FIC: End of the Line. 4
Pairing: Dean/Benny, Benny /Castiel
Rating: R
Summary: Benny realises that what he feels for Dean isn't going away though he's sure Dean feels nothing for him. He's been following the brothers, keeping his distance. Now he's got too close for his own good. Castiel and his wings come to Benny's rescue. Warmth and even some angelic humour ensue!
Series: Part 4 of End of the Line. Probably best read in order.
From the side of the parking lot Benny watches Dean get out of the black car that always reminds him of the days when things were easy and his unlife had seemed good. Dean don't look easy nor good as he walks away from the Impala. Benny notices the slump of his shoulders, the tight set of his jaw and how he's lost weight in the six days since he last saw him this close up. There’s no knowing why Dean looks the way he does but whatever the reason it makes something twist hard under his ribs and the nerves in his hands and fingers sing with the urge to move, to hold. He continues standing in the shadow of the dumpsters and watches ‘til Dean closes the door of the motel room behind him.
Every day for weeks now he's told himself it’s finished, that he’s done stalking the Winchesters, that he ain't going to follow Dean like a lovesick in-breed, ain't going to worry about him getting killed or hurt bad. Once or twice he's managed two or even three days without moving from wherever it is he finds himself, but most days the pull towards Dean near overwhelms him. He sold the van 'cos it was way too recognisable. He's got himself a cheap, small, windowless thing, brown and dusty and pretty much invisible. He can just about stretch out in back but he has no real need to sleep, so what the hell. There’s no need to literally stalk the brothers either; he knows, unerringly, where Dean is at any given moment. He's not sure how he knows, just feels a sense of direction, like the man's a great fucking magnet and himself a scattering of iron filings.
Being this close is a whole lots easier than far away tho’. He tried that straight off, tried getting as far from Dean Winchester as he could. He’d almost reached Alaska when he grasped that ‘distant’ meant ‘worse’. Distant means he gets to feeling more and more strung out, unable to think straight and real low in his mind. The only good thing about any of what’s happening is he almost never thinks about feeding now, seems like one hunger has replaced another. Part of him wonders if he's starving and too far gone to realise how deep in shit he is. Most of him’s relieved there's no need to think about blood.
He can't exactly pick up Dean thoughts but this close he gets his emotions real clear and what going on now hurts like a bitch. Benny rests his head against the fence beside the dumpster and closes his eyes, letting Dean's sadness flow through him. After weeks following him he's sure Dean has no sense of his proximity, but he's wondered once or twice if letting himself take on what Dean feels maybe helps for a moment or two. He likes to think it might, but guesses it probably can't. After all, Dean ain’t feeling what he’s feeling, so most likely everything’s just going round and round in his own immortal fuckin’ head, like a specially crazy person. He’s just beginning to understand why some real old vamps go in for voluntary decapitation. Hearing a sound he opens his eyes and sees the tall guy, grocery bag in hand, glance at the Impala, stalk towards the room and vanish inside.
It's all quiet for a moment then he hears an angry kind of roar followed a few moments later by the sound of a loud slap. He feels himself falling sideways and grasps at the dumpster. His face burns and his gut is suddenly in knots. "I can't do this" he thinks for what has to be the hundredth time, "I can't fuckin' do this". The urge to kick the door down, knock the brother into next week and take Dean in his arms is so overwhelming he feels his muscles spasm with the need to move. Instead, he stands, both hands grasping the soiled metal of the dumpster, upright and stationary only by a mighty act of will. To feel so close and be powerless to act is almost beyond bearing, but the alternative is a fuck of a lot worse.
He moves, walking quickly round the building ‘til he's leaning against the back wall of the Winchesters' room. It's the middle of the afternoon and real quiet so he rests his head against the brick. Creeping behind lowdown motels is some crappy shit, but he's stopped judging himself on stuff like that. Ever since he realised what was happening to him, that day Dean called and they’d said "end of the line" he's known there's no point fighting any of it. He lives with it, or he dies, for real, again. The thought of purgatory, alone, fills him with a kind of empty dread. At least here there's a chance he might be needed one day, might make a difference to whether Dean lives or dies if things go bad for the brothers on a hunt. And there's another thought that's been growing in the back of his mind, something he’s not brought out or examined yet; a possibility of freedom.
