fic: it would be this (1/2) -- SPN
title: it would be this (1/2)
rating: R (some graphic violence)
summary: "I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
words: 12,000
notes: mildly AU, taking place after "Clap Your Hands" in season 6 but before Sam's soul was restored, entirely due to the fact that I've been writing this since shortly after "Live Free and Twihard" originally aired. Thanks so much to destro for support and oddmonster for an awesome beta.
Sam followed the swing of his machete, the blade flicking blood in a messy arc as head toppled from body, only to see that the last vamp left alive had his brother pinned down on the litter-strewn floor of the warehouse.
The leader of the nest was straddling Dean’s hips, bent low over his torso, one of its hands clamping Dean’s wrists to the concrete above his head. Dean’s machete lay a few feet away out of his reach and he wasn't struggling and that was never a good sign.
They’d followed hints of the escaped Alpha vamp to Sterling, Illinois and though there was no sign of the Alpha, they’d found an infestation of his children in an abandoned auto parts warehouse in the run-down industrial district. Luckily they weren’t as organized as the group in Limestone had been, though they’d put up a fight.
Last time, in that alley in Limestone, Sam had stood back and watched a vamp turn his brother as Dean hung stunned in its grip. This time he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a fistful of the vamp's shaggy hair and swung his machete before it knew he was there.
The blade had dulled from use on the rest of the nest, so it took Sam two hacking attempts, the vamp writhing and howling in his grip, before the flesh of its neck split into raw meat. The howls turned to whistling gurgles and then went silent as Sam sawed through muscle and tendons and gristle until bone crunched and snapped and the head came away spraying blood. Sam tossed it over his shoulder and kicked the spurting body off his brother.
Underneath, Dean was drenched in red from the chest up, his shirts and jacket soaked through, hair slicked to the skull with it.
Dean scrubbed at his mouth with one sleeve before speaking. "You couldn't fucking pull it off me first?" He wasn't making a move to get off the floor. Just dragged his knees up, planted his boots and lay there, his chest fluttering unevenly, his attempts to pull in air echoing in the sudden quiet of the warehouse, strangling his words. "You and Gwen been spending time together, huh? You both think it's hilarious, seeing me dunked in vamp blood like I'm Carrie."
Sam crouched by his brother’s side and picked up one of his hands, peering at the bluish nail beds. Dean jerked away but his reflexes were slower than they should have been and he was blinking like he couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus.
"How much did he get?" Sam asked and yeah, when Dean turned his head, straining to check the perimeter for more vamps, there was a set of ragged punctures in his neck still leaking fresh blood into the gore.
"I don't--"
"The vamp, how long did he have you down?"
Dean screwed his face up and scrambled to his knees, nearly toppling over again before catching himself with one hand on the concrete and then flinching away from Sam’s attempt to steady him.
"Dean--"
"Fuck, the bite, the fucking bite," Dean ground out, his eyes wide enough that the whites flashed in the dim light. "I gotta, gotta--" He broke off and just wavered there, staring at Sam.
He hadn't reacted like this after Gordon Walker had bit him. Sam tried for reasonable. "Even if some of the vamp's blood got in the wounds--"
"If?" Dean winced as he tried to wipe the blood away from his neck with the tail of his flannel shirt, but he had to know it was too late. If he was going to get infected it had already happened. This time, though, Sam would handle it better. Be upfront with his brother.
That's what had set Dean off last time, not knowing about the cure. That had been the mistake.
"If you'd just calm down and listen for a second. It doesn't matter, we've got the vamp right here, we can just--"
Dean made it to his feet and turned away, making a beeline for the door of the warehouse.
Sam picked up his brother's machete and followed. Found him at the open trunk of the Impala, carefully blotting the skin around the wounds on his neck with a wad of gauze soaked in holy water. It was a waste of time but Sam left him to it. Grabbed the spare gas can and an empty syringe from the box tucked with the first aid kit and went back into the warehouse, into the charnel ground of the nest.
It was past midnight in a Rust Belt industrial park so abandoned most of the street lights had burnt out. The chance of interruption might be slim but those still weren’t odds Sam liked to count on. He eyed his watch then bent to fill the syringe with blood from the vamp that had fed on his brother. He hadn't had time to notice before but there were five other bodies scattered around Dean’s vamp. Sam let out an impressed whistle. Sure, his brother had eliminated most of a nest on his own after he'd been turned the last time, but then he'd been on somewhat even footing, mostly vamp himself.
The syringe capped and nestled in the pocket of his jacket, Sam considered the echoing space of the warehouse.
Two of the vamps Dean had killed tonight were immature, probably teenagers. From the bone structure the smallest looked no older than twelve, but it was hard to tell without the head. So even with the Alpha out of the picture the vamps were stepping up their recruitment plans. Roping in kids. Samuel would be interested in that little tidbit.
He checked the time again and then set the gas can down. Started dragging the corpses into a line -- a pile would burn too unevenly. This would go faster with two, but Sam was pretty sure that his brother had lost enough blood that his help would just be a hindrance, would cause too much delay.
Sam was used to taking care of this kind of thing himself now anyways.
Once he'd gathered Dean’s five kills and his own seven he drenched them with gas and set them alight. Watched for a moment to make sure the fire would be adequate, wouldn't go out too soon, and then left the burning pile of bodies behind.
Outside the warehouse there wasn't any sign of the fire yet, but that wouldn't last long.
The Impala looked packed up and he could just see Dean slumped in the driver's seat. Sam frowned. They didn't have time for an argument, any minute now smoke from the burning corpses was bound to find its way out of a broken window somewhere. He tapped on the driver's window and Dean's head lifted and after Sam waved the gas can at him Dean popped the trunk. Sam stowed the empty can and carefully wrapped the full syringe in a piece of gauze and stuck it back into the first aid kit in case they needed it for the cure.
After slamming the trunk shut he crossed back to the driver’s door and pulled it open, standing over his brother.
"Slide over,” he said.
The gauze pad Dean had taped to his neck was already spotted with fresh blood. He'd scrubbed the vamp off himself the best he could but he still looked like he'd been on the wrong end of a chainsaw massacre. And the thousand-yard stare he was giving Sam wasn't helping matters.
"Dean, shove over."
Dean’s knuckles were white against the wheel. "No."
Sam considered just knocking Dean out but he hadn't had a chance to check him over for a concussion. They really didn't have time for this. A faint hint of black smoke was already leaking around the warehouse doors and Sam could just taste it bitter at the back of his tongue.
"Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” he snapped at his brother. “You're doing a good impression of Slasher Victim Number Three and we really don't need the attention right now. You're less noticeable on the passenger side so move over."
By now a dense cloud of smoke was gathering in the clear night air around the front of the warehouse. Sam thought about prying his brother's fingers away from the wheel but Dean finally shook his head and scooted to the other side of the car, making room for Sam to take over the driver’s seat. Sam ignored the rasp of cloth on leather from Dean's jittery shifting in the seat next to him and revved the Impala’s engine. He picked his way through the potholed, crumbled streets of Sterling’s deserted industrial wasteland, wondering why vampires were so in love with Illinois, and kept one eye on the rear view mirror until they hit the highway.
