Orders of an Elder Time, 2/?
So I'm hoping to make Friday my regular update day again for this. It seems to work pretty well with my schedule. Hope you enjoy.
Title: Orders of an Elder Time, 2/?
Verse: The Libation Bearers
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: Follows Events in Sun and Shadows. The year is 2019. Adam and Ben are making some kind of life together. But the demon, to coin a phrase, is still out there, and Ben's dreams start to take a strange turn.
Warnings: Major characters...are dead, later gore, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
The only person Ben had ever heard of who had tracked a demon down was John Winchester. Not from Dean, of course - he had heard it from Adam, who had heard it from Sam, who in his last years hadn’t been averse to talking about their father. The heroic thing to do would’ve been to take John Winchester’s journal with him: he knew where it was. Dean had a locked box of possessions which he’d kept from his previous life - mostly guns, a few fake ID cards, several faded photographs. He kept it there. It was probably the world’s only guide to tracking your personal demonic nemesis.
Naturally, Ben had left it in Indiana.
He could pretty much excuse himself for that one - when Adam had shown up to bring him to Bobby’s, over a year ago now, he hadn’t exactly been thinking straight. He had quite literally arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back. But he’d learned enough regarding demons that he knew what he was looking for, and he started scanning for the national news for freak weather patterns, crop failure, lightning storms, sprees of unmotivated violent crime and/or disappearances. He found plenty of all of the above. Just not - together.
Adam knew what Ben was doing. He didn’t comment, and Ben didn’t talk to him about it. They continued taking local and semi-local jobs: a poltergeist at the museum in Brookings, a restless spirit just on the North Dakota border...the messiest was a black dog, which cost them a badly sprained ankle (Adam), a good jacket (Ben), and the two front tires on the Ford Explorer (Adam’s, but a loss to both). But by silent consent, they stopped taking on anything long-haul, anything that required serious investigation and an extended trip.
Silent until Ben’s nightmares started in the daytime.
They were making a trip to the mini-mart for the basics. Bobby wasn’t getting out much these days, so the bread, beer and burger run had pretty much become Ben’s department. Though he was still limping, Adam had declared himself tired of sitting around and decided to come with. Ben placed the frozen box on the checkout belt -
- and his sight tunnelled to black and red, swirling, kaleidoscopic, and the black-eyed man laughed bitterly over the sound of screams. He was clutching a long knife, the blade stained maroon, and though Ben had never heard his mother scream, he knew it was her he was killing. The sound drowned him, he wanted to clamp his hands over his ears, but it was like he was no longer inside his body. Red and black seemed to smear like track-marks as the demon lifted the knife again, and Ben heard gurgling, choking - it raised its gaze and regarded him -
- and then he was sitting in the parking lot, tarmac cold through his jeans, with his back to the door of the Explorer. Adam’s right hand was across his forehead, pushing his hair back but restraining him also: he was crouched on Ben’s right side. His other hand was on Ben’s thigh, and so Ben was extremely surprised when he registered another presence at his left. Adam was never demonstrative in public.
“Ben.”
He made an effort to focus. Adam looked pained: scared, but grim. He slid his hand down the side of Ben’s face, cupping his chin briefly. “Are you alright?”
“I saw it,” Ben said numbly. “The demon. It had black eyes. God. If either of us was going to be psychic....” and he heard a choked little giggle. Then he realized it was him.
“He’s been - um - having some problems,” Adam said hurriedly to the person on Ben’s left. “He’s been through some stuff.”
Ben made a small sound of protest, but in all fairness, he had just said the words demon and psychic in front of a civilian. Speaking of which....he slid his eyes to the left, still not feeling entirely in control of his physical body. A young woman, blonde, vaguely familiar, dressed in a green store shirt that read Ask me about our new loyalty cards!
“Black eyes?” she repeated.
“The doctors are talking about a new medication,” Adam smiled charmingly.
“Has he had any of these visions before?” The girl sounded serious.
“Only in my dreams,” Ben told her: “Nightmares.”
