Title: Lobo Gitano
Summary: When Dean is bitten following a routine hunt, he thinks his life is over.
Notes: Written for the Werewolf Big Bang. Warnings include mild violence, mention of suicidal thoughts.
Dean jerks awake in the alley behind the bar he had been cruising the night before. His entire body aches, skin stinging with little cuts where the gravel has gashed his arms and face.
He can barely remember anything besides leaving the bar a little tipsy and a lot relaxed, saying goodbye to Marla or Macy or whatever her name was. Then he remembers being knocked off his feet, a heavy weight that smelled dank, and teeth ripping hot into his arm.
He groans and shifts, hand going to his other arm, and sure enough, there's a pretty big tear in his shirt, still wet and sticky with congealed blood, but there's no wound beneath it. There's a fine ridge of scar that he doesn't known for sure was there before, but nothing else. No pain, no blood, nothing.
Even his face doesn't hurt anymore from where it was ground down into the asphalt.
He makes his way to his feet, the stiffness rapidly diminishing from his muscles. The Impala is where he left it, fortunately completely untouched.
Once he gets back to his room, with not a few strange looks from the handful of other people in the parking lot, he tries to regroup. All the evidence is pointing somewhere nasty, and he doesn't really want to consider it. He's got silver bullets in the trunk and a handgun still in the back of his waistband, but he just can't. He can't put his dad in that position either.
His silver knife is under the pillow where he left it and he picks it up by the blade. His hand burns after a moment, and when he puts it down again, there is an angry red rash on his palm. So it's true.
He's a fucking werewolf.
He has to make a choice, and quick. Twenty-seven days until the next full moon, and if he can't do what has to be done, he needs to make sure he's as far away from other people as possible before that happens. He doesn't want his dad to have his own son's blood on his hands, and Sammy's away at college, going for that normal he always wanted. Ten times trying to eat his own gun and he finally thumbs the safety back on and starts planning.
Bobby has cabins, everywhere. Bolt holes he owns and never visits, high in the mountains of every state that has them. Some of them are in other names, and a few were passed on to him from other hunters who passed before they could make it to their asylum. Dean knows where a few of them are, even a couple his dad hasn't heard about and Bobby hasn't thought about in over a decade.
He chooses Idaho. John Winchester hates the state, always says it snows every time he has to even think about passing through. It's May now, and Dean figures he can dig in well enough to survive. Has to, if he can't take care of the problem himself, and it's not looking good on that front.
He maxes out every credit card he has in the ATM outside his motel in St Louis. It's just over a day's drive to the cabin, he figures, in the woods north of Hayden. A whole lot of nothing, no people, no one he could hurt. If he starts now he can probably make it by tomorrow night. He doesn't think anyone's tracking him, though driving all the way around the Dakotas is gonna take some time he doesn't want to waste, and he really isn't sure where his dad is right now.
He fills up the Impala's tank with the last fifty dollars on his credit card then methodically breaks every single one of them into the garbage can next to the tank. This is it. His IDs follow them, leaving him with a couple simple drivers' licenses. His hunting days are over if he can't protect people from himself. It feels like a funeral.
He climbs into the car, feeling so sick to his stomach that even the strains of Metallica can't drown out the thrumming in his ears, the voice in his head that's panicking, telling him to run to his dad, to Sammy, to Bobby or Pastor Jim. He ignores it and turns west.
Dean stops on the east side of Kansas City. It's early afternoon and his stomach still hasn't settled but he figures he needs to eat, maybe stop by a grocery store now and get what he needs.
He spends a twitchy half hour in a grocery chain, grabbing canned goods and bottled water by feel, blind, mind still on a loop of this can't be happening. He gives up and spends the first of his cash in the self check out, then goes through a drive thru, fingers carefully not touching the attendant.
He heads toward Lincoln next, which always takes too long for cities which should be close together but aren't, these states too big for their own good. It would be easy to follow 29 straight up into Omaha and then South Dakota but he doesn't. He knows there is no way Bobby really has eyes in every corner of that state but right now he isn't taking the chance. It's just six and he doesn't feel like stopping yet, so he hits another gas station and gets some hot food at a truck stop.
Cheyenne's the next logical step, take 80 straight across Nebraska, but it's late and the stress of the day gets to him by the time he hits North Platte. He stops and gets a hotel room, doesn't even bother to lay a salt line down. If something gets him now, it'll save him the trouble later.
He spends what feels like hours just staring at the ceiling, thinking about his family. God, it's been two years since he drove Sam to that bus stop and a month since he last met up with Dad at that diner in Reno. He wonders how long it will take them to realize he's missing. Will it be long enough for him to gather the courage to do what needs to be done?
He falls asleep thinking of all the ways he could do it, but knows he never will.
Dean doesn't let himself sleep in the next morning. He needs to make up for lost time, so he grabs a biscuit at a gas station, something soggy with grease and only half-warm from the heat lamp. It's less than four hours to Cheyenne from here, 80 is as straight as a highway can be, and he stops before noon to refuel and take a leak. He doesn't want lunch.
Cheyenne to Billings takes most of the afternoon and another couple of pit stops with how lead-footed he's being. His baby never pretended to being fuel-efficient. He forces himself to choke down a bag of chips and head off again, starts on the last leg of his trip. He doesn't want to stop now.
He makes it to Coeur D'Alene by dawn, half asleep at the wheel, but he doesn't stop, just turns his car straight north and keeps driving. 95 is arrow-straight through to Hayden and he follows it up, finally turning off to curve around into the forest he never quite believed in as a kid. It's thick and full of pine, mountains winding up and up. It isn't quite Colorado but it's more than the Plains he'd been on two days ago.
The dirt road he finds himself on is hell on his baby's suspension, but he promises her he'll take a look after he's had a few hours' sleep. The gravel and pot holes are the only things keeping this road from being grown over, and it's a wonder he makes it through. He wonders when the last human came through here, went up this mountain, and then he decides that that's the point.
The cabin is decrepit. Actually, that's being kind, and the door's barely attached to its hinges when he swings it open and steps inside. Animals have been in, made messes and nests, but he's so tired he can't care. He unwraps his sleeping bag on the floor and crawls inside it. He doesn't have time to wonder what's next as he falls into the deepest sleep he's ever had, ignoring the rustle of rodents scurrying around the corners of the room.
