Red In Tooth and Claw - Part Two

[glasslogic]

 







Chapter Four

 

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

                                                              ~Lewis Carroll

The drive out to Michigan wasn’t really that bad. At least Bobby had let them hit the sack for awhile before he shoe-horned them out the door. After that and a long, hot shower, Dean felt human enough to keep most of his irritation to himself. He certainly owed Bobby enough that he wasn’t in a position to refuse an errand, but he did feel bad for Sam, whose much-anticipated break was getting shoved off again.

Sam seemed to be taking it okay, though his mood at Bobby’s before leaving had seemed a little dispirited. Usually, he paid rapt attention any time Dean wandered around naked, but as Dean toweled his hair off and pulled clean clothes on over his damp skin, the wolf continued to stare out the window. Dean didn’t have to look to know that it was the line of distant pine trees that held Sam’s attention, and not the junked cars and scraped metal that took up most of Bobby’s lot.

“It doesn’t take both of us to pick up a mirror. I can drop you off on the way and then meet up with you after I unload it,” Dean suggested, shrugging his jacket on.

Sam frowned and glanced at him. “I’m fine, Dean. A few more days isn’t a big deal. You need the break as much as I do -- besides, would you stay behind while I ran an errand for Bobby?”

“Considering how these sorts of favors usually turn out? No.” Dean shrugged as Sam’s attention returned to the window. “But don’t say I didn’t offer.”

~~~~~

Cloverdale, Michigan was quickly making its way onto Dean’s top ten list of places he never wanted to visit again. A list populated by such vacation destinations as Des Moines, where he had spent a truly awful week in temporary foster care when he was about nine due to some miscalculating on his dad’s part, and Wichita, where he spent a few hours when he was seventeen tied to an altar while a jackass in a black robe dripped disgusting things on him until Dean wiggled a hand loose and managed to get free. Sunvalley in Montana where he had met Sam had spent a couple of years with a starring place on the list, but then he and Sam made up and made out, and Dean decided it was a pretty okay place after all.

Dean didn’t think Cloverdale was going to be so easily redeemed.

It wasn’t really the city itself, it was the miserable countryside near it that seemed to have been mapped out by someone tossing a handful of pickup sticks at a blank map and saying, ‘yeah, go and do that,’ to the road-building team. Also, anyone who named streets with numbers should be flogged.

Dean had to admit after Sam fell asleep for the third time in the middle of one of Dean’s regional planning rants that he probably needed a vacation as much as the wolf did. This kind of crap didn’t usually ruffle him, but he was frustrated, and annoyed, and just wanted to be done with the job. Which wasn’t really a job in the ‘saving people’ sense Dean preferred, because anyone helped was only in potential danger and Dean was frankly unconvinced that this little errand couldn’t have waited a week.

He drove down the same stretch of road for the third time and pulled up behind a battered blue pick-up that hadn’t been there the last time they passed. The guy leaning against it matched the general description of the contact Bobby had arranged to have meet them at the house, and he straightened up when Dean pulled in and eyed the Impala in an interested but not surprised way.

Dean elbowed Sam awake. “I think this is it.”

“Why?” Sam asked without opening his eyes, having heard the same thing four or five times by this point.

“Because I’m pretty sure this is our contact, so get your ass out of the car.” Dean opened his own door and stepped out.

“Phil Wallace,” the man offered, reaching out to shake Dean’s hand. The gesture surprised Dean. In his experience, hunters tended to want to keep their body parts to themselves and were more prone to suspicious looks and grunting when meeting for the first time --and every other time, too-- but he smiled gamely and shook.

“Dean Winchester. This is my partner Sam. Bobby says you can show us where this item he wants is?”

“I can show you generally where it is.” Phil made a sweeping gesture that took in the heavily forested area off the road to the right. An impressive roofline was just visible about a quarter mile in the distance. “But I have no idea where to find it once we’re in the house.”

“Do you know what it looks like?” Sam asked.

“Nope. It’s a three-hundred-year-old mirror. The house is full of antiques. Or it was, back when Mick was still alive. Haven’t seen what Roy did with the place yet.”

“Fantastic,” Dean sighed. “So it’s a huge house full of antiques and our only description is ‘old and reflective.’ That’s just excellent. Remind me to thank Bobby for the stunning awesomeness of this plan,” he told Sam, raking fingers through his short hair.

“It’s supposed to be fatal to touch,” Phil offered. He seemed to visibly wilt a little under the twin glares Sam and Dean directed his way.

“Fatal?” Sam demanded. “Bobby said it just showed someone their true nature, and if they couldn’t cope, they killed themselves. That’s not fatal to touch.”

Phil swallowed. “Well... yeah. But its track record is impressive.”

“Chill, Sam. No one touches any mirrors. If we think we’ve found it, then we can decide on a game plan. Okay?”

Everyone nodded.

“Great. Now, you have the keys?”

“Yeah.” Phil patted his pocket. “My dad and Mick were buddies; he passed a year or so after Mick did and I inherited all his stuff. Roy could have changed the locks after he inherited the place, but I’d be surprised. It probably didn’t occur to him that someone as paranoid as his old man would have let anyone else have a set.”

Dean shrugged. “If he did, it’s not like we can’t find our own way in. Just tell me you can diffuse the other locks on the place.”

“That’s why Bobby called me.”

“Let’s go then. The sooner we get this thing, the sooner we can be gone.”

