SPN/DA Fic: The Wellspring (15/?)
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.
______________________________________
This breakup is going to be a bad one. Dean can tell when he lifts the thread-strewn coverlet off the huge, but single bed he has to share with his boys and his brother yet again. He can tell because when he lifts this coverlet, he sees that Ben’s back is pressed into Alec as far as it can go, so much so that the three of them - Ben, Alec, and Sam (who is up against the headboard and reading, the nerd) nearly look like a once seamless piece of pie that’s been chopped up and squeezed mercilessly back together.
“Benny?” He lowers himself onto the indignant mattress which squeaks and creaks at the extra weight. “Let’s let Alec breathe, huh?” Kid’s obedient. Kid’s always been obedient, and once Dean’s got himself situated, he’s got not one, but two blankets, one of which is in the shape of a quivering clone.
“M’sorry.”
Little fists grab and twist and clamp onto his T-shirt like steel. Dean is reminded of Sam when the kid wasn’t quite so ridiculously tall, face small and scared and pale from nightmares and the knowledge that they don’t go away. Not ever. Ben looks like that. He looks like if he closes his eyes, it’s gonna be bad. Like if he opens his eyes, it’s gonna be worse. Ben looks like it’s not going to go away or ever get better.
“You’re fine, kid. I’ve got you.”
Ben rests his head on Dean’s chest. Kid’s shaking so hard Dean thinks he can feel the brain rattling inside the tiny skull.
“You’re okay,” Dean says. It’s not true, of course, but it’s just what you say in these situations. It’s what you say when someone’s trembling and cold and badly in need of whatever the hell’s just been ripped away from them.
Dad used to say it to Dean when Dean was four and mute and clinging to Sammy like the baby was a teddy bear. “You’re okay, Dean,” he’d say, his voice trying so damn hard for sincerity. But dead men can’t be sincere and that’s what Dad was back then, dead and walking and unable to make things true just by saying them.
“I’m here.” Dean switches it up. “I’m here, Ben.” He places a warm hand on the center of the kid’s back and rubs. The gesture is akin to turning on a faucet: the tears are set off hot like rockets and continue in a stream of rapid fire, dampening and then soaking Dean’s shirt.
“Ben?” Alec. Alec’s edging over on the bed. Alec’s slinging an arm over his brother’s waist. “M’here, too.”
Alec glances up at Dean, green eyes simultaneously sparking with possession and need. Dean pulls his hand away from Ben’s back and the boy’s fingers dig deeper into his shirt until Alec’s body presses into the barren space.
“Alec’s here, too,” Dean agrees and it’s awkward, but he manages to maneuver his arm to curl around both of them. They’re still small enough and close enough together that he can make this happen. They breathe. Dean sees some of the tension leave Alec, sees the boy’s face soften. Ben’s still shaking between them in quiet tremors.
Sam puts his book down on the night-stand and finally looks at them, a throng of three Deans in repose. Dean smirks because Sam’s looking like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, the lameass. That is, until Ben quietly, tearfully inquires, “Is Sam here, too?”
And the pile gets bigger.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When he wakes up in the morning, Dean maneuvers himself out from underneath his jumble of charges and tugs on some pants. There’s a still-open Walgreens down the road that appears to be in good shape and Dean needs some things. He needs a few more lighters - he wasted nearly four of them trying to get those teeth to burn, and he needs some more Funyuns, damnit. They’ve been out of Funyuns for days and Dean and Alec (and Ben, though the kid won’t admit it) have been going into withdrawal.
Today, they’re heading back to Indiana. They have to make sure that spirit’s gone.
“Dean?” Dean turns around to find Alec’s eyes following him. “Where’re you going?”
“Need to make a shopping run, buddy. I’ll be back soon.”
“Can I come?”
Dean hasn’t even replied, but the kid’s already crawling over his brother like a bleary-eyed kitten. Ben moans and rolls over until he hits Sam, tucks himself into the colossal sprawl of limbs and flesh.