Dean wakes up when it's dark outside again, and he crawls out of his sleeping bag to stretch. He stumbles out to the Impala still yawning and drags his duffle and a couple grocery bags of supplies back in to the cabin with him.
The cabin isn't much more than one room, with a mildewed-over bathroom stuck in the back corner with a kitchen tucked in opposite. He hadn't been expecting quite this big a job but he's here now, got a tool case in his back floorboard and enough plastic bags to clean up a ball field after a game.
He finds more cleaning supplies under the sink when he checks the pipes. They're mercifully still intact and he works on coaxing them back to life before grabbing the straight broom in the corner that looks like it used to be used as a fireplace sweeper.
He wears himself out before he can do much more than sweep all the detritus out the front door and gets the water flowing in slow clear gurgles, so he breaks open one of the cans and sits down to eat it.
Twenty four days until the next full moon and he's already running out of ideas.
Dean spends the next couple of days stripping the cabin down to bare wooden floors and ancient linoleum, just like he had as a kid whenever their dad could only find them the absolute cheapest place in town. Once the cabin is as clean as it's going to get, he moves his stuff in from the Impala and gets down to the business of constructing a way to contain himself.
There's a cellar around the back of the cabin, one of those pits with the horizontal doors secured with a padlock. They're oak and still pretty sturdy, but he isn't really sure how much weight they're going to need to hold.
There isn't anything in the cellar besides some old crates and the pipes for the cabin, so he doesn't bother pulling anything out. He figures he can use the pipes as an anchor for his restraints, at least. He makes a list and drives the hour back down the mountain into the small town on the far outskirts of Hayden. The population sign for Serrote says 1574. He's going to have to work hard to keep a low profile in a town this small, where everyone knows everyone else from birth.
The hardware store is limited, but he buys some lumber and steel connectors, some chain. The clerk doesn't seem too interested, but Dean tells him that he's working on rebuilding a cabin anyways. He'd rather give them gossip than have everyone thinking he's a serial killer.
On the way back out of town, he stops by the garage and asks if they need any help. They don't, but tell him to check back and maybe something will come up. He's going to run out of cash sooner or later and he can't hustle here, so his only option is honest work.
He takes the supplies back to the cabin, along with a few more foodstuffs and a camp stove he picked up at the mom and pop grocery. Night is falling as he winds his way back up the one lane, not another human in sight.
Twenty-one days until the full moon. He's going to be ready.
He spends the next two weeks in largely the same manner, going into town for more building supplies and even picking up an odd job or two. The owner, Tom, and his wife Sara seem to have taken a liking to him, even if they rarely have work for him. They refer him a couple times for some odd jobs, too, and he hopes he can make this work out. He's never had to sit in one place for very long, never more than a year, and he hasn't stopped for more than a week since Sam went to California.
A week out, and he has everything in as much order as he can. He's tried to research Weres at the library in Hayden, but he was never the one to research anything, for good reason. Most of the information available he already has, anyways. Silver bullets or decapitation. No cure. The only option is death.
At two days to go, he drives across the state line and over into Spokane, leaves a letter to be sent in a week if he doesn't get back in time. If he can't control this, someone will have to take care of it, no matter what.
The morning of the full moon he treats himself to a last meal at the diner and buys Tom and Sara a pie in a paper box. He's twitchy, his skin itching from the inside out. He can't sit still, the urge to run just about overpowering. He excuses himself from the garage after just a couple of minutes, even though Sara gives him a concerned look and asks him if he's alright. He tells her he's fine, already backing out the door.
He locks himself into the cellar, hands stinging when they touch the inside of the door that he had overlaid with melted silver bullets. The doors glint in the thin light from the single bulb run off the generator that fortunately still functions. He shudders and then ties himself into the chains he has fashioned into a cage, hoping they will be enough. Two hours till moonrise, and he sits down to wait.
It hits him as a full-body cramp and he fights back against it, trying to hold himself stiff and straight within his cage. After a minute, though, there's nothing he can do and it takes him over, body shifting and reforming itself. He loses track after his vision changes, the cellar going bright and blue around him. After a while, there's nothing.
Dean comes to naked, curled into a pile of shreds that are probably what he was wearing yesterday. His body is sore but feels settled, somehow, like it'd been changing and he hadn't even noticed until it was done. He drags himself upright, shaking the stiffness from his muscles and lets himself out of the cage then carefully unlocks the door to the cellar. When he tries to open the door with his hand, blisters form on his palm.
He swears, pulling the injured limb tight against his chest. Maybe this defense hadn't been the best idea, especially since the cage held, but one can't be too careful. The crates are still stacked in the corner of the room, though, and he snags one, using it to push the doors open.
He blinks in the early morning sunlight, and it's different. He'd thought he'd finished changing as much as he would even before the moon rose, but now his vision is sharper, sense of smell stronger. He wants to test out what his body can do now, but he figures he should probably put some clothes on first. He doubts there is anyone around, that's why he came here, of all places, but he doesn't want to have to pick up and move because some unfortunately-located woodsman thinks he's a pervert.
He puts on a pair of jeans and just a t-shirt before starting a slow hike up the road up past the cabin. The new stimulation is just this side of too much, and it takes him a few minutes to stop focusing on every little sound and movement in the woods. He breaks into a run a quarter of a mile along the road, and there's no burn, just a little stretch and then freedom.
Before he means to, he's racing up the side of the mountain and it's so much more natural than it's ever been. He's never liked to run before, only doing it when John told him to or a hunt required it. The trees disappear behind him in a blur and before very long he's close to the sheer face of the mountain's peak. It isn't a very tall mountain, but it has an impressive wall of stone rising straight into the clouds.
Dean turns and looks out across the small, tree-covered valley toward the next mountain. It has a lookout on it, and he wonders if it's manned. Maybe he can use his new-found stamina to check it out. First, though, he has to hike back down to the cabin so he can drive back to Spokane. This just might work out after all.
He takes his time on the drive over, enjoying the countryside for the first time. It feels less like a death sentence now, or imprisonment, although that's pretty much what it is. He stops on the way back from Spokane at a few shops, picking up the things he'll need to really settle in, although he makes himself back away slowly when he finds himself looking at curtains. The cabin will need furniture beyond the rotten couch eventually, but he'll be damned if he color-coordinates it
The bell on the door to the mechanic's shop jingles as he walks through, and it's the first time he's heard it. He smiles. "Hey, anybody home?" he calls, stepping into the back room and coming face to face with a shotgun.
