The Cause Sanguine - Section Three

[glasslogic]

 

 Chapter Eight

"The gaze of the wolf reaches into our soul."
~Barry Lopez

Life went on. July burned into August and the wolf stayed just as close as ever.

Dean, after waking up from a bizarre dream in which he was cruising along I-40 in the Impala with the windows rolled down on a beautiful sunny day --and the wolf sitting shotgun with his head hanging out the window-- had to acknowledge that there was some merit to at least one of Bobby’s points.

Feeling completely ridiculous one afternoon, he sat on the porch steps and got the wolf’s attention, then proceeded to try and explain, using hand gestures and the shortest, most common words he could think of, that he wasn’t staying forever. The wolf sat patiently in front of him, head cocked to one side and eyes far more intelligent than any animal’s should be. Dean really had no idea how much of what he tried to explain the wolf understood, if any of it. But when he was done and the wolf brushed heavily against his knees before trotting back off into the forest, he could at least honestly tell himself that he tried.

The calendar tacked to the cabin wall showed the moon phases and was covered with heavy red Xs as Dean counted down. He wasn’t at all surprised when the morning of the night Dean first expected the change, the wolf was listless and uninterested in doing much of anything. Dean set out a pan of cool water and tossed the remote control onto the couch next to his guest, then headed into town to do some shopping and laundry. The wolf had been shifting his entire life; he didn’t need Dean’s supervision to sulk on the couch. There was also the niggling problem in the back of Dean’s mind that he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to see the change either. He had seen shapeshifters and it turned his stomach. There hadn’t been any of the nasty residue in the cellar after the night he had locked the wolf in, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t something equally as hard to watch.

He left the cabin door open so there was only the screen in place that could be nosed open so the wolf could leave if he wanted to. Getting back in would be more challenging, but Dean wasn’t really concerned about his guest missing the afternoon soaps.

The wolf, in human form, bounded out of the forest and grabbed Dean in a bear hug when Dean pulled up hours later, shortly after sunset. He released Dean just about as the need for oxygen was growing desperate with a quick lick and a back-step. The oddly tilted hazel eyes were alight with an infectious happiness Dean couldn’t help but respond to.

“You staying the night?” The shifter just stepped back into his space, and Dean pressed a hand against the broad chest to hold him back. “You’ve got to stop licking me.”

He got that quizzical look again, but had the impression it wasn’t the words that had the wolf confused so much as why Dean would possibly want that.

“It’s not healthy,” Dean grumbled, aware of the hard muscle and bare flesh under his touch; he could feel the man’s heartbeat through the skin of his palm. His body took a sharp notice that made Dean uncomfortable; he pulled his hand back as if burned.

“We need to find you a name.”

He tried a variety of different options on his oblivious guest as he threw together something to eat, the shifter had discovered some old photo albums in a wooden chest while being nosy and was sprawled on his belly on the floor, lazily kicking one foot and flipping through pages. Dean had no idea if the wolf was pickier about his food in his human form, but certainly he’d been willing to eat just about anything that was offered when he was furry. Bob, Eddie, Justin, Dave...

Dean carried two plates of skillet-fried bologna and canned green beans into the living room and sat on the floor near his guest. He laid one plate near the fascinated shifter’s elbow and settled back to eat his own. But the wolf paid his food no mind, staring intently at a black and white photo Dean couldn’t make out from his seat.

“Not hungry?”

The shifter’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker. Dean cleared his throat as obnoxiously as he knew how; that got him a response. The man crawled over to him, looking puzzled. Dean gave the warning growl he had been practicing on the wolf when it looked like his plate was about to get crowded off his lap and his guest sat back, disappointed.

When Dean didn’t do anything else interesting, the shifter hmphed and went back to the photo album. After a moment, he held the book up so Dean could see, tapping one finger against a blurry figure in one of the photos. “Sam.”

Dean choked on a green bean.

“What?!” he wheezed, when he could breathe again. He wasn’t surprised to find concerned eyes only inches away from his and he shoved the man away again so that he had some breathing room. “You can talk?!”

Again that curious head tilt. Then a shrug.

Dean slid over to pick up the album. The picture the wolf had been so interested in was probably at least twenty to thirty-five years old, and while Dean didn’t recognize any of the others in the photo, Sam Trellis was standing in the middle of the group. Dean pointed to him and waited expectantly.

After a few more seconds of pinning Dean with a look that had an odd feel of calculation behind it, the man obligingly enough opened his mouth again. “Sam.”

Dean slammed the album shut and glared at him.

“Can you say anything else?” he demanded. He’d known the wolf could understand a portion of what he said, but speaking was a new trick.

The wolf noticed his plate and made a production of picking at the green beans.

“Fine,” Dean growled. “You like the name? You can be Sam too.” He scooted closer and poked the wolf in the chest. “Sam.” He touched his own chest. “Dean.”

The wolf looked... bemused.

“I need something to call you; having it be something you can say would be useful if, you know, you ever get picked up by the cops or anything like that,” Dean insisted. “If you have a name or you don’t like that one, tell me now.”

“Sam,” the wolf repeated. The he gave a smile of pure mischief and reached out to touch Dean’s leg. “Dean.”

Dean pulled a pillow off the couch and hit him.

Dean lay awake that night long after the wolf, Sam, had fallen asleep curled up beneath the sheets beside him. Dean himself lay wrapped in a separate blanket. Allowing Sam in his wolf form to curl up against his skin in the bed was entirely different than allowing the same when he was human. There were reasons he wouldn’t let Sam sleep curled against his body as a human, and the night had highlighted the biggest.

