audrarose

I didn't think I was ever going to finish this. And yet. :D

Title: Benediction (Venom series, 5/5)
Rating: Very adult.
Words: 9100
Summary: Vampires, angst and eyeliner. And an ending.
Notes: Sorry this took so long. Thank you to anyone who still cares. *g* I am also desperately grateful to destina, deirdre_c, sori1773, merryish and keepaofthecheez for beta-ing and hand-holding above and beyond the call. More notes at the end.

Considering it's been *koff* a year since I posted the last section, if you'd like to start at the beginning (24,000 words total) go here.

Otherwise:




“Fuck, Sam. That last one almost killed me.”

Dean’s voice sounds hoarse and Sam knows what he’ll see when he opens his eyes; Dean digging through his duffle bag to find the aspirin he pops like tic-tacs, his sleep-squashed hair sticking out in a dozen different directions while he squints his eyes into the morning light. Whatever the last one was -- drink or fuck or hunt, and it’s weird that Sam can’t remember -- it will have left Dean’s face with the faint trace of lines beneath his stubble, shadows at his mouth and his eyes like a whisper of the old man he’s going to be someday.

If he lives that long.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Sam mutters and puts his arm over his eyes. There's something really weird about this, but Sam feels too lethargic to think about it, wants Dean to shut the fuck up with his cheerful complaining. Let Sam sleep a little longer.

Not a chance.

“Rise and shine, princess – you’re wasting time we don’t have. Up.” Dean is insistent. “Whole hell of a lot to do. Gonna need to bring your A-game for this one.”

The conversation is definitely getting away from him. Sam scrubs at his eyes, yawns. “You’re not making sense. What game?”

"Hey, remember that game Dad took us to? What was it, '94? After we offed that poltergeist in Indiana?"

"Saved the entire town." Sam mumbles. "Got paid in football tickets."

"Hey. It was Notre Dame." Dean pauses. "Did you ever want to play?"

"Football?"

"Yeah, football. Of course,football; what are we talking about here?"

Sam honestly has no idea. He finally opens his eyes to sunshine, but Dean’s moved out of the light and Sam can’t see him. “You saying you wanted to play? Are you nuts? You would have gotten flattened.”

“Not college ball, moron. High school. Hell, peewee league, just… fall sunlight, crisp air… cheerleaders.” Sam can almost hear the grin. “Throwing that winning pass with no time left…”

Of course Dean would want to be the quarterback, throw one out right on the numbers, nothing less for his brother who never missed when he tried to hit something, but there's something wistful there that Dean doesn’t usually let show. Sam finds his voice enough to say, “Doesn’t happen like that for most kids. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know, whatever. But maybe. Could have been. I’d have liked to try.” Movement in the shadows that could be Dean miming a pass. “Just one shot at a miracle. One Hail Mary, flying across that big, blue sky.”

Sam's trying to figure out how to answer, but then Dean’s reaching forward like he’s going to mess up Sam’s hair. He’s laughing, clear and light, and Sam realizes with a hollow ache in his gut that this has to be just another god-damned dream, because in all his life he’s never heard his brother make a sound containing such bright, weightless joy.


**


There’s a buzz from his phone, scattering Sam’s dream and vibrating the plastic against the motel’s scuffed formica table. Like every time it’s rung for the past month Sam’s heart stops a little and he lunges out of bed to grab it, still more than half asleep.

“What?” He’d stopped answering the phone with Dean? about two weeks after his brother disappeared from the diner in Alameda and about five seconds after he accepted the fact that Dean wasn’t going to just call him to chat.

“Hey, a cheery fucking good day to you, too, Sam.”

He falls back onto the bed, rubs the ache between his eyes. “Hey, Ash.”

“Wow, my man. You sound like crap. Late night, huh?” Sam’s gotten used to Ash’s smirk over the phone.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Wide awake and aching. Wanting his brother in his bed. Sam sits up. “So. This just a social call, or you got another coven for me to take out?” Sam asks more to change the subject than anything else, but Ash’s hesitation wakes him up completely. “Ash? What is it?”

“I just want to preface this by saying I’m not sure, okay?”

“Tell me this is a lead.” He’s afraid to even say Dean’s name; the hope he’s got left is too fragile.

Ash hesitates. “Maybe. Look, don’t want you to get your hopes up. This could be another dead end.”

“Come on – whatever it is, tell me.” Sam’s knuckles are white.

“It’s definitely another coven. I’ve been tracking this one since before the nest you cleaned out in Wichita. There’s the same sudden spike in disappearances in an extremely short time-period – runaways and street-kids mostly, but a few of them have enough people looking for them to make the cops take notice. I did a cluster analysis and it presents the same pattern as the --.”

“Yeah, Ash, I got it; it’s math, okay? What’s different about this one?”

“I think this one might be your missing L.A. clan.”

Sam feels the words hit somewhere in his chest. He thinks he might go take out Ash if he’s wrong. “You can tell that from the – the cluster-fuck pattern, whatever it is?”

“Not exactly.” Ash sounds grimly amused. “I'm guessing based on the assumption that even blood-sucking monsters probably stick with what works. The center of this pattern is a nightclub, just opened up three weeks ago. Three guesses on the name.”

Sam’s heart begins to pump harder. “Venom.”

“Got it in one. Give the boy a prize.”

“Where?” Sam’s already tossing his laundry in his bag, opening his laptop.

“Chicago.”

Sam glances at the clock – 7 a.m.. “Fuck, I can be there before they close.” For the first time since Sam raced back to L.A. and found the club locked up and deserted he feels actual hope. “You got an address?”

“I’m sending it now. But, Sam --.”

