fic: Ensnared (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Chapter 1 of 4
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***
“Your memory is a monster; you forget-it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you-and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
***
Sam had been quiet the whole drive back to the Bunker, nose buried in some files he’d brought back from their cleanup of what was left of the British Men of Letters’ operations base. He had been right about the whole thing not burning down to the ground and they’d nabbed a few boxes of files, some computer and random tactical equipment. The trunk was completely packed with their haul. In the silent car, Dean had time to reflect on how smart his brother was, what a leader he’d morphed into, however reluctantly.
He looked over at Sam, his back squashed up against the car door, the files balanced on his bent knees, hair covering most of his face. Dean laid a hand on Sam’s calf and squeezed.
“Almost home, Sammy.”
Sam looked up and his eyes blearily focused on Dean.
“Good,” he murmured, smiling a little and looking back down at the files.
The next morning, Dean got up earlier than Sam, so he had time to look over some of the papers they’d brought in from the car last night. As he read through them, he drank an entire pot of coffee, adrenaline spiking the more pages he got through.
Dean was shaken by how much the British Men of Letters had known about how he’d gotten Benny out of Purgatory. They had all the details of that creepy spell he’d used, there was even a write-up on the possible aftereffects that he might have (which no one had ever happened to mention at the time). Even worse were the dry, almost clinical musings about the exact nature of his relationship with the vampire.
Honestly, he was just about ready to burn the pages and try to forget about the whole shebang. Fuck those moralizing Brits after what they’d pulled with them, what they’d done to Sam, invading their home, getting between them and their mother. Then he realized that the papers with the Purgatory/Benny information had been set on Sam’s side of the table, they’d been in the stack next to his laptop bag. That meant these were likely the ones he’d been poring over in the car the whole way home.
That realization had him pouring himself some whisky in his empty coffee cup even though it was before seven in the morning. As he finished his drink he noticed the post-it notes stuck in a few places with his brother’s writing: ’4 D’ and ‘Ask Dean about this’. His initial grin at the cuteness of Sam’s little notes faded as he realized that Sam now knew a lot more than he had before. A whole heaping lot more than Dean had ever been brave enough to admit to.
They never really had talked about Benny after everything that had gone down. Sam had passed on Benny’s wish to stay in Purgatory, and they’d pretty much dropped the subject, just like they’d dropped the subject of Amelia. It had seemed like they both needed to concentrate on their conscious choice to stay together and get the job done. And then the Trials and everything that’d followed had screwed that up even more.
Sitting there, drinking his second glass of whisky, (hold the coffee please), Dean ran his fingers over Benny’s name printed in the pages of the Men of Letters’ report. He found himself surprised at how moved he was to see it written out in full: Benjamin Lafitte. He finally had to admit to himself that he still felt a connection to the vampire, and to Purgatory, even now. Even after the Mark of Cain, dying, becoming a demon, and almost being taken over by Amara. That connection with the vampire still remained deep in his veins. It felt like his body remembered that it had once held the entirety of Benny’s spirit, how his body had carried Benny’s essence through the portal, back to Dean’s world.
The more Dean thought about it, especially after he was almost done with a third glass of whisky, the more he had to admit that there was a trace of Benny still in him somewhere. He re-read the section about possible aftereffects from using that spell, but the Men of Letters seemed to be just kicking around theories, not putting down in stone what would be the result of giving a vampire a ride like he had done. The theories seemed to revolve around what made up a soul, down to the unseeable particles, and their behavior when subjected to various forms of magic. He wondered if it mattered that he and Sam were soulmates, at least the Brits hadn’t known about that particular detail.
He grabbed his keys and jacket from his room and headed to the garage. Sam wouldn’t miss him while he got this shit sorted. The door to the Impala clicked shut and he clenched his hands on her wheel. He wished more than anything he had the guts to go back in and spill it all out, work through it with his brother. But he couldn’t talk to Sam about any of it, because he knew Sam would be intensely jealous of his connection with Benny all over again. Especially because he now knew the gory details Dean had never shared. The whole jealousy thing, which Dean understood much too well himself wasn’t something he was up for. He couldn’t even think of the woman Sam had loved and left for him back then without getting a cramp in his stomach.
