Warnings/Notes for whole story: Swearing, violence, graphic sex, probably underage drinking. It is very low teen, can't remember how much swearing is in this chapter but I figured if it's not teen now it will be very quickly so warned ahead of time. Rating will go up in later Chapters. My lovely betas are Chanelle, Alix and Krista. Their support makes this story possible =] Also, couldn't it fit in the summary but the primary pairing in this fic is Dean/Cas.

Author's Notes: This is my second foray into my changeling!verse. Series title is from one of William Blake's Proverbs of Hell. Each chapter will be titled with a different, complete Proverb of Hell.

Chapter One:

"The cut worm forgives the plow."

Sunlight, cooled by the morning fog, leaked through a dirty, single pane window into a small dorm. It was a one person room; almost all of the rooms on campus were singles, the usual for Academies.

On the cheap twin bed provided by the school, a large, furry body began to stir. Brown, pointed ears began to twitch and a dark nose snuffled as it caught the scent of the cup of coffee someone was carrying past the door. Lupine eyes blinked open to reveal irises that were green, not normal for a canine. At least, it was assumed they weren't normal. It wasn't like anyone had ever seen a real dire wolf. For all anyone knew they could have had shared the same forest eyes possessed by one Dean Winchester.

Dean sighed heavily as he rose, breath hissing out and nails digging into the blanket he hadn't bothered to slip under last night as he stretched, rear and tail raising high up into the air. Dean much preferred to sleep in his shifted form as opposed to his human one—at least when he slept alone, and with a pelt as thick as his, it got far too hot under the covers.

After a healthy arch of his back, Dean dropped to the floor, nails clicking on the linoleum and suddenly, instead of dark paw pads, there were pink toes pressed against the cold floor. Great expanses of tan skin chilled slightly, no longer protected by a thick pelt. Unfazed by his own nudity, Dean lifted his arms above his head to finish his series of stretches—there was a reason Changeling Academies provided single rooms; Dean wasn't alone in his preference for sleeping shifted and it wasn't unusual for Changeling's to slip unconsciously between their human and shifted forms while they slept.

Dean scratched short nails over his chest as he padded over to the window to look over the grounds of the Academy of Kansas, a place that he had considered a sort of home since he was fifteen. Just about to finish up his freshman year at the Academy community college, Dean knew this place like the back of his hand. He'd moved into the dorms at fifteen, but he'd been a student even longer than that, ever since Sam made his first shift at age eleven.

Thank god for that, too. Even the single year Dean had spent at a regular school after his own first shift had been hellish enough. Most kids went straight to Academies after their first shift, usually between the ages of nine and fourteen. There was controversy over how the practice enforced prejudice, almost coming off like segregation, but in all honesty the Academies were better equipped to handle the needs of young Changelings. It turned it into a complex issue that had actually been a keystone in a lot of political platforms in the last few elections. Not that Dean ever paid much attention to them; he had other things to worry about than the political correctness of Normal and Changeling schools.

Unfortunately, the population of Kansas only required one big public Academy, and it was hours away from Dean's childhood home in Lawrence. There was a little private one in Topeka, but they didn't have the money and Dean didn't have the grades for it. By thirteen, when he'd exploded into an ancient canine, Dean had already become Sam's primary care giver, so he couldn't just up and leave to go to some Academy, not when he was fairly sure their father even remembered how to take care of Sam by that point.

John Winchester had never been the same after Mary's death. He worked long hours, came home late and any time he did spend at home was spent sitting in an alcohol induced haze on the couch, lined face lit by the flickering television.

When Sam was young, he used to ask what was wrong with their father, and that was without any memories of the old John. As Sam grew older, he would get angry when he saw just how different John was from his school friend's parents. Dean used to tell him that he just missed Mom—Dean missed her, too. Sam was too young to remember anything about her. Dean, however, still very occasionally revisited the fuzzy memories of a kid who grew up on the day she died. Maybe that kid died, too.

In all honesty, Dean thought that was why John had spent so much time away from them in the years after Mary's death. John just saw too much of her in her children. Oh, well, Dean thought. John had joined her a few years back. These days Dean just avoided thinking or talking about it all together, not even to Sam. What would the point of that be?

Dean forced himself back into the present as he gazed out the fifth floor window of Carver Hall, a college dorm. Fog curled around the buildings, and it hugged the trees where the dorms were backed against the forests that ringed the Cheyenne Bottom Refuge. The Academy of Kansas backed right up to it. Changelings needed space to exercise their shifts, so Academies were usually build near forests and lakes, or open space at least.

