Sam hesitated, hand poised on the knob. This is a stupid idea, he thought. Monumentally stupid. Grand, new heights of stupid. You're out of practice, you damned idiot. Two fucking years with your head in a book, and you think you can do this now? You?
He bit his lip, frustrated. Suck it up, pansy-ass. You're a fucking Winchester. You faced worse when you were twelve. He took a deep breath, and the sharp pang of the night air in his lungs centered him, prepared him to face the unknown terrors looming ahead. He gave the door a quick tug, jerking it abruptly open, and found himself staring directly into the bright, dead eyes of a vampire.
It's teeth were still out, and bloody, for fuck's sake.
Sam's hand shot to where his knife should be, only it wasn't, it was gone, and his lungs stiffened in panic as the vampire grinned, its thin lips stretched tight over glistening teeth.
"Hey, Tham," it said.
Sam was pretty sure his heart stopped.
"Glad you could come. Jeth didn't theem to think you were that interethted." It smiled again, and must have sensed Sam's confusion, because it tilted its head with an amused snort. "It'th Brady. Thorry about the lithp. Thtupid fake teeth."
Sam blinked. Oh.
This. This right here was why he hated Halloween.
Sam huffed to himself and moved deeper into the party. Not a ghoul, he thought as he bumped shoulders with a wild-eyed kid and his bloodstained mouth. Not a witch, to a particularly hairy-chinned girl in the corner.
And not a fucking hunter. He shook his head, frustrated, because he wasn't a hunter, not anymore.
Except that tonight, he was.
Damned Jess and her damned parties. His lively, blonde, and frustratingly persistent fellow sophomore had been after him for weeks. Fucking weeks. She'd pulled out every trick in the book, from smoky eyes and pouty red lips to feigned incompetence with calculus homework. None of it had worked.
Sam's friends thought he was playing hard to get; Brady just called him an "incompetent twat of an asshat." Brady always was creative.
Thing was, Jess had a lot going for her. Her waspy good looks and giant blue eyes had most of the student body bewitched. The male half of it, anyway. But she wasn't really Sam's type.
What Sam did want….Well, he was unlikely to be getting any action in the near future.
So when Jess had mentioned a masked Halloween party, Sam had brushed her off, no and thank you. But that, like the rest of his refusals, hadn't deterred her, and she'd gone on to describe the festivities in great detail, from the quality of the liquor to the costume contest to the teensy, weensy fact that the party would be held illegally in the abandoned Beauford mansion up on High Street.
Shit fuck damn, had been Sam's internal response. "I'll see what I can do," is what he'd said, his reluctance betrayed by his grim half-smile. Jess's knowing, satisfied smirk had forced bile up his throat, but, really, he'd had no choice.
Because Sam had been watching the Beauford house for weeks. It showed all the signs of a classic haunting - violent history, colorful urban legends, disappearing teenagers. He'd even slipped an anonymous tip to Bobby, hoping some hunter would come along and take it off his plate. No one had.
And the three fucking days between her invitation and the party were barely enough time for research, much less ganking a ghost single-handed. Especially when he was out of practice.
Not a hunter.
Somewhere in this stupid house - likely the basement, according to the library's archives (of course it would be the fucking basement) - was the well-preserved right hand of the family patriarch. Archibald Beauford, if this whole deal wasn't ridiculous enough already, had requested the preservation in his will as a reminder to future descendants of his firm and eternal guidance. Of course, because he was batty as a belfry (not quite right, Sam), his kids had scampered off quick as they could when he died. No one wanted the old house, but they couldn't sell it either, so here it sat, beguiling wayward teens since 1923.
And wasn't it just Sam's luck that Beauford only came out to play on Halloween? At least if the pattern of disappearances could be believed.
Sam was helping himself to the weirdly fluorescent punch and wondering how soon he could escape downstairs unnoticed when he spotted Batman lounging near the snack table. He paused and considered.
He'd never found men attractive in general, or anyone else, for that matter, except...well. But Batman over there, he was keeping it tight, if what his costume revealed was any indication, and maybe Sam could just fake a mask kink….
Get your shit together, Winchester. You're on the job.
Sam gave a reluctant sigh, fidgeted with his mask a bit, and turned his attention to figuring out which of the goddamn million doors led down to the basement.
Not a fucking hunter.
Still got it, Dean thought with a smirk. Sexy-ass Zorro was definitely eyeing him, and damn did he look good. Tall and long-legged and broad through the shoulders and fucking hell, that muscle-definition was real. Guy looked good enough to eat; actually, he looked a lot like...like no one, Dean forced himself to think. No one.
