Archive of Our Own ^beta

During the quiet in Purgatory, which there was some of—once their racing breath slowed and they sat on their haunches on the shore of a stream, washing the blood and grime from their hands—Dean and Benny would talk. Dean made Benny talk about the olden days, and Dean talked about Sam.

“He’s ten feet tall,” Dean said. “Looks like a scarecrow. All gangly. Stupid hair, stuck in the nineties.”

Benny was sitting back on his hands on the rocky beach, his worn boots splayed.

“Older brother?”

“Younger. Four, five years. My whole goddamn life’s been about him.” Dean ran the nail of his thumb under a nail on his other hand to get the gummy black blood out. “I knew how to take care of him before I knew how to take care of myself. Feels like I became a dad when I was like, eight. You know?”

“I most certainly do not know, you strange little man,” Benny laughed.

Benny laughed at him a lot, like he thought Dean’s whole deal was funny. Of course it would take a vampire, a fellow monster, to find levity in Dean’s fucked-up life, he thought. Game recognize game.

“Your loss,” Dean said, dunking his hands into the river again. They ached with the cold. He didn’t like thinking too hard about sensations in Purgatory—whether he existed in a physical space, whether he was dead or alive or aging, what it meant that he could taste the blood in his teeth and feel exhaustion and pain but didn’t need to eat or shit or sleep. It made his head hurt. He felt inhuman, just filling to fit the available space.

Benny sprawled out behind him. His heavy coat and slacks were reduced to flat blackish shapes in the omnipresent twilight. His hair looked gray-brown and Dean wouldn’t learn how red it was for another year.

“So, young father,” he drawled, “what else can you tell me about the fantastical year twen-ty-thir-teen?”

—

They looked for Cas. They killed things. Dean talked about computers and MTV and the time Sam got into their dad’s whiskey when he was fourteen and almost cut off his right index finger practicing his knife-throwing. 

“It paid off in the end,” he added, “‘cause that guy can do artistry with a knife now, I swear. Better than he is with guns.”

Benny talked about endless days on the sea, the pleasant claustrophobia of a below-deck cabin and the satisfaction he found in the mindless tasks needed to keep a boat seaworthy. They both talked about fishing.

“It’ll be some witchy thing, when Sam gets us out,” Dean said, prodding the fleshy, lumpy body of some nameless dead thing with his boot. “He’s always been into that witch shit, spells and stuff, and there’s a spell for everything. He’s a collector, like how nerds are. He likes cataloguing shit. You should see the trunk of our car, God, it’s like a natural history museum. Little boxes of butterfly wings and chicken bones, all that garbage.”

Benny wandered over, wiping his bloody hands on his thighs. “You think he’s still trying?”

“Shit yeah, he’s trying. That’s what we do. I told you about Hell.”

“I know, I know. Just got me wondering whether this spell of his is gonna have room for two, you know?”

Dean stuck his blade into his shoddily-manufactured belt sheath. “Well, if it doesn’t, I’ll find one that does. Already told you that, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. My knight in shining armor.”

Dean scoffed at him. They left the carnage behind and kept walking.

—

Purgatory’s day-night cycle was too long to be useful, flat midtones of gray stretching endlessly with little variation, but Dean’s internal clock ran like—well, like clockwork—and he liked to stop after a certain amount of time, to sit and rest and feel, in some small way, human.

He got a fire going, even though the light shone weird and there was no warmth. The glow of the flames extended in only a small sphere around the fire and hardly reached their faces, but it was blasphemy to sit in the woods without a fire, it was bad enough that they didn’t have a deck of cards or whiskey. Benny sat with his back against a tree, legs stretched out and ankles crossed. Dean was a few feet away against his own tree. They washed up earlier and were about as clean as they could get; Benny had dried blood in his hair and along the front of his ear, but that wasn’t any of Dean’s business.

Dean tipped his head back. The space between the tree canopy wasn’t dark like the night sky, but it wasn’t anything else, either. The eye slid off it completely, indescribable.

“Wanna hear something fucked up?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken in what felt like hours. Benny glanced over at him.

“Usually.”

Dean shimmied down, stretched out and laced his fingers over his stomach like he was prepping for a nap.

“Being in here is the least stressed I’ve been ever since I can remember. Like, in years.”

Benny raised his eyebrows. “You’re tellin’ me the constant threat of permanent death stresses you out less than how you were before?”

“Shit, when you put it like that,” Dean laughed. “Nah, it’s just— I’ve got no questions here. Not a damn thought in my head. Nothing I’m asking myself, nothing I’m doing wrong, no responsibility. No hand wringing. No hand holding. You feel me?”

“You be careful, or you’re gonna make me think you ain’t a finely-honed killing machine when you’re topside.” Benny chuckled. “I don’t wanna meet that guy. The one who worries.”

Dean grimaced. “That’s, uh, one of those hand wringing topics. I’m good at fighting, it’s what I do. I know that. But this… this shit is next level. The total onslaught, the brutality. It’s like nothing else, nothing I do up there.”

Benny looked over at him. Dean looked into the fire. In his peripherals, he saw Benny shift more upright against his tree, and keep looking at him for about a minute.

“Well,” Benny said eventually, and Dean looked back. He watched a smile spread over Benny’s face, half black and half white in the fire. “Lots of things a fella does in here, he might not do on the outside. You know?”

Dean had been wondering the whole time whether he was getting vibes from Benny, but until now, he brushed it off as a misunderstanding. He figured it was just the way the guy operated: he had this charm about him, he was tough as nails but he was always smiling and everything was a joke. Dean had known guys like that before, terminally laid back, and he knew better than to fall for it.

“Yeah?” he said carefully.

He was tense; this part was always a dance, make one wrong move and you end up eating your teeth. He let guys suck him off when they asked, only a few times in bathrooms and alleys and parking lots, never at a motel and only in cities so big that no one had a name. It was something inside himself that he denied light and air in the hopes that he’d eventually kill it. He’d been trying for twenty years with no success, but it also hadn’t grown much, and that was a win in his book.

But: Purgatory was a liminal space. A haven of two. No way it would count.

Even with that one word, Dean’s yeah, Benny lit up. Benny could read him. Dean realized with a slow warmth that Purgatory was too simple to warrant the kind of dog and pony show that went on between roughnecks in bars. It didn’t make sense to posture or puff up your feathers, there was no one else there, nothing mattered. It could be as simple as the fact that Dean liked Benny’s pale eyes and thought the scratch of gray in his beard was hot, and he was lonely and tired and he liked talking to the guy. He didn’t think he had a type, but. He always liked southern girls—the twang in their voice, the down-home hospitality. It did something for him. He’d never given much thought to southern boys, though, and God, wasn’t that a revelation. 

No sense in beating around the bush, he figured. He was either wrong or he wasn’t, and he couldn’t see Benny caring much either way.

“Any idea how that works down here?” he asked lightly, holding Benny’s gaze. “If we’ve got limitations. Like the not eating, or sleeping.”

Benny shrugged.

“No idea. Never tried.” His eyes were bright in the firelight. He was still smiling, with this new glint to it. “Don’t let it go to your head, but after fifty years in this pit, you’re the first thing I’ve found worth fucking.”

Just like that, Dean’s whole body switched on. No ambiguity. He liked that.

“You don’t say.”

They were already close enough that all he had to do was make a kind of knee-shuffle closer. Benny met him halfway, staring at him with unmistakable hunger.

The thing about Benny was that he was a vampire, and that meant that under the smiles and the buddy-buddy, he kind of wanted to hurt Dean, a lot. Dean had more crossed wires than he knew what to do with—a rat king of crossed sexual wires dating back to adolescence and every messed up formative moment since—so he wasn’t surprised when the vague threat of violence made his dick hard. Add it to the goddamn list, it didn’t matter that he was pretty sure Benny wouldn’t do it. Pretty sure.

Benny put one of his giant paws on the side of Dean’s neck. His hands were filthy but so was Dean. His skin was perfectly room temperature, cool like a river stone, and when he pulled gently, Dean went.

“You look like somethin’ out of a magazine,” Benny mumbled, his thumb smoothing along Dean’s cheekbone, eyes following its path. “Never seen anything like it.”

Dean pulled back just far enough to see him. His eyes looked black in the dark. Dean slid his hands between Benny’s coat and shirt and grabbed at the body he’d never felt with any clarity beyond a solid shape beside him in a fight; he was thick and strong, the kind of muscle under a healthy layer of fat you got from living a physical life, power and weight and brawn. He liked it more than he thought he would.

“Your goddamn mouth,” Benny said, like he was mad about it. He ran his thumb over Dean’s lower lip and drew it down. 

Dean knew what he looked like. It was embarrassing; the guys he’d been with, sucking his dick was rarely the first thing they asked for. He was thirteen the first time someone told him he had a pretty mouth. Sam overheard it once, some guy at a truck stop diner, and it was maybe the only time he didn’t get on Dean’s case about starting a fight. He was nice to him for days after, and that’s when he realized that Sam didn’t know he dealt with guys like that all the time.

With Benny, he somehow didn’t mind. It was different. He’d never been with a guy he knew, let alone liked, and it made his palms sweat even in Purgatory, with so little to lose. Not nerves but something else, a lethal cocktail of need and restraint that he felt scraping away at his carefully-constructed soul.

He sucked Benny’s thumb into his mouth, not thinking. The earthy taste of dirt, metallic blood. He pressed the pad of it against his tongue and the ridges of his fingerprint were rough against his taste buds. They didn’t eat; how long had it been since he had something in his mouth?

“Jesus,” Benny breathed. His other hand slid back over Dean’s head, like he was guiding him against his thumb. He slid it out of his mouth and skidded a wet streak across his cheek. “You better know what you’re askin’ for, Dean.”

Dean just stared at him, breathing out his mouth, and thought like he always did about whether he could overpower the guy if things went sideways and where the exits were, but none of that meant anything here. Benny could snap his neck without trying. Benny was the exit. It made his heart hammer against his ribs so hard he felt sick, because both those things meant his only option was to trust him, and that was miles outside his wheelhouse.

