When Darkness Falls by Kasten
Summary: Let us assume for a while that the demon gets exactly what he wants from Sam. What will that mean for our boys, how far will Dean go to bring Sam back over to the good guys? What will he have to sacrifice to save Sam and will it be enough---or will he lose himself in the battle?
Rating: NC-17
Categories: Slash
Characters: Dean, OMC, Other, Sam
Genres: Alternate Universe, Angst, First Time, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Read At Your Own Risk
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 10/30/06
Updated: 06/04/09
Index
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Chapter 8: Chapter 8
Chapter 9: Chapter 9
Chapter 10: Chapter 10
Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Chapter 12: Chapter 12
Chapter 13: Chapter 13
Chapter 14: Chapter 14
Chapter 15: Chapter 15
Chapter 16: Chapter 16
Chapter 17: Chapter 17
Chapter 18: Chapter 18
Chapter 19: Chapter 19
Chapter 20: Chapter 20
Chapter 21: Chapter 21
Chapter 22: Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Chapter 23
Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Chapter 25: Chapter 25
Chapter 26: Chapter 26
Chapter 27: Chapter 27
Chapter 28: Chapter 28
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
In retrospect things had gone down hill fast after dad died. The hunts got more intense, and Sam’s visions more devastating. For months they’d fought the good fight side by side. Doing everything they could to keep the things that went bump in the night at bay.
They did what they’d always done; figuring that when the time came they’d work it out, they’d come up with an answer and kick demon ass like always.
But they didn’t see the truth...the pattern that linked everything together, from Sam’s conception right up to his fall from grace.
Dean had silently worried about Sam, about how it had affected him to see vision after vision full of blood, gore and rage. With each revelation his brother changed…not a lot but a little. It was enough for Dean to notice but not enough to set off any alarm bells in his head.
Sam was just a little more intense after a vision, a little more focused and a lot more apprehensive... that was all. Nothing too serious. Or so he’d thought at the time. Now he knew the truth. He knew that Sam had sensed the fall coming, that somewhere in the deepest part of his soul he’d known he was losing his grip on everything that was good.
“Maybe that’s what the Demon’s doing…pushing us. Finding ways to break us.”
But Dean hadn’t listened! He’d only seen, and what he’d seen was his distraught little brother, the one who could never possibly be anything other than pure. Maybe not driven snow pure but definitely not the future embodiment of wickedness...evil.
All he’d seen was Sam. His Sammy!
And all he’d known was that Sammy was hurting.
He supposed, if he really wanted to admit the dark ugly truth to himself then he’d have to say that he’d known that the visions, like the hunts, were damaging his brother. That it had been a good thing when Sam had went off to collage. But being a selfish bastard he couldn’t admit that, not then and certainly not now.
But if he’d known back then how far things would go, how quickly they’d get bad, then he’d have never dragged Sam back into the fight. He’d have left him at school, let him get married and have kids like a normal guy.
But unfortunately you don’t always see what’s right in front of your face. You don’t always know that something is broken...not until the evidence of it is staring you right square in the eye and then it’s too late to fix.
Dean had always loved Sam, loved him so much more than anything else in his life. Loved him enough that sometimes it scared him. Not that love was generally a scary thing but when your thoughts drifted toward warm skin and the soft sweet smell that only your own flesh and blood gave off...when you knew every scar before it was revealed...ever curve of muscle as it was formed...and every inch of hair that had been cut on a trip to the barber shop...well then it was scary.
Mostly because human beings weren’t supposed to have feelings like that about their own family, feelings they couldn’t put a name to but yet made them feel like crickets were dancing in their stomachs.
He’d have done anything for Sam...except let him go.
And in the end the demon had been counting on that.
Dean remembered bleeding on the floor, having the distinct feeling that someone had reached into his chest and yanked his heart out by the roots. He remembered Sam pleading, tears sliding down his too pale cheeks as he begged the demon for Dean’s life.
“I’ll give you anything, anything you want just please…please don’t kill him!”
“Say it Sam, Say it.”
“I’m yours in exchange for my brother’s life. I’m yours.”
Dean had wanted to scream, tell him no and to take it back but it was done---words once said that can never be unspoken! In a flash the demon had smiled, reached down and touched Sam’s face with an eerie sort of gentleness and Dean had been forced to watch as darkness spilled into his brother’s soul.
A pact made with the devil wasn’t always written in blood!
The pain had simply bled away on the instant leaving Dean numb and unable to move. His life was over! Without Sam there was no life, no love, no anything! Not for Dean.
When Sam stood and turned Dean’s heart had spiraled right down to the pit of his stomach, splashing bitter poison over his soul. For an instant before his consciousness was robbed from him he stared up at that beautiful face with the knowledge of what had just happened damn near eating him up alive.
It was a hard flash of memory, violent and painful in its own way. It reminded Dean of why he’d come here to California in the first place. Why he’d left his weapons in the Impala and why he’d spent the last three years looking for Sam.
When he’d come to he’d been alone, but bandaged up. Someone had taken great care to mend his wounds and tuck him carefully into bed. There was money, enough to get him clear across the country and a note scrawled in Sam’s neat handwriting telling Dean that things were forever changed and not to come looking for him.
Dean had never for an instant considered doing what Sam asked. There were only two choices for Dean after that night. Find Sam, end his suffering and then his own. Or find Sam and...save him.
The last notion hadn’t fully formed yet, the “how” was still mighty blurry despite all the research he’d done but the hope it represented was there hovering in the darkness like a neon cross. Even after three years full of dark non-Sam-like rumors he wasn’t ready to give up on his baby brother.
The club was bright, loud and bordering on obnoxious. It was just like a million other clubs he’d been to in this god-forsaken town. One proposition after another littered the ground in Dean’s wake and there was nothing truly solid to go on. No one seemed to know Sam, and the ones who did know him didn’t know where he was. Even some light-handed violence hadn’t helped them gain the desired knowledge so in the end he’d been forced to give up.
It put the oldest Winchester in a foul mood. After three years of hunting, searching and struggling with the nasties alone to get some kind of clue about Sam’s location...well he’d packed on a foul temper to say the least.
But hell, at least it added to the Dean Winchester swagger.
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Chapter 2: Chapter 2
He was fishing in his pocket for his keys when he left the club, cursing like a sailor because he was too drunk to find them. He knew he was being reckless. He knew that getting liquored up, then running around town weaponless, inviting trouble, didn’t rank anywhere in his list of top five “smart ideas”.
It was stupid, stupid and even more stupid. But he was tired---so gawd awful tired and maybe just maybe one of the other teams’ players would make this easier for him. Though in Texas he’d learned you could kill some demons barehanded, although it was messy–and it had left Dean feeling a little sick afterwards, but it had been a victory for the good guys.
“Hoorah!” he thought almost sarcastically.
He finally found the keys in his inside coat pocket, the one where he shoved all the phone numbers passed his way. He let the numbers fall and watched as the wind carried them all away. It was better that way; he wasn’t in the mood to think about Sam while he pounded into some faceless girl or guy, because sometimes he actually managed to fool himself.
The right mop of gold-brown hair, the right height and it was easy to pretend---way to easy.
It helped, soothed the pain for a little while, but come morning there was only disappointment. Cold, bitter and devastating disappointment!
Now came the hard part, getting his fingers to work long enough to open the Impala door. He wasn’t sure how long he’d tried, long enough for his nerves to wear thin, for him to think about busting a window out of his precious car.
For a minute he laughed, imagine that--- HIM hurting the Impala, when he’d threatened to do bodily harm to Sam for the same thing on more than one occasion. His prized car! So damned important he could call it baby, sweetie and confess his love to it but not to Sam! Never to Sam!
No chick flick moments.
There was the sound of glass shattering and the warmth of blood trickling down Dean’s hand long before he’d even registered the angry tears that were sliding over his cheeks. For a while he just poured out his frustration on the car door. Trying to make it hurt as much as he did.
And then he was just sitting on the ground his back to the Impala and his head in his hands.
“Why, Sam? Goddamnit, WHY!” Why’d you have to go and sacrifice yourself to save me? That’s what he was really saying, but the anger in his words somehow managed to mask his broken desperation.
It took a minute or two for him to register that someone was taking the keys out of his hands, that this same person was hooking his elbow and dragging him gently to his feet.
“lemme lone!” He tried to take a swing but his arm was caught, twisted back just enough to keep him from trying it again.
“Have Davison drive the Impala back to the plantation, I’ll take care of him.“ Dean barely heard the words the fellow said as he handed the keys over to some stranger; scarcely registered the silky tones those words were spoken in but he understood the general idea.
So maybe the evil team wouldn’t get him after all---just plain old-fashioned car thieves. Did people kill for cars like the Impala? Or dump you along side the road and leave you to hoof it home? He really didn’t have a clue.
“Look at the mess you’ve made of yourself.” This time the voice registered, but yet it had just enough of that alien hardness to make Dean question his own ears.
No he’d never sounded like that. It was his imagination that made Dean associate those strong, pitying tones with those from his past.
Yet when he was hauled up and into the familiar crook of that shoulder he stopped questioning.
“Sammy!” He tried to twist so he could see but it was dark and the only light around came from a stereo system in some tricked out black sports car he was being shoved into.
How he’d gotten from point A to point B without registering it proved just how drunk he’d really gotten.
He caught sight of long dark hair, hair far longer than even Sam wore, and the smell of leather and steel masked the sweet warm scent that was his Sammy---but it WAS him! It was Sam.
“ Sam? Sammy?!?!” Then he was in the car and Sam was kneeling down to fasten his belt. He knew it was Sam because he looked up at him and even in the darkness, even with such differences Dean knew.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” It was a stupid thing to say considering Sam was evil now but Dean couldn’t help it. The liquor and the emotion were clouding his brain.
“I know, I’ve been watching.”
“I thought! I don’t know---I guess,” There was a pause from Dean; a moment of clarity as he pulled his tears back and said firmly. “Chick flick moment, give me a minute.” He watched Sam smile.
“And we can’t be having none of those. Dean Winchester 101!” He watched Sam’s eyes take on an evil twinkle, amused but not murderously so. It was a foreign look on Sam’s face, made him look a hundred years older than he actually was. Yet Dean supposed that it was also a good sign, at least his brother wasn’t so far gone that he wanted to rip his own flesh and blood limb from limb.
“Sammy!” He reached out and brushed his fingers across Sam’s cheek. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You did---but I always knew where you were.” Sam’s words were gentle, but his eyes were laced with a wicked sort of tease. It was almost enough to make Dean think of those all-to-familiar orbs as cruel but not quite, harder maybe but not cruel.
In fact Sam wasn’t acting very evil at all---he was just---acting different and that in and of itself should have been a surprise considering the situation.
“What’s with the hair, dude, and the swanky threads? You look like a rocker boy lawyer.” Dean had no idea why he’d blurted that out other than the fact that Sam looked so---well---unlike Sam. And even being face down in an ally drunk he had cataloged every minute difference in the space of a heartbeat.
Sam laughed and the sound of it was rich and velvety, sin wrapped in silk.
“Something like that but not quite.” Sam tilted his head, gave Dean one of those ‘I’m sorry you’re sick, big brother---and I know it’s my fault’ looks just before touching his forehead and sending him into blissful darkness.
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Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Dean made his first preliminary attempt at eye-opening, and then shuddered violently. Like a million other hangovers he’d had, this one had left him super sensitive to light and with a throbbing headache. It was what he deserved for getting so damn plastered he couldn’t even recall the name of the last bar he’d been to.
Well at least he’d made it back to the hotel safe and sound. He stretched noting the silky softness of the bed and then corrected himself---or home with some chick.
He frowned. He really WAS in bad shape if he couldn’t remember who he’d shacked up with, but it wasn’t the first time in the last three years that had happened and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
Finally he cracked his eyes open, took in the tall lavishly decorated ceiling and the sheer size of the expanse above him and made yet another mental correction---either he’d died and gone to the special hell---VIP style or he’d went home with a very rich Goth chick.
He blinked in confusion for a moment, watching the black curtains on the canapé bed shift and flutter in a light wind. A window was open somewhere and he automatically turned toward the breeze to see if it was day or night.
It was night and it wasn’t a window but a set of balcony doors that greeted his aching eyes. He blinked again, more confused than ever at the weird decor. If he’d been forced to guess he’d say this was a castle bedroom in a vampire flick but that would have been stretching even Dean’s imagination because this place was just a little too underworld to take seriously.
“What the fuck?!?!”
“Were you REALLY that drunk?” There was a pause accompanied by velvet laughter, smooth like good whisky but laced with the devil’s brand of humor. “It’s almost 7:00---PM---you nearly had me convinced you were in a coma.” That wasn’t a woman’s voice and to top it all off Dean recognized it instantly despite the smooth lazy tenor and the wicked sensuality lacing the tone. “You were out for a full twenty-four hours plus a few.”
“Sam?” Hadn’t he been saying that name a lot lately? It felt like he had.
And then he remembered!
Dean was searching the room wildly with his throbbing eyes before he even registered the sick, panicky feeling warring against the complete and utter relief at having finally found Sam. It didn’t occur to him that Sam had found him, nor did he ask himself ‘why’ all that mattered was that Sam was there WITH him. Dean would find a way to fix things.
He finally found Sam sitting comfortably at a desk in one of the corners, a computer screen bright and alive in front of him.
His baby brother was looking at him. His arm draped over the desk, one leg crossed over the other like he’d been there for a while, not really working but waiting. His eyes were dark with kohl, or so it seemed and his once gold brown mop looked almost black due to a recant shower. His hair was much longer, tickling his shoulders in fact and he was only wearing a pair of black jeans with the top button open.
It took a few minutes for Dean to take all this in, for him to notice the three silver necklaces of varying lengths around Sam’s throat and the bracelets littering only one wrist. It was very 80’s in some ways but in others it was completely new millennium. Or maybe that was just Sam’s way of pulling off the look?
Turning the screen off, Sam arose, stretching his long limbs with liquid, feral grace. “Cat got your tongue, big brother?”
He stared, trying hard to come up with something and then finally settled on a question that at least touched on useful. “Where am I , Sam?” He knew that was important information. He realized that if things went bad it would at least benefit him to know ‘where’ the hell he was so he knew ‘who’ the hell to call. He had contacts all over the map, and most of them would still come if he hollered but he hoped he wouldn’t have to.
“Still California, but that’s not really important. I’m not gonna kill you Dean---you’re family. I’m just gonna keep you out of trouble for a while.” He couldn’t deny that hearing Sam say that out loud made him feel better, even if it was in a totally unreasonable way.
“So I’ve been brother-napped then?” Dean’s voice held more than a tinge of skepticism, less than it should have really considering ‘where he was’ and ‘what that could have meant’.
“Why don’t we just say you’re a guest in my house---that sounds so much more civilized, don’t you think?”
“Are we being civilized, then?” Somehow this just wasn’t the confrontation Dean had imagined. “Your house?”
“Evil pays well, but they’re a lot of hours involved---and sometimes things get messy.” Sam moved toward the bed taking up a seat a mere few inches from his older brother’s knee.
“Ah, so does this---do I qualify as messy?”
Carefully, as if to keep from startling his brother Sam placed one hand over Dean’s knee. “You---my estranged brother, are a loose end.”
“Oh.” What was Dean supposed to say to that? “So if you don’t make your loose ends disappear, how do you deal with em?”
“I tie them up.” It was a useless but yet unsettling statement. “You’re shaking, Dean. What, don’t you trust me anymore?”
“Not really. Want to---I mean--- I really want to but with you being evil and all it makes it kind of hard.” Sam was smiling again, all velvet sweetness and concern. “The whole trust thing, you gotta feel it man.”
“And you’re not feeling it eh?” Sam thought that was funny. Hell, he thought everything Dean said and did these days was funny. He supposed he should feel angry but what he really felt was relief. “Can’t say I blame ya bro, we have issues---of course we always did, didn’t we?”
That was all it took to break Dean out of his stunned trance and he surged forward to wrap Sam in a strong desperate hug. “I’m so sorry Sammy!” His words were rough and full of three years worth of worry and guilt. “I swore I’d take care of you and I didn’t!” Sam was hugging him back, stroking his hair as if he were the younger one. “I fucked up and they took you away from me. I love ya Sammy and I’m sorry!”
“I know.” Sam said as he brushed his hand through Dean’s hair. “But you can’t save everyone, Dean.”
“But I should have saved you.” Sam wrapped his free arm around Dean’s waist pulling them together. Bare chest to bare chest, all Dean could do was suck up Sammy’s warmth. Feel him solid and real for the first time in a long time.
It wasn’t until he was calmed down that he noticed the way Sammy’s face was tucked into his neck, the way he was rubbing a silky smooth cheek against the hardness of Dean’s bare shoulder---and then as if to make the point utterly clear Sam opened his mouth and tasted Dean’s collarbone before moving up to his neck.
“Sammy, no!” He tried weakly to push Sam back, stop him from doing something he’d regret---later---down the road when he was fixed. “You don’t want to do this, Sam.”
Sam pulled back but held Dean close, nevertheless. “I just wanta hold you Dean, Taste you. I don’t want your virtue---just this.” The slow crawl of Sam’s hand up Dean’s spine about broke him. “Just some---“ there was a pause, a thoughtful consideration and then that velvet smile spilled over Sam’s lips. “Light touching, a few caresses; all things that you can write off to whatever pleases you later---oh and maybe a kiss or two.” Then Sam dived back in, hands never really having left the game.
“Sam!?!?” He wanted to list all the reasons ‘why’ they couldn’t do this but then Sam’s mouth closed gently over his, warm, wet and as sweet as he’d ever dreamed. They shared a few of those, before Dean came to his senses and struck up a weak argument.
“This is wrong, Sammy.” The words just sort of spilled out over Sam’s head as he kissed and nipped at the place just under Dean’s chin.
“According to who?”
“Uh---Man and god?”
“I don’t put much stock in man and god doesn’t want me anymore.” Sam stated casually between nibbles.
“No Sam, don’t say that.”
“When’d you become a religious man, Dean? I gotta tell you, it really doesn’t suit you.” Dean could feel Sam’s mouth curled into a smile against his shoulder; hear the prickling tease lacing his impish tone.
“I’m not. I just---“
“Trust me Dean, out of all the things I’ve done since we parted ways, showing my brother a little honest affection isn’t even gonna make God’s list come judgment day.”
“But Sam---“ he had a million arguments, all of them valid but Sam had pulled back and was looking at him, his eyes had lost their playful glint and looked sad despite the fact his lips were still smiling.
“Please? I need this, Dean. I need you. Not all of you but a little---enough to remind me that I used to be human.”
And that was all it took. He was weak, but he’d always been weak when it came to Sam. There were worse things he supposed, than reminding his baby brother of his humanity, and one of them was that look.
A million years too old, and soooo young it was devastating!
Admitting defeat Dean let himself be enveloped by Sam’s warmth, let his baby brother push him back into the blankets and follow him in.
It wasn’t his first sin and it probably wasn’t going to be his last.
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Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Hours passed for Dean while he was wrapped in the comfortable cocoon of silken sheets and fluffy blankets. He and Sam shared unhurried touches mingled with long leisurely kisses. It was more than foreplay but not enough to be called sex. At least not according to Dean Winchester’s definition of the word anyway.
There were erections and hips locked together in a slow grinding rhythm, that brought them both to completion---several times---without any real need for more intimate touching. True to his word Sam never asked anything of Dean that he couldn’t write off as something else---anything else.
It was all pretty serene, and decidedly uncomplicated once things got going. It was more than Dean could have dreamed possible. Yet something in his mind told him that Sam, his Sam wouldn’t want this.
It was the evil in him that was driving him to lust after his own brother. Dean was capable of something like this all on his own, but not Sam. Sam was the good one.
Dean eventually felt---better. He wasn’t sure that was the word he was groping for in the sense that he didn’t have a clue what was really going on here but it was accurate, if only because he now had Sam---or rather Sam had him. And that was enough to improve his world ten fold.
“We need a shower.” Sam had announced this dreamily after their fourth climax.
“I could go for that.” Dean was sticking to the basics until he knew what was what. Things weren’t exactly crystal clear here and until they were he didn’t plan on shooting his mouth off too much.
Sam pulled back and smiled a lover’s smile at him, and then kissed him one last time before peeling himself away from Dean and out of the sticky sweat laden bed. “You want some bacon and eggs? Maybe some pancakes?”
“What, you gonna cook for me?” Dean couldn’t help smiling at the thought. His baby brother couldn’t fry an egg or a slab of bacon to save his life. That was the kind of stuff you learned living in the normal world and Sam had never had normal. They’d lived outa diners and off fast food joints all their life. None of the cheap hotels they’d stayed in sported a stove and only a hand full had boasted a microwave, so they were pretty much limited to warming stuff up skill wise.
“Hell, no!” Sam said, a bit of a southern drawl to his words that Dean couldn’t help but notice. “I got people who do that for me.”
“Really?” Sam nodded as he tugged off the jeans and tossed them on the floor. “Evil must pay well if you got ‘people’ who do the mundane at two in the morning.” Dean couldn’t help thinking that in the past, when he’d stumbled across anything that had to do with the ‘big bad’ that it was chaotic and disorganized. Not structured and----sleek like Sam seemed to be.
“So how about breakfast?”
“Sure, I don’t suppose you got some clothes for me?” Sam grinned, his smile more playful than ever. The not-sex had done him good.
His little brother strolled over to one of the large wardrobes in the corner and flipped it open. There hung all Dean’s stuff; washed, neatly pressed and hanging in a closet along with a few other items of equal size that obviously weren’t his. “You got these outa my car?”
“And I had Spice pick you up a few things, I’d have took you shopping myself but I think you should hang out on the plantation for a while before we head off the property. It just seems practical.” Sam watched as Dean grabbed himself a set of clothes, his face puzzled. “Oh the Impala’s in the garage. I’d have had them fix it but I thought that might give you something to occupy your time with while I’m taking care of business.”
“Plantation?” The word made Dean think of Scarlet O’Hara and for some reason that rattled him.
“They used to grow grapes here, the title stuck even though it’s all private land for miles around, these days.” Dean turned to look at Sam, marveling at his casual attitude and the fact that he hadn’t touched on anything remotely---sinister during his explanation.
“So, I’m not gonna be locked up in this room during my---visit?”
“Of course not, but I have assigned you a tour guide of sorts.”
“Ah.” He hadn’t actually expected anything different, hell if the truth were to be told he hadn’t really expected to live this long. He’d always figured that the next time he saw Sam it’d be the last. If the rumors were true Sam and his killing crew made quick work of the hunters that dared cross their path.
And that’s what they’d called them ‘Sam’s killing crew’!
“It makes some of the guys nervous to have a hunter in their midst.”
“You were a hunter.”
“Yes, before I came here---not after.”
There it was again that sadness that lingered behind Sam’s expressive eyes. It almost broke Dean’s heart to see it, but he wasn’t sure how to fix it. Maybe there wasn’t even enough glue left in him to do the job but he was damn sure going to try. “So who’s Spice, sounds like a stripper’s name.”
Sam laughed then, more than Dean had been expecting. He’d only really wanted to change the subject. “I’ll introduce you. Now, go take a shower while I put in an order for breakfast.” He tilted his head toward a set of double doors across the room. “Through there, first door on the right.”
“What is this, an apartment or something?”
“Penthouse suite, there’s even a living room and kitchen further down the hall.”
“What about you?”
Sam motioned his hand toward another set of doors Dean hadn’t noticed before “Smaller bathroom, I’ll use it and that way you can snoop.”
Dean flushed a little at having been well and truly caught. “Aren’t you worried I’ll split?”
Sam was laughing again.
“We’re on the fourth floor big brother, even if you managed to jump out a window without breaking both your legs, there’s more than enough muscle in this place to bring you safely back to me. You are smack dab in the middle of sin city---excuse the bad metaphor---and you aren’t going anywhere. If you wanta give the state of the art alarm system a go, be my guest. When you get through it you’ll find your tour guide on the other side of whatever door or window you chose. He’s really very good at his job.”
“Are there a lot of people around here besides us, Sam?“
Sam just casually took in Deans bewildered expression as he started to put two and two together. They weren’t at some house, out in the country where Dean could make a break for it and hoof it back to town. They were in the middle of evil goddammed suburbia.
“In this apartment, no. Outside----more than you can even imagine. Take my advice Dean, cooperate. And if you can’t---well, I’m still not gonna kill ya!” There was that slight southern drawl again, like he’d been around someone who talked like that. It was not an accent he’d truly earned himself, just through association. “But I will do what ever needs doing to keep you from hurting yourself---or anyone else here.” The last was added in true Sam Winchester fashion. It was the voice he used when he spoke of protecting innocents.
But these people weren’t innocent. These people (or rather the thing they worked for) had killed Mom, Jess and then dad! He was sure of it, even though he didn’t fully understand who these people were. Not in the typical everyday sense of it anyway.
“Sam?”
“Shower, go.” This was said as he snatched up the phone and immediately said “Main House, Kitchen,” and waited. “Cora, I’d like some breakfast please. Bring the works, a little of everything on the menu this very early morning and send Spice up with the order.” There was a pause. “Enough for three, yes. Thank you.” When he hung up Dean was still standing there, just gawking. “Go, unless you wanta be standing here nude when breakfast arrives. Take your time, soak in the Jacuzzi for a while. I’ll let you know when the food has arrived.”
“Okay---and Sam.”
“What?”
“I missed you.”
“Same here–now get!” Sam made a show of pushing Dean out of the room and even through things were still mighty confusing he let himself be pushed.
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Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Dean did as Sam had instructed, he took a long hot bath, but not before he poked around the front of the apartment. He took in the thumb-pad scanner on the front door, the tiny inconspicuous lines that ran on the outside of the window’s lip (trip lines) and concluded that Sam was right. Top-notch security, the kind only real money could buy. He wouldn’t be getting past those with a credit card or lock pick.
He wasn’t bad with the electrical systems but he’d never really worked on one that cost as much as a nice house. The most serious alarm system he’d ever given a go was one at a museum and even then, not even close to what he was looking at here.
He poked his head out of the living room window long enough to take in the gun totting guards with wards tattooed on their arms. Damn! He hoped this didn’t mean what he thought it did.
He headed for the bathroom after that, because he wasn’t sure he was ready to believe what he was seeing. It looked like maybe, just maybe organized crime had signed on the dotted line---in blood!
Dean realized while sitting in a tub of bubbling water, in a bathroom bigger than most of the hotel rooms he’d rented in his lifetime, that he’d sucked up enough of Sam that he didn’t feel like he was about to rattle himself right out of his own skin anymore. He’d been pretty tightly wound there at the end. Maybe ‘end’ wasn’t the best way to think of it but he was too off kilter to find a suitable correction so he let it stand.
He’d been close to calling it quits when Sam had found him. For months he had excelled at reckless, leaving openings in his amour for someone to pass through. But in the end his survival instinct had always kicked in. Maybe if Sam had been dead, then he could have let down his guard enough to finally rest but with the possibility of ‘Sam’ out there---well, he supposed suicide by enemy just wasn’t a true possibility with his baby brother still breathing.
When Sam had wrapped himself around Dean, bringing with him all the warmth and loneness of the last three years---giving Dean the security that only flesh against flesh could provide, Dean had swiftly realized he’d never be able to abandon Sam and he couldn’t kill him either.
The mere idea of splitting that skin, calling forth the blood that roared beneath was enough to stir up a wicked rush of nausea. Putting that thought in motion would be impossible.
Maybe if Sam hadn’t been Sam anymore, then perhaps he could have done it.
But it was still Sam, just a harder, more centered version of him. One with a different goal and a lot more sensuality---sure he he’d changed but the sadness in his eyes was enough to tell Dean he missed the person he’d been at least a little.
The real problem was, that despite Sam’s statement that he was no longer a hunter Dean knew the truth. He’d followed his trail long enough to know what Sam’s job was, the only difference these days was his prey.
Now Sam hunted the hunters and beckoned the innocent across the great divide---pulling them into his newly claimed world like a siren singing it’s mating call. He was the devil’s tongue whispering promises to those who could be swayed and ordering the deaths of those who couldn’t.
Sam had blood on his hands. Sweet innocent Sammy who’d only ever craved normal was covered in the blood of the innocent.
It was enough to make Dean’s heart bleed.
He wasn’t sure how long he soaked in that tub staring at the marble ceiling and the odd black fixtures that played the useful part of the new-age gothic decor. He eyed the metal hoops, the ones that towels were looped suspiciously through. He wasn’t sure what it was about them, or their empty cohorts that made him feel---apprehensive.
He’d been in creeper places, he thought as he eyed the stone gargoyle perched on the tub’s edge. Cemeteries, a few churches---but never a house. He let his eyes slide around the bathroom and frowned at the dark charcoal gray towels and white and black marble floors.
Beetlejuice woulda been proud.
Something about the room felt funny. It was pristinely clean and archaically beautiful but it just felt off. Then a picture began to form in Dean’s brain. Everything cloth in the room was removable, every surface was smooth and non porous, it was set up like the old YMCA buildings, no carpet, and no throws. If you killed somebody in here you could just wash the blood down the drain.
Damn!
“Dean, Breakfast.” The sound of Sam’s voice outside the door pulled Dean back to reality. Maybe he’d seen a few too many S&M porn movies, but now that he was looking at it, he couldn’t help but see.
“What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Sam?” He mumbled this of course, on his way outa the tub. “I’m coming, just give me a few.”
“No problem. Got someone I want you to meet.”
“Okay.” With that he heard Sam move away from the door and he hurried into his clothes.
He wasn’t sure why, but he had no desire to be in that room a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. He supposed he’d go meet this ‘Spice’ stripper girl extraordinaire---it made him think of the ‘spice girls’ and he cringed.
“Hey Sam, I think your bathroom’s a little creepy---gave me the chills, poltergeist style.” He yelled this as he was heading down the short hallway into the living room.
“In here,” Dean followed Sam’s voice into the previously unexplored kitchen and stopped in the archway. “Dean, this is Spice.” For a minute the older of two Winchesters just stood there gaping at the person in front of him.
Sixteen maybe, pretty in the way that very few boys were in this day and age. High cheekbones, slender but well built; the words sleek and beautiful came instantly to mind. “Hey,” was the only thing that Dean could drum up as the boy stood up from the table and used one free hand to push back long dark chocolate locks that spilled forward again like silk as soon as he let them go.
Smooth skin, flawless in fact. Not a mark or scar to speak of childhood trauma, not even the toughness that comes with natural aging.
And those eyes, as deep and rich as polished mahogany. Dark enough to get lost in, damn!
“Hey, Dean.” The boy extended his hand politely but Dean refused to take it. In fact he stepped back.
“What is he?”
“Dean---“ Sam paused long enough to make his older brother look at him. “He’s the same as I am.”
“And what are you Sam? What did they do to you?”
“Should I go?” The boy ‘Spice’ spoke and Dean was forced to hear the uneasiness in his voice, the child-like uncertainty that the nasties didn’t share.
“No,” Sam answered for him. “Shake his hand, Dean.” Spice automatically extended his hand again, waiting patiently for Dean to wrap long slender fingers around the warmth of it and shake. “See, flesh and blood.”
“Lots of things we killed have been flesh and blood.” Dean watched the boy flinch at that, his cheerful warmth sliding back behind the weariness in his eyes.
“He’s a child, Dean, only a child.” Dean nodded, despite the fact he wanted to ask ‘what kind of child’ He knew, just knew by looking at him that he wasn’t human.
“I used to be, though.” Dean dropped the kid’s hand, feeling something odd like an electrical tingle run up his arm.
“Spice!” Sam’s tone was scolding and the boy instantly pulled back, tucked his hands in his pockets as if guilty of something.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but he was touching me and---!” Was that fear in the kid’s voice, carefully measured fear? “I just couldn’t control it, I was curious and he thinks too loud.”
“You were in my head!” Dean surged forward, not really sure what he meant to do but he never got the chance to find out. He was stopped by Sam’s outstretched arm.
“He’s a child, Dean. He didn’t mean to. He’s still learning to control it.”
“He’s like you, he was born human and then he was changed?”
“Yes. Almost exactly right.”
“Almost?” Dean looked at Sam seeking clarification but Sam looked at Spice instead of giving it.
“My gift is limited, not as advanced as some of the others, I can only read people if I’m touching them and even then, only if they’re thinking really hard.” Spice had collected himself. He was trying to look harmless and unthreatening as he looked up at Dean through long dark lashes.
Was he afraid of Dean? In a way the older man hoped so.
“Well, don’t do it again.”
“Yes, sir.” This was said firmly, as if he were giving Dean all the power in their new fuzzy relationship.
“So, can you two play nice for one evening?” Sam was saying this as he moved away from the pair of them grabbing some bacon and a glass of orange juice. “I have a meeting and I’d prefer not to leave you completely alone here---that might make you feel like you have my permission to be ‘up to no good’ and I’m certainly not giving you that.”
“Excuse me?” Dean snapped. “You’re leaving?”
“I have business to take care of, Dean. I thought the two of you could hang out; Spice is really great company once you give him a chance. Total movie buff, he’s even into the old horror flicks like ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ and “Maximum Overdrive’. Take advantage of it, there’s not too many people who’ll still waste time on---“ Sam paused, shelving his first comment. “Those old master pieces. I should be back by dawn. If you need anything Spice can call the boys down stairs and have it brought up.”
“You’re going to leave me alone in here with him?” Spice didn’t look any happier about the prospect than Dean did. “All night?”
“What’s the worst thing you could do to him---he’s a kid Dean, really. I don’t figure I’ll come back to blood stained carpets. And besides he lives here.”
“With you?” Was that jealousy lacing his tone? He hoped not. “And what’s to say he’s not gonna attack ME!”
Sam laughed, “If he does, you have my permission to get blood on the carpets.” Sam shook his head as if Dean was being some emotional basket case. “There’s a TV, bar, stereo system and you can banish Spice to his room if that makes you feel any better. I really didn’t think you’d make such a fuss over a mere child.”
“A mere child?” The sarcasm was quite clear, even exaggerated.
Sam looked thoughtful. “Maybe you should hang in the penthouse for a few days. Trust me there’s a lot more complicated things out there than this boy.” Sam paused, studied them both for a few fleeting seconds. “Once you’re settled I’ll key in your thumb print.” With that said Sam gathered up some folders off the kitchen table and left the room as casually as he’d done everything else.
That left Dean standing there in front of the boy who childishly stuffed his hands in his back pockets and rose up on the front balls of his feet and then lowered himself back down again. “So, should I go to my room or show you where stuff is?” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Sam picked you up some CD’s and some movies, there on top pf the entertainment stand.” The boy tried to look casual as Dean summed him up.
Maybe one hundred forty pounds, soaking wet--? But that didn’t rule out super strength.
Five foot eight in sneakers---? But short didn’t equate harmless.
Too damn pretty---! But that didn’t add up to innocent.
Then he heard the front door open. “Sam?” He turned and fled into the living room in time to see the door snap shut. “Sam! Get you ass back in here!” SAM!” When nothing happened Dean punched the door. “Damnit!”
“The walls are sound proof, he wouldn’t have heard you once the door shut---but he probably wouldn’t have come back anyway. He has a meeting with Andrew Curare, something important.”
“How do you know so goddamn much about my brother?” Dean watched the boy flinch at the loud crack of his voice.
Then he shrugged. “I’m around everyday, I hear stuff.” Not ‘He tells me stuff’, at least.
“Andrew Curare---? Why do I know that name?”
“He’s senator Curare’s brother.” Spice supplied this information helpfully, careful to sound casual.
“Sam’s meeting with a political family?” The boy nodded.
“You should really have some breakfast.” The boy paused, glanced back toward the kitchen and spoke again hesitantly. “It’d be a shame to let all this food go to waste.”
“Seems to me there’s probably a lot of waste around here.”
For a moment Spice just stared at him, a pretty young boy in blue jeans and a Nickelback t-shirt and then he dropped his eyes a bit, almost meekly. “I suppose there is.” For a moment he scanned the living room floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the universe.
“So what are you really? Some kind of Vampire, Siren, Wraith---demon maybe?” The boy’s eyes widened a bit and he shook his head ‘no’ to all of them without ever really looking at Dean. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me anyhow, that would give me too much power.”
“Power?” The boy looked honestly confused.
“Then I’d know how to kill you.” There it was, that flicker of fear that skated across the boy’s eyes. It was weird considering he was some kind of supernatural being and Dean had never come across one that was truly frightened by the idea of death.
“So should I go to my room or can I do what it is that I usually do?”
“Do whatever, so long as you do it at least ten feet away from me.”
“Yes, sir.” Not so much as a second’s hesitation in those words. “Just let me get outa your way.” With that Spice moved around the other side of the couch (minding the ten foot rule closer than any living thing should have) and made his way back toward Sam’s bedroom, leaving Dean to contemplate the events of the last few days in silence.
And to wonder why the hell the kid had went back there!
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Chapter 6: Chapter 6
Not knowing what else to do, Dean had some breakfast before poking around Sam’s place some more. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but he didn’t hesitate to pocket anything that might prove useful later on. This included a couple of paper clips and a small iron knife that had been hanging on the wall as decoration. It was the right size to easily conceal in case things got choppy, which he assumed they would.
Nothing could go this smoothly for long. It was the way of the world---or at least the one Sam and Dean occupied.
Amongst Sam’s belongings were a ton of books they’d have killed for back when they were hunting together, a handful of occult type jewelry and a nice assortment of weapons, most of them too big to be useful. There really wasn’t much in the way of personal items, at least not as far as Dean could tell. The artwork just didn’t seem to fit his little brother’s taste. Not that either of them had ever really had the time to decorate a place.
Even when he’d went to Sam and Jess’s apartment after dad had gone missing the place had been rather Spartan and what was there was more likely to have been Jess’s idea of interior decoration than Sam’s.
This place was big, boasting a handful of elaborately decorated bathrooms, several balconies, two living rooms, kitchen, dining room, three bedrooms and a small office/library. All in pristine, color matched condition. Apparently Sam had most of the top floor to call his own. It was a hellva lot more than any man needed, even if he’d had ten kids like Spice living here.
Dean slowly made his way into what he determined must be Spice’s room, It was decidedly more ‘normal’ than the rest of the place. It was still huge but despite that it was pretty much something you’d find in any middle-class house if you looked past the sheer size of it.
There wasn’t much outa place---not a damn thing in fact, the kid’s room was as immaculate as the rest of the place but it was a kid’s room in spite of its weird affiliation with tidiness.
Some posters littered the wall just over top of a killer stereo system; below it was an abundance of CD’s containing a little bit of everything starting with the Elvis years and going clear up to Saliva–and a lot of 80’s hair bands graced the shelf too, which was weird if you weren’t Dean Winchester.
Dean turned to look at the 27’ television and eye the library of video games stored neatly beneath it, all still in their original packaging. He wondered briefly if there were any nasties that had obsessive-compulsive disorders involving cleanliness, because teenage boys didn’t live like this.
Dean popped open the closet door, and took in the neat row of shoes that ran along the bottom. Weird. Then nosily he began thumbing through the clothes. Spice had a whole closet full of stuff, though a few outfits had been questionable? Hooker quality to say the least, but his wardrobe, like Sam’s so far, sported a lot of cool, slick looking threads.
Suddenly Spice appeared in the doorway, arm full of freshly washed clothes. He literally stopped himself mid-step, nodded a greeting and said two of the strangest words Dean could have imagined considering the circumstances. “Oh, sorry.” And then as if ‘HE’ were the one caught snooping, turned and disappeared.
Dean paused for a minute, just long enough to make what might have been his stupidest decision yet.
And then he followed.
“Hey, kid. Wait up.” Spice stopped at the end of the hall, turned and looked straight at Dean almost the instant he’d spoken. "Maybe I over reacted earlier, to you not being human and all.” Spice nodded, seemingly accepting this and waiting patiently for Dean to give him more. “I don’t know what all this is about, and I can’t promise you we’ll be buds but---I guess we’re both here---and----well---I guess we can be polite.” Spice’s lip curled just a little at that and Dean was forced to wonder what the kid was thinking but refused to give voice to.
“Okay,” was all he said.
“So you don’t have to stay like ten feet away---just three.”
“Alright.”
“But if you go medieval on my ass I’m gonna dust you! Got me?”
“Gotcha.” Spice paused. “Can I put these away?”
“Why you asking me, it’s your house.”
“It’s Sam’s house,” the boy corrected automatically before turning and heading back to the bedroom.
Dean followed, standing in the doorway and watching as he hung the clothes up. “Did I miss the washing machine or something? I must be losing my thoroughness in my old age.”
“They’re behind the slated doors off the dining room---do you need me to wash you something?”
“Ah---?” Dean wasn’t accustomed to someone offering to do stuff like that for him. “Nah, no dirty clothes yet.”
Spice nodded. “I put the leftovers in the frig while you were looking around, and Sam's bed has fresh sheets if you’re tired.”
That must have been what he was doing in Sam’s room. If Dean had been a more sensitive man he might have blushed. “You cleaned the house?” Dean meant that almost as a joke but the boy simply nodded looking too casual for words. “So you’re the neat freak?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“I’m not tired, I guess I slept like 24-hours or something so I got my beauty rest outa the way for a day or two at least. “Again Spice just nodded. “So how long have you lived here?”
“With your brother, or in these rooms?” Spice was making slow work of the clothes, giving himself something to do as he was questioned. It was a tactic Dean had used on occasion.
“Both.”
“Three years with your brother, ten in total.” This just confused Dean more. So Spice had to be what? Like thirteen when he moved in with Sam–(Or rather Sam moved in with him)---and like six when he came to this place.
“So, you got parents around here or something?”
“They’re dead.”
“Sorry.”
“It was a long time ago, sorry isn’t necessary anymore.” It was Dean’s turn to nod.
“So is it just the two of you? I noticed an extra bedroom, it didn’t look used so I’m assuming---?”
“Yes, Just the two of us. Sam doesn't like a lot of people around.”
What the hell do you ask when you haven’t got a clue what’s going on in a given situation? “So why do you live here with Sam?” You ask a VERY direct question.
The boy stopped what he was doing and seemed to seriously consider the question, as if the answer was not that simple. “Because I’m supposed to.”
“What, as in the grand scheme of things?” Dean couldn’t help laughing at that.
“No.” Spice went back to what he was doing. “Because Sam owns me.”
What the hell!
That answer had never occurred to Dean. For a moment he was stunned. “What do you mean owns you?” The boy looked up at Dean his dark eyes questioning “I haven’t done a lot of time in the public school system, and I wasn’t much good at it when I did but I’m pretty damn sure we abolished slavery.”
“Tell them that.” Spice said motioning toward the outside world. “Things work very differently here, Dean.”
“So I’m learning.” For a few minutes neither of them said anything. It gave Spice the time he needed to finish up what he was doing. “So did you make a choice at some point---to be here, I mean?”
Spice turned to look at Dean draped in the doorway. “ Yes, everyone makes a choice. They have no power over you until you give it to them.”
“What does that mean exactly? You couldn’t have been very old when you were brought here.” Spice eyed Dean for a few long seconds before answering.
“It means, that even though you may be a prisoner here, and even though they could kill you---they can’t really own you until you give yourself to them.”
That’s why the demon had needed Sam to say it but Dean had already known that on some level.
“So why’d you chose this?”
“It was better than what I had.” Dean heard those words, and just for a moment watched some old hurt pass through Spice’s eyes.
“I’m not sure I get it, you were just a kid when you came here---how could you know if it was better.”
“It just was.”
“Do you still think so?”
“Yes, but I’m not required to do the same things as Sam.”
“Is he---Is he happy here?” He wasn’t sure ‘why’ he was asking Spice and he wasn’t sure he could believe what he said but Sam hadn’t offered him any answers and Spice seemed more than ready to supply them.
“Sometimes---he’s made a home here---but he missed you, and he doesn’t relish the blood he has to spill.” It occurred to Dean then that Spice seemed to know Sam pretty damn well and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Jealous maybe.
Annoyed definitely!
But not really at the kid---more at the situation that had led them here.
“So, it looks like this place is about as clean as it’s going to get, you wanta–I don’t know, pop some corn and watch a flick---talk---I’m sure we can find you a chair at least three feet away, unless you wanta hit the bed or something. It is the middle of the night.”
“I sleep during the day.”
“Ah ha!” Dean announced loudly “Vamp!” He said pointing at Spice and giving him that ‘gotcha smile’. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong. “ Spice said smiling. “We share a few traits but I don’t have fangs. You can check if you want.”
“What, so you can bite me. I don’t think so.” Dean was only about half serious this time. He turned and started down the hall. “Whatcha waiting on, I don’t know where the pop corn is and maybe you can scrounge us up some beer or soda?”
And with those words he heard Spice's feet hit the plush carpet of the hallway.
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Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Author's Notes: This, as well as all the preceding chapters have been beta’d A HUGE thanks to Kat whom I love like a sister…you rock girl. After seeing all the blue I about died! She doesn’t use red cause she loves me ;) ---spares my feelings---and to think, I thought I was doing such a nice job. It just goes to show Beta’s are priceless.
Spice had been curled up asleep in one of the big fluffy pillow-like chairs when the front door burst open, crashing into the wall behind it. The force of the blow had brought down one of the many glass-framed pictures located there. The resulting sound had Dean up off the couch, his thieved weapon in hand before he’d even fully up righted himself.
The sight that greeted Dean froze him in place. For a moment he was so stunned he couldn’t even move. Sam was standing there in the middle of his pristinely clean living room, eyes full of rage and hate so thick it nearly scorched the air in the room. The look in this Sam’s eyes was one his Sammy had never had, not even after Jess had died.
For a minute that’s all Dean could see, the darkness that filled Sam’s beautiful hazel eyes making them crisp and clear like precious jewels. Then he took in the blood, a lot of it---so much that it was even dripping off his fingertips.
He could tear the world apart and not think twice about it!
