The Beast You've Made of Me, Part Two
FOUR MONTHS LATER
“Dean, I swear to god, if you eat that in the car, we are not going anywhere,” Sam pointed at his brother, firmly.
“My car, my rules,” Dean smirked, and slid into the driver’s seat with his burger - double onions on it - in hand. “Now sit yer pansy ass down and quit yer bellyachin’. Bobby got a lead on some strange deaths out in California, looks like that’s where we’re heading next.”
Sam reluctantly slid into the passenger seat, glowering at the burger Dean was now ravenously attacking. “More wolves?”
He nodded, wiping barbeque sauce off the corner of his mouth. “Looks like he found the pack that might have turned that first guy in the first place. We can cut this whole fiasco off at the base, and no one else needs to get hurt.”
He sighed, nodding, looking out the window. Sam seemed to be doing that a lot lately, ever since Madison…
“Hey. We’re going to save people again.” Dean reminded him. “That’s what we do, right? Hunting things, saving people?”
Sam nodded.
“Stop being such a grumpy gus, and help me figure out the route.” He grumped, glowering at his brother. He understood how his brother could be a little upset over the whole thing - after all, he had had to shoot someone he’d just slept with the day before, but she had been a werewolf, and she had accepted that it was her time to go. As a hunt went, it had been one of the most straight forward and simple. So maybe it had been a bad idea to focus their energy on finding the rest of the wolves right away after, but werewolfism was kind of a time sensitive issue. You had to get them quick, before the next full moon.
“Fine,” Sam muttered, digging the maps out of the glove compartment. “We don’t have much in the way of silver bullets.”
Dean snorted. “You know we don’t need those. It’s really just a matter of separating the head from the heart, anyhow. Technically, there are tons of ways of doing that.”
“Yeah,” he murmured.
Shaking his head, the older brother licked barbeque sauce off his fingers, then balled up the bag he’d bought the burger in, and tossed it out the window before cranking the key and pulling the Impala out of its parking spot, looking over his shoulder as he backed out. “All right, Sammy boy, let’s get headed out to sunny California, shall we?”
Sam sighed. “Sure.”
---
“I’m telling you, it was just a minor animal control incident, Officer… what did you say your name was, again?”
“Gary Rossington,” Dean smiled disarmingly, tapping the point of his pen lightly against the pad he held in his hand. “I understand, sir, that it was just an animal control incident, but it’s just a little part of a larger investigation, and we just need to know every detail, no matter how mundane it might seem.”
The animal control officer, a Dick Belcoe, stood, and headed to the filing cabinet, digging about for the file.
Sam glanced at Dean, and smirked slightly. “Gary Rossington?” he mouthed, silently.
The older Winchester shrugged, grinning.
“Ah, here we go, the file for the Tinsel case…” Dick stepped back to his desk, already flicking through the pages, frowning slightly. “I don’t know all the details, only what the investigation reports, but I was there, so I can tell you a few first hand details…”
“Now,” Sam cleared his throat. “I understand that it was a large animal that got loose in a crowded club, correct?”
He snorted. “It was huge.”
“And what was it, exactly?” Dean smiled at him.
The man hesitated. “Well. We never really… it got away.”
Sam looked up sharply. “I thought the reports said that the body was found.”
Dick squirmed a little, clearing his throat awkwardly, scratching at his jaw. “Well… ah… that might have been a slight misnomer… there was… a body found.”
Dean arched a brow, waiting.
“…a bystander. Got in the crossfire, got shot. The men reported that they thought they’d got it, but when I arrived to take a look at the body, it was… the unfortunate woman.”
“The woman and the… animal, could they have shot her by accident, thinking she was the animal?”
“Well,” Dick hesitated, “The reports do say that the creature walked somewhat bipedal… we think it might have been a bear.”
“A bear.” Dean frowned. “In Southern California.”
“I know, I thought it was ridiculous, too, but… all the reports concluded that, and it’s not completely unheard of…” Dick bolted up again to head back to the filing cabinet. “Just two days before, there was a massive car wreck on Mulholland, two cars collided with a bear, and one was even mauled and killed. Well… the official conclusion was a bear, though some original reports suggested a coyote, or wild dog, my men at the scene concluded there is no way it could have been anything that small.”
“Does this happen a lot in your area? Bear attacks?” Sam jotted a couple notes in his pad, glancing up at Dick.
“Yes and no,” he frowned. “There are some reports that things like this happened in the 1920s, back when they were expanding in this area, but most reports concluded that bears had been chased out of Southern California by the demolition of their environments. But in the last few years, there have been more… and in the last four months, the number of attacks have meteorically risen. I’ve been doing some research into it myself, but I was told that it was not a pressing issue. I’m surprised that you have been assigned to it.”
“Well, based on the reports we’ve been given, was there not an attack in a parking garage?” Dean arched a brow.
