It's a Dog's Life - Part 3
Oct. 16th, 2013 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsBack to Part 2
The following morning was a Sunday, and Sam had evidently decided to sleep in. Or worse, he was busy having sex with Jessica again, which was just not fair, for all sorts of reasons, not least because Dean’s liaison with his lady-dog-friend had been so rudely interrupted. And if that wasn’t the most disturbing thought he’d had since his transformation, Dean didn’t know what was.
The kitchen clock said it was 10am when Dean woke up, and found he was, sadly, still a dog. By 10.30 Dean was in a lot more trouble. Because, you know that thing Sam said about not peeing in the kitchen and then making him drink a load of water at 3am? Well…
Dean did the pacing thing again, trying to take his mind off his full bladder. It didn’t help. He whined as he discovered there was no dog equivalent of crossing your legs, and decided that cock-block or not, this called for desperate measures. He stood outside Sam’s bedroom door and barked. Nothing. He tried again, then scratched at the door, slightly encouraged when he heard a muffled giggle from Jess and a low rumble from Sam.
By the time Sam eventually stumbled to the bedroom door in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, Dean was nearly cross eyed from the effort of holding it in. So when Sam delayed things even further by pulling on a pair of trainers and jogging pants on before he opened the apartment door, Dean’s patience had completely run out. He was out of the door faster than a silver bullet from his Colt 1911. Watering the first tree was his only priority, all thoughts of monsters, brothers and even his own humanity scattered on the breeze.
Sam eventually caught up with Dean a little way down the road. Dean was feeling a bit better, having watered several plants and a wall before finally slowing down and starting to think rational thoughts again. His little brother had managed to fasten his trainers as well as the track pants and looked set for a morning run. Dean was up for that, though not so keen on the idea of allowing Sam to clip on that lead he’d brought with him. What was Sam thinking anyway? He knew Dean was the dog - or the dog was Dean. Whatever. Why would he need a piece of leather to tether the two of them together? So he skipped out of the way every time Sam attempted to approach him with the offending article. After the third try Sam threw up his hands.
“Okay, okay, but for god’s sake don’t go haring off while we are running round; I don’t think dogs are allowed in the Rancho San Antonio Country Park. And even if they are, I’m betting folks like dogs to be on a lead round there. We should be ok if we stick to the lower end of the trails, I don’t want a warden catching us.”
Dean grunted. Stupid humans and their stupid rules. Sam stretched out his long legs and settled into an easy lope and Dean fell in beside him happily. This was more like it. Running was good. Sam was good. Running with Sam was even better. It had been too long since they’d done this, just the two of them pounding out the miles in a companionable silence. Dean remembered the last time they’d trained together, before everything had blown up in his face when Sam dropped his bombshell about Stanford. Dad had…
Shit. Dad. Dean’s rhythm faltered. How could he have forgotten? He needed to get Sam to help him find the Impala and his cell phone, see if Dad had been in touch. Surely this damned spell had to wear off soon, it had been… Dean slowed down and almost stopped, disconcerted by the fact that he couldn’t remember how long it was since the witch bespelled him. He was losing it. He looked around. They had largely left suburbia behind and had reached more open land. There was a mown green field on their left and the neatest cemetery Dean could recall seeing on their right. Sam had almost reached the end of the road and was yards ahead of him. Dammit. He was losing Sam now too. Get a grip, Winchester!
Dean picked up his pace again and chased after his brother, wondering how he was going to get Sam to understand what they needed to do. At the end of the cemetery, Sam took a right and they were on a road that was rougher and more like a track, heading north with some wilder looking land to the west. Dean could smell pine and juniper over the scent of blacktop, earth and the fresh sweat of Sam. It smelled less cultivated, wilder and so much more exciting, so that Dean ears pricked up with renewed interest.
They hadn’t gone more than a few yards along the track when something completely different assaulted Dean’s sensitive nose. Forgetting about Sam and Dad and any other human concern, Dean stopped dead to sniff the air. This scent was enticing. Intoxicating. Irresistible. A tiny human part of him vaguely identified the smell as being something like liquorice. Anise, a little voice whispered inside his head. The dog part didn’t need to identify it, he just wanted to follow, follow, find, find. There was a hint of something else, something far less palatable mixed in with the lovely scent, that Dean almost recognised; but again, it wasn’t enough to override the dog’s urgent need, and Dean was off. Nose to the ground, he trotted off the path and into the brush of the Rancho San Antonio Preserve.
Concentrating on tracking the rich anise scent, Dean didn’t notice that the tangle of huckleberry, elder and wild currant he was stepping on lay over a freshly dug pit until the brush gave way under his weight, sending him tumbling down. He gave an involuntary yelp as he felt a sharp pain. He struggled to all fours, dazed and confused. He found the source of the pain immediately. The hole he’d fallen into wasn’t that deep, not even as deep as a grave, but someone had very deliberately lined it with a row of sharpened stakes, one of which had pierced him high up in his shoulder. He stared at the other stakes and gave a little shudder. He had been very lucky not to have ended up impaled like one of Vlad Țepeș’ victims. He was kind of impressed he’d been able to remember Count Dracula’s real name. Maybe there was hope for him yet.
Dean moved towards the edge of the pit, looking for a way out, wincing as his injured shoulder protested. He could feel the blood running freely, but the familiar metallic scent of iron and copper couldn’t mask the much stronger scent of sulphur and rot that wafted over him from above and behind. Brady! He whirled around, a growl building up in his throat. Tyson Brady, or whatever was masquerading in the shape of the man, was standing on the edge of the pit, his body shadowed by the bright morning sun behind him, so that all Dean could see was the white flash of his teeth and an aureole of pale yellow hair.
“Well, you took your time getting here, you ugly mutt,” Brady said, his voice a lazy smug drawl that just made Dean even madder. Dean snarled and leapt at the edge underneath Brady’s feet, only to have the soft sandy earth crumble under his front paws and send him tumbling backwards into the pit again. He twisted his body just in time to avoid being speared in the back by one of Brady’s stakes again. His shoulder burned like fire and he couldn’t help a whimper of pain.
Frustrated, Dean realised he couldn’t reach either the top of the hole or Brady, especially injured as he was. Fortunately, the creature didn’t seem to have recognised that Dean was no ordinary dog, so perhaps that was something Dean could use to his advantage. Brady was bound to underestimate him, right? All he had to do was wait until this Brady creature had got his kicks out of tormenting a dumb dog then make his escape. Dean could to that, he could be patient.
Sadly, Dean had no opportunity to test this theory as he discovered that Brady wasn’t prepared to wait, and had some deeper plan behind his carefully laid trap for Sam’s dog. Brady brought something out from behind his back. With the sun in his eyes, Dean couldn’t quite make out what it was until the man-thing-whatever-the-fuck-he-was swung it round and connected with Dean’s skull with a sickening crack.
As Dean slumped into blackness, recognition came. It was a fucking shovel. Brady had just taken Dean out with the shovel he must have dug the hole with.
Son of a …
Brady smiled. That had gone well. He looked down at the unconscious bleeding animal, making sure it was definitely out for the count before jumping down into the hole. He worked around the dog’s body, removing the wicked stakes and then scuffing up the edges of his pit to make it look more like a naturally occurring hollow. Satisfied it would pass all but the most detailed scrutiny, he double checked that the animal was still breathing. His plan required the dog to survive. Dead it wouldn’t hold Sam’s attention long enough to allow Brady to accomplish his mission.
“Excellent.” He said, allowing the dog’s head to drop back to the earth with a dull thud. Blood was puddling under the beast from the wound in its shoulder, but slow enough that it shouldn’t bleed out before Brady allowed Sam to find it. And he’d hit the damn thing hard enough that it would be out cold for a couple of hours or so. It should be safe enough to leave it here and go find Sam now, then. He gave the wretched animal a couple of hard kicks to the ribs for good measure, smiling when he heard a bone crack. Sometimes Brady missed the simple pleasures of Hell, so it was nice to revisit them when the opportunity arose.
“That’s for being so impolite last night,” he said, smiling vindictively.
Brady hauled himself out of the hole and carefully brushed himself down, removing earth and smears of blood from his running gear until he could pass muster as just grubby from running in the brush, not from digging holes and beating up a pathetic dog. He set off at a leisurely jog back down to the Coyote Trail where he knew he’d find Sam, probably already looking for his mutt. From what Brady knew of John Winchester, he was a little surprised that Sam was such a creature of routine, running the same route every Sunday morning, but who was he to criticise when Sam’s habits had made his job that much easier. Laying the anise trail for the dog and setting the trap had been easier than slicing the throat of a two-bit whore. Brady knew Sam would come along that way and just had to wait an hour or so longer than he’d expected. He’d make the lovely Jessica pay for delaying Sam like that and making Brady endure the boredom; he could guess what the couple had been up to before Sam’s run. It cheered him immensely to think that Jess had enjoyed her last night with Sam. In fact, all of this anticipation was really enhancing his mood enormously.
