A/N: I've decided to post the last two installments on Wednesdays because I was tired of being swamped off the top couple pages by rewrites and reflections on and deleted scenes from Thursday night's new episode. I hope no one is terribly offended by my saying this, but those kinds of pieces drive me batshit crazy.

Previously: Searching his house with a five man army, Daniel finds Dean and Sparrow in a secret passage beneath his father's study.

The Birds
installment 12

Dean struggled both to keep up with Sparrow and stay out of her way, activities which would have been difficult even had his hands not been tied behind his back. Sparrow raced down the basement stairs. Dean hobbled after. Sparrow lifted, toppled, and shoved furniture. Dean hopped out of the way. Sparrow ripped up carpeting. Dean scrambled to be off those carpets before he joined the broken furniture on the floor.

"The hell are you looking for?" he asked, just jumping out of the way of Sparrow's foot, kicking through a wall to the insulation behind.

"Dammit!" she hollered. "They always have a stash, and it's always in the basement!"

Dean risked getting close enough to her to ask without yelling, "A stash of what?"

"Oh, you'll see," she growled, turning on her heel and heading back up the stairs. Dean heaved a sigh and followed after her.

"What if he doesn't have 'a stash'?" Dean shouted, taking the steps much slower than Sparrow. He winced hearing something large shatter. "What if you're destroying the house of a perfectly normal, decent man?" Across the way, he saw the kitchen. Kitchen's had knives…

Sparrow rounded the corner, grabbed Dean by his shoulder, and hauled him into the living room. "Gregory Landrick was not 'normal' and he certainly wasn't decent," she snarled. She'd made short work of the china cabinet, bookshelf, couch, and rugs. "By the way," she hissed in Dean's ear, "I found it." She cocked her head toward a closed door.

"How do you know – "

She kicked in the door before he could finish.

Dean saw the trophy mounted on the wall above the desk. His stomach clenched, and he glanced at Sparrow, whose taught angry expression had relaxed into something solemn. He'd been on the verge of asking something snarky about wrecking all the furniture in here, too, but couldn't bring himself to. "Is that…?"

Sparrow chewed her bottom lip and nodded. "Shark, I think." She dropped onto her hands and knees, rapping the floor with her knuckles until she found a hollow spot. "I knew he had to have one," she said more to herself than Dean, reaching under the carpet for the door handle and pulling it and the carpet back, revealing a brightly lit staircase. "You first."

There had to be more than twenty. Gregory Landrick's 'stash' consisted of more than twenty taxidermy shapeshifters, all in various states of changing.

Dean attributed many adjectives to Sparrow, but none of them applied to the woman standing on the steps, clutching the rail in a white knuckled grip, throat so constricted he could see the tendons. Her bottom lip trembled until she bit it. Her eyes, always intense, were glazed. She made her way on knees so wobbly Dean thought she would fall the rest of the way down the stairs.

"Sparrow…"

"Shut up." It was half-hearted and her voice was raw. She clasped her hands behind her back and stepped up to a woman with a fanning peacock's tail and the beginnings of gold scales and claws forming on her fingers. Sparrow swallowed, desperately clinging to composure, before speaking again, "In the throes of death, we change, or try to. It's slow… and futile, like armadillos instinctively jumping up when cars go over top of them, but we do. The longer it takes to die, the more change takes place." She locked her teary gaze with Dean's. "It must have taken a near hour for her to die," Sparrow explained of the peacock woman, "and that much of her tail to grow."

Dean was silent for a moment. "I… uhm, I'm sorry."

Sparrow shrugged one shoulder, and Dean wished hard that Sammy was there, because sorry wasn't good enough at all, but Dean lacked the words to adequately express as much.

Sparrow walked around behind him, took hold of his bound wrists, and proceeded to saw through the cotton sleeves. When his hands were free, she pressed the keys to the Impala into his palm.

"Assuming you're not going to try and kill me, you're free to go. If you do try and kill me, I'll shoot you." She walked past him to touch a man's orange and black striped cheek. Dean followed her, and in a risky move, placed a hand on Sparrow's shoulder.

"You don't have to stay here," he offered, "I'll take you home."

"I have to give them proper burials," Sparrow squatted in front of a little girl with a forked pink tongue and bright orange eyes. She laced her fingers with one scaly green hand. "Go back to your brother. Tell Haaron I'll be home by tomorrow evening."

"Sparrow…"

"I don't want your pity," she bit out, standing up. "Your understanding's good enough." When Dean didn't move, she reiterated, "Go, Dean."

"No," Dean decided. "Lemme borrow your phone. I'll call Sam, let him know what's going on. I'll help you here. We'll both go home tomorrow." He waited for Sparrow to whip out her gun and force him out of the Landrick house at its point, but she didn't.

"Do what you want," she answered, tiredly.

"Dean!" someone shouted. "Get out of the way!"

Daniel was on the stairs, gun ready. Dean moved to grab Sparrow. "Daniel, don't!"

He'd barely gotten the words out when the shot went off. Sparrow made a choked noise and stumbled back into him. Dean caught her shoulders, but her knees buckled, so he wrapped an arm around her waist. His sleeve immediately became saturated with the warm wetness of blood. "No," he growled, "No… no…" He dropped to the floor, cradling Sparrow against his chest.

She opened her mouth to speak, but only blood burbled out. "Oh God," Dean gasped. He tried to apply pressure to her stomach, but the bleeding just wouldn't stop. The nails of the fingers clawing at his forearm started to elongate into sharp points. Tiny bronze scales broke out over the knuckles. Dean's eyes widened and he shook his head. "No… stop it," he begged, as though that would stop the feathers sprouting from Sparrow's temples and weaving into her hair. "You're not dying," he grit out, "so stop that!"

He'd never seen Sparrow look truly frightened, but he could think of no other way to describe the look on her face just before her eyes clouded over and the hands holding his arm went limp.

Tunnel vision cleared, Daniel saw the posed forms lining the walls. The shotgun rolled from his fingers and clattered down the steps. He almost tumbled after it, but caught himself on the rail, a wave of nausea rocking his entire frame. "Are those… were those… oh God… people?"

Dean couldn't answer.

At the top of the stairs, Patrick vomited.