Fic: The Space He Invades, 1/1 SPN/DA
Title: The Space He Invades
Chapter: 1/1
Fandoms: Supernatural and Dark Angel
Pairing: None
Characters: Sam and Ben
Rating: PG-13 for violence, some language
Spoilers: For Pilot to Dark Angel and Season one of SPN
Feedback: Crit hard. I like it that way.
Notes: The title comes from Rush's song "Tom Sawyer" Should be read after "Today's Tom Sawyer" and "Ridin' The Storm Out." http://ladyjanelly.livejournal.com/tag/tom+sawyer
Special thanks to taniapretender for the awsome beta.
AU for SPN from around the middle of Devil's Trap. AU for Dark Angel from Pilot, but only for Ben.
Summary: That first winter, after the world goes to hell. Common and uncommon challenges.
There’s no way to feed all the dogs through to spring, so Bobby lets most of them loose to fend for themselves. They keep two in the house, for warmth and early warning if something bad comes their way. Bobby says that Ben can pick the third, and Sam’s expecting it to be the mastiff-mix that he wrestles with, or the half-grown black pup that follows him around everywhere.
He’s surprised when it’s the brindle mutt that’s always sleeping under the porch. As hard as Sam’s worked to not question Ben’s decisions on personal preference, he feels that he has to ask, “Why him?”
Ben answers like the query is a test. “It’s the fattest, Sam.” And he’s so careful to not glance at any of the others, the dogs he should care about.
Sam sighs and rubs his forehead. He’d like to promise that they won’t eat the boy’s pet, but he can’t guarantee it. “It’s probably better this way,” he says instead. “The stronger dogs might be okay outside where they can hunt.”
Ben nods but he doesn’t look Sam in the eye. Sam can’t think what to say to make it better,
They end up just keeping Bobby’s two dogs-the third would eat more than he would provide.
The first hard snow puts an end to most of their going outside. There’s no work to be done, no reason to leave the house. Bobby takes impressions of Ben’s hands with some softened candle-wax and starts on a pair of blades for him. They’re wicked little things, each barely five inches from the spike at the end of the handle to the short, double-edged, curved blade. The steel’s naked, but there’s an opening for Ben’s pinky finger, and points that’ll fit his grip perfectly until he outgrows it.
“I’m no Gil Hibben,” Bobby grouses as he polishes out every last burr in the metal.
Sam smiles over from where he’s working on copying dad’s journal and his own, along with Bobby’s and Danny Elkins’ into a single cross-referenced and annotated work. “Hibben doesn’t put a line of silver and iron in his. I’m not saying the man’s not a genius of hand-held weapon construction, but I’ll take your version of the Claw over his any day,” he counters.
Ben looks up from his own transcribing, a less-detailed version of the larger journal. Sam gives him the “go” with a glance, and he straightens in his seat. “Silver for shifters of any sort, cold iron for Fey and sometimes ghosts or witches.”
Sam smiles, proud, and they talk strategies for fighting evil until lights out.
The first month of winter stretches long and lazy, like an extended version of that one day. They’re warm and snug in their little haven, and the rest of the world seems too far away to worry about it too much. Bobby works on making weapons, Sam and Ben study their way through the expanse of Bobby’s library. Every day they get the best workout they can manage in the small space -- crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, jumping jacks.
There’s enough meat in the freezer that they don’t have to ration it. Once a week they split an MRE three ways, for variety. It’s amazing when pre-packaged military food becomes a treat instead of a necessary evil on a long hunt. Sam cuts his hair short, the annoyance of heating water to wash it doing what years of his father’s nagging couldn’t accomplish. He cuts Ben’s too, but leaves it long enough in the back to start covering the barcode.
“He looks like one of those heavy metal guys Dean listened to,” Bobby teases, and Sam pretends to be mortified at giving a mullet to someone who didn’t know to have better taste.
They all start to look thin in the face, Bobby especially, since he had the most weight to lose. Sam looks in the mirror and almost doesn’t recognize the hard lean man who looks back at him.
Ben has a growth spurt and puts on four inches of height. Burning off baby fat, Sam thinks, but he wishes he could look up some parenting websites or something, to see if Ben’s still within normal tolerances for height and weight. Bobby doesn’t even have a scale though, so it wouldn’t have been much use.
He worries when Ben starts to sleep more, and closer to the fire like he’s cold all the time. He’s tempted to give him a round of antibiotics, but there’s no sign of illness-no sniffles, no coughing, not as much as a runny nose.
He convinces himself it’s nothing, until the morning when Ben stumbles while carrying in firewood, falling to one knee before pushing himself back up like nothing had happened. He makes it halfway to the fireplace before he goes down again, and this time Sam’s there, scooping him up and carrying him over to the car’s seat he’s been using as a bed. Bobby hovers behind him, waiting to see what needs to be done.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” the kid mumbles against his shoulder. “I tried to be strong; I tried to make you proud.”
He’d never been much to carry, and weeks of chopping wood have made Sam stronger. Still, Ben feels like he weighs less than he had when Sam found him almost a year ago.
“How did I score?” Ben whimpers as Sam lays him down and wraps him in blankets. The question cuts him to the core. Ben thinks this was some test, that whatever’s wrong was planned.
“Did I pass?” His little eyebrows pinch together and Sam knows Ben’s taking his shocked silence as criticism, but he can’t straighten his thoughts out fast enough.
He sits down and gathers the shivering child into his arms. “It was an accident, Ben,” he says firmly, deciding to reveal his fallacy. “It wasn’t a test. I didn’t want you to be hurt; I didn’t realize you were sick.” And then, because his own father never would have said it, “I’m sorry, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“So I was strong enough?”
Sam rubs the prickles from his eyes. “You were strong enough. Just next time, tell me when you don’t feel right, okay? I need to know so I can keep you healthy, alright buddy?”
Ben nods and Sam holds him as he drifts off to sleep.
“He’s starving to death,” Sam whispers to Bobby when he’s sure Ben’s resting. “I don’t get it; he’s getting plenty of calories, all the right vitamins…” He tries to focus on the obvious solution, but some bit of a movie he saw once intrudes on his thoughts-created humans, failing suddenly as their expiration dates arrive, and he’s afraid.
