SPN/DA Fic: The Wellspring (18/?)
Title: The Wellspring
Author: scourgeofeurope
Fandoms: Supernatural, Dark Angel
Rating: R (gen)
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn. What are they to do?
Warnings: language, child abuse
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Previous chapters can be found here.
______________________
Alec misses the motel rooms, the smell of dust and mold and the feel of the grimy carpet beneath his feet. He misses the broken toilets, the showers that never got hot, and the TV sets, the sound of the static, and how there was only one channel you could barely see or hear, but it was there, and it made the silence go away when no one was talking. He misses the flat mattress covered in sheets that hadn’t been washed since who-knows-when, and how his space on that mattress was so small sometimes he could barely breathe on it because his face was usually squashed into a broad back, or an arm was heavy over his side, and sometimes it would get too hot because there were too many bodies on only one bed. He misses the feeling of sleep, because it happened eventually, because he learned to shut his eyes and his mind and just be, and he wouldn’t even realize it until he was waking up to Dean’s hand on the small of his back, or Sam’s hair tickling the side of his face, or Ben’s leg twined with Alec’s own.
He misses the Impala and how she gleamed and the look on Dean’s face every time he saw her, even though he saw her every day. Dean looked at Alec that way, too, and Ben, and even Sam, sometimes. They would climb inside of her and she was big and black and they were all there, fidgeting in their traveling home, bored and without privacy, but safe. And moving. And rarely stopping.
Alec misses the way she moved, because now he can’t move anymore. He tries to move his arms, but the restraints are tight and competent and he hates them because they’re assholes. The biggest fucking assholes.
“These restraints are the biggest fucking assholes,” he informs the nurse, who doesn’t respond, who doesn’t even look at him, just sticks him with that hypodermic again. He doesn’t know why. They’ve taken enough blood. “How much do you need?” he sighs. “M’not the Atlantic Ocean, you know.”
He’s not. Alec’s seen the Atlantic Ocean and it was huge and it smelled like salt. The world was blue and white and yellow that day, and when Alec closes his eyes he can still see it and hear it and it’s so clear, he almost tricks himself into believing he can smell it and taste it.
Photographic memories are the hot shit. Except when they make you feel like you’ve lost everything.
“Where’s my brother?” he demands. It’s not the first time. It’s not even the fiftieth. He’s asked so many times and no one ever answers him, they just look past him like this woman’s doing right now, look past him to whatever part of his skin they’re touching, whatever organ they’re monitoring and their fingers are so cold and stiff and uncaring.
Dean’s fingers were always warm, even when they were cold. So were Sam’s. They had warm fingers that didn’t touch Alec this way.
“Where’re Sam and Dean?”
Silence. Alec misses television. Alec misses anywhere but here. He misses his barn and the way he could sleep in the dirt and hay, and the cats who would hiss and scratch at him but would curl up beside him at night, the lameasses. If you’re going to defend your territory, defend your territory. When you don’t defend it, you’re robbed of it, just like Alec was, and that’s no good. Alec misses that barn. He wants to be in that barn right now, waiting for them to find him.
It’s been three days. Three days of just Alec and nurses and drill sergeants, needles and orders, and spaces that get smaller and smaller and smaller until Alec finally cracks and says what they want.
They dose him with something before undoing the restraints, a lot of something, because it takes a lot of something to take Alec down. He’s hauled off the cot and he can barely walk and the backless paper hospital gown isn’t doing much to make him feel less violated. Someone grips him tight by the arm and leads him , someone who throws him into the smallest solitary cell, someone who tells him to remember that he’s a soldier and not a sailor and speaking such words in the presence of Manticore staff will result in an even smaller cell for an extended period of time. This same someone throws in a set of clothes after him before the metal door bangs shut with a terrible finality.
Alec misses the naughty bed, and how it was only ever for forty-five minutes at the most and two minutes at the least and Sam was right there and Ben was right there, and sometimes Dean was right there, too, cleaning his gun or hiding his face behind a book or magazine, snorting periodically in amusement. Alec misses the way Sam took it so seriously, how he would get that this-hurt-me-more-than-it-hurt-you look on his face after it was all said and done before spreading his ridiculously long arms open.
