| Whee, Bubbles! ( @ 2006-08-03 18:21:00 |
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| Entry tags: | fic, sam/dean, slash, spn |
devil tips his hat.
Supernatural. Sam/Dean. Hard R. Warnings for vampirism, incest, language, murder, some mild biting and bloodplay, angst and dark humor. For la_folle_allure, who read the fic when it consisted entirely of "Sam and Dean are vampires. They are hot and have sex." and encouraged it into something longer and a bit more substantial. Title from the "When You're Evil".
After. Well, after is pretty much the same as before.
They make pit stops more often, spending a lot more time around hospitals and get blood from butchers when they have to; the real blood lust can be lulled and quieted for a time.
Mostly, yeah, it's the same except the ways it's different.
They drive more at night and the night right after, when Sam wakes up with a new strength and something primal coursing through him like a sickness or its cure—that night, Dean doesn't say anything. He just shoves Brothers in Arms in the deck even though he mostly fucking hates the Dire Straits: good, he admits, but just not loud enough. He hits play and pushes the car past ninety.
Sam doesn't even realize until the quiet lull and thunder of the last track.
::
It used to be Sam. It used to be Sam, Sammy, switching beds in the middle of the night and pushing into Dean's space, whispering pleas and promises into the curve of his throat and shoulder. He'd wrap a tight arm around Dean's waist and wait, never more than half a minute, for Dean to roll over and say, Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
It used to be that Dean would grip Sam's shoulders too hard when he pushed in, pressure and slide and god, there. Yeah, yeah, Dean, right there—it used to be Dean's fingers curling over Sam's side, his thumb rubbing soft circles into the small of his brother's back, and Dean's voice in Sam's ear: fuck, god, Sammy—c'mon, come on, please, baby, just lemme see you—
Dean whispering things he could only say like this, in the dark, things Sam would only stand to hear in those moments, and they were okay with that. It was good, Dean tells himself. It was good.
It was. It used to be. Sam's different now, he knows. Maybe he's not really Sam anymore, but Dean's not willing to believe that. Not willing to question. Sam's colder now, his skin and his manner, and it's got nothing to do with it, but he fucking finally got a haircut, but since college he refuses to let Dean do it and he's gotta go find a salon or something and—
It used to be Dean's bed, always, and now it's not. It used to be Dean lying on his side with his eyes on the door, always watching, until he heard the creak of bedsprings and felt the shift of the mattress.
Now, it's his feet that hit the ground, cold, at too late or too early, can't really tell which. He thinks maybe Sam feels different, and maybe when Dean goes to his knees, the sounds Sam makes and the hand in his hair—maybe none of it's quite like it used to be.
But he's good at denial. So maybe it's just the same as it always was.
::
He dreams less, he thinks. Maybe it's the daylight peeking around the blinds or just some weird undead thing. Maybe it's just that he doesn't care anymore, can't hurt anymore, but he doesn't think that's it.
Dean starts sleeping more during the day and Sam finds it funny for some reason, but he's not sure why.
He starts to forget a time without this, a time when he didn't feel the pulse on every living thing like it was his own and he'd just run the marathon. When the squeeze thump hiss of a living heart didn't feel like hunger. He starts to forget.
When he starts biting through the skin over Dean's shoulder, hip, thigh, Sam realizes the taste of his brother's blood feels like home in a way nothing ever has before. It doesn't scare him.
::
Some time in the third month, Sam realizes he's slipping. His skin feels stretched too tight over his bones and he can feel something push at him from the inside. It used to be gentle, but it's gotten more brutal now. Sometimes, he wakes up with bruises and scratches in his skin, a reminder: can't keep me locked up in this cage forever. I am you now. Just give me time. Give us time.
And Dean. Fuck. Dean pretends not to notice, pretends like nothing's wrong. Yeah, they drive and night and he's pretty much gone nocturnal for Sam, but he acts like his brother's still the same person. Like he still is a person.
Sam feels it, waiting and wanting, feels it like a voice in his head drawing his attention to the line of Dean's throat and the steady beat of his heart under Sam's palm. He remembers looking at Dean like this when he was a teenager, wondering how he could be like this—fucking gorgeous, and always aware that everyone was looking, aware of everyone but Sam—and now it's the same.
