Zakuro: Vampire!Dean fic excerpt
Right. So. My anger for the horrible Supernatural finale has translated into a rekindled desire to contribute something to the fandom. Obviously, the people need something, anything that evidences basic respect for Dean Winchester, and I've decided I need to provide! I've been going through all my old drafts and found something to start working on again. I am actually working on two separate vampire!Dean fics right now, lmao, but I thought this one would have the more exciting hook.
Where Cathemeral is going to be a h/c wish fulfillment preseries fic, this one, Zakuro, is more Hellsing-inspired, with a focus on action, vampiric magic, and spooky imagery, set in ~S7. I wrote it a number of years ago after a “painful transformation” commentfic prompt at Hoodietime. Sadly, I have not been able to find the post again, but maybe someday. If they're still interested after all these years.
Finished fleshing this out a bit ago. I posted it to tumblr and now I'm posting it here. It’s about 1.5k words. Takes place after Dean has busted himself and Sam out of a stronghold of Crowley’s with a little help from an impromptu vampiric transformation, but as you can see, something went Very Wrong. I guess you could call this Chapter 3? It's not perfectly 1:1 to its state in the full story, but I wanted to get that last section in there to give you more clues.
Enjoy!!!! Concrit welcome!!!
Sam is concentrating intently on a scan of a 14th century manuscript when he hears a noise right at his ear, like wings, drawn out and distorted as if through water, quiet and delicate.
There are four pure black moths on his forearm, gathered three in a circle at one point and one scuttling towards them, looking to squeeze in.
He flaps his hand at them. They collapse into shadow and swirl round his fingers like fog before dissipating, drawn unseen into the surrounding darkness.
There are three pinpricks in his skin.
--- * \ \ * \ \ * ---
Sam’s immediate thought is of Dean, unconscious in the bedroom. He rushes away from the computer, but pauses when he reaches the bedroom door, open just a crack. For just a moment, the suppositions that Dean needs protecting and that Dean himself could be the danger fight each other before Sam's guilt and protectiveness wins out.
Cautious, he presses the pads of his fingers to the aged wood and eases the door open as silently as he can, edging inside, demon killing knife at his hip...
And then he stands in the doorway, staring, half in half out, one hand clutching the door frame. Trying to make sense of what he sees.
The shadows on Dean's body have broken their bounds.
They've spread too far out, and are reaching out into three dimensional space. And like shadows, all he can see at a given point is the outline of the entire semitranslucent mass.
At first, it looks like hydrangeas flowing in the breeze.
Sam edges cautiously further into the room. He can't match whatever this is to anything he knows about vampires, real or fictional, and can't help but use the caution pounded into him through years of hunting, Dean or not.
Closer now, he can make them out: Hundreds of moths made of pure shadow are clustered on Dean's body. Small wings flutter sluggishly as they wander drunkenly in each space portioned out to them, oblivious to Sam's entry. He waves his arms in the air, trying to get their attention, but none take notice.
The revelation doesn't make any more sense to Sam than before. It doesn't seem like they're doing anything to Dean. They almost seem to be a part of him, with the way they seem to be reaching out from the shadows on his body. Part of whatever transformation he's going through. Sam can't think of anything like this, nothing he's read or encountered. Even Daeva are dramatically different shadow creatures-- more invisible than really made of shadow. The effect could almost be pretty, if it were not so obviously unnatural, or infesting his brother.
...Should he wake him? Would that make it stop? Should he make it stop? The answer seems obvious.
Sam creeps to the head of the bed. Slowly, he reaches towards the intersection between Dean's neck and shoulder. At the edges of that mass, he can see their beady little eyes as holes punched through the shadows.
It parts at the intrusion of his hand for a moment, the little things bumping lightly into each other as they move away, seemingly not sure what to make of him. But when the wave crests, they clamor for him as one. They reach out in a strange symmetry, four tendrils made up of a column of bugs to wrap around his forearm. Tens of dainty, long proboscides reach for his skin, and this time, he feels the pain. He panics, yanks his arm away, and there's a delicate pull like little threads snapping as he does. The moths are pulled free, and collapse from the force back into shadowy tendrils that recede into Dean's neck. That shadow looks normal again.
There are four rows of perfectly spaced lines of pinpricks wrapping up and around his forearm. Just barely big enough for blood to bead before clotting.
He waits, knife at the ready.
Nothing happens.