Alec misses the free hugs. He misses the way he didn’t even have to steal them.
***************
The chair is high, high enough that Ben’s feet don’t touch the ground and he swings his legs, tilts his head up and smiles at Dean. Dean smiles back, his index stuck in his mouth, tongue licking off the remnants of the pink ice cream cone he just devoured.
“That ice cream was friggin’ amazing. Wasn’t it, Benny?”
Ben nods, even though he’s pretty sure he didn’t get to eat any ice cream. Dean seems to think he did, though, so that’s good enough for Ben. “It was awesome,” he agrees, beaming up beatifically at the cheerful hunter. Dean looks like he’s going to extend a hand down to smooth over Ben’s shorn head, or one of those other warm gestures he does sometimes, and Ben waits for it, but then Dean just settles for a fond smirk. Ben is slightly disappointed, but he ignores it and asks, “Dad, where’re Sam and Alec?”
Sam and Alec aren’t in this room. It’s cold and sterile, and Ben’s pretty sure they’re in a hospital, though he wasn’t aware that hospital rooms looked this way. There aren’t any windows or soft shades of white and blue. There’s no cot. Nothing but walls that are solid and reminiscent of steel, nothing but Ben and Dean and this chair.
Ben swings his legs. Dean frowns down at him.
“What did you call me?”
Ben’s not sure. Ben doesn’t remember, but it could be only one of two things, so he chances a guess. “Dean?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Dean nods. “That’s the one.” And he smiles, so Ben smiles back, because Dean clearly likes it when Ben calls him by this name. Ben’s been practicing - he uses it about once a day in private, testing it out to see how Dean reacts, and Dean always gets this startled and slightly fearful look on his face before visibly relaxing and acting happier than he’d been for most of the day up until the point when “Dad” or “Daddy” slips out of Ben’s mouth. This is how Ben knows he’s doing something right. Until now, when Dean’s jaw tenses and he casts a reproving glance down at the boy, says, “Don’t do that.”
Ben swallows and blinks and thinks he couldn’t have heard that right. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t call me that, Ben. You know better. You know better than to call me that, don’t you?”
“I…m’sorry, Dean.”
“You know better,” Dean repeats, and there’s no forgiveness in his green eyes and Ben swallows a little, grips the arms of the chair.
“M’sor-“
“You. Know. Better.” Each word is an ominous growl. Dean doesn’t want to hear Ben’s apologies. Dean only wants to hear one thing.
“Yes, sir.”
And Dean’s smiling again, and again he looks like he wants to put that hand on Ben’s head in a display of paternal affection, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a few steps away and says, “Good boy” in a tone that is somehow both sincere and apathetic. Dean’s looking at Ben like he’s never looked at him before, like Ben’s something to be corrected, a stained wall that needs to be either scrubbed clean or painted over.
Ben feels his eyes prick and he tries to swipe at them, but he can’t move his hands from the arms of the chair. They’re stuck there, strapped down by unrelenting restraints.
“Da…Dean, please…”
The smile he gets in return is like a quick stamp of approval on a project that’s been slaved over for years, careless and unconcerned, but wanting to convey that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. And Dean tilts his head and speaks words he’s spoken before, words spoken in moments of comfort, moments when Dean had arms around Ben, around Alec, and Sam was there, Sam was reading, and Ben was crying, but it was okay, then. Everybody was there and everybody was safe, and the room was small and cramped and there was only one bed, but it was warm. Everybody was so warm. “You’re okay, Benny,” Dean tells him.
“I don’t-“
“You are. You’re okay. You’re fine.” And Dean’s there suddenly, right in front of Ben, leaning down in a slow and graceful way that’s somewhat intimidating and Ben doesn’t really understand how he got there so fast. Ben didn’t see him walk there. “I need you to remember something for me, okay?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“I need you to remember something about fathers. I need you to remember that I’m not yours.”
