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The air thrums with the sound of sizzling bacon and Benny lies on his side and listens to Dean singing under his breath, making quiet guitar noises with his mouth while he cooks in the other room. Benny smiles with his eyes closed; it’s cute how Dean doesn’t realize just how much he can hear and how much more he can infer from the sound. Dean probably wouldn’t like that Benny knows so much, but it’s all there in Dean’s off-key a cappella covers of his favourite Led Zeppelin songs. His serenity, his calm, his scent relaxed and fresh. It bleeds into everything, through the walls of their home and colours the air rosy.
It’s been just about six months since they met, and while Dean is not a different person from when Benny first met him, he is much more settled in his own skin. He’s uprooted himself twice in one year, first to Lawrence and now to the Atlantic coast, but he’s figuring out the shape of himself silhouetted against the world, reharmonizing. There’s a place in this world for Dean Winchester after all. He’s carving it out to his own liking.
For Benny, this is a lesson, the potential for himself brushing along his consciousness as he learns more and more about Dean. It’s like looking in a mirror, seeing himself in Dean and seeing him in tiers. There's a certain resonance in knowing enough of someone's history, that which made them, the foundations of sediment and ash, one bitter memory spreads like a single drop of dye and pollutes everything around it, distorted progressively by layer after layer of hurt. The edges define and blur at the same time, sculpting, colouring, altering, until the finished product is nothing like what one might have expected it to be. Benny learns in a very short time that Dean is who he is because of his memories. He is tempered in fire and shaped by grief. What Benny has learned is that there is very little "before" and so much "after", that growth and healing does not mean simply reclaiming that which was lost, but reconstructing that which was made out of the loss. This is all Dean: the addict, the nightmares, the resentment, the compassion.
And now, he's also the sound of unselfconscious whistling in the next room.
Then there's Benny: the vampire, the monster, the restraint, the trust, the weight taking up one half of their shared bed, too comfortable to think about moving.
Opening his eyes to the darkness in the room, Benny rolls onto his stomach and breathes in deep the smell of them. Laundry, because Dean hates it when the sheets get too funky from sweat, cheap soap, sea breeze, and just skin. It drives Dean batty to feel the sheets grow greasy from use beneath him so Benny soaks it in while he can. Bodies leave behind such a distinct smell, each and every one of them, and Dean’s is like the first snow touching the fallen leaves. It matches the time of year perfectly, but it needs Benny’s own scent to give it a crisp sea-salt edge to match the place.
“You asleep or just being weird?” A voice says from the doorway. Light floods out the darkness. Dean installed blackout blinds in the bedroom, but Benny can tell by the way the blueish sunlight angles behind Dean’s naked shoulders that it’s well into the morning, closer to noon. Benny chuckles gently and throws a pillow in Dean’s direction, but he dodges it without dropping a single piece of bacon or toast from his heaping plate.
“Don’t you get out of bed. It’s Sunday, which means breakfast in bed.”
“And what happens after breakfast in bed?”
Dean walks on his knees across the mattress to settle in next to Benny, back to the headboard with his plate on his thighs, “I think you know what happens after breakfast in bed.”
“We go to church?”
Dean chokes out a laugh through a buttery mouthful, “Sure. Lemme just dig out my shiniest shoes and we’ll head out.”
“You’ll look pretty funny walkin’ into a church with nothing but a pair of shoes on,” Benny smiles up at Dean. The bacon smell is overwhelming. Salty, fatty, with a sweet edge that might be brown sugar. Dean’s cooking is nothing at all like what Benny watches on TV; it’s natural and comfortable and full of timeless joy. Dozens of old lives stick to Dean’s habits and he doesn’t even know it, memories and ghosts of memories living on in the little things like the way he kicks off his socks halfway through the night or the way he relishes every greasy drop on his plate. Benny wishes he could share off Dean’s plate without suffering severe pains later.
Dean licks grease off his fingers with a smacking sound far louder than necessary, “That why they’re not letting me in?”
"Mm. Maybe."
"Whatever," Dean munches on his breakfast noisily. Benny leans on his side and closes his eyes again and sneaks one arm around Dean's back. The heat of his skin on Benny's seeps right to the bone. He draws circles in Dean’s hip with the side of his thumb.
