Paradigm Shift

Questions

Seth laughed, and Roman shook his head in disappointment. Neither man believed him, and Dean didn't blame them. He'd reacted similarly when Frederick told him he'd been transformed into a vampire.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you but I can't take it anymore" Dean admitted. "I'm barely holding it together as it is and then you kick my door down demanding answers"

Seth's laughter wasn't out of humour, it was out of sheer disbelief. "I've heard you speak a lot of crap over the years but this is something else!..."

"I'm not lying" Dean insisted

Seth's mood grew curious. "Prove it"

Dean looked at Seth in disbelief. "What?"

"If you're really a vampire. Prove it" Seth repeated.

Dean paused for a moment as he thought of the best way to prove he wasn't lying. He pulled his t-shirt over his head and turned around so that his back was facing Roman and Seth. "Notice anything different?"

Their eyes searched the skin on his back carefully, looking for anything unusual. Roman moved closer, each step was tread carefully like someone that was approaching a bomb. "It's...the scars. They're gone"

"Exactly. " Dean moved across the room towards the kitchen area. 

He glanced at Seth and Roman and they were both looking at him curiously. Dean took a knife out of the draw and cut into his arm. He winced as the knife sliced through his skin.

"What are you doing?" Roman asked as waves of concern came off him

"Just watch" Dean answered

Roman and Seth's heartbeats increased as they watched Dean's skin heal. Roman grew uncomfortable and Dean could sense fear coming off him in waves.

"You don't have to be afraid of me Roman" Dean reassured ''I'm not going to hurt you"

'Yeah right' Seth thought. 'that's why he head-butted me.'

''I didn't mean to do that" Dean answered. "it was head-butt you or rip your throat out"

Seth's eyes widened. "Did you just hear what I was thinking?"

Dean shrugs. "It comes with being a vampire. I can also feel people's emotions"

"How did this happen?" Roman asked.

Dean drank down another bottle of blood as he told his story. "When I got injured, I didn't follow the doctor's advice. I was self-destructive, living like I wanted to die, and I was in so much pain that I started drinking. Eventually, alcohol wasn't enough, and started to take drugs. I trailed the streets, slept wherever I scored my fix and then one night...I nearly died. I passed out in this dingy garage and was in more pain than I'd ever experienced before. The type of pain that had me begging for death...when I woke up, I was in this house I didn't recognize and that's when I met him. This weird-looking dude called Frederick. He told me he was a vampire and that he'd made me one too"

"What was he doing in the garage in the first place?" Seth asked.

"He was there to feed" Dean answered "He feeds from people that won't be missed"

Seth's mood was growing curious. "Why didn't he kill you, too?"

"I still don't understand why he gave me eternal life. Or why he thought I even deserved it" Dean admitted, "but he said it was his way of giving back after so many years of taking human life's"

Dean could feel that Roman was incredibly uncomfortable, and he sat in the room's corner, in silence, listening to Dean's story

Seth was the opposite. He was now intrigued and excited. "What does it feel like, being a vampire?"

"At first I was irritable, uncomfortable and thirsty beyond belief" Dean answered honestly "and I wasn't in any mood to listen to a complete stranger talk about vampires. I thought he was insane, and I left. The next day he came to visit me and by that time I'd come to terms with the fact that I was actually a vampire. He reassured me he'd help me in any way he could and he gave me an address of a storage facility where I could get blood. He's been there for me ever since, but it's been difficult and overwhelming. Everything is so much brighter, clearer, and louder. Not to mention my strength, smell and speed..."

"That must be pretty cool though" Seth interrupted. "To have all those new abilities"

Dean shook his head sadly. "You dont know what it's like to be completely consumed by thirst so much that it tightens your stomach until you're mad with need. And the thirst...it's all-consuming"

"Have you killed anyone?" Seth asked the question like he was asking what Dean's favourite color was and the more eager Seth became, the more nervous Roman felt.

"I actually refused my fate at first" Dean continued "I just wanted to be human again so I stopped drinking blood and doing this caused my body to lose all its abilities I gained when I became a vampire and I...I tried to get myself killed"

Roman emitted a wave of sadness at Dean's words but Seth felt confused

"But to answer your question. No, I haven't killed anyone. I've come very close to it but I controlled myself"

"Do you sleep in a coffin?" Seth asked.

Dean sighed. Vampire myths and legends really were ridiculous. "No, I don't sleep in a coffin. That's a myth. I don't sleep at all"

"Does your heart still beat?" Seth asked.

"Of course it does" Dean answered. "it just beats at a different rate than humans. It's slower"

Seth's eyes widened with childlike fascination. "I knew I wasn't imagining things. I told Roman, but he didn't believe me"

"Well, now you know the truth. Promise me you won't tell anyone" Dean pleaded. "It's bad enough that I told you both to begin with"

Seth nodded. "I won't tell anyone"

Dean looked at Roman as the older man stood up. "Ro?"

Roman made his way towards the door. "Your secret is safe with me"

Roman left and Dean stared at the door as he listened to his heartbeat getting fainter as he walked away

"We're gonna be unstoppable" Seth said as he clapped his hands together with glee. "No one will take those titles from us when we have your abilities on our side"

Dean was feeling uneasy about how Seth was reacting to him being a vampire. Roman's reaction he could understand, but Seth's was just strange.

"I can't use my heightened strength inside the ring, Seth" Dean explained. ''If I did I could seriously hurt someone"

"Do you have fangs?" Seth asked, ignoring what Dean had said.

"Only when I'm thirsty or have just drank" Dean replied

"Oh. Can you show me next time they come out?"

Dean frowned at Seth. Why wasn't he concerned about Dean's lack of humanity? Maybe he was just fascinated. Seth should have at least been concerned with his own safety.

"Now I understand why you didn't want to room with me" Seth mused as he thought out loud "and it explains the cold rooms and how you can take crazy bumps and recover straight away"

''Seth" Dean uttered

"And the hair" Seth continued "I knew it. I'm never wrong when I suspect something..."

'Any fear you feel is simply you remembering what fear felt like. Vampires can not truly feel fear because they have little to fear of. Similar to when someone loses a limb and they claim to still feel pain in that missing limb'

Frederick's words came back to Dean as he felt Seth's emotions. Eagerness, hope, contentment. These were emotions that Dean should have been feeling.

"SETH!" Dean repeated

"Huh?" Seth asked as he looked at Dean

"I think Roman might need some help to get his head around all of this. He's freaking out"

Seth paused for a moment before he turned around and opened the door. "He's a big boy, Dean. He'll get over it"