Chapter Text
"If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?" Dean asks. He's standing cross-armed in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame, watching Benny wash dishes. Dean made lunch, so Benny's cleaning up. The light in the room is golden, catching brightly at Benny's hair. Dean feels something warm flutter in his stomach.
"Anything at all?" Benny asks.
"Anything," Dean hums.
Benny shakes soapy water from his hands, wipes them perfunctorily on a towel. "Oh, I can think of one," he says, moving in on Dean with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
Later, Dean stares up at the ceiling and tries to catch his breath. "Okay," he says. "That is a thing we will definitely have to do again." For some reason, Benny's face is pressed into Dean's shin, and he blows a raspberry there in acknowledgement.
"But seriously," Dean asks. "Anything."
Benny shifts. Rolls over to prop his head on the more comfortable meat of Dean's thigh. "Honest? I like this just fine."
Fine. Dean'll figure this out by himself.
*
Dean rents a houseboat.
*
Dean calls Sam before they leave the marina. He's standing on the deck, watching Benny check any manner of things. They talk for a while. Kevin's taking a partial course load. Charlie's digitizing some of the bunker's books. Apparently Jeff Drummer got taken out by a werewolf last week.
"I'm going to be away for about a week," Dean finally says. "If the world starts to end again, I have my phone."
Sam huffs a laugh. "Did you ever think we'd be scheduling vacations?"
"Right?" Dean asks, because it's surreal, that's what it is.
"Where are you heading?" Sam asks.
"Just upriver," Dean says. Susan knew some people who knew some people, and it throws Dean a little, that he's part of networks that can swing into action for end goals other than shooting things. "Houseboat, of all things." Dean had briefly considered blindfolding Benny on the drive to the dock before deciding that his sense of smell would probably render the entire thing moot, and putting aside the blindfold for another day. Sam laughs. Benny's untying the line holding them to the dock, so it looks like it's almost time to go. "Benny and I -"
Sam makes a noise that's probably involuntary, and that he probably thinks is too quiet for Dean to hear.
Dean clutches the phone tight in his hand. "You got something to say?"
Sam sighs. "Nothing you want to hear, Dean. Nothing you don't already know."
"Yeah," Dean says, and "whatever," and "talk to you later, Sammy," and hangs up angry.
*
The Mississippi River is huge. And it's not like Dean didn't know that before, okay. But there's a difference between knowing it and knowing it. Dean thinks about it - about the breadth of the river, about the depth of it, moving below them.
Dean breathes into it. Finds the space.
*
Dean spends his time out on the deck, soaking shirtless in the sun and letting a constellation of freckles bloom across his skin. Sometimes he reads, sometimes he listens to music or watches the river, the glittering reflections of light or the tankers and tugs and fishing boats that move past.
Sometimes, he just watches Benny through half-lidded eyes. Dean's always had a bit of what you might call a competency kink, okay. He appreciates people in their element. He likes to watch people who are good at what they're doing. The lines Lisa could draw with her body as she flowed continuously through yoga poses. The look in Cassie's eyes when she caught the scent of a lead, the way her hands sketched out networks of connections as she talked. Cas, fearful and glittering and smiting. There's something about Benny whistling, blade in hand and arm raised in backswing. There's something else, here and now, watching him with his hands on the ship's wheel, or fighting to reel a catfish, or just watching him move so comfortably about a boat, in that -
Benny notices Dean watching him. "What you thinking about, cher?"
"That I'd like to see you sail sometime," Dean answers with surprising honesty.
*
In Baton Rouge, they hit a dive bar named Phil Brady's. There's smoke still hanging in the air, almost vibrating with steel guitar. The food is cheap and greasy and the drinks are strong, and Dean feels like he's 26 again, hustling pool and flirting with strangers, only it's better, it's so much better, because Benny's watching him move with hungry eyes. Maybe he leans into the cue a little more than he normally would. Plays up the toss of his head and arc of his lower back, curls his lips that extra bit around the mouth of his beer bottle. Benny's not the only one watching him as he cuts through the smoke and vibrating music, but the weight of gaze is the one Dean finds himself swaying towards, even across the room.
When they leave, Dean's flush with cash and dizzy with attention and adrenaline. In the chill night air, Benny smooths down the collar of Dean's jacket as he shrugs it on. "All those eyes on you," Benny rumbles, knuckles bumping across Dean's collarbone, "and you're mine." There's heat simmering in his voice, and something Dean would almost call wonder if he didn't know better, but no jealousy. Benny, gentlemanly, places his hand at the small of his back as they wind their way down the sidewalks and alleys and back to the marina.
