Title: Heart of a Wolf (1/3)
Rating: R (language)
Fandom(s): Supernatural
Characters: Dean, John and Bobby; mentions of Sam
Pairing: none
Spoilers: none
Genre: preSeries (set just after Sam leaves for Stanford), drama
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly. :(
Summary: After a run in with a berserker, Dean's seriously injured and unconscious. And those are the least of his problems...
As always, thanks to the wonderous beta-goddess, celebrindal25, who whacked this into shape for me. :)
A/N: This is set just after Sam leaves for Stanford. Sam doesn't actually appear here, but I'll be writing two follow up pieces to this story, so he'll show up at some point.
Heart of a Wolf (1/3)
Despite the fact that John had called ahead to warn him, Bobby still looked shocked when he opened the door to let them in. “Aw hell, John,” he said, sounding a little sick to his stomach. John understood the feeling; he had been fighting the urge to hurl for the last two hours, although in his case the need came less from disgust than from guilt.
Dean hadn’t wanted to go, damnit: he’d said that something felt wrong about it, that there was more going on in Brackford than just a werewolf staking out some new hunting grounds. John had assumed that it was Dean’s way of sulking: dragging his feet on a hunt that he’d done at least a dozen times before. Werewolves were dicey for moral reasons, but easy in practice: one quick silver shot to the heart, burn the bones, and that was it. But it had only been a month since Sam had left, and Dean had been…
Reckless, is what. He hasn’t been dragging his feet, you ass, he’s been throwing himself into things like he wants to get carved up. John should have known better, should have remembered that sulking was more Sammy’s thing than Dean’s, should have… Hindsight’s twenty/twenty, John.
“I’ve got a bed ready,” Bobby announced, hauling John out of his thoughts. He watched as Bobby moved in, arms outstretched. Then, realizing what the man was after, John stepped back and stumbled a little as his feet dragged. Hugged Dean closer to his chest.
Bobby frowned. “Don’t be an ass, John; you can barely stand. Now give me the boy before you drop him.”
John squared his jaw. “I’ve got him.” He stepped forward, sidling around Bobby, and then sagged as a wave of grey washed over his vision. Bobby caught John by the shoulders and then slid his arm underneath Dean’s torso and gently but firmly pulled him away.
John trailed after Bobby past piles of books into the spare room, wiping his hands absently on his shirt. Moot point now, really: the blood caked on his skin was dry, and it would take some hard scrubbing to get it off. Thank God for small favors. John wasn’t sure what he would have done if he hadn’t been able to get the bleeding stopped. Taken Dean to a hospital, probably, and Lord only knew what would have happened then because there was something rotten about this whole business: something wrong besides the gaping holes in his son’s body.
Bobby lay Dean down on the bed, which he’d covered with a heavy tarp, and started peeling away at what was left of his clothes. There was a bowl of steaming water on the nightstand, and a washcloth sitting next to it. Needle and thread. Bottle of peroxide. Handful of charms scattered across a musty, yellowed book. Tools of the trade, and it hurt John’s heart to look at them.
He must have made a sound because Bobby paused, half of Dean’s shirt in one hand and his knife in the other, and glanced over his shoulder. “Sit down before you fall down,” he ordered.
“’M fine.”
“Bullshit. You can pull a chair up if you want, but if you aren’t down by the time I finish here, I’m gonna put you down, you hear me?”
John grunted. “You’d try.” But he dragged one of Bobby’s sturdier chairs over and dropped into it. The joints groaned in protest and he ignored them, leaning forward to grab one of Dean’s hands as Bobby laid his son back down on the bed. So that Dean would know he was there if—when, damnit—he came around again. Bobby had stripped Dean of everything but his boxers, and now that John could see the damage clearly, he was choking on regret. Why hadn’t he listened?
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Bobby asked.
John ran his free hand through his hair. “Told you. Fucking nut job jumped us. Thought he was a wolf or something.”
“You sure he wasn’t?” Bobby was looking at the wounds, of course. Three deep scours down Dean’s neck and upper chest, across and through his left shoulder. A shallower, but more dangerous collection of the same across his lower abdomen.
John’s jaw tightened. “Guy had some kind of homemade blade: three hooks welded together.” He watched as Bobby dipped the washcloth in the water and started cleaning out the gashes on Dean's chest. “He fooled us, Bobby. Fooled me, anyway. Thought it was a werewolf, way the bodies were torn up. Guy only killed on the full moon.”
“Easy mistake,” Bobby said, voice light. He dipped the cloth again, leaving red swirls in the water.
“Dean knew.” John said it low, on a slow exhale.
