FIC: Distant Relations (9/?) (Buffy/Supernatural)
Ha ha! *dances around and gives a victory cheer* I think I consumed enough M&Ms, Tootsie Rolls, and Diet Mountain Dew to kill a small elephant while I was writing this chapter, but the SOB is done…finally. These chapters are getting progressively more difficult to write. I hope my muse isn't lapsing into another coma. On with the chapter…
*****
Lunch was an exercise in agony. Xander attempted a few failed jokes, and Missouri vainly tried to throw out some conversation starters, but both were met with silence from Sam and Dean.
For his part, Dean was completely oblivious to Missouri and Xander's desperate efforts to lighten the atmosphere. He chewed his sandwich mechanically and stared at the table to avoid looking at Sam, which excluded everyone else from his gaze as well. Dean may have been sitting right at the table with them, but he was about as reachable as a penny on the bottom of the ocean.
Dean couldn't remember the last time he had felt so conflicted about a situation. He felt he had to go. It may have only been a text message from their father, easily ignored by Sam, but, to Dean, an order was an order. Sam, on the other hand, had never been one to jump through hoops on their father's command, and he certainly didn't seem to have any intention of jumping through this particular hoop. Then there was Xander, who had indicated a couple of times that he wanted to go only to get shot down by Dean.
So, Dean couldn't stay, Sam wouldn't go, and Xander wanted to go but couldn't. The real irony was that Dean wasn't all that inclined to go himself, especially if he had to go alone. Sam had once argued that Dean could hunt by himself, and what Dean had told him then still held true now. Dean didn't want to hunt alone. When Dean was hunting with Sam at his back, it seemed like they were just two guys, brothers, who were doing a job, taking on evil one creature at a time, and making a difference. But when Dean hunted alone, it felt like he was just one guy against all the dark and terrible things in the world, and suddenly the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him. All the devils that seemed terrifying in the dark were even more so when you didn't have someone to watch your back.
All in all, no one sitting at that table was pitching a tent in the happy camping grounds.
When Dean couldn't stomach eating anymore, he wordlessly rose from the table and went to the guest room to pack up his stuff. They always traveled light, with the exception of the arsenal that could be found in the secret compartment of the Impala's trunk, so it didn't take Dean long to gather his things. Dean had a moment's pause at the sight of Sam's bag still sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, a physical reminder that Sam would be staying behind this time. He found himself wishing he could come up with an excuse, any excuse at all, not to leave.
He left the room and headed for the front door. Missouri was standing at the entryway, staring out the screen door into yard, and she turned to him when he approached. She didn't say anything, but Dean already knew everything she was thinking without having to hear the words. She didn't think he should go, didn't think he should leave Xander behind, certainly didn't think he should leave with the way things were between Sam and himself, and, to be honest, Dean couldn't think of any point on which he disagreed with her.
But, unfortunately, that didn't change anything. Dean gave her a nod, shouldered past her, and went out the door. Sam was there on the porch, leaning against the wall and watching his shoes as though the laces were some particularly engrossing puzzle. Xander was on the porch too, sitting on the steps, and when Dean came out, Xander stood.
"So I guess you're leaving?" Xander asked, gesturing to the duffle hanging from Dean's shoulder.
"Guess so," Dean answered, casting another look at Sam. Sam's eyes still hadn't left the ground, and Dean might have thought Sam was ignoring him if he hadn't noticed the tension in his shoulders and his clenched fists.
"See ya, Sammy," Dean said quietly.
Sam glanced up at him then, and his eyes had a slight sheen to them. He swallowed thickly and gave Dean a nod, but couldn't seem to get any words out. Dean turned and made his way down the steps, and Xander followed behind.
"So, I'm not sure when I'll see you again," Xander said, and Dean's chest tightened at the truth behind the words.
"Yep," Dean confirmed. It could be weeks, or months even, before Dean saw Sam or Xander again. If he ever saw them again, and in the monster-hunting business that could be a big if. They reached the Impala, and Dean opened the trunk, stowed his stuff, and turned to face Xander.
"Wish you could stay," Xander voiced.
And, damn, but Dean wished he could too. Still, the voice of common sense, which sounded a lot like his father's voice in his head, was telling him it was time to go.
Xander sighed at the lack of response and held his hand out as he finally gave up and said, "Well, it was nice meeting you."
