Chapter 11 All Damned

Prentiss Island, Puget Sound, Washington

Benny came to slowly, the chains on the handcuffs around his wrists snapping tight as he lifted his arms, the smell of rotted flowers and decomposition filling the air around him. He opened his eyes, feeling the sharp points of his weapon pricking at his throat. Still in the entrance foyer, he noticed, that'll make it easy for Dean to find him.

He felt a gusting breath on his ear, and recognised the odd musky odour immediately.

"Gonna make me do this all over again, aren't you?" The vampire behind him said against his neck.

Benny closed his eyes. "Hello, Sorento."

He opened them as the hardened wood stakes dug a little deeper. Andrea stood a few feet away, near the bottom of the stairs, staring at him. She looked … almost … the same, he thought. But the smooth skin of her neck, and the faintly polished gleam of her skin told him the truth.

"He turned you."

She nodded, her eyes on his. Once he'd been lost in those eyes. He drove the thought aside and looked at the others. Malek, standing behind Andrea. Someone new, blocking the hallway to his left. He didn't recognise that one.

Sorento was practically salivating at the thought of taking his head, he thought. He would be easy to bait. Malek was strong, always had been, he would take him before the other, and hope that the smaller vampire didn't have some extraordinary skill. Andrea … his gaze returned to her, his face expressionless as he studied her. He didn't know. Didn't know where she stood in this viper's nest. He would have to check that.

Enid, Oregon

Sam looked at his phone. Twenty four hours is up, Dean, he thought, picking it up. And I want an explanation now.

He dialled and lifted the phone to his ear. Dean's voicemail message answered after two rings, and he cut the call and put the phone on the table again. Goddamn it. He got up and went to the kitchenette, rinsing out the coffee pot and filling it and turning it on. He would just keep trying, he thought, trying to calm down the mix of anger and worry and unadulterated annoyance that boiled in his gut.

Prentiss Island, Puget Sound, Washington

He seemed to be in the servant's quarters, Dean thought, looking at the plain doors and bare boards. He turned a corner and found another short hallway, with yet another intersection crossing it further up. Who built this fucking house, anyway?

His phone buzzed loudly in his pocket and he scrambled to get it out, pressing a button and cutting the call.

"Little busy right now," he muttered, shoving it back into his pocket and freezing as a sound from the hallway in front of him registered. He slid soundlessly through the door next to him, and waited in the darkness, listening.

Footfalls came down the hall and stopped. After a moment, he heard them retreating and let out his breath, easing the knob and opening the door, peering out into the empty hall.

Enid, Oregon

Sam jumped as his phone rang, snatching it up and almost sending the fresh cup of coffee beside him to the floor. He glanced at the screen and accepted the call, his other hand holding the cup steady.

"Hey."

"Okay, what?" Dean's voice was barely audible.

"What?" Sam frowned.

"Why did you call me?" Dean said slowly in a hoarse whisper as he walked down the hallway. He couldn't hear anything, ahead or behind. Didn't mean there weren't vamps there, of course.

"Why are you whispering?" Sam said in equally slow mimicry.

"It's kind of hard to explain that. I'm sort of in the middle of cleaning out a vampire's nest, and it's sort of gone a little sideways on me," he said, looking up and down the hall as he walked.

"What?!" Sam's voice blasted out of the phone and Dean slammed it against his chest, leaning against the wall and lifting his eyes skyward in exasperation.

"Are you an idiot, Dean? You know better than to go into a vamp nest alone!"

"I'm not alone, damn it," he snapped back, holding the phone against his ear as he peered around the corner. Considering the noise he was making, he could expect every single one of Benny's nest-buddies to show up any second now. "All right? I'm not alone. I've got backup – guy who's been tracking the nest for a while," he added, his voice dropping back to a rough whisper.

"What guy?" Sam's face screwed up as he considered the possibilities. "Garth?"

"What? No. You don't know him. He's a friend," Dean told him distractedly, looking the other way. This was going on too long.

"A friend?" Sam repeated incredulously. "Dean, you don't have any – all your friends are dead!"

"That's not what I called to talk about!" Dean growled, and pressed the phone against his chest again as he caught a faint noise from the hallway to his right.

Prentiss Island, Puget Sound, Washington

"Sorento, go," Andrea said to the vampire, her gaze remaining on Benny, seated and bound in the chair in front of her. "Tell the old man it's true."

