[Blood Brother]
Sam, Dean, Natalia and Dylan entered a motel room in Enid, Oregon. Sam crossed the bathroom and turned on the light. Dean and Dylan looked around the room and Natalia let out an irritated sigh.
She pointed at Sam and Dylan. "Well, that's twice that he's burned us. Shame on you two."
Sam frowned at her. "No, no, no, no. We're the ones who said he set us up. You and Dean said he burned us."
"No, you said, "I wonder if Kevin is setting us up", Dyl agreed, and then you started in with all the techno babble. That was two states ago."
"Yeah, well, whatever. Either way, that's another room billed to one of Kevin's false credit IDs." Dean picked a lock on the mini-bar. "And the motel ran his number today."
"Just like he actually checked in?" Dean asked.
Dylan nodded. "Yeah."
"Kid's like Rain Man. He's like a crappy little credit-card counting... criminal prodigy Rain Man."
Dylan shrugged. "I mean, he was in advanced placement."
Dean frowned at Dylan. "Shut up." He handed Sam, Dylan and Natalia a beer from the mini-bar. "When's that little idiot gonna stop running from us?"
Sam shook his head. "I don't know, Dean. I mean, you did try to kill his mother and Natalia didn't stop you, even though she claims she was after the tablet."
"We were trying to kill Crowley, okay? Who happened to be wearing Kevin's mother at the time. Well, there's a difference." Natalia nodded her agreement.
"Apparently not to Kevin. Oh, I know. Maybe because -- oh, yeah -- it's his mother."
Dean's phone rang. "Hold that thought. No, actually, you know what? Don't hold that thought."
He answered. "Hello? Hello? Uh, hang on. There's not enough bars." Dean walked outside, motioned for Natalia to follow, and closed the door behind them. "Benny?"
"Hey, Dean. Hope Natalia's with ya. You two, um -- you two got a minute? Afraid I messed up, buddy, ma'am."
"What did you do?" Dean asked worriedly.
"No, man, not like that."
Sam and Dylan looked outside to see Dean talking on the phone and Natalia listening closely. They exchanged a confused look.
Outside, Dean and Natalia glanced over their shoulders at the motel room window.
"Wait," Natalia said with a frown. "You took on how many? Are you out of your mind?"
"Hey. See, the thing is, my legs -- they ain't working so good. There's, uh... a fuel barge not too far from here. I'm pretty sure I can make it at a slow crawl. I was kind of hoping maybe I could ask you two for one more favor?"
Dean and Natalia walked back inside and put two bags down on the bed. Sam frowned. "And -- and what exactly is that supposed to mean, you two've got to go?"
"Which words are giving you trouble?" Dean retorted.
"We're on the case, remember, Dean, Natalia? The -- the Winchester/Scott holy grail, "shut the Gates of Hell forever" case."
Natalia nodded. "Sure we are. But, see, in order to close the Gates of Hell, we need our prophet, am I right? So our first step -- find Kevin Tran. As you can see, he ain't here. But clearly he wanted us to be, which means we're probably as far away from the kid as he could possibly put us. So step two -- find Kevin Tran!" She looked back at the mini-bar. "You two mind if I grab the Toblerone for Dean and myself? No? Great."
Dean and Natalia left the room, followed by Sam and Dylan.
Sam said, "Wait. Dean, Nat, seriously?"
"Hey, the trail is dead, but the room is paid for," Dean reasoned. "You two got some research to do, and Nat and I got some personal crap we got to take care of. That's all."
Dylan frowned. "What does that mean -- "personal"?"
Natalia turned to him. "Personal means it's something important to us."
"Don't give me a grammar lesson. And don't flip me off!"
"Damnit," Sam and Dylan muttered.
Dean immediately called him out. "What, Sam, Dylan? Last I counted, Sam, you took a year off from the job. Nat and I need a day."
Dean and Natalia got into the Impala and he started the engine. He drove off and the two of them thought back to their time in Purgatory.
