When Dean awoke it was still dark outside, though the sky was shading toward indigo, indicating the imminent sunrise. He stretched carefully, taking a mental inventory of the state of his body. He felt good. Surprisingly good, really. His body felt limber and loose, as if he hadn't spent the night on a lumpy pull out mattress. Yeah, he had morning wood, but it would be unusual waking up without it. It was like the last few days had never happened, and he could imagine that the events of last night had been a nightmare, a product of his fucked up head. Some jacked up combination of venom and the desire to have his family close to him.

He was still dressed in the clothing he'd worn yesterday (this morning?), but when he got up to take a piss, he realized that it didn't fit properly. The undershirt was too tight around his chest and arms, and his jeans hung too loose around his hips; the only thing holding them up was the jutting lines of his hipbones. After he'd drained the lizard, he lifted his t-shirt to inspect himself in the bathroom mirror. He was paler, his skin almost translucent, showing a fine tracery of blue veins beneath the surface. There were no marks on him, anywhere. No scars, no handprint, and no tattoo. But what really made Dean's jaw drop was the deeply cut six pack of his abdomen. Yeah, he'd been in shape before, but between greasy diner burgers and his pie addiction, he'd inever/i been able to manage that kind of definition. He groaned and scrubbed a hand though his sleep-mussed hair, making it stand even farther on end.

Well, hell. So much for the past few days being a dream; his new physique was an unwanted reminder of how real it was. He was…well, he didn't know quite what he was. Changed, undoubtedly. Succubus? That was the general consensus, though Dean thought males were known as incubi. He was pretty sure he'd seen a porno dealing with them once before.

Despite everything, for all he felt normal now, he was a monster. He knew that unnatural urges dwelt within him. Dean might not feel any different now, but everything needed to eat. He was terrified that when the time came, he would see humans as meat, destroying the very people he'd been raised to protect. Hell, he'd already had sex with his brother, and he'd liked it. He was totally going to Hell, again. If he'd had the courage, Dean would have killed himself already, and spared Sam from having to take him out.

But damn it, despite his angelic visitations, Dean knew where he'd end up, and he couldn't face the Pit. Not again. He'd come so close to losing himself there the last time, and sometimes he imagined that a chunk of himself hadn't come back to life with the rest of him.

Stomach growling, he put aside his morbid thoughts, lowered his shirt, and headed to the kitchen. He found Buffy already there, attempting to cook breakfast. Dean prided himself on being able to eat anything, but Buffy's culinary skills put that to the test. Giles had mentioned that she had improved, but every morning still felt like a game of Russian roulette. Dean liked to live dangerously, but there were limits. At least he finally felt well enough to join her in the kitchen, instead of having meals taken to him. The petite blonde acknowledged him with a curt nod, half-stirring a bowl of what looked a lot like pancake batter.

"Hey. You look…better this morning. I mean—" She looked up at him and considered, catching her lower lip between her teeth, unsure of how exactly to phrase her thoughts. "You seem more in control. Not so much with the whole 'I want to have sex with anything that moves and some things that don't thing."

If she only knew, Dean pondered morosely.

His eyes were glued to the lip Buffy had captured, because he was still a iguy/i damn it, and you'd have to be dead not to notice Buffy. "I won't jump your bones. At least not in public. Well, maybe only if you ask ireally/i nicely," he promised with a grin, grabbing a plate from the table and helping himself to heaping portions of the already-prepared scrambled eggs and sausage links. He tried desperately not to think of how hot she looked with bed hair, wavy and slightly mussed. She wore her nightclothes still. Her pajama shorts and white camisole exposed slender arms and legs that were a contradiction to the power in her muscles. Dean imagined how she'd feel on top of him, bouncing on his cock like a pogo stick.

Buffy licked her lips, her eyes going a bit glassy as she regarded him. Dean snuck a glance at her breasts, which were a nice handful crowned with rock hard nipples clearly delineated by the thin fabric of her nightclothes. He wondered if the skin beneath the soft cotton fabric was as silky as it looked. He swiftly tramped down his thoughts, thinking desperately of some of the ugly sons of bitches he'd hunted. He cursed to himself as he realized he could make someone want him just by wanting ithem/i. Before this had happened, he would have thought that seemed like a pretty sweet deal. Now it felt like a violation. He felt dirty, unclean, itainted/i because of what he could do to other people.

