I have a pretty big appetite in general, but there's something unnerving about eating an entire plate of food, plus my own appetizer, a crap ton of bread and still feeling like I could eat more. This was going to make food shopping a helluva a lot more expensive, course there's plenty of open territory where Coyote and I live, we could always go hunt. Although I didn't know if the energy spent tracking and eating something would be offset but what we managed to catch. It also kind of bothered me how easy that thought came to me, going and hunting down a deer, on all fours. It actually sounded fun and I wasn't quite sure what that said about me. We kept the conversation away from werewolves while eating. I called Gerald once I finished and changed the story to we were going to deal with Purgatory while they cleaned up the monsters. He said he didn't want to know what that meant and was happy to stick to dealing with shit that didn't make him question realiity even more. I wish I had that option. Then I texted Cas, told him we were alive with complicatons and we'd be heading back to the Bunker in a few hours in case he wanted to meet us there instead. He texted back that he assumed complications meant whatever we had to tell him was best discussed there rather than a hotel and he'd redirect to the Bunker. One thing I've always appreciated about Cas, he knows how to wait for things. On the flip side of that, the one thing that used to irritate the hell out of me about him was how long it took him to understand sharing information when it was useful and not wait until the last minute. Guess that's pretty much the pot calling the kettle black though coming from me.

The food, or the act of eating, seemed to help settle Roy and Oliver. Dig knew better than to ask questions until we were away from people that could overhear. Turns out the wolf senses didn't disappear when we were human. I could clearly make out every single conversation within the entire lounge area when I focused on them. Hell, I managed to catch some sounds from the kitchen as well, and the smells. Talk about overwhelming at first. Anything sugary smelled extra sweet, the smell of bacon, or any meat really, had a whole lot more layers now. I could tell the type of meat that was on a plate when the waiter walked by without even looking at it. Then there was the people smells, uggh. Deodorant, cologne, aftershave, shampoo, body odor in general. Everything was so much stronger, and it was really obvious now who wore cheap ass shit. Thank God Coyote didn't wear anything strong smelling in general. She went for more subtle natural scents with things she wore and products she used, if she hadn't we'd be tossing a lot of bottles when we got back home.

As I processed all of that while we ate I started picking out other smells from people. A couple sitting four tables away from us had had a fight before breakfast, I could smell the anger even if they were acting fine. Another couple to our right, well they'd had some early morning fun. There was a family with three kids. The youngest boy was still in diapers and he'd just filled them. Gross. I could tell so much just from the smells around me, it was interesting and creepy at the same time.

I'd watched Oliver as he worked his way through the same things I was, he was starting to calculate how this turn of events may be useful for him. It'd be damn hard for people to sneak up on him now, between the hearing and the sense of smell he'd be miles ahead of everyone around him. It didn't surprise me that he'd put that together and fast, he's a survivor, just like Sam and I. You take whatever shit the world throws at you and find a way to make it work for you.

When we all finished, I downed the last bit of my coffee and spoke up, "Let's head back to my room, we can sort stuff out there." They just nodded and followed Coyote and I down the hall. Once we'd all filed inside, shut the door and they sprawled out over the bed, floor and chairs Oliver, Roy, Coyote and Dig just looked at Sam and I. I gestured to Sam to see if he wanted to start this little gathering.

He sighed, "Fine. Let's talk Purgatory first. Dean and I are going to have a conversation with Death, as in the actual Horseman slash entity of Death, along with one or more angels and maybe even the King of Hell if we have to. Our working theory is that since Reapers are helping monsters to escape Death won't be pleased. Death is in charge of Reapers and he's pretty OCD about them staying on task. If we can get him to stop the Reapers and make it clear that them going rogue isn't their best option for a long life span that will be a start. Then we need to close the portal, we're hoping an angel can, or at least know if it will close once there are no more humans in Purgatory. If they don't Crowley, the King of Hell might. He's also a witch, and damn good with spells, as much as I hate to admit it. The whole idea is to keep Dean and I from having to go back there. Dean lost a year there already. Who knows how much time will pass here if we have to go there to fix this shit. As Dean put it, the beings that are supposed to be running this place should step up and try to fix it every now and then."

It was pretty apparent that Oliver and Roy had hit their limit of being shocked at anything we said. They'd just had a crash course into alternate realities and beings that were supposedly just myths. Dig? Not so much. As soon as Sam had mentioned actually talking to Death, not to mention Crowley that rock solid exterior he'd managed to keep up straight up vanished.

