Set in some happy alternate universe season 8 where Dean never had to kill Benny to save Sam from Purgatory. Also set in some even happier universe where Sam didn't give Dean the ultimatum between Benny and himself and so Dean got to keep his friendship.

I've never been to Carencro, but I think I made it more run down and swampy than it is in real life. My apologies to the residents there. Artistic license?

Warnings: Some gore, brief allusions to rape/non-con.

Beneath Human Skin

"Ghostbusters. Leave your scream at the beep."

Sam jabs the end call button without saying anything. He's already left at least fifteen messages spread across Dean's three cell phones over the last twenty hours, with no reply. Wherever Dean is, whatever he's doing, leaving one more message at this point isn't going to make a difference.

Sam pulls up his contact list and scrolls down a little ways, thumb hovering over a just-in-case number he's never yet had to use and had been hoping to keep that way. But it's been twenty hours and Dean's safety comes before his own personal grudges. He jams his thumb down before he can reconsider and holds the phone to his ear as it rings, once, twice, four times.

Just as he's beginning to think his call will be missed here too (or worse, ignored), there's a click and a honeyed Cajun drawl rolls down the line. "Well here's a number I wasn' expectin' to show up on my caller ID. Your brother finally bring you roun' to the fangs an' fun side?"

Irritation flares up and Sam has to press his lips together to keep from spewing the first response that comes to mind. His and Benny's truce is tentative at best, and right now he needs the vampire's help. He takes a breath to squash down his temper before he replies, "He hasn't had the chance. He never came home after his visit with you." All right, so maybe there's a little more than a hint of accusation in his tone, but it's worth it to hear the amusement drain out of Benny's voice.

"He left here yesterday afternoon, right on schedule. He shoulda been back to you sometime last night."

"I know," Sam replies, hoping his tone conveys I wouldn't be calling you if I had any other choice and also I'll kill you if you've done something to him.

"Well maybe he's stopped off at a bar somewhere, picked up some company. Dean's a grown man, not accoun'able to anyone else for his actions."

There's a touch of challenge in his tone, a hint of reproach, and Sam clenches his jaw. Maybe he's made some mistakes in the past, maybe tried to control whom Dean spent time with a little too much, but this is different. He's right in this, damn it.

"Without calling me first? Dean wouldn't do that. And he's not answering any of my calls either."

There's a moment's silence on the other end of the line as Benny considers this. Then, "Let me try callin' him," and the line goes dead.

The plastic casing of his cell phone creaks under Sam's squeezing fingers at the implication that Dean would pick up for his vampire buddy but not his brother, and he has to fight not to throw the device into the motel room wall. He concentrates on breathing deeply for the couple of minutes it takes Benny to call him back, nearly jumping as his cell screen lights up and accepting the call before the first note of his ringtone can even play.

"He's not answerin' mine either," Benny's voice greets, sounding more worried than last time, and a small, vicious part of Sam is glad even as the rest of him is edging toward panic. He hadn't wanted to admit that maybe Dean actually was screening his calls, but now one of his worries is eased even as the others multiply tenfold.

"Maybe we should give him a few more hours before we start panickin'," Benny says calmly, as though he can sense Sam's thoughts from the other end of the line.

Sam wants to snap that there is no we, here and instead argues, "He was supposed to be back twenty hours ago. It should have only taken him four after he left you." IF he left you, Sam doesn't add.

There's another long silence where Sam imagines if they were face to face, their hackles would be rising and teeth baring. "So what do you wanna do?" Benny finally asks, and Sam flounders for just a moment at the acquiescence before he pulls himself together and orders, "Stay where you are. I'm coming to you."

And there will be hell to pay if he finds out Benny's done something to his brother once he gets there.

oOoOo

Benny's waiting for him on the side of the dilapidated state road as soon as he crosses the city limits into Carencro. He's leaning against the side of his rusted old pickup truck, hands in his pockets and looking much too casual for Sam's liking. He parks his stolen car on the other side of the road from Benny's, pointed towards the town, and kills the engine as he steps out and crosses the otherwise deserted street.

The hunter stands close enough that Benny has to crane his head back to meet his eyes, but the vampire doesn't seem to mind the intimidating height advantage, a small spark of amusement flickering in his sky blue eyes. "So what's the plan, Cap'n?"

"Captain?" Sam repeats dryly. "Is that above or below chief?"

Benny doesn't answer, a small, infuriating smile playing at the corner of his lips.

Sam relents with a huff and backs off a step, taking him out of Benny's personal space—and giving himself more reaction time to reach for his machete if he needs it. "I already tried tracking the GPS on all of his phones, but I couldn't get a signal. They're either turned off or dead. The only other option I see is retracing his steps, searching every town between here and where he was supposed to meet back up with me in Tyler."

Benny raises an eyebrow. "That could take days."

