A Skill Hell Hath Trained | Part 3 (B)
Title: A Skill Hell Hath Trained
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 7,224
Pairing: Sam/Dean
[ Part Three (B) ]
Sam should have been prepared, because it wasn’t as if Dean hadn’t given him fair warning. Still, he wasn’t expecting to be slammed against their motel room door as soon as he’d pushed it closed. Dean pressed his body along Sam’s side and buried his nose into Sam’s collarbone, breathing deep. “I can smell you too, you know.”
Sam’s eyes dropped closed as he took a steadying breath. “Dean.”
Dean grinned, victory and amusement lighting his eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t been watching me, either. Ever since I shifted at Bobby’s.” His warm breath puffed over Sam’s neck and Sam could feel Dean’s lips ghosting, open mouthed and barely there, across his skin. “Come on, Sammy. I know you want it.”
“I don’t…” Sam choked down his words and turned his face away, his jaw flexing as he did his best to keep his body still as Dean rolled his hips into him.
“What?”
“I’m not using you,” Sam insisted. “I’m not like them. I’m not doing that.”
Dean stepped back and frowned. “Who said anything about using me?”
“You wouldn’t be offering otherwise,” Sam said, his brows pinching together as he tried to put his thoughts together into words that could actually convey some sort of meaning. “I mean all of this, why you went with me when we left Bobby’s, the hunting. Tell me that hasn’t been at least a little bit because you feel obligated.”
“I thought you said you didn’t expect some sort of repayment.”
“I don’t!”
Dean shrugged. “Then why should I feel obligated? I’m not some chick feeling all pressured into putting out. If I didn’t want to be here, I’d leave.” Sam could sense that it was true, too. “I was hunting before I ever ran into Wandell, and I’d be hunting without you. Don’t overcomplicate things.”
“I just,” Sam sighed. “I feel like I’d be taking advantage.”
Dean grinned, a shrewd, wolfish expression. “Of what?”
“Of you!”
“You didn’t force me to come with you. I’m charm-free, compulsion-free and collar-free. Anything I’m doing is because I want it, so go right ahead Sam,” he said, his voice suddenly dropping low and rough, his pupils blown wide as he stepped closer again and added, “Take advantage.”
Sam gave up and gave in, his hands reaching up to grip either side of Dean’s head and draw him in for a wet, hard kiss, letting all the heat and excitement and the sheer want that he’d been fighting ever since he’d seen Dean savor a piece of bacon, pour into Dean’s mouth. His kiss was a challenge, demanding with a scrape of teeth, ‘I want this and more’, a flick of tongue asking ‘are you sure? Last chance’, and always Dean pressed back just as hard, like he wanted it as much as Sam did, like he’d been thinking about it just as long.
They staggered backwards toward the bed, their hands pulling off jackets and the button-down shirts they’d each been wearing, kicking off shoes and socks as they moved. Dean growled as they toppled down onto the covers, nipping at Sam’s thumb as he ghosted it over his lips. “We could have been doing this months ago,” he said, voice breathless. “You and your goddamned sense of propriety.”
“My what?” Sam asked breathily, but his mind had already moved ahead, attached Dean’s words to thousands of images: Dean pulling off his shirt under the warmth of the sun, leaning over the Impala his body unnecessarily pressed close to Sam’s, the devilish sideways glances he always flashed Sam’s way when he downed a beer like he was thinking of wrapping his lips around something else. “You fucking tease.”
“It’s not a tease if you intend to follow-through,” Dean said, looking up from beneath his lashes. “I kept waiting for you to make a move, but you’re such a damned prude, I finally figured if I didn’t do something we’d be waiting forever.”
“Dean,” Sam said, his tongue laving down the other man’s throat before he sucked a bruised into Dean’s freckled skin. “Shut up.” Dean grinned, then gripped the back of Sam’s T-shirt, jerking it up and over Sam’s head, leaving him no choice but to raise his arms and let the shirt be worked off his body.
Dean tossed it away and moved onto Sam’s jeans, pulling open his belt before nudging the jeans and the boxers underneath down the curve of Sam’s ass. Sam smirked at the other man’s heavy-lidded expression, his fingers worked Dean’s belt loose as he dropped his mouth Dean’s hip, lingering only momentarily before turning his attention to tugging Dean free of his shirt, licking and nipping at every inch of exposed flesh he discovered.
“I didn’t think you wanted this,” he found himself saying, between bites. “You flirted with enough waitresses along the way.”
“Flirting’s one thing,” Dean panted. “Fucking’s another.”
Sam dropped the T-shirt off the edge of the bed and started working Dean free of his jeans. “S’that what we’re doing?” he wondered as the jeans and boxer-briefs went the same way as the rest of their clothes.
A hand fisted gently in his hair, and Sam followed it up until he was looking into Dean’s eyes. “Sam,” Dean said. “Shut up.” He kissed fiercely, and Sam felt like he was devouring and being devoured, their touches more than a little desperate and hungry.
It made him think of the wolf he had seen early that day, lunging and snarling, growling low and deep in its throat and sounding not unlike Dean did right then, as Sam shifted down the lean stretch of Dean’s body and took him into his mouth in a single movement.
“Sam,” Dean murmured. “Sam.” His hands laced in Sam’s hair, not holding him down or forcing his movement, but resting there warm and reassuring, and Sam sucked a little harder, his own hips pressing down into the mattress until suddenly Dean’s grip changed, passing out of Sam’s peripheral vision as it groped in the direction of the nightstand.
“You sure about this?” Dean asked a moment later, he grunted as Sam sucked harder again and then pulled back to work his cock with his tongue. “Last chance to change your mind, Sammy.”
“I hate it when you call me that.”
Dean grinned, tipped his head back until all Sam could see was the broad curve of his mouth, the bright flash of Dean’s teeth as he smiled. “You love it.” Which was embarrassingly true, the nickname that had haunted him since he was a kid somehow sounding entirely different when it fell from Dean’s lips.
Dean silenced any retort he might have made as he tightened his legs around Sam’s side and grabbed hold of his upper arms, and suddenly Sam found himself on his back, pinned beneath Dean’s body.
“Jesus,” Sam said, a bolt of lust hitting him at the maneuver. Dean dropped the bottle of lubricant he had retrieved from the nightstand Sam’s his chest, quirking up an eyebrow, and Sam swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he said. “Hell yeah.”
He watched as Dean shifted away and knelt up, one hand flipping the tube of slick open and spilling it into the other, then his hand disappeared behind him and Sam groaned. “Let me,” he said. “Come on, Dean, let me.”
Dean didn’t listen, instead dropping forward to press his mouth against Sam’s, his tongue working into Sam’s mouth the same way his fingers moved into his own ass. Sam could feel the way he rolled his hips in time with the stretch. He tried to get a grip on the lubricant, wanting nothing more than to work his own fingers into Dean, but the other man pushed it out of reach and, a moment later, knelt up again, shifting forward.
Sam dropped a hand to the sharp jut of Dean’s hip just as he realized what Dean was about to do, and then Dean was sinking down onto his cock, the tight-hot-heat circling him and swallowing him down. Sam’s eyes dropped closed and his head tipped back and he moaned low and broken as Dean rolled his hips first one way, and then the other, picking up a rhythm that was tortuously slow.
“Harder,” Sam begged. “Please.” But Dean was as much of a contrary bastard in bed as he was outside of it and only jerked his hips in tiny movements that had Sam biting his lip so hard it bled, pausing every once in a while so that Sam was almost completely unsheathed before sinking down oh so slowly and taking him down to the quick. Dean’s eyes were heavy lidded and his mouth was quirked up in the corner, he didn’t bend forward when Sam sought a kiss, just rocked maddeningly above him, driving Sam into pleasurable agony.
“You sonofabitch,” Sam snarled, wrapping his hand around Dean’s wrist. “Don’t you dare go easy on me.” Dean blinked open his eyes and met his gaze, the movements of his hip stuttering, he glanced at the hand he held braced against Sam’s sternum, at Sam’s fingers wrapped around Dean’s wrist.
Caught up in the open and surprisingly vulnerable expression on the other man’s face, Sam found a growl rumbling up from somewhere deep inside of him. His desperation overpowered any reluctance or hesitation he might have had and he rolled Dean under him, pressed him down hard, one hand drawing Dean’s leg up, pressing it around his waist. “You want me to let go, Dean?” he asked as he sucked a bruise into Dean’s throat. “You first.”
He set a new pace, a slow withdrawal and hard push that had Dean tipping his head back, his mouth open as he gasped. His hands gripped Sam’s shoulder, then his nails scraped down his back, an aching burn from shoulder to the round of his ass that had Sam thrusting in hard.
Dean was right - it was fucking, and it was teeth and nails too, with fierce kisses that were deep and unrelenting. Sam was sweat-soaked and praying for release and for it to never end, and when he wrapped a hand around Dean’s cock the other man bowed like lightning, a broken shout slipping from his mouth as he came, clenching down around Sam so hard that he shattered too, his vision going black, his body slumping forward, every part of him sated.
