Fic: Wild By Skye (8/27)
Sam hated having to staunch the flow of his own blood. It wasn't that he was squeamish; it was just hard to do. Battling blood loss sapped one's strength as a natural law, and it especially sucked having to depend on strength to keep enough pressure on a wound to slow the blood flow.
It was a vicious cycle if there ever was one, and Sam hoped his adrenaline-high held out long enough for him to slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't bleed out and die. For the moment, he couldn't interrupt Dean to ask him to lend a hand. Even bleeding from a deep cut, Sam was not the top priority of the moment.
Sam pressed his hand as tightly to his side as possible, clamping his fingers over his wound, and watched as Dean lay down a salt line around them.
The woods around them were frighteningly still. No birds singing to the encroaching sunset, no crickets starting up their nightly symphony. The creatures of the night sensed the evil and had gone elsewhere.
Sam would sure like to follow their example and get the hell out of Dodge. This hunt had gone wrong fast and it looked like it was going to stay that way until dawn.
They had come out into the forest expecting black dogs. The victims (four in the last year) had been torn up so savagely that revved-up, sadistically-enhanced animal attacks seemed the only explanation.
They found the spirits of a regular family of Freddy Kruegers instead. Seemed that the family that slayed and cannibalized together stayed together, even after death.
Sam still wasn't ruling out that the Woodland Kruegers didn't have a demonic family dog, too.
Sam and Dean had been in over their heads and knew it the second the spirits coalesced around them. There were too many to take on with rock salt and iron. This was the kind of job that had to be approached as an attack on the source from the get-go.
They fought their way through the throng, blasting a hole in the ring of spirits with rounds of rock salt, headed for the Impala and a strategic withdrawal, but Sam didn't side-step a limb-turned-spear fast enough. He was fast enough to avoid being outright impaled by it, but the gash it opened in his side sent him to his knees in an explosion of searing pain.
Dean hauled him to his feet and half-dragged his brother as far as he could, but the vicious Donner family would regroup faster than the boys could get back to the car, given Sam's compromised condition, and after the rounds of rock salt shot at them, the spirits wouldn't be happy.
Instead of getting caught out with their pants down, Dean propped Sam against a tree trunk, dug into his bag, and pulled out the bag of salt. Knowing what Dean had in mind, Sam laboriously bent his knees and drew his legs toward his body, making himself as small as possible. At six foot four, taking up a small amount of space was not easy, but it was imperative that Sam do his best.
One thing they did have working in their favor… these particular spirits only appeared at or close to night. The nocturnal pattern had been the main reason the Winchester brothers suspected black dogs in the first place, but this family seemed to abhor daylight for whatever reason. That was good news. If they could make it through the night, the spirits should disappear and Sam and Dean could limp back to the car without the fear of woodland projectiles.
Now all they had to do was wait it out.
Using the last of the bag to do it, Dean made a ring of salt around where Sam was slumped against the tree holding his side. Sam's pulse was beating hollowly in his throat and temples. His breath was shaky and his body seemed a contrast of fiery hot and icy cold.
Sam wished the shock of blood loss would catch up to his actual wound so he might get some relief from the pain.
Dean tossed the empty bag aside and came to crouch next to Sam. "Let me see," he said gruffly, and Sam gratefully moved his hand aside and let Dean examine the damage.
"Ah, hell," Dean hissed as he prodded the gash. The combat medic-style examination in the quickly fading light sent renewed lances of pain through Sam's side.
"Cut it out," Sam slurred.
"Someone already tried, that's the problem. Personally, I'd like to keep your kidneys just where they are," Dean answered dryly.
Sam snorted, reminded himself to find that funny later, and tried to breathe through the pain.
Dean took over the job of stopping the bleeding, and Sam hissed as his big brother's vice-like grip pinched over the wound.
"Sorry," he whispered gruffly.
"S'kay… how's it look?" His heart was still pounding in his chest, but not as fast as it was before when they were beating a hasty retreat through the trees.
"Looks like a family of spirits that has a matchbook with their name on it," Dean growled.
Sam tried, and failed, to laugh.
Dean's voice softened. "I think you'll be all right. Get you out of here in the morning, clean this out and stitch it up, should be fine. We've had worse, right?"
