Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before Ruby there had been someone else.

Correction.

Before Ruby became something more than an uneasy ally, but after Dean's soul had been ripped from his body, the hell-hounds viciously collecting their prize, leaving his younger brother on his own to struggle in a world that had suddenly become a much darker place.

Unlike Dean, he had never been one for one night stands, not even before Jessica, and his record after – really, it was nothing to be proud of, and that time had been no exception.

Nevertheless; before Ruby there had been one other.

It was a chance meeting that had let Sam Winchester make the acquaintance of Damon Salvatore, and it wouldn't be until about a year later that Sam would learn of Damon's true nature.

(That the hunter would recognize his prey.)

Then:

“So that skin walker in Topeka – was that you, Sam?” Silence. A heavy sigh and then, “It's been weeks, boy. Call me!”

(You're tail-spinning, man! And you refuse to talk about it, and you won't let me help you!)

Sam deleted the message as soon as it ended. Bobby sounded concerned in his own gruff, heavy-handed way, not even bothering to cover it up anymore, and Sam felt the twinge of guilt at his behavior, his silence. He knew that the older hunter hurt too, had come to consider both Winchester boys as the sons he never had, and now he had to worry about Sam on top of everything else.

But it all felt too much like the trickster's time loop, like those six months on his own that never happened. Sam couldn't deal with Bobby and his well-meaning but unwanted concern, not now; he could barely deal with himself these days.

Laying back on his motel bed, Sam tried to catch some sleep; to no avail. Restless energy was pulsing through his veins, didn't let his mind shut down. He booted up his laptop, visited all the pertinent websites, looking for something, anything to hunt. The letters kept blurring before his eyes, flowing into and over each other. He blinked rapidly, roughly rubbed his eyes. Closed the screen with a protesting clack of plastic. This, too, had become something of a habit during those past weeks. Sometimes, Sam thought he couldn't remember what it felt like not to be constantly on edge –

(...you're erratic – except for when you're hunting, 'cause then, you're downright scary!)

Suddenly, the motel room felt too small. It was hard to breathe.

He grabbed his keys from a small bowl on the sideboard, tucked a gun into the waistband of his jeans and left for the first bar that he could find.

In hindsight, it might not have been his best idea, and not just because he ended up going straight for the hard liquor. The first shot burnt like fire going down. Sam put the glass down with a clank, wheezed and motioned the bartender for a refill. His head was already beginning to spin. Dean always used to mock him about –

“You're supposed to savor it, not chuck it down like water!” A voice broke through his self-imposed bubble of isolation.

Annoyed more than curious, Sam looked over at a guy a few empty seats down the counter. The first thing he noticed were the eyes, glacier blue and just as cold. Next was the smile, sharp, self-assured, arrogant. Artificial. Pale skin and dark hair and the kind of clothes you paid a small fortune for to look stylishly casual – casually stylish. The kind of thing Sam had never had the money, patience nor inclination to care about.

“Yeah? Well, why don't you mind your own business?”

The guy seemed to consider for a moment. Sam bit back a groan. Blue-Eyes was good, but Sam recognized a show when it was put on for him.

“I could,” the stranger agreed, his smile turning devious – and much more sincere. “It just wouldn't be terribly entertaining.”

Pale blue eyes raked up and down Sam's body, and unexpected heat rose to his face. The message couldn't have been less subtle.

“I'd offer my condolences,” Sam retorted scathingly, “but, really, I don't give a shit!”

He knocked back his second shot as soon as the man behind the counter set it in front of him. He didn't even wait for Sam's sign to refill the glass this time.

The alcohol had to affect his perception stronger than he'd thought, because suddenly Blue-Eyes was right there in his face, and Sam hadn't ever seen him move.

“There are a lot more pleasant ways to help you forget, you know?”

No sense of personal space, that one, and a lot less cocky than Sam would have expected. Arrogant still, but with a hard edge that spoke of personal experience, and Sam wanted to scoff in his face in an inglorious moment of self-pity. The guy didn't look older than twenty-three, twenty-four at the most, younger than Sam himself, and his wardrobe suggested the kind of carefree life that Sam had ever longed for and never been granted.

Still.

That hard edge was real enough, and Sam wasn't far enough gone to think that money equaled a trouble free life, so instead he just shook his head and declined, “I'd have to be a lot more drunk than this.”

Honestly, he should have known better than to phrase a rejection as a challenge. His answer was a shark's smile that sent shivers down his spine, and, “That can be arranged.”

The night that followed, Sam would only ever be able to recall in snapshots later on; freeze-frames and short bursts of dialogue and physical sensations, smells and sounds; pressing the shorter man (shorter than Dean, almost a head and a half shorter than yourself) up against the door to his motel room, ravaging a hot mouth in a surge of lust he couldn't remember feeling this acute since Madison (and look how that ended); fingers running over lean muscle, digging into ribs that felt as frail as bird's bones beneath his too large hands and... not caring.

His gun landing on the carpet in front of the bed, disposed of without comment or care.

“You're even more fun than I anticipated. More desperate. No. Desolate. You're desolate. So much pain. So much anger – ”

“Shut up!”

Losing himself in the body beneath his, rougher than he'd ever been with a lover. Teeth at his neck, sharp and painful and (just right); scratching too long fingernails down vulnerable flanks in retaliation.

Blood on his throat and underneath his fingernails, cum on his stomach, coating his dick.

In the morning, he didn't linger. He showered and packed before his guest ever opened those hypnotic eyes, and he didn't look back when he left. He never saw those eyes snap open as soon as his back was turned, following his trek out of the room with a sharp, satisfied smile.

The only thing he truly regretted (you were ashamed of) in the aftermath was that it took him an hour driving to realize he'd never even asked for the stranger's name.

Chapter Text

Now:

There is no fear.

There should be.

Pale blue eyes, black as night.

The skin underneath so translucent you see the dark web of spidery veins crawling down sharp cheekbones.

Blood-specked lips opened to a snarl, teeth bared. Human teeth; except for the canines, sharp and pointed, barely long enough to register as wrong. A whisper, honey-sweet and compelling, 'Forget.'

Forget.

Sam jerked awake, disoriented, fear belatedly pumping adrenaline into his system.

