Lupo Mutaret (7/?)
Title: Lupo Mutaret
Genre: Gen, hurt-comfort.
Warnings: Language and some violence.
Words: 2, 808 (this chapter brings the overall word count over 20k!).
Summary: A hunt gone wrong leads to consequences that none of the Winchester's ever could have predicted. All three will have to adapt in order to survive, particularly Sam. Pre-Stanford AU - Sam is seventeen, Dean is twenty-one.
A/N: - At the bottom.
It took Dean a further week before both Dean and John - who had been making a considerable effort since their little heart to heart - agreed that he and Bobby should head out and handle things in Nebraska. Sam’s changes were already starting to get shorter and (according to Sam) a little less painful, although his diminished appetite (and sudden habit of falling asleep when he sat still for more than ten minutes) suggested to Dean that the younger hunter might be fudging the truth a little bit there.
Still, it was better than Sam writhing in pain; sweat dripping from his head and blood trickling from his nose. Dean would do anything to never have to see that again - even if it meant forcing his brother to undergo a slightly less violent pain once a week in the hopes that, eventually, it would get better.
Another bonus was the fact that, as Sam forced himself through change after change, it became gradually apparent that it was becoming easier for him to shift his clothing with him. Honestly, Dean hadn't even stopped to consider the possibility - after all, the change was supposed to affect purely Sam's body, but now he could manage to shift jeans and a t-shirt as well as himself. Dean puzzled for a while as to what happened to them whilst he was in his wolf form, before figuring that he'd never work it out, and instead found himself grateful that Sam wasn't still shedding his clothes every time he changed shape.
Ironically enough, it was only a day after Bobby and John headed out that Dean noticed a problem; it appeared that for all of their father (and Bobby’s) paranoid warnings about things that could go wrong - and who to contact if they did - neither of them had remembered to stock up on food. The fridge was completely empty save for a half-open bottle of mayonnaise, two slices of ham that looked vaguely green in colour and - bizarrely - a nice looking, bright red pepper.
Which, unfortunately, meant grocery shopping.
Sam had been reluctant to head into town, and Dean was fairly confident that his baby brother was strangely paranoid that someone was going to look at him and realise that there was something different - supernatural - about him. It was a fairly ridiculous notion, but all the same it had Dean’s paranoia rearing its head as soon as the thought hit him.
Although it would be a rare occurrence to run into another hunter in Bobby’s hometown, there was always the chance that someone might have stopped into the local motel room with the intention of heading down to Bobby’s for information; it was unlikely as hell, true, but so was the idea of a hunter being cursed to live out the rest of their life as a Shapeshifter.
Still, Dean couldn’t just let his brother turn himself into a hermit, so he settled for ramming a gun into both of their waistbands before they headed out.
“This still seems like a really bad plan,” Sam sighed from the passenger seat, running a hand through his hair. Dean was relieved to see that the black bags underneath his eyes had started to fade (and just when he’d thought they might become a permanent fixture on his brother’s face) and he looked a little healthier. “Are you sure there was nothing in the house?”
“Nothing edible.” Dean answered patiently, shoving the Impala’s door open and stepping out into the cool afternoon air. “Besides, it’s not like you’ve got anything to be worried about. I’ll be with you the whole time, and I’m not exactly going to stand by and watch while some weirdo shoots you full of silver, am I?”
“Thanks, Dean.” Sam groused, rolling his eyes in irritation even as he reluctantly climbed out of the car. “That’s really reassuring.”
Dean shrugged. “Matter of opinion; now get your ass moving. I actually want to make it back to the yard before nightfall.”
Sam sighed again, but he fell into step beside his brother nonetheless, their shoulders brushing as they headed into the Walmart. Dean was thankful again that their father had done their shopping for them as an act of penance (and considering the general Winchester hatred for shopping, it really did show just how sorry he’d been about the whole situation), meaning that they’d only have to grab enough food to last them before they headed out.
“So,” Dean grinned, snagging a trolley as he headed through the automatic doors. “What are you feeling Sammy? Stakes? Lasagne?”
The younger Winchester grinned despite himself. “No, moron. We’ll be better off just stocking up on cans and some everyday stuff - that way what we don’t eat will keep.”
“You’re one boring teenager, Sam Winchester.” Dean groused, already steering the cart in the right direction. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Matter of opinion,” Sam shot back, reusing his brother’s words before dropping his volume. “Not many seventeen year olds can turn themselves into a wolf at will.”
Dean blinked in surprise at his younger brother’s sudden shift in attitude towards his situation, but had to concede that it was a fair point. Apparently, his brother was a lot more interesting than he gave him credit for.
“Cans are up here,” Sam informed idly, nudging the cart in the right direction when it looked like his brother was about to steer right past it, peeling away from him a little to browse the aisle.
By all rights, both boys should have been sick of the sight of spaghetti-o’s and tinned ‘sausage and beans’ after seventeen years of living off them, but Dean begrudgingly had to admit that the ability to recognise them by the colour of the tin alone came in pretty handy sometimes. Needless to say, the two of them had the cart well stocked within a matter of minutes, and after zipping around to get a few of the essentials (namely the likes of bread and beer), Dean happily led them to the desert aisle which (he was happy to note) backed right onto the pet aisle.