Sam cuts him off. “Ash, this is the first solid lead we’ve had. I’m already out the door.”

“Dude, listen to me – I know you want to find him. I do, too. But maybe you should wait for back-up on this one.”

Sam talks around his toothbrush. “I didn’t need any back-up in Vegas, or Miami, or frickin’ Wichita.” He spits into the sink. “And I know which one sired the coven this time – Ash, I’ve seen him." Sam can see still see him, dark and motionless in the alley. "I just take him out and the others go up in flames.” Sam remembers smoke and fire and screams.

A few weeks hunting vampire covens cross-country has taught him a lot.

“What about Dean?” Ash’s quiet question interrupts his thoughts.

“What about him? I find him, I bring him back. That’s what.”

“And if he doesn’t want to go?” Ash cuts off Sam’s protest. “Dude, he left on his own. After a whole month – if he’s with them, you’ve got to at least think about the possibility that he wants to be there.”

“With the vampires,” Sam says. Without me, he thinks.

Ash is starting to sound a little pissed off now, too. “There’s a really good chance that he drank the kool-aid and they’ve turned him by now. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that.”

“He has to be willing.” Sam tells Ash the same thing he’s told himself a thousand times since Dean left him, clinging to it because sometimes it’s the only thing that gets him out of bed every day.

Ash has heard it just as many times. “Come on, Sam. You told me yourself that he was half-vamp when he left --.”

“From the venom,” Sam says. “That vampire expert my dad saw in Ojai, my professor at Stanford – they both said the same thing. The only way Dean will become one of them permanently is if he drinks a vampire’s blood willingly. Ash, it’s Dean we’re talking about. He won’t do it.”

Sam can hear his pulse pound in the brief silence on the other end of the phone.

“Then why would they keep him alive?” The pity in Ash’s voice makes Sam’s throat hurt.

“Because…” Sam remembers the creatures in the alley, remembers the weight of their power and their desire, focused on one thing only.

beautiful one

“… because they wanted him too much.”

Ash is silent for a second. “I hope to hell you’re right.” He doesn’t say anything else but Sam can finish the thought for him. If Sam’s wrong about this, Dean won’t survive it.

“Good luck,” Ash says finally.

Sam closes his eyes. “I’ll bring him back.”


**


Chicago is a thousand miles up US 57, fourteen hours north and east through the endless flat plain of farm fields and suburbs between Texas and Illinois. Sam hits the outskirts of the city with the sun setting red and bloody behind him, sending dying light across endless miles of low, crowded neighborhoods with only gothic spires and factory chimneys rising up over them to break up the horizon.

The address Ash gave him is in an industrial district, a massive warehouse surrounded by shattered buildings and dark, desolate alleyways; the battered steel fire-door lit by flickering neon while a muffled bass line shakes the walls. Sam pulls up across the narrow street and stares at the cold blue sign over the doorway.

Venom.

It’s like he never left. Sam wonders if they brought the sign with them from L.A.

He sits up when he sees movement near the door. Slim razor-blades in black dart past the bouncer and into the club, swift and furtive and Sam can see that none of them are Dean, but it doesn’t matter. He knows, can feel it down deep like a warm hand against his chest, that Dean is somewhere inside that goddamn warehouse.

Sam could kill him.

He made it to Chicago on rage, it seemed, rage and hurt and worry, fueled by all the months of phone calls that his brother hadn’t picked up and an imagination that only shows him nightmares. It’s been 36 hours since he really slept, almost as long since he’s eaten, and he’s pretty sure that at this point there’s more coffee than blood in his veins.

That isn’t the only reason his insides are twisting into knots.

He can feel them. From the second he drove up, they’ve been there; cool spaces in the swirling chaos of the club, brushing up against his mind. If he reaches out a little, lets himself drift, he thinks he’ll be able to see them, too. See Dean.

Sam?

Soft whisper in his head that might as well have been a shout and then suddenly everything shifts; tilts sickeningly and it’s like he’s inside the club, with the whole world turned to blinding strobes and pulsing music, writhing crowds and dark shadowed corners. Dean’s standing there as if Sam summoned him, unmoving and facing away but it doesn’t matter. Sam would know his brother anywhere. The set of his shoulders and the curve of his neck hollow Sam out with longing, and the only thing he wants is to put his arms around Dean’s waist and settle himself against Dean’s body.

look at me, he wills his brother, but Dean doesn’t even glance back, just starts to move through the crowd, so Sam has to chase him, slipping past dancers who are just obstacles of light and shadow, distorted faces leering in the dark. He starts to move faster, because Dean has almost reached them; dark, unmoving shapes somehow apart from the confusion, terrifyingly still and waiting.

no, no, no, useless litany in his head but maybe Dean hears because he turns. Too far away to touch but close enough for Sam to see the dark, clinging clothes and darker kohl around his eyes, exactly the way he looked the night everything went to hell. Grieving, solemn, beautiful, and Sam thinks if he just tries hard enough he’ll be able to make Dean hear him.

please

But then he’s there, the one with the 10,000 kilowatt eyes whose power makes Sam’s head ache; he’s moved up behind Dean, now, and he’s reaching out like Dean’s the fucking prodigal. Pale hands on Dean’s shoulders, possessive and tight, pulling him in, and Dean…

Turns away from Sam.

Sam feels a sense of loss like a fist to his stomach, high up under his ribs, with pain that only expands as the thing pulls Dean close and puts his lips against Dean’s forehead. Sam thinks he might go insane if he has to watch the bastard lean down to kiss Dean’s waiting mouth.

get out of here, Sam

A whisper in his head like a cool fingertip dragging over his skin and then the vision of the club shatters into splintering shards of light. Sam clenches his fingers around the steering wheel.

