Fic: Fear The Sunless Lands (Sam/Dean) 5/6
Chapter Four
It’s all so... suburban. Little two stories and modest singles like Easter eggs, muted blues and greens and yellows in row after row. The sprinklers at the end of the block are traipsing a silver curtain of water through the early evening despite the cold, keeping a smattering of green showing through the winter-brown lawns. The next house over has a swingset peering over the fence from the back yard and that? Four houses down on the opposite side of the street? That’s an honest to god picket fence. A white one.
Sam’s purposely avoiding thinking about what it says about him that after the last six months - the last 23 years - this is the part that strikes him as surreal.
They’re parked across the street under the pretense of recon even though they’re hardly unexpected guests. If that woman - Sam’s cheeks prickle hot thinking of how she saw him, them, him - is in there, the doctor would probably know they were here anyway.
Assuming there’s a doctor in there at all and not some kind of trick or ambush or...
Sam drags in a deep breath and makes himself calm down. Between their training and Dean’s senses, they’d at least have an inkling if something was up. None of which seems to be soothing Dean any.
He’s pretty well kept his hands off of Sam the last couple of days. Usually does after a feed but it’s felt more pointed this time, more intentional. It’s kind of funny all things considered - Dean’s always been an exhibitionist but apparently that doesn’t apply where his little brother and anonymous female presumed-vampires are concerned. Funny in that nobody’s-laughing let’s-not-ever-say-so-out-loud sort of way.
Now though, Dean’s fingers are carding through the hair on the back of Sam’s neck where his arm is cast across the back of the seat. It seems idle and automatic, nothing that should account for the way Sam’s stomach keep bottoming out whenever Dean’s fingers snag on a tangle and pull just a little. He could count the number of months Dean’s been really feeding on one hand and already Sam’s physical responses are shot to hell. If this doctor doesn’t pan out... well that’s a bridge they’ll have to cross once the cliff’s edge is looming up in front of them.
“Ok,” Sam says, hands slapping lightly against his own thighs for no real reason beyond stopping them from twitching. Dean nods and follows as Sam heaves himself out of the car.
The house they’re headed toward is a simple, cream colored number, not one thing about it to say it doesn’t belong to a nice little 9 to 5 couple like every other one on the block. Maybe it does, or did. Maybe this is just a hide out. Or something that sounds less like it was ripped out of a Chandler novel.
Lights are on in the downstairs but there’s no movement that Sam can see beyond the sheer curtains. There must be something though because halfway up the neatly tended step-stone path Dean falters, head cocked like he's listening. His face morphs from confusion into some kind of mix of shock and amusement.
“What?” Sam asks, and Dean’s smirk spreads a little more before he wipes it away completely with a rough shake of his head.
“Nothing.”
He gets as far as putting his foot on the little step leading to the front door before it’s swinging open to meet them, two women standing on the other side. One is the girl from the other night, petite now that Sam’s looking at her from his full height, the strap of her tank top hanging limply off her shoulder and the bottom of it rucked up all the way to her ribs on one side. Not apparently inclined to do anything about it, she bites down on a grin aimed Sam’s direction that just highlights the jut of her fangs and wiggles her fingers hello.
The other woman is a few years older, perhaps, but not by much; long, light brown hair and big, soulful eyes. Her smile at them is more demure, full-mouthed, sloe-gin-red lips and teeth that peep out from behind them just the tiniest bit too far. Another question answered.
“Sam, Dean,” she nods, puffs a miniature laugh when they both tense. “Relax, we have a relatively small community and you two have managed to create quite a stir. People talk.”
“People,” Dean bites it out like an insult, creeping steadily into Sam’s personal space.
The doe-eyed vampire doesn’t rise to the occasion though, simply shrugging “I think it’s best to be generous with who qualifies as people.”
Her eyes flit, ever so briefly, to Sam’s arms and even through his shirt and coat, the Seer tattoos on his forearms itch with the weight of it. How could she...
She eases forward just slightly, voice dipping lower as Dean edges Sam back with a shoulder like a brick wall. “You have all the tools at your disposal to be a truly vicious killing machine, Dean, and enough hunger to make you want to use it. And what have you done with it? The same thing you did when you were a human being. Why should you think you were anything less than a person?”
Belatedly, Sam realizes he’s scratching at his own arm when the woman’s eyes drop down to where his nails dig in against the corduroy of his jacket. She’s still just smiling indulgently, though, moderately amused.
“Like I said, word gets around,” is her answer to the question Sam didn’t ask. “My name is Lenore, you’ve met Ruby.” She glances back at the other girl who seems perfectly content to watch the proceedings, chin on her fist, elbows balanced on the banister of a carpeted staircase disappearing into the darkened upstairs. Still hasn’t fixed her clothes. “I’m told you’ve been looking for me.”
“You’re the doctor?” comes out of Sam a mumble, only half a question as the tumblers start fitting into place in his head.
“Can you think of anyone better motivated to research the condition?”
Lenore steps back out of the doorway, gesturing them inside. Dean stands there, frozen on the threshold until Sam finally gets fed up and ducks around him to get inside. It may be one of the dumbest things he’s ever done, but they haven’t gotten this close just to turn around in the front lawn. Dean grumbles unhappily, but follows, fingers snagged in the tail of Sam’s shirt.
No point in beating around the bush, Sam says, “We’re looking for a cure,” as soon as the door shuts behind them.
“I know,” Lenore nods, and Sam can’t tell if he’s imagining that she avoids meeting his eyes or not. “Daniel told me.”
“Daniel?”
Lenore circles around them leading the way into a comfortably lived-in sitting room. Along the way her hand slides up the curve of the other girl, Ruby’s, shoulder, resettling the shirt strap. Ruby turns into it at just the right time to graze her lips across Lenore’s knuckles. Alright, Sam thinks he understands what Dean overheard that had him smiling a minute ago, but that’s not the part of it that pulls his stomach into fancy knots.
It’s Ruby who answers, smug enough to hurt. “Creepy voodoo guy.”
Dean halts in his tracks in the middle of the doorway, yanking Sam up short by the back of his shirt. That got old three months ago. “He knew where to find you?”
“How to contact us, yes,” Lenore says simply, settling herself in an overstuffed arm chair. The whole room would look like somebody ripped off a Restoration Hardware showroom if it weren’t for the lesbian vampiresses.
“We wasted half a year out there chasing our tails and he has you on speed dial?”
A threat of a snarl twitches Ruby’s lip at Dean’s raised voice, one arm draping over the back of Lenore’s chair in what ought to be a lounge but still looks like a fighter’s stance.
Lenore doesn’t so much as blink. “It was important that we let you have that time. You were very new when you met Daniel, you deserved an opportunity to discover for yourself who you are now.”
It’s a bizarre feeling, walking into the middle of a vision. Like deja vu, Sam guesses, only a thousand times more intense. Knowing what’s coming next nearly brings Sam to his knees but he can’t not ask anyway.
“Are.” His voice cracks. “There is no cure, is there?”
Just like he remembers, Lenore’s eyes soften, pitying. “No. I’m sorry.” He can’t tell if it’s on purpose or just a reflex when Dean tugs at him again, but he goes with it either way, lets his brother pull him back until their shoulders bump, overlapping like dominoes. He already feels like he’s falling.
Lenore keeps talking as if she can’t tell, focused on Dean now. “This kind of physical change, you can’t reverse it any more than you could turn back into a child. Your body is different now, there isn’t anything to be done about that. But that doesn’t make it a death sentence.”
Dean’s voice sounds as wretched as Sam feels, bitter and cast adrift. His hand cuffs a bruise onto Sam’s wrist. “That’s exactly what this is.”
Ruby’s dark eyes roll like the destruction of their very existence is the most inane triviality she can think of. “Don’t be stupid, going underground is not that hard. We all do it.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen how you do it. Nests full of humans that you fuck and feed on and turn into little baby vamps.” Dean’s all venom, dangling from the end of Sam’s arm as if Sam actually has the power to hold him back from attacking the tiny brunette.
“You can’t possibly be this big of an idiot and have survived this long.” Ruby sighs, unimpressed, and perches on the arm of the chair. Lenore’s hand settles on her bent knee like it belongs there. “ A mouthful of blood to turn somebody and you really think that the ‘hunters’ are holding back a vampire epidemic? The ones you kill are dead meat walking. Us, your kind never even catch a whiff of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, us?”
With nothing more than a light squeeze of her hand, Lenore cuts off whatever Ruby was about to snap in return and says calmly toward Sam, “I imagine that you’ve worked out some of it.”
“The control.” He doesn’t bother making it a question.
“Mmm,” she nods. “Obviously I don’t have a proper sample size to get conclusive data, but anecdotally, there are two types to turns. The kind you catch, who have no hope of ever mastering their hunger. I’ve never heard of one lasting more than a couple of years. And the others, like ourselves, who have a more successful transition. Who remain, for all intents and purposes, like we were before.”
“Why?”
“Again, this is mostly guesswork on my part, but some of my testing supports a theory that there’s a genetic component. A natural predisposition if you will. Environmental factors tend to play heavily into it as well, so it’s hard to say for sure.”
Sam still feels hazy, like he’s floating, and the odds are pretty good he’s rocking a decent case of shock, but his analytical side is working overtime, scrambling from one idea to the next along the breadcrumb trail of possibility. His visions don’t always play out the way he’s interpreted them, it could be that’s he’s been jumping to all the wrong conclusions.
“So we could do this, just like we have been? No worry that he’s going to go rabid?”
For the first time Lenore looks cagey, hesitating before she slowly says, “Assuming all other variables remain in place, yes, it seems likely.”
Either Dean’s working along the same wavelength as Sam and doesn’t like it, or else he’s still frustrated and confused enough to lash out at the opportunity. “What variables?”
“Your brother, Einstien,” Ruby snarks, bats her eyelashes. She seems to enjoy pushing Dean’s buttons.
Lenore, obviously being the more practical of the pair, glares at her and explains, “The animal side of our nature is powerful. Every successful long-term turn I’ve ever known had something to keep them grounded in who they are. For you, that’s very clearly Sam. It’s lucky, really. A lot of us go through some very challenging initial years until we find a stabilizing force in our lives.”
Ding-ding-ding. The big neon leaderboard in Sam’s head flashes the winning score and he gets it, so simple it’s more like remembering something than realizing it at all.
“I’d have to turn.”
Dean’s fingers dig in hard enough Sam can feel the bones in his wrist grating against one another but for once his brother’s not paying attention to him. He’s looking back and forth between Ruby and Lenore, eyes so wide open his pupil looks like a bullseye.“What? No. No.”
But Sam’s on a roll now, all of the funny-shaped puzzle pieces slotting into place, so he runs right over the horror-stricken look Dean’s giving him.
“Dean, I’m mortal. Hell, another couple of years and I’m going to be older than you. One day I won’t be able to hang on and then what? You’re just going to let yourself go crazy and eat people?”
“No. Absolutely not. You’re not going to-” Dean splutters indignantly, “You might not even survive it! Didn’t you hear what she said?”