Benny felt the weapon lift from his neck and watched Sorento walk down the hall.

"He listens to you?" He looked at her curiously.

"It's been a long time. Our Father has come to trust my judgment over Sorento's. I answer only to him," she told him, her face expressionless.

"Well, sleeping with God has gotta have some perks," Benny said, his tone deliberate casual, wondering if she'd bite.

For a moment, she didn't move, then she walked over to him. The backhand smacked her knuckles into his jaw and he tasted the blood inside his mouth, where his teeth cut through his cheek.

"Yes, it does," she agreed coldly.

"Make sure the old man has everything he needs." She turned her head to Malek and the other vampire and Benny watched them leave without a murmur. He looked back up at her as her fist closed tightly on his jacket and she dragged him forward, her hand lifting and stroking the side of his face she'd hit. She bent and he closed his eyes as her lips brushed his, memories rising in a cloud, almost flooding out what was happening, here and now, but not quite. She dropped to her knees in front of him and he leaned forward, trying to keep contact, his breath short in his chest. He wanted it to be the same but it wasn't … exactly … the same.

"Oh, Benny. When I heard you were back – I don't know – somehow, I knew it was true. I had to believe it. To hope," she said, looking at his face.

"Andrea, what happened?" he asked quickly. "The old man said he was gonna bleed you dry."

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head helplessly. "He changed his mind. I blacked out. When I woke up, I was drinking from his wrist."

"I'm sorry," Benny said softly, wishing that he could undo what he'd done, all of it. She hadn't deserved this. "All this is because of me. I'm sorry."

"No. It's not your fault. You never hid anything from me, Benny. I chose you."

"Then why'd you stay?" He looked at her, watched her duck her head, hide her face from him. "With them? With him? Why?"

"You remember what it's like at first. First, everything resets," she stared at him, her eyes, her face filled with the painful memory of that moment. Her old life – gone. Her new life … that had been hunger. "Life is blood. That's all. And whoever gives it to you –"

"I know," Benny cut her off gently. "It's complicated. Every damn thing is complicated."

He thought about what he'd come here to do, about the anguish that had filled every damned day in Purgatory, about the knowledge he couldn't look at it, couldn't bear to see.

She slid the switchblade from the waistband of her slacks, holding it out to him. "It doesn't have to be."

Benny looked down at it, and back to her. "Andrea."

"Benny, I can't kill him," she said, tucking the knife into the inside pocket of his coat. "None of us can."

She looked at him, her eyes fierce. "But you – you came back from the grave. You're proof that he's not all-powerful, that he's not God." Slipping her hand into her pocket she pulled out the keys to the handcuffs that bound him. "He's scared of you, Benny – I know it."

He looked down as she pressed the keys into his palm, curling his fingers around them. Well, now he knew where she stood. And it hurt, inside, to know that it didn't matter.

"You understand that I came back to burn his operation to the ground, to stop the killing," he said, looking at her expressionlessly.

From the hallway, they heard a door open, footsteps echoing softly.

"Do what you came for, and we can be together," Andrea whispered, getting to her feet and laying her palm against his cheek, then stepping away as Sorento entered the foyer behind her.

"He wants Benny brought to him," the vampire said, looking suspiciously from Benny to her.

"I get the separate lives thing, but this is a hunting thing," Sam's voice was loud, too goddamned loud, Dean thought as he typed in the text message as quickly as he could. "And we need to find that line –"

"Oh, my God, stop talking. I texted you my twenty," he rasped, head snapping around as he heard the faint noise again.

Sam saw the message come in and read it. "Yeah, I got it. Look, I'm on my way. And, listen, if you handle it, great. I'll buy your friend the first round. But, Dean, listen to me. It – Dean? Dean, are you there?"

The vampire came down the hallway, frowning as he heard the voice. He stopped at the hall table and picked up the phone, staring at it for a moment.

"Dean. Dean! You kidding me?" Sam's voice blasted out of the speaker.

He turned, mouth opening, teeth descending, and his head tumbled from his shoulders as the stone blade sliced through the neck. Dean looked down at his phone, picking it up and staring at the shattered screen.

"Oh, man, come on," he muttered, shoving it back in his pocket and looking down the hall. He needed to get the body out of view.

