Chapter Text
Ben sleeps tucked into bed between them the first night, providing a barrier to Sam’s touch that Dean is shamed but grateful to be benefiting from, but first thing the next morning, Sam announces that they’re turning his old study into a bedroom. He accomplishes the transformation in the span of a single afternoon. Dean doesn’t get to see just how his brother manages the trick by virtue of being smothered in a black nothingness—it isn’t sleep, nowhere dreams can find him; just some unknown Limbo twisted through with golden bars of Sam’s power. Dean comes out of that void with his skin beading cold sweat and his heartbeat uneven in his chest. There’s something more terrifying than usual about having his mind so clearly locked out of the fight when he knows his body is lying accessible in the suite for Sam to… well, for Sam to do whatever the fuck he wants to.
And Dean thought it was difficult to keep track of time living in the suite, but at least there, he was able to watch the sun rise and set. He could look out the window and note the passing of the seasons, not that he’s really cared to pay any more attention to his surroundings than Sam has forced him to.
Weeks could have passed in that black, drifting nothingness. It could have been months.
Dean really only has Sam’s word to reassure him that he was out for such a short length of time. Not even the sight of Ben jumping up and down on the oversized racecar bed Sam has installed in the new bedroom is proof of anything. After all, Sam has already turned the clock back for Ben once; there’s nothing stopping him from doing it again.
“I had to keep you safe,” Sam breathes as Dean watches Ben launch himself from the mattress to continue exploring the room. Sam’s hands rest heavily on Dean’s shoulders, gripping and kneading in a slow massage. His breath stirs the too-long curls of hair at the back of Dean’s neck when he leans in close to nuzzle against Dean’s cheek. “Couldn’t risk any more… accidents… with the help.”
Dean believes that Sam’s need to keep him safe and hidden form the basis of his decision to toss Dean into the dark for a while. But there’s something about the deliberate, almost painful pressure of his fingers digging into Dean’s shoulders that tells Dean there are other reasons as well, one of which is doubtless another jabbing bit of punishment for his sudden, renewed resistance.
As though having Ben here and being forced to live this twisted charade isn’t already bad enough.
But Dean stands still beneath Sam’s hands, and lets his brother touch him, and when Ben finally hurdles over to collide against Dean’s legs in a hug, Dean lifts a hand to ruffle his hair.
“Good boy,” Sam breathes in his ear. His voice is just soft enough that Dean’s sure it doesn’t reach Ben, but the kid has to feel the shudder that the words send through Dean’s body. If Ben does notice the shiver, though, he doesn’t react to it; just tilts his head up beneath Dean’s hand and grins.
Dean isn’t sure that the smile he offers in return is at all convincing, but it’s the best he can do.
Dean expects Sam to disappear again the next morning—whatever emergency drove him from the suite two days ago can’t have vanished—but Sam doesn’t. Sam seems determined to spend every waking minute he can spare ensuring that his twisted Brady bunch is functioning the way he wants it to. Dean really wishes that he wouldn’t, not the least because Sam is freaky as shit when he steps out onto the balcony to “work”. It’s easy to see just when Sam establishes a mental connection with his generals on the front line because his entire body stiffens into a taut, attentive position. His hands tighten on the railing where he’s staring sightlessly out on the city. The air around him fogs with power—Dean can feel it through the sliding glass doors. He can taste sulfur burning at the back of his throat.
Ben doesn’t seem to think there’s anything unusual about it.
The only thing that gets Dean through those first few days, pinned down beneath Sam’s watchful eyes, is the knowledge that Sam can’t keep this up forever. The kind of oversight he’s maintaining on the demons fighting for him might be enough to hold his ground, but it sure as hell isn’t enough to win. Not with Sam and his considerable powers holed up here, instead of melting people’s brains out of their skulls wherever the battles are being waged these days.
Dean lets his awareness that Sam will have to leave them alone sometime buoy his spirits without consciously considering just why he’s so anxious for that moment. The half-thoughts and plans he’s entertaining at the back of his head aren’t safe to acknowledge these days, not with Sam dipping in to check the internal weather of Dean’s mind whenever he damn well feels like it. Seems like every time Dean gets too still, or whenever he isn’t convincing enough as the doting father and pampered boyfriend, he feels a lick of fire across the surface of his thoughts, followed by the soft, insidious brush of heated tendrils through his soul.
Then, inevitably, there are corrections: one emotion blocked off, another stroked into full bloom. Depression, resentment, anger, fear—those are clearly unacceptable in Sam’s eyes. The slightest hint of contentment, or happiness, or love, though, and Dean finds himself drowning in it like the perfect little Stepford wife Sam apparently wants him to be. The results of Sam’s tampering don’t last long—an hour at most—but every time Dean’s allowed to reset to normal, his skin goes cold and his hands shake.
It makes him sick, just how easily Sam can toy with his emotions. It makes him scared for Ben, left unprotected while Dean is floating in his own personal Prozac haze. And underneath everything there’s a futile, creeping anger that makes Dean excuse himself to the bathroom before he does something stupid. Sam always watches him go with a tiny, satisfied smile on his face, which pisses Dean off to no end.
What the fuck is Sam trying to prove here, anyway? That he can screw around with Dean’s heart as well as his head? That isn’t news; he’s done it before. He’s done it a shitload of times, in fact. Not with this maddening frequency and repetition, but still. Not exactly a new trick. Which means that he’s either seeing how far he can push Dean before he explodes or he’s just bored and messing around for kicks.
Or then there’s the ever popular option number three: that Sam’s being Sam and following some kind of fucked up, Machiavellian agenda that Dean doesn’t have a hope in hell of deciphering.
Whatever Sam’s reasons, as the days tick past, it takes Dean longer and longer to rid himself of the nauseous shakes that inevitably follow Sam’s display. Sam might not be forcing much physical attention on him—nothing more than an inordinate amount of hugs, possessive touches and soft, coaxing kisses—but Dean thinks he’d prefer a physical attack to this more insidious emotional one. It’s winding him up tight inside, making him want so very badly to lash out, to hit something—maybe, he thinks on their fifth afternoon together as a family, even slice up the pretty, pretty face Sam is so damn taken with. See how much Sam likes him then.
