Every Time You Hurt
Title: Every Time You Hurt
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rated: NC-17
Disclaimer: Yes.
Word Count: 5,385
Warnings: PWP, S&M, blood fetish (?), knife-play, blood-play
Notes: Beta=cerberus_sky
Summary: Sam’s sick with demon blood withdrawal and Dean thinks of a way to help him. At least it starts that way.



They were just outside of the city limits when Sam started to shake and grind his teeth. Dean glanced over at him and said his name, but Sam wouldn’t look at him. He clutched the door handle tightly, leaned his sweating forehead against the glass of the window and stared blindly out at the night.

Dean repeated his name and put a hand on his shoulder. Sam jerked like he’d been burned and a low growl rumbled in his throat.

“Don’t,” Sam said. He glanced toward Dean from the corners of his eyes and twitched away from him. “I… It hurts. It’s the blood.”

“The—?” Dean bit his lips and studied Sam, becoming increasingly worried as Sam started to mumble to himself. When he started to gag between muttered sentences, Dean cursed and searched the road signs for a place to turn off.

A few miles farther, there was a turn off with no services, which just meant an off ramp for tired truckers to pull over and doze. He took it and pulled the Impala over.

“Where are we?” Sam asked, voice grating and sore sounding. He picked up his head and looked around, then swallowed convulsively in a way that made Dean worry he was about to throw up.

“Fuck if I know,” Dean said, opening his door. “Get out,” he said as he got out himself.

“Dean, what are we doing?” Sam asked as he got out after him. He sounded almost as weak and shaky as he looked and he looked goddamn miserable.

He was pale, sweating, shaking enough to make Dean think his bones must be rattling around in his skin. Dean looked at him and he didn’t really know what they were going to do. He’d be lying if he said otherwise because all of this shit with demon blood and angels and Satan was new to him. But neither the angels nor Satan were his problem at the moment, right now it was all about the goddamned demon blood.

He watched with his jaw clenched as Sam staggered over to the ditch by the side of the road to throw up. Sam stayed bent over with his hands braced on his knees as Dean walked over to him and put a hand on his back. He felt the muscles in Sam’s back tense at the contact, but he ran his palm up to the back of Sam’s sweaty neck anyway, wanting to comfort.

Sam spat red into the grass beside his vomit, cursed and sat down heavily on the slope of the ditch. He raked his hands through his hair and shivered then leaned his head back against Dean’s thigh and sighed.

“I feel like I’m dying,” Sam whispered. He had a drop of bloody mucus caught at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re not dying,” Dean said. He wiped the drop away with his thumb and rubbed it off on his pants leg.

Sam tilted his head back and looked up the length of Dean’s body to meet his eyes. His own were bloodshot and pink with weariness. “I know that,” he said. “That’s why I said feel.”

Dean shifted away and Sam had to hold his own head up again. He opted for cupping his face in his hands while he shuddered.

Dean frowned down at him then dropped down on his knees in front of him, careful to avoid the bloody vomit as he crawled the little way up the slope, between Sam’s spread legs. Sam lifted his head and put his hands out so Dean could move closer, not really having much choice.

“Dean, I’m not really in the mood to cuddle with you, man,” Sam muttered.

Dean scowled at him and put a hand flat to his chest then shoved. If Sam weren’t so drained from withdrawal, he wouldn’t have fallen backward, but he was almost as weak as a kitten and flopped back on his back in the grass with a surprised grunt.

“I do not cuddle,” Dean said and reached for Sam’s fly.

He had the button open and the zipper down before Sam had fully processed what he was doing and managed to form a protest. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, trying to sit up. “I’m about to puke on you and you want to take my clothes off? I am not seeing the sexy in this at all. Dean, get your hand—”

“Shut up, Sammy, I’m not gonna fuck you or anything, so calm down,” Dean said, pushing him back down on the grass.

Sam might have calmed down, at least a little, but then Dean took out a knife. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam said, eyes going wide. He felt that tight ball of nausea in his stomach rumble around and had to resist the urge to gag so he could keep his eyes on Dean. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, look, it’s like this,” Dean said, gesturing with the knife as he explained, sounding insanely rational for a guy that had his brother’s pants down and a knife out ready to do… whatever it was he was thinking about doing.