He was half-crouched, grabbing the cuffs of the man's pants when his neck prickled suddenly, and he looked up. At the end of the hallway, another vampire stood and watched him. Dropping the legs, Dean straightened, the axe swinging like an unwieldy pendulum. The vampire smiled slowly and walked toward him and he waited, relaxed and ready.

The vamp was extremely confident, he thought distantly, despite the body on the floor between them. It moved fast, but he moved ahead of it, senses and brain and nerve and muscle registering the telegraphed moves, anticipating the physically possible feints and turns, his reactions smooth and unhurried and the head arcing across the hall and bouncing off the wall.

Dean looked down at the two bodies that now filled the hall. Awesome. This would slow him down even more.

Benny smiled a little as he came into the room. It looked like a lawyer's office, all dark wood and leather upholstery, an attempt by a man who'd never grown up to be old and wise. How'd he not seen that before? Didn't know Julian's history before, he answered himself with an inward grin. Well, he knew it now.

At the other end of the room, the vampire turned around slowly, staring at him. He was young, his pale skin smooth and unlined, the eyes round and blue and guileless, the mouth full and red, upturned in a pout.

"Benny. I have no words," he said, his voice high and boyish, the words clear.

"Now, I know that ain't true," Benny said, smiling a little.

"Can you help us understand? I know you don't owe us anything, but how? How are you here, standing in front of me?" He took a few steps closer to Benny, his gaze locked onto his face.

The curiosity in the vampire's face was more than a passing interest, Benny saw that clearly enough. Julian couldn't understand it, something new, and he was afraid.

"I found a way back," Benny said simply.

"From Hell?"

"Right next door, as far as I could tell," he corrected him.

"Next door? What's that?" the vampire asked, eyes narrowing slightly as if he thought Benny was actually lying to him.

"Oh, I think I'll just have to show you. Julian," he said softly.

"How do you –" Julian turned away abruptly, face pulled into an expression of petulance.

Benny saw Sorento's surprise, tempered instantly, his face blank but his dark eyes avid.

"You'd be surprised at how easy it is to find out things these days, Julian. About pretty much anything," Benny explained gently. "That harpsichord, that left a good trail. Led right to the spoiled son of Englishman who immigrated to the New World in 1841 and blew his parent's fortune in a matter of three years."

"Silence!"

"Oh, no," Benny said, smiling his three-cornered smile. "No, I ain't nearly done."

"I know it won't change anything, but I regretted having you killed. When it was all done, I wailed when I saw you in all those pieces," Julian said quickly, his face filled with a facsimile of regret. Benny looked at him and wondered how he could have ever have found this creature in front of him all-powerful.

"Yes, Father. That's when you decided to turn his cow," Sorento added, somewhat spitefully.

"Poor So-So is bitter because your 'cow' outranks him now," Julian said dryly, glancing at the younger vampire.

Benny ignored both comments. "Why didn't you let her die? She meant nothing to you."

"But she meant everything to you," the vampire said viciously, his face twisting up as emotion spilled out. "If that's all I could salvage from my wayward son – the woman he defied his maker for – I wanted someone to remember you by."

Spoiled, petty, vindictive, rather stupid. Benny looked at him and let out his breath. For years, he'd lived in awe of the child-man in front of him. Then in fear. Now, finally, he could see him as he truly was and there was nothing in him to inspire either emotion.

"You've lived too long with too little purpose, Julian."

He heard Sorento's sharply indrawn breath. Saw the old vampire's eyes widen, saw his face smooth out, the emotion hidden as he projected a world-weary air.

"I suppose you coming back from the dead – well, that's the definition of mutiny, isn't it? All of this has me feeling so ... tired," Julian said languidly, his eyes still over-bright with hatred.

"You should have let me go."

"But, Benny, I don't let things go," Julian snapped, as if that was self-evident.

"Really? You lived so long, how is it you have so little, hmm?" He looked curiously at the vampire. "Nothing but a beat-up old harpsichord and nest of hyenas."

"I have the sea," Julian said, not hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. "And I have Andrea."

"No. You don't have her," Benny said, holding up the handcuffs that had been around his wrists, letting them fall to the floor. "At least that much I know."

Sorento's face spasmed in fury. "Oh, that dumb bitch."