"Back up, you said something about talking to Death? What? How?"

"Death can be summoned," Sam answered, "We've done it before. He likes pickle chips and good food so we try to make sure we have something for him. He's the only supernatural being we do that for."

"Yeah, since we keep ditching him. One of these times he might actually get offended by it." I'll never not be nervous talking to Death. He's too calm, never seems to have an agenda and there's no real leverage I could ever have on him. He's Death, who the hell does he have to be worried about? That, and in a twisted sort of way, other than Cas, he's the only supernatural being I actually trust and respect. At least until I got together with Coyote, her guides seem to be pretty on the level. Death's never screwed us over, even after we bound him that one time. I think he finds Sam and I interesting, which really unnerves me.

"So, let me get this straight," Dig said, "You summon Death, tell him what's going on and hope he helps because you feed him?"

"It'd be nice if it was that easy," I replied, "Course with Death, you can never really tell, he seems to appreciate the food. It's more about keeping the balance, not that Sam and I usually bother with playing by the rules, but Death is big on that. When things get out of whack, there are a lot of unintended consequences and Death doesn't like that. What we're hoping is that he sees these Reapers as disobeying their prime job and shuts them down. Of the two things we need to do, dealing with Death will be the easiest. Getting angels to do anything useful is nearly impossible and Crowley won't do anything unless there's some sort of perk in it for him." I also doubted Crowley would be in an understanding mood since Sam threatened him last time they talked but Dig and the rest didn't need to know about that.

"And how are we supposed to help with this?" Oliver asked in a quiet voice.

"You're not actually," I told him. "Once you get on the radar of these things, you never get off of it. I don't want any of you within miles of us when we do this."

"So what, we go back to Starling and hope we don't rip someone to shreds?" His quiet tone was turning aggressive and his eyes locked onto mine.

The wolf side flared up and without even thinking about it a low growl rumbled through me, the wolf felt he was challenging me. Oliver's lip curled up in a snarl, baring his teeth. That's when I heard Sam's growl matching mine. Oliver took a step forward, Roy grabbed his arm and that's when Coyote moved.

Coyote stood up, got between us and a calmness rippled through the pack bond. Right after the calm came a sense of imposed order. "Settle down! All of you!" There was no denying her when she took that tone, the alpha had spoken.

Oliver closed his eyes and turned his head away from me. Sam and I instantly settled down.

"What the fuck was that?" Dig asked.

"The wolf side," Coyote explained. "Dean's wolf thought Oliver was challenging him. We were told the pack rank goes Me, Sam and Dean are pretty much even, although if Dean and I weren't a couple Dean would be below Sam, then Oliver, then Roy. The wolves we ate explained a lot about how this works. We had to to do it Dig, when we came back from the wolf side was so hungry, so hard to control. We managed to use it to our advantage and rip Mairyn and her pack to shreds. Once Mairyn fled, the remaining four wolves explained that since I was more dominant than Mariyn the bonds she had formed with them could be broken and they could be pulled into our pack."

She kept talking and Dig's eyes just kept getting wider. She went through the whole day, step by step. While she did that I tried to figure out how to keep us all safe and make sure Oliver and Roy could handle being out on the streets fighting again. We could have them stay at a hotel while we dealt with Death and the rest but after that I wasn't sure. Sam or I may have to go back to Starling with him for a few months until they adapted to this whole thing. There was no way Oliver would stay at the Bunker, researching, waiting for a cure. He was already getting impatient. I guess Coyote could order him but I knew she wouldn't go for that and I wasn't about to keep Oliver hostage. There may be no way back and he'd have to learn how to live with this. Then Sam looked at me and I could tell he'd already figured out an answer to the problem.

Coyote had gotten to right around when Dig showed up. Sam let her finish and looked back at Oliver and Roy while Dig processed. "How's this sound? I doubt Dean wants Coyote anywhere near Death and friends either. All of us need to see if we can handle high stress situations now but in a way that limits the chances of us losing it. Coyote can keep you two in line and Dean and I will even each other out. We always have before. So here's my idea. You two and Coyote go on a hunt while Dean and I take care of our end. If you shred a vamp or whatever it's no great loss, or maybe go after a vengeful spirit. Those things are all low threat levels compared to the being surrounded by criminals in the streets of Starling, especially since we really can't be killed or turned into anything else."

It was a pretty clever plan actually.

Roy shot him a questioning look, "What about you and Dean? You need to figure that out too."

