A Womb of His Own - 4/21
Masterpost
They managed to kill their monster before it ate another child. It was a lamia, a Greek monster that had somehow made its way to the U.S. - they’d never know how, because they’d torched that mother before they got around to shooting the breeze.
Dean was shaken at how close the thing had come to killing another kid, at how the thing had already killed three before they’d picked up the case. The youngest kid was only a kindergartner, and the oldest was twelve. That lamia could have eaten Ben.
It was the third case that involved children since they’d been reunited. Third out of three. Dean wondered if it was hitting so close to home because he’d gotten soft, or if it Sam was deliberately choosing cases that would make him think about Lisa and Ben. Like maybe Sam was trying to find his breaking point, so he’d give up on them all together? Or maybe it was all coincidence. It was probably that. He couldn’t imagine Sam, even when he clearly wanted all of Dean’s attention, being quite that spiteful and calculating.
One thing he did know, though, was that there was no point in talking about it. All he’d gotten out was, “Twelve. Ben’s twelve,” and Sam had given him a look before changing the subject.
While Sam was in the shower, washing off lamia ash, Dean called Bobby, ready to tell him the latest unbelievable piece of news. If he couldn’t tell anyone the big secret that would convince them Sam had come back wrong, then little details - like Sam not caring about dead kids - were bound to start tipping the scales.
But before he could get anything out, Bobby started yelling at him for being selfish. A few minutes later, Sam was buying them plane tickets to Scotland, and Dean was rooting through the cigar box for pictures they could use to make fake passports. Dean, who could count on one hand the number of times he’d flown, was about to cross the Atlantic to save Bobby’s soul from Crowley’s clutches.
Sam was standing by the gate with their tickets in hand, giving Dean a stern look to hurry up and get off the phone so they could board the plane.
Well, okay, according to his passport, Dave Mustaine was going to board the plane, but same thing.
“Sam’s giving me a look,” he reported to Lisa on the phone.
“The creepy look or the ‘you’re in trouble’ look?”
Dean glanced over his shoulder. “It’s kind of a combination this time. Honestly, Lis, seven hours sitting next to him?”
“How is that different than seven hours in a car?”
“Airplanes don’t make pit stops at gas stations.”
“Well, think about how he feels. He’s probably worried about how many times you’re going to throw up.”
Her teasing made him smile. “All right, I gotta go. Tell Ben I said to take out the trash tomorrow.”
“Trash day was today, Dean.”
“Oh, well, did he do it?”
“Yeah.”
When Sam was twelve, Dean would sometimes drive him and his friends to the movies or out for burgers. Sam would always sit in the back, no matter how many other kids were back there, and he’d always roll his eyes every time Dean tried to say something cool. Even when his friends thought Sam was lucky to have such an awesome big brother, Sam acted like it was a trial upon his soul to have Dean around.
Ben never acted that way. Even when Dean accidentally slipped into embarrassing dad mode (which came a lot more easily than he’d expected it to), Ben looked at him with adoring eyes. It was crazy, since Dean had completely upset the kid’s life, and being around him should have reminded him of an awful childhood trauma, but there it was. Ben was a lot less spitfire now than the first time Dean had met him, since he was going through the awkwardness of adolescence, but they’d had some good talks.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Lisa echoed. “Have a safe flight. Call me when you land. Tell Sam hi from me. You know, maybe you should bring him around for dinner when you get back. Maybe a time-out will snap him out of whatever’s going on.”
You don’t snap out of hell, Dean thought, but aloud he said only, “Final boarding call,” and hung up just in time to get his ticket from Sam and head down the jetway before they closed the door.
“What’d she want?”
“Just, you know…” Dean shrugged. “I call the aisle seat.”
“No way, I’m taller.”
Since most of the things they needed to do their job, like lighter fluid and matches, weren’t allowed through security, they’d have to stock up after they landed. Between them they only had one carry-on bag, into which Dean had put a Sports Illustrated and two bags of candy and Sam had put a Sudoku book. The bag fit neatly under Dean’s seat, leaving Sam a modicum of space for his freakishly long legs and making Dean feel every bit his bitch in the middle of the row.
The guy on the other side of Dean elbowed him for the armrest. “We are so upgrading to first-class on the way home.”
A woman in a stars and stripes cardigan came down the aisle and tripped over Sam’s leg. She fell forward and only caught herself by grabbing onto his shoulders. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassed, and it was clear when she got a good look at Sam’s face because then she said, “Sor-ry,” again, much slower and louder and with a blush on her face.
As she hurried away, Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, definitely upgrading.”
The flight was long, freezing, and boring, and when he wasn’t actively imagining them plummeting to their death, Dean thought about how Lisa had invited Sam over without even batting an eyelash. Even though he’d told her something was wrong with Sam, she’d opened her home.