Dean shrugs. “Sure. Why the hell not?” A few seconds later, Alec’s thrown on some clothes and they’re out the door. They’re walking. There’s no reason to drive, and Dean pulls the boy into his hip as they step over a few homeless people on the sidewalk. He lets him go once the path’s clear, but Alec doesn’t move away and the kid’s quieter than any kid named Alec ever should be. Dean tucks his hand underneath the boy’s hood, rests his palm on the barcode. Alec twitches a little, but doesn’t look up. “Ben’s going to be okay, kitten.”
“He keeps crying.” Alec’s voice is petulance and irritation merging between heavy sheets of concern. The boy looks up at him with eyes of the same flavor, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip in an attempt to keep his tongue caged because Dean knows what the kid really wants to say right now, and he also knows that Alec really doesn’t want to say what he wants to say. Make him stop.
“A big part of his world was ripped away. You’d cry, too.”
Dean’s tear ducts still work. It’s on pretty rare occasion, but sometimes reality sets in and shit is worse than its been in his head for months. He finds that alcohol is a cure for such instances - or at least enough of a cure to keep him from bawling like a little kid. Ben’s a kid so he has the right to just cry the fuck on. Dean writes himself a mental note to keep his booze under lock and key when the kids hit puberty, and then he shudders. Puberty.
“I wouldn’t believe in all that shit,” Alec grumbles, and he kicks at the pavement with a sneakered foot. “I didn’t need to make up stories.”
“No,” Dean agrees. “You rebel. You steal and you swear and you survive and you pretend like you don’t give a shit anymore, even though you do. You just don’t show it.”
He’s barely thinking as the words come out of his mouth, but its true. When shit’s really bad, Dean rebels. He steals and he swears and he survives, and sometimes he does his very best to put himself in situations where he cheats death.
Alec’s got Dean’s face and Dean’s coping methods.
They’re about a hundred feet from the drugstore when he stops walking, pulls the kid to a halt by the hood of his sweatshirt and drags him back. He says,“You tell me when it hurts.”
“I’m not fucked up like Ben,” Alec protests.
“They did to you what they did to him. You tell me when it hurts.” The kid looks at his feet. Dean can’t take that, not right now. His Alec’s all twisted inside. His boys are all twisted inside. It’s too early in the morning to be all twisted inside. “It won’t make you a girl and I’ll drop the first guy who says it does.”
“I’m not-”
“Promise me.” Alec doesn’t look up, but he sways on his little legs, dips his head so that the top of it is pressing into Dean’s stomach. “Alec?”
The kid speaks, “If you buy me candy, I’ll promise you.”
Dean snorts. “That’s extortion.”
Alec peers up at him through his lashes, his lips twisted into a delightful smirk. “I’m okay with that.”
They start walking again, Dean’s hand on the top of his clone’s head. “Don’t tell Sam about the candy, okay? He’s got a stick up his ass about your sugar intake, keeps saying you’re gonna get childhood diabetes.”
Alec agrees as they step into the store, which is as empty as Dean expected it to be. He’s quick about gathering his purchases, and he carries an armful of Funyuns and a couple of sacks of M&Ms to the front counter, plucks the remaining of the disposable lighters out of their cardboard display and drops them by the register. The clerk, who is old and half-asleep, is halfway through ringing him up when Dean notices that he no longer has a kid by his side.
“Alec?” His voice echoes, reflecting off the dirty linoleum tile, but there’s no response. He looks back at the clerk, waves a hand at the mounds of snack-food and fire devices. “Uh...I’ll be right back. Watch this stuff, okay? It’s very important.”
The guy mumbles something but Dean doesn’t stand around long enough to catch what, just starts looking through aisles, feeling a little feverish when Alec isn’t in the first one or the second or the third. Alec’s near the back of the store, where the shelves are kind of bare but there’s still stuff. Holiday stuff. Little colorful trinkets left over from the 4th of July and shit like that. Alec isn’t looking at those. Alec is looking, or rather trying not to look, at a white teddy bear hanging over its wire rack.
“Alec?” The kid looks up, looks guilty, but Dean can’t not say it. “We’ve talked about this-”
“We should get this for Ben,” Alec interrupts, and he points to the bear. “Theodore Roosevelt...political cartoons...” the boy trails off, hands flailing in the air as he searches his mind for what he’s trying to say. “Aw, fuck. I don’t know. I read it somewhere that these are s’posed to bring comfort to children. Ben fits the criteria.”
