FIC: Virgin Sacrifice (1/2)
This story is complete, but I had to split it up into two parts because it's too long for one post.
Title: Virgin Sacrifice
Author: Rushlight
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: incest, semi-consensual sex
Summary: Dean and Sam have to reenact an ancient Aztec ritual in order to stop a curse.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to amothea for a thorough beta-reading and for helping me get over my angst about writing in a new fandom.
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Virgin Sacrifice (1/2)
by, Rushlight
"Shadow demons," Sam said, head bent over the screen of the laptop.
Dean looked up from where he was cleaning his gun at the small table by the window. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the nearer of the motel room's two beds, barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt with his hair still damp from the shower. The early morning sunlight spilling in through the window cast the room in an unforgiving light, illuminating every carpet stain and eye-wateringly ugly color in the bedspreads and walls.
"They're lesser demons," Dean said consideringly. "Not particularly powerful, all things considered."
"Yeah, but they're legion." Sam held down the arrow key with one finger, eyes flickering from side to side as he scanned the text on the screen in front of him. "It fits with the description the museum guard gave us."
Dean leaned back, thinking it over. "He said the shadows seemed to come to life, in broad daylight."
"And he heard what sounded like a thousand voices, all whispering and murmuring together as they moved in to kill the inspector. It fits, Dean."
It did. Sam was pretty awesome at this research stuff, Dean had to admit. "So where does that leave us? What the hell are shadow demons doing in Monmouth County, New Jersey?"
Sam's brow furrowed in concentration. "There are references to shadow demons in just about every major geographic area of the world, throughout different periods in history. Asia, Africa, South America, some parts of Europe... Usually they come up in tandem with references to old magic -- the really dark kind."
"High priests and black magic spells."
"Exactly. In most of the legends I've found, it looks like they're used mainly as attack dogs. Someone gets offended or challenged or wants to conquer the neighboring land, and they call on their pet sorcerer to summon the shadow demons and put the offender in his place."
"By gnawing the flesh off his bones."
"Hey, I didn't create the legend. Black magic generally tends to go in for overkill, you know?"
"Yeah. I know." Dean dragged a hand over his face, breathing out heavily. "Okay. So the two deaths we know of both occurred at the museum. So I'm thinking... what? Cursed artifact?"
"Could be." Sam tapped a finger on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Maybe there was a new shipment of relics brought in. Something infused with protective charms of some kind, or some kind of warding."
"Maybe an effigy. Items used repeatedly in black magic rituals tend to absorb a lot of dark energy. The priest who cast the spell could have died a thousand years ago, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Once an object gets dark like that, it stays dark until someone breaks the curse."
"Right. So what we need to do is find out what new exhibits have been added to the museum recently."
Dean nodded, picking up his gun from the table. "What we need to do is find out what that inspector was inspecting when he died."
* * * *
"South America?" Sam said, jotting down notes in the notebook he held. "What region?"
Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Their tour guide was twenty-something and scarily smart-looking, with long brown hair and eyes that looked sensuous even behind the round lenses of her glasses. Not his type but cute, in a virginal kind of way. She was a masters student at the local university, going after a degree in anthropology. What the hell kind of girl wanted to study dead people for her life's work, anyway?
Not two minutes after their tour had ended, and already Sam had learned that a new shipment of artifacts had been brought in this past week from a dig in South America. Minnie -- their guide's name was Minnie, honest to god -- was only too happy to open up to him and tell him everything he wanted to know once he flashed a smile and fluttered those baby blues at her.
"Venezuela," Minnie told him, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "There's a new dig outside Palo de Agua in Cojedes. We're not supposed to say much about it until the exhibit opens in the fall; right now they're bringing in some larger pieces and trying to work out the funding details."
"New dig," Sam echoed, nodding thoughtfully as he jotted this new information down. "That's really fascinating. What kind of site was it? Some kind of residential structure? Meeting place? Religious temple?"
"It was a temple of some kind, I think. I'm not too clear on the details." She leaned in and brushed elbows with him just a little too smoothly for it to be accidental. Maybe this was how geeks flirted, Dean guessed? "What kind of a paper did you say you were writing again?"
"It's, uh, for a history of ancient civilizations class." Sam glanced at Dean, his mouth pinching down in a frown. He always did hate lying. "And it's for half our grade this semester, so really, any help you can give us would really be appreciated."
"No problem." The smile she gave him was sincere. "Anything I can do to help out. It's not every day I meet a man who's interested in ancient civilizations."
Dean raised his eyebrows and jerked his head minutely, urging him to get on with it. Sam's eyes narrowed at him, but he turned back to Minnie dutifully. "You know," he said, glancing up and giving her a smile, "I'd really love to take a look at those artifacts."
It was amazing, Dean thought with reluctant admiration. You could actually see the girl melt under the wattage of that stare.
"Uh, sure." She composed herself with a visible effort, her smile deepening. Dean figured Sam could have asked for the keys to the place and she wouldn't have turned him down. "Follow me."
* * * *
"So," Sam said, collapsing into the chair in their motel room. "What do you think?"
"I think there was some serious fucking dark energy in that room, Sam." Dean paced across the room, too fidgety to stand still. Something was tickling at the back of his mind, some kind of memory, and he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Yeah. Did you get a look at that altar?"
"Yeah." Dean came to a stop in front of the window and stared out at the parking lot. The sun was starting to drop lower in the sky, its slanting rays turning dull and brassy.
"Aztec. Late 12th century." Sam was reading from his notebook now. "I didn't recognize all of the symbols engraved on it."
"There was something generic about warding and entrapments of power, but the rest of it... That's one seriously complicated spell."
The altar was what the funding sponsors' inspector had been examining when he died. It was made of stone, approximately four feet tall and six feet long. For all its mass, it was portable, with long poles sticking out of either end where slaves presumably could carry it on their shoulders. It was Minnie's assertion that it was most likely some kind of sacred relic the Aztecs had carried with them into battle.
Sam nodded. "If it's a spell, it can be broken." His voice was determined. He was already powering up the laptop. "All we have to do is figure out how."
Dean stared out the window for a minute longer before going to his duffel bag and rooting around inside for Dad's journal. He went to sit down in the chair across from Sam, tossing the book down on the table in front of him.
Sam looked up from the computer screen. "You got something."
"I don't know. Maybe." Dean opened the journal and began to flip through it, scanning the pages with increasing anxiety. He had a really bad feeling about this.
