Becomes A Monster, Sam/Dean [NC17], (3/4)
Jun. 23rd, 2013 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlFic title: Becomes A Monster (Part 3/4)
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:tdorian
Pairing: Dean/Sam, with past Dean/Benny, Sam/Amelia
Rating: NC17
(Benny)
The blood at the bottom of the bag is always the best: thick and rich, substantial. It’s a lot like the last bit of blood in a human, when you’ve drained them almost dry and their heart has stopped pumping so it isn’t flooding your mouth anymore. You have to pull it then, force the last of it up through collapsing veins to get those last few drops. It packs a kick; makes his stomach clench hard as he swallows. The same kind of kick he got from a good fuck, when he’d already shot his load but nearly came again when the woman--or man--lost it too. So good it was almost pain.
Benny draws the last few drops through the thin tube of the blood bag, savoring before he tosses the remains in the trash. Thinking about sex and blood together is a mistake; it makes him think of Dean, and how he’ll never feel Dean clench up around him and come ever again. He didn’t expect to miss it so much. All of it.
Three months he’s been topside, and he's no closer to feeling human. His senses set him apart; so does his hunger. He wants to be around people, but he can’t be near them without wanting to feed on them, and he’s never sure which desire will win out. It’s easier to avoid them. He’s surprised how much he misses Dean’s surly conversation, the easy camaraderie that was so hard won.
If he’s honest with himself, Sam’s call for help was a relief. He’s got something to fight for again, and a reason to live, even if it’s not forever. He did this to Dean; he’ll undo it.
When his cell rings, it comes up “Dean,” and for a second, Benny’s throat is tight with hope.
“Benny?”
It’s Sam, of course.
“Yeah, Sam. What’s goin’ on?”
There’s a pause, and Benny’s stomach falls. “Sam?”
“He--Dean sort of--he went nuts on a few guys in a convenience store in Maryland -- outside Pittsville.”
“Define nuts,” Benny says cautiously, remembering what he’s seen skimmers do when they’re hungry.
“He might’ve ripped a guy’s shoulder apart with--with his teeth.” Sam sounds like it’s killing him to say the words, making it far too real and far too true.
“Killed ‘im?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I pulled him off and ran out of there as fast as I could; drove until we were two states away.”
“So he’s--you’re--safe?”
Sam sighs. “For now. I had to cuff him again, though. I don’t know… I’m really not sure I can do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Benny blurts out before he can stop the words. “You have to.”
There’s silence for way too long on the other end.
“Listen, I’ve got some leads.” It’s sort of a lie, but Sam doesn’t have to know that. “How 'bout you tell me where you are, I come on down, and we can put our heads together.”
Sam says yes way too quickly. “I’ve got some leads, too,” he says, most likely the same sort of half-truth.
Benny makes good time, itching to see for himself how bad things are. He stops for gas halfway there, and picks up a few of those Tastykake lemon pies that Dean used to reminisce about so fondly when they were in Purgatory.
“Be careful out there,” the clerk says as she rings up the purchases. “Monsters on the loose. What’s this world coming to?”
For a heart-clenching second, Benny thinks she’s talking about him. Then he looks up. There’s a small television screen above the counter.
“Law enforcement officials don’t know yet what they’re dealing with--they advise residents near Pittsville to stay alert. The suspect is dangerous, probably high on drugs.” The newscaster’s voice is accompanied by a grainy surveillance video. Onscreen, Dean tackles a man to the floor and sinks his teeth into the guy’s shoulder. The man claws frantically at Dean’s back, pushing up his shirts to expose the pattern of scales running down his spine, helpfully circled in red by the reporter. Sam swoops in a few seconds later and pulls Dean off, and as Dean gets to his feet he looks right at the camera, reptilian eyes catching the light.
“You see those eyes?” the clerk asks, and unconsciously puts her hand to her throat. “Some kind of weird contacts, right? And that back tattoo, Jesus! What some people will do to themselves. They’re calling him the lizard-man. There’s an even better picture in the Daily Southwestern.”
“Shit,” Benny says, and adds the paper to his purchases. He floors it the rest of the way.
Sam answers the door when he gets there; Dean’s right behind him, no longer cuffed. He growls warningly over Sam’s shoulder as Sam holds him back with one big hand.
Dean isn’t exactly welcoming, but Sam seems surprisingly happy to see Benny. Benny feels the same; he’s never been good at being on his own, not when he was human and not now.
“Good to see you,” Sam says; even manages a tight smile.
“You might not say that when you see this.” Benny tosses the newspaper onto the table.
“Lizard-man on the loose!” is the headline. There’s a clear photo of Dean below.
Sam groans. “Oh, shit.”
“It was all over the news, too. Surveillance camera. They think he’s some lunatic drug addict. Better that than the truth, I guess.”
Sam rubs at his forehead, looking pained. Dean is at his side instantly, one hand on Sam’s shoulder. His eyes are fixed on Benny, protective. Benny wonders if Sam found a way to put his moral qualms aside and sleep with his brother.
“We’re gonna have to keep moving,” Sam says wearily. “They’re gonna be looking for us.”
“Not like that’s a new thing for y’all.” Benny pulls the bottle of whiskey from the grocery bag and puts it on the table between him and Sam. “We got time to chill a little. C’mon, brotha, you need it.”
Sam looks so grateful it makes Benny’s chest tighten. They pour three glasses because Dean seems to want one, too, and for a while they drink in companionable silence, letting the alcohol blunt the edge of despair.
Dean gulps the whiskey alarmingly fast, then sprawls on the bed with a groan. The one, large bed. So that's one question answered.
Sam is looking at Dean with the same mix of concern and fondness Benny knows is probably on his own face.
“You kinda want to beat him to a pulp and fuck him into next week all at once, right?”
Sam opens his mouth to protest, his cheeks turning red. Then he abruptly huffs a laugh and nods. “Pretty much,” he admits, and takes another swig of whiskey.
They drink while Dean sleeps. Benny watches the tension ease from Sam’s shoulders, the deep lines etched into his forehead smooth.
“I don’t even know if he can understand me,” Sam mumbles out of nowhere. Probably half an hour has gone by in silence, and Benny startles. “Sometimes I think he can,” Sam goes on, “but then sometimes, I try to commune with--communicate with--him, and he just. Man, I don’t know if there’s any Dean left behind those weird eyes.” Sam scrubs his hands through his hair. It’s dirty again, hanging in lank strings across his forehead.
“I dunno for sure,” Benny allows, because Sam would see through a lie, “but I think he probably can. He’s a stubborn bastard at the best o’ times. Maybe he doesn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”
Sam snorts and takes another swig of whiskey. The bottle is more than half gone already. “That does pretty much sum up my brother.” There’s a sad smile on Sam’s face, but only pain in his eyes. Benny is surprised by the empathy that makes his own eyes water.
“Must feel like you’re here by yourself most of the time.”
Sam nods, then covers the emotion evident in his expression with a bitter laugh. “At least if I was alone I could go to the fucking store,” he says, his voice raised a little. “I can’t even go outside by myself! I can’t go for a run, or a drive, or sit on the fucking porch and have a chance to think. Swear to god, I think I’m gonna go crazy if I have to live the rest of my life like this.”
Dean stirs on the bed, like he can sense Sam’s anger even in his sleep.
“I’m serious, man,” Sam says, and Benny believes him. “I wouldn’t leave him. But I… I can’t do this.”
Sam’s not cut out for alone, it's clear. From what Dean told Benny about his brother, all his life, Sam’s had someone. Dean mostly, and the times when Dean was gone, he had a woman. Sam doesn’t know how to do alone. Benny gets it; he doesn't, either.
“Nobody could do this alone,” Benny agrees.
Sam puts his glass down and stares hard at Benny across the table.
“Don’t have much of a choice,” he says, finally.
Benny pours a little more whiskey and swirls it around in the glass, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “Maybe you do.”
Sam frowns and pours more; gulps half of it down in one go. Finally he finishes off the glass and puts it down on the table with a slam.
“I’ma take a shower,” he says, looking at Benny.
Benny nods, belly warm from the whiskey and some actual conversation.
“Yeah, you stink, man,” he says, and Sam huffs a laugh. “I’ll keep an eye on ‘im.”
Dean wakes up while Sam’s in the shower, sniffs the air, and glares at Benny from the bed.
“You don’t remember me, huh?” Benny asks. It still stings more than it should.
Dean growls at him.
“Yeah, I probably deserve that. Fucked up the spell gettin’ out; left you sort of a mess, brotha.”
Dean is quiet, but Benny’s pretty sure he’s listening.
“Ya got Sam real worried. We’re gonna fix it, though, promise.”
Benny pulls the lemon pies out of the bag and unwraps one, holding it out. Dean’s up instantly, grabbing the pie from Benny’s hand and biting it nearly in half. He finishes it in about ten seconds and looks up hopefully.
“I take it ya want another,” Benny drawls, and Dean comes to stand in front of him. It’s the closest they’ve been since they parted ways, and Benny can feel his body react. He can smell Dean, familiar scent of his sweat and his blood and his sex. Dean growls softly, his own sense of smell just as acute as Benny’s. He backs away slightly, ducking his head while holding Benny’s gaze. It’s maddeningly tempting, but Benny forces himself to stay calm and look away. He was right about the bonding; Dean’s not interested anymore. Just as well, since Benny’s sure Sam’s new level of comfort with him would disappear quickly if he gave in to the desire to get his hands on Dean.
“Here,” Benny says, and holds out another pie. Dean grabs it greedily and retreats to the bed.
“You know,” Benny continues conversationally, the water still running in the bathroom. “I know you can understand me. And I know you can understand Sam.”
Dean’s still chewing, but he’s watching Benny intently.
“If you don’t wanna lose your brother, you’d better start letting him know you’re still in there. Don’t care how you do it, but you’d better find a way.”
Dean’s eyes are narrowed, poison green.
“Glare at me all ya want, brotha, but you better do what I say. Before it’s too late.”
That gets Dean’s attention, just as Benny figured it would. He glances at the bathroom door, suddenly fidgety. When Sam doesn’t come out in the next few minutes, Dean opens the door and slinks in after him. Benny can hear Sam’s startled shout, and then the sounds of some kind of scuffle.
“Jesuschrist, Dean, you’ve got your goddamn clothes on,” Sam sputters, and Benny can’t help but grin.
“Dean, at least take your--” Sam says, and then his voice gets muffled. Benny can come up with plenty of scenarios for why, and all of them make his dick hard. Maybe this running with the Winchesters thing is going to be a little more difficult than he thought. Harder, at the very least.
He grins again, and finishes the bottle of whiskey.
* * *
Morning light has always bothered Benny. It’s not like he belongs in some Anne Rice book and burns up in the sun, but he prefers the night. Especially after too much drinking the night before.
