(no subject)
ex luna scientia (2/2)
Supernatural AU
Sam/Dean, Sam/Jess, Dean/Cassie (this part); R
5,984 words (this part; 9,875 total)
A/N: Second part of the story affectionately known as "Wolfchesters." First part (with full headers) is here.
Dad tells it like a fairy tale, the story of how they came to be what they are. A bedtime story, even when their beds were rented and borrowed and makeshift. It's the way he learned it, and it's the way they'll tell it to their own pups someday. It doesn't matter how true it is, or isn't.
"Once upon a time," he says, "there was a hunter-"
"Like you?" Sam asks, fighting sleep. Dean shushes him and Sam kicks him under the blankets, but Dad smiles, nods.
"A little, yeah." He pushes Sam's hair off his forehead with a large, warm hand. "Once upon a time there was a hunter," he says again, "who wanted to be a wolf, and a wolf who wanted to be a man. And they made a pact with the Moon, who said that if the hunter killed the wolf and ate its heart, they would become one. She gave him the power to change, but on the nights she watched over them he had to become the wolf, so she could see what she'd created."
"When the moon's full, right?" He knows the answer already, but likes to ask anyway.
"That's right, Sammy. He became the First Wolf, but he was lonely. So the Moon gave him, and only him, the ability to change others with his bite. He changed his wife, his sons, other family and trusted friends, and they were the First Pack. Pups were born the human way after that."
Sam yawns, blinks heavily, and Dad laughs, pushing to his feet. "But that's a different story, for when you're a little older. Lights out."
"Wait," Sam says, and Dean huffs, mutters a curse under his breath.
Dad pauses with his hand on the light switch. "What's up, kiddo?"
"Um." Sam struggles to find a way to ask what he wants to know, afraid he'll say it wrong or that he's not supposed to ask at all, but his palms itch with needing to know. "How are we, I mean, why is it okay for us to hunt the things we hunt? Aren't we like them?"
Dad's mouth opens and closes twice before he says anything, and when he does, it's only, "It's different. We're different. Now lights out, I mean it."
Sam falls asleep strangely ashamed, but he dreams of running, of trees and water and a fat, silver moon, the safe smell of fur and the thundering of paws.
*
Three weeks after Dean's thirteenth birthday, Dad drops Sam off at Pastor Jim's (Sam loves staying with him for all the reasons Dean thinks it's kind of a drag--he's got rules about homework and bedtimes and makes them do chores) and takes Dean with him out into the woods, a few miles up the road.
"Your first fur," Dad says proudly. "Tonight you come into your own, kid." His face falls a little. "In a pack, this'd be a pretty big deal, you being the firstborn son and all. You'd run with the Elders, make your first kill..." He flashes Dean a smile that's worn and weak. "But you and me'll make do. Bring me back a rabbit and I'll let you have a beer."
"Deal!"
Their boots punch holes in the ice-covered snow as they trudge uphill, bare hands shoved in their pockets, chins tucked inside their collars. Dad said the less they wore, the better for later, after the change. He promised that Dean would be plenty warm even after coming out of his fur.
They strip down quickly, and Dad turns to him with yellow eyes as Dean stands shivering, teeth clattering inside his skull, waiting for the moon to crest the trees.
"Remember, stay close to me. You smell anything human, you go the other way. And if you lose me in the trees and can't find my scent, howl. I'll find you." He smiles again, a little stronger this time, and his teeth already look sharper. Dean runs his tongue over his canines, but they don't feel any different.
The moon rises and Dean's spine pops, strange muscles aching as they lengthen, and he grits his teeth, growls in the back of his throat. Beside him, Dad crouches low, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut, holds his stomach as he vomits into the snow. A slow warmth begins to spread up Dean's spine and he shudders, but not unpleasantly.
"It'll pass," Dad says, his voice so deep and rough it's nearly inhuman. "Don't be scared."
"I'm not," Dean snaps, then retches again, weakly.
He wipes the back of his arm across his forehead, his mouth, and it's lightly furred. His back pops again, then twice more, and the warmth spreads quicker, through his spine out to his arms, his legs. Dean's paws hit snow, and he sniffs the air, approaches his father with head slightly bowed; even without a pack he understands Dad's place as leader, respects it and his own place as second in line. Dad nudges Dean's muzzle with his, lifts his head and howls, long and low. Dean joins in, his wolf-voice weak and high at first, then stronger, louder.
Dad pushes off with his hind legs, and Dean follows a half-second behind. The wind has never felt like this on his face, and his legs have never felt this strong, this fast. He feels like he could run forever, but he sticks close to his father's side, paces himself against Dad's lead, stays in his shadow.
*
They're in New Mexico for Sam's thirteenth birthday, chasing down a Black Dog, and they drive out to the desert, amid the scorpions and snakes, for the change. Stay close, Dad tells him. Keep away from anything that smells human. Howl if he gets lost. Where exactly Dad thinks he could get lost in the open desert, Sam's not sure, but he nods.
Dad turns to Dean as he shucks off his jacket. "Keep an eye on your brother, will ya? I'm gonna take off alone for a while, but I don't want any fucking around while I'm gone."
Dean steps on Sam's foot, hard and purposeful, and Sam bites back an I don't need a babysitter. Dad eyes them both expectantly. "I mean it."
"Yes, sir," they chorus.
The change comes faster than Sam expected, knocking the wind out of him. Dean told him he threw up his first time, and Sam feels bile burning the back of his throat, chokes it back with an effort that makes his eyes water. Dad and Dean, in his peripheral vision, are already more wolf than man; Sam looks down at his hands, his nails lengthened into claws, the tufts of soft brown fur on the backs of them. He closes his eyes and breathes as evenly as he can through the rest of the change, until his paws thump softly on the hard-packed sand.
His ears prick up, hearing new sounds, different frequencies as his eyes and nose are assaulted by suddenly too-sharp senses. He feels dizzy, disoriented, and he whines, paws restlessly at the ground. Dad nuzzles his neck, calming his racing heart and the nervous twist of his stomach a little with his warm, familiar smell. Then he barks once and takes off like a shot, heading straight for the distant mountains. Sam doesn't wonder what Dad's going to do out there; he doesn't think he wants to know.
Dean woofs softly, distracting him, and trots over to a cactus to lift his leg. If Sam could laugh, he would; when he tries, it comes out a growl. Dean bites at the scruff of Sam's neck and Sam yelps, kicks, pins Dean to the ground. Dean barks again, annoyed, and Sam licks his ear before letting him up, howling as Dean comes after him.
They run themselves ragged, chasing each other and the odd jackrabbit that crosses paths with them. By the time the moon is setting they're curled up on the ground near the car, panting and waiting for Dad to come back. Sam snuffles under Dean's chin, where he still smells like Dean under the fur, and breathes deeply, lets it soothe him to sleep.
*
The year that Sam turns fourteen they're tracking a werewolf, a rogue, across North Carolina. Dad knew as soon as he read the papers, knew the signs, and packed up their trailer in an hour, had them across the state line in three. It was two weeks before the end of the school year, before Sam's eighth-grade commencement and Dean's high school graduation; Dean watched Sam pause over his blue polyester cap and gown before tossing it in the trash; they both knew they weren't going back.
