Red In Tooth and Claw - Part Four

[glasslogic]

 

 

 Chapter Nine

“Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, but I'd try a revolver first”
                                                                     ~Josh Billings

Things were handled in short order after that. Bobby had the soul of a drill sergeant buried somewhere inside and he took in the tableau with a sweeping glance and discarded the immediate questions in favor of getting things sorted out.

After establishing that no one was likely to die in the next ten minutes and pinning Sam firmly in place with one hard look, he asked the blood-spattered Abby if she was okay. When she nodded, albeit a bit shakily, he sent her to the guest bathroom to shower. Phil, who was still casting horrified looks at Sam, was white as a sheet and also spattered with blood. Bobby ordered him to the other shower with instructions not to come out until he had pulled himself together for his daughter.

With the strangers dealt with for the moment, Bobby established that the cops were unlikely to be on their way and none of the dead were folks the human race would miss. He ordered Sam to help him haul bodies. The wolf bristled and flat out refused, but Dean kicked him with his good leg and gave him a pained glare.

“What about the Wallaces, Sam?” Dean asked. “They shouldn’t have to come out and trip over corpses.”

“Screw them,” Sam growled. “You aren’t leaving my sight.”

“I can’t even stand up! I’ll be right here on the same fucking step when you get done. But Abby is only thirteen and she’s seen enough in the last three days. Help Bobby drag the freaking bodies out and then you can hover all you want.”

Sam turned his frustration on Bobby, who met him head on. “There’s a freezer out in the shed. Line it with the trash bags on the shelf and let’s get the dead weight out and packed away.”

“They won’t all fit."

“You haven’t tried.” Bobby offered a smile that was mostly teeth, and Sam caved under the weight of Bobby and Dean’s gaze.

As soon as he was gone, Dean looked up at Bobby. “What are you going to do with frozen bad guys?”

“Wood chipper,” Bobby grunted, crouching down to get a look at Dean’s pupils. Dean made a face and turned his head away, hissing in pain when Bobby responded by grabbing a fistful of his hair to keep his head still.

“You use bodies as mulch?!”

“Got a lake some ways back out in the woods. It’s a good size and there’s a dirt road that goes back there for some of the locals that like a quiet bit of fishing. A body every other day or so chipped and tossed in for the fish causes no problem and disappears quietly. As long as no one searches the place before I get everything moved off and scrubbed down, we should be fine. Always has been before.” He moved his unexpectedly gentle hands to probe Dean’s fractured arm.

Dean sucked in a sharp breath but forced himself to hold still. “You have a lot of call to move bodies that way?”

“More every year.” Bobby made a cursory inspection on the badly sprained ankle then sat back, satisfied that Dean didn’t have anything obvious that needed critical care. “You pissing blood or have anything worse than this under the clothes?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then tell me what the hell is going on before tall, dark and moody stalks back in here and gets his attitude in the way of my explanation.”

