Becomes A Monster, Sam/Dean [NC17], (4/4)
Jun. 23rd, 2013 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlFic title: Becomes A Monster (Part 4/4)
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:tdorian
Pairing: Dean/Sam, with past Dean/Benny, Sam/Amelia
Rating: NC17
(Dean)
Time gets fuzzy without light or air. The men come and go, cut him and put things on him and hold his mouth open to pry around inside and cut more pieces of him away. They ask questions and shout things at him, but it’s hard to understand them through the roaring in his ears, the waves of pain that come and go. He doesn’t know how long it is before they put a bag over his head and drag him hurriedly outside. He knows it’s outside because he can smell the fresh air and the trees, even through the thick canvas. He struggles feebly, weak and dizzy, trying to loosen the ropes around his wrists and ankles. It doesn’t work. His brain, when it kicks in, alternates between “run” and “Sam,” over and over.
Dean drifts in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he can feel movement, the rumble of a vehicle beneath him. He can’t smell the outside anymore, there’s too much of his own sick smell inside the bag, but he knows they’re moving. He remembers the feel of the Impala under him, the way her tires ate up the road. He remembers Sam beside him, long hair caught in the wind and a lopsided grin on his face. The road meant freedom then; now it’s taking him farther from Sam.
Sam, he thinks. Sammy.
The two men dragging him out of the car and into another building aren’t gentle. “Christ, does this thing ever stop hissing?” one of them says.
“Been doing that nonstop ever since we caught him,” the other answers.
Dean opens his eyes briefly when they take off the bag and hang him from another hook in another room that smells like fear and pain and death. He doesn’t open them again when they start asking him questions.
Another span of time goes by, and Dean can’t feel much of anything now. It’s a relief.
“Don’t think we’re gonna get anything out of him,” he hears one of the men say, and for a second he thinks that’s good news.
“Well, at least we can figure out what kills him.”
“As soon as Randall gets back,” the first one says, and then the room is quiet. Dean dreams of lighting fireworks with Sam in a field, the way Sam looked at him afterwards like Dean hung the moon, and remembers the ache in his chest at the sight. He calls for Sam when he can make his tongue work, but it’s too swollen now to make much of a sound.
* * *
(Benny)
Benny loses the trail twice, but each time they circle around and retrace their steps until he picks it up again. Then the rain resumes, and he loses it completely. They stop at a motel so Sam can charge the laptop while Benny raids the local blood bank, waiting for the rain to stop again. Benny brings back a bottle of whiskey, too.
“I know how much you miss him,” Benny says, pouring a glass for himself.
“Been looking out for each other all our lives,” Sam admits, rubbing his eyes. “But this last year… he was just gone, and I didn’t think… I didn’t even know where to look for him, you know?”
Benny passes the whiskey, and Sam takes a swig right from the bottle.
“If I’d known, I could’ve--"
“Naw, you couldn'ta done nothin’, Sam. You didn’t know where he was, and you didn’t know there was any way for you to go in and get him. You had to stay alive till he could come back to you. I promised him that every night, that you were stayin’ alive up here for him; that he had to stay alive so he could get back to you.”
Sam takes another swig. His bloodshot eyes have dark circles under them, but his expression is incongruously warm, hopeful. “Yeah?” he asks, like he’s waiting for Benny to tell him a story.
Benny nods. “Every night. Gettin’ back to you was the only thing that kept him going sometimes, when things got really bad. He wouldn’t give up, long as he knew you were topside.”
Sam’s hand is wrapped so tightly around the bottle that Benny's afraid the glass might shatter. He’s shaking, the muscles in his arm trembling so hard the bottle is shaking, too, and then his face crumples.
“We’re not gonna find him in time,” Sam says in a strangled voice, and then he’s sobbing. It’s a broken sound; one Benny’s heard before.
The bottle slips from Sam’s hand and Benny catches it before it falls. Sam has his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he cries.
Benny doesn’t try to touch him; it’s not his touch Sam needs.
“Yes, we will,” he says instead. “We’re gonna find him, Sam. We made him a promise, you an’ me, and we’re gonna find him. We’re gonna find him, and then we’re gonna fix him.”
Sam sleeps for a little while after that, exhaustion and hopelessness taking him down and keeping him there.
* * *
(Sam)
Sam’s driving the next day when the ringing of his cell phone nearly makes him swerve off the road. From the passenger seat, Benny’s hand flies to the wheel with preternatural speed and jerks it back to steady.
“Whoa, easy there,” Benny drawls. The vampire’s voice makes Sam want to punch him for sounding so damn laid back when Dean’s life is on the line, and yet it’s starting to have a calming effect in times like these, when part of Sam's brain-in-overdrive knows he needs to listen.
Sam checks the phone display.
“Garth,” Sam says, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
Benny gestures beside him, and he puts it on speaker. They have nothing to hide from each other anymore; the only thing that matters to either of them is the thing they have in common.
“Sam,” Garth says, and he sounds relieved. “You okay, man?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Sam can picture Garth rolling his eyes.
“Cut the bullshit, Sam. I know you’re on the run out there, and I know something happened to Dean. I know he’s been turned--I’m not sure what into, but something bad.”
Sam’s fists clench. Beside him, Benny shakes his head slowly. “We need intel,” he whispers, and Sam forces himself to stay calm.
“What else do you know?”
“I know what every other dumb schmuck in America knows: that Dean nearly killed a man in a gas mart. And I know what lots of ‘em don’t: maybe 'lizard-man' is National Enquirer stuff, but Sam, Dean ain’t human anymore. You don’t just come back from Purgatory. He’s been turned into something else, and you know that ain’t okay.”
Sam’s stomach twists and turns. He wants to jump through the phone line and get his hands around Garth’s throat and throw his puny little body across the room. “It’s still Dean, Garth! He’s still in there!”
Garth sighs. “Look, I get why you want to believe that. I know how close you and Dean were.”
Sam doubts that’s true; Benny’s the only one who knows that.
“He’s in there,” Sam protests, some of the weariness clear in his voice.
“He told you that?”
It’s a terrible question. Sam wants desperately to say yes, to scream that Dean still says his name. So what if he can’t say actual words; Sam knows he understands. Benny knows, too; Benny has seen it.
There’s no use trying to explain, though. The assholes who took Dean won’t be interested in the details, and every sound Dean makes that’s not words will seal his fate.
“Garth, please, if you know who has him, please--he’s not dangerous, not if he’s with me.”
Garth scoffs. “Sam, he tried to kill a man with you standing right there.”
“I won’t take him into stores anymore,” Sam insists, and he’s talking too fast, he knows he is, almost babbling in his desperation to get through to Garth. “I’ll keep him inside; I’ll keep him locked up, keep him away from everyone until we--I’ve already got the spell to fix this, Garth. Please, if you’re in contact with them, tell them not to hurt him. Please Garth, I’m… I’m begging you.”
“Jesus, Sam,” Garth says, and he sounds anguished now. He was a good friend once, Sam reminds himself. He used to hug Dean whenever he saw him, much to Dean’s chagrin. “You know what you sound like? That’s no kinda life, man. You ain’t gonna cure him of something like this. You’re sentencing yourself to a life of isolation, nobody to talk to, never able to do anything normal again. Christ, Sam, you were the one who wanted normal so bad… this is so far from it, it ain’t even funny.”
It’s true. It’s all true. If they can’t fix Dean, Sam will never have anything like normal ever again.
Benny looks at him, head tilted. “He’s right,” he whispers. “Maybe this is too much to ask of anyone. I ain’t gonna judge ya if you wanna go back to livin’ your life. Dean wanted that for you, wanted you to be happy. Normal.”
Sam remembers Amelia curled up beside him in bed on lazy Saturday mornings, the smell of fresh-cut grass and freshly turned soil and the rose bush beside the front porch. He remembers Riot wet from the rain and shaking, and the way they laughed and chased him around the house with a towel, following his muddy paw prints in a mad dash. Normal. Safe.
“Sam?” Garth says. “You still there?”
Sam remembers Dean carefully taping band-aids over his skinned knee when he was four. He remembers Dean wiping the tears off Sam's face after, and bending to press his lips to the bandages, telling Sam with seven-year-old certainty, “Kissing the booboo makes it go away, Sammy.” He remembers wrestling with Dean and falling off the bed, both of them laughing so hard they couldn’t catch their breath; he remembers Dean’s face when Sam asked him, did you sell your soul for me?
“I’m here,” he answers finally. “Normal isn’t what I want, Garth. What I want is my brother. Are you gonna tell me where he is?”
Garth sighs on the other end of the phone. “Sam, I know who took him, and you don’t wanna mess with them.”
Sam’s heart is pounding triple-time. “Tell me where they are. Tell me or I’m headed your way next.”
It’s not a hollow threat, and Garth must know it--or maybe he does have a little bit of sympathy or hope left in him.
“Pottsgrove,” Garth says reluctantly. “Word is they’re somewhere in Pottsgrove.”
They’re only a few hours away. “Thanks,” Sam says tersely.
Garth is quiet for a minute. When he speaks again, he sounds genuinely sad. “Even if you find him, he’ll kill you sooner or later, Sam. It’s what monsters do.”
Sam grits his teeth and keeps his voice even. “He’s not a monster.” He throws the phone on the floor and puts his foot to the gas.
“These guys ain’t exactly the Boy Scouts of hunting, are they?” Benny asks, his fingers now proficient on Sam’s smartphone that he retrieved from the floor. “From what I’m seein’ here, they’ve taken out lots of monsters, but there’s been a fair number of human casualties, too. They ain’t exactly careful.”
Sam nods, his fingers tight on the wheel. Benny’s pickup lurches ahead faster, giving them everything she has. “They’re crazy-ass vigilantes is what they are. Paranoid bastards, cut from the same cloth as Gordon Walker and his gang. No way they’re gonna believe that something that looks like Dean and came from Purgatory and can’t talk is still part human.”
“No way they’re gonna believe a vamp is good for anything but beheading, either,” Benny adds.
“Then we take them out if we have to.” Sam says it without an ounce of hesitation.
“They’re still human,” Benny reminds him, but he’s smiling.
“So’s my brother,” Sam says, and urges the pickup forward.
In the end, it’s not that hard to find Randall and his gang. It’s a clear day, and Dean’s blood is a beacon that Benny follows easily once they get to Pottsgrove. The hunters are holed up in an abandoned cement factory outside a town that’s mostly abandoned itself. Benny rolls the window down and cocks his head. Sam can tell when he catches a new scent in the air, the way he goes rigid and closes his eyes, concentrating.
Sam doesn’t need the confirmation.
“He’s here.” Sam’s certain of it.