They give Ben an MRE of his own everyday for the next couple of days, and his energy comes back in full force. It doesn’t take a degree from Stanford to figure out that it’s the carbohydrates that Ben needed. The only problem is that at this rate, the last bit of starchy food will be gone before winter’s half over.
“The neighbors down the road have horses,” Bobby offers into the middle of their brainstorming. Sam looks at him blankly, trying to figure what horse meat has to do with carbs. “Horses mean horse feed,” Bobby explains.
“Low quality, but it should be edible.”
The next day Sam and Bobby pack up some of their surplus supplies-some meat, vitamins, one of the gigantic rolls of toilet paper, and they arm themselves with guns and knives. They leave at first light to slog the seven miles to the nearest house to the junkyard. It’s cold as hell and Sam bitterly misses the days of plowed roads and heated cars.
He starts calling out when they get to the gate and keeps it up until they’re almost to the porch. A part of himself that he’s ashamed of almost wants to hear the crack of a rifle, to have to protect himself and then scavenge through an empty farm. He’ll trade anything they have with them or back at the house to make sure Ben will make it through the winter. He’s afraid of the choices he’ll have to make if they won’t sell what Ben needs at any price.
An upstairs window in the house slides open, the muzzle of a firearm poking out. A face shows through the curtains, a boy no more than a few years older than Ben. The kid’s eyes are wide, scared, but his hands aren’t shaking. Sam holds his hands out to his sides and waits. After a minute the front door opens and a man steps out-tall, sandy blond hair, rugged good looks that Sam would have totally gone for back in college.
It takes half an hour of standing in the cold to convince the guy that they’re just there to trade, not hurt his family. The man, McPherson, has a nasty cough, Sam guesses pneumonia. The frigid air can’t be helping, but he won’t move the conversation into the house.
It turns out that the horses had been stolen back in the early days just after the Pulse, and yeah, maybe they could use a little more meat. McPherson trades everything they brought with them for twenty pounds of sweet feed, a mix of wheat and some sort of grain-based pellet, all mixed up with a coat of sticky molasses.
Sam tries a handful on the way back to Bobby’s house and decides he’s had organic trail mix that tasted worse. Shelling the grains of wheat with his teeth is like eating microscopic sunflower seeds, but it’s doable. When they get home he sorts the pellets out and crushes them down a little, mixes in some water and makes hard little biscuits out of them, like heavy pancakes.
The next day he and Bobby make the trek out to the McPherson place again, this time carrying nothing but half a dozen rounds of amoxicillin, and prescription-strength expectorant and ibuprofen. They come home with another backpack full of feed and a jar of hand-packed honey and Sam thinks that’ll get them through the season.
With the last of their physical needs taken care of, the rest of the winter passes by in relative quiet. They pick a semi-random day as Christmas and celebrate with extra rations, cheesy songs and one little gift. Bobby gives Ben the pair of claws he made, but there’s not really anything for anybody else to give.
A few days later they pick a promising morning and all three of them make the trek to the neighbors’ place. They’re welcomed in this time; it’s amazing, the difference life-saving supplies can make on a once-hostile attitude. The man’s name is Tom, and his wife’s Amber. The boy who’d held a gun on Sam is Davie. There’s a daughter, a little younger than Ben, named Brittney.
Sam’s brought some of the cakes, flavored with honey and the last of Bobby’s spices, and a beer they found in a back cabinet. The McPhersons have roasted pine nuts, baked chicken and a little instant coffee.
After dinner, Davie and Ben sit off to the side comparing their guns and knives. Tom talks to Bobby and Sam about going into town when things thaw out in the spring. They make plans to meet at the junkyard when the weather’s right, go in together. Safety in numbers and all that.
Night’s falling by the time they’re ready to leave-the temperature has been dropping and wolves have been heard in the area, so the little Winchester household bunks down for the night on the kitchen floor. As he’s drifting off to sleep, Sam thinks that besides watching Ben to make sure he didn’t kill anyone, the evening was the closest thing to “normal” he’s experienced since Jess died.
Over the next few weeks, boredom becomes the enemy. Sam and Bobby teach Ben cards and checkers. Sam makes a chess set out of coins and metal nuts and washers. Ben’s a good player, but painfully serious. Sam feels cruel when he wins against the boy and like a disappointment when he doesn’t, so the pawns go back into the coin jar and the other bits are sent to the odds and ends drawer.
Sam thinks of the neighbors sometimes, wonders how they’re doing. If the wind was less fierce or the snow less deep he’d have been tempted to walk down, just for something to do. If he had a reason, it’d be easier to justify taking the risk.
When they first hear the howls, deeper and stronger than the voices of natural wolves, Sam wants to tell the universe “I didn’t mean that kind of reason.” Sound carries across the snow, and they hear the werewolf tearing the local wolf pack apart. Natural and not rarely mix well. When it’s done they hear the yips of victory heading away and to the west.
“Crap,” Sam sighs. The three turn and start pulling out backpacks and the necessary gear for this hunt. Every time Bobby turns to get something else, Ben moves supplies from Bobby’s bag and into his own.
“Quit that, boy,” Bobby orders, “What do you think you’re doin’?” He reaches to take the sack, but Ben doesn’t give it up.
“I hunt with Sam,” Ben says, his voice so firm that Bobby lets go of the bag.
“He hunts with me,” Sam confirms before Bobby can get himself in trouble. Sam stands and starts pulling on warmer gear; Ben gets dressed too.
“We have to travel fast,” Sam says and it’s an apology more than statement of fact.
Bobby grouses about it, tries to get Ben to take a heavier jacket. In the end though, he lets them leave. “You boys be careful,” he says, about as unhappy as Sam’s ever seen.
The march to the McPherson place is harder this time. The night air is sharp; the wind is vicious and from the wrong direction.
