Author's notes: This A/U was written for three reasons.
1. The never-ending need to see more HurtDean.
2. Because no matter how hard I try, Wincest squicks me. I have a brother of my own and just the thought of...no, see, I can't even go there. Therefore, they are not brothers in this one.
3. Because we all know that Dean wasn't really hustling pool in the beginning of Bugs.
There should be a part two to this soon...
Sometimes the Hero Gets the Guy
Sam sat in the car, hunching his tall, lanky frame down as best he could to avoid being seen by the thing he was following. He was hoping that even if he was spotted, the creature would simply mistake him for another guy cruising the streets looking for a good time.
He watched in silence as the thing began to move its stolen car, letting it crawl along the street as it searched the night intently.
Sam gave his own car a bit of gas and followed at what he knew to be a safe distance.
There. It was stopping again, looking pointedly at the young men on the sidewalk. Sam couldn't help but be amazed at how many of them were out here. Just three days ago, one of them had been brutalized and murdered; bringing the grand total of mysterious, violent deaths of prostitutes in the city to six, and yet these men and women, boys and girls really, were still out here, braving the obvious danger for a few bucks.
Sam knew that he shouldn't try to understand it. This was their world and he was as much of a stranger to it as they were to his. But he still couldn't help feeling frustrated as he saw them walking and posturing on the sidewalks, essentially offering up their lives, and for what?
A sudden movement from the thing in the car interrupted Sam's thoughts. It was beckoning someone over. Sam sat up a little straighter and watched as a young man began to approach the vehicle.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the newly chosen victim. Once he did, he couldn't help but wonder why the thing would choose him over all the others. The guy seemed so ordinary; brown hair, average height, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he sported a short, modern haircut that a thousand other men had. Nothing about him seemed to say, "Hey, look at me. Pick me."
But then the young man reached the driver's side of the car and leaned down toward the open window. The street-lamps illuminated his profile, bathing him in their soft, other-worldly glow and Sam gasped.
The guy. Was. Beautiful.
Sam didn't think they made them like this. All the hustlers he'd ever seen either looked completely used up or like crack addicts, but this guy...
With an almost physical effort, Sam pushed away the distracting thoughts and concentrated on the fact that potential victim number seven was now getting into the car and that said car was pulling away from the curb.
He shifted his own car into drive and followed, driving for a good thirty minutes before the car in front of him finally arrived at its destination; a seedy motel right on the outskirts of town.
The perfect place, he thought, for a little rending, a little raping and a whole lot of cannibalism.
He watched and waited as the thing got out of the car, paid for the room and then escorted his guest into it.
Sam got out of the car quietly, taking with him the gun loaded with silver bullets and his knife with the silver blade.
He was only a few yards away from the motel room when he felt a strong arm wrap around his neck and yank him back. Instead of fighting to keep his balance, he let himself go with the momentum. His attacker clearly wasn't expecting that and they fell back too. Sam quickly got his legs around it, flipping them both, and came face to face with the shape-shifter.
In its true form.
And it was uglier than sin.
He grappled with it, both of them rolling over and over in the motel's dirt parking lot as they each tried to get the advantage. They came to a stop with Sam pinned to the ground and the shape-shifter on top of him. Before Sam could try to buck it off, it wrapped its hands around his throat and pressed, closing off his airway. Sam didn't try to pull its hands away, in fact he didn't try to fight back in any way. Instead he calmly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the knife. He then stuck it into the creature's mid-section, right under its ribs. Right into its heart.
The creature turned completely boneless and released its grip. Sam pushed its body off of his own and brought a hand to his throat, drinking in the delicious night air until he felt steady again.
Two of them. There had been two. He had been ambushed because he'd been stupid; not thinking, not careful enough. If Dad were here, he'd never hear the end of it.
For a brief moment that thought and the loneliness that it inspired stopped him, stealing the breath from him all over again.
