Flint, Michigan – May 1999

"Don't forget that the new moon is tonight." Sam is stuffing books into his bag but he spares a moment to throw a quick glare in Chalendra's direction. "We will need to hunt the waheela tonight."

"Yeah, I got that when you reminded me last night. I'm not stupid, Chal. I don't need to be told everything ten times."

She has read every book on child-rearing ever written. Many warn about the time of adolescence, speak of it as history books do periods of war. Teenagers in a state of violent physiological upheaval, they caution, are erratic in behavior, poor in judgment, and verbally aggressive. She'd read it, understood it, and deep down had believed that it would never happen to Sam. How wrong she had been. Now his eyes do not illuminate with pleasure at the sight of a white-frosted cake. His brilliant questions about how the universe works have turned into complaints about rising early on weekends. Once her voice alone was enough to move him to hug her; now every word that falls from her lips seems to anger him. The books can explain that it's hard to raise a teenager, but they fail to convey just how truly heart-breaking it is to watch a boy turning into the man he will become.

Chalendra rubs her forehead. Her hand is warm from the mug of coffee from which she's been sipping. Patience is a virtue and like all other virtues, practicing it requires much more effort than it did when she could still claim to be an angel. "You are brilliant," she says honestly. "We just have a small window and can't afford to miss it. The blood will be on our hands should we fail to turn up on time."

"Yeah, I get it," he mumbles. He draws the backpack over his shoulders, the straps extended to accommodate his perpetually expanding back and shoulders. The bag bumps a picture frame on the dining room wall behind him. It crashes to the floor.

He glances at the mess and then out the window. "Go," she waves. "I'll get it." It is not the first and won't be the last glass sacrificed to the god of growing boys. She would rather he be on time for school than to have him stay and clean up the mess himself, knows that he would take responsibility for the task if he had time. He leaves the house without kissing her cheek, just waves goodbye, and tosses a "thanks" her way instead.

She frowns at the glass on the floor and sighs. To the room she says, "Adolescence."

Sam sneaks Fritos in algebra class. He chews slowly and with closed mouth, allows his saliva to moisten the crunch out of the fried corn to best muffle the sound. He also sneaks Midsummer Night's Dream which he holds on his lap with the hand that isn't covered in salt and grease. The play is cheesy, romantic comedy masquerading as fine literature. Sam likes it anyway. He likes most of the things he reads; his imagination makes even the mediocre ones better.

"Daniel?" Sam looks up. The teacher frowns at him. "Save the reading for English class, okay?"

He can't help the huff as he puts the book back into his bag though he mutters out a "sorry," not because he is, but because it is the respectful thing to do. He watches the leaves outside. Summer is almost here which means that soon they'll be getting out of Michigan, hopefully never to return. He'd been cold when they'd arrived in the fall, hadn't dreamed that by winter it would feel like his bones were hollow with the chill. He's already suggested to Chal that they go to Texas next, a place warm and flat. No doubt by the time next spring rolls around, he'll be burnt by Texas sun and anxious to move back north. The spring after that… that is The Spring. He'll be eighteen by May, have his diploma in hand by June, and by July his life will have started. He will wipe from his mind any knowledge that a hunter can kill anything more dangerous than deer. He will blissfully ignore children whose eyes occasionally turn black, men that grow fur when the moon is full, and women who stay youthful with the help of infant stew. He will grow roots deeper than a sequoia someplace warm and bright.

Later, in the cafeteria, he overhears a conversation about one of the girls, Terry, who had been mauled by the waheela last month. He feels the guilt at his snippiness with Chalendra that morning after hearing about the sweet person that Terry had been, about her dreams to learn how to surf and to speak sign language, things that she will never have the opportunity to do now. He pushes around the cherry tomato on his plate. Sam knows it's important, what he and Chal do, he just doesn't always want it to be them. Yeah, he is good at it but surely there are others out there who can hunt these things, who can do the things he doesn't want to. Hell, there's probably someone out there who likes it.

Sticks crackle underneath Dean's boots. They sound like firecrackers, their volume heightened by the blackness of the new moon night. The danger, the dark, the cold air, they are invigorating, igniting his blood. This is where he is at his best, in the wilderness, weapon in hand, on a hunt.

His dad speaks in a low voice. "Can you make any more damn noise, boy?"