“Said, ‘hey, Dad, that’s no wolf, it’s a man hacking people up with a coupla custom hooks’, did he?” Even unconscious, Dean groaned as Bobby moved down to the lower wounds, and Bobby patted his side. “Sorry, buddy.”
“He knew something was wrong.”
“Really.”
“I thought he was just dragging his feet.”
“On account of Sam, you mean.”
“Screw you, Bobby.” But it was said without any real rancor or heat. John just didn’t have the energy for anger. Didn’t have room for it, anyway, the way the guilt and remorse was filling his skin with their sickening burn.
“Dad?” Dean swam back up into consciousness, blinking groggily at the ceiling.
John tightened his grip on his son’s hand. “Right here, Dean.”
“Where…”
“My place,” Bobby said. “You caught a few good ones, but we’ll get you patched up.” He tossed the washcloth into the water, pink sloshing out onto the table, and then picked up the peroxide. “This is gonna hurt, Dean.”
Dean took in the bottle in Bobby’s hand and his eyes slipped shut. He nodded, face tightening. “Yeah, okay. Do it.”
Bobby positioned the bottle over the shallower wounds first, tipping the disinfectant across the gashes in a steady wash and pressing down on Dean’s uninjured shoulder with his free hand. Dean bucked up into it, swearing. Sweat poured off of him and his face went from pale to colorless.
When Bobby finally moved back, giving the pain a little time to settle, Dean opened his eyes again. His head flopped sideways and he tried to focus on John, pupils blown. “Tell me we got him,” he ground out.
“You got him, son. You did good.”
“Crazy son of a bitch.” Dean swallowed heavily and John could feel his son’s hand trembling. “How bad is it?”
“You’re gonna be fine.”
“Not what I asked.”
John’s throat locked up on him. He didn’t know the answer, not for sure, but it wasn’t a good one. Not with gashes like these.
“Dad?” Dean’s voice shook a little this time.
Bobby moved in smoothly, deflecting. “Gotta do the rest. You ready?”
Dean frowned a little, and it was obvious that even through the pain he knew that they were sidestepping his question. He couldn’t seem to find the strength to argue, though, so in the end he just clenched his jaw and nodded. Bobby dipped the bottle, a wash of white across Dean’s shoulder, and Dean didn’t even have time to scream before passing out.
John watched as his son went limp, face easing out as his muscles relaxed. “How bad is it?” he asked, forcing the question out.
Bobby glanced at him as he put the empty bottle back on the table. “You should know, John. You’ve seen as much as I have, comes to stuff like this.”
“I know, I just can’t…” He couldn’t make his mind work that way: couldn’t assess the damage when it was Dean lying there, cut up worse than ever before. Fraction of a centimeter deeper and he’d have been holding his intestines in his hands, for Christ’s sake.
Bobby threaded the needle and set to work, shoulder first this time, taking advantage of Dean’s unconsciousness. “He’s gonna scar up good. Dunno about his arm: muscle there’s pretty torn up. Good thing he’s right handed.”
“Damn it. Damn it all to hell.” John unclenched his grip on Dean’s hand to try to smooth out his son’s hair. Found blood matted in it, and wondered how the hell it had gotten there: from the initial spray, most likely, or maybe it was from the crazy bastard who’d done this to Dean in the first place.
“You sure you don’t want to take him in?” Bobby asked. He was holding the first of the tears shut with one hand, working the needle through with the other. “These get infected, and we’re gonna be in some serious trouble.”
“I know. But…”
“But what?”
John shook his head, trying to think straight through the exhaustion and fear muddling his mind. “I didn’t listen to Dean’s instincts before and I nearly got him killed. Not gonna ignore my own gut now.”
“It saying anything I oughta know about?”
“Nothing specific. Just that that something was off with that man—besides the fact that he was bugshit crazy.”
“Anything we can do?” Bobby jerked his head toward the pile of charms. “Pulled out a little of this, little of that, just in case.”
John pressed his lips together, thinking. “Holy water for a start; cleans out a hell of a lot of stuff.”
“Already done.” John glanced at the bowl of bloodied water as Bobby continued, “And before you ask, this was my gran’s sewing needle: pure silver—old girl liked her luxuries.”
John nodded. “Didn’t think he was a werewolf, but I guess it’s good to rule it out.”
“Guess so,” Bobby agreed, voice mild. He tied off the thread on the first gash and moved onto the second. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Why don’t you get out of those clothes while I finish up here? Take a shower, eat something. When you’re ready, I’ve got a cot out back. We can wheel it in, set you up next to Dean.”