He flings a gesture at Lenore, who looks thoughtful.
“Actually, given that you turned without issue and that Sam’s a Seer, it’s very unlikely that he’d have any trouble.”
Again he’s got to wonder who she’s been talking to because it’s not like he flashes his Seer status around very often, but that’s not the part that intrigues him most.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Seers are already slightly outside of the normal flow of time and what are we but creatures that exist against time?”
Dean butts in by hauling Sam back toward the door. “The answer is no. We are not talking about this. This is not an option. We’re gonna-”
“What? Turn ourselves in to the Guild?” Sam snaps, trying to dig his heels in, “They’ll kill us anyway, Dean!”
“Sam!” Dean yells. It’s a bad habit he picked up from their father, a rough mix of ‘this is not up for discussion, young man’ and ‘I don’t have a good argument so just do what I tell you’. If Dean was thinking clearly he’d realize that that’s probably the least effective method of getting Sam to back down on anything, but of course he’s not, and Sam must not be either because the next thing that he hears come flying out of his own mouth is, “I’m your mate!”
Reality crashes headlong into solid stone. The house around them is silent, vague night sounds making it in through the butterscotch colored walls. Sam’s positive he’s the only one breathing.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” the question comes out more desperate than he can account for when he twists around to aim it at Lenore. “That’s why...”
There really is no good ending to that sentence.
It’s been rattling around in Sam’s head for a while now, an unwelcome pest making noise in the night and pawing through his thoughts at the least opportune moments. The first night he fed Dean put it there, but it’s been nourishing itself ever since, and tonight, watching two actual vampire mates, the touches and the glances, the way they move around one another like gravity is keeping them that way... It’s like looking in a mirror, and not the distorted funhouse kind they’ve both been holding up to this situation from the beginning. Ruby and Lenore, that could be them, easily, they wouldn’t even have to change that much. It’s a little scary the amount of sense it makes out of the last few months, in context.
Lenore looks between them, Sam tugging against his brother’s hold and Dean standing like the fate of the world depends on him not moving a muscle. She slides a glance at Ruby that’s eerily familiar because Dean and he have been having conversations like that their whole lives. Purses her lips and says, “Our bonds aren’t predetermined, there isn’t one particular person fated for each of us or anything like that. It’s simply a matter of who we give our hearts to. But if I had to hazard a guess...”
That’s enough to break Dean. “Fuck you and your guesses! I’m not- this is not-” he flings Sam’s hand away like it’s burning him, “It’s not any of your goddamn business!”
Even with as many times as Sam’s watched it in his dreams, seeing Dean turn and storm out the front door, it still feels like his brother his dragging Sam’s heart along the ground behind him.
He can hear them moving around inside, aware of it like the brick and mortar and cream-colored stucco is made of saran wrap and he’s the word’s creepiest peeping tom. Aware of Sammy most of all. Feels like if he let it his body would fall into position to mirror Sam’s without even needing to set eyes on him.
Sam’s talking in low tones that sound like honesty and every last part of Dean chafes at it - that he would be spilling their secrets to things like them, talking about Dean, no less. That he’s even alone with them at all, because goddamnit, they’re vampires! That’s why Dean’s still hanging around. Not because the edge of the yard was as far away as he could get before he started to have some kind of fucked up panic attack over being out of earshot of his brother.
Mate. Where did that come from anyway? Ok, so yeah, things have been a little crossways from strictly fraternal lately, but that’s only when Dean’s feeding. The blood’s like a drug, he’s not responsible for making bad personal decisions. It doesn’t even really count! The fact that Sam happens to be the person who’s always there when Dean’s on supernatural Viagra is just an unfortunate side effect of their lifestyle.
That doesn’t make them, like, whatever. Meant to be or something. Because they’re brothers. Same parents, shared gene pool, the whole shebang. Dean may be a deeply screwed up guy, but creating a permanent monogamous bond to his baby brother is out there on a limb even for him. Besides, Sad-eyes said that it doesn’t even work that way! And ok, so yeah, Sam ‘has Dean’s heart’ or whatever because, again, brothers, but it’s, you know, different. And stuff. Everybody’s jumping to conclusions. Insane, incestuous conclusions.
And Sam needs to get his ass out of that house now so that Dean can take him back to the motel, explain to him how they are not, cannot, never will be mates and then very platonically rub himself all over his brother until he stops smelling like strange vampire chick. It’s a solid plan.
“You know, there’s a bench in the back yard. Might as well skulk comfortably.”
Dean spins around so fast he feels his neck pop. Behind him, lounging against the trunk of the tree Dean had not in any way been skulking under, is Ruby.
“How the-”
The way she rolls her eyes, again, makes Dean wonder if she was turned too young and never grew out of that annoying teenage bullshit. “I’m older, stronger and smarter than you, it was about as challenging as ambushing a toddler.”
Ok, he officially hates this bitch.
“What do you want?”
“You made staring at the house look so interesting I thought I’d give it a try.” Ruby makes show of sauntering up next to him. Dean’s not particularly thrilled about the proximity but like hell is he going to be the one to give an inch. “What do you think I want, asshat? You upset my mate. Throws a monkey wrench into the equilibrium of my world and it makes me kinda pissy so I thought we should chat.”
Sarcasm and snark happen to be Dean’s two favorite sports - he could have won the gold in them, so he is more than equipped to paste on a smarmy sneer right back. “What, this isn't your usual charming self?”
Ruby snorts and crosses her arms, gaze back on the house. Dean’s not about to ask her, but he has seriously got to learn whatever trick she’s pulling that keeps her movements dead silent like that. They’re standing on mulched tree bark, for crying out loud!
“If Lennie were here,” she says, staring at the arched window into the sitting room, “she’d give you the spiel that incest is a biological taboo, counter-intuitive to the reproductive health of a species. But we don’t reproduce that way and our biological imperatives are different. Your body doesn’t care that Sam’s your brother because it has no reason to anymore.” Briefly, Dean catches a glimpse of Sam’s shoulder, which doesn’t make him antsy or excited in the least. It’s just his brother. “But my girl’s busy making Sam a cup of chamomile tea, so I’ll just say grow a pair and dick your brother.”
Fuck, what is it with the whole world wanting Dean to have sex with Sam? Sam’s all ‘whatever’ and Dean’s body is like ‘yay!’ and the freaking doctor who they’ve pinned all their hopes on and who has let them down epically is just standing there saying ‘yeah, totally, go for it’ and- and freaking everybody! How is that even possible? There’s got to be somebody out there besides Dean who still has a problem with the idea of taking his baby brother, the kid he took care of and raised and made into the man he is today, and stripping him down and doing... things.
Damnit. Dean really doesn’t want to be hard in front of Ruby.
“Do you ever shut up?” he barks, more as a distraction than anything because he’s not really sure if she’s still been talking or not this whole time.
“Only when I’m doing more interesting things with my mouth.” Her eyes narrow at him. “And don’t even think about it, you haven’t got the right equipment to hold my interest even if Len wouldn’t kill you for it.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Dean points out, kicking absently at a chunk of bark at his feet. Although thinking about it has done a good bit to will away his sudden, inexplicable hard-on. Which is kind of weird because she’s objectively hot, even if also a major pain in the ass. Actually, now that he thinks about it, that’s been happening a lot lately. Unless Sam’s there watching. Then it’s not usually a problem, especially if he gets in close enough for Dean to get a hand on while he feeds, like with that girl in Brewer.
“Humans,” Ruby sighs, dragging him out of that increasingly disconcerting line of thought. “It’s like walking through life numb. They call us soulless when they can’t even feel theirs. They have this tiny flitter of an existence, spend decades of it too young or too old to do a damn thing and the whole rest of it mincing and terrified of finding something real.” Lenore moves in front of the window, handing something over and then Sam’s there in view, looking down at whatever it is studiously. That thing in Dean’s chest pulls so hard it nearly takes him out at the knees. “How many creatures in the world actually mate for life? A handful? A dozen on the outside, that can choose just one being out of all of creation to want for their own. Humans can barely commit to what they want for breakfast and still, it never occurs to a single one of them that maybe it’s their species who’s dead.”
There’s suddenly not nearly enough air in this... outdoors. Again, weird considering Dean’s not completely sure he needs to breathe at all, but yeah.
He gruffs, “Plan on making a point sometime this century?” prying his eyes off of Sam’s silhouette inside the house. The thing in his chest tugs again as soon as he does, but he ignores it with a gargantuan effort.
And if Dean having a hard time breathing is weird then it’s extra-strange that Ruby sighs as much as she does. It’s wearing Dean out. “My point is that you’re all hung up about losing your humanity or taking your brother’s away like it’s this big gift and I’ll bet you’ve never even bothered to ask him if it’s what he wants.”
“It’s my job to protect him,” comes out sounding weaker than it should.
“From what?”
From me, he thinks.
Ruby can’t hear that, he knows it, but a wry smile turns her mouth anyway as she pushes herself away from the tree and almost soundlessly steps onto the grass. She makes it two strides before she turns around again, still walking backward as she speaks.
“By the way, Dean, in the six months you’ve been doing this, how many times have you considered just packing up and walking away? For Sam’s own good, of course.” Dean’s voice stalls in his throat, no more of a good answer for that than anything else. Ruby pivots in place, far too self-satisfied as she yells over her shoulder, “That’s what I thought.”
It’s the second time since they’ve met that she’s left Dean spluttering and clueless and he doesn’t like it anymore on the replay.
It’s a long drive back to the motel, no more silent than going but with a different charge in the air. Dean’s driving, because it’s night and he just can’t stand to let Sam behind the wheel any time he doesn’t have to. He can’t decide if it’s killing his brother more anticipating Sam wanting to talk about it or the fact that Sam’s not saying a word.
It must be too much for him to take because finally Dean snaps, “I’m not talking about this.”
Sam has to make a concerted effort not to laugh. Humoring Dean anyway, he says, “I know.”
“You’re my brother.”
“I know that too.”
“It’s just a blood thing. It doesn’t mean...”
“Sure.”
They lapse into silence again, broken only by Dean huffing, “I hate it when you do that shit.”
Sam smiles out the window. “I know.”
The night is blue-black, calm, stars bright pinpricks in the sky above. Around them the world it still moving through the same old motions, people wandering through their lives without the faintest clue that Sam’s universe has shaken around him and left him standing in the wake of something achingly familiar and entirely new. Certainly not for the first time in his life, he’s struck by how little he’s ever been like them.
“She really is a doctor, you know?” he says as they creep through an intersection, speedometer exactly on the limit because they can’t afford a ticket and Dean can’t stand to go any slower. “Works in the ER at the local hospital.”
Dean pulls a face at the road in front of them. “That how she feeds?”
“No, apparently they have some...” Sam searches for a tasteful way to put the situation Lenore explained to him, “friends who, uh, volunteer. They’re pretty well established. Hell, they live more normal than either of us ever have.”
An edge slithers back into Dean’s voice when he grumbles, “Sam, I wasn’t kidding.”