Dean looked back up toward the house. Sam was still standing on the porch, watching them with as much confliction in his eyes as Dean was feeling at that moment. He briefly wondered if he took Xander with him, would Sam still stay behind? But he could hear his common sense and father's voice listing all the reasons why that was a bad idea. If John Winchester were there, he'd have no issues leaving both Xander and Sam behind. Hell, he probably would have been gone long before now. The thing of it, though, was that John Winchester wasn't there.
Dean paused a moment, and then instead of taking Xander's hand he crossed his arms over his chest, cocked his to the side, and gave Xander a measuring look.
Xander's face fell a bit at the action, and he dropped his hand, quickly shoving it in his pocket. He shrugged off the slight, somehow managed to paste on an easy grin, and said, "Be sure to bring back lots of souvenirs."
Dean's expressions stayed the same, and he continued to stare at Xander a moment before jerking his head in the direction of the Impala. "Well, if you're going you better get your stuff in the car. I'm out of here in five minutes."
Xander stared at him blankly for a moment until the words finally seemed to sink in. His eyes widened and his lips began to form a grin "Are you serious?" he asked cautiously.
"I'm serious about that five minutes," Dean glanced at his watch. "Make that four minutes and fifty seconds." Dean gave him a pointed look.
Xander spun and began moving toward the house, but just as quickly he jerked to a stop and turned back around with a suspicious expression on his face, "You're not planning to leave me on the side of the road somewhere, are you?"
"Dude," Dean gave him a genuinely affronted look. "I'm not that much of a jerk. I just don't think that junker of yours will make it where we're going. Besides, no sense wasting gas if we're going to the same place."
Xander nodded in acceptance and took off for the house again, nearly running over Sam in the process.
Sam jumped aside to avoid Xander, then slowly made his way down the walk to where Dean was standing. Dean leaned back against he Impala, and Sam mimicked the stance, leaning beside him. "I thought you said it was a bad to take Xander," Sam said.
"I did," Dean said.
"What made you change your mind?" Sam asked.
"I didn't. This might still be a big mistake."
Sam thought for a moment, "And what about protecting him from the truth?"
Dean shrugged, "I figure what he doesn't know won't hurt him."
Sam laughed humorlessly, "I can't count the number of things wrong with that statement."
"Yeah, yeah…so my logic is screwed up," Dean conceded with a grimace.
Sam looked up toward the house with a thoughtful frown, and for a moment Dean couldn't guess what Sam was thinking. "You won't fool him for long with the crap cover-stories you come up with," Sam warned him. He sighed. "Besides, it'd just be cruel to make him put up with your sorry ass all by himself."
"Are you saying you've changed your mind about staying?" Dean cut to the chase.
"If you still have room for one more," Sam said.
Dean gave him a cross look, "Well, I'm not sure. You did just insult my intelligence and then called me an ass. Remind me again why I'd want to drag you along."
Sam ignored the barb. "Listen, Dean. About before-"
Dean held his right hand up and stalled whatever Sam was about to say. "I told Xander five minutes, which means," Dean looked at his watch, "that you now have exactly two."
Sam just smirked and nodded, and then added as he moved toward the house, "Save my seat."
Missouri came down the walk wearing a smug grin and carrying a few sandwiches in zip lock bags. "Here," Missouri pushed the bags off to Dean. "These will probably be the most healthy thing you boys eat for days."
"Don't think you had anything to do with this," Dean told her, a little irked at that smug grin she kept flashing at him.
"Oh believe me," Missouri replied, "I know better than to think anyone could talk good sense to a Winchester. Whatever caused you to change your mind, I'm sure it wasn't me."
"I don't know that you could call this good sense. In fact, I'm just waiting for this to come back and bite me on the ass." Dean placed the sandwiches in the back seat, then muttered as an afterthought, "Probably literally."
Missouri shook her head. "Boy, you worry too much."
Xander came running out the front door then, jumping down the steps and nearly sprinting down the front walk. "Hey," Xander panted when he reached them, and Dean had to hold back a grin. "I got my stuff." He gestured to the duffle bag on his shoulder.
Sam came out the front door and walked toward them at a much more sedate pace. Dean went around to the trunk again and opened it so Sam and Xander could put their stuff in.
Sam tossed his stuff in first, and Xander paused, looking at something near the rear of the Impala. "Is that a boot print?" Xander asked.