The first rays of sun wake him, and for a minute he’s disoriented. Instead of his camp, there’s a ceiling overhead, a blanket beneath him, and another half-covering him. His head is even on a pillow. There’s a rustling nearby, and Benny turns his head. Sam and Dean are asleep on the motel’s one bed, a few feet from where Benny must have sacked out on the floor.
He’s not alone.
The knowledge is far too pleasant, and so is the picture that the Winchester brothers make. They’re both facing Benny, Dean on his side and Sam curled behind him, one arm thrown over his brother. Dean’s not a small man, but Sam makes him look like he needs the protection. Benny supposes that now he does, despite his physical strength.
Asleep, Dean looks the same as he did in Purgatory. Then it was Benny protecting him, watching over him when he couldn’t fight the human need for sleep anymore and had to give in. Same freckles scattered over his nose and cheeks; same dark lashes, too thick and pretty for a man so lethal. Same plush pink mouth that Benny misses mouthing at his jaw, sucking his dick.
Dean stirs, and Sam’s arm tightens across his chest. They sigh in unison and sink back into sleep, Dean’s fingers twitching against Sam’s arm. The sheets are only covering them to the waist, and they’re both bare-chested. Sam’s shoulders are rounded with muscle; his skin darker than Dean’s, tawny and smooth. There’s a light dusting of hair on his chest, between his defined pecs. Benny can see what Dean has always found attractive about his brother: the exotic slant to his eyes, the strong cut of his jaw. Now that he’s had a shower, Sam’s long hair shines in the morning sun, wisps of it brushing Dean’s shoulder.
Sam wakes first, and catches Benny staring. He starts, and the movement wakes Dean, who sits up too quickly, almost elbowing Sam in the nose.
“Hey, take it easy,” Sam complains. “You nearly gave me a bloody nose, jerk.”
Benny smiles, holding up his hands to show he’s not dangerous. At the moment.
Dean twists his head back to look at Sam. Slowly--deliberately--he extends a hand and places it on Sam’s chest, over the tattoo that’s still unbroken there. The one they share.
“Sssss,” he hisses, and splays his fingers; rests them there against Sam’s skin.
Sam freezes, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. “Dean?”
Dean swallows audibly, then nods his head slowly, pressing his hand harder to Sam’s chest. He hisses again, drawing out the “s” sound as he stares at his brother.
“I think he’s tryin’ to say he’s sorry,” Benny says, getting up from his bed on the floor and tossing the blankets onto a chair. “Or maybe your name.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, and Benny can hear the crack in his voice. “I think he is.”
Dean nods again and drops his hand.
They pack up and leave that day, wanting more miles between them and the little town that made the “lizard-man” infamous. Sam gives him a list and Benny does the grocery shopping, since they don’t want to take a chance on even the most dive-looking diner.
They start getting motel rooms with two queens, so Benny has the luxury of a bed to himself. He gets some actual sleep, but not as much as Sam seems to think. Sam always waits until he thinks Benny’s out before he lets Dean get anything going. Benny plays him, eyes closed and face peaceful. Benny knows Sam will look over a few times after Dean starts kissing and nipping at his jaw and shoving impatiently at Sam’s boxers. It won’t be until they’re both breathing more heavily, until Benny can smell the musk of their sex thick in the room, that Benny can count on Sam being too distracted to check to be sure Benny’s eyes are closed. Then he can slit them open and hold himself perfectly still while he watches the Winchesters go at each other.
It’s a lot better than the not-so-good-old days of playing peeping Tom with the skimmers. Dean’s more human than monster when Sam’s hands are on him, the expressions crossing his handsome face intimately familiar. When Benny dares to look, Dean is on his belly, one leg drawn up high so Sam can get to his ass and open him up. The first time he watches, the sight is almost too much; Benny's cock twitches so hard it hurts, and it’s all he can do to stay still, his entire body stiff and aching. Sam pauses and stares hard across the three feet between the beds. His fingers are still buried deep inside his brother, and Dean whimpers, pushing back in a wordless demand for more. The sheer erotic punch of that hits Benny hard, and it must hit Sam equally hard, because he bites back a whimper of his own and resumes the slow, steady in and out, the muscles in his arm bunching as he pushes in deep, searching. Benny knows what it does to Dean when you hit that spot, and his breath catches as he waits for Sam to find it, sinking his fangs into his own lip to keep from panting. Dean has his eyes closed, long lashes fanned against his pale cheeks; his hands are fisted in the sheets. Sam picks up the pace, rocking Dean’s body back and forth against the mattress, and Dean draws his leg up even farther in response, inviting. Either the rougher shoves or the change of angle do the trick; Dean’s mouth falls open on a gasp and his body jerks hard as he scrabbles against the sheets, nearly pulling them off the mattress where he’s got fistfuls of the material in his hands. “Ah-ah-ah-ah,” he pants, clearly trying to be quiet even though hitting it like that used to make him howl like a wild thing even when he was entirely human.
Sam leans over him, shushing him with his mouth up against Dean’s ear, and Dean snaps his jaw shut, nearly wheezing through clenched teeth as Sam continues to work him over. Benny can’t see Dean's cock, but he can imagine it: full and swollen, so hard it feels like another weapon in Benny’s hand. Benny’s nostrils flare; he can smell both of them leaking. Dean’s dick drools like crazy; it used to make Benny mad with lust, the scent and taste and the feel of it on his fingers, evidence of what he was doing to the man beneath him.
Dean’s hissing now, that long sibilant sound they’ve decided is his attempt at Sam’s name, and it snaps the last of Sam’s control. He rears up on his knees, giving Benny a fabulous view of Sam naked in the moonlight, all rippling muscles and--fuck--a bigger cock than most men can boast, hard and ready. The idea of Dean’s ass taking that is too much for Benny; he shuts his eyes tight, clinging to the last bit of control to keep from giving himself away.
He can hear the obscene sound of Sam fucking his brother, the slap of skin on skin and Dean’s grunts and growls muffled in the pillow. Sam’s grunting, too, trying to hold it back but rapidly losing it, and Benny chances opening his eyes again as they get close. As Sam starts to come, he pulls Dean backwards; lifts him with both hands around his chest so he’s impaled on Sam’s cock as Sam keeps pumping into him, both of them unwittingly on display for Benny. Dean gives a strangled shout and loses it, too, one hand wrapped around his spurting dick and the other behind him, grabbing at his brother’s neck to hold them together. Benny strokes himself madly and comes hard before the brothers have finished, his body trembling and shaking through an orgasm that feels like an earthquake.
He can hear them kissing afterwards, and Sam padding to the bathroom for a washcloth.
“Dean,” Sam whispers, the sheets rustling as they crawl under. Dean hisses softly in return.
* * *
They keep moving, waiting for the lizard-man stories to die down. Sam and Benny research until mid-afternoon each day; by then Dean is too restless to sit still, and too distracting for them to get any work done. He doesn’t like being confined, and will pace like a panther around the motel room until they finally pack up their duffels and let him out.
The second week, Benny remembers some of the things Sam said he missed, and tells him to go for a run. When he comes back, sweaty and looking happier than he has in months, Benny pats himself on the back. The next day, when Sam puts on his sweats and running shoes, Dean stops him with a hand on Sam’s chest, his eyes hopeful.
“Uh, you wanna run with me?” Sam asks, looking skeptical.
Dean nods eagerly, looking disturbingly like a dog trying to convince his master to go for a walk.
“I don’t think you have any sneakers,” Sam says, but Dean just glares and nods again. “Fine, but if you get blisters, don’t blame me.”
Dean runs in his boots, the way he did in Purgatory, a look of utter bliss on his face. Benny watches from the motel porch as they pace each other, falling into step seemingly effortlessly.
They add a daily run to their routine, and Dean frets a little less.
Halfway through week three, Sam finds them a lead on a witch who might know some variants of the spell they used to get Benny (and some goddamned hitchhiking skimmer) out of Purgatory. They agree that Benny will head north into Canada in the morning in search of her, and Sam is in a better mood than he has been since this nightmare began. They drink beer and stuff themselves on pizza, which seems to make Dean both happy and horny. He responds to Sam’s mood with more affection than he usually displays while Benny’s sitting right there watching. Sam’s apparently feeling too good to push his brother away; lets him crawl right onto Sam’s lap and nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, nipping and worrying at the exposed skin there.
“Dean,” Sam admonishes finally, his big hands on Dean’s narrow hips to try to keep him still. Dean grinds down on his brother instead, brutal and efficient, and Benny can hear Sam’s breath catch. He wonders if he should be the good guy and go take a walk outside. Instead, he sits still and watches, his pants already tented.
“This bothering you?” Sam asks, a little breathless.
This is turning things up a few notches from watching in secret at night, but Benny’s game if Sam is. He leans back in his chair, holding Sam’s gaze. “Hell, no,” he says, and lets the drawl Dean used to like stretch out the vowels while he stretches out his legs. “Y’all go right ahead and do what ya wanna, won’t bother me none.”
“That so?” Sam says, and to Benny’s surprise, he smiles.
Benny nods, letting the heat show in his eyes. He can see Sam’s darken, his hands now gripping Dean’s ass as Dean continues to rock against him shamelessly.
“All right then,” Sam agrees, and pulls Dean up against him, grinding their cocks together. Dean groans loudly and mouths at Sam’s jaw until they’re kissing, hungry for each other, not trying to hide it.
Benny spreads his legs to give his dick some room, more than willing to trade the excitement of watching surreptitiously for the fact that his eyes are wide open and Sam knows it. He doesn’t even want to blink.
Dean’s writhing on Sam’s lap within minutes, and Sam suddenly stands up from the chair, picking Dean up with him and walking them both to the bed, and jesushchrist that’s a turn-on, Sam just hauling Dean up and around like he weighs nothing. Dean’s strong thighs wrap around Sam’s waist instinctively, but he lets go when Sam tosses him onto the bed. He lands on his back and immediately spreads his legs, and if Benny thought he was hard before, it’s nothing compared to what that does to him.
It affects Sam the same way. He strips his shirt off over his head and unbuckles his belt while Dean scrambles to undress himself while keeping his eyes glued to his brother. Sam’s shoes come off, his jeans drop to the floor, and he shoves his underwear down, too, gloriously naked in seconds. Dean’s still struggling with his own jeans, and Sam reaches down and grabs him by both feet and yanks them off, sending them flying across the room. Dean yelps and then growls as Sam crawls into the welcoming vee of Dean’s thighs; wraps his legs around Sam as they start kissing again.
Benny wonders if it would be too much if he unzipped his pants. His cock is straining uncomfortably, trapped and leaking and so fucking deprived.
Sam pauses and turns, and Benny freezes with his hand on his zipper.
For a moment, he’s sure Sam’s going to ask him to leave.
“Toss me that?” Sam asks instead, gesturing to the Vaseline.
Benny does. Sam catches it with one hand and turns back to his brother, and Benny’s hand goes back to his fly.