Dean tries not to take the criticism as insult, lightens his footsteps instead and ignores the flick at his ego. There is no room for pride on the hunt; the victims need him at his best and dad always has advice for how to be his best.

The back of Dean's hand brushes the bark of a birch tree. It's scratchy but pleasant. His proximity to the tree has alerted some small creature that darts away in a mad rush of fur. Dean is alert enough that the movement of the rodent zaps his muscles, makes his hand clench tightly on his knife handle. The monsters they're hunting, these waheela, like so many other lupine beasts, are best brought down with silver blades. Dean prefers the things that can be brought down with a gun, loves setting his vision into the distance, finding the tiny blink of movement, and dropping it with a squeeze of his finger. Of course, these are the rarest of the things they hunt; most baddies require complex rituals and obscure mystical items, boring things that require memorization and not skill.

John hisses briefly through his teeth, nods east. Dean follows the direction of his eyes, looks but fails to see anything. His eyesight is better than his father's, the 20/20 of youth, but he lacks his dad's experience, lacks that quality that makes John Winchester the best damned hunter in America. Dean, while certainly the most star-struck, isn't the only one to think so.

Since John is the first to spot something, he moves into a front position. Dean waits before following. These things hunt in twos and threes and he wants to have a wide view of dad's flank.

The ground slopes downward into a thick cluster of yellow birch trees. Just behind that Dean spots his dad's find. There is a small mound of earth with what seems to be an entrance, a cave then, perhaps the monsters' lair. Dean smiles. He likes the creepy figure it presents and likes more that it means they are close. There's still the chance that it was made by another animal, even a desperate human maybe, but Dean knows his father's spidey senses are tingling and he can count on his fingers how many times in his life his father's been wrong on a hunt.

A growl, coming not so far from the cave, pulls both Winchesters into action. Dean runs at almost full speed to get to it. This is foolish in the dark and he trips not once, but twice, both times catching himself before he falls. With his stumbling around, it's no surprise that he loses sight of his father. What is surprising is when he hears another growl from a different direction. It seems the rest of the pack is nearby. Trusting his dad to fight alone, he sets off in the direction of the new growl intent on killing the first waheela tonight and, hopefully, restoring some of his studliness after tripping like a blonde in a horror flick.

He sees the guy first, before he sees the large slavering wolf-bear creature which shouldn't be possible as the waheela is growling between them. Instead he sees the guy's thin frame, a silhouette in the darkness, and something in the stance, something that emulates the creature in front of them, that draws the eye. Then Dean sees the beast, looks over the white matted fur bristled in rage, and feels that rush, the endorphins of fighting and saving, comparable only to fucking. "Run!" he yells to the guy.

"I've got it!" the guy yells back. Dean's ears deny the words, attempt to scramble them, and come up with the same sounds.

The waheela shows no confusion. It takes off at a full run, racing to close the distance between itself and the guy. It spares only a quick look back at Dean to make sure it's not being followed. It is now, buddy. Dean's legs may be slow on the uptake but once they get going, he's moving nearly as crazy fast as the creature. "Hey!" he yells, hoping to deter it. "Over here doggy!"

The waheela turns, obviously confused about which direction it should be taking. Its large white paws plant into the ground and its head whips back and forth between the two humans before finally lifting into the air with a howl that is part snarl and all ferocity. Dean guesses that it's calling for backup because that's what he would do and he hopes that his dad is taking care of this monster's reinforcements. When the humans simultaneously begin approaching it, the waheela gets the picture that it is now prey, as unbelievable as that should be given its size and strength. It can sense the lack of fear in the posture of the one it had tracked and in the scent of the new one with the loud voice. It runs.

Dean and the stranger give chase, bodies eventually adjacent as they leap over fallen branches and stones, dodge trees, and duck low hanging limbs. Sometimes in front and sometimes in back, Dean feels the other man's presence, feels the way they form a braided trail behind the beast. It's natural.

The waheela stops in front of its cave, the pile of mud and rock and wood, just as John had guessed. Its back to the hole, it snaps at them, making its final stand here in its home court advantage. It is probably relying on the others in its pack having heard its howl, waiting for them to show up and outnumber and outmuscle the humans.

Dean risks a look over at the strange man. This prompts the guy to look back at Dean. He's just a kid, maybe sixteen years old, with skinny arms and shaggy hair. He's panting too, like Dean, like the waheela, and his teeth shine bright white even without the moon. In the human's case, though, it's a smile. It isn't the only thing shining. In the boy's right hand is a combat knife. Dean needs to look back at the creature, but first, he must warn the kid. He raises his own knife.

