Laoich

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This is set vaguely during season 8 of Supernatural and more explicitly during the first part of season 3 of Teen Wolf. It veers off emotionally from season 8 of Supernatural because I have some issues with how Dean and Sam's relationship was handled last year. It veers off story-wise (and significantly) from season 3 of Teen Wolf because I started writing as the first part of the season unfolded and couldn't follow the storyline very closely once the show moved past me. Plus. Hello? The Winchesters showed up.

The story itself is not complete for those of you who don't read WIPs. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm headed, though, so that's encouraging. Although, fair warning, my last WIP took literally years to complete, so that's probably not encouraging. Though I did eventually finish it, so. Anyway. Proceed at your own risk.

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Chapter 1

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"What do you think about this?" Sam began turning the laptop around to face his brother across the table.

Dean put his burger down and reached out to finish the rotation so he could see the screen. He frowned thoughtfully. "Weird animal attacks?"

"Deer ran straight down the highway into a car, pets unusually vicious, all the cats at the local vet clinic died—apparently, violently, though the reporter couldn't seem to get a straight answer from the veterinarian." He paused. For effect, Dean knew. "Oh. And an entire flock of birds flew into the high school, like flew into the exterior walls and broke windows and attacked kids in a classroom before they seem to have dropped dead." He raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"Huh." Dean turned the computer back around and returned his attention to his lunch. "Witches?"

"Maybe. Something nasty scaring them?"

Dean shrugged, swallowed the last bite of his burger, and shoved his plate away. "Where we headed?"

"Beacon Hills, California."

xxxx

"So, you want to take the vet or the sheriff?" Dean was unpacking his duffel, shaking out the "no wrinkle" button-down shirt he used with his "no wrinkle" suit and tie.

Sam shrugged. "Vet?" He was eyeing one of his own shirts critically.

Dean paused. "You sure?" He'd asked without thinking about the Amelia situation.

"Yeah." If Sam was bothered, he wasn't showing it. "Last time I was a fed with a small town sheriff, he kept scowling at my hair. I think he was suspicious."

Dean snorted. "Ya think? I don't know how we've gotten away with you as any sort of law enforcement officer given that mess."

Sam didn't rise to the bait. "Well, butch works on you better than it does me." He disappeared into the bathroom minus his suit.

"What's your cover?" Dean called after him. "Hippy-dippy animal-rights goob?"

"Independent online mag," Sam answered, muffled through a mouth of toothpaste.

Dean gave his own suit a look of active distaste. Next time he was using the independent mag cover.

xxxx

The sheriff's office was somewhat distressingly close to the motel he and Sam were staying at, so Dean had let Sam take the car while he'd walked over to talk to local law enforcement. After several hours of often awkward silence in the car on the way to Beacon Hills, some time to himself had given Dean an opportunity to shake off the lingering sense of discomfort he often felt around his brother these days.

"Sheriff Stilinski?" Dean flashed his badge. "Dean Smith, California Animal Affairs Attaché."

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at the title, but then shrugged. Dean bit down on a smug smile. He'd told Sam that the position would fly in California.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Smith?" The sheriff motioned Dean down a hall toward what Dean assumed would be his office.

The sheriff led the way into a small room near the back of the building. There was a teenaged boy lounging in the chair across from the sheriff's desk. The sheriff pointed at the kid. "School."

The boy flashed Dean a curious glance as he ducked out the door.

Sheriff Stilinski gestured at the chair that had just been vacated. Dean took a seat; it was still warm.

"We've gotten reports of atypical animal behavior in town, and my boss wants a report on animal welfare in the area. There's concern that our animal brothers and sisters may be making an outcry." There was something about being in California that made Dean want to push the envelope in terms of just how flakey he could be. It drove Sam crazy.

The sheriff gave him a flat stare. "An 'outcry.'" he repeated. Both eyebrows had gone up at "animal brothers and sisters," but the man hadn't commented on that specific phrasing.

Ooops. Dean might have picked the wrong person to play this particular game with.

