A Dog's Tale Part Two
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There's a decent sized swimming pool on the grounds, with a small building apparently used as a changing room beside it, and after they eat, Raymond invites them to go swimming, telling them there are swimming trunks they can use in the pool house. Apparently Raymond entertains a lot of guys who don't bring their own swimming gear, because there are quite a few pairs of trunks to choose from. Dean goes straight for a pair so tight that they look more like boxer briefs than swimwear, and hide a great deal less than your average pair of underwear, too, stripping quickly and pulling them on, and straight probably wasn't the best word for this, because if swim trunks could have an orientation, then these are gay. Dean makes them more gay by posing and posturing absurdly once he gets them on. The dogs look on patiently while Sam changes into a much more modest pair of trunks, then follow them back out to the pool.
Sam fully expects Dean to march out to the high dive and do some crazy attention grabbing stunt while he quietly slips into the water, but instead Dean follows him to the shallow end, and they ease into the water together.
They wade out to the rope that marks the drop off into deep water, and Dean gives him a nod as they dive under the rope and come up on the slope on the other side. Sam flings his hair out of his eyes and returns Dean's wet smile. He has to force himself to look away from the fat, glistening drops of water beading up on the ends of Dean's hair. A little girl, wearing the kind of tiny bikini that Sam always thinks looks ridiculous on a child, is sitting on the edge of the pool near them, her feet dangling in the water. Dean turns his smile to her, and she gives him a big gap toothed grin back. "Hi," she says expansively. She leans forward and slips into the water, bobbing up beside them and grabbing onto Dean's shoulders. "I saw you before."
"Yeah?" Dean says.
"At Mr. Parker's," she says. "You took Bella away." She pushes off from him, but stays close, treading water. "You're trying to find Mark."
"You know Mark?" Sam asks.
"He's my friend," the girl says. "I told him not to go after the swamp monster, but he didn't listen. Are you going to rescue him?" She snatches up a ball floating by and lobs it to Dean, but he seems lost in thought, and the ball bounces off him unnoticed. The little girl looks so disappointed that Sam swims over to retrieve it and toss it back to her. She squeals with delight as she leaps to catch it, but when she throws it to Dean, he misses it again. "What's the matter with him?" she asks Sam, but Sam doesn't have an answer. Dean keeps bumping into him, swimming too close, which is another oddity. It makes him realize how careful Dean usually is not to touch, or even brush against him, something he hadn't been consciously aware of. Dean doesn't seem to be doing it on purpose, though being Dean, it's hard to be sure. It seems more as if he's just forgotten his own obsession with personal space.
"What else do you know about this?" Dean asks.
The little girl isn't cowed by Dean's charming lack of child skills, and the smile she gives him is downright condescending. "I know a lot of things," she says, wrapping her small hands across the top of his wrists and tugging so that Dean drifts toward her. They stare at each other briefly before the girl pushes away from Dean, arching backward with her whole body going stiff as she clutches her head in a way that is all too familiar to Sam. He grabs onto her before she can slip under the water and holds her up until it passes.
"What did you see?" he asks.
The little girl's eyes widen. "How did you know?" she asks.
"He's a fellow freak," Dean says.
The little girl frowns sternly at Dean, still holding onto Sam. "I'm not a freak," she says. "Uncle Raymond says I'm special. Awesome special, not freaky special, because I know things. I can help you look for Mark."
"Just tell us what you saw," Dean demands.
"I won't," she says. She slips out of Sam's arms and dives under, emerging at the side of the pool and pulling herself out of the water while Sam glares at Dean, who always thinks he knows how to handle kids. They pursue her around the side of the house, but they're hampered by not wanting anyone to notice they're chasing a little girl in a bikini, and she loses them around behind the house. The dogs are sticking close, but thankfully they haven't tried to join the chase, seeming content just to follow along. It isn't worth it to scare her with the whole pack at her heels, at least not in front of all the other guests.
It's after they've changed out of their wet suits and are leaving the pool house that the next strange thing happens. Sam hears a rustling noise and turns around the corner of the building to see what it is, almost stepping on a large dog lying on the ground, who rears up with a snarl and tries to take a chunk out of his arm. His momentum would have carried him right into the dog's teeth, except for Bella, who throws her body in front of him with a roar of rage that sets the other dog back on his hind legs in his hurry to get away. Bella lands square on her four stocky legs and stands bristling as Sam half falls against her. Sam backs up and twists his head around to see what Dean is doing, and he is doing... well, nothing. He's just standing there like Sam almost getting mauled by a vicious dog is nothing to him. "Uh, a little help," Sam says, not angrily, because he's more puzzled than anything else.
Dean gives a little shrug and a weak smile. "Bella's right there, man. She not gonna let anything bad happen to you."
Dean steps up then, and slips an arm around him again, which feels deliberate, Dean jerking his cord, trying to see how far Sam will let him go. He's still determined not to let Dean win, so he pulls away slightly and then slides his hand down and grabs onto Dean's hand before Dean has time to see what he intends. Sam gives him a smirk as he squeezes his hand, but Dean can never let Sam embarrass him, or at least let Sam see that he's embarrassed. Dean squeezes his hand back, giving him a fake smile and swinging their arms as they walk. So they rejoin the picnic, holding hands for all the world to see, and Sam tries not to think about how happy that makes him feel, as it's just going to hurt more when the mockery starts.
They ask around after Raymond's niece, whose name they are told is Wanda, but nobody seems to know where she has gone. Apparently she wanders off on her own a lot.
Dean seems inclined to hang around at this picnic for a couple of hours, ostensibly looking for Wanda but really just making small talk, and playing out the farce of couplehood, so that by the time they leave, Sam has fallen into a mood where he can almost make himself believe they are a couple, except for the way that is a crazy dangerous state to be in. Dean holds his hand all the way back to the car, and then, still in sight of some of the other guests, he follows Sam right around to the passenger side of the car and presses him up against it before he can open his door.
Sam can tell Dean is going to kiss him, but he has no idea why, whether it is some elaborate undercover kind of thing, racking up gay cred for some unknown reason which Dean hasn't bothered to explain. So it's important that Sam not be taken in by Dean's mouth pressing the taste of fresh squeezed lemonade gently but insistently to his, his lips sliding sensuously into place as if they were made to fit into Sam's mouth, which falls open helplessly. Sam is immediately, blindingly aroused, and it takes every ounce of his self control not to press his erection into Dean's hip, which is temptingly close, almost touching him. He can't help pushing into the kiss just for a minute, and Dean goes shockingly soft and pliant against him, letting his own mouth fall open under the pressure of Sam's lips, welcoming him in.
Things have clearly moved into the realm of something bizarre, but it still takes Sam a while to pull away from the kiss. Dean looks wild, and terrified, and something else Sam can't quite get, but he doesn't look possessed or evil, which is always a plus. "Dean," he says helplessly. Bella is pressed up against his leg staring at Dean and growling softly.
Dean opens his mouth as if to speak, but then closes it again without saying anything. Sam stops him with a hand on his arm when he tries to move away. Dean drops his gaze and won't meet Sam's eye as the silence stretches out between them.
"Something's wrong," Sam finally says, even though he doesn't want to, doesn't want to say it, doesn't want it to be true.
Dean breaks his heart then, standing so close, his hand still wrapped up in Sam's, his lips wet and inviting as he holds Sam's gaze and says, "...yeah."
Sam puts his free hand to his mouth and rubs it gently, because the feeling of that kiss is already fading, and there isn't ever going to be another one. "Tell me," he says.
Dean lifts his own free hand, as if to mimic Sam's gesture but instead he holds it out to Sam. "Maybe it has something to do with this?" he says tentatively, and Sam looks at the bracelet, the one that has been visible on Dean's arm all day. He hasn't noticed Dean eating more than usual. If anything, it seems to him Dean has been eating a lot less than normal, and yet the bracelet, which swung loose on his wrist the last time Sam had noticed it, is tight, so tight it's almost digging into the skin of his wrist.
"What the hell?" he says. He finally lets go of Dean's other hand in order to grab his wrist and examine the bracelet more closely. It isn't some cheap shiny bauble Dean lifted from Claire's. It's old, not shiny at all, and there are tiny symbols, which look like runes, carved into it that mean magic, black magic. "Jesus, Dean," he says. "Take it off. Now."
Dean gives him a sickly smile. "Um, it won't come off." He twirls his wrist, but the bracelet is so tight it clings to him, not moving at all. "I've been trying, but it's stuck on pretty good."
