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Dean finds out about the demon blood drinking eventually. Of course she does. She has some desperate desire to know every single thing about Sam. A thought kept to herself is an act of betrayal to Dean.
But Sam doesn’t expect Dean to find out by stumbling on Sam and Ruby tangled up in each other in a cheap motel room.
Ruby is laid out on the bed, her hair a mess and her back arched in rapturous pleasure. Her arm is outstretched, a deep diagonal cut in it. Her eyes had been dark as she watched Sam go at her arm with her tongue, drinking like she was a woman starved, warm and flushed and wanting.
“Sammy?”
Sam turns. Dean is standing in the doorway, mouth half-open, stricken, the gun in her hands slowly lowering.
Sam is all too aware of her mouth covered in blood, her teeth stained red, the wild look in her eyes. She feels monstrous. Her heart is about to beat out of her chest. “Dean—fuck. It’s not what it looks like. I-I have to get strong, this is the only–”
“We’re leaving. Now.” The steel in Dean’s voice tells Sam she won’t be taking no for an answer.
Sam hurriedly fixes herself up, buttons up her shirt, and runs a hand through her hair to brush it out of her face.
Ruby is looking at her, lips pressed together. Just as Sam’s mumbling a “sorry” and turning away she reaches a hand out to cover Sam’s own. “Will you be okay?” she whispers, quiet enough for Dean not to hear.
Sam knows if she gave the word, Ruby would waste no time in flinging Dean across the room with a flick of her hand. “Of course. She’s my sister, she won’t hurt me,” Sam says stiffly. She wants so badly to believe it.
Ruby squeezes her hand then lets go, still watching her with big soulful eyes.
Dean doesn’t talk all the way back to the Impala. She passes Sam a towel to wipe her face without looking at her. She jabs her fingers to press play on the tape deck so hard it must hurt. Black Dog blares out. The music conveniently fills the continued silence, the air stiff and stale and heavy.
“Alright, that’s it,” Sam finally says. “You saw what I did. C’mon, stop the car, take a swing.”
Dean’s fingers drum on the dashboard. “I'm not gonna do any of that.”
“Then scream, call me a freak.” The word burns on her tongue.
“No. Look, I’m not mad about the demon blood stuff, alright? We can deal with that. But we should be dealing with it together. Not by slutting it up with some demon bitch.”
“What?”
“I die and you replace me with a demon?” Dean spits out, with a bitterness deep and cutting enough to tell Sam this isn’t fresh anger—Dean’s been stewing on this for months.
“T-that’s not what’s happening. I need her. I need demon blood to grow strong, to defeat Lilith, to save the world.” Maybe, maybe then Sam will finally be good. She’ll make up for being born with a twisted dark ugliness in her.
“You don't need her. You can come to me. Anything you need, you come to me, you got that? I’m your big sister. I’ll take care of you. Always.”
Sam shoots her an incredulous look. “No offense, Dean, but I don't exactly see demon blood coursing through your veins.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll find a way. In the meantime I don't want you going near that demon bitch ever again. I don't trust her.” There’s an intense, dangerous tone to her voice.
“Okay.”
Sam rubs at the insides of her wrists and wills down the queasiness churning inside her.
-
They’re in a warehouse in Albin, Wyoming. There’s nothing but dusty tractors and fields for miles. Sam sends little glances at Dean as Dean paints bloodied sigils into the dirt, concentrating hard, freckles standing out on her face.
Sam is crafting a summoning bowl, pouring in acacia and oil of the Abramelin and a nick of her own blood.
She still can’t believe this is happening.
She lasted two weeks before clutching at Dean’s jacket as they got back from a bar one night, needy and desperate, skin feeling like it was going to crawl off of her, begging for more demon blood. Dean held her through it, told her to get some sleep and they’d take care of it the next night. Now they’re here.
Sam already can taste the blood in her tongue, sweet and intoxicating.
“Alrighty, that should do it. Best damn sigil I’ve ever drawn,” Dean says, lurching to her feet and patting her hands off on her jeans. They’re dusty after kneeling in the dirt.
Dean turns and gives Sam a stupidly big grin that Sam returns softly. She still scares Sam, sometimes, puts her on edge, but all Sam can think right now is that she has the best big sister in the world.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.” Sam steadies herself, takes a few deep breaths, then lights a match and drops it in the bowl. It goes up in a pretty purple flame. “Ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me.”