But his dad wasn't here and he had things to do; another shape-shifter to fight. A life to save. It was that last thought that finally got him moving again. He tucked the knife back into his pocket, pushed himself up and ran for the motel room.
He could only hope that he hadn't lost too much time messing around with that second one; that he wasn't too late.
He ran to the door and yanked it open, taking only a moment to thank all the possible deities that it wasn't locked. Then he all but threw himself into the room, taking everything in even as he moved. The possible exits, the possible weapons for the shape-shifter to use..the fact that it was struggling furiously with its intended victim on the double bed...
Sam shouted, hoping to get the thing's attention focused on him instead of the man underneath it. His impromptu plan worked better than he could have hoped. The shifter pulled away from the man and literally threw itself at Sam, changing from mild-mannered businessman to yellow-eyed demon with gnashing teeth in mid-air. Sam didn't give himself time to think. Acting solely on instinct, he pulled out the gun and blasted the thing; once in the head, and once in the heart.
He watched it for a moment to make sure it was dead. It was only when he saw it begin to lose the businessman skin that he turned towards the man on the bed.
Except that he wasn't on the bed any longer. He had managed to roll himself off of it and was now on his hands and knees on the floor, panting harshly with his head bowed, his body shaking ever-so-slightly.
When Sam crouched down in front of him, his head shot up quickly and Sam was surprised to see that there was no immediate fear in the man's eyes; not of him anyway.
Sam did a quick once-over, trying to determine how bad the man's injuries were without actually touching him. It was one of the many lessons his father had taught him - people that you've just saved from a horrible death don't like to be touched right away. From what little he could see, and what he knew of this particular brand of shape-shifter, he figured there were contusions, scratches, and bites. And maybe a concussion judging by the amount of blood flowing down his face and the dilation of his pupils.
Preliminary diagnosis complete, he softly asked, "Hey, you ok?" He knew it was a stupid question, but he could never think of anything better.
But the man didn't seem to notice or care how stupid the question was. He looked at Sam, then turned his head to quickly glance back at the dead thing on the floor behind him. "I don't...what is...I..."
The man's words wouldn't have made sense to anyone else, but Sam understood them easily. He'd seen the reaction too many times from too many different people to be confused by it. Moving slowly, he gently placed his hand on the man's shoulder, drawing his attention away from the floor.
"It's dead. It can't hurt you anymore. You're safe now."
If Sam's words made any impression on the man at all, he didn't show it. He just sat there, unmoving, his eyes huge and unblinking and staring at Sam.
Sam was close enough to him that he could see that those eyes were hazel. He was close enough that he could see the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of the man's nose.
God, even with the blood smearing his face, even with the shell-shocked look in his eyes, the man was beautiful.
And Sam felt like a complete asshole for even thinking it. The poor guy had just been assaulted, was obviously in some kind of shock, and here he was salivating over him. Sam roused himself and stood. It was time to start thinking like the hunter that he was, not some teenager with a crush.
"Look, I gotta go," he said quickly and more harshly than he had intended. "Stay here and I'll call 911 as soon as I get in my car, ok?"
And then the strangest thing happened. The man blinked a few times and his eyes cleared, losing the haunted look. With a grunt of pain, he pushed himself back and into a sitting position and looked up at Sam. "You're leaving?" he asked, his voice incredulous.
To say that Sam was surprised at the change he had just witnessed was an understatement. Truth is, he had never seen anyone pull themselves together that fast. Ever. It was...impressive. "I fired shots," he explained. "Shots equal cops and cops and I...we don't really get along."
The man frowned, then swallowed hard against pain as he prepared to talk. "Look, I hear you, but..." He glanced back, then grimaced and looked away quickly. "You can't just leave me here."
"I can't stick around."
"Well...you could take me with you."
Sam looked down at the earnest face and saw that the guy was completely serious. "What? No, I can't..."
With a sarcastic edge to his voice, the man said, "I don't mean for the rest of your life. You can drop me off somewhere. Just don't leave me here with that thing."
