Supernatural/VampireDiaries: Where the Night Begins 1/2
Title: Where the Night Begins
Author: Desiree
Rating: PG 13
Spoilers: Vampire Diaries: none, Supernatural: up to season 5
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Damon Salvatore
Pairings: Sam/Damon
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. Unfortunately.
Summary: It was a chance meeting that had let Sam Winchester make the acquaintance of Damon Salvatore, and it wouldn't be until about a year later that Sam would learn of Damon's true nature.
A/N: Back in 2011 I signed up for the Supernatural Big Bang challenge, but then RL happened, and I had to beg out. This isn't that story (mainly because this was just supposed to be the first chapter), but I feel it's as close as I could get while leaving it where it is now.
A few pieces of dialogue are taken verbatim from SN 'Shadows' and 'Bloodlust'.
Before Ruby there had been someone else.
Correction.
Before Ruby became something more than an uneasy ally, but after Dean's soul had been ripped from his body, the hell-hounds viciously collecting their prize, leaving his younger brother on his own to struggle in a world that had suddenly become a much darker place.
Unlike Dean, he had never been one for one night stands, not even before Jessica, and his record after - really, it was nothing to be proud of, and that time had been no exception.
Nevertheless; before Ruby there had been one other.
It was a chance meeting that had let Sam Winchester make the acquaintance of Damon Salvatore, and it wouldn't be until about a year later that Sam would learn of Damon's true nature.
(That the hunter would recognize his prey.)
Then:
“So that skin walker in Topeka - was that you, Sam?” Silence. A heavy sigh and then, “It's been weeks, boy. Call me!”
(You're tail-spinning, man! And you refuse to talk about it, and you won't let me help you!)
Sam deleted the message as soon as it ended. Bobby sounded concerned in his own gruff, heavy-handed way, not even bothering to cover it up anymore, and Sam felt the twinge of guilt at his behavior, his silence. He knew that the older hunter hurt too, had come to consider both Winchester boys as the sons he never had, and now he had to worry about Sam on top of everything else.
But it all felt too much like the trickster's time loop, like those six months on his own that never happened. Sam couldn't deal with Bobby and his well-meaning but unwanted concern, not now; he could barely deal with himself these days.
Laying back on his motel bed, Sam tried to catch some sleep; to no avail. Restless energy was pulsing through his veins, didn't let his mind shut down. He booted up his laptop, visited all the pertinent websites, looking for something, anything to hunt. The letters kept blurring before his eyes, flowing into and over each other. He blinked rapidly, roughly rubbed his eyes. Closed the screen with a protesting clack of plastic. This, too, had become something of a habit during those past weeks. Sometimes, Sam thought he couldn't remember what it felt like not to be constantly on edge -
(...you're erratic - except for when you're hunting, 'cause then, you're downright scary!)
Suddenly, the motel room felt too small. It was hard to breathe.
He grabbed his keys from a small bowl on the sideboard, tucked a gun into the waistband of his jeans and left for the first bar that he could find.
In hindsight, it might not have been his best idea, and not just because he ended up going straight for the hard liquor. The first shot burnt like fire going down. Sam put the glass down with a clank, wheezed and motioned the bartender for a refill. His head was already beginning to spin. Dean always used to mock him about -
“You're supposed to savor it, not chuck it down like water!” A voice broke through his self-imposed bubble of isolation.
Annoyed more than curious, Sam looked over at a guy a few empty seats down the counter. The first thing he noticed were the eyes, glacier blue and just as cold. Next was the smile, sharp, self-assured, arrogant. Artificial. Pale skin and dark hair and the kind of clothes you paid a small fortune for to look stylishly casual - casually stylish. The kind of thing Sam had never had the money, patience nor inclination to care about.
“Yeah? Well, why don't you mind your own business?”
The guy seemed to consider for a moment. Sam bit back a groan. Blue-Eyes was good, but Sam recognized a show when it was put on for him.
“I could,” the stranger agreed, his smile turning devious - and much more sincere. “It just wouldn't be terribly entertaining.”
Pale blue eyes raked up and down Sam's body, and unexpected heat rose to his face. The message couldn't have been less subtle.
“I'd offer my condolences,” Sam retorted scathingly, “but, really, I don't give a shit!”
He knocked back his second shot as soon as the man behind the counter set it in front of him. He didn't even wait for Sam's sign to refill the glass this time.
The alcohol had to affect his perception stronger than he'd thought, because suddenly Blue-Eyes was right there in his face, and Sam hadn't ever seen him move.
“There are a lot more pleasant ways to help you forget, you know?”
No sense of personal space, that one, and a lot less cocky than Sam would have expected. Arrogant still, but with a hard edge that spoke of personal experience, and Sam wanted to scoff in his face in an inglorious moment of self-pity. The guy didn't look older than twenty-three, twenty-four at the most, younger than Sam himself, and his wardrobe suggested the kind of carefree life that Sam had ever longed for and never been granted.
Still.
That hard edge was real enough, and Sam wasn't far enough gone to think that money equaled a trouble free life, so instead he just shook his head and declined, “I'd have to be a lot more drunk than this.”
Honestly, he should have known better than to phrase a rejection as a challenge. His answer was a shark's smile that sent shivers down his spine, and, “That can be arranged.”
The night that followed, Sam would only ever be able to recall in snapshots later on; freeze-frames and short bursts of dialogue and physical sensations, smells and sounds; pressing the shorter man (shorter than Dean, almost a head and a half shorter than yourself) up against the door to his motel room, ravaging a hot mouth in a surge of lust he couldn't remember feeling this acute since Madison (and look how that ended); fingers running over lean muscle, digging into ribs that felt as frail as bird's bones beneath his too large hands and... not caring.
His gun landing on the carpet in front of the bed, disposed of without comment or care.
“You're even more fun than I anticipated. More desperate. No. Desolate. You're desolate. So much pain. So much anger - ”
“Shut up!”
Losing himself in the body beneath his, rougher than he'd ever been with a lover. Teeth at his neck, sharp and painful and (just right); scratching too long fingernails down vulnerable flanks in retaliation.
Blood on his throat and underneath his fingernails, cum on his stomach, coating his dick.
In the morning, he didn't linger. He showered and packed before his guest ever opened those hypnotic eyes, and he didn't look back when he left. He never saw those eyes snap open as soon as his back was turned, following his trek out of the room with a sharp, satisfied smile.
The only thing he truly regretted (you were ashamed of) in the aftermath was that it took him an hour driving to realize he'd never even asked for the stranger's name.
Now:
There is no fear.
There should be.
Pale blue eyes, black as night.
The skin underneath so translucent you see the dark web of spidery veins crawling down sharp cheekbones.
Blood-specked lips opened to a snarl, teeth bared. Human teeth; except for the canines, sharp and pointed, barely long enough to register as wrong. A whisper, honey-sweet and compelling, 'Forget.'
Forget.
