three months in canada
by greensilver

---

A ghost in Halifax gave them lip about undead rights, a banshee in La Baie didn't speak any English, and a werewolf in Windsor escaped to Detroit in the back of an eighteen-wheeler; three cases in a row turned into three major headaches, and Dean was just about done with Canada. He even started to chase the werewolf over the border, but then Sam grabbed the wheel and said, "No way, Dean," and by the time Dean was done chewing Sam out for even thinking about touching the wheel, they were past the bridge and he couldn't remember which of the identical Mack trucks the werewolf had been on, anyway.

There wasn't much activity for days after that; they were on their second run through Ontario in under two months, and their leads kept panning out, one after another. Meanwhile, Dean just kept driving north and north and west - until Sam looked up at him in a tiny motel room in White River and said, "You're really hating this, aren't you?"

That was one of those stupid girl questions that didn't have a right answer, because if he said yes he'd make Sam feel bad, and if he said no then Sam would know he was lying. So Dean just picked up the town brochure he'd grabbed at the front desk, chucked it at Sam, and said, "Did you read the brochure, Sammy? Home of Winnie the Pooh."

Sam grabbed the brochure as it hit his chest, but made no move to open it; he just stared at Dean with a I could make you talk about your feelings if I really wanted to, you know sort of look that he'd probably learned from his girlfriend. Dean sprawled back on his bed, tossing an arm up over his eyes; it was a pretty childish way to end an argument, even a silent one, but he didn't really care.

After a moment, Sam said, "If this were the home of Tigger, that'd be one thing."

Dean could feel a smile forming, so it was probably a good thing his arm was still over his face. "Yeah, I remember when you wanted to be-"

"Whatever," Sam interrupted, sounding so horribly embarassed that Dean had to give in and drop his arm. Sam didn't look as embarassed as he'd sounded, so Dean was probably getting conned, but at least the argument was over. "This coming from Eeyore over there-"

"Hey!" Dean sat up, hurling his pillow at Sam. "If anyone is Eeyore-"

Pizza delivery interrupted the moment before it could get too sleepover to deal with, and then some channel-surfing uncovered a Clint Eastwood movie marathon, so by the time they left White River, Dean was in a relatively good mood. That mood substantially improved when they wound up in Thunder Bay on the trail of a succubus, and Dean was almost giddy with excitement right up 'til the very second that succubus turned out to be an incubus with really fast hands. Sam had to fight the incubus off all by himself - if nothing else, the incubus had good taste; it'd gone right for Dean - and then he had to carry Dean back to the Impala, which was a whole new level of personal mortification.

Dean slept all the way to Winnipeg. When Sam woke him up with a room key and a cup of coffee, Dean watched him warily, waiting for the inevitable crack about the incubus encounter - but Sam just looked worried, and he was overly solicitous for the two days it took Dean to recover. That lasted until they were looking at a newspaper in a grungy diner halfway to Regina; Sam looked at a personal ad, M 4 M 1-NITE STAND, CALL BOB, and giggled like a six-year-old girl until Dean rolled up the newspaper and whacked Sam over the head with it hard enough to make him stop laughing altogether. They shared a sulky silence the rest of the way to Regina, where an actual six-year-old girl possessed by a demon tried to off them both. It wasn't one of their demons, and they made quick work of it; Sam's Latin was improving. Somewhere between the spinning-head projectile vomit and the usual post-battle ritual of stitching each other up, they started talking again, and then it was easy going for two weeks outside of Saskatoon on the trail of a werewolf.

When they finally found the werewolf, it turned out to be the same one who'd snuck off to Detroit, and it made some particularly rude gestures at them before going all four-legged and loping off into the woods, too quick to catch.

Afterward, they dropped back against the hood of the Impala, equally out of breath.

"I hate werewolves," Sam said, resting his head against the windshield.

"I hate Canadian werewolves," Dean countered, watching the tree line, just in case the stupid furry bastard decided to come back for a third round.

Sam glanced over at him. "So, what, if we were in Mexico, you'd like the werewolves?"

Again with the incredibly unsubtle attempts to dig out Dean's feelings. "Gee, Sam, I wonder what you mean by-"

"You're allowed to be pissed at Dad." Sam rolled over onto an elbow, deliberately kicking Dean's ankle in the process. "I know you are, and maybe if you stopped moping around like a grounded teenager-"

"Yeah?" Dean slid off the hood and paced toward the tree line, itching for an excuse to reach for his gun. "We're in god-damned Saskatoon, that doesn't feel 'grounded' to you?"

"Technically, we're not-"

Sam went silent, because he'd heard what Dean had: movement in the trees, approaching fast. Sam slid a hand into his jacket, but Dean was faster, and more direct; his gun was out, cocked, and aimed before the thing ever entered the clearing.

He felt pretty stupid about that approximately five seconds later, when the 'thing' turned out to be two armed cops.

"So," he said to Sam as they sprawled face-down against the Impala, getting their hands cuffed behind their backs. "You were saying?"

One of the cops leaned in. "I believe your pal there was saying you aren't technically in Saskatoon, son."

"I guess you guys aren't local police, then," Sam said, sending a hopeful look back over his shoulder; apparently Dean wasn't the only one who was thinking that it would be freaking awesome to get arrested by Mounties.

"Saskatchewan provincial police," the cop said, and with unnecessarily heavy sarcasm, "sorry to disappoint," and then they were being hauled off of the car and back through the woods, and all Dean could think about was the possibility that the stupid damned Windsor werewolf would come back and jack the car. Dad would kill him - the werewolf, and Dean.