They've met up with other wolves over the years--some from the old pack, like Pastor Jim, who had taken in him and Sam for weeks at a time when Dad was hunting something he didn't want them to know about or just needed time alone. And Caleb, who Dad sometimes left them with, but not since he caught him and Dean getting stoned. There were others, who gave them sofas to sleep on and whispered with Dad in the shadows while Sam and Dean pressed their ears to the walls, but this was the first time they were hunting one of their own.
It's a three-quarter moon when they trap the wolf up in the mountains, the air buzzing with insects and the slight rustle of wind in the treetops.
"Howl if it corners you, or if you kill it."
"Yes, sir," they answer in unison.
Dad loads their guns himself, two silver bullets apiece and a stern, "Watch yourselves, y'hear me?"
"Yes, sir."
Dad heads east; they go west, pausing every now and then to sniff the air and change direction. Sam pulls ahead and Dean loses him in the underbrush, coming out the other side into a clearing full of wildflowers. Sam's standing at the center, his gun drawn and pointed at the red wolf pacing in front of him, panting.
Dean's voice sticks in his throat when the wolf lunges, then goes down with a howl and a muffled thump against the forest floor. Birds scatter, screeching their protest, and the sound of the gunshot echoes through the treetops and in Dean’s ears, the ringing aftermath drowning out everything but his own heartbeat.
He runs out into the clearing when Sam drops the gun, stuffing his own in the waist of his jeans even though Dad had told them not to do that, that they were just careless enough to blow their dicks off, and then what?
The wolf heaves a wet, gurgling breath and Dean reaches for his gun, but the wolf goes still before he can pull it out again. Sam takes a hesitant step toward the lump of blood and fur, and Dean’s arm shoots out, holding him back.
"Sammy, don’t." His fingers curl into Sam's shoulder, squeezing, and through his shirt, Sam’s skin is warm, sweat-damp. The ends of his hair brush the back of Dean’s hand. "Grab your gun and let’s go," he says, hating that he sounds angry, that he's jealous that it was Sam who killed it, not him. "Dad’ll be looking for us.”
*
They leave under the shield of a summer storm, lightning cutting thick and jagged across a sky wooly with clouds. They drive through the night, until they hit sunrise somewhere over the Georgia border.
The motel is just like the one before it, and the one before that. They all look the same when you come right down to it, and Dean throws his bag on one of the beds, starts rummaging for a clean shirt while Dad goes to the pay phone outside. Sam pushes Dean's duffel out of the way, sits on the edge of the mattress. His cuticles are bloody; he's been chewing them for the last couple hundred miles, and hasn't said but four words since they got in the car the night before.
“Sammy?" Dean balls a grey tee in his fist, threadbare and with a hole in the armpit, but it smells okay. "What’s wrong?”
Sam's teeth worry at his fingers again. "I killed it."
"...and?" Dean slaps Sam's hand away from his mouth.
"It was still alive, Dean. It-- he was one of us."
"And if you hadn’t killed him, we'd be dead," Dean barks. Sam looks up sharply, his expression something like hurt, and Dean wonders at his own lack of loyalty to anything or anyone but his family--this family, not a pack, not the vague brotherhood of their species. He jerks his bag closed, irritated. "He was a rogue, Sam, a killer. We didn't owe him anything. It was him or us."
Sam stares at Dean like he's never seen him before. Everything changes after that.
*
"Sammy, c'mon. Moon's coming up fast, we gotta go," Dad says, jingling the car keys. Dean's already shrugging into his jacket--Dad's old leather one, gifted to him on his eighteenth birthday. Sam, in turn, had inherited Dean's old denim one with the worn-out elbow.
"In a minute," Sam mumbles, hunching over his Algebra book. The pencil in his hand is tooth-marked, gnawed in concentration. He runs his thumb over the grooves, tense and waiting for the fight he knows he just picked. "I gotta finish my homework."
"You figured out how to hold a pencil in your paw?" Dad's tone is falsely light, and Sam sees the muscle in his jaw clenching when he looks up. He shakes his head, and Dad scrubs a hand over his face, sighing. "Then let's go. We don't have time for this."
"Do it when you get back," Dean says, his hand on the doorknob. "You know you'll be too keyed up to sleep anyway."
"Fine." Sam slams the book shut, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the worn linoleum when he pushes it back and yanks his jacket off the back. "Whatever."
Dean waits for him at the door, digs his fingers hard into Sam's arm. "Dude, you need to stop picking fights with Dad. You know this is the one of the only things from when the pack was together that he can still do, so quit being such a pain in the ass about it."
"Yeah, I know." He shakes off Dean's hand and pulls the door closed behind him. "I just wanted to finish my homework."
Dean ruffles his hair. "Then you need to work on your time management skills, Sammy. Now come on, if Dad's gotta honk the horn we're both dead meat."
They barely make it into the forest before the moon's rising over the treetops. The change comes quickly, easily now to both him and Dean, and they run a winding path through the frost-dusted underbrush, a respectful half-pace behind Dad. They pause at a small stream to drink, and Dean whines, fidgeting. Dad barks twice, their signal that it's okay for them to take off by themselves for a bit.
Dean heads upstream, Dad for the hills. Sam trots along a worn path choked with wild carrot and thorny blackberry bushes. This poor imitation of a pack is more like a family than they've been able to be in their human skin for years, and Sam knows that that's why Dean likes being in his fur so much, why he tracks the lunar cycle so closely.
But it's the escape of it that Sam loves, the freedom of running fast and wild, out from under Dad's thumb and Dean's watchful eye. Privacy, secrets are luxuries that life on the road doesn't really afford, but a little thrill shivers through him at the thought of the college brochures stuffed in the bottom of his knapsack. He picks up his pace, howling softly as he breaks into a full, pounding run.
*
At first Dad wrote it off as adolescent angst bullshit, and did his best to keep his anger in check. But Sam seemed to grow into his attitude instead of out of it, and Dad's patience--and Dean's--wore thin. More often than not he finds himself sitting back and watching Sam and Dad circle each other, smelling iron on the air and waiting for the moment he'll have to jump in and break them apart.
The last time he does it is a Tuesday in August, in a motel with green walls and greyed curtains. Dean drives Sam to the 6:40 bus himself, hurt and angry that Sam's leaving, but scared more than anything else. A lone wolf is easily a dead wolf, and they have no contacts near Palo Alto, no one to make sure Sam is safe. Sam, he thinks, probably did that on purpose.
At the bus station, he grabs Sam by the collar as he's about to board the bus, drags him out of earshot of the other passengers and crowds him against the wall of the depot. "You be careful," Dean growls, his lip trembling into a curl. "You hear me?"
Sam smacks his hand away. "I hear you. Let me go."
Sam pushes past him and Dean stalks back to the car, peeling out of the parking lot before Sam's bus even pulls away.
*
Dad's gone when Dean gets back to the trailer, stays gone for two days while Dean tries to keep himself busy--washing and cleaning out the car, doing eight hundred miles' worth of laundry, looking for leads. They're between hunts, between moons, and he's restless, edgy. Lonely, without Sam. At night he takes to the trees, just for the comfort of being in his fur, running just for the feel of the earth under his paws. He tries to sniff out Dad, but wherever he is, it's too far for Dean to track him.