It was such a foreign look in such a familiar face that Dean was forced to actually question what he was seeing, break it down into palatable pieces.
Leather half trench, ripped and wet looking---probably blood. Hair pulled back into a low ponytail but some of it had slipped out, so things had gotten rough, it had been a fight. Sam’s black jeans were darker than they should have been---more blood? And he was favoring a shoulder, on the same side the blood was dripping from.
What the hell had he been doing?
Four fellows had trailed him in, all of them dark, new age Goth types. None of them were focused on Dean, because they were too busy slamming accusing words back and forth at each other. They were too focused on the issue at hand to be concerned about him; all that was, but one guy who’d stepped back and was leaning up against the wall in silence.
For a moment his eyes passed over Dean, he took in the weapon he held but he didn’t make a move, only turned back to watch Sam and the others argue.
“Nothing about that should have been hard.” Sam was seething as he turned on one of the three. “Your Intel was faulty and I lost two men because of it.”
“I checked it out I swear! I don’t know how the hunters found out about the meeting with Curare.” This guy was slightly shorter than the others, his hair a deep shade of brown with gold streaks running thickly through the mop top. He wasn’t quite as neatly styled as the other three and he looked a little out of place. Like someone who hadn’t been part of the group for long.
“Then you’re not very useful to me are you?” These words narrowed down Sam’s rage to a focused point---and when he turned and stepped forward Dean saw the guy leaning against the wall look down as if he knew what was coming and didn’t want to see it. “Three strikes and you’re out.”
“But!” The room fell silent as Sam moved right into the guy’s personal space and wrapped his bleeding hand around the back of his neck. Dean watched in horror as the blood spilled out between the fellow’s lips, shock rippling through his face as some unseen force robbed him of his life.
Sam stood there, watched the guy die with a frightening amount of intensity and then simply stretched out his arm and waited for him fall. “I need a new point man.” Sam said before the guy’s body had even hit the floor. This he said to the man leaning against the wall.
“Soon people are gonna stop volunteering for the job, Sam.” The guy’s voice was, soft, strangely refined. He could have easily been a lawyer or somebody important like that but he sounded incredibly tired. “Maybe you should chose someone more experienced, stop dipping into the newbie pool.” Dean watched him push himself off the wall and move toward Sam.
“I don’t trust any of the elders---they don’t bleed enough to be able to instill the right level of fear in them.” He noticed that the guy intentionally didn’t look toward the fallen man as he moved around Sam and popped open the door to the liquor cabinet.
“Get him outa here, he’s bleeding on my carpet. “ This Sam said to the ones still standing in front of him. They paused only long enough to gather themselves before hooking the guy under the arms and dragging him out the door in reverent silence.
Sam casually walked across the room and shut the door before turning back toward the guy having himself a whisky on the rocks. “The elders have more to offer than you think, Sam.”
“Most of them are on their on there way out, and everybody knows it.”
“Maybe,” the guy said, downing his glass and pouring himself another.
“Tell me why should I ally myself with people who are preparing to leave the fight?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to have them on your side, even in Rome they’ll still be of use to you. Do you want me to fix you a drink, Dean? You look a little tense standing there with a white knuckled grip on that knife.” The nameless fellow didn’t even look toward him and for a moment Dean didn’t register the fact he was being spoken to.
In fact he had nearly forgotten he was visible at all, no one had even acknowledged his presence and even now Sam was focused on the ceiling as he stood there by the door gripping the handle like he’d fall over if he didn’t.
It took Dean a minute to mentally chide himself into loosening his grip on the hilt of the blade and to lower his hand. “No, I don’t think having a fuzzy head would be a good idea at the moment.”
“Not a smart one, no,” the guy said finally turning to gaze at Dean. “John Slade.” He didn’t make an effort to shake Dean’s hand, though he could understand why. “But it might ease your way a bit.”
“I don’t need your help, Vinny, thank you very much.” The sarcasm was duly implied and Dean found himself hoping he’d get a rise out of the guy. The bad mob reference wasn’t lost on John Slade who smiled as if charmed by the banter but he didn’t take the bait.
“Suit yourself, Dean.” He took a long slow drink of the whisky before speaking directly to Sam. “You need some help, Sammy. Or do you trust your big brother to help you with that shoulder wound?”
Sammy! What the hell did he think he was doing using Dean’s nickname for his brother so damn casually?
“I’m good.” That was it? Just ‘I’m good.’
Sam was starting to look pale, and as always concern for Sam won out over common sense.
“You’ re hurt?” Dean tucked the knife back into his belt and made his way over to Sam.
“I just need a shower, a bandage and a bed. It’ll heal after a few hours sleep.”
“For real?” Dean couldn’t help saying that like he said ‘cool’! “That must be useful.” He didn’t question if his little brother spoke the truth or not. He just accepted it at face value.
“Spice.” This John said casually and it reminded Dean that the kid was still in the room. “C’mon boy.” John had moved over to the chair where Spice had fallen asleep earlier, but was now reaching past it to the floor where he’d crouched during the uproar. He took the kid’s arm and tugged him gently to his feet. “The trouble’s been settled, no one else will be bleeding here tonight. Right Sam?”
For a moment Sam didn’t say anything, he just stared upward as Dean helped him out of his jacked and shirt to reveal a bullet wound on the upper part of Sam’s shoulder. “Was it a through and through?” John asked.
“Yeah,” Sam answered tiredly. “Like I said, just need the basics.” Then Sam refocused and his eyes landed on Spice. “No worries, I’m not that far gone tonight.”
Whatever that meant it had satisfied Spice, he gave a shaky smile and finally moved of his own accord. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
“I’m gonna call it a night, make sure you deal with that in a timely fashion.”
“I got it covered, dude.” The ‘get the fuck out’ was implied and strangely enough the guy smiled, nodded toward Dean and headed for the door.
“If you need anything, just pick up the phone and ask the operator for ‘the Doc’ alright?” Dean nodded but waited till the door shut before he said anything else.
“Damnit Sam. You leave me here, locked in this damn room all night like a dog and then go out and get yourself shot, what the fuck is going on?” He meant to get a reaction with his words and should have gotten one since they were laced in reprimand but Sam only smiled at him. His eyes suddenly soft and exhausted looking.
“You let Spice outa his room, I see.”
“We watched the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and he loaded me up on popcorn and beer---so I guess he gets to live.” Sam was smiling at him. His eyes filled with nothing but warmth. All darkness vanished from their hazel depths leaving them once again familiar to Dean. “Besides he actually knew who Randy Rhoads was, so he can’t be all bad.”
“I knew you wouldn’t kill a child.” Sam’s hand snaked up to touch Dean’s lips, smearing them with blood.
“Sam, don’t---!” Don’t what? Don’t touch me like that in front of the kid? Don’t share your kill with me? He wasn’t sure which he meant but both sort of applied. It didn’t help matters that the simple touch of Sam’s silken fingers against his lips slammed desire all throughout his body.
The fact that Sam was standing here, covered in his own blood as well as that of others should have sickened him and it did---but it also aroused him---and that was disturbing.
“I love you Dean, Just let me---?” Then Sam kissed him.
He started to push him away, try and regain some smidgen of his composure but when Sam’s talented fingers drifted through his hair he stalled. Despite everything ‘THIS’ was Sam and Sam needed him. It was fucked up, and he was probably on the A train straight to hell but if it helped Sam, even a little, then he’d gladly buy a one way ticket there.
His protests forgotten, he let Sam’s tongue press forward into his mouth for a long drowning kiss that robbed Dean of all his good sense.
He’d never claimed to be a smart man---and this moment sure as hell sealed the deal on stupidity.
Talk about flying blind.
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Chapter 8: Chapter 8
Dean’s hands were trembling as he examined the dark, bloody wound on Sam’s shoulder. It was a simple act but one that was proving to be difficult since Dean could scarcely concentrate on anything except for the taste of apples and cinnamon that had lingered on the surface of his lips after Sam’s kiss.
It wasn’t the salty, metallic flavor of human blood. No, not even close to it. It was almost sweet, like it’d been infused with just a smidgen of dark golden honey. Which was strange, but what was even stranger was the way it made the inside of Dean’s mouth tingle. It left behind the same kind of warmth that a good whisky did, and nearly the same kind of buzz.
This was something that Dean couldn’t ignore, or make light of. It was the very essence of the transformation Sam had gone through. It was there on his lips and spilling back over his tongue. He didn’t know what it was exactly but he knew it was something that ran far deeper than he’d originally imagined. It was in every particle of Sam’s DNA, changing him on some fundamental level.
For a moment Dean actually thought about rinsing his mouth out when they reached the bathroom but he didn’t. Instead he pushed Sam back up against the wall and switched on the shower.
Now he understood, as gruesome as this room had seemed earlier, it was clear to Dean now that it had it’s practical uses.
He watched the blood as the water washed it away from Sam and sent it flowing over the white floor in a crimson wave of failure.
He’d never really been able to protect Sam, had he?
It had all been a game, and he’d lost.
He’d lost Sam!
“Dean?” That soft, questioning tone brought him back to the real world. He looked up at Sam, surprised to find him looking a little sad. “None of this is your fault. It’s just how things are now.”
Dean wasn’t sure why but those words made him angry. It felt like Sam was throwing everything that had happened over the last three years back in Dean’s face. It felt like he was mocking him for not being able to protect the last thing he cared about in this god-forsaken world. He’d lost so much in his life and he wasn’t prepared to face the possibility of losing Sam---not for ever---and not to something he couldn’t even begin to understand.
“How are things, Sam? I mean really, what the hell is going on here.” He paused, watched the confusion spill over his little brother’s face. “You haven’t told me anything, and that boy in the other room brings up more questions than he answers.” He was trying to keep his frustration to a minimum but it wasn’t working. “He says you own him, Sam.”
“He came with the job.” It was such a casual, automatic answer that it made Dean cringe.
“So you’re not denying it?” Sam just tilted his head slightly as if to study Dean and then shook his head indicating he wasn’t refuting Spice’s earlier statement. “What does that mean? What does owning another person entail around here exactly?”
Sam twisted away from Dean and dropped his head back letting the water pour over his partially clad body. “I suppose it means the same thing as when you say that you own the Impala.” Sam’s declaration was delivered in a cool, dry tone, making it sound---acceptable?
But it wasn’t acceptable, was it?
“Damnit, Sam! I’m tired of these fucking half answers. So is he like your houseboy, does he cook, clean, run errands or WHAT?” He didn’t really want to think about what he was suggesting with that question but despite how much he’d tried not to think about it he had.
It was hard not to look at Spice and think sex. Sure he was a little young, way too young for Sam---or at least the old Sammy but things had changed and Dean wasn’t sure just how deep that change ran.
Was it really enough that Sam could be playing house with some underage kid? Or worse yet some game Dean wasn’t privy to?
Sam was looking at him now, his eyes unreadable. “All of the above.” And for a minute they just stood there staring at each while Dean took in Sam’s suggestive tone.
It was never good when Dean shot his mouth off without thinking. Sam’s answer had burned him and he reacted to it before he could stop himself.
“So you fuck him?” That question had been forming in Dean’s mind since he’d seen the boy standing in Sam’s kitchen. Dean could have kicked himself for his tone. He sounded jealous and jaded. Certainly not the impression he’d been aiming for but it was too late to change it now.
He hadn’t even meant to ask such a question. It had only been anger that had taken him down that specific path.
“It’s not like that Dean.” For a second Sam sounded like his old self. “It’s sooo not like that.” His eyes pleaded silently with Dean to drop the subject. He looked tired and a little pale but still in decent enough shape to fight verbally so Dean advanced, his words cutting a path straight into an argument.
“What? You don’t have sex with him or you don’t fuck him?” There was an accusation hanging in the air that Sam had yet to answer and Dean was going to make damn sure he answered it.
“I’m tired Dean. I’ve been shot and I don’t feel like having this conversation with you---not right now.”
“Why? Because you just offed someone in your own damn living room without using a weapon? Does it take that much outa you to kill someone Sam? If it does, then maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.” Now they were getting somewhere, there was finally some fire deep down in those hazel eyes. It was the kind of fire he’d expected in the beginning before his world had been flipped upside down by Sam’s overly composed behavior.
“Don’t tempt me to anger Dean. You won’t like what you get.”
“This is a lie Sam, this face you’re showing me, it’s not a reflection of the truth, is it?” Sam looked angry, but not in that little boy way he’d owned before. No, he looked scary-angry.
“I’ve changed, Dean. There’s no denying that. I have a poison in me now, and it’s bitter and vile…but it’s also sweet and easy to get lost in.” Sam walked forward, eyes intense and frightening.
“Sam?” Dean’s heart leapt up into his throat as Sam seized him by the arms and pressed him firmly into the wall behind him with more strength than any human should have owned.
When had he backed up? He didn’t remember backing away from Sam but then again he was too focused on the darkness in Sam’s eyes to concentrate on much else. It was a visible darkening that turned once warm hazel eyes to a deep chocolate brown. The warmth had instantly transformed into something blazing hot and feral.
Yet it was more than that---whatever it was that bubbled up from Sam’s core and spilled into his eyes had a life of its own. Seeded deep inside his soul it was darkening the very essence that was Sam.
“You want me to lie to you.” The words were harsh and they cut deep. “You want me to tell you that together we can change this. You wanta hear me say that you can have the old Sammy back and I can’t tell you that. There’s no undoing this, Dean. What is---just is.”
“This isn’t you, Sam. This place---owing someone---killing?” Dean felt Sam’s fingers digging into the flesh of his arms hard enough to leave bruises, he felt the barely restrained strength being held at bay by nothing more than Sam’s desire not to hurt him.
“Yes---it is.” Dean didn’t miss Sam’s pause, or the fine thread of desperation that laced his little brother’s voice when he spoke. “You can’t change what happened that night, we don’t get redos, and even if we did…I can’t…I won’t… walk away from this.”
“You can’t keep killing, Sam. ”
“I’ve spent my entire life killing, now I’m just doing it for the other guys.” There was too much emotion in Sam’s voice and it nearly broke Dean to hear it.
“Sam?” Dean pleaded. “I can hear it in your voice, you don’t like what you’ve become.”
For a moment Sam’s eyes sparkled brightly, wickedness spilling into them like water pouring over Niagara falls. “Oh I wouldn’t say that.” Sam leaned in closer, his eyes darkening even more with the force of his words. “In fact I would say I like it a little too much--- and that, Dean, is the real problem.”
“Sam?” Spice’s voice sounded small and helpless as he spoke from across the room.
For a moment Sam just held Dean there, his body pressed firmly against his. Then, as if recoiling a rope he pulled back, reluctantly letting Dean go. For a moment Sam fought with himself to regain some measure of control, and by the time he did it was obvious to Dean that it had been a hard won battle.
“Yes?” Sam’s voice was rough when he spoke, the tension still heavy in his quieted tone.
“I brought the first aid kit.”
Sam smiled then, “Don’t you ever get tired of coming to the rescue, Spice.”
“It’s in my job description.” The boy answered meekly, the smile on his lips never quit reaching his eyes.
“Ah, I see.” Sam pushed off the wall just beside Dean’s head and walked back across the room. He stepped under the spray and let it wash away the last of the blood from his body while Dean watched nervously.
Sam had never removed his jeans, nor did he seem to care that they were soaking wet when he was finished.
When Sam switched off the shower he pushed his hair back, sending the water rolling down his back. He stepped up to Spice but made no attempt to take the first aid kit from his hands.
“How long have we known each other, Spice?” Dean watched the boy shrink back a little, drop his eyes just enough to add an air of submission to his stance.
“Three years.”
“And in those three years, would you say we’ve become friends?”
“Yes.” The boy’s tone was low and guarded.
“Dean wants to know if we’ve ever fucked.” It was a flat statement directed straight at Spice who seemed to flinch at the words. “ He knows the answer already but he wants to hear it out loud. He thinks it’ll boost his moral outrage at the situation---ain’t that right Dean, you need reason to be pissed at me?”
“Oh I’m plenty pissed at you already!” That wasn’t entirely true, in fact for the first time in his life he was scared, not of Sam exactly (though the fear was there) but for him.
Being angry was so much easier to deal with than being scared, so Dean decided to be angry even if it wasn’t really true.
“You’re plenty pissed at yourself---not at me. But you need a reason to be don’t you? You think without it you might lose yourself here---in this place.” Sam waved his hand at the splendor surrounding them.
“Fuck you, Sam!” Now he was a little angry but if the truth were to be told it wasn’t this place he was afraid of losing himself to---it was Sam.
“I’ve been watching you, Dean. For three long lonely years I’ve watched as you’ve tried to kill yourself---watched as you’ve bended over backwards to force the devil to do the dirty deed for you.”
Sam was all the way across the room but when he focused those dark penetrating eyes on Dean it might as well have been standing right in front of him with a blade to his balls. “ I was careless Sam, you sold your soul---there’s a difference.”
“Suicide is an unforgivable sin, Dean.”
“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I didn’t kill myself!”
“But I sold my soul and that was a betrayal, right?”
“You left me, Sam!’ Dean really was pissed now, and hurt. It was something he hadn’t let himself feel since that day by the lake in the little log cabin when he’d lost the last member of his family---not to death, but to darkness.
“I didn’t leave you by choice---I left to save you---I made a choice, the same damn choice you would have made if the situation would have been reversed.” Sam paused, turned his gaze to the wall. “But I won’t make that mistake again. I won’t leave you. that you can count on, Dean. For better or worse, we’re together---right up till the end.” Sam turned then, trained a look as hard as steel on Dean “ Maybe you and god should get acquainted, Dean. In the coming days, you might find you have a use for him.” With that Sam left Dean standing there staring at his retreating back.
“What the hell?” That closing line confused him. They’d never really been religious despite everything they’d seen or perhaps because of it. So Sam suggesting he make his peace with god had unsettling ramifications.
Spice stood there for a second wordlessly apologizing for god knew what and then extended the hand that held the first aid kit toward Dean. “Everything you’ll need is in there.”
“Thanks.” Dean mumbled as he came forward to take it. When his fingers accidentally brushed Spice’s the boy pulled back sharply, and moved approximately three feet away.
Apparently the boy took those guidelines very seriously.
Dean just stood there, at a loss for words. He couldn’t stop the wheels in his brain from turning long enough to put one foot in front of the other and walk down the hall to Sam’s bedroom and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that confrontation, not just yet anyway.
Spice didn’t act like a lover should, but he sure as hell didn’t treat Sam as though they were in a strictly neutral relationship either. And Sam had as much as admitted they’d had sex and Spice’s guilty look had confirmed it.
And of course walking into the bathroom unannounced didn’t exactly scream plutonic. Of course sex didn’t always add up to intimacy.
No, that wasn’t true---not with Sam.
Sam was the kind of guy who was close to his lovers. With Sam there was plenty of little touches and hooded glances. He was he kind of guy who softened just a little at the mention of his lover’s name.
He wasn’t the kind of guy to instill fear with innocent sounding words, to make a mere boy tremble with a shaded suggestion.
“Are you afraid of him?”
For a moment Spice just looked at Dean, then he dropped his eyes. “Any man with sense should be and I have plenty of sense and some to spare.”
“Why? He barely said a word to you---and none of them cross. But even now that he’s gone your hands are trembling.”
“I’ve seen what he can do, and to whom he can do it. I’d rather not have that focused on me.” Dean wanted to ask if he’d experienced such a thing first hand but decided he wasn’t ready to go there, not yet. “If you need anything---?”
“You’re just down the hall.” The boy smiled then, a little more honestly than before and turned to leave, but before he did he stopped in the doorway and cast those deep chocolate eyes on him.
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
“And what makes you such an expert?”
“I know bad---and this isn’t even close.”
“Says the admittedly evil houseboy.” Dean hadn’t meant it as a joke but Spice smiled brightly nevertheless.
“Night, Dean.”
“Backatcha.”
At least now Dean understood why Sam kept giving him little half answers, the truth might be just a little more than he could absorb in one bite. It’d be like a shock to his system but by giving it to him crumb-by-crumb Sam was giving him the time he needed to get used to the idea of this place and the way it worked. He was giving him time to digest the new Sam.
Damnit to hell!
Old movie quotes danced in his head and suddenly ‘the dark side’ seemed like a double-edged sword rather than the cool conundrum it had in his childhood.
What if there was no saving Sam? What if his brother was right and they couldn’t undo this? How far could he go if that were true?
For three years he’d told himself that if he couldn’t save Sam he’d kill him and then eat a bullet himself but one look at his brother had shattered that delusion right straight to hell
Now the choice was as complicated as it was simple---save Sam---or join him.
And the later wasn’t really an option at all.
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Chapter 9: Chapter 9
Author's Notes: This chapter is just to prove I REALLY can write a sex scene ~Glares (with a smile) at Dragon~ Oh and to prove I’m not a TOTAL tease ;) I hope you enjoy. More plot forthcoming in the next chapter, I swear!
When Dean finally arrived at the door of Sam’s bedroom he found his little brother sitting on the edge of the bed. The wet jeans had vanished entirely and in their place were a black pair of loose fitting drawstring pants. A handful of bracelets littered Sam’s right wrist and a little silver medallion now laid squarely between his cinnamon-colored nipples.
For the first time since they’d been reunited Dean realized that when it was wet, Sam’s hair was almost long enough to tickle the tops of his shoulders. It was wavy too, and a bit untamed looking. Dean had always figured that if Sam ever grew his hair long the weight of that mop would make it perfectly straight but it hadn’t. In fact it had a nice wave to it.
It was a good look for Sam; it made him look wild and dangerous but it also made him look young, and fashionable almost to a fault.
The bullet wound was still evident on Sam’s shoulder but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. In fact if Dean had been forced to guess, he’d have placed the wound at a couple of days old rather than the handful of hours it actually was.
“Sam?”
“Dean.” His brother’s eyes were locked on the some bit of uninteresting artwork, but they weren’t really seeing it. It was obvious to Dean that his mind was focused on something different, something he obviously didn’t want to give a voice to.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that all this---“ he paused trying to find the words. “It’s just a little much.”
“I know the feeling but you might be surprised to learn what you can get used to given time.” Sam’s words were laced with bitterness but that bitterness wasn’t directed at Dean so he felt safe enough to move around to the other side of the bed.
In Sam’s free hand he loosely clutched a glass of brown whisky and Dean was willing to bet good money that it wasn’t his first.
It didn’t take a genius to add up the already glassy eyes and the distracted look. Add that to the half empty bottle of amber colored liquid that sat on his bedside table and Dean figured Sam was working on drowning whatever bad memories he could.
Dean stood there momentarily silenced by the awkwardness of the situation. He wasn’t sure what he should do here; he was admittedly out of practice and this new Sam was a mystery to him. So he just watched as his little brother drained the glass and reached for the bottle in order to pour himself another.
“Sam?” At the sound of his name Sam turned his head to look at Dean, the emotion in his eyes was unreadable but intense nevertheless. “Tell me how to fix this.”
Sam stared at him for a few seconds, a mini war flicking through once again familiar hazel eyes. “Sometimes there’s no fixing. Sometimes there’s just patching things up enough to hold together.”
Dean nodded, putting the first aid kit on the table beside the whisky and flipping it open. “You do a lot of this?” Dean asked, motioning toward the bottle as he removed the supplies he needed to patch up Sam’s shoulder.
“A fair amount of it.” Sam paused for a moment and turned his face towards Dean’s form. “Too much, probably.”
“Then stop.” Dean said as he leaned in to begin his work on Sam’s shoulder. A few ointments, a couple stitches and Sam would be as good as new.
“Maybe I will now that you’re here.” Sam set the glass off to the side and then curled his now whisky free hand around the curve of Dean’s hip. His fingers flexed a bit, and then latched on as if he intended to hold him there. It was a very intimate touch, and yet it could have passed for innocent---in a brothel anyway.
“Sam?”
“Dean.” The smile in Sam’s voice was evident. “When did you become such a prude”?
“When my little brother started coming onto me on a regular basis.” And this seemed to set the tone.
“Funny, I don’t remember you being a prude before.”
“I don’t remember you ever coming on to me before.’
“Maybe that’s because you weren’t paying attention.” Dean’s breath came a little harder than before.
“I got work to do here, Sam.”
“So do it, I’m not stopping you.” But Sam wasn’t playing fair. He’d leaned in closer and was breathing in Dean’s scent. It was strangely erotic and yet it made Dean feel like slapping him a good one…or kissing him…!
whichever, both options worked when it came to settling his nerves.
“Well why don’t you let me, instead of playing these games!”
“You have to learn to work under pressure.” Dean could hear the smile in Sam’s voice, and for some absurd reason the sound of it sent the blood flowing straight down to his cock.
“Prick-tease!”
“I’m not teasing. All you have to do is take.” No matter how hard Dean tried he couldn’t help but notice the warm feel of Sam’s breath against the side of his neck. Each little puff of air danced against his throat like a carefully laid plan of seduction.
“Stop it, Sam! I mean it.”
“It’s been too long.”
“Since I patched you up? Odd thing to get sentimental about if you ask me.”
“I really did miss you, Dean” Sam was trying to pull him back from the snarking, make him forget where they were and what that meant.
“Sure you did.” Dean added sarcastically. “Cheap hotels, diner food---how can all this even compare.”
“Dean.” His name was a scold and that irked Dean. “I missed you not the lifestyle.”
Sam stretched his arm upward and hooked his fingers around the back of Dean’s neck but he didn’t try and physically maneuver him away from the task at hand. Instead he simply held him, his breath moist and hot against the side of his neck.
All this was driving Dean insane and he reacted to it the only way he could---with more Winchester wit.
“I’m an easy guy to miss, it’s all the character I bring into a relationship.” Dean cleared his throat before he spoke, making it clear that Sam’s touch was affecting him.
“We were never in a relationship.” Sam’s tongue snaked out to taste Dean’s neck, it was a brief movement but it made Dean tremble as he tied off the last stitch.
“You know what I meant.”
“I don’t know if I do.” Sam’s thumb started rubbing a methodical little circle over the skin just behind Dean’s ear. It was an act that seemed specifically designed to drive Dean wild and it didn’t take him long to get distracted enough to start fumbling with the ointments he was trying to smooth over the now closed wound. “We were always dancing around each other, doing what was expected rather than what we wanted.”
“Stop it Sam, I have to get this bandage on.” Dean heard the thin thread of his voice and silently chastised himself for letting Sam distract him from the task at hand.
“You don’t really want me to stop, do you?” Sam’s eyes trailed behind his words by a few heartbeats but Dean refused to meet his gaze. He had a wound to mend and he was damn sure going to mend it. It didn’t matter how hot Sam was for him he still had his responsibilities.
And those responsibilities still spelled out S.A.M.
Dean didn’t realize how close Sam was to kissing him until a mere turn of his head caused their lips to brush together. Dean paused long enough for Sam to pull him into a kiss that was as hot as it was sinful. It wasn’t an intrusive kiss but the wet brush of lips was more compelling than any game of tonsil hockey Dean had ever played.
It took all the control Dean had for him to pull back long enough to search Sam’s eyes for some clue as to what they were doing here. He needed to know exactly what this meant. He needed to hear the words, so that he knew he wasn’t going crazy.
“I’m not gonna steal your soul, Dean. I just wanta touch you.” Sam dipped closer then, his eyes darkening a bit. “Wanta love you.”
“You keep saying that.” He should have said something else, put up a fight or steered them away from this thing they were doing but he didn’t want to. Sam was hurting and if Dean could do something to ease that hurt he would.
He just wasn’t sure he should.
When Sam’s lips finally touched his again it was with the same tender warmth they’d shared all those hours ago. All the anger and darkness had faded back behind the shroud Sam wrapped around himself.
This was the face he wore so that he could look Dean in the eye.
Sam’s mouth changed unexpectedly, took on a hungry quality that turned their kiss from something warm and comforting into something more akin to liquid fire. It had a life of its own and that life was decadent and tasted faintly of sweet southern whisky.
Before Dean could consider his next move, think to protest the situation, he was enveloped in an all-consuming embrace, his body pulled tightly against Sam’s. His little brother was ravenous and that scared Dean as much as it excited him. He’d never really considered Sam as being the aggressive sort but it fit him like a glove.
Sam was made for sex, for this kind of sex.
All other thought was banished from Dean’s mind as Sam’s hands found their way to his face, moved over his cloth-covered chest downward toward their goal. In a split second Dean’s world had narrowed down to encompass only Sam, everything else was meaningless. Consequences be damned!
Without a single protest being uttered Dean found himself tangled up with Sam on the bed, the soft blankets swallowing up around them like mounds of cotton soft clouds.
One of Sam’s hands found the bottom of Dean’s shirt and slipped effortlessly under, agile fingers clutching at smooth silken skin, drinking in all the warmth it had to offer. The other descended on Dean’s rigid member, clutching it expertly even through denim and cotton.
Sam was starving and Dean was the thing that could quench that hunger. A few quick flicks and Sam’s hand was down the front of his jeans clutching something hot and alive with a pulse of its own.
The sounds Dean made were Sam’s reward, they flowed out in the form of groans, hisses and pleading. Sam pulled back just enough to nip at Dean’s lips.
The eyes that drank in Dean’s rigid form seemed pleased but Sam didn’t say anything, he just stared. That was until Dean spoke, asked---no begged for more.
“Sam!” He wasn’t sure what he wanted, what he was really asking for but he knew that Sam could give it to him if he only asked nicely enough. “Please?”
His baby brother smiled softly then, a bit impishly and then dipped his head down to latch onto Dean’s throat. For a spit second there was pain and then only the roaring in his ears as his body slid into the longest most glorious orgasm he’d ever had.
Sam’s name was ripped outa his throat, pulled forth until his words were whisky rough and barely audible. The gentle rocking and the heat of Sam’s bare erection against his own assured him he’d not gone over the edge alone. It was his last comforting thought before the darkness swallowed him up.
Well that and the unnerving thought that fainting was definitely girlie.
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Chapter 10: Chapter 10
Dean’s first concern when he woke up that afternoon was his throat, mainly the fact that it had no bite marks on it. He distinctly remembered being bitten and his first concern was possible infection of the vampirc kind. But after spending five minutes in front of Sam’s bathroom mirror looking over every inch of his throat he decided it must have been his imagination---or just a set of normal human-ish chompers that let him have it.
Since when did Sam bite?
Since when did Dean have sex with his little brother?
So in truth he really had no idea if Sam was a biter or not, though he’d figured between him and Dad they’d taught him better.
Maybe Jess had been into it?
That idea sat uneasily with Dean’s perception of the girl. He’d always thought of her as a straight shooter. As normal as normal could get because why else would Sam have run so hard and so far away from him except for achieving the picture book version of normal?
There was just too much to consider. Too many questions without answers…!
The past few hours had left Dean rattled and confused and somewhere beyond emotionally exhausted. He had Sam, and for the moment that was enough. He refused to worry about tomorrow or trying to map out his next move because he really was flying blind here. He had to gain some perspective before he started making critical decisions. There were too many roads and not enough road signs to show him the way.
He knew that Sam was tired, lonely and sad. That much was easy to see and believe. His brother had showed him enough signs but he’d also stated clearly that he had no intention of leaving this life, of hurting anybody here. He’d called Spice a friend and as much as admitted to sharing a bed with the boy---at least on occasion.
Dean still wasn’t sure how close they were. If it was love, convenience or just Sam’s loneliness that had put them into bed together?
He owns him! What if that was the only reason? What did that say about this new Sam? If he kept slaves---if used them for sex!
He’d gotten to know the boy a little during their movie-fest. He was a huge Ozzy fan, liked anything written by Steven King and strangely enough hated beer.
What teenage boy hated beer? Just the fact that he was able to drink beer should have been enough to turn him on to it. Screw the taste. When you could get loaded, all else was secondary---at least to most sixteen year olds, anyway.
Although by the time this detail had emerged Dean had fully accepted the reality that Spice was weird for a teenager, so the information hadn’t really slowed him up any.
The boy was an empath and had some skill when it came to mind reading, though he made it clear that many others who lived in this place were much more accomplished with their gifts than he was. Dean had gotten the distinct impression that was the reason Spice was in the position of being owned.
Apparently only the strong held positions of power on the plantation.
Spice also admitted to having some other minor gifts, ones he wouldn’t name, though he made it clear they weren’t useful. At least not to Sam and his crew. He laughed when Dean asked if he could move things like Carrie or see visions of the future like Pheobe (he carefully left Sam out of it) The boy responded that all he could see was the past, and gave Dean a wistful smile.
He’d remained elusive as to precisely how he’d gotten to the plantation and exactly when (and under what circumstances) he’d made his choice to join up. All he’d really said on the subject was that they couldn’t touch Dean’s soul unless he agreed. He wouldn’t discuss the reasons behind his personal choice though Dean got the impression that the story had many degrees of bad associated with it.
In short he kind of liked the kid. He seemed honest, offered as much information as he could, seeing as how Sam had instructed him to keep quiet about some subjects. The boy hadn’t said so but Dean could tell when someone was pussyfooting around a subject on orders. Dean just couldn’t figure out why Spice’s history would be an issue that Sam would want to avoid?
The one thing that Dean couldn’t push to the back of his mind was the relationship Sam had with this kid. It still rattled Dean, The idea of Sam sleeping with some boy who wasn’t even on the right side of legal. And more so, claiming ownership of him like you would a nice car or vintage record collection.
Sure, if Dean would have been sixteen and Spice had been there and available he’d have jumped his bones. But Dean was a man---and so was Sam.
He supposed that was a “bad” he wasn’t prepared to deal with. Certain words stirred in his brain and none of them were good.
Spice had to be around thirteen when he and Sam ended up as roommates---sixteen was bad but----thirteen! Dean didn’t even want to think about it. His Sammy couldn’t do something like that. No way in hell. Either the relationship was very new or Sam had changed a whole lot more than Dean was giving him credit for.
The phone rang in Sam’s bedroom, and thank god for Dean because he was done. He didn’t wanta think about how far Sam had fallen, or how hard it might be to drag him back.
He rushed out of the bathroom and snapped up the phone before it woke Sam. His brother had been totally zonked when Dean had woken up. He didn’t even stir when he’d barreled his way out of bed and into the bathroom to get a gander at his throat. Some people might have thought that was weird but it was actually pretty normal for Sam---good or evil.
When the world was right Sam slept like the dead.
“Whata you want, people are sleeping here!” He might be a prisoner/guest in this place but he certainly didn’t have to be nice to these people.
There was a long pause and then the voice of a man with a slight southern drawl greeted Dean easily. “Afternoon, Mr. Winchester, you mind putting Sammy on the phone we got business to discuss.”
“ Sam is sleeping at the moment, can I take a message.” He wasn’t even faking politeness and the guy’s muffled response showed his bewilderment.
“Well, um…no…listen you need to put that brother of yours on the phone.”
“Give me a name and maybe I’ll have him call you back.” Another long pause and a carefully measured breathe from the fellow on the other end of the line.
“Dean.”
“What happened to Mr. Winchester?”
Anther long pause followed Dean’s snippy response and then a very well worn correction followed. “Mr. Winchester, Your brother has business to attend to and if I were you---“
“Like the business that got him shot? Well, he’s still sleeping that off so why don’t you and your evil minions give him a break and let him sleep as long as he needs to, okay?” With that Dean hung up the phone.
Ten seconds later it rang again.
“What?”
“Put your goddamn brother on the phone.” This was not the southern dude, in fact Dean didn’t recognize the voice at all. And he wasn’t being nearly as polite as the hillbilly had been.
“Bite me, bitch!” was all Dean said before he hung up the phone and then promptly took it off the hook.
Dean had his jeans on and was in the process of trying to locate some socks when Spice appeared in the doorway holding a portable phone. He was wearing black sweats and a matching tank top but his hair was mussed and he looked a little less than steady on his feet as he bypassed Dean and headed straight for Sam.
Total zombie teen, freshly woken, Dean thought about half amused.
Spice scrubbed his hand over his face as he approached the bed, walking right up to the edge without any hit of the fear he’d showed the night before.
“Sam.” When his first attempt didn’t work he took his hand and shoved the back of his shoulder. “Sam, Eclipse is on the phone and he doesn’t sound happy.” Another few seconds passed and Spice shoved harder this time, dragging Sam’s name out when he spoke. “Sammm!”
In a split second the kid was laying flat on his back across the middle of Sam’s bed with Sam hovering over him, arm across his chest pinning him to the bed. The kid didn’t speak, nor did he look incredibly shocked. In fact he looked like this was a pretty typical morning---afternoon or whatever.
He thrust the phone up to Sam, held it out long enough for him to get the general idea. Dean could hear the guy screaming from across the room so there was no doubt that it was coming through loud and clear to Sam. His brother took the phone and settled back onto the bed, which left Spice half laying across Sam’s legs.
The boy didn’t move. In fact he just dropped his hand down to his chest and closed his eyes as if he were damn tired---too tired to move and simply waited.
“Calm down.” There was a pause from Sam. “Dean’s not in the game, yet.” Another pause. Sam laughed. “Well I’m sure you were but Dean’s cranky when he first gets up.” Yet another pause. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. You know the drill.”
Sam adjusted himself slightly as he listened to the guy on the other end of the line. He looked down at Spice and then reached over to run his fingers over the area of Spice’s chest where he’d had his arm just a few seconds before, apparently he was checking Spice for damage.
It was intimate but also thoughtful and that gave Dean a little hope.
And a reason to be a little bit jealous.
“Ask Danny if they can lend you a couple of their guys, that should be enough to get you through the doors.” Another pause. “Sure, and can you have the kitchen send up dinner and a couple gallon of coffee. Thanks.” Sam hung up the phone and Spice reached out to get it automatically as he pushed himself up off the bed.
“Sorry kid, knee-jerk reaction.” The boy nodded, yawned wide and pushed his hair back in a very puppyish sort of way that made him look awfully young.
It was very routine, and Dean realized what actually bothered him more than the idea of Sam sleeping with this kid (or the two of them having a possibly romantic relationship) was the fact that Sam was close to someone that Dean wasn’t. That Sam had a life that Dean wasn’t a part of, people that were important to him that Dean didn’t know squat about.
It was like Stanford all over again. Dean didn’t so much begrudge Sam normal, as he missed him being part of his abnormal.
“What’d you say to Eclipse?” There was a smile in Sam’s sleepy eyes as he made his way out of bed.
“I just told him you needed your rest, I got no idea what got his panties in a bunch.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Sam laughed then, his eyes bright.
“And what did you mean ‘I’m not with the game yet ’ what makes you think I’m ever gonna play?”
“Who knows, you might.” Sam sounded cheeky and that annoyed Dean.
“And I might not, whata you going to do then?”
Sam smiled “Then I suppose you and Spice will have a few things more in common.”
“Excuse me! Did you just imply what I think you did?” Dean was just standing there, mouth agape as Spice’s eyes widened a bit and he looked away from the two of them in the typical ‘oh boy!’ fashion. “You will never own me, little brother. I am not slave material, period.” Sam was laughing at him in that easy way that made it hard for Dean to truly get pissed.
“Well, I can’t let you go. And if you won’t join up then…?”
“Then you’ll just be coming back over to my side of things, won’t ya?”
“I guess we’ll see.” Sam paused to muss Spice’s hair affectionately.
“So much for that guest bullshit!” Dean snapped, half at Sam’s side of the argument and half at the way his brother had with Spice. It was nice. Warm. Made them seem kinda like family.
Dean was more than a little bit jealous.
And Sam got it. He smiled and made his way over to Dean. “Careful Dean, if you scowl any harder I’ll be accusing you of having the chick flick moment.” Sam planted a sinful kiss on Dean’s pouting lips, catching him mid snipe and effectively cutting off his words.
“Damnit, Sam. Not in front of the kid.” Dean complained as he pushed an already retreating Sam further away.
“The kid has seen wayyy worse than that, Dean.” Sam looked happy, unbelievably so considering the circumstances.
“The kid has done way worse than that.” This, Spice added with a wicked teenage grin that bordered on challenging. “I could probably teach you a thing or two.”
“And who exactly taught you?” Dean asked glaring at Sam.
“He came already educated.” Dean frowned. For some reason the idea of that irked Dean more than if Sam himself had done the educating.
“You know, I’m really starting to hope he’s older than he looks otherwise I’m gonna have to add perv to my list of insults, Sammy my boy.”
“He’s older than he looks.” Something about Sam’s matter of fact tone as he started toward the bathroom caught Dean’s attention and he reached out to snag his arm.
“How old is he?” Sam looked at Spice for a moment seeming to come to some sort of conclusion.
“Tell him as much about yourself as you want, just don’t give him a heart attack. I’m gonna take a shower, you two can talk.”
Dean turned to Spice as Sam went into the bathroom. “So?”
The boy yawned again and then crawled onto Sam’s bed and pulled the covers over his folded legs as if he were cold. “Thirty-four.”
“Seriously?” Spice nodded. “Wow, soooo---you’re like older than Sam and me both.” He wasn’t sure what he thought about that, or even if he believed it but then he remembered Spice’s fascination with 80’s music and the wealth of knowledge he had on the television shows from that era and it made sense.
“So when did you join up?
“When I was sixteen.”
“So you what, like haven’t aged a day since?”
“No one does. Immortality of a sort comes with the job.”
“But you can die?” Business was business and information was power.
“Yes, It varies for everyone but you could kill me with that knife you have strapped to your calf.”
“Good eye.” Dean praised him a little, not really knowing why he should be impressed. “So iron, what about silver?”
“Either would work on me, but I’m not that strong.” The boy didn’t seem to mind revealing his weaknesses; in fact he just seemed tired.
“Why’d you join up?” He was wondering if the boy had joined under duress or truly of his own free will.
“Life pretty much sucked for me. I mighta lived another year or two if I hadn’t.” Another half answer, and Spice looked uncomfortable as Dean waited patiently for him to elaborate. He finally got the idea and continued although he didn’t seem gung-ho about it. “I ran away from home when I was fourteen, abusive father absentee mother…I figured I couldn’t do worse. Turned out I was wrong. Sex for money…that’s about the only way a fourteen-year-old gets by on the streets. That and stealing, so I made it a lifestyle and it caught up with me. When Jordan found me---Sam’s predecessor---I was sick---dying really and he gave me a choice. I chose to live.”
“Some choice.”
Spice seemed to agree with that; a slight sarcastic smile and a nod confirmed it. “You wanta know something” Spice waited for Dean to nod. “Nothing has been as bad for me here as it was out in the human world. Though it’s not all pleasant, a lot of it is okay---some of it’s even good.”
“Yeah, but then there’s all the killing and stealing innocent souls through the use of underhanded bargaining.”
“Yeah, there is that.” Spice said as he leaned back into a pile of pillows. “but my life was already bad, this was my salvation.”
“But it’s not Sam’s”
“No, you are.”
“What?” Dean asked confused.
“You’re Sam’s salvation.”
“Is that your way of saying savior, cause let me tell ya, I think I’m outnumbered if this place is full of people like you and Sam.”
“You can save Sam, either way it goes---you’ll save him.”
“That’s very sage-like of you---and vague–and confusing---so I guess, not very sage at all---more like fortuneteller-ish.”
“Probably sounds that way.”
There was a long pause as Dean walked over to the foot of the bed and really looked at Spice.
“So I guess technically you were legal when he jumped your bones.”
“Technically, though I’m told the mind-set of an immortal pretty much remains the same as the visual age, so…!”
“Perv could still apply?” Dean asked optimistically.
“I guess.” Spice said with small laugh. “If you need brotherly ammunition.”
Well, Dean had a few more answers; not the fine points but at least they were getting somewhere. “So are you and Sam like a regular thing?”
“Will you punch me out if I tell the truth?”
“No, I think I’m bigger than that.”
“You think?” Spice stilled sounded like a teenage boy, so that mindset thing was probably dead on.
“I am---most days.” Dean paused, a thought forming in his mind. “He’s not banging anyone else is he?”
Spice shrugged. “I don’t think so. There used to be this girl but they broke it off.”
“And that doesn’t bother you, that there used to be a girl?”
“No, why should it?”
“Well if you guys are an item.”
“I don’t know if item is the right word.”
“You’re a slippery, one aren’t ya?” Dean asked, coming over to sit on the bed a little way away from Spice. The boy straightened and started to move. “No, stay put. I’m throwing out the three-foot rule…I need information, which you got and since we’re living together and you’re banging my brother…I guess it’d just be stupid.”
Spice nodded, and settled in. The sleepiness was starting to ware off so he looked a little more observant than he had before but he was still yawning every little bit. “Are you mad about me and Sam?”
“No. I’m not like boyfriend jealous or anything, that’d be stupid! I know Sam loves me---even evil Sam has made that quite clear---incestuously clear.” Dean cocked an eyebrow and made one of his funny faces. It was enough to make Spice smile. “ It’s just for a long time we lived outa each others pocket, you know and now he’s gone and got him self yet another new life that doesn’t include me. I guess that makes me---?”
“Resentful for no good reason.” Dean turned toward Sam’s voice, to see him clad only in a pair of jeans and standing in the doorway of the bathroom. “I leave him here expecting you’ll grill him about what kinda nasties we have and instead your asking him if we fuck like bunnies or just screw each other when we got nothing better to do. I swear Dean, I’m not the only one who’s changed.”
“Change seems to be catching.” Sam leaned against the doorway as if settling in for the long haul.
“Indeed it does.” Sam’s expression remained bland but Dean could feel the amusement radiating off him.
The doorbell rang and Spice used that as his cue to hustle his way out of bed.
“Food’s here, so can we move the bickering into the kitchen?”
“We weren’t bickering.” Sam and Dean said in unison and then just sort of looked at each other.
“My mistake---shoulda said sniping.” The boy cast Sam a slightly mischievous look on his way out the door and it made Dean realize that the relationship between them must have had many layers of complicated.
