A/N: So this is my first published work of fan fiction. Hope you like it. :) Comments and critiques are welcome.
"Windegos suck," Sam bit off.
"And that's why we're drinking the good scotch," was Dean's reply before tossing back a taste of the amber liquid. "Ah! Yep. Good stuff."
They sat at a small table – sticky-topped, adorned with cheap metal napkin dispenser, salt shaker, specials menu; ringed by chairs just sturdy enough to support large men like the Winchesters, but not so much as to cause significant damage if bashed against someone's back – in the middle of a crowded and smoky bar with neon signs in the window and a wide assortment of typical bar crowds. From bikers to college kids to players and the floozies they looked to bang, everyone was there. Even middle aged work friends knocking back a few after a long day. It was the personality niche somewhere between these casual folks and the bikers where the two brothers fit in, making it easy to sit in the establishment without drawing attention to themselves.
As long as no one overheard them.
"Uh," grumbled Sam, "my head still hurts. That thing basically picked me up and threw me into the cave wall."
"Yeah, you got a little blood there," Dean commented, glancing at the back of Sam's head. "You've been worse, though."
"So much worse," Sam replied adamantly.
"So much worse."
Sam took a drink of his beer, then pulled out his phone to inspect the map. "What do you think – I-90 back to the bunker?"
"I-90," said Dean, wistfulness on his face and in his voice. "85 miles per hour on four lane with no one around all night long. Sounds like my kind of heaven."
"Good," said Sam. "Then I'll sleep. Don't blast the Metallica."
"Can't make any promises," Dean replied flatly, finishing off his drink. "Want another round?" he inquired of his brother as he made to stand up.
Sam looked to him with his curious/disapproving look, "I've barely had a quarter of this bottle."
"Okay, whatever, Mr. Responsible lightweight," Dean mumbled and went off to the bar.
"Lightweight," Sam breathed to himself. "A third again your body mass, no way I'm a lightweight."
"Another scotch, please. Neat," Dean said upon reaching the bar.
As the bartender turned to attain the bottle, Dean cast his eye over the mass of drinking, laughing, crying, chatting people. What he caught sight of in his casual perusal caught him off guard. A familiar face; round and dark haired, aged some four or five years since Dean last saw it, the baby fat having sunk away from its shape, experience darkening the eyes. On the whole, the face had changed so much it was barely recognizable… but not too much to escape Dean.
His entire body tensed, all relaxation and joviality melting from his posture and expression. Dean glared at the youth seated at a table opposite from his place at the bar. In his eyes, something hard had come in, but it was as if that hardness were a hastily erected barrier to keep something very soft – and potentially very painful – from coming to the surface.
His scotch arrived. Deciding he wasn't interested in sticking around, he downed it in a single gulp, then pulled out one of his numerous fraudulent credit cards and paid the tab. Throwing one last glance at the youth across from him, he then removed himself from the bar and returned to the table.
"Ready to hit the road?" he said to his sibling, grabbing his coat off the back of the chair he had previously occupied.
Sam looked confused, "We just got here. I thought you'd want to at least stay a while and relax."
"What can I say; I feel like drivin'," his tone was bland, something Sam knew he often used when he was avoiding being completely honest.
"Uh-huh," murmured Sam. "Really, what's up?"
"Come on, Sam, let's just go," Dean's voice was low as he hustled towards the door.
The younger followed, but presently reached out a hand and turned his sibling around by the shoulder.
"Seriously, what's wrong? It's like a switch flipped in your head," hissed Sam.
"Can we just go? Please?" He was on the defensive. "Do I have to explain myself for every friggin' thing I do?"
"Only when you're acting weird, which you are," retorted Sam.
"Listen, Sam," Dean fidgeted where he stood, allowing himself to express a minute amount of his discomfort, "I just gotta get out of here."
Hearing the upset in his brother's tone, Sam took some of the edge out of his, "Why?"
"It's just–," but Dean got distracted at this point. He'd once again caught sight of the youth across the bar. He had evidently started a conversation with a girl at a nearby table, but was being confronted now by a group of three young men. They didn't look happy. The hint of tension put Dean on edge and all his instincts on standby.
"What?" Sam urged.
Not receiving an answer, the younger Winchester paused to consider his sibling's vacancy from the immediate area. Sam followed Dean's line of sight, turning to search the far side of the room. It took him a couple tries to spot what Dean was looking at, and even then he was still confused.
"That kid?" he asked.
Dean's eyes flicked sheepishly between Sam and the distant youth. Then he replied shortly, "Yeah."
Sam was still more confused. In trying to understand, he inspected the young man across the room, hoping for answers. He found them.