No.

No fucking way.

Sam’s out of the car before he can think about it. He hits the pavement as the door to the club flies open like it’s exploding, dark-clothed figures spilling out and suddenly it’s a stand-off; it’s the OK corral in gothic black with six demon gun-fighters in skin-tight leather and silver studs hovering just outside the doorway, waiting for him to make his move.

Sam doesn't hesitate. It’s an easy jump onto the hood of the car and then one long stride to the roof, with his heavy leather boots making hollow thuds against the metal. He turns to face them, ready to shout a challenge, take all of them at once

come and get me

when a sudden rush of power from deep inside makes him stagger. Blinding, white energy, flaring out from inside him, bright as the sun and then gone before he can grasp it, but it makes the creatures fall back, arms thrown up in defense.

Sam stares at them in shock for a second before frantically trying to find the power again. It's still there, bright glow he can almost touch it, but it keeps slipping out of reach and the vampires near the doorway are gathering again. He reaches for the knife strapped to his leg -- and almost falls off the roof when his cell phone rings.

A text message. His brother’s number. Three lines.

4 am
chestnut & maple
go NOW

It’s only his imagination this time, but he thinks he can hear his brother add “dumb-shit” to the message. Then he’s laughing, loud and short and kind of crazy with the power beckoning him like a drug and he nods to the creatures in the doorway, stops just short of saluting. He jumps to the ground and practically falls into the car, peeling away before the fuckers ever have a chance to move.


**


The map shows a corner in the center of the city, just a few blocks off of glittering shops and restaurants on Michigan Ave., brightly lit and deserted. Sam's practically vibrating with the energy now, the power surging through him in waves he can almost ride as he stares up at the buildings through the windshield. He pictures high-rise vampires in a penthouse somewhere, wonders how he can do reconnaissance, unless...

“This better not be a freaking cemetery, Dean.” He mutters the words out loud but when he turns onto Chestnut he sees that the address Dean gave him isn’t a graveyard; it’s a church.

Or what used to be a church.

Now it’s just the bare bones of a cathedral in the middle of everything, surrounded by chainlink fence and hard-hat signs, broken bones splayed up against the night sky, made of some dirty white stone that still reflects back every scrap of light from the moon and the streetlamps so that the whole thing glows.

Sam parks the Impala crookedly on the street, stumbles up to the demolition site while staring up at the cross-beams high above, at the open walls enclosing nothing but churned earth. Neo-gothic, his mind supplies, remnants of an art elective junior year, and he wonders how Dean found this place. He's about to yell, just scream out Dean's name when he sees movement above, a flicker in the shadow of an empty arch high up on the remnants of the roof. Sam shoves the gate open.

It takes some time to find the stairway, and then he has to climb some scaffolding to get to the roof. He's breathing hard when he pulls himself up, looking around at stone peaks around the edges, spaced out so that between them the edge falls off into nothing. There’s plastic sheeting suspended from some of the stonework, moving gently in the breeze, so that he almost doesn’t see Dean at first, not until he takes a step away from a column. And then Dean doesn't move, just stands there at the edge of the roof as Sam moves toward him, ghostly in a pale, button-down shirt and worn jeans, far too still and silent.

Sam can’t help it; the open drop and the relief of Dean's presence are giving him vertigo so he slows, stops a dozen feet away.

“Dean?” His voice sounds small.

For a long time Dean doesn’t move, then Sam sees him exhale, lean his shoulder into the stone beside him in one liquid slide. “I swear to God, Sam." The voice is effortless. A careless drawl. "If you dented my car…”

Sam’s mind blanks. “Your car? You’re worried about the – you…" Sam’s hands are shaking and his breath is coming out ragged. "You left me.”

Dean looks away, turns his face into the shadows like he doesn’t even want to see Sam, and Sam tightens his fists in frustration. Waits for him to say something.

Anything.

"What -- what's wrong with you? Dean --." Sam steps closer still and Dean steps back, just inches away from the edge. "Hey, be careful," Sam says, worried.

"You found me. I should have known, I guess. So fucking stupid..." Dean's talking to him, presumably, but peering over the edge at the street a hundred feet below.

Sam feels lost. Hurt. And wishes Dean would move away from the edge of the roof. "Of course, I found you... I've been looking, Dean. For weeks." Sam starts toward Dean again.

"Get away from me."

Dean's voice is cold and remote and it hits Sam in the gut. Dean's practically hovering on the edge, like maybe he's going to balance there but something about his stance says he isn't, and suddenly Sam doesn't care anymore. He's found Dean, finally found him, and there's no way Dean's leaving him alone again.

There are worse endings Sam can think of. He lunges forward, thinking he can at least get his hands on his brother one more time before they both tumble over the side.

Dean moves faster than Sam can see, rushing to meet him, grab him, and then Sam's back is crashing into the roof with the edge ten feet away and the the back of his head knocking sharply into the concrete. He's got Dean leaning heavily on top of him, mouth against his ear. "Idiot, idiot," Dean says, low and breaking, hands clutching at Sam's shoulders. "What are you doing, Sam?"

“God damn it, Dean.” Sam's angry and scared enough to shove him off but somehow ends up pushing his face up against Dean’s cheek, just touching him instead. Of all the angry questions he wants to spit at Dean only one seems to matter. “Are you okay?” he asks, his mouth moving against Dean’s skin. “I don’t – I’ve been out of my mind.”

“Yeah, I know, Sammy, I know.” Dean says softly. His head’s still turned away but he's clutching Sam’s shoulders, gripping him tight like he can’t help but touch, too.