John wanted to stay, but knew objectively that he wasn’t doing any good here, was only eating himself up over it. Dean was unconscious, and liable to stay that way for a while. He wouldn’t miss John if he stepped out for a few minutes. So he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly, and Bobby reached out a hand to steady him without looking.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. You just go take care of yourself for a bit; I’ve got Dean.”
John shuffled toward the door and then paused, looking back. “I told him the truth, right?” he asked. “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m not gonna lie to you, John. He’ll live to break more hearts, get around okay. But hunting? If his muscles don’t knit up right, that arm’s gonna be a hell of a liability.”
The air slid out of John’s lungs in a shuddering exhale. “Yeah, I know.”
“As for that gut of yours, we’ll load the boy down with a little bit of everything for tonight, see if we can’t sort it out in the morning.”
“I owe you one.”
“Don’t think I won’t collect, neither. Now get your ass out of here and let me work.”
John went.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dean was standing in the middle of the woods, watching himself be cut down in a continuous, painful loop. He stood on top of a small hill, looking down on himself as he and Dad hiked in toward the place that Dad had pegged for the werewolf’s hunting grounds.
Dean had taken point: silver-loaded gun out and ready, back-up knife in his belt. Dad trailed after, similarly armed. Dean had been scanning ahead, looking for any sign of the werewolf, and he hadn’t paid much attention to the small hollow to his left. Because werewolves were big fuckers: too big to fold themselves into such a small space.
So he’d moved past it, and hadn’t seen the man emerge, wearing old sweats and a t-shirt and a belt of ratty fur, and wielding a triple-bladed hook in each hand. Dad had seen, though, and shouted a warning even as he raised his gun. The man moved like some kind of animal, lashing a quick kick to John’s chest and toppling him over before spinning around to slash at Dean.
Dean watched as he tried to bring his own gun up. Watched the nut job kick it out of his hand while bringing the right hook down and across his chest, driving him back and opening him up. Watched himself fumble at his belt for his knife, left arm hanging uselessly. Watched the nut job dance in closer, a snarl on his face, and swipe up with his left hand: the cut sliced through Dean’s stomach, making him falter. The man’s other hand was coming around, heading for his throat, and Dean could tell that he wasn’t going to get his own knife up in time.
But then the man…hesitated. His body shook, arm poised for the killing stroke, and his face twisted in rage. But he didn’t press forward, and the hook didn’t fall.
Instead, Dean watched as his knife finally came free of its holster. Watched himself shove the blade into the man’s chest, between his ribs, before collapsing into a heap, the nut job coming down on top of him. Dad was just now righting himself—it had all happened so damned fast—and he was getting up, panic on his face, running toward Dean…
The world stuttered and then it was starting again. Dean taking point, obliviously moving toward the man’s hiding hole.
“What the hell?” Dean muttered. He stood there, not sure what else he was supposed to be doing, and watched as the man cut him up yet again. Watched him slide from one slash into a second into a killing stroke that should have fallen and hadn’t.
“Why the fuck didn’t he do it?”
::Stopped him.::
“Wha…” The word died in Dean’s throat as he spotted a flash of gray pelt at the corner of his vision. He took a few shaky steps backwards as a massive timber wolf padded toward him, tongue lolling from one side of a wide grin. “Good doggie.”
The wolf’s ears flattened back against its skull and its lips peeled back from its jaws. ::Not ‘doggie’. Hunter.::
Dean searched for something to say that wouldn’t get him in trouble here and finally settled on, “What are you?”
::Hunter. You hunt. We hunt.::
Dean frowned. “Not really an answer there, Cujo. Who are you? What am I doing here, wherever here is?”
::Hunter. Here is home.::
Okay, obviously those questions weren’t getting answered anytime soon. Dean decided to try a new line of questioning. “Why am I here?”
::Saved you.::
Dean glanced at the looping memory of his life, wincing as the nut job sliced him open again. The nut job wearing a fur belt. And here Dean was, talking to a wolf. Oh, fucking hell.
“He was a berserker, wasn’t he?” he said, looking back at the wolf. “You’re some kind of animal spirit he invited into his body.”
::Yes.::
This was making just about zero sense. “Why stop him from killing me, then? I mean, that’s what berserkers do, isn’t it? That’s what you do.”
::Bad man. Not hunter. You hunter. Hunt good together.::
“Come again?” Dean wasn’t hearing this right; he couldn’t be.
The wolf edged toward him, grinning. ::Sensed you. Strong hunter. Good partner. Better.::
Oh hell, he was hearing it right. He’d heard about berserkers, even if he hadn’t tangled with one himself before. They were serious bad news. A person could control the spirit at first, to a certain extent, but the more they tapped into its powers, the more they started to go…wrong. Feral. In the end, they regressed right the fuck back into whatever type of animal they’d bound themselves with. Pastor Jim called it soul bleed: said it was the inevitable result of a human soul melding into one with its animal passenger. The beast was always stronger than the man. Always.
