Chapter Six
Looking for all the world like two guys taking a dog for a walk, the Winchesters slowed to let Jimi check out the building housing the bar, but the Nose For Evil Shit didn't register anything, except for a pee-mail.
"Jimi's not picking up on any evil shit," observed Dean, as the dog sniffed thoroughly at the scent then left a reply of his own.
"If there is anything that constitutes evil shit, then it could be the person or persons, rather than the venue," Sam posited.
"Well, it aint demonic," Dean shrugged, bending to pat the earnest doggy face that grinned up at him, "If it was, he'd have picked up on if from out here. And let's face it, the trip wasn't entirely wasted. No trip anywhere in Cali is wasted during the bikini migration." He smiled as he watched a couple of said bathing suits head towards the beach, or at least, he was watching the women upon whom the bikinis were being conveyed beachwards.
One of them turned and scowled at him. "Creep," she muttered under her breath.
"Never mind, bro," Sam consoled his brother as Dean's face fell, "Your dog loves you."
"Yeah, he does," Dean sighed sadly. "But I hate to break it to you, J-Man, you aint exactly hot."
"Why don't we head down to the beach for a bit?" Sam suggested, "You and Jimi can amuse each other with the discoidal missile, that'll cheer you up."
"The discoidal... huh?" Dean looked mystified.
"You know," Sam waved a hand vaguely, "The round aerobatics toy."
"What?"
"The rotary action amusement device." Sam's eyebrows sephaphored in quite a Deanesque fashion. "The circular airborne utensil."
"Sam, unless you start speakin' English, I'm gonna have to slap you."
"You know what I mean," Sam huffed, "And you know we have to be careful how we refer to the, the, the foxtrot-appellation!"
"The foxtrot what?"
"The foxtrot-appellation!" Sam repeated, waving his arms, "The phi-term! The sixth-letter designation! For fuck's sake, Dean, you know what happens if you say it, he's learned what the f-word..."
Jimi suddenly began to woof excitedly, bouncing up and down on the spot.
Dean glared at his brother. "Nice goin', Francis," he complained, "You know he's figured out what 'f-word' means if you say it out loud. Now we have to take him to the beach – you wanna chase the frisbee, Jimi?" He ruffled the dog's ears as Jimi redoubled his enthusiasm. "C'mon, let's go. It's not fair to get him worked up like this, Sam, we can't disappoint him now."
"Clearly not," sighed Sam, knowing when to quit, as they headed back to the car to fetch to object of Jimi's affections.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Sam really didn't mind spending some more time at the beach: it gave his brain time to mull over the problem of his average-ised brother, and the dead hot guys, and at the same time, flipping the frisbee for Jimi – and monitoring the progress of the annual bikini migration, natch – seemed to improve Dean's mood somewhat.
Well, right up until the point where a police officer showed up to check out reports of 'some creepy pervy guy leering at women' on the beach.
"I'm not!" protested Dean, genuinely bemused, "It can't be me!"
"Sir, you fit the description," the officer told him. "Average height, average weight, glasses, you're wearing a faded band shirt, and you have, and I quote, 'A totally adorable dog' with you."
Jimi wagged his tail, and pestered the man for pats.
"But I'm not a perv! I'm not leerng!" Dean insisted "I'm not creepy! Okay, yeah, I'm lookin', and who wouldn't enjoy the scenery at this time of the year..."
The cop seemed to be sympathetic. "There's nothing wrong with appreciating the scenery, sir," he said, "But if you leer at the 'scenery' to the point where they feel uncomfortable, that can be a problem."
"Well, what about him?" Dean demanded, sounding somewhat petulant as he indicated another small group of friends up the beach. A man in his thirties was lounging on a beach towel, giving come-hither smiles to every woman in the 'scenery' demographic who walked past. "He was here before we were, and he's been sittin' there, smilin', and perving, and I'd call that leering, go tell him to stop before he makes women feel uncomfortable."
The cop, who was clearly a lot way from academy graduation but quite close to retirement, smiled understandingly. "Son, that guy there is what is referred to as a 'statistical outlier'."
"Huh?" Dean looked mystified.
"It means, he's really different from the norm," supplied Sam, "He's really different from the, uh, average."
The officer nodded. "He struck it lucky with his parents – he got in line twice for the handsome genes, and clearly spends a lot more time in the gym every week than you and me put together would in a year," he chuckled. "While ordinary guys like you and me are just making a living and dealing with life and enjoying what hamburgers and fries have to offer, he's pumping iron, guzzling supplements and planning his next round of steamed chicken and broccoli."
"But..." Dean looked appalled. "But... that aint fair!"
"What, you've only just worked that out?" The cop seemed genuinely amused. "Of course it aint fair. Human beings aren't designed to play 'fair'. Some hot guy smiles at a woman, it makes her feel desirable. Some average joe like us does it, well..." he left the sentence hanging. " 'Manners are especially the need of the plain – the pretty can get away with anything'."
"Evelyn Waugh said that," Sam interjected.
