Hell adjacent
with @moonoverbourbon
Nik finds himself in purgatory after attracting the attention of Jehoel’s enemies. Part of the angel of mine verse between Jehoel and Nik.
Benny:
Benny had taken to walking again. Far and wide; war was in his blood, the second time around, he had a reputation folks preferred not to test, and he was rarely bothered. Slept some. Thought about Dean, thought about Sam, hell, even thought about Castiel the boner-killer from time to time.
It was good that he walked. Because if he’d made a home, he never would have found the second human to make his way to purgatory.
Benny didn’t even know how he knew. Had an instinct. The man lay unconscious at the foot of a tree, and Benny scratched his head.
Maybe it was time to take a load off. Benny sat down, and rested his bones, waiting, watching, guarding. He told himself it was what Dean would want him to do. No human could last long in purgatory without a lot of practice killing, and there was no stain on this soul.
He sensed a stirring, and reached out, laying a hand on the stranger’s shoulder.
“Hell of a pickle you got yourself in, friend,” he said, figuring on a gentle approach.
–––––
Nik:
Nik stirred, becoming vaguely aware of the dull pounding at the base of his skull. One eye fluttered, refused to open, and he sucked in a breath. What felt like a decade later he finally got one eye opened, then the other, and managed a groan. He tried to sit and failed.
Then he felt the hand on him and instinctively tried to fight it off – which made the pain in his head worse. But the words weren’t harsh, and they had that comforting Louisiana lilt…not like the angels that had confronted him outside the church.
“Who are you?” he asked, eyes finally fixing on Benny’s face. “Where am I?” Nik had about sixteen more questions he could have asked, but his mouth was like cotton and his heart was about to pound out of his chest.
Finally, slowly, he managed to sit, getting his first real glance at the man sitting next to him. “Am I dead? Is this…” This couldn’t be heaven. If this was heave, then Nik was sure that Damon would be there. Right? This couldn’t be heaven. “Is this hell?”
–––––
Benny:
Benny shook his head, and paused, and then shrugged. He didn’t rightly know.
“It ain’t hell, hoss. It’s purgatory. But that don’t tell you much either. Supernatural types end up here when they die, and unless I’m sore mistaken, you are one hundred percent, grade-A human. I’ve only seen one human here before, and he… well, he wasn’t that dead, I guess, so there’s some hope right there.”
Benny put out a hand. “Benjamin Lafitte. Y’can call me Benny, most people do. This is not a good place for a human. Lotta things down here that would like a bite out of you.” The fact that they didn’t need to eat anymore didn’t stop them from wanting to.
“There’s a way out. Ain’t easy to get to, but I can get you there. Sure as shit like to know how you ended up here before I get m’self into trouble, though. Who’d you piss off? You ain’t a hunter, I can see that plain as day.” Already he was wondering about food. If this man wasn’t dead, he was going to need some, and dead wasn’t simple or obvious around here.
“I’m a vampire. Don’t let it put y’off, we don’t need to eat down here.”
–––––
Nik:
Purgatory.
Nik’s blood ran cold. He didn’t know anything about Purgatory, but it didn’t sound like a place he needed to be for the long term. He didn’t know why or how he’d ended up here; it seemed to him that the easier thing to do would have just been to kill him. But… no. This would make Damon suffer even more, and Nik was pretty sure (as much as he could be sure due to the raging headache) that that was exactly what they wanted.
“Benny,” he nodded and immediately regretted it. “A hunter? No…I’m not a hunter. And supernatural? That’s…” If angels existed who was to say that other things didn’t exist as well. Benny confirmed it a second later when he said he was a vampire. Nik’s eyes went wide.
“A…vampire? I didn’t…I mean, I don’t.” What was he trying to say? “I guess anything is possible, yes?” He looked Benny over; he certainly didn’t look like the typical Hollywood vampire. No Brad Pitt in a cape and plastic fangs. Then he tried to get to his feet; it was shaky, but eventually he made it.
