The next your school/sports club/church/childcare centre/chess club/kindergarten/belly dance troupe/knitting circle/obedience club/cell block wants to do a fundraiser, I expect you all to go out and make converts to the noble and ancient pastime of plywood frog racing, taking this largely forgotten but immensely rewarding sport to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Mavgang has been nibbling on my ears again - s/he's looking quite fat and contented, what with being fed so many reviews, and a fat bunny is usually a talkative bunny (curse them...)
Chapter Four
Dean was back at the hospital the next day, smiling at the same nurse with a great rack. Sam was more awake, and coherent, and Dean let out an internal breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding: his baby brother really was going to be all right.
"Thought you'd be around here somewhere, jerk," Sam greeted him.
"Somebody's gotta keep a check on your ass, bitch," Dean shot back, smirking as relief flooded through him. "And check out the nurses, natch. Did you see the rack on her?"
"That 'her' is Kimberly," Sam corrected him, "And she's offered to wash my hair later, if I'm feeling up to it."
Dean raised his eyebrows. "Nice work, bro," he conceded, taking a seat, "But before you go frolicking with the nursing staff, how ya doin'? Really."
"Dunno how much frolicking I'll be up for," Sam winced, and shifted slightly. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck. No, scratch that, I feel like I've been hit by a train. With teeth." He glanced down at his arm, and Dean tried to squelch the stab of guilt. "Asshole things got me good. One of the staff saw this one, and asked if I'd been bitten by a bear."
"I told 'em it was a feral dog attack," Dean informed him, "But the doc says you're doin' really well."
"That's what they told me," Sam considered shrugging, but clearly thought better of it. "So, when can you break me out?"
"Hey, let's just see what the responsible adults say," Dean warned. "You got torn up, Sam, you aint goin' anywhere until they say you're fit to leave."
"Why is it that whenever it's you, you're willing to crawl, dragging broken legs, to a desk to get an AMA form, but when it's me, I gotta stay?" demanded Sam.
"Because I'm your big brother and I say so," stated Dean firmly. "So, suck it up."
"I'm sucking, I'm sucking," sighed Sam, resigned. "Can you bring me my laptop?"
"Not until the doc says it's okay," Dean frowned.
"Well, apparently, it's all right for me to have that." Sam spoke in a tone that people usually reserve for describing chunks of dog crap stuck under their shoes as he gestured clumsily towards a well-used paperback on the tray table by his bed. "Kimberly brought it in for me."
Dean cocked his head to see the cover. "Waxing Crescent," he read, "Oh, hey, it's that Twilight woman's next foray into sexless tween-lit!"
"Is there a reason that a nurse thinks I'm a fan of her writing?" asked Sam, with a definite Bitchface #11™ (I Am Appalled Dean, I'm Pretty Sure One Of Us Was Actually Adopted)."
"Look, I had to cover for you babblin' about big hairy werewolves," growled Dean. "With no clothes on. Bein' a Twihard groupie seemed the best explanation at the time." He turned the book over. "Oh, hey, I think this one's got puppies..."
"Deeeeeeean," Sam actually whined.
"Dean me no Deans," sniffed Dean, "You concentrate on healin' up. Can you reach your remote? Good. So, if you don't wanna read the story of... 'The dynamics of the La Push pack change irrevocably when, out of nowhere, a female with a dark pelt and a dark past crosses their territory'. You want me to read to you?"
"You read a single sentence outta that book, and I will end you," growled Sam. "If I have to strangle you with my IV line, or crush your skull with a the frigging pole, I will end you."
"Well then, you just lie here, basking in my awesomeness," grinned Dean, "Or get yourself a steady diet of Oprah, daytime soaps and infomercials."
"Actually, I want a diet of something to eat," complained Sam. "I wonder if they're planning to feed me any time before the end of the year? I mean, starving patients, that's gonna land somebody in trouble, right?"
Shaking his head in disbelief, Dean chuckled. "I'll go check with the nurses," he said, "If you're allowed, I'll go..."
"Breakfast!" said a cheerful voice behind them.
A matronly lady wearing a hairnet, an apron and a shade of lipstick that was probably called 'Turbo Slut' came bustling into the room with a tray. "Mr Olafsson!" she trilled loudly at Sam's roommate, "Mr Olafsson, breakfast!"
The elderly man stretched in his sleep, yawned, rolled over, and farted musically.
"I'll just leave it on your tray, Mr Olafsson," the volunteer shouted.
"Hey, can we get some catering for the guy here who's actually awake?" asked Dean.
"Oh, just let me check..." she retreated to the corridor, conferred with her list and returned with a tray. "Mr Kilmister!" she enthused, like a Twilight fan meeting a talentless actor with terrible hair or improbable abs, "Welcome to Ward 3-North! You're allowed a light breakfast, if you can manage it."
Dean took the tray from her, and peered at the assembled excuses for food. "Well, at least it's the kind of stuff you like," he shrugged.
"Well, don't just stand there," ordered Sam, fumbling at the bed controls, "Help me get a bit more upright so I can eat!"
When he was satisfied that Sam wasn't going to pass out, Dean wiggled the tray to put it in front of his brother. "Okay, we got a thimbleful of oatmeal, and a piece of toast, with what could be honey or could be a small helping of squashed bees, and a sixty-fourth of a cup of delicious tinned pears..."
Hampered by one arm out of action and the other having an IV cannula in it, Sam nonetheless displayed surprising dexterity as he shovelled everything on the tray into the oatmeal bowl, spooned it down in about four mouthfuls, then burped heartily.
"Okaaaaay," went Dean carefully, "Well, you wanna eat, that's gotta be a good sign. You want me to open the juice for you?"
"What I really want," Sam replied, "Is for you to go get me some actual food for breakfast."