It isn’t really a serious thought—he knows Sam would just heal him up again, no sweat—but it’s the only action Dean can think of taking that will cause Sam even a few moments of distress. It’s also probably what brings Sam into the bathroom, which has unofficially been Dean’s sanctuary from the pressure of maintaining a pleasant façade for Ben. Dean hears the door click open, of course, but it’s really the pulse of power against his skin that gives Sam away. Sam can’t seem to stand in the same room as Dean without reaching out to stroke him.
Sam shuts the door behind him—muffling the sound of Scooby Doo coming from the TV—and says, “Someone isn’t doing a very good job of holding onto his happy thoughts.”
Responses seethe behind Dean’s teeth; he has to close his eyes and clench his jaw to keep them from spilling out. Tension thrums through his body as Sam comes further into the room, approaching Dean where he’s leaning over the sink. When Sam untucks Dean’s dress shirt from his pants and pushes a hand up underneath it to touch his tattoo, Dean’s throat works with a resurgence of the nausea that had him bent over the toilet ten minutes before. Mixed with the pleasure soaking into him from the tattoo, the response is cloying, and Dean jerks with an instinctive attempt to move away.
“Uh uh,” Sam scolds, and the cuffs around Dean’s wrists heat, snapping flush with the counter where he was leaning like they’re magnetized.
Dean knows he isn’t going anywhere, but he can’t seem to help pulling against the cuffs anyway in a reflexive bid for freedom. His face heats at Sam’s amused chuckle; he twists in the small space allotted him between Sam and the counter as his brother steps in, sliding a second hand beneath Dean’s untucked shirt beside the first. The steady flow of pleasure becomes a rush, streaming directly up to Dean’s head and down to his cock.
It’s unexpected after the relative distance Sam has been keeping over the last few days, and Dean’s body seems extra sensitive for the reprieve. He curls his hands into fists where they’re trapped against the cool marble of the counter, hangs his head and drops his mouth open in a pant.
“We need to talk, Dean.”
Desperate anger threads through the arousal and Dean’s a little proud of how cold his voice sounds when he spits, “So talk.”
Sam makes a disappointed noise at the back of his throat and an invisible fist of power grips Dean’s hair, jerking his head up. His eyes find Sam in the mirror instantly, avoiding his own face, but their positions are close enough to what they were during Sam’s little Q and A session that the memory of shame stings the back of Dean’s throat.
Lies, he reminds himself. Not everything he made you say was true.
“Contrary to what you might think,” Sam announces in a deceptively light tone, “I’m glad you’ve managed to find your feet again. Anger suits you. I love the way it sings in those pretty, pretty eyes of yours.”
Embarrassment smolders in Dean’s chest, deepening when he notices the smirk that lifts Sam’s lips—Sam knows just how that kind of focused attention on his looks makes Dean feel, damn it. Dean refuses to admit to it aloud, though, and draws from a well of bravado he didn’t know he possessed to snap, “Fuck you.”
It’s maybe a little too much, because Sam’s eyes narrow and, an instant later, concentrated pleasure rolls through Dean’s insides. Dean’s breath escapes in a compressed grunt as he bucks his hips forward against the edge of the counter. He wasn’t exactly soft before—he can’t help himself when Sam touches him like this; he always responds, always—but suddenly he’s painfully aware that he’s going to have to change at least his underwear when they’re done here. Fuck, he feels wet down there: cock full and aching for something Dean refuses to ask for.
Sam scents the air like he can smell Dean’s arousal—who knows, maybe he can—and then slides one hand around the side of Dean’s body so that he can drag his fingernails over Dean’s twitching stomach muscles.
“I don’t want to break you, baby,” he breathes in Dean’s ear, sending power in the shape of phantom hands to stroke down the exposed length of Dean’s throat, along his sides, between his thighs.
Dean bites the inside of his cheek—not quite hard enough to break the skin: now is not the time to piss Sam off by damaging his property—to keep from moaning.
“Maybe you think that’s a lie, but I don’t. I love you, Dean: all of you. I’ve missed seeing that fire in your eyes.”
Dean chances a quick glance at his own reflection, looking for this supposed fire Sam’s talking about, and isn’t sure just what emotion it is simmering in his gaze. There is some anger there, but it seems to Dean that it’s mostly buried beneath a seething mass of humiliation and arousal and fear and, yeah, okay, love. When he returns his eyes to his brother, there’s no such chaos in Sam’s eyes. Nothing but reverent tenderness, undeniable even through the distorting sheen of gold.
Sam’s looking at Dean like he means something.
Dean may not be able to turn his head with Sam’s power still wrapped in his hair, but as his stomach twists with denial, he can and does shut his eyes. The self-imposed darkness seems to redouble all of the physical sensations of Sam’s caresses, but Dean will gladly take that over that hurtful, deceiving expression on his brother’s face. That dangerous expression.
Even after everything Sam has done, despite the monster he has become and the secrets he was keeping in that locked and warded drawer, too much of Dean still wants to believe.
Dean forces that longing down as Sam’s hand pushes higher up to tug at his right nipple. He swallows it as his brother’s lips graze the edge of his ear.
“But you’re aiming all that anger in the wrong direction,” Sam continues. “I’m not the one who fucked up here. I’m not the one who went snooping around where I shouldn’t have gone.”
The jolt of refutation that lurches through Dean is strong enough that he actually jerks his head to one side before Sam’s power tightens up and brings him back front and center. He can’t quite believe Sam is trying to pin this on him. Dean may be guilty of a lot of shit—loving his brother too much is just one of his numerous crimes—but this clusterfuck they’re in right now is all on Sam.
