"So get this."
They're at another motel in another Podunk town, and all Dean wants is to crash, but somehow Sam has found time to ferret out another potential hunt. The words exit Dean's mouth before he has time to stop them. "What're we looking at?"
Sam tells him people have been dying horribly during, ahem, intimate acts.
"You mean someone's offing people while they bonk? Heh. Monster kinks."
Sam makes that face he makes when he's trying not to let on that he's embarrassed. The pout makes his forehead crease.
Dean sniggers. "You need to get out more, Sammy."
"It's Sam."
They detail a plan of attack, which mostly amounts to Sam doing the nerd work while Dean does the legwork. First thing in the morning, they find themselves a diner. The waitress is attractive in a homegrown sort of way, and Dean stares at her bouncy dark hair. And her bouncy other bits.
Sam snaps his fingers in front of Dean's nose.
"Hmm?"
"I was saying we should talk to the locals."
"Right." Dean wolfs down a delicious egg and bacon concoction, speaking with his mouth full. "That was my job, right?" In his periphery he eyes the pretty waitress and finishes the coffee in three deliberate gulps. "Awesome."
Sam raises his eyebrows.
"Locals. On it." Dean gives Sam a thumbs-up and slides out of the creaky booth. As he moves toward the waitress, he hears Sam huff.
The waitress turns around with a fresh pot of coffee and bumps into Dean, nearly spilling it everywhere. She lets out this adorable squeak of feminine surprise as Dean catches her arm and saves them both from potential third-degree burns.
"Whoa, easy there." Dean reads her nametag and gives her his best smile. "Annabelle."
"People just call me Belle." Already there's a sense of intimacy as she sheepishly returns the smile. Her lips are full. Her teeth are perfect in their pearly whiteness. She has a heart shaped face and blue-gray eyes, almost silver the way they catch the light.
"People?" He releases her. "Do I count as people?"
"I dunno, do you?" She giggles. She's got a great giggle. "But what else would you be?"
"Maybe I'm a private investigator." He leans in close. "Codenamed Dean."
She bursts into uproarious laughter, and the snort at the end is endearing. "Sorry, sorry. Just. I'm not a very good flirt." She lifts the coffeepot. "And I should. Um. You know."
"Don't let me get in your way."
She walks a few steps past him, then turns back around. "I'm working a double shift today."
"Is that so?"
"It is. So. I get off at three."
Score! Annabelle "Belle" scurries back over to him and scribbles her number on a napkin. For one final touch, she lifts it to her lips and leaves a big smear of lipstick in the shape of a kiss at the top.
"I'll see you then, Codenamed Dean."
Radiant as he returns to their table, he catches the judgement in Sam's expression.
"What?"
Sam shakes his head.
Dean leaves a bigger tip than necessary.
Time passes. They visit the morgue and inspect the bodies, which are about as disgusting as Dean expected, then hit up the library. They find no new leads. Three o' clock rolls around, and Dean spontaneously decides he has to make a phone call. Sam isn't fooled, but he doesn't protest what Dean is doing either. Dean steps outside and arranges his date. There's a local spot where people park that overlooks the entire town. Belle says it's romantic. Dean's heart swells at the prospect of being somewhere with Belle that's got a reputation for being romantic. It feels like he's known her all his life, even though they just met this morning.
It barely occurs to him that the feeling, for him, is unprecedented. He's excited. It's been a while and he likes this girl. Nothing wrong about that. That's what he tells himself. That's the argument he uses against the naysaying voice in his head—the voice that sounds like Sam's voice and is always ruining Dean's fun—that's telling him to stop and look at himself and pay better attention.
That night he leaves Sam to the research and goes off to park with Belle. You really can see the entire town from atop the overlook, and Dean takes a moment to point out the motel where he and Sam are staying to Belle, who listens with an eagerness Dean hadn't known he was craving until she allowed him her attention. The night is full of stars and gentle wind that caresses the trees. Dean and Belle squeeze into the impala and get up to their own sort of caressing. As they feel each other's lips and tender fingertips, Dean hopes his hands aren't too harsh, too callused from all the weapons or too scarred from all the monsters. Belle seems not to notice. She arcs underneath him in ecstasy, and he feels proud for pushing her to the brink. Their passion makes the windows fog. Going crazy with it, he holds himself back, intent on taking care of her first because in the end sex is always better that way.
She's taking forever.
Shouldn't that be hot? That should be hot, right? Why isn't it? There's something unpleasant in his gut, painful, and it's beginning to ruin his mood. He tells himself to hold back a while longer, just a little longer, for what seems like an eternity.
The annoying Sam voice starts hollering warnings. Dean pushes it back. Not now, not now. In the middle of something here, Sammy. Just a little longer. We're almost there. Don't be jealous, little brother. Maybe she's got a sister.
"Dean!"
Gunshot. Liquid warmth splatters against Dean's chest and his mind goes blank, but it isn't the blankness that usually comes with release. It's terrifying. It's looking into the void. He doesn't know how he knows what it feels like to die, but he does, and this is it. He claws his way back to consciousness because he can't go yet, not yet, what's Sammy gonna do if he dies? Reluctantly the void allows his retreat, and when his vision returns, Dean's first instinct is to check on Belle. He curls his body over hers, just in case that monster is still out there, whatever it is—should check with Sam, see if the research turned up anything, definitely, but a weapon, need a weapon first—then when Dean smells the putrid rot beneath him he hauls back and coughs. He looks down and Belle isn't Belle. In her place is a pale sunken husk of a thing, all hollows and broken skin stretched rubbery over ribcage-starvation angles, and the sight of it makes him retch. Can't cough up anything because he has nothing left in his stomach—feels like he has nothing left inside any of him—and it hurts so bad the world torques him off balance. On his side, halfway falling out of the impala, his hand moves across his stomach and he realizes he's oozing blood. Automatically he applies pressure, because that's what you do. Falling out onto the ground, blinking away the fog, he sees his isn't the only blood he wears. Belle's is lighter, almost translucent, and looks disturbingly like the wrong kind of bodily fluid.
"No-no-no." The Sam voice is really Sam's voice now, and his lanky arms yank Dean away from the dead monster that was Belle. "Dean? Dean, are you with me? Come on, man."
"Wassamatter, Sammy?" Dean can hear how drunken he sounds and does his best to reduce the slur. He wonders how much blood he lost before Sammy got here. And what else he might've been close to losing. "Too kinky for you?"
"That's not funny."
"It is so funny."
Sam gets him patched up with the first-aid kit they keep in the back seat. Dean drifts in and out of awareness, eventually finds himself in the passenger seat, and decides it's better not to ask what Sam did with the corpse of that monster. The glow of a hospital appears up ahead, which means the time for hunt-related questions will soon be over.
"What was it?"
"Succubus." Now that the danger has passed, Sam is back to his old nerd self, rattling off pointless monster trivia. "You know they're technically a classification of vampire? Weird, but sorta makes sense if you think about it."
Dean doesn't want to think about it. He wants a nice set of stitches and a lot of good hospital drugs. He's still mildly delirious, and the words come out without him thinking them through. "I ever tell you how awesome it is to have an annoying nerdy brother? Cuz it's awesome." He makes a point to point at Sam. "But only sometimes. Don't let it go to your head."