Ben was a chicken about a lot of things, but he was fine with blood. There were a few kids in his old class who cut their arms on purpose: he had tried it once, thinking there must be something in it if everybody was doing it, but it basically just hurt a bit and got blood drips on his carpet. The kids used to say it released your anxiety or some shit, but after that he pretty sure they were just doing it for the image.

Hard to believe he would find himself like this: up to his calves in lake-water, at full dark, holding his left arm out in front of him and holding a hilted knife in his right. Some of the fishers had been out late that night – some kind of campfire get together – and he and Adam had to wait until the early hours for the last to pack up and go home.

"I feel like a Goth wannabe," he complained to Adam.

"You want me to make the cut?" Adam asked mildly.

"Nah. Just – don't miss the shot, okay?"

"The Kraken's head is a pretty damn big target."

"Yeah. Okay. Sorry." Ben drew the knife once across his left forearm, below his rolled-up sleeve. Adam had sharpened it carefully – red blood welled brightly a second before he felt the sting. "Come and get it," he muttered, squeezed his fist, and a few large drops spattered into the water in time with his pulse. Red dissolved and swirled quickly into the inky dark lake. Hurriedly Ben stepped back, and they retreated up the shoreline.

"Well," said Adam after a moment: "This is anti-climactic." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a deep ripple rose and swelled in the water.

"Shit." Ben couldn't help the nervous exclamation – the ripples were coming faster and harder now, up and up to the shoreline, and a dark shape was rising up, rearing to loom over them –

- the Kraken, massive and tentacled, its small eyes gleaming with a feral intelligence. As it approached, a wound seemed to open and gape in its face, revealing itself as a horrible mouth, filled with two lines of carnivorous teeth. Adam's gunshot cracked loud over the sound of the waves, and the Kraken's huge head rocked back with the force of the bullet. It entered squarely between the eyes, splitting the wet flesh, thudding deeply into the muscle and bone. The Kraken lurched backwards, then forwards again-

- and kept coming.

"What?" Adam gasped.

"Shoot it again!" Ben shouted. Adam did – to similar effect. The beast moving towards them was now missing a long strip from its upper cortex.

"That's it!" Adam shouted. "I'm out of silver bullets."
Ben fired his own gun. And again, and again.

"Ben, run!" Adam was shouting. But it wasn't supposed to be like this. Ben didn't want to fail. He had failed with the shapeshifter (failed his family, failed his mother and Dean), and he needed to kill this now, needed to know he could still have effect in the world. The hard force of anger and grief seemed to rise up, from his guts through his arm to the gun. Needed Adam to see he could –

"What are you doing?" Adam had him by the arm. But something else had him by the right leg, for the Kraken was now upon them. Its cold, muscular tentacle, like iron under wet rubber, wrapped around his right calf and pulled hard enough to yank his feet out from under him. He landed on his back, hard, a jag of pain going up his leg as though it was torn from its hip socket. A second tentacle slid up his side, reaching for his face, his neck, to strangle him –

- And then Adam was right there and hurling a whole bag of rock salt directly into the Kraken's face. Salt dripped and sprayed onto Ben. It poured into the Kraken's open mouth, packed into its open wounds, and the beast screamed and thrashed spasmodically, one of its tentacles catching Adam solidly in the stomach. The agonized monster didn't have the co-ordination to grab him, but the impact threw him several feet where he landed hard on the rocky ground. The Kraken shriveled into itself and retreated, scurrying frantically back to the water, desperate to wash the salt from its mouth and wounds.

Ben lay there and stared at the stars for a moment. Judging by the pain lancing all the way up and down it, his leg was still attached.

"Adam?" he called when he had the breath.

"What. The Hell." Adam sounded pained.

"I'm sorry." It was all he could think to say. The stars twinkled brightly, beautifully. Ben felt tears prick at his eyes.

"No," Adam got unsteadily to his feet. "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have brought you. Maybe I shouldn't have brought you to Bobby's. But…I didn't know what to do."

It was imperative then, that he be looking at Adam's face. With effort Ben sat up. Adam was offering his hands to help him. Ben took them and pulled himself up, taking most of his weight on his left leg.

"It's way too soon." Adam's sympathetic eyes held his own.

"No!" Ben was panicked. Was Adam going to get rid of him? He'd been nothing but a liability so far….with a sudden, desperate need to show Adam what he was feeling, Ben grabbed his face and kissed him again. Harder this time.

And Adam's lips opened slightly.

Probably it was surprise, but the touch of their tongue tips sent an electric jolt all the way down Ben's body.

"You have really got to stop doing that," Adam said when he broke the kiss. His pupils were dilated and his pale cheeks flushed lightly. "You only get so many trauma passes. After that it's just sexual harassment."

"Don't send me back," Ben said fiercely. Then: "Please. I want to finish this."

"Finishing it is the question right now. That is not a regular Kraken. Let's go back to the tent. We've got to sleep, and think about this."

"Sleep?" Ben was agitated. "With – that out there?"

"Unlike our intrepid forebearers, I am not a superhero." Adam actually yawned. Probably the adrenalin comedown. "It is 2.30 a.m., and I didn't inherit the Winchester talent for solving mysteries without at least a certain amount of sleep."

"I'm sorry," Ben said. "I shouldn't have – I don't know…."

"We'll talk about it in the morning," Adam told him, a little sharper. "But – you have to follow my lead on this. I brought you into this, for better or worse, and I can't be responsible for…"

"If I die it's my own fault," Ben blurted.

Adam held his gaze and said very calmly, "You're not going to die."

TBC