Hey everybody! I apologize deeply for not posting sooner, but the good news is that the writers block seems to be clearing up slowly and I'll be back to writing like crazy in no time (heh I make it sound like it's a disease or something) oh, and a small note, reviews seem to give enough encouragement for a notebook page or so [hint hint, so keep up that support guys! (I was so happy, last chapter you guys posted 7 reviews!!! Keep that up and I might have 100 by the end of the fic!)

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Chapter 24

"Great, I'm a Bl0od Junkie."

"When Kate bit me…" he began heavily, "It felt like—I don't know…like every form of pain I had ever experienced suddenly came back twenty times worse, and when I couldn't take anymore …" his eyebrows knitted together as he looked up at her, "Hannah, I'm pretty sure I died."

Her expression was pensive, "What do you mean?" She knew that vampires were essentially 'undead' but had never actually thought about the transition from life into death after a person was initially 'turned'.

"After Kate, I guess, 'extracted' herself, I blacked out. I had no idea where I was, but I felt so calm, so relieved, I didn't want to leave, until I heard your voice calling me back." Not wanting to pause for further sentimentality, he continued on, "As everything slowly came back to me, I braced myself for the world of pain I had left behind, but when it didn't come, I was confused and I opened my eyes only to see you...and it was strange—"

"Oh thanks." Hannah cut in with a small smile

"No, sorry, not you;" he flashed a smile, "It was the way I felt. My body was numb all over; no pain, no warmth, no nothing, but at the same time, all my senses went into overdrive or something, because I could suddenly see so clearly it hurt, feel the slightest movement of air, and—" he stopped short, troubled by what he now had to describe, "I could also smell the horrible, disgusting smell of bl0od…but what scared me the most was that it didn't smell awful at the time, it was almost alluring, as if something triggered in my brain and this… instinct washed over me— telling me to find the source of the bl0od and feed."

"But the first time you were able to control it, weren't you?" Hannah asked, not entirely sure she believed what she was hearing. Sure, she had seen a lot of weird stuff in the past, but she had never even heard of something like this.

"Yeah." He answered, "I managed to push it away by thinking about something else, but when it came back for round two in the parking lot…" he looked at his feet, shaking his head slowly, "I wasn't ready. It had grown so much stronger…I felt like my head was going to explode and all the while they only thing that played over and over in my mind was getting to the source of the bl0od. And the more I fought it, the stronger it got until I couldn't even think straight anymore."

Hannah's expression showed that she understood, but what bothered her was why Dean didn't react to Sam's bl0od in the car. "Alright, so let's think this over… As of right now, back in the warehouse, and in the Impala, you can't or couldn't feel anything, right?"

"Heh, I wish. No, I still feel like a complete a$shole for trying to kill my own brother. Being a vampire might impair my conscience for a while but it definitely comes back full blast later."

"Fine, sorry. You can't feel any physical pain then."

"That's more like it."

"And whenever you smell bl0od, all that pain comes back to you, and I'm assuming that if you were to satisfy the bl0odlust, the pain would go away." A theory formed in her head as she elaborated on this out loud.

Dean noticed this as well, "So, what are you getting' at?"

She looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm not entirely sure, but it seems to me that what you, and any other newly-turned vampire for that matter, are going through is like an addiction."

Dean gave her a look that said, "Addiction? Where the hell did THAT come from?" but as he thought about it more, it actually made sense.

She continued, "You know how heroine addicts have the whole 99.9 percent- or something like that- first time users become addicted, except for with vampirism it's 100 percent of all first time users, which sucks, but hey, what are you gonna do? Anyway, I think- and this applies only when you catch a scent of bl0od- that you go through a sort of 'withdrawal' if you will, and like a heroin addict your immediately lookin' for your next fix like a hell hound for a lost soul."

"Great, I'm a bl0od junkie." Dean said flatly, but inside he was rather amused; this point more that doubled his new repertoire of vampire jokes that he had been coming up with for the past hour and immediately his mind left what was left of the conversation.

Hannah wasn't paying attention, after her last sentence, she continued on with her outward train of though, completely oblivious to Dean's comment (otherwise she would have laughed) "But that still doesn't explain why you didn't react in the car…"

Likewise, Dean's thoughts were still on his jokes, "I wonder, how many ways are there to 'do' bl0od? Can you smoke it if it's dried, or how 'bout inhalation…heh, I can seen it now: Red Snuff…wonder how that would do on the markets…dude, that could totally work with the vampire population…instead of the Black market, there's the Red market consisting entirely of illegal bl0od substances…"

He continued to amuse himself further with these thoughts until a knock on the cellar door was heard and both he and Hannah snapped out of their self- absorbed conclusions.

Hannah made her way to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Sam." She greeted quietly, stepping aside so the young hunter could enter.