A wave of anger, confusion and sadness washes over him so that he nearly falls to his knees. "Jesus!" he whispers, "Dean, brother ... " The back of his eyes burns, a sensation he's gotten familiar with recently. He takes a deep breath and concentrates on staying upright. He's just about managing when his throat contracts like he's being choked and he falls hard onto his back in the dirt. He lies for what might be seconds or minutes then there's a rustling sound right beside him. His blurring eyes open on a hand reaching down to him. He can't see beyond the hand but reaches up anyway and immediately recognises the more than human grip as he's lifted to his feet.
"Castiel?"
"Yes Benjamin, it is I. Are you acquainted with other angelic beings?"
Benny starts to laugh ‘cos unless he mis-heard the angel is being fuckin' ironic. Realising he sounds near hysterical he stops and holds out his hand again. "Man, it's good to see you! How are you here? How did you get out?"
Castiel smiles and takes the proffered hand, "To my surprise I find I am happy to see you also vampire."
Benny feels a kind of flowing warmth from the angel, accompanied by a sudden lifting of his spirits.
"I cannot answer your questions however.’ Castiel says, ‘I do not know how I got out, how I am here, or why I am on this plane once again."
Benny shakes his head, "You don't know? That's real strange, but good ... right? It’s good that you're here?" He releases the angel's hand and feels a dizzying onrush of pain that makes him almost cry out, “Dean, fuck … ah no, no!”
Castiel looks at him curiously, “You can feel that?”
“Yes!” Benny gasps, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph …”
“Indeed” Castiel says, “but they are unlikely to offer present succour, given that you are a vampire and I have lost my Grace.”
“He’s hurtin’ so much, I can’t … “
Castiel says, “I know. If you wish I can take you …”
Despite the angel’s hand on his arm and the warming calm flowing over him once again he almost shouts, “No! Don't ... don’t.” Then there’s that rustling followed by a sense of being wrapped in something vast, airy yet almost fluid. Daylight seems hazy and abruptly he realises the pain of just seconds before is already dulled and vanishing fast. “What the …?” Reaching out his hands he touches softness, fingers sinking up to his wrists in a deep mobile substance that can only be … “Your wings?” he whispers in a kind of astonished awe. “Am I feelin’ your wings?”
Castiel says, “Yes, Benjamin, I have wrapped you in myself. Do you feel less pain yet?”
Startled by the sudden absence of what he has been feeling for weeks Benny struggles to speak. ‘Y … you can do that? Take pain away, jus’ … take it away?”
There’s a smile in Castiel’s voice. “Sometimes, but you are not human so that is not what I am doing here. My wings are merely shielding you from the worst of what you are experiencing from … from what Dean is experiencing.”
He hears the catch in the angel’s voice. “You feel it too then, his hurtin’?”
“Yes.”
“Wherever you are?”
“No. When I am on another plane of existence I do not feel what he feels. It is a very great relief.”
“Is that why you disappeared in Purgatory?”
Castiel is quiet, then says. “No, that was not the reason.”
Benny nods, accepting. “It gets worse the further I move away from him. How do you live with it?"”
"Strictly speaking I am not alive, but immortal as you are. I am an angel, my task is to witness human emotion without experiencing it." Then Benny says, "You do feel it though, don't you? I can tell you feel his ... Dean's, emotions." Castiel shrugs and the wings undulate and quiver like a breath of air or a wall of water. They are both silent for a moment. Muffled words reach them from the room beyond the wall, angry sounding words then a sense of violence, of threat. Despite the protecting wings Benny says, “Ah, no … not that … Stop it, you can stop it can’t you? Don’t let this happen … Castiel, please .” Then he feels the angel behind him, arms wrapping tight around him until he’s pinned to the slight body, feels its thrumming power as Castiel says quietly in his ear, “Rest vampire, what happens between those two is not for us to change. Only they can do that.”
Benny lets his head drops back onto Castiel’s shoulder and he’s held up, suspended in a place where hurt is far, far away. Something breaks in his chest and he starts quietly to weep.