“I really don’t know why I’m here.” It was honest technically; Nik didn’t know why Damon’s brethren would come looking for him. He hadn’t seen Damon in years. “I fell in love with an angel,” he said after a moment of orienting himself. “He was…my everything. But I haven’t seen him in years, so I don’t know why they came after me.” Nik looked away, not wanting to talk about Damon anymore – and not to…well, a complete stranger. “Can you help me get out of there?”
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Benny:
Benny chuckled to himself. Dean had been in love with an angel too, and it had broken Benny’s heart. What a world. He stood himself up, too, and nodded.
“As it happens, I’m probably the only thing in here that can get you out, but it ain’t gonna be easy. See,” he said, and started to walk. They had to follow a river for a good long time before they could start in the direction of the portal. “There’s Heaven – guessin’ you know a might bit about that – where good folks go. Hell for the bad. Purgatory’s for all us supernatural types. The fun bit is; y’can die in here, and no one knows where y’end up if y’do. My guess is it’s just over. But there’s a way out. Only works for humans.”
The last time Benny had made this journey, he’d been intending to go home. This time, he wouldn’t. He hoisted his axe up onto his shoulder.
“Not sure messin’ with the affairs of angels is always the best move, but love finds you where it will, I s’pose. I don’t know if you’re the prayin’ type, and I don’t know if prayers even get out of here; but you might wanna try to pray to your angel. See if he can meet you on the other side. Or else whoever threw you down here will probably catch y’by the scruff of the neck and throw y’right back. You got a name?”
–––––
Nik:
Nik didn’t consider himself very lucky to have wound up here, but at least he had seemed to happen upon someone who could help. He hoped. Of course, it could very well be that Benny was playing him for the fool, and was one of the very things he should be watching out for down here. Either way, Nik had little choice, and he was just miserable enough not to question it any further. If there was a way out, he had to take the chance.
He started walking, falling into step beside his new found savior.
A way out. Nik breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he wouldn’t be shut away down here forever after all; if there was a way out, he needed to find it. He needed to warn Damon that someone was coming after him through the people he cared for.
“I had no intention of messing in the affairs of angels, mate. In fact, I was all but certain none of that…this…existed. Damon fell, quite literally, into my path. It was eye opening to say the least.” Nik briefly wondered how far they had to go, but decided not to ask. Probably further than he wanted to know. “Prayer is what got me into this mess. I stopped to pray for my mother, and that is how they found me. Apparently, my lack of faith had kept me hidden until then.”
He sighed, and shook his head. “Do you think it will work? Or will I cross that portal to find a whole host of angels waiting for me because they’ve heard my prayer?”
–––––
Benny:
Benny walked steadily, trying not to pick up too much speed. They had a long walk – he wasn’t game to tell this man just how long – and he didn’t want to exhaust him too quickly.
“Still waitin’ on a name,” he said. “Don’t worry, I ain’t some warlock, just need a handle. We got a good long trek ahead of us. Be pretty weird if I gotta keep callin’ you ‘hey you’.” He listened, though, and winced.
“Yeah, orright. The way I understand it is if you just pray in general you draw a great big ol’ target on your own back. You gotta pray to him, directly. Use his name and everything. Makes it like a telephone call instead of a radio signal. Angels… some of them are plain assholes.” He peered at the water. For some unholy reason sometimes there was a fish or two. and if this guy wasn’t actually dead, eventually he’d need to eat.
Benny heard a branch crack. They were being watched. Well, alright. He hadn’t lost a fight in all his years in purgatory and he wasn’t going to now. Nor was he going to slow down and make anything change its mind on the timeline.
“You’ll be alright,” he said. “We’ll get you near where you need to be, and then we’ll make that call, make sure he’s waitin’ on the other side.” Benny shrugged, and let a grin crack his face wide open. “I haven’t had much of a purpose, last few years. Call this an adventure.”
The guy didn’t look like he wanted an adventure. He looked like he wanted to be safe at home.
“Tell me about him. Fell into your path?”
Benny didn’t get a lot of company, and he was glad for it.