"Trust me, negotiating with angels, Death and Crowley will push our buttons plenty," I said, "Especially Crowley and Cas will be with us. If we get out of hand he can just put us to sleep," I thought about that phrase, sort of had a different meaning now that we were part wolf. "Not permanently, just make us sleep."

Coyote wasn't entirely on board with it though, worry flooded the bond but she pulled it back as quick as she could. It wasn't just worry about me, she was as scared about this as they were. "You seriously think I'm going to leave you to go hunt right now?" She was trying to keep her face neutral but I saw the pleading in her eyes which came along with the doubt I felt coming from her.

"Honey, you can do this and Sam's right. I don't want any of these things to get a whiff of you, of us. Once they do, every single person back home is in danger. They'll be seen as leverage." That got her pissed off, which was better than worried at the moment. "One hunt. We'll track down a haunting, cake walk hunt, comparatively speaking. Those are mostly investigating anyway, not a lot of hand to hand action. Please."

She frowned, "Because the whole cursed object thing we just did with Jacob was a cake walk."

"I said comparatively."

She mulled it over for another minute or so, growing more and more calm as she did. She knew how paranoid I was about demons or anything else finding us. "I see your point. One hunt. Then we figure out long term strategies on dealing with this. Oliver? Roy?"

Roy shrugged and looked pretty helpless. "I guess. I don't want to go back and hurt someone."

Oliver was struggling, he wasn't used to being in a position where someone forced him to back down like Coyote just had, of not being in charge, of having something inside trying to overpower his rational mind. He tightened his jaw, tried to meet my eyes again and had to drop his gaze pretty fast. I managed to keep my wolf in check this time but it wasn't easy.

"Fine. I don't have any other choice.," He finally muttered, "I'm going to call Felicity. Tell me when we're heading out. Roy, you should probably call Thea." He turned away, back stiff and walked out. Damn.

Roy followed, a lot slower and with not nearly as much confidence. Before he opened the door he looked back at us, he reminded me so much of Sam when we couldn't save Madison, so lost, hurting so damn much. He was the monster though, not the person he loved. These are the conversations that you can never prepare for, no matter how long you hunt.

"What do I even say?" He asked.

"Do you want me to talk to her? Help explain things?" Sam offered.

Roy didn't answer, he didn't need to, we felt the answer and even if we hadn't it was written all over his face. Sam just walked over to him, put his arm around Roy's shoulders and they walked out together. Talk about seeing yourself in someone else, I can't count the number of times I'd done the exact same thing with Sam. Wow.

Dig got up, "I'll go keep an eye on Oliver."

"Good idea. He'll need you," I said.

He took a step, then stopped, "Dean, what if.."

"Dig, rule number one in these situations, what ifs don't help anyone. We'll deal with it when we have to."

"Yeah...guess so." He left without another word.

Coyote and I didn't really talk about it, we just curled up next to each other on the bed. I took a couple of breaths, the scent of her hair, her skin, everything was almost overpowering. I could smell the fear, the confusion and the slow revelation of what we were hit her now that we were alone with no distractions.

"We're not human," she whispered.

"I know." I held her as she tightened her grip on my chest.

"We killed things, with our teeth. Ripped our their stomachs, we were covered in blood."

"I know." I focused on sending her as much stability as I could, it was my turn to be the rock in our relationship, not the fucked up one. After all these years Dealing with shit like this was pretty much second nature for me.

"We...Babe...I..." She struggled with the words, "What Fenris said, about all my guides being something else before. How do I trust them again? They aren't...aren't..." She couldn't finish the thought.

"Did I ever tell you about the Archangel Gabriel?"

"No."

"Sam and I ran into him a few times, worked with him once or twice, he actually gave his life for us in the end. When we first came across him we thought he was a trickster pagan god, like your Coyote. This was way before we knew angels were real. Over the years things happened and we finally found out he was an Archangel. Last time we saw him, we were stuck in this hotel with a bunch of pagan gods, big names, Odin, Kali, Baldur, Ganesha. They were trying to come together to fight Lucifer and the rest, stop the Apocalypse. Gabriel showed up, he had a thing for Kali. Anyway, all those pagan gods, not a single one of them knew he was an Archangel. They all called him Loki."

She tilted her head up "What?"

I looked down into her eyes, "Yeah, sounded like they believed he was Loki too. Gabriel had always stated he was in a Divine Relocation Program. You see, he got tired of the bickering between Lucifer, God and Michael and just left Heaven, became someone else. For a long time I thought he was a complete jackass, in the end though, he did what he did because he didn't want to fight his brother, Lucifer. I can't knock him for that. Anyway, he and Lucifer fought, Lucifer killed all the other gods and Gabriel. We got Kali out though, Gabriel made sure of that."

