The Monsters In Our Heads (Book 7 Arrow/SPN Crossovers)

Returning to Old Haunts

We headed back downstairs, Sam was just walking back in from the guest room. "She'll meet us there tomorrow afternoon around three. I figured we'd have everything cleaned up and be on the road later today so that should give us time to get settled in before they show up."

"Sounds good," I said. "Let's do this then."

The wolf stood up when he saw Coyote, his tail was wagging at full speed. She looked at me, "Huh, never really envisioned you wagging your tail when you see me."

"If I had one, I would be."

"O-kay, this just got weird," Sam said.

"In the general scheme of things we've dealt with, it's not all that weird."

"Maybe not to you, since the wolf is you, but yeah, picturing you with a tail and wagging it just...uggh."

I followed his thought process for a second, "Hmm, okay yeah, weird." I sat down next to the wolf, then it actually did get weird. He licked my face, which meant I tasted my cheek while feeling the stubble on my tongue at the same time I felt his tongue on my cheek. I was now officially confused and kind of creeped out. "Uh, calm down buddy." I guess he was happy Coyote and I weren't fighting. "We're taking off soon so you've got to go back."

He actually seemed kind of sad about that, which didn't make a lot of sense. Maybe he just liked to get out every now and again. He leaned into me and Coyote started the process to send him back but instead of jumping back in like last time he just sort of faded into me. It felt good, there was no pressure or heat, I just felt more together, more content I guess is the best way to say it. "Is that supposed to happen? Him fading like that?"

She had this wistful, pleased look on her face, "It's a good sign. You are more connected to your Warrior Spirit then you used to be."

"How can I not be connected to it?"

"Maybe the term I should use is more aware of it. You're paying more attention to what you're feeling than before."

"Well, can't argue with that."

Sam was taking all that in with a pretty analytical look on his face. I had a feeling all this was going to be brought up in a late night Bunker conversation at some point. "Let's do this." Was all he said for now.

It didn't take too long to take all the decorations down, take the left over food to some neighbor's houses since we didn't know how long we'd be gone and start packing. Coyote was bringing a lot of herbs and stones with her, she'd need them to try to get Jacob talking. I'd been thinking a lot about what Sam had said about setting limits on what he and Roy would risk while we did all that. At first it'd seemed like a pretty cowardly way to hunt, picking easy things to take out but the fact was that easy things still do a lot of damage and I couldn't argue with the fact that it seemed safer, that's for damn sure. As far as I could tell neither he or Roy had barely gotten scratched over the last year. What I hadn't really noticed or thought about until he'd brought it up was that he was the oldest now, that he was the one who had to take on the responsibility for someone else. To me, he'd always be my little brother, plain and simple, but now Roy was his for all intents and purposes. Once I started looking at things that way I was kind of shocked at how different he handled that than I had over the years. My way tended to involve throwing myself at anything that even looked funny at him, taking it down any way I could no matter what it cost. Of course it's not like we chose to be vessels, but Apocalypse aside, even in everyday hunts I just bull rushed my way through them. He didn't, his way of keeping Roy safe was a lot more proactive than mine had ever been. It'd give me something to think about on the drive that's for sure.

"I assume we're taking Baby?" Coyote asked as we finished packing.

"No." I hadn't really planned to say that and at first I was kind of surprised I had.