Summary: Benny's not the praying type, but he was once, and he remembers that time. Denny-ish with Destiel references; blood-sharing in Purgatory. "I can be your blood bag."

The Praying Type

The hot burn of the fire's the only sound around them, filling the blank darkness of another Purgatory night. Benny's sitting at the end of Dean's sleeping bag, keeping watch, ears pricked, picking up on every crack of every branch , every hoot and holler and howl, every rustle of every leaf around them. It's nights like these when he wishes the hunter would just give up on this angel of his already, just leave this God-forsaken place behind and let the angel find his own way out, learn to hold his own just like everybody else here does.

It's not three hours after he fell asleep that Dean stirs, turning over and grumbling something imperceptible, even to vampire ears. Benny, too, stirs, re-adjusting his position and somehow, through his action, letting Dean know that he's right there, keeping watch, protecting. It's something they've learned to do well these days, talk to each other through the simplest little actions, the simplest pushes and pulls and twitches. But, then, that's what Purgatory'll do to you if you're trying to work as a team. Sometimes, silence is the only thing you're allowed to deal in, communicate through.

"How long's it been?" Dean finally asks, sitting up, stretching languidly. His muscles are sore, sorer than usual and that's really fucking saying something, seeing as he's sore every day, fighting and bending and twisting at unnatural angles in all the corners of this wasteland.

"'bout two , two and a half hours," is Benny's slow answer, his drawl heavy with exhaustion and the inability to have fed in quite some time; he's tired, too, tired like Dean is, and Dean knows it. "Sleep good, brother?"

Dean just makes a little 'mhm' noise, standing and grimacing at the dull ache throbbing through him, frowning more deeply at the sudden shots of stronger pain running up his left arm; too much fighting, too much slamming against trees.

Benny packs their things, rolls Dean's sleeping bag and puts out the fire, while Dean goes to do who-knows-what a little further into the trees, probably, as far as Benny's concerned, take a leak and find a puddle to splash his face with. They've gotten into this habit lately, Benny watching and waiting while Dean sleeps, Dean waking and taking care of himself while Benny packs up, and Benny can't help but think that's a little domestic for him, babysitting a human like this. But he likes Dean, he really does; at first, the human had been nothing but a way out of this place for him, but now, he considers Dean a friend, cherishes the camaraderie, means it when he calls the human 'brother'.

They're walking again before the light of day- if you can even call it day here; Dean still thinks you can't- starts to warm the ceaseless woods. For a while, they continue in silence, not caring to wake anything that might still be sleeping in this forest; leave them to their slumbers while you can, Dean and Benny are both figuring. It's quiet today, almost peaceful, though the absence of footsteps and screeching and hissing is almost disconcerting here, like the record player in a bar's stopped working and now all the barmen are left to sit in silence, afraid to even put their drinks down too loudly for fear of ruining the quiet that somehow is sacred, awesome in the Biblical sense, inspiring fear and wonder and awe all at the same time, the way Cas's eyes always did when the angel was mad- and wait, was Dean seriously thinking about how to describe Cas's eyes in the Biblical sense? Yeah, he really misses that angel; much as he enjoys Benny's company, enjoys the certain back-up in fighting and the knowledge of Purgatory and the way that, sometimes, the vampire whistles as they walk, Dean really misses Cas.

As if he's reading Dean's mind, Benny finally speaks, "We'll find him, y'know, brother," he says, voice gravelly and deep, "We both know we ain't gettin' nowhere 'till we do."

Dean's answer is, again, just an absent little 'mhm', and he doesn't even notice that Benny's stopped walking until he's finally so wired by the stillness beside him that he looks back. Benny's plastered to a spot about fifteen or twenty paces behind, hands dug into his coat pockets, a smug little grin tugging at the corners of his firmly-set mouth. "And here I thought I meant more t'ya than that, brother," he says, feigning hurt at having been left behind.

"Shuddup," Dean shoots back, making a stern come-here motion, "Let's go, we're getting close, I know we are. No more time to waste."

And Benny's voice is stern in replying, level and even and leaving no room for argument. "No."

"You got a problem, Benny?" Dean shoots back, eyes narrowing, just slivers of green now as they meet Benny's, steely and unforgiving.

Benny's lips are definitely turned up into a sly little grin now. Motioning in a sweeping gesture at the landscape around him, he mutters, "Yeah, this is my problem."

"You'll be out soon enough," Dean spits back, voice pure venom, "If you just get a fuckin' move on and help me find the angel first."

Yeah, Benny's definitely rolling his eyes, isn't he? "Oh, brother," he drawls out, taking a few steps forward, closing about half the distance between himself and Dean, "Helpin' you 'find the angel first' is all I do these days."

"Yeah, thanks." And it's sarcasm and Dean knows it's sarcasm and he knows Benny doesn't deserve sarcasm, not now, not after all the shit they've been through together, but the sarcasm's there anyway. Dean thinks it's probably just something he can't help, something so much a part of him that it's not likely to easily go away anytime soon. And honestly, right now, he really doesn't care all that much to fight it.

Benny finally relinquishes, finally gives in as he gets nearer to Dean, finally tells him why he really stopped at all. "I need it, brother," he says, his voice no more than a jagged whisper, "I need it real bad."

And Dean knows immediately, and now it all makes sense. It makes sense why Benny stopped and why Benny's eyes look a little more tired this morning and why he hasn't been whistling, why it's been so quiet. It's been what… a week? More maybe?