They park the truck a short distance away and make their way through the brush and trees that flank the gravel road, staying under cover. Benny goes first, his preternatural senses the only asset they have. He moves almost silently, never trampling a twig and avoiding leaves that might crackle underfoot. Sam concentrates on doing the same, walking in Benny’s footprints the way he used to walk in Dean’s, back when Dean’s feet were bigger and Sam wanted nothing more than to follow him forever.
They’re almost to the hulking shell of a building when Benny freezes.
“What is it?” Sam whispers, stopping beside him, but he already knows. “Is it him?”
Benny nods, and they move a little faster.
There’s no one outside; Randall wasn’t expecting company. Sam sends a silent thanks to Garth for not warning anyone.
They let themselves in through the shipping gate in the back, making their way toward the front of the building, where they can hear muffled voices. Randall and three of his men are arguing.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Randall is yelling, pointing a finger at the two men Sam recognizes from the gas mart.
“We were in close quarters, in a store,” the one who shot the hapless clerk yells back. Like that stopped him from recklessly firing at Sam anyway.
“So now we have Sam Winchester on our tail, again,” Randall says with disdain, “Because you didn’t wanna make a mess in a gas mart.”
“He’s human,” the other man says. “Did we really want to--”
That’s as far as he gets before Randall whirls on him. “And you think that would keep him from blowing you away? You think he’s not crazy enough to take out anyone keeping him from what he thinks is his brother? He’s been hiding that monster for months!”
Beside Sam, Benny straightens. “Let’s do this,” he growls. When Sam looks at him, Benny’s fangs are out. His eyes glitter with excitement, with the desire for violence.
“We don’t kill them unless we have to,” Sam says, though it’s not what he wants to say at all.
Benny nods, and then they’re moving. It’s sweet to see the look of terror on Randall’s face when Sam punches him in the face, the satisfying crack of his jaw breaking a beautiful sound.
It’s lucky for Randall and his men that they’re knocked out and tied up before Benny and Sam make their way downstairs and find Dean. Sam might have changed his mind about killing them if he’d known what they’d done to his brother.
Benny goes first, his sense of smell unerringly leading him to the small room where Dean is strung up on some kind of industrial hook-and-pulley arrangement. He’s naked, bare feet touching the floor, but instead of standing he’s hanging by his wrists, head down and completely limp.
Sam’s heart thuds to a stop. They’re too late. Ohgod, they’re too late. Grief and terror flood him so quickly he comes close to collapsing. He can’t lose Dean again; he can’t.
“Is he…” Sam chokes out, his hands going to Dean’s face, trying to support his head. It’s horrible to feel how limp Dean is, his head lolling sideways each time Sam tries to hold him steady. “Benny, is he?” The words come out strangled, gritty.
“No,” Benny answers. “He’s in bad shape, but he’s not dead. He’s lost a lot of blood, though.”
Energy seems to rush back into Sam’s body in a burst, his heart thumping madly, overcome with relief. Dean’s alive. Dean’s alive.
“Get him off the hook,” Sam orders, and Benny turns the crank that lowers Dean to the floor.
Sam has his arms around his brother before he can fall, and Dean slumps into him like a rag doll while Benny frees his hands.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, holding Dean to his chest and trying to rouse him. “Dean, it’s me; can you hear me?”
There’s no response.
“C’mon, we need to get him out of here before anyone else shows up--don’t know how many of ‘em there are. Can you carry him or do you want me to?”
“I’ve got him,” Sam snarls, and starts up the stairs. He longs to stop and do something horrible to the unconscious men tied up on the floor, but Benny takes him by the arm and hurries them outside.
Halfway to the truck, Sam stumbles on a tree root and falls, exhausted.
“Fuck, shit, sorry,” he gasps, lungs burning with the exertion of carrying his brother.
Benny scoops Dean up and continues without a word. Sam follows.
Benny drives while Sam wraps Dean in the blankets from the back of the pickup. Dean’s shivering violently, his lips blue and his teeth chattering.
“He’s in shock,” Benny says unnecessarily. “Probably dehydrated and starved too.”
“Dean, c’mon, don’t give up now.”
Sam holds a water bottle to Dean's lips; they’re parched, cracked and peeling like old paper.
The first bit just runs out the side of Dean’s mouth.
“Dean, please, you have to drink. C’mon, just a little.”
He pours a tiny bit more, and Dean splutters, choking. His hands flail with a surprising burst of strength, and then he freezes, a handful of Sam’s shirts in one fist. His nostrils flare, and Sam can hear him breathe in sharply.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, putting his hand over his brother’s. “It’s me, you’re safe.”
Dean swallows a few drops of the water in his mouth and gives a broken hiss.
“That’s right,” Sam urges, “It’s me, it’s Sam. Now drink for me, c’mon.”
He tips the bottle again, and this time Dean swallows a few times before his swollen tongue gets in the way and he chokes again. After a few more minutes, his lashes flutter open.
Sam never thought he’d be happy to see those weird reptilian eyes, but he wants to cry now, seeing the life still in them.
“Hey,” he says, stroking the side of his brother’s face gently. “Almost lost you there.”
Dean’s hand comes up and mirrors Sam’s gesture, his fingers trembling against Sam’s cheek. He hisses again, more urgently this time.
“Yeah,” Sam says, putting the bottle to his brother’s lips again. “Stay with us, okay? We’re gonna fix this.”
They hole up in the most out-of-the-way motel they can find. Sam feeds Dean chicken soup, coaxing him when he gags on it, and makes him drink Gatorade. Sam holds him in the shower, washing off as much of the blood and filth as he can. He lays Dean out on the bed afterwards and pats him dry.
Benny has the first-aid kit laid out, and watches silently as Sam stitches his brother up. Dean doesn’t flinch, his eyes half closed. He hisses softly every now and then, and each time Sam says, “Yeah, Dean, I’m here.”
Sam sleeps curled around his brother at night, and watches him sleep during the day. Nobody comes after them. Maybe the fact that Dean bled and burnt and pissed and puked and starved like a human, and couldn’t fight his way out of being tied to a chair or hung from a meat hook, had reassured Randall’s crazy band of hunters that while he may have been a monster, he wasn’t a particularly lethal one. Maybe Garth convinced them to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe they just didn’t want to have anything to do with Sam Winchester and his crazy sidekick again.
It’s another two weeks before Dean’s recovered enough for them to dare attempt the plan Sam had put together. They’ll need all their strength in Purgatory.
Sam’s intel is solid: the rogue reaper is right where he should be, and a promise of Winchester debt in the future is enough for him to agree to take all three of them in. Ajay keeps his distance from Dean, and Dean hisses and growls at him incessantly, but they all hold hands and make it through the portal.
“Twenty-four hours,” Ajay says sternly. “Not a minute more. Be back here then and I’ll get you back out.”
Sam prays that it’s enough time. It has to be.
Dean’s skittish and unpredictable in Purgatory, smelling things Sam can’t smell and hearing things inaudible to Sam. He sticks close, though, defense of his mate apparently a higher priority than flight. Despite the debacle at the grocery store, Sam hasn’t had much chance to see how vicious a hybrid skimmer/human can be; Dean kills two vampires and some sort of creature that looks like a cross between a dragon and a hummingbird entirely on his own. Benny and Sam take out a few more things that smell a rare and delectable human meal as the three of them make their way to the spot where Benny drained the skimmer before he and Dean escaped. The body is gnawed away to almost nothing, mostly bones, but it’s there. Sam hopes it’s enough.
They’re about to slice Dean’s forearm and bleed the essence of skimmer out of him while Benny reads the spell, when Dean suddenly goes rigid and makes a sound Sam has never heard before. It’s entirely inhuman, echoing plaintively through the woods.
There’s unmistakable emotion in it, and it stops both Sam and Benny in their tracks. There’s movement in the trees, and then a skimmer emerges from the woods, its eyes matching Dean’s, its naked body carrying the same markings that run down Dean’s back. It has claws, too, and much more of the scale-like patterning on its torso and arms, but other than that, it and Dean look the same. It’s a male; that’s obvious.
Dean makes that sound again, softer this time, and the skimmer steps forward, returning the call.
“Oh, shit,” Benny says, and Sam can’t believe this is all going to hell when they were so close.
“Cut him,” Sam orders, and Benny brings up the knife. The skimmer howls then, gathering himself for an attack.
“Tell him we’re giving her back to him!” Benny yells it, trying to be heard above the skimmer’s cry. “Tell him, Dean, for chrissakes, tell him now!”
The skimmer is almost on top of them when Dean screeches back, an ear-splitting, inhuman sound. Sam positions Dean’s arm above the corpse and lets the blood and whatever the hell else is in there drip down onto it.
The male skimmer catches Sam with his claws, searing pain as they sink deep into the meat of his shoulder, but Sam grits his teeth and hangs onto Dean’s arm, and Dean howls even louder when he smells Sam bleeding.
In an amazing display of concentration, Benny intones the spell, speaking quickly but enunciating every word perfectly, just like they practiced.
The skimmer is so close now that Sam can smell his breath, see the lethal fangs--which Dean, thankfully, doesn’t have--ready to rip his throat out. Sam has an instant to regret that he won’t know if the spell worked, and then there’s a flash of light and the air is clouded with dust and smoke, and the skimmer’s teeth never get to Sam’s neck. Sam stumbles backwards, still holding on to Dean’s arm.
There in front of them is a fully formed female skimmer, staggering to her feet in bewilderment, already calling out for help. The male skimmer whirls away from Sam and lurches towards her, grabbing for her hand and pulling her into what can only be described as a hug.
He howls at the top of his lungs, and Sam knows a victory yell when he hears one. Then the thing is turning, tugging his mate toward the woods.
The noise, unfortunately, has attracted other monsters.
“C’mon, Benny,” Sam urges, “We’ve gotta go!”
Dean is wobbling between them, looking dazed but human, his eyes the green that Sam has known his entire life.
Benny looks at Dean, then at the approaching monsters. He slaps Sam on the shoulder. “You take care of him, y'hear?” he says, drawl even thicker with the emotion behind it.
“Benny, no,” Sam gets out, but Benny’s already turning away to face their attackers.
“I don’t belong up there, Sam,” he calls over his shoulder. “But he does. Get him outta here, promise me.”
Sam nods, his throat achingly tight and his eyes stinging. The skimmers pause at the edge of the woods and then, to Sam’s shock, they come to stand beside Benny, claws raised and growling at the approaching attackers. The female turns her head one more time, her reptilian eyes landing right on Dean. She calls to him one more time, and Dean nods. Sam can feel him shaking.
Sam throws his knife to Benny and grabs Dean’s hand, and then they’re running for the place they’re supposed to meet Ajay, leaving the sounds of a violent scuffle behind them. Sam doesn’t look back; doesn’t let Dean stop even when he’s obviously winded.
The taxi driver appears at the appointed time, to the minute. He looks surprised to see them.
“Only you two, then?”
Sam nods, and Ajay takes their hands.
* * *
It’s not until they climb into Benny’s pickup truck that Sam dares to really look at his brother.
