SPN/DA Fic: The Wellspring (28B/?)
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: Swearing, I guess. And violence.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Notes: Huge thanks to the lovely tigbit for the constant encouragement and for looking this monster over for me. And thanks to my wonderful Liz for the same. Also, I don't say it enough and I'm suckish at replying to comments, but thank you so much to all of you guys, for reading, and for all the kind, wonderful, and thoughtful comments. They make me feel wonderful inside, and I appreciate them so much. And on a sad note, we're coming to a close. There's probably only two, maybe three chapters left. I maintain that I'll continue the 'verse after I finish the main story, though, so there's that.
Additional author's notes and previous chapters can be found here.
_______________________________
He opens the bedroom door and Alec’s a cannonball launching himself at Dean, arms wrapping greedy and tight around his waist, little head tilting up to look at him as he asks, “Are we going now? Are we getting the hell out of dodge?”
This kid. Dean splays a large hand across the narrow back, soaks in the buzzing energy as he manages a soft smile. Just for this kid. “We’re okay, kitten. We’re okay here.”
They’re okay here. Even if she’s screaming in the...no.
Ben’s still on the bed, his chin still on his knees and he’s staring at them, but not saying a word. He hasn’t moved. Not an inch. Sam moves over to him, sits down on the edge of the mattress and tries to touch him, but the boy jerks away and doesn’t even spare him a glance while he does it.
Alec unwinds his arms, takes a step back. Narrows his eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because I know,” Dean replies, knowing full well this won’t satisfy his little mon...no, Alec’s not a monster. But he is little. Little and Dean’s. “If I didn’t know, we’d be halfway to Canada by now.”
Alec glares.
“How do you know?”
“She provided photographic evidence,” Sam interjects. “It’s okay, Alec.”
“Can I see it?”
“No,” Dean says, and he hears his brother’s voice meshing with his own. They haven’t done that in a while.
“I need to-”
“Alec.” Dean snaps even though he shouldn’t and he’s well aware that he shouldn’t, and he kneels. The movement is fluid. He grabs the boy and tugs him forward before he can take another step back, and Alec stumbles right into his arms, holds still and doesn’t make a sound as Dean wraps his arms around him, tight and suffocating like an anaconda. He’s warm and he’s breathing and he’s here and Dean hasn’t fucked it up completely, not yet.
“What?” Alec mumbles into his shoulder, and Dean finally feels the reciprocation, the small hands on his back, one of which smoothes over his shirt, goes up and then down and up again, barely hears the breath of, “S’okay, Daddy.”
Fuck. Christ. This is the reason. Alec’s seen things and done things, and sometimes they’ve been terrible things and Dean knows it, but then there’s this, this guarded piece of innocence in the midst of the destruction and Dean needs to keep that whole. Dean can’t let that be tainted by guns or blood or dead men. Not anymore.
“I promise you it’s real,” Dean mutters. “You can’t see it, but it’s real. It’s too fucking gross and you’re too small for things that gross.”
“But I...” Alec trails off. Dean knows what he would say if he kept going. There’s already all those fucked-up things he’s seen that he’ll never unsee, and who or what does Dean even think Alec is, anyway? But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say these things. He stops himself and the hand stops rubbing to pat Dean three times on the back in a somewhat demeaning manner. “Alright, Cuddles. I think I need some oxygen now.”
“Don’t call me Cuddles,” Dean grumbles, but he unwraps himself, rocks back onto his heels. “You believe me?”
Alec takes a while to respond, his eyes flickering over every aspect of Dean’s face like he’s studying a rather complex specimen. Dean holds still, waits, keeps eye contact until the boy finally, slowly, nods. Then Alec takes a step closer and leans in, whispers, “I think Ben’s broken. He won’t talk. Make him talk.”
Dean lifts his gaze to see Sam watching Ben, his gigantic hands curled around the comforter so as not to be tempted to reach out again, to try to coax him when he doesn’t want to be coaxed. Ben hasn’t moved, not much anyway. His chin’s no longer on his knees, but his nose is, tucked into that warm, closed spaced between them, with his eyes cast down to his feet. He’s all closed up, this kid.
“Ben?” Sam asks, and there’s hope in his voice, but not much of it. Dean swallows at the look in his brother’s eyes when the boy doesn’t respond. He’s already dead from today, but Sam and that look just slaughters him all over again because two and a half-decades ago, "Dea" wasn’t so amazing after the first five hundred times. It was so not amazing, in fact, that there came a point when Dean would stop listening to it and the baby’s eyes would well up and then he’d start crying. Sam always needs to be acknowledged. Sam always needs to know that he belongs.