The lights in the warehouse flicker, then there’s a swishing sound, and a brunette woman stands in the middle of the devil’s trap, arms crossed over her chest. She’s pretty, really pretty, lips painted a dark red-purple. “Winchesters,” she snarls.
“The one and only,” Dean says, smirk on her face. She shoots Sam a questioning look, Sam nods, and Dean wastes no time in tackling her.
The demon fights with arms punching out as Dean wrestles her to the ground, straddling her and pushing her down with knees on her legs and a steady inner arm against her neck.
Sam watches from where she’s standing by the summoning bowl, body warm and tingly and flushed. She can smell the demon’s blood as it beats in her body.
“C’mere, Sammy,” Dean calls out, without turning around.
Sam takes the few steps to drop to her knees on the dusty floor of the warehouse. She crouches by Dean, close enough to touch the demon if she reached a hand out. She watches with her insides on fire as Dean trails the knife in her hand down the demon’s cheek. “Nice meatsuit.”
“What the fuck are you doing,” the demon spits out around the arm choking her. “If you’re gonna exorcise me, just get to it, you stupid cunt.”
“We’re gonna have a bit of fun first.”
Dean cuts a solid line across the demon’s wrist, and fuck, blood’s spluttering and spluttering out. Sam’s heart jumps in her chest as she leans her head down to lap at her arm, sucking and swallowing and pressing into the skin slit for more.
Her nails are branding long white line indentations into the demon’s arm, but she can’t find it in her to care as she loses herself to her hunger and need. She wants to drown in it and never come back up for air.
Dean’s hand is pressed over the demon’s mouth, quieting her except for a few muffled cries. Her other hand comes up to rest on the back of Sam’s neck, pushing her face down further. “You’re doing great,” Dean praises, and Sam whines, her eyes unfocusing and body trembling, tongue digging into bite marks.
Dean rubs circles into Sam’s back while Sam’s mouth moulds over broken skin, staved and feral. "I'm the only one that can provide for you like this, that can make you feel this way. Don't forget that.”
Sam’s whole body shutters, and drinks and drinks, nose pressed deep to the skin. Rotten eggs. She wants to keep going and never stop, she wants to keep devouring until the girl’s skin is chewed to the bone. That thought terrifies her, makes her freeze up. She pulls away from the skin with a pop, blood sliding off her mouth to drip into the dirt.
Dean brushes her hair out of her face with her hand, then her thumb comes up to wipe at the corner of Sam’s mouth, smearing over the blood there. The gentle pad of her thumb feels far too intimate. It sends sparks flying across her face.
“Was that good for you, Sammy? Are you full?”
A shiver runs through her. There’s an intoxicating energy between them right now, curling deep to settle in her chest. It's the most she's felt seen by anyone in her life. Dean knows her, gross monstrous hunger and all, and she likes it. She thinks Dean would let her keep going if Sam wanted to, would hold her through it as she gnawed this poor girl’s arm off.
She thinks she could burn the world down and Dean would stand by her side through it all.
“I’m full,” Sam forces herself to say.
They exorcise the demon and drop the host off at the nearest bus stop with a handful of dollar bills and a bandaged up arm. Her name is Maeve, and she’s wide-eyed and scared, and Sam knows that if she dug a little deeper the girl wouldn’t have an arm right now.
-
Sam hasn’t gone a day of her life without praying.
As a kid she would pray with her eyes squeezed shut in the backseat of the Impala, whipping down a dirt road at 60 mph, summer winds on her face, fields spread out for miles and miles. No other car in sight. Her whole world was her dad, her big sister, and that suffocating car. God, please take me someplace I feel less lonely.
She would say a short prayer before brushing her teeth. She’d look at herself in that dirty bathroom mirror, rubbing a hand over a face that felt all wrong. She remembers being jealous of her big sister, with her slicked-back short hair and Marlboro reds dangled between fingers and perfect execution of Daddy's orders. Dean, who knew exactly who she was and liked it. Meanwhile, Sam: Sam who wanted to tear off pieces of her skin and keep tearing and tearing until there was nothing left. Maybe then she could be good. God, please tell me what I have to do to feel normal.