Dean seems content to stand there, blinking indecisively while Sam tries to figure out what to do. "Okay," he finally says. "We need to stay focused on the case for now, get out and see if we can find any sign of Mark. Meanwhile I'll try to figure out how we're going to get this thing off you." Dean nods agreeably, too agreeably, Sam realizes, and now it's all starting to click, Dean's weird agreeableness. It's like he can't make any decisions. "Let's go," Sam says, and Dean follows him, hands over the keys at a gesture and lets Sam drive again.
When they get back to the clearing, Dean continues to follow Sam's lead. It's what Sam has been wanting for a long time, Dean deferring to him, accepting his right to make some of the decisions, but it's not at all the way he'd imagined it. The dogs follow meekly behind them, perfectly useless. Sam is about to give up when he sees Wanda, the little girl from the picnic, standing about ten feet away, stretching an arm out toward them beseechingly. She opens her mouth and seems to speak, but there is no sound. A sudden unnatural wind blows up around them, and the dogs notice her, ephemeral though she appears, and rush ahead barking, but she fades away before they can get to her. Not surprisingly, she leaves behind no footprints or any other sign of physical presence. They waste a lot of daylight searching, but see no other sign of anything unusual.
Three hours later, Dean is lying, pale and clearly exhausted, on the motel bed, and Sam has tried everything short of shooting the bracelet off of him, which Dean wouldn't let him do, even, as Dean put it, if he were the crack shot he thinks he is. The thing appears to be sapping Dean's energy from him, judging by the way he seems content to lie listlessly on the bed while Sam figures out what to do next. Sam is appalled at how long it took him to confront Dean, when he's sensed something was wrong almost from the moment Dean put the damn bracelet on.
Dean confesses everything after Sam tries to exorcise the bracelet off with a spell Bobby dug up and read to him over the phone, which works no better than anything else he's tried.
"I took it off one of those witches from the last case," he says. He winces when Sam jerks on the bracelet with barely suppressed rage.
"What the hell, Dean?"
"She was using it to fight. It seemed, like, cool."
Sam would love to strangle Dean with the bracelet on hearing this, if he could only get it off his wrist. As it is, he gives the thing a vicious twist, and Dean yelps. He sits back and runs his hands over his face in defeat. Just once, he would like to be able to get Dean out of trouble, but it never works for him. The few times it seemed that he was going to finally be the rescuer instead of the rescued have always turned grim reaper sour-ish in the end. "Using it to fight, how exactly?" he asks. He can tell Dean doesn't want to answer him by the way he fidgets with the bracelet, which is so tight he can't slide it around at all, and he tries to intimidate him with a glare. "Now is so not the time to hold anything back, Dean."
"Okay," Dean says. There's a little bit of Dean's normal aggravation in the answer, but not enough to stop Sam's heart from pounding in terror for him. "But you're not going to like it."
"Yeah, and I like all the rest of this so much," Sam spits out. "Especially the part where you are a fucking idiot."
Dean winces at his contemptuous tone, which doesn't make Sam feel the least bit guilty. "She had these dogs," Dean says, his voice getting softer with every word. Sam can feel his face filling with the blood of a level of rage that only Dean ever excites. "They were fighting for her, like, she could control them. It was awesome," he trails off sheepishly, his gaze turning to the dogs, who are crowded around their feet.
Sam looks at them, too, putting it all together, Quark and Pel curled up against his leg affectionately, Jeb chewing a bone he'd gotten at the picnic, Bella lying off to the side, watching over them all protectively. "You're not controlling them, Dean," he says slowly.
"I'm not?" Dean asks. At least he finally looks like he's taking this seriously.
Sam shakes his head. He has a sudden need for a drink, and he reaches under Dean's bed to pull out the bottle of whiskey Dean thinks is hidden from him. He takes a drink straight from the bottle, letting it burn down his throat as if it might tamp down the words he doesn't want to say. Dean tries to reach for the bottle but he pulls it back out of reach, staring at Dean the whole time. "Don't you get it, Dean?" he asks. "They're becoming you."
Dean scowls. "What are you smoking, Sam?" He gives a weak laugh, but Sam can see that he knows it's true.
"They're taking parts of you," he says.
Dean pulls himself upright with an obvious effort. "You don't know that," he says as Sam takes another drink. He pulls out the paper towels Sam had wrapped around his wrist when he was trying to saw off the bracelet, wads them up and tosses them toward the waste basket. They fall far short, and he stares at them in dismay. "Oh, fuck," he says.
It makes Sam blindingly angry to hear that so familiar note of resignation in Dean's voice. "Get up," he growls, hauling Dean to his feet. "We need to go back and search the house where you got the bracelet."
"Sam," Dean says. "The witch I took it from didn't live there. There isn't gonna be anything there." Dean's phone goes off, and he snatches at it with more energy than he's shown since they left the picnic, no doubt spurred on by a desire to avoid any further discussion. He turns away from Sam, listening intently for a minute and then speaking so softly Sam can't make it out. He get up as he disconnects. "That was Raymond," he explains. "No one has seen Wanda since we left the picnic, and he just found a note in her room saying she was going out to find Mark. He's afraid whatever took Mark may have gotten her, too."
"We need to do something about the bracelet before you'll be in any shape to help anyone else, Dean," Sam says, but he doesn't really mean it. If Dean was his normal self he would never agree to a delay to deal with this that could result in losing another kid. They have to try to save Wanda. "We should leave the dogs here," he says. "They might be scaring the monster into hiding."
Dean grimaces. "Good thinking," he says. "Except I don't think I can go without them."
"Why not?"
"I don't know." Dean looks like the glare Sam is giving him is crushing him. "It's hard to explain," he says. "It kind of feels funny when they get too far away. And it's been getting worse."
Sam slams his fist down on the table by the bed hard enough to make Dean flinch. "Why would you not tell me that was happening?"
"I'm telling you, Sam, it's not like I've ever been taken over by a pack of dogs before. It's kind of a new experience."
"Fine," Sam says. "We'll bring the dogs along. We can just leave them in the car."
Dean follows him out to the car. "They don't need to be locked up," he says. "They stay wherever I want them to stay."
"We're leaving them in the car while we look for Wanda," he says, and Dean doesn't argue anymore, which right there is proof that Dean is not in his right mind.
When they get back to the clearing, Dean wants to leave the windows all the way down. "They can't take this heat, Sam. They can hardly breathe." Dean himself looks short of breath, reminding Sam that the dogs' comfort and safety is as important as Dean's as long as they are linked by the bracelet.
Sam finally settles for tying the dogs to a tree near the car. Dean had the foresight to bring their water bowl along, and he empties a bottle of water into it and sets it down for them. It's come on full dark now, and they have to take flashlights out of the trunk before heading in through the stand of trees that borders the clearing. Jeb is quiet, no doubt sulking because they wouldn't let him bring his toy, and the pugs curl up together and fall to instant snoring, but Bella strains at the end of the rope with a soft whine of protest at being left behind. When Sam looks to make sure she is securely tied, her face is scrunched up in a worried expression and her eyes for just a moment look shockingly green in the beam of the flashlight, but when he looks again they are brown, and he isn't sure if his imagination is playing tricks on him.
Dean keeps stumbling, even though the ground is perfectly level, and Sam tries to persuade him to sit down and wait while Sam searches alone, but Dean won't listen, even though he is just slowing Sam down. He doesn't even bother wasting time trying to reason with Dean about maybe putting aside the search in favor of worrying about his own problem. Finally he falls to his knees, reaching out an arm for Sam to help him back up, but Sam steps back away from him. "You're in no shape to help fight anything, Dean," he says. "I can go faster on my own. Let me take care of this, and then I'll get you to Bobby. He's bound to have some ideas how to deal with this." Dean slumps down prone, which Sam figures is as close to agreement as he's going to get, and he goes on alone, trying to hurry in the dark.
The ground is damp and muddy. The whole area reeks of something unwholesome and rotting, as if something has died here and sunk into the ground which seems to clutch at his shoes as he walks, slowing him down when he needs to hurry, find the kids and get back to Dean. He hasn't gone very far when he sees Wanda, kneeling over something on the ground, but by the time he gets to her she has vanished again. The bundle of clothes on the ground turns out to be a sleepy, disoriented but unharmed Mark, who tells him the swamp monster has awesome toys, and he wanted to stay and play longer, but Wanda made him come home.
Sam shines the light around, but there is no sign of the swamp monster. Despite the setting sun, it is still hot and muggy, and the only thing the flashlight picks up are an occasional swarm of gnatlike insects."Wanda?" he yells. He desperately wants to check on Dean, but Dean will just tell him to find the girl. He picks up the boy and continues on, yelling for Wanda every few minutes.