Sam rolled his eyes languidly. "Yeah, sure." Bitch of it was, that was true. All of the Winchesters had been injured worse and lived. He trusted Dean's assessment that this time he would live. It would just hurt like hell for a while before he was back to fighting fit.
With the relief of knowing he wouldn't actually die, the terror ebbed and in its wake came exhaustion. The body put itself through the wringer if it thought it might be dying, and the crash when the crisis was over was something else. Sam closed his eyes, momentarily surrendering to it.
For a while, the two of them sat like that. Sam regrouping while Dean pressed down fiercely on Sam's injury to stem the blood flow.
Sam began to drift. Not so much in sleep, but in the haze of knowing the universe only to the extent that it registered to his battered body. He felt safe enough to let himself float knowing Dean was there.
He noted the sun vanishing, gradually but steadily, only as the light penetrating through his eyelids dimmed.
Tugging him back from the void, Sam felt Dean's hand on his face, touching his neck to check his pulse, then migrating to his cheek, a hot patch of flesh against flesh. "You with me, Sam?"
Sam mumbled, "Mmm… am I that shocky?"
"Huh?"
"Your hand's… hot. Didn' think I w's that cold."
Dean's hand quickly disappeared, and Sam cracked an eye open to look at his brother. Dean was tense. "It's not you, it's me," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Sam forced himself to focus his wavering attention on his brother. "You sick?" he asked in a drunken voice.
Dean's lips twitched tightly, his expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He didn't say anything. Sam almost pressed for an answer, but decided there was little point. If Dean was coming down with something, there was nothing they could do about it until the morning; the Winchester emergency supplies didn't include something as tame as flu medicine.
For a few minutes the brothers were quiet, each listening to the sounds of the forest around them for any sign of the spirits. The wildlife was still conspicuously absent, meaning the spirits were still there and exerting their repelling force on nature, but none ventured close enough to the circle of salt for Dean or Sam to see them. Apparently they were smart as well as savage and did not quickly forget that the Winchesters had weapons that actually worked against them.
In that time of silent waiting, Sam felt better by the minute. Dean had stopped the bleeding, and without the work of his heart pouring out on to the ground, Sam's head started to clear. That he was lying still and not running or having to fight for his life helped, too.
The pain became a hot, dull throb in his side, but Sam actually welcomed that. He took comfort in the fact he wasn't slipping farther and farther into confusion and lethargy. Awareness and pain, oddly enough, were good things. Shock abated and gave Sam back the majority of his faculties, even if they left him all too aware of his own battered body.
He sat with eyes closed and head leaned back and resting against the tree behind him. He listened, straining to pick up any sound, but all he could hear was his own breathing. There wasn't even a breeze to rustle the leaves or, thankfully, their salt line.
"I think they're holding off," Sam mumbled.
Dean grunted.
The brothers spent so much time together, all day every day, that they learned each other's body language, every tiny aspect of the other, with frightening precision. Sam knew something was wrong just from the pitch of Dean's noise.
Sam opened his eyes and looked toward his brother.
Dean was kneeling near Sam (he had to in order to stay in the salt circle), attention sharply focused on the woods surrounding them. Hard, grim lines etched his face in stark shadows. It was something between the look of intense concentration and pain.
"Are you hurt?" Sam asked suddenly. He'd been so preoccupied with his own injury that he hadn't considered Dean might be hurt, too. He hadn't shown any obvious outward signs of being wounded.
"No."
Even his voice was tense. Sam could see the tightness of Dean's frame in the curve of his back and the shifting of his arm muscles. Sam held his breath to listen and noted Dean was breathing even heavier than he was… Sam, who was the one nursing an injury.
"Dean?" Sam breathed, a hint of worry creeping into his voice.
Dean tensed, looking every bit as hard as stone, and his jaw clenched. "You're okay, Sammy."
That wasn't going to be Sam's question. He wanted to know if Dean was all right. Sam suspected Dean knew that, and his off-target answer was telling.
Sam looked around the forest for signs of anything that might have Dean on edge. Maybe he'd missed a spirit watching them that Dean hadn't wanted to point out, figuring Sam had enough to worry about already.
He didn't see any spirits.