Dean looks up from the paper, pretends not to see Sam's eyes watching him in a new sort of way, and he says, Okay, here. Something taking children, leaving them empty, like—like just bags of skin. Fuck, that's gross.
Dean tries to go with it. He replaces college boy jokes with demon jokes, teases Sam and makes idle suggestions about trips to the beach, maybe you could get a tan, Sammy, you're looking kinda pale—and he thinks that maybe it helps. In a way, it keeps Sam grounded, clear, and he can ignore it all for just a while longer.
::
Sam used to like the smell of wood smoke. They spent a winter in a mountain village back in ninety-four, and the heating where they stayed was crap, but there was a real fireplace in each of the three main rooms and an endless supply of chopped wood just outside the back door.
Dad read thirty-pound volumes filled with cryptic symbols and weathered pages, cracked ink where they'd been folded back. Sam and Dean played cards and checkers on an old quilt spread over the floor by the hearth, and Sam only really remembers the heat on his back, the smell of the smoke. He remembers feeling safe.
After Jessica, even a burning cigarette makes something seize in his chest and his hands shake. In December of oh-six, there's a cabin on a grey-white peak and some sort of a yeti or sasquatch they'd do well to avoid.
The night before Christmas and all through the house, the smell of smoke creeps into the corners and the cracks in the floor. The power failed sometime between breakfast and lunch and Sam tried to step outside, look around for a while because the sky was too cloudy for the sun to hurt, but it was too damn cold even for him.
By the twenty-seventh, the snow's halfway up the windowpanes, and the supply they had stolen from the blood bank is bone dry. Dean gauges open a can of beans and digs a spoon out of his bag, and Sam stares at the fire and gets paler by the minute.
How long? his brother asks and studies the wood pile. They'll need to get more to last through the night, but he doesn't feel like bundling up in that many layers for a thirty-second dash for frozen logs.
Sam lifts and drops one shoulder. Few hours. Maybe a day. He takes a long breath and lets it out slow. He says, Might wanna lock your door tonight. I'll sleep in here. I don't want to—
Dean's face twists and he says, Fuck that. You're not gonna fucking starve just because—
Shut up, Dean. You wanna see how long we can go without someone finishing a sentence? Sam glares at him and curls his fingers around the arm of his chair, digs his fingernails into the wood until they leave pale crescent moons in the cheap pine. He shakes his head and closes his eyes. I'm immortal, you bastard. It won't kill me. It'll just hurt like hell.
He pushes out of his chair and it slides back four feet, not stopping its skid until Sam's got his hand on the door knob. It sticks, won't turn, and the metal is freezing, even from here.
Before he pushes the door open, there's a warm body behind him, then pressed close to his back.
Sam, Dean says in his brother's ear, his hand pushing up past the cloth of Sam's shirt. Against Sam's skin, his hand feels like it's burning. He says, Sammy. It's okay. I can, you can—just take whatever you need. Come on, it's okay.
The noise that tears out of Sam isn't something Dean's heard before. He whirls around and pushes Dean halfway across the room before Dean can fucking blink.
No, he says, as evenly as he can. I could kill you.
Dean looks at him like he means to say, So? So what? but he just pushes past Sam and out the door and returns a minute later with freezing hands and a stack of firewood balanced against his chest.
::
The room is cold, and Sam feels colder. His fingers around Dean's wrist are freezing, and his eyes are shadowed, tired. For what feels like the hundredth time, he says, No. Dean, no, no, I can't, I'll hurt you, I don't know if—
Sammy, please. Just do what you need. Please. He moves his hand to rest at the base of Sam's neck, curls his fingers in his brother's hair. He kisses him, and Sam's whole body jerks back and away. He's shivering, biting his lip white, eyes shut tight.
He manages one more protest at the same time Dean presses a kiss to his throat, his jaw, and says, You haven't had anything human in weeks. His hand slides over Sam's ribcage and lingers where there used to be a heartbeat. Just do it. Whatever you need, Sammy. Come on.