"We should do the Atchafalaya basin sometime," Benny tells him later that night, when they're lying spent and sore in bed. It's brighter than it is at home, louder, city lights spilling in through the slats of the blinds and noise carrying easy across the water. Dean has one hand curled, protective, near the nape of Benny's neck so that his knuckles brush soft against the knobs of Benny's spine as he talks about the swamps and bayous and all the things he knows how to do with crawfish.
So this is what it's like, Dean thinks. Having a future.
Dean thinks about the length of the river, about the size and spread of the drainage basin that channels its waters together and inextricably out to sea. Lets the gentle rock of the boat and the low rumble of Benny's voice send him off to sleep.
*
When the other shoe finally drops, it's somehow in none of the many and myriad ways Dean's been envisioning. After they got back, he helped Susan's friend Joshua out with some car trouble, which sent a third cousin his way, then someone's grandma who's finally done recovering from a hip replacement and wants to get her boat running again. Dean's busy thinking about what tools he'd need to pick up if he wanted to do this more regular, so it takes a second for what Sam's just said to register.
"What." Dean says. Like maybe he heard wrong. On the other end of the video chat, Sam seems unperturbed. It makes it seem like maybe Dean's right, and he misheard, because Sam would be defiant or determined or guilty or self-righteous or something, right?
Sam shrugs. "I didn't think you'd mind. They're only a couple of hours out."
"Sam." Dean stops. "What the actual fuck?" he says, voice rising on each word until he's yelling.
Charlie, who'd been visible at the edge of the frame, working with Kevin, closes her book and heads over.
"What the fuck, Sam," Dean hisses. Sam's confused. Maybe Dean misunderstood. He takes a breath. Clears his throat. Clarifies. "You sent Krissy. And her crew. My way."
"It's just her and Josephine, from what I understand," Sam says, as if that Aidan douche is what Dean was going to have an issue with.
"Wait," Charlie says. "Weren't their entire families killed by a vampire? A vampire working with a hunter?"
"Yeah," Sam says. Like it's nothing. Like this entire thing is nothing. Like Dean and Benny are - Like whatever guilt Sam might feel, whatever little consideration he might have had, ended somewhere in that crystalline instant between Benny's teeth and Martin's blood hitting the floor.
"What the fuck, Sam," Charlie says, and hits him with the book she's carrying.
"Why the hell would you send them here?" Dean demands.
"What?" Sam asks. "Charlie, ow. And Dean, for whatever unknowable reason, Krissy likes you. She's in the neighborhood, and she needs help. Why wouldn't I send her your way? Charlie, stop hitting me." He grabs the book out of her hand. Kevin is hanging in close, obviously unsure whose side he should be on, and Sam hands the book to him.
"For starters," Dean snarls, "I'd rather Benny's head stay attached to his body?"
"Why - wait. Are you still with Benny? Didn't you just get back from some big bro-trip?"
Dean reminds himself that throwing his computer across the room will not help anything. "Yes, Sam. We're still together. We haven't broken up. I probably would have mentioned that. And I know that for whatever reason, you of all people aren't comfortable talking about this shit, but -"
"You act like past precedent doesn't mean Krissy and Josephine are more likely to end up dead," Sam says, clearly working up a head of steam. "Because -"
"- but, yeah, let's all just go ahead and assume that I prefer my boyfriend DOESN'T end up brutally murdered," Dean snarls, rubbing at his wrists and he feels it all again, waking up in that stagnant hotel room to the sharp cut of cuffs and the rough scrape of bricks and Benny, Benny, Benny echoing in his pounding head.
"- Martin is the one who ended up without a head - wait. What?" Sam looks poleaxed. "Boyfriend?" Sam says, like the word never occurred to him. "Benny's your boyfriend?" Sam asks, at the same time as Kevin asks "Benny's a vampire?"
"Wait a second," Dean says, flat. "Let me work this out, so I can figure out why I'm the most pissed off. Are you saying that it's not a real relationship because Benny's a vampire, or because Benny's a man?"
There's a moment of silence. Kevin hands the book back to Charlie.
Sam blinks. "Since when are you -" stops when Charlie hits his shoulder with a resounding thwack.
"Bisexual? I don't know, Sam," Dean says. "Since literally always?"
"That's not what I -"
"I didn't think I was being subtle!" Dean yells, because what the hell. "Do I act like I'm straight?"
"No," Sam says. "I just." Pauses. Winces. "Thought you were in denial?"
Charlie starts yelling something about heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality.
