Prompt: All I ask is Dean/Benny. PLEASE. They're so under-appreciated!! Please, anything is fine, just use that pairing?

Something Old, Something New

“Hold it right there. Put that vamp down!” Dean aimed his shotgun at the two men at the stern of the boat. They froze for a moment, looking at him, then began to laugh.

Holding onto the side of the boat with fingers that kept threatening to let go, Benny’s head appeared above the side and took Dean in with just one glance. “Thanks for comin’ to my rescue,” he said, his voice sounding weak, tired. “But have ya ever heard that expression of not bringin’ a knife to a gunfight?”

Both of the men holding Benny began to laugh. One threw his head back and chortled, showing his fangs and second set of sharp, pointy teeth.

Dean looked worried, not because all he was armed with was this gun and a knife. Not because Benny was dangling over the side of the boat, just feet away from a nasty death-by-propeller. Not because he’d abandoned Sammy in Tulsa and driven all night to get to the coast, just because Benny called. But because he was about to sneeze, and he really didn’t want those vamps torturing Benny to know how sick he felt.

Because he definitely felt sick.A runny nose that just wouldn’t stop tickling, a headache that started as sinus pressure but spread out to cover his entire forehead all the way to the back of his head at the base. His throat felt like it was on fire, and the cherry cough drop he’d sucked for the last twelve miles hadn’t seemed to have worked after all to dampen that pain. But the sneezes. God, they just wouldn’t quit today. Sammy had insisted he stay in Tulsa--not just because it was Benny Dean was going to rescue, but because Dean wasn’t in any state to be rescuing anyone. All he was good for was keeping everyone in the motel awake at night with his sneezes.

Dean had a feeling these vamps wouldn’t be defeated by him sneezing on them. Vampires couldn’t get sick; they’d probably just find him amusing… until they sunk their teeth into him and snapped his neck.

Benny’s hand slipped from the edge of the boat. “Dean!”

Dean sneezed into the crook of his arm. “ehyyyy-Gfffchhhh!”

The two vamps laughed. One started toward Dean. And Dean, despite the runny nose and pounding head and sore throat, fired a shot. The bullet ripped through the vampire’s chest, leaving a small hole. It laughed at this and continued to laugh right up until its eyes rolled back and it collapsed onto the deck of the ship. “Bullets soaked in dead man’s blood,” Dean explained to the other vampire as he readjusted his gun and reconfirmed his aim. “You want to be next?”

It hissed at him angrily, and it was then that Dean really should have fired. He shouldn’t have given the vamp even a second to think about what to do next. But the urge to sneeze rose up in Dean’s nose so strongly he couldn’t resist it. “eh-eh-ehh-hehh-hey-ehhhh…” Even though he tried to. “ehhhh… eh-eh-eh-EH-EHHYPXxshhhh!”

As Dean sneezed, the vampire took advantage and grabbed Benny’s other hand. He lifted it up and lowered Benny down. There were yells. There was a struggle. Dean charged and cut with his knife, but by then the damage had been done. And when he pulled Benny back over the side of the boat so the vamp lay next to the decapitated body of his own kind, Benny was almost in just as bad shape. He’d been cut almost in half, blood spilling out around an arm he clutched to his front. “Dean…” he said weakly, fading. He could barely speak, but his eyes were expressive as they flicked over to the cooler on the port side of the ship.

One pint of AB negative later, and Benny was still fighting to stay conscious, cradled in Dean’s arms on the deck of a ship washed in salt water and blood. Benny’s head lolled to the side, his cheek brushing Dean’s where the scrape of stubble would have been amusing or even endearing if he weren’t about to die.

But Dean wasn’t about to let that happen. His knife sliced into his own arm, just a tiny cut, but enough for a weakened vamp to start with.

Benny’s pupils dilated at the sight. “N-no, Dean. Not a good idea… The cooler….”

“The cooler’s empty, Benny. And you’ve got to heal. So shut up and drink.”

The boat’s propeller had chopped him up pretty bad. A human would have died from blood loss already. But Benny had just enough energy in him now to sink his teeth in and swallow. He moaned and hummed as Dean’s blood coursed through him. And Dean held his arm steady, despite the urge to cough, until he started feeling lightheaded. Then he pulled his arm away and rolled his sleeve down, slapping the layer of flannel against the wound. “Better?” Dean croaked. Benny felt warmer and more pliable in his arms, not the stiff, dying vamp he’d been a second again.

“In one way,” Benny confirmed, nodding. “But… in another…” His breath hitched and he shook in Dean’s arm as a powerful “HET-TCHEtttttt!” ripped through him. But he reached up and scrubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “Hell, Dean. How’re you walkin’ around with a cold this bad in your head?”

It took Dean a moment. All these years hunting with Dad and then with Sam. All those years spent being tortured and doing the torturing in yell. All those months in purgatory, fighting to stay alive, fighting to escape, fighting against his feelings. All of that, and there was still something new to learn. “How… you can’t have… my blood?”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference if I weren’t injured,” Benny started to explain. “But in such a compromised state...I… I-huhh… HUhTChhhhtttttt! snrfff! Just one of those mysteries of nature, I guess. Kinda like us.”

Dean tried to fish around in his pocket for his bandana, but Benny rubbed his nose on Dean’s shoulder. “It’ll pass. I just need some more blood in me. Gotta haul ass to a blood bank.” He stood. Everything waist down had been torn to ribbons, his insides had been clearly outside. And, yet, he stood now and pulled Dean up after him almost effortlessly. He sniffled. So did Dean. But both were alive, and that was more than could be said for the two vamps lying face-down on the deck.

“Throw a tarp over this and get in the car,” Dean told him. “We’ll deal with the cleanup lay-later.” Dean scrubbed at his nose, but the urge rose up too strongly. “Yetchahhhh!” He stumbled forward, but he felt a hand stroke his back and another grip his shoulder.

“Maybe I should drive?”

“Nice try.” Dean cleared the passenger seat off with a few swipes of his arm so that Benny doesn’t have to sit amidst balled-up tissues. The vampire climbed in, coughing, but smiling that contented smile of his, the one Dean recognized from back in Purgatory after an especially clean kill. “You all right?”

Benny cleared his throat and sat back, nodding. “Am now. Thanks for comin’, Brother. You’re my knight in shining armor.” And the way he said it, with that drawl and the color returning to his cheeks from Dean’s fresh, warm blood pumping through him, it took all Dean’s self-control to not lean over and sink his teeth into the vamp’s neck, rip his clothes off, and make a mess in the car that they’d have to clean up later as well.

“No shining armor, unless you count Baby here,” Dean replied, staying in control of himself as he turned the key in the ignition. “But you know I’ll be here for you, for whatever you need.”

“Yeah,” Benny sighed and closed his eyes. “I believe it, if you hauled ass halfway across the country for me, even though you feel like total crap.”

“Not total crap.”

Benny’s breath hitched again and he snapped forward in his seat. “hihhhh-HAHXshhttt!”

“Okay, maybe close to total crap.” Dean eased his car back down the gravel drive leading away from the gravel dock and, sniffling, onto the main road in search of the nearest medical facility. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could pick up a box of stronger cold medicine while he was there.