Dean, eloquent as he is with a mouthful of bacon, could never wrap his mouth or mind around the slide of emotions filling Benny up just from sitting at his side like this. It's a vampire thing, Benny figures, how being so close to Dean pulls and tears and warms him. Every touch is a battle that he wins. Each victory gives him more and more hope that they can do this after all.
After a few more minutes, Dean coughs and then burps. His plate clinks on the old night table they picked up along the way at a yard sale and he clears his throat again, smacks his lips to chase away the last crispy crumbs of bacon as he slinks down the mattress and rolls onto his side to face Benny, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Isn't there a rule about waiting at least a half hour?"
"That's for swimming, which I don't do. And when have I ever followed the rules?" Dean wiggles closer and presses a kiss to Benny's lips. He deepens it in seconds, wet and curious even after hundreds of kisses just like it. The lingering taste of bacon assaults Benny's senses, an explosion of salt and sugar that startles a moan from him and gives Dean a brief opening to roll Benny onto his back and pin his wrists down at his sides.
Dean's weight atop him is heavy and sensual. He arches his back, rolls their hips together and explores Benny's mouth with his tongue. The soft drag over Benny's gums is a test, not that Dean knows it is, and his fangs stay put as Dean kisses him for a few hot minutes.
“This okay?” his fingers are warm and still a bit greasy, a timid contact along the cool skin of Benny’ hipbone like coming in from a blizzard.
Benny’s insides dip pleasantly at the gravelly bottom of Dean’s voice, but there’s no immediate desire in him to do more than lie in bed all day. Plus, he knows that as soon as they do anything, Dean's going to get up and wash the damn sheets, “Can we keep it above the belt today, sugar?”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean’s reply loses none of its heat as he nips at Benny’s lips once, his tongue a hot brand but his fingers retreat from Benny’s underwear and he finds other places to touch that send just as much slow fire rolling across Benny’s skin. He can feel that Dean is aroused through his pajama bottoms, but he gives away no frustration or annoyance at all for being held back. That’s who Dean is, and this is who Benny is, and it’s fine.
And it works.
—
The house they found was little more than a run-down cottage by the ocean along the coast of Maine. Far enough from the closest town to be considered a land of its own, and slammed by storms quite regularly, it was cheap, secluded, available, and it came furnished with a large enough bathtub that both of them could sit in it at the same time. Dean scanned the outside and called it a murder cabin when they pulled up to it the first time, and when Benny asked him what he meant by that Dean launched into a long, winding explanation about horror movies and stupid fucking teenagers and monsters coming out of the fog at night. Only one thing stuck with Benny.
"You’re already dating the monster. I think you're safe,” he whispered as he wrapped his arm around his boyfriend. When he put his hand in Dean’s back pocket, the real estate agent smiled at them, saw her opening,and launched into a prerecorded speech about the friendly, progressive town nearby with plenty of employment opportunities for families ready to grow in a peaceful environment. The word family made both of them tense up.
Their combined offer was modest, but Dean said something about leaving some room for the unexpected. The old house in Lawrence sold quickly to a new owner, all handled by Sam and a real estate agent named Madison, so Dean wasn’t exactly floundering with nothing in his pockets. But with all their prior talk about second chances, Benny could sense that Dean was applying caution to every area of his life. He wanted to leave himself a way out no matter where he ended up. Benny knows that it should bother him that Dean keeps himself so untethered, but after living his own life the same way for so long, he sees where Dean is coming from.
However modest their offer was, the owner accepted it, just eager to get the little sea-soaked cottage of his hands. They moved in two days after arriving near Brooksville and started a life together, taking stock of their limited furnishings and any repairs that should get done immediately before the dead of winter set in, much to Dean’s annoyance. After an entire summer of renovations on his family home in Kansas, it was a chore to drag him through the hardware store in town but they worked tirelessly at patching up a couple holes and repairing the roof in the bathroom. A week after, they'd done all they wanted to do for now. The move left them both fairly burned out, and after another week, they still hadn’t left the house for much more than groceries.
“This isn’t what I called to talk about.”