Sam snickered, and Dean scowled. "Just get in the car." He grabbed Xander's bag and dropped it in the trunk before shutting the lid, muttering about a crazy old bastard as he did.
"You boys take care of each other, you hear?" Missouri advised.
"We will," Sam told her seriously.
"We'll probably come back by after we finish this job," Dean said. After all, Xander couldn't ride around with them indefinitely.
"I'll be watchin' for you then," Missouri said.
"So where are we heading anyway?" Sam asked.
"Waiverton, North Carolina," Dean told him. They said their goodbyes, and then Dean, Sam, and Xander got in the car and left.
*****
Only forty-five minutes into the drive, Dean was ready to reach over into the backseat and strangle Xander. The kid just would not stop talking, and the volume on the stereo would only go so high. If he started up a mantra of 'are we there yet?' Dean really would strangle him.
They had just passed through some small Kansas town, a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of place, named Littleville or something. Xander had already insulted Dean's taste in music…twice, which, to Dean, was already enough to warrant letting Xander walk the rest of the way. Now Xander wanted to play a game.
"Come on," Xander pleaded, having to lean over the seatback in order to be heard over Dean's music. "We can't seriously listen to this crap the whole way."
"Dude," Dean turned to him with a glare, "That is the third time you've insulted my music. One more time, and you're hitchin' your way back."
"I'm going stir crazy back here," Xander complained. "Come on, just one game. It's easy all you have to do is…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a red-and-blue something blur past the car. It was moving too fast to really make out any details, but for some reason Dean got a vague impression of plaid. He looked down at the speedometer. They were going sixty miles per hour, so whatever it was had to move at inhuman speeds.
"…is for apple." Xander was saying, and then he turned to Dean. "Okay, now it's your turn. Repeat what I said, and then add something for the letter B."
"Did you guys see that?" Dean asked. He craned his neck to look out the windows, and then back out the windshield trying to see where whatever it was had gone.
Xander rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to change the subject, you're not getting out of this that easily."
"I'm serious," Dean said, glancing back out the window again. "I don't think it could've been a bird."
"There ya go," Xander jumped in. "B for bird. Okay, Sam, now it's your turn."
"Dean, are you all right?" Sam asked, eying his brother.
"I saw something fly past the car," Dean told them.
"But we've gotta be going something like sixty miles an hour," Sam protested.
"What did it look like?" Xander's voice was exasperated as though he still believed Dean was just trying to get out of playing.
"Well, it looked…I don't know," Dean hedged a bit, "kind of…plaid."
Sam stared at him with a raised eyebrow, and Xander gave him an annoyed glare. "Look, if you don't like the alphabet game, just say so. We can play…twenty questions or something."
"Dean, maybe I should drive for a while." Sam was looking at him with concern now.
Dean just groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Forget it," he said, turning the stereo volume up a little more. Barely on the road for an hour and already Xander was causing him to hallucinate. This was going to be a long trip.
"Okay," Xander said, clapping his hands together. "I'm thinking of something and you guys get twenty questions to figure out what it is. And whoever guesses first, wins."
One hour down, a dozen or so more to go. Dean didn't have high hopes for his sanity.
*****
The sky was just starting to darken when Dean pulled the car off of Interstate 40, not far from the Tennessee / North Carolina border, and into the parking lot of a run-down motel.
"Well this place is classy," Xander stated sarcastically from the backseat.
"If you think you can do so much better, maybe you shouldn't have come," Dean said heatedly. Before Xander could respond, Dean turned to Sam and said, "I'm going to see about a room." He got out of the car, leaving Xander and Sam alone.
Xander and Dean had been getting along fairly well this morning, but ten hours on the road had put a bit of a crinkle in their growing relationship. Apparently, Xander wasn't accustomed to long road trips and was finding new and inventive ways of testing Dean's patience.
Games hadn't gone over well with Dean, and Dean's music had quickly started to grate on Xander's nerves. Xander had asked if they could stop numerous times: a few times at the state lines for a picture, a couple of times for a bathroom break, and once just in a desperate plea to stretch their legs. However, Dean had only pulled over twice, and only then because the Impala's gas tank was nearly on empty. And for every time Xander asked a question, Dean would turn the stereo up just a bit more.
Xander had even asked if he could drive for a bit, only to be told by Dean, in no uncertain terms, that Dean was the only one who could drive the car, with the exception of Sam, who Dean had said went through a long and difficult application process before finally getting his chance behind the wheel.