"Aim for the heart," two sets of lips say in perfect sync. Dean sees his own surprise reflected in the boy's face. Then, the smile again.

Well, Dean hadn't expected that.

They face the waheela, drawing nearer. Dean looks forward to the hunt, sometimes the kill, but he is dreading this fight. Knife fighting against a wolf the size of a bear is beyond reckless into suicidal. The teenager doesn't seem to agree; he lunges at the waheela, body coiled and fast like a bullet. Dean, destined, it seems, to be last tonight, follows suit. The waheela dodges the boy's stab but takes Dean's slice to its ear. Its large teeth snap at the boy who moves back like this is a dance choreographed and practiced to perfection. Dean doesn't have time to appreciate the boy's agility, has to look after his own skin now that the waheela's attention is turned back to him.

Dean and the boy are trading off sides, an attempted stab here, a jab there, and the Waheela has no way of keeping up. For a second, Dean thinks he sees the fear of inevitability quiver in its eyes and then the boy sinks his blade into the white soft fur covering its chest. The beast falls, but is not dead, not until the boy ends its misery with a quick final slip of blade across throat. Then the creature lays flat and motionless with not even a last breath shaking its mass.

The boy drops to the ground, his legs buckling.

Dean can't get over to him quickly enough, even though he's just a few feet away. He kneels beside him and places his hand on one bony shoulder. "Hey'd he get you?" he asks, the words jumbling into one.

The boy's head, bent down nearly to his chest, shakes slowly. "Nah. I got him." The boy's face lifts and there are tears in his eyes that immediately get wiped off by the sleeve of the boy's oversized sweatshirt. The eyes avoid Dean's, looking at anything but Dean as he sucks back snot and wipes the evidence of tears away. "What about you?"

Dean looks down at himself. His voice sounds surprised when he says, "No. Not a scratch." He wonders how the hell he managed that. Even with the kid's help he should be bleeding. Then again… "You were fucking awesome," Dean says.

The kid smiles. "Yeah. You were kinda shit."

A laugh bursts into Dean's breath, catching him as much by surprise as the boy's cheekiness. He removes his hand from the kid's shoulder. "Shut up," he says. He rises back up to his feet feeling foolish for consoling a guy who has just insulted his hunting skills. He kicks the boy's boot. "I'm Dean."

"Sam," says Sam. He follows Dean's lead, rising to his feet, and then a look flashes across his face and Dean thinks maybe the kid is gonna faint. Instead, he bites his lip before saying, hurriedly, "Shit. Daniel." Then, when Dean looks at him, he adds pleadingly, "Please, I go by Daniel here. No one's supposed to know me as Sam."

Mysterious, this request, but considering the assistance taking on the waheela Dean doesn't see a reason not to be accommodating. "Alright Secret Agent Daniel." He offers a hand to Sam.

Sam has a firm handshake. Dean could have guessed that he would.

"Dean!" John's voice cries out.

"By the lair!" Dean yells in response. "One of 'em dead!"

Sam asks, "Your dad?"

Dean's forgotten that Sam doesn't know that John is there. The ease with which they'd worked together to take down the waheela is still binding them, the trust of the trenches. He nods in response to Sam's question, then pulls a rag from his jacket and wipes the blood off his knife. He'll do a better job cleaning it off back at the hotel.

Sam watches Dean's actions but makes no move to emulate them. His knife hangs loosely in his hand, blood tarnishing the formerly shiny blade. "Yeah, my mom is around too."

"Your mom?" Dean's stomach drops. Why are they just standing around if Sam's mom is in danger? He berates himself for making small talk while someone's life is at stake. These are pack animals. His dad can handle himself, but not civilians!

"Only one?" booms John. He smiles at them from the top of the hill that they had originally come down. Underneath his arm is a woman, twentyish, blonde, brandishing a long slender knife unlike any Dean has seen before. She appears to be a makeshift crutch for John. Even in the dark Dean can see blood on his father's leg, a black circle on the knee of his jeans. "We managed two."

"You're hunters?" Dean asks Sam. It's a stupid question because the answer is obvious. The way the kid can fight, his complete lack of fear against such a beast, these are more than hints that Sam is a hunter, they are statements written in bold. Dean wonders if it is just Sam's age that made him seem too innocent for the actions of a hunter, the actions that Dean himself had seen Sam carry out, dispatching the giant wolf/bear far more easily than he could do. He has been underestimating Sam, judging him based on his build or his age or the tears, but wrong in whatever assessment his mind had made.

