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Dean found Benny’s body dragged halfway onto the houseboat, facedown. The places where his skin was touched by the sun, burning through the midmorning haze like a blazing ball of fire, were red and blistering. Dean had never seen a vampire’s skin so burnt, like something out of a monster movie. He had no idea how long Benny had been lying there, but something in his gut told him it had been longer than a vamp was ever meant to see sunlight.
Dragging Benny into the cover of the boat’s cabin, Dean sat him up against a wall then ran to the tap, turning on cold water and waiting impatiently for it to dip below room temperature; when he did, he soaked a rag in it and went back to Benny, pressing it against his hands, the back of his neck, anything that had seen the sun.
“C’mon, Benny,” he muttered, holding the vampire’s head up. He wasn’t breathing, but Dean was fairly certain vampires didn’t need to breathe. The rag did not warm to body heat as Dean pressed it against Benny’s neck; despite being burnt by the sun, Benny’s skin seemed colder than the water. “Come on, man,” barked Dean, shaking Benny’s head. “Wake up.”
As if granted the breath of life, Benny came to all at once, eyes fluttering open, back arching in what might’ve been a shadow of restrained pain. “Dean,” he grunted feebly. “Ya got my message…”
“Yeah, I got five seconds of you breathin’ and then another thirty of silence before the voicemail cut out,” Dean replied sharply. “What the hell happened, man?” When Benny didn’t respond, his eyes slipping in and out of focus, Dean shook him again. “Hunters?” he demanded, a chill gripping his gut even as he said it, his worst fear realized. Hunters didn’t back down until either they’d finished the job, or the job got them first. If that was the case, then Dean knew what he’d promised Sam – what he’d promised Benny – he’d do.
Benny’s head shook back and forth, but he didn’t seem to be responding to Dean. “That won’t work,” he said hoarsely, as Dean pressed the rag urgently against the back of his neck. “It’ll heal up in due time… but the cold ain’t gonna do nothing for it…whole body’s cold…”
“Okay,” said Dean, but he didn’t take the rag away, needing to do something. “Okay, what do you need? What helps?”
“Saltwater,” answered Benny, his head lolling limply on his neck, eyes closing once more. “Why’d’ya think we stayed on the sea, Dean?”
“Alright,” said Dean, leaning Benny delicately back against the ship’s wall. “One second, Benny, I’ll be right back-”
He got up and darted out to the deck, where dropped the rag into the seawater, hanging half-out of the boat to do so. Returning to Benny, he smacked the rag once more onto his skin; a gentle fizzling sound, like oil on a hot pan, crackled through the mild silence, and Benny let out a hissing breath.
They said nothing for a moment, letting the creaking of the boat and the quiet sloshing of the water outside fill the cabin.
Then Benny grunted, “Salt.”
Dean watched him with worried eyes. “What?”
“It’s the salt, I figure,” repeated Benny, his Southern drawl slurring his words. “Seawater’s salty like blood. Does good for my kind.”
Dean hesitated, then glanced down at Benny’s neck, where the ugly burns were already beginning to heal. “Well, that’s ironic,” he said. “Most monsters can’t touch the stuff.”
Benny’s voice was weak, as if he were far away. “I ain’t most monsters.”
Looking once more at the vampire’s face, Dean stared hard at him, a frown creasing his brow.
He asked, “That’s not enough, is it?”
Something like a smile might’ve tugged at the corners of Benny’s mouth. “It’s all fine, brother,” he said, voice still low and husky. “Salt takes away the sting.”
“You’re dying, Benny.”
“Maybe so,” answered the vampire, without opening his eyes. Dean guessed he didn’t have the strength. “Fresh out of donations. Would’ve saved some for emergencies, but…well. Thought I already had my share of emergencies this week.”
He attempted a weak, rumbling laugh, but it sounded dry and stale, like a death rattle.
Dean stared at his friend.
In his time, he lost plenty of people. A lot of them, he hadn’t had to watch die – Dad came to mind, in the basement of a hospital, founding the good old Winchester tradition of cheating death – but some of them he had. He could still remember the first time Sammy died, knife in his ribs, the spluttering sound of blood filling up his lungs, the empty film over his eyes. It was the open-eyed thing that really got you. Otherwise you could think a man was sleeping: but those eyes, unfocused and unblinking, just jarring enough to shake you out of your disbelief. That’s what death looks like.
Dean wasn’t prepared to stare it in the face again. Not this time.
He let go of Benny; the vampire banged his head slightly against the wall, but Dean paid no mind. He slipped a little knife out of his pocket, something small that he carried on his person everywhere – he used to carry Ruby’s knife, but then he got used to having more powerful methods of protection, and he went back to his regular good ol’ switchblade.
