Crossroads of Eden - Section One

[glasslogic]

Prologue

Most nights fog was just fog, damp and harmless, heavy in the air, lingering until the sun rose to burn it off. Other nights it was a living thing, swallowing light and sound with smothering weight, eddying around traffic like deep water currents stirred by predators in the dark. On those nights people walked fast, eager to return to the safety of their homes, to places that didn’t raise the hair on the backs of their necks and make them feel small, defenseless and lost.

In the mountains of West Virginia, suspended high above the water on the steel and cable length of the New River Gorge Bridge, one man didn’t seem to notice the oppressive weight of the night. The full moon burning in the sky could barely penetrate the thick blanket of fog and left him standing in restless shadows as he leaned against the bridge rail, listening to things only he could hear.

He stood there for hours as the moon sank lower and the traffic died away until not even the memory of its passing remained in the dark. Shortly before three a.m., the oddly muffled click of heels on concrete echoed through the fog, announcing a new presence.

“Any news?”

The newcomer shifted uneasily, short, blond hair dull in the haze.

“Meg?” he pressed with a note of impatience.

She had another name, something sibilant that twisted just so on the blood-tinged winds of Hell, but he wouldn’t use it. Insisted instead on the pathetic diminutive that belonged to the meat she wore. An insult, but not one she could answer-- and survive. He had a name too, but wherever she might fall in the hierarchy of power, it wasn’t high enough to risk it. There wasn’t anything to stop her from thinking it though, and she did, a subtle defiance that was as close as she would ever come to testing his mastery. Survival was a delicate game.

“We’re following your leads, but everything we find is weeks cold. He could be anywhere.”

“No,” the man mused, staring out into the fog as if he could see through its tendrils into the valleys and town around them. “He’s here, somewhere. Close.”

“How close?” she demanded, frustration breaking her reserve for a moment. He turned to face her, one brow raised. “There’s too much ground,” she insisted. “Too much for us to find him before he moves again. We can’t feel him like you do.”

He turned back to the fog. “I have the link, but I also have dozens of other problems to keep track of. I’ve narrowed it down as closely as I can without walking every street in this region myself. You know what he looks like, the hounds have his scent. Run him down and bring him in.”

“If there are several dozen, why is this one so important?” she asked, struggling to keep the frustration out of her voice. His expression told her she had failed.

“Several dozen possibilities, but only one of them will be right-- and no way of knowing which one that is. Not yet. Not until after they are... tested.” The annoyance in his voice made her flinch. “And I can’t test what we can’t find. What you can’t find,” he added with a searing look. “Thousands of years of planning and preparation thrown into jeopardy because one stubborn mortal decides he would rather run away with the freak show.”

“We’re doing our best,” she insisted. “Dozens of the human hunters are looking for him too; we’ve followed them as well as the leads you have given us and nothing has turned up so far. Just traces, weeks cold and offering no direction. If it were just the man, someone would have found him by now! But he’s being aided by that damn vampire, and the vampire has more experience hiding and staying in the shadows than any dozen of us searchers have years on this plane combined.”

“So you’re saying that on the eve of the culmination of all of our long millennia of planning, the forces of Hell are being outwitted and outmatched by one single vampire?”

She swallowed and jerked her chin up. After a moment, when it became obvious she would offer no defense, his expression turned pensive and he crossed his arms, studying the concrete, lost in thought. Meg remained quiet and motionless; she had endured far worse in Hell than to wait in painless silence while a more powerful demon decided her fate.

Or someone else’s.

After a few minutes he chuckled to himself and looked back up. “These hunters you’re following are subpar at best. They’re angry, but not really invested. They don’t have enough edges or the proper motivation to find our quarry. And I can get us close, but every day my sense of him is weakening as he walks further and further down the wrong road. We have more significant matters that require our attention; it’s time to put this job in the right hands and be done with it.”

“The right hands?” she asked skeptically.

“Oh, yes.” He smiled, eyes flaring yellow in the ghostly, fog-filtered light. “Fortunately for you, I know just the man for the job.”


Chapter One

Six Months Later

“This sucks!” Sam slammed the laptop closed and glared at Dean.

Sam looked less than threatening sitting on a bare mattress surrounded by rumpled blankets, dark hair falling into his face and dressed in reindeer pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt, but Dean recognized the wildness in his eyes and sighed inwardly. The vampire tossed the newspaper he was reading onto the plywood suspended on rough crates that served them as a table and swung his feet down to face Sam directly and give him the target he was obviously looking for. “Anything in particular or just life in general?”