"Need a shower." Dean’s eyes were slitted against the glare of the oncoming headlights as Sam merged onto 88-East heading toward Chicago. His breathing had picked up pace, rasping and loud in the enclosed space of the car. Maybe he’d hyperventilate and pass out and make their getaway a little easier.
"It'll have to wait,” Sam said. “We need to put some distance between us and the flaming vampires first.”
It had been a bad idea, letting Dean get turned the last time. Hadn't it? The thing was, Sam wasn't entirely convinced it had been a bad idea, taking advantage of the opportunity when it had presented itself. They'd gotten the intel they needed, information they wouldn't have been able to get any other way, and it had led them to the Alpha. But Sam had made a tactical error or two. Approached it the wrong way, overestimated his ability to handle Dean, and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.
Sam shot a glance at his brother. “Are you... how do you feel?"
Dean lifted a shoulder. He stared out the windshield at the semi hauling past them fast enough to rattle even the Impala’s heavy frame. There were blue-brown marks under Dean's eyes, his sclera shot through with red.
"I need to know if you're gonna try for my throat while we're on the interstate," Sam said.
Dean slumped over again, let his head drop against the door frame. "It's not... I dunno. Can't tell yet."
"Well, that's reassuring."
"He said something, before he... you know." Dean waved at his neck.
"The vamp? What'd he say?"
"He laughed. Said it didn't matter what we did to his nest, 'cause there'll be -- there'll always be more of them."
"We knew that, though, right?” Sam checked the rear view, looking for any sign they were being followed. “That hivemind thing they have going on must let these guys share cheesy last words or something."
"He said. He said that we might have their Alpha, but-but now they have leverage."
"He said that?” Sam tapped the wheel. “Leverage?"
"Yeah."
Sam waited to see if Dean would put the pieces together but he just sat there, rubbing at his forehead. So Sam watched the lines of the highway for a few miles. Considered the options. Tried to trace out the consequences, but it was hard. Harder to anticipate Dean than he'd thought it would be when they'd joined back up. Hard to figure out whether he should follow his own impulses or figure out what the Sam his brother expected him to be would do.
He knew he was missing things, didn't pick up on things he should. Most of the time he didn't even notice what he was missing and other times it was like when he'd lost his two front baby teeth. A hole he could poke his tongue through, the soft gum underneath, the weird numb absence. The way everyone could see the gap when he smiled.
"You should call Lisa," Sam said finally.
"Fuck you."
"Dean--"
"No, seriously, fuck you, Sam. What the fuck are you playing at?"
Dean's hand fumbled under his jacket and he pulled out a flask from the inside pocket. Sometimes his brother was too predictable for words, and yet Sam was still missing something here. But so was Dean.
"I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
"But we don't have the Alpha anymore," Dean protested. “We got nothing they want.”
"The other vamps might not know that. And they were connected to you. The one who bit you knew who you were. We have to assume all of them do. The Alpha--"
"Sam--"
"No, listen. They know you and you have outside connections. Christian might be married but he's got a demon in him and everyone else, well. Leverage. You're the only one who--"
"Had," Dean grated. "Had outside connections."
"That's semantics, Dean, and you know it."
"No. Just, no." He took a swig from the flask. "Even if you're right, they don't know where the house is. I made sure I wasn't followed."
Sam took a breath. Let it out. Found something like patience, because there wasn't another option here. "The Alpha knew you. You want to gamble on what else he picked up? We can't be sure that filling him full of dead man's blood stopped his Jedi mind tricks. Even if it did, he was loose a long time after we gave you the cure. We don't know--"
"Jesus. Stop. Okay? I get it." Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and then shook it, making a face. "It's dead. Fucking vamp."
Keeping an eye on the road, Sam pulled out his own phone and handed it over. Dean punched in a number from memory and turned away, hunched towards the passenger window. There was a long silence punctuated by the thrum of the wheels on the road and Dean's shallow breathing and the faint, tinny ring of Lisa's phone on the other end of the line.
"Fuck," Dean said under his breath. "Yeah. Lise, uh. It's me. I'm. I don't want to be doing this and I'm sorry, I wouldn't be calling unless it was important, but you've got to -- you and Ben, you've got to take a long weekend out of town. If you're not at home go with what you've got, just get out of there. Take the gun I left you. I'm just. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to do this to you again. Head to Bobby's if you can. Don't go back to the house until one of us calls, okay? I'll explain, I will, but please go. This is real, it's too much to get into over the phone but--"
The voicemail must have ended because Dean broke off. Pocketed Sam's phone and kind of collapsed against the seat.
"That's probably a bad idea with the amount of blood you've lost," Sam said when Dean unscrewed the cap of the flask again.
But Dean was apparently done talking to him. Sam could have plucked the flask from his hands, easy, but instead he turned back to the road.
"You said you didn't care. Before."
They were crossing the border between Illinois and Indiana and it had been an hour since Dean had uttered a word. He'd worked steadily through the flask, enough that his voice carried a faint slur that was more a vagueness than anything else and he didn't look at Sam when he spoke.
"Care about what?" Sam asked.
"Lisa and Ben."
Sam only had the flicker of headlights and streetlamps and the glow from billboards to go by, but he didn't like the lines that his brother's face had settled into. He couldn't begin to name what was there, though, and it didn’t seem to be an immanent hunger for his blood, so he let it go and kept his attention on the road. Thought about the difference between what Dean might want to hear and the truth. Thought about how little Dean would trust whatever he said anyway.
"I don't. But you do. And the vamps know that."
"Ah, so it's strategic." Dean shifted in his seat, one arm curling around his middle. "Why not just use them as bait, then?"
Sam took in his brother's pallor, the way he was hunched over in his seat, squinting against every passing bit of brightness. "Dude, you're not going to puke in your own car, are you? Because there's nowhere to pull off right now."
Dean's head came up and he scowled blurrily at Sam. "Answer the question."
"I told you. You care about them."
There was a long silence. "I saw it," Dean said finally. "When I drank the antidote last time."
Sam took a moment to strip the impatience out of his voice. "Saw what, Dean."
"You." And now Sam knew his brother was drunk for certain, because it had been months and Dean had never brought this up, not once. He'd never said how he'd figured it out and Sam had thought it better not to ask. "You were standing at the end of the alley. Just watching. When he turned me."
Sam couldn't help his fascination. "You saw that? How? Did the antidote give you some kind of vision?"
It was the wrong thing to say.
"I know it's not your fault," Dean said, then sank into himself, sank deep, like he wasn't planning on coming back up any time soon.
Sam waited until they were a good hundred miles away from the warehouse before he found a rest stop off the highway and pulled as close to the bathroom doors as he could get. It was going to be dawn soon. The risk of some good Samaritan noticing the horror-flick-extra in the Impala’s passenger seat would only increase with daylight, not to mention that Sam himself had streaks of blood up to his elbows and spatters all over his shirt. When the engine cut off Dean shifted and shot him an incurious look.
