2:Goatman

They stopped a few hours in for lunch at one of those truck stop deals that included a choice of half-assed fast food stalls and a wide array of cheap, useless toys and souvenirs. Sam went in to order, leaving a grumpy, twitchy Dean behind to wait in the car. Sunglasses could hide his eyes from view easily enough, but Dean's horns were starting to come in in force, now, curving, ridged, black, and already too large to ignore. It was as though the acknowledgment of what was happening to him was permission for it to happen even faster. For all that Dean liked to pride himself on keeping them more prepared than your average boy-scout, neither of them actually seemed to own any hats. Still, while it was patently obvious to Sam that Dean couldn't go out anywhere in public until they at least got him something to cover those horns, it had taken some convincing to get Dean to stay in the car.

It probably didn't help that the last time Dean had sat in the car while Sam went to get food, Dean hadn't seen Sam again until he was getting stabbed in the back. There wasn't really a reason to connect that event -- or Meg possessing Sam when he went for burgers -- with the actual act of solo food retrieval, but Sam had to figure that Dean was already on edge, what with the changes his body was going through, and the reminder of less than happy times wasn't helping.

Sam made a promise to keep things very quick indeed, and after Dean running him through a checklist to ensure that he had his gun, a knife, a flask of holy water, a shaker of salt, two anti-possession charms they dug up from the glove compartment, and Dean's lucky quarter -- which Sam suspected hadn't even existed until that moment -- Sam climbed out of the car and headed into the truck stop.

He couldn't have been gone longer than seven minutes, total, but when he returned to the car bearing their food and a foam cheese fez, Dean was nowhere in sight.

Sam almost -- almost -- dropped his purchases. "Goddammit!" He set them on top of the Impala's roof instead and turned in place, scanning the parking lot for any sign of his wayward brother.

It didn't take long to find him. Turned out, all Sam really had to do was to follow the gasps and moans.

Now, Sam knew that his brother was a bit of a player. It was pretty damned hard to miss, after all. But Dean had been rather less interested in casual sex since things started going haywire with the angels and demons the year before, and if anything could have stopped his brother from macking on the nearest female, Sam had been pretty sure it would be the whole "no one wants to sleep with a guy with a hairy ass" thing. And seven minutes? That was pushing it even when Dean was at the top of his game.

Yet, there he was, leaning up against an off-white Saturn -- a Saturn? Really?! -- with a milky-skinned, tiny-waisted pixie-girl straddling his hips and stroking his horns.

For the love of --

"Dean."

Dean had his head back, eyes closed and mouth open like the girl's fingers on his horn was better than -- Sam didn't want to think about what he seemed to think it was better than. One of Dean's hands crept up under the girl's shirt like an afterthought.

There was no sign that either of them heard Sam.

He sighed, going for volume. "Dean."

One of Dean's eyes cracked open and peered at Sam, his mouth pulling shut again. "Hmmm?"

Hmmm? Sam had nearly had a heart attack when he couldn't find Dean, and that was his brother's response? Hmmm?!

Sam was going to kill him.

"Do you mind?"

The girl tilted her head and upper body back, fingers still clenched around Dean's right horn, and threw a loopy grin at Sam. "Are you the artist?"

"The artist?"

She gave the horn two firm strokes, and Sam watched as Dean's eye rolled up and his mouth came open again.

"This is some great effects make-up."

Sam felt his lips twitch into a grin and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. But, uh, they're kinda fragile, and we've got a gig to get to, so if you don't mind. . . ?"

The girl nodded and let go of the horn, dropping her raised leg back to the ground and stepping back from Dean. "I wouldn't worry. You guys are totally gonna win." She skipped backwards away from Dean -- so that wasn't her car they were making out on top of -- and flashed him a wink. Dean watched her go, his face going through eyebrow gymnastics that bordered on obscene. It took Sam three snaps in front of his eyes to redirect his attention away from the pixie-chick.

"Dude, she was so hot for the horns."

"I'm going to kill you."