Benny swallowed hard. He shifted to hold Dean’s face between his hands and spoke before he could, his voice breaking a little.

“It’s— it’s been a long time, for me.”

He sounded ruined. Dean pulled back an inch.

“How—”

“Not in here,” he said quickly, and sounded, for the first time since Dean had known him, embarrassed. “Like I said. Never, since.” He was still looking at Dean’s mouth and rubbing his thumb absently over his cheek.

Dean laughed, he couldn’t help it. Benny grinned and dug his fingers into his face.

“That is impolite.”

“Fifty years?” Dean cackled.

“You shut your mouth.”

“Christ, you’re gonna go off like a—”

Suddenly Benny’s hands were pushing his head back, thumbs jammed up under his face until his throat was bared and Jesus, that was Benny’s mouth against it, open and wet and, in a way he had to try to not find disgusting, not warm. Every muscle in his body went tense.

“Don’t—”

“I’m not,” Benny choked, his hands moving up, back, crushing Dean’s skull in his palms. “I won’t, I just— good God, you taste—”

He heard it: the strange, sickening squelch of his teeth coming out.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t ready to see it. He slid his hands up and over Benny’s shoulders bulky under his jacket and let him lean heavy against him.

“I won’t,” Benny said again, “but there ain’t much I can do about wantin’ it.”

Dean could feel the slick fronts of his many, many teeth against his neck, but not the points, just his lips and tongue dragging through the grime.

“It’s alright,” Dean panted, head back far enough that he had to look up at the trees. He shifted forwards and let Benny slide a thigh between his so he’d feel exactly how alright it was. “This whole time, you didn’t—”

“What’d you want me to stick it in, a leviathan?”

“Another vampire?”

Benny laughed. He scraped his teeth against the soft skin under his ear and Dean shuddered. 

“Other vamps don’t like me much, for obvious reasons.” Not a bite but a playful nip, and Dean twitched hard. “Don’t do much for me, neither.” 

“I’ll bet.”

Benny dragged his hands down his arms, over his sides, crushing and big and moving ever downwards. He slid one between his legs and Dean sucked in a breath, fisting his hands in his jacket. 

“Seems like I do something for you too, maybe,” Benny purred. Dean turned his face away from him, spread his legs a little wider and didn’t answer otherwise. Benny just laughed again. His thick beard was soft and woolly against the rough stubble of his cheek.

He was kind of on top of him and kind of next to him, bearing down on him. He got his jeans open and pulled him out, fisted his cock and got to work. Dean fumbled around, got Benny’s slacks down and his dick sprung free, slapped against his stomach, not huge but thick, flushed deep pink against the white of his shirt. It felt good in his hand.

Benny’s other hand grabbed his leg and hitched it over his. He laughed again.

“Not to pry, but your heart is going crazy,” he said, and twisted his wrist; Dean’s free hand wrenched at his coat. “Don’t do this much?”

“No,” Dean said, not worth lying. They were doing it together and it was so far from the traded favours he knew, where he’d give a guy a few obligatory tugs to finish him off or, more often, watch him come into his own hand on the bathroom floor. This was close and shared and his toes curled inside his boots, his breath hot in Benny’s hair. It was good, the taboo and first-time nerves were making him sick and excited and jittery. “You’ve got— good hands.”

Benny laughed, and it was so goddamn charming. “Done this a few times.”

He let Benny tuck his face against his neck, mouth at him and scrape his teeth hard enough to sting but not break the skin. He wished it wasn’t so hot; he could feel a tremor in his jaw from holding back. He remembered the smell from his brief stint with vampirism, like food and sex together and indivisible, it was torture to be around anyone, he didn’t know how Benny could get so close and not feed. It had been hell around Sam, even.

Part of him—his downstairs brain—wanted to let Benny bite him. He wanted to know what it was like, to give it to him and feel the pain and the head rush from blood loss. It wouldn’t kill him. The only thing that stopped him was that he didn’t know if his wounds left scars, here, and he couldn’t risk Sam knowing when he got out. 

Maybe eventually, though. He never had great impulse control.

He was close just thinking about it. He dragged his free hand up Benny’s back and grabbed his neck. He swallowed hard.

“We wash up better next time, and maybe I use my mouth.”

Benny groaned into his neck; Dean felt his dick throb. “Fuck, Dean.”

He grabbed Dean’s ass and wrenched him closer, shuddered, shoved his hips up into his hand.

“Are you—”

“Yeah. Yeah, come on,” and he dug his teeth into his neck so hard Dean almost went still, almost stopped, but through the throb of pain he didn’t feel that pop of his skin tearing and Benny came into his hand, wet spurts between his fingers.

Almost before he was done, he shoved Dean onto his back and bent down over his dick.

“Hey!” Dean yelped, two octaves too high. “Teeth!”

Benny looked up briefly. His teeth were still out, huge and insane and menacing, and Dean had his hands out poised to rip him away, or try to, but he was still hard and that hurt his case somewhat.

Benny didn’t bite him. He bowed his head and drooled spit from his tongue down onto Dean’s cock, still working it in his fist. It was slick and tight and Dean slammed back into the dirt, dug his heels in and came into his hand with a long, low sound.

He collapsed back to the ground. Benny’s cool, wet tongue licked at him and he twitched hard and almost kneed him in the head. He kept licking and sucking at him until he was clean and boy, was Dean not going to address that. He panted up at the trees, his eyes slipping off the nothingness beyond the canopy.

“Not a bad way to spend the afterlife,” Benny said, sitting back and giving him a pat on the leg. 

Dean sat up on his elbows. As he watched, Benny retracted his teeth with a grimace. He’d never watched a vampire do it, not so carefully, and it was mesmerizing and gross.

He wiped his hand in the dirt and looked down at it. “Thought you wouldn’t have, uh.”

Benny shrugged. “One of the many mysteries of the undead.”

The fire was still going; Dean had forgotten about it completely. He hiked his jeans up and shuffled back against the tree he was leaning against before. He knew what women wanted to hear after sex, but this wasn’t that, and he felt an empty and performative shamefulness that felt stupid given the context of being dead. No walk of shame out of the bar bathroom, staggered exits. No one knew and he still felt like shit, his head full of jokes and slurs.

He said, “It’s— it’s physical, here, you notice that? I guess you might not.”

It was an obvious distraction, but Benny let him run with it.

“Physical like how?”

“Like, we exist,” Dean explained, or tried to. “Hell wasn’t like this. It wasn’t a real space, it didn’t have weight, or any sensations past what they wanted you to feel. Time passed, but the ‘you’ that felt it didn’t have a body, you know?”

“I guess I can get it.”

“But here, this feels real. Which is the last thing I expected out of Purgatory, right? If anything was gonna be non-corporeal. But Sammy said Lucifer’s cage was the same way, no physicality. Missing an axis. But that makes sense, it… it was just Hell.”

There was a long pause, which was fair. What was anyone supposed to say about Hell?

Then Benny said, “Ah. I meant to ask about him.”

Dean felt that knee-jerk stab of offense he always did when someone brought up Sam unprovoked, what’d you say about my brother? Like some meathead in a bar.

“Yeah?”

“Well. You say brother, but now I’m thinkin’, is it like a— you know?”

Dean squinted at him. “What?”

Benny shifted onto his back and looked up at the trees, suddenly absorbed.

“Well. Maybe it’s different now,” he said, stilted, “but back in my day, I mean, you get two guys comin’ in from out of town, not married, and they get a place. Together. They say brothers or cousins, but either way—”

“Oh God,” Dean said, putting up his hands. “No, shut up, we’re fucking brothers, the—the same-parents kind, the ‘I was there when he came home from the hospital’ kind, what the fuck—”

“Hey, now, easy. I don’t mean no offense, I’m just askin’.” His bright, clear eyes found Dean’s. “Nothin’ wrong with any of that. Still nice guys, sometimes. The guys who ain’t brothers.”

“Well, me and Sam are— brothers. Brothers brothers.”

“So I hear.”

He had a look on his face that Dean wanted gone, now. “Something you wanna say?”

“Oh, no, no.” Benny was smiling again. Even without the teeth out, there was always something predatory about it, something knowing. “You just seem close, you an’ this brother of yours. Must be nice.”

“Watch it,” Dean snapped. “We may be dead, but I can still put you in a world of hurt.”

Benny was still smiling. 

“No need to get violent, brother, I’m just yankin’ your chain.”

His voice was lilting and teasing and Dean didn’t hate it, he didn’t know why, it was like they were talking about something else. Maybe they were.

—

It became part of what they did, riding a high after a fight or while resting, sitting around a fire, often enough that Dean’s neck was always kind of sore and red. Dean went down on him for the first time and Benny looked at him afterwards like he was heaven on earth (“No need to return the favour,” Dean said, and Benny snapped his teeth at him for effect). It was good. There was no second level, no games, just pure, animal instincts, and getting each other off fit perfectly into the other pieces of physicality that Purgatory had on offer. It was the simplest thing Dean ever had going for him.

It got more complicated once they found Cas.

“He wouldn’t get it,” Dean said to Benny, quiet. Cas wandered off on his own as often as he could, it wasn’t like they never had privacy. “It’s not worth getting into with the guy.”

Benny shrugged. They were walking, the arms of their jackets brushing. Benny had a big gash on his forehead that healed up some time ago, but his face was still crusted with blood. Dean had come to think he looked excellent covered in blood.

“I don’t offend easy, you don’t gotta sugarcoat it.”

“I wasn’t,” Dean lied, “just telling it like it is.”

Benny smiled. “It’s obvious he don’t like me much. He’s an honest fella, I’ll give him that.”

“He has trust issues and an insane moral compass,” Dean said. Their shoulders bumped. He liked bumping against Benny because he didn’t move, he was like a wall. He liked shoving against him while they were fooling around for the same reason, goading him into using his otherworldly strength to keep him pinned. “And he’s, uh, protective. Of me, specifically.”

“I’ll say. You known him long, or…?”

“Not as long as you’d think. It’s just a… a history.”