Dean stares blankly at his brother. Thinks about the jokes about Dean's boyfriends and breakups. Thinks about carrying Benny's soul, writhing beneath his skin, out of Purgatory. Thinks about Aaron Bass and about the siren in Iowa and about talking Charlie through flirting with a dude. Thinks about Cas.
"Dean," Sam says. "I didn't -" Scrubs his hands through his hair and looks he's the one that just got punched in the solar plexus, like it's his world that's been upended. "I'm sorry," he says, finally.
Dean's mouth is dry. "About what?" he asks. "Because if it's about you and your stunning lack of observational skills, I gotta tell you: not my biggest concern right now." Sam's face twists in a way that makes the bottom drop out of Dean's stomach all over again.
"I swear to god, Sammy," Dean says, "if my boyfriend gets decapitated because you thought I didn't notice I hit on dudes sometimes, I'm going to - " but everything Dean wants to say is something he won't be able to walk back later, so he slams the laptop shut and ends the call.
*
Dean calls Sam back two broken plates later.
"Don't you say a single word, Sammy," Dean says when Sam picks up. "This doesn't get you off the hook." His voice is low and flat and precise. "Because even though you somehow failed to notice that me and Benny, that we're - whatever - you knew that he was my friend. You knew he was around. Maybe you didn't set someone specifically after him this time - and Martin was batshit about blood, too, so solid choice there - but you told him to watch, to call you before he did anything. And if you thought I was some sort of closet case, you probably at least suspected that Benny was something else to me. This ends bloody, it's on you."
*
Dean calls Benny. "Hey," he says. "So, fun story. My Ivy League baby brother thought we were just buddies, bro-ing it up together in Louisiana. Less fun story: there are a couple of hunters heading this way."
*
Dean calls Krissy. She's driving, so she hands the phone to Josephine. He arranges to meet them at a mile marker outside of town. It's suspicious, but not as much as calling it off would be, even if it doesn't sound like they do need an extra gun. Krissy has a presentation whipped up on her tablet, a trail of heartless bodies meandering across the bible belt. It loops between Highway 20 and the 65 but always turns back down to the 10, eventually.
"New Orleans next, if the pattern holds," Josephine says. She and Krissy both have bare shoulders and riots of curls caught in ponytails. After the summer, Dean barely registers this humidity.
"Yeah," Dean says, looking at the map. "I agree."
"What we can't figure out is if it's werewolves or skinwalkers," Krissy says. "It's a pack. Probably small, from the number of the bodies. Pattern is close to the full moon, but there are a couple of deviations."
Dean flips between some articles on the tablet. "Could be either. Could be werewolves close to the alpha. They have a bit more control. Could still be settling back into a pattern after Eve. Could also be a pack of skinwalkers trying to copy patterns of a wolf pack so they'll get left alone." There's something itchy behind his eyes, nagging at the corners of his brain. His phone vibrates in his pocket. It's a message from Benny, just an 'x' to indicate he's out.
Josephine nods. "Müllerian mimicry, sliding into Batesian."
Dean hands the tablet back, pops Baby's trunk. "Silver either way. Plan for werewolves, hope for skinwalkers."
*
Because this is his life, and Dean had other things on his mind earlier, Dean doesn't have quite everything he wants if he's going to be potentially taking down a pack of werewolves. "I'll be right back," he tells them, their car idling in his driveway. "Just need to grab a few things." Even with the text, Dean's heart had surged in his chest all the way up the driveway until he saw Benny's piece of shit camper was gone. "Stay here."
He's digging a box of silver bullets out from the bottom of the steamer trunk of weapons they keep at the foot of their bed when he hears the soft creak of a floorboard. He has his gun up and trained on Krissy, standing in the bedroom doorway with her hands raised, before he even recognizes he's moving. He relaxes slowly. "Told you to stay in the car," he says gruffly. He sets the gun on the bed behind him, close, but doesn't holster it.
"Yeah, well, you were acting screwy, old man," Krissy says. She lowers her hands, but her jaw juts out mulishly.
"Yeah," Dean says, watching carefully as her eyes dart around the room. The place isn't a sty, but it's lived in. Dean doesn't think there are any discarded blood bags lying around or anything, but Krissy's sharp and Dean's just not willing to take the chance. He watches her carefully as she takes in the bedroom. Sees clear signs of double occupancy. The half-open closet, full of men's clothes. Dean's plaid shirts pressed up against a wool pea coat. Benny's shoes, fancier than anything Dean would ever wear, kicked under his side of the bed.
Dean watches as her shoulders and jaw relax a little. She starts to roll her eyes, then stops. "You don't hunt much with Sam anymore," she says instead.