Dean dragged the body down to the room, pulling it inside. Nothing he could do about the blood stains that smeared the wooden boards of the hall floor. He straightened up then froze. Boots. Running. Lifting Purgatory, he moved silently across the room and behind the door. The first vampire to enter barely had time to glimpse the body of its nest mate on the floor, the head bouncing across the room and rolling to come to rest in the corner. The second ducked and spun around, long arms reaching out for him and he shifted his position automatically, seeing where the vampire held his weight, a long stride taking him to its side, the stone blade whistling slightly with the speed of its passage through the air. The head flew out through the open doorway and hit the wall on the other side, almost ricocheting back into the room.

Dean looked down sourly. Four bodies would take too damned long to get out of sight. He'd just have to take the risk that the balloon would go up while he was looking for Benny. Four down anyway, he thought, that'd help, although he didn't know how many were in the house.

He walked out of the room, stepping over the bodies, and up the hall. His mouth curved up a little at the thought of what he was doing, hunting vampires on his own through a nest in search of his vampire friend. Talk about losing perspective, he thought, a little derisively. It had taken him a long time to believe in the vampire. A long time and a lot of action. He'd seen Benny's face, when he'd come for him and cut him down. The vampire had tried to hide his reactions, looking away but he'd seen it. And it hadn't been the first time. He'd seen the same expression on his brother's face, that combination of fear and worry and revulsion, rising out of a disbelief that couldn't be sustained in the face of what their own eyes had told them.

Both times had brought him back, pulled him out of a place that he couldn't remember, didn't know, but was inside of him, somewhere. He knew that he'd fallen, from the edge he walked, but he couldn't remember how or why or what he did at those times. Where he went.

He shook his head impatiently, swinging the axe up. He didn't have time for self-examination now, he thought, shoving it all aside and down and away. He turned the corner at the end of the hall and pulled his attention back to what he needed to do. There were a lot more vampires that he still had to deal with. He wasn't about to leave any of them alive.

Benny watched the vampire's muscles tighten and smiled. Sorento launched himself forward, the big, wide, clumsy attack requiring only the smallest change in position to avoid. Benny gripped his wrist as it passed him, snapping on the handcuff and swinging Sorento around on the fulcrum of his shoulder into the armoire that stood against the wall. The vampire dropped his curved blade as he hit, bouncing off it as he was dragged around again, Benny's knee driving into his abdomen, Sorento's knees giving way. Benny slammed his foot down onto the empty cuff and caught a handful of hair, yanking Julian's third-in-command's head back.

"When the hell did you learn to fight like that?" the vampire asked incredulously. Benny couldn't stop the astonished laugh at the question.

"I've had a lot of practice," he murmured, and swung the knife, the blade cutting through tendon and muscle and bone in a smooth sweep, his hand lifting the head free and dropping it as Sorento's body fell forward.

He turned and looked at his maker, his arms stretched out to either side, and released the knife, it's clatter filling the silence between them.

"You just gonna sit there?" he asked, wanting nothing more than for the vampire to come for him. He'd had practice, alright, he'd had so much practice that despite what he knew of the powers of the old vampire, he was ready to trust himself against Julian bare-handed.

"You're right. I've been here so, so long, Benny, seen all the outcomes, all the patterns, a trillion times," Julian said slowly as Benny walked closer to him. "It all means so little. This universe is a pyramid of despair, nothing else."

"A little dark," Benny commented disinterestedly. And long, he added to himself. Julian liked to hear himself talk.

The vampire looked up at him. "I am evil, after all. At least I've had that much to keep me cold at night."

"You're not evil, Julian," Benny corrected him gently. "You're a child, malicious, spiteful, but you haven't seen evil, haven't felt it, haven't had it gnaw on your bones in the dark."

He watched contemptuously as the vampire's eyes widened, understanding slowly dawning in them that the fledgling, the one Julian'd created from boredom, was no longer his child. No longer feared him. No longer even considered him to be dangerous.

"What happened to you, Benny?" Julian whispered.

"Patience, Julian. Patience and the lessons of God in a place where he didn't exist," Benny smiled.

"Philosophy, Benny? Theology, even? But you were always like that. Everything had to be thought about, considered."

"You know what Socrates said about a life unconsidered."

"Yes, I do," the vampire snapped, stung by the sly insinuation. "But what we have in us? Benny, that's not life. That's what you still don't get. That's why it's always been so hard for you, my poor Benjamin."

