Warning: Scene of attempted suicide ahead. Turn back now if that bothers you.

As he turned back from the precipice of darkness and crawled towards the edge of consciousness Dean registered a familiar softness supporting his supine body, a cocoon of warmth surrounding him. A heavy ache plagued his entire body like never before, leading him to feel like he never wanted to leave this chrysalis.

The only thing that would soothe him more was to be closer to Seth.

Dean eased himself onto his side, groaning at even the tiniest of movements, then reached across the bed. All that he found there was the neat and empty expanse of the other side of the mattress. It was cold to the touch.

Discontent mounted beyond physical pain. He ached for Seth's presence. No matter how bad he felt, Dean wanted, needed to be near his boyfriend.

The fog of sleep fading, Dean bolted upright as the memory of last night smacked him like a brick to the head.

The wolfsbane.

Dean remembered that almost immediately after injecting it into his vein he started feeling horrible, like he was on the verge of dying and being born all over again. What did that stuff do to him?

He examined his hands, noting that his fingernails were normal human nails again, which caused his hands to fly to his face. The beard that he could hardly keep trimmed was gone and the untamable curls that were on their way to reaching the end of his nose had retreated back to level with his brow.

Was he cured?

A look in the mirror inside the adjoining bathroom revealed that his hair no longer bore the white streaks that had been taking over his head the last few weeks. His eyes didn't carry that supernatural glow and his canines shrunk back and were more rounded.

Dean could have kissed his own reflection.

He would have had he not spotted the hairy scars on his chest and shoulder that refused to go away.

"N-No…no…" he scratched his blunt nails over them as though they were a residue to be scraped away.

It was like waking up from a pleasant dream to be greeted with a nightmare. Except this nightmare was his reality.

"Fuck!"

Before he could hold himself in check Dean smashed his fist into the mirror, fracturing his reflection into a distorted, macabre mosaic. Despite the ache that lingered in his bones, his knuckles felt none of the abuse he inflicted upon the glass. Not even a drop of blood or the smallest hint of broken skin.

What happened last night? And where was Seth? Surely he heard that outburst.

Dean canted his head and listened.

Earlier he barely heard his television over the buzz in his own head, but now he heard it loud and clear as a news anchor discussed routine Vegas crime. The timber of his house settling raked loudly across his eardrums, sounding more like screams rather than creaking. He could hear the voice of his next-door neighbor who lived a good half-acre from his house as she gossiped with her friend on the phone. So acute was his hearing that he could pick up the sounds of worms and bugs burrowing around in the dirt below the foundation.

None of that unsettled him though, he'd been getting used to the acuteness of his hearing for a little while now. What did was the fact that he couldn't hear Seth anywhere in or around his property.

His next instinct was to use the most improved and keenest sense after the bite, his sense of smell. Seth's scent was present, but not strong enough to show he was still around.

The most alarming thing was despite the fact that he had not drawn blood after breaking the mirror he could smell it so potently in the air that he practically had its coppery taste on his tongue.

Fear blossomed in Dean's heart and bloomed even more so once he dashed out of his room and searched his house. Seth was nowhere to be found and his kitchen looked as though a tornado blew through it, broken chairs and his heavy table overturned, plates and utensils scattered everywhere.

Then there was the short hallway and door leading from his kitchen to his garage. Clumps of white and blond fur littered the floor and the wood of the door was battered with cracks.

The bloody marks that scored up the wood both relieved and heightened his anxiety. The blood and lacerations weren't from Seth as they were more animalistic in nature, but that also could only mean one thing.

It was his own blood dried inside the grooves of those claw marks because apparently the wolfsbane triggered him to change.

The door was half open to the garage. Though the blood did not extend beyond the threshold, and the fact that the scent of Seth he found coming from inside the garage was also fading, Dean had to check with his own eyes that there was no body.

Dean found a ripped piece of fabric with Seth's scent all over it, but there was no sign that he had killed him in his wolf form.

All he could piece together from the scene, with some remnants of hope, was that he had changed and chased Seth, who had somehow gotten away. That had to be it.

"…Ben Kodlack has been identified as the man discovered killed outside his home late last night..."

Dean's ears pricked, his attention shifting back to the news anchor several rooms away on his flatscreen.

"…Authorities suspect the victim was attacked by a pack of coyotes or another large indigenous predator due to the coroner's examination of the body. Though neighbors reported hearing of wolf-like howls during the time in question, wolves are not one of Nevada's abundant predators…"

The remainder of the report dissolved into white noise in the back of Dean's head as full body tremors overtook him, nearly causing him to crumple to the concrete with each step he took back into his house. Traces of bile from his queasy stomach laced his saliva, threatening to make him retch. He held it in with the back of his hand, stumbling unfeelingly into his bedroom and towards his bed.

