Title: Black is What I See of Me, Red is the Love You Give To Me

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairings: Sam/Dean

Genres: Romance/Horror

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Dean's in for another long and fruitful night, but the blood sluggishly leaking out of him, Sam's new urge to touch at every waking moment, and the change of scenery give him a whole new outlook on what it means to be alive.

A/N: Written for Trick or Treat Exchange for escherzo. I ran with your prompt of Sam/Dean as murderers/serial killers and it was sooo much fun and it got blown way out of proportion, and I also threw in your mention of tentacles and wings cause I could not resist. Thanks so much for the inspiration you gave me and I really hope you enjoy!

Dean loved the hunt, not without Sam though. Never without Sammy.

Sam was currently preoccupied with slicing and dicing the poor guy who lay several feet away from Dean, who was eyeing their second victim writhing on the ground, contemplating whether to leave him be or gut him like he did more often than not. He looked down at him and was filled with such revulsion, and as always his entire body sang at the thought of his blade carving him up like a Christmas turkey.

Dean closed his eyes and imagined his brother's rough fingers, a vice-like grip on his arms as he slammed Dean back into the splintered headboard. There was love in Sam's eyes if it was nowhere else.

There was love in the fact that Sam took so fucking long to get to it.

When he moved there was a sharp pain in his side, but he ignored it in favor of watching Sam from his limited vantage point. He couldn't quite make out what his brother was doing, but he grinned at the thought of it, and reveled in his brother's glowing, lust-filled eyes permeating the darkness as they rose slowly to lock eyes with Dean.

"Come here, beautiful."

Ever since he and Sam had embraced what they really were: cold-blooded killers, but without the cold blood part, since Dean felt seductively warm all the damn time, Sam had been much more affectionate towards him, like there needed to be something other than the cruelty they showed towards everyone else. Yet it was so damn easy to bring to mind Sam's hidden sneer as he talked one on one with someone, or his open and cruel face as they stood in a crowd, and less easy to recall that gentle and innocent gaze Dean longs for again from childhood. Dean felt like a possession in Sam's eyes, but a gift too.

Sam was the greatest gift Dean ever could have been given, so it didn't really matter how Sam felt.

Words failed Dean more often than not to express his desires, what he got off on watching Sam do, but Sam innately knew more often than not. There was that wicked look in his eye as he yanked Dean's jeans down until they pooled around his ankles and sunk his teeth into Dean's skin, that smirk the second Dean gave into him, which he always did.

Sam had a voracious appetite.

And no matter how much Dean believed it to be fulfilled after the end of a long, blood soaked night, he was still always on Sam's menu.

Dean obeyed Sam now, just as he always had and always would, but he could no longer ignore the more than present twinge in his side. It seemed to be a part of him, a part screaming out for release, and Dean rubbed his throbbing head with calloused fingers, searching for a distraction. Sam grabbed his hand and held it for several long moments, damp skin rubbing against Dean's own dry, cracked palms, Sam squeezing his hand as if Dean was the only thing that mattered.

It wasn't usually like this; sure, Dean was Sam's as soon as they got back to the nearest shittiest motel room, but never before. They were together in the hunt but alone with their victims, content to do their own work as they saw fit. It was odd that Sam would choose tonight to show Dean such open affection in front of someone else.

But it was over with as soon as it had begun. Sam growled low in his throat when he caught sight of his prey looking at Dean, and he lunged forward - hand slipping out of Dean's - and slit his victim's throat, leaning close and opening his mouth, the blood spurting inside. Dean was close enough to feel its warmth, to taste the stray drops that splashed onto him. He relaxed, listening to the sounds of crickets chirping and watching Sam's throat delicately yet hungrily convulse as he ingested the sweet and salty liquid.

Dean didn't get as much of a kick out of drinking blood as Sam did, or bathing in it, not discreetly enough for that matter, or draining a victim dry and transferring their life fluids into small bottles that he kept in the mini fridges of their rooms. His brother wasn't obsessed, he just liked to kick back and relax without doing the dirty work some nights.

Dean loved the taste of blood too, but only for that split second just before it turned cold and no longer held connection to its bearer.

Sam was still drinking long after the blood turned cold, still gulping with a smirk on his face, licking his prey's fingers as he fell over. When he was finished Sam wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand, smearing the remaining blood across his cheek.