Ben can’t move his hands. The tears are free-flowing, slim rivers down small cheeks, dribbling down his chin, falling and dampening his uniform grey tee, and Dean doesn’t reach out a hand to wipe them away, he just stays there, level with Ben, staring him down.
“Stop crying, Ben.”
Ben can’t stop crying. Dean is unimpressed.
“Stop. Crying.”
Ben tries. Ben bites down on his lip and he tries. He tries so hard his lip bleeds.
“That’s good. That’s good, Ben. You have to remember that soldiers don’t cry. Can you remember that for me?”
Ben can’t take his teeth out of his lip, so he just nods. Dean beams with approval.
“Good. Now, back to fathers.” Dean’s not eye-level with Ben anymore. Dean’s about five feet away, pacing, hands behind his back, eyes staring upwards in contemplation about this lecture he’s going to give. Ben doesn’t know how he got there. Ben didn’t see him move. “Fathers are the people who raise us from seed. Fathers are the people from whom we learn to hone our instincts, to use them appropriately. Fathers teach us the art of strategy, teach us how to achieve our goals. Most importantly, fathers teach us how to love our mothers. Who’s your mother, Ben?”
Ben doesn’t have a mother. He had a Sam, once, back when he had a Dean. Now he knows nothing of mothers because Dean isn’t his father. And now he knows nothing of fathers, either.
“Who is your mother, Ben?”
Ben doesn’t have a mother.
“Ben, who’s your mother?”
Dean keeps asking. Dean’s never going to stop asking and eventually, something tickles the back of Ben’s brain and he takes his teeth out of his lip and answers, “The United States government is my mother, sir.”
Dean stops pacing and he smiles and he nods and he calls Ben a good boy again, because that was the right answer, because this time, Ben got it right.
Ben got it right, but he doesn’t feel good about it. Ben feels cold and empty and barren like a bleak field in the winter. He stayed in a field like that once, after the escape. The clouds were grey, like these walls, and the grass frosted over, like Ben’s skin, chill rising up from icicle bones to sweep into, up through, and over. It feels like everything is dead.
“I…Dean, m’want Sam. Please? Where’s Sam?” Hope. A last hope. Sam. Sam said Ben was his, his and Dean’s, and that last part was a lie, apparently, but maybe…maybe Ben is still Sam’s.
“I’m right here, Ben.” And Ben jumps because Sam is right there. Right behind the chair, large hands gripping the chair’s back, tall frame towering over the top of Ben’s head. Ben tilts his head back, blinks up at the man.
“S-Sam?”
“It’s me. Are you being good for Dean? Are you being a good soldier?” And Sam’s not behind him anymore. Sam’s in front of him. Sam’s next to Dean, who’s smirking, and their shoulders are touching in a familiar display of camaraderie.
“I…y-yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Sam crosses his arms and squints skeptically at Ben. “And are you going to remember everything he told you?”
Ben doesn’t want to remember. He doesn’t want to remember any of it, but he answers, “Yes, sir.” He watches them, watches them exchange a look and a smile and when they return their eyes to Ben, they actually seem proud. Ben puts this affirmation to use. “Where’s Alec?” Ben wants Alec. Sam and Dean…they’re not…they don’t want to be, but Alec? Alec will always be Ben’s.
“He’s off learning his lessons, kiddo,” Dean answers amiably. “Just like you.”
“I…I don’t want to be here, Dean. Can’t we not be here anymore?”
“No.” Sam. Sam’s voice is firm and deep and teeming with severe disappointment. “Ben, you know better than that, don’t you?”
“I-“
“I know you do. You know better than that. You know who your mother is and who your father isn’t. What’s right is staying where you belong, and you belong with your mother, don’t you? Who’s your mother, Ben?”
“I…S-Sam-“
“Who’s your mother, Ben?” Sam’s voice is as cold as Ben’s entire being. The sound drops the room to below freezing. It’s entirely possible that Ben will end up sticking to this chair like ice to a telephone pole. It’s entirely possible that his skin will rip off when he tries to move.
“The United States government, sir.”