The fog would burn off within the hour, Dean thought, as he felt the spring sun warm his chest and cheekbones, where freckles dotted his skin, expanse only broken by a leather chord and small gold amulet, a gift from his little brother. He never took it off, not even when he shifted, and he hadn't for years. He could walk around naked like this and feel totally comfortable, but be fully clothed with the necklace off and feel totally bare.

Dean let himself stand there a moment before another yawn split his now human mouth, and he turned to his dresser to get ready for the day.

. . .

Ten minutes later found Dean leaning against a retaining wall in front of another dorm, a few buildings down from Carver Hall. It was a big brick construction that hadn't been renovated since the 80's but it served its purpose and the high schoolers that it housed got used to its quirks—the over pressured shower heads, the way you had to pull on the doorknobs to get your key to turn. Dean remembered; he'd spent three years of his own life inside its walls, two in a room on the second floor, a rare double room that he had shared with Sam and one more in a single on the third floor after Sam had declared that he wanted a single like all his friends. If the room had just so happened to be right next the one assigned to Sam, Dean had nothing to say about that. And if Sam had actually let it drop when Dean assured him it was a complete coincidence, it was only because Dean was telling the truth.

Carver Hall housed only college students, but Ellison housed a conglomeration of middle schoolers and high schoolers.

Dean guessed he had to admit he understood why his younger brother was a little relieved when his brother moved out of Ellison and into a college dorm. By his senior year, Dean Winchester had developed quite the reputation as one of A.o.K.'s most prolific, at least most open minded, studs. He mostly went with women because that was just so much easier, especially in a middle state like Kansas. There was far less of a chance they would be completely uninterested or even totally freak out on him for hitting on them. Then there were all the serious closet cases to factor in. They were usually even worse than a testosterone pumped up straight shooter. That lesson was brought to Dean by a right hook to the jaw from a sky eyed looker who was clinging so hard to the door frame of the closet he was falling out of that he'd hit Dean hard on the way out before he could claw his way back inside.

So, yeah, Dean preferred women, but a hottie was a hottie, and by the end of his high school career, his little brother, only one paper-thin wall away, had become all too aware of that fact.

Dean watched the heavy double door to the dorm and munched on a slice of toast with jam. He wasn't supposed to have a toaster in his room but he needed to eat something before class and he couldn't be bothered to visit the dining hall that early. It was a stupid rule anyway.

After a few moments, more than Dean had been expecting, the left door swung open and a lanky teenager with brown hair and an overlarge backpack tumbled through, wearing a brown hoodie and looking totally frazzled. The sweatshirt was pushed up to his elbows, probably because the sleeves were already too short, Dean assumed.

The long haired boy looked around wildly before he finally spotted Dean and rushed over.

"Running a little late today, are we, short-stuff?"

Sam scowled up at his older brother, but it was half hearted at best, as he was distracted by his lateness. He was supposed to meet some of his classmates at the Great Falls Library for some project on local history this morning. Dean had no idea why they would schedule it for early on a Saturday morning, crazy AP kids. Dean didn't care. He had to be up for work anyway so no skin off his back.

"My alarm didn't go off. I'm supposed to be at the library in fifteen minutes," Sam said as he walked past Dean towards the parking lot, looking stressed.

"Relax, shrimp, we'll get there in time," Dean said, grabbing the second slathered piece of toast and the napkin it had been resting on from the retaining wall.

"Shouldn't you lay up on the short cracks, Dean," Sam said, irritated; he was no fun. "You know, I'm not that much shorter than you now."

In all honesty Sam hadn't even had to look up that much to deliver the comment to Dean. He'd been growing like a beanstalk since he hit the ninth grade, and even though he was three years younger than Dean, he was quickly gaining on him in the size department, height at least. Dean wondered if it had anything to do with that monster of a shift of his.

Most strangers would be pretty surprised if you told them that this docile, know-it-all kid could turn into a hulking ten-foot tall bear—and he was far from done growing. Sam's shift was just a strangely ancient as Dean's. Which was a problem.

They tried to keep a low profile, but it was only going to get more difficult to convince people Sam's shift was a grizzly, as he was already pushing their maximum height and was making to move on to the whopping thirteen to fifteen foot standing height of a fully mature short-faced bear. Sam had done the research. They knew what was coming.

It wouldn't have been such a big secret if the world weren't fucking nuts, though.