Dean cleared his throat. “That’s real flattering, but I’m not interested.”
::Good hunts,:: the wolf wheedled. ::Make you fast, make you strong. Could have killed you. Saved you.::
“Thanks, but no thanks. Now you wanna show me the way out of here?”
::Felt you. Heard you. Still hear. Anger. Want to fight. Want to hunt. Want to kill. Want to bleed.::
Dean stepped back, trying to put more distance between himself and the wolf. “Look, there’s a difference between being a little pissed off about how shitty your life is and wanting to kill everything that moves, okay?”
::Lonely. Miss SamBrotherFriendPartnerSammy. Need me.::
Dean swore under his breath, ignoring the sudden, sharp pain in his chest that the wolf’s words caused. Sam. Of course it all came back to Sam: in the end, everything always did. And suddenly the hurt was washed away by a flood of anger. If Sam hadn’t run off on him, then this never would have happened. He and Sam and Dad would’ve iced that berserker from a hundred feet away and right now he’d be celebrating their victory over a couple of beers. And, if he was lucky, cozying up to one of the pretty waitresses.
::Yes. Hunt kill feed fuck.::
“Stay out of my head!” Dean snapped.
::Not in head.::
“Oh yeah? Then how the hell did you kno…” He trailed off as the wolf continued to stare at him, contentment in every line of its body. Glanced over at himself as he killed the berserker yet again. His memory, on display. Dean swallowed the rising panic. “No. You’re not. You can’t. I didn’t summon you.”
::Saved you. Mine now,:: the wolf said smugly.
“The fuck I am! Get out!” Dean bent down and grabbed a rock. Lobbed it at the wolf. The wolf dodged to one side, panting happily. “Get the fuck out of me!”
::We hunt. Good partner. Two-as-one. Stronger. Better. You see.::
“I don’t want this,” Dean said. “Do you understand? I. Don’t. Want. This. Get out and go find someone who does!”
He blinked and there was fur under his hand, heat along his side. The wolf was standing next to him, leaning on him. Its tongue snaked out and brushed his fingers.
Dean yelped, stumbling away from it, and suddenly he was in Bobby’s spare room, tripping on the bed and practically falling on top of his own body, which was lying in the bed and swathed with heavy cloth bandages. The wolf bounded up next to him and Dean shoved himself back, away from it. It ignored him, sniffing up the length of the body in the bed.
“Hey! Get off…me.” God, this was weird. The wolf found the lower bandages and started worrying at them, tearing them off with teeth and claws. Dean winced. “Stop it! I mean it; I don’t want you here.”
The bandages parted, revealing sore, feverish-looking skin beneath, sewed up with neat, economical stitches. “Don’t—” Dean started, and then the wolf was licking at the first gash and pain flared in his stomach. He dropped to the floor, one hand curling protectively around his abdomen.
“What the…fuck…”
::Fix you. Hurt. Can’t hunt. Fix you, then we hunt.::
Oh Christ, this hurt more than actually getting cut open in the first place. “Not…interested…go play…in someone…else’s…soul…”
::Want you. You Hunter. Lonely. Angry. Make it better.::
“You can’t fucking make it better!” Dean snarled, and then gasped as the wolf moved on to the wounds across his chest and shoulder.
::One and one is one. Good. Choose you. Make you whole.::
“Oh, goddamnit, you stupid, fucking wolf!”
::Better. You see. Good.::
Not good, not good at all, but the pain was finally stopping, at least. Dean raised his head, searching desperately for some way to get the wolf to fuck off. It was leaning off the edge of the bed, looking down at him. Dean scowled, and then it was leaping toward him, though him, into him. Something heavy and hot lodged inside his ribs, pressing against his insides. Dean swore and slammed his fist against the floor.
“I swear to God, the first thing I’m gonna do when I wake up is evict your furry ass.”
There was a sullen silence, and then, from inside him, almost meekly, ::Wouldn’t.::
Dean laughed. “Wanna bet?”
::Won’t,:: the wolf said, more firmly. And then, craftily, ::Won’t remember.::
“Won’t re—Don’t you dare mess around with my head!”
::Sleep now.:: Furry son of a bitch sounded smug. ::Hunt tomorrow.::
Dean wanted to argue, but darkness was crowding in on him, pushing awareness out. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the padding of heavy feet, running, hunting, drawing nearer. Shit, he thought, and then there was nothing.
