Title: Ruthless Game
Author: Trystan
Rating: Adult; M
Characters: the Winchesters; and an original. (credits at the end)
Spoilers: my fics, Chosen and Deceiving Evil; I'm sure there's plot points throughout Season 1 thus far…
Pairing: Dean/Maya
Category: Alternate Universe
Notable Credits: Another plot I got from Maya, and the deep recesses of my mind. I'd told myself no more AUs, especially of this kind, but I did it. I went there. Don't hurt me. Beta-read by Aurora and Athena; title inspired by Athena.
Summary: Between jobs, the brothers hope for some time for a little R&R, but evil never takes a holiday, and one of the Winchesters' lives is changed forever.
Ruthless Game
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me,
But I can't trace time.
David Bowie, ©1971
PLEASE READ DECEIVING EVIL FIRST!
Sam Winchester was having fun, his brother Dean realized. After a particularly rough spot with a playful ghost they'd finally managed to put to rest, they'd headed to the local bar for a drink or two before checking into a motel for much needed rest. Both brothers were eagerly looking forward to the next day – they didn't have another job to go to. Not yet anyway. The night was still young.
Now, as Dean sat at the bar and watched Sammy laugh with a redhead, her long curls bouncing as she laughed, Dean dimly realized that maybe he'd been pushing them too hard, that Dean had been too hard on his brother.
They needed to have time to have fun, to be men in their 20s. It wasn't fair to either of them. After Jess died, Sam seemed to be all business. He had to find the thing that killed his girlfriend.
Dean was pushing them to find their father. After leaving clues to track him, John Winchester had finally called his sons and told them this thing was bigger than either of them and to stop looking for him. Bastard, Dean thought, even if he is my father. Smiling at Sammy, Dean turned back to his own drink.
"Hey there, handsome," said a sultry voice next to Dean. She sat on the stool next to him at the bar.
He looked up, and saw a blonde-haired woman who could have been the redhead's twin. He glanced back over at Sam, and saw he was sharing more laughs and beer with the red-head.
"Yes, you," the blonde said, drawing his attention back to her. She'd mistaken Dean's brotherly concern for the childish trick of looking around as if to ask you're talking to me? "Buy a girl a drink?" she asked him when he looked back at her.
Her full lips were almost pouting, and Dean wondered what those lips could do, and found himself distracted by another pretty face.
Dean called over the bartender, and the blonde ordered the same beer he was drinking. Realizing his own beer was just about empty, Dean ordered another one for himself.
When the bartender put their beers in front of them, the blonde turned to Dean.
"I'm Candy," she said, reaching for her beer.
He had to swallow his own beer first, before replying. "Dean. Dean Martin." He smiled at the name he'd chosen. Candy was probably too young to understand the joke. He put the beer down on the counter, but held onto the mug handle. Candy smiled at him then, and Dean was distracted enough that he didn't notice her sprinkle some kind of powder in his beer.
She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. His were soft and hers were full. When she ended the kiss lingeringly, he sat for a moment, his lips slightly apart. He licked them, and then swallowed. He took another drink of his beer, and Candy smiled.
Dean looked over where Sam had been sitting, but he didn't see his brother, or the redhead. He smiled. Sammy's getting lucky tonight, he thought. And I might be too, he thought, looking at Candy, and flashed her his famous Dean Winchester grin.
Several drinks later, Dean's head was very fuzzy, and he was certain he wouldn't be able to stand up once he got off the barstool. He slid off the stool, wobbled on his feet, and Candy helped him stand. Dean's muddled brain tried to ponder that; surely Candy had had as much to drink as he did?
He took a step and wobbled a bit, and Candy put his arm around her neck to support him.
"I can walk," he insisted. "Where's my car?"
Candy giggled. "I really don't think you can drive like that." Candy rocked on her heels a little, as she'd had a few drinks herself.
"Sure, I can," he slurred, and stumbled.
Candy giggled, and steadied him, and guided him towards the back of the bar.
"My friend owns this place," she said, laughter in her voice.
