Who killed Tabaqui (11/?)
Title: Who killed Tabaqui
Author:marlowe78
Rating: PG 13
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word count: a lot
Beta: soncnica
Spoilers: for s6, the basics
Warnings: Language, some blood is spilled.
Summary: Do not mess with Mowgli's brother. You can be pretty sure his teeth are sharp
Previous
This time, Sam was awake when Dean shifted, and he was amazed by the difference to the painful transformation before. SHe’d been slumbering a bit, trying to ignore the awkward angle of his neck, when he heard a soft groan from the backseat. Without any noise, he bent his head and watched.
The wolf groaned again, moved on his seat a bit and stretched his legs, and then the limbs grew, changed and formed themselves into legs and arms, his fur retreated into his body - how the hell did it do that? - and his body elongated and broadened itself back to a human.
The face looked ridiculous for a few seconds, before it was back to Dean’s familiar features and when the shoulders popped back into the position they belonged, Dean snuffled a bit and let gravity move him to lie on his stomach instead of his side. The healing of his bruises and bite-marks had progressed much further than normal, and Sam was glad that the fast-healing was one thing that wasn’t a myth about werewolves.
Sam grinned. As fascinating as it had been to see the quick, painless change, as funny was it to see his brother - who wasn’t small by any means - squeezed onto the backseat, curled into himself but still not fitting. His legs touched the seatbacks and his bare ass must be touching the door, though Sam didn’t have the urge to check.
Instead, he took a picture with his phone, saving it right along with the three of the wolf he’d taken during their wait at the accident-site before throwing the blanket over Dean, then trying to get back to sleep. For the first time since the initial bite, Sam felt like everything could be back to normal, like they would actually get through this drama with their minds intact and bodies in one piece.
***
Dean woke from the morning-light poking onto his eyelids. It was annoying enough to get his brain into gear, and warning enough to let his body stay still, just in case there was a not-so-harmless reason that there were no curtains to block out the sun.
His senses tried to pin a location on himself - Impala, backseat, naked, cold - then Sam. Outside, brushing teeth. Dean tried to move from the horribly uncomfortable position, holding the scratchy blanket close to him as to not be exposed to the cool air, Sam, and any other person that might be close by.
When he finally unscrambled his legs and stood outside on his bare feet, a sharp stone digging into his sole which he tried to ignore, he realized that there wasn’t much danger of being observed by strangers. Maybe a voyeuristic bird or deer, but no other human was close by.
“Hmpf” he grunted and got a disgustingly cheerful, toothpaste-y smile from his brother in return.
“Trunk” was all Sam said before looking back into the forest that was surrounding them, not commenting on Deans nakedness and sour mood.
After he’d put on jeans, t-shirt and button-down, his socks and boots and a canvas-jacket, he threw the collar into the depth of his car with disgust and he felt much better. The dull ache from his body was slowly dissipating, now that his muscles were getting warm, and his mood lifted when he was able to take in the silence of the campground. Or, well, not silence. There was sound all about, rustling mice and singing birds, shifting leaves of grass and the needles from the pines that fell from the mighty trees. He could smell clean air and sun-dried sand, and was that an elk that moved somewhere behind him? He could smell it not far off.
With a start, he realized that he shouldn’t know what an elk smelled, much less actually scent it or know where and how far away it was. But he could.
One part of his mind said this was bad, cause for concern and worry and very much a thing his brother should know about, but the other side was just stunned by the sheer beauty of the place he was in, the life that was surrounding him and the possibility of roaming free, no care but trying to feed and fuck. It was freedom as it should be, and it exhilarated him and scared him shitless.
“How far till Backwood Creek?” he forced himself to ask, and Sam grunted back that they would reach it around noon. That was good, he could to hide his heightened sense of smell from Sam that long. Since it seemed that he might have gotten the ability to scent like a wolf but not the same love for rotten things, Dean brushed his teeth before urging Sam on, this time letting his brother drive just so he could enjoy the tantalizing odors of the world through his open window. He’d never realized how much asphalt disturbed the scent of nature, and how much it meant for him to smell it anyway.
.
.
Two minutes past noon, they entered Backwood Creek, inhabitants 505 if you believed the rusty sign that greeted them in ‘America’s prettiest jerkwater-town’. Dean had to grin. “At least they have a sense of humor.” Sam nodded and smiled and looked like a ton of tension had lifted from his shoulders the second they entered the town-limits.