Sam approves. He nods and he smiles and he knocks into Dean’s side, tells Dean that he always knew Ben was a smart boy, and then he reaches out a hand. He reaches out a hand to touch Ben and his hand isn’t like it normally is. It’s not Sam’s big, healthy, calloused hand that smoothed over Ben’s hair back when Ben had hair. No, this hand is…this hand is old. And rotting. And reaching for Ben.
Sam doesn’t say it. Dean doesn’t say it. But Ben hears it. They know what you are.
The hand doesn’t touch him. It disappears right before a half-decayed finger brushes his freckled nose, but Sam is still there and Dean is still there and they’re still looking at him. They’re still blinking at him, wordless, but deafeningly present. They know what Ben is. Ben knows what Ben is, too. Ben is whatever Sam and Dean think him to be. Ben is worthless, grotesque, fatherless, defective, and alone.
***********
Alec doesn’t like where they’re taking him. He doesn’t like that room, that solid room with that chair where he sees things he doesn’t want to see, hears things he doesn’t want to hear, where he comes to feeling chilled and thirsty and afraid of the light. He hates that room. He hates how every single time, he wakes up or snaps out of it or what-the-fuck-ever, completely uncertain of what just happened and wondering if it was a dream or if it was real. He hates how it’s getting harder and harder separating time spent in that room from time spent out of it, separating lies from truths, and present from past.
“I don’t-“
“Were you told to speak, 494?”
Alec shuts the fuck up, because Alec wasn’t told to speak. Alec does what he’s told. Alec does what he has to do in order to survive and he’s surviving, but he doesn’t want to go into that fucking room. Not again. He hates that room, hates how Sam and Dean are there sometimes, hates how they look at him like they hate him, talk to him like they hate him, and he knows its not true. Knows it can’t be true. It can’t be true because its only been five days. Six days. Seven days? Alec’s not sure. Alec doesn’t know for sure, but its only been days since Dean took his hand through the bars and said they were gonna get out of this.
Dean said and Dean doesn’t lie. He said that word, too, that word that’s totally a girl word or a Sam word, but Dean said it and he said it to Alec. And he meant it.
Alec thinks he meant it, anyway. Alec’s pretty sure. Sometimes.
They’re almost there, almost to the room, and the guard’s nudging Alec through a hallway of the medical wing and Alec tries to keep his eyes forward, but they stray. They always stray. Alec’s lack of attention has always been something of a problem, and this time they stray to the side, to an observational room where a shackled Sam is sitting on a cot, having his head checked by a nurse.
Sam is shackled. Sam is real. Alec’s banging on the glass.
“494!” The guard’s bellowing, but he doesn’t go for his gun, which is a mistake because Alec wrestles away from him, kicks him, kicks his legs out from under him and knocks his head against the wall before the other guards stampede through the hallway like an ornery pack of wildebeest. Alec doesn’t run. Alec stays because Sam’s in there, Sam’s in that room, and he’s wrenching his head out of the nurse’s hands and he’s looking at Alec with wide, desperate eyes, is scrambling off the cot only to be bombarded by two guards and Sam’s trying so hard, is straining with effort trying to get away from them, and his eyes haven’t left Alec’s eyes, and there are guards getting a hold of Alec now, pulling him off the glass, and Alec strains, too, and he croaks out a weak, “Uncle Sam” because his voice hasn’t been right for days now, but he still tries. And Sam sees it, and he tries harder, is so desperate, but he can’t. They’ve got him pinned. They’ve got Sam pinned and Sam looks so fucking frantic but he can’t move anymore and Alec can’t move anymore and then the glass shatters.
And everything goes quiet and still.
The people in the observational room are looking at Sam with fear in their eyes, and there are guns trained on every part of Sam’s body. There’s fear in Sam’s eyes, too, hidden under his explicit need to get to Alec.
“Alec.”
The glass is gone, scattered in itty bitty bits on the floor, and Alec can hear Sam now, but he can’t respond because he’s being shoved and pulled away by various pairs of rough hands.
One of the guards mutters something about Winchesters and their special fucking blood, and another one tells him to shut his mouth. Alec wonders about it for a moment. He’d wonder about it more, but they’re putting him in this room again.
