Events in Sun and Shadows, 10/?
Title: Events in Sun and Shadows, 10/?
Fandom: Supernatural Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ben/Adam, Bobby.
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit. Summary: In 2017, Adam visits a grieving Ben after the loss of his family and his beloved hero. He makes the same offer his dead half-brothers once made him: revenge, and a new life. AU.
Warnings: Major character death, confused adolescent feelings, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
Ben didn’t sleep much - for one thing, it was friggin cold, even bundled in thermal everything inside his sleeping bag. Before lights out, they’d given in and lit up the smallest of campfires in front of the tent, absorbing its heat as best they could and trying to warm the atmosphere. Ben had set the fire. He’d learned the method from when Jimmy Harris was a Scout. He had to be a Scout because his parents were pretty Churchy, but all he’d used his Scouting skills for was setting fire to the woodshed.
The other reason Ben couldn’t sleep was Adam himself, wrapped up in his own sleeping bag a few feet away. Apparently Adam had dropped off without any trouble, and Ben watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing beneath the blankets. There was something incredibly intimate about watching someone asleep (not to mention creepy, his conscience informed him, but it was kind of hard not to when you were sharing a tent). You ordinarily thought of people in terms of what they were like - whether they were nice or funny or a dick or stupid or whatever - and in terms of what they looked like from outside. But when someone was asleep and breathing next to you, you had to think about how they lived in their body too, how their mind could tune out and go to sleep and their heart kept right on beating. It made them real.
He had never watched Dean sleep.
* * *
In the morning, they went to the campsite and set up their fishing gear. Actually Bobby’s fishing gear, which they’d borrowed as the obvious cover story.
“I don’t suppose your Scout friend told you how to fish?” Adam asked.
“No, ” said Ben. He wondered if Adam had been a Scout, but then he remembered Jimmy telling him that they didn’t let fags into Scouts.
The water was calm, flat, grey, indifferently reflecting the sky. Ben huddled a little deeper into his jacket. If anything more exciting than lake weed lived down there, it wasn’t making it obvious. After about thirty minutes, a middle-aged couple with a teenage girl and a retriever came and set up along the shore, about twenty meters from them - fishing etiquette, Ben presumed, they weren’t about to horn in on their water space.
“Do we just…go and talk to them? Would that be weird?”
“Or we make them talk to us.” Adam produced something wrapped in tin foil from the pocket of his jacket. It was meat, and it smelled strong: “Kidney. Gross, I know.” He dropped the meat into the grass a few feet from them. The dog, whose ears and nose had both perked up the second it was unwrapped, came nosing over hurriedly and started to gobble the prize. The man called to it, but the pungent meat was too much for the dog to resist. Adam discreetly dropped a second piece - in the tackle box this time. The dog immediately stuck its muzzle in the box and started to eat.
“Rusty!” The woman and the daughter were heading over: “I’m so sorry,” said the woman, “He never does that. Bad dog, get out of there!”
“Oh it’s alright,” Adam said cheerfully.”We’re about done for the morning anyway - fish aren’t biting for us.”
“Oh my God,” the girl covered her face with her hands as her mother pulled the dog off by his collar. “Because fishing with Mom and Pop isn’t humiliating enough.”
“It was nothing,” Ben put in, thinking it was about time he said something. “He’s really cute.”
“And you know, he’s so well-behaved most of the time! We’ve been bringing him fishing for years. Melissa, stop that.” The woman admonished her daughter, who was pretending to shoot herself in the face.
“Are you regulars here?” Adam asked politely.
“Every fall and winter,” the man had secured the fishing rod and came over to join them. “Beats the crowds, you know. I really am sorry about the bait. We can pay for it."
“It’s no trouble. We’re not exactly professionals, just here for the practice really, ” Ben did his best to look innocuous.
“Though it seems like we picked a bad time to join the Lake Hendricks crowd,” Adam picked up the thread: “It’s tragic,” he shook his head.
“Oh the kids, yes I know, isn’t it awful,” the woman said, petting the dog’s head with one hand and keeping the other on his collar. Rusty was slobbering happily and staring at Adam in open admiration.
"Parents shouldn't have let em near the water if they couldn't swim,” said the man.
“They could swim, dad!” Melissa objected. “They were tempting it!”
“You think it’s true? About the…?” Adam made his eyes wide, waiting to see if they’d take the bait. ‘Who said we couldn’t fish,’ Ben thought with satisfaction.
