A/N: Thanks once again for the incredible response... you all make my day =)
To my anonymous reviewer Pony: hehe, thanks! ^_^ Lucifer's ankles are about as much as Zorro can reach, but by golly he'll do his best! :D
Chapter 5
"Well, this is fan-friggin-tastic," Dean grumbled, panting in the hot sun. He hadn't ever realized how much fur weighed. "We're no closer to finding Sam, no idea how to change back even once we find him, Circe could be anywhere, and our nearest friend is in South Dakota. But hey, we could make it there in, oh I don't know, a WEEK."
Trotting down the road beside him, Cas didn't say anything. He hadn't been talking much, and while this was pretty much the usual for the stoic angel, Dean thought he could smell frustration—which was just weird, in and of itself. Had he not been in such a temper, he would have tried to get his best friend to open up a bit.
"In fact, stop. Just stop," he finally snapped, drawing to a halt under a creamery's yellow and brown canopy. Dean was pretty sure it had been red and green the day before.
Cas stopped as well, but his ears continued to twitch in all directions. "What is it, Dean?" the angel asked.
"We're flying blind here, Cas! It'd take a miracle to find Sam like this!"
The Husky shifted with an irritated look in Dean's direction, and Dean rolled his eyes. "I don't mean… not YOU, I meant-"
"I know what you meant." Cas sighed, ears finally folding back. "I'm sorry I can't turn us back and find Sam."
Great, now Dean felt guilty. Normally, the angel would be the miracle they needed, and yeah, he knew it was rough on his best friend to be unable to do much, but they didn't have time for this. "I just mean, we need a real plan."
"We find Sam, turn back to our normal forms, and destroy Circe."
"…Okay, it sounds great when you say it like THAT, but maybe some specifics would help."
The Husky nodded briefly and settled down on his haunches. "I'm afraid it falls to you to find your brother, Dean. You're the only one who would know where he'd go."
Dean gaped at the angel, at a loss. "Wh- you're kidding, right? I don't have a CLUE where he'd be!"
"Dean. You know Sam better than anyone." Cas's blue eyes burned into the German Shepherd, as intense as his human form always was. Dean whined with stress, but the angel repeated, "You're the only one who could even guess. Forget that we're dogs-"
"Kind of hard to friggin' do!"
"If you were still human and got separated, how would you find each other? Without your phones. If you had nothing. Forget your technology, Dean. You're brothers. You don't need anything more than that."
Dean sighed and thumped his tail against the ground. Right. He did know Sam, knew him better than the kid even knew himself. This wasn't the first time they'd been separated, and they'd always found their way back to each other. Usually, they weren't dogs, though… There was always the standing arrangement to meet at the first motel in the phone book, but that would require knowing which town's phone book to look in, and having hands to use it in the first place.
"He'd go back to Circe's if he thought we were stuck there," Dean mused aloud.
"But he doesn't know she transformed us. If he assumed we'd escaped?"
"The motel. If he's still in Eureka, he'd try there, first."
Cas nodded and straightened back up on all fours. Dean turned around, looking this way and that. He'd been busy following the GPS when he'd made the drive from the hotel to Circe's house, and everything looked completely different from this level—not to mention that all the colors were wrong. Still, it couldn't have been too far from there.
Choosing a direction based on what felt like a purer instinct than he'd had even as a hunter, Dean led them back down the roads and through the town. Cas followed silently without comment or question. Every time they passed a landmark that Dean remembered driving by that morning, he felt a little bit better, and before too long they were at the motel on the edge of the city.
"Sam!" Dean barked, though it seemed like a fool's hope that it would be that easy to find his missing brother. There was no response. Beside him, Cas looked around and then sniffed the air experimentally.
"I- I don't think he's here."
"Hey, it was your stupid idea for me to follow my gut or whatever!" Dean grumbled, before trying again. "SAM! Hey! Sam, where are you? Sam?" Following Cas's lead, the hunter leaned over, smelling the ground outside the door to the room they were staying in, then the doorframe. He was pretty sure the motel had a mouse problem, but there was no trace of his brother's scent, and no sign of him anywhere.
Dean felt his heart sink a bit, hope starting to dwindle—not that he'd had much to begin with.
"Dean, Sam hasn't been back here. So either I sent him farther away than I realized, or else-"
"Ah, ah! Stop right there, I don't want to hear it," the older Winchester cut him off with a glare. "Maybe he just hasn't been able to find his way back here yet. Or maybe he's just a town or two over, it'll take him a while to get to Eureka."
Cas didn't reply other than to nod his head, probably wanting to believe the same thing. There was no reason to suspect that Circe had caught up with him so soon.
"So, we stay here and wait for him?" the angel asked, looking around the motel with an air of uncertainty. Dean pawed at the ground, trying to think.
"No," he finally said with a sigh, licking his nose. "We should keep looking. I can't just sit here when he might be in trouble. Besides, if we keep moving, Circe's less likely to find us." He hoped.