“I’m just telling you what she told me,” Sam says defensively. It’s always such a careful game with Dean, planting an idea but not pushing far enough to make him turn against it out of spite.
“She give you a pamphlet too?” Dean sneers, eyes casting briefly over the packet of papers in Sam’s lap. “To Serve Man?”
Refusing to rise to the bait, Sam calmly corrects, “Copy of her data.” He thumbs at the edge of the first page, unable to make out much in this light. He’d gotten to peruse it briefly at Lenore’s, but there are a lot of specific details he wants to look closer at. Medical testing is something the Guild has never even considered. Even these preliminary workups Lenore put together is more clinical information than hunters have put together in centuries. He’s talking mostly to himself when he muses, “With some actual resources put behind it, there might really be something useful here.”
Dean’s fingers creak against the steering wheel as he tightens them, shifts, tightens again. “She already said there’s no way to cure it, Sam.”
“I know. I’m not talking about a cure,” Sam agrees, suddenly wishing they had a light in the car. There was something on one of the charts about protein levels that keeps sticking in his head. “But there could be something in the mix that might have a medical value. There could even be a way to help the people who get bitten and don’t turn successfully. If there’s a way to keep those kinds of vampires from becoming mindless monsters, there wouldn’t be any reason for the Guild to have to put down anyone who gets bitten. We might even be able to find a social balance with vampires, to make peace, to-”
“Buy the world a Coke?” Dean’s laugh is humorless, the look he turns on Sam somewhere between disgust and rage. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, you really think that love thy vampire neighbor is a good plan?”
“Why not? Lenore and Ruby live perfectly normal lives, probably lots of other vampires all over the country and nobody even knows it because they have to be in hiding. If they can hold down jobs and have houses and not hurt anybody, why should we hunt them?”
“Because they’re not human, Sam!”
He’s glad they’re pulling into the motel parking lot because Dean’s not looking very road-safe right this second and Sam’s not in much of a mood to back down.
“They’re not they, Dean! They’re you! They’ll be me soon enough!”
“Like hell it will,” Dean slams the car into park hard enough that Sam half expects him to apologize to ‘Baby’ but he’s too busy twisting in his seat to face Sam with a scowl just this side of berserk. “If you think for one second that I would do that to you-”
Which is why Sam shouldn’t push it and exactly why he knows he will anyway, because when has he ever been able to let it go when it comes to his brother? “You’re not the only kid on the block with fangs, Dean!”
Luckily the positioning is awkward enough that he only ends up with part of his back slammed against the car door when Dean fists hands in his shirt and shoves his way into Sam’s space, nothing like a human all of a sudden.
“You wouldn’t dare!” His voice is gravel and fury, cool breath on Sam’s lips and those strange, shattered vampire eyes challenging him from three inches away. There’s a hand on his throat, kneading at his jugular with a thumb, fear-heat flooding in fast and scary-eager. “You’re fucking mine! Nobody else gets to... gets to...” Dean stalls out, the animal in him retreating back to wherever he hides it so fast that Sam almost misses it altogether.
“Goddamnit, Sam!” Dean rages, back on his side of the car in a flurry of motion, cutting the engine. The car ticks quietly as the heat leaches away into the night, but Dean doesn’t move, just stares at the wall in front of them like it personally offended him. “You can’t really want it. Not like that.”
This isn’t really how Sam expected things to go. Usually he has to wear Dean down for days to get him to discuss anything meaningful and he hasn’t exactly come up with a plan for what to say. Hasn’t entirely figured out how he feels about it himself, beyond the fact that it rings true in the parts of him that logic keeps its hands off of.
“I...” he stutters over something eloquent to say that turns to mist when he reaches for it. “I stopped trying to fight you a long while back. And I think we both know that I have inappropriate reactions when we’re... close like that. But no, I can’t say I really want to vampire-marry my big brother.” Ends up stuck on honest instead, craning his arm for the papers Dean knocked out of his lap in lieu of eye contact. “Can’t say I really don’t either.”
He finally drags his gaze up to his brother only to find Dean still staring out the windshield. The tightness around his eyes is something Sam’s only seen shadows of before; when Sam started having his visions and there was talk about sending him away to be fostered with the Guild, when all the charms and cleanses failed to do anything about how fast their father was wasting away, when Dean woke up and realized what he really was. Fear, so naked and terrible Sam’s chest aches in sympathy.
“Sam,” is all Dean says, that way he has of making Sam’s name sound like a sentence all by itself, more meaning than a library full of books packed into a syllable. He’s never known what to do with it, how to be that much and not let Dean down, but he’s got to try. There’s no one else, and Dean will never ask for it.
“Look, maybe it is some genetic thing or maybe Dad fucked us up that bad or maybe it’s just us, I don’t know, but you and I have had years to get away from each other, find something else, someone else to spend our lives with and we’ve never even really tried it.” He slides his hand across the seat, not quite touching Dean, but close. “This is not anywhere close to something I’d have picked for myself, Dean, but what it comes down to is that if the world was ending right this second, I’m where I want to be. With you. Because whatever kind of love it is, you’re the love of my life. And I’m not leaving you alone on the crawl toward forever.”
His voice goes shaky toward the end of it, hot prickles of emotion swelling up out of nowhere to sting his eyes. Dean looks at him then, finally, stares at Sam like he’s never seen him before, like Sam could reach into thin air and pluck free everything Dean has ever wanted. Glances down at Sam’s hand idling the space of a breath away from touching his leg.
Flings himself out of the car so fast Sam’s eyes don’t pick up on it until the door is slamming closed behind him.
Sleeping is a pointless, hopeless pursuit, but the alternative is to keep having this same conversation over and over and Dean’s not up for that either. They should have got separate rooms, but cash is tight and they can’t afford to run a credit card - the Guild will be watching their accounts. Besides, it’s not like Dean has successfully managed to be more than twenty feet from Sam without losing his shit in months.
So he lays in his bed, back turned to Sam and listens to his brother paging through Lenore’s papers, scribbling notes here and there and mumbling under his breath. It’s soothing in a way that Dean hates, because he’s spent a thousand nights in his life listening to those exact same sounds that make all the meaningless rooms they spend their time in home.
And that right there is the thing that kills Dean, the one he’s been trying really hard not to acknowledge long after it’s out of the box. For as long as he can remember, Sam has been all the good, cozy, happy things in his world and it’s not a freaky alien force or twisted monster thing that makes him want to hold onto that and mark it up and claim it for his own. Underneath the hunger and the blood, it’s him, just Dean, without all the human stuff telling him no. He can’t decide if this is new or if some part of him has always wanted to pin the only decent thing in his life to the bed with his dick. Put that way, it makes a lot of sense, really. Put that way, it ignores the fact that Sammy’s his brother.
But just because Dean is out of whack doesn’t make it ok for Sam to hand himself, his whole fucking life, over on a platter and say bon appetit. Sam has always been the best of them, the one who wanted more, who might’ve had a real shot at living as anything other than a hunter. Feeling like he owes Dean is no good excuse to give all of that up, to give Dean something that he can’t, couldn’t ever possibly want.
I’m not leaving you alone on the crawl toward forever.
Replaying it in his head chokes Dean out all over again. Forever. The realization that there’s not a cure doesn’t hit him nearly as hard as that.
Forever without Sammy. That’s what he’s asking for isn’t, he? Centuries upon centuries of nothing, just hanging around, biding time toward more nothing. Or he could end it, let himself get caught by somebody, bank that there really is such a thing as a soul and he’s still got one so that he might end up with his brother again in the end. But watching Sam grow old and weak, seeing him wither away to nothing like Dad, to sit there and let him die? He couldn’t do that. He’s not strong enough for it and there’s too much of him that would need to save Sam to go through with it. He’d cave given the right provocation. And running’s not an option either. Like it or not, Ruby was right, he’s had so many chances and it never even crossed his mind to pack up and walk out on Sam, not while Sam still wanted him there.
So that’s it then, isn’t it? The only way out, the only thing he can do. He has to make Sam be the one to walk away.
The second he stands, Dean has Sam’s curious eyes on him. He doesn’t stop there, circling around the bed and climbing into Sam’s, crawling his way up his stock-still brother’s body. Don’t think just do it, dive in and see if you can swim.
The notes flap loudly as Dean knocks them out of Sam’s hands. Sam looks stunned, doesn’t even try to move as Dean settles himself in his lap and presses his hands to Sam’s chest. Sam’s pulse flutters like a trapped bird against his palm but he doesn’t say anything. Can’t once Dean smashes their lips together, not quite hard enough to bust Sam’s lip because that’s not how this needs to go.
“I’m not gonna bite you,” Dean tells him, just so they’re clear, even though his fangs are already dropping down, dangerously simple temptation to let them nick Sam’s mouth. “Not gonna make it that easy on you this time.”
It’s only fair. Sam doesn’t know what he’s signing up for, has only ever given it up to Dean with those bite chemicals warming him up and making him feel good. That kind of stuff might not even work if Sam was like him. Dean’s just doing the right thing, showing him what it would be like, how much more wrong it would feel without those drugs in his system making things fuzzy.
Sam huffs, “You’re an idiot,” and finally moves, but only to arch up and kiss Dean again.
His throat constricts on a sweet rush as Sam’s tongue slides into his mouth, careful little licks and strokes. It’s the softest they’ve ever kissed, Sam being just as cautious about keeping his lips away from Dean’s fangs as Dean is like he’s the one here with something to prove. Stubborn little shit.
Strong hands push under the back of his shirt, all the power in them still not enough to hurt Dean but they’re not trying to anyway. Gentle, teasing touches that feed the burn building in Dean like hot oil. Up his spine, kneading at his shoulders, tracing all the left over freckles and scars that map out his human life on his skin. They smooth over his sides and up his front, touching him like something fragile and precious, like Sam’s the one who has to mind his strength.
A growl presses against the back of Dean’s teeth, leaking out on a, “Damnit, Sam,” when his brother’s hips start a slow roll against his that makes it hard to remember that he started this with a plan.
While Dean’s mouth is otherwise occupied, Sam’s drags down over his jaw, hot swipes of tongue tickling at his neck. Fuck, it’s too good. Sam doesn’t kiss him when they mess around, always Dean’s mouth on him, finding the spots that make him moan. Dean’s got no defense against it all coming at him at once. He knows Sam’s not exactly virginal even if he’s nowhere close to Dean’s league when it comes to experience, but he hadn’t been prepared for this kind of skill. Sam uses his mouth like a weapon to cut Dean to pieces and it’s a fucking revelation is what it is.
Sam groans, “God,” too husky to be properly reverent and tugs at Dean’s shirt. “Take this off.”
By the time Dean considers it, it’s already done, shirt and pants both on the floor and him back in Sam’s lap before it registers that he must be moving vamp-fast again because Sam is staring.
“Well ok then,” Sam laughs, breathy, immediately moving back in to lick at the newly exposed skin. Dean is beginning to doubt the inherent brilliance of his plan. “I want to fuck you. You going to let me?”