Dean blinks and then stares at the white bear, knowing full well that resistance is futile. Ben’s a child who needs comfort, and Dean Winchester is going to have to suck up his last semblance of manliness and purchase a teddy bear. He nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, it’s a good idea.”
The kid’s eyes brighten at the praise. Dean smirks and pulls the bear from the shelf. There are a few more behind it, different animals, and after a quick thought, Dean reaches in and pulls out a stuffed dog with absurdly large paws. He dangles it in front of his clone’s eyes. “How about this one for you?”
Alec looks offended. “I don’t need some little kid toy.”
Dean eyes his boy, cocks his head, because he’s pretty sure that if Ben needs a little kid toy, then Alec needs a little kid toy, too. Alec’s shaking his head, though, little arms crossed, eyes stormy. This kind of vehemence can only mean one thing.
“M’gettin’ it for you, anyway,” Dean insists, tucking the dog under his arm. “For those long cold winter nights when, you know, we’re not sharing a bed.”
“We always share a bed.”
“Yeah? Well one of these days we might actually be able to get two beds.”
Dean shovels over the money for the dog and the bear and Alec grumbles things as the two toys are handed back down to him, encased in a plastic bag after their purchase. Dean himself carries two bags filled with the snack foods and lighters and they head back to the motel, just a man and his clone.
_______________________________
Ben’s quiet in the car. Alec’s noticed that Ben’s always quiet in the car, and he keeps looking out the window and biting his lip and his eyes get all dazed. The bear’s in his lap and Ben’s clutching it with fists that probably don’t even know how tight they are.
Ben’s thinking too much. Alec knows that Ben’s thinking too much. Guy’s gotta chill.
“Ben?” Alec asks, but his twin doesn’t move or even acknowledge him. “Hey. Hey, Ben.” Pinching works. Ben yips in surprise, blinks rapidly before aiming a harsh glare at Alec.
“Alec-”
“You want some M&M’s? I want some M&Ms.”
Alec fishes the M&M’s out of the plastic bag at his feet. Ben’s attention is occupied as they split the colors before consumption. Sam turns around in suspicion before aiming a sidelong glare at Dean and grumbling things about juvenile diabetes.
An hour later, Ben goes quiet again. That’s okay, Alec would’ve made a terrific crab in another life.
“Alec, stop pinching-”
“What are you going to name your bear?”
Ben’s brows furrow in confusion. “Huh?”
“Your bear. He needs a name. What’re you gonna name him? I’m naming m'dog Alec the Second.”
The words come slowly out of his twin’s mouth. “You’re naming your stuffed animal after yourself?”
“Yes, Ben. I think I may be suffering from a mild case of narcissism.” Alec reaches to the floor again, where earlier, and with a distinct lack of concern, he’d allowed his toy to fall. He waves one of the big paws at Ben. “You can’t tell me you’re not impressed by the size of his extremities.”
Sam and Dean snort in the front. Alec silently appreciates their amusement. And Ben’s trying not to smile. Alec can tell. The kid’s lips are tighter than his fists and the ends are twitching.
Eventually, he shrugs and mumbles, “I’ll have to think about it.” before turning back to the window.
“It better be good,” Alec retorts.
Ben goes quiet again.
Dean stops the car just when the tears start trickling, turns around and wipes them away with his sleeve. He turns to Alec afterwards with a semi-serious expression, then aims the same one at Ben, who’s trying his best to look like he’d never been crying. “Look alive, boys. We’re gonna have some fireworks.”
They salt and burn the teeth in an empty field with some gasoline and some gunpowder and what Dean calls “special Sammy sauce.”
“Where did they go?” Ben wants to know as they head back to the Impala. He’s quiet and lost and Alec’s torn between wanting to kick him and wanting to hug him.
“They didn’t go anywhere,” Dean tells him. “They’re dust.” The hunter snatches up Ben’s hand and asks, “Where did they go, Ben?”
