Title: Clytemnestra's Children
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AU
Pairings: pre-Dean/Sam
Rating: R
Point of view: third
Wordcount: 305
Notes: title is a reference to Greek mythology
Prompt: Sam/Dean, if it'll make you stay
Dean knows it's wrong. Sam doesn't seem to understand, too excited and curious, but Dean knows. He could stop it—he knows that, too.
But he's not entirely sure Sam would choose him, so he never makes that demand.
He's in this too deep now, anyway. He's spent his whole life watching out for his little brother, keeping Sam safe. He had his chance when he was thirteen, when he made his first kill.
"Dean!" Sam calls from the den. "Come see this."
He looks the woman right in the eye, bringing the knife up to her shoulder. "I realize this is frightening," he tells her gently. "But running or screaming won't help you." He flicks a glance to her kids, both daughters, somewhere between twenty and fifteen. "Or them."
He's learned that when you're calm enough, cold enough, threats work just as well as actual violence. He's so experienced now he rarely has to restrain anyone; they do it themselves because they believe him.
There are tears in her eyes. He smiles and goes to the den.
Once, he'd have been horrified. He remembers the first time Sam showed him a body, what his anger had wrought and his curiosity ensured kept happening.
He doesn't enjoy the kill, not like Sam. He doesn't enjoy taking people apart just to see how they work or making them bleed out to see how they die.
But he needs Sam. And if Sam needs him to kill, then he'll do it.
"Look at him," Sam says, grinning up at Dean. "He's not even afraid."
Dean crouches down beside his brother.
He could have stopped this. He knows that. It's sick and wrong, and something must not be wired right in either of their heads.
But if Sam will just keep smiling like that, Dean doesn't care.