Ben walks point but Sam makes him stay close, only about ten feet ahead. It seems like the more dangerous position but it’s not. Ben’s small enough, quick enough, that Sam’s never had a problem shooting around him. The moon’s so full and bright that visibility isn’t a factor. And besides, Ben’s weight doesn’t break through the snow as deep as Sam’s does. If Sam was in front, Ben’s mobility would be hampered by walking in his tracks.
Their path is silent. They listen for trouble and coordinate their movements through hand signals. They’re about two thirds of the way to their destination, and they hear it before they see it, throaty growls and a large shape crashing through the underbrush. Ben starts firing as soon as he has visual contact, Sam a second later when he too can make out the target.
Silver rounds cut the huge furred creature to pieces. It dies on its feet but momentum carries it forward, faster than Sam expects it to. It falls into Sam as he’s trying to backpedal. The white snow collapses under him, and all he can see is sky and dark fur above him and glittering walls all around. Ben’s calling his name and the air’s being crushed out of his lungs.
A second shadow passes between Sam and the moonlight and he manages to get a single shot off. It yelps but keeps moving. Ben fires as well but Sam can’t get his head out of the snow to see if he hit it. “Ben!” he yells, “Are you good?”
The body pinning him down shifts--going from a four hundred pound hairy monster to a naked woman in a matter of seconds. She’s Caucasian, late 40’s, under-weight and nobody Sam knows, thank God. He shoves her off of him and scrambles to his feet. Ben still hasn’t answered him, and Ben always answers him.
Sam checks his gun for damage from the fall and then follows the churned up snow. There’s blood in the track and he tries not to worry because he knows he hit the werewolf, knows it’s bleeding.
There’s a torn-up clearing, more blood. Sam guesses Ben got free of the wolf for long enough to fight it. The tracks continue on the other side, and here Sam can’t see who was leading and who was chasing.
“Ben!” he shouts again, almost frantic with worry.
“Sam,” Ben replies and it’s closer and quieter than same expected. He turns the last curve in the path. This is where it ended, where the wolf turned to fight, where Ben caught it. The body on the ground is barely larger than Ben’s. Sam recognizes the person this time and wishes to God he didn’t. Blond hair, pale skin, heart-shaped young face-it’s Davie McPherson.
The knives Bobby made have left a horrible ruin in their wake and for a second that’s all Sam can see. The blades are short and curved, quick slash and bleed weapons and Ben’s used them to their maximum destructive potential. The McPherson boy’s body is mauled by dozens of sweeping cuts. None of them is over an inch deep, but they don’t have to be to immobilize wrist and elbows, to slice arteries and joints, to open the backs of his ankles and knees to the bone. There’s so much blood, so much damage, that it’s hard to call any one wound the killing blow.
And Ben…he looks so lost, so afraid as he lets the other boy’s head fall back on a too-limp neck.
“Nomlie, Sam,” he says, almost desperate for the man to get it. They’ve never killed something that looked so human before. Ben’s green eyes don’t leave Sam’s as he puts one knee under the dead boy’s shoulder and then hits down on the body with his other knee and one hand on his arm. There’s a pop as the joint dislocates and it flops on the ground.
“It’s okay, Ben,” Sam says and walks slowly over. “I know it was a werewolf. I’m not mad at you.”
Ben’s left arm hangs at his side; he’s not using it as he positions the corpse’s arm, using his knee as a fulcrum point again and snaps the bone between wrist and elbow. Blood drips from the cuff of Ben’s jacket sleeve, curling around his fingers before dripping to the gore-splattered snow.
Sam wants to stop Ben from mutilating the body-not because the dead have feelings, but because Ben’s too intense when he does it. It doesn’t look healthy. It doesn’t look sane.
“Ben,” Sam calls again, soft this time as he moves forward with hand outstretched. “Ben, it’s okay. I know, I know. It’s okay but I need to treat your arm, alright?” He feels like he’s taking a steak from a tiger, like there’s a chance of drawing back nothing but a bloody stump if he sets the kid off the wrong way.
“I have to make sure She knows, Sam. It doesn’t look like a Nomlie. I have to make sure it doesn’t get to the good place.” And Sam hates the panic in the boy’s eyes.
“It’s enough,” Sam says and takes Ben’s hand. He has a hard time telling Ben not to do this when he’s salted and burned more corpses than he can count. “She’ll know.”
Ben flinches away as Sam snaps open the pocketknife and cuts his sleeve open. Sam’s never seen him flinch from anything and it freaks him the hell out. Down from the jacket sticks to the blood. Sam helps Ben sit down, wishes there was somewhere warm and dry to do this, but it has to be now so it has to be here.
He opens the black-painted jar of colloidal silver uses half of it to wash the wound. Ben opens his mouth and gasps. His breathing goes irregular with the pain. As the fluff washes away, Sam’s hope that the injury is from claws dies. Ben’s upper arm is black with bruises all the way around and marked by rows of punctures.
Teeth marks. Bite marks, God damn it, and Sam’s not losing this one. He splashes more clear liquid on the wound, rubs it into the injury with his thumb and tries not to hear Ben whimper. He brings the jar to the kid’s pale lips. “Here, buddy, drink this for me, okay?”
Ben drinks dutifully, tipping his head back to get the last sip of silver-laced water. Sam hopes it’ll help, attacking the were-taint from the inside as well as the outside.
With hands that he will not allow to shake, Sam bandages the wound. Ben looks ill, shocky and tired. He needs warm and safe and a light for Sam to see by to check for other injuries. Sam lifts him to his feet. “Just a little bit further to the McPherson’s house. Think you can make it?”
Ben nods and straightens his posture. “Yes, Sam.”
Sam puts it off for as long as he can for the sake of Ben’s pride, but the kid’s legs give out before they reach their destination and Sam has to carry him piggy-back for the last mile or so.
The McPherson farm is a wreck-windows smashed, the door broken down, blood on the living room floor and Sam feels sick at the sight of it.
“Hello?” He calls as he carries Ben in. “Hey, is anybody alive here?”
He hears a broken sob of relief from the vicinity of the kitchen. The pantry door is gouged with claw marks but only cracked open less by than a hand’s width. Amber McPherson’s tear-streaked face appears in the gap. “Oh thank God,” she cries, as her and Brittney move the freezer away from where it had wedged the door shut.
