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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.

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Dean Winchester, Skin Walker

Chapter 1

A New Life

"A damn, dark hole, I fell into a damn dark hole in the ground. I'm a drunken idiot." Dean fumed and tried to move around on the cold, wet, muck under his ass. The water was soaking into his jeans and freezing his skin. His fingers clenched into the debris. Something wiggled against his palm. He squeezed and it didn't move again.

His squirming came to an abrupt stop as a fiery bolt of pain shot up his left leg when he tried to straighten it. " Shit, that hurt." He gritted his teeth and tried again. No hope. His right foot slid over the greasy mud and he landed back on his ass after only gaining a minimum of lift. Slamming back down did the damaged leg no good at all.

The pain was like a living thing; a fast and nasty viper that shot from his knee up his spine and made his teeth ache. He looked up and could see the night sky sprinkled with the cheerful little twinkling stars grinning down at him.

"Freaking assholes." He snorted at himself. Here he was drunk and broken, trapped at the bottom of a slime filled hole, swearing at the stars, the useless fuckers. He tried again to get up but the sides of the hole were just as slippery as the floor. All that he accomplished was getting more mud smeared all over him and another ungraceful decent back on his ass. His left knee flared like it was on fire.

Now he was reduced to yelling. It was the only choice left. He remembered he had been following that girl. She had flirted with him in the bar and crooked her finger as she left, inviting him to follow. Of course he'd gone after her. At the moment she was everything he had ever wanted. He was drunk enough for the alcohol to have shut down a lot of his brain cells. Maybe she'd hear him and get him some help.

Like a bucket of cold water the realization flooded him that perhaps she had lead him here; lead him to this tiger trap. Maybe she hadn't been hungry for sex. Maybe she was only hungry. If he had two good legs he would kick himself. He was a Hunter. He needed to be smarter than a tomcat chasing a female in heat.

He shut up and tried to think through the fog in his head. This was not good. If Dad came looking for him and found him in this pit he'd never hear the last of it.

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Earlier that same night Dean had stood at the smeared motel window, watching for the lights of the Impala. It was cold, windy and wet outdoors and he was bored. He'd been waiting here in a skanky ass motel on the out skirts of Chamberlain, South Dakota, near the banks of the Missouri, for three long days.

Dad had dropped him off with a casual I gotta look into something and that had been it. Each previous evening Dad had called and simply said I'll be there tomorrow, son. Just wait for me. Dean had just about lost it by the second day and had considered then going out to a bar for a little friendly companionship and maybe to get enough money to rent a car and get the hell away. Dad had been treating him like a kid for months now. He was twenty three, not twelve and John Winchester was on the verge of losing his second son in the same year.

Dean, however, had always been the good little solder; obeying orders, keeping his mouth shut and his opinions to himself. Only lately had he allowed himself to start thinking that maybe baby brother had been right. Dad didn't treat him like a son or even like an actual person. He was a tool, a useful tool that John dropped when he didn't need it.

He was a hell of a nice tool, Dean had thought to himself. This tool kept itself sharp and was always ready to go. The only way the tool could get any better was to stop having needs like the occasion sound of another voice or food. Dean smiled grimly to himself and continued to fantasize. It would be just fantastic if he could stop thinking and wanting. John Winchester would be pleased if his son could just be thrown in the trunk with the other weapons and only taken out when needed.

Dean had laughed out loud. He was acting like a spoiled teenager. He was a grown man. If he couldn't take care of himself for three days, what kind of a fool was he? He pulled on his jacket and decided to head out, find a nice warm bar and a little companionship. Sure, it was lonely right now but he'd find a new friend pretty quick. He didn't need to spend another night alone.

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Look where that plan had gotten him. It was late, really late. The bar had closed after one and now it was definitely two or later. It was cold as hell and the drizzle was turning to light sleet. Down in the damp hole Dean was cold, miserable and wet. He clutched his jacket tighter around him, stuffing his freezing hands in the pockets. He wished he had more hands so that he could put the extras over his ears.

A shadow passed between him and the bitter stars. "Hey, anybody up there?" he shouted. "Need some help down here." Peering up he became convinced that whatever was up there was staring back down at him. He thought he could see glowing eyes. Not good, not good at all.

That was all he needed; some night prowling predator out looking for an easy meal. He doubted that any animal would be stupid enough to throw itself into the pit, not matter how tasty he smelled.