"Whoa, whoa," he says, backing up with his hands in the air. "I was pretty sure we parted in peace yesterday, what's going on?"
Tom is snarling, and even though Dean thinks he could probably survive being shot now, it sounds uncomfortable.
"Why are you here? Which clan sent you?"
Dean frowns. "What? Clan? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play stupid," Sara says, coming in the door behind him, also armed. Dean curses himself for getting distracted. "We know the smell of new Were when it walks through our door. Why did you come here?"
Tom kicks a chair toward him and indicates that Dean should sit in it. He does, slowly. He takes a breath, then another, and suddenly notices that his scent of Tom and Sara has changed. The clerk at the post office was boring, unthreatening prey, but these two…
"You've got to be kidding me," he says. "You people, too?"
They stare at him impassively.
"Okay, okay." Dean leans back in the chair. He could bullshit them, but he has a feeling that wouldn't work. "Some asshole bit me last month and I came out here so I couldn't hurt anybody. Or—I could take care of it, if I needed to."
"What do you mean 'someone bit you'?" Sara asks, sounding scandalized.
Dean shrugs. "I was coming out of a bar and I got jumped. Woke up the next morning with a silver allergy."
Tom and Sara share a look. "Stay put," Tom finally says. "I mean it. You want to survive, you wait until we get back."
Dean puts his hands up again and they leave, shutting the door behind them. He gets up after a few minutes and makes himself some coffee from the dilapidated pot in the corner of the room. There is a schedule of repairs on a spreadsheet tacked to the wall, so he wanders over and reads it. There is no way a crew this size could handle all of those repairs in such a short time, and he wonders at their constant turning him down if they need help. Then again, it seems there's more going on here than small town closed-mouths.
After he's drunk most of a pot of coffee and is predictably bouncing around the room, Sara comes back for him. Her eyes are still hard, but she's no longer brandishing a firearm at him, so, progress.
"Come on," she says. "The Alpha will see you now. If you want to survive this, you'll be respectful and keep your head down. Tom and I are already in a world of trouble for not sussing you out sooner."
Dean doesn't answer, he just follows along behind her as she leads him back out into the lobby of the garage. There's a blond man there he doesn't recognize, about John's age, with silver eyes. He's flanked by a woman and another man, both frowning and looking like they'd rather rip Dean's throat out than negotiate.
Sara nudges him and he drops his eyes as the man surveys him.
"You said he showed up a month ago?" He asks, and Tom answers the affirmative. The man stalks closer and Dean tenses, expecting an attack. It doesn't come.
Instead, the man asks, "What's your name?"
It surprises Dean enough that he looks up into the silver eyes, then jerks them back down to the ground. "Dean. Dean Winchester."
"Winchester," the man considers. "That isn't a clan name."
"I told them, I'm not from a clan, I don't even know what that means."
"Explain."
Dean shrugs. "Last month I got bit. Then I came here. That's all."
"Why here?" The Alpha is very close to him now, and Dean fights the urge to cower. Maybe superpowers aren't the only thing that's part of the package.
"My uncle owns a cabin up here and never comes out here. I wanted to be somewhere he wouldn't look for me."
The Alpha hums and downright sniffs Dean. "You're a newborn, all right. So how did you know before you woke up in a pool of someone else's blood?"
Dean flinches. "My dad—he's a hunter. I had blood on my clothes but no wound, and then silver burned me. Didn't take a rocket scientist."
"A hunter? How many werewolves has he put down?" The Alpha is touching him now, light brushes of fingers as he circles Dean and it takes everything he has not to jerk away.
"None, I wasn't even sure they were real until I got jumped. He just takes care of ghosts and black dogs, the occasional possession."
The Alpha steps back. "So what we have here is a newborn, with no clan, who no one will miss. Is that about right?"
Dean doesn't answer him. He'd had high hopes this morning, but at least Dad and Sammy won't have to put him down or know about it.
The Alpha surveys him for another moment and then steps back. Dean relaxes infinitesimally.
"You don't have human blood on your hands yet, or I'd have no choice but to kill you. I'll let you live this month—but the next moon, you change with us. I don't even want to know how you kept yourself restrained like a mad dog last night."
"I—" Dean starts but subsides at the man's snarl. "Yes. Sir."
The Alpha takes his obedience as due—the man is obviously used to people doing what he says, and he leaves pretty quickly after that, telling Tom and Sara to keep an eye on him.
It feels like all the air rushes back in to the room as the door closes behind him and his companions.
Dean scrubs a hand over the back of his neck and says, "Well then, I guess I'll be going—"
"Not a chance," Sara says. "You're staying with us."
He spends the night on Tom and Sara's couch—"the better to keep an eye on me", he mutters darkly to himself—and they leave him to it, with a few vaguely threatening muttered phrases about him staying put. He obliges them, mostly because he doesn't want to wake up in a hotel room halfway across the country with a pack of wolves on his doorstep the next full moon.
The next morning, Tom informs him he will now be working in the garage.
"I thought there weren't any openings," Dean says, brain still sleep-fogged and back in knots from a too-short couch.
"There weren't," Tom says cheerfully. "If you want breakfast, follow your nose."
Dean takes a few more minutes to get himself fully back into wakefulness, looking around at the room he hadn't had a chance to survey last night. It's small and cozy, with a fireplace that looks too big for the room. It's an older house, and the wear is evident, but it smells like a home.
He takes a deep breath. It's going to take him a while to get used to being able to smell things like "three days ago Tom came home from the lake with muddy shoes, and Sara yelled and then scrubbed it out with diluted oxy-clean". He puts his new found superpowers to use though, and it leads him to the back patio where Tom and Sara have set up with breakfast.
Sara asks him how he slept, and he makes an attempt at small talk, but he's never been the one in his family who was good at that, didn't have the puppy-dog eyes and "you can tell me anything" expression that Sam could work like a pro, even when he was still in diapers.
"I'm sure you have questions," she finally says, after they've eaten and Tom has wandered away to get ready for work. "You can ask, even though I won't necessarily be able to answer them."
Dean shrugs and leans back in his chair. "What's a clan? Why did you think I was from another one?"
"Clan is our pack. We're a family, but we're wolves, too. Territorial. It isn't unknown for clans to send in someone new to break up a pack, or cause trouble. There are a lot of Were here in Serrote, but there are more humans, and we can't afford to be noticed. Even if we squeak by with the locals, there are always hunters who've seen too many horror movies."