–––––
Nik:
“What?” Nik blinked, and then dropped his head in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. I, um, it’s been a very long day, mate. My name is Nik.” It wasn’t like him to be so rude; he would blame it on the blow to the head, his mother’s impending death, and the fact that he now found himself in Purgatory. It had been a very eventful twenty-four hours. “I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you sooner; I was a bit out of it.”
Praying in general. That was exactly what Nik had done, and Benny was right. It had put a giant target right on his backside. He could pray to Damon – Jehoel – and hopefully he wouldn’t break down in the process.
They reached the river, and Nik began to watch Benny a little more closely. He was watching the water for something, but as long as it wasn’t a sea monster or some other assorted purgatory creature, Nik didn’t care. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this, and if there is anything I can ever do to repay you, I will.” Though, he highly doubted there was anything he could do for a…vampire.
Nik surely hoped that he could trust him, because that easy going smile made it very difficult not to like him.
Something in his chest twinged when Benny asked him to talk about Damon. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but it had been a long time since he’d said anything other than a name in passing when someone asked if Nik was seeing anyway. He could never admit to anyone – not eve himself, really – that they weren’t together anymore.
“I called him Damon. His name is Jehoel, and he literally fell into my path.” He smiled at the memory, and maybe his walking sped up just a step in anticipation of getting out of here. “I lived in a small house in the swamps of Louisiana – from your accent, I suspect you know that place well. I was driving home from work one evening, and I saw something on the side of the road. I stopped, thinking it was perhaps an animal. It was Damon, and he was badly injured.”
The extent of those injuries wasn’t up to him to tell; it wasn’t his story.
“I brought him to my home, and tended his wounds. It took him a long time to heal – they were grievous. During his time with me, we fell in love. But…there was a war, and he had to go. That is why…” his voice broke just a bit, but Nik kept walking, not willing to let himself drown in the pain. “That is why I’m not so sure he will hear my prayer. I have not spoken to him in three years.”
–––––
Benny:
Nik. Alright. Benny nodded gruffly. “Please t’ meet you, Nik,” he said. “No need to apologize. This place is disorientin’, especially when you got no cause to be here, I reckon.” Benny adjusted his grip on the axe. If he needed to use it he didn’t want to lose half a second doing that on the fly.
“Thanks for the offer,” Benny said. “But I don’t need much of anything.” He was silent for a few moments, just walking, one eye moving over the scrub, trying to hear where their chaperone might be. “Or, well, maybe. I got a friend out there. Somewhere. Maybe I’ll give you a message for him. Not now. Before I hoist you on out of here. And don’t act like that’s no big thing. Trust me, he’s a rude son of a bitch, impossible to find, and won’t thank you for mutterin’ my name in his presence. But I know he’ll be glad to hear.
Benny’s spirits lightened at the mention of home. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Born in Carencro, a little ways inland, but I lived most of my life in N’Orleans,” he confessed. “On the water, for the most part. Built boats for Higgins Industries, durin’ the war. I miss it. The music, the drink… an oyster po’boy and a bowl of gumbo.” It was a pleasing surprise, with Nik’s accent, that he’d be from there. Not born and raised, but it sounded like it was home.
“Hold that thought,” Benny said, barely taking in the rest as he turned on his heel, rushing for their attackers.
This second time in Purgatory had been different. He wasn’t afraid of anything, not anymore. He’d always fought, always won, but now, he’d lost all fear of losing. It made him ruthless, it made him unpredictable. The head of one of the leviathan was rolling away in a half a second, and the other opened its mouth to run at Nik. Greedy, greedy, they didn’t need to eat down here.
It was dead before Nik could try to flee in terror, and Benny wiped his hands on his trousers.
“That’s gonna happen,” he said, “and I’m sorry for it; we’ll watch for a weapon for you, but for the most part, tuck yourself away good as you can, you’ll be alright.”
They continued following the river.
“I get the feeling when an angel loves, he don’t do it half-assed.” Benny shrugged. “Not sure they worry too much about things like years. Gotta feel pretty quick, in the scheme of things, especially if he left to fight. It’s what they are, isn’t it. Fighting. War. It’s their lifeblood, if they have it.”