Christ, if he’d just hidden things a little better, taken half a second to shut that damn drawer, Dean would probably be naked and straddling Sam’s lap right now, just as blind and stupid as ever and happy as a dumb dog. He takes a moment to acknowledge both the truth of that fact and his own inability to figure out whether he’s relieved or disappointed by his escape.
Sam moves his left hand around to fondle Dean’s other nipple while stepping in close enough that Dean can feel his interest. Then, as if worried the message isn’t coming through strongly enough, he gives a slow, deliberate roll of his hips, pushing all of that hard heat against Dean’s ass and staying pressed forward long enough for Dean to feel the unmistakable throb of his arousal. But it isn’t until stray wisps of power reach down to start undoing his belt that Dean realizes just how interested Sam is.
“You’re the one who killed those women,” Dean blurts.
Picking up the dropped thread of their argument seems like it would be a weak distraction at best, but the tongue of his belt hesitates half in and half out of the buckle.
“Tell me the truth, Dean,” Sam says soberly. “Is that really what bothers you? Those tramps who spread their legs whenever you so much as glanced their way? Because you’ve seen me kill before. You’ve seen me take my time at it, too, and you still couldn’t get enough of me.”
The accusation is true enough that Dean’s sickened at himself all over again (pathetic, disgusting, if anyone deserves to be hated and abandoned by the human race it’s him), and sharp enough that his chest stings in a hundred different places. The sting fades quickly to an ache, but that shamed pain, mingled with the pleasure Sam keeps pushing on him, is enough to keep him from finding an answer to his brother’s question.
Not that Dean actually knows the answer to his brother’s question. He isn’t sure which of Sam’s nasty secrets bothers him the most. That afternoon is enough of a muddled haze that he can’t remember precisely what it was that snapped him back to himself and made the tattoo revert.
“You brought Ben into this,” Dean redirects, mostly in a desperate attempt to salvage some part of his aching chest. He hisses when Sam’s fingers scrape over his sensitive nipples instead of continuing to toy lightly with them.
“No,” Sam corrects. His voice is still patient, even if his hands are betraying his souring mood. “You brought Ben into this. You forced my hand. All I’m doing now is trying to help you adjust.”
Dean manages to snort a weak laugh, but he isn’t sure which of them it’s directed toward. Sam’s delusional and cruel, sure, but that’s only to be expected, considering the fact that he’s insane. Dean, on the other hand, has absolutely no excuse for the way that his body is leaning back against Sam—despite all of his best efforts to hold still, to endure Sam’s touches with all the passivity of a life-size doll.
Here he is, arching his chest forward into Sam’s hands like a two-dollar whore.
Dean bites his lip to stave off a moan and then, hurriedly, says, “That’s what you call messing around with my emotions? ‘Helping me adjust’?” He has to force the words out around the self-loathing twisting his lips, but they’re clear enough that Sam’s hands—real and metaphysical—pause.
“Yes,” Sam says. “That’s exactly what I’d call it.”
To Dean’s surprise, his brother moves back then, releasing him. A quick check shows that Dean’s cuffs are still stuck to the counter, but all in all things are looking much, much brighter than they were a second ago. Or less confusing, anyway, now that Dean isn’t dealing with all of those positive, encouraging sensations purring along his skin.
“Is that what you’ve been so pissed about?” Sam asks. “You think I’ve been… what, playing with you?”
With only a little effort, Dean wraps his mind back around their conversation and feels a tiny flare of renewed resentment. “Haven’t you?”
“What I’ve been trying to do, Dean,” Sam says in an exasperated, long-suffering tone, “is teach you how to cope. You’ve always had trouble encouraging positive emotions when you could wallow in negative ones, and you and I both know how you get when you indulge yourself like that. You start thinking unpleasant thoughts… considering stupid, pointless acts of defiance that are only going to piss me off.”
Dwelling on how Sam would feel if Dean smashed the bathroom mirror and used the shards to slice up his own face, Sam means. The trail of Sam’s fingertip tracing over Dean’s cheek is confirmation Dean doesn’t need.
“You do remember what happens if you hurt yourself, don’t you?”
For an instant, Dean doesn’t know what the hell Sam is talking about. Then it hits him—children, kids like Ben, maybe even Ben himself, fuck, Dean doesn’t know—and his breath catches. His head spins with alarming vertigo, and suddenly the only reason he’s still standing is that his muscles are too tightly locked to let him drop.
How the fuck could he have forgotten, even for the few seconds it took him to light on that particular daydream?
“See, this is what I’m trying to help you avoid,” Sam tells Dean as he slides a hand beneath Dean’s shirt again and splays his fingers across the small of Dean’s lower back. “You just need to pay attention when I help model better habits. I can’t stay here forever, and you don’t want to be thinking negatively when I’m gone. All it would take is a single slip up, and who knows how I’d react before I calmed down again? I might break something irreplaceable.”
Ben.
Dean’s fists tremble where they’re clenched against the counter, and he shuts his eyes briefly as his stomach makes a steep, swooping motion. Then, licking his lips, he opens them again and catches his brother’s gaze in the mirror.
“Send him back,” he begs. “Put him—put him back wherever you got him from, okay, Sam? I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll try to do what you—to be what you want. I’ll—whatever you want, man, please—”
But Sam is shaking his head with a fond, regretful smile, and Dean makes himself shut up as his brother grips the nape of his neck in a gentle but firm grasp.
“I know you have the best intentions right now,” Sam says reasonably, “but if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll understand why I can’t trust that you’ll be quite so motivated without a tangible reminder of what’s at stake. Besides, he’s your son. Family should be kept close, shouldn’t it?”
For a long moment, Sam holds Dean’s gaze while Dean works his throat around the lump of despair lodged in it. Then he leans in and gives Dean a brief kiss on the cheek. His right hand moves in small, soothing circles on Dean’s back while his left gives the nape of Dean’s neck a single squeeze.