Julian straightened up, drawing himself to his full height, uncomfortably aware that Benny was taller. And heavier. He hardly saw the hands flash out, fingers closing around his shoulders but he felt their grip, driving into the smooth, ageless flesh and lifting him. He was flung, like a doll, into the diamond-paned doors of the bookshelves and felt himself fall to the floor, glass surrounding him, blood, his own, trickling down his face and over his lips. He tasted it with the tip of his tongue.

"Get up," Benny growled.

"This is the one last thing I can take from you," Julian said, laughing up at him.

"No. You try, damn it. You try and kill me again."

"This is my story, you gnat," the vampire spat at him, face twisting up.

"Get up!"

"It ends the way I choose, not you."

"No," Benny leaned forward and gripped the front of Julian's sweater, hauling him to his feet. "Never again. But at least I can finally show you something new, old man."

He slid the switchblade from the inside of his coat, the knife flicking out with a small click.

"A whole new world."

Julian's gaze shifted from Benny's face to the blade, almost fascinated.

"Be sure to give my regards to Sorento, when you see him," Benny said softly and slashed. The blade was too short to take the head in one cut, but it severed the windpipe and vocal chords, and Julian's blood poured out from the deep slash, ice cold and running over his hands, spraying across the floor. Benny caught hold of his hair and hacked the rest of the way through, tossing the head aside.

He walked into the foyer, glancing at Andrea as he crossed to the harpsichord and laid the knife on it.

"The old man is dead," he said quietly. He turned to her and held out his hand. "Let's go."

Andrea took his hand, and stepped forward, then stopped. Benny turned back to her.

"Where, Benny?"

The relief that filled him, bubbling up after the long years, lit his eyes as he looked at her. "What are you talking about? Anywhere."

Andrea looked down, her feet unmoving and he stared at her. "You're not leaving here, are you?"

The revelation that had hit him when he'd first seen her, had seen her smooth, unmarked skin, the knowledge that he hadn't wanted to know, hadn't wanted to feel or understand in any way came to him then, and it crushed the last of his hope.

"And you never were."

"We have everything we need right here," she said, looking up at him, her voice filling with excitement as she outlined her thoughts, her hand rising to brush against his temple. "The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted."

He looked down at her, and made himself face what was in her eyes now. Not human. Not the woman he'd loved with a passion that'd never left him.

"What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind," he said slowly, every word scraping through a throat that was filled with glass, filled with pain. "I wanted to put your memory to rest."

Andrea stared at him in confusion. "But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here."

He looked at the long braid that hung over her shoulder, lifting his hand and running his fingers over it, once last time. "What I loved – it ain't here anymore," he said softly, raising his gaze slowly to hers. "It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me ... like what you've become."

She backed away from him, the braid sliding out of his grip. One step, then another. In her face, he saw understanding, of a sort, perhaps. Understanding finally that what he'd loved, so much that he'd have given anything, done anything, been anything for her, had been her humanity.

"You think you're better than me now?" she asked stiffly, and he saw her eyes flash as anger rose.

"No," he answered simply. "I think we're all damned."

For a moment, he thought she might accept it. Then he realised that she couldn't. Or wouldn't. The vampire curse was strong inside of her and whatever had been left of her after she'd made her first kill had long since been eaten away. She smelled of roses, rotting on the vine, and the dense, thick stench of a body buried shallowly in the woods.

He didn't move as her fangs descended, a growl rising up in her chest. Behind her, there was a dark shadow and it flickered too fast to make out as she lunged forward. The sharp tip of the stone axe appeared under her ribs, arresting her forward movement. Andrea's gaze dropped down to it and back to him, then Dean put his hand on her shoulder and pulled it out, the second sideways slash taking her head with a single motion.

The hunter looked at Benny as the vampire stared back at him, not knowing what in his friend's mind, seeing nothing but pain in the light blue eyes. Then Benny's gaze dropped slowly to the body on the floor and Dean saw a long, drawn-out shudder wrack through him.

"Benny?"

Benny looked down at her. It was for the best, he knew that. He'd known it from the moment he'd seen the photograph, and it had been confirmed when he'd looked into her eyes again, seen not the vibrant, passionate, living woman he'd known, but the frozen, dead facsimile of her that Julian had created. If the hunter hadn't killed her, he would have had to. He knew it.

He just wished he could tell that to the breaking pieces inside of him. Wished that he could get that where it was hurting so much.

"Benny." Dean looked around, acutely aware that they were standing in a nest and he had no idea if there were more vampires than he'd thought.

Benny looked up at him, eyes slowly refocussing on the man standing there. "Yeah."

