The stars of Supernatural, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, recently spoke about how the three trials required to shut the gates of Hell permanently will test the Winchester brothers and their relationship.

Speaking with Zap2It, Padalecki and Ackles discussed the trials, the brothers’ constantly strained bond, as well as the potential return of Benny the vampire.

The trials

In “Trial and Error,” prophet Kevin Tran deciphered enough of the demon tablet to learn that the way to close the gates of Hell for good is through the completion of three trials set forth by God. The first trial was to kill a Hellhound.

While Dean, seeing the trials as a suicide mission and wanting Sam to survive, intended to do them, Sam ended up killing the Hellhound when it had Dean cornered.

With Sam stepping in as the sole champion for completing the tasks, the brothers have once again found their relationship strained. Because the trials are “something that Dean really wanted to do,” Padalecki believes they will take a toll on the brothers’ relationship.

“I think Dean doesn’t resent Sam, but Dean resents that he wasn’t able to do it.”

The brotherly bond

While Sam has been assuring Dean that he is all right to complete the trials, we saw at the end of “Man’s Best Friend with Benefits” that Sam isn’t doing as well as he claims. “Dean and Sam have always been like, ‘Just be honest with me! Tell me what’s going on,'” Padalecki says.

“But obviously the trials are taking this toll on Sam, but he doesn’t want to go to his brother and say, ‘Listen, buddy, I’m scared. It’s hurting, and I’m coughing up blood.’ He’s like ‘No, I’m good, I’m good, I’m good.'”

Of course, honesty has always been an issue between the brothers. “Sam’s lying to Dean, and Dean’s lying to Sam, because Sam’s like, ‘You don’t believe in me!’ and Dean’s like ‘Of course I believe in you,’ but Dean is having his doubts,” Padalecki explains.

In terms of the brotherhood, Ackles adds, “I don’t know whether the brothers will ever fix things. The strains are less, there’s an unbreakable bond as we’ve seen.” No matter what, “they are bound by blood, and that will always be there.”

But also present will be the “straining relationship, and the bickering, and the not understanding what each other is going through, the trying to battle all those things.”

The return of Benny?

While the return of Sam’s girlfriend Amelia looks doubtful after Sam chose Dean over her, Dean’s Purgatory pal Benny is still alive. “The character itself I think was really cool, because Dean’s never really had a relationship anywhere close to that,” Ackles says of the vampire played by Ty Olsson.

“His relationship with his brother is what it is, and everybody knows about that, then there’s the relationship with Cas, which was strained and tattered and torn, and there was a whole bunch of stuff there.”

“But to have somebody who was a war hero with you, to have a brother-in-arms kind of thing, was something that hadn’t really been explored,” Ackles continues. “Selfishly, I hope that Benny comes back.”

Supernatural airs Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET on The CW.