~~~~~

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked sharply from the hall where he was helping Phil pack up the charms he had used to get through the house’s protective wards.

Dean didn’t bother answering him, and when Sam stepped up beside him a moment later, Dean could hear his heavy sigh.

The two rooms that Dean could see were littered with a tasteless hodgepodge of antique-looking furniture and trinkets. The walls were covered with a faded striped wallpaper and the carpet was an olive green shag that would have been more at home in a seventies sit-com. But what hung on the walls was the real downer: they were littered with mirrors. Big mirrors, small mirrors, mirrors in elaborate frames, mirrors with plain frames, some with no frames at all.

“Phil, get in here!” Dean yelled, as Sam walked down a short hallway and disappeared around the corner.

Phil swore as he stepped up behind Dean. “It wasn’t like this before.”

“It’s like this now,” Dean growled.

“Maybe it’s just this room?” Phil didn’t sound very hopeful.

“No,” Sam confirmed, coming back into view. “All the rooms down here are the same.”

“Great. Anyone have any ideas?”

Phil shook his head, Sam just shrugged.

“Fine then. I guess just... look for anything different. Phil, when you were here before, did you see any mirrors in the house?”

“I was pretty young last time I was here and don’t remember any. I used to come in the back and eat cookies in the kitchen, but Mick and his wife were alive back then and... it just didn’t look anything like this.”

“And this house has how many floors?”

Phil looked miserable. “Three.”

Sam ignored them both and walked over to examine one of the mirrors.

“Watch your hands,” Dean reminded him. Sam glanced back so Dean could get the full benefit of his eye-roll, then returned to his inspection.

“They aren’t very dusty,” he observed.

“Young Roy was a marvelous housekeeper,” Dean snapped with frustration.

Sam straightened and turned to face them with that too-patient expression that always made Dean itch to throw something at him.

“Someone was making an attempt, and that someone probably knew why this place was decorated like this. You think maybe that someone knew at least as much about the mirror as we do?” Sam raised an expectant eyebrow.

Dean nodded slowly. “Even with a duster, you wouldn’t want to touch something like that.”

“Wait,” Phil cut in, “are you guys suggesting we search this entire house and examine every mirror looking for one that’s dustier than the others?”

“You have a better plan?”