Purgatory or not, there weren’t enough hours in their non-days to get into everything Cas was and wasn’t to him. He’d touched on it in the early days, when they took turns sharing their life stories, but never got into the meat of it. Some things were best kept private. He saved me from hell, I ruined his heaven. You had to be there.

Benny raised his eyebrows. “You and him ever…”

“Nooooo,” Dean said, whistling. “No, not. Not that kind of history.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Yeah. He’s just like that.”

He wished he had one relationship—just one—where people didn’t think they were fucking. He didn’t like what it said about him.

—

They kept what they did on the downlow, stolen moments when Cas was elsewhere. It wasn’t lying, it was just not fanning some already volatile flames.

They had less downtime once they met up with Cas, like Benny said: more time spent with blade in hand, patching wounds or resting up. They walked and walked, endless trudging through the unvaried landscape, a parade of blood and guts broken up by the occasional joke or meandering story or secret handjob. Maybe he should have hated it more, he was technically dead, but he’d dealt with a lot worse. It didn’t matter that he’d run out of things to talk about six months ago.

“—starts with this high, wobbly weeeee-OOOOWWW! WEEE-OOOOWWW-owowowow, then just bursts out with that voice, like, daaaa-AAAAZED, and confused—”

Benny laughed loudly.

“All due respect to you and this Mr. Plant, darlin’, but you are just about the worst singer I ever heard.”

Cas looked over from where he walked on Dean’s other side and a little ahead. Pointedly. Dean pretended he didn’t see, but Benny, to his credit, could read a room.

“I’m gonna scout on up ahead,” he said, obvious as anything. “You two hang back.”

Dean nodded at him, brow furrowed, and Benny made a shape with his mouth that said sorry before jogging ahead, whistling to himself. He put a gap between them and widened it until he was lost in the trees.

Dean waited, listening to the swish of Cas’ coat. Three, two, one:

“I don’t like him.”

He sighed hard.  “Cas. I need you to—”

“I don’t like him, and I don’t like the— the— the things you do with him.”

Dean turned to face him and slowed to a stop.

He could only assume Cas had seen them through the trees, him on his knees in front of Benny or hunched over him and rutting against him, shapes in the dark. He wondered with narcissism and a scalding shame what they looked like together. He’d somehow made it his whole life without having this conversation with anyone and he still felt unprepared, stupid and small. He wished he had a windshield to stare out of.

“So you know about that.”

Cas stared at him like he was an idiot. Dean rarely saw the guy mad but he’d seen it more lately than ever before, and it never stopped being bone chilling, knowing what he was capable of.

“He calls you darling,” Cas said tightly.

“He’s southern, it’s like ‘dude’ to them.”

“That’s not— if this was you attempting to hide it from me, I seriously doubt your espionage skills as a hunter,” Cas hissed. “Sound travels, Dean. Purgatory is infinite and you are—”

He heard half of ‘loud’ before Cas turned away and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“I hate this,” Cas said instead. “I hate the way you are in this place. I don’t like talking to you, or who you’re becoming.”

It stung worse than Dean would admit. He rolled his shoulder until it popped, just to have something to distract him.

All he said was, “Okay,” and it must have sounded too sad, because Cas turned around and his face was all crumpled.

“Dean—”

“No, you said it. You’re pissed. Go ahead, get it out.”

Cas floundered again, starting and aborting three sentences, and then, all at once, seemed to give up. He settled into a quiet, stiff kind of anger.

“He’s a monster,” he said quietly. “He’s soulless and undead. You’re wrong to trust him with any of this, let alone anything… vulnerable.”

Dean grit his teeth. Even here, he couldn’t get away from people who thought he couldn’t handle his own shit and couldn’t be trusted.

“Great. You’ve defended my honour. In fact— yeah, would you look at that, my virginity grew back. Thanks, Cas. Anything else you wanna say? Got an extra purity ring on you?”

Cas glared at him, colder than he’d ever been. 

“If you’re ashamed of what you’re doing with him,” he started slowly, ignoring Dean’s enraged squint, “I suggest you think carefully about why you’re so ashamed.”

“I hate myself. Next question.”

Cas just raised his voice and talked over him.

“Or—since you’re so determined not to look inwards—imagine what your brother would say.”

Dean was moving before he realized it, lurching forward, hand closing around the hilt of his blade. He had Cas up against a tree, one hand fisted in the front of his scrubs, the blade across his throat and all his weight shoved into him.

“You don’t know shit about Sam,” he snarled, “or me, or Benny and the shit we do together, so cut it with the camp counselor crap. If I wanna know what you think, I’ll ask. Got it?”

He could feel Cas’ breath on his face. The only time they ever got so close was through violence, and it wasn’t lost on him. Cas had both hands pressed flat against his chest and he could have launched Dean off him easily, but he didn’t. That also wasn’t lost on him, the way Cas constantly managed his ego without ever being asked.

He let him go. Cas stayed leaning back against the tree and Dean sheathed his blade. Adrenaline dissipating, he felt like an asshole, but he couldn’t take it back now—Cas did know him and Sam, he was closer than they let anyone else get. He needed to keep his shit together and get them out, all of them, and he needed both Benny and Cas to do that right. He couldn’t fuck this up.

Cas stood up and straightened his coat.

“I’ll remember who you are while we’re in here, whether you want me to or not,” he said coolly. “Since you seem so intent on forgetting.”

—

They kept getting each other off whenever they had a few moments alone, and the longer the celibate stretches lasted, the more desperate they were when they found the time. Whatever Cas’ feelings on it were, he didn’t chaperone them—tried his best to get lost at every opportunity, really—but it got harder to justify time apart the more they needed the collective defense. 

They’d hit some luck and got a few quiet hours during a day cycle, and Cas wandered off and stayed gone. Dean’s whole body felt like a bruise, and as soon as they’d been alone for long enough to be sure, Benny was on him. They were walking, and he put a hand up under his jacket and shirt and slid it against his lower back. Dean had to try not to close his eyes. He didn’t know how long it had been since the last time.

“Where’d your feathered friend get off to?” Benny murmured.

“Out. You know him.” Dean leaned into his touch. Nothing he’d admit. With Benny’s hand on his back, guiding him, he felt like an affectionate mall-walking couple, window shopping and sipping smoothies. “It’ll be hours before he’s back.”

“You think?”

“If he knows what’s good for him.”

They stuttered to a stop and Benny’s hand became fingernails, scraping gently and turning him to face him. Dean was already shoving his hands into Benny’s coat and Benny looked immeasurably pleased.

“Always on the same page, you and me.”

“Usually,” Dean said, and it was true. Everything was so easy with Benny that he didn’t know what to do with it. His only point of comparison as far as companionship went was Sam—whose staunch opinions meant he had something spiky to say about everything, who swerved between thinking Dean was a god and an idiot faster than Dean could keep up—and that meant that Benny and his laissez-faire smiles and his big hand on his cock were easy as Sunday morning. Not that the second thing had anything to do with Sam.

There was a perfect mossy patch on the forest floor and they manhandled each other into it, crushed together somehow instantly, grappling with hands and knees until they were both panting, Dean biting at his throat, Benny all but tearing his shirt to get at his skin.

He was mildly embarrassed that it had been a while since they stopped to get clean, there hadn’t been time. He always looked worse than Benny or Cas, or thought he did; Benny didn’t breathe or sweat and Dean still did, he had a disgusting patina on his skin just from the grossness of being human that Benny didn’t seem to have, not to mention the wounds. He laughed as Benny rolled him onto his back.

“I smell like fuckin’ roadkill.”

“I know you do,” Benny said, and slid the flat of his tongue up his neck. “Don’t repeat this, but it is very, very good.”

It was everything he’d known the whole time but never gotten him to say outright, like he didn’t notice how Benny always found a way to shove his face into his pit, suck his filthy fingers, eat his come. Dean laughed again.

“You’re sick.”

“And you are a fucking treat, if you don’t mind me saying. You are—” He bit him, just shy of hard, still no blood. “Heaven-sent. Your blood, your sweat, the rot and reek of it, your— all of it, Jesus, Dean, you drive me wild like this.”

Didn’t matter the context, having someone snarl like that made a person’s knees weak. Dean laughed, folded into him and hauled him closer.

“You talk too much.”

“You’re worth talkin’ about.”

Benny shoved his shirt up his chest with both hands, then ran them down his stomach. It was too risky to get naked so they never had, skin seen only in snatches between cotton and flannel and denim. Benny stared down at his hands as he slid Dean’s belt free. He was always watching, looking at him all the time and saying things like you’re worth talking about like it didn’t make Dean want to sink into the ground.

“It’s been a while,” Benny said, breathy. He tugged and Dean lifted his hips obediently, let him pull his jeans down around his knees. He was already hard; his body knew what was coming. Benny palmed his bare ass and dragged him closer, his legs spread around his own. “I was thinkin’ we could get fancy with it, if we’ve got time.”

He’d started fingering him lately, as much as spit alone would allow. Dean was about as used to it as he was going to get. He was close to admitting he liked it, even.

“I’m not opposed,” he said carefully, avoiding his eyes. “What’d you have in mind?”

Benny tugged his hips into his lap and leaned over him, until Dean was laying on his back and Benny had his face against his throat. He sucked a mark into the side of his neck, where others were always fading; it was close enough, and hickies weren’t scars, and since Cas already knew, he didn’t see much point in hiding it.

“I want to feel you,” Benny said, his mouth on Dean’s skin. “Your heat.” 

The fingers of one hand slid down his ass crack. Not a lot of other ways to take that. Dean looked up at the trees.

“I hate to break it to you, but we’re missing a key ingredient if you wanna do anything fancier without killing me.”

“I am aware.”

Benny sat back. Dean’s eyes wandered over his own legs, around Benny’s waist, his cock lying hard against his stomach and Benny’s own tenting the front of his slacks, big and obvious. He could never figure out which was worse, being on his back or bent over on his knees, both made him feel exposed. There was no way to do it that didn’t.

Benny patted the pockets of his coat, then reached into one and pulled out a fat green leaf. It looked like plastic or rubber, like a succulent.