“You know,” Sam repeats, finding it hard to breathe. "Then...why? Why the fuck did you leave me?"

There's a long silence where Dean just breathes into Sam's shoulder. Then Sam hears him whisper,“Jesus, Sam… look at me.”

Dean finally tilts his head up toward Sam and the eerie light turns his skin to winter, pale and perfect over a face honed sharp and flawless in the moonlight. And God, Sam can’t help but look. Stare. And feel. Hard body on top of his, thinner than he remembers; soft hair longer than he’s ever seen it, falling over Dean’s forehead…this is still his brother, still Dean, but defined somehow – like all the ragged edges have been polished bright. He stares in confusion at glittering eyes and pale skin, bitten lips, parted to take a breath, and –

Sam looks closer, touches Dean’s lips. “Dean… your mouth…”

Dean smiles then, fierce and beautiful and terrifying and it isn’t just shock that makes Sam let go when Dean rolls away to sit up and rub the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Yeah. Nice fangs, huh? Razor sharp, too – I bit my tongue yesterday and I thought I was gonna bleed to death.” Dean’s low laugh holds no humor at all.

“Just from the – you got like this just from the bite?”

Dean just shrugs. “Still think I could have stuck around to drive you up to Stanford?”

Sam sits up, too, trying to pull his fraying thoughts together. “I don't care. You didn't -- you shouldn't have left me.”

“Like I had a choice?” Dean asks, bitterly. “I could hear that – that goddamn voice inside my head.”

“What voice? Dean --.”

“His! The bastard who did this to me!" Dean presses his lips together. "I had his fucking poison in my blood, Sam, changing me – his voice in my head all the time and God – I just needed to make it stop.” Dean cuts off like he's forcing himself to stop talking.

Sam remembers the creature in the alley, in the club; long hair falling over sharp eyes and the sense of raw power, the pressure that pounded in his head. The way he looked at his brother.

“He tell you to leave me behind, too?” He wants to rage at Dean but the words come out sounding miserable and hurt instead.

Dean’s shoulders slump. He’s folded himself up, elbows propped on his bent knees, head turned to look at the ruins around them. “I would have hurt you if I’d stayed.”

“That is such bullshit, you’d never –.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dean rubs a hand over his face. “You don’t know what it was like. There were these girls who gave me a ride and I wanted --. I almost --.” He takes a breath, visibly calming himself down. “So yeah. I left you. I went back to the club to take the vamps out.”

“Obviously, that worked out well,” Sam mutters.

“Such a fucking mess,” Dean says, shaking his head and looking up past the skyscrapers around them, focusing on the moon. “He knew I was coming, knew what I wanted to do, knew everything – they got the drop on me, Sam, before I ever got near the damn place. When I woke up I’d lost about a week and had no fucking clue where we were.”

Dean pauses and Sam waits for him to continue, even though he wants to shake the answers out of him. Even if it’s just to touch him again.

“And then he wanted me – to drink. From him.” Dean rubs his eyes.“So I’ll turn.I've tried to take him out but you have no idea, Sam... it's like he knows what I'm planning before I do. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get to him...”

“And that whole time you couldn’t get to a phone, either?” Sam asks unevenly.

Dean’s gaze snaps up, harder, suddenly. Cold. “Look, I’ve got a plan, now. A good one. And if you really want to know, you’re kinda fucking it up. You should just get the hell out of here and --.”

“Wait a minute, you want me to leave?”

“Yeah. Just – just let me take care of this. Then, I don't know, I’ll meet you somewhere…”

Sam stares at him because Dean’s always been the worst goddamn liar in the world, vampire poison or not. “Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere. I can help you, you know that! And I can probably actually get the job done because I’ve spent the last month looking for your sorry ass and guess what -- killing vampires.” Silence, then, while Dean looks at him without accusation, from somewhere so far away Sam feels like he’d do anything to drag him back.

“Dean.” It comes out like a plea. “This can be over tonight. Just tell me what you know about this – this thing and we’ll figure out a way to kill him.”

“Aaron,” Dean says, and it’s a pebble dropped into water.

“What?” Sam asks softly.

“Aaron,” Dean repeats, getting to his knees. “His name’s Aaron.”

He feels time just spin out around him for a second, frozen until he leans forward and grabs Dean’s arm before his brother can stand. He bunches the sleeve of Dean’s shirt in his fingers, feels the softness of it. Linen rich as cream, thick and expensive, falling loose over Dean’s shoulders like it was made for someone bigger.

Someone else.

“This is his, isn’t it?” he asks, not really trusting his voice. Dean’s silence is answer enough, the way his eyes skate away. “This is why you stayed. For him.”

Dean looks back at him, surprised. “Sam, no…”

Sam isn’t listening, doesn’t really register Dean’s words at all because his vision’s graying out as everything suddenly makes horrible sense and all he can see is dark hair falling over Dean’s face. Over his hips. The back of his neck.

“What does he do to you?” The words tumble out, heart-broken and careless, fury swamping him like a wave until he gets his hands on Dean’s body. He drags Dean forward, coming up to his knees so they’re facing each other. “You let him touch you like this? Kiss you? Fuck you --?”

“Shut up.” Dean hands are urgent, gripping his shoulders and touching him back, voice uneven. “Don’t be stupid, Sam -- it’s you. Just you, for years now – no way you don’t know that.”

Words he’d wanted to hear forever, and they make things better and infinitely worse at the same time. With an impatient motion he shifts his hands from Dean’s shoulders to his face, his jaw, then shoves his fingers through Dean’s hair so he can press their foreheads together.