Dick cleared his throat again. Seemed to be a touch of a nervous habit. “Technically, there’s no proof that was the bear… there has been some investigation that it might have just been someone with a rather… animal like mode of operation…”
Sam reached into the inside jacket of his suit, and tugged out a folded piece of paper, unfolding it. It was a photocopy of a newspaper article, not terribly well photocopied, but clear enough for him to see something in the photos that hadn’t actually been mentioned in the article. There were sharp indents on the hoods of the cars in the photos - indents that looked significantly like footprints. “As I understand it, distinctive animal prints were found at the scene, along with evidence of claw marks and biting… that suggests a rather large animal at the scene to me, sir.”
He sighed. “True…”
“Have any photos ever been taken of this creature, Officer Belcoe?” Dean suggested, looking up at him.
“The police had a few shots from security footage from both Tinsel and the parking garage,” Dick frowned, “But they’ve been deemed part of the investigation, and I’ve never seen them. Sorry.”
“Hm.” Sam glanced at Dean, knowingly.
“Anything else you can tell us?” the elder asked, clicking his pen ‘off’, and sliding it into his breast pocket. “Anything about that woman, perhaps?”
“Well, she had nothing to do with it,” Dick frowned.
“Even though she was naked?”
Dean glanced at his brother, startled. He hadn’t remembered reading anything about nudity… Sam had been reading all the juicy reports and keeping the fun details to himself.
“Well. Yes.” Dick squirmed. “That might have been unrelated…”
“Nudity in night clubs isn’t exactly normal,” Sam pointed out. “Especially since the security report suggests that they found women’s clothing shredded in the area of the hall of mirrors. Sure, it could be unrelated, but…”
“She could have been attacked by the animal, if nothing else.” Dean suggested, kicking his brother’s calf out of sight from the desk.
“True.” Dick considered that. “She didn’t have any wounds beyond several gunshot wounds and signs of an electrocution. It looks like she burned her hand pretty badly.”
“Hm, interesting,” Dean murmured.
---
“I got the pictures,” Sam tossed a few photos onto the table in front of Dean, on top of John’s journal. Tugging the knot of his tie loose, he sighed, and nodded at them. “Look familiar?”
“Shit, look at the size of that sucker,” Dean frowned, considering the pictures. “Biggest wolf I’ve seen.”
“Deadest wolf you’ve seen in awhile, too,” he sighed, tossing his tie onto the bed. “Keep flipping, you’ll see some autopsy photos… the shot the woman in the forehead… separated her head from her heart.”
“Ouch… that’s a nasty head wound.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Sam sighed, running his hand through his hair. “But some of these reports happen after her death, so she wasn’t the only wolf in town.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Dean nodded, considering the photos, frowning. “Most times you have werewolves, you don’t just have one, you have a whole pack. Alpha, omega, the whole kit and caboodle. Sure, you know, they’re human most of the month, but they still act like wolves to an certain level. Besides the fact that it’s so very easy to transmit the curse…”
“Yeah,” Sam murmured, scratching at his palm.
“Problem?” Dean smirked.
“No.” he muttered, and headed to the fridge, grabbing a pair of beer bottles, handing one silently to his brother and cracking the cap off the other before suggesting, “So how do you propose we track them down? It might be hard… these wolves seem to act a little different.”
“How so?” his brother frowned, cracking the cap off his bottle, sipping at it.
“That first werewolf attack, the one with the cars and the woman who got ripped in half? Happened five days before the full moon. I’ve never heard of a werewolf attacking someone outside of the five days around the full moon…”
“Mmm, might have something to do with all the hormones they pump into the water in Holywood,” Dean smirked. “We have four days until the full moon, now, so I guess that means we should be looking out for new kills right away.”
“Nn,” he frowned. “Well… we’ll head out to Tinsel tomorrow, see what we can find.”
“Tinsel,” the other shook his head. “About the gayest sounding place I’ve ever heard of. Is that the thing around here, to be a gay as humanely possible?”
Sam smirked. “Says the man who grabbed my ass last year?”
“That wasn’t gay, that was acting,” he drawled, grinning. “And a fine bit of it, if I do say so myself.”
He shook his head. “You’re the ass.”
---
“Ready to hit the club after this interview?” Dean smirked.
“Are you kidding? You’re doing the club bit!” Sam yelped. “There’s no way that I’m going to do that, I am going to sit in the hotel and research, thank you very much, you go into the club and interview people.”
His brother clapped his shoulder. “Not happening, pansy boy. You look fabulous enough to fit in.”
“Oh ha ha,” he grumbled at him. “No.”
“Sorry, Sammy boy, I’ve got some other interviews lined up already, it’s all yours. Now, we’re here.”