He didn’t think. Didn’t consider it. Didn’t use any of the medical knowledge he’d picked up in this line of work the past thirty-odd years to figure out where was best, Dean took the knife, ripped a sideways slash through his forearm, and watched Benny’s nostrils flare, his eyes flickering half open.
Dean held up his arm before Benny’s mouth, holding up his head with his other hand. Benny pressed his lips closed, face screwed up against the temptation.
“Drink,” said Dean. “Now.”
Benny shook his head desperately.
“Comeon, man,” growled Dean, shaking him again. “I know it won’t kill me, vamps can keep someone alive for days to feed on them. Just do it.”
Barely opening his lips, Benny began, “Dean-”
“Do it, Benny.”
For one second, Benny hesitated: his gaze flicked up to meet Dean’s. They he lowered his eyelids once more as he opened his lips, and, very gently, placed his mouth around the cut on Dean’s arm.
Dean felt when Benny’s teeth extended involuntarily, but Benny pulled away just enough to keep them from puncturing Dean’s skin, lips and tongue lapping up the red warmth as softly as a kiss.
It was a few minutes like this, and a dull ache began to settle in to Dean’s arm, up through the crook of his elbow to his shoulder. As if sensing this, Benny reached up to cradle Dean’s arm. A single drop of blood rolled down Dean’s skin, past Benny’s mouth. Benny paused and glanced up at Dean, blood tinting his lips red as pomegranate juice.
“Take as much as you need,” he said, ignoring the slight fog descending in his head, feeling faint right behind his eyes. “I’ve lost much more’n this before.”
This was true; Dean had nearly bled out a dozen times, and he had actually bled out and died at least once.
Benny watched Dean a second longer, then let go of his arm and leaned back against the cabin wall. “Thank you kindly, brother,” rasped Benny. His eyes seemed clearer somehow, color returning to his face behind the wine-red stains around his mouth. The burn on the back of his neck was all but gone. “You just saved my life.”
“Now we’re even,” said Dean, even though they both knew they were not. Clutching at the wound on his arm – the bleeding had almost stopped already – he added, “You still need more to heal up right, I’ll go get you some. Be back tonight.”
As soon as he tried getting to his feet, a wave of dizziness suddenly washed over him, sending him reeling as if with the unsteady rocking of the boat. “Hey, hey, hey,” said Benny lowly, reaching up to catch Dean’s hands, pulling him back down. The world stopped spinning, but it took Dean a few moments to blink black spots out of his eyes. “Now you’re the weak one,” said Benny, sounding bitterly amused. “Thanks to you I’ll survive ‘til dusk. Rest some. Put some food in your belly.”
Dean peered at Benny, trying hard to focus. “I’ll be fine. Only got a bag of Fritos in the car anyhow-”
Benny raised a weak hand, pointed to the little fridge at the other side of the cabin. “Some bread and cheese in the icebox. Don’t be a stranger, Dean, you need it.”
Raising an eye at Benny, Dean asked, “People food? You get a lot of guests around here?”
“No,” answered Benny, his half-lidded eyes on Dean. “Just you.”
There was a beat of silence. Then, with an emphatic groan, Dean successfully pulled himself to his feet. The first thing he did was rifle through some drawers to find an ancient, yellowed first aid kit, which was just stocked enough to wrap bandages around his arm. After that he moved to the fridge, still stumbling slightly over his own feet. Normally stocked with bags of blood, the interior of the refrigerator looked empty and oddly sad, with nothing but a loaf of white bread and a twelve pack of string cheese. The bread expired a few days ago, but a cursory inspection revealed no mold. The string cheese would be good well into next year, which made Dean suspicious but also kind of nostalgic for shitty food Dad used to buy on the road, but in any case, Benny was right – losing the blood had taken something out of him. He could use something in his stomach.
It was a hopeful thing to do, for Benny to buy groceries just in case Dean came to see him. Something curled tightly in Dean’s heart, unwilling to let such a gesture touch him.
He took out a slice of bread and two string cheeses, then went back and took a seat beside Benny, who had his eyes closed, limply propped up against the wall.
Dean tore the crusts of the stale bread, then took a hungry bite. There was some silence. Benny opened one eye. “Aren’t you gonna ask how this happened?” he asked. He sounded tired.
With a shrug, Dean leaned his back against the cabin wall beside his vampire friend. “That depends,” he said.
“Didn’t want to make too much of a pattern, stealin’ blood sacks and all,” said Benny, barreling forwards even despite Dean’s hesitance. He grinned at Dean. “Can’t afford settin’ a hunter on my tail, now, can I? Anyway, rode through three parishes to find a new blood bank, and lo and behold, brother, when I get there turns out some other monster family already claimed that stuff, and didn’t take too kindly to me tryin’ to butt in.”
“A family?” echoed Dean. “You mean a nest?”
