"You think it's a slug?"

Sam looked up from his laptop and across the room at Dean, then rolled his eyes and gave him a long-suffering sigh. "Sluagh."

"Okay, fine, a sl-oo-ah-gh." He shrugged. "Great, what the hell is it?"

Sam looked back down at his screen and began tabbing down the page. "Well, it's from Irish lore, they're a kind of demon. After we saw those bird feathers this morning where the last victim was attacked…er, left, I was thinking at first that it could be a god, you know, like Horace from Egyptian lore, possibly kidnapping sacrificial victims, but the marks on the victim were all wrong. Nothing about the killings look ritualistic, like a sacrifice."

"Yeah, you're right – I'd say they look more like the victims of a psycho killer in a slasher flick than a god."

Sam's eyes lit up excitedly and he gestured toward him with a wave of his arm. "Right, exactly. So I started doing some research on things that match our mystery monster and got a hit."

Sam typed in a few keystrokes on the laptop and then slid it around the table to face Dean, who leaned forward on the bed and scanned his eyes down the photo on the screen. It showed what looked like an enormous crow with eagle talons, a human face, and a Gene Simmons tongue flying towards the ground and chasing a group of running villagers.

He sniggered and shook his head. "Looks charming."

Sam gave him a lopsided smile, then turned the laptop back around towards himself and typed in a few more keystrokes. "The lore says that they're the spirits of people so evil that they were rejected from both Heaven and Hell and then transformed into a large flock of angry, black birds. According to the lore, these thing never touch the ground because the earth abhors them. But they will kidnap people and then eat their souls in mid-air."

"If this thing is chomping on them in mid-air and then letting them fall when it's done, then that would explain all the broken bones we found."

"Right, exactly."

Dean leaned back on the bed and crossed his arms. "Okay. Good job, Poindexter."

Sam nodded absently while still concentrating completely on his laptop. There was a little crease between his eyebrows as he squinted at the screen, frowning in concentration. He was thinking about this thing pretty hard and Dean waited for the inevitably coming speech about whatever bizarre thing he knew about that didn't quite match up. 3…2…

"The thing I don't get though…" Dean grinned. There it was. "…is why are these things coming to Minnesota? I mean, monsters usually stay in their country of origin."

Sam was such a freaking know-it-all. Almost every time they worked a case, Sam would either research their evidence to death and then bore him for half an hour talking about it, or he'd already know something about it and then bore him to death on the spot. Although, Dean had to admit that it was pretty damn useful sometimes; back when they hunted that creepy-ass homicidal painting, Sam's impressing that hot art dealer chick with his art history knowledge was the only thing that had gotten them those provenances they'd needed. Well, that and Sam's hot ass; it was about 50/50. And then yesterday when they'd met up with that professor of folklore at the local community college, she and Sam had started talking about some ancient Chinese history and ten minutes later she was looking at Sam like she was in love. When she'd asked Sam out to dinner, Dean had jumped in and said yes for him; the kid was a huge geek, but he impressed smart chicks who apparently knew about the kind of stuff they needed. Sam hadn't appreciated Dean's volunteering him for a date, but, hey, they had work to do. And, okay, so maybe a small part of the reason why he'd done it was because he liked to watch those brainy, high-class chicks check Sam out and know that at the end of the night Sam was still only coming home to him.

Even though Sam was a monster pain in the ass, Dean could see what those girls saw in him; whether he was going on forever about a boring topic or not, it was kind of sexy to watch him get really excited about it, especially when he thought other people were listening to his geeky ramblings. At the moment though, Sam was still staring at his computer screen looking deep in thought, little concentration lines forming on his face.

Dean decided to bait him. "Not always."

Sam gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise, no doubt at one of his geeky facts being challenged. "Yeah, I know sometimes there are exceptions, but most of the monsters who migrate to America came over around the time of the Mayflower."

Dean smirked and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Which was when?"

"1620," Sam replied automatically and Dean got a feeling of deep personal satisfaction at Sam's immediately following bitchface.

"Dean, this is serious. We gotta find out if it these things that are killing people and if so, then why the sudden move."

