Dead Gods: Ten

[wonderfulwrites]

Ben sits up with a gasp.

The lights are off, but the glow-in-the-dark stars on his bedroom ceiling give the room a mild, green glow. Dean is sitting at the end of the bed, head bowed, hands clasped between his knees, sort of glowing himself, his skin golden and warm like the bodies of fireflies or the weird fish that live at the bottom of the ocean.

Except it isn’t Dean. This time, Ben remembers he’s dreaming.

The anger surges back, hard and hot. “Stop looking like Dean.”

The Not-Dean looks up, fixing him with his gleaming, metallic-gold eyes. “I can’t. I’m at the mercy of your subconscious.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I look like Dean because this is your image of father.”

Another cryptic answer. He is just so tired of not getting straight answers. “And you’re wearing it why?”

Not-Dean tilts its head, and just gives Ben this look, like Ben already knows all the answers and is just being extra dumb about it. But Ben doesn’t have all the answers. Or any, for that matter. All he has is a bunch of questions that no one is answering, and some kind of thing hanging out in his head, looking like Dean and being cryptic about why.

“If you’re trying to tell me that Dean is my dad, I already knew that.” It’s the only thing he can think of, that this thing is giving up the big secret like it’s going to be a surprise.

“No, Ben. I’m trying to tell you that Iam.”

Ben feels like someone has punched him in the stomach; he wants to scream at this thing wearing Dean’s face, call it a liar, make it clear that Dean is his dad and that’s how it is. But Ben knows it’s true, knows deep down in his soul that Dean isn’t his dad and never has been. Dean is just some guy his mom met once and happened to show up at his eighth birthday party just in time to save him from the changelings.

Bens slumps, the anger fizzling out into nothing. “So the doctor-thing at the clinic was right? Dean isn’t my dad.”

The Not-Dean sighs in frustration, shakes his head. “No, Ben. Dean is your father. You are as much of a Winchester as he is. Look at your DNA.”

Ben looks down at his hands and sees it, his DNA swimming through his blood and interstitial fluid and the fibers of his muscles and the cells of his bones and skin and fingernails. He can see down into the ladders of double helices, can see the nucleotides and chromosomes and a few other things he doesn’t have names for because human science hasn’t discovered them yet. He knows if he studies them long enough he will know which of his genes came from Dean and which came from Mom, and as he watches thin tendrils of gold light slither in the subatomic spaces between protein sequences, some of it clings to specific genes, genes that should be dormant and nonfunctional but aren’t.

Those, he realizes, came from the thing sitting at the end of his bed.

“I don’t get it. What am I looking at?” Though he understands what he sees, he doesn’t understand what it means. Maybe he is being extra dumb about all this.

“Every little piece of DNA carries a piece of soul with it,” the Not-Dean says. “That’s how shape shifters and leviathan can take the form and memories of their victims. Your physical DNA came from Dean and Lisa, and the little pieces of their souls that came with it. But the spark of life, that that flash of gold you see slithering between your genes? That’s from me.” The Not-Dean sounds smug. “That’s my contribution.”

“Wait.” Ben takes a second to get the right words together. “Are you saying that I have two dads? Because that’s impossible. Even without the superpowers I know that’s impossible.”

“Not impossible, Ben. Not for me.”

“And what are you?”

“A god.”

Ben eyes the Not-Dean skeptically. “You’re a god.”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Apollo.”

Ben scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

Not-Dean scowls just like the real one. “You accepted the identities of Artemis and Hermes almost without question, but you scoff at me?”

“Dude, you’re telling me I’m like Percy Jackson or something.”

The not-Dean looks pained; the gods must not like the Percy Jackson books very much. “Not exactly, but I see your point. You don’t believe you’re a demi-god.”

Ben winces. “It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

“It’s not stupid. You should be honored to be my son.” The Dean-lookalike sitting at the end of his bed, the god Apollo, sounds really hurt. He’s even pouting a little. “I took a prophecy that ensured my death to make you, Ben, and made you so powerful that we haven’t had a child like you in three millennia. You’re my youngest and my strongest child, and I gave everything I had, risked my life interfering with the angels’ breeding program, to make you what you are.”