Alec hates this fucking room.
[ Next]
Author: scourgeofeurope
Fandoms: Supernatural, Dark Angel
Rating: R (gen)
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn. What are they to do?
Warnings: language, child abuse
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Previous chapters can be found here.
______________________
Alec misses the motel rooms, the smell of dust and mold and the feel of the grimy carpet beneath his feet. He misses the broken toilets, the showers that never got hot, and the TV sets, the sound of the static, and how there was only one channel you could barely see or hear, but it was there, and it made the silence go away when no one was talking. He misses the flat mattress covered in sheets that hadn’t been washed since who-knows-when, and how his space on that mattress was so small sometimes he could barely breathe on it because his face was usually squashed into a broad back, or an arm was heavy over his side, and sometimes it would get too hot because there were too many bodies on only one bed. He misses the feeling of sleep, because it happened eventually, because he learned to shut his eyes and his mind and just be, and he wouldn’t even realize it until he was waking up to Dean’s hand on the small of his back, or Sam’s hair tickling the side of his face, or Ben’s leg twined with Alec’s own.
He misses the Impala and how she gleamed and the look on Dean’s face every time he saw her, even though he saw her every day. Dean looked at Alec that way, too, and Ben, and even Sam, sometimes. They would climb inside of her and she was big and black and they were all there, fidgeting in their traveling home, bored and without privacy, but safe. And moving. And rarely stopping.
Alec misses the way she moved, because now he can’t move anymore. He tries to move his arms, but the restraints are tight and competent and he hates them because they’re assholes. The biggest fucking assholes.
“These restraints are the biggest fucking assholes,” he informs the nurse, who doesn’t respond, who doesn’t even look at him, just sticks him with that hypodermic again. He doesn’t know why. They’ve taken enough blood. “How much do you need?” he sighs. “M’not the Atlantic Ocean, you know.”
He’s not. Alec’s seen the Atlantic Ocean and it was huge and it smelled like salt. The world was blue and white and yellow that day, and when Alec closes his eyes he can still see it and hear it and it’s so clear, he almost tricks himself into believing he can smell it and taste it.
Photographic memories are the hot shit. Except when they make you feel like you’ve lost everything.
“Where’s my brother?” he demands. It’s not the first time. It’s not even the fiftieth. He’s asked so many times and no one ever answers him, they just look past him like this woman’s doing right now, look past him to whatever part of his skin they’re touching, whatever organ they’re monitoring and their fingers are so cold and stiff and uncaring.
Dean’s fingers were always warm, even when they were cold. So were Sam’s. They had warm fingers that didn’t touch Alec this way.
“Where’re Sam and Dean?”
Silence. Alec misses television. Alec misses anywhere but here. He misses his barn and the way he could sleep in the dirt and hay, and the cats who would hiss and scratch at him but would curl up beside him at night, the lameasses. If you’re going to defend your territory, defend your territory. When you don’t defend it, you’re robbed of it, just like Alec was, and that’s no good. Alec misses that barn. He wants to be in that barn right now, waiting for them to find him.
It’s been three days. Three days of just Alec and nurses and drill sergeants, needles and orders, and spaces that get smaller and smaller and smaller until Alec finally cracks and says what they want.
They dose him with something before undoing the restraints, a lot of something, because it takes a lot of something to take Alec down. He’s hauled off the cot and he can barely walk and the backless paper hospital gown isn’t doing much to make him feel less violated. Someone grips him tight by the arm and leads him , someone who throws him into the smallest solitary cell, someone who tells him to remember that he’s a soldier and not a sailor and speaking such words in the presence of Manticore staff will result in an even smaller cell for an extended period of time. This same someone throws in a set of clothes after him before the metal door bangs shut with a terrible finality.
Alec misses the naughty bed, and how it was only ever for forty-five minutes at the most and two minutes at the least and Sam was right there and Ben was right there, and sometimes Dean was right there, too, cleaning his gun or hiding his face behind a book or magazine, snorting periodically in amusement. Alec misses the way Sam took it so seriously, how he would get that this-hurt-me-more-than-it-hurt-you look on his face after it was all said and done before spreading his ridiculously long arms open.