She shook her head as if to clear it and resumed stirring the pancake batter, and if her thoughts wandered to Dean's hot body, to his broad shoulders and tapered waist, at least she gave no outward sign. It took a rare man to be able to match a Slayer's desires in bed, and she doubted he was among them, all bragging aside. She'd found out with Riley that humans, even enhanced humans, couldn't keep up with Slayer endurance. Hell, she could probably outpace ten guys. She didn't expect Dean Winchester to make it past two rounds.

"Morning," called Sam, as he entered the room. He wore his boxers and a clean gray cotton t-shirt that clung to his upper body. Dean groaned, swallowing hard against the dryness of his mouth and wondered if that occurred in the same laundry mishap that had shrunk his favorite jeans. Objectively, Sam looked like USDA certified Grade A beef. His hair was rumpled by sleep and sex, brunette strands sticking up in multiple directions. Buffy groaned too, for what she imagined were entirely different reasons. Man, would she be surprised.

If Buffy ever let herself fall for a human again, it might be someone like Sam or Dean Winchester, wounded but still standing brothers, with problems too big even for their wide shoulders. And what nice shoulders they were.

Sam's eyes flicked to Dean briefly, and he hesitated for a nearly imperceptible moment in the doorway, but joined them in the kitchen. He and Dean pointedly avoided eye contact. As Buffy poured the pancake batter onto the hot skillet, she worried that the brothers had a fight last night after she'd brought the elder brother home with vampire dust still in his hair and on his clothes.

"Good morning, Sam," she replied. Dean grunted what might have been a greeting if it dressed up as a caveman for Halloween. He didn't look up at his brother, instead taking a seat as far from Dean as possible while still facing away from him.

Everyone else had left sometime in the intervening hours, real life stealing them away from trying to save Dean, or at least get a better understanding of what was happening to him. Giles had left early that morning to meet with a contact the Council had referred him to, leaving the three of them alone in the house. He mentioned something about coming home sometime in the afternoon, but he could just as easily get himself lost in research material. She'd rarely seen him this excited about the weird shit they used to deal with on a daily basis. Maybe he'd missed it more than she'd realized.

It was obvious that something had happened between the two Winchesters last night. Now that she thought about the strange buzz she was getting from Dean, she could perceive the difference. The low level hum that he'd had been setting off thrummed though her now. Not quite the feeling she got from demons or vampires, but a similar awareness of him, stronger now than it had been before. This awareness was also tinted with iawareness/i. Of Dean the male, not just Dean the dumbass who'd gotten infected by a succubus.

"You turned, didn't you?" she realized, a look in her eyes that wasn't quite accusation, though it might be a great-aunt or a second cousin twice removed. Sam turned away, his jaw clenching.

"I feel fine," Dean replied defensively. "Better than I have since that succubitch bit me."

"That's what worries me," she sighed. "If you've changed, you'll need to feed. We know that much at least. Bacon and eggs breakfasts won't cut it anymore. When I left, you were ifine/i, what happened?"

"I'm suddenly not hungry," he said around a mouthful of egg and sausage, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk with a hoard of nuts, giving lie to his words. Dean Winchester had a better relationship with food than he did with any woman alive.

"We've prepared for this eventuality, dude," began Sam, carefully staring at his food.

"No, Sammy. Just—no."

"How is it any different from what you do most nights? The bars and the women? Hell, man, you used to live for that!" Sam's voice was raised, almost like he was angry, but for Dean's sake he was still refusing to look at his brother. Maybe it was his own too, he didn't want to see if there was accusation in his brother's jewel-colored amber eyes.

"Because it is!" Dean glared up, his eyes shooting sparks in his anger. "What if the only reason people agree is because I need them to? That's rape! What if I lose control and end up doing something I regret?" iAgain/i. The word left unspoken hung between them, a big ass elephant in the room that only those with the surname Winchester could perceive, and Sam could feel its weight pressing against him. Sam's jaw slammed shut, clenched. His throat worked in that way it always did when he wanted to say something, but couldn't think of anything that would ameliorate the situation.