"Then it'll take days."

"And if he took the scenic route?"

Sam grits his teeth. "I'm open to suggestions if you have any better ideas."

Benny studies him for a moment before shrugging and pushing off the side of his truck, heading for the cab. "Guess we better get going, then."

Sam doesn't follow.

Benny turns back, questioning. "Sam? You comin'?"

Sam resolutely meets his eyes, projecting all his suspicions into one level stare. "I haven't searched this town yet."

Benny's brow creases in confusion for one second before a rueful smile twists his mouth. "So it's still like that, huh? What's it gonna take to convince you that there's nothin' I would ever do to hurt Dean?"

Something in Sam's chest clenches at the frank confession. "I'll let you know if I think of something," he bites out, then gestures toward the town. "Lead the way. We can start at your house."

Benny shakes his head but climbs into his truck, not waiting for Sam as he swings a wide U-turn and putters back down the main street into town. Sam follows in his own car, probably more closely than strictly necessary, as Benny drives through the town center and back out the other side, down dirt roads that wind through swampland and gnarled old trees heavy with Spanish moss. He finally pulls up in front of a little wood cabin, not much more than a shack really, set back from the road a ways and secluded in the trees.

Benny parks his truck and gets out, watching Sam as he does the same. Neither offers any small talk as they climb the two steps onto the sagging porch and Benny opens the door to let them in. Sam gestures for him to go in first, not willing to have the vampire at his back in the enclosed space. Benny wordlessly obliges, even moving to sit with his back to the hunter on the worn old sofa—the sofa which Sam notices is still covered with a blanket and pillow.

He visually sweeps the rest of the little cabin, dimly lit only by the early evening sunshine filtering in through the small windows. There's empty beer bottles (Dean's favorite brand) sitting on the floor beside the trashcan and dirty dishes piled in the sink, despite the fact that nothing Benny eats requires cooking. Sam can almost see Dean here, his brother and Benny laughing together as they cook side by side or sharing beers on the sofa as they talk late into the night, reliving their Purgatory adventures. The something in Sam's chest clenches again.

He can feel Benny's steady blue eyes on him but ignores him as he quickly sweeps the one bedroom and bathroom and then returns outside to check the property surrounding the cabin—for a body, for a shallow grave, for any sign of Dean at all—but comes up empty. He's not too surprised. If Benny did do something to Dean, he wouldn't be stupid enough to leave evidence of it where Sam would come searching.

He goes back inside where Benny's still sitting on the sofa, waiting for him. "Satisfied?"

Sam doesn't answer, pulling out his cell phone and once again dialing Dean's number. He holds it away from his ear, listening for any ringing or vibrating in the cabin, but doesn't hold out much hope. All of his calls have been going straight to voicemail, the phones most likely turned off.

"Ghostbusters. Leave your scream—"

Sam hangs up. "There's still the rest of the town." And an awful lot of swampland he doesn't want to think about.

Benny rises to face him, a shadowy figure in the growing gloom. "Sam. It's a waste of time. I'd be able to smell him if he were still here."

Sam bristles at the reminder of a vampire having his brother's scent but forces himself not to let his hand reach for his machete. It's the whole reason he's even letting Benny help him with the search in the first place, despite not being entirely convinced that the vampire doesn't have something to do with Dean's disappearance himself. "I'm at least going to look around for the Impala. Then we can go."

Benny concedes, but jerks his chin toward the front door. "You should ditch the car. The last thing we need is you gettin' arrested for grand theft auto."

"Oh, and I'm sure you bought that scrap heap truck with your hard earned Purgatory dollars," Sam snaps back, but Benny only smiles, a gleam of white teeth in the shadows.

oOoOo

Carencro is, predictably, empty of any signs of the Impala. Benny follows in his truck as Sam carefully guides his stolen car through the pitted streets and packed dirt roads that make up the sleepy little town and the sprawling area around it, searching behind bars and through alleys and even in private driveways for a glimpse of gleaming black. He doesn't really have much hope for finding her sitting pretty in a parking lot somewhere; as easy as it would be to dump a body in the swamp, it would be just as easy to roll a car into the sucking green water, never to be found.

Sam abandons the stolen car behind a copse of bald cypress trees a few miles outside the city limits, wiping it down for prints and removing all traces of himself while Benny idles on the road nearby. He pauses just a moment to brace himself with a deep breath before pulling open the truck's passenger side door and climbing in. His machete sheath remains tied securely to his right leg, his right hand resting deceptively casual atop his thigh. Benny doesn't even spare it a glance.

"Maybe he jus' wen' on home the rest of the way to the bunker without tellin' you," Benny offers as he pulls back onto the dark highway and starts driving down it much too slowly for Sam's tastes. Everything about the vampire seems slow, from his drawling speech to the casual way he moves, but Sam knows better than to let that put him off his guard.

