. There it is, up there."
"I just want to go on record by saying I still don't like this."
Going that extra step and enrolling was dangerous. One, he was too old. Two, he wasn't interested in higher education. Three, and more importantly than either of the first two, there was too much damned paperwork involved, a lot more than a simple credit card scam. More than insurance fraud, too. Mostly, his reason for not liking it was because this was Sam's area of expertise and his brother had gotten his hands dirty with it. He knew Sam didn't like the more fraudulent aspects of their life. Dean admitted it didn't thrill him to have Sam actively participate in them either. On rare occasions, he even felt twinges of guilt about the lying and stealing himself. Dean knew he couldn't protect his brother forever, but that didn't mean he'd ever stop wanting to try. Like if he could somehow keep Sam normal it would be enough for him, too, that maybe Dean wouldn't need normal for himself.
"There's no fraternity house here we can wander into and fake our way through, Dean. Both the town and the college are small enough that people will take notice of us asking questions anyway. At least this way we can make it look like we belong here."
"Yeah," Dean said, but he remained unconvinced. "But we could have just been reporters again."
"The victim's been dead for over a week. Good reporters would have come and gone by now. And you know we'll break in after we're done and erase all evidence we were here." Sam flipped through the papers in his lap. "Well, evidence that our alter-egos were ever here. It's no big deal."
"Okay, okay."
Dean pulled the car into a 30-minute parking spot in front of Behmler Hall. The stares they drew kept multiplying, even though they hadn't gotten out of the car. Not that he could blame people. A hot car plus his irresistible good looks…it only made sense that they'd attract some gawkers. It might be pandemonium once he got out. Sam just might have been right about their usual methods not cutting it, though. What he knew about Midwesterners was that they were friendly on the outside, suspicious on the inside. He got out of the car, staring right back at onlookers. Damn, he was never going to pass for a college student. These kids were, well, they were kids. His discomfort grew as he waited for Sam to gather all the stuff and join him on the sidewalk.
"Hey, man, that's an awesome car," one of the kids said. "Real sick."
"Yeah, it's pretty," said the girl next to him. "But it probably uses a lot of gas. It doesn't really fit on a green campus."
Win some, lose some, Dean thought. It was too bad in this case the guy was on his side. He gave the girl his patented charm-the-pants-off-em grin anyway, just because. Her cheeks turned pink, and she looked at the ground. He took the opportunity to ogle her, also just because. She wasn't bad to look at – petite, tiny waist, nice rack – so he was inclined to overlook her being a tree hugger. He heard Sam clear his throat louder than was necessary, a clear call for attention. Dean glanced over to catch the tail end of his brother's death glare. Dean rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, Sam should have expected this. He wasn't going to turn himself off when surrounded by so many opportunities to appreciate the female of the species. That would be downright unnatural.
"Yeah, well," he said when the girl looked back up at him. "It fits me."
"Actually, it does," she agreed, blushing some more. It was her boyfriend's turn to roll his eyes. Sam's long lost mini-me. "Maybe we'll see you around?"
"Yeah, maybe. Hey, I'm new in town – maybe I could grab your name and number. I might need someone to, you know, show me how things are done around here."
That prompted Sam to clear his throat again. Wonder of wonders, Dean suddenly found the right motivation to get into his role as serious college student. He studiously ignored his brother while he also studiously input little Rosemary Carlson's number into his phone. He could feel Sam's (and the boyfriend's) annoyance escalating, so he dragged out the trite flirting with Rosemary for as long as he could. Sometimes being passive-aggressive was a nice change of pace.
"Come on, we need to get going," Sam said. "The office closes in half an hour."
"Bye, Rosemary," Dean said with a wink. "I hope I'll see you soon."
Rosemary blushed and waved, walking away. The guy Dean had no interest in knowing gave Dean a look that was almost lethal. Dean smiled, transferring his attention to Rosemary, and adding nice ass to the list of positive attributes she possessed. He was starting to appreciate Morris, Minnesota.
