***For this chapter, an ***AUTHOR CREDIT*** goes to The Blue Orleans (aka The Driver), for his suggestion for a title for Sam that makes him sound like a monster who should go head to head with Godzilla over Tokyo sometime.
Chapter Seventeen
Dean scowled as he heard Sam's key in the door of their room early next morning. His brother entered quietly, making no noise at all.
"I'm awake," Dean griped, sitting up, "No need to tiptoe through the tulips, Beethoven."
"I'm surprised you're even here," noted Sam, sitting down to take his shoes off, "The way that Rebecca was looking at you, I thought you'd go home with her for sure."
"Yeah, well, the Living Sex God has high standards," sniffed Dean disdainfully.
Sam paused and looked at him. "I always thought 'has a pulse' was adequate qualification," he said, confused.
"Look, just because she didn't do it for me, it's no big deal," shrugged Dean.
Sam stared at his brother. "With a rack like that?" he noted, incredulously. "She had a rack like that, and she didn't 'do it for you'? Dean, are you feeling all right!"
"Of course I'm feeling all right!" snapped Dean, "Just because I didn't want to jump in the sack with some random woman doesn't mean there's something wrong with me."
"Uh, actually," Sam pointed out, "In your case, it might."
"Well, it doesn't," Dean grumped, "Me and Jimi had an awesome boys' night in, didn't we, J-Man?" Jimi wagged his tail, jumped back onto his Alpha's bed, and began to kiss Dean enthusiastically.
"Christo," said Sam in a flat voice.
"Bless you," Dean smiled viciously, thinking wistfully of the greatness of Rebecca's rack, then remembering his determination not to take his little brother's reject after he'd left with her friend Stacey. "Anyway, Rebecca, Rebecca, it's too close to Becky, who is technically a Rebecca. We might've got to her place, and she'd have asked me to call her Becky, and then I'd have been traumatised for good."
"Hmmmm, fair point," conceded Sam. "So, we goin' for breakfast?"
"What, you didn't perform adequately for her to feed you?" scoffed Dean, some of the cockiness returning. "Dude, I'm disappointed, if you don't make her squeal at least twice, you aint tryin' hard enough..."
"We had breakfast," Sam told him nonchalantly, taking off his socks, "Between Round Two and Round Three, as it happens, but I'm still hungry. And she wasn't a squealer, she kind of made this yipping noise, do you remember the Yip-Yips, the aliens, from Sesame Street, well, she...
Dean stared at his brother. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" he demanded.
"What? Dean it's me!" protested Sam. "Ask Jimi!" He gruffed to the dog, who immediately jumped off Dean's bed and onto Sam's, and began to nuzzle at his Second. "See? He recognises me."
"Do you think I wanna hear the details about the chick you banged and the noises she made?" Dean queried querulously.
"Well, uh, yeah," Sam shrugged, "You're always telling me I need to get laid, and if I do, you're always demanding details, and preferably pictures too..."
"Yeah, but..." Dean paused, and settled for pulling an expression of extreme disapproval at his baby brother. "Go shower," he ordered, "You stink of sex. I'm not goin' out in public with a guy who stinks of sex."
Sam looked nonplussed. "I don't see how I could," he protested, "Round Three was in the shower..."
"Bathe," commanded Dean with his most authoritative I Am Your Big Brother So Do What I Say glare.
Sam cocked his head. "You know, when you do that, you don't look like Andrew, you look constipated – maybe you're the one who needs to get some fibre into his diet..."
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Sam stopped dead. "Actually, that's pretty good," he conceded, heading for the bathroom, "Did you and Jimi practise that last night?"
"Shut up and wash," Dean growled, as Sam complied. "Smartass," he muttered, patting Jimi's ears, "Maybe I should push him over and put my teeth on his neck... huh?" His face screwed up into a picture of disgust. "You bitch!" he shouted at his brother, "You filthy little bitch! Don't talk to me about dietary fibre! You cropdusted me!"
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While Sam was in the shower, Dean dressed, then grabbed his cell and called Ronnie.
"There's something wrong with Sam," he began without preamble.
"What?" he heard the worry in her voice immediately. "Dean, what is it?"
"He went home with a girl last night!" he hissed into the phone, "He went to her place, and they had sex!"
There was a pause. "They... had sex?" Ronnie echoed uncertainly.
"Yes!" Dean answered. "Three rounds!"
"Okaaaaay," she went on, "And now what's wrong?"
Dean blinked. "What's wrong? What's wrong? It's not normal!" he protested. "My little brother does not go out, and get laid, and then come home and tell me about it!"