Dean’s ghostly pale, his chest still heaving from their run. The cut on his forearm is bleeding sluggishly.
“Dean?”
His eyes look normal, but Sam can’t see his back. And he hasn’t said a word.
“Dean, can you say something? Can you talk?”
For a few long seconds, Sam’s gut clenches in a wave of panic. Dean puts his lips together, frowning, and all that comes out is a sibilant hiss.
“Ssss--s--s--Sam!” he finally says emphatically.
Sam’s heard his brother say his name a million times over the course of his lifetime. It’s been curse and endearment and exhortation and warning. But it’s never sounded better than it does right now.
Sam drives until he can’t see straight, exhaustion overwhelming him. Dean stays quiet, but when Sam takes off his bloody shirt Dean takes the med kit from Sam and makes him sit on the bed. Dean’s hands are strong and sure when he cleans the wounds the skimmer’s claws left, steady when he stitches Sam up. It’s the first time in a long time he’s taken care of Sam instead of the other way around, and it brings a lump to Sam’s throat. He turns away so Dean won’t see the wetness in his eyes.
“Sam,” Dean says softly when he’s done, patting over the bandages gently. “Sammy.”
There’s no hiding the tears then.
* * *
(Dean)
They pick up the Impala the next day. Dean runs his hands over her flanks reverently, though he lets Sam drive. They put as much distance between them and everything that’s happened as they can, driving nonstop through the night and into the next day.
Memories of the last six months come back in fragments, like he was awake half the time and dreaming the rest. Some of them are vague and blurred around the edges, pictures without any words to make sense of them. Sam in a strange house with a strange woman; the woman’s eyes on him all the time, assessing. He could smell fear on her, but there was anger, too, an unspoken threat to stay away from her mate. Even then, Dean was sure Sam was his; he remembers wanting to get Sam away from there, away from her. Amelia. The name comes back to him and raises the hairs on the back of his neck.
Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, surprised by the visceral reaction. Sam’s girlfriend. He should have been happy for his brother; instead he remembers wanting to get his hands around her throat.
“Hey, you okay?” Sam sounds concerned. “You look like you’re gonna hurl.”
Sam’s driving, the windows of the Impala cracked, the rumble of her engine soothing.
“Must be the crappy way you’re driving,” he shoots back.
Sam grins, the way he has for the past 24 hours whenever Dean says anything at all. His words are returning quickly now, no longer coming out in broken half-sentences.
“You just tell me when you’re ready to take the wheel again,” Sam offers, looking at Dean fondly instead of in annoyance.
“I need my rest, bitch,” Dean says, and closes his eyes again. There are too many pictures still swirling in his head; he doesn’t want to put his Baby at risk. Not to mention his stupid little brother. Who he seems to be madly in love with. That’s not really new, but it’s worse than ever now that he’s touched Sam, Sam’s touched him. Sam’s saved him.
Sam keeps driving.
Amelia isn’t the only one Dean remembers in violent imagery. By the time the men--the hunters--came to take him from Sam, Dean’s thoughts had gone jumbled. Hard to think when so many other senses were so much more powerful. He remembers the unfamiliar scent of the hunters’ sweat, shot through with fear and rage, and the iron-rich smell of their human blood. He remembers his own terror, the intolerable feeling of being immobilized and in danger, the overwhelming impulse to flee. He wants to kill them still; the impulse is almost as strong, though he experiences it in words now along with the images of them bloodied and screaming.
Sam glances over at him, and Dean schools his face to be more serene.
It’s not like all his memories are bad ones. Most of them are of Sam. Sam worried, Sam frustrated, Sam angry at him. Sam terrified and exhausted and on the verge of giving up. The look on Sam’s face the first time they touched, like he was in awe of what they were doing--a little afraid, a lot ashamed, but there was lust in his eyes and eagerness in the way he reached for Dean. Dean remembers that clearly, along with the primal rush of pleasure he felt when Sam’s teeth sank into the back of his neck and held him still while Sam mounted him. It’s a strange word for an even stranger memory, but it’s the right one. That’s how he remembers it, even now.
He wonders how Sam remembers it. Maybe it was really just Sam doing what he had to do, keeping Dean in his place until he could get the monster out of him.
“You sure you’re okay? You’re fidgeting and grimacing and squirming all over the place.”
Sam’s right. Now Dean’s got an erection on top of all the other tangled-up feelings, and the most vivid images of Sam naked and possessive and toppy as hell stuck in his head.
“’m fine,” he insists, hoping Sam won’t scrutinize him too closely. “Keep driving.”
Sam huffs, but he still doesn’t sound annoyed. Dean wonders how long he’ll be able to say anything he wants to Sam without consequences.
His other vivid memory is of Benny. Benny, who sacrificed himself to get them out of Purgatory, and chose to stay behind. Benny, who knows what it feels like to be a monster among humans. Dean remembers Benny watching while Sam took him; the scent of their arousal, human and vampire, overwhelming him with need. He remembers sex with Benny in Purgatory, when he was human and terrified, and they needed each other in too many ways to count. That Sam allowed Benny to watch them fuck is something he never would have anticipated. His memories are too vague to tell him why that happened, more flashes of sensation and emotion than explanations. He guesses Sam needed Benny pretty badly, too.
Dean cracks his eyes open and stretches, rolling his window down farther and letting the breeze cool his face where he’s blushing a little at the vivid memories.
“You changed your mind about Benny, huh?” he asks on impulse.
Sam’s hands jerk a bit on the wheel; he’s still not entirely used to Dean speaking. “Sort of changed my mind about monsters in general,” he admits with a shrug. “People can be the biggest monsters of all.”
“We gonna go after the douchebags who tried to bleed the monster outta me?” Dean wants to. Badly.
Sam shakes his head. “No. We get the word out that you’re… you again… and they’ll back off. I’m not risking a vendetta with a bunch of insane jackoffs who call themselves hunters.”
That’s what Dean expected. It makes sense. It still sits like lead in his belly, though.
They finally stop the next night at a motel outside Greensburg. Sam gets the keys and they carry their duffels into Room 16. Dean doesn’t say anything about the two twin beds, but there’s a dull ache in his throat when he thinks about sleeping apart from his brother. It’s stupid, but his best memories of the last six months are of Sam curled around him, a sense of belonging and safety and love that Dean hadn’t experienced since he was four years old.
He wakes up time after time that night, finally flailing so hard that he falls right out of the narrow bed, vivid nightmares of being tied up and cut into assaulting him every time he closes his eyes.
Sam comes to sit on the edge of the bed after Dean climbs back into it. Dean’s chest is heaving, his heart beating so loudly he’s sure Sam can hear it.
“Dean,” Sam says gently, in that voice he always used when Dean was a monster--reassurance and affection and control all rolled into one word. “It’s okay, you’re just having nightmares.”
“No shit,” Dean grumbles. He’s sweating like crazy, and his stomach is rolling, queasy.
Sam reaches over and puts a hand on Dean’s chest, over the tattoo there, and Dean holds his breath.
“When you were… you know… it used to calm you down if I kept some contact with you. I can--I mean, if it’s too weird, I don’t have to--"
“Yeah,” Dean manages, letting out the breath he’s been holding. “Yeah, that might help.”
Sam seems relieved. “Okay, close your eyes, then. I’ll be… I’m right here.”
Dean closes his eyes. Sam’s big hand is warm on his chest, steady. He can smell the familiar scent of Sam, sleepy and clean and masculine. “Just try to sleep,” Sam says softly.
Dean does.
* * *
(Sam)
Dean’s still skittish, and still clearly remembering some pretty horrific things about his time as a monster and in captivity. But he’s talking, and to Sam that’s a miracle every single time.
He can feel his brother’s heart pounding rapidly under his hand as Dean tries to get back to sleep. Sam knows what it’s like to have nightmares. How many nights of Sam’s childhood did Dean do this for him, sitting on the side of his bed and rubbing his back, murmuring how it was okay, he wasn’t gonna let anything happen. “Go to sleep now, Sammy,” he’d say. “I’m right here.”
Now Sam can do the same for Dean.
Neither of them mentions the fact that Sam’s relationship with Dean when he was part monster wasn’t exactly brotherly. Maybe Dean’s disgusted by what they did, now that he’s back to being one hundred percent human. Maybe he thinks Sam’s a sick bastard for doing what he did, just to keep Dean docile. The thought makes Sam’s stomach turn.
So Sam keeps his touch careful, tries to make it the same way he’s always put his hands on Dean to stitch him up or pull him out of danger or kick his ass in sparring. It’s not so easy now. He wishes he didn’t know how Dean whimpers when Sam twists his fingers inside him; wishes he didn’t know what it feels like to sink inside his brother’s tight heat and wrap his hand around his brother’s hard cock to make him come. Sam shouldn’t know those things, but he does. And now that he knows, ignoring the wanting that’s always been there is a lot harder. When it was never a possibility, it was just a hum in the back of his brain, a fleeting longing, an impossible fantasy when he was alone and no one would ever know. It’s impossible to go back to that now; it will never be just a fantasy again.
Dean shifts restlessly, eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. Sam strokes his chest; murmurs nonsense until Dean quiets. His long eyelashes are dark against the pale skin of his face, beautiful.
I wish I didn’t want you.
Dean sleeps on, momentarily peaceful.
They stay on the road and constantly moving while Dean regains his strength; not hunting, just driving. Dean is still restless; maybe some lingering side effect of the skimmer blood, maybe Dean’s reaction to finally--really--being back.
Sam calls Garth and tells him it’s fixed; Garth doesn’t believe it until Sam puts Dean on the phone, and then he says “sonofabitch” like he’s sincerely happy about it.
At night they sleep in separate beds, but Sam starts getting rooms with two queens so he can spend half the night soothing Dean’s nightmares.
Outside Amarillo, they stop at a bar and drink too much, both of them laughing and telling stupid jokes. It feels like the first time Sam has laughed in lifetimes. His belly hurts with it, the muscles unused for too long.
A pretty redhead comes on to Dean a few hours in, and Dean goes into flirt mode like he never stopped. Never mind he couldn’t even speak a month ago; he’s smooth-tongued and confident now, and the girl is eating it up.
The way it burns in Sam’s stomach, aches in his chest, is unexpected. He wants to interrupt their conversation and ask if she’d be willing to take care of him when he’s out of control and attacking anything that moves; if she’d stick with him when he couldn’t talk or think or remember, when he wasn’t even human. He wants to send her away and pull Dean onto his lap and bite and bruise and mark him until everyone knows he belongs to Sam.
Except he doesn’t. Not anymore.
Sam drinks two more beers while he tries to ignore Dean and the way the girl’s got her hand on his thigh, blatantly fondling. Dean sits like he always has, long legs spread obscenely wide, and Sam’s sure she has a perfect view of his dick reacting to her attention.