Dean grinned, pushing off of the car and giving its door a brief, somewhat befuddled pat, as though he couldn't figure out how he'd ended up all the way over here, cheating on his beloved Impala with an off-white Saturn. "You're just jealous."

"Get back in the car, Dean."

"Seriously. Just because you don't get the girls all horny."

"Car. Now."

"Get it? Horny? 'Cause of the -- yeah, okay." Dean scowled and swung himself into the passenger seat of the Impala with far more grace than he'd been moving anywhere in the last few weeks. He was adapting to his new legs. "You are so made of cock-block."

Sam rolled his eyes and grabbed his purchases from the top of the car, throwing the cheese fez at Dean before he sat down and dug into his own french fries. "Whatever, dude. Let's just get to Bobby's so we can fix this."

Dean pulled the plastic top off of his soda and took a bite out of it like he was eating a cookie.

* * *

"You know, you shouldn't have made out with that girl."

Dean looked up from where he was staring out the window, cheese fez perched jauntily atop his head in a way that totally failed to hide his horns, half-eaten straw sticking out of his mouth. He'd already finished the rest of his lunch. Including the cup, napkins, boxes, and paper bag. Sam was a little worried that he'd start gnawing on the cheese fez when he finished with that straw. "Don' be such a prude."

Sam stared down the open highway, trying to ignore the chewing sounds coming from his brother. "I'm serious, man."

"So am I. I fulfill a new kink. It would be neglectful -- dare I say it, even wrong -- not to make the kinky girls happy."

Sam groaned through his closed lips, his left hand tightening on the wheel. "That's what I'm talking about, Dean. How do you know she was into horns?"

"Uh, did ya see the way she was fondling this sucker?" Sam caught sight of Dean reaching for his horn in the edge of his vision and smacked Dean's hand back down.

"You're turning into a satyr, Dean."

"Goatman."

"Satyr. You know what satyrs are?"

"Pansy-ass goatman-wannabes who prance around in the forest with nymphs?"

Sam didn't even wanna touch half of that statement. "They're fertility spirits, Dean. Do you get that?"

Dean was silent for a long moment. Then he sucked the rest of his mauled, deflated straw in like he was eating spaghetti and chewed. Swallowed. Scratched his chin, which was starting to look like he hadn't bothered shaving. Sam tried not to think of what all that plastic and cardboard must be doing to Dean's throat and stomach.

"So," Dean finally said. "I've got, like, a super-dick?"

Sam couldn't help but wonder if this spell, or whatever it was, was actually giving Dean brain damage.

* * *

They reached Bobby's place late enough that night that all they managed to do was stumble in, drop their things in the library, and flop out on the couch and floor. Sam was tempted to try and offer Dean the couch, this time, but decided that his brother would just see it as an attack on his manly dignity or some such thing, and Sam just didn't have the energy to get chewed out right then.

He was dozing, just on the verge of falling into dreamland, when one of the phones rang. Dean grunted from the floor, but Sam didn't feel all that inclined to get up and answer the sucker, and apparently neither did Dean, since three rings later, he could hear the tape in Bobby's old answering machine whir and click to life.

"You've reached Singer Auto Salvage. You know what to do."

The beep followed, then a long pause filled with heavy breathing. Dean grunted again, an amused sound this time, and Sam heard his lips smack open, probably with a comment about Bobby and heavy breather phone calls, when an unfamiliar voice spoke up.

"Bobby. Bobby, it's me. Cox is. Cox is gone, man. It's. I don't even. We're in Maine. The billdad. We didn't go after the devil, but Cox was -- he wanted it. You know how he gets. So the billdad. But -- Jesus, Bobby. We got it, he got the sucker, of course he did, the man was -- but then he -- I don't even know. He just jumped. Right into the lake, like he'd float, like that thing did. It's Bill Murphy, man, all over again, but Cox knew better, he didn't --"

The tape cut off, stopping the voice mid-ramble. Sam looked over to where Dean was sprawled on the floor and saw Dean staring back, his eyes wide. His elongated pupils weren't visible in the dark, but the light of the moon through the windows caught on the back of his eyes like an animal's, making them seem to glow in the dark.