“I’ve been finding these, on our travels.”

He motioned for Dean to hold out his hand. He did. He dropped the leaf into it.

“Crush it,” Benny said. 

He did. The leaf burst into an appalling, slippery kind of jelly, and he slid it between his fingers.

He looked up. Benny was holding a heaping palm full of the leaves, and looked mildly ashamed of himself.

Dean said, “You made Purgatory lube.”

“I don’t know which part of fifty years was unclear to you, but I would do a lot more than make a poultice to do the things we’re talking about here.”

“I can see that.”

He smeared the leaf jelly between his fingers. It had alright staying power and didn’t soak in. He slid his slick fingers over the head of his dick, up under the ridge. 

Benny watched, unblinking. He ran his hands up Dean’s bare thighs, his eyes dark.

“Works okay?”

“Works great.”

Benny was on him again, mouth moving down his stomach, and there was a wet sound from his hand as he crushed a fistful of leaves. His slick fingers stroked up from below his balls, and one slid inside him.

“God,” Dean choked, wrapping his hand around his own dick. After a few weeks of spit, the easy slide of the jelly stuff was a luxury.

Benny slid a second finger in. He mouthed at Dean’s dick, brushing his hand aside to take over. He’d gotten better at controlling his teeth so Dean let him use his mouth, but not suck on it; the stakes were too high.

“That’s stuff’s bitter as all get out,” Benny laughed.

“Sucks to suck.” Dean ran his restless hands over Benny’s hair and down his shoulders, tried to adjust to the feel of his fingers inside him. The wet mouth on his dick was a welcome distraction.

“You really never let a guy do this?” Benny asked, curling his fingers for emphasis. He put his thumb against the rim of his hole, slid it up towards his balls, and it took a second for Dean to get his words out.

“Nope,” he managed, like that wasn’t pretty fucking obvious. The first time Benny tried, he kneed him in the nose on pure panicky reflex, blood everywhere. He still felt bad about it. “It’s...”

A handful of words wanted to vomit up, all things he shouldn’t say. Nothing, he figured, that every guy in the world didn’t worry about at least sometimes.

“... Not something you oughta be doing?” Benny offered, and Dean almost sighed in relief.

“Yeah. I— yeah.”

Benny huffed, dropped a kiss on his stomach and left his face there, the soft scratch of his beard tickly against his skin.

“You’re the toughest son of a bitch I ever met, and you’re worried about bein’ a man? Shit. What hope is there for the rest of us?”

“I— I dunno.” His mouth fell open, he couldn’t get the words out. “Can’t stop thinking about it. Never could.”

“Your father do a number on you or what?”

“Marine.”

“Unfortunate. Must’ve been—”

“Can we not talk about my dad while you finger bang me?”

Benny laughed loudly.

“Fair enough.” He kept stroking his fingers inside him and kissed the crux of Dean’s hip, twice, his lips soft against his skin. “Take it from a guy who’s been around a long, long time—none of that shit means anything. This don’t make you less of a man.”

Dean just shut his eyes. He respected Benny too much to tell him to shut up. He didn’t know what part of him couldn’t let go of the knuckle-dragging masculinity that got baked into him too young, but he wanted it gone. He wanted whatever Benny had: confidence, peace, self-respect, whatever let him say the soft shit he always seemed so intent on saying to Dean whenever he could, without a hint of shame. He hated it with a rage that felt a lot like jealousy.

Benny got a third finger in. Dean’s back arched without his permission and he hid his face behind his hand. All this would be easier if it weren’t so good, he thought, if he didn’t keep craving it like a sickness. If he was just laying there and taking it, he could have justified it, but his knees fell wider and he slid a hand through Benny’s hair and he was fucked. He was fucked. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t remember Purgatory once they left, and he could go back to not knowing.

“That’s good,” Benny said softly, “look at you. You’re a pro.”

He mouthed at his dick again, licking where it started to drip, and Dean couldn’t take it, it was too slow and soft and Benny never shut up.

“Just do it, fuck, come on.”

He got on his knees with Benny behind him, pushing his shirts up, biting at his back. He got squirrelly after three weeks of a dry spell, he had no idea what he was in for being on the receiving end of fifty dry years.

He felt the blunt head of his cock press against him and panic made his throat tight. It was slick enough but just barely, and he pushed inside him, slow and careful, an insatiable ache and burn that made his hands close into fists against the forest floor. It hurt worse than he thought and not as bad as he could take, and he knew right away that it was something he’d spend the rest of his life trying to claw his way out from under.

“Jesus, Dean,” Benny panted, his voice raw. He dug a hand into the back of Dean’s jacket, up by his neck. “You good?”

Dean didn’t know what he was. He made a noise and pushed back into him, tried to keep breathing. Benny petted the back of his head, which he didn’t exactly appreciate.

“Nice of you to let me do this,” Benny said, and he laughed, and Dean grit his teeth. He tried his first shallow thrust and pleasure and pain skittered through Dean’s nerves; he put his weight on one hand and wrapped the other around his dick, anything to help.

“It’s not a favour,” he managed. It was starting to get good, terrifying, his blood pounding, his whole body thrumming with the feel of it. Benny laughed again and he swore he could feel that, too.

“I may be a bit of a romantic, but I got no illusions about what we’re doing here,” Benny said, teasing. “You’re findin’ yourself. I could be anyone.”

“That’s not—”

“For example, if I close my eyes, you can be a seventeen-year-old Italian girl I knew intimately in 1928.”

Dean chuckled and hung his head. “Bit of a stretch.”

“I have a rich inner life,” Benny assured him. “And she had skinny hips.”

He bottomed out and shuddered hard, said something Dean couldn’t catch over the static in his ears, and started to move in short, earnest bursts, added slick cold and soothing against his burning skin. He spat in his hand and kept jerking off, panting, adrenaline and panic and everything overwhelming choking at his throat.

Benny asked, “Who do you want?”

The answer came easy, he didn’t even think about it, and it was probably true.

“You.”

Benny laughed and ran a hand down his back, spread wide and heavy. He kept canting his hips into him over and over again, faster, more sure.

“That’s sweet, but I ain’t buyin’. Tell me. There’s always someone.”

Fear, instantly, like blood in his mouth.

“No.”

“Yes. Who is it? Who am I?”

It was officially good, pleasure rippling through him so much better than he ever wanted it to be, so full and deep he couldn’t breathe, his dick leaking against his own fingers. He had to push back against him to keep from pitching forward. He couldn’t think, couldn’t let himself think.

“I— can’t—”

“Come on, lemme hear it,” Benny panted, growling. “Say it, tell me who I am.”

He knew. He had to know. Dean gasped and hung his head. It burst out of him, he didn’t mean to.

“Fuck, Sam—”

His face burned. He dropped down to his elbows and dug his nails into the dirt, fistfuls of it coming up under his hands.

“There it is,” Benny purred. “C’mon, darlin’, say it, let it out—”

It was too much and now he couldn’t stop: it was Sam behind him, Sam’s big hands on his hips and his cock up his ass, Sam panting and sweating and losing his mind, his hair tangled, his wide shoulders shuddering.

“Fuck, Sam—Sammy— fuck me, God, Sammy, fuck, please—”

Sam smiling, laughing at him, palming the back of his head and pushing him down. Sam with his head thrown back against pillows, falling apart and grabbing at him and saying his name over and over, everything he’d thought about in his quiet worst moments and never ever seen.

Benny was hammering into him now, beyond words, his hands all over him, the slap of their skin loud and obscene and Sam had no place here, Sam was in another dimension and Dean hadn’t seen him in a million miles and a lifetime and this wasn’t about Sam except for how everything was about Sam, for Dean, every fucking thing that had happened to him his whole life from age four onwards, even a bunch of shit that absolutely should not have been about Sam, including but not limited to the first time he took it in the ass.

He came thinking about it anyways, a teeth-rattling, soul-rending, freight train of an orgasm, like he was being flayed alive.

He kept pulsing and coming into the dirt until every nerve in his body was on fire and every time Benny thrust into him he was biting his tongue raw to keep quiet and mashing his face into his forearm, inconsolable. Benny fisted a hand in the back of his jacket and pulled him up and back in time with the piston of his hips and it hurt worse than he could stand now but he couldn’t get a word out.

“Shit,” Benny swore, way too loud, they were both too loud, and he bent all the way over him, pounding into him so hard he couldn’t stand it. Benny shuddered all over and stilled, gasping and choking and babbling with his face in the back of Dean’s jacket as he came. “Christ a-fucking-live.”

Dean’s cheek hit the ground, pine needles prickling against his skin. His whole body was on fire and he couldn’t get a breath in. Benny was heavy on top of him, hands sliding down to wrap around his hips almost sweetly to check on him, hold him still.

Dean couldn’t tell how long it had been around, the way he felt about Sam.

Some days it felt like it had been skulking behind him his whole life, and some days it felt like it sucker punched him at thirty. Sometimes it was a manic but platonic obsession, and other times it was possessive and hot and deeply, infinitely hungry. He took it one day at a time, like a recovering addict. Usually he managed to shove it down so deep he didn’t feel anything at all, and those were the good days.

Benny pulled out with a searing pain and sat heavily behind him. Dean hiked up his jeans and watched his own shaking hands, looking anywhere but Benny, and quickly got to his feet, ignoring the ache and the wetness, not sure what to do with himself. Two steps away and then back, pulse racing like a heart attack.

“Hey now.” Benny put a hand on his arm. Dean hadn’t even noticed him stand up. “Hey hey, you’re alright, sit a spell.”

He must have looked insane for Benny to be speaking to him so gently. He stared at him for a moment—not sweating, not flushed, no human signs of post-fuck exertion except his hair rucked up by Dean’s hands—and slowly sunk down to sit on a log by their feet.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

Benny let him go and sat next to him. Dean put his face in his hands and breathed out slow, every inch of him aching.

“You hurt?” Benny asked.

“No.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know. I— I know. Just—”

“You don’t gotta—”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut. He’d never said any of it out loud to anyone and he never meant to, but it started spilling out.