Sam keeps kissing Dean for a while, playing with Dean’s balls and teasing his stiff prick before pushing Dean’s legs farther apart. Benny barely stifles a groan when Sam’s fingers sink inside. He remembers Dean's tight heat. On the bed Dean moans with pleasure, pushing eagerly against Sam's hand, spreading himself wider and opening up easy. Dean whimpers the same way he used to when Benny nudged him there. His hips hitch with the movement of Sam's fingers.
“Yeah,” Sam growls, and the deep rumble of his voice rushes through Benny like lava, heating him from the inside and making his cock, his balls, his nipples ache with the need to come. “Gonna make you come so hard, make you lose it.”
Benny’s not sure how Dean’s hanging on, because Benny’s sure he’s gonna lose it any second now, his hand working swiftly inside his open pants.
Sam has let go of Dean’s dick, leaving it swollen and twitching against his tensed stomach in a pool of his own dribble. Instead, Sam fondles Dean’s balls, teasing and kneading until Dean’s a shaking mess, riding the knife-edge of pleasure. He starts begging with the only word he knows, hissing his sound for his brother over and over as he thrashes on the bed. It’s only then that Sam decides to let him come. He catches Benny’s eyes, punching in and out with his fingers crooked just right while he finally takes Dean’s cock in hand and squeezes until Dean convulses and shoots everything he has left with some pretty spectacular force, droplets sticking to his chest and chin.
“Oh fuck,” Benny curses, not caring about a single thing except his own overdue and imminent climax. He doesn’t even get his pants down.
“Shit,” Sam groans, staring down at Dean, who’s still panting and covered in his own spunk. Sam’s stripping his own big dick, balancing on his knees as he starts to come too, painting Dean’s stomach and thighs with even more mess.
“Jesus Christ,” Benny swears weakly when Sam collapses to the bed beside Dean. “That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Dean has his eyes closed, but he reaches for Sam with one hand, pulling Sam closer and hissing his name.
“I gotcha,” Sam answers, kissing Dean’s temple. It’s unexpectedly tender.
“I’m gonna find a way to fix this,” Benny whispers in the dark when Sam and Dean have fallen asleep. He remembers that kind of tenderness, though it’s been a long time and he’s come to terms with the fact that he won’t have it again. The Winchesters can, though.
It’s enough.
* * *
(Dean)
Sam. It’s the first thing he thinks when he wakes; that’s not new. What’s new is the way he can smell Sam, a distinctive scent that changes depending on what Sam’s doing, how he’s feeling, whether he’s calm or angry or aroused. Dean shifts under the sheets, and Sam’s arm comes around him tighter. He can feel the soft hairs on Sam’s forearm against his bare chest, raising gooseflesh as they tickle with Sam’s movement. His nipples harden as Sam brushes over them, stirring Dean’s soft cock a little.
The other one--Benny--left the day before, to follow up a lead they found that morning. Dean remembers when Sam hated Benny, wanted to chop off his head instead of shake his hand. He can’t remember why. It’s different now; Sam smelled like sadness when Benny left, and a little like desperation. Dean tried extra hard to make Sam feel good that night, hissing his name when Sam pushed inside and kissing Sam more than he usually does. That always makes Sam smell better, even though his eyes sometimes water.
Dean likes this time of the morning, when it doesn’t make Sam hurt that he can’t talk. Everything is quiet, and Dean is just part of everything.
At first, he’d tried hard to shape his voice into the sounds he knows Sam wants him to make. He knows Sam’s name; wants to say it. There are other things he wishes he could say, too. "Let’s go," and "touch me," and "sorry." Making Sam sad hurts more than anything; that’s not new either. But now Dean can’t seem to find a way to stop doing just that.
Sam stirs behind him; stretches his long lean body out and rolls onto his back. Dean turns to face him, savoring the scent of Sam’s sweat. Sam’s like a furnace, always sweating. It doesn’t keep him from sleeping curled around Dean.
“Morning,” Sam says, and Dean puts his hand over Sam’s heart, hissing softly. It’s the best he can do. Sam smiles, but there’s too much sadness mixed with the affection and Dean feels the familiar ache in his chest that means he’s let Sam down again.
His stomach rumbles while Sam’s in the shower. Benny usually goes out to grab them breakfast in the morning, bringing back the coffee that Dean loves. Sam says that’s something about him that’s still the same. Dean knows he’s not allowed to go outside and look for food, though that’s what his stomach is telling him to do. He shakes his head, impatient with himself, and searches the grocery bags from the day before. There are two donuts left, and Dean pulls them out eagerly. He eats a chocolate frosted one, licking his lips to get every bit of the sweet taste. He puts the other one on the table for Sam. There’s a half-cup of cold coffee left over from the day before; he puts that next to Sam’s donut.
When Sam comes out of the shower and sees them, he gets that twisted look on his face that Dean can’t make sense of, and his scent sharpens so quickly it makes Dean dizzy.
Sam pulls him into a hug, but there’s no smell of arousal coming from him. He tucks Dean’s head against his shoulder and rubs his back, and Dean can feel Sam trembling. He thinks he must have fucked up the donut thing.
“I’m gonna fix this,” Sam mumbles against his neck. “Swear to god, Dean, I’m gonna fix this. I know you’re in there and--god, Dean, I miss you so much.”
Dean reaches around and mimics Sam’s gesture, rubbing his brother’s back as gently as he can, trying to make amends. He wishes once again that he had the word for "sorry."
The afternoon ticks away. Sam types and searches and curses, looking for a way to fix Dean. Dean tries to ignore the impulse crackling through him relentlessly. Go, move, run, get out. Not safe to stay still. He knows Sam doesn’t like it when he paces, but keeping his feet still feels like leaping off a cliff to certain death. The longer he’s held within four walls, the faster his heart pounds; the more his legs twitch with the need to flee or fight.
He tries to concentrate on Sam: the breadth of his shoulders, the narrow waist that Dean likes to wrap his thighs around when they fuck. The way his long hair curls over his collar, refusing to stay neatly tucked behind his ears. He tries to remember things from before, when he and Sam were the same. They were both human and they threw words back and forth at each other, but Dean thinks that even then he couldn’t find the ones that Sam needed to hear. They didn’t touch then; Dean remembers wanting to.
It’s not easy, but Dean manages not to growl to get Sam’s attention and demand their daily run. It’s raining outside, and sometimes Sam doesn’t like them to get wet. Dean loves the rain; it washes away the smell of humans and leaves the scents of earth and plants and clean air. He needs to run, to escape from the swirling mess of confusion that is his mind.
He’s just about to bring Sam his running shoes when he hears it. Running feet, the way Sam sounds when they’re jogging in the rain. Human, wet, in a hurry. The hair on the back of Dean’s neck prickles, his heartbeat picking up as he scents the air and strains to hear. The rain makes it hard to smell them until it’s too late; it’s not until the door is splintering and crashing inwards, hinges torn off, that the scent of rage assaults Dean’s senses. Predators. They’re being hunted.
His instincts tell him to protect his mate. Sam gets halfway to his feet before the hunters are on him, and Dean hurls himself on top, desperate to shield Sam from the weapons they’re wielding. His own howl of fury echoes in the small room, and he can hear Sam yelling his name, and then there’s a searing pain in the back of his neck and his limbs stop working and the floor comes rushing up to meet him. He can smell Sam’s rage and anguish as the world goes black.
When he comes to, at first all he knows is pain. There’s something cutting off the circulation in his hands, and his back feels like he’s been cut in half, agony radiating out from his spine. It’s so intense he can hardly breathe; gasps for air and finds something in the way. There are voices around him. Not Sam. Not Benny either.
“We had to leave Winchester there,” a man is saying, and Dean realizes they’re talking about Sam. “Knocked him out cold but didn’t have time to take him with us when the manager showed up to see what all the noise was about. Pretty sure he’s human, though, even if he's been hanging around with this thing--we saw his eyes, and he didn't fight like he was possessed or anything.”
“Randall ain’t gonna be happy about the loose ends,” another man says.
Dean tries to free himself; Sam’s hurt. He needs to get to Sam.
“He’s comin’ around,” the first man says.
He tries to yell, but there’s a wad of something in his mouth, tied so tightly around the back of his head that it’s pulled the corners of his mouth raw. He coughs, choking on the wet cotton that got sucked down his throat.
“Good. Now we’ll get some answers.”
Dean struggles to open his eyes, but something’s in the way. He’s blindfolded, he realizes dully. And that’s not all. His hands are tied above his head, his arms a strange mix of numb and aching. He tries to kick, but his feet are tied, too, and when he goes to stand, he realizes they’re barely touching the floor. He’s hanging from his wrists.
The sense of helplessness brings a wave of terror, and Dean struggles wildly, his entire body thrashing. It does nothing but triple the agony in his back and his wrists, and the men watching him laugh.
Once he's given up moving, they take off the blindfold.
“Shit,” one of them says, “look at the freaky-ass eyeballs this thing’s got.”
They spin him around and he screams in agony behind the gag, his back burning. “This the thing that killed that family in Akron?” another man asks.
“That's what Randall figures,” the first answers. “Definitely the thing that attacked that guy in the gas mart. Word is that it escaped from Purgatory. We don’t know a lot about what’s down there, so Randall wants us to find out all we can. This one must be some sort of shapeshifter.”
“That would explain why it looks like Dean Winchester. At least on the outside.”
The first man looks Dean up and down, then steps behind him. “We don’t know what else might have escaped from Purgatory with it. There might be more of these things up here. We’ve gotta figure out what the hell this one is. And what can kill it.”
There's pressure on his back, and Dean can feel something wet dripping down from between his shoulders, but the searing pain doesn’t begin for several long seconds.
“Underneath still looks human,” the man behind him says matter-of-factly. “Though maybe if I cut deeper, we’ll see something else.”
The burning hits then, and his brain categorizes “wounded.” It’s blood that he's feeling; his blood.
They wait until he’s stopped struggling to cut him down and take off the gag. At first he’s grateful to be seated in a chair, to be able to breathe more freely. Then the questions start.
“What are you? Did you kill Dean Winchester? How did you get out of Purgatory?”
Dean hisses, thrashing against the leather bands binding him to the chair. The cuts on his back scrape against the wood, and his head spins.
“Where’s the rest of your nest?”
Dean tries to concentrate, but he can’t make sense of their words. Most of his brain is screaming “run run run,” and the rest is throbbing in pain.
“Answer the question! Why did you kill those people? How many others have you killed?”
The man encourages a response with his knife, this time on Dean's chest. Dean howls, the sound so loud the man stumbles backwards, holding his ears.
“Jesus Christ,” he complains, and the others laugh.
One of them throws water on Dean. It sluices down his stomach and soaks his jeans.
“Huh,” they all say, like they were expecting something to happen.
“What kind of monster are you?” the first man asks, and Dean’s head is spinning, the words all running together as they all talk at once, question after question.