Sam is contemplating going outside to wait in the Impala when Dean leans over and clinks his beer against Sam’s.
“Sorry, but we really gotta hit the road now,” he says to the girl. “Right, Sam?”
Sam gapes, at a loss for words for a second.
“Right, Sammy?” Dean asks again, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Uh, yeah, right. We do. We gotta go.”
The girl is pouting, but Dean kisses her on the cheek, charming as ever, and heads outside, Sam following.
“Not your type?” Sam asks as he climbs into the passenger seat.
Dean shrugs. “Not really, no.”
“Huh. That’s not what I would’ve guessed.”
Dean pauses and fixes Sam with a stare for a moment before he starts the car. “Really?” he asks, and he looks sincerely puzzled. Sam ponders that all the way to the tiny town of Fritch, where they stop at the only motel in miles.
It’s a decent-sized room. Sam’s still a little buzzed and can’t wait to pass out and call it a night, but Dean stops short and whirls on him the second the door is closed.
“Am I really gonna have to be the one who makes us talk about this?” he demands, sounding affronted. “Really, Sam? Me?”
“Talk about what?” Sam knows; of course he does.
“Fine,” Dean says, sitting down on the side of one of the beds. “Just tell me, okay? Have the balls to tell me. You were only fucking me because it kept me from running away, right?”
Dean gestures at the two beds. Sam’s stomach flips over. He can feel the blush starting at his cheeks and spreading up to his ears as he struggles to sober up immediately and completely.
“Dean,” he starts, stalling for time because really, what’s the right answer? “I don’t even know if you--I mean, how do you feel about that now? Are you… are you disgusted with me?”
Dean makes a face like Sam’s crazy. “Disgusted with you? I’m the one who was turned into a fucking monster, Sam! I’m the one who practically forced myself on you.”
“You weren’t exactly in your right mind,” Sam reminds him.
Dean stares, his jaw clenched tight. “So,” he says finally, “I guess that answers my question. You were just going along with a monster.”
Sam can feel the conversation going sideways. It should be so much easier to communicate now that they can both talk.
“I didn’t say that, Dean. I just--I didn’t want to assume… I mean, we’ve never even talked about it!”
Dean’s eyes are flashing with anger. “That’s because I couldn’t talk, Sam!” he protests. “In case you didn’t notice.”
“You couldn’t do a lot of things--how was I to know whether wanting to sleep with your brother was a side effect of being half skimmer? You never wanted to before!”
Dean walks over to where Sam’s still standing just inside the door, holding the room key. Sam stands his ground, though his ears are on fire with how close Dean is and the look in Dean’s eyes.
“That what you think?” Dean says, his voice still hoarse from disuse and the week of torture and thirst. It’s like stone over gravel, and it makes Sam’s dick start to harden. Fuck, he loves Dean’s voice.
“What?” Sam asks stupidly. It’s possible there’s no blood left in his brain.
“You think I never wanted you before I became a monster? That it was just some fucked-up side effect of the skimmer blood in me, made me start wanting to screw my little brother?”
Sam groans. Hearing it that way should make him feel queasy. Instead it makes him feel like if he doesn’t jump Dean’s bones immediately, he might explode.
Dean is so close they’re almost touching. Their chests, their faces, are inches apart, and Dean’s eyes are otherworldly green but gloriously human.
“Wanted you forever, Sammy. Just wasn’t planning on ever telling you.”
Dean’s hand comes down on Sam’s side, his fingertips brushing underneath Sam’s shirts to glide over his skin, and Sam can feel the gooseflesh in the wake of Dean’s touch.
“Was I the only one?” Dean asks, and Sam can hear the plea in it, the uncertainty.
“No,” Sam admits. “Not the only one.” His chest doesn’t feel big enough for all the emotion suddenly making his breath catch and his heart beat too fast.
He cups Dean’s cheek to tilt his face up.
The kiss is gentler than the others they’ve shared; Dean’s lips soft against Sam’s, searching. Sam presses in, teasing Dean’s tongue with his own until Dean is groaning softly, a needy sound that ripples up Sam’s spine like liquid energy.
It feels like the first time. Dean is Dean, so much Sam’s big brother that it makes Sam blush at the touch of Dean’s fingers working at the buttons of his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders. He reaches out to do the same, careful of the stitches not quite healed on Dean’s chest and back, and then Dean’s mouth is on Sam’s again, like he won’t ever get enough of kissing, like the press of their lips is enough for him. After a while, Dean leans back on the bed and pulls Sam with him, a hand around the back of Sam’s neck and their mouths still working as they lie together side by side. It’s slow and easy, Dean’s fingers skating over Sam’s ribs, stroking the small of his back where the old scar is still raised, and Dean makes a soft hurt sound when he feels it and says, “Sam.”
Sam doesn’t expect the tears when they come, doesn’t even know he’s crying until Dean is brushing the moisture from his cheeks. “You saved me this time, Sammy,” he says, and his eyes are moist, too. “You wouldn’t fucking take no for an answer, you stupid stubborn sonofabitch, would you? Had to do the fucking impossible.”
Sam snorts a laugh through his tears. “Guess so,” he says, because Dean is here, alive and okay and wanting Sam. “Guess I did.”
Dean doesn’t know that all his life, Sam has doubted he could. For all the times Dean has saved Sam, Sam never believed he could do the same. And every time he failed, he was more certain. The sense of failure lifts away now, and Sam feels giddy with it, free like he’s never been before.
“I love you,” he says, because it’s too much emotion to contain, even if Dean doesn’t want to hear it.
Dean’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t look away. “Yeah,” he whispers finally, his voice as husky as Sam’s. “I guess you do.”
Sam knows, in that moment, that Dean’s been freed of the thing he’s always been afraid to believe, too.
“So let’s do something about it,” Sam laughs, and Dean grins lasciviously before he leans back in for another kiss.
By the time they shift close enough to press their bodies together, Sam is so aroused he can’t keep from moaning against Dean’s mouth, the warmth of his brother’s skin like a brand against his own. Dean’s hands slip lower down his back, grabbing Sam’s ass through his jeans, and Sam moans again, struggling not to hump against Dean’s leg like he wants to.
“Dean,” Sam mumbles, still kissing his brother, “Can I--wanna touch you.”
He’s careful when he unsnaps Dean’s jeans and eases down the zipper; can feel Dean’s stomach rise and fall with his quick breaths, quivering when Sam’s knuckles brush over his bare skin.
“God, Sam,” Dean gasps when Sam slips his hand inside and wraps his fingers around the stiff length there, smoothing the little bit of wetness as he strokes the way he knows Dean likes.
Dean mirrors him, bumping elbows and arms until they find a way to touch each other. Dean’s fingers are tentative on Sam’s cock, exploring, like he doesn’t remember the details of how to do this. Somehow it makes this even better. Dean wants him; Dean.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers, as Sam’s dick jerks in his grasp, and Sam can feel how much he’s leaking. Dean feels it, too, his grip going tighter, hot and slippery and pure heaven. Sam’s eyes are rolling back, it’s so good.
“D’you want to,” Dean starts, and the thought of what he’s about to say brings Sam close to the edge. But Dean is still bruised and battered and stitched together, and his hand is on Sam and Sam’s is on him, and Sam can’t imagine anything better.
“Just this,” he gasps, because talking is becoming impossible; there’s too much pleasure, too much feeling, too much joy. “So good, Dean.”
Sam closes his eyes as they find each other’s mouths again, tangled together on the bed. They find a rhythm in this, like they do in everything, and when Dean comes he says Sam’s name, loud and clear.
Sam follows.
Author name:
runedgirlArtist name:
tdorianPairing: Dean/Sam, with past Dean/Benny, Sam/Amelia
Rating: NC17
(Dean)
Time gets fuzzy without light or air. The men come and go, cut him and put things on him and hold his mouth open to pry around inside and cut more pieces of him away. They ask questions and shout things at him, but it’s hard to understand them through the roaring in his ears, the waves of pain that come and go. He doesn’t know how long it is before they put a bag over his head and drag him hurriedly outside. He knows it’s outside because he can smell the fresh air and the trees, even through the thick canvas. He struggles feebly, weak and dizzy, trying to loosen the ropes around his wrists and ankles. It doesn’t work. His brain, when it kicks in, alternates between “run” and “Sam,” over and over.
Dean drifts in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he can feel movement, the rumble of a vehicle beneath him. He can’t smell the outside anymore, there’s too much of his own sick smell inside the bag, but he knows they’re moving. He remembers the feel of the Impala under him, the way her tires ate up the road. He remembers Sam beside him, long hair caught in the wind and a lopsided grin on his face. The road meant freedom then; now it’s taking him farther from Sam.
Sam, he thinks. Sammy.
The two men dragging him out of the car and into another building aren’t gentle. “Christ, does this thing ever stop hissing?” one of them says.
“Been doing that nonstop ever since we caught him,” the other answers.
Dean opens his eyes briefly when they take off the bag and hang him from another hook in another room that smells like fear and pain and death. He doesn’t open them again when they start asking him questions.
Another span of time goes by, and Dean can’t feel much of anything now. It’s a relief.
“Don’t think we’re gonna get anything out of him,” he hears one of the men say, and for a second he thinks that’s good news.
“Well, at least we can figure out what kills him.”
“As soon as Randall gets back,” the first one says, and then the room is quiet. Dean dreams of lighting fireworks with Sam in a field, the way Sam looked at him afterwards like Dean hung the moon, and remembers the ache in his chest at the sight. He calls for Sam when he can make his tongue work, but it’s too swollen now to make much of a sound.
* * *
(Benny)
Benny loses the trail twice, but each time they circle around and retrace their steps until he picks it up again. Then the rain resumes, and he loses it completely. They stop at a motel so Sam can charge the laptop while Benny raids the local blood bank, waiting for the rain to stop again. Benny brings back a bottle of whiskey, too.
“I know how much you miss him,” Benny says, pouring a glass for himself.
“Been looking out for each other all our lives,” Sam admits, rubbing his eyes. “But this last year… he was just gone, and I didn’t think… I didn’t even know where to look for him, you know?”
Benny passes the whiskey, and Sam takes a swig right from the bottle.
“If I’d known, I could’ve--"
“Naw, you couldn'ta done nothin’, Sam. You didn’t know where he was, and you didn’t know there was any way for you to go in and get him. You had to stay alive till he could come back to you. I promised him that every night, that you were stayin’ alive up here for him; that he had to stay alive so he could get back to you.”
Sam takes another swig. His bloodshot eyes have dark circles under them, but his expression is incongruously warm, hopeful. “Yeah?” he asks, like he’s waiting for Benny to tell him a story.
Benny nods. “Every night. Gettin’ back to you was the only thing that kept him going sometimes, when things got really bad. He wouldn’t give up, long as he knew you were topside.”
