Finding the Winchesters was going to be harder than I had originally anticipated. I groaned and ran a hand through my hair, brushing it out of my face and glaring at the fully charged phone in my hand. I had a handful of Dean's phone numbers and two of Sam's, but I knew I didn't have all of them. Those boys had a ridiculous amount of phones and I never knew which they were using.
I fiddled with the phone and selected one of Sam's numbers, chewing on my lip as it dialed. There was a chance he would answer, but it was slim. I was sure there was no way Dean would answer - I had a feeling he was angry with me, and even before my stunt he had rarely answered my calls, always so fixated on something else.
I really needed a better way to get ahold of the brothers.
After six long rings, the call dropped. No answer. I pinched the bridge of my nose and kicked at a pebble in the middle of the deserted motel parking lot. Apparently, I'd need to call all of their numbers.
Sam didn't answer either of his known phones, but I wasn't surprised by that. It was around lunchtime, so they were either hunting or scarfing burgers at some diner. Hunting was the most likely option - they didn't usually have their phones on them during a hunt.
I tried Dean's cell next. Three numbers in, I finally heard a receiving click on the other end - I nearly jumped for joy.
"Hello?" came Sam's gruff voice on the other end. I was surprised to hear his voice instead of his older brother's.
"Sam? It's Y/N." I heard a lot of shuffling from the other end, like he had bolted upright from shock.
"Y/N? Is everything alright? Are you OK-"
"I'm fine, Sam. Better than fine actually," I said with a grin. It was good to hear his voice. "I've figured some stuff out. I'm feeling... better now."
"That's good!" he exclaimed, the phone cutting out briefly. "So... what are you calling for? Shouldn't you be... doing pack stuff?"
I laughed. "I'm not with my pack yet. Not quite ready for that. I was wondering where you boys are at? Thought maybe I'd join you for another hunt before I went back to my pups."
He chuckled. "We're in Colorado right now, pretty close to Wyoming. Listen Y/N... maybe you shouldn't come back yet. Dean's pretty pissed - he's been burying himself in the hunt for dad."
I scoffed. "An even better reason for me to come back. I can help you find your father and knock some sense into your dumbass brother. Did you explain to him why I left?"
"Yeah, yeah I tried to explain it to him. But he still feels pretty betrayed. You left without a word to him, Y/N," he sounded distraught and I heard more shuffling from the other end.
I fell silent, pondering what to say next. How was I supposed to explain to them why I left? Sam understood at least a little, but Dean... I could understand why he was frustrated. I wasn't sure what to say to make amends, but I had to try.
"I want to see you, Sam - both of you. I want to apologize to Dean, but I can't do that unless I see him."
Sam sighed from the other end. "OK. I'll keep you updated on where we are. I'll see you soon, N/N."
I felt my heart soar at the nickname. After a flood of profuse thank-yous and Sam's chuckles, the line finally went dead. He had given me a location amongst my gratitude and I was already throwing all of my clothes into my bag before the call was finished.
I laughed and threw myself onto the solid mattress, burying my face into the blankets. Relief washed over me. It felt like for the first time in months things were finally going my way. I rolled over onto my back and stared at my ceiling.
I was realizing that I really hadn't had a break in a while. The last time something hadn't gone wrong and stayed wrong for a while was when Dennis was still alive. After that Chikaltio showed up and not long after that the Winchesters.
I deserved a break, I realized, a smile growing on my lips. However, I knew I wasn't going to get one anytime soon.
I sat up and grabbed my pack, slinging it over my shoulder and leaving the room. After checking out and returning my key I was off once more, slipping back down the highway and trudging along until I was far enough from town that I could shift.
My shifting was still rocky - sometimes it would take a few tries. Eventually, though, I would get it. I relished the feeling of my bones cracking, a sensation that had long lost its unpleasantness. To feel the wind in my thick fur after weeks of being unable to... it was really something else.
I still wasn't entirely comfortable in my fur, at least not around people. However, the fact that I was able to rein it in with the grizzly... it was a step in the right direction, and I was slowly building confidence.
I huffed and shook my furred head, letting my ears fall flat against my skull. I couldn't help but pout - maybe I did make the wrong decision by leaving? It was the right decision for me, but was it the right decision for the boys? Dean had every right to be angry with me.
I plodded along, mixing my slow and heavy steps with heartened trotting. Sometimes my mind would fall on something that made me pause and slow to think about it.
I had a feeling that when I saw the Winchesters again Dean was not going to be happy. I knew he wasn't always... the best at dealing with disappointment. I wondered if he would even listen to what I had to say.
I didn't really want to think about that. Steeling myself, I dropped those thoughts and once more ran briskly along the edge of the road towards the brothers.