“Okay,” the girl blew out a breath, causing her hair to dance in front of her face. “Listen to me. This is going to sound absolutely crazy, but please, just hear me out. You don’t need a doctor - you’re not nuts. But you’re probably in danger. Has anything - weird - happened to you lately? Or around you? To other people?”
They both stared at her for a moment, and Ben felt his brain coming back online. The first thing he did was remember her name - it was Jane, and she’d once had a crush on him. She’d changed a lot over the year: her face had matured, and she’d cut her hair short somewhere along the line. She’d lost the glittery eyeshadow.
And apparently, she was a hunter.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” said Adam experimentally.
“Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii”, she responded in surprise. “Oh! Well, I guess that explains the random dirt and injuries over the years . Not to mention the way you keep taking off for days at a time.”
“You cover it up pretty well,” Adam told her.
“Not me - my mom. I hold the job down and she hunts. Weird, but it works for us,” she shrugged. “So this is the first time you’ve had a vision?” she offered a hand to Ben. He hesitated in taking it - but her attitude was all business now, and Adam assisted him too with a hand on his upper arm.
“I guess,” Ben said as he found his feet, and leaned back against the car. “
“Let’s go back to the house,” Adam said, opening the car door on Ben’s side and placing a hand on his lower back. “We’ll come back for the food another time.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jane indicated the grocery bag which they hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. “On the house. Consider it a perk of our loyalty card scheme.”
“Thanks,” Adam took the bag from her and put it on the back seat.
“Listen....psychic communication is kind of my mom’s speciality. She’ll want to know about this...I mean...if you’re cool with that. I could bring her up to the house later. I bet she can help you figure out what - what’s happening.”
Adam glanced at Ben. Ben nodded. He supposed it couldn’t hurt. Jane had called it a vision, but, somehow...the term seemed wrong. It hadn’t felt like watching a film. It had felt like a message. Nonetheless, his mother’s screams, real or faked, would be haunting him for a long time to come. Another shiver ran up his body and he pressed against the seat. Adam gave Jane the phone number for Bobby’s personal line. Then he came around and got into the car, put a hand back on Ben’s thigh, and left it there all the way to the house, though he had to drive one-handed. Ben put one hand on top of Adam’s, but turned his face away.
Part Three
Title: Orders of an Elder Time, 2/?
Verse: The Libation Bearers
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: Follows Events in Sun and Shadows. The year is 2019. Adam and Ben are making some kind of life together. But the demon, to coin a phrase, is still out there, and Ben's dreams start to take a strange turn.
Warnings: Major characters...are dead, later gore, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
The only person Ben had ever heard of who had tracked a demon down was John Winchester. Not from Dean, of course - he had heard it from Adam, who had heard it from Sam, who in his last years hadn’t been averse to talking about their father. The heroic thing to do would’ve been to take John Winchester’s journal with him: he knew where it was. Dean had a locked box of possessions which he’d kept from his previous life - mostly guns, a few fake ID cards, several faded photographs. He kept it there. It was probably the world’s only guide to tracking your personal demonic nemesis.
Naturally, Ben had left it in Indiana.
He could pretty much excuse himself for that one - when Adam had shown up to bring him to Bobby’s, over a year ago now, he hadn’t exactly been thinking straight. He had quite literally arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back. But he’d learned enough regarding demons that he knew what he was looking for, and he started scanning for the national news for freak weather patterns, crop failure, lightning storms, sprees of unmotivated violent crime and/or disappearances. He found plenty of all of the above. Just not - together.
Adam knew what Ben was doing. He didn’t comment, and Ben didn’t talk to him about it. They continued taking local and semi-local jobs: a poltergeist at the museum in Brookings, a restless spirit just on the North Dakota border...the messiest was a black dog, which cost them a badly sprained ankle (Adam), a good jacket (Ben), and the two front tires on the Ford Explorer (Adam’s, but a loss to both). But by silent consent, they stopped taking on anything long-haul, anything that required serious investigation and an extended trip.
Silent until Ben’s nightmares started in the daytime.