Alec understands this about Sam. “Uncle Sam? I think it’s time you took me out for my first beer.”
Sam’s lips twitch and he gets to his feet, peels longing eyes away from Ben. “And by beer you mean...?”
“Ice cream?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“With sprinkles.”
“Sure.”
“And beer.”
Sam snorts in amusement, but he lingers for a moment, long enough to tell Ben they’ll bring him some ice cream, too. Ben doesn’t acknowledge the offer. Ben just stares at his feet.
Dean watches his brother and his kid exit the room, Alec’s voice quietly asking right before the door shuts, “Where is she?”
The room seems heavier without them. And smaller, even though this space between Dean and Ben seems ridiculously huge. But it’s nothing. Dean closes it in three strides, in fact, drops onto the edge of the bed and just waits because he doesn’t know how to talk. He gets over it sometimes, for short periods, but when it comes down to those moments when the importance is undeniable, Dean’s an emotional mute.
So is Ben, apparently, when he’s cracked. Cracked like Dean.
He doesn’t know how long they sit there, how long he waits, but it seems like it’s been forever and Ben’s still sticking to his catatonic guns. Dean just wants to unwrap him, to physically untangle those arms from around those legs, to tip that head up, and exorcise all of those terrible thoughts right out of his boy. He wants to see them leave, wants to witness the black smoke spiral into the air and vanish because then he’ll know they’re gone.
They’ll never be gone, though. Dean knows this. Dean knows the bad stuff never really goes away, but he can dream when it comes to Ben. And Alec.
“Did you kill her?” The long-awaited whisper fills the room, soaks into the walls. Ben is somehow everywhere Dean can’t touch, even though he’s right here.
“No, baby,” he says. “I didn’t kill her.”
The pause is long, the next question hesitant. “What’d you do with her?”
“She’s in the basement.”
Ben’s breath hitches. He slides his legs through his arms and places his hands on his thighs, spares Dean the quickest of glances before focusing on his own fingers. “Is she a ‘Nomlie?”
It always comes back to the monsters in the basement.
“No, Benny, she’s not.”
And then again, with the not talking. Dean listens and all he can hear is the exhalation of Ben’s breathing, quiet and quick, and a little harsh. He waits, wishing he knew what to say, knew how to convince this kid that everything’s going to be fine, that he doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore because Dean’s going to take care of him for as long as he can, until that day comes when he finally keels over from one too many double bacon cheeseburgers.
But Ben never believes him. Promises of I’ll always want you get fucked up somewhere along the way, taken hostage by memories of things that don’t exist, and things that shouldn’t. And every time Ben shies away, or looks at him with fear in his eyes, or stumbles over his words because this entire concept of family was beautiful in the beginning, but now it’s one of those things that he won’t let himself see or can’t trust himself to believe, that’s another crack. Another crack running straight through Dean, and there’s so many of them now, he’s not sure anything will ever be able to fix him, or his boys, or his brother-
“Am I?” Ben asks, and the cracks become obsolete.
Dean shatters.
Are we the monsters?
He twists and bolsters himself up with an arm bridging over Ben’s legs, tilts the kid’s head level with a finger to his chin and growls, “No.” And Ben flinches. And Dean softens. “God, no. Ben, you’re not.”
“Then why am I so messed up?”
“You’re no-“
“Don’t lie to me,” the boy snarls, and his eyes start to leak. Dean moves to wipe them, but Ben bats his hand away. “I’m messed up. My head’s all messed up. You can’t tell me that’s not true because you’re not me and you’re not in here.”
“Benny-”
“No.” His small fist rubs over an eye, swipes hard past the tears running down his cheekbone, leaving a slight smear of red in its wake. Blood.
Dean snatches the hand up, grips it when Ben tries to yank it back, but there are no cuts, just a smattering of dry crimson accentuating the lines of his tender skin, and Dean swallows. He doesn’t deserve to be a father. Fathers don’t leave blood on their sons’ tiny hands.
He lets go, gets to his feet. “C’mere.”
“No.” Ben shakes his head, shrinks back into the headboard.