Dean lets go of his gun. "Yeah," he says, and "well." Shrugs. Kicks Benny's shoes further under the bed, like he doesn't know she's seen them already and he's trying to hide them. Dean decides to lean into it, because the best-case scenario here appears to be that Krissy walks away thinking Dean's a repressed closet case ashamed of his partner and Sam's a homophobic dickweed.
As far as best-case scenarios go, Dean's had much worse and far bloodier.
*
Of course it doesn't go smooth.
*
They're literally going to die of irony, Dean thinks, watching the gravel pass by his face as he's dragged across the rooftop. He coughs, wet, watches blood splatter to the rocks and fall away behind him. He's pretty sure at least two of his ribs are broken. Knows his shoulders aren't going to dislocate from the rough handling but it doesn't stop his body from screaming into it. He raises his head. Can see Josephine getting the same treatment. Her eyes are closed. Dean can't tell if she's unconscious or crying.
Krissy, right arm limp and face dark with blood, had gone over the edge of the roof and into the river.
Dean feels his ribs trying to shake, realizes it's laughter trying to tear its way out of his throat. They're going to die of irony, Dean thinks. He was so busy trying to make sure that he didn't lead Krissy and Josephine to a vampire that he led them right into a whole nest of them.
*
"Do you think Krissy made it?" Josephine asks. They're in the requisite deserted warehouse. Tied to chairs in the middle of an open expanse.
"Yeah," Dean says. Krissy had one arm working and a head wound disorienting her, and Dean doesn't know how deep the river was there. Too shallow and the impact would kill her. Too deep and the current would take her. She survives that, she probably gets salmonella or some shit from the water.
Josephine sighs. "Yeah. I'm choosing to believe that, too."
"Hey," Dean says. "We're not dying here, not today. And you know why? Because I am not about to give my brother the satisfaction of being right about me getting my face eaten by a vampire."
*
This nest seems to like to play with their food. Sounds like they'd been mimicking werewolves in part to throw off hunters, and in part for shits and giggles. There are five of them left, as far as Dean can figure. Nest leader is a woman named Millie with amber eyes and an unplaceable accent. They throw Dean and Josephine up on the hooks to feed and then tie them back down to their chairs, which definitely suggests they're planning to draw this out.
It takes a little while for Dean to find the correct blend of antagonism and flirtation that makes them focus more heavily on him than Josephine. He thinks about how long it might be before Sam or Charlie or Benny starts worrying. That Sam can't be expecting a phone call any too soon, that Benny's laying low until he gets the all-clear from Dean. Thinks about how long it would take them to get here, once they do start to worry.
Dean thinks about how they're going to feel, after.
Josephine screams and swears when they start taking him more often.
"I literally have more blood in my body," Dean tells her, later, which is both true and a handy excuse for what he'd be doing anyway.
She glares at him, and clearly sees right through him.
"Hey," Dean says. "Josephine. Tell me about Mülllerian mimicry."
*
"I love her," Josephine says. Her eyes are dry and clear. There's blood on her neck. "And I - it's not that I want to die, okay, I don't, but more than that I don't want to do that to her, don't want to leave her alone to carry this."
"I've got one of those, too," Dean says. His mouth is thick.
"Your brother?" Josephine asks.
Dean shakes his head. "Sam, he - he'll be fine. Last time he thought I died, it's like he didn't even blink. Got a girlfriend and a dog and I know he must have cared, but it's like he didn't even look back. Like it didn't even register. And I know that's not fair, but -" He hangs his head. "Except before I left, I told him that if this ended bloody, it was on him."
"Did he deserve it?" Josephine asks, feeling around the edges.
"Thought so at the time." Dean's head spins. "I have a Krissy, too," he says. Breathes into the cage of his broken ribs, the rope now holding him upright. "Benny. His name is Benny."
*
Dean's head is heavy. He feels lethargic. Distant from his body. He's breathing rapidly, but his ribs don't hurt much anymore. He is distantly, clinically aware that he is finally going into hypovolemic shock.
"No," Josephine whispers, "NO," louder, and the love and heartbreak in it makes Dean work as hard as he can to bring his head up. The first thing Dean sees is Krissy, arms twisted cruelly behind her body, head pulled back by the hair to expose her throat. Dean's eyes flutter closed again.
"-brought us a welcome present," Dean hears one say.
"I suppose we could do with a new recruit, given we just lost Nigel," Millie says.