"Look." Dean altered his tone, and shifted as if he were uncomfortable. "I'm just the messenger here. When we get multiple reports of odd behavior by critters in an area, we've got to investigate." He shrugged. "Some people love that animal brother/sisters crap." He gave the sheriff a quick grin. "Some people don't."

The sheriff's face softened somewhat. "Yeah." He sighed. "I can assure you we've taken this situation seriously. I've talked to everyone I can think of – I just haven't gotten anywhere. There's no evidence as far as I can see of abuse that might cause the animals to act this way. And if they're doing it on their own, no one seems to know why."

Dean nodded and made a note. "Can you tell me who you've talked to? I just need to hear it from the horse's mouth."

Nodding easily enough, the sheriff rooted through a stack of files on his desk. He pulled one out of the pile, opened it, and gave Dean the list.

xxxx

Sam had noticed the moment Dean realized he'd mentioned the word "vet" and the connection to Amelia, but Sam had made a point not to react. He knew it hadn't been intentional on Dean's part; they seemed to have reached a state of détente regarding Sam's time with Amelia. And Sam hadn't been willing to risk a re-escalation of hostilities by letting Dean know he'd been bothered by it.

The truth was that Sam's own internal stutter had been tied not to his feelings for Amelia, but to what that time with Amelia signified in his relationship with his brother these days – Sam's failure to look for Dean while he'd been in Purgatory. The weight of that choice sat heavily on Sam's shoulders now, and he knew Dean had been hurt deeply when Sam had revealed that. He'd seen the evidence of it on Dean's face after he'd said so casually, "We promised not to look."—shock and betrayal before Dean's expression had gone carefully blank.

Sam hadn't hesitated over the lie, had stated it as if it were fact. Even though it wasn't. They'd never made that promise; they'd always looked for each other. Always. And it had never been the looking that had been the problem. It had been the deals cut, the compromises made in a couple of desperate situations that had had come back to bite them in the ass.

But when Dean had disappeared in the Dick Roman explosion, Sam had been…lost, destroyed. When Crowley had said that Dick was dead and that Sam was well and truly on his own, the only conclusion Sam had been able to come to was that Dean was dead, too. And it hadn't even occurred to him to look for his brother.

All Sam had known was that Dean was gone, and he was alone. Looking back, Sam wondered if he'd actually had a mental breakdown, because there were weeks he remembered only as a blur of scenery moving past the windows of the Impala and a sense of grief and hopelessness that consumed everything else. Kevin in the hands of Crowley? What was left of the Leviathans roaming the earth? Neither had registered. The only thing Sam had known was that Dean was dead, and the only thing he'd been able to do was drive.

Until he'd hit the dog.

And forced to stop, Sam had. Completely.

He'd told Dean he'd read the papers, that he'd known what was going on, but that he'd chosen to do nothing. Like that had somehow been justified—there were other hunters out there, true. But Sam hadn't even checked to make sure hunts were being covered, hadn't told anyone about Kevin.

"Saving people, hunting things"? No, thank you.

Some shadowy version of "normal"? Broken girlfriend? Yes, please.

And once again, Sam was left wondering what had been wrong with him. Because seriously? What the hell?

But when confronted with a brother who was alive and whole (mostly), clearly there for the finding (possibly), while Sam had played house with Amelia and determinedly closed his eyes to the fact that Kevin was in danger, Sam had been unable to face himself. So he'd clung to the lies he'd told himself in the year Dean had been gone and parroted them back to his brother as if by the sheer repetition and fierceness of his assertions he could make them true.

And that had gone over with Dean about the way Sam should have expected. Though there had been subtle differences in Dean's anger and hurt – at first. Dean's usual lock-down, deny-your-emotions-and-keep-on-going-like-nothing- is-wrong manner of dealing with things had been slightly off.