"Where're we going?" he mumbled.
"Just downstairs; I know what I'm doing." She wavered, slightly unstable on her feet as well, and added, "I think."
"Need to call…Sammy," Dean muttered, slowly going down the stairs.
"If he was that guy you were checking up on, you can call Sam in the morning," Candy said, now sounding more sober.
Dean looked at her. Something wasn't quite right with what she'd said, but he just couldn't figure it out right at that moment. At the bottom of the stairs, she opened a door inward, and they stumbled through.
Without knowing what he was doing, he was kissing Candy again. She reached behind him, and closed the door. Kissing him back, she pushed his leather jacket off his shoulders, and left it where it fell on the floor. She unbuttoned her own shirt, and unsteady as he was, he managed to stop kissing her long enough to pull off his t-shirt. The protection charm he always wore was warm against his skin.
Kissing her again, they moved towards a low bed along the far wall. Dean vaguely registered it was a large bed with what looked like black satin sheets covering the bed and pillows. Clumsily making their way to the bed, they both managed not to be wearing anything by the time they fell onto the soft satin mattress.
Their lips never leaving each other's bodies, they writhed and rolled together, their bodies locked in a rhythm Dean knew as well as he knew how to move during a fight. It was getting close to dawn when Dean finally realized he did need some serious sleep. He still felt drunk, and wondered just how much he'd really had to drink.
Straddling Dean on the bed, Candy leaned over and whispered,
"I have something that will help you sleep, Dean," she smiled at him, and he looked at her, threading her blonde hair through his fingers. She smiled back, and leaned down to kiss his neck.
She kissed him softly, then nibbled his earlobe, and then her teeth grazed the soft part of his neck. She moaned against him, and he moved inside her. She picked her head up slightly, and when her mouth touched his neck again, she buried her fangs in his skin and drank of him deeply.
He moaned at this new sensation, and came at the same time. She drank until his heartbeat slowed, just barely stopping. His eyelids closed. She lifted her head from him, and supporting herself with one arm, opened the vein in her other wrist with her fangs, and allowed her blood to flow past Dean's open lips. She rolled off him then, and propped his limp form up so he could swallow the blood.
She touched her wrist to his mouth, and he drank deeply, having no idea what was happening. He eHe he He opened his eyes again, and found his vision was blurry. He watched as she took her wrist away from his mouth and lay down next to him on the bed, resting her head on his shoulder and an arm across his chest.
In his haze, he thought Candy looked very familiar, like she should have black hair, not blonde. And her name wasn't Candy. It was – but he didn't finish his thought before he slipped into a blissful sleep.
"Sleep well, Dean Winchester," Maya said, and smiled as she nestled in closer to Dean, and she herself slept for the day.
Dean sat up groggily, holding his head. He saw Candy sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him.
"What time is it?" he asked, his voice thick and hoarse.
"It doesn't matter," Candy said, in a very un-Candylike voice, but Dean wasn't thinking straight enough at that moment to identify why it sounded familiar.
"My head feels like my car ran over it," he said, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
She handed him a goblet with what looked like thick red wine in it. "Drink this, it'll help your head, and help you get your strength back."
"What is it?" he asked suspiciously.
She smiled at him, her teeth like white pearls in the dim room. "You'll just have to trust me."
He looked at her with anything but trust, but took the goblet and drained it anyway. After his last swallow, he sputtered, and almost yelled, "What the hell is that? Is that blood?!"
Candy just continued smiling. "You need to rest now, Dean," she said, taking the goblet back. She watched as he sank back into the pillows, and drifted off into a healing – and transforming – sleep.
When Dean woke again, it was dark in the room. Well, the previous time he woke, it was dark, but there were candles burning that time. Now, there was no light at all. He struggled to sit up, but felt weak, worse than when Sam had shot him with the rock salt that last time.
After a few struggling minutes, he did manage to sit up, and his head was pounding again. Sammy. He had to call his brother. What day was it? What time was it? And where the hell was he?
