Chapter Text
The scorch mark is gone.
Ben peers up at the ceiling above the couch, but it's daylight now and the results are unambiguous: where the alpha had broken through Jesse's trap last night is now smooth, unmarred plaster.
Was it Dean? He'd mentioned something about spackle as they all retired to their beds, reminding Ben how he used to build houses once, back when they were all pretending to be a normal family. But Dean and Marie went out to buy groceries soon after breakfast, and this repair is too seamless for an ordinary patch job. Ben looks over the rest of the ceiling, in case he somehow mistook the burn's placement. The entire expanse above him remains clean and white. As he turns he notices that the far wall, too, has been scrubbed of its carved threat. Marie's entire living room looks as pristine as he's ever seen it, and for a moment Ben has the horrible thought that he's trapped in another dream.
Then he looks down, and sees that the carpet is still stained with blood.
Not a dream, then. Someone just wiped away last night's scars as though they never were—like healing a wound, Ben thinks, and then of course he knows exactly who it was.
It takes him a minute of searching inside the house before he spots the figure slouched against the gray shed in the backyard. As ever, it appears Jesse feels safest with the open sky above him. Ben toes into his sneakers and goes out into the summer morning.
Jesse plucks the cigarette from his mouth as soon as he hears someone coming, then sees who it is and slowly lets out a smoky breath. Ben leans against the clapboards next to him and says, "So someone fixed the ceiling."
Jesse spins the lit cigarette so ash flutters off into the mud at their feet. "I figured your aunt's pissed enough at me already without adding property damage to the list."
"You know, she's really not," Ben says, but Jesse keeps talking.
"I tried to fix all of it. I wanted to. It's just, it took me so many tries just to get those scratches out of the wall, and then I had to put the trap back together—"
"The ceiling's still a trap?" Ben asks, alarmed—what would happen if Jesse got caught again?
Jesse shakes his head. "Claire wiped it away. It was only chalk." He takes another long drag and lets it out.
Ben thinks of the little stub Dean keeps in one pocket at all times. Dean apologized last night, and well he should have, but Jesse's a better person than Ben to have actually forgiven him. "How you feeling now?"
"I'm fine," Jesse says. "I'm not gonna lose it again, I promise."
Ben huffs. "Not why I asked." After a moment's hesitation, he leans his shoulder against Jesse's. "You wanna talk about it?"
Jesse looks sideways at him. "Talk about what?"
Ben shifts away—probably still too soon for casual touching; Jesse's got every right to want a little personal space. "This," Ben says. "What happened. What happens now."
"What does happen now?" says Jesse, smoke lacing his words. "Cause clearly I'm still not good enough at controlling myself, and if you—if you and Claire don't want to risk it any longer, I'd understand."
Ben huffs. "Jesse, anyone else in your situation would have left this house a smoking crater. Do you even understand how strong you are to stop yourself from destroying things every single day?"
"You called me," he counters. "You needed my help and I didn't come. I told you you couldn't rely on me."
"Are you kidding me right now?" says Ben. "Dude, you should have been calling us as soon as you figured out you were in a trap." He frowns. "Come to think of it, why didn't you?"
Jesse looks down, flicking nonexistent ash from the tip of his cigarette. After a while he looks up, as though checking to see if Ben will let him get away with silence, but Ben just raises his eyebrows at him. Finally Jesse shrugs. "I thought it was dumb, okay? It wasn't even hurting me, it's just a stupid trap, I should've been able to—" He sucks in more smoke, short and sharp. "I just stood there waffling about it like a fuckin' idiot for an age and a half. When the alpha showed up she threw my phone where I couldn't reach, and then I was too busy nearly burning your aunt's house down to think about it."
"You should always call," Ben says. "Anything hurts you, you should say so, even if you think it's stupid. We could've let you out and then none of this would've happened."
Jesse kicks the ground. "Sorry I can't handle my shit, I guess."
"That's not—" Ben starts, then takes a breath. It hasn't done any good the last hundred times he's told Jesse that this isn't his fault; perhaps Ben needs to try a different tack. "Look. Were you mad at me for what I said when Brigitta dosed me up?"
"Mad?" Jesse blinks. "No."
"Exactly, because I was tripping balls," Ben says. He nudges Jesse's shoulder again. "So how could I be mad at you for what you did when you got whammied?"
Jesse sucks the last sparks out of his cigarette and tosses the butt aside. "Yeah, but you didn't nearly kill anyone, did you?"
"Hey, last I checked, everybody who walked into that room walked back out of it."
"Only because you and Claire stopped me."
Ben turns so he and Jesse are facing each other, his heart thumping. "Look at me."