His smile grew exponentially wider when he hit the trail and saw the unmistakable gangling figure silhouetted against the ridge up ahead, and heard Sam’s voice calling for his dog.
The end game was in sight at last. Brady really loved it when a plan came together.
“Dean!”
Sam’s voice was getting hoarse from shouting, and his mood was swinging wildly between furious and anxious as time went by and there was no sign of his errant brother. He glanced at his watch again, as if knowing how long Dean had been missing was going to help. It was only twenty five minutes, though it felt like longer. Sam had been up and down this same few hundred meters of track three times now, since he’d noticed Dean had disappeared. Nothing. No barking, no snuffling – no naked human Dean staggering around. That was half the trouble, right there. What if Dean changed back out here, when anyone might come by any time? This park was really popular with joggers and cyclists, even horse riders, as well as families bringing their kids to Deer Hollow Farm to see the animals on a Sunday afternoon.
Sam couldn’t believe he’d been so chronically stupid – coming out here without even considering the possibility of Dean changing back. He didn’t even have a t shirt on that he could’ve handed over for Dean to wear, and how would they get Dean unnoticed back to the apartment? California might be fairly relaxed compared to some American states, but public nudity wasn’t easily ignored, even by the most laid back of people.
Speaking of people, Sam suddenly spotted a lone figure jogging up the path towards him and quickly struggled to compose himself. He wasn’t helping anyone if he got reported to the police for acting all wild and deranged in the Country Park. It was a relief of sorts when he recognised the slightly stocky figure was Tyson. At least he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t worried about losing his bro – dog. Brady wasn’t likely to report him for bringing a dog into the park not on a leash and then letting it run off on its own. In fact, given Dean’s as yet unexplained antipathy for his friend, perhaps Brady’s arrival would help draw Dean out of whatever doggy adventure he’d gotten caught up in now.
“Hey, Sam! I was wondering if I’d see you out running today,” Brady called out as he approached. He slowed to a walk then stopped as he arrived in front of Sam, raising an eyebrow as he took in Sam’s dishevelled state. Sam flushed. “Jess said you’d gone out later than usual so I thought I might see if I could catch you up, join you round the usual trails - but you seem to have finished your run early. You aren’t injured are you? Because, dude, I am not carrying your gigantic ass back to town.”
“Yeah, well, I had to stop running because D…Sirius has disappeared and I can’t find him.”
“Fuck, you didn’t keep him on a leash? Man, you are in deep shit if the rangers find him.”
“Thank you Captain Obvious,” Sam paused a moment at the unanticipated pang using one of Dean’s favourite phrases caused him, and Brady jumped into the gap with an easy grin.
“Want me to help you look for him? He can’t have gone far, right? Probably chasing a rabbit or something.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Jess will kill me if I don’t bring that dog home. I know we’ve only had him for a couple of days but she really loves him.” And wasn’t that just typical Dean? Dog or man, somehow charming his way into your heart when you’re not looking, Sam thought.
With Brady to help, Sam decided to go off the beaten track and begin combing the slopes north and west of the Coyote Trail. The two men started at the farthest point Sam had reached, making their way up to the crest of the ridge, calling all the time. Sam just hoped that Dean would remember his dog alias as well as he usually remembered any of his cover stories for their hunts, and would answer to Sirius when he heard their shouts.
It was past noon by the time they eventually found Dean, or rather, Brady found the hole Dean had fallen into, almost literally stumbled across it. Brady slipped and almost fell over the edge of the deep divot, but was saved by Sam’s quick reactions. Sam grabbed Brady’s arm and yanked him backwards, and when they both leaned over the edge to see where Brady might have ended up, that was when Sam spotted a patch of matted dark and light fur, half buried under a mini landslip of earth and broken plant debris.
“Fuck. I think it’s him,” Sam said and threw himself recklessly into a slide that took him down to Dean’s side. Dean was lying stretched out on his left flank, legs out straight, and Sam’s relief was palpable at seeing his brother’s ribs expanding, albeit slowly.
Somehow the fact that Dean was now a dog and not a human didn’t matter a damn and Sam slid immediately into the routine of checking for injuries, just as if he hadn’t been more than three years out of the life. Brady helped to half dig, half brush off the dirt that was covering Dean’s body, while Sam’s hands, calm and competent in spite of the way his heart was racing, ran over Dean’s forelegs, ribs, rear legs, even his tail, searching and mapping anomalies.
Satisfied there was no spinal damage, Sam carefully lifted Dean to turn him over, and that was when he found the nasty, bloody wound in the left shoulder. Sam hissed, causing Brady to look across, curious. But Sam’s attention had already moved onto the bloody matted patch over Dean’s left eye.
“How is he?” Brady asked.
“Looks like a bad concussion and there’s a pretty deep puncture wound here,” Sam gestured to the injured areas and Brady pulled a sympathetic face that Sam barely noticed. “There may be damage to his ribs too, and bruising I can’t see because of all the fur.”
Normal Winchester triage was not going to work, not with Dean in this form and this bad a shape. Sam needed professional help, which meant a vet, and quick.
“I have to get him to the VCA pet hospital in Stanford.”
He looked up, his attention sharply focussed on Brady. “Do you have your cell?”
Sam swore when Brady shook his head. “Don’t bring it when I’m running, but my truck is parked just at the end of this trail. Do you mean that vet place off El Camino that Zach volunteers at? Come on, I’ll drive you.”
Sam scooped Dean up into his arms. Dean the dog was a lot lighter than Dean the man, but still heavy after a few hundred yards, and Sam daren’t try anything faster than a brisk walk, for fear of worsening Dean’s injuries. He refused to lay Dean on the flat bed of Brady’s truck, insisted on keeping Dean close, draped distressingly limp over Sam’s lap in the shotgun seat, reluctant to release his hold. He needed to literally keep his fingers on the pulse, the continued reassurance of life the only thing keeping his hands from shaking. As it was, he could feel Dean’s warm blood seeping through his track pants and coating his fingers.
Fuck, Dean. You stupid bastard. I swore I’d never do this again.
Give Brady his due, he treated it like a real emergency, and drove right at the edge of the law to get Sam to the pet hospital in the quickest time possible. Sam barely noticed Brady trailing behind him into the reception, except on the barest edges of his awareness, even though it was Brady who smoothed the way by explaining they were friends of Zach. Having a close friend who regularly helped out at the hospital as part of his work experience definitely helped speed up the registration process, though it did nothing to curb Sam’s burning impatience and fear.
When the vet emerged and beckoned him to bring Dean through Sam was there in a single stride.
“We’ll have to get him x-rayed first, check for any other damage and for splinters in that wound. You say he fell into a pit of some kind?”
“Yes, and there were a lot of broken branches so I’m assuming that’s where the puncture wound came from.”
The vet, a middle aged, pleasant faced balding guy who’s name Sam had already forgotten, gestured to Sam to lay Dean down on the table while he pulled the x-ray equipment into position. The guy had to guide Sam with a firm hand on his arm to move them both behind the protective screen while he fired off several shots of radiation. Then he made Sam stay put while he manouevered Dean into different positions. Sam was hard pressed to supress his jitters, knowing the guy was just being thorough. But Dean hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle the entire time, and Sam knew that was not a good sign.
The vet – Dr Bechemal, hey, call me Harvey – eventually gave up trying to get Sam to wait outside with Brady when Sam made it clear he wasn’t going to budge.
“If you are going to loom over me you might as well make yourself useful, son.” Harvey said.
In the end, Sam helped to cut then shave off the thick fur and irrigate the deep tear in Dean’s shoulder, while Harvey sorted out the jagged gash over Dean’s left eye.
“There’s a lot of bruising to the temple here,” Harvey observed as he worked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone had hit the poor old boy with a blunt instrument. This is going to need a few stitches.”
Sam’s hands stilled and he looked up with a frown. However, before he could take that thought any further there was a knock at the door and Brady appeared.
“Your assistant said it would be okay to interrupt,” he said to the vet, then turning to Sam, “It’s gone 3pm, I’m sure Jess will be worried about you both.” Brady held up a hand at Sam’s start of guilt. Shit, Jess. He’d forgotten about her in his panic, how could he have done that? – but Brady was continuing, offering him a solution.
“Why don’t I run over to your apartment and explain what’s going on. I can take care of her while you are taking care of Sirius, here.”
“I…thanks, Brady. Tell her I’ll stay here until I know D--Sirius is going to pull through.”
Brady turned to leave, then stopped, groping in the pocket of his sweats.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. Here.” He found what he was looking for and handed it over. “Take my cell phone. You can ring us later with an update, yeah?”