Dean fell on his back to the ground during a fight. Natalia was struggling with another creature. Dean looked for his weapon, which was out of reach.
He kicked out with a leg and knocked the monster he was fighting down. He got up and grabbed his weapon. Natalia gained control of the monster she was fighting and grabbed her sword and smirked with a cold, terrifying expression.
Dean hurled the monster to the ground and swung his weapon at it three times. Natalia jammed her sword into her monster's heart.
Dean reached behind, and Natalia to her side, and placed a hand on each of Benny's arms. Another monster ran at them and Benny whistled. A second and third monster ran at them and the three of them got ready to strike.
Back in the motel, Sam and Dylan were looking for anything about Kevin. The two of them looked up Cascadia Credit, Kevin's Princeton admission form, and a credit card application with Kevin's picture with the name 'Kevin Park' on Sam's laptop.
"You are a wascally wabbit, Mr. Tran," Sam said.
Dylan raised an eyebrow. "All those years on the road, man."
"Shut up," Sam retorted before calling up a credit card application with the name 'Amelia Richardson'. "Concerned. Not stalking... concerned."
"That the girl?" Dylan questioned.
Sam nodded. "Yeah." He paused, hearing a whirring noise coming from the bathroom and went to investigate. The bathroom fan was making the noise.
As his mind flashed back, he screwed the cover back onto the fan. He turned it on and it operated quietly. He turned it off.
"Great. So you're fixing things now."
Dean and Natalia pulled up to a dock and he parked next to a pick-up truck. He looked into the cabin of the truck. Natalia opened the covered truck bed and opened up a small ice chest, containing blood bags. The two of them shook their heads before Dean took the ice chest and Natalia closed the truck bed.
They made their way outside the fuel barge and called, "Benny!"
Dean and Natalia walked into the fuel barge and down a flight of stairs to find Benny leaning against a wall.
"Benny?" Dean called. "Not lookin' good."
Benny chuckled. "Up yours."
Natalia opened the ice chest. "Special delivery."
Dean and Natalia leaned against a table with a number of empty blood bags as they waited for Benny. Eventually, he came out of the bathroom wearing clean clothes and was drying his hair with a towel.
Dean looked at him. "Wow. You, uh... look okay."
"Getting there," Benny replied.
"Dude, you were double-hamstrung."
"Yeah, well, a little rest, a half a cooler full of AB-negative -- most wounds short of an amputation will mend up... vampirically speaking."
Natalia nodded and hummed, "Mm-hmm."
Benny picked up a bag and put on his cap. "I'll be 100% before you two know it." He picked the ice chest and held out a hand to Dean. "Thank you, brother." They shook hands. Benny then held out his hand to Natalia. "Thank you, sister." They shook hands.
"Benny, what's going on?" Dean asked.
"Oh, your work here is done, Dean, Natalia. You two already saved the day. You know, I got my, uh, deal, and you two got -- what'd you call it? A family business?"
Natalia tilted her head. "Benny, what's going on?"
"You two and that whole "friend" thing, little lady."
Dean and Natalia stood after killing a couple monsters. Benny cleaned his weapon on another monster's clothes. A fourth monster swung a weapon at Castiel, who put a hand on the monster's head and smited him in a blaze of light. The monster fell to the ground, dead.
Benny looked between the siblings. "Well, I got to admit, Dean, Natalia -- he's got his strong points, but holy hell if he ain't a magnet."
Dean frowned. "Well, before we found Cas, you said it was our humanity that was drawing too much attention."
Benny nodded. "Yeah, that too."
Castiel said, "Well, I think we're clear for the moment. It does present a curious curl in the metaphysics, doesn't it? If you murder a monster in monster heaven, where does it go?"
"And this is the crazy aunt I want to take on the road?"
"I am not your aunt."
"What? Really?"
"I have no possible relation to your sibling offering."
"Now, you're kidding me."