"Time to go, man," he said, keeping his gaze fixed on the vampire's eyes. "Get it together; we gotta get out of here."

"There aren't any more, Dean," Benny said softly, his eyes closing briefly. "And I have something else to do."

"Now? What?"

"We have to burn this place to the ground."

Dean untied the line from the rocks and coiled it, tossing it into the boat as he moved to the other side of the bow. Behind him, the flames were reaching into the sky, a wild beacon to anyone with eyes. The house had been old, the timbers dry. It would burn out completely before anyone could get here to put it out.

They pushed the boat together over the coarse sand, then Benny stopped. Dean looked at him.

"Why'd you do it, Dean?" Benny stood still on the other side of the boat, looking down at the bulwark under his hands.

"Do what?" Dean asked warily, afraid that the conversation would be another where he was going to be forced into justifying what he'd seen as the right thing to do.

"Resurrect me." Benny looked at him tiredly.

Not what he'd thought, Dean realised, brows drawing together as Benny continued.

"You could have drained my soul into any culvert, and no one would have been the wiser."

Goddamn it, Dean thought furiously. How could Benny not know – "What the hell are you talking about? Hey, you good?"

Benny looked at him. "Man ... I don't know what I am."

He turned away, jumping over the gunwale and into the boat as Dean stared after him, worried and frustrated and uncertain of what he was seeing. What the hell did that mean, that he didn't know what he was? The vamp had more humanity, more of whatever it was that made humans human, than a lot of the humans he'd met. But the other shoe, it always drops, right? Right, Dean? He shunted the thought aside irritably. He didn't know what he was either. It didn't make a difference so long as they both knew what they were doing. Killing monsters. Not being monsters. Keeping people safe. Keeping each other safe. Watching each other's backs.

He shoved the boat off the shingle and scrambled on board, glancing at Benny as he started the outboard, then away as the launch turned in a wide circle and headed back for the mainland. The house was burning furiously against the black night sky, the flames leaping and jumping and he could hear the roar of it faintly, even over the motor.

Fucking shades of grey. Again. Fucking him over. Fucking everything up. He thought of Benny's voice, over the rumble of the engine, soft in the darkness of the car, talking about love as if it had saved him, saved him from being something, or becoming something that could never be saved. Women were people too, he'd wanted to shout at the vampire. They have weaknesses. They can't save you. He didn't think that Benny's sudden lurch into melancholy had been just about the woman. He thought that maybe the vampire had lost his hope with her death. The hope that he could be more than what he was, could be redeemed somehow.

He scowled as he watched the distant lights drawing slowly closer. Sometimes you had to face the fact that nothing could redeem you from the things that had happened, the things that had been done to you or that – that you had done. There was no healing possible for some wounds. No atonement great enough to wipe away some stains on the soul. He'd thought the vampire knew that, but apparently not.

He didn't look for redemption. Not any more. He was who he was. No one could look at all of him, the sum of his experiences and the way it had shaped him, and offer any hope of salvation. He knew that. He'd accepted that. He was broken into so many pieces that even finding them all was no longer possible. So be it. He was a hunter and salvation wasn't a necessity, wasn't a job requirement.

The launch came up to the pontoon steadily and Dean saw his brother standing on the fixed concrete dock, staring down at him. Perfect, he thought, throwing the line to him, as Benny gentled the launch alongside the floating jetty and turned off the outboard.

He tossed their bags onto the pontoon and climbed out, walking up to where Sam was tying on the forward mooring line. Sam rose to his feet slowly, peering around Dean as Benny climbed from the boat onto the dock.

Here we go, Dean thought as Benny stopped beside. He looked down, unable to say to anything, to either of them.

"I'm Benny," Benny said quietly, offering his hand to Sam. Sam looked at it and took it, feeling the strength in the fingers, and the cold of the hand around his.

"Heard a lot about you, Sam," Benny added.

Cold. Dean had been with him every minute since he'd gotten out of Purgatory. Knew his name. Heard a lot about you. The pieces fell together smoothly, slowly, and time telescoped out in Sam's mind, the connections leaping together. Monster. Vampire. Benny.

He reached for the sheath on his hip, thumb pushing back the stud that held the long knife's hilt in place, releasing it. Benny looked down, mouth curving up a little, and Sam's fingers began to close around the hilt, his grip tightening slightly on the vampire's hand. Glancing at Dean, Sam saw his brother's gaze on the knife as well.

