SPN/DA Crossover Fic: The Wellspring (11/?)
Title: The Wellspring
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
______________________________
Dean's got two steaming cups of cheap ass coffee and two elementary-school-sized milk cartons in a cardboard drink carrier when he comes through the door the next morning. He’d almost bought four cups of coffee instead, when he’d remembered Dad using his Dean-I’m-Being-A-Good-Dad-For-The-Moment voice and telling him, in no uncertain terms, that no, nine-year-old Dean could not have any coffee. Because coffee and little boys equates to both hyperactivity and stunted growth.
Anyway, Dean walks through the door and sets the drinks down on the table, and that’s when he notices that Alec is picking the lock on the bathroom door.
Dean glances towards the king-sized bed, sees Ben propped up on an elbow, scribbling away in that book again, paying his brother no mind. That must mean that Sam’s the one in the bathroom, and from the noise the pipes are making, the shower.
“What are you doing, kid?”
“Pickin’ a lock.”
Dean tries not to laugh.
After their discovery of Ben’s book, after squinting at the words and trying to decipher the illegible boyish scrawl for not one, but two hours, Sam had finally shaken his head in tired disappointment and fixed Dean with the bitchiest of all bitchy looks.
Apparently, laughing at clone misbehavior had recently topped Sam’s Top Ten List of Irritants.
“Uh huh, and why are you picking the lock?”
Alec doesn’t take his eyes from his job. “Ben’s gotta pee.”
Dean turns to Ben. Ben looks up from his book with wide eyes and a shaking head. Dean turns back to Alec.
“Ben says this isn’t the case. Why’re you picking the lock?”
There’s a click as the lock comes loose and Dean smirks at the mischievous half smile that lights up Alec’s face.
“Sam’s in the shower. If I flush the toilet, he’ll scream. The TV said so.”
“The TV...?”
Oh. Dean hadn’t even noticed the small television on the dresser. It’s turned on, even, but the grainy picture is just barely visible beneath the dust and scratches and the damn thing is either on mute or pretty close to it.
And oh God, Dean so wants to flush the toilet on his little brother.
He tries not to show this weakness to the kids, though. So he says, “That’s not nice, Alec.”
“S’not supposed to be nice,” Alec informs him, small hand touching the doorknob. “Revenge never is.”
“Revenge? Revenge for what?”
Alec gapes at Dean. Gapes. His mouth is opening and closing like that of a fish and the expression is over-exaggerated to all hell, and oh fuck, Dean’s just going to have to face it: completely adorable.
“What do you mean for what? He put me on the naughty bed. For forty whole minutes.”
Dean can’t help himself any longer. He cracks up. The naughty bed is just too freakin’ funny to talk about with a straight face, and the kid has a point - if there was ever a good reason for revenge, this is it.
“Okay, okay...” Dean wipes a few stray tears of epic hilarity away from his eyes. “But you know if you do this, you’re not gettin’ any ice cream today, right?” The return pout is instantaneous. Dean just wants to snatch the little bastard up and hug him hard enough to squeeze the cute out. “Alec...there’s satisfaction in Sammy’s girlish shrieking, but that doesn’t mean it’s without consequence.” Alec pouts harder. Dean doesn’t think he can take much more of this without flushing the toilet himself and then rushing out to the nearest Baskin Robbins. “Let’s say you get one treat a day...today you have a choice. Are you choosing ice cream or torturing your Uncle Sammy?” Dean freezes when the words leave his mouth because hell, they’re not in public right now and there was no real reason to refer to Sam as the kid’s uncle. But he did, and he’s waiting for the awkward moment, the kitten-esque head-cocking confusion from the little boy who’s still fingering the knob.
But Alec’s mouth just spreads into a grin.
“Torturing Sammy!”
And the kid rushes into the bathroom and flushes the toilet.
Dean covers his mouth and laughs into his hand when Sam’s shriek fills the room. Alec rushes out of the bathroom, jumps onto the bed, disturbing Ben, who looks up from his book to glare at his brother.
“Alec-”
But Sam’s running out of the bathroom now, a towel around his waist, long hair plastered to his head.
“M’gonna kill you. C’mere.”
Alec jumps off the bed, evades Sam’s long arms as he rushes past the Winchester brothers and into the bathroom. He shuts and locks the door behind him before Sam can so much as blink.
Dean’s stomach hurts from too much amusement.
“Dean-”
“Th-there’s...coffee. And milk. Benny, y’want some milk?”
Dean turns around to pick up a coffee cup and shove it at Sam. Sam’s bitchface is firmly in place, but he takes the cup with a disgruntled noise before taking a long pull of the coffee. Dean kind of just wants to pinch his little brother’s cheeks.