Even now, all these years later, he still had to tell himself that they’d done the right thing, made the right choice to stay together. But he had always known deep down that Sam deserved that happy ending with Amelia. Sam was never going to get anything resembling a happy ending with him, it just didn’t seem to be in the cards, their lives didn’t seem to allow that kind of thing. So even though Sam was always bugging him to talk about this kind of relationship shit, he couldn’t bear to do it. It would just stir up the whole mess again, and as unresolved as it all felt, it seemed like the wrong time. Hell, honestly, he knew it would never feel like the right time.
Who else was there for him to confide in? He paged through his contacts in his phone list, the bright screen lighting up the dimness in the garage. Even if his mom was still here in their world, she would never understand, and he’d never even want to bring it up with her really. She had run away from them without even knowing about his past relationship with a vampire much less the one he had with his brother. Cas hadn’t ever been helpful with this kind of human thing, so there was no point in trying to talk to him. Jody was too busy with the girls, and he didn’t want to burden her with a bunch of oh-poor-me whiny bullshit.
He turned his phone off and started up his Baby, at least she understood him. A drive to sort out his thoughts, that would be a start. After a few hours on the road, Dean did what he had always done when he needed a sympathetic ear that wasn’t attached to Sam. He found himself a bar that had a bartender who was willing to listen as long as he kept throwing cash on the bar for more whisky.
At first he couched the conversation in romantic terms, so that he didn’t have to explain to Shirl the bartender about how it was an actual vampire they were talking about him missing. He stumbled over explaining that even though he was happier with Sam now than he could ever remember being, he still missed Benny sometimes. He was surprised to hear himself admit that he still woke up occasionally missing him, wanting him. But all that felt like he was cheating on Sam all over again, even if it was just in his mind and memories.
“Sam had a serious relationship with a woman during the time when we were separated. But we never discussed her much either,” Dean said.
“Dean, you ever consider that perhaps Sam has a similar thing going on?” Shirl asked, wiping the same spot on the counter between them, her bracelet softly jingling as she moved.
“How do you mean?” Dean asked, sipping at his whisky.
“Fond memories have a way of staying in one's subconscious, and there isn’t anything wrong with either of you having good memories. As long as it isn’t affecting what you have with Sam right now of course,” Shirl gently suggested.
“I have no idea how to even start to answer that,” Dean said.
“Not being able to answer something so simple might be the clue that’s the issue you really should work on first instead of all the other stuff,” Shirl said, still gentle, but with a hint of steel underneath. Like she had dealt with this kind of uncommunicative bastard herself.
“You talkin’ from experience?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, personal and recent, he wouldn’t talk, so we're no longer a we,” Shirl said, her dark eyes flashing with hurt and anger.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said, stomach contracting with dread as he considered the possibility of that same thing happening with Sam.
“Yeah, me too, but it wasn’t something I could make him do. And he didn’t have the balls to choose to do it himself. Some sort of macho bullshit, or I wasn’t worth the risk to his ego, hell if I know. Not my issue any more, thank god. So here’s your free advice, Dean-get your ass back home, and talk your Sam’s ear off. Don’t stop until he gets worried there’s something wrong with you. Seriously, you’ll be thanking me.”
“That mean you’re cuttin’ me off?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, and I’m about to take your car keys unless I see you walk a straight line out that door,” Shirl said, pointing at the exit, bracelet dangling and jingling on her wrist.
Dean laughed, shook her hand, and barely noticed the bracelet brushing his bare skin as he threw his last twenty on the bar. “Thanks for everything, darlin’.” He stood up a little unsteady at first, took a deep breath and then exaggeratedly walked, one foot in front of the other in a precise line out into the night.