"All right, and?"

"Look, your guides, they help you, they've never steered you wrong. Maybe they're angels in hiding, maybe things like Fenris, but in the end it doesn't matter what name they went by before. They're doing what they should be doing, helping you help your people. I think they've earned a bit of trust, you know how hard it is for me to trust anything that's not human. You gave me another chance, give them some leeway here. Fenris had a point, when faced with immortality how do you fill the time. If these ones are filling their time by being helpful, that's a lot better than what they could be doing."

"Yeah, I guess. It's just." She shook her head, "I don't know why it's bothering me so much, I know there are different gods."

"Because you put faith in these, you've talked to them, they're real to you. That's why it's hard. Our god sure as hell never bothered to do that. To be honest Hon, I have more faith in your guides then I ever will in the white people's god. Yours at least show up."

She smiled, "Sometimes too much."

"Yeah, they are kind of bossy."

"Do you think Death will help you? And can I just say that's a question I never thought I would ask."

I chuckled, "I've had whole months where everything I said was something I never thought I'd say, but yeah. I think out of all of them Death will be the most likely to help. That's if the Reapers are actually going rogue and there isn't something going on behind the scenes. Which there almost always is, but I don't want to delve into all that yet."

"Why not?"

"Because, we have something more important to do." I pulled out my phone, logged into the hotel's wifi and kissed her hair.

"We do? I sort of thought this was top priority."

"Nope, this is." I typed in Alaskan cruises, "Doubt I can pass a background check for a passport, so how about Alaska?"

She sat up and looked at me like I'd completely lost my mind.

"The deal was, we make it through the hunt, we book a cruise. We made it through, now we book a cruise."

"But...what about?"

"You know how much food they have on a cruise? We won't go hungry and can probably pig out without even gaining a pound, extra perk. Besides, no one is going to attack us on a cruise ship. It'll be fine."

She still looked like I'd gone batshit crazy but she started laughing, "Just when I think I can't love you more, you go do something like this."

I winked at her, "It's part of my whole devil may care charm. Kept me sane for years, so, shall we look?"

"Sure, fuck it. Always wanted to take full advantage of an all you can eat buffet."

"That's the spirit."

We spent the next hour looking at prices, destinations and options until Sam knocked on the door. "Dean it's me."

"Come in," I said.

He unlocked the door, walked in looking utterly drained and collapsed in the chair next to the bed. "Talked to Thea and Felicity. We're ready to head back when you are."

I set the phone down, "How'd they take it?"

His eyes dropped to the floor, and not because of the wolf side, "As good as you can expect I guess. They're freaked out but sticking by Oliver and Roy."

"Sam..." I could tell him it wasn't his fault but it wouldn't matter. Just like it never mattered when people told me it wasn't my fault all the times he'd been hurt or fucked over by something. Roy was his responsibility and Oliver had come because we had asked. Therefore it was on us to fix it. "We will fix this. I promise."

"What if we can't?"

I scooted closer to him, put my hand on his shoulder and waited until he raised his eyes to meet mine. "Since when has can't ever been a word that applied to us."

He didn't say anything at first, "Yeah, but we've never had great luck fixing other people, just us. Dean..."

I knew he was thinking about Madison, hell I was thinking about Kate and Garth. "We have more resources and more knowledge now then we did back then. We will set this straight. Have faith."

I couldn't tell if that comment pissed him off or confused him, it felt like a bit of both, looked like it too. "Faith? What the hell are you talking about?"

"We've got an angel on our side and we're going to talk to Death among other things. They'll all know as soon as they see us that we're not human. You think Crowley or Death want us to be even harder to kill? Come on. Who knows, Crowley may take one look at us and just give us a way to fix it. Can you imagine the look on his face when he sees us?"

That got a nasty smile on his face, "You know, this may not be such a bad thing after all."

"Yeah, kind of nice to be closer to having an even playing field isn't it?"

"If I have to be a monster, I guess it'd be nice to be one that other monsters are scared of."

Because when it came down to it, we'd always been two humans that had somehow managed to scare the shit out of things that really had no right to be scared of us. Add this little twist it and who knows what things it could shake loose. When the powers that be fuck with you, only thing to do is make them regret it. Sort of my unspoken motto in life.