He’s not sure why, but everything in his life is just too fucking cute for words these days.
______________________
Sam and Dean are arguing again. Sam’s driving, and Ben guesses he’s driving too slow because Dean keeps making fun of him for driving too slow. But that’s ridicule and not argument. They’re not arguing about the speed of the car.
“I still think it’s too soon, Dean. They’re too little. It’s too scary.”
“We’re not fuckin’ little,” Alec protests, and Ben glares at his twin. Alec keeps swearing, and for no real reason. Ben keeps asking him about it and Alec’s only response is always to shrug and reply, “Dean swears.”
As it is though, Dean turns around and lightly smacks the side of Alec’s left leg, points at him and says, “You watch your mouth, young man.”
Alec looks affronted. Ben feels slightly smug.
Sam says, “I thought you said we weren’t going to be hypocritical, Dean.”
“D’ya always have to exaggerate my name like that? Is that really necessary?”
And then they go back and forth again about how Ben and Alec are too little for ghosts. Ben doesn’t really understand how Sam and Dean can possibly think that they’re too little for anything. They aren’t exactly the innocent children being killed on the news. Ben has blood on his hands. Alec has blood on his hands. It’s all part of standard Manticore training. Training blood.
If you were normal children, you would have training wheels. Lydecker had paced in front of them like a drill sergeant. Behind him, the branches of the trees rustled with squirrels and breeze. Ben had known that the prisoner was in there somewhere, and his muscles in his legs had tensed and he had tried his best not to shake with excitement. You are not normal children. You have a higher purpose than learning to ride a bike.
“We’re not too little,” Ben says now and there’s pure thrill running under his skin as he thinks of the hunt. “Sam? We’ll be okay. We’re well-trained. We won’t get in the way and we won’t be scared.”
“Benny, I know you think that, but you’ve never seen-”
“We’ve seen plenty. Alec and I...we’ve seen a lot.”
Ben and Alec may have never seen ghosts, but Sam and Dean have never seen Manticore.
Sam and Dean exchange a look in the front of the car. Ben wonders what they’re thinking. He heard them last night - going through his book, whispering about his writing, trying to read what Ben knows is horrific penmanship - he’d always been scolded in class for his bad penmanship.
This is unacceptable, 493. Write it again.
Ben would write until his fingers were aching and coarse, but it never got any better. It never gets any better, but he still tries.
He expected Sam and Dean to ask him what it said this morning, but they never did. He heard Dean drag Sam outside, though, heard their voices through the thin walls, Next time we stop at Bobby’s we’ll have a sit down with him...don’t wanna worry Alec...
Though what Alec would be worried about, Ben isn’t sure. He’s mildly concerned that he might be in trouble for ruining the book, but Sam had said that it was Ben’s book...and neither of the two men seemed angry with him this morning.
Ben’s words don’t seem to matter to Sam, though, and Dean moans when his little brother turns the car into a library parking lot.
“Hey, we’re lucky this is here,” Sam protests. “I’m surprised this place still has funding. Besides, you already checked the apartment out. We just need to know what happened there. There’s no reason to put the kids through more emotional trauma than necessary.”
“The place is in shambles, but it’s a pretty tame haunting. I’d rather ease them into it gently than throw them in when it’s an emergency.”
“I’d rather them never have to experience-”
“They’re going to have to, aren’t they? We can’t just leave them alone all the time like Dad used to do to us. And we can’t just shield them from it. It’s our lives, Sam.”
“Well, maybe they shouldn’t have our lives.”
“What in the goddamn hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean what the fuck are we doing? This is fucking crazy! Throwing nine-year-olds into a haunting. We? Dean, you and I? We’re fucking insane. We’re unfit. We shouldn’t have children. What we were even thinking, I’ll-”
Sam stops abruptly. Probably because there are tears streaming down Ben’s face, mean sticky tears Ben’s desperately trying to swipe away with two frantic hands. And Alec’s got his feet on the seat, and his knees up to his chin and his arms around his knees.
Dean reaches back and dabs at Ben’s eyes with the sleeve of his henley, murmuring to Sam, “Great job, ace. Jo Frost teach you that one, too?”
Ben leans into the gentle touch of the cotton. He’s sad as anything, right now, because Sam doesn’t want them, and Ben needs Sam and Dean like he needs water, and...Ben needs. Ben’s stomach is clenching and his throat is tightening and his hands are shaking and he needs.
He crawls into the front, into Dean’s lap and Dean holds him and mumbles nice things because that’s what Dean does and Sam’s running a tired hand over his own face and he keeps apologizing to Ben and Alec, saying that he didn’t mean that he didn’t want them, he didn’t mean that they weren’t going to keep them, he just meant...