“I hate interviewing people at schools,” Sam grumbled, climbing out of the car, and adjusting his jacket. “And this guy is probably a jock, too, if we’re supposed to find him with the wrestling team…”
“And what’s the problem with that?” Dean glanced at him.
“I hate jocks,” he muttered.
“Sure you do,” he grinned, and looped his thumbs into his pockets, heading for the gymnasium using the directions he’d found on the school’s website the night before. Stepping inside, he looked around, considering it. “Heh, high school gyms. Home of mockery and discrimination.”
Sam shook his head, then nodded towards the bleachers. Two young men were sitting on the second bench up, talking, one dressed in wrestling gear, the other in an Incredible Hulk t-shirt. “That’s the kid.”
“…the jock, or the geek?”
“The geek,” he rolled his eyes, and headed over towards the bleachers. “Jimmy Myers?”
The curly haired kid looked up, surprised, and stood. His nostrils flared for a moment, and Sam was reminded of being a teenaged geek himself, every instinct working to ferret out the jocks before they had a chance to figure him out first. He stepped forward, arms crossed, awkwardly, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m Jimmy Myers… who are you?”
“Ronny James,” Dean pointed at himself, then Sam, “And Vinny Appice. Animal control officers.”
The other teenager stood, moving forward to stand beside Jimmy, frowning as he looked them up and down. “Funny, you don’t like members of Black Sabbath…”
The elder Winchester smirked, clearly impressed. “”Dunno what you’re talking about.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “We just had a couple questions for you, can we talk to you?”
“Practise. Sorry. Not happening,” the other frowned.
“Bo…” Jimmy muttered, flushed. “They’re like cops. We kinda have to talk to them, don’t we?”
The other grumbled, though Sam was relieved to hear the identification - knowing that he was Bo identified him as the best friend who had been present at the second werewolf attack, and therefore, another one that needed to be interviewed. “It will just take a few minutes, boys. We need to know what happened at Tinsel a few months ago.”
Bo looked like the question didn’t even bother him, but Jimmy paled, eyes widening.
“Is there somewhere we can talk a little more private? We just need a few minutes of your time,” Dean smiled disarmingly at them.
“Yeah, c’mon,” Jimmy nodded, grabbing his backpack and tossing it over his shoulder. He ignored Bo’s displeased expression, and led him towards the back of the gym, to the corner furthest from the boys practicing their throws and flips. “You wanted to know about Tinsel, you said?”
“Mmm. We’re investigating how a bear got into town,” Sam nodded, tugging out his pad again. “We understand that you two and your sister were at Tinsel when the animal attacked?”
“Bear?” Jimmy blinked.
“Yeah, bear,” Bo said, quickly, firmly. “We didn’t see anything.”
“I heard you were injured on that particular night, actually,” Dean looked up from his own notes, and it was Sam’s turn to give him a surprised, displeased look. “You weren’t bitten, were you?”
Jimmy shook his head, almost too fervently. “He wasn’t.”
“Good, it sucks to be bitten by anything. Especially… bears.” Dean drawled.
Sam snorted.
---
“What the fuck are you doing on the roof?”
Sam cleared his throat, squirming a little. He honestly wasn’t really sure what the hell was going on. So the night before had been late - the club investigation had been delayed by an impromptu interview with a police officer who claimed to have information about the attack in the parking garage, but late nights usually didn’t result in either of them waking up on the roof of their motel in his boxers.
Yet there Sam sat on the shingles, confused and embarrassed, mostly naked.
“Um… honestly?” Sam flushed. “I have no idea.”
“Well, get down.”
“Sure. Ah… can you give me a hand?”
---
Sam squirmed in his seat, scratching at his palm, wishing it wasn’t so itchy. Actually, he sort of felt weird all over, but if he focused on his itchy hand, it was easier than focusing on his aching back, or the fact that he seemed to be able to smell everything, or that he felt sort of temperamental. He felt like he was about to start screaming at someone one moment, or throw himself out the window the next.
It was… unsettling.
“It’s the full moon tonight… you ready to brave the club by yourself tonight? Fend off all the she-wolves with a stick?” Dean smirked, dropping into the seat across from him.
“Funny, Dean.” Sam glowered at him.
“I thought so,” he laughed, sipping at a paper cup of coffee, and leaning forward to set another in front of Sam. “There have been a few more reports of wolves along Mulholland in the last two months, so I’m going to stake out that road tonight, just in case. So you’re going to have to handle the bar by yourself. If werewolves really do like to frequent that place, you might be able to find them.”
He nodded, leaning back in his seat, cracking the lid off his coffee, considering it. “Yeah, maybe.”
“What… don’t want to be separated from me?” he smirked, mischievously.
“Dick,” Sam sighed.