Dean's expression softens tenfold immediately, and he's already unbuttoning the top button of his shirt and taking a step toward the vampire, ready. "Why didn't you just say that, Benny?" he's asking, pulling the vampire with him toward a nearby tree, and it's easy, it's too easy to steer Benny around, and Dean can tell he's weak and he really is in need. They've been looking so long and so hard for Cas that Dean's forgotten this completely, forgotten that Benny's a vampire and that he needs blood, needs it to power on.

"Didn't wanna hold us up," Benny shrugs, following after Dean, eyes already focused on the hunter's neck, the sound of a pulse pounding in his ears, making his head spin, "Didn't… wanna take from you when you been weak as is, when you been sleepin' so little and fightin' so much. We can… we can find something else, brother. I can make do 'till then."

But Dean's shaking his head and leaning back against the tree and grounding himself already. "No, Benny, you need this. You need this now. I'm here, I've got it. Not like I'm serving much of another purpose anyway. I can be your blood bag."

Normally, Benny would protest. He'd refuse and wait until they find something else, some other lost soul wandering down here, anything else with blood in its veins. But he can't wait anymore. It's been too long, Dean's pulse is too loud, too strong, too… alive. The vampire's lips are on Dean's neck first, pressing something that feels an awful lot like a kiss to the skin there, and Dean's whimpering- fucking whimpering- against the touch because damn he misses Cas, misses being touched like that, and he knows it's been too long for Benny too, and this is the bond, the bond Purgatory has forged between them and Dean's damn thankful for it.

When he feels the gentle glide of a fang against his neck, Dean knows Benny is going slow. Somehow, without him knowing who initiated it, he finds his fingers laced with the vampire's, their hands clinging to one another's, Benny's pressing Dean's into the tree trunk, the touch reassuring and warm and so human that Dean almost forgets just what it is they're doing here. It takes the first prick of a sharp, preternaturally sharp, fang to remind him, and then Dean's bearing his neck, throwing his head back against the tree trunk and breathing out, slow and rough and shallow as he tries to focus on Benny's hand holding his, on the pressure and reassurance there instead of the pain stemming from his neck.

Benny is careful, careful to avoid spilling even an ounce of venom into Dean's bloodstream; the second the skin is punctured and the vein is tapped, he fights himself hard and pulls his fangs away, closing only his lips around the warm, musky skin, sucking only hard enough to keep up a steady flow of blood against his tongue. It's hot and alive and it tingles as it slips down his throat, bringing as much life as a vampire's ever allowed to have back into him, and, honestly, Benny could lose himself in the taste of Dean's blood. It's coppery and sharp, just like the blood of any human (and oh, human blood is a delicacy in these woods), but Dean's blood is something… something more, it's got its own special taste to it, something deeper and thicker and sweeter and stronger about it, or maybe Benny's just imagining that, but hell, in any case, it just makes him cling a little harder to Dean's hand because he never, never wants this man to fade from his life, never wants Dean's blood to fade from his body. But he'd never tell the hunter that, not when he's so invested in that angel of his, not when he's so, so taken by that angel.

Dean's head is light and spinning and his eyes are fluttering and he's wondering when, if, Benny will stop. "B-Benny," he stutters, feeling his knees go weak, loosening his grip on the vampire's hand in a manner not at all willing, "Benny stop, stop." This is more than the vampire's ever taken from him. Dean feels his back pressing harder into the tree trunk, feels himself starting to slump, notices that Benny has an arm around his waist now, and, if it wasn't for that arm, he'd probably have already fallen backward.

Benny doesn't even realize he's losing himself, losing touch with his self-control until he feels Dean's fingers uncurling from his. The second he notices, though, he pulls back instantly, shock and sorrow and guilt coursing hotly through him, almost more noticeably than the man's blood. Wrapping an arm around Dean's waist, supporting the hunter's weight, he takes a moment to look at Dean's face. His eyes are glazed and glassy; his skin is pale, pallid; even his lips are turning white now for loss of blood.

"I'm sorry, brother, I'm sorry," Benny is repeating, his words a sort of chant, almost a prayer, if anything in this place could be considered a prayer, "Brother, I'm sorry…" And with that, he's sitting down, setting Dean's head down on his lap and laying the hunter's body out on a patch of yellowing grass by the tree's roots. Leaning down, he presses a quick kiss- yeah, this time, it's definitely a kiss- to Dean's neck, covering the points of intrusion with his lips in just the quickest little moment of affection. "Shh, brother, I'm here, I'm right here, I've got you. You're fine, it'll be fine, I've got you."

And it's like that that the two spend the next forty minutes, waiting for cells to divide and travel and fill Dean again with the warmth of life. Benny knows Dean'll be fine, knows he didn't take too much, but still, he'll admit, he may have sent a few words to that angel. He's not exactly the praying type anymore, but he was once, and he remembers that time, remembers the dynamic of it. So he lets a few words slide across his lips and hopes they'll find the angel's ears, and maybe they do, because Dean's eyes flutter open a while later and Benny smiles a soft, apologetic smile down at him.

The vampire is about to ask the human how he's feeling, but he doesn't have to; Dean answers for him, makes clear through one word and one word alone that he's just fine, that he's his same old, sarcastic, cynical self.

His voice is deep and his cheeks are flushed with color again as he says it, and, if it weren't for the smile that comes to his lips, Benny probably would've worried that Dean was mad. But, as it stands, he doesn't think he's got anything to worry about.

"Glutton."

New: See the lovely fan-comic version of this story by Akumo here: watch?v=nWk1dgc7bK8