Sam swallowed and forced himself to hold Dean's gaze. "Okay," he said. "That's, uh." He didn't know how to finish the sentence, just that the phone call had given him a bad feeling.

Dean turned his head towards the ceiling, and the strange, reflected light vanished. "Yeah."

Sam shifted onto his back, one arm bent up behind his head. He thought about sleeping, but no longer felt tired. He opened his mouth to speak again a few times, but he had no idea what to say.

It was Dean who broke the silence.

"What the hell is a billdad?"

* * *

Bobby got home a few hours after dawn the next day. He got out of his car, spent a moment staring at the Impala, then proceeded to take his dear sweet time getting his things and turning towards the house, giving Sam, who had gone to the window the moment he heard the car pull up, plenty of time to study the man. Sam turned his head, keeping his eyes glued on Bobby's figure, and called over his shoulder to Dean, who was still in the kitchen eating the largest breakfast that Sam had ever laid eyes on.

"Hey. Come here."

He heard the chair squeak, then the click of Dean's hooves on the tile. Dean had spent ten minutes that morning messing with his boots before throwing them to the side and just clopping around. His horns had grown again, too. Sam now figured they'd need a cowboy hat to even begin to hide those things. The hair on his chin was long enough to start to curl, and Dean scratched at it as he made his way over, chewing on something tucked in his left cheek.

"Bobby need help with his bags?"

Sam shook his head. "Just . . . look."

Dean huffed a breath through his nose, tossing his head back, then stepped up next to Sam to look out the window. "What?"

"Bobby look . . . hairier to you?"

"Bobby's always been hairy."

"Look at his beard."

Dean tilted his head, and Sam felt the urge to shift sideways so the tips of the horns weren't directed quite so much at his corneas. "What? So he hasn't trimmed his beard in a bit."

"Right. And you just decided to rock the goatee."

"I look awesome with a goatee."

Sam took a quick step back from the window, pulling Dean along by the collar of his shirt, when he saw Bobby turn toward the house. "You heard that message last night the same as I did. Between you and what sounded like a decent hunter suddenly up and drowning himself . . . what if whatever it is got Bobby, too?"

"And made his beard grow?" Dean gave Sam his "you're going 'dingoes ate my baby' crazy again" look. Which come to think of it, was really odd coming from a guy with horns and sideways eyeballs.

"I don't know, Dean! But --" Sam cut himself off when the door opened and Bobby came in, leading with his suitcase.

"Right, what have you boys gotten yourselves into now?"

Sam tried for a friendly grin and suspected he fell short. Dean chewed. Bobby adjusted his hat and tossed his suitcase in the corner before turning to look at them. Sam could see the moment he got a glimpse of Dean by the way his eyes widened and his mouth came open.

"Hey Bobby." Dean's lips smacked and he swallowed. "Grown any hooves lately?"

Bobby's eyes slid sideways to Sam's, and Sam gave him a helpless look in return.

"Aw hell," said Bobby.

That summed it up pretty well.

* * *

"So your brother's turning into a satyr." Bobby looked over at Dean and swatted at him, missing slicing his palm open on Dean's horns by a fraction of an inch. Dean blinked, then spit out the fork he'd been gnawing on. Bobby turned back to Sam, who was sitting at the desk in the kitchen with them, his chin resting on his palm. "And Cox has gone billdad on us."

Dean tipped himself back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his neck. "Or he just decided to go for a swim."

Bobby shook his head. "Jean referenced Bill Murphy. Don't know if you boys got much research done last night?" He paused while Sam shook his head. They'd spent awhile tossing ideas back and forth in the dark, but the long drive and stress of the morning had taken its toll, and Sam had passed out before he'd managed to get to his laptop. "Bill Murphy was a swamper for the logging industry back around the turn of the century. Only man on record to ever try a taste of billdad stew. Legend says he took one bite, crouched down like the suckers are known to, then took a flying leap straight into the lake."