Sam saw a lot of trees, still branches, a looming full moon…
Full moon. Sam's tongue stuck in his throat and, for a mindless second, fear gripped him. In all the commotion with the hunt gone bad, he'd forgotten about the time of the month. His pulse quickened again. He didn't know what he was afraid of. He knew only that on this night something happened to Dean.
The shrouded mystery of it only made it more frightening.
"Dean… it's…"
"I know."
Sam looked over at Dean again and his brother was watching him. Dean's body was almost shaking and his eyes feverishly bright.
Sam swallowed thickly, his own hair standing on end. "What… what's going to happen?" he croaked.
Dean was fighting to control his breathing. He grimaced at Sam's question, winced like it was a physical blow, and rocked on the balls of his feet where he squatted next to his brother.
"I can't..." Dean's voice came out tight and thin, broken and pained to be made to say it, "I can't stop it."
"Stop what?" Sam was terrified. What was wrong?
Dean was sweating. It wasn't even hot outside. If anything, it was on the cool side, and it was getting colder by the minute as night settled in. Despite that, Dean's shirt was sticking to his back and darkening at the armpits.
He shifted uneasily, his entire body a live wire. Sam could almost feel the energy emanating from Dean. It was like a wall of static electricity.
"I won't leave you, Sammy… you're hurt… I can't just leave you…" Dean was talking to himself more than he was to Sam. He had to justify staying. He had to prove to himself, to the night, to the silent world holding vigil, that it was his only choice.
"I know," Sam whispered.
Dean turned a mutinous look up at the moon. He looked horrified. Defeated. It was a look of pure despair and anguish painted silver by the moonlight.
"Dean… it's okay," Sam offered gently, not knowing what else he could do.
Dean let out a ragged breath and dropped his chin to his chest. "God, Sammy…"
Sam reached out and dropped his hand on to Dean's back.
Dean flinched away, but not before Sam felt the heat radiating off him.
"Dean, you're burning up," Sam said softly, terror lacing his voice.
Dean let out a strangled laugh, bitter and falling brokenly from his lips, and he sat up and peeled the wet shirt off. Dean's upper body shone with sweat. His hair was plastered flat with perspiration.
Sam stared, helpless and afraid. "Jesus, Dean… is this what happens, every time?" It killed him to imagine this happening to his brother every month. His stomach turned at the idea of Dean enduring this agony alone. Why hadn't Dean said something?
Dean sank back to the ground, body shaking - not from the cold, but the jerks and twitches of a body in rebellion. Pain raced along the lines of Dean's body, pulling at sinew and drawing unbidden sounds of pain from his throat.
"Doesn't hurt at all… when I don't fight it," Dean answered between clenched teeth. His hands were in fists in his lap, his knuckles white with the effort.
Sam's eyes stung with tears he would never confess. "Then don't," he whispered hoarsely. "Whatever it is, Dean, don't fight it."
In front of Sam, it hardly seemed an option to give in as far as Dean was concerned. He was fighting. He was waging outright war. His body was the casualty.
Dean struggled to his knees, lurched unexpectedly, and would have fallen into Sam's lap if he hadn't thrown out an arm to brace himself against the tree trunk. He was leaning right over Sam, and the heat coming from his body was dizzying. Sweat was pouring off him. His eyes were clenched shut and his lips pulled back in a grimace of pain.
"Stop fighting," Sam begged. He didn't know what would happen to Dean when he stopped resisting, but anything would be better than seeing his brother in so much pain.
Dean opened his eyes, and Sam jerked back. They were the wrong color. In the moonlight, they were almost glowing.
"Don't be afraid, Sam," Dean pleaded.
Sam stared up into his brother's eyes, held the gaze even when the shade disturbed him, and said lowly, "I trust you."
Dean drew back from the tree, gave almost a cry of surrender, then he sat down on the forest floor and hastily took off his shoes and socks. Trying not to gape stupidly in confusion, Sam watched his brother struggle out of his pants and underwear, too. In a matter of moments, his brother was crouching naked on his hands and the balls of his feet in the middle of the woods.
Dean's body jerked, shifted under the light of the moon… and then it changed.
Sam stared in horrified shock and fascination as his brother turned into something inhuman before his very eyes. Bone and muscle rearranged itself beneath his skin. Lines and shadows found new homes, new angles to define Dean Winchester. Hair, all shades of gray, grew everywhere.