"He looks kind of familiar–," then his furrowed brow relaxed as his heart half stopped at the realization. "Oh my god." He spun to face Dean, "Is that–?" he halted his speech, recalling vividly the moment Dean had promised to break his nose if he so much as mentioned those names again.
Luckily, Sam's restraint aborted such aggression. Dean knew what had almost transpired, though, and the potential of the moment was held in silence between them as they shared the thought. Instead of a fist to the face (though with about as much sting), Dean moved only his eyes, standing solid as stone, to lock their fierce green fire onto Sam. He held this gaze for a moment, then looked away again, uttering another clipped, "Yeah."
Instantly changing his tune given this new information, Sam made for the door, saying quietly, "Hey, man, I'm sorry. Let's get out of here."
Dean held out a steadying hand, "Hang on a second; I've changed my mind again." He was watching what appeared to be the beginning of a fight, with the younger outnumbered three to one. When the apparent leader of the small group hoisted the confronted out of his seat by his shirt, Dean snapped out of his paralysis. "Nope. Not okay."
Leaving Sam behind, he strode across the room, making short work of the distance. To the four perpetrators of the ensuing incident, he seemed to appear out of nowhere.
"Is there a problem here?" he inquired, sounding kind, but bearing a grin that usually accompanied his preambles to some serious ass kickings.
"Dean?"
For all his stoic bearing, hearing his name uttered by someone who simply shouldn't remember it, who supposedly wasn't able to, sent a chill through him. He turned to look at Ben, questioning and disconcerted. The boy's face was a mask of disbelief.
Battling to ignore the moment, Dean turned back to his potential opponents in time to hear their tirade.
"Yeah, there's a problem," ranted the lead troublemaker. "This jackass was just talking up my girlfriend!"
"Hey now, I'm sure he didn't realize she was your girlfriend," Dean worked to smooth things over. "Misunderstandings happen."
"Yeah, bullshit," snapped the other. "Let's hear what that little prick's got to say about it!"
"It was an accident, right?" Dean turned back around.
Ben didn't answer. He was standing, rooted to the spot, seething. His fists were clenched, his jaw locked and teeth grinding. A vicious glare was locked onto Dean. It was beginning to make the Winchester nervous; he was walking a thin line being here, both for him and Ben, and it felt like he was stepping over too far. Something was wrong.
"You," Ben dowsed the word in utter contempt, "leave me alone."
"Look, kid," Dean tried to chalk it up to bending the boy's masculinity, "you ever been in a fight? 'Cause kinda looks like that's where this is going."
"Yeah," Ben bit back in low, poisonous tones, "I've been in a fight. The night Mom stabbed herself."
Dean swallowed hard. He shouldn't know that.
"You bet, we're gonna fight!" snapped the young man.
"All right, cool it, Hotshot, we're not there yet," said Dean.
"You think you can tell me what to do, old man?" puffed Hotshot.
"Hey," Dean growled, "I know a couple guys a lot older than me who could put you on the floor without thinking about it. Pipe down."
"I think you're just afraid," the guy wouldn't quit. "You're afraid you can't take me! Afraid you'll get the shit beat outta you!"
"Would you knock it off? I'd like to have a quick conversation with your wannabe opponent here, if you don't mind."
"Yeah! I do mind!"
"I said leave," Ben's quiet voice vibrating with pure hatred. "Let me handle this. And you leave just like you left before."
Dean was now thinking he'd have to have a word with Castiel. The angel's memory wipe obviously had worn off. If such a thing could. Perhaps it had something to do with his grace going AWOL. It was clear Ben was remembering Dean and all the horrible things that had happened while with him, and took his absence for abandonment. And that tore through Dean like a stake in the heart.
"Yeah, leave," taunted Hotshot behind Dean. "Let this kid do your dirty work."
"Yeah, leave it to me," said Ben. "Why would you even bother? What do you care?"
Dean's voice was hushed, "Hey, what do you think it means that I'm over here at all, huh?"
Just then there was a scuffling of feet and Dean turned just in time to see Hotshot swing a wild haymaker at his head. He ducked away almost lazily, then rabbit punched the youth in the nose, breaking it.
The bouncer appeared beside them almost instantaneously, standing one foot taller than all present.
"Okay, guys," he said in a heavy, low voice, "I don't care what you do, but you gotta do it outside."
Dean smiled and crossed his arms, looking to the bloody-nosed man, expecting him to back off after being so easily dismantled, "Yeah. Let's go outside."
"Yeah," replied the younger haughtily, his voice nasal. "Let's go outside."
Dean rolled his eyes and made for the door, "You gotta learn to pick your battles, kid."
On his way out, Dean absentmindedly put his hand on Ben's shoulder as he passed; habit. Ben was a lot more aware of the action, however, and wrenched his shoulder out from under Dean's palm. Dean flinched slightly. He'd trod too far over the line again.