He hears a rustling noise close by and spins to his right. There's a flash of something luminous, and a low, inhuman moaning sound, but when he awkwardly raises the flashlight it vanishes. Everything is quiet again. He puts the boy down, motioning him to stay close, which frees up his arms. They walk in circles, gradually widening the diameter. There's a moaning sound that starts like wind through old trees, but increases and deepens into a threatening growl. He keeps spinning and flashing the light around, but he never catches clear sight of the monster, who seems to be following him without trying to close in.
He finally stops and stands silently, trying to figure out where the sound is coming from, but it seems to surround him. A sudden unnatural breeze blows up, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He turns deliberately, keeping the flashlight low. There's a dark, hulking, man shaped figure standing about ten feet behind him, long thick arms hanging down gorilla like, still emitting a low growling moan that goes on and on, as if the creature has no need to breathe. Sam raises the flashlight slowly and trains it on the creature.
It's the swamp monster, arms raised threateningly, and when the light hits him he roars, but he doesn't approach. He's big and hairy, but his fur is green, and he's not really all that scary looking. In fact he looks a bit ridiculous. When Sam doesn't react to his roaring he quiets down and drops his hairy green arms, looking sheepish.
Sam lifts his gun in warning. "Don't shoot my friend, " Mark says.
"Where's Wanda?" Sam asks the general air. The swamp monster wrinkles his brow in thought, but he doesn't say anything, and then Wanda appears beside him, looking outraged.
"He wasn't trying to hurt anyone," she says.
"He's a monster," Sam points out in his most reasonable tone.
"He just got lonely and wanted somebody to play with."
"He's a monster," Sam repeats, a little more forcefully.
"He promises not to bother anybody if I just come and play with him sometimes," Wanda says.
"Sorry, Wanda," Sam says, raising his gun.
"He can help Dean," Wanda says. She smiles just like a regular prepubescent little girl.
Sam hadn't really wanted to shoot the furry green Jim Hensen knock off monster thing, anyway. "How?" he asks, because he isn't just going to take her word for it. This thing is going down unless he's given some substantial proof that it can help Dean. He's not that easy to trick.
"Better hurry," Wanda says. "Dean isn't going to last much longer."
Sam gives up trying to pretend there's any choice here, and drops his arm. "Come on," Wanda says. The swamp monster can run pretty fast on his thick stubby legs, but Sam still makes it back to Dean first. He's lying where Sam left him, and Sam slides to a stop on his knees, grabbing his wrist to check for a pulse, which he can just barely detect. He shakes Dean's limp arm uselessly. "Please," he says, as Wanda and the swamp monster catch up.
The swamp monster stops and tries to kneel down, almost falling over onto his side awkwardly, but Wanda catches hold of one green arm and helps lower him to his knees carefully. She stares into his eyes intently for a moment, apparently communicating with him somehow. "Okay," she says. "There's a spell we can use. But we all have to help." She holds a hand out to Sam and he takes it, but when the swamp thing holds out a hairy paw he balks. At that point Mark catches up to them-Sam had forgotten all about him- but he isn't invited to help with the spell.
Wanda rolls her eyes at Sam. "Well, if you don't want to help..." she says, and Sam gives in and takes the monster's paw. It feels moist and sticky, and Sam kind of feels like throwing up, but he usually feels like throwing up when Dean gets hurt, so he isn't going to let a little swamp yuck push him over the edge.
They form a little circle around Dean, and Sam tries to concentrate, even though he doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Dean healthy and happy. He pictures him tossing Jeb's toy around, and playing tug of war with Bella. He pictures him cuddling the little pugs.
"These ties that bind around and round," Wanda intones dramatically. She shrugs when he opens one eye. "Let them go into the ground." She glares at him until he closes both eyes again.
"Now I will count, and when I reach three. All that are bound shall be set free."
She falls silent, and when Sam opens his eyes she has hers squeezed tightly shut.
"One," she says. Sam glances at Dean but there is no change.
"Two." Still no change, and Sam closes his eyes just in case it will help.
"Three." Wanda lets loose a blood curdling scream and falls onto Dean. It takes a few seconds for Sam to work out that she is wrestling Dean for control of the shotgun. The swamp monster is screaming, big paws covering up his ridiculous face as Dean tries to hold Wanda off without hurting her so he can shoot it.
"Dean, stop," Sam says, and Dean, who is apparently back to normal, throws him an incredulous look and doesn't listen. Sam joins Wanda in grappling for the shotgun. "Would you listen a second? This thing just saved your life."
"Huh," Dean says, trying to jerk the shotgun out of Sam's grasp. "Peachy, now we can shoot it."
"Dean," Sam yells. It's amazing how fast he has passed through relief that Dean seems to be himself again and landed right back at exasperated. "It's harmless." He points to where Mark is standing watching them. "It hasn't hurt anyone."
Dean lets his mouth drop open in disbelief, but he lets Sam take the shotgun. The swamp monster's yells have turned into whimpers, and he peeks out through his hairy hands at them.
"See," Sam says. "Harmless." Wanda picks up the bracelet, which is lying, clasp open, on the ground, and gives it to the swamp monster, who takes it with a shy smile.
Dean's eyes follow the bracelet. The swamp monster tries to wrap it around his own wrist, but it is much too small to fit. Dean clears his throat. "Uh, thanks there, buddy," he says reluctantly.
The swamp monster turns a darker shade of green and nods, but he doesn't speak. He shuffles his hairy green feet in the mud. They head back to the car to return the kids to their families, leaving the monster waving sadly after them. Dean finally seems to get it. "How do you feel?" Sam asks.
"I'm fine," Dean says in his not fine at all voice.
"The dogs?"
Dean waves a hand in front of his face dismissively. "They're gone," he says. "Not in my head anymore. Can't feel 'em at all." He looks like he can't even be bothered trying to fake feeling happy about it. But then his expression lightens. "Wait? We can keep 'em, right? As pets? Without the bracelet they should be regular old dogs again."
Sam feels he should give Dean a hard time just on principle, but he looks so happy about dragging a pack of dogs from town to town with him, that he wants to cave immediately. "They have to have leashes," he says.
"Sure, sure."
"And you have to take them to the vet and get them shots and stuff."
"Right." The spring is back in Dean's step, and his grin is more genuine than Sam has seen it in a long time.
"We have to stop somewhere long enough to enroll them in a training class and train them for real this time."
"Sounds good to me," Dean says. "We'll go down the road a bit so no one recognizes the pugs, and then find a class for them. Hey, maybe Bella can get some police dog training. Running down suspects for us." Dean's face lights up even more at this thought.
If the pugs lose a bit more weight, they would fit in a small backpack and could go along on jobs sometimes. They could be useful for getting into and out of small places. Even though he knows it's crazy, it still sounds kinda awesome. He smiles back at Dean and concedes. "It could work."
When they get back to the car the dogs are gone. The ropes Sam had secured them with have vanished, too. Sam might wonder if they were ever there at all, but then he sees the water dish Dean had left for them, tipped over upside down, and a confused bunch of doggy footprints in the mud formed by the spilled water. They follow the muddy prints, which quickly grow fainter, out to the road, but there is no further sign, no way to tell what direction they've gone in. Dean yells himself hoarse, but there is no response. Sam feels guilty for every time he ever yelled at them as he watches Dean's face get harder and sadder.
They stop to return the kids to their grateful families, keeping it short so they can get back to looking for the dogs. They retrace their steps, returning to every place they've been, and everywhere in between. They stop at Mr. Parker's house and ask if he's seen them. He hasn't, and he's outraged that they lost Bella, calling them damn fools who shouldn't be allowed to have a dog at all.
Dean gets sadder and sadder. They return to the hotel, and Sam calls the pound, leaving a request that they be contacted if any of the dogs turn up. Dean is all for packing up and moving on immediately, but Sam insists they wait around at least a couple of days. They've searched the same places two or three times over, and he's sick of looking, but there is still a chance that they will turn up at the pound.
Sam stretches out on his back on one of the beds and watches Dean fidget around, clipping his fingernails fussily and unnecessarily. "We could get a new dog," he suggests.
Dean glares at him. "No."
"Why not?"
Dean goes back to clipping his nails and the silence stretches resentfully between them. "Maybe I could get a new brother, too," Dean finally says.
"Okay, way to be childish," Sam snaps. "Why did you kiss me anyway?"
Dean jerks his head back as if he's been punched. Sam doesn't really expect an answer, but Dean says, "It's complicated" so softly Sam barely hears it.
Dean's on his feet before he finishes speaking but Sam is faster, and gets between Dean and the door. Dean doesn't try to push past him. "So explain it to me," Sam says.
Dean shakes his head. "I don't know," he says.
