"Ben," he hears as he's about to leave the clinic after a long shift. "I want Ben." The voice is ragged, no undertones at all, honed into one level pitch. He doesn't recognize it, but the need in it, flat and unhidden, calls him. He turns and walks back to the check-in desk. There's a guy half-slumped over it, keeping his right arm raised so that the blood drips from it a little more slowly. "Ben. Please."

"Patsy," he calls, starting to jog down the hall; "I'm here. What's going -" He cuts himself off when the guy turns and he sees that it's Dean, his generous mouth thinned to a tight line, his eyes glowing with pain. "Dean! I've got him, Patsy," he calls over his shoulder as he puts one hand on the small of Dean's back, steering him down the hall, toward exam room 3. He opens the door, turns on the lights, and watches Dean seat himself on the exam table.

Dean rolls up the right sleeve of his plain black t-shirt and points his elbow out, exposing an ugly, jagged cut in his tricep. "I know, I know; we gotta stop meeting like this," he cracks, but Ben is not in the mood. He just steps close and sees that the cut has been made even uglier by a clumsy stitch, the black thread still dangling.

"When -" he asks.

Dean cuts him off. "Three hours ago." No other explanation, no admission of pain.

There's that untrustworthy stoicism again. He needs to know how this happened; he needs to catch Dean off-guard. He looks at the wound again, frowning. "Aren't you right-handed?"

"Ambidextrous, actually," Dean flashes a cocky grin at him. "Just couldn't get the right angle to do it myself."

He lets Dean see the anger in his eyes at that for a long moment, then doesn't look back up as he cleans the cut and sews it up, neat little stitches. Dean smells like sweat and blood and he wants to trace all his veins with tender fingers, bury his nose in his bright hair. "Ben -" Dean says quietly. He turns away, buzzing for a saline drip, still not looking up. "Ben," Dean tries again, but then Noreen comes in with the stand and the pouch and the sheathed hypodermic. In the second it takes her to deposit the stuff on the counter and leave, he can feel Dean shift from stillness to defeat.

"I don't want to see you hurt, Dean," he manages to say, and Dean can't quite pull off a smile, but his eyes go soft and he accepts the needle sliding under his skin without a murmur.

He hangs the bag and takes a step back, rubbing his eyes. He feels with his foot for the chair somewhere behind him, turning a bit to spot it. When he turns back around, Dean's mouth is on his, soft and slow, and his eyes are open.


Noreen and Patsy are standing at the check-in desk, arms folded across their chests like they're bouncers. "Go home, Ben. I don't want to see you here until the day after tomorrow," Patsy says sternly.

Neither one of them is looking at Dean, but the disapproval they're radiating is strong enough that Dean just bows his head until his chin touches his chest and murmurs, "Yes, ma'am," sounding completely sincere and more than a little cowed.

He holds the door open, matching Dean look for look, until Dean heaves a disgusted sigh and goes through the door first. He can see Dean shiver a little when the wind knifes through the thin cotton of his torn shirt, and they both pick up the pace. "This is me," Dean says suddenly, stopping by a behemoth of a car, a shiny black beast that he touches with delicate fingertips. He can see a bloodstained towel on the seat, flung over a brown leather jacket, and he really has no idea who this man is who's looking at him with soft green eyes. "Which one's yours?" Dean asks without breaking his gaze.

"I don't have a car," he answers. "I walk or take the T."

Dean looks like he's having trouble processing the notion of public transportation, digging in his pocket for his keys with his left hand. "But you know how to drive, right?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Great," he hears, and then the keys are arcing toward him and he plucks them from the air without thinking. He looks at them in his hand, more surprised that he caught them than confused about their purpose, and takes a step toward the driver's door, only to find himself pressed right up against Dean, who's warmer and even stronger than he looks. He flushes a little, takes half a step back, and ducks his head slightly. Dean's voice is an amused drawl in his ear. "So it's not just me then. Good to know."

He looks back up in disbelief. "What are you . . . I kissed you back," he protests. Dean can't quite raise just one eyebrow, but he comes pretty close; Ben knows he shouldn't find even that endearing, since it's a deliberate goad, but he does. "You wanted me to spread you out on the exam table and climb on top of you?" he challenges and Dean breaks out in a lecherous grin that somehow comes off as adorable, and Ben is in big trouble now. He waits, but Dean apparently has just enough maturity to refrain from making a crack about sterile environments. He pokes him, hard, and reminds him, "With the IV trailing from your arm? No way." Hearing his own words reminds him that he should actually be angry at the stunt Dean pulled, and he turns, unlocking the car with swift, sharp movements.