On the way home, the whisky finally caught up with him, and he fell asleep at the wheel on the dark two-lane road. The Impala ran off into a ditch near the woods that were a mile or so away from the bunker. He struggled out of the car and landed in a pile of sticker vines, face up, eyes blinking at the brightness of the full moon. He thrashed through them and staggered out of the ditch, his arms and ankles and neck all scratched up. He had to pull the vines off of himself, and suck at the teeny sharp thorns left behind in his fingertips.
Dean walked the rest of the way home, lighting his way with his cellphone and got there quite a bit later than he’d planned. It was so late Sam had given up on him and gone to bed, in his own room. Sam’s door was shut all the way, there were no lights, and no sounds. Dean headed to his own room and was out cold before he even had a chance to get all the way undressed.
At first he knew it was all a dream, like you sometimes do in normal dreams. But after a while he started to worry, it all seemed too real to be just a run-of-the-mill dream. He was outside the bunker alone walking along the edge of the road looking for his car and there were too many vines, lots of them. Suddenly there were a lot more than too many vines, nearly everything seemed to be made out of them. They were all moving at once and he couldn’t quite make them out through the thickening darkness.
He could hear a continuous heavy rustling sound, the shifting the vines made, as they moved ceaselessly against one another. There was a sound of clicking when thorns met and caught hold, letting go with an ominous snick. The thorns had to be big and very hard to make that much noise. But maybe it sounded big because that was all there was.
Just Dean and the vines.
But no, he heard him then, his old friend was calling him in a muffled voice, through a mouth full of something. He saw Benny’s face through the dimness, could just make out the piercing blue eyes, saw his lips moving but the vines tangled around and then-through him. The vines growing around his neck and out of his mouth and curling around and up, tightening in a pulsing squeeze. Benny’s eyes went panicked and huge, he grunted and moaned in pain, his body was unable to move, held tight by the vines.
Dean was at his side in a flash, pulling them off, struggling to untangle him, but it was pointless, they grew much faster than he could remove them. The thorns were pricking his fingers so much that his blood was making the vines slick and impossible to grasp.
At the scent of Dean’s blood, Benny’s eyes went hazy with blood lust even though he was on the edge of being choked to death. But he couldn’t die, he was already dead, he was a vampire. But here in this hellish dream, Benny was smelling blood which gave him extra power to escape the clutches of the vines. He ripped through them, quickly freeing himself and pushed Dean down to the ground, bending him backward, teeth finding the vein in his throat.
Dean felt the familiar puncture and then the mind-numbing ecstasy of being fed on. He had never gotten a chance to do that himself, although he came close the short time he was a vampire himself, and he was jealous, always jealous that Benny got this. Benny had offered many times to turn Dean, make him a vampire too so he could experience the rush of feeding, but Dean has always said no. He couldn’t do that to Sam.
It couldn’t possibly be worse, even if it was a dream, until it was worse. It hadn’t been just Benny caught up in the vines, Sam was stuck in there too. He wasn’t quite as wrapped up yet, his head was still sticking up out of the vines, untouched, they were just barely beginning to encircle his neck. Somehow there was enough light to see the blood trickling down the graceful arch of his brother’s neck. The blood was from a very visible bite-a vampire bite. His hands dropped the vines he was still pulling from Benny as he continued to feed from Dean’s neck. He pushed away from the vampire, screaming Sam’s name.
“Dean!”
He heard Sam’s voice coming from somewhere far away, but his mouth wasn’t moving, the vines were moving it for him, growing out and through his beautiful lips. The thorns drawing blood that dripped down his chin.
“You gotta wake up, c’mon, Dean,” Sam said, slapping his brother’s cheeks lightly.
He pushed his way through the tangle of vines towards Sam, bent down and kissed the blood off his lips. He licked the trickle of blood off Sam’s neck until his brother’s skin was clean, Benny’s bite still showing clearly. “Why’d you let him, Sammy?” Dean asked.
“Why did I let who-what?” Sam asked, shaking Dean’s shoulders. “Dean, wake up!”