Sam was still staring at the darkened display on the cell phone as Brady closed the door behind him.
“You need to wait outside now, Sam,” Harvey said. “I’ll let you know what the x-rays show as soon as I’ve got the results. I’ve made Sirius comfortable for the time being, why don’t you let me go see what is going on inside his head.”
Sam swallowed down an urge to tell Harvey that the vet really didn’t want to know what was going on inside his brother’s head, given that it was likely to be pretty un-doglike in content, and knowing Dean, probably x-rated. Sam allowed the vet to steer him out into the small but blessedly empty reception area where he reluctantly sat down in one of the cheap plastic chairs. He could hear Dean’s voice in his head, telling him You’re out of practise, college boy. Let yourself get soft. Sam couldn’t help thinking the little voice in his head was right.
He shifted uncomfortably on the too small chair. Something hard was digging into his thigh. Then he remembered Brady’s cell, pulled it out and switched on the display. The clock told him it was nearly 5pm and he hadn’t called Jess yet. Fuck, he was a bad boyfriend. Awash with guilt, he punched in Jessica’s number.
“Sam! What’s happening? How’s our boy?” Jess didn’t even wait for Sam to say hello before launching into a barrage of questions. Sam was abruptly overcome by weariness and all he wanted to do was bury himself in Jessica’s warm embrace. He didn’t want to be spending anxious hours in yet another hospital, albeit an animal hospital, not their usual regular Winchester-ripped-to-shreds sort of hospital waiting helplessly to see if his brother would pull through…and now even his brain was rambling.
He stood up and paced while he talked to Jess, filling her in on what little they knew so far.
“But he’s stable, right? So that’s a good thing.” Jess was looking for reassurance, and Sam could deny her nothing. Besides, there was no point in both of them worrying.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be fine. But I’d like to hang around, stay here until he wakes up. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, of course, you have to stay. You can’t leave Sirius there on his own. Brady says he’s going to stay with me for a bit, keep me company,” Jess lowered her voice to conspiratorial levels. “To be honest, I think he just wants to play with your Nintendo…” Sam could hear Brady chuckling in the background, then yelling something about it all being lies, damned lies, and he cracked a smile for the first time that day. He had almost forgotten the life he’d built for himself here; the normal, safe, every day life that had nothing to do with hunting, or monsters or ridiculous bewitched brothers who always seem to get themselves into life threatening situations.
“Tell Brady to keep his paws off my stuff – and thanks for the loan of his cell. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Course, babe. If you are lucky I might even bake something special for my boys.”
“Thanks, Jess. I love you.”
“Love you too, babe.”
He terminated the call and blushed when he caught the diminutive receptionist’s indulgent smile. His face only got even redder when his stomach reminded him, vocally, that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Sorry,” he said, “With all this going on I haven’t had time to eat.”
The receptionist’s indulgent expression immediately morphed into sympathy.
“There’s a pizza place two doors down; I think they do takeaway.”
“Yeah, well, thanks but I don’t have any money on me. I came out this morning to go for a run when this happened and all I’ve got on me are my keys and my friend’s phone.”
The plump receptionist – she told him her name was Marcia – was horrified at this tale of woe, and insisted on lending Sam a twenty. “Your nice friend - Tyson, wasn’t it? – told me all about it. And I can always get the money back off your friend Zach on his next shift if you run out on me, sugar!”
She practically shoved him out of the door and pointed him in the right direction, though he could hardly have missed the place, as it was only a few yards away. When Sam returned with Dean’s favourite meat feast pizza and a large soda, Marcia was closing up the clinic. He stood for a moment, nonplussed. Marcia must have read his worry in his face. Dammit. He used to be better at hiding shit like that.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey, we close the hospital to the public at 5.30 on a Sunday, but Harvey’s fine with you stopping here until your pup is out of the woods. He’ll be hanging round for another hour or so any way, checking on all our patients before heading home. Not that we have many cases at the moment, just your dog, a couple of rabbits with mange, a stray Labrador with a broken leg and a Leopard gecko with a nasty abscess.” Marcia shut the cabinet behind the counter and locked it.
“Sometimes Harvey sleeps over if a patient’s condition is serious, but your boy is obviously showing signs of improvement, because Harvey said he’s all set to head out once he’s done.”
“So, what – I’ll be able to take De…Sirius home?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, honey, you’ll have to ask Harvey. Go on through, he’s out back. Second door on the right.”
Sam was halfway through the door before Marcia had finished talking. “Thanks,” he said, a mumbled afterthought thrown over his shoulder. Marcia smiled and Sam thought how Dean would totally have hit on her, and how badly he wanted to see Dean back in action again - flirting, stuffing his face with pie, washing it down with a bottle of beer and grinning at Sam for getting grossed out by his uncouth behaviour. It had never been Dean that Sam had wanted to get away from. His brother had just been collateral damage in Sam’s mini war with their Dad. Sam had seen how each argument was slicing Dean up more than it appeared to affect their father, but been too angry and too desperate to escape from the endless cycle of worry and fear and fighting, to do anything about putting it right. Not that he’d had any clue how to fix things anyway.
Now he had Dean back, but his brother was even farther away from Sam than ever before, trapped inside an animal’s body with no way of telling Sam what had happened to him.
The vet was still in the treatment room when Sam entered.
“Ah, you are back just in time, Sam. I was just finishing up for the evening.”
“Yeah, Marcia explained you were closing up – she said it was okay with you for me to stay with my br—dog until he wakes up?”
“Yes, yes of course. Any friend of Zach’s… Sirius is still heavily sedated, but I expect he should start coming round in a couple of hours or so. I’ve thoroughly cleaned out that puncture wound, there were a few splinters lodged quite deep but it’s packed with antibiotics so the risk of infection is minimal. You will just need to keep an eye on it and stop him licking it while it heals. Let me know if you think he’ll need to be fitted with a cone of shame before he leaves. He has cracked three ribs, but just as with humans, there is very little I can do for him there – I will give you some pain killers for him tomorrow.
I was more concerned about the concussion, but he did regain consciousness briefly before I had to put him under for the operation, so I think he probably has a very hard skull! These sorts of collie-crosses are usually pretty resilient, in my experience.”
Sam nodded, pleased that Dean’s dog form hadn’t sustained too much damage, in Winchester terms anyway, but all he was thinking was that he wanted his brother back. This curse had gone on long enough, and any comedy value had been leached out of the situation the moment Dean had gotten himself injured. Not that Sam wouldn’t store up any number of memories with which to tease Dean for a hundred years once his brother was restored to him safe and sound.
Sam walked over to where Dean was lying on the recovery table. He rested a hand gently on Dean’s flank, taking comfort from the steady rise and fall, the warmth of skin underneath the thick fur. Dean looked smaller like this, more vulnerable, the bandages around his shoulder startlingly white against the black of his coat. Sam had been here too many times before; it was weird how Dean being a dog didn’t feel any different from Dean being Dean, wounded and out cold on a hospital bed.
“Don’t look so worried, Sam. He’ll be fine, you know that, don’t you? I’ll leave the spare keys, just lock up when you leave, and post the keys back through the door.”
Sam didn’t look up as Dr Bechemal left, just kept stroking Dean’s head, lost in the contrast between silky soft texture of Dean’s ears and the coarser longer hair of his ruff. He thought he’d miss this, the ability to touch his brother and show his affection so openly. Sam tore himself away reluctantly to pull up a chair and settled down to wait for Dean to wake up.
After an hour or so, Sam’s eyes grew heavy. He dozed and dreamed fitfully.
Concussion dreams. That was the only explanation Dean could think of for the head-trip he’d been having. Turned into a dog and adopted by Sam? For fuck’s sake, he hated to think what a psychoanalyst would make of that particular fantasy. Or what Sam would make of it either for that matter. Best not ever tell him, that was the solution to that one. Dean’s swim back up from the depths of unconsciousness was slow and confused, but he was used to it – he’d done it too many times before not to recognise that smell of antiseptic and too warm, too stale air as being a hospital, and the groggy, floating feeling weighing down his limbs as being due to some pretty hefty medication. He wondered vaguely what he’d done to himself this time. His memories seemed to be somewhat foggy.
Except there was something odd about this hospital, not least being that he didn’t fit on the bed. Which was such a level weirdness, even in Dean’s life of abnormal, that it finally woke him up. His eyes flew open and he found himself tumbling to the floor. He let out an involuntary yell as the pain of landing broke through his concussion induced haze.
“F--fuck!” Agony lanced through his left shoulder and a dull insistent pounding started up inside his head that left him a stuttering mess, sprawled inelegantly and buck naked on the cold marble tiled floor. He was so disorientated it took a moment to register the murmuring of the low voice and warm touch of big hands helping him up. It might have been a while since he’d heard that voice, except in his dreams, but it was one he knew better than his own.