“It gets away from you,” he said all at once. “You end up loving somebody too much, in all the wrong fucking ways, and you don’t mean to. You don’t even know you’re doing it. You know?”

“No, I do not,” Benny said carefully. “Most people, I think, would never know something like that.”

“Lucky fucks.” Dean hung his head. “No one knows. He doesn’t know. I’d never…”

Benny nodded. He leaned over until their shoulders pressed together and stayed there. The equivalent of an amiable pat on the back. It was a while before he said anything.

“It feels like havin’ a good cry, letting shit like that come out. This place don’t have much goin’ for it, but if anything, it’s about letting it out. You get empty, in here.” He glanced over at Dean. “You feel better?”

“Fuck no.” Dean gave an ugly cackle and leaned back against the tree behind them. “Christ. I belong here. Not even here, I belong downstairs.”

Benny went, “Aw, darlin’,” and it still wasn’t patronizing, but Dean wanted it to be. “Don’t beat yourself up. We all got our demons. Our… bats in the belfry, as it were.”

“Wanting to fuck your own brother is a pretty big bat.”

“Be that as it may,” Benny agreed, and he was so incredibly placid about it that Dean kind of loved him for it.

There was a crunch from beyond the trees, up and to their left. Dean’s hand flew to his blade lying a few feet away, but he froze when he recognized the filthy white flash of hospital scrubs.

Cas stood several yards away, looking very, very alarmed.

“Hhhhey, Cas,” Dean said slowly. “What’s up?”

Zero movement. Cas just stared at them, unblinking, with his big blue eyes. Dean winced with his entire body.

“How… much of that did you hear?”

“Enough,” Cas said.

He couldn’t imagine if ‘enough’ meant the conversation, fuck your brother, or Dean sobbing Sam’s name during sex. He didn’t know when Cas had gotten back, how far away he could hear or, Christ, if he’d stood there and watched. He waited, but there was nothing else from him, no goofy misunderstanding and instead just this awful, burning string of tension straight from him to Dean.

Dean stood, tired muscles in his thighs protesting. He brushed his hands off on his jeans.

“Back in a bit,” he said to Benny, then started off towards Cas.

At first Cas just watched him approach, and then turned and walked, away from Benny, knowing Dean would follow. It gave Dean ancient memories of being escorted to the principal’s office in grade school, watching someone’s back and dreading the look on their face when they turned around.

Cas stopped. When he turned around, he wasn’t really looking at Dean.

“I—I don’t understand. You—”

“Don’t say it,” Dean hissed. “You know what you heard.”

Cas nodded stiffly. He looked at Dean finally, then away, and rubbed the back of his neck. A few excruciating seconds ticked by. Cas made a mangled kind of noise.

He said, “I don’t like knowing this,” and it was so uptight and upset that Dean would have laughed if his heart weren’t in his throat.

“You and me both, trust me.”

Dean shuffled his feet. He’d pay to have something burst out of the bushes and attack them, anything to stop this conversation, but at the same time there was something endlessly cathartic about airing the absolute dirtiest of all his laundry, the same as telling Benny except Cas knew Sam, knew him. It was disgusting and horrific and wonderful all at once.

“You didn’t know?” Dean asked.

He was desperate to hear that the answer was no, he had no idea, because no one watched him as closely as Cas did and if Cas didn’t know, then maybe Sam didn’t, either.

“No,” Cas said, but it took a little too long for Dean’s liking. “You two have such a strange relationship that I… I’ve never known what to make of it. I’ve stopped trying.” He looked at him, just quickly. “Although, if you’re asking if I’m surprised, the answer is no.”

Dean closed his eyes. An angry sigh burst out of him. “Shit.”

Cas nodded again. He looked away but didn’t leave, and Dean didn’t know what to say or how he could possibly repair it or retcon it no matter how badly he wanted to.

“It’s nothing,” he tried, too late. “It’s just a weird thing I’m dealing with. I’m not gonna— It’s nothing.”

After a beat, Cas said, “It didn’t sound like nothing,” and great, Cas heard him getting fucked, that was fantastic. Dean groaned and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he said again, harder. “You heard wrong. Okay? Can we— can we not do this?”

“Dean—”

He said, “Please,” and when Cas looked like he’d slapped him, he realized he wasn’t sure he’d ever asked him for anything like that. “I’ve got nothing to say. Just drop it.”

Cas put a hand over his face and sighed. He dropped his hands, shook his head. 

“This is all getting very complicated.”

Dean snorted. “Nah. There’s nothing complicated about this place. It’s out there that’s a fucking mess.”

They looked at each other. Dean went to rub a hand over his mouth and realized he still had dirt on his cheek from where it was shoved into the ground. He couldn’t decide whether it was worse to furiously wipe it off or to leave it.

“You’re going back to ‘out there’ someday,” Cas reminded him. “The complexity will follow you.”

“We’re going back,” Dean said, like a broken record, and he was pretty sure Cas rolled his eyes at him.

—

Sam hadn’t been looking for him.

Sam pulled the plug on his entire goddamn life while Dean was fighting tooth and nail to get back to him, and wasn’t that just fucking perfect. All the shit he’d said to Benny was suddenly beyond humiliating. He’s trying. Sam hadn’t been trying shit.

Seeing Sam again was exactly as excruciating as he expected. He seemed taller, broader, practically glowing. Dean could hardly look at him, and not just because he was furious. Sometimes he wanted him more than he had words for, the kind of longing poets killed themselves over, and sometimes he wanted to cut him in half with a very big sword, but that was just brotherhood, or the only kind of brotherhood Dean had ever known.

Cas’ absence was like a hole in his chest, but there was a tiny silver-lining part of him that thought, at least THAT’S off the table. He thought about the first second he would have had to be with Cas and Sam in the same room, Cas knowing what Dean wanted from Sam, with Sam there, not knowing. It was a fucking mess.

When Sam met Benny it went just as bad as he thought it might, that first handshake on the dock.

Afterwards, Benny glanced over at him and murmured to Dean in the dark, “In your defense, he is one tall drink of water, I’ll give you that.”

Dean whipped around and glared at him, tight-lipped and wide-eyed, and did his best to wordlessly convey NOT NOW. He also did his best to ignore what it was like to see Benny in living colour, his red hair and icy blue eyes that stirred up something in him that he wanted to put as far behind him as he could. Benny just smiled at him, like he knew.

—

Dean was antsy, afterwards. He hadn’t seen Benny since Prentiss Island and Sam was still fuming and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t understand why Sam couldn’t just take his word for it and let him vouch for Benny, and he didn’t know if it would help or hinder his case if he told him they’d been having sex for a year. On one hand, that took trust, but on the other, it maybe clouded Dean’s judgement a little.

Benny woke up something hot and crackling inside him that felt like finally letting go. He knew he could bother some poor girl with a strap-on, but it wouldn’t be the same. He found himself looking at guys more in bars, anyone who looked like he could take him, in a fight and otherwise. He didn’t do anything, but he thought about it. Same went for Sam. He thought about it.

For a while he jumped every time his phone rang, and then one time it really was him.

“Hello, Dean.”

That drawl. It had been weeks since Prentiss Island and nothing had happened then, Benny was preoccupied, melancholy and adjusting, and Dean had felt like there was an unspoken agreement to leave what they had firmly in Purgatory. But even those two words, that hello, sounded sweet.

Dean was sitting on the end of his bed in some stinking motel room outside of Lexington, Kentucky at the asscrack of dawn. They’d just finished up a case that turned out to be a wayward witch causing trouble and they’d set her straight, Sam ending up with a sprained wrist and Dean with a big bruise across most of his back, but otherwise unscathed.

Sam was sitting at the table on his laptop. He glanced over when Dean answered his phone, his brow furrowed.

He couldn’t take the call outside. Sam would remember what happened before, Dean’s ‘personal day,’ he wasn’t anywhere near over the whole thing. He had to play it cool. Dean cleared his throat.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

“Oh, I’m hangin’ in there, all things considered. How you been?”

“Hanging in there,” Dean said back, still watching Sam. He gave him a little all-clear nod, which he seemed to warily accept. “You good? Whatcha need?”

Benny chuckled. “This, uh, ain’t a professional call, if that’s what you’re wonderin’.”

Dean’s stomach flipped. Unprofessionally.

“What’s that mean, exactly?”

“It means I’m having one hell of a time keepin’ you off my mind these days.”

Another flip, deeply unprofessional. All he could say that wouldn’t incriminate himself was, “Yeah,” and he had to try not to make it breathy.

There was a pause. Dean didn’t say anything else.

“He’s there, ain’t he? Can’t speak freely?”

Dean glanced over at Sam again, who had gone back to his screen. “That’s about right, yeah.”

“I’ll do the talking, then. You been thinkin’ about me, brother?”

His palms started to sweat. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sam.

“Yup.”

“Well, ain’t that just fascinating,” Benny said, that last word about ten syllables long. “Where you at these days?”

“Up by Lexington. You?”

“Near Lafayette. That ain’t so far.” There was silence, shuffling, and Dean noticed the absence of breath in his ear, no rasp of it against the receiver. As eerie as it ever was. “I don’t wanna cause you any trouble, but— if you can get away, I’d be happy to see you. For a while. I know you might not—”

“No, no,” Dean cut him off. “Yeah, that’s—I can do that, that’s great, Louisiana, you said? I think I can make it, lemme get a pen.”

“You wily minx.”

“A nest, then? How many you thinking?”

“That’s a little on the nose, darlin’.”

“Got it. You and me can take that, easy.”

“Invite your boy if you want, but something tells me I’m not his type.”

“Yeah, fuck you too. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”

He hung up.

“You’ve got a thing for vampires these days,” Sam said, flat, the second the phone left Dean’s ear.

You don’t know the half of it, Dean didn’t say.

“Unrelated.”

Sam’s eyebrows went way up. “Is it?”

