Part IV

She goes back to her lair and leaves them in the wake of the tornado, standing among blown down houses and twisted trees.

Dean's a mess. He's pacing, agitated and angry, but so exhausted that he's stumbling. His eyes are leaking tears and he's pale, worn down and out. His hand is purple and swollen, but he doesn't seem to notice it.

Sam watches him from where he's laid out on the couch, on his stomach. It hurts too much to sit. He's already been in the bathroom, where he wiped the blood and come from his ass, and tears and snot from his face. He's more worried about his brother than himself, though. In the best of times, Dean's a jumble of pain and loyalty and love. He can't imagine the stew of guilt and recrimination that's whirling around in his head now.

"It's going to be all right," Sam says, forcing the words through a closed-off throat. He hurts, internally and externally. He feels like a liar.

Dean looks at him, stunned and pained and so stupid with fatigue that he looks like a lost little kid.

"Sleep," Sam says gently. "I need you strong and rested."

Dean mumbles something incoherent in response, and keeps stumbling around, literally bouncing off the walls, for a while longer. When he finally stretches out on the floor, it's a relief. He falls asleep almost immediately.

Sam wants to sleep, too. He's bone-weary, but that doesn't seem to matter. The throbbing, burning pain in his ass is constant. As injuries go, it's not the worst he's ever had. Not even close. But it continues to remind him of what happened, making his chest tighten and tears spring to his eyes. He thought that those few minutes he'd spent crying in the bathroom, while he was cleaning up, would suffice to release his agony for good. Apparently not.

He rests his forehead on his folded arms. He tries to hold the tears back, but he's never been much good at stuffing emotions down, and the grief he feels now is squeezing out through his pores and glands and tear ducts into the worn, tattered sofa.

---

Later, Sam chokes down half a can of cold Chef Boyardee raviolis--a disgusting meal even when heated up. He hunkers down on his heels across from Dean, who's sitting up against the wall in what appears to be his favorite spot, and offers him the remainder of the can. Dean shakes his head.

"Come on, Dean. You need your strength."

"Couldn't keep it down if I tried," he admits.

Dean's better than earlier—less dazed, anyhow—and more pulled together, more like his old self. Except that the toll of the past day (has it really been only one day?) is etched in harsh lines on his face and in the exhausted slump of his shoulders. He wonders if he looks as beaten down as well.

Setting the can aside, Sam sighs and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands off. When he comes back, he hunkers down in front of Dean again and says, "She's some sort of succubus. The … things … she's making us do," The sex. "There's a reason she's doing it to us."

"Yeah," Dean mutters. "She gets off on it."

"No, it's more than that. She's feeding off of us. Draining our energy."

Dean's gaze sharpens. "The lore about succubi always talks about them drawing the life force from men while having sex with them. She hasn't had sex with us yet. Not that I'm complaining, cause don't go getting any ideas, dude, but I'd choose you over her any day of the week."

Sam gives a pained smile at Dean's attempt at humor. He wishes he could give more, but it's just not in him. "Maybe she's some sort of hybrid," he ventures. "The lore says that succubi drain men's life force, but they also try to get pregnant by a human male. I think that's what she is, half succubus, half human. It explains why the Devil's Trap didn't work. She's not really a demon."

Dean considers this, then asks, "She's feeding off us to do what? Grow into her succubus powers? Is that why her appearance is changing?" Sam should have known his brother would notice the changes as well.

"Could be," he accedes. "It doesn't really matter, though. All that matters is that I know how we can stop her."

---

Dean gets up, starts pacing in a wobbly burst of outrage. Jaw hard, he spits, "I can't do that."

I can, Sam thinks. I can and I will. Instead, he says: "It's the only way. We have no other power against her. This is the only way. Think about it. So far, our struggles have only made her stronger. I know it will work."

"Sam, I'm not doing that."