There are more knives and something that burns and Dean pukes all over himself, and soaks his jeans through with piss more than once, and then there’s blackness again.
* * *
(Benny)
Benny’s cell rings at 1:42 AM.
“Sam?”
“They took him,” Sam slurs into the phone. He sounds plastered.
“Sam, you been drinkin’? Who took him?”
“No,” Sam says, and groans. “Hit me over the head. Left me tied up--I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”
“Who did?” Benny’s stomach is flipping. This can’t be good. “Where’s Dean? Who took him, the police?”
Sam coughs, sounding like he’s trying to clear his head. “I wish,” he says bitterly. “Hunters. It was hunters.”
“Shit. Fucking news articles.” Figures that hunters would get wind of it sooner or later.
“Benny,” Sam says hoarsely on the other end of the phone, “I’m outside Sioux Falls, Three Rivers Motel. Can you--"
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Benny says, and hangs up.
Sam throws open the door when he gets there, and for a second it seems like Sam is going to sweep him into a hug. He doesn’t, but Benny thinks it was a near thing.
“I never got to the witch,” Benny starts.
“That's okay; I think I’ve got the spell to get the skimmer outta him,” Sam interrupts, and for a second he looks ecstatic before he remembers that Dean isn’t there. “We’ve just gotta find him.”
Benny nods. “We will.”
“There’s more,” Sam says, and it doesn’t look like good news. “There was a family slaughtered two towns over from where Dean got caught on camera. Hard to say what did it; could’ve been a person, or maybe a werewolf or something--but I’m guessing the hunters think that was Dean, too. Benny, if they think he’s a killer they’re not gonna hesitate to kill him if he doesn’t talk. And we both know he can’t.”
His voice breaks on the last word.
“We’ll find him,” Benny says. “I made him a promise.”
Sam wipes a hand across his eyes impatiently. “Me too. We’re wasting time; let’s get moving.”
The hunters were careful, covering their tracks. But they didn’t know Sam wouldn’t be the only one after them. And they sure as hell didn’t expect him to be teamed up with a vampire. It’s slow going, but Benny picks up their trail again and again. He drives the pickup while Sam researches.
“Think I know who they are,” Sam says as the sun’s starting to go down. “They’ve got a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. No mercy, no shades of gray.”
“Yeah, I know the type.” Benny doesn’t say that Sam’s description fits most of the hunters he’s encountered. He drives a little faster.
Even with Benny’s heightened abilities and Sam’s desperation, they lose the trail a little before midnight. The rain has started up again, making it difficult for Benny to catch Dean's scent.
“Look, we should stop for the night, get some rest,” Benny tries. Sam shakes his head. His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot. More than once Benny’s seen Sam bite his lip and press his foot to the floor in a wordless exhortation to go faster. Sam's only eaten because Benny keeps stopping for gas at stations that have convenience stores and going inside while Sam pumps.
“I know ya ain’t hungry, but you need to keep up your strength,” he told Sam when Sam tried to refuse the first protein bar Benny handed him. “You think these hunters’ll be goin’ down without a fight?” After that, Sam didn’t argue.
Sam will eat if he thinks it’s for Dean. It worked the same way in Purgatory when Benny reminded Dean that Sam needed him to get back alive. The Winchesters are pretty easy to understand, and, for two fairly smart men, oblivious when it comes to their need for each other. It makes them easy to manipulate. Benny’s glad he’s the one pulling the strings. When Sam’s laptop battery gives out Sam finally agrees to find a motel; they need to do more research to pick up the trail again.
“Stretch out for a few minutes while I run down some leads,” Benny says casually, plugging in Sam’s laptop and opening it up.
It’s a testament to how exhausted Sam is that he agrees, “Just for a few minutes.” When he wakes four hours later, he’s pissed as hell, but he’s also rested.
“You fucking bastard, why didn’t you wake me up?”
Benny takes the right to the jaw easily, smiling as he licks away the blood on his lip.
“Watch it, Sam, or I’ll get my energy level up by takin’ some of yours.” He lets his fangs show briefly for emphasis.
Sam is admirably unimpressed. “Fuck off,” he says, rubbing his hand. Just like Dean at the beginning, all cocky bravado even though he was the sole human in a land of monsters that all wanted to devour him. Sam and Dean don’t look very much alike, but dig under the surface a little and there are more similarities than you’d expect.
“Fine,” Benny agrees, and spins the laptop around. “I think I might know where they’re takin’ him. If they’re the hunters you think they are, one of ‘em owns a house about a hundred miles from here.”
He’d like to insist that Sam take a goddamned shower, but he knows that’s pushing it. The problem isn’t that Sam smells bad, it’s that Sam smells so much. He smells overwhelmingly human, like Benny’s got an eighty-ounce prime rib cooked nice and bloody-rare riding shotgun with him.
They stop briefly at a blood bank; Sam doesn’t come in and doesn’t ask what happens inside. He takes a turn driving while Benny gulps down two bags of A pos, his second favorite meal. Sam isn’t quite so distracting after that.
(Sam)
A few miles out, they need to stop for gas. Benny pumps while Sam goes inside to take a piss and grab another cup of coffee. He’s standing at the register when he overhears two men talking.
“Randall thinks he might’ve done more killing--might’ve been up here longer than we think. Those hunters outside Ellsburg, a month ago? Ripped limb from limb… no way that was wolves.”
The hair on the back of Sam’s neck is standing up.
“His brother was hiding him all that time? What the fuck, man? Did he really think that monster was his brother? Fuckin’ Winchesters. We gotta find a way to make that thing talk.”
Sam looks up just as the men catch his reflection in the surveillance mirror mounted over the register. He sees the shock of recognition, and his hand is on the gun shoved into the back of his jeans.
“Get down!” he yells to the clerk, and that split second is all it takes to give the hunters an advantage. Bullets fly over Sam’s shoulder and the clerk screams and clutches her arm, stumbling backwards. Another bullet zings by, grazing Sam’s shoulder; the force of it knocks him off balance and he pitches into the counter head-first. Then everything is black.
He comes to with cold water splashing his face and Benny’s hands on him, slapping his cheeks to bring him around.
“C’mon, Sam, I need you with me here.” Benny’s voice, urgent.
Dean. The hunters who have Dean were here.
Sam pushes Benny’s hands off and sits up, way too quickly. His stomach lurches and rolls, and for a second he’s sure he’s going to be sick.
“Easy,” Benny says, that Southern drawl slowing down. “Probably have a wicked concussion.”
“Here’s the bandages for his head,” a woman’s voice says, and Sam startles. Ohgod, the clerk.
She’s pale, but walking and talking. Her arm is wrapped and taped. She hands Benny the bandages.
“Thanks, darlin’,” Benny says, and she smiles tightly at him. Sam forgets sometimes that Benny is charming. The clerk has no idea he’s got fangs behind that grin.
“I’m fine,” Sam protests, but Benny holds him down with a hand on Sam’s chest and bandages the cut on his temple that’s still bleeding.
“Who were those lunatics?” the clerk asks. “What did they want with you?”
“Never saw ’em before in my life,” Benny tells her, helping Sam to his feet. “I sure do appreciate your helping us out. If you don’t mind, could you maybe give us a little while, say half an hour or so, before you call the cops?” he asks. “We just don’t want no trouble.”
“I guess,” the clerk says, only a little hesitant. “But--no offense--don’t come back.”
Benny gives her another of his charming smiles as he hurries Sam out the door.
“How long a head start do they have?” Sam asks when the pickup is back on the road.
Benny presses a little harder on the gas. “Fifteen minutes or so. Maybe longer. Took you a while to come around.”
“Shit. Shit.” That’s plenty of time for them to kill Dean. They’re so close, and he was alive; just a little while ago, he was alive.
“Count your blessings. We’re damn lucky no one else came into the gas mart during that time, or you’d be sharing and caring with the local PD instead of back out here.”
Benny has a point, but Sam doesn’t have to be happy about it. Still, he shuts up and hangs on, and Benny drives like hellhounds are after him.
(Benny)
They find the house at the end of a dirt road mostly hidden by a stand of tall trees. Sam can barely restrain himself from kicking the door in, rage emanating from every pore, muscles tensed and ready for a fight. He’s fucking impressive, Benny thinks--he seems eight feet tall when he’s like this, a hulking warrior ready to take down anyone or anything to get to his brother. Benny would think it was the bonding affecting Sam, too, except he knows damn well that the Winchesters have been like this for a very long time.
“Hang on, Sam,” Benny whispers. “We don’t know what’s goin’ on yet, and we need to be careful. We don’t want ‘em panicking and killin’ him.”
Predictably, that makes Sam force himself still. They circle the house, Benny going right and Sam going left, looking and listening for signs of life inside. When he gets back around to the front, Sam’s already there.
“Okay, I don’t think there’s anyone--"
That’s as far as he gets before Sam is pushing past him and kicking the door down.
There’s no one inside. Sam starts throwing over tables when they get to the basement, where there are ominous-looking shackles and weapons and ropes. Benny can smell blood, little spatters of it on the floor and on the straps attached to the chair in the middle of the room.
“Is it his?”
Fuck. Sam knows Benny will know.
He nods, wishing he didn’t.
“FUCK!” Sam roars, picking up the chair and smashing it to the floor so violently that the wood splinters and breaks into pieces.
Benny doesn’t stop him until he’s stomped it into tinder.
“Sam, c’mon, he’s not here. We gotta go.” Benny puts a hand on Sam’s arm and can feel the muscles trembling.
Sam shakes him off, looking around the room again like he’s sure Dean will be there if he just stares hard enough.
It’s another minute before he lets Benny lead him upstairs and out to the truck. They're back to searching. But the rain has stopped, and Dean is bleeding.
“We’ll find him,” Benny says. “I can follow their trail now.”
Sam shakes his head. “If he’s not already dead.”
“He’s not dead. C’mon, you know how strong and stubborn that boy is.”
Sam fixes Benny with a glare. “I know how strong Dean is. How strong he was. I don’t know now, what this--who he is now. I don’t know.”
“Dean’s still in there, Sam.”
Sam doesn’t answer.
* * *
Part Four
Author name:
runedgirlArtist name:
tdorianPairing: Dean/Sam, with past Dean/Benny, Sam/Amelia
Rating: NC17
(Benny)
The blood at the bottom of the bag is always the best: thick and rich, substantial. It’s a lot like the last bit of blood in a human, when you’ve drained them almost dry and their heart has stopped pumping so it isn’t flooding your mouth anymore. You have to pull it then, force the last of it up through collapsing veins to get those last few drops. It packs a kick; makes his stomach clench hard as he swallows. The same kind of kick he got from a good fuck, when he’d already shot his load but nearly came again when the woman--or man--lost it too. So good it was almost pain.
