The Cause Sanguine - Section Two

[glasslogic]

 

Chapter Five

"Throughout the centuries we have projected on to
the wolf the qualities we most despise and fear in ourselves."
~Barry Lopez

Dean groaned and tried to roll over. There was surprising lack of support in that direction and a second later he was lying on a floor, blinking up at a whitewashed ceiling that in no way resembled his own. He sat up slowly, rubbing gingerly at a sore spot on the back of his skull that made interesting lights spark in his retinas.

Dean’s nearest neighbor from the house a mile down from his, Lynnette Martin, bustled into the room.

“Oh good! You’re up! Dave wanted to take you to the hospital, but you seemed to be breathing okay and your pulse was fine. I was going to give in if you weren’t up within the hour, though.”

She did look relieved and Dean mustered a smile for her.

“Hey, Lynn. So, uh--” He waved at the room in general and tried to think of a less blunt way to demand to know what the hell he was doing on her couch.

“Dean.” Lynnette sat delicately on the edge of the couch he had fallen from. “I know you said you’d been having a rough time, and Dave and I certainly don’t mind being here for you in a neighborly sort of way -- but it’s very... disconcerting, to hear a rustling at the door in the wee hours of the morning and trip over your neighbor wrapped up in a blanket on your porch. You understand that, right?”

Dean nodded, confused. His last memory was the forest, and the water, the wolves, and... the wolves.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking so much alone,” she chided gently.

“I’m sorry, Lynn. Really.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “It’s been a bad week. I’m... just real sorry to have bothered you guys. Thanks for letting me crash on your couch.”

She sighed. “It’s fine. I’m just glad you wandered over here instead of down the road or into the woods. God alone knows what would have happened to you then.”

Dean gave her a weak smile. “Yeah. Who knows?” he echoed. “I’m... gonna go home.”

“You sure you’re feeling okay to walk? We can drive you, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes. I was on my way out anyways.”

A fractured image in his mind, naked skin and the darkness of blood in moonlight, the sound of falling water and a child crying.

“Jesus,” Dean mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

“Dean?”

“It’s... nothing, Lynn. I think the walk would be good for me. Clear my head some.”

She nodded and stood up. “Let me get your blanket. I don’t know how you got it so filthy, but I ran it through the wash.”

He made his way back to his own cabin in bright sunlight that made his head ache even more, which he hadn’t been sure was possible, but accepted as his due for what had been a colossal screw-up. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but he knew it had involved an impressive amount of alcohol, an argument in a bar about werewolves, and he was pretty certain a really stupid foray into the forest. He had no idea how he had ended up on the Martin’s porch.

He sank onto his own couch and shook out the blanket Lynnette had pressed into his hands. He was cold and... cold and... Dean stared at the broad, faded stripes of the rough weave. He turned the blanket, running his finger over the edges until he found the three little holes in a neat line. Dean remembered the day those holes had happened, the accident at Bobby’s house one cold afternoon while he was learning about casting bullets.

The last time he remembered seeing it was wrapped around the frail shoulders of the boy in the kitchen, fourteen years ago. Memories flashed -- the man in the woods, the feeling of recognition like a blow to the gut.

Last night hadn’t been some alcohol-induced hallucination; the blanket clenched in his hands was proof. What the hell had his father, of all people, been doing with werewolves in Montana? Other than obviously not hunting them. Dean dropped the blanket on the floor and buried his face in his hands, groaning. All he had wanted was to get away from his life and take a break for awhile. And now there were werewolves in his backyard. Of a kind unlike any he had ever heard of.

Werewolves that his father had... helped.

Dean swallowed some aspirin and took a cold shower. He planned to take a nap, but his mind kept turning in restless circles and he decided maybe some more fresh air would be a better choice. He pulled the door open and felt his knees lock into place. The wolf was sitting in front of him, just like it had dozens of times before. But this time there was no confusion for Dean about why it seemed so familiar, what it was about it that pulled at his mind with nagging annoyance. The odd hazel of the eyes that stared up into his went through him like an electric shock, and in a heartbeat, he was ten years old and feverish, touching fingers to a teary-eyed child wrapped in the old car blanket and bloody towels. Then last night in the forest...