Castiel says, “I have seen your pain and know it is your love that causes you to suffer. At first I thought I was mistaken because we angels are taught that monsters cannot love, so I did not believe what I saw in you.”
“Didn’t believe it myself." Benny lifts his head but can’t wipe his wet face ‘cos Castiel's still pinning his arms to his body. "It’s a vampire thing.” He feels the angel’s power holding him up, holding him steady, like someone has stapled him to a warm rock.
Inside the room blood is being spilt, he can smell it, the wrongness of it. “They’re really hurtin’ each other man, you sure you can’t stop it …?”
“I could but I will not. Both of them have a very great lesson to learn here.” Castiel laughs quietly, “And if you know Dean as well as I believe you do then you know he is much, much stronger than he seems, much stronger than he thinks himself to be. Neither of them will break today.”
Benny nods, silent. They’re fucking now and even with angelic wings and arms keeping him from the full impact of what’s happening he’s struggling not to crack wide open.
“Ah!” Castiel says suddenly, “He’s thinking of you Benjamin, thinking of you with … with …”.
Dean’s fucking his brother while thinking 'bout him? “With what?”
The angel hesitates, “I am not certain I should have spoken.”
“He’s thinking of me with what? With what Castiel?”
Silence. Then, for the first time since the angel appeared Benny struggles to free himself. Yeah, it feels great not to hurt, but if it stops him feeling, stops him knowing what’s going on with Dean ...?”
“Be still!”
There’s command in Castiel’s voice and Benny gives up trying to free his arms. “Please,” he whispers, “tell me.”
“With love,” the angel replies. “He’s thinking of you with love and with … sorrow.”
With love? Sorrow? Benny says, “No. That ain’t possible, you mis-heard.”
The angel smiles against the side of his neck. “I know I mis-understand things people say and I know this makes me a source of humour, though I do not fully grasp why that should be so. But I assure you vampire, it is not possible for me to mis-hear.”
Castiel relaxes the hold on his arms and as he does so a wave of physical sensation crashes over Benny as he feels, even through the wings that still wrap him, some of what is happening just feet away. “Ahh,” he whispers, sensing Dean fucking into Sam hard enough to snap his spine, “too much, it’s too much.” He has a sudden memory of himself wide open under a gentle, loving Dean so different to this ... this ... to ... . Before the memory can rip at him he turns quickly to face Castiel and lets the strong arms encircle him once more. He rests his forehead against the angel’s shoulder. “I never wanted this. Never thought it was even possible between a vampire and a human, an’ surely not one-sided like this. Don’t know how long I can keep goin’ brother.”
“That is why you have considered speaking with Sam?”
“What?”
“You have been considering death.”
Given where his head is literally at and being as he’s wrapped tight in angelic arms and wings, lyin’ seems pretty pointless.”
“Yeah. I wanted t’ know a few things.”
“Like, can you die and not return to Purgatory?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“But you have not approached him?”
Benny smiles against the shoulder of the trench coat. “Thought he might just kill me ‘fore I’d a chance to say my piece and I’d be back in Purgatory anyways. The guy has a powerful dislike of vampires and this vamp in particular.” He breathes in the odourless scent of angel and says, “That Sam, I’m guessin’ he wouldn’t hesitate to finish me but I was fearin’ Dean might learn of it an’ be angry, that it might make things harder between them, harder than they already are ... you know?”
“Yes, I do,” Castiel murmurs, “things are indeed very hard between them.”
Benny lifts his face. Did the angel just make a really crass joke? He'd bet his cap on brotherly incest being a smite-worthy offence, so what's with the levity? Twisting his head ‘til he’s speaking directly into the ear beside his mouth he hisses, “Did you just say what I think you said? Cos if you did it ain’t funny …”
The angel says, "Hm,” and after a pause during which he seems to be listening to something intently, says, “It is over.” He unwraps his arms and steps back a little. Still within the arc of wings Benny takes a deep, unnecessary breath, then the wings are gone too and it’s no longer afternoon and dusk is falling.
His sense of Dean rushes over him again like a train, but that’s OK, he’s ready for it, almost welcomes it.