From beside him in the driver's seat his brother glanced his way, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.

“Dream about anything interesting?”

Letting his head fall back where he was sprawled on the Impala's front bench seat, absently rubbing his eyes, Sam answered, “No. I'm not sure. A vampire, I think.”

Only that wasn't quite right, was it?

“A vampire,” Dean echoed, unconsciously sitting up behind the wheel. Slanting Sam another look, he commented casually, “Been a long time since your last vision, Sammy.”

Carefully checked suspicion combined with genuine worry, and Sam was glad to have his brother back, he was, but he was tired of not being trusted. Even if you deserve it, a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind whispered.

“No,” he denied wearily, “no visions. Just too much Anne Rice.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Didn't look like any vamp I've ever seen.” Scowling, he amended, “Outside of a television screen, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, when do they ever get it right?”

Dean reached out to change the tape in the player, and shortly after, the first misleadingly sedate tunes of The Scorpions' 'Coming Home' scratched their way out of the loudspeakers. Then, his brother ordered, “So tell me about this hunt we're going?”

“Ya, uh...” Pinching the bridge of his nose to force his mind away from glacier blue eyes and focus on the news articles he had stumbled across, Sam recounted, “Three bodies turned up in Jacksonville, Florida, suspicious looking bite-wounds on all of them. And a young woman, Emma Mulray, went missing two days ago.”

“You sure you're not having visions again, Sam?”

“Yes. It felt more like a warped memory, to be honest. You know how dreams sometimes are just weird.”

“Still. Vampires sound like a definite possibility.”

“Maybe.” He reached for the print-outs on the dashboard, studying the autopsy pictures he'd procured. Hesitated. “I don't know, man. I mean, the bite-wounds don't match anything resembling a human jaw, and usually, vamps completely drain their victims. They wouldn't just mangle them and leave them to bleed out...”

“Whatever it is, Sam – ”

“ – we find it, we waste it.”

Startled, Dean glanced over at Sam and grinned. For a moment, it felt as if everything had clicked back into place.

“Exactly!”

Sam grinned back.

oOo

A glimpse of jet black hair, a strangely familiar looking biker jacket, and Sam abruptly stopped in his tracks to get a better look. From across the street pale, ice-blue eyes caught his gaze and held it for several seconds. The smirk on bloodless lips hit him like a punch to the gut. Wisps of memory assaulted his mind, ghost-touches and impressions of deceptive frailty.

Sam remembered that face, ethereal in a way that had nothing to do with innocence. It hadn't been his finest hour, but Sam remembered.

“Sam!” Dean's voice suddenly intruded on his tumultuous thoughts, and when Sam glanced his way, Dean frowned in frustrated concern. He must have been calling his name more than this once.

“What?” his brother wanted to know as Sam turned back to face the street again only to find the object of his distraction had vanished (into thin air) into the crowd. “What is it?”

“I thought I saw...” Glacier blue eyes, black as night. Sam shook his head to get rid of the image. “Nothing. I just thought I'd recognized someone.”

He ought to tell Dean. Of those slippery dream-memories, of who he had seen just now. His last secret had almost torn them apart. But if he told Dean, he would have to explain how they had met, and Sam couldn't do that. Not unless he absolutely had to. Revisiting that time of his life, those bleak, desolate weeks before Ruby had found him, was... Sam couldn't do it. Not until he had to.

Anyway, he wasn't even sure he wasn't just seeing things. Sleep had proven itself to be elusive during recent nights.

oOo

Aside from what it might have said about his mental state, Sam would have preferred it if he had been seeing things.

Appropriately enough, it was another bar where they met for a second time.

It was a quiet hole-in-the-wall, the wooden floor and counter ancient, but well cared for, the kind of establishment that survived mostly on its regulars. Emma Mulray had worked the tables here, and while checking their leads, Sam and Dean had never been above mixing business with pleasure. Dean was already doing his thing, ordering their drinks and flirting with the barmaid.

The woman, although obviously of Asian descent, reminded Sam of Ellen Harvelle in that she was old enough to have been around for a while and able to peg Dean the moment he opened his mouth. Not the type to be easily charmed, she still seemingly enjoyed the repartee, which was half the fun of flirting for his brother anyway, regardless of whether it led to anything more, and Sam was about to leave him to it, knowing Dean would likely find out more if his little brother wasn't hovering at his shoulder.

He collected his pint and turned to a booth in the corner of the room to do what he did best, taking the opportunity to follow up on their research when he noticed him.

He was sitting at the counter again, alone at the far end, nursing what looked like whiskey or bourbon. All Sam was really able to see of him was the set of his shoulders, the jet black hair giving way to the barest hint of cheek- and jawbone and long, graceful fingers curling loosely around a tumbler filled with honey colored liquid. It was enough.

Before he could properly think about it, Sam was at his side, remarking, “So this is how you're supposed to savor it.”

Glacier blue eyes snapped up to him in short-lived surprise, strangely iridescent in the dim lighting, and Sam continued unnecessarily, “I remember you.”

“You do?” Scrunching his face up in a way that was both arrogant and comical, he didn't hesitate to answer his own question, “What am I saying? Of course you do!”

Sam barked out a laugh. “Wow!” he said, “You really don't lack in self-confidence, do you?”

The other man smirked that devilish smirk that had stayed with Sam most of all. “As I recall, you don't lack anything substantial either.”

Years of being desensitized by an older brother made him able to push down a blush, but it was a close thing.

Those pale blue eyes now studied him carefully, more serious.

“You look better than the last time we met.”

“Yeah.” Sam scratched the back of his neck self-consciously. It had been inevitable of course, but still, the reminder discomfited him. “You didn't catch me at my best then. I'm ashamed to say I never got your name.”

“Maybe that's because I didn't tell you.”

“So tell me now!”

The poorly concealed challenge lay between them for several heartbeats. Then, the silence turned deliberate as Sam was given a thorough once-over, curiosity and interest sparking in those unforgettable eyes.

“Damon Salvatore,” he finally introduced himself, raising an expectant eyebrow, and, well, fair was fair, Sam supposed.

“Sam Winchester.”