Dean backpedaled and slammed the door, sliding down to sit against it with his head in his hands.

What the hell was going on?

More aspirin and a few glasses of water later, Dean had to admit to himself that whatever the larger picture and his dad’s involvement might be, the only part that was an immediate question was whether or not the overly-friendly lupine neighbor that had practically moved into his house was actually some kind of weird shapeshifter.

Dean had trouble calling him a werewolf; he had hunted werewolves before and knew all about the homicidal, animalistic savagery of the afflicted. In fact, it would almost make more sense if the man was actually a shapeshifter in the more usual sense, a skinwalker. Dean had only ever heard of or seen them turning into different humans, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t turn into other things. If you could make yourself taller or shorter why not a different shape entirely? He didn’t quite see what the appeal would be for one to grow fur and hang out with a bunch of wolves, or why it would take on a human form the night of the full moon -- but who the hell knew why monsters did what they did, anyways? Maybe it was just crazy.

But Alan had implied that the wolves had been weird in the valley for generations. And with a lessening of the pounding in his head, there was more clarity to his memories of the previous night. The people in the bar had talked about seeing multiple werewolves out in the forest. A whole family of shapeshifters hanging out in the woods with wolves? Maybe there weren’t any wolves, and they were all just shapeshifters? That made even less sense. What was the motivation?

Dean felt sick. Some hunter he was. A supposedly wild animal suddenly adopts him like a long-lost packmate, and even knowing everything he did about what was really out there in the world, he’d been so pathetically lonely as to just throw open his goddamned front door and let the thing in. He needed to know for sure. A silver blade would tell him what he wanted to know as far as it being a shapeshifter, but wouldn’t tell him anything unless he cut it. And once he tried that, he could kiss any chance of getting close again goodbye. But--

A whine from the porch broke his train of thought.

He gave a thoughtful look towards the door then glanced at the calendar. Tonight was the full moon. The people in the bar had talked about the wolves turning into people for three nights. He himself had noticed a few times the wolf acting like it was uncomfortable and going missing for a few days at a time. He hadn’t really noticed the pattern until he had a reason to piece it together, but some quick back-counting told him that it could have been around the time of the past full moons. He thought about calling Bobby, but he had tried to tell Bobby about the rumors before and had been blown off, which meant Bobby didn’t have any useful information.

The soft whine and a scratching sounded from the door again. It made Dean feel guilty and he realized that even sitting on the couch nursing a headache, he missed the animal’s company. If it was just an animal. And if it wasn’t...

Well, as a hunter, he had a quick answer to that. But it was the answer his father had drilled into him, and that he had himself apparently disregarded when it came to the wolves of the valley. If Dean was right. But he didn’t have to make any decisions until he knew that for certain.

And he thought he knew exactly how to find out.



Chapter Six

"We have doomed the Wolf not for what it is,
but for what we have deliberately and mistakenly perceived it to be
...the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer
...which is, in reality no more than a reflexed images of ourself."
                                                      ~Farley Mowat

Dean made a special effort to not pay the wolf more attention than usual when he finally went back outside after coming up with his plan. It was only two or three hours until sunset. The wolf actually seemed somewhat wary, coming close, then pacing away again. Agitated. Dean ignored it. If his estimations and guesses were correct, it was always short-tempered and uncomfortable on the full moon and the bracketing days, and he figured it could probably smell his own unease.

He fiddled under the Impala’s hood for awhile, until whatever anxiety the wolf was sporting seemed to have worn off and the animal, apparently supremely bored, was napping in the grass. Then Dean cleaned his hands off and casually made his way to the back of the cabin and the root cellar door. The root cellar itself was mostly wasted on Dean. He stored most of his car maintenance gear and construction supplies in the shed. So other than some herbs he had bought at a local market hanging from the low supporting beams overhead to dry, the space was empty. It had been designed to function as a safe place for waiting out storms; the floor was cold, hard-packed dirt and the walls bare cement blocks; the slanted door that led down into it was very solid and heavy. As were the latch and padlock he had installed a few weeks earlier with some vague mind of maybe bringing some of his dad’s stored gear out to the cabin, if he decided to stay. He was counting on the sturdiness of that construction. And on the wolf’s curiosity.