Sam opened his eyes some time just before morning and realized with a flush of embarrassment that they had left the blinds open. They were in a corner room at the end of the second floor balcony of the motel, but he still hoped no one had taken it into their head to walk by; they certainly would have gotten an eyeful. “Where’re you going?” Dean murmured, sleep-heavy and bleary.
“Just closing the blinds.” He slid out from under the covers, stopping by the window as the tentative grey of morning cast enough light to see Dean sprawled on the bed, his lashes fanned against his cheeks, features smooth and relaxed in easy sleep.
He was beautiful, and Sam didn’t mind thinking it. A giddy, happy thrum went through him - Dean was his somehow, and maybe it had taken longer than it had needed to, and maybe Sam had spent more time worrying than the situation apparently warranted, but he didn’t care.
He let the blinds drop, shutting out the light and staggered back to bed, sliding beneath the covers until his body was pressed, back-to-chest, with Dean, his arm snaking out to press Dean closer still. Dean hummed in sleepy satisfaction without bothering to wake up, and Sam let his eyes fall closed, breathed in the scent of them, still hanging heavy in the air, and went back to sleep.
By mutual, though unspoken, agreement they by-passed South Dakota. Dean found a hunt in Illinois, and they pulled onto the road and for the most part, it was like nothing had changed.
They fell into it so easily that Sam felt almost awkward about it, wondering if they shouldn’t have some sort of talk. He was happy with the sex, and he was happy with the hunting and the companionship, but sex was notorious for making things complicated, and Sam wondered if maybe he should make certain he hadn’t put an expiration date on whatever they’d had before as a result. He couldn’t imagine parting ways with Dean; didn’t want to think about returning to hunting on his own. The trouble was that Sam wanted Dean to himself, wanted them to be exclusive, and he wasn’t sure if Dean was wholly on board with that, if maybe the other man wouldn’t consider it too much too soon, or too much at all.
“So how do you kill a ghoul,” Dean said, looking up from the text he’d been reading. “Hey, what are you, asleep or something?”
“Naw, I’m listening,” Sam said, pushing his other thoughts away to focus on the hunt. “Ghouls are immune to holy water and silver. The only thing that kills them is decapitation.”
“Lovely,” Dean said, gagging both visibly and audibly. “So lets go decapitate this son-of-a-bitch.”
Sam smiled at the other man’s enthusiasm, and then hid it quickly, feeling like some sort of stroppy heroine. He fixed a slight frown on his face instead, hoping that Dean hadn’t noticed. “We sure that Samantha Little is a ghoul?”
Dean shot him an utterly bland expression. “If you’d smelled her, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question.”
Sam raised his hands up. “Okay, but just so you know, they tend to stick together, which means it’s unlikely that there’s just the one.”
There were, in fact, four. Dean took down the ghoul masquerading as Samantha Little, and Sam killed the one that tried to eat Dean as a result. Then they both had to turn and run when a third one dropped down on them from above, where it had been hanging from a chandelier.
Sam got to listen to Dean rant about how absolutely absurd the hunt was turning out to be as they ran from both the third ghoul and the fourth, who was armed with a freaking cordless reciprocating saw, the sight of which had initially made them laugh. They’d quickly changed their tune.
“I hate ghouls,” Dean said as they ducked down an alley.
“Come here.” Sam dragged him behind a dumpster, their back pressed against the cool green metal as they listened, the steady whir of the saw growing louder as the ghouls approached.
“He reeks,” Dean whispered.
“Be quiet.”
They waited and the whir got louder. Dean nudged Sam in the side and raised an eyebrow, and Sam stepped out from behind the dumpster and swung his machete in a clean arch, whisking the ghoul’s head clean off.
The last ghoul snarled and leaped forward, and Sam readied himself to swing his blade again when the sound of a gunshot ripped through quiet. Sam found himself falling sideways as Dean yanked him solidly back behind the dumpster.
“Who the fuck is shooting?” Dean hissed.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see,” Sam said, shifting so he was tucked closer to the metal and the wall, the movement shoving Dean further against the brick wall, out of the range of fire. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously.” Dean peaked up over the lip of the trashcan and a bullet thumped into the metal.
Sam let out a breath. “Okay, they’re definitely trying to hit us.”
“Ya think?” Dean muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and down his neck, undoubtedly checking to see if the bullet had grazed him and he simply hadn’t noticed.
Sam set his machete aside, pulling his own gun from his jeans and resting his thumb against the safety. “Who have we pissed off lately?”
Dean raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “In the mid-town area?”
Sam rolled his eyes, shifting closer to toward the alley so he could peak out, looking in the direction he’d estimated the shots must have come from. From the third level of the parking garage that fronted on the alley, Sam saw a familiar figure heft his gun and take another shot. Sam ducked back behind their cover. “Shit, it’s Gordon Walker.”
“Gordon?” Dean looked more than a little surprised at the news.
“How did you not smell him?”
“Have I mentioned lately that ghouls stink?”
“What the fuck do we do?” Sam said, tipping his head back against the green metal. “He’s shooting at us. I didn’t think he was that crazy.”
Dean shot him a wry look. “The dude is a sadistic sonofabitch, and you didn’t think he was crazy enough to try to kill us?”
Sam shrugged because, yeah, he really hadn’t considered it that way. Now they were pinned down in the middle of an alley, and the man was armed and firing on them. Any of the ideas he was coming up with about escape put them at too high a risk of being shot to be worth it. Sam briefly considered if it might be best to wait until Gordon ran out of bullets, but the man likely had more guns with him than the one he was currently firing at them. Hell, he was probably hunkered down right by the trunk of his car, which meant he had an entire arsenal at his disposal, and Sam had only his own 9mm and no extra bullets. He and Dean both had their machetes, but Sam didn’t want it to come to that.
They were screwed.
Dean flipped his machete around in his hand and let out a breath. “Okay, so, who do you think Gordon wants to kill more, you or me?”
“No offense,” Sam said. “But I’m not entirely sure he’d know who you are. You’re a little less hairy than the last time he saw you.”
Dean nodded. “Well, that settles it. I’ll draw him off and you get out of here. I’ll meet you back at the motel.”
“Are you crazy, that’s not…” but Dean was out and running, swiping the head of the ghoul who had been stumbling around a little confused clean off its shoulders, and then hopping up onto the railing of the first floor of the parking garage in a single bound, and from there disappearing inside, all the while Gordon firing shots but never hitting home. Sam didn’t wait to see what happened next. He turned around and ran.
Sam was on Dean as soon as he walked through the door, his hands running over him and confirming what his eyes had already told him: that the man was unhurt. “You’re insane,” Sam snarled, his voice low and hoarse. “What were thinking, taking off like that?”
“That I’m faster than you, and Gordon had less of a reason to shoot me.” Dean pulled of his jacket and removed the holster that held his machete off, dropping it onto table.
“I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid.”
“Don’t yell at me just because you didn’t think of it first,” Dean said. Sam flexed his jaw and clenched his fists. “The question is, what the hell does Gordon want?”
“Apparently,” Sam said. “He wants to shoot someone.” Dean rolled his eyes and headed further into the room, but Sam caught hold of his shirt and dragged him back. “Don’t do that again.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sam slammed him back when he tried to move off, but Dean’s expression was as calm and as inflexible as steel. “I’m not making a promise I don’t intend to keep. Bottom line, I am faster, Sam. We were pinned and you know it. If I needed to, I could have turned wolf and gotten away even quicker. Whatever the hell this is, stow it. I’m not in the mood.” He pushed Sam off and paced away.
“I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.” Dean stopped abruptly at the words, and turned somewhat wide eyes to him. Sam forced himself to continue. “I don’t want you getting hurt at all.”
He wondered if Dean could hear all the things he meant and couldn’t say, and thought that maybe he could, because Dean stepped forward and kissed him, soft at first, and then bruising. “No,” Sam said, bracing a hand gently against his chest. “It’s fine, I’m just saying…”
“You want to hug it out or something?”
Sam realized that his whole body was thrumming. The adrenaline of the hunt merging with the full-on terror that Dean was going to get shot right in front of him, made all the worse by Dean bullheadedly running out into the line of fire. It felt good to have the man in his arms, felt right and took the edge off. Maybe a hug would have settled him too, but this was better. He lowered his mouth to Dean’s and closed his eyes.
They were standing a few paces from the door, their arms around each other, their hands smoothing over thin cotton shirts, pressing against skin, ruffling hair; angling heads, sparring tongues and exchanged breath, slow and staggering. Sam’s heart stutter-stopping as his mind thought ‘Dean Dean Dean’ and not much else.
They were half naked and caught-up in each other, Sam lowering Dean down and crawling on top of him. Dean blinked open too-green eyes and smiled a little, rested a hand against the side of Sam’s neck. Sam traced his fingers along Dean’s collarbone, pressed a kiss to a bruise already darkening the skin from a lucky hit courtesy of one of the ghouls and meant, ‘I just want to keep you safe’.