On the one hand, Dean was glad to be done with the whole business for the night, yet he also didn't want to come back down to reality just yet. The second Sam really saw him the feelings of weakness and uselessness would set in again. Better he fix himself up later when Sam was asleep, the problem would be actually getting Sam to sleep without the whole groping and writhing on the bed part first. Dean really didn't think he could strain himself tonight.

Sam took his hand again and used it to help pull himself up; Dean bit back a pained moan and tried not to sway too much. Sam didn't seem to be noticing him anyway, still admiring his handiwork. When he turned towards Dean, there was overwhelming satisfaction and detachment in his eyes again. Dean's heart, or whatever was left of it, sunk at Sam's lack of interest in him.

"I'll clean up tonight, you go back to the car."

They rarely took turns with the cleanup, but Dean was grateful that Sam was unknowingly letting him rest and gather his nerves. He dreaded the long and inevitably bumpy ride back to their room, and he wondered vaguely if he could get himself stitched up before Sam was finished.

There was no hope of it, Sam was quick and efficient and it took too long for Dean to pull himself together and string together a coherent thought. He woke up from his fitful doze to the sound of the driver door opening, and Sam didn't say a word to the fact that Dean, who always had to be the one to drive his baby, apparently didn't want to tonight. The engine purred to life and Sam went easy on the gas as they pulled out of the grass and onto the road.

"You tired?"

"No," Dean admitted, not wanting to disappoint Sam, but his brother tsked anyway.

"Lying doesn't suit you, Dean. You've been out of it lately. Reckless."

"Do we have to have this lecture now?" Dean snapped, deciding anger and the presence of adrenaline would hide the shivers wracking through his form. They did, surprisingly. Jesus, Sam was the one out of it, not him. He couldn't decide what he didn't want more: Sam's lecturing parallel to their dad's, or Sam freaking out and playing the whole overdone mother hen role when he realizes his brother is bleeding all over his baby and somehow is in too much pain to care.

"Fine," Sam snapped back. "But I'm not going to bed like this."

Dean practically whimpered at the thought of Sam man-handling him over to the bed and fucking him without taking his clothes off. He could barely breathe, the pain was so fierce, a constant litany of screaming in his side. He laid his head against the cold glass of the window and closed his eyes. Sam carded his fingers through Dean's hair, gentle and sure, and Dean relaxed upon the change Sam was undergoing, the notion of Sam's arms wrapped around him as they sunk down into sleep.

He fought to stay awake only because he didn't want Sam to see the mess he made.

The seat was uncomfortable, slippery and soaked and Dean could feel himself spiraling down, morphing into something he wasn't, the sight of his blood making his stomach roil and the presence of Sam's obliviousness or indifference making it harder and harder for him to keep his mouth shut.

His brother's hands were both on the wheel now, leaving Dean the only witness to his internal torment. He was mouthing along to some pop song on the radio, one which did more to set Dean on edge than calm him down. He needed the heavy beat of bass to soothe his nerves, to block out the thundering lull of his own heartbeat. He needed Sam to look over and somehow in the darkness see that the Impala would soon be void of all but one passenger.

Dean winced at the mess he's made in his car, the mess he's made of Sam's life. Maybe this is where the road ends, and it would be fitting.

The great Dean Winchester snuffed out by a blade to the side, sending radiating pains through his belly, leaving him a quivering mess on the bench seat with Sam singing alone silently to some fucking pop song. Jesus, this is it, isn't it?

And would Sam drink him down too? Would he run Dean's blood over his face and through his hair, let it explode on his tongue?

But then again, the fact that Dean was even in this mess in the first place was more unthinkable than what Dean's mind could conjure up. Only Sam could hurt him, not even Dean could inflict harm upon himself, it would infuriate Sam to no end, and there would be punishment. It was the aftercare that Dean had always looked forward to before, a part of his small life that was never forgotten, but it's been weeks since the last incident, weeks since Sam pleaded with him to stop.

Stop cutting himself up like a doll created for the sole purpose of maiming. Stop making his life mean less and less and less.