Neither of them is hurt, at least not physically, but their family is shattered-son turned monster, father gone trying to bring him home.
All Sam can do is wait for morning and guard them until the threat is past. As dawn breaks he gets everyone up for the walk back to the junkyard.
Mother and daughter don’t make good time through the snow, but Sam doesn’t feel like they’re slowing him down. Ben’s feverish and as the first hour passes he grows too delirious to cling to Sam’s back and Sam has to hold him against his chest, off-balance and stumbling.
“Don’t wanna be a Nomlie,” Ben whines over and over. “Don’t let them take me, Sam. I don’t wanna go to the bad place. Don’t let me be bad; don’t let me hurt you.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Sam says, as many times as Ben needs to hear it. He means it too, without reservation. Not gonna happen.
He’s exhausted by the time he gets back to Bobby’s place, his patience worn thin by worry and Amber’s constant fretting. His legs are burning from carrying his pack, Ben’s pack and Ben’s nearly-limp body.
Bobby opens the door for them, covering their backs with an old AK-47. It’s an impressive sight until the old hunter sees what Sam’s carrying and his face falls in sorrow.
“Aw, hell.”
The dogs go nuts, whining and growling. One of them grabs Ben’s foot by the shoe and shakes it until Bobby kicks both of them outside.
“I screwed up,” Sam says as they strip the bloodied bandages off. Bobby doesn’t say anything but Sam can feel how angry and disappointed he is. Together they hold the boy down while Sam uses a rubber-bulb syringe to get the silver-water deep into each of the punctures. They go over the rest of his skin, treat some scratches that look like they’re more from branches than claws, and then wrap the injuries again.
When they’ve done everything they can medically, Sam leaves Ben with Bobby and starts packing a bag. He grabs a day’s worth of food, the best sleeping bag, some of the prescription pain killers.
“Sam,” Bobby says when Sam opens the case from the back of dad’s truck. The hand-grenade is heavy in his hand; the silverware he’d planned on melting down for bullets is so cold.
“Sam, what are you thinking?”
“I have to get him out of here,” Sam says through clenched teeth. “I need to give him as much of a chance as I can, and I can’t do that where innocent people will die if my timing’s off.”
“It doesn’t matter where you do it, Sam, if you’re late pulling that pin.”
Sam knows it’s the truth, that no hunter he’s ever met would be able to stop a werewolf with Ben’s advantages.
“I have to try,” he says, and stares Bobby down. Don’t make me shoot you is what he means.
“This isn’t good,” Bobby says, but he stays out of Sam’s way as he lifts Ben in his arms.
“I know.” Sam says. He refuses to regret this, refuses to back down. “If he comes back without me, you know what to do.”
Bobby sighs, resigned. “Where are you going?”
It’s Ben that answers, in between whimpers. “The high place, Sam.” His voice is strained and small. “We have to go to the high place. We have to go where the Lady can hear us.”
Sam looks to Bobby and Bobby sends them a mile down the road and two miles up a dirt track to a forest fire watchtower.
The stairs are a bitch to climb. Once they’re up there though, Sam approves. The afternoon sun is on fire across the western horizon. The tips of the pines glow like the points of knives in the forge. There’s a decent roof and the wind is mild. Ben’s fever grows but he seems to be in less pain. Sam wraps the two of them up in the sleeping bag and tries to keep them warm.
Well before moonrise he uses electrical tape to loop the silver pieces to the grenade and then wraps the package to Ben’s chest with the handle and pin exposed.
Ben prays to his Lady, mumbled words about trying to be strong, promises to believe in Her.
If you ever loved him-- Sam thinks as the sky grows dark, hell, if you exist at all, you’ll help him. And he’s not sure if he’s praying to God or Fate or Ben’s Lady.
You promised me, he wants to remind Ben, you promised you wouldn’t leave me. He won’t have Ben die thinking he’d failed, so he swallows the words and threads his finger through the ring and holds on.
The moon rises and the closest thing Sam’s ever going to have to a son of his own convulses in his arms. The air is cold; his tears are hot and Ben’s promise won’t be broken because Sam’s not going to let himself be left behind, not this time.
“Hold on,” he whispers, to both of them and he holds the hell on. Ben’s breathing becomes ragged, becomes a growl like blood’s choking through vocal cords that aren’t made for words anymore.
Now! Sam’s instincts scream. Still he holds on, waits for Ben to turn in his arms and pull the pin. He knows his only chance to walk out of this is to set the grenade and push the boy over the edge, but he won’t.
Sam’s spent the last four years expecting to die fighting some big evil thing; he always thought it would be quick and ugly and a big stupid waste. But this-this feels right, to be there for Ben like he was there for Dean. The cost doesn’t matter a bit.
Ben shivers in his arms; the moon shines down on the boy, shimmers blue over his delicate features, makes diamonds of the dampness in his lashes. Hoarse breathing evens out and the little body relaxes.
Thank you, Sam breathes into the baby-soft hair. Oh thank you.
Ben wakes just after sunrise. “You saved me,” he whispers as he traces his fingers over the dried tear-tracks on Sam’s cheek. “You made me strong.”
They stay at the tower for one more night, the last night of the full moon, before walking home together.
Something changes in Ben after that. Sam thinks it’s because he’s seen Ben at his weakest now and didn’t send him to the Nomlies or ditch him out in the woods. It took blood and fear and pain but Sam feels like he’s truly inside the walls. The way Ben says his name sounds less and less like “Sir” and more like “Dad.” He smiles more, even laughs, especially when it’s just the two of them out working on their cardio with long runs over the melting snow.
When Sam reads at night, Ben brings his own book over. He presses his skinny little shoulder against Sam’s arm like it’s always been that way and they share the light of a single lantern.
It’s the little things, but they go a long way towards easing Sam’s sense of failure at his bad parenting over the winter. It’ll be okay, he promises, looking down at the boy who had come to mean so much to him, I’ll figure this out. I’ll take care of you; I’ll make sure your life is as good as I can make it.