"But you're always pestering him," she pointed out reasonably, "You're always telling him he needs to get laid, and then you're always pestering him to give you prurient details..."
"And this morning, he did!" Dean agreed.
"So," Ronnie continued uncertainly, "Sam went home with a girl, like you're always telling him he should do, then he came home, and told you about it, like you're always badgering him to do, and the problem is...?"
"It's not normal!" Dean barked into the phone. "He's got laid three times in a week! By three different women! No, four, if you count Chloe, Alison the waitress's sister..."
Ronnie laughed. "Dean, Chloe isn't Alison's sister; Chloe is her dog. Chloe is a Whippet. She's an enthusiastic kisser, I can attest to that, but that's as far as it goes."
Realisation dawned in Dean. "For that, I will end you," he growled. "But seriously, it's like he's attracting them! There were two of them last night, swarmin' around him like sharks around blood in the water..."
"Can you have a swarm of anything if there's just two?" she interrupted.
"In this case, yes," he snapped. "Somethin' weird is goin' on."
He heard her chuckle on the other end of the line. "I think you'll find that it's not at all weird," she suggested, "It's just biology."
"Yeah, well, I knew all about that before I sat through what was laughably referred to as Sex Ed at school," observed Dean sourly.
"No, no, no," she cut him off. "I mean, it's biology. How do I put this? Your brother... he's alpha material. Not all males are, but he is."
"What does that even mean?" Dean asked.
"It's hard to explain," she said sheepishly, "It's a combination of physiology, psychology and personality. His mojo, if you like. It means, if he wanted to, he could carry off establishing a pack of his own, with himself as the Alpha Male, the leader of the pack. Like Andrew. And that kind of, well, comes across on lots of levels. It's the way he carries himself, the way he talks, and, uh, well, there's pheromones."
"Pheromones," repeated Dean. "I thought pheromones was that fake stuff that scam websites offer for ridiculous amounts of money for ugly guys to dab behind their ears to attract women."
Ronnie laughed out loud. "Well, the principle is sound, even if the product is a fraud," she replied. "For humans, it's not consciously noticeable. For wolves, smell is a much more developed sense, and conveys a lot of information. The concept of an alpha doesn't just mean he's purely a dominant character; it means he's got the sort of qualities that mean he could lead a pack, and provide for and protect a mate and... and pups. And to females, at a very fundamental level, that's incredibly attractive. He doesn't even know it, but I'm afraid your baby brother is walking around exuding the olfactory equivalent of a neon sight reading COME AND GET IT LADIES. I'm not surprised if it's even extending to human females; his 'neon letters' are ten feet high, and very bright. And let's be honest, it doesn't hurt that he's a nice guy – you can smell that on him, too – and his human self pretty easy on the eyes."
"Great," humphed Dean sourly, "And what about his wolf self, huh?"
"Well, for a start, he's too young for an old bitch like me," she scoffed in amusement, "And because I'm pair-bonded I'm not affected anyway, but besides that, he's... " he heard a note in her voice he hadn't ever heard before. "Sam's been brought into our pack by my mate, and he's like... like an adopted pup. Of course, I'm not his mother, but..."
He heard the unspoken sentiment. He's part of our pack. He's like family.
"But if you really want to know," she went on, and he could hear her grinning, "In his wolf form, your brother is sex on four paws."
"Crap," sighed Dean, "Tell me, what's likely to happen if we encounter another werewolf while we're on this job?"
"Depends," she told him cheerfully, "A male will probably turn and run, unless you run into another alpha, in which case testosterone will take over and they'll fight. Don't worry, Sam will probably tear him to pieces."
"And if it's a female?" pressed Dean.
"Oh, she'll probably get one whiff, and run at him backwards," she added with apparent relish at his discomfort. "You're probably safe shooting her while they're at it, though – Old North werewolves don't have a bulbus glandis, so they don't 'tie' when they mate, so they won't get stuck..."
"Gaaaaah!" yelped Dean. "What is it with werewolves? If you're not paradin' around naked, you're dishing out way too much information..."
"Werewolves are never naked," she reminded him loftily. "Sometimes, we just don't have clothes on."
"The next walking rug that says that to me is gonna get their snout slapped," he growled.
"Just get your job done, and get back here," she instructed. "Look after your brother, smartarse."
"Yes, Mom," he drawled as annoyingly as possible, then rang off.
"Who was that?" asked Sam, emerging from the bathroom drying his hair.
"Ronnie, checkin' up on us," Dean lied smoothly, "And she said you have to... ah, shit, Sam!"
"What?" Sam's head popped out from under the towel.