Later on, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had given Damon his real name. It was a risk, and Dean would probably have his balls when he found out, but their names had never really made the news. Sam assumed as infamous as their reputation had been with the FBI, the Feds hadn't wanted to drive them even deeper into hiding, or – possibly – prevent panic in the broad public until they had the Winchester brothers firmly behind bars.

“So,” questioned Sam, “what brings you to Jacksonville?”

“Oh, please!” Damon scoffed, eyes once again twinkling merrily. “We're not going to do this whole catching-up thing, are we? Because, seriously, Sam, we're little more than strangers not long lost friends.”

“Okay. What should we talk about, then?”

Once again, Damon raked his eyes up and down Sam's form. “Why does it have to be talking?”

Throwing his head back in honest amusement, Sam laughed. “God, you're actually worse than my brother!”

oOo

Dean didn't even wait until they were outside before he asked, “So who was he?”

“It's a long story, Dean.”

It was one last ditch attempt, and Sam knew it would fail even as he made the effort. There was no derailing Dean now.

“I've got time, Sam!” his brother told him over the gleaming black hood of the Impala. It was the end of a beautiful day, Sam absently noted. Letting himself fall into the passenger seat, he took a steadying breath.

A short while later, his brother stared at him from across the seat. Had Sam not been strung so tight right now, it would have been hilarious how Dean couldn't seem to form the words he was dying to let out.

“You had a one night stand,” he finally repeated dumbstruck. “You had an actual, no strings attached one night stand? With a guy?”

Funny how that had never been the part Sam had freaked out over.

“First time for everything, I guess.”

“Obviously, Samantha!” Sam scowled at him in annoyance. “But still! One night stand! You! With a guy!”

Throwing his hands up in frustration, Sam bit out, “Can you stop saying that like it means something icky?” Because from what he could remember, it had been anything but. Catching Dean's incredulous stare, Sam huffed impatiently. “Look. I wasn't in the best frame of mind then, and you weren't – ” Here, Sam had to swallow hard, and his brother looked away, a fleeting expression of guilt on his face. “You weren't there, and I... Honestly, I don't even remember how it happened exactly. One minute we were doing shots and the other we were – well...”

“Doing each other,” Dean helpfully supplied, and this time Sam did blush.

For a long minute his brother just eyed him up and down, making Sam fidget under his intensity. Strictly speaking, this hadn't been as bad as Sam had feared. The memories of the time just after Dean's death still turned his guts to ice, but Dean focusing on the one thing Sam had never really cared about helped; a great deal. His brother's final judgment still stood out, however.

Finally, Dean moved, making a face and jerking his head in that way he had when some things just couldn't be helped.

“You're not gonna make me wear a rainbow batch to show my support, are you?” he whined.

Sam laughed in relief. “Hardly.”

Dean's lips twitched up, and for a moment they sat in companionable silence. Then, his brother turned serious again. “So.”

“So, what?”

“Do I really need to remind you what happened the last time you just happened to come across another chance acquaintance of yours months after you've last seen her?”

('Could be coincidence. You know, it happens.'

'Well, yes, it happens. But not to us!')

He hadn't thought about Meg in a while, but it was hard to forget one of the first genuine demons they'd ever come across.

“Which is why I went to talk to him,” replied Sam.

“Find out anything?”

“You mean aside from the fact that he seems to like sex more than you do?” Sam didn't even try to suppress the grin when his brother choked on his own spit at that. “No,” he then answered earnestly. “Just his name. Damon Salvatore, or so he said. And that he's really, really good at evading questions.”

...blue eyes, black as night...

Sam frowned.

“I know that look, Sammy. What?”

Uncertainly shaking his head, Sam replied, “I'm not sure. That dream I had this morning?”

“Of Anne Rice vampires?”

“I could swear it was Damon's face.” At Dean's laden stare, Sam shook his head once more. “It still doesn't feel like a vision, Dean. You know, with the excruciating headaches I used to get?”

Not to mention that the demon who used to send them was dead, good and proper.

“It sure can't be a memory, Sam! Because I hope like hell if he made to chow down on you, you would have cut his freakin' head off!”

Phantom pain brought his fingers to the side of his neck, and Sam frowned in confusion. “Sure.”

“Right.” Dean studied him, concern in every angle of his body, before he turned the engine over. “Let's see what we can dig up on Damon Salvatore.”

Chapter Text

As it turned out, they couldn't dig up much of anything on Damon Salvatore.

Most hits with Google led to websites or articles about Matt Damon. They stumbled across a reference to a Salvatore family, one of several founding families of a little town somewhere in the south-east.

But there wasn't anything substantial, and without knowing Damon's current address or even date of birth, working their way through all D. Salvatores in the yellow pages was just bound to become an exercise in futility.

“It doesn't have to mean anything, Dean,” Sam tried to assuage when his brother grew steadily more aggravated. “Some people just don't leave a trail.”

Closing all browser tabs but one, Sam stretched his long legs out from underneath the narrow table he was using as a makeshift desk.

“So what are you suggesting, Sam? That we just drop this lead?”

“We don't even know if it's a lead!”

“We still have to follow up on it!”

“But not to the exception of everything else! You still haven't told me what that bartender said about her colleague.”

“She said she was a sweet girl who mostly kept to herself. Emma Mulray is just another victim, Sam. It's that Salvatore we need to focus on!”

“Why are you so fixated on him all of a sudden?”

Dean glared at him, but didn't answer, just took up pacing in front of the table.

“Come on, Dean, why?”

Jerking around, Dean snapped, “'Cause I don't like him!”

“Why?” Sam's helpless laughter died with the glare Dean leveled his way. Incredulous realization, and with it sudden anger worked their way into his throat. “Because I slept with him?” he demanded disbelievingly.

Dean heatedly retorted, “Because you seem to fall for a certain type, Sam!”

A punch to the face would have felt kinder. Standing up so abruptly that the chair legs scratched noisily over the linoleum floor, Sam walked to the window looking out at the dark parking lot, trying to get his breathing under control again. Dean's reflection in the window pane looked remorseful.

“Sam – ”

“Don't,” Sam interrupted, the familiar guilt burning in his gut. “You're right, okay? You're right.”

He turned around to face his brother, forced his voice to sound normal. “But even if you're right about Damon, the bite-marks don't match a vampire, Dean. Anne Rice or otherwise.”