He looks up at Dean through his lashes, the fringe of his bangs, mouth still moving patternless over Dean’s chest. Beautiful enough to cut Dean to the bone.
That has to be cheating. There’s a rulebook somewhere and Dean’s positive that move is illegal. His fangs and his dick throb like there’s a direct line between them.
“Sam, you don’t want-”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” Sam lifts his head to look Dean in the eyes.
In this position Dean’s taller than Sam and it’s a head trip, like he just jumped in the Delorean and juiced his way back to when Sammy was fifteen and petulant and so incapable of believing he could possibly be wrong about anything. Dean had always hoped he was going to grow out of that.
He also doesn’t remember getting snared on how pretty and pink Sam’s lips were back then but he’s got an image of them burned into his brain anyway, so easy to lay over the slick, bruised version Sam’s tongue is swiping over now. That shouldn’t make his dick leak.
“We don’t have to,” Sam goes on like Dean has any clue where this conversation started, “but I do want to. I dream about it. How you would feel under me, or on top of me, inside. I want it all. Want to-”
“Oh my god, shut up, Sam.” Dean licks the rest of the words off of Sam’s tongue in an attempt to save himself from getting any other bright ideas. The last thing he needs is fodder for his already overactive imagination.
Sam is obviously struggling with that concept though, because instead of talking now he’s snaking a hand affectionately over Dean’s ass to rub at his hole. Everything Dean’s got jerks with it, cock to lungs to twitchy fingertips which have somehow buried themselves in Sam’s hair without Dean’s say-so.
Sam hums approvingly and massages at Dean a little harder. He doesn’t mean to rock back against it, absolutely certain that this is not something he’s into except for how badly he wants to feel it. The permission he means to give comes out a whimper but Sam must get it because he breaks off long enough to stick his own fingers into his mouth and wet them up before he moans another kiss into Dean.
The slick push of Sam’s fingers - two, which both hurts and is shockingly awesome; maybe liking things up the ass is a family trait and wow, that’s too weird to think about right now - knocks a raw noise out of him and his fangs do catch at Sam’s lip this time.
The animal part of him’s not so sure about being on the receiving end of this but licking up the thread of blood leaking down from Sam’s mouth sates it. Then Sam crooks his fingers, pulls them most of the way out and pushes in again, searching and dedicated, and pleasure shreds through his system like ground glass.
Sam grins and ducks it when Dean tries to get at the sliver of a cut on Sam’s lip, nipping right back at Dean’s lip instead. Damn, there’s a button he didn’t know he had.
“Yeah,” Sam nods as if Dean said something. Could be he did, it’s hard to pay attention when Sam’s fingers are twisting in him in strange, sweet ways and his teeth are leaving blunt little marks on Dean’s skin all over the smell of his blood, hot and wanting, thick as incense on the air. The jeans Sam still has on for some stupid reason Dean can’t remember are chafing at his inner thighs as he rides down onto Sam’s hand over and over.
He finally finds enough voice in the guttural sounds that keep pouring out of him to get out, “If you don’t get your clothes out of the way I’m tearing them off.”
Apparently Sammy likes that idea, going by the sharp slice of want Dean can scent in his veins, but then he’s doing as he’s told - for once - getting tangled up when he forgets to take his fingers out of Dean first.
This plan, Dean decides as he rolls off to the side to watch Sam slither out of his jeans too slow, went right off the rails somewhere. He’s not sure how it happened, but Sammy looming over him with blood smeared on his chin and sweat glistening on his chest like some kind of pagan sex god was definitely not how he’d intended for this to end. He can’t remember why that was now because, fuck, this is awesome, but not the plan.
Sam plants a hand on the mattress next to Dean’s head, the other slipping back behind Dean’s balls and up into him again, so smooth his toes curl.
“Enough?” he asks, and Dean nods like he has any idea. The size of Sam’s dick in comparison to his ass is geometry Dean probably isn’t cut out for when he’s firing on all cylinders, let alone when he’s got a world full of Sammy up in his business, messing with his head.
Either Sam doesn’t realize that or doesn’t care because he takes Dean at his word, spitting loudly into his hand and slicking up his cock with it.
Dean’s never been overly picky about what ends up in his bed, but dicks have been in the minority and even then he’s never spent all that much time thinking about them; they’re there, they’re functional, sometimes they’re attached to really hot people he wants to pound his own into. Sam’s looks good though. Everything about him does, all the time. It’s not any kind of fair that Dean got stuck as one of the few of people on the planet who’s not allowed to want to get his hands all over that; not that that’s actually been stopping him lately. Not any kind of fair that his kid brother grew up to be the kind of gorgeous, sexy, perfect that grabs Dean by the soul.
Pain is hardly a stranger to Dean, but it’s still unexpected enough to shock a gasp that bleeds into a bellow out of him when Sam settles against him and pushes. To his credit, Sammy doesn’t let up, takes him with stilted rolls of his hips, the same cautious certainty he has when he’s pulled bullet slugs and glass shards out of Dean’s body, meticulous and completely dedicated.
It’s mind blowing, to be the focus of that sort of attention. Instead of soothing the gritty burn flaring through him it stokes it, rushing out along his nerves like wildfire over dry grass, crackling into something Dean has no word for, the bastard child of agony and rapture branded into him like a promise.
All the way in, Sam stutters to a halt, grinding his hips against Dean’s ass and shifting the whole works, so deep inside Dean swears he can feel it in his throat. Stiltedly he drops to his elbows, mouth close enough that Dean has to lean up and get a taste of it or he’s going to actually go insane from the formless energy surging through him.
“I love you more than anything,” Sam murmurs, pulling out a fraction of an inch and feeding it right back in again, turning anything Dean might have had a mind to say into a breathy grunt, “One of these days I’m going to actually get you to believe it.”
Dean has to grit his teeth to keep from biting down on the sweet flex of bicep right there next to his face when Sam drags back again, farther this time, and back in all molasses slow and fucking killing him here, fuck. He tries to shove up against it and goes right back down again when Sam’s teeth fasten on his neck, slamming that shiny new kink so hard Dean feels the sheets tear under his clasping fingers.
Sam does it again, teething lower but no softer down the curve of Dean’s neck, hot tongue and slick, blunt bone flirting at the idea of breaking skin and like a knife to the gut Dean wants him to. His blood staining Sam’s mouth, sharp and bright on his breath, Sam’s blood made his own and given back again and oh that’s going to be an embarrassing thought to jack off to later.
Like he’s on a mission to force Dean to actually want to hurt him, Sam keeps the roll of his hips slow and steady. Dean would bitch like nobody has bitched before, but he keeps getting distracted by the little frissons of frenzy sparking randomly from Sam’s mouth on his skin, stomach grinding against Dean’s dick, the heavy, intrusive press of him all over Dean’s insides.
He’s clenched up tight around it, freakishly aware of how simple it would be to ease up and let the ride go smooth - the things his body will let him control now are just as stunning as the ones he can’t keep a leash on at all - but not actually wanting to. This is Sam in him, Sam, just about as close as they are ever going to get to each other, and he wants to feel it all.
The air he’s pulling in is drenched in Sammy, sopping with enough of that salty, earthy heat to drown in. He’s choking on it at the same time that he’s holding it in, trying to stain his lungs with it. Gets enough out to hiss into Sam’s ear, “That all you got?”
He’s not ready for it in the least when Sam’s silky rhythm goes jagged, friction of skin on skin swamping him at the same time as the spike of heat in Sam’s blood. And that is pure, filthy heaven, right there; Sam’s hips smacking against his ass on every thrust, hitting things inside of him that he definitely needs to give more TLC to in the future, Sam’s hair sticking to his face, sweat on his skin, endorphins like expensive perfume thudding all around Dean in the cage Sam has made of his body.
The next punch of Sam’s hips ignites a fire in Dean’s veins, groan wrenched out of him like a wounded animal. His shifts his legs up to wrap around Sam, accidentally buckles his brother when he leverages up into the push-pull and gets some fucking fantastic pressure on his dick from Sam’s slick belly for the trouble.
In the end it’s uncoordinated, scrapping against each other for the same goal with straining muscles. Hard breath and intertwined whines and rasps that mean nothing and everything. Sam stutters to a halt, pressing bruises into Dean’s hips and Dean can feel it, this throbbing deluge so much warmer than he is on the inside. He doesn’t know how this works, could just be imagining it, but it feels like when he feeds off of Sam, heat and energy melting into him, juddering along his nerves and then sweeping back, over and over until he’s pulled beneath the surface of it and has no choice but to let go, smearing wet between their bodies.
His heart is beating faster than usual, which all in all isn’t saying much, but enough that he’s aware of it, a much slower downbeat synced to the thud of Sam’s against his chest. If he was ordinary, he probably couldn’t breathe under Sam’s weight but it’s not even a challenge now. Could go without breathing altogether if he needed to - for a while anyway, he’s never tested the limits of that - but it’s worth the little bit of effort required to soak in the smell of Sam all warm and satisfied and Dean-ed up. Yeah, that’s it, Sam smells like him, like the both of them too tangled up to tell one from the other. It’s good, makes Dean’s dick twitch into the sticky divot of Sam’s navel and hey, there’s an advantage to the undead thing - one hell of a recovery time.
Sam’s chuff of a laugh turns into a groan as he peels himself off of Dean, sliding free to leave this empty place that Dean’s already not crazy about. He plops down next to him, legs more off the mattress than on from the weird diagonal position they somehow worked themselves into. He’s wet all over, glowing in the yellowed lamp light like a halo. Any hope Dean had of getting over this, ever, evaporates with the shape of his brother burned photo-negative in his memory.
It’s another long minute before Sam opens his eyes again, slits of hazel peeking out from the lace of his lashes. Watching Dean watch him and the urge is there to try and cover whatever Dean knows must be showing on his face but he can’t manage it just now, too broken open by the ghost sensation of Sam inside of him to piece his armor back together this fast. Something in it makes Sam smile, a smirk that would fit better on Dean’s mouth, one he wants to learn the shape of with his tongue. Blood swirls close to the surface of Sam’s cheeks like he knows it too, heavy swallow clicking in his dry throat before he tips his head back and bares it like an offering.
It hits Dean like a bucket of boiling water, flash-fire heat arrowing straight to his dick, flushing the already swollen flesh of his gums where he hasn’t calmed down enough for his fangs to retract again. A deep noise that’s closer to a purr than a growl shoves its way up from his gut to come out loud and hungry. It’d be distressing if it wasn’t for the way Sam’s soft cock twitches.
He means to say, “No,” but, “Not yet,” is what rolls off his tongue. It doesn’t match up with how he finds himself nosing into the crook of Sam’s neck. Swiping his tongue across the rise of a vein doesn’t help much either but the urge to taste and claim and own is tempered. One bite, just a few drops of his own blood and Sam could- Sam would-
“No,” Sam agrees, “Not yet. Not like that.” His hand is huge on the back of Dean’s neck, simmering heat that doesn’t do a thing to discourage him from nuzzling at tender skin. “There’s still something we need to take care of and it’s probably better if I’m not turned yet for it."
