(no subject)
Title: A Sometimes Craving (Part 1/?)
Fandom: Supernatural (Cameos from Vampire Chronicles.)
Prompt: 35 - Sixth Sense
Rating: PG-13, this section
Words: 1500+
Feedback will be welcomed with open arms and warm cookies. I'm still feeling my way around in this fandom. :-)
* * *
“So… snakebites?”
“Snakebites,” Dean confirmed, absently drumming the steering wheel with his thumb. “Three deaths in the last couple months. I’m thinking loa. A demi-god getting too big for its britches, manifesting to scare up some new followers…”
“Could also be snakes,” Sam pointed out.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Sam shook his head and looked out the window. Welcome to New Orleans, white on blue, flanked with fleur de lis. Back in the real world, he’d probably be gearing up for year-end finals. It was a game he played sometimes during the long drives: What Would Stanford Sam Be Doing Now? The amount of detail that he put into the scenarios tended to vary, depending on the length of the drive and Dean’s mood at the time, among other factors.
Whatever the answer, Stanford Sam definitely wouldn’t be cruising into New Orleans at 20mph over the posted limit with a stack of ‘weird death’ newspaper clippings on his lap and all the supernatural implications of snakebites on his mind.
“Thinking deep thoughts?” Dean asked, his eyes flicking from the road over to Sam and back again. “Or are you sulking again?”
“I don’t sulk,” Sam said. “No, you’re right. It’s probably a loa.”
*
“It’s definitely not a loa,” Dean muttered under his breath, looking a little green around the gills.
Sam couldn’t exactly blame him. After his first glance at the body that the coroner had uncovered for them, his own gaze kept darting away despite his best efforts to appear professional. He’d seen enough gore in the last year to fuel a solid dozen slasher flicks, but there was something about looking at a guy who’d obviously been half-devoured in small vicious bites by something (or several somethings) that seemed to prefer the tender bits of a human body…
“Weird, huh?” the coroner said. He folded his arms and leaned against the bare metal gurney behind him.
“We specialize in weird,” Dean assured him with a trust-me grin.
“What do you think happened here?” Sam asked. He couldn’t stop looking at the darkly clotted holes where the corpse’s eyes had been.
The coroner shook his head. “You’re Animal Control. You tell me. I’ve worked here for nine years, seen things you wouldn’t believe… but I’ve never seen bites like this. Look, here on the thigh.” He pointed with a green gloved finger. “This isn’t a puncture. It’s a tear.”
“Maybe they were really hungry snakes,” Dean suggested.
The coroner’s eyebrows rose until it became apparent that Dean had said something dumber than usual.
“We just got transferred here,” Sam explained quickly, “From, uh…”
“From Canada,” Dean threw in helpfully, “Not much with the snakes in Canada.”
There was a collective pause, during which Dean had the good sense to look a little sheepish.
“Try to forget what Hollywood told you for a minute,” the coroner said with a frown, “Snakes this size don’t eat people. They’ll bite if they’re scared, or hurt, or just plain in a pissy mood. But they don’t eat people, and they sure as hell don’t hunt in packs.” He pulled the green sheet briskly back up over the body. “Now if that’s all the help you can give me, I think you boys ought to get out of here. And you can damn well tell Sullivan that this is gonna get serious if the best he can afford to send me is a couple of pasty-faced…”
*
“Beaver specialists,” Dean grumbled, for about the third time since they’d left the morgue.
“You’re the one that said we were from Canada,” said Sam.
“I’ll show him ‘beaver specialists’…”
Leaving Dean to his rant, Sam climbed out of the car to grab their bags from the back. Another mystery, another corpse that was going to need a closed-casket funeral, another crummy motel that would smell like bleach and the things that bleach couldn’t quite hide, another pointless game of Stanford Sam.
“I got that.” Dean tugged his duffle out of Sam’s hand and shut the door. “You go fire up the computer and see if these three are our only victims. And then figure out how they’re connected.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Sam muttered.
Dean sneered. “Dude, you were ready to blow chunks just looking at that guy. If Sammy doesn’t want to hunt the big bad snakies, he gets to shut it and play brains-of-the-operation.”
