Dean had fallen asleep a few minutes into the ride. They had found a blanket for him so that he could hide from the light. Sam and John were both wide awake, but weren't talking. Partly because they didn't want to wake Dean up, partly because they were so worried about him, and partly because they were afraid anything they might say might lead to a fight.
John pulled into a gas station. "You have to go to the bathroom?" he asked.
Sam shook his head.
"Good. I do. You pump the gas, I'll take care of business," John said.
They opened the creaky old doors as quietly as they could and John headed inside. Dean woke up and realized he was hungry. Really hungry. Hungrier than he had ever been in his whole life and that was saying a lot. He looked out the car window and saw Sam pumping gas. Maybe Sam would let him…
No! He wasn't going to feed off his brother.
Sam noticed movement in the car. He looked in and met his brother's eyes and gave him a reassuring smile. They would be at Bobby's in a couple of hours and this would all be over.
Dean smiled back at Sam and then he noticed a man coming up behind him. Sam was distracted and apparently didn't hear him. Dean didn't like the look of the man's eyes or the quick way he was moving. He went to yell out to Sam, but before he could the man had a gun jammed into Sam's back.
"Give me the keys," he demanded.
"I don't have them," Sam said. His dad had kept the keys on him when he had gone in to use the bathroom.
Dean got out of the car.
"Stay there," the man warned, shoving the gun further into Sam's back and putting a restraining hand on his shoulder.
Dean growled.
"Dean," Sam whispered.
Dean leapt across the car and knocked the man down. The man's heart was beating a mile a minute. Dean was so hungry, he figured it couldn't hurt to feed off this lowlife. He opened his mouth and his fangs descended.
"Dean!" Sam yelled. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Dean ignored Sam and ripped into the man. John came running out of the station. "Dean! Get off of him!" he yelled.
Luckily the years of training to obey his father instantly hadn't fled him and Dean obeyed. The man was a dead pile of flesh and bones and very little blood.
"In the car, both of you," John ordered. Others were starting to gather. John peeled out of the station before anyone had a chance to get a good description of the car or its occupants.
"What the hell was that, Dean? You just attacked a random guy?" John yelled. "You'll be changed back to human in a couple of hours. You couldn't wait?" John was distressed. That man probably had a family.
"He wasn't some random, innocent guy," Dean said. "He had a gun on Sam."
"Sam?" John asked.
Sam just nodded. He was disturbed by the animal look he had seen in Dean's eyes.
"You still went a bit overboard, don't you think?" John asked.
"Dad, I've been thinking. I've never been so fast or strong. I could really be a great hunter like this. Maybe we shouldn't change me back," Dean proposed.
"What?" Sam asked.
"No, Dean. You're changing back," John said, figuring that would be the last word on the subject.
"We'll see," Dean said, under his breath and went back to sleep.
SSS
"We're here," John announced a couple of hours later.
Dean instantly awoke and got out of the car on the passenger side. Bobby came out with a bottle of some disgusting liquid in his hands.
"Heard you pull up. Figured you want this as fast as possible," Bobby said.
"We sure do," John agreed.
"No. I'm not going back to being human," Dean said. "I'll be a much better hunter this way."
"You'll be what we hunt this way," John argued. "Drink this," he said, taking the bottle from Bobby and approaching Dean with it.
Dean remembered one time when he was nine, he hadn't wanted to take this really disgusting cough medicine. Dad had literally poured it down his throat. He wasn't going to let that happen this time. He grabbed Sam and pulled him back to him looping his arm tightly around his neck.
"Back off, Dad," he said. "I'm not going back."
Sam was finding it difficult to breathe. He grabbed at Dean's arm and tried to pull it off. He couldn't believe how tight the grip was and how immoveable. He gasped for breath.
"Let your brother go, Dean," John said in a low voice.
"No. Give me the keys," Dean countered
"Dean, this is foolish," Bobby said. "You don't want to hurt Sam."
"I don't want to, but I will," Dean said. He wouldn't, though. He loved Sam, but they might think the vampire thing took that away. He hoped that they thought that so he could get the keys and get out of here. He mentally apologized to Sam and pulled back harder, making Sam grunt in pain. "KEYS!"
"OK," John said. He didn't know what to do. He had to at least try to save one son and at this point it looked like Sammy was his best bet. He held the keys out.
"Put them on the hood and go in the house."
John and Bobby slowly backed up until they were in the house. Dean approached the hood, grabbed the keys and backed towards the driver's seat, using Sam as a shield the whole time. He could still see the two of them standing just inside the door watching. He shoved Sam into the car and had him push over into the passenger seat and then knocked his head into the window, knocking him out. Then, he drove out of the salvage yard eager to start his new life.