OMG, you feed the bunny with reviews - you are so naise! I think it's working. Kind of. I'm wondering if this is Randolph, Petunia's brother. It has the same reticent feel to it so far.
Chapter One
When Jimi Junior had been a pup, they had found out on the road towards his first Hunt that he suffered from carsickness. He'd grown out of it, but not before they'd discovered some interesting facts about the gastric nature of a half-Hellhound. For example, when Jimi puked, it was inevitably a gush of rainbow-streaked... stuff. And there was lots of it. Sam likened him to a TARDIS, because he clearly had more room on the inside to generate puke than you would think from looking at him on the outside. (Dean claimed that, as a toddler, Sam had also shared this unusual capacity.) There was some aspect of his Hellside heritage that played havoc with the space-time continuum inside his stomach. That was the only explanation for the way a single puppy could produce such an amount of the colourful mess.
It was also Sam who came up with the rating system for each event, seeing as Bobby would always ask after the pup, and it was useful shorthand (also less nauseating than describing the exact collateral damage). Both brothers rapidly came to be very good at anticipating bouts of sickness, but they weren't always quick enough to pull over, and get him onto the side of the road, over the nearest trash can, or, on one occasion, with his head over a bridge railing (which gave the pleasure cruiser gently drifting past underneath a redecorating that the crew never forgot). Depending on who and what got puked on, the rating system went from a Level One Event (one Winchester OR one window OR one side of the back seat) in increasing severity through Level Two Event (one Winchester and two windows, OR two Winchesters plus one side of the back seat), Level Three Event (two Winchesters, one window, and the entire back seat), Level Four Event (two Winchesters, two windows, the back seat and the back window ledge) to the catastrophic Level Five Event (both Winchesters, three windows, back and front seats, windscreen, plus at least one of the following: unwary pedestrian/passing motorcyclist/traffic cop).
They had hoped that Lars and Lemmy, Jimi's three-quarter Hellhound offspring, might have been happier travellers, but the road trip from Bobby's to California soon disabused them of that happy notion. In fact, their first car trip to their first Hunt turned out to be very similar to the one their sire had made at much the same age; what would normally have been an easy two day drive for the Winchesters took twice that long.
When the pups were first ushered into the back seat of the Impala, they had barked excitedly at being in the car. Then, they had barked in annoyance at not being allowed onto the front seat with their Alphas. Then they had gone back to barking excitedly at being in a moving vehicle – that had been accompanied by bounding from one side of the seat to the other, while Dean yelled at them and Sam turned around and swatted at them. Then they had wrestled vigorously over Oinker Stoinker, the well-loved much-chewed squeaky blue pig toy that had belonged to their father. Then they had decided to sing along to Led Zeppelin, howling their approval of Dean's choice of music.
Dean was not amused when his snacking in transit was severely affected: Lemmy tentatively pulled his Dumbo trick, flapping his big floppy ears until he was hovering, and tried to get over the front seat to the corn chips. Unfortunately, he'd misjudged the landing, falling out of the air with his front feet in the bag, and his back feet in a place that made Sam let out a small scream at a pitch his voice hadn't managed since before his voice broke.
"Oh, don't be such a drama queen," humphed Dean, "All you gotta deal with is two crushed nuts – I got a whole bag of crushed Doritos ruined right there…"
"It's about time you did something about controlling your damned dog, Dean," squeaked Sam, glaring down at the pup, who grinned good-naturedly back at him.
"Well, look at it this way, bro," suggested Dean, examining the crumbled remains of the corn chips, "At least he didn't damage something important – it's not like you ever use 'em, or anything."
"Screw you, jerk," snarked Sam several tones higher than usual, as he unceremoniously returned Lemmy to the back seat. "He's as subtle as you. Meaning, as subtle as a sledgehammer."
"At least he's not a sneaky little asshat," muttered Dean, who had not forgiven Lars for the most recent episode of bacon theft.
"Sneaky is stealthy," Sam defended the smaller pup, "Which means, not being detected, which definitely means, no attempted improvised orchidectomies."
However, Sam was less enthusiastic about stealth later, when he was tapping at the laptop whilst eating a muesli bar.
"There haven't been any more disappearances recently," he said, waving the snack eloquently in a wide gesture, "But there's definitely been several connected with this place, spread out over a number of years now. The thing is, the only thing connecting them is prior attendance at Polly's Perfect Pooches Canine Academy, and the police are not treating any of them as suspicious, because..." he paused, and looked at his muesli bar.
It was definitely several bites shorter than it should have been.
Sam stared stupidly at the snack, then turned accusing eyes to Dean.
"Dean, what the hell? You don't even like granola!" he snapped.