Sam bit his tongue, not mentioning that Dean had been just as freaked out as him, or that it generally wasn’t a case of taking turns being brains-of-the-operation when it came to him and Dean, in his opinion. “Fine. Whatever,” he said instead, and headed for the motel before things could really turn ugly.
Sam didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him, and that was the frustrating part. He didn’t know why Dean’s usual attitude was grating on him so badly today or why his thoughts suddenly felt too big for his head, like a steady pressure being exerted from the inside of his skull. If he had to guess though, he suspected that it might have something to do with the unshakable feeling of being watched that had been tickling at the back of his neck since they had passed the city limits.
So he brushed it off, hoping that sense of unease would disappear after a decent night’s sleep. (Although he didn’t know it just yet, falling asleep would only cause things to get much much worse.)
*
Who are you? asked the voice that invaded Sam’s restless sleep. I can feel you. Who are you, little dreamer?
Sam fumbled, shudder-stumbled, wobbled on dream-drunk legs. He definitely didn’t want the owner of that voice to find him.
(One little change…)
There was a flash and it felt like a vision, hurt like a vision. He had his mouth open against the soft skin where Dean’s shoulder curved up to his neck and he was sucking, greedily pulling hot blood into his mouth. Dean’s hair was prickly under his palm as he roughly tilted his brother’s head for better access to the column of his throat, and he could feel the rapid thud of Dean’s heart against his own chest like it was knocking to be let in, let in, let in.
(One little change and Dean is Dead.)
I know you’re there. I know you can hear me. Such a powerful boy and, oh, so sweet…
Then there were blue-grey eyes, almost violet, and they saw him. Sam shrunk away from their stare, mentally cringing from that too-loud voice, still licking the blood off his lips.
(One little change and Dean is Dead, and Sam will be Sad.)
Sam jerked awake in a cold sweat and there was an absolutely horrifying second before he realized that the blood in his mouth was his own. He’d bitten through his lip. He pressed his hand to his chest like it could get his pounding heart to slow down. A quick glance to the left revealed Dean still dozing away peacefully, sprawled and dead to the w…
“Dean?” Sam whispered urgently, stumbling to his feet and lurching across the space between their beds. “Dean? Dean?” He barked his shins hard on the edge of the bed and pitched forward, hands outstretched.
Dean grabbed his wrist, moving on instinct. “Whuzzis?” he slurred, sitting up. “Sammy? What’s wrong?”
There wasn’t much light coming in through the slated blinds, but enough to see that Dean didn’t have a single mark on him. I just woke up my 27-year-old big brother because I had a scary dream, Sam realized with a giddy kind of horror.
“Um,” he said, tugging out of Dean’s grasp. “Sorry. I… I guess I had a nightmare.”
Back before Stanford Sam turned into Hunter Sam, a confession like that would’ve brought teasing beyond measure down on his head. As it was, Dean just scrubbed his hand over his face, looking bleary but serious.
“Anything we should be worried about?” Dean asked.
Sam shook his head, choking with embarrassment and already trying to slink back to his own bed. “I’m pretty sure it was just a dream. False alarm. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Dean mumbled with a half-yawn, readjusting his pillow before flopping over to bury his face in it.
Sam silently cursed himself, lying down again although the adrenaline coursing through his body meant that sleep would be a long time in coming. He ran his tongue over his bitten lip, tasting the salt sharpness there. Since when did a dream hurt so bad that it made him bite through his own lip? And that voice had sounded more than a little real. As a matter of fact, it had sounded like the speaker had been standing right over his bed, leaning down to whisper into his ear.
There was a low snore from Dean’s side of the room and Sam sighed. It was just a stupid dream. They’d solve this snake thing and get the hell out of New Orleans, and everything would go back to…
Normal.
‘Normal’ wasn’t something that Sam wished for all the time, and never as fervently as he’d prayed for it during his first couple months on the road with Dean. It was just a sometimes craving; one that he wasn’t sure would ever go away completely.