Dean had cleaned up the living room as best he could after the pillow fight, but still the occasional bit of down drifted onto his face from the total disaster they had made of the cabin. Dean blew it away, but knew, resigned, that eventually another one would land on him. It was inevitable that he would be finding feathers everywhere for months. The pillows had been a housewarming gift from his neighbor Lynnette. Dean hadn’t really known what to do when she had shown up a couple of days after he moved to the cabin, toting a blueberry pie and the pillows. But she had pie, so he let her in, and when she left awhile later, the pillows were tucked neatly against the sides of his battered couch. She said they added style.

Sam had looked more shocked that anything when Dean hit him with one, and for a few seconds, Dean thought he had made a horrible mistake in not considering how a wolf would take the attack, so matter how soft and fluffy the weapon was. But after that first intent moment, Sam had returned Dean’s grin with his own somewhat uncertain smile and reached for the other pillow.

While game, the wolf didn’t seem to grasp the nuances of a pillow fight and had only let Dean get a few blows in before he’d started using his teeth on the offending cushion Dean was trying to pummel him with. It was less than five minutes before they were both on the floor, panting, and the air was alive with down like a thousand geese had exploded in the room. Sam had also managed to land in his plate, and the smear of green beans and grease from the bologna down his side and hip, liberally mixed with feathers, was not something that was going to be just wiped off.

Dean had tugged the remaining pillow out of Sam’s grip and tossed it back on the couch, then dragged him down the hall to shove the werewolf into the shower stall. The wolf had been surprisingly cooperative, but he had never seen Dean bathe and didn’t seem to know what to do. He just stood under the warm spray with an expression of great curiosity, but made no motion to wash. Dean sighed, because he really should have anticipated that. He grabbed the shampoo and a washcloth. The shampoo wasn’t tear-free and Dean quickly discarded the idea of washing the shifter’s hair. He could probably get the wolf to close his eyes, but maybe not keep them closed, and Sam’s attitude of cooperation might evaporate if the bathing caused pain.

He soaped up the cloth and started with Sam’s neck. The wolf seemed to find the entire production amusing, but when Dean worked down to his waist and tried to give Sam the washcloth, Sam promptly reached out and tried to touch Dean with it. Dean didn’t really want his clothes soapy and wet, at least not more than was avoidable, and snatched the cloth back. The wolf looked disappointed. Dean rolled his eyes and was reaching out to continue the process when he noticed that Sam seemed to be enjoying himself. A lot. It wasn’t really an unexpected development, the shifter clearly liked Dean, in whatever capacity, and Dean was pretty much running bare hands over Sam’s naked, wet and soapy body. Even without the affection, the ‘wet, naked and soapy’ part would have been explanation enough. Touch felt good.

But it wasn’t Sam’s reaction that made Dean hesitate, it was his own. He realized that he wanted to touch Sam, and not for the functional purpose he had originally insisted on bathing him for.

And that was a line Dean refused to cross.

Sam being a guy wasn’t the problem. As soon as Dean had realized what his dick was for, he had started off into a lively exploration of his sexuality that wasn’t limited by what his partner had in their pants. His dad’s only commentary had involved an uncomfortable lecture on safe sex and good sense, before pretty much tuning out Dean’s sexual escapades in favor of more serious matters. Sam being a wolf, though -- that was beyond the pale even for Dean.

Dean stuffed the washcloth back into Sam’s hands and backed up a few feet. When Sam just stood there, Dean impatiently mimed washing the rest of his body. “It’s not that hard! You just rub the cloth over your skin and let the water wash it off.”

Sam held the washcloth out hopefully, but Dean just crossed his arms and glared. The wolf huffed and sulkily began to scrub off the dirt, feathers and remains of dinner. Dean’s eyes absently tracked the movements of Sam’s hands over his skin. He shifted uncomfortably when he realized Sam was spending a lot more time on his groin that was probably necessary, and the movements were decidedly not cleaning related. Startled, he looked up and met the wolf’s eyes where he had already been watching Dean. While masturbating.

Dean grabbed two towels off the shelf and tossed them onto the floor.

“Don’t track water through the house,” he growled as he stalked out.

The wolf bounded out after him within minutes. Dean was happy he’d gotten all of the soap off, but less happy that his idea of drying still left water running everywhere. He toweled Sam off briskly, ignoring certain places, then started mopping up the hallway. The wolf went back for the other towel and cleaned up his own share of the water. Dean was relieved to note by the time they were done that Sam’s interest had abated. He was used to the wolf being naked, but that was a little much to ignore.

In a moment of total self-honesty, Dean had to grudgingly admit to himself that the biggest reason Sam’s perfectly natural reactions bothered him was that if Sam had been some guy he met in a random pool hall hook-up, he would have cheerfully dragged him back to his motel room and screwed the daylights out of him.

Cleaning up all the feathers after that was its own torturous entertainment. Dean wanted them in a trash bag and out of his cabin, but Sam seemed to find an endless delight in blowing them off of counters and out of crannies, which made them sail back up into the air -- where it was almost impossible to get them until they settled again. Sam ignored Dean’s grumbles, and Dean didn’t have the heart to make him knock it off. The end result was it was close to two a.m. when most of the feathers were bagged, and Dean gave what was left up for a bad job.

He let Sam out to pee --the wolf having shown a total lack of interest in the functional aspect of bathrooms the one time Dean had made a half-hearted attempt to teach him-- then collapsed gratefully onto his bed. Sam was asleep in minutes, but Dean lay restless for some time, watching the even rise and fall of the shifter’s breath in the pale light of the moon, where it shone in through the half-pulled curtains of the bedroom window.