Dean chuckled. "Well, I saw one of those drippy-hippy juice places yesterday, so I guess I could go for a stroll and get you a low-fat, low-taste, low-enjoyment smoothie, or maybe some yoghurt..."
Sam's stomach growled long, loud and demandingly. "Fuck yoghurt," griped Sam, "Get me something with plenty of bacon."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"And then, he said 'Get me something with plenty of bacon'," Dean related over a large veal schnitzel at dinner, "Which is just weird."
"What's weird?" asked Andrew, coming in.
"Sam ate a bacon cheeseburger," Ronnie told him, putting a plate in front of her husband.
"What's so weird about eating a bacon cheeseburger?" Andrew wanted to know.
"For breakfast?" Dean replied.
"Nothing wrong with a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast," shrugged Andrew, shovelling a large piece of schnitzel into his mouth. "It's got all the major food groups in it: grease, meat, cholesterol, pig and yummy."
"All you need to add is a beer for trace elements, and you got a complete meal," agreed Ronnie.
"This is Sam we're talking about," Dean reminded him, "My vegiesaurus little brother."
"He's not a vegiesaurus for the time being," Ronnie stated, "For now, he's a carnivore, by adoption. Don't worry about it."
"I'm not worried about that," Dean waved a hand, "So, I go get the bacon cheeseburger, right, and I come back with the bacon cheeseburger, and I put the bacon cheeseburger in front of my brother, and he looks up at me, and says, dude, where are the onion rings?"
"He's got a point," Andrew waved his fork, "A bacon cheeseburger is rendered even more awesome by onion rings."
"So I spent most of the day on catering runs," Dean griped, "Then hiding the evidence. He's supposed to be on 'light meals'."
"For a newly turned werewolf, a bacon cheeseburger is a light meal," Ronnie pointed out.
"Especially if some idiot forgot the onion rings," added Andrew. Ronnie thwacked his arm.
"Look, it's perfectly normal," Ronnie reassured him, "His body is just getting ready for his first shapeshift. Everything has to get ready to change for the first time."
"Great," Dean griped, stabbing a large piece of meat and biting into it in a way that would be fairly convincing if he was trying to give the impression that he was a newly turned werewolf. "My little brother is goin' through werewolf puberty. Just great."
"Well, he will start finding that he's growing hair in funny places," Andrew conceded.
"Please tell me there aren't any raging hormonal storms involved," Dean pleaded unto a universe that had shown many times that it really didn't give a rat's arse, "The man-periods nearly killed me first time around. Come to think of it, they can still be pretty horrendous..."
"Well, the good news is, he won't spend hours crying into his pillow, writing appalling poetry, moaning about how much he hates himself and listening to music played by children wearing too much eyeliner," Ronnie informed him. "The whole wolf form gig is actually, uh, well, if I'm honest it's pretty cool."
"What's the bad news?" asked Dean, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.
"Well, instead of angst, confusion, social awkwardness and body dysmorphia, you're more likely to get uncontrollable rage, overwhelming bloodlust and every instinct telling you to go out and kill someone to eat," replied Andrew. "Although if you want to get technical, that might count as social awkwardness."
"You know, a lot of my teenage years were like that before I was bitten," mused Ronnie thoughtfully, "Although if you'd gone to school with the bunch of morons I did, you'd probably understand why..."
"Oh, just peachy," sighed Dean, dropping his head into his hands. "I could almost wish for the man-periods again. Buyin' him a packet of tampons to make the point isn't gonna work this time, is it?"
"No," agreed Andrew. He paused. "Did it work last time?"
"Honestly? Let's just say I was the one who actually ended up doing the bleeding…"
"It may not come to that," Ronnie said, spearing a potato, "Bobby's been doing some research into This Sort Of Thing. Sam wasn't attacked by a feral wolf with no self-awareness; he was turned by one with control of the shapeshift."
"Does that make a difference?" queried Dean.
"He thinks it might," she went on. "Old North werewolves rarely exist as extended packs anymore; you get the odd small family group, but an extended clan, a small village, well, Hunters have killed off too many. It just doesn't happen. But if you have an individual adopted into a pack, by wolves with control, well, that may extend to them, too."
Dean paused. "Are you sayin' that Sam will be, uh, transformed as a werewolf, with control over the shapeshift?"
Andrew shrugged. "I didn't attack him as prey, or rival. I was self-aware, and knew exactly what I was doing, and why. Bobby thinks it could make a difference."
"There's just so much we don't know," Ronnie sighed. "If worst comes to worst and he has to go through a full moon, we can put him in the basement, and stay with him, make sure he doesn't hurt himself."
Dean stared miserably at his plate. "Lookin' after Sam is supposed to be my job," he mumbled.
Ronnie shook her head. "You already have, you bozo," she chided him. "And you will. Now, what did I say yesterday about angst at the dinner table?"
"It upsets the pie Nazi?" recalled Dean.
"Well, tonight it's the peach cobbler Nazi," she told him, "But the principle is the same. Don't make me get the spatula."
"Ooooh, the spatula; will you wear leather?"
"Weirdo."
It was a very good peach cobbler, even if it wasn't pie, and Dean eyed off a second helping.
"I'll keep it warm in the oven for you," said Ronnie, as she wrapped some leftover schnitzels and trimmings and scooped some cobbler into a container. "For when you get back."
"What?" he blinked at her. "Where am I goin'?"
She looked up at the clock. "Well, unless I miss my guess, it's about now that..."
Dean's cell buzzed with a message. It was short, and to the point.
I'm hungry
"Sonofabitch," he muttered, as Ronnie pressed the food into his hands.
Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice Fetching You Onion Rings From The Deep Fryer Of Life!