Sam doesn't reply. Instead, he yells to the woman, "Do you think there's more?"

The woman with the odd knife shakes her head. "I believe that they'd have showed up when that one," here she nods down at them and their kill, "howled."

Dean worries as he notes how much weight his dad puts on the woman. They get banged up plenty, all hunters do, but he wouldn't be relying as much on her if he could help it. "How bad you hurt?" he asks, voice aching to attempt nonchalance.

"Oh, nothing ten stitches and a fifth of scotch can't help," jokes John, his face unguarded, happy.

Dean knows his father better than anyone alive, knows his habits and his dislikes and his mannerisms, has adopted a few of them for himself over the years. The only nights that John Winchester can sleep a proper six hour sleep are the nights when they have successfully completed a hunt. They don't make him happy, because he's always pissed that whatever they were hunting wasn't the demon that killed mom and took his baby brother, Sam. But, they do let him rest because he has done something. John can take comfort in knowing that he's stopped another dad from having to raise a child alone. It lightens the burden but doesn't alleviate it. So, Dean knows immediately that this playful mood is more than a reaction to the end of a hunt, knows that it is in fact due to the proximity of the woman with the muscular arms and the tight jeans and tank top, Sam's mom.

Dean doesn't want to know. As far as he's concerned, his dad can continue being an asexual vengeance-obsessed drifter. He wants no part in witnessing dad crushing on some MILF with a weird toothpick knife and a ridiculously talented fighter son.

"So, are we done here then?" he asks his father.

John ignores the petulant tone in Dean's voice. "Me and Chalendra here are; she's agreed to assist me back to my truck. You two should check out their lair, make sure we don't leave any stragglers."

If the woman helps John to his truck then she won't be digging around inside the lair possibly tangling with a stray waheela. This is the line of reasoning that Dean hopes his father is using and not something like, 'let the kids deal with it while I put the moves on this babe." He's also worried that maybe the leg fared worse than his dad is letting on, but if he was to ask something along the lines of "you sure you're not too hurt?" his dad would kick his ass and rightfully so.

"Yeah, we can do that." Dean says and adds, "And another quick scout of the area." John used to get on his case for not being properly thorough following a hunt, so he's made a concentrated effort to correct the issue in an exaggerated way that John can see.

"Right," John says.

Parents gone, limping off to the truck, Dean turns to Sam and warns "My dad is into your mom so please tell me she's a lesbian because my imagination really doesn't want to go there." He pulls a flashlight out of his coat; it's small, doesn't weigh him down on chases, but powerful, illuminating the waheela lair. Its entrance is about two feet high. If they are going to take a look, they'll need to crawl into it, leaving their heads exposed to any jaws or claws. If there is still a waheela there, it's been left behind from the hunt meaning that it could be injured; an injured monster could be just as dangerous as a healthy one, especially when cornered.

"I don't think so," says Sam who appears to be doing a complicated math problem in his head. "Did your dad introduce her as Chalendra?"

'That's what I heard. Kind of a weird name." He picks up a fist-sized stone. "Why, is she a secret agent too?"

Sam shakes his head in wonderment, not in response to Dean's joke. "She's been going by Sylvia here. I don't know why she gave him her real name."

Dean flips the stone in the air underhand, catches it overhand. The weight and smoothness feels good in his hand, one of man's earliest weapons. "Maybe she's into my dad too."

Sam shakes his head. "I don't think so. She's never really been into anyone before."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, everyone thinks their folks are virgins." He hurls the stone into the makeshift cave. A tiny yelp sounds from the darkness followed by shuffling. It doesn't sound like a waheela, more like a human. Dean's knife is in hand in case he's wrong but the sound had been small, weak. Intuition nips him, playfully bites his good mood. "Damn."

Dean takes point, crawling on hands and knees towards the hole, his light shining into the dirt and leaves. "Careful," Sam warns pointlessly.

After a few seconds, he calls, "Sam, come here."

Dean doesn't hear Sam move, not even with the night as still as it is, but he feels him, sees him once he squats down beside him, his attention focused like a deer that thinks it has heard a wolf.