The room was too small. The air suddenly stifled him. He headed for the door, flatly announcing over his shoulder, “I need to get some fresh air.”

Dean didn't call him back.

oOo

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to run into Damon while Sam was roaming the all but deserted streets of the town.

Their upbringing had ingrained a hunter's instincts neither Dean nor Sam could easily ignore, and a few blocks down they were suddenly screaming at him. He was being followed. The steps were soft and barely noticeable, and had Sam been anyone else, he might not have. As it was, he took the next corner, slipped into the shadows of a front door and waited.

What happened next, happened quickly. He'd had to use this move more times than he wanted to count; it was a matter of seconds that Sam had his hand around a throat and his pursuer slammed back first against the house wall.

It still came as a surprise when he recognized the face.

“Are you stalking me now?” blurted Sam, caught thoroughly off-guard.

“You're the one who jumped me!”

Damon looked entirely more amused than he had any right to be considering his position. His slender throat felt fragile beneath Sam's hand. It came with his own height, of course, that almost everyone felt fragile, small in his hands. Still. Damon wasn't a midget by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a few inches shorter even than Dean, and up close like this it was hard not to take notice.

Deceptive frailty and lean muscles, pale blue eyes, black as night.

Sam shook his head to get rid of the distorted memories. After the fight with his brother he had exactly no tolerance for games. And then there were Dean's not so misguided suspicions and his own dream-memories to take into account.

Harshly, Sam demanded, “Why were you following me?”

Something happened to Damon's face then. The smirk slid off, and it was subtle, but his pupils dilated until all that was left was a slim ring of molten ice around a black core, catching the light of a street lamp.

“Let go of me, Sam.”

Sam did without a second thought. Only to blink in confusion and shake his head like a dog out of water a mere second later.

Taking a preemptive step back, he rasped, “What are you?”

Damon, the creature before him tilted his head in applause. “Bravo, Sam! I was wondering how long it would take you.”

“You haven't exactly been subtle!” shot Sam back.

A small voice inside his head, a voice sounding like Dean and his father both, berated his behavior. Oh, Sam was wary, of course he was; he wasn't stupid – or suicidal. But he wasn't as wary as maybe he should have been. The gun pressing against the small of his back was a familiar, comforting weight, but experience had taught them it worked on one out of ten creatures if they were lucky. Mostly, the common guns they carried were the Winchester version of a security blanket.

Still, however much safer Sam would have felt with a knife coated in dead man's blood or even a bottle of holy water, something about Damon... intrigued him. It didn't much help that he knew perfectly well that this was, essentially, how it had all started with Ruby.

Eyes black as night.

On an impulse, Sam attempted, “Christo.”

Nothing. No flinch, no black eyes. Only inquisitively raised eyebrows, and the return of that infuriating smirk.

“It's hardly the first time someone called me God.” The suggestive gaze was back in full blow, too, and Sam unsuccessfully tried to convince himself it was revulsion that had him suppressing a shiver. “Although usually the language and circumstances are a bit different.”

“You're unbelievable!”
The smirk grew wider as Damon took a step forward. “Oh, you better believe it!”

Sam took that same step back, putting distance between them again more as a statement than any kind of delusion over the effectiveness of the action. “Damon!” he snapped. “What are you?”

Glacier blue eyes rolled in exasperation. “Really? I mean, really? How are you still alive, hunter?”

Heart racing in his chest, Sam clenched his jaws. “How do you know that?”

“You're kidding, right?”

Sam just stared at Damon, until the other shrugged carelessly. “I may not keep in touch with – the family, as it may be, but even I've heard of the Winchester brothers. You're what legends are made of.” He pursed his lips; reconsidered. “Or nightmares. Depending on which side of the fence you're standing. Anyway, I've had a hunter on my tail before, I know how to recognize the signs.”

The casual tone of the statement told Sam everything he had to know, and yet he found himself asking, “What happened?”

A pointed look was trained his way. “I'm still here. What do you think happened?”

“If you knew who I am, what exactly was that last year?” Ever since it had happened, Sam had looked back on that night with mixed feelings. Slowly realizing just what he had taken into his bed back then didn't change that except for adding some more confusing, contradictory emotions to the mess.

“Fun, Sam!” Damon told him, exasperation almost palpable. “That was fun!”

Sam arched an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Go on,” Damon challenged. “Tell me it wasn't.”

His belly tightened as he remembered. Lean, strong thighs around his waist, long elegant fingers in his hair, digging bruises into his shoulders. Barely keeping himself from squirming uncomfortably, Sam dropped his gaze.

“And for the record,” the other continued, “I didn't know who you were back then, because if I had – ”

He didn't want to hear what Damon would have done different. “What are you?” he pressed again, deliberately talking over Damon's words.

The man (demon, monster) looked at him wide-eyed, open in a way Sam hadn't seen on him yet. This exasperation was, possibly, the first honest expression Damon had shown him up until now.

“Come one, Sam. What could I possibly be?”

Sam thought he remembered black eyes, but Damon hadn't flinched at the name of God. Sam thought he remembered sharp fangs, but they weren't the set of shark's teeth they should have been.

Whatever else Damon was, patience obviously wasn't his forte. He heaved a long-suffering sigh and explained, “The term you're looking for is 'vampire'?”

“No,” Sam vehemently denied. “No, we've dealt with vampires before, and you're not anything like them!”

Damon scoffed. “Of course I'm not. I'm Damon Salvatore!”

Despite everything, Sam had to snort back a laugh. “That's not what I meant!”

Once again rolling his eyes, Damon lamented, “I actually have to prove myself to a hunter? Fine.”

And with that, he – changed.

Sam instinctively flinched back when black flooded pale eyes. Only it wasn't really black.

In the inadequate light of the street lamp it was hard to make out, but Damon's eyes were tinged the dark red of blood not demon-black; on a body, Sam would have thought petechiae and choked to death. Apart from that, the change was almost subtle: a dark spiderweb of fine capillary vessels threading downwards from the translucent skin underneath those eyes, only the canine teeth extruding and sharpening, just long enough to register as wrong. It was as if Sam had stepped into his dream (memories then, not a dream).

His neck tingled again in remembered pain.

It only raised more questions, but there couldn't be any doubt anymore about Damon's true nature.

