There ain’t language for the things I’ve seen
And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams
The truth is stranger than all my dreams
Holy darkness got a hold on me
– Lord Huron – Meet Me in the Woods
There’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. It used to belong to Rufus Turner, then Bobby, and now it’s Dean’s. Not officially, of course, but Dean seriously doubts anyone is going to challenge him on the property rights, not when the guy who owned it before Rufus turned into the chew toy for a pack of werewolves. For all intents and purposes, it’s Dean’s, and it’s served as his little safe haven for when things get too messy and he just needs some time to his damn self.
The first thing Dean does when he walks in is kick off his boots and drop his duffel. In years past, he’d have to sweep the house first, checking the demon traps and scaring off the raccoons that decided to make it a home when he wouldn’t. Now, however, he gets to pretend that it’s something that it really isn’t – that it’s a home.
“Wish I knew you were headed in, chief,” Benny’s voice rumbles out from the kitchen, “I’d’a made you a pie.”
Dean snorts. “We both know you would’ve just bought one,” he calls back as he hooks his jacket behind the door.
“Can you blame me? You never tried that fancy lattice work. Pain in the ass pastry is what it is,” Benny says.
Dean sneaks into the kitchen on socked feet. He tries to be quiet, and Benny tries to pretend he doesn’t know exactly where Dean is as he keeps his eyes on the stove, stirring away at the pot. It’s almost like a game, a watered-down version of who they really are. At the end of the day, Dean’s still a hunter and Benny’s still a vampire, no matter how they’ve skewed that relationship from what most of their respective kinds would consider acceptable.
Benny lets him wind this time, with Dean coming up behind and wrapping his arms around Benny’s middle, burrowing his nose in the crook of his neck. Benny chuckles. “Rough couple of months I take it?”
Dean grunts, nuzzling closer. He smells like the forest and paprika and whatever other warm, earthy spices perfume the air around them. He smells like the closest thing to home Dean’s known in his whole adult life.
“I missed you,” Dean says, planting a kiss to Benny’s shoulder.
He catches the soft look in Benny’s eyes. It’s one he’s seen so many times before. You don’t actually have to leave, it says. You could stay forever, it says. I’d spend the rest of your life waiting on your sorry ass and I’d only mildly complain about it, it says. It kills Dean every time.
He buries his face in the thick flannel of Benny’s shirt. One of these days he’s going to give in. If he lives that long. One of these days he’ll give up on hunting down evil and spend the rest of his life complaining about the arthritis in his knees and the price of laundry soap with his un-dead pseudo-husband.
The friends he has left will understand. Everyone else will think he’s gone crazy. Hell, maybe he has. But after years of seeing the shit he’s seen, doing the shit he’s done; after years of that crap dancing behind his eyelids when he falls asleep, he deserves a little silver lining. It’s nuts, but who the hell ever said Dean Winchester was the paragon of normal, rational choices?
Yeah, he’d break down and say to hell with it. One of these days.
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