"Could you at least DON'T TURN AROUND OH GOD! Jesus, could you at least use a towel?"
"I am using a towel!" Sam held out said item for inspection. "See?"
"No, I mean on the rest of yourself!" specified Dean.
"I did already," Sam replied, "I'm dry. Except for my hair."
"For fuck's sake, put some pants on!" snapped Dean.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sam shot back, exasperated, as he ratted through his duffle.
"No, I mean, before you come out of the bathroom!" Dean qualified. "Before, Sam! Put clothes on before you come out of the bathroom!"
"The fan's not working in there," Sam told him equably, "My stuff would get all damp from the steam anyway."
"I don't care if there's a fucking localised monsoon happening in there, because I think I've made it clear, I aint interested in lookin' at my baby broth- ISAIDDON'TTURNAROUND!"
"So don't look," shrugged Sam, pulling on some shorts.
"No, don't you stroll around bareass naked," Dean ordered.
Sam pulled a shirt over his head, then pulled on his jeans. "Dean, look, I don't get why it's a big deal; we've lived in each other's pockets since I was six months old, and suddenly you're shy? And anyway, I'm not really naked, I just don't have any-OW! What was that for, jerk?"
"For bein' a bitch," griped Dean, "Come on, let's go eat."
"You wanna sniff me before we go to see if I'm adequately decontaminated?"
"Shut up." Dean sighed heavily. "It's just my luck," he complained, "My baby brother has a secret identity. Mostly he goes under the guise of a mild-mannered nudist, but by the full moon, he becomes Follicula, The Great Beast – and I'm not sure which is worse. He could rampage across Tokyo in either form, and it would take Godzilla to stop him..."
"Jerk."
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After breakfast at a busy diner (at which Dean was peeved to see their waitress slip Sam a napkin with a phone number on it), they headed for the address of Real People. They parked where they could watch the door: as they watched, a number of people, of all ages, shapes and sizes, went in and out of the premises.
"So, you can stick with Sam Kilmister," Dean instructed, "I'll be Dean Page, extraordinarily handsome mechanic who's lookin' to see if I might pick up some extra cash., and possibly also extraordinarily abductable."
"You wanna trawl yourself as bait?" sighed Sam. "Again? Dean, do you have to..."
"Good way to find out what's goin' on," Dean grinned winningly. "And there could be hot women needing rescuing."
"I really hate it when you do this," muttered Sam.
"I'll be fine," Dean said dismissively, "The Living Sex God can take care of himself. Besides which, I'll have men on the outside. Well, when I say 'men', I mean you and the dog. Jimi, and Follicula, The Great Beast..."
"Of course," Sam rolled his eyes. "And what if it turns out to be me that gets abducted?"
Dean fixed Sam with a Big Brother gaze. "That won't happen," he said quietly. "I won't let it."
Sam gave his brother the puppy dog eyes. "You are impossible sometimes, you know that? Can I at least register an official protest?"
"Huh, this from the guy who parades around buck naked..."
"I don't parade around! I just walked from the bathroom to my bed, that's not 'parading'!"
"So, you stay here, and rampage across the internet," instructed Dean, "See if you can link any more of the disappeared people to this place's last incarnation. I'll go first, scope the place out," Dean stated firmly, "Then you can go later."
"But..."
"Sit. Stay," growled Dean, getting out of the car, "You aint alpha of this pack yet, bitch."
Sam shot his big brother a Bitchface #14™ (There Are Times When Your Behaviour Is So Reckless I Wonder If You Took Lessons As A Small Child), but pulled out his laptop. He watched his big brother head for the Real People office. He knew it was just Dean's pathological case of Big Brother, but it worried him the way it always did when Dean seemed determined to behave as if his own safety was worthless.
"He's never gonna change, is he?" sighed Sam, as Jimi hung his head over the front seat and nuzzled at him companionably.
Alpha is casting for the Hunt, the dog gruffed with a calm confidence that Sam wished he could share.
He is casting, Sam agreed. And I worry about his safety. He's my brother.
He is Alpha, Jimi rumbled reassuringly, Our pack is strong and happy. We will Hunt!
Sam scratched Jimi's ears. "There are times when I envy you," he murmured, as the dog grinned happily at the scritching. "Life is all a lot simpler for a canine."
We will Hunt with our pack, Jimi reiterated, It is the way of things.
He'd been working on his laptop for a while when his stomach rumbled.
Dean would later accuse him of taking a terribly fragrant revenge for being told to stay put, but Sam protested that the Mexican place just across from the lot was the closest to the car, and that the beef and bean burritos he shared with Jimi just happened to be on special.
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