Sure enough, he wasn’t poking around in the cellar more than three or four minutes before the wolf slunk down the short stairs and started sniffing around in the corners. It flashed Dean a look when he moved closer to the door, pretending to be interested in checking the herbs overhead, but it didn’t seem to see anything threatening in the human’s movements and went back to its exploring. Dean waited until the wolf was investigating against the far wall, then took the stairs in two quick strides and heaved the door shut. He hooked the padlock at the same time a furious scratching started up and was backing away when a few snarls and then a long, low, mournful note sounded from inside.

The howling continued until the sun sank behind the mountains, reverberating through the house. Dean clenched his teeth and endured. Finally, it tapered away until silence had fallen again. A deeper silence than should have been was left in its wake; even the crickets and other normal sounds of twilight were gone. Unnatural stillness settled over the property.

Dean hefted a shotgun loaded with silver shot and stepped outside. He turned the outside floodlights on and paused, staring -- though he didn’t know why he was surprised. Just beyond the fence line were somewhere between twenty and thirty wolves. It was impossible to count their number because beyond the ones sitting statue still watching him were others who paced and moved, disappearing and returning from the forest gloom beyond the light’s touch.

He waited for a few minutes, but none of the wolves made any move to come closer, seemingly content where they were.

“Well,” he finally commented aloud, glancing at his watch to make sure it was past official sunset. “I guess none of you guys are planning to turn human tonight. Not sure I’d call you exactly normal, though.”

They continued to watch with unnatural attention.

The cellar door was still intact and fastened, and beyond the thick wood and metal, all was silent. Dean crouched and undid the padlock, trying to be as silent as possible so as not to give away his presence to whomever, or whatever, might be inside.

The lock opened with a soft, well-oiled click and he laid it aside in the grass. Dean cast one more glance over his shoulder, but the wolves were all still where he had left them. He took a deep breath, gripped the shotgun with one hand, and heaved the door open with the other.

The steps, washed in the light from the bulb on the house, were brightly lit, but they led into a dark stillness. Dean waited, but nothing approached from the cellar’s depths.

“Hello?”

He waited a moment, but there was no sound other than his own breathing and the crunch of crisp grass beneath his feet as he shifted his weight uncertainly. Dean waited about ten minutes more, but when nothing happened, he knew he was going to have to go down. The cellar had its own light, but he had forgotten until just then that the switch was at the bottom of the stairs. Backlit from the floodlight, he would make an attractive target for anything waiting for him in the dark, and turning that light off would leave him completely blind while his possible assailant had other senses to rely on. It was the night of the full moon, but the moon itself hadn’t risen yet, and it was pitch black outside until it did. Dean cursed his bad planning and started to step back, meaning to close the door and rethink his options. A flashlight would be awkward to hold with the shotgun, but not as awkward as getting ambushed in the dark.

A low growl from behind startled him and he spun. The wolves had grown tired of waiting for whatever was supposed to happen and he was surrounded in a loose semicircle at about twenty feet. Dean swore again. He could probably take out a couple but that would still leave several dozen to take him down. The only defensible place was the cellar, along with whatever was waiting inside.

Dean stepped onto the first step and the wolves stopped advancing. He kept a wary eye on them, but his ears trained for any sound below as he stepped slowly down, fumbling for the switch on the wall. He thought he could hear rough breathing from off in a corner and he trained his shotgun that way as his fingers found the switch and flipped it.

The first thought that crossed his mind as light bloomed in the close confines of the low cellar was I was right. Followed immediately by holy fuck. Lying on his side with his back to the cool cement and his face buried in an arm curled against the earthen floor was the man from the forest. The very naked man who’s powerful frame was relaxed as though in sleep. Dean didn’t believe it for a heartbeat. He swallowed and leveled the shotgun.