“Then tell me why. A whole month, Dean.” Harsh whisper into the small space between their mouths. “You couldn't fucking let me know? I thought you were dead. I still don’t understand this – why you’re here, now, why they even kept you alive.” He tries not to sound doubtful, but there are warning bells going off in his head, something Dean isn’t telling him and it’s making his nerves scream.

Sam can feel the tension beneath Dean’s skin, the way he’s almost vibrating with it, before Dean laughs like shattering glass. “You really want to know?”

And suddenly Sam isn’t sure.

Dean pulls back and Sam lets him go, watches him lift his hand to the collar of the white shirt. The cuff falls away from his arm when he does it, sliding down and Sam finds himself staring at dark marks ringing Dean’s wrist, biting deep into the pale skin. Sam makes a low sound of concern, reaches out to touch them. “Jesus, Dean, you’ve got bruises --.”

He breaks off when he catches sight of Dean’s neck.

The ruin of it.

“Oh, God…” Sam’s not sure the words actually come out.

“This is why.” Dean’s almost whispering. Telling some awful secret. Sam puts his fingers near the raw wounds, ragged skin still tinged with blood and thinks he might be sick.

“They've been doing this to you… for three months?” Sam's stomach turns over.

“Twice on Sundays. I’m pretty sure I’m their favorite.” Dean’s smile is a grim, twisted thing.

“Dean…”

“And every time.” Dean swallows. “Every time they did it, they put more of that poison inside me. Like maybe it would have just worn off if they hadn't --.”

Dean stumbles over the end of the sentence but it doesn’t matter. Sam’s temples are pounding. The entire world has narrowed down to the ligature marks on Dean’s arms and the torn, bloody bites on his neck -- and the unending mental movie of his brother hurt and drugged and used running through Sam’s mind.

Sam wants to destroy them. Obliterate them, until there’s nothing left but dust.

“Let’s get out of here.” He listens to his voice shake, thinks his face might be wet. “Come with me right now and we’ll just go. We'll get you somewhere safe and then we’ll—we’ll figure something out --.”

Dean isn’t listening, talks over Sam like he’s talking to himself. “The venom makes me want to drink, too. The blood-suckers wait until I’m starving, until I’m half-dead, and then bring them to me – all these stupid club kids who think it’s a game.”

“Jesus, Dean…” Sam shakes his head, not wanting to hear. His stomach rolls at the thought.

More hollow laughter. “Yeah. I’m a monster. The only reason I didn’t try to put a bullet in my head is that the venom doesn't come unless I want to use it. I didn't really hurt them, but Jesus, Sam…they beg me to do it. Whisper to me like they’re in agony, like they’ll die if I don’t touch them.”

Dean looks up at him then, a faint gleam of something feral behind the grief and then he’s moving, sliding closer to Sam until he’s an immediate, overwhelming presence that makes Sam’s entire body react. Sam can hardly breathe and Dean is barely touching him; just leaning his face against Sam’s throat and touching his lips briefly to the pulse in Sam’s neck. Sam’s breathing hitches.

“I can feel it,” Dean whispers, his breath a gentle brush over Sam’s skin. “All that blood – there’s nothing like it, Sam. Better than any drug, any hunt, any fuck… I wish I could show you what it’s like. It’s all I think about. Right now, I want you so bad I could… ” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, then rests his head against Sam’s shoulder, as if he’s too tired to hold it upright anymore. “I could make you want me to do it, too. I could make you beg for it,” Dean whispers, sounding unbearably weary.

Sam can’t move. Repulsed and fascinated and scared, all at the same time, but more than anything else just aching -- he’s never heard his brother sound so close to defeat before, no matter what kind of hell they’d stumbled into. He turns his face into Dean’s hair.

“I would. I will. On my knees if you want.” He whispers it against Dean’s ear, lets his face rub up against Dean’s cheek and lets the want just rush over him. He can’t help it; he’s missed this, needed this so badly for way too long, so he reaches out to pull Dean closer.

Dean’s hands close around his shoulders hard, trying to keep Sam at a distance, and the expression on his face is fierce. “Aren’t you listening? How – how can you still want me?”

Sam stares at him. Like Dean isn’t the constant. Like he isn’t the most beautiful, necessary thing Sam’s ever known in his life; the one thing Sam will always need. Nothing in hell will ever change that. But there’s no explaining it if Dean doesn’t already get it, so Sam pulls until Dean almost falls into him, puts his lips against Dean’s cool mouth and tries to make him understand.

Oh, God.

He’d missed this so much. Missed Dean so much, until he was almost sick with it, like once they’d touched each other he’d starve to death without Dean’s hands on his skin to fill him up. He makes Dean open his mouth, makes Dean kiss him back until Dean’s gasping for breath, until maybe he’s as hungry as Sam is.

“You can’t leave me again,” Sam tells him. "You can't. I won't let you." Simple truth that doesn’t require an answer, and he rocks into the weight of Dean’s body like punctuation. Feels Dean start. Lean into him.

Finally. Careful, urgent kisses and his brother moves closer, starts to run his hands over Sam’s shoulders, his back. He can feel motion in Dean’s body now, too – slight rocking that makes Sam’s heart start to thud in his chest.

Sam shifts around, dropping down and taking Dean with him until he’s half-lying on the ground with his back propped against a crumbling wall and Dean’s thighs splayed over his hips. Sam closes his arms tight and protective around Dean’s back, dragging him in so their bodies touch. He bumps his face into Dean’s, nuzzles against his cheek.

“I want to do this naked,” Dean breathes.

That makes Sam move against him, thrust up sharply, once. “Fuck, Dean." He swallows hard, searches for control. "We -- we can't. We can't stay here.”