No, Dean thinks, and shit, then -
"Be rude to show up empty-handed," a familiar, low, drawl says and Dean forces his eyes open again. Sees Krissy again, sees the dark, blurred head of the vampire curling over her. Dean hears the first whistled bars of In the Hall of the Mountain King. Then Krissy is twisting her arms out from behind her body, unloading bullets full of dead man's blood into the vampires, one by one, and Benny rips them into pieces.
*
"Hey," Dean hears, distantly, and "Brother," and "Dean," and "Dean," and "Cher," the words distant and twisted and echoing. There are cool hands on his face, his neck, his shoulders.
"Hey," Dean says, slowly, testing his voice against the words. "Benny. Bennnnnny." His mouth feels very far away. His hands feel farther, but he brings them up. Benny's in close, looking frantic. He has his teeth out, and Dean giggles a little, pokes his teeth with one set of fingers. "You're pointy." Dean notices absently that the hand he poked Benny in the mouth with has a decent amount of his own blood on it. It's on his clothes, too, he thinks. Benny's covered in blood, too, and other things, probably, if what Dean's remembering about the ripping apart of the other vampires is correct.
Benny closes his eyes. Presses his forehead to Dean's less bruised cheek. His body shakes as Dean absently pets his head. When Benny pulls back, he has put his face away but there's obvious strain pulling at the corners of his mouth. Which is fair, Dean thinks, looking around. There is. There is a lot of blood in here.
"Come on," Benny says, hauling Dean to his feet.
The sound of a gun being cocked echoes through the open warehouse.
Krissy is standing there, gun in one hand and machete in the other.
Dean tries to shift to put himself between them, but he can't seem to make his body work.
"You've got three options, as best I see it," Benny says. It sounds like he's trying to speak gently, but has to keep his jaw clenched to stop his teeth from popping back out. "One: you kill me and try to haul both these lugs to the car and get them to the hospital in time. You're a strong little thing, but your shoulder's still a mess and Dean's got fifty pounds on you if he has one. Two: you kill me, you call an ambulance, wait for it to get here, and you try to explain this lake of blood and all these body parts. Neither of those options have a great survival rate for anyone in this room other than you, and you choose two, you probably end up in jail. Three: you put that gun down, we get your girl and my boy out to the car, and you burn rubber to the hospital while I stay and try to cover our tracks."
Krissy juts her jaw. Steadies her stance. "Four," she offers. "You help me get them to the car, and then I kill you."
"I gotta tell you," Dean says. Speaking slowly to try to feel out the words. "You do that, you and me are going to have a problem."
"Nah," Benny says. "I got a feeling you're not that kind of woman. But whatever you do, choose it quick, because these two don't have any time going spare."
"Krissy," Josephine says softly. "Hey." Reaches out to tangle her fingers into the fabric of Krissy's shirt. "Come on."
"Shit," Krissy swears. Curses again and throws her machete to the ground and shoves her gun in her pants. "Burn this place to the ground," she snarls. Throws Josephine's arms around her neck and heads for the door. Benny picks Dean up like he weighs nothing, and Dean passes out again.
*
Dean surfaces to the low hum of hospital noise. Distant footfalls, overlapping conversations, beep of monitors. Nothing hurts, which over the years he's learned is a bad sign that he's on the good drugs. Sam is asleep in the chair. Charlie is tucked into the bed with him, a small, warm lump careful not to touch him. Her hair is dark in the dim light. He curls around her as he fades out.
*
The next time Dean wakes, he gasps into it. Charlie is still curled beside him. "Benny?" he asks, hand on her shoulder to wake her.
Sam wakes with a start. "He's fine."
Dean ignores him, looks at Charlie.
"He's safe," Charlie assures him.
"Josephine? Krissy?"
Charlie pushes her fingers through his hair. "They're all fine. Everyone's going to be fine. Go back to sleep."
He does.
*
Dean blinks slowly awake. Charlie's still asleep against him. Sam is looking at him steadily, eyes dark in the low light. He drops his eyes when he sees Dean focus in on him.
"Would it have made a difference?" Dean finally asks. Sam starts a little, like he'd thought Dean had passed out again. Dean clenches his hand. Discovers that's the one with an IV in it. "Would it have made a difference, if you'd known about me and Benny?"
Sam sighs. "I don't know. Probably not," he says, honestly. "At least, not in the way you would have wanted."
*
This time when Dean wakes, he's still tired and blurry, but at least he can tell that the edges on everything are soft. The light in the room suggests it's early morning. Dean is alone in bed. Sam is sitting in a plastic chair that's almost comically small for his gigantor body, elbows on his thighs and clasped hands hanging loosely between his knees. His head is bowed.
"Morning, sunshine," Dean croaks. It comes out rougher than he anticipated. His mouth is dry. Sam startles.