Castiel says, “Listen”, and to his astonishment Benny can hear the brothers’ conversation. Even with his preternatural abilities he’s never done that and even if he could it might’ve felt kinda wrong. Now, amplified by Castiel, he hears even their breathing. Hears Dean, clear as anything, soothe his brother who doesn’t sound so fuckin’ tall right now. Dean says, “I ain’t mad at you Sammy, or at myself …”
And oh, just the sound of Dean’s voice again makes him happy so that he smiles, a wide, probably foolish smile. He stands up straighter and says, “Thanks Castiel, appreciate you helpin’ man, I've been feelin' pretty alone with this ... with everythin' I guess." He smiles again, "I know you didn’t have to help, me bein’ a monster an’ all.”
“Ssh”. Castiel raises a finger, “Listen Benjamin. Listen and you’ll hear …”
Eyes fixed on the angel’s face he listens as Dean says, "Everything’s good. We're good." Then a silence and Sam says, real quiet, "You love him, don't you Dean." Dean sighs, then says, "Ssh, Sammy. Sleep now, I'm here".
Castiel bends his head and closes his eyes briefly. “I will leave you now. If it gets very bad call out to me and I will come to you if I can.”
Still stunned Benny says, “Did he mean m … me? Is all that hatin’ just now ‘cos of …? Please, tell me it ain’t!”
The angel looks at him with what can only be compassion in eyes that are blue like his own.
“It was never hate Benny, just love turned inside out by need. Those two could never hate each other.” He looks sad and says, “For your own sake you should remember that.”
Castiel steps away and Benny sees how tired he looks, how fragile in his too loose shirt and ridiculous coat. Without thinking he steps forward and pulls the angel back into an embrace. “I’m thanking you mightily for this,” he says into the soft dark hair. “I know you love him too.”
Castiel snorts. “I am an angel, albeit one who has lost his Grace. It is my particular task to love him.”
“Yeah,” Benny says and smiles, “But he makes it real easy don’t he …”
Nodding, Castiel turns away, hesitates and says over his shoulder. “You are not a monster, Benjamin Lafitte … and yes, he did mean you.”
He’s alone again, still leaning against the outside wall of the Winchester’s now silent room, when his long undead heart starts beating.
Rating: R
Summary: Benny realises that what he feels for Dean isn't going away though he's sure Dean feels nothing for him. He's been following the brothers, keeping his distance. Now he's got too close for his own good. Castiel and his wings come to Benny's rescue. Warmth and even some angelic humour ensue!
Series: Part 4 of End of the Line. Probably best read in order.
From the side of the parking lot Benny watches Dean get out of the black car that always reminds him of the days when things were easy and his unlife had seemed good. Dean don't look easy nor good as he walks away from the Impala. Benny notices the slump of his shoulders, the tight set of his jaw and how he's lost weight in the six days since he last saw him this close up. There’s no knowing why Dean looks the way he does but whatever the reason it makes something twist hard under his ribs and the nerves in his hands and fingers sing with the urge to move, to hold. He continues standing in the shadow of the dumpsters and watches ‘til Dean closes the door of the motel room behind him.
Every day for weeks now he's told himself it’s finished, that he’s done stalking the Winchesters, that he ain't going to follow Dean like a lovesick in-breed, ain't going to worry about him getting killed or hurt bad. Once or twice he's managed two or even three days without moving from wherever it is he finds himself, but most days the pull towards Dean near overwhelms him. He sold the van 'cos it was way too recognisable. He's got himself a cheap, small, windowless thing, brown and dusty and pretty much invisible. He can just about stretch out in back but he has no real need to sleep, so what the hell. There’s no need to literally stalk the brothers either; he knows, unerringly, where Dean is at any given moment. He's not sure how he knows, just feels a sense of direction, like the man's a great fucking magnet and himself a scattering of iron filings.
Being this close is a whole lots easier than far away tho’. He tried that straight off, tried getting as far from Dean Winchester as he could. He’d almost reached Alaska when he grasped that ‘distant’ meant ‘worse’. Distant means he gets to feeling more and more strung out, unable to think straight and real low in his mind. The only good thing about any of what’s happening is he almost never thinks about feeding now, seems like one hunger has replaced another. Part of him wonders if he's starving and too far gone to realise how deep in shit he is. Most of him’s relieved there's no need to think about blood.