Sam’s hand is wrapped so tightly around the bottle that Benny's afraid the glass might shatter. He’s shaking, the muscles in his arm trembling so hard the bottle is shaking, too, and then his face crumples.
“We’re not gonna find him in time,” Sam says in a strangled voice, and then he’s sobbing. It’s a broken sound; one Benny’s heard before.
The bottle slips from Sam’s hand and Benny catches it before it falls. Sam has his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he cries.
Benny doesn’t try to touch him; it’s not his touch Sam needs.
“Yes, we will,” he says instead. “We’re gonna find him, Sam. We made him a promise, you an’ me, and we’re gonna find him. We’re gonna find him, and then we’re gonna fix him.”
Sam sleeps for a little while after that, exhaustion and hopelessness taking him down and keeping him there.
* * *
(Sam)
Sam’s driving the next day when the ringing of his cell phone nearly makes him swerve off the road. From the passenger seat, Benny’s hand flies to the wheel with preternatural speed and jerks it back to steady.
“Whoa, easy there,” Benny drawls. The vampire’s voice makes Sam want to punch him for sounding so damn laid back when Dean’s life is on the line, and yet it’s starting to have a calming effect in times like these, when part of Sam's brain-in-overdrive knows he needs to listen.
Sam checks the phone display.
“Garth,” Sam says, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
Benny gestures beside him, and he puts it on speaker. They have nothing to hide from each other anymore; the only thing that matters to either of them is the thing they have in common.
“Sam,” Garth says, and he sounds relieved. “You okay, man?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Sam can picture Garth rolling his eyes.
“Cut the bullshit, Sam. I know you’re on the run out there, and I know something happened to Dean. I know he’s been turned--I’m not sure what into, but something bad.”
Sam’s fists clench. Beside him, Benny shakes his head slowly. “We need intel,” he whispers, and Sam forces himself to stay calm.
“What else do you know?”
“I know what every other dumb schmuck in America knows: that Dean nearly killed a man in a gas mart. And I know what lots of ‘em don’t: maybe 'lizard-man' is National Enquirer stuff, but Sam, Dean ain’t human anymore. You don’t just come back from Purgatory. He’s been turned into something else, and you know that ain’t okay.”
Sam’s stomach twists and turns. He wants to jump through the phone line and get his hands around Garth’s throat and throw his puny little body across the room. “It’s still Dean, Garth! He’s still in there!”
Garth sighs. “Look, I get why you want to believe that. I know how close you and Dean were.”
Sam doubts that’s true; Benny’s the only one who knows that.
“He’s in there,” Sam protests, some of the weariness clear in his voice.
“He told you that?”
It’s a terrible question. Sam wants desperately to say yes, to scream that Dean still says his name. So what if he can’t say actual words; Sam knows he understands. Benny knows, too; Benny has seen it.
There’s no use trying to explain, though. The assholes who took Dean won’t be interested in the details, and every sound Dean makes that’s not words will seal his fate.
“Garth, please, if you know who has him, please--he’s not dangerous, not if he’s with me.”
Garth scoffs. “Sam, he tried to kill a man with you standing right there.”
“I won’t take him into stores anymore,” Sam insists, and he’s talking too fast, he knows he is, almost babbling in his desperation to get through to Garth. “I’ll keep him inside; I’ll keep him locked up, keep him away from everyone until we--I’ve already got the spell to fix this, Garth. Please, if you’re in contact with them, tell them not to hurt him. Please Garth, I’m… I’m begging you.”
“Jesus, Sam,” Garth says, and he sounds anguished now. He was a good friend once, Sam reminds himself. He used to hug Dean whenever he saw him, much to Dean’s chagrin. “You know what you sound like? That’s no kinda life, man. You ain’t gonna cure him of something like this. You’re sentencing yourself to a life of isolation, nobody to talk to, never able to do anything normal again. Christ, Sam, you were the one who wanted normal so bad… this is so far from it, it ain’t even funny.”
It’s true. It’s all true. If they can’t fix Dean, Sam will never have anything like normal ever again.
Benny looks at him, head tilted. “He’s right,” he whispers. “Maybe this is too much to ask of anyone. I ain’t gonna judge ya if you wanna go back to livin’ your life. Dean wanted that for you, wanted you to be happy. Normal.”
Sam remembers Amelia curled up beside him in bed on lazy Saturday mornings, the smell of fresh-cut grass and freshly turned soil and the rose bush beside the front porch. He remembers Riot wet from the rain and shaking, and the way they laughed and chased him around the house with a towel, following his muddy paw prints in a mad dash. Normal. Safe.
“Sam?” Garth says. “You still there?”
Sam remembers Dean carefully taping band-aids over his skinned knee when he was four. He remembers Dean wiping the tears off Sam's face after, and bending to press his lips to the bandages, telling Sam with seven-year-old certainty, “Kissing the booboo makes it go away, Sammy.” He remembers wrestling with Dean and falling off the bed, both of them laughing so hard they couldn’t catch their breath; he remembers Dean’s face when Sam asked him, did you sell your soul for me?
“I’m here,” he answers finally. “Normal isn’t what I want, Garth. What I want is my brother. Are you gonna tell me where he is?”
Garth sighs on the other end of the phone. “Sam, I know who took him, and you don’t wanna mess with them.”
Sam’s heart is pounding triple-time. “Tell me where they are. Tell me or I’m headed your way next.”
It’s not a hollow threat, and Garth must know it--or maybe he does have a little bit of sympathy or hope left in him.
“Pottsgrove,” Garth says reluctantly. “Word is they’re somewhere in Pottsgrove.”
They’re only a few hours away. “Thanks,” Sam says tersely.
Garth is quiet for a minute. When he speaks again, he sounds genuinely sad. “Even if you find him, he’ll kill you sooner or later, Sam. It’s what monsters do.”
Sam grits his teeth and keeps his voice even. “He’s not a monster.” He throws the phone on the floor and puts his foot to the gas.
“These guys ain’t exactly the Boy Scouts of hunting, are they?” Benny asks, his fingers now proficient on Sam’s smartphone that he retrieved from the floor. “From what I’m seein’ here, they’ve taken out lots of monsters, but there’s been a fair number of human casualties, too. They ain’t exactly careful.”
Sam nods, his fingers tight on the wheel. Benny’s pickup lurches ahead faster, giving them everything she has. “They’re crazy-ass vigilantes is what they are. Paranoid bastards, cut from the same cloth as Gordon Walker and his gang. No way they’re gonna believe that something that looks like Dean and came from Purgatory and can’t talk is still part human.”
“No way they’re gonna believe a vamp is good for anything but beheading, either,” Benny adds.
“Then we take them out if we have to.” Sam says it without an ounce of hesitation.
“They’re still human,” Benny reminds him, but he’s smiling.
“So’s my brother,” Sam says, and urges the pickup forward.
In the end, it’s not that hard to find Randall and his gang. It’s a clear day, and Dean’s blood is a beacon that Benny follows easily once they get to Pottsgrove. The hunters are holed up in an abandoned cement factory outside a town that’s mostly abandoned itself. Benny rolls the window down and cocks his head. Sam can tell when he catches a new scent in the air, the way he goes rigid and closes his eyes, concentrating.
Sam doesn’t need the confirmation.
“He’s here.” Sam’s certain of it.
They park the truck a short distance away and make their way through the brush and trees that flank the gravel road, staying under cover. Benny goes first, his preternatural senses the only asset they have. He moves almost silently, never trampling a twig and avoiding leaves that might crackle underfoot. Sam concentrates on doing the same, walking in Benny’s footprints the way he used to walk in Dean’s, back when Dean’s feet were bigger and Sam wanted nothing more than to follow him forever.
They’re almost to the hulking shell of a building when Benny freezes.
“What is it?” Sam whispers, stopping beside him, but he already knows. “Is it him?”
Benny nods, and they move a little faster.
There’s no one outside; Randall wasn’t expecting company. Sam sends a silent thanks to Garth for not warning anyone.
They let themselves in through the shipping gate in the back, making their way toward the front of the building, where they can hear muffled voices. Randall and three of his men are arguing.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Randall is yelling, pointing a finger at the two men Sam recognizes from the gas mart.
“We were in close quarters, in a store,” the one who shot the hapless clerk yells back. Like that stopped him from recklessly firing at Sam anyway.
“So now we have Sam Winchester on our tail, again,” Randall says with disdain, “Because you didn’t wanna make a mess in a gas mart.”
“He’s human,” the other man says. “Did we really want to--”
That’s as far as he gets before Randall whirls on him. “And you think that would keep him from blowing you away? You think he’s not crazy enough to take out anyone keeping him from what he thinks is his brother? He’s been hiding that monster for months!”
Beside Sam, Benny straightens. “Let’s do this,” he growls. When Sam looks at him, Benny’s fangs are out. His eyes glitter with excitement, with the desire for violence.
“We don’t kill them unless we have to,” Sam says, though it’s not what he wants to say at all.
Benny nods, and then they’re moving. It’s sweet to see the look of terror on Randall’s face when Sam punches him in the face, the satisfying crack of his jaw breaking a beautiful sound.
It’s lucky for Randall and his men that they’re knocked out and tied up before Benny and Sam make their way downstairs and find Dean. Sam might have changed his mind about killing them if he’d known what they’d done to his brother.
Benny goes first, his sense of smell unerringly leading him to the small room where Dean is strung up on some kind of industrial hook-and-pulley arrangement. He’s naked, bare feet touching the floor, but instead of standing he’s hanging by his wrists, head down and completely limp.
Sam’s heart thuds to a stop. They’re too late. Ohgod, they’re too late. Grief and terror flood him so quickly he comes close to collapsing. He can’t lose Dean again; he can’t.
“Is he…” Sam chokes out, his hands going to Dean’s face, trying to support his head. It’s horrible to feel how limp Dean is, his head lolling sideways each time Sam tries to hold him steady. “Benny, is he?” The words come out strangled, gritty.
“No,” Benny answers. “He’s in bad shape, but he’s not dead. He’s lost a lot of blood, though.”
Energy seems to rush back into Sam’s body in a burst, his heart thumping madly, overcome with relief. Dean’s alive. Dean’s alive.
“Get him off the hook,” Sam orders, and Benny turns the crank that lowers Dean to the floor.
Sam has his arms around his brother before he can fall, and Dean slumps into him like a rag doll while Benny frees his hands.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, holding Dean to his chest and trying to rouse him. “Dean, it’s me; can you hear me?”
There’s no response.
“C’mon, we need to get him out of here before anyone else shows up--don’t know how many of ‘em there are. Can you carry him or do you want me to?”
“I’ve got him,” Sam snarls, and starts up the stairs. He longs to stop and do something horrible to the unconscious men tied up on the floor, but Benny takes him by the arm and hurries them outside.
Halfway to the truck, Sam stumbles on a tree root and falls, exhausted.