“Pansy.”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
---
Feeling very out of place, Sam stepped into Tinsel, frankly relieved he’d managed to get in despite the crowd. He’d always sort of figured that once a club had gotten over the first month of popularity and celebrity status, that it got sort of boring and passé, mostly just attractive for regular rich kids. But despite the fact that there didn’t seem to be any A-list celebrities, there were a few C-listers that he recognized, and it was one of those he slipped in after into the crowded club.
Ordering a grossly overpriced drink from one of the several bars, he sipped at it and slipped through the bar.
It seemed… over done. There were wax statues of celebrities everywhere, which seemed like an odd choice for décor, but at least it was unique. Slipping through the house of mirrors, he finally found himself in a room that made him laugh in its irony alone - a room devoted entirely to the old Wolfman franchise.
Leaning on a little display case - with a silver wolfs-head cane in it - he considered the room.
Pretty impressive, really, that this place was still going, considering the owner had gone missing a few months ago. Coincidentally, it had been on the same night that the werewolf had ripped this place to pieces… it if weren’t for the fact that the owner was a man, he would have suspected he’d been the werewolf that was shot in here at the time.
Sighing, he sipped at his drink, then hesitated, glancing at the woman walking through the room.
She was shorter than the type of girls he normally went for, but she had the long, pin straight dark hair, and a look of confidence and control. And as she walked quickly through the room, she paused, turning to look back at Sam.
He wasn’t really sure why he stepped forward to greet her. He was supposed to be asking around if anyone remembered the night of the shooting of the werewolf, he was supposed to be asking if anyone had seen Jake, the owner. He was not supposed to be walking up to her, grinning, asking her if he could buy her a drink, smiling at her with an ease that just didn’t make sense. As much as it didn’t make any sense, she smelled amazing.
“Ellie,” he smiled, shaking her hand. “What a nice name.”
She smiled back at him, faintly, though the look she was giving him spoke of hunger and desire. “And what did you say your name was?”
“Sam,” he said, shifting a little closer to her.
“Sam,” she murmured, touching his arm. “You seem to be a very… interesting man, Sam. You wanna get out of here?”
No, his common sense said loudly. (Funny, his common sense sounded like Dean.)
“Yes,” his mouth said, at once.
Ellie smiled, pleased, and slid her fingers down his forearm to brush her fingertips across the back of his hand, then sauntered away from the bar, out of the room and towards the exit.
Sam followed like a puppy on a string, a vague buzzing of panic in the back of his mind reminding him that he had no idea who she was and that he had no idea what he was doing or where they were going, and he should be calling Dean or getting the hell out of there, but his blood seemed to be singing in his veins, and the buzzy panic was washed out by the eagerness of going wherever it was Ellie was taking him.
---
They kissed with a fevered, desperate passion, bumping into walls and doorways as they tumbled along, helpless to the desire between them. Ellie tore at his shirt, buttons flying as she ripped seam from seam, throwing aside the scraps of fabric.
Groaning, Sam pinned her against the bricks, nipping at her lips.
Ellie bucked her hips, and shoved him back, then reversed their positions, pinning him to the wall with her much smaller body, but she didn’t seem about to let her smaller size hamper her, as she raked her nails down his chest and sides, grinding against him impatiently.
Their clothing seemed to melt off of them in their desperation, and she fairly growled as she nipped at his jaw, feverishly.
“Ellie…” he groaned.
“C’mon, Sam,” she panted, eyes bright and feverish as she shoved him to his back on the ground, crawling on top of him, straddling his thighs as she kept nipping, biting at his jaw, his throat, his collarbone. “What are you waiting for?”
He growled, fingers digging into her hips as he rolled them over again, then froze. Until that moment, all of his attention had been focused on pleasure. But the pain searing up his spine was so terrible it made him stop, gasping down at her. Concern flickered across her face, and she asked, “Sam?”
Rolling off of her, back on the carpet, Sam gasped in pain. “Fuck…”
“Are you okay?” she leaned over him, her hair hanging down to brush his chest.
“No,” he panted.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Ellie frowned, cupping his jaw with one hand, trying to assess the problem. “Did I do something?”
“No,” he panted, the pain in his spine gone, but pain now rippling through his hands and feet.
“Sam,” she grabbed his hands, then froze. “Oh no…”
“What is - nngh… what is it?”
“You have the mark of the beast,” she murmured, glancing up at his eyes. “Your first moon?”
“What….?” He panted.
Ellie kissed him again, ignoring the soft cry of pain that Sam let out as he arched, his veins standing out starkly across his chest and forehead, eyes flicking from hazel to gold, pupils flickering. “Accept the changes,” she whispered. “It’s so much easier if you don’t fight it…”
Sam arched, screaming in pain as his chest expanded and his whole body grew, ears shifting up from the side of his head, stretching out.
“Soon, Sam…” Ellie promised, her own eyes flaring gold, her teeth growing.
“No….” he keened.
“Accept it. Run with me,” she ordered, firmly, watching as his face shifted, and he shifted into the wolf.