Sam had mediated as best he could, but the last couple of hours had given him a severe headache. Sam wondered if this was how Dean felt when he got stuck in the middle of an argument between Sam and their father, and suddenly he felt a surge of sympathy for his brother.
"Man, how do you put up with him?" Xander asked from the backseat.
Sam's lips quirked up in a smile, and he shook his head slightly. "He takes some getting used to, but eventually he grows on you." It hadn't been a bed of roses for Sam and Dean either when they'd first begun traveling together again.
"Yeah, like a fungus I'll bet," Xander muttered.
Dean came out of the motel office jingling a set of keys in Sam and Xander's direction. Sam and Xander got out of the car as Dean popped the trunk.
"Here," Dean tossed Xander his bag and held out the room keys. "Since you've been whining about a bathroom break for the last hour, I'll be nice and let you go first." His tone was less than sincere.
Xander jerked the keys out of his hand with a glare and returned sarcastically, "Thanks." He stalked off toward their rooms.
The situation wasn't really humorous, but Sam couldn't hold back his grin.
When Dean noticed, he took some of his ire out on Sam, "What the hell are you smiling about?"
Sam's grin merely widened. "Nothing."
Dean shook his head. "All right, so I was thinking I'd hit a bar somewhere, see if I can score us some extra cash at the tables."
Sam grimaced. "Why didn't you mention we were low on cash?"
"I'm mentioning it now," Dean countered. "I figured you and Xander could stay here, maybe get some food or something."
Sam considered it for a moment, "Actually, Xander should go with you." At the look Dean gave him, he explained, "That way I can do some research about Waiverton while y'all are gone. See if anything turns up on the 'net."
"Come on, man," Dean moaned, making a disgruntled face. "The last ten hours have been hell. If we don't get a break, one of us won't be coming back. And considering I'm the one packing, I'll wager that the odds are in my favor."
Sam gave Dean an unrelenting stare, and Dean's face changed to an angry almost-pout. "Man, you owe me."
"Trapped in a car for hours on end probably isn't the best way to get to know someone," Sam commented as they grabbed their stuff and headed for their motel room.
When they were inside, Dean dropped his bag on the floor next to a raggedy couch that was tucked in a corner against one of the walls and turned to Xander who had stretched out on one of the beds. "Hey, what do you say you and I hit that bar I saw as we were coming in?"
Xander raised a skeptical eyebrow, no doubt curious about the invitation considering they'd been almost at each other's throats by the end of the trip. "What about Sam?" he asked.
"Sammy-boy is gonna tinker with his e-mail, and that'll get boring fast." Dean jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Come on, let's go."
It was more of an order than a request, but either Xander didn't notice or didn't mind because he simply shrugged and moved toward the door.
"We'll see you later, Sam," Dean said. As he turned to leave he looked back over his shoulder and silently mouthed you owe me with a look that promised he would collect. Sam just hoped Dean didn't shoot Xander before the night was over.
*****
Xander waved a hand in front of his face trying to dispel some of the cigarette smoke threatening to choke him. "So you come to these places often?" he asked. They were sitting at a small table in the back near the pool tables while Dean nursed a beer.
"Uh huh," Dean replied absently. He was attentively watching the players at the table right next to them, and Xander guessed it was either a very captivating game or Dean was trying to gauge the playing ability of the other men.
The large, burly player who was currently winning made what Xander thought was a rather stunning shot to finish the game and crowed gloriously to his opponent. "Now that's skill."
Dean scoffed loudly, causing the large man to turn toward their table.
"You got something to say, boy?" the large man asked threateningly, and Xander gulped worriedly.
Dean grinned as if he didn't notice how tall and imposing the man was. He was a beefy guy with a leather biker's vest and a grizzly, graying beard, and could very easily have been a lifelong member of Hell's Angels. Dean just shrugged, "Only that any moron tall enough to see over the table could make that shot."
The man crossed his arms over his chest and looked Dean up and down, his expression utterly unimpressed. "All right, wise ass. Then why don't you put your money where your mouth is."
Dean grinned cheerfully and stood up, "All right."
The burly man took the opening break shot, and the first game went by rather quickly. For all his bluster, Dean had been soundly thumped. He didn't play badly, per say, but he hadn't even gotten close to winning, and Xander had to admit he was a little disappointed.
