"It's like the world's just gotten lazier since I was around. Now you're getting all these ready-made things in cans and tubes and little plastic containers. Wouldn't surprise me if you get someone to open them for you too. I never thought making a lather's that much of an effort."
Benny is swirling up soap with a shaving brush, waiting for his hand to remember the familiarity of it. Saying he last used this a lifetime ago is an understatement. He hasn't flicked a straight razor open since he before he got turned.
More like two lifetimes then.
"Saw the other day, they're even making burgers these days like we used to make Fords. And then they're sitting there in the isles wrapped in all that fancy plastic for a couple of days, and you wanna tell me that's still got any flavor to it? Not that I'd be eating it either way. D'you eat that stuff?"
Dean's getting fidgety. "I'll eat anything," he says, lips curling up on one side in that way he has, spelling bring it, but his hand's never letting go of its grip on the bed post. The smell of beer's a little too thick for Benny's liking.
"Yeah, I noticed that. Was all on me to protect your hide for three days because you had to go and just eat anything. Told you those were no blueberries."
"You did."
Benny beats a little more water into the lather until he's satisfied with its consistency, then puts bowl and brush aside for a moment. "Alright now, let's do this."
Kneeling in front of the bed, he picks up Dean's bare foot and places it on his thigh. Dean's kept on his layers, only shed jeans and socks. Even though the room feels warm to Benny, Dean's skin is chilled. Rubbing it with his own undead hands won't do much good. That's the one thing the banked blood lacks: a good hot meal it's not.
One hand against Dean's calf, Benny holds him steady, and starts spreading the lather up and down the shin, makes sure to reach all the hard-to-get parts, from the hollow of the knee to the curve of the Achilles' heel.
Dean's fingers are grabbing at the bedsheets right in his eyeline.
Sometimes, when Dean asked his questions with knife and chain, he didn't sleep much after. He wanted to run all night, like if he'd only catch one more monster, it would know more than the rugaru or the shifter or the vampire he just cut apart. But Benny could only stomach so many vivisections in one go. Soon he figured out that Dean was oddly easy to persuade then. He'd sit where Benny told him to, drank water and cleaned his knife while Benny made fire. Later he'd toss and turn on the hard ground without finding sleep, and Benny figured talking would help. So he talked all night about nothing in particular until Dean calmed down.
"The clerk wanted to sell me one of these disposable razors that you got now. Took me a minute to even figure out what it was under all the packaging. Then I gave it right back. You shave once, twice, and then you got a dull blade and get to buy a new one. Only person happy with that is the clerk and I'm sitting here with my pockets inside out."
Dean sits still and listens. All the butchering and killing he's capable of, and now one soft brush to his leg renders him quiet and placable. Though he's not objecting, Benny's well aware of the close eye he's keeping.
"The good things," Benny continues, "if you hone them right, they're going to last. The real bad ones too, I guess, though those will stick around no matter what you do." He laughs. "Prime example sitting right here."
That finally gets a reaction out of Dean. It's not a laugh, too bitter for that, but still drains some of the tension. His fingers open and scramble for a different grip.
Benny lets his fingers trace the fan of bones in Dean's foot. He wants to kiss the inside of his knee, the soft skin of his thigh, wants to kiss his mouth with an intake of breath. He wants to kiss each knuckle until those fingers curl more loosely in his lap.
"Not getting any younger," Dean mumbles.
The steel is new and as sharp as it'll get. Once Benny sets it against skin, he knows to shut up; that's a lesson he learned on his own face, the scar still there under the scruff he grows these days. While the cut was negligible, what blood does to him these days is not. He's sated right now, sure, and the trust Dean puts in him is enough to strengthen his resolve, but just the smell of it, of nothing more than a drop, has been hitting him like a freight train ever since he came back. Every day he waits for it to get easier, for his senses to dull again, but it hasn't happened yet.
So he takes a breath to steady his hand and puts a hand to Dean's knee to keep him still, and then it's only the scrape of the razor, loud in the silence of the room. He can hear Dean's heartbeat picking up speed. Outside, cars are buzzing like flies. If the world's lazier, it's also faster, but he's here, and he's working slow and deliberate.
"There you go." The blade's left one clean line of naked skin.
But when he lifts it away, Dean crumbles like the air's been punched out of him.
"Ah, Benny," he says, voice thinner and small. "That's not- That's not so good."
Benny flicks the razor closed. He puts it down, then shifts back, gives Dean some room. Still he makes sure to keep his hand around Dean's heel, wants to say Don't run just yet.
"Are you having second thoughts about my shaving skills? Or d'you rather I picked that dull blade of yours? Did you keep that one?"
Dean nods. His gaze flickers around the room until it finds the empty beer cans on the dresser. "I don't know why, uh. It's nothing, really." He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.
In Purgatory, he'd flinch awake from a nightmare and then shrug it off as the same kind of nothing. He knew how to dodge any question Benny ever asked. How d'you learn to cut open a chest like that? Do hunters get a crash course in surgery nowadays? That Alastair, is he a buddy of yours?
"Somebody else done the shaving before, maybe?"
Dean's heart is beating like a jackhammer, its drumming louder than the traffic outside. That's all the answer Benny needs.
"Alright. I'll just clean you up, huh? Be done in a minute."
He lets his fingers gently trace all that smooth skin before he places Dean's foot back down on the floor. When he gets up, he takes a moment to cup Dean's cheek in his palm, put a kiss to his temple.
"I'm sorry," Dean mumbles. "I'm sorry."
"That's alright, brother. Don't you worry none."
He should get the towels from the bathroom to wipe away the lather. It can wait a minute. He lets Dean grab his shirt and hide his face, and he pretends he can't hear the swallowed sobs.
"It's alright," he says again. "We'll just go for the cheap razor next time, huh?"
He holds Dean close and kisses his hair.
The best things are made to last, and proof of it is sitting right here.