“You got the address?”
“Yeah. Uh… here” Dean rummaged in his pockets until he found the scrunched-up paper where he’d written the instructions on “’Go to the city-hall and then left, straight ahead until you leave the town again, then straight for two miles and then go right, at the green mail-box. Don’t let the bad road scare you’” he cited. “Looks like she really loves company”
“Maybe she does, but the company prefers to limit the actual meetings?” Sam grinned. Still, being the good boy-scout he was, he ordered Dean to call ahead, which resulted in a “grumpf” and “Don’t expect food” from the woman.
.
.
At a quarter to one, they arrived at an open wooden gate in midst of pine-trees and followed the drive up to a house which at least to Dean was a complete surprise.
It wasn’t big, but pretty and well-kept, white wooden frame with a shingled roof and a chimney that was merrily puffing smoke into the sky. The garden was green and lush and full of colorful flowers, a big oak giving shade to the huge porch at the back of the house which they made out while driving up. It was like a distorted mirror-image of Bobby’s ramshackle home and both of them had to stare at this beautiful place for a moment.
“Wow…” whispered Sam, and Dean could only nod.
Loud barking tore them out of their admiration, and five stocky, pointy-eared dogs scrambled out of the door that’d just opened. They were stocky, had short fur and looked like a maniac had tried to paint on them: light-blue or light orange - or both - in color, with white seen through here and there, red and black markings on the faces, ears and legs. They weren’t large, smaller than a German Shepherd but for some reason Dean was sure that these dogs would put any Shepherd to shame.
“Boys! Back in here!” a rough voice called, and the dogs, which had stalked the Impala on stiff legs, hackles raised and teeth bared, stopped snarling and trotted back to the woman who had followed them out of the house. Sam gave a timid little wave and tried to smile, but like Dean he wouldn’t take his eyes of the dogs.
“C’mon out then, if you must” the woman who probably was Alyssa O’Toole stepped closer to them and Dean noted the slight limp. Carefully, not trusting the calm that had returned after the dogs were inside - behind an open door, he noticed - Dean stepped out of the car. Sam was already moving towards their host with his hand outstretched and his happy smile bright on his face.
“Hi, I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean. Mrs O’Toole? I’m so grateful that…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome, blablabla. Now, Robert said you have a werewolf-question that can’t be answered on the phone. Out with it” Dean frowned over this harsh greeting. This was the specialist they were trusting with his… problem? She could’ve at least looked interested, since being happy would probably be creepy - and highly doubtful, the woman didn’t look like she’d been happy in quite a while.
“Uh…” Sam was taken aback for a second. “What did Bobby tell ya?”
“Furry Werewolf, and you’re interested in knowing more ‘bout them. Isn’t that right?” for a second she frowned and looked less sure of herself, and her features turned softer.
“Well, basically. Mostly, we’re interested if there is… like a cure for a werewolf-infection.” Sam asked, full of hope, and Dean held his breath.
“Cure?” O’Toole raised her bushy eyebrows and looked them over more closely. “Aw no, don’t tell me someone you know got bitten. A friend of yours? Robert?”
“Nope, that’d be me” Dean lifted his hand in greeting and smiled tightly. She sighed and looked them over, her shoulders dropping down.
“Damn that man” she muttered. “You better come in, then. Wait until I get the boys in their room, though. They don’t react kindly to weres” That was one request Dean was glad to fulfill.
Once inside, the woman had thawed even more and he had to revise his assessment. She didn’t look forbidding anymore and the idea of a smile on her face was actually pleasant. In fact, up close he could spot the little laugh-lines that crinkled at her eyes and which had been lost in the overall wrinkle-ness on her sun-dried skin. She led them into her kitchen, which was sunny and light and mostly clean except for a few dirty dishes in the sink. It smelled like bacon and eggs, but Dean wasn’t sure if he noticed because of his heightened senses or because she’d just eaten, so he didn’t say anything. They sat at the wooden table close to the large window overlooking an expanse of land that hadn’t been visible from the driveway, but that was obviously part of O’Toole’s property. It was as lush and beautiful as the garden close to the house.
O’Toole made coffee and while it was brewing, she sat down opposite them and took her visitors in with sharp eyes and probably even sharper mind.