---
Although short, the journey was tiresome. I had to pass almost directly through Yellowstone and avoid tourists as best as I could. That was more difficult when I passed through the rolling plains where I could have easily been spotted - I don't think people would have disregarded a wolf with a backpack.
I had to travel around a herd of bison along my way - they look big and cuddly from a distance, but those beasts wouldn't have hesitated to kill me. Plus, they stink. It was well worth the detour.
Now, after half a day of travel, the sun was setting and I was thoroughly exhausted. It was strange how quickly I lost touch with my furred form after just a few weeks. But, hopefully, I would be able to rest easy with the Winchesters tonight, though I wouldn't be surprised if I was told to get my own room. Getting Dean to say yes to a hunt would be hard enough, and I really didn't want to push my luck.
I huffed and dropped my nose to the ground, searching for familiar scents. I doubted I would find any, but it didn't hurt to try. At this time of night, the brothers would likely be at a bar on the outskirts of town.
Upon seeing the welcome sign that coaxed me into the small city and shifted back to my standard two legs and stretched, reaching high above my head. I always felt like my posture was poor after a long trek in my fur like I was consistently hunched over. It wasn't good for my back. I chuckle to myself and dropped my arms, my hands latching around the straps of my backpack.
Oddly enough, my heart felt heavy, like something severe was weighing on me. It was... an odd sensation that I hadn't felt in a very long time - not since my parents were still with me. Oddly enough, it was less of a weighing feeling and more of a tug. The tug itself was heavy, and it felt like it was pulling on a part of me that I didn't want to be released.
Something was wrong.
Something was always wrong when I felt that tug. I had felt it not long before... my first attack and my mother's death. I remember asking my father about it, though he had refused to give me a clear answer. Something about responsibility, whatever the hell that meant.
I hummed and frowned slightly, my eyebrows creasing with worry. Maybe it was a mistake to come looking for the Winchesters before the pack? I had half a mind to turn back, but... I still didn't feel ready. Why I didn't feel ready to face them evaded them - it wasn't like I was ashamed. Well, I was. Ashamed of my lack of control. But it was my pack that gave me the strength to stay in control.
I huffed and blew a stray piece of hair out of my face, tucking it behind my hair. I kicked the occasional large stone out of my way as I traipsed down the road, headed towards whatever lay at the end of it. Hopefully a bar.
After another thirty minutes of walking, something I grumbled about to myself, I finally spotted dim lights behind a row of thick pine trees. My ears pricked at the sound of the engines roaring to life in the early night, something that oddly warmed my heart and made me want to prance. It wasn't long after that the stench of alcohol hit my nose. I wrinkled my nose; although I had had alcohol plenty of times, the stench was never something I had grown fond of.
The bar was a brick building on the edge of town, a neon sign glowing above the door and the building itself set into the corner of the block. The occasional car or motorcycle was parked out front. I smiled and brushed my hand affectionately over the front of an older motorcycle - I had always wanted to learn how to ride them. I wondered what it felt like to be on something so small, barrelling down a highway faster than I could run.
My eyes rose, scanning the line of cars until they settled on a sleek older model across the street. My eyes widened and a grin tore across my face. It was the Impala.
I whirled towards the door so fast that I nearly fell over, tripping over my own feet like a stumbling drunk. I righted myself and raced towards the door without skipping a beat. All logic had flown out the window - I had completely forgotten about the fact that Dean might be furious with me. Instead, I felt like a pup again and raced into the bar with an excited grin on my face.
My senses dulled as the stench of alcohol hit my nose once again. The harsh smell practically threw me off my feet and made my eyes water. I couldn't place any other scent amongst the heavy, bourbon-filled air and that alone sunk anxious claws into my lungs, oxygen being stolen from them.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, grounding myself. The overwhelming scents and smells were driving my wolfish senses crazy, as they still hadn't calmed from my last escapade with the brothers. It had been weeks since I was in a room with this many people. Suddenly, I felt small and large at the same time. Small with worry and nerves. Large with fearsome hunger.
I rolled my shoulders and took a few more deep breaths, sifting through the heavily masked scents. My eyes flew open as a familiar scent hit my nose and I struggled to keep the rising gold color down.
Cherries.
My grin returned as my eyes locked onto a lone figure at the bar counter and without a second thought, I strode towards him. I motioned to the bartender, holding up two fingers. He nodded and I sat beside Dean. The elder Winchester didn't look up from his glass of whiskey.
"Hello, handsome," I purred, propping an elbow on the counter and resting my chin on my curled fist. Dean spared me a glance from the corner of his green eye, taking in my wide smile, and suddenly jumped. He did a double take out of shock and turned to me with wide eyes and parted lips. As suddenly as his surprise had come, it was gone and darkened with spite.