He comes back on the third day with mud in his hair, streaking his hands, but he looks calmer than the last time Dean saw him (teeth bared, his hands fisted in the front of Sam's shirt), his shoulders relaxed a little.
"You all right?" Dean asks, forcing a nonchalance he doesn't feel. He's angry at being left with no word, no trace, nothing but his own faith that Dad would come back.
"M'okay." Dad sits at the small table and tugs at the laces of his boots. "Just needed to get out of here for a while, clear my head."
Dean scratches a hand through his hair. The anger's already fading, settling into relief. He sighs. "There's pizza if you're hungry. And coffee."
"Nah, I'm gonna shower. Sleep a while if I can. I haven't, the last few days." Dad stands, tosses his jacket onto the bed and grabs a freshly-folded shirt from his bag.
"Sammy's a smart kid, Dad." He feels torn, pulled between obeying Dad and defending Sam, still and always trying to smooth things over; it's a familiar tug-of-war. "He's gonna be fine," Dean says, and Dad nods, turns away.
*
Sam always thinks of Dean's scent as green, somehow, peppery and mossy and a little sweet; Dad's is richer, more brown--damp, salted earth and the sharp tang of leather.
He asked once what his own scent was. Mid-summer in Alabama and all they could do was sprawl under the fan, praying that the rain pounding against the windows would cool things down even a little, just enough for them to breathe without feeling like they were drowning.
Sam turned and elbowed Dean in the ribs. "What do I smell like?"
Dean didn't even open his eyes. "One of those blue things they put in urinals."
"Fuck you, I'm serious."
Dean smiled, halfway and a little crooked, and leaned up on his elbow to snuffle Sam's neck, behind his ear. He bit at Sam's throat, teeth closing gently over the jugular. Sam huffed out a shaky laugh and pushed at Dean's stomach, his palm skidding over smooth, hot skin where Dean's shirt was rucked up.
"Ozone," Dean said. "Like right before a big storm, you know?"
"Yeah." Sam nodded, swallowed. He could still feel Dean's breath on his neck, where Dean's spit was cooling, and he curled his hand in Dean's shirt, closed his eyes and tugged.
Their mouths met clumsily, teeth clicking, before Dean's tongue slicked into his mouth and Dean's thigh pressed between his, pinning him to the mattress. And Sam might've been the one to initiate, but it was Dean who went in for the kill, his hands rough but not ungentle, and it was Dean who licked him clean, after.
Sometimes when Sam's crossing the Quad he thinks he catches Dean's scent, or Dad's, sometimes both. He pauses, nostrils flaring, but it's gone as quickly as he thinks it's there, and he shakes his head, laughing under his breath. He keeps walking.
He wonders, though, if Dean misses him when it rains.
*
Athens is a college town, full of college bars. Easy prey, especially the blondes with big tits and bigger smiles, buzzed on nickel beer and looking for something a little more exciting than Johnny Frat Boy and a squeaky dorm bed.
Cassie's nothing like what he was looking for, and the last thing he expected to find.
She sucks him off in the front seat of his car the night they meet, parked behind her apartment like teenagers out past curfew; she doesn't invite him in, says her roommate's a little funny about strange men coming in at odd hours, imagine that. She doesn't kiss him goodnight, either, just tongues his ear and tells him that her roommate's leaving for the weekend the following afternoon, that he should pick her up at eight.
It's dangerous, and Dad will be pissed when he finds out, but Dean thinks he can handle it. He thinks he can keep their secrets.
The first time they fuck he's reckless, rougher with her than he means to be, but the smell of her--red, like cinnamon and spicy musk--makes him lose track of himself. She meets him bite for bite, scratch for scratch, urging him on with low, throaty moans and sharp little cries. Collapsed against his chest after, she laughs, "I think you growled at me," and he buries his face in her hair and does it again.
He tries to be more careful after that, but once, too close to the full moon and too damn much off his guard, the shudder up his spine when he comes is more than it should be. His vision kaleidoscopes, sharpens, and he squeezes his eyes closed, hoping she didn't see. But the next morning as they're leaving her apartment, she pushes his sunglasses up onto his forehead and thumbs the corners of his eyes, and something in her face, in the way she looks at him, makes his stomach flip the wrong way.
It's almost a relief when Dad calls. Dean'll tell Cassie about the ghosts and the demons, and it's only lying by omission, really. He knows she won't believe him, and he knows she'll walk away. But at least then he won't have to break her heart, only nurse his own.
*
Dad's quieter after Sam leaves, angrier at the absence of him than he ever was at his presence. Dean tries to be obedient enough for two sons, to fill the void that Sam left behind, but it only makes them both feel it more. He becomes a stronger fighter, a better hunter, working twice as hard for what had always come to Sam twice as easy. But in the end, Dad leaves anyway.
"We can cover more ground if we separate," Dad says, throwing his bag into the cab of the truck. "I trust you on your own."
Dean nods, doesn't think about what it means that Dad's still so worried about Sam being alone, but not him. He knows he should be proud, pleased that he's earned this chance to prove himself--and he is--but the lick of heat in his belly feels more like jealousy than anything.
"Yes, sir."
"You got those leads I gave you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good boy." Dad pulls him into a brief, one-armed hug, and Dean feels small, unsure, afraid for the first time in a long time. But he squares his shoulders when they part, stands tall, and Dad's smile is small but real. "Call me when it's done, or if you run into trouble. We'll meet up later."
Dean nods again and Dad pats his cheek lightly, squeezes his shoulder before climbing into the truck. It starts with a roar, and Dean leans against the Impala, watches Dad's tail lights round a corner and disappear. He closes his eyes, and breathes until Dad's scent is faint, fainter, then gone.
*
Sam never wanted the life his mother's death had thrown them all into, the spirits and monsters and things that went bump in the night, but he never wanted to not be a wolf until he met Jess.
She sat two rows in front of him in art history, always the same seat by the window, and on sunny days her hair caught and reflected the light, shining at the corner of his vision when she flicked it over her shoulder. She smelled golden, like warm skin and honey, and her eyes crinkled delicately at the corners when she smiled. She had the reddest, roundest mouth Sam had ever seen.
She is every kind of bad idea and he knows it, knows even as he asks her out for coffee, as one date becomes two becomes three, as he makes excuses for disappearing in the night; as she presses the key to her apartment into his hand and helps him pack up his dorm room.
The night he moves in they abandon unpacking after only an hour, sprawling on the threadbare sofa with pizza and a Law & Order marathon, Jess between Sam's knees with her head tipped back against his shoulder. He pushes her hair off her neck and nuzzles her throat, and she mmms against his cheek, squirms and shifts around until she's straddling him.
Her hands are cool and damp from her beer bottle when she cups his face, her eyes shining in the semi-dark. "Are you happy?" she asks.
He knew from the start that it was pointless to let himself love her when she could never know all the things he is. But from the first time she kissed him, tasting like spearmint gum and sweet tea, he knew that it was just as pointless to fight it. After a lifetime of fighting, it felt too good to give in.
He nods, sliding his hands up her back to pull her into a kiss. It still feels good. "Yeah."
