Full Circle (Book 8 in Arrow/Spn Crossover)

Veiled Lives

My hand erupted into pain, "Holy mother fucking hell!" I swore I'd just lost all my fingers and had to yank my hand back out to check. Fingers were all accounted for but my heart rate wasn't convinced, it was still sky high. "Jesus Christ! No way...there's no damn way." I was not up to reliving pain like that, not again. Barely five seconds of it was already ranking pretty damn high on the memories of being tortured list.

"It's not physical pain..." Fenris' voice drifted through my head.

"Neither was the thirty years in Hell, doesn't fucking matter. There has to be another way through this." I started thinking while I walked up and down the wall of color. No gaps, no alternate paths, nothing, just an endless black plain and the wall. "God I hate this alternate reality crap." I said to no one in particular. "Course now with the whole furry form thing...wait..." that triggered a thought. Coyote had managed to pull on something here to make Fenris back down, his comment about it being harder for her back on the physical plane stuck out to me. Would me being in a different form change how going through all this felt? Sure my Warrior Spirit is still me but it'd kind of been made clear that it and what Cas and the rest viewed as a soul were slightly different. I think. What if this was based off Western beliefs? Maybe my furry self wouldn't set off whatever it was that caused the pain. I mean, when Natives die I don't think they go to my version of Heaven, at least not according to Coyote. And I sure as hell hadn't seen ghosts do what Rising Dove's spirit had pulled off helping Coyote heal from the spirit sickness. Sure, I wasn't Native but maybe being linked with Coyote somehow would make a difference. Problem was I had no idea how to change form. Maybe figuring it out here would make it easier once I made it back.

"Clever.." Fenris murmured.

"Thanks. Any idea how I go about this?"

"Call it to you. Internally. Reach out...the wolf that arises once you return is not the same as this wolf but it will be good practice."

"Wait. It's not the same?"

"No. It is part of me..."

"That would have been handy to know. My head's going to be pretty damn crowded if that's the case."

"Indeed. Time is running out Dean. Do it or not. Make your choice."

"Got it." I took a deep breath, "Hey wolf, uh, inner me?" It took barely a second before I felt him. "How do I change to look like you, or become you, or..."

"Just focus on how you felt when we were walking to meet Fenris. Then sink into that memory and let me take over."

"Uh, okay." I put all other thoughts out of my head, as much as I could anyway, and remembered how much stronger the smells were, the feel of having four legs, the strength in my muscles, the way it felt like I could run for days, the feel of wind through fur...the...

"Good job," he said as I felt myself get shorter, my limbs change and shift. My eyes opened, I hadn't really told them to. I was a passenger in my own body, spirit, whatever.

"Dean," Fenris' said. "Well done, it will hurt immensely more in the physical world but you have an idea of what to expect now. Hurry."

I didn't order my legs to move, my wolf did. We jumped through the wall of color. I felt our skin shudder and he whimpered but I didn't feel any pain. "What the..."

"Discuss later..." the wolf told me, his voice tight. "I'm protecting us. Not easy. Shut up and give me free rein. I'll get us through this."

"Fenris...tell...others.." I managed to say before whatever the wolf was blocking started to bleed through to my awareness. Shit! How the hell was he even moving?