Then it was over. It lasted so short a time.
Sam involuntarily drew back, trapped from further retreat by the tree at his back, when a wolf, standing where Dean had been, turned its head to look at him.
Sam was a heartbeat away from reaching for the bag lying nearby on conditioned reflex, mind already racing to know what kind of weapon would be needed for this creature, when two things stopped him. His last words to Dean 'I trust you' echoing in his head, and the hint of gold in the midst of the wolf's pelt.
Dean's amulet. The necklace he always wore. It was looped around the wolf's neck, gold amulet peeking out through the smoky-colored fur, like a rabies tag on a dog collar.
Sam sat perfectly still and stared at the animal. He couldn't believe it could be Dean. Couldn't accept that his brother was a… what? Shapeshifter? Werewolf?
He couldn't be either. Shapeshifters couldn't hold their shape as long as Dean had been with Sam, even barring these strange full moon excursions. Besides which, Sam knew Dean too well for a shapeshifter to fool him for even close to that long. And as for a werewolf… they weren't actually wolves. They were people, afflicted people with animalistic appetites and drives and a nasty set of canine teeth and claws. But they didn't literally turn into animals, that was just Hollywood hype.
So what was Dean?
Besides watching him closely with golden eyes.
Sam took a few moments to accept what he'd seen right in front of him. He couldn't afford to deny the obvious, that which he had seen himself and knew to be true, against all logic. His brother had turned into a wolf. His brother was a wolf.
His brother was staring at him with almost sorrowful eyes.
Sam knew he had to say something.
"You could have told me, Dean," Sam whispered.
Dean just barely cocked his head, then he turned his attention back to the forest, all senses attentive to any indication that their attackers were nearby.
Sam almost laughed. He had wondered for a moment how much his brother might be in there as this… animal, but Dean's resumption of sentry duty said it all. Despite his shape, he was still Dean, through and through.
Sam tried to stay awake through the night, but the spirits were no shows and the absolute quiet of the woods began to sedate him. Just before he nodded off, the wolf lying guard near his foot looked back at him.
There was something in the gaze that still made Sam feel safe, and he let himself fall asleep propped against the tree.
Nine
It was a vicious cycle if there ever was one, and Sam hoped his adrenaline-high held out long enough for him to slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't bleed out and die. For the moment, he couldn't interrupt Dean to ask him to lend a hand. Even bleeding from a deep cut, Sam was not the top priority of the moment.
Sam pressed his hand as tightly to his side as possible, clamping his fingers over his wound, and watched as Dean lay down a salt line around them.
The woods around them were frighteningly still. No birds singing to the encroaching sunset, no crickets starting up their nightly symphony. The creatures of the night sensed the evil and had gone elsewhere.
Sam would sure like to follow their example and get the hell out of Dodge. This hunt had gone wrong fast and it looked like it was going to stay that way until dawn.
They had come out into the forest expecting black dogs. The victims (four in the last year) had been torn up so savagely that revved-up, sadistically-enhanced animal attacks seemed the only explanation.
They found the spirits of a regular family of Freddy Kruegers instead. Seemed that the family that slayed and cannibalized together stayed together, even after death.
Sam still wasn't ruling out that the Woodland Kruegers didn't have a demonic family dog, too.
Sam and Dean had been in over their heads and knew it the second the spirits coalesced around them. There were too many to take on with rock salt and iron. This was the kind of job that had to be approached as an attack on the source from the get-go.
They fought their way through the throng, blasting a hole in the ring of spirits with rounds of rock salt, headed for the Impala and a strategic withdrawal, but Sam didn't side-step a limb-turned-spear fast enough. He was fast enough to avoid being outright impaled by it, but the gash it opened in his side sent him to his knees in an explosion of searing pain.
Dean hauled him to his feet and half-dragged his brother as far as he could, but the vicious Donner family would regroup faster than the boys could get back to the car, given Sam's compromised condition, and after the rounds of rock salt shot at them, the spirits wouldn't be happy.