“Now,” Sam says as he lets his hands fall away and steps back, “take a few minutes to pull yourself together and then come on out into the living room. I’ll set up the Monopoly board and we’ll play a game, take your mind off things.”
Yeah, sure. Like that’s going to work.
But Dean doesn’t protest as Sam lets himself back out of the bathroom, and he doesn’t move when the cuffs come unstuck at the soft sound of the door shutting behind him. He’s doing his best not to think about Sam’s implacable refusal to put Ben out of the line of fire, distracting himself instead with the memory of Sam saying he isn’t going to be able to stay forever.
He just wishes he could admit to himself why he finds that so damned important.
That night, for the first time, Ben shows up in Dean’s dreams. He’s playing with some matchbox cars on the rug of what seems to be an amalgamation of all the apartments Dean has ever lived in. The blue-eyed Sam that Dean has spent so much effort and energy avoiding stands beside him and looks down at Ben with a mild, disapproving frown. Possibly because he’s noticed the blood seeping through Ben’s Metallica t-shirt.
Then the blue-eyed Sam says, “You can’t allow yourself to be distracted.”
It isn’t the blood that’s bothering him, then.
Dean’s chest burns with an ugly, sullen emotion, and he clenches his teeth against the hostile retort that wants to come.
“Your resistance is more important than a single life, Dean,” the blue-eyed Sam presses. “Even the life of a child.”
He reaches out toward Dean, reaches to touch him, and Dean ducks back out of range. Then, before the blue-eyed version of his brother can do anything else—before he can change his mind and reach for Ben instead—Dean darts forward and crouches down, catching Ben around the middle and lifting him up and carrying him away at a run. The weight in his arms seems to increase as he stumbles down a flight of steps, the world shoots upward and fills with smoke, and he bursts out the front door into the flame-lit yard of their old house in Lawrence, with a baby awkwardly clutched in his arms.
The baby wails, upset, and looks up with golden, burning eyes, and Dean jerks awake to find Sam staring at him while running gentle fingers through his hair.
It’s a long time before he manages to get back to sleep.
Six days later, Sam finally announces that he’s leaving for the front in the morning. Dragons to slay, damsels to rescue, that sort of thing. And then he smiles broadly in Ben’s direction, getting a pasta sauce-smeared grin back in return.
Dean can’t help but think how much the sauce looks like blood.
“You two have fun, okay?”
The gleam in Sam’s eyes as he looks at Dean makes it less of a request and more of a warning. And after having watched Sam with Ben over the last two weeks, Dean has no doubt that Sam will be able to interrogate Ben about every last one of Dean’s actions without Ben even realizing what’s going on. Not that Sam needs to be so circumspect, not when he can slip into Dean’s head whenever he pleases, but he’s always enjoyed being a smartass. And he hasn’t given Dean any reasons to think that’s changed.
“Oh yeah,” Dean says. He keeps his voice as dry and even as he can make it in the hopes that Sam won’t look beneath the surface and realize Dean’s just about coming out of his skin with nerves over here. “We’ll have a ball.”
Sam laughs, wide and open like he always used to Before, and Dean’s gut pulls tight enough that it hurts. He swallows carefully and shoves his hands into his pockets to hide how badly they’re shaking. Sam’s smile deepens, like he and Dean are sharing a joke, and then he calls, “Ben, buddy! Come say goodbye!”
Ben shoots out of his room where he was mucking around with one of the hundred toys Sam has loaded him down with, arms outstretched as he runs for Sam on chubby legs. Dean can’t watch this, he fucking hates seeing Sam so close to Ben, hates to see Sam touching the kid with hands that have been drenched in so much blood they ought to be stained red by now. He knows he isn’t allowed to turn away, but he twists his upper body to the left and shuts his eyes anyway, fighting down his gorge.
Almost immediately, power gooses along his spine, lighting up the tattoo and drying all the spit in Dean’s mouth. Sam’s scent wafts around him, somehow getting in his mouth and coating the back of his throat. There’s no real force behind the tugs on his jaw and shoulder, but it’s enough to tell Dean what Sam wants, and there’s no point in upsetting him when he’s moments from disappearing out the door.
Dutifully, Dean turns back around in time to see Ben run into Sam’s arms where Sam is crouched and waiting for him on the floor. It’s like watching a baby rabbit nuzzle up to a wolf—hell, Sam even has the golden eyes for the part, and he keeps them locked on Dean while he folds his arms around Ben in a seamless parody of a loving hug.
“Can’t you stay home again, Daddy?” Ben asks, hanging onto Sam’s neck with both arms.
“I wish I could, kiddo, but I have to go take care of some very bad monsters.”
“Like a knight,” Ben remembers.
Sam’s mouth quirks up in a manic, entertained smile. “Yeah, just like a knight. And you and your daddy, you’re going to stay safe in your tower.”
Reminded of Dean’s presence, Ben releases Sam’s neck and twists around to grin at him. Sam hangs onto Ben for a few more seconds—the look in his eyes makes it a threat, a reminder of what might happen if Dean screws up—and then lets him go. A moment later, there’s a small, Ben-shaped burr stuck to Dean’s right leg. Dean bends forward slightly to settle an absent hand on the kid’s shoulder while maintaining eye contact with Sam. Doing his best to assure his brother that the message has been received.
He must succeed, because Sam nods to himself and stands. Or maybe not, because he keeps standing there without moving, watching Dean and waiting.
Dean’s beginning to think that he’ll have to actually voice his understanding of just how firmly Sam has him bent over a barrel, but as he’s clearing his throat to do just that, Ben tugs at his pants and asks, “Aren’t you going to kiss Daddy goodbye?”
Cold chills Dean’s skin at the artless question. Or maybe not so artless. There’s a sick, aching pit in his stomach that makes Dean sure that it’s Sam’s question coming out of Ben’s mouth. Dean might not have sensed Sam’s power, but if Sam was sly about it, he might not have. Sam might have slipped the suggestion in as quiet as a stir of the room’s air currents. Or hell, he might have included this sort of scenario when he was rewiring Ben for this charade. In comparison to everything else he changed, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to leave Ben with the impression that goodbye kisses are a required component to this ritual of leave-taking.