“Nowhere,” Ben replies, green eyes on the grass, but he has to say it again because he didn’t look at Dean and Dean insists on eye contact during these somber moments. Alec hates somber moments. “Nowhere,” Ben repeats, eyes on Dean’s eyes. “They’re dust.”
They’re dust! Alec thinks about chiming in because he wants to be a cool kid, too, but Ben’s back to impersonating a water faucet so it might not be a good time for jokes quite yet.
Dean returns to the driver’s seat and starts the ignition. Their destination’s another few hundred miles away and they have to keep moving. They eat Funyuns in the car for lunch. Sam fishes through the plastic bag and pulls out a handful of lighters, holds them out and looks to Dean inquiringly.
Dean shrugs one lazy shoulder. “Disposable lighters, you can never have too many. I wasted, like, four on the teeth.”
“You know you’re not going to burn teeth with a lighter.”
“I softened them up for you. So sue me.”
The banter is nice. It amuses Alec and kind of relaxes Ben and that’s just fantastic because if anyone needs to relax, it’s Ben. Ben’s even having trouble eating right now, which is just sacrilege when the food in question is Funyuns.
“Ben’s anorexic,” Alec interrupts the still-quibbling Winchesters. He points a finger at his twin when Sam turns around. “I can tell because he’s not eating his Funyuns.”
Sam worries over Ben for a while, keeps promising they’ll stop for some real food soon, real food which includes the color green. Alec makes a gagging sound. Dean snickers. Ben’s eyes are wide and imploring when he asks, “Ice cream?”
Yeah, Ben’s really not so bad. He comes in handy more often than not, and with this whole new level of damage, Alec’s pretty sure they’ll be able to wrangle whatever they want out of Sam and Dean.
“What are we doing after Indiana?” he asks, crumpling up his empty bag.
They’re not sure yet. Dean says they might have to stick around the area for a few days until they find something new. Alec’s okay with this plan. The motel in Indiana had a television and both he and Ben like television. Televisions make things less quiet. And it’s important that things always be less quiet, Alec muses, watching his brother’s arms as they wrap around the nameless bear. He plucks Alec the Second off the floor again, grips and squeezes the large paws.
They really are quite big.
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.
______________________________________
This breakup is going to be a bad one. Dean can tell when he lifts the thread-strewn coverlet off the huge, but single bed he has to share with his boys and his brother yet again. He can tell because when he lifts this coverlet, he sees that Ben’s back is pressed into Alec as far as it can go, so much so that the three of them - Ben, Alec, and Sam (who is up against the headboard and reading, the nerd) nearly look like a once seamless piece of pie that’s been chopped up and squeezed mercilessly back together.
“Benny?” He lowers himself onto the indignant mattress which squeaks and creaks at the extra weight. “Let’s let Alec breathe, huh?” Kid’s obedient. Kid’s always been obedient, and once Dean’s got himself situated, he’s got not one, but two blankets, one of which is in the shape of a quivering clone.
“M’sorry.”
Little fists grab and twist and clamp onto his T-shirt like steel. Dean is reminded of Sam when the kid wasn’t quite so ridiculously tall, face small and scared and pale from nightmares and the knowledge that they don’t go away. Not ever. Ben looks like that. He looks like if he closes his eyes, it’s gonna be bad. Like if he opens his eyes, it’s gonna be worse. Ben looks like it’s not going to go away or ever get better.
“You’re fine, kid. I’ve got you.”
Ben rests his head on Dean’s chest. Kid’s shaking so hard Dean thinks he can feel the brain rattling inside the tiny skull.
“You’re okay,” Dean says. It’s not true, of course, but it’s just what you say in these situations. It’s what you say when someone’s trembling and cold and badly in need of whatever the hell’s just been ripped away from them.
Dad used to say it to Dean when Dean was four and mute and clinging to Sammy like the baby was a teddy bear. “You’re okay, Dean,” he’d say, his voice trying so damn hard for sincerity. But dead men can’t be sincere and that’s what Dad was back then, dead and walking and unable to make things true just by saying them.
“I’m here.” Dean switches it up. “I’m here, Ben.” He places a warm hand on the center of the kid’s back and rubs. The gesture is akin to turning on a faucet: the tears are set off hot like rockets and continue in a stream of rapid fire, dampening and then soaking Dean’s shirt.