A rumbling growl brought Dean back to consciousness sooner than he had any desire to be awake. He smacked at the wolf, Sam having changed back with the dawn, and turned over, but the growling intensified and finally Dean rubbed sleep out of his eyes and sat up to see what the hell was going on. Sam was apparently growling at the puddle of clothes Dean had been wearing the night before. It took Dean a stupefied moment to staring to realize that underneath the growl was the faint buzz of his phone’s vibrate-mode.

He hated the cell phone he had; it constantly switched between ringing and vibrating while he carried it around. That kind of crap could prove lethal on a hunt, but since he wasn’t taking jobs, he had been less concerned about getting a replacement. Dean leaned out of the bed and snagged his jeans, rummaging until he had the problem in hand. He looked at the display and gave a growl of his own.

He and Bobby had an understanding about morning phone calls.

“This had better be important.”

Bobby snorted. “It’s half-past noon. Get your lazy ass out of bed and find something productive to do with yourself. How’s that car of yours doing?”

“Did you seriously wake me up to ask about the Impala?”

“I seriously called to ask how you were getting along with the neighbors. I wasn’t too sure how things stood last time we spoke, and when I didn’t hear back from you...”

“You thought I might be wolf kibble?” Dean flopped back on his mattress, but he landed on Sam’s tail where it was been swept under the edge of the sheet and the wolf’s pained yip made his ears hurt. Dean cradled the phone against his shoulder and reached out to make sure he hadn’t actually damaged Sam, but the wolf gave him a deeply offended look and hopped off the bed.

Dean watched as the wolf nosed through his dirty clothes scattered across the floor before registering the ominous silence on the other end of the line. It was too damn early for this.

“Bobby?”

“What was that, Dean?”

Dean swallowed. “What did you think it was?”

“You let the wolf in your bed? Did you hear a damn thing I said last time?”

“How do you know it was in my bed?”

Bobby let out an impressive torrent of swear words.

“Hey,” Dean cut in. “I like having him around, he likes being around; I don’t see anyone else bitching.”

“What the hell do you think your father would say about this?”

“I think my father’s dead,” Dean snapped back, then froze; the gravity of just being able to toss that out hitting him in the stomach.

Bobby didn’t have anything to say about that either for a moment. “I just have a bad feeling about it. I thought you would be back out on the road by now, but you’re still up there, and now you’re getting tangled up with this wolf, and--”

Dean cut him off. “I came up here to work some shit out, Bobby. It’s not a fast thing, you know? Sam’s not messing up anything; he’s just keeping me company. No strings attached.”

“Sam?”

“He likes the name,” Dean explained hastily. “Look, I’m tired; it was a late night. Let me get some more sleep and I’ll... call you later.”

Bobby protested, but Dean flipped the phone shut and rested his elbows on his knees.

Sam padded back into the room and sat watching him, feathers stuck to his nose and tongue, tail giving a pensive sort of swish.

Dean groaned and hung his head.

He was so screwed.

The next day was a storm and Sam splashed out of the woods covered in mud almost as soon as the sun sank behind the mountains. Dean managed to corral him back into the shower and put a washcloth firmly into his hand, but then he left to go work on dinner. Sam showed up in the kitchen a few minutes later, mostly mud-free and definitely disgruntled. Dean only had to point silently at the puddles of water he left in his wake and the wolf heaved a sigh and set to mopping.

After dinner, they shared the couch, and Dean let Sam have the remote. The wolf favored cop shows and anything with explosions. He also liked wildlife documentaries, and when Dean stirred awake from an inadvertent nap in the wee hours of the morning, it was to find his guest glued to a skin flick with the volume turned down low. Dean rolled his eyes and went to bed, leaving Sam to it. He didn’t notice if Sam joined him in the night or if he stayed glued to the TV until the sun rose and he shifted shape, but the wolf was in its usual place on his bed when he woke up in the morning.

The third night the wolf was human, Dean built a fire out in the yard. He’d been to town and brought back a sack of groceries. Good things for campfires, and they stayed out almost until sunrise. Dean didn’t know many campfire songs, but he knew a lot of other songs, and while he didn’t manage to coax Sam into trying to sing the greatest hits of Metallica, listening to him try to hum them had Dean laughing for hours.



Chapter Nine

"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."
~Rudyard Kipling

August soon went the way of July, and September followed on its heels. Dean gathered wood from the margins of the forest and tried to build his store of firewood. He had survived rough winters before, but only passing through. John had never settled down in one place long enough for Dean to experience the entire season in the same residence. He was actually kind of looking forward to it, provided he didn’t freeze to death. Alan and the guys assured him that while the weather was frigid and the snow was deep, most of it was usually dumped on the surrounding mountains and seldom grew deeper than one or two feet in Sunvalley itself. There were so few roads that local plows could usually do the entire valley every few days, so he shouldn’t be trapped, and Dean could always call them if he got into serious trouble.

But so far, the weather was cooling off much more slowly than people had expected, and there was a good chance the winter would be a mild one.

Sam was still a more-or-less constant presence in his life. Occasionally, the wolf would slip away for a day or so, but he was always back almost as soon as Dean started to miss him. Now that he had a name and Dean was more comfortable with his human form, talking to the wolf seemed more like conversations with a friend that one-sided rambling to himself. Sam might not have had words to respond with --in either form, really-- but with Dean paying more attention, he found the shifter could speak volumes with his body. Dean would not have guessed skepticism could be so effectively conveyed with the tilt of a furry head, nor amusement with a tail -- but Sam was a master of both, among a considerably wider range of talents.