“This!” Sam made a frustrated gesture, taking in the mattress on pitted concrete, one haphazard table, a folding chair and a battered mini fridge where it hummed against a cinderblock wall. Some rusted machinery that looked like it had not been used in years took up the majority of the room, and a pipe dripped steadily from somewhere off in the darkness. Suspended overhead from an extension cord, a naked glass bulb shone harsh light onto the altogether unimpressive sight of their primitive living space.

Dean shrugged. “We’ve stayed in worse.”

“Which is completely beside the point! Or maybe it is the point,” Sam scowled, stood up and grabbed clothes from his duffle bag before stalking barefoot towards the tiny bathroom that seemed to have served most of its life as a janitor’s closet. He slammed the door shut with enough force to make dust filter down from the overhead pipes. Dean rolled his eyes and picked the paper back up, not particularly bothered by Sam’s show of temper.

He was more concerned when Sam stormed back out a few minutes later and headed for the stairs. Dean moved in a blur to plant himself at the bottom of the flight before Sam could set foot on the first step. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”

“Out,” Sam growled.

“Yeah, that’s smart.” Sam’s expression darkened and Dean stifled a groan, already able to tell this wasn’t going to be a reasonable discussion. “There’s a reason we’re hiding, Sam. A reason you’re hiding! And last I checked there weren’t any timeouts being called because you’re feeling a little cooped up.”

“It’s been two years, Dean!” Sam snapped back. “Two years of hiding in freaking abandoned basements, and railroad cars, and sewers, and--”

“Houses, hotels and apartments?” Dean asked pointedly.

“--and I just need to get out and stretch my legs for a little while!”

“We stretch your legs all the time! You’re not shackled to anything down here.” Though from the determined glint in Sam’s eye, Dean thought it might be something he should consider.

“Yeah, Dean. We’ve ambled over half the countryside in the dark; consider my legs stretched. But I need other things too, you know? Like some natural light and to see other people. I just have to get out of here for a bit. To remind myself that there is more to the world than you, me and mosquitoes!”

“What kind of natural light do you plan on getting at--” Dean glanced at the red numbers on the battered alarm clock that had started life in a roadside dive, “--two a.m.?”

“The only kind I can now,” Sam retorted, stepping forward as if he was going to try to shove past.

Dean held his ground and lowered his voice. “It’s not my fault you sleep all day, Sam. I warned you what would happen. It’s a phase, it sucks, and once you’re through it you can pick your own bedtime.”

“When I’m through it?” Sam demanded. “In ten years, Dean?”

“You should only have about eight left, but it’s a little different for everyone! You see me doing a lot of crystal ball gazing in my spare time?” Dean snapped, patience with the rehashed argument starting to wear thin.

“Different for everyone, but more different for me. I’ve got all kinds of screwed up things that shouldn’t be happening for at least three more years, right? We don’t even know if I can finish the change! This might all be for nothing. I could be rotting down here in the dark for not--”

“Hey!” Dean cut him off before he could head any further down that road. “What do you want me to say? You could have been dead on a mountain two years ago! It was your decision to take this trip with me. I told you it would take a decade. It’s a little boring since we have to keep a profile so low we’re kissing dirt, but that’s because of your demonic fan club and the hunters after your ass, which has nothing to do with me! And yeah, your transformation is going a little screwy. But it’s not like it’s some kind of horrific disaster either. So far, all you’ve got is a little photo-sensitivity and a regular bedtime--”

“And garlic allergies, and I get sick when we cross running water, and I don’t have a ‘regular bedtime’, Dean; I’m in a freaking coma from sunrise to sunset!”

“Things could be worse,” Dean pointed out when the echo of the outburst died away. “You could have to sleep in your native soil and catch fire when exposed to the sun. You have demon blood in your veins, it’s fucking things up. But I can taste the change happening in you. And sometime during this whole shindig, whatever chain the demons have on you will snap; they won’t be able to find us like we’re in the freaking phone book, and we won’t have to be so crazy paranoid.” Not that Dean had any intentions of acting any less paranoid, but he figured that could just be an annoying surprise for Sam when they reached that point.

Instead of replying, Sam pushed past Dean. Before he could start to climb the battered, wooden steps, Dean caught his arm in an implacable grip and shoved him up against the wall. Sam had developed impressive night vision, but his strength was still entirely mortal and no match for Dean’s.

“Why don’t we bring some sanity into this discussion, Sam?” Dean tried in his most persuasive voice. “If it’s just some cabin fever you need to work out, we can do that right here. No need to go anywhere at all.” Dean let his eyes rest on the pulse pounding in Sam’s throat. He knew Sam was aware of where his gaze had fallen from the sudden flush and the way he tilted his head just slightly in unconscious invitation.