"So, what?" Dean asks. "You're going to tell me that it's not true, that you only change on the outside, that you're still human when you're wearing fur? I've already changed once; I know that's not true."
"It won't be the same, when you're changing with a pack and not locked up somewhere. But no, we don't 'stay human'. We're wolves. But we also aren't alone, trapped in a city where nothing is familiar and we're surrounded by threatening prey.
"Out here, we run free. People know to stay inside at night, up here in the mountains, and it's not just because of scary monsters. Plus, we have the Alpha."
"What does the Alpha do?"
"The Alpha…" Sara trails off as Tom comes in, holding an extra pair of coveralls for Dean. "You'll find out soon enough," she says, then shoos them out the door, telling them she'll be in to the office in a little while.
Dean spends the next couple of weeks mostly sleeping on the Brooke's couch, which turns out to actually be a pull-out. He mutters at Sara darkly when she shows him the next evening, but she only laughs at him and nails him in the face with a blanket. Work at the garage is simple, mindless, nothing he hasn't done in countless towns before, hoping to fit in.
When they finally do let him go back to the cabin to at least pick up a spare set of clothes and his toothbrush, Tom stalks the property, coming back tight-lipped and angry after Dean assumes he's found the cellar. The next time he's there by himself he goes to investigate it, and the cage of chains is in pieces on the floor. He finds the door a hundred yards into the woods, silver side down.
A week before the second full moon, Dean manages to drive back to Spokane and leave another letter. He still doesn't fully trust the few members of the pack that he's met, and most of what they've told him still seems like bullshit, but Sara hands him his car keys and lets him go.
"We are a clan, Dean," she tells him, eyes sparking golden-yellow beneath her thick brown bangs. "We understand family. Do what you need to do."
He fights the lump in his throat most of the way into Washington. It only goes away once he's back at the cabin with a bottle of whiskey he splurged part of his second paycheck on. This isn't the self-imposed solitude he had anticipated if suicide didn't work out. It almost feels like a life, like the normal Sam ran away for, but not normal at all.
The next day when he goes in to the garage, it feels different. It feels like he's finally making a start somewhere.
Tom is not, however, willing to let him moon over his life and the meaning thereof, though, setting him to work on a seemingly interminable number of cars needing tune-ups and oil changes, full-body inspections. Sara doesn't fare any better though, and he can hear her voice in the shop when it gets quiet, continuously saying, "Brooke's Auto Repair, how may I help you?"
It finally slows sometime after three, and Dean asks why it's so busy; business had barely been steady in the days since he'd started there.
Tom smiles, showing sharp teeth. Dean wonders how he hadn't noticed how inhuman the couple is before he'd gotten a face full of shotgun. "Two reasons," Tom says, wiping his hands off on a rag. "School got out for the year last week, and now everyone is driving to the coast, or Disneyland. Second, the pack wants to scent you before the full moon; wouldn't want to think you're an interloper or anything."
Dean shudders, and Tom outright laughs at him. "It'll be fine. You know how it is, small town, people get curious. Now that more people know about you, know that you're going to be clan, they want to know all about you. That starts with knowing your scent."
It's still weird, and Dean shifts. "Lunch break?" He asks hopefully, wanting to change the subject. He knows he's always been a pretty heavy eater, but it's been so much worse since his change. He's seen Tom eating pretty regularly and Sara eats similar portions, so he figures it's just another side effect.
Tom nods, and by the time they've cleaned the grease off themselves and gotten back into the office, Sara has takeout spread across the reception desk, a closed sign hanging in the window.
"So, how's this going to work?" Dean asks around a mouthful of food. "The Alpha said that I'm supposed to change with the pack. Do we just meet up somewhere?"
"The pack gathers early in the afternoon before the full moon. You'll be introduced there. Tom was partially joking earlier, but it is important that everyone know your scent before we change. The Alpha can only do so much to hold them back if they think a strange wolf is intruding on our territory."
"You keep saying the Alpha will control them—control us how? You've told me that we don't keep our human instincts when we change—how is he supposed to make us not go on a killing spree?"
Tom speaks up then. "Sara already told you that most of what Were do in the cities is about being cut off, surrounded, madness brought about by being so separated from our kind. That isn't the only thing. The Alpha—and to a lesser extent, his Beta and mate—retains most of his human faculties. He keeps his mind, and uses his dominance over the pack to keep us in line. It's not in our nature to hunt humans anyways, but even if one were to wander into our path and threaten us, he can guide us away to better hunting."
Dean stares. It's more than he can take in, and he still isn't sure he believes them when they say everything would be alright, if only he would trust the Alpha. His only option is to wait and see.
The garage is closed the day of the full moon and the two days after. Were only need to change the first night, according to Sara, but it is possible the other two nights if they so wish. Dean can't really imagine a time when he would actually want this, but at this point, he's keeping his mouth shut and just observing. He is treating this like a case, and if something happens, everything he knows will be mailed to his father in the week after the full moon. Someone will have to take this pack on, even if it can't be him.
The clan gathers at a small lake, even further up in to the mountains than his cabin. One of the members owns a large tract of land, which they keep stocked with game. Tom told Dean that afternoon that they occasionally rent the lodge on it out to hunting parties, which helps pay for the place and supplies them all with some much needed irony.
There are more people at the gathering than he expected. The youngest is in her late teens, and the oldest looks like he has long gone grey. Everyone comes up to him, some sidling, only getting near him when Sara tells them it's okay. Some stride boldly toward him, trying to be intimidating, but he meets their gazes straight on. He's near pissing his pants in terror, but he doesn't want to be immediately kicked to the bottom of the pack just because he let it show.
Tom can't join them until later, coming in only an hour or so before moon rise, with the Alpha and his two companions. Dean realizes he doesn't even know who they are, even though they'd been the first Were he'd met besides Tom and Sara.
"Oh," says Sara. "That's Kristen, the Beta, and George, the Alpha's mate." She takes off to greet her husband with a kiss, leaving Dean trying to process what he just heard. Kristin is blonde and solidly built, about a decade older than Dean. It's not hard to imagine her in a leading role, making everyone behave like good little Were. George is thin, with close-cropped dark hair. He's lithe, but Dean has no idea if that makes for a good mate—here his brain is filled with images he'd rather not have about the frankly terrifying clan leader and he shakes his head.