Chapter Six
It’s all so... suburban. Little two stories and modest singles like Easter eggs, muted blues and greens and yellows in row after row. The sprinklers at the end of the block are traipsing a silver curtain of water through the early evening despite the cold, keeping a smattering of green showing through the winter-brown lawns. The next house over has a swingset peering over the fence from the back yard and that? Four houses down on the opposite side of the street? That’s an honest to god picket fence. A white one.
Sam’s purposely avoiding thinking about what it says about him that after the last six months - the last 23 years - this is the part that strikes him as surreal.
They’re parked across the street under the pretense of recon even though they’re hardly unexpected guests. If that woman - Sam’s cheeks prickle hot thinking of how she saw him, them, him - is in there, the doctor would probably know they were here anyway.
Assuming there’s a doctor in there at all and not some kind of trick or ambush or...
Sam drags in a deep breath and makes himself calm down. Between their training and Dean’s senses, they’d at least have an inkling if something was up. None of which seems to be soothing Dean any.
He’s pretty well kept his hands off of Sam the last couple of days. Usually does after a feed but it’s felt more pointed this time, more intentional. It’s kind of funny all things considered - Dean’s always been an exhibitionist but apparently that doesn’t apply where his little brother and anonymous female presumed-vampires are concerned. Funny in that nobody’s-laughing let’s-not-ever-say-so-out-loud sort of way.
Now though, Dean’s fingers are carding through the hair on the back of Sam’s neck where his arm is cast across the back of the seat. It seems idle and automatic, nothing that should account for the way Sam’s stomach keep bottoming out whenever Dean’s fingers snag on a tangle and pull just a little. He could count the number of months Dean’s been really feeding on one hand and already Sam’s physical responses are shot to hell. If this doctor doesn’t pan out... well that’s a bridge they’ll have to cross once the cliff’s edge is looming up in front of them.
“Ok,” Sam says, hands slapping lightly against his own thighs for no real reason beyond stopping them from twitching. Dean nods and follows as Sam heaves himself out of the car.
The house they’re headed toward is a simple, cream colored number, not one thing about it to say it doesn’t belong to a nice little 9 to 5 couple like every other one on the block. Maybe it does, or did. Maybe this is just a hide out. Or something that sounds less like it was ripped out of a Chandler novel.
Lights are on in the downstairs but there’s no movement that Sam can see beyond the sheer curtains. There must be something though because halfway up the neatly tended step-stone path Dean falters, head cocked like he's listening. His face morphs from confusion into some kind of mix of shock and amusement.
“What?” Sam asks, and Dean’s smirk spreads a little more before he wipes it away completely with a rough shake of his head.
“Nothing.”
He gets as far as putting his foot on the little step leading to the front door before it’s swinging open to meet them, two women standing on the other side. One is the girl from the other night, petite now that Sam’s looking at her from his full height, the strap of her tank top hanging limply off her shoulder and the bottom of it rucked up all the way to her ribs on one side. Not apparently inclined to do anything about it, she bites down on a grin aimed Sam’s direction that just highlights the jut of her fangs and wiggles her fingers hello.
The other woman is a few years older, perhaps, but not by much; long, light brown hair and big, soulful eyes. Her smile at them is more demure, full-mouthed, sloe-gin-red lips and teeth that peep out from behind them just the tiniest bit too far. Another question answered.
“Sam, Dean,” she nods, puffs a miniature laugh when they both tense. “Relax, we have a relatively small community and you two have managed to create quite a stir. People talk.”
“People,” Dean bites it out like an insult, creeping steadily into Sam’s personal space.
The doe-eyed vampire doesn’t rise to the occasion though, simply shrugging “I think it’s best to be generous with who qualifies as people.”
Her eyes flit, ever so briefly, to Sam’s arms and even through his shirt and coat, the Seer tattoos on his forearms itch with the weight of it. How could she...
She eases forward just slightly, voice dipping lower as Dean edges Sam back with a shoulder like a brick wall. “You have all the tools at your disposal to be a truly vicious killing machine, Dean, and enough hunger to make you want to use it. And what have you done with it? The same thing you did when you were a human being. Why should you think you were anything less than a person?”
Belatedly, Sam realizes he’s scratching at his own arm when the woman’s eyes drop down to where his nails dig in against the corduroy of his jacket. She’s still just smiling indulgently, though, moderately amused.
“Like I said, word gets around,” is her answer to the question Sam didn’t ask. “My name is Lenore, you’ve met Ruby.” She glances back at the other girl who seems perfectly content to watch the proceedings, chin on her fist, elbows balanced on the banister of a carpeted staircase disappearing into the darkened upstairs. Still hasn’t fixed her clothes. “I’m told you’ve been looking for me.”
“You’re the doctor?” comes out of Sam a mumble, only half a question as the tumblers start fitting into place in his head.
“Can you think of anyone better motivated to research the condition?”
Lenore steps back out of the doorway, gesturing them inside. Dean stands there, frozen on the threshold until Sam finally gets fed up and ducks around him to get inside. It may be one of the dumbest things he’s ever done, but they haven’t gotten this close just to turn around in the front lawn. Dean grumbles unhappily, but follows, fingers snagged in the tail of Sam’s shirt.
No point in beating around the bush, Sam says, “We’re looking for a cure,” as soon as the door shuts behind them.
“I know,” Lenore nods, and Sam can’t tell if he’s imagining that she avoids meeting his eyes or not. “Daniel told me.”
“Daniel?”
Lenore circles around them leading the way into a comfortably lived-in sitting room. Along the way her hand slides up the curve of the other girl, Ruby’s, shoulder, resettling the shirt strap. Ruby turns into it at just the right time to graze her lips across Lenore’s knuckles. Alright, Sam thinks he understands what Dean overheard that had him smiling a minute ago, but that’s not the part of it that pulls his stomach into fancy knots.
It’s Ruby who answers, smug enough to hurt. “Creepy voodoo guy.”
Dean halts in his tracks in the middle of the doorway, yanking Sam up short by the back of his shirt. That got old three months ago. “He knew where to find you?”
“How to contact us, yes,” Lenore says simply, settling herself in an overstuffed arm chair. The whole room would look like somebody ripped off a Restoration Hardware showroom if it weren’t for the lesbian vampiresses.
“We wasted half a year out there chasing our tails and he has you on speed dial?”
A threat of a snarl twitches Ruby’s lip at Dean’s raised voice, one arm draping over the back of Lenore’s chair in what ought to be a lounge but still looks like a fighter’s stance.
Lenore doesn’t so much as blink. “It was important that we let you have that time. You were very new when you met Daniel, you deserved an opportunity to discover for yourself who you are now.”
It’s a bizarre feeling, walking into the middle of a vision. Like deja vu, Sam guesses, only a thousand times more intense. Knowing what’s coming next nearly brings Sam to his knees but he can’t not ask anyway.
“Are.” His voice cracks. “There is no cure, is there?”
Just like he remembers, Lenore’s eyes soften, pitying. “No. I’m sorry.” He can’t tell if it’s on purpose or just a reflex when Dean tugs at him again, but he goes with it either way, lets his brother pull him back until their shoulders bump, overlapping like dominoes. He already feels like he’s falling.
Lenore keeps talking as if she can’t tell, focused on Dean now. “This kind of physical change, you can’t reverse it any more than you could turn back into a child. Your body is different now, there isn’t anything to be done about that. But that doesn’t make it a death sentence.”
Dean’s voice sounds as wretched as Sam feels, bitter and cast adrift. His hand cuffs a bruise onto Sam’s wrist. “That’s exactly what this is.”
Ruby’s dark eyes roll like the destruction of their very existence is the most inane triviality she can think of. “Don’t be stupid, going underground is not that hard. We all do it.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen how you do it. Nests full of humans that you fuck and feed on and turn into little baby vamps.” Dean’s all venom, dangling from the end of Sam’s arm as if Sam actually has the power to hold him back from attacking the tiny brunette.
“You can’t possibly be this big of an idiot and have survived this long.” Ruby sighs, unimpressed, and perches on the arm of the chair. Lenore’s hand settles on her bent knee like it belongs there. “ A mouthful of blood to turn somebody and you really think that the ‘hunters’ are holding back a vampire epidemic? The ones you kill are dead meat walking. Us, your kind never even catch a whiff of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, us?”
With nothing more than a light squeeze of her hand, Lenore cuts off whatever Ruby was about to snap in return and says calmly toward Sam, “I imagine that you’ve worked out some of it.”
“The control.” He doesn’t bother making it a question.
“Mmm,” she nods. “Obviously I don’t have a proper sample size to get conclusive data, but anecdotally, there are two types to turns. The kind you catch, who have no hope of ever mastering their hunger. I’ve never heard of one lasting more than a couple of years. And the others, like ourselves, who have a more successful transition. Who remain, for all intents and purposes, like we were before.”
“Why?”
“Again, this is mostly guesswork on my part, but some of my testing supports a theory that there’s a genetic component. A natural predisposition if you will. Environmental factors tend to play heavily into it as well, so it’s hard to say for sure.”
Sam still feels hazy, like he’s floating, and the odds are pretty good he’s rocking a decent case of shock, but his analytical side is working overtime, scrambling from one idea to the next along the breadcrumb trail of possibility. His visions don’t always play out the way he’s interpreted them, it could be that’s he’s been jumping to all the wrong conclusions.
“So we could do this, just like we have been? No worry that he’s going to go rabid?”
For the first time Lenore looks cagey, hesitating before she slowly says, “Assuming all other variables remain in place, yes, it seems likely.”
Either Dean’s working along the same wavelength as Sam and doesn’t like it, or else he’s still frustrated and confused enough to lash out at the opportunity. “What variables?”
“Your brother, Einstien,” Ruby snarks, bats her eyelashes. She seems to enjoy pushing Dean’s buttons.
Lenore, obviously being the more practical of the pair, glares at her and explains, “The animal side of our nature is powerful. Every successful long-term turn I’ve ever known had something to keep them grounded in who they are. For you, that’s very clearly Sam. It’s lucky, really. A lot of us go through some very challenging initial years until we find a stabilizing force in our lives.”
Ding-ding-ding. The big neon leaderboard in Sam’s head flashes the winning score and he gets it, so simple it’s more like remembering something than realizing it at all.
“I’d have to turn.”
Dean’s fingers dig in hard enough Sam can feel the bones in his wrist grating against one another but for once his brother’s not paying attention to him. He’s looking back and forth between Ruby and Lenore, eyes so wide open his pupil looks like a bullseye.“What? No. No.”
But Sam’s on a roll now, all of the funny-shaped puzzle pieces slotting into place, so he runs right over the horror-stricken look Dean’s giving him.
“Dean, I’m mortal. Hell, another couple of years and I’m going to be older than you. One day I won’t be able to hang on and then what? You’re just going to let yourself go crazy and eat people?”
“No. Absolutely not. You’re not going to-” Dean splutters indignantly, “You might not even survive it! Didn’t you hear what she said?”