Dean kind of wishes Sam were here right now. Sam’s the one who’s good at the coaxing and Ben, for the time being, is the kind of kid who needs to be coaxed. But Dean’s not Sam. “You can come by yourself or I can carry you. Whichever way you want it, sweetheart.”
Wary green eyes. That’s all Dean sees as the boy slowly edges himself off the bed and onto the floor. Dean guides him to Bobby’s bathroom with a hand on his shoulder, twists the sink faucet on and waits for the water to warm.
Ben’s back to not saying anything, but he keeps looking up at Dean in quick intervals before he looks away again, curious despite himself. And for once, he doesn’t pull away when Dean reaches down and gently grips his wrists to direct his little hands under the stream of water.
There’s bar soap on an old shell-shaped soap dish in the corner of the counter closest to the wall, and Dean picks it up, runs it over the backs and palms of his boy’s hands and then tosses it aside when he’s managed to work up a decent lather. He can feel the coarseness of his own hands as he rubs the soap into the sides of Ben’s, kneading the remains of her blood into nonexistence, and he never lets go because he never wants to, keeps hold as the water sluices over their skin and washes the suds away.
He dries their hands with what looks like a reasonably clean towel, eyes on task even though he can feel Ben’s intent gaze touching his temple.
“The other you couldn’t touch me.”
Dean’s stomach clenches in the worst way, but he tries not to show it. He hangs the towel back on the rack and picks a clean washcloth off of a chipped shelf.
“There ain’t no other me, kid,” he says, and he leans down, hefts the boy up with one strong arm to set him on the countertop. “There’s only this me.” He turns the faucet back on, checks the temperature. Wets the cloth.
“I know,” Ben says softly, and he shudders and closes his eyes when the soaked washcloth touches his cheek. “I know that.”
“Do you?” The cloth drips. Dean should have wrung it out, but he didn’t, and now there’s a stray drop of water on Ben’s nose. He touches it with a finger and swipes it away. Squeezes the cloth over the sink.
“I do.” The kid’s voice is cracking. “It’s just sometimes...my head is messed up. It doesn’t work right and I thought he was you, I did. I wanted you there, and he was there and he looked like you and talked like you and I wanted it to be you. But you said things-”
“It wasn’t me, Benny.”
“...He said things. He said mean things. You didn’t want me-”
“Who didn’t want you?”
“He didn’t want me.”
Dean understands messed-up heads because he has one himself, and he, too, has mastered the art of believing in fathers who aren’t real...but John was no superhero, and Dean’s no hallucination.
He trails the washcloth over and under Ben’s chin. “He wasn’t real. He couldn’t not want you because he wasn’t real. So who didn’t want you?”
Ben can’t answer that question. Dean moves his ministrations to the back of the boy’s neck, feels him shiver through the cotton.
“That’s your first clue. Everyone wants you. Even the people who should never have you, want you. S’okay, though. I’ll never let ‘em get you because I want you a helluva lot more.” Dean lets the rag drop into the sink with a slap against the porcelain. “Can you believe me when I say that?”
Ben looks at his knees. Dean holds his breath, but he can only hold it for so long, and after a minute, he says, “Benny.”
Ben doesn’t look up. “I could see him. You told me to believe in the things I could see.”
Dean did. Dean did tell him that.
“But he couldn’t touch you.”
Ben swallows, shakes his head. “He couldn’t touch me.”
Of course he couldn’t. Hallucinations aren’t corporeal.
Dean snatches one of the kid’s hands up from where they’re resting on his thighs and squeezes it.
“Am I real?”
The kid lifts his head, finally, looks at Dean with red-rimmed eyes and tears that aren’t angry - which is completely and utterly awesome, because water should never be angry. Water is pure. Water washes the dirt and the blood away. “Yeah,” Ben says. “You’re real.”
“You’re damn right I’m real.” Dean’s real. He always knew he was real, but it never seemed like that great of an accomplishment until this moment. “And do you remember that thing I told you? When we first met?”
Ben blinks. Dean can see the tears rolling out from under his closed lashes, streaming down the curves of his little face and part of him wants to wipe them away, but most of him wants to let them fall. Kid hasn’t cried right since they got out. Sam’s cried and Alec’s cried and fuck it, Dean’s even shed a tear or two when nobody was looking, but Ben…for Ben, it’s the first time. Like a baby just out of the womb.
And the kid hasn’t answered the question, yet. So Dean prompts him. “Benny?”
Ben looks up. “I need a bath before I get in your car?”