Up close, she looked like a female version of Bobby. She wasn’t an exact copy, of course, but there was a presence to her that reminded him at once at their old friend. She had short, graying hair, a stocky built and broad shoulders, and somehow Dean doubted there was much fat on her. She wore jeans and a checkered man’s shirt, a vest and sturdy boots. Only the ball-cap was missing, and the beard, to make her a sister to the grumpy old cod back in South Dakota. “Your maiden name’s not Singer, right?”
O’Toole looked at him and for a second, everything froze. But she threw her head back and laughed, and it was like the sun coming up behind a cloud. Her whole face transformed into warmth and hospitality, and the two of them exhaled in unison.
Still chuckling, she went to get the coffee and three chipped mugs, took milk out of the fridge and sat back down with them. “No, my maiden name’s O’Toole. I used to be a Granger once, but that’s not what I wanted to be stuck with after getting rid of the fucker. And nowadays, a woman living alone doesn’t need to be associated with the name of a witch from a kid’s book. But call me Alyssa, then I won’t feel so old” she winked “I’m guessin’ you’re the Winchester-kids, then?”
Kids?
“Kids? Not since a long time” Sam frowned, but the woman chuckled again and patted his arm.
“Boy, if you are who I think, you’ll always be Bobby’s kids, no matter how huge you get. Or how sassy” she said in Dean’s direction. He decided to ignore it, sniffing the coffee with longing. “It’s ok, boy. You just take lotsa milk and you’ll keep it down.”
Grateful, Dean grabbed the mug and poured, groaning in delight when the caffeine hit his taste-buds. He noticed Sam grinning, but chose to let it go. Alyssa took a sip as well and then continued, speaking to Sam which was fine with Dean for now. There was coffee to savor. “The incapacity for certain human foods lessens when the body had time to adjust to the shift. Sooner or later, even stuff like grapes and chocolate won’t be poisonous anymore” What? Chocolate was poison? He couldn’t even eat freaking chocolate? Dean’s mind was spinning over the horrible scenario of a life without sweets, but O’Toole continued and he tried to keep up. “I don’t know if you noticed, but sooner or later, the muscles, bones and ligaments don’t resist the change anymore and everything gets easier, more fluent. The stomach and bowls can process human food again, like they used to. I wouldn’t test it with poisonous stuff, though, and I hope you didn’t let him eat any bones?” Sam shook his head vehemently “Good. Those can really injure the intestines during shifting, they just don’t digest fast enough. Now, how long’sit been?”
“He got bitten three weeks ago, and he’d been… shifting since Monday night.”
“No full moon yet, then?”
Sam shook his head.
“Good, really good” Before any of them could ask what was so good about that, she continued. “What do you know about furries?”
“Not much. Dean shot one, years ago, and then this one, who bit him. Other than that, we know more about the…”
“Non-furries”
“Non-furries. Silver kills them, right? And they heal pretty fast”
At that, Dean frowned and looked at his arm, only now realizing that the bites had nearly scarred over and the pain was close to gone. Huh, he hadn’t even noticed.
“Well. Basically, that’s what I’d expect hunters to know about them. You’re not wrong, but that’s not all. They’re really different from the non-furries, in many aspects. Where non-furries get vicious and dangerous without fail, the furries … well, they don’t start out that way. I don’t know if these two are even related to each other, but I think, based on observation, that the viciousness’s due to the fact that the human part of the were is stronger in the non-furries than the wolf-part.”
“Really?” Dean interrupted “I’d have thought… it was the wolf that made them kill”
“Yes” she scowled “It’s what most would think. But what wolf do you know that kills and only eats the heart? That’d be a waste of food, just as it’d be stupid to seek a certain person to eat the heart of. No, the wolf is not the aggressor in this infection. It’s, if you wanna call it something, the victim” Dean scoffed and she glared at him. “You wanna listen, or you wanna wait outside?” Sam kicked his ankle and Dean lowered his head, mumbling an insincere “sorry”.
“Now. The furries are more wolfish, so they’re usually mainly one thing when all this starts: scared shitless. Most newly infected furries, as far as I could find out, are freaked out about suddenly waking up in a city, not knowing how they got there, not knowing what was around them and why. A scared animal is a dangerous animal, so I guess a lot of infection-spreading stems from this time“
“Can the uh… furries change at will?” This time, Sam was shot down with her scary glare.