Nik looked miserable.
“Thought there might be a war of some kind. Seen some weird traffic coming through here, but angels don’t belong here any more than humans do. I’m sorry your fella’s mixed up in that. But he’ll hear. They do. I knew an angel a while back. We didn’t like each other much, to start with, but we talked some.”
Benny peered at the water. “You hungry? This ain’t a trivial question, and don’t ignore hunger pains and tell me you’re fine, because we got a long way to go. We can stop, catch a fish, cook it up for you to eat and keep going, if you’re hungry, and if you’re hungry that sorta means you’re alive. If you ain’t – well, probably means the opposite. Also means you won’t tire out, so we’re talking about a win-win.”
–––––
Nik:
“Just tell me who he is and where you think I might find him. I will gladly take the message.” It was the least Nik could do for all the help that Benny was offering him – for all the hope he’d given him. If Damon could hear him – even if he couldn’t physically come to him – then Nik would be happy. He just wanted to know that his words were getting through, and that Damon knew that he hadn’t forgotten him.
Nik had just opened his mouth to speak again when Benny told him to hold his thought. He shut it just as quickly, turning as the vampire rushed off to face a…thing…that had just appeared out of nowhere. It was all he could do not to make a sound, but in the few moments it took Benny to dispatch the creatures, he stood still as a statue – afraid that whatever those things were had brought friends.
“What…what was that?” he asked, wondering if it was another vampire like Benny was. Though, Benny had yet to try to eat him; that was something, he supposed. Then he started speaking about weapons, and that was the last thing Nik wanted. He couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag, and violence had always twisted his gut. Hurting anything wasn’t on his agenda…but it if meant seeing Damon again, then he would have to adapt. He supposed.
But Benny seemed to think it was normal, and they kept walking.
Nik stayed a little closer, eyes on the tree line and looking for anything that seemed even a little bit out of place. Benny’s words about Damon helped center him a little, even if he didn’t much know what angels were really like. All he had to go on was Damon, and something told him that he wasn’t a typical angel. “Weird traffic?” Nik questioned, falling in step next to the vampire to better carry on their conversation. “Like those things back there? I can’t imagine that’s very normal.”
But then what did he know? He hadn’t even known vampires existed until meeting Benny.
The hunger question caught him off guard, but yes…yes, he was hungry. Nik didn’t remember when he last ate (or how long he’d been out), but he was hungry. He smiled, relieved that at least he wasn’t dead. Would that have complicated things? Likely.
“I’m hungry,” he nodded, eyes falling on the river curiously. If things were dead down here, why were there fish? “Fish, yes. Let’s catch one.” He’d gone fishing a couple of times, but never without a pole. How were they going to do this? “I’m not real sure how we’ll go about it, mate, but I would be appreciative of anything to eat. I didn’t realize I was starving.”
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Benny:
“Well,” Benny said. “Weird’s a relative term, in these parts; everything supernatural that ever lived and died ends up here. Except angels. But lately…” He frowned. “One day I’m mindin’ my own business when a big ol’ bunch of demons just come spillin’ out in a rush. Demons are common around here. But I ain’t never seen that many in one go. I had a moment, let me tell you. Nephilim – half angels, half men; s’posed to be rare, but not anymore, apparently. I don’t know. We got monsters galore. But it’s been different. Just… different.”
It was a fine line; on the one hand, Benny didn’t want Nik scared out of his wits. On the other, he didn’t want him to think this was going to be some walk in the park, either, because that’s not what it was.
Benny kept his eyes out for a stick; maybe the width of his thumb, something he could snap the end off, to make a spear. Didn’t take him ten minutes, with his eyes on the ground as they walked, and he grunted in satisfaction.
“Don’t worry. Never found a fish too quick for me.” He winked, and moved closer to the bank. The water wasn’t too filthy, here. He had no illusions that this was going to be exactly a feast, but it would do.