Alec misses the free hugs. He misses the way he didn’t even have to steal them.
***************
The chair is high, high enough that Ben’s feet don’t touch the ground and he swings his legs, tilts his head up and smiles at Dean. Dean smiles back, his index stuck in his mouth, tongue licking off the remnants of the pink ice cream cone he just devoured.
“That ice cream was friggin’ amazing. Wasn’t it, Benny?”
Ben nods, even though he’s pretty sure he didn’t get to eat any ice cream. Dean seems to think he did, though, so that’s good enough for Ben. “It was awesome,” he agrees, beaming up beatifically at the cheerful hunter. Dean looks like he’s going to extend a hand down to smooth over Ben’s shorn head, or one of those other warm gestures he does sometimes, and Ben waits for it, but then Dean just settles for a fond smirk. Ben is slightly disappointed, but he ignores it and asks, “Dad, where’re Sam and Alec?”
Sam and Alec aren’t in this room. It’s cold and sterile, and Ben’s pretty sure they’re in a hospital, though he wasn’t aware that hospital rooms looked this way. There aren’t any windows or soft shades of white and blue. There’s no cot. Nothing but walls that are solid and reminiscent of steel, nothing but Ben and Dean and this chair.
Ben swings his legs. Dean frowns down at him.
“What did you call me?”
Ben’s not sure. Ben doesn’t remember, but it could be only one of two things, so he chances a guess. “Dean?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Dean nods. “That’s the one.” And he smiles, so Ben smiles back, because Dean clearly likes it when Ben calls him by this name. Ben’s been practicing - he uses it about once a day in private, testing it out to see how Dean reacts, and Dean always gets this startled and slightly fearful look on his face before visibly relaxing and acting happier than he’d been for most of the day up until the point when “Dad” or “Daddy” slips out of Ben’s mouth. This is how Ben knows he’s doing something right. Until now, when Dean’s jaw tenses and he casts a reproving glance down at the boy, says, “Don’t do that.”
Ben swallows and blinks and thinks he couldn’t have heard that right. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t call me that, Ben. You know better. You know better than to call me that, don’t you?”
“I…m’sorry, Dean.”
“You know better,” Dean repeats, and there’s no forgiveness in his green eyes and Ben swallows a little, grips the arms of the chair.
“M’sor-“
“You. Know. Better.” Each word is an ominous growl. Dean doesn’t want to hear Ben’s apologies. Dean only wants to hear one thing.
“Yes, sir.”
And Dean’s smiling again, and again he looks like he wants to put that hand on Ben’s head in a display of paternal affection, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a few steps away and says, “Good boy” in a tone that is somehow both sincere and apathetic. Dean’s looking at Ben like he’s never looked at him before, like Ben’s something to be corrected, a stained wall that needs to be either scrubbed clean or painted over.
Ben feels his eyes prick and he tries to swipe at them, but he can’t move his hands from the arms of the chair. They’re stuck there, strapped down by unrelenting restraints.
“Da…Dean, please…”
The smile he gets in return is like a quick stamp of approval on a project that’s been slaved over for years, careless and unconcerned, but wanting to convey that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. And Dean tilts his head and speaks words he’s spoken before, words spoken in moments of comfort, moments when Dean had arms around Ben, around Alec, and Sam was there, Sam was reading, and Ben was crying, but it was okay, then. Everybody was there and everybody was safe, and the room was small and cramped and there was only one bed, but it was warm. Everybody was so warm. “You’re okay, Benny,” Dean tells him.
“I don’t-“
“You are. You’re okay. You’re fine.” And Dean’s there suddenly, right in front of Ben, leaning down in a slow and graceful way that’s somewhat intimidating and Ben doesn’t really understand how he got there so fast. Ben didn’t see him walk there. “I need you to remember something for me, okay?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“I need you to remember something about fathers. I need you to remember that I’m not yours.”
Ben can’t move his hands. The tears are free-flowing, slim rivers down small cheeks, dribbling down his chin, falling and dampening his uniform grey tee, and Dean doesn’t reach out a hand to wipe them away, he just stays there, level with Ben, staring him down.
