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Dean was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He made that abundantly clear when he first met Benny at his diner. It had been a harmless thing. Dean had come to have lunch with his brother Sam, who had yet to arrive, and he’d politely refused help from the waiter who tried to guide the blind man to a table. But despite his assurances that he could handle himself, the waiter had been firm, and the resulting outburst from the customer brought Benny out in a hurry. It had been a harmless mistake. Nothing too serious and it was all sorted out quickly.
And despite the hiccup, Dean kept coming back to the diner every day for lunch. Benny got used to seeing him in the corner booth, always eager to order a slice of pie and listen to whatever it was that was on his iPod. Sometimes he would be furiously typing on his phone, his face screwed up in concentration like the world would end if he didn’t get out whatever it was in his head.
Benny liked the guy. It had started out with lunches, and then when Dean made it a point to talk to the chef, Benny was all too happy to talk to the young man. He liked Dean’s guts. He didn’t take crap from anybody from what he could see, and despite his handicap, he could handle himself better than most people Benny had met.
Benny wasn’t sure how it happened. But eventually they built a friendship. He learned that Dean was a writer, strangely enough. The man didn’t look the type at all. If he could see, Benny imagined Dean would’ve been a mechanic or some kind of official officer. He’d mentioned it to Dean, and the resulting laugh had been gorgeous to the older man’s ears.
“Yeah. I get that a lot,” Dean had replied, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.
As he learned, Dean did dabble in mechanics. He had a car back home that his brother drove for him. A beautiful ’67 Chevy Impala. Benny had whistled long and low when he first saw it, and he didn’t miss the way Dean’s face lit up.
Dean worked on that baby all the time. He pulled up the hood and showed Benny everything, touching each part and explaining how he grew up around cars with his dad and his uncle Bobby, learning the trade and mastering it until he could rebuild an engine from scratch.
The Impala was his pride and joy. And Benny couldn’t help but love it too.
He and Dean hung out often after the dinner hours. Sometimes Benny would go to Dean’s apartment, other times Dean would come and visit him.
Benny loved it especially when the younger man came to his place. There was something special about the way Dean would sprawl out on the couch and make himself at home. They would talk for hours about anything and everything. They talked about Benny’s work and how he had moved up from Louisiana after his crazy family break up. Dean talked about how he and his little brother moved around the country constantly for the first twenty years of Dean’s life. They talked about their passions, food, mechanics, writing, even a little bit about art.
“You have any art in here?” Dean asked once, catching Benny by surprise. It shouldn’t have, but it was easy to forget Dean couldn’t see anything. He was too damn confident and independent. It was all too easy to think Dean could see everything like he did, but the reminders came every once in a while when Benny least expected it, and always left him with a heaviness in his chest. It was stupid because Benny would often remember that Dean didn’t know what he looked like.
“Nah,” Benny choked out in reply. “But my niece sometimes asks me to go to art museums.”
“That’s cool. You should tell me about that sometime.”
And so Benny did. He learned Dean loved to hear about the descriptions of things. He was fond of art, claiming you didn’t have to see it to truly experience it. So Benny started making a small collection of the things Dean liked best.
It wasn’t until a few months into their friendship that Benny took his friend to an arts and crafts expo just outside of town. Dean had brought his foldable white stick, and Benny tried not to focus too much on it. If he did, he knew Dean would give him hell for it.
Dean didn’t like charity or feeling like people pitied him.
“I’m blind, not helpless you idiot!” Benny still remembered the words he’d walked in on Dean saying that first day at the diner. Benny would never forget them, but it was still hard reigning in his emotions and impulses when Dean tripped or didn’t notice an oddly placed hole in the ground.
But Dean did just fine on his own and Benny respected his wishes to be left alone. But it didn’t always stop him from making silent gestures.
Whenever Dean sat, Benny checked to make sure his boots were still tied. When they were walking, Benny kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary that might not be catchable with the white stick alone. Dean didn’t seem to care when Benny occasionally whispered, “Funky long table edge, three o’ clock brother.”