Sam stared, fervently hoping Dean was not thinking of doing what he thought Dean was thinking of doing—what any rational human being with a knife blade perilously aimed at their nether regions would think that someone was thinking of doing. “It’s like—”

“Yeah, okay, you remember when I got bit by that rattlesnake back in Wyoming when we were kids and Dad sucked the venom out of my arm?” Dean asked. He was still holding the knife, but he had thankfully stopped waving it around.

“Uh… yeah,” Sam said. He vaguely remembered something. He had probably been like six years old at the time. But he’d read a lot of National Geographic and seen a lot of Animal Planet since then so he had a pretty fair idea of where Dean was going with this.

“Well… that’s what I’m gonna do,” Dean said.

“That’s stupid,” Sam said. “There’s no way that will work, for a lot of reasons. First of all, I didn’t get bitten by anything, I drank it. Second; I drank it like… fucking hours ago.”

“It might work,” Dean said. He put his arm out toward Sam’s face and Sam jerked his head back from the knife he held. “What if you drank my blood?”

Sam glared. “Do I look like a goddamn vampire?” he snapped.

Dean studied him, pale and gaunt, bloodshot eyes, hair all over the place. “Yeah, actually,” he said. “Minus the teeth.”

Sam bared said teeth at Dean and grabbed his wrist. He twisted and Dean let go of the knife. It thumped into the grass and Sam shoved him off to roll over on top of it so he could get it first.

Standing, Sam pointed the knife at Dean and swiped his hair from his sweaty face. “There,” he said. “Now forget it. You’re not sucking my blood out and I’m not sucking your blood out. There’s gonna be no fucking blood sucking, period. Alright?”

Dean got up from the ground, brushing off his pants and said nothing.

“This is so stupid,” Sam muttered and turned to go back to the car.

Dean followed him and as Sam reached to open the passenger door and get in, he grabbed Sam’s arm. Sam jerked out of Dean’s grasp and Dean saw something flash in his eyes before Sam grabbed him, used his body against Dean’s and pushed his back up against the side of the Impala.

There was a soft, steady growl in the back of Sam’s throat and he touched the very tip of the knife blade to the hollow of Dean’s throat. He didn’t cut, just moved the edge whisper soft up the length of his neck to the base of his throat, making Dean tilt his head back painfully to keep from being cut. He had sharpened that knife himself; he knew how sharp it was. If he put any pressure on that edge at all, Dean’s skin would split like sausage meat straining against its casing.

“Sam…” Dean said, speaking soft as he could with the least movement of his mouth that he could manage.

Sam had the knife to Dean’s throat now and though he had no intention whatsoever of using it on him like that, there was a scent of fear on the air as the knowledge of the danger passed between them and he loved that smell. He wasn’t even ashamed to admit it. When Dean swallowed, the skin of his neck moved slightly and Sam eased back an imperceptible degree so he wouldn’t cut Dean’s throat open.

“You wanna cut me, Dean?” Sam murmured, leaning in to breathe in his smell that was like saffron, leather and fear. “Fine. I’ll let you… but…”

Dean drew in a careful breath and eyed the hilt of the knife held in Sam’s hand. He couldn’t see the blade anymore, it was under his chin. “But what?” he whispered.

Sam grinned and that emotion Dean had glimpsed before swam up in his eyes again. It was… hunger, desire, some kind of animalistic craving. All of it rolled up into something almost too alien to be human.

Sam ducked his head to whisper in Dean‘s ear. “If you get to cut me, I get to cut you,” Sam said. “That’s only fair, don’t you think?”

What was Dean going to say with a knife to his throat and his brother literally breathing down his neck? No? Not likely. “Yeah… I guess… that’s fair,” Dean said.

Sam smiled against the side of his neck and nipped Dean’s earlobe. “Good,” he said, low and purring. “You go first.”

Dean felt the knife leave his throat and the hilt when Sam put it in his hand. The wood was cold and sticky against his sweaty palms and he closed his fingers around it almost reluctantly. “You’re sure about this?” he asked Sam.

Sam snorted. “Just do it,” he said, holding Dean’s gaze until Dean looked away.

Dean ran his eyes over Sam, trying to decide where to cut. He knew on some level that this wasn’t about sucking the poison out of Sam and making him better anymore, but he tried not to think about what it was about. If he thought about that he might have to think about too many other things that he would much rather forget and wonder why, if it wasn’t about helping Sam anymore, he was still going to do it.