Sam can tell he's lying through his teeth. "What did the dogs have to do with you and me, Dean?" He casts back over what happened, trying to figure it out. The kiss was right after Bella saved him from the strange dog tied up near the pool, right after Dean had failed to protect him, and there's something to that, but he can't quite work it out. "What is it you're so determined to protect me from?" Dean jerks his head up, wide green eyes focusing on him, telling him he's struck a nerve, and he gets it now. He crowds Dean back into the corner of the room. "You have to protect me from everything I want from you?" He shakes his head at Dean. "You're really dumb sometimes, you know that?"
He can't quite read what's going through Dean's mind, but he's determined not to let this go. He's wild with the possibility that Dean want this, too, wants him, and he needs to make Dean understand that it's okay, that this won't hurt him, because if there's anything he knows about Dean, it's that he can't bear to see Sam hurt.
For just a moment when he kisses Dean it's everything he's wanted. Dean lets him in, and he sweeps his tongue possessively over Dean's. . But then Dean surges up, taking control of the kiss, biting and sucking at Sam's mouth as he grabs at Sam's arms and tries to turn him around against the bed. Sam resists, putting his own hands higher up on Dean's arms so that they end up rocking from side to side, wrestling for control. Sam can't quite get the leverage he needs, so he sweeps one of his longer legs around and takes Dean to the floor, pinning him there. Dean still won't give, but when Sam presses his full weight down on him he feels Dean's erection pressed between them, and he rocks his body roughly over it, making Dean gasp. "You're getting off on this," he says accusingly.
"Yeah, like you're not," Dean says. He squeezes his hand down between them and presses against Sam's cock.
"You don't have to protect me from this," Sam says.
"Yeah, I'm getting that," Dean says. He shifts under Sam until his cock is against Sam's thigh, and then starts rutting against him shamelessly until Sam pulls his leg away.
"It's not going to go like that," he says.
"You don't get to decide how it goes," Dean says. He squirms around deliciously under Sam in an attempt to get some more friction.
"I seem to be on top," Sam points out, not trying to conceal how smug he feels about that.
He lets go of one of Dean's arms and starts working Dean's fly open, at which point Dean decides to be helpful, lifting his ass so Sam can slide his jeans and underwear down together even as he says, "I wouldn't read over much into that, Sammy."
Once Sam gets Dean's pants down over the important parts, he doesn't hesitate, letting go of Dean's arm and sliding down to get his mouth on Dean's cock. Dean huffs out a curse in a way that Sam is far gone enough to admit sends a thrill down his spine and straight to his own cock.
He draws back slightly, letting his mouth fill with saliva so that when he moves back down his lips slide wetly along the length of Dean's now rock hard cock. He knows it's pushing his luck, but he slips a finger into his mouth, wetting it, and then slides it behind Dean's balls and back. Dean spreads his legs in clear invitation that Sam doesn't hesitate to take advantage of, sliding his finger right up into Dean, who arches up into his mouth and then down onto his finger.
It feels unreal, having Dean under him like he's imagined so many times, and he pulls back so that he can get Dean's pants completely off. Dean apparently wants to be naked as much as Sam wants him to, because he sits up just enough to pull his shirt off and toss in onto the floor. Sam, still fully clothed, slides up Dean's flushed body, and Dean lets his legs fall further apart so that Sam can settle snugly between them and get their mouths together aggressively. Dean cups Sam's face in his hands as they kiss, surprising Sam with his gentleness, slowing him down. He breaks off the kiss and slides his mouth under Dean's ear, pushing his face into Dean's neck. "I want-" he says. He doesn't know how to finish his sentence without sounding ridiculous.
Dean's hands are on his chest, undoing the buttons on his shirt with quick sure flicks of his wrist, and then pushing the shirt down over his shoulders and tugging at his t-shirt. Sam pulls back to take his shirt off. Dean doesn't try to stop him when he stands up, but he looks so worried that Sam leans down and kisses him softly. "Be right back," he says. He makes a beeline for the bathroom, jerking the little cabinet above the sink open -it's empty- and then pulling aside the shower curtain looking for something, anything, he can use, because he's going to fuck Dean now, and Dean's going to let him, Dean has to let him now. There's actually a small bottle of lotion in the shower, which he snatches up triumphantly, peeling off the rest of his clothing on his way back to Dean, who hasn't moved. Dean's eyes, already glazed with lust, go straight to Sam's cock, and he shivers, raising his eyes to Sam's with all the respect Sam has been craving from him for years.
Sam grabs hold of Dean and rolls him over, pulling him up onto his knees. He spreads the lotion down into the crack of Deans ass and slides his finger back in easily. It occurs to him to ask if Dean has ever done this before.
He can feel Dean tense up. "Sort of," he answers hoarsely.
Sam pulls his finger out of the slick warmth of Dean and lays his hand on Deans hip, because he has no idea what Dean means. "Dean, you've either gotten fucked before or you haven't."
Dean groans, and drops his head down onto the bed, cradling it in him arms. "So not the time for this discussion, Sam, please."
Sam rolls Dean over onto his back again. "Tell me what you mean," he demands.
Dean grimaces. "You want this, I want this. Why can't we just let it go at that?"
"You must know if you've done this before or not, Dean? Why can't you answer me?"
"Okay," Dean says. "I've never really done this before."
Sam recognizes the shadow in Dean's expression, it's the one he gets whenever they have to talk about his time in hell, and Dean was right that this is so not the time for that kind of discussion. But he's not going to rush Dean into anything either. Sam puts his mouth back down onto Dean's cock, which goes hard again immediately, and then, since Dean clearly was enjoying it, he slides his finger back into Dean's hole, adds a second one, and works them carefully in. Dean loses it, comes so hard he makes the bed rattle under them. Just the thought that he is going to get to fuck Dean at some point in the future is enough for Sam to get off by rubbing his cock against Dean's thigh, and Dean helps him through it by stroking his back and kissing him.
Dean seems content to lie in the mess they've made after, looking more relaxed than Sam has seen him in a long time. Once again he didn't get Dean out of trouble, and to add insult to injury, he had to watch a little girl and a green hairy monster do what he couldn't, but at least he has wiped out the sadness that had been lingering at the corners of Dean's mouth since they lost the dogs.
Dean doesn't slide back into sarcasm, and he seems to assume they're going to share the bed. They hang around town a couple more days, feeling their way into a new kind of relationship, and Dean even agrees to think about maybe getting a puppy at some point, one they can train up to be a hunter's helper. "Four dogs would've been awfully crowded in the back seat, anyway," Sam points out, and Dean agrees.
They look for the dogs every day, but find no sign of them, and Sam can feel Dean getting restless. He wakes before Dean a few days later, brings coffee back to the room, watches the way Dean clutches it tensely. "It's time to move on," Dean says. Sam takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee, swallows it quickly to escape the bitter taste, and nods.
They pack up their bags silently while still downing their coffee, and head out to the car. Dean has the keys again, and he throws his duffle bag into the back seat just as Sam turns around to toss his back there, too, in an attempt to make it look less empty. As he's pulling his leg into the passenger seat he sees a blur out of the corner of his eye, and turns instinctively to block the blow before it hits him, a flying ball of wiggling, wagging fur that resolves into Jeb's goofy panting, licking ecstatic, silly self. Dean lets out a whoop of pure joy and about leaps over the car to snatch up the pugs. Mark lets go of the Pug's leashes as Wanda lets go of the two bigger dogs. Bella is too dignified to join the fuss, but she gives a slow wag of her tail when Sam meets her warm brown eyes. It feels like she is laughing at them all, but fondly.
"How did you find them?" Dean asks around the pugs' squirming bodies. They are licking madly at everything they can reach, Dean, each other, the general air. "You used your freaky mind powers, didn't you?"
"Only a little," Wanda says. "They've been hiding out on Mr. Parker's land. He leaves food and water out all the time, and he has a lot of dogs hanging around. I would have found them quicker, but he never even knew they were out there."
"I bet you took your buddies there to keep them safe," Dean says to Bella. He puts the pugs down so he can kneel and give Bella a hug. "You're gonna be the best protection dog in the class," he says. "All those other dogs are gonna be scared of your badass self."
Sam opens the back door of the car and Jeb jumps in. Dean laughs at the awkward way he has to crawl in to get their duffle bags out from under the dog, who doesn't want to get off of them. Dean holds the door for Bella to step carefully up onto the the other side of the back seat, and then pours the pugs in while Sam puts their bags into the trunk where they belong. The dogs look more cozy than crowded, all curled up together, the pugs already propping their chins on Bella, obviously ready to nap the road away under their quizzical little faces.
"Have to stop for dog food," Dean says, returning a wave to Wanda and Mark as he slams his door, turns the key, and pulls away.
Sam leans back in the passenger seat, reaches one arm across, and rests his fingers in the fine hairs on the back of Dean's neck, smiling when he feels Dean shiver. "We can do that," he says.