Dean glared at the man as he gave Dean a smug smirk. "It was a nice try, boy," he said condescendingly.
"Double or nothing," Dean offered in an angry tone.
The man laughed and spread his arms wide, "Hey, it's your money. Rack 'em."
Dean propped his cue against the table and began racking the balls. When the burly man looked away, Dean glanced over at Xander with a mischievous grin and winked. It was completely incongruous to the situation, and Xander got the distinct impression he was missing something. Almost immediately, as if putting on a mask, Dean reclaimed his serious, upset expression.
In this second game, they seemed evenly matched. The eight ball was the only one left, and it was Dean's shot, but the arrangement was dismal. "You're never going to make that," Burley-Guy scoffed with a grin, and Xander had to agree.
Dean sidled up to the table nonchalantly, lined up his shot, and banked twice before sinking the eight ball with apparent ease. The grin immediately fell from the man's face, and both he and Xander stared at Dean in surprise.
"Huh," Dean said, though his voice lacked any surprise. "Must be beginner's luck."
The man's face turned red, "Double or nothing says you can't win again."
Dean shrugged and spread his arms wide, mimicking the man's earlier actions, "Hey, it's your money, man." He gave a careless grin, "Rack 'em."
Dean ambled over to Xander and took a swig of his beer. "Like taking candy from a baby," he shared conspiratorially with a wry grin.
Xander gave a smile of his own, "That was a sweet shot."
"Wasn't it though," Dean remarked without any modesty.
"Hey, maybe you and I could play a game after this one, and you could show me a few tricks. I mean…not that I don't know how to play, but I never could have made that shot."
Dean frowned, "Maybe some other night, I'm kind of in the middle of something here. This guy-"
"Hey Cupcake!" Burley-Guy yelled. "We gonna play, or are you gonna spend all night chattin' with the Pipsqueak?"
"Oh he did not just call me Cupcake," Dean muttered under his breath. He turned around, gave the guy a glare, and yelled back, "Don't get your panties in a bunch." He turned back to Xander and gave the table a thump as he said, "Just hang tight, Xander. This shouldn't take long."
They started playing again, and one game turned into two and then three. With each game, Dean's skill became more apparent as he progressively beat the burley man more severely.
Burley-Guy spent more and more time standing around as Dean made shot after shot, and the more Dean played the less time he had in between to chat with Xander. Xander started getting bored watching Dean just stomp the other guy, and when he remembered that he hadn't called Willow in quite some time, he thought now might be an opportune time to find a pay phone.
Dean was preoccupied lining up his next shot, and Xander didn't want to bother him, so he slipped out from behind the table and made his way to the front entrance without being noticed.
He spotted a pay phone across the street on the corner not far from a twenty-four hour Waffle House. Xander reached the phone and picked up the receiver as he dug his calling card from his back pocket. He punched in all the necessary numbers, and by the second ring Willow's voice answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, it's me," Xander said.
"Xander!" Willow shouted over the line, and he almost had to pull the phone away from his ear. "I hadn't heard from you in so long I was starting to get worried. Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm fine," Xander replied, smiling even though she couldn't see it. After everything that had been going on, it was a relief to hear her voice. "I'm in Tennessee for the moment."
"Tennessee?" Willow's tone was confused. "What happened to Kansas? I thought you were going to see what you could find?"
"No, I did go to Kansas," he corrected.
"And you didn't find anything," Willow came to the wrong conclusion, disappointment coloring her voice.
"Actually, I did," he began and then quickly followed with more details. "I didn't find my father, but I met this woman…well, a couple of women actually, and Missouri called Sam and Dean, my half-brothers, and they came, and I met them."
"What about your father?" Willow asked.
"It seems like no one really knows where he is, I guess. But there's a chance he might meet us where we're going."
"In Tennessee?"
"Um, no. We're heading to Waiverton, North Carolina. Their dad sent a text message that they'd find some work there, and they sort of invited me to ride with them." After some pleading from himself and arm-twisting from Missouri, he silently added.
"And so you decided to go with them so you could meet your father?" Willow asked, trying to sum up the situation.
"Well, they don't actually know if he'll be there. Apparently he's sent them messages about jobs before but didn't show up."
"But he knows you'll be there, right?"
Xander paused before answering, "Well, um…no, not exactly. I've gathered that it's kind of difficult to get a hold of him."