"And, what, just decided to leave me in Tyler?" Sam retorts. "Why would he leave me behind like that?"

Benny glances sharply over at him, pale eyes gleaming in the dark, but decidedly doesn't say Because you left him behind for a year in Monsterland and Sam supposes he should be grateful.

"Have you tried calling the angel?" Benny asks instead, as if the allusion to Purgatory reminded him of the other member of their grand adventure trio.

Sam looks away, out his window at the passing scenery glowing silver in the moonlight. "I've prayed to him a few times but he's not answering. Must be busy or something."

"Yeah, he does that, don't he," Benny says quietly, as if to himself, almost a little bitterly. Sam cuts his eyes over to him, brow furrowed in question, but Benny lets the subject drop. "We'll cover more ground more quickly if we take the drivin' in shifts and don't stop for the night. I can take nights and you take days and we'll wake each other whenever we come to a city to search."

"Yeah," Sam agrees slowly, though he has no intention of falling asleep in a vampire's presence. "That makes sense."

"I'll take first shift then since it's already dark," Benny offers, and jerks his head to indicate the back of the truck under the camper shell. "Next town's not for a little ways up the road. There's some blankets and a pillow back there if you wanna crawl on back and catch some shut-eye."

Sam barely restrains a scoff. "Yeah, no thanks. I'm good here."

Benny just nods like he was expecting that answer, the silence stretching between them for a long minute until he continues, "It's not too uncomfortable. I used to sleep back there every day. Used to live out of this truck 'til Dean convinced me to buy my little cabin. Told me I deserved a real home."

Sam forces himself to unclench his jaw and relax his fists before he replies, "My brother's always been a little blind to the faults of the people he's close to." Benny chuckles quietly but doesn't say anything else.

oOoOo

Sam must have dozed off despite his best efforts, the last sleepless twenty-four hours taking a toll on him, because he wakes some time later to the low murmur of Benny's voice.

"—got me and Sam both real worried about ya, brother, so give me a call back if you get this message, all righ'? We're out here lookin' for ya." He lowers his voice even more. "You seemed all righ' this weekend, but if there's some problem you got, you know you can talk to me about it, righ'? I've always got your back, brother. Give me a call."

There's the soft snap of his ancient flip phone closing and Sam fights to keep his breathing even and heart rate steady despite every fiber in him rebelling at the intimation that Dean disappeared without a word because he had a problem with Sam. No good could come of him confronting Benny about it now. Neither of them are likely to believe the other blameless until they find Dean and are proved otherwise.

The only sound for several long minutes is the growl of the truck's old engine and the rumble of the worn tires rolling over the uneven blacktop. Sam finds himself nearly nodding off again before Benny's low voice once again breaks the quiet.

"Castiel."

That's all he says for a long moment and Sam almost opens his eyes to see if Benny's addressing him or if maybe the angel has suddenly materialized in the seat between them. Then,

"I don't know if you're listenin'. I don't know if you can even hear monsters' prayers. Hell, even if you can, it's kind of your thing to ignore a friend in need, innit? I know he forgave you for that and you said you had a good reason for it, but even so. Even so.

"But this is about Dean again. He's gone missin' and we're startin' to get worried 'bout him down here. He's your friend too and I know you love him as much as I do, even though you got a funny way of showin' it sometimes. So if you could fly your ass on over and help us look for him, we sure would appreciate it."

There's a pregnant pause that Sam can feel even with his eyes closed, as if Benny is expecting his phone to ring or for Cas to pop up in front of the hood. When nothing happens, Benny gives a small sigh and says, "All righ'."

oOoOo

When dawn spills over the horizon they switch drivers, Benny slouching in the passenger seat and tugging his cap low over his eyes with none of the same hesitation Sam showed at sleeping in front of the other. They're less than a hundred miles outside Carencro, most of their night having been taken up with searching the many small towns that dot the Louisiana roadside. Every rest area, every exit, every gas station, every sign of civilization no matter how small, they had slowly rolled through with windows down, Sam looking for a sign of the Impala and Benny scenting the air and declaring Dean had never been there. It sets Sam's teeth on edge every time, his father's words still ringing a warning in his head from years ago (Once a vampire has your scent, it's for life). He doesn't do anything to stop Benny, though he also doesn't take his word as law and stop looking until he decides they're done. Benny's monster nose will only come in handy if he does actually manage to catch Dean's scent.

The day passes much the same as their night had, except that now they must also deal with traffic and more people milling about the towns, making their search even harder. Sam stops for breakfast and a bathroom break at a gas station while Benny fills up the truck. When Sam returns with a breakfast burrito and jerky for the road, he's disgusted to find Benny sipping on a blood bag out of his little cooler.

Catching the look on Sam's face, Benny smirks around the bloody tube he's sucking on. "Man's gotta eat," he says simply.

