Author's Note: See "Observations" for Part Three.

The Scent

"It really was a meeting
The bottle took a beating
The ladies of the manor
Watched me climb into my car"

Dean turned up the radio and tapped his hands on the wheel.

"And I was going down the track
about a hundred and five
They had the stopwatch rolling..."

His phone rang, vibrating against his ass and he cursed, struggling to maintain control over the car while he lifted hips and dug into his back pocket for the cell. Pulling it out, he flipped it open to make sure he didn't miss the call and dropped it in his lap, turning Black Sabbath down before he picked it up again.

"Hello?"

"Dean Winchester, where the hell are you?"

Shit, it was Ellen. He hadn't expected her to figure out that he'd lied about where he was going for another few days, at least. Fucking Ash probably spilled it... again. "Um," he eyes caught a passing sign, "Coming up on Bolder, Colorado. I'm heading for Rachael, Nevada, should be there in a day or..."

"Turn around, come home."

"Come on, it's a routine haunting, I'll be back in less than a week."

"Sam's here."

He forgot how to breathe. "Sam?"

"Yeah, he showed up a few hours ago. He doesn't look good."

Dean gripped the wheel and turned the car sharply, making the u-turn and then hit the gas, picking up speed. "What's he said?"

"Not much. All we've gotten out of him is that his girlfriend's dead, something about a demon and then he asks for you."

A cold chill ran through Dean. "A demon, what kind of demon? Put Sam on the phone."

"Can't, we just got him to sleep not ten minutes ago. Jo had to get him to take something and he won't be waking up for eight hours at least. Just get here as fast as you can," she revised that statement, "without getting yourself killed."

Hanging up the phone, Dean concentrated on the road. Sam had left for college two years ago and they hadn't seen each other since. It wasn't that they were fighting, per say, they were just having an extended disagreement. The only thing Dean was good for was hunting and even if he'd known for years that Sam wouldn't be joining him, he'd hoped. Sam wanted a normal life, though, one that didn't involve any kind of fighting, or hunting, he'd wanted to go to school and study and get a job. Dean hadn't tried to stop him, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

So, when Sam had left, Dean had made damn sure he wasn't anywhere around, going on a hunting trip that kept him gone for two weeks. He'd stayed around the Roadhouse for Sammy until then, because Sammy needed a home and Sammy needed Dean to be there for him, but this wasn't Sammy anymore, this was Sam and Sam was going to go off to college and leaving him.

The bitter anger had worn off soon enough and after a few months, he'd gone to the college, just to check on Sam, to make sure he was doing okay. Sam was doing better than okay; he was sitting around a table on campus, talking to friends, laughing. He was having a life, one that Dean didn't fit into.

Not that things were all bad. After he'd calmed down, he'd gone back to see Ellen and let her yell at him for disappearing like that and he'd better never do that again or she would rip him a new one and don't even think she couldn't do it. Of course, she couldn't keep him there and she knew better than to try, but he was to call in at least once a week and he was to tell her exactly where he was going. Dean had rolled his eyes, but he was secretly glad that she hadn't stopped caring now that Sam was gone.

Rules that applied to him had also applied to Sam, although altered a little for his specific situation - call in once a week, let her know about his grades and girlfriends - and Ellen had passed everything on to Dean, every bit of information. Sam was fitting in, he had a girlfriend, he was making straight A's, he was taking the LSATS, Sam scored a 174, and yes, that was good. Everything that Sam did, Dean knew about and that was enough for him.

Only now there was something wrong, something to do with a demon, and Sam was back at the Roadhouse, waiting for Dean.

Deciding that he'd have time to reminisce later, Dean pressed harder on the gas and let the needle climb.

It was seven in the morning when Dean finally pulled into the Roadhouse. Ellen was probably awake, preparing the bar for patrons, because seven wasn't all that early for Hunters, but Dean wasn't there to see Ellen. He pulled his car back to the house and got out quietly, sneaking around the side. The window was unlocked, as usual, and he climbed in, careful not to disturb the line of salt that barred entry to demonic creatures.

Sam was asleep on his bed, his nostrils flaring and his cheek twitching in a nightmare. Those had stopped years ago and for a moment, Dean was at a loss for what to do. Thankfully, instinct kicked in. Climbing onto the single bed, he pulled Sam's head into his lap rested his back against the wall. For a moment, Sam tensed, but then his fingers curled around Dean's jacket, like they'd done so many times before and Dean found himself looking down at green eyes, misted over with sleep.

"Hey, little brother."

"Jess is dead."

"I know."

"The demon killed her." Dean's chest clenched tightly.

"Go back to sleep, Sammy, we'll talk about it later."

"It's Sam." Except that Sam was already asleep and Dean went about doing what came natural in these rare moments - he ran his hands through Sam's hair, soothing back the nightmares and letting his brother get some rest, despite the fact his own mind was whirling.

Not a demon, the demon.

It had been years since Dean had woken up with this particular crick his neck, the one that said he'd slept upright and hadn't moved the entire night. He opened his eyes and his old room came into focus, only from the wrong angle, because he wasn't on his bed. It wasn't unfamiliar, but it was unsettling, because he couldn't remember what might have prompted him to do that again.