When she and Dean were on the road again, leaving behind tragedy and heartache of their own making, ducking into little diners off the interstate, she would pray while Dean was away from the table getting ketchup packets. Sam ate salad, always salad. No dressing. It was clean and pure, far from the tough red meat her father ate. Far from a life of hunting. Now anything else made her throat burn and her stomach seize up. God, please tell me I deserve to eat.
God, please tell me what’s wrong with me.
No one ever answered.
Maybe, now, in their own small way, someone has.
Today is special. Dean has darted down to the vending machine with $5 fisted in her hand, so Sam has time to actually kneel at the side of the bed, hands clasped together, eyes squeezed shut, head turned towards the sky.
She thinks, God, thank you. Thank you for fixing me, for giving me a purpose, for letting me save the world, for letting me be good. I won’t let you down, I promise.
Sam stays kneeled like that, listening to her steady heartbeat and the window A/C unit groaning and screaming as it tries to beat back the heat.
She only lurches to her feet when she hears the sound of Dean unlocking the door. She grins like nothing’s out of the ordinary when Dean says, “Hey kiddo, catch” and tosses her a bag of chips. Maybe she can finally let herself be happy.
-
Dean finds her vomiting in the parking lot of a motel in Morehead, Kentucky.
It’s nighttime, darkness is pressing in on her, choking her. She thought she’d be back before Dean finished her shower. She’s been vomiting for days, in diner bathrooms and in alleys while Dean went in gas stations to take a piss. She’s been biting her lips red, constantly wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to erase the grime that had been there, hoping Dean wouldn’t notice.
She’s thought about calling Ruby for help, but she knows Dean would punish her for it.
“Sammy. What the fuck.”
Dean staggers towards her, her hand falling to rest on her back. Sam gives her one needy look, help me, then she’s back to vomiting, throwing up her dinner and a not insignificant amount of blood. She can’t stop crying as she watches the bile and blood and little chunks of lettuce spill out into gravel in a puddle of grossness. Dean rubs her back through it, says, “Hey, hey kiddo, I got you.”
Sam finally stops vomiting after what feels like hours. She gags, wills her stomach to stay down, then sits back on her heels. She’s still taking big, sobbing breaths, gasping air like it hurts, and there’s blood dripping down her chin. "Dean," she says, "I don't feel good."
"Shhh," says Dean. "It's okay, it'll be okay. You're doin’ great, Sammy. You done coughin’ up your lungs on me?"
“Y-Yeah. I think so,” she says.
Dean’s eyes search over her face. “What’s wrong? And don't give me any of that ‘I’m fine’ crap. You clearly aren’t.” Her hand is steady on Sam’s back. “It’s okay to not be okay, Sam. We’ll work through this together, like we always do.”
Sam swallows over the bile in her throat. “It’s not enough. The demon blood. I-I need more, more than just from a few cuts on somebody’s arm. It’s messing with my system if I don't have enough.”
“Are you sure that’s it? Cutting down and resting up for a bit won’t help you more?”
Violent fear rises up in her throat, choking her. Her hands tremble. “No! No. That would make it worse. So much worse. I might die then.”
She has to defeat Lilith. She has to save the world. She has to, because only then will she redeem herself to God.
“Okay, okay. Definitely not doing that.” Dean holds her gaze, eyes intense. “I’ll find a way to get you more blood, little sis. I’ll take care of you, like I always do. Just gimme a little time.”
-
Sam gets worse— she lays on top of the covers and sweats through her clothes until they stick to her like a second stickly skin. She shifts and groans in her sleep and feels like she’s dying. When she wakes up, Dean tells her she has nightmares and calls out in her sleep. Dean tells her she’s only been like this for 4 days. That can’t be right. She swears it’s been much longer.
In between going out in search of the blood, Dean takes care of her, fusses over her and changes out the wet towel on her forehead. She brings back packaged salads from the grocery store when Sam refuses to eat the McDonalds burgers Dean gets for herself.
The day Sam’s made peace with slipping off into sleep and never waking up again is the day Dean swaggers in with an armful of plastic hospital-grade bags, each swollen with dark red blood, so dark they seem black in the dim light.
“Here kiddo, catch,” she says like she always does, tossing one of the bags like it’s a bottle of water and not filled with literal demon blood.