He flings a gesture at Lenore, who looks thoughtful.
“Actually, given that you turned without issue and that Sam’s a Seer, it’s very unlikely that he’d have any trouble.”
Again he’s got to wonder who she’s been talking to because it’s not like he flashes his Seer status around very often, but that’s not the part that intrigues him most.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Seers are already slightly outside of the normal flow of time and what are we but creatures that exist against time?”
Dean butts in by hauling Sam back toward the door. “The answer is no. We are not talking about this. This is not an option. We’re gonna-”
“What? Turn ourselves in to the Guild?” Sam snaps, trying to dig his heels in, “They’ll kill us anyway, Dean!”
“Sam!” Dean yells. It’s a bad habit he picked up from their father, a rough mix of ‘this is not up for discussion, young man’ and ‘I don’t have a good argument so just do what I tell you’. If Dean was thinking clearly he’d realize that that’s probably the least effective method of getting Sam to back down on anything, but of course he’s not, and Sam must not be either because the next thing that he hears come flying out of his own mouth is, “I’m your mate!”
Reality crashes headlong into solid stone. The house around them is silent, vague night sounds making it in through the butterscotch colored walls. Sam’s positive he’s the only one breathing.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” the question comes out more desperate than he can account for when he twists around to aim it at Lenore. “That’s why...”
There really is no good ending to that sentence.
It’s been rattling around in Sam’s head for a while now, an unwelcome pest making noise in the night and pawing through his thoughts at the least opportune moments. The first night he fed Dean put it there, but it’s been nourishing itself ever since, and tonight, watching two actual vampire mates, the touches and the glances, the way they move around one another like gravity is keeping them that way... It’s like looking in a mirror, and not the distorted funhouse kind they’ve both been holding up to this situation from the beginning. Ruby and Lenore, that could be them, easily, they wouldn’t even have to change that much. It’s a little scary the amount of sense it makes out of the last few months, in context.
Lenore looks between them, Sam tugging against his brother’s hold and Dean standing like the fate of the world depends on him not moving a muscle. She slides a glance at Ruby that’s eerily familiar because Dean and he have been having conversations like that their whole lives. Purses her lips and says, “Our bonds aren’t predetermined, there isn’t one particular person fated for each of us or anything like that. It’s simply a matter of who we give our hearts to. But if I had to hazard a guess...”
That’s enough to break Dean. “Fuck you and your guesses! I’m not- this is not-” he flings Sam’s hand away like it’s burning him, “It’s not any of your goddamn business!”
Even with as many times as Sam’s watched it in his dreams, seeing Dean turn and storm out the front door, it still feels like his brother his dragging Sam’s heart along the ground behind him.
He can hear them moving around inside, aware of it like the brick and mortar and cream-colored stucco is made of saran wrap and he’s the word’s creepiest peeping tom. Aware of Sammy most of all. Feels like if he let it his body would fall into position to mirror Sam’s without even needing to set eyes on him.
Sam’s talking in low tones that sound like honesty and every last part of Dean chafes at it - that he would be spilling their secrets to things like them, talking about Dean, no less. That he’s even alone with them at all, because goddamnit, they’re vampires! That’s why Dean’s still hanging around. Not because the edge of the yard was as far away as he could get before he started to have some kind of fucked up panic attack over being out of earshot of his brother.
Mate. Where did that come from anyway? Ok, so yeah, things have been a little crossways from strictly fraternal lately, but that’s only when Dean’s feeding. The blood’s like a drug, he’s not responsible for making bad personal decisions. It doesn’t even really count! The fact that Sam happens to be the person who’s always there when Dean’s on supernatural Viagra is just an unfortunate side effect of their lifestyle.
That doesn’t make them, like, whatever. Meant to be or something. Because they’re brothers. Same parents, shared gene pool, the whole shebang. Dean may be a deeply screwed up guy, but creating a permanent monogamous bond to his baby brother is out there on a limb even for him. Besides, Sad-eyes said that it doesn’t even work that way! And ok, so yeah, Sam ‘has Dean’s heart’ or whatever because, again, brothers, but it’s, you know, different. And stuff. Everybody’s jumping to conclusions. Insane, incestuous conclusions.
And Sam needs to get his ass out of that house now so that Dean can take him back to the motel, explain to him how they are not, cannot, never will be mates and then very platonically rub himself all over his brother until he stops smelling like strange vampire chick. It’s a solid plan.
“You know, there’s a bench in the back yard. Might as well skulk comfortably.”
Dean spins around so fast he feels his neck pop. Behind him, lounging against the trunk of the tree Dean had not in any way been skulking under, is Ruby.
“How the-”
The way she rolls her eyes, again, makes Dean wonder if she was turned too young and never grew out of that annoying teenage bullshit. “I’m older, stronger and smarter than you, it was about as challenging as ambushing a toddler.”
Ok, he officially hates this bitch.
“What do you want?”
“You made staring at the house look so interesting I thought I’d give it a try.” Ruby makes show of sauntering up next to him. Dean’s not particularly thrilled about the proximity but like hell is he going to be the one to give an inch. “What do you think I want, asshat? You upset my mate. Throws a monkey wrench into the equilibrium of my world and it makes me kinda pissy so I thought we should chat.”
Sarcasm and snark happen to be Dean’s two favorite sports - he could have won the gold in them, so he is more than equipped to paste on a smarmy sneer right back. “What, this isn't your usual charming self?”
Ruby snorts and crosses her arms, gaze back on the house. Dean’s not about to ask her, but he has seriously got to learn whatever trick she’s pulling that keeps her movements dead silent like that. They’re standing on mulched tree bark, for crying out loud!
“If Lennie were here,” she says, staring at the arched window into the sitting room, “she’d give you the spiel that incest is a biological taboo, counter-intuitive to the reproductive health of a species. But we don’t reproduce that way and our biological imperatives are different. Your body doesn’t care that Sam’s your brother because it has no reason to anymore.” Briefly, Dean catches a glimpse of Sam’s shoulder, which doesn’t make him antsy or excited in the least. It’s just his brother. “But my girl’s busy making Sam a cup of chamomile tea, so I’ll just say grow a pair and dick your brother.”
Fuck, what is it with the whole world wanting Dean to have sex with Sam? Sam’s all ‘whatever’ and Dean’s body is like ‘yay!’ and the freaking doctor who they’ve pinned all their hopes on and who has let them down epically is just standing there saying ‘yeah, totally, go for it’ and- and freaking everybody! How is that even possible? There’s got to be somebody out there besides Dean who still has a problem with the idea of taking his baby brother, the kid he took care of and raised and made into the man he is today, and stripping him down and doing... things.
Damnit. Dean really doesn’t want to be hard in front of Ruby.
“Do you ever shut up?” he barks, more as a distraction than anything because he’s not really sure if she’s still been talking or not this whole time.
“Only when I’m doing more interesting things with my mouth.” Her eyes narrow at him. “And don’t even think about it, you haven’t got the right equipment to hold my interest even if Len wouldn’t kill you for it.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Dean points out, kicking absently at a chunk of bark at his feet. Although thinking about it has done a good bit to will away his sudden, inexplicable hard-on. Which is kind of weird because she’s objectively hot, even if also a major pain in the ass. Actually, now that he thinks about it, that’s been happening a lot lately. Unless Sam’s there watching. Then it’s not usually a problem, especially if he gets in close enough for Dean to get a hand on while he feeds, like with that girl in Brewer.
“Humans,” Ruby sighs, dragging him out of that increasingly disconcerting line of thought. “It’s like walking through life numb. They call us soulless when they can’t even feel theirs. They have this tiny flitter of an existence, spend decades of it too young or too old to do a damn thing and the whole rest of it mincing and terrified of finding something real.” Lenore moves in front of the window, handing something over and then Sam’s there in view, looking down at whatever it is studiously. That thing in Dean’s chest pulls so hard it nearly takes him out at the knees. “How many creatures in the world actually mate for life? A handful? A dozen on the outside, that can choose just one being out of all of creation to want for their own. Humans can barely commit to what they want for breakfast and still, it never occurs to a single one of them that maybe it’s their species who’s dead.”
There’s suddenly not nearly enough air in this... outdoors. Again, weird considering Dean’s not completely sure he needs to breathe at all, but yeah.
He gruffs, “Plan on making a point sometime this century?” prying his eyes off of Sam’s silhouette inside the house. The thing in his chest tugs again as soon as he does, but he ignores it with a gargantuan effort.
And if Dean having a hard time breathing is weird then it’s extra-strange that Ruby sighs as much as she does. It’s wearing Dean out. “My point is that you’re all hung up about losing your humanity or taking your brother’s away like it’s this big gift and I’ll bet you’ve never even bothered to ask him if it’s what he wants.”
“It’s my job to protect him,” comes out sounding weaker than it should.
“From what?”
From me, he thinks.
Ruby can’t hear that, he knows it, but a wry smile turns her mouth anyway as she pushes herself away from the tree and almost soundlessly steps onto the grass. She makes it two strides before she turns around again, still walking backward as she speaks.
“By the way, Dean, in the six months you’ve been doing this, how many times have you considered just packing up and walking away? For Sam’s own good, of course.” Dean’s voice stalls in his throat, no more of a good answer for that than anything else. Ruby pivots in place, far too self-satisfied as she yells over her shoulder, “That’s what I thought.”
It’s the second time since they’ve met that she’s left Dean spluttering and clueless and he doesn’t like it anymore on the replay.
It’s a long drive back to the motel, no more silent than going but with a different charge in the air. Dean’s driving, because it’s night and he just can’t stand to let Sam behind the wheel any time he doesn’t have to. He can’t decide if it’s killing his brother more anticipating Sam wanting to talk about it or the fact that Sam’s not saying a word.
It must be too much for him to take because finally Dean snaps, “I’m not talking about this.”
Sam has to make a concerted effort not to laugh. Humoring Dean anyway, he says, “I know.”
“You’re my brother.”
“I know that too.”
“It’s just a blood thing. It doesn’t mean...”
“Sure.”
They lapse into silence again, broken only by Dean huffing, “I hate it when you do that shit.”
Sam smiles out the window. “I know.”
The night is blue-black, calm, stars bright pinpricks in the sky above. Around them the world it still moving through the same old motions, people wandering through their lives without the faintest clue that Sam’s universe has shaken around him and left him standing in the wake of something achingly familiar and entirely new. Certainly not for the first time in his life, he’s struck by how little he’s ever been like them.
“She really is a doctor, you know?” he says as they creep through an intersection, speedometer exactly on the limit because they can’t afford a ticket and Dean can’t stand to go any slower. “Works in the ER at the local hospital.”
Dean pulls a face at the road in front of them. “That how she feeds?”
“No, apparently they have some...” Sam searches for a tasteful way to put the situation Lenore explained to him, “friends who, uh, volunteer. They’re pretty well established. Hell, they live more normal than either of us ever have.”
An edge slithers back into Dean’s voice when he grumbles, “Sam, I wasn’t kidding.”