The dream burst apart in a blast of rotting leaves and thorns, Dean blinked slowly against the light streaming in from the hallway. He could see the outline of Sam’s bedhead. “Sam?” He asked, mouth thick and coppery from the taste of Sam’s blood.
“You were screaming, Dean,” Sam said, sitting back on his heels, running his hands through his hair now that they weren’t on Dean’s shoulders.
“Sorry for waking you, princess,” Dean said, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. He didn’t want to deal with this, not with Sam, not in the middle of the night. He rolled over, turning away from Sam and fell back into a dreamless sleep now that Sam was beside him.
***
“Dean, where’s the car?” Sam asked after Dean had woken up enough to actually accept the offered cup of coffee.
“What?” Dean asked in a mumble against his coffee cup.
“I got up early, couldn’t get back to sleep, and I was going out to get us some more eggs. But I couldn’t because the Impala’s gone.”
Dean clunked the coffee cup down on his bedside table, his stomach sinking at the thought of Baby missing. “Gone?”
“Yeah, as in not in the garage, and not out front. Did you get a ride back from the bar?”
“Naw, got an Uber,” Dean joked, turning over, so his head was out of Sam’s view. He grimaced into his pillow as all the whisky from last night caught up to him in a rush.
“Seriously, dude, it’s pretty strange you’re not hollering and running around screaming about someone stealing your baby,” Sam said.
Dean didn’t respond, and Sam didn’t push it, thankfully leaving the room.
Dean tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t get past the smell of rotting leaves, it reminded him of that horrible dream. Then he realized his jacket was covered in them, clumps of rotting leaves were all over the jacket he still wore in his bed and there were tons of small thorns stuck in the sleeves. He stumbled to the small sink and splashed some water on his face, and almost screamed from the pain. There were so damn many thorns in his palms, he couldn’t even begin to count them. How was he going to get all of them out before Sam saw them? He ignored the small cut on his wrist in the midst of all the tweezing he had to do.
***
Chapter 2
***
“Your memory is a monster; you forget-it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you-and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
***
Sam had been quiet the whole drive back to the Bunker, nose buried in some files he’d brought back from their cleanup of what was left of the British Men of Letters’ operations base. He had been right about the whole thing not burning down to the ground and they’d nabbed a few boxes of files, some computer and random tactical equipment. The trunk was completely packed with their haul. In the silent car, Dean had time to reflect on how smart his brother was, what a leader he’d morphed into, however reluctantly.
He looked over at Sam, his back squashed up against the car door, the files balanced on his bent knees, hair covering most of his face. Dean laid a hand on Sam’s calf and squeezed.
“Almost home, Sammy.”
Sam looked up and his eyes blearily focused on Dean.
“Good,” he murmured, smiling a little and looking back down at the files.
The next morning, Dean got up earlier than Sam, so he had time to look over some of the papers they’d brought in from the car last night. As he read through them, he drank an entire pot of coffee, adrenaline spiking the more pages he got through.
Dean was shaken by how much the British Men of Letters had known about how he’d gotten Benny out of Purgatory. They had all the details of that creepy spell he’d used, there was even a write-up on the possible aftereffects that he might have (which no one had ever happened to mention at the time). Even worse were the dry, almost clinical musings about the exact nature of his relationship with the vampire.
Honestly, he was just about ready to burn the pages and try to forget about the whole shebang. Fuck those moralizing Brits after what they’d pulled with them, what they’d done to Sam, invading their home, getting between them and their mother. Then he realized that the papers with the Purgatory/Benny information had been set on Sam’s side of the table, they’d been in the stack next to his laptop bag. That meant these were likely the ones he’d been poring over in the car the whole way home.
That realization had him pouring himself some whisky in his empty coffee cup even though it was before seven in the morning. As he finished his drink he noticed the post-it notes stuck in a few places with his brother’s writing: ’4 D’ and ‘Ask Dean about this’. His initial grin at the cuteness of Sam’s little notes faded as he realized that Sam now knew a lot more than he had before. A whole heaping lot more than Dean had ever been brave enough to admit to.