Sam didn’t like that he hadn’t murdered Benny in cold blood, so Dean had a hunch that he might not like him driving twelve hours to have sex with him. But he was tired and pissed off and everything was a fucking mess, he needed something good, and fuck Sam if he didn’t want him to have it.

“It’s got nothing to do with him,” Dean lied. “It was this job Dad and I worked when you were off at school—” Good, twist that knife, get him good and guilty and off the scent, “—guy named Brent, good hunter, shitty dude, made himself some enemies. We helped him out.”

“And that was him on the phone.”

“Yeah. Needs my help with a new nest, descendants of the last one. They’ve got it out for him.”

“Why you?”

“‘Cause I’m the best.” He was already up, packing his duffel. Hesitate for a second and Sam would hand him his ass. “And he’s a dick. Brent. Not a lot of hunter buddies on speed dial, you know?”

“So why haven’t I heard of him?”

“See previous point about him being a dick.” The lies were coming upsettingly easy, but he couldn’t afford to feel guilty about it. “It’ll just be the weekend, I’ll come right back. You wanted to wrap things up here, anyways, no harm in a fallow couple of days.”

“You’re gonna leave me here.”

“It’s not a three-man job. No need to drag you down to Louisiana if I don’t gotta.” He looked up. “We are allowed split up, occasionally. I’m not filing for divorce.”

Sam sneered at him. Bingo.

“Don’t be a jerk, I’m just asking.”

“And your concern is touching, trust me, but I got this. It’s barely stretching my legs.”

“You’ll be back Monday?”

“Sure. Get in, get out.”

“Whatever.” Sam went back to his laptop, like it was nothing. He clearly wasn’t going to touch the fact that they didn’t split up hardly ever, which made this feel like a weird, passive aggressive fight neither of them would admit to. “Say hi to Brent for me.”

Dean realized in retrospect that he shouldn’t have picked a name that started with B. A little on the nose.

—

He drove, music blasting, window open a crack in the drizzling cold. He whistled and drummed his fingers on the wheel. He stopped at a drug store for supplies. The day was wet and gray and he wasn’t coherent until he was done his third coffee, but it was the best drive he’d had in a long time. He missed being behind the wheel the entire time he was in Purgatory, but he didn’t realize how much until he was back, and he almost felt whole.

Benny called again to give him his motel and room number and after that he spent most of the time daydreaming. They could stay in the room for days, take turns fucking each other, watch shitty movies on TV. Head to a bar if they got bored, drink (could Benny drink?) and shoot pool. The weather was shit, but maybe they could go fishing. Get Benny an umbrella or something to keep him out of the sun.

Sam didn’t call, which checked out. Dean wouldn’t have anything to say even if he did.

It was almost dark by the time he pulled into the motel Benny picked way out in buttfuck Louisiana, the kind with the detached stucco cabins and a clubhouse, hedged in by dry grassland and a few leggy trees. He spotted Benny’s ugly truck with the camper bed parked in the far row. He parked on the other side of the lane, as if it mattered at all. 

He crossed the packed dirt parking lot, dimensionless in the flat purple twilight, to cabin number six. The plastic drug store bag swung around his wrist, hands in his pockets, duffel over his shoulder. Cabin six, with the heavy floral curtains carefully closed.

He knocked, feeling stupid. A familiar voice from inside.

“C’min.”

It was unlocked. He stuck his head in. It was a tiny room, just a double bed, nightstands and a half bath, done up in the affected chintz of all rural motel rooms. The bedside lamp was on, warm in the growing dark. Benny was sitting up in the bed, shoes off, ankles crossed, reading a newspaper. The room smelled like shampoo and his hair was wet. Dean took him in—his thick, hairy forearms, his thin cotton shirt and suspenders. He always liked the suspenders in a weird kind of way, an old-timey brand of handsome.

It felt different than when he’d seen him before, not two old war buddies helping each other out, but… some other type of guys helping each other out, in a very different way.

“Hey.”

“Hey to you too,” Benny said, lilting and teasing. He folded the newspaper and dropped it on the floor. “Drive alright?”

“Uneventful.”

Dean shut the door behind him and set his bags down. He didn’t know if this was going to be a ‘sit around for a while and pretend we don’t want to fuck’ type of thing, or more ‘tear your clothes off and talk later,’ but his entire body was buzzing.

Benny got up and came around the end of the bed, and Dean’s hands decided for him; he reached out, grabbed the front of Benny’s shirt and pulled until he stumbled into him. His face fit perfectly into the crook of Dean’s neck, went there like a magnet, his mouth open, hands prying his head back.

Dean’s laugh dissolved into a groan. He slid his hands over Benny’s big, solid shoulders, almost a hug.

“I don’t stink. You think you still like me without the gore?”

Benny crowded him back against the door with a low growl. “I could smell you as soon as you got over state lines, I am fucking feral.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. Had to keep from pawing at myself like an animal, you—”

“God. You talk too much.”

“This is me holding my tongue. I would drink your sweat like a goddamn cocktail, you are a walking aphrodisiac, get over here.”

He closed his mouth on Dean’s throat and sucked. Dean’s eyes fell shut, and he took a breath, then caught himself and smacked Benny on the head.

“Hey. No marks.”

“Alright, alright.” Benny kissed him instead, surprisingly tender, again and again up behind his ear. His hands moved down his chest. “Whatever you want.”

Dean sunk back against the door. He turned his head towards Benny’s, put a hand on his cheek and nudged until they were nose to nose.

“So, now that we, uh, brush our teeth and everything…”

It felt too stupid to say it. Benny smiled his sweet, mean smile and tipped his head.

“You wanna kiss me, pretty boy?”

They never had, not on the mouth; Dean was too proud and Benny was something else, old-fashioned or straight, Dean never knew. Benny laughed at his silence, like Dean wasn’t staring down the barrel of a gun. He rested his forehead against his.

“We could,” Benny said, his voice hardly more than a rumble, “but, you should know, it makes it… harder for me, if I can taste you.”

Dean felt his dick start to thicken. He realized his eyes were closed and didn’t remember closing them. 

“That sounds like a you problem.”

Another laugh from Benny.

“It becomes a you problem real quick, brother.” He ran his nose along Dean’s and leaned in. “I’ll keep the teeth in check. You’re lucky I’m such a gentleman.”

He kissed him. He’d never kissed a man before. His lips were criminally soft and the scratch of his beard against his chin was so crushingly intimate and strange and sweet. He didn’t know what he was expecting. His lips slid against his, a gentle nudge, the flat edge of his teeth nipping at his lip.

“Fuck,” Dean breathed, moving back, laughing at himself. Benny laughed, too. He heard it but there was no breath, no warmth against his mouth.

“You like that, huh?”

It was accusatory, but Dean couldn’t find it in himself to care. He kissed him again, deeper, and let his tongue into his mouth, dug his hands into the back of his clean, wet hair. Something about it was like cutting the brake lines, screaming over the median into the oncoming lane, no holds barred, every inch of him suddenly and finally alive. 

Benny groaned softly and pulled him up off the door, spun him around and shoved him onto the bed. He crawled over him and held his face in his hands, taking his mouth over and over again with his deep, eager kisses. 

“Thought you wouldn’t want it, when we got out. Tried to keep it—friendly.”

Dean shook his head; Benny’s mouth slid over his cheek and down his jaw, teeth scraping through his stubble.

“I thought I wouldn’t either,” Dean panted, tipping his head back. “This sucks, you broke me.”

Benny laughed and palmed his dick through his jeans. “Seems like you’re workin’ pretty good to me.”

Dean scrambled out of his jacket, flannel, pulled his shirt over his head and kicked out of his jeans, and lifted his hips when Benny pulled his boxers off. Benny shed his own clothes and Dean had never seen him naked before, not completely and he’d hardly looked when he could, but he liked it, acres of skin and dense rust-coloured hair. He was already hard, his dick flushed reddish pink, curved slightly upwards and bigger than he remembered.

Benny looked like he was going through a similar revelation. Dean lay back in the pillows and Benny slid a hand up his smooth stomach and over his chest, fingers spread wide. His hands were massive and calloused.

“Jesus, that’s nice,” Benny sighed, laughing softly. “Look at you, all cleaned up.”

Dean laughed and stretched out, watching the way Benny’s eyes dragged over him.

“Not so bad yourself.”

It was so unexpectedly good to be naked and clean together for the first time, the feel of Benny’s cool skin right against his and not lost in grimy clothes, dirt and blood. It wasn’t a quick, rough fuck in the woods, it was a bed, he never thought he’d do it in a bed. Benny settled over him, ran his hands up both his arms and watched them, the pale of his skin against Dean’s tan.

“All this time, you had a body like this under those filthy rags.”

He thumbed Dean’s tattoo and didn’t say anything. Dean didn’t either; he was tired of talking about Sam.

“Yeah, but you gotta admit, I made those filthy rags look good.”

“You did,” Benny agreed. “I kinda miss it. Ain’t that stupid?”

“Nah. I get it.”

He kissed him hungry and careless and his mind went slow. He learned more about Benny and what he liked than he had during a year of frantic afterlife handjobs; he was a good kisser, passionate and deep; he liked it when Dean dug his nails into him, didn’t matter where; he kept rocking against him slow and hard, until they were both halfway to losing it. Dean felt like somebody else, more like whatever he’d been in Purgatory, someone who was all base instincts and power and drive with no hang-ups or baggage, not worried about what it looked like or what anyone thought. Early humans fucking and fighting around a fire, no ideas about monsters or masculinity.

“Hey,” he panted, pushing up. “Lemme— I got stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“The drug store was all out of gelatinous foliage.”

Benny swatted at him as he climbed out of bed. He found the bag on the floor, lube and condoms, and Benny snatched both away from him, shoved him down and kissed him until he was burning, until he forgot what they were doing and nearly yelped when Benny’s hand slid down between his legs.

He slicked up his fingers and worked him open, three fingers and the tip of his fourth for longer than Dean thought he could stand, until he was sweating through the sheets, knees bent, a foot against Benny’s back. The perfect glide of the lube was heaven after a year of making do with a lot less and he had no idea it could be so good.