"You've got three broken ribs, a bruised spleen, a concussion, and severe blood loss," Sam replies. "Benny is -"
"Presumably somewhere away from the trauma surgery and blood transfusions," Dean guesses, reaching unsteadily for the cup of water beside him. Normally, Benny can handle a hospital just fine, but - "Willpower isn't an infinite resource," Dean says, feels like he's quoting someone one. "It's been a rough - look, to be honest, I have zero clue how long ago that phone call was. A week? Six months?"
Sam hands him the glass of water, looks caught between wanting to hold it for Dean to drink and knowing his brother would crawl out of the hospital bed and try to beat him with the straw. He settles back into his Barbie chair.
"He's not what I thought," Sam says, finally.
Dean drinks more water probably faster than he should. Makes himself slow down, put the cup down. Wonders what it would be like to be thirsty all the time. "He's not Ruby," Dean finally says.
Sam looks at him sharply in surprise, and Dean just holds his eyes, because he sees it, yeah. And Dean - Dean wonders if Sam looks at Benny, sometimes, and feels the hot rush of blood under his own teeth.
"Okay," Sam says. Smiles a tight and wobbly smile and scrubs his hands through his hair. "Did you know that they don't wrap up broken ribs anymore? Apparently you're more likely to end up with pneumonia."
*
Benny comes in the next day, looking drawn and pale. Winds his fingers through Dean's and kisses the back of his hand. He acknowledges Sam with a nod. Benny snuck in an insulated bag with a container of still-warm jambalaya, a slice of tarte au la bouillie. Dean can tell from the lack of tomatoes that the jambalaya's Benny's, but he raises his eyebrow at the custard pie.
Benny laughs. "Don't worry," he says. "It's from the café." Benny is a fantastic cook. Benny is also hands-down the worst baker Dean has ever encountered, and Bobby once set fire to those cookies you buy in a roll and slice.
"How are Susan and Julie doing?" Dean asks, digging in.
"Wanted to come down and visit you. Told them you'd rather they dropped by when you got home, since you're going to be laid up for a while."
Dean groans, because he's starting to get the feeling that this recovery period will be more strictly enforced than others in his past.
"That's right," Benny says. "I'm putting the instructions from the doctor up on the fridge."
"I've broken pretty much all of my ribs before," Dean says around a mouthful of food. "It's no big deal. Couple of days, max. Hell, wrap up my ribs -"
"Pneumonia," Benny interrupts, eyebrows drawn.
"- and I could be up and at it right now, if I needed."
"Sure, brother," Benny says. Tosses a quarter on the floor by the door. "You get up out of bed and you walk over and pick that up and we're copacetic."
"If I needed," Dean says, pointing a fork at him. "I'm not crawling out of my hospital bed to pick up your damn pocket change."
"You don't need, cher," Benny says. Leans in to kiss the curve of Dean's clavicle where his stupid hospital gown gapes away. "Julie is apparently mighty excited it's her turn to babysit you."
Dean just shovels more food into his face and rolls his eyes at Sam, who looks a little like someone just stuck gum in his hair.
Dean lets Sam taste the jambalaya. Just so he knows what he's missing.
*
Dean gently squeezes the fingers twined through his. Benny comes awake instantly. There's no startle to it, no change in Benny's breathing or posture, just a gentle pressure back.
"Hey," Dean says. He should have let Benny sleep more, but Dean's been staring at his face and thinking about how he thought Sam just implicitly understood things about him. In a lot of ways, Dean's always kind of considered himself an open book. He's not deep or anything. It's disconcerting to find out that people've been reading him completely different than he thought. Dean's been staring at Benny's face and thinking about how some things might read from the other side. Like the fact that Dean hasn't gotten a job here, or how he always stitches up his wounds before he gets home or how he made Benny promise him he wouldn't make Dean kill him.
"Hey," Dean says again. Benny looks at him expectantly, rubs his thumb in gentle circles along the web of Dean's thumb. "You get that you're it for me, right? It's you."
Benny's thumb stills and Dean freezes, sucks in a painful breath through his teeth before Benny's smiling at him, so bright it's almost blinding. "I figured, mon coeur, but it still does a body good to hear it."
Dean holds his hand tighter. "When I asked you to promise me that I wouldn't have to -"
"It's a reasonable request," Benny says. "I'd rather not have to take you out, it comes down to it."
