Chapter 1
Sam felt the chill in the room as soon as he walked in. Apparently he wasn't the only one who noticed the decidedly icy conditions: Jimi sat on his blanket in the corner, muzzle on his paws, Big Brown Eyes dialled all the way up to eleven on the Awwwwww-ometer. The dog whuffed slightly, and rolled his eyes briefly towards Dean. Watch out, Second, they told him, Alpha is Not Happy with you.
"It looks like this isn't the first fugly-in-residence this town has had," he told Dean, who was sitting at the table with all his attention focused on cleaning his gun.
Sam put the laptop down. "Turns out there's a history of people going missing – not always at the full moon, though. Most, yes, but not all. Some disappear a day or two beforehand."
Dean put down his beer, and peered intently down the barrel. The expression on his face suggested that he found something down there quite offensive.
"Sometimes there's months or years when nothing happens, no corpses, no disappearances, no sightings..."
Dean frowned, and reached for the rod. Yeah, something really, really offensive.
"A lot of the disappearances are people who you might think of as being, well, fringe-dwellers: drifters, junkies, runaways, boozers, the types that 'nice people' don't think about, and wouldn't miss. I don't have all the pieces yet, but the timing, the bodies that do turn up, this says 'werewolf' to me."
Dean poked a patch into the end of the rod, and dampened it with solvent.
"There seems to be a concerted effort to cause the minimum disturbance possible," Sam pressed on, "There's thought behind this."
Dean turned the barrel around, and began to clean it. Utterly, totally offensive. Maybe as offensive as Sam's iPod playlistings.
"But I think we have to deal with something a bit more immediate first," Sam told him, "Apparently, there's a problem with this motel, right here."
The rod paused momentarily.
"Yeah," Sam warmed to his theme, "Apparently, this motel has been plagued by a Sulky Pants Monster, it's been going around biting guests, and nobody knows anything about it until someone suddenly starts OH GOD DEAN WHAT'S THAT MARK ON YOUR NECK NO NO OH GOD YOU'VE BEEN BITTEN!"
"Sam!" Dean slammed the rod down and glared at his brother, "Shut! Up! Bitch!"
Sam gasped in amazement. "He speaks!" he said in wonder, "Oh, God, for a moment there, I thought the Sulky Pants Monster might've bitten you, I guess it's only a hickey after all..."
"I'm not sulking!" Dean told him sulkily.
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"You totally are."
"No, I'm not," repeated Dean grumpily, "Sulking is being sullen and resentful, with some implication of not having a good reason to be sullen and resentful. I, on the contrary, have a perfectly good and utterly legitimate reason to be sullen and resentful."
Sam sighed. "You cannot possibly be angry about that waitress at lunch?"
"I'M NOT ANGRY!" shouted Dean, banging a fist down on the table.
"Right, so, it's just the after effects of a Sulky Pants Monster bite then?"
"What you did was unforgiveable," growled Dean, "An unforgiveable, unacceptable and totally unwarranted breach of the Man-Code, the Brother Code, and the Out In Public With Living Sex God Dean Winchester Code."
"Dean..."
"I'm hurt, I'm angry, I'm offended, and I'm disappointed, Sam, bitterly disappointed. I'm your brother! I thought I raised you better than that."
"Dean..."
"You totally cockblocked me, bitch!"
"Oh, God," winced Sam, convinced he had a headache coming on, "I apologised already, I didn't set out to do it, and I really don't think I did anyway..."
"Did you see that ass?" asked Dean wistfully. "That ass! That was nearly a perfect ass! The only reason it couldn't be described as a perfect ass is because there is no such thing; the perfect ass exists only as a parable, an ideal to uplift and inspire. I could've bounced golf balls off that ass. I could've bounced baseballs off that ass..."
"I think we know which balls you really wanted to bounce against that ass," muttered Sam.
"And that could've been arranged, Sam, except you had to go and ruin everything!" Dean almost wailed. "One minute, I'm preparing to deploy the Killer Smile, the deal-clincher, and the next, you're making your evil juju and spoiling my entire evening!"
"Okay, hold it right there," demanded Sam. "You are always telling me that I'm the drama queen – you are blowing this out of all proportion. All I did was chat to Sarah..."
"Aha, so you're on first name terms with her?" enquired Dean icily.
"Of course I found out her name, it was on the tag on her uniform. In Arial font. No serifs, even you should be able to read that one..."
"You intellectual snob," sneered Dean.
"I chatted to Sarah," Sam glared at his brother, ignoring the slight, "About a post-grad Literature assignment she has due. Themes of cruelty and selfishness in Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights'. You heard every word!"
"Oh, yeah, cruelty and selfishness," Dean nodded knowingly, "Topics on which you are apparently a leading authority. That ass, Sam! That ass was one of Nature's perfect double handfuls! And the worst of it, the worst of it..."
"Yes, Dean?" Sam pressed, rolling his eyes.