The beam of light reveals a puppy or a cub, whatever the waheela offspring are called. Its fur is dirt-covered and its eyes huge, scared. It whimpers and shakes, small jaws opening slightly and closing again, unable to keep still. It is pressed completely to the back wall of the dugout.

"Oh god, oh god." The mantra starts low from Sam, exhales of distress, but they grow louder. "Oh god, oh god, oh god." He's on his feet pacing, swirling back and forth.

Dean sits back, ass on his ankles, watches Sam have his freak out and feels calmed by it, as though Sam is working out the horror of the revelation for both of them. This is the worst part of the job, always. He'd rather get thrown into a wall by a poltergeist, rather read through translations of ancient Sumerian texts than to have to hurt or kill an innocent.

"That's why it ran back here! Fuck, Dean, it was protecting the young!" The tears that Sam had managed to tuck away unravel themselves. Sam pulls his hair, pushes it back over his head, wipes at tears, stares at the lair and into the trees as though they have an answer for this awful situation they are in, and then starts again, unable to handle how he is feeling, like his pain is literally too big for his body.

Dean rises. "Hey! Calm the hell down!" he says to Sam who looks so much younger than he had minutes before. Dean hates the words as he says them, recognizes the tough love voice of his father. There are many traits of his father's that Dean Winchester strives to emulate. The no-nonsense anger when Dean expresses emotions on a hunt is not one. He's hoped to avoid using it even if, god-forbid, he ever spawns puppies of his own. When John does that, dismisses Dean's feelings, gets angry that his son is not just a mindless killing machine, it makes Dean feel unloved by his father, like all the effort that he gives on a daily basis amounts to nothing because he is failing at this one critical aspect.

Dean grabs the teen by the shoulders and, surprising both parties, wraps his arms loosely but heavily over the thin frame. "You didn't know."

The boy doesn't resist but his body is tense and uncertain.

Dean doesn't know how long to keep this touching thing up. He feels awkward when the female vics that they rescue want to hug him. It's nice when they do, especially the feel of their breasts against his chest and also the awesome heroic feeling, but it makes him feel guilty, like they think they owe him. He doesn't want anyone touching him because they feel obligated to do it. Now he's willingly hugging this strange deadly teary boy and he doesn't know if it will work to calm him down or just result in a swift punch to the gut.

Sam's body slackens, hugs back in the same loose, heavy way. He hears Sam's nose as it works to keep snot off Dean's jacket. They're the same height and with his head tilted down, the wet nose is really close to the leather. "I won't kill it," he whispers resolutely.

"You won't have to," says Dean. "I got this."

Sam looks at him. Dean had left the flashlight on the ground facing into the hole, abandoned it there to comfort Sam. By its indirect light he can see Sam's face. Dean can see the revulsion in Sam's dark eyes. "You're going to kill a puppy?"

"That puppy is gonna grow into a waheela. It's gonna kill people just like its mommy and daddy every time the moon goes out. Sam, if we don't kill it, it's gonna leave behind a bunch of dead bodies that'll be on our hands."

He's said the wrong thing, can tell even before Sam shoves him away, before he starts yelling, sees it in the narrowing of Sam's eyes and the tightness of his lips. Dean wants to take it back, whichever thing that triggered the anger.

"Why is it on our hands? Why can't we hold the things that kill responsible? I didn't kill Terry Donnely, the waheela did, so why is it that her blood is on my hands, on yours, on Chalendra's?" Sam's tears are rain, the hiccups thunder. Dean has no idea how to stop the storm. He stares at Sam helplessly; he has no answers. Saying that it's just the way things are seems too cruel.

The puppy whimpers and Sam's arms wrap around himself tightly.

"It hasn't done anything wrong." His voice is as whiny as the puppy.

"Not yet," says Dean.

"Yeah, not yet, maybe not ever, but you don't want to give it the chance."

Dean doesn't understand why Sam is acting like it's Dean's fault. He doesn't want to kill the damn puppy. It's bad enough that they took out its dad, carcass laying not that far from where they're standing around arguing about killing its baby. Dean rubs his face with his blade-free hand; it feels as though his skull is too big for his forehead. They can't just stand and argue about this. His dad is injured, maybe bleeding all over his truck, and Dean knows that if they take too long, John will be walking back, hurt or not, to check on them. He doesn't want to see the look of disappointment on his dad's face when his son has trouble doing this one simple awful task. He steps towards the lair.