Luckily, the car didn't stay unattended for long; after a few hours of fast-talking, they were back on the street. Dean was thrilled he'd had the foresight to sleep with a cop's daughter back on PEI, because he'd listened to enough of her drunken rambling to have just enough stolen backstory to sound convincing. The SPP checked his story, anyway, and by some stroke of fate the two cadets whose identities they'd borrowed - the girl's brother, and a really horrible ex-boyfriend - were out of town for the weekend. The Saskatchewan cops released them with friendly pats on the shoulders and a few words of warning about drinking in the forest, and then they were burning rubber straight to the Alberta border, not waiting around for the Charlottetown cops to figure out where their real cadets had screwed off to.

Alberta wasn't bad-looking, as farmland went, but there was nothing to do there: no demons, no ghosts, no ritual sacrifice. They finally found a haunting in a town where all the cows walked backwards, but the ghost turned out to be another cow. Grateful as the townspeople were, Dean just couldn't feel too enthusiastic about exorcising a ghost cow. By the time they hit Edmonton, he was moody all over again, and Sam spent a solid week trying to draw him out with pointless tourist traps and promises of easy women. The second one got him: not because he actually needed help finding easy women, but because if Sam was trying to scare some up for him, then he was probably acting like a bigger jackass than he'd realized. He made a slight effort to look cheery on the way to Calgary, and then in Calgary there were easy women, and the cheerfulness stopped being entirely faked.

They were driving through the northern tip of the Rockies when Dean's phone finally rang, loud enough to almost startle Sam into driving off the road. Dean didn't have to look at the caller ID to know who was on the line; he just turned on the speakerphone, rolled his eyes at Sam, and said, "Yeah, what?"

There was a long silence - that was probably the sound of Dad trying to figure out whether or not to chew Dean out over the phone - and then they got an earful about Bobby and the FBI and someone calling in a favor, dropped charges, no trial; Dad was busy in Vermont, but Bobby was in Oregon and he'd drive up to meet them in Victoria with new passports.

"That's it?" Dean said, wishing they had that videoconferencing thing on their phones so that Dad could get the full force of his glare. "We're just free to go home?"

Dad's voice was a little icy. "Dean, Bobby had to pull a lot of strings to get your ass out of the fire, and I'd appreciate it if you would-"

"How does Bobby pull strings?" Sam leaned over a little to talk closer to the phone. Dean would've been just as happy if Sam would've stayed upright and kept his attention on the road, but whatever, it was Dean's fault for turning on the speakerphone in the first place. "I mean, what kind of connections could that guy possibly have?"

"He's worked a few cases with the FBI, and they helped him out," Dad said, all impatience, "which was apparently easier than I'd thought it would be, since it turns out Dean is legally dead, and if you boys had told me that three months ago-"

"Yeah, sorry," Dean interrupted, hoping to cut that particular lecture short. When he looked up, Sam was watching him, caught somewhere between amusement and sympathy. He elbowed Sam hard, muttering, "Road, idiot," and then, louder, for Dad: "It took Bobby three months to call in the feds?"

Silence.

Dean was too pissed to speak, so Sam filled in: "It didn't take him three months, did it?"

"A couple weeks," Dad admitted, "but with the demon comin' after us, you were better off out of the picture for awhile-"

"In Canada?" Dean slammed a fist against the passenger door, and even that wasn't good enough, so he backhanded the dash for emphasis. "You don't get to keep us in Canada for months just because you think-"

"I don't like your tone, Dean," Dad said, and Dean was just about to tell him what he could do with that tone when Sam grabbed the phone out of his hand and flipped it shut.

"We've got a week before Bobby gets to Victoria," Sam said, pocketing the phone. "Wasn't there somewhere you wanted to stop?"

Dean slouched back in his seat, giving the door an apologetic pat for the undeserved blow. "100 Mile House."

"Yeah?" The phone was ringing in Sam's pocket, but they both ignored it. "Why there?"

Dean shrugged. "Saw it on the map. Sounds haunted to me."

"Sounds like a brothel to me," Sam said, over the continuing sounds of Dean's ringtone.

"Best of both worlds - maybe it's a haunted brothel," Dean said, and closed his eyes, settling in for a nap.

----

They were sitting on on the hood of the Impala, petting the perfectly dent-free surface like saner men might pet cats, when Dean's phone rang for the first time in days.

"Is the car ready?" Dad said, not even waiting for Dean's hello.

Dean glanced at Sam, leaning in with the phone so they could both hear. "Yeah, it's ready, why?"

"Meg's death has been ruled a homicide, and you left your fingerprints all over Bobby's house." Dad didn't even sound pissed, just matter-of-fact, and that was how Dean knew something was coming that he didn't want to hear. "Bobby is in jail, and you're next."

"I've been wanted for a lot of things," Dean pointed out, lowering his voice so none of the nearby mechanics would overhear. "It'll be fine, we'll stay out of the state-"

"You've never been wanted for murder, Dean," Dad said, and Dean didn't really think this was the time to tell him about St. Louis, so he just kept his mouth shut as Dad went on: "This is gonna get cleared up, I promise, but until then, you and Sam are getting out of here for awhile."

"Out of the midwest?" Dean said, not really getting it.

Dad's voice had that no arguments allowed tone that he generally only used on Sam. "Out of the country."

Dean shook his head. "Whoa, whoa-"

"Canada?" Sam leaned in a little closer to speak into the phone.

"No way," Dean said, pulling the phone back. "If we're going anywhere, it's Mexico."

"We're closer to Canada," Sam pointed out.

"There aren't any drunk college girls in bikinis in Canada, Sam," Dean said, careful not to say it into the phone.

Dad probably overheard, anyway. "Dean, Sam's right - head north, and I'll call you when it's safe to come back."

The line went dead.

"No way am I going to freaking Canada," Dean said, and closed the phone, confident that was the last word on the subject.

Author's Note: In the interests of full disclosure, there is no Saskatchewan Provincial Police. But if there were! *g*

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