Maybe it’ll snap him of it, she’d said, but all Dean could think was how putting the two of them in the same room was a recipe for disaster. Lisa might take one look at that cold glint in Sam’s eyes and realize he was a prime candidate for future serial killer. She might insist Dean dump him. Worse, Sam might tell Lisa what Dean had been up to in his off-hours. It would hurt and confuse her, but mostly it might just make her see how awful Dean really was, and once she knew the depths of his depravity, there was no way she’d ever let him near Ben again.
This thing with Sam couldn’t go on. The situation was un - unattainable? No, that wasn’t the right word. Unterminable? Interminable? Untolerable? Dean glanced over at Sam, who was looking at the half-completed crossword puzzle in the in-flight magazine with contempt.
“Look at forty-nine across. Five letters, ‘Golden Fleece accomplice.’ Guy wrote Jason.”
“And the Argonauts,” Dean helpfully supplied.
“That wouldn’t be an accomplice. It’s Medea, and the ‘m’ goes for ‘manna’ in forty-nine down. ‘Food from heaven.’”
“Oh. What’d he write?”
“‘Juice.’ Idiot.” Sam shook his head and crammed the magazine back into the seat pocket.
He would know what word Dean was searching for. Not that Dean was going to ask.
“Unsustainable,” he said to no one in particular. Yes, that was it. He smiled proudly.
Sam just demanded his Sudoku book.
“This plane has five bathrooms,” Sam said quietly as they ate their tiny portions of chicken and broccoli.
“Okay…”
“So if someone’s in one of them for a long time, people probably wouldn’t notice.”
Dean decided to play dumb. “You need to take a dump?”
“Actually, I had a different purpose in mind.”
Dean didn’t look up from his food. “No.”
“You keep saying that.”
“And I keep meaning it. No.” Seriously, Sam Winchester and the Mile High Club? That was just laughable.
“It’ll keep your mind off the fact that this plane weighs two hundred thousand pounds and is suspended thirty-five thousand feet above ground.”
“Fuck you.” Dean took a few deep breaths while that little reality washed over him. “Still no.”
“Is this because of Lisa?”
Dean refused to respond. He shoved his food away and put his headphones back on, settling in for the second half of Inception. Sam eventually got up and was gone for at least thirty minutes. Dean only hoped Stars and Stripes wasn't the one in the bathroom with him.
The thing about being a Winchester was that you always had to remember that whenever things were going okay, it meant they were going to be shot to hell within five minutes. Because Dean wasn’t stupid, he knew this. Because he was a realist, he usually kept it in mind. But on rare occasions, he just wanted to believe good things could last.
He’d managed to keep everything to the strictly-brotherly throughout their trip to Scotland. Bobby had gotten his soul back from Crowley. They had a new way to kill demons, by burning their bones. He’d driven on the wrong side of the street in a hatchback. It had been a fairly successful trip.
And now he was sitting at a bar next to Sam, sharing drinks like old times, while they scoped the place for vampires.
“When was the last time we had a beer together anyway?”
“We drink beer together every day,” Sam reminded him, his eyes never straying from the crowd.
“Yeah, no, I just…We should do this more often.”
“Hunt vampires?”
“No,” Dean said, refusing to be frustrated by Sam’s post-hell reticence. He waved his bottle. “This. You and me, at a bar, it’s almost like -”
“There,” Sam interrupted. He pointed to a twinky guy on the far side of the bar.
Ten minutes later, Dean found himself shoved backward against a dumpster while a Ron Jeremy lookalike bled into his mouth, and in the distance he could Sam. And Sam - Sam stopped running to watch.
The rest of what happened was a blur, just a tangle of thumping heartbeats and the taste of copper in his mouth, until they were back at their motel room. The lights were too bright, and the clock was ticking too loudly, and Sam - Jesus Christ, Dean wanted to shove him down on the bed. He just couldn’t tell what he wanted to happen after that - if he wanted to tear into Sam’s neck to suck his blood or fuck him senseless. Probably both at the same time.
“Of all the ways to die, I never thought I’d be going out like this.”
“Dean, nobody is going out.”
“You gotta kill me,” Dean insisted.
“Just hold on for one second. Samuel will be here in a few hours.”
“Good, then he can do it because you won’t.”
“Dean,” Sam said, throwing up his hands with exasperation, “nobody needs to kill anybody. Will you just calm down? Samuel said he knew a way as long as you didn’t feed.”
“I can’t - what?” It was hard to concentrate over the whistle of the train that sounded like it was in the hallway or the persistent coughing coming from the guy in the room below them.
“We have to deal with this before I hurt somebody.”