Dean still had the odd feeling of being stalked sometimes, like the look the wolf was turning on him was something... more. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it made Dean wonder if maybe Bobby had a point when he’d warned Dean about letting Sam stay with him. But then it was just Sam again, and Dean didn’t want him to go.

October was only slightly colder than September had been, and the leaves were at the height of their color when something finally happened to disrupt the comfortable routine of the cabin.

Persistent buzzing woke Dean from a dream that faded almost as soon as he opened his eyes. Reluctant and unhappy to be awake, he groped for the cell phone resting on the headboard. The phone never freaking rang when he was awake. A glance at the phone’s display told him it wasn’t a number he could easily ignore and he flipped it open with a groan.

“Dean.”

“Bobby, it’s--” Dean shoved the wolf off his arm so he could lean up and see the clock, “--barely six thirty in the morning. What could you possibly want from me right now?” He flopped back onto the bed, rolling his eyes when Sam rumbled his discontent and tucked his nose under his tail. The wolf didn’t like being woken up by cell phones either, but at least he didn’t have to be coherent.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that animal in your bed. Again,” Bobby growled.

“At the ass-crack of dawn, I don’t really give a crap what you want to pretend. Can I go back to sleep?”

“No, I have a job for you.”

Dean sat up. “This had better be some kind of desperate need for me to sand a porch rail or something, Bobby. You know I’m out of the business right now.”

Bobby’s irritated sigh was translated clearly through the phone lines. “I need you on this one, Dean. I would do it myself, but you’re closer and I have other things to deal with.”

“Bobby--”

“It’s practically on your doorstep. Take a good look at what’s sleeping with you; decide if you really want me to have to send another hunter to that valley.” Bobby’s voice dripped acid.

Dean swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sighed. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Twenty minutes later, he was dressed and sitting on the kitchen counter, eating yogurt with the cell phone cradled against his shoulder. Sam had padded out of the room after him, yawning and with head hung low, obviously still sleepy. Dean had opened the front door for the wolf and then gone to find breakfast while Bobby finished filling him in.

“Tikoloshe? What are African revenants doing killing people in a suburban community in Montana?”

“I certainly don’t know, but the information checks out. It, uh, looks like they came in on a shipping container--”

“Is it April? Is this a joke of some kind?” Dean demanded.

“This is on the level, Dean. A Tikoloshe is killing families in Redrock. The town backs straight up to the forest around the valley. They have the same sort of rumors about the wildlife that you heard when you moved in, and I do not want to give any overzealous hunters an excuse to be poking around there. If you can’t do this, I’ll try to come do it myself.”

“What about those other things you said you had to do?”

“People are going to die one way or the other, but there’s gonna be more of them out where you are. Damn it, Dean,” Bobby groused, “I know you need time. I wouldn’t be asking you if there were any other good options.”

“Fine.”

“You’ll do it?”

“I just said I would, Bobby. How long do you think before they hit another family?”

“It’s been three families in three nights.”

“So tonight then. Fantastic.”

“You’ve had a break. Time to save some more lives. And take the damn wolf with you.”

Dean snorted and tossed the empty yogurt container into the trash. “Yeah, because that’s something I want to try and explain to him.”

“That valley’s been a hotspot of supernatural activity for centuries, but those townsfolk live safe and happy. It ain’t the water that’s keeping them that way. And it ain’t hunters either, at least not our kind.”

“He likes Cheetos and sniffing my shorts, Bobby. A jar of peanut butter and a movie marathon will keep him entertained all day. I’m not taking him hunting. Besides, it’s the full moon and he’s already grouchy and uncooperative. I don’t want to try and explain what I’m doing, and I definitely don’t want to have to worry about him getting in my way.”

“It’s your hunt.”

“Right. A very brief break in my ongoing vacation. This does not put me back on your call sheet.” Dean waited for Bobby’s grunt of acknowledgement before continuing. “Now tell me what you know about Tikoloshe and let’s see if I can get a damn plan together before they’re mopping more bodies up in the suburbs.”

Dean headed into town to use the library and their Internet, but information on Tikoloshes was pretty thin and contradictory. Information on the murders in Redrock, on the other hand, was easy to get -- but it was all media sensationalism and pretty worthless for his cause. John’s journal unsurprisingly had absolutely nothing to say on the subject. Dean himself only even knew what a Tikoloshe was because ‘name that monster’ had been a favorite car game during the endless miles of his childhood. He knew what a Jiaolong was too, but he’d be damned surprised to trip over one in downtown Topeka.

Bobby emailed him a scan of what had to be stolen police records --the Internet had really made a lot of things easier-- but it wasn’t really useful information. All it gave him was a range of neighborhoods on the edge of town closest to the forest. There was nothing else in common between any of the families that he could find. A few more days to run down leads and do some personal inspection might have proved useful, but another family was going to die once the sun went down, and there wasn’t much he could do about that but go and hope for some kind of miracle to point him in the right direction.

He went back to the cabin to gather what he would need from the root cellar. Keeping an arsenal in the Impala’s trunk had seemed an unreasonable risk once he decided to settle into a home base.

Sam was hanging out on the steps when he pulled back in. He raised his head and flicked his tail, but made no move to rise. Dean hadn’t expected him to. The wolf always acted out of sorts during the daytime when he was going to shift that night.

Dean bypassed the steps and headed for the cellar. By the time he had made a few trips transporting things to the Impala, the wolf had taken a greater interest in his activities and was waiting by the car.

“I’m sorry I won’t be around tonight. I have to run an... errand.” Since his arms were full of weapons, he didn’t think the wolf was going to take that well and wasn’t surprised at the sharp bark and low growl he got for his efforts.