---
“Dean, I swear to god, if you eat that in the car, we are not going anywhere,” Sam pointed at his brother, firmly.
“My car, my rules,” Dean smirked, and slid into the driver’s seat with his burger - double onions on it - in hand. “Now sit yer pansy ass down and quit yer bellyachin’. Bobby got a lead on some strange deaths out in California, looks like that’s where we’re heading next.”
Sam reluctantly slid into the passenger seat, glowering at the burger Dean was now ravenously attacking. “More wolves?”
He nodded, wiping barbeque sauce off the corner of his mouth. “Looks like he found the pack that might have turned that first guy in the first place. We can cut this whole fiasco off at the base, and no one else needs to get hurt.”
He sighed, nodding, looking out the window. Sam seemed to be doing that a lot lately, ever since Madison…
“Hey. We’re going to save people again.” Dean reminded him. “That’s what we do, right? Hunting things, saving people?”
Sam nodded.
“Stop being such a grumpy gus, and help me figure out the route.” He grumped, glowering at his brother. He understood how his brother could be a little upset over the whole thing - after all, he had had to shoot someone he’d just slept with the day before, but she had been a werewolf, and she had accepted that it was her time to go. As a hunt went, it had been one of the most straight forward and simple. So maybe it had been a bad idea to focus their energy on finding the rest of the wolves right away after, but werewolfism was kind of a time sensitive issue. You had to get them quick, before the next full moon.
“Fine,” Sam muttered, digging the maps out of the glove compartment. “We don’t have much in the way of silver bullets.”
Dean snorted. “You know we don’t need those. It’s really just a matter of separating the head from the heart, anyhow. Technically, there are tons of ways of doing that.”
“Yeah,” he murmured.
Shaking his head, the older brother licked barbeque sauce off his fingers, then balled up the bag he’d bought the burger in, and tossed it out the window before cranking the key and pulling the Impala out of its parking spot, looking over his shoulder as he backed out. “All right, Sammy boy, let’s get headed out to sunny California, shall we?”
Sam sighed. “Sure.”
---
“I’m telling you, it was just a minor animal control incident, Officer… what did you say your name was, again?”
“Gary Rossington,” Dean smiled disarmingly, tapping the point of his pen lightly against the pad he held in his hand. “I understand, sir, that it was just an animal control incident, but it’s just a little part of a larger investigation, and we just need to know every detail, no matter how mundane it might seem.”
The animal control officer, a Dick Belcoe, stood, and headed to the filing cabinet, digging about for the file.
Sam glanced at Dean, and smirked slightly. “Gary Rossington?” he mouthed, silently.
The older Winchester shrugged, grinning.
“Ah, here we go, the file for the Tinsel case…” Dick stepped back to his desk, already flicking through the pages, frowning slightly. “I don’t know all the details, only what the investigation reports, but I was there, so I can tell you a few first hand details…”
“Now,” Sam cleared his throat. “I understand that it was a large animal that got loose in a crowded club, correct?”
He snorted. “It was huge.”
“And what was it, exactly?” Dean smiled at him.
The man hesitated. “Well. We never really… it got away.”
Sam looked up sharply. “I thought the reports said that the body was found.”
Dick squirmed a little, clearing his throat awkwardly, scratching at his jaw. “Well… ah… that might have been a slight misnomer… there was… a body found.”
Dean arched a brow, waiting.
“…a bystander. Got in the crossfire, got shot. The men reported that they thought they’d got it, but when I arrived to take a look at the body, it was… the unfortunate woman.”
“The woman and the… animal, could they have shot her by accident, thinking she was the animal?”
“Well,” Dick hesitated, “The reports do say that the creature walked somewhat bipedal… we think it might have been a bear.”
“A bear.” Dean frowned. “In Southern California.”
“I know, I thought it was ridiculous, too, but… all the reports concluded that, and it’s not completely unheard of…” Dick bolted up again to head back to the filing cabinet. “Just two days before, there was a massive car wreck on Mulholland, two cars collided with a bear, and one was even mauled and killed. Well… the official conclusion was a bear, though some original reports suggested a coyote, or wild dog, my men at the scene concluded there is no way it could have been anything that small.”
“Does this happen a lot in your area? Bear attacks?” Sam jotted a couple notes in his pad, glancing up at Dick.
“Yes and no,” he frowned. “There are some reports that things like this happened in the 1920s, back when they were expanding in this area, but most reports concluded that bears had been chased out of Southern California by the demolition of their environments. But in the last few years, there have been more… and in the last four months, the number of attacks have meteorically risen. I’ve been doing some research into it myself, but I was told that it was not a pressing issue. I’m surprised that you have been assigned to it.”
“Well, based on the reports we’ve been given, was there not an attack in a parking garage?” Dean arched a brow.