The last time was when Sammy had a nightmare. It must have been a pretty bad one, since Sammy had been edgy and anxious about the idea of Dean and him sleeping in the same bed together ever since they had "the talk." Dean reached up to run his hand over his face and wipe the sleep out of his eyes, when he suddenly remembered.

He looked down and saw Sam still asleep on his lap, his mouth slack and his hand lying limply on Dean's thigh. Shaking his head, he reached down and shook Sam's shoulders, "Hey, dude, come on, wake up."

Sam shifted and opened his eyes, confusion written as clearly on his face as it must have Dean's. "Wha..." The confusion was replaced with something else and then washed away by a blank expression that reminded Dean eerily of Dad's, back when Dad had been around to make expressions.

"You gonna move, because I kind of have to pee?"

Quickly, Sam scrambled to sit up on the bed and put his elbows on his knees, while Dean stood and stretched, popping his bones back into place. He stepped into the hall, half worried about bumping into someone and having to explain why he hadn't said 'hi' before breaking in, but it was probably well after noon and Jo and Ash would be in the bar, so they had the house to themselves for now.

When he got back, Sam was pacing the room, his face set in that same angry mask he'd had the first time Dean had said he was going hunting, only it was more intense, more determined. He didn't even wait for Dean to say anything, just rounded on him, his shoulders squared. "We're hunting this thing down."

"I'm with you."

"We are going to kill it slow."

"Don't forget painful."

Sam didn't know it, but Dean had been there and done this. This thing had killed their mother and while Sam had no memories of her, Dean did. Whether it had killed Dad was up for debate, but it had been the cause of everything their dad had been doing, so in a way, it was responsible for him, as well and through that, responsible for everything that had happened to them on the road - for Dean selling himself, for Sammy getting hurt by those vampires. Now, Sam's girlfriend, Jess was dead and with it, that normal life that Dean had wanted so badly for his brother. The demon was going to pay.

A smile twitched on Sam's face, a brief flash of dimples. "Yeah, painful."

"Let's go to the kitchen and I'll show you what I've got."

Sam cooked them eggs, because he said he remembered Dean's cooking well enough and he was not going there. Dean had rolled his eyes and made a few snide remarks, but let him, because even though he'd never seen Sam touch a stove, whatever he managed had to be better than what Dean would have ended up burning.

They talked while they ate, or they talked while they pushed food around their plates. These are the confirmed sightings, these are unconfirmed, these are suspect, because there are no witnesses, these are the links to each one so far and after two hours they finally got to the part Dean had been dreading telling Sam. Sam held the paper that Dean had passed him and scanned it.

"This is from a collections agency, for a defaulted credit card."

"Look at the name." Dean shoved eggs in his mouth, because he didn't want to talk and, damn, even cold they tasted good. That cinched it, from now on, Sam was doing the cooking.

"Michael Folden." A pause, then Sam's brow started to knit and his mouth shaped into an 'oh.' "Your fake ID was for Michael Folden, Jr."

"Keep reading."

"Okay, fine, there's our hotel, diner, bar, bar, bar, diner, Dairy Queen, bar, bar, diner, bar... you know, it never occurred to me how many time we ate at the bar?"

"Keep going."

"bar, bar, Sonic, ammo, Conoco... wait."

Dean winked sarcastically, "Bingo."

"But, Dean, this charge was made like three months after he disappeared."

"I know." Yeah, Dean knew, because after finding it, he'd sat up all night and run through every memory of everything that had happened to him in those three months - every cock he had sucked, every hand job he had given, every time he had been called pretty, and every pained look he'd had to see on Sam's face because they were cold or hungry and didn't have enough money to take care of either.

"Wha... It's gotta be stolen, then, right? Someone stole Dad's credit cards and used... why are you shaking your head?"

"Because I already checked that out, it was Dad."

"How do you know?"

"After he defaulted on payments, the credit card agency did checks into all recent purchases. That one, they managed to get footage of. I saw his face, blurry and the picture was crap, but it was him."

Sam stared at the report and Dean knew exactly how he felt - numb, because pissed wasn't going to cover it and hurt didn't even begin to scratch the surface.

"Okay, so Dad was alive three months after his disappeared."

"Maybe, maybe not and don't give me that look. In this line of work you know things aren't always what they seem. He might have been alive, or it might have been something wearing him. Either way, the trial dries up after that."

Sam continued to hold the report in a clenched hand. Another set of wrinkles dented the page, joining the ones Dean had made when he'd first held it.

"So, he was in... Wisconsin?"

"Yeah, near Milwaukee."

"We were..."

"In Tennessee." Dean knew the name of the town, too. He knew the name of the town, the bar they'd stopped at and exactly what they'd been doing when Dad had used his credit card to buy gas and a Coke.

Swallow, pretty boy.

He grabbed up the dishes and dumped the mostly uneaten food in the trash before setting them in the sink. "I was headed for Rachael, Nevada on a routine ghost hunt. I've got to finish that before we head after the demon."

"Can't you pass it to someone else?"

Dean shook his head, "No, this is something I've got to do. I finish it and then we go hunting for the bigger fish. You game?"

Sammy ran his tongue along the inside of cheek and set down the paper suddenly, like it had burned him. "Yeah, okay, we do the ghost thing and then we go after it."