He ignored Sam and dumped the last of his supplies into the trunk, dropping it closed and walking over to the driver’s door. Sam got deliberately in his way, almost tripping him onto the gravel. Dean snarled and leaned his weight into the wolf, causing it to stagger. The wolf bared teeth back at him, but moved out of reach.

“I’ll be back! Go... play with your relatives tonight or something. We can build a fire in the yard tomorrow and I’ll make you some hotdogs and s’mores.”

The wolf walked around the Impala to the passenger door side and sat by it, obviously expectant. Dean rolled his eyes and pulled open his door, sliding inside. He turned the key in the ignition, enjoying a surge of pleasure as she rumbled to life around him. But before he could pull his other foot in and close the door, Sam darted in and sank his teeth into the fold of Dean’s jeans right above his boot, tugging hard enough to almost cause Dean to slide off the seat.

“Stop it, Sam!” Dean jerked his leg free, anger rising when he heard the distinct sound of fabric ripping. “Cut this shit out! People are dying, do you understand that? Dying. If I can take care of it tonight, I won’t have to be gone tomorrow. But you are not going to fucking mess with me like this; otherwise, you can go find another person to stalk.”

He knew Sam would probably miss most of the words, but the wolf definitely understood the tone and backed off again. He was clearly not happy, but he wasn’t ripping holes in Dean’s clothes anymore either. Dean slammed the door closed with a last pointed glare and backed the Impala down the gravel driveway. As he turned out onto the main road, his last glimpse of the wolf was it vanishing into the shadows of the afternoon forest.

Redrock was a fairly generic suburban community as far as Dean could tell, but it took him almost an hour longer than it should have to reach it. There were few roads from the valley to the outside and they were winding and slow. It was twilight by the time he parked in a Shop&Go that was close to all three murder scenes. He had pockets full of loose salt and a sawed-off with salt-rounds under his jacket, which fortunately hit him about mid-thigh, since his pistol was tucked into a holster around his waist. He had it loaded with regular bullets. In the conflicting mythology on the Tikoloshe, a distinct lack of fondness for iron and salt had been a common thread. Dean had a silver blade in a boot sheath under his jeans as a back-up.

He spent the next few hours skulking around. There were cops watching all of the crime scenes, but he caught what he could on the margins and managed to sneak into one. Blood was dried in deep brownish pools and spattered on walls. No bloody footprints, but weird smears tracking between puddles and to the back door. It was very unusual for Tikoloshe, but out of their native environment and far away from those that had summoned them, they were probably filling their needs in the basest way they could. There was no time to prepare to banish them properly, but Bobby had speculated that if Dean could destroy their physical forms with the salt or the iron, the disembodied spirits would be forced back to their summoners. Sort of. He hoped. Bobby hadn’t been real forthcoming on what the hell embodied Tikoloshe were doing in North America, but he had seemed certain of his intel.

Hours ticked past slowly as Dean wandered as inconspicuously as possible through quiet, nervous neighborhoods, trying to find anything that would tell him this was the place the monsters would strike.

It was without a doubt the single worst plan he had ever had in his life. He could feel his father rolling over in his grave.

But there hadn’t been time for anything else. If he failed tonight, he would grab a few hours of sleep at a motel and spend tomorrow in research to hopefully increase his chances for the next night. But it wasn’t going to take many more bodies before he told Bobby to forget his discretion and find a real expert, because Dean knew his job, but he didn’t know crap about African monsters, and getting up to speed was going to cost lives.

It was only about an hour before dawn when his attention was snared by something out of place. After being stopped twice by paranoid cops wanting to know his business and barely making it away the second time without getting hauled down to the station, Dean had taken to the backyards and bushes. It would be more of an outcry if he was caught, but the odds of that happening were lower slinking around in the shadows, and it was probably not on the street side that he would find the clues he was looking for anyway.

The row of houses he was currently investigating backed up to the slopes and dense woods of the valley forest, as he had come to think of it, thick with underbrush this close to civilization. He was walking past a pale-colored two-story when the barks and whines of a dog caught his attention and he veered to investigate closer. The house was dark, but a sliding-glass door that fronted a pool deck was cracked just enough for the Germen Sheppard, obvious in the bright light of the full moon overhead, to stick his muzzle in and whine. Then he would back up and bark a few times, before going back to the crack.

“Here, boy,” Dean called softly, crouched on one side of the chain-link fence. When the dog trotted over to investigate and seemed friendly enough, Dean vaulted the fence and crept closer to the house. The door hadn’t been left unlocked; even a cursory inspection showed that the metal lock had been wrenched open by sheer muscle. Nothing human could have levered that kind of force and left that type of damage. Dean slid the shotgun out and held it ready, carefully pushing the door further open to slip inside. He moved it back into place once he was through, to keep the dog out; the last thing he needed was to have the animal underfoot or giving him away.

The moonlight through the double glass doors let Dean see inside the open living room well enough without anything so obvious as turning on a light. He didn’t really want to see any better anyway; the eviscerated corpse of a woman sprawled on the carpet was quite visible enough. The air stank of death and the still quiet was making all the hairs on his neck stand up. His finger tightened on the shotgun as he caught sight of a backpack and a child’s sneaker lying beside the couch.

Dean found a staircase and headed up; testing each step individually to make sure they wouldn’t squeak. The grisly discovery downstairs was nothing to the bodies of the children, half devoured and ripped apart in their beds, but Dean steeled himself against his reaction and focused on finding their killers. That was the only thing he could do for them now.

Sweat slicked his grip and he was almost dizzy with adrenaline. There were no monsters upstairs, but there was also no master bedroom. He headed back down to do a more thorough search of the lower level.