“We weren’t doing that either.” Dean pointed out as he made his way to his feet. “ I don’t snipe!” Spice was long gone, but Sam was still there and looking none too convinced to boot.
“Riigght!” Sam said, the barest hint of a smile coloring his lips. “Besides technically speaking sniping and bickering are the same things.”
“You better watch it Sam.”
“Or what?”
Dean glared. “Or I’ll figure out something.”
“Some threat! I’m shaking in my boots, big brother.”
Why was it when Sam called him “big brother” like that, Dean’s dick twitched?
Unfair, totally!
“A smart man would be worried.” Dean pointed out snottily.
Sam’s eyes drifted toward the door Spice had exited through, and his smile suddenly changed. The playful half serious smirk he’d been fiddling with since he’d interrupted Dean and Spice’s conversation had vanished and in its place was a ghostly imitation. Something was bothering Sam but he didn’t intend to share.
Dean frowned, instantly reminded of where they were. “You wanta talk about it?”
“They’ll be plenty of time for that. Go eat some dinner, I’ll be out in a few.”
Normally Dean would have argued, convinced Sam to come with but something intangible stopped him and he found himself nodding a silent agreement toward his abruptly sullen brother.
He left Sam standing there with his body planted firmly in the doorway. It wasn’t the first time they’d opted for the easy way out when things got emotional or complicated, but it was the first time Dean had been completely in the dark about what Sam was thinking.
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Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Author's Notes:
It took three days, a lot of talk, five cases of beer and a couple bottles of whiskey to send Dean straight over the edge.
At first it’d been like some weirdo vacation spent locked up in the presidential suite of a fine hotel. Video games galore, music, movies and all the junk food Dean could eat. It had almost been fun but not quite.
Well, sharing a bed with Sam had been fun. Teasing Spice about his age (calling him ‘old geezer’ even when he looked about sixteen on the best of days) had been fun. Hell, even accidentally discovering Dawn dish liquid and Jacuzzis didn’t mix had been fun.
He hadn’t really meant to flood the bathroom with bubbles or the hallway and half the living room, but he’d done it.
What he’d been trying to do was to get clean after checking the fireplace chimney for a way out, but sure enough the damn thing had been grated shut like every other possible route outa the place. These guys were nothing if they were not efficient.
Spice had whined and complained the whole time Dean had been trying to make his escape. “Sam’ll kill me if you get hurt, Dean. You’re mortal, damnit! Please come back down here?!?!” but the boy had never ratted him out. He’d just sat down there in front of the opening chewing on his nails and making little gasping sounds every time Dean slipped. In the end it’d been useless and Dean had emerged soot covered and tired enough to sleep for a week.
But Spice had other ideas. The kid had made him strip down to his underwear and ordered him into a hot bath, more to keep the stains off the carpet than to ensure Dean’s cleanliness. The boy really was a neat freak. He went around cleaning up every little mess, sometimes before Dean was even finished making it.
It was annoying, but it was also kinda cute.
As it turned out being pampered wasn’t so bad, and having a kid like Spice do it with a mother’s frown on his much too pretty face was hilarious, at least in Dean Winchester’s book.
Dean had grabbed the Dawn from the kitchen on his way to the bathroom. It worked for car grease, so it should work on soot, at least that had been his logic at the time. He filled up the tub, dumped in the whole bottle (because there was a lot of water) and then went to get some cloths.
In a few minutes when he’d returned the bubbles were already creeping outa the bathroom and toward the living room--- and Spice. The boy was standing in the hallway, his slender form already bubble soaked.
Apparently he showed up to check on Dean and discovered the steadily growing beast, which he’d attempted to slay.
By the look on his face, and the still swelling mass he’d obviously failed.
It took Dean all of three seconds to figure out exactly where he’d gone wrong but by that time he’d been laughing too hard to care anymore. The fact that Spice was staring at him, mouth agape hadn’t helped matters any. He looked about as debauched as a sixteen-year-old boy could look without actually having done the deed.
Correction thirty-four, he was never going to get used to that!
The look on Spice’s face had been priceless, at the time Dean thought he could have laughed at the boy for a month on sheer principle. He just looked so damned adorable, and utterly speechless. No parent in the world could have ever pulled off that look with quite the same flare that Spice did.
Dean could practically hear him screaming, ‘What in the world did you think you were doing!’ and ‘How on earth did you manage this without the benefit of some three stooges device?!?!’
“Oh god!” Was what he actually said, his brow pulled down into the most frustrated scowl imaginable screwing up his features just enough to remind Dean that Spice truly was older than him.
And yet he wasn’t---?!?! Not really. The words that followed and Spice’s sudden ‘parent on the way home’ panic confirmed it. “Shit! What---how?” He paused looking around quickly as if the biggest roll of Brawny should have been an arms length away and then looked utterly flabbergasted when it wasn’t.
“Chill dude, it’s not like the mess is going anywhere.” Dean paused, watched as the kid arched an eyebrow comically and waved his hand at the bubbles that crept over his pristinely clean sneakers. “But I’ve been known to be wrong before---on occasion.”
Dean had settled into a kind of routine with Spice, they weren’t exactly best buds (the situation didn’t allow for that) but Dean liked him and he was easy to tease.
If they’d have met in any place other than hell city Dean woulda probably befriended the kid, taught him how to play pool and tossed back a couple beers before splitting for a new town and a new job.
He mighta even given the kid his cell number and crossed his fingers that he’d get a call once he was legal but those weren’t the circumstances.
Though sometimes Dean wished they were.
But the fact of the matter was that they were playing for opposite teams, which automatically made Spice the enemy.
Although not a very convincing one, all things considered...
“Sam could be home any minute. I can’t believe you got me into this mess, Dean Winchester.”
That was the moment Dean truly lost it. That had been the first time Spice had openly scolded him for ANYTHING and it hadn’t been a convincing scold in the least but the boy had been deadly serious at the time. Dean supposed that’s what had made it so damned funny.
Dean had damn near laughed himself sick as Spice rushed around hopelessly trying to clean up the mess and shooting him mean looks.
Yeah right, Spice looked about as threatening as a Rottweiler puppy before it opened its eyes for the first time. Sure he had the potential to be dangerous eventually, but for the moment all Dean wanted to do was shake his nose and make him growl.
After Dean had finally gotten over his initial glee (and some nose shaking) he’d helped clean the mess up. It hadn’t been easy; it had taken a great amount of patience (which Dean didn’t have) a carpet cleaner (that was stored in the hall closet) and two fans (to dry the much too expensive carpet out.)
And of course there was the fact he had to make up with Spice, which took much more of the Winchester Charm than Dean had originally anticipated. The boy hadn’t spoken to him again until a few minutes before Sam had arrived and then it had been to tell him to ‘go to hell!’ but he’d said it with a smile on his face and a blush on his cheeks, so happily Dean figured they were cool.
When Sam had arrived home he’d sniffed the air, eyed the two of them suspiciously (and Spice at least had the good sense to look nervous) but then he gave it up, apparently deciding it just smelled ‘clean’ and went straight to the bar to pour himself dinner.
Despite the impressive menu this place supported Sam still took most of his meals in liquid form. Even the pizza he’d entered with hadn’t graced his lips and later that night when Sam had maneuvered Dean into the bedroom for their nightly petting session, the only thing Dean could taste on Sam’s lips was sweet southern whisky. If he’d eaten anything that day, there wasn’t any evidence of it in his kiss and oddly enough that information made Dean feel a little sad.
What must life be like, if you felt the need to drink away your days?
The truth was, if Sam woulda stayed put it mighta been truly enjoyable vacation of sorts but Dean’s little brother left four hours at a time, day and night. And the only thing that kept Dean from ripping that damn phone outa the wall was the fact those morons who kept calling Sam away from him apparently lived right down stairs. It wasn’t like it would take them much to come up here personally and Dean wasn’t ready for that. Not just yet.
From what he gathered from Spice over the last three days, anyone of major importance in the California evil district had either an apartment or a bedroom/living quarters in the main house with the two pinnacle players (loosely called leaders) holding residence on the top floor.
Sam’s only superior in this place was Daniel Lee, though Spice pointed out that Daniel answered to some unidentified higher authority. For all his time on the plantation he’d been left utterly in the dark on some subjects and that seemed about right to Dean. The boy wasn’t really important to them, not in the grand scheme of things so why share the important stuff with a hanger-on.
Spice easily admitted to being around mostly for his physical attributes. It seemed he had shared a bed with Sam’s predecessor, Jordan Hall. He hadn’t gossiped about the man much, despite his aptitude for it; a few short bursts of information had been about it.
The man had liked to play basketball during his off time, and he’d been a collage student studying philosophy before he’d fallen into his position here at the plantation. He’d been an orphan and a fine guitar player. He’d even taught Spice how to play. It had taken two years and a lot of patience but he’d eventually gotten it and now could have played in a band if it weren’t for a strong dose of reality.
But the truly telling thing had been the tone all this was delivered in and the fact that Jordan had the prettiest blue eyes Spice had ever seen. They had looked like cracked blue ice, he’d said.
After that his voice had trailed off and he’d changed the subject but Dean had already gotten hold of the fact that Spice hadn’t exactly hated the man. Though the boy seemed convinced that his sexual prowess was the only reason he was originally kept around after he’d proved to be less than they’d hoped for in an empath.
Jordan hadn’t been implicated in that scenario, only the nameless ones he referred to as ‘they’ or ‘them’. He never really elaborated on who ‘they’ were.
Spice hadn’t been gung-ho to gossip about Daniel Lee. In fact when he’d shared what little bit of information he’d had on the guy in a whisper as though he were afraid of being overheard. Dean knew for a fact that he could have screamed bloody murder and no one on the outside would have heard a blasted thing. It was amazing sound proofing really but his wariness spoke volumes to Dean.
Daniel Lee lived across the hall, was gone more often than he was there and had a pretty decent relationship with Sam. He was what Spice called a Victorian style vampire.
At first Dean had laughed at that description picturing some laced out snooty blond that would rival the great fictional Lestat but Spice had went nervously on to explain that what he REALLY meant was that he sported a single set of fangs instead of the double set of jagged spikes like the other kind did. He was stronger than anyone Spice had ever seen, once flipping a car over to get to the hunter hiding underneath.
Daniel also claimed to have watched the crucifixion of Christ during his short stint in the Roman army making him well over two thousand years old.
Dean wasn’t sure if he bought it, but Spice seemed totally convinced.
Primarily these people were human Immortals, somehow pulled into what Spice religiously referred to as ‘the game’ as though calling it such made it sound--- or rather seem, less evil.
Each and every one of these guys had made a pact with the devil---or at least a devil. Spice had seemed kind of uncertain about that, he himself not knowing if there were one or many such creatures. But he had pointed out that each contract was specific and hammered out for the individual in question.
No two were alike nor were they made for the same reasons. Some people simply sought power, while others traded for things. Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was an event they wanted to change and sometimes it was for a person, either to save their life---or to give life back to them.
By the time all this was revealed Dean’s head was spinning. If these people could do so much---even bring back the dead, why didn’t they just take the world and give it a long hard fuck? And he’d put this question to Spice who’d laughed and answered very matter-of-factly.
“Because god made rules even the devil has to follow.” It was strange hearing someone speak about god like that, especially someone who admitted to being damned but there it was, spoken with unwavering faith by a child who wasn’t a child but could never be a man.
Dean didn’t have such faith, could never have it after the things he’d seen. He supposed there was a god, but he’d never given him too much thought. His life had always been about the darkness, not the light and strangely enough those two concepts had always seemed unrelated to each other except when he’d broken them down into usable parts, like crosses and holy water---those things had to work for some reason, right?
But he’d never thought about god as something tangible he could touch. He’d never prayed to him, or asked him ‘why’ maybe because he’d always just figured ‘why’ was a stupid question. If Dean could have strolled up to god’s door and been given an audience where he was allowed to ask just one question---‘why’ wouldn’t have been it---it wouldn’t even have made his top ten list. All Dean would have asked is ‘How do I save my brother?’ and the answer to that question would have been as profound as finding the Holy Grail, at least to Dean Winchester.
Of course Dean had inquired about these rules, because again knowledge was power and he needed all the power he could get. What he’d gotten though was a somewhat confusing answer, something almost right outa a sci-fi magazine.
Apparently there were beings that punished those who swore their service to evil and then broke the rules god had set forth---the rules that weren’t written anywhere, and weren’t entirely clear.
This punishment was swift and didn’t involve waiting around for death to take one to hell but instead claimed that person on the instant. Spice hadn’t elaborated on the form it took but he had implied that it was painful and that he had seen it dished out at least once in his lifetime.
Also the only creatures that could truly do humankind harm were those who’d been lured from it to begin with. Sure a demon could possess the average person, but even then there were rules. They could only inhabit those who’d tasted Sin, and in some way had welcomed the devil into their heart.
Spice hadn’t been exactly sure what that meant but he made it clear to Dean that it was important.
Your soul was safe until you handed it over willingly, but your body was another story. There were no rules about how much pain they could inflict, or even how much death. Spice had said the black plague had been demonic in nature but had been called forth by someone who’d once been human.
In the end the power to kill was directly related to the viciousness of the individual who’d been swayed---and in turn the amount of evil that lay within their darkened soul. Sometimes they killed with plagues and other times with wars and sometimes with only words---a few people in history made this list of Spice’s, not particularly shocking but the fact that he’d tied real life evil to some of the worlds greatest atrocities had left Dean feeling a little sick to his stomach and wondering exactly where Sam stood in all this.
Sam was no mass murderer. Nor was he some conquering warlord on the verge of world domination but the problem was Dean could see this new, refined Sam holding his own in a room full of politicians. He could see him swaying millions if he turned that newfound charm on them.
What worried Dean the most after Spice’s words sank in, wasn’t what Sam had done so far---though that still bothered him----but what he might still yet do?
All these conversations and all that stifling knowledge had accumulated in his brain over three long, monotonous days. It had sat there and bubbled and churned until Dean was about ready to bounce out of his skin.
How did you win back a contract with the devil?
How did you save a soul that had been damned?
Could you trade the devil out of it? Or trick him?
Spice had no clear answers; only the fact’s as he’d gathered from his time on the plantation.
As far as he knew, a deal done with the devil was final. Stay or go, by the rules Sam’s soul was damned.
Yup, by the time Sam had walked through the door on the evening of day three Dean had truly gone over the edge. He felt desperate, agitated and about ready to blow. He also felt like he couldn’t do shit about any of this---that life really had dealt him a suck ass hand. It was probably the first true panic attack Dean Winchester had ever had.
It didn’t help matters that he’d polished off a full bottle of Jack waiting on Sam to come home. Or that he’d refused to eat anything Spice had offered him.
Sam had listened to him ramble, make demands and then beg. None of it was entirely coherent, but he’d listened. He hadn’t tried to assure Dean that everything would be okay, he’d just told him that he loved him and coaxed him into the bedroom with Spice’s help in an effort to get him to sleep it off.
That hadn’t been the outcome. Though whether the fault had lain on Dean’s shoulders or Sam’s was a mystery.
It was true the human brain could only take so much information---and so much Jack Daniel’s before it splintered into a million pieces. The good news was it’d put itself back together again come morning, but sadly that wouldn’t erase Sam seeing him bawl like a baby.
Or Spice having to help hold him up while Sam switched on the shower because he couldn’t stand on his own.
He’d definitely had too much to drink, and logically he knew things were never as bad sober as they seemed when drunk but that didn’t stop the haze of that night from dragging him down into hell.
Or from lifting him back up into heaven again later.
The sad thing was, this heaven was a place where the angels were damned and two sets of hands coaxed him off the path of righteousness and straight into the arms of temptation…and later sin.
As it turned out Dean Winchester wasn’t as weak or as strong as he’d thought in his youth.
He was just a man, and a man was capable of making mistakes.
The taste of Spice’s lips quickly taught him that.
The problem was, he wasn’t sure he cared anymore. If Sam were truly damned then so was he, and nothing could change that. But if he weren’t, then come morning Dean had some repenting to do.
Maybe he hadn’t sold his soul yet, but knowing what Spice’s lips tasted like had convinced him that he had definitely bartered with a piece of it.
He wasn’t sure why it was wrong, but it was.
Maybe it was his counterfeit youth.
Or maybe it was his position in this place…???
Either way it didn’t really matter. Wrong was wrong and Dean had to live with that.
What worried him most was the fact that it might not be all that hard to live with.
He was starting to understand why Sam had done some of the things he’d done and that was the real problem.
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Chapter 12: Chapter 12
Dean vaguely remembered throwing up his guts and then Sam making him drink something that looked a lot like blue kool-aid but tasted more like liquid ice.
He remembered being dragged into a hot shower and nearly freezing to death under the spray. But the weird feeling had passed quickly and left him feeling sort of high, definitely drunker than he’d been before but with none of the backlash the Jack Daniel’s had inflicted upon him.
He’d tried to kiss Sam, to remind himself that his little brother was real but his lips had been firmly refused and that had pissed the elder Winchester right the hell off. Why was it okay for Sam to do whatever he pleased, whenever he pleased to Dean--- and make him like it---but not for Dean when he tried to return the favor?
He’d grabbed Sam then, groped at him blindly, his hands rough and hard in his urgency. The force of it was enough to leave newly forming bruises across Sam’s forearm but his brother didn’t seem to mind. He rewarded Dean for his aggressiveness with more of that soft silky laughter. It was a sound Sam suddenly seemed to own. It was dark and rich, like mead for the ear rather than the tongue. The sound of it made Dean’s insides dance and his nerves unravel.
This new Sam was so fucking frustrating! That’s what the old Dean thought anyway…. the new Dean was starting to like it.
He remembered Spice helping him brush his teeth and then laughing at the kid for having his jeans and shoes on in the shower. He remembered innocently offering to help him fix it because for some drunken reason being dressed and in said shower just seemed wrong to Dean.
Naked. Naked was how you were supposed to be in a shower.
Spice had smacked Dean’s hands away from the front of his jeans, arguing vehemently with his Winchester logic until Sam had told him it was all right. The boy had given in at once but stayed rigid as Dean mucked his way through the venture.
The shoes had come off then, followed by water sodden socks but the Jeans, those had taken a little effort. He’d been forced to persuade Spice out of those with Sam’s help.
Sam’s help?!?!?
He remembered kissing the kid…???
He remembered the feel of silky smooth skin under his fingertips as he pressed his hand along the boy’s ribs, and the warm scent of vanilla that seemed to rise up through the steam to greet him.
He’d known even then that the scent had belonged to Spice. He’d tasted him to confirm it, and it wasn’t like Sam’s essence at all. It was warm and crisp like the water from some Kentucky spring that existed over a thousand years ago before humanity went and mucked up the world with technology.
The taste of vanilla had washed over the tip of Dean’s tongue and the distinct flavor of pure white cane sugar mingling with something that was indescribable had followed. The flavor of it all spilled over his lips and caressed his throat as it made it’s way down to his core.
It wasn’t natural.
It wasn’t human.
It was poison, masquerading as velvet sweetness but Dean couldn’t bring himself to care. He knew Sam had given him something, and he knew that something was playing with his senses. It just didn’t matter. If Sam had asked him in that instant to swallow the same darkness that had stolen him from the Hunter’s world in the first place Dean would have done it.
Why?
Because it felt that damn good!
He remembered almost hoping the kiss he’d lavished on Spice would make Sam jealous because then maybe---just maybe this madness would stop.
It hadn’t. In fact there was no doubt that it had pleased his baby brother beyond words. Sam again seemed happy, but that happiness was tainted with the knife-edge of lust and desire. It was wrapped up in something that should have sickened the old Sam but instead this new one found it beautiful.
He wanted it, as much as Dean himself wanted it and that’s when he realized what the blue liquid was.
It was a vehicle for darkness, beyond the shimmering dark mist that had taken Sam from him over three years ago. It was the poison that flowed through both Sam and Spice’s veins changing them and making them into something that wasn’t human anymore.
“Sam!” In an instant his brother understood his dilemma and his lips twisted up into a smile, only this time it was softer---more Sam than the darkness within him.
“It’s okay, Dean. You made no deals. It’s temporary. I only used it for healing.” Sam’s fingers had curled around Dean’s cheek; his eyes filled with his vow and Dean immediately knew that he spoke the truth.
With that he’d lost the fight but not the war. He’d weakly surrendered to the overwhelming surge of honeyed darkness.
It hadn’t been violent or bloody, the three of them tangled together in Sam’s sheets but Dean could feel the possibility of violence in each and every caress. It wasn’t that he desired to hurt either of them, or even that he would. It was just the knowledge that he could---if he wanted to.
It was the sheer rush of power that swept through him when he ran his fingers over Spice’s slim throat that showed him the truth of it.
But it was also the way he felt when the boy cried out at his touch, it wasn’t just emotional it was physical. Like a jolt of pure, unadulterated darkness but that darkness wasn’t ugly or foul, not like they’d been taught. It was beautiful and it tasted like heaven.
Dean knew it was a lie but it was quite possibly the sweetest lie ever told.
It was this power that fed them, made them whole and they didn’t get it from just sex---but from killing, from existing among each other. They were a brotherhood in the truest sense of the word. Sam needed these people, these nameless others he hadn’t meet, because without them he’d grow weaker and weaker until---!
“Things are more complicated than you can imagine.” Sam’s voice had rattled him, and for the first time he realized his brother could hear the wheels in his brain turning.
“This won’t be easy.” He meant, saving Sam wouldn’t be easy. And his little brother got it, smiled and coaxed him back into the game with a few useless words as if nothing else mattered.
“Worry about it in the morning, big brother. It’s not often humans get a free pass to play in the immortal realm.”
In that moment the world revolved solely around the three of them, and that was okay. For the first time in his life it was okay for Dean to be something other than a hunter, other than a big brother.
The world had slipped into a different place after that, a place Dean remembered all too clearly.
There was fragility in Spice that Dean couldn’t find in Sam, it was what made him less than the others and yet more powerful at the same time. From him, power could be consumed.
Any creature capable of dying radiated with the stuff but so did their fellow immortals. It was just taken in differently, and it wasn’t nearly as sweet. In that case, using pain as the tool worked better. It was an essence they fed off of, a state of being that went beyond words. Every person, every creature had potential but only a handful could actually be used.
It made sense to Dean and yet it didn’t.
Somehow he knew it would have if he’d crossed over fully, but as it stood he was trespassing on a world he did not own and Sam had volunteered to be his tour guide.
What did that say about all this?
Was Sam trying to show him the way? Or was he attempting to lure him in with sugar and the promise of kick ass sex for the rest of eternity?
All this information slowly faded back, taking a backseat to the physical pleasure and to the visuals Dean was able to drink in.
There were flashes of Spice, on his stomach, his hands fisted in the sheets as the sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades. Dean remembered how it tasted on Sam’s fingertips, not so much salty as sweet.
He’d watched enraptured as his baby brother had skated agile fingers along the boy’s back, carving out a path along his spine to the place where Dean had entered his body.
He remembered the feel of a naked Sam pressed up against his back, arms wrapped around him, moving against him but not in him.
Oh and the things he’d said.
“I used to watch you, when you brought those girls back to the motel and you thought I was asleep. You always looked so hot, your body pressing into them, driving them crazy, making them moan.”
“I only did that a couple of times Sammy.” It was an excuse, of course, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. He hadn’t meant to put on a live porno flick for his baby brother; hell he’d thought he was asleep for real. Not playing possum so he could get a gander at---?
At what---at the girls?
“I can’t remember their faces.” Sam confessed thrusting Dean forward with a particularly powerful stroke against his lower back and thus pushing Dean deeper into Spice.
All three of them had made a sound then; a sound Dean would probably never be able to wash from his soul. It was the kind of thing that haunted your daydreams for years making you consider the reasons why normal people felt the need to visit the priest’s confessional.
“But I remember everything about the way you moved, every ripple of muscle, every sound you made. I even remember the way you bit your bottom lip when you came---to keep from waking me up.”
Sam talked a lot when he fucked, or rather he talked to Dean a lot. Spice had actually received very little direct attention. Sam had touched him, toyed with him a bit but it had been Dean he was focused on.
The boy had silently took it all in, drinking in every touch and every intimate thing that was done to him as if he weren’t actually a participant, but just someone who was along for the ride. He hadn’t asked for anything, nor had he insisted upon doing anything in the non-verbal sense.
In fact most of the time he’d had his hands pinned to the mattress, or his back to the wall. He hadn’t really been is any position to bargain---or protest?
Both Dean and Sam seriously outweighed the kid, and it’d been easy to maneuver him around, even when he’d been fighting the idea of being naked in a shower with two fully-grown Winchester men.
After seeing the kid unclothed Dean had been forced to re-examine his original estimation of the boy. Spice was maybe one hundred twenty-five pounds, soaking wet and definitely wasn’t hiding any super strength behind those chocolate colored locks of his.
He was welt built, muscled to the point he had a perfect six-pack but over all he was weak---weaker than Dean and definitely weaker than Sam.
Even without the benefit of Sam’s version of a supernatural blue kamikaze Dean woulda probably been able to handle the kid with next to no effort.
Dean felt his heart jump into his throat!
Had Spice actually agreed to any of that? He couldn’t remember.
After he’d lost his jeans and been manhandled onto the bed his protests had ceased all together. It was like he’d simply surrendered.
He’d kissed Dean---hesitantly.
Touched him--- a little. Spice had soft hands, smooth and delicate, almost feminine but not quite.
Feminine, that wasn’t the right word, not really. It was as if his touch was different from the average guys. What was it about Spice’s hands? It wasn’t the shape of them, or even the feel. Lots of guys had soft hands especially those who weren’t in a physical trade.
And then Dean realized what it was.
It was the lightness of the touch, the way he’d skated his fingers across Dean’s skin. There was no demand for more in that touch. There was no expectation of shared pleasure, just the hope that there would be.
Had the kid simply got caught up in Sam’s game?
For the first time that morning Dean was fully awake, his eyes focused on the ridiculously high ceiling. At first he didn’t move, he just laid there cursing himself for the lack of a hangover. At least if he’d been dog sick he wouldn’t have been forced to think---to consider the situation.
He stretched a little, testing the weight of the person half draped over his arm. It revealed the truth of the matter. The body nestled into his side was small, much too small to be Sam and it was radiating a pleasant kind of heat, the kind of heat that let you know you’d been snuggled up against someone all night. The kind of heat that felt too damn good against sore muscles---especially when the person giving it off looked like a wet behind the ears brat from some L.A. Night club.
Normally that feeling would have been a good thing, but at the moment all Dean could think about was the fact that he and Sam had done something unforgivable to someone who wasn’t in the position to turn them down.
Wasn’t that the very definition of rape, no matter how pleasant the whole ordeal had been---or seemed to have been?
Had Dean even been thinking clearly enough to make that assessment?
He maneuvered himself around a little, felt Spice shift in his arms before snuggling back down and burying his face in the blankets, his body pressed firmly into Dean’s.
At first he’d just meant to locate Sam, make sure his brother hadn’t slipped off again but then he saw the blood and Dean froze.
He didn’t remember there being any blood! Not at first and then it came back to him, the knife, small cuts along the wrist and back, the sound Spice made when the blade slid across his skin---a gasp, soft but powerful---and Sam---Sam hadn’t really made a sound at all but the look in his eyes as he laid open his fingertips and then smeared the blood across Dean’s lips---the look on Sam’s face when he’d taken what was offered…Oh god!
what the hell had they done?
There were rituals like that; Dean even remembered a few but none of them matched up to what he remembered.
He looked for Sam, his heart beating hard in his throat. “Sam.” His brother’s name fell from his lips louder than he’d meant for it to but the panic was in control now, not the man.
The volume didn’t matter though, Spice just sank further down into the bed and into Dean who was suddenly very aware of the fact they were both naked.
Sam suddenly appeared in the doorway, already dressed and ready for the day. A warm smile was set firmly on his lips as he approached the bed and leaned down to give Dean a kiss.
Dean accepted the kiss because he could do nothing else. He couldn’t really form a thought or at least not a coherent one. His brain was running through all the possibilities, and yet his mind refused to connect the dots.
The words that fell from his lips as soon as Sam pulled back were instinctual rather than logical. “What the hell did you do to me, Sam?”
Sam’s eyes were bright, amused but Dean couldn’t find it within himself to get angry----only scared.
“Dean, don’t go getting yourself worked up over this. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” The disbelief in Dean’s voice was clear. “This isn’t nothing, Sam.” Dean glanced down at Spice, his brain trying to form a solid thought. Any thought so long as it could be used as a weapon against the monsters he couldn’t see---against the feelings he didn’t want to feel. “This isn’t what I…this isn’t why I came looking for you. He’s just a kid…or not a kid…but still, you own him. This shouldn’t have happened. It’s wrong Sam. More wrong than anything I’ve ever done…I think.”
“But it did happen, and there’s no taking it back. “ Sam said that like there was logic in the words, like it made everything okay.
“This isn’t who we are, Sam.”
“It’s who I am. It’s best you wrap your mind around that sooner rather than later.”
“Sam?” Dean heard the pleading in his own voice.
“You’re appealing to the wrong person, Dean. This is what I want. All of this…everything you see here…and I want you with me. I want you by my side. ”
“No Sam. No.” There was a kind of finality in Dean’s words and for a moment Sam just stared at him, his eyes sad.
“In time, maybe it’ll be yes.” And that sadness grew.
This Sam refused to understand, to open up his eyes and see what Dean was trying to show him.
How did you reason with someone who refused to even hear your side of the argument?
“I don’t think so, Sam.”
Sam, nodded. Seeming to reach some sort of conclusion. “They keyed in your prints this morning. When you leave, take Spice; he’ll keep you grounded, I think. And be polite to Shadow. He has a lot of patience but I fear a mortal with your attitude might test his limits. He’s older than most here. Skilled but moody.”
“Sam, I wanta talk about this.” It was a last ditch effort, one that Sam pushed away completely.
“Funny, you never used to want to talk about anything.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair.”
“So you’re just gonna turn me loose in this place?” There was equal parts confusion and frustration in Dean’s voice. Neither of which he could hide.
“Everyone knows who you are, if you’re good, follow the rules, you’ll be able to come and go as you please as long as you stay on the plantation grounds.”
“So I can’t leave?”
“Not without an escort.”
“So what are the rules?” He truly wanted to know but more than that he wanted Sam to be the one to explain them.
“The obvious ones. I think you can figure it out---if you try.”
“And if I decide to kill a bunch of people?”
“That’d be bad.” Sam’s comment and the tone it was spoken in left no room for doubt. Any action along those lines would be dealt with severely. “The only reason you’re getting the keys to the front door is because I fear for your sanity if I keep you locked up in here much longer.”
“Good call.” Dean settled back down, convinced Sam wasn’t going to see his side of things.
“Don’t pout, Dean.”
“Don’t be evil, Sam.”
“Point taken.” Dean rolled his eyes at that. “I’ll see you later.” Dean nodded and watched Sam go.
There had to be some way outa this, there just had to be?
Spice moved a little, pulling away just enough to lie flat on his back so he could look up at Dean. There was no hate in the kid’s eyes, nor did he look all that much like someone who’d been taken advantage of but that didn’t change things. Not really. He was still a kid if that mindset thing was correct.
“I haven’t been a kid since I was thirteen, Dean. You stop being a kid when you take responsibility for yourself and are semi successful at it.”
For some reason just hearing Spice open his mouth and speak to him like he wasn’t the biggest pervert this side of the United States helped Dean put the world back into perspective.
“Hate to break it to you kid, but Sam owns your ass---that doesn’t exactly spell successful in my version of the dictionary.” Spice laughed at that, a rich hearty laugh that easily sounded like that of any sixteen year old.
“I’ll give you that one.” Spice stretched, a long and lazy kind of thing that pressed his thigh up against certain parts of Dean.
“Hey!”
“What?” The kid asked, actually looking innocent before doing it again.
“You’re evil.”
“Well duh.” Spice’s easy sarcasm throw Dean more than a little. He frowned. Studying the boy’s impish expression.
“So your point with the thigh would be?”
“That I think you’re sexy.” Dean arched an eyebrow at that, giving the kid his best ‘c’mon’ look. “And that I don’t hate you. Last night was fine.” There was a pause and a twinkle in Spice’s eye that a priest couldn’t have missed. “More than fine actually! If you wanted to repeat it this morning---that’d be fine too.” The boy turned to Dean, his body wrapping around him in such a way that Dean couldn’t help but notice the fact that Spice was definitely interested. Certainly not put off or frightened by him.
Well at least they hadn’t traumatized the kid. Though the jury was still out on whether or not the kid had traumatized him.
The whole idea of rape went right out the window, but the fact that Spice still looked like a kid---well that at least was sticking with him.
Certain parts of Dean considered taking the kid up on his offer, but other parts (primarily his conscience) had him up and outa the bed as fast as he could move.
Spice just laid there, grinning and taking in the view.
“Let me wrap my mind around what already happened before I go planning another session.” Dean was trying to hurry his way into a pair of jeans to escape Spice’s prying eyes. The kid was positively devious, refusing to look away or hide the fine edge of lust that rippled through his eyes.
“So, you ready to take in the sights?” The words were a double-edged sword and the smirk on the kid’s face verified the fact he knew that but Dean refused to take the bait.
“No, but I’m going to.”
“Dean?”
“What?”
“Those are my pants.”
“Oh.” Well that explained why he couldn’t get the damned things on.
“Dean.”
“Yeah?”
“You got clean clothes in the closet.” Dean nodded and headed around the bed, a blush coloring his cheeks. “I’ve already seen everything.” The kid’s easy tone made Dean rethink Spice’s whole character.
“You’re a smug little brat, aren’t ya?”
“Some days.” The boy crawled out of bed, and headed for the door completely oblivious to his own nudity.
“Damn kid, I don’t remember you being this open last night.”
“Well you were smashed and Sam was power drunk, the safest thing to do was let you guys have your way.”
Spice said it casually but Dean caught some meaning in the words. “What do you mean power drunk?”
Spice stopped, which made Dean have to look away as the boy answered. The kid definitely wasn’t modest. “It happens when a psychic uses too much power, it’s like tying one on but different.”
“Okay, I get it. I think.” That had been basically what Dean had felt after the weird drink had taken effect.
“When you’re ready just give me a yell.” With that the kid was gone and Dean was left to consider this new crumb of information.
So evil felt good, like a genuine high. It was a hellva feeling, and Dean was willing to bet good money it was addictive.
But addictions could be broken
And that gave Dean hope.
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Chapter 13: Chapter 13
The odd thing was only Dean’s thumbprint worked on the front door; Spice’s print had apparently never been keyed in. In the three days he’d been locked in the bell tower with Spice he’d never once asked the kid to set him free, it was more principle than oversight. He simply refused to put him in that position.
But now, knowing that Spice was just as much a prisoner in this place as Dean himself was …well, that changed things. The boy really was property, in the wickedest sense of the word, and Sam allowed it!
Why?
For a split second Dean felt like laying his newly remodeled baby brother out flat. It wouldn’t hurt him a bit to get knocked flat on his designer jean-wearing ass! In fact it mighta knocked some of the cocky out of the new Sam.
For a split second he was beyond pissed!
And then the door opened and Dean saw this Shadow person for the first time, and all his concerns about Spice’s status faded into some nameless oblivion. It wasn’t that he didn’t care anymore he was just suddenly, vividly aware of more pressing concerns.
“Holy shit!” Spice snickered at him from behind, his arms coming up to wrap around one of Dean’s as he made himself comfortable against the older Winchester.
“Impressive, ain’t he?” The kid had a smile in his voice and laughter on his breath, obviously he was used to seeing people react to ‘Shadow’.
The dude was tall, taller than even Sam.
The first thing Dean got was the sheer size of the man and then he took in the package as a whole. The hair was so black it bordered on unnatural. It was probably as black as human hair could get without passing into some freakishly foreign realm. It was shoulder length but he’d pulled it back into a ponytail revealing an ear brandishing a single silver hoop.
On most guys earrings looked stupid. What was the point of putting a hole in your body when there were more than enough things out there willing to do it for you?
But on this guy…the silver hoop added more to the menacing look than it took away.
He was well built. Even under the loose fitting black cotton t-shirt Dean could see that. His shoulders were wide, almost too wide making him look like a figure of great power---one of the most imposing bouncers Dean had ever seen hadn’t been half this dude’s size. Shadow wasn’t a giant but he was damn close.
And the face---it was a perfect balance of lines and curves, sharp where it needed to be and soft where one liked it to be. It was the kind of balance that just seemed wrong on a human face.
On a second pass Dean realized the eyes were dark but relatively plain in comparison to the rest of the guy. They were just eyes and that was a good thing because to have those looks and a set of jewel colored eyeballs to match would have been too much.
Was everyone in this place so damned attractive?
Spice stepped around Dean, but didn’t let go. Shadow graced the boy with a smile, his eyes softening more than they should have. It spoke of past intimacy---or current?---Dean wasn’t sure but either way he didn’t like it.
It was one thing for him and Sam to have indulged. It was another if this dude had.
Hypocritical? Yes, but Dean Winchester had always had two sets of rules, the ones that applied when the basic system of right and wrong was in question and then the ones that applied when he or someone he loved had fucked up. It wasn’t exactly kosher, but that didn’t matter to Dean.
“Morning.” Shadow’s voice was a friendly enough as he uttered his greeting and so was the nod that accompanied it, so when Spice tugged on Dean’s arm and urged him forward he followed.
“Backatcha, big guy. I still can’t believe Sam ordered you to pull baby-sitting duty.” Spice’s voice was normal. He talked with Shadow as if he’d known the guy all his life and liked him. It was unnerving, mainly because nothing here was exactly as it should be.
“Yeah, I had better things to do.” The sexual emphasis on the word ‘do’ about made Dean blush.
“I bet.” Spice however didn’t miss a beat and the snicker was duly implied in his tone.
Dean couldn’t help but glance backwards at Shadow who’d fallen into step behind them, and the guy nodded his acknowledgement, seeming amused at Dean’s utter shock.
“So what’s his story?” Dean whispered this to Spice but not so low the hulk of a man behind him couldn’t hear it. He was curious to see who answered his question.
“Shadow’s a member of Sam’s personal guard.” It was Spice in his usually helpful tone.
“Personal guard?” Dean took a minute to consider that, looking toward the guy in question for his answer.
“Home division. The boy has a target sign painted on his back these days.” Shadow spoke easily to Dean, but it still ruffled him. Partly due to the fact the guy was responsible for his---safety---that seemed like a harmless enough word to Dean and yet it still pissed him off.
And partly because he was one of those nameless others that had floated through the madness he’d shared with Sam and Spice the night before.
Did Sam really need these people? Or had that been part of the lie?
He wasn’t sure, so he let it go and asked the only question that seemed honestly important to him at the time.
“Who’s trying to kill Sam?” Dean stopped before they’d even reached the stairs.
“Your fellow hunters, who else?” This Shadow said as though he couldn’t quite believe Dean didn’t know.
“Bobby said he was killing off the hunters?”
“The one’s who’ve come for him. Yes.”
“He’s not hunting them down?”
“No, I think you Intel’s bad, son.”
“I’m not your son!” The venom that poured outa Dean with that statement was more than even Dean expected. “My dad died fighting you guys. Don’t call me that again.” The guy studied him for a second, his eyes softer than Dean thought reasonable and then he nodded.
“I didn’t mean to insult your dad, my apologies. I hear he was a good man.” That hadn’t been the reaction Dean was expecting.
“He was, not that your kind would know anything about ‘good’ men.”
“Dean, C’mon.” Spice was there, urging him to turn around and start moving forward again.
“Best listen to the boy. I got no fight with you.” Shadow just stared at Dean, his eyes marred by sympathy. It honestly made punching him out a difficult prospect. Well, that and the sheer size of the dude. Dean wasn’t into getting his ass kicked for fun, not being a masochist by nature.
To keep from saying anything (and to save his respective ass) Dean turned and proceeded to the stairs. For three flights it honestly reminded Dean of a hotel, though the bastards had been too cheap to install an elevator.
The bottom floor was where Dean found the differences. The stairs opened out into a large but spacious sitting area, something more akin to a living room than a hotel lobby but like everything else in the place it was huge. It was also ritzy looking, like Sam’s rooms, art and expensive furnishings dominated the scene leaving Dean feeling a little over-shadowed by all the decadence.
Upon further investigation the place sported a game room, an elaborately large and busy kitchen, a pool, and a library. There were also some rooms further down a hallway opposite the stairs that Shadow had said were offices. Each needed a thumbprint and was utterly private according to Spice.
That meant Dean had to learn security systems. He wondered if Sam could be talked into leaving his computer behind?
Probably not, but it was worth a shot.
You could get almost anything off the net and he figured asking for books on their security system would be a little too bold.
For the most part only the kitchen had held a lot of activity but Dean hadn’t bothered to go in. He’d just peeked through the doors to mark the layout of the place. Mostly everyone looked normal. The girl running around the kitchen holding a clipboard and calling out orders could have been any hotel manager in any establishment in the world, other than the fact that she too was just a little too pretty.
It was as if immortality lent something to their outward look, made them a little more appealing. A trick of nature maybe, designed to lure in their prey?
“You’d think a place this size would have more people milling about.”
“It’s 8:30 in the morning, Dean. Everyone who lives here is either sleeping or already moved on with their day.”
“So Sam arranged my little walk to be taken during the down time.” Dean let out a heavy breath, somewhat annoyed. He was starting to feel more and more like Sam’s pet.
“He just thought that you should work up to the introductions. The guys around here are just as leery of you as you are of them.” This Shadow said, and like Sam he made it sound reasonable rather than condescending.
“Well when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Shadow didn’t have time to respond before someone spoke from the stairway.
“Well, I see Sam’s let you outa your cage.” When Shadow stepped aside it was to reveal John Slade and another fellow Dean had never seen before. The guy wasn’t quite as tall as Dean but he looked like he could chew through nails if the hatred in his eyes was any indication.
He had light wavy brown hair and eyes the color of cracked blue ice in the wintertime. The eyes were intense, dangerous and something about the way the other guy was looking at Dean told him this fellow already didn’t like him much.
“Hey, Vinny. How’s it hanging?” The statement was designed to annoy but the guy only smiled. He was no fool. He got what Dean was trying to do and he refused to take the bait.
Today John Slade was sporting a pair of jeans and a plain dark blue t-shirt. His Goth attire had been retired in favor of something that looked a lot more comfortable. Yet the guy still seemed off, dark and imposing where he should have seemed normal now that he wasn’t dressed like some new age gothic mobster
“Oh, it’s hanging fine. I don’t know what you’re into but this place has plenty of entertainment options. Pool, stables, game room---the younger ones seem to like those.” This guy was just too fucking reasonable for Dean. He hated him on principal alone.
“Saw it.” Dean’s answer was clipped this time, mostly because getting in a physical fight at that moment wouldn’t have been feasible. “So who’s your boyfriend?”
That got a rise. The nameless one glared harder if that were possible but he didn’t say anything; he just continued to look mean and hateful, like a child trying hard not to say something cross even when that’s all he wanted to do.
“This is Moral, he’s a member of Sam’s crew.”
“So are you the one who got Sam shot?”
The guy visibly hardened all over before he spoke through his teeth at Dean rather than to him.
“I’d be the one who took a bullet for your brother to keep your fellow hunters from putting it through his heart.” John Slade grabbed the guy’s arm as he started forward, violence etching his every movement.
One might think a guy that angry would be hard to control, but the light hand on his arm pulled him back as surely as if Jonathan Slade had put a gun to his head.
“We’ll not argue over details, Moral. Dean has yet to understand the gravity of Sam’s lot in life.”
Moral turned to Slade, his eyes rock hard as he spoke. “His kind have tried to kill Sam more times than I can count, once before he was even turned. They’ve tried to kill you and me without provocation! What does that say about them?”
“It says they’re human, foolish but still worth our effort. Especially if Sam wants it----wants him.”
“If he brings death to Sam---!” For a moment the statement just hung there, and then Moral turned those intense eyes on Dean. “I’ll gut him like the dog he is.”
“So be it, brother. I’ll not stand in your way if that should happen”
With that Moral turned and headed for the front door leaving Dean to stand there, mouth agape and contemplate what he’d just heard.
Moral hated Dean, not because of who he was but because of what he was. It was the same kind of hatred Dean had for avenging ghosts, vampires and demons.
John Slade eyed Dean for a second, seemed to sum him up on the instant and then spoke directly to Shadow. “Keep him out of trouble, there are more than a few who feel the way Morel does.”
“Understood,” Shadow answered simply.
Spice cleared his throat and the noise seemed to remind Slade that Dean was still standing there, that he hadn’t become some voiceless statue. He turned back to face Dean, his expression giving away nothing of the internal struggle that was obviously going on between these guys.
“Your car is in the garage if you’re interested. Some of the guys like to tinker, so you’ll find the supplies there should more than fit your needs.”
“These guys are loyal to Sam?” It wasn’t the casual subject Slade had been hoping for but he didn’t ignore Dean’s question. Instead he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. For a moment he seemed to consider his answer.
“Extremely. Our kind has been around for as long as your kind has been---hunters, I mean. We protect our own. The thing that they don’t understand is that Sam is also protecting his own even as he protects them--- and that has given rise to a conflict.”
“Is Sam in danger because of this conflict?” Dean wasn’t sure. He got the impression that they thought he meant Sam harm, but that just didn’t make sense.
“No.” This Slade said as if Dean were a child who had totally misunderstood. “ Sam is family, he’d never truly be in danger among us---but you---you are everything we hate. You are the thing that steals away our family, kills them and that’s a hard thing for most of us to ignore.”
“This is insane!”
“Why, because you can’t fathom the fact that we love---that we care for one another? Or is it the treachery you can’t accept, the fact that the dark isn’t nearly as horrible as you were lead to believe?”
“I know what I’ve seen, spirits that kill, werewolves---cults that sacrifice children---those aren’t good things, dude.”