"Wasn't me, bro," shrugged Dean. "Your ginormous Sasquatch arms are as oversized as the rest of you, but even then, they don't reach over here."
"Then what the..." Sam began, consequently waving the snack again in agitation. As he watched, a chunk of it disappeared.
He narrowed his eyes, and glared. "Knock it off!" he yapped. "I can see what you're doing!"
Lars reappeared, hanging over front seat, chewing on a mouthful of muesli bar. He stared at his Alpha with big, wistful brown eyes, managing to convey the message that he had only eaten it because he was The Hungriest Dog In The World.
"Oh puh-lease," griped Sam, "I was doing the eyes thing long before your sire outran a bucket of cold water thrown over Jimi Senior and Rumsfeld." Realising that the ruse was not working, Lars' expression changed to the one he usually wore whenever he was caught doing something he shouldn't, which was brazen and complete lack of remorse.
"Stealth is better than unsubtle, huh?" grinned Dean.
"Jerk," muttered Sam, giving the snack bar to Lars. "Here, you might as well take it. It's got puppy teeth marks in it, and you've slobbered on it." The pup grabbed the proffered treat, and scrambled back onto the rear seat, where he and Lemmy began to gnaw on it in earnest.
"I don't think you should be feeding them that rabbit food," opined Dean, "We know what effect it has on you, Mr Methane, God knows what it will do to them."
As if in response to his comments, ten minutes later, a familiar smell began to permeate the car.
"Gaaaah!" Dean made gagging noises and flapped a hand in front of him. "Why did they have to inherit that!-? Why? Why?"
"Chips off the old block," smiled Sam, as the lavender scent of Hellhound flatulence swirled around him. "Remember how you tried feeding Jimi Senior burritos to try to counter the lavender? And you fed Jimi Junior all sorts of crap until you found something that would replace it?"
"Yeah," Dean replied fondly, "The J-Man did love him some fried wings. I suppose it gives us somewhere to start with rescenting these little assbutts. Hey, assbutts!" He addressed the pups, who had run out of energy suddenly, the way puppies do, and were curled together on the seat, "We gotta introduce you guys to wings. Your dad loved wings." Another waft of lavender hit him. "Your dad smelled like cinnamon after wings," he finished ruefully.
"They're very young," Sam pointed out, "And cooked bones, let alone fried foods, are not good for any dog, especially pups."
"Come on, Sam," reasoned Dean, "These guys are descendants of the Pit! Mom used to chew up sinful souls for a living, and Dad was a half-Hellhound with a cast iron stomach, capable of contained detonation of unexploded occult ordnance! They'll love wings!" He flapped his hand again. "Let's just hope that wings love them."
Not long after that, Lemmy woke up, yawned, and started to whine and scratch at the seat, which Sam correctly interpreted as a request for a bathroom break.
Twenty minutes later, Lars wanted a bathroom break.
Half an hour later, Lemmy wanted a bathroom break.
Half an hour after that, Lemmy and Lars wanted a bathroom break.
"Hey!" called Dean, as Lars did the jump-through-solid-matter thing as soon as the car stopped. "No breaking the laws of physics!" He got out to help Lemmy, who had followed his brother and, as often occurred, got stuck halfway. "How we're supposed to explain that if somebody sees is beyond me," he told the pup, who grinned happily at him. "You look like a hunting trophy. Come on."
Lemmy eventually made his way through the door, and joined his brother in searching for the right spot to take care of business.
"What the hell is with that?" demanded Dean, when they'd pulled over for what seemed like the tenth time in as many miles. "Hellhounds don't obey the laws of physical matter, and if they do manifest in this plane, they can be the size of small cars! How do animals with that sort of pedigree end up with bladders the size of peanuts?"
"It's a puppy thing," shrugged Sam, "It's quite normal for pups to have to go every 45 to 60 minutes. Jimi was the same. Do you remember when..."
"Ah, shit!" Dean interrupted, then stamped where Lemmy had left a small clump of dead grass smouldering. "You gotta get the whole fire-starting pee thing under control, fella," he reprimanded the puppy, "I've lost too many shirts and pairs of shorts to your irritable bladder."
With a smirk that was decidedly Deanlike, Sam cleared his throat, and indicated another clump of bedraggled weed. "Lars! Torch it! Torch it!" he urged, "Torch it!"
Lars left off growling at a suspicious beetle, and trotted over to examine the offending vegetation. A little hesitantly, he squatted again. The weed began to smoke.
"Good boy!" praised Sam, "Clever boy!" He ruffled Lars' ears, as the pup soaked up his approval. "What a good boy!"
"What an insufferable smartass," mumbled Dean. "And so is your dog."
"Don't hate us because we're intelligent," Sam smiled, patting Lars.