Their tongues mapped new territory, remapped old, ghosting teeth across heated flesh. Sam thought, ‘I love you, you crazy bastard’ and held on that much harder, feeling the press of Dean’s fingers into his own arms as the other man tried to keep them pressed together.
He pushed into Dean liked he was coming home; their breath mixing, their moans shared between them. Dean reached an arm back to pull him close. Sam’s forward thrust tipped Dean’s top leg forward a little more, and it meant ‘Don’t leave me’. He traced his teeth along the edge of Dean’s jaw as Dean’s eyes fell closed; a long slow breath: ‘Yes, there, perfect. Don’t stop.’
Dean’s eyes squeezed shut, his nose wrinkling as his mouth fell open, too breathless to scream as the pleasure swallowed him down, ate him up, devoured him. Sam dropped his head to the back of Dean’s neck and held on, rode it out with gasps and groans, his hand on Dean’s hip, barely gripping, the forward-back thrust of it stuttering as his own eyes dropped closed.
He moaned, a hiccupping, gasping breathy sound as his hand tightened on Dean’s hip, five distinct marks against pale skin: ‘Mine.’
If Sam had been a little less caught-up in his memories of the previous night he might have been a little smarter about it. Either way, he’d been optimistic, fucked-out and screwed-senseless and he’d grabbed his wallet that morning intent on picking up breakfast, finding himself looking forward to the rant Dean could be trusted to give about being ‘girlie’, delivered, undoubtedly, whilst simultaneously devouring the very breakfast he was insulting.
They’d never addressed the issue of Gordon, though, and Sam knew the other hunter wouldn’t simply go away, especially after his rather spectacular entrance. He made it all the way to the little Mom and Pop shop he’d noticed on the way into town that served all-day breakfast, remembering the poorly concealed excitement with which Dean had pointed it out, when it occurred to Sam that he should have taken a few more precautions than simply tucking a gun into his pants.
It was too late, though; Gordon struck just as he was stepping out of the shop. It was quick and clean, and Sam had a moment to think, “I’m an idiot,” before he was unconscious.
Sam kept his eyes closed as he took stock. His head was splitting with pain and there was a sticky warmth striping the side of his face and streaking across the bridge of his nose. His shoulders were stiff and a little sore and his arms and legs were bound to a metal chair.
“You can open your eyes, Sam,” Gordon Walker said.
Sam opened his eyes to see that he was in the kitchen of an old wooden shack. An ancient wood-burning stove standing opposite him, on the same wall as old iron pots and pans, hung up beside a wooden shelf featuring floral-patterned dishes. If Dean had been in his place, he’d have likely had a quip or two to make about those dishes. As it was, Sam’s head hurt, and Gordon was sitting, calm as ever, perched on an old table by a boarded-up window. There was a shotgun lying across his lap.
“What do you want from me, Gordon?”
“From you?” Gordon asked, his tone light. “Nothing.”
Sam frowned, uncertain if it was merely the ache in his head, or if Gordon really was making little to no sense. “What?”
“I’m not here for you, Sam. I’ve been following wolf sightings, lone-wolf sightings, all with the same description. Imagine my surprise when I realized those sightings corresponded to when little Sammy Winchester was pulling through town.” Gordon slid off the table. “Is he tracking you, or are you helping him?”
Sam bit-down on the surge of panic that threatened to rear inside him, tried to remind himself that Gordon hadn’t said anything Sam hadn’t already suspected. Though he had hoped maybe he was wrong, that maybe Gordon hadn’t managed to track Dean and was simply hoping to give Sam some payback.
He kept his expression flat as he said, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry to steal you away from that fine piece of tail you’ve found, but you seem to have forgotten that there is a wild, fierce animal that will rip you apart as soon as look at you wandering free since we last met.”
Sam tipped his head back and wished he could just think through all the pain. “Dean.”
Gordon shook his head. “I don’t care about him, I’m talking about the wolf.”
Sam couldn’t help thinking, ‘So am I,’ but he held back.
Gordon saw through him just the same, the sneering look of disgust making Sam snarl. “So you set the wolf free in more ways than just the one, huh?” Gordon’s features smoothed out as he grinned, his bright teeth gleaming in the darkness of the cabin. “It doesn’t matter. It’s even better, I suppose.” He slid back into place on the table. “You can be bait.”
“Bait for what?” Sam asked, forcing himself to laugh even though it felt like his head was splitting in half. “For Dean? He won’t come. He’s not stupid.” Gordon raised his eyebrows like he didn’t believe that. “You’re not gonna kill another hunter, Gordon. Play this tough-guy bullshit card all you want, I’m not buying it.”
“You’re pretty confident.”
“Yeah, I am.” Sam wasn’t surprised by the gun that Gordon wedged-up beneath his jaw; he kept his gaze calm and steady and stared right back at the man.
“You’re right, though,” Gordon shrugged after a moment. “Only thing I’m here to kill is the wolf.”
“Well, as it turns out, there is no wolf. So you can go on your way.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Gordon asked. Sam figured it didn’t pay to press his luck any more than he was already doing. “Just because he can look like a human some of the time, doesn’t mean he can hide what he is.”
“And what is that.”
“Evil,” Gordon said. “Mongrels that hell spat out to destroy humanity. They’re no better than demons, Sam.” He paced away as he continued, “I can see how he could have you fooled, though. Pretty face like that. But that won’t stop me from putting a bullet in him.”
“If you can find him,” Sam said. “Which you won’t, because he’ll have gone already.” Or he had damned well better be, Sam thought.
Gordon laughed. “Has he talked to you at all? As the wolf, I mean.” Sam paused, his eyes flicking back to Gordon because, as far as he knew, Gordon wasn’t supposed to know that Dean could communicate as a wolf. “Didn’t think I knew about that, did’ja. No, it’s not a secret. Not a very well kept one, anyway. It’s how wolves communicate with pack.”
Gordon nodded, as if Sam’s stunned look was because he couldn’t believe that an evil creature would wish to communicate to other evil creatures of its kind. “He wouldn’t speak to me like that because he sure as hell didn’t consider me pack, but you…” Gordon grinned again. “You don’t even need to say anything, I can tell just from your face right now.”
“So what,” Sam said, trying to brush off the shock. “So I’m pack. I’m not the only one.”
“Well, you obviously don’t understand how wolves feel about pack...or mates.” Gordon smirked. “After all, they have only the one.”
“We’re not mates,” Sam said, but his mind was racing through the past months with Dean, memories coming forward, one after the other as Sam kept thinking ‘is it true? It can’t be true’. The more he thought about it, the more Sam began to wonder, a flickering hope marked quickly be the severity of his current situation.
He forced himself to shrug nonchalantly. “I got him back on his feet, we went on a few hunts and we messed around. It’s not some mystical bond, and it sure as hell isn’t for life.”
It ached to say, hurt to even think of parting ways with Dean, but he couldn’t stop himself hoping that it was true. That Dean had done the smart thing and gotten the hell out of town the minute he realized Sam had gone missing. Gordon wouldn’t kill Sam, would likely let him go after a few days without further trouble. Dean would be safe, and that was what mattered.
There was a rumble-clatter that filled the air, like an avalanche. Gordon expression turned immensely pleased as he stowed his gun in his belt and checked his shotgun, then settled a gag around Sam’s mouth.
“Wolf trap,” he explained. He took a closer look at Sam’s expression and said, “It’s nothing personal, Sam. But your boyfriend is a feral animal with all the strength and skill of hell itself and I will put him down. Your father would have understood what needed to be done. Hell, he’d have done it himself months ago.”
“Hey, Gordie,” an all-too familiar voice drawled, all too casually. Sam’s eyes widened as he twisted his head round, caught-sight of Dean leaning against the doorframe. Gordon fired off a shot that Dean easily sidestepped.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” Gordon fired off another blast from his shotgun, and Dean leapt and shifted.
It was a seamless transition from man to wolf, his front paws knocking into Gordon’s chest and bringing the man crashing onto the ground. Dean bounded off, leaving the man dazed on the floor as he rounded on Sam, his sharp teeth latching onto the rope that kept his hands fastened behind his back.
Dean managed a few tugs, loosening the bonds before Gordon finished righting himself, no longer dazed from the fall, and pulling the gun from his belt and took aim. Dean looked up at Sam’s frantic grunts, choked-off by the gag, but he got the message.
He pivoted impossibly fast, swiping the gun out of Gordon’s hands and then dodging as the hunter pulled a silver knife, the serrated edge of the blade cutting into Dean’s foreleg. Sam worked his hands, struggling to get them free of the bonds Dean had loosened as he watched both hunter and wolf grapple.