“I have never ripped flesh from bone, nor have I sacrificed a child.” John Slade didn’t sound angry, only rational. “I have killed men to protect my own, as have you. I have fought wars that were not mine because I believed in their cause, as have you. The difference between us is that I stopped believing humanity to be the shining beacon of light you deem yourselves to be. There are some among you that would put the worst of us to shame.”
“So why tolerate my being here? Why not just off me and be done with it?”
“Because for one, that would hurt Sam and I wouldn’t injure that boy for the world and for two, I unlike you don’t lump all humans into the same pot. Some of you are actually worth your salt.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” For a moment Slade didn’t say anything but the corner of his lip twisted up. “Careful, Dean. Many of us are far older than you----and far better equipped to play this game.” Slade moved forward, his hand coming up to cup Spice’s face. “This one is the youngest of us, next to Sam.” The boy allowed the touch, but wrapped around his arm like he was Dean could feel the tension in his body at Slade’s caress. “Our ranks fill slowly, and in most cases we live a very long time, so take my advice. And watch where you tread.” With that Slade turned the boy loose and headed for the front door. “Stay outa trouble, Dean,” was the last thing he said.
“What’s his story?”
“Talk about it later, in the privacy of Sam’s room.” It was a warning from Shadow, but exactly what kind Dean didn’t know, so he took the advice at face value and had Spice show him to the garage.
If he couldn’t fight, then he’d work.
He only hoped it was enough to settle his nerves.
Back to index
Chapter 14: Chapter 14
Sam walked over to the patio doors and pushed them open. The scent of the garden flooded in, reminding him of places he’d been during his childhood. Those places had been normal, they were places where people lived and worked for all of their lives, sometimes never setting foot in another state. For them, there was no shuffling from one town to another, from one cheap dingy motel to the next.
It was about living–It was about loving---It was about fighting and making up again later. It was about everything that came with life, both the good and the bad of it.
Those people didn’t leave their kids with near-strangers while they went off to fight werewolves and angry spirits. When their five-year-olds worried about monsters in the closet, their dads didn’t give them shooting lessons and a pistol filled with rock salt to put under their pillow.
They were normal. They took ‘normal’ for granted, something Sam Winchester had never been able to do.
Sam glanced at the lawn, neat, green and beautiful. Like everything else in this place it screamed of perfection. It was not a place you bathed in the sun, or lazed about, it was a place you admired from afar. The grass was too perfect, too beautiful to be disturbed and so Sam didn’t. He stuck to sidewalks and well-worn paths.
The sweet scent of roses and fresh cut green grass assaulted his senses, pulling him back to a time when things with Dean had been so much simpler. Then, all he would have needed to do was ask and Dean would have said yes. Now, he fought him every step of the way trying hard to drag him back to the hunter’s world---to drag him back into true darkness.
Sam had never belonged there in the shadowy place where the hunters dwelled and he’d tried to tell Dean that. He’d begged him to leave with him when he turned eighteen, get a place, and settle down----just for a few months. Just so he could taste normal.
He’d felt it for the first time then, the nagging feeling that something was wrong---really wrong---and it was eating him up inside. He’d been desperate to get away, the need to run had been almost overwhelming--- a survival instinct.
And every time he looked at his dad and his dad had looked back (really looked back) he’d felt it--he hadn’t understood it, not then---not when things were at their height.
But now he did.
“You may have to kill Sam.”
That had been the basic idea of what John had said to Dean moments before he’d died, before he’d traded his life for that of his eldest son.
“You may have to kill Sam.”
How long had John known? How long had he carried that knowledge around with him? Had Sam been a baby when he’d realized the truth---a teenager--- or had he been a young man?
Had his father been waiting for him to go all dark side so he could put a bullet in him? Or had he been looking for a way out?
Sam remembered things clearer now, he could recall past events as easily as hitting the rewind button on the VCR, and he remembered the fight about Stamford all too clearly. He remembered the way his father’s fingers had twitched when he said he was leaving, the way his hand had wondered too close to his gun, his eyes more than simply angry.
John Winchester had been divided, unsure of his next move.
He’d thought about putting a bullet in Sam that night.
The realization had been devastating. It was one thing to know your father had thought about the possibility of killing you, it was another to realize he’d seriously considered it.
He remembered seeing a van parked outside his and Jessica’s place, he remembered other students asking if he was in trouble because some guy or another had been asking questions about him. Nothing ever came of it so Sam didn’t give it much thought, not until after the demon had taken his soul. Then all he’d had was time to think.
Now he knew that John had been watching him, or rather was having people watch him. For a long time John had known he was dangerous and for a long time he’d known that killing Sam was an option.
Would he have done it? Sam didn’t know and for the first time he was glad the old man was dead, because he didn’t want to know.
Not many people stayed around long enough in Sam’s life for him to truly be able to say that he loved them and the last thing he wanted to know was that one of them had been walking around with a bullet that had his name etched into it.
“How are things going with Dean?”
“He still thinks I’ll come around, that he’ll save me from all this.” Sam didn’t want saving, he wanted to pull Dean into his world---convince him to stay. At twenty-one Dean had laughed off the idea of getting an apartment with Sam, now at thirty-one he wasn’t laughing anymore but he wasn’t agreeing to stay either.
“Have you explained?”
“Explained what, that every evil isn’t the same----that’s not gonna matter to Dean.”
“Has he accepted Spice?”
“I think so, but just because he’s not plotting his death doesn’t mean he’s not gonna be plotting to take the rest of them down.”
“This is a big place, Sam. Lots of people, He can’t do much damage.”
“You don’t know Dean like I do.”
“No, but if he causes some trouble you’ll deal with it.”
“You make it sound so simple.” Sam shivered, not because it was cold: it was early October but the day was warm and sweet. The clean, crisp breeze that came up off the lake and swept over the greenery of the land brought with it the very feel of summer. It was pleasant, the very vision of normal but yet seeing it like this, something solid and real yet just beyond his grasp made Sam feel miserable.
It was the realization that Dean was a prisoner in this place---the place that Sam now called home that moved him, made him tremble.
“If only he would try and understand…!” Sam cringed at the emotion in his voice, at the way it nearly broke on the last word.
He wanted more than just Dean, here, with him under guard---under an invisible lock and key. He wanted Dean to choose this, to choose him over the god-forsaken hunt, just once.
He didn’t want him to give up his soul----that was too high a price, and most people agreed with that. But he wanted him to give up the life, the one that had damned Sam Winchester in the first place.
“Sam,” The voice behind him was soft, coaxing as tender and as heartfelt as anything Sam had ever heard. How could that be truly evil? He knew what they did, he knew that sometimes people died---innocent people but how was that any different than what he and Dean had done in the past. “Give him time, let him see the truth for himself.”
“The truth isn’t always that important to Dean.”
Both of them had gone to great lengths to protect each other. They hadn’t drawn the line at innocents, a bullet in the head of a demon-processed guy who was beating Sam bloody on the street---that had been Dean’s answer.
Why?
Because it was necessary.
Well since then Sam had realized a lot of things were necessary, dark things, evil things----he wasn’t being hypocritical, just practical.
His own kind had wanted him dead. Dean just hadn’t seen it. Even after Gordon had tried to off him with no provocation, his brother hadn’t grasped the naked truth of it. Dean had gotten nervous but he hadn’t admitted to the possibility that there were more hunters like Gordon out there, just waiting for their chance to take Sam out of the game.
The truth was neither had Sam.
It wasn’t until later when he realized, once he’d gone over--- once they’d branded him evil before he’d even opened his first book written on the dark magicks---it wasn’t until then that he started to see the hunters as flawed, as closed minded killers, hell bent on wiping out anything that wasn’t entirely human.
Some things deserved to die; he still believed that but others---not so much.
Some of the monsters were just protecting what was theirs, fighting a war that had started back when humanity was in its infancy.
The hunters had decided Sam’s life was forfeit long before he’d made his first split second decision to defend himself---to kill a hunter who’d come for him rather that let himself be executed.
That didn’t make Sam evil, it made him a survivor–a warrior defending a country he’d decided to call his own.
The Demon hadn’t brought him straight here, to Daniel and the rest of the Brotherhood, instead he’d given him money and turned him loose on the streets of Las Vegas---that had seemed strange indeed, until Sam had started to feel the urges.
At first they were simple, and simple acts took care of them. He indulged---sex, booze and violence. A good fight got his blood pumping, made him forget about Dean. Good sex got his blood pumping too, but that reminded him of Dean.
Ludicrous considering they’d never done it!
Though secretly Sam had lusted after his brother since he’d been fifteen.
It was an upper/downer effect and as close to an addiction as Sam had ever gotten before the darkness took him.
It got worse, much worse and he’d been determined to keep it away from Dean, to keep these changes he was experiencing from tainting his brother.
He’d suffered through it, swallowed down what he could and spilled the rest of it out onto the world around him. Nobody got hurt, not until the hunters came for him…
Then things had gotten bloody, and Sam quickly learned that blood could quench a very dark thirst. Fill him up the way nothing else ever had before.
Then the demon came, and brought him here.
It had been a long and bloody road but Sam had walked it…lived through it and found that the place where he finally settled wasn’t the end of the world.
In a few short months he’d found himself a home…a family.
But that family had been missing someone, and that someone was Dean.
At first he’d fought it, telling those he now called family that Dean was better off out there among the humans but as time went on Sam stopped believing that. He watched from afar as Dean tore himself apart, grew darker and more intense.
He watched as he killed, as he hunted and soon Sam realized that the very thing that they once held dear was poisoning Dean---and that was his humanity----or rather the worst part of it!
His brother was on his way to being damned without ever having made a deal and it was his humanity that was driving him there.
It was the part that blinded him from the truth, kept him from seeing the differences between one demon and another. Between a vampire who killed human beings for sport and one who drank cow’s blood to survive. It was the part that made him think that every creature that went bump in the night deserved to die---even those who were doing what came natural, simply surviving.
After that a plan had slowly formed in his mind…
It had been simple, bring Dean here, and make him want to stay.
It sounded simple anyway, but once applied to the brick wall that was Dean Winchester’s determination----not so much.
Sam loved Dean, more than he’d ever loved any living thing in his life and nothing, not even the devil himself was gonna stand in his way.
Not even Dean, chalked full of righteous stubbornness, was gonna ruin this.
One way or anther, Dean was going to have to see reason.
“Things will work out Sam, you’ll see.”
Sam turned and smiled at the blond girl. “I hope so, because Dean would make a lousy slave.” She laughed at his joke, her blue eyes bright with affection.
“You want him at your back, like before---brothers, I know.”
“I love him.” The statement meant more than the sum of the words.
“I know that.” She paused, walking forward to brush ghostlike fingers over Sam’s cheek, watching as he leaned into her touch as though he could truly feel her. “And you have my blessing---you know that.”
“I haven’t forgotten my promise to you…”
“Nor have I, but vengeance can wait---Dean is mortal.” That was her way of saying time was short.
“I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this.”
“I’m not. I loved you Sam---still do. My only regret is that we’re on separate paths.” Sam smiled; reach up to cup her hand to his cheek and for a moment it hovered there, pressed against something that was warm like living flesh and then her hand evaporated and Sam pulled back. “We had our time and it was beautiful.”
“How come you’re not an angel?”
“Because ghosts can’t grow wings.” She smiled again, her form slowly vanishing. “Be well Sam.”
“The same to you, Jess.”
“Talking to ghosts again, Sam?” Slade inquired seriously as he entered the room unannounced.
“Only Jessica.”
“I’d ask if she was well, but that seems like an unsettling question when inquiring after the dead.” Slade smiled and Sam laughed.
“She was fine, apparently heaven is a very nice place.”
“I wouldn’t know, having only vacationed in hell myself.” It was a kind of joke between them, all of them---the idea of being damned---it was serious business and yet the implication didn’t hold half the weight it did in the human world of Christianity.
To be truly damned you had to die, and as immortals most of them got a ‘get out of hell’ free card----at least until judgment day---or an untimely death, whichever happened to come first.
“So why call forth Jessica today, was it about Dean?”
“I wanted an outsider’s opinion.”
“And what did she have to say?”
“That I had her blessing.”
“As if you needed that.” Slade laughed at Sam as he ruffled through the papers. “I saw your brother out and about this morning---he seemed less hateful than usual---is that a good sign?”
“Doubtful.”
“Maybe you should introduce him to a few people, let him get to know the crowd.”
“Let’s see how he does first, I don’t wanta turn him loose so completely---not just yet.”
“That’s your call.” Slade gathered up a handful of folders and started for the door.
“Dinner, My place---seven-o’clock ?”
“Do you think Dean will approve?”
“I think he needs to get used to being around people like you, so just come and bring a decent bottle of wine and a six pack---Dean doesn’t do wine.”
“What a shame, he doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’ll see you at seven-o’clock, Sam.” And with that Slade was gone and Sam was left to contemplate his next move with Dean.
Back to index
Chapter 15: Chapter 15
Author's Notes: Okay, this chapter gave me some trouble but I think I’m over the hurdle now. The next chapter is already off to my wonderful and deeply appreciated beta, Kat---She totally ROCKS! I expect to post that chapter sometime next week if all goes well. A handful of chapters left till the finish---I think---I’m planning for that but sometimes my muse gets a little long winded, so maybe if I apply some much needed discipline I’ll be able to complete this in as many chapters as promised.
The only reason Dean answered the door was because Spice couldn’t and Sam insisted vocally from the kitchen after the first couple of minutes that he get it or else. Dean wasn’t sure what ‘or else’ meant but honestly evil Sam wasn’t worrying him nearly as much as he had in the beginning, probably because he seemed to have no real desire to hurt ‘good’ Dean.
Nah, he just wanted to make him his evil bride and live happily ever after!
If he’d thought about it for another three seconds he probably would have just let the guy knock but then Sam woulda had to drop what he was doing---cooking, something that still amazed Dean---and get the door.
And that might have caused some serious dinnertime tension, something that Dean wasn’t really in the mood for.
“I’m not your butler, dude! Seriously.” This Dean said as he jerked open the front door and came face to face with John Slade. “Vinny’s here!” He yelled it especially loud just to be an ass. “What’s the wine for?”
“That would be Sam’s….and this,” he said producing a six pack from a brown paper bag he was holding, “would be yours.” Dean took the beer, and stepped aside to let the guy in. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to but Sam had made it quite clear that either he got comfortable with these people or his access to the front door could---and would---be revoked.
Evil Sam could be a real ass too.
“Thanks, I’m probably gonna need it with the kinda company my brother keeps these days.” Slade laughed at that, his smile honest as he crossed the room and sat the brown bag on the bar before reaching into it.
“I noticed you liked vintage music so I picked up these.” Slade handed over a cassette case, which Dean took. For a moment he just stood there staring at the offered gift tied up in a red bow. Then he sat the beer down on the counter and carefully peeled off the ribbon as if the gift might be a bomb rather than the item it was packed up to look like.
When he flipped the case open Dean was surprised to find tunes ranging from Metallica to Blue Oyster Cult tucked neatly inside the box. “What’s this?”
“The masculine version of flowers.”
Dean just stared dumfounded at the guy. He had no idea what to think, even after talking with Spice and Shadow for the better part of the day about this guy (and the others) he hadn’t been left with a good fix on Jonathan Slade.
Apparently he was close to Daniel Lee. In fact they were family, in the real blood-is-thicker-than-water sense of the word. And since Daniel Lee was a pretty scary dude (for unspoken reasons), people were automatically careful of his unofficial right hand man and biological brother.
“When Slade whispers suggestions in Daniel’s ear people die---human people---you be careful of him, he’s an honorable man until someone crosses his family, and then the rules go out the window, do you understand me?”
That’s what Shadow had said, his eyes burning brightly in the mid-day sun.
And yes Dean had to say he understood that, probably more than he’d like to admit. Dean’s rules often went out the window where Sam was concerned. It didn’t make him like Slade any better but he was starting to understand him.
“What you think I’m a cheap date?” Dean said holding up the cassettes and then pitching them on the counter. “’Don’t Fear the Reaper’---c’mon dude. Can you say subliminal?”
“Your brother’s right, you really can be a bitch sometimes.” The smile on Slade’s face, and his warm laughter undercut the sharpness of his words. For a minute Dean just stood there, his brow drawn down in an angry scowl.
“Excuse me?” Slade laughed at Dean’s righteous attitude.
“You took the first swing, Dean.”
“And you finally swung back.” Dean wanted to be mad but truthfully it made him feel a little bit better about the guy.
Hiding behind a wall of nice was suspicious.
“Eventually, one has to.”
“Yeah, reasonably speaking, I guess so.”
Then, strangely enough Slade produced a couple of video game cartridges from the bag and handed them over to Spice who’d come up to stand beside Dean. The boy took them, smiled politely and whispered an overly polite “Thanks.”
“Jasper seems to think these two games are the greatest, if you disagree the receipt is in there,” Slade said pointing toward the brown bag. “Just exchange them the next time you get to the mall.”
“Nah, these are great.” Spice’s voice was friendly, but he didn’t sound quite normal. The boy was usually the picture of playfulness, but in Slade’s presence all his shields were up and that made Dean nervous.
Dean reached out and snagged the kid around the neck and pulled him closer. The boy smiled and melted into Dean’s side accepting the silent support gratefully.
“Careful, Dean. You might end up fitting in around here.” Slade’s mouth twitched at the corners but he never quite smiled.
He saved that particular expression for Sam who’d come outa the kitchen wiping his hands on a towel, his eyes practically screaming ‘welcome’.
It was weird for Dean, seeing Sam so accepting of these people but he didn’t say anything. Instead he just stood there and took in the relationship between Jonathan Slade and his brother trying to understand.
“I see you brought gifts?”
“Well, I don’t seem to be in your brother’s good graces, I thought I better try and score some points. Woo him a bit.”
Sam laughed and it was totally genuine. “The last guy who used the word ‘woo’ on Dean ended up hog tied and butt naked in a motel room in Austin Texas---we lived off the cash in his wallet for a month.”
“So he’s an expensive date then?” The sheer pleasure in Slade’s voice was unnerving but the fact that Sam’s matched it was flat out pissing the oldest Winchester off.
“More like dangerous.”
The two shared a laugh. Dean glared and Spice had the good sense to look utterly naïve, which Dean knew was a load of crap. The boy would have an opinion later, in private, but for now he’d stay out of it.
It was a good thing too; Dean didn’t feel like killing the brat for a misplaced giggle or smirk.
XXXX
At dinner they actually sat at the dining room table, something Dean thought of as weird. He vaguely remembered having dinners at a real table, in a real house but he hadn’t done it in so long the concept seemed almost foreign to him now. Nearly all of their meals growing up had been eaten in diners, on hotel beds or in a moving car. Not a one of them had been a real sit down meal, in a place they called their own.
Occasionally there had been a dinner at someone else’s house, a grateful rescue victim or an offered and accepted invitation made by some unsuspecting family during one of their many investigations but not someplace they could truly call home, get comfortable---and none of them had been roasted chicken with potatoes and vegetables in a red wine reduction sauce---food that Sam had made with some hidden girly talent that Dean didn’t know about.
Dean poked at the food on his plate, took a careful bite expecting to hate it and made a little face when he didn’t. It wasn’t exactly a look of approval he shot Sam but his brother smiled knowingly anyway. “I picked up a few skills.”
“Don’t get cocky---so you can cook! Don’t expect a medal or nothing.”
“My brother, the unrelenting gentleman.” Sam’s playful sarcasm was duly noted and Dean almost stuck his tongue out at him, but he didn’t.
“Your brother tells me you have a skill with cars?” Slade observed, seeming amused at their byplay.
“Yup, I’m not bad with a wrench.”
“So did you find the garage adequate?”
“JC Whitney pretty much set up shop in there---so yeh, I found it adequate.” There was a slight pause as Dean popped open a beer, and took a healthy swig before slouching back in his chair. “So how many innocent people died to stock that baby, anyway?”
“Dean.” Sam’s scolding voice made the older Winchester smirk.
“Riigghht, no talking evil at the dinner table, I gotcha.” Dean shoveled some food in his mouth, happy to have gotten a rise outa Sam at least. “So how about them Lakers?”
“You like basketball?”
“Nope, just making non-evil conversation.”
“Then you should choose another topic.” Slade sounded smug, but he didn’t elaborate.
“The Lakers are evil?”
“Only a couple of em---deals with the devil.”
For a second all Dean could do was stare.
What the fuck!
Slade suddenly laughed, his hand coming up to cover his mouth as he looked up at Dean with mischievous eyes. “I’m just playing with you. The Lakers aren’t evil, but some of the boys from the WWE…now that’s another story.”
“No way!” Dean paused. That was a show he did watch, sometimes. “Don’t tell me---the Undertaker?”
“Nope, the Hardy Boys----how do you think they survive all those crazy stunts they do? Only so much of that stuff can be faked.”
“You’re pulling my leg.” Slade only smiled.
XXXXX
By the time dinner had come to a close Dean was hitting Slade up for information on this star and that, just to see what the guy came up with. He wasn’t sure he believed a word of it but strangely enough he found it interesting as hell.
If half what the guy said was true a hand full of Hollywood starlets, a few actors and a ton of heavy metal bands were all signed on to the dark side.
Wouldn’t those 80’s parents during the satanic cult craze feel vindicated now…Ozzy was the devil…Kiss stood for “Knights In Satan’s Service.”
They were all wrong of course but they were on the scent. They just had the wrong bands----that was if Slade wasn’t still yanking his chain, which was a definite possibility. The guy had an odd sense of humor.
“Walk me to the door, Mr. Winchester.” This Slade said to Dean around eleven-thirty. By then the eldest Winchester had consumed a whole six pack, a few glasses of wine and a couple Crown Royals on the rocks so he did it leaving Sam and Spice to clear away the dinner dishes.
“You too drunk to find the door on your own, Vinny?”
“No, but you might be,” he said, catching Dean’s arm to steady him when he stumbled over his own feet in the living room.
“You are such a bastard, it sucks that I actually like you.”
“I’ll forget you said that,” Slade offered with a helpful smile.
“They tell me you’re a killer.” Dean wasn’t sure where that had come from, but once it was out he just let it hang in the air.
“I’m a lot of things, Dean.”
“Yup.” Dean sobered up just a bit and looked toward the kitchen. “And now so is Sam.”
“It’ll get easier, Dean.”
“I don’t want it to.”
“Believe it or not, I understand.” There was a weight to his words and Dean found himself staring at Slade before he’d even fully processed the words.
“I don’t see how you could.”
“Because I’ve stood where you’re standing now, Daniel and I may not have been lovers, but we were close. Closer than brothers should be.”
“You crossed over for him?”
“I did.”
“I can’t believe Sam’s lost.”
“He’s not lost, Dean. He’s right in there.”
“Yeah, so you say.” Dean smiled then, he couldn’t help it. Despite the situation he had Sam, and one way or another it was gonna stay that way.
“I’m usually right.”
“Well, if you’re Daniel’s brother, and you guys are as old as you claim to be then I guess you should have the corner market on ‘wise’ right?” He waited for the guy to smile before saying teasingly, “Now get the fuck out---you’ve worn out your welcome.” He didn’t mean a word of it of course and that bothered Dean a little.
“Night, Dean.”
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He was mildly surprised to find Spice there in the doorway staring at him.
“What?”
The boy crossed the room almost cautiously. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Sam was still out of earshot before he whispered to Dean. “Careful, he’s old and powerful---that combination can bring trouble.”
“How?”
“It just can.” Dean stepped up to Spice and reached out to grip his arms firmly.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I just want you to be careful.”
“Why?”
“Because he can sense it in you.”
“Sense what? I don’t understand.”
“There’s power in your blood, Dean; it’s what draws them to us---it’s why they wanted Sam.” The boy was trembling, his eyes desperate.
“What are you afraid of?”
“You.” It was such a flat statement, and so honest that Dean turned the boy loose.
“Spice, I’d never hurt you.”
“I know but you’re a hunter---you’re not supposed to feel that way.” The boy looked worried as he reached up and placed a hand over Dean’s heart. “I wish I could tell you they were monsters but the truth is, they aren’t. It doesn’t take long to see their side of things, to understand ‘why’ and once you see that---you can’t ever un-see it.”
“What is it you’re trying to tell me?”
“If you want a chance in hell of getting out of here, you can’t let them show you the truth. Once you shine light on darkness---you’ll never be able to do what needs doing in the end.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ll never be able to kill them.” Spice focused hard on Dean. “Sam gave up his soul for you, but now he’s seen the darkness, he understands it and he wants you here, in the heart of it with him. That day, on the lake---he gave up his humanity for you, don’t let that sacrifice be in vain.”
For a split second Dean was there in the cabin again, kneeling on the floor, warm blood trickling out of his mouth and down over his chin---and there was pain---more pain than Dean remembered actually having felt at the time.
He slid a quick glance toward Sam, and his heart leapt into his throat. He’d seen his brother cry before, but never like this---never with so much desperation---never with such a look of devastation on his face.
Dean had spent three years trying to forget that look, but no matter how many bars he’d hit or how many nasties he’d killed it still haunted him.
Then he was back, standing in front of Spice who was looking more than a little frazzled around the edges as Dean clutched at his chest. “What the hell was that?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” The boy moved back a couple of steps as if he were afraid that Dean might suddenly attack him.
“Memories aren’t that vivid.” Dean could still taste the coppery tang of blood on his tongue. “It was like I was there, reliving it again.”
“You were thinking about the cabin too hard when I touched you.” This Spice whispered, his eyes wild. “I didn’t mean for you to feel pain---it just happened.”
He knew the kid was telling the truth and he honestly wasn’t mad but he had the distinct feeling he was hiding something---not from him---but Sam. It was the way he spoke, barely above a whisper and the way his eyes kept moving back and forth between the kitchen door and Dean.
“They don’t know you can do this?” Dean whispered it as he pushed himself off the wall and took a step forward. “You’re hiding it from them?”
“Please.” It wasn’t an admission but it might as well have been.
“Why?” Dean managed to walk slowly over to Spice, to take hold of the boy’s arms gently.
“As long as they don’t know what I can do, then I’m useless to them.”
“And you wanta be useless.” Dean got it. If they knew the boy could replay someone’s past like a video reel then he might get pulled into the inner workings of this place and the last thing Spice wanted to do was become a killer. “That’s why you’re afraid of Slade, he can sense the power in you.”
“Normally he can but for some reason he’s never seemed to pick up on me, but I can feel it sometimes---like prickles on my skin---he’s interested---interested enough to poke around inside me. I shouldn’t feel it, but I do.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
A couple tears spilled over then, clear and sparkling against Spice’s cheek but the boy didn’t make a sound.
Maybe these guys were evil, but Spice wasn’t. Dean didn’t care how much darkness the kid had supposedly swallowed---he was still a good kid. Why else would he choose slavery over power?
“What’s this?” Sam’s dark sexy voice tickled Dean’s spine from the kitchen doorway.
Dean smiled his best cocky ‘come hither’ look and pulled Spice into a firm hug to hide the boy’s tears. “Just talking---maybe touching---a little.” He knew the suggestion of sex would divert Sam’s attention.
Evil Sam seemed to have a sex drive that would rival a teenage god in his prime and sure enough his little brother smiled, roused like a great lion seeking prey and made his way across the room to them.
He enveloped the two of them but instead of pouncing like Dean figured he would, he paused, his eyes softening as he reached out to touch the back of Spice’s head. “Slade makes him nervous.”
“Yeah, well the guy makes me nervous to---so what?”
Sam smiled at Dean as he ran his long fingers through Spice’s silken locks, his body coming up to press comfortingly against the boy’s back effectively cocooning him between the two Winchester men.
It was meant to comfort, but it was also sexual. Something Dean was starting to figure out---these guys thrived off of each other, and touch (sex) was a part of it.
He kissed the top of Spice’s head and suddenly Dean remembered why he loved Sam so much. Why it was that he’d follow him straight into the bowels of hell if he had to.
Sam’s dark eyes slide purposely upward coming to rest on Dean’s. “Was dinner really that awful?”
“Nope, but you never served dessert. Was that some kind of oversight or something?” Sam smiled wickedly, his hand coming around to cup the back of Dean’s head and pull him forward.
“I saved the two of you for dessert.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How very selfish of you.”
“Yes---It---Was” and with that Sam’s lips closed over his and they were literally kissing overtop of Spice’s head. It was a deep hungry kiss, one that couldn’t have been mistaken for a simple act of comfort.
It meant something and that something was sex but it was also need, desire and most of all love.
It was strange how easy Sam was to read, instead of things soaring into complicated they’d dived into simplistic and all Dean wanted to do was feel.
So that’s what he did.
Dean’s arms were pressed firmly into Spice’s back, not so tight of a hold that the boy couldn’t breathe but it was enough that Dean could feel his heart beating hard against his own cloth covered chest. He could feel the heat of the boy’s breath against his shoulder and he was relieved that his breathing had steadied.
Spice was no longer frightened; the firm press of his erection against Dean’s thigh established that.
Spice’s secret was safe, but Dean was in a whole mess of trouble.
Sam’s free hand skated up underneath Dean’s shirt and over the bare plain of his ribs as Spice’s made their way between them toward the button of his jeans. It was difficult with them pressed together like they were but the boy was relentless and in no time at all he had his hands down the front of Dean’s blue denims.
Dean briefly considered stopping the whole thing before the situation got out of hand but by then he was being pushed down onto the couch by two sets of hands, and Sam was sliding into place beside him---settling himself in for a long night of fun& games.
It took Dean’s baby brother next to no time at all to reclaim his lips, wrap him up in a tangle of long limbs and hungry touches.
He wasn’t sure why Sam’s mere presence gave him a reason to pause, but it did. And Spice took advantage of that pause by dropping down to the floor and sliding his small frame in between Dean’s spread legs.
Dean nearly snapped then--- being out of it and playing along was one thing but being (just on the wrong side of) sober and doing it---well, that was another!
Or so he thought until his body refused to cooperate. He was sure he had made some small sound of protest but nobody was listening–least of all his own body.
His cock had leapt to attention the moment the little skin game had started and it was more than ready to play. It didn’t matter that Dean’s brain was manually trying to put on the brakes. What felt good---felt good.
Why put up a fight he was probably just going to lose anyway?
Sam’s free hand gripped the front of Dean’s shirt and pulled, popping off all the buttons in one fatal move just as Spice descended on Dean’s erection.
The second the kid’s hot, wet mouth enveloped Dean he officially gave up the fight! It wasn’t that he was weak; he just figured ‘why waste the energy?’ In the end Sam would get what he wanted---he always did. Good or evil it was just the way things were between them.
Dean’s blue denims had vanished during the early part of the game and now he was just sitting there on the couch completely nude except for his now button-less shirt that was spilling off his shoulders.
Sam pulled back from their kiss just long enough to run his fingers through Spice’s hair as he swallowed Dean’s formidable erection. It was a wicked sight and it made Dean forget he’d ever thought about arguing.
Spice wasn’t a kid despite his young looks---but he was power-drunk.
The boy was power-drunk? The realization came to Dean like a bolt of lightning. He’s used too much and now he was surging through the effects.
In his lust-ridden daze Dean wasn’t sure whether that made this more wrong or less? And he wasn’t sure he cared.
With Sam wrapped around him, one hand against his cheek pulling him into a hearty kiss, while the other rested on the back of Spice’s head---well, life was short and he’d never exactly been a saint.
It was excuse enough, for Dean Winchester.
The feel of Spice’s silken locks brushing over his bare thighs and the feel of Sam’s mouth practically devouring his lips pushed Dean right over the edge and straight into hell.
The only thing was hell felt good---damn good! And Dean wasn’t going to waste time being sorry for exploring it.
It was only midnight and they had at least seven good hours before Dean had to face the harsh morning light. In seven hours they could do a lot of things, and Dean would just have a few extra things to seek forgiveness for come morning.
It wouldn’t hurt him to repent a little. What was it Bobby always said? It’s better to beg forgiveness on your knees than ask permission on your feet---because the answer could be ‘no’ and hunters didn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer.
Well, Dean Winchester agreed. Why seek permission when you were just going to do what you were going to do?
That was just begging trouble and Dean had all the trouble he could handle.
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Chapter 16: Chapter 16
Over the next few weeks they settled into a routine, or rather Dean and Spice did. Sam still came and went at all hours of the day and night, apparently having no routine at all, or at least not one Dean could nail down.
It was scary for Dean, not knowing anything. It was like his early childhood all over again. As a kid Dean had been forced to stay behind and wonder about his dad more times than he’d been allowed to go. As he got older it had gotten better because he was permitted to tag along, to see first hand what was really going on. It had been an eye opening experience, nearly as frightening as not knowing anything at all but in a lot of ways he’d preferred it.
For one, Dean didn’t have to feel as helpless and useless as he did right now.
Those were the feelings that made it hard for Dean to let Sam walk out the door everyday. That and knowing that strangers were the ones watching Sam’s back and keeping him safe. Dean didn’t trust people he didn’t know, not with Sam.
And just having found him again…well, the worry was nearly enough to break the older Winchester in two.
In the weeks that followed Dean’s conditional release from his comfortable cage he and Spice would get up, have breakfast, meet Shadow at the door and then go down to the garage where he’d spend several daytime hours working on the Impala.
Spice would sit on a nearby tool bench and drink Pepsi and fiddle with the CD player while Dean worked. The boy loved to yammer on about music and television and for the most part it kept the conversation going. He’d say something, Shadow would comment and Dean would come back with some smart remark or say something flippant in regards to Shadow’s opinion.
Dean kept half expecting the dude to drag him out from under the car and pound him but Shadow didn’t. In fact he either let the remarks slide or came back with something equally snotty in that ‘I’m just playing’ sort of way.
Eventually the guy graduated from hovering bodyguard to official tool retriever once Dean realized he, unlike Spice actually knew the difference between a ratchet and wrench. Dean wasn’t above putting Shadow to work, if he was gonna be there, he might as well be useful.
Sometimes John Slade would stop by, offer helpful advice about motors or bring him gifts in the form of engine parts and Jegg’s supplies, stuff he said would make Dean’s baby more street creditable.
Not that Dean cared about that but it killed time, and Dean had a hellva a lot of time to kill these days.
At first, he’d just fixed the window but then as Slade had started delivering supplies Dean decided to give the Impala a brand new paint job, and an engine overhaul. It kept him from thinking too hard about Sam, and Slade seemed to know that.
The fact that the guy was being thoughtful like that, only about half pissed Dean off. He really wished they just be evil, in the old fashion sense of the word---all this watered down, sugarcoated nonsense was unnerving.
For the most part Slade had good taste and Dean used just about everything he brought but he didn’t tell the guy that. In fact he argued with him about the quality of this item or that and later the guy would appear, Dean’s aforementioned item in hand. Sometimes the item would just be there on the workbench when Dean came down in the morning.
Dean didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t wanta like the guy, wasn’t even sure he did in the sobering light of day but the fact was he was getting used to him.
He was still regularly snotty though, even going so far as to start asking blatantly rude questions just to see how much information he could get. A few days after Slade’s visits started to become regular events Dean asked one such question. He did it casually while popping open a can of beer and thumbing through a Mitchell book.
“If you guys are so close, why’d Sam whack that guy up in the apartment?”
“He was a newbie, he hadn’t taken the oath yet.”
“What oath would that be?”
“The one that binds us together as brothers. Not everyone here is a member of the Brotherhood.”
Dean snickered, “That name makes you guys sound like monks or bikers depending on the tone you use.”
Slade had smiled about that, popped open his own beer and went on as if Dean hadn’t just tried to insult him. They guy was slick that way, everything rolled off that thickened skin of his.
For the most part the place was deserted between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.,
Amazingly enough those were the hours Dean always managed to be allowed to wander about the main house, with Shadow and Spice. Along toward seven o’clock one or the other of them would throw out some suggestion about going upstairs for dinner or Spice would complain about being tired.
They all knew what it was really about---and that was keeping Dean outa sight when things got busy.
He’d met a few new people; Angel the boss-lady from the kitchen had walked right up and introduced herself one morning when she’d spotted Dean passing through the sitting area.
He hadn’t been expecting it and she’d been so damned nice that he’d simply followed her lead. It might have been the ‘Mornin’, Sweetie’ that throw him for a loop or the ‘You must be Sam’s brother, boy ain’t you a doll?’ but either way everything from there had followed a pretty reasonable note.
Dean kept his evil comments to himself and she took that as an open invitation to talk to him.
She was a naturally friendly southern girl with only a mild accent. Dean had to strain to hear it but when she got angry or tickled it slipped out, like she was resorting to old habits that just wouldn’t die.
Every morning she said hello, inquired about Sam and picked his brain about what he liked to eat. Each evening the meals got better as if she’d had them cooked especially for him.
Everyone else simply nodded in passing or ignored him completely. They were mostly household staff according to Spice, people with lesser abilities that weren’t useful in the field.
Most of the time, Dean didn’t see any of the people Spice deemed important, though he saw evidence that others had been in the garage “tinkering” with this vehicle or that. A car would be there that hadn’t been before, tools would be moved and once he’d even found a set of green fuzzy dice dangling from his review mirror---a bad joke, or bad taste he wasn’t sure but he informed Shadow to tell the “jerk off” who’d been messing with his baby to keep his “dirty hands” off her.
It never happened again.
From the balcony Dean could tell the place came to life at night, he could stand up there and watch the cars line the road leading up to the main house. On the weekend cars, trucks and bikes filled up the field adjacent to the garage. Tables would be dragged out and grills set up. On those days Angel was always in a hurry, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She’d wave at Dean, promise him BBQ for dinner and then hurry off.
True to her word, by the time the bonfires started to go up the food would be delivered, usually by some squeaky clean looking girl who’d a passed for a collage student on her way to a frat party.
Dean would leave it sit and wait on Sam. He always appeared in the yard as if by magic, Dean never saw where he’d come from.
He seemed popular; girls would hang off of his arm, laugh and flirt and he would let them. That didn’t bother Dean, but the fact that Sam had never been the type to indulge in that kind of thing…that rattled him. His brother had changed a lot in three years.
By the month’s end he was starting to formulate an opinion on this place, one that didn’t really mesh with the way he’d seen the world of evil up until that point.
These guys were essentially human, or human-like…they had human drives, desires, wants, needs and they all liked to party.
Probably a little too much.
Three weekends of observation had proved that. Their parties were loud, obnoxious throw downs. Food and drink flowed. People got in fights, people fucked in cars (Dean had an excellent view) hell, people even fucked in public, sometimes with an audience. It was every red blooded American man’s idea of heaven---well if you weren’t a T-bone in a lion’s den.
Moral knew he was up there on the balcony looming over them, adding up the pieces to the puzzle and he didn’t like it. The guy eyed him openly from the ground, willing all his hatred into that gaze.
He was one of the few who didn’t like to party. He just wandered about, drinking and shooting Dean evil looks from the ground. Eventually he’d disappear, usually with a guy. His intent was obvious. Moral was a lover of men.
The rest of them seemed to swing widely, most being equally inclined to both sexes. The few that had a preference seemed to be the minority in this bunch.
So that’s how Dean came to be standing on the balcony at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday morning 26 days into his captivity watching Sam exchange some sort of pleasantry with yet another nameless guy Dean didn’t know.
They looked friendly, not intimate---like they were best buds or something. Strangely enough that peaked Dean’s jealousy more these days than if Sam would have just groped the bastard right there in public. Sex could be for fun, but kindness, that spoke of friendship and the more Dean watched Sam with these people the more he feared not being able to win him back.
He heard the front door open, and waited for the sound of the liqueur cabinet opening before he turned to look at Slade. “What, don’t feel like partying tonight?”
“I thought I’d come keep you company.”
“He’s late.” Dean’s tone was flat and it was obvious he was angry.
“He has business.” Slade appeared by Dean’s side handing him a drink, rum and coke made just the way he liked it. “You could come down, get to know a few people.”
“I know more of you guys than I want to now.” Dean’s cross tone made Slade pause, then he smiled.
“And to think you were just dying to get outa here a few weeks ago.” He was teasing, trying to lure Dean into one of their little word games but despite the fact he was angry Dean had no desire to fight with Slade. It was Sam he felt like strangling out of sheer frustration.
“None of this helps me, I can’t seem to get through to Sam. He refused to listen to me.”
“Yes, he’s mentioned your persistence.”
“Has he?” Dean snorted, truly annoyed.
“Have you tried listening to him?”
“About what? All he ever says is that he wants me here, that he needs me.”
“And do you listen when he says that?”
“John, I know your being all helpful and shit--- but seriously---I don’t need advice from you. You want me to go all dark side.”
“Honestly, I could care less.” The guy’s tone was so casual that Dean turned to look at him. “All I want is for Sam to be happy, that’s it.”
“Then help me here, give me something to get him outa here.”
“And like a human you assume that getting your immediate desire will be the thing that leads you to happiness.” Slade was using his ‘I’m way older than you’ voice and Dean couldn’t help but glare. “Were you happy before, wandering the countryside, killing the monsters, fucking the girls---your family dying off one by one?”
“That was you guys!”
“Correction, that was some other evil---*we* had no part in that.”
“So you say.” Dean paused turning back to look for Sam among the crowd, not surprised when he couldn’t find him. “The demon took Sam, you guys ended up with him. Seems to make you pretty involved to me.”
Slade paused, eyeing Dean clinically. “We bought Sam. That would be the connection, in our world we barter with each other for things we need, Sam was an asset---so we bought him. Paid a heavy price.”
“You what?” Dean couldn’t help the total shock that spilled out with his words. “You bought Sam? I can’t even wrap my mind around what you mean by that, dude?”
“You keep lumping us together, as if we are all one and the same---as if we all work for the same devil. As if we all have the same goal. It’s not true. We’re actually made up of---tribes, totally unrelated outside commerce.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to make sense to me. The idea’s ridiculous.”
“But true.”
Dean looked out, toward the trees and the rolling landscape where he could see the moonlight bouncing off some body of water hidden behind the trees. He hadn’t been over that way before but he knew by the glint that it was definitely water, nothing man-made glistened like that. It was probably a lake or something since he didn’t smell the crisp clean sent of salt on the air.
“What happened to Jordan Hall?” It was a question that had begun to weigh heavily on his mind over the past few weeks. He knew the guy was dead, what he didn’t know was why.
And that was important considering the fact that Sam had stepped into his shoes.
“Jordan broke one of our cardinal rules.” John paused and for the first time Dean could sense a deep rooted pain in the other man. He tried to ignore it; he didn’t need to sympathize with these people. “There are some rules that just can’t be broken---Jordan knew that, he did it anyway. The darkness issued a bounty----the demon, the one who killed your family, he collected it.”
“And you stood by, did nothing! I though you guys were brothers?”
“We didn’t know the extent of it.” It was John’s turn to look away. “We had no idea what he was really doing, or that it would cost him his life.” For a few moments the other man was silent, just starring out at the night. Then finally, he spoke his voice level, neutral---a lie, but necessary sometimes. Dean knew what that was like.
“Jordan was dead, Spice a bloody mess---and Sam, Sam was here.”
Dean didn’t say anything; he could tell that the thoughtful pauses were just Slade’s way of gathering the facts together before he presented them.
“Normally we would have refused the demon’s offer but Daniel took one look at Sam with Spice and----“ This time the pause meant something truly significant, some memory surfaced, but he wasn’t going to share the details. “Well, we took him in. It was obvious that he was one of ours, not so far gone that he couldn’t pull back. Still---- human, in a sense.”
“If Jordan broke the rule, why was Spice hurt?”
“I don’t know, the Demon’s blood-bounty also held his name. I’m not sure why, maybe because Jordan brought Spice in. Or maybe because the boy foolishly helped him---I never asked. But Sam gave him his life, spared one of our own and for that we took him in.”
“Bought him, you mean!” Dean sounded bitter.
“With the book of Danni----so that we could make him our own. If we hadn’t your brother could have been anyone’s meat.” Something about the way Slade said those words reminded Dean of the fact the guy was older than him, not in looks but in years. He’d never asked just how old but some days it peeked through in something he said or the way that he spoke.
“I guess I’m supposed to be grateful?”
“No, grateful is what you are when god gives you a gift. All I ask is that you curb your hatred until you understand what it is you’re hating. Then, if you still feel the need to lance us with your tongue I’ll not scold you for it.”
“In modern day English, shut up and behave.”
Slade laughed then, “Something like that, perhaps.”
The door opened again and this time Dean turned instantly, knowing it was Sam. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, I had business.”
“The blond or the brunette?” Sam shook his head, his eyes semi-apologetic.
“Neither, if I’d have indulged it would have been with you at my side.”
“Don’t talk like that, you sound like Vinny, here.” It was a soft tease to lighten the mood---to cover the fact that he was relieved that Sam hadn’t fallen into some mystery woman’s bed.
“I spend too much time around these old guys.” Sam looked at Slade when he said it; pushing past him and behind Dean so he could wrap his arms around Dean’s neck from behind, lean on him as he chatted with Slade. “You weren’t making the moves on my brother, were you?”
“Of course not, he’s much too good for an old healer like me. Emphasis on the word ‘good’ eh?” Sam laughed and Dean elbowed him in the stomach for the betrayal.
“You’re a healer?”
“So they say…my gift and my curse.”
“He’s very good.”
“He flatters me because he knows one day he might actually need my services.” Sam shared a laugh with Slade. Dean didn’t think it was very funny. Of course nothing about Sam needing healing seemed funny to Dean. “I’m going to take my leave, Daniel arrives late tomorrow evening and I want to be well rested. Good night. And Dean….darkness, all in the eye of the beholder.”
“One man’s heaven is another man’s hell?”
“Exactly.” Slade laughed, winked at him and made his way out the door presumably to his rooms.
“I don’t know if I like you spending so much time with him.” There was an element in Sam’s voice, not so much jealousy as the embers left in the hearth---something capable of renewing an old flame.