END
There's a decent sized swimming pool on the grounds, with a small building apparently used as a changing room beside it, and after they eat, Raymond invites them to go swimming, telling them there are swimming trunks they can use in the pool house. Apparently Raymond entertains a lot of guys who don't bring their own swimming gear, because there are quite a few pairs of trunks to choose from. Dean goes straight for a pair so tight that they look more like boxer briefs than swimwear, and hide a great deal less than your average pair of underwear, too, stripping quickly and pulling them on, and straight probably wasn't the best word for this, because if swim trunks could have an orientation, then these are gay. Dean makes them more gay by posing and posturing absurdly once he gets them on. The dogs look on patiently while Sam changes into a much more modest pair of trunks, then follow them back out to the pool.
Sam fully expects Dean to march out to the high dive and do some crazy attention grabbing stunt while he quietly slips into the water, but instead Dean follows him to the shallow end, and they ease into the water together.
They wade out to the rope that marks the drop off into deep water, and Dean gives him a nod as they dive under the rope and come up on the slope on the other side. Sam flings his hair out of his eyes and returns Dean's wet smile. He has to force himself to look away from the fat, glistening drops of water beading up on the ends of Dean's hair. A little girl, wearing the kind of tiny bikini that Sam always thinks looks ridiculous on a child, is sitting on the edge of the pool near them, her feet dangling in the water. Dean turns his smile to her, and she gives him a big gap toothed grin back. "Hi," she says expansively. She leans forward and slips into the water, bobbing up beside them and grabbing onto Dean's shoulders. "I saw you before."
"Yeah?" Dean says.
"At Mr. Parker's," she says. "You took Bella away." She pushes off from him, but stays close, treading water. "You're trying to find Mark."
"You know Mark?" Sam asks.
"He's my friend," the girl says. "I told him not to go after the swamp monster, but he didn't listen. Are you going to rescue him?" She snatches up a ball floating by and lobs it to Dean, but he seems lost in thought, and the ball bounces off him unnoticed. The little girl looks so disappointed that Sam swims over to retrieve it and toss it back to her. She squeals with delight as she leaps to catch it, but when she throws it to Dean, he misses it again. "What's the matter with him?" she asks Sam, but Sam doesn't have an answer. Dean keeps bumping into him, swimming too close, which is another oddity. It makes him realize how careful Dean usually is not to touch, or even brush against him, something he hadn't been consciously aware of. Dean doesn't seem to be doing it on purpose, though being Dean, it's hard to be sure. It seems more as if he's just forgotten his own obsession with personal space.
"What else do you know about this?" Dean asks.
The little girl isn't cowed by Dean's charming lack of child skills, and the smile she gives him is downright condescending. "I know a lot of things," she says, wrapping her small hands across the top of his wrists and tugging so that Dean drifts toward her. They stare at each other briefly before the girl pushes away from Dean, arching backward with her whole body going stiff as she clutches her head in a way that is all too familiar to Sam. He grabs onto her before she can slip under the water and holds her up until it passes.
"What did you see?" he asks.
The little girl's eyes widen. "How did you know?" she asks.
"He's a fellow freak," Dean says.
The little girl frowns sternly at Dean, still holding onto Sam. "I'm not a freak," she says. "Uncle Raymond says I'm special. Awesome special, not freaky special, because I know things. I can help you look for Mark."
"Just tell us what you saw," Dean demands.
"I won't," she says. She slips out of Sam's arms and dives under, emerging at the side of the pool and pulling herself out of the water while Sam glares at Dean, who always thinks he knows how to handle kids. They pursue her around the side of the house, but they're hampered by not wanting anyone to notice they're chasing a little girl in a bikini, and she loses them around behind the house. The dogs are sticking close, but thankfully they haven't tried to join the chase, seeming content just to follow along. It isn't worth it to scare her with the whole pack at her heels, at least not in front of all the other guests.
It's after they've changed out of their wet suits and are leaving the pool house that the next strange thing happens. Sam hears a rustling noise and turns around the corner of the building to see what it is, almost stepping on a large dog lying on the ground, who rears up with a snarl and tries to take a chunk out of his arm. His momentum would have carried him right into the dog's teeth, except for Bella, who throws her body in front of him with a roar of rage that sets the other dog back on his hind legs in his hurry to get away. Bella lands square on her four stocky legs and stands bristling as Sam half falls against her. Sam backs up and twists his head around to see what Dean is doing, and he is doing... well, nothing. He's just standing there like Sam almost getting mauled by a vicious dog is nothing to him. "Uh, a little help," Sam says, not angrily, because he's more puzzled than anything else.
Dean gives a little shrug and a weak smile. "Bella's right there, man. She not gonna let anything bad happen to you."
Dean steps up then, and slips an arm around him again, which feels deliberate, Dean jerking his cord, trying to see how far Sam will let him go. He's still determined not to let Dean win, so he pulls away slightly and then slides his hand down and grabs onto Dean's hand before Dean has time to see what he intends. Sam gives him a smirk as he squeezes his hand, but Dean can never let Sam embarrass him, or at least let Sam see that he's embarrassed. Dean squeezes his hand back, giving him a fake smile and swinging their arms as they walk. So they rejoin the picnic, holding hands for all the world to see, and Sam tries not to think about how happy that makes him feel, as it's just going to hurt more when the mockery starts.
They ask around after Raymond's niece, whose name they are told is Wanda, but nobody seems to know where she has gone. Apparently she wanders off on her own a lot.
Dean seems inclined to hang around at this picnic for a couple of hours, ostensibly looking for Wanda but really just making small talk, and playing out the farce of couplehood, so that by the time they leave, Sam has fallen into a mood where he can almost make himself believe they are a couple, except for the way that is a crazy dangerous state to be in. Dean holds his hand all the way back to the car, and then, still in sight of some of the other guests, he follows Sam right around to the passenger side of the car and presses him up against it before he can open his door.
Sam can tell Dean is going to kiss him, but he has no idea why, whether it is some elaborate undercover kind of thing, racking up gay cred for some unknown reason which Dean hasn't bothered to explain. So it's important that Sam not be taken in by Dean's mouth pressing the taste of fresh squeezed lemonade gently but insistently to his, his lips sliding sensuously into place as if they were made to fit into Sam's mouth, which falls open helplessly. Sam is immediately, blindingly aroused, and it takes every ounce of his self control not to press his erection into Dean's hip, which is temptingly close, almost touching him. He can't help pushing into the kiss just for a minute, and Dean goes shockingly soft and pliant against him, letting his own mouth fall open under the pressure of Sam's lips, welcoming him in.
Things have clearly moved into the realm of something bizarre, but it still takes Sam a while to pull away from the kiss. Dean looks wild, and terrified, and something else Sam can't quite get, but he doesn't look possessed or evil, which is always a plus. "Dean," he says helplessly. Bella is pressed up against his leg staring at Dean and growling softly.
Dean opens his mouth as if to speak, but then closes it again without saying anything. Sam stops him with a hand on his arm when he tries to move away. Dean drops his gaze and won't meet Sam's eye as the silence stretches out between them.
"Something's wrong," Sam finally says, even though he doesn't want to, doesn't want to say it, doesn't want it to be true.
Dean breaks his heart then, standing so close, his hand still wrapped up in Sam's, his lips wet and inviting as he holds Sam's gaze and says, "...yeah."
Sam puts his free hand to his mouth and rubs it gently, because the feeling of that kiss is already fading, and there isn't ever going to be another one. "Tell me," he says.
Dean lifts his own free hand, as if to mimic Sam's gesture but instead he holds it out to Sam. "Maybe it has something to do with this?" he says tentatively, and Sam looks at the bracelet, the one that has been visible on Dean's arm all day. He hasn't noticed Dean eating more than usual. If anything, it seems to him Dean has been eating a lot less than normal, and yet the bracelet, which swung loose on his wrist the last time Sam had noticed it, is tight, so tight it's almost digging into the skin of his wrist.
"What the hell?" he says. He finally lets go of Dean's other hand in order to grab his wrist and examine the bracelet more closely. It isn't some cheap shiny bauble Dean lifted from Claire's. It's old, not shiny at all, and there are tiny symbols, which look like runes, carved into it that mean magic, black magic. "Jesus, Dean," he says. "Take it off. Now."
Dean gives him a sickly smile. "Um, it won't come off." He twirls his wrist, but the bracelet is so tight it clings to him, not moving at all. "I've been trying, but it's stuck on pretty good."
