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That cherry pie had tasted a lot better the first time Dean tasted it. Every morning in here began the same way: Dean was given a cherry pie. No other food. At first, Dean had tried to resist. Tried to hold out. He couldn’t. He gave in and ate the pie. Eventually, he stopped trying to resist. He was gonna eat the pie anyway, why not just eat it and enjoy it and get it over with?
The pie always had something in it. Sometimes it was as harmless as they’d tripled the amount of cinnamon, or added some vanilla. Sometimes it wasn’t actively harmful, it was just gross, like the time his pie had arrived with pickles sticking out of the top. And sometimes…
He couldn’t identify this specifically, he wasn’t Sam with his gigantic brain full of encyclopedic knowledge of poisons, but today’s pie had him vomiting profusely. Worse, there was blood in the vomit. Whatever was in that pie, it was making him ridiculously sick. At least it wasn’t coming out both ends – yet. He’d give it a little more time before he started tempting fate.
The sound of a cart caught his attention. Either he was getting another pie, which contained the antidote – they’d done that before – or Benny was coming to clean up his cell and take him to medical. Given the vomiting, he was betting on Benny. He couldn’t eat a pie right now. That thought made him incredibly sad. There was no good reason why he should ever not want to eat pie.
Benny poked his head in. “You okay, chief… don’t answer that, I can see you’re not.” Benny handed him a thermos. “Drink any of that you can. We gotta get you out of here.”
“Yeah, could use an antidote unless they want me to die this time.” Dean took the thermos and took a small sip from it. When it immediately came back up, he made a face. “Sorry, man. Don’t think I can drink without making more work for you.”
“S’okay.” Benny handed him a towel, which Dean used to wipe his face. “Think you can walk, or you gonna need me to carry you to medical?”
“I’ll try to walk, but I gotta be dehydrated.” Dean struggled to his feet. It didn’t work out very well for him, but he could manage to walk slowly if Benny supported him.
They hadn’t made it to the end of the hall before Benny stopped and scooped Dean up. “I know you’d rather walk, cher, but you ain’t lookin’ so good and I’d rather not see you unconscious before you can get there.”
Dean would protest, but he already felt better from not trying to push himself too hard. “Yeah, this is fine, don’t worry about it.”
Benny shot a worried glance down at him and started moving faster. Dean’s stomach protested a little, but he was able to hold it down. Then he realized something. “Uh, Benny? Shouldn’t you have taken a left there?”
“Not this time, cher. Just hang on.” Benny kept going, and Dean kept his mouth shut. Opening it might lead to the wrong thing coming out, and, well, Benny had always taken good care of him. For being one of the bastards holding him captive, he was a decent guy.
Dean had never seen this part of the building, which had him tense. He told himself it was possible this was all just a dehydration-induced hallucination, that Benny was actually taking him to medical, or he was even still in his cell waiting for whatever rescue was coming for the day and this whole thing was a dream. He couldn’t make himself believe it, even before Benny opened a metal door and Dean had to flinch away from the bright stab of sunlight.
Benny set Dean down on something that felt soft and familiar. “You got the antidote, brother?”
“Yeah.” And now Dean could convince himself it was a dream, because that was Sam’s voice. Sam’s face came into bleary view as he rolled up Dean’s sleeve. “This is gonna hurt, but you’re gonna feel better soon, Dean. It’s good to have you back.”
Sam wasn’t lying. It hurt like hell when Sam stuck him with whatever it was he was stuck with, but he started feeling better almost immediately. Before long, he was able to sit up and look between Benny and Sam. “The hell’s going on?”
“Dean, meet Benny. He’s a vampire, but one who’s got good control over the feeding and doesn’t drink people. He’s been working here because it was a good way to get easy access to blood without hurting anyone, but then they brought you in.”
“I realized I may not be hurtin’ people directly, but I was hurting people by workin’ for these bastards,” Benny continued. “I ran into Sam lookin’ for you, and we came up with a plan to get you out. You may hate me for it because of how you spent the last couple hours, but had to do something. The pie you were supposed to get today was made with cherry Jell-O instead of proper pie filling. I switched it for a pie that would make you sick enough that you wouldn’t question bein’ led out.”
“Ugh. Well, it worked, I’m out. I assume you’re not going back either?”
“Nope. You were the only lab rat they had left, the others mysteriously disappeared last night, not that they know that yet.” Benny smiled and held out the thermos. “Think you can drink some of this now?”
Dean took it and took a small sip, and then chugged the rest of the thermos. It was the best tasting drink he’d ever had in his life. “How do we make these bastards pay? Stop them from dragging anyone else into their sick testing by ruining perfectly good pie?”
“Sam drives us away from here. I let him in last night to set the bombs. The entire building’s coming down. I knew a few others who were like me and warned ‘em to call in sick today, but everyone left in there deserves their fate.”
“Let’s get out of here, then. Don’t wanna be too close to the building.” Sam drove, and Dean watched in anticipation until he saw the building starting to collapse. “Nice.”
“Yeah. I’m proud of this one.” Sam looked in the mirror. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better.” He cleared his throat and sat up properly. “Hey, uh, Benny?”
“Yeah?”
“You said once that under other circumstances, you’d like to go get some drinks and see what happened. Still true?”
“Yeah, man. Still true, although I’d prefer to wait a bit until you’re a little more recovered from that place. I don’t just mean today’s, I mean getting your head right after nearly a month in there. Okay?”
“I’m fine, but your call. Good to know. Just one thing - no cherry pie. That has been ruined for a long time.”