“Hello?” he tried again.

The man rolled into a crouch almost faster than Dean could register. He skinned human lips back from human teeth and gave a full rumbling growl of warning that would have done any of the wolves outside proud. Where the previous night he had seemed curious and pleased to see Dean, now he was defensive and scared, eyes darting over Dean’s shoulder as if seeking escape.

Dean’s finger tightened on the trigger, uncertain of what action to take. He had thought an answer would be obvious once the question of the wolf’s nature was resolved, but Dean’s inner turmoil was even worse. It wasn’t even Dean’s total certainty that if he shot the shapeshifter he would find his own end under the teeth and claws of the wolves outside. It was three and a half months of near-constant companionship, the haunting memory of slender, blood-stained fingers twined with his own, the odd sense of joy he had felt from the man in the woods the night before. And of course, the mystery of whatever the fuck his father had been doing patching the creatures up in the kitchen instead of hunting them down.

The moment of indecision held him until another low growl sounded, this one from the stairs at his back. He half turned in alarm and that was all the opportunity the man needed. In a second, Dean found himself pinned down under what had to be at least two hundred pounds of muscle, and the shotgun ripped from his grip and tossed aside. He struggled hard and found it surprisingly easy to toss the stranger off. The --man? wolf?-- didn’t seem to know what to do with his own limbs to keep Dean pinned, but what he lacked in wrestling skill he more than made up for in persistence. Despite a few solid blows and a kicked face, when Dean wriggled away and made another grab for the gun, the stranger got him firmly by the ankle and dragged him back beneath him.

More wolves slipped into the cellar during the struggle and eventually Dean lay still, panting. Even if he managed to disable the man, he wouldn’t escape the wolves too. He’d wanted to know what kind of monster he’d let into his house. Maybe it was time to find out. He relaxed against the cool earthen floor and waited, open to anything.

But nothing happened.

The shifter pulled away from him slowly, watching Dean warily and licking the blood from his own lips, a souvenir of Dean’s attempts to win free. When Dean continued to lay unmoving, the wary expression gave way to one of more puzzlement. After a moment, the strange creature leaned back in and Dean braced himself to fight for his life, but instead of teeth sinking into his skin, there was a soft snuffling sound, and Dean realized the man was sniffing him. He didn’t protest and the sniffing got more enthusiastic until the man’s nose was buried against Dean’s neck. He moved down towards Dean’s armpit, one hand tugging at Dean’s clothes like they were in his way. He growled then and Dean finally took action, shoving at him until the shifter rocked back on his heels, giving Dean enough room to slowly sit up. The wolves weren’t acting threatening either; Dean felt more like he was on some weird display than in the middle of a conflict. He looked for his shotgun. It took him a moment to find it because all he could see was part of the stock from under the heavy coat of the wolf perched on top of it. It yawned when it saw him looking, displaying a healthy set of very sharp teeth.

“Right,” Dean muttered.

The tension in the cellar had dropped, and at a loss, Dean finally just stood up. The man stood when he did and the two of them watched each other. The stranger took a hesitant step towards him after a minute and Dean found himself backing up until his boot hit the bottom stair. The wolves had melted away at his approach, leaving the way out clear. That seemed like a reasonable solution, and he climbed out of the cellar into a clear night where the full moon was just starting to edge over the mountains. He kept walking until he was on the porch; then glanced back to see the man and wolves arrayed out on the lawn, still watching him. Dean turned and went inside. He was too tired and confused to deal with anything.

He just wanted to sleep.

Dean did sleep, but it was restless and disturbed, and he woke up around noon feeling almost as tired as when he went to bed. The nightmares he didn’t clearly recall, but he thought they had featured his father prominently.