It isn’t as though Sam hasn’t taken more than his share of kisses over the last few weeks, but he hasn’t required Dean to initiate them. Or even to participate, really.
Looks like Dean’s ‘adjustment’ period is over.
Dean’s tempted to answer that he already did as much when Ben was in the other room, but Sam’s head tilts in almost imperceptible warning. There’s no sudden flare of power that Dean can sense; just the discordant twinge of his own instincts and a memory of his brother’s voice whispering, ‘Careful.’
Wordlessly, Dean separates himself from Ben. It’s easy enough to do (most of the time, Ben is chillingly obedient), and moves forward to stand in front of Sam. Sam’s smile widens as he approaches. His eyes flick up and down Dean’s body, lingering on his face—his mouth.
I’m just an animal to him, Dean thinks. Just a pet.
Sam, waiting, shifts his eyes over Dean’s shoulder—to Ben—and then meets Dean’s gaze again.
Keeping his hands stuck deep in his pockets so he won’t do anything unforgivably stupid like punch that easy-going mask right off Sam’s face, Dean leans forward and kisses his brother. He means it to be a quick, chaste peck, but Sam’s hand is in Dean’s hair almost as soon as their mouths meet, gripping and drawing him forward. His tongue slides back and forth over Dean’s lips, a teasing suggestion that becomes a demand when Dean continues to ignore the request.
Dean can feel Ben watching them, though, and he was already hyper-conscious of the kid’s presence. Sam can demand a lot of things from him, and Dean will—well, he isn’t going to roll over without putting up at least a token show of resistance, but he knows Sam’s limits and he’s going to stay on the indulgent side of them. Not this, though. He isn’t going to be Sam’s pet whore in front of a kid.
Giving his head a short, sharp jerk, Dean manages to free his mouth from Sam’s. He doesn’t think the motion is big enough for Ben to catch, and he keeps his voice locked in a low, barely audible murmur when he says, “Not with him watching. Not like that.”
Sam’s hand doesn’t loosen from when it tightened up at Dean’s act of disobedience, but he doesn’t yank Dean back in the way Dean senses he meant to. He just holds onto Dean, breathing against his cheek. His eyes are darker than normal, but too close to Dean’s for Dean to make out any recognizable emotion at all. He can’t see Sam’s expression either, has only the continuing lack of an outburst to gauge his brother’s mood.
Then, slowly, Sam shifts forward. His lips scrape over Dean’s cheek before shifting up to rest lightly against his right ear.
“I’ll give you this one, baby,” Sam whispers, “but I’m going to want something in return.”
Of course he is.
Dean swallows carefully and then asks, “What?”
“I’ll consider it at work.”
Work. Like Sam has a nine-to-five job like everyone else. Or, more accurately, like everyone else used to have. Dean guesses there isn’t much call for accountants or secretaries anymore.
Despite Sam’s acquiescence, Dean expects him to send Ben out of the room and then get back to what they were doing. Instead, Sam releases him and, while Dean stands there uncomprehendingly, tosses out a “bye, kiddo” in Ben’s direction and disappears out the door. Dean still doesn’t quite dare to move, standing still as a deer scenting danger as he listens to the sense of Sam receding inside of him.
After having spent so long saturated by Sam’s presence, the absence leaves him a little jittery. All the places that he’s held tense and contained over the past two weeks ache as they relax. The knotted throb of awareness that the near-constant brush of Sam’s power left in his back hollows out: around the tattoo, Dean’s skin feels burnt and over-sensitive. And then, between one beat of his heart and the next, Sam is gone.
Dean’s pulse leaps and desperate hope sears the back of his throat, but he isn’t going to fuck this (this? what? nothing’s happening here, I’m being good) up by making his move (what move?) too soon. Not thinking directly about the plans he’s been cobbling together is even more difficult than normal this close to implementing them, but Dean has a lot of experience locking things away where Sam can’t see them. Like the window thing (leanforwardoutdowndowndownendquietpeaceplease) that he’s managed to bury deep enough inside himself that even he doesn’t remember it happened, most days.
Compared to that, this secret, which doesn’t break any of Sam’s rules (none of the articulated ones, anyway), is a piece of cake to keep, even from himself.
Giving himself a slight shake, Dean turns back towards Ben and says, “You want to race some cars, buddy?”
Ben, who was looking at the closed door with an unsettling and pitiful expression of wistfulness—missing Sam already, wishing him back—brightens immediately. “Yeah! I get to be the red one!”
Turns out by ‘red one’, what Ben means is the Ford GT, which is decent enough that Dean doesn’t even have to work to let the kid win. Ben’s gaming skills are easily on par with a bright eleven-year-old—Dean suspects that Sam left parts of Ben intact so that he wouldn’t have to deal with all the trials and tribulations that come with keeping a normal five-year-old occupied. Sam has left some of Ben’s language acquisition in place, too; although Ben’s understanding of the world is pretty limited, Dean’s noticed that he doesn’t make the same sorts of mistakes that he would have expected from a kid who looks as young as Ben does.
But although they freak Dean out a little, those unnaturally mature parts of Ben’s brain are the only reason Dean is willing to risk doing what he’s about to. They’re going to give Ben a fighting chance.
A fighting chance at what? a nervous part of him asks.
With a quick dart of his tongue to wet his lips, Dean glances back into the other room and considers the angle and quality of the light coming in from outside. Whatever the answer to that question is, he’ll know soon enough, but not just yet. Not until he’s sure Sam is fully immersed in the War.
They play Need For Speed: Nitro for what Dean judges to be another hour, and then start putting together Ben’s Bikini Bottom Express LEGO set. Dean is fiddling aimlessly with the periscope while Ben works on the submarine-looking vehicle when he senses that he’s waited long enough. He expects to feel relief that he’s made it to this point, this place of action, but instead there’s only an intensified anxiety as he finally lets all of the scattered thoughts he’s been hiding from over the last two weeks snap into place.