There was a long pause before Willow spoke again. "What are your brothers like? I mean…you're on this trip with them, and you only just met them. Are you sure that's a…safe idea?" she asked as delicately as possible.
"Yeah, of course," Xander answered immediately but then seriously considered his answer. What did he really know about them? "Well, I mean, they seem nice enough."
"Well, just be careful. Okay?" Willow half-ordered, half-asked. "And make sure you keep calling me to check in."
"Of course, I will. What would I do without my daily dose of the Willster?" Xander grinned.
"So you and your brothers are getting along okay?"
Xander nodded, then realized she wouldn't see it and said, "Yeah…for the most part."
"Most part?" Willow queried.
Xander told her about meeting his brothers, the rocky start he'd had with Dean, Dean's insistence that Xander couldn't travel with them and then his last-minute change-of-mind, and the long, tedious car ride that had taken up the biggest portion of the day.
"…it's like I never know where I stand with him," Xander said of Dean. "One minute we're fine, the next I'm not sure if he even likes me."
"Well, you have to remember that this was probably a pretty big shock, and they've barely had a day to adjust," Willow consoled. "Plus, hours on end in a confined space with no chance for a reprieve? That's either got to be the best or the worst way to get to know someone in a quick amount of time."
Xander scoffed. "The only thing I got to know on that ten-hour drive was the lyrics to every Metallica song known to man."
Xander heard Willow trying to smother a laugh and couldn't fight a smile of his own. Talking with Willow always had a way of making even the worst situations seem better. "Well, see, you learned what type of music he likes. That's one thing," Willow pointed out.
"Yeah…learned more about it than I ever wanted to know," Xander said, humor taking the bite out of his words.
"What about Sam?" Willow asked.
"He's a nice guy." Xander shrugged. "A bit on the serious side though. And speaking of the getting-to-know-you game," Xander went off on an entirely different track, "I never realized how difficult it was to talk about things in Sunnydale without talking about things in Sunnydale."
"Having to poke all your stories full of holes?" Willow guessed.
"It's starting to feel like the story of my life is a slice of Swiss cheese. My story of the great Battle of Graduation got boiled down to 'robes and goofy hats'. No wonder my last date was with an ex-vengeance demon. Any other girl and our conversations would only consist of hello and goodbye," Xander complained.
"It does kind of put a damper on the sharing," Willow agreed.
Xander sighed, running out of steam on his rant, and looked at his watch. "Well, I should probably go…want to save some minutes for the next time we chat."
"Okay, just…be careful."
"I will," Xander assured.
"And I miss you," she added in a small voice.
Xander gave a sad smile. "I miss you too, Will. But I'll call again soon."
"You better, mister."
They said their goodbyes and Xander hung up the phone. Xander looked back toward the bar, noticing that Dean hadn't come out yet, and then looked over to the Waffle House. They'd eaten Missouri's sandwiches several hours ago and Xander was starting to feel a bit hungry. Well, truth be told, Xander was always hungry.
Figuring he probably had a little more time to kill before Dean was ready to leave, Xander made his way into the small restaurant. Eileen, a waitress in her mid-fifties with a thick southern accent, took Xander's order and came back a short while later with a plate of waffles and some syrup.
After twenty-five minutes, three waffles, two glasses of milk, and Eileen's life-story, Xander finally found himself making his way back toward the bar. Just as Xander reached the parking lot, Dean came barreling out door in such a frantic manner that Xander expected Burley-Guy to come running out behind him.
When Dean spotted Xander his expression suddenly changed, and he began walking toward Xander at a brisk pace. Xander moved to meet him but was stopped short by the angry words that came spilling out of Dean's mouth, "Where the hell have you been?"
Xander blinked in surprise at the anger he suddenly found leveled at him and pointed a thumb in the direction he'd just come from. "I was just getting something-"
Dean didn't give him a chance to finish. "I was looking everywhere for you. What the hell were you thinking just wandering off like that?"
"I just went to make a phone call and get some waffles. You were so busy, I didn't think you'd notice anyway." Xander objected.
"You don't go off on your own without telling someone first," Dean explained heatedly as if Xander had broken some unspoken rule that he should have known. "What if something had happened to you?"
