Where even God was loath to tread_

To step off into the unknown valley where the serpents of No Man's Country lingered. A place that even God was loath to tread. Harrowing and hallowing. Narrowly, and all at once. The three brothers felt their collective heart stop and then stutter_a candle to the wind.

"God!" Cas covered his mouth.

"Pretty sure he left this place." Dean closed his eyes. It was Sam that he didn't want to see. Because there was no fear in this place quite like the fear of Sam and what he might do. What he might sacrifice. The stroke of his love too profound, to capricious to contain. If blood was needed, he would let it. He would make the tongues of these serpents all the way drunk with it if it meant that Dean emerged on the other side.

Sam shrank to Dean's side. Even for all his sacrifice, instinctively seeking refuge in the warmth of his brother. Even though Castiel, a primordial warrior, was there. Sam had not felt safe in ages. Not until Dean entered the stage of this unforgiven place. Suddenly, for all its manic depression, this place was homelike. Dean opened his eyes. He didn't meet Sam's eyes, but the brush of his arm beside him as he shrank nearer. Dean felt it bubbling up, the last fountain of relief. He could almost hang his hat here.

"Okay, so you're the one with the one-up, champ. Which way we heading?" Dean sucked his teeth. A cry that sounded like a cockatoo echoed through the trees. Only now did he see that the trees were all like sponges, made soft and papery by the poison of the Leviathans.

"I-I don't know." Sam gritted his teeth. The memory of pain danced like a swinging lantern in his eyes as they roamed over the landscape, thinking.

"And you wouldn't know, chief. No one comes in this place that means anything good, and no one goes out unless Raphael makes it so." A voice. A Southern genteel voice, so out of place here…

Dean pulled a knife. Sam flinched, hands forming fists, body braced for a beating. Cas' eyes blazed white sapphire.

Into the valley where God was loath to tread, walked a man. A navy man by the look of him, smart cap, somber features. He laughed at their expressions.

"I mean you no harm if you mean no harm to me. Rather, I have an offer to make of you, if you'd give me a moment of your time." The man tipped his hat.

"We don't take up offers from monsters!" Dean snapped. The man looked at Sam.

"Forgive me, I assumed maybe you were accustomed to us monsters. This one's got so much of Lucifer's grace burned into him, rolling out of him. Son, he must have roasted you alive a thousand times again. But that's not even the worst of it. Say, it's not even the half of it. And that_That is an injustice I cannot abide." The man drew closer, face to face with Sam. Sam swallowed.

"Wait... You! You... I know you...I saw your face...In...In the well. The well it speaks to all those who drink out of it." Sam sputtered when Dean cut him a worried look.

"Benny, at your service, Master Sam. We all know you too, you know. Your blood flows out of the well and feeds us vamps profusely. Or it did until these gents came down to set you free of Raphael's wicked control. Not a moment too soon. The stuff was a hypnotism that removed from me all moral agency. I rather like myself soberer than not." Benny smiled at Dean. Dean came at him, attacked. Benny took his wrists.

"Say, you're the brother_the one this whole business was for. I like you. Raw fire. Think we'd even make the fast of friends, chief." Benny winked.

Castiel looked over his shoulder. A howl and a giggle rose from the Shadeem. A giggle that was contagious and bled together in a cacophony of like dramatized giggles.

"Alright, friend or foe, we'll have to keep going with him. Let him go, Dean. If he can run in time with us, then perhaps he's worth our company. If you betray us, then THEY can have you. And you don't want that." Cas glared at Benny. Benny's face turned the same color as a mint leaf.

"Why else you think I approached you with such boldness? Better a beheading or an angel's smiting or anything really than...than them." With that, they fell in pace.