He can't exactly pick up Dean thoughts but this close he gets his emotions real clear and what going on now hurts like a bitch. Benny rests his head against the fence beside the dumpster and closes his eyes, letting Dean's sadness flow through him. After weeks following him he's sure Dean has no sense of his proximity, but he's wondered once or twice if letting himself take on what Dean feels maybe helps for a moment or two. He likes to think it might, but guesses it probably can't. After all, Dean ain’t feeling what he’s feeling, so most likely everything’s just going round and round in his own immortal fuckin’ head, like a specially crazy person. He’s just beginning to understand why some real old vamps go in for voluntary decapitation. Hearing a sound he opens his eyes and sees the tall guy, grocery bag in hand, glance at the Impala, stalk towards the room and vanish inside.
It's all quiet for a moment then he hears an angry kind of roar followed a few moments later by the sound of a loud slap. He feels himself falling sideways and grasps at the dumpster. His face burns and his gut is suddenly in knots. "I can't do this" he thinks for what has to be the hundredth time, "I can't fuckin' do this". The urge to kick the door down, knock the brother into next week and take Dean in his arms is so overwhelming he feels his muscles spasm with the need to move. Instead, he stands, both hands grasping the soiled metal of the dumpster, upright and stationary only by a mighty act of will. To feel so close and be powerless to act is almost beyond bearing, but the alternative is a fuck of a lot worse.
He moves, walking quickly round the building ‘til he's leaning against the back wall of the Winchesters' room. It's the middle of the afternoon and real quiet so he rests his head against the brick. Creeping behind lowdown motels is some crappy shit, but he's stopped judging himself on stuff like that. Ever since he realised what was happening to him, that day Dean called and they’d said "end of the line" he's known there's no point fighting any of it. He lives with it, or he dies, for real, again. The thought of purgatory, alone, fills him with a kind of empty dread. At least here there's a chance he might be needed one day, might make a difference to whether Dean lives or dies if things go bad for the brothers on a hunt. And there's another thought that's been growing in the back of his mind, something he’s not brought out or examined yet; a possibility of freedom.
A wave of anger, confusion and sadness washes over him so that he nearly falls to his knees. "Jesus!" he whispers, "Dean, brother ... " The back of his eyes burns, a sensation he's gotten familiar with recently. He takes a deep breath and concentrates on staying upright. He's just about managing when his throat contracts like he's being choked and he falls hard onto his back in the dirt. He lies for what might be seconds or minutes then there's a rustling sound right beside him. His blurring eyes open on a hand reaching down to him. He can't see beyond the hand but reaches up anyway and immediately recognises the more than human grip as he's lifted to his feet.
"Castiel?"
"Yes Benjamin, it is I. Are you acquainted with other angelic beings?"
Benny starts to laugh ‘cos unless he mis-heard the angel is being fuckin' ironic. Realising he sounds near hysterical he stops and holds out his hand again. "Man, it's good to see you! How are you here? How did you get out?"
Castiel smiles and takes the proffered hand, "To my surprise I find I am happy to see you also vampire."
Benny feels a kind of flowing warmth from the angel, accompanied by a sudden lifting of his spirits.
"I cannot answer your questions however.’ Castiel says, ‘I do not know how I got out, how I am here, or why I am on this plane once again."
Benny shakes his head, "You don't know? That's real strange, but good ... right? It’s good that you're here?" He releases the angel's hand and feels a dizzying onrush of pain that makes him almost cry out, “Dean, fuck … ah no, no!”
Castiel looks at him curiously, “You can feel that?”
“Yes!” Benny gasps, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph …”
“Indeed” Castiel says, “but they are unlikely to offer present succour, given that you are a vampire and I have lost my Grace.”
“He’s hurtin’ so much, I can’t … “
Castiel says, “I know. If you wish I can take you …”
Despite the angel’s hand on his arm and the warming calm flowing over him once again he almost shouts, “No! Don't ... don’t.” Then there’s that rustling followed by a sense of being wrapped in something vast, airy yet almost fluid. Daylight seems hazy and abruptly he realises the pain of just seconds before is already dulled and vanishing fast. “What the …?” Reaching out his hands he touches softness, fingers sinking up to his wrists in a deep mobile substance that can only be … “Your wings?” he whispers in a kind of astonished awe. “Am I feelin’ your wings?”