“Nah,” said Benny, shaking his head heavily. “Dunno what they were, but they weren’t vamps, and they needed that blood.”
“Where was this, exactly?”
Benny reached out and clapped a hand on Dean’s shoulder, as if to hold him down. “Don’t,” he said simply. “They had little ones. Like I said, they needed that blood, they weren’t hurtin’ nobody.”
“Yeah, ‘cept for you.”
“’Cept for me,” repeated Benny, nodding his head gravely. “But most then again, folks would want to hurt somethin’ like me.”
Dean watched Benny for half a moment, then shook his head. He opened one of the string cheeses, and peeled off a strand. “Hell, Benny,” he said. “You’re turnin’ me soft.”
“Ain’t my fault. It’s bein’ out of Purgatory, Chief. Being here in the real world, that’s what’s makin’ you go all cute and cuddly.”
“No,” said Dean. “It’s not.”
There was an almost awkward kind of pause. “I’m beat,” sighed Dean, getting unsteadily to his feet. “You got a bed around here?”
“No, just a coffin,” said Benny.
Dean glanced around at him.
Benny grinned. “Kidding, my brother,” he said. “My kind sleep just like humans do.” He pointed to a door. “Right through there. Sleep as long as you like.”
“You’ll be all right?” asked Dean seriously. “I’ll go get you more blood bags once the sun sets. Think you can hang on ‘til then?”
“Thanks to you,” said Benny, “I think I can.”
“Good,” said Dean shortly. “Give me a coupla hours. I’ll be up soon. You get some rest too, alright?”
Benny bowed his head in a nod. “Yessir.”
This made Dean pause, and at first he wasn’t sure why. “Hey,” he said, pointing at Benny, who looked up through hazy eyes. “Don’t call me sir,” said Dean.
Dean’s head felt fuzzy and thick, and his arm still ached all the way up his shoulder. Gingerly, kicking off his shoes, he lowered himself onto the bed, which was softer than most motel mattresses. He drifted to sleep with a half-eaten cheese stick on the bedside table beside him.
At some point as he slept – a peaceful, deep sleep untroubled by the demons which usually populated his nightmares – he became aware of a soft warmth beside him, a weight sinking into the bed close to his body. He didn’t stir.
When he jerked away to the shrill ringing sounding from his pocket, all was dark.
Eyes blurry, a dull ache surrounding his head like miasma, Dean managed to fumble through his pocket for his cell phone and pick it up. “Yeah.”
“Dean. Where are you?”
“I told you,” grunted Dean, “I’m busy. Dealing with my own crap.”
“What crap? Are you on a hunt?”
“No, Sammy.”
“What the hell have you been doing for the past nine hours, then?”
Dean paused; he hadn’t realized how long he’d been asleep. “Look, man, just…” his mind was still working slowly through the fog of sleep and blood loss, cogs creaking in his head, trying to start turning again. “I’m on my way back,” he said. “Got sidetracked.”
“With what?”
“None of your damn business, that’s what,” answered Dean. “Hold tight ‘til I get there. Might be another few hours.”
“Dean, you can’t just say that – you gotta tell me what’s going on, we’re supposed to be looking out for each other-”
“And you are lookin’ out for me. I’m fine, okay? I’m fine. I’ll see you soon.”
“Dean-”
Dean hung up. He held the phone in his hand, watching it as if it were liable to come to life and bite him on the arm, where blood was faintly visible beneath the bandage’s wrapping.
The mattress groaned slightly as the body beside Dean shifted. “Trouble in paradise?” rumbled Benny. Focused on the phone in his hand, Dean didn’t look up at first.
Then he turned and leaned over and pressed his mouth against Benny’s. There was no surge of surprise, no hesitation; Benny smiled against his lips and kissed him back, slow and gentle. After a moment or so, Benny tugged Dean up to straddle his waist, back curved to stay close to Benny’s face.
Dean pulled away, but only slightly. “Hey, Benny,” he said. “Don’t you think you oughta buy me dinner first?”
Benny gave Dean that half-smile he so often wore, and cocked his head in a shrug. “I kinda did, Dean.”
“Yeah, well, convenience-store groceries ain’t exactly what I was thinking.”
“I can make ya gumbo and beignets, if ya like.”
Dean looked at Benny, watched his eyes, his lips parted just slightly. He did not look like he’d just been kissed as intensely as Dean had been kissing him, but then again, Dean didn’t think vampires had enough blood to flush the way humans did.
“You hungry?” asked Dean, scratching at the bandage on his arm.
Benny pushed his arm away. “S’alright, brother,” he said. “We’ll get more blood bags and I’ll be all right. No need to bleed yourself dry for li’l old me.”
“Yeah,” said Dean lowly. “No kidding.”
There was a pause, and then Dean climbed off Benny’s lap, slipping off the bed.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, putting on his shoes.