Dean snorts. “Close, but no cigar. Try again.”
Ben’s hand is still warm in Dean’s, and the pressure of the small fingers is comforting even as the kid lowers his head again. “You’re not gonna let anything bad happen to me.”
“Yahtzee.” That’s exactly what Dean said. That’s exactly what Dean should never have said. Not then. Not when he had no real understanding of their situation. “And I failed you. I fucking failed you, kid. I failed you miserably. I let them get you even though I kept promising I wouldn’t and they hurt you again. They hurt you and your brother and I sat in that cell trying to find a way out and I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it even though I should have and those sonsabitches were fucking with your head and putting you in places where you shouldn’t ever be. And they made you feel like you didn’t belong to me and I need you to know that’s not true. I’m sorry…I’m sorry I let them get you. I…” He didn’t mean to do this. He shouldn’t do this because this is what his father did to him, smothered him with apologies that changed nothing, and Dean doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk off his ass. “Christ, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
Ben pulls his hand away and Dean feels empty for that split second before the kid launches at him, before those arms wrap around his neck and he feels that hot breath against his skin, hears the quiet, “It’s okay.”
It’s not, Dean wants to say, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t because he can’t because he’s drowning. He’s drowning in this kid in his arms. He’s drowning in that funny thing Sam has in his head and that look Alec gets in his eyes every time he loses himself in those thoughts that he should never have. He’s drowning in the girl in the basement and in the snow outside, in the screams, and in the cracks in his skin made by memories of things both terrible and amazing.
“Daddy?”
He’s drowning in the knowledge that water is an incredible thing. He wishes he had some right now because his throat is dry as hell and he doesn’t trust himself to speak - but he does. He swallows, and says in a voice that is low and hoarse, “Yeah, Benny. I’m right here.”
The arms tighten. The face nuzzles further into his neck.
Time disappears. Cracks form and heal. The faucet drips. Dean can’t help but think that there’s a rhythm to this cycle, blood and fire and family.
Ben slips off the counter and into his arms and Dean knows he’s real, he’s always known, but something about the kid’s weight solidifies that fact. Ben is real and Dean is real and they’re cracked to all hell, but they’re here. For the first time in a long time, they’re right here.
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: Swearing, I guess. And violence.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Notes: Huge thanks to the lovely tigbit for the constant encouragement and for looking this monster over for me. And thanks to my wonderful Liz for the same. Also, I don't say it enough and I'm suckish at replying to comments, but thank you so much to all of you guys, for reading, and for all the kind, wonderful, and thoughtful comments. They make me feel wonderful inside, and I appreciate them so much. And on a sad note, we're coming to a close. There's probably only two, maybe three chapters left. I maintain that I'll continue the 'verse after I finish the main story, though, so there's that.
Additional author's notes and previous chapters can be found here.
_______________________________
He opens the bedroom door and Alec’s a cannonball launching himself at Dean, arms wrapping greedy and tight around his waist, little head tilting up to look at him as he asks, “Are we going now? Are we getting the hell out of dodge?”
This kid. Dean splays a large hand across the narrow back, soaks in the buzzing energy as he manages a soft smile. Just for this kid. “We’re okay, kitten. We’re okay here.”
They’re okay here. Even if she’s screaming in the...no.
Ben’s still on the bed, his chin still on his knees and he’s staring at them, but not saying a word. He hasn’t moved. Not an inch. Sam moves over to him, sits down on the edge of the mattress and tries to touch him, but the boy jerks away and doesn’t even spare him a glance while he does it.
Alec unwinds his arms, takes a step back. Narrows his eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because I know,” Dean replies, knowing full well this won’t satisfy his little mon...no, Alec’s not a monster. But he is little. Little and Dean’s. “If I didn’t know, we’d be halfway to Canada by now.”
Alec glares.
“How do you know?”
“She provided photographic evidence,” Sam interjects. “It’s okay, Alec.”
“Can I see it?”
“No,” Dean says, and he hears his brother’s voice meshing with his own. They haven’t done that in a while.
“I need to-”
“Alec.” Dean snaps even though he shouldn’t and he’s well aware that he shouldn’t, and he kneels. The movement is fluid. He grabs the boy and tugs him forward before he can take another step back, and Alec stumbles right into his arms, holds still and doesn’t make a sound as Dean wraps his arms around him, tight and suffocating like an anaconda. He’s warm and he’s breathing and he’s here and Dean hasn’t fucked it up completely, not yet.