“You got nothing to worry about, trust me.”
“Good.”
“So tell me, why aren’t you jealous of Spice?”
“I’m not jealous of anybody.” Sam’s eyes said something different but Dean didn’t push it.
So far Dean had been dragged into one crazy night right after another. Sometimes Spice was there, and sometimes he wasn’t but things had definitely gotten cozier between the three of them.
From the first morning after they’d shared a bed Spice had simply been closer to Dean. It wasn’t any one big thing but a whole lot of little insignificant things. The way he latched onto an arm every now and then when he was trying to convince him to leave one place and go to another, they way he hugged Dean outa the blue when he said something witty---the way he leaned into Dean’s side when they were watching a really gory horror movie.
All of this was cool---once Dean started lumping Spice into the ‘needs to be protected from the big bad’ category rather than the ‘evil little houseboy’ category.
Sam didn’t seem to mind, in fact he encouraged it and the more Dean accepted Spice as a human being the more attention Sam seemed to give him. It wasn’t as if Dean was the reason for it, more like---Sam had been careful before, leery of showing Dean how things really were between them until he was sure he could stomach it.
The problem was Dean wasn’t entirely sure he knew how things were. When Sam came in pissed, Spice walked on eggshells. When Sam went all dark and brooding Spice hid in his room until it passed, sometimes for days. Spice seemed to scent that mood on the air, reacting to it far quicker than Dean ever could.
For the most part Sam seemed happy, a little moody---a lot unpredictable and a sudden movement from his baby brother when they were in bed, doing what Dean refused to put a name too could put Dean’s heart in his throat.
There was just something primal about it.
He moved like a predator, and on occasion Dean had found himself pinned against a wall, Sam’s teeth grazing the pulse in his throat. He wasn’t afraid of his brother on a conscious level, but something in him instinctually realized that Sam was now a true hunter, and that human beings were his prey.
It was enough to make one seem small. But strangely enough, the edge of fear added something to the experience, something Dean Winchester would have never figured he’d be into.
He wouldn’t say it. Hell, he wouldn’t even think it, but feel it--- that was a secret sin---a pleasure he’d take with him to the grave.
“Whatcha thinking, big brother?”
“That you’re wearing too many clothes…”
“Funny, I was thinking the same exact thing.” The smug tone of Sam’s voice was becoming a common occurrence and for once Dean welcomed the sound of it.
He might not have a fucking clue how to get Sam outa there (but he was working on it). What he did know was how to get Sam off. And that made them both feel a hellva lot better most nights.
Dean wondered briefly if that fact should bother him more than it did but then Sam had him up against the living room wall, his jeans down around his ankles while Sam’s mouth swallowed him straight down to the root.
After that all reasonable thought had vanished.
There were only the hands on his hips, hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises, the feel of Sam’s silken hair as he ran his fingers through the long locks and begged wordlessly for more than simple completion.
Then there was the crushing sensation of stars slamming against the inside of his skull as he exploded into his little brother’s mouth for the first time.
It wasn’t what he’d asked for exactly---it was better---soul shattering.
When he came back to himself he was kneeling on the floor, his mouth on Sam’s---he could taste himself there, and for a while that would make everything all right again.
He had Sam, and in the end that knowledge overshadowed everything else.
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Chapter 17: Chapter 17
Author's Notes: A HUGE thanks goes out to supernaturalgrl who beta’d this for me when I was in a pinch, she’s a lovely person and I deeply appreciate her doing this for me. You ROCK girl!
They had argued that morning. It hadn’t been about anything in particular, Dean had just felt like quarrelling and so he had picked a fight. The first issue that bubbled up was the same issue that always surfaced when Dean was looking for a fight with the ‘new Sam’. It didn’t matter that it was old and dry and had been talked over fifty times during his stay.
Dean was in a mood---the kind that made you run your mouth and say stupid things just so you could get a rise outta someone. It didn’t matter whether the outcome was good or bad, so long as there was an outcome.
Dean was tired of Sam calling the shots, of him turning a deaf ear to his pleas. All he wanted Sam to do was listen and his baby brother had out and out refused---yet again.
“Sam, damn you--- just tell me why you won’t even fight this?”
“There’s nothing to fight, Dean this is my home. I’d no sooner put a knife in John’s back than I would put one in yours!”
“You’re a hunter Sam, a Winchester----you can’t keep doing this.”
“I can and I will!”
“Just leave with me. We’ll pack Spice up and go---find some cabin in the back sticks of Montana---c’mon Sam. Don’t go out that door again.”
“Dean, I don’t know what you think I’m doing when I leave here but it’s not what you think.”
“You didn’t kill Mason Strider, Alex Jacobs---David?”
Sam stared at Dean for a minute before he said anything, his eyes suddenly sharp and threatening. “Yes, every one of them.”
“They were hunters Sam.”
“They were killers, assassins by trade.”
“Then, so am I.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as his fist clenched into a tight ball.
“You gonna hit me, Sam?”
“I’m thinking about it.” He said it through gritted teeth, like he was trying to control his anger with reason when all he really wanted to do was pound Dean into a bloody mess. “Stay put today, I don’t want you getting in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“You know Damn well what Dean!”
“Daniel Lee.” The name was a sneer on Dean’s lips and Sam actually took a fraction of a step forward.
So did Spice, he stepped right up to the elder Winchester and wrapped both of his arms around one of Dean’s. “Sam.” Spice’s tone was shaky and his grip trembling. “Please?” Sam’s eyes shifted from Dean to Spice and then back again. Something about the boy seemed to calm Sam down.
If the kid had pulled some kind of supernatural Mojo on Sam, Dean couldn’t sense it but he suspected that seeing the boy as white as a sheet and trembling had helped Sam’s mood considerably.
Apparently Sam didn’t like frightening the kid---or rather felt guilty for doing it.
Dean was suddenly sure that’s what it was as he watched the guilt chase away a fair amount of the anger. “Just stay put.”
And that’s how they’d left it. Sam had stormed out the door and left Dean standing there mad enough to chew nails.
It wasn’t sensible and it sure as hell wasn’t logical---it was just emotional. Frustration and pent up energy at it’s most devastating. Neither of them was making any headway with the other and the tension was starting to mount. It was only a matter of time before there was an explosion.
Dean couldn’t remember the exact reason why he’d felt the need to start something with his younger brother. Maybe it was the way Sam had looked at him that morning, the way he’d instructed him to ‘hang around the penthouse’ in that authoritative tone---as if!
Dean wasn’t a child, and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna let Sam treat him like he was one. He was the oldest damnit, and he didn’t give a damn if Daniel Lee was on the plantation!
Dean had handled vampires before. Sure he hadn’t been required to play nice but still, he knew what the hell he was doing and it wasn’t Sam’s place to instruct him to stay outta the way of the ‘big boys’.
A couple cups of coffee, and a fifteen-minute wait assured Dean that Sam was off doing whatever it was Sam did. He grabbed his shoes (spent another ten minutes calming Spice’s nerves) and then headed out the door.
The kid followed, but continued to plead with Dean in hushed tones all the way down the stairs. That had gotten them a few looks but Dean didn’t stop and Spice kept up his protests until they reached the bottom of the stairs where Dean finally came to a halt.
“Dean, the garage?” Shadow asked, his tone sounding hopeful as the elder Winchester studied the laughter coming from the library.
“Not today.” Of course Shadow had already picked up on the fact that they weren’t going to go and play mechanic. Spice’s desperate words and hushed tones had effectively alerted him to that.
The voice that floated down the large hallway was silky, and sensual--- slightly accented but nothing extreme. Dean couldn’t make out the origin but he knew it was foreign. Something European maybe? Or perhaps it was more than that---older than that?
“So that’s Daniel?” Somehow he just knew, maybe it was because there was something of John Slade in that melodic voice, some quality that connected them in the way that only genetics (blood) can connect brothers.
There was a long pause, and Dean could hear the big guy draw in a careful breath before he answered. “Yes, but I really think you should wait for Sam to make the introductions.”
“Do ya now?” Dean stepped off the bottom step and started down the long hallway. He was well aware of the low growl of frustration from Shadow and he imagined that Spice was probably shaking in his boots but what he didn’t hear was the fall of boot steps behind him.
Odd. Normally Shadow was right on his trail but apparently even he wouldn’t cross Daniel Lee’s threshold.
“Dean.” This Shadow whispered loudly---from his position at the foot of the stairs.
“What?” Dean said stopping midway and looking back.
“Don’t do this to me.” Shadow looked serious.
“I’m just gonna say ‘hi’ that’s all.”
“Damnit Dean!” There was a long pause and Shadow looked around as if to make sure no one was near enough to hear him. “If you get yourself killed I’ll be joining you in the fucking grave because Sam’ll kill me.”
“Relax, gawddd, you’re being such a girl.” About that time a couple of guys Dean didn’t know exited the library, he moved aside to let them by. The first was pretty average looking and walked around Dean without so much as a sideways glance but the second guy, now that was another story.
He definitely took notice, his pace slowing immediately and those clear blue eyes focusing on Dean’s face.
The man looked utterly outta place among the new age gothic types that haunted the plantation. It was the worn jeans, cowboy boots and hat that made him stick out like a sore thumb. The only thing that kept him from looking like a blue grass singer from the hills of Kentucky was the long slightly curly hair and gaggle of bracelets dangling from his wrist.
Dean noticed that his sky kissed blue eyes were full of playfulness as he squeezed by. He was a looker but his grin was a little too wide and a lot too cocky as he made the maneuver into a tight fit. “Mr. Winchester.”
Damned if it wasn’t the hillbilly he’d talked with on Sam’s phone during his first days here. “And you are?”
“Christian.” He stopped just on the opposite side of Dean and extended his hand as he titled his hat. “ We haven’t had the pleasure---at least not face to face.” The southern boy drawl was thick but no so much it sounded corny.
Dean looked down at the extended hand, glare firmly set as he raised his eyes back up to meet Christian’s
“Alrighty then,” the other man’s words were slightly reluctant as he hitched the thumb of his offered hand back into his front pocket. “ I see a month ain’t softened ya up any.”
“Nope.” Dean had no intention of making this easy on the guy. It wasn’t personal, it was principal.
“ Well you're headed the wrong way, I imagine the only thing you’ll find at the end of this hall is trouble.”
“Thanks for the advice Cowboy, but I go it covered.”
“Suit yourself.” With that Christian turned and walked the rest of the way down the hall laughing and shaking his head.
“Boy, I’d be putting in for a transfer real soon. That one ain’t nothin but trouble.” Shadow probably agreed and so did Dean but he didn’t hang around to comment he just picked his feet up and walked right through the double doors that lead into the library. The last thing he heard from Shadow was an exasperated growl and the stomp of his boot heel on the carpeted floor.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to see but what he found was a young handsome fellow barely outta his teens with hair so black it was streaked with blue highlights sitting behind a desk intently flipping through some dusty old novel.
His face was smooth, and easily defined. He was the kind of guy you couldn’t forget, oh you might not remember his name given twenty years or so but the face would stay with you till your dying day. It was mainly because he was both pretty (in the modern sense) and handsome in the masculine sense of the word, like a fashion model or a movie star in the high dollar district of Hollywood.
Daniel didn’t look up, or even seem to notice Dean as he started to make his way around the room fingering this book or that and intentionally making noise. For a few minutes Dean just walked around pulling down this book or that and casting appraising looks toward the other fellow.
He had kinda hoped the guy would say something to him, start things off but alas all he seemed interested in were his books.
What did you say to a two thousand year old vampire? Dean wasn’t sure but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t give it a go.
“So, I hear you were around for the crucifixion of Christ?” It was just something to say, and Dean knew something said that flippantly could have gotten him killed but being Dean he’d gone right ahead and said it anyway.
Daniel didn’t answer right away, in fact he simply kept reading until he’d reached the end of the page and then he finally spoke.
“Yes, a very sad day in human history.” The man never looked up from his book. He simply turned the page as if he’d answered some child’s useless question and now half expected the brat to scamper away satisfied that he’d been acknowledged at all.
“I thought it was supposed to be one of the greatest?”
There was another long pause and then a very simple response. .“ It was noble, but sad nevertheless.”
“For you guys maybe!”
“And why is that?”
“Uh, well---you know he took one for the good guys. Put us back on the path---I guess.”
Daniel looked up from his book, truly taking in Dean and everything about him for the first time. He cocked an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twisted into an amused smile.
The guy had a pretty mouth---it was made for kissing---and he had a killer smile. It was similar to Sam’s semi-lazy grin, but yet it wasn’t. Something about it was truly unsettling.
“I’ve never heard anyone put it quite that way before. How very eloquent of you.” Looking into those dark eyes, Dean couldn’t help but feel like a threat had just been uttered. Dean didn’t think it was intentional, nor did he feel physically threatened, it was more like he felt cornered once Daniel had turned that intense gaze on him.
Daniel had dark eyes, sensual and dangerous in a way that few people could boast. They were so dark that they looked nearly black but yet it wasn’t that Hershey chocolate brown that most people sported. No, his eyes were different…unique in a way that Dean couldn’t quite fathom at first.
Then he started to understand what he was seeing, little by little as he took in the view. The first thing he noticed was the way the pupil melted into the iris giving the illusion of pure darkness without the emptiness that Meg’s eyes had reflected.
The eyes weren’t demonic but they weren’t human either.
Dean had caught a glimmer of blue reflected in the depths of those onyx kissed eyes as Daniel had slid his gaze up to meet Dean’s. They weren’t really black on black like they seemed at first glance, but more a really dark midnight blue that could pass for black in the right light. The retina took in the differences but the brain got hung up on the details.
“Simple, clear cut. So yeah, sad for you guys---not us.”
“I find it sad that he had to make such a sacrifice for humankind, I don’t find it sad that he did it. For that I applaud him.” Something in those dark eyes made Dean swallow hard. He hadn’t been studied so harshly since one of his English teachers had caught him casting a binding circle on the gymnasium floor back in high school.
Sure it’d been seven o’clock at night and their was a truck load of occult items littering the floor---but that didn’t mean Dean was up to something sinister. He was one of the good guys damnit and no he hadn’t sacrificed anybody’s cat---gawdddd!
Why Daniel’s stare made him remember that Dean did not know.
Daniel had seemed young in the contemporary sense until he focused those dark, almost black eyes on Dean and then, like an explosion of insight he seemed ancient beyond words. He had the face of a young man in his late teens but the eyes---the eyes were truly the windows to the soul and Daniel’s soul wasn’t new. It wasn’t even recent and for some reason that bothered Dean a little.
Just looking into that surreal gaze Dean could imagine that Daniel had watched civilizations fall. It was odd to look at someone so young and yet know without a doubt that he was older than half the historical objects on the planet.
“So, you don’t think we were worth it?” That was the impression Daniel’s words had left on Dean.
“No, ” the word was short, clipped and devastatingly blunt. “Look what you’ve done with your salvation.” There was something in Daniel’s voice, some secret Dean wasn’t privy to and that awareness made the elder Winchester nervous.
The guy was eyeing him closely, putting all his concentration into that gaze. And what a gaze it was. It had the power to make you forget you knew how to formulate a thought.
For a moment Dean just stood there trying to remember what he was thinking and then the man’s words kicked in and Dean was back to using his wit as a weapon. “What, you don’t factor yourself into that equation?” Dean wasn’t being smart, or disrespectful he was just being Dean.
“I was never human, so he didn’t die for me.” Daniel suddenly looked beyond amused but with what Dean had no clue.
“But I thought everyone here had been human---you know at one time or another?”
Daniel seemed to sum Dean up in one long look and then he answered him, his tone nearly sweet---almost purring. “I was born Vampire.” He tilted his head just a fraction of an inch and the movement sent some of his long dark hair falling forward over his shoulder.
“How?” The man smiled at Dean as he ran his hand lazily over the page of the book he was holding drawing Dean’s attention to the collection of silver rings that graced his fingers. Flashy but somehow not overstated at all---not on this guy. In fact for a moment, Dean could almost imagine this fellow in the finery of some ancient king.
He just didn’t fit in the time he was living in. Even his bone structure seemed wrong; it spoke of things older and more elegant than the humans of today---it whispered of things long since dead in the modern world---of things humankind had forgotten or just didn’t want to remember anymore.
“ I thought vampirism was like a demonic infection? Was your mother---?”
“She was also born Vampire. My race is of the original breed. We were born when demons roamed the earth in their truest form, when man was still yet one of God’s daydreams.” He said this as though it meant nothing and that casualness was the reason his statement held weight and didn’t sound like some blather spoken by a wannabe vampire groupie. “ We are what we are, like you are what you are.” And the last, well that just made it seem like Dean was a foolish child who had to ask his daddy why the grass was green and the sky was blue.
“So bloodsucker’s are just born evil then?” Partly Dean said it because he wanted to know and partly because he just felt the need to be a prick. He hated this feeling rolling around in his gut, and he needed to pull things back into perspective. “So Slade’s a vamp to? I never woulda guessed.”
For a second Dean wondered if he’d overstepped Daniel’s hospitality (and his patience), his eyes darkened just a fraction and his focus hardened enough to send chills down Dean’s spine. It was a physical reaction to a psychological threat.
“I’m trying hard to remember that you are Sam’s brother and therefore important to him. And since he is important to me, and I wouldn’t hurt him for the world”
For a moment the air in the room seemed to thin, and the heat of Daniel’s stare actually bored straight into the center of Dean’s chest leaving him feeling---trapped---as if the man had physically wrapped his hand around his heart and was squeezing from the inside! But as quickly as the pressure came it faded and Dean was left to wonder how he’d managed to pull that little trick. Was it like Sam’s telekinesis or was it something different?
“I’ll let your inadvertent insolence slide---this time.”
“I appreciate that.” And strangely enough Dean did. Maybe it was the fact that Daniel had literally taken his heart in his hand from ten feet away or maybe it was the fact that Daniel screamed dangerous in ways even a hungry lion couldn’t have managed.
With Sam, Dean had a certain luxury---Sam wouldn’t eat him, Daniel on the other hand might. It was an unsettling feeling to suddenly find one’s self on the bottom of the food chain.
“The ones you hunters have murdered to the point of extinction---those are infections. They can inflict their state of being upon a human. I could no sooner make you a vampire than I could give you wings.”
“Really?” Dean swallowed hard and watched as Daniel nodded slowly. “So why aren’t there more of your kind in the world?”
“We are few and far between.” This Daniel spoke as though it were a sad fact, one that pained him on some private level. “There are only a couple of hand fulls of Purborn left in this world. John, myself and my sister Mellisa represent nearly one third of those."
“So you’re on the verge of extinction, same the other ones.”
“We have always been on the verge, unlike our distant cousins.”
“So there is a relationship between you and the razor mouths, then.” Dean felt the grin spread across his face as he made his point but he was careful not to be too enthusiastic. It was one thing to goad a kitten with a ball of yarn, it was another to poke a stick at a fully grown lion.
“One of my ancestors life’s blood was used by a demon to create them.” Daniel didn’t seem pleased about this fact.
“So would that make them weaker or stronger than you?”
Daniel smiled then, a full breathtaking smile. “Forever the little hunter, aren’t we.” He looked back down toward his book. For a moment Dean thought he’d called their conversation closed but he didn’t begin to read, he only stared at the pages while he thought. “Weaker, they are, after all, merely a reflection of the original.”
“Ah, I see we’re not short on pride.” Dean wasn’t sure he should be playing with something that could easily rip his head off but he was. And that perhaps spoke volumes about how desperate he was for information to save Sam.
“And humans are not short on sin, so all things considered I believe we are equal.”
“I doubt that, you at least are free to come and go as you please, me on the other hand---seems I’m Sam’s lap dog.” This actually inspired Daniel to laughter and for the first time since Dean had met the guy he seemed somewhat charmed by Dean’s sense of humor.
“Why don’t you come out with us tonight, for a meal, a few drinks---pleasure, not business.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll run?”
“And leave Sam behind---? Doubtful. Besides you’re interested now. There is a mystery to be solved, and like any great hunter you have to solve it. It’s not often a rabbit stumbles into a lions den and is invited to bed down with them.” Daniel set his book off to the side and stood.
It was a very practiced move, smooth and flawless. Something a prince or a politician might do.
“I don’t know if I’d compare myself to a rabbit---I mean rabbits are cuddly and no match for a lion. Me, I can kick ass when I need to.”
For whatever reason, Dean had assumed Daniel was taller than he was when he’d been sitting down. Maybe it had been the guy’s sheer presence that had made him seem more than he was, but as he approached the door where Dean was standing he quickly realized they were about the same height.
The guy stopped a couple of feet away from Dean, folded his hands behind his back and smiled. “So what’s the distance?”
The words were dripping with heat, and Dean couldn’t help associating them with something sexual.
“Excuse me?”
Daniel laughed then, that same rich sultry laugh that had lead Dean into the library to begin with.
“The three foot rule---you don’t want to inflict it upon me?”
How the guy knew about that was a mystery, Spice had spent damn near every waking moment with Dean for the last week and he certainly hadn’t had the time to gossip about something as----oh wait, the mind reading thing?
“Now he’s catching on.” The grin was positively wicked now. “ But it wasn’t your mind I was intruding upon when I gathered that grain of information, it was Spice’s.”
“So---? Three feet then?” Dean sounded hopeful as he watched the guy stalk him.
Daniel stepped forward and Dean’s back immediately hit the wall. It wasn’t that the Vampire had touched him, or even pulled a Sam---it was just that Dean knew danger and danger was staring him right straight in the eye.
“I have no intention of hurting you, Dean Winchester. “
“Nice to know.” He heard himself swallow and watched as Daniel’s eyes followed the movement his throat made. “Don’t you think you should at least buy me dinner first?” It was a nervous jab, but one that seemed to quill some of the heat Daniel had focused on him. “Be all gentlemen like.”
“So you’re accepting my invitation, then?”
“Why not, it’s not like I got anything better to do.”
From the doorway Dean heard Sam Clear his throat. “The shipment is here.”
“And your brother is here .” Dean definitely got that, couldn’t have been any clearer if he’d screamed it.
Keep your pet on a shorter leash
“And I thought we were having fun?”
“ If I were having fun with you Dean Winchester, you wouldn’t be wearing near so many clothes.” The lightness in his statement made the weight of it perfectly clear to Dean.
“Daniel, I’m sure he didn’t mean to intrude.” Sam’s voice was soft and courteous for the first time. More respectful than anything Dean could have imagined coming from this new Sam, which meant Daniel was either a very good friend or a very dangerous man.
“Oh he meant to intrude, just like he meant to be offensive.” Dean could practically hear Sam stop breathing---so it was dangerous then? “But I like him.” Daniel stepped back then, turned half toward Sam and smiled that killer smile of his. “Despite his pesky humanity.”
Sam, nodded but didn’t move any further into the room.
“I’ve invited your brother to dinner at Le Bernardin, I trust you bought him a suit?”
“I have to wear a suit?” The whiney tone of Dean’s voice made Sam fidget, but Daniel only smiled.
“Your brother is charming and so long as he keeps the bloodsucker comments to himself, I shall not feel inclined to slit his pretty throat.” The line was delivered perfectly, it held a chivalrous air and seemed genuinely friendly despite the odd phase he’d slapped on the end, but Sam didn’t seem comforted.
“I’ll see to it he behaves himself.”
Daniel walked to the desk, scooped up his book and then turned to Dean and gave a half bow, half nod. And for the first time the other man honestly looked completely out of his century.
It wasn’t that it was done poorly or even flamboyantly---- it was simply done too well. So well in fact that it looked normal. At least when Daniel Lee did it.
Daniel walked toward the door and Sam, stopping just in front of Dean’s baby brother. The two of them shared a moment and Dean was forced to watch as Sam stepped aside, his hand momentarily brushing Daniel’s shoulder in a silent ‘thank you’. The other man raised his hand, the one not gripping a leather-bound book and squeezed Sam’s fingers together. It was an action torn out of the pages of intimacy and that bothered Dean---immensely.
“ For you I’d put up with the very devil himself.”
“And that means a lot to me.” Sam meant it, he wasn’t just playing at words he really meant it and that made Dean jealous.
Daniel looked away from them both out into the hall, raised his voice a bit and said, “I’ll leave you in your brother’s company, Mr. Winchester---may God have mercy on your soul.”
Daniel didn’t make it clear to which of the Winchester’s he spoke and Dean got the distinct impression it was an either/or type of comment.
If it was a joke Dean didn’t get it.
“I thought you were going to stay put?” Sam ventured his question carefully after Daniel was completely out of ear shot.
“What, I can’t go exploring?” Dean was pissed and it showed.
“Of course you can, just not today---Daniel’s not someone you want to bother.”
“I’m not a child Sam, I don’t bother people.”
“I wasn’t implying that---exactly.”
“He seemed to like me.” Dean pointed out, pressing his lips together thoughtfully.
“And that’s what worries me.” Sam turned abruptly and left the room making Dean have to hustle after him.
“Why does that worry you?” Dean asked after catching up to Sam. A quick scan of the room they were passing through confirmed the fact he was being gawked at by the people there but at least they tried to pretend to be ignoring him unlike a few others.
It was really quite busy today; at least a half dozen people Dean had never seen before loomed within earshot of his and Sam’s conversation.
Spice and Shadow were both hovering near the stairs and the kid for one looked distinctly guilty of something. So he’d gone to get Sam. They’d have to talk about that little betrayal in the near future. Or maybe not, he supposed if the tables had been reversed he’d have done the same.
“Daniel isn’t human, Dean. He’s not even close. Getting his attention can be a dangerous thing.”
“I don’t doubt that one damn bit.”
“Then why bother him?”
“To get your attention.”
Sam just looked at him. He got it; he just didn’t know what to say about it.
His baby brother was speechless and Dean was suddenly very satisfied as he turned on his heel and headed for the garage.
Let Sam gnaw on that for a few hours! It’d teach him to act like such an unreasonable bitch.
Back to index
Chapter 18: Chapter 18
Author's Notes: Another gigantic 'thank you' goes out to supernaturalgrl who beta’d this for me, she does lovely work and I deeply appreciate her taking the time to correct all my numerous mistakes. Apparently I’m a creature of habit, because I saw a lot of the same old mistakes reappearing in pink…the up side to that is…nothing looks bad in pink ;) thank you, girl. I can't say that enough.
Sorry for the delay, work is kicking my ass!
Dean had, quite frankly, never been so uncomfortable in his life! Not only was he in a restaurant that probably charged as much as a week's wages for a steak dinner, but he was decked out in a suit that Sam had picked out. It wasn’t that Sam’s tastes were bad---in fact--- maybe they were a little too good.
Samuel Winchester shouldn’t know anything about designer suits and custom fabrics considering the fact that he’d gotten most of his clothes from thrift stores growing up. It was one more thing that reminded Dean of just how much Sam had changed---of the fact that he might not be able to get his brother back.
The suit was a black, sleek well-tailored thing that actually looked damned good despite Dean’s remarks to the contrary. It wasn’t stuffy or conservative, and it had been designed more for casual wear than business wear but Dean still hated it. Not because it was uncomfortable or looked bad but because of what it represented.
He slid a careful look toward Sam, taking in his casual laid-back attitude and the smile dancing on his lips as he saluted Slade with his wine glass and laughed at some joke Dean didn’t even pretend to hear.
His baby brother was happy, but at what cost?
Could Dean do this if he had to? Could he switch sides for Sam?
He tugged at the collar of the suit and loosened his tie. He didn’t like the way it hugged his throat. It made him feel like somebody was a heartbeat away from tightening the noose around his neck. He’d worn suits before, none this expensive, but they’d been suits nevertheless. He’d only worn them for the job and ONLY when he needed to make an impression.
And he wasn’t doing either of those things here and he certainly didn’t give a shit if any of these guys liked him, so why should he be dressed to impress?
Because Daniel said so! the sarcastic little voice that was doing the cha-cha in his head reminded him.
Dean’s fingers curled around the slender stem of the crystal wine glass as he hoisted it awkwardly up to his lips. It wasn’t bad but he couldn’t see paying six hundred dollars for a bottle of wine no matter what country had produced it. Only rich people and morons spent hard earned cash that way.
Dean slid a half annoyed look toward Daniel, who was sitting at his right, smiling at him as though Dean were the most amusing thing in the world.
Was the guy listening to his thoughts? What a complete bastard!
"I knew both my mother and my father quite, well," Daniel laughed a little. "Don’t be so cross, Dean---it spoils the fun things in life."
"Don’t give the boy such a hard time, Daniel." This came from Daniel’s apparent dinner date Ryan. The man was a tall golden haired blond with eyes that had been kissed by the colors of autumn. His hair was pulled back into a neat tail that trailed almost to the waistline of his dark blue jeans. He was attractive, not because he was trying to be, but because he was born that way and utterly oblivious to it.
"I wasn’t giving him a hard time." Daniel’s words were laced with counterfeit innocence but Ryan was apparently onto his game.
He eyed the younger looking man sternly. "Bullshit! You’ve got a mouse and your determined to play with it. I’d tell you to grow up, but I already know it’s useless."
Ryan, unlike the rest of them, had managed to slip through the restaurant doors without a tie. In fact he was dressed quite ordinary in his warm dark brown jacket over what Dean suspected was a simple classic black Hanes t-shirt.
The hostess had smiled broadly at him, spoke to him in French and both he and Daniel had answered her back. They’d all stood there while they’d yakked about only God knew what and then she’d shown them to a private room in the back.
Ryan had been polite and even witty when they’d stopped to get him in front of his home on Brinson Street, a fine neighborhood in the heart of an upscale California neighborhood.
Dean had instantly liked the guy, mainly because the first thing he’d said to Daniel was… " You’ve got to be kidding me, a limo?" and after a quick scan of the interior… "So much for dinner alone---so, are we group dating now---way to keep a man at arms length, Goth boy."
It was a little hard not to like Ryan; he had that kind of charisma. He was rude, but it wasn’t the insulting kind of rude---more like the fun kind. He was undeniably someone Dean could grow to like given a little time.
And apparently Daniel didn’t take his partner’s scathing words to heart---at all---the way he watched the guy, the way he smiled when he said something cutting was testament to that.
"So why is it I’m wearing this suit and your sporting a pair of Levi’s?" Dean couldn’t help turning to Ryan and asking the question he’d been dying to know every since they’d walked through the doors.
Ryan chuckled and leaned over Daniel’s lap as if to share a great secret, and Dean met him half way---which was odd, but for some absurd reason acceptable in Ryan’s company. "Because I own the restaurant."
"And twenty more just like it, now would you mind?" Daniel picked up his glass and waited patiently for them both to lean back before taking a drink from it. " I swear, give him an excuse to act badly and he does."
"Which one of them are you talking about?" Sam asked, laughter coloring his words.
"Mine, of course---I’d never presume anything so bold about yours."
"And look who’s talking, vampire boy!" Daniel rolled his eyes at his companion’s sharp comment and Ryan in return chuckled mercilessly at him for it. "Once upon a time he held the world title for acting badly, don’t let him fool you." Ryan was eyeing Dean with a sinister but playful twinkle in his eye as if he expected the elder Winchester to understand some half hinted at secret.
"Yes, and he was a Viking barbarian, so I suppose old habits die hard."
"Are you saying I don’t know how to be a gentleman?" Ryan’s smile was utterly wicked now, as if he knew he’d nailed Daniel to the wall with his question.
"I’m saying you should practice the art outside of a bedroom." Ryan chuckled heartily at that, his arm curling around Daniel to give him an affectionate squeeze.
"You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I started acting all prim and proper---admit it!"
"I’ll do no such thing!" Daniel sounded half annoyed and half charmed but not like he wanted to admit to either emotion. Instead he took a long leisurely drink of his wine and pretended not to notice Ryan’s overly amused demeanor.
It was kinda nice for Dean to see that even Daniel had his match in this strange world he and Sam had fallen into! Ryan was someone who wasn’t afraid of him, and that meant something---Daniel had another side, a side that was maybe---just maybe--- a little bit more human and that meant the guy wasn’t as intimidating as he’d first seemed.
Daniel’s dark eyes slid instantly toward Dean, but they weren’t angry---more like impressed.
"Ryan, you should know by now my baby brother has a reputation to protect." Slade’s tone was teasing as he eyed Daniel from his place directly across the table.
He’d jumped to Daniel’s defense but at the same time had added fuel to the fire.
"One that changes every couple of centuries, I might add." Ryan’s tone was that of someone who knew without a doubt that what he said was the truth.
Everyone laughed at that, even Moral who was sitting all the way at the other end of the table with his lips curled around the rim of a coffee cup. For a moment Dean thought it might actually be nice to be a part of something like this---and then he mentally smacked himself in the head!
It was just too damn easy to forget that he hated these people---or should!
"So, who would you prefer in your bed Dean, the barbarian," Ryan motioned toward himself with a devilish grin, "or the gentleman sitting next to me," and then his arm swept toward Daniel, who looked about ready to kill him. "Or don’t you swing that way?"
Dean cut a quick shocked look toward Sam trying to find some form of help, but his brother just shrugged and held his hands up indicating he should deal with the squabbling pair in his own way.
"Well---I guess since he’d probably rip my throat out--!" Dean left the statement hang in mid air because there wasn’t really a need to elaborate once the laughter rolled through just about everyone sitting at the table.
Dean decided to take Ryan’s casual candor and Daniel’s snobbish banter as a form of harmless fun. It seemed these two had a lot of years together, most of them happy. Or at least that was the impression Dean was left with after watching them.
They seemed an odd match but it worked for them---or seemed to.
Christian and his wife---Angel from the kitchen---sat beside Slade on the opposite side of the table. The cowboy was wearing a suit but it had a distinctly country flair to it. It wasn’t bold or ostentatious, just something Dean suspected he wore to events like these. It seemed a little snug, and looked a lot like something he wife mighta bought for him.
The way he tugged subconsciously at the collar every few minutes made it clear to Dean that Christian wasn’t a suit wearing kinda guy either---and that made Dean like him a little better.
Angel, on the other hand, was a dress wearing kinda gal. She was in a backless black gown that had a slit clear up to her hip. It clung to her dainty figure in all the right places, making her look taller than the five foot six inches she actually was. She had pulled up her hair in a neat bundle of snow-white curls and silver hairpins. Her overall appearance screamed "princess"; the only thing missing was the tiara.
She was attractive, that was for damn sure, and just the kind of girl men stopped to notice in a crowded restaurant no matter how married they might have been. Nothing about the look gave away her southern heritage and she could have easily been draped over a businessman's arm rather than her hillbilly husband’s.
"You boys need to stop teasing him---!" She smiled at Dean and for some reason he actually felt reassured. "They do the alpha dog thing sweetie---it’s like a requirement if you wanta run with the pack." She picked up her glass and tipped it daintily toward Daniel who grinned respectfully at her before taking up the bottle in front of him and filling her glass.
"Yes, Mi’lady---absolutely miserable behavior---I agree."
It had surprised Dean to learn that Angel was married at all---not to mention to Christian.
The girl was flirty, and at times openly inviting, so Dean hadn’t imagined her tied down to some grinning cowboy who liked to play both sides of the field.
Being the only woman at the table, she had been getting her fair share of attention all night, but Christian didn’t seem to care. In fact, he was too busy chatting up Spice to notice his wife’s gaggle of admires or the way that Daniel raked his eyes over her as he finished filling her glass.
Dean glared at the cowboy and Spice changed his tenor from openly flirty to politely friendly in about two seconds flat.
Christian never got the hint.
Spice hadn’t seemed surprised at being invited along, and he’d dressed for the occasion, looking for the entire world like some visiting prince who’d bought his suit from a store on Fifth Avenue.
The boy may have grown up ‘street’, but he cleaned up well enough to pass for royalty.
"Don’t mind him Dean, he’s harmless," Sam’s softly whispered comment drew his attention away from Christian and back to Sam.
"Hey annoys me, Sam," Dean whispered through gritted teeth, following Sam’s example.
"I know. But Spice’s is going home with us–not him."
"Damn straight!"
"Chill, Dean." The softly whispered conversation stayed between them---and perhaps Daniel who seemed to be trying ‘not’ to hear it.
"It must be a pain in the ass to be a vampire sometimes, eh?"
Dean didn’t raise his voice, but Daniel looked toward him and smiled, nodding only slightly as he raised his glass back up to his lips once again.
Shadow and Moral were hanging out at the other end of the big round table, their chitchat somewhat quieter---more private, as if they weren’t really guests at this little party. Which was probably true, since they’d both passed up the wine and other stiffer drinks and taken water with lemon (Shadow) and coffee, black (Moral).
Dean knew Shadow, at least, was packing because he’d eyed the smooth silver gun with dragons etched into the handle earlier in the evening. The guy had dropped the clip outta it and cleared the chamber before he’d let Dean have it.
And Dean had almost immediately leveled it at his chest and pretend to fire. He’d only done it because of the care Shadow took in readying it for his inspection---and to be an ass---but the big guy seemed to enjoy Dean’s bizarre sense of humor. He’d laughed and mouthed the words "in your dreams, Winchester."
Sam had stopped dead in his tracks when he’d walked into the room, his eyes growing wide for a couple seconds before Shadow flashed him the clip and the single silver bullet laying in the palm of his hand. Sam let out a careful breath, raised his eyebrows, and walked away---not even addressing the reason why Dean had an empty gun trained on Shadow.
Dean figured Moral was packing too, just from the way the guy kept watching the doors. If he wasn’t on guard duty, then he was the most paranoid guy Dean had ever met.
"How long have you been here in California, Dean?" Ryan asked the question and Daniel looked instantly uncomfortable, which seemed weird to Dean. The guy just didn’t seem like the kind of man to get his feathers ruffled over a simple question.
"A little over a month." Dean paused. " Woulda been here sooner if Sam woulda left a few clues---but no, had to leave me a cold trail didn’t ya Sammy?" Sam just flashed Dean that exasperated look, his dark eyes sparkling brightly. " He hides pretty well for rogue hunter."
"I wasn’t aware Sam was hiding?" Ryan looked toward Sam questionably.
"Just from my brother." Sam answered, his eyes dipping toward Daniel briefly. Something was up but Dean wasn’t sure what.
"Dean is your brother---as in Dean Winchester, the hunter from Lawrence?" This Ryan asked while looking straight at Daniel. The guy didn’t look pleased! In fact, if looks could kill, Daniel woulda been in some serious trouble.
"I meant to tell you, but the subject never came up." Daniel’s answer wasn’t exactly apologetic, but Dean could hear the reluctance in his voice. Which, in it’s own way, was an apology. It was the same kind he’d made to Sam on occasion when they were in front of other people.
"Well, that’s pretty careless of you!" The scold was apparent, but Daniel only smiled---it wasn’t an 'I’m being cute’ smile it was an ‘I’m caught and I know it, kill me quick’ smile.
"When have I ever been cautious, amant?" Ryan eyed Daniel sternly for a few fleeting seconds and it was clear to Dean that they would be having words in private.
"Don’t you "lover" me!"
"As you wish, mon Bien-aime."
"And that’s just as bad…!"
Daniel nodded. "My apologies, Mr. Carlonday. Sam desired Dean’s company and---"
"And you can never say ‘no’ to Sam." The quick way that Ryan cut Daniel off and the way that Daniel let him do it made it quite clear these two were extremely close.
"Nor to you."
Ryan didn’t look convinced, but he shook his head and in an exasperated voice said something that took Dean completely off guard and made him choke on his six hundred dollar wine. "Well, you’ve not been assassinated yet, my Prince, so I suppose having had one hunter in your bed---you see no harm in inviting another."
"He didn’t invite---I mean we didn’t–and we’re not going to---what do you mean another hunter?" Dean wasn’t sure why he thrust himself into their conversation, or why he didn’t want Ryan to misunderstand but he didn’t.
He liked the guy; he didn’t want him at odds with his lover if there wasn’t a real reason for it.
"I’m going to check on things in the kitchen, Daniel---I’ll trust you to tread water while I’m gone." Ryan didn’t seem overtly angry when he left, more annoyed.
"That went well!" Slade announced after Ryan slipped outta the room. "When were you going to tell him you had an assassin living under your roof?"
"I’m not an assassin," Dean said. Was that really the way these people saw him?
"You are," Daniel said pointedly. "Not everything you have killed committed a crime against humanity," Daniel said, meeting Dean’s unwavering gaze with one of his own. Then he turned to Slade and straightforwardly said," I had hoped it wouldn’t come up until after Dean had succumbed to Sam’s charm."
"Quite the procrastinator, aren’t we little brother?" Slade looked sympathetic.
"Little, wait----you’re older than him?"
"Yes, he is," Daniel answered flatly.
"And when did you sleep with Sam?" Dean turned to Daniel, confused and annoyed. "Ryan implied---Sam?" Dean turned away from Daniel’s amused look and back to meet Sam’s casual one.
"Dean, I’ve slept with a lot of people. This would not be the time to discuss it."
"I thought there was just a girl---once?" This he said as he caught Spice’s guilty glance.
" Don’t blame him, he doesn’t always know what I’m up to, and he didn’t want to hurt you."
"I’m not hurt, Sam!" There was a long pause and then Dean said. " Just surprised." And thankfully it was the truth, because honestly Dean wasn’t sure how he felt about it until he said it. "Jealous, but---not hurt."
"You’re more like us than you think." The flat observation wasn’t lacking any of Daniel’s usual charm and Dean had to refrain from shooting the guy a seething look.
"Well, I think your boyfriend has a problem."
"Yes, but not with the fact that I’d bed you in a heartbeat." Dean just stared, what the hell did you say to THAT? "But with the fact that I took in a hunter---your kind have killed mine for millennia---he worries."
"You had hot sweaty vampire sex?" Dean wasn’t sure why he said that outta the blue; maybe it was the mental image that flashed before him as the conversation caught up with his brain. He turned an accusing eye on Sam. "With him?"
"And you did a seventeen year old hooker in Nevada---and I’m not getting bent outa shape about it."
"Stalk me much?"
Daniel suddenly laughed shattering the weird vibe in the room and causing Sam to shake his head. "A little, yeah---I couldn’t leave you out there on your own, not completely."
"Glad to know I wasn’t forgotten in the early days."
"Oh he never forgot you," Daniel assured. "In fact---your name was on his lips more often than not." The sexual emphasis wasn’t lost on Dean as the laughed trailed around the room and Sam settled back into his chair nursing his whiskey on the rocks as though they were in the middle of a family dinner and a beloved uncle was ribbing him about an old girlfriend.
"Perhaps if you hadn’t been projecting?"
"I was just trying to make you feel better," Daniel smiled, his hand coming up to rest on the table. "How was I supposed to know that taking on Dean’s face would get me---more than I bargained for?"
"Oh, I think you bargained for exactly what you got." Slade said knowingly, his tone that of a disapproving big brother.
"Hoping and bargaining---are not the same thing, Jonathan."
"Are vampires always such sluts?" Dean said it before he’d even considered the outcome and thank God it wasn’t taken badly, Daniel just laughed his eyebrow going up in agreement as he nodded.
"Life is short---even for us, and we don’t have to worry about ‘sin’ and ‘damnation’ so we tend to enjoy ourselves."
"Party till you drop?"
"Indeed."
After that, dinner progressed steadily, and eventually Dean got more comfortable---and drunk.
As it turned out, expensive wine had a nice kick to it. The slow rise was what caught Dean off guard but he was thankful that it loosened him up. He needed to let it all go for a while, and being around these guys it was easy.
Their brand of humor and fun was infectious.
Before long Dean was following their stories, laughing at some of them and actually enjoying himself. He’d lost the tie and jacket sometime after eleven p.m. and then sometime after that Spice had undone the top three buttons of his silk shirt after he’d complained about the heat in the room.
For some reason the boy had just stayed there after that eventually ending up on Dean’s lap with his arms wrapped around his neck. Dean couldn’t remember why, but it seemed right.
Spice smelled like sweet Sherry but he wasn’t drunk, more---in need of support, maybe.
Daniel seemed to make him nervous but at the same time Spice also appeared to brighten when the guy spoke to him.
They weren’t strangers; in fact, it surprised Dean to learn that Spice had shared Daniel’s bed on more than one occasion and that the elder vampire was actually quite fond of the boy. It wasn’t in any one thing that Daniel said it was just the way he treated the kid.
He talked to him kindly, passed him glasses of Sherry (because he knew that’s what he liked), and even nonchalantly pressed desserts on the boy while he was in Dean’s lap.
Maybe Daniel didn’t think it was weird to feed a teenage kid (in appearance anyway) off his own fork but Dean sure did. The thing was, Dean couldn’t get mad about it because Daniel wasn’t treating him like a pet, but more like a favored little cousin.
Granted, one usually stopped doing that sort of thing by the time said cousin was five or six, but Spice didn’t seem to mind and Daniel wasn’t treating it like a food kink, so Dean let it go.
By 1:00 a.m. Dean’s tie had gone missing---thank God, and Sam was finally outta his jacket and his arm was draped comfortably over Dean’s shoulder in a loose embrace. Another miracle, or so it seemed after countless glasses of wine and a few weird drinks Christian had insisted Dean try.
Now everyone’s jackets were off and their clothes somewhat messy---a typical party night out.
As the night wore on the formality vanished and all that was left was a room full of boys being boys and one girl who’d lost her heels and let down her hair and was dancing in the corner with her hillbilly husband.
Ryan had returned, more playful than ever and eventually Angel and Christian had opted to take off---saying there was a hotel across the street. Dean vaguely remembered congratulating him on getting laid and Angel kissing him on the lips and inviting Dean to join them.
Sam had about laughed his ass off when Christian had touched Dean’s cheek with just the tips of his fingers and seconded her offer.
Dean declined.
By the time someone said "I think we better call it a night, people," Spice was well and truly asleep in Dean’s lap and starting to get heavy---Dean was back on the road to sober---the restaurant was closed and the wine was warm.