A faint yammering on the phone line, and Dean drags his fingers through his hair, which means he’s frustrated by something he’s being told but doesn’t know how to put that frustration into words that anybody will understand. Benny averts his eyes from where Dean paces back and forth in the small kitchen, knowing it isn’t his place to eavesdrop but his vampiric senses pick up the sound of Dean’s nail’s scraping his scalp like dragging a knife along a slate.
“Look, I know you just want things to just be okay but it doesn’t work like that. I think maybe…No, listen, Bobby…” Dean sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Benny hasn’t learned much about Bobby Singer other than his place in Dean’s life as a surrogate sort-of father, not much better than the original but he at least gave Dean and his brother beds to call their own when John Winchester would not. He lives near Sioux Falls on a plot of land that Dean had called an automotive graveyard, not without a faintly nostalgic smile.
On the way along the northern roads to the coast, Dean confided in Benny that one of his recovery goals was to repair his relationships with his remaining family members and friends. A piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet with a half a dozen or so names on it, a bit like a hit list. Benny only recognized a few of the names, and Dean decided to reach out to Singer first, after Sam of course, to catch him up on the past few months.
“Sam already knows I’m not coming up for Christmas. We talked about it last week.”
Benny scoops off the carpet the tail end of the forest green scarf that he’s been making for Dean. It’s chillier by the coast, not that Dean totally minded after the oppressive heat of the midwest, but it will only get chillier as winter really sets in and Dean’s already caught a slight sniffle after their first night when they forgot to close the bedroom window. Dean looks up when Benny’s back creaks, meeting his eyes with a tired expression. He smiles weakly at Benny.
“You’ll just have to invite the sheriff over for dinner then,” Dean replies, “What, I can’t even make a joke now?”
“Bobby? Hey, Bobby?” Dean says, suddenly tense, and then hangs up the phone, “Fuck.”
Benny gives him a rueful smile, “Went well.”
“He's so set on family that he’ll drag us both kicking and screaming to Sioux Falls for a sit-down dinner. Tie us to our chairs if he had to,” Dean grumbles. He walks around the half-wall separating the kitchen from the main room to sit next to Benny on the couch with his arms folded over his chest, wound tight, “Feels like shit, but…” Dean starts to wiggle his foot erratically.
“What’s he think about us?” Benny asks by way of distraction.
Dean shrugs, “Dunno. Bobby’s pure redneck. Loves his guns and his freedom. But I don’t think he’s a homophobe,” he picks up the end of the scarf from Benny’s lap and runs his thumbs over the pattern nervously, “Don’t think he cares either way.”
“Hm,” Benny turns his knitting down for a moment and gestures at Dean to look up at him so he can kiss him. Dean’s mouth is tangy with anxiety, but he kisses Benny until his body starts to relax and slow down.
“I know I’ve asked you this every day,” Benny says once they part and Dean rests his head against Benny’s shoulder, getting comfortable as Benny starts up his knitting again. Dean’s muscles start to loosen as he zones out and watches the needles slide over each other, “but you’re sure about spending Christmas and New Years away from them?”
With a yawn, Dean drops his hand over Benny’s chest, his fingers splayed out like a spider, “It’s fine. Really, it’s for the best. I never liked Christmas much anyway and it won’t kill anybody. Besides, Sam’s totally okay with it,” Dean explains, “Or he at least accepted it without too much argument. I think he’s got a new girl," he starts drawing circles on Benny's shirt, his voice a hum that tingles down Benny's arm, "It’s Bobby that’s being a stubborn bastard about it.”
“All that food though,” Benny teases lightly, “All that gravy and stuffing and mashed potatoes…”
“What are you tryin’ to imply, here? That I can’t make a Christmas dinner for myself?”
“Last chance. No going back.”
“Jesus, Benny,” Dean starts to chuckle, “I’ll make my own fucking potatoes. And I know you plan on baking at least three different pies anyway,” he angles his chin to look Benny square in the eye.
Benny scoffs dismissively, but doesn't meet Dean's gaze, "You don't know nothin'."
“Yeah, nice try. I found the recipe book, man. You left it on the couch the other night. Real smooth.”