“Fuck, shit, sorry,” he gasps, lungs burning with the exertion of carrying his brother.
Benny scoops Dean up and continues without a word. Sam follows.
Benny drives while Sam wraps Dean in the blankets from the back of the pickup. Dean’s shivering violently, his lips blue and his teeth chattering.
“He’s in shock,” Benny says unnecessarily. “Probably dehydrated and starved too.”
“Dean, c’mon, don’t give up now.”
Sam holds a water bottle to Dean's lips; they’re parched, cracked and peeling like old paper.
The first bit just runs out the side of Dean’s mouth.
“Dean, please, you have to drink. C’mon, just a little.”
He pours a tiny bit more, and Dean splutters, choking. His hands flail with a surprising burst of strength, and then he freezes, a handful of Sam’s shirts in one fist. His nostrils flare, and Sam can hear him breathe in sharply.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, putting his hand over his brother’s. “It’s me, you’re safe.”
Dean swallows a few drops of the water in his mouth and gives a broken hiss.
“That’s right,” Sam urges, “It’s me, it’s Sam. Now drink for me, c’mon.”
He tips the bottle again, and this time Dean swallows a few times before his swollen tongue gets in the way and he chokes again. After a few more minutes, his lashes flutter open.
Sam never thought he’d be happy to see those weird reptilian eyes, but he wants to cry now, seeing the life still in them.
“Hey,” he says, stroking the side of his brother’s face gently. “Almost lost you there.”
Dean’s hand comes up and mirrors Sam’s gesture, his fingers trembling against Sam’s cheek. He hisses again, more urgently this time.
“Yeah,” Sam says, putting the bottle to his brother’s lips again. “Stay with us, okay? We’re gonna fix this.”
They hole up in the most out-of-the-way motel they can find. Sam feeds Dean chicken soup, coaxing him when he gags on it, and makes him drink Gatorade. Sam holds him in the shower, washing off as much of the blood and filth as he can. He lays Dean out on the bed afterwards and pats him dry.
Benny has the first-aid kit laid out, and watches silently as Sam stitches his brother up. Dean doesn’t flinch, his eyes half closed. He hisses softly every now and then, and each time Sam says, “Yeah, Dean, I’m here.”
Sam sleeps curled around his brother at night, and watches him sleep during the day. Nobody comes after them. Maybe the fact that Dean bled and burnt and pissed and puked and starved like a human, and couldn’t fight his way out of being tied to a chair or hung from a meat hook, had reassured Randall’s crazy band of hunters that while he may have been a monster, he wasn’t a particularly lethal one. Maybe Garth convinced them to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe they just didn’t want to have anything to do with Sam Winchester and his crazy sidekick again.
It’s another two weeks before Dean’s recovered enough for them to dare attempt the plan Sam had put together. They’ll need all their strength in Purgatory.
Sam’s intel is solid: the rogue reaper is right where he should be, and a promise of Winchester debt in the future is enough for him to agree to take all three of them in. Ajay keeps his distance from Dean, and Dean hisses and growls at him incessantly, but they all hold hands and make it through the portal.
“Twenty-four hours,” Ajay says sternly. “Not a minute more. Be back here then and I’ll get you back out.”
Sam prays that it’s enough time. It has to be.
Dean’s skittish and unpredictable in Purgatory, smelling things Sam can’t smell and hearing things inaudible to Sam. He sticks close, though, defense of his mate apparently a higher priority than flight. Despite the debacle at the grocery store, Sam hasn’t had much chance to see how vicious a hybrid skimmer/human can be; Dean kills two vampires and some sort of creature that looks like a cross between a dragon and a hummingbird entirely on his own. Benny and Sam take out a few more things that smell a rare and delectable human meal as the three of them make their way to the spot where Benny drained the skimmer before he and Dean escaped. The body is gnawed away to almost nothing, mostly bones, but it’s there. Sam hopes it’s enough.
They’re about to slice Dean’s forearm and bleed the essence of skimmer out of him while Benny reads the spell, when Dean suddenly goes rigid and makes a sound Sam has never heard before. It’s entirely inhuman, echoing plaintively through the woods.
There’s unmistakable emotion in it, and it stops both Sam and Benny in their tracks. There’s movement in the trees, and then a skimmer emerges from the woods, its eyes matching Dean’s, its naked body carrying the same markings that run down Dean’s back. It has claws, too, and much more of the scale-like patterning on its torso and arms, but other than that, it and Dean look the same. It’s a male; that’s obvious.
Dean makes that sound again, softer this time, and the skimmer steps forward, returning the call.
“Oh, shit,” Benny says, and Sam can’t believe this is all going to hell when they were so close.
“Cut him,” Sam orders, and Benny brings up the knife. The skimmer howls then, gathering himself for an attack.
“Tell him we’re giving her back to him!” Benny yells it, trying to be heard above the skimmer’s cry. “Tell him, Dean, for chrissakes, tell him now!”
The skimmer is almost on top of them when Dean screeches back, an ear-splitting, inhuman sound. Sam positions Dean’s arm above the corpse and lets the blood and whatever the hell else is in there drip down onto it.
The male skimmer catches Sam with his claws, searing pain as they sink deep into the meat of his shoulder, but Sam grits his teeth and hangs onto Dean’s arm, and Dean howls even louder when he smells Sam bleeding.
In an amazing display of concentration, Benny intones the spell, speaking quickly but enunciating every word perfectly, just like they practiced.
The skimmer is so close now that Sam can smell his breath, see the lethal fangs--which Dean, thankfully, doesn’t have--ready to rip his throat out. Sam has an instant to regret that he won’t know if the spell worked, and then there’s a flash of light and the air is clouded with dust and smoke, and the skimmer’s teeth never get to Sam’s neck. Sam stumbles backwards, still holding on to Dean’s arm.
There in front of them is a fully formed female skimmer, staggering to her feet in bewilderment, already calling out for help. The male skimmer whirls away from Sam and lurches towards her, grabbing for her hand and pulling her into what can only be described as a hug.
He howls at the top of his lungs, and Sam knows a victory yell when he hears one. Then the thing is turning, tugging his mate toward the woods.
The noise, unfortunately, has attracted other monsters.
“C’mon, Benny,” Sam urges, “We’ve gotta go!”
Dean is wobbling between them, looking dazed but human, his eyes the green that Sam has known his entire life.
Benny looks at Dean, then at the approaching monsters. He slaps Sam on the shoulder. “You take care of him, y'hear?” he says, drawl even thicker with the emotion behind it.
“Benny, no,” Sam gets out, but Benny’s already turning away to face their attackers.
“I don’t belong up there, Sam,” he calls over his shoulder. “But he does. Get him outta here, promise me.”
Sam nods, his throat achingly tight and his eyes stinging. The skimmers pause at the edge of the woods and then, to Sam’s shock, they come to stand beside Benny, claws raised and growling at the approaching attackers. The female turns her head one more time, her reptilian eyes landing right on Dean. She calls to him one more time, and Dean nods. Sam can feel him shaking.
Sam throws his knife to Benny and grabs Dean’s hand, and then they’re running for the place they’re supposed to meet Ajay, leaving the sounds of a violent scuffle behind them. Sam doesn’t look back; doesn’t let Dean stop even when he’s obviously winded.
The taxi driver appears at the appointed time, to the minute. He looks surprised to see them.
“Only you two, then?”
Sam nods, and Ajay takes their hands.
* * *
It’s not until they climb into Benny’s pickup truck that Sam dares to really look at his brother.
Dean’s ghostly pale, his chest still heaving from their run. The cut on his forearm is bleeding sluggishly.
“Dean?”
His eyes look normal, but Sam can’t see his back. And he hasn’t said a word.
“Dean, can you say something? Can you talk?”
For a few long seconds, Sam’s gut clenches in a wave of panic. Dean puts his lips together, frowning, and all that comes out is a sibilant hiss.
“Ssss--s--s--Sam!” he finally says emphatically.
Sam’s heard his brother say his name a million times over the course of his lifetime. It’s been curse and endearment and exhortation and warning. But it’s never sounded better than it does right now.
Sam drives until he can’t see straight, exhaustion overwhelming him. Dean stays quiet, but when Sam takes off his bloody shirt Dean takes the med kit from Sam and makes him sit on the bed. Dean’s hands are strong and sure when he cleans the wounds the skimmer’s claws left, steady when he stitches Sam up. It’s the first time in a long time he’s taken care of Sam instead of the other way around, and it brings a lump to Sam’s throat. He turns away so Dean won’t see the wetness in his eyes.
“Sam,” Dean says softly when he’s done, patting over the bandages gently. “Sammy.”
There’s no hiding the tears then.
* * *
(Dean)
They pick up the Impala the next day. Dean runs his hands over her flanks reverently, though he lets Sam drive. They put as much distance between them and everything that’s happened as they can, driving nonstop through the night and into the next day.
Memories of the last six months come back in fragments, like he was awake half the time and dreaming the rest. Some of them are vague and blurred around the edges, pictures without any words to make sense of them. Sam in a strange house with a strange woman; the woman’s eyes on him all the time, assessing. He could smell fear on her, but there was anger, too, an unspoken threat to stay away from her mate. Even then, Dean was sure Sam was his; he remembers wanting to get Sam away from there, away from her. Amelia. The name comes back to him and raises the hairs on the back of his neck.
Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, surprised by the visceral reaction. Sam’s girlfriend. He should have been happy for his brother; instead he remembers wanting to get his hands around her throat.
“Hey, you okay?” Sam sounds concerned. “You look like you’re gonna hurl.”
Sam’s driving, the windows of the Impala cracked, the rumble of her engine soothing.
“Must be the crappy way you’re driving,” he shoots back.
Sam grins, the way he has for the past 24 hours whenever Dean says anything at all. His words are returning quickly now, no longer coming out in broken half-sentences.
“You just tell me when you’re ready to take the wheel again,” Sam offers, looking at Dean fondly instead of in annoyance.
“I need my rest, bitch,” Dean says, and closes his eyes again. There are too many pictures still swirling in his head; he doesn’t want to put his Baby at risk. Not to mention his stupid little brother. Who he seems to be madly in love with. That’s not really new, but it’s worse than ever now that he’s touched Sam, Sam’s touched him. Sam’s saved him.
Sam keeps driving.
Amelia isn’t the only one Dean remembers in violent imagery. By the time the men--the hunters--came to take him from Sam, Dean’s thoughts had gone jumbled. Hard to think when so many other senses were so much more powerful. He remembers the unfamiliar scent of the hunters’ sweat, shot through with fear and rage, and the iron-rich smell of their human blood. He remembers his own terror, the intolerable feeling of being immobilized and in danger, the overwhelming impulse to flee. He wants to kill them still; the impulse is almost as strong, though he experiences it in words now along with the images of them bloodied and screaming.
Sam glances over at him, and Dean schools his face to be more serene.