He was pale, and the bruises on his face and neck were in the process of turning colorful shades of purple with a touch of blue, but he managed a reassuring smile in return.

Dean however, was a different story, as soon as he laid eyes on Sam, a tremendous wave of relief washed over his face as only an older brother could have in knowing his little brother was ok.

Of course Dean, being Dean, wouldn't allow anyone to know that, after all God forbid he let someone truthfully know that behind the sarcastic jerkiness he actually cared, so as usual, before anyone noticed, he switched back into evasive, cocky, sarcastic, and in other words 'normal' Dean mode, complete with matching facial expressions. "Hey Sammy." He began in a generally happy tone, "Nice of you to drop in. Here, grab a seat," he nodded his head toward a corner of the room that held a set of folding furniture underneath a bulletin board that bore cut-outs of local obituaries or anything out of the ordinary, suggesting the room might be used, on occasion, for hunters on the lookout for a gig, "Make yourself comfortable…heh, I'd offer you a drink, but I'm a little tied up at the moment."

Sam, thankfully, knew his brother well enough to see the feelings behind the feelings- it was so utterly, tragically, Dean to bottle everything up.

He shot a rather embarrassed look at Hannah then sighed, "Dean, do you have any other means of expressing yourself that doesn't involve sarcasm?"

Heh, he walked right into it, "Sure," he said, with a smirk, "Let me just lean my head on you shoulder and we'll have our Oprah moment together."

Sam looked just about fed up with Dean's attitude and opened his mouth to retort, but at that moment, Hannah decided to step in.

"So, uh, Sam, where's Amanda and Katherine? "She asked nervously.

He shot Dean one last glare, then turned to Hannah. "After Amanda finished bandaging my arm so someone wouldn't turn into a raving lunatic when I walked in the room," he pointed to his shoulder where Hannah could see a small bit of the bandages underneath his tattered shirt. "She, Katherine, and Oliver volunteered to get the cars and do some clean up work at the warehouse.

"Nice. The cops'll be on that place as soon as Officer Nelman doesn't show up to work due to unexpected decapitation." She took a step toward the door, "Did they leave yet, 'cuz they're gonna need all the help they can get."

Sam looked a little resentful, "Don't bother, they left saying we should try and figure out where to go from here."

Dean snorted, "So where else is there to go Geniuses? Katherine said I'm supposed to just not drink bl0od and everything'll be all hunky-dory in the mornin'."

"Dean, you know as well as I do nothing, in our screwed up lives, ever works out that easy." Said Sam, grabbing two fold up chairs near the table, he handed one to Hannah and placed his own facing away from Dean, then he sat in it backwards so that he was facing his brother. Hannah placed hers face forward and sat in it with one foot on the floor and the other up on the chair with her knee pressed up against her chest.

"Yeah, well a guy can hope, can't he?" the elder Winchester retorted.

"You know, he could be right," Hannah told Sam, "Maybe time is the best remedy in this case."

"What, you mean like how an addict, if they go through withdrawal long enough, will eventually overcome their addiction." He replied furrowing his brow in thought.

Hannah looked over to Dean with a raised eyebrow, surprised at how she and Sam's ideas fit perfectly, "Wow, he's good."

"That's my Super College Geek Boy brother for ya." Dean smiled.

A corner of Sam's mouth turned up slightly, but went back to its pensive position when a new thought popped into his head, "But, are you sure this could work? I mean, this isn't, after all, a case of chemical dependency."

Hannah shrugged, "To be honest I'm not sure, but right now, it's the only thing we've got."

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And thus concludes the 24th chapter of Love Bites.

Oh! And now random gushing from moi! Ok, so as soon as SN2 came out (well right after school on the same day) guess who got their copy of the amazing 6 disk set??? Difficult question, I'm sure. N e way, I love the first deleted scene for IMToD, and of course the every popular (for me at least) Tall Tales, Folsom Prison Blues and Hollywood Babylon, but I'm afraid I must say I was rather disappointed with the special features on disk 6, especially a certain [ahem gagreel, that failed to make me laugh for half of the painfully long SN screw-ups, what angered me more, was the fact that there was season 1 stuff! I mean, come on, did the actors get so good that the felt there wasn't enough material to just come from season 2??? And why the hell was the Wendigo there???!!! I would have been happy with more simple line screw ups. Jeez. Although it did have a few hilarious bits that did make up for some of the crap (a.k.a. the bed wrestling thing, Jensen's falling down the trailer steps and a few other choice scenes) but what was with the whole food montage? Dude, its funny when Dean eats, I agree with that wholly, but do we really need to mess that up by finding Every. Single. Solitary. Time. Dean bites into something crunchy? I don't know about you guys but I want my Eskimo/Canadian wannabees back.

Well, that was a long vent. N e way, reviews, as always are GREATLY appreciated (I cannot stress that enough)

And until next time!

—The Huntress