Sam took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine. Okay. Vampire. In that case, why am I not dead yet?”

And it wasn't just this encounter he was asking about.

“Would you rather?” the vampire mocked. “'Cause I assure you, that can be arranged.”

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Sam didn't even have time to formulate a response before Damon forged on. “But speaking of which, what exactly brings a pair of hunters into town?”

Sam just glared. Damon shook his head in instant denial, the blood clearing from his eyes and his veins, leaving behind only a handsome, pale young man with a wicked smile. “Oh no. Not me. Despite what some people -” Sam could almost hear the story behind the emphasis “- might believe, I do know how to keep a low profile. I've been a good little vampire. I haven't killed anyone in...” With furrowed brows, he considered for a few seconds, before disgustedly scrunching up his face. “Way too long.”

Sam shook his head, not quite able to help the weak, incredulous huff that escaped him. God help him, but there was something about the vampire and his antics that reminded Sam of his brother in a roundabout way. Considering their history, however brief, that comparison was – uncomfortable to say the least.

Picking up his initial question, Sam queried, “If that's the case, why were you following me?”

“I hate to admit it, but curiosity is one of my worst vices.”

“You mean aside from the whole eating people for dinner thing?”

Shrugging dismissively, Damon declared, “It's just good nutrition.”

The crux of the matter was, from a vampire's point of view it was nothing but the blunt truth. Momentarily lost for words, Sam rubbed his hands across his face. “Why am I even talking to you?” he wondered aloud.

Was it any wonder Dean tended to question his sanity and allegiance in equal measure lately?

Banishing the thought from his mind, Sam waited for the inevitable comeback before realizing that something else had seized Damon's attention. Frowning in apparent confusion, the vampire's gaze was locked onto something behind Sam.

“What?” he asked suspiciously, turning to take a look for himself.

There was a light at the end of the street, a dark orange glow, barely bright enough to illuminate the unlikely scene they were witnessing.

A cold shiver ran down Sam's spine.

Chapter Text

“What do we know about Emma Mulray?”

Dean's head snapped up, gaze flying across the room to meet Sam's over the case file that was spread out across the bed on which the older Winchester was sitting.

“What?”

Sam put his hands up in a plea for patience. “Just humor me for a moment, Dean. What do we really know about her?”

The room was filled with the sound of rustling paper as Dean sorted through the print-outs.

“Emma Mulray,” he began to rattle off, “came into town five weeks ago, current residence Jacksonville, Florida; single; employed at the same bar where you reacquainted yourself with your creepy one-night-stand just this afternoon...”

Sam shot him a glare, but didn't otherwise acknowledge the jibe. “No, I mean like DOB. Where was she born? Who are her parents? Anything before she came to Jacksonville.”

Frowning, Dean canvassed the controlled chaos of print-outs, newspaper articles and handwritten notes in front of him. Coming up blank, as Sam had known he would.

“There's nothing!” Dean stated, stumped. He looked up to search Sam's eyes. “How come we know so little about her?”

Sighing, Sam ran a hand through his hair, going for the table where their father's journal had unceremoniously been dumped a few hours ago. “Because we considered her another victim, and I didn't dig any deeper yet because I thought her colleague would give us more to go on. But I bet you anything, if I tried, I wouldn't find a trace of her.”

He leafed through the battered, leather bound journal in his hands, careful not to displace any of the haphazardly added notes and pictures and articles, until he found the entry he was looking for.

“Why?” Dean wanted to know.

Keeping the page open, Sam wordlessly proffered the book to his brother who took it and scanned the writing with open curiosity.

“There used to be a bog where this city was built, wasn't there?”

“Yeah,” his brother answered flatly, expression darkening as he read through the entry. “It was drained to gain building sites. It's common practice.” Sam anticipated his next question, when Dean looked up at him again. “How – ?”

“I only just saw her.”

Raised eyebrows, an incredulous jerk of Dean's head, and Sam laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. Dressed in a nightgown, a lantern in her hand. She's a will-o-wisp.”

“They're rare.” Dean tapped the book in his hands thoughtfully. “Even Dad couldn't find much on them. Just the most common legends, not even enough to count as lore.”

Will of the Wisps; Jack o' Lantern; all variations of the same theme: a poor soul tethered to this realm, leading others to their doom. In some versions of the legend, the ember in the lantern came straight out of the fires of hell.

“They're also called ghost-lights,” Dean went on, perusing the entry a second time. “Dad speculated they might be spirit phenomenons, like a woman-in-white, where some circumstances have to come to pass to become one. Like maybe getting lost in a bog and dying there. If that's the case, though, looking for the body is going to be a bitch. And it still doesn't explain the bite-wounds, does it?”

“The creature I just saw wasn't a ghost, Dean,” Sam informed his brother. “When it tried to attack, it – it changed into something...” Shuddering at the mere thought of it, all Sam was clearly able to recall was a snout full of needle-sharp teeth and glowing, orange eyes.

“It attacked you?”

Waving away Dean's concern, Sam assured, “I'm fine. Anyway. It's probably been here since before the city was built, but there weren't any suspicious deaths until now, or else it would have drawn attention long ago. Why now? What made it surface all of a sudden?”

Almost a minute of deep silence followed. Then, pointing a finger at his younger brother in sudden inspiration, Dean asked, “Haven't I seen a billboard outside of town, advertising a new apartment complex that's set to be built once the remaining wetland's been drained?”

“Huh.” Sam cocked his head. “Could be. The legends tell us will-o-wisps dwell in marshland. They wouldn't be the first creatures to react badly if their territory is threatened.”

“The question remains: how do we kill it?”

Contemplatively, Sam rocked his head back and forth. There were several things he could think of, but he had little to no proof any of them would actually work.

“I have an idea or two, but we should probably check with Bobby first, see if he knows anything at all that could help us.”

“Yeah.”

Sam went to order the mess on Dean's bed, collecting the loose pages into neat stacks when he became aware of Dean watching him speculatively, lips pursed in thought.

“What?” he asked.

Sheepishly, Dean shrugged. “You were right,” he admitted, and for a second Sam had no idea what he was talking about. “About how I was fixating on your little friend and not taking any other explanation into consideration.”

