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You don’t just size up the opposition. Dean’s grown up knowing that.
However well you think you know another hunter, they ain’t family. Just because they want the same monster dead you do doesn’t mean they’re on your side. So you watch them, just in case. Keep a running tally of their weaknesses; of the ways they might get to you through yours.
With Benny, it’s kind of a pointless exercise. Dean remembers what it was like, being turned: the jacked-up reflexes, the way your senses get heightened to the point of overload. And more than that, the thirst, the lengths it threatens to drive you to. Killing’s the prime directive. A vampire’s a predator before it’s anything else.
Dean watches, anyway, the first time they find themselves fighting back-to-back. He already knows Benny’s quick—the way he took that second vamp down, first time they met, spoke for itself. But he’s methodical, too. Despite the fangs, there’s something calm about him, like he’s just clocking in for another day at the office. Which shouldn’t be a surprise: he’s been taking down other monsters longer than Dean’s been breathing, after all. It isn’t even a job to him—it’s just life. Unlife, whatever.
That’s the part that should be scary as hell. Should tell Dean to keep his guard up, because the moment he turns his back, the creature fighting by his side could rip him to shreds, and he only has Benny’s word that it ain’t gonna happen. So when the fight’s done, when Dean’s breathing hard in the sudden silence amid a litter of body parts, the clap of Benny’s hand on his shoulder—no good job, nothing that patronizing, just a simple acknowledgement—shouldn’t feel like reassurance.
But it does—and in their next fight, and the one after, and the one after that, Dean starts to notice other things.
The fact that Benny always has an eye on him, ready to jump in and lend a machete-wielding hand if Dean’s getting piled-on—as focused on protecting as on killing. The way he kills quick—and okay, probably not painless, but still a hell of a lot less cruel than most deaths in this place. The solemn, troubled look Dean catches in his eyes sometimes, when he turns around after dispatching whatever supernatural sack of shit he’s been bleeding information out of today. Like it saddens him, to see a human acting a little less human than he ought to be.
It pisses Dean off, some days—like Benny isn’t part of it himself, like it isn’t just as unnatural his being so much more human than he ought to be—and he’ll stalk on ahead, hacking at the foliage in spite. Benny never hurries to catch him, just brings up the rear, steady and constant, watching his back.
His anger never lasts. By the time they’re side-by-side again, it’s dissipated, replaced by something that he has to push down, because it’s too soft and too hopeful for this place.
“The river ain’t going anywhere,” Benny will say, quietly, after he catches up. “You wanna cool it?”
“The river ain’t going anywhere,” Dean will answer. “The angel might.”
Benny will touch his shoulder, then, a different kind of sadness in his face. “Easy, brother,” he’ll say.
And it isn’t, none of it is, but it’s so much less cruel than it could be.
Dean will give in, then, and they’ll find a hiding-place, rest up a few hours. Maybe he’ll even close his eyes for a couple of them.
Because a vampire’s a predator before it’s anything else—but after everything else, Benny’s somebody he trusts.