“Why is it always me?” Dean griped, less than half-hearted, wiping sweat from his face. Benny looked up and scissored his fingers, and Dean bucked and swore.

“It’s you ‘cause you like it so much,” Benny said, slow and sweet, and Dean just grimaced. He grabbed at Benny’s shoulders until he crawled back up his body and pulled him into a kiss.

“Maybe next time, I fuck you,” Dean said, right against his mouth. Benny laughed and kissed along his cheek towards his ear.

“In about twenty minutes, I expect you can do whatever you want to me and I’ll say yes sir, thank you, sir.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Benny sat back and tore a condom packet open with his teeth, rolled it on, and poured out so much lube it dripped onto the bed, onto Dean’s thighs. Dean hooked a heel around his back and pulled him in; he wanted to stay in the pillows, it was a nice bed, downright luxurious.

Benny put a hand behind his knee, levered it up and slid all the way home in one hard push, no niceties, no teasing. Dean slapped a hand against the headboard.

“Oh, fuck—”

It was perfect, it was what he drove all day for, had waited a month to get, thought about whenever he had a few minutes alone. Benny found a quick, hard rhythm and he didn’t know it could be so easy, so wet and tight and full. Every thrust was the full length of him and it knocked the air out of his lungs and left him grabbing at his shoulders, the sheets, anything he could get his hands on, spitting and swearing.

“Jesus,” Benny breathed. He surged all the way forward, buried in him, then grabbed Dean’s face with his hand and kissed him hard. He ground into him and Dean’s dick gave an interested lurch between them; he groaned against Benny’s mouth. “God, you are somethin’ else.”

Dean laughed and shook his head, beyond words, and kissed him again. Benny broke away and bit down his cheek, his jaw, his hips starting up again as his hand slid higher up behind Dean’s knee and pushed it up against his chest. His joints ached but he ignored it, he couldn’t afford to think. 

All of a sudden, Benny grabbed him by the leg and shoulder and rolled until he was straddling him. Dean braced his hands on his chest without thinking.

“Uh.”

“Ride me,” Benny said, not a question, and Dean lifted himself up and sunk down on him before he could talk himself out of it.

The new angle was almost intense enough to cancel out his extreme humiliation at riding dick; Benny could think whatever he wanted about being a man, but there were limits.

But—he watched him fall apart under him as he moved, swearing and bucking up into him, hands on his flexing thighs, and maybe it wasn’t so bad. He was staring, Benny always stared, Dean wasn’t even sure if he blinked, and then thinking about that led him down a winding path not even the pleasure rolling in his gut could dissuade him from.

“If you, uh. If you feed,” he started, and his voice broke, and he watched Benny’s pupils get huge, “can you— do it somewhere he won’t see?”

He. Everything was about Sam, even when it shouldn’t have been. Benny’s hands closed around his hips so hard it hurt, cold on his burning skin.

“You sure?”

“Anywhere he won’t see the wound.”

It was stupid and reckless and the way Benny was looking at him, he didn’t care one fucking bit. 

“Here,” Benny said, and thumbed a soft, fleshy spot at the very top of his thigh. “After you come. When you’re all… relaxed.”

He could see it—laying sweaty and boneless and spread out in the sheets, stroking Benny’s hair as he licked and sucked blood from between his legs, candy red dripping into his beard and down his throat. It felt sick to want it and he didn’t know how to stop. If he did it that night, and just once, any visible symptoms of blood loss would be gone by the time he saw Sam on Monday night. If he really wanted to be a boy scout about it, there was a first-aid kit in the car with a tourniquet and clotting agent. It was fine. He was allowed want things. It was good, even.

“You want it?” Benny asked again, always a gentleman.

Dean panted, “Yeah,” still lost in imagining it: the dizzy head rush, the pain, and maybe Benny would moan while he did it, ecstasy and power and his big hands forcing blood out of the wound. He could touch himself while he did it, get those wires fully and completely crossed. He’d make Benny patch him up afterwards and he’d probably say a bunch of sappy shit to him and Dean would secretly, quietly, lose his mind over it.

“Good,” Benny said, staring up at him with his mouth slack with pleasure, his voice all gravelly and serious. “Come for me, then let me taste you.”

Benny’s hands were moving him and he hadn’t even noticed, setting the pace Dean thought was his own, tight on his hips and making him ride his cock, up and back. He was so close, he wanted it, he let his head drop forward and gave in.

He jolted forward when Benny slapped his ass with his open palm and grabbed him hard to soothe the sting after, dug his fingers into the meat of his ass and pulled him to grind against him with a low, excited growl.

“Yeah,” Dean panted, mindless, approving, answering, “fuck, yeah, like that—”

Another slap, so hard the sound of it was like the bright hard crack of a whip, and Dean bucked against his hands.

The sound was muddled by a second sound at the same time: the door opening behind them.

The noise Sam made when he saw them wasn’t even words, just a loud, cartoonish AUUUGGH!!!

Dean only floundered for a split second, but it felt like a lifetime of movie-quality slo-mo. He didn’t need to look back at him to recognize the voice, and he was off Benny so fast he pulled a muscle.

“Jesus, Sam, fucking knock!”

He wrenched the sheets up to cover himself and threw a corner over Benny. Sam was frozen in the doorway, bright in the light of the lamp against the dark outside. Benny shuffled up against the headboard with his hands raised in surrender and only then did Dean realize Sam had a gun in his hand, he’d been too busy looking at Sam’s face: bright red, manic and savage, and absolutely, positively, earth-shatteringly mortified. He was staring at Benny and definitely, definitely not at Dean. 

Dean couldn’t slow his breath and lube dripped out of him and his ass cheek was still throbbing from Benny’s palm and he was so hard there was no blood left for his brain. The context switch was sudden and excruciating like the worst whiplash he’d ever had, and all he could do was stare at Sam, who was still staring at Benny with dawning recognition and pure, unbridled hatred, heaving like he was a second away from launching himself across the room and throttling him.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and put a hand over his face. He shoved his other hand against his boner to keep it from tenting the sheets, but that spark of friction was almost too much and nothing would make this situation worse than coming in front of Sam. He clamped down on it.

“Get out,” he choked out. “I’ll. Outside. Sam.”

He heard the door slam shut and it was too much, he was too close, he shoved his hand under the sheets and got it around his dick and in two pulls he was coming. He groaned and hunched over, crammed his hand over his eyes and fucked his fist through a wasted orgasm.

Benny made a disappointed noise, a click of his tongue. “Son of a bitch.”

“Sorry,” Dean panted, still wringing the last of it out. “I was already there.”

“I know. God, the timing on that kid.”

“You couldn’t—I dunno, sense him?”

Benny smiled at him, affectionate and derisive all at once. “I was a little preoccupied, believe it or not.”

Dean looked down. Benny was still hard but every second he spent in the room was another second Sam stewed outside, and if he knew they’d gone back to it after he left, he’d skin him alive. This was a capital-F Fight, and the end of their weekend.

“Sorry, man, I gotta go talk to him.”

Benny shrugged. “Do what you gotta do.”

Dean rolled out of bed, went to the bathroom and cleaned up. He winced in the mirror; his lips were swollen and the side of his neck looked vaguely mauled. Not much to be done for it. When he came out, Benny was still in bed, still naked, idly reading the label on the lube bottle. He looked up and set it down when Dean came back into the room.

“Sorry I couldn’t warn ya. I don’t have his scent like I have yours.” He paused. “Though now that I think about it, it ain’t too different from you.”

He watched Dean dress. Dean shook his head, impatiently yanking on his jeans, his shirt, socks. It felt dramatic to pull on socks angrily.

“That’s the only thing we’ve got in common these days,” he muttered. “We fought all the time when we were kids. Every fucking day, about everything. We didn’t see eye to eye ‘til he was— fuck, I don’t think we’ve ever seen eye to eye.”

“Does he know you—”

“Nope. You’d think human dudes would be less contentious, right?”

“Aw, man.”

“Hell of a way to find out,” Dean said. Benny held the lube out towards him and he waved it away. “Keep it. You’ll get more use out of it than me.”

Benny smiled, kind of crooked, kind of sad. “If you say so.”

“I’ll be back.”

He grabbed his duffle just in case, which probably didn’t look great.

Outside, it was properly dark and the dirt parking strip between the rows of rooms was lit by the lights on the fronts of the cabins. Sam was leaning against the Impala like he fucking owned it, frowning down at his phone. He was wearing this dark green shirt that looked too good on him, not that that was the point, but it didn’t help, it was like he knew. He looked up when Dean stepped outside, frowning ugly and furious. He stormed over and met him in the middle.

“Nothing to do with him, you son of a bitch?” Sam shouted, shoving him. “You lied to my face!”

“You followed me, Sam? You fucking tailed me?”

“A blind, deaf old lady could have tailed you! I could hear you in the parking lot, idiot, I thought it was someone else.” He kept moving like he couldn’t stand still, turned away like he couldn’t bear to look at Dean. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“I left you four states back, excuse me if I didn’t lock the fucking door!” Dean hissed. “You don’t knock?”

“You said it was a hunt! I was sitting out here in the fucking parking lot thinking you’d— I didn’t think I was gonna see you getting spanked, Jesus fuck, Dean.”

He would have given anything to have been fucking Benny instead of the other way around. At least he’d look butch.

“It wasn’t—” He put his hands over his face and groaned in agony. “You don’t get to say that shit to me. You can be mad about what he is, and me sneaking around behind your back, but you can’t fucking talk to me about— the other thing.” His face was burning. He’d never felt so stupid in his life. He couldn’t even say it. “We’re not going there and it’s none of your goddamn business, you hear me? None of it.”

“You’re fucking a vampire!”

“And that’s my problem. None of it is yours.”

“You’re my problem,” Sam snarled, and Dean wished his heart didn’t give a fucked up twist at hearing that.

Sam seemed to realize what he’d said, because the wind left his sails. He sagged and ran a hand over his face, spun a restless circle and came back.

“God. You should see your fucking neck.”