Natalia rolled her eyes as she and Dean said, "Oh, you two are killing me."
"Us," Natalia added.
Castiel met their eyes. "I have to agree with the vampire, Dean, Natalia. The risk of crossing Purgatory with a seraph -- it's less strategic, and certainly when we have no reason to believe that I can pass through the door you and your sister are headed for."
Benny said, "You see, you and your sister are intact, living human beings stuck in Purgatory's craw. This dimension wants to spit you two out, which is exactly what's gonna power our escape pod. Now, I'm pretty sure I can squeeze through, too, because, after all, you take away the fangs and the fun, I was born human, too. But..."
"I don't think it would work for me," Castiel interrupted.
"You hear what he's telling you, Dean, Natalia? Your buddy is saying-"
Dean narrowed his eyes. "Listen to me, you undead blood junkie, she and I are the ones with the mojo. We're the ones with the plan. Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all four of us."
"Obviously I'm less than comfortable with that," Benny replied.
"Well, it's good to know you two are still dumb as ever," Benny said.
Natalia shrugged. "Yeah, well, some things don't change. Now, why exactly are you getting into machete fights with your own kind?"
"Quentin, the one I came for? We were in the same nest. I'm hunting the vampire who turned me, my maker."
Dean frowned a moment. "Well, now, don't get me wrong. We're down with the hunting, but, uh.. .why?"
"Kill him before he kills me... again."
Natalia frowned. "Again?"
Back at the motel, Sam was using his laptop outside his motel room. Dylan had fallen asleep his head on an open book, and Sam didn't want to disturb him. Sam looked up as a moth flew into a bug zapper and looked up a few moments later as a woman in a bathrobe got ice from an ice machine. His mind flashed back to fixing Amelia's sink.
Still at the fuel barge, a bloodstained wallet, money clip, keys, and matches were spread out on a table. Benny picked up the money clip. "Quentin and I went way back -- one of the old man's favorites, next to me, it turns out."
Dean looked through a notebook. "Listen to this. "Age of Aquarius II, 0800," and then there's some other numbers all crossed out. Some other weird names here, too -- the Big Mermaid, Solitaire -- it's all crossed out, except this one -- the Lucky Myra."
"Yachts. Names of yachts -- Lucky Myra-" Benny took the notebook from Dean, "-- Age of Aquarius II. Look at this one -- Sea You Later, spelled s-e-a. I mean, come on." He put the notebook down.
Natalia pointed at the notebook. "So, I'm guessing these are launch times. And what -- destinations?"
Benny nodded. "Mm-hmm. Except none of them ever get there. The Lucky Myra left yesterday afternoon. I guarantee you it's already been hit."
"What do you mean, "hit"?" Dean asked.
"Boarded, burned, and buried at sea. My nest -- that's how we fed... How we always fed. We kept a tight little fleet, maybe a half-dozen boats. Nothing ostentatious, just pleasure craft. I must have circled the Americas ten times during my tour. A few of us would act as stringers and patrol the harbors, looking for the right-size target -- fat, rich yachts going to far-off ports. Take down the boat's name and destination, radio it to the crew in the water. And then we just, uh... let the ocean swallow up all our sins."
"Vampire pirates? That's what you guys are? Vampirates."
Natalia high-fived him. "Vampirates. Awesome. I like that."
Benny looked at Dean. "You know, all the years we ran together, I can't believe nobody ever thought of that."
Natalia looked at him. "What do you mean? That's, what, that's like the third thing you say."
"No, it isn't."
"Okay, anyway, so, your maker is set up to feed around here, right?" She took money and a piece of paper from the wallet on the table. "Well, what are we lookin' for?" She split the money in half and gave one half to Dean before pocketing the other half.
"Well, he likes to live in style. He usually rents legitimately. Always remote, always coastal."
Dean grabbed the piece of paper from Holly's hand, earning a hit from his sister. Dean unfolded the piece of paper. "So an island, maybe? You got a cable bill here. Hmm. Quentin's got the NFL package. Prentiss Island. Heard of it?"