They've forgotten about him already. He waits as long as he can stand it, knife hand eventually falling dejected at his side. He concludes that their intelligence is rudimentary, if they are even sentient.
Well, he decides, at least I have something to go on now. He trots back to the side room to retrieve his laptop, focus newly replenished.
By the time he's back, setting himself up at the little desk at the window to watch out of the corner of his eye, little wings are budding like petals from the shadow at Dean's neck again.
Sam tries to cover up the knowledge that he is sitting vigil with the idea that at least he can tease Dean about being the Butterfly Boy when he wakes up.
--- * \ \ * \ \ * ---
"...The genus Calyptra is a group of moths in subfamily Calpinae of the family Erebidae. They are a member of the Calpini tribe, whose precise circumscription is uncertain but which includes a number of other fruit-piercing or eye-frequenting genera currently classified in Calpinae. The common name of many of these species, vampire moth, refers to the habit that they have of drinking blood from vertebrates. Some of them (C. thalictri) are even capable of drinking human blood through skin..."
"...The Carpathian Mountains arch through the Czech Republic and then turn east, continuing on through Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine before finally ending near the Danube River in Serbia. It is here in this mountain range that there lives a species of vampire known as a mahr. Living off the consumption of human souls, the mahr swoops down upon its victim in the form of a moth, taking a bite or two before flying off. The more often a mahr attacks a single victim, the easier it becomes for the vampire to do so in the future. Eventually the prey is killed and the soul consumed. Fortunately, there are two ways in which a mahr can be slain. The first is to...."
Sam stretches and runs his hands through his hair, turning away from the desk, and freezes.
Dean's awake.
Mostly.
The shadow moths are gone. Oversized, red irises with blown out pupils wander the room. He doesn't seem entirely aware of what he's looking at, or even what he's looking for.
He's baring his fangs, and God, they're gigantic.
As he works unconsciously to keep himself from drooling, his tongue laps out of his mouth like an angry dog's.
The expression on his face, however, is one only of sleepiness, confusion. Sam can tell that there's a slight undercurrent of distress trying to work its way through the fog.
Sam wonders if this is what it feels like to keep tigers.
"Dean?"
No answer. A little more confusion. A little less drooling.
Sam approaches the bed. He cards his hand through Dean's hair and lets it rest there. The warm weight seems to snap Dean out of it slightly; his pupils visibly retract, and he slowly stops his search through the room to stare sleepily at nothing, face slackening. His eyes seem to lose most of that preternatural scarlet glow; the structure of his irises is now visible through it again, which are now an odd brownish-maroon color.
"Go back to sleep, Dean," he murmurs, soft and low, and tries unsuccsessfully to hide the sadness in his tone.
Dean's eyelids grow heavy and the alert tension drains out of him. His head burrows into the pillow and a soft, utterly self-unconscious exhale of breath escapes his lips. He falls back asleep almost immediately.
Sam has wished since before Dean's deal that he would accept the comfort he obviously needed, but not like this.
Falling asleep so easily... It made him look like a big kid. Sam welcomes the choking love for his brother, so absent this past year.
He stays by the bedside for a long time.
- * \ \ * \ \ * -
Castiel shows up at dusk a few hours later, a sizeable jar of demon blood held to his side, furtively, like contraband. As usual, there is no expression on his face, but his body language seems uncomfortable. It’s something he must have scavenged from Bobby’s pantry which, strangely, makes it look for all the world like a harmless half gallon of blackberry preserve.
The fact that it isn’t for Sam doesn’t make him feel any better.
Castiel ignores its presence entirely and gets straight to the point. The moths returned shortly after Dean fell back asleep, but if Castiel is surprised by them he doesn’t verbalize it.
“How is he?”
“He woke up for a few minutes a couple hours ago, but he didn’t seem…” Sam’s face screws up. He tries again. “It was like he could tell there was a… A source of blood in the room, but he wouldn’t focus on anything. Didn’t respond when I tried to talk to him.”
Castiel is staring at Dean all the while, head tilted in that way of his when thinking hard. Usually, it seems as though he’s scrutinizing the space between atoms, but there’s a line of frustration in his brow that makes it seem like he can’t see anything. Sam wonders if he paid any attention to what he’d just said.
In that moment, Dean’s head lifts from the pillow, drawing both their gazes.
Sam would’ve thought that having his pupils less dilated would make Dean’s gaze feel less… animal, but it didn’t. The glow had returned, making his owlish irises shine with a smooth, ruby iridescence.