After a short but violent skirmish, Dean stepped back, his fur bristling and teeth bared in answer to Gordon’s broad grin. The man’s clothes were torn and his face was scratched, ripped by the wolf’s claws. Dean hadn’t ripped out the man’s throat, though, and Sam realized with a start that Dean had no intention of killing the other hunter.
That feeling certainly wasn’t mutual.
A moment later Gordon lunged forward again and Dean was off out of the shack, Gordon staggering after him, neither as fast nor as graceful as the wolf had been, but ten times more determined.
Left alone, Sam managed at last to wriggle his hands free. He ripped the gag out of his mouth with one hand as the other started to undo the rope around his legs until, finally free, he scrambled to the table. There was a collection of blades and weapons that Gordon had left among which sat the weapons he had taken off of Sam before he had secured him to the chair. Sam took back his gun and the knife he kept in a holster around his ankle. He checked his gun, popping out the cartridge to check the number of rounds, before sliding it back into place.
In the distance there was the sound of a skirmish, yelps and whimpers chased by low grunts and all-too human snarls. Sam wondered if Dean was at a disadvantage facing Gordon in wolf form, but figured that if that were the case, he would never have shifted. There was certainly something to say about the four sets of incredibly sharp claws Dean sported as a wolf, not to mention the teeth.
Sam moved out onto the front porch of the shack and took in, all at once, the darkness of the sky at twilight, the stretch of shadowed grass, tall and unkempt but lush and green that cut-off abruptly a the dense line of trees.
There were rapid-fire shots, four consecutive booming rips of sound, and Sam went hot and then cold, tried to comprehend how any one of those shots might have missed their mark. A moment later, Gordon came staggering out of the woods, his pace too frantic to have successfully subdued his attacker.
Almost in slow motion, Sam followed the line on which the other hunter was racing, noticed a faint glinting in the grass that he realized came from a silver blade that Gordon must had hidden in the grass. The man was heading straight for it, and Sam could see the next few moments playing out in his head. How Dean would race from out of the trees in pursuit, he’d lunge and Gordon would raise the blade, and Dean’s forward momentum would impale him.
Sam was off the steps in the same instant he had the thought. Barreling into Gordon hard enough to slam him away from the knife and back into the grass. He fumbled until he had the man pinned with an elbow around his neck, but hesitated.
“You gonna strangle me, Sam?” Gordon laughed. There was blood spilling from his mouth, coloring his teeth red. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked. “I’m human.”
Sam pressed harder, and Gordon’s smile dropped a little, but he was still assured as he said, “you won’t.”
“You sure about that?” Sam said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. The way I see it, all it comes down to is whether I will do whatever it takes to protect my pack.”
The memory of his father passed through his head. His father’s eyes steady and unblinking, staring right at Sam. He had hesitated then because revenge wasn’t worth the cost of taking an innocent life. Sam wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
He could tell himself that Gordon Walker wasn’t very nice, that the given type of man he was, he would have been a serial killer if he couldn’t have been a hunter; that he was killing things not because of what they did, but because of what he thought they were: harmless vampires, werewolves, who knew what else.
The truth, though, was that Gordon Walker would never stop, not ever, and Sam refused to lose anyone else because he couldn’t do what it took to protect what he cared about.
“Family’s everything, Sammy,” his dad’s voice echoed through his memories. “Nothing else, none of it, matters.” On the ground, Gordon’s eyes opened impossibly wide, reading something on Sam’s face. “Sooner or later,” John had said, “you’re going to realize that.”
Sam pulled back his hands and in one quick movement, he snapped Gordon’s head to the side. He could barely hear the crack over the roaring of blood in his own ears, but he watched the rigid tension leach from Gordon’s body as his head sagged back at an unnatural angle. Sam carefully lowered him back down, and jogged towards the trees.
He found Dean just inside the woods. There was blood matting his fur but he brushed off Sam’s concerned questioning with a few mental grumbles, insisting he wasn’t a baby, that he was fine. He sat still, a pale shadow just within the tree line as Sam jogged back to the cabin, collecting the clothes Dean had shed.
When Sam returned, Dean had his nose tipped up, scenting the air. Sam wondered if he could smell death on the wind, if maybe Sam himself smelled like Gordon’s last breath. He dropped Dean’s clothes onto the ground and turned his back, tried to focus on breathing.
A moment later, Dean’s very human voice said, “What are you turning your back for?” Sam huffed a tired laugh and turned around, his hand tilting Dean’s chin so he could examine the darkening bruises, the slice across one brow that was still leaking blood. “I’m fine. None of it’s too deep. It stings like a sonofabitch, though. God damned silver.” Sam caught the hand Dean raised to rub at the cut, stopping the man from exacerbating his injuries. “What happened to Gordon?”
“Dead,” Sam said. Dean went still, his eyes shifting cautiously over Sam’s face, searching for something, though for what, Sam couldn’t be sure.
“Okay,” Dean said, then cleared his throat. “Okay.”
Sam would have followed Dean right into the shower, but the other man wouldn’t let him, batting off the fussing with a promise that if anything needed more than a band aid he’d let Sam treat it. While he waited, Sam flipped on the television unable to focus on a show but unwilling to sit in the quiet.
“You’re a damned worrywart,” Dean scolded when he stepped out of the bathroom, freshly washed, with the traces of silver cleaned out his cuts.
Sam eyed him critically, his eyes coming to rest on Dean’s forearm where Gordon’s had scored a deep cut with his blade. “That needs stitches.”
Dean shrugged, but settled onto the edge of the bed, holding out his arm when Sam brought over the med-kit. Sam disinfected the wound, despite Dean’s instance that he had just done that, and then set to work, happy for something to concentrate on.
The silence was thick and heavy, like it was waiting for something. Sam frowned at the skin he was holding together and stitching. “He wouldn’t have ever stopped,” he said, his voice coming out quieter than he’d meant it to.
“I know.”
“I had to,” Sam said. “I just…” he sounded a bit frantic, even to his own ears, and he couldn’t afford to be. Maybe later, after he’d finished stitching, if he had to fall apart then he would. “It felt like with my dad all over again. Like the choice was someone I loved or someone I didn’t know, or barely… and maybe before it was different, because I was trying to think of a different way, a better way. But there was no other way this time, any other choice would have just been temporary and…”
“I would have done the same.” The steady way he said it had Sam flick his gaze up to Dean’s face.
The promise was heavy between them, and they both knew that it wasn’t exactly a sane sort of pact to be making, but it was nonetheless necessary. There were ignorant people who would try to hunt them down and hurt them; hunt Dean down, for what he was. They were the same people who had shot and killed Dean’s family when he was young, who hunted still, and took captives and enslaved people sometimes.
Bobby said it was because they didn’t understand, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to believe that. They were like Gordon, killing because of what they thought they knew. If they hunted based on action they wouldn’t be tracking werewolf packs as they went to ground, trying to hide and protect each other. They would wait until one went rogue and killed, or they’d hunt the skinwalkers and shapeshifters and other things that hurt, but only when they hurt. Otherwise they were hypocrites.
They lapsed back into silence, and Sam went back to his careful stitching. “He said that wolves mate for life,” he said, finally laying voice to what had been circling in his thoughts since Gordon had first planted the notion.
Dean’s eyes were focused on his forearm, on the slice in his arm that Sam was mending. When he answered, it was grudging. “Yeah.”
Sam shook his head a little wryly. “You were trying to tell me from the start,” he said, finishing the last stitch and turning to drop the needle onto the nightstand. “I’m not just pack…”
“It’s not some mystical bullcrap, okay?” Dean said, his tone sounding defensive to Sam’s ears. “It could have been anyone, and it’s not like the fates bent the universe to bring us together or something. It just means…” he let out a breath. “It just means ‘maybe’.”
Sam nodded, his eyes focused on Dean’s expression as he turned the other man’s words over in his head. When Dean finally met his eyes, Sam said, “We’ve been on the road together for over six months.” He cleared his throat, asked, “What do you think now?”
Dean licked his lips, his gaze darting away and then back again. “I think,” he said. “Yeah.”
Sam felt like a weight had been pushed off his shoulders, relief rushing through him so quickly he was almost dizzy with it. He raised a teasing eyebrow and said, “Yeah?”
Dean grinned. “Hell, yeah.”
Sam pressed his smile against Dean’s mouth, breathed in the bright citrusy scent of the other man’s soap. Thought, ‘we’re alive’ and ‘we’re together’ and ‘I’m never letting go’, read the echoing promise in the curve of Dean’s bottom lip, the trace of his teeth against Sam’s mouth. It was unconventional, maybe, but they were pack, at least the start of one. Him and Dean, and a gruff old hunter who liked to pretend he enjoyed solitude, but had taught Sam that family didn’t end with blood. Maybe he had taught Dean that as well, or maybe Dean had always known.
Maybe down the line there would be others, more wolves, more friends. But one thing at least Sam knew with a total conviction that only grew stronger with every passing moment, with every exhaled gasp that Dean released and Sam breathed in. ‘Mates. Mine’, he thought, ‘hell yeah.’