Dean seems content to stand there, blinking indecisively while Sam tries to figure out what to do. "Okay," he finally says. "We need to stay focused on the case for now, get out and see if we can find any sign of Mark. Meanwhile I'll try to figure out how we're going to get this thing off you." Dean nods agreeably, too agreeably, Sam realizes, and now it's all starting to click, Dean's weird agreeableness. It's like he can't make any decisions. "Let's go," Sam says, and Dean follows him, hands over the keys at a gesture and lets Sam drive again.
When they get back to the clearing, Dean continues to follow Sam's lead. It's what Sam has been wanting for a long time, Dean deferring to him, accepting his right to make some of the decisions, but it's not at all the way he'd imagined it. The dogs follow meekly behind them, perfectly useless. Sam is about to give up when he sees Wanda, the little girl from the picnic, standing about ten feet away, stretching an arm out toward them beseechingly. She opens her mouth and seems to speak, but there is no sound. A sudden unnatural wind blows up around them, and the dogs notice her, ephemeral though she appears, and rush ahead barking, but she fades away before they can get to her. Not surprisingly, she leaves behind no footprints or any other sign of physical presence. They waste a lot of daylight searching, but see no other sign of anything unusual.
Three hours later, Dean is lying, pale and clearly exhausted, on the motel bed, and Sam has tried everything short of shooting the bracelet off of him, which Dean wouldn't let him do, even, as Dean put it, if he were the crack shot he thinks he is. The thing appears to be sapping Dean's energy from him, judging by the way he seems content to lie listlessly on the bed while Sam figures out what to do next. Sam is appalled at how long it took him to confront Dean, when he's sensed something was wrong almost from the moment Dean put the damn bracelet on.
Dean confesses everything after Sam tries to exorcise the bracelet off with a spell Bobby dug up and read to him over the phone, which works no better than anything else he's tried.
"I took it off one of those witches from the last case," he says. He winces when Sam jerks on the bracelet with barely suppressed rage.
"What the hell, Dean?"
"She was using it to fight. It seemed, like, cool."
Sam would love to strangle Dean with the bracelet on hearing this, if he could only get it off his wrist. As it is, he gives the thing a vicious twist, and Dean yelps. He sits back and runs his hands over his face in defeat. Just once, he would like to be able to get Dean out of trouble, but it never works for him. The few times it seemed that he was going to finally be the rescuer instead of the rescued have always turned grim reaper sour-ish in the end. "Using it to fight, how exactly?" he asks. He can tell Dean doesn't want to answer him by the way he fidgets with the bracelet, which is so tight he can't slide it around at all, and he tries to intimidate him with a glare. "Now is so not the time to hold anything back, Dean."
"Okay," Dean says. There's a little bit of Dean's normal aggravation in the answer, but not enough to stop Sam's heart from pounding in terror for him. "But you're not going to like it."
"Yeah, and I like all the rest of this so much," Sam spits out. "Especially the part where you are a fucking idiot."
Dean winces at his contemptuous tone, which doesn't make Sam feel the least bit guilty. "She had these dogs," Dean says, his voice getting softer with every word. Sam can feel his face filling with the blood of a level of rage that only Dean ever excites. "They were fighting for her, like, she could control them. It was awesome," he trails off sheepishly, his gaze turning to the dogs, who are crowded around their feet.
Sam looks at them, too, putting it all together, Quark and Pel curled up against his leg affectionately, Jeb chewing a bone he'd gotten at the picnic, Bella lying off to the side, watching over them all protectively. "You're not controlling them, Dean," he says slowly.
"I'm not?" Dean asks. At least he finally looks like he's taking this seriously.
Sam shakes his head. He has a sudden need for a drink, and he reaches under Dean's bed to pull out the bottle of whiskey Dean thinks is hidden from him. He takes a drink straight from the bottle, letting it burn down his throat as if it might tamp down the words he doesn't want to say. Dean tries to reach for the bottle but he pulls it back out of reach, staring at Dean the whole time. "Don't you get it, Dean?" he asks. "They're becoming you."
Dean scowls. "What are you smoking, Sam?" He gives a weak laugh, but Sam can see that he knows it's true.
"They're taking parts of you," he says.
Dean pulls himself upright with an obvious effort. "You don't know that," he says as Sam takes another drink. He pulls out the paper towels Sam had wrapped around his wrist when he was trying to saw off the bracelet, wads them up and tosses them toward the waste basket. They fall far short, and he stares at them in dismay. "Oh, fuck," he says.
It makes Sam blindingly angry to hear that so familiar note of resignation in Dean's voice. "Get up," he growls, hauling Dean to his feet. "We need to go back and search the house where you got the bracelet."
"Sam," Dean says. "The witch I took it from didn't live there. There isn't gonna be anything there." Dean's phone goes off, and he snatches at it with more energy than he's shown since they left the picnic, no doubt spurred on by a desire to avoid any further discussion. He turns away from Sam, listening intently for a minute and then speaking so softly Sam can't make it out. He get up as he disconnects. "That was Raymond," he explains. "No one has seen Wanda since we left the picnic, and he just found a note in her room saying she was going out to find Mark. He's afraid whatever took Mark may have gotten her, too."
"We need to do something about the bracelet before you'll be in any shape to help anyone else, Dean," Sam says, but he doesn't really mean it. If Dean was his normal self he would never agree to a delay to deal with this that could result in losing another kid. They have to try to save Wanda. "We should leave the dogs here," he says. "They might be scaring the monster into hiding."
Dean grimaces. "Good thinking," he says. "Except I don't think I can go without them."
"Why not?"
"I don't know." Dean looks like the glare Sam is giving him is crushing him. "It's hard to explain," he says. "It kind of feels funny when they get too far away. And it's been getting worse."
Sam slams his fist down on the table by the bed hard enough to make Dean flinch. "Why would you not tell me that was happening?"
"I'm telling you, Sam, it's not like I've ever been taken over by a pack of dogs before. It's kind of a new experience."
"Fine," Sam says. "We'll bring the dogs along. We can just leave them in the car."
Dean follows him out to the car. "They don't need to be locked up," he says. "They stay wherever I want them to stay."
"We're leaving them in the car while we look for Wanda," he says, and Dean doesn't argue anymore, which right there is proof that Dean is not in his right mind.
When they get back to the clearing, Dean wants to leave the windows all the way down. "They can't take this heat, Sam. They can hardly breathe." Dean himself looks short of breath, reminding Sam that the dogs' comfort and safety is as important as Dean's as long as they are linked by the bracelet.
Sam finally settles for tying the dogs to a tree near the car. Dean had the foresight to bring their water bowl along, and he empties a bottle of water into it and sets it down for them. It's come on full dark now, and they have to take flashlights out of the trunk before heading in through the stand of trees that borders the clearing. Jeb is quiet, no doubt sulking because they wouldn't let him bring his toy, and the pugs curl up together and fall to instant snoring, but Bella strains at the end of the rope with a soft whine of protest at being left behind. When Sam looks to make sure she is securely tied, her face is scrunched up in a worried expression and her eyes for just a moment look shockingly green in the beam of the flashlight, but when he looks again they are brown, and he isn't sure if his imagination is playing tricks on him.
Dean keeps stumbling, even though the ground is perfectly level, and Sam tries to persuade him to sit down and wait while Sam searches alone, but Dean won't listen, even though he is just slowing Sam down. He doesn't even bother wasting time trying to reason with Dean about maybe putting aside the search in favor of worrying about his own problem. Finally he falls to his knees, reaching out an arm for Sam to help him back up, but Sam steps back away from him. "You're in no shape to help fight anything, Dean," he says. "I can go faster on my own. Let me take care of this, and then I'll get you to Bobby. He's bound to have some ideas how to deal with this." Dean slumps down prone, which Sam figures is as close to agreement as he's going to get, and he goes on alone, trying to hurry in the dark.
The ground is damp and muddy. The whole area reeks of something unwholesome and rotting, as if something has died here and sunk into the ground which seems to clutch at his shoes as he walks, slowing him down when he needs to hurry, find the kids and get back to Dean. He hasn't gone very far when he sees Wanda, kneeling over something on the ground, but by the time he gets to her she has vanished again. The bundle of clothes on the ground turns out to be a sleepy, disoriented but unharmed Mark, who tells him the swamp monster has awesome toys, and he wanted to stay and play longer, but Wanda made him come home.
Sam shines the light around, but there is no sign of the swamp monster. Despite the setting sun, it is still hot and muggy, and the only thing the flashlight picks up are an occasional swarm of gnatlike insects."Wanda?" he yells. He desperately wants to check on Dean, but Dean will just tell him to find the girl. He picks up the boy and continues on, yelling for Wanda every few minutes.