Of course, before they could do anything, Dean had to get yelled at by Ellen, for sneaking out and then sneaking back in and, yes, she'd heard his car pull up, so she'd known he was there, but that didn't make it acceptable. Eventually, she calmed down… eventually, being two hours and a group of scared hunters that had sat as far the fuck away as possible from the bar as Dean explained what was going on.

The demon killed Jess, as in the same one that killed their mom and Sam wanted revenge. She made an under the breath comment that sounded too close to 'like father, like son' for his comfort, but she didn't tell him not to go. She told him to be careful and not to forget to call or she would send someone looking for him and he knew from experience that someone would probably be Caleb or Jeffrey or Mack or one of the other Hunters that had helped train Dean, so that they'd be able to kick his ass for worrying Ellen. No one liked it when Ellen worried, Dean had learned that in a hurry.

Then, because getting yelled at by Ellen wasn't bad enough, he had to put up with being glared at by Jo. He and Jo had dated for only a few months before he broke it off. Thing was, Jo liked him and she liked sex and he didn't really like sex all that much, even when he was in control, which wasn't often with Jo, and he'd realized that the way he liked her was more like a kid sister than a girlfriend, which made him feel weird and dirty after the sex. That had also been his first lesson in breaking up - telling the truth wasn't always the best policy. Not that she still held it against him, they'd had years to hash that out, but she did like to see him stew in his own mess every now and then… and if she could add to that mess, then she was even happier.

Afterwards, they were on the road and Dean had to admit, it felt kind of good to have Sam there with him. He liked to think of himself as a loner, but with Sam it was different, because Sam was home. Oh, the Roadhouse was nice, it was a place to crash with nice people that cared about him and worried about him, but calling it home... well, home just wasn't a word that Dean really had a definition for.

The first time they stopped for food, Sam refused to let Dean stop at a bar, insisting that they get Sonic and Dean rolled his eyes, but in truth, he felt sick to his stomach. Just after sundown, Sam announced that he was tired of listening to Dean's crap music, so he wanted to drive and Dean was still achy and tired from the night before, so he agreed. The next morning they stopped at a Dairy Queen and Dean offered to buy Sam a dipped cone, just to tease him for acting like a kid about the whole bar thing.

They'd been driving in relative silence for hours before Sam finally spoke up. Dean could have kicked himself, because yeah, he was tired of the silence, but you really had to be careful what you wished for. "So, what's this ghost hunt about?"

"What do you mean, Sam? It's a ghost, I'm a Hunter. I'm going to waste its ass and feel good about it in the morning."

"You said it was something you had to do. That makes it sound like it's personal."

"Maybe it is."

Sam put his feet on the dash and Dean swatted at them until Sam took them down. "So, why is it personal, Dean?"

For five minutes, he didn't say anything and five minute could be a long time when you're driving in absolute silence, because your asshole brother turned off the radio so you could talk. Eventually, Dean found the words.

"There's this bar in Rachael, has a fence along back of it hiding this gravel road that no one uses except the old hermit that lives at the end. Apparently, there have been some boy's going missing and turning up dead a few miles out of town."

"And?"

"And same thing happened maybe ten years ago over a two year stretch and twelve bodies. Some sicko was kidnapping boys ranging from thirteen to eighteen, raping them, strangling them, and then dumping them a few miles away from the bar."

"How do you know the bar has anything to do with it. He could be picking them up somewhere else, or..." Dean didn't say anything and comprehension dawned on Sam's face. "Dean..."

Dean gave him a side long glance, "Dude, rules, no chick-flick moments."

"Unless it's the middle of the night and no one's watching?"

"Damn straight."

A reluctant smile spread on Sam's face as he nodded, dropping it, he even turned the radio back on. Dean concentrated on the road and tried not to think about how doing this job alone hadn't felt right, how every mile of the road had made him tenser and tighter and how, strangely, just having Sam in the next seat over, made everything okay.

Dean was sleep when they finally rolled into town. Sam got a room at a motel as far away from the bar as he could possibly manage. Dean wanted to be thankful for that, but in truth, he couldn't be, because it put him smack dab between the bar and the dumping ground and that just gave him the creepy crawlies. If Sam hadn't distracted that fucker all those years back, he would have passed this very motel on his way to be murdered.

Sleep wasn't forthcoming and it was another two hours till sundown, so Dean went over the plan again, like it mattered. "We go to the grave, we dig up the body, we salt it, we burn it. If he shows up, you shoot him."

"Isn't he... oh, right, rock salt "

Dean ruffled Sam's hair, "That's right, genius. Sometimes I wonder how you managed to get such good grades."

"Shut up, Deano, I've been out of the game for awhile."

"Well, let's hope you're a fast learner, because you're about to get a crash course."

Spirits were tricky things. Sam hadn't really put a lot of thought into what fighting this particular one would be like, but Dean had. He didn't even flinch when the thing started talking to him, whispering things on the air that Sam had long forgotten. Suddenly he was back inside the Impala, in the back seat, curled up with his hands over his ears.

"Do you like having my cock up your ass, whore? Do you like the way it feels? Beg me. Beg me to stop."

Sam almost lost his grip on the gun. If Dean hadn't yelled, "Sammy!" at that moment, he might have, but he managed to get it up and fire. The ghost vaporized, but Sam knew it was only temporary, so he watched and waited for it to return while Dean frantically poured oil over the corpse.