The periscope falls out of his numb hands.
As far as plans go, it’s pretty shitty—which is probably to be expected when his brain put it together without any real conscious thought. Then again, Dean likely isn’t going to come up with a better one, and every day that passes is filled with a thousand chances for Dean to misstep and get Ben killed.
Because he will screw up, eventually. It’s just a question of how he’s going to wind up pushing Sam those last few inches.
Better to give Ben a chance, no matter how small it might seem.
“Ben,” Dean says. His voice comes out choked and raspy—too quiet for Ben to pay him any mind at all—and he clears his throat before trying again. “Ben.”
Ben pauses with one of the submarine-thing’s windows clenched in one fist and looks up.
“You need to listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I say, okay?” Dean says.
“Okay, Daddy.”
Dean’s chest aches—bands of helpless longing and love that tighten every time Ben calls him that—but he keeps the pain from his face as he gets to his feet before reaching down to give Ben a helping hand up. Ben stands without protest, but the way that he’s still hanging onto the LEGO tells Dean that he hasn’t quite clued in to the fact that building time is over. Dean’s internal clock is running faster than ever, though, reminding him that Sam could show up at any moment (not likely, given his past routine, but he could), and he doesn’t waste time trying to get the block away from him.
Instead, he shifts his grip to Ben’s shoulder and starts guiding Ben out of his bedroom toward the rest of the suite.
“Where are we going?” Ben asks as he trots obediently along in front of Dean.
“Away,” Dean answers. “As far away from here as you can get.”
“Are we going on an adventure to find Daddy?”
Christ. “No. This is a… it’s a stealth mission, buddy. Like James Bond.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter. Look, just.” They’re at the door to the suite now, and Dean stops in front of it, dropping down to one knee so he can hold Ben by both shoulders and look him in the eyes. “You can’t talk to anyone, unless they’re wearing a collar—you know what a collar is?”
Ben nods.
“Great. You only talk to people wearing a collar, and only if there’s no one around without one.”
“Why?”
Christ, Dean doesn’t have time for this. “You just—you just do, all right? Because you’re a good soldier, and you follow orders. That’s the game.”
“I don’t want to be a soldier. I want to be a knight like Daddy.”
“Fine. A knight, then. But knights gotta obey the king, okay? And that’s me. So what are you going to do?”
Ben still looks a little dubious, but he answers, “Only talk to people with collars.”
Relief floods through Dean, making him a little dizzy. He adjusts his hold on Ben, nodding, and continues, “You avoid anyone else. You hide if you see them first, okay? Otherwise, just keep your head down and keep moving. I want you to find some of those people with collars—people who are alone—and I want you to tell them that you’re Dean Singer, and Bobby Singer’s your dad, and you need to get as far away from here as possible.”
Dean’s relying on so many assumptions in doing this. He’s assuming that any collared slaves will be more or less friendly to a lost kid, and do their best to help instead of turning him in to the nearest demon they can find. He’s assuming that Bobby is set up well enough here that invoking his name will get Ben instant, enthusiastic help. He’s assuming that Sam’s human slaves have a way of passing messages to Bobby, and vice versa.
And he isn’t so much assuming as he is praying that Bobby will get that Dean is asking for his help here, that he won’t blame the kid for Dean being a fuck-up, that he’ll be able to come up with some sort of plan to get Ben to safety. Dean feels pretty confident about the first two—Bobby’s smart and a good man—and as for the third… Bobby just has to come up with something.
He’s the only lifeline Dean has to offer.
Swallowing the sudden rush of panic that accompanies the realization that there are a million ways this plan can collapse into ruin, Dean says, “Repeat it back to me.”
“I’m Dean Singer, and Bobby Singer’s my dad, and I need to get as far away as possible.”
“Good. That’s real good.” Dean stands before he can say anything else, or do something dumb like pull the kid into a hug when he already knows he wouldn’t be able to let go again, and opens the door into the hallway.
The last time Dean came out here, he was weak and woozy from blood loss, but it seems to look the same. Same long, rich runner. Same dark paneled walls. Same gleaming elevator doors at the far end. Those doors mark the boundary he can’t cross, but Dean still hesitates on the wrong side of the suite’s doorway, chest filled with a heavy dread that’s making him reluctant to take another step.
“Dad?” Ben says as Dean tries to work himself up to it.
“Hmm?”
“My name isn’t Dean Singer. I’m Ben Winchester.”
No you aren’t, Dean thinks. You’re Ben Braeden. Lisa’s son. A memory of long, dark hair and a tan face flashes through his mind. She smiled a lot, he remembers. And she—Christ, she was bendy. He wonders how many ways Sam bent her body before she died, and his stomach tightens.
Ben is still looking up at him, waiting.
Clearing his throat, Dean says, “No, I know that. It’s a game, remember? Just for pretend.”
“Okay. And then after, can we have grilled cheese for lunch?”
Dean should have been prepared for that sort of question, but somehow it’s blindsided him. Winded, he leans against the doorframe in a way that hopefully looks fairly casual and gropes for a way to deflect.
“Daddy?” Ben says, brow screwing up with his burgeoning frown. “What’s wrong?”
“You, uh. You’re not… Look, it’s an overnight game. Like a sleepover.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Ben’s frown deepens and he takes a step back from the door, hugging the LEGO block to his chest with both hands.
“I don’t want to go for a sleepover.”
“It’ll be fun,” Dean tries coaxing. “With, uh, marshmallows and chocolate and, uh, stuff. Fun stuff. Now, come on.”
Modeling for Ben seems to be the impetus Dean needed to get him over the threshold, because he steps out into the hallway easily. No sirens go off, no guards lurch out of hiding. The tattoo on his back remains inactive. A part of Dean that he didn’t even know was worried about those possibilities unclenches.