"Stay here a minute," Sam said.
He checked the men's room to make sure it was empty and then grabbed their duffels and the first aid kit from the trunk. After he got the passenger door open he had to tug on Dean's arm to get him going, but once Dean made it to his feet he moved under his own power, following Sam wordlessly to the men's room. There wasn't a lock on the door. Not much they could do about that except hope it was late enough they wouldn't be interrupted.
Dean leaned on one of the sinks, avoiding the mirror, his eyes slitted against the fluorescent glare. "I really need a shower," he said again.
Sam dropped the bags and dug out Dean's zippered shaving kit and a towel. "Strip off the bloody stuff."
It was slow going and in the end Sam had to push Dean's fumbling hands aside and do it himself. Bare of his shirts, the dried blood painting Dean's skin ended in a semi-circle where the collar of his tee-shirt had been and started again at his wrists. His hand kept drifting up to cover his eyes. Sam wet the towel at one of the faucets and rubbed it with soap from Dean's kit, then handed it over. Dean swiped at his neck, at his face, but he was sloppy about it, missing too much, so Sam ended up taking the towel back.
Dean let Sam wipe the flaking blood from his face and neck and hands, standing there like he'd removed himself from the room, left his body behind. Sam was... uncomfortable, Dean’s flesh clammy and chilled under his hands. Sam finished as best he could then turned on the warm water in the sink nearest Dean. Handed him a bottle of shampoo. Dean just held it, weighing it in his hand like it meant something, the rushing water muffling his uneven breathing.
"You got some of its blood, you know, in case?" Dean asked. He'd closed his eyes, the lids reddened where he'd been rubbing at them.
Sam pulled the shampoo bottle out of Dean's hands. Popped it open. "Yeah, it's in the trunk, and we still have the rest of the stuff for the cure if we need it. Dunk your head."
Dean obeyed, wetting down his crusted hair, eyes squeezed shut. Sam grabbed one of his hands, squirted shampoo into his palm, and watched as Dean tried to wash away the vamp's blood.
Sam studied his brother's bent back. Almost two hours had passed since Dean had been exposed and though he was definitely showing signs of light sensitivity, he hadn't mentioned anything about his hearing. Last time symptoms had developed almost immediately -- Dean had been freaking out on him before they'd even made it back to the motel room, complaining about how loud everything was, how bright, all his senses kicked up ten notches. This time he was weirdly passive, resigned in the way he’d been at the worst moments of the year before Stull. Sam could pull up the memory of how much that had terrified the old him, watching his brother give up by degrees; but now it was just another thing he had to work around.
Dean straightened out of his crouch over the sink, pinkish water running in rivulets down his neck and shoulders. A goose egg was purpling through the short hair behind his left ear where the vamp had probably slammed his head against the concrete floor. Great.
"My head is killing me. The lights..."
"Is it as bad as last time?" Sam asked, handing him a towel.
Dean ducked his head, drying off, gingerly avoiding the sodden bandage on his neck. "What? I dunno, I just -- can we get out of here?"
"Lemme see the bite."
Maybe it was the threat to Lisa and Ben, maybe it was blood loss and the booze, but Dean had gone pliant, turning when Sam tugged at his elbow. The skin of his shoulders and chest was white and prickled with gooseflesh, cold as a fish belly under Sam's hands. So, factor in shock and probably a concussion on top of the possible vamp infection. The odds here weren't adding up in their favor.
"Maybe I should call the Samuel in on this one," Sam said, peeling the bandage away from Dean's neck.
Dean crossed his arms over his bare chest, voice uneven. "You know how to make the cure now. We don't need him."
"That's not what I was talking about."
Sam tossed the used bandage into the trash and pulled some fresh gauze out of the kit. The wounds were swollen and raw but at least the bleeding had stopped. Dean flinched at his touch but didn't pull away, so Sam smeared on some antiseptic cream and taped the new bandage in place. There wasn't much else he could do at this point but get Dean back into the car.
Dean just stood there while Sam changed his own shirt, washed away the lingering traces of blood in the sink and wiped down their prints with the towel, then balled up the towel with the bloody clothes and stuffed them back into the duffel. Clean as a rest stop bathroom was gonna get him and dressed in dry clothes, whatever remnant of adrenalin that had got Dean this far had drained away. He stumbled over his feet at the threshold and Sam practically had to haul him back out to the Impala.
On the bright side, he didn't argue this time when Sam dumped him in the passenger seat.
As he slid back into the car after paying for gas just outside Elkhart, Sam caught Dean prodding at his gums, looking for fangs.
"Anything?"
Dean dropped his hand like Sam had walked in on him jacking off. Then the smell of Sam's breakfast burrito must have hit him because he went a color Sam couldn't describe and scrabbled at his door handle. Got the door open and hung half out, back bent and taut, but nothing happened and after a minute he uncurled.
"I'm guessing that's a no on food for you," Sam said. "We're about an hour out. You gonna make it?"
He didn't get an answer. Dean dragged himself back into the car and slammed the door shut, then pressed his forehead against the window.
"Dean, I need you to tell me if you're, you know. Going to eat me."
"I'm not going to--" Dean's head rolled against the glass, eyes closed. "I managed to go longer than this last time without fucking killing anyone."
Which wasn't exactly true, but maybe vamps didn't count as people in this equation.
"Alright.” Sam took a couple of bites of burrito, adding up his observations, comparing them to the last time. "I think you're in the clear, anyway."
"You don't know that," Dean muttered.
"It's been three hours, you're not sprouting fangs or super-hearing--"
"Sam--"
"The light sensitivity is probably the concussion--"
"You don't know," Dean plowed right over him. Something in his face wound tighter and tighter with every word. "You don't know, you can't be sure, it could just be taking longer 'cause I didn't get as much this time. You don't fucking know, Sam."
"Okay, I get it." Sam popped the rest of the burrito into his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.
"You really don't."
"I think I do," Sam said. "I've been possessed a couple of times. I get it."
"Getting it and understanding aren't the same thing," Dean said to the window, and then it was like he'd switched off or tuned Sam out. Sam didn't remember him doing this before Stull but now it happened all the time. Dean, just going away in front of him, lights out even if his eyes were open.
Maybe with a soul Sam would have known the right thing to say, but somehow he doubted it.
When they turned onto Weinbach Avenue Dean was still curled up in the passenger seat with his hand shading his eyes against the sun like maybe the vamp had hit him harder than Sam had first assumed. Or maybe Dean just got migraines now. There was a lot Sam didn't know about that year they'd been apart.
Mid-morning on a Saturday in the Battle Creek suburbs wasn't exactly the most inconspicuous time of day. Sam frowned at the little Civic parked in Lisa’s drive and let the Impala drift past the house. The crust of snow in the front yard was trampled by kid-sized tracks and what might have been the half-frozen remains of some kind of snow fort held a strategic position near the front porch. Ben seemed a little old for snow forts, but then again Sam didn't exactly have the best grip on age-appropriate activities for kids.