Benny draws the last few drops through the thin tube of the blood bag, savoring before he tosses the remains in the trash. Thinking about sex and blood together is a mistake; it makes him think of Dean, and how he’ll never feel Dean clench up around him and come ever again. He didn’t expect to miss it so much. All of it.
Three months he’s been topside, and he's no closer to feeling human. His senses set him apart; so does his hunger. He wants to be around people, but he can’t be near them without wanting to feed on them, and he’s never sure which desire will win out. It’s easier to avoid them. He’s surprised how much he misses Dean’s surly conversation, the easy camaraderie that was so hard won.
If he’s honest with himself, Sam’s call for help was a relief. He’s got something to fight for again, and a reason to live, even if it’s not forever. He did this to Dean; he’ll undo it.
When his cell rings, it comes up “Dean,” and for a second, Benny’s throat is tight with hope.
“Benny?”
It’s Sam, of course.
“Yeah, Sam. What’s goin’ on?”
There’s a pause, and Benny’s stomach falls. “Sam?”
“He--Dean sort of--he went nuts on a few guys in a convenience store in Maryland -- outside Pittsville.”
“Define nuts,” Benny says cautiously, remembering what he’s seen skimmers do when they’re hungry.
“He might’ve ripped a guy’s shoulder apart with--with his teeth.” Sam sounds like it’s killing him to say the words, making it far too real and far too true.
“Killed ‘im?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I pulled him off and ran out of there as fast as I could; drove until we were two states away.”
“So he’s--you’re--safe?”
Sam sighs. “For now. I had to cuff him again, though. I don’t know… I’m really not sure I can do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Benny blurts out before he can stop the words. “You have to.”
There’s silence for way too long on the other end.
“Listen, I’ve got some leads.” It’s sort of a lie, but Sam doesn’t have to know that. “How 'bout you tell me where you are, I come on down, and we can put our heads together.”
Sam says yes way too quickly. “I’ve got some leads, too,” he says, most likely the same sort of half-truth.
Benny makes good time, itching to see for himself how bad things are. He stops for gas halfway there, and picks up a few of those Tastykake lemon pies that Dean used to reminisce about so fondly when they were in Purgatory.
“Be careful out there,” the clerk says as she rings up the purchases. “Monsters on the loose. What’s this world coming to?”
For a heart-clenching second, Benny thinks she’s talking about him. Then he looks up. There’s a small television screen above the counter.
“Law enforcement officials don’t know yet what they’re dealing with--they advise residents near Pittsville to stay alert. The suspect is dangerous, probably high on drugs.” The newscaster’s voice is accompanied by a grainy surveillance video. Onscreen, Dean tackles a man to the floor and sinks his teeth into the guy’s shoulder. The man claws frantically at Dean’s back, pushing up his shirts to expose the pattern of scales running down his spine, helpfully circled in red by the reporter. Sam swoops in a few seconds later and pulls Dean off, and as Dean gets to his feet he looks right at the camera, reptilian eyes catching the light.
“You see those eyes?” the clerk asks, and unconsciously puts her hand to her throat. “Some kind of weird contacts, right? And that back tattoo, Jesus! What some people will do to themselves. They’re calling him the lizard-man. There’s an even better picture in the Daily Southwestern.”
“Shit,” Benny says, and adds the paper to his purchases. He floors it the rest of the way.
Sam answers the door when he gets there; Dean’s right behind him, no longer cuffed. He growls warningly over Sam’s shoulder as Sam holds him back with one big hand.
Dean isn’t exactly welcoming, but Sam seems surprisingly happy to see Benny. Benny feels the same; he’s never been good at being on his own, not when he was human and not now.
“Good to see you,” Sam says; even manages a tight smile.
“You might not say that when you see this.” Benny tosses the newspaper onto the table.
“Lizard-man on the loose!” is the headline. There’s a clear photo of Dean below.
Sam groans. “Oh, shit.”
“It was all over the news, too. Surveillance camera. They think he’s some lunatic drug addict. Better that than the truth, I guess.”
Sam rubs at his forehead, looking pained. Dean is at his side instantly, one hand on Sam’s shoulder. His eyes are fixed on Benny, protective. Benny wonders if Sam found a way to put his moral qualms aside and sleep with his brother.
“We’re gonna have to keep moving,” Sam says wearily. “They’re gonna be looking for us.”
“Not like that’s a new thing for y’all.” Benny pulls the bottle of whiskey from the grocery bag and puts it on the table between him and Sam. “We got time to chill a little. C’mon, brotha, you need it.”
Sam looks so grateful it makes Benny’s chest tighten. They pour three glasses because Dean seems to want one, too, and for a while they drink in companionable silence, letting the alcohol blunt the edge of despair.
Dean gulps the whiskey alarmingly fast, then sprawls on the bed with a groan. The one, large bed. So that's one question answered.
Sam is looking at Dean with the same mix of concern and fondness Benny knows is probably on his own face.
“You kinda want to beat him to a pulp and fuck him into next week all at once, right?”
Sam opens his mouth to protest, his cheeks turning red. Then he abruptly huffs a laugh and nods. “Pretty much,” he admits, and takes another swig of whiskey.
They drink while Dean sleeps. Benny watches the tension ease from Sam’s shoulders, the deep lines etched into his forehead smooth.
“I don’t even know if he can understand me,” Sam mumbles out of nowhere. Probably half an hour has gone by in silence, and Benny startles. “Sometimes I think he can,” Sam goes on, “but then sometimes, I try to commune with--communicate with--him, and he just. Man, I don’t know if there’s any Dean left behind those weird eyes.” Sam scrubs his hands through his hair. It’s dirty again, hanging in lank strings across his forehead.
“I dunno for sure,” Benny allows, because Sam would see through a lie, “but I think he probably can. He’s a stubborn bastard at the best o’ times. Maybe he doesn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”
Sam snorts and takes another swig of whiskey. The bottle is more than half gone already. “That does pretty much sum up my brother.” There’s a sad smile on Sam’s face, but only pain in his eyes. Benny is surprised by the empathy that makes his own eyes water.
“Must feel like you’re here by yourself most of the time.”
Sam nods, then covers the emotion evident in his expression with a bitter laugh. “At least if I was alone I could go to the fucking store,” he says, his voice raised a little. “I can’t even go outside by myself! I can’t go for a run, or a drive, or sit on the fucking porch and have a chance to think. Swear to god, I think I’m gonna go crazy if I have to live the rest of my life like this.”
Dean stirs on the bed, like he can sense Sam’s anger even in his sleep.
“I’m serious, man,” Sam says, and Benny believes him. “I wouldn’t leave him. But I… I can’t do this.”
Sam’s not cut out for alone, it's clear. From what Dean told Benny about his brother, all his life, Sam’s had someone. Dean mostly, and the times when Dean was gone, he had a woman. Sam doesn’t know how to do alone. Benny gets it; he doesn't, either.
“Nobody could do this alone,” Benny agrees.
Sam puts his glass down and stares hard at Benny across the table.
“Don’t have much of a choice,” he says, finally.
Benny pours a little more whiskey and swirls it around in the glass, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “Maybe you do.”
Sam frowns and pours more; gulps half of it down in one go. Finally he finishes off the glass and puts it down on the table with a slam.
“I’ma take a shower,” he says, looking at Benny.
Benny nods, belly warm from the whiskey and some actual conversation.
“Yeah, you stink, man,” he says, and Sam huffs a laugh. “I’ll keep an eye on ‘im.”
Dean wakes up while Sam’s in the shower, sniffs the air, and glares at Benny from the bed.
“You don’t remember me, huh?” Benny asks. It still stings more than it should.
Dean growls at him.
“Yeah, I probably deserve that. Fucked up the spell gettin’ out; left you sort of a mess, brotha.”
Dean is quiet, but Benny’s pretty sure he’s listening.
“Ya got Sam real worried. We’re gonna fix it, though, promise.”
Benny pulls the lemon pies out of the bag and unwraps one, holding it out. Dean’s up instantly, grabbing the pie from Benny’s hand and biting it nearly in half. He finishes it in about ten seconds and looks up hopefully.
“I take it ya want another,” Benny drawls, and Dean comes to stand in front of him. It’s the closest they’ve been since they parted ways, and Benny can feel his body react. He can smell Dean, familiar scent of his sweat and his blood and his sex. Dean growls softly, his own sense of smell just as acute as Benny’s. He backs away slightly, ducking his head while holding Benny’s gaze. It’s maddeningly tempting, but Benny forces himself to stay calm and look away. He was right about the bonding; Dean’s not interested anymore. Just as well, since Benny’s sure Sam’s new level of comfort with him would disappear quickly if he gave in to the desire to get his hands on Dean.
“Here,” Benny says, and holds out another pie. Dean grabs it greedily and retreats to the bed.
“You know,” Benny continues conversationally, the water still running in the bathroom. “I know you can understand me. And I know you can understand Sam.”
Dean’s still chewing, but he’s watching Benny intently.
“If you don’t wanna lose your brother, you’d better start letting him know you’re still in there. Don’t care how you do it, but you’d better find a way.”
Dean’s eyes are narrowed, poison green.
“Glare at me all ya want, brotha, but you better do what I say. Before it’s too late.”
That gets Dean’s attention, just as Benny figured it would. He glances at the bathroom door, suddenly fidgety. When Sam doesn’t come out in the next few minutes, Dean opens the door and slinks in after him. Benny can hear Sam’s startled shout, and then the sounds of some kind of scuffle.
“Jesuschrist, Dean, you’ve got your goddamn clothes on,” Sam sputters, and Benny can’t help but grin.
“Dean, at least take your--” Sam says, and then his voice gets muffled. Benny can come up with plenty of scenarios for why, and all of them make his dick hard. Maybe this running with the Winchesters thing is going to be a little more difficult than he thought. Harder, at the very least.
He grins again, and finishes the bottle of whiskey.
* * *
Morning light has always bothered Benny. It’s not like he belongs in some Anne Rice book and burns up in the sun, but he prefers the night. Especially after too much drinking the night before.
The first rays of sun wake him, and for a minute he’s disoriented. Instead of his camp, there’s a ceiling overhead, a blanket beneath him, and another half-covering him. His head is even on a pillow. There’s a rustling nearby, and Benny turns his head. Sam and Dean are asleep on the motel’s one bed, a few feet from where Benny must have sacked out on the floor.
He’s not alone.
The knowledge is far too pleasant, and so is the picture that the Winchester brothers make. They’re both facing Benny, Dean on his side and Sam curled behind him, one arm thrown over his brother. Dean’s not a small man, but Sam makes him look like he needs the protection. Benny supposes that now he does, despite his physical strength.
Asleep, Dean looks the same as he did in Purgatory. Then it was Benny protecting him, watching over him when he couldn’t fight the human need for sleep anymore and had to give in. Same freckles scattered over his nose and cheeks; same dark lashes, too thick and pretty for a man so lethal. Same plush pink mouth that Benny misses mouthing at his jaw, sucking his dick.