Dean shakes his head. Kisses Sam again. “Want to feel you. Sammy...please.”

Six words and Sam is lost. He gets his hands on the buttons of that damned shirt, wants to tear it to pieces but it’s too thick, material’s too strong so he pulls the buttons free and spreads it open, tugs at Dean until he kneels so Sam can get his mouth on Dean’s chest. And fucking hell, there are wounds here, too; some scarred over, some healing, some practically torn open, vicious marks marring Dean’s skin and Sam moans in pain like they’re his own.

“Don’t, Sam, come on… they don’t hurt…” Dean murmurs.

“Bullshit,” Sam says, rage and grief starting to close like hands around his throat, edged with the white heat of the power he’d felt outside the club. It's an effort to shove it away, push it down deep until he can do something about it. Instead of getting up and killing something he tries to soothe Dean’s skin with his tongue, tries to kiss away what they’ve done.

Then Dean’s kneeling over him, leaning on him heavily and reaching one hand down to open Sam’s pants, and Sam has to wonder briefly if this is just Dean’s way of distracting him from his wounds. The touch of Dean’s cool fingers against his cock, pulling him free of his jeans and his boxers makes him decide he doesn’t much fucking care, and he pushes up helplessly into Dean’s touch. Just rubs his face against Dean’s chest and then takes one hard, tiny nipple between his teeth.

Dean arches his body and makes a needy noise that drives Sam crazy, clutches Sam’s shoulder hard enough to mark. Sam jerks him forward, just pulls him in, sliding his hands down Dean’s back and grasping his hips through soft denim. The jeans are loose enough that Sam can pull them down over Dean’s hipbones, follow the lines of muscle with his shaking fingertips, wondering wildly if he’s ever felt this desperate before in his life.

Sam can barely concentrate but the buttons come open with only a little effort, the jeans falling open easily over Dean’s hips and sliding down his thighs when he briefly stands because, jesus – he isn’t wearing anything underneath and Sam just groans. It’s way too much – Dean kicking his jeans aside and sinking down onto his lap, staring down, gorgeous and still, with his body bare and that goddamn shirt framing his shoulders and Sam can only shake his head and reach out to touch.

“ -- so fucking beautiful --,” and then immediately Dean is dragging his mouth up and kissing him, hard and angry.

“Don’t say that,” he says. “Never -- never say that.”

“Okay,” Sam says, quick to reassure, worried in the face of Dean’s intensity. “Okay, never again. I promise.” He pulls Dean closer, buries his face against Dean’s chest and closes him in his arms because there’s something frightening here, something dark and twisted that Sam is afraid to think about too closely.

He puts soft, open kisses over Dean’s chest and ribs and belly until he can feel Dean’s hands clench in his hair; until he can feel Dean’s breathing start to speed up and the bone-deep shudder that goes through Dean’s body when Sam pushes him back a little, brushes his lips over the tip of his cock.

"Sam," Dean says, voice jagged with want and it makes Sam crazy, makes him run his hands up the back of Dean’s thighs and cup the hard muscle of Dean’s ass in both hands, the shirt-tails a soft fall of linen against Sam’s knuckles and it feels so good. He’s achingly hard, desperate suddenly, wanting everything now and Dean makes a noise that sounds like everything Sam’s feeling. It's like Sam can't help it, it's like the firm muscle he's rubbing is addictive, and without thinking he's dipping his fingers in between, soft brush that makes Dean clutch his shoulders harder.

"Fuck, yeah, Sam," he says, and then Sam's got Dean's fingers in his mouth, stroking his tongue, oddly cool but warming up right away as Sam sucks on them. Then Dean slips them free and and reaches back, pushing against Sam's fingers so that they're both there, opening Dean up.

"Wait -- wait, Dean, it'll hurt --."

Dean shakes his head, intent. "Don't care."

"I do. Just wait..." He jerks Dean down into his lap, pulls their hips together so everything between them is just slick heat and damp skin and he can get his hands on Dean's cock. He puts his hands all over both of them, deliberate strokes that make Dean's eyes close and his mouth go lax, stroking until they're both slippery and helpless and ready to come. Until they're leaking enough to coat Sam's fingers, enough to make Dean slick and open enough that Sam can push in a little when Dean moves over him.

“Better?” Sam asks through gritted teeth, feeling almost out of his mind and wanting to just move.

Dean’s breath is against his neck, a stuttering nod to go with that shallow pant, but then Dean drops his head back, his face twisted like keeping himself under control is painful and Sam can see a glint of moonlight on sharp fangs.

“Do it,” Sam says.

“Sam --.”

“No venom, right?”

Dean shifts, helpless, leans into him. “No venom. I’d never --.”

“Then do it.” And oh, fuck, he knows this is going to hurt them both, tear them up but he thinks that maybe this is the only way it can be. "Now, Dean, now, come on --." he begs, and like that's a signal, Sam thrusts up as Dean strikes down.

It's chaotic. It's pain and pleasure past any point he'd ever imagined, it's him inside Dean and Dean inside him and it's like it's always been this way, one way or another for all of his life. Dean's drinking deep, sucking almost in time with the liquid movement of his hips, pushing Sam toward some shattering edge where they're both going to fall, where coming's like dying and Sam can't seem to care. He slams himself up into Dean, over and over while Dean shudders against his neck, blood leaking down to streak his chest until finally Sam can't hold on anymore and lets himself freefall.

A dizzying rush. Like nothing he's ever felt before. So unbelievably good, even when it goes on too long.

Slowly, slowly, he becomes aware of Dean’s mouth like a stinging burn, licking through the euphoria that's making him weak.