*
Dean remembers this scenario too well: the smell of sulfur and plumes of acrid smoke, the buzz and chatter of the crowd, the deafening blast of the hoses and the rumble of gurney wheels on cement. There won't be much left of her for them to wheel out. He doesn't remember that, but he knows it, absolutely.
For Dean there's only ever been this one life--hunter, civilian, werewolf, human; it's all just him, not quite seamless but never as messy as Sam had to go and make it for himself, either. Sam had spent so much of his life building walls, making sure one thing never spilled over into the others, and now the life he'd so carefully constructed was gone, and he was right back where he started.
And Dean may have wanted Sam back with him, working and hunting together like they’ve been these last few days, but not like this. It was supposed to be a choice, but no one chooses this life, and Dean knows that. They get pushed and pulled and dragged into it through death and destruction, and Sam had made his decision long before he ever left for Stanford.
The lights from the police cars flash red, then blue, across Sam's face; anger and sadness, and for the shadowed half-second between the two, guilty relief. Dean looks away, wishing he didn't know the feeling, and that he was the kind of brother who could talk about it, tell Sam that it's okay, that he understands.
*
They stop for the night just over the Colorado border, far enough off the main highway that the two-lane road is edged with forest. Dean's half-asleep behind the wheel and Sam's in no condition to drive, hasn't been since the night of the fire. It's been a long, mostly silent week, Sam too much in his own head and too wrapped up in his own grief to do much talking, and Dean's never been real good at this kind of thing, anyway.
Sam follows Dean silently to the room, sets his bag on the bed nearest the door and sits on the edge of the mattress, chewing his nails. His eyes are wet again, bright and blank as he stares past Dean's head at the wall behind it. Dean rubs a hand over the back of his neck, still not knowing what to say, or if he should say anything at all. He's about to suggest grabbing something to eat when Sam pushes to his feet, rubs his palms over his face.
"I'll be back later," he says, and Dean nods as the door slams.
He goes to the window and parts the curtain an inch, but it's a new moon, no light to see Sam's silhouette change in the shadow of the trees. He narrows his eyes, watches the treetops sway in the wind until he can't feel Sam's tread in his bones anymore, and as he lets the curtain fall closed a howl rises through the trees, broken and pained. Dean shivers away a memory of that same sound from Dad's throat and crawls into bed, falling asleep on top of the blankets.
He comes awake to the smell of water and mud, of ozone, to Sam slipping warm and damp into his bed. Dean turns to curl into him, and Sam elbows him off, pushing Dean onto his back, too much white showing in his eyes. Dean bares his throat and his belly--only, and ever, for Sam--and lets Sam bite and bruise, lets him be rough with his teeth and his hands. Sam clutches at Dean's hips, comes with a wordless, anguished cry against Dean's shoulder, and Dean understands that Sam needs this; he just never realized that he does, too.
*
The first full moon after Jess' death they're still in Lake Manitoc, working a case, and as the sun slips lower in the sky Dean perches on the edge of his bed, his hands clasped around a cup of coffee. Sam's pacing the length of the small room, all clenching jaw and heavy footfalls. Dean watches him warily.
"You should try to sleep a little before the moon's up," he says. "There's all those mountains around the lake, I thought we could run for a while."
"I'm not going."
"What, so you're gonna lock yourself in the bathroom and try not to claw through the door?" Sam shrugs and Dean sets his cup on the nightstand before pushing to his feet. "Oh, yeah, that's a brilliant idea."
Sam stops pacing, leans against the little table with his arms crossed over his chest. "I don't want to."
"Don't be such a brat," Dean snaps. "When was the last time we went running together?" Sam shrugs again, shakes off Dean's hand when it comes to rest on his shoulder. "C'mon, it'll be like old times." He curls his hand in the front of Sam's shirt, but he's grinning when he says, "I'll drag you out by the scruff if I have to, kiddo, you know I will."
Sam laughs after a beat, shoving Dean away. "I'm bigger than you, you know."
"Size ain't got nothing to do with it. I'm still your big brother."
"Fine, I'll go," Sam huffs, rolling his eyes.
Dean pats Sam's chest. "Atta boy."
When the sky gets dark they drive out past the lake, down bumpy back roads choked with weeds. They strip out of their clothes, hide the car keys, and Sam hunches low, crouched like a runner as the moon breaks over the trees. The curve of his back gleams silver before it ripples into fur.
They run through the trees, sniffing out the small river that cuts down the mountain. Sam sticks close to Dean's side until they reach the cover of the forest, but once under the trees he takes off, his longer legs carrying him farther, faster. He barks playfully as he doubles back to nip at Dean's tail.
Fucker, Dean thinks affectionately, and his teeth snap on air as Sam dashes off again.
*
"Dean?"
It's hours later, long after they've come out of their fur and driven back to the motel. The sky's beginning to brighten, dull light creeping through the blinds and up the ugly wallpaper, and Dean's fast asleep. He's always been able to sleep anywhere, anytime, and he always passes right out after a good run.
"Dean, you awake?"
The space between the beds is small enough that Sam can reach across, press his fingers into Dean's arm. Dean grunts, turns his head away.
"No. Quit poking me," he grumbles, shifting out of Sam's reach.
"I can't sleep," Sam whispers. He's never been a good sleeper, and hasn't slept more than an hour or two at a time since Jess died. He's exhausted, running on caffeine fumes and a lingering fear of what he might dream if he closes his eyes.
The mattress creaks, papery sheets rustling when Dean rolls onto his side, blinking slowly in the half-light. "Tell me something I don't know." Sam looks away, at the peeling edge of the wallpaper, and Dean sighs, throws back the blankets. "C'mon. And hurry up. You interrupted a good dream, maybe I can pick it up again."
"You know that never works," Sam says, the worn carpet rough beneath his bare feet, Dean's sheets skin-warm when he slips between them. "And if you're halfway to a wet dream I'd rather not be in your bed when you get the rest of the way there."
"Yeah, yeah." Dean's breathing is already slower, deeper; he's almost asleep again, if he was ever more than half-awake to begin with. "At least try to sleep, Sam. Please?"
It's been a long time since Sam was smaller than Dean, but he feels small now; scared, and it's been a long time since that, too. Dean curls along his back, all solid muscle and hot skin, throws a heavy arm over Sam's stomach.
"We're gonna find Dad, right? We're gonna find him and the thing that killed Jess, and then--" He doesn't know what happens then. After.
"One thing at a time, man." Dean's voice is sleep-rough, raspy. His breath tickles the hairs at the back of Sam's neck, making them stand on end. "We'll find Dad, I promise. We'll finish up this job and we'll find Dad, and then... then we'll just go from there, okay?"
Sam nods, biting his lip, and Dean presses up closer behind him, knees tucked behind Sam's like when they were pups. Sam takes a slow, shaky breath, and Dean smells of pine, of soil, of moss and birch and wet grass. He turns halfway, blind and desperate for something to ease the anxious twist in his belly, and finds Dean's waiting mouth, peppery and sweet. Finds Dean waiting, always.
When they leave two days later, a plate of sandwiches on the seat between them and two shrinking, waving figures in the rearview, they head west, following the moon across the sky.