Sam jerked awake, disoriented, fear belatedly pumping adrenaline into his system.
From beside him in the driver's seat his brother glanced his way, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.
“Dream about anything interesting?”
Letting his head fall back where he was sprawled on the Impala's front bench seat, absently rubbing his eyes, Sam answered, “No. I'm not sure. A vampire, I think.”
Only that wasn't quite right, was it?
“A vampire,” Dean echoed, unconsciously sitting up behind the wheel. Slanting Sam another look, he commented casually, “Been a long time since your last vision, Sammy.”
Carefully checked suspicion combined with genuine worry, and Sam was glad to have his brother back, he was, but he was tired of not being trusted. Even if you deserve it, a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind whispered.
“No,” he denied wearily, “no visions. Just too much Anne Rice.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Didn't look like any vamp I've ever seen.” Scowling, he amended, “Outside of a television screen, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, when do they ever get it right?”
Dean reached out to change the tape in the player, and shortly after, the first misleadingly sedate tunes of The Scorpions' 'Coming Home' scratched their way out of the loudspeakers. Then, his brother ordered, “So tell me about this hunt we're going?”
“Ya, uh...” Pinching the bridge of his nose to force his mind away from glacier blue eyes and focus on the news articles he had stumbled across, Sam recounted, “Three bodies turned up in Jacksonville, Florida, suspicious looking bite-wounds on all of them. And a young woman, Emma Mulray, went missing two days ago.”
“You sure you're not having visions again, Sam?”
“Yes. It felt more like a warped memory, to be honest. You know how dreams sometimes are just weird.”
“Still. Vampires sound like a definite possibility.”
“Maybe.” He reached for the print-outs on the dashboard, studying the autopsy pictures he'd procured. Hesitated. “I don't know, man. I mean, the bite-wounds don't match anything resembling a human jaw, and usually, vamps completely drain their victims. They wouldn't just mangle them and leave them to bleed out...”
“Whatever it is, Sam - ”
“ - we find it, we waste it.”
Startled, Dean glanced over at Sam and grinned. For a moment, it felt as if everything had clicked back into place.
“Exactly!”
Sam grinned back.
oOo
A glimpse of jet black hair, a strangely familiar looking biker jacket, and Sam abruptly stopped in his tracks to get a better look. From across the street pale, ice-blue eyes caught his gaze and held it for several seconds. The smirk on bloodless lips hit him like a punch to the gut. Wisps of memory assaulted his mind, ghost-touches and impressions of deceptive frailty.
Sam remembered that face, ethereal in a way that had nothing to do with innocence. It hadn't been his finest hour, but Sam remembered.
“Sam!” Dean's voice suddenly intruded on his tumultuous thoughts, and when Sam glanced his way, Dean frowned in frustrated concern. He must have been calling his name more than this once.
“What?” his brother wanted to know as Sam turned back to face the street again only to find the object of his distraction had vanished (into thin air) into the crowd. “What is it?”
“I thought I saw...” Glacier blue eyes, black as night. Sam shook his head to get rid of the image. “Nothing. I just thought I'd recognized someone.”
He ought to tell Dean. Of those slippery dream-memories, of who he had seen just now. His last secret had almost torn them apart. But if he told Dean, he would have to explain how they had met, and Sam couldn't do that. Not unless he absolutely had to. Revisiting that time of his life, those bleak, desolate weeks before Ruby had found him, was... Sam couldn't do it. Not until he had to.
Anyway, he wasn't even sure he wasn't just seeing things. Sleep had proven itself to be elusive during recent nights.
oOo
Aside from what it might have said about his mental state, Sam would have preferred it if he had been seeing things.
Appropriately enough, it was another bar where they met for a second time.
It was a quiet hole-in-the-wall, the wooden floor and counter ancient, but well cared for, the kind of establishment that survived mostly on its regulars. Emma Mulray had worked the tables here, and while checking their leads, Sam and Dean had never been above mixing business with pleasure. Dean was already doing his thing, ordering their drinks and flirting with the barmaid.
The woman, although obviously of Asian descent, reminded Sam of Ellen Harvelle in that she was old enough to have been around for a while and able to peg Dean the moment he opened his mouth. Not the type to be easily charmed, she still seemingly enjoyed the repartee, which was half the fun of flirting for his brother anyway, regardless of whether it led to anything more, and Sam was about to leave him to it, knowing Dean would likely find out more if his little brother wasn't hovering at his shoulder.
He collected his pint and turned to a booth in the corner of the room to do what he did best, taking the opportunity to follow up on their research when he noticed him.
He was sitting at the counter again, alone at the far end, nursing what looked like whiskey or bourbon. All Sam was really able to see of him was the set of his shoulders, the jet black hair giving way to the barest hint of cheek- and jawbone and long, graceful fingers curling loosely around a tumbler filled with honey colored liquid. It was enough.
Before he could properly think about it, Sam was at his side, remarking, “So this is how you're supposed to savor it.”
Glacier blue eyes snapped up to him in short-lived surprise, strangely iridescent in the dim lighting, and Sam continued unnecessarily, “I remember you.”
“You do?” Scrunching his face up in a way that was both arrogant and comical, he didn't hesitate to answer his own question, “What am I saying? Of course you do!”
Sam barked out a laugh. “Wow!” he said, “You really don't lack in self-confidence, do you?”
The other man smirked that devilish smirk that had stayed with Sam most of all. “As I recall, you don't lack anything substantial either.”
Years of being desensitized by an older brother made him able to push down a blush, but it was a close thing.
Those pale blue eyes now studied him carefully, more serious.
“You look better than the last time we met.”
“Yeah.” Sam scratched the back of his neck self-consciously. It had been inevitable of course, but still, the reminder discomfited him. “You didn't catch me at my best then. I'm ashamed to say I never got your name.”
“Maybe that's because I didn't tell you.”
“So tell me now!”
The poorly concealed challenge lay between them for several heartbeats. Then, the silence turned deliberate as Sam was given a thorough
once-over, curiosity and interest sparking in those unforgettable eyes.
“Damon Salvatore,” he finally introduced himself, raising an expectant eyebrow, and, well, fair was fair, Sam supposed.
“Sam Winchester.”
Later on, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had given Damon his real name. It was a risk, and Dean would probably have his balls when he found out, but their names had never really made the news. Sam assumed as infamous as their reputation had been with the FBI, the Feds hadn't wanted to drive them even deeper into hiding, or - possibly - prevent panic in the broad public until they had the Winchester brothers firmly behind bars.
“So,” questioned Sam, “what brings you to Jacksonville?”
“Oh, please!” Damon scoffed, eyes once again twinkling merrily. “We're not going to do this whole catching-up thing, are we? Because, seriously, Sam, we're little more than strangers not long lost friends.”
“Okay. What should we talk about, then?”
Once again, Damon raked his eyes up and down Sam's form. “Why does it have to be talking?”