He didn't know why it infuriated Sam, didn't know why it conjured up tears in his eyes, or faltering steps into the bathroom, the side of the tub and grooves in the tiles marred with red. He would hurt himself if it kept Sam alive, no matter how much it hurt Sam, but the look in Sam's eyes spelled out the catastrophe of a life without his older brother, and Dean knew it wouldn't be living.

Still, it didn't mean he should tell Sam now.

When the car was parked, Sam brought their bags inside and left Dean to his own boiling thoughts. The pain was intense but at least he could think through it, at least he could live again in Sam's world of co-dependency and lust and inane desire, even if they were memories and awkward, twisted fantasies and not the current reality.

"You coming in or what?"

Dean jolted at the sound of his brother's voice, but he wasn't peering in through the window or even watching him from the door of the motel. He nearly slipped off the seat but he straightened himself out and made his way inside at the pace of a ninety-something year old guy. He hated it, hated this, the "no time for a break, Dean, but maybe later," the "you'll be fine, promise, you were the one who pushed me into this [life] remember?" And fuck he was. And fuck he hated himself sometimes for it.

Somewhere along the way, Sam had picked up a cold hearted ruthlessness that rivaled Dean's own, that took his breath away and tied his stomach up in knots, and while the nights were fun the ride back to their motel was filled with ache and lust and want, and they would spend hours fucking and then Dean would still jack himself off in the shower at the image of someone else's blood trickling down Sam's chin, the taste of it on Sam's skin.

Sam got hooked on the limitless of it all, the fact that the two of them could run around killing people and get away with it, to fill their life with oceans of blood and the feeling that there was nothing in this world they couldn't have. Sam got obsessed, and it wasn't hard to understand in some ways.

In all the right ways it was.

It didn't hurt when Dean started getting less and less at ease with the mind-altering frequency of their hunts and expressed his concern to Sam, and when Sam sneaked out in the middle of the night while Dean was wide awake to snag a quick fix. It didn't hurt that Dean was worn thin, had been for months now, but that he didn't want to show weakness and Sam used that as punishment to push him harder. And no, it didn't hurt when Sam flirted with girls, or even with guys both younger and older than Dean.

It hurt that Sam put Dean second.

And Sam's inability to see anything he didn't directly want to see was far worse than any physical torment inflicted upon Dean.

Dean closed the door behind him and Sam scanned him over as he stood by the bed, as if waiting for him. There was no way he couldn't see the blood this time, even in the dim lighting of the room. It was all Dean could feel, and he bit back the overwhelming urge to vomit. He dealt with blood every day, practically drowned in it for fuck's sake, so why was it such a problem now?

He honed in on the grin on his brother's face, the naked need in his eyes, and he tried to fuse it with his own but it was nonexistent. As much as Sam turned him on, even tonight, he just couldn't stomach any of these feelings tonight. It was saturnine or numbness. Dean voted for numbness, but life never works out the way you want it to.

Oh right, Sam probably thought it was their blood.

He tried to remember a time where he was as much at ease with the killing as Sam is. But Sam always throws himself into it wholeheartedly, with no regard for anything else, and Dean would lead in it too, sometimes, but never with as much fervor. It still made sense to him, draining people dry, seeing the life fade from their eyes, and he still got loads of pleasure and satisfaction from it, but somewhere along the way the whole act started having less meaning as all the killings blurred together, one after the other, and Sam's endless litany of "one more, one more, we don't need a break, one more" began to wear on him until he felt as thin and fragile as paper.

Dean was a human and he had limits, too much blood, eardrums shattered with screams and the echoes of soaked clothes slapped down onto concrete like magnets, heavy bodies collapsing onto blacktop, slicing and slurping and gurgling, and the nights seemed to grow longer and longer and even though Sam fell asleep beside him, Dean couldn't sleep at all, mind racing on overdrive, preoccupied with the next kill and the next until they all seemed the same and he choked silently in the dark.

He could still see Castiel's grace exploding with light, feel the feathers of his dark and massive wings disintegrating to ash in his hands, in his hands. He could feel Sam gripping Castiel's trench coat with increasing desperation as if he were gripping Dean instead.

Castiel had been their friend, had set them on the right path.

Now there was no right path.

