Dean was lying on the bed when the lights of the car streaked through the window. He didn't shift – not one bit. When the lock turned in the door, he forced himself to stay calm, not to jump – Sam had to know that he trusted him, that he was trying, at least.
Of course, all such mature, rational thoughts went flying when the two figures entered the room.
"Sam, what the hell?" he asked, practically flying off the bed. The bar bitch was standing right behind him, a little wild-eyed, and leaning slightly against his brother's frame.
"Leslie's going to stay with us for the night," Sam said, maneuvering the (clearly drunk) woman to the couch. Dean just kept staring at them.
"Seriously Sam?" he finally managed to get out. "What is this? You're collecting strays now?"
Sam turned to look at him, his face shielded, but Dean hadn't grown up with the kid not to recognize the hurt lurking behind those eyes.
"Bobby. . ."
"Bobby Singer is an asshole," Leslie said. She stretched her legs out on the couch, settled in, and stretched, long, feline. Dean didn't mind watching. She might be a bitch, but she had a rocking body.
"She's a Hunter," Sam said.
"No shit," Dean pursed his lips. Explained the hard body, then. Leslie turned and. . .get this. . .winked! The bitch winked! Dean stared at her in amazement.
"She's working a case right now, but she says she'll try and help her after."
"A case, huh?" Dean considered. A case did sound tempting – forget about the whole heaven and hell thing, for a few days at least, kill some evil sons of bitches. . . "What's she hunting?"
"Um. . .see. . .that's the thing," Sam said, uncomfortable now. Dean knew that voice. It was the same voice Sam had used when he'd been three, and been caught with his hand in the ammo drawer. It was the GUILTY Sam voice. Nothing good came of the GUILTY Sam voice. "She's kind of hunting. . .um. . .unicorns."
"Unicorns?" Dean asked. "Seriously, Sam? Unicorns?"
He glanced at Leslie, but apparently after all the booze and the stretching she'd passed out. No help there. But there was absolutely no way he was going to stay around and fight a bunch of prancing white ponies. No way. He grabbed his duffel, which he hadn't unpacked yet, and headed to the door.
"C'mon, Sam," he ordered. He glanced back, and his brother was staring with the puppy dog eyes at the unconscious figure on the couch.
"We can't just leave her here," Sam said plaintively. Dean stared at his brother.
"Yes we can," he said. "Sam, we've got Lucifer and the hordes of hell breathing down our neck. Yeah, we can leave some broad who can't handle her liquor snoring on a couch."
"Bobby. . ."
"Shut up about Bobby!" Dean growled. He lifted the duffel higher on his shoulder. "This isn't about Bobby. This is about you, and me, and the fact that you won't listen to me for one damn second."
"You're not in charge of me, Dean," Sam said, and his voice was low and calm. Damn, Dean thought, realizing that he'd lost. He'd gone one step too far and he'd lost. Never a good sportsman, he threw the duffel on the floor, stomped to his bed, and pulled the covers over his body.
"Fine," he growled. "But we leave first thing in the morning."
And he sure as hell wasn't turning around to see his baby brother's smirk.
* * * * *
Leslie was not happy when she woke up. Her head was screaming at her, a reminder that she wasn't twenty years old anymore, and that three Irish car bombs were never a good idea.
Plus her back was cramping, and she was pretty sure that she smelled like rats. She opened her eyes, not surprised to see that she had fallen asleep on a couch. She couldn't decide if it was an improvement over the backseat of her car or not.
Rolling over, she had to acknowledge that at least she'd fallen asleep in a place with a good view. Two half-naked men were sprawled out on the room's two queen-sized beds. Chivalry was clearly dead, though, she thought as she unfolded her body from the couch. She walked – slowly – to the bathroom and ran some water over her face.
So, she thought. She was stuck, for the moment at least, with Sam and Dean Winchesters, harbingers of the Apocalypse, irritated brothers, and sexy beasts. Swell. She pulled her hair back up into a ponytail and walked back into the main room. Sam was awake now, propped up against the back of his bed, eyes still gritty from sleep, but Dean was still snoring in his own bed, his face half-smushed into the pillow.
"How you feeling?" Sam asked, his eyes conciliatory. Leslie stared at him for a moment. She'd expected some kind of a crazy, asstard from Sam Winchester. After all, he was the demon's contender for the next King of Earth, or so she'd heard. Demon blood pumped in him as a baby, and then taken willingly as an adult. He certainly didn't seem like the leader of the Armies of Darkness.
"Fine, thanks," Leslie said. She was glad that the men hadn't taken her boots off at night – she definitely wouldn't want to wander around the room in bare feet. She was pretty sure that she could see cockroaches scuttling away from her.
"So, I was doing some research last night," Sam said, and as though to prove his point he pulled his laptop over. Curious, Leslie headed over and perched behind him on the bed. "But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find any lore pointing to unicorns being evil. They're fierce, and in Chinese lore they're similar to a chimera, but they never attack humans. What gives?"
