Title: Blood
Author: Huggle
Rating: Mature
Genre/pairing: Benny/Sam
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Benny Lafitte
Word count: circa 1760
Summary: When Dean finds out that Sam didn't really search for him during his time in Purgatory, Sam thinks he can rebuild their relationship. He thinks he can make it up to his big brother. Unfortunately, Dean has the same idea - just a different way for Sam to go about it.
Spoilers: season 7 set so none
Warnings: dark!Dean, rape, non-con drugging & blood drinking & touching, imprisonment, hurt no comfort, suffocation, ill!Sam, helplessness, hopelessness, ambiguous ending that might be triggery
Disclaimer: SPN isn't mine.
There are things Dean isn’t telling him.
Sam figures he shouldn’t be surprised. The moment he opened up, Dean shut down, and he wonders what he honestly expected. Dean went to Hell for him, and he casually admitted he gave up searching for him after a couple of minutes.
Oh, it wasn’t that simple, but he can see that to Dean it was.
He gave up - whether it was after a day or a month or a year, the fact that he stopped searching is all that matters.
He doesn’t give up now, though. He cooks for Dean - badly. He brings him beer, and cleans out his wounds, and tries to soothe him during the bad dreams that have him screaming one name in fear and anguish.
A name that isn’t his, a name that leaves Sam sobbing quietly while Dean settles, because he didn’t get all his family back. And that’s one of the things Dean isn’t telling him.
What happened. Why… Why he only made it back alone.
But soon there are other things. Phone calls that Dean needs to take outside, or rejects without answering if Sam’s too close or they’re in the middle of an interview. Odd absences, sometimes for a few hours and twice for a whole day, with no explanation offered although Sam does ask.
Not demandingly, just… He’s worried, he wants to make this right, but it’s like Dean hates him now and he’s handling it in typical Dean fashion, by keeping Sam close enough to guard but far enough away to punish.
If this is how things will be, Sam will take it. It’s enough - it will be enough to have him back. And if he owes penance then he’ll pay it.
He has no idea that Dean has that same idea in mind.
**
“Here,” Dean says, and sets the beer down in front of him.
Sam startles, because it’s the first time in days that Dean’s spoken to him when it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
And on top of that…the beer.
Sam almost can’t take it. He watches Dean sit down across the table, nursing his own drink, watching him.
Like Dean isn’t sure if he’s destroyed any chance of finding their bond again.
Sam picks up the bottle and drains half of it in one go.
“We could order pizza,” he says, and it’s lame, but he’s needed this so badly and he was sure Dean would hold him at arm’s length for forever.
“Finish that first,” Dean insists. He takes a small gulp of his own.
Eager, Sam does. His throat feels parched, and the beer a little frothier than usual. And it goes to his head fast, but then he hasn’t eaten all day, and to be honest he’s probably just giddy that Dean’s giving him another chance here.
But by the time the bottle’s empty, he’s starts to feel hot. His stomach aches and there’s a dull pressure building in his head.
“Dean, I don’t feel so good,” he says, but his words come out slurred and low.
Dean gets up, but he doesn’t come over. “I know, Sam, I know. Just don’t fight it, ok?”
Sam starts to slide down the chair. He ends up sitting on the floor, only the chair keeping him upright. All he can do is stare up at his brother, and try to get his head around what’s so obviously happened.
But he can’t. Not because he’s sick. Not because it feels like someone’s wrapping his head in plastic, making it hard to see and hear and breathe.
No, he can’t because there is no way it’s possible.
No.
**
Benny, Dean tells him, is the reason he made it out of Purgatory alive.
Sam learns more about the vampire in the next two weeks than he needs to know. He learns that Benny was turned against his will, many years ago, and then killed by his sire. He learns that he sought Dean out in that damned place, and helped him - reluctantly - find their angel.
Then they lost him again, and Sam watches Benny’s sly, slow movements and wonders if that was misfortune or design.
But when Benny’s teeth puncture his skin, when he feels the hot pain of his blood being sucked out, when he can feel Benny swallowing, all he can think of then is that Dean didn’t make it out of Purgatory.
Something might have, but it isn’t his brother.
His brother wouldn’t be keeping him drugged, restrained and helpless for a vampire to use as a blood bank.
His brother wouldn’t gag him every time Bobby calls, and find excuses and reasons why Sam can’t come to the phone, why Bobby can’t come by - when it’s his damn cabin - and why they can’t come to him.
No. That isn’t Dean.