The moths surge up from behind his neck, piling over each other, restless. Sam can actually hear the agitated titter of their wings this time.
He doesn’t think he can watch this.
Where Cathemeral is going to be a h/c wish fulfillment preseries fic, this one, Zakuro, is more Hellsing-inspired, with a focus on action, vampiric magic, and spooky imagery, set in ~S7. I wrote it a number of years ago after a “painful transformation” commentfic prompt at Hoodietime. Sadly, I have not been able to find the post again, but maybe someday. If they're still interested after all these years.
Finished fleshing this out a bit ago. I posted it to tumblr and now I'm posting it here. It’s about 1.5k words. Takes place after Dean has busted himself and Sam out of a stronghold of Crowley’s with a little help from an impromptu vampiric transformation, but as you can see, something went Very Wrong. I guess you could call this Chapter 3? It's not perfectly 1:1 to its state in the full story, but I wanted to get that last section in there to give you more clues.
Enjoy!!!! Concrit welcome!!!
Sam is concentrating intently on a scan of a 14th century manuscript when he hears a noise right at his ear, like wings, drawn out and distorted as if through water, quiet and delicate.
There are four pure black moths on his forearm, gathered three in a circle at one point and one scuttling towards them, looking to squeeze in.
He flaps his hand at them. They collapse into shadow and swirl round his fingers like fog before dissipating, drawn unseen into the surrounding darkness.
There are three pinpricks in his skin.
--- * \ \ * \ \ * ---
Sam’s immediate thought is of Dean, unconscious in the bedroom. He rushes away from the computer, but pauses when he reaches the bedroom door, open just a crack. For just a moment, the suppositions that Dean needs protecting and that Dean himself could be the danger fight each other before Sam's guilt and protectiveness wins out.
Cautious, he presses the pads of his fingers to the aged wood and eases the door open as silently as he can, edging inside, demon killing knife at his hip...
And then he stands in the doorway, staring, half in half out, one hand clutching the door frame. Trying to make sense of what he sees.
The shadows on Dean's body have broken their bounds.
They've spread too far out, and are reaching out into three dimensional space. And like shadows, all he can see at a given point is the outline of the entire semitranslucent mass.
At first, it looks like hydrangeas flowing in the breeze.
Sam edges cautiously further into the room. He can't match whatever this is to anything he knows about vampires, real or fictional, and can't help but use the caution pounded into him through years of hunting, Dean or not.
Closer now, he can make them out: Hundreds of moths made of pure shadow are clustered on Dean's body. Small wings flutter sluggishly as they wander drunkenly in each space portioned out to them, oblivious to Sam's entry. He waves his arms in the air, trying to get their attention, but none take notice.
The revelation doesn't make any more sense to Sam than before. It doesn't seem like they're doing anything to Dean. They almost seem to be a part of him, with the way they seem to be reaching out from the shadows on his body. Part of whatever transformation he's going through. Sam can't think of anything like this, nothing he's read or encountered. Even Daeva are dramatically different shadow creatures-- more invisible than really made of shadow. The effect could almost be pretty, if it were not so obviously unnatural, or infesting his brother.
...Should he wake him? Would that make it stop? Should he make it stop? The answer seems obvious.
Sam creeps to the head of the bed. Slowly, he reaches towards the intersection between Dean's neck and shoulder. At the edges of that mass, he can see their beady little eyes as holes punched through the shadows.
It parts at the intrusion of his hand for a moment, the little things bumping lightly into each other as they move away, seemingly not sure what to make of him. But when the wave crests, they clamor for him as one. They reach out in a strange symmetry, four tendrils made up of a column of bugs to wrap around his forearm. Tens of dainty, long proboscides reach for his skin, and this time, he feels the pain. He panics, yanks his arm away, and there's a delicate pull like little threads snapping as he does. The moths are pulled free, and collapse from the force back into shadowy tendrils that recede into Dean's neck. That shadow looks normal again.
There are four rows of perfectly spaced lines of pinpricks wrapping up and around his forearm. Just barely big enough for blood to bead before clotting.
He waits, knife at the ready.
Nothing happens.
They've forgotten about him already. He waits as long as he can stand it, knife hand eventually falling dejected at his side. He concludes that their intelligence is rudimentary, if they are even sentient.
Well, he decides, at least I have something to go on now. He trots back to the side room to retrieve his laptop, focus newly replenished.