Benny nodded. "Oh, yeah."
Dean drove the Impala down the road and Natalia asked, "So if you were your maker's favorite, why'd he kill you?"
Benny glanced at her. "When you get turned, it's like you're reborn into a vampire nest. Your maker -- he means everything to you." He took a blood bag out of the ice chest next to Natalia. "I mean, you really start believing he's God. Now, if your maker happens to believe the same thing, well..." he drank from the blood bag.
Natalia pointed at the ice chest with a grimace. "Does this really have to be next to me?"
"Yes," Dean said. "See how that could be a pickle."
"Mm."
"Well, uh -- you really have to do that? I mean, right now?" He grimaced slightly and Natalia's lip curled in disgust.
Benny chuckled. "I'm sorry, brother, sister. I'm better, but I'm still on the mend."
"Right," Dean and Natalia said.
"Anyway... our father -- he was a jealous god. He kept the family together, but kept us apart from the rest of the world, always at sea. I always did what was best for the nest... til I met her. Andrea. Andrea Kormos. Beautiful. I mean, words don't even cut it, you know? Greek, heiress."
"Come on," Dean said.
Natalia glanced at him. "I'd like to think Dylan would describe me as such." Dean rolled his eyes.
Benny gave her a small smile before saying, "She was sailing a 42-foot sloop to the Canary Islands. Now, I should have called her boat's destination in to my crew, but instead, I joined her on it."
"Seriously?" Dean said. "Was Fabio on the cover of that paperback?" he laughed.
"My life changed when she entered it, Dean. Everything I had been or done up to that point just... seemed to vanish... into what we had become together. Something I'm guessing your sister knows quite well. I mean... We found it, man, ma'am. Eventually, we settled in Louisiana. And then one night, we were coming home, and the old man -- he was just there. Quentin, sorento, my oldest nestmates. It was only that night I understood what a crime it was to him -- me leaving him. They pinned me down and they beheaded me. The last thing I saw was the old man tearing out Andrea's throat."
Natalia pursed her lips. "Well, that's what payback's about, right?"
At the water, Dean, Natalia and Benny were in a small motor boat. As they approached the shore, Dean sat at the bow with a rope and prepared to jump off.
When they reached the shore, Dean jumped off the boat and secured the rope. Benny threw him two bags before getting off. Natalia stumbled, and Dean took her hand, assisting her down. As they walked through a forest, Dean texted a number.
"We're close," Benny informed.
Dean prepared a text to Sam and Dylan. 'Hunting vamps -- nest on Prentiss Island... not...'
"Remind you two of anything?" Benny asked.
'... alone...' Dean added. He used the backspace key to delete the message and put his phone away. Natalia pulled out her phone and stared at it before putting it away. Benny took a weapon out of his own bag. Dean took two weapons from his bag and handed one to Natalia.
Benny said, "It's weird being back -- in the real world, I mean." Dean and Benny threw their bags onto the ground. "Isn't it?"
Dean nodded. "Sure as hell is."
"I mean, what do you two do with it all? All the -- all the everything? Hell, I don't even know if this world is real, if I'm real."
Natalia met Benny's eyes. "Listen to my words. We've seen what happens down that rabbit hole, okay? We're real. Benny, this is real. It's the only way to play this game, you get me?" Benny nodded.
They entered a large house and walked through the entry hallway into the main room, weapons drawn. Benny looked at a harpsichord.
"Time to move, Benny," Dean whispered.
"The old man's harpsichord," Benny said.
"Benny!" Dean and Natalia cried quietly.
Dean and Natalia walked off. Benny looked at a framed photograph of a woman on a table. "No. No, no."
The woman in the photograph, Andrea, came down the stairs. "Benny?"
"Andrea."
A man walked up behind Benny, another appeared around a corner, and a third came down the stairs behind Andrea. The man behind Benny knocked him to the ground.