Benny rolled over as if to get up. “I’ll come with.”
Dean put a hand on Benny’s chest and pressed him back into the bed. “No,” he said. “You’ll stay here and get some rest. Drink some saltwater if you need it.”
“Water’s only good for healin’ up,” Benny told him. “Need the real stuff for feedin’.”
“And I’ll get you some, as soon as you promise to stay here and out of trouble while I’m gone.”
Beams of moonlight trickled in through the window, and the boat jostled and bumped cheerfully against the dock. Benny watched Dean carefully. At first Dean had thought this was maybe a vampire thing: back when he was almost turned, he could remember hearing blood pumping through a body across a room. Intense overstimulation on every level. No wonder a vamp trying to resist their more basic urges would focus on him like that.
But coming out of Purgatory had brought other sense memories rushing back, vampires he’d met here in the real world. Vampires he’d killed. They’d never had that look in their eye. Maybe it was something about being there in Purgatory together, something about being a monster dead and brought back to life. Either way, Benny looked at Dean like he was a drowning man, and he didn’t quite expect Dean to throw him the rope.
Dean returned later that night with a cooler full of blood bags, arguing on the phone with Sam for twenty minutes in a hospital parking lot. Benny was still weak, but before he fed Dean kissed him again, and Benny watched him with those careful eyes the entire time, even as Dean’s eyes fluttered closed, all pink cheeks and long lashes and a sheen of sweat along his brow. Benny’s hands were cold, but they warmed against Dean’s skin.
In the heat of the moment, Dean tore away the bandage on his arm and squeezed his fist tightly. Droplets of blood oozed from the healing wound.
With one hand, Benny took Dean’s arm. He wiped his thumb across the cut, then raised Dean’s arm to his lips and gave him a very tender kiss.
“You heal up too,” he muttered, the Cajun humidity seeping into the cabin’s little bedroom, warming and wetting the space between their bodies.
Benny let go of Dean’s arm and licked his thumb.
“And get back to your brother,” said Benny, leaning back in the bed. “Poor boy’s worried sick about ya, Dean. Should be grateful you got someone lookin’ out for you.”
“I know,” said Dean, his eyes slipping up to meet Benny’s doubtful stare. “I am.”
Benny said nothing. His mouth opened slightly, tucking his tongue between his front teeth.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m alive because’a you.”
“Starting to make a habit of it, aren’t I.”
Benny dipped his head in a nod. “Sure looks like it, Chief.”
Dean got to his feet. He redid his fly, then buckled his belt up again.
“See you,” said Dean.
A shadow of a grin might’ve flickered across Benny’s face. “Sure hope so,” he said.
Dean left.
----
Like a cheap drunk, Dean brought a bottle of Old Crow and they sat out on the deck of the boat, watching the fireflies trace lazy patterns across the bay. The chirping cicadas buzzed as loud and constant as waves crashing against the beach. The boat swayed gently back and forth in the calm water, occasionally knocking against the dock.
A year spent in Purgatory wasn’t real life. To treat each other like real people had been an impossibility – far too optimistic. They hadn’t dared say anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. There had been nothing but survival. It had been uncomplicated, yes, but Dean hadn’t realized until he got back how lonely it had been.
So Dean had asked, and now Benny was talking. It spilled out of his mouth all at once, as if he had been waiting for this moment, as if he had barely been containing himself for so long.
Dean poured Benny a glass of bourbon. Benny had diluted it some with blood, and sipped the drink slowly but mechanically, as if he didn’t even notice he was doing it. In the darkness, Dean could pretend the brownish liquid was whatever he wanted.
“Nellie raised Frances ‘n Huey all by herself, once I was gone,” he murmured, voice low and throaty in the hot nighttime humidity. “You gotta understand, Dean, things were different back then. A woman raisin’ children all by her lonesome wasn’t the easiest thing to do.”
He paused, watching the cloudy drink in his hand.
“Never knew Frances as a woman,” he grunted. “Bet she was pretty as her momma. Found out she had a little girl of her own later on. Always thought I’d like to meet my granddaughter.”
He stared out across the water.
“Anyway,” he continued, glancing over at Dean, who was on his third drink, a comfortable buzz loosening the tension in his limbs. “Lost track of them after that, but I always thought it’d be nice to get back to my old hometown. See if any’a my children’s children still there.”
“What about your son?”
“KIA,” said Benny.
“Vietnam?”
Benny chuckled. “Huey died in 1943, somewhere in the Pacific. Had to’ve lied ‘bout his age to enlist. But he was happy to serve, most boys were back then. And let me tell you, Dean, from someone who saw ‘em all – weren’t ever a war like that one.”
The silence started there, and dragged on this time, as dense and heavy as the air around them.