He hadn’t even noticed the hallway off the other side of the kitchen. He chalked it up to nerves, lack of sleep and being damn unprepared, but it still needled him. Dean knew what his father would have had to say about such a rookie mistake. The soft, wet, tearing sound coming from inside the bedroom as he crept closer alerted Dean that he’d hit jackpot. The figure crouched over the bed feeding from the man’s body was only a little shorter than Dean himself, covered in shaggy, dark fur and with a heavy ridge of bone crowning its head that gleamed in the moonlight through the high window that ran almost the length of the room.

Dean risked two more quick steps then leveled the gun at the base of the Tikoloshe’s neck and squeezed the trigger. The creature fell forward over the body and in moments was dissolving into some sort of foul smelling ichor. Dean dropped the shotgun to his side and scratched at his neck. Well. That had certainly gone easier than expected. And with any luck, the nasty little thing was winging its way on back to its proper place in the universe. He hoped it had a good, long chat with whomever had summoned it in the first place.

Dean headed back to the sliding doors to make his escape. The house was silent, but as he stepped from the kitchen into the living room, some sixth sense that was as deeply ingrained as the sound of his own voice made him dodge to the right. That was all that saved him from getting his throat ripped open as another Tikoloshe materialized in front of him and swiped at his face with a razor-clawed hand.

When the attack failed, it took advantage of Dean being off-balance from the dodge to throw itself on him bodily, carrying them both to the floor, shotgun flying out of reach. The pistol was pinned to his side beneath his jacket and the heavily muscled monster doing its level best to kill him. Getting the knife was completely out of the question as Dean strained muscles trying to keep claws from ripping into his torso and equally sharp teeth from sinking into his throat. When he felt the claws tear into his skin as he was overpowered, he spared a last thought for hoping the next person the wolf latched into had cable and wouldn’t mind the fur on the furniture, when suddenly the Tikoloshe was hauled off his body and a furious snarling filled the room.

Dean scrambled to his feet and just stared for a moment. Sam, naked and covered in what looked like scratches, dirt and other forest debris, was rolling across the carpet, struggling with the Tikoloshe. And for the moment, backed by his own supernatural strength and what looked like a towering rage, he even appeared to have the upper hand.

Dean winced as they rolled over part of the corpse. The squelch of the blood-soaked carpet broke his momentary freeze and he lunged for the shotgun. Sam might have been holding his own for the moment, but the Tikoloshe outclassed him too and the tables could turn at any second.

“Sam, move!” Dean barked. The werewolf kicked free of the shaggy beast and Dean fired.

The monster slammed back into the couch but was still moving, so Dean stepped in closer and fired again straight into its face. This time, it slumped down and began dissolving like the first had.

Dean was still fighting for breath when he turned to check Sam. The shifter was backing away from the Tikoloshe’s quickly vanishing form, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. Dean felt a pang of sympathy for heightened senses, but it was quickly forgotten as Sam caught his eye and the heat in the look sent something sizzling through his own blood.

The werewolf advanced with deliberate steps. Naked, his arousal was obvious, and Dean felt his own jeans growing tight. The monsters were dead, the case was done, and all that extra adrenaline still singing in his blood was very interested in the six-plus-feet of good looks and muscles stalking towards him.

When the shifter was so close that Dean could feel the warmth of Sam’s body even through his own clothes, he honestly couldn’t remember why he had been resisting Sam at all.

Sam’s first touch was hesitant, but Dean’s wasn’t. After that, it was a confusing tangle as to how they ended up on the carpet, four hands pulling at Dean’s jeans and finally getting them shoved down low enough that he could get some of the friction from Sam’s body against his cock. Sam seemed to be trying to eat part of Dean’s face, which was distracting and irritating, even in the heat of the moment, until it occurred dimly to Dean that Sam was probably trying to kiss him. He grabbed the wolf by the hair, forcing him to hold his head still, then plunged his own tongue into Sam’s mouth even as he bucked, rubbing together skin slicked with precome, encouraging Sam to move with him. Dean ignored the burn of the carpet against his bare skin as nerve endings sparked with the overwhelming build of urgency. Release was a white buzz of pleasure across his senses and he clutched at Sam’s back, leaving marks as the wolf growled low in his ear and rode out his own orgasm.

Seconds later, the slam of a car door out front jolted Dean back to the reality of the situation and he shoved Sam aside and struggled to get his jeans back into place. He had fired three shotgun blasts before dawn in a neighborhood already made paranoid by recent murders. His little exercise in hormonal idiocy could only be chalked up to Sam making him completely stupid, and it was likely only luck the front door hadn’t been kicked in while his jeans were around his knees.

Because that was a picture he wanted in his official police jacket.

Sam stood and stretched, clearly pleased with himself and not seeming terribly concerned about anything, then headed over to the window.

“Stop it!” Dean hissed, finally getting to his feet and doing up the last button. “Stay away from there!”

Dean couldn’t see if Sam rolled his eyes at him in the dark, but there was definitely a set to his shoulders that implied it. The werewolf crouched, twitching the curtain aside almost imperceptibly to look out front. Dean kneed him over and took his own look, then started cursing under his breath. Sam didn’t look quite so happy anymore either. The biggest miracle was how the crowd assembled out front had stayed quiet enough not to get his attention sooner, even with the... distraction. Through the pre-dawn haze, he could make out people in nightgowns being forcefully directed back to their homes. Dean wasn’t sure what the cops were waiting for, but he didn’t think they were going to wait much longer.