Ben doesn’t hear what Sam meant. He’s not sure Sam knew what Sam meant, but Dean eventually strokes his back one last time and tells him it’s gonna be okay, and that they should head out, shouldn’t they, if they wanna get this thing done today.
Ben sniffles and agrees without really knowing what he’s agreeing to but he lets Dean guide him back into the backseat.
“Sam, we need to invest in some seatbelts.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Dean turns back around again, this time to look at Alec and reach out a hand to ruffle the already mussed hair.
“You doin’ okay, kitten?”
Ben turns a heavy head to look at Alec, who looks like he’s seriously considering the question. Ben, of course, knows that a joke is coming. Alec’s always making jokes.
And sure enough, “I demand reparations for the emotional wounds I now carry. Sam’s words cut deep.”
And Dean laughs because Alec’s the funny one. That’s okay with Ben, because he got hugs.
Sam turns the ignition and shifts the car into reverse. They’re leaving the library apparently.
“Sam?”
“We’re going to the apartment. You’re right. We live this life and they’re ours so I guess they live this life, too.”
They go to the apartment. Sam and Dean have guns and Alec and Ben have bags of salt and instructions to throw the salt if they see a spirit. Ben thinks this is a really stupid plan, but he doesn’t say so because Sam puts an arm around him and presses him into his side for a moment before they go in.
The building itself is in ruins, and before they actually go in, Ben has the feeling that people don’t live here anymore.
But then they go in, and there are people crouching in the hallways and stairwells and Ben knows this is because they have nowhere else to go. And there’s a crazy old woman on the fourth floor and she grabs Alec and starts spouting off nonsense about beans and sprouts and Dean keeps trying to pry Alec away, keeps telling her to let go, but she doesn’t and her fingernails are digging into Alec’s skin so Dean kicks her.
“M’sorry,” he tells her, and she’s huddled against the wall and crying because she’s crazy and doesn’t understand. “I’m sorry, lady. I’m really sorr-”
But Sam grabs his arm and starts dragging him away before he can continue this apologetic mantra and Alec and Ben follow.
“She’ll forget about it Dean. Don’t feel guilty.”
Sam kneels down to check Alec’s arm. It looks kind of bad now, but it’ll heal within the hour and Ben tells him so. Alec nods in agreement.
The ghost apartment is at the end of the hall. Dean doesn’t open the door. He turns around and looks down at them and says, “If you get scared, you tell us and we’ll get the hell out of there, you understand? No tough guy shit. And you keep a hand on us at all times, you got it? Don’t stray. No matter what.”
“I want a gun,” Alec pipes up and he holds up his bag of salt with a pout. “This is lame.”
Dean’s mouth twitches a little but he doesn’t smile. “We’ll try to get you one for next time. Now are we clear?”
They’re clear and Alec and Ben chorus their “yes, sirs” and take a fistful of fabric each - Alec claims Dean immediately, latching onto the denim of the man’s jeans, and Ben feels just a tiny bit sour about that, but he shakes it away, and feels the adrenaline pump through him as Dean finally opens the door.
They edge inside, and it looks just like an everyday run down apartment with half-pulled up carpet covered in stains and sofas with stuffing coming out of them, except for that thing in the air. Ben feels it as soon as he’s inside and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up on end.
It’s cold, too, and he can see his breath in the air and he tries his best not to jump when the door slams shut behind them.
“I thought you said this was tame, Dean,” Sam hisses.
It’s not tame. At all. Dean thought there was only one ghost, but there are two - a mother and a daughter, and the little girl keeps asking Ben if he wants to play dolls with her. He’d say yes, but half of her face is missing, a jagged knife wound trailing down from an empty eye socket to her chin, leaving her face gaping and open and Alec’s the one who throws the salt at her and she goes away for a short period of time before coming back again.
She wants to play. She keeps saying she wants to play and kids don’t come around anymore and Ben and Alec are cute, and they can play house and Ben can be her husband and Alec can be her baby and Alec throws more salt at her as Dean and Sam shoot her mother down.
Ben’s not sure how the hell they get out of there, but they do, and Dean and Sam tell them to hang onto them through the hallways. People are asking about the shots fired and they get the hell out of the building as fast as they can. Dean herds them into the back of the car and pretty soon they’re speeding towards the library, on their way to figure out who those people were and where they were buried and what the hell happened.
“Why did she want me to be the baby?” Alec wants to know. “I mean, I’m all rugged and manly and stuff.”
Sam snorts. “Alec, you’re a nine-year-old boy...”
“But I’m Dean’s clone.”