And now Ben feels sort of bad, which seems just infinitely stupid, all things considered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just...”

He doesn’t really know how to say the rest, so he just shrugs, defeated.

“You want Dean to be your father.” Apollo sounds sad and disappointed, maybe because Ben would choose Dean over him, but honestly, there’s no contest. He’s not going to even pretend there is.

Ben nods. “Yeah. And now look at me.” He fiddles with the edge of his comforter, heart sinking. “I’m something he usually hunts.”

“That’s untrue. I am something he usually hunts. You are his son, and he will claim you, Ben. You have my word.”

“Yeah? He left us and wiped our memories. Doesn’t seem like he’s all that interested in being my dad.”

“Ben, my son, you’ve seen the extent of damage to his soul, but you’re too young understand what you’ve seen. For Dean, that was the ultimate sacrifice. He gave up having you to protect you.”

Ben thinks about the other night in the Impala, Dean saying that he just wanted them to have a normal life, how it wasn’t worth it to put them in danger. “That’s what he said.”

“He was telling you the truth.”

“Well if that’s true, then he’s a total dumbass. He should stop hunting and come home before he gets killed. Sam can even come with him, if he wants.”

Apollo puts a hand on Ben’s ankle and squeezes it affectionately through the comforter. “Give it time, Ben. Dean wants you and your mother more than you can possibly conceive, and you will have your chance at him. I say that as a god and as your father. My oracles are never wrong.”

Ben frowns, confused. “What are oracles?”

A shadow passes over blinds, dark and wing shaped.

“Prophetesses,” Apollo says as he gets up and crosses to the window. He pulls down a slat of the blinds and peers out into the night. “The wings again.”

The wings, the huge leathery wings that block out the stars and make Ben’s blood run cold. “What are they?”

“You don’t want to know.” The blinds shudder with thin metallic vibrations as he lets the slat go and turns to Ben. “Ben, I’m going to tell you the truth. We’re dying, you and I. I can save you, but you have to let me save you. I’ve seen your dreams and I know what to do, but you have to let me come forward to do it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something risky, but we are at the point where we have to take the risk. Will you let me assert some control?”

Ben considers him a moment, the thing, the god standing there by the window and wearing Dean’s clothes and posture and face. “It depends. It sounds like you think mom is still alive. Do you know what happened to her?”

“I don’t.”

“Do you know how I can find out?”

Apollo tilts his head to the side, his eyes going distant for a moment. “Yes. I do, actually.” He refocuses on Ben. “If I show you, will you let me do what has to be done?”

Ben nods without hesitation; his body is dying, he can feel it. Someone has to do something, and between the two people currently inhabiting his body, he’s the one who has no idea how to fix it. “Yeah. But I need to know, first.”

“Very well, then, one last prophetic dream for you.” Apollo reaches out and puts his hand over Ben’s eyes-

Ben is standing outside of the bunker. It is nighttime and bitterly cold. He shivers in his thin hoodie, his breath puffing out in condensed little clouds in front of him. A nearly full moon hangs over him, its light gleaming on the black skin of the Impala. Stars glitter in the sky, and above him wings again, but not the leathery, terrifying wings he has become used to see in his dreams. These wings are feathered, iridescent-white like pearls, glowing gently in the night. Their span is magnificent in their breadth before they are folded behind the back of a man in a trench coat with grim blue eyes.

“Be silent,” he says with a voice like gravel, and Ben opens his eyes.

He’s standing outside of the Bunker. It’s nighttime and bitterly cold. He shivers in his thin hoodie, his breath puffing out in condensed little clouds in front of him. A nearly full moon hangs over him, its light gleaming on the black skin of the Impala.

But no angel. Not yet.

“Castiel,” he says into the quiet. “Can you hear me? I need your help. I think you might know how to find my mom....”

Castiel had always known the boy would remember.

