The Wedding Crashers

Chapter Seven

As they made their way up the beach to where they'd been directed, Sam found himself oddly reminded of his and Dean's...well, their pissing contests. Any time one showed an aptitude for something, the other would automatically counter with his own superiority in some other aspect of whatever they were discussing. Over the years, they'd tended to find that in just about anything they fought over, in the end the skills of one complemented the other. While Dean could throw a knife farther, Sam was more accurate. On the other hand, while Sam was a quicker draw with a gun, Dean tended to be the better shot. Sam was definitely the superior when it came to research and computer work, but Dean aced him every time when it came down to hands-on mechanical skills.

However, there was no contest when it came to enduring uncomfortable silences-Dean had never been able to stand them, and Sam could tell just by the way he kept coughing and glancing at Leah that he was near his breaking point.

To be fair, just because Sam was faring better in the silence didn't mean he was faring well.

Leah had told them plenty of horror stories about her family, and Sam had thought he'd been prepared for what they were walking into. Not only that, but he supposed, in the back of his mind, he'd been assuming that most of what Leah had said was so outrageous that there was simply no way it wasn't exaggerated. Not that he blamed her for it; no one could drive you crazy like family.

But now, after just one encounter with one person, he was already starting to wonder if maybe she hadn't actually toned it down when she was telling them what to expect. Either way, he was dreading what was waiting for them at the end of the walkway.

Dean coughed again, and Sam wasn't surprised when he spoke shortly afterwards. "So, uh-that's your pack leader?" he asked. "Your, ah, alpha?"

Leah was looking at the ground, holding her elbows tightly. "Yeah," she said quietly. She looked up and gave him a wan smile. "Natural born leader, isn't he?" she quipped, but without her usual acid.

Sam flicked his eyes over her head to meet Dean's; from his expression, it was obvious that he didn't know what to make of this meek version of Leah, either. "Natural born jerk," Sam tossed out in hopes of getting more of a response, but all he got was another one of those tiny smiles that flitted across her face and was gone as soon as it had appeared.

Sam could see she didn't want talk to about him. That didn't stop Dean, though. "So was he, you know-" he waved his hands vaguely, "doing that mind-control order thing?"

Leah wouldn't meet their eyes. "No-but he was threatening it. I could tell."

They didn't speak any more; the only sounds were the breaking of the waves on the rocky shore and the click of their dress shoes on the artificial pathway of white gravel that had been laid down along the beach, further marked out with small gardenia trees festooned with white ribbons in white pots, and lined with long swaths of white tulle twined with ropes of twinkling white lights. Sam didn't want to know how much time and money had gone into it-was still going into it, actually, as getting electricity all the way out here couldn't have been cheap.

They wound their way down over the unnaturally pristine path through rough and wild terrain. Leah had definitely been toning it down when talking about the scenery out here at her old home. Behind them stretched an enormous expanse of impossibly green jungle, covering the low, rolling hills that led down towards the ocean. To the west, the blue of the Pacific pounded against the beach, cresting high to crash against the massive towers of jagged rock that jutted up from the water. It felt wild and untamed out here, and Anglo-centric though it might have been, Sam couldn't help feeling as if he were some explorer or mountain man seeing the American wilderness for the first time.