Dean raised his eyes, meeting Sam's and shook his head slightly.

Don't, Sam.

Vampire, Dean.

Please. Don't.

Why?

Trust me.

Goddamn you.

Sam left his hand resting on the hilt and released Benny's hand, his eyes on his brother's face, muscle jumping at the point of his jaw.

"I can see you two have a lot to talk about," Benny said dryly, glancing again at the long knife sheathed at Sam's side. He slapped his hand against Dean's arm lightly and bent to pick up his gear bag. Dean looked down as Benny stepped between the brothers slowly, a flickered look at Sam as he passed him, returned by a chilling look from the taller man.

Dean lifted his head as Benny moved away. In his brother's face he could see pretty much everything he'd expected to see. Fury. Confusion. Distrust. All the usual suspects.

And there wasn't a thing he could say to him.

I-90 E, Idaho

Sam stared out through the windshield, and turned his iPod up again slightly. The thumping bass of the song on the car stereo came through the chassis to his feet, at odds with the song playing through the headphones in his ears. He slid a sideways glance across to his brother, seeing the hard profile that had been unchanged for the last four hundred miles.

Dean didn't want to talk. He got it. Happened, from time to time. The record was three days, from Maine to Arizona. Neither of them had said a single word. At least not to each other. He couldn't remember what that fight had been about now.

This was different, he thought. This was … he didn't know what this was. Dean, protecting a vampire. A vampire. He couldn't make the thought gel properly.

He couldn't get the image out of his mind, of Dean's face during the silent exchange on the docks. It hadn't been pleading, not quite that far. But god, it had been close. Why?

A thought snuck in and he straightened slightly in his seat. Maybe Dean hadn't wanted to choose, to be forced into making a choice. Between him … and the vamp. He felt an icy shiver careen down his neck. Was that it? Had it gone that far?

He turned his head to look at his brother. He thought it might've. He was too aware that he didn't know his brother any more. Not really. Not enough to be able to predict him, what he might do, or how he would feel about it. He shifted his gaze back to the windshield, to the road unwinding ahead of them, the light traffic flowing along with them.

Maybe he never had known him all that well.

I-90 E, South Dakota

The road was almost empty, a couple of taillights up ahead, a few bright white lights behind him, but the car was rumbling smoothly along on her own. Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw, repressing the beginnings of a yawn as he glanced at Sam, sleeping uncomfortably in the corner between the seat and the door.

For the first time in his life, he could easily see a future that didn't include Sam. At least didn't include him on a day-to-day basis, he thought. And the thought didn't make him feel uneasy or as if he was being disloyal or not doing his job.

His brother had been right, back in wherever it was they'd been. He needed to see the possibility that they wanted different things. Needed different things. He could see how defensive and wound-up Sam was, could feel him watching him, looking for signs of cracks or holes since he'd returned. He'd been grateful, mostly, for that when he'd been trying to find his way again. He still was. But it wasn't working. Wasn't a partnership anymore.

Despite the fact that Benny had lost it on the island, hunting with him had been smooth – and easy. And it hadn't been like that with Sam for a long time. And in that moment, when Sam had realised that Benny was a vampire, and had gone for the knife, when he'd realised that he might have to choose between them, all the things – all the lies he'd told himself, all the pretence that he and his brother could make it work out – all the secrets that were buried in both of them and would likely never see the light of the day … all that had crashed down onto him and he'd had to face it.

He loved his brother. That hadn't changed, wasn't the issue. The thing was that he'd changed. Somewhere down there he'd shed the last bit of the shell of John Winchester he'd been hiding behind and what'd come out through the portal and back to the real world was just him. He frowned at the road. He didn't feel that different. More focussed. Not drowning in guilt. Not even acknowledging guilt, he thought.

He wasn't going to apologise to Sam for Benny. The conversation would happen sooner or later, whether he wanted it or not. And he knew what would be raised when it did. What had happened in the past was irrelevant, he thought. People changed. He'd changed. Sam could accept it. Or not. That was his choice.

He looked at his watch. He was getting tired, and he couldn't tell if it was the driving or the thoughts. He looked along the signs that pocked the side of the big road and decided to pull off. He could get an hour of sleep, be okay to keep going. The nightmares hadn't gone. But they didn't get a strong hold of him in just an hour. He could deal.