The first time he had seen the child, he had recognized him as a corrupted vessel, could see the wash of pagan interference in the seams of his soul. No angel would deign to occupy his body unless very, very desperate, as Zachariah had proved when he went through the trouble of resurrecting Adam Mulligan from his scattered ashes rather than convincing Ben to say yes. Acquiring Ben would have been the easier course, but the pagan corruption would have been chafing, and Lucifer was not the only angel with excessive pride.

But the corruption had, despite its distasteful nature, brought its own protections. It had ensured that he had not needed to protect Ben as well as Dean when Michael had been seeking a vessel, but it had also meant that the wall he had erected in the boy’s mind to hide his memories of Dean would not remain unbroken forever.

He just hadn’t expected the wall to break so soon.

Castiel pauses his Biggerson’s loop in Portland, Oregon, and listens to the boy’s prayers. Lisa is missing, and Ben is pleading for Castiel’s help to find her. He hesitates to do so; it is critical to keep the angel tablet safe, to prevent Heaven or Hell from obtaining it. But he had also left the Braedens defenseless when he removed their memories of Dean, and he is not sure he can have their endangerment on his conscience, not when they have no one to whom they might turn....

On impulse Castiel stands and opens his wings. He can simply scoop Ben up and deposit him within a reasonable distance of Dean, put him out of danger and return to the loop. It will be an easy matter, swiftly done and with minimal risk if he moves quickly; Castiel will not have to interact with Dean or Sam, Dean will act to protect Ben, whether he feels worthy of doing so or not, and the angel table will remain safe.

But when he lands on a dirt road in Kansas and finds Benjamin Braeden leaning against the Impala, his life being slowly leeched away by a pagan numen, he recalls that there is no such thing as simple or easy where the Winchesters are concerned.

“Be silent,” Castiel says, and the boy’s mouth snaps closed, his eyes wide.

Castiel examines him closely; he is pale and weak, and a silver quiver gleaming with unfamiliar pagan magic is strapped to his back. He leans against the hood of the Impala, not in casual repose but for support to remain upright. The numen is bright and gleaming, almost blinding. It has dug into Ben’s human soul with vicious barbs and is slowly eating away his mortal life force; when it is done consuming Ben, there will be not even be a soul left to ascend to Heaven.

“Wow,” Ben says, oblivious to Castiel’s scrutiny. He is focused on something just over Castiel’s right shoulder, and he raises one hand, reaches out for whatever he sees. “They’re way better than Tilda Swinton’s.”

Castiel is confused at first, unsure of what he’s reaching for or whom Tilda Swinton might be. The only thing to his right is his wing, but Ben can’t possibly be reaching for his wing; humans cannot see angel wings as anything other as shadows or charred soot on the ground, or in the case of Raphael’s showmanship, the occasional burst of lightening. Their wings exist on another plane entirely, but Ben exists at a point of confluence between human and divine, and his hand is steadily moving towards the tips of Castiel’s primaries-

Castiel jerks his wing back, startled. "You can see my wings.”

It poses several interesting questions about the perception of such humans, none of which Castiel has time to ponder.

Ben blinks and snatches his hand back, startled. “Oh, uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to - That was rude, wasn’t it?” He drops his eyes, suddenly shy, a blush bringing color to his unnaturally pale face. “It’s just all the other supernatural stuff has been so ugly, but your wings, they’re, uh... transcendent."

Castiel is flattered. “Thank you,” he says with his own measure of unbecoming pride, though now is not the time to preen over compliments. “Ben, do you know that there is a pagan numen leeching your soul?"

Ben nods grimly. "I know. Can you take it out?"

Castiel ponders the possibilities for a moment, considers how tightly the numen clings to Ben’s soul. An immediate solution does not present itself. "No. It is too intertwined with your soul. If I remove it now, it will kill you. It requires further study."

Ben nods, glancing away. “That’s okay. We’ve got a plan, and that’s not why I called you anyway.”

“Why, then?”

“My mom. She’s missing. I was wondering if you could find her, before, you know.” Ben makes an offhand gesture that Castiel understands as a nonverbal reference to his probable death.