He crept to the back door and glanced out, a new torrent of hissed four-letter words spilling from his mouth. There were people back there too. Only a couple, but a couple was more than enough. Suddenly, the lightening haze struck a new fear into him. Being arrested would be bad enough, but Sam was within minutes of changing. Abruptly, Dean reprioritized his ‘worst case scenario’.

“Sam.” He grabbed the shifter’s arm to make sure he had his undivided attention. “I’m going to go out the door.” Dean pointed to himself and then to the front door in emphasis. “You,” he poked Sam in the chest, “are going to go out the back door as soon as you hear me start yelling. Understand?”

The werewolf followed Dean’s gestures, wrinkled his brows for a moment, then his eyes grew wide and he shook his head. “No!”

“Yes!” Dean snapped back. “They can’t find out about you.”

Sam was still shaking his head, holding Dean’s arm even tighter than Dean had grabbed him. “No! Us!”

Dean had become skilled at translating Sam’s abbreviated speech, but he didn’t have time to engage in their usual back and forth.

“Us won’t get away without a-- something has to distract them. I’m going to distract them. We don’t have time to fight about it.” He shoved Sam toward the window over the kitchen sink that was partially occluded by huge, fluffy-looking bushes. Sam could slip out that way, hang in the greenery all the way to the back of the deck area, then be in the forest cover with less than ten feet of open space. Once in the forest, Dean didn’t worry about the wolf; he just had to hope he could get someplace out of sight before he changed. The change seemed to only take seconds, but it would only take one camera to fuck everything up. Dean’s biggest concern was still Sam getting arrested too. He shoved harder when the werewolf didn’t move on his own, then turned away to check out front again. This needed to be timed right.

A metallic clunk from behind him made him spin and he stared as Sam, with a determined look on his face, plunked the kitchen microwave down in the middle of the living room, nudging aside part of the corpse to do so, then plugged it in. It was an older model, with a twist-timer and a dirty looking case, but Dean didn’t see anything about it that should have attracted Sam’s interest. Certainly not more so than something like escape should have.

“Fuck! Sam--” The faint sound a siren and someone shouting out front distracted him and he darted back to check the curtain, sparing a derisive thought for civilian operations. He ignored the total disaster his own operation had been in the assessment. He was on vacation; they didn’t have an excuse.

The sun edged over the horizon just as Dean heard a low, broken whine from the kitchen; it ended with a very animal growl and Dean felt a surge of relief. That was one problem solved. As long as they didn’t shoot Sam on principle. On the other hand, the rising sun had eliminated almost any chance Dean had of getting away unseen.

Dean was heading for the kitchen window himself when the wolf slunk past him on its way into the living room, tail so low it was almost on the ground --probably from the stress of the change-- and some kind of can in its mouth.

“Sam? We gotta go. You can play with the microwave at the cabin.”

The wolf gave a dispirited growl and went back into the kitchen. The clatter of cans reached Dean’s ear just as a bullhorn shattered the silence of the neighborhood, demanding that he throw down any weapons and exit through the front door or they were going to come in after him. It sounded fairly routine and Dean barely paid it any attention as Sam slunk past him with another can in his mouth.

“What the hell?” Dean started to follow him into the living room. Sam returned and growled at him before he could take more than a step or two. Dean ignored it, but Sam wasn’t kidding; he bared his teeth in a full snarl like Dean had never seen before and backed Dean up to the sink. Once Dean hit the counter, the wolf sat back like he was perfectly calm. Dean scowled and started to step towards him again but as soon as he moved, Sam was back on all fours, snarling and bristling. Dean paused thoughtfully, then looked at where he was.

“You... want me to go out the window?” Dean pointed at the glass. The wolf nodded. “I was heading there anyways, but it’s not going to work, Sam. There’s already people back there and it’s getting light.”

The wolf rolled its eyes at him and gave soft bark, looking meaningfully over Dean’s shoulder.

Dean shrugged. He could get arrested just as easily in the back as in the front. Carefully, he slid the glass open, then climbed into the dense shadows of the overgrowth. Through the leaves, he could see the German Sheppard that had first clued him into the trouble at the house pacing anxiously against the back of the fence, no doubt driven there by Sam’s sudden appearance on the scene. Dogs seemed to give the usual garden variety shapeshifters plenty of space, and he imagined Sam being a wolf probably got him even more respect.

He listened intently to the sounds from inside the house, but instead of the click of Sam’s nails on the tile as the wolf walked back towards the kitchen, he heard a bell-like ding, then a soft ticking sound. Sam almost knocked him down as the wolf abruptly sailed through the open window, hitting the covered ground and sinking teeth into Dean’s pant leg, urging him down.

Dean’s eyes grew huge as he put together what should have been obvious five minutes ago. Aerosols and the microwave. Aerosols in the microwave. It would have been obvious had it been another hunter at his side. He opened his mouth to... well, he wasn’t quite sure, maybe congratulate Sam on a successful application of his television education to the real world again, but it was moot because any noise he started to make was drowned out by the explosive force of the fireball that was suddenly rolling out from the living room.

Shouts and curses erupted from around them as the people loitering in the back made a sudden dash for the front. Dean and Sam were already in motion. Not everyone surrounding the house had run towards the front, a professionalism that Dean grudgingly admired, but enough had that they were able to slide over the fence and vanish into the tree line without raising any cries of pursuit.

Dean followed Sam through a nightmare mountain scramble. Every time he wanted to stop to try and catch his breath or check his position, the wolf was grabbing hold of his clothes and urging him on. He climbed over boulders and steep slopes, and through gullies that were still brimming with deep shadows the sun hadn’t banished yet, where he could only follow Sam by keeping the fingers of one hand twisted into the wolf’s thick ruff. Eventually, Dean crawled through a freezing mountain stream where it passed into a natural tunnel through the side of a cliff and was grateful to be able to stand, frozen and soaked through, on the other side.