"No!" cries Sam. Dean feels the strength in the fingers that wrap around his wrist, the one with the knife.

He sees the plea, hell, he feels the plea, can practically hear it resounding in his head. Sam's eyes are wide and round, jaw clenched so tightly that his cheeks protrude on the sides, and his lips are pressed tightly together, wordlessly begging.

The kid gives better puppy dogs eyes than the waheela cub!

Dean wants to slap the kid, not hard but enough to knock some sense into him. He rubs his hand around the skin of his face until it feels like when he pulls his hand back it will be stuck that way, distorted like a cartoon character.

"Fine, if you wanna save that thing, we've gotta move fast cause my dad's gonna know something's up if we take much longer." He can't believe what he's saying; then the joy of comprehension and relief enters Sam's eyes and Dean knows at least why he's saying it. "We are not just leaving it here though so you'd better find a cage for that thing cause regardless of what you think, it will get big and it will get mean. Waheelas are like chicks, they have to do their monthly blood lust thing, get it out of their systems, okay?"

Sam is listening, nodding, and looking completely overwhelmed. Dean can't say he blames him for that. John will have Dean's ass if he finds out and Dean figures that if Sam's mom is a hunter, she'll probably feel the same way.

"My dad never sees it, got it?" Sam nods. "This is so fucking stupid."

Dean strips off his leather jacket. He loves his jacket, doesn't want some stupid wolf baby to puncture holes in it but he wants those holes in Sam even less. He tosses it to Sam who looks at the brown leather questioningly. "It's your pet; you get it," snaps Dean. Normally Dean would rather put himself on the line than someone he doesn't know but his days of underestimating Sam's abilities are over. Also, it is just a puppy, waheela or not.

Sam approaches the hole carefully. Dean can hear Sam speaking to the pup, soothing it. In the end, it doesn't matter how much baby talk Sam uses, the thing is still a wild creature and it nips and yips and fights as Sam sacks it with the jacket. The struggle is short and soon they have their contraband pooch.

Dean briefs Sam as they make their way back to their folks. "Dad's got a Sierra Grande. My baby's the Impala, black and real sexy. You're going to take my keys and toss that mutt in the back trunk and you're gonna act like you're just putting away my gear." He passes his keys, tries not to think about how much trust he's placing in this stranger, then his knife and flashlight to Sam who pockets the keys but places the other items atop the wriggling, whimpering jacket. Sam makes juggling all those things look easy. "And try to shut it up!" he snaps. To himself he mutters, "Dad's gonna kill me," adds, "I probably deserve it too, letting myself get roped into this stupid stuff. I'm a hunter dammit, not a freakin' dog catcher." He's so busy grouching that he doesn't notice Sam smiling even as he wrestles the puppy and Dean's gear while walking the dark trail behind him.

When they get to the clearing where the Winchesters have parked, Dean is encouraged by the layout of the scene. Sam's mom is sitting in the truck with John; they won't immediately see the bundle in Sam's arms. Also, the vehicles are parked driver's side to driver's side, meaning that his dad's line of sight will be blocked by car and Dean, shouldn't even be able to see the trunk. If John had to get hurt on this hunt, he's at least glad that it's his dad's leg, anything that'll keep him sitting in the truck.

Sam's mom gets out of the truck. In response, Dean opens his arms wide attempting to make his body as large as possible. Sam positively skulks behind him. "No stragglers!" he announces loudly.

Sam's mom has her hands clasped behind her. She surprises Dean by not immediately running to Sam to check him for wounds; that fear of his was unfounded. All her attention is on Dean who is now only feet away from her, the best to block her vision. She studies him, her posture reminding Dean of a scientist hovering over a microscope. He's unsure what she can see just by John's overhead light alone. Still, her eyes appear to memorize his hair, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin, making some kind of evaluation, though of what he is uncertain. Dean puts his weight on his left leg and then his right, nervousness forcing the movement.

Dean hears Baby's trunk open.

"Dean Winchester, it is so nice to meet you!" She really seems to mean it, her eyes bright with a happiness that he doesn't understand. "I am Chalendra."

He hears Sam close the trunk and he offers her his hand hoping it isn't too sweaty. Rather than shake it, she grabs it, uses it to yank him to her and forces a bear hug upon him. She is tall like Sam and strong too but her frame isn't wiry like Sam's; her muscles are pronounced, densely clustered, and she has curves where Sam has angles. Her hug has none of the hesitancy or stiffness that Sam's had, is strong and gentle and uninhibited. For just a second, held tightly in Chalendra's embrace, Dean thinks of his mother. Then he hears the muffled yip of trunk puppy.