Dick cleared his throat again. Seemed to be a touch of a nervous habit. “Technically, there’s no proof that was the bear… there has been some investigation that it might have just been someone with a rather… animal like mode of operation…”
Sam reached into the inside jacket of his suit, and tugged out a folded piece of paper, unfolding it. It was a photocopy of a newspaper article, not terribly well photocopied, but clear enough for him to see something in the photos that hadn’t actually been mentioned in the article. There were sharp indents on the hoods of the cars in the photos - indents that looked significantly like footprints. “As I understand it, distinctive animal prints were found at the scene, along with evidence of claw marks and biting… that suggests a rather large animal at the scene to me, sir.”
He sighed. “True…”
“Have any photos ever been taken of this creature, Officer Belcoe?” Dean suggested, looking up at him.
“The police had a few shots from security footage from both Tinsel and the parking garage,” Dick frowned, “But they’ve been deemed part of the investigation, and I’ve never seen them. Sorry.”
“Hm.” Sam glanced at Dean, knowingly.
“Anything else you can tell us?” the elder asked, clicking his pen ‘off’, and sliding it into his breast pocket. “Anything about that woman, perhaps?”
“Well, she had nothing to do with it,” Dick frowned.
“Even though she was naked?”
Dean glanced at his brother, startled. He hadn’t remembered reading anything about nudity… Sam had been reading all the juicy reports and keeping the fun details to himself.
“Well. Yes.” Dick squirmed. “That might have been unrelated…”
“Nudity in night clubs isn’t exactly normal,” Sam pointed out. “Especially since the security report suggests that they found women’s clothing shredded in the area of the hall of mirrors. Sure, it could be unrelated, but…”
“She could have been attacked by the animal, if nothing else.” Dean suggested, kicking his brother’s calf out of sight from the desk.
“True.” Dick considered that. “She didn’t have any wounds beyond several gunshot wounds and signs of an electrocution. It looks like she burned her hand pretty badly.”
“Hm, interesting,” Dean murmured.
---
“I got the pictures,” Sam tossed a few photos onto the table in front of Dean, on top of John’s journal. Tugging the knot of his tie loose, he sighed, and nodded at them. “Look familiar?”
“Shit, look at the size of that sucker,” Dean frowned, considering the pictures. “Biggest wolf I’ve seen.”
“Deadest wolf you’ve seen in awhile, too,” he sighed, tossing his tie onto the bed. “Keep flipping, you’ll see some autopsy photos… the shot the woman in the forehead… separated her head from her heart.”
“Ouch… that’s a nasty head wound.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Sam sighed, running his hand through his hair. “But some of these reports happen after her death, so she wasn’t the only wolf in town.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Dean nodded, considering the photos, frowning. “Most times you have werewolves, you don’t just have one, you have a whole pack. Alpha, omega, the whole kit and caboodle. Sure, you know, they’re human most of the month, but they still act like wolves to an certain level. Besides the fact that it’s so very easy to transmit the curse…”
“Yeah,” Sam murmured, scratching at his palm.
“Problem?” Dean smirked.
“No.” he muttered, and headed to the fridge, grabbing a pair of beer bottles, handing one silently to his brother and cracking the cap off the other before suggesting, “So how do you propose we track them down? It might be hard… these wolves seem to act a little different.”
“How so?” his brother frowned, cracking the cap off his bottle, sipping at it.
“That first werewolf attack, the one with the cars and the woman who got ripped in half? Happened five days before the full moon. I’ve never heard of a werewolf attacking someone outside of the five days around the full moon…”
“Mmm, might have something to do with all the hormones they pump into the water in Holywood,” Dean smirked. “We have four days until the full moon, now, so I guess that means we should be looking out for new kills right away.”
“Nn,” he frowned. “Well… we’ll head out to Tinsel tomorrow, see what we can find.”
“Tinsel,” the other shook his head. “About the gayest sounding place I’ve ever heard of. Is that the thing around here, to be a gay as humanely possible?”
Sam smirked. “Says the man who grabbed my ass last year?”
“That wasn’t gay, that was acting,” he drawled, grinning. “And a fine bit of it, if I do say so myself.”
He shook his head. “You’re the ass.”
---
“Ready to hit the club after this interview?” Dean smirked.
“Are you kidding? You’re doing the club bit!” Sam yelped. “There’s no way that I’m going to do that, I am going to sit in the hotel and research, thank you very much, you go into the club and interview people.”
His brother clapped his shoulder. “Not happening, pansy boy. You look fabulous enough to fit in.”
“Oh ha ha,” he grumbled at him. “No.”
“Sorry, Sammy boy, I’ve got some other interviews lined up already, it’s all yours. Now, we’re here.”
“I hate interviewing people at schools,” Sam grumbled, climbing out of the car, and adjusting his jacket. “And this guy is probably a jock, too, if we’re supposed to find him with the wrestling team…”
“And what’s the problem with that?” Dean glanced at him.