Hotshot was a dirty fighter, as it turned out. Moments after they had passed beyond the threshold onto the sidewalk beyond, he leaped onto Dean's back, attempting to get him in a headlock. Admittedly, the veteran hunter was a little tripped up, but having been in so many surprising scenarios, he regained his footing momentarily and just in time to use Hotshot's momentum against him. The youth got flipped over Dean's shoulder, landing hard on his back. Dean swung around the other side of his opponent to face him as well as his trailing companions.
Hotshot's friends were evidently not as idiotic as their leader. They looked lackluster at the thought of a fight and didn't leap to help their buddy. In fact they kind of hung back.
Although not much better could be said for Sam, but he was nonchalant for different reasons. Checking his phone with one hand and carrying his beer with the other, he glanced up as he exited the bar and asked, "Hey; want some help?"
Surveying his opponents with a kind of surprise and even disappointment, Dean replied, "Nah, I think I got it."
"No, I've got it," Ben had come storming out of the building. "You can go. In fact, I never want to see your face a –."
It was at that moment Hotshot popped up and socked Ben in the side of the head, knocking him up against an adjacent car. Enraged, Dean stepped forward and threw a vicious left hook, immediately taking the offender to the ground, unconscious. He paused to inspect Hotshot's friends, who did little more than look wary, then turned to check on Ben.
"Hey. You okay, kid?" he reached out a helping hand.
Ben knocked it away, "Get away from me!"
Dean held his arms out to the sides in a kind of surrender, "Look, I'm just trying to help."
"Well I don't need your help," Ben bit back. "I used to. But I don't anymore." He seemed to gather up his nerve. "Go fuck yourself, Dean."
Stunned and slack jawed, it took Dean a moment to respond as Ben walked towards the bar, "Hey, what the hell?!"
Ben didn't need much of an excuse to round on him; "'What the hell'?! You don't get where I'm coming from?! All the shit you've done?!"
"Hey, I'll admit I screwed up more than once, bad, but I did what was best for you and your mother in the end," Dean argued.
"BULLSHIT! You abandoned us! And then you fucked with our heads; played with our lives! Who gave you the right to do that?!"
"I did what I had to do to make sure you two would live normal lives!"
"Oh, yeah! Real normal I've got goin' on here! All of a sudden, I wake up one day and realize that this guy named Dean – who happened to have been the closest thing I ever had to a father – had his angel buddy change our memory right after he'd gotten us dragged into a demon lair and half killed, then left us, maybe forever. Totally normal! Totally normal to have all that crazy shit happen, and then get stabbed in the back.
"You know what I really don't get? How you just cleaned up after yourself, erased yourself from our lives, lied to our faces, and left, just like that!" he snapped his fingers. "It was so EASY for you! Did you even care–?!"
"EASY?!" Dean roared. "DIDN'T CARE? Leaving you and your mother behind was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life! You were family to me!"
"Then why did you leave?!"
"Because you weren't safe! Because you came within inches of dying because of me and all the crap I was wrapped up in. You can't be safe around me! You can't be safe knowing me!"
"Sorry to tell you, Dean, but danger doesn't just revolve around you! It tends to exist everywhere!"
"Oh, so whatever's happened to you in the past few years has been worse than, I dunno, getting murdered by a demon, or – or eaten by a Leviathan, or maybe stuck in the middle of a freakin' angel-on-angel gang hit? Gah!" he paced in an erratic circle, scrubbing his face in frustration. "What are you even doin' here, Ben? You're seventeen! You shouldn't be able to get into a bar!"
"Eighteen," Ben bit back.
Dean gave him a placating smile, "Nice try, kid. You're a month short. You're seventeen."
Ben didn't reply, sheepish. Dean was right; his birthday was in about three weeks.
"Where's your mother, anyway? Does she know what you've been up to?"
A grim smile crept across Ben's face with the appearance of this ammunition, "I would guess she doesn't, since she's dead."
Dean was still. "That's not funny."
Ben gave the tiniest of laughs, "No. It's not."
He wouldn't believe it. "You're lyin'."
"Oh, you don't trust me? Fine, then. Go visit her grave if you need proof," Ben tried to say it casually, but it was obviously difficult for him. "She's in the Cottonwood Hill Cemetery under the big oak tree."
Dean darted forward and grabbed Ben by his shirt, hissing through gritted teeth, "You stop makin' crap up! Stop making crap up just to hurt people! That's going to get you nowhere in life!"
Ben looked straight into Dean's eyes and held his gaze unwaveringly, a tear running down his cheek, "She died on April 13th, last year, when someone running down the street to catch a bus knocked her into the road where she was hit by an SUV going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. She was on her lunch break."