The angel nodded his agreement, then ducked his head towards the door of their motel room. "You should mark it. In case he comes back this way, he'll know we've been here."
"Mark- wait, you mean…?" Dean stared at Cas, taking a step back and shaking his head in disgust. "Come on! That's gross, I'm not going to PEE on the frickin' door!"
"Just do it," Cas replied with an air of impatience, nodding towards the door again. "What's the issue?"
"What's the- Why don't YOU do it?"
"Because I'm still an angel, even if I don't look like it!" the irritated warrior barked. "I don't urinate. Hurry it up!"
Dean started to argue, but broke off and looked up with a sigh. "Fine. I can't BELIEVE I'm doing this."
The angel clearly didn't get how weird this was, and Dean hated that he was right. They needed a way to let Sam know they'd already checked in here and this was their best bet. Of course, Sam would probably be as weirded out as Dean was himself. The older Winchester was never going to hear the end of this. Grumbling under his breath in low growls and tight yips, Dean moved closer to the door and started to lift his leg, but stopped to glare at Cas.
"Dude, at least turn around!"
Cas blinked. "What? Why?"
"Can't a guy take a piss in privacy?! Just turn around!"
"I really don't understand… it's a normal bodily function that every animal performs," Cas pointed out as he obligingly turned the other way.
Dean didn't respond to that, looking both directions down the line of doors to make sure no one was coming or happened to be looking his way. Even when he was appallingly drunk, he'd never done this. Which was saying something, actually.
Wanting nothing more than to make this quick and get out, the German Shepherd did his business, marking their motel room with his scent, then stepped away in a hurry. "We're not talking about this, ever," he griped. Behind him, Cas didn't answer but for a mildly exasperated grunt of assent.
"Hey! Get out of here! Get lost!"
"Whoops," Dean said, looking up to see the property manager running towards them. His expression was enough to tell Dean that this guy didn't like dogs any more than the hunter himself did. "Time to scram."
"He seems upset," Cas pointed out, cocking his head to the side and not moving.
"Go on, get! No dogs allowed here! Tony, call animal control, I don't see any collars on them."
"Move, Cas, come on!"
Together, the two turned tail—literally—and ran for the road, away from the angered manager. Dean couldn't help but grin a bit, enjoying the chase, such as it was. The man didn't come after them, though, and after they'd gotten a few blocks away, the dogs slowed to a walk.
"That was fun!" Dean exclaimed, rearing up on his hind legs for a moment and running into Cas cheerfully. He bounded back and forth, tail wagging as he panted with rather unreasonable delight, before it occurred to him what he was doing.
Even Cas was eyeing him strangely, and the hunter cleared his throat. "Er… yeah. Just got, uh… carried away." Damn, he was already starting to act like a dog. "So… yeah. 'kay, I'm good."
"If you say so, Dean." Cas gave him another look, seeming bemused, before asking, "What now, then? We can't wait at the hotel. Where do you believe the next likely place that Sam-"
"Hey!"
Dean was trying to pay attention, he truly was, but this time his booming bark was anything but playful. He stopped dead on the sidewalk, staring up the road with fury. Cas turned around to see what he was looking at, as the hunter snapped again,
"Hey! Hey, stop! HEY!"
"Isn't that your car?"
With a howl, Dean bolted, tearing down the street in pursuit of his Baby, ingloriously hoisted on a tow truck. "Hey! Come back here! Get back here with my Baby! Hey, you!"
"Dean, WAIT! Dean!"
The hunter ignored Cas's calls from behind him, ignored the pedestrians leaping out of his way in fear at the sight of a massive, baying German Shepherd streaking past. He ignored the other cars on the road, and even the seriously distracting squirrels that ran chittering away. There was nothing but his Baby, and getting her back before she was dragged off to some horrific impound.
"Dean!"
"No, no, no, no!"
It was no use; he was much faster now than he'd been as a human, but he still couldn't outrun the truck. By now it was three blocks ahead and Dean was losing track of the vehicle, and his Baby was gone. The dog's mad dash finally slowed to a trot, and then he sat down in the middle of the street, howling in despair.
"Dean!"
Cas panted as he stopped beside the German Shepherd, nudging him none too gently. Dean tried to shake him off, but the angel was having none of it.
"Get out of the road," Cas snapped, continuing to bully the hunter around the stopped cars and angry drivers towards the sidewalk. "What were you thinking? Circe is probably the one who had the car moved from her home. She might be watching!"
Shit. Dean gave his head a shake to clear it, startled and not at all comfortable with how fast he'd lost sight of everything but the car. Damn it, he hated losing her, but he wasn't normally that single minded. "Uh… right," the hunter muttered, jumping back onto the sidewalk as the traffic started to move again. "That was… weird. I'm, uh… I'm not sure why I did that."
Cas gave him a sidelong look, clearly about to say something, before changing his mind and glancing around instead. Evidently he didn't see the goddess anywhere, because all he said was, "We should get out of sight. I can't sense you, which means the warding I carved onto your ribs held through the transformation, but it might be best to… sit low."