Dean leaned in, nuzzling where he could feel Sam’s pulse through the soft skin under his ear. For an instant, Sam started to relax and Dean thought he would take the offered distraction. Sharing blood with sex was so instinctively intertwined as acts of bonding that either alone seemed almost unsatisfying now. If he could use them to derail Sam’s agitation, it was a win-win situation all around. But before it could progress any further, Sam abruptly stiffened and shoved him away. “No... later. When I get back.”

“Damn it, Sam!” Dean snapped. “I know you’re frustrated, but this is for your own goddamned safety! I can’t protect you from a legion of demons and I can’t protect you from every hunter on the planet. The only real protection we have is staying hidden.”

“You don’t understand; you aren’t trapped in one place day after day! You get to go out and do what you want.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “I go out because the people looking for you aren’t going to recognize me nearly as fast. I go out to get things we need to survive, to make arrangements for places to live. I’m not down at the local watering hole chatting up hookers, and most of the time I’m sitting right here watching you freaking sleep!”

Sam shook his head. “I just... I just need to see something that isn’t four walls, Dean. I need to get out for a while.”

“Sam! Going out there is the stupides--”

“You aren’t my father!”

“No,” Dean snapped back without thought, “you can tell the difference because I’m trying to save your life instead of abandoning you helpless and ignorant to the fucking monsters.” He knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth, but there was no graceful way to take them back.

Besides, it was true. Well, lack of abandonment and presumably the sex. And the blood. And the whole vampire thing.

Sam gave him a twisted half smile full of the bitter self-loathing of someone who had betrayed all of their principles. That more than anything else made Dean regret that Sam spent so much time trapped in one place: too much time to brood. Sam had chosen this willingly, had asked for it and never voiced regret. But Dean was aware of the constant mental battle Sam still fought between what he wanted and what a lifetime of experience told him was wrong. When a couple of months ago he had started passing out at sunrise and sleeping until sunset, it had actually been a relief in some respects.

“I didn’t have to be abandoned to monsters, Dean. When given the chance, I hopped right into bed with them.” Sam looked like he wanted to add something else, but just turned and stomped unimpeded up the stairs. “Don’t follow me,” he called back as he vanished into the darkness above.

Dean gave him a few minutes head start and then did follow, of course. Getting drawn into the argument had been a stupid thing, but it helped Sam blow off some steam. Dean wasn’t angry at him for being frustrated, and certainly not irritated enough to let him wander off alone. And there was little chance of Sam spotting Dean as he trailed him through the night, no matter what kind of vivid nightlife Sam found to expose himself to. Demons might be new territory for the vampire, but stalking his lesser cousins was a craft he had mastered, and Sam’s mostly human senses were no match for his skills.

But Sam didn’t head for the heart of the town, didn’t wander into a bar or a restaurant where he could absorb the company of his fellows. That he wanted to was obvious from the rapt attention he gave store fronts and passersby. But if they glanced at him he averted his gaze, hunched his shoulders, turned away. The instinctive reaction pleased the protective part of Dean, though its necessity made him wish things could be otherwise. In another life Sam would have been a university grad with a white picket fence and a house in the suburbs, two and a half kids with his college sweetheart, working a daytime job and worrying about his pension. But in another life Dean would have been centuries dead. Life was what it was; you made your choices and took your punches. Sam accepted that most days and Dean could put up with his temper the rest of the time.

After a couple of hours even the night owls that inhabited any good-sized city had deserted the streets. Sam had settled on the cement edge of a fountain facing the window of a bookstore that wouldn’t open until well after dawn. Dean watched from the shadows for a while, but when Sam seemed disinclined to move any time soon, Dean approached and leaned against the cold stone beside him.

“Feel better?” Dean asked after a few minutes of contemplative silence.

“Yeah,” Sam muttered, not seeming surprised to find him there. “Sorry.”

“I can handle the occasional blow-ups, Sam. I just need you not to do things that put you at risk.”

“I know.” Sam sighed heavily. “I’m... sorry.”

“You said that already.”

Sam didn’t respond to that, just shoved his hands further into his pockets.

“Hey.” Dean nudged him with an elbow and Sam reluctantly turned his head to meet Dean’s eyes. “I do understand, you know. I went through this too once. It’s awful, and it’s boring, but it won’t last forever. Look on the bright side! At least you don’t feel sick.”

