Return of The Grandpa!Wes
shinobus made some kind remarks about a daddy!wes fic I wrote for my joss100 claim some time back (Counting Bodies) and inspired me to write another.
You'll notice that another show has joined the crossover melee in this :p Seeing as Ben is Dean's son in this world of mine, it was the next logical step (in my crazy mind) to make Ben the Ben Tennyson of the Ben 10 cartoon :p which is my son's favorite thing ever.
Do me a favor and give this a shot. (You can find out more about Ben 10 here and here.)
Title: You Can't Take the Sky From Me
Author: nevcolleil
Fandom(s): Angel the Series; Supernatural; Ben 10
Rating: G
Disclaimer: none of the shows crossed over in this belong to me
Summary: Wesley doesn't think that he's done such a bad job at parenting... It's just that he's had such limited experience with alien transformation and his children.
Author's Note: For joss100, prompt #40 of the "insane set" (use the tags to find more of my fics in this series)
Wesley has no illusions about his performance as a parent.
He knows he was not the best father that the boys could have had.
He spoiled them in some ways - and neglected them in others. He exposed them to a life that - regardless of having been his since his own childhood, and Mary’s since John Winchester’s death - has never been appropriate for children.
Wesley has his regrets. He sees how his own failings - his own stubbornness; his relentlessness, nearly to the point of obsession - have been passed down to his children, and Wesley feels guilt when he does.
But for all of that, Wesley cannot discount his successes as a father. He can’t help but take pride in his son’s accomplishments. Their strengths. Even those that are most assuredly their own.
He doesn’t think that he did such a bad job, all the way around, and he has not hesitated to give his eldest son advice - when asked - on the subject of his grandson. He will not, when asked again in the future.
It’s just that he has such limited experience when it comes to this… particular aspect of parenting.
“Or- Perhaps, make that none at all,” Wesley admits, rubbing alien slime off of the lenses of his glasses with the hem of his button-down shirt. Ben is still swooping overhead, making strange, hissing noises that could signify either laughter or apology. As Wesley speaks no alien dialects, it is impossible to tell.
Dean has turned an alarming shade of red standing next to him. He raises one clenched fist to the sky and yells at his son. “Ben! You come down here right now and clean this mess up!”
Ben hisses again. Wesley is almost certain that he can still talk English in this form - he can be heard grumbling, now and then, as his aerial maneuvers take him closer to the ground. But he obviously doesn’t want to talk to his father at the moment. It isn’t a usual occurrence - Dean and Ben rarely fight. But even the closest of father/son bonds can be tested by severely extenuating circumstances…
And Wesley is rather certain that having one’s son begin to spontaneously shift between species can be considered severely extenuating.
“I-” Dean begins shouting louder, then suddenly deflates as he realizes Ben has flown too high to hear him. He turns to Wesley instead - “He-” - and stops again, to modify his volume and tone, when Wesley flinches at the noise. “He doesn’t even know how to control that thing! What if it shuts down on him while he’s up there!”
“Has it happened before?” Wesley feels, at last, concern slip beneath the numbness that stole over his senses when he realized that that was Ben’s brown eyes that had abruptly turned yellow. Ben’s skin that had turned into scales; Ben’s back that now sports a set of long, leathery wings.
“Yes!” Dean exclaims. Then wavers. “No… But it could!” he insists. Dean is definitely pouting, whatever his answer - just as he used to do, when overwrought, as a boy. Wesley looks quickly away to hide a twitch of his lips. It would not do, in the midst of a family crisis, to be caught reminiscing instead of thinking on the issue at hand.
A point all too effectively driven home as Wesley’s gaze finds the twittering speck that is Ben, far off and overhead… and dodging haphazardly out of the path of an oncoming jet.
Wesley’s heart thuds a bit too loudly, and he thinks to himself that it may not be possible for a human man to survive two generations of Winchesters.
Seeing as it was on an outing with his mother’s father that Ben developed his new… abilities… Wesley supposes it is too late to hope that the Tennyson portion of his genetic inheritance will serve as a sedative to Ben’s mischievous nature.
“Oh, God…” Dean moans into his hands as he covers his eyes, unwilling to watch his firstborn play chicken with random aircraft. Wesley puts a comforting arm about his shoulders, and Dean leans into the embrace.