Sam quickly debated. He had to get out of here, he could already hear the sirens, even if only in his head. But they would be real soon enough. And he really couldn't afford to spend a few days of quality time with the police while they figured out that he wasn't one of the bad guys.
He was about to very gently but firmly say that he 'really had to go but that everything would be just fine', when the guy looked at him with those big, hazel eyes of his and quietly said, "Please?"
And instead of acting like the seasoned hunter that he was supposed to be, Sam melted and turned into the guy with a teenage crush. He sighed. "All right. But we gotta go. Now," he said as he slipped the gun into the waistband of his jeans and held out his hand.
The man took it and they slowly made their way out of the motel room and into Sam's car. At every step of the way, Sam was sure they were going to get busted, especially once he heard actual sirens in the distance, but there was no help for it. The other man was hurt, could barely move really, and they had to go at a snail's pace.
Once they were both safely inside the car however, it was a completely different story. Sam floored it and pealed out of the parking lot, stirrup up a cloud of dirt next to the rapidly decomposing body of the shape-shifter.
Only after he'd driven what he felt was a safe distance from the newly minted crime scene, did Sam stop the car to check on his passenger. "Hold still," he said as he leaned over and carefully placed a hand on the back of the guy's head.
"What are you doing?" the man asked nervously, his body tensing.
"Just checking to see how badly you're hurt," Sam replied absently as next he lightly ran his fingers over the man's abdomen.
"Oh," the man said, and although he sounded dubious, his body visibly relaxed.
Sam checked his arms and legs before finally leaning back. "You'll live, but you're going to need a hospital. Some of those cuts are deep and your wrist is probably fractured. Not to mention the bruised ribs and the possible concussion."
The man stared at him before giving his head a quick, pained shake. "No hospitals. Too expensive. Too many questions."
"You need a doctor," Sam insisted.
"I know a place. A clinic. It's not far and they don't hassle you."
Sam ceded, mostly in the interest of time. "Ok. Where?"
The man gave him quick directions and Sam once again started the car and drove. He was so intent on finding his way around the strange, dark city that he was startled when his passenger broke the silence by speaking. "You know...you just saved my life back there and I don't even know your name."
Sam smiled and glanced over. "It's Sam."
"I'm Dean."
Sam repeated the name softly; unconsciously tasting it as he acknowledged it.
So the beautiful man was named Dean...
"So that's the thing that's been killing people?"
"Yeah. That was it."
"You mind telling me what the hell it was?"
Sam hesitated. He hated this part, never knowing if he was going to be believed, if he was going to be called crazy, if the person that he had just helped was going to look at him as the enemy. "The truth?"
"Would be nice, dude."
"It was a rakshasa. They're rare, but violent."
"A what?"
"They're originally from India. Essentially, a shape-shifting demon."
"So this rickshaw thing...what's it doing here? Vacationing?"
Sam laughed, feeling more relieved than he would have thought at being believed by this man. "Rakshasa," he corrected automatically. "And yeah...something like that."
"How did you know it would be there? How did you know how to kill it?"
He hesitated again. For some reason he didn't want to lie, but to tell the truth would take hours. He finally settled for saying, "It's ummm...it's kind of what I do."
"You kill rakshasas?"
"Among other things."
"Like what things?"
"Whatever goes bump in the night."
"Whatever goes..." Dean let the sentence die, letting out a small bark of a laugh and shaking his head. Seconds later, he really began to laugh. Sam was taken aback until he realized what was happening. He had seen the phenomenon hundreds of times and he knew its stages well. Too well.
It always started with normal-sounding laughter. Then after a while, the laughter would begin to sound a little hysterical. And before you knew it...
Tears.
Which was precisely the stage where Dean was right now. With his painful, heart-rending sobs echoing throughout the interior of the car. They were the sobs of someone whose adrenaline had just worn off and who was coming face to face with the fact that they had almost died.
Sam quickly pulled the car over and turned to him. "Hey, it's ok."
