Eight days after his family died, Ben had a wet dream.
It was hardly a novel experience – he was a late-teenage boy, after all. Waking up in this sort of state had been par for the course for the past four years or so. Some of the guys at his old school had liked to compare their dreams, spinning contests to see who could come up with the wildest scenarios, the maximum output in the morning, or exchanging risk-tales of near-discovery by parents. Ben used to bluff his way through the contests, say he dreamed about Sarah Michelle Geller or the current head cheerleader or Miss Rodriguez the new math teacher. All lies. The dreams he could remember were only ever about one person.
It wasn't that he didn't like girls. He had dated three, and gotten to third base with one of them. He had never gone all the way yet. All the other guys had done it already, to hear them tell it – Jake Cunningham said he'd done it when he was fifteen with an eighteen-year-old. In Ben's opinion, that was actually kind of gross, but probably better than what he was: a virgin obsessed with his Mom's boyfriend. Ben thought he was going to do it with Jennifer Ellison-Michael. They had come really close. But then at the last minute, she had told him that she was waiting for someone who really loved her and wanted her. Then she'd broken up with him.
Ben awoke with a start, feeling the cooling wetness between skin and hard mattress. The shame of it almost made him weep now, in the sharp clear morning. He stumbled up, grabbed the sheets off the bed and bundled them into a ball hurriedly, praying desperately to a God he didn't believe that he hadn't stained the mattress. Furious with himself – with his body and his sick mind – he stuffed the sheets into a corner in lieu of a washing basket and took his shower punishingly cold. His tears mingled with the water on his cheeks, but by the time he finished and dried off, they had stopped again. He went and fetched his bedsheets, held them under the spray, then spread them over the ancient radiator in his bedroom, which creaked to life twice a day for a couple of hours in the early morning and evening.
"You're up early," said Bobby when Ben emerged in the dining room. He'd insisted that Ben call him Bobby – "no sense standin' on ceremony in this line of work, boy". A blush crept up the back of Ben's neck. Did he know? 'Of course not! Don't be stupid. And stop thinking like that, moron, before you give yourself away.'
"Adam taking you training?"
Bobby slid a plate of pancakes in front of him.
"Adam's back?"
"Got back last night. Thought you you'da seen him."
"No I…I feel asleep early."
"Well, my guess is he'll be sleepin in a while yet. Give me time to show you some important things."
So. This was it. Adam had disappeared the day after dropping Ben at the house – some kind of poltergeist emergency – and Bobby had mostly left Ben to himself, giving him some space he supposed. Ben was sick of space. He needed action. Needed to be doing something, to try and feel like a human again.
"How're you doing, kid?" Bobby was watching him from the corner of his eye, though he was facing the stove still.
"Alright, I guess," Ben shrugged, then remembered the line that was meant for such situations: "As well as can be expected."
"Alright then. Finish up, and come into the study with me."
By the time Adam did emerge, three and a half hours later, Ben kind of felt like an idiot in school – hunters, for all the bravado that some of them put on, were apparently not short on brain cells. The nightmare of what existed in darkness seemed to go on forever- and for every creature there were different rules, different patterns, different ways to track and kill. Bobby's collection of lore books spanned fourteen languages: he might dress like a redneck, as Mom would've put it, but Ben had never yet met a redneck fluent in both Classical and Modern Standard Arabic.
"Whaddaya mean you don't know, I just told you didn't I?" Bobby glared at Ben from behind the desk: "Goddamit boy, you listen worse than-" and stopped himself, as their eyes met in appalled shock, realizing all over again. 'He knew him,', Ben thought in wonder, 'when he was just a kid. Younger than me.' The notion that Dean could've ever been a child was ludicrous. Bobby cleared his throat, shuffled papers.
"Give the brain a break maybe," Adam suggested from the doorway. "I could take Ben outside, start some target practice. You got something simple he can use here Bobby?"
"Alright, alright. Just don't come cryin' to me when a djinn is stringin' you up by the ceiling and lead bullets are about as deadly as paperclips." Bobby shuffled to a shelf and selected a box, which he opened to reveal a simple handgun. "You be careful now," he told Ben as he prepared to load it. "Every one of the Winchesters practiced with this. Sam, Dean and Adam here-"
"No," said Ben quickly.
"What?"
"I can't." The room was starting to spin. Ben felt his breathing speed up – faster, out of control. He couldn't touch that gun – it was sacred. His vision narrowed until it was all he could see, the dull gleaming metal in the wooden box. He imagined Dean holding it, aiming it, perfect – and it seemed like he couldn't get enough air to last even another minute. The gun must stay safe and untouched, a memorial –
"Ben!" Adam was gripping him by the shoulders. Ben realized he was on his knees. "Breathe!"
Ben breathed.
Adam's hands remained firm on his shoulders, slim fingers surprisingly strong. Their grip in his muscles hurt a little, and he focused on that.
Gradually, the room settled again. Ben could see. Bobby was peering down at him, looking like he wanted to kneel, but it obviously wasn't easy with his bad leg. Adam squeezed a little and released him. Ben forced himself to his feet.
"I know it's hard," Bobby said gently. "But I think he would want you to have it."
If only he knew. How perverse Ben was – how only that night, he had sullied Dean's shining memory.
"I don't deserve it," Ben said shakily.
Bobby placed the handle of the gun in his palm. It felt cool firm, and with a sense of helplessness, Ben's fingers closed over it.
TBC