Dean sighed and filled Bobby in on the whole story.

~~~~~

After Dean caught him up to date, Bobby left to drop clean clothes, left from God-knew-who, outside of the bathroom for Abby. He also provided an equally clean but more easily explained set for Phil. He looked tired when he came back. Sam brushed by him as Bobby made his way back to Dean with an ankle brace and some crutches he found in a closet. The wolf held himself tightly and didn’t say anything, just grabbed another body and hauled it outside. Bobby shook his head.

“How’s Abby?” Dean asked, when Sam was gone again. Bobby sat down and started wrapping Dean’s ankle with an ACE bandage and an ice pack.

“I could hear her crying through the door over the sound of the water. Didn’t think a strange man barging in would help matters any, though. She’ll come out when she’s ready and her daddy can take care of her.”

Dean winced as Bobby tightened the wrap. “I’m not sure Phil is going to be up to much comforting.”

“Then I’ll make some hot cocoa and a grilled cheese for the girl and send Phil out to the shed to help Sam. That will solve two problems.”

“Only if you’re looking to adopt,” Dean grumbled. “I don’t think Sam is in any kind of mood to put up with Phil’s attitude for long. He might stuff him in the freezer with the rest of the stiffs.”

“My point.”

Bobby’s fastened the ends of the bandage and Dean wiggled his toes to check circulation. “I’m sorry about the house. I just couldn’t think of what else to do th--”

Bobby cut off his apology with a wave of his hand. “Wasn’t anything else you could do that wasn’t even riskier. Lucky for you, Sam was here, considering he should have still been blissfully camping and you had the car.”

Bobby’s expression was suspicious but he didn’t ask any questions about Sam’s miraculous appearance on the scene. Well, he asked one.

“He stole a car?”

Dean shrugged and winced at the movement. “I didn’t get the details.”

“Your little wolf is growing up,” Bobby grunted.

“He’s hardly little.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Dean looked everywhere but at the silvered glass not even five feet to his right. He remembered the horror and fear on David and Eva’s faces before... before. He had killed a lot of things in his life. Some looked human, some were human when it was a matter of life or death, but he had never killed anyone like that.

Bobby caught the avoidance and nudged one of the corpses. That was the other area of the room Dean wasn’t looking.

“You’re story had a few holes in it. Sam didn’t tear through these.”

“No.”

Bobby nodded, putting the scenario together with the ease of long practice. “Your doing?”

“Yeah. I kicked them, they landed on it, then they died.”

“You okay with that?”

“They weren’t the first people I killed Bobby, and they were trying to kill me. Plus Abby and Phil. Yeah, I’m okay with it.”

But Bobby heard something in his voice that kept his attention on Dean’s face until Dean had to look away. The silence hung for a moment before Dean spoke again.

“Sam touched it.” Bobby sucked in a sharp breath but said nothing. “He touched it when we were getting it down. He says he’s fine. He says wolves don’t think like humans do. And he seems fine. But he isn’t really a wolf, and I saw their faces... What if this is going to happen to him? What if in a few days I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and find he’s slit his goddamned wrists in the bathroom because he touched the fucking thing and there’s nothing I can do to stop it?”

“You done?”

Dean nodded shortly, still not meeting his eyes in the dim light of the staircase.

“First of all, Sam’s got no reason to lie to you. He looks human, but that’s only part of his nature and you know it. Maybe Leanne’s curse can’t touch him like it touches humans.”

“He said it showed him things, Bobby,” Dean hissed, “that it felt weird and--”

“Secondly,” Bobby raised his voice to cut Dean off, “Leanne’s curse only shows people their true natures. It sticks the knife in and twists, but if you can accept what you see, then the curse is defeated. Now Sam’s a wolf, and wolves, like most wild things, are a secretive, shifty bunch. Especially the valley wolves, who have more secrets to keep than most. But one of them told me once when I was hanging out there a long, long time ago that he thought the biggest problem humans had was that we were as much strangers to ourselves as we are to others of our kind. It baffled him. Now Sam says he’s fine. I’d be inclined to believe him. And lastly -- even if what he saw in the mirror was news to him, maybe there just wasn’t anything that troubled him in his reflection. You know Sam better than I do, what do you think?”

Dean was saved from answering by Sam’s irritated return and his insistence that they get Dean out of the chill of the basement and back upstairs where he could suffer somewhere more comfortable.

Chapter Ten

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
                                                                  ~Dr. Seuss

Phil and Abby left early the next morning to stay with one of his wife’s relatives in California for awhile. Phil wouldn’t let Abby within touching distance of Sam. The wolf ignored the somewhat wild looks Phil kept casting in his direction, but Dean bristled every time he caught one, and finally Bobby sent the Winchesters to the ground floor bedroom on a shallow pretext just to prevent another outbreak of violence while he got the Wallaces shuffled off.

Abby actually seemed to be handling things better than her dad was. Once safe, with the blood washed off, the bodies gone and all the adults reasonably calm and reassuring, she had perked up, eaten and acted... fine. Bobby doubted she had slept much and there was a wide gulf between acting fine and being fine, but she was a tough kid and Phil seemed determined to make sure she got whatever help she needed. He told Bobby he planned to clean out his bank account and start over somewhere. The family history around Cloverdale wasn’t worth the risk if anyone decided to pop back in and demand answers about the mirror or the people who had come after it.

Sometime during the night, the Rogers mansion had mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground.

After having his arm set, Dean slept the sleep of the heavily drugged during a long night while Sam and Bobby scrubbed blood from floors and walls. Sam had been reluctant to leave Dean’s side, but he compromised by leaving the bedroom door open so he could hear Dean if he stirred, and stayed up with Bobby answering questions and filling in holes in Dean’s story while they worked.

Bobby just grunted when Sam got to the part about turning up at the house and fighting his way to Dean. Bobby had seen the bodies and knew exactly how violent the confrontations had been, but as far as he was concerned, the people who needed to live had lived, and the people who didn’t had died. That Sam had used his hands instead of a gun... well, Bobby had been living with the reality of Sam’s people for longer than Dean had. He didn’t have any illusions about what was under his skin. People who went after a werewolf’s mate, or a hunter’s partner, should expect to get torn limb from limb.

He was a little concerned Dean was having more trouble with it than that, but the eye-roll Bobby got when he tried to confront Dean about it convinced him that it was something else bothering the boy. Something was preying on his mind, and Bobby didn’t think he was upset about the people he had killed in the basement. But Dean wasn’t talking, and Bobby wasn’t a therapist.

He gave his bedroom up to his houseguests because it was on the ground floor and the attached bathroom had a tub. It would be awhile before Dean was able to get up and down stairs easily or stand more than a couple of minutes at a time.

He sent out feelers in his network of contacts to make sure no one was showing any undue interest in him, Sam and Dean or the Wallaces, then settled in to putting his house back in order.

And dealing with the bodies, of course. Fish had to eat too.