* * *
(To be continued, soon.)
Fandom: Supernatural (Cameos from Vampire Chronicles.)
Prompt: 35 - Sixth Sense
Rating: PG-13, this section
Words: 1500+
Feedback will be welcomed with open arms and warm cookies. I'm still feeling my way around in this fandom. :-)
* * *
“So… snakebites?”
“Snakebites,” Dean confirmed, absently drumming the steering wheel with his thumb. “Three deaths in the last couple months. I’m thinking loa. A demi-god getting too big for its britches, manifesting to scare up some new followers…”
“Could also be snakes,” Sam pointed out.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Sam shook his head and looked out the window. Welcome to New Orleans, white on blue, flanked with fleur de lis. Back in the real world, he’d probably be gearing up for year-end finals. It was a game he played sometimes during the long drives: What Would Stanford Sam Be Doing Now? The amount of detail that he put into the scenarios tended to vary, depending on the length of the drive and Dean’s mood at the time, among other factors.
Whatever the answer, Stanford Sam definitely wouldn’t be cruising into New Orleans at 20mph over the posted limit with a stack of ‘weird death’ newspaper clippings on his lap and all the supernatural implications of snakebites on his mind.
“Thinking deep thoughts?” Dean asked, his eyes flicking from the road over to Sam and back again. “Or are you sulking again?”
“I don’t sulk,” Sam said. “No, you’re right. It’s probably a loa.”
*
“It’s definitely not a loa,” Dean muttered under his breath, looking a little green around the gills.
Sam couldn’t exactly blame him. After his first glance at the body that the coroner had uncovered for them, his own gaze kept darting away despite his best efforts to appear professional. He’d seen enough gore in the last year to fuel a solid dozen slasher flicks, but there was something about looking at a guy who’d obviously been half-devoured in small vicious bites by something (or several somethings) that seemed to prefer the tender bits of a human body…
“Weird, huh?” the coroner said. He folded his arms and leaned against the bare metal gurney behind him.
“We specialize in weird,” Dean assured him with a trust-me grin.
“What do you think happened here?” Sam asked. He couldn’t stop looking at the darkly clotted holes where the corpse’s eyes had been.
The coroner shook his head. “You’re Animal Control. You tell me. I’ve worked here for nine years, seen things you wouldn’t believe… but I’ve never seen bites like this. Look, here on the thigh.” He pointed with a green gloved finger. “This isn’t a puncture. It’s a tear.”
“Maybe they were really hungry snakes,” Dean suggested.
The coroner’s eyebrows rose until it became apparent that Dean had said something dumber than usual.
“We just got transferred here,” Sam explained quickly, “From, uh…”
“From Canada,” Dean threw in helpfully, “Not much with the snakes in Canada.”
There was a collective pause, during which Dean had the good sense to look a little sheepish.
“Try to forget what Hollywood told you for a minute,” the coroner said with a frown, “Snakes this size don’t eat people. They’ll bite if they’re scared, or hurt, or just plain in a pissy mood. But they don’t eat people, and they sure as hell don’t hunt in packs.” He pulled the green sheet briskly back up over the body. “Now if that’s all the help you can give me, I think you boys ought to get out of here. And you can damn well tell Sullivan that this is gonna get serious if the best he can afford to send me is a couple of pasty-faced…”
*
“Beaver specialists,” Dean grumbled, for about the third time since they’d left the morgue.
“You’re the one that said we were from Canada,” said Sam.
“I’ll show him ‘beaver specialists’…”
Leaving Dean to his rant, Sam climbed out of the car to grab their bags from the back. Another mystery, another corpse that was going to need a closed-casket funeral, another crummy motel that would smell like bleach and the things that bleach couldn’t quite hide, another pointless game of Stanford Sam.
“I got that.” Dean tugged his duffle out of Sam’s hand and shut the door. “You go fire up the computer and see if these three are our only victims. And then figure out how they’re connected.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Sam muttered.
Dean sneered. “Dude, you were ready to blow chunks just looking at that guy. If Sammy doesn’t want to hunt the big bad snakies, he gets to shut it and play brains-of-the-operation.”