Phil’s shoulders slumped.

~~~~~

Four hours later found Sam and Dean both sprawled on an overstuffed, sheet-draped couch. Dean was drumming the fingers of one hand on the armrest in frustration and Sam was sitting so close to him that their thighs were pressed together from hip to knee. One raised eyebrow from Dean had dared Phil to comment on it and their de facto host had wisely found other things to focus on.

“Look, you guys have done your best. We’ve searched every mirror in the place, and we can’t tell them apart. Either you load them all up, or you admit defeat.”

Sam sighed. “If we leave without it, Bobby’s just going to send us right back. Do you want to have to do this again?”

Phil shook his head. “No, but I don’t see any other options.”

“We’ll think of something,” Sam told him confidently. He leaned his head back against the cushion and looked over at Dean curiously. The drumming had stopped but Dean hadn’t said anything. He was staring off at one of the walls as if lost in thought.

“Dean?”

Dean held up one hand, asking for a moment, not shifting his gaze from the opposite wall.

Finally, he spoke. “Phil, you said you weren’t here enough to remember if any of these mirrors used to be here, right?”

“I might be able to describe the kitchen to you, but that would be about it.”

“So you wouldn’t know if we were missing a door?”

Phil blinked, baffled. “What?”

But Sam was nodding. “We’re missing space.”

Dean stood up and gave the wall a suspicious look. “Yeah, I think so. It’s a little screwy with all the mirrors, and with the carpet and wallpaper being the same in the entire house, but I’m pretty sure we’re missing at least one room -- and if I’m right, I think I even know where to find it.”

He headed confidently down the stairs to the second floor and then deeper into the house until he came to a halt in front of a large hutch against the wall and looked at Sam and Phil expectantly.

“Do you see it?” Dean grinned.

Phil just looked confused, but Sam had backtracked to poke his head into one of the rooms off the corridor and looked pleased when he rejoined them. “All the doors on this floor open off of the hallway, and we checked all of those rooms. But the last bedroom isn’t as deep as the hallway is long. There’s plenty of room for a small room next to it.”

“Uh, that’s great guys,” Phil broke in, “but that room has a closet facing the other way, and I don’t see any doors.”

“Don’t you?” Dean leaned casually on the hutch.

“It’s the,” Sam waved a hand at the massive carved wood Dean was leaning on, “furniture thing there. It’s the only furniture in this entire house pushed against a wall. Whoever did the decorating went out of their way to keep the walls free for their mirror collection. So why this piece at all?”

Phil’s eyes widened with understanding as Dean and Sam worked to get the hutch shoved far enough away to reveal a simple wooden door recessed into the wall.

Dean twisted the handle and pushed; the door opened on hinges squeaky with long disuse. Through the doorway, they could all see a wide four-poster bed with a deep green comforter, and against the far wall stood a low wooden dresser. Everything was heavily coated with dust, and like every other room in the house, every inch of wall was covered with mirrors.

“Any of these look familiar, Phil?”

Phil gave Dean an irritated look as he stepped past him into the doorway. “I told you, I don’t remember any mirrors in the house.”

He moved deeper into the room and started examining the mirrors. Dean followed him, checking the frames to see if there was any difference in the dust on them. All of the frames were far dustier than anywhere else in the house. The room was small and Sam stayed in the doorway, watching as they explored.

Finally Phil sighed. “Nothing. There’s nothing to set any of these apart. Do you think there might be more hidden rooms somewhere?”

“Maybe, but we aren’t done with this room yet.” The mirrors in the house were hung two, three, or sometimes as many as four in a column on the walls, stacked, staggered and arranged like puzzle pieces to make allowances for the difference in size and shapes. There were two over the headboard of the bed. The lower frame Dean could examine from the floor, but the one over it was too far away. He climbed up onto the bed and stood on the mattress; the lower edge of the frame was level with the top of his head and Dean stood on his tiptoes to try and gauge the amount of dust on the edge. He couldn’t tell any difference in the dust on the frame from the dust on any other frame in the room, but there was something else odd about it.

The angle was bad, but he still should have been able to see the top of his hair.

Dean took a cautious step back so that he was standing in the middle of the bed and raised his arm, waving it back and forth just to make sure. In the reflection, he could see the mirrors on the opposite walls, the ugly wallpaper, the ceiling, the posters on the bed... and nothing else. Sam was no longer standing in the doorway and Dean braced one hand on his shoulder as he hopped off the bed.

“What’s the problem?”

Dean glanced over at Phil. “Unless the Rogers family was stockpiling magic mirrors in this funhouse they called home, I think we have a winner.”

Chapter Five

“If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror
and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”
                                                                                 ~Douglas Adams

The mirror was about four by three feet and set in an elaborate dark wooden frame. Sam, being a few inches taller, did his own reflection test.

“It feels weird,” he announced when he was done, sliding back to the floor.

“What’s weird?” Phil asked sharply, having grown edgy since Dean’s discovery of the mirror.

Dean rolled his eyes and stripped the comforter off the bed. “The non-reflective reflective glass. Chill out. We’ll be out of here within thirty minutes and all of this will be a bad dream.”

Phil scowled and went back to staring at the mirror like he expected it to jump off the wall and attack.

“Weird?” Dean mouthed at Sam questioningly once Phil’s back was turned.

Sam shrugged and pulled the other side of the comforter free. Dean frowned but let it go, unwilling to try and pin Sam into an actual answer with Phil listening in.

“Okay,” Dean announced. “So everyone seems to think you have to actually touch the damn thing to trigger it. So ignoring all of the other exciting wrong or missing information, if we use this quilt as a barrier, we should be good. We’ll just get it off the wall, wrap it up like a present, and deliver it to Bobby. Like a combined birthday-Christmas-lose-our-number-we’re-on-vacation gift.”

“What if we break it?” Sam asked quietly.

Dean shrugged. “It will reform in its frame.”

“What about if we break it and then destroy the frame?”

“Nice thought, but it’s been tried. You heard Bobby. Eventually, it just... turns back up.” Dean gave the mirror a dirty look. “Unscathed and just as dangerous as it started out.”

“Put it in a box and bury it?” Sam suggested hopefully.

Dean shook his head. “Things like this don’t like to be buried. Sometimes people try, but they usually pop right back up, and there’s no telling who’ll end up with it then. The best place for supernatural nuclear waste like this is under someone’s foot. If Bobby wants to do it, he’s a better man than me.”

“Me too,” Phil spoke up from where he was playing nervously with the corner of the bedspread. “How do we want to do this? A mirror that size in a frame like that -- it could easily weigh a hundred pounds or more.”

“Probably more. Sam could lift it maybe, but with the size and height and us standing on the bed... it would be too awkward.” Dean glanced at Sam for confirmation. Sam nodded. “Maybe the best thing is for you and me to get it off the wall, and then once we have it unhooked, Sam can reach up and help us keep it stable until we have it down on the mattress.”