“S’m? What the fuck you doin’ here?” Dean teetered wildly as he reached the giddy heights of being vertical, and was glad Sam the Wall was there to lean on. Even though he was mystified as to why Sam was here at all. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was Louisiana, that voodoo thing that Dad’d sent him to do, before disappearing into the mists of Dean’s mind.
What had happened after that?
“Dude,” Sam was saying, his brother’s breath moist and warm on Dean’s neck, making him shiver. “I live here, remember?” That made no sense.
“Whaddya mean, you live here? In a hospital? How’d you get to Louisiana anyway? You’re s’posed to be in California. Dumbass.” Dean paused, considering. “Geeky dumbass,” he amended, to take account of Sam being a full ride to Stanford and all. Even doped up, Dean could almost hear Sam’s eye roll and grinned. He shoots, he scores! Damn, he was awesome.
“Dean, this is not a hospital, it’s an animal clinic, and you’re in Palo Alto, don’t you remember? Come on, I need to sort you out before we go find the Impala and your clothes.”
Wait. What? Palo Alto? And he’d lost the Impala? That was so many flavours of wrong it stopped Dean dead, left him swaying on the balls of his feet, oblivious to the fact that Sam’s arm round his naked shoulder was the only reason he was still upright. Sam was trying to steer him over to a chair and after a few seconds, Dean allowed his brother to guide him across the room and sit him down. There were bandages round his sore shoulder but they were hanging loose, like someone had botched the job, so Dean knew that couldn’t have been Sammy. Sammy was a past master at binding wounds.
Man, he hated concussions. They always scrambled his brain. He struggled to capture the memories that were slipping through his grasp as if they’d been smeared with butter. He almost wiped his hands down his thighs at the thought, which was just stupid.
He’d been in New Orleans, Dad had taken off saying he had something to do. Dean had finished the voodoo job then… Then what? Somehow he’d ended up in California, and injured. Sam was talking to him while long fingers worked efficiently, tightening the bandages around Dean’s shoulder and re-bandaging Dean’s buzzing head. So he had a concussion, and a hole in his shoulder. Wasn’t that just peachy? He breathed a deep sigh, and discovered his broken ribs. This just keeps getting better and better, he thought. And over and under it all, woven through him like loose thread, was the nagging feeling that he’d forgotten something important.
Something besides how he’d arrived here, how he’d gotten injured, and how he’d somehow lost his Baby, that is. Just how long had he been in Palo Alto anyway? The way Sam was talking, it was more than a day. He must have been thinking out loud, because Sam answered him.
“I don’t know how long you were here before that witch turned you into a dog, Dean. I mean, it was hard enough working out that the damn dog was you in the first place, let alone having a meaningful conversation with canine-you.”
“I was a dog? Oh god. I didn’t hump anything, did I?” That got him an extra hard eye roll from Sam, which was a bit unfair, because Dean was sure that was a valid concern.
“I’m not going to discuss your mating habits, Dean, and besides I wasn’t with doggie-you 24/7.” Sam finished fiddling with Dean’s bandages and stepped back, causing Dean to nearly topple off the chair, which was when he realised he must have been leaning heavily on his brother. His exposed skin prickled with the chill where Sam’s bulk had been sheltering him from the air conditioning’s drafts, and he shivered. Sam’s face was unreadable as he looked at Dean.
“I need to find you some clothes. Can you remember where you left the Impala?”
Dean thought perhaps he might. The effects of the head injury must be wearing off because certain images were sliding back into his head, all tangled up with the return of pain. A woman, hair wild as she screamed at him, just before he blew her away. Waking up with fur and a tail. Finding Sam, and his Jessica. His mind shied away from the latter pretty swiftly, he could come back to that one later, it was actually easier to think about the dog part. Then the Impala, parked up near the witch’s house down by a wide open space - soccer pitches, trees, what had it been it called? Green…no, Greer Park.
“Yeah, yeah. You know Colorado Avenue, Greer Park? I…I think I left her there, round the corner from where the witch lived.”
He struggled to his feet, swearing when his naked skin stuck to the plastic chair, peeling off painfully when he rose.
“Yeah, I know it. And you are staying right here. Sit!” Sam was back in Dean’s personal space, looming as only Sam could do, since he’d acquired a load more inches when he was sixteen. Except now he had bulk to go with it. For extra emphasis. If Dean didn’t know his brother - and he carefully ignored the little voice at the back of his mind that was asking him if he really did know Sam, after two years not talking – Dean might have been intimidated.
As it was, Dean sat back down because he was feeling dizzy and his legs were wobbly, not because Sam told him to. Damn. Having been a dog for a while seemed to have left Dean with a residual urge to be obedient for Sam, probably riding on the back of years of John Winchester’s quasi-military training. That thought was so disturbing Dean sat uncharacteristically quiet and docile while Sam found him a veterinarian’s equivalent of a doctor’s white coat to wear, and swallowed the two rather large tablets Sam gave him – pain killers, Sam informed him, though Dean hadn’t asked. He didn’t even protest when Sam wrapped him up in a fleecy blanket dotted with black paw prints before leaving Dean locked into the Pet hospital while Sam went to look for the Impala, an indignity that would normally had had him yelling his disgust.
He did rouse momentarily as Sam was closing the door, enough to get in a parting shot on behalf of the Impala.
“Hey! Don’t you jimmy the door or try hotwiring my baby, dude. My keys will be in my jacket pocket, you’ll just have to find my clothes first, right?”
Sam’s dismissive hand wave wasn’t reassuring, and Dean slumped back into the hard plastic chair disconsolately, huddling into the too-short doggy blanket, his pale legs sticking out of the bottom so he must have looked like some sort of refugee from a disaster movie.
Seeing Dean like this was getting what he wished for then not knowing how to handle it. Somehow since changing back into his proper, human form his brother was more than just physically naked, the latter being a sight Sam had seen so often it didn’t even register. No, this was different. Sam felt Dean had been stripped bare in a way that was more than just skin deep and he couldn’t wait to get out of there; any excuse would do. Which was ironic considering how he’d been longing for Dean to become himself again, ever since discovering their adopted dog was his brother.
One good thing, Greer Park wasn’t that far to jog from the animal hospital on El Camino Real. The sun had set several hours ago, and the desert air had cooled with the coming of the darkness, but running kept Sam warm. It didn’t take him long to spot the sleek black beauty of the Impala, parked alongside some trees behind a couple of soccer goals in the park. Across the field floated the laughter and banter of the boarders in the floodlit Skateboard park, and the ever present hum of traffic on the Bayshore Road, but the residential close where Dean had left the Impala was quiet. The families were probably all settled down over their TV dinners and their computers, living their normal apple pie lives, safe behind their carefully cultivated gardens and concrete driveways. Unwittingly safer now the witch that used to live next door to them was dead.
Tracking down the deceased witch’s house and Dean’s clothes was a harder task. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew Dean would freak if he didn’t get Dad’s leather jacket back, Sam would have risked Dean’s wrath and jimmied the Impala. In spite of Dean’s fears, Sam could have done it without leaving a mark on her. He might have been out of the family business for a few years but some skills never leave you – and he’d had a good teacher.
Sam was nothing if not methodical, and using the car as his starting point, he eventually spotted an anomaly in one of the whitewashed houses at the end of the col de sac facing the park. Most of the residences in the close had large double garages built into their fronts, all uniformly presenting a closed face on the outside world. All bar one, where the left hand garage door had been left open; just a foot gap at the bottom of the rollup, but it gaped black as a mouth and beckoned to Sam. He approached with caution, wary of activating security lights that might alarm watchful neighbours, but if there had been any, they were no longer working. The streetlight across the way didn’t reach as far as the bland front of this house, and Sam was able to slip through the shadows to lift the garage door a little higher so he could slide in under the gap.
Once his eyes adjusted to the minimal light, Sam could see that his instincts had been spot on. An internal door to the house stood ajar, and Sam had no doubt that if he were to enter, he’d find the corpse of the witch Dean had killed. Fortunately, there was no need venture any further inside, as the first thing to come into sharp focus was the dull golden glint of Dean’s amulet. He scooped it up and immediately hung it round his neck for safekeeping, its weight reassuringly heavy against his sternum.
Sam could see Dean’s clothes were scattered in a darker shadowy trail from Sam’s feet where he stood just inside the entrance to the garage, up to the steps into the house, which on closer inspection proved to be draped with Dean’s leather jacket – with the keys to the Impala in the pocket. Yahtzee.
Sam took care to close the garage door fully behind him when he left. He could almost hear Dean’s voice gleefully declaring “ding dong the witch is dead” as the lock snicked shut.
Stoopid LJ has made me go to FOUR parts - dammit! Part Four here folks...