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART THREE ||
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 7,224
Pairing: Sam/Dean
[ Part Three (B) ]
Sam should have been prepared, because it wasn’t as if Dean hadn’t given him fair warning. Still, he wasn’t expecting to be slammed against their motel room door as soon as he’d pushed it closed. Dean pressed his body along Sam’s side and buried his nose into Sam’s collarbone, breathing deep. “I can smell you too, you know.”
Sam’s eyes dropped closed as he took a steadying breath. “Dean.”
Dean grinned, victory and amusement lighting his eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t been watching me, either. Ever since I shifted at Bobby’s.” His warm breath puffed over Sam’s neck and Sam could feel Dean’s lips ghosting, open mouthed and barely there, across his skin. “Come on, Sammy. I know you want it.”
“I don’t…” Sam choked down his words and turned his face away, his jaw flexing as he did his best to keep his body still as Dean rolled his hips into him.
“What?”
“I’m not using you,” Sam insisted. “I’m not like them. I’m not doing that.”
Dean stepped back and frowned. “Who said anything about using me?”
“You wouldn’t be offering otherwise,” Sam said, his brows pinching together as he tried to put his thoughts together into words that could actually convey some sort of meaning. “I mean all of this, why you went with me when we left Bobby’s, the hunting. Tell me that hasn’t been at least a little bit because you feel obligated.”
“I thought you said you didn’t expect some sort of repayment.”
“I don’t!”
Dean shrugged. “Then why should I feel obligated? I’m not some chick feeling all pressured into putting out. If I didn’t want to be here, I’d leave.” Sam could sense that it was true, too. “I was hunting before I ever ran into Wandell, and I’d be hunting without you. Don’t overcomplicate things.”
“I just,” Sam sighed. “I feel like I’d be taking advantage.”
Dean grinned, a shrewd, wolfish expression. “Of what?”
“Of you!”
“You didn’t force me to come with you. I’m charm-free, compulsion-free and collar-free. Anything I’m doing is because I want it, so go right ahead Sam,” he said, his voice suddenly dropping low and rough, his pupils blown wide as he stepped closer again and added, “Take advantage.”
Sam gave up and gave in, his hands reaching up to grip either side of Dean’s head and draw him in for a wet, hard kiss, letting all the heat and excitement and the sheer want that he’d been fighting ever since he’d seen Dean savor a piece of bacon, pour into Dean’s mouth. His kiss was a challenge, demanding with a scrape of teeth, ‘I want this and more’, a flick of tongue asking ‘are you sure? Last chance’, and always Dean pressed back just as hard, like he wanted it as much as Sam did, like he’d been thinking about it just as long.
They staggered backwards toward the bed, their hands pulling off jackets and the button-down shirts they’d each been wearing, kicking off shoes and socks as they moved. Dean growled as they toppled down onto the covers, nipping at Sam’s thumb as he ghosted it over his lips. “We could have been doing this months ago,” he said, voice breathless. “You and your goddamned sense of propriety.”
“My what?” Sam asked breathily, but his mind had already moved ahead, attached Dean’s words to thousands of images: Dean pulling off his shirt under the warmth of the sun, leaning over the Impala his body unnecessarily pressed close to Sam’s, the devilish sideways glances he always flashed Sam’s way when he downed a beer like he was thinking of wrapping his lips around something else. “You fucking tease.”
“It’s not a tease if you intend to follow-through,” Dean said, looking up from beneath his lashes. “I kept waiting for you to make a move, but you’re such a damned prude, I finally figured if I didn’t do something we’d be waiting forever.”
“Dean,” Sam said, his tongue laving down the other man’s throat before he sucked a bruised into Dean’s freckled skin. “Shut up.” Dean grinned, then gripped the back of Sam’s T-shirt, jerking it up and over Sam’s head, leaving him no choice but to raise his arms and let the shirt be worked off his body.
Dean tossed it away and moved onto Sam’s jeans, pulling open his belt before nudging the jeans and the boxers underneath down the curve of Sam’s ass. Sam smirked at the other man’s heavy-lidded expression, his fingers worked Dean’s belt loose as he dropped his mouth Dean’s hip, lingering only momentarily before turning his attention to tugging Dean free of his shirt, licking and nipping at every inch of exposed flesh he discovered.
“I didn’t think you wanted this,” he found himself saying, between bites. “You flirted with enough waitresses along the way.”
“Flirting’s one thing,” Dean panted. “Fucking’s another.”
Sam dropped the T-shirt off the edge of the bed and started working Dean free of his jeans. “S’that what we’re doing?” he wondered as the jeans and boxer-briefs went the same way as the rest of their clothes.
A hand fisted gently in his hair, and Sam followed it up until he was looking into Dean’s eyes. “Sam,” Dean said. “Shut up.” He kissed fiercely, and Sam felt like he was devouring and being devoured, their touches more than a little desperate and hungry.
It made him think of the wolf he had seen early that day, lunging and snarling, growling low and deep in its throat and sounding not unlike Dean did right then, as Sam shifted down the lean stretch of Dean’s body and took him into his mouth in a single movement.
“Sam,” Dean murmured. “Sam.” His hands laced in Sam’s hair, not holding him down or forcing his movement, but resting there warm and reassuring, and Sam sucked a little harder, his own hips pressing down into the mattress until suddenly Dean’s grip changed, passing out of Sam’s peripheral vision as it groped in the direction of the nightstand.
“You sure about this?” Dean asked a moment later, he grunted as Sam sucked harder again and then pulled back to work his cock with his tongue. “Last chance to change your mind, Sammy.”
“I hate it when you call me that.”
Dean grinned, tipped his head back until all Sam could see was the broad curve of his mouth, the bright flash of Dean’s teeth as he smiled. “You love it.” Which was embarrassingly true, the nickname that had haunted him since he was a kid somehow sounding entirely different when it fell from Dean’s lips.
Dean silenced any retort he might have made as he tightened his legs around Sam’s side and grabbed hold of his upper arms, and suddenly Sam found himself on his back, pinned beneath Dean’s body.
“Jesus,” Sam said, a bolt of lust hitting him at the maneuver. Dean dropped the bottle of lubricant he had retrieved from the nightstand Sam’s his chest, quirking up an eyebrow, and Sam swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he said. “Hell yeah.”
He watched as Dean shifted away and knelt up, one hand flipping the tube of slick open and spilling it into the other, then his hand disappeared behind him and Sam groaned. “Let me,” he said. “Come on, Dean, let me.”
Dean didn’t listen, instead dropping forward to press his mouth against Sam’s, his tongue working into Sam’s mouth the same way his fingers moved into his own ass. Sam could feel the way he rolled his hips in time with the stretch. He tried to get a grip on the lubricant, wanting nothing more than to work his own fingers into Dean, but the other man pushed it out of reach and, a moment later, knelt up again, shifting forward.
Sam dropped a hand to the sharp jut of Dean’s hip just as he realized what Dean was about to do, and then Dean was sinking down onto his cock, the tight-hot-heat circling him and swallowing him down. Sam’s eyes dropped closed and his head tipped back and he moaned low and broken as Dean rolled his hips first one way, and then the other, picking up a rhythm that was tortuously slow.
“Harder,” Sam begged. “Please.” But Dean was as much of a contrary bastard in bed as he was outside of it and only jerked his hips in tiny movements that had Sam biting his lip so hard it bled, pausing every once in a while so that Sam was almost completely unsheathed before sinking down oh so slowly and taking him down to the quick. Dean’s eyes were heavy lidded and his mouth was quirked up in the corner, he didn’t bend forward when Sam sought a kiss, just rocked maddeningly above him, driving Sam into pleasurable agony.
“You sonofabitch,” Sam snarled, wrapping his hand around Dean’s wrist. “Don’t you dare go easy on me.” Dean blinked open his eyes and met his gaze, the movements of his hip stuttering, he glanced at the hand he held braced against Sam’s sternum, at Sam’s fingers wrapped around Dean’s wrist.
Caught up in the open and surprisingly vulnerable expression on the other man’s face, Sam found a growl rumbling up from somewhere deep inside of him. His desperation overpowered any reluctance or hesitation he might have had and he rolled Dean under him, pressed him down hard, one hand drawing Dean’s leg up, pressing it around his waist. “You want me to let go, Dean?” he asked as he sucked a bruise into Dean’s throat. “You first.”
He set a new pace, a slow withdrawal and hard push that had Dean tipping his head back, his mouth open as he gasped. His hands gripped Sam’s shoulder, then his nails scraped down his back, an aching burn from shoulder to the round of his ass that had Sam thrusting in hard.
Dean was right - it was fucking, and it was teeth and nails too, with fierce kisses that were deep and unrelenting. Sam was sweat-soaked and praying for release and for it to never end, and when he wrapped a hand around Dean’s cock the other man bowed like lightning, a broken shout slipping from his mouth as he came, clenching down around Sam so hard that he shattered too, his vision going black, his body slumping forward, every part of him sated.