Dean smirked sometimes, amused that Benny even bothered to point it out. But he said nothing and Benny took that as a win.
Benny showed him around the expo. He took as much time as Dean wanted to talk about each display and what it held, what it represented, and whether or not they liked it. Dean seemed especially taken by a small sculpture of an angel with midnight wings. He said he liked how each of the feathers were defined. Benny bought it while Dean checked out something else further down the table.
A week later, Benny left it in Dean’s living room after a dinner visit. Dean never mentioned it. But every time Benny came to visit in the following weeks, he could see it on the mantel over the fireplace. It never failed to make him smile.
A year later Dean was publishing his book. He’d been a nut case for the entire editorial stage, and Benny found himself staying over multiple nights until it’d finally been accepted. Dean was a nervous wreck, but he was jittery with excitement when he got his own copy in the mail. He hadn’t hesitated to shove it into Benny’s hands a moment later.
“I need you to read it and tell me if it’s awful.”
“Brother, you already got it published. Ain’t that proof enough it’s good?”
But Dean pushed it against his chest and kept demanding until Benny promised to read it through.
He didn’t sleep for the next two days he was so heavily engrossed in the story. He called Dean at two in the morning when he finally finished it. Dean answered on the first ring.
“You’re killin’ me here, Dean,” Benny groaned, arm thrown over his face.
“That bad, huh?” Dean laughed nervously.
“That good.”
He could feel Dean beaming through the phone.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Dean was Benny’s best friend, and for as long as Benny had known him he wished they were more.
He loved the way Dean beamed when he got excited. He loved the way his face would scrunch up into a thousand lines when he was concentrating, trying to piece together something with his book or with whatever Benny was trying to explain to him.
“Dude, they’re vampire pirates?”
“No, Dean. It’s an old legend—“
“Vampirates!” Dean exclaimed and laughed. Benny would deny ever laughing too.
Their days weren’t always the happiest. Dean’s father died the night before his first book signing. He’d been moody and silent for weeks after, and no matter how hard Benny tried he couldn’t seem to make his best friend feel any better.
“Just come to the funeral with me,” Dean said calmly one night over dinner. So Benny did.
Sam was there, and Bobby. A few other people Benny didn’t know came. Dean quietly explained they were John Winchester’s second family. They didn’t talk to each other much. Benny hadn’t been able to help staring at the little boy across from them. The kid looked like a younger version of Dean.
Dean had never cried in the entire time Benny had known him. But a single tear had escaped his eye that evening, and when Benny wrapped an arm around his shoulder, he didn’t push him away or tell him to shove it. Instead he’d leaned closer and allowed Benny to hold him for the moment.
Things got a little bit better after that. Slowly but surely, Dean started to come back out of his bubble and started spending more time going outside and spending time with Sam and Benny. He even gave Benny an official introduction to Bobby, since the funeral didn’t count.
Bobby and Sam were nice to him. They treated him well, and he could tell in their lingering looks that they knew. They knew Benny liked Dean. Whether or not they approved, Benny didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either, because he was pretty sure Dean was straight after listening to some of the stories told over the dinner table at Bobby’s house.
Or at least he did. Until Dean suddenly spouted, “Yeah, but if she was a ten, her brother was a slam dunk eleven.”
Sam laughed and didn’t comment, clearly in the loop on Dean’s chronicles of bisexuality. But Benny was left gaping like a fish. Bobby waved his fork at Benny and said, “You lookin’ to catch a fly or somethin’, son?”
Benny promptly shut his mouth and continued eating, this time, much more attentive to the conversation as they continued to talk about old flames and crazy exes.
Dean was pulling on his coat to go when Bobby pulled Benny aside in the kitchen. “So, you lookin’ to get in with Dean?”