“Down on the mattress? You want us to stand on the mattress?” Phil sounded extremely dubious.

“You have a better plan?” Dean sighed, ready to be done with the job hours ago. “We can’t reach the damn thing unless we stand on something. And there’s no place to move the bed so we can bring in something else. We could dismantle it, I suppose, then drag all the pieces out, then go find some step ladders...”

“Never mind,” Phil cut Dean off after a quick glance at his watch. “Let’s just take it down.”

“You have some place to be?”

“Home,” Phil grunted, climbing up beside him.

Dean snorted and grabbed the comforter. He waited until Sam had climbed up too and everyone had shifted their weight, seeking stability on the springy surface.

“Everyone feel safe?” He smiled without humor, then handed a corner of the blanket to Phil and the top half to Sam. Phil and Dean each grabbed an edge of the frame.

“Don’t lift yet,” Dean instructed, “just pull out slowly and let me see how it’s attached to the wall first.” But a quick, cautious peek showed that the mirror was just hung by a piece of wire, and after an experimental push to judge weight, the two worked on lifting it from its hook and lowering it slowly.

The procedure was going well and Sam was just stepping forward to flip the rest of the comforter up over the mirror when Phil slipped. If he had been standing anywhere but the edge of a mattress, he probably could have recovered instantly, but instead he stumbled and slipped to the floor. The sharp, unexpected jerk of his fall in the instant before he let go dragged Dean off balance too, so that he fell on his ass on the bed, pulling the mirror down on top of himself. Sam instinctively threw out a hand to stop the mirror’s fall, but miscalculated his aim in the chaos and the base of his palm brushed glass. He sneezed hard before sliding his grip up to the safer wooden frame.

Mirror momentarily stabilized, Sam looked to make sure Dean was unharmed and met shocked green eyes in a face so pale every faint freckle stood out like an ink spot.

“Sam...” Dean breathed in horror.

“It will be okay, Dean,” Sam told him quietly. He waited until Phil scrambled away, then slid the heavy antique over the side of the bed so it rested on the floor. Then he climbed down himself and walked over to it.

“Don’t look into it!” Phil yelled, reaching for the discarded bedspread and trying to throw it over the glass. “You might be okay if you don’t--”

“I have to look.” Sam pulled the blanket back. “It will be okay,” he repeated, when he caught Dean’s haunted gaze again, absolute silence the biggest indicator of how upset Dean was.

“Maybe you’re thinking of a different mirror,” Phil muttered, but he shut up and stepped back at the vicious look Dean slashed at him.

“Get out,” Dean snapped.

“I slipped! I didn’t do this on purpose! It was your stupid idea to stand on the bed!”

Your stupid idea... His decision, and the curse had fallen on Sam.

Dean took a deep breath, resisting the urge to scream. Screaming, even at Phil, wasn’t going to help anything. And right now, Sam needed all of his attention. “I’m not saying you did, just... wait in the other room for us. We’ll be out in a sec.”

Dean walked around until he could see the reflective side of the mirror too. Sam was standing patiently in front of it, but so far nothing was happening. Nothing that Dean could see, anyways.

Phil moved out of their way, but stayed in the doorway, watching, curious about what was going to happen. Dean wanted to chase him off, but he wanted to go to Sam more.

Dean stepped up beside him and lowered his voice. “Nothing says you have to look.”

Sam brushed his fingers over the back of Dean’s hand, trying to reassure him. “I do, I feel like I do. But it will be okay.”

“It won’t be,” Dean hissed. “You heard what Bobby said, and Phil. People die. Everyone dies.”

“Not everyone. Bobby said it killed people who couldn’t face their own truth, and Phil knew even less than that. It will be--” His voice broke off and all his attention focused on the glass where a soft of haze was starting to form.

Dean grabbed Sam’s hand, in that instant not giving a damn what Phil could or could not see, and watched with him. After a few seconds that felt like eternity, the mirror showed a reflection of Sam that was... off. There was no specific difference that Dean could point out. It was Sam, wearing Sam’s clothes and Sam’s intent expression. But there was something in his reflection that was... savage. Usually, there was nothing about Sam that would make anyone give him a second glance, but no one would have passed casually by the form in the mirror.

Dean would never have mistaken the reflection for a human man, and yet he recognized him instantly, instinctively even. It was Sam. He knew Sam. But Sam’s reflection was somewhat translucent, with an intangibility that made it seem a poor second to the massive wolf that looked so present that Dean would not have been surprised to reach out and touch fur. Dean knew the wolf just as well as the man. It was also Sam, after all. And for the first year of their relationship, it was a version of Sam that Dean saw far more often that its human-seeming counterpart. But like the reflection of the human-Sam, the wolf seemed different than Dean remembered. He couldn’t quite grasp why, though, and after a moment, he pulled himself out of his fascination with the sharp recall that the spell wasn’t aimed at him.

Dean gripped Sam’s wrist, and he looked up at Sam’s face when he didn’t respond to a hard squeeze.

Sam’s expression was odd. He didn’t look upset, more... bemused.

“Sam?”

After a moment, Sam peeled his gaze away from the reflection and gave Dean a look that was probably supposed to be reassuring. “I’m okay.”

“What do you see?”

“You can’t see the reflection?” Sam sounded surprised.

“Of course I can see the reflection,” Dean growled, finding irritation more comfortable ground than fear. “I can see you,” he lowered his voice again after a quick glance over to see Phil in the doorway gaping at the mirror, “you know, both your forms. I’m asking if that’s... all.”

Sam looked back at the reflection thoughtfully. “I see that, but really it’s more of a feeling than what I can see with my eyes. And it’s not bad. Just... different. It’s weird.”

“Weird can get bad in a hurry.” Dean gave the mirror a dark look.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think it’s shown me what it wanted to, what I do with it is up to me. I’m okay, Dean.” He turned to face Dean directly and smiled. Dean looked intently but saw nothing in Sam’s eyes that indicated he was being anything but completely honest. “It didn’t show me anything I didn’t know already,” Sam said softly. “Wolves are maybe more honest with ourselves than humans are.”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be. Let’s get this thing wrapped up and back to Bobby’s. I really feel like taking that break now. I’ll go get the ropes from the car.” He turned and brushed by Phil without giving the mirror another glance.

“That was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Phil said flatly, the instant Sam turned the corner. “What the fuck was that? With the wolf and all.”

“It’s a cursed mirror; did you think it would work like the ones you hang in your bathroom?” Dean snapped back. “Who the hell knows how it works? Why don’t you come try it out and we can see what you look like.”

Phil backed away like he was afraid Dean was going to shove him into it. Dean rolled his eyes and busied himself wrapping the mirror carefully with the quilt until Sam came back and they tied it up and carried it out to the car.