"Dean, what are you --?" he starts, but the bruising pressure of Dean's mouth is putting shadows in front of his eyes, and then the darkness is everything.


**


“Dean…?” He can feel hands in his hair, gently stroking it back, but when he opens his eyes Dean seems very far away, clothed again and eerily still.

“You’re okay, Sammy, you’re fine,” Dean murmurs, the same way he’s said it for as long as Sam can remember; words of comfort and nonsense, whether he’d scraped his knees or had a demon slice open his ribs. “I took a lot of blood, but you’ll be okay. Don’t move.”

Sam can’t move, can hardly stay conscious. He feels a distant twinge of alarm. “What… what did you do to me?”

"It's blood loss, Sam, that's all. I'd never put venom in you, never. Just blood loss. You need to sleep it off." Dean leans in and squeezes Sam’s shoulders tight. His strange glittering eyes are wide and intense, like his voice in Sam’s ear. “You listen to me, okay? When you wake up, just get out of here. Fast as you can. There’s nothing you can do, anyway.”

“What… I don’t…”

Dean’s shaking his head, and when he speaks Sam isn’t sure who he’s explaining to. “They would have killed you, Sam, right there on the street in front of the club. I had to stop them. Had to prove to him that he could trust me. It was the only way he'd let me walk out of there.”

The first glimpse of comprehension makes Sam go cold. He shifts against the ground like he can get away from it. “No.”

“They’ll be here any second…” Dean’s looking up, scanning the sky, and Sam can feel Dean’s fear in the way he laughs. “He gave me an hour. I drank his blood and let him turn me into a monster forever, and he thought an hour with you was a fair exchange." He looks down at Sam. "I told him I could make you understand. He was probably hoping I’d kill you.”

Panic builds in Sam's chest. He tries to talk, to move, but all that he can manage is a wordless, wounded sound.

“Sam, don’t,” Dean says, touching him again, his face stricken. “It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurts, not anymore. And we had this, you know? I didn’t think we’d ever...” His bravado falters then, and he sits back on one heel, his other knee pulled up to his chest. When he drops his forehead onto his arms it’s like he’s kneeling before an altar. Or over a grave.

After a second he speaks again, voice low and bitter, and Sam can barely hear him. “And it’s not gonna be anything like forever. Now he trusts me. Now I can get close to him. Close enough. I’ll rip his fucking heart out.”

“You’ll die,” Sam whispers.

Dean raises his head and half-smiles, sorrowful and unreal; Sam’s very own grieving angel. “Fuck, Sam. He would never have let me go.”

Dean leans toward him and Sam can feel hands moving at his ankle, pulling the big hunting knife from the sheath wrapped around his calf. Sam feels something else, then; a distant rush of cold, coming closer and closer and focused on Dean beside him. It’s overwhelming, unstoppable; cold outside and in and Sam can’t keep his eyes open against it. He feels his tears spill over, marking hot trails down his cheeks while Dean’s lips press against his, cool and sweet.

“I love you,” Dean says. “And you can’t save me.”


**


Sam can hear them moving, hear the voices, even though he can’t move. Can’t see.

ours now

The cold they brought with them is everywhere, lurking in the dark that’s pressing against his eyes and wringing the heat from his body, but.

There’s more than that.

The power’s there, too. Pulsing in his blood. Singing through the center of him like a tiny wick of flame he wants to blow on, curl his hands around and urge to grow.


**


When Sam opens his eyes he realizes he can’t have been out for more than a minute or two, just long enough for Dean to have drawn them away. He can see Aaron and Dean and the six others fanning out behind them as they walk to the far edge of the roof, liquid shadows under the skyline.

Sam eases himself up, carefully silent, but they aren’t looking at him. Their focus is on Dean who moves like they do, now – quicksilver and light, sliding into the shelter of Aaron’s arm.

“Wait.” Sam's voice is wrecked and comes out scratched and broken. He shores it up with the power and tries again. "Wait."

The moving figures stop, go still as marble and Sam can feel that awful, terrible focus swing back toward him. Dean's the first to move, Sam can feel the sudden rage come off of him in waves but all he does is slip his arms around Aaron's waist, lift his head and whisper urgently.

"Wait or you're dead," Sam says and pushes out with his leashed energy, just a little, just enough to let them know he's there. He's getting closer now, walking upright by will alone and he doesn't stop until he's right outside the half-circle they've made, with Dean and Aaron in the center.

"Dean stays," Sam says, staring directly at Aaron.

Cold eyes -- detached, assessing -- meet his for less than a second and then the attack is immediate. It's the same cold rush Sam felt before but with a thousand times the force behind it; coming at him blunt and solid like it's going to slam into him and just keep going, shove him off the edge of the roof.

For a split-second he's sure it's all going to end like this, but then it’s like a rubber band snapping into place, a sudden rush of power drawn pure and tight that will tear the sky to ribbons when he lets it loose. It flows through him, over him, shattering and endless and Sam spreads his arms like he can hold it all in, the night, the power, Dean, and he shouts a challenge they can probably hear in Pilsen.

He raises his hands and blocks Aaron's blow so the energies meet with a shock Sam feels in his bones; immovable object and irresistible force and the collision knocks him back a few steps. Aaron staggers back a step, too, straining against the impact.

The roof shakes beneath Sam's feet, the sound of falling rock echoing deafeningly off the walls and he realizes it's more than just the ruins that will tumble down around them if they keep this up.

Like there's some unspoken signal they both stop, and Sam slumps his shoulders, breathing hard but never taking his eyes from Aaron's.

"He stays," Sam says again, Aaron's eyes on him, cold as frost.