“I’m just telling you what she told me,” Sam says defensively. It’s always such a careful game with Dean, planting an idea but not pushing far enough to make him turn against it out of spite.
“She give you a pamphlet too?” Dean sneers, eyes casting briefly over the packet of papers in Sam’s lap. “To Serve Man?”
Refusing to rise to the bait, Sam calmly corrects, “Copy of her data.” He thumbs at the edge of the first page, unable to make out much in this light. He’d gotten to peruse it briefly at Lenore’s, but there are a lot of specific details he wants to look closer at. Medical testing is something the Guild has never even considered. Even these preliminary workups Lenore put together is more clinical information than hunters have put together in centuries. He’s talking mostly to himself when he muses, “With some actual resources put behind it, there might really be something useful here.”
Dean’s fingers creak against the steering wheel as he tightens them, shifts, tightens again. “She already said there’s no way to cure it, Sam.”
“I know. I’m not talking about a cure,” Sam agrees, suddenly wishing they had a light in the car. There was something on one of the charts about protein levels that keeps sticking in his head. “But there could be something in the mix that might have a medical value. There could even be a way to help the people who get bitten and don’t turn successfully. If there’s a way to keep those kinds of vampires from becoming mindless monsters, there wouldn’t be any reason for the Guild to have to put down anyone who gets bitten. We might even be able to find a social balance with vampires, to make peace, to-”
“Buy the world a Coke?” Dean’s laugh is humorless, the look he turns on Sam somewhere between disgust and rage. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, you really think that love thy vampire neighbor is a good plan?”
“Why not? Lenore and Ruby live perfectly normal lives, probably lots of other vampires all over the country and nobody even knows it because they have to be in hiding. If they can hold down jobs and have houses and not hurt anybody, why should we hunt them?”
“Because they’re not human, Sam!”
He’s glad they’re pulling into the motel parking lot because Dean’s not looking very road-safe right this second and Sam’s not in much of a mood to back down.
“They’re not they, Dean! They’re you! They’ll be me soon enough!”
“Like hell it will,” Dean slams the car into park hard enough that Sam half expects him to apologize to ‘Baby’ but he’s too busy twisting in his seat to face Sam with a scowl just this side of berserk. “If you think for one second that I would do that to you-”
Which is why Sam shouldn’t push it and exactly why he knows he will anyway, because when has he ever been able to let it go when it comes to his brother? “You’re not the only kid on the block with fangs, Dean!”
Luckily the positioning is awkward enough that he only ends up with part of his back slammed against the car door when Dean fists hands in his shirt and shoves his way into Sam’s space, nothing like a human all of a sudden.
“You wouldn’t dare!” His voice is gravel and fury, cool breath on Sam’s lips and those strange, shattered vampire eyes challenging him from three inches away. There’s a hand on his throat, kneading at his jugular with a thumb, fear-heat flooding in fast and scary-eager. “You’re fucking mine! Nobody else gets to... gets to...” Dean stalls out, the animal in him retreating back to wherever he hides it so fast that Sam almost misses it altogether.
“Goddamnit, Sam!” Dean rages, back on his side of the car in a flurry of motion, cutting the engine. The car ticks quietly as the heat leaches away into the night, but Dean doesn’t move, just stares at the wall in front of them like it personally offended him. “You can’t really want it. Not like that.”
This isn’t really how Sam expected things to go. Usually he has to wear Dean down for days to get him to discuss anything meaningful and he hasn’t exactly come up with a plan for what to say. Hasn’t entirely figured out how he feels about it himself, beyond the fact that it rings true in the parts of him that logic keeps its hands off of.
“I...” he stutters over something eloquent to say that turns to mist when he reaches for it. “I stopped trying to fight you a long while back. And I think we both know that I have inappropriate reactions when we’re... close like that. But no, I can’t say I really want to vampire-marry my big brother.” Ends up stuck on honest instead, craning his arm for the papers Dean knocked out of his lap in lieu of eye contact. “Can’t say I really don’t either.”
He finally drags his gaze up to his brother only to find Dean still staring out the windshield. The tightness around his eyes is something Sam’s only seen shadows of before; when Sam started having his visions and there was talk about sending him away to be fostered with the Guild, when all the charms and cleanses failed to do anything about how fast their father was wasting away, when Dean woke up and realized what he really was. Fear, so naked and terrible Sam’s chest aches in sympathy.
“Sam,” is all Dean says, that way he has of making Sam’s name sound like a sentence all by itself, more meaning than a library full of books packed into a syllable. He’s never known what to do with it, how to be that much and not let Dean down, but he’s got to try. There’s no one else, and Dean will never ask for it.
“Look, maybe it is some genetic thing or maybe Dad fucked us up that bad or maybe it’s just us, I don’t know, but you and I have had years to get away from each other, find something else, someone else to spend our lives with and we’ve never even really tried it.” He slides his hand across the seat, not quite touching Dean, but close. “This is not anywhere close to something I’d have picked for myself, Dean, but what it comes down to is that if the world was ending right this second, I’m where I want to be. With you. Because whatever kind of love it is, you’re the love of my life. And I’m not leaving you alone on the crawl toward forever.”
His voice goes shaky toward the end of it, hot prickles of emotion swelling up out of nowhere to sting his eyes. Dean looks at him then, finally, stares at Sam like he’s never seen him before, like Sam could reach into thin air and pluck free everything Dean has ever wanted. Glances down at Sam’s hand idling the space of a breath away from touching his leg.
Flings himself out of the car so fast Sam’s eyes don’t pick up on it until the door is slamming closed behind him.
Sleeping is a pointless, hopeless pursuit, but the alternative is to keep having this same conversation over and over and Dean’s not up for that either. They should have got separate rooms, but cash is tight and they can’t afford to run a credit card - the Guild will be watching their accounts. Besides, it’s not like Dean has successfully managed to be more than twenty feet from Sam without losing his shit in months.
So he lays in his bed, back turned to Sam and listens to his brother paging through Lenore’s papers, scribbling notes here and there and mumbling under his breath. It’s soothing in a way that Dean hates, because he’s spent a thousand nights in his life listening to those exact same sounds that make all the meaningless rooms they spend their time in home.
And that right there is the thing that kills Dean, the one he’s been trying really hard not to acknowledge long after it’s out of the box. For as long as he can remember, Sam has been all the good, cozy, happy things in his world and it’s not a freaky alien force or twisted monster thing that makes him want to hold onto that and mark it up and claim it for his own. Underneath the hunger and the blood, it’s him, just Dean, without all the human stuff telling him no. He can’t decide if this is new or if some part of him has always wanted to pin the only decent thing in his life to the bed with his dick. Put that way, it makes a lot of sense, really. Put that way, it ignores the fact that Sammy’s his brother.
But just because Dean is out of whack doesn’t make it ok for Sam to hand himself, his whole fucking life, over on a platter and say bon appetit. Sam has always been the best of them, the one who wanted more, who might’ve had a real shot at living as anything other than a hunter. Feeling like he owes Dean is no good excuse to give all of that up, to give Dean something that he can’t, couldn’t ever possibly want.
I’m not leaving you alone on the crawl toward forever.
Replaying it in his head chokes Dean out all over again. Forever. The realization that there’s not a cure doesn’t hit him nearly as hard as that.
Forever without Sammy. That’s what he’s asking for isn’t, he? Centuries upon centuries of nothing, just hanging around, biding time toward more nothing. Or he could end it, let himself get caught by somebody, bank that there really is such a thing as a soul and he’s still got one so that he might end up with his brother again in the end. But watching Sam grow old and weak, seeing him wither away to nothing like Dad, to sit there and let him die? He couldn’t do that. He’s not strong enough for it and there’s too much of him that would need to save Sam to go through with it. He’d cave given the right provocation. And running’s not an option either. Like it or not, Ruby was right, he’s had so many chances and it never even crossed his mind to pack up and walk out on Sam, not while Sam still wanted him there.
So that’s it then, isn’t it? The only way out, the only thing he can do. He has to make Sam be the one to walk away.
The second he stands, Dean has Sam’s curious eyes on him. He doesn’t stop there, circling around the bed and climbing into Sam’s, crawling his way up his stock-still brother’s body. Don’t think just do it, dive in and see if you can swim.
The notes flap loudly as Dean knocks them out of Sam’s hands. Sam looks stunned, doesn’t even try to move as Dean settles himself in his lap and presses his hands to Sam’s chest. Sam’s pulse flutters like a trapped bird against his palm but he doesn’t say anything. Can’t once Dean smashes their lips together, not quite hard enough to bust Sam’s lip because that’s not how this needs to go.
“I’m not gonna bite you,” Dean tells him, just so they’re clear, even though his fangs are already dropping down, dangerously simple temptation to let them nick Sam’s mouth. “Not gonna make it that easy on you this time.”
It’s only fair. Sam doesn’t know what he’s signing up for, has only ever given it up to Dean with those bite chemicals warming him up and making him feel good. That kind of stuff might not even work if Sam was like him. Dean’s just doing the right thing, showing him what it would be like, how much more wrong it would feel without those drugs in his system making things fuzzy.
Sam huffs, “You’re an idiot,” and finally moves, but only to arch up and kiss Dean again.
His throat constricts on a sweet rush as Sam’s tongue slides into his mouth, careful little licks and strokes. It’s the softest they’ve ever kissed, Sam being just as cautious about keeping his lips away from Dean’s fangs as Dean is like he’s the one here with something to prove. Stubborn little shit.
Strong hands push under the back of his shirt, all the power in them still not enough to hurt Dean but they’re not trying to anyway. Gentle, teasing touches that feed the burn building in Dean like hot oil. Up his spine, kneading at his shoulders, tracing all the left over freckles and scars that map out his human life on his skin. They smooth over his sides and up his front, touching him like something fragile and precious, like Sam’s the one who has to mind his strength.
A growl presses against the back of Dean’s teeth, leaking out on a, “Damnit, Sam,” when his brother’s hips start a slow roll against his that makes it hard to remember that he started this with a plan.
While Dean’s mouth is otherwise occupied, Sam’s drags down over his jaw, hot swipes of tongue tickling at his neck. Fuck, it’s too good. Sam doesn’t kiss him when they mess around, always Dean’s mouth on him, finding the spots that make him moan. Dean’s got no defense against it all coming at him at once. He knows Sam’s not exactly virginal even if he’s nowhere close to Dean’s league when it comes to experience, but he hadn’t been prepared for this kind of skill. Sam uses his mouth like a weapon to cut Dean to pieces and it’s a fucking revelation is what it is.
Sam groans, “God,” too husky to be properly reverent and tugs at Dean’s shirt. “Take this off.”
By the time Dean considers it, it’s already done, shirt and pants both on the floor and him back in Sam’s lap before it registers that he must be moving vamp-fast again because Sam is staring.
“Well ok then,” Sam laughs, breathy, immediately moving back in to lick at the newly exposed skin. Dean is beginning to doubt the inherent brilliance of his plan. “I want to fuck you. You going to let me?”
He looks up at Dean through his lashes, the fringe of his bangs, mouth still moving patternless over Dean’s chest. Beautiful enough to cut Dean to the bone.