Sam eyes the bag, uncomfortably noting the letters on the label that inform him it happens to be his blood type. He wonders if there's some way Benny could have known. "Maybe," he grudgingly admits. "But do you have to do it while I'm eating?" He waves his burrito for evidence as he starts the truck.

Benny doesn't reply, just maintains eye contact as he gives one long suck and finishes draining the bag with a satisfied sigh. "There. All done, princess."

Sam glares but unwraps his breakfast and takes a defiant bite before pulling back out onto the road.

They're quiet until evening, only exchanging as many words as it takes to ask if Benny smells anything at a new town or to point out a black car that at first glance could be the Impala. They switch drivers again at nightfall and the slow process repeats itself as they cross the border into Texas and the roads begin opening up, until dawn lightens the horizon again and they're only a few dozen miles from Tyler.

Highway signs advertise the next upcoming little town as Henderson, with a population barely in the double digit thousands. Benny wakes Sam with a quiet word as he takes the exit and rolls his window down for a sniff at the air. Sam, struggling awake after two mostly sleepless nights, takes only a moment to notice the sudden change in Benny's posture. The vampire's eyes are sharp, his face tense, and his back set in a straight line. He's found something.

Sam scrambles upright from where he's been slouching against his window. "What is it? Did you catch his scent?"

Benny nods, just slightly, nose still pointed into the wind as he barely pays attention to where he's driving. "Dean was definitely here. I just can't... quite...get a hold of his scent tight enough to track it."

Relief at the lead wars with confusion on Sam's face. "Why would he stop here? We're barely half an hour from Tyler. Gas, maybe?"

Benny casts him a casual look that's anything but. "Or maybe he needed a drink." Before he got back to you, he doesn't say, but Sam hears it anyway.

His jaw clenches but he refuses to rise to the bait. "I guess we should start at the bars, then," he replies pleasantly through gritted teeth.

Despite this agreement, they still begin the search in their standard grid pattern, beginning with the main street and branching down the side roads, sweeping every diner, every church, every grocery store parking lot. Benny let Sam take over the driving so he could give his full attention to seeking Dean's scent, head stuck halfway out his open window as Sam refrained from making comments about Golden Retrievers.

The sky is slowly lightening in the east but it's still early for most morning commuters. So when Benny throws an arm out and commands him to wait as they're crossing an intersection, Sam slams on the brakes with the benefit of not having to worry about getting rear-ended. Benny's silent as he breathes deeply and Sam watches him closely, completely ignoring the stray car or two whose drivers are angrily gesturing at him to get out of the middle of the intersection.

"That way," Benny says definitively and Sam immediately swings a wide right turn into the oncoming lane before correcting into his own. He drives well below the speed limit, keeping one eye on Benny and the other on the surrounding streets for signs of the Impala. After a few blocks and another turn, Benny points again. "There."

The building he indicates is indeed a bar and Sam feels a small stab of irritation underneath the trepidation and hope. The bar is closed this time of day and the few parking spaces in front of it are empty. "Look," Benny says, pointing at a sign that declares More Parking in Back. Sam hurriedly swings the old truck around the corner and into the larger parking lot behind the building. There's a beat up clunker and a nicer new model sedan parked there, their owners likely having been too drunk to drive home the night before, but Sam pays them no attention because there she is, the most beautiful sight his eyes have ever seen. The Impala sits like a queen in the middle of the lot by herself, bright chrome gleaming in the sunrise. Sam throws the truck into park without bothering to kill the engine and slams open his door, sprinting to his brother's car with Benny hot on his heels.

Sam runs one hand over the sleek lines of her trunk as he approaches, peering in the passenger side window for any hint of the reason for her abandonment, half hoping to find Dean passed out drunk in the back seat. He digs his spare key out of his wallet and checks the trunk and the arsenal under the false bottom, but nothing seems to be missing.

"Sam."

The tone of Benny's voice has him whipping his head around to where the vampire stands on the driver's side by the windshield. He slams the trunk closed and hurries around, but Benny holds out a hand to stop him before he can get too close. He points down at the loose gravel that paves the lot—and more relevantly, the suspicious furrows in it that run in perpendicular lines away from the car.

"Drag marks?" Sam asks, a heavy weight beginning to settle in his gut.

Benny nods, blue eyes solemn. "And look." He drags Sam's attention up to the driver's window, which now bears a small spider web crack near the top, with a single line of dried blood running down from it. Sam swallows harshly. "It's Dean's," Benny confirms in a leaden voice.

Sam whirls and paces a few steps away, hands tangling in his hair. It's possible that Dean came out of the bar drunk and tripped and bashed his head on the window, though the drag marks are suspicious and unexplainable. Still, Dean could be lying in a hospital somewhere with amnesia, alone and scared and waiting for someone to come claim him. "We should check all the hospitals and clinics in town—" he begins, but as he turns back to Benny and the car, he catches a glint of metal from beneath. Quickly striding back and squatting down to peer under the car, dread fills him. Dean's Colt 1911, the gun he rarely lets far out of his reach these days, lies in the dirt.