Tom and Sara come back over to Dean and tell him that he'll be changing with them, and they lead him back over to Sara's car. They pass around a bottle of water, then glare at Dean when he says he isn't really thirsty, thanks, until he takes it. They both shuck their clothing and motion for him to do the same. Dean's not exactly a prude, but it's awkward undressing in front of a couple he has no interest in sleeping with, especially when he can see others around them doing the same.
He tries to discretely cover himself but stops when Tom snorts at him, then follows them back to the clearing. Everyone else is gathering around, looking up at the sky.
This time, when the change comes, it's gentle. The wolf isn't afraid out here in the woods, its home. He can see the others changing around him and it's nothing like what he expected. Instead of pained grimaces and snapping bones, it's liquid, muscles straining into the change instead of being held stiff against it.
He is four-legged before he realizes it, everything gone grey in the twilight. Surrounded by strange wolves who seem unbothered by him, with a small brown wolf on one side and a larger black one on his other side. A large silver wolf howls at the sky and every wolf is on its feet, ready, and when the Alpha begins to run, everyone follows him.
Everything is overwhelming, the wolf is young and wants to play, and Dean is swept away with it. They run for forever and Dean loses track, lost in the smells and sounds and freedom.
He wakes up in a pile of what turns out to be Sara and Tom. They are back in the clearing where they changed last night. He yawns, and they stir. When he realizes that he is still naked, he shifts away from them, but Sara cracks an eye and grins at him. He blushes back and she shakes her head.
"Ready to head back?" She asks, and he nods. Tom is less happy about waking up, but he rouses easily once Sara prods his side and promises bacon.
They walk back to the car and redress for the ride back into town. Sara lets him head back to the cabin by himself after he's eaten, though she presses a promise out of him that he won't change tonight. He acquiesces easily and takes off, running the Impala too fast back up the mountain to the cabin.
He spends the day lazing around, tinkering with the Impala to make up for dragging her up and down the crappy mountain roads. It's sundown before he expects it, and he can feel the tug in his gut. He remembers that feeling of freedom the night before, but he promised Sara, and he's afraid what would happen if he were to shift unconfined, away from the controlling presence of the Alpha. He locks the door behind him and lies down on the couch. He dreams of running.
The next few months pass in pretty much the same way. He goes with the Brookes to the lodge, sometimes staying the three days, meeting a few of the other Were. None of them really click with him, though, and he's had no practice getting to know people or settling down. It's hard enough for him to maintain his job at the garage, doing something he enjoys with people he more or less likes. By the time the leaves drop, the only time he doesn't feel caged in is when he's running. Sara makes disgruntled faces at him and feeds him more, enlisting the help of some of the busybody churchwomen in Serrote.
By the time he's found the fifth casserole in his back seat, he puts his foot down.
"I can cook, you know," he tells Sara as Tom makes furtive fork-motions toward the dish in his hand.
She looks appropriately shamed and food stops showing up in his car, although Tom looks more well-fed than usual. Dean has eaten more than enough casserole as the child of a single parent, and a person who has been to way too many homes of the recently-bereaved.
In October, Dean opens the front door of the cabin to see Bobby standing on the porch. Dean's first reaction is to slam the door shut, as if that will make him go away. His scent is familiar, as if he already knew it and just needed to realize it. He smells of car grease and more than a little of dog. It's no wonder that he mistook him for Tom when he wasn't paying attention.
"Bobby," he manages to croak out. He can't say he's particularly surprised; after all, keeping hidden from his father's network of hunters was a bit of a pipe dream.
Bobby stares at him. "What the hell, boy?" He suddenly yells, and Dean flinches back as the man advances through the door. "Your daddy is worried sick about you, tearing up half the country looking for you."
He shuts the door behind himself and looks around the cabin. "Setting up house? If you just wanted a break—"
Dean laughs, short and brittle. "Winchesters don't take breaks, Bobby. You know that's not what this is. If you really want to know, ask."
He can hear another car pull into the drive and now that he's paying attention, he can tell that it's Tom. Tom doesn't exactly come through the door snarling, but with his sparking eyes, Bobby doesn't even have to guess.
"Werewolf," he says, as if he doesn't want to believe it. "You're right, boy. It would break your father's heart to hear that."
"I haven't killed, though. I'm not going to."
"You know that makes no difference to him; evil is evil. If it ain't human, kill it."
Dean nods, eyes stinging and throat thick. Tom is still, quiet. But Dean can see the fine tremor of tension beneath his skin.
"We will not allow you to hurt a member of our clan," Tom says stiffly. "We would prefer not to kill any hunters, because dealing with the swarm that would follow would be unpleasant, but we will not let you hurt him."
Bobby blinks. "I'm not going to hurt Dean."
"Obviously. We would not allow it."
Dean hides a smile at Tom's attempt to be intimidating. Despite the fact that he is Were, he is not a large or particularly muscular man.
"I don't want to hurt Dean," Bobby continues. "I'm not going to tell John you're here. But you know that he will eventually find out, sooner or later."
Dean nods. "I just hope that it will be later. A lot later. Maybe after the world has run out of silver. Or there are no more full moons."
Once Tom is sufficiently convinced that Bobby is not going to attack either one of them with a knife, Dean shows him around the town and sends him home with a pie from the bakery. Of course, then Tom calls an emergency meeting in which Dean has to swear that the clan is safe and give full descriptions of all the hunters he knows, in case they come sniffing around.
They spend an antsy couple of months waiting for someone else to turn up, but no one ever does. Bobby's word to John about Dean not being anywhere in Idaho must have been good, because they don't see any hunters at all. Dean does a couple of favors for the clan in his capacity as an ex-hunter, and it mostly blows over.
In February, though, Dean gets to the garage to find a message from Bobby for him to contact him as quickly as possible. When Dean calls him back, the man is as close to frantic as his stoic personality allows. John has completely dropped off the radar, and Bobby has a feeling it's bigger than John being his usual solitary self.
Dean is at a loss, though. "What do you want me to do? I'm stuck up here in Idaho. I haven't spoken to the man in a year. I have no idea where he could be!"
"How about turn on your damned phone!" Dean can hear a barely suppressed "idjit" at the end of that sentence. "Maybe he left you a message. I've got a really bad feeling about all this, and I know you don't particularly want to cross paths with your father, but I would hope you at least care if he's still alive."
