Chapter 13

Sam carefully lockpicked his way into the security headquarters of the Singleshot Zoo and snatched the security team's tranquilizer gun and as many darts as he could safely stuff in his jeans without risking stabbing himself and rendering himself unconscious. He prepared himself to venture back out into the chilly night on a tiger hunt. Or a brother hunt? I guess both. Sam thought to himself as he prepped the gun for use.

Fortunately, even though he had hated it as a kid, John Winchester, the boys' father, had done an excellent job training them for all things. Fighting. Stealing. Crime Solving. And yes, hunting. Both monsters and animals. Even so, Sam wasn't confident that tracking a deer and tracking a human-turned-tiger were quite the same thing. Plus, Sam was convinced by Dean's eyes alone, that even though he was a tiger, he was still just as aware as he had been as a human. As if he'd retained his human mind. He could see it in his eyes.

"Dean!" Sam hollered. "Dean!" As Sam expected, there was no response. He cried out more. "Why are you hiding?" Nothing. Sam began getting angry. "You son of a bitch." He muttered to himself. Sorry, mom. "I'll show you what happens to the tiger that tries to hide from me."

Determined, Sam headed into the wooded areas off the beaten path of the zoo. In the end, tracking Dean wasn't tough. If he was a human, Dean would have been nearly impossible to track down. He was a master at going off the radar. But the fact of the matter was that Dean was not a human. He was a tiger. Something he had never been before. And therefore, he didn't seem to understand his body that well. While the footprints had been covered by Dean's witty intentions, there was a long swerving line in the dirt and mud likely left behind by his tail.

Sam simply followed the trail until he spotted Dean hiding in some overgrown grass on the top of a slight descent that led into a murky creek. Without giving away that he had spotted him, Sam kept pretending to search. "Dean?" He cried out loudly, as if he didn't know Dean was nearby. "Come out, you jerk!" He cried. "Don't leave your little brother alone on a hunt!" Sam's words were mostly for dramatic effect, but there was some honesty in them. Sam always felt better with Dean by his side.

The words worked slightly on the tiger. Sam caught a slight twitch, as if the tiger was debating whether or not to go to his brother. As soon as Sam saw Dean blink, he whipped the gun toward Dean and launched a tranquilizer right at him. Dean reacted with cat-like reflexes, which Sam supposed made sense given their situation, and leaped to escape down the descent into the creek. Lucky for Sam, Dean wasn't fast enough. The dart stuck in his right hip and he tumbled gracelessly down the cold, muddy slope.

Sam wasted no time in running to the edge of the dip and taking aim again. He wasn't sure how much sedative it took to put out a full-grown male tiger, but he figured two was safer than one. He could tell from where he took aim that the first one had had an effect, but Dean was still moving. Sam shot again, and confident it was going to hit, was instantly sliding down the muddy bank before Dean could pass out in the water and drown.

Dean's tiger body, flopped down in the right direction to avoid the water, but slapped right down into the gooey mud with a wet splat. Sam wasted no time in getting over to him and checked his pulse as best he knew how on a large cat. He was alive and fine it seemed, just sleeping, which was exactly what Sam wanted. He wasn't sure why Dean was running from him, but he wasn't going to give him the opportunity to get away.

Sam looked up the muddy incline. The Impala was up there, and that's where he needed to get Dean. But how? Sam wasn't sure how much an adult male tiger weighed, but he assumed it was more than he could lift. Regardless, he bent over to try to lift Dean, but could only manage to lift his head. Dean was no longer the muscled, rugged hunter man he used to be. Now he was far beyond that. He must have weighed a ton of solid muscle and firm bone. There was no way he could drag Dean up the muddy slope.

He had a new idea. Not necessarily a great idea, but a better idea than trying to carry a 500 pound cat up a slippery hill and possibly break his back. He squatted down by the tiger and shook him gently. "Dean." He whispered into the cat's large, floppy ears. "Dean, wake up. I need your help." He watched as his drugged-up brother's eyes squinted a bit and he stirred ever-so-slightly. "Dean." He coaxed him some more. "We need to get out of here before the police come." Dean had never liked entanglements with the police, especially not since they had thought that he was some mass murderer after a shapeshifter had taken his form and committed crimes.