“You wanna go and read all that yourself, be my guest.” O’Toole indicated to the hallway behind her. Sam shook his bangs and glared at Dean when he grinned at him “If not, shut up and listen. No, no werewolf can shift at will. They can only change in the week before full moon, like the non-furries, with the full moon being the longest night for them. It’s also the night they get the most instinctual. Now, usually they’re like wolves. The first time they shift, they are complete wolf, no memory of ever being something different. So a lot of them, when waking up in a city, run and hide and when they shift back, they don’t know where they are. Some wind up in the wilderness and never get back to ‘civilization’” she actually used air-quotes “and I guess some might still live there somewhere, not doing any harm. Why would they? It’d only lead to their destruction if they ever get found out. There are several problems, though, which is why there are incidents with furries here and there. First shift is really scary, I already mentioned. Self-defense is another, and in the age of the vicious wolf-hatred in this country, it’s more common than you’d think. I guess a lot of them get shot, simple as that.”
“Uhm…” Dean tried to interrupt, raising his hand tentatively like he was in school “With actual bullets?”
“Of course, or do you know any ordinary hunter who’d load his gun with silver?” Dean didn’t know any ordinary hunter at all, so he shook his head “Yes, sure, silver kills a werewolf, but so does lead or an axe or a club. A car. You shoot the wolf dead, it stays dead. Not sure what happens if you shoot the human when they’re not furry, but the wolf-part’s just an animal. Just… not quite. Which leads to the next problem.” She stood and opened a cupboard, all the while continuing to explain “The furries that get out of the city often try to join a wolf-pack when they’re in animal-form. If they find one, though, that’s usually the end for them” O’Toole set a pack of cookies -without chocolate, but still: cookies! - in front of them, motioning them to take one. Dean’d never wasted a cookie, and he wouldn’t be starting now “Wolves don’t take kindly to strange wolves, if it’s not a female, but they certainly don’t take kindly to a wolf that isn’t a real wolf. For some reason, they smell that they’re wrong and simply tear them apart.”
“But you said wolves aren’t vicious” Sam interrupted and dunked his cookie into the coffee. Little freak.
“I never said that. Wolves don’t kill for fun, or for just a heart. But there is nothing fun in defending your territory, believe me. My dogs aren’t fun when it comes to defending their pack or our home, and they are a far cry from wolf. Now… where was I?”
“Smelling wrong”
“Right” Alyssa took another sip of coffee and nibbled at her baked treat, staring into nothing while probably sorting stuff in her head. Bobby looked similar on these occasions, only O’Toole refrained from stroking her chin. “Now, if a furry survives, I don’t know what happens to them. I assume there are a few that live hidden somewhere, more or less happy and not causing problems. But a lot of them, and those are the ones hunters come across, snap. They get crazy, can’t stand the shifting, the heightened senses, the rush of civilization. Close to cities, their instincts scream at them to run and hide, while their human brain tries to reason and tries to stay where it had learned the human belonged. Their animal-minds clash with the human mind, and they get crazy and out of control from the constant tug between instinct and intelligence. I guess that was the reason the wolf attacked you weeks ago”
“Ehm…”
“Why didn’t your brother snap?”
Sam nodded.
“Where you there, when he changed?” another nod “That’s what I thought. Wolves are pack-animals. Family, pack, is everything. I know of one furry, he was with his wife when he turned. Or, well, he was in their bed when he woke as wolf. She screamed but I don’t know why, she accepted him at once as her husband. He stayed with his family for two years before one day he didn’t return from his monthly trips to the forests. Nobody knows what happened, but it’s a good bet he’s dead” she shook her head sadly and Dean was pretty sure that she’d known this couple personally.
Sighing, she stood once more, turning her back to them and staring out of the window into the soft green. “I’m pretty sure, though, that the furry werewolf is a mistake of nature, and that they won’t ever be stable. They are relics from a time when it was possible to roam this land for years without encountering any human, a time when a shifting person would actually be able to survive, maybe even be happy. Nowadays, though, there is little hope of that. My guess is that sooner or later, you will get crazy too, Dean” She looked at him then, a small, gentle smile tugging at her mouth and a softness in her eyes that reminded him of her male counterpart once again. He swallowed his coffee in an effort to hide his emotions.