"I don't," replied Dean, "I hate you because you're a shaggy girl who takes too long in the bathroom. And so do you, midget," he added, glaring at Lars. "Come on, let's get going. I'd like to get to Cali before Christmas."
The drive had gone on like that, punctuated by barking, howling, wrestling, tug-of-war with Oinker Stoinker, bathroom breaks and intermittent attempts to invade the front seat.
"I swear, I'm going to nail you two little asshats down," grumbled Dean, glancing into the mirror to see what they were doing.
It was then that he noticed that Lemmy was looking subdued.
Then he started to hiccup.
"Hiccups, Dean!" shouted Sam, "Hiccups! Hiccups!"
"I know, I know!" Dean replied, frantically searching the road ahead for somewhere to pull over.
The Impala swerved off the tar in a spray of gravel, and Dean was out the microsecond it stopped, rushing to open the door.
"Out! Out!" he urged the hiccupping puppy, grabbing him by the scruff. "Out! Right now!"
And in his own way, Lemmy obeyed...
"Oh, that's just..." Sam screwed up his nose at the sight of the rainbow-streak gunk that they had found out with Jimi Junior constituted Hellhound puke. "...Somewhere between disgusting and disturbing," he finished, fishing behind the seat for one of the old towels they'd laid in against just such an emergency.
"They fart like their dad, they pee like their dad, and their pee starts fires like their dad, and now we find out that they puke like their dad," muttered Dean, "I just hope they grow up to Hunt like him. You done, fella?" Lemmy whined, and lifted his head, looking mournful. His brother Lars nosed at his flank, and made soothing whuffing sounds.
"Lars is a good boy," Sam noted, "He wants to make his brother feel better. Aren't you a good boy, huh? Yeah, you're a good boy, you're a good brother, you're a clever dog..."
huuuuurrrrrrk
"Oh, God, you're a sympathetic puker," Sam wailed, and reached for another towel.
A few hours and several bathroom breaks and small grass fires later, they experienced another Level Two Event, then in the early evening, there was a more serious episode.
"I'm calling this one as a Level Three Event," sighed Sam, wiping ineffectually at the colourful muck on his clothing, "Maybe tending towards a Three Point Five."
"I'm calling it a day," griped Dean, who had borne the brunt of it when Lemmy tried to get himself through the car door again, and got stuck half way, then threw up as Dean was trying to help him all the way through. "We're finding somewhere to stay and clean up before we go any further."
Which is how, not quite a quarter of the way to their destination, they ended up pulling into the first motel with a vacancy that they spotted.
"How come I gotta go get the room looking like this?" demanded Sam, gesturing down at his colourfully bedaubed clothes.
"Because I look worse," grunted Dean, turning off the engine.
"They'll think I'm some sort of weirdo!" protested Sam.
"Technically, you are some sort of weirdo," Dean pointed out.
"What?" snapped Sam. "No I'm not!"
"You have screwed a werewolf and a demon," Dean reminded him. "Bestiality and necrophilia, bro – very Twilight."
"Ha ha. You're hilarious. What am I supposed to say if they, you know, look at me funny?"
"Tell them that the art therapy class you attend on day release got out of hand when a couple of your classmates went off their medication," suggested Dean.
"Jerk," muttered Sam, stomping off towards the office with a parting shot of Bitchface #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean)
Dean hauled himself out of the car, and made a fruitless attempt to rid himself of some of the colourful goo. Lemmy and Lars were curled together, asleep, apparently exhausted by the day's excitation, transportation, levitation, attempted emasculation, degustation, recreation and regurgitation.
"You guys have got such big shoes to fill," he mused, "And I don't mean with puke."
As he stretched his arms out, Lemmy sat up, yawned hugely and gave Dean a happy puppy smile and a tail wag.
"Don't tell me you're learning emotional manipulation from your asshole brother," smiled Dean, reaching to pick up the pup. Lemmy's tail wagging increased in intensity, and he climbed up Dean's shirt to kiss his Alpha's nose. "Well, okay, tell you what, if you're going to be this cute, I'll hold off filling your pukey little ass full of consecrated iron shot for another day. But you gotta go easy on Sam's nuts - seriously, I think they're shriveled away from lack of use as it is. And when he walks into that office covered in your lunch, they're going to think that he's batting for Team Rainbow." He looked down at himself. "Come to think of it, they're going to think that I'm batting for Team Rainbow. Great. If you've sabotaged the Living Sex God for a hot chick, I will not be happy. Oh, and just a heads up, if you don't behave yourself once we're in the B-A-T-H, all bets are off."
Reviews are the Adorable Napping Puppies Cuddling You In The Back Seat Of Life!*
With no puppy puke of any sort at all.