He sat in the bed for a moment. He was naked. He vaguely remembered…Candy, was it? He hoped they'd had a good time, but now it was time for him to leave. He had work to do.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, and tested his feet on the floor. There was a plush rug, and he could feel it – not just the texture, but his senses seemed to be heightened somehow. He looked around the dark room, and somehow could see shapes, the furniture, his clothes, all clear in the darkness.
He found his phone, and flipping it open, he recoiled from the bright light. When he was able to finally look at the glare, he found he had only one bar of signal.
Worth a shot, he thought as he selected Sam's name from the list of recent calls.
"Dean? Where the hell are you?" came Sam's frantic, but staticy, voice.
"I don't know – in someone's very dark apartment…Sam?" Dean asked the now silent phone. He looked at the screen, which told him the call had been dropped. Damn it.
Dean dressed, realizing he was able to almost taste the fabric, feel the cloth, hear his legs sliding into his jeans. Something was different, but he couldn't place what or why. He couldn't hear anything, but he could certainly feel and see more clearly than before.
Fully dressed, he went over to the door to try the handle, when another sense came alive – smell. He breathed in the scent at the door, and remembered it at once. The shirt that had been shot with rock salt, that he'd tossed at Sam. That meant… he couldn't even think about it. Breathing hurt suddenly.
He leaned over and clutched his stomach. He felt sick. He was pissed. At himself, how could he have been so stupid, not to know, not to realize! The frustration welled up inside him, and he lashed out and punched the nearest wall, growling with a rage he'd never felt before. And that was when he felt his teeth change. He was about to throw another punch, this time at the door, when it opened.
Maya caught his fist before he could smash the door to pieces.
"You!" he yelled at her. "Damn you! You tricked me with that whole Candy routine, you bitch! Damn you!" he hissed the last two words.
"I'm already damned, Dean, so it really doesn't matter how many times you say it." Her voice was smooth, calm, and deliberate. He knew what she was trying to do. It wouldn't work.
"How long have I been here?"
"Two nights," Maya replied. He was surprised at her honesty.
"Where's here?"
"Downstairs at the bar. You don't remember the night you came here at all, do you?" she asked. She'd created her fair share of children over the millennia, and none were as demanding as this one was.
Dean frowned, trying to think back two nights ago.
At his silence, Maya said, "I suspected as much." There was no scorn or ridicule in her voice.
"Why did you do this?" he demanded.
"You know why, Dean," her voice was a caress over his body.
"But why me? You know first hand what I do for a living, bitch," he spat the last word at her, his temper flaring again.
"Not all of us vampires are evil," Maya pointed out calmly, her voice seeming to have an effect on him.
He appeared to temper his mood and considered her words. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, but held a deadly resonance to it.
"I have to call Sam."
"Actually, I don't think you do. He's upstairs waiting for you."
Dean started for the open doorway behind her.
"I wouldn't do that just yet," she cautioned.
He was suspicious again. "Why the hell not?" he demanded.
"It's still daylight up there."
"I don't care."
"I think you will."
Dean pushed past her into the stairwell and started up. The top few steps were in the sunlight, and he had to shield his eyes with his arm. When the first bit of his skin touched the warm rays, he pulled he arm out of the sunlight, and hissed at the searing pain. He turned and hurried back down the stairs to the safety of the dark apartment. Maya didn't say she'd told him so, merely smiled at him.
"I can send Sam down here to you, if you'd like," she offered.
"No," he hissed, and sank onto the bed.
"You need to feed," Maya told him, closing the door. Coming over to stand next to where he sat on the bed, she offered him her wrist. He shook his head.
She sat on the bed facing him, and slowly, sensually, gathered her hair off her neck. Dean was amazed at his reaction to her. He moistened his lips around his fangs, and leaned over her. He kissed her neck first, and then sank his own fangs into the smooth porcelain skin.
He drank, filling himself with the thick red liquid. Maya had to use her free arm to push on his shoulder to get him to disengage his fangs from her. She moved her face to his, and kissed him on the lips, their tongues entwining. It was almost as if he were under her thrall again, but he knew he wasn't.
