It's a Dog's Life - Part 1

[amberdreams]

Friday October 30, 2005

It took Dean a little while to realise all was not as it should be, and a little while longer to work out what was different. 

He felt fine.  Better than fine, in fact, he felt great.  He was puzzling over why he would be surprised by this fact, before he remembered.  That witch – man, did he hate witches! – she’d been muttering and throwing various unspeakably nasty ingredients into a copper bowl when he’d finally run her to ground in her totally unremarkable house, and she’d promptly chucked the whole lot over him before he’d managed to get off a shot and put her down.  That shit had stunk worse than a sewer, and he’d felt it burning his skin before…

Before what?  He couldn’t seem to remember what had happened after that.

There was no hint of a sewer stink now though.  Quite the contrary in fact.  Everything smelt fantastic  – cut grass, hot pavements, sweaty hormonal young people, and a hint of salt from San Francisco Bay or maybe the ocean itself from beyond the ridge of hills to the west.  He opened his eyes.

Now that was weird. 

He was lying on a lawn – nothing out of the ordinary there; and that explained why his head was swimming with that almost overpowering smell of mown grass.  He was fairly certain when he’d tracked the witch down it had been to a nice clean Desperate Housewives place with a double garage and concrete floors, not a freaking park, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing.  No, the really strange thing was that this grass was all yellow instead of green.

He lifted his head to look around and it was like he’d emerged into a Star Trek episode (the original, of course, not the movie versions).  The colours were all screwed up, as if he was looking though some sort of coloured filter that had leached all the red out of the world.  The sky was blue and relatively normal, but all the trees and vegetation were various shades of yellow, and while just about everything else in sight was either blue or grey.  Dean raised a hand to rub at his eyes only to squint blurrily and in growing horror at the limb in front of his face.  This was not his hand, or his arm, but a thin, spindly, very hairy leg with a blunt-clawed paw on the end of it where his hand should be.

“Fuck!” he said.  Except he didn’t, because all he heard was a disgruntled woof.  Which just confirmed his conclusion.  That bitch had turned him into a freaking dog. 

Well, shit. 

Dean stood up.  Or rather, he scrabbled around in a highly undignified manner until he managed to get the hang of the fact that he now had a leg at each corner instead of two legs and two arms.  A passer-by giggled at his antics and Dean growled in frustration. That sent the giggler packing pretty damn quick, which was a little gratifying.  At least he was still a badass, even if he was only two and a half feet tall and covered in fur.

A new person was approaching and Dean forgot all about the offensive giggler as he was overwhelmed by a whole new set of smells.

Dean’s brain struggled to deal with an influx of data as his nose told him that underneath the nasty chemical scent the newcomer was wearing, she was female, young, premenstrual and had had sex this morning.  With his brother.  The shock of that information overload held him in place when the human part of him just wanted to get the hell out of there before he died of embarrassment.  Meanwhile the girl, whose long hair was a lighter yellow than the grass, had decided to make friends with him.  She patted his head and scratched behind his ear, seemingly undeterred by Dean’s grumpiness.

“You’re cute. I wonder who owns you? Mm, no collar… Sam would love you!”

Dean was in full agreement with that last statement.  He wanted Sam to love him, he really did.  Something like an earthquake was happening at his rear end at the thought, and he realised with chagrin that it was his tail, wagging.  Oh. My. God.  He had a tail.  And worse still, it was out of control.  It seemed to be wired directly to something in his doggy brain that was in turn linked to the mention of his brother, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that this girl scratching that particular spot just there – oh yes please, right there – was making his back leg twitch, it felt so fucking good. 

Then these indignities got ten times worse when he got a whiff of something so familiar it felt like coming home.

Sam. Sam samsamsamsam!

Dean couldn’t seem to help himself.  As his brother approached, he tore himself away from the girlfriend and virtually bounced at Sam’s legs with an excited bark.  Luckily for Dean, Sam didn’t seem to find a strange dog bounding straight at him at all intimidating.  In fact, Sam was more than happy to bend down and return Dean’s greeting with a gratifying amount of enthusiasm.  The human part of Dean was half relieved and half annoyed.  Relieved Sam hadn’t recognised him because hey, the embarrassment factor of having been turned into a dog was actually pretty high; annoyed because hadn’t Dean taught the kid any better than that?  Surely there must be some outward sign that he was an unnatural creature, and that Dean wasn’t just any old stray dog?