Jesse sets his jaw and stares back at Ben, but his stubbornness doesn't last very long and his gaze soon drops. Ben waits patiently until he chances another look.
"Wasn't us that stopped you," he says. "Not really. We could've talked until our throats gave out, but it still wouldn't have made any difference if you hadn't wanted to stop yourself. And you did."
"Barely," Jesse rasps. "I was so angry, Ben, if that had gone just a little bit the other way—"
"You fought it. When push came to shove, you kept yourself from hurting anyone. Just like we knew you would." Ben reaches up to cup Jesse's cheek in one hand, an undeniable gesture. "You're a good person, Jesse."
Jesse shakes his head against Ben's palm. Even when he won't make eye contact, Ben can tell his eyes are hazel.
"You are," he says, even quieter. "You're good." And again: "You're good." When Jesse lets out a breath, clear of smoke this time, Ben asks: "Can I kiss you?"
That makes him look up at last. "You still want to?"
"Yes," Ben says fiercely, and before he can finish the word Jesse yanks him forward by the shirt front and kisses him on the mouth.
Ben eagerly takes advantage of what may be his only chance to tug Jesse's bottom lip between his teeth, running his fingers up Jesse's ribs at the same time. Jesse's mouth goes slack and Ben slips his tongue inside, expects for a split second to taste sulfur, but he tastes like nothing: just warmth and slick and the last hints of tobacco smoke. He presses his thumbs to the hinge of Jesse's jaw and loses quite a bit of time trying to memorize the ridges on the roof of his mouth. Ben wants to touch every inch of Jesse he can reach, and this time, like a miracle, Jesse touches him back.
When their hips slot together, seemingly of their own accord, Jesse pulls away with a breathy little noise. "Not complaining or anything," he says, "but maybe slow down when we're out in the open, yeah?"
Ben's eyes cut over to the house, which would offer a perfectly clear view of them to anyone in the kitchen who cared to look. He turns back to Jesse, and sees the same thought cross his mind: they can't let Claire find out like this.
"I'm gonna tell her," Ben says, still quiet, still close. "She's—she deserves to know, right?"
"Right. Yeah." Jesse lets go of him, his fingers dragging a little across Ben's bare neck, making him shiver in spite of everything. He hesitates for a moment, then says, "Should I—would it help if I was—"
"Think I'd better go myself, first," says Ben. Jesse nods and looks at the ground. "But I'll be back soon, all right?"
Jesse casts another glance at the house. "Well, I won't wait up." He pulls out another cigarette.
Ben leans up and pecks him on the cheek, earning a surprised half-smile. "Don't worry," he orders, and sets off back to the house, hoping he doesn't look too flushed.
He gets back inside to find Claire back to scrubbing the carpet. "Katie's been texting you," Claire informs him, only briefly glancing up from her work. "About Marie. You left your phone upstairs." She grinds liquid into the carpet a little harder with a cloth that's slowly turning pink, then deliberately lets out a breath. "How's Jesse?"
"He's coming around," Ben chooses, though he doesn't specify to what. This is going to be harder than he thought. He sits down on the couch, close but not too close to where Claire is working. "So, uh—" At the last minute his nerve fails him. "You know, you don't have to clean that up yourself."
"My mom hated it when we left stains on the carpet," Claire says. It's maybe the fifth time ever that Ben can remember Claire mentioning her mother in all the years they've been together, and something in her movements broadcasts a warning loud and clear that now is not the time for a talk. But if not now, when? Ben knows how easy it is to make a habit of silence. He steels himself.
"Claire," he says quietly, and she looks up. "Can we talk a minute?"
After a beat Claire wipes off her hands and stands up. "About?"
Ben was feeling pretty good about his ability to make important speeches after he managed to talk Jesse down, but that confidence has completely abandoned him now. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to make eye contact. "I know you don't like talking about it," he begins, but that's not a good place to start; why is this so difficult?
Claire waits for him, frowning as long seconds tick by, and then something in Ben's face makes her blanch. "He told you."
"What?" says Ben, trying to imagine what she thinks Jesse said about her, but Claire just swears.
"That son of a bitch. He knows what's happening to me, doesn't he? What did he say?"
Ben has completely lost the thread of this conversation and it hasn't even started yet. "Claire, who are you talking about?"
She shuts her mouth abruptly. Then, stubborn even in uncertainty, she says. "Castiel. He was here earlier. Weren't you with him?"
"What? I mean, yes, but he didn't talk to me, that's not what I wanted to—" Belatedly, her words catch up with him. "What do you mean, what's happening to you?"