“I do not know. What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.” Ben drops his head in grief and pain, his resemblance to Dean apparent in every infinitesimal movement. How many times had he seen this posture in Dean? How many times had he seen that same sadness etched into the lines of Dean’s face? The pagan being responsible for his creation had been quite conscientious. “She just didn’t come home from work one night.”

Ben describes her disappearance, the time and circumstances, and the absence of evidence of human or supernatural interference. Castiel considers it a moment. He could search the earth, but that might draw the attention of his brothers and sisters. It might be easier to travel back in time and observe her disappearance at the moment it happened; a few weeks back will not be too far to travel and would certainly draw less attention.

"Go back inside, Ben,” Castiel says not without concern. “You are weak and the cold will adversely affect you.”

The boy’s face is full of hesitant hope. "You'll look for her, then?"

"Yes.”

Ben’s shoulders slump in relief. "Thank you."

"You are welcome. But, please do not tell Sam or Dean that you spoke with me.”

Ben eyes him suspiciously. “Why not?”

“It is a long story.”

Ben rolls his eyes, and Castiel sees a great deal of Dean in that action, too. “Okay, dude. Whatever you want. Just find my mom. I don’t know how long, well, you know.” Ben gestures offhandedly again.

Castiel finds himself with a grim respect for Ben’s fearlessness in the face of his mortality. “I will do my best.”

He extends his wings, intending to leap into the time stream, when Ben shouts, “Wait, Castiel?”

“Yes?”

“Did you know you have a giant hunk of rock lodged in your body?”

“Yes, I do,” he replies and lets himself fall back through time.

“An angel, young sir? You do attract the most interesting things.”

Ben starts at the voice, coming right on the heels of the feathers and bright light of Castiel’s unbelievably cool departure. He whips around so fast he’s nearly swamped by dizziness, stumbles stupidly for a minute, and sort of falls back against the Impala. It keeps him upright, but it’s also embarrassing.

Hermes is blocking his path back into the Bunker. He’s still decked out like a bus station attendant, but there’s a black smudge on one cheek, dirt, maybe, or soot, and his name tag has been ripped off, leaving a large tear in his vest.

“You,” Ben says like he’s the stupidest character in a horror movie, and that’s sort of what he feels like right now. It was monumentally stupid to come outside by himself, even if he was asleep when he did it.

Hermes gives one short, sharp nod. “Me.” He eyes the trees, the Impala, glances behind his shoulder at the Bunker itself with a grimace. “I see you’ve reached your destination. Was it everything you hoped?”

Ben backs away slowly, keeping one hand on the Impala for support. “Artemis told me I shouldn’t talk to you.”

Hermes matches him step for step, moving away from the Bunker but keeping himself firmly in front of it. “Artemis, hmm? Maybe you shouldn’t have been talking to her. Have you ever considered that?”

“Actually, yes.” The Impala’s hood is cold under his hand, but that’s okay, because she’s keeping him upright, helping him to be brave. “But she’s the one who actually took me to Dean, and you just told me to use the dreams. Which made me sick, by the way.”

Hermes shrugs. “I thought that might happen, but his numen wasn’t quite ripe yet when we last spoke. He’s woken, hasn’t he?” He taps his own chest with two fingers. “Apollo? He’s looking quite a bit healthier since you’ve been using the prescience.”

Ben tries to look as innocent as possible. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Ben.” Hermes shakes his head sadly. “Which is unfortunate, since you’re also a bit tricksy. There’s nothing worse than a trickster with the inability to lie. ”

“I’m not lying.”

Hermes rolls his eyes. “Oh, young sir. Do stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Ben swallows thickly. His mouth is so dry. “Look, I don’t know what you want-“

“Isn’t it obvious?” Hermes leans in like he’s sharing a secret. “I want the numen, and I want the divinity in your soul.”

Ben pauses, confused. “For what?”

“Well, dinner, of course.”