"Maybe they just got tired of the neighbors,"

"For centuries," Sam went on with only a slightly reprimanding edge in his voice, "they stayed in Northern Ireland and never left. Even with recent immigration, think of all the creatures that have never left their old haunts. In Japan, there's the…"

…And he was off, rattling off this mental catalogue of monster names and facts. Dean had once joked to their dad's friend Travis that Sam had some sort of research kink, but honestly, even then he was only half-joking. The kid loved his research; who knew, maybe he really did sleep with a book under his pillow. Just then, a mental image came to him of Sam sweaty, flushed, panting, and moaning like a whore as Dean fucked him from behind while reading aloud from a law textbook he had in hand. He coughed to stifle his laugh. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a kink per say, but it was still pretty friggin bad. Even as a teen, whenever they went to the library together to look something up for Dad, Sam would get so into his research that he was completely oblivious to the cute girls who spent the whole time they were there checking him out. And the first time Sam had talked to him about wanting to have sex, (because, yes, in typical Sam style he just had to talk about it first,) he'd broken out tons of facts he'd researched about gay sex tips and suggested positions for beginners.

Sam stopped in the middle of his sentence, sat up a little in his chair and looked at him, disapproving and confused. "What's so funny?"

"Huh? Nothing. Go ahead." But, instead of going on with his monologue, Sam raised an eyebrow and squinted at him. Dean gestured with an arm to tell him to go on. "You were talking about the, ah…kongamato; I'm listening."

Sam leaned back in his chair. "Whatever. The point is that if this thing is a sluagh, then we gotta figure out what's bringing it over here. If we don't, we might kill this one only to have ten more show up in its place."

Dean swung his legs off bed and slowly crossed the room to him. "Okay, well…" he rested his hands on Sam's shoulders and looked at the screen. "Does it say anything about what draws them? Some kind of herb or spell?"

"Um," Sam minimized the window with the picture of the black bird he'd shown him earlier and pulled up a Google search. "I don't know, but I haven't found anything so far."

Dean sniggered. "What about your date last night? Was she able to give you anything?"

Sam's shoulders rose and fell underneath Dean's hands as he sighed. "You know it wasn't a date."

Yeah, of course Dean knew it wasn't a date; Sam wasn't a cheater. That was why, when Sam had put on a pair of nice pants and a blazer to go out with her, Dean had settled in with a few beers, watched a movie, and hadn't taken notice to the time when he'd finally been awakened by Sam's weight depressing the mattress beside him. Still, half of the day had already gone by and Sam hadn't brought it up once. He decided to push just a little.

"I don't know; she seemed pretty interested."

Sam was staring at the screen, typing in search queries, but Dean could see the little blush that crossed his cheeks. "She was," he replied quietly.

"Yeah? Well, come on Sammy, don't leave me hanging."

"There's not much to tell, Dean. We had a nice conversation at dinner and then she wanted to go back to her place for coffee and dessert. I think she really just wanted to talk, but she didn't know what I was hoping she did about our case and I didn't want to lead her on, so I said no and left."

Dean nuzzled Sam's neck, thinking about what she probably really wanted to do once she got Sam back to her place. "She wanted to talk, huh?"

"Yeah. I think she just really liked having someone around for intellectual conversation; I got the feeling she's not very well liked by her colleagues and she's kind of alone."

Dean kissed Sam's temple. "So, she wanted you for your brain, huh? You know, that happens a lot with you."

Sam leaned back in his chair as if that thought had never occurred to him before. "Huh. Yeah, I guess you're right."

Dean slipped his arms around Sam and then kissed him on the little mole beside his nose. "For good reason."

Sam creased his eyebrows together in surprise. "What?"

Dean didn't answer; instead, he moved his face in to close the small gap between their faces and caught Sam's lips in a soft kiss. At first Sam didn't move his mouth, but his lips were soft and pliable underneath Dean's and it was after only a couple of seconds' hesitation that he began to kiss back. Dean grabbed the back of Sam's head and tangled his fingers up in his long, soft hair and when Sam grabbed his torso, Dean moved to get on his knees so he could be level with him and move in closer, but Sam firmly held him in place and lightly pushed him away. Dean pulled back, like Sam wanted, looked into his brother's face and couldn't suppress a snigger when he saw the confusion all over his features.