“Ben?” Alec. Alec’s edging over on the bed. Alec’s slinging an arm over his brother’s waist. “M’here, too.”
Alec glances up at Dean, green eyes simultaneously sparking with possession and need. Dean pulls his hand away from Ben’s back and the boy’s fingers dig deeper into his shirt until Alec’s body presses into the barren space.
“Alec’s here, too,” Dean agrees and it’s awkward, but he manages to maneuver his arm to curl around both of them. They’re still small enough and close enough together that he can make this happen. They breathe. Dean sees some of the tension leave Alec, sees the boy’s face soften. Ben’s still shaking between them in quiet tremors.
Sam puts his book down on the night-stand and finally looks at them, a throng of three Deans in repose. Dean smirks because Sam’s looking like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, the lameass. That is, until Ben quietly, tearfully inquires, “Is Sam here, too?”
And the pile gets bigger.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When he wakes up in the morning, Dean maneuvers himself out from underneath his jumble of charges and tugs on some pants. There’s a still-open Walgreens down the road that appears to be in good shape and Dean needs some things. He needs a few more lighters - he wasted nearly four of them trying to get those teeth to burn, and he needs some more Funyuns, damnit. They’ve been out of Funyuns for days and Dean and Alec (and Ben, though the kid won’t admit it) have been going into withdrawal.
Today, they’re heading back to Indiana. They have to make sure that spirit’s gone.
“Dean?” Dean turns around to find Alec’s eyes following him. “Where’re you going?”
“Need to make a shopping run, buddy. I’ll be back soon.”
“Can I come?”
Dean hasn’t even replied, but the kid’s already crawling over his brother like a bleary-eyed kitten. Ben moans and rolls over until he hits Sam, tucks himself into the colossal sprawl of limbs and flesh.
Dean shrugs. “Sure. Why the hell not?” A few seconds later, Alec’s thrown on some clothes and they’re out the door. They’re walking. There’s no reason to drive, and Dean pulls the boy into his hip as they step over a few homeless people on the sidewalk. He lets him go once the path’s clear, but Alec doesn’t move away and the kid’s quieter than any kid named Alec ever should be. Dean tucks his hand underneath the boy’s hood, rests his palm on the barcode. Alec twitches a little, but doesn’t look up. “Ben’s going to be okay, kitten.”
“He keeps crying.” Alec’s voice is petulance and irritation merging between heavy sheets of concern. The boy looks up at him with eyes of the same flavor, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip in an attempt to keep his tongue caged because Dean knows what the kid really wants to say right now, and he also knows that Alec really doesn’t want to say what he wants to say. Make him stop.
“A big part of his world was ripped away. You’d cry, too.”
Dean’s tear ducts still work. It’s on pretty rare occasion, but sometimes reality sets in and shit is worse than its been in his head for months. He finds that alcohol is a cure for such instances - or at least enough of a cure to keep him from bawling like a little kid. Ben’s a kid so he has the right to just cry the fuck on. Dean writes himself a mental note to keep his booze under lock and key when the kids hit puberty, and then he shudders. Puberty.
“I wouldn’t believe in all that shit,” Alec grumbles, and he kicks at the pavement with a sneakered foot. “I didn’t need to make up stories.”
“No,” Dean agrees. “You rebel. You steal and you swear and you survive and you pretend like you don’t give a shit anymore, even though you do. You just don’t show it.”
He’s barely thinking as the words come out of his mouth, but its true. When shit’s really bad, Dean rebels. He steals and he swears and he survives, and sometimes he does his very best to put himself in situations where he cheats death.
Alec’s got Dean’s face and Dean’s coping methods.
They’re about a hundred feet from the drugstore when he stops walking, pulls the kid to a halt by the hood of his sweatshirt and drags him back. He says,“You tell me when it hurts.”
“I’m not fucked up like Ben,” Alec protests.
“They did to you what they did to him. You tell me when it hurts.” The kid looks at his feet. Dean can’t take that, not right now. His Alec’s all twisted inside. His boys are all twisted inside. It’s too early in the morning to be all twisted inside. “It won’t make you a girl and I’ll drop the first guy who says it does.”