Time seems to hang for a handful of heartbeats, like the hourglass on a computer screen. Ben’s breath gets caught in his chest. There’s the muffled stillness of the cold and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. There’s a vicious shiver that crawls over his body. And there’s Hermes between him and the Bunker, mild mannered and ready to eat his soul.

Hermes raises one eyebrow with calm expectancy. “Well?”

Ben bolts, not down the road like a sane person would, but towards the Bunker, towards Hermes. He’s the blonde in the horror movie who runs up the stairs when she should be running out the door, but inside is the only safe place, and if he can get through the door, if he can get past Hermes and make the six foot jump into the stairwell, if he can manage not to hobble himself -

He doesn’t manage to do any of those things. Something grabs him before he can make the leap, something that hauls him up into the air, takes him off of his feet. His stomach plummets like he’s in a descending elevator, and he can see the stars spinning wildly above him, wheeling over his head. He’s flying, sailing through the air, and then he hits the trunk of the Impala, hard. His lungs seize, his head spins, and Hermes is leaning over him, pinning him down with his will.

His eyes flash gold, flinty and cold. “Admirable try, young sir. Now be still. It’s time to take this out.” Hermes places his hand over Ben’s chest, right where his soul is twined with the other. “If you don’t move, I promise it will hurt less.”

Hermes’s fingers dig in slowly, relentlessly into his flesh; Ben feels the wiggle of his fingers just before agony consumes him.

Ben begins to scream.



The next few weeks are hard.

Like, really hard. Hard like sleeping on the ground and scrounging for food hard. Like cleaning up best he can in McDonald’s restrooms and avoiding cops, making himself scarce when he sees someone looking too closely at him. That kind of hard. The kind of hard that TV always makes pretty scary until you have to live it and you find out it’s even worse.

The dreams lead him first to an old lady who smells of really strong flowery perfume and gives him a ride from Charlotte to Orangeburg, South Carolina, a cross swinging from her rearview mirror as she talks about Jesus the entire way. He finds the ten dollar bill in the gutter in front of the same convenience store where he meets the VW van full of potheads. They give him a ride down I-95 to a rest stop just outside of Jacksonville, feeding him soy chips and vegan cookies the entire way. A food festival in St Augustine is where he finds the hot blonde handing out free sandwiches from a local sandwich shop, and another five dollar bill he hadn’t even dreamt about.

But those are the few high points. Sometimes the dreams show him a half eaten sub thrown in a trashcan that he just barely manages to choke down or the bed of a pickup truck of an oblivious construction worker where he hides in from St. Augustine to some beachside town near Daytona. He swallows back his fear and the sick twist of guilt when the dreams show him a four dollar tip left on an outside café table, and he steals it, just walks by, casual like, and picks it up. He sleeps fitfully under the bleachers of a high school football field, shivering all night beneath the Colts blanket, and he fishes stale, three day old bagels out of a dumpster behind a Starbucks.

He never starves, and he’s never really in danger, but it’s not easy or soft or fun. He’s always just this side of hungry, and even though the dreams lead him into Florida, it’s still cold enough in March that when you sleep hidden in bushes in parks or behind abandoned buildings, you’re never really warm. But he muddles on and on, and the memory of living in a house with a warm bed and a mother who nags him about not doing the dishes seems like a wonderful fantasy of someone else’s life.

He follows every dream, good or bad, because he doesn’t know what else to do. So many times he thinks about picking up a pay phone and calling Aunt Sarah, but then he remembers the threat of the demon and Bill’s dead body, and he can’t bring himself to endanger them again. But most of all, he keeps on keeping on because the dreams always and without fail, between the spill of red and gold paint over his hands and the leathery black wings rising into the night sky, promise him that moment when Dean looks up and sees him, raises his hand and beckons him over.

Then he starts getting sick.

He’s never been sick before, not a single sniffle or stomach ache or rash, can’t even imagine what it feels like. Sick has always been something that happens to other people, but one morning he wakes up with a scratchy throat, the first ever, and before the end of the day, his nose is running, and he’s starting to cough. It’s horrible and gross, little explosions of breathlessness that shove their way out of his chest, but he can deal, has to deal. People do it all the time. How hard can it be?