“I don’t know where… Your arm, maybe?” Dean said. He licked his chapped lips and darted a quick look at Sam’s face.

Sam shrugged. “Wherever,” he said. A teasing light entered his eyes and he smirked. “Play it safe like that if you want to.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at him and his hand whipped out quick, the knife cutting with a practiced flick of his wrist. The blade was honed so sharp that it took a couple of seconds for Sam to bleed, but when he did blood poured down his chest from a long slash Dean had made from his collarbone to his nipple. He hadn’t sliced the nipple, but it was a very close thing.

Sam drew in a deep breath at the pain and watched Dean’s face. Watched Dean watching him bleed as the front of his shirt soaked through dark red and molded itself to his torso. There was a wide hole in the material over the wound and Dean could just see the gold of Sam’s tanned, scarred skin where it had parted.

It was really fucking disturbing how much he was enjoying this. Dean licked his lips again and darted a glance up at Sam as Sam laughed. “I’m sorry,” Dean whispered. “Jesus, this was a bad idea. You were right, it’s stupid.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said flatly. “Aren’t you going to suck it?”

“What?” Dean said, a little thrown. “No!”

“But isn’t that why we’re doing this?” Sam asked. “So you can try to suck the demons out of me?”

Truthfully, Dean wasn’t all that sure why they were doing this anymore. That may have been why it started, but he wasn’t thinking very much about that right now and Sam didn’t really seem all that sick anymore anyway. The whole thing had just snowballed into… well, not much yet, but they weren’t done. All he had to do was lock eyes with Sam and he knew they weren’t done and that it was too late to back out now.

Sam caught the back of Dean’s neck and gently urged his face toward his chest. Dean stared at the wound between the slash in Sam’s shirt and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his throat and on the back of his tongue in a way that vibrated and made it tickle in his mouth.

Sam licked the side of Dean’s neck, a slow swipe of tongue over that thundering pulse, and took the knife back from Dean’s hand. “Drink me,” he whispered, coaxing and tempting as only a demon could.

Dean let out a shaky breath and allowed Sam to pull his head forward until he could feel blood, cold from the air, against his lips. The sensitive flesh of his lips went numb with a tingle at the contact and a single drop of Sam’s blood slid into the crease of his mouth and between his teeth. It tasted like… nothing he’d ever had before. A bolt of desire slammed into him and Dean moaned and pushed his mouth into Sam’s muscled chest, his teeth pressing against his flesh, forcing blood to leak through the parted lips of the wound and flood over Dean’s tongue.

Sam made a low sound in his throat that rumbled in his chest as Dean darted his tongue into the cut and licked. The sting of it was soothed by the repeated lapping, but Sam didn’t really mind the pain anyway. He thought of Dean’s mouth, full lips so like a woman’s that it was almost a shame to waste them on a man and teeth white like little pearls, how his blood would turn them pink and paint those lips candy apple red. He had no room for true pain with all the lust sending shockwaves of want through his body. He felt it like a distant ache and it only made him want more.

Sam bent his head down, curving his body over Dean’s back as Dean sucked and licked at his blood. He caught the back hem of Dean’s shirt with the tip of the knife, slid the blade between skin and fabric, and jerked, slicing the shirt up the back to expose Dean’s spine. Sam let the blade tick, tick, tick over his vertebrae then stood up, pulling the knife with him to finish cutting the shirt up the back like unzipping a dress.

The motion dislodged Dean from his chest, but when Dean tried to duck his head for more, Sam held him off and shook his head no. “My turn,” he said. He pulled Dean’s cut shirt off with one hand and grabbed his hip, flipping the knife purposefully in his grasp as he turned Dean to face the side of the car.

Dean shivered as Sam ran the flat of his hand down his back then yelped as Sam ran the knife in the same path, the tip making tiny cat scratch like cuts along his spine. “Shh,” Sam soothed, moving his body up against Dean’s back. His hips fit against his ass and Sam pushed with them a little, pressing his erection against Dean’s ass and making Dean’s hips rock obscenely against the door of the Impala.

“Jesus,” Dean whispered. He was shaking and more turned on than he could remember being in long time. He still had the spicy taste of Sam’s blood in his mouth and he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t spit it out. Not like venom at all, no; he’d swallowed it all. “This is sick.”