Throwing his head back in honest amusement, Sam laughed. “God, you're actually worse than my brother!”
oOo
Dean didn't even wait until they were outside before he asked, “So who was he?”
“It's a long story, Dean.”
It was one last ditch attempt, and Sam knew it would fail even as he made the effort. There was no derailing Dean now.
“I've got time, Sam!” his brother told him over the gleaming black hood of the Impala. It was the end of a beautiful day, Sam absently noted. Letting himself fall into the passenger seat, he took a steadying breath.
A short while later, his brother stared at him from across the seat. Had Sam not been strung so tight right now, it would have been hilarious how Dean couldn't seem to form the words he was dying to let out.
“You had a one night stand,” he finally repeated dumbstruck. “You had an actual, no strings attached one night stand? With a guy?”
Funny how that had never been the part Sam had freaked out over.
“First time for everything, I guess.”
“Obviously, Samantha!” Sam scowled at him in annoyance. “But still! One night stand! You! With a guy!”
Throwing his hands up in frustration, Sam bit out, “Can you stop saying that like it means something icky?” Because from what he could remember, it had been anything but. Catching Dean's incredulous stare, Sam huffed impatiently. “Look. I wasn't in the best frame of mind then, and you weren't - ” Here, Sam had to swallow hard, and his brother looked away, a fleeting expression of guilt on his face. “You weren't there, and I... Honestly, I don't even remember how it happened exactly. One minute we were doing shots and the other we were - well...”
“Doing each other,” Dean helpfully supplied, and this time Sam did blush.
For a long minute his brother just eyed him up and down, making Sam fidget under his intensity. Strictly speaking, this hadn't been as bad as Sam had feared. The memories of the time just after Dean's death still turned his guts to ice, but Dean focusing on the one thing Sam had never really cared about helped; a great deal. His brother's final judgment still stood out, however.
Finally, Dean moved, making a face and jerking his head in that way he had when some things just couldn't be helped.
“You're not gonna make me wear a rainbow batch to show my support, are you?” he whined.
Sam laughed in relief. “Hardly.”
Dean's lips twitched up, and for a moment they sat in companionable silence. Then, his brother turned serious again. “So.”
“So, what?”
“Do I really need to remind you what happened the last time you just happened to come across another chance acquaintance of yours months after you've last seen her?”
('Could be coincidence. You know, it happens.'
'Well, yes, it happens. But not to us!')
He hadn't thought about Meg in a while, but it was hard to forget one of the first genuine demons they'd ever come across.
“Which is why I went to talk to him,” replied Sam.
“Find out anything?”
“You mean aside from the fact that he seems to like sex more than you do?” Sam didn't even try to suppress the grin when his brother choked on his own spit at that. “No,” he then answered earnestly. “Just his name. Damon Salvatore, or so he said. And that he's really, really good at evading questions.”
...blue eyes, black as night...
Sam frowned.
“I know that look, Sammy. What?”
Uncertainly shaking his head, Sam replied, “I'm not sure. That dream I had this morning?”
“Of Anne Rice vampires?”
“I could swear it was Damon's face.” At Dean's laden stare, Sam shook his head once more. “It still doesn't feel like a vision, Dean. You know, with the excruciating headaches I used to get?”
Not to mention that the demon who used to send them was dead, good and proper.
“It sure can't be a memory, Sam! Because I hope like hell if he made to chow down on you, you would have cut his freakin' head off!”
Phantom pain brought his fingers to the side of his neck, and Sam frowned in confusion. “Sure.”
“Right.” Dean studied him, concern in every angle of his body, before he turned the engine over. “Let's see what we can dig up on Damon Salvatore.”
oOo
As it turned out, they couldn't dig up much of anything on Damon Salvatore.
Most hits with Google led to websites or articles about Matt Damon. They stumbled across a reference to a Salvatore family, one of several founding families of a little town somewhere in the south-east.
But there wasn't anything substantial, and without knowing Damon's current address or even date of birth, working their way through all D. Salvatores in the yellow pages was just bound to become an exercise in futility.
“It doesn't have to mean anything, Dean,” Sam tried to assuage when his brother grew steadily more aggravated. “Some people just don't leave a trail.”
Closing all browser tabs but one, Sam stretched his long legs out from underneath the narrow table he was using as a makeshift desk.
“So what are you suggesting, Sam? That we just drop this lead?”
“We don't even know if it's a lead!”
“We still have to follow up on it!”
“But not to the exception of everything else! You still haven't told me what that bartender said about her colleague.”
“She said she was a sweet girl who mostly kept to herself. Emma Mulray is just another victim, Sam. It's that Salvatore we need to focus on!”
“Why are you so fixated on him all of a sudden?”
Dean glared at him, but didn't answer, just took up pacing in front of the table.
“Come on, Dean, why?”
Jerking around, Dean snapped, “'Cause I don't like him!”
“Why?” Sam's helpless laughter died with the glare Dean leveled his way. Incredulous realization, and with it sudden anger worked their way into his throat. “Because I slept with him?” he demanded disbelievingly.
Dean heatedly retorted, “Because you seem to fall for a certain type, Sam!”
A punch to the face would have felt kinder. Standing up so abruptly that the chair legs scratched noisily over the linoleum floor, Sam walked to the window looking out at the dark parking lot, trying to get his breathing under control again. Dean's reflection in the window pane looked remorseful.
“Sam - ”
“Don't,” Sam interrupted, the familiar guilt burning in his gut. “You're right, okay? You're right.”
He turned around to face his brother, forced his voice to sound normal. “But even if you're right about Damon, the bite-marks don't match a vampire, Dean. Anne Rice or otherwise.”
The room was too small. The air suddenly stifled him. He headed for the door, flatly announcing over his shoulder, “I need to get some fresh air.”
Dean didn't call him back.
oOo
It shouldn't have come as a surprise to run into Damon while Sam was roaming the all but deserted streets of the town.
Their upbringing had ingrained a hunter's instincts neither Dean nor Sam could easily ignore, and a few blocks down they were suddenly screaming at him. He was being followed. The steps were soft and barely noticeable, and had Sam been anyone else, he might not have. As it was, he took the next corner, slipped into the shadows of a front door and waited.
What happened next, happened quickly. He'd had to use this move more times than he wanted to count; it was a matter of seconds that Sam had his hand around a throat and his pursuer slammed back first against the house wall.
It still came as a surprise when he recognized the face.
“Are you stalking me now?” blurted Sam, caught thoroughly off-guard.
“You're the one who jumped me!”
Damon looked entirely more amused than he had any right to be considering his position. His slender throat felt fragile beneath Sam's hand. It came with his own height, of course, that almost everyone felt fragile, small in his hands. Still. Damon wasn't a midget by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a few inches shorter even than Dean, and up close like this it was hard not to take notice.
Deceptive frailty and lean muscles, pale blue eyes, black as night.