Ducking his head, Sam opened his mouth just to close it again. He sighed, sat down on his bed and met Dean's gaze. “Yeah, well. You were right too. About Damon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh – I kind of ran into him. Outside. He says he's a vampire, but...”

“But what?”

“Oh, he's definitely not human. He just doesn't look like any vampire we've ever tussled with.”

“Did you let him walk?”

“What was I supposed to do, Dean? I only had a gun on me, and we both know they don't work!”

Dean stared at him incredulously. “You're just assuming the rules are the same, if he's really so different as you say?”

“Yes, I'm assuming!” Sam exclaimed in aggravation. “That's pretty much all I can do at this point! And anyway, he managed to scare off Emma, so I guess I owe him.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Sam knew it was the wrong thing to say. Dean's expression turned to stone. Sighing once again, Sam entreated, “He's not hurting anyone, Dean.”

A mirthless smile on his face, his brother replied, gesturing, “And you're just taking his word for it.”

“No, I'm not just taking his word for it! There haven't been any animal attacks, suspicious unsolved murders or missing persons listed, save for those we came here for!”
“And how exactly do you know –“

“How many times, Dean? The bite-marks –“

“ – don't match. Yeah, you said.”

Running a hand through his short hair, Dean grimaced and turned to pace the length of floor at the feet of their beds. Sam wondered if he was thinking of Lenore, too; the one vampire and her clan they had let walk because they were surviving on cow's blood and the brothers hadn't been able to deny her claim for a right to live because they weren't hurting anyone, they were just trying to get by.

Still. Dean wasn't wrong. No matter how... alluring Damon seemed, he was dangerous, never even tried to deny it. Sam had to remind himself it wouldn't pay to let his guard down.

“Look,” Sam cajoled. “Let's deal with Emma first.” Reaching into his back pocket to grab his cellphone, he held it out to his brother. “Why don't you call Bobby, and I see what else I can find on the 'net?”

Grudgingly, Dean snatched the cell out of Sam's hand, and a few minutes later, they found themselves up to their armpits in research again.Business as usual, really.

oOo

“Dean!”

The way this night had been going up until then, they should have known it would culminate in one of the usual disasters. Hurrying over to where his brother lay sprawled on the pavement from the hit he'd just taken, Sam allowed himself a small sigh of relief when he saw Dean's chest rising and falling. Unconscious then, not dead. Not dead...

“You humans!” the will-o-wisp to his right snarled, Emma's girl-next-door face distorted by hatred, the lantern held in a white-knuckled grip. “Always going where you're not wanted, never content with what you've already taken!”

Behind her, Sam glimpsed a shadow stalking closer, a dark outline in the black of night, barely there outside the circle of deep orange light cast by the ember in the lantern.

“Killing us won't save your marsh!” he tried to reason, kneeling down next to his brother, focusing Emma's attention firmly on him.

“No,” Emma agreed. “But if I am going to die, I'm taking as many of you with me as I can!”

Sam hadn't really expected her to listen. They rarely did. As her words sunk in, he whispered in realization, “You'll die once the marsh dries up!”

He should have thought of this before. It wasn't unusual that nature spirits were tied to the ground they called home. Not that it mattered.

The will-o-wisp, however, never got to reply. Out of the dark, a hand shot to her chin and her head was yanked to the side and back. Sam heard the unmistakable sound of a neck snapping, and then Emma's petite body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and Sam's gaze landed on the figure standing behind her.

“Well, that was disappointing,” a by now familiar voice complained.

“Damon!”

“Who did you expect, the cops?”

The vampire made to stand next to him, but Sam quickly protested.

“No. The lantern! The ember has to be extinguished, or she'll come back!”

Fallen from its owner's grasp, the lantern had rolled a small way away, but the coal inside was still glowing a sinister red-orange. A few short strides took Damon over there, and while Sam checked on his brother, trying to bring him around, the vampire brought his foot down on the iron frame.

“You don't have a bottle of water handy, by any chance?”

Sam smiled, going for the inner pocket of his jacket. “Holy water, as a matter of fact,” he answered smugly.

There was a shuffling in his back, and Damon's warning call of “Hunter!”

Sam jerked around, expecting to come face to face with a seriously pissed off and homicidal creature. What he found instead was Emma slowly rising to her feet, her dirty-white, gossamer nightgown torn and fluttering in the wind that had picked up in the last few minutes, standing off against the dark-haired vampire.

“You are taking their side, vampire?” she asked angrily. “You're on their side when they would kill you as soon as look at you?”

“I'm not on anyone's side!”

Studying him with unblinking eyes for what felt like a small eternity, she finally decided, “No matter.”

She started flickering like an old cinema tape, her appearance changing back and forth. One moment, her eyes were molten lava, the next not; one moment, Sam saw a snout with razor-sharp teeth and a vaguely human-shaped figure with the shriveled, discolored skin of a bog-body; blink, and she was human again. It hurt his eyes.

“If you come in my way, I'll kill you like anyone else,” she promised Damon, but Damon merely scoffed contemptuously. “I'd like to see you try!”

The next second, he was thrown against the wall in his back. It was over so fast, Sam hadn't even seen it happen. Sounds like twigs breaking echoed unnaturally loud off the alley walls.

“You are but a child,” the will-o-wisp was saying, her face mere inches from Damon's flared nose. “You're not strong enough to fight me.”

Damon's gaze flickered over the broken lantern, and up to catch Sam's eyes. Sam gripped the bottle in his hand tighter.

“Watch me!” the vampire hissed, and once again, things happened so fast Sam saw nothing but blurs. When the ember landed in front of him, though, he didn't hesitate.

The red-hot coal hissed and creaked and shrieked – or maybe that was Emma – the water vaporizing almost before it touched its surface until finally all that was left was a shriveled looking bit of dark gray cinder, crumbling to ashes in a gust of wind.

Only then did the smells register; wood-smoke and burnt flesh and the iron tang of blood, something cloying, decaying underneath.

Sam looked up to find Damon leaning against the alley wall, breath coming in short gasps, burnt hand held gingerly against his chest. Blood was splattered across his face, dripped down his hair, and his eyes were clouded with it. To the vampire's feet lay what was left of Emma Mulray – or rather the creature she had been. Her ripped off head had come to rest several feet into the alley, still rocking back and forth in a macabre denial of her defeat.