Ben’s begun to dart back down to earth, and he says, “Oops! Sorry!” as he descends near enough to speak. His voice is high and nasal, and somewhat resonant - as if he is speaking with more vocal chords than a human has available.
His limbs look more like mandibles than humanoid appendages (Wesley pointedly ignores the fact that there are six of them), but the way he hops from one to another - in short, jerky motions, claws clacking at his sides - is oddly similar to a boy’s fidgeting from foot to foot, twiddling his fingers as he waits to be scolded.
“Honest, Dad - Grandpa, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get so close!” Ben continues in his alien voice. Dean just shakes his head as Wesley pats his shoulder.
“Ben, I think-” Wesley begins to say, as if there is anything to say to one’s abruptly extraterrestrial grandchild about discretion and restraint. Even overlooking the Winchester element - what boy could resist flexing his (pardon the pun) wings a bit, having just been given them?
Wesley tries to imagine what Dean would have done, had he found and melded with Ben’s Omnitrix at Ben’s age… and shudders uncontrollably.
Just then, the green and black emblem in Ben’s chest begins to emit a dull, steady trill. It starts to glow… as Ben does also. Soon the whole of him is enveloped in light, blinding; Wesley cannot look upon him. When the light fades, Ben is standing in the same place, but human once more.
Wesley releases the breath he’d been holding, feeling almost unsteady with relief. He holds onto Dean as Dean straightens as much for support as to encourage Dean to behave calmly.
“You- You-” Dean begins.
“Dean-” Wesley cautions.
“Dad, I’m really-”
At last, Dean pulls away and reaches for his recalcitrant child. One hand wraps itself around the nape of Ben’s neck; the other grips him by the shoulder. Dean tugs Ben into a hug so determinedly, desperately loving that it might have embarrassed all three of them had Ben not been an alien, and nearly splattered by an airplane, only moments before.
Ben hides his face in his father’s chest. “I am sorry,” Wesley can just make out from where he is standing. So he steps closer, resting one hand on Dean’s shoulder; the other on Ben’s.
“We know, Ben,” Wesley says. “But we’d rather you were careful than sorry.”
Wesley’s said this line many times before. But never, he now remembers, to Dean. It was always to Sam, who had brought home some new, supernatural species of would-be pet - or Connor, who had found some new, and frightening, application of his unnatural speed and strength. Dean, for all his bar brawls, speeding tickets, and bed-hopping, later, was always the frighteningly responsible one as a child. A child who’d buried both a mother and a father before being left with only a step-dad and his two, baby brothers to rely upon at Ben’s tender age.
Wesley swallows. He may have no experience raising a recently half-alien boy… but he has quite the track record with raising brave, preternaturally gifted ones. He can only hope that that will be enough to help his family through the… adjustments Ben’s new abilities will necessitate.
“And if you ever do that again,” Dean says in a gruff voice, pulling Ben back to look into his eyes, “I will ground your little, alien ass for so long, parachute pants will be cool again by the time you see daylight. You hear me?”
Ben’s eyes are wet, but his lips twitch. “Yeah, Dad,” he says, as far from hissing now - alien or no - as he could be. Like his father, he is slow to anger and quick to forgive when it comes to family.
Dean looks at Wesley. “And Lisa’s never sending him off with that crackpot plumber again,” he says as an aside, but Ben reacts to it immediately.
“Dad!” he protests. “This is so not Grandpa Max’s fault! Mom didn’t blame Grandpa Wes for that thing with the howler demons!”
Wesley coughs, uncomfortable for all of a moment. His expression becomes sheepish.
Then Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, howler demons didn’t give you eyestalks,” he says.
It is prelude to yet another argument, because of course - to a thirteen-year-old of Ben’s disposition - eyestalks are awesome.
Wesley steps back. Whatever his history with parenting, he has learned this much: there are battles that must be fought with one’s children, and those that can only be watched.
And the latter can sometimes be a blessing every bit as much as a curse.
“I’ll just… be inside,” he suggests, though neither Dean nor Ben is listening at the moment. Wesley excuses himself to go and launder his shirt.