Sam opened his eyes some time just before morning and realized with a flush of embarrassment that they had left the blinds open. They were in a corner room at the end of the second floor balcony of the motel, but he still hoped no one had taken it into their head to walk by; they certainly would have gotten an eyeful. “Where’re you going?” Dean murmured, sleep-heavy and bleary.
“Just closing the blinds.” He slid out from under the covers, stopping by the window as the tentative grey of morning cast enough light to see Dean sprawled on the bed, his lashes fanned against his cheeks, features smooth and relaxed in easy sleep.
He was beautiful, and Sam didn’t mind thinking it. A giddy, happy thrum went through him - Dean was his somehow, and maybe it had taken longer than it had needed to, and maybe Sam had spent more time worrying than the situation apparently warranted, but he didn’t care.
He let the blinds drop, shutting out the light and staggered back to bed, sliding beneath the covers until his body was pressed, back-to-chest, with Dean, his arm snaking out to press Dean closer still. Dean hummed in sleepy satisfaction without bothering to wake up, and Sam let his eyes fall closed, breathed in the scent of them, still hanging heavy in the air, and went back to sleep.
By mutual, though unspoken, agreement they by-passed South Dakota. Dean found a hunt in Illinois, and they pulled onto the road and for the most part, it was like nothing had changed.
They fell into it so easily that Sam felt almost awkward about it, wondering if they shouldn’t have some sort of talk. He was happy with the sex, and he was happy with the hunting and the companionship, but sex was notorious for making things complicated, and Sam wondered if maybe he should make certain he hadn’t put an expiration date on whatever they’d had before as a result. He couldn’t imagine parting ways with Dean; didn’t want to think about returning to hunting on his own. The trouble was that Sam wanted Dean to himself, wanted them to be exclusive, and he wasn’t sure if Dean was wholly on board with that, if maybe the other man wouldn’t consider it too much too soon, or too much at all.
“So how do you kill a ghoul,” Dean said, looking up from the text he’d been reading. “Hey, what are you, asleep or something?”
“Naw, I’m listening,” Sam said, pushing his other thoughts away to focus on the hunt. “Ghouls are immune to holy water and silver. The only thing that kills them is decapitation.”
“Lovely,” Dean said, gagging both visibly and audibly. “So lets go decapitate this son-of-a-bitch.”
Sam smiled at the other man’s enthusiasm, and then hid it quickly, feeling like some sort of stroppy heroine. He fixed a slight frown on his face instead, hoping that Dean hadn’t noticed. “We sure that Samantha Little is a ghoul?”
Dean shot him an utterly bland expression. “If you’d smelled her, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question.”
Sam raised his hands up. “Okay, but just so you know, they tend to stick together, which means it’s unlikely that there’s just the one.”
There were, in fact, four. Dean took down the ghoul masquerading as Samantha Little, and Sam killed the one that tried to eat Dean as a result. Then they both had to turn and run when a third one dropped down on them from above, where it had been hanging from a chandelier.
Sam got to listen to Dean rant about how absolutely absurd the hunt was turning out to be as they ran from both the third ghoul and the fourth, who was armed with a freaking cordless reciprocating saw, the sight of which had initially made them laugh. They’d quickly changed their tune.
“I hate ghouls,” Dean said as they ducked down an alley.
“Come here.” Sam dragged him behind a dumpster, their back pressed against the cool green metal as they listened, the steady whir of the saw growing louder as the ghouls approached.
“He reeks,” Dean whispered.
“Be quiet.”
They waited and the whir got louder. Dean nudged Sam in the side and raised an eyebrow, and Sam stepped out from behind the dumpster and swung his machete in a clean arch, whisking the ghoul’s head clean off.
The last ghoul snarled and leaped forward, and Sam readied himself to swing his blade again when the sound of a gunshot ripped through quiet. Sam found himself falling sideways as Dean yanked him solidly back behind the dumpster.
“Who the fuck is shooting?” Dean hissed.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see,” Sam said, shifting so he was tucked closer to the metal and the wall, the movement shoving Dean further against the brick wall, out of the range of fire. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously.” Dean peaked up over the lip of the trashcan and a bullet thumped into the metal.
Sam let out a breath. “Okay, they’re definitely trying to hit us.”
“Ya think?” Dean muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and down his neck, undoubtedly checking to see if the bullet had grazed him and he simply hadn’t noticed.
Sam set his machete aside, pulling his own gun from his jeans and resting his thumb against the safety. “Who have we pissed off lately?”
Dean raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “In the mid-town area?”
Sam rolled his eyes, shifting closer to toward the alley so he could peak out, looking in the direction he’d estimated the shots must have come from. From the third level of the parking garage that fronted on the alley, Sam saw a familiar figure heft his gun and take another shot. Sam ducked back behind their cover. “Shit, it’s Gordon Walker.”
“Gordon?” Dean looked more than a little surprised at the news.
“How did you not smell him?”
“Have I mentioned lately that ghouls stink?”
“What the fuck do we do?” Sam said, tipping his head back against the green metal. “He’s shooting at us. I didn’t think he was that crazy.”
Dean shot him a wry look. “The dude is a sadistic sonofabitch, and you didn’t think he was crazy enough to try to kill us?”
Sam shrugged because, yeah, he really hadn’t considered it that way. Now they were pinned down in the middle of an alley, and the man was armed and firing on them. Any of the ideas he was coming up with about escape put them at too high a risk of being shot to be worth it. Sam briefly considered if it might be best to wait until Gordon ran out of bullets, but the man likely had more guns with him than the one he was currently firing at them. Hell, he was probably hunkered down right by the trunk of his car, which meant he had an entire arsenal at his disposal, and Sam had only his own 9mm and no extra bullets. He and Dean both had their machetes, but Sam didn’t want it to come to that.
They were screwed.
Dean flipped his machete around in his hand and let out a breath. “Okay, so, who do you think Gordon wants to kill more, you or me?”
“No offense,” Sam said. “But I’m not entirely sure he’d know who you are. You’re a little less hairy than the last time he saw you.”
Dean nodded. “Well, that settles it. I’ll draw him off and you get out of here. I’ll meet you back at the motel.”
“Are you crazy, that’s not…” but Dean was out and running, swiping the head of the ghoul who had been stumbling around a little confused clean off its shoulders, and then hopping up onto the railing of the first floor of the parking garage in a single bound, and from there disappearing inside, all the while Gordon firing shots but never hitting home. Sam didn’t wait to see what happened next. He turned around and ran.
Sam was on Dean as soon as he walked through the door, his hands running over him and confirming what his eyes had already told him: that the man was unhurt. “You’re insane,” Sam snarled, his voice low and hoarse. “What were thinking, taking off like that?”
“That I’m faster than you, and Gordon had less of a reason to shoot me.” Dean pulled of his jacket and removed the holster that held his machete off, dropping it onto table.
“I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid.”
“Don’t yell at me just because you didn’t think of it first,” Dean said. Sam flexed his jaw and clenched his fists. “The question is, what the hell does Gordon want?”
“Apparently,” Sam said. “He wants to shoot someone.” Dean rolled his eyes and headed further into the room, but Sam caught hold of his shirt and dragged him back. “Don’t do that again.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sam slammed him back when he tried to move off, but Dean’s expression was as calm and as inflexible as steel. “I’m not making a promise I don’t intend to keep. Bottom line, I am faster, Sam. We were pinned and you know it. If I needed to, I could have turned wolf and gotten away even quicker. Whatever the hell this is, stow it. I’m not in the mood.” He pushed Sam off and paced away.
“I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.” Dean stopped abruptly at the words, and turned somewhat wide eyes to him. Sam forced himself to continue. “I don’t want you getting hurt at all.”
He wondered if Dean could hear all the things he meant and couldn’t say, and thought that maybe he could, because Dean stepped forward and kissed him, soft at first, and then bruising. “No,” Sam said, bracing a hand gently against his chest. “It’s fine, I’m just saying…”
“You want to hug it out or something?”
Sam realized that his whole body was thrumming. The adrenaline of the hunt merging with the full-on terror that Dean was going to get shot right in front of him, made all the worse by Dean bullheadedly running out into the line of fire. It felt good to have the man in his arms, felt right and took the edge off. Maybe a hug would have settled him too, but this was better. He lowered his mouth to Dean’s and closed his eyes.
They were standing a few paces from the door, their arms around each other, their hands smoothing over thin cotton shirts, pressing against skin, ruffling hair; angling heads, sparring tongues and exchanged breath, slow and staggering. Sam’s heart stutter-stopping as his mind thought ‘Dean Dean Dean’ and not much else.
They were half naked and caught-up in each other, Sam lowering Dean down and crawling on top of him. Dean blinked open too-green eyes and smiled a little, rested a hand against the side of Sam’s neck. Sam traced his fingers along Dean’s collarbone, pressed a kiss to a bruise already darkening the skin from a lucky hit courtesy of one of the ghouls and meant, ‘I just want to keep you safe’.