~~~~~

They stayed that night in a seedy motel that was interesting mostly in the decorator’s passionate devotion to aqua. But it was clean and the AC worked, so Dean certainly wasn’t complaining. The color wasn’t a problem with the lights off anyway, and Dean had other things on his mind than garish paint.

He had called Bobby as soon as they left the house. Bobby was pleased they had the mirror, but mumbled something about ‘emanations’ in a concerned tone of voice. Concerned enough that he called every hour to make sure things were still okay, though officially he was checking to make sure they hasn’t been sidetracked and gone to Atlantic City with his cursed artifact in tow. Dean wasn’t in the mood for it and finally told him curtly that they would call him if there were any problems, then turned off his phone. He turned off Sam’s too, and the wolf said nothing about it. He didn’t like cell phones anyway.

“Emanations?” Sam asked, as Dean tossed the cell phone back on his lap.

Dean gave him a look. Sam shrugged and went back to the magazine he had been flipping through.

And Sam seemed okay. A little quiet and contemplative, but not upset or unhappy. He’d pulled Dean to him and down onto the bed as soon as the door closed behind them and the mirror was safely leaned against the wall, a chair shoved in front of it to make sure there wouldn’t be any falling over or stumbling into it in the middle of the night.

The wolf’s desire had been an easy thing, and it suited Dean’s mood fine. Sam was sweet and relaxed, opening himself beneath Dean with dark eyes and half understood murmurs that didn’t need coherency to make themselves clear. It was comfort and reassurance after a day that was far more exciting than it should have been.

Dean buried his face in Sam’s neck and inhaled deeply as he rode out the afterglow, anchored in Sam’s living presence. He stayed there, fighting off the return of the cold emptiness in the pit of his stomach as the rushing pleasure of sex dissipated, leaving him with the more profound, if less intense, pleasure of Sam. But that only lasted a couple of minutes before Sam squirmed and shoved at his shoulder until Dean rolled off with a huff.

He lay sprawled on his back blinking up at the ceiling, then turned his head to admire the shifting muscles of Sam’s back as he sat up.

“You can top next time.”

Sam turned to look at him, expression odd. “If you want. Are we taking turns now?”

Dean scratched idly at his stomach.

“If we are, we aren’t doing it very well. I don’t even remember the last time you... Was it Illinois?” He frowned.

“That field outside of Grayslake. We bought sandwiches from that gas station and got the blanket out of the backseat to watch the full moon rise.” Sam smiled at the memory.

“I remember that we ended up on the grass anyways and I got green stains in unusual places. It was worth it, though,” Dean grinned. “We could go for a repeat performance in a few days,” he added suggestively.

Sam didn’t say anything, just picked at the edge of the sheet absently.

“I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Dean added with a frown, watching Sam’s face. “I just…” An awkward pause and Dean decided just to ask. “Do you... not like it?”

The idea of Sam not liking to top was baffling to Dean. They didn’t always go for full-on penetration when they had some private time to amuse themselves; Sam had an active imagination and Dean had years of experience to draw from. But having Sam pressed beneath him, that little hitch in his breath when Dean shoved himself deep... that was a rush like no other.

“I like it fine, Dean. I just... like this better.” Sam shrugged.

“I like this better too. But I don’t dislike it the other way, and I feel like I’ve been, I don’t know. Taking advantage?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Do I seem to have any trouble speaking up to you?”

“I didn’t think so,” Dean snapped back. “But we’ve been having sex for months now and this is the first I’m hearing from you that you don’t like to top.”

“I thought spreading my legs and telling you to fuck me was pretty clear.”

Dean stared at him. “Yeah, for right then. I didn’t realizing it was a standing order!”

“More of a suggestion,” Sam told him with maddening calm.

“Fuck, Sam,” Dean finally sighed, at a loss for anything else.

After a moment, Sam took some pity on him. “I think it’s a wolf thing, if that helps.”

“I don’t need help, I just want you to tell me when there are things about our sex life I should know. And what the hell do you mean, you ‘think it’s a wolf thing’?”

“I just mean that we’re a pack. A little, tiny one, but still a pack. Packs need structure, and one of the ways you reinforce structure is with sex.”