Dean straightens behind the wheel, throws up a hand, and emits a triumphant, “Ha!” Ben catches a glimpse of Dean’s profile as he smirks at Sam before green eyes appear in the rearview, and he says to Alec, “You are so gettin’ ice cream.”
They find the article browsing through old news in the library.
“Dude,” Dean says. “Grandma did it.”
Ben doesn’t quite comprehend what he’s hearing, but it’s something about poor bastard children and religious zealots with knives and how violent deaths lead to violent spirits and this is what Sam and Dean do. They get rid of violent spirits.
They eat dinner and ice cream before going to the cemetery. Sam is very vocal about the fact that Alec doesn’t actually deserve his ice cream, due to his earlier bad behavior.
“What bad behavior?” Alec wonders through a mouthful of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.
“I think Sam means when you flushed the toilet,” Ben informs him, and then asks Sam, “I deserve mine, though, right?”
“‘Course you do.” Sam gives Ben an indulgent smile. “You’re an angel in Dean’s clothing.”
“And I’m not?” Alec demands, poking a dripping spoon in Sam’s direction.
Sam sighs. “No. You’re a Dean in Dean’s clothing.”
Alec huffs. Ben feels a sharp pain in his upper arm.
“Brownnoser.”
“Alec.”
Dean takes Alec’s ice cream away. Ben is satisfied by this consequence, mainly because his twin looks devastated by his loss.
“Don’t you pout at me, Alec. You’re not gettin’ it back.”
Alec doesn’t get his ice cream back.
They go to the cemetery around midnight and it’s gross and wet and there’s fog. Dean snorts and calls it stereotypical as he hauls two shovels out of the back of the Impala.
“Is this the point where we salt and burn the corpses?” Ben asks, remembering Bobby’s lessons.
“This is the point where Dean and I salt and burn the corpses and you and Alec cover your eyes so you don’t have to see dead things,” Sam tells him and Ben snorts.
“We’ve seen dead things before.”
Dean and Sam dig up the first casket while Alec and Ben sit against a gravestone. After a bit of wheedling, the small soldiers are granted the shovels to dig up the second, smaller casket. The Winchesters look far too surprised when the clones take about half the time.
“We’re stronger than you,” Alec reminds them. “And more awesome.”
Dean snorts and ruffles his hair. Alec bats his hand away and insists that its true, even though Ben knows that Alec thinks Dean is the greatest thing ever. It’s one of those things that’s so obvious it can be left unsaid.
Sam pries open the bigger casket and Dean takes the second one.
“You guys probably shouldn’t look...” Sam is worried. Sam thinks they’ll be scarred for life. Ben doesn’t bother trying to explain to him that they’ve seen fresh kill before and this is just the natural decay. Flesh eaten away by worms and time.
“Gross,” Alec says, peering down at the little corpse. “There’re bugs...”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees.
“I don’t wanna be eaten by bugs. Not ever.”
There are still strands of dark hair hanging from the little girl’s dead scalp. Her lips and chin have mostly been eaten away and yellow teeth still hang from the small mouth.
Sam and Dean salt the mother’s corpse and hand over the canisters to Ben and Alec. They repeat the process quickly, but with care, and Ben feels like...he knows they’re doing a good thing here.
“Matches.” Sam snaps his fingers at Dean. Dean scowls, shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t snap your fingers at me, you little...”
“Hurry it up, Dean.”
Dean starts patting at his pockets, going through the inside and outside of his jacket, and all over his jeans.
“Uh..”
“Don’t tell me you left them in the car.”
“I didn’t. I remember pickin’ ‘em up...I must’ve dropped ‘em somewhere, Sammy.”
Sam groans. “Fantastic.”
They go through the holes first and come up with nothing. Ben and Alec search around the immediate area with identical results. It’s gotta be like three o’clock in the morning. Ben’s surprised to feel the wave of tiredness overtaking him.
“Okay, we’re getting nowhere,” Dean announces, swiping a hand over his perspiring forehead. “Let’s retrace our steps.”
Sam and Dean step back and out and tell the boys to help them look. Alec immediately hops to. Ben stays by the casket and stares at the girl’s half-eaten face.
They’re doing a good thing here. Ben always wants to do good things, and he always wants to feel like he belongs. He always wants to belong to Sam and Dean and Alec. But earlier, when Sam said they were crazy, said that he and Dean shouldn’t have children...
No matter how good Ben is, no matter how hard he tries to not only do what he’s told but go beyond the call of duty, Sam might always have these thoughts. And as long as Sam has these thoughts, its always possible that one day Ben won’t belong to Sam anymore. And if he doesn’t belong to Sam, then he doesn’t belong to Dean.
Ben touches the matted hair with his fingers, and the yellow teeth with his eyes.