Dean and Natalia listened from behind a wall as Benny was hit again and again.
"Idiot," they muttered.
Dean and Natalia walked around a corner and Dean's phone buzzed. He took out his phone, but didn't accept the call. Instead, he muttered, "Little busy right now."
He pocketed his phone and walked slowly down a hallway, Natalia on his tail. They ducked as a man appeared at the end of the hallway. After a few moments, he opened the door of the room they were hiding in.
"This is Dean's other, other cell... so you must know what to do."
Sam hung up and stared at Amelia's Texas driver's license on his laptop.
Dylan glanced at Sam's laptop. "Man, you got issues."
"Shut up. Have you been able to contact Dean or Nat? They're not answering."
"They're probably busy. You know as well as I do they'll call when they can."
"This isn't suspicious to you?"
"It's very suspicious. But if Natalia needs to do some personal things, I trust her. She's smart, and she knows how to protect herself, reckless as she can be. And Dean's with her. I'm sure they'll tell us when they're ready."
"I don't know. Usually I have to prod them."
"Yeah, well, maybe it'll be different."
Sam sighed and focused back on the license plates before remembering Amelia.
Sam's ringing phone caught his attention. "Hey."
"Okay, what?" Dean retorted.
"What?"
"Why did you two call me and Nat?"
"Why are you whispering?" Dylan asked after Sam put it on speaker.
"It's kind of hard to explain right, but Nat and I are sort of in the middle of cleaning out a vampire's nest, and it's sort of gone a little sideways on us."
"What?!" Sam cried. Dean took the phone away from his ear and held it against his chest, glancing at Natalia before glaring at the phone. "Are you idiots, Dean, Natalia? You two know better than to go into a random vamp nest without backup."
"It's not random, damnit. All right? We've got backup -- guy who's been tracking the nest for awhile."
"What guy?" Dylan questioned. "Garth?"
"Huh?" Natalia asked. "No. You guys don't know him. He's a friend."
Sam frowned. "A friend? Dean, Nat, you don't have any -- all your friends are dead. And Dylan doesn't count. He's practically family."
"That's not what we called to talk about!" Dean voiced loudly, holding his phone to his chest again.
As Sam spoke on the phone, Dean texted. "I get the separate-lives thing, but this is a hunting thing, and we need to find that line-"
"Oh, my God, stop talking. I texted you two our 20."
"Yeah, we got it. Look, we're on our way. And, listen, if you handle it, great. I'll buy your friend the first round. But, Dean, Natalia, listen to me. It-" Natalia pointed to Dean, noticing how quiet it was. "Dean? Nat? Dean, Nat, are you there?" Dean had left his phone, still on, on a sideboard. "Dean. Natalia." A vampire heard the phone and walked over to the sideboard. "Dean. Natalia. You kidding me?"
Dean cut off the vampire's head, then picked his phone up from the ground. The screen was shattered. "Oh, man, come on."
Sam hung up and threw his phone to the floor. "Damnit!"
"Easy," Dylan said. "Easy, dude. They can handle themselves. If they need help, I'm sure they'll figure out how to contact us. But if anything happens to her... "
Dean said in the house, "Nat, I need your phone."
Natalia pulled out her phone and frowned. "It's dead. Well, that's awesome."
Dean groaned. "You gotta be kidding me."
Natalia, with Dean's help, started pulling the body of the vampire Dean had killed and stopped, seeing a second vampire watching them.
They killed the vampire watching them and Natalia walked ahead, killing another one. They dragged a vampire into a room and the vampires ran to the room. The two of them killed the vampires that had run in and a head flew into the hallway. Dean and Natalia stepped out of the room with their Purgatory weapons in hand and walked down the hallway.
"What the hell do you know about the value of life?" Dean retorted. "You're a vampire."
Dean, Benny, Castiel and Natalia were walking through the forest.
Benny nodded. "Yep. And I think we each know which of our kinds kills more humans."
