"Sammy, it's time to wake up."
The moment Dean touched him he was awake. He sat up, moving the hair away from his face, and looked his brother over. Dean had his game face on. It couldn't have been easy for him to be awake alone, thinking about the bomb Sam dropped on him this afternoon. Not that Dean would have necessarily talked to him about it. It went against his image of a man to share. But Sam knew from his own experience that even if you couldn't talk to someone about what was bothering you, it always brought at least a modicum of comfort to know they were there, that if you made the choice, there was someone next to you who would listen. Today he'd not been able to give his brother that option.
He'd been exhausted from last night, from the frustrating research, the clenching dread of what he might have to do. After the two of them agreed on how to proceed, Sam had no choice but to try to catch a few hours sleep, especially since he would be keeping watch again tonight. "You okay?"
"Five by five, dude. Even got you some dinner. It's over there on the desk."
Protective Dean in full force. "Thanks."
His brother slipped into bed and turned off the light on his side. "Just keep the chewing noises down to a low roar, okay? I'll be trying to go to sleep over here."
"You're still not funny, Dean. Give it up, will you?"
Dean turned on his side, throwing the sheets up over his head. Before Sam could turn away to see what unappetizing tidbit his brother had decided to torture him with for dinner, Dean sat back up and with a perfectly straight face said, "And no surfing for porn neither," before plopping back down and covering back up.
Sam grabbed the cushion off the nearest chair and pegged him with it.
"Trying to sleep here! Trying to sleep!" The cushion came flying back, but Sam dodged it easily, a grin halfway tugging at his lip. He thought his brother had a large dose of goober in him a lot of the time, but dang it if it didn't make him feel better every once in a while. It was the rest of the time he had issues with.
Sam ate, watching his brother's back from where he sat, an undercurrent of excitement heavily tinged with fear sparking through him. Tonight they would get answers, or at least that was the plan. He just wasn't so sure he'd be able to deal with what they found. The pizza turning sour in his stomach, Sam pulled out his .45 and checked the clip. His hand shook as he snapped it back in. He closed his eyes and sent a prayer to God and all the saints he could think of, begging them to spare him from having to use this on his brother tonight. He begged his mother for guidance, trying to hedge his bets as much as possible. Swallowing hard, he slipped the gun into the small of his back and tried to settle in for the possibly long wait ahead.
The minutes ticked away and nothing happened. The faint hope that maybe nothing at all would occur nibbled at the back of his mind, though he knew better. Midnight came and went. Dean shifted in the bed and Sam tensed. He was only turning over. Sam was actually surprised his brother could sleep. If it'd been him in Dean's place, he couldn't have closed his eyes let alone drift off.
Close to one, Sam jerked back as Dean suddenly sat up in bed. He turned and swung his legs out the side.
"Dean? Something wrong?" Hackles rose in the back of his neck, though he had no idea why. Then Dean's head turned to look at him. Those weren't his brother's hazel eyes – they were yellow, almost golden, and he'd seen them before. They were the eyes of the jaguar.
It got hard to breathe. Those gold eyes looked at him, through him, again trying to paralyze him. They never left him as Dean's body removed his ring and bracelet, only leaving the protective necklace behind. Then he undressed.
"Dean?" The query was almost a croak. Sam's throat had gone totally dry.
The stare left him. The air shimmered over the surface of Dean's flesh and he began to change. It was as if all he was was being unraveled and then rewoven into the shape of a hunting cat.
The fact Sam had seen the amazing phenomenon before didn't make it any easier to watch again. And everything he saw drove something else home – it didn't look like his brother was in there alone. Yet Sam knew of nothing that could take you over and then make you change shape. In no way did it make him feel any better about all of this.
Not knowing what to expect, he forced himself to his feet, his gaze never leaving what had but moments before been his brother.
The jaguar stretched, kneading the cheap carpet, its back rising up into the air. The golden eyes turned their attention to Sam once more. This time the paralyzing look wasn't there. He didn't know whether to be reassured by this or not.
The cat waltzed over and butted him at the hip pushing him in the direction of the door. Sam stumbled sideways but didn't fall. Was Dean trying to tell him something? As he stood there in indecision, the jaguar rubbed against his side then took the cuff of his shirt in its teeth and tugged. He followed.
The jaguar led him to the closed door then sat before it expectantly. When Sam did nothing, the cat gave that strange cough he'd heard it do before and glanced at him expectantly.
Staring from it to the door and back, Sam flushed, feeling stupid, as he realized it wanted him to let it out. He stood in indecision for another moment, feeling the weight of the .45 against his back. He sent out one last prayer and reached for the knob.
The instant the door started to open, the jaguar slinked through to the outside. Sam quickly moved to go after it, not wanting to let it out of his sight. The jaguar blended perfectly into the shadows. He felt a touch of panic. "Dean! Wait."
Rushing between cars into the parking area, he spotted it again, rubbing against the side of the Impala. Relief flooded through him. He hurried to catch up.
As it had done at the door for the motel room, the jaguar sat beside the driver's door to the car, staring at it expectantly.
His heart slamming hard against his ribs, Sam realized they were about to go for a ride. He opened the door to the car. The jaguar jumped in and sat before the steering wheel.