So all in all, in was damn late! Or really early depending on how one tended to look at it.
Shadow woke Spice up, helped the boy back into his jacket while Moral moved ahead of them toward the front doors. " The limo is here."
"Did those boys sit out there all night, or did somebody call them?" Dean wasn’t even sure why it mattered, but he was curious.
"I called them," Shadow said, grabbing Dean’s jacket and tugging him forward, which also pulled both Sam and Spice along considering they’d ended up in kind of a tangle while preparing to leave.
"You hire good people, he knows what a 3/8" ratchet is and he knows when to call a cab." Dean snickered at Shadow’s exasperated look.
"I know what a ratchet is…now!" Spice complained.
"Yes you do," Dean assured as the cold air hit him in the face. "What the hell, someone needs to tell Jack Frost to take a vacation---it’s freakin cold out here."
"You used to like the cold, Dean!"
"When there’s snow on the ground---not when it’s just wet and cold---California sucks."
"We have mountains with snow, we could always take you skiing?" Daniel offered, smiling intensely.
"Ah hell, no---you want me to break a leg?"
"You have a Hunter’s agility, I’m sure it’d work for more than killing a black dog or slaying a werewolf." Sam sounded like he wouldn’t mind going, but Dean still wasn’t sure.
"Running from a black dog and barreling down a mountain at 60 miles an hour without a car is two totally different things---trust me!"
"Then why do you like the snow?" Daniel asked, laughter coloring his tone.
"He likes to make snow men," Sam offered the information traitorously.
"Shut up Sam!"
"I was just saying---" Sam never got a chance to finish his sentence, suddenly Shadow was pulling a weapon, barking out something that sounded remarkably like ‘incoming’.
The slick sound of mutable guns sliding from holsters followed, the sound echoing in Dean’s ears as he was shoved backwards toward the alley.
Shots were fired, voices mingled---and Dean looked up to see the last person in the world he’d ever thought he’d see. What made matters worse was the fact that said person had a gun pointed directly at his chest.
It seemed like an eternity that he stood there, looking down the barrel of Bobby Singer’s gun, but Dean saw the hesitation, the uncertainty, and then the moment it all came crashing down into a decision.
He heard the shot, felt Spice hit him full force and knock him back into the safety of the alley. A hail of gunfire followed, and the sick sound of feet running on wet pavement filled Dean’s ears.
All Dean could think was---my gawd this can’t be happening!
Not Bobby.
Why couldn’t it have been anyone but Bobby?
"SAMMY!" Dean tried to go find Sam but Shadow closed a vice-like arm around his waist and pulled him back. " Let me go you son-of-a-bitch!"
"Stay there!" The sound of Sam’s voice stilled Dean enough for Shadow to pull him further back.
"We’re Immortal, you're not–they can’t kill Sam if they aren’t packing the right ammunition and I guarantee you they’re not."
"What if they are?"
"They’re not!"
"And if Sam kill’s Bobby?" Could Sam live with himself after that?
"Then you’ll deal with it."
Shadow’s gun was in his hand, his whole body turned toward the street as if to shield those behind him bodily from another attack. He looked intense, more battle-worthy than Dean had ever seen him. "Do you have any wounds?" There was a pause and then the big fellow clarified loud enough to make Dean nearly jump out of his own skin. "Dean!"
"No, I’m fine–I---what the hell was that about? Why the hell did Bobby try and kill me?"
Shadow didn’t answer him; mainly because he was too busy scanning the alley for other possible threats. He didn’t move when several patrons of the hotel across the street exited the lobby doors, instead only hiding is gun in the shadows and allowing them to see what they chose to.
Which was probably three guys standing in an alley about ready to have a smoke or something equally as innocent. People have a tendency to see what they want to and ignore the reality whether it’s a mugging in a bad neighborhood or a ghost haunting their house.
"Are you sure you’re not hurt?" Spice asked this through several thick breaths, as he leaned up against the alley wall.
"I’m sure. I just---I’m trying to wrap my mind around this, that’s all. I know Bobby, He’s like family, man---and now he’s pointing a gun at my chest?"
"You’re with us now, it makes you their enemy."
"Oh, I got that---loud and damn fucking clear!" Spice dropped his head back against the wall, his eyes closed as if he were trying to pull the world back into some shade of normal. "Are you okay, when all the shooting went down you were right there and---?"
"What on God's green earth were they thinking?" Daniel’s voice rang out in the darkness as he turned the corner.
"They’ve never attacked in public before. Never anything this high profile."
"They’re desperate," Sam Said, as he stepped around Daniel and headed straight for Dean. A few quick touches seemed to assure Sam that Dean was okay---and a strong bone-crushing hug seemed to settle both their nerves.
"Brainless is more like it! If they expose us, they expose themselves and the human world wants nothing to do with either of our kind." Daniel moved around Shadow and immediately sniffed the air, his eyes narrowing in confusion before looking toward Spice. "How bad?"
"Umm, I don’t know---it was sort of numb at first." The boy pulled his hand away from the wall---or rather away from the side of his chest and the second the light from the street lamp caught his hand, Dean saw the fresh wet blood dripping off his fingertips.
Daniel reacted first, a split second before Dean, who had to pull away from Sam and together they grabbed the boy as his knees buckled.
"You took a fucking bullet for me?" Dean didn’t know what to think---or do.
The kid was Immortal, that meant something right? Surely a bullet couldn’t do the job. But then Dean remembered Spice saying he wasn’t that strong---and! Oh gawd, what else had he said?!?! Something about that blade he carried being able to do the job.
So bullets---could bullets hurt him?
"Not exactly," Spice said on his way down to the ground. "The blonde girl was gunning for me, I just chose to ignore her and save you instead of myself."
"He’s Immortal, right---this won’t kill him?" There was a fine line of desperation in Dean’s voice as he pressed his hand over the gushing wound. "It like, has to be the right metal or something, tell me they didn’t know what they were doing." Daniel knelt there, his eyes focused hard on Dean’s hands where they covered Spices chest wound.
"I’m a killer, Dean---not a healer." There was a astonishing amount of pain in Daniel’s eyes as he said it. "He’s more human, than I---I don’t know how to fix this."
Suddenly Slade was there with Daniel’s lover Ryan in tow.
Before Dean could demand Slade do something he was kneeling beside the boy and examining the wound. A strange kind of glow spread over his fingers and downward onto and then into Spice’s chest. The boy arched slightly, obviously in pain, but he kept his teeth gritted and his mouth shut.
"That bullet has gotta come out---now." Sam was there, his pocketknife open and laying in the palm of his hand. He was offering it to Slade with this grim look of resignation on his face. He knew very well that he could be offering up the implement that could cause Spice’s death---and then since it was his blade it would somehow also be his fault.
Dean recognized that look; it was the same one Sam had worn when the demon had held Dean’s life in his hands. It was a look Dean never wanted to see on Sam’s face again, so desperate---so devastating. And yet he’d been the cause of that expression more than once.
"You’re going to take it out here---what about anesthesia?"
"This won’t close until the metals out, and if I don’t do it now---he’s gonna bleed to death---now normally, that’s not such a big deal among us but in this case, he may not be strong enough to come back from the Death sleep."
Spice looked terrified and Dean wasn’t far behind him.
Daniel moved around so that he could kneel above Spice’s head taking both the boy's arms, he brought them up over his head and pinned his crossed wrists to the ground.
"Straddle his waist, this is gonna hurt and he can’t be moving."
Dean followed the order even as Daniel closed one hand over Spice’s mouth and leaned in close enough to whisper in Dean’s ear. "When I tell you to move your hands---do it."
After that things happened quickly, the boy screamed against Daniel’s hand tears streaking down the side of his face and Dean had to look away feeling the sticky warmth of the boy’s blood soaking into his hands and through the thin cloth of his dress pants as it gushed out.
That was too much blood---if he would have bled like that---Dean couldn’t even think about it.
He wondered briefly if Bobby was alive or dead? And then everything went quiet, and he realized Spice wasn’t moving---and he wasn’t making a sound---no pained whimpers, no choking back tears, no soft panting sounds---nothing---and suddenly Bobby’s fate didn’t matter all that much to Dean anymore.
Back to index
Chapter 19: Chapter 19
Author's Notes: A big 'thank you' goes out to supernaturalgrl for the Beta.
Sam stood still, closing his eyes and letting his mind drift.
He remembered the first time he’d seen Spice, a trembling boy in black jeans and a bare blood stained chest. His eyes had been about to spill over, his bleeding lip trembling with the force of repressed tears. Both his hands were bloody from having been knocked through a shower door but he didn’t acknowledge any pain. He’d just sat there in the battlefield of shattered glass looking broken. Absolutely sure he was about to die.
The demon had rambled on about bringing new blood into the brotherhood. He hadn’t seemed interested in Spice beyond causing him pain and that he had done leisurely, pulling things from Sam that he’d have sworn he could never feel.
Jordan (Spice’s previous owner) lay dead on the floor, the demon’s handiwork, not Sam’s. And the boy’s eyes kept drifting that way, terrified and something else? He’d cared for Jordan, of that Sam was certain.
But Spice had never discussed his feelings for his previous owner with Sam. Not even after, when they’d become friends. All Sam had known for sure was that he had been Spice’s owner and that some anonymous ‘bad’ had called his number and the yellow eyed demon had cashed in on it.
It was the price Jordan had paid for disappointing his benefactor.
The thing that Dean didn’t understand was that Spice had his reasons for being cautious of Sam. When they’d first met, the circumstances had been bloody and it hadn’t been only the demon causing Spice’s pain.
It had started as a lesson---a temptation, one the demon hadn’t expected Spice to survive. Though it hadn’t truly mattered to him, one way or the other. All he’d really wanted was to get Sam into the game and that had been easy.
Ridiculously easy!
Once Sam had accepted the demon’s offer he’d been officially damned but still he had fought. He had fought it for Dean, Jessica, Mom and Dad. How could he ever really work for someone who’d killed off almost his entire family---even the family that never was---the family that he and Jess could have had together?
The concept would have been inconceivable to the once human Sam but to the immortal one, to the one who’d swallowed darkness and woken up to find that the world wasn’t the same as he remembered---well, it had been easier.
The first change he noticed was the aura that emanated from absolutely everybody, all he had to do was close his eyes to see it. It made telling the good guys from the bad surprisingly easy. Even the tainted souls, the ones who hadn’t quite fallen on either side of the proverbial line were clear. A lot of people drifted in the grey area of life, just one step away from taking the plunge into darkness.
His own brother hovered on the edge of this great abyss, side by side with so many others, and this knowledge had devastated Sam.
Sam still remembered that first instant after he’d given the demon his soul. The sudden rush of power, the blinding pain in his head that had opened up every hidden talent Sam had buried inside. And then there was the void, the brief feeling of standing on the rim of something huge and all consuming---and then he’d stepped over and the world shifted.
At first all he had was instinct, and it told him to get as far away from Dean as possible. It was the only way to really save his brother.
In the blink of an eye he’d suddenly understood the game. He knew that there were rules of engagement and they were in play---the demon was winning.
He had been all along. Like pieces of a puzzle, Sam and Dean were falling into place.
“I won’t turn him, you can have me---but never him!”
“That’s between you and the brotherhood . You’re my mark, not your brother.” And somehow Sam knew that was the truth, though he had no idea why.
“So what now?” The demon had pulled out a wad of cash, tossed it at Sam and smiled.
“We give you time.”
“Time for what?”
“To come around to our way of thinking.”
Sam had scooped Dean up and tucked him into bed. He left every bit of the money on the nightstand with a note. He knew his warning wouldn’t be heeded but he had to try.
He’d still been thinking like a human that night, a foolish, sentimental man who had but a hand full of mortal years under his belt. It was nothing in comparison to the yellow-eyed demon but he hadn’t realized that at the time.
The second thing Sam noticed was the hunger. In the beginning it had been subtle, like a tiny pull that was anchored in his gut. It drew him to things he’d never had an interest in before, to clubs, to parties, to places where he could find what he needed. And his needs had been very basic, sex, booze and violence. All of which had been very measured in the beginning.
For a few weeks he’d simply wandered around aimlessly. He’d been hoping that he could control this thing that was inside him but as his needs escalated (and the lines between them became blurred) he began to realize the truth, that the demon had planted a seed in his soul and it was growing.
The turning point came when the demon had finally brought Sam to the plantation. By then he’d been ravenous, his body reacting as if it were in withdrawal. He’d already tried to end it---twice, and both times he’d seen hell and both times he’d been pulled back after getting only a mild taste of it.
Though by the second time Sam had been convinced that hell was no place to spend an eternity. It was their punishment for failure, and it was worse than any human being could imagine. It wasn’t the fire and brimstone place it was made out to be, no that would have been too simple.
Physical pain Sam could do. What he couldn’t do was live through his worst nightmares over and over again, feel the pain of every wrong he’d ever inflicted, and the price of every word he’d ever uttered in anger.
“Hell” was, quite literally, misery in its purest form.
And there was pain too, like an after thought, but very real nevertheless.
By the time the demon had steered him to the plantation, Sam had been in desperate need of something---something that he couldn’t name---and it was dark and terrifying but it was also like water to a man dying of thirst.
Sam remembered his first glimpse of the child with the tainted aura, the way he shivered from blood loss, the tears he stubbornly tried to hold at bay.
Worst of all Sam remembered the look in the Spice’s eyes; it was the same look Sam had seen in the mirror after his first suicide attempt. Spice had that look and it was filled with a unique kind of knowledge. He knew death was coming and it wasn’t a comforting thought because hell waited on the other side of that door---not peace.
There came a point---to some early, to others later---when a man inherited a certain kind of look, and they carried that look with them from that day forward, never being able to shove it back into the shadows from whence it came. It was the look of a person who’d seen the darkest, most depressing places God had to offer, places so cold and so lonely that it changed their initial view of the world forever.
The evidence of it was in their eyes. They were different inside---changed, not just because of the experience but because of the journey they’d taken to gain such experience.
Twisted as it was, it was part of what made Spice beautiful to Sam. That pain was part of his allure. Everything about Spice was beautiful---even his blood, and the way the tears slid down his cheeks when he begged. And that (horrifyingly enough) was what Sam was drawn to.
The darkness had driven Sam into the game, had made him enjoy things that should have sickened him. He couldn’t remember exactly how things had gotten started but what had brought him back was the sound of Spice choking on his own blood, but worse yet what he’d seen was Dean.
Naked, bruised and cut to ribbons.
It was a trick of course; one Spice had pulled out of sheer desperation and had absolutely no real talent for. He’d pulled the one person Sam was sure to show mercy to from his mind and reflected the image back at him. He was in fact the one who was hurt, and that much had been legitimate. Every bruise, slash and broken bone had been real; it just hadn’t been Dean writhing in pain on the floor.
By then the demon had been gone, having been well and truly satisfied that Darkness had sunk its claws into Sam and it had. It just hadn’t completely consumed him as planned.
Sam had thrown himself away from Spice, watched in horror as the figment masquerading as his brother turned on his side and coughed up massive amounts of blood. If Spice had been human he would have been dead.
Slowly Sam’s vision had cleared and though no less horrified he’d been relieved that the figure on the glass littered floor had been someone other than Dean. Then, slowly he took in the damage, watched as the boy sobbed, tears finally falling, and obviously in a great deal of pain.
Sam no longer found the scene before him beautiful.
He’d gathered the then nameless child up, washed away the blood and stitched most of the cuts before tucking him into bed.
Soon after, Daniel and Slade had shown up, the two of them silently taking in the damage. At first Sam actually thought he was about to be killed, the two hadn’t exactly come to welcome him, that much was obvious by the way they hovered on the fringes, weapons in hand.
Daniel had stood in the bedroom doorway gripping the hilt of a very dangerous and sharp looking sword as Sam had placed the final bandages on Spice’s arm. He hadn’t hurried his work, or acknowledged the waiting man.
He’d been tired, emotionally and physically drained, and the last thing he’d cared about was his life.
In fact he’d been pretty much thankful that someone was waiting in the wings to do the deed. He remembered standing, walking across the room and dropping down to his knees in front of Daniel---not even requesting he make it quick. He had fully expected to bleed, and probably to die but instead Daniel had spoken to Slade.
“Pay the bastard, and then tell him to get off my land.”
“Are you sure?” And Daniel must have nodded because Slade moved away.
“Everything here is yours---including the boy.” There was a pause, “Stay or go---it is your choice.”
Sam chose to stay. Because in the end, where else did he have to go?
At first he’d tried to keep his distance from the boy, knowing full well that Spice wasn’t just any kid, he had seen his aura and he knew that it was tainted---streaked with the same poison as Sam’s own.
But the kid had come down with a fever and that had spurred brutal hallucinations. It didn’t take Sam long to piece together the boys disjointed past. It had been easy for Sam to feel sorry for the kid but worse than that Sam had understood why he’d made his choice.
Hell was hell, man-made or otherwise. And Spice (Jamie Winters) had known hell. He’d lived in it since birth. It didn’t make it right that he’d chosen the darkness over the light but it made it understandable.
It had been the first step on Sam’s path to surrender.
As an empath, Spice could not only share in other people’s emotions but he could reflect certain parts of their own psyche back at them. It hadn’t been enough to cure Sam but it had been enough to keep him grounded. It had given him time to learn to control the rush of darkness. Turn the flood into a well-controlled ripple.
Sometimes it still got out of control but for the most part he was able to pull it back, let it trickle over him rather than consume him. It had worked to some extent, Sam wasn’t a mindless killing machine but the truth was the old Sam was gone and in his place was someone who saw the world through a shadowed haze.
After he’d recovered, Spice had helped him all he could, not truly being in control of his own abilities. On more than one occasion the boy had fallen prey to Sam’s darker desires, usually after a hunt when Sam’s adrenalin was running high but slowly (together) they’d both learned a little something about darkness and how to control it.
Despite Sam’s first impression, Spice hadn’t been filled with the same poison as Sam; as it turned out few people were, it was an elixir reserved for those who crossed over under duress---who were at risk for backpedaling.
With Spice there was no risk (at least not as far as the ‘big bad’ saw it), the boy had nothing to go back to in its mind, but Sam had Dean and that made him a high priority case.
The strangeness of their relationship had made them lovers and Sam supposed the guilt had even played a role, but truthfully it was the next step, honeyed violence was better than out and out rape. It meant less guilt for Sam and an easier time of it for Spice.
Apparently the Darkness in him liked sex as much as it liked booze, blood and warfare. And Spice was there, available and he even liked Sam---a little at first, more so later--- and strangely enough the boy had never held the original rape or the subsequent rough sex sessions against him.
Spice was the odd duck; he took the good with the bad, never complaining. They’d had nights that were dripping in sweetness and they’d had nights they were dripping in blood.
The days that followed were hard on Sam, the guilt damn near killing him but at least he still felt guilt. That was a comfort in itself.
He cared for Spice. Even loved him, but not the way Dean might think. The boy was family now, as close to a brother as someone could get without having their blood in his veins. He was the only reason Sam was still even remotely sane and Sam could no sooner leave him than he could leave Dean.
But Sam had learned a thing or two since coming to the plantation and those things had been useful, even satisfying.
Evil had its own form of government, its own separate divisions, hell it even had its own politics and politicians---and the yellow eyed demon was barely more than an independent contractor among them, not even worthy of real power.
In the great scheme of things he was barely more than a slave trader and he’d used that skill to trap Sam like an animal and then sell him off to the highest bidder.
And as infuriating as that was, it wasn’t really what was important. In truth, it barely mattered at all anymore. What did was the fact that Sam now had the upper hand, all the bastard had to do was screw up---fail---even once---and Sam would have all the excuse he needed to send him straight back to hell.
The other thing Sam had learned was that failure could be arranged and having friends in dark places was simply practical. It meant the difference between losing Dean and having him at his side for an eternity.
And that was payment enough in Sam’s mind for his soul.
The price got steeper when he took into account the broken child, lying pale against the dark satin sheets of his bed. Spice’s chest was bandaged, and a small amount of blood was seeping through the white cloth, but at least his chest rose and fell in a predictable rhythm.
He’d looked worse, and then it had been Sam’s own hand that had steered him down the painful path---this time it had been Jo Harvelle who was currently in league with Bobby Singer and a few other nameless hunters that Sam hadn’t recognized.
In the chaos, one of them had gone down, and another had taken a bullet to the back of the shoulder, but both Bobby and Jo had gotten away unscathed. Mainly because it wasn’t practical to chase them through the city streets, and like rats they quickly disappeared into the sewers, leaving Sam to contemplate their fate.
He’d let them both go before, but this time certain things had to be set straight. Bobby had taken a shot at Dean, and that , under any circumstances, just wasn’t acceptable.
Daniel was on his way to take care of that. He and Bobby had a history, and so Sam left that issue alone. Something needed to be done, but Sam didn’t necessarily have to be the person to do it.
But Jo---Jo had taken a bite out of someone Sam loved and for no reason beyond her own stupidity. She had drawn a line in the sand that Sam Winchester owned and for that he was going to have to teach her a lesson.
There was an interesting fact about rats: if you flushed enough water down the sewers you were bound to have a few come scurrying out.
He watched from the balcony as Moral and Shadow pulled Jo Harvelle kicking and screaming from the trunk of the Lincoln Town car. She was still pretty, still petite but she had a harder edge to her now, a mulish determination that came with a hunter’s mindset.
“Sam?” He could hear the uneasy quiver in Dean’s voice as he walked out onto the balcony. He knew who the woman doing all the yelling was before he even looked over the edge, but he had to confirm it with his own eyes before he said anything. “Oh God.” Dean just looked at Sam, his eyes dark and desperate. “You can’t kill her Sam.”
“ I can kill anyone Dean, even another immortal, so what makes you think I can’t kill Jo Harvelle?” The way he said her name he was distancing himself from her, making her less of a person. He knew it sounded cold, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t change the way he was feeling in that moment, not even for Dean.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Dean looked away from Sam, toward the tree line. “I know what she did Sam, but Spice is alive and that’s gotta count for something, right?” Sam listened as his big brother drew in a shaky breath. You can’t kill her Sam.”
“Why not?” More than anything Sam wanted to know what Dean thought, mainly because even now, under these circumstances, he valued his brother's opinion more than any other person on the face of the planet.
“I don’t know.” Dean laughed bitterly then, his whole body tensing up as he thought about it. “I really don’t know why, because I kinda want to put a bullet in her, too.” Sam understood better than Dean what that statement had cost him, how much it hurt to admit. “But we can’t do it Sam…maybe if Spice were dead…but not with things like they are now.”
“And how are things, Dean?” Sam paused, feeling the weight of the last three years resting on his shoulders. “You have to see it, you have to know it in your heart…I couldn’t walk out of here and be a part of that world again---they won’t have me, and I want no part of them.”
“ I know, I get it, Sam…I don’t want to, but I do. It’s just that if you kill Jo, if you do that thing you do…it’ll never be the same between us.” Dean turned to Sam, tears in his eyes. He was desperate, confused and it showed. “I’ll never leave you, Sam! Never! If you can’t walk out of here, then neither can I,” Dean meant what he was saying but the words were tearing him apart.
Dean hated to be in a no-win situation, and this in his mind was about as trapped as he’d ever been.
“Dean, don’t ask me…”
“No, you listen to me Sam… if you kill Jo, I’ll never be able to look at you the same way again. If she dies out there, if someone else kills her on a hunt…in the fight, fine . Even if it’s you, I can live with that…but if you do it this way it’s an execution…you can’t go there Sammy. Not if you want me, the way I am.”
Not if you want me whole! that’s what Dean was really saying.
Sam could only remember a hand full of times when Dean had looked so broken, and he couldn’t help reaching out his hand to cup his brother’s now moist cheek. Dean in turn reached up and pressed the warm palm of Sam’s hand firmly against his flesh as he pleaded with him silently for Jo Harvelle’s life.
“Has his fever broken?” A change in subject was in order, mainly because Sam just couldn’t bring himself to talk about this right now. He wasn’t sure if what he had to say would make things better or worse from his big brother's perspective, so he chose not to discuss it.
“No.” Dean sucked in a heavy breath before pulling away and roughly wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Slade says there's an infection, but he expects him to pull through, something about Immortal fever. I didn’t really understand, it but he says its part of the healing process.”
“For some of us, yes.”
“You should come get something to eat, or sit with me for a while---with him---he’s kinda out of it, keeps mumbling stuff, nightmares mostly…. But I’m sure it’d do him good if you were there.”
“It’s best if I’m not---I’m part of the nightmares sometimes.” He couldn’t help it, it hurt to admit something like that to Dean, and he wasn’t sure, but by the sudden deep frown on his brother’s face he must not have ever considered that as a possibility.
“Sammy,” Sam backed away from Dean’s sympathy, the last thing he needed was for someone to feel sorry for him.
“Go sit with Spice, big brother. I have work to do.”
He didn’t look at Dean’s face, didn’t want to see the conflict dancing in those beautiful hazel eyes. He just turned and left.
Thankfully Dean didn’t follow him down to meet Jo Harvelle. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with her, but he was sure that Dean, at least, wouldn’t like it.
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Chapter 20: Chapter 20
Author's Notes: I just wanted to take a moment to thank everybody who has been following this story. The feedback here on this archive has been phenomenal, and I deeply appreciate every word of it. Your words are more supportive and encouraging than you can imagine, unless you’re an author and then you probably can. As you might be able to tell after twenty chapters, I’m a bit long winded. I never truly intended for this to turn into a novel but apparently it has. I know I said twenty chapters, but I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. So please bear with me for a little while longer while I wrestle with this monster. I’m not gonna make any estimates, but I’m close to a conclusion…I think! Lol
So again thanks to you all for reading and letting me know what you think and to supernaturalgrl for the amazing beta. She really is extraordinary.
Dean walked over to the side of Sam’s bed where Spice lay. He stood there, looking down at the boy, his hands tucked in his back pockets, trying to decide if he had cause to worry or not. The point was really moot, because no matter how much they assured him that this was normal, that Spice would eventually be okay, he still worried.
Dean had seen a lot of things during his lifetime, and he had suffered a good many injuries that needed treating in the field, but he’d never seen anyone rip out a bullet the way Slade had. Nor had he seen someone perform life saving surgery with a pocketknife, a hand full of surgical string, and a silk shirt that had been torn into pricey bandages.
The kid had taken a bullet for Dean; maybe not the bullet that was specifically meant for him, but he’d thrown his own well being aside in favor of Dean’s, knowing full well that Jo was gunning for him.
Stupid! That was the only thing that Dean could think as he stood there taking in the trembling boy before him. It was stupid of Spice, and stupid of Jo---didn’t they have a clue about what they were going up against, here?
He remembered a lot of the hunter gossip over the last three years, about the people who were running things in California. Everyone had seemed to think they were a small organization---a couple hundred earthbound baddies and a few ‘special’ kids like Sam. It was the reason he’d come here looking for his brother. He’d run out of the usual suspects and thought ‘why the hell not?’. To his surprise, people in the clubs recognized Sam.
They started spinning stories about his brother and his dark cohorts. And the next thing Dean knew, he was in the heart of something big. The local hunters told him about how they’d been dwindling in numbers, trying to take on this bunch of ‘misfits’, as they called them.
They had made them out to be mindless killers, barely above jackals feeding on rotting corpses. These guys might have been a lot of things, but that imagery just didn’t make sense now that Dean had been here, seen them with his own eyes.
Bobby had even gone so far as to warn Dean to steer clear of California completely. He hadn’t explained himself; hell he wouldn’t even talk about it, but now Dean figured he’d known about Sam.
Word had been filtering back to Dean through the grapevine for quite some time, stories of how Sam was picking off the hunters, of how he had tracked them down and tore them apart. They were bloody, ghoulish stories that Dean just couldn’t bring himself to believe.
Even now, after everything he’d seen and heard in this place, he wasn’t sure he believed it. Sam had people he cared about, people he loved, and that alone meant he wasn’t the monster they said he was.
He tried focus all his attention on Spice to keep his mind from drifting too far north–toward Jo and what Sam was doing to her downstairs. If he thought about it too much then he’d have to go down there, try and save her from evil Sam and he didn’t wanta do that. Either he trusted Sam or he didn’t---and either way, it wouldn’t change things. At least if his baby brother killed Jo behind closed doors, then Dean might be able to believe the lie if Sam chose to tell it.
Spice looked pale and the slight sheen of sweat glistening across his forehead didn’t help matters any. The boy was semi-conscious, but lost in the cloudy haze of the fever and bad dreams. Most of the time his mumbling was incoherent, but every once in a while Dean would catch a few words; nothing truly definitive but he was left with the impression that life hadn’t always been good for the kid. Something he already knew, but seeing him like this, it packed the point home.
“No, d-don’t---p-please, I won’t do it again, I p-promise!” The words were weak, frantic, and barely more than a whisper, but Dean’s heart still ached at hearing them.
Slade got up from the chair where he’d been sitting since they’d gotten the boy home and tucked securely into bed. He stretched, working out the knots of hours worth of sitting before grabbing a warm wash cloth from the basin beside the bed, then sitting down next to Spice.
“Spicy boy--- you’re not there anymore.” He mopped up the dampness on Spice’s forehead, pushing the boy's hair away from his eyes in the process. “It’s a memory, it can’t hurt you.”
“John?”
“In the flesh kiddo.”
“My Dad--?”
“Long gone, he can’t hurt you anymore---I promise.” The kid only half understood, and he didn’t seem the least bit convinced, his brow knotting hard as he tried to wade through what was real and what wasn’t.
“I gotta go to school, or he’ll be mad–“ Spice tried to sit up, but Slade gently placed his hand in the center of his chest and pressed him back down.
“No school today, you're sick---so just lay back down.” Slade waited till he settled, his hand coming up to cup the boy’s cheek and his thumb working soothing circles over his forehead. “You wanta hand me my case?”
Dean retrieved the item in question, then watched as Slade laid it out and flipped it open to reveal a set of colored vials and several pre-filled syringes. Some of the colors were weird---all crisp and bright---kool-aid colored---not at all something you’d pump into your veins but apparently that’s what they were for.
Slade selected a blue one, and then topped it off with the only clear vile there before straightening out Spice’s arm and tying it off with one of those rubberband-like contraptions they used for drawing blood. He quickly found a vein and Dean winced as he shoved the needle in and emptied the contents.
“What was that?”
“In the old days we called it ‘the immortal elixir’. But now the kids just call it ‘blue heaven’; it’s liquid life.”
“Yeah, I think Sam dosed me with some of that stuff---what’s it gonna do for him?”
“It speeds healing. I topped it off with a mild sedative. Hopefully it’ll make him rest more comfortably.” Slade heaped the blanket around Spice before he got up and walked back to his chair.
“I’m getting a lot of mixed signals about you guys…” Dean watched as Slade arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Instead he just sat there silently waiting for Dean to answer his unspoken question, giving Dean an out if he didn’t want to ask it. “You're dangerous, you're killers…and yet here you are, fussing over one of the weakest of your bunch. I don’t get it. Why do you care about him?”
“Because he’s our brother. Oh not in the traditional sense of the word, but we took him in, made him family---nothing can change that.” Slade seemed adamant, but Spice feared them on some levels. It made believing the guy harder.
“He had a bad life, you know, before the street?” Dean wasn’t sure of the details himself, but what he was really doing was testing Slade, not the boy’s history. If you truly cared about someone, then you knew their secrets---or at least wanted to know. So maybe that said more about not only Slade, but also himself.
Dean wanted to know Spice’s secrets. That way he could maybe help a little more, be a better---friend, lover?---he wasn’t sure, because it was complicated.
“Yes, many of us did. It’s part of the allure…the trap that snags us. When you already live in hell---?”
“What’s wrong with accepting the benefit package and the company car?” Slade nodded with a wistful smile. “Yeah, I get it.” Dean paused. “ Is his Dad dead?” Something about the way Slade had spoken had left Dean with that impression.
“ Yes.” And in the flatness of that statement there was a secret.
“You holding out on me?”
“Everyday,” Slade said with a warm, tired smile. “ Jordan killed his father. Slow, bloody---all the bells and whistles---Spice doesn’t know.” Dean nodded, he understood. It was one thing to wish a parent dead, it was another to know that they were. “We’re not good guys, Dean. In your world, he’d done a few years in jail for what he did to Spice---and you’d call that justice. In ours, he got a death sentence---because we don’t let anyone mess with our own.”
“He wasn’t yours then.”
“And that matters, why?" Slade smiled, half cocky, half wickedly. “That’d be the human in you---the logic that keeps you on the straight and narrow.”
“Is he gonna kill Jo?” He knew that question had come out of left field, but Slade seemed to be expecting it.
There was a long drawn out pause from the healer, as if he were trying to decide if Sam would do such a thing or not. “I don’t know.” Slade finally said. “I suppose it depends on her.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dean was too tired for this dance, and the annoyance leaked out with his words as he scrubbed his hand over his face.
“When all is said and done----when the blood stops flowing–it’ll depend on her state of mind. If he can trust her to leave here and never look back. Maybe she’ll be frightened enough to suit him, or maybe she’ll be broken enough. Either way, it depends on her.” Dean frowned deeply, that little bit of insight was delivered easily and without so much as a momentary snag.
Slade never paused to consider how it sounded or how cold his thinking ran. It made Dean remember why these guys were scary, why they weren’t playing on the home team.
“Are they going after Bobby and the others?”
“Bobby is a problem. Daniel is on his way to Cheyenne to deal with him.” Dean’s heart did a flip-flop, and the sudden devastation must have shown on his face because Slade frowned before taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I take it Sam didn’t tell you?”
“No---he didn’t.”
“Nothing is ever as bad as it seems, and Bobby is a crazy old coot---but he’s smart enough to know when he’s beat.”
“Are you honestly telling me that Daniel isn’t going there to rip him limb from limb?”
“They have a history---it means something to Daniel, so I doubt it.” Slade paused, his eyes growing dark. “But if he refuses to see reason, then he may have to suffer---and walking may be an issue depending on how stubborn the old man has to be.” Dean wasn’t sure how much of that was truth and how much of it was a tease, but he prayed Bobby was smart enough to back off when these guys asked---if that’s what they were gonna do.
His head hurt to even think about it, and then suddenly, like a light bulb went on in his head, Dean heard Slade’s words again. “What kind of history do they have?”
Slade smiled almost sadly, his hands folding over his stomach as he propped his feet up on the cushioned stool in front of him. “Years ago, when Bobby was a very young man, he stumbled upon a clan of demon dogs living in Jackson, Mississippi. We were tracking the same quarry, you see, and we all ended up in the woods outside of this little run down cabin---”
“Wait, wait! You guys were tracking demon dogs---is that like a black dog---and why?”
“They’re a type of demon, they fluctuate between human and gargoyle-ish creatures, but they're not too bright in their winged form. And as for why we were there hunting them---there was no treaty in place. We serve the great Leviathan and not Belyle---their chosen deity---so it left them an open target. Daniel likes to hunt his rivals; the boy never has had any sense when it comes to danger. So, there we were, face to face with a gaggle of hunters, and what does Daniel do? Pretends to be one of them. It was crazy really, but I’ve never been able to tell the boy anything when he’s looking for a little excitement. We did the deed together and then Bobby invited Daniel back to town for some beers---I objected, but got over ruled and the next thing you know I’m headed back to Cali on my own, and Daniel is---otherwise occupied with Bobby." Slade paused, looking overly thoughtful. “It was doomed from the beginning, Daniel knew that. But he stayed. He and Ryan were on the outs at the time, something that happens between them often, considering he’s one of the bright and shining.”
“Ryan is a good guy?” The thought had never occurred to Dean that Daniel and Ryan were quite literally on opposite sides of the playing field, and yet it seemed to make sense for some absurd reason.
“Yup, to the core---Daniel is his exception to the rule. He hunts outside our family---and we overlook it.” Slade paused for a moment before continuing. “Bobby was a looker when he was young, and quite the charmer in that hillbilly sticks kinda way, so I guess I can see the attraction.”
“Bobby and Daniel were an item---as in 'bumping uglies' kinda item?” The mere thought astounded Dean.
“Yup, for three years. Daniel left the game, trailed Bobby all over the countryside and then the inevitable happened. Daniel was wounded, blood became an issue and---well, Bobby was face to face with the truth of what Daniel was.”
“The marks on his neck---those were from Daniel?” Dean had seen them before, when he was younger. Two tiny puncture wounds just under the edge of his shirt collar. He’d asked about them and he remembered even now the way Bobby had paused---a long thoughtful pause that didn’t seem right for a guy like Bobby. It was really more of a Sam reaction, but Dean had only been ten at the time and so he hadn’t dwelt on it. After that pause, Bobby had smiled and said, somewhat pained, ‘That’s what happens when you get too close to snakes.’
“Indeed. Talk about a betrayal. Daniel couldn’t fix it, couldn’t make him see the truth, and it was over. Just like that, in a matter of seconds, Bobby left Daniel there, bleeding on the floor of some old house out in Illinois. He could have killed him then, but he was too conflicted, I think. Later he tried, but by then Daniel was too strong for him---true vampires aren’t easy to kill---and I don’t think Bobby’s heart was in it. It was a token gesture, really.” Slade paused, his eyes troubled. “They sorta agreed to go their own ways, but Daniel always kept an eye on Bobby. You should have seen him when he hooked up with your Dad; Daniel was mad as fire for a week. It was pure unadulterated jealousy.”
Dean laughed, startled and tickled at the same time. “ Dad and Bobby were never an item!”
“Really?” Slade asked, looking amused. “Daniel said they reeked of it---said he could smell the sex lingering on them.”
“No way…!” Slade didn’t say anything in response to Dean’s reaction. Instead, he just smiled and got up from his chair.
“I’m gonna grab a glass of wine from the kitchen, do you want anything?”
“No, but seriously, they were never an item.”
“Whatever you say, Dean.”
Dean watched as Slade made his way out of the room, a knowing smile plastered on his face. The guy was a little bent if he actually thought John Winchester---a seasoned marine---woulda taken a detour from the hunt to…to what…to rock Bobby’s world?
No way!
“Dean?” Spice’s soft voice brought him back from his musing. He turned and walked back over to the bed, settling down beside the kid.
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He watched as the boy stretched a little, his eyes glassy from fever.
Sam had looked this bad once, when he’d caught pneumonia when he was fourteen. He’d come down with a cold, and John had been hot on the trail of an incubus in Utah. He wasn’t willing to let it go, so he’d left Dean in charge of Sam, put a wad of money in his hand, and disappeared for a week.
It had been just long enough for Sam to get really bad. Dean had broken into the local hospital and stole an antibiotic IV-drip and enough meds to cure the plague, but Sam had only gotten worse. He’d been about ready to haul him down to the local ER when their Dad had finally called.
Sam still ended up in the hospital, hooked to a shitload of tubes, and the disturbing thing about it was the fact that he hadn’t looked half as bad as Spice did now.
Man, that had been the longest three weeks of Dean’s life. He could only pray that things got better for Spice quicker than they had for Sam
He reached out to brush a stray bit of hair back from Spice’s eyes when suddenly he wasn’t in Sam’s gothed-out, underworld-inspired bedroom anymore. He was in that Utah hospital, sitting on the edge of fourteen-year-old Sam’s bed as he slept.
Dean half expected the scene to flash back instantly, return him to the present after a momentary pause. He even waited for it, like a horror movie victim holding his breath while the monster lurked on the other side of the tree, but nothing happened.
“What the hell?” He said it out loud as he stood and looked around the room. Everything felt real, just like it had when Spice had taken him back to the cabin and the choice that had damned Sam’s soul.
“Dean?” Sam’s weak voice called to him, “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Visiting hours are over and Dad said you needed to go back to the motel and get some sleep.”
“I h-had to check on you Sammy. Make sure you were okay.” That’s what he’d been doing there all those years ago. But he hadn’t woken Sam up then; he’d just sat there for hours, waiting for the sun to come up and lying to Sam about how long he’d been there once the morning light was peeking through the curtains.
“You need to rest, Dean.”
“I will, I promise. I’m way more comfortable here than in that hotel room bed anyhow. You go back to sleep, Sam.” He hadn’t really needed to say it because Sam was already on his way there.
Was he remembering---or was this real?
Dean reached out and ran his hand along the back of Sam’s. He could feel every bone, every flaw, just under the skin. He could pick out the three places where Sam’s hand had been broken when he’d taken a nasty fall in Mooresville, Texas trying to help cleanse a house of a poltergeist.
More than that, he felt the silken skin under his fingertips and noticed how it felt fever-warm. It was an odd contrast to the cold metal bars of the bed railing and the soft breeze that was blowing through the cracked hospital window.
And the smell, gawd did he remember that smell, soft and sweet---strawberry shampoo, and the remnants of their dad’s Old Spice. It was the one thing that had been a constant in his younger years, Sam’s shampoo and his Dad’s aftershave. Those were comforting scents, ones that he’d almost completely forgotten over the last few years.
Dad was gone, and Sam---well at fifteen he’d suddenly stopped washing his hair with strawberry scented shampoo. He'd moved on to bigger, more adult stuff and a line of hair care products that cost wayyy more than anything made for hair should. It was one of the few things Sam had insisted upon after he’d grown his hair long. Well, that and the fact he was too old to be called Sammy.
Dean laid Sam’s hand down carefully and pulled the blankets up around him, making sure he was comfortable. For a few minutes he just watched Sam sleep. He’d forgotten that Sam had been shorter than him at fourteen, and his hair had been a lot longer and streaked with gold from a long lazy summer spent in Utah.
They’d both taken jobs tending horses on a ranch while they took care of the local ghouls that haunted the town. It had been part time, and the only honest job Dean could ever remember having. At the time, it seemed important that they blend in, and since it looked like it was going to be an extended stay, they tried to do just that.
It had worked a little too well, and had put Sam firmly on the ‘normal’ bandwagon. Dean hadn’t minded the work, but he’d hated seeing Sam blend so seamlessly into that world.
He walked over to the window, trying to put this all into perspective. He took in the feel of his surroundings, the sights, the sounds---and the smells? It was real, or as real as anything he’d ever experienced.
Sam’s fever had finally broken that night, but Dean hadn’t been able bring himself to leave his brother alone in a strange place. Both he and his Father had slept at the hospital all week, but once Sam’s fever had broken and they had gotten some food down him, John had opted for a real bed rather than the hard chairs the hospital had to offer. Dean, however, just couldn’t leave. No matter how much improved things had become, he’d still needed to be there for Sam.
Since Dean was here, interacting with the past, did it mean he could change things? He reached down and hesitantly pulled out the pocketknife he always carried and flipped it open to reveal the blade. For a moment he just stared at the silvery glint in the darkness, and then without thinking about it too much, he laid the blade at the base of his thumb and in one quick motion, drew it back with enough pressure to make blood spill over the side of his hand to pool on the windowsill. It hurt like hell and he half expected the pain to pull him back into the present, like a fall in a nightmare often did, but instead he was just left standing there, bleeding all over the floor.
Am I actually here? Is this really happening?
The thought played over and over in his head as he found some gauze and wrapped his hand up.
He looked up at the clock; fifteen minutes had passed and it was probably the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
Then, just as suddenly as he’d come to the past, he was back in the present. For a split second it felt as if the world shifted and a warm ripple swept over him, spilling out into everything that surrounded him. To Dean’s surprise, he was looking down at a scar that ran from the base of his thumb down to the bend in his wrist; it was old and well-healed.
But he also remembered something new. He remembered standing at the window of his fourteen-year-old brother’s hospital room, his bleeding hand wrapped in bandages. How he’d gotten the wound had been a mystery at the time. One minute he’d been sitting on Sam’s bed, and the next he’d been leaning up against the wall by the window, cradling his aching hand.
He’d changed the past, just a little bit---but he had changed it.
When he looked up, Slade was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, his face drawn and tight. “I brought you a beer.” The tightness fell away almost instantly, his features smoothing out. “You look like you could use it.”
If he felt the power spike, he wasn’t saying anything, and Dean wasn’t sure if showing his hand was a good idea. It was very possible that Slade wasn’t sure of what he’d felt, or that he wasn’t aware of who the power was emanating from, and in that case, Dean thought it best to leave it a mystery.
“He should sleep through the night. You should crawl in bed, I’ll be in the extra bedroom if you need me.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.” Dean wholeheartedly meant it when he said it.
“You owe me a handfull of thanks---but not for this. He’s my brother, and like you, I’d do just about anything for my brother. Even look the other way while he bent the rules I was bound by.” Slade paused, his eyes raking over Spice. He seemed to be talking about Sam, but it could have also applied to Spice. “Sleep well, Dean Winchester, morning tends to come fast and hard when blood is on the wind.”
“You're weird, do you know that?”
“ I’m perfectly normal. It’s you young human pups who are truly bizarre.” They traded smiles over that comment, and Slade left the room laughing a little.
For now, Dean would sleep; he didn’t wanta think about Jo or the little insight into Spice’s gift.
Changing the past was dangerous, but being able to…well, that opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. But it would have to wait till Spice was well; he wouldn’t use him like that, not without a real plan and a firm understanding of exactly what he’d be messing with.
That ‘Three Fold Law’ was real, and a mega-bitch. Changing things might have unforeseen consequences, and like a true hunter, Dean had to weigh them out.
It was his last real thought before curling protectively around Spice and drifting off to sleep.
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Chapter 21: Chapter 21
Author's Notes: A special thanks goes out to supernaturalgrl for the amazing beta, you rock babe!
When Daniel’s cell phone rang, he flipped it open immediately, recognizing the sound of the ring as the one he’d assigned to his brother John. “Do you miss me already?” he greeted, his voice slightly teasing.
“Most certainly, but that’s not why I’m calling." There was a slight nervous pause before he spoke again. “You were right about the boy, the ripples of power are coming from him. I think he pulled Dean in, I felt it the moment things shifted.”
“It must have been a small change, I got no sense of it from here.”