“What?” Alec mumbles into his shoulder, and Dean finally feels the reciprocation, the small hands on his back, one of which smoothes over his shirt, goes up and then down and up again, barely hears the breath of, “S’okay, Daddy.”
Fuck. Christ. This is the reason. Alec’s seen things and done things, and sometimes they’ve been terrible things and Dean knows it, but then there’s this, this guarded piece of innocence in the midst of the destruction and Dean needs to keep that whole. Dean can’t let that be tainted by guns or blood or dead men. Not anymore.
“I promise you it’s real,” Dean mutters. “You can’t see it, but it’s real. It’s too fucking gross and you’re too small for things that gross.”
“But I...” Alec trails off. Dean knows what he would say if he kept going. There’s already all those fucked-up things he’s seen that he’ll never unsee, and who or what does Dean even think Alec is, anyway? But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say these things. He stops himself and the hand stops rubbing to pat Dean three times on the back in a somewhat demeaning manner. “Alright, Cuddles. I think I need some oxygen now.”
“Don’t call me Cuddles,” Dean grumbles, but he unwraps himself, rocks back onto his heels. “You believe me?”
Alec takes a while to respond, his eyes flickering over every aspect of Dean’s face like he’s studying a rather complex specimen. Dean holds still, waits, keeps eye contact until the boy finally, slowly, nods. Then Alec takes a step closer and leans in, whispers, “I think Ben’s broken. He won’t talk. Make him talk.”
Dean lifts his gaze to see Sam watching Ben, his gigantic hands curled around the comforter so as not to be tempted to reach out again, to try to coax him when he doesn’t want to be coaxed. Ben hasn’t moved, not much anyway. His chin’s no longer on his knees, but his nose is, tucked into that warm, closed spaced between them, with his eyes cast down to his feet. He’s all closed up, this kid.
“Ben?” Sam asks, and there’s hope in his voice, but not much of it. Dean swallows at the look in his brother’s eyes when the boy doesn’t respond. He’s already dead from today, but Sam and that look just slaughters him all over again because two and a half-decades ago, "Dea" wasn’t so amazing after the first five hundred times. It was so not amazing, in fact, that there came a point when Dean would stop listening to it and the baby’s eyes would well up and then he’d start crying. Sam always needs to be acknowledged. Sam always needs to know that he belongs.
Alec understands this about Sam. “Uncle Sam? I think it’s time you took me out for my first beer.”
Sam’s lips twitch and he gets to his feet, peels longing eyes away from Ben. “And by beer you mean...?”
“Ice cream?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“With sprinkles.”
“Sure.”
“And beer.”
Sam snorts in amusement, but he lingers for a moment, long enough to tell Ben they’ll bring him some ice cream, too. Ben doesn’t acknowledge the offer. Ben just stares at his feet.
Dean watches his brother and his kid exit the room, Alec’s voice quietly asking right before the door shuts, “Where is she?”
The room seems heavier without them. And smaller, even though this space between Dean and Ben seems ridiculously huge. But it’s nothing. Dean closes it in three strides, in fact, drops onto the edge of the bed and just waits because he doesn’t know how to talk. He gets over it sometimes, for short periods, but when it comes down to those moments when the importance is undeniable, Dean’s an emotional mute.
So is Ben, apparently, when he’s cracked. Cracked like Dean.
He doesn’t know how long they sit there, how long he waits, but it seems like it’s been forever and Ben’s still sticking to his catatonic guns. Dean just wants to unwrap him, to physically untangle those arms from around those legs, to tip that head up, and exorcise all of those terrible thoughts right out of his boy. He wants to see them leave, wants to witness the black smoke spiral into the air and vanish because then he’ll know they’re gone.
They’ll never be gone, though. Dean knows this. Dean knows the bad stuff never really goes away, but he can dream when it comes to Ben. And Alec.
“Did you kill her?” The long-awaited whisper fills the room, soaks into the walls. Ben is somehow everywhere Dean can’t touch, even though he’s right here.
“No, baby,” he says. “I didn’t kill her.”
The pause is long, the next question hesitant. “What’d you do with her?”
“She’s in the basement.”
Ben’s breath hitches. He slides his legs through his arms and places his hands on his thighs, spares Dean the quickest of glances before focusing on his own fingers. “Is she a ‘Nomlie?”