It’s not like all his memories are bad ones. Most of them are of Sam. Sam worried, Sam frustrated, Sam angry at him. Sam terrified and exhausted and on the verge of giving up. The look on Sam’s face the first time they touched, like he was in awe of what they were doing--a little afraid, a lot ashamed, but there was lust in his eyes and eagerness in the way he reached for Dean. Dean remembers that clearly, along with the primal rush of pleasure he felt when Sam’s teeth sank into the back of his neck and held him still while Sam mounted him. It’s a strange word for an even stranger memory, but it’s the right one. That’s how he remembers it, even now.
He wonders how Sam remembers it. Maybe it was really just Sam doing what he had to do, keeping Dean in his place until he could get the monster out of him.
“You sure you’re okay? You’re fidgeting and grimacing and squirming all over the place.”
Sam’s right. Now Dean’s got an erection on top of all the other tangled-up feelings, and the most vivid images of Sam naked and possessive and toppy as hell stuck in his head.
“’m fine,” he insists, hoping Sam won’t scrutinize him too closely. “Keep driving.”
Sam huffs, but he still doesn’t sound annoyed. Dean wonders how long he’ll be able to say anything he wants to Sam without consequences.
His other vivid memory is of Benny. Benny, who sacrificed himself to get them out of Purgatory, and chose to stay behind. Benny, who knows what it feels like to be a monster among humans. Dean remembers Benny watching while Sam took him; the scent of their arousal, human and vampire, overwhelming him with need. He remembers sex with Benny in Purgatory, when he was human and terrified, and they needed each other in too many ways to count. That Sam allowed Benny to watch them fuck is something he never would have anticipated. His memories are too vague to tell him why that happened, more flashes of sensation and emotion than explanations. He guesses Sam needed Benny pretty badly, too.
Dean cracks his eyes open and stretches, rolling his window down farther and letting the breeze cool his face where he’s blushing a little at the vivid memories.
“You changed your mind about Benny, huh?” he asks on impulse.
Sam’s hands jerk a bit on the wheel; he’s still not entirely used to Dean speaking. “Sort of changed my mind about monsters in general,” he admits with a shrug. “People can be the biggest monsters of all.”
“We gonna go after the douchebags who tried to bleed the monster outta me?” Dean wants to. Badly.
Sam shakes his head. “No. We get the word out that you’re… you again… and they’ll back off. I’m not risking a vendetta with a bunch of insane jackoffs who call themselves hunters.”
That’s what Dean expected. It makes sense. It still sits like lead in his belly, though.
They finally stop the next night at a motel outside Greensburg. Sam gets the keys and they carry their duffels into Room 16. Dean doesn’t say anything about the two twin beds, but there’s a dull ache in his throat when he thinks about sleeping apart from his brother. It’s stupid, but his best memories of the last six months are of Sam curled around him, a sense of belonging and safety and love that Dean hadn’t experienced since he was four years old.
He wakes up time after time that night, finally flailing so hard that he falls right out of the narrow bed, vivid nightmares of being tied up and cut into assaulting him every time he closes his eyes.
Sam comes to sit on the edge of the bed after Dean climbs back into it. Dean’s chest is heaving, his heart beating so loudly he’s sure Sam can hear it.
“Dean,” Sam says gently, in that voice he always used when Dean was a monster--reassurance and affection and control all rolled into one word. “It’s okay, you’re just having nightmares.”
“No shit,” Dean grumbles. He’s sweating like crazy, and his stomach is rolling, queasy.
Sam reaches over and puts a hand on Dean’s chest, over the tattoo there, and Dean holds his breath.
“When you were… you know… it used to calm you down if I kept some contact with you. I can--I mean, if it’s too weird, I don’t have to--"
“Yeah,” Dean manages, letting out the breath he’s been holding. “Yeah, that might help.”
Sam seems relieved. “Okay, close your eyes, then. I’ll be… I’m right here.”
Dean closes his eyes. Sam’s big hand is warm on his chest, steady. He can smell the familiar scent of Sam, sleepy and clean and masculine. “Just try to sleep,” Sam says softly.
Dean does.
* * *
(Sam)
Dean’s still skittish, and still clearly remembering some pretty horrific things about his time as a monster and in captivity. But he’s talking, and to Sam that’s a miracle every single time.
He can feel his brother’s heart pounding rapidly under his hand as Dean tries to get back to sleep. Sam knows what it’s like to have nightmares. How many nights of Sam’s childhood did Dean do this for him, sitting on the side of his bed and rubbing his back, murmuring how it was okay, he wasn’t gonna let anything happen. “Go to sleep now, Sammy,” he’d say. “I’m right here.”
Now Sam can do the same for Dean.
Neither of them mentions the fact that Sam’s relationship with Dean when he was part monster wasn’t exactly brotherly. Maybe Dean’s disgusted by what they did, now that he’s back to being one hundred percent human. Maybe he thinks Sam’s a sick bastard for doing what he did, just to keep Dean docile. The thought makes Sam’s stomach turn.
So Sam keeps his touch careful, tries to make it the same way he’s always put his hands on Dean to stitch him up or pull him out of danger or kick his ass in sparring. It’s not so easy now. He wishes he didn’t know how Dean whimpers when Sam twists his fingers inside him; wishes he didn’t know what it feels like to sink inside his brother’s tight heat and wrap his hand around his brother’s hard cock to make him come. Sam shouldn’t know those things, but he does. And now that he knows, ignoring the wanting that’s always been there is a lot harder. When it was never a possibility, it was just a hum in the back of his brain, a fleeting longing, an impossible fantasy when he was alone and no one would ever know. It’s impossible to go back to that now; it will never be just a fantasy again.
Dean shifts restlessly, eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. Sam strokes his chest; murmurs nonsense until Dean quiets. His long eyelashes are dark against the pale skin of his face, beautiful.
I wish I didn’t want you.
Dean sleeps on, momentarily peaceful.
They stay on the road and constantly moving while Dean regains his strength; not hunting, just driving. Dean is still restless; maybe some lingering side effect of the skimmer blood, maybe Dean’s reaction to finally--really--being back.
Sam calls Garth and tells him it’s fixed; Garth doesn’t believe it until Sam puts Dean on the phone, and then he says “sonofabitch” like he’s sincerely happy about it.
At night they sleep in separate beds, but Sam starts getting rooms with two queens so he can spend half the night soothing Dean’s nightmares.
Outside Amarillo, they stop at a bar and drink too much, both of them laughing and telling stupid jokes. It feels like the first time Sam has laughed in lifetimes. His belly hurts with it, the muscles unused for too long.
A pretty redhead comes on to Dean a few hours in, and Dean goes into flirt mode like he never stopped. Never mind he couldn’t even speak a month ago; he’s smooth-tongued and confident now, and the girl is eating it up.
The way it burns in Sam’s stomach, aches in his chest, is unexpected. He wants to interrupt their conversation and ask if she’d be willing to take care of him when he’s out of control and attacking anything that moves; if she’d stick with him when he couldn’t talk or think or remember, when he wasn’t even human. He wants to send her away and pull Dean onto his lap and bite and bruise and mark him until everyone knows he belongs to Sam.
Except he doesn’t. Not anymore.
Sam drinks two more beers while he tries to ignore Dean and the way the girl’s got her hand on his thigh, blatantly fondling. Dean sits like he always has, long legs spread obscenely wide, and Sam’s sure she has a perfect view of his dick reacting to her attention.
Sam is contemplating going outside to wait in the Impala when Dean leans over and clinks his beer against Sam’s.
“Sorry, but we really gotta hit the road now,” he says to the girl. “Right, Sam?”
Sam gapes, at a loss for words for a second.
“Right, Sammy?” Dean asks again, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Uh, yeah, right. We do. We gotta go.”
The girl is pouting, but Dean kisses her on the cheek, charming as ever, and heads outside, Sam following.
“Not your type?” Sam asks as he climbs into the passenger seat.
Dean shrugs. “Not really, no.”
“Huh. That’s not what I would’ve guessed.”
Dean pauses and fixes Sam with a stare for a moment before he starts the car. “Really?” he asks, and he looks sincerely puzzled. Sam ponders that all the way to the tiny town of Fritch, where they stop at the only motel in miles.
It’s a decent-sized room. Sam’s still a little buzzed and can’t wait to pass out and call it a night, but Dean stops short and whirls on him the second the door is closed.
“Am I really gonna have to be the one who makes us talk about this?” he demands, sounding affronted. “Really, Sam? Me?”
“Talk about what?” Sam knows; of course he does.
“Fine,” Dean says, sitting down on the side of one of the beds. “Just tell me, okay? Have the balls to tell me. You were only fucking me because it kept me from running away, right?”
Dean gestures at the two beds. Sam’s stomach flips over. He can feel the blush starting at his cheeks and spreading up to his ears as he struggles to sober up immediately and completely.
“Dean,” he starts, stalling for time because really, what’s the right answer? “I don’t even know if you--I mean, how do you feel about that now? Are you… are you disgusted with me?”
Dean makes a face like Sam’s crazy. “Disgusted with you? I’m the one who was turned into a fucking monster, Sam! I’m the one who practically forced myself on you.”
“You weren’t exactly in your right mind,” Sam reminds him.
Dean stares, his jaw clenched tight. “So,” he says finally, “I guess that answers my question. You were just going along with a monster.”
Sam can feel the conversation going sideways. It should be so much easier to communicate now that they can both talk.
“I didn’t say that, Dean. I just--I didn’t want to assume… I mean, we’ve never even talked about it!”
Dean’s eyes are flashing with anger. “That’s because I couldn’t talk, Sam!” he protests. “In case you didn’t notice.”
“You couldn’t do a lot of things--how was I to know whether wanting to sleep with your brother was a side effect of being half skimmer? You never wanted to before!”
Dean walks over to where Sam’s still standing just inside the door, holding the room key. Sam stands his ground, though his ears are on fire with how close Dean is and the look in Dean’s eyes.
“That what you think?” Dean says, his voice still hoarse from disuse and the week of torture and thirst. It’s like stone over gravel, and it makes Sam’s dick start to harden. Fuck, he loves Dean’s voice.
“What?” Sam asks stupidly. It’s possible there’s no blood left in his brain.
“You think I never wanted you before I became a monster? That it was just some fucked-up side effect of the skimmer blood in me, made me start wanting to screw my little brother?”
Sam groans. Hearing it that way should make him feel queasy. Instead it makes him feel like if he doesn’t jump Dean’s bones immediately, he might explode.
Dean is so close they’re almost touching. Their chests, their faces, are inches apart, and Dean’s eyes are otherworldly green but gloriously human.
“Wanted you forever, Sammy. Just wasn’t planning on ever telling you.”
Dean’s hand comes down on Sam’s side, his fingertips brushing underneath Sam’s shirts to glide over his skin, and Sam can feel the gooseflesh in the wake of Dean’s touch.