It materialized right in front of him. Sam didn't have time to even acknowledge it before he was thrown back against a tree, his head knocking against the trunk so hard he saw stars. It took him three tries to get up on his hands and knees and he was afraid to look when he did, afraid that the thing had gotten Dean, but instead, he saw a burning fire in the whole and Dean, standing over it, his hands in his pockets, his face set in stone.

"You okay over there?"

Dean looked back and gave Sam a wink, "Never better, little brother."

Sam almost believed it.

Dean made some calls and said the next stop was Idaho. He said there was some suspicious activity and Dean wanted to check it out to find out if it was related to the demon. Sam couldn't argue, because he didn't have any better ideas. Driving in the car with Dean was just like old times and Sam was surprised to learn that didn't bother him as much as he would have thought.

Some things did bother him, though. The first time Dean insisted that they stop at a bar, because they 'needed cash,' Sam had stared, open mouth until Dean finally noticed and quelled his fear. "Ah, Sammy, come on, pull your freaky little mind out of the gutter. I'm twenty-six, I only hustle pool now."

And he did. An hour later they were off with a hundred and fifty in cash and he hadn't let Dean out of his sights once, so he knew it was legit. Or, well, as legit as hustling got, anyway. Watching Dean do it, Sam started to wonder if perhaps it really had been his own mind that was in the gutter all along. Then Dean started flirting with one of the waitresses, who casually slipped him her number and Sam knew for a fact that it wasn't his mind that was in question.

It boggled him, because he knew Dean wasn't going to call that girl. He never called them. He flirted and he collected phone numbers like they were trophies, but he was rarely ever serious about it, except maybe once a year and Sam always got the impression that was more to prove a point than anything else. Though, what that point was, Sam could never understand.

They'd just crossed the state line, when Sam's arm started to itch. He'd been scratching at it idly for a perhaps a day or so, a nervous habit of his that he'd never been able to break, when it suddenly occurred to him that it actually itched this time. It had never itched before, not even when it was healing and before he'd realized what he was doing, he'd said, "My arm itches," like Dean was supposed to know what that meant, like he knew what that meant.

Dean looked over and his gaze settled on Sam's arm. "Itches?"

"Yeah."

After a second, Dean pulled the car over and made Sam push up the sleeve of his jacket and his shirt, and his undershirt and he cursed at Sam for wearing so many fucking layers when it was 80 plus degrees out. Dean checked the scars, running his hands over them when his eyes couldn't find anything wrong. No one but Jess had seen them since Bobby's doctor friend had covered them up, not even Dean, and it felt strange.

They were large, covering the width of his arm. Although they'd faded some over the years, they still looked nasty enough. They were easy to mistake as some kind of animal bite, unless you knew what animal bites looked like. Thankfully, Jess hadn't. He bit back a shudder as Dean's fingers ran over them, first one, then the other, then the next, until it touched the last one, just under the crook of his elbow and Sam's head was swimming.

"Not nearly so innocent."

"Dirty little boy, we saw what you did."

"We smelled it."

Sam couldn't manage to jerk his arm away, couldn't make himself move. Parts of him were stirring that had no business stirring when it was his brother that was touching him and that was what finally spurred him into action. "You at least gonna buy me dinner first?"

Dean stopped and looked up with that dear-caught-in-the-headlights kind of look that was so rare. "What?"

Sam gave Dean a wink and flashed him his dimples, just for effect. Dean looked kind of cute when he was vulnerable and that wasn't a word that often described his brother. "Well, if you're going to feel me up, I think I should at least get a date out of it."

Before he could dodge, he felt a fist slam into his shoulder and Sam laughed, sitting back in his seat as they pulled back onto the road. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself, pleased enough to forget his arm. It wasn't often that he got one up on hard-ass, non-emotional Dean.

He could have fed off the high for weeks, or at least, that was what he had thought until he woke up in the middle of the night, sweating bullets from another nightmare. His arm wasn't just itching anymore, it was on fire. He suppressed a groan and stumbled into the bathroom, flicking on the light and looking down at his arm. It was angry red where he'd been scratching it in his sleep, but under that what he saw made him feel cold and shaky.

The first bite, the one over his wrist, was puffy and raw in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with him and the points of entry, all twenty of them, were oozing with pinpoints of dark blood. Sam didn't know much about vampire bites, there hadn't been a whole lot of people who were bitten and got away and fewer still who were willing to talk about it, but he didn't have to do a lot of research to know this was bad. This was real fucking bad.

Dean stared at the scars. "Shit."

"That was pretty much my reaction. What do you think it means?"

Dean touched one of the puncture marks, wiping away the drop of blood that had welled up and Sam fought the urge to moan and, barring that, fought the urge to jump away and put as much distance between him and his brother as the motel room would allow. That was unexpected. The scars had always been sensitive, but he'd assumed that was more to do with the memories attached to them - getting bitten was a pretty intimate experience, you felt it in every part of your body and it didn't feel entirely bad, either. Now, though, it was like Dean was sending electric shocks of pleasure straight to Sam's groin and all he'd done was brush against it.

"Sammy, are you okay?"

On instinct, he managed, "It's Sam," but it came out cracked and kind of breathy. "I feel hot."