He drags the handgun out and checks the magazine as Benny watches silently. No bullets are missing, but the fact that Dean had it out and dropped it—or worse, that it was knocked from his hand—doesn't bode well. The abandoned car, the blood, the drag marks, the dropped gun, all of it points to one inevitable conclusion.

"Something took him."

oOoOo

There's only one hospital in town that keeps patients overnight and Sam insists on checking it, even though Benny dismisses it as a dead end as soon as they pull up. "Yeah, you're real helpful, telling me all the places he's not. Now if you could just tell me where he is, that would be really convenient," Sam snaps, and Benny's mouth flattens into a hard line but he doesn't say anything else as the hunter stalks into the hospital. Ten minutes later he strides back out, a defiant set to his shoulders as he climbs into the pickup, as if daring Benny to rub it in.

Benny chooses not to comment, instead opening the cooler on the seat between them and tearing open a new bag, slurping noisily. "What now?"

Sam grimaces at the blood before dropping his head into his hands to rub at his tired eyes. He pushes up and checks his watch. "We've got nearly ten hours before the bar opens and we can ask around if anyone saw him on Sunday night. In the mean time, I'm gonna go to the library, see if I can dig up anything strange that's been happening in this town. Maybe he stumbled onto a hunt, overheard something at the bar or let something slip and got taken because of it."

Benny nods. "All righ'. I'll take you back to the car and then meet you at the library later. I'm gonna keep driving aroun', see if I can't pick up his trail." He frowns at the look on Sam's face. "What? You're still convinced I had something to do with Dean disappearin'?"

Sam looks away guiltily. "Maybe I'm just uneasy about setting a blood sucking monster loose on an innocent town without supervision."

"Sam. The only blood I'll be sucking is in this bag here," Benny replies more gently than he needs to. "You have my word. All I wanna do is find Dean. If people start turning up in the next six hours with they throats ripped out, you can kill me then, no fuss. All righ'?"

Sam sighs loudly but agrees. If ever there was a time to take Dean's word that he trusts Benny with his life, this is it.

It's still early for the library to be open, so Sam buys a local paper after they part ways and hits a diner down the street from the bar where they found the Impala. He eats a slow breakfast, the first proper meal he's had outside of the truck in a couple days, while he peruses the newspaper for anything suspicious, anything that Dean might have thought was a hunt.

At nine, he settles his check and drives over to the small local library across town, logging on to the public computers and searching more regional papers and publications for signs of the supernatural. He comes up empty. Henderson is, for all appearances, a completely normal and boring little Texas town. He digs through the stacks to find the mythology and folklore section, scouring the books there for any local legends. There's one story about a football star who died in a car crash and now haunts the high school's homecoming games, but the timing is all wrong and the victimology doesn't match. Giving up, Sam dumps the dozen books onto a return cart, feeling only vaguely sorry for the volunteer who will have to reshelve them all later.

He pastes a friendly smile on his face and approaches the first library worker he sees, a stocky guy in his early forties with dark hair and thick plastic glasses he's way too old to pull off. "Hello—"

"Hi," the other man, whose nametag declares him Al, cheerfully greets.

Sam blinks. "Hi. Um, I'm working on a book—kind of a pet project of mine—about supernatural occurrences in small town America. Hauntings, local legends, that kind of thing. I'd heard that Henderson had a couple of good stories, but I haven't been able to really find anything in the general stacks. Do you maybe know about anything strange that's happened in town? Maybe even something recent?"

"For sure! You must be thinking of the ghost of Jimmy Miles. He was the star quarterback in '87 before he—"

"No, besides Jimmy Miles. I mean... I've already got enough on him," Sam interrupts. "Is there anything else, though? Maybe records of demon possessions, or stories about monsters that eat people, or even old wives' tales about a forest spirit? Anything weird like that?"

Al rubs his chin thoughtfully as he stares into the middle distance. "Hmm, no, not anything like that that I can think of. 'Course, I've never put much stock in monster stories," he says with an amused glint in his eye. "Sorry I couldn't be more help."

Sam tries not to let his disappointment show on his face, but with this latest dead end he's hit a wall on his research. He mutters a vague thanks and returns to the table he'd been occupying, letting his head drop into his hands. Without a lead on a case, he has no idea what could have happened to Dean. If it wasn't a local monster, was it demons? Was it even something supernatural at all?

He takes out his cell phone and pulls up Crowley's number in his contact list. The king of Hell would certainly know if there were demons involved, but the Winchesters haven't exactly been on the best of terms with him lately. Sam snorts. That was an understatement. Things are outright hostile between them right now and he doesn't think Crowley is likely to help even if he does know something. Still, it might be worth a shot.