Sam whapped him on the shoulder, hard, as soon as the pair was a few feet away.
"Dude, she looks like she's barely eighteen."
"And your point is? Eighteen is legal the last time I checked."
Sam snorted, one of his customized I can't believe we're related snorts, before heading for the administrative building's door. Hey, that was one sentiment he and Sam shared about each other. Sometimes Dean wondered if Sam were a real human man, or some pod alien who only looked like a person. Dean trotted to catch up, grabbing the door just as it started to swing shut. Without the distraction of getting Rosemary's digits, his discomfort with this part of the case resurfaced. Just the smell of the building, paper and dust and academia, made him uneasy. Still, he followed Sam up two flights of stairs and toward a small line of students in front of a large window and counter. He nudged Sam when they got to the end of the line.
"Dean, if you say one more time that you don't like this, I might have to hurt you," Sam said, without looking at Dean.
Okay, then. Dean didn't say anything, just shrugged. Of course, Sam's threat was empty. Dean could take him down any day of the week, with one hand behind his back.
They waited in silence. It didn't take long for their turn at the window. Dean decided he'd remain quiet and let Sam do all the nerdy college talk. Though he hated they were doing this, he had complete faith Sam would make sure everything went fine. Since he wasn't needed for the fake enrollment process, he took the opportunity to survey the office layout and points of security. They'd need it later. He also kept an ear out for any conversations about the dead girl, but no one seemed to be talking about it.
"Hi, my name is Gregg Allman and this is my brother Duane."
Dean stiffened when he realized they were at the window, and that was Sam speaking. A second later, Sam's words clicked in Dean's brain. Man, he'd really fallen down on the job. Gregg and Duane Allman? He should have paid attention to Sam's choice of pseudonyms, because what he'd come up with was the worst they'd ever used. Really bad. At least his brother hadn't picked the friggin' Osmonds. The dour-looking, older woman behind the counter eyed Sam, seeming skeptical. As she should.
"Our parents were a bit, uhm," Sam said, ducking his head.
"Let me guess, huge fans of the Allman Brothers?" she filled in the blanks.
"What can you do? Parents," Dean spoke up, as he stealthily jabbed Sam in the back. "They just don't think things through sometimes."
The woman sniffed, but looked somewhat sympathetic.
"Anyway, we, uh, we're transferring here from the University of Kansas and need to speak with someone about the enrollment process," Sam said, fumbling his way through it.
"Oh, okay." The woman's face softened even more. Sam was charming her without even trying. "That's easy enough. I can help you right here. My name's Veleeta Cheese."
Dean choked. He couldn't help it – no wonder it looked like she understood the pain of their fake parents bestowing their fake names on them. Veleeta smiled at him. It was all ice. Dean ducked behind Sam just a little. But he wasn't scared.
"You can call me Leeta if you'd like."
"It's nice to meet you, Leeta," Sam said, polite and straight-faced as ever.
Damn him.
"You've started with online enrollment, yes? Let me pull up what we've got so far. I see you have the rest of the forms."
"Yes, ma'am, we should be all set."
"Let me just take a look at them…"
That was when Dean phased out again. The conversation between Sam and the cheese lady became a bunch of blah-blah-blahs as far as he was concerned. He heard random bits about how he and Sam were apparently too far away from fake mommy and daddy, blah-blah, good but not stupendous GPAs, blah-blah, they didn't need housing (It was at that point that Dean piped up to inform Ms. Cheese they'd be staying at their uncle Roy's house over in Clontarf for the time being, mostly because he'd known he had to use the name Clontarf in a sentence from the moment he saw it on a road sign. It was also at that point that Sam poked him in the ribs without even trying to hide it.), welcome to UMM, blah-blah, sign here, initial there.
At the end of half an hour of hell in higher education, Dean was officially an unofficial college student. By then he had also determined it would be a cakewalk to break in and delete their mock files, which made him feel a little bit better. But he itched to do it before they even left the building.