"You can't kill me." Aaron says it like talking is this forgotten thing, something he hasn’t done in so long that he has to dredge up the memory of how it works and push his voice out through broken glass. "You won't." Sam watches the creature turn his face into Dean’s hair. “You won’t risk him.”

Dean is motionless beside him, staring down at the ground and letting himself be touched, distant and detached as the stars overhead, lost in the lights of the city.

“You’re right,” Sam says. “I won’t kill you.” He flicks his gaze over the ones standing behind Aaron, suddenly still and wary. "I'll kill them. Every one you’ve ever made. Every one you make from now on, over and over for as long as I live." He takes a step forward. "I swear to God, it will just be you and my brother, all alone, and he’ll hate you.”

Aaron stills at that, doesn’t move and for the first time Sam can feel him waiting, thinking. Sam can feel his own heartbeat in his throat.

“And all the others -- the innocents I’ll kill if I let you have him. Their lives for his?”

A bargaining chip. An offer. Sam looks at Dean, pale and remote and everything Sam has ever wanted in his life. “Yes,” he says.

“No,” Dean says.

It happens almost faster than Sam can see. Dean moves with Sam’s knife in his hand, turning toward Aaron in some awful pretense of an embrace, right before there are screams that take the air apart. Then Aaron’s falling, crumpling in on himself where the blade is sticking out of his chest, heart-shot because of course, Dean never misses.

no

Just one word, and Sam lets it tear out of his throat, his mind, lets it echo off the walls but it's already too late. Dean finally looks back at Sam for the first time since he said goodbye and Sam sees the determination there, along with forgiveness.

Apology.

The bottom drops out of his stomach in a sick wave of rolling fear. He stumbles toward Dean, ignoring the cries around him. Where there was biting cold it’s just heat, now, a furious blaze growing hotter and hotter.

"Dean, oh, God, Dean," he says, practically choking, but Dean's backing away, staring at Sam with horror-stricken eyes.

"Don't -- don't come near me," he says, holding up his hands before looking down at the flames surrounding his body.

Sam stares at the flames, too and wants to scream, wants to lose his mind because Dean’s burning up, igniting like the fire's coming from inside of him. "Dean, no --."

"Sam --?" Dean says, in a young, terrified voice that makes Sam want to howl.

He feels the scream building in his throat and looks frantically around, trying to find something, anything to put out the fire. All he can see is barren stone and the other dying vampires, already twisting into ashes that curl on the ground.

Already burned.

Already gone.

A tiny, still-rational part of his brain asks why Dean isn't dead yet, why the flames are consuming him so slowly when the others are already dust. He latches onto that thought with desperation.

"You're not leaving me," he chokes out, ignoring the flames and Dean's agonized protest. He closes his hands around Dean's arms and the fire that immediately blisters his skin. He looks into Dean, using the white heat of the power as his eyes. He looks through every part of Dean until he finds it waiting there; his own blood in Dean's body, the part of him in Dean and Dean in him like it always had to be this way, and Sam reaches out, catches hold and cradles it tight before blinding white light surrounds them both.


**


Cold and dark and silence all around them. Dean's on his hands and knees with his fingers twisted into the crumbling stone, like he needs to hang on just to keep himself on the ground. Sam sits up and reaches out, but Dean coughs and clutches at his stomach, rolls away and curls in on himself like he’s in pain.

“Dean? Dean, talk to me.” Sam crawls toward him, gets his hands on Dean's legs, his chest, makes him turn so Sam can see. Dean's clothes are in rags, blackened and smoldering but when Sam looks at his hands, his body, the lines of his face, there are no burns; no wounds or bruises, either, just smooth, pale skin.

Dean's looking, too. "What did you do?" he whispers.

Sam shakes his head, lost. "I kept you here."

Dean sits up suddenly, reaches for Sam. He starts examining Sam's body with frantic fingers, touching him everywhere, looking for damage. "I saw you burning. I saw it, Sam. What...?"

What are you? Sam's glad Dean doesn't ask out loud. He doesn't have an answer that makes sense.

Sam tries to stand but relief makes him weak. His hands are shaking when he reaches out for Dean, pulls him up so they're standing there together.

"You did it," Dean says, his voice hoarse. "However the hell you did it, Sammy, you saved me."

"Yeah. Asshole."

The corner of Dean's mouth twitches. "Okay. My mistake." Then Dean bows his head.

"What is it?" Sam asks.

Dean's eyes are closed. "Dawn's coming -- I can feel it." There's a vacant, weary tone in his voice that makes Sam's chest ache.

Sam takes a breath.

“Need to get you out of the sun, then,” Sam tells him, soothing voice that doesn’t require an answer, that’s always been the same for skinned knees and demon attacks. Vampiric transformations, too. He slips out of his jacket, puts it around Dean’s shoulders. Just in case. “We'll find someplace where you can rest. Feed.” He imagines Dean’s mouth on his skin again and shivers. “Does that sound good?”

He watches Dean breathe in deep. Sees the glint of green visible beneath his downcast eyes, the gleam of white fangs against his bottom lip, right before finally, finally -- he smiles.

“Yeah, Sam,” Dean says. “Beautiful.”

END





In addition to my amazing betas (you guys -- it was like taking a writing class, seriously), I want to give big messy thank you kisses to thandie and waka7 and the anonymous types who gave me nudges, to HRB who made awesome icons and to mkitty3 who made this gorgeous manip that is way, WAY cooler than the stories that she said inspired it. More than anyone else, thank you to sori1773 for having the patience and friendship to listen to me whine about this series for -- no lie -- the last two years. *hugs*