The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
Hunter's Moon
Chapter 13
Leaving Calgary Behind
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive
ooOoo
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
ooOoo
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
ooOoo
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
ooOoo
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive
Written by Lennon + McCartney
Recorded June 1968
After The Prayer for the Forgotten Dead, Sam and Dean shoved all their equipment into the duffle bag. Spiritually exhausted from the Exorcism they stumbled their way out of the house and down the steps.
Sam felt defiled by the touch of the demon and Dean was angered by not only the sorrow in his brother's eyes but also by the pain that had been inflicted on the poor, innocent child spirit in the attic.
They made it out to the Impala without incident, hurrying to get out of the evening wind. Late September in Calgary tended to be a bit nippy and they were thankful for the comfort of the car.
"What do you want to do now, Sam?" Dean asked. "Do you want to eat or go back to the motel or, how about going out for a beer?"
"You know, the Dean Winchester 'beer and a burger' special sounds pretty good about now." Sam replied. "But before we pull out let's talk for a minute." Sam looked out on the street. It was a quiet neighborhood without much traffic.
"About what?" Dean asked.
"About the elephant in the Impala." Sam answered with a little smile.
"And what would that be?"
"Come on, Dean. That was a nice show we put on for the girls beside the river, "
"That wasn't you, Sam. That was the Sphinx." Dean hunched into his jacket and stared at his hands on the steering wheel.
"And what was that in the house? I licked a stripe up your neck and you were only glowing in the mildest way. If I had manifested the full cat, you would have been on the floor with your pants around your ankles." Sam turned and stretched his arms to the roof and brought one knee up on the seat.
"We need to set up some rules and I want to know what your feelings are about this."
Dean curled his lip and looked out the driver's side window. "You know I don't talk about this kind of stuff, Sam. Just drop it."
"No, I won't," Sam replied. "This is serious. We need to know our boundaries, or at least, I do. I need to know what you are thinking. I'm not going to be able to stop the Sphinx and I don't want to wake up the next morning wondering if I had raped you the night before."
"Jesus, Sam. You do remember that I'm your brother, don't you? "
"Dean, you need to face up to the fact that neither of us is a hundred percent human any more. We have to learn to trust one another over again. You know I love you and I know you love me and always have but we are going places that are new to both of us."
"Well, how do we even start to learn to trust each other? We had a hard enough time before. Now it just seems impossible. We have no rules, no points of reference in this new world." Dean finally looked his brother in the face.
"To start, I think you should come over here and turn on the glow. I'm cold." Sam smiled.
"I'm not a freaking space heater," was Dean's reply, but he slid over and rested his back on his brother's chest.
Sam wrapped his arms around him and rested his cheek on top of Dean's head. Dean was incredibly tense. He felt he had absolutely no business in his brother's arms but he had to admit it was really comfortable.
The minutes flew by and Dean watched the stars revolve in the night sky. He could hear Sam's soft breaths and realized that his little brother had dozed off. He felt warm and safe and at peace. Gradually his eyes drifted closed too.
They were startled awake by someone rapping on the glass. Next a light was shined into Dean's just opened eyes. Sitting up quickly, Dean almost went for his gun before he realized they were being rousted by the cops.
Dean scooted over behind the wheel and rolled down the driver's window. The cop continued to shine the flashlight on him. "License and registration." The cop demanded.
Dean reached for the glove compartment for their papers.
Sam was awake now and rolled down his window. The cold invaded their previous cozy, warm cocoon. "You guys can't sleep on the street." the second cop said while shining his light in Sam's face. "You're going to have to move it along."
"Get a room." The policeman snickered at his own innuendo.
"You and your boyfriend have to get it off the streets." the other cop said to Dean.
Dean started the Impala up, deciding that maybe it wouldn't be the brightest thing to tell the cop that Sam wasn't his boyfriend, he was his brother. A piece down the street Dean asks, "You still want that beer and a burger?"
"Yeah, that still sounds like a good idea. Let's find a bar."
They pulled into The Blue Skies bar and grill. The place is packed and the only thing open are seats at the bar. The bartender, a tall, pretty brunette comes over. "What you guys want?' she asked, wiping down the bar with a rag.
"Couple of cheeseburgers and beers." Dean responds with his best lady-killer smile and turns his glow up to the lowest level.
She pauses for a moment to fully register a pair of bright green eyes and smiles back. "I'm Brenda. I'll bring the beers now and the burgers will be up in a couple of minutes." She pulls cold bottles up from under the bar and pops the tops off.
"You guys going to be around for a while?" she includes Sam in the question but never looks anywhere else than Dean's eyes. She decides she wants to find out if he has freckles elsewhere or just on his nose.
What gets her attention is a low growl from Sam and his hand on Dean's shoulder. "No," Sam replies. "Just stopping for food. "
Brenda glances at the hand then at Sam and back to Dean. "Who would have ever thought?" she mutters and moves off.
"Thanks, Sam. Very helpful" Dean complains.
"Forget it Dean. Your zipper is no longer open for business. From now on your ass is stamped Authorized Users Only." Sam snorts and spins around on his bar stool, looking over the drunken crowd.
"I don't remember signing a contract." Dean replied and shrugged off Sam's hand.
Sam's smile gets bigger and he puts the rejected hand on Dean's upper thigh. "It'll come to you, in time. Maybe we should find a tattoo parlor and see if they'll tattoo "Private Property" on your ass."