Deep inside him, he knew he had no choice but to accept this change. It didn't matter that it went against everything he'd been doing since his father taught him how to even hold a gun. His father. Oh shit, he thought.
Dean broke off the kiss with a low growl. At the moment, he was torn between asking Maya to send Sam down to see him, and waiting until it was dark to go upstairs. He needed to talk to Sam, to reassure him things would still be the same, but he wasn't ready. Not with fangs and gold eyes.
And then there was their father. John Winchester had been missing since at least Halloween, when Dean had gone to Stanford to tell Sam. That was six months ago. And now what? John's eldest was a vampire? That would go over real well, Dean thought wryly.
Maya reached up and caressed his cheek with her palm, cupping his face in her smooth hand.
"It's okay, Dean. I understand you need time."
"I don't know what I need," he returned softly.
"Come on upstairs when it's dark," Maya said. "Talk to Sam. He needs to know."
"How can I tell when it's dark outside when it's dark in this whole apartment?" he asked.
"You'll know." She smiled, and turned to leave.
"What about Sam?" he asked. "Now that I really am yours, what about Sammy?"
"Sam's safe from me," she said cryptically, and opening the door, she went out into the stairwell, where the sunlight was just disappearing from the top step.
Dean wasn't sure how he knew it was finally dark outside, but when he'd collected his thoughts as best as they were going to be collected, he opened the apartment door. The sunlight was gone from the stairwell. By Dean's figuring, it was now Sunday night, as they'd finished that ghost job on a Friday evening.
Sam was probably out of his mind worrying about him; that's what Sammy did best. And – damn it, Sam was going to want to talk about this. Dean braced himself, and went up the stairs.
Sam was sitting at the bar where Dean had been the other night. He could see Maya – with her blonde Candy hair – behind the bar. Dean hazily remembered "Candy" saying her friend owned the bar. Riiiight, Dean thought, certain that it was Maya who owned the bar. That was a cliché, if he'd ever heard it.
Sam got up from the stool as soon as he saw Dean, and went over to him.
"Dean!"
"Sammy," Dean smiled, keeping his lips together. The fangs were retracted, but Dean wasn't sure if he'd be able to trust himself. Sam looked like he wanted to hug Dean, to reassure himself that his older brother was all right, but Dean just stood there, and to an observer, it looked like an awkward family reunion. Which, in fact, it was.
"You all right?" Sam asked, trying to keep the frantic worry out of his voice.
"Never better."
"Dean, you've been gone for two days. Wanna tell me what happened?"
"No. I could use a drink, though." He went over to the bar and sat in the seat next to where Sam had been sitting earlier. Sam joined him as "Candy" came over to serve them.
"What'll it be, boys?" she smiled, and Dean noticed her fangs showing. Sam recoiled at seeing the pointed incisors.
"Dean! What the hell is going on here?" he asked, then leaned in towards his brother, "She's a vampire. What are you doing?" Recognition came over Sam. "That's the girl you were with the other night!"
"Yeah…and?" Dean asked, nonplussed.
"She's a vampire," Sam was compelled to remind his brother. What the hell had happened to Dean in these past two days? Sam wondered not for the first time.
"Sam," Dean said, sipping the beer "Candy" had brought him and Sam. "Gotta tell you something. You're gonna want this," and he indicated the beer.
"Nope." Sam said. He could be just as stubborn and hard-assed as Dean. And he knew this was serious, because Dean had called him "Sam."
Dean sighed. There was only the one way to do this. At least Sam was sitting down.
Focusing, he thought of Maya – how she felt beneath him, kissing him, her voice – and his eyes changed.
"Dean?" Sam sounded panicked. Good, Dean thought. Sam was watching him. Dean smiled then, showing Sam his fangs. Sam recoiled, and almost fell off the stool. "Shit, Dean!"
Sam didn't know what to do – his brother was… one of them! He did the only thing he could. He slid off the stool, fixed his brother with a glare, and punched him in the jaw.
Dean jerked back from the impact, and rubbed his jaw. He turned back to face Sam.