“You want it,” Sam said, nuzzling into the back of his neck. Dean tensed and he chuckled softly and licked there, tasting the salt of sweat that had gathered under Dean’s hair. “Don’t move,” Sam warned.

Dean took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but he still wasn’t ready for it when Sam cut. Three cuts, bam, bam, bam, like three quick punches. Dean cursed and jerked against the car. He felt the sting, the heat then the cold tickle that followed as the wounds started to bleed down his back. “God,” he breathed. “Oh god, Sam, that hurts.”

“Mhmm,” Sam agreed, lightly licking the cuts open. He put his mouth to them and sucked, grabbing Dean’s waist to hold him against the car as Dean cried out and tried to arch away from him. Sam pressed his teeth in, biting over the cuts, which spread them open and made them bleed more. “I can’t wait to see the bruises on your back tomorrow,” Sam murmured, pulling back to lick over them.

Panting, Dean pushed back against Sam so he could turn back around. For a moment, Sam resisted, shoving his body against Dean’s back again, pressed flush and lightly rocking into him. His hot breath was against the back of Dean’s ear, washing down his neck and those deep panting sounds of arousal Sam made had Dean swallowing down desire that was very close to overwhelming. Then he pushed back again, not sure if he wanted Sam to move now or just keep rutting against him through their clothes until they both came.

Sam let him go, took a step back and Dean turned back around, his back to the car where the cuts there smeared blood over the warm glass of the window. A car passed them, laying on the horn, and Sam and Dean’s eyes locked in a kind of amused understanding as Dean held out his hand for the knife.

Sam gave it to him and they stood there motionless for a few minutes, breathing hard and watching each other, their bodies separated by mere inches. “You wanna stop?” Sam asked.

Dean shook his head and grabbed the hem of Sam’s ruined shirt to pull it up. “One more,” he said, voice rough as he pulled Sam’s shirt off.

Sam lifted his arms to help, then caught his breath and jerked when he felt Dean’s fingers pulling at the button of his fly. “I thought you said one more,” he said.

Dean slowly drew Sam’s zipper down, grinning as his hips stuttered forward at the sensation of the opening zipper against his hard, confined cock. “I did,” Dean said. He held the knife in his teeth for a minute as he slipped his hands inside the waistband of Sam’s pants and worked them down his hips.

“Shit,” Sam breathed, watching Dean with a hungry kind of wariness.

Dean grunted once in agreement and sank slowly to his knees at Sam’s feet. The roadside gravel bit into his knees, but he hardly noticed as he spread the opening of Sam’s jeans and tugged them down just a little more to bare his thighs.

Removing the knife from his mouth, Dean leaned forward and ran his tongue up the inside of Sam’s left thigh. The sensitive flesh there trembled on his lips and he lightly nipped, making Sam catch his breath.

“Hurry up,” Sam said. He reached out and ran the fingers of one hand through Dean’s hair in an uncommonly loving gesture. “Hurry,” he repeated. “And don’t cut my dick off.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Dean murmured, lips twitching in amusement.

Very carefully, mindful of the fact that there were arteries near where he was cutting, Dean carved an ‘X’, like the ones he’d seen carved into people with rattlesnake bites, into the inside of Sam’s upper thigh. Sam tensed so hard at the pain of it that he shook and Dean felt the muscles in his leg jump against his mouth when he leaned his head forward to suck.

Sam moaned at the throbbing, tugging sensation so close to his groin and Dean moaned back, which just made it worse because of the way that had his skin humming. With a soft curse, Sam pushed his boxers down his hips and wrapped a hand around his cock, squeezing to keep from coming too soon when the drawing sensation of Dean’s mouth sent another bolt of pleasure through him, right through his stomach to his balls.

Dean moved his head back slightly to lap at the cuts, which weren’t bleeding much anymore but were surrounded by an oval-shaped hickey from his sucking. Sam sighed, thinking he was done, only to gasp when Dean put his mouth over the spot again and sucked the cut flesh between his teeth, laving his tongue over the wounds to open them again.

“I am going to fuck you,” Sam growled through his teeth, like it was a threat of some kind.