He can’t make good things happen all by himself. He needs someone to watch over him.
Next
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
______________________________
Dean's got two steaming cups of cheap ass coffee and two elementary-school-sized milk cartons in a cardboard drink carrier when he comes through the door the next morning. He’d almost bought four cups of coffee instead, when he’d remembered Dad using his Dean-I’m-Being-A-Good-Dad-For-The-Moment voice and telling him, in no uncertain terms, that no, nine-year-old Dean could not have any coffee. Because coffee and little boys equates to both hyperactivity and stunted growth.
Anyway, Dean walks through the door and sets the drinks down on the table, and that’s when he notices that Alec is picking the lock on the bathroom door.
Dean glances towards the king-sized bed, sees Ben propped up on an elbow, scribbling away in that book again, paying his brother no mind. That must mean that Sam’s the one in the bathroom, and from the noise the pipes are making, the shower.
“What are you doing, kid?”
“Pickin’ a lock.”
Dean tries not to laugh.
After their discovery of Ben’s book, after squinting at the words and trying to decipher the illegible boyish scrawl for not one, but two hours, Sam had finally shaken his head in tired disappointment and fixed Dean with the bitchiest of all bitchy looks.
Apparently, laughing at clone misbehavior had recently topped Sam’s Top Ten List of Irritants.
“Uh huh, and why are you picking the lock?”
Alec doesn’t take his eyes from his job. “Ben’s gotta pee.”
Dean turns to Ben. Ben looks up from his book with wide eyes and a shaking head. Dean turns back to Alec.
“Ben says this isn’t the case. Why’re you picking the lock?”
There’s a click as the lock comes loose and Dean smirks at the mischievous half smile that lights up Alec’s face.
“Sam’s in the shower. If I flush the toilet, he’ll scream. The TV said so.”
“The TV...?”
Oh. Dean hadn’t even noticed the small television on the dresser. It’s turned on, even, but the grainy picture is just barely visible beneath the dust and scratches and the damn thing is either on mute or pretty close to it.
And oh God, Dean so wants to flush the toilet on his little brother.
He tries not to show this weakness to the kids, though. So he says, “That’s not nice, Alec.”
“S’not supposed to be nice,” Alec informs him, small hand touching the doorknob. “Revenge never is.”
“Revenge? Revenge for what?”
Alec gapes at Dean. Gapes. His mouth is opening and closing like that of a fish and the expression is over-exaggerated to all hell, and oh fuck, Dean’s just going to have to face it: completely adorable.
“What do you mean for what? He put me on the naughty bed. For forty whole minutes.”
Dean can’t help himself any longer. He cracks up. The naughty bed is just too freakin’ funny to talk about with a straight face, and the kid has a point - if there was ever a good reason for revenge, this is it.
“Okay, okay...” Dean wipes a few stray tears of epic hilarity away from his eyes. “But you know if you do this, you’re not gettin’ any ice cream today, right?” The return pout is instantaneous. Dean just wants to snatch the little bastard up and hug him hard enough to squeeze the cute out. “Alec...there’s satisfaction in Sammy’s girlish shrieking, but that doesn’t mean it’s without consequence.” Alec pouts harder. Dean doesn’t think he can take much more of this without flushing the toilet himself and then rushing out to the nearest Baskin Robbins. “Let’s say you get one treat a day...today you have a choice. Are you choosing ice cream or torturing your Uncle Sammy?” Dean freezes when the words leave his mouth because hell, they’re not in public right now and there was no real reason to refer to Sam as the kid’s uncle. But he did, and he’s waiting for the awkward moment, the kitten-esque head-cocking confusion from the little boy who’s still fingering the knob.
But Alec’s mouth just spreads into a grin.
“Torturing Sammy!”
And the kid rushes into the bathroom and flushes the toilet.
Dean covers his mouth and laughs into his hand when Sam’s shriek fills the room. Alec rushes out of the bathroom, jumps onto the bed, disturbing Ben, who looks up from his book to glare at his brother.
“Alec-”
But Sam’s running out of the bathroom now, a towel around his waist, long hair plastered to his head.
“M’gonna kill you. C’mere.”
Alec jumps off the bed, evades Sam’s long arms as he rushes past the Winchester brothers and into the bathroom. He shuts and locks the door behind him before Sam can so much as blink.
Dean’s stomach hurts from too much amusement.
“Dean-”
“Th-there’s...coffee. And milk. Benny, y’want some milk?”
Dean turns around to pick up a coffee cup and shove it at Sam. Sam’s bitchface is firmly in place, but he takes the cup with a disgruntled noise before taking a long pull of the coffee. Dean kind of just wants to pinch his little brother’s cheeks.