Dean touched his arm again, but Sam's body felt ice cold and he shivered at the contact, leaning towards it just slightly. He watched him carefully for several seconds, trying to decide what he should do. Sam's cheeks were flushed, his eyes were glassy, and he was breathing heavy, like he was running a fever, but he felt like a corpse. Reaching for his phone, he dialed the first number that came to mind.

Sam snapped out of whatever haze he'd been in. "What are you doing?"

"Making some calls. Go wash that off and put some antibiotics on it or something, the last thing we need is for it to get infected on top of everything else." Everything else being a ten year old vampire bite wound that had mysteriously re-opened.

He tried Bobby first, since he always had an ear to the ground, but he'd said he didn't know anything, so Dean went to Caleb, who knew less than that, because all he'd had to say was he thought vampires were extinct. Pastor Jim turned out to be nothing short of useless either, although he did offer to check the wound for curses. Finally, he gave up and called Ellen, who told him to call Gordon and why the hell hadn't he thought of that in the first place? Sure, the man wasn't the chatty sort, but vampires were his specialty.

"Gordon, I've got a problem of the undead sort and I could use a little advice."

"Who's this again?"

Trust Gordon with a lot of things, but voice recognition just wasn't one of them. "Dean Winchester."

"Right, Winchester, what do you need?"

He considered his answer carefully, because Gordon had a thing for killing vampires and anything associated with them and he didn't want Sam on Gordon's radar. "Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that someone had a vampire bite that's, oh, maybe ten years old and it suddenly started acting... funny."

"Is it bleeding?"

Sammy was lying on the bed. He'd put a thin bandage around his arm but Dean could see the dark stains of blood underneath. "Oh, yeah."

"Then you don't have the time it'll take me to explain everything. Get in your car and start driving."

"What..."

"Now. Where are you?"

"Nevada-Idaho state line, near Filer, I think." He pulled Sam to his feet and was relieved when his brother pulled away and gave him a look that said he could do it himself. Well, that was good, because Sam wasn't little anymore and Dean sure as hell couldn't drag his ass to the car one handed. "Come on, Sammy, we've got to drive."

"Dean, who's been bitten? Is it Sam?"

"No, some guy we're trying to help." He tossed his duffle bag in the back and opened the trunk, pulling out his gun and shoving it in the waist band of his jeans before pulling out the machete and tossing it on the seat besides him as he got in. "Okay, we're driving."

He put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the seat next to him while he tried to decide which way to go. Back to Ellen's seemed like a good idea right now, so he turned right onto 84. "Talk to me, Gordon, what am I doing?"

"That's not a scar, that's a mark. Whoever bit your friend wanted to keep him. They've sensed he's close and they're using the mark to track him."

Sam let out a moan and his head fell back on the seat, his eyes rolling into his head. Dean reached over to feel his head again, but Sammy leaned into his touch, trying to press his lips to Dean's arm, panting against his skin.

"Sammy! Sammy, talk to me!" Sam's lips found Dean's arm and pressed against it, not kissing, but close enough that Dean jerked back.

"What's happening?"

"I think it's getting worse."

"Go the other direction." The urgency in Gordon's voice was not a good sign, it was a fucking bad one.

"What?"

"It acts like radar, Dean. The closer you get, the more their call is affecting him."

Dean nodded, even though he knew Gordon couldn't see him and jerked the wheel, spinning the car in the road to face the other way. Oregon was lovely this time of year, anyway. Except that when he turned the car, he found himself driving towards someone who was standing in the middle of the road and instinct kicked in before he could even think about it. He slammed on the brakes and everything in the car flew forward, including himself.

He had just enough time to reflect that the person in front of his car was a little too pale and stopping probably hadn't been the best idea, before his head connected with the steering wheel and then he wasn't thinking much of anything, because he was unconscious.

Dean's first thoughts were of Sam and before he'd even opened his eyes, he was slurring his brother's name, "Sammy?" He didn't know why he was worried about Sam, or what had happened, but he knew something... and then he remembered.

With a groan, he pushed himself up and pressed a hand to the throbbing pain in his forehead. "Sammy?"

From somewhere off to the left, he heard, "How many times do I have to tell you, it's Sam."

Dean just managed not to sigh relief and he forced his eyes open, turning his head in the direction of the voice, even though he couldn't see through the dark. Sam's voice sounded about the same as he felt, sluggish and not just a little pained. "Are you still feeling weird... or, well, weirder than usual."

Sam gave a half laugh that turned into a grimace that Dean could see now, because his eyes were adjusting. "Oh, god, don't make me laugh."

"Are you?"

"Yeah, I'm better."

They sat silently for a while and Dean tried to think of something to say, while his eyes adjusted, but nothing was forth coming. Finally, he got fed up with looking for words and decided to look for a way out. They were locked in a dark room in separate cages that were a good five feet apart. If they both really reached, they might have been able to touch fingers if they were lucky, so working together wasn't an option.

While he searched around the floor, hoping to find something that would work as a lock pick, or a weapon, Sam tried to kick his door open. "So, Dean, you want to tell me what," kick, "Gordon said."

"He said if you don't stop making that fucking racket, they'll come down and check on us."

Kick. "No, they won't come down until they're good and ready."