Alyssa’s next words were even softer “As for a cure, I don’t know if there is one”
Chapter 12
Author:marlowe78
Rating: PG 13
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word count: a lot
Beta: soncnica
Spoilers: for s6, the basics
Warnings: Language, some blood is spilled.
Summary: Do not mess with Mowgli's brother. You can be pretty sure his teeth are sharp
Previous
This time, Sam was awake when Dean shifted, and he was amazed by the difference to the painful transformation before. SHe’d been slumbering a bit, trying to ignore the awkward angle of his neck, when he heard a soft groan from the backseat. Without any noise, he bent his head and watched.
The wolf groaned again, moved on his seat a bit and stretched his legs, and then the limbs grew, changed and formed themselves into legs and arms, his fur retreated into his body - how the hell did it do that? - and his body elongated and broadened itself back to a human.
The face looked ridiculous for a few seconds, before it was back to Dean’s familiar features and when the shoulders popped back into the position they belonged, Dean snuffled a bit and let gravity move him to lie on his stomach instead of his side. The healing of his bruises and bite-marks had progressed much further than normal, and Sam was glad that the fast-healing was one thing that wasn’t a myth about werewolves.
Sam grinned. As fascinating as it had been to see the quick, painless change, as funny was it to see his brother - who wasn’t small by any means - squeezed onto the backseat, curled into himself but still not fitting. His legs touched the seatbacks and his bare ass must be touching the door, though Sam didn’t have the urge to check.
Instead, he took a picture with his phone, saving it right along with the three of the wolf he’d taken during their wait at the accident-site before throwing the blanket over Dean, then trying to get back to sleep. For the first time since the initial bite, Sam felt like everything could be back to normal, like they would actually get through this drama with their minds intact and bodies in one piece.
***
Dean woke from the morning-light poking onto his eyelids. It was annoying enough to get his brain into gear, and warning enough to let his body stay still, just in case there was a not-so-harmless reason that there were no curtains to block out the sun.
His senses tried to pin a location on himself - Impala, backseat, naked, cold - then Sam. Outside, brushing teeth. Dean tried to move from the horribly uncomfortable position, holding the scratchy blanket close to him as to not be exposed to the cool air, Sam, and any other person that might be close by.
When he finally unscrambled his legs and stood outside on his bare feet, a sharp stone digging into his sole which he tried to ignore, he realized that there wasn’t much danger of being observed by strangers. Maybe a voyeuristic bird or deer, but no other human was close by.
“Hmpf” he grunted and got a disgustingly cheerful, toothpaste-y smile from his brother in return.
“Trunk” was all Sam said before looking back into the forest that was surrounding them, not commenting on Deans nakedness and sour mood.
After he’d put on jeans, t-shirt and button-down, his socks and boots and a canvas-jacket, he threw the collar into the depth of his car with disgust and he felt much better. The dull ache from his body was slowly dissipating, now that his muscles were getting warm, and his mood lifted when he was able to take in the silence of the campground. Or, well, not silence. There was sound all about, rustling mice and singing birds, shifting leaves of grass and the needles from the pines that fell from the mighty trees. He could smell clean air and sun-dried sand, and was that an elk that moved somewhere behind him? He could smell it not far off.
With a start, he realized that he shouldn’t know what an elk smelled, much less actually scent it or know where and how far away it was. But he could.
One part of his mind said this was bad, cause for concern and worry and very much a thing his brother should know about, but the other side was just stunned by the sheer beauty of the place he was in, the life that was surrounding him and the possibility of roaming free, no care but trying to feed and fuck. It was freedom as it should be, and it exhilarated him and scared him shitless.
“How far till Backwood Creek?” he forced himself to ask, and Sam grunted back that they would reach it around noon. That was good, he could to hide his heightened sense of smell from Sam that long. Since it seemed that he might have gotten the ability to scent like a wolf but not the same love for rotten things, Dean brushed his teeth before urging Sam on, this time letting his brother drive just so he could enjoy the tantalizing odors of the world through his open window. He’d never realized how much asphalt disturbed the scent of nature, and how much it meant for him to smell it anyway.
.
.
Two minutes past noon, they entered Backwood Creek, inhabitants 505 if you believed the rusty sign that greeted them in ‘America’s prettiest jerkwater-town’. Dean had to grin. “At least they have a sense of humor.” Sam nodded and smiled and looked like a ton of tension had lifted from his shoulders the second they entered the town-limits.
