Bedtime Stories
Title: Bedtime Stories
Fandom: dorksidefiker
Characters: Ben, Kevin, OFC
Prompt: 2. Bliss
Word Count: 628
Rating: PG
Summary: In which Ben is treated to a story.
Author's Notes: I own nothing. Written LONG before Season 3, so… yeah, just leave me alone. *mutter*
Ben Tennyson didn’t have much experience with hospitals. He’d always been a healthy kid, and had avoided most of the usual childhood maladies.
So when he had to deliver the badly injured Kevin Levin to the secretive clinic that the older boy had insisted on, Ben hadn’t really known what to expect. Maybe some back ally doctor who got paid in hard liquor, or some well meaning nurse with a love of super heroes.
The waiting room he’d been deposited in had a vending machine, and the whole place smelled very… sterile. Doctors and nurses bustled and rushed around, dealing with patients and getting coffee from the machine by Ben. Besides the huge amount of aliens and half-aliens, Ben felt like this could be any hospital.
The waiting was the worst part, Ben decided. It felt like hours before a nurse, who looked like a blend of XLR8 and Fourarms, approached him and said that Kevin was alright, the shrapnel had been removed, he was resting comfortably in his room… which was where he would be remaining until the doctor was satisfied that he was healing properly, as you sometimes had to keep a close eye on hybrids just to be sure they weren’t reacting in strange ways. When Ben had asked to see him, the nurse had helpfully provided him with directions and admonished him to let Kevin rest.
Kevin was unconscious when Ben arrived, and there was a strange woman occupying the room’s only chair. From a distance, she could have passed for human, but the way she moved when Ben came in was just wrong, and there was something subtly off about the way she looked up close.
Ben’s hand hovered over the Omnitrix, ready to bring up a hero and kick ass if need be. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The woman blinked her too-dark eyes and tucked a few strands of black hair behind an oddly shaped ear. “No enemy of this boy’s,” she said. Her voice had an accent that Ben couldn’t identify. “And you are Ben Tennyson,” she added. “He is sleeping. Perhaps we should do this quietly?”
“That wasn’t an answer, lady,” Ben pointed out, his hand still above the Omnitrix.
The woman smiled, and the expression was very familiar to Ben. “No,” she agreed, “it was not. I am not very good at giving straight answers, especially not to Plumbers.” The smile grew hard and cold, and it remained familiar. “My people have a great lady. a leader. Her favorite son was a Plumber.” The smile faded altogether. “He died doing something stupidly heroic.”
Ben continued to watch the woman as she tenderly smoothed Kevin’s hair back. “He left behind a son,” she went on as she stood, “but she did not learn of the child until he had been broken by the harshness of the world. A child as fragile as he… would have been destroyed by those who gathered around her.” She smiled brittley as she moved past Ben. “Instead, she watched him from a distance, and did for him what she could. She made it so he would never want for treatment, if he should need it…”
Their eyes met for a moment. “Excuse me,” she murmured.
“Wait, what you said-” Ben blocked the woman’s way. Or at least, he tried to, but she moved like water around a boulder.
“Bedtime stories,” she said, “told by a strange old woman who talks too much, and enjoys remembering happier days.”
Fandom: dorksidefiker
Characters: Ben, Kevin, OFC
Prompt: 2. Bliss
Word Count: 628
Rating: PG
Summary: In which Ben is treated to a story.
Author's Notes: I own nothing. Written LONG before Season 3, so… yeah, just leave me alone. *mutter*
Ben Tennyson didn’t have much experience with hospitals. He’d always been a healthy kid, and had avoided most of the usual childhood maladies.
So when he had to deliver the badly injured Kevin Levin to the secretive clinic that the older boy had insisted on, Ben hadn’t really known what to expect. Maybe some back ally doctor who got paid in hard liquor, or some well meaning nurse with a love of super heroes.
The waiting room he’d been deposited in had a vending machine, and the whole place smelled very… sterile. Doctors and nurses bustled and rushed around, dealing with patients and getting coffee from the machine by Ben. Besides the huge amount of aliens and half-aliens, Ben felt like this could be any hospital.
The waiting was the worst part, Ben decided. It felt like hours before a nurse, who looked like a blend of XLR8 and Fourarms, approached him and said that Kevin was alright, the shrapnel had been removed, he was resting comfortably in his room… which was where he would be remaining until the doctor was satisfied that he was healing properly, as you sometimes had to keep a close eye on hybrids just to be sure they weren’t reacting in strange ways. When Ben had asked to see him, the nurse had helpfully provided him with directions and admonished him to let Kevin rest.
Kevin was unconscious when Ben arrived, and there was a strange woman occupying the room’s only chair. From a distance, she could have passed for human, but the way she moved when Ben came in was just wrong, and there was something subtly off about the way she looked up close.
Ben’s hand hovered over the Omnitrix, ready to bring up a hero and kick ass if need be. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The woman blinked her too-dark eyes and tucked a few strands of black hair behind an oddly shaped ear. “No enemy of this boy’s,” she said. Her voice had an accent that Ben couldn’t identify. “And you are Ben Tennyson,” she added. “He is sleeping. Perhaps we should do this quietly?”
“That wasn’t an answer, lady,” Ben pointed out, his hand still above the Omnitrix.
The woman smiled, and the expression was very familiar to Ben. “No,” she agreed, “it was not. I am not very good at giving straight answers, especially not to Plumbers.” The smile grew hard and cold, and it remained familiar. “My people have a great lady. a leader. Her favorite son was a Plumber.” The smile faded altogether. “He died doing something stupidly heroic.”
Ben continued to watch the woman as she tenderly smoothed Kevin’s hair back. “He left behind a son,” she went on as she stood, “but she did not learn of the child until he had been broken by the harshness of the world. A child as fragile as he… would have been destroyed by those who gathered around her.” She smiled brittley as she moved past Ben. “Instead, she watched him from a distance, and did for him what she could. She made it so he would never want for treatment, if he should need it…”
Their eyes met for a moment. “Excuse me,” she murmured.
“Wait, what you said-” Ben blocked the woman’s way. Or at least, he tried to, but she moved like water around a boulder.
“Bedtime stories,” she said, “told by a strange old woman who talks too much, and enjoys remembering happier days.”