It stings, especially because so much of his life has been spent keeping his father and brother alive. He hasn't seen either one of them in so long, he's forgotten.
Bobby misinterprets his silence. "I'm sorry, boy. I know you'd give up your right arm to make sure he's safe. I just don't know what to do at this point."
Dean coughs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "I'll-I'll take a look at it, okay? I can't promise anything—I can't even promise the clan will let me go. But I'll see."
He doesn't rush, dreads what he'll undoubtedly hear, but he digs his cell phone out that night when he gets home and turns it on. He doesn't have any signal in the cabin, but sitting on top of the rock face on the mountain, he has a respectable two bars.
His inbox has fewer messages than he would have though. Nothing from Sammy, ten or so from Bobby. Nothing from Jim or Caleb or the handful of other hunters he's exchanged contact information with. Most of the messages from his father are sharp and to the point. Call him. Where the fuck is he? Call him now.
The last message is a little weird. John says he's taking off, not to worry too much, he has a lead he can't ignore. Beneath it, though, there's a hissing that is familiar. A few tricks, and it turns out it's EVP.
He calls out of work the next morning and goes over to the Alpha's house. George answers the door and lets him in, points him to the living room before disappearing back into the house. When the Alpha comes into the room, Dean tells him his father is missing and he needs to go look for him.
The Alpha considers him for a while, then finally says, "Fine. Be back here for the full moon, though, or never step foot in Serrote again. "
Dean promises while those silver eyes stare at him impassively. Sara had told him that Were understood family, but he's never clicked with this man and chafes under his gaze. Once he gets back to his car, he doesn't even stop back by the shop to let them know he's leaving.
Dad's last job was in Jericho, California, Dean finds out, but he can't bring himself to tackle it by himself after so long away from hunting. It's already been a few hours of driving and he's lonely, so quickly used to someone within earshot during his waking hours. He hasn't seen Sammy in nearly three years, and suddenly, he aches to hear his voice.
He takes the turn off to Stanford on a whim, although he knows he could have saved a few hours if he'd gone the other way around Nevada. A couple hours spent around the campus, chatting up pretty coeds in coffee shops and a couple of decent-looking dudes in a bar, and he knows where Sam is spending nights.
He breaks into the cheap apartment with no trouble. Sam seems to have a roommate who isn't around much, probably a frat boy who spends most of his time in sorority girls' bedrooms, from the look of it.
Sam's room is carelessly neat, now that he isn't pointedly leaving things strewn about for him and John to fight over. Dean can't investigate more thoroughly, though, because he keeps getting distracted. There's a smell that fills the space and he can't really put his finger on what it is. It's stronger here in Sam's room, and before Dean realizes what he's doing, he is curled up face-first in Sam's bed, breathing it in. He is asleep moments later.
He doesn't hear Sam when he comes in, just comes awake to find Sam watching him by the light of his desk lamp because it's gone dark outside.
It hits him like a train, every sense suddenly locked onto Sam sitting there, and he's up and on him before Sam has time to blink. His scent—the smell was Sam, of course it was—and Dean chases it with his tongue, mouth on Sam's neck while Sam tries to pull him off. Dean can hear him speaking, of course he can, ears memorizing every new timber of his voice, but the words are gibberish.
It's not enough though, and he opens his mouth and bites down on Sam's neck. It isn't overly rough, doesn't even break the skin, but Sam stops fighting him and gets with the program. His sudden burst of movement propels them off the chair and onto the bed, rolling on top of him.
They've fooled around before, but nothing like this, a little making out when it had been too long between hookups. Dean can hear Sam calling his name now. "Dean," he's saying. "God. More." And it's too much, he's coming in his pants like he hasn't since he was in high school, he hasn't gotten laid since the change, impossible as that may be for Dean Winchester, sex god. But this is more than that. It feels right.
"Dean," Sam says again, panting as they come down. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but what the hell?"
Dean freezes. What the fuck? His brain is working again, now that Sam's scent isn't clouding his mind with "need, now". He can't believe what he just did. He knows that biting while he isn't changed is harmless, and he didn't even draw blood, but he can't believe he lost that much control.
He pulls away and tries to straighten his clothes. "It's—it's just been a long time, man. I missed you."
"Exactly," Sam says, sounding way too composed for someone who came thirty seconds ago. "It's been a long time. So what are you doing here now?"
He takes a minute to remember why the fuck he drove down here. Shit. "Dad's missing," he says finally. "I need your help."
Sam stares at him. "So you ambush me for a booty call."
"I didn't hear you complaining," Dean says, trying not to sound like the girls who complained when he wouldn't take their numbers.
"I can't go anywhere, Dean. I have midterms in two weeks. You'll be fine."
"I can't do this on my own." He can, though he's completely out of practice and will fuck it up completely without assistance.
"Yes you can," Sam answers, incredulity thick in his voice.
"Yeah…well, I don't want to."
Sam considers him impassively.
"Please," Dean says, and Sam finally caves.
"I'll go with you," he says. "In the morning. You say he's been out of contact for a month, another day isn't going to hurt."
Dean considers this. He's already wasted more time than he'd wanted to, but there are six full days till the change, and he really doesn't want to do this by himself.
"Fine," Dean capitulates, wishing there were a wet spot he could force Sam to sleep in. As it is, his boxers are kind of disgusting right now.
Sam just grins at him.
Once they get on the road in the morning, it is exactly what Dean has been missing. Lunch is junk food purchased at a gas station, and Dean lets Sam believe he's paying for it with fake credit cards. They get to Jericho late in the day, far later than they should have, but he's just enjoying being with Sam.
Sam talks most of the way when Dean isn't pointedly drowning him out with the radio. He's missed the open road, during his months in Serrote. Sam talks about his experience with classes, his grades-Dean mocks him for being a geek-and complains about the frat boys with just as much righteous indignation as he had in high school with the jocks. He's gearing up to take the LSAT, which he's nervous about, but Dean punches him in the shoulder and tells him he'll ace it.
They get to the motel, a shitty one, but Dean had to find one that took cash. On their way to the room, Dean catches a scent he didn't even realize he knew. It's old by a while, but it leads him to a room a couple doors over from his and Sam's. Sam gives him weird looks, but Dean sends him back out to the car for their stuff and goes to investigate.