~~~~~

For a week, Dean’s sleep was restless and broken when he wasn’t drugged outright. Out loud, he blamed his grouchiness and the shadows under his eyes on his injuries, the lack of exercise and the pain medication Sam and Bobby keep forcing on him. But privately he knew it was really the dreams to blame. The same old nightmares he had been having for awhile. Dreams of failure. Sam’s lifeless body and empty eyes insisting it was his fault, it was something in him...

Knowing that the Mirror was only two stories beneath him was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. One look and he would know. No more nightmares, no more wondering. Sam had looked, and he was fine.

But others weren’t. And the looks on their faces before they turned their weapons on themselves were seared into his memory. They were child-torturing monsters, though, and they deserved every inch of what they got. But the Mirror didn’t just kill monsters, plenty of seemingly good people had been destroyed by it in their time, too. The mental debate kept Dean short-tempered and torn.

Finally, Dean couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been raised to weigh evidence and take decisive actions. He waited until the rhythm of Sam’s breathing was deep and steady, then slipped carefully out from underneath Sam’s arm and limped down the stairs. He made his way into the impenetrable blackness of Bobby’s basement careful to listen for footsteps from above. When the house remained silent as death, he flipped the switch and winced in the sudden harsh light.

In the week since the disaster, Bobby had embraced the ‘hiding in plain sight’ idea that Mick Rogers had tried for the Mirror of Leanne but with a twist. Snorting at the elaborate deception the other hunter had used to keep the mirror safe, Bobby had opted for something simpler.

On the wall directly across from the bottom step was a huge painting. A cheap scene of a stag hunt -- something a person could believe might have caught Bobby’s eye at a flea market and been toted home to be hung out of the way and forgotten. Its elaborate frame was tackily accented with a chintzy gold paint, and the entire ensemble was hardly worth a second glance. But Dean knew what the cheap veneer and second-rate canvas disguised, and it was hardly a minute before he found a place to dig his nails into and peel back the picture that had been glued onto the glass.

Bobby’s total lack of respect for the mirror caused Dean to smile despite himself. It was good to know that some things in the universe were dependable, and Bobby being Bobby was one of them.

When the canvas had been discarded, Dean stared into the silvered glass with its thick, yellow streaks of dried glue and it’s clean reflection of everything in the basement except him. He steeled his nerve, then reached out and pressed the steady fingers of his good hand to glass that felt like cool water against his skin. He stepped back quickly, caught a bare foot on the loose rug and went down. The fall tore his gaze away from the mirror and sent pain rocketing through his damaged body, but despite the agony his chin jerked up immediately so he could refocus on the glass. A phrase echoed in his mind: I have to look. Sam’s insistence from the Rogers house when he had touched the mirror accidentally. Dean had almost gone out of his mind with fear, wanting to drag Sam away before he could see his reflection, to keep him safe. But Sam had refused and Dean understood now, because he had to look too, the compulsion was unbelievable.