"So Cox ate his kill?" Sam glanced at Dean, who looked sickened for a moment, before shrugging and going back to eying the silverware. Bobby shook his head.

"No way. Cox knew logging lore better'n any other hunter I've ever seen. He would have known the risk. Hell, the man claimed to have laid eyes on a hidebehind."

"I take it that's unusual," Dean said.

"Didn't get a name like 'hidebehind' by standing right in front of you."

"So if he didn't try for the world's creepiest after-hunt snack, what happened?"

Bobby shook his head. "Hell if I can make it out."

Sam sat up, leaning with his elbows on the table. "What about the 'devil' Jean mentioned? He wasn't talking about demon, was he?"

"You know as well as I do that no one's laid eyes on one of those suckers since the last seal was saved. He meant the one in Jersey."

Dean sat upright. "Dude. No one hunts the Jersey Devil. That's way too high-profile. Hell, the Snallygaster was pushing it."

"That's what I told him. Not like there ain't about a thousand less known critters and spooks to track down out there. But Cox, well, he said he was getting bored. Wanted a challenge."

Sam caught Dean's eye again. Cox's story wasn't exactly unusual, these days. Sam and Dean had had more than one conversation like it, in the past year. Since they'd averted the apocalypse, things in the supernatural world had quieted down a lot. No demons hanging around, and even the spirits seemed to have gotten less active. They weren't the only hunters who'd turned to tracking down the more obscure and bizarre cryptids just to keep in shape.

It hadn't slipped Sam's notice that Dean currently resembled one of those cryptids himself. He figured by the look on Dean's face that it hadn't escaped his, either.

Bobby looked between the two of them for a moment, then reached up to adjust his hat. "What about you boys? Any theories on Dean's new look?"

Sam and Dean shook their heads simultaneously.

"What were you two after when all this started?"

Sam shrugged. "A hodag. Not really known for their cursing powers."

Dean shook his head again, his strange eyes focused on the table. "It was before that."

The muscles in Sam's jaw twitched. "What?"

"By a couple of weeks."

"And you didn't tell me?"

Dean looked up, his expression closed off and defensive. "I didn't know what was going on, Sam! I figured I was just sore, but -- I guess it started after Maryland."

"The Snallygaster."

"Yeah. Also not exactly known for cursing."

Bobby rubbed his chin, smoothing down his straggly beard, then scratched at his chest. "Well, you got me stumped. I know just about all there is to know 'bout demons and spirits, and a helluva lot about the oni and their kin. Can't say I'm always that familiar with the hairy critters on this side of the pond."

Dean sighed, playing with the fork he'd been chewing on. "And it sounds like the man to ask has decided to take an unscheduled dip." He leaned back in his chair again and groaned, rubbing his hand across his mouth. "So what the hell are we gonna do?"

"Same thing we'd do for anything else we don't already know about." Bobby set his palms on the table and pushed himself to his feet. "Research and ask around."

That got another groan out of Dean. "Someone is so buying me a pie."

* * *

Dean ran. The ease with which his bovid legs ate the distance belied the way his breath heaved in sharp pants, the wide rounded look of his eyes. He seemed to more leap than run, flinging himself from hoof to hoof over the twisted roots and exposed rocks of the woods, his upper body bent forward at an extreme angle, hands dropping to the ground every few steps to scrabble in the dirt, as though his clawing fingers could propel him forward that much faster.

He was naked, though the thick golden fur coating his lower body from the top of his hips to the edge of his hooves gave him the illusion of modesty. His upper body dripped brown and red, streaked with sweat, blood, and dirt, crosshatched with scratches and cuts from the branches of the trees and bushes he burst through without a second glance. What remained of his clothes had been twisted into rough rope, circling his shoulders and crossing over his chest, woven into a scanty approximation of a holster under his left arm -- though if it had ever held Dean's gun, it had been lost some distance back. The sheath tied to his right arm was likewise empty; he was unarmed save for his horns, now sweeping up over his head, curving back and out so that the tips were spread as wide as his shoulders. One tip looked sharp enough to pierce a man's skin, the other was blunted, broken off several inches down.