Dean finally stopped and sat back, a look of perverse satisfaction on his face as he met Sam’s eyes from his kneeling position on ground and ran his tongue out over his lips to catch the last tangy drops of blood. “Yeah?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Sam said and let go of his dick long enough to grab Dean and shove him roughly up against the side of the Impala. He yanked Dean’s zipper down without any finesse or hesitation and nipped the side of his jaw as he reached inside and closed his hands around Dean’s cock. “And I’m gonna do it from behind with you bent over the hood of the car if you don’t kick those shoes off right now so I can get your pants off.”

Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulder and dug his fingers in, steadying himself as he tried to toe his shoes off. He finally huffed out a breath and put the knife down on the hood of the car beside him and shoved at Sam’s arm. “Let me go for a second so I can,” he snapped.

Sam gave his cock a last taunting squeeze then let go and took a step back.

Dean got his shoes off then leaned back against the car and quickly pushed his pants down and kicked them away. He was barely out of his clothes when Sam reached for him again, seized his hips in his hands and lifted him up against the side of the car.

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean said. Sam pressed against him and Dean had to open his legs for him or be dropped. “Maybe slow down some… We don’t…” Dean swallowed and looked down to watch Sam’s hips sway against him, sliding his cock along the crease where Dean’s thigh met his hip. “We don’t have anything.”

Sam just grinned and moved his hips back and forth a few times. He let go of Dean with one hand, using his body to hold him against the side of the car and wrapped his fingers around the head of his cock, working them over it until there was the wet, tacky sound of precome in his hand.

Watching Dean’s face, Sam pressed the tips of his first two fingers, slick and sticky with his precome, just inside Dean’s ass. He twisted them a little back and forth, coating the very inside of his asshole with it then thrust. “Feel that?” Sam whispered.

Dean made a soft, choked sound and nodded. How could he not feel that with Sam’s fingers palm-deep inside him? His belly tightened in a thrill of anticipation and he shivered.

Sam leaned in and touched his lips to Dean’s, felt his mouth quirk under his and smiled faintly. Slowly, he pushed his fingers inside Dean’s ass and worked them in and out. He felt his fingertips skate over Dean’s prostate and caught his mouth in a kiss when Dean cried out.

Dean clutched at Sam’s shoulders and kissed him back desperately, near painful want roiling in his lower belly like a cramp to be filled. “Sam,” he panted, tearing his mouth away. “Sam… that’s enough. Sam… please.”

Sam moved his fingers over Dean’s prostate in a kind of massaging motion and watched Dean throw his shoulders back over the roof of the car, his stomach tensing, breathing rapid. He dropped his head down to nip at Dean’s mouth and Dean whimpered through his clenched teeth.

“Breathe,” Sam told him. He withdrew his fingers about halfway and thrust them back inside to spread them, forcing them open against the clenching muscles of Dean’s body. “Breathe, don’t forget.”

“I’m… Oh, god. Sammy… enough, please, enough,” Dean panted. He pulled at Sam’s shoulders, dragging his short, cracked fingernails over his skin to leave welts.

Sam growled at the light pain along his shoulders and shifted against Dean to withdraw his hand. He grabbed Dean’s hips, tilted them back and started to push inside him. Dean tensed and Sam licked at his throat, tasting salt on his skin that he rolled around on his tongue. When Dean moaned, Sam hefted his weight against the side of the car and thrust, snapping his hips against his ass and slamming Dean’s bloody back against the passenger window.

Dean cried out and pulled his hands up Sam’s shoulders to cup his face and draw him in for a kiss. Sam let him, kissing him back with teeth and tongue, demanding an equal response from Dean. He made pleased sounds in his throat when Dean met him bite for bite and lick for lick, his legs tightening around Sam’s waist as Sam moved.

He could hear the squeak of Dean’s sweaty, bloody back on the car and smell the blood. It was like metal and some kind of earthy wildflower and he imagined it going hot and glue-tacky on Dean’s skin. He licked and nipped at Dean’s mouth, swallowing moans and cries as he fucked him up against the car and he wanted that taste in his mouth again.

Sam let go of Dean’s hip again, thrusting hard against him, pushing deep into his ass as he pressed his body tighter to Dean’s to hold him in place as he reached over on the hood of the car for the knife. Dean made a sound through his teeth that had Sam looking back at him to watch his face. His eyes were closed, long lashes shining copper-gold with a glitter of sweat that probably burned, his throat worked, trying to keep back sounds that were escaping anyway.