"You didn't even get her number!" Dean burst out. "She was looking at you like she wanted to go all Mr Darcy on your Jane Eyre..."
"Mr Darcy was a character from a different book by a different author, jerk," Sam corrected, giving free rein to The Pedant Within, "And 'Jane Eyre' was written by Charlotte, not Emily, Bronte, and if any woman went 'Mr Darcy' on you, you'd fall asleep from boredom, the wake up and complain later that she attempted to, to, polite you to death, then you'd decide that any woman who could resist the Living Sex God must be some sort of evil Abstention Demon, and start looking for ways to gank her because no, she couldn't possibly be a normal human being..." He gave Dean a look of unadulterated Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?) and stuttered into silence in the face of his big brother's tantrum. "Anyway, she was going to be spending the evening working on that assignment, it's due in a couple of days," he continued, "So she wouldn't have been interested in either of us."
"Huh," grumped Dean, returning his attention to his gun, "College messes with people's heads, making them think of books instead of sex. Look what it did to you. I should sue Stanford." He sighed wistfully, then looked up with a small hopeful smile. "Hey, maybe if she hands her essay in, and we're still here, we can go back there. And you can be a good little brother, and study the menu while I study her ass, then you can make yourself scarce for the evening." He brightened up at that happy thought. "All right, baby brother, I will forgive you this time," he announced generously, "But you have to make it up to me."
"Forget it – I'm not letting you bounce your balls off my ass," deadpanned Sam, with a small smirk of satisfaction as his brother choked on a mouthful of beer.
"If I didn't know you, I'd hunt you," Dean spluttered. "So, a werewolf. Been hanging around for years. Possibly hunting smarter, not harder. Got a theory on where, yet?"
"Not yet," replied Sam, rifling through his bag for one of Bobby's books, "I came back to get this. I want to go look up a couple of coroner's reports. The wifi at the library is really good. I'll be back for dinner. We can always try a different place, one where the waitresses don't have such heavy academic loads."
"That's a good idea, Sammy," agreed Dean, apparently mollified. "Your Upstairs Brain is good for something, at least." He returned his attention to cleaning his gun.
"Never mind, Dean," sympathised Sam, "You'll always have your gun cleaning kit. In... out... in... out... in... out... " he dodged the cushion Dean hurled at him with a parting shout of 'Bitch!" and headed back to the library.
He was only gone about ten minutes when he suddenly marched back in the door, and without a word, smilingly deposited a drugstore bag in front of his big brother, then left just as swiftly as he'd come back.
Confused, Dean read the message Sam had written on the bag.
Dearest and Only Big Brother,
Please accept my apologies for allegedly cockblocking, and find herewith my sincere effort to make it up to you. Mea maxima culpa.
Humblest atonement from your adoring and devoted baby bro, Sam.
Dean upended the bag.
Out fell a bottle of sorbolene lotion, a small box of tissues, and a travel pack of wet wipes.
The motel manager later received several reports of a male voice shrieking "BIIIIIIIIIITCH!" into the afternoon air, but was not able to ascertain who the culprit was.
Jimi watched the exchange between his Alpha and his Second, letting the reassuring interaction wash over him.
He'd commiserated with his Alpha when the Pack had returned to den after feeding – he was familiar with the posture, the attitude, the scent that indicated a thwarted mating. It didn't happen to his Alpha often, but when it did... His Second had commiserated too, genuinely, Jimi thought, but the Alpha remained in a sulk. After that, his Second had gone ranging, probably casting for the Hunt, and he'd taken his favourite toy to his Alpha, offering distraction and play. That had pleased his Alpha – his mood had lifted, and they'd rassled, and even gone for a walk. They had procured prey, the cooked chicken wings that Jimi loved so much, and he had basked in his Alpha's attention and approval.
The senior members of his Pack constantly bickered like the littermates they were – it sometimes struck him as odd that they still did this as adults. Certainly, his Dam had not tolerated that sort of behaviour after her pups reached a certain age. Maybe they lost their Dam too early, before they were ready to leave her den... but the affection under the squabbles was unmistakeable.
The Second left again, then returned, then left – he often did things that Jimi didn't understand, but accepted without question. This time, he'd set an ambush for their Alpha – the outraged barking indicated that.
He got up with his toy again, soliciting play.
Dean felt the warm chin land on his knee, and looked down at the big, square head looking up at him with dancing eyes, whuffing gently around his squeaky pig toy, and couldn't help but smile. Jimi was growing up, had most of his adult height – when he filled out, he was going to be an imposing, magnificent specimen.
"Just like me, hey?" he said to the dog, patting his head. "Tell you what, let me finish here, then we'll make Oinker Stoinker wish he'd never been manufactured, okay?"
Jimi settled patiently to wait, as Dean walked back to the door, and stuck his head out.
"AND I DO KNOW WHAT A SERIF IS, SMARTASS!"
Reviews are the serifs on the Font Of Life. Or the crispy batter on the Chicken Wings Of Life.