“I’m not-”
“Promise me.” Alec doesn’t look up, but he sways on his little legs, dips his head so that the top of it is pressing into Dean’s stomach. “Alec?”
The kid speaks, “If you buy me candy, I’ll promise you.”
Dean snorts. “That’s extortion.”
Alec peers up at him through his lashes, his lips twisted into a delightful smirk. “I’m okay with that.”
They start walking again, Dean’s hand on the top of his clone’s head. “Don’t tell Sam about the candy, okay? He’s got a stick up his ass about your sugar intake, keeps saying you’re gonna get childhood diabetes.”
Alec agrees as they step into the store, which is as empty as Dean expected it to be. He’s quick about gathering his purchases, and he carries an armful of Funyuns and a couple of sacks of M&Ms to the front counter, plucks the remaining of the disposable lighters out of their cardboard display and drops them by the register. The clerk, who is old and half-asleep, is halfway through ringing him up when Dean notices that he no longer has a kid by his side.
“Alec?” His voice echoes, reflecting off the dirty linoleum tile, but there’s no response. He looks back at the clerk, waves a hand at the mounds of snack-food and fire devices. “Uh...I’ll be right back. Watch this stuff, okay? It’s very important.”
The guy mumbles something but Dean doesn’t stand around long enough to catch what, just starts looking through aisles, feeling a little feverish when Alec isn’t in the first one or the second or the third. Alec’s near the back of the store, where the shelves are kind of bare but there’s still stuff. Holiday stuff. Little colorful trinkets left over from the 4th of July and shit like that. Alec isn’t looking at those. Alec is looking, or rather trying not to look, at a white teddy bear hanging over its wire rack.
“Alec?” The kid looks up, looks guilty, but Dean can’t not say it. “We’ve talked about this-”
“We should get this for Ben,” Alec interrupts, and he points to the bear. “Theodore Roosevelt...political cartoons...” the boy trails off, hands flailing in the air as he searches his mind for what he’s trying to say. “Aw, fuck. I don’t know. I read it somewhere that these are s’posed to bring comfort to children. Ben fits the criteria.”
Dean blinks and then stares at the white bear, knowing full well that resistance is futile. Ben’s a child who needs comfort, and Dean Winchester is going to have to suck up his last semblance of manliness and purchase a teddy bear. He nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, it’s a good idea.”
The kid’s eyes brighten at the praise. Dean smirks and pulls the bear from the shelf. There are a few more behind it, different animals, and after a quick thought, Dean reaches in and pulls out a stuffed dog with absurdly large paws. He dangles it in front of his clone’s eyes. “How about this one for you?”
Alec looks offended. “I don’t need some little kid toy.”
Dean eyes his boy, cocks his head, because he’s pretty sure that if Ben needs a little kid toy, then Alec needs a little kid toy, too. Alec’s shaking his head, though, little arms crossed, eyes stormy. This kind of vehemence can only mean one thing.
“M’gettin’ it for you, anyway,” Dean insists, tucking the dog under his arm. “For those long cold winter nights when, you know, we’re not sharing a bed.”
“We always share a bed.”
“Yeah? Well one of these days we might actually be able to get two beds.”
Dean shovels over the money for the dog and the bear and Alec grumbles things as the two toys are handed back down to him, encased in a plastic bag after their purchase. Dean himself carries two bags filled with the snack foods and lighters and they head back to the motel, just a man and his clone.
_______________________________
Ben’s quiet in the car. Alec’s noticed that Ben’s always quiet in the car, and he keeps looking out the window and biting his lip and his eyes get all dazed. The bear’s in his lap and Ben’s clutching it with fists that probably don’t even know how tight they are.
Ben’s thinking too much. Alec knows that Ben’s thinking too much. Guy’s gotta chill.
“Ben?” Alec asks, but his twin doesn’t move or even acknowledge him. “Hey. Hey, Ben.” Pinching works. Ben yips in surprise, blinks rapidly before aiming a harsh glare at Alec.
“Alec-”
“You want some M&M’s? I want some M&Ms.”
