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Pulpy splinters dig into the meat beneath Dean's nails—almost thickened to claws now—as he scratches absently at the park bench beneath him. It's better to keep his hands occupied with that than let them curl into Benny's heavy wool coat. The scent of old blood and anise has his teeth aching and his stomach churning as it is.
"You're lookin' good, brother," Benny says in that loose, careless drawl of his. Dean's ears heat as the sweet whiskey rasp of Benny's voice sinks in deep. "Wish I could say the same about the smell, though."
Dean's green eyes stay trained on the brown-spotted yellow leaves littering the ground between his boots. "Yeah, well, you know how it is."
"Can't say I do. Never got the opportunity, as it were. But you, you got yourself marked. Good for you."
Marked and mated, and anyone—anyone like them—knows it, knows he's unavailable. He raises one hand and scrubs at the thick scar tissue clumped at his nape. It's a good feeling, a comforting feeling, to know someone has him like that. Benny'd put him on his belly countless times when they were running with the Old Man's pack, but Dean never gave him his neck. Couldn't let go enough for that, or something.
No, he's not going to think about back then and the woods and hunts and the way the adrenaline sparking in his blood made everything sweeter and sharper. He's done with that. Has been for almost eight years. Dean swallows thickly and tries to breathe evenly, like his pulse isn't ticking madly in his throat and he's not half-hard in his jeans.
"How're they doing, the Old Man and the rest?" he asks finally, when the heat of Benny's gaze from behind his sunglasses becomes too much.
"Good. Well, last I heard."
The surprised glance Dean cuts the other wolf is short, but long enough to catch the lazy, too familiar grin. He rubs harder at the scar tissue.
"You're not running with them anymore?"
The breeze picks up, carrying the leaves down the dirt path running unevenly before the bench. Wood smoke from a handful of late autumn campers curls up into the overcast sky beyond the trees. It sort of smells like wet dog out here today. Better to notice that than the man reclining a respectable distance away.
"You had the right idea, gettin' out when you did. The government started poking 'round not too long after. Couldn't prove nothin', of course, but being watched by Big Brother isn't healthy for our kind." Benny chuckles. "So I got out. Three years gone now."
Dean doesn't know what to say to that. He'd had his own reason back then, just like Sammy before him—only his reason had more to do with old-flavor shot-gun weddings and not a full ride to Stanford. The place the Old Man had been leading them all… It hadn't been good, but it had felt incredible.
"You got the pictures?" Dean asks, digging his nails deeper into the wood and into the scars.
For the first time since Benny arrived, Dean can't feel his stare. He chances a quick look to find the other man leaning back with his face tilted up towards the rain-pregnant sky. Unsmiling.
"I got 'em," Benny murmurs, voice rougher than Dean's heard before. "Keep one in my wallet."
"You have a wallet, now?" Dean can hardly imagine Benny without his gold-plated money clip.
"The times they are a-changin'," the other wolf hums out, grin returning in the slight upward curl of his lips. The flare of heat in his cheeks lets Dean know that he's back in Benny's sights, that those wintry blue eyes have him behind the black glint of the sunglasses.
Dean turns back to the trail and the leaves and autumn-sleeping woods beyond. He clasps his hands between his knees. His fingers ache as his body slowly pushes out the splinters.
"She's gorgeous," Benny breathes.
Pride, warm and giddy, swells beneath Dean's lungs at the reverence and awe in Benny's drawling voice. She is gorgeous, their daughter—gorgeous and perfect and, at seven years old, utterly infatuated with the word "no." Exasperating and amusing, turn by turn, that is the child they made. Their Noel.
Only a handful of people know that Castiel's name isn't on the birth certificate. Back then, Dean hadn't been able to cut Benny out her life like that, to pretend like they hadn't meant something to each other even without being mates. To this day Dean doesn't regret that decision.
She's got Deans dirty blond hair and her father's blue-blue eyes.
"You made the right choice, brother. The Old Man's pack…" The bitterness in Benny's short, hard laugh catches in Dean's heart. "Well, you already knew, didn't you?"
"Not all of it, but enough, yeah."
The silence stretches out between them. Dean wonders what finally drove Benny to leave their former pack leader's intoxicating presence. Wonders, doesn't dare ask. He still dreams about back then and wakes up slick with sweat and hard as granite. On those nights he can't settle back down until Castiel puts him on his belly and makes the scars bleed.
Dean licks his lips nervously. "Wanna meet her?"
Benny goes still as death, still as a predator waiting, then sighs. "Don't want to step on another man's toes."
"Cas—Castiel—made the suggestion." Dean shrugs. "I would have offered anyways. So, do you?"
Strength flees him as the bedroom door shuts and the hand gripping the back of his neck, fingers digging into the thick scars, brings him to his knees. Trembling, green eyes closed, Dean kneels, presses his face against his mate's stomach and breathes deeply. Rain-washed pine forests and white-hot metal fill his nose. There is no anise and no old blood here.
"Dean," Castiel murmurs, kneading at the scarred mark, his mark. Dean sighs and slumps forward as Castiel's other hand curls protectively over the crown of his head.
Benny would have been a good father. Watching him and their Noel interact for the first time…
They looked right together, just like Cas and her. Like family.
Dean whimpers softly and nudges up the hem of Cas's un-tucked shirt with his nose to get at the pale, jagged lines of his own mark. The hand at his nape tightens reflexively as he presses an open-mouthed kiss to the faint bite-scar on his mate's hip. The scent of Castiel's arousal, so close, makes him squirm and lick lightly at the other wolf's warm skin—makes his heart race and his jeans tight.
It would be so, so very easy for Cas to force him down good and proper, but the dark-haired man doesn't. Cas has him, and Dean doesn't want to be anywhere else—not running in the woods, not chasing the squealing, screaming meat to the ground until everything's red and Benny has him on his belly—but sometimes…
"Do you need to be reminded, Dean?" Cas asks in a hushed voice, as if their deeply sleeping girl might overhear. Dean drags blunt teeth over his mark and flexes his fingers against his thighs.
"Please. Please, Cas."
Castiel never needs like Dean, and it shows in the difference of their scars.