"The reason that I didn't want to ask isn't that I don't trust you," Dean says. "It's not that I'm waiting for you to fail, or let me down. It was selfish because it makes your - your addiction about me. You have to have noticed, but I've got an expiration date, and it's coming due sooner than yours. And I want -" Benny's hand tightens painfully around his, and Dean shakes his head. "No," he says, "this is important, and you need to listen to me." Dean doesn't even realize that he's surged upright in the bed until he's gasping against his ribs and Benny has him by the shoulders and is easing him gently back down.
"Soft, now," Benny says, settling on the edge of Dean's bed and soothing his hands down Dean's arms. His eyes are tight and bright but his hands are gentle, and the weight of him compresses the mattress so that Dean's hip settles firm against him. "Today's not that day," Benny says. One of his hands comes to rest in the soft crook of the inside of Dean's elbow. The other twines around the one Dean has free of the IV.
"It's coming, though," Dean says. It's strange to think of his death as a concrete event rather than an inevitability. "It's the life. And I want - Benny, I want you staying clean for you, okay, because I tend to come back from the dead, and if I die and I come back and you've gone off the rails, I don't know what I'll do. And if I don't come back, wherever I end up I want to be able to think about you kicking ass and cooking things, because I love you, you asshole, and I'm so tired of everything being game theory and Nash equilibrium and mutually assured destruction."
Benny pulls Dean's hand up to his mouth, whispers je t'aime and te amo and s'agapo and diliget te as he kisses each knuckle. I love you, to the palm of his hand. "I'll do my best," he promises.
*
Charlie leaves with Josephine and Krissy a day before Dean's released from the hospital. She's taking them back to the bunker to recuperate for a little while, and also coincidentally so that she can watch them for any signs of Martin-ish doubling back. Before Charlie leaves she stops by to see him again. She doesn't say anything about what her hunting protocol database would have said about where the three of them were heading. She just punches his shoulder for being dumb and kisses his forehead. There's a copy of the New Orleans Advocate stuffed in her bag and conspicuously visible, which Dean assumes is a show for him since even he knows that they have all their apartment listings online.
Dean's pretty sure he's never going to hear from Krissy or Josephine again, and it makes something twist in his stomach. Krissy's a good kid, and Josephine - it's pretty hard not to bond with someone a bit when you go through something like he and Josephine did. And Dean, Dean remembers being that age and angry and looking for war. They may not be saddled with John Winchester, but they don't have a Bobby either, far as he can see.
Really, though, this is not a worst-case scenario.
(In six months, he'll get a phone call from Krissy. Demigod situation in Alabama, old man, she'll say. Josephine singing along with the radio in the background. Could use you. Pause. Could do with a bit of extra muscle if that fang you're banging feels up to it.)
*
Sam drives Dean home from the hospital in his toy plastic car, because Benny's piece of shit camper remains a piece of shit and vaguely unsanitary. Dean's still tired, so even though the drive's less than two hours he drifts in and out, head knocked back against the headrest and reminding himself never to let Sam know how comfortable the damn thing is.
They talk a bit, when Dean surfaces. Sam lets him pick the music, which Dean takes as the apology it is. He catches Sam watching him, sometimes. Not judging, Dean doesn't think. More like the lines of Dean's face are a map Sam's just realized he doesn't know how to read.
When they pull up to the house, they sit silently in the car for a minute, two. Dean turns to look at his brother, but Sam's not looking at any of it. He's looking at Dean with an intensity that makes Dean want to start deflecting about chick flicks, but Dean breathes into the sharp pain of his ribs and tries to remember where that got them.
"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam says.
Dean sighs. "Yeah, okay," he says. "Don't do it again."
Sam's shaking his head. "Don't let me off that easy."
"Okay," Dean says. "You pull any shit like this, ever again, and I'll shoot you in your favorite knee. Better?"
Sam lets out a frustrated growl. "Just let me do this."
Dean laughs, because he's 100% sure Sam has practiced this speech in a mirror and is not ready to have his groove thrown off. "Look," he says. "As much as I wish I could claim otherwise, it's not all on you. I could've tried harder to talk to you."
"I didn't exactly make it easy for you."
"Yeah," he says. "You didn't. And I still could have tried. Because it was important."
"I know that it's hard for you, okay. Talking about everything. I should have -"
"It's never going to be easy for me," Dean says. "It's never going to come natural. I've got seventeen million reasons that range from bullshit to completely fucking legitimate, but not one of them is worth you. Worth Benny. This shit, Sam, this cannot happen again." Dean gets out of the car then, because he needs the air. He stops and leans against the trunk of the car, and Sam settles beside him. "Really, though," Dean says. "When you take a step back, it's really kind of amazing either of us have more emotional range than a potato. How'd you get so good at this shit, anyway?"