He circumnavigated the block, inventoried all the obvious approaches to the house, and then pulled into Lisa's driveway. It took a few long moments before Dean stirred, running a hand through his flattened hair. Sam knew he hadn't been asleep but his head swiveled groggily anyway and he stared at the house like he hadn't known all along that this was their destination. Stared at it the way he'd stared at their old house in Lawrence, something like dread in the set of his jaw.
And then he noticed Lisa's car.
Dean was out of the Impala and onto the front porch before Sam could say a word. Apparently he still had a key because by the time Sam made it out of the car Dean had the front door open and was slipping inside.
Fuck. Dean didn't have a gun. As far as Sam knew he didn't have any weapons on him at all.
Dean was already yelling when Sam burst through the front door, gun drawn. He had Lisa backed up against the living room wall, his hands fisted at his sides, tendons standing out in his neck, his voice strangled like he couldn't get enough air to really scream. Sam came up short a few feet away, taking in Lisa's round eyes and set jaw, her hands planted flat on the wall behind her, then left to make a quick sweep of the house.
His brother's voice drifted after him, only slightly buffered by the walls. "I called, I called, why the fuck are you still here?" Sam couldn't hear whether Lisa had any response but from the sound of it even if she had it would have been steamrolled by Dean's ranting.
Lisa's new place was about the same size as the house in Cicero, minus a guest bedroom but with a little room that she probably used as an office. Ben's bed was neatly made, his bedroom floor mostly picked up with the exception of a scattered handful of Legos around some kind of half-completed, intricate spacecraft. The master bedroom was in more of a disarray: bedclothes still rumpled, an overflowing laundry basket at the foot of the bed. People were creatures of habit and Lisa's bathroom was set up nearly identical to the one in Cicero, down to the contents of her medicine cabinet.
Downstairs, Dean's shouting was a muffled litany of rage.
Sam spared a moment to consider the prescription bottles lined up on one of the shelves in the medicine cabinet. It had been months since Lisa had cut Dean off but two of the little orange plastic bottles still bore his name. Sam didn't recognize the name of one of the medications but the other was familiar from the pile of scrips Dean had left the hospital with after Alastair had nearly killed him. The pills rattled when Sam plucked the bottle from the shelf, half full.
The rest of the house was more of the same. There was no sign that the vamps had found the place yet and no sign of the kid, either.
Back in the living room Lisa had gone pale and Dean was edging towards panic. He was repeating himself, looked like he didn't even know what he was saying anymore. "You can't be here, you can't, why the fuck didn't you leave, I told you I told you to leave. I'm not joking around about this shit, Lisa, do you think this isn't real?"
Lisa swallowed, some of the shock leaving her face, her eyes hardening. "Dean--"
"When I call and tell you to leave I'm not, I'm not doing it for fun. I told you what would happen. I told you, why didn't you listen? Do you want to die bloody? You and Ben? Is that it? Because how could you, how could you still be here when I called and warned you, this isn't, this isn't some kind of game--"
Sam found himself waiting to see what Lisa would do. Dean hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what had gone down with Lisa and Ben while he'd been vamped last time or about what had happened when he'd finally gotten her on the phone afterwards. And Sam hadn’t seen his brother melt down this completely in years, not even during the worst of their fighting over Ruby and the demon blood. Certainly never in front of a civilian. Sam’s old self, the one who had lived through the memories he had of Dean before Stull, would have been appalled. All he could muster up now was a mild curiosity.
Dean swiveled a little at Sam's presence, including him in the next volley. "Where's Ben? We've got to, we've got to get them out of here."
"Ben's not here," Sam offered. Rather than calm his brother down it ramped him back up again. Dean made a wild, abruptly truncated gesture and turned the full force of his attention back onto Lisa.
"Jesus, Lisa, we think they know where you live, are you listening to me? It doesn't matter what I want, it doesn't matter what you want, they don't care that we're not, that I'm not--" Dean broke off, close to panting now, and when he uncurled one of his fists a tremor ran through his hand.
Lisa just stood there while Dean's ragged breathing filled the sudden silence. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and pushed off from the wall a little and Dean stumbled backwards a step in response.
"Are you done?" Lisa asked, firm and a little flat, and Sam had to admire how she managed to keep all but a hint of a quaver out of her voice.
Dean shook his head, but didn't say anything else.
"I take it you called and left me a message?"
"Yeah," Dean rasped.
"Okay," Lisa bit off. "I plugged my phone in to recharge last night and forgot about it. So I didn't hear your message."
"Oh," Dean said, his hand drifting back up to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Whatever was left of the rage drained away just like that, leaving him slumped and shaky, back to that disconnected version of Dean from the rest stop bathroom.
“I get that you were worried, but this, just now?” Lisa circled her hand in the air between them and then crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw tight. “This doesn’t happen again. Ever.”
Dean didn’t lift his head, avoided looking either of them in the eye, but he nodded.
"Hey Lisa, where do you keep your dishes?" Sam asked, fingering the prescription bottle in his pocket.
Lisa and Dean turned nearly identical blank gazes on him, like they'd both forgotten he was there. "The cabinet to the right of the sink," Lisa answered.
"Ben's at my sister's, up in Kalamazoo," Lisa was telling Dean when Sam returned with a glass of water. "He's spending the weekend with his cousins."
"Good," Dean said unsteadily. "That's, that's good." He took the water when Sam held it out to him, blinked when Sam pressed one of the pills into his other hand.
"For the headache," Sam said, watching closely as Dean tossed it back.
Now that Dean had stopped screaming at her a hint of concern seeped into Lisa's face as she took in what a mess he was. "What happened?".
Dean shook his head.
"Vampires," Sam said.
"Vampires," Lisa echoed, then turned to Dean. "I thought you said they were mostly extinct?"
And wasn't that interesting. Sam waited but Dean didn't volunteer anything more. Just stood there holding his water glass like he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it, no idea what to do now that he'd accepted that Lisa hadn't left, was still here, was right in front of him.
"Not so much anymore," Sam said. "They've been recruiting."
It was too soon for the pills to have kicked in but Dean's stare had drifted towards the floor, just this side of completely checked out again. Sure, Dean was the king of sudden mood swings at the best of times, but this was something else -- and Lisa wasn’t acting like the space cadet version of his brother was new to her.
"Dean," Lisa said, taking a step towards him. She didn't reach out, didn't move to touch him, but her attention had sharpened. "Dean, what's going on?"
"He didn't tell you," Sam realized aloud, the missing pieces of Dean’s estrangement from the Braedens clicking into place. "Right. Of course he didn't."
That got Dean's attention. The same expression he'd worn back in Veritas's lair flooded his face. Pure murder.
"Sam, why don't you get yourself a drink," Lisa ordered, taking them both in with narrowed eyes. "There's beer in the fridge. Take your time."