"Well, what is it? Don't keep me in suspense here."
Dean shrugged uncomfortably. "There was this thing Dad and I worked on a couple of years ago. Some kind of cursed Aztec medallion. Anyway, while we were researching the runes to counteract the spell, he compiled a list of other Aztec religious symbology, just in case we'd ever need it in the future."
"That's Dad, always thinking." Sam's tone was dry. He pushed the laptop aside and leaned forward so he could get a better look at the journal. "You recognized one of the symbols, didn't you?"
"Maybe."
There. Dean pulled a folded piece of paper out from between two pages near the back of the book and smoothed it open on the table between them. Dad's sharp, slanted handwriting stared back at him, the stark black lines of the symbols he'd drawn standing out in sharp relief against the faded whiteness of the paper.
"There's one." Sam stabbed a finger at the page, leaning down closer to get a better look. "Some kind of sex magic?"
"Looks like it." Dean's mouth was dry.
Sam nodded consideringly. "Sex magic was very big back in those days. Very powerful. A lot of really nasty spells came out of it." He glanced down at his notebook, then back at the journal page. "What's this one mean?" He tapped at another symbol and twisted his head to one side, trying to read Dad's handwriting upside down.
Dean drew in a slow breath, his fingers curling on top of the table. "Brothers."
Sam blinked at him. "What?"
"Siblings, to be precise, but the additional marking to the right of it on the altar specified the male gender." Dean was surprised his voice was as calm as it was.
Sam glanced down at the notes he'd taken and nodded slowly. "Okay, I see it. So what are we talking about here? Incest?"
"Looks like it. Incest, homosexuality... those high priests must have been pervy old bastards."
Silence spread through the room as the sun sank lower in the sky outside the window. Dean didn't look up from the journal.
"Dean..." Sam said at last.
"What?"
"You know that one sure way to break a curse like this is to reenact the original binding ritual."
The corner of Dean's mouth curled upward, without humor. He couldn't believe Sam was even thinking of this. "Are you suggesting we start asking around New Jersey for a pair of brothers who want to have kinky naked sex together on an Aztec altar? I figure a search like that should take maybe three, four minutes before we get arrested for licentious propositioning."
"Dean."
"What the fuck do you want me to say, Sam?" He threw his hands up in the air, beyond frustrated. "I really don't know what you want me to do here."
"I'm not saying--"
"'Cause I gotta tell you, you're cute but you ain't that cute. All right?"
Sam's mouth pinched together in a thin line, his eyes closing off. He was pissed off now. "I'm not saying we should... god, Dean. What's wrong with you? I'm not the one who carved the symbols on the damn altar."
Dean drew in a deep breath and calmed himself with an effort. Sam was right. "I know. I know. This whole thing just kind of weirds me out, okay?"
The tension in Sam's face relaxed at that. "Yeah, it is weird. But we don't even know for sure what the ritual was. We have to do some research, piece together the rest of the symbols..."
Research. Yes. That was familiar, comforting. He could do this. Moving right along, nothing to see here. "Sounds like we need to hit the library. Maybe at the university; there's got to be some kind of Aztec linguistics text there."
"Right. They should still be open." Sam was looking at him consideringly. "You sure you're all right?
"I'm fine." He shoved the paper with the symbols back into the journal and closed it abruptly. "Let's go."
* * * *
Dean stood with his back against the side of the building, hands in the pockets of his jacket, and stared up at the darkening night sky. A cool breeze drifted in from the trees at the edge of the parking lot, slithering across the back of his neck. He shivered slightly, though not from the cold.
The door to the motel room opened beside him. "Dean? You've been standing out here for almost an hour."
Dean didn't say anything. What, honestly, could he possibly say?
The door closed, and there was a soft crunching of gravel as Sam came to stand at his side. "Dean. Talk to me."
"I'm not sure what you want me to say, Sam."
"I don't know. Anything?" Silence. "Those shadow demons are going to kill again, you know."
"Yeah." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I know."
Their afternoon at the library hadn't done anything to put his mind at ease. It turned out there was only one way they could find to break the curse -- to reenact the original binding ritual. Two male siblings related by blood would have to have sex on top of the altar; and not just sex, but actual goddamn intercourse.
He'd been right. Those high priests were pervy old bastards.
"We could always take a sledgehammer to the damn thing," he said, his jaw tightening.
"You'd never get within ten feet of it with a weapon like that, and you know it. Those creatures are murdering anyone who messes with the thing."
Violence begets violence. It was a common theme in Aztec magic. And Dean was willing to bet that the Aztec priests had made damn sure no one would ever be able to harm their sacred relic. The shadow demons would see to that.
After some more in-depth research, they'd learned that there had actually been four deaths connected to the thing so far. The truck driver who'd delivered the altar to the museum, the inspector, and -- this was the part that clinched it -- the two archaeologists in South America who had discovered the temple. Dean had had to use his NCIC connection to figure that one out; word hadn't made it back to the museum yet, but it was only a matter of time before it did. And then, grisly or not, it would be worked somehow into the exhibit's advertising campaign. Who could resist a "cursed" Aztec artifact, after all?
"There are going to be hundreds of people crowded around that altar every day," Sam continued, his voice soft. "Those shadow demons are going to be pissed, Dean. And you know as well as I do that once these kinds of creatures get a taste for blood, it's hard to rein them in. Without a high priest here to cast the proper containment charms on them..."
He trailed off, leaving the thought unspoken, but Dean could picture the end result of that scenario very well. The creatures were bound to the altar now, protecting it as they'd been charged to do, but how long was that going to last? How long was it going to be before they started turning their attention to anyone who was in the same building as the altar? The same neighborhood? The same city?
"They'll get stronger with every life they take." Sam's voice was roughening around the edges. "They're going to keep hunting, and killing, until maybe one day no one will be able to stop them."
Dean closed his eyes. "You think we should do this."
A pause. "I think we have to."
The quiet words slid like a knife in between Dean's ribs, cold and bitter-sharp. He kept his eyes closed, not daring to breathe, and refused to think about anything at all.
"You realize what this means, don't you?" he said hoarsely.
A ragged breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
He chewed hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. The situation might have been funny if his brain hadn't been completely fucked into submission by the thought of what they were considering doing. "This is fucked up, Sammy."
"You're telling me?"