He shrugs Dean's hand off his shoulder. He sees Dean shift out of the corner of his eye and realizes that the hem of Dean's shirt is ragged because that's where he got the thread for the stitches he attempted. He turns back to face him. "Just . . . what the hell were you thinking?"

Dean's not smiling or playing cute now. "I needed to get out of there and I needed to stop bleeding." His face has gone severe, mask-like, and Ben wonders if that's from the strain of answering unwelcome questions or just pain from the wound. Some doctor he's going to make, keeping someone in Dean's condition out in the cold. He nods and gets in the car, reaching across to unlock the passenger door and slide the towel and jacket out of Dean's way.

Dean crumples into the car, letting the seat cradle him. Ben feels him shaking a little, but then he's shaken too when he turns the key and the car rumbles to thunderous life. He doesn't have to adjust any of the mirrors; he and Dean are within an inch of each other's heights. He turns on the headlights and drives.


Dean's frowning, not all the way conscious, turned slightly toward him, and Ben's wishing he hadn't let himself accede to Dean's unspoken wish to do without painkillers, because some Demerol in the IV would have let Dean rest a little easier. He finds a space in front of his building - one of the perks of living in an unfashionable neighborhood - and takes his time maneuvering the car, bigger than anything he's ever handled and a stick shift besides, into it.

The lines on Dean's forehead seem a little shallower now, but the streetlamps could be playing tricks with his eyes. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking, now that he's got Dean silent for once, not trying to dazzle or distract. He wedges his hand between Dean's left shoulder and the seat. "Dean. We're here. Wake up." He keeps his voice firm, unassuming. Dean murmurs incoherently but seems to like the warmth of his hand against the chilliness of his own skin, insinuated against the impressionable leather. "Dean," he says again, and Dean's throat clenches tightly like he's trapping a scream. He runs his thumb over the strong jut of Dean's jaw and puts his mouth close to Dean's freckled ear, his lips tickled by the short hair sticking out in sleepy spikes, and says, "We're home. Come on."

Dean's eyes open on a hollow gaze and he stares like he's never seen Ben before. Ben's cursing himself out for not insisting on the Demerol and trying to look reassuring at the same time, and Dean blinks wearily, his head lolling against the seat. "Motel," Dean says, not quite slurring the word but not biting it crisply off either.

He catches himself before he starts arguing with Dean, who's muzzy from small snatches of sleep and probably out of his mind with pain anyway. "Come on," he says, getting out of the car and going around to Dean's window. He doesn't want to open the door and let the cold air in until Dean looks like he's ready to move, like his legs will hold him, so he just bends so that they're face to face. But Dean has slid toward the driver's seat, and his shaky hands curl familiarly around the steering wheel, settling into their accustomed places. Ben opens the passenger door and rests one knee on the seat, holding his hand out against Dean's sudden skittishness. "Come upstairs with me," he asks and Dean's knuckles go white as he shakes his head.

"I'm telling the truth," Dean says raggedly.

"What truth?" he asks, crawling forward to get one hand around Dean's wrist, closing gently over thin leather bands.

Dean's almost panting now, pain or panic, but he tries to answer. "Truth about me. About my life."

"Can't you tell me inside?" he cajoles but Dean's as stubborn as he looks and Ben capitulates. "Okay. So tell me now. What do I need to know about you?"

Dean twists uncomfortably to show off his wound again. "This? From a rawhead. The broken nose? Malevolent spirit."

Startled, he meets Dean's scared gaze, holding his wide eyes for a long moment; he thinks they're both holding their breath. He closes his eyes and feels Dean's wrist sag in his grasp. He thinks about the jagged tear in Dean's tricep, how he couldn't begin to guess what would slice the skin so cleanly while making such a mess of the muscle beneath. He thinks about trails of Dean's bright blood, spilling heedlessly on quiet earth. "How did you get away?" he asks, looking back up, and Dean's eyes blaze.

"Exorcized the spirit. Electrocuted the rawhead," Dean whispers.

"Come upstairs," he says again and Dean slides across the seat.