Warning: Some vague mentions of drug use and drug-related practices described.
"Shriek the lips
Across ragged tongue
Convulsing together, sing
Violently move the jaw
Cry aloud..."
-Rob Zombie, "Superbeast"
"I'll be fine, I can handle things. Don't worry."
Dean looked over from his position lounging on one of the airport chairs at their designated gate while Seth paced nearby with his phone to his ear. Though his body language read cool as a cucumber, maybe even tired, inside Dean was a wreck.
That morning a gnawing had formed in his stomach breaking him from sleep. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the delectable tan flesh of Seth's shoulder, taunting him, daring him.
He couldn't stop himself from latching his lips there, or from dragging a path from shoulder to ear with his tongue, relishing the taste of salt and something uniquely Seth.
Blood running hot and in need of friction, Dean pressed closer to the curve of Seth's ass.
A tired little groan escaped his lover's lips and the artery in his neck jumped.
Dean remembered his eyes focusing on that thumping vessel with pinpoint precision, his vision starting to cloud over with a different sort of desire.
The beast inside of him stirred, calling for Seth's throat.
Somehow the part of him that was still human, that still carried a moral compass, roiled away in fear and disgust.
Dean felt a mirthless laugh bubble up in his chest, but he kept it down.
Finally, after years of pining, Seth was finally his. Ironically it was only now that they were together that Dean couldn't get close to his boyfriend without feeling the urge to either pound him into the bed or tear him apart.
Life was a cruel mistress…or hell, more like a torturous bitch if he wanted to be more descriptive.
'I should have seen it coming,' he thought, eyes following Seth at the same time he chewed on one of his sharp, overgrown thumbnails.
It was tough. No matter how much he gnawed, the point wouldn't go away.
"I know…I know," Seth looked like an aggravated kid getting a lecture from his parents that he'd heard over and over already, "We'll be back in time, I promise."
Dean thought the scene was cute for as long as he could before the beast poisoned his mind again.
"I'll tell him. Yeah. See ya," Seth ended the call with a sigh. He walked over and plopped down next to Dean, "Man you'd think I was thirteen and not thirty…Roman says hi by the way."
Cautiously Dean wrapped an arm casually around the other's shoulder, his words contradictory to his action, "Maybe Roman was right about you spending your time with someone else."
What he said left a bad taste in his mouth though. The thought of Seth with someone else, in nearly every sense of the word, was enough to send his emotions and the beast caged inside him into frenzy.
Seth leaned his cheek on Dean's shoulder, twining their fingers tightly together. "Shut up, Ambrose," he muttered with no real heat behind his words.
Dean pressed a kiss to Seth's temple and squeezed his hand in response.
Maybe he just didn't deserve something as good as Seth, no matter how much he tried to scrub his life clean. To be the best version of himself he possibly could.
Maybe all his hard work would never be enough.
The feeling of Seth's head shifting from under his chin and fingers pushing back the hair from his ear broke Dean from his uncharacteristic melancholy.
"Hey, is your ear still pierced?"
Dean's throat tightened as Seth's fingers brushed the tiny empty hole of his left earlobe. He swallowed and said, "Not sure. Might be closed."
Seth hummed thoughtfully, the pad of his thumb brushing over the fleshy skin once more.
"Read that silver could be a cure."
"Where you'd get that from, Hollywood?"
"No," Seth grumbled and pillowed his head back on his shoulder. He pulled out his phone began scrolling through it, "It's from a site on old folklore. Says here that the silver has to be blessed."
Dean snorted and rolled his eyes. 'Great. Now I'm not just a freak show animal, but an agent of the devil.'
"C'mon, work with me, Dean. If there wasn't some sort of cure, there'd be all sorts of those things running around."
"Alright, alright."
He hoped that things were that easy, but he wasn't putting his stock in it.
Life was rarely so simple.
The two and a half hour plane ride to Las Vegas was mostly uneventful, consisting mostly him and Seth joking and recounting old stories from their indie days. But no matter how light their chitchat was, the grip he kept on Seth's hand and the way Seth eyes seemed to soak him up belied their flippancy.
It kind of gave Dean the idea of what it felt like to be terminally ill. In a sense he was.
It really sucked.
The moment they landed Seth didn't even wait for them to get to his place and drop their shit off. First business they took care of was to buy an earring with the purest silver content they could find.