“Now, you can ask me why there’s fish in the stream,” he said, crouching. “But I won’t be able to tell you, any more’n I can tell you why when you listen up good you can hear the birds of prey up high in the sky. Or why we get locusts. This place is a paradox. I can tell you I want blood, but I don’t need it and I won’t take it. Think too hard about this place…”
He struck hard, and felt the makeshift spear pierce a fish’s neck. He hoisted it out and onto the rocky bank, finishing its suffering with a rock.
“Think too hard and you’ll lose your mind. Now, for some, that’s the better option. But you got an angel to get back to.”
He wondered, sometimes, about Dean, about Castiel.
Took a little time, but soon enough he had the fish clean and gutted and cooking on an open fire. Didn’t smell like much, but it was food.
“Now, don’t I wish I had some of those old Cajun spices,” he said, wistfully. “But welcome to Purgatory. Pretty sure this is better’n what you’d get in hell.”
–––––
Nik:
Nik didn’t really need to know the goings on in Purgatory, despite his curiosity. He wanted nothing more than to get out of here, get back to Twain – and hopefully Damon – and forget this nightmare ever happened. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful for all of Benny’s help, but he wished like hell that it hadn’t been necessary in first place.
But demons. The thought made him shiver. Add that to the growing list of things he wished he didn’t know about this world.
He felt bad that Benny was having to fish for him, but the vampire didn’t seem to mind. And he was right – the fish wasn’t much to look at (or to smell), but it was food. He wouldn’t starve before getting out of here.
“How long do you think it will take?” Nik asked, sitting down next to him as he cooked the fish over the fire. “The walk, I mean? I don’t think there’s enough cooking in the world to make that taste good, mate, but I appreciate the effort. I sorely wish we had Cajun spices as well.” He missed home. He missed his little cabin in the swamp.
Mostly he just missed coming home each night to Damon waiting on him with open arms.
“I was a bartender before I met Damon, and for a little bit afterward. I could really go for a nice glass of bourbon to wash this down with.” He accepted the fish once it was done, taking a tentative bite. Not gourmet by any stretch, but it would fuel his body.
“What about you? Before you came here? Did you have a job? A passion?” Nik felt like he was prying, but they were going to be together for a while. It paid to get to know him. “And forgive me for asking – feel free to tell me to mind my own business – but how does one become a vampire? Is it like the movies?”
Once the fish was finished, Nik dumped the bones back into the river, thinking for sure something in there might want them – but not really wanting to think about it at all. It was getting dark, the fire starting to cast shadows across the ground. They would likely be staying put tonight, which jangled his nerves even more. Nik thought he might try to pray to Damon as Benny had suggested, but if felt…odd…to do it in front of him. If they were making camp, perhaps later he would try. “Will we be staying here for the night, then?”
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Benny:
Benny sighed. “I wish I could tell y’different, friend, but it’s gonna take some days,” Benny admitted. “Time ain’t always exactly linear, but I’ll get y’there. You just focus on keepin’ y’self safe and if somethin’ comes at us, you take cover, you hear?” He sat up against a large rock, back to the water, one knee bent and a hand on his weapon. “And if you find you got a bottle of bourbon hidden on y’ somewhere, you just remember who your friends are, alright?”
It was a nice dream. But Nik’s clothes wouldn’t have concealed the stingiest hip flask.
“Yeah, one at a time.” Benny chuckled. Nosy? Benny hadn’t talked about himself in years. Anything to distract them both from the task ahead. “A job, sure. A passion, no, that didn’t come ’til later. I was a cook, and I tended bar, and then during World War II I built boats, these special kinda boats that helped the Allies win over in France. I was good at it – and I was proud of it – but I didn’t have a passion for anything, much. Got married to a woman who was a good enough woman, had a kid… and then I got ripped right out of the world and made a vampire. And I admit I ain’t never seen a movie with a vampire in it, but it’s simple enough. You die with vampire blood in your body, and you’re gonna wake up hungry. Never saw my wife or my boy again.”
But he’d been busy enough. Keeping fed, keeping hidden, out of whatever coast wasn’t currently under a piracy warning.