“I hate jocks,” he muttered.
“Sure you do,” he grinned, and looped his thumbs into his pockets, heading for the gymnasium using the directions he’d found on the school’s website the night before. Stepping inside, he looked around, considering it. “Heh, high school gyms. Home of mockery and discrimination.”
Sam shook his head, then nodded towards the bleachers. Two young men were sitting on the second bench up, talking, one dressed in wrestling gear, the other in an Incredible Hulk t-shirt. “That’s the kid.”
“…the jock, or the geek?”
“The geek,” he rolled his eyes, and headed over towards the bleachers. “Jimmy Myers?”
The curly haired kid looked up, surprised, and stood. His nostrils flared for a moment, and Sam was reminded of being a teenaged geek himself, every instinct working to ferret out the jocks before they had a chance to figure him out first. He stepped forward, arms crossed, awkwardly, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m Jimmy Myers… who are you?”
“Ronny James,” Dean pointed at himself, then Sam, “And Vinny Appice. Animal control officers.”
The other teenager stood, moving forward to stand beside Jimmy, frowning as he looked them up and down. “Funny, you don’t like members of Black Sabbath…”
The elder Winchester smirked, clearly impressed. “”Dunno what you’re talking about.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “We just had a couple questions for you, can we talk to you?”
“Practise. Sorry. Not happening,” the other frowned.
“Bo…” Jimmy muttered, flushed. “They’re like cops. We kinda have to talk to them, don’t we?”
The other grumbled, though Sam was relieved to hear the identification - knowing that he was Bo identified him as the best friend who had been present at the second werewolf attack, and therefore, another one that needed to be interviewed. “It will just take a few minutes, boys. We need to know what happened at Tinsel a few months ago.”
Bo looked like the question didn’t even bother him, but Jimmy paled, eyes widening.
“Is there somewhere we can talk a little more private? We just need a few minutes of your time,” Dean smiled disarmingly at them.
“Yeah, c’mon,” Jimmy nodded, grabbing his backpack and tossing it over his shoulder. He ignored Bo’s displeased expression, and led him towards the back of the gym, to the corner furthest from the boys practicing their throws and flips. “You wanted to know about Tinsel, you said?”
“Mmm. We’re investigating how a bear got into town,” Sam nodded, tugging out his pad again. “We understand that you two and your sister were at Tinsel when the animal attacked?”
“Bear?” Jimmy blinked.
“Yeah, bear,” Bo said, quickly, firmly. “We didn’t see anything.”
“I heard you were injured on that particular night, actually,” Dean looked up from his own notes, and it was Sam’s turn to give him a surprised, displeased look. “You weren’t bitten, were you?”
Jimmy shook his head, almost too fervently. “He wasn’t.”
“Good, it sucks to be bitten by anything. Especially… bears.” Dean drawled.
Sam snorted.
---
“What the fuck are you doing on the roof?”
Sam cleared his throat, squirming a little. He honestly wasn’t really sure what the hell was going on. So the night before had been late - the club investigation had been delayed by an impromptu interview with a police officer who claimed to have information about the attack in the parking garage, but late nights usually didn’t result in either of them waking up on the roof of their motel in his boxers.
Yet there Sam sat on the shingles, confused and embarrassed, mostly naked.
“Um… honestly?” Sam flushed. “I have no idea.”
“Well, get down.”
“Sure. Ah… can you give me a hand?”
---
Sam squirmed in his seat, scratching at his palm, wishing it wasn’t so itchy. Actually, he sort of felt weird all over, but if he focused on his itchy hand, it was easier than focusing on his aching back, or the fact that he seemed to be able to smell everything, or that he felt sort of temperamental. He felt like he was about to start screaming at someone one moment, or throw himself out the window the next.
It was… unsettling.
“It’s the full moon tonight… you ready to brave the club by yourself tonight? Fend off all the she-wolves with a stick?” Dean smirked, dropping into the seat across from him.
“Funny, Dean.” Sam glowered at him.
“I thought so,” he laughed, sipping at a paper cup of coffee, and leaning forward to set another in front of Sam. “There have been a few more reports of wolves along Mulholland in the last two months, so I’m going to stake out that road tonight, just in case. So you’re going to have to handle the bar by yourself. If werewolves really do like to frequent that place, you might be able to find them.”
He nodded, leaning back in his seat, cracking the lid off his coffee, considering it. “Yeah, maybe.”
“What… don’t want to be separated from me?” he smirked, mischievously.
“Dick,” Sam sighed.
“Pansy.”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
---
Feeling very out of place, Sam stepped into Tinsel, frankly relieved he’d managed to get in despite the crowd. He’d always sort of figured that once a club had gotten over the first month of popularity and celebrity status, that it got sort of boring and passé, mostly just attractive for regular rich kids. But despite the fact that there didn’t seem to be any A-list celebrities, there were a few C-listers that he recognized, and it was one of those he slipped in after into the crowded club.