“It might be easier if I did.” Sam’s shoulders slumped and he scuffed one boot in the loose mulch beneath his feet. “At least then I would be happy to stay in bed doing nothing. If we didn’t have to stay here, if we could even go to South America or something, I wouldn’t have to stay holed up all the time.”

“The hunters wouldn’t be such a problem, though they have their own hunters and word gets around. But the demons would still be trailing us.” It would be easier, and Dean had often had the same thought. It just wasn’t possible.

“It doesn’t matter anyways; we can’t go because of my screwed up whatever.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sam. At some point, you’re going to need your native lands. I can get you to Kansas from here in just a few hours. From anywhere else... it seems stupid to go through all of this just to have you die an agonizing death because you got a little stir-crazy. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue because you wouldn’t be in any danger of needing your home ground for six or seven more years at the earliest. But normally we wouldn’t be on the run from hunters and demons either, so normal is a little out the window. You’ve got some things way early, like the daytime coma, and some things you shouldn’t have at all.”

“Yeah, my eyesight is awesome.”

Dean ignored the sarcasm dripping from Sam’s voice. “That just proves my point. It’s normal to get some briefly heightened senses when you first start down this road, but then they fade away back to human until after the change happens. You had almost perfect night vision within minutes of tasting my blood, and you’ve never lost any of it.”

“Which is great for me, since apparently I’m going to spend the next eight years in the dark.”

“You could be spending them in the ground,” Dean suggested.

“That’s another thing. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to being buried alive for three months.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Stop dwelling on that! When the time comes it’s not going to be some big ordeal. Trust me; you’ll be grateful when it happens. You’ll have a nice snooze, let all those tedious last minute things work themselves out. And when you wake up? All this crap will be over. But you’ve still got a long road to get to that point. I want you here, and I want you to do this... but the other alternative is still open.”

“Death?”

Dean shrugged.

Sam glared, and there was a tense silence between them for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, no. I want to do this. I do. I’m just, you know, bored and... like you said, ‘stir crazy.’ Again. How the hell can you keep so calm all the time?!”

Dean shrugged again. “My perspective on time is a little different than yours. Besides, I’ve been where you are and I remember what it was like. Sure, I didn’t have demons and hunters after me, but we still had to be careful and we had to move around so no one had time to be suspicious. Besides,” he grinned suddenly, “I was way worse than you’ve been.”

“What do you mean ‘worse’?” Sam asked, curiosity distracting him for the moment.

“I ran away, pitched crazy fits, tried to kill my sire. Fun things like that.”

“Why?”

Dean’s face took on the distant cast that Sam knew meant he wasn’t going to get an answer to the question. Which is why he was surprised when Dean spoke up.

“I didn’t choose this, so I was a little upset when it happened. Not a situation that put me in the most cooperative frame of mind.”

“What do you mean!? You told me your kind of vampires choose new ones carefully, that it’s all about bonds and time and--”

Dean nodded impatiently, cutting him off.

“I did, and that’s true. But exceptions prove the rule, and it turned out okay once I had a handle on things. It was just the first year or so. I reacted kind of like you did, ‘Vampires! Icky!’” He gave his best impression of a teenage girl and was satisfied when Sam snorted and looked away, an involuntary half-smile on his face.

“I wish you would tell me more about what it was like for you; it might help me,” Sam said after a moment. “I mean, I don’t even know how old you are.”

“I’m an adult,” Dean said pointedly. “And I’ve told you what happens in a normal transformation. We’re writing a new book with you.”

“Yeah,” Sam grumbled. “A boring, dimly lit book. Full of leaky pipes and spider webs.”

“You want me to pick up a checkerboard or something?” Dean offered, pleased with the change in direction.

“What about a treadmill?” Sam gave in.

“We’re moving in two days; I can get one for the new place.”

“And Internet access?” Sam added hopefully. “I’m a lot less bored when I can at least surf the web. And I have class work to catch up on.”

Dean gave an easy shrug. “Sure. But I don’t know why you’re sweating your online education so much; it’s not like yet another degree from some Internet-only program under a fake name is going to be useful to you. At all. But whatever floats your boat. You need dancing girls and caviar too?”

“It’s just something to do, Dean. And I think Internet access and a treadmill is plenty... unless you can dig up a stationary bike too or something.” Sam let a note of wistfulness creep into his tone.

“I’ll even throw in some free weights.”

The tightness in Sam’s shoulders eased somewhat and his face had lost some of the tension and unhappiness. It wasn’t quite good humor, but he was making the effort. “So, where were we before I threw a fit and stormed out?”