There was a faint wobble in Sam's voice that, perversely, made the situation seem not quite so overwhelming. Because up until now he'd been logical, been practical, stating the reasons why they had to do this in clear one-two-three bullet points, and here was the proof that he was as freaked out by this as Dean was. Sam was scared.
And Sam scared was impetus enough for Dean to turn his attention away from his own panic and focus on being the big brother again. He opened his eyes and looked up at his brother, seeing eyes that were as haunted as his own staring back at him.
"It's gonna be okay, Sammy. I promise."
The corner of Sam's mouth lifted slightly. "I've told you before, Dean. It's Sam."
Sam. Right. Dean cleared his throat and pushed away from the side of the building. "I'm still not convinced this is the only thing that will break the curse. What was that you said about containment charms?"
Sam shook his head. "Aztec containment spells always involved some kind of human sacrifice."
And it would only be temporary anyway. Damn it.
"We need to stop these things cold, Dean. Before they kill anyone else."
"Yeah." Dean looked up at the sky once more before turning to go inside. "I know."
* * * *
Standing outside the back window of the museum, waiting for Sam to wriggle in through the narrow opening ahead of him, Dean couldn't believe they were actually doing this. It had the false, glassy atmosphere of a dream, right before it turns into a nightmare. Which was weird, because he'd fought all kinds of creatures and spirits and supernatural nasties over the years, and it hadn't shaken him. This was just another job, after all.
Which was absolute bullshit, and he knew it. There was nothing routine about any of this. He grunted as he levered himself inside the window after Sam, flicking on his flashlight and shielding the lens with one hand to make the beam as small as possible.
He glanced at Sam, holding his gaze briefly. Sam's eyes were the ones to slide away first, a muscle in his jaw twitching.
Sam was frightened. That knowledge filled Dean with a rage that made him want to go out and kill something. Sam was putting on a stoic face about the whole thing, acting like it was just another hunt, just another banishing, but Dean could tell he was scared. Dean would have done anything to take this burden away from him.
Knowing what they had to do, Dean would have offered to be the one on the bottom, as it were -- he'd do anything for Sammy, this included -- but the cleansing ritual specifically stated that the elder sibling had to be the one on top. Which was absolute bullshit, but according to the engravings on the altar, that was how the original spell had been cast. The thought made him lightheaded. He wondered fleetingly if the brothers who had helped the priests cast the original spell had done it willingly, or if they'd been coerced.
"This way," Sam said, whispering. Dean nodded and followed him.
It was beyond creepy, walking through the museum after it had closed for the night. The halls were huge and dark, the archways toothed by barred metal doors that hadn't been there when the museum was open to the public. The skin at the back of Dean's neck prickled. He looked around anxiously as he walked beside Sam, feeling the sheer empty loneliness of the place press in on him.
"What about the guard?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low.
Dean smirked, trying to inject some kind of normalcy into the situation. "While you were schmoozing Minnie during the tour earlier, I learned that there is but one night guard. He's about eighty years old, and he spends each night camped out at the front desk reading Playboy magazines."
Sam grinned, thankfully looking -- for the moment -- as if he'd forgotten why they'd come here. "We'd still better keep quiet, though." His face closed off again abruptly, and he turned away.
Damn Sam for trying to be so brave about this, anyway. Dean clenched his fist at his side and followed him.
They were nearing the storage room now where Minnie had shown them the new Venezuelan exhibits. Dean slowed, glancing at the walls warily. The shadow demons shouldn't manifest unless they felt the altar was in some kind of danger, but there was a sense of menace infusing the shadows in this corridor that kept his nerves on edge. He hoped it was just his imagination.
Still, he reached for the flare hanging from his belt with his free hand and closed his fingers around it, pulling it up into a ready position. There wasn't anything they could do that would hurt the damn demons, but if nothing else, shadow demons didn't like light. It wouldn't hurt them, wouldn't do more than startle them for a few seconds, but a few seconds might be all they'd need.
Sam was standing in front of the storage room door now. He glanced over his shoulder, refusing to meet Dean's eyes -- and that was just one of a million reasons why this job was so very wrong. Sam shouldn't be afraid to look at him, damn it.
Sam rested a hand lightly on the door knob, the other hand holding his own flare. "Ready?" he asked.
Dean nodded tersely, stepping up beside him. The door was locked; Minnie had had a key to get them in, but fortunately he and Sam didn't have need of one. He could hear the low huff of breath Sam let out when he juggled his flare under his arm and went after the lock with a set of slim metal picks. The years of college life didn't seem to have dulled his breaking and entering skills any; in less than a minute, he had the door open.
Dean held his breath and shone the thin beam of the flashlight inside.
Most of the artifacts were draped in dustcloth, just as they'd been that morning. The altar alone stood uncovered, tucked away in a large open space at the far end of the room. It was a large, blocky thing, rough hewn from solid granite with veins of volcanic rock running through it. Even from this distance, he could see the etchings that covered its surface.
The air seemed colder in this room, but that might have just been Dean's imagination. He gave the shadows to either side a cursory swipe with the flashlight as he stepped inside and saw nothing but angular shapes and dust. The room was so quiet he could hear himself breathing.
"Well," Sam said, his voice little more than a whisper. "Let's get on with it, shall we?" The words were strained. He didn't look at Dean as he stepped forward toward the altar.
Skin crawling, Dean hurried to follow him. He had a bad feeling about this. A really, really bad feeling about this. And not just about the obvious. There was something wrong here. Earlier, when they'd come here with Minnie, they'd been careful not to touch the altar, not to approach it closer than they had to in order to copy down the runes in Sam's notebook. Shadow demons wouldn't be as active in the daylight, but here, at night, with the two of them drawing closer to the thing...
"Sam," he said hoarsely, lifting the flare in his hand.
One of the shadows detached itself from the wall and seemed to melt through the air toward Sam, twisting into a shape that Dean couldn't see the edges of. Heart pounding, Dean moved his fingers away from the lens of the flashlight to let its full light spear into the room, and the shadow backed off with a low hissing sound.
The rest of the shadows around them were moving.
"Move!" Dean ordered sharply, igniting his flare with a sharp flick of his wrist. Red light sprang to hissing life around him, making him squint. The temperature in the room seemed to drop about twenty degrees, and something sharp like needled teeth sank into the flesh at the back of his leg.