The tiger woke up, but just barely. He was groggy and sleepy, barely able to fight the drugs enough to stay conscious. Sam knew his time frame was limited. He helped the huge cat stand on all fours and stagger up the muddy slope. It took them what felt like hours, and Sam had to continuously urge Dean into motion, but they had gotten the tiger into the backseat of the Impala. Sam, having grabbed Dean's clothing on the way to the car, with the help of groggy Dean, placed Dean's and his jackets under the tiger. At least then he could argue to Dean that he had tried to keep the Impala clean, but he knew the car would be a muddy mess when they were done.

Adhering to every traffic law as carefully as possible to avoid having to explain to a cop why he had a full-grown male tiger in the backseat, Sam drove back to the motel. Once there, thankful that it had started to rain because that would help conceal what he was about to do, he pulled the Impala as close to their door as he could. Convinced by a quick scan of the area that they were the only people around, Sam opened the motel room door and the Impala doors to try to get Dean inside.

Dean was as unconscious as a sack full of rocks. Sam was glad that he had placed the jackets under Dean when he had the chance. With all his might, and the help of the mud, rain, jackets, and slippery leather seats, Sam dragged the gargantuan brother-cat into the motel room, afraid he was going to throw his back out the entire time.

Back surprisingly uninjured, Sam let the cat sleep for over an hour. Not because he wanted to, but because there was no way he was moving him any farther on his own. While Dean slept, Sam kicked off his muddy boots, muddy jeans, and shirt, and tossed them in the garbage. They were beyond saving. A bit nervous about taking his eyes off the sleeping tiger, Sam filled the over-sized tub to the brim with hot water and a massive amount of soap. He stripped and took a quick bath before coming back out in his towel to find the tiger beginning to stir. This was his chance.

"Dean, I need your help one more time." Sammy whispered. Grateful that Dean was such an overprotective big brother and always responded to his little brother saying he needed help, Sammy was able to once again coax his brother into a drugged-up, zombie-like stand and led him to the bathroom. "Up you go." Sam instructed. Without even seeming to think, Dean gracelessly crawled into the tub, sending some water flowing out onto the floor.

Sam made sure to rest the tiger's enormous head was on the edge of the tub and got to work. With Dean unconscious, he was able to get the poor guy cleaned up. As it was, no one would have been able to tell he was a tiger by his fur since mud was so thickly coated on him. Sam took his hands and extra soap and began scrubbing and scrubbing the poor tiger.

He started by scrubbing off his head and back, which Dean seemed to enjoy in his sleep as he almost seemed to smile, and rolled around a bit like a big kitty enjoying a nice pet. Unfortunately for Sam, Dean's head and back were not the only parts of him that were dirty.

Sam emptied the now brown and nasty water from the tub, coaxed Dean into lying on his back in the big tub, his head resting against the wall by the faucet head. His stomach, legs, and everything else were still covered in a once-dried-now-wet-again layer of dirt and mud. Thankful that Dean was still pretty much out of it, Sam got to work. He scrubbed down Dean's belly, which again the cat seemed to like as he began kicking his leg like a dog enjoying a good belly-rub. Then he moved on to each leg and massive paw. Sam didn't spare any time as he made sure each paw was clean of mud and picked clean of any rocks or twigs caught in any crevices. Sam was both frightened and impressed by the weight and size of each of Dean's paws and claws. And that wasn't the only thing that frightened and impressed Sam. He moved on to doing something he would never have done had Dean been awake. Sam grabbed some soap and moved on to the cat's absolutely massive and prominent genitalia. The entire time he was washing the whole package off, he kept checking Dean's eyes to ensure that he was still unconscious. If Dean knew he was doing this, he'd never live it down. Regardless, as long as he didn't know how his whole body got clean, he'd appreciate being a mud-free feline.

Sam rinsed off Dean's long and muscular tail before draining and filling the tub a few more times until the water stopped turning murky. Once the water stayed clean, Sam drained the tub, leaving the most disgusting grime ring he'd ever seen, and headed back into the main room.

He sat down on his twin bed, a bit antsy for Dean to wake up so they could figure out what was going on. He turned on the TV to some mindless cartoons to try to calm down his nerves. That's when a scary thought crossed his mind. What if that's not Dean? Did I just scrub the over-sized balls of some tiger from the zoo?