Instead of getting caught out with their pants down, Dean propped Sam against a tree trunk, dug into his bag, and pulled out the bag of salt. Knowing what Dean had in mind, Sam laboriously bent his knees and drew his legs toward his body, making himself as small as possible. At six foot four, taking up a small amount of space was not easy, but it was imperative that Sam do his best.
One thing they did have working in their favor… these particular spirits only appeared at or close to night. The nocturnal pattern had been the main reason the Winchester brothers suspected black dogs in the first place, but this family seemed to abhor daylight for whatever reason. That was good news. If they could make it through the night, the spirits should disappear and Sam and Dean could limp back to the car without the fear of woodland projectiles.
Now all they had to do was wait it out.
Using the last of the bag to do it, Dean made a ring of salt around where Sam was slumped against the tree holding his side. Sam's pulse was beating hollowly in his throat and temples. His breath was shaky and his body seemed a contrast of fiery hot and icy cold.
Sam wished the shock of blood loss would catch up to his actual wound so he might get some relief from the pain.
Dean tossed the empty bag aside and came to crouch next to Sam. "Let me see," he said gruffly, and Sam gratefully moved his hand aside and let Dean examine the damage.
"Ah, hell," Dean hissed as he prodded the gash. The combat medic-style examination in the quickly fading light sent renewed lances of pain through Sam's side.
"Cut it out," Sam slurred.
"Someone already tried, that's the problem. Personally, I'd like to keep your kidneys just where they are," Dean answered dryly.
Sam snorted, reminded himself to find that funny later, and tried to breathe through the pain.
Dean took over the job of stopping the bleeding, and Sam hissed as his big brother's vice-like grip pinched over the wound.
"Sorry," he whispered gruffly.
"S'kay… how's it look?" His heart was still pounding in his chest, but not as fast as it was before when they were beating a hasty retreat through the trees.
"Looks like a family of spirits that has a matchbook with their name on it," Dean growled.
Sam tried, and failed, to laugh.
Dean's voice softened. "I think you'll be all right. Get you out of here in the morning, clean this out and stitch it up, should be fine. We've had worse, right?"
Sam rolled his eyes languidly. "Yeah, sure." Bitch of it was, that was true. All of the Winchesters had been injured worse and lived. He trusted Dean's assessment that this time he would live. It would just hurt like hell for a while before he was back to fighting fit.
With the relief of knowing he wouldn't actually die, the terror ebbed and in its wake came exhaustion. The body put itself through the wringer if it thought it might be dying, and the crash when the crisis was over was something else. Sam closed his eyes, momentarily surrendering to it.
For a while, the two of them sat like that. Sam regrouping while Dean pressed down fiercely on Sam's injury to stem the blood flow.
Sam began to drift. Not so much in sleep, but in the haze of knowing the universe only to the extent that it registered to his battered body. He felt safe enough to let himself float knowing Dean was there.
He noted the sun vanishing, gradually but steadily, only as the light penetrating through his eyelids dimmed.
Tugging him back from the void, Sam felt Dean's hand on his face, touching his neck to check his pulse, then migrating to his cheek, a hot patch of flesh against flesh. "You with me, Sam?"
Sam mumbled, "Mmm… am I that shocky?"
"Huh?"
"Your hand's… hot. Didn' think I w's that cold."
Dean's hand quickly disappeared, and Sam cracked an eye open to look at his brother. Dean was tense. "It's not you, it's me," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Sam forced himself to focus his wavering attention on his brother. "You sick?" he asked in a drunken voice.
Dean's lips twitched tightly, his expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He didn't say anything. Sam almost pressed for an answer, but decided there was little point. If Dean was coming down with something, there was nothing they could do about it until the morning; the Winchester emergency supplies didn't include something as tame as flu medicine.
For a few minutes the brothers were quiet, each listening to the sounds of the forest around them for any sign of the spirits. The wildlife was still conspicuously absent, meaning the spirits were still there and exerting their repelling force on nature, but none ventured close enough to the circle of salt for Dean or Sam to see them. Apparently they were smart as well as savage and did not quickly forget that the Winchesters had weapons that actually worked against them.
In that time of silent waiting, Sam felt better by the minute. Dean had stopped the bleeding, and without the work of his heart pouring out on to the ground, Sam's head started to clear. That he was lying still and not running or having to fight for his life helped, too.