Dean stepped away from the statue and started picking his way back towards their safe house, pausing a moment until Sam was beside him. “I was offering to take your mind off your troubles.
You were pretty nasty about it. Pushed me and everything.”

“I’ll have to make that up to you.” Sam deliberately brushed against his shoulder.

“I’m awfully hurt.” Dean gave him a sidelong glance. “It’s going to take a lot of making up.”

Sam met the look with a heated one of his own, the last traces of anxiety finally smoothed away by the deluge of a different sort of emotional drive. “I’ll be creative. Someone told me I’m good at that.”

Dean smiled but said nothing as they worked their way through the quiet city streets to reach the warehouse again. He listened intently at the top of the stairs for any sounds from below but heard nothing out of place; the gravel he had scattered in front of the door was as he had left it, indicating no one had visited while they were gone. That wasn’t surprising; he never expected visitors.

But it wasn’t the expected ones you had to be on guard for.

Dean trailed Sam down the stairs until he stepped off onto the bare concrete of the floor, then pushed him up against the wall in the same spot he had pinned him earlier. Sam didn’t resist, just raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Might as well pick up where we left off,” Dean suggested. “You said something about later and making it up to me. It’s later.”

“The mattress is less than twenty feet away,” Sam pointed out.

“We’ll get there,” Dean muttered. He trapped Sam in place with the weight of his body, claiming him with a fierce kiss before Sam could raise any more complaints. Sam willingly opened his mouth under Dean’s onslaught and sucked on his tongue with such enthusiasm that Dean groaned and broke it off, wishing he was getting that kind of treatment somewhere else entirely.

“Are you going to bite me?” Sam gasped, yanking Dean’s shirt from where it was tucked into his jeans until his hands could reach bare skin.

Dean mouthed over his favorite spot beneath Sam’s ear, tasting the salt of his skin and the indefinable flavor that was simply Sam.

“Why?” he breathed into Sam’s ear, enjoying the shudder of pleasure that ran through Sam’s body. “You think I can’t get you off without it?” He felt more than heard Sam’s huff of impatience and grinned, stepped back to peel his own shirt off. Sam stayed where he was against the wall, face flushed and eyes dark; watching intently as Dean casually dropped his shirt onto the floor and popped the top button on his jeans. Dean gave him an expectant look. “I thought this was your apology. Why am I doing all the work?”

Sam gave him a somewhat lazy smile and closed the distance between them, shrugging out of his flannel and tugging his own shirt over his head. “Because you feel bad for me and want to make me feel better?”

Dean snorted and hauled Sam in close by a belt loop. “More like I want to shut up the bitching. I don’t remember you being such a princess before.”

“Before what?” Sam asked, sliding his hands between their bodies to finish unfastening Dean’s jeans. “Before you stopped torturing me for fun, before someone almost killed me, or before the argument earlier tonight?”

“Pick one.”

Sam paused. “Are we fighting again?”

Dean caught one of Sam’s hands and pulled it up to admire the tracery of veins under the thin skin of his wrist, felt Sam’s awareness of the attention in the way his breath caught. “If you want. I kinda thought you were interested in other activities right now, though.”

“I’m--” Sam cast another glance at the mattress with its rumpled sheets.

“What is your attachment to the bed?” Dean demanded.

Sam’s eyes narrowed, losing some of the unfocused haze of arousal. He took a half step back. “Maybe that the floor is bare concrete and I’m tired of having my knees all bruised up because you like to drag it out--”

Dean rolled his eyes, keeping hold of Sam’s wrist with one hand and grabbing hold of the waist of Sam’s jeans with the other to tug him closer. Sam leaned back in resistance and continued on.

“--and maybe because we are coming up on sunrise fast and I’d rather not crack my skull open on the floor if I pass out in the middle of something!”

The edged smile Dean responded with was the kind that made Sam’s belly tighten and his skin ache to feel Dean’s hands in places less innocent than his arm.

“It sounds like you don’t trust me, Sam.” Dean’s grip on Sam’s wrist grew more fierce, and he jerked him back in close so that Sam felt they were almost trading breaths. Dean’s voice lowered. “Is that it? You don’t trust me?”

With the length of Dean’s body pressed against him and fingers like branding irons dimpling his skin, Sam really wasn’t interested in discussing anyone’s trust issues, and he thought the accusation pretty outrageous anyway.