"Alright, you know a good priest around here?"
Dean smirked, "What, you wanna get married?"
"Can't you be serious?" A bit of pink formed on bronze cheeks.
"Maybe I am."
That got that little blush to spread all over Seth's face.
He couldn't hold back anymore. His smirk grew until laugher felt like it was splitting his face in two. "Y-You should reeeeallly s-see your f-face."
Dean adored the other man's blush, lived for it.
Seth seemed less than impressed and more hurt. He rolled his eyes and started walking down the Vegas strip.
"Hey wait!" Dean called as he used his long legs to swiftly catch up, "sorry."
"Don't play around like that," his boyfriend snapped, then looked regretful of the anger fueling his words. He looked down, "just don't…"
Dean's chest constricted and suddenly he felt incredibly stupid.
"Seth…I'm sorry," he wrapped an arm around Seth's waist, "I didn't mean – I-I just tend to joke around and go off on dumb tangents when I'm really fucking nervous."
Man he really wanted a cigarette right now.
Coming to an abrupt stop, Seth cupped his face with both hands and stared at him with determined brown eyes. Dean didn't realize he'd been shaking until Seth held him still.
"Hey, look at me. You're gonna be okay. We're gonna fix this."
Dean couldn't. Involuntary tears blurred his vision and he screwed his eyes shut against them.
"What if we can't? I mean life has always had a way of fucking me over no matter how much I march on, and it seems like it's found a way to get whole lot more creative—"
A soft pair of lips sealed over his, effectively silencing him and he immediately returned the kiss, arms circling around Seth and holding him tight to his body.
For once the beast was mute.
Dean could have sobbed in relief and cried Hallelujah to the heavens.
Taking a chance, he nibbled on Seth's lower lip and was rewarded with a breathy gasp. His tongue met no resistance as it darted inside that welcoming mouth and happily explored.
Seth tasted of coffee and some sort of spice, a flavor Dean could quickly learn to get addicted to.
"Dean…" Seth panted, his voice coming out needy.
Upon hearing his name spoken like a sweet benediction Dean slid his hands slowly, firmly up and down Seth's muscled back, worshipping the other man with his touch. In turn Seth's hands were tangled in his copper and white-streaked hair, gripping and pulling with a frantic sense of urgency.
Dean finished the kiss only when they both required air and then simply shifted his head so his chin rested on his boyfriend's shoulder. Seth mirrored his movement, fingers clutching at the back of his leather jacket.
"I love you, ya know that?" he croaked, "I live for you and wrestling, nothing else."
Seth said not a word. He didn't have to as he desperately pulled Dean impossibly closer, body trembling slightly.
Dean buried his face into his lover's bronze neck and the wavy dark hair had escaped its hair tie, breathing Seth in deeply before reluctantly pulling away completely.
The beast was still dormant, but he wasn't sure how long that would last.
"I know a good priest."
The corners of Seth's mouth lifted. "Lead on."
An hour later they finally made it to Dean's place with the blessed earring and some take out for lunch. The priest had eyed them skeptically upon the request, but after an offer of a $1000 donation to the church, he readily accepted it with zeal.
Leaning against his kitchen table after throwing out the trash from their meal, Dean asked, "So how we gonna do this? How long will it take to work?"
Seth shook his head. He eyed the silver loop as he carefully turned it over in his fingers then looked up at Dean through thick black lashes, "I dunno, let's just try it and see what happens. C'mere."
Pushing off from the table Dean stepped across the kitchen to the spot on his countertop that now Seth perched. He turned his head to the side and pushed his rapidly lengthening hair away from his left ear to give Seth better access.
There was the sound of Seth removing the silver ball stopper then a touch of coolness as the thin metal slipped into the hole in his ear.
"Shit, it's kinda stuck. Hold on."
Dean somewhat expected to feel pain or some sort of indication that the silver was making some sort of affect on his body, but he felt nothing but a small pop as his piercing reopened after Seth pushed with a tad more force. The ball was then clicked back into place preventing the ring from falling out.
"There, it's in. How do you feel?"
"Unless everything wolfy about me has miraculously gone back to normal," he said, turning to face Seth again, "I don't feel a thing."
Seth smoothed the hair back from Dean's face, legs shifting to either side of his waist. "Maybe it takes some time…"
Dean relaxed against Seth and his touch, but his words were said with a growl of frustration, "I don't have time…are there any other cures listed on that little site?"