When or if Dean fell asleep he would always dream of wings, not always Castiel's face and gruff voice but always those wings, falling apart as if he had crushed them, falling apart just like his world was. He would dream of Sam meeting someone else and leaving him, realizing the true nonexistence of Dean's worth, and Dean would search far and wide for someone like Sam and never find him. He would keep on hunting until he found himself suffocating, and he would look down and see thick, venous, dark gray tentacles wrapped around his throat. There was no reason for them being there and yet they were - there - a reminder of the world he and Sam had been raised in. The world they had abandoned for their own gains.

He would choke for a while until he couldn't remember how to breathe, and then he would wake up and shake Sam awake if he wasn't awake already - watching him with silent, deadly eyes - and he would beg Sam to fuck him so hard and so long until he couldn't remember, until the only thing he could see or remember seeing was Sam's eyes on him in the first light of the morning.

"Oh god, Dean." And immediately he's snapped back, to whatever all this is. "You are making me so hard right now." He strode forward - those freakishly long legs of his - and took Dean's hand and placed it against the bulge in his jeans, grinning all the while, making Dean want to smile in glee so bad but his mouth stayed how it was, in its tight line. Dean groaned and nodded, aware of Sam's latent need to bruise and to claim, yet when Sam started to pull Dean away from the wall, Dean sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head.

"No, Sam. It's not their blood. It's mine."

There was silence for a long and terribly unsure moment, and then a look of horror crossed Sam's face. The arousal was gone immediately, Dean could feel it as the room grew even more suffocating before he could see it. It was odd to see his brother shift from something so raw and powerful to something so deadly and even more uncomfortable. Suddenly, Dean regretted saying anything at all.

"Oh, shit. Fuck, Dean." As if it was all Dean's fault and it was. And please let the punishment be swift. "That's not what I meant at all. I didn't mean I get hard at seeing you hurt or anything."

Dean nodded and said in a low, pained voice, "Know, Sammy." Even though he didn't know; he hardly knew Sam anymore these days. Not after Cas just blew away into nothing - died - and it all turned to shit again. But god forbid he ever bring him up again, lest he incur Sam's wrath.

"You should have told me," Sam murmured, wrapping one arm carefully around Dean's upper waist and the other hand cupping his back and guiding him to the bathroom. Dean didn't want to sit down, knew he would feel something akin to a thousand jolts of electricity if he sat down again, but Sam ran his hands through his own hair - in what, frustration, anger? - and held Dean until he was ready to try it.

Then Sam crowded in on him like a mother hen and the fun began. This sort of thing hasn't happened since their dad died, and Dean felt a painful knot lodged in his throat at the memory of him.

There's not too much to say after that. Sam peeled Dean's clothes away from his tingling skin, cut them away and let them fall to the floor. He stitched Dean up and shoved a bottle or two or three - honestly Dean lost count - of water down his throat, all the while humming Metallica and something that vaguely sounded like AC/DC but was probably more of a mix of that and something else. Sam's odd like that, he'll string along tunes that he's heard someplace and bunch them together and act like he knows enough to know that they'll calm Dean down. Okay, he is right about that; not that Dean needs calming down per say.

"Sammy..." His name's been on Dean's tongue for ages now, and it already seems punctured by Sam's quick and to-the-point reply.

"We'll stop hunting for a little while, Dean. Promise." Yet all these promises never mean a damn thing. Not coming from you.

As if reading Dean's mind and not having any more of it, Sam wrapped one arm under Dean's legs while the other supported his back, and he picked his brother up bridal style before he could begin to protest, carrying him over to the bed. "Dammit, Sam." He protested too late, pushing his throbbing hands uselessly against Sam's strong, broad chest. Sam merely shook his head and chuckled under his breath.

He must have closed his eyes for a split second, because when he came back to awareness Sam mysteriously had an IV pole and was hooking up a blood bag to it. Sam always keeps blood bags with him, for reasons Dean is not quite sure but entirely suspicious of. He stared at it curiously for a few minutes, willing the dizziness to go away.

There was a hand on Dean's thigh and another on his forehead, dropping down slowly to cup his cheek. Dean jolted forward slightly at Sam's random need to touch, though Sam saw it coming and pushed him down. "Sit still, Dean, or I swear I'm going to tie you to this bed. You never were able to sit still."

"Could say the same about you."