Their tongues mapped new territory, remapped old, ghosting teeth across heated flesh. Sam thought, ‘I love you, you crazy bastard’ and held on that much harder, feeling the press of Dean’s fingers into his own arms as the other man tried to keep them pressed together.
He pushed into Dean liked he was coming home; their breath mixing, their moans shared between them. Dean reached an arm back to pull him close. Sam’s forward thrust tipped Dean’s top leg forward a little more, and it meant ‘Don’t leave me’. He traced his teeth along the edge of Dean’s jaw as Dean’s eyes fell closed; a long slow breath: ‘Yes, there, perfect. Don’t stop.’
Dean’s eyes squeezed shut, his nose wrinkling as his mouth fell open, too breathless to scream as the pleasure swallowed him down, ate him up, devoured him. Sam dropped his head to the back of Dean’s neck and held on, rode it out with gasps and groans, his hand on Dean’s hip, barely gripping, the forward-back thrust of it stuttering as his own eyes dropped closed.
He moaned, a hiccupping, gasping breathy sound as his hand tightened on Dean’s hip, five distinct marks against pale skin: ‘Mine.’
If Sam had been a little less caught-up in his memories of the previous night he might have been a little smarter about it. Either way, he’d been optimistic, fucked-out and screwed-senseless and he’d grabbed his wallet that morning intent on picking up breakfast, finding himself looking forward to the rant Dean could be trusted to give about being ‘girlie’, delivered, undoubtedly, whilst simultaneously devouring the very breakfast he was insulting.
They’d never addressed the issue of Gordon, though, and Sam knew the other hunter wouldn’t simply go away, especially after his rather spectacular entrance. He made it all the way to the little Mom and Pop shop he’d noticed on the way into town that served all-day breakfast, remembering the poorly concealed excitement with which Dean had pointed it out, when it occurred to Sam that he should have taken a few more precautions than simply tucking a gun into his pants.
It was too late, though; Gordon struck just as he was stepping out of the shop. It was quick and clean, and Sam had a moment to think, “I’m an idiot,” before he was unconscious.
Sam kept his eyes closed as he took stock. His head was splitting with pain and there was a sticky warmth striping the side of his face and streaking across the bridge of his nose. His shoulders were stiff and a little sore and his arms and legs were bound to a metal chair.
“You can open your eyes, Sam,” Gordon Walker said.
Sam opened his eyes to see that he was in the kitchen of an old wooden shack. An ancient wood-burning stove standing opposite him, on the same wall as old iron pots and pans, hung up beside a wooden shelf featuring floral-patterned dishes. If Dean had been in his place, he’d have likely had a quip or two to make about those dishes. As it was, Sam’s head hurt, and Gordon was sitting, calm as ever, perched on an old table by a boarded-up window. There was a shotgun lying across his lap.
“What do you want from me, Gordon?”
“From you?” Gordon asked, his tone light. “Nothing.”
Sam frowned, uncertain if it was merely the ache in his head, or if Gordon really was making little to no sense. “What?”
“I’m not here for you, Sam. I’ve been following wolf sightings, lone-wolf sightings, all with the same description. Imagine my surprise when I realized those sightings corresponded to when little Sammy Winchester was pulling through town.” Gordon slid off the table. “Is he tracking you, or are you helping him?”
Sam bit-down on the surge of panic that threatened to rear inside him, tried to remind himself that Gordon hadn’t said anything Sam hadn’t already suspected. Though he had hoped maybe he was wrong, that maybe Gordon hadn’t managed to track Dean and was simply hoping to give Sam some payback.
He kept his expression flat as he said, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry to steal you away from that fine piece of tail you’ve found, but you seem to have forgotten that there is a wild, fierce animal that will rip you apart as soon as look at you wandering free since we last met.”
Sam tipped his head back and wished he could just think through all the pain. “Dean.”
Gordon shook his head. “I don’t care about him, I’m talking about the wolf.”
Sam couldn’t help thinking, ‘So am I,’ but he held back.
Gordon saw through him just the same, the sneering look of disgust making Sam snarl. “So you set the wolf free in more ways than just the one, huh?” Gordon’s features smoothed out as he grinned, his bright teeth gleaming in the darkness of the cabin. “It doesn’t matter. It’s even better, I suppose.” He slid back into place on the table. “You can be bait.”
“Bait for what?” Sam asked, forcing himself to laugh even though it felt like his head was splitting in half. “For Dean? He won’t come. He’s not stupid.” Gordon raised his eyebrows like he didn’t believe that. “You’re not gonna kill another hunter, Gordon. Play this tough-guy bullshit card all you want, I’m not buying it.”
“You’re pretty confident.”
“Yeah, I am.” Sam wasn’t surprised by the gun that Gordon wedged-up beneath his jaw; he kept his gaze calm and steady and stared right back at the man.
“You’re right, though,” Gordon shrugged after a moment. “Only thing I’m here to kill is the wolf.”
“Well, as it turns out, there is no wolf. So you can go on your way.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Gordon asked. Sam figured it didn’t pay to press his luck any more than he was already doing. “Just because he can look like a human some of the time, doesn’t mean he can hide what he is.”
“And what is that.”
“Evil,” Gordon said. “Mongrels that hell spat out to destroy humanity. They’re no better than demons, Sam.” He paced away as he continued, “I can see how he could have you fooled, though. Pretty face like that. But that won’t stop me from putting a bullet in him.”
“If you can find him,” Sam said. “Which you won’t, because he’ll have gone already.” Or he had damned well better be, Sam thought.
Gordon laughed. “Has he talked to you at all? As the wolf, I mean.” Sam paused, his eyes flicking back to Gordon because, as far as he knew, Gordon wasn’t supposed to know that Dean could communicate as a wolf. “Didn’t think I knew about that, did’ja. No, it’s not a secret. Not a very well kept one, anyway. It’s how wolves communicate with pack.”
Gordon nodded, as if Sam’s stunned look was because he couldn’t believe that an evil creature would wish to communicate to other evil creatures of its kind. “He wouldn’t speak to me like that because he sure as hell didn’t consider me pack, but you…” Gordon grinned again. “You don’t even need to say anything, I can tell just from your face right now.”
“So what,” Sam said, trying to brush off the shock. “So I’m pack. I’m not the only one.”
“Well, you obviously don’t understand how wolves feel about pack...or mates.” Gordon smirked. “After all, they have only the one.”
“We’re not mates,” Sam said, but his mind was racing through the past months with Dean, memories coming forward, one after the other as Sam kept thinking ‘is it true? It can’t be true’. The more he thought about it, the more Sam began to wonder, a flickering hope marked quickly be the severity of his current situation.
He forced himself to shrug nonchalantly. “I got him back on his feet, we went on a few hunts and we messed around. It’s not some mystical bond, and it sure as hell isn’t for life.”
It ached to say, hurt to even think of parting ways with Dean, but he couldn’t stop himself hoping that it was true. That Dean had done the smart thing and gotten the hell out of town the minute he realized Sam had gone missing. Gordon wouldn’t kill Sam, would likely let him go after a few days without further trouble. Dean would be safe, and that was what mattered.
There was a rumble-clatter that filled the air, like an avalanche. Gordon expression turned immensely pleased as he stowed his gun in his belt and checked his shotgun, then settled a gag around Sam’s mouth.
“Wolf trap,” he explained. He took a closer look at Sam’s expression and said, “It’s nothing personal, Sam. But your boyfriend is a feral animal with all the strength and skill of hell itself and I will put him down. Your father would have understood what needed to be done. Hell, he’d have done it himself months ago.”
“Hey, Gordie,” an all-too familiar voice drawled, all too casually. Sam’s eyes widened as he twisted his head round, caught-sight of Dean leaning against the doorframe. Gordon fired off a shot that Dean easily sidestepped.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” Gordon fired off another blast from his shotgun, and Dean leapt and shifted.
It was a seamless transition from man to wolf, his front paws knocking into Gordon’s chest and bringing the man crashing onto the ground. Dean bounded off, leaving the man dazed on the floor as he rounded on Sam, his sharp teeth latching onto the rope that kept his hands fastened behind his back.
Dean managed a few tugs, loosening the bonds before Gordon finished righting himself, no longer dazed from the fall, and pulling the gun from his belt and took aim. Dean looked up at Sam’s frantic grunts, choked-off by the gag, but he got the message.
He pivoted impossibly fast, swiping the gun out of Gordon’s hands and then dodging as the hunter pulled a silver knife, the serrated edge of the blade cutting into Dean’s foreleg. Sam worked his hands, struggling to get them free of the bonds Dean had loosened as he watched both hunter and wolf grapple.
After a short but violent skirmish, Dean stepped back, his fur bristling and teeth bared in answer to Gordon’s broad grin. The man’s clothes were torn and his face was scratched, ripped by the wolf’s claws. Dean hadn’t ripped out the man’s throat, though, and Sam realized with a start that Dean had no intention of killing the other hunter.