One thing Dean was never admitting ever, not even if you tortured him within an inch of his life, was that being able to greet Sam like this?  Without inhibitions, without barriers, without their history?  It was the most liberating feeling.  Some part of Dean decided he was going to make the most of this opportunity for open, easy affection while it lasted, and grinned even more happily when his doggie self managed to get a nice lot of slobber all over Sam’s jeans.  Good to know he could still be annoying, even trapped in a dog’s form.

“Oh hey, Jess, you forgot your cell.”  Sam rummaged in his pocket with his free hand without stopping his petting of Dean and handed the cell phone over.  “Do you know this dog, then?  It’s some sort of a collie, isn’t it?  I’ve not seen him round here before…”

The girlfriend – Jess – was shaking her head, an indulgent smile on her face as she watched Sam.  Dean approved.  He liked this Jess, he decided.  She had attractive moles on her face just like Sam’s, and she smelled loyal and loving.  Dean plonked his ass down on Sam’s foot and leaned his head against Sam’s muscular thigh.  Huh.  Little brother had been working out since he’d been away then.  Dean remembered when those legs used to be much skinnier than this. Distracted, it was a few moments before Dean managed to drag his attention back to the human conversation happening above his head. It was hard to concentrate when long, strong fingers were doing such wonderful things to him – and that was all kinds of wrong when Dean remembered that those fingers, which were now scratching his stomach and dangerously close to his doggie genitals, belonged to his little brother.

Mortified, Dean rolled upright from where he’d somehow ended up on his back to allow Sam better access – how the hell had that happened? – and tuned back into what Sam and Jess were saying.  Sadly most of it wasn’t about him, but boring stuff about classes, and professors, and papers that were due. 

Geeze Sammy.  You’d think you’d have better things to discuss with your girl…

Dean’s attention had started to drift again until Sam mentioned something about a dog, and Dean remembered the damn dog was him. 

“That dog is still following you, Jess,” Sam said, his tone amused.

The two of them had been walking while they talked, and Dean had automatically tagged along without even realising he was doing it, his hard nails click-click-clicking on the warm concrete sidewalk.  Really, who’d have thought it would be so hard for a dog to concentrate on stuff?

It had seemed so natural to fall in alongside Sam.  Like this was something routine that he would have done had he been wholly himself, even though he wouldn’t actually have done it because he hadn’t even been intending to talk to Sam this visit, and hadn’t done anything more than check on his brother from a distance, not for nearly four fucking years.

Not since Sam left, riding the tidal wave of his own and their father’s rage, leaving Dean washed up, high and dry like a battered piece of driftwood.  Worn smooth and colourless by the power of that angry sea.

Jess laughed.  “He’s not following me, Sam; he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you turned up!”

Sam looked back at Dean, the expression on his face suddenly sharper, more suspicious, and Dean thought he’d been busted.  Perhaps he wasn’t being as subtle as he’d thought. He gave his tail a tentative wag and tried the most innocent expression he could imagine. He had no idea what he was doing. So sue him, he’d never been a dog before.  Sam’s face turned thoughtful and Dean’s doggie heart flipped in his doggie chest, just a little bit.  The thought of Sam’s giant brain entirely focussing on Dean was suddenly no longer desirable but terrifying, and Dean found himself rooted to the spot.

Then Sam shrugged and flung his arm carelessly round Jess’ slender shoulders, walking away without a backward glance.  Dean’s tail drooped and he sat on it, heavily.  It kind of hurt, so Dean figured he’d got something wrong with that manoeuvre. He sighed and kind of stretched out, resting his heavy head on his front paws as he watched Sam and Jess dwindle into the grey/blue/yellow distance. 

Abandoned again.  What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Dean’s fugue state didn’t last long.  Mainly because he was about to make a new discovery about his canine nature.  Namely, that dogs love squirrels.  It appeared that he could not resist a squirrel.   It transpired that Stanford campus had many, if not too many, of the pesky rodents, mostly the black variety.  A flash of dark amongst the yellow grass, the tantalising and surprisingly pungent scent that he recognised instantly as squirrel, and Dean was on all four feet in a flash, running after the bushy tailed little freak. Who promptly whizzed up the nearest tree, leaving Dean panting and frustrated at the bottom of the smooth grey trunk.  The little fucker was probably sitting on a branch up there preparing to chuck nuts at his head, and laughing its little freaky, squeaky laugh.