"What do you want?" he growled and took a long sip from his whiskey glass, failing to hide his frown. The bartender returned to me with two beer bottles and placed them in front of me. I slid one towards Dean and took a swig of my own.
"Aren't you happy to see me, Dean?" I asked as I placed my beverage down. The smile didn't quite reach my eyes, the joke a poor excuse for control and tension alleviation.
"No, I'm not," he snapped, refusing to face me. I glowered. "What are you here for, Y/N?"
My excited grin fell away and was replaced with a frown, my brows knitted with frustration. I could already tell this wasn't going to be a good conversation. "I came to apologize."
Dean scoffed and tightened his grip on his glass. "Apologize for what? Abandoning us without a word?" he exhaled and glared at me. "That's not something I'll accept an apology for, sweetheart." I bristled. Although most of his nicknames were endearing, this one was spat out like it burned him.
I averted my gaze and swirled my beer bottle, the contents sloshing within the brown glass. "I had my reasons, Dean. You know I wouldn't leave without a good one-"
"Do I know that?" he snarled, spinning his stool to face me. "Cause it seems like you don't give a damn about Sam or me, or how we felt." I winced and opened my mouth to speak. He shushed me with a raised finger. "So what's your excuse? You got tired of us holding you back from going apeshit on some people?"
I glowered at him. "You know I would never do that."
"Do I? You seemed pretty content when you had your teeth sunk into Jared Bender's heart." I winced again, my glare cracking. "You didn't even know his name, did you?"
"He was trying to kill Sam," I growled, trying to justify my actions. "You would have done the same."
"Damn right I would have killed him. I would have shot his ass dead -- would have been dead before he hit the dirt. But I certainly wouldn't have torn him apart and strung his organs around the room!"
I shook with fury, my hands balled into fists in my lap. "You're a fucking hypocrite," I growled through tightly clenched teeth.
"I'm a hypocrite? You fucking killed and nearly ate a man, and now you're trying to justify it to me!" he hissed through his teeth, rage filling his candy apple eyes. "You left Sam and me without a word! And now you're crawling back here to apologize and call me a hypocrite?"
My blood was boiling and once more my senses were raging. I couldn't quite grasp it, but it almost felt like a separation inside me, one side longing to beg for forgiveness and the other itching to sink its fangs into Dean's neck. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes, struggling to ground myself again.
I exhaled and opened my eyes, boring into Dean's green ones with my own wrath-filled ones. "Dean," I hissed with a warning tone. "You need to shut the hell up," I stressed each syllable with a growl.
He looked startled for all of about two seconds before his features morphed to ones of anger. "What?" he demanded.
Without missing a beat I snapped back at him. "Quit acting like a girl whose prom date stood her up. I had my reasons and if you'll shut up for a few minutes, I'll tell you what was going through my head," I exhaled shakily and glared, steeling myself for his own reproachful response. "I left to protect you, to protect Sam, and to protect everyone around you. I wasn't stable - you know that you saw it. So stop talking like a self-righteous prick."
Despite quick tongue-lashing, I still didn't feel better. I hadn't said half of what I wanted to. If I could have given Dean a glimpse inside my thoughts, I would have in a heartbeat.
His frown remained stalwart on his features, furrowed brows unyielding. His viridescent eyes surveyed my own with contempt and barely contained anger, an emotion I mirrored. Eventually, his gaze reluctantly dropped back to the beer I had passed him, which he took a swig of. I felt a small victory until he spoke up.
"Get out," he grumbled.
"What?" I demanded with equal, if not more, frustration.
"Get out," he ordered more firmly this time with rage coating his words. I blinked in confusion – not just at his harsh words, but at the gripping pain in my chest and the harsh scratching, I felt in the back of my mind, like something fighting to escape. It struck me that Dean was really, truly angry with me for leaving, despite my reasoning – and from what I knew of him, he wasn't just going to forgive and forget.
He swore under his breath and whipped his head towards me, eyes raging with rage and, to my amazement, pain. "Are you deaf?" he snarled lowly, "I don't want to hear your excuses. Fuck off." He gripped his beer tightly and guzzled it then slammed it onto the counter.
I reeled back and tossed my head backward softly. This was the first time he had ever sworn at me.
Wrath hit me like a semi-truck, and that familiar clawing sensation I kept hidden in the back of my thoughts lunged forward. Those nagging thoughts took the form of my wolf, black fur ruffled and fangs bared in anger.
Whatever wolfish instincts I had let escape were now clawing to take control. For the first time in a long time, I felt like two beings at once. As I had surmised earlier, I had the very human side that wanted nothing more than to avoid conflict, that just wanted to apologize to Dean and work things out. But my monster side...
I gulped and glared viciously at Dean.
I felt a rumble low in my chest, a familiar rumble that I had last felt with my father. My wolf wanted me to tear into Dean, a human that we had somehow bound to our pack. Now this pup was blatantly challenging me, as she put it. She snarled at him and I resisted the urge to follow suit.