He sees Dean's chest rising and falling, can almost feel the long, thumping heartbeats in his chest. He's getting weaker hour by hour; his endless nervous energy, transformed now into fury at their helplessness, is draining him faster than Sam. Sam realizes that he can't afford not to convince his brother that he's right.

"We're dying," Sam says bluntly. "How much longer do you think we can last against her? One day? Look at you – you can barely stand." He doesn't mention the horrors she's likely to put them through in that time.

"I don't care!" Dean barks.

"Look at me, Dean," he orders. Dean resists for a moment, then complies with reluctant wariness. "I need you to do this. For me," Sam says. It's a low blow. The lowest, to manipulate Dean's love for him. But it will keep both of them alive.

Dean stills, a subtle change in muscles and energy, as though the words themselves are blows landing dead center to his heart. Then his eyes slide shut and he leans his head back against the wall, exposing his neck. He swallows.

"Sam, please …"

"Dean. You're not doing it for her. You're doing it for me." For yourself.

Dean's face twists. He's usually so good at keeping his emotions in check. But that's just another thing she's taken from them. Dean is quiet for a long time. Sam has to force himself to wait. It's like teetering on the edge of a cliff. Eventually, Dean says hoarsely, "All right."

Sam lets his head fall back with grim relief. He will save his brother. Afterward, they can heal.

But first.

First, they must live.

--

The next time (the last time, Sam has vowed), she wakes both of them from a dead sleep. Her hands are gnarled claws now, and her teeth are elongated and pointed, hanging over her lower lip even when her mouth is closed. She stinks – like sulfur and rot – and there are nubs that look like the beginnings of horns protruding from either side of her skull. She's radiating power and satisfaction and a kind of sickening anticipation that makes him vaguely nauseous.

Sam's still on his stomach on the couch. He sits up gingerly, glances at his brother on the floor a few feet away. Dean is wearing a dogged expression. Sam wipes at his eyes, smoothes his hair down, and takes a deep, calming breath. That's all the preparation he gets before she's making him crawl toward Dean.

He doesn't give her the chance to do anything further, though, because he's taking the initiative, reaching out to place his hand on the side of Dean's face. He smoothes the hot, razor-stubbled flesh there, feels it prickling against his skin. They gaze at each other, and Sam is suddenly struck by how bright and green Dean's eyes are, blazing with life despite the paleness of his skin--or perhaps because of it. Sam draws Dean's head toward him, leans his forehead against his brother's, just resting. Their lips are close, their breaths mingling. Yes, Dean's right. This is so terribly, agonizingly intimate. There are no walls between them, not any more. Sometimes, Sam thinks that Dean's walls are all that hold him together.

So it surprises him when Dean scales those walls.

Dean makes a soft noise of desire and kisses him. Sam doesn't know what he's expecting: a sharp wrenching burst of disgust, perhaps? But it's not like that. No, not at all. The labels—indecent, illegal, immoral, incest—are all stripped away. It doesn't hurt; in fact, it's easy and painless, as though those labels have been soaking in soapy water for hours. Dean is a fire, hot and consuming, burning with life and passion, and it's not like he's "blood of my blood, bone of my bone." He's just … Dean. Soft in some places, hard and angular in others, but deliciously pleasurable all around.

Sam's breath catches as their kiss deepens, Dean's skillful tongue slip-sliding in a lazy, arousing path. Dean's good hand is resting lightly on Sam's flank. As Sam's fingers tighten on Dean's back, squeezing their bodies together, Dean's touch grows more insistent. He pulls Sam's hip closer to his own. The firm contact sends spikes of energy from his balls straight up through the shaft of his cock. He rocks his hip in a slow grinding rhythm that hardens Dean's cock, which lies trapped, hot and throbbing, between them.

Sam slides into the kiss heedlessly, a baseball player sprinting for home, pressing their bodies close together. His hands clutch Dean's back, scrabbling desperately to pull his t-shirt up to get to the smooth, warm skin underneath. When he feels it under his fingertips Dean gives a groan of pure, animal pleasure, and desire rockets straight to Sam's dick.