Part Three
Sunday 1st November 2005. All Saints Day
The following morning was a Sunday, and Sam had evidently decided to sleep in. Or worse, he was busy having sex with Jessica again, which was just not fair, for all sorts of reasons, not least because Dean’s liaison with his lady-dog-friend had been so rudely interrupted. And if that wasn’t the most disturbing thought he’d had since his transformation, Dean didn’t know what was.
The kitchen clock said it was 10am when Dean woke up, and found he was, sadly, still a dog. By 10.30 Dean was in a lot more trouble. Because, you know that thing Sam said about not peeing in the kitchen and then making him drink a load of water at 3am? Well…
Dean did the pacing thing again, trying to take his mind off his full bladder. It didn’t help. He whined as he discovered there was no dog equivalent of crossing your legs, and decided that cock-block or not, this called for desperate measures. He stood outside Sam’s bedroom door and barked. Nothing. He tried again, then scratched at the door, slightly encouraged when he heard a muffled giggle from Jess and a low rumble from Sam.
By the time Sam eventually stumbled to the bedroom door in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, Dean was nearly cross eyed from the effort of holding it in. So when Sam delayed things even further by pulling on a pair of trainers and jogging pants on before he opened the apartment door, Dean’s patience had completely run out. He was out of the door faster than a silver bullet from his Colt 1911. Watering the first tree was his only priority, all thoughts of monsters, brothers and even his own humanity scattered on the breeze.
Sam eventually caught up with Dean a little way down the road. Dean was feeling a bit better, having watered several plants and a wall before finally slowing down and starting to think rational thoughts again. His little brother had managed to fasten his trainers as well as the track pants and looked set for a morning run. Dean was up for that, though not so keen on the idea of allowing Sam to clip on that lead he’d brought with him. What was Sam thinking anyway? He knew Dean was the dog - or the dog was Dean. Whatever. Why would he need a piece of leather to tether the two of them together? So he skipped out of the way every time Sam attempted to approach him with the offending article. After the third try Sam threw up his hands.
“Okay, okay, but for god’s sake don’t go haring off while we are running round; I don’t think dogs are allowed in the Rancho San Antonio Country Park. And even if they are, I’m betting folks like dogs to be on a lead round there. We should be ok if we stick to the lower end of the trails, I don’t want a warden catching us.”
Dean grunted. Stupid humans and their stupid rules. Sam stretched out his long legs and settled into an easy lope and Dean fell in beside him happily. This was more like it. Running was good. Sam was good. Running with Sam was even better. It had been too long since they’d done this, just the two of them pounding out the miles in a companionable silence. Dean remembered the last time they’d trained together, before everything had blown up in his face when Sam dropped his bombshell about Stanford. Dad had…
Shit. Dad. Dean’s rhythm faltered. How could he have forgotten? He needed to get Sam to help him find the Impala and his cell phone, see if Dad had been in touch. Surely this damned spell had to wear off soon, it had been… Dean slowed down and almost stopped, disconcerted by the fact that he couldn’t remember how long it was since the witch bespelled him. He was losing it. He looked around. They had largely left suburbia behind and had reached more open land. There was a mown green field on their left and the neatest cemetery Dean could recall seeing on their right. Sam had almost reached the end of the road and was yards ahead of him. Dammit. He was losing Sam now too. Get a grip, Winchester!
Dean picked up his pace again and chased after his brother, wondering how he was going to get Sam to understand what they needed to do. At the end of the cemetery, Sam took a right and they were on a road that was rougher and more like a track, heading north with some wilder looking land to the west. Dean could smell pine and juniper over the scent of blacktop, earth and the fresh sweat of Sam. It smelled less cultivated, wilder and so much more exciting, so that Dean ears pricked up with renewed interest.
They hadn’t gone more than a few yards along the track when something completely different assaulted Dean’s sensitive nose. Forgetting about Sam and Dad and any other human concern, Dean stopped dead to sniff the air. This scent was enticing. Intoxicating. Irresistible. A tiny human part of him vaguely identified the smell as being something like liquorice. Anise, a little voice whispered inside his head. The dog part didn’t need to identify it, he just wanted to follow, follow, find, find. There was a hint of something else, something far less palatable mixed in with the lovely scent, that Dean almost recognised; but again, it wasn’t enough to override the dog’s urgent need, and Dean was off. Nose to the ground, he trotted off the path and into the brush of the Rancho San Antonio Preserve.
Concentrating on tracking the rich anise scent, Dean didn’t notice that the tangle of huckleberry, elder and wild currant he was stepping on lay over a freshly dug pit until the brush gave way under his weight, sending him tumbling down. He gave an involuntary yelp as he felt a sharp pain. He struggled to all fours, dazed and confused. He found the source of the pain immediately. The hole he’d fallen into wasn’t that deep, not even as deep as a grave, but someone had very deliberately lined it with a row of sharpened stakes, one of which had pierced him high up in his shoulder. He stared at the other stakes and gave a little shudder. He had been very lucky not to have ended up impaled like one of Vlad Țepeș’ victims. He was kind of impressed he’d been able to remember Count Dracula’s real name. Maybe there was hope for him yet.
Dean moved towards the edge of the pit, looking for a way out, wincing as his injured shoulder protested. He could feel the blood running freely, but the familiar metallic scent of iron and copper couldn’t mask the much stronger scent of sulphur and rot that wafted over him from above and behind. Brady! He whirled around, a growl building up in his throat. Tyson Brady, or whatever was masquerading in the shape of the man, was standing on the edge of the pit, his body shadowed by the bright morning sun behind him, so that all Dean could see was the white flash of his teeth and an aureole of pale yellow hair.
“Well, you took your time getting here, you ugly mutt,” Brady said, his voice a lazy smug drawl that just made Dean even madder. Dean snarled and leapt at the edge underneath Brady’s feet, only to have the soft sandy earth crumble under his front paws and send him tumbling backwards into the pit again. He twisted his body just in time to avoid being speared in the back by one of Brady’s stakes again. His shoulder burned like fire and he couldn’t help a whimper of pain.
Frustrated, Dean realised he couldn’t reach either the top of the hole or Brady, especially injured as he was. Fortunately, the creature didn’t seem to have recognised that Dean was no ordinary dog, so perhaps that was something Dean could use to his advantage. Brady was bound to underestimate him, right? All he had to do was wait until this Brady creature had got his kicks out of tormenting a dumb dog then make his escape. Dean could to that, he could be patient.
Sadly, Dean had no opportunity to test this theory as he discovered that Brady wasn’t prepared to wait, and had some deeper plan behind his carefully laid trap for Sam’s dog. Brady brought something out from behind his back. With the sun in his eyes, Dean couldn’t quite make out what it was until the man-thing-whatever-the-fuck-he-was swung it round and connected with Dean’s skull with a sickening crack.
As Dean slumped into blackness, recognition came. It was a fucking shovel. Brady had just taken Dean out with the shovel he must have dug the hole with.
Son of a …
Brady smiled. That had gone well. He looked down at the unconscious bleeding animal, making sure it was definitely out for the count before jumping down into the hole. He worked around the dog’s body, removing the wicked stakes and then scuffing up the edges of his pit to make it look more like a naturally occurring hollow. Satisfied it would pass all but the most detailed scrutiny, he double checked that the animal was still breathing. His plan required the dog to survive. Dead it wouldn’t hold Sam’s attention long enough to allow Brady to accomplish his mission.
“Excellent.” He said, allowing the dog’s head to drop back to the earth with a dull thud. Blood was puddling under the beast from the wound in its shoulder, but slow enough that it shouldn’t bleed out before Brady allowed Sam to find it. And he’d hit the damn thing hard enough that it would be out cold for a couple of hours or so. It should be safe enough to leave it here and go find Sam now, then. He gave the wretched animal a couple of hard kicks to the ribs for good measure, smiling when he heard a bone crack. Sometimes Brady missed the simple pleasures of Hell, so it was nice to revisit them when the opportunity arose.
“That’s for being so impolite last night,” he said, smiling vindictively.
Brady hauled himself out of the hole and carefully brushed himself down, removing earth and smears of blood from his running gear until he could pass muster as just grubby from running in the brush, not from digging holes and beating up a pathetic dog. He set off at a leisurely jog back down to the Coyote Trail where he knew he’d find Sam, probably already looking for his mutt. From what Brady knew of John Winchester, he was a little surprised that Sam was such a creature of routine, running the same route every Sunday morning, but who was he to criticise when Sam’s habits had made his job that much easier. Laying the anise trail for the dog and setting the trap had been easier than slicing the throat of a two-bit whore. Brady knew Sam would come along that way and just had to wait an hour or so longer than he’d expected. He’d make the lovely Jessica pay for delaying Sam like that and making Brady endure the boredom; he could guess what the couple had been up to before Sam’s run. It cheered him immensely to think that Jess had enjoyed her last night with Sam. In fact, all of this anticipation was really enhancing his mood enormously.
