They were on the second floor now, and Brian was simply amazed at the gadgets that pest control personnel were using these days. The two men had split up in the different rooms of the first floor and moved these handheld sensors over the walls. Brian had to admit the sensors looked like the Palm Pilot Howie carried around all the time, except for the glowing red light bulbs on the top of the device. It made weird noises, and, though he usually let the experts do what they were doing without asking questions, this sensor thing had him interested.
“So, what does that thing find?” he asked when they were examining his and Leighanne’s walk-in closets.
Dean and Sam exchanged glances before Sam looked over at Brian. “Uh, well, it can detect weak spots in your walls. You know, where the stink bugs may have burrowed and created their nest.”
“Oh.”
Nice save, Sammy. Dean was still a little weirded out by the fact that he was currently standing amidst a Backstreet wife’s lingerie. Interesting, though. “I think this search would definitely go better if Sam and I split up the remaining rooms on this floor,” he told Brian, backing out of the closet. “This one’s clear, Sam.”
“Great. So’s the other closet.” Sam shut Brian’s closet door and smiled at the nervous homeowner. “We do have another job that we need to get to in a little while. Do you mind if we separated to go through the other rooms?”
Mind? If they found the root of his problem, he’d kiss their feet—okay, maybe not their feet, but still—and offer them anything. So, no, he didn’t mind and told them so.
Thirty seconds later, he followed them down the hall towards Baylee’s room and the other guest bedrooms. Baylee, thankfully, was still sleeping. When Sam reached for the doorknob, Brian stopped him.
“My son’s sleeping in there. He’s been terrified of his room lately because he thinks there’s a monster. You know, silly fears kids have,” Brian explained lightly. Neither brother cracked a smile. “Uh, anyway, he just got to bed a couple hours ago, so if you could just be really quiet and-”
“Mr. Littrell.” Sam stopped him with a comforting smile. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
“Sam’s real good with kids, so don’t worry about him and your son. He’ll probably sleep through the whole thing,” Dean tried to offer reassurance.
“Okay.” So Brian hesitantly let Sam go into Baylee’s room. He could see the curly blond head poking out from the top of the blanket and, assured that Baylee was fine, he followed Dean into the guestroom across the hall.
Dean decided he was officially insane. He suddenly had the urge to squeal like one of those airheaded girls all over MTV whenever they saw their favorite band. It was so not like him, and he needed to snap out of it or slap some holy water on himself, just in case he’d been possessed by a teenybopper demon. Brian was a normal human being with a normal family and lived in a normal house. Well, as normal as a guy could get when he was known globally and sold millions of albums and lived in a huge house and-
“So how long have you been exterminators?” Brian asked, watching Dean testing the walls of the room.
The question had snapped sanity back into him, and Dean breathed a quick sigh of relief before answering Brian’s question. “Pretty much feels like since we were born.” The guy probably wouldn’t get the double meaning, Dean thought, but he was telling the truth.
Brian chuckled a little. “I know how you feel. I’ve been singing since I learned to talk. We’re lucky that we get to turn that into a profession, huh?”
“Sure. Lucky.” Dean nodded. Yeah, right. Battling demons is a walk in the friggin’ park. I feel real lucky. “I’m almost done with this room. I’ll just check in with Sam and then we can move onto the last room.”
“Great! So, you and Sam are…?”
Dean pulled open the closet and scanned. “Brothers. He’s my baby brother. Always got each other’s backs during these extermination jobs.”
Brian had a fleeting memory of the time he and Nick worked together…on a prank. Not quite the same but definitely satisfying from the look on Kevin’s face. He grinned to himself. Before he could respond, though, there was a high-pitched squeal from the other room. By the look on Brian’s face, Dean figured the kid was awake.
“Baylee!” Brian yelped and dashed out.
Dean followed him into the room across the hall, expecting the worst…and found Sam sitting on the edge of the bed grinning at a laughing preschooler. Definitely wasn’t what he was expecting and, apparently, Brian hadn’t expected that either.
“Daddy!” Baylee grinned at his father. “Wanna meet my new friend, Sam? He’s gonna make the monster go ‘way.”
Brian shot Sam a look before reaching out to ruffle Baylee’s hair. “It’s not monsters in your closet, Bay. It’s just bugs. Sam probably found a whole nest of yucky stink bugs in there. That’s what you’ve been seeing, not a monster.”