A crack of a rifle echoed off the trees, followed by the shouts of at least three men, and Sam realized that Dean was being pursued by humans. He wanted to jump out behind his brother, cover his six, maybe shout some absurd, useless warning like 'watch out', but as was often the case in his darker dreams, Sam was nothing more than an observer, here, formless and impotent.

And this was a dream, Sam realized. Dean's transformation wasn't this complete, yet. This was just a dream.

Dean scrambled over a fallen tree and made a leap into the lower branches of a living one, wobbling precariously for a moment before catching his balance with his hands on the trunk and climbing even higher in the branches. His mouth clamped shut on his shuddering breath as he froze into a crouch maybe fifteen feet from the ground, his nostrils flaring. He held still save for the heave of his shoulders, breath wrestled under control until the sound of its rasp was drowned out by the tromp and crackle of the footsteps of the hunters on his trail.

The men wore dingy flannel rather than orange vests, jeans instead of camo. Their weapons weren't the slick, high powered rifles of sportsmen, but rather well-used and battered sawed of shotguns and pistols. As they reached the tree Dean had used as his jumping off point, one of them held up a hand and dropped into a crouch, running his fingers over the bark. He tilted his head up, looking towards Dean's tree, just missing spotting him as Dean pushed himself backwards off the branch, dropping back down to the low brush and mulched leaves of the forest floor. The hunters immediately moved to follow the sound of his landing, but Dean was already running again, hooves scraping against the uneven ground.

Sam had a moment to hope that Dean's new legs would be enough to carry him faster over the ground than the hunters could pursue, that Dean had a chance to escape, when a snap-crunch rang through the trees, accompanied by Dean's strangled cry of pain and the sound of his body hitting the ground. Sam was at his side in an instant, bending invisibly over his brother's head, unable to take his eyes off of the black metal clamped around Dean's leg, the fur already matting with blood.

Dean's leg looked fragile like this, thin and fuzzy, lean muscle barely covering the bone. Sam thought of the bones and tendons subtly rearranging themselves over the course of weeks, thigh shortening and foot elongating and solidifying until his ankle was a full third of the way up the limb. He thought of how stiffly Dean had been moving since Maryland, how his balance had shifted day by day, and was suddenly impressed Dean could walk at all, let alone manage the loping gait he'd had running through these woods.

Dream, he thought. You're dreaming. This isn't real.

Dean whimpered deep in his throat, his leg spasming, unable to shake the bear-trap that had nearly taken his whole leg off below the knee. Dream or not, the image hurt, clenching deep in Sam's chest until he felt like he was strangling on it.

There was nothing he could do, though. This was a dream, and he was just an observer, here.

The hunters caught up in a matter of seconds, the man in the lead drawing a bead between Dean's eyes, weapon cocked. Sam wanted to shut his eyes and block out the sight of his brother's brains being blown out on the forest floor, but the hunter did something unexpected.

He hesitated.

Dean's eyes opened, rectangular pupils distinct in the sunlight filtering in through the canopy. He met the hunter's eyes and gagged before speaking, his voice rougher than ever from exertion and pain. "Well?"

The lead hunter lowered his aim, staring back. Sam realized that the man could see the intelligence -- the humanity -- that sparked behind the alien shape of Dean's gaze. That he could tell that just because Dean was bizarre didn't mean he was evil. This man would help his brother. He'd get him help for his leg and get him back to Bobby's, where Sam could help him figure out how to keep other hunters off his trail and how to fix this --

A shot rang out and Dean slumped back onto the ground, eyes still open wide, a bloody hole marking the exact center of his forehead, forming an X with his eyes and the bottoms of his horns.

The lead hunter stood absolutely still for a moment, the shock in his eyes echoing that which filmed over Sam's own mind. The hunter behind him to his right lowered his smoking pistol.

"Who knew goatmen could talk?"