CHANGING - 4/10

[leighannwallace.livejournal.com]

Title: CHANGING

Author: Leigh Ann Wallace
Rating: PG
Genre/pairing: Gen
Characters:Sam, Dean and Bobby
Word count: 2244
Summary: Sam is bitten by a shapeshifter. Are the legends true, will Sam change? How can Dean save him?
Spoilers: (if applicable) You're safe if you've season eps up to season five. Mention of Lucifer and the apocalypse
Warnings: (if applicable) Shameless Angst
Disclaimer: Pretty clear I don't own anything to do with Supernatural. Written out of love and passionate obsession.

Dawn was a long time coming.

"Dean."

On the floor next to the panic room door, Dean jerked awake. "Sam?" He jumped up and opened the window. Sam's tired but familiar hazel eyes stared out at him.

"Oh, Jesus, Sam. Thank God."

Bobby clapped Dean on the shoulder, a wide smile on his face.

"Open the door, okay?" Sam said wearily.

"Oh hell, yeah." Dean yanked open the door, pulled his brother out and into a hug. "Man, you scared the crap out of us."

"I scared me, too."

"You okay?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I'm good."

Bobby snorted. "Have either of you, ever, admitted to being anything but "good"?" He hugged Sam, felt a slight tremor in the younger man's body. "I'm getting too old for this crap, boy."

"I'm sorry, Bobby."

"Don't apologize again or I'll have to kick your ass. How about we go upstairs, get something to eat?"

"Sounds great," Sam admitted.

"I'm starving," Dean agreed. "And man, I gotta pee." He cuffed his brother affectionately on the head and then, almost giddy with relief, ran up the stairs, yelling back, "Hey, Bobby, pancakes?"

Usually up for a good half dozen of Bobby's pancakes, Sam barely managed two this morning. The smell of the maple syrup, after a few minutes, turned his stomach.

After pushing his food around for a while, he took his plate to the trash and scraped his food into it.

"Sorry, Bobby. Stomach's a little off, I guess." Sitting back down, he picked up his coffee and drank, hoping the caffeine wouldn't screw with his stomach, too.

Bobby eyed him. Regretting the necessity, he asked, "What happened yesterday, Sam?"

Dean frowned. "Bobby, do we have to do this now?"

"If we're going to get hold of this thing," Bobby said, hardening himself against the distress in Sam's face, "we need to know everything. And Sam's the only one that can tell us."

Grudgingly, Dean nodded.

Hand shaking, Sam put his coffee down.

He did not want to do this. He didn't want to see that look on Dean's face again. The one he'd seen when he'd first told Dean about his visions. The same one, but worse, when Dean saw him drinking demon blood. And when Sam had left his brother for Ruby.

The look that said monster.

After a minute, Bobby prompted him, gently. "Sam?"

Sam steeled himself. He would do this. He'd promised.

"Something has changed," he started. "I don't know how far it's gone, how far it's going to go, but - I'm changing. Yesterday -" He stopped, remembering it, feeling it.

Dean shifted uneasily.

"My senses - my hearing, sense of smell, my vision - they're all changing, getting stronger." The words were coming faster now. "I can hear everything, smell everything. Last night, in the dark, I could see, everything."

Dean started to speak. Bobby stopped him.

"After those guys left yesterday," Sam went on, "I was angry, I was so angry. I hated that those guys had come here. I felt -" he tried to shake off the remembered guilt.

"When you guys went out to the yard to look for me, I could hear you. I don't mean just your calling me, but your footsteps, too, and when you were talking to each other, even when you were at the other end of the yard."

Sam was getting a lot of confusion from Dean. He leaned forward, frustrated, trying to get it across. "Damn it, Dean - I could hear you breathing from at least two hundred yards away. Do you think that's normal?"

"Sammy, it's okay -"

Sam rode over him. "And when you came back toward the house, I could smell you, I could smell everything! I could even smell tobacco on you and you haven't smoked in freaking weeks!" He was almost shouting.

"Calm down, Sam, I think I get it," Bobby said, feeling his way. "You're saying you think your senses have been super-powered."