Buffy looked from Dean to Sam and back, and it sank in. Oh. iOhhhh/i. Dean had been human last night. Sexed out and potentially on the verge, but he hadn't changed. But sometime between then and now, he had. Combined with their careful aversion to each other now? Buffy might not be math girl, but she could put two and two together, and the solution was the kind of brotherly love she didn't want to examine too closely. She couldn't say that the thought of two hot guys together didn't turn her on, though. Okay, so she had kinks, who didn't?

"Can it, both of you," she said, forestalling their argument. "Look, Giles went to meet with a folklore expert who came highly recommended by the Council. We'll see if he found out anything in a few hours." She gazed at the elder man, and the sympathy Dean saw there pissed him off something fierce. She smiled sadly. "My friend Oz was bitten by a werewolf when we were in high school. It took him a long time, but eventually he learned to control the change, to keep his consciousness during the days around the full moon. Maybe Dean can too. Just because you've changed doesn't mean you've lost your humanity."

The brothers' eyes widened at that. It went against everything they'd been taught, everything they'd experienced firsthand. But with enough willpower? Sam figured it was possible. Dean was damaged, but he'd always been a determined bastard. If anyone could do it, it was his brother.

"Here, the pancakes are done." She set the plates down in front of the boys. The pancakes were in the shape of Mickey Mouse, complete with blueberry eyes and smiles. Dean smiled up at her in thanks; already feeling less tightly wound, he took a gigantic bite off Mickey's right ear. "I used to make them this way for my little sister, when she wasn't being a total brat." Her voice was nostalgic.

"You miss her," observed Sam, keeping his tone gentle and undemanding.

Buffy nodded. "She's away at college. With the money coming in from the Council, we were able to afford anywhere she wanted to go, but she got a scholarship to Yale. She's studying linguistics."

"Wow, that's great," said Sam.

Dean shook his head. "Family should stay together," he muttered.

Sam shot his brother a glare. They'd had this discussion before several times, until they were both sick of it. Then they'd argued some more. He was smart enough to avoid giving Dean the fight he was spoiling for.

"I wanted her to have the opportunity to go. I never got to finish college because my mom…." Buffy's voice caught in her throat. Even after all these years, her loss was still devastating. "She passed away; I had to get a job to support Dawn. It was a hard couple of years. Look guys, I have some errands to run, but I'll give you some sage advice. I don't know what happened between you last night, but you need to kiss and make up because now is not the time to be at each other's throats like this. Suck it up and move on."

The men gaped at her comically, Dean with half-chewed pancake nearly falling out of his mouth. He felt a bit like as ass, and he could get where she was coming from with wanting the things for a sibling that he never got a chance at.

Tossing the mixing bowl and spatula into the sink, Buffy said, "Oh, one more thing, you guys are iso/i doing the dishes today."

When the blonde had left the room, Sam offered his olive branch first because he knew Dean would never initiate the apology/love-fest/chick-flick-moment. He sighed heavily. "We're cool, right?"

"Yeah. We're cool."

They weren't, of course. Not yet. But they were going to be.

---

By pure serendipity, both Giles and Buffy returned to her house just before noon, and the four of them gathered in the family room. The hostess and her two guests took a seat on her green couch, while Giles took the armchair across the coffee table. Buffy placed herself between the brothers in her usual spot, broken in from a few years of flopping her weight in that area to cuddle up with some Ben and Jerry's and a silly rom-com. Plus, being sandwiched between ithat/i much hotness? Who wouldn't take advantage?

"Okay, Giles, spill," urged Buffy, sitting cross-legged and leaning slightly forward in interest.

"As you know, I spoke with colleagues about Dean's condition," began Giles, eyeing the older brother warily. He didn't quite trust that the transformation hadn't somehow made Dean increasingly dangerous to be around. Dean had insisted, multiple times, that he felt great, so eventually they'd let the matter drop in light of the man's growing frustration.

"While you were avoiding Xander and Willow," interjected Buffy. "Who say 'Hi' by the way."

The elder man grimaced. "I wasn't avoiding—"

"Giles," Buffy interrupted, "you were totally being avoidy."