He hears a rustling noise close by and spins to his right. There's a flash of something luminous, and a low, inhuman moaning sound, but when he awkwardly raises the flashlight it vanishes. Everything is quiet again. He puts the boy down, motioning him to stay close, which frees up his arms. They walk in circles, gradually widening the diameter. There's a moaning sound that starts like wind through old trees, but increases and deepens into a threatening growl. He keeps spinning and flashing the light around, but he never catches clear sight of the monster, who seems to be following him without trying to close in.
He finally stops and stands silently, trying to figure out where the sound is coming from, but it seems to surround him. A sudden unnatural breeze blows up, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He turns deliberately, keeping the flashlight low. There's a dark, hulking, man shaped figure standing about ten feet behind him, long thick arms hanging down gorilla like, still emitting a low growling moan that goes on and on, as if the creature has no need to breathe. Sam raises the flashlight slowly and trains it on the creature.
It's the swamp monster, arms raised threateningly, and when the light hits him he roars, but he doesn't approach. He's big and hairy, but his fur is green, and he's not really all that scary looking. In fact he looks a bit ridiculous. When Sam doesn't react to his roaring he quiets down and drops his hairy green arms, looking sheepish.
Sam lifts his gun in warning. "Don't shoot my friend, " Mark says.
"Where's Wanda?" Sam asks the general air. The swamp monster wrinkles his brow in thought, but he doesn't say anything, and then Wanda appears beside him, looking outraged.
"He wasn't trying to hurt anyone," she says.
"He's a monster," Sam points out in his most reasonable tone.
"He just got lonely and wanted somebody to play with."
"He's a monster," Sam repeats, a little more forcefully.
"He promises not to bother anybody if I just come and play with him sometimes," Wanda says.
"Sorry, Wanda," Sam says, raising his gun.
"He can help Dean," Wanda says. She smiles just like a regular prepubescent little girl.
Sam hadn't really wanted to shoot the furry green Jim Hensen knock off monster thing, anyway. "How?" he asks, because he isn't just going to take her word for it. This thing is going down unless he's given some substantial proof that it can help Dean. He's not that easy to trick.
"Better hurry," Wanda says. "Dean isn't going to last much longer."
Sam gives up trying to pretend there's any choice here, and drops his arm. "Come on," Wanda says. The swamp monster can run pretty fast on his thick stubby legs, but Sam still makes it back to Dean first. He's lying where Sam left him, and Sam slides to a stop on his knees, grabbing his wrist to check for a pulse, which he can just barely detect. He shakes Dean's limp arm uselessly. "Please," he says, as Wanda and the swamp monster catch up.
The swamp monster stops and tries to kneel down, almost falling over onto his side awkwardly, but Wanda catches hold of one green arm and helps lower him to his knees carefully. She stares into his eyes intently for a moment, apparently communicating with him somehow. "Okay," she says. "There's a spell we can use. But we all have to help." She holds a hand out to Sam and he takes it, but when the swamp thing holds out a hairy paw he balks. At that point Mark catches up to them-Sam had forgotten all about him- but he isn't invited to help with the spell.
Wanda rolls her eyes at Sam. "Well, if you don't want to help..." she says, and Sam gives in and takes the monster's paw. It feels moist and sticky, and Sam kind of feels like throwing up, but he usually feels like throwing up when Dean gets hurt, so he isn't going to let a little swamp yuck push him over the edge.
They form a little circle around Dean, and Sam tries to concentrate, even though he doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Dean healthy and happy. He pictures him tossing Jeb's toy around, and playing tug of war with Bella. He pictures him cuddling the little pugs.
"These ties that bind around and round," Wanda intones dramatically. She shrugs when he opens one eye. "Let them go into the ground." She glares at him until he closes both eyes again.
"Now I will count, and when I reach three. All that are bound shall be set free."
She falls silent, and when Sam opens his eyes she has hers squeezed tightly shut.
"One," she says. Sam glances at Dean but there is no change.
"Two." Still no change, and Sam closes his eyes just in case it will help.
"Three." Wanda lets loose a blood curdling scream and falls onto Dean. It takes a few seconds for Sam to work out that she is wrestling Dean for control of the shotgun. The swamp monster is screaming, big paws covering up his ridiculous face as Dean tries to hold Wanda off without hurting her so he can shoot it.
"Dean, stop," Sam says, and Dean, who is apparently back to normal, throws him an incredulous look and doesn't listen. Sam joins Wanda in grappling for the shotgun. "Would you listen a second? This thing just saved your life."
"Huh," Dean says, trying to jerk the shotgun out of Sam's grasp. "Peachy, now we can shoot it."
"Dean," Sam yells. It's amazing how fast he has passed through relief that Dean seems to be himself again and landed right back at exasperated. "It's harmless." He points to where Mark is standing watching them. "It hasn't hurt anyone."
Dean lets his mouth drop open in disbelief, but he lets Sam take the shotgun. The swamp monster's yells have turned into whimpers, and he peeks out through his hairy hands at them.
"See," Sam says. "Harmless." Wanda picks up the bracelet, which is lying, clasp open, on the ground, and gives it to the swamp monster, who takes it with a shy smile.
Dean's eyes follow the bracelet. The swamp monster tries to wrap it around his own wrist, but it is much too small to fit. Dean clears his throat. "Uh, thanks there, buddy," he says reluctantly.
The swamp monster turns a darker shade of green and nods, but he doesn't speak. He shuffles his hairy green feet in the mud. They head back to the car to return the kids to their families, leaving the monster waving sadly after them. Dean finally seems to get it. "How do you feel?" Sam asks.
"I'm fine," Dean says in his not fine at all voice.
"The dogs?"
Dean waves a hand in front of his face dismissively. "They're gone," he says. "Not in my head anymore. Can't feel 'em at all." He looks like he can't even be bothered trying to fake feeling happy about it. But then his expression lightens. "Wait? We can keep 'em, right? As pets? Without the bracelet they should be regular old dogs again."
Sam feels he should give Dean a hard time just on principle, but he looks so happy about dragging a pack of dogs from town to town with him, that he wants to cave immediately. "They have to have leashes," he says.
"Sure, sure."
"And you have to take them to the vet and get them shots and stuff."
"Right." The spring is back in Dean's step, and his grin is more genuine than Sam has seen it in a long time.
"We have to stop somewhere long enough to enroll them in a training class and train them for real this time."
"Sounds good to me," Dean says. "We'll go down the road a bit so no one recognizes the pugs, and then find a class for them. Hey, maybe Bella can get some police dog training. Running down suspects for us." Dean's face lights up even more at this thought.
If the pugs lose a bit more weight, they would fit in a small backpack and could go along on jobs sometimes. They could be useful for getting into and out of small places. Even though he knows it's crazy, it still sounds kinda awesome. He smiles back at Dean and concedes. "It could work."
When they get back to the car the dogs are gone. The ropes Sam had secured them with have vanished, too. Sam might wonder if they were ever there at all, but then he sees the water dish Dean had left for them, tipped over upside down, and a confused bunch of doggy footprints in the mud formed by the spilled water. They follow the muddy prints, which quickly grow fainter, out to the road, but there is no further sign, no way to tell what direction they've gone in. Dean yells himself hoarse, but there is no response. Sam feels guilty for every time he ever yelled at them as he watches Dean's face get harder and sadder.
They stop to return the kids to their grateful families, keeping it short so they can get back to looking for the dogs. They retrace their steps, returning to every place they've been, and everywhere in between. They stop at Mr. Parker's house and ask if he's seen them. He hasn't, and he's outraged that they lost Bella, calling them damn fools who shouldn't be allowed to have a dog at all.
Dean gets sadder and sadder. They return to the hotel, and Sam calls the pound, leaving a request that they be contacted if any of the dogs turn up. Dean is all for packing up and moving on immediately, but Sam insists they wait around at least a couple of days. They've searched the same places two or three times over, and he's sick of looking, but there is still a chance that they will turn up at the pound.
Sam stretches out on his back on one of the beds and watches Dean fidget around, clipping his fingernails fussily and unnecessarily. "We could get a new dog," he suggests.
Dean glares at him. "No."
"Why not?"
Dean goes back to clipping his nails and the silence stretches resentfully between them. "Maybe I could get a new brother, too," Dean finally says.
"Okay, way to be childish," Sam snaps. "Why did you kiss me anyway?"
Dean jerks his head back as if he's been punched. Sam doesn't really expect an answer, but Dean says, "It's complicated" so softly Sam barely hears it.
Dean's on his feet before he finishes speaking but Sam is faster, and gets between Dean and the door. Dean doesn't try to push past him. "So explain it to me," Sam says.
Dean shakes his head. "I don't know," he says.