“Stop crying, Ben.”
Ben can’t stop crying. Dean is unimpressed.
“Stop. Crying.”
Ben tries. Ben bites down on his lip and he tries. He tries so hard his lip bleeds.
“That’s good. That’s good, Ben. You have to remember that soldiers don’t cry. Can you remember that for me?”
Ben can’t take his teeth out of his lip, so he just nods. Dean beams with approval.
“Good. Now, back to fathers.” Dean’s not eye-level with Ben anymore. Dean’s about five feet away, pacing, hands behind his back, eyes staring upwards in contemplation about this lecture he’s going to give. Ben doesn’t know how he got there. Ben didn’t see him move. “Fathers are the people who raise us from seed. Fathers are the people from whom we learn to hone our instincts, to use them appropriately. Fathers teach us the art of strategy, teach us how to achieve our goals. Most importantly, fathers teach us how to love our mothers. Who’s your mother, Ben?”
Ben doesn’t have a mother. He had a Sam, once, back when he had a Dean. Now he knows nothing of mothers because Dean isn’t his father. And now he knows nothing of fathers, either.
“Who is your mother, Ben?”
Ben doesn’t have a mother.
“Ben, who’s your mother?”
Dean keeps asking. Dean’s never going to stop asking and eventually, something tickles the back of Ben’s brain and he takes his teeth out of his lip and answers, “The United States government is my mother, sir.”
Dean stops pacing and he smiles and he nods and he calls Ben a good boy again, because that was the right answer, because this time, Ben got it right.
Ben got it right, but he doesn’t feel good about it. Ben feels cold and empty and barren like a bleak field in the winter. He stayed in a field like that once, after the escape. The clouds were grey, like these walls, and the grass frosted over, like Ben’s skin, chill rising up from icicle bones to sweep into, up through, and over. It feels like everything is dead.
“I…Dean, m’want Sam. Please? Where’s Sam?” Hope. A last hope. Sam. Sam said Ben was his, his and Dean’s, and that last part was a lie, apparently, but maybe…maybe Ben is still Sam’s.
“I’m right here, Ben.” And Ben jumps because Sam is right there. Right behind the chair, large hands gripping the chair’s back, tall frame towering over the top of Ben’s head. Ben tilts his head back, blinks up at the man.
“S-Sam?”
“It’s me. Are you being good for Dean? Are you being a good soldier?” And Sam’s not behind him anymore. Sam’s in front of him. Sam’s next to Dean, who’s smirking, and their shoulders are touching in a familiar display of camaraderie.
“I…y-yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Sam crosses his arms and squints skeptically at Ben. “And are you going to remember everything he told you?”
Ben doesn’t want to remember. He doesn’t want to remember any of it, but he answers, “Yes, sir.” He watches them, watches them exchange a look and a smile and when they return their eyes to Ben, they actually seem proud. Ben puts this affirmation to use. “Where’s Alec?” Ben wants Alec. Sam and Dean…they’re not…they don’t want to be, but Alec? Alec will always be Ben’s.
“He’s off learning his lessons, kiddo,” Dean answers amiably. “Just like you.”
“I…I don’t want to be here, Dean. Can’t we not be here anymore?”
“No.” Sam. Sam’s voice is firm and deep and teeming with severe disappointment. “Ben, you know better than that, don’t you?”
“I-“
“I know you do. You know better than that. You know who your mother is and who your father isn’t. What’s right is staying where you belong, and you belong with your mother, don’t you? Who’s your mother, Ben?”
“I…S-Sam-“
“Who’s your mother, Ben?” Sam’s voice is as cold as Ben’s entire being. The sound drops the room to below freezing. It’s entirely possible that Ben will end up sticking to this chair like ice to a telephone pole. It’s entirely possible that his skin will rip off when he tries to move.
“The United States government, sir.”