Something wet ran down Sam's forehead, and he brought his fingers up to wipe it away. They came away a dark, rusty red. Sam stared at the blood as if hypnotized. It still sang to him, a siren's call of power and invincibility. It would be so easy...

“And here I thought the bloodsucker was me.”

Damon's amused voice shook him out of his trance, and Sam came back to himself, hand inches away from his lips. Decisively, he let it drop and pushed himself up to his feet, sparing a glance at Dean to make sure he wasn't worse off than before, before approaching his unlikely ally.

“Are you alright?”

Curiosity sparked bright in once again pale eyes, but Damon let it slide, settling on, “I'll be fine.”

He brought his injured hand up in front of his eyes, inspecting it with an odd expression on his face. Before Sam's startled eyes, raw flesh knitted itself back together ever so slowly, and the angry red faded little by little into the pale pink of freshly healed skin. “I don't think I've kept any normal wound this long since I turned,” Damon stated bemusedly.

He pushed off the wall to toe the disgusting corpse with detached interest. Emma had died in her true form; there was nothing human about her anymore. They still would have to get rid of the body somehow.

As if reading his mind, Damon bent down to take a hold of bony shoulders, seemingly uncaring of the still mostly raw palm of his hand or the revolting texture of the lifeless, mummified flesh, ordering, “Give me a hand, will you?”

Together, they heaved the carcass into a dumpster at the back end of the alley. The sad truth was that it wasn't likely to be discovered unless someone was actively searching the garbage. Nonchalantly Damon threw the head in after, not bothered in the least by what he was doing. Getting rid of the evidence obviously wasn't new to the vampire any more than it was for Sam. The thought tied his stomach in knots.

For a long moment, Sam contemplated the supernatural creature at his side, until he finally voiced the question chasing itself around in his head. “Why did you help me?”

Damon's eyes snapped to his, looking up at him from underneath long lashes, starkly black against pale skin.

“Why not?” he smirked. “There's not much fun to be found around here anymore, and you, Sam Winchester, are the most riveting human being I've come across in decades!”

Sam huffed. “You really expect me to believe you did all of this just for the heck of it?”

Shrugging, Damon retorted, “I don't particularly care what you believe, Sam.”

This time when the vampire stalked closer Sam held his ground. In a further deviance from their usual dance, it was Sam who let his eyes travel up and down that dark, lithe frame, for once allowing himself to appreciate the predator's grace which Damon showed off so effortlessly. There was no trace of broken bones despite Sam's earlier suspicions, only the knowing, annoying smirk on his lips that the hunter had already come to expect of him.

“Now the more interesting question would be,” Damon all but purred, deliberately, provocatively sniffing at Sam's collarbone, “why a human like you, a hunter nonetheless, would be so tempted by that vile-smelling blood over there?”

His addiction to demon blood was not something... there were only two people in Sam's life he owed any sort of explanation, and the vampire wasn't among them. Before he could tell Damon to keep his nose out of other people's business, however, a pained groan sounded from behind them.

About time, Sam thought, relief flooding through him, and, aggravating vampire momentarily forgotten, he hurried back to his brother's side to crouch down beside him. Carefully he helped Dean sit up. The older Winchester had gotten away with a cracked rib and a knock to his thick skull, and, while undoubtedly painful, Sam knew he would be fine. A hand to his sore head, Dean croaked, “What did I miss?”

Another question Sam was reluctant to answer. A glance over his shoulder told him that Damon was gone. That the vampire had been standing on the wrong side of a dead end alleyway didn't warrant more than the quirk of an eyebrow anymore.

“Only the demise of the latest fugly,” Sam joked weakly. Catching Dean's arm over his shoulder, hauling him to his feet, Sam suggested, “Come one, let's get out of here. I'll fill you in on the way.”

Chapter Text

Dean wasn't happy about Damon's involvement, but Dean hadn't been happy about a lot of things for a while now, and Sam couldn't bring himself to regret his lack of action concerning the vampire when said vampire had most likely just saved both their lives. Either way, he had a feeling they hadn't seen the last of the cocky bastard.

What Sam didn't expect was to see Damon again that very same night, lounging on Sam's bed in the brothers' motel room as if he had a right to be there, flicking through the pages of their father's journal with obvious interest. All traces of the fight had been washed off, Damon's hair still gleaming wet. Steam was billowing out of the open door to the bathroom. Stunned by the sheer audacity of his behavior, both brothers Winchester, frozen just inside the threshold, had to take a long moment to stop and stare.

“I don't believe it!” Dean cursed viciously behind him, just as Sam himself had worked up the presence of mind to demand, “What the hell are you doing here?”

As if only just noticing them when Sam damn well knew he'd heard them coming, Damon abandoned his reading to arch a patronizing brow at them. “You really shouldn't leave your doors unlocked. Anybody could come in.”

“We didn't!” Sam snapped over Dean's scathing, “That's real funny, coming from you!”

As if he hadn't even heard them, the vampire went on, “It might not be the worst idea to rent your motel rooms under your real names, either. On the other hand, from what I've picked up that's not really an option for you, is it?”

Scrunching up his face, Damon dropped the entire issue with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders, holding up John Winchester's hunting journal instead.

“Your father wrote one hell of a cookbook. Not terribly organized, granted, but impressive all the same.”

“Cookbook?” Dean's expression went from murderous to confused in two seconds flat as he closed the door behind him.

“Grimoire, Book of Shadows, supernatural almanac. Call it what you will.”

Clearly not caring one way or the other, Damon waved his hand about. Sam glared at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he repeated, carefully pronouncing each word.

(A lifetime ago, those very same words spoken to your brother had started – everything.)

“What?” Damon huffed, swinging his long legs off the bed to sit up. “After a night like this, a guy can't be concerned about his friend's well-being?”

“I'm sorry, I must have missed something.” Imitating Damon's convincingly sincere tone, Sam asked, “When exactly have we become friends?”

A second later, he let out a pained yelp. Dean's punch in the ribs had taken Sam completely by surprise.

“You are not allowed to hook up with anybody ever again, Sam!” his older brother told him. “You hear me?” Not that Sam blamed him. At the moment, he couldn't agree more.

