Chapter 7

It was strange, Sam thought to himself as he sat in the passengers' seat of the Impala with his older brother behind the wheel as usual. He was sure the moment he saw Dean that he would have brought the cavalry with him – meaning Bobby.

But he was alone.

Dean told Sam to gather his belongings and go out to the car. And he did. He wasn't in much of a mood to fight with Dean today.

The sky was starting to brighten as the morning sun was moments from exposing itself. It cast a beautiful sort of light purple glow around their surroundings, Sam noticed as he desperately kept his eyes away from Dean.

He knew Dean would start yelling soon. It was only a matter of time.

Dean kept his eyes trained on the road ahead of him, doing his best not to look over at his brother. He knew Sam was expecting him to start yelling at him, but he wouldn't.

Sam didn't know that their father was at Bobby's house – and that would be Dean's punishment for him. He wasn't going to warn him about what he was about to walk into.

Dean knew that once Sam stepped foot into Bobby's house, their dad would tear him a new one. So of course Dean wasn't going to soften the blows by snapping at Sam for himself.

But it was hard. Right now all he wanted to do was pound Sam into the pavement for being so reckless, for making him worry like that when all he was doing was getting laid.

And that was another thing, Dean thought to himself. Since when was Sam into picking up stray women in bars? That definitely wasn't his style.

And honestly, if it were under any other circumstances, Dean would have been a little proud that he had made such an impression on his little brother. But with Sam changing the way he was…did this have something to do with that?

Dean wasn't sure, and it was making his head hurt just to think about.

"Why aren't you screaming?" Sam finally asked when they pulled onto Bobby's block.

Dean didn't reply, instead he took a quick glance in Sam's lap and noticed his brothers' hands were ringing around the hem of his shirt nervously.

He also hadn't failed to noticed that his claws had gotten longer, and sharper – making them downright deadly.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, and shook his head.

"I've got nothing to say." Dean said sounding somewhat monotone.

He slowed the Impala to a crawl, and finally parked in front of Bobby's house. He turned the car off, and shoved his keys in his pocket before looking up at his brother finally.

Sam was sending him the scariest death-glare he had ever seen on that face, ever.

"Dad's here..? And you didn't tell me." Sam snapped furiously.

"You did it to yourself." Dean replied simply as he opened the door and climbed out of the car.

Sam did the same immediately, to Dean's surprise. Then together they both walked in silence up Bobby's lawn, ignoring Cohan's low and dangerous growls as the Rottweiler eyed Sam warily.

As they made it to Bobby's steps, the front door slammed open and standing in the doorway was their father John Winchester looking rather unimpressed, with his eyes trained on Sam.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" John demanded angrily as he held the door open for Sam and Dean to pass through.

Once Sam and Dean were inside, John closed the front door and turned to face Sam.

"What happened?" John asked Dean.

"He was um…with a girl." Dean replied automatically.

Sam snapped his head in Dean's direction with accusing eyes. It was clear to Dean that Sam thought he had betrayed him.

"A girl?" John muttered to himself in disbelief as he placed his hand over his eyes and massaged lightly to relieve the tension building.

At that moment, Bobby entered the room from the kitchen. He watched as John was clearly about to start rounding on Sam.

"Have you lost your mind?" John screamed in Sam's face, "We don't know what's happening to you! For all we know, you could have cursed the girl too! You MORON!"

For half a second, Sam thought his father was going to give him the 'following orders' speech that he'd gotten over a hundred times since he was a kid. But this argument wasn't what he was expecting.

Guilt seized his gut, and a chill crept up his spine. He knew his father was right. He could have just ended someone's life.

Dean watched as Sam's facial expression changed instantly from rage, to fear, and then contorted to guilt as unshed tears sprang to his eyes. Now THAT wasn't like Sam; never, EVER had Sam EVER let their dad win an argument. Even if Sam knew he was wrong, he would fight with John till he was blue in the face.

And as he looked at his brothers' guilt ridden face, so broken and defeated; Dean knew that something was wrong.

"I'm sorry." Sam whispered brokenly.

At Sam's apology, John's eyes widened slightly – obviously taken aback.

A tear slipped past Sam's guard and slid down his cheek, but he wiped it away quickly.

"Did you even think about what you were doing, Sam?" John asked, his voice softened as his anger dissipated along with Sam's.

Sam shook his head, feeling helpless. He hadn't thought it through, honestly. That thing in his mind was blissful, Sam felt. Was that what happened? Had it somehow gained some semblance of control without Sam even knowing?

No, Sam knew. The animal in his mind was there, surely. And he knew it was slowly but surely taking his body (his claws were proof of that) and his mind. But last night, he was almost completely sure it was him…for the most part.

Maybe this curse was changing him too, influencing him in some ways.

Sam sighed, he just wasn't sure anymore.

Another tear fell from Sam's eye and this time he didn't try and stop it as it slid down to his chin.

"What's happening to me?" Sam whispered brokenly as he averted his eyes to his feet.

John took in a deep calming breath, and stepped to Sam's side slowly before placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. His heart nearly broke then and there as he heard Sam's voice so full of melancholy, and defeat.

"I'm not sure," he replied honestly, "but we're gonna figure this out, son. You're gonna be okay."

Sam sniffled, and rubbed his running nose on his sleeve. At that moment, John saw Sam's long, sharp claws for the first time.