Castiel says, “Yes, Benjamin, I have wrapped you in myself. Do you feel less pain yet?”
Startled by the sudden absence of what he has been feeling for weeks Benny struggles to speak. ‘Y … you can do that? Take pain away, jus’ … take it away?”
There’s a smile in Castiel’s voice. “Sometimes, but you are not human so that is not what I am doing here. My wings are merely shielding you from the worst of what you are experiencing from … from what Dean is experiencing.”
He hears the catch in the angel’s voice. “You feel it too then, his hurtin’?”
“Yes.”
“Wherever you are?”
“No. When I am on another plane of existence I do not feel what he feels. It is a very great relief.”
“Is that why you disappeared in Purgatory?”
Castiel is quiet, then says. “No, that was not the reason.”
Benny nods, accepting. “It gets worse the further I move away from him. How do you live with it?"”
"Strictly speaking I am not alive, but immortal as you are. I am an angel, my task is to witness human emotion without experiencing it." Then Benny says, "You do feel it though, don't you? I can tell you feel his ... Dean's, emotions." Castiel shrugs and the wings undulate and quiver like a breath of air or a wall of water. They are both silent for a moment. Muffled words reach them from the room beyond the wall, angry sounding words then a sense of violence, of threat. Despite the protecting wings Benny says, “Ah, no … not that … Stop it, you can stop it can’t you? Don’t let this happen … Castiel, please .” Then he feels the angel behind him, arms wrapping tight around him until he’s pinned to the slight body, feels its thrumming power as Castiel says quietly in his ear, “Rest vampire, what happens between those two is not for us to change. Only they can do that.”
Benny lets his head drops back onto Castiel’s shoulder and he’s held up, suspended in a place where hurt is far, far away. Something breaks in his chest and he starts quietly to weep.
Castiel says, “I have seen your pain and know it is your love that causes you to suffer. At first I thought I was mistaken because we angels are taught that monsters cannot love, so I did not believe what I saw in you.”
“Didn’t believe it myself." Benny lifts his head but can’t wipe his wet face ‘cos Castiel's still pinning his arms to his body. "It’s a vampire thing.” He feels the angel’s power holding him up, holding him steady, like someone has stapled him to a warm rock.
Inside the room blood is being spilt, he can smell it, the wrongness of it. “They’re really hurtin’ each other man, you sure you can’t stop it …?”
“I could but I will not. Both of them have a very great lesson to learn here.” Castiel laughs quietly, “And if you know Dean as well as I believe you do then you know he is much, much stronger than he seems, much stronger than he thinks himself to be. Neither of them will break today.”
Benny nods, silent. They’re fucking now and even with angelic wings and arms keeping him from the full impact of what’s happening he’s struggling not to crack wide open.
“Ah!” Castiel says suddenly, “He’s thinking of you Benjamin, thinking of you with … with …”.
Dean’s fucking his brother while thinking 'bout him? “With what?”
The angel hesitates, “I am not certain I should have spoken.”
“He’s thinking of me with what? With what Castiel?”
Silence. Then, for the first time since the angel appeared Benny struggles to free himself. Yeah, it feels great not to hurt, but if it stops him feeling, stops him knowing what’s going on with Dean ...?”
“Be still!”
There’s command in Castiel’s voice and Benny gives up trying to free his arms. “Please,” he whispers, “tell me.”
“With love,” the angel replies. “He’s thinking of you with love and with … sorrow.”
With love? Sorrow? Benny says, “No. That ain’t possible, you mis-heard.”
The angel smiles against the side of his neck. “I know I mis-understand things people say and I know this makes me a source of humour, though I do not fully grasp why that should be so. But I assure you vampire, it is not possible for me to mis-hear.”