"Who's she?" snapped Dean, thoroughly piqued.
"He," his brother corrected. "He wrote Brideshead Revisited."
"And he was right," the officer added.
"Well, it sucks," muttered Dean.
"Yup, it does," agreed the cop equably, "But I like to remind myself that time catches up with everybody eventually, even Mr Animal Magnetism there – and in the meantime, he doesn't realise how he's limiting his options."
"Are you kidding me?" Dean's face was a picture of disbelief, "Look at the guy, he's loungin' there on his towel, Mr Chick Magnet, checkin' out the hot women, yeah, he's leering, he could have his pick of 'em!"
"Probably," the cop agreed, "But how many is he missing out on? If all he's interested in is what the outside looks like, well, let's face it, the pool of 'extremely hot on the outside women' is pretty small compared to the number of actual women – that leaves more for us ordinary fellas. And he doesn't even realise what he's missing out on. That's the joke, and it's on him."
"Why aren't I laughing?" Dean muttered sullenly.
"Oh, one day, he'll wake up, and he'll be my age, and he won't look like that anymore. and if a pretty face is all he ever had, well, he'll suddenly find out just how uninterested anybody is, and how shallow he always was. You and me and all the regular guys will get the last laugh, buddy, mark my words." The officer ruffled Jimi's ears. "So just tone down the scenery appreciation, and picture him as Mr Not-Hot-Anymore twenty years from now." With a brief salute, he headed back to his cruiser.
"Well, that killed the mood," griped Dean, glaring at Jimi, "What the hell was that, consorting with the enemy? Bobby's right, you're a tart for physical affection."
"Hmmmmm, who does that remind me of?" asked Sam tartly.
"I have no idea what you could possibly mean," sniffed Dean disdainfully.
"Look, that cop wasn't the enemy, Dean," Sam's eye roll was practically audible, "That was some community policing at its finest. He was trying to do you a favour, and be nice about it."
"If that was bein' nice, I'd hate to be arrested by him," Dean growled.
"Okay, okay, look, if you could just stop leering at women..."
"What, now I'm not allowed to smile at members of the opposite sex, is that it?"
"That's not what I said!" Sam snapped in exasperation. "I said, stop leering, not stop smiling. Just, uh, tone it down a bit. By all means, smile, when you see an attractive woman walk past, but do a non-committal 'Friendly Greetings And Acknowledgement, Fellow Human Being' smile, rather than an 'Right Now I Want To Remove Your Underwear With My Teeth' smile."
Dean stared at him in utter incomprehension.
"Just pretend you're not smiling at an attractive woman," Sam suggested, "Pretend you're smiling at someone else. Imagine we're suited up as state or federal officials, and you're talking to an elderly lady and you want to be polite so she'll get chatty and start giving you details about the person living next door, who's a person of interest in a case we're working."
Dean looked horrified. "You mean... look at hot women, and act as if they're... not hot?"
"Exactly," Sam replied firmly. "Think of it as an act you have to pull off for a job, bro."
"Right. Right. Okay, it's just like another front, for another job. I can do that. I'll just imagine I'm talkin' to somebody's Great Aunt Muriel. Polite, non-leery smile." Letting his face relax, Dean tried a Non-Killer Smile Suitable For Appreciating Hot Women.
It put Sam in mind of the scene from a Terminator movie where the cyborg tried to replicate the human expression.
"Yeah, much better," he encouraged. "That's, uh, nobody will accuse you of leering with that, bro."
"Ohhhhhhh," Dean sank onto a nearby bench seat, and dropped his head into his hands. "If I can't smile smile at attractive women, how the hell am I supposed to get laid?"
"Oh, God," Sam muttered through clenched teeth and shot his brother a Bitchface #3™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often), "Will you just get your mind above your belt, and set some sensible priorities, and concentrate on something important, like, oh, say, getting you back to yourself, and figuring out what's going on with the dead hot guys?"
"Sex is important!" Dean almost wailed, "Sex is at least as important as food! And I can't even enjoy that without somebody lookin' at me, and thinking that a guy shaped like this shouldn't be eating another bacon cheeseburger."
"Technically, Dean, nobody should eat as many bacon cheeseburgers as you do," Sam noted, "No matter what they're shaped like. It's a physiological miracle that you didn't have a coronary episode before you turned thirty. But that's beside the point." Real worry leaked into his voice. "Dean, if something is killing hot guys, and if what's happened to you is linked to that in any way, then we have to figure it out before..."
The grin that Dean offered Sam was rueful, and not at all inappropriately leery. "Nothin's going to happen to me, Sammy," he assured his brother, "Nothin', except the return of the Living Sex God. So don't worry." He looked at his watch. "Let's head back to the bar, have a look at it like Hunters. And if Mr Handsome Genes turns up there, I'm gonna shake him down until his teeth rattle."
Poor Dean - Mr Plod's pep talk has just depressed him even more. *snigger* What happens at the bar? Feed Beau-Ponty reviews, and let's find out!