And when Dean did look, he felt... surprise. The slow resolution of his reflection in the mirror wasn’t unexpected, having seen it before at Sam’s side. But like Sam’s, the image wasn’t exactly his. Or rather, it wasn’t the reflection that any other mirror would have shown. There was more sharpness to his features; a cast that made him look almost predatory, but also... resolved. There was something in that glint of eye and set of lips that spoke of loyalty and a ferocity that stilled Dean’s breath. He could also detect hints of passion, gentleness, and something effusive he could only call grace. Dean couldn’t point to any one feature that said these things to him, but he felt them with a soul deep honesty that left room for no doubt.

There were other chords as well, other things, colder in nature. In his nature. Jealousy, anger, pettiness, guilt. But rather than discordant notes they were just part of the weave of the whole. Capacities for acts of great darkness; currents and potentials that raised the hair on Dean’s neck and turned his heart to ice. But like all of the other extremes, they were only possibilities, and he could embrace them for that, even though some of them were so far remote from what Dean had consciously known about himself he could only call them inhuman.

But the mirror had more to show him and his gaze slid down until he met the bright green eyes of a wolf. It was translucent where the human form was solid, but no less recognizable. Dean felt little surprise. He had known Sam in both of his forms in the mirror’s reflection, and even though he had never seen this animal before, he knew it for his own image as sincerely as he had ever recognized himself. In the Mirror of Leanne, a person could not help but know themselves in all their natures. Besides, Sam had always insisted they were literally born to be to together. If it was in Sam’s nature to walk in both worlds, Dean could hardly expect to find his own any different.

He stayed in silent communion with the mirror until the images slowly faded from sight. Once they were gone, he drew a deep breath, feeling like a weight had been lifted from him. He knew why some people killed themselves immediately after looking in the mirror, and he knew why some lingered for years. But he understood Sam’s calmness when he had seen his own reflection now, because he felt it himself. There was nothing in the mirror that Dean couldn’t accept, neither the darkness nor the light. He and Sam were as they were intended to be, and he would no more fail Sam than Sam would fail him. By accident or fate maybe, but by no intrinsic flaw.

Dean turned to hobble back upstairs and though no sound had given away his presence, Dean wasn’t surprised to see Sam sitting on the bare wooden steps waiting for him.

“The nightmares,” Sam said quietly in the dimness of the basement light.

“I needed to see something,” Dean answered honestly.

Sam nodded. “And now?”

“Now?” Dean moved closer until their knees bumped. “Now I think I’ve got it worked out.”

“Are you sure?”

Dean smiled, feeling genuinely at peace for the first time in four years. “No. But I’ve got you to kick my ass for any backsliding.”

Sam looked hesitant, and then, “You talk in your sleep.”

Dean thought of the long ride to Bobby’s in the back of the Impala. Drifting in and out of consciousness, thinking of Sam. Sam in the forest. Sam demanding to know where he was going.

Sam in a hotel room weeks ago, half-awake and mumbling about things he shouldn’t have known anything about. Dean thought about coincidences.

Sam showing up to rescue him just in the nick of time.

“And in my dreams?” Dean asked, meeting his eyes.

Sam dodged the question. “You didn’t fail your dad, Dean. He could have called you; he didn’t. We’ll never know why. Maybe he didn’t expect what he found in that house, or maybe he just thought he could handle it. It was a stupid decision and it killed him. His decision, Dean; no failing of yours.”

“How much can you see?”

“Not much,” Sam hesitated. “It’s nothing I plan, it just... happens. Sometimes our dreams drift together.”

“Have you seen the nightmare? All of it -- the one I keep having?”

Sam shook his head. “Only bits. I’ve seen others, though. You didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I thought if I gave you more time, if I waited for you to be ready, then we could talk about it. I waited too long if this,” Sam nodded towards the mirror at Dean’s back, “was a logical step.”

“I’m fine.” Dean echoed what Sam had told him after his own exposure to the mirror, feeling its truth to his bones. “I’m fine, Sam.”

“I knew you would be. I know you, even though your actions confuse the hell out of me sometimes. But you didn’t know you would be okay. This could have killed you. Why didn’t you at least talk to me first?!” The wolf sounded more bewildered than anything.