The sun was high by the time Sam finally let him stop and rest, and it took Dean a few minutes to realize that in the several hours he had been following blind in the wolf’s wake, they had crossed over the mountains behind Redrock and into the deep valley sandwiched between the ranges that encircled the low plain where Sunvalley was. The valley Alan had told him about, where humans seldom went, and never more than once.

Sam’s home.

A warm weight leaned against his leg and he looked down at the wolf. It was watching him back. Dean smiled, then tightened his arms around himself as another violent shiver wrenched through him. Without the constant movement to keep him warm, the cold October air and the trip through the water --while no doubt effective at throwing off the scent hounds-- was going to kill him. Sam tugged at the clinging denim of his pants and Dean wearily followed after him. He trusted Sam.

Besides, freezing to death in the wolves’ valley was preferable to rotting for the rest of his life in prison. It would be a better death than his dad had suffered.

But death didn’t seem to be in Sam’s plans. After a long, timeless trek downwards into the shadows towards the river that Dean had only caught silvery glimpses of from higher up, the wolf hunched down and crawled through a small space behind a boulder that Dean didn’t even recognize as an opening until Sam disappeared into it. After a moment, Sam’s muzzle reappeared through the opening and he gave another one of those short, commanding barks. Dean eyed the size of the opening dubiously, but got down on his knees to make the attempt. It was pretty obvious it was going to take a lot of squirming, so he stuffed his coat in ahead and spent the next few minutes leaving skin on the rough rocks of the natural cave.

Inside, he wouldn’t have said it was spacious, but a quick feel around with his hands showed that he could sit up without banging his head, and the walls were far enough apart that he couldn’t touch them both at the same time with his arms outstretched. It was definitely warmer. He was still shivering, even after the struggle to get inside, but not with the sort of deadly cold that was a serious danger. As he sat letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, he became aware that it wasn’t just Sam and him in the cave. The little rustles and sounds of breathing definitely indicated others. He reminded himself firmly that he trusted the wolf.

“Hello?”

The soft greeting got him a tongue swiped across his face and then Sam was tugging again. Dean reluctantly crawled with him deeper into the darkness. Then froze when another shaggy form brushed against him and started sniffing. Then another. They seemed especially interested in his waist and Dean felt himself flush as he had a sudden, vivid recollection of what he and Sam had been up to before the intervention of the cops. His life hadn’t been great, but it sure had been less weird before Sam entered his life. Even for a hunter, the werewolf had added entire dimensions of strange that Dean was pretty certain no one else he knew had to deal with.

There was some soft squeaking and a high-pitched whine from off to his right. He was surrounded by so much warm fur pushing against him that he wasn’t quite sure how he ended up flat on his ass surrounded on all sides, but he wasn’t uncomfortable, and after a few minutes, quite warm. He reached out blindly, trying to get a better idea of what the geography was. One hand hit a smaller ball of fur, which wriggled under his hand, and he was shocked to realize he was touching a cub, or a puppy, whatever the hell a little wolf was. The wonder filled him when he realized that the squirming, pudgy bundle of loose fur and sharp teeth could one day turn into a man like Sam. There was a soft growl from one of the wolves keeping him warm. It wasn’t Sam’s growl, but it wasn’t threatening either -- just a warning. Dean hastily retracted his hand.

Something worried at his hip. Dean shifted, trying to get a hand down to his pocket to shoo it away. But before he could make contact, whatever it was pulled away, ripping his car keys from his pocket. He saw the silhouette of a wolf crawling back out of the cave with the shine of the jangling metal in its mouth. Dean started to yell an objection, but then slumped back. It obviously had something in mind, and Dean was obviously not going to be able to catch it. He was warm, and safe, and exhausted. As Dean relaxed into the living pile of fur, the last thing he thought before falling asleep was a fervent hope that none of Sam’s furry relatives tried to drive his car.

Two days later, Dean finally made it to his cabin. He was tired and filthy, but other than some random scrapes and the injuries inflicted by the Tikoloshe, healthy. Sam was frisking in the grass around him, seeming none the worse for wear after what had been a grueling trial in stamina and endurance for Dean.

Sam hadn’t come back the first night Dean had spent with the wolves, and Dean had no idea where he had been. But Sam had been waiting the next morning when Dean, dry and aching from sleeping so long in weird positions, squirmed free of the cave. He had stayed by Dean’s side after that, for that day as they finally reached the river, that night as he curled up in yet another shallow cave with more of what Dean had to assume were Sam’s relatives, and the next day as they made the brutal hike from the valley floor. It was less than an hour before sunset when Dean finally stumbled into his own yard and sank onto the steps of his cabin. He stared blankly at the Impala parked in the drive.

It had worried him somewhat, knowing the Impala was parked in that grocery store parking lot close to all four of the crimes scenes. Whatever disdain he might normally have for police methodology, it wouldn’t take them that long to get suspicious of a fine car like his baby clearly abandoned in that neighborhood. But... apparently, that wasn’t a problem. Dean had to assume Sam’s rough and hasty trek up the mountainside had killed any chance of being tracked that way -- and so Dean had to admit with some surprise that he was probably away clean. There was nothing at the house except some blood to connect him to the place, and without a sample to compare it to...

The Tikoloshe were banished and were not going to be killing anyone else.

And his other concern, his little adrenaline-fueled indiscretion with Sam, wasn’t something he was going to have to deal with for another four weeks.

Sometimes life worked out okay.

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