Claire turns away, but not so quickly that Ben misses the flash of panic crossing her face. "My mistake, then," she says, but this isn't embarrassment, it's actual fear, and everything else completely flees Ben's mind.
"Claire. What's happening to you?"
She presses a fist against her sternum and doesn't answer, but Ben gets a glimmer of understanding: Castiel. Her grace. The strange way her reactions have amplified whenever someone tells a lie. What if she's getting worse?
"Claire?"
"Look, there's a reason I didn't say anything, okay?" she says, hugging herself. "I just want to keep going like normal, for however—for now."
"For however long until what?" Ben moves in front of her so she has to stay. She doesn't answer. He knows better than to touch her but he grabs her arm anyway, needing to feel something solid. "We said no passes on the stuff that might kill us, Claire, how long until what?"
She clenches her jaw mutinously and pulls out of his grip, then gives up all at once. "Not us," she says softly, staring at the ground. "Just me."
It takes Ben a second to understand. Then the whole world seems to tilt under his feet, and he finds he can't move a muscle.
"It started after Purgatory," Claire says, in the same detached voice she'd use to talk about a case. "My sigils broke, remember, and I was bleeding a lot, and then I think—I guess Castiel must have healed me. I don't know why." She drags her fingernails along her jeans. "He knocked something loose. The grace, everything that comes with it, it's been getting worse."
What Ben remembers is how heavy Claire had felt as he held her up on bleeding legs, and how pale and slack her face had become by the time Jesse finally closed Purgatory's gate. It was defending Ben that she got hurt in the first place—and it was Ben, afterward, who demanded that Castiel heal her. "What does that mean?" he asks, hoarse.
Claire shrugs stiffly. "I talked to Ben Collins," she says. "Haley's little brother. He helped Emily, after Meg; apparently he knows something about damaged souls."
"But you're not," Ben says, and that gets Claire to look up.
"I am," she says. "And I'm not getting better."
"How can you just stand there and be calm about this?" Ben demands, pacing from one side of the rug to the other. "We have to do something, we have to find a way to reverse it. You've been living with that grace for ages!"
"And who knows how much longer I'd have gotten, even without this acceleration," Claire points out. "This isn't coming from the last two months, it's coming from the last ten years. Humans aren't made to hold anything more than their own soul; vessels get cracks." She smiles, bitter. "How's that for some fine print?"
His rage on her behalf makes up Ben's mind. "I'm calling Castiel."
"Don't you dare," she says, grabbing his wrist, but Ben struggles away.
"This isn't a crossroads deal come due! You didn't know this would happen, he can't just leave you like this on top of everything else—"
"Listen!" Claire snaps. "The last time Castiel touched me he made everything exponentially worse, do you really think I trust him to undo it all?"
"What else are you going to do, Claire?" Ben demands. "Because I am not just gonna sit here and watch you die!"
"What?"
They both turn. Jesse stands in the kitchen doorway, gripping the frame like he's about to fall down.
And of course Ben has completely lost track of his original mission in coming here, but he's not going to derail them now; this is too important. "Did you know about this?" he demands, gesturing at Claire. "Her grace, it's killing her, she didn't even—" He turns back to Claire. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"Yes, so far this revelation has gone swimmingly, whyever would I want to put it off?" Claire bites out. "There's nothing you can do, Ben."
Jesse steps into the room with them, and his earlier slouch has disappeared. "There's not much I can't do," he says. The unbroken ceiling over his head is testament to that fact.
Claire looks up at him, bleak. "It's grace, Jesse. You're the Antichrist. It doesn't want you to touch it."
"This is why you always feel like you've got a fever, isn't it?" Jesse says. "That's why your headaches are getting worse."
"Maybe you haven't noticed," Claire snaps, "but whenever you try to heal me, it hurts. Angels don't go down quietly. And for all we know, tearing it out will kill me faster than letting it rot in there." She lays her palm flat across her collarbone and presses down.
"You still should've said," says Ben, but Claire straightens her shoulders and lets her hand drop.
"What good would it have done?" she says. "Why is this better? The situation is exactly the same, except now it's all three of us freaking out. We've got plenty to worry about with the things we can fix—I didn't see the point in adding the stress of something we can't!"
Before Ben can respond, Jesse speaks. "I can't change what I am either," he says, his voice low. "Still rather have people to help bear it, though."
Claire darts a glance at Ben and chews her bottom lip. "I just don't want things to change," she says, quieter still. "I like the way things are now. I want it to stay like this. But now you're going to start acting like I'll break—"
"We won't," says Ben, even though a minute ago he was looking for signs she was about to drop dead on the spot. He wants very badly to trust that Claire won't let this destroy her, not when she's always fought tooth and nail against anyone else's idea of fate, but he needs to be sure. "Will you keep looking, though? Will you let us help?"
