Title: Questions Without Answers
Author: Dhvana
Series: 1) The Monster Under the Bed, 2) A Little Help From Bob, 3) The Temptation of Dean
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Dean, but the Wincest is implied and unrequited (so far)
Summary: Sam wants answers.

***

Sam watched his brother sleep.

With just one night, their pattern had changed. Now he was the one watching Dean in the morning, and he knew from the circles under his brother's eyes that Dean had fallen asleep watching him the night before. The careful camaraderie they'd created between them had been shattered, and it was all his fault. One stupid mistake had ruined everything.

What happened to his pledge not to make Dean choose? He was going to just leave it alone, fight it off, but instead, he'd let his feelings take over and now there was a good possibility Dean hated him. Or at least, was disgusted by him. If only he'd tried harder to look at his brother and not want to kiss him. When Dean brought it up, he'd just blame his loss of control on the series of scares he'd received in just one day. Everything had just piled together and caused him to lose control of his senses, from Dean collapsing on Enchanted Rock to finding that thing feeding on him to all the little bits of information unwillingly offered up by his brother regarding what was wrong with him. It would be enough to drive even a normal man to an act of madness, and he was far from normal.

Dean would try to deny it, but Sam knew he was different. It wasn't just the dreams or the bursts of intuition, it was the thing he could feel lurking beneath his skin. It was a current itching through his body that left him wanting to start scratching and keep scratching until he could force it out of him.

The monster knew what it was. Bob knew. Dean knew. And he was left in the dark.

He never should have gotten in the car.

And even as he admitted the absurdity of that thought, his brother stirred, opening his eyes just enough to see that Sam was there, and then he fell back to sleep.

Still looking out for him, even after he what he'd done. Blood was stronger than a kiss. But then, it was also strong enough to let a creature of horrific beauty suck the life out of him just for a bit of information, and what was a little kiss compared to that?

He couldn't believe his brother had gone along with that thing, and the image would haunt his nightmares for years. To walk out of the bathroom and see that creature on top of Dean, Sam had thought for sure he'd lost him, until he realized his brother was still breathing. Breathing, and not fighting? He couldn't understand it, unless Dean was for some reason enjoying it, a thought which made him sick. But then he heard them speak, and all his emotions had been burned away by fury.

How could he? HOW COULD HE?! How could Dean even think to risk his life by trusting the very thing they were there to kill? Why didn't he see that even the tiniest information wasn't worth it? Not when his life was at stake, not when it meant Sam could lose him.

At least he'd gotten his brother to agree to kill the monster when it returned. That would be one less thing for him to worry about.

Now he just needed to worry about what would happen when Dean woke up.

Sam pushed himself up enough to see over his brother's body to the alarm clock on the table. Six thirty-four. Sunrise wasn't due for another twenty-six minutes.

He hated that he knew that. He hated that the exact time the sun rose and set had become vital to his life. In school, if he was still up when the sun rose, all he knew was it was time to go back to the house and crash for a couple hours before going to class. If he noticed that the sun was setting, then he was probably just taking a break between rounds of studying. Sunrise and sunset had nothing to do with him having a better chance of either living or dying, not like it did now.

But he no longer regretted the skew in his worldview. At the moment, there was only one thing he did regret, and in about thirty-two minutes, he would at least be able to physically distance himself from that regret. He didn't want to get out of bed before then or he might wake Dean up, and his brother needed his sleep to replenish whatever that creature had stolen.

It was a good thing he'd made sure they'd stopped to say good-bye to Shelley and Fran the night before. Dean thought it was silly, but Sam had exchanged email addresses and promised to keep in touch. He liked to maintain some sort of contact with the normal world, if for no other reason than to remind himself there was a normal world to keep in contact with.

Even as he thought on the unlikelihood of ever returning to that world, he began to scratch at an itch on his left forearm, the spark of current inside of him rising to the surface. He absently wondered how deep he'd have to scratch in order to reach it.

"I could teach you to control it."

Biting back a gasp of surprise, Sam peered up over his brother to the second bed where the monster sitting cross-legged on the mattress, staring at him. He should have warded that second bed.

He swallowed to wet his mouth before replying in a loud whisper, "Go away."

"You don't want to learn about your power?" it asked with a smirk.

"And you'd be willing to teach me, just like that? Right."

"I think we could come up with an arrangement."

"Forget it. You have nothing I want."