Sam's face was pale in the uneven light, his own lit flare making a broad sweep around him as he launched himself for the altar. Dean followed fast on his heels, cursing out loud when another invisible bite lanced through the back of one wrist. He waved the light of the flare over top of it, and the pain vanished abruptly. Blood was smeared dark against the skin there.
His breathing was fast and short as he scrambled up onto the altar's flat surface, banging his shins in the process. Wincing in discomfort, he struggled up onto his knees and whirled around, holding the flare out in front of him.
"Shit," Sam said, all motion and mass and harsh breath beside him. He was panting, a thin edge of panic rising in his voice.
This had been a stupid idea from the start, goddammit. There were too many of them to fight -- dozens of them, hundreds, maybe more than that -- and the flares he'd brought weren't going to do jack shit to save them. He could see them now, hovering there at the edge of the light. Indistinguishable from the shadows around them, formless, faceless, with a suggestion of eyes glinting dark in the light. The soft sweep of a black cowl, there and then gone, but mostly they were just darkness, whole and complete, so dark they seemed to suck the light out of the entire world.
Pain like sharp teeth sinking into his skin stabbed into Dean from a half dozen places now as the bravest of the demons moved forward to feed. It was a minor pain now, trivial, but growing steadily worse as the demons got bolder. He thought about the previous victims and blanched, not at the thought of his own death but at the thought of Sammy's. They were going to die here.
He was just considering the wisdom of lighting the rest of their meager stash of flares and making a break for the exit when Sam cupped a hand around the back of his neck and kissed him.
Shock slammed into him at the suddenness of it, so that it took a moment to realize the invisible teeth latched onto his flesh were retreating. A low murmuring of voices started up around them, too soft to make out the words, making the hairs stand up along the back of his neck. Slowly, it occurred to him that he was no longer being eaten alive.
Sam pulled back after a moment, his eyes wide and shocking in the light of the flares. There was a smudge of blood on his cheek, but no other wounds that Dean could see. The hand on the back of Dean's neck was shaking.
"They know," Sam whispered. "They know we're brothers."
Dean shuddered at the words, at the feel of Sam's thumb tracing a soothing stripe over the side of his neck, breath panting out light and quick over the skin of his face. Everything about this was wrong, making his breath catch painfully in his chest.
Around them, the demons were silent now, watching. Sam waited a moment, his expression solemn, and then leaned in to kiss him again. It was a slow brush of lips, warm pressure and soft breath, more tentative than any kiss Dean could ever remember getting before. Chaste and questioning, offering permission and apology both.
Slowly, Dean shifted his weight on his knees and leaned into it, making the conscious change from being kissed into actual kissing. He felt dizzy with the knowledge that this was Sam -- Sam -- and that they were here, now. Doing this. The realization just about knocked him cold.
But this wasn't about him. He pulled back to look into Sam's eyes, needing that connection, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he saw Sam smile.
"It's okay, Dean," Sam said, even though it wasn't.
It was enough for Dean to collect himself and turn his attention to the business at hand. Lowering his gaze, he shrugged out of the backpack he was wearing and pulled out the blankets he'd packed inside. He'd be damned if he was going to screw his brother on cold, hard stone without some kind of padding for him. Sam scooted off to one side while Dean mechanically laid the blankets down, then slid forward again, kneeling in front of him and waiting.
The shadow demons were starting to murmur again, a slow ululation of whispers that reminded Dean of rustling leaves. He breathed in harshly, clenching his fists on his thighs.
"Dean," Sam said, hoarsely, and Dean jerked as if he'd been slapped.
"Yeah," he whispered.
Sam's eyes were wide in the flarelight, anxiety flickering in their depths as the reality of what they were about to do settled over him. It broke Dean's heart to see it -- that fear -- and he felt a startlingly fierce lance of hatred for these creatures tear through him, for what they were forcing him to do. But he swallowed his own fear and turmoil because he had to be strong for Sam, always.
He urged Sam with subtle pressure on his shoulders to lie back against the blankets, and Sam did, trusting him as he always did, in everything. Dean could feel the steady vibration of Sam's shivers passing up through his hands, echoing his own. He hesitated a moment before stretching out beside him.
He went slow, trying to calm them both. Despite everything, he could feel a curl of arousal licking deep inside his belly as he leaned down to touch his mouth to Sam's. It made him feel vaguely nauseated, taking advantage of Sam this way, but he told himself it was nothing to be ashamed of. He'd react the same way if there were any warm, semi-willing body beneath him, and the fact that it was his brother made no difference to his libido. Besides, he understood how necessary it was, just like Sam did. That they both be aroused, involved, as this farce played itself out. It was their mutual arousal that was holding the shadow demons at bay.
Closing his eyes, Dean sat back on his heels and pulled his jacket off, laying it carefully on the stone beside him. Then he reached up to slide his shirt off over his head. The ritual, of course, demanded that they both be naked.
Stupid pervy-ass Aztec priests.
Beneath him, Sam shifted and shimmied out of his own T-shirt, tossing it onto the floor beside the altar. Dean tried not to look at him, but he couldn't help himself. Sam's body was trim and muscular, not slender like Dean was but lean. In the flarelight, it looked like he was painted in blood.
"Sam." He waited until Sam looked at him before continuing. "Have you ever done this before? I mean, not with me, obviously. But the rest of it." Seeing the reflexive tightening of Sam's mouth, the familiar stubbornness building in his eyes, he insisted, "I have to know, Sam."
It was the closest he would ever come to outright begging. Sam hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged. "I'm not a virgin, if that's what you mean."
Was he being deliberately stupid? "With guys? That's what I'm asking, Sam. Have you ever done this with a guy before?"
For a moment it seemed like Sam wasn't going to answer him, but then he let out his breath in a ragged sigh. "No." The admission sent a spear of guilt slamming into Dean's chest. Not that there'd been any signs, but he'd been hoping he wasn't going to be the one to take Sam's virginity in this way. "What about you?"
Dean hesitated, wondering how much he should reveal. Seeing the sudden annoyance spark in Sam's eyes, he abruptly decided that his brother deserved nothing less than the honest truth tonight, no matter what the cost of it was. "Yeah, I might have done this a couple times before. A few times."
He waited for the expected flash of uncertainty to cross Sam's eyes, but Sam only looked relieved, the set of his shoulders loosening. Dean realized that Sam trusted him, that the fact that Dean was experienced meant this might not hurt as much as he'd probably been expecting.
