Full Circle (Book 8 in Arrow/Spn Crossover)

Dawning Realizations

We got back to the cave, pretty much walked in silence the whole way. Oliver and Roy had led us to the pile of our weapons they made, we picked them up then moved on. Everyone, even Sam and I had a lot to process.

As we walked in and the smell of blood hit us Dig stopped moving, "What the hell happened here?"

"Wolves killed us, we came back and killed them," I explained, "Think about it. We didn't have weapons."

"We ate them..." Roy murmured. "We had to." Roy had frozen at the entrance too. "I can't go back in there, I can't." He couldn't even look in.

Coyote put her arm around his shoulders, "You don't have to. They can handle the clean up. Stay out here with me."

Roy nodded and leaned against her. Part of me got jealous, part of me felt protective of Roy and there was this automatic urge to try to comfort him somehow. This whole pack bond thing was going to take some getting used to. Coyote's not the type for random displays of affection with people she's not involved with, so in one way it was totally out of character for her, yet it felt completely natural from the wolf aspect. I knew Roy didn't cozy up to people he wasn't dating either.

It felt like the five of us had suddenly become as close as Sam, Coyote and I, which was pretty uncomfortable for Oliver and I. We cared about each other, sure, but we weren't as tight as this bond was making us. Sam was having an easier time with it since he was already close to Roy and Coyote seemed to just be riding it out for now.

"You ate them?" Dig asked. "Why?"

"So we wouldn't go full wolf and never make it back," Sam answered. "They volunteered. Let's get this over with, we'll explain everything later." He looked at me, "Are we cleaning up at that house too?"

"No, Tom and the others will, they know monsters are coming back from Purgatory. Our human blood is all over the cave, I have a feeling the wolf blood won't be a match if they find any. Torch the blood, burn the bodies, clear out."

"All right."

Dig, Sam and I went in. Oliver followed us for most the trip, but just as we came to the turn that led into the area where we'd been he stopped. "I'll wait here."

That's when Dig gave Sam and I a real long look, "How bad is it?"

"Bad." I said and kept walking.

The area where we'd been was about the size of a one bedroom place, maybe six hundred square feet, the ceiling was around seven feet high Sam had to keep ducking to avoid chunks of low hanging rocks, and it was covered in blood. There was blood up the walls, some on the ceiling, there wasn't any clear space on the floor to walk on. We'd probably have to wash our shoes or get new ones since we'd end up tracking it out. There were eight wolf bodies, four of them were mostly devoured. The other four were in various states of dismemberment or gutted.

I pointed at several piles of fabric scraps, "That's what's left of our clothes. Some of that damage is from being gutted by Mairyn's pack, the rest is from when we changed the first time. They didn't kill us easy Dig, trust me. Those blood trails leading in here, from all of us being hamstrung and dragged in the mouths of her pack to get here. We'll scatter the bloody dirt on our way back and try to torch any blood we find on rocks, or move them."

He was trying hard to keep his stomach contents inside him and not puke. "I've seen a lot of bad shit in my time but..."

"Yeah, I know." I looked at Sam, he nodded and we started spraying lighter fluid on the cave walls and floor. I gathered up everyone's phones. After that was done we laid a trail of it back towards the entrance. I wasn't going to be anywhere near that when it caught fire, not in the mood to have third degree burns to heal from. We were about ten feet from the entrance when I lit an entire book of matches and looked over my shoulder, "Stand clear." Everyone took a few more steps back, I dropped the book. Fire raced into the cave and seconds later we smelled burning flesh, fur and blood. A nice gust of heat came back at me, bringing all those scents with it in full force. Sam and I threw a bunch of dirt and rocks on top of beginning the lighter fluid trail to keep the flames from spreading and backed away. For all we knew, that blood that was burning on the cave floor was the last human blood we'd ever shed.

We all stared at the entrance for a minute or two then I knew I had to get them all moving. Other than Sam and I, they were all starting to lose. "Let's move. Sam? I'll call Gerald, tell him where the monsters are holed up. Get his ass moving. You call Cas, see where he's at, tell him we're going to be at the hotel for another few hours then checkout and head to the Bunker. Then call Rick, check to see if he's heard from Tom."

"What are you going to tell Gerald if he asks if we're joining him?" Sam asked.

"Tell him we're hurt, not bad but be better if they took care of it. Then I'll say we're heading back to the Bunker and he can call us when he's done."

Sam shook his head, "No, we have to clue him in. Unless I completely leave the life and you and Coyote don't go back home we'll run into him again."

"So we do what Rick did and lie. You're getting way too far ahead here Sam. If, when, we decide to share this newest jacked up twist he'll understand why we didn't say so before. We still have Purgatory to deal with. Hunters can wait."

"What about us?" Oliver asked, "What exactly are Roy and I supposed to say to everyone in Starling? Or do?"

"We'll figure that out," I said, "Sam and I are going to keep you clear of the Purgatory side of things. Hopefully. Right now we need to get home so we can work through all of this." Technically Coyote should be taking charge here, at least according to the pack ranking, but she was as shell shocked as the rest of them. Good thing my stubborn ass side was still fully intact. "Look, this is the shit that can happen with hunting, the entire world can flip on you in an instant. Yes, we're not human anymore. Yes, it sucks serious ass. It's also not the end of the world. As long as we're still breathing we keep moving forward and trying to fix this. Sam and I have been in much worse positions than this and we pulled through. I've met plenty of monsters in my time that we're still leading a normal-ish life. We just need to figure out how to deal with it while we're finding a way to reverse it. It won't happen tomorrow, or next month. It could take years but unless you want to drown yourselves this is who you are now. We will deal with this, together, and get through it. All right?"

"To add to that," Sam started out, "Technically Dean and I have kept going even when we weren't breathing, so have all of you. Every single one of us could have ended up dead, not a werewolf. We pulled each other through those walls to get back here, through the pain, through all of it. I know this is hard, I know it's confusing but we will make it right, I will, somehow."

Blaming ourselves is a Winchester trait, seems that Sam had inherited my share of it over the last year.

Oliver made this weird rubbing gesture with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and nodded, "All right, back to the hotel then."

He looked calm, sounded calm, but he wasn't. I'd take the act though, really that's what all of us were doing. Acting. We got back to Baby and Dig's car, hiding or burning blood along the way, put the weapons away, loaded up and pulled out. I'd decided to wait to call Gerald till we got back and ate. We were all dangerously hungry again. I noticed it on the walk back, all of our eyes kept tracking things that moved even though there was no more threats in the woods around us. My mouth watered a few times when I saw a rabbit, Coyote had gripped my hand when she'd spotted prey animals to keep herself from going after them.

I'd had a year of being on high alert in Purgatory, dealing with the urge to kill while I bore the Mark and in some ways this was worse than both of those times. The wolf side made it seem natural to want to chow down on a rabbit, not wrong. There was no unnatural hate being pushed at me from a curse, this was just the simple desire to eat, multiplied by a lot. I understood Fenris' statement that the wolf isn't the monster, humans are. The wolf just wants to survive. The problem comes when the human side chooses to use the whole mostly unkillable thing as a reason to go dark.

If we couldn't find a way back we'd all be looking at some very long lives. What the hell do you do to fill up the time and how would Roy and Oliver deal with outliving all their friends and loved ones? Unfortunately, Sam and I are experts at that already.