Dean swallowed. “In my nightmare, it’s my dad that falls, but it’s not his body I turn over. It’s you. It’s always you. And you’re dead and it feels so real, Sam. I’ve been having this dream for months now. It doesn’t feel like a dream. I just... got all messed up, in my head. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It really isn’t, Sam.”

“No. But you’re fine, and I’m fine, and the bad guys are all dead. I don’t think the dream is about me, Dean. I think you still feel guilty about your dad and I think you’re right, you got all screwed up inside. We need a freaking break.”

Dean nodded and there was silence between them for a few minutes. With the Mirror’s enthralling effects fading quickly, Dean’s ankle was aching fiercely and he really wanted to get off his feet and get his hands on Sam and do some reaffirming of their bond. They always communicated better with actions rather than words, but he wasn’t sure how to breach the space between them.

“Your dad loved you,” Sam almost whispered. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to carry this. Let it go.”

“I am.”

“Let me help.”

Dean smiled, feeling the unnatural tension spin away like candy floss. Everything wasn’t better, but it was in the open at least. He didn’t know what to think about Sam’s revelations about the shared dreams and visions, but he’d had enough mystical crap for one night and it could wait a few hours.

“Help me back up these stairs and I’ll give you detailed directions on how you can take my mind off this entirely.”

~~~~~

Back in their borrowed bedroom with the door safely shut and the house quiet, Sam flipped on the overhead light and looked Dean over, shaking his head.

“What?’ Dean asked, hobbling over to the bed and slumping down.

“You’ve got a busted arm, an ankle that barely supports your weight, and you were seeing double until just the other day. I think you’re a tease, promising me things you can’t deliver on.”

“Me? A tease? You’re wounding my pride, Sam. Hitting way below the belt there.”

“Hitting isn’t what I was hoping would be happening below the belt.”

“I’ve got a plan. It’s a good plan, spectacular even. I’ve been planning it for at least the last five minutes,” Dean announced in a tone of great satisfaction.

Sam moved over to sit beside him on the bed. “That does sound impressive. That’s at least four minutes and thirty seconds more planning than usually goes into this.”

“Hey, I’m all about spontaneous. And I don’t remember you doing any complaining.” He followed Sam’s movement as the wolf tugged his t-shirt over his head and dropped it casually to the carpet.

“I’m not complaining.” Sam started on his pants. “Just wondering if you were planning on actually giving me any directions or if I just need to entertain myself.” He cupped the bulge in his jeans suggestively, stroking one thumb along the zipper.

Dean swallowed. “Why don’t you quit dragging your feet and help me get my clothes off too. Then I’ll give you all the direction you need.”

Sam kicked his own jeans off onto the floor and carefully worked to get the oversized t-shirt Dean was wearing over his head and off his cast.

“Pants too?” Dean asked hopefully.

“I think if I help you with the pants, this little experiment of yours might end before it gets started.” Sam raised the shirt to his face and inhaled deeply.

Dean shoved the waistband of his sweatpants down with one hand and kicked them off. “You know you can get that fresh over here?”

Sam smiled and let the shirt fall. “It’s different; the shirt smells like you’re all sleepy.”

“That’s better than me all horny?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Not better, different. Like an appetizer.”

Dean rolled his eyes and piled the pillows up until he was happy, then lay back against them.

Sam watched. “Your big plan?”

Dean grinned and patted one thigh invitingly.

Sam fished the lube out from where it was tucked between the frame and the mattress and crawled up beside Dean. “I’m not sure this strikes me as the best plan.”

Dean twisted fingers in Sam’s hair and dragged him in to kiss. He bit Sam’s lower lip until he could taste blood, then let him go. “Are you doubting the genius of my plan?”

Sam licked his mouth, eyes darkening. “Maybe your ability to follow through.”

He ran fingers meaningfully over Dean’s cast.

“All I have to do is lie here and enjoy; you’re going to do all the work.” Dean gave him an encouraging look.

“It’s your pain,” Sam shrugged. He popped the cap off of the lube and smeared some on his fingers, a look of great concentration on his face as he reached behind himself.

“Let me do that.” Dean tried to sit back up, but Sam just put one hand flat on his chest, holding him down.