Dean stirs, and Sam’s arm tightens across his chest. They sigh in unison and sink back into sleep, Dean’s fingers twitching against Sam’s arm. The sheets are only covering them to the waist, and they’re both bare-chested. Sam’s shoulders are rounded with muscle; his skin darker than Dean’s, tawny and smooth. There’s a light dusting of hair on his chest, between his defined pecs. Benny can see what Dean has always found attractive about his brother: the exotic slant to his eyes, the strong cut of his jaw. Now that he’s had a shower, Sam’s long hair shines in the morning sun, wisps of it brushing Dean’s shoulder.
Sam wakes first, and catches Benny staring. He starts, and the movement wakes Dean, who sits up too quickly, almost elbowing Sam in the nose.
“Hey, take it easy,” Sam complains. “You nearly gave me a bloody nose, jerk.”
Benny smiles, holding up his hands to show he’s not dangerous. At the moment.
Dean twists his head back to look at Sam. Slowly--deliberately--he extends a hand and places it on Sam’s chest, over the tattoo that’s still unbroken there. The one they share.
“Sssss,” he hisses, and splays his fingers; rests them there against Sam’s skin.
Sam freezes, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. “Dean?”
Dean swallows audibly, then nods his head slowly, pressing his hand harder to Sam’s chest. He hisses again, drawing out the “s” sound as he stares at his brother.
“I think he’s tryin’ to say he’s sorry,” Benny says, getting up from his bed on the floor and tossing the blankets onto a chair. “Or maybe your name.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, and Benny can hear the crack in his voice. “I think he is.”
Dean nods again and drops his hand.
They pack up and leave that day, wanting more miles between them and the little town that made the “lizard-man” infamous. Sam gives him a list and Benny does the grocery shopping, since they don’t want to take a chance on even the most dive-looking diner.
They start getting motel rooms with two queens, so Benny has the luxury of a bed to himself. He gets some actual sleep, but not as much as Sam seems to think. Sam always waits until he thinks Benny’s out before he lets Dean get anything going. Benny plays him, eyes closed and face peaceful. Benny knows Sam will look over a few times after Dean starts kissing and nipping at his jaw and shoving impatiently at Sam’s boxers. It won’t be until they’re both breathing more heavily, until Benny can smell the musk of their sex thick in the room, that Benny can count on Sam being too distracted to check to be sure Benny’s eyes are closed. Then he can slit them open and hold himself perfectly still while he watches the Winchesters go at each other.
It’s a lot better than the not-so-good-old days of playing peeping Tom with the skimmers. Dean’s more human than monster when Sam’s hands are on him, the expressions crossing his handsome face intimately familiar. When Benny dares to look, Dean is on his belly, one leg drawn up high so Sam can get to his ass and open him up. The first time he watches, the sight is almost too much; Benny's cock twitches so hard it hurts, and it’s all he can do to stay still, his entire body stiff and aching. Sam pauses and stares hard across the three feet between the beds. His fingers are still buried deep inside his brother, and Dean whimpers, pushing back in a wordless demand for more. The sheer erotic punch of that hits Benny hard, and it must hit Sam equally hard, because he bites back a whimper of his own and resumes the slow, steady in and out, the muscles in his arm bunching as he pushes in deep, searching. Benny knows what it does to Dean when you hit that spot, and his breath catches as he waits for Sam to find it, sinking his fangs into his own lip to keep from panting. Dean has his eyes closed, long lashes fanned against his pale cheeks; his hands are fisted in the sheets. Sam picks up the pace, rocking Dean’s body back and forth against the mattress, and Dean draws his leg up even farther in response, inviting. Either the rougher shoves or the change of angle do the trick; Dean’s mouth falls open on a gasp and his body jerks hard as he scrabbles against the sheets, nearly pulling them off the mattress where he’s got fistfuls of the material in his hands. “Ah-ah-ah-ah,” he pants, clearly trying to be quiet even though hitting it like that used to make him howl like a wild thing even when he was entirely human.
Sam leans over him, shushing him with his mouth up against Dean’s ear, and Dean snaps his jaw shut, nearly wheezing through clenched teeth as Sam continues to work him over. Benny can’t see Dean's cock, but he can imagine it: full and swollen, so hard it feels like another weapon in Benny’s hand. Benny’s nostrils flare; he can smell both of them leaking. Dean’s dick drools like crazy; it used to make Benny mad with lust, the scent and taste and the feel of it on his fingers, evidence of what he was doing to the man beneath him.
Dean’s hissing now, that long sibilant sound they’ve decided is his attempt at Sam’s name, and it snaps the last of Sam’s control. He rears up on his knees, giving Benny a fabulous view of Sam naked in the moonlight, all rippling muscles and--fuck--a bigger cock than most men can boast, hard and ready. The idea of Dean’s ass taking that is too much for Benny; he shuts his eyes tight, clinging to the last bit of control to keep from giving himself away.
He can hear the obscene sound of Sam fucking his brother, the slap of skin on skin and Dean’s grunts and growls muffled in the pillow. Sam’s grunting, too, trying to hold it back but rapidly losing it, and Benny chances opening his eyes again as they get close. As Sam starts to come, he pulls Dean backwards; lifts him with both hands around his chest so he’s impaled on Sam’s cock as Sam keeps pumping into him, both of them unwittingly on display for Benny. Dean gives a strangled shout and loses it, too, one hand wrapped around his spurting dick and the other behind him, grabbing at his brother’s neck to hold them together. Benny strokes himself madly and comes hard before the brothers have finished, his body trembling and shaking through an orgasm that feels like an earthquake.
He can hear them kissing afterwards, and Sam padding to the bathroom for a washcloth.
“Dean,” Sam whispers, the sheets rustling as they crawl under. Dean hisses softly in return.
* * *
They keep moving, waiting for the lizard-man stories to die down. Sam and Benny research until mid-afternoon each day; by then Dean is too restless to sit still, and too distracting for them to get any work done. He doesn’t like being confined, and will pace like a panther around the motel room until they finally pack up their duffels and let him out.
The second week, Benny remembers some of the things Sam said he missed, and tells him to go for a run. When he comes back, sweaty and looking happier than he has in months, Benny pats himself on the back. The next day, when Sam puts on his sweats and running shoes, Dean stops him with a hand on Sam’s chest, his eyes hopeful.
“Uh, you wanna run with me?” Sam asks, looking skeptical.
Dean nods eagerly, looking disturbingly like a dog trying to convince his master to go for a walk.
“I don’t think you have any sneakers,” Sam says, but Dean just glares and nods again. “Fine, but if you get blisters, don’t blame me.”
Dean runs in his boots, the way he did in Purgatory, a look of utter bliss on his face. Benny watches from the motel porch as they pace each other, falling into step seemingly effortlessly.
They add a daily run to their routine, and Dean frets a little less.
Halfway through week three, Sam finds them a lead on a witch who might know some variants of the spell they used to get Benny (and some goddamned hitchhiking skimmer) out of Purgatory. They agree that Benny will head north into Canada in the morning in search of her, and Sam is in a better mood than he has been since this nightmare began. They drink beer and stuff themselves on pizza, which seems to make Dean both happy and horny. He responds to Sam’s mood with more affection than he usually displays while Benny’s sitting right there watching. Sam’s apparently feeling too good to push his brother away; lets him crawl right onto Sam’s lap and nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, nipping and worrying at the exposed skin there.
“Dean,” Sam admonishes finally, his big hands on Dean’s narrow hips to try to keep him still. Dean grinds down on his brother instead, brutal and efficient, and Benny can hear Sam’s breath catch. He wonders if he should be the good guy and go take a walk outside. Instead, he sits still and watches, his pants already tented.
“This bothering you?” Sam asks, a little breathless.
This is turning things up a few notches from watching in secret at night, but Benny’s game if Sam is. He leans back in his chair, holding Sam’s gaze. “Hell, no,” he says, and lets the drawl Dean used to like stretch out the vowels while he stretches out his legs. “Y’all go right ahead and do what ya wanna, won’t bother me none.”
“That so?” Sam says, and to Benny’s surprise, he smiles.
Benny nods, letting the heat show in his eyes. He can see Sam’s darken, his hands now gripping Dean’s ass as Dean continues to rock against him shamelessly.
“All right then,” Sam agrees, and pulls Dean up against him, grinding their cocks together. Dean groans loudly and mouths at Sam’s jaw until they’re kissing, hungry for each other, not trying to hide it.
Benny spreads his legs to give his dick some room, more than willing to trade the excitement of watching surreptitiously for the fact that his eyes are wide open and Sam knows it. He doesn’t even want to blink.
Dean’s writhing on Sam’s lap within minutes, and Sam suddenly stands up from the chair, picking Dean up with him and walking them both to the bed, and jesushchrist that’s a turn-on, Sam just hauling Dean up and around like he weighs nothing. Dean’s strong thighs wrap around Sam’s waist instinctively, but he lets go when Sam tosses him onto the bed. He lands on his back and immediately spreads his legs, and if Benny thought he was hard before, it’s nothing compared to what that does to him.
It affects Sam the same way. He strips his shirt off over his head and unbuckles his belt while Dean scrambles to undress himself while keeping his eyes glued to his brother. Sam’s shoes come off, his jeans drop to the floor, and he shoves his underwear down, too, gloriously naked in seconds. Dean’s still struggling with his own jeans, and Sam reaches down and grabs him by both feet and yanks them off, sending them flying across the room. Dean yelps and then growls as Sam crawls into the welcoming vee of Dean’s thighs; wraps his legs around Sam as they start kissing again.
Benny wonders if it would be too much if he unzipped his pants. His cock is straining uncomfortably, trapped and leaking and so fucking deprived.
Sam pauses and turns, and Benny freezes with his hand on his zipper.
For a moment, he’s sure Sam’s going to ask him to leave.
“Toss me that?” Sam asks instead, gesturing to the Vaseline.
Benny does. Sam catches it with one hand and turns back to his brother, and Benny’s hand goes back to his fly.
Sam keeps kissing Dean for a while, playing with Dean’s balls and teasing his stiff prick before pushing Dean’s legs farther apart. Benny barely stifles a groan when Sam’s fingers sink inside. He remembers Dean's tight heat. On the bed Dean moans with pleasure, pushing eagerly against Sam's hand, spreading himself wider and opening up easy. Dean whimpers the same way he used to when Benny nudged him there. His hips hitch with the movement of Sam's fingers.
“Yeah,” Sam growls, and the deep rumble of his voice rushes through Benny like lava, heating him from the inside and making his cock, his balls, his nipples ache with the need to come. “Gonna make you come so hard, make you lose it.”
Benny’s not sure how Dean’s hanging on, because Benny’s sure he’s gonna lose it any second now, his hand working swiftly inside his open pants.