Sam rips into it, peeling off the top and getting her face up in the plastic of the bag, drinking and drinking until it drips down her chin.
Dean just watches, a hungry twisted look on her face.
Sam goes through three bags before she feels happy and sated. She can feel color starting to return to her face. Dean stacks the other 6 bags of blood in the mini fridge.
“Where did you get it?” Sam asks after she’s washed her face off in the sink, avoiding looking at her sunken eyes and thin face.
“I have my sources.”
It’s enough for Sam right now. She’s just happy to be feeling better—human—for the first time in awhile. They curl up together on Dean’s remarkably cleaner motel bed and watch TV reruns until Sam drifts off to sleep with her head resting on Dean’s shoulder.
-
Dean’s excuses for where she’s getting the demon blood get more and more far-fetched as the weeks go on. A nearby hospital happened to have demon blood stored up. She ran in on a demon in an alley she was forced to kill in self defense. She was ambushed by a pack of them.
Sam finally confronts Dean about it in a motel in Billings, Montana.
The door slams shut behind her, and then Sam’s pushing at Dean as they enter the room, squaring her up against a wall. It’s like when they were kids, roughhousing with each other while they waited for Dad to get back, but now it’s much more serious. She makes herself up to be as tall as possible, glowering down at Dean.
“Dean, where are you getting all that blood,” she grits out. “Each time it’s an entire human body’s worth. That doesn’t just happen.”
Dean takes a few shallow breaths, eyes not moving from Sam’s. Their faces are close; Sam can see her eyelashes. “Are you sure you really wanna know?”
“Yes, of course. It’s my body you’re putting this stuff into.”
“Well,” Dean says casually, “I summon a demon. It’s usually a man. I gut them. Sometimes they let the human soul in there drift up to the surface to torture me, plead me to stop. Then I drain their blood. Slap them in some’a those bags and call it a day.”
Sam staggers where she’s standing. Nausea surges up, violently, within her. She thinks of all the blood she’s been drinking in the name of becoming good and saving the world. This whole time it’s been coming from innocent people.
“Dean,” she forces out.
“Don't look at me like that. I couldn’t have you dying on me. I couldn’t live with that. You know that.” There's a desperate pleading look in Dean’s eyes now, and her hands come up to grip Sam’s shoulders, holding onto her.
“I-I would rather die than become this. Than become a monster.” It’s the most she’s meant something in her entire life.
“No! No. I need you. You need this.”
Sam wretches herself out of Dean’s embrace. “I’m leaving. To find Lilith and take her down while I’m all juiced up and then to find some ditch to die in.”
“Sammy. Sammy, no.”
Her hand is on the doorknob when she smells it. Metallic. Demon blood.
Sam whips around to see Dean standing a foot away from her with a wretched open bag of blood in her hands, slipping out on the floor. Fuck fuck fuck. She’s so hungry. It’s taking all of her self-control to not stagger the couple of feet to her sister.
“I know you want it,” Dean says gently, her eyes roaming over her. She’s terrifying. She knows all Sam’s weaknesses and she’s using it against her.
“N-no. No. Please no. I won’t become that,” Sam says, holding her hands up in front of her face as if it can help her shield herself. Her heart is racing.
“C’mon, just a few little kitten licks, then you can go.”
The truth looms, silent and hideous: once she starts drinking, she won’t be able to stop.
“Get away from me. Please. Please.”
“If you didn’t want it you’d stop me,” Dean says, and a startled noise spills out of Sam when Dean brings two fingers up to smear across Sam’s lips. Sam tries to spit the digits out, tries to scramble away, groans and refusals choked incoherent by blood and saliva and Dean.
The fingertips run over Sam’s tongue, and her eyes unfocus as pleasure washes over her in fierce waves. Her head spins and her knees nearly give out as she swallows around Dean’s fingers.
Dean's face hovers above her, and some part of Sam's brain registers the flicker of regret that passes across Dean's face, then disappears as soon as it comes. Power surges through Sam's body, making her head floaty. Nothing other than how good she feels in this moment matters.
“You're gonna drink the whole bag, aren't you? Yeah, you will, and you're gonna beg for more. I told you I'd always take care of you, baby sister." Dean's face is empty and terrible above her. “No one comes between that. Not even you."