Sam approves. He nods and he smiles and he knocks into Dean’s side, tells Dean that he always knew Ben was a smart boy, and then he reaches out a hand. He reaches out a hand to touch Ben and his hand isn’t like it normally is. It’s not Sam’s big, healthy, calloused hand that smoothed over Ben’s hair back when Ben had hair. No, this hand is…this hand is old. And rotting. And reaching for Ben.
Sam doesn’t say it. Dean doesn’t say it. But Ben hears it. They know what you are.
The hand doesn’t touch him. It disappears right before a half-decayed finger brushes his freckled nose, but Sam is still there and Dean is still there and they’re still looking at him. They’re still blinking at him, wordless, but deafeningly present. They know what Ben is. Ben knows what Ben is, too. Ben is whatever Sam and Dean think him to be. Ben is worthless, grotesque, fatherless, defective, and alone.
***********
Alec doesn’t like where they’re taking him. He doesn’t like that room, that solid room with that chair where he sees things he doesn’t want to see, hears things he doesn’t want to hear, where he comes to feeling chilled and thirsty and afraid of the light. He hates that room. He hates how every single time, he wakes up or snaps out of it or what-the-fuck-ever, completely uncertain of what just happened and wondering if it was a dream or if it was real. He hates how it’s getting harder and harder separating time spent in that room from time spent out of it, separating lies from truths, and present from past.
“I don’t-“
“Were you told to speak, 494?”
Alec shuts the fuck up, because Alec wasn’t told to speak. Alec does what he’s told. Alec does what he has to do in order to survive and he’s surviving, but he doesn’t want to go into that fucking room. Not again. He hates that room, hates how Sam and Dean are there sometimes, hates how they look at him like they hate him, talk to him like they hate him, and he knows its not true. Knows it can’t be true. It can’t be true because its only been five days. Six days. Seven days? Alec’s not sure. Alec doesn’t know for sure, but its only been days since Dean took his hand through the bars and said they were gonna get out of this.
Dean said and Dean doesn’t lie. He said that word, too, that word that’s totally a girl word or a Sam word, but Dean said it and he said it to Alec. And he meant it.
Alec thinks he meant it, anyway. Alec’s pretty sure. Sometimes.
They’re almost there, almost to the room, and the guard’s nudging Alec through a hallway of the medical wing and Alec tries to keep his eyes forward, but they stray. They always stray. Alec’s lack of attention has always been something of a problem, and this time they stray to the side, to an observational room where a shackled Sam is sitting on a cot, having his head checked by a nurse.
Sam is shackled. Sam is real. Alec’s banging on the glass.
“494!” The guard’s bellowing, but he doesn’t go for his gun, which is a mistake because Alec wrestles away from him, kicks him, kicks his legs out from under him and knocks his head against the wall before the other guards stampede through the hallway like an ornery pack of wildebeest. Alec doesn’t run. Alec stays because Sam’s in there, Sam’s in that room, and he’s wrenching his head out of the nurse’s hands and he’s looking at Alec with wide, desperate eyes, is scrambling off the cot only to be bombarded by two guards and Sam’s trying so hard, is straining with effort trying to get away from them, and his eyes haven’t left Alec’s eyes, and there are guards getting a hold of Alec now, pulling him off the glass, and Alec strains, too, and he croaks out a weak, “Uncle Sam” because his voice hasn’t been right for days now, but he still tries. And Sam sees it, and he tries harder, is so desperate, but he can’t. They’ve got him pinned. They’ve got Sam pinned and Sam looks so fucking frantic but he can’t move anymore and Alec can’t move anymore and then the glass shatters.
And everything goes quiet and still.
The people in the observational room are looking at Sam with fear in their eyes, and there are guns trained on every part of Sam’s body. There’s fear in Sam’s eyes, too, hidden under his explicit need to get to Alec.
“Alec.”
The glass is gone, scattered in itty bitty bits on the floor, and Alec can hear Sam now, but he can’t respond because he’s being shoved and pulled away by various pairs of rough hands.
One of the guards mutters something about Winchesters and their special fucking blood, and another one tells him to shut his mouth. Alec wonders about it for a moment. He’d wonder about it more, but they’re putting him in this room again.
Alec hates this fucking room.
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