Supernatural AU
Sam/Dean, Sam/Jess, Dean/Cassie (this part); R
5,984 words (this part; 9,875 total)
A/N: Second part of the story affectionately known as "Wolfchesters." First part (with full headers) is here.
Dad tells it like a fairy tale, the story of how they came to be what they are. A bedtime story, even when their beds were rented and borrowed and makeshift. It's the way he learned it, and it's the way they'll tell it to their own pups someday. It doesn't matter how true it is, or isn't.
"Once upon a time," he says, "there was a hunter-"
"Like you?" Sam asks, fighting sleep. Dean shushes him and Sam kicks him under the blankets, but Dad smiles, nods.
"A little, yeah." He pushes Sam's hair off his forehead with a large, warm hand. "Once upon a time there was a hunter," he says again, "who wanted to be a wolf, and a wolf who wanted to be a man. And they made a pact with the Moon, who said that if the hunter killed the wolf and ate its heart, they would become one. She gave him the power to change, but on the nights she watched over them he had to become the wolf, so she could see what she'd created."
"When the moon's full, right?" He knows the answer already, but likes to ask anyway.
"That's right, Sammy. He became the First Wolf, but he was lonely. So the Moon gave him, and only him, the ability to change others with his bite. He changed his wife, his sons, other family and trusted friends, and they were the First Pack. Pups were born the human way after that."
Sam yawns, blinks heavily, and Dad laughs, pushing to his feet. "But that's a different story, for when you're a little older. Lights out."
"Wait," Sam says, and Dean huffs, mutters a curse under his breath.
Dad pauses with his hand on the light switch. "What's up, kiddo?"
"Um." Sam struggles to find a way to ask what he wants to know, afraid he'll say it wrong or that he's not supposed to ask at all, but his palms itch with needing to know. "How are we, I mean, why is it okay for us to hunt the things we hunt? Aren't we like them?"
Dad's mouth opens and closes twice before he says anything, and when he does, it's only, "It's different. We're different. Now lights out, I mean it."
Sam falls asleep strangely ashamed, but he dreams of running, of trees and water and a fat, silver moon, the safe smell of fur and the thundering of paws.
*
Three weeks after Dean's thirteenth birthday, Dad drops Sam off at Pastor Jim's (Sam loves staying with him for all the reasons Dean thinks it's kind of a drag--he's got rules about homework and bedtimes and makes them do chores) and takes Dean with him out into the woods, a few miles up the road.
"Your first fur," Dad says proudly. "Tonight you come into your own, kid." His face falls a little. "In a pack, this'd be a pretty big deal, you being the firstborn son and all. You'd run with the Elders, make your first kill..." He flashes Dean a smile that's worn and weak. "But you and me'll make do. Bring me back a rabbit and I'll let you have a beer."
"Deal!"
Their boots punch holes in the ice-covered snow as they trudge uphill, bare hands shoved in their pockets, chins tucked inside their collars. Dad said the less they wore, the better for later, after the change. He promised that Dean would be plenty warm even after coming out of his fur.
They strip down quickly, and Dad turns to him with yellow eyes as Dean stands shivering, teeth clattering inside his skull, waiting for the moon to crest the trees.
"Remember, stay close to me. You smell anything human, you go the other way. And if you lose me in the trees and can't find my scent, howl. I'll find you." He smiles again, a little stronger this time, and his teeth already look sharper. Dean runs his tongue over his canines, but they don't feel any different.
The moon rises and Dean's spine pops, strange muscles aching as they lengthen, and he grits his teeth, growls in the back of his throat. Beside him, Dad crouches low, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut, holds his stomach as he vomits into the snow. A slow warmth begins to spread up Dean's spine and he shudders, but not unpleasantly.
"It'll pass," Dad says, his voice so deep and rough it's nearly inhuman. "Don't be scared."
"I'm not," Dean snaps, then retches again, weakly.
He wipes the back of his arm across his forehead, his mouth, and it's lightly furred. His back pops again, then twice more, and the warmth spreads quicker, through his spine out to his arms, his legs. Dean's paws hit snow, and he sniffs the air, approaches his father with head slightly bowed; even without a pack he understands Dad's place as leader, respects it and his own place as second in line. Dad nudges Dean's muzzle with his, lifts his head and howls, long and low. Dean joins in, his wolf-voice weak and high at first, then stronger, louder.
Dad pushes off with his hind legs, and Dean follows a half-second behind. The wind has never felt like this on his face, and his legs have never felt this strong, this fast. He feels like he could run forever, but he sticks close to his father's side, paces himself against Dad's lead, stays in his shadow.
*
They're in New Mexico for Sam's thirteenth birthday, chasing down a Black Dog, and they drive out to the desert, amid the scorpions and snakes, for the change. Stay close, Dad tells him. Keep away from anything that smells human. Howl if he gets lost. Where exactly Dad thinks he could get lost in the open desert, Sam's not sure, but he nods.
Dad turns to Dean as he shucks off his jacket. "Keep an eye on your brother, will ya? I'm gonna take off alone for a while, but I don't want any fucking around while I'm gone."
Dean steps on Sam's foot, hard and purposeful, and Sam bites back an I don't need a babysitter. Dad eyes them both expectantly. "I mean it."
"Yes, sir," they chorus.
The change comes faster than Sam expected, knocking the wind out of him. Dean told him he threw up his first time, and Sam feels bile burning the back of his throat, chokes it back with an effort that makes his eyes water. Dad and Dean, in his peripheral vision, are already more wolf than man; Sam looks down at his hands, his nails lengthened into claws, the tufts of soft brown fur on the backs of them. He closes his eyes and breathes as evenly as he can through the rest of the change, until his paws thump softly on the hard-packed sand.
His ears prick up, hearing new sounds, different frequencies as his eyes and nose are assaulted by suddenly too-sharp senses. He feels dizzy, disoriented, and he whines, paws restlessly at the ground. Dad nuzzles his neck, calming his racing heart and the nervous twist of his stomach a little with his warm, familiar smell. Then he barks once and takes off like a shot, heading straight for the distant mountains. Sam doesn't wonder what Dad's going to do out there; he doesn't think he wants to know.
Dean woofs softly, distracting him, and trots over to a cactus to lift his leg. If Sam could laugh, he would; when he tries, it comes out a growl. Dean bites at the scruff of Sam's neck and Sam yelps, kicks, pins Dean to the ground. Dean barks again, annoyed, and Sam licks his ear before letting him up, howling as Dean comes after him.
They run themselves ragged, chasing each other and the odd jackrabbit that crosses paths with them. By the time the moon is setting they're curled up on the ground near the car, panting and waiting for Dad to come back. Sam snuffles under Dean's chin, where he still smells like Dean under the fur, and breathes deeply, lets it soothe him to sleep.
*
The year that Sam turns fourteen they're tracking a werewolf, a rogue, across North Carolina. Dad knew as soon as he read the papers, knew the signs, and packed up their trailer in an hour, had them across the state line in three. It was two weeks before the end of the school year, before Sam's eighth-grade commencement and Dean's high school graduation; Dean watched Sam pause over his blue polyester cap and gown before tossing it in the trash; they both knew they weren't going back.