It's their dad's old room, with all of his research tacked up on the wall. Following it is pretty easy, and it looks like John had the whole thing pretty well figured out. Dean will get Sam on it once he's figured out a way to lead Sam to the room without giving away his own abilities.
He buys a Coke on the way back to their room as an alibi. Sam's already put their stuff away-nothing in the drawers, just toiletries on the sink and their duffels on the table.
Dean hasn't been to a motel since his first change, and the experience is kind of overwhelming. It's nothing like Tom and Sara's house, the two of them the only recent occupants with their scent markers everywhere. Here, not even the most effective housekeepers could get the scent of sex and flesh out of the walls and carpets.
He has Sam pinned to the bed before Sam even finishes greeting him, door swinging shut behind him, kicking the opened can of soda into the hallway. Sam laughs at him, calls him a horn dog who hasn't been getting laid enough recently, but responds anyways. Dean ignores him in favor of sucking another bruise into his neck.
This time, they both manage to get naked, and it's not quite what Dean's looking for but it's so good. There's an odd achy feeling in his chest as he comes, and he closes his eyes, knowing they're sparking gold.
Dean wakes up and it's dark outside. Fuck. Five days to the full moon and he can't keep it in his pants long enough to get any actual hunting in. He lets Sam sleep until the sun comes up, then a little longer when Sam points out that not many people will be amenable to questioning at six in the morning. Once Dean manages to pry Sam out of bed, though, they head to the diner on the corner across from the motel.
On their way over, they see two girls hanging up posters. Dean wishes that he hadn't thrown away all of his fake IDs, but the girls are pretty willing to come with them to the restaurant for breakfast and to spill the story anyway.
While they're leaving, the girlfriend of the latest victim says that Dean's jacket reminds her of another guy she'd seen at their hotel. Turns out that she works the desk on the weekends, and she remembers a guy checking in to the hotel who kind of looked like Dean. Dean tries to look disinterested yet still get her to spill as much as she knows, which is even harder than it sounds, but he does get a room number out of her, which turns out to be the same one John's scent had led him to.
After that, it's pretty much cake. He lets Sam go head of him into the room and figure out the mess of information on the wall. Of course, on their way over to check out the place they get pulled over and Dean winds up spending a night in jail for not being quick enough with the "yes sir, no sir". Amazing how living in a town where Were are an open secret can let a person get cocky around the police. Or at least not suitably submissive.
Four days to the full moon, and a night in a cell that smells like piss is closer to Hell than he ever wants to be. It is mid afternoon before Sam springs him, and Dean is vibrating with frustration at how long everything is taking. Sam still hasn't managed to question the widow of their number one dead suspect, and they take off to run the old good cop/bad cop routine with the disadvantages of not having badges. He isn't a whole lot of help, but when Sam gets him to drop him off at the library for another go at the microfiche, Constance Welch herself shows up in Dean's car on his drive back to the hotel.
Ghosts are strange to his senses, flickering and not there, no scent to speak of. But it's what she's saying that throws him even more. He's never had a monogamous relationship in his life, who the hell could he possibly cheat on? She seems pretty determined, though, and when she decides to stick her hand in his chest and squeeze, he's had enough, jerking the wheel to the side of the road.
He's never changed apart from the forced change at the full moon, but somehow a switch has flipped in his brain and his body flows into the shape of the wolf. He is on the specter before she has a chance to reappear in the backseat, teeth sinking into her oddly solid body. He holds her and shakes, her screams horrible, and the smell of ozone overwhelming.
When he changes back into a human, he has a missed call from Sam and he needs to brush his teeth. He doesn't want to think about how he just took out a ghost with essentially his bare hands, so he doesn't.
Of course, he has to make up a story about why Constance Welch is no longer an issue. He settles for having taken her back to her house where her drowned children got revenge on her. It's not like ghosts follow any rules besides "don't like salt" and "really don't like iron".
When he gets back to the room, he's jumpy, still a little shaken from the run in with the woman in white. Sam's already back, having gotten tired of waiting at the library. He's taken a shower and is sitting on the bed with a book, hair still damp. He jerked off in there, Dean can tell, and it's even more intoxicating in the steamy open air than it was in Sam's sheets back in the dorm room. He's on him in the time it takes to stride across the room. Sam laughs at him again, but Dean really can't get enough, and he thinks, before thought becomes impossible, what the hell?
In the afterglow, he knows he has to tell Sam. Even more, he needs to know why the hell he loses his goddamned mind around him.
Three days to the full moon now, and the Alpha has pretty much threatened to tear out his throat if he brings another hunter to Serrote.
Dean doesn't think he has a choice.
Once Sam wakes up, lazy and still smiling a little bit, Dean asks him. He's nervous, running a hand over the back of his neck as he tries to come up with a way to convince Sam that Idaho in the late winter is exactly where he wants to be. Finally, he decides on mostly the truth as Sam starts to impatiently make "go on" gestures at him.
"So..." he starts. "I might not have been completely honest with you about what I've been doing while you've been at college."
"You haven't been hunting?" Sam asks, his eyebrows quirked with incredulity.
"Well, I did, for a while. But I've been taking a break..."
"A break? You?" Sam laughs. "Pull the other one. What did you do, slack off in Vegas for a weekend? Come on."
"Actually, I've been living in Idaho since last May."
Sam's jaw dropped. "Did you get someone pregnant? Is that what this is? Do I have a nephew?"
"No!" Fuck it. "I haven't gotten anyone pregnant and you are not an uncle. I've just...look, I have something I need to tell you, okay, but we have to be there for me to show it to you. So will you come with me or not?"
Sam looks like he wants to refuse, but he finally says, "Fine. But I'm picking the music."
Dean takes it slow going up the other side of Nevada back up to Serrote. Sam's pretty quiet, and Dean knows he's probably freaking out, wondering if Dean has cancer. He wants to laugh and tell him that no, it's something worse. He kind of wants to make a lupus joke, but his stomach is in too tight a knot for him to work one out.
They finally get back to the cabin late during the evening before the full moon. The wolf is early, pulling at the edges of his mind, but he watches Sam prowl around the room of the cabin with a proprietary eye. It's right, somehow, that Sam walks around Dean's space and lays his hands on everything, mixing his scent in with Dean's.
Finally Sam turns to him and says "It's nice. Bobby's?"
Dean nods.
"So why here, Dean?" Sam suddenly looks very tired, as if the day and a half of worrying has done him in.