He’s not sure why, but everything in his life is just too fucking cute for words these days.
______________________
Sam and Dean are arguing again. Sam’s driving, and Ben guesses he’s driving too slow because Dean keeps making fun of him for driving too slow. But that’s ridicule and not argument. They’re not arguing about the speed of the car.
“I still think it’s too soon, Dean. They’re too little. It’s too scary.”
“We’re not fuckin’ little,” Alec protests, and Ben glares at his twin. Alec keeps swearing, and for no real reason. Ben keeps asking him about it and Alec’s only response is always to shrug and reply, “Dean swears.”
As it is though, Dean turns around and lightly smacks the side of Alec’s left leg, points at him and says, “You watch your mouth, young man.”
Alec looks affronted. Ben feels slightly smug.
Sam says, “I thought you said we weren’t going to be hypocritical, Dean.”
“D’ya always have to exaggerate my name like that? Is that really necessary?”
And then they go back and forth again about how Ben and Alec are too little for ghosts. Ben doesn’t really understand how Sam and Dean can possibly think that they’re too little for anything. They aren’t exactly the innocent children being killed on the news. Ben has blood on his hands. Alec has blood on his hands. It’s all part of standard Manticore training. Training blood.
If you were normal children, you would have training wheels. Lydecker had paced in front of them like a drill sergeant. Behind him, the branches of the trees rustled with squirrels and breeze. Ben had known that the prisoner was in there somewhere, and his muscles in his legs had tensed and he had tried his best not to shake with excitement. You are not normal children. You have a higher purpose than learning to ride a bike.
“We’re not too little,” Ben says now and there’s pure thrill running under his skin as he thinks of the hunt. “Sam? We’ll be okay. We’re well-trained. We won’t get in the way and we won’t be scared.”
“Benny, I know you think that, but you’ve never seen-”
“We’ve seen plenty. Alec and I...we’ve seen a lot.”
Ben and Alec may have never seen ghosts, but Sam and Dean have never seen Manticore.
Sam and Dean exchange a look in the front of the car. Ben wonders what they’re thinking. He heard them last night - going through his book, whispering about his writing, trying to read what Ben knows is horrific penmanship - he’d always been scolded in class for his bad penmanship.
This is unacceptable, 493. Write it again.
Ben would write until his fingers were aching and coarse, but it never got any better. It never gets any better, but he still tries.
He expected Sam and Dean to ask him what it said this morning, but they never did. He heard Dean drag Sam outside, though, heard their voices through the thin walls, Next time we stop at Bobby’s we’ll have a sit down with him...don’t wanna worry Alec...
Though what Alec would be worried about, Ben isn’t sure. He’s mildly concerned that he might be in trouble for ruining the book, but Sam had said that it was Ben’s book...and neither of the two men seemed angry with him this morning.
Ben’s words don’t seem to matter to Sam, though, and Dean moans when his little brother turns the car into a library parking lot.
“Hey, we’re lucky this is here,” Sam protests. “I’m surprised this place still has funding. Besides, you already checked the apartment out. We just need to know what happened there. There’s no reason to put the kids through more emotional trauma than necessary.”
“The place is in shambles, but it’s a pretty tame haunting. I’d rather ease them into it gently than throw them in when it’s an emergency.”
“I’d rather them never have to experience-”
“They’re going to have to, aren’t they? We can’t just leave them alone all the time like Dad used to do to us. And we can’t just shield them from it. It’s our lives, Sam.”
“Well, maybe they shouldn’t have our lives.”
“What in the goddamn hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean what the fuck are we doing? This is fucking crazy! Throwing nine-year-olds into a haunting. We? Dean, you and I? We’re fucking insane. We’re unfit. We shouldn’t have children. What we were even thinking, I’ll-”
Sam stops abruptly. Probably because there are tears streaming down Ben’s face, mean sticky tears Ben’s desperately trying to swipe away with two frantic hands. And Alec’s got his feet on the seat, and his knees up to his chin and his arms around his knees.
Dean reaches back and dabs at Ben’s eyes with the sleeve of his henley, murmuring to Sam, “Great job, ace. Jo Frost teach you that one, too?”
Ben leans into the gentle touch of the cotton. He’s sad as anything, right now, because Sam doesn’t want them, and Ben needs Sam and Dean like he needs water, and...Ben needs. Ben’s stomach is clenching and his throat is tightening and his hands are shaking and he needs.
He crawls into the front, into Dean’s lap and Dean holds him and mumbles nice things because that’s what Dean does and Sam’s running a tired hand over his own face and he keeps apologizing to Ben and Alec, saying that he didn’t mean that he didn’t want them, he didn’t mean that they weren’t going to keep them, he just meant...