Dean fell to his knees next to it, intent on finding the unassuming shoebox he kept underneath the mattress. His fingers felt clumsy with sweat and numbness when they came into contact with the cardboard.

His hands continued to quiver while he dragged the box out before him to uncover the unloaded Glock 19 inside. The 9mm magazine was placed with the gun for easy access, but between his shaky hands and the tears blurring his vision, a task he normally could pull off over and over again from muscle memory was severely impaired.

Eventually he got his hands to cooperate. The magazine slammed home and the slider slipped smoothly back into place with an air of finality to his overly sensitive ears.

For a few minutes he just stared at semi-automatic in his hands, hushing his mind of the fears and doubts writhing around his brain in a tangled mess.

Dean always imagined himself dying young. Maybe it came with having the upbringing he had, or the lack of it. Living as a kid who raised himself was a life wrought with danger.

Even though he had a few hiccups, he whole-heartedly tried to avoid such a fast ending, took what precautions he could. Still the idea of one day someone finding him dead in a ditch somewhere before his 30th birthday stuck with him.

Never once did he think he'd die by his own hand, but here he was, just a few short months to 31 with his own gun to his temple, the option of offing himself before he no longer had any control over himself sounding better and better with each passing second.

Sniffling back tears and snot, Dean set his jaw in resolve of what was about to do, what he had to do.

'I love you, Seth. I'm sorry.'

Just as he was inching his pointer finger for the trigger, a familiar scent of sweat and aftershave pricked his nose. He heard jogging footsteps on his front porch followed quickly by his front door opening.

"Dean. You up?" Seth called from the living room.

Dean's lower lip trembled at the very sound of his boyfriend's voice and the Glock suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. A shuddering breath he didn't realize he had been holding in left his mouth and his hand dropped heavily into his lap.

"Dean?" Seth walked into the bedroom, eyes meeting his, "Oh, you are awake." He couldn't see the gun from the angle Dean was sitting, the bed between them.

Dean looked up wearily. He felt so incredibly tired. "Why did you come back, Seth?"

Dark eyebrows knitted together in confusion, "To see if you were okay…because I love you…I was—"

"To see if I was okay?" Dean parroted, then his voice rose in a mixture of fury and misery, "Considering last night, do I look okay? Huh? Are you a fucking idiot?!"

Seth's jaw tightened, his brown eyes hardening; looking for all the world like he was going to retaliate to Dean's harsh words with his own. Dean didn't expect him to swallow back that retort and dial down his anger.

"I get it…I do…but I know what I'm doing."

"No, you don't get it!" Dean snapped, "Not after what's happened. I may be turning into a werewolf, but I'm not crazy enough to think that you being around me is safe for you anymore."

"Dammit Dean! Will you listen to me for one Goddamn second?" Now Seth was losing his cool.

Dean didn't care if he did, so long as he wised up and got the hell away.

"There's nothing to listen to. I killed a man…almost killed you. There's nothing to left to discuss."

"What?" Seth's face flipped from anger to bewilderment.

"Dammit Seth! There is no what! You know what I turned into last night. That's why you ran! I have no clue why you're back, but I want you to leave right now."

Seth shook his head, "I didn't…run, Dean."

Dean stood then, gesturing indigently with the Glock in the direction of the mess in near his garage.

"Then explain why my house is trashed and I couldn't find you when I woke up? Why I could only find wolf hair all over the place and my door all clawed up? Hmm?"

"D-Dean…what are you doing with that gun?" Seth switched subjects, asking in a voice as though he was speaking to a wild animal, but Dean could smell the other man's nervousness.

"You had to have gotten away somehow, couldn't smell your blood," he didn't bother answering the question, just carried on with his own deteriorating rant, "you got away…a-and then I…I-I killed Ben…b-because couldn't s-stop myself."

He was back on his knees again, tears like rivers down his face, voice broken, "C-Can't l-let that h-happen to y-you t-too…"

Arms instantly wrapped around him, pulling him into a warm body and enveloping him in an amalgam of scents that meant hardly anything to him singularly, but when combined, was purely Seth. He didn't fight the embrace, didn't fight the gun being carefully pried from his fingers, nor did he fight the sobs wracking his body. Just surrendered himself to those strong arms holding him close.

"Listen to me…" Seth spoke near his ear, voice coming out mistily, "everything's going to be okay. I know what the cure is now. We can cure you."

"C-Cure me?" Dean asked in a croak, "I-I'm already d-damned, don't ya s-see? Even i-if I'm cured…I-I'm s-still a…I-I'm still…a-a m-murderer."

Seth's arms tightened further before he pulled back, looking Dean in the eyes, "But you're not. You may have tried to eat me, but you didn't murder anyone last night."