“You got the address?”
“Yeah. Uh… here” Dean rummaged in his pockets until he found the scrunched-up paper where he’d written the instructions on “’Go to the city-hall and then left, straight ahead until you leave the town again, then straight for two miles and then go right, at the green mail-box. Don’t let the bad road scare you’” he cited. “Looks like she really loves company”
“Maybe she does, but the company prefers to limit the actual meetings?” Sam grinned. Still, being the good boy-scout he was, he ordered Dean to call ahead, which resulted in a “grumpf” and “Don’t expect food” from the woman.
.
.
At a quarter to one, they arrived at an open wooden gate in midst of pine-trees and followed the drive up to a house which at least to Dean was a complete surprise.
It wasn’t big, but pretty and well-kept, white wooden frame with a shingled roof and a chimney that was merrily puffing smoke into the sky. The garden was green and lush and full of colorful flowers, a big oak giving shade to the huge porch at the back of the house which they made out while driving up. It was like a distorted mirror-image of Bobby’s ramshackle home and both of them had to stare at this beautiful place for a moment.
“Wow…” whispered Sam, and Dean could only nod.
Loud barking tore them out of their admiration, and five stocky, pointy-eared dogs scrambled out of the door that’d just opened. They were stocky, had short fur and looked like a maniac had tried to paint on them: light-blue or light orange - or both - in color, with white seen through here and there, red and black markings on the faces, ears and legs. They weren’t large, smaller than a German Shepherd but for some reason Dean was sure that these dogs would put any Shepherd to shame.
“Boys! Back in here!” a rough voice called, and the dogs, which had stalked the Impala on stiff legs, hackles raised and teeth bared, stopped snarling and trotted back to the woman who had followed them out of the house. Sam gave a timid little wave and tried to smile, but like Dean he wouldn’t take his eyes of the dogs.
“C’mon out then, if you must” the woman who probably was Alyssa O’Toole stepped closer to them and Dean noted the slight limp. Carefully, not trusting the calm that had returned after the dogs were inside - behind an open door, he noticed - Dean stepped out of the car. Sam was already moving towards their host with his hand outstretched and his happy smile bright on his face.
“Hi, I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean. Mrs O’Toole? I’m so grateful that…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome, blablabla. Now, Robert said you have a werewolf-question that can’t be answered on the phone. Out with it” Dean frowned over this harsh greeting. This was the specialist they were trusting with his… problem? She could’ve at least looked interested, since being happy would probably be creepy - and highly doubtful, the woman didn’t look like she’d been happy in quite a while.
“Uh…” Sam was taken aback for a second. “What did Bobby tell ya?”
“Furry Werewolf, and you’re interested in knowing more ‘bout them. Isn’t that right?” for a second she frowned and looked less sure of herself, and her features turned softer.
“Well, basically. Mostly, we’re interested if there is… like a cure for a werewolf-infection.” Sam asked, full of hope, and Dean held his breath.
“Cure?” O’Toole raised her bushy eyebrows and looked them over more closely. “Aw no, don’t tell me someone you know got bitten. A friend of yours? Robert?”
“Nope, that’d be me” Dean lifted his hand in greeting and smiled tightly. She sighed and looked them over, her shoulders dropping down.
“Damn that man” she muttered. “You better come in, then. Wait until I get the boys in their room, though. They don’t react kindly to weres” That was one request Dean was glad to fulfill.
Once inside, the woman had thawed even more and he had to revise his assessment. She didn’t look forbidding anymore and the idea of a smile on her face was actually pleasant. In fact, up close he could spot the little laugh-lines that crinkled at her eyes and which had been lost in the overall wrinkle-ness on her sun-dried skin. She led them into her kitchen, which was sunny and light and mostly clean except for a few dirty dishes in the sink. It smelled like bacon and eggs, but Dean wasn’t sure if he noticed because of his heightened senses or because she’d just eaten, so he didn’t say anything. They sat at the wooden table close to the large window overlooking an expanse of land that hadn’t been visible from the driveway, but that was obviously part of O’Toole’s property. It was as lush and beautiful as the garden close to the house.
O’Toole made coffee and while it was brewing, she sat down opposite them and took her visitors in with sharp eyes and probably even sharper mind.