The body curled around him flinched then went rigid.
"It said another remedy is wolfsbane, which is a poisonous plant," Seth sighed and looked to the side, "we could kill you trying to cure you. Doesn't sound like much of an option."
Dean found Seth's concern endearing, but if they didn't reverse this impending transformation then he'd rather be dead than become some mindless animal bent on ripping everything he loved apart.
"Maybe it won't kill me if we use it in small doses."
"But Dean—"
"You wanted to take a chance on me," he cut Seth off firmly, but without malice, "I'm willing to try every option, even at the risk of death."
Seth shook his head, letting out shaky sigh, "So then how would we administer this safely? I mean the poison can be absorbed into the skin. That's how dangerous it is…"
"Very small doses," Dean deadpanned, "small doses injected right into the bloodstream."
Brown eyes widened in surprise.
"Are you serious?"
"I saw something on a show once," he explained, pulling away from Seth completely and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. "It was about a snake handler who injected small amounts of snake venom into himself and eventually became immune to it. Figured this could be the same." He then began making a list, "Gloves, alcohol, cotton balls, syringes, wolfsbane…ya know where to get wolfsbane?"
Seth was already scrolling on his phone when Dean looked over his shoulder.
"Seems it's perennial…we'd have to grow it from seeds…"
Dean let out a curse and slammed his fist down on the table.
"Oh wait. There's a craft store here that sells dried wolfsbane."
"Bingo," Dean relaxed his shoulders and turned around fully, "here," he said, handing Seth the list he had written out, "I'll get the syringes, you get the other stuff."
Seth accepted the list but eyed Dean cautiously. "Where are you gonna get them?"
"I know a guy here that's diabetic, gets needles in bulk. I'll just pay him a visit, ask to use the bathroom and swipe a few of 'em."
"Now we're stealing from people?"
Dean shrugged, "Safer than getting 'em from the drug dealers around here."
He didn't hear Seth make a peep as he grabbed the keys to his truck and tossed them into his boyfriend's reflexive grasp.
"Take the truck. It's got good air conditioning."
Not waiting to see or hear the other's reaction, Dean pushed aside the nagging feeling that he was reverting to past tendencies and trudged out into the muggy Las Vegas heat. He was doing what he needed to do to survive, that's all that there was to it.
Turned out it wasn't as easy as Dean thought to get procure a pocketful of syringes from Ben Kodlack, one of the first people he befriended when he took up residency in Vegas.
Normally he didn't mind the middle aged, Viking-esque man, but he had told himself and Ben that he could only stay for a brief visit. Ben turned that idea on its head though when he offered Dean a beer, saying that surely he had enough time out of his busy schedule for that.
Dean didn't want to seem like a douchebag so he agreed.
Of course one little beer with Ben Kodlack was cue for a few hours spent shooting the shit, and the guy could spin a yarn ten miles long. It was a trait that endeared him to Dean, but now, with the full moon and transformation into a bloodthirsty monster looming, Dean was agitated with having to sit idly and listen to such frivolous tales.
Besides, the beast was itching to rip Ben's head from his shoulders.
"Look man," he interrupted as politely as he could with bloodlust raging in his veins, "I hate to take off, but I gotta. Workload's been getting heavier and really need to catch some Z's in my own bed. Can I just use your bathroom before I go?"
"Oh," Ben blinked, apparently taken out of his own little world, "Yeah no problem, Dean. Sorry to keep you, but ya know me."
Dean forced an understanding smile, or what he hoped looked like one, before rising to his feet and stalking off down the hall.
Once inside Ben's bathroom he made to quickly grab some needles, stash them in the inside pocket of his jacket, and book it (he'd apologize to Ben later if leaving without a goodbye pisses him off), but a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror gave him pause on his way out.
Intense blue orbs stared back him, so blue and bright that they were glowing from right out of his skull.
Stumbling back from the mirror, Dean practically took the door down from its hinges as he ran from Ben's house.
He didn't stop running until he reached the front lawn of his own property.
It was nightfall by that time and there was almost a physical pull on Dean from the swiftly waxing moon hanging in the sky above his head. He looked up at it mournfully. He felt like it was taunting him with the seductive caress of its lunar light.
"This better work," he muttered to himself bitterly then made his way inside.