The little devil on his shoulder wouldn’t leave him be and, content with the knowledge that Sam would be no more than a few feet away, he mumbled an excuse and made his escape. Sam didn’t seem particularly perturbed by his brother’s absence (clearly debating the merits of two different chocolate cakes was more important), and by the time that Dean returned and hastily buried his items at the bottom of the cart, Sam still hadn’t moved.
Grinning a little to himself, Dean told the younger hunter just to throw both cakes in and threw in a pie for good measure, before steering them to the checkout. He had a brief moment of panic when he got there, realising that if he couldn’t distract Sam his surprise would be ruined, but he really shouldn’t have worried. Sam’s eyes were already longingly focused on the Impala through the glass storefront.
Dean made a show of sighing as he chucked his keys to his brother, but Sam’s relieved grin was enough to ensure that Dean wasn’t actually bothered, and he happily watched his brother’s journey to the car as he waited his turn.
The cashier was an older lady, pretty in a mom-like way, but her smile was a little too faked for Dean’s liking.
“Little brother?” She asked pleasantly as she scanned the shopping through. Dean hesitated; a hunter’s instinct to keep all of his cards held tightly to his chest warring with the part of him that didn’t want to come across as rude. Finally, he nodded a little and made a vaguely agreeing noise, clearly discouraging any other conversation without directly rebuffing her.
She didn’t seem to take the hint. “You two seem pretty close - that’s pretty unusual, these days.”
“We get along alright.” Dean shrugged, stuffing the groceries into bags as fast as he could without looking like he was trying to escape.
He had to resist the urge to let loose a sigh of relief when she read off how much he owed, shoving just enough to cover it in her general direction and telling her to keep the change. He knew he was being paranoid, that she was probably just being friendly, but he suddenly really wanted to be back inside the Salvage Yard, with protective wards and sigils to keep out anything untoward.
On the plus side, the layout of the store meant that he could keep his eyes trained on his brother as he headed out to the car (although he did almost walk into a young mother and a double buggy, which was a little embarrassing). It helped lessen his paranoia a little, but he was a hunter - he knew better than anyone that it was vital to listen to your instincts.
And his instincts were telling him to get the hell out.
He made it to the Impala in record time, gracelessly dumping the grocery bags in the back footwells before gratefully sliding into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, craning his head to try and see any potential threats and clearly coming up blank - turning back to his brother with a raised eyebrow that didn’t quite dispel his vaguely unsettled look. “That cashier try and hit on you or something? The fact that she’s old enough to be our mom really wasn’t a good enough reason to run for the hills, you know. She probably knows that ‘no’ means ‘no’.”
“Ha ha,” Dean groused, sliding the key into the ignition with a lot less than his usual key. “I dunno. Something’s just not right around here. I’m probably just freaking out over nothing.”
There was a long pause, and when Dean glanced over at his younger brother, he decided straight away that he didn’t like the look on the kid’s face.
“What?”
“I don’t think you’re being stupid.” Sam said quietly. “I was freaking out, too. I thought I was just being paranoid… that’s why I came back to the car. I didn’t want you to think that there was something wrong.”
Dean pulled out of the parking lot with a frown.
“Something was wrong.”
Dean didn’t drive straight back to the Salvage Yard. Instead, he coasted straight past the turning and took them on a twenty-minute detour in the hopes that if anyone was following them, they’d mess up and show themselves. If there was anyone there, they were good enough that neither of the Winchester’s spotted them, and after driving in a circle for the third time, Dean finally decided that they were wasting their time.
“Maybe we just imagined it,” Sam said, his voice slightly hopeful. Neither of them believed it - the chances of both of them randomly freaking out over nothing were beyond slim. “Okay. So that’s not very likely. We might have just overreacted, though. Maybe there was someone watching us; why assume that it’s something evil? It could have just been a curious civilian, for all we know.”
“Winchester luck, for a start.” Dean sighed. “Look, we can re-do the wards when we get in, make a quick round of the yard and then I’ll put in a call to Bobby and Dad. Better safe than sorry.”
His baby seemed to purr her agreement, the speed creeping up a little as if in agreement; on the seat next to him, Sam nodded reluctantly, giving Dean just the tiniest glimpse of the expression on his face as he did so.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sammy?” Dean asked, frowning at the stressed look on his brother’s face. The turn off for Bobby’s appeared in the distance, and Sam didn’t talk until they’d turned into it - as if worried that something would overhear.
“It’s nothing, just…” He hesitated for a long moment, but Dean refused to be deterred. Stubbornness was a trait that all three Winchester’s shared, after all. “It’s like, in the back of my mind, I can feel my… inner wolf? I don’t know, it sounds stupid.”
Dean thought about that for a long second. “Nah, that actually makes a little bit of sense. I mean, wolves have instincts and shit, right? It would be more stupid if you just weren’t aware of them.”