Sam shook his head to get rid of the distorted memories. After the fight with his brother he had exactly no tolerance for games. And then there were Dean's not so misguided suspicions and his own dream-memories to take into account.
Harshly, Sam demanded, “Why were you following me?”
Something happened to Damon's face then. The smirk slid off, and it was subtle, but his pupils dilated until all that was left was a slim ring of molten ice around a black core, catching the light of a street lamp.
“Let go of me, Sam.”
Sam did without a second thought. Only to blink in confusion and shake his head like a dog out of water a mere second later.
Taking a preemptive step back, he rasped, “What are you?”
Damon, the creature before him tilted his head in applause. “Bravo, Sam! I was wondering how long it would take you.”
“You haven't exactly been subtle!” shot Sam back.
A small voice inside his head, a voice sounding like Dean and his father both, berated his behavior. Oh, Sam was wary, of course he was; he wasn't stupid - or suicidal. But he wasn't as wary as maybe he should have been. The gun pressing against the small of his back was a familiar, comforting weight, but experience had taught them it worked on one out of ten creatures if they were lucky. Mostly, the common guns they carried were the Winchester version of a security blanket.
Still, however much safer Sam would have felt with a knife coated in dead man's blood or even a bottle of holy water, something about Damon... intrigued him. It didn't much help that he knew perfectly well that this was, essentially, how it had all started with Ruby.
Eyes black as night.
On an impulse, Sam attempted, “Christo.”
Nothing. No flinch, no black eyes. Only inquisitively raised eyebrows, and the return of that infuriating smirk.
“It's hardly the first time someone called me God.” The suggestive gaze was back in full blow, too, and Sam unsuccessfully tried to convince himself it was revulsion that had him suppressing a shiver. “Although usually the language and circumstances are a bit different.”
“You're unbelievable!”
The smirk grew wider as Damon took a step forward. “Oh, you better believe it!”
Sam took that same step back, putting distance between them again more as a statement than any kind of delusion over the effectiveness of the action. “Damon!” he snapped. “What are you?”
Glacier blue eyes rolled in exasperation. “Really? I mean, really? How are you still alive, hunter?”
Heart racing in his chest, Sam clenched his jaws. “How do you know that?”
“You're kidding, right?”
Sam just stared at Damon, until the other shrugged carelessly. “I may not keep in touch with - the family, as it may be, but even I've heard of the Winchester brothers. You're what legends are made of.” He pursed his lips; reconsidered. “Or nightmares. Depending on which side of the fence you're standing. Anyway, I've had a hunter on my tail before, I know how to recognize the signs.”
The casual tone of the statement told Sam everything he had to know, and yet he found himself asking, “What happened?”
A pointed look was trained his way. “I'm still here. What do you think happened?”
“If you knew who I am, what exactly was that last year?” Ever since it had happened, Sam had looked back on that night with mixed feelings. Slowly realizing just what he had taken into his bed back then didn't change that except for adding some more confusing, contradictory emotions to the mess.
“Fun, Sam!” Damon told him, exasperation almost palpable. “That was fun!”
Sam arched an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed.
“Go on,” Damon challenged. “Tell me it wasn't.”
His belly tightened as he remembered. Lean, strong thighs around his waist, long elegant fingers in his hair, digging bruises into his shoulders. Barely keeping himself from squirming uncomfortably, Sam dropped his gaze.
“And for the record,” the other continued, “I didn't know who you were back then, because if I had - ”
He didn't want to hear what Damon would have done different. “What are you?” he pressed again, deliberately talking over Damon's words.
The man (demon, monster) looked at him wide-eyed, open in a way Sam hadn't seen on him yet. This exasperation was, possibly, the first honest expression Damon had shown him up until now.
“Come one, Sam. What could I possibly be?”
Sam thought he remembered black eyes, but Damon hadn't flinched at the name of God. Sam thought he remembered sharp fangs, but they weren't the set of shark's teeth they should have been.
Whatever else Damon was, patience obviously wasn't his forte. He heaved a long-suffering sigh and explained, “The term you're looking for is 'vampire'?”
“No,” Sam vehemently denied. “No, we've dealt with vampires before, and you're not anything like them!”
Damon scoffed. “Of course I'm not. I'm Damon Salvatore!”
Despite everything, Sam had to snort back a laugh. “That's not what I meant!”
Once again rolling his eyes, Damon lamented, “I actually have to prove myself to a hunter? Fine.”
And with that, he - changed.
Sam instinctively flinched back when black flooded pale eyes. Only it wasn't really black. In the inadequate light of the street lamp it was hard to make out, but Damon's eyes were tinged the dark red of blood not demon-black; on a body, Sam would have thought petechiae and choked to death. Apart from that, the change was almost subtle: a dark spiderweb of fine capillary vessels threading downwards from the translucent skin underneath those eyes, only the canine teeth extruding and sharpening, just long enough to register as wrong. It was as if Sam had stepped into his dream (memories then, not a dream). His neck tingled again in remembered pain. It only raised more questions, but there couldn't be any doubt anymore about Damon's true nature.
Sam took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine. Okay. Vampire. In that case, why am I not dead yet?”
And it wasn't just this encounter he was asking about.
“Would you rather?” the vampire mocked. “'Cause I assure you, that can be arranged.”
Grinding his teeth in frustration, Sam didn't even have time to formulate a response before Damon forged on. “But speaking of which, what exactly brings a pair of hunters into town?”
Sam just glared. Damon shook his head in instant denial, the blood clearing from his eyes and his veins, leaving behind only a handsome, pale young man with a wicked smile. “Oh no. Not me. Despite what some people -” Sam could almost hear the story behind the emphasis “- might believe, I do know how to keep a low profile. I've been a good little vampire. I haven't killed anyone in...” With furrowed brows, he considered for a few seconds, before disgustedly scrunching up his face. “Way too long.”
Sam shook his head, not quite able to help the weak, incredulous huff that escaped him. God help him, but there was something about the vampire and his antics that reminded Sam of his brother in a roundabout way. Considering their history, however brief, that comparison was - uncomfortable to say the least.
Picking up his initial question, Sam queried, “If that's the case, why were you following me?”
“I hate to admit it, but curiosity is one of my worst vices.”
“You mean aside from the whole eating people for dinner thing?”
Shrugging dismissively, Damon declared, “It's just good nutrition.”
The crux of the matter was, from a vampire's point of view it was nothing but the blunt truth. Momentarily lost for words, Sam rubbed his hands across his face. “Why am I even talking to you?” he wondered aloud.
Was it any wonder Dean tended to question his sanity and allegiance in equal measure lately?
Banishing the thought from his mind, Sam waited for the inevitable comeback before realizing that something else had seized Damon's attention. Frowning in apparent confusion, the vampire's gaze was locked onto something behind Sam.
“What?” he asked suspiciously, turning to take a look for himself.
There was a light at the end of the street, a dark orange glow, barely bright enough to illuminate the unlikely scene they were witnessing.