Uneasy sleep hadn’t given him any more insight into what to do about his wolf problem, and he mulled it over while perched on his kitchen counter crunching through dry cereal. So the wolf was a shapeshifter of some sort. It hadn’t hurt him, even when given plenty of opportunity and provocation, and neither had its furrier... relatives. Alan and the locals knew there was something odd about the local wolf population, but they weren’t afraid of them and no one had ever mentioned anything like missing people or murders in the area. Dean knew for a fact his father had known about the wolves. Which explained the wolf in the kitchen the night he had seen the boy, and the strange man wearing his dad’s clothes. But it didn’t tell Dean anything about them, other than the man he had trusted even more than himself didn’t consider the creatures to be targets. Given only that and no other information...

Dean sighed and moved onto a raw Pop-tart, moodily wishing he had an Ouija board. There were questions he needed answers to and the only people he knew who could give them to him were dead. His gaze drifted across the window and he blinked. The day was overcast and a rough wind was causing the trees to bend and sway, but sitting squarely in the middle of his lawn, the long grass dotted with wildflowers, was the wolf.

It was gone by the time he was dressed for the day.

He was sprawled out on the couch that evening, half paying attention to the cheesy action film grinding out its predictable plot on the television screen, and half wondering if maybe the hottest nightlife in the region wasn’t some moonlight jamboree of naked wolf-people out in the mountains, when he heard the knock on his door.

Or rather, he heard a soft scratching and hesitant-sounding rap. One of the things he still hadn’t done was install the peephole into the new door. He knew better, and he was kicking himself for it now.

“Hello?” There were no sounds but the odd scratching again and then a rap even quieter than the first one.

Dean muttered a curse under his breath and held his gun ready with one hand just beyond the frame where whoever was at the door wouldn’t be able to see it immediately. He flipped the light switch, unbolted the lock and twisted the handle, pulling it open against his boot. On the other side of the screen door stood the naked stranger he’d wrestled in the cellar. The shifter was blinking in the sudden light, and switching his gaze between Dean and his still upraised hand, looking amazed.

“Yeah,” Dean snorted when he found his voice. “You knock, and it opens. Amazing what they can do with technology these days.”

The wolf in human form peered past his shoulder, pressing gently against the screen. He whined, the sound odd from a human throat, and pressed a little harder, looking at the side of the door as if for some kind of handle.

“It doesn’t have one, you just-- here.” Dean pushed the screen door open and stepped back, feeling like he was in some surreal dream. The wolf entered the house immediately, with just one sidelong glance at Dean as he stepped past. Dean, for his part, was bemused. If there had ever been a part of his training that was supposed to prepare him for this sort of thing, he had missed it entirely.

In its human guise, the wolf seemed just as curious about Dean’s home as he had with four feet. Everything had to be reexamined. Poked and prodded until the shifter satisfied whatever he was after and had moved on. Dean followed him around for awhile, until the wolf settled on the end of the couch where he usually lounged when furry and gave Dean an expectant look. When Dean didn’t move from his place by the wall, the wolf stretched out one long, lean, muscled leg and poked the remote control with it, giving Dean that look again. Dean absently walked over to the couch and flicked the television on. His guest gave a satisfied sort of sound and settled himself more comfortably on the worn cushions, ignoring Dean’s presence as thoroughly as he ever did with his attention was absorbed by the magic box. It gave Dean all the time he wanted to look the shapeshifter over.

He sank into a chair and swept his gaze over the wolf’s human body in a closer inspection than the circumstances in the woods and last night in the cellar had allowed. Smooth muscle shifted under pale skin that Dean suddenly realized must have never seen sunlight. Shaggy brown hair hung in an uneven wave to his chin, ragged enough that Dean had no problem believing it had been cut with teeth instead of scissors. The flickering firelight and the soft glow of the lamps picked out the fine, pale lines of healed wounds scattered over his naked form. Easily the worst of the collection was the heavy, raised scar that wrapped from his left knee down to his ankle in a long curve, worried on the edges like whatever had inflicted the injury had done so with teeth. Dean remembered that wound when it was fresh, and recalled his dad saying something about a trap. He let his breath out in a long hiss. The sound seemed to startle the wolf, who shot Dean a brief look, then turned back to the TV when Dean remained unthreateningly in place.