It always comes back to the monsters in the basement.
“No, Benny, she’s not.”
And then again, with the not talking. Dean listens and all he can hear is the exhalation of Ben’s breathing, quiet and quick, and a little harsh. He waits, wishing he knew what to say, knew how to convince this kid that everything’s going to be fine, that he doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore because Dean’s going to take care of him for as long as he can, until that day comes when he finally keels over from one too many double bacon cheeseburgers.
But Ben never believes him. Promises of I’ll always want you get fucked up somewhere along the way, taken hostage by memories of things that don’t exist, and things that shouldn’t. And every time Ben shies away, or looks at him with fear in his eyes, or stumbles over his words because this entire concept of family was beautiful in the beginning, but now it’s one of those things that he won’t let himself see or can’t trust himself to believe, that’s another crack. Another crack running straight through Dean, and there’s so many of them now, he’s not sure anything will ever be able to fix him, or his boys, or his brother-
“Am I?” Ben asks, and the cracks become obsolete.
Dean shatters.
Are we the monsters?
He twists and bolsters himself up with an arm bridging over Ben’s legs, tilts the kid’s head level with a finger to his chin and growls, “No.” And Ben flinches. And Dean softens. “God, no. Ben, you’re not.”
“Then why am I so messed up?”
“You’re no-“
“Don’t lie to me,” the boy snarls, and his eyes start to leak. Dean moves to wipe them, but Ben bats his hand away. “I’m messed up. My head’s all messed up. You can’t tell me that’s not true because you’re not me and you’re not in here.”
“Benny-”
“No.” His small fist rubs over an eye, swipes hard past the tears running down his cheekbone, leaving a slight smear of red in its wake. Blood.
Dean snatches the hand up, grips it when Ben tries to yank it back, but there are no cuts, just a smattering of dry crimson accentuating the lines of his tender skin, and Dean swallows. He doesn’t deserve to be a father. Fathers don’t leave blood on their sons’ tiny hands.
He lets go, gets to his feet. “C’mere.”
“No.” Ben shakes his head, shrinks back into the headboard.
Dean kind of wishes Sam were here right now. Sam’s the one who’s good at the coaxing and Ben, for the time being, is the kind of kid who needs to be coaxed. But Dean’s not Sam. “You can come by yourself or I can carry you. Whichever way you want it, sweetheart.”
Wary green eyes. That’s all Dean sees as the boy slowly edges himself off the bed and onto the floor. Dean guides him to Bobby’s bathroom with a hand on his shoulder, twists the sink faucet on and waits for the water to warm.
Ben’s back to not saying anything, but he keeps looking up at Dean in quick intervals before he looks away again, curious despite himself. And for once, he doesn’t pull away when Dean reaches down and gently grips his wrists to direct his little hands under the stream of water.
There’s bar soap on an old shell-shaped soap dish in the corner of the counter closest to the wall, and Dean picks it up, runs it over the backs and palms of his boy’s hands and then tosses it aside when he’s managed to work up a decent lather. He can feel the coarseness of his own hands as he rubs the soap into the sides of Ben’s, kneading the remains of her blood into nonexistence, and he never lets go because he never wants to, keeps hold as the water sluices over their skin and washes the suds away.
He dries their hands with what looks like a reasonably clean towel, eyes on task even though he can feel Ben’s intent gaze touching his temple.
“The other you couldn’t touch me.”
Dean’s stomach clenches in the worst way, but he tries not to show it. He hangs the towel back on the rack and picks a clean washcloth off of a chipped shelf.
“There ain’t no other me, kid,” he says, and he leans down, hefts the boy up with one strong arm to set him on the countertop. “There’s only this me.” He turns the faucet back on, checks the temperature. Wets the cloth.
“I know,” Ben says softly, and he shudders and closes his eyes when the soaked washcloth touches his cheek. “I know that.”
“Do you?” The cloth drips. Dean should have wrung it out, but he didn’t, and now there’s a stray drop of water on Ben’s nose. He touches it with a finger and swipes it away. Squeezes the cloth over the sink.
“I do.” The kid’s voice is cracking. “It’s just sometimes...my head is messed up. It doesn’t work right and I thought he was you, I did. I wanted you there, and he was there and he looked like you and talked like you and I wanted it to be you. But you said things-”
“It wasn’t me, Benny.”
“...He said things. He said mean things. You didn’t want me-”
“Who didn’t want you?”