Part 2
Title: Virgin Sacrifice
Author: Rushlight
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: incest, semi-consensual sex
Summary: Dean and Sam have to reenact an ancient Aztec ritual in order to stop a curse.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to amothea for a thorough beta-reading and for helping me get over my angst about writing in a new fandom.
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Virgin Sacrifice (1/2)
by, Rushlight
"Shadow demons," Sam said, head bent over the screen of the laptop.
Dean looked up from where he was cleaning his gun at the small table by the window. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the nearer of the motel room's two beds, barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt with his hair still damp from the shower. The early morning sunlight spilling in through the window cast the room in an unforgiving light, illuminating every carpet stain and eye-wateringly ugly color in the bedspreads and walls.
"They're lesser demons," Dean said consideringly. "Not particularly powerful, all things considered."
"Yeah, but they're legion." Sam held down the arrow key with one finger, eyes flickering from side to side as he scanned the text on the screen in front of him. "It fits with the description the museum guard gave us."
Dean leaned back, thinking it over. "He said the shadows seemed to come to life, in broad daylight."
"And he heard what sounded like a thousand voices, all whispering and murmuring together as they moved in to kill the inspector. It fits, Dean."
It did. Sam was pretty awesome at this research stuff, Dean had to admit. "So where does that leave us? What the hell are shadow demons doing in Monmouth County, New Jersey?"
Sam's brow furrowed in concentration. "There are references to shadow demons in just about every major geographic area of the world, throughout different periods in history. Asia, Africa, South America, some parts of Europe... Usually they come up in tandem with references to old magic -- the really dark kind."
"High priests and black magic spells."
"Exactly. In most of the legends I've found, it looks like they're used mainly as attack dogs. Someone gets offended or challenged or wants to conquer the neighboring land, and they call on their pet sorcerer to summon the shadow demons and put the offender in his place."
"By gnawing the flesh off his bones."
"Hey, I didn't create the legend. Black magic generally tends to go in for overkill, you know?"
"Yeah. I know." Dean dragged a hand over his face, breathing out heavily. "Okay. So the two deaths we know of both occurred at the museum. So I'm thinking... what? Cursed artifact?"
"Could be." Sam tapped a finger on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Maybe there was a new shipment of relics brought in. Something infused with protective charms of some kind, or some kind of warding."
"Maybe an effigy. Items used repeatedly in black magic rituals tend to absorb a lot of dark energy. The priest who cast the spell could have died a thousand years ago, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Once an object gets dark like that, it stays dark until someone breaks the curse."
"Right. So what we need to do is find out what new exhibits have been added to the museum recently."
Dean nodded, picking up his gun from the table. "What we need to do is find out what that inspector was inspecting when he died."
* * * *
"South America?" Sam said, jotting down notes in the notebook he held. "What region?"
Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Their tour guide was twenty-something and scarily smart-looking, with long brown hair and eyes that looked sensuous even behind the round lenses of her glasses. Not his type but cute, in a virginal kind of way. She was a masters student at the local university, going after a degree in anthropology. What the hell kind of girl wanted to study dead people for her life's work, anyway?
Not two minutes after their tour had ended, and already Sam had learned that a new shipment of artifacts had been brought in this past week from a dig in South America. Minnie -- their guide's name was Minnie, honest to god -- was only too happy to open up to him and tell him everything he wanted to know once he flashed a smile and fluttered those baby blues at her.
"Venezuela," Minnie told him, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "There's a new dig outside Palo de Agua in Cojedes. We're not supposed to say much about it until the exhibit opens in the fall; right now they're bringing in some larger pieces and trying to work out the funding details."
"New dig," Sam echoed, nodding thoughtfully as he jotted this new information down. "That's really fascinating. What kind of site was it? Some kind of residential structure? Meeting place? Religious temple?"
"It was a temple of some kind, I think. I'm not too clear on the details." She leaned in and brushed elbows with him just a little too smoothly for it to be accidental. Maybe this was how geeks flirted, Dean guessed? "What kind of a paper did you say you were writing again?"
"It's, uh, for a history of ancient civilizations class." Sam glanced at Dean, his mouth pinching down in a frown. He always did hate lying. "And it's for half our grade this semester, so really, any help you can give us would really be appreciated."
"No problem." The smile she gave him was sincere. "Anything I can do to help out. It's not every day I meet a man who's interested in ancient civilizations."
Dean raised his eyebrows and jerked his head minutely, urging him to get on with it. Sam's eyes narrowed at him, but he turned back to Minnie dutifully. "You know," he said, glancing up and giving her a smile, "I'd really love to take a look at those artifacts."
It was amazing, Dean thought with reluctant admiration. You could actually see the girl melt under the wattage of that stare.
"Uh, sure." She composed herself with a visible effort, her smile deepening. Dean figured Sam could have asked for the keys to the place and she wouldn't have turned him down. "Follow me."
* * * *
"So," Sam said, collapsing into the chair in their motel room. "What do you think?"
"I think there was some serious fucking dark energy in that room, Sam." Dean paced across the room, too fidgety to stand still. Something was tickling at the back of his mind, some kind of memory, and he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Yeah. Did you get a look at that altar?"
"Yeah." Dean came to a stop in front of the window and stared out at the parking lot. The sun was starting to drop lower in the sky, its slanting rays turning dull and brassy.
"Aztec. Late 12th century." Sam was reading from his notebook now. "I didn't recognize all of the symbols engraved on it."
"There was something generic about warding and entrapments of power, but the rest of it... That's one seriously complicated spell."
The altar was what the funding sponsors' inspector had been examining when he died. It was made of stone, approximately four feet tall and six feet long. For all its mass, it was portable, with long poles sticking out of either end where slaves presumably could carry it on their shoulders. It was Minnie's assertion that it was most likely some kind of sacred relic the Aztecs had carried with them into battle.
Sam nodded. "If it's a spell, it can be broken." His voice was determined. He was already powering up the laptop. "All we have to do is figure out how."
Dean stared out the window for a minute longer before going to his duffel bag and rooting around inside for Dad's journal. He went to sit down in the chair across from Sam, tossing the book down on the table in front of him.
Sam looked up from the computer screen. "You got something."
"I don't know. Maybe." Dean opened the journal and began to flip through it, scanning the pages with increasing anxiety. He had a really bad feeling about this.