Dean knocked down the contents of his glass and got to his feet. Benny glanced up at him; Dean stopped, looking down at the vampire. The swaying of the boat made him unsteady on his feet, but he didn’t stumble. From the pocket of his jacket, he retrieved a familiar switchblade. The wound on his forearm had healed, joining a dozen other scars marking cuts with a silver knife to prove he was human, or else blood drawn for a spell or a ritual.
Instead of reopening that wound, Dean held up his left hand and nicked the stretch of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
Standing before Benny, he lowered his hand to the vampire’s mouth. Never taking his eyes off Dean’s face – that same expression there, like marching willingly into oblivion – Benny parted his lips, and gently took Dean’s hand into his mouth.
The fangs didn’t immediately come out this time. Dean was impressed, and vaguely proud. Benny had been getting better at controlling that lately.
“Hey,” said Dean, eyes fixed in fascination on his hand and Benny’s mouth. A drop of blood dripped down Benny’s chin. “How much more do I have to drink until you can get drunk off me?”
Benny’s hands reached up suddenly, as quick as if he were wincing against a blow. He took Dean’s hand gently in his own, spreading Dean’s thumb and forefinger further apart.
Without quite taking his mouth away from Dean’s flesh, Benny murmured, “None. Already too late for me, Dean.”
Slowly, Dean tugged his hand away, slipping out of Benny’s mouth. He lingered for one moment there before Benny, framed by the moonlight reflecting off the water and the fireflies hovering above the bank, where swampy trees leaned across the bay as if trying to trail their fingers through the shallow water.
Then he turned and went inside the boat’s cabin. Benny dragged his thumb across his lips, the taste of rich oxygenated blood salty in his mouth.
He got up and followed Dean in.
----
In a motel just across Missouri state lines – not too far from Lawrence, and both Sam and Dean had each considered detouring for a visit back to the place they were born, although neither said anything to the other – Sam pored over internet research, trying to find their next case. Even though it was hardly dark outside, Dean, fully clothed, slept on one of the beds, his feet hanging off the end.
With a soft fluttering of wings, an angel appeared in the motel room.
“Cas,” said Sam, immediately on his feet.
“Hello, Sam.”
Sam raised a finger to his lips, giving a pointed look at Dean. Cas looked around just in time to see Dean give a very undignified snore. When Cas looked back at Sam, Sam pointed to the door.
In retrospect, Sam should’ve expected Cas to misunderstand. In the blink of an eye, he was beside Dean’s bed. “Dean,” he said, reaching out to shake the man’s shoulder; Dean shuddered awake, blinking blurriness from his eyes, squinting up at the angel. Nodding up at Sam, Cas said, “Your brother wants you to go outside.”
Confused and sleepy, Dean looked around at Sam. “No, Cas,” began Sam, exasperated. “Just – nevermind. What’s up?”
While Dean sat up, rubbing his eyes, Cas looked back at Sam. He seemed pleased. “Penance is going – very well. I came to ask if you two are working a case, and if you could use some angelic assistance.”
“No,” growled Dean from the bed.
Cas’s face fell. “You don’t want my help?”
“We’re not working a case right now,” explained Sam. “Although – he glanced past Cas, at Dean. “There’s this thing in Eudora…”
“Eudora?” echoed Dean, squinting across the room at Sam, his eyes narrowed in what Sam guessed was a headache. “Isn’t that near Lawrence?”
“Lawrence, Kansas?” asked Cas; this seemed to perk him back up. “If you two intend to visit your home, I would very much like to join you.”
“Yeah,” grunted Dean, “because things went so great last time you were there.”
“Well,” said Cas fairly, “we did stop the Apocalypse.”
“There’s, uh,” continued Sam, sitting back down before his computer, “something else, up in Pennsylvania – a bombing at a church. Two buildings were leveled.”
“Yeah?” asked Dean. “And since when do we give a crap about domestic terrorism?”
“Two buildings were leveled,” said Sam pointedly, “and neither of them were the church. Could be an angel thing.”
Cas was silent for a moment. “St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception, in Bridgewater?”
“That’s the one,” said Sam.
With the sound of massive, powerful wings unfurling, Cas was gone.
“Okay,” said Dean. “That was helpful.”
Sam watched his brother worriedly. Dean rubbed at his temples, just above his eyes.
“What?” barked Dean, glancing up darkly. “What’s with the look?”
“What look?”
“Oh, don’t give me that, that look.”
Sam didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “I’m just worried about you, man. I thought it’d make me feel better, knowing where you disappear to every once in a while but – it doesn’t. Not when I’m thinking about what kind of crap you and Benny get up to that leaves you in such bad shape.”
“I’m fine,” said Dean, waving away Sam’s concern.
“No you’re not,” said Sam. “Let’s just take it easy for a while, okay? And next time you go and visit Benny, why don’t you let me ride along?”