“He didn’t want me.”
Dean understands messed-up heads because he has one himself, and he, too, has mastered the art of believing in fathers who aren’t real...but John was no superhero, and Dean’s no hallucination.
He trails the washcloth over and under Ben’s chin. “He wasn’t real. He couldn’t not want you because he wasn’t real. So who didn’t want you?”
Ben can’t answer that question. Dean moves his ministrations to the back of the boy’s neck, feels him shiver through the cotton.
“That’s your first clue. Everyone wants you. Even the people who should never have you, want you. S’okay, though. I’ll never let ‘em get you because I want you a helluva lot more.” Dean lets the rag drop into the sink with a slap against the porcelain. “Can you believe me when I say that?”
Ben looks at his knees. Dean holds his breath, but he can only hold it for so long, and after a minute, he says, “Benny.”
Ben doesn’t look up. “I could see him. You told me to believe in the things I could see.”
Dean did. Dean did tell him that.
“But he couldn’t touch you.”
Ben swallows, shakes his head. “He couldn’t touch me.”
Of course he couldn’t. Hallucinations aren’t corporeal.
Dean snatches one of the kid’s hands up from where they’re resting on his thighs and squeezes it.
“Am I real?”
The kid lifts his head, finally, looks at Dean with red-rimmed eyes and tears that aren’t angry - which is completely and utterly awesome, because water should never be angry. Water is pure. Water washes the dirt and the blood away. “Yeah,” Ben says. “You’re real.”
“You’re damn right I’m real.” Dean’s real. He always knew he was real, but it never seemed like that great of an accomplishment until this moment. “And do you remember that thing I told you? When we first met?”
Ben blinks. Dean can see the tears rolling out from under his closed lashes, streaming down the curves of his little face and part of him wants to wipe them away, but most of him wants to let them fall. Kid hasn’t cried right since they got out. Sam’s cried and Alec’s cried and fuck it, Dean’s even shed a tear or two when nobody was looking, but Ben…for Ben, it’s the first time. Like a baby just out of the womb.
And the kid hasn’t answered the question, yet. So Dean prompts him. “Benny?”
Ben looks up. “I need a bath before I get in your car?”
Dean snorts. “Close, but no cigar. Try again.”
Ben’s hand is still warm in Dean’s, and the pressure of the small fingers is comforting even as the kid lowers his head again. “You’re not gonna let anything bad happen to me.”
“Yahtzee.” That’s exactly what Dean said. That’s exactly what Dean should never have said. Not then. Not when he had no real understanding of their situation. “And I failed you. I fucking failed you, kid. I failed you miserably. I let them get you even though I kept promising I wouldn’t and they hurt you again. They hurt you and your brother and I sat in that cell trying to find a way out and I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it even though I should have and those sonsabitches were fucking with your head and putting you in places where you shouldn’t ever be. And they made you feel like you didn’t belong to me and I need you to know that’s not true. I’m sorry…I’m sorry I let them get you. I…” He didn’t mean to do this. He shouldn’t do this because this is what his father did to him, smothered him with apologies that changed nothing, and Dean doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk off his ass. “Christ, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
Ben pulls his hand away and Dean feels empty for that split second before the kid launches at him, before those arms wrap around his neck and he feels that hot breath against his skin, hears the quiet, “It’s okay.”
It’s not, Dean wants to say, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t because he can’t because he’s drowning. He’s drowning in this kid in his arms. He’s drowning in that funny thing Sam has in his head and that look Alec gets in his eyes every time he loses himself in those thoughts that he should never have. He’s drowning in the girl in the basement and in the snow outside, in the screams, and in the cracks in his skin made by memories of things both terrible and amazing.
“Daddy?”
He’s drowning in the knowledge that water is an incredible thing. He wishes he had some right now because his throat is dry as hell and he doesn’t trust himself to speak - but he does. He swallows, and says in a voice that is low and hoarse, “Yeah, Benny. I’m right here.”
The arms tighten. The face nuzzles further into his neck.
Time disappears. Cracks form and heal. The faucet drips. Dean can’t help but think that there’s a rhythm to this cycle, blood and fire and family.
Ben slips off the counter and into his arms and Dean knows he’s real, he’s always known, but something about the kid’s weight solidifies that fact. Ben is real and Dean is real and they’re cracked to all hell, but they’re here. For the first time in a long time, they’re right here.