(Vampiracy, Dean’s voice laughed in his head.)
“And then I fell in love again, and I tried to get away from that life, make my amends… and then I ended up here.”
Andrea didn’t deserve the energy it would take to tell her tale. Dean, he would have liked to talk about. But that was about as much as Benny had said about himself in one go in years, and the rest was going to have to wait.
“No, we ain’t campin’ here,” Benny said. “You can’t see the sun, most days, but it’s early afternoon; promise y’I’ll keep an eye out, cause it gets dark fast, but we got a good sight further to go yet.”
He knew this was going to exhaust his young friend, but the more they did each day the better.
–––––
Nik:
Two days passed without much more than walking and the occasion Leviathan causing trouble. It had gotten to the point that Nik was no longer jumping at shadows, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want out of Purgatory any less than he had that first day. Benny was good company, but Nik missed his home. He missed Twain. The pain he felt at missing Damon so fiercely was like an open wound.
They talked as they walked. Nik told him about being a bartender as well, about how he’d grown up, and exactly what it had meant to have someone like Damon in his life. Angel or not, Damon had been exactly who and what Nik needed.
Still needed.
They were still following the river, and luckily there had been a few more fish to be found – though Nik was pretty sure he was going to regret eating them. He hoped it wasn’t like that myth (whose name he couldn’t recall). Eating something in the realm of the dead meant he was stuck there – he couldn’t handle it if that were the case.
It was getting dark, just past what amounted to sunset here, and he was starting to yawn. Walking all day had a tendency to tire him out. Benny had been making noise about camping, and it was looking more and more like they wouldn’t get much further tonight. “How much further do you think it is?” Nik asked – the first time in days that he’d voice his curiosity aloud.
What he really wanted to know was how much longer it would be before he was reunited with Damon.
A small fire later, and they were sitting alongside each other. “A few days ago we were talking and you said you fell in love again. Do you want to talk about it? I mean, I may not have much advice to offer but…sometimes it helps to just have someone listen.” Maybe Benny would talk about what he’d left behind, give Nik a little something he could take out of here and do for the man that had saved his life.
–––––
Benny:
Benny sighed. “I think if we head out early and power through, we’ll be there by sundown,” he said, though he didn’t have a lot of faith. Nik was pushing, but he was exhausted. He didn’t have supernatural stamina, and Benny couldn’t rightly offer to throw the man over his shoulder. “This river widens, a way up, and after that we veer off, start looking for a dead tree, against a rock face. The door’s up on the cliff face. We’ll get there.”
They’d been lucky, truth be told. Nik drew in a lot of bad but not as much as Benny thought, or else the monsters who wanted him knew Benny’s reputation and had decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
He poked idly at the fire, and thought. What harm was there? He wasn’t getting out again. He shrugged.
“It was the other human,” he said. “Human man, ended up right here in Purgatory. Nothing like you. He was a hunter. Merciless. I followed him for weeks before I approached him, to tell him about the portal out of here. He didn’t trust me, spent his life fighting men like me. But he needed to get out, had a brother still in the world he needed to get back to, and Purgatory is no place for humans. But I wanted out as well. I’d found a neat bit of magic that could let my soul travel out with him, where he could reunite it with my bones, bring me back to life.”
He tossed the stick aside, and crossed his arms over his knees.
“He was a good man. And easy on the eyes, if I say so myself. Said I was like a brother, but I wanted a whole lot more than that from him. We didn’t make it far, in the world. Couldn’t. I’m a monster, and that’s what he hates, even if he hated me a little less. I loved him, but that wasn’t enough. Out there… a vampire’s gotta feed, gotta eat. And that means hurtin’ people, or stealin’ from hospitals, which isn’t as morally gray as I’d like to think it is. So when he asked me to come back here, and help a friend of his out of Hell… I did it. And this time, I stayed.”
He stared at the flames, struggling to stay alive. Purgatory was hostile to anything so alive.
“We had… a few nights.” He smiled gruffly. “Best nights of my whole life. I spent a lot of years around sailors, but Dean had a mouth on him that could make some of them blush.”