That feeling certainly wasn’t mutual.
A moment later Gordon lunged forward again and Dean was off out of the shack, Gordon staggering after him, neither as fast nor as graceful as the wolf had been, but ten times more determined.
Left alone, Sam managed at last to wriggle his hands free. He ripped the gag out of his mouth with one hand as the other started to undo the rope around his legs until, finally free, he scrambled to the table. There was a collection of blades and weapons that Gordon had left among which sat the weapons he had taken off of Sam before he had secured him to the chair. Sam took back his gun and the knife he kept in a holster around his ankle. He checked his gun, popping out the cartridge to check the number of rounds, before sliding it back into place.
In the distance there was the sound of a skirmish, yelps and whimpers chased by low grunts and all-too human snarls. Sam wondered if Dean was at a disadvantage facing Gordon in wolf form, but figured that if that were the case, he would never have shifted. There was certainly something to say about the four sets of incredibly sharp claws Dean sported as a wolf, not to mention the teeth.
Sam moved out onto the front porch of the shack and took in, all at once, the darkness of the sky at twilight, the stretch of shadowed grass, tall and unkempt but lush and green that cut-off abruptly a the dense line of trees.
There were rapid-fire shots, four consecutive booming rips of sound, and Sam went hot and then cold, tried to comprehend how any one of those shots might have missed their mark. A moment later, Gordon came staggering out of the woods, his pace too frantic to have successfully subdued his attacker.
Almost in slow motion, Sam followed the line on which the other hunter was racing, noticed a faint glinting in the grass that he realized came from a silver blade that Gordon must had hidden in the grass. The man was heading straight for it, and Sam could see the next few moments playing out in his head. How Dean would race from out of the trees in pursuit, he’d lunge and Gordon would raise the blade, and Dean’s forward momentum would impale him.
Sam was off the steps in the same instant he had the thought. Barreling into Gordon hard enough to slam him away from the knife and back into the grass. He fumbled until he had the man pinned with an elbow around his neck, but hesitated.
“You gonna strangle me, Sam?” Gordon laughed. There was blood spilling from his mouth, coloring his teeth red. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked. “I’m human.”
Sam pressed harder, and Gordon’s smile dropped a little, but he was still assured as he said, “you won’t.”
“You sure about that?” Sam said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. The way I see it, all it comes down to is whether I will do whatever it takes to protect my pack.”
The memory of his father passed through his head. His father’s eyes steady and unblinking, staring right at Sam. He had hesitated then because revenge wasn’t worth the cost of taking an innocent life. Sam wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
He could tell himself that Gordon Walker wasn’t very nice, that the given type of man he was, he would have been a serial killer if he couldn’t have been a hunter; that he was killing things not because of what they did, but because of what he thought they were: harmless vampires, werewolves, who knew what else.
The truth, though, was that Gordon Walker would never stop, not ever, and Sam refused to lose anyone else because he couldn’t do what it took to protect what he cared about.
“Family’s everything, Sammy,” his dad’s voice echoed through his memories. “Nothing else, none of it, matters.” On the ground, Gordon’s eyes opened impossibly wide, reading something on Sam’s face. “Sooner or later,” John had said, “you’re going to realize that.”
Sam pulled back his hands and in one quick movement, he snapped Gordon’s head to the side. He could barely hear the crack over the roaring of blood in his own ears, but he watched the rigid tension leach from Gordon’s body as his head sagged back at an unnatural angle. Sam carefully lowered him back down, and jogged towards the trees.
He found Dean just inside the woods. There was blood matting his fur but he brushed off Sam’s concerned questioning with a few mental grumbles, insisting he wasn’t a baby, that he was fine. He sat still, a pale shadow just within the tree line as Sam jogged back to the cabin, collecting the clothes Dean had shed.
When Sam returned, Dean had his nose tipped up, scenting the air. Sam wondered if he could smell death on the wind, if maybe Sam himself smelled like Gordon’s last breath. He dropped Dean’s clothes onto the ground and turned his back, tried to focus on breathing.
A moment later, Dean’s very human voice said, “What are you turning your back for?” Sam huffed a tired laugh and turned around, his hand tilting Dean’s chin so he could examine the darkening bruises, the slice across one brow that was still leaking blood. “I’m fine. None of it’s too deep. It stings like a sonofabitch, though. God damned silver.” Sam caught the hand Dean raised to rub at the cut, stopping the man from exacerbating his injuries. “What happened to Gordon?”
“Dead,” Sam said. Dean went still, his eyes shifting cautiously over Sam’s face, searching for something, though for what, Sam couldn’t be sure.
“Okay,” Dean said, then cleared his throat. “Okay.”
Sam would have followed Dean right into the shower, but the other man wouldn’t let him, batting off the fussing with a promise that if anything needed more than a band aid he’d let Sam treat it. While he waited, Sam flipped on the television unable to focus on a show but unwilling to sit in the quiet.
“You’re a damned worrywart,” Dean scolded when he stepped out of the bathroom, freshly washed, with the traces of silver cleaned out his cuts.
Sam eyed him critically, his eyes coming to rest on Dean’s forearm where Gordon’s had scored a deep cut with his blade. “That needs stitches.”
Dean shrugged, but settled onto the edge of the bed, holding out his arm when Sam brought over the med-kit. Sam disinfected the wound, despite Dean’s instance that he had just done that, and then set to work, happy for something to concentrate on.
The silence was thick and heavy, like it was waiting for something. Sam frowned at the skin he was holding together and stitching. “He wouldn’t have ever stopped,” he said, his voice coming out quieter than he’d meant it to.
“I know.”
“I had to,” Sam said. “I just…” he sounded a bit frantic, even to his own ears, and he couldn’t afford to be. Maybe later, after he’d finished stitching, if he had to fall apart then he would. “It felt like with my dad all over again. Like the choice was someone I loved or someone I didn’t know, or barely… and maybe before it was different, because I was trying to think of a different way, a better way. But there was no other way this time, any other choice would have just been temporary and…”
“I would have done the same.” The steady way he said it had Sam flick his gaze up to Dean’s face.
The promise was heavy between them, and they both knew that it wasn’t exactly a sane sort of pact to be making, but it was nonetheless necessary. There were ignorant people who would try to hunt them down and hurt them; hunt Dean down, for what he was. They were the same people who had shot and killed Dean’s family when he was young, who hunted still, and took captives and enslaved people sometimes.
Bobby said it was because they didn’t understand, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to believe that. They were like Gordon, killing because of what they thought they knew. If they hunted based on action they wouldn’t be tracking werewolf packs as they went to ground, trying to hide and protect each other. They would wait until one went rogue and killed, or they’d hunt the skinwalkers and shapeshifters and other things that hurt, but only when they hurt. Otherwise they were hypocrites.
They lapsed back into silence, and Sam went back to his careful stitching. “He said that wolves mate for life,” he said, finally laying voice to what had been circling in his thoughts since Gordon had first planted the notion.
Dean’s eyes were focused on his forearm, on the slice in his arm that Sam was mending. When he answered, it was grudging. “Yeah.”
Sam shook his head a little wryly. “You were trying to tell me from the start,” he said, finishing the last stitch and turning to drop the needle onto the nightstand. “I’m not just pack…”
“It’s not some mystical bullcrap, okay?” Dean said, his tone sounding defensive to Sam’s ears. “It could have been anyone, and it’s not like the fates bent the universe to bring us together or something. It just means…” he let out a breath. “It just means ‘maybe’.”
Sam nodded, his eyes focused on Dean’s expression as he turned the other man’s words over in his head. When Dean finally met his eyes, Sam said, “We’ve been on the road together for over six months.” He cleared his throat, asked, “What do you think now?”
Dean licked his lips, his gaze darting away and then back again. “I think,” he said. “Yeah.”
Sam felt like a weight had been pushed off his shoulders, relief rushing through him so quickly he was almost dizzy with it. He raised a teasing eyebrow and said, “Yeah?”
Dean grinned. “Hell, yeah.”
Sam pressed his smile against Dean’s mouth, breathed in the bright citrusy scent of the other man’s soap. Thought, ‘we’re alive’ and ‘we’re together’ and ‘I’m never letting go’, read the echoing promise in the curve of Dean’s bottom lip, the trace of his teeth against Sam’s mouth. It was unconventional, maybe, but they were pack, at least the start of one. Him and Dean, and a gruff old hunter who liked to pretend he enjoyed solitude, but had taught Sam that family didn’t end with blood. Maybe he had taught Dean that as well, or maybe Dean had always known.
Maybe down the line there would be others, more wolves, more friends. But one thing at least Sam knew with a total conviction that only grew stronger with every passing moment, with every exhaled gasp that Dean released and Sam breathed in. ‘Mates. Mine’, he thought, ‘hell yeah.’
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|<< END PART THREE ||
MASTERPOST