“Well no,” said the woman hurriedly. “I mean it’s just rumours. There’s an old lady who lives up the shoreline,” she gestured vaguely, “Comes about scaring the kids. Telling them monster stories. She’s a little…you know.” She gestured vaguely towards her head. “Shame, really. Encourages them to go down to the water and play these…dangerous games.”
“What games?” asked Ben, a little too fast.
“Oh - you know. Horror story stuff.” The man shrugged it off.
“Old May says the blood of a virgin will draw out the Kraken,” Melissa said matter-of-factly. “So the kids like, dare each other, you know? A whole bunch go down to the water together and everyone has to cut their fingers and bleed in the lake to see if-“
“Melissa!” her mother reprimanded.
“That’s what they were doing, Mom! And it worked! It happened! They drew it out!”
“That’s enough, young lady. Take Rusty back to the tent. Sorry boys. Hope the rest of your trip goes better.”
The family beat a hasty retreat as Adam and Ben packed up.
“So I guess that means me,” Ben said before Adam could. “Resident virgin, and everything.”
“You don’t have to,” Adam said. “There must be another way.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Ben shrugged. ‘Goddamn virginity might as well come in handy for something.’
“If you’re sure,” the corner of Adam’s mouth quirked, as though he’d heard the thought.
“I am. Tonight.” And he was. He could do this. One cut of his finger, and he could save, who knew? Hundreds of lives. Huh. ‘And Adam will see I can handle it.'In his mind’s eye, he watched himself shooting the Kraken down, silver bullet between the eyes, water rising, exploding back as the thing collapsed -
And Dean would never see it.
Well. Adam would.‘Better a live dog than a dead lion’: the saying came back to him suddenly. Something his grandma had said. And then he felt guilty because Adam was no dog - Adam was a good person. And he was - kind of - hot, with his sad eyes and his mouth which Ben knew would feel soft and dry and firm beneath his own lips. He would never love anybody the way he had loved Dean, the kind of love that made you ridiculous, made you want to die for someone, scream their name from the top of buildings, carve their name across your heart. But when he imagined a future without Adam in it, now - versus one when they were together - he thought maybe there was another kind of love: quieter, calmer, more - peaceful. More ordinary than annihilating.
If only he could make Adam trust that he knew now what he was doing.
“Tonight it is then,” Adam said with a smile, and Ben had to remind himself he was talking about the Kraken.
Part 11
Fandom: Supernatural Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ben/Adam, Bobby.
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit. Summary: In 2017, Adam visits a grieving Ben after the loss of his family and his beloved hero. He makes the same offer his dead half-brothers once made him: revenge, and a new life. AU.
Warnings: Major character death, confused adolescent feelings, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
Ben didn’t sleep much - for one thing, it was friggin cold, even bundled in thermal everything inside his sleeping bag. Before lights out, they’d given in and lit up the smallest of campfires in front of the tent, absorbing its heat as best they could and trying to warm the atmosphere. Ben had set the fire. He’d learned the method from when Jimmy Harris was a Scout. He had to be a Scout because his parents were pretty Churchy, but all he’d used his Scouting skills for was setting fire to the woodshed.
The other reason Ben couldn’t sleep was Adam himself, wrapped up in his own sleeping bag a few feet away. Apparently Adam had dropped off without any trouble, and Ben watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing beneath the blankets. There was something incredibly intimate about watching someone asleep (not to mention creepy, his conscience informed him, but it was kind of hard not to when you were sharing a tent). You ordinarily thought of people in terms of what they were like - whether they were nice or funny or a dick or stupid or whatever - and in terms of what they looked like from outside. But when someone was asleep and breathing next to you, you had to think about how they lived in their body too, how their mind could tune out and go to sleep and their heart kept right on beating. It made them real.
He had never watched Dean sleep.
* * *
In the morning, they went to the campsite and set up their fishing gear. Actually Bobby’s fishing gear, which they’d borrowed as the obvious cover story.
“I don’t suppose your Scout friend told you how to fish?” Adam asked.
“No, ” said Ben. He wondered if Adam had been a Scout, but then he remembered Jimmy telling him that they didn’t let fags into Scouts.
The water was calm, flat, grey, indifferently reflecting the sky. Ben huddled a little deeper into his jacket. If anything more exciting than lake weed lived down there, it wasn’t making it obvious. After about thirty minutes, a middle-aged couple with a teenage girl and a retriever came and set up along the shore, about twenty meters from them - fishing etiquette, Ben presumed, they weren’t about to horn in on their water space.
“Do we just…go and talk to them? Would that be weird?”