Next Chapter
Rating: R (language)
Fandom(s): Supernatural
Characters: Dean, John and Bobby; mentions of Sam
Pairing: none
Spoilers: none
Genre: preSeries (set just after Sam leaves for Stanford), drama
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly. :(
Summary: After a run in with a berserker, Dean's seriously injured and unconscious. And those are the least of his problems...
As always, thanks to the wonderous beta-goddess, celebrindal25, who whacked this into shape for me. :)
A/N: This is set just after Sam leaves for Stanford. Sam doesn't actually appear here, but I'll be writing two follow up pieces to this story, so he'll show up at some point.
Heart of a Wolf (1/3)
Despite the fact that John had called ahead to warn him, Bobby still looked shocked when he opened the door to let them in. “Aw hell, John,” he said, sounding a little sick to his stomach. John understood the feeling; he had been fighting the urge to hurl for the last two hours, although in his case the need came less from disgust than from guilt.
Dean hadn’t wanted to go, damnit: he’d said that something felt wrong about it, that there was more going on in Brackford than just a werewolf staking out some new hunting grounds. John had assumed that it was Dean’s way of sulking: dragging his feet on a hunt that he’d done at least a dozen times before. Werewolves were dicey for moral reasons, but easy in practice: one quick silver shot to the heart, burn the bones, and that was it. But it had only been a month since Sam had left, and Dean had been…
Reckless, is what. He hasn’t been dragging his feet, you ass, he’s been throwing himself into things like he wants to get carved up. John should have known better, should have remembered that sulking was more Sammy’s thing than Dean’s, should have… Hindsight’s twenty/twenty, John.
“I’ve got a bed ready,” Bobby announced, hauling John out of his thoughts. He watched as Bobby moved in, arms outstretched. Then, realizing what the man was after, John stepped back and stumbled a little as his feet dragged. Hugged Dean closer to his chest.
Bobby frowned. “Don’t be an ass, John; you can barely stand. Now give me the boy before you drop him.”
John squared his jaw. “I’ve got him.” He stepped forward, sidling around Bobby, and then sagged as a wave of grey washed over his vision. Bobby caught John by the shoulders and then slid his arm underneath Dean’s torso and gently but firmly pulled him away.
John trailed after Bobby past piles of books into the spare room, wiping his hands absently on his shirt. Moot point now, really: the blood caked on his skin was dry, and it would take some hard scrubbing to get it off. Thank God for small favors. John wasn’t sure what he would have done if he hadn’t been able to get the bleeding stopped. Taken Dean to a hospital, probably, and Lord only knew what would have happened then because there was something rotten about this whole business: something wrong besides the gaping holes in his son’s body.
Bobby lay Dean down on the bed, which he’d covered with a heavy tarp, and started peeling away at what was left of his clothes. There was a bowl of steaming water on the nightstand, and a washcloth sitting next to it. Needle and thread. Bottle of peroxide. Handful of charms scattered across a musty, yellowed book. Tools of the trade, and it hurt John’s heart to look at them.
He must have made a sound because Bobby paused, half of Dean’s shirt in one hand and his knife in the other, and glanced over his shoulder. “Sit down before you fall down,” he ordered.
“’M fine.”
“Bullshit. You can pull a chair up if you want, but if you aren’t down by the time I finish here, I’m gonna put you down, you hear me?”
John grunted. “You’d try.” But he dragged one of Bobby’s sturdier chairs over and dropped into it. The joints groaned in protest and he ignored them, leaning forward to grab one of Dean’s hands as Bobby laid his son back down on the bed. So that Dean would know he was there if—when, damnit—he came around again. Bobby had stripped Dean of everything but his boxers, and now that John could see the damage clearly, he was choking on regret. Why hadn’t he listened?
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Bobby asked.
John ran his free hand through his hair. “Told you. Fucking nut job jumped us. Thought he was a wolf or something.”
“You sure he wasn’t?” Bobby was looking at the wounds, of course. Three deep scours down Dean’s neck and upper chest, across and through his left shoulder. A shallower, but more dangerous collection of the same across his lower abdomen.
John’s jaw tightened. “Guy had some kind of homemade blade: three hooks welded together.” He watched as Bobby dipped the washcloth in the water and started cleaning out the gashes on Dean's chest. “He fooled us, Bobby. Fooled me, anyway. Thought it was a werewolf, way the bodies were torn up. Guy only killed on the full moon.”
“Easy mistake,” Bobby said, voice light. He dipped the cloth again, leaving red swirls in the water.
“Dean knew.” John said it low, on a slow exhale.