But the next morning, when he is jerked awake by the onslaught of a coughing fit, it’s worse, far worse than he could have ever imagined. He hauls himself up onto one elbow and coughs and coughs and coughs, miserable wet heaves exploding repeatedly from his chest, dragging slimy greenish mucus out of his lungs. It’s disgusting and painful; his throat feels like it has been scraped raw, and his chest and back ache dully. His nose is running freely, and every glob of mucus he guiltily spits out next to the drop cloth he is using for bedding feels like a slimy, fat oyster clawing its way out of his throat.

More than one mouthful of spit and slithering goo ends up on the concrete floor before he gets it under control, takes back his ability to breath. He carefully leans back against the plywood wall of the half-built house he had slept in the night before, shivering in the morning chill and wishing he had a box of tissues at hand. His face is wet with tears and snot, and it feels like someone has punched him in the chest as hard as they could. He wipes his nose on a handful of fast food napkins he had been toting around with him in his backpack, then spends a few minutes just breathing, enjoying the feeling of air going in and out of his lungs, even if there’s a funny little whistling noise in his chest when he inhales.

Eventually he notices the slam of hammers in the distance, the thunking churn of some kind of machine, and the construction workers calling out to one another. It must be later in the morning than he had meant to sleep, but he feels a listless sort of disinterest in that, like if he gets caught, so what? It doesn’t seem worth worrying about, and honestly, he’s more concerned about what they’d think of the splatters of mucus he’s left on the floor than whether they’d be mad that he’s been sleeping in a partially built two story.

But getting caught and possibly dragged off to a foster home is not a good idea, so he gets himself to his feet. He folds the Colts blanket and shoves it back into his backpack, uses what’s left of his bottle of water to brush his teeth, chokes down two handfuls of the peanuts he guiltily swiped from a convenience store while the clerk was distracted. Then it all goes back into his backpack, and his backpack goes over his shoulder. He trudges onward, his whole body weak and wobbly, leaving the shelter of the semi-finished house and cutting across what will one day be several well-manicured back yards.

Ben makes it out of the subdivision without getting caught. He plods along the side of road for a long time, shivering when blasts of cold air slap against him as the occasional car flies past. The sun keeps playing hide and seek behind the fast moving clouds, and eventually it disappears behind a bank of dark clouds and stays. He wishes it back as soon as possible; he’s cold, and walking isn’t doing what it should to warm him up. He feels chilled down to his very bones, his joints achy with cold, and deep down inside he’s really starting to consider making that phone call to Aunt Sarah.

Eventually he comes upon a four lane road lined on each side by tall pine trees and strange looking bushes that resemble the tops of palm trees. He follows it for a while until his bladder starts making demands, then just steps into the trees because his mom isn’t there to fuss at him for his lack of manners, as much as he wishes she were, and just, why not?

It’s colder in the shade, but quiet and kind of nice, sort of muffed from the world. His feet crunch over browned pine needles and dead foliage. The pine trees whisper above him, swaying in the wind. Some crows in the treetops call back and forth at one another.

Eventually, he loses sight of the road.

He stops, does his business against a tree, not quite feeling the level of freedom about peeing in the woods as he thought he would. He has half a mind to go further in and find a spot to curl up and sleep, away from the roads and the people and the threat of everything, but when he turns, there’s a thing standing there.

Ben freezes, and his heart tries to climb up into his throat.

It looks human, like a college girl on Spring Break with her boobs spilling out of a red and white striped bikini top, white short shorts, and long blonde hair tangled by the wind. But it’s way too cold today for what’s she’s wearing, even if the seaside Florida towns are already full of Spring Breakers, and far enough away from the beach to make it a little strange that she’s hiking around in the woods half dressed. Besides, Ben can see her real face, her human face stretched over it like the world’s worst Halloween mask, skin the color of dead fish, swirling red pits for eyes, and a hollow cave-like hole that must be its mouth.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, her voice girlish and saccharine sweet, but underneath is the real voice, all hisses and clicks, like a pit of angry snakes. “I’ve been following your scent all day. You smell fantastic. And the way you shine...”