A cold shiver ran down Sam's spine.
Continued in part 2
Author: Desiree
Rating: PG 13
Spoilers: Vampire Diaries: none, Supernatural: up to season 5
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Damon Salvatore
Pairings: Sam/Damon
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. Unfortunately.
Summary: It was a chance meeting that had let Sam Winchester make the acquaintance of Damon Salvatore, and it wouldn't be until about a year later that Sam would learn of Damon's true nature.
A/N: Back in 2011 I signed up for the Supernatural Big Bang challenge, but then RL happened, and I had to beg out. This isn't that story (mainly because this was just supposed to be the first chapter), but I feel it's as close as I could get while leaving it where it is now.
A few pieces of dialogue are taken verbatim from SN 'Shadows' and 'Bloodlust'.
Before Ruby there had been someone else.
Correction.
Before Ruby became something more than an uneasy ally, but after Dean's soul had been ripped from his body, the hell-hounds viciously collecting their prize, leaving his younger brother on his own to struggle in a world that had suddenly become a much darker place.
Unlike Dean, he had never been one for one night stands, not even before Jessica, and his record after - really, it was nothing to be proud of, and that time had been no exception.
Nevertheless; before Ruby there had been one other.
It was a chance meeting that had let Sam Winchester make the acquaintance of Damon Salvatore, and it wouldn't be until about a year later that Sam would learn of Damon's true nature.
(That the hunter would recognize his prey.)
Then:
“So that skin walker in Topeka - was that you, Sam?” Silence. A heavy sigh and then, “It's been weeks, boy. Call me!”
(You're tail-spinning, man! And you refuse to talk about it, and you won't let me help you!)
Sam deleted the message as soon as it ended. Bobby sounded concerned in his own gruff, heavy-handed way, not even bothering to cover it up anymore, and Sam felt the twinge of guilt at his behavior, his silence. He knew that the older hunter hurt too, had come to consider both Winchester boys as the sons he never had, and now he had to worry about Sam on top of everything else.
But it all felt too much like the trickster's time loop, like those six months on his own that never happened. Sam couldn't deal with Bobby and his well-meaning but unwanted concern, not now; he could barely deal with himself these days.
Laying back on his motel bed, Sam tried to catch some sleep; to no avail. Restless energy was pulsing through his veins, didn't let his mind shut down. He booted up his laptop, visited all the pertinent websites, looking for something, anything to hunt. The letters kept blurring before his eyes, flowing into and over each other. He blinked rapidly, roughly rubbed his eyes. Closed the screen with a protesting clack of plastic. This, too, had become something of a habit during those past weeks. Sometimes, Sam thought he couldn't remember what it felt like not to be constantly on edge -
(...you're erratic - except for when you're hunting, 'cause then, you're downright scary!)
Suddenly, the motel room felt too small. It was hard to breathe.
He grabbed his keys from a small bowl on the sideboard, tucked a gun into the waistband of his jeans and left for the first bar that he could find.
In hindsight, it might not have been his best idea, and not just because he ended up going straight for the hard liquor. The first shot burnt like fire going down. Sam put the glass down with a clank, wheezed and motioned the bartender for a refill. His head was already beginning to spin. Dean always used to mock him about -
“You're supposed to savor it, not chuck it down like water!” A voice broke through his self-imposed bubble of isolation.
Annoyed more than curious, Sam looked over at a guy a few empty seats down the counter. The first thing he noticed were the eyes, glacier blue and just as cold. Next was the smile, sharp, self-assured, arrogant. Artificial. Pale skin and dark hair and the kind of clothes you paid a small fortune for to look stylishly casual - casually stylish. The kind of thing Sam had never had the money, patience nor inclination to care about.
“Yeah? Well, why don't you mind your own business?”
The guy seemed to consider for a moment. Sam bit back a groan. Blue-Eyes was good, but Sam recognized a show when it was put on for him.
“I could,” the stranger agreed, his smile turning devious - and much more sincere. “It just wouldn't be terribly entertaining.”
Pale blue eyes raked up and down Sam's body, and unexpected heat rose to his face. The message couldn't have been less subtle.
“I'd offer my condolences,” Sam retorted scathingly, “but, really, I don't give a shit!”
He knocked back his second shot as soon as the man behind the counter set it in front of him. He didn't even wait for Sam's sign to refill the glass this time.
The alcohol had to affect his perception stronger than he'd thought, because suddenly Blue-Eyes was right there in his face, and Sam hadn't ever seen him move.
“There are a lot more pleasant ways to help you forget, you know?”
No sense of personal space, that one, and a lot less cocky than Sam would have expected. Arrogant still, but with a hard edge that spoke of personal experience, and Sam wanted to scoff in his face in an inglorious moment of self-pity. The guy didn't look older than twenty-three, twenty-four at the most, younger than Sam himself, and his wardrobe suggested the kind of carefree life that Sam had ever longed for and never been granted.
Still.
That hard edge was real enough, and Sam wasn't far enough gone to think that money equaled a trouble free life, so instead he just shook his head and declined, “I'd have to be a lot more drunk than this.”
Honestly, he should have known better than to phrase a rejection as a challenge. His answer was a shark's smile that sent shivers down his spine, and, “That can be arranged.”
The night that followed, Sam would only ever be able to recall in snapshots later on; freeze-frames and short bursts of dialogue and physical sensations, smells and sounds; pressing the shorter man (shorter than Dean, almost a head and a half shorter than yourself) up against the door to his motel room, ravaging a hot mouth in a surge of lust he couldn't remember feeling this acute since Madison (and look how that ended); fingers running over lean muscle, digging into ribs that felt as frail as bird's bones beneath his too large hands and... not caring.
His gun landing on the carpet in front of the bed, disposed of without comment or care.
“You're even more fun than I anticipated. More desperate. No. Desolate. You're desolate. So much pain. So much anger - ”
“Shut up!”
Losing himself in the body beneath his, rougher than he'd ever been with a lover. Teeth at his neck, sharp and painful and (just right); scratching too long fingernails down vulnerable flanks in retaliation.
Blood on his throat and underneath his fingernails, cum on his stomach, coating his dick.
In the morning, he didn't linger. He showered and packed before his guest ever opened those hypnotic eyes, and he didn't look back when he left. He never saw those eyes snap open as soon as his back was turned, following his trek out of the room with a sharp, satisfied smile.
The only thing he truly regretted (you were ashamed of) in the aftermath was that it took him an hour driving to realize he'd never even asked for the stranger's name.
Now:
There is no fear.
There should be.
Pale blue eyes, black as night.
The skin underneath so translucent you see the dark web of spidery veins crawling down sharp cheekbones.
Blood-specked lips opened to a snarl, teeth bared. Human teeth; except for the canines, sharp and pointed, barely long enough to register as wrong. A whisper, honey-sweet and compelling, 'Forget.'
Forget.
Sam jerked awake, disoriented, fear belatedly pumping adrenaline into his system.
