Thirsty

Thirsty

A Supernatural story by Niki @SPNHellcat

A new entry in the second wave of the #SPNWishList fic and art challenge! Niki responded to what I thought was the toughest prompt of all: "How did the Vampchesters ending come to be?" Imagine taking something so... inconceivable... and making sense of it. And then making the story so utterly chilling. When Niki said she would take this on, I was beyond excited. When I saw the results, I understood why. Enjoy. -- Jennie

Sam woke with a start – pushing himself off the grungy floor to a half-sitting position. It was the light that pried his eyes open. And the smell.

What was the smell?

He looked around, confused to find himself in an old jail cell. Words were scrawled on the walls, and flecks of peeling paint littered the floor. There was no furniture.

The only other thing in the room was her. He saw a woman face-down in the corner, and he immediately leaped to her side. He saw a pool of blood underneath her face, and it stopped him cold. He reached for the blood dripping off her arm. Touched it, brought it to his mouth... then stopped.

He shook his head as if in a daze and wiped his hand on his jeans. He was standing now and ran to the bars – shaking them with all his might. They didn’t budge.

The discordant clanking sound they made caused him to reel back into a dark corner – away from the sound. Away from the light. He dropped his head into his hands and felt something sticky on his lips.

Blood.

His head pounded as he yelled, “Dean?”

***

A few doors down, Dean heard his name. His cell had one thing that Sam’s didn’t – a half-broken bed with a mattress as thin as a pancake. On it lay a man, unconscious and bleeding.

Dean knew exactly what was going on. He had felt it all before – smelling the blood from Lisa’s wound and wanting to rip out her carotid with his teeth.

Dean knew he had ingested vampire blood without even remembering how. His head was screaming at him, and the light coming from the small box of a window seemed brighter than looking directly at the sun.

“Sam – are you OK?” he asked while tracing his hands around every edge of the bars – hoping for a loose bit of concrete he could jar further. There was none.

“Dean – what’s going on? All I remember is getting clocked from behind. Were they vampires?”

They both knew the answer, so Dean ignored the question.

“Listen Sammy, we’re going to get through this. You just have to stay away from the blood. Is there someone with you?”

“Yes,” Sam answered in a small voice. “There’s so much blood, Dean. I almost…”

Dean yelled to see if anyone was around. Maybe he could distract them and find a way out. But no one came.

It was silent. Well, except for one thing.

***

Sam couldn’t stop hearing it – the slight pumping of the blood in her veins. For hours he sat huddled in the corner, cradling his head and wishing it would stop. At least if she was dead he could maybe resist.

Visions of himself drinking demon blood kept flooding his mind – feeling the strength it used to give him. He knew her blood would make him powerful. He wanted it.

But Dean kept him talking.

“Remember when we got lost in the woods overnight? You were 7, I think. And I swore I could get us home but got turned around. Man, Dad was pissed. We huddled together and told stories about our futures to keep our mind off the cold. I was going to be a firefighter, and you an astronaut.

“Tell me a story about the future, Sam.”

Sam closed his eyes and saw himself and Dean in the trees.

“When we get out of here we are going to go back to the bunker and call Cas. Go on vacation,” Sam said. “We deserve one. Maybe a beach. Or a crazy weekend in Vegas. A cruise to the Jamaican falls.”

When Sam went silent, Dean continued on. “Cas will probably just want to go to Mount Rushmore,” he laughed. “Can you imagine him in a Speedo?”

Sam’s composure cracked. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Dean,” he said.

The sun had set, but the pounding in his head had only gotten worse. And he was so hungry. Hunger like he’d never experienced before. His tongue felt thick, his mouth parched, and all he could imagine was lifting the woman’s head and sinking his teeth into her slim neck.

She had stirred once but never woke up. Whoever put her here had clearly drugged her and the man in Dean’s cell.

Still struggling, Sam slipped into a restless sleep.

***

He was startled awake with Dean yelling “Fuck!!!” as loud as he could and tearing at the iron bars. “Let us out! Someone!”

Dean had already prayed to Cas, Jack, Billie, and everyone else he could think of. The Winchesters had used up all their free passes. And he knew this last spurt of energy was all he had between him and draining every drop of blood from the man’s listless body.

He clenched his fists and punched the wall – watching lead-infused paint and plaster dust fall away. It was the wrong move, because now blood seeped from his own wounds. Even his own blood was torture to resist.

He heard movement from Sam, and then his little brother’s anguished voice.

“We could live differently – like Garth. We know how to make it work,” Sam said quietly.

Dean walked over to the man and looked down at a red rivulet that had fallen across his cheek.

“If we do this, we do it together, Sammy,” Dean said simply.

“Together,” Sam echoed.

Both men kneeled on the ground next to their first victims. Maybe Dean went first. Maybe Sam. It didn’t matter. They bared their new fangs and sucked the blood into their bodies.

Now they were monsters. And they hunted monsters.

Who would hunt them?