Right.
part 2/2
(part 2 will be live tomorrow! There's one last thing I need to fix and I ran out of time tonight) It's live now!
rating: R (some graphic violence)
summary: "I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
words: 12,000
notes: mildly AU, taking place after "Clap Your Hands" in season 6 but before Sam's soul was restored, entirely due to the fact that I've been writing this since shortly after "Live Free and Twihard" originally aired. Thanks so much to destro for support and oddmonster for an awesome beta.
Sam followed the swing of his machete, the blade flicking blood in a messy arc as head toppled from body, only to see that the last vamp left alive had his brother pinned down on the litter-strewn floor of the warehouse.
The leader of the nest was straddling Dean’s hips, bent low over his torso, one of its hands clamping Dean’s wrists to the concrete above his head. Dean’s machete lay a few feet away out of his reach and he wasn't struggling and that was never a good sign.
They’d followed hints of the escaped Alpha vamp to Sterling, Illinois and though there was no sign of the Alpha, they’d found an infestation of his children in an abandoned auto parts warehouse in the run-down industrial district. Luckily they weren’t as organized as the group in Limestone had been, though they’d put up a fight.
Last time, in that alley in Limestone, Sam had stood back and watched a vamp turn his brother as Dean hung stunned in its grip. This time he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a fistful of the vamp's shaggy hair and swung his machete before it knew he was there.
The blade had dulled from use on the rest of the nest, so it took Sam two hacking attempts, the vamp writhing and howling in his grip, before the flesh of its neck split into raw meat. The howls turned to whistling gurgles and then went silent as Sam sawed through muscle and tendons and gristle until bone crunched and snapped and the head came away spraying blood. Sam tossed it over his shoulder and kicked the spurting body off his brother.
Underneath, Dean was drenched in red from the chest up, his shirts and jacket soaked through, hair slicked to the skull with it.
Dean scrubbed at his mouth with one sleeve before speaking. "You couldn't fucking pull it off me first?" He wasn't making a move to get off the floor. Just dragged his knees up, planted his boots and lay there, his chest fluttering unevenly, his attempts to pull in air echoing in the sudden quiet of the warehouse, strangling his words. "You and Gwen been spending time together, huh? You both think it's hilarious, seeing me dunked in vamp blood like I'm Carrie."
Sam crouched by his brother’s side and picked up one of his hands, peering at the bluish nail beds. Dean jerked away but his reflexes were slower than they should have been and he was blinking like he couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus.
"How much did he get?" Sam asked and yeah, when Dean turned his head, straining to check the perimeter for more vamps, there was a set of ragged punctures in his neck still leaking fresh blood into the gore.
"I don't--"
"The vamp, how long did he have you down?"
Dean screwed his face up and scrambled to his knees, nearly toppling over again before catching himself with one hand on the concrete and then flinching away from Sam’s attempt to steady him.
"Dean--"
"Fuck, the bite, the fucking bite," Dean ground out, his eyes wide enough that the whites flashed in the dim light. "I gotta, gotta--" He broke off and just wavered there, staring at Sam.
He hadn't reacted like this after Gordon Walker had bit him. Sam tried for reasonable. "Even if some of the vamp's blood got in the wounds--"
"If?" Dean winced as he tried to wipe the blood away from his neck with the tail of his flannel shirt, but he had to know it was too late. If he was going to get infected it had already happened. This time, though, Sam would handle it better. Be upfront with his brother.
That's what had set Dean off last time, not knowing about the cure. That had been the mistake.
"If you'd just calm down and listen for a second. It doesn't matter, we've got the vamp right here, we can just--"
Dean made it to his feet and turned away, making a beeline for the door of the warehouse.
Sam picked up his brother's machete and followed. Found him at the open trunk of the Impala, carefully blotting the skin around the wounds on his neck with a wad of gauze soaked in holy water. It was a waste of time but Sam left him to it. Grabbed the spare gas can and an empty syringe from the box tucked with the first aid kit and went back into the warehouse, into the charnel ground of the nest.
It was past midnight in a Rust Belt industrial park so abandoned most of the street lights had burnt out. The chance of interruption might be slim but those still weren’t odds Sam liked to count on. He eyed his watch then bent to fill the syringe with blood from the vamp that had fed on his brother. He hadn't had time to notice before but there were five other bodies scattered around Dean’s vamp. Sam let out an impressed whistle. Sure, his brother had eliminated most of a nest on his own after he'd been turned the last time, but then he'd been on somewhat even footing, mostly vamp himself.
The syringe capped and nestled in the pocket of his jacket, Sam considered the echoing space of the warehouse.
Two of the vamps Dean had killed tonight were immature, probably teenagers. From the bone structure the smallest looked no older than twelve, but it was hard to tell without the head. So even with the Alpha out of the picture the vamps were stepping up their recruitment plans. Roping in kids. Samuel would be interested in that little tidbit.
He checked the time again and then set the gas can down. Started dragging the corpses into a line -- a pile would burn too unevenly. This would go faster with two, but Sam was pretty sure that his brother had lost enough blood that his help would just be a hindrance, would cause too much delay.
Sam was used to taking care of this kind of thing himself now anyways.
Once he'd gathered Dean’s five kills and his own seven he drenched them with gas and set them alight. Watched for a moment to make sure the fire would be adequate, wouldn't go out too soon, and then left the burning pile of bodies behind.
Outside the warehouse there wasn't any sign of the fire yet, but that wouldn't last long.
The Impala looked packed up and he could just see Dean slumped in the driver's seat. Sam frowned. They didn't have time for an argument, any minute now smoke from the burning corpses was bound to find its way out of a broken window somewhere. He tapped on the driver's window and Dean's head lifted and after Sam waved the gas can at him Dean popped the trunk. Sam stowed the empty can and carefully wrapped the full syringe in a piece of gauze and stuck it back into the first aid kit in case they needed it for the cure.
After slamming the trunk shut he crossed back to the driver’s door and pulled it open, standing over his brother.
"Slide over,” he said.
The gauze pad Dean had taped to his neck was already spotted with fresh blood. He'd scrubbed the vamp off himself the best he could but he still looked like he'd been on the wrong end of a chainsaw massacre. And the thousand-yard stare he was giving Sam wasn't helping matters.
"Dean, shove over."
Dean’s knuckles were white against the wheel. "No."
Sam considered just knocking Dean out but he hadn't had a chance to check him over for a concussion. They really didn't have time for this. A faint hint of black smoke was already leaking around the warehouse doors and Sam could just taste it bitter at the back of his tongue.
"Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” he snapped at his brother. “You're doing a good impression of Slasher Victim Number Three and we really don't need the attention right now. You're less noticeable on the passenger side so move over."
By now a dense cloud of smoke was gathering in the clear night air around the front of the warehouse. Sam thought about prying his brother's fingers away from the wheel but Dean finally shook his head and scooted to the other side of the car, making room for Sam to take over the driver’s seat. Sam ignored the rasp of cloth on leather from Dean's jittery shifting in the seat next to him and revved the Impala’s engine. He picked his way through the potholed, crumbled streets of Sterling’s deserted industrial wasteland, wondering why vampires were so in love with Illinois, and kept one eye on the rear view mirror until they hit the highway.