Dean thought that over. “So... I’m like the dominant wolf and you’re… what? Submissive?”

Sam hit him in the face with a pillow. He wasn’t gentle about it. “Do I seem very submissive to you?”

“Not really,” Dean growled, making sure his nose wasn’t broken. “So then what the hell did you mean?”

“We’re partners and we make decisions together, but we’re also pack. In the wolf world, you would be Alpha.”

“And that does me what kind of good?”

Sam’s eyes were very serious when he met Dean’s gaze. “It’s not about your good, it’s about the pack’s good. It’s a little different with my people than a real wolf pack; we all get a voice, but you get the final call.”

“I’m in charge.”

Sam’s look was anything but respectful. Dean ignored it and continued.

“And this ties into you not wanting to top... how?”

“I just like it better when you do. I like the weight of you on my back, I like the feel of you in my body. It feels right, like... like that’s how it’s supposed to be.” Sam’s brow furrowed, searching for a way to explain it to Dean in a way that would make sense to a man who had none of his instincts. “It’s... safe.”

“Safe?”

Now it was Sam’s turn to glare. “Safe. Like you’re in charge and things are like they should be. It feels good the other way physically, but I can’t enjoy it the same way because it just feels wrong in my head.”

“You should have told me.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal, Sam! If you don’t want to top you fucking well don’t have to. It’s just that a little heads up would have been nice. You should have told me about the wolf whatever and this pack structure thing you’ve got worked out.”

“This doesn’t change anything, Dean! I’m not going to suddenly start snapping to attention because you tell me to do something. And I don’t mind sometimes; you just don’t need to worry about turns.”

Dean ground his teeth and counted to thirty, twice, before he trusted himself to speak again. “Anything else you think I need to know about before we agree to drop this?”

“You didn’t need to know this.” The wolf slid off the bed. He grimaced and shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “I’m taking a shower. You want to come?”

Dean groaned and let the argument go. Meat hooks couldn’t make Sam talk about anything Sam didn’t want to talk about. “Do you remember what happened last time we tried to bathe together in a motel shower?”

Sam smirked. “It was fun.”

“I almost broke my elbow hitting the tile when I fell out, taking the shower curtain with me. And you put a hole in the drywall when you tripped over the curtain trying to see if I’d broken anything. We didn’t even get a little bit clean, the people on both sides complained, and the manager walked in on us naked and tried to throw us out. I had to have a talk with him in the parking lot in the middle of the night. Wearing the shower curtain. In thirty-degree weather. Do you remember why I was in the parking lot, wet, wearing a shower curtain in thirty degrees?”

“He was checking out your ass. And I only growled a little.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “We aren’t taking a shower together. You go clean up and I’ll keep the bed warm. And don’t think we aren’t going to get back around to your little revelation either!”

Sam snorted and vanished into the bathroom.

All hints of amusement fell from Dean’s face and he found himself staring at the blanket-wrapped mirror. It was insane, and probably suicidal, but there was something in him that desperately wanted to touch it. He had been intrigued on some level ever since Bobby mentioned it, but since watching Sam’s experience, the urge was almost overwhelming. So was the fear.

His father’s corpse was four years cold. He managed to keep it out of his mind usually, but there was always that lingering fear. Why hadn’t his father called him for that hunt? Why hadn’t he been able to deal with his father’s death without breaking down so badly he almost gave up the job? Everyone he knew had suffered losses in their lives; they went on. What was it about him that made it so freaking hard? He saw faith and affection in Sam’s eyes, and he trusted Sam and Sam’s judgment more than he trusted himself in some things. But he was waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares of Sam’s death. He needed to know that it wasn’t him. That there wasn’t something horribly wrong with him that would lead to that end. The mirror could show him that, could set his fears to rest and give him some peace from the doubts that haunted him.

And if he couldn’t take the truth, then he was probably better off dead anyways.

Chapter Six

I was an accomplice in my own frustration.
                                ~Peter Schaffer

“So -- where the hell is Bobby?!” Dean kicked the door again in frustration. All of the doors and windows were shut fast, and Bobby’s favorite truck was missing from its usual spot by the house. “We’ve got his freaking mirror; this was not the time for a fishing trip! The least he could have done was called!”

“Did you turn your phone back on?” Sam asked from where he was leaning casually against the Impala.

Dean cursed under his breath, having no doubt Sam’s supernatural hearing picked the words up clearly. He fished his phone from his pants pocket. He didn’t remember if he had turned it back on that morning or not, but was unsurprised to see the darkness of the screen when he flipped it open.

“Did you?” Dean demanded, as he waited for his phone to power up.

Sam shrugged gracefully and Dean knew he most certainly hadn’t. Only it was probably deliberate whereas Dean had simply forgotten. Sam really hated cell phones. Something about the pitch hurt his ears.

Sure enough, Dean found half a dozen missed calls and three messages. All from Bobby.

“Shit.”

Sam walked over as Dean punched through the menu then listened to the messages. When it was done, he felt like grinding the phone under his foot.