“Said, ‘hey, Dad, that’s no wolf, it’s a man hacking people up with a coupla custom hooks’, did he?” Even unconscious, Dean groaned as Bobby moved down to the lower wounds, and Bobby patted his side. “Sorry, buddy.”
“He knew something was wrong.”
“Really.”
“I thought he was just dragging his feet.”
“On account of Sam, you mean.”
“Screw you, Bobby.” But it was said without any real rancor or heat. John just didn’t have the energy for anger. Didn’t have room for it, anyway, the way the guilt and remorse was filling his skin with their sickening burn.
“Dad?” Dean swam back up into consciousness, blinking groggily at the ceiling.
John tightened his grip on his son’s hand. “Right here, Dean.”
“Where…”
“My place,” Bobby said. “You caught a few good ones, but we’ll get you patched up.” He tossed the washcloth into the water, pink sloshing out onto the table, and then picked up the peroxide. “This is gonna hurt, Dean.”
Dean took in the bottle in Bobby’s hand and his eyes slipped shut. He nodded, face tightening. “Yeah, okay. Do it.”
Bobby positioned the bottle over the shallower wounds first, tipping the disinfectant across the gashes in a steady wash and pressing down on Dean’s uninjured shoulder with his free hand. Dean bucked up into it, swearing. Sweat poured off of him and his face went from pale to colorless.
When Bobby finally moved back, giving the pain a little time to settle, Dean opened his eyes again. His head flopped sideways and he tried to focus on John, pupils blown. “Tell me we got him,” he ground out.
“You got him, son. You did good.”
“Crazy son of a bitch.” Dean swallowed heavily and John could feel his son’s hand trembling. “How bad is it?”
“You’re gonna be fine.”
“Not what I asked.”
John’s throat locked up on him. He didn’t know the answer, not for sure, but it wasn’t a good one. Not with gashes like these.
“Dad?” Dean’s voice shook a little this time.
Bobby moved in smoothly, deflecting. “Gotta do the rest. You ready?”
Dean frowned a little, and it was obvious that even through the pain he knew that they were sidestepping his question. He couldn’t seem to find the strength to argue, though, so in the end he just clenched his jaw and nodded. Bobby dipped the bottle, a wash of white across Dean’s shoulder, and Dean didn’t even have time to scream before passing out.
John watched as his son went limp, face easing out as his muscles relaxed. “How bad is it?” he asked, forcing the question out.
Bobby glanced at him as he put the empty bottle back on the table. “You should know, John. You’ve seen as much as I have, comes to stuff like this.”
“I know, I just can’t…” He couldn’t make his mind work that way: couldn’t assess the damage when it was Dean lying there, cut up worse than ever before. Fraction of a centimeter deeper and he’d have been holding his intestines in his hands, for Christ’s sake.
Bobby threaded the needle and set to work, shoulder first this time, taking advantage of Dean’s unconsciousness. “He’s gonna scar up good. Dunno about his arm: muscle there’s pretty torn up. Good thing he’s right handed.”
“Damn it. Damn it all to hell.” John unclenched his grip on Dean’s hand to try to smooth out his son’s hair. Found blood matted in it, and wondered how the hell it had gotten there: from the initial spray, most likely, or maybe it was from the crazy bastard who’d done this to Dean in the first place.
“You sure you don’t want to take him in?” Bobby asked. He was holding the first of the tears shut with one hand, working the needle through with the other. “These get infected, and we’re gonna be in some serious trouble.”
“I know. But…”
“But what?”
John shook his head, trying to think straight through the exhaustion and fear muddling his mind. “I didn’t listen to Dean’s instincts before and I nearly got him killed. Not gonna ignore my own gut now.”
“It saying anything I oughta know about?”
“Nothing specific. Just that that something was off with that man—besides the fact that he was bugshit crazy.”
“Anything we can do?” Bobby jerked his head toward the pile of charms. “Pulled out a little of this, little of that, just in case.”
John pressed his lips together, thinking. “Holy water for a start; cleans out a hell of a lot of stuff.”
“Already done.” John glanced at the bowl of bloodied water as Bobby continued, “And before you ask, this was my gran’s sewing needle: pure silver—old girl liked her luxuries.”
John nodded. “Didn’t think he was a werewolf, but I guess it’s good to rule it out.”
“Guess so,” Bobby agreed, voice mild. He tied off the thread on the first gash and moved onto the second. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Why don’t you get out of those clothes while I finish up here? Take a shower, eat something. When you’re ready, I’ve got a cot out back. We can wheel it in, set you up next to Dean.”
