"I almost ended up here once."

Benny looked up from the pieces of bark he was trying to make into a cord. They were heading along the edge of a valley, trying to follow the river without getting trapped at the bottom. Dean had finally found a hollow behind a tree where they could rest without broadcasting their location, although they remained alert. Paranoia started to come naturally in Purgatory.

"Yeah?" Benny asked, rolling the bark between his palms. Another hunting story, no doubt. Boy walked himself into trouble more often than he changed his socks. "How's that, brother?"

A tree rustled in the distance. Dean jumped into the hollow from the edge where he'd been sitting and peered up the hill. Benny's fangs punched into his mouth and he dropped his cord, crouching. After several minutes of watching every leaf, they warily resumed their previous positions.

"I got turned into a vampire."

A silence.

"'Scuse me, brother. Don't think I heard that one right."

"Yeah," Dean chuckled, strained. He motioned for the bark from Benny, and started twisting it. "That wasn't awesome."

"That ain't something you just come back from."

"There was a cure," Dean said, grabbing another piece of bark to twist into the cord.

Benny stared.

"I know. I'd never heard of one, either. There was this guy we were working with called Samuel. What an asshole. He had this old family recipe."

"An' what was in this old family recipe?"

Dean looked up from Benny's cord with sympathy. "It only worked if you were dry. No human blood."

"Yeah," Benny tried to laugh. "That don't sound like me when I was topside."

"Sorry, man."

"No worries, brother. I've been a vampire longer than I've been a human being now. Tell me about that cure."

"It sucked is what I'll tell you, and that is not a pun. Almost as much as being a vampire sucked. It was like... garbage can soup. The most important ingredient was blood of the fang who turned me, and that guy was seriously sleazy. I mean, all of his turns were these 16 year old kids." Dean frowned in disgust. "Then there were these leaves, like basil or something, and I'm pretty sure Samuel added a gallon of cat pee because he hated me."

An inhuman shriek pierced the air, muffled by the trees. They both froze. Benny listened hard, trying to pick up any strange noises with his superior hearing. After a minute, he shook his head.

"We're good. They're far off yet. Probably just another leviathan eatin' a kitsune."

A dark cloud flashed over Dean's face and he cleared his throat. "Anyway. The smell wasn't even the worst part. I barely noticed that over how freaking delicious my brother and grandfather smelled. It was like being stuck in a room with a five course meal with arms and legs. I was so hungry and I couldn't hear anything they were saying over the sound of their blood and my whole body was just killing me." The vampire grasped Dean's shoulder sympathetically. Samuel was his granddad?

"So, I get this cure and I throw it back and it tastes like something scraped from the bottom of a lake. And I and I realize it's not working- isn't going to work. Sammy is gonna kill me and I don't think he's gonna care. I don't even know where vampires go when they die. I didn't see any in Hell."

Dean probably didn't even notice the despair all over his face. He viciously twisted another strip of bark into the cord. Benny couldn't say anything.

"And then it works and I start puking up this nasty black crap. It's like... something was rotting inside me the whole time I was a vampire. I'm in just- agony. And I'm puking and I'm reliving all these visions from the Alpha vamp and realizing that's all Sam wanted from me. The whole time I was a vamp, Sam's heartbeat was totally even. I almost drained- well, him, Lisa and Ben, Samuel. And he doesn't care. The little brother who brought home stray cats just wanted a spy, somebody to find the Alpha."

Benny didn't know how Dean hadn't shattered yet. He looked so strained, so damn brittle. The cord was almost two and a half feet long now. Dean added another strip, looking down.

"Then it's done. I'm human and dripping with monster puke and I realize that these guys are my family. The only family I got. I've gone to Hell for Sammy without a second thought. And..."

A tear fell onto Dean's hand. He didn't acknowledge it. There was a silence..

"You know what?" Dean finished off the end of the cord and looked up. "It turned out just fine. Sam's soul was stuck in Hell, so that guy walking around in my brother's body wasn't really Sammy. We got it back, I was cured, and we watched Samuel die. So I've got no reason to complain. We get out of Purgatory and everything will be great."

Benny couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

"You still with me, Benny?"

"Yeah, brother," Benny finally said, throwing his arm over Dean's shoulders. "I'm still with you."