Summary: Sam was a boringly regular guy. Best friend and sometime step-brother, Dean, was something different. When a hunter comes along, they hit the road. It turns out to be a long journey. AU Sam/Dean unrel slash, full SPN cast no OCs. Warnings: suicide dub-con mpreg.


The Monster's Child (Chapter 11: Steak And Ache) by frostygossamer


Sam decided to suspend his research for a while, and he and Dean said goodbye to the Murphys and moved on.

At first, the bite in Sam's shoulder didn't seem to want to heal. Even after the skin closed over it, it ached and niggled him for a long time. But eventually he forgot about it and it seemed good.

Sam had never seen Kubrick's ride, so when he motored past it, parked at a petrol station, it meant nothing to him. Dean was sleeping in shotgun. Sam woke him, when he stopped about an hour further on, so they could both use the restroom and pick up something cold to drink. While they were in the little store, the sinister car drove on by. Dean, who was staring out the window, recognized it immediately. He choked on his soda.

"Kubrick!" he hissed to Sam, who was settling up with the clerk.

"Where?" Sam demanded.

"Just rolled by in his black Ford Mustang," Dean replied.

"Jeez, I passed that baby an hour back," Sam exclaimed. "Maybe he didn't see the Impala."

"Yeah, and maybe pigs can fly," Dean retorted.

They went outside and got in the car.

"Which way?" Dean asked, wondering if they should turn around and run.

"Either way, makes no difference," Sam replied, resignedly.

So they followed Kubrick to the next town.

-~=O=~-

There was a big-assed steakhouse just after the first intersection, and Dean spotted the Mustang parked in its lot. He pulled in and parked the Impala alongside.

"May as well get this the hell over with," he told Sam, as they climbed out and went inside.

Sam entered the place with some trepidation. Dean was edgy and almost too ready for a fight. Kubrick was sitting in a booth away from the counter, using his cell phone. He waved them over as they walked in. They joined him in his booth.

"Yeah, Mr. T, good as done," he finished his call and closed up his phone, muttering "Crazy fool," to himself.

"Glad you could join me," he told Sam and Dean, civilly enough. "Blue steak sound good, Dean? Or maybe you'd rather just rip the beating heart outta that sweet little girl scout over there."

He jerked his head toward the cute family in the opposite booth. Dean refused to rise physically to the bait. Sam was glad of it.

"Self-righteous fucker," Dean growled. "YOUR hands aren't so lily-white, Kubrick. Who's the real cold-blooded killer at this table, huh?"

Sam chipped in. "Where do you get off persecuting innocent people?"

"Innocent people?" Kubrick repeated sarcastically. "What innocent? What people?"

Dean snarled loudly in frustration.

Kubrick laughed. "Hear that? You totally sure, Sam? You really still believe it? You positive he's worth your damn sympathy? Don't think you're protecting some sorry-ass human cousin who needs your compassion, guy. THIS is a THING."

He glared straight in Dean's face. Dean glared back.

Kubrick grimaced, scratching absentmindedly at his belly. "This werefright is no kinda hominid, no offshoot of the human evolutionary tree, Sam. No sir. They only look like us cos they MIMIC us. Sure they mimic us great, but they learned that from US."

He turned to look at Sam, with a smirk on his face.

"Oh sure, he's got a pretty face. He's a damn work of art. Maybe you think, when he's got those long legs wrapped around you, that he's there because you're his hero, his one true love? You're just his meal ticket. You poor slob. Hell, you're a walking free lunch."

"You gutter-minded jerk," Sam retorted. "I oughta smash your ugly-ass face in. You wanna know why I help him? Cos, if he WAS some freak, he would STILL be more human than you, you filthy bigot slimeball!"

"Son of a goddamn freakin' bitch!" Dean contributed acidly.

There was a telltale click, as Kubrick cocked the pistol he had trained on Dean under the table. Sam stiffened. Surely the guy wasn't going to shoot his friend right there in the steakhouse? The obsessional creep wasn't THAT crazy?

Right at that moment, the restaurant door was flung open abruptly, and two heavyset sheriff's deputies strode in the place. Kubrick hastily uncocked his pistol, as one of the deputies spotted him and came over, followed by his partner.