But Ben’s still hanging back, and now he’s starting to glance back over his shoulder at his room. Dean’s internal clock is screaming at the delay—Ben’s going to need every one of these seconds they’re losing up here if he’s going to find some slaves and get hidden enough to avoid what Dean is sure is going to be a frantic, furious search when Sam gets back. He’s tempted to pick Ben up, carry him down to the elevator and toss him in, but he needs Ben to be a willing participant in the game. Otherwise, Ben might just wander up to the first person (demon) he sees, and Dean knows how that one’s going to end.
Fuck, what the hell is he going to do if Ben refuses to get on the elevator?
“Puppies,” Dean blurts in a burst of inspiration. “There’ll be puppies there.”
It’s the magic word. Ben’s out in the hallway with Dean in an instant, asking what kind, and how many, and can they bring one home with them tomorrow?
Dean’s relieved enough by Ben’s unexpected acquiescence that they’re halfway down the hall before he realizes what’s wrong with Ben’s oblivious patter of conversation.
“You, you mean,” he corrects, hoping he’s heard wrong. “Can you bring one back with you tomorrow.”
But Ben stops dead and Dean can see from the closed, mistrustful look on his face that it wasn’t a mistake. “You’re not coming?”
“I—I wish I could, buddy,” –Christ, does he ever—“But this is just, uh. It’s just going to be you.”
“No!” Ben protests, throwing himself at Dean and clinging to his leg. “No, I wanna stay here with you and Daddy!”
Dean glances at the elevator doors, that invisible, uncertain timer clicking ever faster at the back of his head, and says, “You can’t stay here. Now, come on. It’s time to go.”
He reaches down, trying to pry Ben off of him, and Ben clings harder, burying his face against Dean’s thigh. Dean’s stomach ties itself into knots and he wants—fuck, more than anything he wants to haul Ben up into his arms, and hang onto him, and reassure him that everything is going to be fine...
But it isn’t. It isn’t, and the very strength of that impulse tells him that he needs to get Ben out of here now. Before Dean’s pathetic, selfish need for some honest affection kicks in and he drops the entire idea altogether.
“Stop it, Ben,” he says, making his voice a little sterner. “You’re going to go downstairs and do what I told you. I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No!” Ben shouts, still holding Dean’s leg. “You’re mean. I don’t want to play your stupid game. I want Daddy! I want Daddy! Daddy!”
Ben’s clearly crying now, and not just shouting but screaming where his face is shoved against Dean’s thigh, and there seems to be absolutely no way to salvage this whole ‘game’ pretense. Time isn’t just slipping or rushing but cascading through Dean’s fingers and who the fuck even knows if Sam left some sort of psychic link between himself and Ben when he changed him? Ben keeps calling for Sam, and calling, and all Dean can think about is the way Sam smiled at him this morning while he was hugging Ben. Sam, who killed Lisa and stole every last one of Ben’s memories of his mother—his mother, and Sam should have known better; he should have been able to remember that mothers are sacred, they’re inviolate.
Maybe he did remember. Maybe he stole those memories from Ben because he instantly knew, even though it’s taken until now for Dean to realize it, that the idea of ripping those specific memories away from the kid would hit Dean harder than anything else.
Sam violated Ben’s mind. He warped his body. He slaughtered Ben’s mother, and he’s going to do the same thing to Ben.
And Ben’s sobbing his heart out and wailing for the guy to come hold him and make everything better.
Something inside of Dean snaps and desperation, snarling and bristling, twists through him. He stops gently trying to separate Ben from his leg and yanks him back, ignoring the hurt, frightened cry Ben lets out as Dean drops down to seize both of Ben’s upper arms in a crushing grip.
“Don’t you get it?” Dean barks. “Sam isn’t your dad. This isn’t your home! You don’t fucking belong here—you’re not mine, you hear me? You’re not my son. Your parents are dead. Sam killed them and he brought you here to mess with me. He doesn’t care about you. You are nothing to him. You’re—you’re fucking leverage.”
Sobbing, face red and eyes scrunched tightly shut, Ben tries to twist away. Dean sees with something of a surreal shock that the kid still has the damned LEGO in his hand. The sense of unreality persists as he gives Ben a firm, hard shake that shocks Ben’s eyes open again.
“If you don’t get out of here right now,” Dean growls, “if you don’t do every little fucking thing I told you to do, you’re going to die. Sam is going to come home and he’s going to gut you, do you understand? Do you?”
Ben just stands there crying—no words anymore, but these panicked, shallow sobs are somehow worse than listening to him call for Sam. Dean realizes he’s gripping the kid’s arms hard enough for his own knuckles to ache and lets go, pushing back and up and stumbling against the wall. Ben doesn’t even seem to notice, standing there helpless and small, shoulders slumped like Dean just kicked him in the stomach.
Dean’s head has cleared slightly, and as the words he just said—shouted, really—register, shame and guilt wash through him. He takes a single step forward, reaching out, before he catches himself and pushes his shoulders flush with the wall.
He could let himself do what he’s aching to. He could pull Ben close, and rub his back, and tell him he’s sorry, he didn’t mean it. And when Sam comes home, he can confess everything, throw himself on his brother’s mercy, and do everything he can to make things right. Probably, he can be apologetic enough for Sam to forgive him the aborted attempt, and Ben will be safe and happy again.
For today.
But sooner or later, Dean is going to fuck up. And Ben’s going to pay for it.
So instead of moving toward Ben, Dean says, “Go on. Get out of here. You don’t live here anymore.”
Ben does move, but towards Dean’s voice, hoarse and thick as it is. Ben reaches for him blindly, his eyes scrunched up with tears, and chokes out, “I’m s-sorry! P-please, Daddy—”
“I’m not your dad!” Dean yells, sidestepping down the wall and out of reach.
If Ben touches him, it won’t matter that he’s signing the kid’s death warrant. Dean will cave. He won’t be able to help himself.