It seemed dogs don’t really have much idea about time, however awesome they are at smelling stories on people.  Or (fruitlessly) chasing squirrels. Dean had absolutely no idea how long he spent dashing from tree to tree, or how he managed to have an endless supply of pee with which to water each and every tree after each fucking squirrel escaped up it.  He only knew that some time had passed, the sun was high and hot, he was starving hungry and had a raging thirst.  Lucky for him, most Stanford students were nothing like the clean-living Sam Winchester.  They had plenty of cash to spend, a predilection for junk food, and untidy, wasteful natures.  It didn’t take Dean very long between forming the thought food to finding two half eaten burgers and wolfing them down.  He just followed his awesome nose, rootled around in a heap of fast food wrappers and yahtzee.  The trouble was, he was still hungry.  And thirsty.  Lapping up a puddle of spilt soda only resulted in a few minutes sneezing and a sticky muzzle, which was not only quite funky but left him more thirsty.

Time to apply some human logic to the problem instead of letting the dog-part boss the show.  In fact, it was long past time for Dean to get to grips with this whole problem. He needed to find a solution that would get him back into his own form as soon as possible.  He wasn’t even sure where he’d left the Impala, which was just unacceptable.  Dad hadn’t been in contact since dispatching Dean to Louisiana while he had headed to Jericho on a different case, but having finished off this unexpected witch hunt, Dean knew he needed to report in and await instructions, get new co-ordinates, a new job.  He shouldn’t have been here in Stanford the first place, but it had been several months since Dean had had the chance to check in on Sam, and he hadn’t wanted to wait another month or two before satisfying himself that his brother was okay.  So he’d driven like a bat out of hell from New Orleans after the voodoo job, hoping Dad wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t reported in straight away. 

There might be a text or voice mail waiting for him right now, and he was stuck in Palo Alto as a freaking dog.

Most witches’ curses had an expiry date attached, but it could be a matter of hours, days or even weeks.  Dean had no way of knowing how long he was likely to be stuck as man’s best friend.  However long it was, he would have to plan for a sudden, and doubtless inconvenient metamorphosis.  For instance, he was going to need speedy access to clothes if he wasn’t to get arrested for indecent exposure. 

Therefore the first logical step was to find out where Sam was living, because if all else failed, he could grab some of Sam’s gear.  Second step – find the Impala, though that was going to be harder. He had a feeling he must have gotten himself a motel room somewhere off campus in downtown Palo Alto, and though he might not remember exactly where thanks to the witch’s mind whammy, at least she hadn’t wiped the road map in Dean’s head.  The trouble was, Palo Alto was a high class sort of town and any scruffy stray roaming those clean streets was likely to get picked up by dog control. Whereas here on Campus, nobody was paying too much attention to him.  Thank fuck for students and their self absorption.

He looked around.  Somehow he’d lost time again – freaking squirrels - because now the sun was getting low, and an exodus of chattering students was pouring from the gleaming white faculty buildings.  Sam had gone into one of those, Dean reasoned, therefore should be exiting soon, so all he had to do was hang around somewhere near the place Sam had left him, and hopefully tail his brother home.  Tail, hah!  Funny... Dean trotted over to some shady bushes and flung himself down to wait.

The demon currently residing in Tyson Brady, 4^th year student of Law, had been hand picked by Azazel for its patience.  Orias had a reputation in Hell for excelling at the waiting game, and that was exactly the skill Azazel needed to weave his web around Lucifer’s chosen children, Sam Winchester in particular.  So Orias had been happy to be chosen, and took pride in his occupation of Sam’s good friend.  The human that had been Tyson was long gone now, and Orias had come to think of himself as Brady more often than he remembered his centuries old demon self.  Being Tyson Brady was the most fun he’d had in a very long time.  Students were so needy and desperate.