"Ha, Ha." Dean's burger appears and he settles in to eat.
After the burgers are demolished, Sam turns to Dean. "Do you want to try and hustle some pool?"
"I don't know, Sam. I think almost everyone here has noticed that we are together. Not an optimal set up for hustling." Dean scans the room and sees that the pool tables are set off in the back end of the bar. Maybe, he thinks, they can get away with it. He slides off the bar stool and leads the way to the tables. Sam trails behind and off to the right, trying to look disinterested. He finds a seat along the wall.
Dean puts his quarter in line on the table and after watching a couple of really drunk, very piss-poor games, begins to think he could most likely make some money with this crowd. He'd never hustled drunken Canadians before, but how different could they be from drunken Americans? .
It's not long before his turn comes up and he promptly loses the first game. Pretending to be drunk himself he convinces the winner to play again and double the bet. He watches greed spark in his middle-aged, pudgy opponent's eyes. He's well on his way now and goes for a third game and doubles up the bet again. Pudgy guy is drooling as he watches Dean fake sway and almost drop his cue. Now Dean is going in for the kill.
Straightening up and turning his glow up to medium to keep pudgy guy's attention on his face and not the game, Dean starts to sweep the table. He's down to the last and winning shot when he feels a hand on his ass. Looking up he can still see Sam against the wall so he knows it's not an "Authorized" hand. He swiftly takes and sinks his shot and snatches up the money off the table as pudgy guy begins to realize that something strange is going on and he's losing his sure bet.
Dean turns and the hand on his ass slides up front to his chin. He's looking at a lumberjack of a guy, who is flanked by two more guys just as big as his assailant. All beards and weathered skin, these guys look like they take their fun where they find it. He was now definitely looking for his little brother to show up and help.
"Hello, pretty boy," lumberjack #1 one rumbles. "You lookin' to hustle more than pool? Let's take that cute little ass of yours outside and have some fun." He then tries to stuff money into the waistband of Dean's jeans. Dean remembers days past when this kind of thing would mean food money or school supplies for Sammy or winter clothes, He wishes he didn't have those memories.
Dean tried to jerk away but the hands are now on his arms and it's more than one guy holding him. Then he notices that the lumberjacks are looking past him and at something over his shoulder. He knows that it's Sam by the looks on their faces.
A big arm grabs him around the waist and pulls him away from the restraining hands. "Mine"
The lumberjacks back up. Dean dearly wants to see if Sam is changing forms or not.
"If he's yours, do you want to rent him out?" one lumberjack asks.
Sam rumbles right back, "I'm his lover, not his pimp. Get away from him."
XXXXXXX
They decide that they have had enough fun for one evening and they pack it up to go back to the motel. Dean throws one last glance at Brenda but the look on her face clearly indicates that boat has definitely sailed.
On their way back to the car, the lumberjacks make another run at them but this time they have bats. Dean thinks maybe baseball bats. He wonders where those came from because these guys don't look like a team.
"Bring him over here," one calls to Sam. "We'll give him back afterwards."
That did it as far as Sam was concerned. These guys deserved to meet a nightmare they didn't even know existed. Dean stepped to the side and got out of the way. Sam looked like he was just stretching but Dean knew he was elongating. The Sphinx threw his head back and yowled. The moonlight glinted off his fangs.
From in front of him Dean heard someone say "Holy fuck, what is that?" He walked forward. "I would run if I were you," he shouted at his would-be assailants.
"Run before he comes after you."
Sam dropped to all fours but stayed with Dean until Dean was in the car with Sam's abandoned clothes. Dean loved how the Sphinx slithered out of Sam's clothes. So smooth, so sleek, the cat just shed them like a snake shed its skin.
Only then did the Sphinx start looking around for the now widely scattered men. They had wisely all headed in different directions.
Finally he picked one guy and started after him. The guy looked back and saw the big cat gaining on him and went for a tree at the end of the parking lot. Dean thought that maybe climbing a tree to get away from a cat was not the smartest move.
The Sphinx stretched up from the bottom of the tree, all seven feet of him and then extended a long front leg and snagged one of the guy's boots. The man screamed and kicked but the claws seemed caught in the laces. He pawed at his boot, trying to get it loose and finally it fell away and the man climbed higher up the tree. The Sphinx seemed proud of his trophy and carried it back to Dean.
Dean let him keep it and opened the passenger door and patted the seat. "Come on, Sam. Let's get out of here."
XXXXXXX
Sam sat on the passenger side of the car, looking out the window. Dean got a couple of giggles out of the looks they got while passing other cars. Not often people saw a huge cat riding as a passenger. They passed a couple of cars with kids in them and the kids went complete ballistic when Sam turned and stared at them. The parents had a different reaction.
When they got to their motel Dean was glad they had elected a room around the back. As long as Sam was in the mood to stay a cat there was nothing Dean could do except go along with it and shield his brother as much as he could. When they finally got inside Dean threw the duffle and clothes on the couch and fell into his bed.
Sam leaped gracefully onto Dean's bed and stood over him, licking his face.
"Damn it, Sam. I'll shower in the morning. Get In your own bed. "
The cat growled and lay down next to Dean, throwing a paw over his chest. Dean curled into the cat's soft, furry chest and once again felt safe and warn. The brothers drifted off to sleep.