From beside him in the driver's seat his brother glanced his way, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.
“Dream about anything interesting?”
Letting his head fall back where he was sprawled on the Impala's front bench seat, absently rubbing his eyes, Sam answered, “No. I'm not sure. A vampire, I think.”
Only that wasn't quite right, was it?
“A vampire,” Dean echoed, unconsciously sitting up behind the wheel. Slanting Sam another look, he commented casually, “Been a long time since your last vision, Sammy.”
Carefully checked suspicion combined with genuine worry, and Sam was glad to have his brother back, he was, but he was tired of not being trusted. Even if you deserve it, a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind whispered.
“No,” he denied wearily, “no visions. Just too much Anne Rice.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Didn't look like any vamp I've ever seen.” Scowling, he amended, “Outside of a television screen, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, when do they ever get it right?”
Dean reached out to change the tape in the player, and shortly after, the first misleadingly sedate tunes of The Scorpions' 'Coming Home' scratched their way out of the loudspeakers. Then, his brother ordered, “So tell me about this hunt we're going?”
“Ya, uh...” Pinching the bridge of his nose to force his mind away from glacier blue eyes and focus on the news articles he had stumbled across, Sam recounted, “Three bodies turned up in Jacksonville, Florida, suspicious looking bite-wounds on all of them. And a young woman, Emma Mulray, went missing two days ago.”
“You sure you're not having visions again, Sam?”
“Yes. It felt more like a warped memory, to be honest. You know how dreams sometimes are just weird.”
“Still. Vampires sound like a definite possibility.”
“Maybe.” He reached for the print-outs on the dashboard, studying the autopsy pictures he'd procured. Hesitated. “I don't know, man. I mean, the bite-wounds don't match anything resembling a human jaw, and usually, vamps completely drain their victims. They wouldn't just mangle them and leave them to bleed out...”
“Whatever it is, Sam - ”
“ - we find it, we waste it.”
Startled, Dean glanced over at Sam and grinned. For a moment, it felt as if everything had clicked back into place.
“Exactly!”
Sam grinned back.
oOo
A glimpse of jet black hair, a strangely familiar looking biker jacket, and Sam abruptly stopped in his tracks to get a better look. From across the street pale, ice-blue eyes caught his gaze and held it for several seconds. The smirk on bloodless lips hit him like a punch to the gut. Wisps of memory assaulted his mind, ghost-touches and impressions of deceptive frailty.
Sam remembered that face, ethereal in a way that had nothing to do with innocence. It hadn't been his finest hour, but Sam remembered.
“Sam!” Dean's voice suddenly intruded on his tumultuous thoughts, and when Sam glanced his way, Dean frowned in frustrated concern. He must have been calling his name more than this once.
“What?” his brother wanted to know as Sam turned back to face the street again only to find the object of his distraction had vanished (into thin air) into the crowd. “What is it?”
“I thought I saw...” Glacier blue eyes, black as night. Sam shook his head to get rid of the image. “Nothing. I just thought I'd recognized someone.”
He ought to tell Dean. Of those slippery dream-memories, of who he had seen just now. His last secret had almost torn them apart. But if he told Dean, he would have to explain how they had met, and Sam couldn't do that. Not unless he absolutely had to. Revisiting that time of his life, those bleak, desolate weeks before Ruby had found him, was... Sam couldn't do it. Not until he had to.
Anyway, he wasn't even sure he wasn't just seeing things. Sleep had proven itself to be elusive during recent nights.
oOo
Aside from what it might have said about his mental state, Sam would have preferred it if he had been seeing things.
Appropriately enough, it was another bar where they met for a second time.
It was a quiet hole-in-the-wall, the wooden floor and counter ancient, but well cared for, the kind of establishment that survived mostly on its regulars. Emma Mulray had worked the tables here, and while checking their leads, Sam and Dean had never been above mixing business with pleasure. Dean was already doing his thing, ordering their drinks and flirting with the barmaid.
The woman, although obviously of Asian descent, reminded Sam of Ellen Harvelle in that she was old enough to have been around for a while and able to peg Dean the moment he opened his mouth. Not the type to be easily charmed, she still seemingly enjoyed the repartee, which was half the fun of flirting for his brother anyway, regardless of whether it led to anything more, and Sam was about to leave him to it, knowing Dean would likely find out more if his little brother wasn't hovering at his shoulder.
He collected his pint and turned to a booth in the corner of the room to do what he did best, taking the opportunity to follow up on their research when he noticed him.
He was sitting at the counter again, alone at the far end, nursing what looked like whiskey or bourbon. All Sam was really able to see of him was the set of his shoulders, the jet black hair giving way to the barest hint of cheek- and jawbone and long, graceful fingers curling loosely around a tumbler filled with honey colored liquid. It was enough.
Before he could properly think about it, Sam was at his side, remarking, “So this is how you're supposed to savor it.”
Glacier blue eyes snapped up to him in short-lived surprise, strangely iridescent in the dim lighting, and Sam continued unnecessarily, “I remember you.”
“You do?” Scrunching his face up in a way that was both arrogant and comical, he didn't hesitate to answer his own question, “What am I saying? Of course you do!”
Sam barked out a laugh. “Wow!” he said, “You really don't lack in self-confidence, do you?”
The other man smirked that devilish smirk that had stayed with Sam most of all. “As I recall, you don't lack anything substantial either.”
Years of being desensitized by an older brother made him able to push down a blush, but it was a close thing.
Those pale blue eyes now studied him carefully, more serious.
“You look better than the last time we met.”
“Yeah.” Sam scratched the back of his neck self-consciously. It had been inevitable of course, but still, the reminder discomfited him. “You didn't catch me at my best then. I'm ashamed to say I never got your name.”
“Maybe that's because I didn't tell you.”
“So tell me now!”
The poorly concealed challenge lay between them for several heartbeats. Then, the silence turned deliberate as Sam was given a thorough
once-over, curiosity and interest sparking in those unforgettable eyes.
“Damon Salvatore,” he finally introduced himself, raising an expectant eyebrow, and, well, fair was fair, Sam supposed.
“Sam Winchester.”
Later on, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had given Damon his real name. It was a risk, and Dean would probably have his balls when he found out, but their names had never really made the news. Sam assumed as infamous as their reputation had been with the FBI, the Feds hadn't wanted to drive them even deeper into hiding, or - possibly - prevent panic in the broad public until they had the Winchester brothers firmly behind bars.
“So,” questioned Sam, “what brings you to Jacksonville?”
“Oh, please!” Damon scoffed, eyes once again twinkling merrily. “We're not going to do this whole catching-up thing, are we? Because, seriously, Sam, we're little more than strangers not long lost friends.”
“Okay. What should we talk about, then?”
Once again, Damon raked his eyes up and down Sam's form. “Why does it have to be talking?”