They were making a trip to the mini-mart for the basics. Bobby wasn’t getting out much these days, so the bread, beer and burger run had pretty much become Ben’s department. Though he was still limping, Adam had declared himself tired of sitting around and decided to come with. Ben placed the frozen box on the checkout belt -
- and his sight tunnelled to black and red, swirling, kaleidoscopic, and the black-eyed man laughed bitterly over the sound of screams. He was clutching a long knife, the blade stained maroon, and though Ben had never heard his mother scream, he knew it was her he was killing. The sound drowned him, he wanted to clamp his hands over his ears, but it was like he was no longer inside his body. Red and black seemed to smear like track-marks as the demon lifted the knife again, and Ben heard gurgling, choking - it raised its gaze and regarded him -
- and then he was sitting in the parking lot, tarmac cold through his jeans, with his back to the door of the Explorer. Adam’s right hand was across his forehead, pushing his hair back but restraining him also: he was crouched on Ben’s right side. His other hand was on Ben’s thigh, and so Ben was extremely surprised when he registered another presence at his left. Adam was never demonstrative in public.
“Ben.”
He made an effort to focus. Adam looked pained: scared, but grim. He slid his hand down the side of Ben’s face, cupping his chin briefly. “Are you alright?”
“I saw it,” Ben said numbly. “The demon. It had black eyes. God. If either of us was going to be psychic....” and he heard a choked little giggle. Then he realized it was him.
“He’s been - um - having some problems,” Adam said hurriedly to the person on Ben’s left. “He’s been through some stuff.”
Ben made a small sound of protest, but in all fairness, he had just said the words demon and psychic in front of a civilian. Speaking of which....he slid his eyes to the left, still not feeling entirely in control of his physical body. A young woman, blonde, vaguely familiar, dressed in a green store shirt that read Ask me about our new loyalty cards!
“Black eyes?” she repeated.
“The doctors are talking about a new medication,” Adam smiled charmingly.
“Has he had any of these visions before?” The girl sounded serious.
“Only in my dreams,” Ben told her: “Nightmares.”
“Okay,” the girl blew out a breath, causing her hair to dance in front of her face. “Listen to me. This is going to sound absolutely crazy, but please, just hear me out. You don’t need a doctor - you’re not nuts. But you’re probably in danger. Has anything - weird - happened to you lately? Or around you? To other people?”
They both stared at her for a moment, and Ben felt his brain coming back online. The first thing he did was remember her name - it was Jane, and she’d once had a crush on him. She’d changed a lot over the year: her face had matured, and she’d cut her hair short somewhere along the line. She’d lost the glittery eyeshadow.
And apparently, she was a hunter.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” said Adam experimentally.
“Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii”, she responded in surprise. “Oh! Well, I guess that explains the random dirt and injuries over the years . Not to mention the way you keep taking off for days at a time.”
“You cover it up pretty well,” Adam told her.
“Not me - my mom. I hold the job down and she hunts. Weird, but it works for us,” she shrugged. “So this is the first time you’ve had a vision?” she offered a hand to Ben. He hesitated in taking it - but her attitude was all business now, and Adam assisted him too with a hand on his upper arm.
“I guess,” Ben said as he found his feet, and leaned back against the car. “
“Let’s go back to the house,” Adam said, opening the car door on Ben’s side and placing a hand on his lower back. “We’ll come back for the food another time.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jane indicated the grocery bag which they hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. “On the house. Consider it a perk of our loyalty card scheme.”
“Thanks,” Adam took the bag from her and put it on the back seat.
“Listen....psychic communication is kind of my mom’s speciality. She’ll want to know about this...I mean...if you’re cool with that. I could bring her up to the house later. I bet she can help you figure out what - what’s happening.”
Adam glanced at Ben. Ben nodded. He supposed it couldn’t hurt. Jane had called it a vision, but, somehow...the term seemed wrong. It hadn’t felt like watching a film. It had felt like a message. Nonetheless, his mother’s screams, real or faked, would be haunting him for a long time to come. Another shiver ran up his body and he pressed against the seat. Adam gave Jane the phone number for Bobby’s personal line. Then he came around and got into the car, put a hand back on Ben’s thigh, and left it there all the way to the house, though he had to drive one-handed. Ben put one hand on top of Adam’s, but turned his face away.
Part Three