Dean wanted to believe that, but he heard the news report, remembered how badly he wanted to tear Ben apart during his visit just hours prior to his friend's death. It couldn't just be some huge coincidence.

"I h-heard it on t-the news, S-Seth. H-He was killed…I k-killed him."

"No you didn't, you never even left the house. Please, hear me out okay?"

Though his mind didn't want to let him believe that this was the doings of something else other than him, Dean sniffed and nodded his head, finally giving Seth the floor.

"After the wolfsbane, after you changed…" Seth began explaining, "you tried like hell to get at me through that door the whole time. Then you just…stopped."

"Stopped?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Seth continued on, "when I opened the door I found you just lying there in your wolf form…like you were dying. Then right in my arms you changed back to…well you. I dressed and carried you to bed and you've been there all night."

"Y-You're sure? Absolutely certain?"

"One-hundred percent. I was up all night on my phone looking for answers, and you were out cold by my side the entire time."

The lead-like weight sitting on Dean's shoulders suddenly lessened, leaving him feeling weaker from the burden of carrying it. Even so, he felt more at ease.

"Y-You said something about a cure?" he asked tentatively as though any overt eagerness would shatter the only hope he had left.

Seth nodded, "I went for a jog this morning…just hoping it would change my outlook on things, and I came across this old woman. Turns out she was an old world fortuneteller who knew a whole lot about werewolves."

At this Dean turned skeptical, "How do ya k-know she wasn't just shittin' ya f-for your dough?"

"Because once I mentioned werewolves she took off like a shot, told me to get lost. Had to literally beg her to tell me. In the end I offered her a lot of money. 'Sides, we came to an agreement: she doesn't get a cent until we know her cure is foolproof. I'm sure she wouldn't have agreed to it if she was bullshitting."

"O-Okay…just assuming this old lady is tellin' the truth…" Dean shifted so he sat with his back against the wall, "How did she come about knowin' the cure?"

"Because," Seth said, "her uncle was bitten by one when she was a little girl living in Brezoi. She said his appearance and demeanor began to change. Fast hair growth with streaks of unnatural color, elongated nails and fangs, and glowing eyes. Heightened agitation around everyone except his wife, which often turned to aggression; sound familiar?"

Dean crossed his arms over his chest, "You didn't tell her my symptoms did you?"

"Of course not. Anyway she said they cured him. Also it's important to know that once bitten, a person would change into a wolf on the night of the full moon and change back in the morning twice. If you change a third time, transformation is permanent."

Letting all the information Seth told him absorb in, Dean thought, 'Maybe it's legit. Why the hell not?' "So what's the cure?"

"We find that wolf that bit you," Seth said, leveling his gaze with a determined brown-eyed stare, "and you kill it."

Another humorless chuckle escaped his lips. This was just great…

"Of course the cure would be like finding a needle-" Dean stopped himself short, his mouth hanging open. A sudden understanding just came upon him.

"What?" Seth questioned.

Without saying another word, Dean jumped up from his spot on the floor, stepped around Seth and began throwing on the first outfit he could get his hands on, his boyfriend's concerned and bewildered eyes on him the entire time. Only when he picked the Glock back up and stuffed it into the back waistband of his jeans did Seth also get to his feet.

"Dean, what is it?"

"Ben…"

Dean didn't stop to face him, but marched through his house, grabbing his leather jacket on the way out the front door.

Hot on his heels was Seth. "What about him?"

"He wasn't just killed," Dean elaborated as he started running down the street, Seth just able to keep up, "News said he was mauled, that his neighbors reported wolf howls," he finally looked at Seth, "Nevada's never been known to have many wolves, much less around Vegas."

"Shit," Seth breathed heavily, "Ya think?

"Yup."

Three minutes and seven blocks later they came to a stop in front of Ben Kodlack's humble ranch-style house.

Seth was panting loudly and glistening with perspiration. Dean on the other hand, did not feel the Nevada heat even under his shirt and jacket, nor did he sweat the sprint he'd just undertaken. He immediately launched himself into examining the scene of his friend's death, relying foremost on his nose.

He could still smell Ben's blood in the air.

"C-Can you scent it?" Seth asked once he caught his breath.

Dean didn't answer right away. Instead he stalked the rusty scent to the spot he was sure Ben's shredded body had laid. Underneath the intensity of the blood, Dean could smell a myriad of other scents. It was hard to concentrate on just one, especially when he was now hardwired to focus on blood.

Mingled with the blood was the odor of Ben's body: sweat, beer breath, and entrails, hell he could even smell the undigested remains of Ben's last meal; enchiladas.

To keep from either throwing up or dropping to his knees to lick whatever was left of the blood from the ground, Dean brought his hand to his mouth and closed his teeth around it, hard.