Alec fishes the M&M’s out of the plastic bag at his feet. Ben’s attention is occupied as they split the colors before consumption. Sam turns around in suspicion before aiming a sidelong glare at Dean and grumbling things about juvenile diabetes.
An hour later, Ben goes quiet again. That’s okay, Alec would’ve made a terrific crab in another life.
“Alec, stop pinching-”
“What are you going to name your bear?”
Ben’s brows furrow in confusion. “Huh?”
“Your bear. He needs a name. What’re you gonna name him? I’m naming m'dog Alec the Second.”
The words come slowly out of his twin’s mouth. “You’re naming your stuffed animal after yourself?”
“Yes, Ben. I think I may be suffering from a mild case of narcissism.” Alec reaches to the floor again, where earlier, and with a distinct lack of concern, he’d allowed his toy to fall. He waves one of the big paws at Ben. “You can’t tell me you’re not impressed by the size of his extremities.”
Sam and Dean snort in the front. Alec silently appreciates their amusement. And Ben’s trying not to smile. Alec can tell. The kid’s lips are tighter than his fists and the ends are twitching.
Eventually, he shrugs and mumbles, “I’ll have to think about it.” before turning back to the window.
“It better be good,” Alec retorts.
Ben goes quiet again.
Dean stops the car just when the tears start trickling, turns around and wipes them away with his sleeve. He turns to Alec afterwards with a semi-serious expression, then aims the same one at Ben, who’s trying his best to look like he’d never been crying. “Look alive, boys. We’re gonna have some fireworks.”
They salt and burn the teeth in an empty field with some gasoline and some gunpowder and what Dean calls “special Sammy sauce.”
“Where did they go?” Ben wants to know as they head back to the Impala. He’s quiet and lost and Alec’s torn between wanting to kick him and wanting to hug him.
“They didn’t go anywhere,” Dean tells him. “They’re dust.” The hunter snatches up Ben’s hand and asks, “Where did they go, Ben?”
“Nowhere,” Ben replies, green eyes on the grass, but he has to say it again because he didn’t look at Dean and Dean insists on eye contact during these somber moments. Alec hates somber moments. “Nowhere,” Ben repeats, eyes on Dean’s eyes. “They’re dust.”
They’re dust! Alec thinks about chiming in because he wants to be a cool kid, too, but Ben’s back to impersonating a water faucet so it might not be a good time for jokes quite yet.
Dean returns to the driver’s seat and starts the ignition. Their destination’s another few hundred miles away and they have to keep moving. They eat Funyuns in the car for lunch. Sam fishes through the plastic bag and pulls out a handful of lighters, holds them out and looks to Dean inquiringly.
Dean shrugs one lazy shoulder. “Disposable lighters, you can never have too many. I wasted, like, four on the teeth.”
“You know you’re not going to burn teeth with a lighter.”
“I softened them up for you. So sue me.”
The banter is nice. It amuses Alec and kind of relaxes Ben and that’s just fantastic because if anyone needs to relax, it’s Ben. Ben’s even having trouble eating right now, which is just sacrilege when the food in question is Funyuns.
“Ben’s anorexic,” Alec interrupts the still-quibbling Winchesters. He points a finger at his twin when Sam turns around. “I can tell because he’s not eating his Funyuns.”
Sam worries over Ben for a while, keeps promising they’ll stop for some real food soon, real food which includes the color green. Alec makes a gagging sound. Dean snickers. Ben’s eyes are wide and imploring when he asks, “Ice cream?”
Yeah, Ben’s really not so bad. He comes in handy more often than not, and with this whole new level of damage, Alec’s pretty sure they’ll be able to wrangle whatever they want out of Sam and Dean.
“What are we doing after Indiana?” he asks, crumpling up his empty bag.
They’re not sure yet. Dean says they might have to stick around the area for a few days until they find something new. Alec’s okay with this plan. The motel in Indiana had a television and both he and Ben like television. Televisions make things less quiet. And it’s important that things always be less quiet, Alec muses, watching his brother’s arms as they wrap around the nameless bear. He plucks Alec the Second off the floor again, grips and squeezes the large paws.
They really are quite big.
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