He hopes Spray-n-Wash works as well on alien gunk as grass stains and finger paints.
[ end. ]
You'll notice that another show has joined the crossover melee in this :p Seeing as Ben is Dean's son in this world of mine, it was the next logical step (in my crazy mind) to make Ben the Ben Tennyson of the Ben 10 cartoon :p which is my son's favorite thing ever.
Do me a favor and give this a shot. (You can find out more about Ben 10 here and here.)
Title: You Can't Take the Sky From Me
Author: nevcolleil
Fandom(s): Angel the Series; Supernatural; Ben 10
Rating: G
Disclaimer: none of the shows crossed over in this belong to me
Summary: Wesley doesn't think that he's done such a bad job at parenting... It's just that he's had such limited experience with alien transformation and his children.
Author's Note: For joss100, prompt #40 of the "insane set" (use the tags to find more of my fics in this series)
Wesley has no illusions about his performance as a parent.
He knows he was not the best father that the boys could have had.
He spoiled them in some ways - and neglected them in others. He exposed them to a life that - regardless of having been his since his own childhood, and Mary’s since John Winchester’s death - has never been appropriate for children.
Wesley has his regrets. He sees how his own failings - his own stubbornness; his relentlessness, nearly to the point of obsession - have been passed down to his children, and Wesley feels guilt when he does.
But for all of that, Wesley cannot discount his successes as a father. He can’t help but take pride in his son’s accomplishments. Their strengths. Even those that are most assuredly their own.
He doesn’t think that he did such a bad job, all the way around, and he has not hesitated to give his eldest son advice - when asked - on the subject of his grandson. He will not, when asked again in the future.
It’s just that he has such limited experience when it comes to this… particular aspect of parenting.
“Or- Perhaps, make that none at all,” Wesley admits, rubbing alien slime off of the lenses of his glasses with the hem of his button-down shirt. Ben is still swooping overhead, making strange, hissing noises that could signify either laughter or apology. As Wesley speaks no alien dialects, it is impossible to tell.
Dean has turned an alarming shade of red standing next to him. He raises one clenched fist to the sky and yells at his son. “Ben! You come down here right now and clean this mess up!”
Ben hisses again. Wesley is almost certain that he can still talk English in this form - he can be heard grumbling, now and then, as his aerial maneuvers take him closer to the ground. But he obviously doesn’t want to talk to his father at the moment. It isn’t a usual occurrence - Dean and Ben rarely fight. But even the closest of father/son bonds can be tested by severely extenuating circumstances…
And Wesley is rather certain that having one’s son begin to spontaneously shift between species can be considered severely extenuating.
“I-” Dean begins shouting louder, then suddenly deflates as he realizes Ben has flown too high to hear him. He turns to Wesley instead - “He-” - and stops again, to modify his volume and tone, when Wesley flinches at the noise. “He doesn’t even know how to control that thing! What if it shuts down on him while he’s up there!”
“Has it happened before?” Wesley feels, at last, concern slip beneath the numbness that stole over his senses when he realized that that was Ben’s brown eyes that had abruptly turned yellow. Ben’s skin that had turned into scales; Ben’s back that now sports a set of long, leathery wings.
“Yes!” Dean exclaims. Then wavers. “No… But it could!” he insists. Dean is definitely pouting, whatever his answer - just as he used to do, when overwrought, as a boy. Wesley looks quickly away to hide a twitch of his lips. It would not do, in the midst of a family crisis, to be caught reminiscing instead of thinking on the issue at hand.
A point all too effectively driven home as Wesley’s gaze finds the twittering speck that is Ben, far off and overhead… and dodging haphazardly out of the path of an oncoming jet.
Wesley’s heart thuds a bit too loudly, and he thinks to himself that it may not be possible for a human man to survive two generations of Winchesters.
Seeing as it was on an outing with his mother’s father that Ben developed his new… abilities… Wesley supposes it is too late to hope that the Tennyson portion of his genetic inheritance will serve as a sedative to Ben’s mischievous nature.
“Oh, God…” Dean moans into his hands as he covers his eyes, unwilling to watch his firstborn play chicken with random aircraft. Wesley puts a comforting arm about his shoulders, and Dean leans into the embrace.