His heartbeat drums in his chest and in his ears, drowning out reason and fear with the thud thud thud. Somehow he's urging Dean over on his side onto the floor, so that he can press the entire length of his body against Dean's, and the feel of that – combined with the juxtaposition of cold hard floor and hot living undulating flesh – is exquisite.

Sam breaks the kiss to explore the sensitive skin underneath Dean's earlobe with his tongue. "God, Dean. I love you," he murmurs, the words spilling unexpectedly out of him. "I love you so much."

And he does. More than anyone, anything, any goal or aspiration or fleeting, worldly pleasure. The feeling is fierce, unwavering, and all-consuming. The accompanying burst of tenderness he feels is thick sweet honey that fuels the desire, making it sizzle along every nerve ending. Dean's proven that he loves Sam back with every fiber of his being. He's sacrificed his own wants and desires and goals for Sam too many times to count. And between the two of them, Sam can feel their love blazing clear and white enough to illuminate the dark, dark sky. It's beautiful enough to make him ache.

Dean squirms against him, nudging his knee between Sam's legs and rolling him over onto his back, his warm palm resting low on Sam's belly. Sam's hips rise up, trying to urge Dean's hand lower, to stoke the fire kindling in his cock.

"Sam," he's saying, low and urgent. "You're mine, Sammy. Won't let her have you."

And he won't, Sam knows. He'll die first.

But what if -- what if dying is not required?

What if living is, instead?

Dean shivers against him, muscles tight. Instead of fighting the desire like he did before, though, he's giving into it, riding the tides. Images of him flash into Sam's mind: Dean holding his hand as he walked Sam into his first grade classroom that first day, Dean holding him as he cried about a split lip or banged head or something else equally unimportant to an adult, but earth-shattering to a child. And more recently, Dean up against the wall in that Godforsaken cabin, drawing their possessed father's attention from Sam, taunting the demon into spilling his heart's blood …

Sam remembers the clerk, then. Realizes that her brutal, smothering power is absent. Has been absent since the beginning.

He draws back from Dean, takes in his brother's rumpled, beautiful form—the flushed cheeks, heavily lidded eyes, and passion-ripe lips. Coming back to this room, leaving the cocoon he and Dean have formed around themselves, is like flinging open the door from a warm home into the frigid cold of a howling blizzard.

She's on the floor. Writhing. For an instant he's puzzled, thinking she's thrashing in ecstasy. Then he sees. It's not ecstasy. Not at all.

It's pain.

"It's working," Sam breathes in wonder.

Dean glances at her, dazed. "'s good," he manages. He gives a grim smile. When he looks back at Sam, though, the grimness falls away under blistering heat. "We'd better not stop, then."

He fists both hands in Sam's t-shirt, hissing when he apparently forgets about his injury, and tugs Sam down against his hard chest. "I want this," he murmurs, then uses those full lips to suck and nip at Sam's mouth.

The warm soft feelings of love that sent the clerk to the floor crack and fall apart. Passion burns like molten lava underneath.

Breathing harshly, he grabs Dean's ass and grinds his erection into Dean's hips. The feel of Dean's own erection tight against Sam's groin makes him move frantically. Dean responds with equal fervor. They tussle for control, Sam humping his brother desperately, then giving way to Dean as he rolls Sam over on his back.

Dean jams his hand down Sam's pajamas, sliding them down over Sam's hips, then forces his own down.

When their naked skin meets, Sam nearly comes from the blinding pleasure. Panting and gasping, their cocks meet and rub against one another, hips bucking instinctively. He grasps Dean's rock hard cock, and smoothes his thumb over the come-wet slit. Dean makes a ragged sound and comes in hot wet spurts. When Dean fists Sam's cock, their bodies both jerk in rough opposing motions. Sam's need for friction consumes him, building and climbing until he falls over that same precipice, coming long and hard.