Whether that act helped his concentration, he didn't know, but he pinpointed another smell. It was a faint scent, but nonetheless a recognizable one hiding amongst the stench of death and suburbia.

Dean released his hand and flexed his jaw, "Oh yeah…I can smell that one-eyed bastard. I'd never forget that smell."

Not waiting for Seth to respond or follow, he began to slowly and methodically trail the scent the beast left behind from Ben's front yard to the back.

"Is it still close?"

"Not in the vicinity," Dean sniffed loudly, not caring if he looked like the lunatic WWE claimed him to be, "the scent's fading, but the fucker might still be close enough."

Maybe if he moved quickly he could find it and stop it before it hunted down another innocent person.

"Dean, wait up!" Seth cried, jogging to keep up.

The further Dean went in his pursuit the more the scent grew stronger, even still it seemed that the beast had a lengthy head start. It could take the rest of the day into the night and they may not find it even then.

'Screw it.'

He'd track the monster that afflicted him down to the ends of the earth if that's what it took to cure him.

The scent weaved around houses, wafted down alleys ways, through the sagebrush and into the valley. In the middle of the blistering heat they traversed dry scrublands, stepping over countless sunburnt rocks and around prickly succulent plants.

It was when the sun was setting and they had reached the onset of the mountains of Sloan Canyon did Seth verbally protest the pursuit. "S-Stop…"

Dean paused mid step and turned at the labored sound of his lover's voice, his gaze finding Seth with his hands resting on his knees again though more doubled over than earlier. The shirt Seth wore appeared drenched in sweat and his shoulders were rapidly rising and falling with every heavy breath.

"W-We…I-I can't go on like t-this," Seth panted, " 'Sides…w-we gotta h-head across the country f-for Money in t-the Bank in t-the morning."

The instinct to go on hunting raged through Dean like a wild fire. He wanted, needed it badly. If he abandoned the trail now, he might not ever get another chance to eradicate his problem before the next full moon just a few short days away. If he didn't slay the beast while he had the chance, it would just take another short month – thanks to the wolfsbane for causing a premature transformation – before he too was stuck as a man-eating wolf forever.

But all it took from Dean was one look at the exhausted form of his boyfriend, one look into those pleading brown eyes, for him to reluctantly relent his search.

Seth's well being meant more to him than his own life.

"C'mere," Dean grunted in defeat. He turned so his back was to Seth and crouched forward with his hands behind him to act as platforms.

"W-What are you doing?" Seth sputtered.

Dean smirked to himself, practically hearing the blush creeping over his counterpart's face.

"Offering you a ride back to town."

"I d-don't need a piggyback, Dean."

"I don't need you keelin' over. Oh and I don't need ya gettin' cold out here either," Dean straightened, slipping off his jacket to drape it over Seth's shoulders, "Now shut up and hop on, Princess."

Seth grumbled but obeyed and climbed onto his back. He easily handled his boyfriend's weight into a more comfortable position then commenced a in a brisk walk, taking the path from which they came. Strong arms clung around his neck while muscled thighs squeezed his waist, acting as though he'd vanish into thin hair if those limbs didn't hold on tight enough.

They traveled silently like that for well over an hour.

"Don't worry," came a low voice near his ear.

"I ain't worried," Dean retorted, "You're the one that's worried."

"Because you almost killed yourself after I thought I had lost you forever, you ass," Seth then slapped him up side the head hard enough to leave a little sting, "I better not find you like that again or I swear to the god I will beat some sense into you, ya got that?"

Dean's body slumped a little, not under the pressure of Seth's weight, but under the weight of what he had put him through. The thought of catching the man clinging to his back being the feature of a similar suicidal scene sent his mind reeling.

He had really fucked up, but had he known that he was redeemable he wouldn't have let it get that far.

Giving Seth's leg a squeeze in silent apology, Dean said, "Got it. You've got full permission to kick the living crap out of me if I try that again, which I won't."

"Then stop worrying…I can feel it all over you."

There was a moment when Dean's step faltered. 'How did he know?'

Seth let out a long yawn then said, "I know what you're thinking…not gonna let it happen again…"

"Oh yeah? How you plan to do that?"

He really appreciated Seth's continued determination, but if he didn't find the beast again and kill it within two months time, he was finished. How could Seth continue to hang on to hope so easily?

"Mmm," Seth's voice was dreamy with sleep, "you smell good."

The soft steady puffs of air tickling Dean's neck told him that his lover was overcome with fatigue from the day. Seth had really pushed himself today, all for him.

Dean gave Seth's leg another squeeze and trekked on, promising to push himself just as hard to achieve this last chance that he was given, even if it seemed out of his reach.

He would grab a hold of that chance, hang on to it for dear life, and when he was finally cured, he would fully embrace a life with Seth by his side. Forever.

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