By the time he's back, setting himself up at the little desk at the window to watch out of the corner of his eye, little wings are budding like petals from the shadow at Dean's neck again.
Sam tries to cover up the knowledge that he is sitting vigil with the idea that at least he can tease Dean about being the Butterfly Boy when he wakes up.
--- * \ \ * \ \ * ---
"...The genus Calyptra is a group of moths in subfamily Calpinae of the family Erebidae. They are a member of the Calpini tribe, whose precise circumscription is uncertain but which includes a number of other fruit-piercing or eye-frequenting genera currently classified in Calpinae. The common name of many of these species, vampire moth, refers to the habit that they have of drinking blood from vertebrates. Some of them (C. thalictri) are even capable of drinking human blood through skin..."
"...The Carpathian Mountains arch through the Czech Republic and then turn east, continuing on through Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine before finally ending near the Danube River in Serbia. It is here in this mountain range that there lives a species of vampire known as a mahr. Living off the consumption of human souls, the mahr swoops down upon its victim in the form of a moth, taking a bite or two before flying off. The more often a mahr attacks a single victim, the easier it becomes for the vampire to do so in the future. Eventually the prey is killed and the soul consumed. Fortunately, there are two ways in which a mahr can be slain. The first is to...."
Sam stretches and runs his hands through his hair, turning away from the desk, and freezes.
Dean's awake.
Mostly.
The shadow moths are gone. Oversized, red irises with blown out pupils wander the room. He doesn't seem entirely aware of what he's looking at, or even what he's looking for.
He's baring his fangs, and God, they're gigantic.
As he works unconsciously to keep himself from drooling, his tongue laps out of his mouth like an angry dog's.
The expression on his face, however, is one only of sleepiness, confusion. Sam can tell that there's a slight undercurrent of distress trying to work its way through the fog.
Sam wonders if this is what it feels like to keep tigers.
"Dean?"
No answer. A little more confusion. A little less drooling.
Sam approaches the bed. He cards his hand through Dean's hair and lets it rest there. The warm weight seems to snap Dean out of it slightly; his pupils visibly retract, and he slowly stops his search through the room to stare sleepily at nothing, face slackening. His eyes seem to lose most of that preternatural scarlet glow; the structure of his irises is now visible through it again, which are now an odd brownish-maroon color.
"Go back to sleep, Dean," he murmurs, soft and low, and tries unsuccsessfully to hide the sadness in his tone.
Dean's eyelids grow heavy and the alert tension drains out of him. His head burrows into the pillow and a soft, utterly self-unconscious exhale of breath escapes his lips. He falls back asleep almost immediately.
Sam has wished since before Dean's deal that he would accept the comfort he obviously needed, but not like this.
Falling asleep so easily... It made him look like a big kid. Sam welcomes the choking love for his brother, so absent this past year.
He stays by the bedside for a long time.
- * \ \ * \ \ * -
Castiel shows up at dusk a few hours later, a sizeable jar of demon blood held to his side, furtively, like contraband. As usual, there is no expression on his face, but his body language seems uncomfortable. It’s something he must have scavenged from Bobby’s pantry which, strangely, makes it look for all the world like a harmless half gallon of blackberry preserve.
The fact that it isn’t for Sam doesn’t make him feel any better.
Castiel ignores its presence entirely and gets straight to the point. The moths returned shortly after Dean fell back asleep, but if Castiel is surprised by them he doesn’t verbalize it.
“How is he?”
“He woke up for a few minutes a couple hours ago, but he didn’t seem…” Sam’s face screws up. He tries again. “It was like he could tell there was a… A source of blood in the room, but he wouldn’t focus on anything. Didn’t respond when I tried to talk to him.”
Castiel is staring at Dean all the while, head tilted in that way of his when thinking hard. Usually, it seems as though he’s scrutinizing the space between atoms, but there’s a line of frustration in his brow that makes it seem like he can’t see anything. Sam wonders if he paid any attention to what he’d just said.
In that moment, Dean’s head lifts from the pillow, drawing both their gazes.
Sam would’ve thought that having his pupils less dilated would make Dean’s gaze feel less… animal, but it didn’t. The glow had returned, making his owlish irises shine with a smooth, ruby iridescence.
The moths surge up from behind his neck, piling over each other, restless. Sam can actually hear the agitated titter of their wings this time.
He doesn’t think he can watch this.