"Need a shower." Dean’s eyes were slitted against the glare of the oncoming headlights as Sam merged onto 88-East heading toward Chicago. His breathing had picked up pace, rasping and loud in the enclosed space of the car. Maybe he’d hyperventilate and pass out and make their getaway a little easier.
"It'll have to wait,” Sam said. “We need to put some distance between us and the flaming vampires first.”
It had been a bad idea, letting Dean get turned the last time. Hadn't it? The thing was, Sam wasn't entirely convinced it had been a bad idea, taking advantage of the opportunity when it had presented itself. They'd gotten the intel they needed, information they wouldn't have been able to get any other way, and it had led them to the Alpha. But Sam had made a tactical error or two. Approached it the wrong way, overestimated his ability to handle Dean, and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.
Sam shot a glance at his brother. “Are you... how do you feel?"
Dean lifted a shoulder. He stared out the windshield at the semi hauling past them fast enough to rattle even the Impala’s heavy frame. There were blue-brown marks under Dean's eyes, his sclera shot through with red.
"I need to know if you're gonna try for my throat while we're on the interstate," Sam said.
Dean slumped over again, let his head drop against the door frame. "It's not... I dunno. Can't tell yet."
"Well, that's reassuring."
"He said something, before he... you know." Dean waved at his neck.
"The vamp? What'd he say?"
"He laughed. Said it didn't matter what we did to his nest, 'cause there'll be -- there'll always be more of them."
"We knew that, though, right?” Sam checked the rear view, looking for any sign they were being followed. “That hivemind thing they have going on must let these guys share cheesy last words or something."
"He said. He said that we might have their Alpha, but-but now they have leverage."
"He said that?” Sam tapped the wheel. “Leverage?"
"Yeah."
Sam waited to see if Dean would put the pieces together but he just sat there, rubbing at his forehead. So Sam watched the lines of the highway for a few miles. Considered the options. Tried to trace out the consequences, but it was hard. Harder to anticipate Dean than he'd thought it would be when they'd joined back up. Hard to figure out whether he should follow his own impulses or figure out what the Sam his brother expected him to be would do.
He knew he was missing things, didn't pick up on things he should. Most of the time he didn't even notice what he was missing and other times it was like when he'd lost his two front baby teeth. A hole he could poke his tongue through, the soft gum underneath, the weird numb absence. The way everyone could see the gap when he smiled.
"You should call Lisa," Sam said finally.
"Fuck you."
"Dean--"
"No, seriously, fuck you, Sam. What the fuck are you playing at?"
Dean's hand fumbled under his jacket and he pulled out a flask from the inside pocket. Sometimes his brother was too predictable for words, and yet Sam was still missing something here. But so was Dean.
"I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
"But we don't have the Alpha anymore," Dean protested. “We got nothing they want.”
"The other vamps might not know that. And they were connected to you. The one who bit you knew who you were. We have to assume all of them do. The Alpha--"
"Sam--"
"No, listen. They know you and you have outside connections. Christian might be married but he's got a demon in him and everyone else, well. Leverage. You're the only one who--"
"Had," Dean grated. "Had outside connections."
"That's semantics, Dean, and you know it."
"No. Just, no." He took a swig from the flask. "Even if you're right, they don't know where the house is. I made sure I wasn't followed."
Sam took a breath. Let it out. Found something like patience, because there wasn't another option here. "The Alpha knew you. You want to gamble on what else he picked up? We can't be sure that filling him full of dead man's blood stopped his Jedi mind tricks. Even if it did, he was loose a long time after we gave you the cure. We don't know--"
"Jesus. Stop. Okay? I get it." Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and then shook it, making a face. "It's dead. Fucking vamp."
Keeping an eye on the road, Sam pulled out his own phone and handed it over. Dean punched in a number from memory and turned away, hunched towards the passenger window. There was a long silence punctuated by the thrum of the wheels on the road and Dean's shallow breathing and the faint, tinny ring of Lisa's phone on the other end of the line.
"Fuck," Dean said under his breath. "Yeah. Lise, uh. It's me. I'm. I don't want to be doing this and I'm sorry, I wouldn't be calling unless it was important, but you've got to -- you and Ben, you've got to take a long weekend out of town. If you're not at home go with what you've got, just get out of there. Take the gun I left you. I'm just. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to do this to you again. Head to Bobby's if you can. Don't go back to the house until one of us calls, okay? I'll explain, I will, but please go. This is real, it's too much to get into over the phone but--"
The voicemail must have ended because Dean broke off. Pocketed Sam's phone and kind of collapsed against the seat.
"That's probably a bad idea with the amount of blood you've lost," Sam said when Dean unscrewed the cap of the flask again.
But Dean was apparently done talking to him. Sam could have plucked the flask from his hands, easy, but instead he turned back to the road.
"You said you didn't care. Before."
They were crossing the border between Illinois and Indiana and it had been an hour since Dean had uttered a word. He'd worked steadily through the flask, enough that his voice carried a faint slur that was more a vagueness than anything else and he didn't look at Sam when he spoke.
"Care about what?" Sam asked.
"Lisa and Ben."
Sam only had the flicker of headlights and streetlamps and the glow from billboards to go by, but he didn't like the lines that his brother's face had settled into. He couldn't begin to name what was there, though, and it didn’t seem to be an immanent hunger for his blood, so he let it go and kept his attention on the road. Thought about the difference between what Dean might want to hear and the truth. Thought about how little Dean would trust whatever he said anyway.
"I don't. But you do. And the vamps know that."
"Ah, so it's strategic." Dean shifted in his seat, one arm curling around his middle. "Why not just use them as bait, then?"
Sam took in his brother's pallor, the way he was hunched over in his seat, squinting against every passing bit of brightness. "Dude, you're not going to puke in your own car, are you? Because there's nowhere to pull off right now."
Dean's head came up and he scowled blurrily at Sam. "Answer the question."
"I told you. You care about them."
There was a long silence. "I saw it," Dean said finally. "When I drank the antidote last time."
Sam took a moment to strip the impatience out of his voice. "Saw what, Dean."
"You." And now Sam knew his brother was drunk for certain, because it had been months and Dean had never brought this up, not once. He'd never said how he'd figured it out and Sam had thought it better not to ask. "You were standing at the end of the alley. Just watching. When he turned me."
Sam couldn't help his fascination. "You saw that? How? Did the antidote give you some kind of vision?"
It was the wrong thing to say.
"I know it's not your fault," Dean said, then sank into himself, sank deep, like he wasn't planning on coming back up any time soon.
Sam waited until they were a good hundred miles away from the warehouse before he found a rest stop off the highway and pulled as close to the bathroom doors as he could get. It was going to be dawn soon. The risk of some good Samaritan noticing the horror-flick-extra in the Impala’s passenger seat would only increase with daylight, not to mention that Sam himself had streaks of blood up to his elbows and spatters all over his shirt. When the engine cut off Dean shifted and shot him an incurious look.