They never really had talked about Benny after everything that had gone down. Sam had passed on Benny’s wish to stay in Purgatory, and they’d pretty much dropped the subject, just like they’d dropped the subject of Amelia. It had seemed like they both needed to concentrate on their conscious choice to stay together and get the job done. And then the Trials and everything that’d followed had screwed that up even more.
Sitting there, drinking his second glass of whisky, (hold the coffee please), Dean ran his fingers over Benny’s name printed in the pages of the Men of Letters’ report. He found himself surprised at how moved he was to see it written out in full: Benjamin Lafitte. He finally had to admit to himself that he still felt a connection to the vampire, and to Purgatory, even now. Even after the Mark of Cain, dying, becoming a demon, and almost being taken over by Amara. That connection with the vampire still remained deep in his veins. It felt like his body remembered that it had once held the entirety of Benny’s spirit, how his body had carried Benny’s essence through the portal, back to Dean’s world.
The more Dean thought about it, especially after he was almost done with a third glass of whisky, the more he had to admit that there was a trace of Benny still in him somewhere. He re-read the section about possible aftereffects from using that spell, but the Men of Letters seemed to be just kicking around theories, not putting down in stone what would be the result of giving a vampire a ride like he had done. The theories seemed to revolve around what made up a soul, down to the unseeable particles, and their behavior when subjected to various forms of magic. He wondered if it mattered that he and Sam were soulmates, at least the Brits hadn’t known about that particular detail.
He grabbed his keys and jacket from his room and headed to the garage. Sam wouldn’t miss him while he got this shit sorted. The door to the Impala clicked shut and he clenched his hands on her wheel. He wished more than anything he had the guts to go back in and spill it all out, work through it with his brother. But he couldn’t talk to Sam about any of it, because he knew Sam would be intensely jealous of his connection with Benny all over again. Especially because he now knew the gory details Dean had never shared. The whole jealousy thing, which Dean understood much too well himself wasn’t something he was up for. He couldn’t even think of the woman Sam had loved and left for him back then without getting a cramp in his stomach.
Even now, all these years later, he still had to tell himself that they’d done the right thing, made the right choice to stay together. But he had always known deep down that Sam deserved that happy ending with Amelia. Sam was never going to get anything resembling a happy ending with him, it just didn’t seem to be in the cards, their lives didn’t seem to allow that kind of thing. So even though Sam was always bugging him to talk about this kind of relationship shit, he couldn’t bear to do it. It would just stir up the whole mess again, and as unresolved as it all felt, it seemed like the wrong time. Hell, honestly, he knew it would never feel like the right time.
Who else was there for him to confide in? He paged through his contacts in his phone list, the bright screen lighting up the dimness in the garage. Even if his mom was still here in their world, she would never understand, and he’d never even want to bring it up with her really. She had run away from them without even knowing about his past relationship with a vampire much less the one he had with his brother. Cas hadn’t ever been helpful with this kind of human thing, so there was no point in trying to talk to him. Jody was too busy with the girls, and he didn’t want to burden her with a bunch of oh-poor-me whiny bullshit.
He turned his phone off and started up his Baby, at least she understood him. A drive to sort out his thoughts, that would be a start. After a few hours on the road, Dean did what he had always done when he needed a sympathetic ear that wasn’t attached to Sam. He found himself a bar that had a bartender who was willing to listen as long as he kept throwing cash on the bar for more whisky.
At first he couched the conversation in romantic terms, so that he didn’t have to explain to Shirl the bartender about how it was an actual vampire they were talking about him missing. He stumbled over explaining that even though he was happier with Sam now than he could ever remember being, he still missed Benny sometimes. He was surprised to hear himself admit that he still woke up occasionally missing him, wanting him. But all that felt like he was cheating on Sam all over again, even if it was just in his mind and memories.