Ordering a grossly overpriced drink from one of the several bars, he sipped at it and slipped through the bar.
It seemed… over done. There were wax statues of celebrities everywhere, which seemed like an odd choice for décor, but at least it was unique. Slipping through the house of mirrors, he finally found himself in a room that made him laugh in its irony alone - a room devoted entirely to the old Wolfman franchise.
Leaning on a little display case - with a silver wolfs-head cane in it - he considered the room.
Pretty impressive, really, that this place was still going, considering the owner had gone missing a few months ago. Coincidentally, it had been on the same night that the werewolf had ripped this place to pieces… it if weren’t for the fact that the owner was a man, he would have suspected he’d been the werewolf that was shot in here at the time.
Sighing, he sipped at his drink, then hesitated, glancing at the woman walking through the room.
She was shorter than the type of girls he normally went for, but she had the long, pin straight dark hair, and a look of confidence and control. And as she walked quickly through the room, she paused, turning to look back at Sam.
He wasn’t really sure why he stepped forward to greet her. He was supposed to be asking around if anyone remembered the night of the shooting of the werewolf, he was supposed to be asking if anyone had seen Jake, the owner. He was not supposed to be walking up to her, grinning, asking her if he could buy her a drink, smiling at her with an ease that just didn’t make sense. As much as it didn’t make any sense, she smelled amazing.
“Ellie,” he smiled, shaking her hand. “What a nice name.”
She smiled back at him, faintly, though the look she was giving him spoke of hunger and desire. “And what did you say your name was?”
“Sam,” he said, shifting a little closer to her.
“Sam,” she murmured, touching his arm. “You seem to be a very… interesting man, Sam. You wanna get out of here?”
No, his common sense said loudly. (Funny, his common sense sounded like Dean.)
“Yes,” his mouth said, at once.
Ellie smiled, pleased, and slid her fingers down his forearm to brush her fingertips across the back of his hand, then sauntered away from the bar, out of the room and towards the exit.
Sam followed like a puppy on a string, a vague buzzing of panic in the back of his mind reminding him that he had no idea who she was and that he had no idea what he was doing or where they were going, and he should be calling Dean or getting the hell out of there, but his blood seemed to be singing in his veins, and the buzzy panic was washed out by the eagerness of going wherever it was Ellie was taking him.
---
They kissed with a fevered, desperate passion, bumping into walls and doorways as they tumbled along, helpless to the desire between them. Ellie tore at his shirt, buttons flying as she ripped seam from seam, throwing aside the scraps of fabric.
Groaning, Sam pinned her against the bricks, nipping at her lips.
Ellie bucked her hips, and shoved him back, then reversed their positions, pinning him to the wall with her much smaller body, but she didn’t seem about to let her smaller size hamper her, as she raked her nails down his chest and sides, grinding against him impatiently.
Their clothing seemed to melt off of them in their desperation, and she fairly growled as she nipped at his jaw, feverishly.
“Ellie…” he groaned.
“C’mon, Sam,” she panted, eyes bright and feverish as she shoved him to his back on the ground, crawling on top of him, straddling his thighs as she kept nipping, biting at his jaw, his throat, his collarbone. “What are you waiting for?”
He growled, fingers digging into her hips as he rolled them over again, then froze. Until that moment, all of his attention had been focused on pleasure. But the pain searing up his spine was so terrible it made him stop, gasping down at her. Concern flickered across her face, and she asked, “Sam?”
Rolling off of her, back on the carpet, Sam gasped in pain. “Fuck…”
“Are you okay?” she leaned over him, her hair hanging down to brush his chest.
“No,” he panted.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Ellie frowned, cupping his jaw with one hand, trying to assess the problem. “Did I do something?”
“No,” he panted, the pain in his spine gone, but pain now rippling through his hands and feet.
“Sam,” she grabbed his hands, then froze. “Oh no…”
“What is - nngh… what is it?”
“You have the mark of the beast,” she murmured, glancing up at his eyes. “Your first moon?”
“What….?” He panted.
Ellie kissed him again, ignoring the soft cry of pain that Sam let out as he arched, his veins standing out starkly across his chest and forehead, eyes flicking from hazel to gold, pupils flickering. “Accept the changes,” she whispered. “It’s so much easier if you don’t fight it…”
Sam arched, screaming in pain as his chest expanded and his whole body grew, ears shifting up from the side of his head, stretching out.
“Soon, Sam…” Ellie promised, her own eyes flaring gold, her teeth growing.
“No….” he keened.
“Accept it. Run with me,” she ordered, firmly, watching as his face shifted, and he shifted into the wolf.
---