He glances up and finds Al eyeing him from a few shelves down. Sam quickly puts his phone back in his pocket, trying to look busy and not suspicious as the worker returns to straightening books on the shelves.

Sam's stomach gives a mighty rumble and he sighs as he realizes it's well after lunchtime, his extensive searching having burned through most of the day. Most of another day gone and he's no closer to finding Dean. He decides to grab lunch and meet back up with Benny so they can go to the bar together in a couple hours, when the library's front door swings open and the vampire in question strolls in. He spots Sam right away and joins him at the table. "Any luck?"

"Nothing. You?"

Benny shakes his head ruefully. "Nah. A couple times I caught it but it always got covered over by other—" He cuts off, sitting ramrod straight in his chair as his eyes dart around. Sam also tenses, looking around as if he'll suddenly spot Dean standing between the shelves and he'd just missed him earlier.

"It's him." Benny's voice is a dangerous growl and Sam's attention snaps back to him, following his lancing gaze to where it's focused. On Al.

Sam's mouth drops open. "Are you sure?"

There's a rumbling sound low in Benny's throat and Sam swears he sees a hint of fangs descending before the vampire closes his lips and swallows hard. "He's got the smell o' Dean's blood all over him."

Sam blanches at the mention of his brother's blood before his face hardens as rage floods through him. "We can't take him out here in public," he whispers, handing over his key to the Impala. "I'm parked around back. Go open the trunk."

Benny hesitates a moment, clearly warring with his desire to rip open the man's throat then and there. But he takes the key and exits through the library's back entrance, casting only one murderous look at the oblivious Al.

Sam fights to control his own anger as he approaches Al again. It's only years of deception and false identities that allow him to paste a smile on his face this time, though he suspects there's a hard edge to it that wasn't there last time.

"Hey, Al, I've got a bunch of mythology and folklore books in my car that I'm not using anymore and I was wondering if I could donate them to the library here."

"Well sure! We're always happy to get donations," Al replies enthusiastically and for a moment Sam almost doubts Benny's judgment of the guy. But he knows better than most what kind of monsters can lurk beneath human skin.

"Great. I've got a whole bunch. Can you come help me carry them in?"

"Yeah, no problem," Al agrees easily, completely oblivious to his fate.

Sam leads him out the door to the row of cars parked along the library's back wall, where the Impala waits with the trunk cracked open and Benny nowhere in sight.

"I've got them here in the back," Sam says, waiting until Al is standing beside him to lift the trunk lid. The other man only has time to take in the conspicuously empty compartment before Benny appears behind him, shoving him in as Sam quickly slams the lid down. Al screams and starts banging on the metal, but the parking lot is blessedly empty of other people to hear him.

"Come on, let's go," Sam orders and they pile into the front seat, roaring out of the lot. He finds a ramshackle motel on the edge of town, the kind of place where the other tenants might not pay so much attention to screams or suspicious bundles, and books them a room while Benny stays with the car. He returns with the keys and pops the trunk, punching Al in the jaw to subdue him before the librarian can try anything. Despite it being broad daylight, Benny slings the man over his shoulder like a ragdoll and follows Sam into the room.

Dazed, Al doesn't put up much fight as Sam ties him to one of the wooden chairs with rope from his duffle. "Please... What's going on? What do you want from me?"

"Cut the innocent act," Sam spits. "We know what you did. Tell me where my brother is and I'll make your trip to Hell quick and painless." He tosses holy water from his flask into the bound man's face. Al sputters, but doesn't steam. Sam frowns and advances with a silver knife in hand when Benny's voice stops him.

"None o' your tests will work on him. He's a different kind o' monster." Sam cocks his head in question and Benny slides his eyes over to Al, mouth twisting in disgust. "The human kind."

"He's just a human?" Sam repeats in disbelief.

"Please, I have no idea what you guys are talking about," Al cuts in desperately. "What was with that weird star in the trunk? Are you some kind of Satanists or something? Please don't sacrifice me to Satan."

Sam backhands him across the face. "Shut up. We know you did something to Dean. Now tell us where he is before I beat it out of you."

"I didn't do anything to anyone! You have the wrong guy!"

Benny leans in close, taking a deep breath of the man's neck and pulls back to meet his eyes, voice dropping to a dangerous murmur. "I can smell his blood on you."

Al whimpers in terror but doesn't say a word.

Sam thoughtfully regards the razor sharp edge of the silver knife in his hand, running one thumb along it and letting a thin trail of blood drip down. "You know, Dean is the professional torturer in the family, but I spent a few years picking up a couple of tricks myself." He stands behind Al, carefully scraping the knife along his quivering jaw but not yet drawing blood. "Let me jog your memory, in case there's been more than one person you've kidnapped lately. He's tall, got green eyes, and you attacked him in the parking lot behind a bar on Sunday night." He nicks the side of his throat, just beside his pounding pulse point, and a thin stream of blood bubbles up. Benny licks his lips.