Leslie laughed a little. Boys. Always so literal-minded. Sam really did look like a little boy in the morning, his too-long hair all mused up, and those eyes droopy with sleep. She couldn't help it. She reached out a ruffled the hair. The puppy dog look dropped instantly, and Sam pierced her with the most annoyed bitchface she'd ever seen. She laughed.
"Huh-wha?" Dean instantly sat up in bed, his arms flying out as though in protection from. . .from what, Leslie couldn't be quite certain. He spun around, saw Leslie in bed with his brother, and instantly put on a pout face.
"Sam, come on!" he whined. "When I'm in the room?"
"Huh?" Sam just looked confused. Leslie sighed, shook her head.
"Sorry, Dean," she said. "He's not my type." Dean pursed his lips, raised one eyebrow, and Leslie laughed again. "Neither are you. I don't go for demon spawn or angels' bitches."
Now Sam and Dean were both glowering, and the good mood brought in by the morning sun had disappeared. Leslie slung her legs over the side of the bed. Sam took that as his cue, and he headed toward the bathroom.
"Listen, lady," Dean said, all serious once his brother was gone. "I don't have anything against you, personally, but there's no way we're hunting unicorns."
"Why not?" Leslie asked. "You don't want to hurt the pretty ponies?"
"Uh. . .they don't exist," Dean said pointedly. Leslie wondered, yet again, why Bobby thought these two idiots were worth her time.
"Guess what, Dean-o," she said. "They do exist."
Dean rolled his eyes, and Sam reentered the room, his mouth full of lather, toothbrush hanging out one side. He pulled it out for a moment to talk
"But why hunt them?" he asked. "if they're not evil."
"Casualties of war," Leslie said. "Their horns are full of power. . .the most powerful weapon we have."
"We have the knife," Dean pointed out. That took Leslie a moment. The knife? What were they. . .but then she remembered something Bobby had told her over the summer, after Dean had died. About the Colt, and an even more powerful knife. Clearly, through some miracle, the boys still had it.
"That knife can't kill angels," Leslie said.
"And a unicorn horn can?" Sam asked doubtfully.
"Of course not," Leslie said. These boys sure weren't very smart. "Like you said, Sam unicorns are good. They can't hurt anything good. They cleanse – purify. Supposedly the horns can cure any poison, any disease – anything dark or wrong."
"Still don't see how this helps us," Dean said. Leslie was seething. Of course. Because it was all about them. Because the case she'd been working before they'd even arrived somehow had to tie to them. But the sickening thing was, the more she thought about it, the more she thought about Bobby, the more she thought it might. She was fucked.
"It purifies," she said again, speaking slowly now, so their limited intelligence could keep up. "For instance, it could purify a fallen angel who lost his grace. . ."
Sam understands first, and his face lights up. "Lucifer," he breathes, and Leslie is a little creeped out by how reverent he sounds. There's the demon blood, she thinks. Dean seems to be thinking along the same lines, because he's looking at his brother with a closed expression on his face.
"Nuh-uh, Sam," he says firmly. "Not again. You're not going on another vendetta mission."
"That's beside the point," Sam said, clearly trying to avoid the issue. "First we have to find the unicorn. . ."
"No, it's not beside the point," Dean said. "Because I know you, Sam, as twisted and messed up as you may have gotten, you're still my brother and I still know you and I know the minute we get that horn –which might not even exist" Leslie resented the look tossed her way, almost as an afterthought – "you'll be off trying to take down Lucifer. Sam, deal with it."
"I set him free," Sam said. "He's my responsibility."
"And you're mine!" Dean exploded.
"Shut up!" Leslie threw herself in there. "You two are ridiculous. What the fuck are you even arguing about?"
"Um. . ." Dean seemed uncomfortable, but Sam pouted and just looked at her.
"Long story," he said. Leslie kept staring. "See, I started drinking demon blood, to become more powerful."
"So?" Leslie knew that her eyebrows were practically in her hairline. So what.
"That's. . .not good," Sam said.
"Why not?"
"Because it's demon blood!" Dean was yelling, and seriously, Leslie thought, did the kid know how to do anything beside yell? "You can't tell me that's not messed up!"
"Whoa, Nelly, bitch, hold back there," she said, holding up her hand, because really, these two were ridiculous. Talk about having their panties in a twist. "I'm gonna say this once, and then you two are gonna zip your lips and we're gonna go out and catch us a unicorn. Dean, honey, baby, sweetie, you're a bit of a hypocrite. You're all freaked that your darling Sammy is throwing his soul away with this demon blood, but didn't you just sell your soul a little over a year ago? So get off your high horse, stumpy, shut your trap, and just do your job for once." She stood up, opened the door, and glared at the sniveling little losers again. "Seriously. If every Hunter had this much angst the world would be one scary place."