Up close, she looked like a female version of Bobby. She wasn’t an exact copy, of course, but there was a presence to her that reminded him at once at their old friend. She had short, graying hair, a stocky built and broad shoulders, and somehow Dean doubted there was much fat on her. She wore jeans and a checkered man’s shirt, a vest and sturdy boots. Only the ball-cap was missing, and the beard, to make her a sister to the grumpy old cod back in South Dakota. “Your maiden name’s not Singer, right?”
O’Toole looked at him and for a second, everything froze. But she threw her head back and laughed, and it was like the sun coming up behind a cloud. Her whole face transformed into warmth and hospitality, and the two of them exhaled in unison.
Still chuckling, she went to get the coffee and three chipped mugs, took milk out of the fridge and sat back down with them. “No, my maiden name’s O’Toole. I used to be a Granger once, but that’s not what I wanted to be stuck with after getting rid of the fucker. And nowadays, a woman living alone doesn’t need to be associated with the name of a witch from a kid’s book. But call me Alyssa, then I won’t feel so old” she winked “I’m guessin’ you’re the Winchester-kids, then?”
Kids?
“Kids? Not since a long time” Sam frowned, but the woman chuckled again and patted his arm.
“Boy, if you are who I think, you’ll always be Bobby’s kids, no matter how huge you get. Or how sassy” she said in Dean’s direction. He decided to ignore it, sniffing the coffee with longing. “It’s ok, boy. You just take lotsa milk and you’ll keep it down.”
Grateful, Dean grabbed the mug and poured, groaning in delight when the caffeine hit his taste-buds. He noticed Sam grinning, but chose to let it go. Alyssa took a sip as well and then continued, speaking to Sam which was fine with Dean for now. There was coffee to savor. “The incapacity for certain human foods lessens when the body had time to adjust to the shift. Sooner or later, even stuff like grapes and chocolate won’t be poisonous anymore” What? Chocolate was poison? He couldn’t even eat freaking chocolate? Dean’s mind was spinning over the horrible scenario of a life without sweets, but O’Toole continued and he tried to keep up. “I don’t know if you noticed, but sooner or later, the muscles, bones and ligaments don’t resist the change anymore and everything gets easier, more fluent. The stomach and bowls can process human food again, like they used to. I wouldn’t test it with poisonous stuff, though, and I hope you didn’t let him eat any bones?” Sam shook his head vehemently “Good. Those can really injure the intestines during shifting, they just don’t digest fast enough. Now, how long’sit been?”
“He got bitten three weeks ago, and he’d been… shifting since Monday night.”
“No full moon yet, then?”
Sam shook his head.
“Good, really good” Before any of them could ask what was so good about that, she continued. “What do you know about furries?”
“Not much. Dean shot one, years ago, and then this one, who bit him. Other than that, we know more about the…”
“Non-furries”
“Non-furries. Silver kills them, right? And they heal pretty fast”
At that, Dean frowned and looked at his arm, only now realizing that the bites had nearly scarred over and the pain was close to gone. Huh, he hadn’t even noticed.
“Well. Basically, that’s what I’d expect hunters to know about them. You’re not wrong, but that’s not all. They’re really different from the non-furries, in many aspects. Where non-furries get vicious and dangerous without fail, the furries … well, they don’t start out that way. I don’t know if these two are even related to each other, but I think, based on observation, that the viciousness’s due to the fact that the human part of the were is stronger in the non-furries than the wolf-part.”
“Really?” Dean interrupted “I’d have thought… it was the wolf that made them kill”
“Yes” she scowled “It’s what most would think. But what wolf do you know that kills and only eats the heart? That’d be a waste of food, just as it’d be stupid to seek a certain person to eat the heart of. No, the wolf is not the aggressor in this infection. It’s, if you wanna call it something, the victim” Dean scoffed and she glared at him. “You wanna listen, or you wanna wait outside?” Sam kicked his ankle and Dean lowered his head, mumbling an insincere “sorry”.
“Now. The furries are more wolfish, so they’re usually mainly one thing when all this starts: scared shitless. Most newly infected furries, as far as I could find out, are freaked out about suddenly waking up in a city, not knowing how they got there, not knowing what was around them and why. A scared animal is a dangerous animal, so I guess a lot of infection-spreading stems from this time“
“Can the uh… furries change at will?” This time, Sam was shot down with her scary glare.