"But you have something I want." The monster slowly licked its lips as it turned its golden gaze to Dean, and Sam immediately wrapped a protective arm around him. Dean grumbled in his sleep, shifting so that his forehead was pushing against Sam's chest, but didn't appear to wake.

"Stay away from my brother," he growled.

"I will, if he wants me to."

"Trust me, he wants you to. Leave. Now."

"In a minute," it said, looking at Sam in such a way that made his skin crawl, though he tried not to squirm and show any weakness in front of the monster. "Do you want to learn?"

"Not from you."

It chuckled. "You don't even know what it is you need to learn. You don't know what it is you hold inside of you."

"I'll figure it out," he snapped.

"I can help you figure it out faster."

"And why would you want to do that?"

The monster smiled and again his gaze traveled to Dean.

Sam snorted. "You're just not getting it, are you? No fucking way."

It shrugged. "I tried," it said and stood up, a process of unfolding its elegant naked limbs in such a way that even Sam couldn't resist the pang of desire that passed through him. The creature gave him a sharp look, and nodded as it held up its arms, displaying itself for Sam's eyes. "It is a beautiful form, is it not? I'm quite fond of this body, and I've decided I'm not going to give it up. If I can't have your brother, then I will find another like him."

"Another like him?"

"He's not the only warrior on this earth. There are others, though they are few, and I doubt they would be as amenable to a deal as your brother. Which just means I'll have to take them for myself, draining them dry one by one, until only your brother is left."

"Like hell," Dean snarled and snapped his arm out from under him, sending the knife from beneath his pillow at the monster.

The creature shrieked as the blade sank into its chest and it threw itself at them. Dean immediately rolled over Sam to protect him with his body, but his brother needn't have worried. The wards he'd set deflected the creature, throwing it back onto the other bed.

Not letting Sam up just yet, they both cautiously turned their heads towards the monster, who was sitting on the bed, staring numbly at the knife sticking out of its chest. Once its skin had been broken, the blood it had taken began pouring out of its body. The brothers watched in horror as its beauty began to fade, the golden hair falling out of its head, its skin wrinkling and turning gray, its lips pulling back from its teeth to reveal the sharpened points.

As the flow of blood slowed to a trickle, the monster looked up at them and hissed, its shriveled tongue no longer capable of forming words. It then looked back down at the dreadful husk of its body and even Sam could interpret the sorrow in its eyes.

"Finish it, Dean," Sam whispered, surprising himself by feeling pity for the thing, though his feelings were countered by his desire to have it out of their lives forever.

Dean held his gaze for a second, then climbed out of bed. He approached the monster, slowly reaching out towards the handle of the knife. Their eyes met, and the monster nodded. He ripped the blade from its body, another inhuman yowl escaping the remnants of its lips, and as Dean was about to plunge the knife through the creature's neck, it lunged.

"Son of a bitch! Sam!" Dean shouted as the monster knocked him to the floor and again tried to drag him under the bed, but his brother was already on his feet and coming to the rescue.

Sam grabbed the knife from Dean's hand and with one swift slice, removed the monster's head from its body. The head flew through the air, dissipating into dust before it hit the wall. Sam watched as the cloud settled to the floor, waiting to see if it reformed. It didn't.

Huh. Well, at least he'd know the fastest way to kill the next monster under the bed, if there was another one.

"Um, Sammy? A little help please?"

Tossing the knife aside, Sam helped drag Dean out from under the bed.

"Thanks, bro," he said, sitting back on the mattress and dusting the creature's remains off his skin with a slight expression of revulsion on his face. He finally gave up, knowing a shower was the only way to really get clean, and looked at Sam. "That was some wake up call, huh?"

"I was already up," Sam said, giving Dean a quick once-over to make sure he was all right.

"Oh." A beat of silence. "You sleep okay?"

"All right," he shrugged, walking over to his bag and digging through it looking for a clean shirt to wear. Two weeks in one place--how'd they manage to forget to do laundry? "I'm going to get dressed and then I'll go find us some coffee. I imagine you'll want to get out of here as soon as possible?"

Dean nodded, staring strangely at his brother. "Yeah. It'll be good to get on the road."

"Unless, of course, you wanted to try for another couple hours of sleep?"

He shook his head. "Why bother? I'm up."

"Then we'll leave as soon as we get everything packed."

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you. . . all right?" he asked with a frown.