“Dean,” Sam said. Dean opened his eyes and stared back at him. Sam lightly tapped the tip of the knife blade to Dean’s bottom lip and rolled his hips, grinding into him. “Open… your mouth.”

Dean held Sam’s eyes and let his mouth fall open, soft panting breaths escaping to fog the metal of the blade as Sam remained like that, deep inside him and still. “My turn,” Sam whispered, and pressed the sharp tip of the knife into Dean’s lip until blood sprang up and beaded there.

Dean whined and clutched at Sam’s upper arms, tilting his head back as blood ran down his chin from the tiny cut. Sam threw the knife aside and kissed Dean, sucking at his bottom lip until Dean bit him back to make him stop, the pain too much. Sam flicked his tongue over his mouth, then moved down his chin and along his throat, chasing the blood trail as he started to move again, fucking Dean in quick, deep thrusts that had the car rocking.

It was the sting of the cuts on his back moving open against the glass, the warm metal of the car, the sun heating his skin so that it flushed pink under his tan, those relentless, pounding thrusts inside him and that growly, biting way Sam kissed him; all of it mixed together and overloaded Dean’s senses. He started to scream and bit down on it, only to have one of Sam’s big hands come up and squeeze his jaw so he couldn‘t. He cried out, his breath hitching with each driving thrust, then screamed as his orgasm slammed through him like a fist and he came.

Sam made a satisfied sound in his throat and leaned over him to lick Dean’s open, gasping mouth as he roughly fucked him through it. Between them, Dean’s come grew sticky as the blood on his back with the friction and the scent added sex to the smell of blood and sweat already so thick in the air it was cloying. Sam inhaled it and kissed Dean, blood on their tongues from his sore, cut lip. Dean’s body contracted around him in protest and Sam thrust past it, then moaned as his own orgasm hit him, a wrenching sensation that started in his belly, then expanded to trip along the nerves of his spine and die out.

“Well… you look better,” Dean managed after a few minutes of just laying there spread out half over the hood of the car catching his breath as Sam’s dick softened inside him. “How do you feel?”

Sam chuckled and nuzzled into Dean’s hair to nibble his earlobe. “This was not… what you had in mind all along,” he muttered. “Don’t even… try to take credit for it.”

“Hey, now, I did help,” Dean pointed out. “I get some of the credit.”

“And if I get sick again?” Sam asked, lifting his head.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation like this,” Dean mumbled. He shoved Sam’s shoulder and put one of his legs down, trying to stand. “Let me up.”

“Dean, I’m going to get sick again, this isn’t over,” Sam said. He let him go and took an unsteady step back. “You’ve had the D.T.s, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said. He had retrieved his pants and was putting them on. “And you can suck my blood from here to doomsday—which the way things are looking, might not be that far away—if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Dean, that’s not what I—”

Dean looked around for his shirt and found it, cut down the back, next to one of the Impala’s front tires. He threw it aside and opened the car door to rummage around for a shirt on the floor. “But,” he said like Sam hadn’t spoken. “If you’re gonna fuck my brains out every time you do, we need to get a motel until your D.T.s are gone.” He found a plain white t-shirt on the floorboard under the driver’s seat and put it on. He lifted his arm and sniffed then made a face. “Jesus. I need a shower. And look at my car. Sammy, we are gonna have to establish new ground rules.”

“Dean,” Sam said patiently. When Dean looked at him, there was a touch of fear behind his eyes and Sam frowned. “You drank my blood. My </i>demon</i> blood. You are gonna need that motel room as bad as me.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, looking away from him. He slammed the car door. “I know that, alright? Pull your pants up and let’s go.”

Sam dressed quickly and got in the car. Dean was leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette and watching the birds on the power lines. Blood had already spotted the back of his shirt like ink on paper and Sam wondered how they were going to get a decent motel room looking like they did without having the cops called.

When Dean heard the passenger door close, he flicked his cigarette away and got in the car, too.

“It’s not so bad,” Sam told him.

“I was there when it happened to you the last time, don’t lie to me,” Dean said. He started the car then jumped when Sam put his hand on his thigh and squeezed.

“It’s not so bad when you’re not alone,” Sam said.

Dean darted a look at him out of the corners of his eyes, wondering just how he would know that. He sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “And I went and got the knife… just in case.”