"Well, what is it? Don't keep me in suspense here."
Dean shrugged uncomfortably. "There was this thing Dad and I worked on a couple of years ago. Some kind of cursed Aztec medallion. Anyway, while we were researching the runes to counteract the spell, he compiled a list of other Aztec religious symbology, just in case we'd ever need it in the future."
"That's Dad, always thinking." Sam's tone was dry. He pushed the laptop aside and leaned forward so he could get a better look at the journal. "You recognized one of the symbols, didn't you?"
"Maybe."
There. Dean pulled a folded piece of paper out from between two pages near the back of the book and smoothed it open on the table between them. Dad's sharp, slanted handwriting stared back at him, the stark black lines of the symbols he'd drawn standing out in sharp relief against the faded whiteness of the paper.
"There's one." Sam stabbed a finger at the page, leaning down closer to get a better look. "Some kind of sex magic?"
"Looks like it." Dean's mouth was dry.
Sam nodded consideringly. "Sex magic was very big back in those days. Very powerful. A lot of really nasty spells came out of it." He glanced down at his notebook, then back at the journal page. "What's this one mean?" He tapped at another symbol and twisted his head to one side, trying to read Dad's handwriting upside down.
Dean drew in a slow breath, his fingers curling on top of the table. "Brothers."
Sam blinked at him. "What?"
"Siblings, to be precise, but the additional marking to the right of it on the altar specified the male gender." Dean was surprised his voice was as calm as it was.
Sam glanced down at the notes he'd taken and nodded slowly. "Okay, I see it. So what are we talking about here? Incest?"
"Looks like it. Incest, homosexuality... those high priests must have been pervy old bastards."
Silence spread through the room as the sun sank lower in the sky outside the window. Dean didn't look up from the journal.
"Dean..." Sam said at last.
"What?"
"You know that one sure way to break a curse like this is to reenact the original binding ritual."
The corner of Dean's mouth curled upward, without humor. He couldn't believe Sam was even thinking of this. "Are you suggesting we start asking around New Jersey for a pair of brothers who want to have kinky naked sex together on an Aztec altar? I figure a search like that should take maybe three, four minutes before we get arrested for licentious propositioning."
"Dean."
"What the fuck do you want me to say, Sam?" He threw his hands up in the air, beyond frustrated. "I really don't know what you want me to do here."
"I'm not saying--"
"'Cause I gotta tell you, you're cute but you ain't that cute. All right?"
Sam's mouth pinched together in a thin line, his eyes closing off. He was pissed off now. "I'm not saying we should... god, Dean. What's wrong with you? I'm not the one who carved the symbols on the damn altar."
Dean drew in a deep breath and calmed himself with an effort. Sam was right. "I know. I know. This whole thing just kind of weirds me out, okay?"
The tension in Sam's face relaxed at that. "Yeah, it is weird. But we don't even know for sure what the ritual was. We have to do some research, piece together the rest of the symbols..."
Research. Yes. That was familiar, comforting. He could do this. Moving right along, nothing to see here. "Sounds like we need to hit the library. Maybe at the university; there's got to be some kind of Aztec linguistics text there."
"Right. They should still be open." Sam was looking at him consideringly. "You sure you're all right?
"I'm fine." He shoved the paper with the symbols back into the journal and closed it abruptly. "Let's go."
* * * *
Dean stood with his back against the side of the building, hands in the pockets of his jacket, and stared up at the darkening night sky. A cool breeze drifted in from the trees at the edge of the parking lot, slithering across the back of his neck. He shivered slightly, though not from the cold.
The door to the motel room opened beside him. "Dean? You've been standing out here for almost an hour."
Dean didn't say anything. What, honestly, could he possibly say?
The door closed, and there was a soft crunching of gravel as Sam came to stand at his side. "Dean. Talk to me."
"I'm not sure what you want me to say, Sam."
"I don't know. Anything?" Silence. "Those shadow demons are going to kill again, you know."
"Yeah." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I know."
Their afternoon at the library hadn't done anything to put his mind at ease. It turned out there was only one way they could find to break the curse -- to reenact the original binding ritual. Two male siblings related by blood would have to have sex on top of the altar; and not just sex, but actual goddamn intercourse.
He'd been right. Those high priests were pervy old bastards.
"We could always take a sledgehammer to the damn thing," he said, his jaw tightening.
"You'd never get within ten feet of it with a weapon like that, and you know it. Those creatures are murdering anyone who messes with the thing."
Violence begets violence. It was a common theme in Aztec magic. And Dean was willing to bet that the Aztec priests had made damn sure no one would ever be able to harm their sacred relic. The shadow demons would see to that.
After some more in-depth research, they'd learned that there had actually been four deaths connected to the thing so far. The truck driver who'd delivered the altar to the museum, the inspector, and -- this was the part that clinched it -- the two archaeologists in South America who had discovered the temple. Dean had had to use his NCIC connection to figure that one out; word hadn't made it back to the museum yet, but it was only a matter of time before it did. And then, grisly or not, it would be worked somehow into the exhibit's advertising campaign. Who could resist a "cursed" Aztec artifact, after all?
"There are going to be hundreds of people crowded around that altar every day," Sam continued, his voice soft. "Those shadow demons are going to be pissed, Dean. And you know as well as I do that once these kinds of creatures get a taste for blood, it's hard to rein them in. Without a high priest here to cast the proper containment charms on them..."
He trailed off, leaving the thought unspoken, but Dean could picture the end result of that scenario very well. The creatures were bound to the altar now, protecting it as they'd been charged to do, but how long was that going to last? How long was it going to be before they started turning their attention to anyone who was in the same building as the altar? The same neighborhood? The same city?
"They'll get stronger with every life they take." Sam's voice was roughening around the edges. "They're going to keep hunting, and killing, until maybe one day no one will be able to stop them."
Dean closed his eyes. "You think we should do this."
A pause. "I think we have to."
The quiet words slid like a knife in between Dean's ribs, cold and bitter-sharp. He kept his eyes closed, not daring to breathe, and refused to think about anything at all.
"You realize what this means, don't you?" he said hoarsely.
A ragged breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
He chewed hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. The situation might have been funny if his brain hadn't been completely fucked into submission by the thought of what they were considering doing. "This is fucked up, Sammy."
"You're telling me?"