"Yeah, I guess I deserved that," he said wryly. His eyes lost their golden hue, and the fangs retracted.
"Now," said Sam, "Whoever did this to you, has to pay," he said quietly to his older brother. Dean was quiet, smiling slyly.
"Who did this to you, Dean? You have to know which one of these low-life vamps – "
Sam didn't have a chance to finish his sentence. He watched in utter shock to find Candy behind the bar one minute, and the next, he was being grabbed by the front of his layered shirts and lifted up off his feet by –
"Maya?" Sam hissed as best he could while struggling to breathe. "Ok, ok," Sam said. "I didn't mean it! Put me down!"
"Yeah, you did," Maya said, but she did put Sam down, and even straightened out his rumpled shirts. Sam took a step back from the black-haired vampire.
"You're safe from me, Sam," Maya smiled, showing that her fangs had been retracted.
"What the hell does that mean? Who am I not safe from, then?"
By way of replying, Maya turned to face Dean, and reached up and stroked Dean's jaw where Sam had punched it. She followed the caress with a lingering kiss.
"Oh that's just great," Sam spat. "I have to stay the hell away from my own brother now? We're supposed to be a team, Dean."
"Hell, Sammy, we are a team. In the morning, you'll just have to stop by that mechanic's place down street here and tell 'em you need some tinted windows for the car, is all."
"Oh, is that all? You're still going to do this, Dean? Hunting supernatural evil?"
"Sammy," Dean said, knowing that Sam should know his own brother better than that. "The thing that killed Mom is still out there. We have to find it. You know that."
"How could you do this, Dean? Let this happen to you?" Sam asked.
Dean was quiet a moment, thinking. How did it happen?
"It just – happened," he said lamely. "I don't really remember all that much of it," he admitted.
Sam eyed his brother suspiciously, then looked at Maya, who was standing at Dean's side, watching the exchange between the brothers.
"It's all right, Sammy. She's not going to bite you," he smiled.
Sam raised his eyebrows, but was silent. Dean sighed.
"Maya knows what we have to do, too. We're both hunters, yeah. She understands," he said, looking at Maya when he said the last part. She reached up and kissed him, teasing, playfully nipping his lower lip. Dean returned the kiss, and for a moment, Sam had to look away.
When she ended the kiss, Dean had to clear his voice.
"We'll probably leave tomorrow night," he said, looking at both Maya and Sam. "After you get those dark windows installed. You do know, things are going to be a little different from now on, right?"
Sam snickered. "Yeah, I get to drive during the day. And pick the music while you're sleeping in the back seat."
Dean bared his fangs at Sam, in a mock threat. Sam jumped again, startled.
"If we're gonna do this, Dean, you're gonna have to not do that."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," he said after a moment, still looking at Sam. Dean's fangs retracted, and instead his eyes glowed gold at his brother.
Sam sighed, turned to his beer, and took a drink. Dean was right; Sam was going to need that drink. He shook his head, trying to make sense out of it all. How the hell could his brother have done that to himself?
He risked a glance at his brother, who was head to head with Maya. They weren't talking, but Sam knew something was happening with the two of them. Garlic, Sam decided wryly. Lots of garlic. He turned back to his drink, not anticipating the morning.
"Past the point of no return – no backward glances;
the games we've played till now are at an end…
Past all thought of "if" and "when" – no use resisting;
abandon thought, and let the dream descend.
What raging fire shall flood the soul?
What rich desire unlock its door?
What sweet seduction lies before us?"
Supernatural Fan Fiction
For entertainment only
© 2006 by Trystan
Only Maya/Candy is original. Beta-read by Lady Aurora and Athena; Athena wrote a few lines and inspired the title. Dean, Sam and John Winchester were created by Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, Kripke Enterprises Scrap Metal and Entertainment; and Warner Brothers. "Changes" from "Hunky Dory" by David Bowie, ©1971. "Point of No Return" from "The Phantom of the Opera," lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and Andrew Hart; music by: Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on a book by Gaston Leroux.