"Oh, shit." Evidently that was exactly what the animal was going to do. There was a scraping noise and clumps of wet mud fell down followed by a very large hairy body. The wolf like creature managed to make a direct hit on Dean's damaged leg and Dean shouted out involuntarily with the pain. He tried to kick out with his good leg but couldn't get any leverage with his bad leg on the slick muddy surface. All he did was hand his good leg over to be weakly buried in the animal's fur.

There was a flash of white fangs and teeth were buried in Dean's boot. Glowing yellow eyes narrowed and the creature growled. Dean figured he was well and truly fucked. All that was going to be left for John Winchester to find would be a couple of scraps of plaid flannel.

Then it got really weird. The wolf spit out Dean's leg like it tasted bad then sat down on its rump and stared at the Hunter. The hole was big for a hole but not big enough to comfortably accommodate a full grown man and a very large wolf. The man and the animal were just about nose to nose. The wolf stretched out its snout and very deliberately bit into Dean's shoulder just above the shoulder joint.

Dean was ready to simply pass out from the pain of the wolf landing on his leg and now the pain of a deep and deliberate bite added weight to the scales, tipping Dean further toward saying screw it and passing out. He felt the bite but he also felt a burning sensation like something extra was being poured into the wound. Something was moving through his body, traveling the paths laid out by his circulatory system. Dean was dying. He was dying in an already prepared grave with a wolf as his only pall bearer. The lights went out and his consciousness skittered away.

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There were prickly little points dancing on his eye lids. He was cold and wet and, as memory rushed back, incredibly surprised to still be alive. Slowly he peeled a single eye open and he was still in the dark. The little prickles were half frozen rain drops assaulting his face. He watched as his breath condensed into a misty white cloud and floated away.

Something moved and he tried to pull himself up, bracing himself for the onslaught of pain. He remembered his damn trick knee and the torture it could inflict on him. It didn't happen. He opened both eyes. The wolf was gone and the woman he had followed out of the bar was sitting in the wolf's place.

She didn't move so for first few moments of consciousness Dean simply checked out his condition. He was still wet and cold but the pain was gone. He carefully straightened his left leg and thought he could feel his knee cap slide back into position. He brushed his hand inside his jacket to his shoulder. The bite was there. His shirt had neatly placed holes where the wolf's fangs had penetrated but his skin seemed to have healed over. The puncture wounds weren't seeping and touching the line of holes didn't hurt.

"What are you?" he barked at her. "What did you do to me?"

The dark haired woman blinked her eyes slowly, shaking off the drizzle gathered on her long lashes. "You survived," she said in a surprised voice. "That's good. I need you alive." She looked up at the top of the hole. "We have to get out of this pit before he finds us."

"Whoa, lady" Dean replied. "You tell me what's going on here. I'm not going anywhere with you unless you start talking. What are you? A werewolf?"

She laughed, exposing bright white, even teeth. She flipped her wet hair back off her face and leaned forward, digging a hand into his upper thigh. Her breath was warm on his face. "I'm much more than that, pretty boy."

Her face started to change and Dean watched as his own face appeared, looking weird under her long dark hair.

"A shapeshifter," Dean pushed back into the wall and struck her hand off his leg.

"Not just that either." She muttered and looked up at the sky again. "Stupid werewolf didn't realize until after he bit me that he had taken on more than he could chew. I've got his pelt in my cabin. I've got the taste of his blood on my tongue."

"What do you want with me, then?" Dean scrabbled behind his back. Now that he wasn't distracted by over whelming pain his had control of his frozen hands back. He could feel that his gun was still safely tucked in his waistband and he thanked the God he stopped believing in a long time ago for that small mercy. A little more information and this bitch was going down.

"I want your face." She answered. "More than that, I want you to wear mine. Something is after me; something strong and fierce. I'm going to feed you to it."

She grabbed his chin and pulled his face forward. "Can't you feel it? Can't you tell what's running through your veins? Feels like fire, doesn't it? It felt like fire to me. It's a gift from the werewolf. Heals your wounds, gives you strength and makes you a cousin of mine."

The longer her hand was on his face the more he did feel it. The bones were moving in his body; the skin on his face was crawling. He glanced down at his hands which were suddenly painful and he watched them transform into a woman's hands with long graceful fingers and smooth, soft skin.

"No," he gasped. "Stop this."