Still, Brady hadn’t lost focus.  He was aware that his task here was nearly done.  He strolled out of the Advanced Criminal Defense Clinic at Sam’s side. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he bumped shoulders with Sam.  In only a few days, Jessica Moore would be dead, and his young buddy here would be consumed with grief and a burning desire for revenge. Brady couldn’t wait. It would be a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Sam Winchester was a quiet one, and many in their little group of friends mistook that for passivity, but Brady knew Sam’s passions ran deep.  Brady saw the sharp edged blade hidden inside the soft sheath that was Sam Winchester’s public face, and that hidden menace excited the demon.  Even more so when the demon in Brady knew to look for the occasional glimpses of raw Sam that the young student occasionally let slip, revealing not only the trained hunter in him, but also the bubbling anger that fuelled Sam and made him dangerous. 

Jessica Moore might be a beautiful and clever girl, but Brady knew nobody on earth was a good enough partner for Sam. It was fitting that Jess would be the instrument of Sam’s final forging into a weapon worthy of their Lord and master.  Brady was honoured that he was going to contribute to that annealing of Sam’s blade.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Sam commented with an indulgent smile at Brady that was swiftly transformed into a blinding grin when he saw Jess waiting for him on the path outside.  Brady knew it wouldn’t really matter what he said now, because 90% of Sam’s attention would be focussed on Jess.

“Yeah, well, it is Halloween tomorrow,” Brady replied, throwing in a veiled warning because he knew Sam wouldn’t hear it,  “And you know how much I love Halloween.”

They joined Jess, who gave Brady a hug because she loved him.  He’d introduced the two lovebirds after all, so she couldn’t thank Brady enough for her happiness.  Hell, Brady loved her back.  He always treated Jessica right because she was going to help him achieve his goals, and his affection for her was unfeigned.  He kissed her cheek with enthusiasm and thought how much more beautiful she was going to look when that lovely face was contorted with pain and wreathed in flames.

“Poor Sam,” she said, “You’re the only person I know who hates the holiday.  I wonder, what’s the Halloween equivalent of the Grinch?”

Sam laughed along with them, but Brady could feel all the day’s tension leaking out of his friend, and he smiled wider.  All this anticipation was making Brady horny.  He would have to find someone to screw tonight, to release some of his own tension.  Brady didn’t want Sam suspecting a thing, and if the demon was wound up too tight, he might give something away.  He’d have loved to fuck Jessica too, just once before the end, he knew she’d scream so prettily - but she was off limits, all Sam’s.

The three friends strolled towards the parking lot, chatting about inconsequential things, like SATs and studying assignments and what dressing up costumes to wear for Jessica’s farewell  slash Halloween party.  Brady hoped she would look great for her final fling.  Sacrifices were such fun.

Each absorbed in their conversation and their own thoughts, none of the three noticed the unkempt black and white collie-cross following them at a distance as they walked over to Brady’s pick up.  No one saw the dog’s agile jump onto the flatbed of Brady’s truck, and no one was aware they had a canine hitchhiker riding home with them.

Dean had been wondering what on earth he was going to do when he saw the three students heading to a parking lot, as he was well aware that no dog was fast enough to keep up with a car; so he couldn’t believe his luck when they all got into a flatbed Chevy pickup.   It was easy as pie (oh god, pie…what would he give for some pie, he was still so hungry!) to jump up and let them take him home with them.  And riding on the pickup was such a head-trip for his doggie-self too.  He loved the way the air rushed past his face and blew his ears around, but the best part was all the great smells – it was an olfactory kaleidoscope.

In fact it was so awesome, he nearly missed the blond guy stopping to drop Sam and Jess off outside an old but well-kept apartment complex.  He ducked his head and waited until the pickup was pulling away before leaping down and trotting back to the building Sam and Jess were walking towards.  Dean watched to make sure they were safely inside then sat outside, nonplussed, wondering what to do next.  The happy couple might be set for the night now, and Dean was kind of stranded.  There weren’t even any squirrels here to chase.

He shifted his bottom against the paving slab. Huh.  That was kind of nice.  Now that he thought about it, his butt was kind of itchy and if he wriggled just so…awesome.  His tail splayed out, he lifted one of his back legs and – oh man, he could get his foot right over his head! He was even more bendy than Gumby Girl Lisa, which was pretty impressive.  So if he could do that, then this did that mean…? 

Oh.  Oh yes.