Ben cries harder at that denial, but he’s still reaching, the hand with the LEGO brushing along the wall to guide him and the other stretched toward Dean, so Dean steels himself and snarls, “Get the fuck out of here before I kill you myself!”
That does it. Ben turns and, still crying, half-runs, half-stumbles in the direction of the elevator. Now that Ben isn’t looking in his direction, Dean allows himself to sag against the wall, weighed down with the guilt and shame and self-loathing twisting up his chest. He can’t watch as Ben pounds at the elevator call button, instead rounding his back on the sight and covering his eyes with one shaking hand. Behind him, there’s a ding as the elevator arrives. The doors open, then close again, muffling the sound of Ben’s wretched tears.
As Dean slides slowly down the wall and the first sob rips out of his chest, he prays that the pain he just inflicted on the (son, my son) kid is worth it.
Eventually, Dean manages to get up and take himself back into the suite. He spends the next three hours trying to assuage the ache in his chest by telling himself that he’s done this at least, that he’s saved this one good thing amidst all the rubble. For three hours, he wrestles with alternating bouts of shivery relief and shamed guilt, both of which are occasionally drowned out by the nauseating fear of what Sam is going to do when he gets home.
In the end, there’s no warning. Sam somehow contains himself well enough that Dean doesn’t sense him approaching, which means one moment Dean is perched on the edge of the couch staring sightlessly into a powerless TV and the next Sam is walking back through the door. He’s holding Ben in his arms. Dried tear marks streak Ben’s cheeks, but he looks comforted and happy enough now, one arm looped around Sam’s neck and the other clutching the front of his shirt. His forehead is resting against Sam’s lower jaw and he blinks sleepily at nothing in particular.
Dean can’t move, can’t speak. For a long, roaring moment, he isn’t even sure he’s breathing.
Sam looks at him with a wide smile and says, “Ben tells me you’re not feeling well, baby. Had a little bit of an episode. But don’t worry; I promised him Daddy would fix you right up.”
Dean’s throat works on its own and he hears the catch in it as an audible sound. He makes an attempt to get up and start explaining, but his muscles haven’t recovered from the devastating shock yet and he can’t move. He can only stare at Sam and wait for the explosion he knows is coming.
But Sam’s expression stays more or less placid as he kisses the top of Ben’s head. Ben makes a happy, sleepy sound and snuggles closer against Sam’s chest. Despite Dean’s dread, it makes such a happy, domestic picture that the brush of power that wipes Ben’s face blank comes as a shock.
One moment, Ben is mid-yawn and the next his face is slack. His eyes have gone as glassy and flat as bits of marble. Even the posture of his body has been emptied out of everything ‘Ben’; Sam looks like he’s holding a life-size rag doll.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Dean manages to say—too goddamned late as usual, but Ben is still breathing, at least, so maybe he can salvage this.
Sam gives him a patient look and sets Ben down, then takes something out of his jacket pocket—Ben’s LEGO, Dean sees with a dull tremor of cold—and wraps one of Ben’s little hands around it. “I know that, Dean. He’s fine. I just… hit the reset on today. Tomorrow, it’ll be like this never happened.”
Dean doesn’t miss the emphasis his brother puts on ‘tomorrow’ and very carefully doesn’t move while Sam gives the Ben-doll a little push between his shoulder blades to get him walking. Ben’s feet rise and fall with all the grace of a leviathan: a heavy, spiritless gait that lurches him a little as he moves.
He passes Dean closely enough that Dean could reach out and touch him. Despite himself—despite Sam’s gaze—Dean starts to reach and then stops, caught by the dark, ugly bruises high on Ben’s arms. Bruises that he knows would match his own fingers.
I did that, he thinks, eyes stinging with tears he refuses to shed. And for what? For fucking nothing, that’s what.
He doesn’t know at what point his plan failed. He probably won’t ever know, unless Sam wants to torment him with the knowledge. But Dean thinks that the moment he really failed Ben was the one in which he thought he was saving him. The moment he put those bruises on Ben’s arms and yelled the cruelest, meanest things he could think of in his face.
He watches quietly as Ben finishes his stiff, awkward walk into his room.
The door shuts behind Ben—Sam’s doing, Sam’s wards going up stronger and more implacable than anything Dean’s connection with the thing could possibly counter. Not that Dean minds having something like that between Ben and Sam right now, even if Sam doesn’t seem to be in a killing mood.
For a moment, it’s silent in the suite. Still.
Then Sam says, in a cold, cutting voice, “Get on the bed.”
Dean goes without argument, but he can’t help trembling as his brother follows.
Afterward, Sam continues to hold Dean close. He has one hand pressed low against Dean’s stomach, pushing Dean’s ass back against his crotch, while the other toys with Dean’s sweat-damp hair.
Dean feels filthy inside, his nerves still jangled and his skin hyper sensitized from everywhere Sam touched him. His stomach and chest are taut with Sam’s ‘musings’ about all of the things that could happen to a small, helpless boy like Ben. With his reassurances that he doesn’t blame Dean for how frightened Ben was, how tearful and hurt. He doesn’t blame Dean for the bruises. Dean’s guilt at his behavior in the hallway is twisted up with both anger at the man behind him and infuriated loathing directed a little closer to home.
How the fuck can he still enjoy, even a little bit, having Sam’s hands and mouth on him?
“No more kid gloves, Dean,” Sam says lazily into the silence. “I’ll take things as easily as I can, and I won’t push you in front of your son, but this…” Power sweeps over Dean’s skin, fondling him everywhere for a single, muscle-tensing moment, and then he gasps as he’s released. “…is mine. You and I, we’re going to retrain your body to love what I can do for it. Your mind and heart will follow.”
He sounds so confident, so sure, that Dean believes him. He shuts his eyes on a sudden upwelling of nausea.
“And Dean, the next time you try something stupid? You’re not getting off with a slap on the wrist.”