Sam tips his head up to the sky. "You gave me the space to grow and be a kid that you never got, Dean. I don't think I've ever thanked you for that. You seemed so much older than me at the time that I'm still realizing you weren't, not really."
"I was old enough," Dean says.
Sam hums in gentle disagreement. "And therapy," he says. "I got a metric shit-ton of therapy."
Dean's head swivels so hard his eyes spin. "What," he says, and literally bites his tongue.
"You think that when I got to Stanford, I knew how to be a person? I knew how to make friends but nothing about how to keep them. I kept defaulting to lying about everything, even the shit I didn't have to, until I couldn't keep any of it straight. I didn't know how to just exist in the same space as other people. There was a full week when I was convinced this one guy was a monster stalking me. Turns out he just lived in my dorm and had classes in the same building."
Neither of them says anything about Brady.
"And Jess - I ever tell you Jess broke up with me for a while?"
Dean shakes his head.
Sam looks at his hands. "We'd been going out for about six months. It was Halloween, and she was drunk, and she decided that as a joke, she was going to jump out and scare me."
"Shit," Dean says.
"Yeah."
Dean interlaces his fingers. Stares at one of the cuts on the back of his hand. "I hit Ben, once. I'd exorcised that demon out of Lisa, and he froze."
Sam shifts a bit closer. "I'm not saying it was good, Dean, but there were extenuating circumstances."
Dean feels his face twist into a bitter shadow of a grin. "Yeah. That's just about exactly what I used to tell myself about Dad."
Sam nods and doesn't say anything, but he shifts a little, and Dean - Dean knows his brother, okay, and Dean has opened a door here, and he can almost feel Sam standing outside and shuffling through an overstuffed file folder full of shit Dean just doesn't have the energy to deal with right now. Dean loves his brother, but Sam can be fucking exhausting.
"We've got to try to be better," Dean says. He scrubs his hands over his face, and they definitely don't come away damp. He looks at his home and tries to see it for the first time, like Sam must be. The faded-out paint and well-worn wooden steps to the porch, the grass going to seed. Dean pushes off the car and steps forward. The grass to the side rustles and a rabbit bursts out, looking at them curiously before it twitches its nose and turns tail. Now that he's not trying to force the land into a garden, into a shape it's not made for, Dean finds the rabbits a comfortable presence. He likes that no matter what shit goes on with him, they're out there, eating every damn green thing they can get their little teeth on.
Sam keeps pace with him, though Dean's moving slower than normal. Stops Dean at the front door with a hand on his shoulder and pulls him into a hug, grip tight on the back of his neck to make up for the gentle pressure around his broken ribs. "It took our entire lives and a truly remarkable amount of trauma to shape our relationship," he says. "It's going to take time to figure out how we want it to be."
"We've got time," Dean says, and it's strange to say that and feel it in his bones.
When they step inside, Dean looks around, at the popped nails he's patched, at the smoke-damaged print of Shōki the Demon Queller hanging on the wall, at the books and the pictures and the scattered record collection, at the detritus of a semi-normal life, and he smiles. Benny's puttering around in the kitchen, music on low, and not pretending to do anything other than give them privacy. He looks them over once, checking, and doesn't say anything about their red eyes. He and Sam exchange a long look and a slow nod.
"Okay, seriously?" Dean asks, looking into the kitchen. "You actually printed out the doctor's instructions and put them on the fridge."
Benny's voice is serious. "Gotta have it somewhere for when Julie's making sure you don't do anything dumb."
"She's four," Dean says, like maybe this has somehow slipped Benny's mind. "And I am not, and therefore do not need a babysitter."
Sam is looking at the fridge, at the instructions stuck to it. "Did you get this magnet when we were at the Joslyn?" he asks.
"He sure did," Benny replies.
Dean thinks about driving away from the bunker after that road trip. Thinks about how it felt to have two points to draw a line between. Thinks how it was both easier and harder than that first time all those months ago, when he drove away from one of the only homes he'd ever known, no idea of what to expect.
Sam leans in closer to look and the painting on the magnet. Dean knows what he sees. It's an ocean scene. There's a stormy sky overhead, but to the left, the clouds are clearing and the sky breaks through. The crests of the waves are lighter, sunlight refracting through the water and off the distant sand of a windswept shore. There's one ship in particular in the middle ground that catches the eye, cutting the arc of a sunlit crest. Dean can't tell if they're heading to the beach or striking out on the stormy seas, but their sails are set and they're leaning with the wind. They look steady.
"What's it called?" Sam asks.
Dean looks at Benny. Smiles. "Boats Navigating the Waves," he says.
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