"Oh, why don't you just write them both? At the same time?"

Le sigh. The Denizens: they has teh demanding. And I haven't even finished tallying up the numbers for the last couple to knock out those Special Bonus Features. You people are relentless, remorseless, and a whole bunch of other words ending with –less. Have you no compassion?

Well, you never know, we might end up getting a story out of bunny #1 at some point in the future. But it seems that for now, bunny #2 (who could be named Wolfgang. Or Mavis, I'm not sure) has the vote, so I fed it some of those reviews, and eventually the evil little mongrel dictated a next chapter. Nothing resembling a full plot yet, but you know how this works, sometimes giving them an airing will encourage them. For the completeness of the story, I will republish Chapter One as the first part of this story.

I struggled for a title for this one; I thought of It Takes A Pack To Raise A Pup, A Ruff Night, A New Leash On Life, An American Werewolf In America, A Paws In Proceedings, but nothing really jumped off the keyboard, so for now, let's just call it…

Working Title: A Shaggy Dog Story

Rating: T. Unless I muzzle Dean. Which would probably just end up bumping it to MA, which FFN most definitely does NOT accommodate.

Summary: When a Hunt goes south, Dean takes desperate measures to save Sam. And it works. Dean doesn't care if Sam's grumpy about what he did – his baby bro is alive and well, so he'll take all the complaining that Sammy can dish out; but if Sam cocks a leg on the Impala, he reserves the right to swat him with a rolled-up newspaper. A story of the Jimiverse.

Blame: Not sure who bred this little plot bunny, but, as always, you can be sure it was one of the Denizens, Lurkers, Visitors or Casual Droppers-In who haunt the Jimiverse. It's ALL THEIR FAULT.

Disclaimer: They're not mine. Seriously, the way they bicker like six-year-olds, I'd have banged their heads together by now.

And if anyone thinks they recognise the bunny and can tell me its name, please do so. Real names have power, bwahahahaha…

A SHAGGY DOG STORY

Chapter One

Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.

The thought bounced around in Dean's head as he ripped off his own overshirt and clutched it to the gaping wound on Sam's side; his brother's shirt was already soaked through, and the blood flow showed little sign of slowing.

Not like this. Not like this. No, Sammy, not like this.

"Stay with me bro," he half demanded, half begged, watching Sam try desperately to keep focused on him, but his little brother was losing the battle. "Stay with me, just until I can get you patched up, then we'll hit the nearest Emergency Room, and check out the nurses..."

"Dean," Sam's voice was barely a choked whisper, "Dean... "

"I gotcha, bro, I gotcha," Dean made himself smile, even as his voice caught. "It's gonna be okay, Sammy, you'll be fine..."

Black dogs. Not one, but two. They never saw it coming. If Jimi hadn't been there to offer a last-minute warning, and then run interference on one of them, both Winchesters would be dead.

As it was, it looked like, pretty soon, one might be.

Not like this. Not like this.

Whining, Jimi Junior licked at Sam's face, and turned large, worried eyes to Dean.

"Cold," whispered Sam, his grip on Dean's arm fading, "Dean... it's cold..."

"I know," Dean picked up his jacket, and draped it over his fallen brother, "But you just hang in there, and stay awake for me, and..."

Sam's eyes fluttered, and closed.

Not like this.

Dean looked around wildly. They were too far from the car – he'd never get his baby bro back there in time, and he couldn't take his hands off the wounds, or Sam would bleed out there and then. They'd had to hike in to track the Black Dogs; emergency services would never get to them in time. They'd never get Sam out in time. He was screwed. They were screwed. Totally screwed.

Jimi lay down next to Sam, huddling against him, and whined sadly. In the light of the full moon, his eyes were full on an understanding that no ordinary dog would have.

The full moon. It was the last night of the full moon.

Racked with desperation and a crushing sense of guilt and a loss he couldn't bear, Dean took out his cell, and made a call, relaying a desperate message in a voice that was half-sob, and sent some co-ordinates.

As he rang off and put his other hand back to the field dressing, he whispered to his brother:

"Forgive me."

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Sitting in cold darkness, begging his brother not to die, Dean finally heard the sound of something big crashing through the undergrowth towards them well before it arrived – whatever it was, it was in too much of a hurry to bother with stealth at all. Jimi stood up, and howled mournfully into the night.