The pain became a hot, dull throb in his side, but Sam actually welcomed that. He took comfort in the fact he wasn't slipping farther and farther into confusion and lethargy. Awareness and pain, oddly enough, were good things. Shock abated and gave Sam back the majority of his faculties, even if they left him all too aware of his own battered body.
He sat with eyes closed and head leaned back and resting against the tree behind him. He listened, straining to pick up any sound, but all he could hear was his own breathing. There wasn't even a breeze to rustle the leaves or, thankfully, their salt line.
"I think they're holding off," Sam mumbled.
Dean grunted.
The brothers spent so much time together, all day every day, that they learned each other's body language, every tiny aspect of the other, with frightening precision. Sam knew something was wrong just from the pitch of Dean's noise.
Sam opened his eyes and looked toward his brother.
Dean was kneeling near Sam (he had to in order to stay in the salt circle), attention sharply focused on the woods surrounding them. Hard, grim lines etched his face in stark shadows. It was something between the look of intense concentration and pain.
"Are you hurt?" Sam asked suddenly. He'd been so preoccupied with his own injury that he hadn't considered Dean might be hurt, too. He hadn't shown any obvious outward signs of being wounded.
"No."
Even his voice was tense. Sam could see the tightness of Dean's frame in the curve of his back and the shifting of his arm muscles. Sam held his breath to listen and noted Dean was breathing even heavier than he was… Sam, who was the one nursing an injury.
"Dean?" Sam breathed, a hint of worry creeping into his voice.
Dean tensed, looking every bit as hard as stone, and his jaw clenched. "You're okay, Sammy."
That wasn't going to be Sam's question. He wanted to know if Dean was all right. Sam suspected Dean knew that, and his off-target answer was telling.
Sam looked around the forest for signs of anything that might have Dean on edge. Maybe he'd missed a spirit watching them that Dean hadn't wanted to point out, figuring Sam had enough to worry about already.
He didn't see any spirits.
Sam saw a lot of trees, still branches, a looming full moon…
Full moon. Sam's tongue stuck in his throat and, for a mindless second, fear gripped him. In all the commotion with the hunt gone bad, he'd forgotten about the time of the month. His pulse quickened again. He didn't know what he was afraid of. He knew only that on this night something happened to Dean.
The shrouded mystery of it only made it more frightening.
"Dean… it's…"
"I know."
Sam looked over at Dean again and his brother was watching him. Dean's body was almost shaking and his eyes feverishly bright.
Sam swallowed thickly, his own hair standing on end. "What… what's going to happen?" he croaked.
Dean was fighting to control his breathing. He grimaced at Sam's question, winced like it was a physical blow, and rocked on the balls of his feet where he squatted next to his brother.
"I can't..." Dean's voice came out tight and thin, broken and pained to be made to say it, "I can't stop it."
"Stop what?" Sam was terrified. What was wrong?
Dean was sweating. It wasn't even hot outside. If anything, it was on the cool side, and it was getting colder by the minute as night settled in. Despite that, Dean's shirt was sticking to his back and darkening at the armpits.
He shifted uneasily, his entire body a live wire. Sam could almost feel the energy emanating from Dean. It was like a wall of static electricity.
"I won't leave you, Sammy… you're hurt… I can't just leave you…" Dean was talking to himself more than he was to Sam. He had to justify staying. He had to prove to himself, to the night, to the silent world holding vigil, that it was his only choice.
"I know," Sam whispered.
Dean turned a mutinous look up at the moon. He looked horrified. Defeated. It was a look of pure despair and anguish painted silver by the moonlight.
"Dean… it's okay," Sam offered gently, not knowing what else he could do.
Dean let out a ragged breath and dropped his chin to his chest. "God, Sammy…"
Sam reached out and dropped his hand on to Dean's back.
Dean flinched away, but not before Sam felt the heat radiating off him.
"Dean, you're burning up," Sam said softly, terror lacing his voice.
Dean let out a strangled laugh, bitter and falling brokenly from his lips, and he sat up and peeled the wet shirt off. Dean's upper body shone with sweat. His hair was plastered flat with perspiration.
Sam stared, helpless and afraid. "Jesus, Dean… is this what happens, every time?" It killed him to imagine this happening to his brother every month. His stomach turned at the idea of Dean enduring this agony alone. Why hadn't Dean said something?