Dean didn't need to ask how Sam knew, "Apparently, that's a mark. You must have made one hell of an impression on these bloodsuckers."

"Mark?" And now Sam had that haunted quality to his voice that said he was remembering something he didn't want to, but Dean ignored it, because Sam would have denied it. Just like Dean had done on so many occasions when it had been him spacing out.

"Yeah, it's the difference between 'you're a tasty snack' and 'let's hang out for a while.'" Sam stopped kicking door and Dean saw him looking down at his covered arm, "Is it acting up?"

"No."

Nothing inside the cage, nothing within reach outside the cage. Dean laid down on the floor and braced his hands on the bar, kicked the door, but, like Sam's, it just made a lot of noise. Finally giving up, he sat back up and leaned against the bars, looked at Sam in concern, "Hey, Sam." His brother looked at him, his face unreadable, "The thing that bit you is dead. That guy, Joe beheaded him and I watched him do it."

Sam tried for a smile and even in the dim light, Dean could tell it was weak. "I know he is, but he wasn't the only one, Dean."

They'd never talked about what happened with Sam, because every time someone had, Sam had gone all glassy-eyed, but Dean was starting to think maybe that was a mistake. Yeah, right, because he'd been Mr. Share-and-Care with his own dark past.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Remember when we had, you know, the talk."

"Dean, I think we've got enough to worry about without bringing up embarrassing moments in my childhood."

"Hey, you're not the only one that was embarrassed." Because he'd had to own up to fucking Sam's childhood up beyond all repair while he tried to explain that paying for sex wasn't normal, that sex was supposed to be between two people who trusted and cared about each other, and it was supposed to be special and in a bed, not bent over a car or pressed against the side of a building and it wasn't supposed to hurt and could Sam please stop asking all these questions?

Sam laughed and then groaned again, but with less force. "Okay, fine, so what about it?"

"You asked me about the first time and..."

"Dean..."

"Shut up, Sammy, because I'm going to ask you some stuff after this and I expect answers. So, you asked me and I said it didn't matter, right? The drive home, first stop where they wouldn't let me in. Some guy offered to pay me to blow him and I did it." Sam didn't say anything to that and Dean was glad, because he didn't know how he would have handled whatever it was Sam was thinking. "So, now you… did they... you know?"

Sam didn't respond to that right away either and it was a good thing they were in separate cages, because Dean was feeling the need to hit something. "No, but it was... the biting thing was pretty intense, like you want it to stop and then when it does you can't decide if that's good or not."

"How many of them bit you?"

"Just the two. The leader's name was Randall, he was the first. After that they made me stay downstairs and the one you killed, Mikey, he kept sucking at it and that's no walk in the park, either. I thought they'd put me back in the cages when they went to bed, but... and he kept waking up and since the bite had healed over, he bit me again and then again and... by the time you got there I think I was in shock, I don't even remember anything until I woke up in the truck with Bobby taking us to Pastor Jim."

Footsteps sounded above them and they looked up, tracking them until they stopped nowhere near the door.

"Hey, Dean."

"Yeah?"

"While we're talking about embarrassing subjects that are better left alone, how about you tell me about your sex life?"

"What about my sex life?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, perhaps I should have said your lack of sex life."

Dean really wished he had something to throw. "How about you shut your cake hole?"

Before Sam could react, the door opened and light flooded the room. It wasn't much light, but Dean still had to squint for a minute to get his bearings. The room was windowless, but he'd already known that, there were two other cages against the wall opposite theirs, but no one was in them, and a set of stairs led up to the door, where a female vampire was looking lazily down at them, her thumbs hooked on her jean skirt. So, they were in a basement. That was real fucking original.

He smiled at the woman, that half cocked, charming smile he could always manage, no matter how ashamed he was, or how tense the situation. "You look lonely up there, sweetheart."

She wondered down the steps slowly, "Oh, the little hunter wants to play."

"Why don't you let me out of here and we'll see how I play."

She crouched down in front of his cage, her fingers wrapping around the bars and before Dean could stop himself, he's noted that those were some long fingernails and she was wearing white underwear. "Pretty little hunter, you killed my sister."

"Looks like the bitch gene runs in the family, then."

"I'll make you regret that." Only she wasn't going for the lock to his cage, she was just leering at him and quite frankly, he would have preferred her to go all teeth on him about now, because that he could handle, but he hated the fucking mind games. Then she moved, not to let him out, though, she moved to Sam's cage and Dean saw Sam backing up as far away as he could, grinding his back against the bar. "You... Randall says you're practically family."

"Like hell I am."

"Cissy." A voice boomed from the tops of the steps, reprimanding and amused at the same time. "It isn't nice to play with your food."

"But, Randall..." The smile on her face said that wasn't what she thought, but then Dean knew that wasn't what Randall thought, either, because vampires were sick sons of bitches and if there was anything they loved more than feeding off people, it was playing with the victim.

He came down the steps, his heavy boots thunking against the old wood and stood in front of Sam's cage. Dean gripped the bars, helpless to do anything but watch as the leader sized up his brother. Sam's hand moved over the covered marks on his arm suddenly and he hissed.

"Leave him the fuck alone!" Dean rattled the cage in his effort to tear the bars out. Cissy spared him a glance, but Randall didn't even acknowledge him.