Ben doesn’t hear what Sam meant. He’s not sure Sam knew what Sam meant, but Dean eventually strokes his back one last time and tells him it’s gonna be okay, and that they should head out, shouldn’t they, if they wanna get this thing done today.
Ben sniffles and agrees without really knowing what he’s agreeing to but he lets Dean guide him back into the backseat.
“Sam, we need to invest in some seatbelts.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Dean turns back around again, this time to look at Alec and reach out a hand to ruffle the already mussed hair.
“You doin’ okay, kitten?”
Ben turns a heavy head to look at Alec, who looks like he’s seriously considering the question. Ben, of course, knows that a joke is coming. Alec’s always making jokes.
And sure enough, “I demand reparations for the emotional wounds I now carry. Sam’s words cut deep.”
And Dean laughs because Alec’s the funny one. That’s okay with Ben, because he got hugs.
Sam turns the ignition and shifts the car into reverse. They’re leaving the library apparently.
“Sam?”
“We’re going to the apartment. You’re right. We live this life and they’re ours so I guess they live this life, too.”
They go to the apartment. Sam and Dean have guns and Alec and Ben have bags of salt and instructions to throw the salt if they see a spirit. Ben thinks this is a really stupid plan, but he doesn’t say so because Sam puts an arm around him and presses him into his side for a moment before they go in.
The building itself is in ruins, and before they actually go in, Ben has the feeling that people don’t live here anymore.
But then they go in, and there are people crouching in the hallways and stairwells and Ben knows this is because they have nowhere else to go. And there’s a crazy old woman on the fourth floor and she grabs Alec and starts spouting off nonsense about beans and sprouts and Dean keeps trying to pry Alec away, keeps telling her to let go, but she doesn’t and her fingernails are digging into Alec’s skin so Dean kicks her.
“M’sorry,” he tells her, and she’s huddled against the wall and crying because she’s crazy and doesn’t understand. “I’m sorry, lady. I’m really sorr-”
But Sam grabs his arm and starts dragging him away before he can continue this apologetic mantra and Alec and Ben follow.
“She’ll forget about it Dean. Don’t feel guilty.”
Sam kneels down to check Alec’s arm. It looks kind of bad now, but it’ll heal within the hour and Ben tells him so. Alec nods in agreement.
The ghost apartment is at the end of the hall. Dean doesn’t open the door. He turns around and looks down at them and says, “If you get scared, you tell us and we’ll get the hell out of there, you understand? No tough guy shit. And you keep a hand on us at all times, you got it? Don’t stray. No matter what.”
“I want a gun,” Alec pipes up and he holds up his bag of salt with a pout. “This is lame.”
Dean’s mouth twitches a little but he doesn’t smile. “We’ll try to get you one for next time. Now are we clear?”
They’re clear and Alec and Ben chorus their “yes, sirs” and take a fistful of fabric each - Alec claims Dean immediately, latching onto the denim of the man’s jeans, and Ben feels just a tiny bit sour about that, but he shakes it away, and feels the adrenaline pump through him as Dean finally opens the door.
They edge inside, and it looks just like an everyday run down apartment with half-pulled up carpet covered in stains and sofas with stuffing coming out of them, except for that thing in the air. Ben feels it as soon as he’s inside and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up on end.
It’s cold, too, and he can see his breath in the air and he tries his best not to jump when the door slams shut behind them.
“I thought you said this was tame, Dean,” Sam hisses.
It’s not tame. At all. Dean thought there was only one ghost, but there are two - a mother and a daughter, and the little girl keeps asking Ben if he wants to play dolls with her. He’d say yes, but half of her face is missing, a jagged knife wound trailing down from an empty eye socket to her chin, leaving her face gaping and open and Alec’s the one who throws the salt at her and she goes away for a short period of time before coming back again.
She wants to play. She keeps saying she wants to play and kids don’t come around anymore and Ben and Alec are cute, and they can play house and Ben can be her husband and Alec can be her baby and Alec throws more salt at her as Dean and Sam shoot her mother down.
Ben’s not sure how the hell they get out of there, but they do, and Dean and Sam tell them to hang onto them through the hallways. People are asking about the shots fired and they get the hell out of the building as fast as they can. Dean herds them into the back of the car and pretty soon they’re speeding towards the library, on their way to figure out who those people were and where they were buried and what the hell happened.
“Why did she want me to be the baby?” Alec wants to know. “I mean, I’m all rugged and manly and stuff.”
Sam snorts. “Alec, you’re a nine-year-old boy...”
“But I’m Dean’s clone.”
Dean straightens behind the wheel, throws up a hand, and emits a triumphant, “Ha!” Ben catches a glimpse of Dean’s profile as he smirks at Sam before green eyes appear in the rearview, and he says to Alec, “You are so gettin’ ice cream.”