“Bobby’s on a job, and he can’t be reached by phone. Something about electrical whatever. He says we can stuff the mirror in his basement, only this place is like a freaking magical death trap, and I don’t have the key anymore!” Dean glared at the deceptively innocent looking glass of the front window.

A minute later, he spun at the sound of a lock clicking open and the squeal of a deliberately unoiled door hinge. Sam had one foot inside the house and was peering into the cavernous darkness.

“How did you do that?!”

Sam stepped back onto the sunny porch and dangled a familiar silver key on a leather strap.

“Bobby said not to let you know I had this. Something about you losing it before?” His expression was innocent enough, but Dean knew him well enough to detect the amusement just under the surface.

“I only lost it when you stole it from me,” Dean growled, stalking past and heading for the Impala. The sooner they had the damn mirror stashed, the sooner he had one less headache to worry about.

~~~~~

Dragging the mirror downstairs took less than twenty minutes. It would have only taken about five -- but there was an extra ten minutes’ allowance for snapping and growling about who wasn’t holding their end high enough, and which way who should turn to take the corners. Dean didn’t know where exactly Bobby wanted it, so they left it wrapped in the quilt and slid it behind a dusty old glass-front cabinet filled with assorted trinkets that Dean in no way wanted to touch. He had no idea what any of the stuff was or did, but the worst spanking Dean had ever gotten as a child had been for sneaking downstairs one dull summer evening when he was about seven. Having Bobby describe the contents of the area as ‘supernatural nuclear waste’ didn’t make him eager to spend any time there as an adult. Besides, every time Sam brushed against the wood, he sneezed. It was definitely time to go.

Upstairs, with the mirror safely stowed away, the day felt... lighter. Dean almost bounced up the last step and actually hummed while he rifled Bobby’s refrigerator without a shred of guilt for pinching the man’s last beer.

Sam snagged a package of deli ham and went rummaging for a loaf of bread. He slapped a sandwich together and handed it to Dean before building another one with decidedly more meat on it. “Do you want to stay the night?”

Sam’s voice was neutral, but Dean could hear the impatience in it. He rolled his eyes. “No. Why would I want to stay in a nice, warm, soft bed inside four walls with a roof when I could be freezing to death in a tent in the middle of a godforsaken forest surrounded by who knows what?”

Sam heard the ‘we’re leaving in a sec; hold your horses’ conveyed in Dean’s tone and grinned, shoulders suddenly starting to relax from a strain that had been building for months. No matter how he personally felt about camping, to see Sam’s face light up and even just the slightest ebb of tension was worth however many days of misery Dean had to endure.

“It won’t be cold. It will be so warm you won’t even need clothes,” Sam promised.

Dean dusted his hands off on his jeans and snorted. “We’re camping; it’s always cold. It’s a law of nature: birds gotta fly, campers gotta freeze. And don’t get any idea about clothes -- they stay on. I’m only willing to have some things on my rap sheet, and indecent exposure isn’t one of them.”

Sam pinned Dean in place with a suddenly heated gaze, flicking his thumb over the button on his jeans. “Really? They stay on all the time?”

Dean’s brain ground to a halt. The night before had been good, but brief and more for reassurance than to really scratch the itch. And before that, it had been... God. Too long.

Dean took a step towards Sam -- and the wolf pulled his hand from his jeans and backed up with a smirk. “We have to go, remember? We don’t want to miss check-in.”

Dean was about to growl something unflattering about Sam’s probable ancestry, colorful as it already was, when one of the phones on Bobby’s wall cut through the mood like a knife, causing both of them to jump.

The kitchen phone bank was impressive, with phones labeled everything from ‘CIA’” to ‘Becky’s Boutique’ --a phone Bobby was particularly cagey about-- but the one ringing was unlabeled, and Dean knew it was Bobby’s actual home line.

“Ignore it,” Sam said flatly. “It’s not our house and we aren’t even supposed to be here. If they need to reach Bobby that badly, they should know his cell.”

Dean hovered in indecision. What Sam said was true, but Dean also knew that Bobby was out of touch, and very, very few people had the number for his home line. And all of those were hunters. Answering a call on that line could be the difference between life and death for someone, or a lot of someones.

Before he could decide, the ringing stopped, the lingering silence almost as startling as the first sudden ring had been. Sam let out the breath he had been holding with a huff, then started walking. “See? Problem solved. Let’s go.”

Dean followed, and had one foot over the kitchen threshold when the shrill ring sliced through the air again. He met Sam’s annoyed gaze with a miserably apologetic look, then reached for the receiver. “Singer’s.”

Sam stormed outside.

~~~~~

Dean found Sam out on the steps about twenty minutes later. The wolf was on the bottom step, long legs sprawled out in the dust of the patchy yard, leaning back on his elbows. Dean sat next to him and there was silence between them for a while. But it was more companionable than stressed, and eventually Dean broke it with a sigh.

“I’m going to drop you off at the park. I’ll probably push a few more hours and grab a room. This shouldn’t take more than a couple of days, if that, then I’ll meet up with you. I’ll still spend the whole two weeks, so this way you score a few more days.”

Sam stirred, brushing against Dean as he straightened up. “Don’t be stupid. If we have another job... then we have another job. We can do the camping thing afterwards.”