“No,” said Dean.
“Dean,” said Sam. “If you’re – I don’t know, hunting, or whatever, then I can help.”
“No,” repeated Dean. “Drop it, Sammy.”
“Dean, come on! Why won’t you tell me anything?”
“’Cause it’s none of your business, that’s why,” said Dean shortly. “But I can tell you one thing: we are not going to friggin’ Pennsylvania.”
“Why not?” demanded Sam. “Because it’s too far away from Benny?”
From behind Dean’s bed, someone else spoke. “Dean’s right,” said Cas, appearing from nowhere. “Best if you – stay away from Bridgewater.”
Dean held his hands out smugly. “See?”
“Why?” asked Sam.
“Oh, don’t ask questions, Sammy,” sighed Dean. “You can’t get a straight answer out of an angel, you should’ve figured that out by now.”
There was a pregnant pause. Cas glanced between Sam and Dean, sensing some tension there but unsure what to do about it.
“Fine,” said Sam, getting up and putting on his jacket. He headed to the door. “I’m gonna go get some food. Dean, I don’t care what you say, you’re sick. You need to eat some then get some sleep.”
“I’ve gotten some sleep,” protested Dean. “I’ve been sleepin’ all damn day-”
“Cas,” said Sam, looking to the angel. “Do you want anything?”
“Yes,” said Cas seriously. “Absolution for my sins.”
“Okay,” said Sam, opening the door. “I’ll get you a cheeseburger.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
There was a short silence. Then Cas turned to Dean.
“You are ill?” he asked.
“No,” said Dean.
Without asking, Cas strode forward, then placed a hand on Dean’s forehead. A moment later, Dean took a shuddering breath, eyes open wide, the ache deep in his head and his bones absolutely gone. He felt stronger and more awake than he’d felt in weeks, like liquid energy had been poured into his veins.
“You’re anemic,” muttered Cas, frowning down at Dean. “That’s not like you, Dean. You eat too much red meat for that.”
“Yeah, well,” said Dean, pushing Cas away. “Been on a diet lately.”
Cas still stared at Dean, as if he could see right through him. “No you haven’t,” he said. “But…I see you’ve been keeping secrets from your brother.”
“I’m always keepin’ things from Sam,” said Dean gruffly. “Don’t know how you haven’t noticed by now, but that’s kind of how we work.”
Cas stared at Dean intently.
“Dean,” he said. “I was there, with you, in Purgatory. I saw everything you saw.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re grateful to Benny,” said Cas. “As you should be. Gratitude begets humility, which is something you and I could both use a little more of, Dean.”
Sharply, Dean asked, “What are you getting at, Cas?”
Cas stared at Dean, and there was a small crease on his brow, evidence of his concern. “This is not Purgatory anymore,” said Cas. “At some point you’re going to have to consider your debt to him paid. And after that…well. You know what comes after that.”
“What?” asked Dean, getting to his feet. “You’re with Sam? You want me to gank Benny, send the son of a bitch right back where we found him? Really?”
“No,” said Cas. “I’m concerned for you.”
“Concerned that I don’t got the stones to do it?”
“Concerned about the toll it will take on you,” said Cas, “when you do.”
Dean and Cas stared at each other, inches away from one another. The expression on Cas’s face was genuine, but it was also hard, almost stony. Suddenly Dean was gripped with an unsettling sense of déjà vu, a memory of staring Cas down back when he was Castiel, Angel of the Lord, an infinite being barely contained in an earthly body. A force to be reckoned with.
When Cas spoke again, his voice was quieter. “I know the bond you’ve forged with him,” he continued. “He saved you, when I could do nothing. When the day comes – and it will come – then I would like to hope that ending his life would cause you no pain.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” said Dean.
Cas stared at Dean. “Well,” he said. “I suppose you’ve endured worse emotional turmoil before.”
“I mean I’m not killing him,” said Dean. “There’s no reason to. He hasn’t hurt anybody.”
“Except you,” said Cas.
With a stab of pain, a wound reopened on Dean’s hand, between thumb and forefinger, and blood dripped hot and fast onto the motel carpet; Dean grabbed his hand tightly, holding it up, watching Cas in what could’ve been fear.
When he gingerly took his right hand away, the wound was healed. The scar was gone. There was no blood on the carpet.
After a moment’s pause, Dean turned around, shaking out his hand as he took a few steps away from Cas. “I see what’s going on here,” he said.
“As do I,” said Cas. “Our cognition is still in working order-”
Dean turned around, holding up a finger to point knowingly at Cas. “You’re jealous,” he said, “because nobody asked you to the prom.”
Cas blinked at Dean.
“My vessel, Jimmy,” said Cas, adjusting his overcoat, “is thirty-eight years old, I doubt he would be welcome at a traditional high school social event.”
“Don’t get cute,” said Dean.