She was pacing in my mind, stalking back and forth, her molten eyes fixated on Dean. My own eyes faded to match the warm gold of hers, whiskey-colored in the faded glow of the bar lights.
I hadn't even realized just how much I was shaking. My wolf wanted out, wanted to shred him for his disobedience, his disloyalty. It was an odd feeling to be separate from her - separated from a piece of myself. Although the more I focused on her, the more I realized that we had been separated for a long time. For years I hadn't had the fluid mobility between myself and my instinct, not the mobility that I once had. I hadn't had it since I was fifteen. It felt like I was holding back a tidal wave of torrential emotions, a painful instinct that wanted me to embrace the monster I was and chow on some hearts. Not Dean though. She wanted him back in his place as my... pack member? Was that what she- I viewed him as?
Dean swore again, finally breaking eye contact. He reached for his beer with a shaky hand and took another final swig before wiping his mouth and standing. "Fuck this," he grumbled, "I'm out."
He hadn't even made it three steps before something in me snapped and I snarled - it was a savage snarl, one that I had heard twice in my life up until that point.
Before a full thought had even formed, words were falling from my lip.
"Dean Winchester, you better sit your ass down before I sink my teeth into you and drag you back." It was not a motherly tone like I usually held with my pack. No, this was raw, unfiltered malice, oozing with anger and contempt.
I winced. I hadn't meant to say that, and I certainly hadn't meant to say it with that tone. She said it. But, she was me, a side of me that I always shackled and was now struggling to free herself.
Instinct. That's all she was.
Dean whirled on me, chest heaving with fury. I turned my blazing golden eyes on him, slowly, with my mouth set into a firm line and eyebrows slightly drawn together. It struck me that this was the same look my mother had given my father when she was pissed as all hell, a look that clearly said he needed to shut up if he wanted to keep his testicles intact.
Like my father, Dean responded with a slack jaw, opening and closing his mouth in surprise and confusion. His resolve, although still strong, was withering.
I nodded towards his vacated stool. He sat and shot me an angry glance, trying (and failing) to mask his nerves.
I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm my nerves. I stretched my fingers, feeling my joints pop after being balled into tight fists for god know how long. With a sigh, I locked eyes with Dean once more, his narrowed and wary.
"You know full well I had to leave, Dean." I snapped. "If I hadn't left, I guarantee you would have eventually sent me home, thinking my pack could help. Don't act pissy with me for doing what I felt was right."
Dean glowered and his nostrils flared. "Having a reason doesn't change that fact that you left without a word-"
"- If I had told you I was leaving, would you have asked me to stay?"
"Of course, I would have!" he hissed and leaned forward. "Whether you like it or not, you're part of this family now. I'm not going to just let my family walk out on me like that."
"That's the problem, Dean!" I snapped back. "I know that, if you had asked, I would have stayed! Sam wouldn't have asked, he would accept my decision and move past it! You though, you would have gotten so caught up in your familial ideas that I wouldn't have been able to leave!"
"What's so wrong about staying with us!? About staying with me!?" he shouted back, a snarl set on his features. My eyes widened and he followed suit, realizing just what he had said.
"Dean, I had to leave," I uttered quietly. "You knew that. I wasn't safe - I still might not be 100%, but I'm willing to risk it."
"Why are you risking it?" he grumbled. I smiled weakly.
"Because you're my family too, Dean. Whether you like it or not, you're part of my pack now. You're family," I answered quietly. His own eyes softened. "Are you still mad at me?" I inquired with a nervous smile.
"Hell yeah, I'm still mad," he grunted. "But yeah... I get it. Wish I didn't, it would make staying mad at you a hell of a lot easier."
My nervous smile grew to a true grin, the gold fading from my eyes. My wolf scoffed and sat back on her haunches, melting into the background of my thoughts.
My human side had won yet again.
"Don't think you're off the hook," Dean huffed and stood from his stool. "You've got a lot of work to do to make it up to me, Fido."
"Would pie be a good first step?" I teased, standing up with him.
"Pie always makes for a good apology," he smirked softly and retrieved his jacket from the back of his chair. "We can pick some on the way to the motel room." Suddenly he spun to face me with a playful glare and a raised finger. "You're sleeping on the floor tonight."
I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest. "In your dreams, Winchester."
He chuckled and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'll be a little more likely to forgive you if you do," I chuckled.
"I guarantee you'll forgive me anyway. There's no way you could stay mad at this cute face for too long," I countered, smirking at him with a raised brow.
He hummed in response. "We'll see about that, sweetheart. Now, how about we go get some pie and say hi to Sammy?"
"Sounds good to me."
4118 words.
Edited 05/01/22.