Changeling civil rights had been won decades ago, but that didn't mean there weren't still raging prejudices and misconceptions among many circles. But the biggest issue in the modern day was Changeling specific human trafficking. It was colloquially and sickeningly termed "poaching" and the more rare a shift was, the more money a poacher could sell them for in the right markets, especially if the human form was attractive, too. There wasn't much certain sick fucks wouldn't pay for a pretty young woman who could become a rare, beautiful parrot, basically seen as a very fancy and expensive pet.

There were only three kinds of shifts, mammalian, avian and reptilian, with mammals and birds being by far the most common, and for that alone, reptile shifted Changelings fetched a prettier penny, but endangered or exotic animal shifts were by far the core of the industry.

This is why Dean was so desperate to keep their shifts for the most part, unpublicized. Very, very rarely there were Changelings with extinct shifts. Someone whose shift was a Tasmanian tiger, or a great auk. Mary Winchester was a passenger pigeon, herself.

Dean assumed that's where his and Sam's shift abnormalities must have come from, as John Winchester was a Normal. However, there could have been some recessive trigger in his genes, Dean supposed. Every Normal on earth, as far as anyone knew, had some amount of Changeling DNA in their genes. It was only ever a matter of it being strong enough to trigger that first shift, or not.

Though some extinct shifts turn up every once in a while, neither Winchester could find a single instance of a Changeling having a prehistoric shift, outside of prehistoric times of course. It just didn't happen.

So with poaching on a rise, and reports of incidents and disappearances occurring more and more frequently, even in America, there were more than enough reasons for Sam and Dean to keep the whole situation on the down low.

Sam was setting a very fast pace to walk to this morning.

"Shut up, shortie," Dean jabbed, realizing the day was coming when Sam was going to be taller than him—a lot taller. "Eat some toast and shut your trap."

Sam opened his mouth to spit back a retort but changed his mind when Dean shoved the toast in his direction and saw that it was obviously meant for him. It had marmalade on it, Sam's favorite. Dean always put blueberry or strawberry on his.

"Thanks," Sam said, casting his eyes down and biting a bit off as they speed walked around the corner of a dorm and into the parking lot.

A warmth entered Dean's eyes as they approached a shining, '96 Chevy Impala, sun glinting ebony off the dark hood. She'd once belonged to John but she was Dean's pride and joy now.

"Come on, Sammy. Let's get you to your nerd buddies."

. . .

As the sun rose higher in the sky, a breeze picked up over Great Falls, Kansas. It tossed and tousled the edges of a trio of shapes on the roof of the local library, hair and garments fluttering in time.

Two shapes sat back a ways, scanning the streets, while the third sat closer the edge of the roof, looking like a stone gargoyle perched on the edge of a castle, if the castle was a cheaply constructed building from the 1980s. He was hidden from sight in the shadow of a large air conditioning vent. Messy, dark hair twitched and flopped in the soft gusts, and a tan trench coat occasionally caught air and flapped around him. Two deep blue eyes watch the parking lot with laser focus. Not a single muscle in his body moved except for the scan of his eyes.

"You can relax, Castiel. There is no way we can miss him while he drives that deafening, smog spitting fossil," a drawling voice reached the young man at the edge of the roof.

The instruction came from a dark skinned, middle aged man from where he sat next to a young woman with fiery red hair who appeared to be the same age as Castiel, if not a little younger. Castiel actually didn't know. It's not like they ever celebrated birthdays in the organization. Whether or not she was younger or older, Anna with her flaming locks out ranked both other operatives present.

"Either way, Uriel, I prefer to keep a constant and vigilant observation," Castiel stated.

He heard a snort behind him.

"Let's see you how 'ever vigilant' you are by the end of your weeks watch," Uriel said.

Uriel had been in Great Falls for the last week, and Castiel had come to relieve him of his duty. As their superior, Anna had come down to receive a report.

"I also enjoy watching the interactions of the civilians," Castiel supplied.

There was a second's pause before Uriel laughed.

"I will never understand why they let you out, Castiel. Or maybe they needed to let you out more," Uriel chuckled. "Sometimes I think they actually addled your brain."

"Uriel, that's enough," Anna cut him off, eyes glinting angrily in his direction. "You know we aren't supposed to discuss that."