"Well," he says pulling out of the hug. He raises his voice. "We should probably get dad back to the hotel, get him patched up." He claps his hands as though enthusiastic to mask the sound of scratching claws. It takes the willpower of a god not to grab the hairball from the trunk and throw it off a cliff to save Baby from getting mauled. The sooner that he can get it out of there, the better for all involved.

"Well, John, your father," she adds as though he might be confused about who John is. "Got a bad scratch on his right leg and forcing him to drive with it seems unnecessary, so I believe our best option is for Sam or me to drive his truck to your hotel."

Sam joins them, hovering just behind Dean. "You can drive his truck, I'll take the Ram."

Chalendra nods; she'd expected that choice. "And you're uninjured?"

Dean thinks she sounds kind of robotic, asks himself who actually uses the word uninjured. It doesn't blend well with the hugging she'd just been doing. He wonders if maybe she just goes into a mode when hunting and then shuts it off really fast; he's known his share of hunters that do that. Not all hunters are like Dean who feels like himself the most when he's taking out baddies.

"It's all waheela blood," Sam assures her.

She smiles.

"What about you, Son?" John's gruff voice calls from the inside of the cab. He leans over so that he can visually confirm whatever Dean tells him. Dean feels as though the subterfuge is written all over his face, a flashing neon sign that reads "There's a baby monster in my trunk" and then a smaller sign beneath that reading, "The bleeding heart kid made me do it."

"Danny here did most of the work." Dean has no problem giving credit where it's due; Sam kicked a lot of ass back at the waheela lair and there was no way that he'd have gotten out unscathed if it wasn't for Sam.

"Danny?" asks John.

Chalendra speaks up. "That's Sam's civilian name. But there shouldn't be formalities between hunters."

"Since when?" Sam mutters, voice sulky. Dean peers back over his shoulder at the teen's embarrassed, confused face. It makes Dean smile. If he'd been that way at Sam's age, his dad would've whopped the back of his head.

" Winchester men demand exception," Dean says, wiggling his eyebrows at Sam. He feels cocky now, wants to rib Sam about what he sees as confirmation that Sam's mom is into his dad. Sam glares at him and it feels good, like sun on bare skin. Dean turns back to Chalendra, unabashed grin and all. "So, it's Sam then?"

She nods. "Sam Ackles."

Dean hasn't heard the scratch of the puppy for a bit, thinks maybe it has settled down and found the trunk of the Impala to be a better cave than the one it'd just left. Still, he wants to put some distance between his dad and Sam and their secret. Sam seems to have the same idea because he asks his mother for the keys then. Everyone breaks into movement, including John who scoots over to the passenger seat of his own truck, a strange sight for Dean who is not used to seeing his dad relinquish control.

"Where are you parked?" Dean asks Chalendra before she shuts the driver's side door.

"Quarter of a mile, maybe a half, Sam can find it." When the engine of the truck roars, Dean exhales loudly. Watching it drive away restores some of the years to his life that he lost when Sam put the dog into Baby's trunk.

The night is quiet again, trees moving with only the slightest breeze, each slight shift of his weight crunching the dirt in between the traction of his boots. He looks at Sam. "This is so stupid." Sam doesn't answer him perhaps because he can't argue the point. "Why is your mom so weird?"

"Chal's not weird."

"And why don't you call her mom?" Dean pulls open the door of the Impala, tries not to think about the potential state of his jacket in the trunk. Sam crosses his arms over his chest, defensive. Dean, of all people, knows how much it hurts to be called out on not having a nuclear family, and he feels immediately guilty. "So what are we doing with Cujo?"

This is more of the type of conversation that Sam is prepared for. "I don't think my mom would notice it in the shed. At least, not for a while. Can we get it over to my house?"

"Sure," says Dean. They're expected at the hotel but that doesn't mean that they can't make a detour. "How far away from the Casa de Sueño is your place?"

Sam's mouth corners tweak downwards, reminds Dean a bit of the creepy singing fish that some bars have on their walls. "Ten minute drive, max."

"Sounds good, but we make this quick. I don't want to interrupt our parents doing any freaky horizontal mambo."

Sam walks off, not saying another word.