“I think it was localized around Dean,” Slade paused. “The world didn’t shift---just---Dean.”
Daniel took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had hoped this would never happen.
“How are we going to deal with this?” Daniel needed John’s opinion and so he asked for it. He wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that this was only 'his' decision.
“ I don’t know---but doing nothing is not an option.”
He heard the fine edge of stone in that oh so familiar voice and he sympathized. His older brother wasn’t one for making the hard decisions. He preferred to leave anything painful to others, the ones who craved a little blood with their morning coffee.
“Agreed. We made that mistake once already. I, for one, don’t relish a repeat performance.”
“No, we can’t have that.” Slade seemed to be torn, his rough voice giving away his uneasiness.
“Keep an eye on them. When I get back, we’ll deal with it together.”
“Should I tell Sam?”
“No, he has enough to worry about without adding this to the list.” Daniel paused, his voice quiet. “I’ll deal with this problem first---then we’ll deal with that one.”
“Take care, Daniel---Bobby may not be so soft on you now that he’s had a few years to think on it.”
Daniel smiled and clicked the phone shut, his eyes landing immediately on Bobby who was sitting across the table from him.
“Sounds like you got problems, Danny boy.”
“Problems you caused, old man.” Daniel eyed Bobby Singer sternly as he smiled at him and tossed back another whisky.
“Are you here to finish what you started twenty-some years ago, or just bust my balls for messing with your toys?”
“You can be a real bastard, Robert.” Daniel watched him chuckle and throw back yet another whisky, something he’d been doing for the last fifteen minutes or so. The man had an amazing capacity for alcohol, one that Daniel even as an immortal could never quite match.
“Dean is not one of us, he’s Sam’s prisoner.”
“You expect me to buy that load of horse shit? I saw you guys out gallivanting around town, and he wasn’t exactly screaming for help.”
Daniel reached out and snagged the bottle before Bobby could get to it again, but instead of throwing it across the room and making a scene (as he felt like doing) he wrapped his lips around the rim of the bottle and took a long slow drag on the cheap, nasty whisky. When he was finished, he didn’t hand it back, but kept it in front of him.
If Daniel didn’t intervene, take control of the whisky’s flow, then Bobby would be beyond understanding him by the time Daniel got to his point.
“Dean is there trying to help, Sam.” Bobby sat back in annoyance nursing his beer. “He hasn’t crossed over, you have my word.”
“And what’s your word really worth, Danny?”
“Before you knew what I was, it was worth a lot.”
“You lied to me!” Bobby snapped.
“It wasn’t a lie---I just didn’t feel like baring my soul and getting a stake run through my chest for the trouble!”
“So what? You’re here to convince me that I shouldn’t take another shot at, Dean? Is that it? Give you boys time to sucker him in?” Bobby suddenly snaked out his legs, putting them up on the bench beside Daniel’s thigh, close enough to touch but not so close that Daniel could feel the heat radiating off the man’s extremities.
He was good, he knew how to distract him---how to remind him of what they’d been. It was cruel, but it was also Bobby Singer and Daniel could respect that. “ I’m a hunter Danny, I don’t make deals with the Devil.”
“I’m not the fucking Devil, Robert!” Daniel’s words were laced with poison as he slammed his hand down on the table hard enough to make Bobby’s beer mug jump. Bobby however didn’t so much as flinch.
They’d had a handful of conversations over the years since they’d split. Usually when Bobby had been in the hub of something reckless, then Daniel came with his dire warnings and traitorous counsel.
Daniel had laid his life on the line to protect one he’d once shared a bed with---one he’d once marked as a friend, a lover and what he got for his efforts was hate. The old hunter was always cutting, never respectful, but he seemed to listen despite his hostility.
“You coulda fooled me," Bobby paused, taking a long drink. “Dakota tells me you have Jo? I suppose she just stopped by for a visit and you saw fit to put her up for a couple of nights?”
“ You’re right,” Daniel said, sounding like a man who’d been well and truly caught. “She’s probably bleeding to death on my bathroom floor right this minute, but that’s the price you pay for hurting one of my boys.”
“Why are ya here Danny?” Bobby seemed impatient, as if Daniel were somehow wasting his time.
Was the man in such a hurry to die? He had to figure that sooner or later Daniel would run out of patience where he was concerned.
“You agreed to stay clear of my boys and I agreed not to paint that rusty old truck of yours red with your blood.”
“I didn’t agree to nothin! You don’t die like the rest of 'em, it was a stalemate, not an agreement.”
Daniel eyed the old hunter, his patience wearing paper-thin.
“Sam is just as hard to kill, and Dean’s still mortal---you kill him that makes you a murderer.”
“And you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you?”
“I know enough.” Daniel said just before taking another heavy drink and standing up. “Don’t make me kill you Bobby.” He sat the whisky bottle down in front of the man and pulled out his wallet, tossing a couple hundred on the table. “Despite what the truth has done to us, I’d rather not have your death on my tally sheet---but if you try and hurt any of mine again...” It was a warning, as straightforward as Daniel could manage.
“But you didn’t mind having John’s?”
“I didn’t kill your lover, nor did I coax Sam into my world---your kind chased him there.” Daniel turned to leave, having said everything he needed to say.
“What, that’s it---no killing---not even a hearty death threat?”
“ Gold, over silver, dipped in cinnamon oil.”
“What?” Bobby sounded confused and looked it too when Daniel paused to toss him a glance over his shoulder.
“That’s what you need to kill me, Bobby---gold, over silver, dipped in cinnamon oil---a kill shot–and you'd better hope I can’t rip it out before I bleed to death.”
Daniel left then. One of two things would happen now: Bobby would be the better man and pretend he’d been too drunk to remember or Daniel would be taking a bullet to the chest sometime in the near future.
Either way, Daniel would finally know where he stood with his former lover. If he lived through Bobby’s attempt, the old man would have to pay. If he didn’t---? Well, Sam would be in for a promotion, and Daniel would finally make that one-way trip to hell they’d been promising him for the last two thousand years.
XXXXXXX
When Sam entered the room, wine glass in hand, Jo was hanging suspended in mid air by a simple set of leather cuffs and a chain that was attached to the hoop on the ceiling. She was too short for the contraption, so it forced her up on the balls of her bare feet, and left her looking fragile and helpless.
Maybe she was once, a long time ago, but those days were gone. Jo Harvelle had been killing the monsters for nearly four years now. She’d earned herself a reputation, one that was as tough as nails.
“Do you wanta come out and play, Miss Harvelle?”
He reached out and gently pushed her head back, watching as she swayed, dangerously close to passing out. “Fuck you, Sam!”
“Do you talk to your momma with that mouth?” She spit on him, and his reaction was automatic, a swift hard backhand that sent blood-spilling down her chin. “ I haven’t gotten nasty, yet---so maybe you should mind your manners before I decide to teach you some.”
“Your goons grabbed me outside my hotel Sam, they stuffed me in the trunk of their car and stripped my shirt off in front of half a dozen people outside---they made–th-threats--you don’t call that nasty?” Her shirt had been removed to reveal a sleek looking black satin bra. A little fancy considering the hunter style jeans she was sporting. They were thin, well worn and about as faded as denim got without the benefit of bleach.
“In some circles, I’d call that foreplay. Nasty is when you put a bullet in the chest of a sixteen year old kid.”
“He’s not no fucking kid!” She spat her words at him, her eyes on fire.
“And you’re no lady, bitch---but that’s just a matter of opinion.” He saw the blow coming, watched as she grabbed the chain for leverage and pulled up high so she could give him a good soiled kick to the face…he waited for it. Let the force of it knock him backwards and send the wine glass crashing to the floor.
He laughed as he wiped away the blood from his lip and then held it out to her, offering a taste but she recoiled. “Too bad, it mighta helped you a little, but you had to go and get all squeamish.”
He bent down and picked up a piece of glass, turning it over in his hands before he walked toward her again. This time he caught her leg, bent it back at the knee until it was folded neatly up behind her. He pressed himself up against the length of her, having to bend is knees a little to get down closer to her level. It meant that her head was resting in the crook of his shoulder, and her leg was held painfully taut against the back of her thigh.
Then, he snaked his other arm around her back, the one holding the sliver of glass and he made a long deep cut in the arch of her foot, smiling into her neck as she screamed.
“Lesson number one: don’t ask for pain, because some of us know how to dish it out.” He whispered this in her ear like a lover, and listened as she choked back gut-wrenching sobs, stubbornly refusing to cry for him.
He was still holding her foot so the blood flowed downward, over his hand and onto the cold stone floor beneath. The metallic, human scent of it assaulted his nose, reminding him of her mortality.
“You bastard!” She needed to cry; he could hear the sound of her tears being swallowed down as she cursed at him.
He dropped her foot, watched as she tried to find some way to stand without drawing the skin of her arch too tight. He knew the feeling, the burn and the ache of such a tiny wound in such an interestingly fragile place.
She panted hard, her eyes glassy but nowhere close to spilling over---not yet, but they would–and soon.
Sam noted the bruises, and the dried blood on her lip from where it had been split open earlier. She was covered in her efforts to escape, a lattice of bruises decorating her pale flesh.
He grabbed the back of her head, steadied her as she struggled. Slowly he raised the glass to her lip and opened up the old wound. He watched in fascination as new blood flowed down her chin, mixing with the old and marring her delicate features.
This time there were tears. It was one thing to take a hit in battle, in was another to have your most delicate spots laid open with casual laziness.
As the night progressed, he’d find all those delicate spots with either a shard of glass or the tip of a blade. He’d show her the true meaning of pain, and what it felt like to die. It was a lesson he’d taught many, but for Jo, he was going to be especially thorough.
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Chapter 22: Chapter 22
Author's Notes: A special thanks goes out to supernaturalgrl for the wonderful beta.
When they got to Harvelle’s, the place was surrounded by cars and trucks and for a split second Dean was confused; the place was never this busy. What the hell was going on---a hunter’s convention? Then realization hit Dean square in the face as they cleared the tree line and he got a really good look at what actually surrounded Harvelle’s.
For a few agonizing moments he was completely speechless and absolutely horrified. It wasn’t the usual rusty old trucks and 20-year-old Trans Ams that littered what passed for a parking lot at the roadhouse, but instead sleek black sports cars with illegally tinted windows, a few shiny new trucks and a couple of ominous looking Hummer’s.
The men standing guard outside the door were Sam’s, and the guns were clearly heavy artillery. It was the stuff you packed into war, not the kind of thing you kept around to defend the family home.
“No, Sam please---you can’t do this!” Jo’s desperately pleading voice broke through the hazy cloud that had sunk into position around Dean’s brain. He looked over at her struggling uselessly in Shadow’s massive grip.
The man wasn’t hurting her; in fact he seemed to be going out of his way to keep her from hurting herself with all the thrashing.
“When did you take the Roadhouse?” The question was too bland, too unemotional for the situation at hand, but Dean couldn’t seem to muster up anything but cold, unrelenting dread. Maybe he was in shock? Was this what shock felt like? He wasn’t sure.
“Last night. They tell me we lost three of our own doing it.” Sam’s voice sounded odd, like he was trying to hold some emotion he was feeling in check. But Dean wasn’t sure if it was remorse or anger that he was hiding behind that rough tenor.
“How many hunters died?”
“Three.” For a moment Sam just continued to look out the window, his eyes darker than Dean had ever seen them. Slowly his brother pulled back, his expression bleak. He looked straight at Dean before speaking as if he were trying to pack the point home. “A life for a life. Seems fair to me---it seemed fair to you once upon a time, too.”
Dean couldn’t argue that, but by the looks of this place there was about to be a blood bath, and Dean doubted that even Sam could argue that as being fair.
“No! No Sam, I’ll do anything you want, just pull your men back, please.” Jo had sagged in Shadow’s arms, tears running down her face. She sobbed hard when the car stopped a mere few feet from the Roadhouse door. “ You can’t do this Sam, she’s all the family I have.”
“Sam!” Dean said his name and it was a plea for mercy, but beyond that he wasn’t sure how to handle this, he didn’t know what words to use to change his brother’s mind about whatever it was he was about to do.
“You should have thought about that before you put a bullet in Spice, before you agreed to be part of the team that tried to assassinate Dean and my men.” Sam’s voice was cold, unyielding---a step away from royalty in some dark world that Dean couldn’t fathom.
Jo sagged back in Shadow’s arms, the tears flowing fast enough now to wash away the dried blood from her cheeks.
When Dean had seen her that morning, she’d been covered in blood. Her jeans and tank top had been mostly crimson. Small cuts littered the cloth but beneath them Dean couldn’t see any gaping wounds, just pale white flesh and lots of dried blood.
There had been so much red that Dean would have feared her dead if Sam hadn’t been standing at the foot of the bed, holding her by her arm while she sobbed and tried to shrink away from him in terror.
She’d been crying, begging without really asking for anything, as if she were afraid that her words might inspire some new nightmare if she uttered them incorrectly.
He’d never seen Jo so terrified, or so pale, and then he understood that when Slade had used the word ‘broken’ a couple nights before that he had meant it in a way that Dean hadn’t quite realized at the time.
Among the immortal, that term obviously meant something different---it was darker and more devastating than anything a human could have dreamt up.
Jo had looked like a war victim instead of the twenty-something girl she was, but beyond that there was something in her eyes, some knowledge that he’d never seen there before and it was tearing her apart.
Sam had let her go, and Dean watched dumfounded as she’d sunk to her knees and wept against the carpet saying over and over again that she was ‘sorry’ until Sam had reached his limit and told her to ‘shut up’. Then she’d sat there and rocked back and forth, trying her best to stifle the flood of tears.
Dean had tried to reassure her, but she hadn’t acknowledged him, in fact Sam was the only one she seemed to hear and he only succeeded in terrifying her beyond words. Something he was taking far to much pleasure in, if you asked Dean.
Slade had showed up, took in the scene before him and frowned deeply enough to wrinkle his brow, but he hadn’t said anything. Instead he’d stepped around Jo and checked on Spice. “The fever’s broken, all he needs now is sleep.”
“How lucky for you,” Sam said, concentrating too hard on Jo’s trembling form. She’d cried harder then, relieved or more terrified, Dean wasn’t sure.
“Sam, perhaps I should dose the girl?” Slade didn’t sound as if he were trying to be helpful, but something in his eyes told Dean that he was.
“I don’t think so, awake and alert---that’s how I want her when we take her home.” Sam had watched with morbid satisfaction as she crumbled to the floor at hearing those words.
“Sam?”
“Get dressed Dean, we’re driving Miss Harvelle home.” The keening wail that Jo let out nearly shattered Dean’s eardrums, and he tried to go to her then but Slade caught his arm and pulled him back.
He bent close before whispering in his ear. “The bloodlust has him in its grip, if you help her, and he becomes jealous, he’ll rip her apart. He’ll feel bad for it later, but he’ll drink down her screams now---tread carefully.”
Dean had settled back onto the bed, taking a brand new look at Sam. He knew Slade spoke the truth by the look that was dancing around on Sam’s face, so he dressed wordlessly to the sounds of Jo sobbing hysterically.
Several hours later, here they were and Dean was no closer to fixing this than he was when Sam had first appeared at the foot of his bed.
His brother got out of the car, dragging Jo with him despite her desperate pleas and promises to work for him---serve him in anyway she could. She’d say anything to get him to stop, that much was obvious even to Dean, but nothing was working. Sam didn’t even seem to hear her as he jerked her mercilessly from the back of the limo, tearing her fingers loose from the interior of the car and making her nails bleed as the fabric ripped from her desperate grip.
“Sam---dammit, stop SAM!” But Sam wasn’t listening to him either, and he had to shuffle outta the car just to keep up.
Sam pushed open the doors to the Roadhouse with Jo in hand and Dean trailing a couple feet behind. Shadow was there too; one hand lay easily on Dean’s shoulder as if the big guy was but a heartbeat away from needing to restrain him.
Jo was crying hysterically, a series of pleading words spilling frantically from her lips as she tried to plant her feet on the old wooden floor and keep Sam from advancing. It was useless, considering her size in comparison to Sam’s. Even if he hadn’t been immortal she still woulda been dragged along after him like a small child.
Inside, Ellen was standing behind the bar, her eyes wide as she took in Jo’s bloody and broken appearance. “Joanna Beth!”
The girl slid her mother a look, her eyes wild, but she didn’t say anything in response to her name. Instead she just turned back to Sam and whimpered pleadingly. “Please, I’m begging you, Sam!” She sank down to her knees when he stopped, her wrist caught in his, her head resting against his leg as she wept brokenly.
Maybe Jo hadn’t said anything to Ellen because the man they called Eclipse was there, gun leveled at her mother’s head, his arm resting across her shoulders if he were absurdly at ease in this situation. His expression was more bored than anything. It looked as if he’d been there for a while---his clothes were ruffled, his hair slightly mussed–it left Dean with the impression that for Eclipse it’d been just another long day at work and he was ready to get on with the killing and go home.
“Sammy!” he greeted easily, exhaustion lacing his words. “They took out Gunner, Bailey and Shy.” When he said those names he motioned toward each of the three dead hunters who were responsible. They were lying scattered around the bar room floor in varying positions.
They’d gone down fighting, but fighting what Dean wasn’t sure. One had his throat ripped out, four long gashes ran from just under his left chin and down across his throat, ending somewhere in the center of his chest. Another looked as if he’d had his neck snapped, hell all most twisted off considering the angle. The last, a brunette woman, was just lying in a crumpled heap on the floor as if she’d simply laid down and died when they’d told her to. Dean didn’t see any blood, but he couldn’t see her chest or face with the way she’d landed.
There were other hunters still alive, old, young; a hand full of men, one of which was Gordon Walker, hovering near the bar watching Sam as if he was as pleased as punch that Sam had proven him right after all. Leave it to Gordon to look smug about something like that!
“Sam, we can walk outta here now. Call it even…it doesn’t have to go down like this.” Dean was trying hard to sound reasonable, and Ellen flashed him a quick but hard look as if he’d gone running over to the other side when she wasn’t looking.
“You're so sure you have me figured out, aren’t you?” That was all Sam said, his eyes suddenly dark and molten, as if the usual green had darkened down into an emerald so deep and flawless that it was but a heartbeat away from turning the color of living onyx.
Something instinctively told Dean that if they did that, took that final twist into darkness, that nothing, not even Dean’s silver tongue could pull him back from the abyss. At least not until after the blood had stopped flowing. It was that realization that made him hang back a little.
“I haven’t figured out anything Sam---still in the dark---and you gotta admit, this ain’t looking good little brother.”
Sam smiled then and turned Jo’s wrist loose. He did it so he could kneel down and pet her like a dog. It looked soothing in a weird kinda way, but something about the way Jo shuddered told Dean that it was anything but comforting.
“I’ve let this place stand for this long because it meant something to me in my human life, it meant something to my father and in a way this place is a memorial to him and the life he lead.” Sam paused, his eyes coming to rest on Gordon Walker. “But I’ll not stand by while your kind kills mine.” He spoke to every hunter in the room, and they all seemed to sit up straighter and take notice.
“So you're gonna wipe us all out? You're just gonna kill us in cold blood?” Sam's eyes rose up from the ground at hearing Gordon’s words, the smile on his face widening. “I knew I shoulda killed you when I had the chance.”
“Yes, you should have.” The words were short, sweet and before Dean even registered the threat in Sam’s voice the gunshot rang out and Gordon Walker was lying dead on the floor with a bullet between his eyes. “I owed, him that.”
Dean just looked at Sam, his eyes wide as he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll give ya that---ya kinda did.” But he couldn’t help sliding a terrified glance toward Ellen who was looking down at Jo as though all she wanted to do was go to her daughter and jerk her away from Sam.
“Ash?” Sam raised his voice and waited, watching as the younger man took a step out from one of the tables.
“You called, oh prince of darkness?” It was meant to be a joke and Ash smiled nervously as he said it.
Sam smiled too, his eyes taking on a quality that that was somewhat akin to kindness. “Come over here and have a seat behind the bar with Ellen.” He did as he was told even though his eyes remained anxious.
“Sam.” It was funny how Dean could make Sam’s name mean a million different things.
“Either you trust me, Dean---or you don’t.” Sam paused. “Sit back, wait a few---learn something new.”
“There are some lessons that scare me, Sammy---I’m afraid this is gonna be one of them.” Sam only smiled wider, his eyes focusing on Ellen again.
“I brought her home to you Ellen.” Sam’s words were soft, and he sounded like himself for a few seconds. “So now, here’s the million dollar question---do you want her back?”
“Of course, I do! What kind of question is that, Sam?” Ellen was careful with her words. She, like so many others in the room, was afraid it was a trick.
“Can you forgive her, Ellen? Can you do what mothers are supposed to do?” Ellen looked confused and Jo sobbed louder as if Sam’s words had broken her in half.
“What are you talking about?” Whatever Ellen was thinking, it looked as if she wanted to rush forward and scoop Jo up in her arms. Like any mother, all she really wanted to do was protect her child. “Are you okay, baby–what did he do to you?” Jo didn’t answer, instead she looked away from her mom and sagged further into the floor at Sam’s feet, holding herself and crying harder than ever.
“I showed her what hell looks like.” Sam paused, his eyes taking on a haunted glint. “She came back screaming for her mother. You got your wish. I don’t think little Joanna wants to be a hunter anymore”
“What did you do to my girl!?!?” Ellen surged forward, her eyes dark and full of rage as Ash grabbed her and dragged her back.
“She doesn’t have a scratch on her, Ellen---not a one.” Sam reached down and jerked Jo up none too gently, as if he meant to illustrate his point.
Ellen gasped, but stayed where she was. “All that blood--???”
“I didn’t say, that she didn’t bleed---just that she’s all better now.” Sam paused, waiting for Ellen to get herself real good and confused before continuing. “ If you’re going to sentence someone to hell, then you need to know what it tastes like.” Sam studied Ellen’s expression. “ I bled your daughter, took her right to the edge of death, and then I offered her something---something she wanted desperately---her life. She accepted and here we are, she’s coming home to show mom what she’s made of herself.” Sam thrust Jo toward the bar, his hand going for his blade.
Dean tried to go to Jo---stop Sam---but the next thing he knew Shadow had him up off his feet and in the same unbreakable grip he’d had Jo.
“SAM! DAMMIT SAM! DON’T YOU FUCKING DO THIS!!!” Ellen was screaming, Ash was pleading, and the noise became one big rush through Dean’s ears as he watched Sam slam Jo into the bar and pull out that big fucking knife of his.
He might have been screaming too, but the sound of his own panic never really filtered through. Shock---he was most definitely in shock.
In two seconds flat Sam had racked the blade down over her back splitting open cloth and skin---but then a hush fell over the room as the wound closed up, leaving Jo sobbing that much harder.
“If I’m the devil–then your daughter has been making some pretty nasty deals, Ellen.”
“Oh, my God!” Ellen looked stunned as Sam tugged Jo back to the center of the floor.
“You got a choice to make Ellen.” Eclipse suddenly dropped his bead on Ellen, tucking his gun back in his belt and jumping over the bar. “You can keep this place going, let one of these guys put a bullet in your daughter---I’m a charitable guy, I don’t wanna see her suffer anymore than she already has. It has to be silver---in the brain.” Sam made his hand into a gun and leveled it at Jo’s head mimicking two clicks.
“Damn you to hell, Sam Winchester!” Ellen meant it when she said it too.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been there---it’s hurts like a bitch, ask your daughter.” Sam paused, “Or door number two: you start to realize that if something ain’t trying to kill you, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to kill it.”
Sam leaned in close to Jo, his hand snagging a thick brown packet from under his shirt. He pressed the envelope into Jo’s hand. She took it automatically and clung to it like it was her very life. “You won’t cross me ever again, are we clear?” Jo nodded and it was hard and jagged in Sam’s presence.
Sam stepped back, his eyes raking over Ash and Ellen with dark intensity. “Now we get to see if you’re worth your salt, boy’s and girls.”
With a nod from Sam, Eclipse was handing a shotgun to Ellen and Ash along with a couple hand pistols. “You can waste those bullets on us---or you can use 'em to protect your daughter from them.” Sam motioned his chin toward the hunters in the room. “We’re leaving. And just so you know, anyone coming out that door in the next thirty minutes is gonna get a bullet right between their eyes---we got sharp shooters trained on this place---and you know we ain’t kidding.”
Shadow set Dean down carefully. “That’s twisted, Sam!’
“That’s justice, Dean.”
“Yeah, in a messed up, Saw II kinda way, maybe.”
Sam chuckled deeply then. The sound of it echoing through the room was rich and sultry and to Dean’s horror it stirred something low in the pit of his stomach and that something snaked into his groin, making him question his own sanity.
Dean turned on his own accord and headed for the door. “Dean?” Ellen’s voice snagged the elder Winchester’s attention and he turned to look at her for a second.
“I’m sorry Ellen---I can’t fix this! I got no say here---not with them, and even if I did?” Dean looked at Jo sobbing on the floor, his eyes sympathetic. “What’s done is done.” Sam slipped up behind Dean, wrapped his arms around him and smiled knowingly back at Ellen.
“Good luck!” was all Sam said before he nudged Dean out the door.
The last thing any of them heard was the sound of the shotgun going off and echoing through the flat plains outside the roadhouse.
In his sudden, ludicrous, calm, Dean idly wondered which of the rough looking hunters had been the first to die.
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Chapter 23: Chapter 23
Author's Notes: This has actual been ready to post for a couple of weeks, thanks to Supernaturalgrl and her lovely beta but I had some unexpected down time, family issues and some health problems on my part. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing serious, but for a while there I was sweating bullets, let me tell ya.
Truth is until the kids go back to school I don’t see myself getting much done writing wise. I do apologize for the long break in posts. I never intended to spin this tale on for so long, and I’m kinda a perfectionist. I won’t turn a chapter lose until I’m satisfied with it. And seeing how little time I have during the summer months it’s hard to produce something that I consider postable. I have about 3 more weeks till I’m back on my normal (Kids are in school) schedule, so I anticipate posting regularly again after that…and hopefully my longwinded self will be finished before next years summer break lol!
Don’t panic---I’m sure I will be---though I’ll probably still be writing the sequel by then.
So with that said, this chapter is a little short, but it’s the best I could do without connecting it to the next---which is in progress but it might be a bit before it’s completed since it’s gonna require a little more time and attention to finish.
So, basically I assure you, I haven’t forgotten WDF, The muse is still vibrant and alive and I fully intend to finish this story.
So I’m gonna wrap this up now and just say “THANK YOU” to all those who have read and reviewed or sent me privet e-mail’s you guys rock and I didn’t mean to worry anyone. Your concern was deeply appreciated.
Sam remembered his first few weeks on the plantation. He’d been lost and alone in his own mind---suffering silently with the loss of his brother. At the time everything had seemed hopeless. He’d had everything taken from him, Jessica, his Father---his Mother before he could even conjure up lasting memories of her--- and then finally Dean, the last and final straw.
He hadn’t trusted any of these people, then, Daniel least of all. It had been difficult to understand the man who somehow looked many years Sam’s junior despite the truth. The Vampire had stood over Jordan’s body, his face torn with pain as a single tear slipped down his cheek.
When Daniel had looked at Sam, there had been rich unadulterated rage in those dark eyes. Sam recognized that look; he understood the heat and power that surged through Daniel’s veins as he looked at the man responsible for Jordan’s death. Oh Sam hadn’t been the killer, but he’d been close enough that if Daniel struck out, then the darkness in him would have been satisfied.
The pain in Daniel mirrored Sam’s own and for a split second Sam welcomed the death that he was sure would follow that intense gaze, but instead of death Sam had been rewarded with life. Daniel had reeled his anger back in, like a fisherman hauling in a heavy catch. It had been hard, and he hadn’t wanted to do it---but he’d managed.
The man had reverently ordered the others with him to take away Jordan’s body---clean the apartment---to do whatever was necessary to erase the violence that had spilled over the place.
“Am I a prisoner here?” Sam had asked.
“I’ve bought you from the yellow-eyed one---but you’re free to go---a reward for letting the boy live.” Daniel had paused, his eyes sweeping over Sam as if her were taking his measure. “ Or you can stay, claim all that was Jordan’s. But to do so, you must become a member of the brotherhood.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Daniel had looked at Sam, his expression ominous. “Because out there you’re anyone’s meat, in here---your only mine--- and I’ll teach you how to control the hunger before it consumes you.”
Sam hadn’t liked the way Daniel had said that, the heaviness of his tone had sent chills down Sam’s spine, but reluctantly he’d agreed.
Daniel had kept his word. He’d taught Sam through interesting vices how to control the darkness in him when it reared its ugly head. He’d shared with him the secrets of this place and who he was as a man. He’d never lied, nor had he sugared down the truth to make it easier for Sam to swallow.
Daniel had demons and they were far superior to Sam’s and yet he was able to control them. It gave the young Winchester hope---hope that maybe one day he could take back some of the things that were his.
“Sammy?” Sam stopped dead in his tracks when Dean spoke his name. The tone pulled him back to the present, reminding him of what he’d fought so hard to regain over these last three years.
Sam had been expecting a lot of different reactions from his brother since they left the roadhouse but the soft, almost sympathetic use of his name hadn’t been among them.
Dean hadn’t spoken on the way back to the plantation; in fact, he hadn’t said a word until they were standing alone together in the hallway outside the penthouse doors. Sam figured he was being punished for the events that took place at Ellen’s, but something in the tone of Dean’s voice said differently.
“What is it Dean?”
“Why did you let her live?” It was an odd question, presented in an even odder tone.
Was his brother suddenly questioning the validly of that decision?
Sam turned and looked at Dean and what he saw staring back at him was confusion, sadness and worry. It was an openness that Dean rarely showed to anyone but Sam, and then only on the rare occasion when it was absolutely necessary.
This was his brother’s “let’s talk” face, the one Sam got in the darkest hours of the morning when he’d been growing up. It had only made a handful of appearances over the years, and mostly when nobody was around to see or hear the words that followed. Dean was a lot deeper than people thought; he just didn’t like to make an issue of it.
Sam leaned up against the wall and thought about his question. He refused to give his brother a quick, off the cuff answer. Not when he was actually trying to understand.
“I couldn’t kill Jo. She means something to me, Dean.” Sam watched as Dean turned that over.
For a couple of long seconds he just stood there, chewing on that bit of information like it was one of the great mysteries of the world.
“You didn’t spare her for me?”
“Nope.” Sam shifted, his dark eyes lightening up just a tad. “When I’m in that mood, I’m not worrying over your feelings---I may think on them, but they don’t dictate my actions.”
“You know, Ellen probably offed a couple of hunters back there?” Sam nodded, understanding where he was going. “She’ll have to disappear.”
“In that packet I gave Jo, there was cash, fake identification, my contact number---they’ll be fine.”
“You fucked her life up, Sam.”
“It was already fucked up. I gave her daughter back to her; she won’t lose Jo like she lost her husband.”
“I don’t know what you did to Jo downstairs, but I’m willing to bet good money it was messed up.”
“It had to be done, I couldn’t take the chance that she’d try it again.”
“I get it Sam. I suppose as far as justice goes, it’s as good as we ever got…hell, maybe even a little better. She gets to live forever right? That’s either the most awesome thing in the world or the most fucked up. “Dean paused his voice trailing off a bit. “I haven’t decided which it is yet.”
“I’m told it has its benefits.”
Dean smiled nervously, his eyes growing glassy before he spoke. “You have something in you Sam, something dark…it scares the hell outta me, little brother! I wanna fix this, I wanna make you…you again!”
“I’m still me, Dean.” His older brother looked at him, really looked at him for maybe the first time since they’d reunited. “I still enjoy a good book, I hate clowns and I love you. The only thing that’s really changed is the style I choose to live my life in.”
“You have hunters trying to kill you, Sammy!”
“As opposed to ghosts, werewolves and vampires…??? How is it really all that different, Dean? Now I’ve got an army to back me up, and I don’t have to worry about a handful of hunters like Gordon who’ll be gunning for me regardless.”
“If things had been different that day---if I’d killed the demon instead of you giving yourself to him….!”
“Then things might be different, but the real question is, in what way?” Sam shook his head. “Anything could have happened, Dean. With the way things were heading, I don’t even know if we’d still be around today.”
“You’d still have your soul.”
“Souls are bartered for daily---trust me---being what I am---it doesn’t mean there’s no chance for salvation. There’s always a way out of any contract, you just gotta find the loop holes. Besides, if you’re going to worry about my soul so much, then maybe you should become a priest.” Sam couldn’t help making a joke and watching as his brother scowled.
“I think screwing my brother counts me out for that little job opportunity.”
“We haven’t screwed, Dean.”
“You coulda fooled me.”
“If you think we’ve fucked, then you’re more innocent than I thought,” Sam chuckled.
“Bitch!”
“Jerk.” Dean smiled a real Winchester smile---finally, his whole body suddenly relaxing.
“Point taken. You’re---you---sorta.” Sam smiled pushing off the wall. “I mean you are bit more Don Corleone than you used to be---ya gotta admit!”
“Younger, and far more handsome---but yes.”
Sam leaned in and kissed Dean, the soft brush of lips, however chaste, was anything but. What was it about innocent kisses that kept them from being innocent at all? The male psyche maybe? But what did that mean when it was another guy planting one on you?
That he was teasing you!
“You are evil Sam---maybe not Freddy Krueger but---!” Suddenly Dean stopped, remembering the blood and the tiny slits in Jo’s clothes and he fumbled with his words, suddenly not so sure if he shouldn’t make that comparison “ Well, not with the glove, anyway! But you are evil.”
“In that case, I’ve always been evil---because as soon as I understood what sex was---you, dear brother were the image I was jacking off to.”
Dean just looked at Sam, his head titled slightly and it was suddenly impossible to know exactly what he was thinking.
But Sam got the basic idea. Dean was trying to figure out if he was serious or not, and Sam couldn’t help laughing at him as he turned away from his big brother to open the door to the penthouse.
When it swung open Sam paused, Daniel was sitting there, in front of Spice, wearing his somber face. In the beginning, the man had walked in uninvited regularly, but after Sam had made his oath at the end of their first year together, Daniel had never again invaded Sam’s space without an open invite.
So to come home and find him camped out on his coffee table---well it meant something---Sam Just didn’t know what yet.
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Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Author's Notes: I wanta thank Supernaturalgrl for the beta, as always she’s awesome! Hope you enjoy, I feel as rusty as a sack full of old wet nails ~sigh~
The door swung open to reveal Spice sitting up, awake and alert on the living room couch. He had his legs folded underneath him, Indian style as Sam used to say. He was leaning back against the cushioned surface but he didn’t look comfortable. In fact he looked scared to death, and one look at Daniel, who was sitting on the coffee table directly in front of him, explained why.
The Vampire didn’t look threatening in the traditional sense, but something in his eyes gave it away. Daniel had this way of looking at a person, a way that could bore a hole straight through a person’s soul. It was the look of some divine creature who’d been around longer than dirt, and was certain enough about the origins of eternity to be utterly fearless---utterly dangerous.
Oh, the face was as fresh and shiny as a new penny and if Daniel chose, that’s all you saw when you looked at him. Smooth, handsome lines, perfect nose and soft kissable lips---he was the kind of guy who could bend straight and blur the lines between simple beauty and utter perfection while still pulling off masculine---but the eyes, those weren’t new at all, and today Daniel wasn’t hiding that fact.
When he turned to look at Dean, the elder Winchester froze as surely as if Daniel had just turned a gun on him. His eyes slipped over Daniel’s hands, half expecting to see a weapon resting there---not a gun, but a knife---because Daniel was a knife kinda guy--- but there wasn’t even a glint of silver. It was just the sleek line of his hands, which looked more suitable to an artist rather than some supernatural mob boss.
“Come, in Dean.”
Sam’s hand came out to stop him, a protective gesture, because he too realized something wasn’t quite right in the scene that lay before them.
“What did he do?” Sam’s voice rested on a razor’s edge, as if at any moment he might step off some invisible ledge and bloody himself with violence.
“Enough for me to be here---in your rooms--- uninvited.” This seemed to mean something to Sam who took a step forward, his eyes sweeping over Spice as if to check the state of his health. “I didn’t harm the boy, Sam.”
“Do you intend to?”
Daniel paused long enough to stand and move away from Spice over to the window. It seemed to be a wordless gesture, a promise or oath he shared silently with Sam and Sam alone.
Dean shouldn’t have felt such an immense relief at Daniel’s sudden distance from the boy, considering the man hadn’t laid a hand on him, but he did.
“There are things you don’t know, Sam---things I couldn’t risk telling you.” Daniel sounded conflicted. “It’s not because I didn’t trust you, I just thought it’d be safer for everyone if the past died with Jordan.”
“What are you talking about?” Sam sounded utterly confused, his gaze flicking back and forth between Daniel and Dean.
“Things that should probably never be spoken of out loud.” Daniel tilted his head slightly as he looked out the window, deliberately making his hair slide forward to cover his troubled expression, but the tremor in his voice wasn’t camouflaged so easily; it remained, like a haunting reminder of the gravity of the situation.
“Daniel?” Sam sounded concerned, and it was suddenly clear to Dean that they’d been more than casual lovers. Daniel meant something to Sam. That shouldn’t have felt like a punch in the gut---but it did.
“Jordan was fooling with things he had no business messing around with---things that ate him alive in the end. He was changing things Sam, little by little.”
“That’s not possible, you told me there were laws in place.”
“There are…and they keep this universe moving. The punishment for breaking them is utter annihilation of both the body and soul.” Daniel paused, his whole demeanor tense. “Imagine if you could go back and change pivotal moments in history? What would it mean if we could rewrite time itself?”
“It’d be tempting. Too tempting.” Sam was listening, beginning to suspect something.
“Indeed, and if you could get away with it---maybe it’d be worth a little sacrifice, but every gift comes with a price---imagine for a moment what some people would do with that gift, how far it would reach. A single event sets off a series of tiny ripples---and they tumble into one another like dominoes set up for the fall. We’re not gods Sam; we don’t know why things happen, or what the reasons are when they do. We never get to stand above the big picture and see how we’re going to mess it up if we mess with the colors or the lines!”
There was a fine edge of fear in Daniel’s voice, and that fear made Dean uneasy. A man like Daniel didn’t fear the unknown---he feared what he knew personally to be a threat.
“Jordan’s dead, so why are we even discussing this?” Sam was starting to add things up, and he didn’t like the total one damn bit.
“Because he wasn’t the one with the---ability.”
Sam immediately looked at Spice, his eyes darkening somewhat.
“God paints this canvas, Sam, and we have no business marking it up with the equivalent of crayons.” Daniel’s eyes slide straight to Dean when he said those words.
“You can’t possibly be suggesting---!” Sam looked pale
“If I wanted him dead, then his blood would have already flowed, I would have taken care of it before you came home.”
Something about the way Daniel said that seemed both cold and extremely considerate at the same time. The very tone gave Dean chills.
“Your brother, he’s slipped into the past with Spice’s help---”
Before Daniel even got the words out, Sam had turned toward Dean, his eyes on fire.
“It wasn’t intentional---but I’m betting he’s trying to figure out a way to use it.”
“Do they know?” Sam sounded scared to death when he all but whispered the words.
“Who are they?” Dean asked, getting the feeling suddenly that there was some bigger danger than he’d realized lurking inside Spice’s gift.
“They are the ones who claim those who break the universal law,” Daniel explained as he turned back to the room. “There are rules, not a lot, but a few: A man has to agree to surrender to darkness before his soul can be called forfeit. Children, marked by God, are off limits to us and vice versa. And no one---and I do mean no one---is allowed to mess with the progression of time. You can look back on it, or forward, see where the world has been or where it’s going, but changing its path is absolutely forbidden. You can fiddle with the little things, but destiny is off limits.”
“Do they know?” Sam repeated firmly, his eyes betraying his internal panic.
“We shielded the activity from them---the change was very small.” When Daniel walked forward and scooped up Dean’s hand he looked right at the scar. “This tiny thing–it rippled through the netherworld like the start of a storm and it was but a grain of sand tossed into an ocean. If you try and ‘save’ Sam, you’ll be tossing in a boulder. We are limited by time---ghosts, demons, devils----us, what we are---we are bound by the laws of this existence.” There was a long, thoughtful pause. “But gods and angels they aren’t; you’ll pay for your transgressions, and the penalty will be stiff---and he,” Daniel pointed at Spice, “will die.”
“Are you threatening him?”
Dean was beyond angry as he spoke, his eyes on fire. He grabbed Daniel by the shirt, his hands fisting in the material as though he could actually best the ancient vampire in a fight. All he heard was the threat, and all that mattered in that moment was protecting the boy---protecting Sam. All reason went out the window.
Daniel didn’t fight Dean’s sudden burst of aggression, instead he let himself be yanked forward, his body almost melting into the violence. He didn’t look surprised or angry at Dean’s daring.
But Sam did. His brother had actually taken half a step back, his eyes wide with surprise as he tried to figure out the best way to deal with the situation.
“You’re not listening to me, Dean. I won’t have to touch the boy. Others will come riding into the new world he creates. They will find him, and they will rip him to shreds. And you , you they will punish in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.”
Something in Daniel’s voice alerted Dean to his own desperation, to the feeling of all consuming dread weaving its way through his guts.
As Dean’s fingers uncurled from Daniel’s shirt, the man reached up, his fingers curling around the back of Dean’s neck almost tenderly.
“How can one such as you doubt the existence of god and the devil? How can you not know that there are rules to this game we call life?”
“Saving Sam is not a game!” Dean spoke vehemently. (?)
Daniel tilted his head, his eyes soft and sympathetic, but much too old for that face in Dean’s opinion.
“No, not a game,” Daniel whispered. “Not to us, but to them. All that matters is who is victorious, light---or dark. We are just pawns, Dean.”
“If I can save Sam I have to try, and you’ll have to kill me to stop me.”
“You Winchesters, always so damn dramatic!” Suddenly the tables were turned, and it was Daniel gripping the front of Dean’s shirt, one handed, and he was dragging him effortlessly across the floor toward Spice.
It all happened so fast that Dean barely registered Sam’s shouts and Spice’s attempt to scurry away from the angry vampire.
Somewhere in the mayhem a lamp went crashing to the floor, and the couch ended up half way across the room. There was blood as glass shattered, and the echo of a body hitting the far wall. The sound of that thud made it clear to Dean that Sam had been tossed away from Daniel as though he weighed next to nothing.
A quick look confirmed that Sam was down but trying to get to his feet, and the blood that dripped onto Spice’s face as Daniel swooped down on him was in fact coming from Daniel.
Dean only had a moment to wonder what he’d missed---to note the bloody blade in Sam’s hand as he made it to his feet.
In the blink of an eye Daniel had snatched up Spice’s wrist and the world disappeared in to a bright burst of white light.
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Chapter 25: Chapter 25
Author's Notes: I wanted to thank everyone who read the last chapter and reviewed---EVERY word was deeply appreciated. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to comment individually, RL has been pretty darn hectic the last couple of weeks and to make matters worse I have a faulty keyboard (I suspect someone spilled soda on it :( ---my space key sticks horribly and I get frustrated beyond believe trying to type stuff out. This last chapter---a labor of love let me tell you lol!
All I gotta do is make a trip to the store and somehow remember to pick one up but so far that simple task seems beyond me. Added it to the darn grocery list this week! Anyway, THANK you all so much for reading and feeding---it made my day.
A huge hug goes out to Supernaturalgrl for the Beta, you rock girl!
Dean felt it the moment the world shifted under his feet, sending him tumbling into chaos. Wind and rain slammed into him hard, soaking deep into his bones like ice water. The resulting shiver followed a path straight down to his toes, reminding him that he was alive.
For a moment he’d been worried about that. He wasn’t sure what death looked like, but when Daniel had gotten a hold of him he had wondered if the ancient vampire was the one. He might not have been some sickle-carrying freak, but he had looked angry enough to get the job done.
Dean just lay there looking up at the darkness as the cold rain bit into the tender skin of his cheeks. He laid there a long time---long enough for the rain and wind to calm, for it to turn from punishing to simply annoying and then finally it faded away all together.
The silence gnawed at him like a hungry beast, demanding he move beyond its reach or stay and be consumed. It was an eerie feeling, the kind that left you wondering how close to death you’d actually come.
Slowly his senses came back and his eyes began to focus on the trees that hung over head, and the sound of water flowing over rocks near by---and of someone groaning---cursing softly a few feet away from him.
He turned over slowly, considering his body felt like it’d been loaded down with a ton of bricks. The first thing he saw surprised him, it was the body of a young hunter he’d once met in Nebraska---Erick or Aaron? He couldn’t really remember his name.
They’d only had a few beers, traded a couple war stories and then Sam had dragged Dean outta the bar early because he hadn’t liked the guy---or that had been his excuse, anyway. Now that Dean knew about Sam’s secret attraction to him, he wondered if it had been plain and simple jealousy that had caused his little brother's hissy-fit that night.
Dean hadn’t even been attracted to the other hunter, it was more about male bonding than anything. He’d just been someone he could share his life with, yak about work---it hadn’t been personal, and yet here he was, his lifeless body sprawled out beside the water just a few feet from Dean as though it were supposed to be there. As though they’d maybe become more than bar room acquaintances.
“What the fuck?”
“I suspect you knew him, here---in this time.” Dean looked toward Daniel who was slowly dragging himself to his feet, his hand wrapped around the knife wound in his chest.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean demanded as anger fueled his body to action. He managed, with some difficulty, to stand up---to glare at Daniel.
“We’re in your new world---can’t you feel it?” Daniel’s voice was thick with pain. “The one you hoped to create using Spice.”
“What?!?! What the hell---just like that---did Spice...?”
“Sort of, but not exactly. I used his ability to get us here. The boy is amazing, but he doesn’t have that kind of control---not yet.”
“You did this?!?!? You just changed things?”