She smiled a wild eager grin. "It's never happened before. We are brand new things under the sky. Shapeshifters are born, not made: or at least not made until now. I bit you with the werewolf's teeth and the shapeshifter cells poured through your body. It's all that I can understand and I don't care if I'm right or wrong. I only know that it works and now I am you and you are the prey that I'll feed to the thing following me."

Dean got his hand around the gun at his back. He whipped it out and pointed it at her face. "Fuck you."

Her eyes grew large and round. She threw her hands out trying to grasp the barrel and push it away. She was almost completely transformed into Dean Winchester and he was almost her but with strength born of desperation he pulled the trigger and pumped two silver bullets into her head.

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He pushed the shapeshifter's body to the side of the hole and carefully stood up. The monster was half way to Dean but death had stopped the transformation mid-way. It had his face, almost perfectly formed. Her hair had started to fall out and be replaced by dirty blond spikes. He didn't want to investigate any further. Whatever was under that dress he didn't want to know.

He flexed his legs. She had been right about that, he felt no pain. That knee cap had been a problem for years. The first time he dislocated it by falling down a staircase while chasing a poltergeist in Minnesota. He'd asked Sammy to pop it back in but the big girl insisted on taking him to the hospital. Dean smiled. He could hear Sammy's teenage voice resonating in his head. "Dean, your leg is bending the wrong way. I'm not touching it."

They had ended up in the emergency room that time. The doctors said not to do it again; the knee would always be weak. Be careful; all the usual doctor BS. Well, evidently that was one problem solved. Dean was laughing at himself again. Here he was, standing in a mud packed hole in the ground, a body at his feet, in the darkest part of the night in a sleeting rain storm and he was looking for a freaking silver lining.

Now that he could get to his feet the top of the hole didn't look as far away. He rammed his fingers into the muddy wall in front of him far enough to get some purchase. He stepped on the shapeshifter's body for the extra couple of inches he could get and rammed the other hand in further up. Huh, he was stronger. He was drilling his own hand holds into the side of the hole. As he rose higher he started kicking, jamming the toe of his boot into the wall too. It only took a couple of minutes for him to pull himself all the way up. He threw himself over the lip of the hole and landed on his back in the duff of this miniature pine forest she had decoyed him into.

After catching his breath he rolled over and looked back down into the hole. He could just see her body down there, curled up like she was sleeping. He kicked at the edge hoping that maybe the hole would collapse in on itself. A couple of large clumps went flying but nothing important. Just as he was checking again some one hit him the back of the head, hard. Lights out again.

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This time when he came to he was propped up against a tree and his hands were tied securely behind his back and around the trunk. He shook his head. This was turning into the worst night of his life and he was beginning to worry about the repeated blows to his head. His vision was wobbly and he felt like he wanted to throw up. Those were bad signs. He knew a concussion when he felt one. He kind of hoped it was a concussion. That would explain what he was looking at. It appeared to be some kind of man sized bird with a long, sharp beak and feathers bobbing up out of the top of its head.

"What the hell are you?" he croaked. His voice sounded strange. The giant bird hopped closer and now another weird creature was staring into his eyes. He just remembered that he might be looking a little strange himself. He couldn't really tell but he just might be part girl. He closed his eyes to stop the world spinning round and in hope that when he opened them again this freaky ass bird would be gone. He concentrated on Dean Winchester; on how he looked, on his body, on his face. The rain was still coming down but it was better under this tree. Not a place where he'd like to go camping but it was better than a dank, muddy hole in the ground. It was cold and he'd long ago give up hope that his ass would ever dry out but he managed to put all those things out of his mind and concentrate on becoming Dean Winchester.

He felt the bones in his body moving again, rearranging themselves, reattaching and going back to where they belonged. His skin crawled back home and settled in. When he felt things stabilize he opened his eyes. The bird had turned into a man with a feathered cape who was squatting on his heels in front of Dean. The bird's head was lying on the ground next to the guy. Dean was very relieved to realize it was a mask.

"What are you?" the man asked in a deep voice.

"Back at you buddy." Dean replied and pulled on his restraints. "Did you tie me to this tree? What's the idea?"

"Quiet, thing that walks in the dark." The man shuffled forward and reached for Dean's head. "I saw you. I saw you change." He pulled Dean's head back and once again tonight someone was trying to pull Dean's soul out through his eyes. "Skin Walker?"

Dean jerked his head out of the man's hands. "Christ, no. Let me go."