"Stay here a minute," Sam said.
He checked the men's room to make sure it was empty and then grabbed their duffels and the first aid kit from the trunk. After he got the passenger door open he had to tug on Dean's arm to get him going, but once Dean made it to his feet he moved under his own power, following Sam wordlessly to the men's room. There wasn't a lock on the door. Not much they could do about that except hope it was late enough they wouldn't be interrupted.
Dean leaned on one of the sinks, avoiding the mirror, his eyes slitted against the fluorescent glare. "I really need a shower," he said again.
Sam dropped the bags and dug out Dean's zippered shaving kit and a towel. "Strip off the bloody stuff."
It was slow going and in the end Sam had to push Dean's fumbling hands aside and do it himself. Bare of his shirts, the dried blood painting Dean's skin ended in a semi-circle where the collar of his tee-shirt had been and started again at his wrists. His hand kept drifting up to cover his eyes. Sam wet the towel at one of the faucets and rubbed it with soap from Dean's kit, then handed it over. Dean swiped at his neck, at his face, but he was sloppy about it, missing too much, so Sam ended up taking the towel back.
Dean let Sam wipe the flaking blood from his face and neck and hands, standing there like he'd removed himself from the room, left his body behind. Sam was... uncomfortable, Dean’s flesh clammy and chilled under his hands. Sam finished as best he could then turned on the warm water in the sink nearest Dean. Handed him a bottle of shampoo. Dean just held it, weighing it in his hand like it meant something, the rushing water muffling his uneven breathing.
"You got some of its blood, you know, in case?" Dean asked. He'd closed his eyes, the lids reddened where he'd been rubbing at them.
Sam pulled the shampoo bottle out of Dean's hands. Popped it open. "Yeah, it's in the trunk, and we still have the rest of the stuff for the cure if we need it. Dunk your head."
Dean obeyed, wetting down his crusted hair, eyes squeezed shut. Sam grabbed one of his hands, squirted shampoo into his palm, and watched as Dean tried to wash away the vamp's blood.
Sam studied his brother's bent back. Almost two hours had passed since Dean had been exposed and though he was definitely showing signs of light sensitivity, he hadn't mentioned anything about his hearing. Last time symptoms had developed almost immediately -- Dean had been freaking out on him before they'd even made it back to the motel room, complaining about how loud everything was, how bright, all his senses kicked up ten notches. This time he was weirdly passive, resigned in the way he’d been at the worst moments of the year before Stull. Sam could pull up the memory of how much that had terrified the old him, watching his brother give up by degrees; but now it was just another thing he had to work around.
Dean straightened out of his crouch over the sink, pinkish water running in rivulets down his neck and shoulders. A goose egg was purpling through the short hair behind his left ear where the vamp had probably slammed his head against the concrete floor. Great.
"My head is killing me. The lights..."
"Is it as bad as last time?" Sam asked, handing him a towel.
Dean ducked his head, drying off, gingerly avoiding the sodden bandage on his neck. "What? I dunno, I just -- can we get out of here?"
"Lemme see the bite."
Maybe it was the threat to Lisa and Ben, maybe it was blood loss and the booze, but Dean had gone pliant, turning when Sam tugged at his elbow. The skin of his shoulders and chest was white and prickled with gooseflesh, cold as a fish belly under Sam's hands. So, factor in shock and probably a concussion on top of the possible vamp infection. The odds here weren't adding up in their favor.
"Maybe I should call the Samuel in on this one," Sam said, peeling the bandage away from Dean's neck.
Dean crossed his arms over his bare chest, voice uneven. "You know how to make the cure now. We don't need him."
"That's not what I was talking about."
Sam tossed the used bandage into the trash and pulled some fresh gauze out of the kit. The wounds were swollen and raw but at least the bleeding had stopped. Dean flinched at his touch but didn't pull away, so Sam smeared on some antiseptic cream and taped the new bandage in place. There wasn't much else he could do at this point but get Dean back into the car.
Dean just stood there while Sam changed his own shirt, washed away the lingering traces of blood in the sink and wiped down their prints with the towel, then balled up the towel with the bloody clothes and stuffed them back into the duffel. Clean as a rest stop bathroom was gonna get him and dressed in dry clothes, whatever remnant of adrenalin that had got Dean this far had drained away. He stumbled over his feet at the threshold and Sam practically had to haul him back out to the Impala.
On the bright side, he didn't argue this time when Sam dumped him in the passenger seat.
As he slid back into the car after paying for gas just outside Elkhart, Sam caught Dean prodding at his gums, looking for fangs.
"Anything?"
Dean dropped his hand like Sam had walked in on him jacking off. Then the smell of Sam's breakfast burrito must have hit him because he went a color Sam couldn't describe and scrabbled at his door handle. Got the door open and hung half out, back bent and taut, but nothing happened and after a minute he uncurled.
"I'm guessing that's a no on food for you," Sam said. "We're about an hour out. You gonna make it?"
He didn't get an answer. Dean dragged himself back into the car and slammed the door shut, then pressed his forehead against the window.
"Dean, I need you to tell me if you're, you know. Going to eat me."
"I'm not going to--" Dean's head rolled against the glass, eyes closed. "I managed to go longer than this last time without fucking killing anyone."
Which wasn't exactly true, but maybe vamps didn't count as people in this equation.
"Alright.” Sam took a couple of bites of burrito, adding up his observations, comparing them to the last time. "I think you're in the clear, anyway."
"You don't know that," Dean muttered.
"It's been three hours, you're not sprouting fangs or super-hearing--"
"Sam--"
"The light sensitivity is probably the concussion--"
"You don't know," Dean plowed right over him. Something in his face wound tighter and tighter with every word. "You don't know, you can't be sure, it could just be taking longer 'cause I didn't get as much this time. You don't fucking know, Sam."
"Okay, I get it." Sam popped the rest of the burrito into his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.
"You really don't."
"I think I do," Sam said. "I've been possessed a couple of times. I get it."
"Getting it and understanding aren't the same thing," Dean said to the window, and then it was like he'd switched off or tuned Sam out. Sam didn't remember him doing this before Stull but now it happened all the time. Dean, just going away in front of him, lights out even if his eyes were open.
Maybe with a soul Sam would have known the right thing to say, but somehow he doubted it.
When they turned onto Weinbach Avenue Dean was still curled up in the passenger seat with his hand shading his eyes against the sun like maybe the vamp had hit him harder than Sam had first assumed. Or maybe Dean just got migraines now. There was a lot Sam didn't know about that year they'd been apart.
Mid-morning on a Saturday in the Battle Creek suburbs wasn't exactly the most inconspicuous time of day. Sam frowned at the little Civic parked in Lisa’s drive and let the Impala drift past the house. The crust of snow in the front yard was trampled by kid-sized tracks and what might have been the half-frozen remains of some kind of snow fort held a strategic position near the front porch. Ben seemed a little old for snow forts, but then again Sam didn't exactly have the best grip on age-appropriate activities for kids.