Anna's voice had dropped on the last sentence but Castiel had already checked out. Uriel was supposed to be the funniest operative in the Brotherhood of Unchained Souls, the organization, but Castiel only ever understood half of what he said, and none of the jokes. Anna on the other hand seemed to understand, but did not find him funny. As a result, Castiel usually just tuned them both out during conversations like this.

Anna had been different ever since she had disappeared about two years ago. Castiel had been told she'd been put on some covert operations mission and had been gone for a couple months. When she returned to their unit, she had changed. The Brotherhood had never been big on sentimentality or had ever promoted any companionship between its operatives. Castiel had never really had a friend, he had brothers, and sisters, as dictated by the organization, but Anna was one of only two operatives, people as a whole, that Castiel could have ever bestowed the term friend upon. They were in the same training program together, ever since Castiel was six. They never got deserts or sweets very often but when they did, it wasn't rare for Anna to slip him most or all of hers. She had tended to Castiel when he had been injured and she looked at him with something warmer in her eyes than any other brother or sister of Castiel.

She'd been different when she'd returned from her absence though. She was harder. There was no shine of warmth in her eyes. She had been made captain of their unit, and she had led them firmly and surely since. Sometimes Castiel thought maybe he saw a glimmer of something familiar when she spoke to him, but he was never sure, nor was it his place to ask after it.

Instead of listening to the bickering of Anna and Uriel, Castiel currently focused on the slowly waking town; the people with coffee and papers, the ones gathering with growing abundance at a greasy spoon across the street. Most of them were probably Normals. Castiel had been well told how violent and cruel the locked-souls could be, but they were to be pitied, not hated, and Castiel found watching them interesting none the less.

After a moment something caught Castiel's eye.

"He's here," Castiel said, cutting into Anna and Uriel's continued squabbling.

All three of the strange lurkers went silent as they watched a gleaming, black, classic car pull into the library parking lot.

"Are you ready Castiel?" Anna asked. "From what I've seen and heard from the organization and Uriel's report, they could call it this week."

Castiel watched a tall teenager slide clumsily out of the passenger door of the rumbling vehicle.

"Yes, Anna," Castiel said absently, catching a glimpse of a face smiling at the leaving boy, mostly obscured by the sunlight glinting off the windshield.

Castiel heard his fellow operatives raise and back away from the edge of the roof, preparing for their own departure.

"Be careful, Castiel," Anna added. "La Espina is said to be pulling farther north all the time. Some of their poachers have been seen just past the Oklahoma border."

Castiel nodded sharply.

Nothing would harm Dean Winchester under his watch.

. . .

Dean left the scrap yard late that night. Sam had gotten a ride home with one of his group members, so Bobby had let Dean pick up a couple extra hours at the garage. Even so, it was still light outside when Dean turned the key and the Impala rumbled to life.

He flipped open his phone and hit speed dial one.

"Hello?"

A familiar voice crackled through the line.

"Hey, Sammy, I just got off work. You still on for a run tonight?" Dean said, turning out of the scrap yard once handed.

"Yeah, of course," Sam said.

As a younger Changeling, Sam was almost always in need of a good trip into the woods to stretch out and exercise that hulk of a bear inside him.

"Oka—"

Dean had gotten the first half out of his mouth before he trailed off and stared as a figure on the side of the road caught his eye. There was a boy standing on the side of the road, only a hundred yards or so from Bobby's scrap yard. He was almost shrouded by the trees, and Dean probably wouldn't have noticed him if he'd just been leaning against a tree, anything. There were Changelings all over this town. A kid in the woods was nothing to bat an eye at.

However, this boy stood stalk straight, facing the road, and as Dean's eyes tracked him for what seemed like a slow motion series of seconds while the wheels of his car turned and his neck twisted, as if he couldn't turn away. If he didn't know any better he would have said the boy's head turned, too.

"Dean?"

The college student started and put the phone back to his ear, eyes gluing back to the road.

"Great," Dean said. "I'll meet you at the changing rooms behind Ellison in twenty."

He snapped the phone shut, tossed it into the passenger seat, and then risked a glance into his rearview mirrors, but he didn't see a thing.

. . .

Irritation. Dean! Confusion.

Dean's currently furry and elongated face snapped upwards and toward the massive, shaggy shape to his right. The familiar touch of Sam's shift-speak drawing his attention back to his brother.

