Sam sat in a crowded café and pulled his laptop from its case as a waitress set a coffee mug in front of him. Dean came out of the bathroom just in time to notice the way the woman looked at his brother. Sam gave her an appreciative smile as she filled his cup but then his eyes went back to scanning his web browser.
Dean wasn't the least bit surprised by the passive interaction, just disappointed. He gave the waitress a big smile as he took a seat across from Sam and eagerly accepted his own cup of coffee. "Thank god for coffee." He laughed, "You may as well just leave the pot."
"You boys have a long night?"
"I wish it was something as exciting as what you're thinking." Dean laughed when he saw the curious twinkle in the woman's eyes. "I could really use a night out and Lord knows the last time Sam here had a date."
The waitress laughed and Dean winked at her as she walked away. Once she was out of earshot dean laughed having amused himself. "What the hell was that Dean?"
"What? She's cute. You should go for it man. In case you didn't notice, you're totally in."
"I would really appreciate it if you would stop trying to pimp me out all the time."
"If you would let loose every now and then I wouldn't have to."
"Do we really have to have this conversation again?" Sam hissed trying not to raise his voice.
"What conversation?" Shelly chirped as she plopped down into the booth next to Dean.
"Its nothing." Sam replied quickly.
"Oh we're just talking about how Sam never gets any."
Shelly gave Sam a knowing smile and playfully replied, "Sam never gets any?"
Sam's face went so pale so fast he didn't even have time to glare at his brother. He just sat there wishing he had away to change the conversation from his love life until the waitress returned to the table. "You guys have a chance to look over the menu yet? See anything you'd like?"
Dean Smirked; it was just too easy. "Yeah Sam, see anything you'd like?"
Dean buckled forward when Sam kicked him hard under the table. Sam smiled nervously up at the waitress. "I'm actually not that hungry, maybe just some toast?"
"Sure." The woman said with a sympathetic smile and then turned to Shelly and Dean.
Dean happily rattled off an entire list of food and then Shelly shook her head. "Nothing for me thanks. Just coffee. Lots of coffee."
"Another night owl huh?"
"Not on purpose." Shelly laughed.
Once the waitress was gone Dean took a closer look at Shelly and frowned. It was obvious she'd had a rough night. The dark circles under her eyes were proof of her lack of sleep. She questioned his look and he replied by saying, "You look like crap."
"Just what every girl wants to hear."
"Didn't you get any sleep last night?"
"Not much" Shelly laughed, "I swear I have a case of bogyphobia. After I read that dumb pamphlet I thought I was going to go crazy. I kept hearing things all night long."
Shelly laughed at herself and was surprised at how serious both Sam and Dean suddenly seemed. "What kind of noises?"
"Oh you know just stupid things, weird creeks, rustling bed sheets. It was late and I was freaked out. I thought I kept hearing this laugh coming from a cupboard, but it was just a broken latch on the door."
Sam and Dean looked at one another for a moment, pondering the possibility of it being real, but Shelly seemed confidante enough in the fact that she'd imagined it, so they brushed it off. Shelly looked at the laptop as she downed her coffee. "Please tell me you've found something."
Sam shrugged. "We were up all night and we couldn't find anything that might help us."
"You couldn't find anything about the bogeyman?"
"Nothing consistent." Sam explained. "The bogeyman is probably the most wide spread legend we've ever come up against."
"What does that mean?"
"Everyone has heard of the bogeyman." Dean explained. "But nobody really knows what the hell the damn thing is."
"Isn't it just a monster that lives in closets and takes kids?"
"That's the most common theory." Sam agreed, "But there's thousands of different versions of it. It really has no specific appearance. Sometimes it's a boy, and sometimes it's a girl. Sometimes it's a big gruesome creature and other times it's just a shadow figure with no physical form."
"Well if it's really real, then how can it change like that?"
Just thinking about the endless dead ends they'd come to last night in their search made Dean's head hurt. "That's just it, it shouldn't be able to." He said as he rubbed his eyes.
"It's not just the appearance either." Sam added completely stumped, "The entire legend is different. The story tends to change by region, which is common with legends, but usually there's a few things in common no matter how the story's told."
"But that's not the case here?" Shell asked hoping Sam might say yes.
"Not at all." He said, "I can't find anything that's consistent in every story. Sometimes he lives in the closet, sometimes it's in the toy box or under the bed, and sometimes he just lurks in dark corners. The common theory here in the Midwest is that he scratches on the window and takes you as soon as you open it. But you said Jeremy is afraid of the closet, so again the pieces don't fit."
Shelly released a frustrated sigh as she began to lose hope in the situation. "So there really is no such thing as the bogeyman."
"I wouldn't say that." Dean disagreed, "I think the term Bogeyman is more like a title. There's a lot of scary shit out there and most people don't know the difference between them so when they see something they can't explain, they simply call it the bogeyman."
"But that doesn't make the threat any less real." Sam added, "Shelly, we've got to figure out exactly what took your step brother and stop it before it takes someone else."
"How are we supposed to do that?"
"Oh there's ways." Dean smirked, "Trust me, we'll get the bastard."
Dean slipped his arm around Shelly and gave her a reassuring hug. She seemed to melt into him, soaking up his confidence and after a moment the smile had returned to her face. Sam was glad to see Shelly feeling a little better, but there was just something really strange about the way she and Dean seemed to like they were together.
It was weird to see Dean with any woman where he wasn't just trying to pick up on her, though Sam guessed that's what it would turn into in another thirty seconds or so. But for the moment it almost looked like a real relationship and it was very unsettling. It's not that Sam didn't want to see his brother happily settled down, because he'd love for him to understand what that feels like, but monogamy and Dean just couldn't go in the same sentence.
Dean ragged on Sam a lot for never hooking up, and although stunts like he'd just pulled with the waitress annoyed Sam, he tried to never let it really get to him. He knew Dean was just trying to help the only way he knew how.
Sam knew Dean worried about him and thought that he was just afraid of being hurt again. But it was more than that; Sam believed he was cursed. After his mother and Jess, he was convinced that anyone who got close to him would share that same fate and he simply couldn't go through it again. Sam had something with Jessica that Dean could never really understand and once a person experiences love like that, they can't just go back to meaningless flings. Dean had never known a relationship like that and probably never would.
Sometimes the most frustration thing about Dean was that he was always mad at Sam for not wanting to get close to people, yet that's exactly how he lived his own life. Dean shared Sam's troubles; he just chose to hide it behind an overly-confidante attitude and lots of woman. Deep down the whole player routine was just a façade and the only one who didn't know it was Dean.
Once Sam's thoughts turned to Jessica he stayed pretty quiet through the rest of breakfast. Eventually he could feel Dean and Shelly watching him and he really didn't feel like explaining the death of his girlfriend to Shelly so he packed up his computer and said he'd meet them outside. He passed the waitress on his way out the door and offered a weak "Thanks," when she smiled.
The woman approached Dean and Shelly with a curious look. "Is something wrong with your friend?"
Dean shook his head and then grinned at the look of concern on the girl's face. "He did ask me to give you this though."
Dean pulled a napkin from the dispenser and scribbled down Sam's phone number. The woman grinned but then raised an eyebrow skeptically at Dean. "He asked you to give this to me?"
"OK, well maybe not in those exact words, but trust me you should call him."
The waitress eyed the number again but then smiled. "Alright." She said and carefully slipped the napkin into her apron pocket.
Once the waitress was gone Shelly laughed and gave Dean a funny look. He shrugged a guilty smile and said, "He'll thank me for it in the long run."
Shelly shook her head as Dean got up from the table and slid his arm around her waist. "Now, let's go check out that house."