The evening didn’t get any more exciting from there. Dean’s unexpected guest remained glued to the television set, with the occasional glance at Dean, and Dean remained in his chair, studying the wolf.

Sometime between M.A.S.H. reruns and the early morning infomercial set, Dean drifted to sleep. It had been a stressful few days for him and there was nothing in his guest’s demeanor to keep his adrenaline up. He slept so soundly that he would have probably been content to stay until dawn in the chair’s comfortable embrace, but something touched him. He woke, stirred from a dream about a particularly good time with some women in Biloxi a few years back, to a gentle hand sliding under his shirt and a nose brushing under his ear. Warm breath huffed against his skin. It felt good and he turned his head sleepily to give better access. The snuffle into his hair made his eyes fly open, suddenly wide awake. He tried to sit up but an arm over his chest held him down. Dean turned his head and met the wolf’s gaze from only inches away. The hazel of his eyes was very dark, and Dean didn’t try to move as the wolf leaned in and licked over Dean’s cheekbone.

“We can’t do this,” Dean whispered, mostly to himself. To whatever was wrong with him inside that was telling him to just go with it. To lean in, and touch back...

The shifter rubbed the side of his face against Dean’s shoulder and inhaled deeply against his throat.

Another exploring hand petted over his hair. Dean counted to ten slowly, soaking up an attention that fed some hidden part of his soul despite his conscious inclinations, then used both hands to gently push the wolf back.

“We can’t do this,” he repeated, louder and with more conviction. “If you want to pet me, or sniff me, or whatever, well -- I suppose that’s only fair; I wanted to get a good look at you too. But I have to be awake, and the hands,” he fished the wandering one out from under his shirt, “stay out of my clothes.”

His guest didn’t seem to understand his words, but he definitely understood Dean’s scowl and crossed arms. After a few more attempts to get closer than Dean was comfortable with, the wolf heaved a great sigh and went to curl back up on the couch.

Shortly before dawn, Dean roused again, this time to an anxious-sounding whine and the rattle of the door handle. He opened one eye and regarded his guest with irritation.

“You were fine all night; you can’t give it a few more minutes? It’s only--” Dean eyed the clock over the mantle, “--about 7:30. The sun doesn’t even come up until...” His voice trailed off as he was given another anxious look and a low whine.

The sun.

The shapeshifter in his living room blew shaggy hair out of his face and huffed. It was the most purely human gesture he had made since Dean had let him in the previous night.

Dean stood up abruptly. The man started at the sudden move and his gaze darted towards the gun lying on the side table as he stilled. Dean sighed and walked over to open the door. The gun he ignored. He knew he wasn’t going to use it. Any possibility of that had passed sometime between the fight in the cellar and when he opened the door to a hesitant knock. Or maybe it had passed fourteen years ago in the dead of a moonlit night. But whenever it had happened, the wolf had crossed the line between a hunter’s proper prey and the innocents they protected. He hovered in a grey area Dean hadn’t even known existed, and there was no choice now but to follow the odd path and see where it led.



Chapter Seven

"How lonely is the night without the howl of a wolf."
~Unknown

The wolf acted like nothing about their relationship had changed. It was waiting for Dean the next morning, four-footed and properly furry, and behaved exactly as it had for the past few weeks, watching and following Dean around the property and into the house. It was strange to be cooking in the kitchen and glance over the divide to see the wolf laid out on the couch, staring at the television, and know that the human visitor of the previous night and the animal flicking its tail idly against the worn cushions were the same creature.

It followed Dean into his bedroom at night and Dean did nothing when it hopped onto the bed and curled up beside him. Though he laid awake long into the morning, wondering what the hell he was doing with his life.

But after a couple of days, the weird feeling wore off and the paranoid need to track the wolf’s movements constantly when it was near him faded into an odd acceptance. Dean knew that what he really needed to do was call Bobby and toss the mess on his lap, since Dean himself was clearly not able to think objectively about the situation -- as witnessed by the shapeshifting wolf eating leftover chicken out of a pan on his floor with an air of great contentment. But he wasn’t sure exactly what to say to the man who had helped raise him to be a hunter, then sent him off without so much as a warning to live in a valley full of werewolves.