That has to be cheating. There’s a rulebook somewhere and Dean’s positive that move is illegal. His fangs and his dick throb like there’s a direct line between them.
“Sam, you don’t want-”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” Sam lifts his head to look Dean in the eyes.
In this position Dean’s taller than Sam and it’s a head trip, like he just jumped in the Delorean and juiced his way back to when Sammy was fifteen and petulant and so incapable of believing he could possibly be wrong about anything. Dean had always hoped he was going to grow out of that.
He also doesn’t remember getting snared on how pretty and pink Sam’s lips were back then but he’s got an image of them burned into his brain anyway, so easy to lay over the slick, bruised version Sam’s tongue is swiping over now. That shouldn’t make his dick leak.
“We don’t have to,” Sam goes on like Dean has any clue where this conversation started, “but I do want to. I dream about it. How you would feel under me, or on top of me, inside. I want it all. Want to-”
“Oh my god, shut up, Sam.” Dean licks the rest of the words off of Sam’s tongue in an attempt to save himself from getting any other bright ideas. The last thing he needs is fodder for his already overactive imagination.
Sam is obviously struggling with that concept though, because instead of talking now he’s snaking a hand affectionately over Dean’s ass to rub at his hole. Everything Dean’s got jerks with it, cock to lungs to twitchy fingertips which have somehow buried themselves in Sam’s hair without Dean’s say-so.
Sam hums approvingly and massages at Dean a little harder. He doesn’t mean to rock back against it, absolutely certain that this is not something he’s into except for how badly he wants to feel it. The permission he means to give comes out a whimper but Sam must get it because he breaks off long enough to stick his own fingers into his mouth and wet them up before he moans another kiss into Dean.
The slick push of Sam’s fingers - two, which both hurts and is shockingly awesome; maybe liking things up the ass is a family trait and wow, that’s too weird to think about right now - knocks a raw noise out of him and his fangs do catch at Sam’s lip this time.
The animal part of him’s not so sure about being on the receiving end of this but licking up the thread of blood leaking down from Sam’s mouth sates it. Then Sam crooks his fingers, pulls them most of the way out and pushes in again, searching and dedicated, and pleasure shreds through his system like ground glass.
Sam grins and ducks it when Dean tries to get at the sliver of a cut on Sam’s lip, nipping right back at Dean’s lip instead. Damn, there’s a button he didn’t know he had.
“Yeah,” Sam nods as if Dean said something. Could be he did, it’s hard to pay attention when Sam’s fingers are twisting in him in strange, sweet ways and his teeth are leaving blunt little marks on Dean’s skin all over the smell of his blood, hot and wanting, thick as incense on the air. The jeans Sam still has on for some stupid reason Dean can’t remember are chafing at his inner thighs as he rides down onto Sam’s hand over and over.
He finally finds enough voice in the guttural sounds that keep pouring out of him to get out, “If you don’t get your clothes out of the way I’m tearing them off.”
Apparently Sammy likes that idea, going by the sharp slice of want Dean can scent in his veins, but then he’s doing as he’s told - for once - getting tangled up when he forgets to take his fingers out of Dean first.
This plan, Dean decides as he rolls off to the side to watch Sam slither out of his jeans too slow, went right off the rails somewhere. He’s not sure how it happened, but Sammy looming over him with blood smeared on his chin and sweat glistening on his chest like some kind of pagan sex god was definitely not how he’d intended for this to end. He can’t remember why that was now because, fuck, this is awesome, but not the plan.
Sam plants a hand on the mattress next to Dean’s head, the other slipping back behind Dean’s balls and up into him again, so smooth his toes curl.
“Enough?” he asks, and Dean nods like he has any idea. The size of Sam’s dick in comparison to his ass is geometry Dean probably isn’t cut out for when he’s firing on all cylinders, let alone when he’s got a world full of Sammy up in his business, messing with his head.
Either Sam doesn’t realize that or doesn’t care because he takes Dean at his word, spitting loudly into his hand and slicking up his cock with it.
Dean’s never been overly picky about what ends up in his bed, but dicks have been in the minority and even then he’s never spent all that much time thinking about them; they’re there, they’re functional, sometimes they’re attached to really hot people he wants to pound his own into. Sam’s looks good though. Everything about him does, all the time. It’s not any kind of fair that Dean got stuck as one of the few of people on the planet who’s not allowed to want to get his hands all over that; not that that’s actually been stopping him lately. Not any kind of fair that his kid brother grew up to be the kind of gorgeous, sexy, perfect that grabs Dean by the soul.
Pain is hardly a stranger to Dean, but it’s still unexpected enough to shock a gasp that bleeds into a bellow out of him when Sam settles against him and pushes. To his credit, Sammy doesn’t let up, takes him with stilted rolls of his hips, the same cautious certainty he has when he’s pulled bullet slugs and glass shards out of Dean’s body, meticulous and completely dedicated.
It’s mind blowing, to be the focus of that sort of attention. Instead of soothing the gritty burn flaring through him it stokes it, rushing out along his nerves like wildfire over dry grass, crackling into something Dean has no word for, the bastard child of agony and rapture branded into him like a promise.
All the way in, Sam stutters to a halt, grinding his hips against Dean’s ass and shifting the whole works, so deep inside Dean swears he can feel it in his throat. Stiltedly he drops to his elbows, mouth close enough that Dean has to lean up and get a taste of it or he’s going to actually go insane from the formless energy surging through him.
“I love you more than anything,” Sam murmurs, pulling out a fraction of an inch and feeding it right back in again, turning anything Dean might have had a mind to say into a breathy grunt, “One of these days I’m going to actually get you to believe it.”
Dean has to grit his teeth to keep from biting down on the sweet flex of bicep right there next to his face when Sam drags back again, farther this time, and back in all molasses slow and fucking killing him here, fuck. He tries to shove up against it and goes right back down again when Sam’s teeth fasten on his neck, slamming that shiny new kink so hard Dean feels the sheets tear under his clasping fingers.
Sam does it again, teething lower but no softer down the curve of Dean’s neck, hot tongue and slick, blunt bone flirting at the idea of breaking skin and like a knife to the gut Dean wants him to. His blood staining Sam’s mouth, sharp and bright on his breath, Sam’s blood made his own and given back again and oh that’s going to be an embarrassing thought to jack off to later.
Like he’s on a mission to force Dean to actually want to hurt him, Sam keeps the roll of his hips slow and steady. Dean would bitch like nobody has bitched before, but he keeps getting distracted by the little frissons of frenzy sparking randomly from Sam’s mouth on his skin, stomach grinding against Dean’s dick, the heavy, intrusive press of him all over Dean’s insides.
He’s clenched up tight around it, freakishly aware of how simple it would be to ease up and let the ride go smooth - the things his body will let him control now are just as stunning as the ones he can’t keep a leash on at all - but not actually wanting to. This is Sam in him, Sam, just about as close as they are ever going to get to each other, and he wants to feel it all.
The air he’s pulling in is drenched in Sammy, sopping with enough of that salty, earthy heat to drown in. He’s choking on it at the same time that he’s holding it in, trying to stain his lungs with it. Gets enough out to hiss into Sam’s ear, “That all you got?”
He’s not ready for it in the least when Sam’s silky rhythm goes jagged, friction of skin on skin swamping him at the same time as the spike of heat in Sam’s blood. And that is pure, filthy heaven, right there; Sam’s hips smacking against his ass on every thrust, hitting things inside of him that he definitely needs to give more TLC to in the future, Sam’s hair sticking to his face, sweat on his skin, endorphins like expensive perfume thudding all around Dean in the cage Sam has made of his body.
The next punch of Sam’s hips ignites a fire in Dean’s veins, groan wrenched out of him like a wounded animal. His shifts his legs up to wrap around Sam, accidentally buckles his brother when he leverages up into the push-pull and gets some fucking fantastic pressure on his dick from Sam’s slick belly for the trouble.
In the end it’s uncoordinated, scrapping against each other for the same goal with straining muscles. Hard breath and intertwined whines and rasps that mean nothing and everything. Sam stutters to a halt, pressing bruises into Dean’s hips and Dean can feel it, this throbbing deluge so much warmer than he is on the inside. He doesn’t know how this works, could just be imagining it, but it feels like when he feeds off of Sam, heat and energy melting into him, juddering along his nerves and then sweeping back, over and over until he’s pulled beneath the surface of it and has no choice but to let go, smearing wet between their bodies.
His heart is beating faster than usual, which all in all isn’t saying much, but enough that he’s aware of it, a much slower downbeat synced to the thud of Sam’s against his chest. If he was ordinary, he probably couldn’t breathe under Sam’s weight but it’s not even a challenge now. Could go without breathing altogether if he needed to - for a while anyway, he’s never tested the limits of that - but it’s worth the little bit of effort required to soak in the smell of Sam all warm and satisfied and Dean-ed up. Yeah, that’s it, Sam smells like him, like the both of them too tangled up to tell one from the other. It’s good, makes Dean’s dick twitch into the sticky divot of Sam’s navel and hey, there’s an advantage to the undead thing - one hell of a recovery time.
Sam’s chuff of a laugh turns into a groan as he peels himself off of Dean, sliding free to leave this empty place that Dean’s already not crazy about. He plops down next to him, legs more off the mattress than on from the weird diagonal position they somehow worked themselves into. He’s wet all over, glowing in the yellowed lamp light like a halo. Any hope Dean had of getting over this, ever, evaporates with the shape of his brother burned photo-negative in his memory.
It’s another long minute before Sam opens his eyes again, slits of hazel peeking out from the lace of his lashes. Watching Dean watch him and the urge is there to try and cover whatever Dean knows must be showing on his face but he can’t manage it just now, too broken open by the ghost sensation of Sam inside of him to piece his armor back together this fast. Something in it makes Sam smile, a smirk that would fit better on Dean’s mouth, one he wants to learn the shape of with his tongue. Blood swirls close to the surface of Sam’s cheeks like he knows it too, heavy swallow clicking in his dry throat before he tips his head back and bares it like an offering.
It hits Dean like a bucket of boiling water, flash-fire heat arrowing straight to his dick, flushing the already swollen flesh of his gums where he hasn’t calmed down enough for his fangs to retract again. A deep noise that’s closer to a purr than a growl shoves its way up from his gut to come out loud and hungry. It’d be distressing if it wasn’t for the way Sam’s soft cock twitches.
He means to say, “No,” but, “Not yet,” is what rolls off his tongue. It doesn’t match up with how he finds himself nosing into the crook of Sam’s neck. Swiping his tongue across the rise of a vein doesn’t help much either but the urge to taste and claim and own is tempered. One bite, just a few drops of his own blood and Sam could- Sam would-
“No,” Sam agrees, “Not yet. Not like that.” His hand is huge on the back of Dean’s neck, simmering heat that doesn’t do a thing to discourage him from nuzzling at tender skin. “There’s still something we need to take care of and it’s probably better if I’m not turned yet for it."
Chapter Six