Sam wasn't here, didn't do Halloween. That was the only reason he'd agreed to take the case when Bobby had called. Dean was here to gank a ghost, not to catch a peek at his brother, or to case out his dorm room when he wasn't around, or to make sure he had enough food and had remembered the salt lines. Nope. He was here for a hunt.
Zorro was shaking his head and walking away, and Dean gave a bitch-sniff (your loss, asshole) and tried to remember what he was doing.
Oh yeah. Creepy-ass formaldehyde hand in the basement. Salt it, burn it, get the hell out of dodge before you run into your twink of a brother.
Though, Sam might not be much of a twink anymore. It had been two years, after all.
Not helpful, Dean told his emo-punk brain. He started pulling doors open at random. The first led to a bathroom and a pimple-faced kid pants-down on the john (sorry), the second to Bonnie and Clyde halfway through what appeared to be an intensely satisfying lovemaking session (sorry again).
Frustrated, he turned to the kitchen, elbowed his way through the sea of wigs and facepaint and really fucking short skirts (fucking Bobby and his fucking Halloween-only hauntings), tripped over an outstretched cowboy boot and smacked his head onto something promising: an old-fashioned, slatted and barred cellar door.
Dean patted his pockets, checking for the salt and lighter fluid he knew were there, the iron poker tucked through his belt (Batman would've kicked ghost ass with a poker) and, of course, his trusty zippo. After waiting a moment to make sure no one was watching, he tugged the door open and slipped into the darkness, shutting it tight behind him.
There was a thud and gritted-out oomph below, and he plunged headlong down the black-as-night stairs, fumbling for the flashlight in his pocket.
He needn't have bothered. Once he'd gotten through the second door at the end of the stairway, the basement itself was eerily lit, and it took him only a moment of blinking and a shiver in the sudden chill to realize Archibald's ghost was out and proud. It was, in fact, humming something (Beethoven, maybe?) as it reached its bony, translucent fingers toward a huddled shape on the ground.
Zorro? Dean's brain went all sideways and stupid until those fingers plunged into the other man's chest, and Zorro, half-conscious, gasped.
Then the hunter in him took over. "Hey, fuckwad, over here!" Archibald flickered and reappeared inches away, and Dean swung the poker right through the spirit. "Yeah, that's right," he crowed as it dissipated.
Preening accomplished, Dean rushed to the downed man. "Hey dude, you ok?"
Zorro sat up with a grimace, one hand absentmindedly rubbing the spot where the ghost's fingers had been moments before. God, those pecs. Dean's own fingers itched to peel off the black spandex so he could lick away the hurt beneath. Just to make Zorro feel better, of course.
Then Zorro stood, pulling himself up along the wall, and took a deep breath, and said, "Yeah. I'm fine. Gotta…."
But whatever he had to do was eclipsed by Archibald's sudden appearance. Dean swung his poker again, but the ghost dodged, and he must have yelled something like "find the freaking hand!" because Zorro shot him the same blank kind of look you'd give an idiot or a child demanding a unicorn, but he moved anyway, shoving things off the shelves until he unearthed the prize, and he tossed it to Dean and snatched a wrench from the floor (looks like iron, thank god) and hacked at the ghost like Lizzie fucking Borden while Dean dug out his lighter and salt, and the ghost's humming rose to a screeching finale as the patriarch's hand burned to a crisp.
Dean's heart was pounding, adrenaline screamed in his veins, and his breath shuddered out in hunt-happy bursts. Zorro just stood there, his face red with exertion and the thrill of survival, and when his eyes met Dean's they were wide and blown black. "Hey, uh…" Zorro said.
"Yeah," Dean replied.
They stood there a moment, eyeing each other like circling predators. Dean was wondering when he'd developed a fetish for western-style wide brimmed hats and whether or not he could sweet-talk Zorro into keeping it on during what he was pretty sure was about to happen when Zorro rolled his eyes and grunted out a raspy "Jesus Christ, will you fuck me already?"
It was dark in the basement, but enough moonlight filtered through the fogged-up windows for Dean to recognize a sweet piece of ass when he saw one, and he figured he might as well oblige. For the good of humanity and all that. So he smashed his mouth into Zorro's pink lips and shoved them both into the wall. The other man's kiss was sloppy, all thick tongue and too many teeth, but Dean had never experienced anything so hot in his life, not Rosie Hill's perfect blowjob in high school, or that bendy bartender in North Carolina, or even the smooth-hipped cowboy from Phoenix, the first man he'd ever fucked. Nothing even came close.
