Splatter

5. The Physician 4157

Sam was enjoying himself way too much, given free rein in Bobby's library. Dean had personally never seen so much crap in his life. To call it a library was to call a weed infested rubbish dump a cultivated garden. Books and objects were piled high in every direction, strewn between interesting weaponry and hand written notes. In the midst of it all was Bobby's worn armchair and a small circular patch of somewhat cleared space.

"Over there's the Mer customs collection, from what I remember," Sam pointed towards the back of the room where there appeared to have been some attempts at sorting and cataloguing.

Dean looked around at the dusty space and felt a pang of nostalgia. A lot of the time when Sam and Dean were younger, they'd spent time in here playing amongst the books and junk, making up stories about the random objects they came across. When Sam was applying for college, he had spent his entire summer in this room, with intermittent breaks only at Dean's insistence, researching the Mer. Since Sam ended up in the science part of the field, the books which were primarily lore and fairytales laid in disuse.

"You sure this stuff would be useful?" Dean picked up an old leather bound journal with skepticism.

"Professor Shurley suggested we start off here and he knows more about the Mer than anyone else on the planet."

"Lucky our dad sailed and collected so much and our uncle's a hoarder, bet Kevin would kill to have access to a library like this."

Sam smiled and buried his nose in a book. Dean looked down at the journal and flipped it to the first page. There was a name on it, 'Henry Winchester'. Henry was an interesting guy, believed in magic and monsters, so his entries were full of sinister sketches and spells and maps. There was a drawing of a juvenile Mer on the last page, done in soft watercolour, a complete contrast to the harsh lines and dark shadows of the other entries. The Mer was female and young, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and holding a toy car, clawed finger picking out a wheel.

"There's nothing in here that tells you how to win a Mer breeding contest."

"We're not just learning for the sake of winning, Dean," Sam said, flipping over several pages. "We're learning about a completely different culture. I'm having the time of my life."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, I bet you are."

* * *

Putting in the application for the Royal Selection was like skipping a rock on a lake or dropping a bucket in the ocean or whatever the metaphor is for basically not hearing a peep out of the Embassy. The silence only heightened media speculation, Dean was hearing from the news that people were starting to enter just to see what would happen. The whole thing was turning into a circus and Dean was mad about that because he wanted Sam to just get picked and have all his nerd dreams come true. Although, Dean did think Sam shouldn't have put his personal life on the line for the sake of his field of study, what if he met someone one day and fall in love? What was Sam going to do with a Mer spouse then?

What if one day some annoying doe eyed guy just rocks up at his work and disrupts his day and meets him for ice cream and flakes out in his apartment? What then? Not that Dean was wasting all his spare time daydreaming about someone with ridiculously feathery hair and dark ocean eyes. Or that Dean was the sort to even use the word 'ocean' next to the word 'eyes' without shuddering, let alone wearing a half smile. Not that Dean was checking his work emails on the hour every hour to see if another Mer visit was scheduled. Bobby almost fainted when he saw Dean's reply to the canteen food survey implying that Dean was actually checking his inbox diligently. Not that Dean had completely changed his daily commute route so that he could pass by the Embassy quarters twice a day. Even Benny had noticed Dean showing up with bagels instead of donuts every morning. Dean had made some excuse about trying to eat healthier but Benny hardly bought that one.