“Or we make them talk to us.” Adam produced something wrapped in tin foil from the pocket of his jacket. It was meat, and it smelled strong: “Kidney. Gross, I know.” He dropped the meat into the grass a few feet from them. The dog, whose ears and nose had both perked up the second it was unwrapped, came nosing over hurriedly and started to gobble the prize. The man called to it, but the pungent meat was too much for the dog to resist. Adam discreetly dropped a second piece - in the tackle box this time. The dog immediately stuck its muzzle in the box and started to eat.
“Rusty!” The woman and the daughter were heading over: “I’m so sorry,” said the woman, “He never does that. Bad dog, get out of there!”
“Oh it’s alright,” Adam said cheerfully.”We’re about done for the morning anyway - fish aren’t biting for us.”
“Oh my God,” the girl covered her face with her hands as her mother pulled the dog off by his collar. “Because fishing with Mom and Pop isn’t humiliating enough.”
“It was nothing,” Ben put in, thinking it was about time he said something. “He’s really cute.”
“And you know, he’s so well-behaved most of the time! We’ve been bringing him fishing for years. Melissa, stop that.” The woman admonished her daughter, who was pretending to shoot herself in the face.
“Are you regulars here?” Adam asked politely.
“Every fall and winter,” the man had secured the fishing rod and came over to join them. “Beats the crowds, you know. I really am sorry about the bait. We can pay for it."
“It’s no trouble. We’re not exactly professionals, just here for the practice really, ” Ben did his best to look innocuous.
“Though it seems like we picked a bad time to join the Lake Hendricks crowd,” Adam picked up the thread: “It’s tragic,” he shook his head.
“Oh the kids, yes I know, isn’t it awful,” the woman said, petting the dog’s head with one hand and keeping the other on his collar. Rusty was slobbering happily and staring at Adam in open admiration.
"Parents shouldn't have let em near the water if they couldn't swim,” said the man.
“They could swim, dad!” Melissa objected. “They were tempting it!”
“You think it’s true? About the…?” Adam made his eyes wide, waiting to see if they’d take the bait. ‘Who said we couldn’t fish,’ Ben thought with satisfaction.
“Well no,” said the woman hurriedly. “I mean it’s just rumours. There’s an old lady who lives up the shoreline,” she gestured vaguely, “Comes about scaring the kids. Telling them monster stories. She’s a little…you know.” She gestured vaguely towards her head. “Shame, really. Encourages them to go down to the water and play these…dangerous games.”
“What games?” asked Ben, a little too fast.
“Oh - you know. Horror story stuff.” The man shrugged it off.
“Old May says the blood of a virgin will draw out the Kraken,” Melissa said matter-of-factly. “So the kids like, dare each other, you know? A whole bunch go down to the water together and everyone has to cut their fingers and bleed in the lake to see if-“
“Melissa!” her mother reprimanded.
“That’s what they were doing, Mom! And it worked! It happened! They drew it out!”
“That’s enough, young lady. Take Rusty back to the tent. Sorry boys. Hope the rest of your trip goes better.”
The family beat a hasty retreat as Adam and Ben packed up.
“So I guess that means me,” Ben said before Adam could. “Resident virgin, and everything.”
“You don’t have to,” Adam said. “There must be another way.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Ben shrugged. ‘Goddamn virginity might as well come in handy for something.’
“If you’re sure,” the corner of Adam’s mouth quirked, as though he’d heard the thought.
“I am. Tonight.” And he was. He could do this. One cut of his finger, and he could save, who knew? Hundreds of lives. Huh. ‘And Adam will see I can handle it.'In his mind’s eye, he watched himself shooting the Kraken down, silver bullet between the eyes, water rising, exploding back as the thing collapsed -
And Dean would never see it.
Well. Adam would.‘Better a live dog than a dead lion’: the saying came back to him suddenly. Something his grandma had said. And then he felt guilty because Adam was no dog - Adam was a good person. And he was - kind of - hot, with his sad eyes and his mouth which Ben knew would feel soft and dry and firm beneath his own lips. He would never love anybody the way he had loved Dean, the kind of love that made you ridiculous, made you want to die for someone, scream their name from the top of buildings, carve their name across your heart. But when he imagined a future without Adam in it, now - versus one when they were together - he thought maybe there was another kind of love: quieter, calmer, more - peaceful. More ordinary than annihilating.
If only he could make Adam trust that he knew now what he was doing.
“Tonight it is then,” Adam said with a smile, and Ben had to remind himself he was talking about the Kraken.
Part 11