Chapter: 1/1
Fandoms: Supernatural and Dark Angel
Pairing: None
Characters: Sam and Ben
Rating: PG-13 for violence, some language
Spoilers: For Pilot to Dark Angel and Season one of SPN
Feedback: Crit hard. I like it that way.
Notes: The title comes from Rush's song "Tom Sawyer" Should be read after "Today's Tom Sawyer" and "Ridin' The Storm Out." http://ladyjanelly.livejournal.com/tag/tom+sawyer
Special thanks to taniapretender for the awsome beta.
AU for SPN from around the middle of Devil's Trap. AU for Dark Angel from Pilot, but only for Ben.
Summary: That first winter, after the world goes to hell. Common and uncommon challenges.
There’s no way to feed all the dogs through to spring, so Bobby lets most of them loose to fend for themselves. They keep two in the house, for warmth and early warning if something bad comes their way. Bobby says that Ben can pick the third, and Sam’s expecting it to be the mastiff-mix that he wrestles with, or the half-grown black pup that follows him around everywhere.
He’s surprised when it’s the brindle mutt that’s always sleeping under the porch. As hard as Sam’s worked to not question Ben’s decisions on personal preference, he feels that he has to ask, “Why him?”
Ben answers like the query is a test. “It’s the fattest, Sam.” And he’s so careful to not glance at any of the others, the dogs he should care about.
Sam sighs and rubs his forehead. He’d like to promise that they won’t eat the boy’s pet, but he can’t guarantee it. “It’s probably better this way,” he says instead. “The stronger dogs might be okay outside where they can hunt.”
Ben nods but he doesn’t look Sam in the eye. Sam can’t think what to say to make it better,
They end up just keeping Bobby’s two dogs-the third would eat more than he would provide.
The first hard snow puts an end to most of their going outside. There’s no work to be done, no reason to leave the house. Bobby takes impressions of Ben’s hands with some softened candle-wax and starts on a pair of blades for him. They’re wicked little things, each barely five inches from the spike at the end of the handle to the short, double-edged, curved blade. The steel’s naked, but there’s an opening for Ben’s pinky finger, and points that’ll fit his grip perfectly until he outgrows it.
“I’m no Gil Hibben,” Bobby grouses as he polishes out every last burr in the metal.
Sam smiles over from where he’s working on copying dad’s journal and his own, along with Bobby’s and Danny Elkins’ into a single cross-referenced and annotated work. “Hibben doesn’t put a line of silver and iron in his. I’m not saying the man’s not a genius of hand-held weapon construction, but I’ll take your version of the Claw over his any day,” he counters.
Ben looks up from his own transcribing, a less-detailed version of the larger journal. Sam gives him the “go” with a glance, and he straightens in his seat. “Silver for shifters of any sort, cold iron for Fey and sometimes ghosts or witches.”
Sam smiles, proud, and they talk strategies for fighting evil until lights out.
The first month of winter stretches long and lazy, like an extended version of that one day. They’re warm and snug in their little haven, and the rest of the world seems too far away to worry about it too much. Bobby works on making weapons, Sam and Ben study their way through the expanse of Bobby’s library. Every day they get the best workout they can manage in the small space -- crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, jumping jacks.
There’s enough meat in the freezer that they don’t have to ration it. Once a week they split an MRE three ways, for variety. It’s amazing when pre-packaged military food becomes a treat instead of a necessary evil on a long hunt. Sam cuts his hair short, the annoyance of heating water to wash it doing what years of his father’s nagging couldn’t accomplish. He cuts Ben’s too, but leaves it long enough in the back to start covering the barcode.
“He looks like one of those heavy metal guys Dean listened to,” Bobby teases, and Sam pretends to be mortified at giving a mullet to someone who didn’t know to have better taste.
They all start to look thin in the face, Bobby especially, since he had the most weight to lose. Sam looks in the mirror and almost doesn’t recognize the hard lean man who looks back at him.
Ben has a growth spurt and puts on four inches of height. Burning off baby fat, Sam thinks, but he wishes he could look up some parenting websites or something, to see if Ben’s still within normal tolerances for height and weight. Bobby doesn’t even have a scale though, so it wouldn’t have been much use.
He worries when Ben starts to sleep more, and closer to the fire like he’s cold all the time. He’s tempted to give him a round of antibiotics, but there’s no sign of illness-no sniffles, no coughing, not as much as a runny nose.
He convinces himself it’s nothing, until the morning when Ben stumbles while carrying in firewood, falling to one knee before pushing himself back up like nothing had happened. He makes it halfway to the fireplace before he goes down again, and this time Sam’s there, scooping him up and carrying him over to the car’s seat he’s been using as a bed. Bobby hovers behind him, waiting to see what needs to be done.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” the kid mumbles against his shoulder. “I tried to be strong; I tried to make you proud.”
He’d never been much to carry, and weeks of chopping wood have made Sam stronger. Still, Ben feels like he weighs less than he had when Sam found him almost a year ago.
“How did I score?” Ben whimpers as Sam lays him down and wraps him in blankets. The question cuts him to the core. Ben thinks this was some test, that whatever’s wrong was planned.
“Did I pass?” His little eyebrows pinch together and Sam knows Ben’s taking his shocked silence as criticism, but he can’t straighten his thoughts out fast enough.
He sits down and gathers the shivering child into his arms. “It was an accident, Ben,” he says firmly, deciding to reveal his fallacy. “It wasn’t a test. I didn’t want you to be hurt; I didn’t realize you were sick.” And then, because his own father never would have said it, “I’m sorry, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“So I was strong enough?”
Sam rubs the prickles from his eyes. “You were strong enough. Just next time, tell me when you don’t feel right, okay? I need to know so I can keep you healthy, alright buddy?”
Ben nods and Sam holds him as he drifts off to sleep.
“He’s starving to death,” Sam whispers to Bobby when he’s sure Ben’s resting. “I don’t get it; he’s getting plenty of calories, all the right vitamins…” He tries to focus on the obvious solution, but some bit of a movie he saw once intrudes on his thoughts-created humans, failing suddenly as their expiration dates arrive, and he’s afraid.