"All right, all right!" Al cries, hands flexing desperately against the arms of the chair where they're tied down. "I know the guy you're talking about. I met him in the bar, asked him if he wanted to have a drink with me, he turned me down, and that was it!"

"Except it wasn't, was it? What, you couldn't have what you wanted by choice, so you decided to take it by force?" Sam demands.

"Please, it wasn't like that," Al begs.

"I can tell you're lying. Just tell us what you've done with him before things start getting messy. My friend here has a real problem with blood and I don't want to set him off if I can help it."

Benny watches the trickle of blood slide down Al's pale neck, letting the hunger show on his face as he opens his mouth and his fangs descend.

Al blanches, eyes widening in disbelief and horror.

"I'm not going to ask you again," Sam murmurs beside his ear.

"He's at my house," Al blurts out. "I'll take you there. Please, just don't kill me. Don't let this monster eat me."

Sam laughs darkly and steps away to throw his knife back in his duffle. "Of course. You're always the one to hurt people, never the one to get hurt, aren't you?"

Benny slides closer to the bound man. "I've met some real monsters in my time, boy, things your nightmares wouldn't even touch. But you're the worst kind." He leans down to whisper in his ear. "His blood ain't the only thing I smell on you." Benny pulls back to meet his dark eyes, a solemn promise passing from sky blue to earth brown. "Once we find him, I'm gonna rip your throat out."

The acrid odor of urine fills the small room and Benny grins viciously.

Sam doesn't comment as he unties Al from the chair, roughly pulling him up. The elbow to his gut surprises him but doesn't do more than knock the wind out of him as their prisoner makes a desperate break for it. Al doesn't get more than two steps away before he finds himself on his back, a grip like an iron vise around his throat and Benny's exposed fangs in his face. "You in a hurry to die, boy?"

Sam kicks Al in the ribs and hauls him back up, tightly binding his hands behind his back with the rough rope as Benny lifts the librarian's wallet from his back pocket and flips it open. He pulls out the driver's license and flashes it at Sam. "We don't need him. Got his home address righ' here."

Al swallows audibly and Sam surmises that he had probably been going to lead them to a false location in an attempt at escape. "Guess that was your second mistake, taking your victims back to your own house," Sam says, twisting his arms in a way that makes Al gasp and writhe. "Your first mistake was targeting Dean."

He raises his fist, smashing it down on Al's temple and knocking him unconscious.

oOoOo

They follow the address on Al's driver's license to an old farmhouse beyond the city limits, secluded from his nearest neighbors by acres of trees on either side. It was the perfect place to bring his victims, where no one was around to hear them scream.

Benny is out his door before Sam even has the car in park. "He's definitely here," the vampire says before taking off for the house's front door.

Sam's long legs quickly catch him up and they reach the door at the same time, not even hesitating as he raises his foot and kicks it in. "DEAN!" he bellows into the quiet space, but there's no reply. "You check upstairs, I've got down here," Sam orders, drawing his handgun by long habit, just in case Al had an accomplice they don't know about.

Benny stays still as Sam stalks through a doorway into the dining room. He closes his eyes and listens carefully, dread filling his gut at the number of heartbeats he hears. He climbs the stairs with leaden feet, already knowing what he'll find—and what he won't.

He dutifully checks the empty bathroom and master bedroom, coming last to the spare bedroom and pushing open the creaky door with numb fingers. The pungent stench of blood and sex is strong in this room, though no visible trace remains to hint at the horrors that transpired in it only days ago. Benny stares for a moment at the bed where Dean's scent is strongest before turning and leaving the room and returning downstairs. He can hear Sam's footsteps in the back of the house, opening doors and occasionally calling Dean's name, but Benny keeps walking, out the front door and down the porch steps.

His eyes sweep the property around the house, nose seeking Dean's familiar smell in the country air, when he spots the garden in the back corner of the cleared land behind the house. Resigned dread pulls him forward as he follows the trail of Dean's scent to where it ends in a large patch of freshly turned dirt.

Sam comes thundering outside when Benny calls his name, glancing around for the vampire before he spots him and jogs over. "What is it? Did you find something?"

Benny doesn't say anything, merely turning his eyes to the dirt at his feet.

Sam follows his gaze and pales when he sees the fresh earth. His eyes snap back up to Benny's face, desperately seeking a denial he won't find. He drops to his knees, fingers clawing into the earth and frantically flinging away handfuls of dirt. "Help me," he implores, voice strangled.

Benny kneels across from him, grief slowing his hands far below Sam's frenzied pace. He knows time is far from being on their side here; the only thing they'll find is a confirmation of their worst fears, days too late to do anything about it.