There was a faint wobble in Sam's voice that, perversely, made the situation seem not quite so overwhelming. Because up until now he'd been logical, been practical, stating the reasons why they had to do this in clear one-two-three bullet points, and here was the proof that he was as freaked out by this as Dean was. Sam was scared.
And Sam scared was impetus enough for Dean to turn his attention away from his own panic and focus on being the big brother again. He opened his eyes and looked up at his brother, seeing eyes that were as haunted as his own staring back at him.
"It's gonna be okay, Sammy. I promise."
The corner of Sam's mouth lifted slightly. "I've told you before, Dean. It's Sam."
Sam. Right. Dean cleared his throat and pushed away from the side of the building. "I'm still not convinced this is the only thing that will break the curse. What was that you said about containment charms?"
Sam shook his head. "Aztec containment spells always involved some kind of human sacrifice."
And it would only be temporary anyway. Damn it.
"We need to stop these things cold, Dean. Before they kill anyone else."
"Yeah." Dean looked up at the sky once more before turning to go inside. "I know."
* * * *
Standing outside the back window of the museum, waiting for Sam to wriggle in through the narrow opening ahead of him, Dean couldn't believe they were actually doing this. It had the false, glassy atmosphere of a dream, right before it turns into a nightmare. Which was weird, because he'd fought all kinds of creatures and spirits and supernatural nasties over the years, and it hadn't shaken him. This was just another job, after all.
Which was absolute bullshit, and he knew it. There was nothing routine about any of this. He grunted as he levered himself inside the window after Sam, flicking on his flashlight and shielding the lens with one hand to make the beam as small as possible.
He glanced at Sam, holding his gaze briefly. Sam's eyes were the ones to slide away first, a muscle in his jaw twitching.
Sam was frightened. That knowledge filled Dean with a rage that made him want to go out and kill something. Sam was putting on a stoic face about the whole thing, acting like it was just another hunt, just another banishing, but Dean could tell he was scared. Dean would have done anything to take this burden away from him.
Knowing what they had to do, Dean would have offered to be the one on the bottom, as it were -- he'd do anything for Sammy, this included -- but the cleansing ritual specifically stated that the elder sibling had to be the one on top. Which was absolute bullshit, but according to the engravings on the altar, that was how the original spell had been cast. The thought made him lightheaded. He wondered fleetingly if the brothers who had helped the priests cast the original spell had done it willingly, or if they'd been coerced.
"This way," Sam said, whispering. Dean nodded and followed him.
It was beyond creepy, walking through the museum after it had closed for the night. The halls were huge and dark, the archways toothed by barred metal doors that hadn't been there when the museum was open to the public. The skin at the back of Dean's neck prickled. He looked around anxiously as he walked beside Sam, feeling the sheer empty loneliness of the place press in on him.
"What about the guard?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low.
Dean smirked, trying to inject some kind of normalcy into the situation. "While you were schmoozing Minnie during the tour earlier, I learned that there is but one night guard. He's about eighty years old, and he spends each night camped out at the front desk reading Playboy magazines."
Sam grinned, thankfully looking -- for the moment -- as if he'd forgotten why they'd come here. "We'd still better keep quiet, though." His face closed off again abruptly, and he turned away.
Damn Sam for trying to be so brave about this, anyway. Dean clenched his fist at his side and followed him.
They were nearing the storage room now where Minnie had shown them the new Venezuelan exhibits. Dean slowed, glancing at the walls warily. The shadow demons shouldn't manifest unless they felt the altar was in some kind of danger, but there was a sense of menace infusing the shadows in this corridor that kept his nerves on edge. He hoped it was just his imagination.
Still, he reached for the flare hanging from his belt with his free hand and closed his fingers around it, pulling it up into a ready position. There wasn't anything they could do that would hurt the damn demons, but if nothing else, shadow demons didn't like light. It wouldn't hurt them, wouldn't do more than startle them for a few seconds, but a few seconds might be all they'd need.
Sam was standing in front of the storage room door now. He glanced over his shoulder, refusing to meet Dean's eyes -- and that was just one of a million reasons why this job was so very wrong. Sam shouldn't be afraid to look at him, damn it.
Sam rested a hand lightly on the door knob, the other hand holding his own flare. "Ready?" he asked.
Dean nodded tersely, stepping up beside him. The door was locked; Minnie had had a key to get them in, but fortunately he and Sam didn't have need of one. He could hear the low huff of breath Sam let out when he juggled his flare under his arm and went after the lock with a set of slim metal picks. The years of college life didn't seem to have dulled his breaking and entering skills any; in less than a minute, he had the door open.
Dean held his breath and shone the thin beam of the flashlight inside.
Most of the artifacts were draped in dustcloth, just as they'd been that morning. The altar alone stood uncovered, tucked away in a large open space at the far end of the room. It was a large, blocky thing, rough hewn from solid granite with veins of volcanic rock running through it. Even from this distance, he could see the etchings that covered its surface.
The air seemed colder in this room, but that might have just been Dean's imagination. He gave the shadows to either side a cursory swipe with the flashlight as he stepped inside and saw nothing but angular shapes and dust. The room was so quiet he could hear himself breathing.
"Well," Sam said, his voice little more than a whisper. "Let's get on with it, shall we?" The words were strained. He didn't look at Dean as he stepped forward toward the altar.
Skin crawling, Dean hurried to follow him. He had a bad feeling about this. A really, really bad feeling about this. And not just about the obvious. There was something wrong here. Earlier, when they'd come here with Minnie, they'd been careful not to touch the altar, not to approach it closer than they had to in order to copy down the runes in Sam's notebook. Shadow demons wouldn't be as active in the daylight, but here, at night, with the two of them drawing closer to the thing...
"Sam," he said hoarsely, lifting the flare in his hand.
One of the shadows detached itself from the wall and seemed to melt through the air toward Sam, twisting into a shape that Dean couldn't see the edges of. Heart pounding, Dean moved his fingers away from the lens of the flashlight to let its full light spear into the room, and the shadow backed off with a low hissing sound.
The rest of the shadows around them were moving.
"Move!" Dean ordered sharply, igniting his flare with a sharp flick of his wrist. Red light sprang to hissing life around him, making him squint. The temperature in the room seemed to drop about twenty degrees, and something sharp like needled teeth sank into the flesh at the back of his leg.