“I guess so. But my wolf? It’s freaking the hell out.”
“Right,” Dean sighed. “Of course it is. And we have no idea why - never mind the fact that backup has just skipped off into the mountains and the nearest hunter is over a hundred miles away. Fuck.”
“Dean?” Sam asked quietly as the Impala pulled to a stop. “You don’t think that this is because of me, do you?”
The truth was, Dean really didn’t know. He was supposed to be Sam’s big brother; to be able to protect him from everything, for as long as he was able, but this time he was just as much in the dark. He had no idea what was going on (if anything even was going on), and that scared him more than anything.
For the first time in his life, Dean Winchester didn’t feel like a hunter.
He felt like prey.
“Alright,” Sam informed his brother as he stepped into the kitchen, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his sleeve. “All of the wards and sigils have been redone - I even went over the devils trap on the ceiling above the front door. There’s nothing evil getting in here. You find anything?”
Dean shook his head, frustrated that his instincts were screaming at him, but he couldn’t find any reason for it. “Nothing. The entire yard was clean - no EMF, no sulphur, no footprints. Nothing that would indicate that anything’s been here whilst we’ve been gone, or is still here now.”
“Did you phone Dad?”
“He didn’t answer,” Dean sighed. “I left him a voicemail, and I figured I’d try again in an hour or so. If they got there late last night, they’ll probably still be sleeping. You know what they’re like.”
If Dean was honest with himself, the fact that his father hadn’t answered his phone had made him angry all over again. It seemed just typical that, after all of his promises to be there for them, he wouldn’t answer his phone when they really needed him.
“I wish I knew what was going on,” Sam sighed, sinking into a kitchen chair and rubbing his temple distractedly. “I hate waiting.”
“Me too, kiddo,” Dean sighed, before grinning a little, and dropping the duffel bag that he’d been carrying onto the dining room table. “But we can be prepared, and that’s something, right? I’m thinking we do our best to cover every angle - holy water in super soakers, your iron throwing knives, silver bullets, the crossbow and a machete in case our new friends need beheading… anything else you think we might need?”
“I think you got it covered.” Sam grinned.
“Yeah, well,” Dean smiled. “Like I said, better safe than sorry. It never hurts to be prepared.”
Seven hours later found the boys (and their mini-armoury) in Bobby’s lounge; the TV was playing some old werewolf film, and although it was on mute, the flickering of images served as something other than the growing sense of paranoia to focus on. Sam had curled up on the couch under a blanket, an iron throwing knife in one hand and a gun loaded with silver bullets in the other.
It hadn’t escaped Dean’s notice that his fingers were burnt where he’d been handling the bullets, but either Sam hadn’t seen fit to mention it or he honestly hadn’t noticed. With Sam, it was hard to tell.
Unsurprisingly, he’d dozed off, although the way that his eyes flickered beneath their lids every time Dean moved assured him that it wasn’t a deep sleep - he knew his brother better than anyone, and he knew that if the need arose, his brother could go from REM sleep to wide awake in the blink of an eye. Despite the situation, he was just glad that he was catching up on some much-needed rest.
Dean had used the time to patrol the inside of the house every hour, and call his father three times an hour. He still hadn’t gotten a response, and he was starting to worry a little despite himself - although it was hard to tell whether he was scared for his father and Bobby, or himself and Sam.
Neither situation seemed brilliant.
“What time ‘s it?” Sam slurred fuzzily, blinking his eyes awake.
“Nearly one in the morning,” Dean grinned, although the expression was forced. “How you feeling?”
“Great,” Sam answered with no enthusiasm. “I’m assuming nothing interesting happened whilst I was out?”
“If it had, you’d be the first to know,” Dean sighed, shifting slightly in his seat. He opened his mouth to continue, but the look of sudden apprehension on his brother’s face cut him off.
“What?”
“There’s someone out there,” Sam whispered, nodding to the window. True enough; three shadows flitted across the drawn blinds merely seconds later. For a strange second, Dean opened his mouth to ask how Sam had know, and then the more important matter at hand hit him - there were three people (creatures, things) outside.
Three things that really shouldn’t be out there.
“Well then,” Dean whispered back, checking his handgun one more time. “Looks like it’s go time.”
A/N - Goodness, it's been a while! Well, I have my reasons - we went to stay with relatives, and when we were there my dad got a job interview (he's leaving the navy after 22 years of service) and just three days after we arrived, he got offered the job! It all happened impressively quickly, but unfortunately that means he has to move to where his job is this weekend, since he starts Monday, whereas we'll be staying until August to finish school and pack up the house. As you can imagine, it's crazy hectic around here right now... not to mention that exams are coming up! Updates are probably going to be considerably slower than they have been already, but rest assured that I refuse to abandon this fic, and I've also started working on a 100 themes challenge - so make sure to check those out when I get them posted! Each theme is a proper fic, at least 1000 words long! right, well... /endbabble.
ALSO - comments and reviews are love, and may encourage me to update faster. Just so you know.