Sam has let go of Dean’s dick, leaving it swollen and twitching against his tensed stomach in a pool of his own dribble. Instead, Sam fondles Dean’s balls, teasing and kneading until Dean’s a shaking mess, riding the knife-edge of pleasure. He starts begging with the only word he knows, hissing his sound for his brother over and over as he thrashes on the bed. It’s only then that Sam decides to let him come. He catches Benny’s eyes, punching in and out with his fingers crooked just right while he finally takes Dean’s cock in hand and squeezes until Dean convulses and shoots everything he has left with some pretty spectacular force, droplets sticking to his chest and chin.
“Oh fuck,” Benny curses, not caring about a single thing except his own overdue and imminent climax. He doesn’t even get his pants down.
“Shit,” Sam groans, staring down at Dean, who’s still panting and covered in his own spunk. Sam’s stripping his own big dick, balancing on his knees as he starts to come too, painting Dean’s stomach and thighs with even more mess.
“Jesus Christ,” Benny swears weakly when Sam collapses to the bed beside Dean. “That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Dean has his eyes closed, but he reaches for Sam with one hand, pulling Sam closer and hissing his name.
“I gotcha,” Sam answers, kissing Dean’s temple. It’s unexpectedly tender.
“I’m gonna find a way to fix this,” Benny whispers in the dark when Sam and Dean have fallen asleep. He remembers that kind of tenderness, though it’s been a long time and he’s come to terms with the fact that he won’t have it again. The Winchesters can, though.
It’s enough.
* * *
(Dean)
Sam. It’s the first thing he thinks when he wakes; that’s not new. What’s new is the way he can smell Sam, a distinctive scent that changes depending on what Sam’s doing, how he’s feeling, whether he’s calm or angry or aroused. Dean shifts under the sheets, and Sam’s arm comes around him tighter. He can feel the soft hairs on Sam’s forearm against his bare chest, raising gooseflesh as they tickle with Sam’s movement. His nipples harden as Sam brushes over them, stirring Dean’s soft cock a little.
The other one--Benny--left the day before, to follow up a lead they found that morning. Dean remembers when Sam hated Benny, wanted to chop off his head instead of shake his hand. He can’t remember why. It’s different now; Sam smelled like sadness when Benny left, and a little like desperation. Dean tried extra hard to make Sam feel good that night, hissing his name when Sam pushed inside and kissing Sam more than he usually does. That always makes Sam smell better, even though his eyes sometimes water.
Dean likes this time of the morning, when it doesn’t make Sam hurt that he can’t talk. Everything is quiet, and Dean is just part of everything.
At first, he’d tried hard to shape his voice into the sounds he knows Sam wants him to make. He knows Sam’s name; wants to say it. There are other things he wishes he could say, too. "Let’s go," and "touch me," and "sorry." Making Sam sad hurts more than anything; that’s not new either. But now Dean can’t seem to find a way to stop doing just that.
Sam stirs behind him; stretches his long lean body out and rolls onto his back. Dean turns to face him, savoring the scent of Sam’s sweat. Sam’s like a furnace, always sweating. It doesn’t keep him from sleeping curled around Dean.
“Morning,” Sam says, and Dean puts his hand over Sam’s heart, hissing softly. It’s the best he can do. Sam smiles, but there’s too much sadness mixed with the affection and Dean feels the familiar ache in his chest that means he’s let Sam down again.
His stomach rumbles while Sam’s in the shower. Benny usually goes out to grab them breakfast in the morning, bringing back the coffee that Dean loves. Sam says that’s something about him that’s still the same. Dean knows he’s not allowed to go outside and look for food, though that’s what his stomach is telling him to do. He shakes his head, impatient with himself, and searches the grocery bags from the day before. There are two donuts left, and Dean pulls them out eagerly. He eats a chocolate frosted one, licking his lips to get every bit of the sweet taste. He puts the other one on the table for Sam. There’s a half-cup of cold coffee left over from the day before; he puts that next to Sam’s donut.
When Sam comes out of the shower and sees them, he gets that twisted look on his face that Dean can’t make sense of, and his scent sharpens so quickly it makes Dean dizzy.
Sam pulls him into a hug, but there’s no smell of arousal coming from him. He tucks Dean’s head against his shoulder and rubs his back, and Dean can feel Sam trembling. He thinks he must have fucked up the donut thing.
“I’m gonna fix this,” Sam mumbles against his neck. “Swear to god, Dean, I’m gonna fix this. I know you’re in there and--god, Dean, I miss you so much.”
Dean reaches around and mimics Sam’s gesture, rubbing his brother’s back as gently as he can, trying to make amends. He wishes once again that he had the word for "sorry."
The afternoon ticks away. Sam types and searches and curses, looking for a way to fix Dean. Dean tries to ignore the impulse crackling through him relentlessly. Go, move, run, get out. Not safe to stay still. He knows Sam doesn’t like it when he paces, but keeping his feet still feels like leaping off a cliff to certain death. The longer he’s held within four walls, the faster his heart pounds; the more his legs twitch with the need to flee or fight.
He tries to concentrate on Sam: the breadth of his shoulders, the narrow waist that Dean likes to wrap his thighs around when they fuck. The way his long hair curls over his collar, refusing to stay neatly tucked behind his ears. He tries to remember things from before, when he and Sam were the same. They were both human and they threw words back and forth at each other, but Dean thinks that even then he couldn’t find the ones that Sam needed to hear. They didn’t touch then; Dean remembers wanting to.
It’s not easy, but Dean manages not to growl to get Sam’s attention and demand their daily run. It’s raining outside, and sometimes Sam doesn’t like them to get wet. Dean loves the rain; it washes away the smell of humans and leaves the scents of earth and plants and clean air. He needs to run, to escape from the swirling mess of confusion that is his mind.
He’s just about to bring Sam his running shoes when he hears it. Running feet, the way Sam sounds when they’re jogging in the rain. Human, wet, in a hurry. The hair on the back of Dean’s neck prickles, his heartbeat picking up as he scents the air and strains to hear. The rain makes it hard to smell them until it’s too late; it’s not until the door is splintering and crashing inwards, hinges torn off, that the scent of rage assaults Dean’s senses. Predators. They’re being hunted.
His instincts tell him to protect his mate. Sam gets halfway to his feet before the hunters are on him, and Dean hurls himself on top, desperate to shield Sam from the weapons they’re wielding. His own howl of fury echoes in the small room, and he can hear Sam yelling his name, and then there’s a searing pain in the back of his neck and his limbs stop working and the floor comes rushing up to meet him. He can smell Sam’s rage and anguish as the world goes black.
When he comes to, at first all he knows is pain. There’s something cutting off the circulation in his hands, and his back feels like he’s been cut in half, agony radiating out from his spine. It’s so intense he can hardly breathe; gasps for air and finds something in the way. There are voices around him. Not Sam. Not Benny either.
“We had to leave Winchester there,” a man is saying, and Dean realizes they’re talking about Sam. “Knocked him out cold but didn’t have time to take him with us when the manager showed up to see what all the noise was about. Pretty sure he’s human, though, even if he's been hanging around with this thing--we saw his eyes, and he didn't fight like he was possessed or anything.”
“Randall ain’t gonna be happy about the loose ends,” another man says.
Dean tries to free himself; Sam’s hurt. He needs to get to Sam.
“He’s comin’ around,” the first man says.
He tries to yell, but there’s a wad of something in his mouth, tied so tightly around the back of his head that it’s pulled the corners of his mouth raw. He coughs, choking on the wet cotton that got sucked down his throat.
“Good. Now we’ll get some answers.”
Dean struggles to open his eyes, but something’s in the way. He’s blindfolded, he realizes dully. And that’s not all. His hands are tied above his head, his arms a strange mix of numb and aching. He tries to kick, but his feet are tied, too, and when he goes to stand, he realizes they’re barely touching the floor. He’s hanging from his wrists.
The sense of helplessness brings a wave of terror, and Dean struggles wildly, his entire body thrashing. It does nothing but triple the agony in his back and his wrists, and the men watching him laugh.
Once he's given up moving, they take off the blindfold.
“Shit,” one of them says, “look at the freaky-ass eyeballs this thing’s got.”
They spin him around and he screams in agony behind the gag, his back burning. “This the thing that killed that family in Akron?” another man asks.
“That's what Randall figures,” the first answers. “Definitely the thing that attacked that guy in the gas mart. Word is that it escaped from Purgatory. We don’t know a lot about what’s down there, so Randall wants us to find out all we can. This one must be some sort of shapeshifter.”
“That would explain why it looks like Dean Winchester. At least on the outside.”
The first man looks Dean up and down, then steps behind him. “We don’t know what else might have escaped from Purgatory with it. There might be more of these things up here. We’ve gotta figure out what the hell this one is. And what can kill it.”
There's pressure on his back, and Dean can feel something wet dripping down from between his shoulders, but the searing pain doesn’t begin for several long seconds.
“Underneath still looks human,” the man behind him says matter-of-factly. “Though maybe if I cut deeper, we’ll see something else.”
The burning hits then, and his brain categorizes “wounded.” It’s blood that he's feeling; his blood.
They wait until he’s stopped struggling to cut him down and take off the gag. At first he’s grateful to be seated in a chair, to be able to breathe more freely. Then the questions start.
“What are you? Did you kill Dean Winchester? How did you get out of Purgatory?”
Dean hisses, thrashing against the leather bands binding him to the chair. The cuts on his back scrape against the wood, and his head spins.
“Where’s the rest of your nest?”
Dean tries to concentrate, but he can’t make sense of their words. Most of his brain is screaming “run run run,” and the rest is throbbing in pain.
“Answer the question! Why did you kill those people? How many others have you killed?”
The man encourages a response with his knife, this time on Dean's chest. Dean howls, the sound so loud the man stumbles backwards, holding his ears.
“Jesus Christ,” he complains, and the others laugh.
One of them throws water on Dean. It sluices down his stomach and soaks his jeans.
“Huh,” they all say, like they were expecting something to happen.
“What kind of monster are you?” the first man asks, and Dean’s head is spinning, the words all running together as they all talk at once, question after question.
There are more knives and something that burns and Dean pukes all over himself, and soaks his jeans through with piss more than once, and then there’s blackness again.
* * *
(Benny)
Benny’s cell rings at 1:42 AM.
“Sam?”
“They took him,” Sam slurs into the phone. He sounds plastered.
“Sam, you been drinkin’? Who took him?”
“No,” Sam says, and groans. “Hit me over the head. Left me tied up--I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”
“Who did?” Benny’s stomach is flipping. This can’t be good. “Where’s Dean? Who took him, the police?”
Sam coughs, sounding like he’s trying to clear his head. “I wish,” he says bitterly. “Hunters. It was hunters.”
“Shit. Fucking news articles.” Figures that hunters would get wind of it sooner or later.
“Benny,” Sam says hoarsely on the other end of the phone, “I’m outside Sioux Falls, Three Rivers Motel. Can you--"
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Benny says, and hangs up.