He expected a withdraw, or at least for Sam to put some amount of distance between the two of them, as if there wasn't enough. Sam's eyes were soft though as they traveled down to the hole in his side, now wrapped in gauze and further protected by one of Sam's ridiculously large shirts; why he couldn't give Dean another one of his own was completely beyond him.

"Get some sleep."

As if it was an order rather than a suggestion, which it kinda was coming from Sam, Dean obeyed.

He was woken by the smell of coffee and the strange sensation of being refreshed and feeling like roasted shit at the same time. Vomiting all over Sam's soft and now wrinkled shirt wasn't an option, so he upchucked over the side of the bed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand when he was finished. He thought about last night, the blood running down Sam's face and the first vestiges of want in his eyes at the sight of Dean with the same dark substance sticking to him like glue, and he closed his eyes shakily.

"Don't think that blood's coming out of your car." Dean paled at that. "Kidding, dude. I got most of it out, and I'll go back to work on it later. You can come out and sit and watch me if you want?"

"Maybe later," Dean answered, turning away from Sam. The awful truth was he wanted some distance from his brother just as much as he wanted distance from the hunt, if not for a week then at least for a few days. He was skeptical that Sam would keep his promise, but he also didn't want to sell his own brother short.

Dean slept through much of the first day, and strangely Sam always hung around as if Dean expected him to be there or something, which he kinda did but he sure as hell wasn't telling him that. Dean's quiet because he doesn't know what to say, and he doesn't want to push himself into a corner or irritate Sam. Another day or so of him lying around in bed and neither of them will be able to take it.

The second day they're both stir crazy, Sam more than Dean obviously, as if he's itching to get back on the hunt. It'd be easy for Dean to forget about all of that if he didn't have this huge, gaping, incredibly slowly healing wound in his side, but it was there and it throbbed and itched and twinged like there was gonna be no tomorrow.

Oh, and there's that part where Sam's touching him in some place or another every time he's awake, and maybe even when he's not. It's as if his own brother hasn't seen him in years and he suddenly needs to lay his hands on Dean to be able to breathe again or something.

"Gonna fuck you when you're feeling good again, Dean," Sam breathed. He was sprawled out on the bed beside Dean, shirtless and so damn appetizing that Dean almost didn't want to wait. Sam's head was on the pillow and he stared at a very unattractive feeling Dean who was dressed in baggy clothes under the covers, and who felt like he gained ten pounds when he hadn't eaten much in over a week. "No," he smiled and it looked so effortless. "I'm gonna make love to you until you beg me to hurt you."

"Sam," Dean wheezed, nearly breathless. "Why?"

"They don't have what we have, Dean," Sam sat up. "None of them. We've gotta make it last. I wanna be with you, baby. On my own terms, but yours too. Want to see that dirty grin, my name carved into your lips, want you to scream out my name like it's the only word you know." Dean reached for him but Sam pulled back, laughing as he did so. "Not so fast. Get to take care of you first, you get that, don't you? I don't want to hurt you, Dean. Everyone else but never you. You're the part of me that's missing, don't you get that? Don't you know how beautiful you are? How fucking crazy you make me?"

Dean had this part of him that knew, but there was another stronger part of him sinking in denial, like the slow death wrought by quicksand. He was a quivering mass under the sheets, not worthy of thought or worship, and he didn't know what the hell he wanted anymore. Except Sam, always Sam.

Sam let Dean pull him closer this time, and Dean smashed his mouth against his and kissed him and breathed heavily in the wet heat of Sam's mouth. "I want you. Fucked this up."

He ran his fingers through Dean's short spikes. "That's what I love about you. You always bring me back down."

Always, forever, was there a difference? Dean hoped there wasn't.

Of course, the next time he wakes up he's been smuggled somewhere and there's sun in his eyes and heat pooling in the back of his neck and in his belly.

"Sam, what are we doing at a beach?"

"Taking a break. Remember?" Remember what? A moment's pause and then - oh yeah - memory: 'Guy last week gave me his credit cards in exchange for me taking him to a hospital. Took the cards, obviously, but the rest isn't important. Gonna take you on a little vacation, bro. Anywhere is better than this shit hole.' Dean blinked and wondered if he was dreaming, but the truth was that he did remember: Sam shoving him into the passenger seat, hands on his hips the entire time; Sam telling him they weren't going to stop until they got somewhere good. "A little sun will do you some good, baby." And when did Sam start calling him baby? He can't remember that either, can't remember the exact moment when everything started to break down.