“I belong to the darkness for a reason, Dean. We all have gifts, but mine are just a little more advanced than most.”
Dean flew at Daniel grabbing him and slamming him up against the nearest tree. The vampire winced as his head connected with the unforgiving maple, but he didn’t seem surprised at Dean’s quick recovery, or the surge of rage that was directed toward him.
If Daniel was afraid of dying, he didn’t show it.
“So all this time you could just wave your hand and give me what I wanted?”
“No, nothing so simple; I made a deal---we’re all about deals, ya know?” Dean watched as Daniel settled into the violence, accepting it as a matter of course. Whatever happened, happened---or at least that seemed to be Daniel’s unspoken position on the matter as he accepted the consequence of Dean’s heavy hand.
“A deal?” Dean was utterly confused. “So what, you give me that long ass speech about how we can’t change things and then just hand me what I want on a silver platter?” He bounced Daniel’s body off the tree with surprising ease, and then watched with some amount of pleasure as the pain it caused flickered through the ancient Vampire’s eyes.
“The change is temporary---we are in a bubble---a trial run of what could be?” Daniel’s words came through gritted teeth, all breathy and clipped.
“You can do that!?!?” Dean wasn’t sure he believed him---not because Daniel was a liar, but because he couldn’t quite fathom that anything or anyone was that powerful, outside of God himself.
“No," Daniel shook his head, his eyes deadly serious. “Even I’m not that skilled---but I have friends in high places who are.”
“So you already know what’s here, then---right?” The words were filled with hatred, with malice and something else---something dark and unsettling. Dean had never felt anything quite like it and it tugged at the edges of his thoughts.
For a moment he wanted to hurt Daniel, to rip him apart! To make him bleed just because he could.
But for what? What had the man done besides give him what he wanted?
“The only thing I know about this place is that I’m dead here.” Dean paused at hearing that, his temper wavering. He wasn’t sure why but the idea of Daniel being ‘dead’ bothered him---suffering was okay, hell Dean would enjoy dishing that out in droves but ‘dead’----no he didn’t want Daniel dead. Not really.
“You look pretty damn alive to me!” Dean emphasized his point by shaking Daniel again. He realized almost distractedly that he enjoyed this, enjoyed being dominant over someone so powerful.
Was Daniel giving him this moment? Or was it the wound that had weakened him so much?
“If I were alive here, I would have ended up wherever I would have been had the years progressed with your changes in place---since I ended up here with you---in my own form, with my wounds, my weapons and everything else I made the leap with---then logic says that in your new world I’m dead.”
“Dean’s hands softened on the fabric of Daniel’s shirt. “Is this part of your gift---to see possible futures---to live them?”
“No, not really.” Daniel seemed tired, weak---and for some fucking reason more attractive to Dean than he ever had.
Dean could feel the heat coming off his body even though his skin was as cold as ice. Yet his blood was warm, and Dean watched for a moment as it dripped onto the crushed leaves beneath them. For the first time in his life Dean thought the blood looked bright and beautiful instead of dull and ominous---it looked like fresh cut rubies, and smelled like sweet warm spices.
This moment was like winter and hot chocolate, and it bothered Dean to realize that he could swallow Daniel down and savor his pain like you would something warm to drink on a chilly winter's night.
Dean pulled his thoughts back, visibly shook them off before focusing on Daniel’s face again.
“What is it you can do, then---what gift did they recruit you for?” There was a threat in Dean’s words, one he hadn’t meant to imply and yet it was there---it was real.
“I can utilize the gifts of others---add in something of myself---and make those gifts into something new. But to be allowed to cross---that was a deal I struck with others. I used what Spice owned, and to his gift I added my own---that is how we are here.”
“So what do you get out of showing me this world---this version of it?”
“I don’t know yet.” Daniel seemed to be telling the truth, every instinct in Dean said that he was and still it seemed foolish to trust him. “This may sound strange to you, but I care for Sam---he is my chosen family and I don’t want his world to come crashing down around him because his brother---his lover---is too foolish to see past his own narrow-mindedness.”
Dean strongly resisted the urge to make Daniel bleed for his truthfulness!
“And you think by showing me this world---that it will somehow change my mind? Anything is better than handing Sam over to evil!”
“Ask yourself why you’re here with him instead of Sam?” Daniel’s words were so simple, and when Dean followed Daniel’s eyes and looked toward the dead hunter, he couldn’t honestly think of a reason. “Figure it out.” It was a suggestion---only a suggestion as Daniel pulled away from Dean’s now loose grip and started to walk north toward the moonrise.
“Where the hell are you going?” Dean asked as he started after him. For a moment he imagined himself grabbing Daniel, throwing him to the ground and spilling some of that high and mighty blood of his. It was a quick and violent thought that made him pull back a little.
What the hell was wrong with him? Dean was a hunter not a blasted serial killer---but that’s what he felt like at the moment. The thought of killing, of causing pain, that was appealing---far too appealing.
“Your car---I can smell the direction you originally came.”
“What about him?” Dean motioned toward the hunter. “What the hell happened here?”
“Shadow Reaper---it’s dead now.” Daniel sounded confident, but Dean wasn’t---he wasn’t sure what a Shadow Reaper was---not to mention whether it was dead or not.
“They turn to brimstone dust after you kill them, that’s the odd smell on the air.”
“And that guy back there?”
“Leave him to the elements---we don’t have time to bury the dead.”
“How much time do we have?” It occurred to Dean that being inside of a bubble, that it was probably only a matter of time before it burst.
“It varies.” Daniel wasn’t going to tell him and Dean knew there wasn’t any use in asking again just from the tone of his voice. Final was final---it reminded Dean briefly of his dad.
“You’re bleeding all over the place! I hope you don’t think your getting into my car like that. ”
“Sam is efficient with his wound placement, I’ll give him that much credit.”
“What do you mean?” Daniel looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
“He deliberately nicked an artery---he knew it’d slow me down?”
“Where are they---Spice and Sam?”
“Wherever they would be had your changes happened---I only brought you with me.” Dean could accept that. Daniel didn’t seem like the type of guy who liked complicated, so the fewer people tagging along the better.
When they cleared the tree line, Dean’s heart hit the roof of his mouth as he took in the Impala---she looked like she’d been through a war and had lived to tell about. She’d been beat up, scraped up and patched up to the point that she looked more like a car outta Mad Max than his beloved baby.
“What the hell! I don’t get it---I wouldn’t just leave the Impala like this.”
Daniel didn’t say anything but he seemed tense as he looked around the area. Nothing looked grossly out of place, but the roads themselves looked old, as if they hadn’t had fresh lines of paint laid down in a long time. Weird considering it looked like a state highway. Also there were bullet holes in the road signs…and the grass was grown up waist high along the roads. It just didn’t look right---not for any American highway.
“Why is the road deserted?” Daniel asked the question, turning toward Dean as he studied the very air itself.
“I don’t know---but let's not hang around to find out. Dean popped the trunk, thankful to find his first aid kit was still in there. It was a little worse for wear, but still stocked enough to be functional. “Lets wrap that wound, and then get the hell outta here!”
Daniel simply nodded, stripping off his shirt. “If you have a syringe and alcohol---flush the wound with it.” Dean must have looked skeptical because Daniel smiled. “I’m immortal remember? I can’t be poisoned that way---besides, I think you’ll enjoy causing me pain.”
“Ya think?” was all Dean could say. The sarcasm was implied and yet it lacked the punch it should have.
The weird thing was, Dean couldn’t actually deny Daniel’s accusation, he just couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly looking forward to hurting the other man. Dean was a lot of things, but a sadist had never been one of them.
At least not until now.
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Chapter 26: Chapter 26
Author's Notes: A huge hug goes out to Supernaturalgrl for the Beta,even with the flu she came through for me... you rock girl!
Dean had fixed Daniel’s wound to the best of his ability before crawling into his car and revving up the engine. She purred to life despite how she looked, and drove like a dream. It was nice to know that some things still mattered to him in this alternate---dimension, was that the word?
The only thing that was important now was finding Sam.
For a while they drove toward the sunrise while Dean silently took in the disheveled countryside and wondered about the war he’d apparently missed.
Daniel was half asleep in the passenger side seat by midday, but he was never quite unconscious ---not all the way. Apparently he didn’t trust Dean anymore than Dean trusted him. It was nice to know they were on the same page again.
The vampire had kept his reactions in check during the mending, but a fine sheen of sweat and a few noises deep in his throat had been enough to alert Dean to his pain.
It bothered Dean that he’d drawn the experience out, took a few extra minutes to slap in the stitches---some extra care when cleaning the wound. It would have been okay if he’d been doing it out of concern, or necessity, but the real reason had been to see if the other man would break, if he’d make some kind of vocal sound or protest. He hadn’t, but Dean had spent a fair amount of time trying to inspire one.
As they traveled, they had passed through several small towns and the story was always the same---boarded up windows, men standing sentry with hunter style weapons, half the town dead---the other half in pretty bad shape. Something was stalking every town they passed through; sometimes it was mutable somethings.
Cell phones didn’t work. The chain of American commerce was broken; it was practically the dark ages again, and if you wanted to keep moving, you had to trade for what you wanted.
Daniel had bartered for gas with some unknown currency while Dean had waited in the car, but usually the vampire kept his head down. These people talked about monsters and demons, about beasts that had ripped cities apart. It didn’t seem practical for either of them to let Daniel be found out.
So the vampire played his fresh-faced card, stuck close to Dean, smiled and acted naïve. Most people bought it, the ones who didn’t just thought he was ‘up to something’. It never occurred to them that he was a creature of the supernatural nature.
Most people usually dubbed Daniel ‘kid’ the moment they laid eyes on him, and looking at him now, it was easy for Dean to see where their assumptions came from. Daniel had been scarcely more than a man when he’d crossed over into immortality, and slender in the way that made him seem young. It was that ‘barley outta the garage band’ look that teenage boys acquire around their last year of high school, just months before they lost that special something that took them from gorgeous to simply handsome.
Back in their other life, Daniel had purposely dressed to make an impression. His clothes and shoes were tailor made to make him seem older, larger. more imposing. But here, he dressed down.
The tattered jeans and loose hair made him look all fresh-faced and college boy clean; well, more like alley cat street, if the truth were to be told.
Daniel didn’t look quite innocent enough for any college campus Dean had ever visited, but he did look sinful enough to be on his knees in some back alley teaching someone like Sam what ‘fun’ was really about.
Daniel had smiled at Dean’s thoughts, his lip curling into something that was as wicked as it was sweet.
"If you only knew how close to the truth you are, Winchester!”
Daniel hadn’t explained what he meant, and Dean hadn’t asked, but he’d wondered.
Over the next few days they learned that they were in part of what used to be California, before the war came, before people started dying off like an endangered species.
Apparently whole towns had been swallowed up by the brotherhood; you either joined or you died. Daniel had seemed disturbed by all this, but he’d clamped his mouth shut on the matter. It wasn’t until they were a week into this new world that Dean broke down and asked the question that had been on his mind since the beginning.
“Do you think its Sam?”
“No, your brother couldn’t do all this---not with you alive.” Daniel seemed convinced, or delusional. It was nice that the two of them shared the same kind of faith in Sam.
At least that was something they had in common. Since they’d come here, Daniel had grown very quiet and he seemed to be exceedingly careful of his actions around Dean. He was always on guard, quick to give Dean the victory in every argument. He wasn’t exactly cowering in fear, but he was definitely walking on eggshells, and that was just a little too passive for a man like Daniel.
Maybe it was the wound, which had never healed, or maybe it was the fact that his other self was dead here. But regardless, it sorta unnerved Dean, and he found himself quick to anger because of it.
“I’m a hunter, and you’re supposed to be dead. What the hell does that mean when we get there? I doubt answers are gonna be forthcoming.”
“You might be surprised.”
Dean frowned at Daniel.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been talking to people, learning about this place. You had a trunk full of weapons, gas, food. That’s wealth here, and in this world, the wealthy don’t get that way for no reason.”
“There has got to be a logical explanation for all that. I’ve always been a resourceful guy.”
Daniel looked toward Dean, his lips curling into a sad smile.
“Yes, there could be logical reasons for all that---but not this.” The blade came out of nowhere, and the cut across the back of Dean’s hand got Daniel an automatic backhand, causing blood to spill down over his lip and chin, and his head to smack violently into the passenger side window.
The vampire didn’t react to the violence though; he simply tucked the blade back into his ankle holster as Dean watched the wound on his hand heal almost instantly.
“What the fuck!?!?”
“I smelled it on you from the first day. You were hunting the hunter---the Shadow Reaper was with you.” Daniel’s words were so causal that it took Dean a second to wrap his brain around their meaning.
“No way---I wouldn’t do that!?!?” But something in Dean said that Daniel was right. He’d felt different since he arrived here…he was moodier, angrier, his whole self was darker, more dangerous. He’d come up with a thousand reasons for it, written them all off; but now?
“You’re stronger than me in this place, Dean. Do you know how powerful that makes you? Who it was that must have granted you the gift of immortality? It could only be one of the ancient ones, one of the council themselves. That tattoo on your upper arm, that’s one of theirs.”
“Why? Why the hell would I do that!?!?”
Daniel seemed to shrink back from Dean’s temper just a little; it wasn’t visible, or rather it shouldn’t have been to a human eye, but Dean wasn’t human anymore; he was something else, and that something picked up on all those little things his human vision missed.
“I don’t know, but maybe the answers are on the plantation.” Daniel said this as he motioned at the gate ahead of them.
“Dean tossed a pair of sunglasses at Daniel.
“Put em on!” It was an order and Dean realized abruptly that it was one he expected to be followed.
Daniel didn’t argue, he put on the glasses and slouched down in seat, seeming to accept Dean’s new alpha attitude.
“How the hell could saving Sam cause all of this? It’s just not possible.”
“You changed something else---something big---maybe it was something about Sam or maybe it was just one of those ripples I mentioned before, who knows.”
When Dean pulled the car to a stop, it surprised him a little to see Moral manning the front gate. He wasn’t normally one for that kind of guard duty.
Daniel quickly muttered a nearly silent incantation, one Dean recognized to mean something akin to ‘Hide me from those who would see the real me. Make me what they think I should be.’
To Dean’s surprise, he watched the glamour fall over Daniel, watched as he morphed into a completely different person; a younger version of himself maybe, softer looking, a few less edges, and definitely prettier. Not that Daniel was anything but attractive---it was just that ‘pretty’ had never been on the forefront of words that Dean would have used to describe him before today.
The thought itself actually disturbed Dean a little. He’d already had thoughts about Daniel over the last week, thoughts that he’d have preferred not to have had. Adding anymore unwelcome bits to the list was gonna take the word ‘unhealthy’ to a whole new level.
Strangely enough, the blood remained visible through the glamour and Daniel made no move to wipe it away as Moral approached the car. The warm smile Dean was greeted with about floored him as the guy draped himself inside the car window.
“What the hell did you do to this car, big man?”
Dean smiled and shrugged trying to get a handle on the situation before he said much.
“How’s things been while I was away?” It seemed a safe enough question.
“The old man’s been giving us trouble but when doesn’t he?” Moral’s eyes slipped past Dean to rest on Daniel. “Whatcha got, here?” The lusty glint in Moral’s eyes caught Dean’s attention. It was perfectly clear who, or rather what, he thought Daniel was.
“Found him in a little no name town up state---thought he might be useful.” The evil smile that crossed Moral’s lips wasn’t missed by either Dean or Daniel.
“When he’s through being useful to you, send him my way. We can talk coin when you’re ready.”
“Sure thing.” Dean couldn’t help looking toward Daniel, but to his surprise, the man’s expression was pretty mild.
“Gavin wanted me to tell you they finished the garden. They also put Sam’s stone up yesterday.”
The speed with which Dean’s heart hit his stomach might have killed him if Daniel hadn’t reach out to touch his hand, reminding him wordlessly that this was all only temporary.
Moral misunderstood though, laughing. “This one likes you eh? Do I make you nervous, boy?”
“I’d be lying if I said you didn’t.” Daniel sounded utterly sincere, but something in the eyes gave it away---at least to Dean. He wasn’t frightened, he was angry.
“Enough games. Open the damn gate. I wanna see Sam’s stone before I grab a shower and hit the bed.” Dean put a little force in his tone, and Moral stepped to it, proving that Dean was a pretty important man here.
When they drove through, Daniel flashed Dean a look before motioning toward the right. “The garden has to be over there, down at the end of the far lane behind the house. It’d make sense with the lay of the grounds.”
“Sam’s dead.” The statement spilled bitter poison into Dean’s mouth, and he felt Daniel tense against the surge of darkness that wafted over him.
When Daniel pulled back, Dean realized they didn’t have to be touching for Dean to know that the man was on edge, ready to bolt if need be---or fight if necessary.
“It’s like all my senses are heightened, like a predator in the jungle.”
“Yes.” Daniel’s answer couldn’t have been simpler, but his tone left a lot of room for questions.
“So, why are you suddenly---?” Dean couldn’t find the word for what he was feeling but the look Daniel gave him said that he understood.
“Prey? Anything weaker than you is prey; any thing lesser than you, submissive, or at least it should be in your internal animal’s opinion.”
“Is that how it works?”
Daniel shrugged, slouching back in the seat like a seventeen year old kid who was planning on sulking his way through high school.
Dean wasn’t sure about the change in attitude, but he thought this place and the direction it had taken might be the reason for it.
Was Daniel proud of the way things were in their world and pissed that someone here had fucked it up? It seemed a huge leap, but Dean was pretty sure he was right on the money with his thoughts.
It didn’t matter though, temporary or not. The grief in Dean was spilling out into all his nerve endings. He was about to see Sam’s tombstone, and nothing could compare to the devastation he felt just thinking about that.
Sam was dead here.
And if it had been a permanent situation, Dean would have soon been joining him.
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Chapter 27: Chapter 27
Author's Notes: Beta’d by the wonderful Elusive_Life, thank you girl, you ROCK!
Standing there looking at Sam’s tomb, Dean got flashes of a past that wasn’t his own, bits and pieces of what had brought him to be in this place. It hadn’t been a complicated journey; in fact it had been quite simple.
Sam had always been special; Dean had known that since the first day he’d laid eyes on his baby brother, but the demons thought him special in another way. He had something in him that drew the darkness to him; it was sweet and tangible, something that could be swallowed down like warm honey on a bitterly cold day.
Some of the nasties had wanted him to be their king; others had wanted to snuff out the competition before he’d had a chance to mature into something truly dangerous.
They had killed old yellow eyes …but others had come, Dean had opened the door to a revolution, some kind of civil war that was hard to understand if you were human and limited by mortal perception, but Dean got the idea---there was more than one devil---more than one nation in the darkness---there were many and all of them wanted to be standing on top of the heap come judgment day when the right hand of evil inherited the earth.
Dean had taken out the thing that had been the muscle standing between a boy-prince and the King he would one day become. Sam had been a child by the Darkness’s standard. And the yellow-eyed demon had been its idea of a personal guard.
Without the demon beside him Sam had been easy prey…oh the demon’s followers had sent others to protect Sam, and those warriors had been formidable but each had fallen as the pressure built to bursting. Whoever the demon had been, while he was alive, his threat’s had kept the others scurrying about in the shadows. The new guards just weren’t as good---or weren’t as scary--- And to add to the problem Sam and Dean had not made their job easy, foolishly killing many of those who’d come to serve Sam never realizing they were trying to protect Sam as much as to cultivate their King. The rest had just fallen by the wayside, sacrificed themselves for Sam and the future he might represent.
The ones who’d wanted him dead had kept coming at them, each more dangerous than the last until one day the Winchester’s luck had just run out. It hadn’t been Dean dying in a blaze of glory as he’d always expected---it’d been Sam with his blood pooling crimson around his suddenly pale body.
As Sam had faded away, so had Dean’s ability to reason---When Ruby had appeared, her eyes demon dark, her hand raised to strike because he’d failed her prince, Dean had simply looked up at her and smiled---his soul suddenly at peace.
If Sam were gone, then her killing him was a blessing in his mind, she’d paused though, her eyes sliding backwards as though someone or something had bid her to stop. She stepped aside to reveal a tall dark haired man, with eyes like Daniel’s but he appeared older by a handful of years, and taller---almost a foot taller but something had told Dean that this man, this nameless creature was somehow connected to the Vampire he knew.
This reality’s Dean hadn’t made the connection, because he hadn’t known Daniel, hadn’t had any reason to care about the similarities. Daniel was already dead at that point, Bobby had killed him a year earlier---just a few month’s after yellow eyes had been sent back to hell.
He remembered the Vampire’s death, and how meaningless it had seemed at the time. Daniel had come with Ruby to some cabin they’d been held up in, trying to ward off the demons that kept coming for Sam.
Daniel had insisted that Bobby talk to him---they had traded a few words outside, and the old hunter had come back in raving about cinnamon oil and bloodsuckers. About how they couldn’t be trusted but he’d made a trip to town to buy the oil. A few days later when Daniel had come back, Bobby had shot him point blank, his face an arrogant mask of distain.
This timeline’s Dean had puzzled over Bobby’s reaction, he’d seemed utterly shocked that the bullets had worked and he’d even knelt by Daniel’s side as he bled to death. The Vampire’s last words had been spoken softly, a smile gracing his lips, “ See, I told you I wouldn’t lie to you again, and I’ve kept that promise---now, please---take the boy to my brother, you remember John, right?” Daniel had waited for Bobby to nod. “You have to get Sam to him before it’s too late---before the others find you.” Time was short but Bobby took the hours necessary to burn Daniel’s body. Dean hadn’t asked why, just helped the old man get it done so they could leave.
Bobby had packed them up the next day leaving Richmond, Virginia and heading west for California. It had been a good plan, they just hadn’t made it, at a rest stop just outside of Kansas City Bobby had been the first to die. It had seemed random but Dean had found out quickly that the demon had been stalking them since Richmond---but by then his knife had been buried deep in Sam’s chest, Ruby had showed up just a couple seconds too late to save her fallen prince.
She’d killed the assassin in a fury, just in time to watch the light as it faded from Sam’s eyes and then she’d turned on Dean but she wasn’t quick enough. The nameless man with Daniel’s eyes had appeared, a sinister question dancing off his tongue.
“Do you want your brother back?”
“You can do that…you can give me Sam back, alive---well?”
“I can…for a price.”
“And that would be?”
“You step into your brother’s place, you serve as he would have…and I will negotiate with the Lords of Death for you.”
“Why---what the hell’s in it for you?”
“I…respect the blood that flows through your veins.” There was more to it than that, Dean could see it in the man’s eyes, in the way he watched the blood pool around Sam’s cooling body.
“Respect? That’s enough for you to give my brother his life back?” Dean’s tone made it clear what he thought of that idea. “A life bought from Death is expensive I imagine. I can’t think of why you’d be willing to pay their price---not for a dead Hunter anyway.”
“We share blood you and I…through your mother. It is a bloodline that goes back more than a few millennia.” That was the truth, but it wasn’t the entire truth. It was just a fraction of it.
Dean waited. He was sure that it wasn’t just sentimentality that fueled this stranger’s offer. After a couple long minutes, the man smiled, his voice as smooth as silk when he spoke “There is power in blood, and the Dark Houses have always known it. Blood is at the heart of life, and it’s at the very heart of the Darkness”
There had been more chatter after that, but few answers---If Dean stepped into the forefront---did a good job then the nameless man would raise his brother from the dead. It had seemed impossible, and yet he’d known it could happen---known it with all his heart.
So the world had been plunged into hell? It wasn’t all Dean’s doing, at first he’d just stood by; let the evil run its course. Then there had been a favor, something small, something he could do without wading into the hellfire too far.
And then there had been another---and another---each progressively worse than the last.
The leap between the moment he’d made that deal and the moment they were standing in now was huge---so vast it seemed impossible that they’d arrived here---in this place!
But taken one tiny swallow at a time almost anything was acceptable.
That was how it was done, one compromise after another until you were lost in the darkness.
Was that where his Sam was now, lost in the darkness?
“Dean” Daniel’s voice pulled him back from his thoughts. “Whatever you are remembering---it’s all part of this place---it won’t matter so much when the bubble bursts, and you’re back with Sam. ” There was sympathy in Daniel’s voice.
“You’re not a monster are you?” Dean asked, suddenly getting it.
“Of course I am.” Daniel answered after a few heartbeats, his voice softening enough for Dean to hear the smooth satin of his natural tenor. He smiled wistfully at Dean.
“Your world is not mine, Dean. I was born in a place so far away from here and so different that you couldn’t begin to comprehend my era. Evil back then was a lustful glace at a woman, a word spoken crossly to a father---as a Vampire I was born a monster, a beast that devours the blood of the living--- in the human view of things I couldn’t possibly be anything but a fiend. We have always been few, hiding among the humans–just trying to survive---and when someone---something offers you protection...” Daniel stopped, shrugged. “I guess I made the same bad choice that so many others of my kind did.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Dean said, finally understanding something vital about the other man. “Without you, look where the world ended up. Everyone’s a hunter here; the nasties are everywhere---why? Why is this world so different without you and Sam in it?”
“There is a lot of evil out there Dean, you’ve seen it. It’s disorganized and greedy---give a lot of those creatures enough rope and they’ll hang themselves but they might kick down the world in their death throes.” Daniel paused, walked up to Dean and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I make choices everyday, who lives, who dies---what politician we back, who we blackmail. It’s all about the moves; in the world of evil, life is just a chess game with bloody consequences.”
“Helluva way of putting it!”
Daniel nodded, “Sometimes I kill people, sometimes I decide who gets to live---sometimes I let the right guy live---sometimes I back a politician that won’t do too much damage. I keep order in my world; I set up the boundaries of the game. I kill the competition whenever possible; take some work off you guys. “Daniel paused, looking a bit irritated with the truth he was sharing. “It’s not black and white---there’s no big game plan---I just try to appease those I answer to, and not set the world ablaze in the process.”
“So you’re the guy who does the least amount of damage while in office---so that makes you the best choice?”
“Nope, it makes Sam the best choice, but they don’t trust him enough for that yet.”
Dean raised his eyebrow at that---was Daniel saying what Dean thought he was? It was a revelation that sparked off a light bulb in his head. “You think Sam can bring this thing down from the inside?”
Daniel smiled, “I optimistically believe that we’ve built this thing up from the ground one stone at a time and that he can take it back down the same way. It’s gonna be a long rode, and he will get blood on his hands---he might even forget who he is for a while---but in the end, Sam is who he is and that’s a Winchester.”
“You believe in him.” Dean said seeing a strange, almost religious conviction in Daniel’s eyes when he talked about Sam. It had been there all along, he just hadn’t opened his eyes wide enough to see it before.
“Yes.” Daniel said, gathering that passive front back together around him. “ But it won’t happen in a few days, or a few years---it’ll take lifetimes---and without you it might not happen at all---so somehow I have to win you over---make you stay with him.”
“I don’t think I could leave even if I wanted to.” Dean said, half smiling. “Aside from the killer alarm system---I can’t abandon Sam.”
“That’s why you must crossover–become what he is---just letting him be isn’t enough. One day you’ll die and like you---Sam will send this world straight to hell as punishment for letting it happen.”
“Whoa---that’s what this is about? It’s a job pitch!” Dean hadn’t seen that coming. The shock of what Daniel said rattled him, hell took his feet right out from under him and now he was standing there gaping at the Vampire---trying to wrap his mind around the idea. “ I thought you just wanted me to stop trying to pull Sam into the rescue boat---now you’re saying you want me to jump out and join him?”
“What else is there for you to do? Age and die---leave Sam here alone? Don’t take this wrong but how selfish a son-of-a-bitch are you?”
“Excuse me?” Dean said not sure he was hearing Daniel right.
“I see all the potential in the world for Sam, but without you---he’ll be every damn thing they want him to be, don’t you get that? Neither of you are anything without the other.”
“Well, don’t start looking at me like I’m the next Jesus Christ and I might be able to mull it over---maybe. I still don’t know if I can swallow all this no matter how much sugar you coat it in.”
“How much sugar do you think it took to feed you this world?” Daniel asked, his tone annoyingly self-righteous.
“Fuck you!” Dean snapped, only about half pissed---mostly because he knew it was the truth.
“Sure, but let me take you out to dinner first.” Daniel’s smile was smooth, and almost slick enough to get past Dean’s Winchester hang-ups. The guy was good, all sex and danger---he wondered for a second if Anne Rice had known a couple of the genuine articles, if maybe her characters had a little Daniel Lee in them.
“We already did dinner, it was a disaster.” Dean found himself saying with a smile, his voice comfortably friendly.
“And what? A man doesn’t get a second chance with you?”
“I don’t know how serous you are---but lets call it a joke and end it there.”
“ If it keeps you from twitching, I suppose.”
They shared a laugh, Daniel looking utterly at ease while Dean choked down his nervousness and joined him.
It was an okay feeling---liking Daniel. It wouldn’t kill him to give the guy a little less grief.
The moment didn’t last long though, Dean heard twigs snap under foot not too far away. He turned to see where the sound had come from and wasn’t pleased when he saw the source.
“I think you might have gotten more than you bargained for with this one, big man.” Moral said stepping out from the tree line and advancing toward Daniel. A few others appeared, fanning out around them. Daniel didn’t move, but he did look a bit nervous. “ I gotta admit I only heard about half that but it didn’t sound healthy. So what’d you do kid? Did you fuck with Dean’s head somehow---make him see you as something you’re not?”
When he didn’t get an answer, Moral snatched up Daniel’s chin, gripping it hard enough to leave bruises. “I don’t know what your game is, but it ain’t gonna happen pretty boy, not on my watch. I don’t care how cute your ass is.”
“I think you heard what you wanted to hear.” Daniel stated flatly, his eyes lethal as he eyed the other man.
“I hear just fine.” Moral assured him. “You a hunter, kid?” Daniel didn’t say anything; he just raised an eyebrow as they surrounded him. “You don’t look dangerous enough for that but it wouldn’t be the first time they used a gifted against us.”
“I’m not dangerous.” Daniel said, his voice suddenly a soft caress. For a moment Dean didn’t understand the abrupt shift in attitude, the brazen sexuality that Daniel pumped into the words and then he realized---he was pouring power into what he was saying---magic---all in an effort to convince Moral that he was harmless.
“Leave him the hell alone.” Dean snapped out authoritatively but it must have been the wrong thing to say.
“Not a chance in hell!” Moral snapped back and then gave a nod to a couple of the guys who swooped down on Dean. “It’s my job to keep you grounded and in the game---and this---this is definitely not ‘in the game’ big man.”
Moral dropped Daniel’s chin as a couple of his buddies grabbed him and held him. “What’d you do to him?”
“Nothing,” Daniel stated---his eyes darkening.
“You did something--- I know a gift when I see it.”
“Okay Danny,” Dean cut in,” bust this fucking bubble so we can go home.” Dean was trying to keep his voice light but he felt the roughness skate along the edges giving away his anxiety.
“Wish I could---but it doesn’t work that way.”
“Then how the fuck does it work?!?!” The anger spilled out in waves, making Dean try and physically shake it off.
“You have to do it” Daniel said, but there was no confidence in his voice. “ When you’ve seen enough we go home, those are the rules.”
“Okay, then I’ve seen enough. End game NOW goddamnit!” Dean announced loudly as if someone might hear him and switch off the ride.
Daniel laughed a little, as though despite the situation he couldn’t help but find Dean funny. “I wish it were as easy as all that---but I think it happens when your thinking changes, when acceptance dawns.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Moral asked Daniel, honestly confused.
“Never were real bright, were you?” Daniel let the words slip out, and the sound of them was a little too light to please the other Immortal.
He grinned viciously at Daniel, and his fist came out of nowhere to slam into the Vampire’s jaw hard enough to send a spray of blood across the front of Dean’s shirt. Daniel’s head lolled downward for a second, and Dean thought Moral might have knocked him unconscious but then he heard a slight huff of laughter as Daniel tossed his head back and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
“You hit like a fucking girl!” It was a challenge; the part of Dean that was from this reality recognized the alpha quality of it.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea Danny boy!” Dean kept his voice level, changed his name just enough that he thought Moral might overlook the connection.
“No, probably not.” Daniel agreed as Moral eyed him murderously. “ But this is about the truth---seeing the darkness in us, understanding it.”
“So you let this bastard beat you bloody and we go home?” Dean asked a bit sarcastically. “Great plan, had me a few just about as good in my time.”
“Turn it off, whatever the hell your doing---TURN IT OFF!.” Moral demanded, his eyes sliding over to Dean. “Fix our golden boy here and I’ll end you quick.”
Daniel let amusement dance across his face, and cynicism filled his eyes. “No you wouldn’t, in fact you probably wouldn’t kill me at all unless Dean ordered it.”
Moral leaned in uncomfortably close to Daniel as his hand wound it’s way into the back of Vampire’s hair. “Then save yourself a little pain, if you’re so enlightened---because I can sure as hell make you wish you were dead.” Moral tightened his grip, forcing Daniel’s head backwards. “So how about we play nice, eh?” Then to Dean’s disgust the twisted freak licked Daniel’s chin, lapping up the blood he’d spilled. “Either way I’m gonna get everything I want, the only question is---how much you gonna haf’ta bleed for us to get there?”
The whole thing was designed to make Daniel feel small---to make him feel like a victim. It failed utterly.
“I know that line.” Daniel said, his eyes dancing. “Buckets, is the proper response.” Dean missed the inside joke but Moral’s expression sent chills down his spine. He watched the guy go from merely pissed to psychotically enraged.
One punch melted into another, many of them aimed for the gut and chest---If Daniel had been mortal he’d have been bleeding to death on the inside. He might still have been, Dean wasn’t sure. He just knew that a lot of spouting off wasn’t going to help matters, so he tried to talk the guy down. At one point even claiming the spell had been lifted but Moral wasn’t buying what Dean was trying to sell.
It wasn’t until the Vampire was flat on his back, his limp body no longer in need of physical restraint, that Dean got truly concerned. Daniel was barely conscious by then, his blood soaking into the leaves beneath him. It wasn’t the fact that he was hurt, so much as the fact that Daniel had quit with the barbed comebacks. He wasn’t pleading for mercy or anything as obvious as that, but he wasn’t fighting back anymore, he was just taking it.
The fact that he’d been taking it for quite some time had filtered into Dean’s brain, and he had to resist the urge to plead for Daniel’s life.
When the final kick connected with the Vampire’s ribs, and the only accompaniment to the dull thump a soft gargling of blood---then Dean went from worried to just plain numb.
“You’re gonna kill him.” Dean heard himself say. “ He’s no good to anybody dead.” His tone was chillingly flat and that must have meant something to Moral who stopped to look at Dean.
“You’re sounding a little more like yourself---his mojo wearing off?” Dean couldn’t say anything at first---he wasn’t trying to save Daniel anymore, he had absorbed so much of who he was in this timeline he was just stating the obvious.
“Maybe---I’m not sure.” It seemed a safe enough answer. “We need him though, if you haven’t already killed him.” This tone was working on Moral; the guy suddenly seemed at ease. He stepped away from Daniel, his eyes raking over Dean carefully.
“ I was afraid we’d lost you for good.” Dean let himself sink into this new coldness and into the memories that flowed from it. “You okay?”
It was a sincere question, almost---concerned? But not entirely “Fuck yeah I’m okay---don’t expect any thanks, but the check’s in the mail.” It was the appropriate response. Moral was a tough son of a bitch in this world---they weren’t friends. Dean was his payday, not his family.
Dean didn’t let anybody get that close.
He let his mind wonder to that place where he was connectedwith this world’s Dean. He could say all the right things now that he was there. He could convince them he was the man they knew---the man they followed.
But the real problem lay in the fact that he liked it---this cold, sadistic nature he’d lost himself in. It was like an expensive suit he’d slipped on, one that fit all too well with Sammy sleeping in the cold damp earth beneath his feet.
The world mattered because of Sam.
The job mattered because of Sam.
Nothing mattered without Sam.
Was that the lesson? Was it the same thing for Sam?
Yes. He had no doubt of that.
But this revelation had little effect on the bubble. It was still wrapped around them--still firmly set in place. Dean could almost feel it floating in the air about them, stretching and expanding with every new revelation. When it got big enough it would burst. He wasn’t sure how he knew this but he did. It left him feeling a little more solid.
“Patch him up---I got plans for him.” And this Dean would have had big plans for someone like Daniel. Bloody painful plans! “If he dies I’ll have your ass for it.”
Moral nodded as Dean walked past him, leaving Daniel in the company of wolves. It bothered him on some level to turn his back on the situation, to simply hope that it would all work out, but it was what evil Dean would have done. So that’s what he did.
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Chapter 28: Chapter 28
Author's Notes: Elusive Life has stepped into the role of Beta for this chapter and she also kindly beta’d the previous chapter, which you really should re-read. This gal gave it that silkiness it was in desperate need of. She’s been a sounding board for ideas, and has even trudged along with me while I was sending her this current chapter in drabs and dribbles. I can’t tell you how delightful it is to be able to bounce some of those “big” ideas of mine off of someone else in the Supernatural-verse.
Anyway, she has my deep and profound appreciation for all that she’s done AND is still yet willing to do---even after she spent a fair amount of time listening to my ramblings lol. As far as I’m concerned she went above and beyond the call of duty on this one. THANK YOU, girl!
And for those of you who left Feedback on the last chapter, you guys made my day. I deeply appreciate each and every word you’ve plugged into the review box over the last couple of years. This story is very close to my heart, it has become another one of my many babies…and to hear from you guys, telling me how much you enjoy that baby…well as the mother of this fast growing entity with a life all it’s own, I couldn’t be prouder. I’m just at a total loss for words when I read the reviews. I have to admit, it still shocks me how well this story has been received.
As you can tell, I’m as long winded as ever, so I'm gonna shut up now and say...I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
When Dean walked through the front door of the main house he found the place clearly altered. Not so much in décor, though that was looking a little abused, but in the faces of the people littering the living room. They looked nothing like Daniel’s tricked out muscle men back home. These guys were rougher and all around meaner---way closer to Hell’s Angels than new age lawyers.
He saw scars on faces that had been flawless before. He saw weapons in plain sight, tense shoulders and watchful eyes.
They didn’t trust him.
And why should they? Dean Winchester hadn’t come here to make friends; he’d punished them right along with everyone else in this godforsaken world. He could touch this Dean’s memories now---his emotions. When he was having a good day he felt cold, bored---like nothing in this world touched him. On bad days he felt hatred---anger---and enough grief to choke on.
He tried to stick to the basics, to finding just what he needed in his internal library of evil Dean but then his eyes locked onto something---on someone. A small figure huddled in a corner behind a wall of men; the boy’s arms were wrapped around his legs in an all too familiar self-protecting pose.
Spice was trying hard not to be noticed.
Dean figured that it was a pretty useless attempt considering the hooker-boy getup. The kid was sporting dark eyeliner, and a cheek three shades of blue. He’d never seen Spice dressed like this but he remembered the outfit from his closet.
What the fuck was this shit about !?!?
Dean’s anger suddenly boiled red-hot as he tallied up the reason for the outfit. It was one thing to see this getup on a hanger behind a dozen other items that were completely normal, it was a whole other to see it wrapped around *his* boy like some hideous glove that screamed *whore*!
Fury washed over Dean, and in response every muscle in his body seized up, locking him in place. He couldn’t do what he wanted to. He couldn’t kill every damn person in the room and drag Spice out of there.
But why couldn’t he?
Dean could almost taste their deaths on his tongue but it wasn’t blood his body was screaming for, he wasn’t a vampire. He wanted their pain, their fear! Emotions were like honey, and you could drink them down like thick sweetness---feel them as something tangible in your gut as a person faded away into nothingness.
It was tempting; this Dean had done it before---thousands of times. It was an easy thing to get lost in, this dark power that called to you like a familiar lover. Nothing else mattered when you were wrapped up in its embrace.
Even the knowledge of Sam, rotting in the damp earth got lost in the bright flashes of red that accompanied the dying. It wasn’t that Dean could ever let go of Sammy, not really, but he could wear his misery like a badge of honor---suffer for an eternity for failing to protect his little brother.
For a few, short heartbeats he just stood there breathing hard. The nearly suffocating possessiveness he suddenly felt toward Spice was eating away at his reason, making it impossible not to do something. He had to move---had to!
It didn’t take long for Dean to make a decision. He knew no one here would question what he was about to do. He made a straight line toward Spice pushing roughly through the cluster of men.
Spice looked like he might try and run, had even started to scurry away in fact before he thought better of it and steadied himself for whatever was coming. From the look on the kid’s face he was pretty sure he was about to die---hell, maybe he was even ready for it on some level.
When Dean snatched up his hand and started dragging him toward the stairs he didn’t put up a struggle. He stumbled more than once, as if his mind might have been ready for what was coming, but his body instinctively rebelled.
Terror---blind resolve---hopelessness! That’s what Spice felt by the time his feet landed on the bottom of the step.
Dean nearly let him go, hating the idea that the kid was terrified of him. This Spice didn’t know the Dean Winchester who had Sam, the man who would never dream of hurting him. He only knew the guy who ripped through bodies like confetti. They guy who hated everyone here including himself.
Spice’s fear didn’t taste like the others; it was sour on his tongue and for a fraction of a moment Dean was tempted to just unwind his fingers and let the boy drift back into the crowd. Anything was better than tasting this boy’s pain, even if that meant he ran back to the leather clad goons he’d been hiding behind.
But this Dean didn’t care about anybody here, and considering he’d just raised some major red flags with Moral he didn’t need to be showing mercy to some wet behind the ears kid he was barely supposed to know.
What did they think Dean was going to do with Spice? A quick glance, confirmed that no one cared. He’d done this before, not to this particular boy---but to others. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn’t.
Fear ruled here, and nobody wanted to trade places with Spice.
When they got to his set of rooms---Daniel’s rooms, interestingly enough---not Sam’s---Dean paused only for a moment before raking his thumb across the keypad. It worked, he was in, but it didn’t look like he lived here.
The place was full of the vampire’s things--- his artwork, stone statues and ancient swords were all over the place. A set of particularly nifty looking daggers had been taken down from their place of honor and tossed at a portrait of a woman that hung over the fire place in the living room.
She was a curvaceous but majestic looking young lady in multiple layers of black and royal blue satin. The dress looked odd, it fit perfectly in with the time of kings and queens until you got to the colors---and then it was all modern day Goth club. It looked tasteful though, not out of place at all on the raven-haired beauty.
Dracula’s bride maybe?
Then Dean looked a little closer. She had Daniel’s eyes, and a more delicate version of his cheekbones. A sister maybe? She looked younger than Daniel, but not by much, a year or two at most. It was a shame he’d ruined the picture. She was pleasant to look at, but this Dean didn’t acknowledge real comforts. Even at the height of his pleasure he was miserable.
The apartment was in shambles just like the world outside. Dean remembered smashing up the place when he first got here. He had taken a perverse pleasure in destroying the Vampire’s things. The evidence of it was still visible. The couch had been gutted, and the stuffing strewn about chaotically. The Chinese style vases and crystal wine glasses that had once occupied appropriate places on shelves and in cubbies now crunched underfoot as Dean made his way in to the center of the room.
This world’s Dean had long ago used items from Daniel’s apartment to board up the windows, trying to barricade himself in. A grand piano had been butchered for that purpose along with various bookshelves and other furnishings. It was hard to image what this place had looked like before. The security system might have been killer and the electric was still on but Evil Dean wasn’t taking any chances with these freaks.
It was more than a matter of simply not trusting them---they all wanted him dead. Many of them had in fact tried to kill him; the rust colored stains on the carpet reminded him of that. Thinking back on what he’d done since he got here, he couldn’t blame them.
Spice moved a little then, more of an involuntary twitch than anything else. It was the kind of things rabbits did when a cat was hovering just a little too close and they knew they were about to die. They didn’t mean to move, but waiting for death was hard.
The movement pulled Dean’s thoughts away from the past and he turned to look at Spice. The boy dropped his eyes to the floor almost instantly, as though he might be able to hide behind those long dark lashes.
How well did he actually know Spice here?
Barely, not by name---he was just one of the faces that Dean’s eyes passed over daily. Once, when he’d first come to this place, he’d taken the time to throw the boy out of Jordan’s apartments. He hadn’t wanted anyone upstairs who wasn’t prey.
How long ago had that been? A year ago? Two? Time didn’t mean anything to this Dean.
Dean looked down at his own hand where it was still wrapped around the much too thin wrist. He wasn’t feeling at all like himself, he hadn’t counted on slipping so easily into this new personality. It seemed, as though the more memories he probed, the more like Evil Dean he became. The only thing that was keeping him grounded was the knowledge that *his* Sam was waiting on the other side of this fucking bubble.
He was still alive!
He was still Sam.
Dean had something to go home to.
“I killed your---lover?” He asked Spice, remembering the events that had gotten the kid banished to the lower rooms. The boy looked afraid to answer, but he gave one short nod.
Jordan had refused to leave; Dean had ended the argument with a blade leaving Spice completely alone in this crumbling dynasty that had once belonged to Daniel.
What did that man have inside him that made things so much better in this place of evil? Why was the Vampire’s version of Darkness beautiful, while Dean’s was ugly and full of misery?
“When was the last time you were comfortable here?” Dean’s voice sounded strained when he spoke.
“Before Daniel died.” Spice’s voice barley made it above a whisper, but he was quick to answer. It wasn’t healthy to make Dean Winchester wait for the information he wanted.
“Things started to fall apart---before I came?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Did it mean that part of this hell wasn’t of Dean’s making? That the Vampire’s absence had caused some kind of a tear in the fabric of Darkness?
“Yes.” It was a short safe response and it irritated Dean. He didn’t want to be pulling these details out of the kid all night. He must have glared at the boy unintentionally because he suddenly continued. “ After he died, I don’t know---it was like tempers ran hotter---an