"Sammy, we missed you."

"Too bad."

Randall laughed and Dean had to admit that was about the creepiest thing he'd ever heard. "As mouthy as ever, I see. I wonder, have you used that mouth to tell your brother how we found you?"

"Shut up." Sam's voice was deadpan, no emotion and Dean knew that was bad. Sam had never been good at hiding what he felt, it was why he preferred to run when people asked him questions he couldn't answer, or didn't want to.

"Sammy..."

But they were still ignoring him and the girl was rubbing herself against the bars in a way that reminded Dean of all those strip clubs Caleb had dragged him into that he'd never wanted to go to in the first place. She moaned and licked her lips at Sam. "So dirty."

"Stop it."

Randall just grinned. "Stop what, Sammy, you can't hide the truth forever." Now the man's attention turned to Dean, but Dean wasn't scared, he was fucking pissed. "Do you know what innocence tastes like? It's sweet, like candy with too much sugar and you know how sugar is bad for your teeth."

Sam was panting a little and his eyes were glassy, but he had enough presence of mind to say, "Please?"

Cissy put a finger to her lips, "Sh, now, Sammy, the grown ups are talking."

"Sammy didn't taste all that sweet, Dean, and do you know why?" Dean pulled his eyes away from Sam to look at Randall, because watching his brother like that was making it difficult for him to breathe. "Because he wasn't all that innocent. He was touching himself, Dean, like the dirty boy that he was."

Dean scoffed, "Oh, give me a break, masturbating is hardly a sin or we'd all be going to hell."

Randall moved to the back of the cage and reached through the bars, running his fingers through Sam's hair in mock affection. "Some sooner than others, but no, masturbating isn't a sin, but thinking about your brother while doing it, is."

And didn't that just shut Dean the hell up.

"He was listening to you getting fucked and he was touching himself to the sound of it, because he wanted to be in that man's place, Dean. He wanted to be the one doing those dirty things to you. Filthy little boy."

Dean tore his eyes away from Randall and looked at his brother, whose eyes were closed and his face read shame and there were tears going down his cheeks and was it so entirely fucked up that Dean wasn't so much disgusting by the revelation as surprised? It made sense, didn't it? Knowing that made a lot of things make a whole hell of a lot more sense - like when Dean had been turning a trick and the way Sammy acted was closer to jealous than angry; like when they were sleeping in the car and Sammy kept trying to find excuses for them to sleep together; like when he'd caught Dean and Jo together and he'd been so mad; like why Sammy had stopped wanting to sleep with Dean when he'd found out that sex was about more than money.

Randall took his hand away from Sam and finally went to Dean's cage, looking down at him with contempt. "You killed one of my children and I had thought to extract my revenge by killing something close to you, but now I think I'll keep your brother and just kill you instead."

"Then get it over with." Just open the fucking door and give him half a chance, because that was all he was going to need, he'd rip the monster's head off with his bare hands.

The smile was back and Randall motioned for Cissy to follow him to the stairs. "Not yet, some of the pack is out looking for food and they should be here for this. Enjoy your time together."

He shut the door behind him, taking the light and Dean sat down, trying to form a coherent thought in his head that wasn't 'fuck,' because that was as far as he got when he tried to fathom what he'd just heard, but since he couldn't get past that word, since that was the only thing that ran through his mind, over and over, he decided to voice it, because what else could he do?

"Fuck."

Sam didn't respond.

They hadn't been there very long, but that was what the logical part of Dean's brain said, the rest was scrambling to get a grip on how hard it was to just sit in the dark and not talk for what felt like fucking days.

"Sam."

Silence.

"Sam, you've got to talk to me or I'm going to go insane over here."

Silence.

"Sammy..."

"What do you want me to say? That he was right? That I was jacking off in the woods thinking about having sex with you? That I've had dreams about it ever since? That every time you touch me it makes me fucking hard? What am I supposed say, Dean? You tell me, because I think he pretty much covered it."

"I was thinking more along the lines of you telling me stories about Stanford, but if you want to go all Oprah on me, then by all means."

Softly, Sam chuckled, but there wasn't any humor in it. "That's right, Dean, pretend you don't know, because you're so good at that."

Okay, now that was uncalled for. True, but entirely uncalled for. "There are things that are better left alone, Sam. You know that just as well as I do."

"Maybe, but at least I don't pretend to be okay."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"When we moved in with Ellen, you kept trying to act like you were okay, but you weren't and it was fucking obvious to everyone but you and if they so much as tried to call you on it, you made off like that was just how you were and it had nothing to do with the fact that you'd whored yourself out on roadsides for a year and a half. But you're not okay and you haven't been since Dad disappeared. All those stupid flings with girls that didn't mean anything to you and for what, Dean, because you never fooled anyone except yourself. At least I had the balls to admit I wasn't okay, at least I didn't try to cover up that there was something wrong, and at least I didn't throw people's concern back on their face with sarcastic bullshit."

"No, you just hid behind me so I could do all your dirty work for you. I had to be tough enough for both of us."

"No, you didn't, Dean, you were fifteen." And that was what all this was about, wasn't it?

"I fucked up, Sam, I fucked up bad. I made wrong decision after wrong decision and no amount of apologizing is going to give you back what you should have had, but I was doing what I thought was right. I was trying to take care of our family."