They give Ben an MRE of his own everyday for the next couple of days, and his energy comes back in full force. It doesn’t take a degree from Stanford to figure out that it’s the carbohydrates that Ben needed. The only problem is that at this rate, the last bit of starchy food will be gone before winter’s half over.
“The neighbors down the road have horses,” Bobby offers into the middle of their brainstorming. Sam looks at him blankly, trying to figure what horse meat has to do with carbs. “Horses mean horse feed,” Bobby explains.
“Low quality, but it should be edible.”
The next day Sam and Bobby pack up some of their surplus supplies-some meat, vitamins, one of the gigantic rolls of toilet paper, and they arm themselves with guns and knives. They leave at first light to slog the seven miles to the nearest house to the junkyard. It’s cold as hell and Sam bitterly misses the days of plowed roads and heated cars.
He starts calling out when they get to the gate and keeps it up until they’re almost to the porch. A part of himself that he’s ashamed of almost wants to hear the crack of a rifle, to have to protect himself and then scavenge through an empty farm. He’ll trade anything they have with them or back at the house to make sure Ben will make it through the winter. He’s afraid of the choices he’ll have to make if they won’t sell what Ben needs at any price.
An upstairs window in the house slides open, the muzzle of a firearm poking out. A face shows through the curtains, a boy no more than a few years older than Ben. The kid’s eyes are wide, scared, but his hands aren’t shaking. Sam holds his hands out to his sides and waits. After a minute the front door opens and a man steps out-tall, sandy blond hair, rugged good looks that Sam would have totally gone for back in college.
It takes half an hour of standing in the cold to convince the guy that they’re just there to trade, not hurt his family. The man, McPherson, has a nasty cough, Sam guesses pneumonia. The frigid air can’t be helping, but he won’t move the conversation into the house.
It turns out that the horses had been stolen back in the early days just after the Pulse, and yeah, maybe they could use a little more meat. McPherson trades everything they brought with them for twenty pounds of sweet feed, a mix of wheat and some sort of grain-based pellet, all mixed up with a coat of sticky molasses.
Sam tries a handful on the way back to Bobby’s house and decides he’s had organic trail mix that tasted worse. Shelling the grains of wheat with his teeth is like eating microscopic sunflower seeds, but it’s doable. When they get home he sorts the pellets out and crushes them down a little, mixes in some water and makes hard little biscuits out of them, like heavy pancakes.
The next day he and Bobby make the trek out to the McPherson place again, this time carrying nothing but half a dozen rounds of amoxicillin, and prescription-strength expectorant and ibuprofen. They come home with another backpack full of feed and a jar of hand-packed honey and Sam thinks that’ll get them through the season.
With the last of their physical needs taken care of, the rest of the winter passes by in relative quiet. They pick a semi-random day as Christmas and celebrate with extra rations, cheesy songs and one little gift. Bobby gives Ben the pair of claws he made, but there’s not really anything for anybody else to give.
A few days later they pick a promising morning and all three of them make the trek to the neighbors’ place. They’re welcomed in this time; it’s amazing, the difference life-saving supplies can make on a once-hostile attitude. The man’s name is Tom, and his wife’s Amber. The boy who’d held a gun on Sam is Davie. There’s a daughter, a little younger than Ben, named Brittney.
Sam’s brought some of the cakes, flavored with honey and the last of Bobby’s spices, and a beer they found in a back cabinet. The McPhersons have roasted pine nuts, baked chicken and a little instant coffee.
After dinner, Davie and Ben sit off to the side comparing their guns and knives. Tom talks to Bobby and Sam about going into town when things thaw out in the spring. They make plans to meet at the junkyard when the weather’s right, go in together. Safety in numbers and all that.
Night’s falling by the time they’re ready to leave-the temperature has been dropping and wolves have been heard in the area, so the little Winchester household bunks down for the night on the kitchen floor. As he’s drifting off to sleep, Sam thinks that besides watching Ben to make sure he didn’t kill anyone, the evening was the closest thing to “normal” he’s experienced since Jess died.
Over the next few weeks, boredom becomes the enemy. Sam and Bobby teach Ben cards and checkers. Sam makes a chess set out of coins and metal nuts and washers. Ben’s a good player, but painfully serious. Sam feels cruel when he wins against the boy and like a disappointment when he doesn’t, so the pawns go back into the coin jar and the other bits are sent to the odds and ends drawer.
Sam thinks of the neighbors sometimes, wonders how they’re doing. If the wind was less fierce or the snow less deep he’d have been tempted to walk down, just for something to do. If he had a reason, it’d be easier to justify taking the risk.
When they first hear the howls, deeper and stronger than the voices of natural wolves, Sam wants to tell the universe “I didn’t mean that kind of reason.” Sound carries across the snow, and they hear the werewolf tearing the local wolf pack apart. Natural and not rarely mix well. When it’s done they hear the yips of victory heading away and to the west.
“Crap,” Sam sighs. The three turn and start pulling out backpacks and the necessary gear for this hunt. Every time Bobby turns to get something else, Ben moves supplies from Bobby’s bag and into his own.
“Quit that, boy,” Bobby orders, “What do you think you’re doin’?” He reaches to take the sack, but Ben doesn’t give it up.
“I hunt with Sam,” Ben says, his voice so firm that Bobby lets go of the bag.
“He hunts with me,” Sam confirms before Bobby can get himself in trouble. Sam stands and starts pulling on warmer gear; Ben gets dressed too.
“We have to travel fast,” Sam says and it’s an apology more than statement of fact.
Bobby grouses about it, tries to get Ben to take a heavier jacket. In the end though, he lets them leave. “You boys be careful,” he says, about as unhappy as Sam’s ever seen.
The march to the McPherson place is harder this time. The night air is sharp; the wind is vicious and from the wrong direction.