“You don’t sound angry. I thought you were pretty pissed when you went outside.”

“I’m just frustrated, Dean. I can handle it. No one is going off on their own. What’s the emergency anyway?”

Dean snorted. “Hardly an emergency. Phil-I-don’t-know-what-the-mirror-looks-like-Wilkins is acting like he’s caught fire over some haunting back in Michigan. It’s not even really a ghost hunt, he just wants a consult from someone who has dealt with more of these than he has. Some direction and advice. He was calling in his favor from Bobby for helping us out, but Bobby is out of reach. This doesn’t take both of us and it’s not that big of a detour to drop you off.”

Sam crossed his arms. “If it’s not that big of a deal, then he can wait a couple of weeks.”

“I certainly think so, but... he sounds really desperate. And he did help us out, and if I can do this to settle the score, then that’s one less marker floating around out there.”

“He doesn’t need a marker to get our help with hunter’s business.”

“No,” Dean shrugged, “but it’s leverage. And it’s always better to keep the table clean.” He flashed a humorless smile. “Or in your favor. This should just be a few days at the most.”

“Then we can do it together,” Sam repeated stubbornly.

Dean stood up and held a hand out. “Do you really want to be holed up in a no-doubt musty old basement with an ancient book collection, straining your eyes staring and fading ink in the off chance you find a good clue? For hours?” Seeing the gleam in Sam’s eyes --his passion for musty old books was the most unnatural thing about him in Dean’s opinion-- Dean hastily added, “When you could be out roaming the woods chasing small animals and sleeping naked in the forest?”

Sam took the hand and let Dean pull him to his feet.

“You told me I couldn’t sleep naked unless I was in a tent,” he pointed out with only the slightest hint of a sulk to his tone.

“I said you couldn’t if I went with you,” Dean reminded him, “but if I’m not there...”

Sam hesitated. “You’re just doing research? For a couple of days?”

“Promise.”

“And you’ll call me if anything happens to make it more... exciting?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to look kind of funny wearing only your skin and your cell phone.”

“I think my fashion sense can take the blow,” Sam said dryly.

Dean’s lip curled into a smile despite himself. “I promise. Anything but talk and books and I’ve got you on speed dial.”

Sam still didn’t look completely convinced, but he nodded slowly in agreement.

“Great,” Dean declared, “then let’s get this house locked up and hit the road.”

~~~~~

“I’m still not sure I like this, Dean.”

“You’ve said that, Sam. Now the next step is for you to get out and... do whatever it is you do in the woods.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I’m not unsure. I don’t like this plan. At all.”

Dean leaned across him and pulled the door handle, shoving the passenger door open in obvious invitation. “’Bye, Sam.”

They were parked on an access road along the margin of Ottawa National Forest that had seen little recent use, judging from the tall grass almost obscuring the dirt tracks. It was almost two in the morning and the ranger station was long past closed. Dean figured Sam could go amuse himself until the sun came up, then walk around to the station and register the normal way.

Sam climbed out reluctantly. “Why do I have to take this bag again?”

“Because even a dim ranger will be suspicious of a guy who walks up with no gear who wants a backcountry camping pass,” Dean replied patiently. “The goal is to avoid suspicion. I’ll be back in a couple of days, Sam. I doubt most of this park has cell coverage, so I’ll meet you in the picnic area at the main gate around noon in three days. If I can’t be there then I’ll call you.”

Sam closed the door and walked around to the rolled-down driver’s side window. “What if you finish early?”

“Then I’ll spend an extra day in a motel instead of on the cold ground. It’ll be fine. I’ve been taking care of myself for a while, you know? Chill.”

Sam nodded reluctantly but looked so miserable that Dean grabbed his shirt and pulled until Sam was leaning low in the window and Dean could catch his mouth in an easy kiss.

“Hey,” Dean said gently when they separated again. “We spent a lot longer than a few days apart before, and I’m not doing anything dangerous. What’s really wrong here?”

“I don’t know.” Sam’s eyes had narrowed when Dean mentioned their two-year separation, but he straightened and shook his head. “I just... have a bad feeling.”

“You werewolves run to psychics?”

“Not usually.”

“Then relax. And keep your clothes on as much as you can stand to,” Dean added, pained. “This isn’t the valley forest, it’s not as big or as dense, and if people see a naked man running around in here, it’s not going to stop with some local gossip down at the diner.”

Sam flashed him a grin despite the reluctance Dean could still see in his eyes. “You don’t think I can outrun the cops?”

“It will be park rangers and I have no doubt you can outrun them. I just don’t want to see your bare ass on the six o’clock news as you scamper off into the bushes a hop, skip and a jump ahead of gun-toting officials and a pack of dogs.”

“I like dogs.”

“Do dogs like you?”

Sam cocked his head thoughtfully. “Not really.”

“Then probably best to avoid them in an official capacity. You need anything else?”

“I don’t need this much.” Sam glanced down the length of his own body and at the half-filled backpack sitting in the scrub by his feet.

Dean snorted. “See you in a few days.”

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Masterpost