“I trust you,” Sam hissed, leaning in to taste Dean’s mouth again, coaxing Dean’s tight lips into opening for a leisurely exploration. Dean obliged him, but then the world seemed to spin, and the next thing Sam knew, he was flat on his back across the mattress and Dean had stolen control of their kiss. When he licked into Dean’s mouth, Sam felt Dean’s fangs slide into place and he wasted no time in raking one with his tongue. The slight pain and taste of iron was completely worth the helpless sound Dean made as he searched out more of the elusive flavor. For his part, the only blood Sam desired to taste was Dean’s, though he had been promised that would change by the time the transformation was complete. It was another one of the details Sam tried not to dwell on.

Dean’s hands were busy sweeping Sam’s skin, seeking out the sensitive places he had discovered over the last two years that would drive Sam into a fever pitch while Sam pulled at the fastening of Dean’s jeans. He popped the last of the buttons free and skinned the denim down, raking his short nails over the smooth skin of Dean’s ass and then up his back, enjoying the press of skin and the weight of Dean’s body against him.

Almost everything Sam had ever known and believed in his life had dissolved into smokescreens and lies. The pillars of his childhood had crumbled and left him in freefall, abandoned by everyone he had known or trusted. Dean, unlooked for and out of nowhere, had extended a hand when Sam was drowning. Had wanted him and believed him, and sometimes Sam wondered if he didn’t crave this physical anchor Dean gave him as much as craved the physical pleasure Dean had taught him. His caress of Dean’s skin tightened into a bruising grip as he bucked up, grinding his hips against Dean’s firm thigh.

Unaware of Sam’s thoughts, Dean let go of Sam’s mouth long enough to roll to one side and kick his pants free. Sam made a frustrated sound, but Dean wouldn’t let him follow, pinning Sam flat to the mattress. His eyes were dark and his expression almost feral when he looked up to meet Sam’s eyes. Sam immediately tilted his head to one side, baring the long line of his throat. He could feel Dean’s ragged breathing as the vampire considered.

“Please,” Sam whispered. The sex was always good, but Sam knew it could be so much better. His own cock was pressing painfully against his fly and the only thing he wanted more than freeing it was Dean’s fangs buried in his throat. Sam was afraid if he moved a hand to work his own jeans open it would distract Dean from the act he was trying to entice him into. “Please, I want you to.”

Dean snorted but released Sam’s arms and instead twisted the fingers of one hand into Sam’s hair, pulling until the angle was perfect. His mouth over Sam’s pulse made Sam shudder with anticipation. The years where he had feared and hated this were like some distant dream of another life. A life where he had been a hunter and Dean the monster that had trapped him into a vicious bargain. Now, Dean’s tongue was a velvety caress where he sucked gently, then the welcomed white flash of pain as needle-sharp teeth sank in. Sam gasped, but even as it registered, the sensation blurred out into the waves of pleasure that made him seek this out, again and again.

Sam was riding the rushing crest of sensation, distantly aware of Dean’s hand sliding free of his hair, of Dean’s hands rough at his waist, working Sam free of the confining cloth of his jeans.

Dean’s hand on his cock, stroking, slicked with his own pre-come. Too much, it was all almost too much. His skin was on fire and that bright pinnacle was building uncontrollably-- when suddenly the welling sensations were eclipsed by the dark shadow of sunrise stealing into his mind. Sam felt helpless lethargy pour into his muscles and the heady rush of the moment before was extinguished like a snuffed candle. He barely had the energy to push at Dean’s shoulder and mumble, “Dean. Dean, the sun...”

Dean rolled his eyes but didn’t need to glance at the clock. He could also feel the sun trembling just under the horizon, but he wasn’t chained to its cycles like Sam was and hardly noticed it anymore. He pulled back and dragged the soft grey blanket over Sam, pressing an edge of the rumpled sheet against the wounds in Sam’s throat.

“See? This is what happens when we go with your plan instead of mine. If we’d done what I wanted to do, we would have been finished and had you all tucked in half an hour ago!”

Sam just blinked slowly. Dean gave an exasperated huff.