Sam's face was pale in the uneven light, his own lit flare making a broad sweep around him as he launched himself for the altar. Dean followed fast on his heels, cursing out loud when another invisible bite lanced through the back of one wrist. He waved the light of the flare over top of it, and the pain vanished abruptly. Blood was smeared dark against the skin there.
His breathing was fast and short as he scrambled up onto the altar's flat surface, banging his shins in the process. Wincing in discomfort, he struggled up onto his knees and whirled around, holding the flare out in front of him.
"Shit," Sam said, all motion and mass and harsh breath beside him. He was panting, a thin edge of panic rising in his voice.
This had been a stupid idea from the start, goddammit. There were too many of them to fight -- dozens of them, hundreds, maybe more than that -- and the flares he'd brought weren't going to do jack shit to save them. He could see them now, hovering there at the edge of the light. Indistinguishable from the shadows around them, formless, faceless, with a suggestion of eyes glinting dark in the light. The soft sweep of a black cowl, there and then gone, but mostly they were just darkness, whole and complete, so dark they seemed to suck the light out of the entire world.
Pain like sharp teeth sinking into his skin stabbed into Dean from a half dozen places now as the bravest of the demons moved forward to feed. It was a minor pain now, trivial, but growing steadily worse as the demons got bolder. He thought about the previous victims and blanched, not at the thought of his own death but at the thought of Sammy's. They were going to die here.
He was just considering the wisdom of lighting the rest of their meager stash of flares and making a break for the exit when Sam cupped a hand around the back of his neck and kissed him.
Shock slammed into him at the suddenness of it, so that it took a moment to realize the invisible teeth latched onto his flesh were retreating. A low murmuring of voices started up around them, too soft to make out the words, making the hairs stand up along the back of his neck. Slowly, it occurred to him that he was no longer being eaten alive.
Sam pulled back after a moment, his eyes wide and shocking in the light of the flares. There was a smudge of blood on his cheek, but no other wounds that Dean could see. The hand on the back of Dean's neck was shaking.
"They know," Sam whispered. "They know we're brothers."
Dean shuddered at the words, at the feel of Sam's thumb tracing a soothing stripe over the side of his neck, breath panting out light and quick over the skin of his face. Everything about this was wrong, making his breath catch painfully in his chest.
Around them, the demons were silent now, watching. Sam waited a moment, his expression solemn, and then leaned in to kiss him again. It was a slow brush of lips, warm pressure and soft breath, more tentative than any kiss Dean could ever remember getting before. Chaste and questioning, offering permission and apology both.
Slowly, Dean shifted his weight on his knees and leaned into it, making the conscious change from being kissed into actual kissing. He felt dizzy with the knowledge that this was Sam -- Sam -- and that they were here, now. Doing this. The realization just about knocked him cold.
But this wasn't about him. He pulled back to look into Sam's eyes, needing that connection, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he saw Sam smile.
"It's okay, Dean," Sam said, even though it wasn't.
It was enough for Dean to collect himself and turn his attention to the business at hand. Lowering his gaze, he shrugged out of the backpack he was wearing and pulled out the blankets he'd packed inside. He'd be damned if he was going to screw his brother on cold, hard stone without some kind of padding for him. Sam scooted off to one side while Dean mechanically laid the blankets down, then slid forward again, kneeling in front of him and waiting.
The shadow demons were starting to murmur again, a slow ululation of whispers that reminded Dean of rustling leaves. He breathed in harshly, clenching his fists on his thighs.
"Dean," Sam said, hoarsely, and Dean jerked as if he'd been slapped.
"Yeah," he whispered.
Sam's eyes were wide in the flarelight, anxiety flickering in their depths as the reality of what they were about to do settled over him. It broke Dean's heart to see it -- that fear -- and he felt a startlingly fierce lance of hatred for these creatures tear through him, for what they were forcing him to do. But he swallowed his own fear and turmoil because he had to be strong for Sam, always.
He urged Sam with subtle pressure on his shoulders to lie back against the blankets, and Sam did, trusting him as he always did, in everything. Dean could feel the steady vibration of Sam's shivers passing up through his hands, echoing his own. He hesitated a moment before stretching out beside him.
He went slow, trying to calm them both. Despite everything, he could feel a curl of arousal licking deep inside his belly as he leaned down to touch his mouth to Sam's. It made him feel vaguely nauseated, taking advantage of Sam this way, but he told himself it was nothing to be ashamed of. He'd react the same way if there were any warm, semi-willing body beneath him, and the fact that it was his brother made no difference to his libido. Besides, he understood how necessary it was, just like Sam did. That they both be aroused, involved, as this farce played itself out. It was their mutual arousal that was holding the shadow demons at bay.
Closing his eyes, Dean sat back on his heels and pulled his jacket off, laying it carefully on the stone beside him. Then he reached up to slide his shirt off over his head. The ritual, of course, demanded that they both be naked.
Stupid pervy-ass Aztec priests.
Beneath him, Sam shifted and shimmied out of his own T-shirt, tossing it onto the floor beside the altar. Dean tried not to look at him, but he couldn't help himself. Sam's body was trim and muscular, not slender like Dean was but lean. In the flarelight, it looked like he was painted in blood.
"Sam." He waited until Sam looked at him before continuing. "Have you ever done this before? I mean, not with me, obviously. But the rest of it." Seeing the reflexive tightening of Sam's mouth, the familiar stubbornness building in his eyes, he insisted, "I have to know, Sam."
It was the closest he would ever come to outright begging. Sam hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged. "I'm not a virgin, if that's what you mean."
Was he being deliberately stupid? "With guys? That's what I'm asking, Sam. Have you ever done this with a guy before?"
For a moment it seemed like Sam wasn't going to answer him, but then he let out his breath in a ragged sigh. "No." The admission sent a spear of guilt slamming into Dean's chest. Not that there'd been any signs, but he'd been hoping he wasn't going to be the one to take Sam's virginity in this way. "What about you?"
Dean hesitated, wondering how much he should reveal. Seeing the sudden annoyance spark in Sam's eyes, he abruptly decided that his brother deserved nothing less than the honest truth tonight, no matter what the cost of it was. "Yeah, I might have done this a couple times before. A few times."
He waited for the expected flash of uncertainty to cross Sam's eyes, but Sam only looked relieved, the set of his shoulders loosening. Dean realized that Sam trusted him, that the fact that Dean was experienced meant this might not hurt as much as he'd probably been expecting.
Part 2