“Sam had a serious relationship with a woman during the time when we were separated. But we never discussed her much either,” Dean said.
“Dean, you ever consider that perhaps Sam has a similar thing going on?” Shirl asked, wiping the same spot on the counter between them, her bracelet softly jingling as she moved.
“How do you mean?” Dean asked, sipping at his whisky.
“Fond memories have a way of staying in one's subconscious, and there isn’t anything wrong with either of you having good memories. As long as it isn’t affecting what you have with Sam right now of course,” Shirl gently suggested.
“I have no idea how to even start to answer that,” Dean said.
“Not being able to answer something so simple might be the clue that’s the issue you really should work on first instead of all the other stuff,” Shirl said, still gentle, but with a hint of steel underneath. Like she had dealt with this kind of uncommunicative bastard herself.
“You talkin’ from experience?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, personal and recent, he wouldn’t talk, so we're no longer a we,” Shirl said, her dark eyes flashing with hurt and anger.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said, stomach contracting with dread as he considered the possibility of that same thing happening with Sam.
“Yeah, me too, but it wasn’t something I could make him do. And he didn’t have the balls to choose to do it himself. Some sort of macho bullshit, or I wasn’t worth the risk to his ego, hell if I know. Not my issue any more, thank god. So here’s your free advice, Dean-get your ass back home, and talk your Sam’s ear off. Don’t stop until he gets worried there’s something wrong with you. Seriously, you’ll be thanking me.”
“That mean you’re cuttin’ me off?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, and I’m about to take your car keys unless I see you walk a straight line out that door,” Shirl said, pointing at the exit, bracelet dangling and jingling on her wrist.
Dean laughed, shook her hand, and barely noticed the bracelet brushing his bare skin as he threw his last twenty on the bar. “Thanks for everything, darlin’.” He stood up a little unsteady at first, took a deep breath and then exaggeratedly walked, one foot in front of the other in a precise line out into the night.
On the way home, the whisky finally caught up with him, and he fell asleep at the wheel on the dark two-lane road. The Impala ran off into a ditch near the woods that were a mile or so away from the bunker. He struggled out of the car and landed in a pile of sticker vines, face up, eyes blinking at the brightness of the full moon. He thrashed through them and staggered out of the ditch, his arms and ankles and neck all scratched up. He had to pull the vines off of himself, and suck at the teeny sharp thorns left behind in his fingertips.
Dean walked the rest of the way home, lighting his way with his cellphone and got there quite a bit later than he’d planned. It was so late Sam had given up on him and gone to bed, in his own room. Sam’s door was shut all the way, there were no lights, and no sounds. Dean headed to his own room and was out cold before he even had a chance to get all the way undressed.
At first he knew it was all a dream, like you sometimes do in normal dreams. But after a while he started to worry, it all seemed too real to be just a run-of-the-mill dream. He was outside the bunker alone walking along the edge of the road looking for his car and there were too many vines, lots of them. Suddenly there were a lot more than too many vines, nearly everything seemed to be made out of them. They were all moving at once and he couldn’t quite make them out through the thickening darkness.
He could hear a continuous heavy rustling sound, the shifting the vines made, as they moved ceaselessly against one another. There was a sound of clicking when thorns met and caught hold, letting go with an ominous snick. The thorns had to be big and very hard to make that much noise. But maybe it sounded big because that was all there was.
Just Dean and the vines.
But no, he heard him then, his old friend was calling him in a muffled voice, through a mouth full of something. He saw Benny’s face through the dimness, could just make out the piercing blue eyes, saw his lips moving but the vines tangled around and then-through him. The vines growing around his neck and out of his mouth and curling around and up, tightening in a pulsing squeeze. Benny’s eyes went panicked and huge, he grunted and moaned in pain, his body was unable to move, held tight by the vines.
Dean was at his side in a flash, pulling them off, struggling to untangle him, but it was pointless, they grew much faster than he could remove them. The thorns were pricking his fingers so much that his blood was making the vines slick and impossible to grasp.