"Your name Kubrick?" he demanded.

Kubrick raised both hands in the air and smirked. "Guess ya got me, officer," he drawled.

"Uh-huh? Sir, we gotta take you in for Parole Violation," the second deputy explained, as the first deputy grabbed his wrists and cuffed him.

They marched him on out, and Kubrick chose to go along quietly. In the restaurant doorway he paused and turned around.

"Don't think I won't be coming after you, you abomination," he promised with a cold, evil grin.

The deputies tugged him away, loaded him in their patrol car and drove off.

Sam and Dean looked at each other.

"I'd give their response time five outta ten," Dean remarked.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "After we called them from outside and gave them his number plate and description, I woulda expected them here in under fifteen minutes. Guess they'd gotten themselves some chicken thieves to book first."

Seeing as Kubrick was safely under lock and key, they decided to avail themselves of the steakhouse menu, plus a couple beers, before departing. Dean was a little surprised that Sam was so up for a juicy steak, when as a rule he was almost a disciple of Vega.

Later that night, as he fell asleep in his motel bed, Sam mulled over the insinuations Kubrick had made...

-~=O=~-

Sam stepped cautiously through the undergrowth, the moon throwing disturbing shadows over the dark ground. Night sat heavily on his shoulder, silent save for the howl of a single distant dog.

Before him a dark shape hunched over the pale body of a woman sprawled on the dirt. She was clothed in a long virgin-white gown, splattered with scarlet.

Beneath his foot, a twig snapped suddenly and the dark apparition turned, face ashen, mouth daubed with gore, teeth bloodied. The creature cringed hissing, features distorted with wordless hate. The ugly vision drawn by Kubrick with the angelic face of his step-brother.

Sam raised his shotgun to eye-level and fired...

Sam's chest tightened with a cold fear, and his eyes snapped open in his pitch-black room. Only his own strained breathing displaced the stillness. He squeezed his eyes tight and fought to regain his calm.

"No," he told himself. "Not Dean."

But somewhere inside he knew he was no longer quite so certain.

-~=O=~-

Just about that time, Sam began to get a recurring pain in his abdomen. It came and went throughout the day and night. He put it down to indigestion, and filed it with all the other little unimportant problems they would have to deal with sometime. It had been going on a few weeks before Dean noticed that it seemed to be bothering him.

"You got a problem there?" he asked one day, when Sam pushed his half-finished lunch away to sit rubbing his stomach.

"It's nuthin'," Sam replied dismissively.

"You wanna get some Pepto-Bismol?" Dean asked.

The next day in the car, Dean noticed that Sam was doing it again.

"Stomach ache?" he asked. "You said hello to Mr. Crapper yet today?"

Sam shot him a glare. "What am I, five years old?" he responded snarkily.

"Only on days with a 'Y' in 'em," Dean chuckled.

A couple nights later Dean was awoken by the fidgeting and groaning coming from the other bed.

"Sam?" he stage-whispered. "You OK? Want me to get you something?"

"No!" Sam answered. "I'm OK. Just go back to sleep and forget about me, would ya."

An hour later, Dean jumped out of bed. "Show me," he insisted.

"Like hell," Sam retorted.

Dean pulled back Sam's bedclothes, and ran his hand over his step-brother's belly. Sam moaned at the discomfort.

"That doesn't feel good, Sam," Dean said, worried. "Better get you to a hospital, stat."

"Hate hospitals," Sam grumbled.

Dean grabbed Sam and dragged him into the Impala. He burned rubber getting him to the nearest hospital and plonked him in a chair in the waiting room, while he looked for someone to give him attention. When he came back with a gurney crew, Sam was gone. Searching around outside, he found him leaning against the Impala.

"No hospital, Dean," Sam muttered deliriously. "We hate hospitals."

"OK. Stay cool," Dean searched his memory for an alternative. Then he remembered Sam's weirdo friend Pamela. Pamela was into all kinds of freaky cults and ideas, from Parapsychology to Ufology. She advertized herself as a medium, but she used to be a nurse and she lived maybe forty minutes away.

Dean floored the gas.

TBC


A/N: Sam is sick! Let's hope Pamela can help.