Zorro grabbed hard at his neck and reached one hand between them, down, down, oh god down, and fumbled at Dean's fly. It took a minute, but he figured it out, and that motherfucking perfect long-fingered hand slipped its way right inside Dean's pants, past the feeble defense of his skin-tight boxers (no panty lines for Batman, ok?) and wrapped around his dick.
Dean's head fell back at the sudden warm pressure, and the hand began to move, one, two, three quick jerks, and Zorro was sliding down to his knees and pulling Dean's dick out to play. He looked up briefly through lust-darkened eyes and mumbled something that was maybe a question, and Dean groaned out something that was maybe an answer. Zorro seemed to take it that way, at least, because he leaned forward and pressed Dean's dick to his cheek, closed his eyes and inhaled. Dean thought he was going to die, right then and there, no two ways about it, but then those delicious lips parted and all Dean could feel was wet and heat and oh god he was sucking, licking and swallowing, and pleasure burned low in his gut, and he shoved blindly at Zorro's head. "Gonna...gonna…."
Zorro pulled back, and Dean could have cried (fuck fair warning), but then the man stood and tugged Dean's hand toward the table at the side of the room. Dean finally got with the picture and bent the other man over it. The costume pants presented a bit of a dilemma (cockblocking spandex), but Dean managed. He prided himself on being an expert at separating people from their pants, after all. And boy, was the view worth the struggle.
Dean took one look at Zorro's perfect ass and was suddenly, and not for the first time, glad for the tiny packet of lube he kept stashed at all times in his back pocket. His dick was twitching like a goddamned racehorse as he slicked it up and poured the extra generously over his hand. He prodded one finger at Zorro's entrance, and the sound the man made shot straight through Dean's spine and into his groin, and if his grease-clogged heart chose this moment to quit, at least he'd die happy, to have heard a sound like that.
He tried to take his time, really he did, but there was that perfect ass and the firm lines of Zorro's back and his long, thickly-muscled legs and the mutinous chant of sam sam sam pounding away in his blood-hungry brain, and it was all too goddamned much. And Zorro seemed impatient anyway, and raised no objection when Dean pulled his fingers free to slide on a condom and nudge the head of his dick at the glistening, trembling hole.
Batman finally pushed inside, and Sam arched his back and bit hard at his lip to contain the scream of pure pleasure that threatened to shatter the air. He'd never been with a man, not once, but god, if he'd known it would be like this, he'd never have wasted time with girls. Thank god the other man seemed as impatient as he was, because the raw, burning hunger inside him would eat him alive if he waited much longer.
Then Batman began to thrust in earnest, and Sam's always overactive brain finally shut up, and his head sank down on his outstretched arms. It was too much, not enough. He struggled not to fight the intrusion while his body screamed for more, and Batman's hips kept pounding, firm and incessant, and Sam tried to stem the fire building inside him, but the battle was lost, and he came untouched, desperate and needy, biting Dean's name back from the tip of his tongue where it almost, shamefully, escaped.
But that was ok, really, because Batman was only seconds behind him, groaning as he managed a few final thrusts and collapsed heavily on Sam.
They lay there awhile, panting and sweaty, Sam's face shoved in a pool of his jizz and his back trembling with the other man's heartbeat. Batman finally, agonizingly, pulled out, worked off the condom, and fastened up his pants.
Then he quirked his pretty pink lips in a smile, grabbed the edge of his mask, and yanked it over his head.
Dean was pretty sure Zorro had gotten off just fine, so why he ran like a frightened gazelle when Dean took off his mask was anyone's guess. Fucking ingrate, he muttered, but he couldn't bring himself to be mad, not really, when he'd finished the hunt without a hitch and gotten himself laid in the process.
He gave Zorro a few minutes lead, whatever the fuck his problem was, before following him up the stairs. He was eager to rejoin the Impala, to hit the open road, and some unidentified twitch in his gut stopped him from seeking out Sam. He's the one that ran off, anyway.
Dean's Baby gleamed bright in the moonlight, and the road stretched out before him, and he set out happily whistling Zeppelin with no destination in mind.
Sam tried to think as he walked back to his dorm, but his mind gave him nothing coherent to work with, just writhing bursts of shame and want and oh god, oh god, oh god. When he reached the front door, he realized that at least Brady was still at the party and wouldn't be here to ask questions. Thank god for small favors.
He sat on his bed late into the night, sweating and trembling, unable to think. When dawn finally colored the light in his window, he gave up and stood, figuring a shower couldn't hurt.
Under the warm spray of the water, he got his first helpful thought of the whole horrible, wet-dream-turned-worst-nightmare evening that had flipped his world on its head when the hood had revealed his brother.
Maybe he'd give Jess a chance after all.