They've met up with other wolves over the years--some from the old pack, like Pastor Jim, who had taken in him and Sam for weeks at a time when Dad was hunting something he didn't want them to know about or just needed time alone. And Caleb, who Dad sometimes left them with, but not since he caught him and Dean getting stoned. There were others, who gave them sofas to sleep on and whispered with Dad in the shadows while Sam and Dean pressed their ears to the walls, but this was the first time they were hunting one of their own.
It's a three-quarter moon when they trap the wolf up in the mountains, the air buzzing with insects and the slight rustle of wind in the treetops.
"Howl if it corners you, or if you kill it."
"Yes, sir," they answer in unison.
Dad loads their guns himself, two silver bullets apiece and a stern, "Watch yourselves, y'hear me?"
"Yes, sir."
Dad heads east; they go west, pausing every now and then to sniff the air and change direction. Sam pulls ahead and Dean loses him in the underbrush, coming out the other side into a clearing full of wildflowers. Sam's standing at the center, his gun drawn and pointed at the red wolf pacing in front of him, panting.
Dean's voice sticks in his throat when the wolf lunges, then goes down with a howl and a muffled thump against the forest floor. Birds scatter, screeching their protest, and the sound of the gunshot echoes through the treetops and in Dean’s ears, the ringing aftermath drowning out everything but his own heartbeat.
He runs out into the clearing when Sam drops the gun, stuffing his own in the waist of his jeans even though Dad had told them not to do that, that they were just careless enough to blow their dicks off, and then what?
The wolf heaves a wet, gurgling breath and Dean reaches for his gun, but the wolf goes still before he can pull it out again. Sam takes a hesitant step toward the lump of blood and fur, and Dean’s arm shoots out, holding him back.
"Sammy, don’t." His fingers curl into Sam's shoulder, squeezing, and through his shirt, Sam’s skin is warm, sweat-damp. The ends of his hair brush the back of Dean’s hand. "Grab your gun and let’s go," he says, hating that he sounds angry, that he's jealous that it was Sam who killed it, not him. "Dad’ll be looking for us.”
*
They leave under the shield of a summer storm, lightning cutting thick and jagged across a sky wooly with clouds. They drive through the night, until they hit sunrise somewhere over the Georgia border.
The motel is just like the one before it, and the one before that. They all look the same when you come right down to it, and Dean throws his bag on one of the beds, starts rummaging for a clean shirt while Dad goes to the pay phone outside. Sam pushes Dean's duffel out of the way, sits on the edge of the mattress. His cuticles are bloody; he's been chewing them for the last couple hundred miles, and hasn't said but four words since they got in the car the night before.
“Sammy?" Dean balls a grey tee in his fist, threadbare and with a hole in the armpit, but it smells okay. "What’s wrong?”
Sam's teeth worry at his fingers again. "I killed it."
"...and?" Dean slaps Sam's hand away from his mouth.
"It was still alive, Dean. It-- he was one of us."
"And if you hadn’t killed him, we'd be dead," Dean barks. Sam looks up sharply, his expression something like hurt, and Dean wonders at his own lack of loyalty to anything or anyone but his family--this family, not a pack, not the vague brotherhood of their species. He jerks his bag closed, irritated. "He was a rogue, Sam, a killer. We didn't owe him anything. It was him or us."
Sam stares at Dean like he's never seen him before. Everything changes after that.
*
"Sammy, c'mon. Moon's coming up fast, we gotta go," Dad says, jingling the car keys. Dean's already shrugging into his jacket--Dad's old leather one, gifted to him on his eighteenth birthday. Sam, in turn, had inherited Dean's old denim one with the worn-out elbow.
"In a minute," Sam mumbles, hunching over his Algebra book. The pencil in his hand is tooth-marked, gnawed in concentration. He runs his thumb over the grooves, tense and waiting for the fight he knows he just picked. "I gotta finish my homework."
"You figured out how to hold a pencil in your paw?" Dad's tone is falsely light, and Sam sees the muscle in his jaw clenching when he looks up. He shakes his head, and Dad scrubs a hand over his face, sighing. "Then let's go. We don't have time for this."
"Do it when you get back," Dean says, his hand on the doorknob. "You know you'll be too keyed up to sleep anyway."
"Fine." Sam slams the book shut, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the worn linoleum when he pushes it back and yanks his jacket off the back. "Whatever."
Dean waits for him at the door, digs his fingers hard into Sam's arm. "Dude, you need to stop picking fights with Dad. You know this is the one of the only things from when the pack was together that he can still do, so quit being such a pain in the ass about it."
"Yeah, I know." He shakes off Dean's hand and pulls the door closed behind him. "I just wanted to finish my homework."
Dean ruffles his hair. "Then you need to work on your time management skills, Sammy. Now come on, if Dad's gotta honk the horn we're both dead meat."
They barely make it into the forest before the moon's rising over the treetops. The change comes quickly, easily now to both him and Dean, and they run a winding path through the frost-dusted underbrush, a respectful half-pace behind Dad. They pause at a small stream to drink, and Dean whines, fidgeting. Dad barks twice, their signal that it's okay for them to take off by themselves for a bit.
Dean heads upstream, Dad for the hills. Sam trots along a worn path choked with wild carrot and thorny blackberry bushes. This poor imitation of a pack is more like a family than they've been able to be in their human skin for years, and Sam knows that that's why Dean likes being in his fur so much, why he tracks the lunar cycle so closely.
But it's the escape of it that Sam loves, the freedom of running fast and wild, out from under Dad's thumb and Dean's watchful eye. Privacy, secrets are luxuries that life on the road doesn't really afford, but a little thrill shivers through him at the thought of the college brochures stuffed in the bottom of his knapsack. He picks up his pace, howling softly as he breaks into a full, pounding run.
*
At first Dad wrote it off as adolescent angst bullshit, and did his best to keep his anger in check. But Sam seemed to grow into his attitude instead of out of it, and Dad's patience--and Dean's--wore thin. More often than not he finds himself sitting back and watching Sam and Dad circle each other, smelling iron on the air and waiting for the moment he'll have to jump in and break them apart.
The last time he does it is a Tuesday in August, in a motel with green walls and greyed curtains. Dean drives Sam to the 6:40 bus himself, hurt and angry that Sam's leaving, but scared more than anything else. A lone wolf is easily a dead wolf, and they have no contacts near Palo Alto, no one to make sure Sam is safe. Sam, he thinks, probably did that on purpose.
At the bus station, he grabs Sam by the collar as he's about to board the bus, drags him out of earshot of the other passengers and crowds him against the wall of the depot. "You be careful," Dean growls, his lip trembling into a curl. "You hear me?"
Sam smacks his hand away. "I hear you. Let me go."
Sam pushes past him and Dean stalks back to the car, peeling out of the parking lot before Sam's bus even pulls away.
*
Dad's gone when Dean gets back to the trailer, stays gone for two days while Dean tries to keep himself busy--washing and cleaning out the car, doing eight hundred miles' worth of laundry, looking for leads. They're between hunts, between moons, and he's restless, edgy. Lonely, without Sam. At night he takes to the trees, just for the comfort of being in his fur, running just for the feel of the earth under his paws. He tries to sniff out Dad, but wherever he is, it's too far for Dean to track him.