“We can pick this back up again tomorrow. Before you pass out, though--” He bit into his free wrist and held it to Sam’s mouth. Sam managed a few swallows before even that was too much effort, the taste of Dean’s blood like sunshine and sweet berries on his tongue chasing him into oblivion.

~~~~~
While Sam spent the day curled up unconscious, Dean spent most of the time drowsing beside him on the mattress in the half sleep that passed for his rest, and the other empty hours working his way through the game library on Sam’s computer. The mouthful or so of blood Sam took every other day to fuel his transformation wasn’t really a significant amount of blood loss, but it was still wearying for the vampire and sapped his resources unpleasantly fast. He would have to hunt again soon.

The following evening when Sam awoke, he seemed back in his usual spirits and eager to pick up where they had left off. But in the afterglow of that distraction, there was still a hint of the wildness in his eyes that made Dean uncertain about leaving his fledgling alone long enough to run errands. Sam’s fits were usually a one-night affair, but sometimes it spilled over and it would only take one ill-timed bad decision to bring hunters, demons and god knew what else down on their heads. One pick-up by a security camera watched by the wrong eyes, one Hell-born pest passing by on the sidewalk, and their laying low would revert to mad flight. It had been stupid to stay after last night’s stunt, but there had been no signs of close pursuit for months, and getting Sam settled on ground Dean already knew was secure had been his priority. But there was stupid, and there was asking-for-it. Dean tried to make a point of avoiding the latter category, and waited only for Sam to pass out for the day before he slipped out of the warehouse.

He checked the perimeter, then jogged down to the quickie-mart to pick up a few groceries and make some calls. Confirming his plans for their next safe-house only took a few minutes. They could leave as soon as the sun set.

He hadn’t been out twenty minutes before he was on his way back. Packing the things they intended to take with them would keep him occupied for about an hour, and then it was just a waiting game until Sam woke up and they could move. Dean was considering the merits of just stuffing Sam unconscious into the backseat of the Impala and covering him with a blanket when something caught at his awareness. He stopped dead in the middle of the deserted parking lot to try and hone in on what had attracted his attention. The warehouse loomed like the desolate wreck it was in front of him, and to his back was an abandoned strip mall. The parking lot was lower than the street but he could hear the heavy flow of traffic just out of sight to his left and there was nothing in the open field to the right that he could see. Across the field, beyond the line of scrubby trees, the roofs of distant houses peaked in the distance. He frowned, concentrating.

The sun was barely edging over the building to the east and the blazing light of dawn was stabbing pain in his eyes. Being able to function freely in the daytime was a far cry from enjoying it, and the early morning hours were Dean’s least favorite. He wanted to be back in the warehouse sub-basement, to know Sam was safe, and to stretch out next to him on the mattress and sleep until mid-afternoon at least. But not until he figured out what was wrong.

Suddenly the wind kicked up from the field, scattering dry, crackling leaves over the asphalt. Dean jerked his head, tracking the movement. The screech of tires on the street above and the sudden honk of angry horns made him flinch, the racket distracting him so that the first warning he had of the crossbow bolt was when it bloomed suddenly from his chest, impaling the orange juice in the bag. Juice splashed over his shirt and puddled on the ground. He blinked twice at the bolt protruding through the front of his shirt, feeling the heaviness of a foreign substance invading his bloodstream. Reality kicked in a split second later and he swore violently under his breath, recognizing the stain on the shaft and the burn of that particular poison. Even though it barely fazed him, Dean had a part to play and he collapsed obediently to the ground in a loose sprawl.

Dead man’s blood.

Hunters.

Human hunters didn’t know about his people. They hunted his lesser cousins, the generous term his own kind used for that pestilent population who spread their disease by the droplet then squandered their potential on petty cruelty and debauchery. There were exceptions, some who just wanted to be left alone and live quiet lives, but they weren’t the rule. Dean’s own kindred kept the lesser ones in line, using them as both stalking horses and smoke screens, laying down hard lines for the excesses that would result in a slaughter far more thorough and severe than anything human hunters could imagine. Dozens of nests were wiped out of existence every year that the humans never knew existed.

Common sense and the protection of his species demanded that he play along when these kinds of things happened. The attack was a standard hunter ambush. Catch a vampire alone in daylight, shoot them with dead man’s blood from a distance to paralyze them, then close in for the kill.

Dean only had to wait for the hunter to come in to claim his head and then spring his own ambush. Hopefully it was a solo op; a pretty good bet with human hunters; they tended to be semi-psychotic, antisocial loners. But if not, the partner would probably assume the shot had gone through and the blood worn off before they approached. Or that they screwed up typing Dean to start with, which was closer to the truth. After he dealt with the one closing in, he could hunt the partner down at leisure after sunset when he was at his best. Could being the operative word, because as soon as he dealt with the immediate problem he was stuffing Sam in the car and blowing town. There was always the chance that his hunting had not been as stealthy as he had thought and he had somehow brought himself to the attention of local hunters. But Dean had centuries of practice keeping himself off the radar, so he thought it a lot more likely that somehow Sam’s little adventure the night before had caught the wrong attention. And if the hunters were here, he had no doubt the demons weren’t far behind.