They find the article browsing through old news in the library.
“Dude,” Dean says. “Grandma did it.”
Ben doesn’t quite comprehend what he’s hearing, but it’s something about poor bastard children and religious zealots with knives and how violent deaths lead to violent spirits and this is what Sam and Dean do. They get rid of violent spirits.
They eat dinner and ice cream before going to the cemetery. Sam is very vocal about the fact that Alec doesn’t actually deserve his ice cream, due to his earlier bad behavior.
“What bad behavior?” Alec wonders through a mouthful of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.
“I think Sam means when you flushed the toilet,” Ben informs him, and then asks Sam, “I deserve mine, though, right?”
“‘Course you do.” Sam gives Ben an indulgent smile. “You’re an angel in Dean’s clothing.”
“And I’m not?” Alec demands, poking a dripping spoon in Sam’s direction.
Sam sighs. “No. You’re a Dean in Dean’s clothing.”
Alec huffs. Ben feels a sharp pain in his upper arm.
“Brownnoser.”
“Alec.”
Dean takes Alec’s ice cream away. Ben is satisfied by this consequence, mainly because his twin looks devastated by his loss.
“Don’t you pout at me, Alec. You’re not gettin’ it back.”
Alec doesn’t get his ice cream back.
They go to the cemetery around midnight and it’s gross and wet and there’s fog. Dean snorts and calls it stereotypical as he hauls two shovels out of the back of the Impala.
“Is this the point where we salt and burn the corpses?” Ben asks, remembering Bobby’s lessons.
“This is the point where Dean and I salt and burn the corpses and you and Alec cover your eyes so you don’t have to see dead things,” Sam tells him and Ben snorts.
“We’ve seen dead things before.”
Dean and Sam dig up the first casket while Alec and Ben sit against a gravestone. After a bit of wheedling, the small soldiers are granted the shovels to dig up the second, smaller casket. The Winchesters look far too surprised when the clones take about half the time.
“We’re stronger than you,” Alec reminds them. “And more awesome.”
Dean snorts and ruffles his hair. Alec bats his hand away and insists that its true, even though Ben knows that Alec thinks Dean is the greatest thing ever. It’s one of those things that’s so obvious it can be left unsaid.
Sam pries open the bigger casket and Dean takes the second one.
“You guys probably shouldn’t look...” Sam is worried. Sam thinks they’ll be scarred for life. Ben doesn’t bother trying to explain to him that they’ve seen fresh kill before and this is just the natural decay. Flesh eaten away by worms and time.
“Gross,” Alec says, peering down at the little corpse. “There’re bugs...”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees.
“I don’t wanna be eaten by bugs. Not ever.”
There are still strands of dark hair hanging from the little girl’s dead scalp. Her lips and chin have mostly been eaten away and yellow teeth still hang from the small mouth.
Sam and Dean salt the mother’s corpse and hand over the canisters to Ben and Alec. They repeat the process quickly, but with care, and Ben feels like...he knows they’re doing a good thing here.
“Matches.” Sam snaps his fingers at Dean. Dean scowls, shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t snap your fingers at me, you little...”
“Hurry it up, Dean.”
Dean starts patting at his pockets, going through the inside and outside of his jacket, and all over his jeans.
“Uh..”
“Don’t tell me you left them in the car.”
“I didn’t. I remember pickin’ ‘em up...I must’ve dropped ‘em somewhere, Sammy.”
Sam groans. “Fantastic.”
They go through the holes first and come up with nothing. Ben and Alec search around the immediate area with identical results. It’s gotta be like three o’clock in the morning. Ben’s surprised to feel the wave of tiredness overtaking him.
“Okay, we’re getting nowhere,” Dean announces, swiping a hand over his perspiring forehead. “Let’s retrace our steps.”
Sam and Dean step back and out and tell the boys to help them look. Alec immediately hops to. Ben stays by the casket and stares at the girl’s half-eaten face.
They’re doing a good thing here. Ben always wants to do good things, and he always wants to feel like he belongs. He always wants to belong to Sam and Dean and Alec. But earlier, when Sam said they were crazy, said that he and Dean shouldn’t have children...
No matter how good Ben is, no matter how hard he tries to not only do what he’s told but go beyond the call of duty, Sam might always have these thoughts. And as long as Sam has these thoughts, its always possible that one day Ben won’t belong to Sam anymore. And if he doesn’t belong to Sam, then he doesn’t belong to Dean.
Ben touches the matted hair with his fingers, and the yellow teeth with his eyes.
He can’t make good things happen all by himself. He needs someone to watch over him.
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