Shift speech was the method by which Changelings communicated in shifted form, a limited form of telepathy. A Changeling could use a mix of feelings and words to convey a point to another Changeling, dependent upon the ability of the speaker and the familiarity between the Changelings. There were very rare instances of two Changelings having the inherent ability to speak as easily to one another as they could in human from, right from the first moment they met. Such bonds had heavy cultural connotations but happened only among two in a million. Mary used to tell Dean that if John had been a Changeling they would have had an open bond, as such a connection is called. It had once made Dean smile to know that he had parents that were so in love, and maybe she had been right. It was said that if one half of an open bonded pair of Changelings died then the other was never the same. It seemed to fit well enough.

Most adult Changelings became at least sufficiently adept at communicating through shift speak, at least to get a clear point across to a stranger, but most young Changelings couldn't manage much more than some fuzzy impressions across to a unfamiliar party. Sam was particularly good at it already, though, and could speak nearly fluently to any acquaintances and could even communicate rather well with strangers, which was saying something considering how much they avoided exposing their shifted forms to just anyone. There were shift speech classes available to high school and above students at Academies, but for that very same reason neither Winchester had taken one yet.

Dean had never been very good at shift speech, nor had he ever put a whole lot of effort into getting any better. He was well close enough to Sam to converse fluently with him, so it hadn't ever been that much of a problem.

Sam looked down at him with what Dean recognized as frustration in his eyes. He'd been practicing shift speech by telling Dean all about his biology class and Dean really hadn't heard a damn word. The familiar woods felt strange and it wasn't uncommon for Normals or even Changelings in human form to go on hikes to the Refuge, but it seemed to Dean like the woods smelled more human than normal.

Sorry, Sammy. Contrite.

His small furry ears twitched, as he stepped over a log that Dean had to leap over. The kid was really getting big.

Concern. Fatigue. Stress. Confusion.

They could both fairly easily speak to each other in English via shift speak but they knew each other well enough that the much easier impressions got the questions across just as well. It was easy for Dean to understand that Sam was asking if he was tired—if everything was okay, all wrapped into a series of his feelings and projected impressions.

Ease. Reassurance.

I'm fine, Dean assured, before glancing up as Sam ducked under a low hanging branch.

Displeasure. So when are you going to stop growing, Sammy? I'm the big brother. You're messing up the natural order of things.

Sam's eyes sparkled and it was clear he was smiling.

Happiness. It's not my fault you're a little puppy. Amusement.

Dean growled and snapped at the short-faced bear's heels. He was a dire wolf not a puppy and Sam knew it. He was one hundred and sixty pounds of pure awesome.

Bitch.

Sam stumbled away as Dean's jaws snapped and the amulet swung from his ruffed neck.

Jerk!Sam retorted as he stumbled away and into the trunk of a tree.

The sun was touching the horizon by the time the two brothers traipsed back onto the campus lawn behind Ellison Hall. They walked towards a low, long building that squatted alone on the field. From the campus side it had a single door and looked much the same as a pool locker room, but on the forest side it looked different. There were no walls, only curtains that separated booths from the outside air. There were numbers hanging from roof in front of each stall. There were also numbers on the outsides of the inner door as well as a bench and a couple empty bins on the inside of each booth. It was in these rooms that students could strip, store their clothes and shift before going into the woods to exercise their shift forms.

Most were about eight by eight feet, but there were a number of larger ones to the far end. It was in that direction they headed. Dean could always use a normal one, but Sam had outgrown them two years ago.

Dean pushed is way around the curtain of booth 21, as Sam daintily used one of his giant paws to push aside the curtain on booth 22.

There were a couple other people moving up and down the path from the changing rooms behind Ellison. It was a popular time for students to go into the forest, especially for Changelings with nocturnal shifts.

Dean walked with his hands in his pockets next to his brother, Sam talking animatedly about his psychology class now.

"How are your grades in all these AP classes?" Dean asked, knowing they were nearing the end of the school year now.

Sam beamed.

"Should get all A's again!" Sam said, hefting his messenger back up farther on his shoulder, as he'd come straight from a study hall.

"Atta boy," Dean said, ruffling his hair, fighting the little flash of depression that had been flaring up in him more and more as the years went by.

Dean was really proud of Sam. Nobody could have been more proud, honestly, but each A was another weight on the scale that tipped it in favor of a one-way ticket for Sam right out of Kansas, and far away from Dean. Sam deserved it, though. He was too good for this podunk town in a nowhere state.

Dean looked away from Sam just as another student passed him, body moving through his periphery. Maybe it was instinct but his body twisted, recognition sparking, but by the time he turned all he saw was the swish of a tan trench coat and the back of head covered in dark, messy hair.