Ben’s begun to dart back down to earth, and he says, “Oops! Sorry!” as he descends near enough to speak. His voice is high and nasal, and somewhat resonant - as if he is speaking with more vocal chords than a human has available.
His limbs look more like mandibles than humanoid appendages (Wesley pointedly ignores the fact that there are six of them), but the way he hops from one to another - in short, jerky motions, claws clacking at his sides - is oddly similar to a boy’s fidgeting from foot to foot, twiddling his fingers as he waits to be scolded.
“Honest, Dad - Grandpa, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get so close!” Ben continues in his alien voice. Dean just shakes his head as Wesley pats his shoulder.
“Ben, I think-” Wesley begins to say, as if there is anything to say to one’s abruptly extraterrestrial grandchild about discretion and restraint. Even overlooking the Winchester element - what boy could resist flexing his (pardon the pun) wings a bit, having just been given them?
Wesley tries to imagine what Dean would have done, had he found and melded with Ben’s Omnitrix at Ben’s age… and shudders uncontrollably.
Just then, the green and black emblem in Ben’s chest begins to emit a dull, steady trill. It starts to glow… as Ben does also. Soon the whole of him is enveloped in light, blinding; Wesley cannot look upon him. When the light fades, Ben is standing in the same place, but human once more.
Wesley releases the breath he’d been holding, feeling almost unsteady with relief. He holds onto Dean as Dean straightens as much for support as to encourage Dean to behave calmly.
“You- You-” Dean begins.
“Dean-” Wesley cautions.
“Dad, I’m really-”
At last, Dean pulls away and reaches for his recalcitrant child. One hand wraps itself around the nape of Ben’s neck; the other grips him by the shoulder. Dean tugs Ben into a hug so determinedly, desperately loving that it might have embarrassed all three of them had Ben not been an alien, and nearly splattered by an airplane, only moments before.
Ben hides his face in his father’s chest. “I am sorry,” Wesley can just make out from where he is standing. So he steps closer, resting one hand on Dean’s shoulder; the other on Ben’s.
“We know, Ben,” Wesley says. “But we’d rather you were careful than sorry.”
Wesley’s said this line many times before. But never, he now remembers, to Dean. It was always to Sam, who had brought home some new, supernatural species of would-be pet - or Connor, who had found some new, and frightening, application of his unnatural speed and strength. Dean, for all his bar brawls, speeding tickets, and bed-hopping, later, was always the frighteningly responsible one as a child. A child who’d buried both a mother and a father before being left with only a step-dad and his two, baby brothers to rely upon at Ben’s tender age.
Wesley swallows. He may have no experience raising a recently half-alien boy… but he has quite the track record with raising brave, preternaturally gifted ones. He can only hope that that will be enough to help his family through the… adjustments Ben’s new abilities will necessitate.
“And if you ever do that again,” Dean says in a gruff voice, pulling Ben back to look into his eyes, “I will ground your little, alien ass for so long, parachute pants will be cool again by the time you see daylight. You hear me?”
Ben’s eyes are wet, but his lips twitch. “Yeah, Dad,” he says, as far from hissing now - alien or no - as he could be. Like his father, he is slow to anger and quick to forgive when it comes to family.
Dean looks at Wesley. “And Lisa’s never sending him off with that crackpot plumber again,” he says as an aside, but Ben reacts to it immediately.
“Dad!” he protests. “This is so not Grandpa Max’s fault! Mom didn’t blame Grandpa Wes for that thing with the howler demons!”
Wesley coughs, uncomfortable for all of a moment. His expression becomes sheepish.
Then Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, howler demons didn’t give you eyestalks,” he says.
It is prelude to yet another argument, because of course - to a thirteen-year-old of Ben’s disposition - eyestalks are awesome.
Wesley steps back. Whatever his history with parenting, he has learned this much: there are battles that must be fought with one’s children, and those that can only be watched.
And the latter can sometimes be a blessing every bit as much as a curse.
“I’ll just… be inside,” he suggests, though neither Dean nor Ben is listening at the moment. Wesley excuses himself to go and launder his shirt.
He hopes Spray-n-Wash works as well on alien gunk as grass stains and finger paints.
[ end. ]