“I’m sorry,” said Cas coldly. “I could try for fearsome, if you’d like.”
His tone revealed more than he probably intended. Even after all this time on Earth, Cas was still unused to expressions of human emotion – or rather, how to accurately bury them.
“I see right through you, you know that?” asked Dean, watching Cas from across the room. “All this crap about doing your penance, like you have all this work to do – you’re just making excuses, Cas.”
“Excuses for what?” asked Cas.
“For backing out,” said Dean, and he didn’t know when it had happened, but somehow his voice had risen. “For letting me think I couldn’t get you out of Purgatory. Well don’t forget, pal, you were the one who screwed that up, not me.”
“I know that,” said Cas. “I was the one who reminded you of that, remember?”
“Yeah, well. Don’t think you can just come crawling back here and expect me to feel sorry for you, ‘cause I don’t. You let me down, Cas, and I’m not finding it real easy to start trusting again right now.”
“What about Benny?”
“What about Benny, Cas?” asked Dean, a threat flashing in his eyes. “He got me out. He hasn’t touched anyone since he came back. He kept his word. You didn’t.”
Cas bowed his head in something that looked like prayer, but Dean got the feeling that he was only doing it because he couldn’t look Dean in the eye.
“Do the places I’ve failed you,” began Cas lowly, sounding as if every word caused him pain to expel it from his mouth, “matter more than the times I’ve been there to protect you? To save you? Why do the losses always matter more than the wins, to you?”
“Because,” Dean shot back, “you know what happens when you save the day? Nothing. Earth keeps on turning. Everything stays the same. The only time anything ever changes is when we screw it up, that’s why it matters more, Cas. You want to be a hunter now, don’t you? Well it’s a thankless damn job. Get used to it.”
There was a silence. Then, faster than Dean could blink, the angel was gone.
----
“So what’s the plan?” asked Dean. “I hang back while you guys do some trust falls and binge drinking?”
Benny chuckled. “Man, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you have an extremely low opinion of us vamps.”
Dead man’s blood in hand, Dean closed the trunk of the Impala. “Call it a healthy skepticism,” he said.
It didn’t take long to get separated; never does. Desmond looked young, compared to Benny. It occurred to Dean vaguely that Benny was older than most vampires he’d met, old enough to have had a life and a family before he was turned. Maybe that was what made him so different, so profoundly human that, in some small way, it terrified Dean.
(If a monster could be human, then did that mean humans could also be monsters? And how many creatures like Benny had Dean killed? How do you tell which ones deserve it, anymore?)
All this in the moments before another monster slain – and the thought was enough to keep Dean distracted just a second too long, and suddenly he was on the floor, and Desmond’s fangs were out – Benny, thought Dean, with more determination than fury, any minute now-
The slicing cut Desmond made along Dean’s neck stung, but it did not hurt as much as Dean had anticipated it would. Maybe death and Hell and Purgatory had dulled his pain, or maybe the past few weeks he had been getting too used to a reward after the punishment of broken skin, but either way he hardly winced, knowing the cut was shallow enough not to be dangerous.
Like a perverse shadow, Desmond licked Dean’s blood off his own finger, then dived down to latch his mouth against Dean’s bleeding neck: and then someone grabbed the man and tore him off of Dean, and a second later, a disembodied head landed with a sickly thud on the wooden floor.
Benny helped Dean to his feet. He seemed pleased, and part of Dean suspected that he had waited until the last minute to let Dean sweat a little. Dean found he didn’t mind too much. Were their roles reversed, he might’ve done the same thing; it made one appreciate their savior a little bit more, and Dean and Benny were still there, Dean thought, still in that not-strictly-intimate place where they worried enough that the other might leave at any second, so they did their best to make it difficult to do so.
Well. Benny had given Dean out after out, endless opportunities to leave if ever they got too close. Maybe it was only Dean, then, who had difficulty with the idea of letting the other man go. That had always been his problem.
The cut on his neck began to sting.
With a grunt, he wiped at it with the side of his hand. His blood was a dark, rich crimson in the low light, almost black against his skin.
He glanced up, and it was like an electric shot went through his body.
Benny’s eyes were hazy and hooded, fixed on the blood on Dean’s neck. He shivered slightly. “You okay?” asked Dean.
Benny’s reply was a lie, and they both knew it. Tearing his eyes away from Dean, he turned and took a few steps away, putting distance in between himself and Dean. Dean knew that Benny had been feeding sparingly, trying to condition his body into not needing so much blood. He wondered how long it'd been since Benny last had a drink.
“Benny,” said Dean.
“Give me a minute,” grunted Benny.
“Benny.”
“Hold on, Dean.”