He found Seth waiting for him on the living room couch, watching a rerun of an episode of Family Guy on his Netflix. As soon as he walked in, the television was immediately switched off.
"Did you get them?"
Dean nodded. "We gotta do this now," he panted.
"What do you mean?" Seth's brows were pinched then his seemed to catch on to the newest transformation in Dean's appearance. He jumped up and rushed to the kitchen, "I've got everything in here."
Dean followed on his heels. He took in the sight of the very supplies he asked for then reached into his jacket pocket for the needles and his pants pocket for his lighter.
"This better fucking work…" he repeated gravely.
Seth took him by the chin, turning him so that they were face to face, and cupped his cheeks tenderly, "If it doesn't work, we'll go to plan C."
"We're running out of time to go to a plan C," he argued while tugging on the ring adorning his ear, "Silver is out, man, I know it's not working. I can feel it…"
Seth pulled him into a hug and just held him, cradling his head for a long time.
"I won't let it take you from me," Seth murmured softly next to his ear.
A rough chuckle escaped his throat, "You sound determined about little old me. How do you know you won't get tired of me?"
"This is you were talking about," Seth nuzzled his neck, "If a day ever comes where you bore me, it will be the day I've died. I never thought I'd love something more than wrestling, but from the moment we first met...Dean, you…you electrified me. That shit doesn't just go away."
"Say it again," Dean urged with a nip to the neck.
Seth inhaled sharply at the attention he was receiving, "…You electrify me."
The beast reared its head and Dean shivered with adrenaline, but forced his animal instincts back and pulled away.
"If that's how you feel, then let's get to work on this cure."
Together inside his kitchen they set to work, plucking the flowers from the dried wolfsbane with gloved hands.
The petals were placed in a tablespoon full of alcohol then Dean flicked on his lighter and set the flame to burn under the swell of the spoon.
Seth curiously watched the process, one that Dean learned years ago when times weren't so great for him. Surely the younger man knew just where he had learned it, but he remained stoic, his gaze holding no accusations.
Dean was thankful for it.
The alcohol started to bubble signaling that it was time to introduce the cotton ball, the white fluff quickly soaking up the violet concoction.
"Well…this is it," Dean said as he drew up a dose and evacuated any air bubbles from the syringe.
Seth suddenly looked nervous. He began to fidget with his hands and tap his foot rhythmically.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
All the fidgeting stopped but Seth still looked uneasy.
"I'll go in the other room so you don't have to watch." Dean stood up to leave.
"No…stay. I'll just look away," Seth said, pushing him back into his seat.
Dean let out a grunt and started prodding the crook of his elbow in search of a vein. His one-man audience attempted to look unfazed, but he could tell Seth was affected.
"Relax, Rollins," he drawled exaggeratedly, letting a little humor into his voice.
Uncomfortable that his worry was identified despite his best efforts, Seth face became faintly flushed. He shifted once more and finally looked away completely, leaving Dean to focus on what he was looking for.
A thick blue vein came into view just below his skin moments later after some coaxing. Dean tied a strip of cloth tightly around his arm above his target area before the vein could retreat.
For a sixty long seconds he merely stared at it, watching the blue vessel pulse with blood under his skin. The more he observed it the more he could spot a trail of blackness mixing with the blue, slowly swimming it's way up his arm.
It was the infection, the beast, worming its way towards his very core.
Dean frowned down at his invader and just barely stopped himself from jamming the syringe into his arm out of anger and defiance. Instead he calmed his nerves, cleansed the area, and slipped the needle into his skin, carefully breeching the vein before pushing the plunger home.
The wolfsbane instantly burned white-hot and he had to fight off a whimper working its way up his throat.
"It's done."
Seth faced him again, seeming both relieved and on the edge of his seat. "How do you feel?"
Dean loosened the binding on his arm and rubbed some feeling back into it. "Like my arm is on fire, but it's good."
"Now it's a waiting game."
Nodding he sat back in his chair. "So just try and relax—"
A hot throb of pain tore throughout Dean's body and he doubled over and tumbled to the floor. The last thing he remembered before his vision went dark was Seth standing over him, voice fading out as he screamed his name, and then the sensation that his skin was stretching way too tightly over his muscles and bones, verging on ripping.
Some folklore says that wolfsbane keeps werewolves away or cures them, but others say that it does the exact opposite. Hope you enjoyed!