He got lost in the memory, Dean plastered against some ugly motel wallpaper and demanding that Benny make him feel it, hollering endearments like they were insults.
“Sorry. Probably more than you were askin’ me.”
–––––
Nik:
A day. Nik could power through anything to get out of Purgatory, but he had to admit he was going to miss Benny. If only there were some way he could come too. He pushed the thought aside as a flight of fancy, and poked at the other side of the fire with a long stick. “I’m okay to go as far as we can tomorrow. Whatever we have to do…I just want to see him again.”
It felt wrong in a way, being this excited about seeing his love again when Benny was so far removed from his own. Nik felt for him, and renewed his promise to do whatever he could to carry a message to the man on the outside…even if it was to simply say that Benny was okay and still thought of him.
If the roles were reversed, Nik would want that for himself.
He listened to the story in rapt fascination. Who would have thought? A hunter? A vampire? He had only learned of such things since coming to Purgatory, but from what he’d been told – the two didn’t mix well. It had a very Romeo and Juliet vibe, and it made him ache for Benny all over again.
“What is his name?” Nik was determined – more determined than he’d ever been in his entire life. He was going to find this man that Benny loved, tell him, let him know that somewhere someone still thought about him. That someone still loved and still cared…and still wanted him. It was the very least he could do.
“I want to find him,” he said unceremoniously. “I want to find him when I get out of here. I want to tell him that you’re okay, and that you still think of him. If I were him, I would want to know that. I would want to know that someone thought of me, especially if I cared for them.” And he couldn’t believe that this man didn’t care for Benny. In just a few days, Nik had come to care for him very much. It would pain him to leave Benny here, alone, in his hell…
Maybe Damon could do something.
Nik blushed a deep scarlet as Benny continued to talk, but he couldn’t help thinking of Damon – how unabashedly sexual he was. It sounded as if he and Benny’s friend had a lot in common in that regard. “If you had another chance? A chance to start over? What would you do with it? Would you look for him? Try to make it work? There is part of me that worries it will never work with Damon and I – he is an angel, and I’m…just me. Who am I to hold his attention? Does that even make sense?”
–––––
Benny:
Benny sat tracing a pattern into the dirt with a stick. Should he even tell? Did it make any kind of sense? Would Dean be better off thinking of Benny as dead and gone? Was it so selfish? He closed his eyes, and thought of Nik’s next questions. Made his head hurt.
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I think… I think I could try to live like a man a hundred years and I still never would be one, and I still never would deserve someone like that. Only time it ever happened, you know that? Been in love twice before. My first wife, when I was human, my second, when I was… this. And then Dean. Never been with a man before that and my prospects here ain’t so good, I think,” he added, jocular, false. “Never felt anything like that. Women are delicate, especially when you’re as big as I am. Dean… Dean movin’ beneath me… that was somethin’ else. And when someone who don’t trust no one trusts you like that…”
He shook himself from the reverie, mortified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… what do y’all say? Too much information,” he said, turning away with his cheeks burning.
“Dean Winchester. You won’t find him. He lives on the road, him and his brother. Saving people, hunting things. Rarely stays anywhere a week. Never had a credit card in his own name. Maybe if you get yourself nearly killed by something that goes bump in the night. What would I do. If I was a better man, I’d let him alone. One day, maybe he’ll get a chance to be happy. Might need to get a leg amputated first, slow him down enough to notice there’s a world left that he helped save.”
Benny glanced around them.
“You need sleep. If we’re gonna finish in one day tomorrow it’s a long day’s walkin’ we’ve got ahead. You need to pray, tell yer angel yer a day away. I’ll keep watch. But don’t forget. You pray his name. If the wrong sort finds out where you are, I promise you, you ain’t gonna end up in Purgatory a second time. And you’ll be a lot harder to find in Hell.”
He reached out a meaty hand to pat Nik’s shoulder, and settled himself more heavily against the rock, adjusting his hat as he went.