The grave is shallow, reflecting the murderer's apathy for his victim, and it's not long before their seeking hands find rough flannel and cold flesh. A strangled sob escapes Sam's throat as he uncovers his brother's face, brushing dirt away from his closed eyes and bruised forehead. There's a long slash across his throat, thick dirt clotting it and clinging to his shirt where it met blood still fresh and wet.

Tears fall onto Dean's still face, washing clean tracks through the grime as Sam reaches down and carefully pulls his brother from the earth, wrapping his long arms around the stiff shoulders and burying his face in Dean's dirty hair. Sam's shoulders quake as grief wracks his frame and Benny looks away. His sorrowful gaze lands on the Impala parked in front of the house and his eyes harden. Sam doesn't even notice as Benny silently stands, too wrapped up in his grief to register the world outside Dean.

Benny stalks around the side of the house to the car, tearing open the trunk and lifting out the bound Al by his throat. He drops him in a heap at his feet but doesn't make a move toward him yet. Al's gaze swings wildly around for a minute before he spots Sam's hunched form in the back, cradling his brother's body. Something in his posture changes, his face shifting from terrified to defiant. Resigned, Benny thinks.

"I just want to know how you did it," Benny tells him quietly. "Dean's not an easy man to get the drop on."

Al shrugs carelessly. "Roofies, of course."

Benny raises an eyebrow. "He's too careful for that."

"Maybe coming from a stranger, sure. But the bartender has a kid in the hospital or somethin', always eager to make a couple extra bucks when I ask him." He grins viciously. "Gotta say, your boyfriend was a real fighter. Nearly got away once he realized what was happening. Until the drugs kicked in. Then he was soft and pliable every which way I bent him."

Benny's expression doesn't change. "Why'd you do it?"

Al smirks up at him, his inevitable fate making him brazen. "I told you. He turned me down. But I wanted him anyway. He wasn't the first, but he was definitely the prettiest I've ever had. Those eyes, like big candy apples. And those lips—mmm. He had a mouth made for sinning." His eyes flutter in delight at the memory.

Benny doesn't react to the taunting, blue eyes soft and sorrowful beneath the brim of his cap. "You took away the only person I had left who meant anythin' to me. I told Dean once that humans kill more humans than monsters do. The least I can do is help even the score."

Al doesn't even have the chance to scream.

oOoOo

Benny's sitting against the Impala's front tire with his knees drawn up and his arms folded atop them when Sam returns, bearing his brother's stiff body in his quaking arms. He takes in the vampire's posture and the pile of shredded red meat beside him, all that remains of Al, and doesn't say anything. He gently lays Dean's body in the back seat, retrieving a blanket from the trunk to drape over him, and then stands beside the open back door as if unsure of what to do next, where to go from here.

"What are you going to do with him?" Benny asks, and his voice makes Sam jump a little.

He sighs and hangs his head. "I don't know. Take him back to the bunker, I guess. Call Cas, see if there's anything he..." He trails off. "There's no way I can leave him here. There's at least four other graves I saw back there. I'm gonna call the cops, let them sort it out. Maybe bring some closure to some other families."

Benny wordlessly rises, stepping around the heap of mangled flesh to the still open trunk, where he finds a machete and slides it from its sheath. Sam's brow furrows and he doesn't move to accept the handle Benny offers him.

"Please, Sam. There's nothin' left for me here. If you don't do it, if you let me go free, I swear I'll carve a trail of bodies across the country, startin' with the bartender that helped him drug Dean and not endin' 'til I tear apart every human monster I can find." His fangs flash in a snarl. "An' who knows? Maybe some innocents will get caught up in the crossfire. I got no one left to be good for."

Sam looks pained, sorrow upon sorrow lining his weary face. "Benny..."

"You'd be doin' me a mercy, Sam. I was never any good up here." His fangs recede and a small smile tugs up the corner of Benny's lips. "Please. As one last favor to someone who loves him too."

Sam says nothing for a long minute, for once not feeling that familiar flare of jealousy. Then he sticks out his hand, resolutely meeting Benny's eyes with a small nod.

Benny grasps his hand in a solid shake, smile broadening just a bit as he nods back, once.

Then he drops the hand and Sam raises the machete.

oOoOo

He smells him before he hears him.

Benny opens his eyes from where he's been reclining against a thick tree and takes a deep breath in through his nose. He pushes himself up and starts walking through Purgatory's perpetual forest, toward the whistled strains of In the Hall of the Mountain King.

He rounds a last trunk and there he is, the song breaking off as a wide smile lights his face like sunshine breaking through clouds.

"You would not believe the number of secret passageways out of Heaven and Hell you can find once you know what to look for," Dean says.

Benny grins back. "There you are, brother. I've been lookin' for you."