Dean strode forward and grabbed hold of Benny’s arm; the vampire flinched away as if Dean’s hand were a flame, but Dean gripped him tightly – a memory tripped involuntarily in his mind, of a handprint on flesh precisely where Dean held Benny, of a parallel savior who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, just as Dean had raised Benny from his own monstrous hell. In the cold Louisiana night – the coldest night in months, heralding the coming winter – Dean wrenched Benny around to face him.
Lips hardly covered protruding fangs, no matter how hatefully Benny looked at Dean, humiliated in his hunger.
Dean watched Benny. And then he lifted his head to expose his throat, and turned to the side ever so slightly, the wound on his neck trickling down to the collar of his shirt.
Benny’s eyes flickered to Dean’s eyes, then down to his neck, then once more up to his eyes.
As if bowing his head curtly in prayer, Dean gave a tiny little nod.
----
At first blush, Dean felt his fangs. Surging forward greedily, their sharp tips punctured Dean’s skin like tiny needle pricks, and the first thought that occurred to him was that it hurt more than he’d expected to, like how a papercut stings for days despite its size. His second thought was to wonder vaguely how he was going to explain the scars to Sam. His third thought was less clear, but even as his head began to feel fuzzy, he felt fangs retract back into gums, and the mouth on his neck sucked at his skin not like a feeding creature, but tenderly, like a lover. As if on cue his knees began to shake, as if a nervous virgin jittery with passion and exhilaration.
And Dean would have liked to call it exhilarating, would have loved to conflate pain with passion and turn it into something intense and erotic, but it was not: blood seeped out of him and into Benny’s mouth, like the air being let out of an tire, or water leaking from an aquarium. Too much longer and he would end up empty and useless, and that was bad news for both of them, because Dean knew exactly how this would look, and exactly what Sam would do to Benny if Dean died in his arms.
But Dean’s vision had gone fuzzy, black spots popping in front of his eyes. He tried to say Benny’s name, but nothing came out. His lips felt numb.
His hands scrambled up to Benny’s chest, grabbing hold of him, weakly pushing away. For one moment, Benny did not pause, lapping up the hot warmth at Dean’s neck.
Then his lips pressed against Dean’s skin, and he drew away. Dean heard him let out a slow breath.
A few moments later, they had somehow emerged into the moonlight, and Benny had strung Dean’s arm over his shoulders, half-dragging him out towards the Impala. Benny sat him down against the front tire and then there was a rag pressed against his wound. Things came in slow flashes, as if lit by a strobe light. Dean realized he was blacking out.
They didn’t speak for a while longer. Benny pressed the rag against Dean’s neck, watching as the flow of blood began to ease.
A few minutes in, Dean leaned forward and kissed Benny, who pushed him gently away, back against the car. “Don’t strain yourself, Chief,” Benny murmured. “Lookin’ for a li’l taste of your own blood, hm? Dean, you spend too much time with me.”
Dean tried to kiss him again. Benny chuckled, and kept a hand firmly on his shoulder, keeping him away.
Giving up, Dean deflated slightly, leaning back against the car. He closed his eyes.
When he came to, Benny was gone. A stab of panic ran through his heart for one moment, and then his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the other man lingering by a chain link fence, staring out into the night.
Slowly, laboriously, Dean got to his feet. He pressed the rag against his neck and made his way over to where he stood just behind the vampire.
“My life here is over, isn’t it,” said Benny, and it wasn’t a question.
Dean took the rag away from his neck. It looked like he was no longer bleeding.
He suspected Benny wasn’t talking about Carencro, Louisiana, but he also figured this conversation would be a hell of a lot easier if they pretended he was.
“Guys like us,” said Dean, glancing out into the night himself, “we don’t get a home.”
Not here.
“We don’t get family.”
Not with you.
“You’ve got Sam,” said Benny.
And Cas, he didn’t say.
Dean looked away, the cut on his neck stinging. “Yeah,” he said.
By dawn’s light, Dean was back at the motel with a bandage across his neck, and Benny was long gone.
----
A few months later, Dean took two pieces of Benny’s body in a plastic bag in the trunk of his car up to the Hundred Mile Wilderness, his heart pumping with pain and fear every time he looked at the corpse, reminding him of all the blood in his veins. His body felt full of it, hot red liquid, rich and salty, coursing through him like crimson syrup that had somehow seemed so right coloring Benny’s lips, stained across his teeth.
Bringing Benny’s body with him to meet Sam back from Purgatory was a hopeful thing to do, as hopeful as a loaf of bread and stack of cheese sticks sitting in an otherwise empty fridge had been. Neither Benny then nor Dean now had any guarantee that the other would come. Both of them had a thousand more reasons to believe that the other wouldn’t. Benny had been gratefully, mercifully wrong.
Dean wasn’t.
----
Dean buried his body past midnight in a cemetery outside Carencro, beside the grave of a widowed mother and a son who died fighting in 1943.