Throwing his head back in honest amusement, Sam laughed. “God, you're actually worse than my brother!”
oOo
Dean didn't even wait until they were outside before he asked, “So who was he?”
“It's a long story, Dean.”
It was one last ditch attempt, and Sam knew it would fail even as he made the effort. There was no derailing Dean now.
“I've got time, Sam!” his brother told him over the gleaming black hood of the Impala. It was the end of a beautiful day, Sam absently noted. Letting himself fall into the passenger seat, he took a steadying breath.
A short while later, his brother stared at him from across the seat. Had Sam not been strung so tight right now, it would have been hilarious how Dean couldn't seem to form the words he was dying to let out.
“You had a one night stand,” he finally repeated dumbstruck. “You had an actual, no strings attached one night stand? With a guy?”
Funny how that had never been the part Sam had freaked out over.
“First time for everything, I guess.”
“Obviously, Samantha!” Sam scowled at him in annoyance. “But still! One night stand! You! With a guy!”
Throwing his hands up in frustration, Sam bit out, “Can you stop saying that like it means something icky?” Because from what he could remember, it had been anything but. Catching Dean's incredulous stare, Sam huffed impatiently. “Look. I wasn't in the best frame of mind then, and you weren't - ” Here, Sam had to swallow hard, and his brother looked away, a fleeting expression of guilt on his face. “You weren't there, and I... Honestly, I don't even remember how it happened exactly. One minute we were doing shots and the other we were - well...”
“Doing each other,” Dean helpfully supplied, and this time Sam did blush.
For a long minute his brother just eyed him up and down, making Sam fidget under his intensity. Strictly speaking, this hadn't been as bad as Sam had feared. The memories of the time just after Dean's death still turned his guts to ice, but Dean focusing on the one thing Sam had never really cared about helped; a great deal. His brother's final judgment still stood out, however.
Finally, Dean moved, making a face and jerking his head in that way he had when some things just couldn't be helped.
“You're not gonna make me wear a rainbow batch to show my support, are you?” he whined.
Sam laughed in relief. “Hardly.”
Dean's lips twitched up, and for a moment they sat in companionable silence. Then, his brother turned serious again. “So.”
“So, what?”
“Do I really need to remind you what happened the last time you just happened to come across another chance acquaintance of yours months after you've last seen her?”
('Could be coincidence. You know, it happens.'
'Well, yes, it happens. But not to us!')
He hadn't thought about Meg in a while, but it was hard to forget one of the first genuine demons they'd ever come across.
“Which is why I went to talk to him,” replied Sam.
“Find out anything?”
“You mean aside from the fact that he seems to like sex more than you do?” Sam didn't even try to suppress the grin when his brother choked on his own spit at that. “No,” he then answered earnestly. “Just his name. Damon Salvatore, or so he said. And that he's really, really good at evading questions.”
...blue eyes, black as night...
Sam frowned.
“I know that look, Sammy. What?”
Uncertainly shaking his head, Sam replied, “I'm not sure. That dream I had this morning?”
“Of Anne Rice vampires?”
“I could swear it was Damon's face.” At Dean's laden stare, Sam shook his head once more. “It still doesn't feel like a vision, Dean. You know, with the excruciating headaches I used to get?”
Not to mention that the demon who used to send them was dead, good and proper.
“It sure can't be a memory, Sam! Because I hope like hell if he made to chow down on you, you would have cut his freakin' head off!”
Phantom pain brought his fingers to the side of his neck, and Sam frowned in confusion. “Sure.”
“Right.” Dean studied him, concern in every angle of his body, before he turned the engine over. “Let's see what we can dig up on Damon Salvatore.”
oOo
As it turned out, they couldn't dig up much of anything on Damon Salvatore.
Most hits with Google led to websites or articles about Matt Damon. They stumbled across a reference to a Salvatore family, one of several founding families of a little town somewhere in the south-east.
But there wasn't anything substantial, and without knowing Damon's current address or even date of birth, working their way through all D. Salvatores in the yellow pages was just bound to become an exercise in futility.
“It doesn't have to mean anything, Dean,” Sam tried to assuage when his brother grew steadily more aggravated. “Some people just don't leave a trail.”
Closing all browser tabs but one, Sam stretched his long legs out from underneath the narrow table he was using as a makeshift desk.
“So what are you suggesting, Sam? That we just drop this lead?”
“We don't even know if it's a lead!”
“We still have to follow up on it!”
“But not to the exception of everything else! You still haven't told me what that bartender said about her colleague.”
“She said she was a sweet girl who mostly kept to herself. Emma Mulray is just another victim, Sam. It's that Salvatore we need to focus on!”
“Why are you so fixated on him all of a sudden?”
Dean glared at him, but didn't answer, just took up pacing in front of the table.
“Come on, Dean, why?”
Jerking around, Dean snapped, “'Cause I don't like him!”
“Why?” Sam's helpless laughter died with the glare Dean leveled his way. Incredulous realization, and with it sudden anger worked their way into his throat. “Because I slept with him?” he demanded disbelievingly.
Dean heatedly retorted, “Because you seem to fall for a certain type, Sam!”
A punch to the face would have felt kinder. Standing up so abruptly that the chair legs scratched noisily over the linoleum floor, Sam walked to the window looking out at the dark parking lot, trying to get his breathing under control again. Dean's reflection in the window pane looked remorseful.
“Sam - ”
“Don't,” Sam interrupted, the familiar guilt burning in his gut. “You're right, okay? You're right.”
He turned around to face his brother, forced his voice to sound normal. “But even if you're right about Damon, the bite-marks don't match a vampire, Dean. Anne Rice or otherwise.”
The room was too small. The air suddenly stifled him. He headed for the door, flatly announcing over his shoulder, “I need to get some fresh air.”
Dean didn't call him back.
oOo
It shouldn't have come as a surprise to run into Damon while Sam was roaming the all but deserted streets of the town.
Their upbringing had ingrained a hunter's instincts neither Dean nor Sam could easily ignore, and a few blocks down they were suddenly screaming at him. He was being followed. The steps were soft and barely noticeable, and had Sam been anyone else, he might not have. As it was, he took the next corner, slipped into the shadows of a front door and waited.
What happened next, happened quickly. He'd had to use this move more times than he wanted to count; it was a matter of seconds that Sam had his hand around a throat and his pursuer slammed back first against the house wall.
It still came as a surprise when he recognized the face.
“Are you stalking me now?” blurted Sam, caught thoroughly off-guard.
“You're the one who jumped me!”
Damon looked entirely more amused than he had any right to be considering his position. His slender throat felt fragile beneath Sam's hand. It came with his own height, of course, that almost everyone felt fragile, small in his hands. Still. Damon wasn't a midget by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a few inches shorter even than Dean, and up close like this it was hard not to take notice.
Deceptive frailty and lean muscles, pale blue eyes, black as night.
Sam shook his head to get rid of the distorted memories. After the fight with his brother he had exactly no tolerance for games. And then there were Dean's not so misguided suspicions and his own dream-memories to take into account.