Sam groans, gives, and the next thing Dean knows, his head is tilted to the side and there's a sharp pain and Sam make a muffled, desperate noise that Dean knows well. Sam pulls himself away long enough to mutter, Christ, Dean, and Dean thinks he can feel Sam's palm growing warmer against his skin, his own pulse at Sam's wrist.
::
Waking up is different. He's not breathing. He's cold. His head is pounding like he's got the worst fucking hangover ever. The snow along the windows is at least a foot higher, and falling slowly now.
Fuck, Dean, says Sam somewhere beside him, and when Dean focuses, Sam's looking at him with wide, dark eyes. I was afraid you were, that it had gone wrong, and. God, I didn't mean to, I couldn't—he breaks off and shakes his head. Jesus, he says, and he's bitten his lip bloody and raw. The sight makes him realize he's hungry.
Oh. Oh.
Dean knuckles one eye and thinks to himself, Welcome to the other side of the looking glass, Alice.
::
Like this, with new strength and new wants, the first time is like a crash.
Sam shoves Dean hard and he falls back onto the bed, and they leave their clothes shredded and when they're done, there are bruises the shape of Sam's hands on Dean's back and the bloody mark of Sam's teeth on Dean's shoulder.
They lie sprawled and tangled after, and Sam starts to laugh. Guess normal didn't work out so well for me, huh? and Dean laughs too. When Sam says, So. Vampires mate for life, he tries to pretend he doesn't feel a wave of relief at the words.
Instead, he grins, a quick glint of teeth, and rolls over onto his knees, holding himself up and above Sam with a hand by the pillow. A tilt of his lips, and he says, Yeah, well. At any rate, we've got the stamina for it.
::
Springtime is a lie. The season, yeah, with it's promises of warmth only to bring another frost, another snow, and kill all the trees and flowers trying to bloom, but for them, their whole being is a joke. Springtime comes and Dean lasts to May believing that they can still do this.
Sam smiles at him sometimes, this twist of his lips that Dean doesn't remember from before, and he realizes too late that it's... condescending. Like Sam suddenly aged ten years and Dean's the little brother, naïve and idyllic even in this state. He lasts to May believing that they can still hunt, can still play at being the good guys, the protectors, that they can still leave a bleeding, helpless victim alone after the rescue.
He breaks on Sam's birthday. His brother would have been twenty-four, if he was still alive. If it still mattered. It's Sam's birthday and there's this girl, not the typical blonde stick of a damsel in distress. She's heavy-set, curved hips and a pretty, round face. Dark hair tangled with twigs and tied to a chair in a shack where crazy warlock kept her as a pet for a week before the Winchesters rushed to the rescue.
Except that they don't. Sam reaches to pull her gag away but his hands still on the ropes at her wrists, and he turns his head to Dean. He says carefully, Dean, we don't have to. I mean. It's been three weeks, man. We've gotta—
It's been longer for Sam than it has for Dean, and there's blood on the girl's cheek, her shoulder, stains on her clothes. She strains against the ropes, wrists rubbed raw, and she makes this broken, whimper noise, like a plea.
Yeah, Dean says finally, and it comes out as a growl. He turns to Sam and nods. Yeah, okay. Come on.
The warlock wasn't all that stupid, he realizes. It helps: this far into the woods and nobody can hear the screams.
::
It's easier when they stop pretending. Show's over, time for the cast party. And for refreshments.
They go to Louisiana first. They're not close, but they both always hated Anne Rice: Sam read the books, Dean saw the movies, and they agree without agreeing that they want to set some of the graveyard séance freaks and wanna-be Children Of The Night straight. Whether or not setting them straight means ripping their throats out is entirely secondary.
In St. Louis number 1, there's three pale, skinny kids with acne and black robes and candles. One of them has an inverted cross painted across his cheek, and they all shriek like violin strings when their blood hits the dirt.
Lesson one, sweetheart, Dean says with a roll of his eyes and flexes his hand around the girl's neck. She whimpers something like oh god oh god please no god, shakes a head of dyed black hair with every word, and he says, Graveyards are dangerous at night. You never hear that? Jesus.
Sam turns to glance at the bodies over his shoulder when they walk away and he says slowly, You know, it's kinda like natural selection, in a way.
Dean's head goes back when he laughs, loud and long. There's blood still in his teeth.
