I miss Jimi, can we have another Jimi fic, I want more of Jimi, when does Dean start his breeding program, I've got a Jimi plot bunny for you... the Denizens of the Jimiverse are a demanding lot. You get some G.W.N. by request, and you get all pushy... just when I thought I might get a bit of peace, this furry little bastard of a plot bunny was sitting in my tea mug last night. I sat down at the computer to do some work on the bank statements, and - poof! - like an angel invading my personal space, there it was. I hold you all responsible. I have a very vague inkling of a plot for where this might go, but I'll have to see what the bunnies say, and how much time I have.

DISCLAIMER: None of it is mine, I just make them shriek, throw them into lavender bushes and tear their clothes off for the amusement of others.

TITLE: Best of Breed

RATING: T. Dean talks. Nuff said.

SUMMARY: Dean is not enjoying the approach of his impending *mumblemumble*th birthday. Sam is threatening to feed him to a giant alligator named Mr Tinkle, and insists that he'll find their next job, because those high heels nearly crippled him on this one.

BLAME: I aim a special Swat of Bunny Squashing at eebil PaulatheCat (all cats being eebil, since they are all born with two feet in the next world and one of those in Hell), for planting the seed, and then all the other Denizens who watered it, tended it, weeded around it, and keep shovelling on the fertiliser. Denizens of the Jimiverse: they're depraved, but they get shit done.

SETTING: A Jimiverse story. Set a few years after 'Teething Trouble', where both Jimi (who is about seven) and Dean (who is still thirty-something-thank-you-very-much) are dealing with middle age - strangely enough, neither of them act particularly middle-aged, but Dean is a lot more uptight about it.

Chapter 1

Sam was Not Happy.

Dean knew the tells that indicated that Sam was Not Happy: the shutting of the car door that was not quite enough of a slam to warrant Dean taking him to task, but harder than necessary. The shoving of the hands into the pockets. The stomping of the gigantic feet back to the room. The wrenching of the key in the door.

And, of course, the ruthless deployment of The Bitchface, which just happened this time to be Bitchface #10™ (Tonight, You Die In Your Sleep).

Jimi whined softly, and butted his big square head under Dean's hand. He didn't like it when his Alpha and his Second had a disagreement beyond their usual pup-like squabbling.

"It's okay, fella," Dean reassured the anxious eyes, "He's pissed at me, not you."

Inside, Sam sat down stiffly, groaning. "I'm gonna salt and burn those things," he muttered.

"So, you want first call on the shower?" asked Dean. "The hot water will help."

"What I want," Sam growled ominously, "Is to trade my legs in for a pair that haven't been wandering around in homicidal shoes. Fuck me, how the hell do women walk in these things?"

"Well, I guess they call 'em 'killer heels' for a reason," Dean ventured a small joke.

Sam squashed it mercilessly with a crushing blow from his Not Happy.

"It's just as well I can barely see with all this crap around my eyes," he went on, "Because if I'd been able to see clearly, I'd probably have developed vertigo. Aaaaaargh! OW!" He dropped one set of false eyelashes, and stomped on it as if it was a bug. "OW!" Stomping just reinforced the aching in his legs.

"Maybe you should just, er, go clean up, and you'll feel better afterwards," suggested Dean.

Sam stood gingerly. "Yes, I think I will," he smiled humourlessly, "Because I will enjoy gutting you with one of these," and he brandished one of the offending high heel shoes, "So much more if I can watch your face while I twist the heel into your pancreas."

"Sounds like a good reason to shower first," agreed Dean, although when Sam was in such a Not Happy mood, he'd probably agree to anything up to and including line-dancing if it would clear the air. He sensibly kept his mouth shut as Sam wiggled out of the shimmering silver lamé harem pants and gauzy black blouse, and threw them viciously into a corner.

"You, er, need help to get your nails off?" offered Dean.

Sam smiled. "I thought I might take a lesson from cats," he told his brother, "You know, find something to scratch and rip and shred until the old nails come off…"

Dean sighed. "Look, Sam, I understand you're upset…"

"No, Dean, you do not understand!" Sam shot back, "I have spent the entire evening walking around on heels that should be against the law, or at least require that the wearer file a flight plan with the nearest air traffic control tower before putting them on, dressed in a way that would get a teenager grounded until she was forty, with enough shit on my face to keep a Big Hair metal band going for six months, and.. and… and… AAAAAARGH!" He pulled off the other false eyelash set. "I have an overwhelming urge to spray these things with Raid! If I don't, I'm pretty sure they'll crawl up into the corners and spin webs…"

"Look, Sam, you did a great job!" Dean decided to try a pep talk. "You kept the humans and the spirit distracted – you kept them entertained, if the cheering was anything to go by – we got the job done, Jimi sniffed out the wig, I salted and burned it. AND you won!"

"Yeah, I won," muttered Sam, "That's really something I want to put on my CV and tell the world, 'Winner of RuPaul Impersonation Contest'."

"You got a sash, Sammy," Dean pointed out.

"All the better to strangle you with," groused Sam.

"And a tiara, too."