"Well, statistically speaking, that'd be your-" Castiel began.
Natalia glanced at him and interrupted. "Yes, thank you, Cas."
"I get it," Benny replied. "You're worried what I might do if we make it topside. I'll start eating your little piggies. I already told you, man, ma'am -- by the time I got iced, I was strictly on blood transfusions, donated blood. Not donated to me, I'll give you that, but I paid good black-market scratch for it."
"So what is that?" Dean asked. "Like the Vampire Zone diet?"
"Look, all I'm saying is I started seeing something in humanity, okay? Something that shouldn't be taken. I drink blood. I don't drink people."
"And why the hell should we believe you?"
"What does it matter what you believe? You got your head so far up your ass, Dean, you don't realize we're already done for. The angel knows it. Your sister seems to know it. We are never gonna make it with him next to us glowing like a beacon."
Natalia narrowed her eyes. "Do we need to remind you of our deal? Of what you committed to?"
Benny glanced at Castiel. "They are gonna get us killed."
"We may get to test that theory," Castiel replied.
Natalia turned to the angel, making a motion with her hands. "Why don't you blip us outta here?"
"They're too close. I can't. Run."
Dean and Natalia walked through the house.
At the motel, Sam broke into a car in the parking lot and he and Dylan drove off. Sam's mind flashed back to Amelia and Riot, the dog he'd hit.
Sam held his phone to his ear while driving. "This is Dean's other, other-" Sam hung up and dropped the phone to the floor of the car. He sped from eighty miles per hour to ninety.
Dylan called Natalia. "This is Natalia Winchester. If you-"
He glanced at Sam. "She didn't answer either. Hurry."
At the house, Dean and Natalia noticed Benny talking to Andrea.
Andrea snarled and her fangs descended. Natalia stabbed her from behind and Dean cut off her head. Benny, Dean and Natalia looked at each other before Benny looked down at Andrea's body.
Dean, Natalia and Benny prepared to launch the boat. "Why'd you do it, Dean?" Benny asked.
"Do what?"
"Resurrect me. You could have drained my soul into any culvert, and no one would have been the wiser."
"What the hell are you talking about? Hey, you good?"
Natalia looked at the vampire. "Benny?"
"Man, ma'am... I don't know what I am," Benny replied.
Dean, Benny, Castiel and Natalia ran through the forest. Something hit the ground near Dean and Natalia in a cloud of black smoke. Dean, Natalia, Benny and Castiel stopped. The smoke cleared and a mass of black goo transformed into a Leviathan.
"Oh, great," Dean and Natalia groaned.
The Leviathan moved towards Dean and Natalia. Castiel headed in the opposite direction, but another missile of black smoke hit the ground in front of him and became a second Leviathan. Dean and Natalia swung at the first Leviathan with their weapons. The second Leviathan threw Castiel to the ground. Dean and Natalia hacked at the first Leviathan, who was down, again. The second Leviathan's mouth transformed and Benny cut off its head before giving Castiel a hand to pull him up.
Dean, Benny and Natalia were in the boat approaching the dock. Benny was steering, Dean was standing at the bow with a rope, and Natalia was sitting. Sam and Dylan waited on the dock. Dean threw the rope to Sam, and tossed his and Benny's bags onto the dock.
Dean stepped off the boat. Sam looked past him to Benny, who joined Dean on the dock. Dean offered Natalia a hand, helping her step off the boat.
Benny said to Sam and Dylan, "I'm Benny." He offered a hand to Sam and Dylan, criss-crossing his hands, and they took it. "Heard a lot about you, Sam, Dylan."
Sam looked at Dean and Natalia as he undid the cover of a knife holster at his side with his left hand. His fingers flexed on his knife. Dylan started to reach for his as Benny watched. Dean and Natalia shook their heads and Sam loosened the grip on his knife while Dylan relaxed his hand ever-so-slightly. Benny let go of their hands.
"I can see you four have a lot to talk about," Benny said.