::
He brings it up in bed in a nice hotel room whose original patrons are now corpses piled in the bathroom. His teeth scraping over Sam's hipbone, and red wells up through a little tear in his skin. Dean licks it away with a soft groan and moves his hand lightly, teasing, over Sam's cock and balls.
Shit, Sam growls and grits his teeth. Come on, Dean, fuck, just—
Dean grins and says, C'mon, Sammy. Mexico. Day of the dead. What's so bad about that? It'll be fun.
His hand doesn't stop moving. Sam makes this hissing noise and curses. It's tacky is what's wrong with it, and—fuck, Dean, please.
Dean moves his head, licks a line up the shaft and flits over the head and slit. He smirks and lifts away when Sam moans. He laughs and says, I promise, we'll have a good time. Kill a few true believers, hit a few parties. I'll even buy you a candy skeleton, kid-o.
Fuck you, Sam says and his hips jerk.
Dean shakes his head. Well, if that's the way you feel... He makes to get up. Sam grabs his wrist and he spits out, You even think of moving, I swear to God, I'll—fuck, all right. We'll go, now just...
Dean's hands flex on Sam's hips and he smiles. That's my boy, he says and bends his head again.
::
Sam's only ever been to Mexico once before. He was thirteen and some big, bad beastie ran all the way to Baja before they could kill it dead. He broke his wrist and almost got his neck snapped. It wasn't the best trip, and he's been wary of any place south of the border since then.
Día de Muertos is different from what he remembers. In a crowded street full of revelers, Dean steps too close behind him and licks a slow line down Sam's throat before pressing a hard candy skull into his palm. Sam shakes his head and calls Dean a bastard but his lips twitch when he drops it into his pocket.
Dean plays offended and says something about always keeping his word. He says, C'mon. Let's go find dinner, and he's a few feet away before he feels Sam's hand on his hip and Sam's lips by his ear: Yeah, well, I've never lied to you either, right?
Confused, he shakes his head. No. C'mon, man, all the excitement's making me hungry, let's—
He breaks off at Sam's words, a long string of lewd promises whispered against his skin. Sam isn't sparse with the details: Dean's hard by the time his brother steps back and away and says, Yeah. All right. Food. We passed this apartment a block back; I think there was a lonely little Catholic virgin inside. Sound good?
::
They wake up at dusk on All Soul's Day in a trusting dead girl's apartment, both of them sticky with dried blood and come. Dean opens his eyes thinking that holidays make people stupid. At no other time would a person open the door to two strangers with blood-stained lips and bruised faces asking for use of your bathroom and phone and say, Yes, of course. Come in.
He looks to Sam who's staring at the ceiling with a pensive look on his face. It's a look Dean hasn't since in months, since—well. Since this. Since Sam changed him. Since they gave in. Dean hasn't missed it, and he hasn't looked back.
Two years, Sam says quietly, and Dean nods.
I know, he says. I'm sorry, man.
He's not. Not really. But Sam doesn't need to know that.
No, Sam says, that's not it. I... I don't care. He shifts to his side and smiles warily. It doesn't hurt anymore.
He sits up and finds his shirt thrown over the back of a chair and looks at the dead girl's body lying broken in the corner. He shakes his head. Man, we've gotta start keeping them alive longer. I could go for breakfast about now.
Dean shakes his head. Hell, next you're gonna want to find us a pack and build a nest. I'm way too young to settle down, Sammy. What are you thinking?
mostly insubstantial authorial ramblings: The original idea for this came up when
This isn't really meant to be read as an AU continuation of Dead Man's Blood, but I suppose it could be read that way. Thanks to somewhat sparse vampire canon for this fandom, I've taken a few liberties. For example, though John says in DMB that vampires need fresh human blood to survive, I'm going to assume for the purposes of this fic that it's more of a multivitamin supplement to the vampire diet than a staple food. Also, it became apparent in the writing of this fic that though Sam is, technically, a demon toward the beginning of the fic, he manages to hold back any real, true evil because of Dean's influence: something that eventually slips away as the true nature takes hold.
Then again, I may have simply over-thought this all in an attempt to justify the existence of this fic.
ETA: There is now an outtake. Sam/Dean, NC-17. Same warnings and then some apply.