"Yes, well, that's beside the point."

Buffy grinned her victory, sharing the infectious smile with Sam and Dean. The ex-librarian was amusingly flustered.

"From what we've been able to determine from cross-referencing lore from various parts of the world is that Mr. Winchester here has indeed become a type of succubus, or rather, a being closely associated with the common interpretation of them. Succubi are generally regarded as exclusively female creatures. The mara, a subspecies of succubus, originally resided in the Nordic regions before immigrating to North America during the time of the Vikings, and were both male and female."

Dean sucked in a breath, recognizing the name.

Giles continued as if he hadn't noticed anything. "The mara are nightmare creatures, giving nighttime rides to mortals and leaving them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. When a mara feeds, they do so from a s-submissive position. Erm…they f-feed off their partner's orgasm, siphoning it into sustenance for them. Their allure makes them all but irresistible. When they take too much, visit too often, the human weakens and dies."

The elder Winchester leaned back, putting his arms behind his head. "So. I'm irresistible, huh?"

Giles, Buffy and Sam shared a groan.

---

Even after the knowledge dump the scholar had heaped on them, Dean felt good. Really damn good. Even better than he had that morning, since a lot of his preoccupation with what had happened to him had vanished. Maybe he should be worried about the fact that he wasn't worried, but he was just too busy enjoying the peacefulness inside him. There was no underlying thrum of ineedsexnow/i, no hallucinations of his brother or their new blonde friend in compromising positions (well, no more than was usual for him anyway; he iwas/i Dean Winchester after all).

By early evening, Dean was feeling a bit hungry, his stomach protesting its empty state loudly. He padded into the kitchen, leaving the others in the family room, watching old horror movies and offering up color commentary. He opened the refrigerator door, hoping to find some leftovers he could snag that might not be missed.

He pulled out some ham slices from the meat drawer and closed the refrigerator door. When he turned around to grab the bread, Castiel was beside him. From the corner of his eye, Dean observed the warrior of God. The angel was regarding him with a mixture of confusion and what may have passed for concern among their kind. His tie was askew and his hair was stylishly mussed as always. The angel's clear blue eyes were narrowed, as if seeing beyond what was physically manifested.

"Dean," greeted the angel. "My mark is no longer on you." Castiel appeared to stare at Dean's upper arm, where he had taken hold of Dean's soul in Hell and dragged it screaming back to Earth. The soul had been slashed, bruised, beaten past its breaking point, but it had begun to heal. Castiel's brand had held the soul together until it was strong enough to stand on its own. But it was no longer present; it had been replaced by a swirling darkness trailing from Dean's heart to his groin. The angel was…worried.

Dean's body jerked around to face the intruder. By this point, he was almost used to Castiel appearing out of nowhere, seemingly just to annoy him. The angel's voice was deep, and his brows were drawn in apprehension.

"Apparently that's because I'm a succubus now, Cas," Dean replied, feeling cocky and playful.

Castiel considered that for a moment. "This was not foretold."

"Foretold?" scoffed Dean, growing upset now and glaring at the angel though narrowed amber eyes. "You mean some angelic wacko is going around prophesying our lives? What freaking gives you guys the right to play with us like puppets dancing on your strings? I thought God was all about free will these days."

"The prophet is a man. He is protected," explained the angel, carefully skirting the question.

"Yeah well, can your prophet see a way to fix this?" snapped Dean.

Castiel shook his head almost imperceptibly. "I told you, Dean, this was not to be. Something has been altered. I know of few beings with that much power. I must seek revelation from my superiors."

"Yeah, well fat lot of help they've been so far. Why did you even come here?" asked Dean.

The angel sighed wearily. "I came to seek your assistance with preventing the breaking of another seal. However, you are in no state to provide it. Self-sacrifice is a part of you Dean, but in this case, look to yourself first."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm not good to you dead." His voice was bitter and harsh, shards of broken glass beating into the angel.

"Nevertheless, Dean, we need you. You iwill/i stop it. I have faith in you. Perhaps you should attempt the same."

When Dean spun around to retort, the angel was gone. Yeah, that was about par for the friggin' course. Leave it to the angels to kill his buzz.