"No way. You're not driving. Move on over." The conversation was ludicrous, but it was the only thing he could think of to say. Dean was definitely in there somewhere. But how to get him back permanently?
The jaguar sent him a hurt look, but shuffled over without comment.
Sam shook his head, the surreal quality of all this rising by leaps and bounds, and slipped inside. He slid the key into the ignition and turned the engine over. As the Impala sat there and idled, Sam threw a glance in the jaguar's direction. "Where do you want to go?"
A clawed paw picked at the glove box but couldn't open it.
Knowing he was definitely nuts, Sam leaned over and opened it for him. The large black nose poked at the map folded inside. Sam pulled it out and opened it on top of the seat. Aside from the locations of where the four bodies were discovered, it was marked with how far the search along the riverbank had progressed. The jaguar's large paw plunked down over the map, over the same area.
An expectant gold gaze met his. "You want to go to the river?" The cat butted its head against his shoulder.
Sam stared at his changed brother for a long moment. Working on the case was the last thing he thought they would be doing tonight. Could the two matters somehow be related? He realized at the moment, he didn't care. This was a much better alternative to anything he imagined would happen tonight and with it he would go.
Sam drove them toward the site of the body farthest upriver, south of US 30 before the I-35 junction. When he parked as close to the levy wall as he cold manage, the jaguar pawed at the door handle of the Impala until he popped the door open and slipped out.
"Dean, no!" Sam jumped out of the car, dread flooding through him at the thought of losing track of his brother. He needn't have worried; the jaguar was waiting for him in a pool of shadow, giving him an amused look. Great, now he was imagining it acted like Dean too. This was nuts!
The jaguar padded off toward the river and Sam followed. Heavy clouds obscured the sky, making the immediate area almost pitch black. They had flashlights in the car, but he didn't want to take the time to go and get one, plus in all this darkness, all it would do was attract unwanted attention. He just wondered what in the world Dean thought he would find here they didn't the first time they inspected the place.
The moment they reached the spot, the jaguar began to growl, its tail swishing rapidly back and forth. Sam glanced about quickly, trying to see what had set Dean off, but saw nothing but grass and the dark ribbon that was the river. The overpass and other streets were too far away to see anything distinct. With any luck, anyone there would see them no better. "What's wrong? Did you find something?"
The growl deepened, the jaguar standing stock still, its nose sniffing first one way and then another. Then with a loud grunt, it leapt into the river.
Sam rushed forward, possessing no idea what was going on. "Dean!"
The jaguar was having no problems in the water and was heading upstream toward the shore on the far side. Belatedly, Sam recalled that jaguar's were quite accomplished swimmers, comfortable in both water and land. And while he was a pretty good swimmer himself, he didn't trust the polluted water in all this darkness. He couldn't even see the other side, the halo of lights from the city around them making the darkness even deeper. "Damn you."
Left with little choice, Sam ran back to the Impala and tried to find the closest entry for Loop 354 to get to the river's other side. Going up Industrial Boulevard, he found a place to stash the car then rushed back into the Greenbelt. Too worried now to care, he brought a flashlight and swung it back and forth looking for his brother.
The Trinity River wasn't like those in the jungle. What if there was an undertow or something and it caught his brother unawares? Or the pollution got to him somehow? Visions of finding a dead jaguar or the body of his brother downstream sent shivers of dread up his spine. "Dean!"
A loud cough jerked him to the left. The light of the flashlight bounced off two far points of green. Sam broke into a run.
He found the jaguar close to shore on its back rubbing itself against the grass in a maddened frenzy. It smelled of fish and worse.
Sam leaned over and put his hands on his knees trying to get his breath back as he was flooded with relief.
A half whimper greeted him, the gold-green eyes glancing over at him full of misery.
"That's what you get for being such a hothead, you idiot! I would have happily driven you across." This was definitely his brother.
Another whimper accompanied more rolling in the grass.
"We'll get you cleaned up somehow." He shook his head. "Was it worth it? Did you find something?" He wasn't sure how any type of smell could have survived this long or how the jaguar could track it across the river. But something had set it off.
As if his words recalled the mission, the cat jumped back to its feet, its nose sniffing the air again. The growl returned. It started in the same general direction as before, to the northeast.
"Dean, no! The car, dammit, the car! You can't just be running anywhere you like in this place. Please?"
The jaguar stopped and actually seemed to consider what he said. It padded at his heels when Sam turned to go back to where he parked the Impala.
Rolling down all the windows, Sam let the jaguar in. The smell coming of the cat's coat was worse than Dean's insatiable love of onions. He was going to need all the fresh air he could get.
The cat used a large paw on the dash to indicate the direction it wanted him to go. It was kind of creepy and natural all at once. Bobby would never believe this.
They followed Reunion Boulevard around the Hyatt Regency hotel and the telltale lighted ball of the Dallas skyline. Downtown Dallas was a maze of one-way streets. The jaguar would grunt or cough in impatience every time Sam couldn't immediately turn in the direction it wanted to go. After some odd maneuverings, they finally made it to where the cat's nose somehow led them.
Sam stared at the building before them, thoroughly surprised by where he'd been led. He supposed it was no weirder than anything else that evening. The focused lights before him showed the name of the place. It was the DMA – the Dallas Museum of Art.