Harshly, Sam demanded, “Why were you following me?”
Something happened to Damon's face then. The smirk slid off, and it was subtle, but his pupils dilated until all that was left was a slim ring of molten ice around a black core, catching the light of a street lamp.
“Let go of me, Sam.”
Sam did without a second thought. Only to blink in confusion and shake his head like a dog out of water a mere second later.
Taking a preemptive step back, he rasped, “What are you?”
Damon, the creature before him tilted his head in applause. “Bravo, Sam! I was wondering how long it would take you.”
“You haven't exactly been subtle!” shot Sam back.
A small voice inside his head, a voice sounding like Dean and his father both, berated his behavior. Oh, Sam was wary, of course he was; he wasn't stupid - or suicidal. But he wasn't as wary as maybe he should have been. The gun pressing against the small of his back was a familiar, comforting weight, but experience had taught them it worked on one out of ten creatures if they were lucky. Mostly, the common guns they carried were the Winchester version of a security blanket.
Still, however much safer Sam would have felt with a knife coated in dead man's blood or even a bottle of holy water, something about Damon... intrigued him. It didn't much help that he knew perfectly well that this was, essentially, how it had all started with Ruby.
Eyes black as night.
On an impulse, Sam attempted, “Christo.”
Nothing. No flinch, no black eyes. Only inquisitively raised eyebrows, and the return of that infuriating smirk.
“It's hardly the first time someone called me God.” The suggestive gaze was back in full blow, too, and Sam unsuccessfully tried to convince himself it was revulsion that had him suppressing a shiver. “Although usually the language and circumstances are a bit different.”
“You're unbelievable!”
The smirk grew wider as Damon took a step forward. “Oh, you better believe it!”
Sam took that same step back, putting distance between them again more as a statement than any kind of delusion over the effectiveness of the action. “Damon!” he snapped. “What are you?”
Glacier blue eyes rolled in exasperation. “Really? I mean, really? How are you still alive, hunter?”
Heart racing in his chest, Sam clenched his jaws. “How do you know that?”
“You're kidding, right?”
Sam just stared at Damon, until the other shrugged carelessly. “I may not keep in touch with - the family, as it may be, but even I've heard of the Winchester brothers. You're what legends are made of.” He pursed his lips; reconsidered. “Or nightmares. Depending on which side of the fence you're standing. Anyway, I've had a hunter on my tail before, I know how to recognize the signs.”
The casual tone of the statement told Sam everything he had to know, and yet he found himself asking, “What happened?”
A pointed look was trained his way. “I'm still here. What do you think happened?”
“If you knew who I am, what exactly was that last year?” Ever since it had happened, Sam had looked back on that night with mixed feelings. Slowly realizing just what he had taken into his bed back then didn't change that except for adding some more confusing, contradictory emotions to the mess.
“Fun, Sam!” Damon told him, exasperation almost palpable. “That was fun!”
Sam arched an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed.
“Go on,” Damon challenged. “Tell me it wasn't.”
His belly tightened as he remembered. Lean, strong thighs around his waist, long elegant fingers in his hair, digging bruises into his shoulders. Barely keeping himself from squirming uncomfortably, Sam dropped his gaze.
“And for the record,” the other continued, “I didn't know who you were back then, because if I had - ”
He didn't want to hear what Damon would have done different. “What are you?” he pressed again, deliberately talking over Damon's words.
The man (demon, monster) looked at him wide-eyed, open in a way Sam hadn't seen on him yet. This exasperation was, possibly, the first honest expression Damon had shown him up until now.
“Come one, Sam. What could I possibly be?”
Sam thought he remembered black eyes, but Damon hadn't flinched at the name of God. Sam thought he remembered sharp fangs, but they weren't the set of shark's teeth they should have been.
Whatever else Damon was, patience obviously wasn't his forte. He heaved a long-suffering sigh and explained, “The term you're looking for is 'vampire'?”
“No,” Sam vehemently denied. “No, we've dealt with vampires before, and you're not anything like them!”
Damon scoffed. “Of course I'm not. I'm Damon Salvatore!”
Despite everything, Sam had to snort back a laugh. “That's not what I meant!”
Once again rolling his eyes, Damon lamented, “I actually have to prove myself to a hunter? Fine.”
And with that, he - changed.
Sam instinctively flinched back when black flooded pale eyes. Only it wasn't really black. In the inadequate light of the street lamp it was hard to make out, but Damon's eyes were tinged the dark red of blood not demon-black; on a body, Sam would have thought petechiae and choked to death. Apart from that, the change was almost subtle: a dark spiderweb of fine capillary vessels threading downwards from the translucent skin underneath those eyes, only the canine teeth extruding and sharpening, just long enough to register as wrong. It was as if Sam had stepped into his dream (memories then, not a dream). His neck tingled again in remembered pain. It only raised more questions, but there couldn't be any doubt anymore about Damon's true nature.
Sam took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine. Okay. Vampire. In that case, why am I not dead yet?”
And it wasn't just this encounter he was asking about.
“Would you rather?” the vampire mocked. “'Cause I assure you, that can be arranged.”
Grinding his teeth in frustration, Sam didn't even have time to formulate a response before Damon forged on. “But speaking of which, what exactly brings a pair of hunters into town?”
Sam just glared. Damon shook his head in instant denial, the blood clearing from his eyes and his veins, leaving behind only a handsome, pale young man with a wicked smile. “Oh no. Not me. Despite what some people -” Sam could almost hear the story behind the emphasis “- might believe, I do know how to keep a low profile. I've been a good little vampire. I haven't killed anyone in...” With furrowed brows, he considered for a few seconds, before disgustedly scrunching up his face. “Way too long.”
Sam shook his head, not quite able to help the weak, incredulous huff that escaped him. God help him, but there was something about the vampire and his antics that reminded Sam of his brother in a roundabout way. Considering their history, however brief, that comparison was - uncomfortable to say the least.
Picking up his initial question, Sam queried, “If that's the case, why were you following me?”
“I hate to admit it, but curiosity is one of my worst vices.”
“You mean aside from the whole eating people for dinner thing?”
Shrugging dismissively, Damon declared, “It's just good nutrition.”
The crux of the matter was, from a vampire's point of view it was nothing but the blunt truth. Momentarily lost for words, Sam rubbed his hands across his face. “Why am I even talking to you?” he wondered aloud.
Was it any wonder Dean tended to question his sanity and allegiance in equal measure lately?
Banishing the thought from his mind, Sam waited for the inevitable comeback before realizing that something else had seized Damon's attention. Frowning in apparent confusion, the vampire's gaze was locked onto something behind Sam.
“What?” he asked suspiciously, turning to take a look for himself.
There was a light at the end of the street, a dark orange glow, barely bright enough to illuminate the unlikely scene they were witnessing.
A cold shiver ran down Sam's spine.
Continued in part 2