She takes a deep breath. "On one condition." She makes eye contact with each of them in turn. "Whatever we find, or don't find, or you think I should try, I'm the one who gets to make the final call. And if I decide something's not worth it, you have to live with that, because it's still my body and I have had enough of people doing whatever they think is best to it. All right?"
"All right," Ben says, "but." He takes a step closer. He's never known how to say this, but that's not going to stop him trying. "You remember that wendigo hunt in Wisconsin, about six months after we met?"
Claire looks up at him, then away; that's one of the ones they don't talk about. "Why?"
"I was going to die." Ben has no illusions about this: if Claire hadn't shown up in the nick of time, he wouldn't be standing here now. "But you wouldn't let me. You dragged me down that mountain yourself, in the dark, and we'd just had that huge awful fight but you still stayed. That's when I knew." Ben clears his throat and doesn't say the word love—Jesse's listening, after all, and anyway that's not the point. "So that's my condition, okay? Just stay with me."
"Ben, you can't ask me that," says Claire, barely audible, and it's almost like they're having the conversation he came here to have in the first place.
"I'm not asking for anything else," he says carefully. "Be sad, be angry, whatever. But you gotta believe there's a way out of this, all right? I'll find you a way out if it's the last thing I do, so—don't die. That's your job. Just don't die."
There's a pointed silence, and Ben wishes that for once, just for once, Claire would put aside technicalities and promise him what he needs to hear.
She looks down, and for a second her eyes shine overfull. Then she sniffs, mouth quirking, and it's like the tears never were. "You'd get yourselves in trouble the minute I was gone, anyway."
"Be a shame to waste our God-given talent for it," Jesse says, and Ben laughs aloud, more than a little watery himself.
The door opens then, and Dean's noisy entrance breaks the tension before Ben can embarrass them all with a group hug. "Yo, birthday boy," Dean calls, hefting a plastic grocery bag. "Get over here."
Ben perks up—in all the excitement he'd completely forgotten the date. Dean starts unpacking to reveal a vast, slightly-dented sheet cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY looped in frosting across the top and a sticky blue shape in one corner that was probably once a car. It is clearly a cake for a six-year-old.
"The other option was clowns," Dean says at the look Ben gives him. "Why they couldn't have picked a self-respecting car—"
"No, it's—it's pretty awesome," Ben snickers. Jesse drifts closer to stare at the cake over Ben's shoulder, eyes wide, and Ben wonders when he last saw an ordinary kid's birthday cake like this.
"Can't rent a moonbounce in this town for love or money, either," Dean adds. "Not that you're small enough to have one. I mean, not that you couldn't have one, if you wanted, but I think those things have a size limit. Whatever, you know what I mean." He rubs his hands together. "Man, I remember the first time I ever met you, you told me chicks dig moonbounces. Little eight-year-old kid laying down the moves."
Claire raises one eyebrow at him across the table. "What?" says Ben, embarrassed but mostly laughing. "I was born with game, okay. Irresistible."
"That explains it," Jesse says beside him, so low only Ben can hear, but it makes his cheeks turn hot for another reason.
He's saved from replying by Marie, who appears in the doorway her her own arms full of plastic bags. "We brought chicken wings!" she says. "And ice cream. And potato chips. And—well. It's been awhile since this house was full of hungry teenagers, but we should have enough to last us an hour or two, at least." She drops the bags on the table.
"Not a teenager anymore," Dean says, slinging an arm around Ben from the side opposite Jesse. Jesse edges out of reach. "It's the big two-oh! Soon he'll be drinking, and then what'll we do?"
"Yes, soon," Marie quips, sounding exactly like her sister. "Hang on, I've got some candles in the cupboard." She reappears a few minutes later with four thin waxy sticks, and places them around the corners of the cake. "Four candles times five people equals twenty," she announces, "and that will have to be good enough."
"I'll do the honors." Dean brings out his Zippo and lights them up. "I'd say make a wish, but—"
"I think we're all kind of burnt out on wishes," Ben says. And as he looks around the room, seeing so many people he loves lit by the shared glow of the candles, he doesn't know what more he could wish for anyway.
"Next year in Jerusalem," he declares instead, and meets Marie's exasperated "that's Passover, Ben," with a sloppy kiss to her cheek.
"Go on, then," says Jesse, nodding at the cake.
Claire's mouth twitches. "And many more."
And many more, Ben thinks, and blows the candles out.