"Uh, Dean? What – what're – we've got work to do."

"Aww, c'mon Sam, all work and no play makes Sammy a very dull boy."

"No Dean, I need to get this research done; it's important."

Dean stood up, took a step back, and slipped his t-shirt over his head, then threw it to the floor.

"What about now? Still got research to do?"

Sam's face was still a little disapproving, but was becoming conflicted as gawked at his bare chest. "Um…there's still that thing out there killing…" As he spoke, Dean slipped off his shoes, then unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Sam stopped in the middle of his sentence and his jaw dropped a little for a second, "…peephole – people I mean, killing… people…" Dean pushed his pants all the way down to his ankles, stepped out of them, then turned around and wiggled his ass as he took off his socks. From behind him, he heard Sam's distracted voice still trying to finish that sentence he'd started over a full minute ago: "we've got…uh, research…we're – we're…"

Dean grinned. Sam could be smart and eloquent with those brainy girls, but all he had to do was take some of his clothes off and his genius brother's vocabulary was reverted to broken phrases and monosyllabic words. He turned back around wearing only his boxers and then slowly ran his hands down his stomach and to the elastic waistband.

"What was that? What do you want to do?"

"We've – job…"

"Really?" Dean lowered his boxers just enough for Sam to see the base of his growing penis. "You sure?" He lowered the boxers the rest of the way down his legs and stepped out of them, loving the way Sam's eyes followed. "Guess I'll just have to find something to do while you do your research then." He ran his right hand down his chest and stomach, to his now fully hard length, wrapped his hand around the base, and slowly stroked it.

"Dean…" Sam obviously was trying his very best to sound disapproving, but his voice cracked at the end like a pubescent boy.

Dean's grin widened. "Yeah, you're right; I should really do this on the bed so I don't distract you."

He felt Sam's eyes on him as he walked over to the bed, where he plopped down casually, laid out with his head resting against the headboard, closed his eyes, and began to slowly stroke his cock. He was going a little slower than he normally would for the effect, but also because he didn't want to come too soon; when he and Sam were working a job, they didn't have time to have sex very often and it had been a few days. He imagined that it was Sam's big, warm, calloused hands touching him.

"Mm, yeah."

He exaggerated his moan a little, but touching himself felt good and knowing that he had an audience somehow just made it that much hotter. In his mind's eye, he saw Sam watching him with his pants down around his knees and touching himself from across the room. He started pumping a little harder, bit his lip, and felt his breathing naturally grow heavier. The visual changed to Sam stripping in front of him slowly, taking off each article of clothing one piece at a time. He then saw himself kissing Sam, rubbing up against him, Sam straddling him backwards and sucking his dick while Dean licked and fingered his ass.

"A-ah, oh God, Sammy."

He sped up a little more but then something from across the room fell and in the next instant, Sam was kissing him and stopping his hand. "No fair," Sam complained between kisses, "you're cheating, saying my name like that."

"Not cheating, just thinking about you."

"Shit, Dean, I…" Sam pulled away and Dean opened his eyes to see him throw off his shirt and hastily move his hands to his belt buckle. "I want you so much right now."

Sam already had his pants pushed down to his ankles and was busy stepping out of his shoes. Dean growled and reached out to him. "C'mere." This time, Sam climbed on top of him without hesitation.

An hour later when they laid beside each other in bed sweaty, exhausted, and completely sated, Sam rested his head on Dean's chest while Dean lazily stroked his hair. He was tired, but they really should get back to work. "Alright Sammy, come on, we gotta get up."

Sam threw an arm over him and pulled the covers up over them. "We've still got another hour."

Dean grinned. "You're picking something over research?"

"Shuddup and go to sleep."

Dean laughed. "Always knew you were the smart one." With that, he kissed the top of Sam's head, wrapped his arms around his torso, closed his eyes, and fell into a peaceful sleep.