"I'm fine," Sam answered flatly and disappeared into the bathroom.






The drive out of Texas was excruciating.

Traffic, for one thing, was a total bitch. They hit Austin just in time for rush hour, so after spending two hours in near-deadlock, Dean was ready to start blowing away any car that came between him and the state line.

He settled for a large cup of coffee and a couple of sausage egg and cheese biscuits from Whataburger. It wasn't much, but at least it took the edge off his hunger, which was enormous after the previous night's events. The second dose of coffee alone would have been enough to cheer him up, if it hadn't been for the glacier edging over from his brother's half of the seat. Driving in the car with Sam was like driving next to Frosty the Snowman, only without the singing and dancing because this Frosty was colder and twice as lonely.

Yeah, he'd fucked up. He got it. He should have kissed Sam back. He should have thrown away his fears, locked away Dean the brother and let Dean the horny bastard out to play. Sam might have hated him for it later but it would have been better than having to deal with the living ice age sitting next to him.

When the silent treatment clock hit four hours with barely more than a brief monosyllabic conversation between them, Dean had had enough. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth to speak, but Sam cut him off before he could even get a word out.

"Tell me what you know."

All right, not the direction he was hoping for. "What I know?"

"About what I am."

"You're my brother," Dean said, and immediately felt the wave of irritation coming from Sam. Shit. He was either going to have to agree to be dissected or he was going to risk living with glacier Sam for weeks, maybe even months. Possibly years, if they survived that long.

"Sammy, you are my brother," he explained. "I'm not saying this to placate you. I'm telling you because whatever else you might be, I just want to make sure you know that's the most important thing, and that you never forget it."

"Dean, if you're trying to reassure me, you're doing a really crappy job of it."

"What do you want me to say? Because, Sam, to be honest, I don't know a whole lot about what's going on. This shit's scaring me like nothing else and I don't know how to handle it."

"So tell me, and we'll handle it together."

"You want to know? Fine. Here's what I've got--you have power, and I'm supposed to protect you. I don't know what that power is, I don't know what it can do, all I know is that the bad guys want you pretty bad because of it, and they're coming after us both. They want me dead so I can't protect you, and they want you alive, but I don't have a damn clue what they'll do if they get their hands on you. There. That's it. That's all I know. Happy?"

"Yes. I think." He paused. "No. Not really. What the fuck is going on, Dean?"

"I don't know, little brother. I don't know."

"And you're supposed to protect me?"

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. "You don't need to sound so skeptical."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to. It's just that. . . the monster, it called you a warrior. Is that what it meant?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so."

"You know, we're only about ten hours from Lawrence. If we wanted to stop by Missouri's--"

"No."

"Dean--"

"No, Sam. I'm not going back there." Catching the look Sam gave him out of the corner of his eye, he sighed. "Not yet. Maybe one day, but right now, I'm not ready."

His brother nodded. "Okay, but I wish we knew of another reliable psychic. Maybe then we could get some answers."

"If it'll make you feel better, we can stop at every palm reader between here and. . ." he stopped, glancing over at his brother. "Where the hell are we going, anyway?"

"Tarrytown, New York."

"NEW YORK? Christ, Sam, couldn't you find anyplace closer? That's half a country away."

"It's where we're needed most. Trust me. You'll understand when we get there."

"All right," he sighed, shifting his butt in the seat. It was going to be a long drive. "How much of a hurry are we in?"

"We've got six days until the next occurrence."

"The next occurrence?"

"It appears on the full moon."

"Werewolf?"

"No, something else, though just as bad. What'd Bob tell you?"

"Bob?" Dean asked, inwardly releasing a string of cuss words. He'd been hoping to steer Sam away from the subject for the rest of the drive. Trust his brother to bring them right back around to it.

"I know he said something to you about me. What was it?"

"I've already told you, Sammy. Sam." Damn. He had to stop reverting to 'Sammy' every time they got near a sensitive subject. It was always a dead giveaway. "He mainly wanted to meet me to see if I could do protect you. He said I needed to focus, and that your power would give you the strength to fight evil. He said I couldn't let you leave."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"He said you needed to learn to control your power."

Sam gave a harsh little laugh. "That's fucking helpful."

The right corner of Dean's mouth rose in a half smile. "That's what I told him. We're going to have to figure this out on our own, Sam. We've got to find out what it is you're capable of and how to use it."

"Easier said than done. A clue would have been nice."