“No. You’re just lying there, remember?”

“At least let me watch!”

Sam smirked.

“You suck, Sam!”

“This is your plan, I’m just following directions. Now shut up; I’m concentrating.” He swung one leg over so he was straddling Dean’s waist and reached behind himself to steady Dean’s cock. Dean drew in a sharp breath when Sam touched him, but stayed obediently quiet. He ran his free hand up Sam’s thigh, groping his ass appreciatively and sliding fingers through the lube around the tight hole. He slipped one in without warning and Sam hissed.

“Your hand is in the way, Dean,” he growled.

“Are you sure?” Dean asked, enjoying the play of muscle against his hand and the shifting expressions on Sam’s face.

“I’m sure that if you don’t move it, this isn’t going to end the way you want.”

Dean’s smile took on more of an edge. “You mean you’re gonna come? Is that it, Sam?”

He slid a second finger in and Sam’s expression took on a new tension. “Dean...”

“I don’t mind if you want to go ahead and come; won’t interfere with my pleasure at all.”

“It will if I roll over and go to sleep afterwards,” Sam pointed out, squirming.

Dean slipped a third in beside the other two. “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Sam? Not when I’m injured; not when you can make me feel so much better...”

Sam whined faintly, sweat beading up on his skin.

Dean took pity on him and pulled his fingers free, taking a grip on Sam’s hip instead. “Better?”

In answer, Sam drew a deep breath and sank back, taking Dean’s cock into his body one slow inch at a time until he was seated firmly against Dean’s skin.

“This is better,” Sam breathed, after letting his body adjust for a few moments. He started a slow rocking, keeping his movement easy and controlled.

Dean was patient with it for awhile, but grew restless when Sam showed no signs of changing his pace. “Is that the best you can do, Sam? Now which one of us is being a tease?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “You’re okay with this, right? I mean, what you were saying before, about being comfortable and all.”

“You’re making me really sorry I told you about that, Dean,” Sam growled, frustration giving his voice more of an edge than usual. “I’m trying not to mess up your arm.”

“Fuck my arm,” Dean hissed back. He squirmed so he could get better leverage to thrust, then went sheet white as a bolt of pain almost killed his erection an instant before Sam’s hands landed on his shoulders, pinning him firmly in place.

“How about you just lie here and let me drive? Remember the plan?”

“It was a good plan,” Dean said weakly.

“The best,” Sam replied, leaning down to devour Dean’s mouth in a way that had him completely distracted from pain until his body recovered.

When he sat back up, Sam’s movements were tighter and more focused. Dean let his hand roam over Sam’s skin wherever he could reach, frustrated with the broken bone and heavy, cumbersome cast. He felt himself growing close and knew Sam was aware of it. He had tried to explain it to Dean once, how he knew. The changes in Dean’s scent, his temperature, even the color of his eyes; all things the wolf absorbed without thought. Dean had a simpler way to read Sam, all he had to do was to listen for a certain hitch in his breath and he knew.

“You want--” Dean reached for Sam’s cock, meaning to wrap his fingers around its swollen length and help him over the edge, but the wolf shook his head emphatically.

“No, I want--” His words cut off with a gasp and ropes of pearly come streaked across Dean’s belly. Sam leaned over him, getting his breathing under control before raising his head enough to meet Dean’s gaze with a sly smile and pupils so wide the hazel was just a thin ring around the black. “I bet you want to shove me down and have your way with me now.”

Dean laughed despite the circumstances. “You’ve been reading in the wrong library section again. Besides, I thought I was already having my way with you?”

Sam nodded, expression intent. “But not the way you’d like.”

“I’m liking this just fine. I like everything we do together.” He brushed loose hair back behind Sam’s ear. “You about ready to finish up?”

Sam nodded again and blinked sweat out of his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let you go alone to that meeting.”

Sam’s gaze was fierce as he began to move again, pulling Dean’s body closer to that fine, bright edge he could feel getting closer with every roll of Sam’s hips.

“Sam...”

“Never again, Dean,” Sam asserted fiercely, keeping Dean’s gaze trapped with his own.

“Never again,” Dean gasped in agreement, as the edge rolled over him, Sam’s hand squeezing his own, an anchor in the sudden rush of release.