“He didn’t—”

“Don’t care. Doesn’t matter.” He ran both hands through his hair, he looked unhinged. “This is why you won’t kill him? How long has this been going on?”

Dean shrugged, so massively uncomfortable he couldn’t look right at him. Even with so much at stake, ‘none of your business’ warred involuntarily with ‘take any opportunity to make your little brother uncomfortable.’

He said, “Not a lot else to do in Purgatory.”

“Oh my God,” Sam gurgled. He turned around. “This is too much. Jesus, Dean, this is fucking insane.”

“I’m aware.”

“Are you? Do you have any idea how stupid this is? And you lied to me, again, what am I supposed to—”

“What did you want me to tell you?” Dean spat. “You want the guy dead, and I tell you I’m gonna go fuck him?”

Sam whipped back around. “I want you to not see him at all! Tell me that!”

Sam’s face was red, which only made him angrier, like he had anything to be embarrassed about. Dean worked his jaw back and forth. He looked at the row of rooms over his shoulder, silent and empty, except for the two idiots shouting at each other in the parking lot. He could only assume Benny could hear them.

“Not an option,” he said quietly, staring at the closed curtains of Benny’s room.

Sam’s breath left him in a giant gust. 

“Christ,” he said, sounding strained, “tell me you’re not, like. In love with him.”

Dean shoved his hands in his pockets.

“No. But.”

“But,” Sam said back, quieter now, going still. It was confirmation, not a question, and Dean was grateful for that small piece of generosity if nothing else. “Fuck, Dean.”

“You weren’t there. In Purgatory. You don’t know how it was.”

“I’m getting the picture, thanks,” Sam said bitterly. He shook his head. “I don’t know what you want me to do with this.”

Dean wanted to throw Ruby in his face again, you fucked a demon and you’re telling me I can’t fuck a vampire? But that was the perfect cautionary tale. Maybe there were no good monsters. Maybe he was kidding himself as badly as Sam had been with Ruby, because there was a time when Ruby seemed like Sam’s friend, too. It didn’t mean he agreed with him, but it meant he understood. If Sam were a few minutes later, Benny could have bled him dry, either by accident or design.

“How about you trust me, for once?”

Sam just shook his head again, his mouth pressed into a tight line, not looking at him. 

“I’m not gonna be okay with it. I’m not gonna get over it. It’s him or me.”

Dean’s very first thought was God, I wish those were my options.

“Sam…”

Sam jabbed a finger at him.

“No. Shut up. You lost the right to say whatever you’re about to say when you killed Amy. You remember that? You’ve murdered two of my girlfriends, at least. I’m due for one of yours.”

“Fuck you,” Dean snarled. “If you touch him—”

“I won’t, for now. But you won’t either. Understand? I swear to God, Dean, it’s him or me.”

It was a stupid argument, because they both knew it would always be Sam.

Dean put a hand over his face and dragged until he pulled the skin under his eyes down. He groaned.

“This is so fucked.”

“It’s your own fault.”

“Whatever.” He sounded drained even to himself. He straightened up and looked back at the room again. “Give me a minute, alright?”

“You’re not…”

Dean sneered at him. He had to stop himself from saying, joke’s on you, I already came.

“Believe it or not, you killed the mood, jackass. Fuck. Just wait here. Two minutes.”

Just as he headed towards the room, the door opened and Benny was there. He could practically hear Sam tense up behind him, but he didn’t turn around. He met Benny over by the door. He was dressed, no coat.

“Listen,” Dean started, with no idea where he was going with it. Benny, like always, did him a favour.

“S’alright. I heard.”

He sighed hard and felt like an idiot, whipped by his brother and everyone knew it.

“It’s—it’s gotta be him, man. I’m sorry.”

“No contest. I know.” Benny smiled. “It’s sweet of you to not want me dead, in any case.”

“I’ll keep him away from you. He won’t—”

“Oh, yes he will,” Sam said from behind Dean, suddenly close.

Dean spun around, fuming, but before he could get halfway through get the FUCK back to the car, Benny cut him off. His voice was slow and sweet like honey, deeply patronizing.

“Sam. I realize you don’t like me much. And that’s fine an’ all, I don’t like you, neither. But it makes me wonder which part you’re so mad about. The vampire part?” His smile widened, all his teeth. “Or the sodomizing your brother part?”

Sam squinted at him. “Both.”

Dean’s heart bucked against the short leash he kept it on.

“Hey,” he snapped. He wedged himself between them, facing Sam. Sam made Benny look short, Benny made Sam look spindly. “Benny, quit it, Sam, back the fuck up.”

“Tell him to back up.”

“Sam—”

“Somethin’ you wanna say, string bean?”

“Ben.”

Dean looked over his shoulder. Benny was beaming up at Sam.

“When you do come for me, I’ll keep the carnage light. Superficial. Only ‘cause I’m so sweet on your big brother, you understand.”

“I’m not gonna keep anything light,” Sam said, his voice like nails, and Dean shoved him.

“Jesus, both of you, fuck off.” The phrase dick-measuring contest leapt to mind unbidden, and he bit it down given the context. “Sam, wait in the fucking car.”

Sam wasn’t even looking at him, he was staring past his head at Benny. Dean got a reluctant little shiver at being between the two of them, Sam’s heat at his chest, Benny’s nearly-physical bloodlust at his back.

“Car,” he said again, when Sam didn’t move.

This time, Sam rolled his eyes and stalked back to the car, leaving whatever junker he’d rustled up to get down there on the other side of the lot. He didn’t get in, he just leaned on the passenger door with his arms crossed, sulking like a goddamn idiot. 

Dean turned back to Benny. There was no sulking to speak of, he didn’t even look mad. Dean was mildly offended, and also felt like maybe he was hitching his wagon to the wrong horse. No one wanted to pick the sulking guy.

“He’s being a bitch,” Dean said, tired and apologizing. “He’s always like this.”

Benny smirked at him. “And yet…”

Dean scowled down at his feet and said, almost silent, “It’s easier when he’s being a bitch.”

“I’m sure it is.” Benny looked towards the Impala. “Not to overstep our fragile boundaries in these final moments, but… you should talk to him.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna try something.”

Benny grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him in until their foreheads touched and their noses bumped together.

“Stay still,” Benny said, before he could ask. Dean didn’t let his eyes flick to Sam over by the car. “I’m gonna keep our faces real close like this, and talk real low so he can’t hear me.”

He could feel his own breath off Benny’s face. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. “Okay.”

“And I’m gonna smile, slow, like you just said something real sweet to me.” He did. He also let go of Dean’s jacket and ran a hand up his chest, intimate with just his t-shirt between them. Finally it felt too stupid to have his hands empty and he wrapped them around Benny’s forearms, not pushing him away, just holding.

“What are you doing?” he asked, barely audible. Benny laughed gently.

“He’s staring.”

Dean’s heart jackhammered and Benny laughed again, he must have heard it. He curled a hand around the back of Dean’s neck and tugged.

“C’mere,” he mumbled, and kissed him.

It was slow and deep, a show-stopper, and both Benny’s hands came up to frame his face. Panic spiked hard, Sam was right there, but one second ticked by, then two, and Dean melted into it, let his hands slide up Benny’s arms to grip his shoulders. He had the sense to turn him away from Sam so he couldn’t see their faces dead on, their mouths, but not enough to stop kissing him.

He tried to pour whatever frantic energy he had left into that kiss, begging Benny to take it with him, leave him the way he found him and not this hot, desperate mess who wanted something he’d never let himself have. For a second he forgot about Sam and himself and everything that wasn’t Benny’s hands snaking up under his flannel, his own hands tilting Benny’s head to press closer, his tongue licking against his. Take it all and find a way to stand it, I can’t do it, I miss being empty.

There was a sharp pain in his upper lip.

“Ow.”

He moved back. Benny’s teeth were out.

“Sorry,” Benny said, vaguely lispy the way he always was when the big teeth were there. He winced and, with effort, retracted them. “Helluva kiss.”

“S’okay.” Dean’s heart was still pounding. He had his hands on Benny’s neck. “Is he still—”

“Like a hawk.”

Dean watched his eyes drift past his shoulder. He wondered if Sam was looking back.

“What do you mean, that I should…”

Benny shrugged. He ran his hands down the front of Dean’s jacket, then let him go.

“He has a… a heat, rising in him. You oughta talk to him about that.”

It was like a punch in the gut. Dean nearly doubled over.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he whispered.

“Already fucked you plenty. This is just being a friend.” Benny glanced over again, smiling. “I’m not an expert, mind you. Just an aficionado of human biology.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just talk to him.”

Dean couldn’t really pry. Benny had already done him more favours than he could count, and he was in no way obligated to use his supernatural senses to help Dean bang his brother.

Benny sighed.

“Well. You’ve got my number if your moral compass goes on the fritz again.” He pushed his thumb against that spot at the top of his thigh and Dean wanted. “You lead a real complex life, darlin’. Take care of yourself.”

He went back into the room and Dean stared at the door for several long seconds after he closed it. All he felt was regret and guilt. His ass hurt. He’d wasted three tanks of gas and burned a bridge.

He walked back to the car like he always did, like he always would, regardless of consequences. Back to his awful, beautiful brother who hung the moon.

Sam leaned on the roof. “Did I just witness a breakup?”

“Get in the fucking car,” Dean snapped.

Sam looked like he felt bad about it once they were on the road, and even if he didn’t apologize, Dean caught him going to say something a few times and looking guilty as hell, which was the closest either of them got to an apology most of the time.

Somewhere around Ville Platte, Sam tucked his hair behind his ear and said, “So. You do this much?”

It was infuriatingly quiet, like if he was bashful enough, it didn’t count as being nosy.

Dean wanted to say none of your fucking business how much I do this, and also that blue-eyed bartender who bought us a round in Memphis, the thick-neck guy who made you spill your drink in St. Paul, that hippie witness in the case with that stupid haunted vase and ten other guys whose faces I don’t remember, as long as you’re keeping score.

“Not much,” he said, nodding grimly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam keep looking at him in silence for another five miles. He wished he could hear his heartbeat.