But Dean shook his head and covered his face with his right hand while the other hand, the one with the injured wrist, stayed in his lap. Sam's heart broke at the sight, and he found himself fighting the urge to grasp that hand and bring it to his lips. He finally settled for placing his own hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezing lightly.
Eventually, the sobs and tears subsided into muffled sniffles. And soon after, Dean lifted his head and hastily wiped at his eyes. "Oh man," he said with an embarrassed laugh. "I haven't cried like that since I was five. I didn't think I even knew how to any more."
Sam gave him what he hoped was a comforting smile.
A small sniffle. "You must think I'm a total wuss, huh?"
"Not at all. Your reaction is pretty normal. For what you've just been through."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Dean forced a weak smile onto his face. "So you don't think I'm a total girl?"
As if anyone could mistake you for a girl...
Sam clamped down on that thought before it could make its way out of his mouth. "No, man."
Dean leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes, his smile now replaced by a frown that indicated he was fighting pain.
Sam looked away from him and to the road, aware that Dean needed medical attention, and soon. "We'd better go."
Dean didn't answer, didn't even nod, and somehow that worried Sam more than anything else.
By the time they got to the clinic, Dean was nauseous and sweating profusely, yet shaking with cold. Sam knew he was going into shock; probably from a combination of the blood loss and the trauma.
He all but carried him out of the car and into the clinic where he finally left him with a very concerned looking nurse.
Sam looked down at his hands, left bloody from where he had touched Dean, and settled himself down to wait.
Almost two hours later, the door to the back opened, and Dean wandered out, looking dazed and tired. Now that the blood had been cleaned away from his face, Sam could easily see the split lip and the bruised cheek, the bruise under the eye and the cut under his chin. In his hand he held what Sam could only assume were prescriptions, but it was obvious by the slight glaze in his eyes that they had already given him something for the pain. He stood up and walked over to him, placing a steadying hand on his arm to get his attention.
Dean stared at him, as if trying to determine whether or not he was real. "You're still here?"
"Well, yeah. I wasn't going to leave you here by yourself."
Dean looked at the floor and muttered, "I didn't know."
He looked and sounded like a lost, little boy and Sam found himself wanting to hug him and never let go.
A little dismayed that he was back to being a teenager with a crush, he said, "Come on, let's get out of here, huh?"
When Dean made a move to pay at the front desk, Sam quickly pulled out his own wallet and took care of the bill.
Dean made a noise of protest, but Sam waved it away, telling him not to worry about it.
"So, where do you live?" Sam asked once they were back at the car.
"You're taking me home, too?"
"You didn't think I was gonna let you walk, did you?"
Sam had never seen anyone look as grateful as Dean did when he got back into the car. And once, again...teenager with a crush. Which was strange, because Sam had never had a teenage crush. He wasn't even sure if this is what it felt like.
Dean's place turned out to be a nice surprise. Although it wasn't in the best part of town, the building was well-maintained and the apartment itself was large and roomy. Dean obviously took some pride in it, keeping it clean and decorating it so that it was warm and inviting. Sam guessed that this was his sanctuary; maybe the only place he had where he could be safe and himself.
"Nice place," he said, and meant it.
Dean blushed and looked away shyly. "Thanks."
And for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, Sam found himself wanting to throw his arms around the other man and hold him for all he was worth.
Which was actually a bit scary, because he wasn't one to get attached to people. He had learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago. People like him were not meant to get close to others, to have relationships, to fall in love.
"Come on, I'll help you into bed," he told Dean.
He let Dean lead them into the bedroom and sat down next to him on the bed. Then without being asked, and with an infinite amount of care, he helped removed the other man's shirt and jeans.
Dean was as pliant and silent as a doll throughout the whole thing, and Sam had to wonder what was going through his mind. He had already been thinking about staying here overnight, just to make sure that Dean was all right, but now this reaction convinced him that he should definitely stay.