Even if he only had actual proof that one of the valley inhabitants was a shapeshifter, the rest of the pack acted damn strange too. And Bobby knew. One of the things Dean had realized in the last day or so since confirming his suspicion about the wolf was that Bobby almost had to know. His dad had known, and he and Bobby were thicker than thieves when it came to hunting stuff. And while it was possible that maybe this was a secret his dad had kept even from one of his mentors, in retrospect, Bobby’s blowing off Dean’s attempt to tell him about the valley rumors was too fast, a little too derisive. Hunters tracked leads by rumors and local legends. Dean himself had been too determined to distance himself from anything involving the job, but what was Bobby’s excuse? Unless the entire thing had been a lie to try and convince Dean to leave it alone. And he knew Bobby well enough that he should have known he was lying right from the start.

“Singer.” The gruff familiarity of the tone only made Dean angrier.

“You should have told me, Bobby. You should have fucking told me.”

“Did you kill any of them?” Bobby’s tone was wary.

Dean snorted into the phone. “At least you’re doing me the grace of not pretending you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“Did you?” Bobby demanded.

“No!”

The wolf looked up sharply from its food at the tone of his voice. Dean pointed a meaningful finger at it to stay, then went into his bedroom, closing the door firmly behind himself. He lowered his voice.

“Not, you know, that’s it isn’t still a possibility.” Especially if the wolf continued to think sticking a cold nose into the bend of his knee at three a.m. was a fun game, but Dean didn’t think that was something he needed to share with Bobby.

“They aren’t evil, Dean. They just want to be left alone. They leave the Sunvalley humans alone, and are usually good at staying out of sight when idiots go wandering into their territory. There’s no call to be hunting them.”

“They’re werewolves, Bobby!”

“They are perfectly nice wolves with a few pack members who occasionally look like humans. They aren’t a threat! Leave ‘em alone. If you don’t want them as neighbors then move out, but you don’t want to piss the packs off, Dean. They are pretty forgiving of mistakes, but if you go after them knowingly, there isn’t anyone going to find your body when they’re done.”

“That sounds like a pretty serious threat.”

“It’s not evil to defend yourself. Stay away from the wolves, in whatever form.”

Bobby’s lack of dissembling had actually taken some of the edge off of Dean’s temper and he was calmer when he spoke again. “My dad knew about them.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?!”

Bobby sighed. “I don’t know all what John knew; I don’t know much more myself. But I think he didn’t want you repeating his mistakes.”

“What mistakes,” Dean growled.

“John didn’t have any problems with hunting after your mom died. He took to it like a duck to water; all that rage and anger he had finally getting an outlet. But he didn’t play well with others and it was pretty obvious he was going to get himself killed. I introduced him to Sam Trellis, who’d been one of my own mentors, way back when. Trellis had a good hand with young hunters with more bullets than brain cells, and I thought he might be able to knock some sense into your dad before you ended up an orphan. Well, Trellis took a shine to your dad rightly enough and invited him back to his cabin. He was real protective of the wolves, Dean, and I don’t know how your dad found out about them but he did. Sam managed to convince him they weren’t a danger somehow, and that was that. But it messed with your dad’s purpose. He started second-guessing himself about what he was hunting and eventually he hesitated at the wrong time and people died.”

“Shit.”

“You knew your dad; he didn’t take it well. It made him even harder after that. I know he kept up his friendship with Trellis, and I know you guys kept visiting up at the cabin sometimes, but he didn’t want to confuse you about what was out there. He didn’t want to pass onto you his doubts.”

“What the hell does that mean?! I might have been out there killing things that didn’t deserve to be killed and Dad didn’t want me to have any doubts?”

“He taught you the trade,” Bobby snapped. “How to do it right. To do your damn research and track the monsters by the wreckage they leave in the world. You’re not going to trip over anything minding its own business that way. He didn’t want you making his mistakes.”