He comes back on the third day with mud in his hair, streaking his hands, but he looks calmer than the last time Dean saw him (teeth bared, his hands fisted in the front of Sam's shirt), his shoulders relaxed a little.
"You all right?" Dean asks, forcing a nonchalance he doesn't feel. He's angry at being left with no word, no trace, nothing but his own faith that Dad would come back.
"M'okay." Dad sits at the small table and tugs at the laces of his boots. "Just needed to get out of here for a while, clear my head."
Dean scratches a hand through his hair. The anger's already fading, settling into relief. He sighs. "There's pizza if you're hungry. And coffee."
"Nah, I'm gonna shower. Sleep a while if I can. I haven't, the last few days." Dad stands, tosses his jacket onto the bed and grabs a freshly-folded shirt from his bag.
"Sammy's a smart kid, Dad." He feels torn, pulled between obeying Dad and defending Sam, still and always trying to smooth things over; it's a familiar tug-of-war. "He's gonna be fine," Dean says, and Dad nods, turns away.
*
Sam always thinks of Dean's scent as green, somehow, peppery and mossy and a little sweet; Dad's is richer, more brown--damp, salted earth and the sharp tang of leather.
He asked once what his own scent was. Mid-summer in Alabama and all they could do was sprawl under the fan, praying that the rain pounding against the windows would cool things down even a little, just enough for them to breathe without feeling like they were drowning.
Sam turned and elbowed Dean in the ribs. "What do I smell like?"
Dean didn't even open his eyes. "One of those blue things they put in urinals."
"Fuck you, I'm serious."
Dean smiled, halfway and a little crooked, and leaned up on his elbow to snuffle Sam's neck, behind his ear. He bit at Sam's throat, teeth closing gently over the jugular. Sam huffed out a shaky laugh and pushed at Dean's stomach, his palm skidding over smooth, hot skin where Dean's shirt was rucked up.
"Ozone," Dean said. "Like right before a big storm, you know?"
"Yeah." Sam nodded, swallowed. He could still feel Dean's breath on his neck, where Dean's spit was cooling, and he curled his hand in Dean's shirt, closed his eyes and tugged.
Their mouths met clumsily, teeth clicking, before Dean's tongue slicked into his mouth and Dean's thigh pressed between his, pinning him to the mattress. And Sam might've been the one to initiate, but it was Dean who went in for the kill, his hands rough but not ungentle, and it was Dean who licked him clean, after.
Sometimes when Sam's crossing the Quad he thinks he catches Dean's scent, or Dad's, sometimes both. He pauses, nostrils flaring, but it's gone as quickly as he thinks it's there, and he shakes his head, laughing under his breath. He keeps walking.
He wonders, though, if Dean misses him when it rains.
*
Athens is a college town, full of college bars. Easy prey, especially the blondes with big tits and bigger smiles, buzzed on nickel beer and looking for something a little more exciting than Johnny Frat Boy and a squeaky dorm bed.
Cassie's nothing like what he was looking for, and the last thing he expected to find.
She sucks him off in the front seat of his car the night they meet, parked behind her apartment like teenagers out past curfew; she doesn't invite him in, says her roommate's a little funny about strange men coming in at odd hours, imagine that. She doesn't kiss him goodnight, either, just tongues his ear and tells him that her roommate's leaving for the weekend the following afternoon, that he should pick her up at eight.
It's dangerous, and Dad will be pissed when he finds out, but Dean thinks he can handle it. He thinks he can keep their secrets.
The first time they fuck he's reckless, rougher with her than he means to be, but the smell of her--red, like cinnamon and spicy musk--makes him lose track of himself. She meets him bite for bite, scratch for scratch, urging him on with low, throaty moans and sharp little cries. Collapsed against his chest after, she laughs, "I think you growled at me," and he buries his face in her hair and does it again.
He tries to be more careful after that, but once, too close to the full moon and too damn much off his guard, the shudder up his spine when he comes is more than it should be. His vision kaleidoscopes, sharpens, and he squeezes his eyes closed, hoping she didn't see. But the next morning as they're leaving her apartment, she pushes his sunglasses up onto his forehead and thumbs the corners of his eyes, and something in her face, in the way she looks at him, makes his stomach flip the wrong way.
It's almost a relief when Dad calls. Dean'll tell Cassie about the ghosts and the demons, and it's only lying by omission, really. He knows she won't believe him, and he knows she'll walk away. But at least then he won't have to break her heart, only nurse his own.
*
Dad's quieter after Sam leaves, angrier at the absence of him than he ever was at his presence. Dean tries to be obedient enough for two sons, to fill the void that Sam left behind, but it only makes them both feel it more. He becomes a stronger fighter, a better hunter, working twice as hard for what had always come to Sam twice as easy. But in the end, Dad leaves anyway.
"We can cover more ground if we separate," Dad says, throwing his bag into the cab of the truck. "I trust you on your own."
Dean nods, doesn't think about what it means that Dad's still so worried about Sam being alone, but not him. He knows he should be proud, pleased that he's earned this chance to prove himself--and he is--but the lick of heat in his belly feels more like jealousy than anything.
"Yes, sir."
"You got those leads I gave you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good boy." Dad pulls him into a brief, one-armed hug, and Dean feels small, unsure, afraid for the first time in a long time. But he squares his shoulders when they part, stands tall, and Dad's smile is small but real. "Call me when it's done, or if you run into trouble. We'll meet up later."
Dean nods again and Dad pats his cheek lightly, squeezes his shoulder before climbing into the truck. It starts with a roar, and Dean leans against the Impala, watches Dad's tail lights round a corner and disappear. He closes his eyes, and breathes until Dad's scent is faint, fainter, then gone.
*
Sam never wanted the life his mother's death had thrown them all into, the spirits and monsters and things that went bump in the night, but he never wanted to not be a wolf until he met Jess.
She sat two rows in front of him in art history, always the same seat by the window, and on sunny days her hair caught and reflected the light, shining at the corner of his vision when she flicked it over her shoulder. She smelled golden, like warm skin and honey, and her eyes crinkled delicately at the corners when she smiled. She had the reddest, roundest mouth Sam had ever seen.
She is every kind of bad idea and he knows it, knows even as he asks her out for coffee, as one date becomes two becomes three, as he makes excuses for disappearing in the night; as she presses the key to her apartment into his hand and helps him pack up his dorm room.
The night he moves in they abandon unpacking after only an hour, sprawling on the threadbare sofa with pizza and a Law & Order marathon, Jess between Sam's knees with her head tipped back against his shoulder. He pushes her hair off her neck and nuzzles her throat, and she mmms against his cheek, squirms and shifts around until she's straddling him.
Her hands are cool and damp from her beer bottle when she cups his face, her eyes shining in the semi-dark. "Are you happy?" she asks.
He knew from the start that it was pointless to let himself love her when she could never know all the things he is. But from the first time she kissed him, tasting like spearmint gum and sweet tea, he knew that it was just as pointless to fight it. After a lifetime of fighting, it felt too good to give in.
He nods, sliding his hands up her back to pull her into a kiss. It still feels good. "Yeah."