"LAY low," Dean automatically corrected him, also looking around. Cas had a point. Even if nothing supernatural would be able to sense them, two huge dogs running around without humans would probably attract attention.
A thought struck him, and the hunter tipped his head towards Cas. "Hey, remember the manager saying we didn't have collars?"
"Yes, why?"
Dean frowned, thinking back to that morning. It was messed up enough that his brother had been locked in a kennel. Thank god Circe hadn't put a collar on Sam, too; that would have been too disturbing for words. "Sam didn't have one, either. If someone sees him, they might figure he's just a stray, right?"
Cas stared at Dean, who rolled his eyes.
"Rhetorical question," he explained. "They WOULD think he's a stray. No one's gonna let their dog run around outside without a collar, so if he doesn't have one…"
The angel cocked his head to the side thoughtfully, a light of understanding sparking in his eyes. "You think someone might have caught him, not realizing he's a human."
Dean snorted. "Yeah, most people don't assume a stray dog might actually be a person," he agreed, heavy on the sarcasm though he knew Cas would miss that anyway. "And what happens to stray dogs?"
Again, Cas gave the hunter a blank look, the knowing light fading into questioning. "I don't know, Dean. This is the first occasion I've had to be one."
"The POUND, Cas! They get taken to the pound. It's like a… a jail for dogs. And cats, I guess. What if he's stuck in the pound?" The more Dean thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. Sam had to be as disoriented as they were—probably more so, having been zapped around by an angel. He might not have been as difficult to nab as he should have been.
Beside him, the angel dipped his head in agreement. "And this… this jail, there's one in Eureka?"
Dean would have shrugged if he'd had shoulders, but settled for griping, "How should I know? I mean, most towns have one… or at least most counties, I guess. But that guy at the hotel said he was gonna call animal control, and they would've taken us SOMEWHERE."
Which meant…
The hunter sighed. Time to bring out the old familiar playbook. "One of us has to get caught."
Gabriel fluttered down to the hotel, looking around. While Circe was out on her dog hunt, the archangel had gone back through Sam's things, still strewn on the floor of the goddess's bedroom. Gabriel wasn't a naturally jealous angel—it wasn't like he'd laid any claims to a committed relationship with the goddess—but it still gave him a strong satisfaction that the Winchester had ended up screwed over.
On the other hand, he couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't enjoy either of those two getting what was coming to them.
Finding the motel key, and then the motel, had been all too easy. The archangel pushed the door open, poking his head inside to see nothing but an empty room.
Gabriel sighed. Figured. He did detect a whiff of dog but he couldn't have sussed out whether it was one of the Winchester morons or his missing brother. Not that it mattered; whoever had been there was already gone, leaving the trail cold.
The archangel shut the door, heading towards the front office. When he caught up with Castiel, he was gonna throttle his brother for worrying him like this. It'd been a long time since he could honestly say he'd worried about something, or someone. It just figured it'd be his baby brother to stir everything up. Even as a fledgling, there had just been something about Castiel that attracted trouble. It was just one reason that Gabriel was so fond of him.
"Yes, hello… can I help you?" a distracted man asked from the desk, hanging up the phone he'd been talking on. Gabriel swaggered up to him and leaned one elbow against the peeling wood top, offering the man a grin.
"Sure hope so, sport," he said. "You haven't seen a dog or two… or three… wandering around here, have you?"
"You mean the ones I just chased out of here?" the manager demanded, starting to look annoyed. "Were those yours? Look, pal, no dogs allowed on the premise, alright? Those are the rules-"
"Yeah, yeah, blah blah," Gabriel agreed, waving him off. "What did… um… what did they look like? Like, what kind of dogs would you say they were?"
The manager's irritated expression shifted to bemusement, and then suspicion. "You don't know what your own dogs look like?"
"Humor me."
With a snort, the man shot back, "They looked like big friggin' dogs, what the hell do I know? One was a police dog type, the other looked like the Alaskan things, sled dog, you know?"
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "And the third?"
"Third? There were only two, buddy! Listen, what did you say your name was again?"
Without bothering to answer, the archangel turned and headed back outside, mind already spinning.
This was just perfect. Which two had been there, and which one was missing? If those two assholes had lost Castiel, if something had happened to him, Gabriel was going to make their trip to TV land look like a vacation to Disneyworld.
Or maybe the Winchesters had gotten split up… which meant there was a potential vessel running loose unguarded. Good opportunity for his big brothers to pounce, if they were paying attention. Gabriel rather hoped they were. Or maybe he didn't, the archangel wasn't really sure anymore. This had been much simpler before he'd realized how deeply Castiel had gotten himself involved with this whole stupid business.
Gabriel knew the kid had been trying to track him down ever since the TV land thing, but he wasn't interested in being found. Now, he was starting to wish he'd let Castiel catch up, if it meant he wouldn't be in this mess now.
But if he'd learned one thing in his extensive life, it was how pointless the "should have" game really was.
Shaking it off, Gabriel headed off to continue searching for his brother.