Dean now gripped Ben's shirt for support more than out of aggression, his head hung low. He shook slightly as he tried to control himself. Finally, he looked up and his face was wet with tears.
"Ben, I am so sorry."
Sam was watching from where he stood leaned against the brick façade of the bar, saddened at the sight. Watching Dean failing to hold himself together in the middle of a parking lot, the younger Winchester decided then to take a little blame off his brother for the whole angel possession thing. Just a little.
"It would have been easier if you'd been around," was Ben's reply. "Not easy… just easier. You could have showed us how to protect ourselves–."
"It would have gotten worse. It would have gotten so much worse," Dean shook his head. "Yeah, we had some good times, and I wish it could have kept on like that, but…."
"It did get pretty bad at the end," Ben admitted.
"Yeah, it did."
"I still don't get it, though," Ben continued. "You erased everything. What about all the good things that happened? Until I remembered you, I'd lived my life without anyone who I could have called a father."
Dean sighed noisily, distressed, "Don't do this to me again, Ben."
"What?" the kid seemed confused.
Dean straightened up, wiped his face and looked at Ben with a defeated expression, "I gotta go. I gotta go again."
"Of course, you do," Ben grumbled.
"I'm poison, Ben. You can't be around me without getting hurt. And we just can't have that, can we?"
Ben didn't say anything. He only looked away, appearing disappointed.
"Hey, you weren't expecting to leave here with me when you first saw me, right?" Dean teased. "So your expectations for the night haven't changed much."
"Yeah, I suppose," Ben responded noncommittally.
Dean gripped Ben's shoulder, "You got someone looking after you?"
"Yeah," Ben nodded. "Aunt Ronnie."
"Okay, good. And you're doing good in school, no problems?"
"Yeah, I'm doing fine, Dean."
"With the exception of what I'm assuming is making fake licenses to get into bars." Ben snickered. "Eh, I'm not one to talk. I've been there. Hell, I'm still there," he patted the pocket where his FBI badge was stowed. "And it won't be long, and you'll be out on your own anyway, right?"
"Yeah."
"I know it probably seems dumb of me to stand here and try and pretend like I'm your parent when I'm not meeting any of the requirements. I just don't want to leave without knowing… that you're gunna be okay."
Ben nodded, "I'll be okay."
"Good," Dean nodded reciprocally. "'Cause I'd be there, you know. If I could, I'd be watching out for you. Because, whether you're willing to believe it or not, you are, no joke, one of the people I care about most in this world. The only exception is probably your mother and Sam over there. You hear me?"
"Yeah… I hear you."
"'Kay," Dean replied, letting his hand drop from Ben's shoulder. "And hey; happy early birthday, kid."
"Thanks," Ben said quietly.
They stood in silence for a few moments. Then Ben slammed into Dean, wrapping his arms around the elder's chest. Surprised, it took Dean a moment to process Ben's action before returning the embrace. Tightly.
When they finally parted ways, Ben went to his car and Sam and Dean to the Impala. The three young men from the bar remained in the parking lot, dumbfounded, staring after the Winchesters. Hotshot was slouched against the tire of a car.
One of the passive two posed the question to all, "What the hell just happened?"
Later, out on the road, Sam glanced over to Dean, considering his timing. Tentatively, he decided it had been long enough since the encounter.
"Hey, Dean, uh…," he began hesitantly.
"Yeah?"
"I just wanted to say… about us and our… disagreement."
Dean sighed gustily. "I am really not in the mood right now, Sam."
"No, listen," Sam insisted. "What I said about you keeping people around… I was wrong."
Dean's eyebrows rose significantly at this.
"To an extent," Sam amended. "You still… totally violated my freedom of choice with Gadreel, but I was wrong about you keeping people around just because you don't want to be alone."
Dean's eyes narrowed as he tried to follow his sibling's stream of thought.
"I didn't recall… what you did after the demon… hostage situation and what you had Castiel do. That had to have been the last thing you wanted, but you did it anyway because it was better for them than subjecting them to the dangers that come with knowing a hunter."
There was silence for a moment.
"It still didn't really work out, though, did it?" Dean broke the quiet.
Sam looked over, surprised.
"I just can't do the right thing for the people I care about, can I, Sammy?"
Sam looked away, downcast. He didn't have any pleasant answers for his brother. The dark world beyond the car flew past as they cruised down the empty interstate.
Finally, Sam looked up; "Well, if we're looking at histories of crappy decisions, I'd say you're doing better than Cas."
Dean's expression lost its somber edge. "Well. That makes me feel better."
He looked over at his brother and grinned. Sam grinned back. They shared a quiet laugh. The Impala rushed on, pushing just a little faster than the 85mph speed limit.
A/N: Thanks for reading!