His smile grew exponentially wider when he hit the trail and saw the unmistakable gangling figure silhouetted against the ridge up ahead, and heard Sam’s voice calling for his dog.
The end game was in sight at last. Brady really loved it when a plan came together.
“Dean!”
Sam’s voice was getting hoarse from shouting, and his mood was swinging wildly between furious and anxious as time went by and there was no sign of his errant brother. He glanced at his watch again, as if knowing how long Dean had been missing was going to help. It was only twenty five minutes, though it felt like longer. Sam had been up and down this same few hundred meters of track three times now, since he’d noticed Dean had disappeared. Nothing. No barking, no snuffling – no naked human Dean staggering around. That was half the trouble, right there. What if Dean changed back out here, when anyone might come by any time? This park was really popular with joggers and cyclists, even horse riders, as well as families bringing their kids to Deer Hollow Farm to see the animals on a Sunday afternoon.
Sam couldn’t believe he’d been so chronically stupid – coming out here without even considering the possibility of Dean changing back. He didn’t even have a t shirt on that he could’ve handed over for Dean to wear, and how would they get Dean unnoticed back to the apartment? California might be fairly relaxed compared to some American states, but public nudity wasn’t easily ignored, even by the most laid back of people.
Speaking of people, Sam suddenly spotted a lone figure jogging up the path towards him and quickly struggled to compose himself. He wasn’t helping anyone if he got reported to the police for acting all wild and deranged in the Country Park. It was a relief of sorts when he recognised the slightly stocky figure was Tyson. At least he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t worried about losing his bro – dog. Brady wasn’t likely to report him for bringing a dog into the park not on a leash and then letting it run off on its own. In fact, given Dean’s as yet unexplained antipathy for his friend, perhaps Brady’s arrival would help draw Dean out of whatever doggy adventure he’d gotten caught up in now.
“Hey, Sam! I was wondering if I’d see you out running today,” Brady called out as he approached. He slowed to a walk then stopped as he arrived in front of Sam, raising an eyebrow as he took in Sam’s dishevelled state. Sam flushed. “Jess said you’d gone out later than usual so I thought I might see if I could catch you up, join you round the usual trails - but you seem to have finished your run early. You aren’t injured are you? Because, dude, I am not carrying your gigantic ass back to town.”
“Yeah, well, I had to stop running because D…Sirius has disappeared and I can’t find him.”
“Fuck, you didn’t keep him on a leash? Man, you are in deep shit if the rangers find him.”
“Thank you Captain Obvious,” Sam paused a moment at the unanticipated pang using one of Dean’s favourite phrases caused him, and Brady jumped into the gap with an easy grin.
“Want me to help you look for him? He can’t have gone far, right? Probably chasing a rabbit or something.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Jess will kill me if I don’t bring that dog home. I know we’ve only had him for a couple of days but she really loves him.” And wasn’t that just typical Dean? Dog or man, somehow charming his way into your heart when you’re not looking, Sam thought.
With Brady to help, Sam decided to go off the beaten track and begin combing the slopes north and west of the Coyote Trail. The two men started at the farthest point Sam had reached, making their way up to the crest of the ridge, calling all the time. Sam just hoped that Dean would remember his dog alias as well as he usually remembered any of his cover stories for their hunts, and would answer to Sirius when he heard their shouts.
It was past noon by the time they eventually found Dean, or rather, Brady found the hole Dean had fallen into, almost literally stumbled across it. Brady slipped and almost fell over the edge of the deep divot, but was saved by Sam’s quick reactions. Sam grabbed Brady’s arm and yanked him backwards, and when they both leaned over the edge to see where Brady might have ended up, that was when Sam spotted a patch of matted dark and light fur, half buried under a mini landslip of earth and broken plant debris.
“Fuck. I think it’s him,” Sam said and threw himself recklessly into a slide that took him down to Dean’s side. Dean was lying stretched out on his left flank, legs out straight, and Sam’s relief was palpable at seeing his brother’s ribs expanding, albeit slowly.
Somehow the fact that Dean was now a dog and not a human didn’t matter a damn and Sam slid immediately into the routine of checking for injuries, just as if he hadn’t been more than three years out of the life. Brady helped to half dig, half brush off the dirt that was covering Dean’s body, while Sam’s hands, calm and competent in spite of the way his heart was racing, ran over Dean’s forelegs, ribs, rear legs, even his tail, searching and mapping anomalies.
Satisfied there was no spinal damage, Sam carefully lifted Dean to turn him over, and that was when he found the nasty, bloody wound in the left shoulder. Sam hissed, causing Brady to look across, curious. But Sam’s attention had already moved onto the bloody matted patch over Dean’s left eye.
“How is he?” Brady asked.
“Looks like a bad concussion and there’s a pretty deep puncture wound here,” Sam gestured to the injured areas and Brady pulled a sympathetic face that Sam barely noticed. “There may be damage to his ribs too, and bruising I can’t see because of all the fur.”
Normal Winchester triage was not going to work, not with Dean in this form and this bad a shape. Sam needed professional help, which meant a vet, and quick.
“I have to get him to the VCA pet hospital in Stanford.”
He looked up, his attention sharply focussed on Brady. “Do you have your cell?”
Sam swore when Brady shook his head. “Don’t bring it when I’m running, but my truck is parked just at the end of this trail. Do you mean that vet place off El Camino that Zach volunteers at? Come on, I’ll drive you.”
Sam scooped Dean up into his arms. Dean the dog was a lot lighter than Dean the man, but still heavy after a few hundred yards, and Sam daren’t try anything faster than a brisk walk, for fear of worsening Dean’s injuries. He refused to lay Dean on the flat bed of Brady’s truck, insisted on keeping Dean close, draped distressingly limp over Sam’s lap in the shotgun seat, reluctant to release his hold. He needed to literally keep his fingers on the pulse, the continued reassurance of life the only thing keeping his hands from shaking. As it was, he could feel Dean’s warm blood seeping through his track pants and coating his fingers.
Fuck, Dean. You stupid bastard. I swore I’d never do this again.
Give Brady his due, he treated it like a real emergency, and drove right at the edge of the law to get Sam to the pet hospital in the quickest time possible. Sam barely noticed Brady trailing behind him into the reception, except on the barest edges of his awareness, even though it was Brady who smoothed the way by explaining they were friends of Zach. Having a close friend who regularly helped out at the hospital as part of his work experience definitely helped speed up the registration process, though it did nothing to curb Sam’s burning impatience and fear.
When the vet emerged and beckoned him to bring Dean through Sam was there in a single stride.
“We’ll have to get him x-rayed first, check for any other damage and for splinters in that wound. You say he fell into a pit of some kind?”
“Yes, and there were a lot of broken branches so I’m assuming that’s where the puncture wound came from.”
The vet, a middle aged, pleasant faced balding guy who’s name Sam had already forgotten, gestured to Sam to lay Dean down on the table while he pulled the x-ray equipment into position. The guy had to guide Sam with a firm hand on his arm to move them both behind the protective screen while he fired off several shots of radiation. Then he made Sam stay put while he manouevered Dean into different positions. Sam was hard pressed to supress his jitters, knowing the guy was just being thorough. But Dean hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle the entire time, and Sam knew that was not a good sign.
The vet – Dr Bechemal, hey, call me Harvey – eventually gave up trying to get Sam to wait outside with Brady when Sam made it clear he wasn’t going to budge.
“If you are going to loom over me you might as well make yourself useful, son.” Harvey said.
In the end, Sam helped to cut then shave off the thick fur and irrigate the deep tear in Dean’s shoulder, while Harvey sorted out the jagged gash over Dean’s left eye.
“There’s a lot of bruising to the temple here,” Harvey observed as he worked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone had hit the poor old boy with a blunt instrument. This is going to need a few stitches.”
Sam’s hands stilled and he looked up with a frown. However, before he could take that thought any further there was a knock at the door and Brady appeared.
“Your assistant said it would be okay to interrupt,” he said to the vet, then turning to Sam, “It’s gone 3pm, I’m sure Jess will be worried about you both.” Brady held up a hand at Sam’s start of guilt. Shit, Jess. He’d forgotten about her in his panic, how could he have done that? – but Brady was continuing, offering him a solution.
“Why don’t I run over to your apartment and explain what’s going on. I can take care of her while you are taking care of Sirius, here.”
“I…thanks, Brady. Tell her I’ll stay here until I know D--Sirius is going to pull through.”
Brady turned to leave, then stopped, groping in the pocket of his sweats.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. Here.” He found what he was looking for and handed it over. “Take my cell phone. You can ring us later with an update, yeah?”
Sam was still staring at the darkened display on the cell phone as Brady closed the door behind him.