Castiel relaxes the hold on his arms and as he does so a wave of physical sensation crashes over Benny as he feels, even through the wings that still wrap him, some of what is happening just feet away. “Ahh,” he whispers, sensing Dean fucking into Sam hard enough to snap his spine, “too much, it’s too much.” He has a sudden memory of himself wide open under a gentle, loving Dean so different to this ... this ... to ... . Before the memory can rip at him he turns quickly to face Castiel and lets the strong arms encircle him once more. He rests his forehead against the angel’s shoulder. “I never wanted this. Never thought it was even possible between a vampire and a human, an’ surely not one-sided like this. Don’t know how long I can keep goin’ brother.”
“That is why you have considered speaking with Sam?”
“What?”
“You have been considering death.”
Given where his head is literally at and being as he’s wrapped tight in angelic arms and wings, lyin’ seems pretty pointless.”
“Yeah. I wanted t’ know a few things.”
“Like, can you die and not return to Purgatory?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“But you have not approached him?”
Benny smiles against the shoulder of the trench coat. “Thought he might just kill me ‘fore I’d a chance to say my piece and I’d be back in Purgatory anyways. The guy has a powerful dislike of vampires and this vamp in particular.” He breathes in the odourless scent of angel and says, “That Sam, I’m guessin’ he wouldn’t hesitate to finish me but I was fearin’ Dean might learn of it an’ be angry, that it might make things harder between them, harder than they already are ... you know?”
“Yes, I do,” Castiel murmurs, “things are indeed very hard between them.”
Benny lifts his face. Did the angel just make a really crass joke? He'd bet his cap on brotherly incest being a smite-worthy offence, so what's with the levity? Twisting his head ‘til he’s speaking directly into the ear beside his mouth he hisses, “Did you just say what I think you said? Cos if you did it ain’t funny …”
The angel says, "Hm,” and after a pause during which he seems to be listening to something intently, says, “It is over.” He unwraps his arms and steps back a little. Still within the arc of wings Benny takes a deep, unnecessary breath, then the wings are gone too and it’s no longer afternoon and dusk is falling.
His sense of Dean rushes over him again like a train, but that’s OK, he’s ready for it, almost welcomes it.
Castiel says, “Listen”, and to his astonishment Benny can hear the brothers’ conversation. Even with his preternatural abilities he’s never done that and even if he could it might’ve felt kinda wrong. Now, amplified by Castiel, he hears even their breathing. Hears Dean, clear as anything, soothe his brother who doesn’t sound so fuckin’ tall right now. Dean says, “I ain’t mad at you Sammy, or at myself …”
And oh, just the sound of Dean’s voice again makes him happy so that he smiles, a wide, probably foolish smile. He stands up straighter and says, “Thanks Castiel, appreciate you helpin’ man, I've been feelin' pretty alone with this ... with everythin' I guess." He smiles again, "I know you didn’t have to help, me bein’ a monster an’ all.”
“Ssh”. Castiel raises a finger, “Listen Benjamin. Listen and you’ll hear …”
Eyes fixed on the angel’s face he listens as Dean says, "Everything’s good. We're good." Then a silence and Sam says, real quiet, "You love him, don't you Dean." Dean sighs, then says, "Ssh, Sammy. Sleep now, I'm here".
Castiel bends his head and closes his eyes briefly. “I will leave you now. If it gets very bad call out to me and I will come to you if I can.”
Still stunned Benny says, “Did he mean m … me? Is all that hatin’ just now ‘cos of …? Please, tell me it ain’t!”
The angel looks at him with what can only be compassion in eyes that are blue like his own.
“It was never hate Benny, just love turned inside out by need. Those two could never hate each other.” He looks sad and says, “For your own sake you should remember that.”
Castiel steps away and Benny sees how tired he looks, how fragile in his too loose shirt and ridiculous coat. Without thinking he steps forward and pulls the angel back into an embrace. “I’m thanking you mightily for this,” he says into the soft dark hair. “I know you love him too.”
Castiel snorts. “I am an angel, albeit one who has lost his Grace. It is my particular task to love him.”
“Yeah,” Benny says and smiles, “But he makes it real easy don’t he …”
Nodding, Castiel turns away, hesitates and says over his shoulder. “You are not a monster, Benjamin Lafitte … and yes, he did mean you.”
He’s alone again, still leaning against the outside wall of the Winchester’s now silent room, when his long undead heart starts beating.