As his sweat dries and his heaving breath calms, he rests himself on one elbow, looking down at his brother. Dean's hand is cupping Sam's cheek, thumb caressing Sam's jaw slowly. There's such a tender, open look on his face that Sam's heart squeezes. He turns his head into Dean's palm and kisses it, saying with the gesture: I love you. I love you. I love you.

A low, terrible moan from the clerk draws his attention.

She's sprawled out all over the floor a dozen feet from them. Her appearance rivets Sam. It's as though she's deflated. The fat, lumpy skin is now smooth. Her cheap, unflattering clothing is hanging on her as though she's instantly lost 50 pounds. Her face is thinner, the skin unmarked and ten years younger looking. The nubs on her head have receded, and her teeth are no longer yellow and pointed. But her eyes are wild. The expression of unbridled hatred in her eyes remains, augmented by anger and pain.

"Stop it! Stop it now or I'll make you very sorry!" She spits ferociously. She draws to her hands and knees, shakily, face shining with sweat.

Sam knows she wants to gouge his eyes out, stab him in the heart, throttle him until he turns blue. She can't, though. She's been immediately, amazingly weakened. Sam is suddenly certain that more is needed. For a moment, rebellion surges up his windpipe, hot and wild. Disgust and rage are physical obstacles. He swallows them down through force of will, and moves toward her.

Dean grasps his arm, holding him back.

"It's all right," Sam tells him. Somehow, he knows she can't hurt them anymore, despite her bravado.

She hisses at him like some sort of wounded animal as he draws nearer. It's hard not to recoil in horror, to let his pain and anger get the best of him, but he keeps pushing those emotions down and away and just focuses on her face. Tears are falling in big, fat drops from her dark, small eyes.

"Get away from me!" she cries, with an edge of panic.

Her hair is hanging in greasy tendrils across her face. He thinks of the violation she visited on him and his brother, the hatred and ugliness and pain that they are now left to deal with. He can't focus on that now, though. Just like he hadn't been able to focus on that before, when it was occurring.

Hand trembling and breath hitching, he reaches his hand forward. Gently, he brushes her hair from her face, hooking it behind her ears.

"No!" she moans. "Don't do that …"

Her lips are still thin and wrinkled, framing a filthy mouth. She must be finished, though. Destroyed completely.

So he leans in and kisses her. His lips when they press against hers are as soft and loving as he can manage. She slaps at him, crying, "No, no, no, no!" Her blows are as weak and ineffectual as a child's.

The foul scent surrounding her dissipates, and the puffy flesh surrounding her eyes disappears, making eyes that had previously appeared cruel and piggish almost … pretty.

He draws back after a moment, feeling Dean's attention on him. Dean's face is still in that way it gets when he's feeling something deeply. His eyes are crowded rooms of disgust and outrage, and his chest heaves with hard-to-take breaths. Sam can see the thoughts making plow lines across through his mind. He looks to Sam for guidance, his gaze pleading. Sam wishes he could let him off the hook. But he can't. He nods at Dean, saying, Go ahead, do it.

Despite the fact that Dean's emotions remain clearly conflicted, he, too, creeps forward, his whole body wracked by almost invisible tremors. Something like hope flashes across her face when she sees him.

Then he reaches out a tremulous hand and smoothes her back carefully, like he's calming a skittish animal. Because he is.

She wrenches herself away from him, and gives a final, agonizing cry. Energy is sucked out of the room with incredible speed and suction, creating a momentary airless vacuum.

Some sonic-boomlike barrier has been breached, and the last of her ugliness evaporates, a mirage examined into truth.

Now she's just a woman. Rather plain looking, rather thick around the middle, but no longer a terrible monster.

Her hands fly to her cheeks and she scrambles backwards, rising to her feet unsteadily, and dragging herself up the steel staircase to the world above.

She disappears out the hatch as though fleeing certain death. Sam sees the blue western sky up above, and freedom.

He and Dean help one another to stand, and climb upward, through the open hatch.

---