Dean sank back to the ground, body shaking - not from the cold, but the jerks and twitches of a body in rebellion. Pain raced along the lines of Dean's body, pulling at sinew and drawing unbidden sounds of pain from his throat.
"Doesn't hurt at all… when I don't fight it," Dean answered between clenched teeth. His hands were in fists in his lap, his knuckles white with the effort.
Sam's eyes stung with tears he would never confess. "Then don't," he whispered hoarsely. "Whatever it is, Dean, don't fight it."
In front of Sam, it hardly seemed an option to give in as far as Dean was concerned. He was fighting. He was waging outright war. His body was the casualty.
Dean struggled to his knees, lurched unexpectedly, and would have fallen into Sam's lap if he hadn't thrown out an arm to brace himself against the tree trunk. He was leaning right over Sam, and the heat coming from his body was dizzying. Sweat was pouring off him. His eyes were clenched shut and his lips pulled back in a grimace of pain.
"Stop fighting," Sam begged. He didn't know what would happen to Dean when he stopped resisting, but anything would be better than seeing his brother in so much pain.
Dean opened his eyes, and Sam jerked back. They were the wrong color. In the moonlight, they were almost glowing.
"Don't be afraid, Sam," Dean pleaded.
Sam stared up into his brother's eyes, held the gaze even when the shade disturbed him, and said lowly, "I trust you."
Dean drew back from the tree, gave almost a cry of surrender, then he sat down on the forest floor and hastily took off his shoes and socks. Trying not to gape stupidly in confusion, Sam watched his brother struggle out of his pants and underwear, too. In a matter of moments, his brother was crouching naked on his hands and the balls of his feet in the middle of the woods.
Dean's body jerked, shifted under the light of the moon… and then it changed.
Sam stared in horrified shock and fascination as his brother turned into something inhuman before his very eyes. Bone and muscle rearranged itself beneath his skin. Lines and shadows found new homes, new angles to define Dean Winchester. Hair, all shades of gray, grew everywhere.
Then it was over. It lasted so short a time.
Sam involuntarily drew back, trapped from further retreat by the tree at his back, when a wolf, standing where Dean had been, turned its head to look at him.
Sam was a heartbeat away from reaching for the bag lying nearby on conditioned reflex, mind already racing to know what kind of weapon would be needed for this creature, when two things stopped him. His last words to Dean 'I trust you' echoing in his head, and the hint of gold in the midst of the wolf's pelt.
Dean's amulet. The necklace he always wore. It was looped around the wolf's neck, gold amulet peeking out through the smoky-colored fur, like a rabies tag on a dog collar.
Sam sat perfectly still and stared at the animal. He couldn't believe it could be Dean. Couldn't accept that his brother was a… what? Shapeshifter? Werewolf?
He couldn't be either. Shapeshifters couldn't hold their shape as long as Dean had been with Sam, even barring these strange full moon excursions. Besides which, Sam knew Dean too well for a shapeshifter to fool him for even close to that long. And as for a werewolf… they weren't actually wolves. They were people, afflicted people with animalistic appetites and drives and a nasty set of canine teeth and claws. But they didn't literally turn into animals, that was just Hollywood hype.
So what was Dean?
Besides watching him closely with golden eyes.
Sam took a few moments to accept what he'd seen right in front of him. He couldn't afford to deny the obvious, that which he had seen himself and knew to be true, against all logic. His brother had turned into a wolf. His brother was a wolf.
His brother was staring at him with almost sorrowful eyes.
Sam knew he had to say something.
"You could have told me, Dean," Sam whispered.
Dean just barely cocked his head, then he turned his attention back to the forest, all senses attentive to any indication that their attackers were nearby.
Sam almost laughed. He had wondered for a moment how much his brother might be in there as this… animal, but Dean's resumption of sentry duty said it all. Despite his shape, he was still Dean, through and through.
Sam tried to stay awake through the night, but the spirits were no shows and the absolute quiet of the woods began to sedate him. Just before he nodded off, the wolf lying guard near his foot looked back at him.
There was something in the gaze that still made Sam feel safe, and he let himself fall asleep propped against the tree.
Nine