"All the better to brain you with."

"And money, Sam, don't forget, you actually won money!" Dean changed tack. "You are now in possession of legitimately acquired money, from your own talent and hard work. You gotta be happy about that. Think about how much shampoo and shower gel and salad you can buy with five hundred bucks!"

"At least I'll be able to pay for the heat packs, the liniment and the physiotherapy," sniped Sam. "And some aloe gel, or calamine. I have razor rash on my ankles." He winced. "Between that and the shoes, I don't think I'll be able to walk properly for a week."

"Well then, we'll just tell people you were working overtime as a high-class escort to a very demanding client," grinned Dean, sending another brave little joke over the parapet. It died in a hail of semi-automatic large calibre full metal Not Happy, wiping the grin right off his face. "Come on, Sam," he wheedled, "It all worked out, job done, now we can blow this place."

"I am never letting you plan a Hunt again without reading all the fine print," Sam muttered, "And next time the angry spirit is bumping off drag artistes, you can play dress-ups and risk breaking an ankle in shoes that are tall enough to require that the wearer carry oxygen!"

"I could never have carried it off," Dean pointed out, "The ghost liked 'em tall and sensitive. And anyway, I can't sing, or so you keep telling me. You're the one who has forbidden me to do karaoke because you say it reminds you of The Cage! They loved you! Only a ginormous emo could have put that sort of conviction into 'You Think You're A Man'. And in case you didn't realise, at least half of your screaming admirers were women!"

"I will find our next job," Sam muttered, brandishing his Not Happy and daring Dean to say anything. "Hopefully, I can find a haunted alligator farm, where the angry spirit of a careless keeper is haunting the mouth of their most prized breeding animal, a 15-foot, 1,000 pound male named Mr Tinkle, and one of us has to go and get that last little piece of bone stuck between his back teeth out to salt and burn, and one of us has to distract the staff by pretending to take an interest in their range of boots, belts and handbags. Guess which role you're going to get, Dean?"

"Sounds great. You know I've always wanted a pair of alligator skin boots…" Dean's small determined kamikaze joke died the same horrible squishy Death By Not Happy of its predecessors. "Er, why would anyone name a giant man-eating crocodile 'Mr Tinkle'?"

"Because that's the effect he has on everybody who goes into his enclosure," Sam speculated. "You might not want to wear your favourite jeans."

"Er. Okay." Dean slumped in defeat. Having made it all the way to the summit of High Dudgeon, Sam was clearly not planning on coming back down any time soon. "Right, well, you find our next job, then, and I'll, I'll… you wouldn't really feed me to a crocodile, would you?" he asked Sam in a small voice.

Sam smiled. "Right now, Dean, I'd shove sage and onion stuffing into every orifice of your body first, and grin while I did it."

"Oh." Dean looked puzzled. "Do alligators even like sage and onion?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted, "I guess we'll find out when I feed you to Mr Tinkles. If he turns his snout up at you, I'll try something else, maybe cranberry and chestnut, pear and pecan, rosemary and lemon. As a last resort, I could just rub a dead chicken all over you, that'd probably do it. Dean Winchester – the other, other white meat."

"You have put far too much thought into this," mumbled Dean.

"Well, having your toes crushed, you legs crippled and your eyes glued shut with cheap mascara, it clarifies the mind wonderfully."

"Look, Sam, the next time we have a job that involves any sort of dressing up, even as much as a false moustache, I'll do it," Dean waved an olive branch. "I'm sorry you're feeling crippled. I'll even buy dinner tonight. With vegetables and everything."

Sam threw a bill on the table. "Here. Onion rings and fries do NOT count as 'vegetables'."

"No, Sam, I said I'll get it. You keep your hard-earned cash for something worthwhile. Like a haircut, maybe?" Dean grinned hopefully – this time, the little joke scuttled across the bare ground and made it to the next trench safely. "Some counselling for Post-Lamé Stress Disorder? At least a higher quality mascara..."

"Jerk." Sam headed for the bathroom. Dean sighed, and slumped down onto his bed, leaning against the headboard. Jimi climbed up beside him and dropped his head into his Alpha's lap with a small whuff of moral support.

"Okay, then, I'll just watch some TV with Jimi, because he loves me unconditionally and will no doubt try to save me from Mr Tinkle by the cunning strategy of letting himself be swallowed then chewing his way out but if he doesn't and he ends up a dog-burger it'll be all your fault and you'll be really sorry and he'll haunt you and make everything you own smell of lavender by doing ghost dog farts and you'll end up clutching his blanket to your anguished bosom and crying like a little bitch because you miss him so much. Don't say I didn't warn you."

A hand reached around the bathroom door and flipped him off.

Dean humphed, and started channel surfing. MTV was airing a 70s retrospective...

When Sam emerged from the bathroom, he expected to see his brother doing one of several things: sharing a bag of corn chips with Jimi, cleaning a weapon, or maybe making Sam's laptop freeze on a particularly distasteful porn site.

What he did not expect was to see Dean dancing about, wearing Sam's wig and tiara, singing along with Gloria Gaynor.