“Was I the only one?” Dean asks, and Sam can hear the plea in it, the uncertainty.
“No,” Sam admits. “Not the only one.” His chest doesn’t feel big enough for all the emotion suddenly making his breath catch and his heart beat too fast.
He cups Dean’s cheek to tilt his face up.
The kiss is gentler than the others they’ve shared; Dean’s lips soft against Sam’s, searching. Sam presses in, teasing Dean’s tongue with his own until Dean is groaning softly, a needy sound that ripples up Sam’s spine like liquid energy.
It feels like the first time. Dean is Dean, so much Sam’s big brother that it makes Sam blush at the touch of Dean’s fingers working at the buttons of his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders. He reaches out to do the same, careful of the stitches not quite healed on Dean’s chest and back, and then Dean’s mouth is on Sam’s again, like he won’t ever get enough of kissing, like the press of their lips is enough for him. After a while, Dean leans back on the bed and pulls Sam with him, a hand around the back of Sam’s neck and their mouths still working as they lie together side by side. It’s slow and easy, Dean’s fingers skating over Sam’s ribs, stroking the small of his back where the old scar is still raised, and Dean makes a soft hurt sound when he feels it and says, “Sam.”
Sam doesn’t expect the tears when they come, doesn’t even know he’s crying until Dean is brushing the moisture from his cheeks. “You saved me this time, Sammy,” he says, and his eyes are moist, too. “You wouldn’t fucking take no for an answer, you stupid stubborn sonofabitch, would you? Had to do the fucking impossible.”
Sam snorts a laugh through his tears. “Guess so,” he says, because Dean is here, alive and okay and wanting Sam. “Guess I did.”
Dean doesn’t know that all his life, Sam has doubted he could. For all the times Dean has saved Sam, Sam never believed he could do the same. And every time he failed, he was more certain. The sense of failure lifts away now, and Sam feels giddy with it, free like he’s never been before.
“I love you,” he says, because it’s too much emotion to contain, even if Dean doesn’t want to hear it.
Dean’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t look away. “Yeah,” he whispers finally, his voice as husky as Sam’s. “I guess you do.”
Sam knows, in that moment, that Dean’s been freed of the thing he’s always been afraid to believe, too.
“So let’s do something about it,” Sam laughs, and Dean grins lasciviously before he leans back in for another kiss.
By the time they shift close enough to press their bodies together, Sam is so aroused he can’t keep from moaning against Dean’s mouth, the warmth of his brother’s skin like a brand against his own. Dean’s hands slip lower down his back, grabbing Sam’s ass through his jeans, and Sam moans again, struggling not to hump against Dean’s leg like he wants to.
“Dean,” Sam mumbles, still kissing his brother, “Can I--wanna touch you.”
He’s careful when he unsnaps Dean’s jeans and eases down the zipper; can feel Dean’s stomach rise and fall with his quick breaths, quivering when Sam’s knuckles brush over his bare skin.
“God, Sam,” Dean gasps when Sam slips his hand inside and wraps his fingers around the stiff length there, smoothing the little bit of wetness as he strokes the way he knows Dean likes.
Dean mirrors him, bumping elbows and arms until they find a way to touch each other. Dean’s fingers are tentative on Sam’s cock, exploring, like he doesn’t remember the details of how to do this. Somehow it makes this even better. Dean wants him; Dean.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers, as Sam’s dick jerks in his grasp, and Sam can feel how much he’s leaking. Dean feels it, too, his grip going tighter, hot and slippery and pure heaven. Sam’s eyes are rolling back, it’s so good.
“D’you want to,” Dean starts, and the thought of what he’s about to say brings Sam close to the edge. But Dean is still bruised and battered and stitched together, and his hand is on Sam and Sam’s is on him, and Sam can’t imagine anything better.
“Just this,” he gasps, because talking is becoming impossible; there’s too much pleasure, too much feeling, too much joy. “So good, Dean.”
Sam closes his eyes as they find each other’s mouths again, tangled together on the bed. They find a rhythm in this, like they do in everything, and when Dean comes he says Sam’s name, loud and clear.
Sam follows.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-06-24 05:55 pm (UTC)I loved this so much. Transformed into a monster Dean was amazingly well done and Sam's (and Benny's) efforts to control/fix/save him were so fantastic.
I'm sad about Benny staying in Purgatory. I'd always hoped that if he and Sam got along he might have a better support system to stay.
In any case, excellent premise, awesome hurt/comfort and incendiary sex. Well done!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-24 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2013-06-24 10:48 pm (UTC)honestly. you've done it again. how? how? you ruined me last year and left me a mess of emotions all torn to shreds and stitched back together and here i am again, utterly destroyed.*
just a few pieces i have to point out for the sake of my own sanity:
“She will,” Dean says, his hand on Sam’s shoulder to herd him toward the door. “She’s a smart girl.”
perfectly creepy and threatening in such a subtle way. you can just feel something big coming with that sentence alone.
Sam scrubs his hands through his long hair. It’s clean now, shining. Benny thinks Dean probably has always had a bit of a thing for his little brother’s hair; he talked about how ridiculous it was way too much.
this part got me so good. punch right to my heart. the little details you weave in at just the right moment, executed just so.
and when benny explains to sam the way he should fuck him, his own brother, i could just feel sam's discomfort and embarrassment and arousal rolled into one massive ball of tingly feelings. a vibrating ball of tingly feelings, that was me while reading it.
benny watching them go at it. benny and sam bonding. all of dean's hissing. the skimmers. this fic, basically.
(side note: a huge part of me was completely into the idea of dean with those eyes. and the hissing noise if i'm honest here lol. holy hell, yes.)
also, your artist did such an amazing job and the images fit so well with the story. i loved looking at the images while reading. such gorgeousness all around. i'm just going to sit here in a daze for awhile, thanks. and thank you for writing the things you write and the way you write.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:30 am (UTC)I would definitely be down for this being S8 in its entirety too, btw. Hehe :)
no subject
Date: 2013-06-25 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:32 am (UTC)I can't seem to write Benny as anything but tragic, as much as I wanted him to find a little acceptance with the brothers. Poor Benny!
Thanks for your lovely comments, so glad you liked!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-25 12:59 am (UTC)Good use of a few S8 canon elements too.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-25 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-25 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-25 03:54 am (UTC)I never thought that Benny watching them having sex could be so fucking sexy.
I loved how animalistic Dean was, and Sam's emotions, and..and Benny, fucking Benny XD
I loved everything. Thanks for this awesome story <3
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 03:35 am (UTC)Thanks again for reading and commenting!
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Date: 2013-06-26 03:39 am (UTC)Isn't the art magnificent?? I feel SO lucky and honored. I'm so glad you enjoyed feral skimmer!Dean - by the time I was done writing this, I was quite attached to him too. (Not as attached as Sam, but as you know, I can't help but write their crazy beautiful love for each other as the core of EVERYTHING).
Thanks again for your lovely comments, you made my day!
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Date: 2013-06-26 03:40 am (UTC)Thanks again!
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Date: 2013-06-25 05:41 pm (UTC)The pace was perfect, the tension kept ratcheting up until I couldn't read fast enough to keep up with my desire for more, and of course, the sexual tension was incredible!
Nothing but good to say. I am sorry to see Benny go, but he really didn't feel right in this world, at least he got to give Dean back to us in the end! :)
Wonderful, wonderful! Thank you!
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Date: 2013-06-26 03:42 am (UTC)Thanks again for reading and commenting!
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Date: 2013-06-25 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-06-25 10:38 pm (UTC)Your Benny was fantastic, too. The flashbacks of Dean/Benny worked for me. And OMG, did I want to be Benny watching that hot wincest.
Great twist, having Benny stop Sam from killing the hunters that took Dean.
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Date: 2013-06-26 03:47 am (UTC)Pretty sure I want to be Benny watching that hot Wincest too.... :)
Thanks again, you made my day!
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Date: 2013-06-26 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 09:05 am (UTC)I liked the interactions Sam and Dean had throughout the story, from the beginning of Dean's problem, through Sam's struggles till the end when Dean has recovered. I liked how you wrote monster!Dean, his protectiveness of Sam, the quirks, how he struggled trying to speak Sam's name.
Benny was wonderful in this story too. I really liked how you wove him in, and Sam's eventually acceptance and understanding, as well as the insights of Sam and Dean's relationship from his point of view. The scene where Benny was watching them have sex sent shivers down my spine.
All in all, this was amazing!
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Date: 2013-06-27 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:27 am (UTC)Thanks so much for your lovely comments, you made my day!
Thousands of kudos, and flowers, too
Date: 2013-06-26 05:25 pm (UTC)And the hotness of this fic! The intimacy between all three of them!! The heartbreaks and the mending!!! The emotions oh the emotions! I could list all my favorite spots and plots but that would be half of your fic and way too long. So happy you've written another wonderful fic to share! Wish you'd stay in the fandom for a long long time to come.
Re: Thousands of kudos, and flowers, too
Date: 2013-06-27 02:28 am (UTC)So glad that both the emotions and the intimacy (and the hotness) came through for you - I think I'm in this fandom til the bitter end, so I really hope you hang in there with me!
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Date: 2013-06-26 05:50 pm (UTC)Loved the relationship between Sam and Benny even if it first was because of their shared feelings for Dean and Sam's need for Benny.
And Sam...yeah, I already loved the summary. This is one race that Sam refuses to lose. AND YES!! He did it! I think Sam needed it himself!
Uh, and I loved Benny's descriptions and observations of Sam. Both physical (He rears up on his knees, giving Benny a fabulous view of Sam naked in the moonlight, all rippling muscles and--fuck--a bigger cock than most men can boast, hard and ready....holy damn) and his mental state.
And the sex scenes? Yeah...HOOOOOOOOOOOT!
And Dean, having that monster in him, not being able to communicate but being somewhat alert, hurt, kidnapped!!
Awesome, very, very awesome! Loved it :D
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Date: 2013-06-27 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 08:13 pm (UTC)I hate it that you left Benny behind but then again, the writers did too. I liked him and I was certain that had they kept him, he would have been a great addition to their dynamics!
I also loved the way you described Benny. in some parts he was even better-written than the authors of the show! I found so true is attraction to Sam but I liked that you didn't continue with them. it would have been a betrayal in Dean *nods*
again, you killed me dead and I have to admit that it HURT so much and soooo good!!!
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Date: 2013-06-27 02:31 am (UTC)I hate that Benny got left behind too, but I honestly couldn't see it going any other way. I did want to leave the door open for him to come back though, just as they did in canon. Who knows? :) Thanks again for reading and commenting, and for your pdf help too!
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Date: 2013-06-27 12:42 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing, this made my day.
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Date: 2013-06-27 02:32 am (UTC)Also, hee, glad you found it hot ;)