The answering howl was deeper, and make the hair on Dean's neck stand up.

"Here!" he yelled as loudly as he could, "We're here! Over here!"

The noise changed direction slightly. Jimi set up a frantic barking, a beacon for a searcher to home in on...

Seven-plus feet of alpha-male Old North werewolf burst through the trees and into the clearing, chest heaving, fangs bristling. It barely paused, dropping to all fours to run at the Winchesters.

Looming over Sam, the monster paused and eyed Dean.

"Do it!" he hissed urgently.

With a gruff snarl of understanding, the monster crouched, reared back, and sank its teeth into his little brother's arm.

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Some minutes later, a smaller werewolf, a female, arrived at the clearing, and raced to Dean's side. She had a bag clutched in her mouth, which she dropped at his knee.

"Ronnie," he almost sobbed in relief, as the wolf shifted back to her human form. "Thank fuck..."

"I sent him ahead," she panted, jerking a thumb at the male, who was prowling the clearing, alert for any further threats, "Because his legs are longer, and he can go faster. And he's not so good at carrying stuff." She tore into the bag, which contained several large field dressings. "Here, use these," she instructed, "At least we can secure 'em. Andrew, stop prowling, you berk, if there were any more Black Dogs within cooee you've scared them all to death with your noise, you werehippo – come here and do med shit!"

The male loped back to them, and appeared to be concentrating hard.

"Oh, fuck," moaned Ronnie, "Of all the times for you to get stuck..."

With a whine and a shake of his head, Andrew managed to transform.

"Yes! Yesss! I'm the king of the world!" he yipped in a brief moment of triumph, before dropping to his knees to examine Sam. "It's bad," he stated without preamble, "We gotta get him to Emergency. Fifteen minutes ago."

"We found where you parked," Ronnie told Dean, as he secured another dressing on top of the ones holding his brother together, "You're bloody miles away. We're gunna have to do this in fur coats."

"I can live with that," muttered Dean, not looking up as he applied a dressing to the bite wound that Andrew had left. "Thanks, guys."

"Don't thank us yet," Andrew said grimly, "I dunno if I got to him soon enough. Let's go." He stood, looked up at the moon as if bathing in the light, and let himself shift back to the wolf.

Carefully, he picked up Sam, and headed back the way he'd come at a ground-eating lope. Jimi took off, hot on his heels.

"Don't worry," Ronnie assured him, "He cut a track wide enough to drive a bloody truck through on the way in. So looks like it's just you and me. You ever learn to ride?"

"Rode a donkey once," Dean muttered, looking anxiously at where Andrew had just disappeared with his brother. "At the Grand Canyon. It farted a lot, apparently."

"I'll do my best not to," grinned Ronnie, standing, "And if I do, we'll leave the smell behind anyway. So, how does that bumper sticker go? Get in, shut up – and hang on."

With a shrug, she shifted to her wolf form, and dropped to all fours to allow him to climb onto her back.

He barely had time to get a hold on her fur before she began to run.

For anybody who is new to the Jimiverse (Gday! Come on in, grab a drink, we've got cake over there, and some nibblies just coming out of the oven, no glass in the spa tub, and no molesting Winchesters on the pool table), Ronnie (The World's Crankiest Werewolf) and her pair-bond, Andrew (who is good-natured, sometimes bemused, often gets stuck in his wolf form when shapeshifting and is in fact bloody huge when he does shapeshift) are OCs from the Jimiverse fanfic sandbox. Ronnie's from Queensland, Australia (where they breed 'em grumpy), and they're Old North werewolves (traditional 'giant wolf' lycanthropes, not the 'we can only afford to glue on some teeth and put in some contacts' ones you'll see on SPN - the benefits of fanfiction include not having to stick to a special effects budget). Even as werewolves go, they are an odd couple; as a werewolf, Ronnie is short, even for a female (just as tall as Sam), but she's heavily built, and says she makes up for it by being sneaker and nastier.

So, leave a review, and feed the plot bunny, whoever it may be, Wolfgang, or Mavis. Maybe it's Wolfgang, and he works as a drag bunny, and his stage name is Mavis. Or maybe Mavis is a drag king who works as Wolfgang. Or, the heat Down Here is getting to me.