John wanted to stay, but knew objectively that he wasn’t doing any good here, was only eating himself up over it. Dean was unconscious, and liable to stay that way for a while. He wouldn’t miss John if he stepped out for a few minutes. So he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly, and Bobby reached out a hand to steady him without looking.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. You just go take care of yourself for a bit; I’ve got Dean.”
John shuffled toward the door and then paused, looking back. “I told him the truth, right?” he asked. “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m not gonna lie to you, John. He’ll live to break more hearts, get around okay. But hunting? If his muscles don’t knit up right, that arm’s gonna be a hell of a liability.”
The air slid out of John’s lungs in a shuddering exhale. “Yeah, I know.”
“As for that gut of yours, we’ll load the boy down with a little bit of everything for tonight, see if we can’t sort it out in the morning.”
“I owe you one.”
“Don’t think I won’t collect, neither. Now get your ass out of here and let me work.”
John went.
Dean was standing in the middle of the woods, watching himself be cut down in a continuous, painful loop. He stood on top of a small hill, looking down on himself as he and Dad hiked in toward the place that Dad had pegged for the werewolf’s hunting grounds.
Dean had taken point: silver-loaded gun out and ready, back-up knife in his belt. Dad trailed after, similarly armed. Dean had been scanning ahead, looking for any sign of the werewolf, and he hadn’t paid much attention to the small hollow to his left. Because werewolves were big fuckers: too big to fold themselves into such a small space.
So he’d moved past it, and hadn’t seen the man emerge, wearing old sweats and a t-shirt and a belt of ratty fur, and wielding a triple-bladed hook in each hand. Dad had seen, though, and shouted a warning even as he raised his gun. The man moved like some kind of animal, lashing a quick kick to John’s chest and toppling him over before spinning around to slash at Dean.
Dean watched as he tried to bring his own gun up. Watched the nut job kick it out of his hand while bringing the right hook down and across his chest, driving him back and opening him up. Watched himself fumble at his belt for his knife, left arm hanging uselessly. Watched the nut job dance in closer, a snarl on his face, and swipe up with his left hand: the cut sliced through Dean’s stomach, making him falter. The man’s other hand was coming around, heading for his throat, and Dean could tell that he wasn’t going to get his own knife up in time.
But then the man…hesitated. His body shook, arm poised for the killing stroke, and his face twisted in rage. But he didn’t press forward, and the hook didn’t fall.
Instead, Dean watched as his knife finally came free of its holster. Watched himself shove the blade into the man’s chest, between his ribs, before collapsing into a heap, the nut job coming down on top of him. Dad was just now righting himself—it had all happened so damned fast—and he was getting up, panic on his face, running toward Dean…
The world stuttered and then it was starting again. Dean taking point, obliviously moving toward the man’s hiding hole.
“What the hell?” Dean muttered. He stood there, not sure what else he was supposed to be doing, and watched as the man cut him up yet again. Watched him slide from one slash into a second into a killing stroke that should have fallen and hadn’t.
“Why the fuck didn’t he do it?”
::Stopped him.::
“Wha…” The word died in Dean’s throat as he spotted a flash of gray pelt at the corner of his vision. He took a few shaky steps backwards as a massive timber wolf padded toward him, tongue lolling from one side of a wide grin. “Good doggie.”
The wolf’s ears flattened back against its skull and its lips peeled back from its jaws. ::Not ‘doggie’. Hunter.::
Dean searched for something to say that wouldn’t get him in trouble here and finally settled on, “What are you?”
::Hunter. You hunt. We hunt.::
Dean frowned. “Not really an answer there, Cujo. Who are you? What am I doing here, wherever here is?”
::Hunter. Here is home.::
Okay, obviously those questions weren’t getting answered anytime soon. Dean decided to try a new line of questioning. “Why am I here?”
::Saved you.::
Dean glanced at the looping memory of his life, wincing as the nut job sliced him open again. The nut job wearing a fur belt. And here Dean was, talking to a wolf. Oh, fucking hell.
“He was a berserker, wasn’t he?” he said, looking back at the wolf. “You’re some kind of animal spirit he invited into his body.”
::Yes.::
This was making just about zero sense. “Why stop him from killing me, then? I mean, that’s what berserkers do, isn’t it? That’s what you do.”
::Bad man. Not hunter. You hunter. Hunt good together.::
“Come again?” Dean wasn’t hearing this right; he couldn’t be.
The wolf edged toward him, grinning. ::Sensed you. Strong hunter. Good partner. Better.::
Oh hell, he was hearing it right. He’d heard about berserkers, even if he hadn’t tangled with one himself before. They were serious bad news. A person could control the spirit at first, to a certain extent, but the more they tapped into its powers, the more they started to go…wrong. Feral. In the end, they regressed right the fuck back into whatever type of animal they’d bound themselves with. Pastor Jim called it soul bleed: said it was the inevitable result of a human soul melding into one with its animal passenger. The beast was always stronger than the man. Always.