Sometimes, when Sam’s entire body is a mess of sluggishly healing bites, Dean will set up a bag and some tubing and drain off a pint or so. It’s become so much more effective than the drugging to use blood loss to keep him weak, and it stops that bastard complaining that the blood tastes 'funny’.
Sam hopes he chokes on it. He wonders if there’s a way he can concoct something to take so that the next time Benny drinks, the taste will be the least of his worries.
But they watch him all the time, and he isn’t strong enough to walk most days.
No. If he’s getting out of here, he’s going to need help.
But their angel is gone. Bobby seems to be somehow convinced they’ve mended their broken fences and that Sam’s just permanently too busy to come to the phone.
There is no one else who’d care enough to save him.
**
It doesn’t go beyond feeding until Dean drives out one afternoon, whining about cabin fever and a need for some company prettier than the prize specimens he’s currently sharing accommodation with.
Sam’s been waiting for it. He knows the close link between feeding and sex, the forced intimacy. He’s felt it, when Dean’s back was turned, and Benny’s reaction was so apparent as he pressed every inch of himself against Sam while he drank.
And he kids himself for a few seconds that he actually has half a chance. Despite his arms and legs trembling with the effort of standing, the nausea that burns up into his throat, the fact that he has no weapon.
But it ends like he supposes he knew it would. Benny shoving him face down onto the bed, drawing blood with the rough heaving motion, muttering something under his breath until all Sam can hear is his heartbeat pounding because he can’t breathe.
Then Benny grabs his hair and hauls his head back enough so he doesn’t suffocate before shoving him back down again.
When it’s done, Benny leaves him there. Sam doesn’t know he’s been bitten again until he feels blood running down his throat.
He wants to move, to haul his pants up and get off the damn bed, find a blade and take Benny’s head.
But all he can do is lie there, and he’s still there when Dean comes back.
Surely, Sam thinks, surely this will be that step too far. He watches Dean as he comes in, stops sharp and stares.
Benny gets up slowly, and Sam can feel the sudden tension. The vampire’s worried.
“This gonna be a problem, brother?”
Dean’s gaze shifts from Sam and his next words hurt worse than anything he’s endured so far. Than everything.
“Just save it for when I’m not here. Cover him the fuck up, dude.”
Benny chuckles, and tugs the sheet out roughly from under Sam. He tosses it clumsily over him, and then goes back to sit with Dean.
Sam passes out finally, to the sound of small talk and laughter.
**
Maybe a month after Sam woke up to find a vampire fastened on his neck, and realised his brother was calmly watching, he spikes a fever.
It’s high and he feels like he’s boiling alive. They run him a bath and fill it with water as cold as they can get and strip him and dump him in. Dean’s meticulous in cleaning out the bites - not the other damage though, the damage Dean pretends doesn’t exist and so does nothing about - but Sam figures a few got infected and the pilfered meds they’ve stuffed him with have done no good at all.
So yay for anti-biotic resistance, he thinks, drunkenly, as they haul him out and dump him on a sheet on the floor.
He shivers as he stares up at them, wondering if maybe he’ll get out of this without help after all. He’d have preferred to take Benny with him, but sometimes you have to settle for what you can get.
That’s when he hears someone thumping at the door.
Dean curses and starts towards it, hesitating only when he seems to remember his naked brother is lying helpless on the floor. He tugs the bathroom door over, mutters something to Benny, and then goes to see who it is.
A couple of moments pass, and Sam can see Benny getting antsy.
But what can he do? Stay here, he doesn’t know what’s happening. Go out, and risk giving away their horrible little secret.
Sam thinks about crying out, but he doesn’t know who’s out there, and if it’s friend not foe, or an innocent party, that person will be dead soon after. Or worse, they’ll share Sam’s fate.
Or replace me, he thinks, because he has a feeling that he’s probably not going to make it through the night.
The door swings open suddenly, and Benny snarls. Something whistles through the air, and though Sam’s too weak now to turn his head, he hears something thud to the floor. Then something heavier follows.
He grins stupidly. He’s heard many a body fall in his time, and he knows exactly what that was.
Then someone’s leaning over him, blocking out the meagre light from the dull bulb. He can’t make out their features - damn, it’s dark - but there’s something familiar.
“Damn it, boy,” the man says. “Get the hell over here.”
I am here, he wants to protest, but the man’s looking back so Sam figures he’s addressing someone else.
Not that it matters, he thinks. It’s over, one way or the other.
“Thanks,” he whispers, and even that drains him. It’s colder than ever and he can’t really see anything now.
“Sam? Sam, damn it, don’t you-“