Sam can tell he's lying through his teeth. "What did the dogs have to do with you and me, Dean?" He casts back over what happened, trying to figure it out. The kiss was right after Bella saved him from the strange dog tied up near the pool, right after Dean had failed to protect him, and there's something to that, but he can't quite work it out. "What is it you're so determined to protect me from?" Dean jerks his head up, wide green eyes focusing on him, telling him he's struck a nerve, and he gets it now. He crowds Dean back into the corner of the room. "You have to protect me from everything I want from you?" He shakes his head at Dean. "You're really dumb sometimes, you know that?"
He can't quite read what's going through Dean's mind, but he's determined not to let this go. He's wild with the possibility that Dean want this, too, wants him, and he needs to make Dean understand that it's okay, that this won't hurt him, because if there's anything he knows about Dean, it's that he can't bear to see Sam hurt.
For just a moment when he kisses Dean it's everything he's wanted. Dean lets him in, and he sweeps his tongue possessively over Dean's. . But then Dean surges up, taking control of the kiss, biting and sucking at Sam's mouth as he grabs at Sam's arms and tries to turn him around against the bed. Sam resists, putting his own hands higher up on Dean's arms so that they end up rocking from side to side, wrestling for control. Sam can't quite get the leverage he needs, so he sweeps one of his longer legs around and takes Dean to the floor, pinning him there. Dean still won't give, but when Sam presses his full weight down on him he feels Dean's erection pressed between them, and he rocks his body roughly over it, making Dean gasp. "You're getting off on this," he says accusingly.
"Yeah, like you're not," Dean says. He squeezes his hand down between them and presses against Sam's cock.
"You don't have to protect me from this," Sam says.
"Yeah, I'm getting that," Dean says. He shifts under Sam until his cock is against Sam's thigh, and then starts rutting against him shamelessly until Sam pulls his leg away.
"It's not going to go like that," he says.
"You don't get to decide how it goes," Dean says. He squirms around deliciously under Sam in an attempt to get some more friction.
"I seem to be on top," Sam points out, not trying to conceal how smug he feels about that.
He lets go of one of Dean's arms and starts working Dean's fly open, at which point Dean decides to be helpful, lifting his ass so Sam can slide his jeans and underwear down together even as he says, "I wouldn't read over much into that, Sammy."
Once Sam gets Dean's pants down over the important parts, he doesn't hesitate, letting go of Dean's arm and sliding down to get his mouth on Dean's cock. Dean huffs out a curse in a way that Sam is far gone enough to admit sends a thrill down his spine and straight to his own cock.
He draws back slightly, letting his mouth fill with saliva so that when he moves back down his lips slide wetly along the length of Dean's now rock hard cock. He knows it's pushing his luck, but he slips a finger into his mouth, wetting it, and then slides it behind Dean's balls and back. Dean spreads his legs in clear invitation that Sam doesn't hesitate to take advantage of, sliding his finger right up into Dean, who arches up into his mouth and then down onto his finger.
It feels unreal, having Dean under him like he's imagined so many times, and he pulls back so that he can get Dean's pants completely off. Dean apparently wants to be naked as much as Sam wants him to, because he sits up just enough to pull his shirt off and toss in onto the floor. Sam, still fully clothed, slides up Dean's flushed body, and Dean lets his legs fall further apart so that Sam can settle snugly between them and get their mouths together aggressively. Dean cups Sam's face in his hands as they kiss, surprising Sam with his gentleness, slowing him down. He breaks off the kiss and slides his mouth under Dean's ear, pushing his face into Dean's neck. "I want-" he says. He doesn't know how to finish his sentence without sounding ridiculous.
Dean's hands are on his chest, undoing the buttons on his shirt with quick sure flicks of his wrist, and then pushing the shirt down over his shoulders and tugging at his t-shirt. Sam pulls back to take his shirt off. Dean doesn't try to stop him when he stands up, but he looks so worried that Sam leans down and kisses him softly. "Be right back," he says. He makes a beeline for the bathroom, jerking the little cabinet above the sink open -it's empty- and then pulling aside the shower curtain looking for something, anything, he can use, because he's going to fuck Dean now, and Dean's going to let him, Dean has to let him now. There's actually a small bottle of lotion in the shower, which he snatches up triumphantly, peeling off the rest of his clothing on his way back to Dean, who hasn't moved. Dean's eyes, already glazed with lust, go straight to Sam's cock, and he shivers, raising his eyes to Sam's with all the respect Sam has been craving from him for years.
Sam grabs hold of Dean and rolls him over, pulling him up onto his knees. He spreads the lotion down into the crack of Deans ass and slides his finger back in easily. It occurs to him to ask if Dean has ever done this before.
He can feel Dean tense up. "Sort of," he answers hoarsely.
Sam pulls his finger out of the slick warmth of Dean and lays his hand on Deans hip, because he has no idea what Dean means. "Dean, you've either gotten fucked before or you haven't."
Dean groans, and drops his head down onto the bed, cradling it in him arms. "So not the time for this discussion, Sam, please."
Sam rolls Dean over onto his back again. "Tell me what you mean," he demands.
Dean grimaces. "You want this, I want this. Why can't we just let it go at that?"
"You must know if you've done this before or not, Dean? Why can't you answer me?"
"Okay," Dean says. "I've never really done this before."
Sam recognizes the shadow in Dean's expression, it's the one he gets whenever they have to talk about his time in hell, and Dean was right that this is so not the time for that kind of discussion. But he's not going to rush Dean into anything either. Sam puts his mouth back down onto Dean's cock, which goes hard again immediately, and then, since Dean clearly was enjoying it, he slides his finger back into Dean's hole, adds a second one, and works them carefully in. Dean loses it, comes so hard he makes the bed rattle under them. Just the thought that he is going to get to fuck Dean at some point in the future is enough for Sam to get off by rubbing his cock against Dean's thigh, and Dean helps him through it by stroking his back and kissing him.
Dean seems content to lie in the mess they've made after, looking more relaxed than Sam has seen him in a long time. Once again he didn't get Dean out of trouble, and to add insult to injury, he had to watch a little girl and a green hairy monster do what he couldn't, but at least he has wiped out the sadness that had been lingering at the corners of Dean's mouth since they lost the dogs.
Dean doesn't slide back into sarcasm, and he seems to assume they're going to share the bed. They hang around town a couple more days, feeling their way into a new kind of relationship, and Dean even agrees to think about maybe getting a puppy at some point, one they can train up to be a hunter's helper. "Four dogs would've been awfully crowded in the back seat, anyway," Sam points out, and Dean agrees.
They look for the dogs every day, but find no sign of them, and Sam can feel Dean getting restless. He wakes before Dean a few days later, brings coffee back to the room, watches the way Dean clutches it tensely. "It's time to move on," Dean says. Sam takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee, swallows it quickly to escape the bitter taste, and nods.
They pack up their bags silently while still downing their coffee, and head out to the car. Dean has the keys again, and he throws his duffle bag into the back seat just as Sam turns around to toss his back there, too, in an attempt to make it look less empty. As he's pulling his leg into the passenger seat he sees a blur out of the corner of his eye, and turns instinctively to block the blow before it hits him, a flying ball of wiggling, wagging fur that resolves into Jeb's goofy panting, licking ecstatic, silly self. Dean lets out a whoop of pure joy and about leaps over the car to snatch up the pugs. Mark lets go of the Pug's leashes as Wanda lets go of the two bigger dogs. Bella is too dignified to join the fuss, but she gives a slow wag of her tail when Sam meets her warm brown eyes. It feels like she is laughing at them all, but fondly.
"How did you find them?" Dean asks around the pugs' squirming bodies. They are licking madly at everything they can reach, Dean, each other, the general air. "You used your freaky mind powers, didn't you?"
"Only a little," Wanda says. "They've been hiding out on Mr. Parker's land. He leaves food and water out all the time, and he has a lot of dogs hanging around. I would have found them quicker, but he never even knew they were out there."
"I bet you took your buddies there to keep them safe," Dean says to Bella. He puts the pugs down so he can kneel and give Bella a hug. "You're gonna be the best protection dog in the class," he says. "All those other dogs are gonna be scared of your badass self."
Sam opens the back door of the car and Jeb jumps in. Dean laughs at the awkward way he has to crawl in to get their duffle bags out from under the dog, who doesn't want to get off of them. Dean holds the door for Bella to step carefully up onto the the other side of the back seat, and then pours the pugs in while Sam puts their bags into the trunk where they belong. The dogs look more cozy than crowded, all curled up together, the pugs already propping their chins on Bella, obviously ready to nap the road away under their quizzical little faces.
"Have to stop for dog food," Dean says, returning a wave to Wanda and Mark as he slams his door, turns the key, and pulls away.
Sam leans back in the passenger seat, reaches one arm across, and rests his fingers in the fine hairs on the back of Dean's neck, smiling when he feels Dean shiver. "We can do that," he says.
END