Dean cleared his throat. “That’s real flattering, but I’m not interested.”
::Good hunts,:: the wolf wheedled. ::Make you fast, make you strong. Could have killed you. Saved you.::
“Thanks, but no thanks. Now you wanna show me the way out of here?”
::Felt you. Heard you. Still hear. Anger. Want to fight. Want to hunt. Want to kill. Want to bleed.::
Dean stepped back, trying to put more distance between himself and the wolf. “Look, there’s a difference between being a little pissed off about how shitty your life is and wanting to kill everything that moves, okay?”
::Lonely. Miss SamBrotherFriendPartnerSammy. Need me.::
Dean swore under his breath, ignoring the sudden, sharp pain in his chest that the wolf’s words caused. Sam. Of course it all came back to Sam: in the end, everything always did. And suddenly the hurt was washed away by a flood of anger. If Sam hadn’t run off on him, then this never would have happened. He and Sam and Dad would’ve iced that berserker from a hundred feet away and right now he’d be celebrating their victory over a couple of beers. And, if he was lucky, cozying up to one of the pretty waitresses.
::Yes. Hunt kill feed fuck.::
“Stay out of my head!” Dean snapped.
::Not in head.::
“Oh yeah? Then how the hell did you kno…” He trailed off as the wolf continued to stare at him, contentment in every line of its body. Glanced over at himself as he killed the berserker yet again. His memory, on display. Dean swallowed the rising panic. “No. You’re not. You can’t. I didn’t summon you.”
::Saved you. Mine now,:: the wolf said smugly.
“The fuck I am! Get out!” Dean bent down and grabbed a rock. Lobbed it at the wolf. The wolf dodged to one side, panting happily. “Get the fuck out of me!”
::We hunt. Good partner. Two-as-one. Stronger. Better. You see.::
“I don’t want this,” Dean said. “Do you understand? I. Don’t. Want. This. Get out and go find someone who does!”
He blinked and there was fur under his hand, heat along his side. The wolf was standing next to him, leaning on him. Its tongue snaked out and brushed his fingers.
Dean yelped, stumbling away from it, and suddenly he was in Bobby’s spare room, tripping on the bed and practically falling on top of his own body, which was lying in the bed and swathed with heavy cloth bandages. The wolf bounded up next to him and Dean shoved himself back, away from it. It ignored him, sniffing up the length of the body in the bed.
“Hey! Get off…me.” God, this was weird. The wolf found the lower bandages and started worrying at them, tearing them off with teeth and claws. Dean winced. “Stop it! I mean it; I don’t want you here.”
The bandages parted, revealing sore, feverish-looking skin beneath, sewed up with neat, economical stitches. “Don’t—” Dean started, and then the wolf was licking at the first gash and pain flared in his stomach. He dropped to the floor, one hand curling protectively around his abdomen.
“What the…fuck…”
::Fix you. Hurt. Can’t hunt. Fix you, then we hunt.::
Oh Christ, this hurt more than actually getting cut open in the first place. “Not…interested…go play…in someone…else’s…soul…”
::Want you. You Hunter. Lonely. Angry. Make it better.::
“You can’t fucking make it better!” Dean snarled, and then gasped as the wolf moved on to the wounds across his chest and shoulder.
::One and one is one. Good. Choose you. Make you whole.::
“Oh, goddamnit, you stupid, fucking wolf!”
::Better. You see. Good.::
Not good, not good at all, but the pain was finally stopping, at least. Dean raised his head, searching desperately for some way to get the wolf to fuck off. It was leaning off the edge of the bed, looking down at him. Dean scowled, and then it was leaping toward him, though him, into him. Something heavy and hot lodged inside his ribs, pressing against his insides. Dean swore and slammed his fist against the floor.
“I swear to God, the first thing I’m gonna do when I wake up is evict your furry ass.”
There was a sullen silence, and then, from inside him, almost meekly, ::Wouldn’t.::
Dean laughed. “Wanna bet?”
::Won’t,:: the wolf said, more firmly. And then, craftily, ::Won’t remember.::
“Won’t re—Don’t you dare mess around with my head!”
::Sleep now.:: Furry son of a bitch sounded smug. ::Hunt tomorrow.::
Dean wanted to argue, but darkness was crowding in on him, pushing awareness out. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the padding of heavy feet, running, hunting, drawing nearer. Shit, he thought, and then there was nothing.
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