Ben walks point but Sam makes him stay close, only about ten feet ahead. It seems like the more dangerous position but it’s not. Ben’s small enough, quick enough, that Sam’s never had a problem shooting around him. The moon’s so full and bright that visibility isn’t a factor. And besides, Ben’s weight doesn’t break through the snow as deep as Sam’s does. If Sam was in front, Ben’s mobility would be hampered by walking in his tracks.
Their path is silent. They listen for trouble and coordinate their movements through hand signals. They’re about two thirds of the way to their destination, and they hear it before they see it, throaty growls and a large shape crashing through the underbrush. Ben starts firing as soon as he has visual contact, Sam a second later when he too can make out the target.
Silver rounds cut the huge furred creature to pieces. It dies on its feet but momentum carries it forward, faster than Sam expects it to. It falls into Sam as he’s trying to backpedal. The white snow collapses under him, and all he can see is sky and dark fur above him and glittering walls all around. Ben’s calling his name and the air’s being crushed out of his lungs.
A second shadow passes between Sam and the moonlight and he manages to get a single shot off. It yelps but keeps moving. Ben fires as well but Sam can’t get his head out of the snow to see if he hit it. “Ben!” he yells, “Are you good?”
The body pinning him down shifts--going from a four hundred pound hairy monster to a naked woman in a matter of seconds. She’s Caucasian, late 40’s, under-weight and nobody Sam knows, thank God. He shoves her off of him and scrambles to his feet. Ben still hasn’t answered him, and Ben always answers him.
Sam checks his gun for damage from the fall and then follows the churned up snow. There’s blood in the track and he tries not to worry because he knows he hit the werewolf, knows it’s bleeding.
There’s a torn-up clearing, more blood. Sam guesses Ben got free of the wolf for long enough to fight it. The tracks continue on the other side, and here Sam can’t see who was leading and who was chasing.
“Ben!” he shouts again, almost frantic with worry.
“Sam,” Ben replies and it’s closer and quieter than same expected. He turns the last curve in the path. This is where it ended, where the wolf turned to fight, where Ben caught it. The body on the ground is barely larger than Ben’s. Sam recognizes the person this time and wishes to God he didn’t. Blond hair, pale skin, heart-shaped young face-it’s Davie McPherson.
The knives Bobby made have left a horrible ruin in their wake and for a second that’s all Sam can see. The blades are short and curved, quick slash and bleed weapons and Ben’s used them to their maximum destructive potential. The McPherson boy’s body is mauled by dozens of sweeping cuts. None of them is over an inch deep, but they don’t have to be to immobilize wrist and elbows, to slice arteries and joints, to open the backs of his ankles and knees to the bone. There’s so much blood, so much damage, that it’s hard to call any one wound the killing blow.
And Ben…he looks so lost, so afraid as he lets the other boy’s head fall back on a too-limp neck.
“Nomlie, Sam,” he says, almost desperate for the man to get it. They’ve never killed something that looked so human before. Ben’s green eyes don’t leave Sam’s as he puts one knee under the dead boy’s shoulder and then hits down on the body with his other knee and one hand on his arm. There’s a pop as the joint dislocates and it flops on the ground.
“It’s okay, Ben,” Sam says and walks slowly over. “I know it was a werewolf. I’m not mad at you.”
Ben’s left arm hangs at his side; he’s not using it as he positions the corpse’s arm, using his knee as a fulcrum point again and snaps the bone between wrist and elbow. Blood drips from the cuff of Ben’s jacket sleeve, curling around his fingers before dripping to the gore-splattered snow.
Sam wants to stop Ben from mutilating the body-not because the dead have feelings, but because Ben’s too intense when he does it. It doesn’t look healthy. It doesn’t look sane.
“Ben,” Sam calls again, soft this time as he moves forward with hand outstretched. “Ben, it’s okay. I know, I know. It’s okay but I need to treat your arm, alright?” He feels like he’s taking a steak from a tiger, like there’s a chance of drawing back nothing but a bloody stump if he sets the kid off the wrong way.
“I have to make sure She knows, Sam. It doesn’t look like a Nomlie. I have to make sure it doesn’t get to the good place.” And Sam hates the panic in the boy’s eyes.
“It’s enough,” Sam says and takes Ben’s hand. He has a hard time telling Ben not to do this when he’s salted and burned more corpses than he can count. “She’ll know.”
Ben flinches away as Sam snaps open the pocketknife and cuts his sleeve open. Sam’s never seen him flinch from anything and it freaks him the hell out. Down from the jacket sticks to the blood. Sam helps Ben sit down, wishes there was somewhere warm and dry to do this, but it has to be now so it has to be here.
He opens the black-painted jar of colloidal silver uses half of it to wash the wound. Ben opens his mouth and gasps. His breathing goes irregular with the pain. As the fluff washes away, Sam’s hope that the injury is from claws dies. Ben’s upper arm is black with bruises all the way around and marked by rows of punctures.
Teeth marks. Bite marks, God damn it, and Sam’s not losing this one. He splashes more clear liquid on the wound, rubs it into the injury with his thumb and tries not to hear Ben whimper. He brings the jar to the kid’s pale lips. “Here, buddy, drink this for me, okay?”
Ben drinks dutifully, tipping his head back to get the last sip of silver-laced water. Sam hopes it’ll help, attacking the were-taint from the inside as well as the outside.
With hands that he will not allow to shake, Sam bandages the wound. Ben looks ill, shocky and tired. He needs warm and safe and a light for Sam to see by to check for other injuries. Sam lifts him to his feet. “Just a little bit further to the McPherson’s house. Think you can make it?”
Ben nods and straightens his posture. “Yes, Sam.”
Sam puts it off for as long as he can for the sake of Ben’s pride, but the kid’s legs give out before they reach their destination and Sam has to carry him piggy-back for the last mile or so.
The McPherson farm is a wreck-windows smashed, the door broken down, blood on the living room floor and Sam feels sick at the sight of it.
“Hello?” He calls as he carries Ben in. “Hey, is anybody alive here?”
He hears a broken sob of relief from the vicinity of the kitchen. The pantry door is gouged with claw marks but only cracked open less by than a hand’s width. Amber McPherson’s tear-streaked face appears in the gap. “Oh thank God,” she cries, as her and Brittney move the freezer away from where it had wedged the door shut.
