Title from the poem by John Ciardi. The poem is funny. This is not.
Sam's got the laptop open, television amusing itself, every light bulb in every lamp on. There was thunder earlier, storm's moved on though. His knee jogs up and down like a typewriter hitting paper, letters stamped in ink.
The door opens, finally. Hours after it should have. Sam's on his feet and Dean's swagger doesn't change. Doesn't even slow. He's got a smirk stained with lipstick in the corner. He tosses a wad of cash at Sam and the twenties scatter like torn off butterfly wings.
"Dean. What the hell, man?" Sam's boots leave gray tread patterns on the money.
Rushing water and Dean toweling the scent of smoke off his neck.
"Dean!"
The bathroom door catches his voice, compresses his anger into muffled static.
"Didn't realize I had a curfew," Dean grins, loose and easy, washcloth landing with a damp smack in Sam's face.
OooOooO
The demon's gaze slides past Sam. "Dean, Dean, Dean," she singsongs with a stolen voice.
"Hey, eyes on me." Ruby's knife creaks in his hand, wood straining in his clenched fist.
She ignores him. "Tell me, Dean. Just what do you classify yourself as these days?"
Dean stands just within Sam's shadow, black on black and only the whites of his teeth when his lips curl up as the blade sinks deep into her chest, orange sparks like hell fire welcoming its own.
Sam hates to be ignored.
OooOooO
Sam rounds the corner, breath evasive. Nothing but dented garbage bins and shattered beer bottles. A chain link fence that's just as decayed as the rest of the city. There's a presence at his shoulder, only now joining him.
"You let him get away!" Sam's nostrils flare as he rounds on Dean.
Dean leans against the dirty brick, pose straight from a magazine. "You really think he can hide from me?"
OooOooO
It isn't right to call it jealousy. But Sam gets a tightening in his chest. His lungs harden and his stomach turns over whenever Dean is with any of the many women he routinely returns to. Their path is a tangled length of yarn, looping through highways and intersecting at worthless points.
"Girl in every port," Dean murmurs when he climbs back into the car.
Sam doesn't know if Dean means for him to hear or not. He doesn't know which would piss him off more.
OooOooO
"You really don't want to do that," Sam relates casually, like a weather report.
"And why not? Am I supposed to fear your retribution? You, a pathetic human grub." The angel is neither beautiful nor intelligent.
Sam shakes his head, rolls it slowly on his neck. "Not mine. His."
The angel blanches at the sight of Dean. There's the sound of wings and then they're alone.
"Quit scaring 'em off."
With a snort, Sam rises. "I'm not the one who scares them."
OooOooO
There's a cooler in the trunk of the Impala. Green and old and with an origin Sam doesn't remember. It's got ice, has to. Sam gets Dean a drink because Dean's been bitching about one since Chicago.
They pull over, long waving grass like a postcard come to life at their feet.
Dean drains his, pulls a face. "This tastes like crap."
"Be glad you're getting anything at all," Sam says, face turned to let the wind run fingers through his hair.
OooOooO
Rugarus and werewolves and ghosts and ghouls and demons. Black dogs and shifters. Sirens and angels and pagan gods. And of course it's only when they go after a witch that it all goes to shit.
Dean's always had a thing about witches.
It's the closest scare Sam has. He barely gets Dean out of the house in time.
After that, they drive and drive and drive. Distance and silence and Dean coiled like a viper. Sam can't afford to let him to strike.
OooOooO
Dean's playing at it like it's some sort of game. Sam knows that. Can read it in the curve of his eyebrows. In his smirk and the way he pushes at the boundaries they've set up.
At the table, Sam tries to focus on his beer. Tries to absorb himself in the alcohol. But his eyes keep straying back, go back, always end up where Dean's meet his.
She's a pretty thing, young, dumb, and blonde. Curves in all the right places. Just Dean's type.
Sam knows he should look away from the way her head is tilted at that angle. Knows he can't risk looking away from the way Dean tongues the graceful column of her throat, how he sucks at her earlobe, the way Dean's staring at him while he scrapes his teeth down the smoothness of her neck.
OooOooO
It's probably ironic that Sam loses him in Kansas. If he had the time, or the inclination, he might laugh. He might laugh his ass off because it's frigging hilarious. As it is, he presses himself against the door, waiting.
When Dean steps through, he grabs him. Fists his shirt in both hands. Slams him against the wall.
"Show me your teeth!"
Dean's laughing. Again.
"Damn it, Dean, show me!" Sam's growling now.
The motion is leisurely, relaxed. Calculated to cause Sam the most annoyance. But Dean does reach up and pull back his lip.
"All of them." Sam's knuckles are white, positioned so he can feel Dean's chest under his fingers.
The fangs descend, jagged bits of unnatural bone. White and pure.
Sam releases him, stumbles back from the sheer relief.
"How stupid do you think I am?" Dean sneers.
His mouth is a thin line, tight and grim. "Dean, you mess this up and the deal is off."
All trace of humor vanishes from Dean's face, flash paper caught by the flame. "I know."
OooOooO
There's a reason it's never been done before. They are Winchesters and they have been known to do the impossible but some things are even beyond them.
Dean likes to pretend he isn't scared but he is. Sam can see it. Sam's scared too.
OooOooO
Sam keeps several syringes of it with him at all times. Dean's unpredictable now. Has fits of uncontrollable hunger, the kind that has him raging through the motel room in a way that brands the word 'rabies' in front of Sam's vision while he watches.
The dead man's blood doesn't last forever. Maybe it's only Sam's growing paranoia but it seems like it wears off faster every time. Like Dean's building an immunity to it.
OooOooO
Tessa shows up while Sam's at the library. She appears in the chair next to his, dark hair like a mourning veil across her face.
"No," is the only thing Sam can whisper.
Tessa looks at him with that mixture of pity and displeasure she always wears when she looks at him. "Sam, you need to let him go."
"No," Sam repeats, louder this time.
Tessa talks over him. "Before he feeds."
"No."
Tessa leaves.
OooOooO
"How long do you think?" Dean asks, paralyzed and sweaty on the bed across from his.
Sam pretends he doesn't hear him. Dean doesn't mind. Just asks a different question.
"Would Hell really be all that bad? Maybe they've got some kind of frequent flyer program."
The familiarity of that absurd suggestion, the sheer impression of Dean in it, has Sam flinching like a blistering hot needle was inserted into his pupil.
OooOooO
He can't know for sure but Sam hopes the dose will hold Dean. At least long enough for him to get out of that cramped motel room. Away from Dean and his hungry, hungry eyes and the way he chants, 'I can hear your heartbeat, Sammy'.
Once he's had enough drinks to scrub a little of the fear from his mind, he considers getting back in the car and driving. Not to the motel. Somewhere else.
Dean's voice echoes inside his skull.
"I can hear your heartbeat, Sammy."