“You wanna go and read all that yourself, be my guest.” O’Toole indicated to the hallway behind her. Sam shook his bangs and glared at Dean when he grinned at him “If not, shut up and listen. No, no werewolf can shift at will. They can only change in the week before full moon, like the non-furries, with the full moon being the longest night for them. It’s also the night they get the most instinctual. Now, usually they’re like wolves. The first time they shift, they are complete wolf, no memory of ever being something different. So a lot of them, when waking up in a city, run and hide and when they shift back, they don’t know where they are. Some wind up in the wilderness and never get back to ‘civilization’” she actually used air-quotes “and I guess some might still live there somewhere, not doing any harm. Why would they? It’d only lead to their destruction if they ever get found out. There are several problems, though, which is why there are incidents with furries here and there. First shift is really scary, I already mentioned. Self-defense is another, and in the age of the vicious wolf-hatred in this country, it’s more common than you’d think. I guess a lot of them get shot, simple as that.”
“Uhm…” Dean tried to interrupt, raising his hand tentatively like he was in school “With actual bullets?”
“Of course, or do you know any ordinary hunter who’d load his gun with silver?” Dean didn’t know any ordinary hunter at all, so he shook his head “Yes, sure, silver kills a werewolf, but so does lead or an axe or a club. A car. You shoot the wolf dead, it stays dead. Not sure what happens if you shoot the human when they’re not furry, but the wolf-part’s just an animal. Just… not quite. Which leads to the next problem.” She stood and opened a cupboard, all the while continuing to explain “The furries that get out of the city often try to join a wolf-pack when they’re in animal-form. If they find one, though, that’s usually the end for them” O’Toole set a pack of cookies -without chocolate, but still: cookies! - in front of them, motioning them to take one. Dean’d never wasted a cookie, and he wouldn’t be starting now “Wolves don’t take kindly to strange wolves, if it’s not a female, but they certainly don’t take kindly to a wolf that isn’t a real wolf. For some reason, they smell that they’re wrong and simply tear them apart.”
“But you said wolves aren’t vicious” Sam interrupted and dunked his cookie into the coffee. Little freak.
“I never said that. Wolves don’t kill for fun, or for just a heart. But there is nothing fun in defending your territory, believe me. My dogs aren’t fun when it comes to defending their pack or our home, and they are a far cry from wolf. Now… where was I?”
“Smelling wrong”
“Right” Alyssa took another sip of coffee and nibbled at her baked treat, staring into nothing while probably sorting stuff in her head. Bobby looked similar on these occasions, only O’Toole refrained from stroking her chin. “Now, if a furry survives, I don’t know what happens to them. I assume there are a few that live hidden somewhere, more or less happy and not causing problems. But a lot of them, and those are the ones hunters come across, snap. They get crazy, can’t stand the shifting, the heightened senses, the rush of civilization. Close to cities, their instincts scream at them to run and hide, while their human brain tries to reason and tries to stay where it had learned the human belonged. Their animal-minds clash with the human mind, and they get crazy and out of control from the constant tug between instinct and intelligence. I guess that was the reason the wolf attacked you weeks ago”
“Ehm…”
“Why didn’t your brother snap?”
Sam nodded.
“Where you there, when he changed?” another nod “That’s what I thought. Wolves are pack-animals. Family, pack, is everything. I know of one furry, he was with his wife when he turned. Or, well, he was in their bed when he woke as wolf. She screamed but I don’t know why, she accepted him at once as her husband. He stayed with his family for two years before one day he didn’t return from his monthly trips to the forests. Nobody knows what happened, but it’s a good bet he’s dead” she shook her head sadly and Dean was pretty sure that she’d known this couple personally.
Sighing, she stood once more, turning her back to them and staring out of the window into the soft green. “I’m pretty sure, though, that the furry werewolf is a mistake of nature, and that they won’t ever be stable. They are relics from a time when it was possible to roam this land for years without encountering any human, a time when a shifting person would actually be able to survive, maybe even be happy. Nowadays, though, there is little hope of that. My guess is that sooner or later, you will get crazy too, Dean” She looked at him then, a small, gentle smile tugging at her mouth and a softness in her eyes that reminded him of her male counterpart once again. He swallowed his coffee in an effort to hide his emotions.
Alyssa’s next words were even softer “As for a cure, I don’t know if there is one”
Chapter 12