“You need to wait outside now, Sam,” Harvey said. “I’ll let you know what the x-rays show as soon as I’ve got the results. I’ve made Sirius comfortable for the time being, why don’t you let me go see what is going on inside his head.”
Sam swallowed down an urge to tell Harvey that the vet really didn’t want to know what was going on inside his brother’s head, given that it was likely to be pretty un-doglike in content, and knowing Dean, probably x-rated. Sam allowed the vet to steer him out into the small but blessedly empty reception area where he reluctantly sat down in one of the cheap plastic chairs. He could hear Dean’s voice in his head, telling him You’re out of practise, college boy. Let yourself get soft. Sam couldn’t help thinking the little voice in his head was right.
He shifted uncomfortably on the too small chair. Something hard was digging into his thigh. Then he remembered Brady’s cell, pulled it out and switched on the display. The clock told him it was nearly 5pm and he hadn’t called Jess yet. Fuck, he was a bad boyfriend. Awash with guilt, he punched in Jessica’s number.
“Sam! What’s happening? How’s our boy?” Jess didn’t even wait for Sam to say hello before launching into a barrage of questions. Sam was abruptly overcome by weariness and all he wanted to do was bury himself in Jessica’s warm embrace. He didn’t want to be spending anxious hours in yet another hospital, albeit an animal hospital, not their usual regular Winchester-ripped-to-shreds sort of hospital waiting helplessly to see if his brother would pull through…and now even his brain was rambling.
He stood up and paced while he talked to Jess, filling her in on what little they knew so far.
“But he’s stable, right? So that’s a good thing.” Jess was looking for reassurance, and Sam could deny her nothing. Besides, there was no point in both of them worrying.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be fine. But I’d like to hang around, stay here until he wakes up. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, of course, you have to stay. You can’t leave Sirius there on his own. Brady says he’s going to stay with me for a bit, keep me company,” Jess lowered her voice to conspiratorial levels. “To be honest, I think he just wants to play with your Nintendo…” Sam could hear Brady chuckling in the background, then yelling something about it all being lies, damned lies, and he cracked a smile for the first time that day. He had almost forgotten the life he’d built for himself here; the normal, safe, every day life that had nothing to do with hunting, or monsters or ridiculous bewitched brothers who always seem to get themselves into life threatening situations.
“Tell Brady to keep his paws off my stuff – and thanks for the loan of his cell. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Course, babe. If you are lucky I might even bake something special for my boys.”
“Thanks, Jess. I love you.”
“Love you too, babe.”
He terminated the call and blushed when he caught the diminutive receptionist’s indulgent smile. His face only got even redder when his stomach reminded him, vocally, that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Sorry,” he said, “With all this going on I haven’t had time to eat.”
The receptionist’s indulgent expression immediately morphed into sympathy.
“There’s a pizza place two doors down; I think they do takeaway.”
“Yeah, well, thanks but I don’t have any money on me. I came out this morning to go for a run when this happened and all I’ve got on me are my keys and my friend’s phone.”
The plump receptionist – she told him her name was Marcia – was horrified at this tale of woe, and insisted on lending Sam a twenty. “Your nice friend - Tyson, wasn’t it? – told me all about it. And I can always get the money back off your friend Zach on his next shift if you run out on me, sugar!”
She practically shoved him out of the door and pointed him in the right direction, though he could hardly have missed the place, as it was only a few yards away. When Sam returned with Dean’s favourite meat feast pizza and a large soda, Marcia was closing up the clinic. He stood for a moment, nonplussed. Marcia must have read his worry in his face. Dammit. He used to be better at hiding shit like that.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey, we close the hospital to the public at 5.30 on a Sunday, but Harvey’s fine with you stopping here until your pup is out of the woods. He’ll be hanging round for another hour or so any way, checking on all our patients before heading home. Not that we have many cases at the moment, just your dog, a couple of rabbits with mange, a stray Labrador with a broken leg and a Leopard gecko with a nasty abscess.” Marcia shut the cabinet behind the counter and locked it.
“Sometimes Harvey sleeps over if a patient’s condition is serious, but your boy is obviously showing signs of improvement, because Harvey said he’s all set to head out once he’s done.”
“So, what – I’ll be able to take De…Sirius home?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, honey, you’ll have to ask Harvey. Go on through, he’s out back. Second door on the right.”
Sam was halfway through the door before Marcia had finished talking. “Thanks,” he said, a mumbled afterthought thrown over his shoulder. Marcia smiled and Sam thought how Dean would totally have hit on her, and how badly he wanted to see Dean back in action again - flirting, stuffing his face with pie, washing it down with a bottle of beer and grinning at Sam for getting grossed out by his uncouth behaviour. It had never been Dean that Sam had wanted to get away from. His brother had just been collateral damage in Sam’s mini war with their Dad. Sam had seen how each argument was slicing Dean up more than it appeared to affect their father, but been too angry and too desperate to escape from the endless cycle of worry and fear and fighting, to do anything about putting it right. Not that he’d had any clue how to fix things anyway.
Now he had Dean back, but his brother was even farther away from Sam than ever before, trapped inside an animal’s body with no way of telling Sam what had happened to him.
The vet was still in the treatment room when Sam entered.
“Ah, you are back just in time, Sam. I was just finishing up for the evening.”
“Yeah, Marcia explained you were closing up – she said it was okay with you for me to stay with my br—dog until he wakes up?”
“Yes, yes of course. Any friend of Zach’s… Sirius is still heavily sedated, but I expect he should start coming round in a couple of hours or so. I’ve thoroughly cleaned out that puncture wound, there were a few splinters lodged quite deep but it’s packed with antibiotics so the risk of infection is minimal. You will just need to keep an eye on it and stop him licking it while it heals. Let me know if you think he’ll need to be fitted with a cone of shame before he leaves. He has cracked three ribs, but just as with humans, there is very little I can do for him there – I will give you some pain killers for him tomorrow.
I was more concerned about the concussion, but he did regain consciousness briefly before I had to put him under for the operation, so I think he probably has a very hard skull! These sorts of collie-crosses are usually pretty resilient, in my experience.”
Sam nodded, pleased that Dean’s dog form hadn’t sustained too much damage, in Winchester terms anyway, but all he was thinking was that he wanted his brother back. This curse had gone on long enough, and any comedy value had been leached out of the situation the moment Dean had gotten himself injured. Not that Sam wouldn’t store up any number of memories with which to tease Dean for a hundred years once his brother was restored to him safe and sound.
Sam walked over to where Dean was lying on the recovery table. He rested a hand gently on Dean’s flank, taking comfort from the steady rise and fall, the warmth of skin underneath the thick fur. Dean looked smaller like this, more vulnerable, the bandages around his shoulder startlingly white against the black of his coat. Sam had been here too many times before; it was weird how Dean being a dog didn’t feel any different from Dean being Dean, wounded and out cold on a hospital bed.
“Don’t look so worried, Sam. He’ll be fine, you know that, don’t you? I’ll leave the spare keys, just lock up when you leave, and post the keys back through the door.”
Sam didn’t look up as Dr Bechemal left, just kept stroking Dean’s head, lost in the contrast between silky soft texture of Dean’s ears and the coarser longer hair of his ruff. He thought he’d miss this, the ability to touch his brother and show his affection so openly. Sam tore himself away reluctantly to pull up a chair and settled down to wait for Dean to wake up.
After an hour or so, Sam’s eyes grew heavy. He dozed and dreamed fitfully.
Concussion dreams. That was the only explanation Dean could think of for the head-trip he’d been having. Turned into a dog and adopted by Sam? For fuck’s sake, he hated to think what a psychoanalyst would make of that particular fantasy. Or what Sam would make of it either for that matter. Best not ever tell him, that was the solution to that one. Dean’s swim back up from the depths of unconsciousness was slow and confused, but he was used to it – he’d done it too many times before not to recognise that smell of antiseptic and too warm, too stale air as being a hospital, and the groggy, floating feeling weighing down his limbs as being due to some pretty hefty medication. He wondered vaguely what he’d done to himself this time. His memories seemed to be somewhat foggy.
Except there was something odd about this hospital, not least being that he didn’t fit on the bed. Which was such a level weirdness, even in Dean’s life of abnormal, that it finally woke him up. His eyes flew open and he found himself tumbling to the floor. He let out an involuntary yell as the pain of landing broke through his concussion induced haze.
“F--fuck!” Agony lanced through his left shoulder and a dull insistent pounding started up inside his head that left him a stuttering mess, sprawled inelegantly and buck naked on the cold marble tiled floor. He was so disorientated it took a moment to register the murmuring of the low voice and warm touch of big hands helping him up. It might have been a while since he’d heard that voice, except in his dreams, but it was one he knew better than his own.