"Well, we know you've got those dreams, right? There's a start. We can keep following those."

Sam shook his head. "The dreams are nothing. I can't control them. They come to me on their own. If there's something more I need to control, we have to figure out what it is."

"Yeah," Dean sighed, "you're right." Hell. He hated the thought of something he couldn't physically touch having control over Sam. How could he protect him from things he couldn't punch or stab or shoot? What the hell kind of good was he?

"Dean," Sam began, and the cautious note in his brother's voice drew his full attention. "Do you think we should call dad, let him know what's going on?"

Leave a message for the man who'd never bothered to respond while they were going through hell in Lawrence? Gee, he'd have to think about--"No."

"But--"

"I said no," Dean snapped, his knuckles turning white as his fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

"O-kay," Sam said and turned his head to look out the window. A few seconds later. . . "Dean."

He took a deep breath. "What?"

"Do you. . . do you think mom has something to do with what happening to me?"

"What?" He glanced at his brother, at the frightened look in his eyes. "Sam, that's crazy."

"It's just that. . . when we saw her, back at the house, she said she was sorry. Maybe she was talking about us."

"I'm sure mom had nothing to do with what's going on."

"But Dean--"

"Sammy," he said, a command in his voice, "drop it."

"You're going to have to face it sometime," Sam said softly, getting in the last word before returning his attention to the world outside the window.

"Yeah yeah yeah," Dean muttered as he kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. They were entering Waco and traffic was again slowing to a crawl, so he used that as an excuse to concentrate on the road. Anything to ignore the renewed iciness from his brother's side of the car and irritating way Sam had of bringing up all the thoughts he preferred to keep buried deep inside his mind.






Sam stared into the windows of the cars as they inched by, looking anywhere except at his brother. Ever since Kansas, Dean had been reluctant to talk about their father. He never called to see if dad had changed the message on his voice mail and he didn't even talk about finding him anymore. Clearly, there was something going on Dean hadn't told him about, but the 'shit happening that no one wanted to tell him about' category of his life had gotten so full lately, Sam had stopped caring about all the new stuff that came up. He preferred to focus on his main problem, the one that belonged to the 'shit happening to him that no one understood' category.

Though he supposed he should have known better than to bring up their mom, but, well, his brother had deserved it.

Next to him, Dean swore, and Sam looked ahead to see flashing blue and red lights.

An accident. Figured. Even though they could now see the tops of the fire trucks over the cars ahead, they'd still probably be stuck in traffic for another thirty minutes.

His brother pulled out an Alice Cooper tape and popped it into the cassette deck.

Sam sighed.

Wasn't it enough he'd made a fool of himself in front of Dean, but now his brother was trying to torture him? Sam was tempted to get out and walk and meet him on the other side of Waco. It would probably be faster.

Resisting the urge to put his fingers in his ears, Sam kept his eyes on the accident, acting like every other person on the road as he rubber-necked to get a better look. It appeared to be a three car pile-up, the one in the middle little more than a replica of an accordion, the first one twisted and pushed into the wall. The third, well, the front end was totaled, but of the three, it was in the best shape.

Firefighters were still cutting a body out of the middle vehicle and an ambulance was rushing away from the scene with another. A girl was standing in front of the first car, blood covering her face from a deep cut on the top of her head. She stared at the wreckage with an air of disbelief and she looked so pale, he was surprised to see she was still standing.

As the Impala passed by, she seemed to feel Sam watching her and turned her head to look at him. Their eyes met, she flickered, and then disappeared.

"Fuck!"

"What?" Dean asked, the lines on his face easing as traffic broke now that they had passed the accident.

"Oh, um," he turned to look one last time for the girl, then shook his head. "Nothing."

"You got a bug bite or something?"

"What? Why?"

"You've been scratching your hand for about five minutes now."

"I have?" Sam looked down to find that the top of his right hand had nearly been scratched raw from trying to reach the itch beneath his skin. He hadn't even been aware he was doing it. "Yeah, a bug bite. Probably from that motel room."

"We can bring a can of Off to the next one."

"Wonderful," he grimaced. "Nothing like being suffocated by bug spray to help a man sleep."

"Then you can't complain about bites."

"I'll add it to the list," Sam muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Right," Dean said, but didn't argue with him. He just turned up the volume another notch and they continued making their way out of Texas.

***

Next story in series - Don't Lose Your Head.