So Sam hadn't been prepared for Dean to walk away from him – even if it had been for a short period of time – to help the vampire friend he'd made in Purgatory. He hadn't known what to do with Dean leaving, again, after he'd only just been "found." Couldn't process, "Last I counted, you took a year off from the job. I need a day," before Dean had gotten in the car and driven away.

Dean didn't do that; he didn't leave. And desperate in a way he didn't fully understand, Sam had flipped out – jealous and suspicious and so angry, he hadn't been able to rein in the torrent of rage he unleashed on his brother after the case in Missouri.

Benny has been more of a brother to me this past year than you've ever been! That's right. Cas let me down. You let me down. The only person that hasn't let me down is Benny.

But those words – the underlying truth of them – had not penetrated the walls Sam had constructed around himself. Unwilling, in the face of Dean's anger and devastation and Sam's own denial, to confront his behavior, Sam had let Dean's rage ricochet in response, blasting back, threatening to leave Dean himself and kill Benny if Dean didn't fall into line. Which… Sam couldn't even, right now.

And Dean had caved. There didn't seem to be any other word for it. Dean had just… stopped, and it had been back to business as usual – Dean pretending that everything was fine, and Sam feeling a degree of control that he hadn't since Dean had returned. Because it was that illusion of control that Sam had grabbed onto with such a death grip in the wake of Dean's (in Sam's mind) and Bobby's deaths. With Amelia, Sam had said "no" to hunting and "yes" to normal with a single-mindedness he hadn't had even in college. The loss of Dean and Bobby had obliterated the only real good in hunting for Sam. And he hadn't been going back.

Dean's return had changed that – obviously. But Sam had been determined, initially, to stay in control. He was helping Dean on his own terms, holding out—vociferously—for normal when this job was done. Sam would be the one who directed the story, and Dean would, as he typically did (with a certain amount of huffing and puffing), follow suit. Dean's refusal to play his usual role in their relationship had thrown Sam. And he'd come out swinging, using everything in his arsenal to bring Dean down.

So Dean's capitulation should have been a victory for Sam; it should have been enough that they were back to the status quo. But it wasn't – because as much as Sam wanted to believe he'd been in the right, he knew he hadn't been. The further he got from his time with Amelia, the more he was around his brother, the clearer Sam could see. And what he saw troubled him. Deeply. But he couldn't figure out a way to make things right without stirring everything up again. So he left it alone.

Sam sighed as he peered out the windshield at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. He'd offered to drop Dean at the sheriff's office, but his brother had refused, saying it was close enough to walk. Something Dean rarely did – he always preferred the car. At least he had before. Now, evidently, time away from Sam was a bigger draw than the Impala.

Sam shook himself. He needed to get over this. They both did. Doing the job they did with someone you didn't fully trust was the best way to get yourself – and your partner – killed. And the reality Sam didn't want to look at too closely was the fact that his brother didn't trust him. Or maybe that was the wrong word – or the wrong context. Because Sam thought Dean probably did trust him professionally; he just didn't trust him personally. Which, no. Sam shook himself again. We just need to get used to each other again, Sam told himself. Figure out the stupid tablets, close the gates of Hell, and get on with their lives. Then things would be good again.

Yeah, Sam thought dryly, honest with himself in the moment. That's the ticket.

When Sam entered the office, there was no one at the front desk, which sat behind a sturdy wooden railing. He looked aimlessly around the room trying to decide if he should give the person who should probably be there a chance to return before calling out. There were the typical posters of animals on the walls and ads for different products, but some prints, too, of plants. Sam moved closer to one, trying to make out what it was.

"May I help you?" A bald African-American man appeared at the door behind the gate. He gave Sam a quizzical look.

"Dr. Deaton?"

"Yes." The vet's eyebrow went up slightly.

"I'm Sam Jones." He held out his hand, and Dr. Deaton shook it as he approached, though he stayed on the other side of the wooden railing. "I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the animal deaths that occurred here a few days ago. I'm looking into other strange animal behaviors around town and was hoping you could provide me with some insight."

The doctor's expression, which had been only blandly curious, was suddenly much more closed off. "'Looking into'?" he asked cautiously.

