Let's face it, this isn't keeping it professional.

The Fourth Time

"So you've been stalking me," Dean said as soon as Damon sidled up to the bar and leant against it to his left, nary 48 hours after their phone call.

Damon grimaced. "I prefer to call it 'taking an interest.' Stalking makes me sound deranged."

"So you've been stalking me," Dean repeated.

Damon flashed him that patented thousand megawatt smile of his. His pale blue eyes, in contrast, glittered with cruel challenge. "Whatcha gonna do if I am, hunter?" He twisted his upper body fully around to Dean, propped his left elbow onto the bar and slung his right arm casually around Dean, gripping the counter on his other side. He was so close, intimately close, like a lover.

Dean held on to his glass with both hands to keep from lashing out. He could sense the lack of body heat, could smell him, feel him, just as he could feel the heat curling in his groin and spreading through his whole body. His heartbeat raced a mile a minute and he knew Damon would hear it. It just quickened Dean's pulse further. He kept holding on to the glass, but for the life of him, he couldn't have said whet he would have done if he snapped. He was as likely to run for his weapons as to grab Damon and pull him closer.

"Wanna play a guessing game?" Damon cooed in the tone of voice other people, not-monster people, reserved for sweet nothings. "What do you reckon, how many necks can I snap before you get me with the vervain?" Cool lips nipped at Dean's earlobe. "I say twenty, what say you? Winner gets a pony."

Dean turned his head to face him; their heads were so close their noses would brush if he would just tilt his head a little bit forward. He could pinpoint every lighter or darker fleck in Damon's eyes. He flashed him a charming boyish smile; Dean could play this game, too. "Does it matter? You'll be six feet under either way."

Damon gave a snort of laughter. "True. Let's play a different game, just you and me."

It took all of Dean's willpower to release the glass with his left hand and raise it with the right to his lips, all without the slightest tremble. "So what've we been doing the last seven years?"

"Dancing."

Dean stiffened as a hand slid ever so casually into the back pocket of his jeans. "Woah, woah, woah," he protested and raised his hands. He tried to take a step back, but Damon's hold on him didn't waver. Right, vampire strength. He reached around himself, grabbed Damon's wrist in an iron grip and wrenched it out of his back pocket, surprised that Damon was letting him even as he did so. "Sorry, dude, necrophilia does nothing for me."

Damon looked tragically hurt. "I never took you for a bigot, Dean Winchester!"

Dean snorted, as amused by the theatrics as he was annoyed by them. "Don't bother," he said firmly. "I've got standards. Low standards, yeah, but fucking monsters? I'm better than that."

"Cute." Cruel amusement danced in Damon's eyes. "What makes you think you get to choose?"

He gave a lazy shrug of his shoulders. Nothing made him think so, actually, but he sure as hell wouldn't roll over for him. "If you're going to…," Dean widened his eyes in mock innocence, "what does your breed call it again? Compel?" He leant forward to cross the tiny distance between them until their noses touched. "If you're gonna compel me, you'd have done so already." A tight smile flickered over Dean's face, it never reached his eyes. "This is about the thrill of the hunt. You won't cheat yourself out of the fun."

Damon barked a harsh laugh and abruptly backed away, bringing a full foot of open space between them. "You think you've got me all figured out," he mused.

Dean heaved a little annoyed sigh, more irritated with himself, with the damned disappointment he felt, than with Damon. "There's nothing to figure out, Damon!" he snapped. "You're a vampire. A monster. Monsters are all the same. End of the story."

The vampire made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. He shook his head in mock sadness. "I swear, you hunters are the dullest people in the world!" He snatched Dean's glass right out of his hand and emptied it in one go. "It's all 'revenge will be mine,' 'you're a monster,' boring!"

"Just say the word and I'll put you out of your suffering," Dean offered sweetly. "It won't hurt a bit."

"Just say the word and I'll tear out your throat," Damon replied just as sweetly. "No lie, I'll make it hurt like a bitch."

He didn't even deign this threat with an answer, just grunted in acknowledgement of it. Dean ordered a beer; he wasn't going to get smashed in Damon's company. Been there, done that, not that stupid anymore.

Only after the beer had arrived and he had taken a sip did he return his attention to Damon. He gazed at him out of the corner of his eye and smiled grimly. "Sooner or later, one of us will leave or the bar will empty."

"Ah, lemme guess!" Damon exclaimed cheerfully. "Then you're going to stake my undead ass and you'll enjoy it."

Dean shrugged lazily. "That's the general idea," he admitted easily. "Except if you keep bitching, I'll fill you up with vervain and burn you alive instead. Or whatever passes for alive with vampires."

Damon looked utterly delighted, Dean noted and his guts seemed to twist themselves into a Gordian knot in response. "See!" he crowed and pointed a finger right at Dean's head. "That's why I like you! You've got a good head on your shoulders!"

Dean grimaced. If being called sensible by Damon Salvatore wasn't a reason to worry about his state of mind… "Thanks," he said dryly.

Damon laughed appreciatively, but then he crossed the distance and leant forward with a disturbingly intense expression in his pale blue eyes and… did he just sniff Dean? The hunter shifted uneasily. "You wanna know what's going to happen now, Deanieboy?" he asked, his voice just a hair's breadth short of a purr. "I'm going to walk away and there's nothing you can do to stop me, that's what's going to happen. I'm not done playing with you yet."

"You're leaving?" Dean asked hopefully. It seemed too easy, too straightforward for this vampire. He ignored the little twang of something which was certainly not disappointment.

Damon pushed himself away from the bar. "If you're just going to whine about me being a monster… I can get that at home from Stefan."

Dean's forehead creased into a frown. It didn't make sense.

Damon leant forward again, lips brushing against Dean's ears. "How much do you wanna bet," he whispered, "that it'll nag at you?"

Damon flashed him a bright smile and sauntered away with a jaunty little swing to his steps.

.

.

True to his words, Dean wasn't able to stop thinking about it – about him – for weeks.

He just needed to figure out the rules of his game for security reasons, he told himself for the first week.

Then he told himself brooding about his evil plan was as good a distraction as any from your upcoming one-way trip to hell.

In the end, he decided he had been right all along. Damon Salvatore was an asshole. There probably hadn't been any plan other than making Dean wonder if there was one.

to be continued...