"Ellen and Jo and Ash, that's our family now, has been for eight years, but you still hold them at arm's length."

"God damnit, Sammy!" What was this, pick-on-Dean's-emotional-deficiencies day? And how the hell had Sam turned this around on him? Dean wasn't the one having sexual thoughts about his own brother. "You want to do this? Fine. You left. You graduated high school and you moved to fucking California to get the hell away from me and everyone else. I may hold people at arm's length, but at least I don't run away from them."

"I went to college for you!" Dean's mouth was already half open to reply, but his voice stuck in his throat. "I watched you work so fucking hard for almost nothing, Dean, and I was good at school like you never were and I thought that was something I could do to take care of you like you'd taken care of me and if you wanted to hunt, you could do that too, but at least you wouldn't have to sell yourself in bars to fund the effort. I mean, not to say I didn't want to go, because damnit, I did, but I was doing it as much for you as for myself. I fucking love you, Dean, in every way I shouldn't."

Dean couldn't think of anything to say to that. It didn't feel... real. "What... what about Jess?"

"I loved Jess, too." Sam's voice cracked, but then he swallowed thickly and it was under control again. "You didn't even come to see me at Stanford, you left before you could see me off and I knew what I was feeling was wrong. Even if it wasn't, you were so scarred I didn't imagine for a minute that you could ever return my feelings and Jess was... god, she was wonderful, Dean, you would have really liked her. She was pretty and she was nice and she supported me in everything, even when I wouldn't tell her about my past, or my family, she just let it be with a smile and a kiss. I miss her so much. I'm lost without her, because now I really am alone."

Finally, finally, Dean found his voice. "You're not alone."

"Right, I have you, Mr. Tough Guy, and what are you going to do to make it better?"

There was movement upstairs again and they both tensed up. This was it and Dean knew that while he'd go down fighting, he'd go down, because as good as he was, he wasn't good enough to take on an entire den of vampires. Then the movements got louder and became more like crashes and thuds and those were the sounds of fighting!

Ten minutes later the door to the cellar was kicked open and Dean laughed before he could help himself, gut wrenching laughter, because it was Gordon coming down the stairs, followed by Caleb and Jeffrey and Kay. Caleb and Gordon split up the task of setting them free and Dean was glad Gordon took his cage, because if it had been Caleb that opened that door, Dean would have been tempted to hug him and what would that have done to his reputation?

"Not to say I'm not grateful, but how the hell?"

Kay held her phone up to her ear, "Ellen! Yeah, we've got the boys. Nah, they're fine, Sam was running a fever and Dean over reacted. Uh huh, he just got caught up watching porn while Sam slept it off. You know, Dean, so thoughtless sometimes." Dean mouthed obscenities at her, but he didn't say them out loud, because Ellen would take 'I forgot' better than 'I was busy getting myself killed.' "Of course, you have my word. Beat his sorry ass black and blue, I promise."

She hung it up and winked at Dean. "You owe me, kiddo."

Gordon shook his head. "You know, you need to stop worrying that woman. Every time you get in a scrape, she calls out the damn armada."

Sam gave him a look that Dean tactfully ignored. "I'll give her a call. You guys mind giving me and Sam a minute alone?"

They headed up the stairs, Caleb pausing long enough to try and ruffle Dean's hair, but Dean dodged it, because, really, he was filthy enough without adding 'messed up hair' to the list.

When they were alone, Dean took a deep breath and looked at Sam, who was huddled in on himself in that way that said he was ashamed. "Look, Dean, I'm sorry about what I said..."

"You were right." Sam looked up in shock and Dean caught his eye and held it. "You were right, I hide things and I know I'm not fooling anyone, but it's the only thing I know how to do."

He stepped forward, so that he was standing in front of Sam, looking up at him and why the hell did Sam have to go and get that tall? Sam shifted, like he wanted to back up, but couldn't.

Dean continued to hold his eye. "So don't expect me to go changing. And don't expect me to bottom, either. I'm strictly a top man and if you can't deal with that..."

Before he could finish, Sam was kissing him. Not soft or hesitant, but hard and fierce, pressing him back against the cage, that rattled loudly and echoed through the basement and Dean would have thought this would feel suffocating. He'd never been able to handle being under anyone, not even in kissing, but this was Sam and he found that he couldn't even begin to tense under that mouth and that familiar body and, oh my god, how big were the muscles under all those shirts?!

Sam pulled away and he was flushed and his mouth was set in a crooked smile and Dean forced himself to frown, because smiling wasn't his style. "Still not letting you top."

The smile got wider and Dean shoved Sam to the stairs. "Go on, I've got a phone call to make and a lecture to sit through. God, Ellen is going to rip me a new one. Why the hell did Kay have to say it was porn?"

Sam stopped him and, despite his smile, there was a seriousness to it that made Dean listen. "We'll take it slow."

There was more to that then just Dean, there was Sam's own hesitation, this was strange, new territory and his long-term girlfriend had died less than a month ago and he wasn't ready to jump into bed with someone just yet, either. So, they'd take it slow, they'd learn their boundaries by degrees and maybe eventually there wouldn't be any boundaries left. Until then...

"Dude, rules."

"No chick flick moments?"

"Unless it's the middle of the night and no one's watching."