~~~~~

“Where I come from, a man who extorts promises out of other men during sex isn’t considered a good date,” Dean grumbled, while Sam wiped them both down.

Sam rolled his eyes and tossed the cloth on the pile of dirty clothes. “This again? Where I come from, I would be well within my rights to question your ability to lead after that stunt, and kick your ass for the right to be Alpha. You want to see how it looks from my position for awhile?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Would I notice the difference?”

“Probably not.” Sam snorted. “You people are so dense; I have trouble understanding how you communicate at all, most days.”

“The world is a big place, Sam. We can’t all be wolves.”

“More’s the pity.” Sam flipped the switch and climbed into bed beside Dean.

Dean shifted over a bit to give him more room. “What would you eat if everyone was a wolf?”

“The stupid ones,” Sam grumbled, “who ditch their partners and wander off into death traps.”

Dean found one of Sam’s hands and squeezed it again, a reminder of his promise. “How long am I going to have to hear about this?”

“At least until the cast is off,” Sam growled, curling protectively close.

Dean rolled his eyes in the darkness.

“We need to talk about the psychic stuff, Sam,” he mumbled some time later, on the edge of falling asleep. “I need to know how far it goes, what it is. That kind of crap.”

Sam snuffled into his hair. “I don’t know any more than what you do. It just happens. Some pairings have it, some don’t. We bonded so young, but I saw nothing for all the years you were away. And later, after we were all grown and you went away again, there was still nothing. I didn’t think we had it; they don’t talk about it much and I had no reason to ask.”

“So is it only supposed to be a dream thing? Maybe dreams and when someone is in danger?’

He felt Sam’s shrug.

“We’ll have to try practicing,” Dean mused, “see if we can do it anytime. Be an awesome skill in the field.”

“I thought you would be more freaked out than this.”

“I think I’ve used up all the freak-outs I have at the moment. I’m burning calm acceptance for now. But I might manage to find some if you start rummaging through my mind like it’s a sock drawer.”

“Mmmmmmm.”

“We’re never going to get all of the stains off these sheets.”

“S’kay,” Sam mumbled. “Bobby told me he’s going to burn them when we leave anyways.”

Dean smiled against Sam’s shoulder and closed his eyes again. Sleep embraced him almost immediately.

Chapter Eleven

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird,
and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,
we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
                                                                        ~Dr. Seuss

Bobby waved them off about a week later.

Two weeks into healing, Dean was still limping and swearing, but the worst of the swelling had gone down and there was no reason he couldn’t lay around and bitch in a tent as easily as on Bobby’s couch. Sam had made reservations for a campsite with car access and was almost giddy with excitement. Dean was decidedly less enthusiastic, but Sam’s happiness wasn’t even remotely dimmed by the grumbling. He would have Dean, and the forest, exactly where he wanted them. The world was a beautiful place.

Sam was loading the car when Bobby had one last talk with Dean.

“You guys gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. I stole a bunch of your magazines and there’s a headlamp in the trunk.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Bobby growled.

“We’re going to be fine.” Dean was firm. “The bad guys are dead, the Mirror is where it belongs, and all is right with the world.”

Sam practically bounced past them carrying a packed cooler for the car.

“Just ask Sam,” Dean added darkly. “He will tell you allllll about what a wonderful day it is.”

“I know you looked in the Mirror, Dean,” Bobby said bluntly.

Dean’s expression didn’t change. “We’re fine, Bobby.”

“A lot of other people who caught a glimpse thought they were fine too.”

“Yeah, but we’re really fine. It’s... exactly what you said it was. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Dean,” Sam yelled, “start hobbling over here. We have just enough time to make it before dark.”

“You’re gonna let him drive?” Bobby sounded dubious.

Dean’s expression darkened but he dutifully grabbed the crutches and got to his feet. “It was either that or he packed us on a bus. I think I’d rather risk a wreck.”

“It’s your funeral.”

“Bury us in my car.” Dean half turned so he could catch Bobby’s eyes, his expression more serious. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Bobby replied gruffly.

“And next time, take the party to someone else’s place!” he added, as Sam helped an unhappy Dean into the passenger side of the Impala.

Sam waved cheerfully from the driver’s side window as they turned down the dirt driveway and passed out of sight.

Bobby shook his head and went inside. “Idjits.”

END



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