“I tripped over the fucking wolf!”

Silence from the other end of the line.

“Did you hurt it?”

“What? No.” Dean sighed. “I mean, he’s eating chicken on my kitchen floor. The only way he might get hurt is if he decides to eat the pan too. I... Dad should have told me, Bobby. Or you should have.”

“Truthfully, Dean, Trellis was a good friend and I gave him my word not to tell anyone about the wolves, and to do my best to keep hunters away from the valley. I was hoping you would take a break, get so bored you couldn’t stand yourself, and be back out on the road by now. How did you run into the wolves?”

“They ran into me. One of them started following me around almost from the first day I showed up and was working outside. After awhile, it started getting closer and... I don’t know, it just seemed weird not to have it around. One day, he followed me inside and he’s been here most of the time ever since. It’s, um, kind of like a cross between having a roommate and having a dog. We fight over the remote, he sleeps in the house.” That “in the house” meant “in my bed” also wasn’t something Dean wanted to discuss.

“How’d you find out he’s a shapeshifter?”

“Ah, well, that’s actually a fun story.” That he had no intention of telling. “I was out in the forest one night and ran smack into him. Human him, tall, about my age, familiar eyes. I was so surprised, I hit my head on something and woke up at my neighbors. I was pretty suspicious so I trapped the wolf in the cellar the next night and he shifted.”

“And you didn’t shoot him?”

“I’m not gonna lie, I was thinking about it. But... yeah. Anyways, we made our peace.”

“And now he’s eating chicken in your kitchen.”

“He likes chicken.”

Another heavy silence.

“Why didn’t you call me before?”

Dean shrugged. “I didn’t want to explain to you that I had a werewolf pretty much living with me. But then I realized you must have known about the freaking wolves and I thought I’d call you up for a chat.” His voice was a little more heated as he finished speaking, but he didn’t feel furious anymore. Bobby’s calm, matter-of-fact tones had killed most of Dean’s anger, but he was still annoyed. “What else can you tell me about them?”

“I can tell you it’s very strange that one of them has taken up with you. Not all of them shift, you know; from what Trellis said, most of them keep their fur forms for their entire lives. I’m a little worried about what a young, apparently otherwise unattached wolf that does spend some time on two feet is doing practically living in your back pocket.”

“Why?” Dean asked, surprised.

“Because they mate for life, and I have to wonder if what you seem to see as some kind of weird friendship isn’t something entirely different to the damn wolf.”

“You think he thinks I’m his mate? You think he might have missed the fact that I’m a guy?!” Dean remembered waking up in the chair the first night the wolf had spent in the cabin in its human form. The feel of soft, human skin under his hands as he’d shoved him back, and the depth of color and confusion in those hazel eyes. Given a few days between the then and now, Dean had decided what he had read into the wolf’s actions was ridiculous. It had been curious about him, and wanting to touch and smell was perfectly natural for a wolf. Or a whatever.

He refused to consider that maybe Bobby had a point.

“Maybe he doesn’t care about that,” Bobby snapped. “And how am I supposed to know what a wolf thinks?! But if you actually care, you might want to consider getting some more distance between the two of you. Just in case.”

“That’s totally insane, Bobby!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But unless you’re planning to put down roots in that valley, one day you’re going to leave and he’s going to have to stay. You shouldn’t be encouraging him to... get attached.”

“He’s not a dumb animal that needs me to run his life for him. I don’t make him stay with me, and short of actually driving him off, I don’t know how I’m supposed to make him leave me alone. If he wants to stay here, he’s welcome to. And when I leave, that’s just something he’s going to have to get over.”

“It’s your funeral,” was Bobby’s encouraging reply.

Next


Masterpost

Comments

[glasslogic.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how close this story came to that in fact... *shifty* the possibility is still open for future installments *grins*

I will make those corrections you have pointed out when I get some time. I have a list of other things that need to be edited in/out as well to make it read a little smoother hopefully.

The original draft had Dean working through the wolf part and angsting-type stuff, but I decided this way was better for character and the story in general *amused*