Neither of them is hurt, at least not physically, but their family is shattered-son turned monster, father gone trying to bring him home.
All Sam can do is wait for morning and guard them until the threat is past. As dawn breaks he gets everyone up for the walk back to the junkyard.
Mother and daughter don’t make good time through the snow, but Sam doesn’t feel like they’re slowing him down. Ben’s feverish and as the first hour passes he grows too delirious to cling to Sam’s back and Sam has to hold him against his chest, off-balance and stumbling.
“Don’t wanna be a Nomlie,” Ben whines over and over. “Don’t let them take me, Sam. I don’t wanna go to the bad place. Don’t let me be bad; don’t let me hurt you.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Sam says, as many times as Ben needs to hear it. He means it too, without reservation. Not gonna happen.
He’s exhausted by the time he gets back to Bobby’s place, his patience worn thin by worry and Amber’s constant fretting. His legs are burning from carrying his pack, Ben’s pack and Ben’s nearly-limp body.
Bobby opens the door for them, covering their backs with an old AK-47. It’s an impressive sight until the old hunter sees what Sam’s carrying and his face falls in sorrow.
“Aw, hell.”
The dogs go nuts, whining and growling. One of them grabs Ben’s foot by the shoe and shakes it until Bobby kicks both of them outside.
“I screwed up,” Sam says as they strip the bloodied bandages off. Bobby doesn’t say anything but Sam can feel how angry and disappointed he is. Together they hold the boy down while Sam uses a rubber-bulb syringe to get the silver-water deep into each of the punctures. They go over the rest of his skin, treat some scratches that look like they’re more from branches than claws, and then wrap the injuries again.
When they’ve done everything they can medically, Sam leaves Ben with Bobby and starts packing a bag. He grabs a day’s worth of food, the best sleeping bag, some of the prescription pain killers.
“Sam,” Bobby says when Sam opens the case from the back of dad’s truck. The hand-grenade is heavy in his hand; the silverware he’d planned on melting down for bullets is so cold.
“Sam, what are you thinking?”
“I have to get him out of here,” Sam says through clenched teeth. “I need to give him as much of a chance as I can, and I can’t do that where innocent people will die if my timing’s off.”
“It doesn’t matter where you do it, Sam, if you’re late pulling that pin.”
Sam knows it’s the truth, that no hunter he’s ever met would be able to stop a werewolf with Ben’s advantages.
“I have to try,” he says, and stares Bobby down. Don’t make me shoot you is what he means.
“This isn’t good,” Bobby says, but he stays out of Sam’s way as he lifts Ben in his arms.
“I know.” Sam says. He refuses to regret this, refuses to back down. “If he comes back without me, you know what to do.”
Bobby sighs, resigned. “Where are you going?”
It’s Ben that answers, in between whimpers. “The high place, Sam.” His voice is strained and small. “We have to go to the high place. We have to go where the Lady can hear us.”
Sam looks to Bobby and Bobby sends them a mile down the road and two miles up a dirt track to a forest fire watchtower.
The stairs are a bitch to climb. Once they’re up there though, Sam approves. The afternoon sun is on fire across the western horizon. The tips of the pines glow like the points of knives in the forge. There’s a decent roof and the wind is mild. Ben’s fever grows but he seems to be in less pain. Sam wraps the two of them up in the sleeping bag and tries to keep them warm.
Well before moonrise he uses electrical tape to loop the silver pieces to the grenade and then wraps the package to Ben’s chest with the handle and pin exposed.
Ben prays to his Lady, mumbled words about trying to be strong, promises to believe in Her.
If you ever loved him-- Sam thinks as the sky grows dark, hell, if you exist at all, you’ll help him. And he’s not sure if he’s praying to God or Fate or Ben’s Lady.
You promised me, he wants to remind Ben, you promised you wouldn’t leave me. He won’t have Ben die thinking he’d failed, so he swallows the words and threads his finger through the ring and holds on.
The moon rises and the closest thing Sam’s ever going to have to a son of his own convulses in his arms. The air is cold; his tears are hot and Ben’s promise won’t be broken because Sam’s not going to let himself be left behind, not this time.
“Hold on,” he whispers, to both of them and he holds the hell on. Ben’s breathing becomes ragged, becomes a growl like blood’s choking through vocal cords that aren’t made for words anymore.
Now! Sam’s instincts scream. Still he holds on, waits for Ben to turn in his arms and pull the pin. He knows his only chance to walk out of this is to set the grenade and push the boy over the edge, but he won’t.
Sam’s spent the last four years expecting to die fighting some big evil thing; he always thought it would be quick and ugly and a big stupid waste. But this-this feels right, to be there for Ben like he was there for Dean. The cost doesn’t matter a bit.
Ben shivers in his arms; the moon shines down on the boy, shimmers blue over his delicate features, makes diamonds of the dampness in his lashes. Hoarse breathing evens out and the little body relaxes.
Thank you, Sam breathes into the baby-soft hair. Oh thank you.
Ben wakes just after sunrise. “You saved me,” he whispers as he traces his fingers over the dried tear-tracks on Sam’s cheek. “You made me strong.”
They stay at the tower for one more night, the last night of the full moon, before walking home together.
Something changes in Ben after that. Sam thinks it’s because he’s seen Ben at his weakest now and didn’t send him to the Nomlies or ditch him out in the woods. It took blood and fear and pain but Sam feels like he’s truly inside the walls. The way Ben says his name sounds less and less like “Sir” and more like “Dad.” He smiles more, even laughs, especially when it’s just the two of them out working on their cardio with long runs over the melting snow.
When Sam reads at night, Ben brings his own book over. He presses his skinny little shoulder against Sam’s arm like it’s always been that way and they share the light of a single lantern.
It’s the little things, but they go a long way towards easing Sam’s sense of failure at his bad parenting over the winter. It’ll be okay, he promises, looking down at the boy who had come to mean so much to him, I’ll figure this out. I’ll take care of you; I’ll make sure your life is as good as I can make it.