When the torn and bloody clothes were on the floor, Sam reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, leaving only the moon's soft rays to illuminate the room. "Get some sleep. You need it," he said as he made to stand up.
"Where are you going?" Dean asked, coming back to life at last.
"Don't worry, I'll be on the couch. If that's ok with you," he added hastily.
"Wait...don't go."
Sam sat back down quickly. "What's the matter?"
"It's just that...I haven't even thanked you for what you did tonight."
"Oh well..."
And suddenly whatever Sam was going to say was lost because Dean was leaning into him, touching his face with the hand that was intact. And before Sam could react, Dean's mouth was on his. And now Dean was kissing him, actually kissing him with that pouty mouth of his and those soft lips and Sam was melting upward into heaven.
As the kiss began to deepen, Sam responded by cradling Dean's face in his hands, holding him still as he pushed forward with his mouth, his tongue. God, he hadn't realized just how much he'd wanted this...
He pushed forward again, intent on tasting every bit of this beautiful man, when he heard a small intake of breath come from Dean. Someone else might have mistaken it for desire. Sam knew that it meant pain.
He moved his head away, breaking the kiss abruptly and leaving them both breathless. "I can't do this."
Dean leaned in again. "Yes, you can." His voice was breathless and husky and it promised tangled sheets and salty skin. And it took every ounce of willpower that Sam possessed not to give in to that siren voice and fuck Dean into the mattress right then and there.
He put his hands on Dean's shoulders and gently but firmly moved him back. "No, Dean."
Dean's eyes finally lost the smoky look of sex and now he merely looked confused. Wounded. "I'm sorry," he said as he scooted away. "I thought...I thought I picked up..." He gave a small, embarrassed laugh. "I'm not usually wrong about this. I'm sorry."
"No, Dean," Sam said quickly, feeling the need to reassure. "You didn't read anything wrong. I do want you. I mean, you're...you're gorgeous, ok? And you know that. It's just that...this isn't right. Not like this."
"Why not?"
"Because you've been through something horrible tonight and you're on some really good drugs and you're not thinking straight. You're vulnerable right now and I don't want to take advantage of that."
"But I want to. I want you."
Sam inwardly groaned. Sentences like that one would be his undoing. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and tried to collect his thoughts, knowing that he had to make the other man understand. "Dean, what you're feeling right now, is very normal. You came face-to-face with your own mortality. You survived. And to reassure yourself of that, you're turning to the one thing that will most immediately make you feel most alive. Physical intimacy."
Dean frowned. "I am not...am I?"
Nodding sagely, Sam continued, "And the fact that you feel grateful to me isn't helping matters any."
Dean now looked a little mortified. "This happens to you all the time, doesn't it? You rescue people, and they basically throw themselves at you, don't they?"
Sam couldn't deny it, but he felt uncomfortable admitting to it, so he merely shrugged.
"Don't you ever give in to temptation?"
And there it was again, that flirty look in his eyes, the timbre of his voice lowered just a bit, the body language that suddenly read, open for you, only you.
He touched Dean's cheek very gently. "I want you so badly that it hurts. But not like this." He paused. "With you it'll be special. It will be right. And it will be amazing and slow and it will be something that we'll both remember forever."
Dean smiled; a slow, lazy, happy smile and Sam knew that he had said the right thing. "That sounds really nice, Sam," he whispered.
"Good," he said with a smile of his own. "Now go to bed."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"If I promise to go straight to sleep, will you stay here? Not on the couch? I promise I won't pull a Michael Jackson on you. And I won't hog the covers."
Sam laughed. "I'll stay."
And he did.
Dean fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow and Sam watched him for awhile, enjoying the look of innocence and peace that his face had in sleep. After a while, his own eyes began to close and he made himself comfortable and prepared for his own fall into dreamland.
As he lay in Dean's bed, lost somewhere in the twilight world between asleep and awake, he realized that he had spoken to Dean about them in a future tense.
And with that final, disconcerting thought, Sam fell asleep.