Nerves strung tight, Sam gave a short nod.

Dean's eyes widened. "Whoa." He could see Sam watching him, waiting for him to explode over the latest proof of his little brother's freak status. He tried to dial down his reaction.

"You know, Sammy, that actually sounds pretty cool."

"Come on, Dean," Sam said, exasperated. "That's not what you really think."

Dean shrugged. "Okay, so it's also weird and disturbing. Doesn't stop it from being cool."

Ignoring the boys' sparring, Bobby puzzled over the ramifications of the situation. They watched him hopefully.

At last he said, "Sam, I think we should test your superpowers out, get some idea how far this goes."

Scanning the kitchen, he picked up a can of coffee from the counter, a bottle of syrup and, after a moment's thought, a bottle of vodka from the freezer.

He handed it all to Dean, who accepted it with a puzzled expression. "Bobby, I've had my coffee, and my pancakes. And, even for me, it's a little early for vodka."

"Are you up for a little hide and seek?" he asked Sam.

Sam nodded, understanding. "You bet."

"Okay. Dean, you go hide this stuff in the yard," Bobby ordered. "Spread it around. Doesn't matter where."

"Got it." Dean saluted smartly, trying to get into the spirit of things.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"Don't make it too easy."

"You got it, little brother."

Fifteen minutes later, in the salvage yard, waiting at the first row of cars, Dean and Bobby watched as Sam moved unerringly toward a pile of tires about forty yards away.

When he reached the pile, he moved around it for a minute, jumped lightly over several, and then stuck his hand into a tire in the middle of the pile.

He came up with the can of coffee.

"Show-off," Dean muttered. "He probably saw me eyeballing the tires when we came out."

Bobby didn't answer.

He watched Sam changed directions, circle an old wood chipper and then angle past a green Honda to the remains of an old Ford supercab. He reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out the bottle of syrup.

"He's taking the exact route I did," Dean said incredulously. "Including the circle around the wood chipper."

The older man nodded without taking his eyes off Sam. "He's tracking your scent," he said in a low voice.

Sam crouched low to the ground, long black hair falling around his face. Then he rose and trotted back towards them.

Without pausing he passed them, going straight to the Impala, where he popped open the trunk and pulled out the bottle of vodka.

Shutting the trunk shut, he trotted back to them.

"I could smell you on that crappy little green Honda," he said to Dean. "You were going to hide the syrup there, but you changed your mind and put it in the Ford instead."

"Holy crap," Dean said, eyes wide.

"That's pretty damned impressive, Sam. But I don't think this is what scared you so bad yesterday. I think there was something more. Am I right?"

Sam stared at him, silently.

Bobby tried again. "When you said you could smell us yesterday . . . " he trailed off.

Sam's jaw tightened. "Yesterday, you two smelled like food," he said flatly.

Even though he had half expected this, Bobby's jaw dropped.

Dean fought back the fear curling in his belly. I will not freak out I will not freak out I will not freak out! "That's quite a conversation stopper, Sammy."

Confused, Sam stared at him.

Trying, above all else, to stay light, Dean grinned at him. "Thanks for not eating us, little brother."

That startled a laugh out of Sam. His big brother not cursing a blue streak, forecasting doom and dragging his evil butt to the panic room - it was a welcome surprise.

A wave of euphoria came over him. Tired as he was, freaked out as he was, he started to feel optimistic. Stronger. Maybe this bite didn't have to be the shitstorm they'd all been expecting.

"Guys, listen - I feel good. No, I feel great! Tired, yeah, 'cause I didn't sleep last night, but other than that, I'm fine! Maybe the enhanced senses is all that's going to happen. Maybe I'm not going to turn." He was practically vibrating with excitement.

"You didn't look like you felt too good earlier," Bobby pointed out.

"I was feeling a little shaky," Sam admitted. "But out here, in the open air - I feel better." He glanced sideways at Dean, hesitated, then plunged on. "I was thinking, maybe the demon blood is helping here."

He saw Dean's skeptical look, rushed on. "No, listen, remember in Oregon, the Croatoan virus, I was immune! Maybe this is the same kind of thing. Maybe the skinwalker venom got into me just enough to mess with my senses, but not enough to turn me."