He circumnavigated the block, inventoried all the obvious approaches to the house, and then pulled into Lisa's driveway. It took a few long moments before Dean stirred, running a hand through his flattened hair. Sam knew he hadn't been asleep but his head swiveled groggily anyway and he stared at the house like he hadn't known all along that this was their destination. Stared at it the way he'd stared at their old house in Lawrence, something like dread in the set of his jaw.
And then he noticed Lisa's car.
Dean was out of the Impala and onto the front porch before Sam could say a word. Apparently he still had a key because by the time Sam made it out of the car Dean had the front door open and was slipping inside.
Fuck. Dean didn't have a gun. As far as Sam knew he didn't have any weapons on him at all.
Dean was already yelling when Sam burst through the front door, gun drawn. He had Lisa backed up against the living room wall, his hands fisted at his sides, tendons standing out in his neck, his voice strangled like he couldn't get enough air to really scream. Sam came up short a few feet away, taking in Lisa's round eyes and set jaw, her hands planted flat on the wall behind her, then left to make a quick sweep of the house.
His brother's voice drifted after him, only slightly buffered by the walls. "I called, I called, why the fuck are you still here?" Sam couldn't hear whether Lisa had any response but from the sound of it even if she had it would have been steamrolled by Dean's ranting.
Lisa's new place was about the same size as the house in Cicero, minus a guest bedroom but with a little room that she probably used as an office. Ben's bed was neatly made, his bedroom floor mostly picked up with the exception of a scattered handful of Legos around some kind of half-completed, intricate spacecraft. The master bedroom was in more of a disarray: bedclothes still rumpled, an overflowing laundry basket at the foot of the bed. People were creatures of habit and Lisa's bathroom was set up nearly identical to the one in Cicero, down to the contents of her medicine cabinet.
Downstairs, Dean's shouting was a muffled litany of rage.
Sam spared a moment to consider the prescription bottles lined up on one of the shelves in the medicine cabinet. It had been months since Lisa had cut Dean off but two of the little orange plastic bottles still bore his name. Sam didn't recognize the name of one of the medications but the other was familiar from the pile of scrips Dean had left the hospital with after Alastair had nearly killed him. The pills rattled when Sam plucked the bottle from the shelf, half full.
The rest of the house was more of the same. There was no sign that the vamps had found the place yet and no sign of the kid, either.
Back in the living room Lisa had gone pale and Dean was edging towards panic. He was repeating himself, looked like he didn't even know what he was saying anymore. "You can't be here, you can't, why the fuck didn't you leave, I told you I told you to leave. I'm not joking around about this shit, Lisa, do you think this isn't real?"
Lisa swallowed, some of the shock leaving her face, her eyes hardening. "Dean--"
"When I call and tell you to leave I'm not, I'm not doing it for fun. I told you what would happen. I told you, why didn't you listen? Do you want to die bloody? You and Ben? Is that it? Because how could you, how could you still be here when I called and warned you, this isn't, this isn't some kind of game--"
Sam found himself waiting to see what Lisa would do. Dean hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what had gone down with Lisa and Ben while he'd been vamped last time or about what had happened when he'd finally gotten her on the phone afterwards. And Sam hadn’t seen his brother melt down this completely in years, not even during the worst of their fighting over Ruby and the demon blood. Certainly never in front of a civilian. Sam’s old self, the one who had lived through the memories he had of Dean before Stull, would have been appalled. All he could muster up now was a mild curiosity.
Dean swiveled a little at Sam's presence, including him in the next volley. "Where's Ben? We've got to, we've got to get them out of here."
"Ben's not here," Sam offered. Rather than calm his brother down it ramped him back up again. Dean made a wild, abruptly truncated gesture and turned the full force of his attention back onto Lisa.
"Jesus, Lisa, we think they know where you live, are you listening to me? It doesn't matter what I want, it doesn't matter what you want, they don't care that we're not, that I'm not--" Dean broke off, close to panting now, and when he uncurled one of his fists a tremor ran through his hand.
Lisa just stood there while Dean's ragged breathing filled the sudden silence. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and pushed off from the wall a little and Dean stumbled backwards a step in response.
"Are you done?" Lisa asked, firm and a little flat, and Sam had to admire how she managed to keep all but a hint of a quaver out of her voice.
Dean shook his head, but didn't say anything else.
"I take it you called and left me a message?"
"Yeah," Dean rasped.
"Okay," Lisa bit off. "I plugged my phone in to recharge last night and forgot about it. So I didn't hear your message."
"Oh," Dean said, his hand drifting back up to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Whatever was left of the rage drained away just like that, leaving him slumped and shaky, back to that disconnected version of Dean from the rest stop bathroom.
“I get that you were worried, but this, just now?” Lisa circled her hand in the air between them and then crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw tight. “This doesn’t happen again. Ever.”
Dean didn’t lift his head, avoided looking either of them in the eye, but he nodded.
"Hey Lisa, where do you keep your dishes?" Sam asked, fingering the prescription bottle in his pocket.
Lisa and Dean turned nearly identical blank gazes on him, like they'd both forgotten he was there. "The cabinet to the right of the sink," Lisa answered.
"Ben's at my sister's, up in Kalamazoo," Lisa was telling Dean when Sam returned with a glass of water. "He's spending the weekend with his cousins."
"Good," Dean said unsteadily. "That's, that's good." He took the water when Sam held it out to him, blinked when Sam pressed one of the pills into his other hand.
"For the headache," Sam said, watching closely as Dean tossed it back.
Now that Dean had stopped screaming at her a hint of concern seeped into Lisa's face as she took in what a mess he was. "What happened?".
Dean shook his head.
"Vampires," Sam said.
"Vampires," Lisa echoed, then turned to Dean. "I thought you said they were mostly extinct?"
And wasn't that interesting. Sam waited but Dean didn't volunteer anything more. Just stood there holding his water glass like he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it, no idea what to do now that he'd accepted that Lisa hadn't left, was still here, was right in front of him.
"Not so much anymore," Sam said. "They've been recruiting."
It was too soon for the pills to have kicked in but Dean's stare had drifted towards the floor, just this side of completely checked out again. Sure, Dean was the king of sudden mood swings at the best of times, but this was something else -- and Lisa wasn’t acting like the space cadet version of his brother was new to her.
"Dean," Lisa said, taking a step towards him. She didn't reach out, didn't move to touch him, but her attention had sharpened. "Dean, what's going on?"
"He didn't tell you," Sam realized aloud, the missing pieces of Dean’s estrangement from the Braedens clicking into place. "Right. Of course he didn't."
That got Dean's attention. The same expression he'd worn back in Veritas's lair flooded his face. Pure murder.
"Sam, why don't you get yourself a drink," Lisa ordered, taking them both in with narrowed eyes. "There's beer in the fridge. Take your time."
Right.
part 2/2
(part 2 will be live tomorrow! There's one last thing I need to fix and I ran out of time tonight) It's live now!