She takes a couple steps into his space, hips swinging, her bottom lip caught coyly between her teeth. Ben knows he should run, but can’t quite seem to get his body to listen to his brain and move, because as far as he can tell, his only reaction to facing a monster is to become paralyzed by terror.

It’s embarrassing and cowardly, and he hates himself for it.

“I’ve never seen a human glow like you before.” She rests her slender hand on his chest, right over his heart, her pretend-girl skin stretching over her claws like a glove. “What are you hiding here?”

As soon as it touches him, as soon as Ben feels the burn of its slimy, cold unnaturalness even through two t-shirts and his hoodie, his paralysis breaks. He dodges to the left and bolts, like an animal with a predator on its haunches, heart fluttering with terror. He only gets about three feet before she’s hauling him back by his backpack and slamming him face first into the nearest tree, his chest clenching as the wind is knocked out of him. The bark scrapes harsh and deep along his cheek, and he can taste his own coppery-sweet blood blooming from a split lip.

She’s curls her fingers into his hair, grabs tight, and holds him there.

“Calm down, baby.” The human mouth smiles, all sly and flirty, but underneath, the other mouth is opening and closing with a desperate tremble that makes Ben’s stomach roil. “I’ll make it good.”

She leans forward, that empty cavern mouth coming closer and closer, her pretend girl body pressed up along his side. And God, he doesn’t get what his body is doing, because even though he can see what she really is, knows with a sick, skin-crawling certainty that she wants to eat him as surely as the vampire in the bathroom had, she’s warm and smells good, like girly shampoo and strawberry lip gloss, and his body seems to think that she’s a real girl. It has never been quite so close to one of those before, not like this, and is reacting in the expected way, much to Ben’s deep, horrified disgust.

He clenches his eyes shut because he just can’t look, can’t deal with his body’s reaction or that gaping black mouth, can’t deal with dying, not like this-

There’s an abrupt yelp, like a dog getting kicked, and the thing’s pretend-warmth is gone, his body is free. Dizzy and light headed, Ben stumbles backwards in surprise, trips over an upraised root, and ends up on his butt.

A woman is just suddenly there between them, long glossy hair and an awesome but sort of ridiculous Catwoman look, dragging the girl-thing away by her hair. The girl-thing is howling, a piercing, enraged wail, twisting her body unnaturally, snarling and growling as she tries to swipe the woman with her claws. The woman holds her effortlessly with one hand, calm and steady, even as the girl-thing is thrashing around in her grip. In her other hand is a silver knife, long and wickedly sharp.

The woman turns her attention to him, gives him a quick once over.

“Are you all right, Ben?”

Ben stares at her, gaping stupidly. She seems familiar, like really familiar, and that’s the only reason why Ben’s not up and running immediately.

“Ben?” she says, whip sharp when he doesn’t answer.

“Yeah.” Ben nods. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good,” she says and slams the silver knife through the girl thing’s eye.

There’s a meaty squelch, and the girl thing goes limp, her screeches dying into distant echoes. The woman pulls the knife out with a wet sucking sound and shoves it up under the girl-thing’s ribcage. The pretend skin immediately starts melting away like the faces of the Nazis in The Lost Ark with the worst, most rancid smell Ben has ever encountered, like rotting meat and spoiled milk and backed up sewage all at once.

Ben presses his sleeve over his mouth and nose, and turns his face away, trying to block out the smell. His eyes water and his stomach heaves violently. He might throw up. He’s never thrown up before, but he thinks this must be what it feels like right before.

There is a thud as the woman drops her, and then there’s a hand on his arm, hauling him up, pulling him away from the pool of stench and rot that the girl-thing is rapidly becoming.