Okay, Dean had to admit, being a dog wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to him.  Licking his own balls was really cool.  He could even sniff his own butt.  Maybe he shouldn’t be in such a rush to get changed back…

Absorbed in his new discoveries, Dean didn’t hear footsteps approaching and so was taken totally by surprise when a large hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and lifted him bodily of the ground.  He yipped his distress.  Dogs and Deans were not made for suspension in thin air.  He found himself staring into a pair of angry cat-slanted eyes he knew better than his own.

“Okay, where the hell did you spring from?  How did you follow us here?  What are you?”

Sam hadn’t believed his eyes at first when he glanced from the window and caught sight of the dog from the campus sitting on the sidewalk across the road from their apartment, not ten minutes after Brady had dropped them off.

Goddammit, he had just known there was something not right about that creature.  He couldn’t put his finger on it but there had been something that had set what Dean would have called his Spidey-senses tingling when he’d seen Jess petting it outside the library this morning.  Now it was here, and Sam Winchester might have been out of the hunting game for the past few years, but he had been raised not to believe in coincidences.

Jess was in the kitchen, so Sam quickly slipped his gun down the back of his waistband, and covered it with his shirt before yelling something about going out to get some milk.  He made a swift exit before she could react and tell him they had plenty in the fridge.  At the foot of the stairs, he checked the silver knife was safely lodged down its sheath in his boot before taking a roundabout route to come up behind the seemingly oblivious animal.  It was odd that it was not more wary if it was something supernatural, but Sam was taking no chances.

He lunged and had the creature by the scruff of its neck before it could move, and held it at arms length.  It made a pathetic surprised noise but didn’t struggle, just dangled there with those strangely un-doglike hazel eyes wide, staring at him as if it knew him.  As if it trusted him.

“What are you?” Sam said again, frowning.  The dog whined softly and tried to wag its tail, and Sam felt like a total douche.  He gently lowered it down and had to admit the animal looked a lot happier with all four paws safely on the ground.  He ran a hand through his bangs and sighed.  Maybe it really was just a fucking stray dog and he was over reacting.  It was still looking at him with what could only be called a hopeful expression, and Sam found his anger draining away.  Shit.  If it was something supernatural, it was very good at casting a doggie-powered spell over humans, because Sam was starting to wonder whether the Seven Eleven round the corner sold dog food or not.

“You hungry?”

He’d swear the freaking thing grinned as it wagged its tail.  Fuck it, he really was done for.  The dog followed him to the supermarket and was waiting patiently outside when Sam emerged with a few cans of Natural Balance and a bag of dog biscuits, plus a pint of milk to cover his white lie to Jess.

“I’m not encouraging you, right?  But if you want, you can come back with me – just temporary, okay?”

The dog looked like its hind legs might drop off, its tail wagged so hard, and it trotted alongside Sam like it belonged there, all the way back to the apartment.

Jess, being the awesome girlfriend that she was, took the addition of a canine visitor in her stride, only laughing at Sam’s stumbling attempts at explaining his weakness in bringing it home.

“It’s ok Sam, really.  You couldn’t leave him outside on his own.  So what are you going to call him then?  We can’t keep just calling him ‘dog’.”

Sam grimaced.  “I don’t know that naming him is such a good idea, we can’t keep him, after all.”

The dog’s ears drooped and his tail tucked between his legs, and Sam’s pained expression only grew when Jess told him off for talking so negatively in front of the dog, as if the creature could understand every word they were saying.  The problem was, Sam wasn’t sure that it couldn’t understand them.  It certainly reacted to everything they were saying ...  He still wasn’t convinced this dog was actually an ordinary dog, but as it seemed harmless, he was willing to let his doubts slide.  For now.

“He likes the limelight, doesn’t he?  A bit of a star… Maybe we should call him Sirius.” Jess suggested after the dog had stuck his nose in her crotch for the second time, with every evidence of enjoying sniffing her lady parts far too much for Sam’s liking, though Jess didn’t seem to mind.

“What, the black dog from Harry Potter?”  Sam said, somewhat distracted.

The dog gave him look of complete disgust.

“Well, I was thinking of Orion’s Dog star, but either would do.” Jess replied.

“Okay, Sirius it is.”

Sirius barked.  It sounded like a cross between approval and amusement.

Part Two this way...