“S’m? What the fuck you doin’ here?” Dean teetered wildly as he reached the giddy heights of being vertical, and was glad Sam the Wall was there to lean on. Even though he was mystified as to why Sam was here at all. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was Louisiana, that voodoo thing that Dad’d sent him to do, before disappearing into the mists of Dean’s mind.
What had happened after that?
“Dude,” Sam was saying, his brother’s breath moist and warm on Dean’s neck, making him shiver. “I live here, remember?” That made no sense.
“Whaddya mean, you live here? In a hospital? How’d you get to Louisiana anyway? You’re s’posed to be in California. Dumbass.” Dean paused, considering. “Geeky dumbass,” he amended, to take account of Sam being a full ride to Stanford and all. Even doped up, Dean could almost hear Sam’s eye roll and grinned. He shoots, he scores! Damn, he was awesome.
“Dean, this is not a hospital, it’s an animal clinic, and you’re in Palo Alto, don’t you remember? Come on, I need to sort you out before we go find the Impala and your clothes.”
Wait. What? Palo Alto? And he’d lost the Impala? That was so many flavours of wrong it stopped Dean dead, left him swaying on the balls of his feet, oblivious to the fact that Sam’s arm round his naked shoulder was the only reason he was still upright. Sam was trying to steer him over to a chair and after a few seconds, Dean allowed his brother to guide him across the room and sit him down. There were bandages round his sore shoulder but they were hanging loose, like someone had botched the job, so Dean knew that couldn’t have been Sammy. Sammy was a past master at binding wounds.
Man, he hated concussions. They always scrambled his brain. He struggled to capture the memories that were slipping through his grasp as if they’d been smeared with butter. He almost wiped his hands down his thighs at the thought, which was just stupid.
He’d been in New Orleans, Dad had taken off saying he had something to do. Dean had finished the voodoo job then… Then what? Somehow he’d ended up in California, and injured. Sam was talking to him while long fingers worked efficiently, tightening the bandages around Dean’s shoulder and re-bandaging Dean’s buzzing head. So he had a concussion, and a hole in his shoulder. Wasn’t that just peachy? He breathed a deep sigh, and discovered his broken ribs. This just keeps getting better and better, he thought. And over and under it all, woven through him like loose thread, was the nagging feeling that he’d forgotten something important.
Something besides how he’d arrived here, how he’d gotten injured, and how he’d somehow lost his Baby, that is. Just how long had he been in Palo Alto anyway? The way Sam was talking, it was more than a day. He must have been thinking out loud, because Sam answered him.
“I don’t know how long you were here before that witch turned you into a dog, Dean. I mean, it was hard enough working out that the damn dog was you in the first place, let alone having a meaningful conversation with canine-you.”
“I was a dog? Oh god. I didn’t hump anything, did I?” That got him an extra hard eye roll from Sam, which was a bit unfair, because Dean was sure that was a valid concern.
“I’m not going to discuss your mating habits, Dean, and besides I wasn’t with doggie-you 24/7.” Sam finished fiddling with Dean’s bandages and stepped back, causing Dean to nearly topple off the chair, which was when he realised he must have been leaning heavily on his brother. His exposed skin prickled with the chill where Sam’s bulk had been sheltering him from the air conditioning’s drafts, and he shivered. Sam’s face was unreadable as he looked at Dean.
“I need to find you some clothes. Can you remember where you left the Impala?”
Dean thought perhaps he might. The effects of the head injury must be wearing off because certain images were sliding back into his head, all tangled up with the return of pain. A woman, hair wild as she screamed at him, just before he blew her away. Waking up with fur and a tail. Finding Sam, and his Jessica. His mind shied away from the latter pretty swiftly, he could come back to that one later, it was actually easier to think about the dog part. Then the Impala, parked up near the witch’s house down by a wide open space - soccer pitches, trees, what had it been it called? Green…no, Greer Park.
“Yeah, yeah. You know Colorado Avenue, Greer Park? I…I think I left her there, round the corner from where the witch lived.”
He struggled to his feet, swearing when his naked skin stuck to the plastic chair, peeling off painfully when he rose.
“Yeah, I know it. And you are staying right here. Sit!” Sam was back in Dean’s personal space, looming as only Sam could do, since he’d acquired a load more inches when he was sixteen. Except now he had bulk to go with it. For extra emphasis. If Dean didn’t know his brother - and he carefully ignored the little voice at the back of his mind that was asking him if he really did know Sam, after two years not talking – Dean might have been intimidated.
As it was, Dean sat back down because he was feeling dizzy and his legs were wobbly, not because Sam told him to. Damn. Having been a dog for a while seemed to have left Dean with a residual urge to be obedient for Sam, probably riding on the back of years of John Winchester’s quasi-military training. That thought was so disturbing Dean sat uncharacteristically quiet and docile while Sam found him a veterinarian’s equivalent of a doctor’s white coat to wear, and swallowed the two rather large tablets Sam gave him – pain killers, Sam informed him, though Dean hadn’t asked. He didn’t even protest when Sam wrapped him up in a fleecy blanket dotted with black paw prints before leaving Dean locked into the Pet hospital while Sam went to look for the Impala, an indignity that would normally had had him yelling his disgust.
He did rouse momentarily as Sam was closing the door, enough to get in a parting shot on behalf of the Impala.
“Hey! Don’t you jimmy the door or try hotwiring my baby, dude. My keys will be in my jacket pocket, you’ll just have to find my clothes first, right?”
Sam’s dismissive hand wave wasn’t reassuring, and Dean slumped back into the hard plastic chair disconsolately, huddling into the too-short doggy blanket, his pale legs sticking out of the bottom so he must have looked like some sort of refugee from a disaster movie.
Man, this sucked balls. And now he could no longer do that to himself either, a recollection that had him blushing.
Seeing Dean like this was getting what he wished for then not knowing how to handle it. Somehow since changing back into his proper, human form his brother was more than just physically naked, the latter being a sight Sam had seen so often it didn’t even register. No, this was different. Sam felt Dean had been stripped bare in a way that was more than just skin deep and he couldn’t wait to get out of there; any excuse would do. Which was ironic considering how he’d been longing for Dean to become himself again, ever since discovering their adopted dog was his brother.
One good thing, Greer Park wasn’t that far to jog from the animal hospital on El Camino Real. The sun had set several hours ago, and the desert air had cooled with the coming of the darkness, but running kept Sam warm. It didn’t take him long to spot the sleek black beauty of the Impala, parked alongside some trees behind a couple of soccer goals in the park. Across the field floated the laughter and banter of the boarders in the floodlit Skateboard park, and the ever present hum of traffic on the Bayshore Road, but the residential close where Dean had left the Impala was quiet. The families were probably all settled down over their TV dinners and their computers, living their normal apple pie lives, safe behind their carefully cultivated gardens and concrete driveways. Unwittingly safer now the witch that used to live next door to them was dead.
Tracking down the deceased witch’s house and Dean’s clothes was a harder task. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew Dean would freak if he didn’t get Dad’s leather jacket back, Sam would have risked Dean’s wrath and jimmied the Impala. In spite of Dean’s fears, Sam could have done it without leaving a mark on her. He might have been out of the family business for a few years but some skills never leave you – and he’d had a good teacher.
Sam was nothing if not methodical, and using the car as his starting point, he eventually spotted an anomaly in one of the whitewashed houses at the end of the col de sac facing the park. Most of the residences in the close had large double garages built into their fronts, all uniformly presenting a closed face on the outside world. All bar one, where the left hand garage door had been left open; just a foot gap at the bottom of the rollup, but it gaped black as a mouth and beckoned to Sam. He approached with caution, wary of activating security lights that might alarm watchful neighbours, but if there had been any, they were no longer working. The streetlight across the way didn’t reach as far as the bland front of this house, and Sam was able to slip through the shadows to lift the garage door a little higher so he could slide in under the gap.
Once his eyes adjusted to the minimal light, Sam could see that his instincts had been spot on. An internal door to the house stood ajar, and Sam had no doubt that if he were to enter, he’d find the corpse of the witch Dean had killed. Fortunately, there was no need venture any further inside, as the first thing to come into sharp focus was the dull golden glint of Dean’s amulet. He scooped it up and immediately hung it round his neck for safekeeping, its weight reassuringly heavy against his sternum.
Sam could see Dean’s clothes were scattered in a darker shadowy trail from Sam’s feet where he stood just inside the entrance to the garage, up to the steps into the house, which on closer inspection proved to be draped with Dean’s leather jacket – with the keys to the Impala in the pocket. Yahtzee.
Sam took care to close the garage door fully behind him when he left. He could almost hear Dean’s voice gleefully declaring “ding dong the witch is dead” as the lock snicked shut.
Stoopid LJ has made me go to FOUR parts - dammit! Part Four here folks...