“What are you doing here, Ben?” He stumbles along as she drags him behind her, still gagging on the reek of the girl-thing, tripping over roots and mounds of dead forest debris. “How did you even get so far south on your own? If you hadn’t wandered into the woods, I would have never found you. And where did you get his numen? ”

He has no idea what she’s talking about or why she’s talking to him like she knows him, sounding a lot like his mom when she lays into him for climbing up on the roof or coming in after curfew.

Ben stops and jerks his arm away from her. “Let go of me.”

He retreats a few steps, puts some distance between them.

The woman raises her hands in a way that is probably intended to be reassuring, but mostly comes off impatient. “Be calm, Ben. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that one before.” Ben wipes at his cheek with the sleeve of his hoodie. It comes away smeared with a dark wet spot. “Who are you?”

“Artemis.”

“Another god? Great.” It’s like he’s a supernatural magnet or something. “What do you want in exchange for your help?”

Her eyes go hard, her fists curl; she seems larger, taller, like she has expanded past all of his senses. He sees her true visage briefly: bright white tunic, leather hunting boots, bow and quiver over her shoulder, dagger at her waist.

Ben shrinks away, terrified.

“What other god, Ben?” Her anger washes against his skin, searing hot. “Who else have you spoken with?”

“Hermes.”

All that towering rage suddenly winks out of existence, and she’s just some chick in a lot of leather, lecturing him like she’s his mom. “Are you sure?”

“Well, that’s who he said he was. And I could sort of see him.” Ben gestures vaguely at his head. “You know, the winged hat and the shoes and stuff. He saved me from a vampire.”

She looks scared, utterly and completely terrified. “That’s not possible.”

Ben shrugs. “Maybe not. But that’s who he said he was, and he definitely looked like Hermes.”

She takes a step towards him, not exactly threatening, but still kind of intimidating. “What did you sacrifice to him?”

Ben takes two steps back, heart fluttering jackrabbit quick in his chest. She makes him feel like he’s in so much trouble, but more in a getting grounded kind of way than a dying horribly in the woods kind of way.

“Ham and honey. Some wine.”

She eyes him like his mom does when she suspects him of lying. “No blood?”

Ben shakes his head. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

“What did you ask from him?”

“Help with traveling. He told me how to use the dreams I’ve been having about the future.”

She closes her eyes for a second, lips pursed, like she’s in pain. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you, Ben. I will fix this.”

“How? And in exchange for what?” Ben knows it was dumb to take unsolicited help from a Greek god in a bus station bathroom, but he’s at that desperate place again, and bad ideas are starting to sound pretty good.

“In exchange for nothing,” she says and takes his arm again.

The next thing he knows, the woods are gone and they’re standing behind some building with cardboard boxes stacked next to the back door and an interstate roaring in the distance.

“Did you just teleport us?” Ben asks, terror and amazement warring within him. On the one hand, teleportation, but on the other, come on, teleportation.

“Yes.” She looks off into the distance, brow furrowed like she’s concentrating hard on something. “Dean and Sam Winchester will be stopping here momentarily.”

Ben’s heartbeat kicks up a few notches. “Dean and Sam? They’re stopping here? Are you sure?”

“Oh, I assure you, they’re stopping. They can’t help but to stop.” She pauses, tilts her head as if listening to something far off. “Don’t you hear it?”

“Hear what?” All he can hear is the wind and the roar of the interstate, and the rumble of some large vehicle coming closer.

Wait. He knows that rumble.

Ben sucks in a sharp breath, and there’s this flood of joy and relief, this overwhelming sense of finally. “That’s the Impala.”

She smiles, bright and sort of pleased, like she’s genuinely glad to see Ben so excited. “Yes, it is.”

Ben doesn’t hesitate. He starts off around the building at an adrenaline fueled run then remembers his manners at the very last moment. She saved him from the girl-thing, brought him to Dean without any need for payment, no deal making or threats, and he’s grateful. He’s really, really grateful. He pauses long enough to turn around, still moving but backwards now, and gives Artemis his very best smile, all bright eyes and dimples, the kind that makes his mother roll her eyes and shake her head.

“Thanks,” he says, breathless and excited, then turns around and goes to Dean.

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