Sam bit his tongue, not mentioning that Dean had been just as freaked out as him, or that it generally wasn’t a case of taking turns being brains-of-the-operation when it came to him and Dean, in his opinion. “Fine. Whatever,” he said instead, and headed for the motel before things could really turn ugly.
Sam didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him, and that was the frustrating part. He didn’t know why Dean’s usual attitude was grating on him so badly today or why his thoughts suddenly felt too big for his head, like a steady pressure being exerted from the inside of his skull. If he had to guess though, he suspected that it might have something to do with the unshakable feeling of being watched that had been tickling at the back of his neck since they had passed the city limits.
So he brushed it off, hoping that sense of unease would disappear after a decent night’s sleep. (Although he didn’t know it just yet, falling asleep would only cause things to get much much worse.)
*
Who are you? asked the voice that invaded Sam’s restless sleep. I can feel you. Who are you, little dreamer?
Sam fumbled, shudder-stumbled, wobbled on dream-drunk legs. He definitely didn’t want the owner of that voice to find him.
(One little change…)
There was a flash and it felt like a vision, hurt like a vision. He had his mouth open against the soft skin where Dean’s shoulder curved up to his neck and he was sucking, greedily pulling hot blood into his mouth. Dean’s hair was prickly under his palm as he roughly tilted his brother’s head for better access to the column of his throat, and he could feel the rapid thud of Dean’s heart against his own chest like it was knocking to be let in, let in, let in.
(One little change and Dean is Dead.)
I know you’re there. I know you can hear me. Such a powerful boy and, oh, so sweet…
Then there were blue-grey eyes, almost violet, and they saw him. Sam shrunk away from their stare, mentally cringing from that too-loud voice, still licking the blood off his lips.
(One little change and Dean is Dead, and Sam will be Sad.)
Sam jerked awake in a cold sweat and there was an absolutely horrifying second before he realized that the blood in his mouth was his own. He’d bitten through his lip. He pressed his hand to his chest like it could get his pounding heart to slow down. A quick glance to the left revealed Dean still dozing away peacefully, sprawled and dead to the w…
“Dean?” Sam whispered urgently, stumbling to his feet and lurching across the space between their beds. “Dean? Dean?” He barked his shins hard on the edge of the bed and pitched forward, hands outstretched.
Dean grabbed his wrist, moving on instinct. “Whuzzis?” he slurred, sitting up. “Sammy? What’s wrong?”
There wasn’t much light coming in through the slated blinds, but enough to see that Dean didn’t have a single mark on him. I just woke up my 27-year-old big brother because I had a scary dream, Sam realized with a giddy kind of horror.
“Um,” he said, tugging out of Dean’s grasp. “Sorry. I… I guess I had a nightmare.”
Back before Stanford Sam turned into Hunter Sam, a confession like that would’ve brought teasing beyond measure down on his head. As it was, Dean just scrubbed his hand over his face, looking bleary but serious.
“Anything we should be worried about?” Dean asked.
Sam shook his head, choking with embarrassment and already trying to slink back to his own bed. “I’m pretty sure it was just a dream. False alarm. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Dean mumbled with a half-yawn, readjusting his pillow before flopping over to bury his face in it.
Sam silently cursed himself, lying down again although the adrenaline coursing through his body meant that sleep would be a long time in coming. He ran his tongue over his bitten lip, tasting the salt sharpness there. Since when did a dream hurt so bad that it made him bite through his own lip? And that voice had sounded more than a little real. As a matter of fact, it had sounded like the speaker had been standing right over his bed, leaning down to whisper into his ear.
There was a low snore from Dean’s side of the room and Sam sighed. It was just a stupid dream. They’d solve this snake thing and get the hell out of New Orleans, and everything would go back to…
Normal.
‘Normal’ wasn’t something that Sam wished for all the time, and never as fervently as he’d prayed for it during his first couple months on the road with Dean. It was just a sometimes craving; one that he wasn’t sure would ever go away completely.
* * *
(To be continued, soon.)