"Dean, what the hell?..." he gaped at his big brother.

"I should've changed that stupid lock, I should've made you leave your key," warbled Dean accusingly, getting down and getting funky, "If I'd known for just one second - come on Sammy, sing with me!"

Sam smiled incredulously as Dean bounced around the room again, proclaiming his determination not to be used as a casual emotional football and reaffirming that he would withstand the emotional upheaval.

By the time the song got to the second verse, Sam was wearing his sash and singing into his hairbrush. Jimi woofed excitedly, and joined the game, jumping around with his Pack, greyed muzzle gaping in a doggy grin and tail wagging furiously.

It was something he'd long ago accepted, the dynamics of squabbling and play between the other two of his Pack. Sometimes they had serious disagreements – it was only to be expected in such a pack, with two dominant animals, litter-brothers. He had once wondered why Second didn't leave, take a bitch and start a pack of his own – he was alpha material in his own right – but he had come to understand that he didn't want to. Just as Jimi had chosen his Pack, so had Second.

They were like pups, sometimes, like now, Elders who behaved in a way that would not be tolerated by dominant animals. He had long held suspicions that they had lost their dam before they were ready to leave her den, otherwise she would have disciplined them. In her absence, their pack, their dam's litter-sisters, should have taken over. Maybe they had lost their pack, too.

He thought briefly of his own dam, who had left her matter some time ago. Her Alpha, the Wise Elder that he sometimes thought of as a member of his Pack due to the deference his Alpha and Second showed, still missed her. He didn't understand why – she had been old, and it was the way of things, but humans could be… complicated that way. Their longmemory worked differently, he was sure of that.

The disagreement dissolved, as such things always did, eventually, into the comfortably familiar bickering with the unmissable undercurrent of affection between them. His eyes lit up when his Alpha solicited play with his Second, who joined in the game, and he jumped and wrestled with them. He had never been one to feel his age, except for the slight twinge in his back legs when the weather got cold, now, so the three of them played, Elders behaving like pups, and not caring at all…

"You do realise that you'll probably go to Hell for mangling Gloria Gaynor like that," asked Sam as the song finished.

"It's not the voice, it's the feeling behind the words," sighed Dean, "I won't be used and thrown away! Don't objectify me! I'm not making you a sandwich!"

"You go, girl," Sam rolled his eyes. "Now, I believe there was some offer of getting food?"

"And you say I have a one track mind," commented Dean, removing the wig. "So, some nice foliage for the vegiesaurus, and chicken wings for you, J-Man?" Jimi licked his chops, and wagged his tail.

"He's not supposed to have too much stuff like that Dean," Sam said disapprovingly, "He's middle-aged now – in dog age, he's around sixty. Dr Woolley says we have to keep an eye on his weight, what with his size and everything."

"She also says he doesn't have a spare ounce of fat on him, and he's got the best musculature and teeth she's ever seen in a dog over six years old," countered Dean. "Between me and his daddy, he got a good dose of the I'm-Too-Hot-To-Get-Old-And-Fat genes."

"Well, from you, he got the I'm-Too-Hot-To-Get-Fat thing, at any rate…" Sam said casually.

Dean immediately frowned. "I'm not listening," he declared. "You're only as old as you feel. Or you're only as old as the person you feel. Or something."

"Birthdays happen to everybody, Dean," smirked Sam, "Most people look forward to 'em."

"Well, I don't," grumped Dean.

"They say it's the new thirty, you know," supplied Sam innocently.

"You are very close to having your tiara refashioned into a piece of very intimate jewellery, Samantha."

"Oooooh, touchy!" Sam sat on his bed and opened the laptop. "Go get food, and I'll start looking for our next job. Which will NOT involve wigs, make-up, or arachnid eyelashes in any way. Something worthy of your birthday."

"Will you at least feed me to Mr Tinkle before then?" Dean almost whined.

"You don't want your present first?" Sam looked up.

"Depends what it is," Dean answered suspiciously.

"I haven't decided yet," Sam told him airily. "Something appropriate for a mature man of your advancing years. A walking stick, maybe? A lap rug? Some lawn bowls tuition? Viagra? Sustagen? Custom-fit continence pads?"

"Bitch," muttered Dean grimly. "Are you coming, J-Man?"

Jimi considered the request, then jumped onto Sam's bed to stretch out next to his legs, performing Canine Heat Pack therapy.

"Et tu, Brute," Dean snorted in disgust.

For info: The lady Hellhound who had, ahem, sexy time with a very young Jimi at the end of 'Balls' is still keeping herself hidden away in Hell, where time of any sort (including gestation period) has no strict meaning. If she ever comes in and jumps up on the couch with a plot bunny in her mouth, I'll write something (right after I get the fire extinguisher and put out the flaming couch). And If I ever write how Ronnie and Andrew met up and paired up, it won't be here unless there is some sort of Winchester involvement, because this is for Supernatural stories, not OC stories, so it might end up on LiveJournal or something.

Reviews are the Plot Bunny Poo around the stem of the FanFiction Tree of Life!