“Is this the thanks I get for saving your butts?” The hurt in Damon's demeanor seemed almost genuine. Almost. Dean, of course, was unable to resist the bait and threatened, “If I weren't still seeing double, you'd be riddled with holes by now!”

“Unless your bullets are made out of wood, it wouldn't do you much good, I'm afraid.”

Maliciously Dean replied, “I bet it'd still hurt like hell!” Damon's grimace was confirmation enough.

Memorizing the information the vampire had just revealed to them for future use only came natural after all his years on the hunt, even while Sam wondered why Damon would let his vulnerabilities slip like that; was he really that arrogant, or did he assume they already knew?

At any rate, Sam felt the makings of a headache starting to throb in his temples at the prospect of his two tetchy companions locked in this verbal sparring match. Enough was enough!

When the vampire opened his mouth, a witty comeback no doubt at the tip of his tongue, Sam immediately cut him short. “Knock it off, you two! You're not kindergarteners anymore!”

Suddenly the center of attention, for an unnerving second two of the most intense pairs of eyes Sam had ever come across fixed on him. Then, his gaze breaking away, Dean huffed and went to collapse on his bed, one hand once again going for his sore head.

“Damon.” Sam held out his right hand. “Give me Dad's journal.” To his surprise, the vampire complied without any further stalling.

“If he kills me, Sammy, I'm haunting your ass until Kingdom come!”

Taking into account recent developments (Lilith, the demon you have been so hellbent on killing, has been the last seal to fall – played by both sides, how could you have been so stupid?), that wasn't much of a deadline anymore.

Damon denied affronted, “I'm not going to kill you!” Like so many times before, Sam couldn't honestly tell if the emotion, laced with none-too-subtle derision as it was, was genuine or if the vampire just liked to play his games with them.

There they go again. Sam sighed as Dean lifted up his head to glare at the vampire still sitting on Sam's bed. “Oh, so Sam here got you all wrong, and you're not a bloodsucking fiend who eats people for dinner?”

Damon gave him one of those looks of his, and Sam had to snort back an inappropriate laugh.

“Do I feed on humans?” Damon's question sounded rhetorical at best, but he answered it all the same, “Of course. More than occasionally. Let's face it, you humans are food.” Making a face at the brothers' incredulous expressions, the vampire grudgingly corrected himself, “Your blood is, anyway. But I don't drain them dry. I'm not stupid enough to leave a trail any amateur hunter could follow. Mostly, they're returned home safe and – well, slightly anemic, with only the memory of a good time.”

Damon's gaze, for once not cynical but genuinely intrigued, rested on Sam as he came to the end of his explanation. Trying not to squirm in discomfort with memories he should have...

“Forget.”

Phantom pain tingled in his neck.

Sam's eyes went wide, his head snapping to the dark-haired creature in their room in realization.

Without the benefit of resurfacing memories, it took Dean a moment longer to catch the implication, but despite frequent evidence to the contrary, Sam's brother wasn't stupid. As he got there, his expression darkened dangerously, and, steel in his eyes, he sat up again to confront the vampire sitting across from him. “Are you saying you – what? Obi-Wan-ed my brother into having sex with you?”

Damon snorted. “Like I had to.” Sam's face burned, but Damon already went on. “No,” he shook his head, and for once his sincerity felt, well, sincere, “I just compelled him to forget the feeding.” Eyes cutting back to Sam, he stated, “But you remember, don't you?”

“Vaguely,” Sam admitted. And honestly, he couldn't tell how much of that was down to the effects of the booze or the receding veil Damon's... power had spread over his mind.

In the back of his mind, he worried how little they knew about Damon's particular brand of supernatural – not to mention that neither of them had even been aware of the existence of a wholly different species of vampires. For all they knew – what was the word Damon had used? - compelling people to do their bidding was only the tip of the iceberg.

He didn't realize Damon and he had been staring at each other until Dean flopped back onto his mattress, a pained groan not far behind as both his ribs and head protested the foolhardy action, announcing, “Whatever. If there's not going to be imminent violence, I'm going to catch some shut-eye. I'm beat. Take your boyfriend outside, will you, Sam?”

Rolling his eyes, Sam tossed their father's book squarely on Dean's chest, eliciting another, completely played up moan of agony from his brother, and went outside sans further ado.

Their uninvited guest chose to follow without any more prompting.

Door closed, Sam leaned his long frame against the wall and stated, “You know, you still haven't told me why you came here in the first place.”

Those damn pale eyes again, glacier blue and darkly promising, looking up at him through dark lashes. Coy (and anything but). His belly coiled in sudden (not so sudden) want.

Damon – not unlike a certain angel of the Winchesters' acquaintance – didn't seem to believe in personal space. Already well within reach, it was easy for him to take that one step closer and tug Sam's head down for a kiss with one insistent hand in Sam's long hair.

He should have pushed him away. He wanted to push him away. He'd been down that road before, he knew where it led.

Sam had never been good with temptation.

Instead, his hands slid underneath the short tails of Damon's black dress shirt, gripping bare, warm skin, expensive leather jacket heavy against his knuckles. Bringing them flush together from foot to groin to chest, Sam turned them around to crowd Damon's smaller form against the wall.

Deceptive frailty. (Now you know why.)

Fingers tugged at his hair, on his neck, the threat of fangs against his lips sent thrills of excitement straight to his cock. The vampire let himself be manhandled, but not for long. In the blink of an eye, their positions were reversed again. Sam gasped for breath as their kiss broke. The hand on his chest a solid, burning anchor in stark relief to the retreating heat of a body, and Sam looked down to watch as the darkness washed away from Damon's eyes, as his fangs receded to their original size.

“Maybe,” Damon teased, “I just wanted to get your number.”

Sam held no illusions about what it meant, inviting a predator like him to play – and not even Sam could pretend his behavior until now had been anything else.

The last point of contact vanished as Damon's hand fell away with a step backward. Smirking, Damon took another step back before turning on his heels. Huffing in frustration, Sam watched him saunter off into the twilit darkness before true dawn.

The night was almost over.

With a heavy sigh he let his head fall back against the wall behind him, concentrating on the brief flare of pain. It didn't help much.

What he really needed right now was a cold shower.