Yahtzee, Sam thought with satisfaction. Now the question was how to proceed. Animal rights goob (as Dean had put it) at an online magazine or investigator of the weird at same. There was something about the man – an air, a vibe, something – that made Sam think that animal rights would get him nothing but the official story, whatever that might be, but that a suggestion that he might actually know about what goes bump in the night might yield some concessions. Maybe.

"I write for an online magazine that investigates strange," Sam hesitated, like he was considering his words carefully, "… phenomena, I guess." Sam hoped his pause and the use of "phenomena" would be enough to imply "supernatural" in front of it.

The doctor's eyebrow went up a little farther this time into what would have been his hairline. If he'd had one.

"Phenomena," Deaton repeated without inflection.

"You know, events that might not be explained easily by scientific methods," he said raising his own eyebrow.

The doctor watched Sam impassively for a moment. There was no thawing in his expression, but he finally said, "Come back to my office." He didn't make a move to open the closed gate in the railing, so Sam opened it himself, stepping into the restricted area.

"This way," the doctor said, turning toward the door.

Sam followed, but stopped before stepping across the threshold, attention caught by a small print on the back wall. "Is that aconitum?" Sam asked, looking at the vet as the man turned. It was a penciled sketch of the plant that was sometimes called monkshood or wolf's bane. Interesting.

"It is," the man acknowledged, walking on. "It was used medicinally last century."

Sam nodded as he trailed the vet. "I've read about its use in folklore, as well." An offering.

"Mmmm," was the only response Sam got. "Here's my office. Have a seat."

What followed was an awkward conversation full of strange silences and dead ends that netted Sam absolutely nothing—beyond the sneaking suspicion that all he'd managed to do was expose himself as someone the doctor was determined not to tell anything.

xxxx

"The vet knows something," Sam said, pulling out the burgers he'd picked up for lunch. He dropped one at the place Dean would be sitting and put the second in front of his own chair.

"Well, the sheriff is clueless." Dean took a soda out of the other bag, took a sip, grimaced and handed it to his brother. The second one he set next to his burger and fries. "Did you get anything from him?"

Sam shook his head. "No," he said in frustration, taking a swallow of his drink. "I might later, but for now he's not talking. And he was definitely trying to figure out what I knew. It's possible that if he knew why we're actually here, he might open up." He shook his head again. "But I don't know," he admitted.

Dean bit into his burger and chewed thoughtfully. "You mean if he knew we were hunters? You think he knows that much?"

"I don't know," Sam repeated. He took a fry from Dean's pile.

"You think he might be protecting someone?" Dean moved his fries away from his brother.

Sam shrugged. It had crossed his mind, but that wasn't exactly the feeling he got. "Maybe? It didn't seem like that, though. He was, too… dispassionate, I guess."

Dean nodded, turning his attention to his lunch.

"Did the sheriff give you any names?" Sam debated risking a hand by trying to take more of Dean's fries

Dean swallowed. "Yeah. The vet was one, some pet owners, and the two girls whose car got totaled by the suicidal deer." He took out the small notebook he used for interviews, and Sam reached for the fries while Dean was distracted. Yelped at the stinging smack on the back of his hand as he withdrew with a fair number. Dean continued as if nothing had happened. "I talked to a couple of people who had pets that had gone berserk, but the girls were in school. I don't know if it's worth trying to catch them. The pet owners were useless. I thought I might go check out where the deer hit the car. See if I can back track it."

Sam put three stolen fries in his mouth. "I could talk to the girls," he offered. "You never know."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Just keep it professional, man," he cautioned. Grinned at Sam's confused stare. "Jail bait," he said before heading to the bathroom.

"You know," Sam said thoughtfully to his brother's retreating back, "that's never been very funny. But now that we're in our thirties, it's really just kinda creepy."

There was what Sam would classify as a startled pause of activity in the bathroom before the door shut decisively.

Sam smiled in satisfaction and snagged the rest of his brother's fries.

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