At the scent of Dean’s blood, Benny’s eyes went hazy with blood lust even though he was on the edge of being choked to death. But he couldn’t die, he was already dead, he was a vampire. But here in this hellish dream, Benny was smelling blood which gave him extra power to escape the clutches of the vines. He ripped through them, quickly freeing himself and pushed Dean down to the ground, bending him backward, teeth finding the vein in his throat.
Dean felt the familiar puncture and then the mind-numbing ecstasy of being fed on. He had never gotten a chance to do that himself, although he came close the short time he was a vampire himself, and he was jealous, always jealous that Benny got this. Benny had offered many times to turn Dean, make him a vampire too so he could experience the rush of feeding, but Dean has always said no. He couldn’t do that to Sam.
It couldn’t possibly be worse, even if it was a dream, until it was worse. It hadn’t been just Benny caught up in the vines, Sam was stuck in there too. He wasn’t quite as wrapped up yet, his head was still sticking up out of the vines, untouched, they were just barely beginning to encircle his neck. Somehow there was enough light to see the blood trickling down the graceful arch of his brother’s neck. The blood was from a very visible bite-a vampire bite. His hands dropped the vines he was still pulling from Benny as he continued to feed from Dean’s neck. He pushed away from the vampire, screaming Sam’s name.
“Dean!”
He heard Sam’s voice coming from somewhere far away, but his mouth wasn’t moving, the vines were moving it for him, growing out and through his beautiful lips. The thorns drawing blood that dripped down his chin.
“You gotta wake up, c’mon, Dean,” Sam said, slapping his brother’s cheeks lightly.
He pushed his way through the tangle of vines towards Sam, bent down and kissed the blood off his lips. He licked the trickle of blood off Sam’s neck until his brother’s skin was clean, Benny’s bite still showing clearly. “Why’d you let him, Sammy?” Dean asked.
“Why did I let who-what?” Sam asked, shaking Dean’s shoulders. “Dean, wake up!”
The dream burst apart in a blast of rotting leaves and thorns, Dean blinked slowly against the light streaming in from the hallway. He could see the outline of Sam’s bedhead. “Sam?” He asked, mouth thick and coppery from the taste of Sam’s blood.
“You were screaming, Dean,” Sam said, sitting back on his heels, running his hands through his hair now that they weren’t on Dean’s shoulders.
“Sorry for waking you, princess,” Dean said, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. He didn’t want to deal with this, not with Sam, not in the middle of the night. He rolled over, turning away from Sam and fell back into a dreamless sleep now that Sam was beside him.
***
“Dean, where’s the car?” Sam asked after Dean had woken up enough to actually accept the offered cup of coffee.
“What?” Dean asked in a mumble against his coffee cup.
“I got up early, couldn’t get back to sleep, and I was going out to get us some more eggs. But I couldn’t because the Impala’s gone.”
Dean clunked the coffee cup down on his bedside table, his stomach sinking at the thought of Baby missing. “Gone?”
“Yeah, as in not in the garage, and not out front. Did you get a ride back from the bar?”
“Naw, got an Uber,” Dean joked, turning over, so his head was out of Sam’s view. He grimaced into his pillow as all the whisky from last night caught up to him in a rush.
“Seriously, dude, it’s pretty strange you’re not hollering and running around screaming about someone stealing your baby,” Sam said.
Dean didn’t respond, and Sam didn’t push it, thankfully leaving the room.
Dean tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t get past the smell of rotting leaves, it reminded him of that horrible dream. Then he realized his jacket was covered in them, clumps of rotting leaves were all over the jacket he still wore in his bed and there were tons of small thorns stuck in the sleeves. He stumbled to the small sink and splashed some water on his face, and almost screamed from the pain. There were so damn many thorns in his palms, he couldn’t even begin to count them. How was he going to get all of them out before Sam saw them? He ignored the small cut on his wrist in the midst of all the tweezing he had to do.
***
Chapter 2