"I don't know, Sam." Dean raised a questioning eyebrow at Bobby, who sighed with exasperation.

"Why are you looking at me? Do I look like I know what the crap is going on?"

"Nope. You look just as bat shit confused as I do."

Sam looked from one to the other. "Come on, guys. It could be! We don't know. It could be," he insisted.

Dean nodded, trying to calm his brother. "Yeah, Sammy, it could be. And that would be great."

"Are you kidding? That would be fantastic!" High with relief, Sam laughed. "God, I'm starving. I think I could eat now."

It was a hard, wearing day. All of them were exhausted from the night before, but none of them could relax enough to sleep. Sam because his mood kept switching back and forth from exhaustion to manic excitement; Dean and Bobby, because they were afraid to leave him alone. They were hopeful about Sam's chances to avoid turning furry, but unwilling to relax their vigil.

Once darkness fell, exhaustion won out.

Sam had been unable to stay in the panic room again. Just the thought of being confined again for the night drove him into a near claustrophobic panic. Thinking privately that his brother was so exhausted that it was unlikely he would stir at all during the night, Dean settled Sam on the living room couch and set up a cot for himself a few feet away.

But for Sam, even as tired as he was, sleep was impossible. The euphoria from the morning was back and he trembled violently with the need to get out of the house, out from behind constricting walls, into the air, out into the open.

He managed to stay still long enough for Dean to fall asleep. Then, filled with a strange excitement, he rose noiselessly and left the house.

The sky was filled with stars.

Almost dizzy with the night's magic, Sam raised his arms to the sky, to the moon. He spun in ecstatic circles, letting the darkness, the night, the power claim him. It burned through his blood, its exhilaration almost too much to bear.

He wanted to shout, to scream with joy and freedom, but enough self-control remained, enough consciousness of the sleeping men inside the house, to keep him silent.

Needing to move, to feel, to fly, he broke into a run. Racing through the salvage yard, his eyes were wide with excitement, his mouth stretched in a wide, happy grin. Faster and faster he ran, the cold wind nipping his ears, blowing back his hair.

The night called. It sang to him, songs of the earth, the sky, the dark caves. The thrill of the hunt, the blood of prey and the predators that rule the night.

With every step he felt stronger; with every leap as if he could touch the sky. Nothing could touch this freedom. No worry, no guilt, just the ecstasy of being, alive, strong, himself.

He came to a trio of stacked cars. Without hesitation, Sam leapt high, and over them. At the top of the metal pyramid, his hands slapped the hood of the top car and he twisted in mid-air, spun, landed lightly on the other side and continued his joyous run.

Another pyramid, another leap. On and on, each leap driving him faster.

Suddenly, in mid-leap, he caught a scent.

Man.

Danger.

He aborted the leap, hit the ground in a crouch and flowed to the side of a car, flattening himself against it.

He tasted the air, listened, and looked to the east, the side of the salvage yard closest to the highway.

There.

Sam's eyes narrowed. He focused all his senses.

Two men. Gun oil. Armed.

He knew their scent. The men from yesterday.

They reeked of murderous intent.

Sam put himself between the intruders and the house. He waited.

Their footsteps crashed in his ears, the stink of sweat and malice assaulted his nostrils, driving him to near madness.

Twenty feet from the house, they paused to re-check their weapons.

Sam's lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. He moved up behind them. Though he tried to hold it back, a soft growl escaped his throat.

Dazed with sleep, Dean sat up on the couch, grasping the revolver under his pillow. "Sam?"

Another shot, from outside. And then a scream.

"Oh, shit!" Revolver in hand, Dean stared wildly around the room, at the empty blankets on the couch. "Sammy?" He leaped off the cot and ran for the front door.

"Sam!"

Comments

[monicawoe.livejournal.com]

Those hunters are in trouble now!
Can't wait for the next chapter!

your review to Changing

[leighannwallace.livejournal.com]

Yeah, think they may have bitten off more than they can chew!

Glad you're liking this.