"I'm a werewolf, Sam," Dean finally manages. "It's under control, but that's why I'm here."
"What?" Sam asks, a hysterical edge to his voice.
"You heard me. I haven't hurt anybody, and I'm not going to. Just…can't hunt anymore. And I'm stuck up here in Idaho, of all places."
"Why here? Why haven't you called Dad, or Bobby?"
"All I knew when I got bit was that I was a monster now, Sammy. How was I supposed to explain that one to Dad? That he had to put his son down? So I came here to set up a life for myself, lock myself up every full moon. Then I met the clan here, and they've taught me how to handle myself, keep me from hurting anyone."
"Clan? There are other werewolves here?"
Dean nodded. "I want you to meet them, but after the full moon. Tomorrow everyone will be too busy and no one will be in town. Will you?"
It takes Sam a long time to agree, and by the time Dean leaves for the lodge the next day, he hasn't spoken more than two sentences to Dean.
Dean is restless, pacing in circles even before everyone has gathered in the field. He brushes off questions about his absence from the town—people are used to seeing him work on their cars, or always ordering pie in the diner. He's irritable, Sam's silence working on his last nerve. He's glad that Sam is here, but his sudden distance is painful after their closeness the past week.
He changes more slowly this time, almost having to force his suddenly unwilling body into a different shape. Sara's wolf pushes at him impatiently until he is finally ready to run, and then they're off.
Something's wrong, though. There's a tugging in his chest and he finds himself breaking off from the pack, slipping away from them into the forest. He runs for longer than a wolf should be able to, and when he finally stops to see Sam sitting on the steps in front of the cabin, he isn't surprised.
Sam freezes when he spots Dean padding out from between the trees, fumbling for the gun tucked into the back of his pants. Dean comes closer, trying to look like a good little doggy and mocking himself for it at the same time. Sam will never let him live this one down, if he doesn't shoot him full of silver first.
Dean whines and Sam slowly, carefully puts his hand out toward Dean. Dean hold still as Sam's hand settles onto his head, then more surely, runs across his muzzle. Sam jumps when Dean's tongue slips out to lick it, and Dean huffs a dog-like laugh at him. Sam smiles in spite of himself, Dean can tell. It's strange, being here in front of Sam in this form. Even though he's kept most of his faculties out in the woods with the clan, it's only ever been just enough to keep him from tearing a camper to shreds. Now—the only canine instinct he has is to mark the edge of the porch.
Sam stands up. "Well, come on then," he says. "You can sleep on the couch. It's still February in Idaho, you know."
Dean follows him in, curling up hilariously large next to Sam on the couch. He goes to sleep while Sam watches old VHS tapes.
When he wakes up in the morning, he is momentarily disoriented. He expected to be back in the clearing in a pile. Instead, he's in the cabin and he can hear Sam fussing with the ancient coffee maker. Sam's scent is still all over the couch, along with not a few wolf hairs, but it's gone quiet in Dean's head, as if all he needed was to scent Sam in both forms for it to settle.
He goes to help Sam with breakfast, and when a hammering on the door comes a while later, he is expecting it. This couldn't last forever, and he had done a fucking stupid thing last night, even if he couldn't control it.
Dean swings open the door, and it's George and the Alpha, and the Alpha is already shouting.
"What the hell were you thinking last night? Running away from the pack? I should put you down now before you do it again and kill a human."
The Alpha advances toward Dean, but Sam steps between them. "Don't," he says in a low, angry voice, "talk to him that way."
The Alpha's nostrils flare and Dean tries to get between them, already apologizing. They aren't listening.
George pulls him back as they go for one another's throat. "You didn't tell me you knew another Alpha!" He hisses, and Dean shrugs helplessly.
"Didn't think I did." And he doesn't, of course, knows that Sam's never been bitten, is one hundred percent pure human.
Within moments, Sam has the Alpha pinned to the floor, both of them growling in singularly terrifying ways.
"You don't touch him," Sam is saying, "ever. We'll go, and your secret is safe with us, but you don't lay a finger on him."
The Alpha—just Alex, now—goes limp and Sam lets him up. Dean knows that he and George must both look like idiots, staring at them with their mouths hanging open, but he can't believe that really just happened. After a few moments of everyone just gaping at each other, George drags Alex onto the porch for a little talk.
Dean makes them all some more coffee and deliberately does not eavesdrop. He figures they'll all hear about it soon enough.
"So what he's saying is that I'm your own personal Alpha?"
Dean glares at him. "Just for that, no sex for a week."
Sam laughs at him, the smug bastard. "Look on the bright side, you get to leave Idaho now. Actually, Alex strongly suggested it. Think he's tired of dealing with you."
"So what's next? Back to Stanford, finish your degree?" The very thought of being trapped in Palo Alto makes him itchy, but he's stuck with Sam in more ways than one.
Sam shrugs. "I don't really think that's an option now, is it? Nowhere for you to run on a college campus. Dad's still missing, too."
"So you want to keep looking for him?"
Sam just looks at him. "Dean, As funny as you being my bitch is, I do have a responsibility to you as your Alpha. That includes giving you room to run and understanding your need for family, which was already at Were levels even before you were changed. I can't promise that we won't eventually get a ranch somewhere so I can finish my degree at a community college of Sticks University, but we will find Dad first."
They go by the shop before heading out of town. Tom is more than a little twitchy around Sam, but Sara hugs them both and tells Dean to keep in touch.
Tom pulls him aside as Sara loads Sam down in baked goods from the church ladies.
"I know that the Alpha said that Sam was your Alpha, but he doesn't smell like any Were I've ever met. Be careful, Dean. You may keep your mind during that change—don't think I didn't notice, even if they never did—but your Alpha has more power over you than just keeping you sane during the Change. You aren't supposed to come back here, but if you ever need help, there are places you can go."
"Thanks," Dean says, unsure of what to say to this. Of course Sam isn't Were, and he doesn't know what it is about Sam that can take on an Alpha and win, but he is sure of one thing: Sam would never hurt him. "I'll keep that in mind."
After a while they extricate themselves from the shop and head out to the car, Sam setting the various Tupperware containers in the back floor board. Dean doesn't even care if they are casserole.
"Sure you're ready to head out?"Dean asks. "We could hit up the bake shop on the way."
Sam grins at him, climbing into the passenger side. "Come on, Dean," he says, shutting the door. "We've got work to do."