"Like what?" Xander exclaimed, becoming worked up himself. He'd grown up on a hellmouth, taking on demons and vampires (or a least helping a slayer take them on), and he certainly didn't need someone to hold his hand just to cross the street. "You know, I've made it fine so far on my own. If I need a babysitter, I'll let you know."
Dean opened his mouth to retort, but then closed it again without saying anything and made a face as though he was trying to keep his anger in check. "Just get in the car," he finally managed without too much venom.
"Fine," Xander spit back. Neither one said anything on the way back to the motel.
*****
Sam startled a little when the motel-room door was thrown open and Xander marched in with a stormy look on his face. Xander didn't say anything to him, but Sam could tell he was upset. His jerky movements were fueled by what Sam guessed to be anger. "Everything all right?" Sam asked.
"Why don't you ask Captain Nanny?" Xander quipped before grabbing a few things from his bag, marching into the bathroom, and slamming the door shut behind him.
"Well, at least Dean didn't shoot him," Sam muttered quietly to himself, still trying to figure out the Captain Nanny remark. Though knowing Dean as he did, Sam thought he had a pretty good idea of what might have brought that comment on.
Sam wandered out the entryway and pulled the door closed behind him. He found Dean standing out on the concrete walkway that ran in front of the motel. Dean was leaning against one of the support beams that held up the awning, and Sam moved to lean against the next support beam in line. "Want to tell me what happened while y'all were gone?"
Dean ignored the question completely and instead started in on an entirely different subject. "So what did you find out about Waiverton?"
Sam repressed a sigh, knowing it would never be that easy to get Dean to come clean about whatever was going on. "Not a lot," Sam admitted. "It's a small town with barely a population of 12,000, located not far from the Blue Ridge Mountains. On the whole, I couldn't find much else about it. With the exception of a rather interesting news article from a few days ago. Turns out a man was mauled to death by what they suspect was a black bear or a rabid bobcat."
"Bobcat, huh?" Dean asked skeptically. "So do you think this has something to do with why we're going there?"
"Could be," Sam conceded. "Though we can't rule out the possibility of a bear or bobcat 'til we get there."
"But if it isn't?" Dean asked, fishing for suggestions.
"Well, I doubt it's a Wendigo. Leaving a corpse to be found doesn't exactly fit its profile."
"Well, that's a small relief." Dean suppressed a shudder as he remembered their previous encounter with a Wendigo. He could gladly go the rest of his life without running into another one of those.
"There's also a chance it could be a black dog," Sam suggested.
Dean considered that, then threw out a suggestion of his own. "What about a werewolf?"
Sam nodded, already having considered the possibility, and said with a serious expression, "The article said the man was killed just after dusk, and it was a full moon that night. And if that's the case, we may be there for a while. There won't be another full moon for a month."
Dean groaned at the thought of waiting out a whole month just to track down a damn werewolf.
"Or this could be just be an animal attack, and we're supposed to hunt something else entirely," Sam countered.
"Maybe," Dean complied. "Either way, we're not going to figure it out tonight. Might well get some sleep and get an early start in the morning."
"Yeah." Sam shifted against the pole he was leaning on and came circling back to the topic he'd originally started with, "So are you going tell me what happened earlier with Xander?"
Dean rolled his eyes but gave in to Sam's prodding, "The kid ran off without even giving me a heads up. One minute he's there, and then the next I turn around, and he's just gone."
"And you freaked out," Sam guessed.
Dean looked at Sam as if he'd just said something completely off-the-wall. "I didn't freak out."
"But you were worried," Sam countered, smiling. It hadn't taken long for Dean's protective instincts to kick in in regard to Xander.
"I wasn't…would you quit putting words in my mouth," Dean argued.
"So I guess you handled the situation calmly and rationally. Which I suppose is why Xander came storming in earlier." Sam postulated mock-seriously.
Dean just stared at him. "See, this is why I avoid these types of conversation. You make a big deal out of nothing."
Sam just grinned and feigned agreement, "Uh huh."
Sam turned and headed back into the room, and Dean followed behind. Xander was already stretched out on the far bed, unsurprisingly sound asleep, and Sam flopped down on the other bed. "Looks like you get the couch," he told Dean.
Dean looked from Sam to the couch that more closely resembled a torture device than anything comfortable, and then turned an annoyed look on Sam. "You know, sometimes I think I might be better off on my own," Dean said.
Sam just smiled knowing there wasn't any real feeling behind the words and said, "See you in the morning."