*
Dean remembers this scenario too well: the smell of sulfur and plumes of acrid smoke, the buzz and chatter of the crowd, the deafening blast of the hoses and the rumble of gurney wheels on cement. There won't be much left of her for them to wheel out. He doesn't remember that, but he knows it, absolutely.
For Dean there's only ever been this one life--hunter, civilian, werewolf, human; it's all just him, not quite seamless but never as messy as Sam had to go and make it for himself, either. Sam had spent so much of his life building walls, making sure one thing never spilled over into the others, and now the life he'd so carefully constructed was gone, and he was right back where he started.
And Dean may have wanted Sam back with him, working and hunting together like they’ve been these last few days, but not like this. It was supposed to be a choice, but no one chooses this life, and Dean knows that. They get pushed and pulled and dragged into it through death and destruction, and Sam had made his decision long before he ever left for Stanford.
The lights from the police cars flash red, then blue, across Sam's face; anger and sadness, and for the shadowed half-second between the two, guilty relief. Dean looks away, wishing he didn't know the feeling, and that he was the kind of brother who could talk about it, tell Sam that it's okay, that he understands.
*
They stop for the night just over the Colorado border, far enough off the main highway that the two-lane road is edged with forest. Dean's half-asleep behind the wheel and Sam's in no condition to drive, hasn't been since the night of the fire. It's been a long, mostly silent week, Sam too much in his own head and too wrapped up in his own grief to do much talking, and Dean's never been real good at this kind of thing, anyway.
Sam follows Dean silently to the room, sets his bag on the bed nearest the door and sits on the edge of the mattress, chewing his nails. His eyes are wet again, bright and blank as he stares past Dean's head at the wall behind it. Dean rubs a hand over the back of his neck, still not knowing what to say, or if he should say anything at all. He's about to suggest grabbing something to eat when Sam pushes to his feet, rubs his palms over his face.
"I'll be back later," he says, and Dean nods as the door slams.
He goes to the window and parts the curtain an inch, but it's a new moon, no light to see Sam's silhouette change in the shadow of the trees. He narrows his eyes, watches the treetops sway in the wind until he can't feel Sam's tread in his bones anymore, and as he lets the curtain fall closed a howl rises through the trees, broken and pained. Dean shivers away a memory of that same sound from Dad's throat and crawls into bed, falling asleep on top of the blankets.
He comes awake to the smell of water and mud, of ozone, to Sam slipping warm and damp into his bed. Dean turns to curl into him, and Sam elbows him off, pushing Dean onto his back, too much white showing in his eyes. Dean bares his throat and his belly--only, and ever, for Sam--and lets Sam bite and bruise, lets him be rough with his teeth and his hands. Sam clutches at Dean's hips, comes with a wordless, anguished cry against Dean's shoulder, and Dean understands that Sam needs this; he just never realized that he does, too.
*
The first full moon after Jess' death they're still in Lake Manitoc, working a case, and as the sun slips lower in the sky Dean perches on the edge of his bed, his hands clasped around a cup of coffee. Sam's pacing the length of the small room, all clenching jaw and heavy footfalls. Dean watches him warily.
"You should try to sleep a little before the moon's up," he says. "There's all those mountains around the lake, I thought we could run for a while."
"I'm not going."
"What, so you're gonna lock yourself in the bathroom and try not to claw through the door?" Sam shrugs and Dean sets his cup on the nightstand before pushing to his feet. "Oh, yeah, that's a brilliant idea."
Sam stops pacing, leans against the little table with his arms crossed over his chest. "I don't want to."
"Don't be such a brat," Dean snaps. "When was the last time we went running together?" Sam shrugs again, shakes off Dean's hand when it comes to rest on his shoulder. "C'mon, it'll be like old times." He curls his hand in the front of Sam's shirt, but he's grinning when he says, "I'll drag you out by the scruff if I have to, kiddo, you know I will."
Sam laughs after a beat, shoving Dean away. "I'm bigger than you, you know."
"Size ain't got nothing to do with it. I'm still your big brother."
"Fine, I'll go," Sam huffs, rolling his eyes.
Dean pats Sam's chest. "Atta boy."
When the sky gets dark they drive out past the lake, down bumpy back roads choked with weeds. They strip out of their clothes, hide the car keys, and Sam hunches low, crouched like a runner as the moon breaks over the trees. The curve of his back gleams silver before it ripples into fur.
They run through the trees, sniffing out the small river that cuts down the mountain. Sam sticks close to Dean's side until they reach the cover of the forest, but once under the trees he takes off, his longer legs carrying him farther, faster. He barks playfully as he doubles back to nip at Dean's tail.
Fucker, Dean thinks affectionately, and his teeth snap on air as Sam dashes off again.
*
"Dean?"
It's hours later, long after they've come out of their fur and driven back to the motel. The sky's beginning to brighten, dull light creeping through the blinds and up the ugly wallpaper, and Dean's fast asleep. He's always been able to sleep anywhere, anytime, and he always passes right out after a good run.
"Dean, you awake?"
The space between the beds is small enough that Sam can reach across, press his fingers into Dean's arm. Dean grunts, turns his head away.
"No. Quit poking me," he grumbles, shifting out of Sam's reach.
"I can't sleep," Sam whispers. He's never been a good sleeper, and hasn't slept more than an hour or two at a time since Jess died. He's exhausted, running on caffeine fumes and a lingering fear of what he might dream if he closes his eyes.
The mattress creaks, papery sheets rustling when Dean rolls onto his side, blinking slowly in the half-light. "Tell me something I don't know." Sam looks away, at the peeling edge of the wallpaper, and Dean sighs, throws back the blankets. "C'mon. And hurry up. You interrupted a good dream, maybe I can pick it up again."
"You know that never works," Sam says, the worn carpet rough beneath his bare feet, Dean's sheets skin-warm when he slips between them. "And if you're halfway to a wet dream I'd rather not be in your bed when you get the rest of the way there."
"Yeah, yeah." Dean's breathing is already slower, deeper; he's almost asleep again, if he was ever more than half-awake to begin with. "At least try to sleep, Sam. Please?"
It's been a long time since Sam was smaller than Dean, but he feels small now; scared, and it's been a long time since that, too. Dean curls along his back, all solid muscle and hot skin, throws a heavy arm over Sam's stomach.
"We're gonna find Dad, right? We're gonna find him and the thing that killed Jess, and then--" He doesn't know what happens then. After.
"One thing at a time, man." Dean's voice is sleep-rough, raspy. His breath tickles the hairs at the back of Sam's neck, making them stand on end. "We'll find Dad, I promise. We'll finish up this job and we'll find Dad, and then... then we'll just go from there, okay?"
Sam nods, biting his lip, and Dean presses up closer behind him, knees tucked behind Sam's like when they were pups. Sam takes a slow, shaky breath, and Dean smells of pine, of soil, of moss and birch and wet grass. He turns halfway, blind and desperate for something to ease the anxious twist in his belly, and finds Dean's waiting mouth, peppery and sweet. Finds Dean waiting, always.
When they leave two days later, a plate of sandwiches on the seat between them and two shrinking, waving figures in the rearview, they head west, following the moon across the sky.