The man, who Dean suspected to be Native American, laughed. "Did you kill her? Did you kill that woman thing down in the hole?"

"That was no woman and I think you know that she wasn't." Dean was getting more than a little fed up with everyone piling the bullshit higher and deeper all night. He was tired, he was wet and filthy. He just wanted to go back to the motel and get this shitty night over with.

"I think you are." The man pulled a rolled up piece of hide out from under his cape of feathers. "I wanted her. She needed to die. She was not made of man; she was made of night and evil winds. I think you might be the same."

The man threw the skin over Dean's head. When it unrolled it appeared to be in the shape of a dog or a wolf, or something canine; maybe a coyote. Whatever. It landed on Dean and covered his head. Dean breathed in and smelled the night and tall prairie grass and the dry wind off the mountains. The more he breathed the deeper into his lungs the wild smell penetrated. There went his bones again, moving around and sorting themselves into yet another position.

He heard the man chanting but the sound came from far away. He felt the ropes drop off his legs. Wait, that wasn't right. The ropes were on his arms, not his legs. The only thing was he really couldn't find his arms anymore. There were more legs than he needed or wanted however. He suddenly was very aware of the sounds in the night and the smells in the air. He could smell the man; sour sweat, old food, questionable hygiene and all. Dean opened his eyes and the world seemed strange. His boots appeared to be empty and lay in the dirt in front of him, falling to the side like nothing was holding them up. He shook and pieces of clothing either dropped or flew through the air. The man in front of him scuttled back out of range.

"I knew you were not just some wandering white man." The man cried. "You are like her. I knew about her but you were hidden. She's dead and now you should be too."

Dean looked down at his body. It was covered in fur. His clothes were gone. He appeared to be either very big dog or a great grey wolf.

The man in front of him fell on his hands in the dirt then looked up. "Skin Walker" his voice shook. "You are a witch, a Skin Walker. It should not be. I don't want you here. I am this valley's Skin Walker. There is no need for another; not her and not you either."

The man sprang to his feet and charged forward with a heavy serrated knife in his hand. Dean waited until the very last moment then shifted to the side. The man had lunged forward with the knife held flat. His momentum carried him forward in a slow fall. As he passed Dean extended his jaws and ripped the man's throat out.

Blood spurted like a fountain from the severed artery. The man rolled over on his back, his hands clutching uselessly at his throat. Dean as a wolf sauntered over and looked down on the dying face. With a convulsive movement the man reached out and grabbed the wolf's head. Drawing Dean's head down he fixed his dying look on the involuntary Shape Shifter.

Whatever words the man was muttering Dean had no idea. They certainly were not English. For the second time that night a force pulsed through Dean's body. Another unwanted gift was made; another curse was laid upon him. "Yee naaldlooshii" the man managed to mutter then gasping and choking he died.

Dean stood still in his wolf body, feet immersed in a welter of blood. He breathed deeply and licked the dead man's blood off his fangs. He backed up slowly. The smell of the body was almost overwhelming. He had to get away from all that blood. It wasn't safe.

He went back to the tree where his clothing laid scattered and, ignoring the smell of the kill and the other night smells carried on the wind he stood still and imagined Dean Winchester again. He thought of his man face, his body, the size of his hands, and the shape of his mouth. The world stood still and his body reassembled for the second time that night. With practice he thought he could get a lot faster. He was vulnerable at times like this. Some Hunter could slash his throat in the blink of an eye. It occurred to him that his own father would try.

As soon as Dean was human again he threw his clothes on and surveyed the blood splattered scene. There was one body down in the hole. There was another body in the field. It looked like a psychopath's holiday with the blood splattered all over the ground and even painting some of the tree trunks.

The man's body would only show evidence of an animal attack. The woman's body however had two silver bullets in the head. With a deep sigh Dean decided to not even try. Let the locals try to figure this one out. The woman's body with a man's face and an extremely strange head of hair would keep the local coroner in beer for at least a week. Dean was tired, hung over and just wanted to go back to the motel and lay down. He prayed that John Winchester hadn't come back and that he would have time to clean up and calm down.

Dean trudged off in the light of a false dawn. It had been a hell of a night. It was still raining and the icy cold slush was trickling under the collar of his shirt. He felt tired but strong, a strange combination. He was changed. As the Shapeshifter had said he was something new under the sun. He just needed to lay low, make no sudden moves and get used to being a completely unique kind of monster.