WARNING: General season 8 spoilers, as well as spoilers for season 4's finale.
Author's Note: This is a little story about a time when Dean and Sam's conflicting opinions of Benny dredged up some darker memories for Sam.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
They were having yet another heated discussion about the vampire who had helped Dean escape from Purgatory. Sam was boiling with rage as he watched the indistinguishable nighttime shapes fly by the passenger window, and Dean was fuming in the driver's seat doing his best to focus on the road and not his jumbo-sized angry brother riding shotgun.
"I don't get it Sam. I really don't. I mean it's not like we've never met a nice monster before! It's rare, I'll give you that. But it's happened. Madison, Lenore… Hell, even Cas goes on that list! So when not Benny, huh?" Dean spat, glancing at his younger sibling.
Sam looked like he wanted to hit something. Preferably Dean.
"Because he's a vampire Dean!" Sam shouted returning Dean's glance with a glare of his own. However, Dean noticed something else lurking beneath the younger man's hate-filled stare. Something almost vulnerable.
All at once Dean realized there was more to this than some prejudice against monsters.
"So you keep saying." He replied, this time more calmly, almost gentle. "But what do you mean? There's something else…Isn't there Sam?" Dean watched as a flicker of some unknown emotion danced across Sam's face before he turned away to face the side window once more.
"No… I just… No." Sam repsponded, but Dean noticed that most of the rage from moments before was now gone from Sam's tone. He sounded softer now. Wounded.
"Sam. I want to understand. Honestly, I do. What is this really about?" Dean ventured.
He found it ironic that Sam was always on him about sharing and caring, and yet when the time came he had to practically pull teeth to get his little brother to open up.
After a moment of further silence, Sam finally caved, saying, "It's because he's a vampire. Of all things, Dean, you picked a vampire."
Dean was officially confused. He racked his brains for everything he could remember regarding their encounters with vampires. Anything that might have emotionally impacted Sam.
He considered the way things had gone down the first time they had met Gordon Walker. Gordon was hunting a nest of vampires, and Sam was convinced the nest was innocent. Dean had chosen to listen to the unstable hunter as opposed to his brother, and things had almost ended very badly.
"Is this about the time I trusted Gordon over you? I wouldn't believe you when you said Lenore and her nest weren't killing humans? Because I'd understand that, I would. But if you remember correctly, you'd been right. Those vamps were innocent. So why wouldn't Benny be now?" Dean asked.
Sam looked up quickly as though Dean had caught him off guard. "What? No. That's not it at all…" the younger man said, his expression proving he was being sincere.
So Dean moved onto possible emotionally damaging Vampire-related event number two: The time Sam had let Dean get turned into a fang when Sam was still lacking his soul.
"Is this about when soulless-you let me get vampified? I mean, I get why you would want to protect me from vampires after that. If you're trying to prove that you wouldn't let that happen again or something…It's ok dude. I know you wouldn't. I trust you." Dean said, but when he looked at Sam, it was obvious he had missed the mark again.
Sam looked even more taken aback than he had when Dean brought up the Lenore incident.
Dean pulled the car over to the side of the rode and put her in park, turning to his brother to say, "Ok I'm done playing twenty questions. Sammy, just tell me what the hell is bothering you. I'll listen, I promise."
The road was quiet and the night was still. Silence enveloped the vehicle. After several long minutes of nothing but the wind, Sam cleared his throat.
He started picking at the hem of his shirt while keeping his eyes glued to his lap. "It's because of the voicemail." he said at long last.
Now it was Dean's turn to be confused. "Voicemail?" he echoed. "What voicemail?"
Sam continued to fiddle with his apparel. "The one from before I killed Lilith. The one from right after I…After I left you on the floor of that honeymoon suit." Sam had stopped tugging at his shirt, but his shame-filled gaze remained directed downwards.
If Dean was confused before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. "The one I left you when I was stuck in Heaven's green room?" he questioned, sounding uncertain.
"I guess so, yeah." Sam said, finally lifting his eyes to meet Dean's inquisitive stare. "You told me in it that you thought I was a monster and you were done trying to save me. You said…You said I was a vampire."
Dean felt like the rug had been yanked out from under him. "What?" he asked, utterly lost.
Sam reluctantly continued to explain. "It was right after you said dad had told you to either save me or kill me, and you had said you were done trying to save me…"
And Dean had to stop him there, because none of what Sam was saying was making any sense…
"No." Dean blurted out. "Sam, I never said any of that stuff. I left you a message alright, but that isn't what was in it."
Sam looked up at his brother, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. But typical of Sam, he extinguished it quickly by putting himself down again. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better Dean. I deserved it at the time. After what I did...After I beat the crap out of you and ran off with Ruby. Not to mention I was drinking blood. It made sense and I couldn't blame you…" His eyes were once more filled with shame.
"No." Dean repeated. "I'm not lying. I left you a message, but in it I told you we were family. I said that no matter how bad things got, nothing was going to change the fact that we're brothers. Sammy, I told you I was sorry." Dean realized his own tone had taken on a sort of pleading sound, but he didn't care.
His little brother had spent years believing that he had at one point threatened to hunt him down and kill him like a vampire. He needed Sam to know that wasn't true.
"I don't know why you never got my message. I'm going to blame the angels because they were trying to keep me from getting to you at the time…But it doesn't matter. What matters, Sam, is that I need you to know I never said those things you heard. I would never, ever, hunt you. You're not a vampire to me Sammy. You never were. You were just my confused little brother. Still are, apparently." Dean ended his speech with a slight smile, hoping to make Sam see he was being sincere.
Suddenly it all made sense to Dean. Well, not the magically altered voicemail…But now Dean knew why Sam was so pissed that he had chosen to trust and defend a vampire 'of all things'.
It was because Sam felt betrayed. Hurt, even. Sam felt like it was unfair of Dean to trust something he had once used as a threat and insult against him. Because if Dean was able to trust a vampire now- if even a vampire was no longer the worst thing Dean could imagine- then where the hell did that leave Sam on the totem pole of things Dean couldn't stand?
Sam looked up at Dean, his eyes full of years of repressed grief, but hope was resurfacing as well.
"You mean it? You never said any of that?" he asked.
Dean looked his little brother right in the eyes and nodded. "Damn right I mean it." He said with a smile, and then he watched as all that grief dissipated. Sam's shoulders relaxed and he took a deep breath, as though letting go of something that had been weighing him down for a lifetime.
Nothing more was said about the matter that night. Dean didn't press Sam further about Benny, and Sam didn't further question Dean's loyalties.
Instead, Sam turned on the tunes as Dean turned Baby's key and her engine sprang to life, filling the air with the sound of a powerful motor and Metallica. The tension from minutes before was gone, and although no words were spoken for the remainder of their drive, both men basked in the companionable silence that had settled between them, enjoying the first quiet drive in days that wasn't swathed in angst or sorrow.
Just the calm of the open road, and two brothers sharing it.
Secondary Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I wrote this one after re-watching "Lucifer Rising", and I just needed to give some kind of closure to Sam regarding that voice mail from Dean that Zachariah messed with. lol Oh, and I love reviews, so fire away! :D