Benny stared, entirely unsure of how to respond to the older man. But Bobby clearly wasn’t joking, and Benny was taking too long to answer. “I like him,” he finally replied with a sigh. “He’s a good man. Knows himself and what he wants. How can I not like him?”
Bobby ‘humphed’ at that, but nodded seriously. “You better treat him right, son. Or they ain’t gonna find your body. Ya’ hear?”
“Yes sir.”
Bobby grinned and patted him on his shoulders. “Good man. Now get going. With a face like that, that boy ain’t stayin’ single forever.”
And wasn’t that the God awful truth. Benny climbed into the driver’s seat of his pickup, watching as Dean buckled himself in and leaned back with a sigh.
“That was awesome,” he said after a moment, his green eyes sparkling. “I haven’t had dinner with Bobby in ages.”
“He’s a rough old grunt, ain’t he?” Benny said in good fun. Dean grinned and punched him in the shoulder.
“Hell yes. But he’s a big softie once you get to know him. Which you better. If you guys don’t get along, this friendship thing sure as hell ain’t gonna’ work out.”
Benny smiled slightly at that, but his heart wasn’t in it. He revved the engine but didn’t touch the gas pedal, his thoughts wandering.
“Hey ah… Dean?”
“Yeah man?” Dean replied, looking over at him. It was unsettling sometimes, the way his eyes seemed to lock onto him. He didn’t often look Benny in the eye, but he always looked right at him. It was at times like these Benny forgot Dean couldn’t actually see him. But Benny decided that Dean could. Shapes and colors or not, Dean knew who he was looking at. It was a different kind of sight, but Dean had it. The thought made him feel a little bit better.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Dangerous occupation. Don’t get into the habit,” Dean grinned.
“Sure.” Benny bit his lip and looked out at the road they should have been driving on five minutes ago. “But in all seriousness, I’ve been thinkin.’ How do you feel about our friendship here? Our… relationship?”
“It’s good,” Dean replied. His eyes narrowed in concentration, a few good hard lines popping between his eyebrows. “Why? Is something bothering you? If I did something—“
“No, it ain’t like that,” Benny reassured, knowing how quick Dean was with the self-blame game. “You’re perfect Dean. I was just… I guess I was wondering if there might be room to go a little deeper here.”
“…What?” Another pop. Benny held his breath and looked out the window.
“I think you get what I’m saying here,” Benny said quietly.
Silence fell heavily over the truck and Benny cursed himself. He was an idiot. He should have waited before he said anything. Maybe have brought it up after he got Dean back in his own place? Because now Dean was probably half a step away from rejecting him, and this was about to be the most awkward car ride of the century. Maybe Sam hadn’t left yet and could take Dean home?
He was pulled out of his chaotic thoughts by a hand touching his jaw. Benny froze at the contact, turning to look at Dean. He’d unbuckled and scooted across the seat, currently staring at Benny intently as his hand pressed a little more firmly against Benny’s face.
Benny took in a shaky breath at the contact, leaning into it as Dean’s face scrunched up in thought.
But before Benny could ask what he was thinking, Dean’s thumb touched the corner of his lips, and he realized what Dean was about to do. And sure enough, Dean suddenly leaned forward and pressed his lips to his.
It was a dry sensation, but it was absolutely perfect. Chaste and sweet, and Benny grabbed Dean’s arms and pulled him closer, all too happy to kiss the man who had effortlessly become the center of his life. Dean groaned at the touch and tilted his head, and soon the kiss was growing heated.
Benny pulled back before things could escalate, and smiled at Dean’s flushed face. “Whatcha’ tryin’ ta’ say, suga’?” He realized he’d dropped into a heavier accent, and he didn’t miss the way the color rose in Dean’s cheeks. He’d have to do that more often.
“Took you long enough,” Dean growled. He smiled and kissed Benny again. “So… deeper, huh?”
“You know what I meant,” Benny grumbled but laughed at the innuendo. “Maybe a little later though.”
“Hell yes.”
The car ride home was blissful, and they held hands over the gear shift the entire way.