Sam throws open the door when he gets there, and for a second it seems like Sam is going to sweep him into a hug. He doesn’t, but Benny thinks it was a near thing.
“I never got to the witch,” Benny starts.
“That's okay; I think I’ve got the spell to get the skimmer outta him,” Sam interrupts, and for a second he looks ecstatic before he remembers that Dean isn’t there. “We’ve just gotta find him.”
Benny nods. “We will.”
“There’s more,” Sam says, and it doesn’t look like good news. “There was a family slaughtered two towns over from where Dean got caught on camera. Hard to say what did it; could’ve been a person, or maybe a werewolf or something--but I’m guessing the hunters think that was Dean, too. Benny, if they think he’s a killer they’re not gonna hesitate to kill him if he doesn’t talk. And we both know he can’t.”
His voice breaks on the last word.
“We’ll find him,” Benny says. “I made him a promise.”
Sam wipes a hand across his eyes impatiently. “Me too. We’re wasting time; let’s get moving.”
The hunters were careful, covering their tracks. But they didn’t know Sam wouldn’t be the only one after them. And they sure as hell didn’t expect him to be teamed up with a vampire. It’s slow going, but Benny picks up their trail again and again. He drives the pickup while Sam researches.
“Think I know who they are,” Sam says as the sun’s starting to go down. “They’ve got a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. No mercy, no shades of gray.”
“Yeah, I know the type.” Benny doesn’t say that Sam’s description fits most of the hunters he’s encountered. He drives a little faster.
Even with Benny’s heightened abilities and Sam’s desperation, they lose the trail a little before midnight. The rain has started up again, making it difficult for Benny to catch Dean's scent.
“Look, we should stop for the night, get some rest,” Benny tries. Sam shakes his head. His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot. More than once Benny’s seen Sam bite his lip and press his foot to the floor in a wordless exhortation to go faster. Sam's only eaten because Benny keeps stopping for gas at stations that have convenience stores and going inside while Sam pumps.
“I know ya ain’t hungry, but you need to keep up your strength,” he told Sam when Sam tried to refuse the first protein bar Benny handed him. “You think these hunters’ll be goin’ down without a fight?” After that, Sam didn’t argue.
Sam will eat if he thinks it’s for Dean. It worked the same way in Purgatory when Benny reminded Dean that Sam needed him to get back alive. The Winchesters are pretty easy to understand, and, for two fairly smart men, oblivious when it comes to their need for each other. It makes them easy to manipulate. Benny’s glad he’s the one pulling the strings. When Sam’s laptop battery gives out Sam finally agrees to find a motel; they need to do more research to pick up the trail again.
“Stretch out for a few minutes while I run down some leads,” Benny says casually, plugging in Sam’s laptop and opening it up.
It’s a testament to how exhausted Sam is that he agrees, “Just for a few minutes.” When he wakes four hours later, he’s pissed as hell, but he’s also rested.
“You fucking bastard, why didn’t you wake me up?”
Benny takes the right to the jaw easily, smiling as he licks away the blood on his lip.
“Watch it, Sam, or I’ll get my energy level up by takin’ some of yours.” He lets his fangs show briefly for emphasis.
Sam is admirably unimpressed. “Fuck off,” he says, rubbing his hand. Just like Dean at the beginning, all cocky bravado even though he was the sole human in a land of monsters that all wanted to devour him. Sam and Dean don’t look very much alike, but dig under the surface a little and there are more similarities than you’d expect.
“Fine,” Benny agrees, and spins the laptop around. “I think I might know where they’re takin’ him. If they’re the hunters you think they are, one of ‘em owns a house about a hundred miles from here.”
He’d like to insist that Sam take a goddamned shower, but he knows that’s pushing it. The problem isn’t that Sam smells bad, it’s that Sam smells so much. He smells overwhelmingly human, like Benny’s got an eighty-ounce prime rib cooked nice and bloody-rare riding shotgun with him.
They stop briefly at a blood bank; Sam doesn’t come in and doesn’t ask what happens inside. He takes a turn driving while Benny gulps down two bags of A pos, his second favorite meal. Sam isn’t quite so distracting after that.
(Sam)
A few miles out, they need to stop for gas. Benny pumps while Sam goes inside to take a piss and grab another cup of coffee. He’s standing at the register when he overhears two men talking.
“Randall thinks he might’ve done more killing--might’ve been up here longer than we think. Those hunters outside Ellsburg, a month ago? Ripped limb from limb… no way that was wolves.”
The hair on the back of Sam’s neck is standing up.
“His brother was hiding him all that time? What the fuck, man? Did he really think that monster was his brother? Fuckin’ Winchesters. We gotta find a way to make that thing talk.”
Sam looks up just as the men catch his reflection in the surveillance mirror mounted over the register. He sees the shock of recognition, and his hand is on the gun shoved into the back of his jeans.
“Get down!” he yells to the clerk, and that split second is all it takes to give the hunters an advantage. Bullets fly over Sam’s shoulder and the clerk screams and clutches her arm, stumbling backwards. Another bullet zings by, grazing Sam’s shoulder; the force of it knocks him off balance and he pitches into the counter head-first. Then everything is black.
He comes to with cold water splashing his face and Benny’s hands on him, slapping his cheeks to bring him around.
“C’mon, Sam, I need you with me here.” Benny’s voice, urgent.
Dean. The hunters who have Dean were here.
Sam pushes Benny’s hands off and sits up, way too quickly. His stomach lurches and rolls, and for a second he’s sure he’s going to be sick.
“Easy,” Benny says, that Southern drawl slowing down. “Probably have a wicked concussion.”
“Here’s the bandages for his head,” a woman’s voice says, and Sam startles. Ohgod, the clerk.
She’s pale, but walking and talking. Her arm is wrapped and taped. She hands Benny the bandages.
“Thanks, darlin’,” Benny says, and she smiles tightly at him. Sam forgets sometimes that Benny is charming. The clerk has no idea he’s got fangs behind that grin.
“I’m fine,” Sam protests, but Benny holds him down with a hand on Sam’s chest and bandages the cut on his temple that’s still bleeding.
“Who were those lunatics?” the clerk asks. “What did they want with you?”
“Never saw ’em before in my life,” Benny tells her, helping Sam to his feet. “I sure do appreciate your helping us out. If you don’t mind, could you maybe give us a little while, say half an hour or so, before you call the cops?” he asks. “We just don’t want no trouble.”
“I guess,” the clerk says, only a little hesitant. “But--no offense--don’t come back.”
Benny gives her another of his charming smiles as he hurries Sam out the door.
“How long a head start do they have?” Sam asks when the pickup is back on the road.
Benny presses a little harder on the gas. “Fifteen minutes or so. Maybe longer. Took you a while to come around.”
“Shit. Shit.” That’s plenty of time for them to kill Dean. They’re so close, and he was alive; just a little while ago, he was alive.
“Count your blessings. We’re damn lucky no one else came into the gas mart during that time, or you’d be sharing and caring with the local PD instead of back out here.”
Benny has a point, but Sam doesn’t have to be happy about it. Still, he shuts up and hangs on, and Benny drives like hellhounds are after him.
(Benny)
They find the house at the end of a dirt road mostly hidden by a stand of tall trees. Sam can barely restrain himself from kicking the door in, rage emanating from every pore, muscles tensed and ready for a fight. He’s fucking impressive, Benny thinks--he seems eight feet tall when he’s like this, a hulking warrior ready to take down anyone or anything to get to his brother. Benny would think it was the bonding affecting Sam, too, except he knows damn well that the Winchesters have been like this for a very long time.
“Hang on, Sam,” Benny whispers. “We don’t know what’s goin’ on yet, and we need to be careful. We don’t want ‘em panicking and killin’ him.”
Predictably, that makes Sam force himself still. They circle the house, Benny going right and Sam going left, looking and listening for signs of life inside. When he gets back around to the front, Sam’s already there.
“Okay, I don’t think there’s anyone--"
That’s as far as he gets before Sam is pushing past him and kicking the door down.
There’s no one inside. Sam starts throwing over tables when they get to the basement, where there are ominous-looking shackles and weapons and ropes. Benny can smell blood, little spatters of it on the floor and on the straps attached to the chair in the middle of the room.
“Is it his?”
Fuck. Sam knows Benny will know.
He nods, wishing he didn’t.
“FUCK!” Sam roars, picking up the chair and smashing it to the floor so violently that the wood splinters and breaks into pieces.
Benny doesn’t stop him until he’s stomped it into tinder.
“Sam, c’mon, he’s not here. We gotta go.” Benny puts a hand on Sam’s arm and can feel the muscles trembling.
Sam shakes him off, looking around the room again like he’s sure Dean will be there if he just stares hard enough.
It’s another minute before he lets Benny lead him upstairs and out to the truck. They're back to searching. But the rain has stopped, and Dean is bleeding.
“We’ll find him,” Benny says. “I can follow their trail now.”
Sam shakes his head. “If he’s not already dead.”
“He’s not dead. C’mon, you know how strong and stubborn that boy is.”
Sam fixes Benny with a glare. “I know how strong Dean is. How strong he was. I don’t know now, what this--who he is now. I don’t know.”
“Dean’s still in there, Sam.”
Sam doesn’t answer.
* * *
Part Four
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-06-24 05:39 pm (UTC)I'm loving Benny here and his relationship with Sam. The scene where he gets off watching them fuck and Sam knows it? Hot like burning.
Benny, keep Sam's faith up! Dean is still there.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-30 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-09 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-09 08:36 pm (UTC)i'm rushing through just to see what happens next! I'm so jealous of people who can write plotty fic. So good!
no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 01:05 am (UTC)becomes a monster 3
Date: 2013-09-14 08:28 pm (UTC)I love each chapter even more than the previous. Loved the hot, hot sex, loved Sam's growing relationship with Benny, oh and love it when Benny thinks about how hot and impressive the Winchesters are. Also, hunters! Awesome.
Re: becomes a monster 3
Date: 2013-09-14 10:51 pm (UTC)I'm thrilled you're still liking this (and that you're finding it hot :) I have a real soft spot for Benny, don't I? :)
no subject
Date: 2022-02-22 10:55 pm (UTC)Also I love Benny working with Sam. I have a huge soft spot for Benny and I was always sure Sam would have liked him if given the chance. And here Sam was forced into it but Benny is definitely growing on him! 😄 I still feel a little sad for Benny, always on the outside looking in but he always does the best he can. 🤗
Loved that we also got some Dean pov in this chapter. It was so interesting to see what was going on in his head. I really liked that. It still felt like him but his pov was a lot more simplistic then it would have been before. That worked really well.
Oh and the hunters!! That was not what the boys needed and now Dean is being tortured and Sam and Benny are in pursuit and things are all tense again! I’m gonna have to read on to find out how they get out of this one! 🙌🏼😄 am really enjoying this!