“Nuh-uh!” Baylee frowned. “It’s a monster.”
Sam nodded slightly at Dean and glanced over at the closet before leaning forward to tap Baylee's nose. “Hey, Baylee, why don’t you tell me what this monster looks like?” Brian shot him a glare, but Dean murmured that Sam knew what he was doing, so Brian backed off. A little.
“It’s got big teeth, like the Big, Bad Wolf in Red Ridin’ Hood!” Baylee explained, anxiety creeping into his voice. Rubbing his eyes, he watched as Dean moved towards his closet. “And big, big red eyes and he makes scary noises! It’s bad.” He bit his lip nervously because Sam’s friend was getting too close to the monster’s home. Even though he knew the monster only came at night, he was still scared of anyone going to the closet. Please don’t let the monster eat him, God, he prayed in his heart because Daddy had said that prayers from the heart were the best ones.
Dean pulled out the EMF sensor and scanned it through the closet. The red lights lit up immediately. Bingo. He stepped out of the closet and nodded at Brian. “Yup, you got one.”
“See! I told you, Daddy!” Baylee crawled over to Sam and gave him a hug. “Thank you.”
Sam, surprised by the hug—and, judging by the look on Brian’s face, he was surprised by Baylee’s affection for a stranger, too—patted the little boy’s back. He was cute, and, if Sam could help it, he would soon be monster-free. “You’re welcome, but it’s not quite gone yet. We’ll have to come back and get rid of it soon.”
Baylee leaned back, and the fear returned to his tired eyes. “It’s still there?”
“Sorry, buddy.” Brian held out his arms, and Baylee leapt into them and burrowed. “When Sam and Dean come back—Are you okay?”
He just said my name! Dean choked back the excited shriek and jerked his head in a nod. I’m a frickin’ moron! “Yeah. Sorry. Frog in my throat,” he explained nonchalantly.
Sam gave him a weird look, but Baylee studied him curiously. “Can I see the froggie?”
It was Sam’s turn to suppress a snicker as Dean’s brows flew up. “Kid, I don’t really have a frog in my throat.”
Baylee frowned. “Then how come you said-”
“Sometimes people say that when they cough, Bay,” Brian tried to explain gently. Dean was obviously not as good with kids as his brother. “There really isn’t a frog in anyone’s throat.”
“Oh.”
Dean figured it was about time he and Sam got the hell out of the place. They needed to figure out how to get back into the house at night to see this monster without alerting Brian to their presence. He probably wouldn’t take too well to the idea of actual monsters in his son’s closet nor would he appreciate the fact that his exterminators actually exterminated demons. Not exactly the kind of thing a pop singer would really understand, you know?
“Well, we’d better get going,” he interrupted the sickeningly cute father-son love. He could tell by the look on Sam’s face that Sam was thinking about their own relationship with their, now-deceased, father. Not the time to take walks down memory lane, though. “Sam?”
Sam blinked. “Right.” He stood next to Dean and smiled politely at Brian and Baylee. “We’ll just let ourselves out, but we’ll give you a call to schedule a day and time when we can come back to take care of your infestation.”
“Great!” Brian smiled back genuinely. “Really, thanks for all your help. You have no idea how grateful I am that you’ve found the source of Baylee’s fears. I’m actually looking forward to seeing you again.”
Did a Backstreet Boy just say that he was looking forward to seeing me again? Me, Dean, me?! “Uh, we look forward to coming back, too,” Dean replied. I’m fucking showering in holy water. Possession by a teenybopper demon is embarrassing! The sad part was, he knew he wasn’t possessed and was in danger of losing face.
When they were back in the Impala, Sam turned to him. “So, wanna tell me why you were acting really strange around Brian? Because, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you know who he is. You were acting like one of those girls that follow his band obsessively.”
What could he possibly say to that? “You’re out of your mind if you think I listen to the abomination of pop music.” And he turned Led Zeppelin up.
“Jerk.”
Dean didn’t dare look over at Sam. His brother would just know. “Bitch.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
I know Dean is so very un-Deanish in this story so far, but it's all gonna go back to normal after this chapter. I just wanted to experiment and have a little fun. This story wasn't meant to be super serious either way, so I hope you can forgive me for unDeaning Dean. Enjoy!