Through half-lidded eyes Dean watched as scuffed, well-worn boots came into view. Seconds stretched out like hours as all of his instincts screamed at him that he needed to go to Sam, needed to make sure he was safe. The hunters could have been here earlier, could have watched him leave and then... Shit, shit. There should have been a bond between them that would let him know if Sam was in trouble. The last time he had tried this, there had been a connection almost from the first night on, a deep awareness of the other that had grown hourly for almost nine years, until it was severed by a hunter’s blade in a mountain cavern in the frozen depths of winter. An image of Sam sleeping and vulnerable in the warehouse basement flashed behind his eyes and he recalled with sharp clarity another vulnerable sleeper he had also... loved. Rage burned in his veins. He did have some connection with Sam, but it was a faint and unreliable thing, a pale shade to what it should have been.

Another slow step. Dean continued lying motionless. Not quite close enough yet. The wind was still blowing from the field and he could smell nothing but dry grass and wildflowers. The sudden rumble of an engine from far too close sounded just as the hunter standing upwind poked him roughly with a shotgun, attempting to roll him onto his back. Dean grabbed hold of the gun and used it to yank the hunter off balance. The man swore and stumbled, then it was simplicity itself for Dean to knock his feet out from under him and pin him to the ground. Dean froze. He had never met the man beneath his hands in his life, but the scent had unmistakable notes to it, traces of something so familiar... Dean searched the face of the man lying dazed on the ground. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but there was something to the angle of his jaw, the lines of his face.

“John Winchester,” Dean said flatly.

Winchester struggled under him until Dean slammed his head back onto the ground and he went limp, stunned.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!” Dean hissed, mostly to himself. He grunted, twisting the barrel of the shotgun into a useless mess while resisting the powerful impulse to just kill the man beneath him. John Winchester was dangerous, he was intolerant, and he had a reputation for both that Dean had known about long before he had ever met Sam. He was relentless, he was resourceful, and if he was on their tail then staying hidden had just gotten a lot harder. But the biggest reason Dean wanted to snap his neck and be done with it was that he had abandoned Sam when Sam had needed him the most, and the very last thing Sam needed to deal with in his current frame of mind were the complications that John Winchester back in the picture presented.

But Sam would find out. And never forgive him.

Fledglings made people stupid, Dean thought with a certain amount of resignation.

All of this was assuming that John hadn’t already killed Sam and had just been lying in wait for Dean to finish the deal. Dean swore and slammed Winchester’s head one more time onto the asphalt, leaving the hunter dazed and groaning, then sprinted towards the warehouse.

He knew as soon as he crossed the threshold of the building what he would find in the basement.

Everything was just as he had left it, the laptop on the milk crate, the maps and newspapers spread across the makeshift table, even Sam’s duffle bag with clothes spilling out the top.

Everything, exactly as it had been when he’d left less than half an hour earlier to run his errands, except for one thing.

Sam was gone.

And there was a certain reek in the air, familiar and skin-crawling even for one of his kind.

A creak on the step behind him told Dean he wasn’t alone anymore, but he didn’t bother turning around. He knew who his audience was. “I would have believed a lot of things about a person like you, but not this.”

“Not what?” The voice was low and doubtlessly accompanied by a weapon pointed at his back, Dean was too angry to care.

“I figured you might turn up one day, when you bothered checking in and found out Sammy decided not to hang around waiting for you to enlighten him about a few things. Didn’t figure you’d sell out your own kid to demons, though. That’s a twist. And here I thought my opinion of you couldn’t get any lower.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Where’s my son?” While Winchester’s voice remained cool on the surface, there was an undercurrent of fear to the last question that reassured Dean that whatever else was going on, John hadn’t beaten everyone to the punch and left Sam dead in a dumpster somewhere. Which meant he was probably still alive. It was hard to feel even that much through their weak bond with all of the panic of the moment.

Dean turned, spreading his empty hands wide. “He was here when I left; maybe you caught the license plate of the demons who took him?”

“Sam wouldn’t have gone with demons. If they had come for him here, there would be signs of a fight. You want to try your story again?” Winchester cocked the handgun.

“He was asleep,” Dean snapped in disgust. “The building could have collapsed around his ears and he wouldn’t have moved an inch. There wasn’t a fight; they just had to carry him out. Can’t you smell the reek of Hell in this place?”

John’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “It’s true then; you’ve corrupted him. Is he human at all anymore?”

“Was he ever?” Dean countered coldly. “This, he chose. You never even told him about the demons; you just tossed him the fucking car keys and told him to have a nice life. Hunters almost killed him, and he had no idea why! Don’t you bitch at me about corruption, you sanctimonious jackass; you left him!”

John’s expression went flat and he pulled the trigger, but Dean was already gone.




Part Two