He bit his lip to prevent him from choking on his own sorrow. He knew that this curse was somehow ripping Sam's humanity apart…but he couldn't let his boys know how scared he was. He needed to be confident for them…for Sam.

xXx

After about an hour when the sun had finally risen, Sam had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room finally. Dean, John, and Bobby on the other hand were all wide awake and talking in hushed whispers in the kitchen.

"So we know her name was Elizabeth Godrick, and that she cursed her husband because he cheated. Obviously the curse travels through a bite…and maybe sex. Does it affect everyone, though? I mean, is everyone vulnerable to this thing?" Dean asked curiously.

"We don't know yet." John replied sternly, "We're gonna summon this demon, and get some real answers."

"When are we planning on doing that?" Bobby asked with an eye-roll, still not convinced that summoning a demon is their best bet.

"As soon as Sammy wakes up." John answered matter-of-factly, "We'll fill him in on everything he missed, then we'll get everything together."

"This is a bad idea." Bobby muttered.

"Probably," John agreed with a slight nod, "but it's the only one we've got."

"What about the girl?" Dean interjected, his eyes locked on his fathers'.

John sighed deeply before replying. He looked at his son and then to Bobby who was only looking back at him curiously.

"We're gonna have to keep an eye on her." John said roughly, "I don't know if she'll be infected too."

"And if she is?" Bobby asked.

"If she is, then we'll help her just like we're helping Sam." John replied, sounding sure of himself.

"How exactly are we supposed to help Sam?" Dean wondered aloud.

"The demon will tell us if there's a counter-curse." John snapped.

"And if there's not?" Bobby quipped back.

"What is this, Twenty Questions?" John spat.

"No John," Bobby said with a slightly raised voice, "we just need to be sure!"

"He'll be fine!" John replied.

"How do we know that?" Dean asked sadly.

There was silence; John didn't know if the demon would tell them what they needed to know. He just knew that he had to save Sam. He had to make sure his son was okay. He couldn't lose him.

"I don't know, okay." John admitted in a raspy voice, "I just know that we gotta save him."

"Hey believe me; I know we gotta save him. I've been lookin' after the kid his entire life." Dean replied with soulful, sad eyes, "But that's why we can't walk into this blind. We gotta be one-hundred percent right with this."

John looked back at Dean and offered a half-smile as he nodded once.

"You're right." John said simply.

At that moment, Sam walked into the kitchen with glazed sleep-filled eyes peering at everyone standing before him curiously.

"Mind toning it down?" He muttered tiredly.

Dean shrugged, and then grabbed Sam by the shoulder gently as he tugged him along back into the living room. Too tired to argue, or snap – Sam followed wordlessly.

Dean then let go of Sam and sat on the couch that was up against the wall in front of the open living room window, where Sam had made his makeshift bed. The light of the morning seeped into the living room from the open window and made Dean cringe at its brightness, but he ignored it so he could talk to Sam in private.

Curious as to where this was going, Sam took a seat next to his brother, on his left side.

"What's up?" Sam asked with a tired yawn.

"I want you to know that we are going to fix this." Dean whispered confidently, "If this is the last thing I do, I swear on my life that we will fix this."

"From what I heard, it sounds like you guys are struggling." Sam admitted with a rough sleep-filled voice.

"How much did you hear?" Dean wondered.

"Something about summoning a demon, then everything after that." Sam replied a little sheepishly.

"You heard that? From here?" Dean asked somewhat skeptically.

"My uh…hearing's improved," Sam admitted almost guiltily, "and my sense of smell."

"That could be a pain in the ass." Dean said trying to crack a joke to hide how freaked out he really was.

Sam nodded with a halfhearted smile on his face as a small chunk of his brown hair fell into his face. Annoyed, Sam shook his head to get his hair out of his line of sight.

Dean's eyes widened slightly at his brothers' movement…not because of the movement, but because when Sam shook his head to move his hair, it also moved a lock of hair that covered his ear.

It was getting worse, Dean saw – looking somewhat terrified.

There in full view was Sam's ear, now looking slightly narrower, with a pointed tip; making him look somewhat elf-like.

…You know, if elves had claws.

Just when Dean was about to say something, there was a crash as the living room window they sat by suddenly shattered and the blinds jumped at the pressure as a bullet whizzed past Dean's face and into the wall across from them.

Dean instinctively reached out in that moment, and pulled Sam off the couch and onto the floor as another bullet imbedded itself into the same wall as the first one, sending a cloud of dust to the floor as the bullets broke the plastered walls.

Dean heard their father call out to them from the kitchen worriedly, and then saw as John emerged just in time to see another three bullets fly into the room.

Immediately John hit the ground in surprise, but was otherwise unharmed.

Dean covered Sam protectively and called out to their father.

"We're okay!"

John nodded at his sons in approval and relief.

"Stay down." He mouthed to them.

Dean nodded in understanding, comprehending the command as a direct order, even though the bullets had ceased fire.

John saw Dean's comprehension, and then crawled back into the kitchen to where Bobby was stationed. Once in the kitchen, John pulled his .45 from his waistband, and loaded it.

"They alright?" Bobby asked worriedly.

"Yea." John growled out as he finished loading his weapon.

He then snuck out the backdoor, to go after the son-of-a-bitch that dared threaten his sons.

John's not too happy, eh? Haha. Oh no! :O

Tell me whatcha think!