Dean sat up and realized the exposed parts of him were smothered in sunscreen and that Sam had dressed him in a lime green pair of swim trunks and also had decided to leave him shirtless.

"You feeling better?"

There was that twinge in his side again, and Dean suspected that it would never quite go away. But other than that, he was fine.

"Yeah." He watched Sam as he stretched out languidly on the beach towel beside Dean's, a major turn on in blue raspberry swim trunks and his trademark long hair moving ever so gracefully in the breeze. Dean couldn't keep his eyes off of him, could feel the heat of his body and the soft pads of his fingertips as they brushed Dean's shoulder lightly.

"Yeah, I'm good." He smiled and Sam smiled back at him, all teeth and all charm.

"Want me to go get you a snow cone?" Sam asked, eyeing Dean with a playful look in his eyes. It was hard to see this part of Sam and then think about that other part that was as much a piece of his brother as it was a piece of Dean. He would get back into the hunt soon, he was sure of it, just not now.

"Blue raspberry," Dean said and Sam laughed, flicking sand at Dean before stretching his body out as he stood up - in full display of his brother's hungry eyes - and jogged off to grab Dean his snow cone.

The surroundings around him were visceral, his senses heightened so that it seemed as if he were in a dream. He didn't even notice Sam right away when he came back, the look on his face made it seem like he'd been there a few minutes. Dean winced, he really needed to get with it.

Sam's smile faltered only a bit. "I think it's getting too hot out here, don't you? We should head back inside, catch some zees."

Dean nodded and let his brother help him up. When he was sure no one was watching, he then crushed his face into Sam's side; he could smell sweat there and sunscreen and even strangely patchouli, and it grounded him and made him lose track of time as they left the beach and stumbled back to their hotel. Sam eventually stood in front of him, hands on both of Dean's arms and those soft and steady hands guided him down onto the bed, and a cool washcloth wiped the remaining sand from his skin.

Dean let Sam work on him like he did the other night, giving him something to do. Sam must be cursing him even now, for this boredom, for this complete lack of meaning.

"Shh," Sam shushed him, a small smile making him look like he was eighteen all over again. "You think too much. None of that now." Dean's eyes widened in expectation which he partly dreaded but mostly looked forward to as Sam pushed him down flat on his back and crawled on top of him, but Sam only traced incomprehensible shapes on his chest and planted small kisses on his fingers.

The mix of blue raspberry and Sam was heavenly as it danced on his tongue, a chorus of all the words that could not be said but sung out in joy.

"I love you more than all that," Sam continued, sounding so sure of himself, so sure of Dean's place in his life. "More than all the sobbing and begging and even the blood. I love you more than all that meaning because you are the meaning. You are what makes everything fall into place."

"I can't be what you need," Dean said hoarsely.

"Fuck that, Dean! You are everything I need and so much more. I'd give it all up for you, but only if you would realize your worth. Hell, Dean, you raised me. You made me into who I am. You are what I value, and you are what stops me from being selfish and looking to only my own needs. You know who I am, Dean, and you love me for it more than anyone else could. And I love you because you infuriate me but you also bring out the best in me. I can't have this life without you. I won't."

"All you had to do was say 'I love you.'"

Sam laughed and punched him in the arm, rolling over and setting his head in his hand, watching Dean with increasing fervor. "Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean retorted, latching onto Sam's thigh and pulling his brother forward and kissing him.

"You just say the word from now on, anytime, and we'll stop. I'm sorry, Dean."

The strange thing about this life was that it made too much sense, and in some ways Dean wished there was no meaning sometimes, wished that he could drift and not have to think about anything for a while. He hadn't chosen his family and he hadn't chosen his brother, but Sammy was all he had and he was everything Dean wanted, a sum of all the reasons why Dean wanted to be good enough and reliable enough and worthy enough.

He could taste the salt of blood when he kissed Sam, and he could taste love there too, cinammony and underneath everything Sam gave freely, and Dean realized that he would be just fine after all.

FIN