–––––
Nik:
As if he could sleep. Nik leaned against a large rock, eyes staring off into the darkness and imagining that every noise he heard was something come to kill him before he could reach the portal. He prayed, silently, specially calling out to Jehoel.
Benny says that we are a day away from the portal. By this time tomorrow night, we should be there. Time…is different here. I’m not sure how long it will be out there. But we are close, and I am safe. I do not know if you hear me, or if you will be there, but I am doing my best to get out. Please be careful, Jehoel. I love you.
He went to sleep with Dean Winchester’s name at the forefront of his mind. Regardless of what happened, regardless of what or who met him on the other side of that portal, Nik fully intended to hunt Dean down – and tell him exactly how good a man Benny was.
–
The walk the next day was long and excruciating, but Nik would not let up. Before, they had stopped to rest every couple of hours, but today he would not allow anything to slow them down. It even irritated him when a few Leviathan sprang up, an attempt at a last minute meal. Benny took care of them as skillfully as he’d handled the others, but still Nik had pressed him to keep moving.
When Benny pulled up suddenly at the base of a large rocky cliff, Nik shielded his eyes from the light of the sun and squinted toward the top. There it was, and he was so relieved he could have wept.
Purple and swirly – almost absurd looking – but there it was.
The portal.
Nik was hit with a sudden overwhelming sense of fear and nerves – so strong that it almost had him running in the opposite direction. He shook his head, and took a step back away from the cliff. “What if he’s not there?” he asked, voice shaking. “What if I can’t get through? What if this does not work? What do I do then?”
–––––
Benny:
It was a sore temptation. Benny stared into that purple light and wondered. It wasn’t too late to ask Nik to take him along. Do the spell… it wasn’t too late. Benny thought of Dean, that face.
For a second, he saw that face, in the purple light, and in another second, it was a totally unfamiliar one. Yet he knew right away. He shielded his eyes, and nodded, taking another step, getting a hand hold and then reaching back to pull Nik up the face.
“He’s there,” Benny promised. “He’s waitin’. Come on.”
Nik wasn’t Dean. He wasn’t weak, but he wasn’t Dean, and Benny had to help him up the rock face. The next time he glance up, the light was distorted, the face of the angel pressing into this world in a way that it had no business doing. He wanted to yell at it to pull back.
“I got him,” Benny called, into the screaming void. “Take his hand.”
An indistinct shape that eventually resolved into something vaguely recognizable as a body reached out, and Benny watched as the angel took Nik’s hand, and pulled him up, out, and into the world. Benny took a deep breath, and let out a sigh of relief, looking up into the light as he saw the two figures embrace.
He turned away, and took a step down.
“No,” came the voice. “No, don’t. I owe you. I’ll get you out. Anything you need.”
And there it was, the hand, reaching back through. Benny stared, even felt his own arm twitch with the need to act.
“No place for vampires up there,” he said. “Go on, now.”
“Human!” Barked the voice. “I’ll pull you out human. I’m the fucking right hand of God until we find Michael, Benny, I can do it. Take my hand.”
Benny closed his eyes, and imagined tracking Dean down. Telling him the good news. And wat would he see? Uncertainty. At best. There was no room for Benny in Dean’s life.
“Go on, now,” he said, and stepped down the cliff.
––
It took Benny a long moment to realize he hadn’t stumbled down into the brambles and roughs of Purgatory. He was kneeling instead on swampy soil, the smell of catfish and humidity in his nose, sea birds in his ears.
Home.
He sat back on his haunches and breathed the air, and finally stood up, and turned. The landscape was familiar, but…
“Oh,” he said, startled. His home in New Orleans, where he’d loved a woman, and fathered a son. He walked to the door, and let himself in, looking in wonder at everything he recognized.
And everything he didn’t – the record player, that was new. He crouched to flick through the albums beneath. Led Zeppelin, Credence… Kansas?
When he pulled out an album he recognized, a piece of paper fluttered out.
They don’t live forever. Be patient. I owe you everything. You know how to find me if you need me. – Jehoel
~COMPLETE~