“I’m the only one here, and you’re not going to hurt me.” Sam sounded pretty confident for somebody who looked and smelled like a filet mignon on a silver platter. He steered Dean over to one of the beds. “You just have to sit tight. How does it feel?”
“Now? Now you wanna talk about my feelings? I’m pissed off.”
“No, I mean, physically.”
Dean looked up at Sam, who seemed genuinely curious. Sadistic bastard. “Well, everything you say makes my head hurt, my heart is racing, I’m starving, and I’m pretty sure I’d get arrested if I went anywhere near a playground or an old folks’ home.” He gestured toward his crotch. He didn’t need to look down to know he was sporting a stiffy.
“Well, on the bright side,” Sam said, “wanting that is a lot better than wanting to drink someone’s blood, you know?”
He was actually smiling. Dean slugged him. Sam reeled a few steps, then rubbed his jaw and shook his shoulders out. Dean used the moment to escape.
Driving home was hard, since his foot wanted to push the accelerator all the way to the floor, and since he kept weaving between lanes. Every time a car came from the opposite direction, he had to squeeze his eyes shut to block out the headlights, and just pray that they didn’t collide. He finally managed to make it there in one piece and, hopefully, without hurting anyone.
Lisa was asleep in bed. She looked peaceful, but she also looked about as good as a bacon cheeseburger combo looked after you went without food all day. He had to force his hands to his side so he didn’t grab her.
When she woke up, she could tell something was up right away. “What’s going on?”
“It doesn’t matter. I need you to know - you and Ben - just, thanks. For everything.”
“Dean, you’re scaring me,” she whispered. She moved close enough for him to hear her heartbeat pounding in his ears. He could smell everything - her skin, her shampoo, the dampness between her legs.
He quickly moved away. “I gotta go.”
“No. You can’t just show up here like this and then - ”
“I wish it was different.” He could already feel the extra set of teeth pushing against his gums. He had to get out.
“Just stop and explain to me what’s going on out there,” Lisa demanded. She was only a foot away, and now that she was out of bed, he could see she wasn’t wearing anything other than a tiny tank top and underwear. She reached for him.
Quick as reflex, Dean shoved her up against the wall. Lisa’s heart sped up, and so did her breathing. Dean leaned forward as the teeth poked even harder. He wanted to kiss her and bite her, to fuck her hard while drinking from her.
He tore away from her in shame and ran out into the hall.
He sped back to the motel, fighting every instinct to pull the car over and find someone, anyone. A homeless guy too drunk to realize what was coming. Even a cat would do at this point. He was so hungry, so thirsty, so desperate.
And he was going to die before he’d helped his brother recover. If anything, the last few months with Sam had probably only made him worse. That was his biggest regret.
The first thing Sam asked when he walked back into the room was, “Did you feed?” When Dean hesitated a moment too long before answering, Sam slapped his hand on the table. “Damn it, Dean, did you feed?”
“I went to say goodbye to Lisa. Which, for the record, was a lousy idea.”
“Dean, answer the question.”
“You can relax. I didn’t drink anyone.” Sam sighed in visible relief. “But I came close.” He took off his jacket. “All right. Do it.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your machete?”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Sam insisted, coming forward. He put a hand on Dean’s neck. It stank of cheap soap and sweat. His wrist was only a quick head turn away from Dean’s mouth. The extra teeth once again poked at his gums in anticipation.
“Where’s Samuel?”
“He’s not here yet,” Sam soothed. “It’s going to take him at least another hour.”
“Sam, I can’t - ”
“Shh, it’s okay.”
Dean twisted his face away from his brother as the teeth descended. “I can’t control it,” he tried to say, not yet skilled at talking around them. “You reek. You’re like a walking hamburger.”
“You want to drink me?”
“I want to fuck you. So hard you feel it for days.”
“So do it,” Sam ordered. “Just keep your teeth away.”
If he weren’t a vampire at that moment, things probably would have gone down a lot differently. But he was, and nothing that followed could entirely be called his fault. It wasn’t his fault that Sam’s heart started racing and that he started sweating, giving off pheromones that made Dean want him all the more. It wasn’t his fault that he pushed Sam as hard as he could, and Sam went willingly, let Dean force him first against the wall before they slid down to the floor together and finally climbed up to the bed.
“Dean, Dean,” Sam panted, “you gotta - man, you can do it as rough as you want, but you gotta use lube. If I bleed -”
Dean’s response was only a growl, but he let Sam up to root around in his toiletries case. When Sam returned, Dean decided he didn’t need to be so generous with his patience. Vampires, after all, can’t be expected to make love tenderly. As for Sam, well, he didn’t seem to mind. Not if the way he was writhing and moaning and encouraging Dean along meant anything.
It didn’t sate Dean’s bloodlust entirely, but it definitely took the edge off until Samuel arrived and got him cured.
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