WHO: Dean Winchester, Ben Braeden WHERE: the Winchester & co house WHEN: Thursday, January 12, 2006; late evening [backdated] WHAT: Dean has 'The Talk' with Ben. RATING: PG, or A, for adorable STATUS: log; COMPLETE!
To be honest, Dean was glad that Ben didn't seem to want him to leave. When the kid started looking more tired than anything, Mary started trying to talk him into going to bed, and Dean, worried about him, did the same. However, when Ben started saying something silly about wanting to watch a good movie because there had been no good movies where Lilith had held the children, Dean knew something else was up. Camped out in Ben's room with some popcorn and soda and a well loved DVD of Batman Forever, Dean allowed himself to fully relax for the first time since Ben turned up missing. Ben was home and safe, and that was the big thing
Though nerves were threatening to get the better of him and make procrastination sound pretty damned good, as the credits rolled on the movie Dean knew it was time for THE TALK. Ben deserved to know, or so his father and Claire had said. He had beaten himself up a hundred times since the kid's disappearance, wondering why he didn't tell him just a little bit sooner, but it was easy to think about broaching such a difficult subject and another thing entirely to actually do it.
“Gotta love Jim Carrey as the Riddler, and Sugar and Spice? Mmmm... Genius.”
Come on, Winchester, stop putting this off...What's the worst thing that could happen?
Honestly? A lot. Dean knew he wasn't really a conventional sort of guy, and that never seemed like a big deal before, but he didn't know if he was the kind of guy a kid would even want for a dad. The hunting, the constant moving that he had done before he was stuck in one city, the credit card scams...none of it was really Dad of the Year material. Ben deserved a good dad after not having one for so long. And what if he was going to get the little guy all worked up for nothing, and they'd take the test and find out that some other random jerk in a bar had been Ben's dad and Lisa was telling the truth all along? What if Ben didn't want a dad at all?
Stop stalling. Stop thinking, just SAY it before you chicken out. You're not some thirteen year old girl.
“Hey Ben? Did you ever talk to your mom about your dad?” If Ben already thought that some other guy was his Dad, maybe he wouldn't want to take the test at all...and Dean didn't want to mess something like that up.
For once, Ben wasn't even playing at pretense of wanting to be near Dean, as he was happily slumped against Dean's side while they watched the move. He'd made excuses for Dean's not to go, excuses to stay awake, but right now wasn't a time for macho pretense.
The question, however, was unexpected. "Sometimes," he said, expression suddenly moody as he plucked at the bowl of popcorn. "When I was little and again after some kids hassled me." Well, that had happened more than once, until Dean had come along and taught him how to deal with bullies. A kick in the balls and people shut up about him not having a dad, about him being illegitimate or a bastard or a loser.
There'd only been one time that he had pressed the question and it was after he'd met Dean, because he'd gotten the idea one day that it would have been awesome if it was Dean that his mom meant, that guy that hadn't been around because he wasn't meant for the kind of life a kid should have. But she still hadn't been able to tell him much, even when he'd insisted.
"She always said she was sorry, that he wasn't a guy she knew much about, just that he seemed like a good person but he wasn't the kind of guy who stuck around."
The thought of someone picking on Ben just because he didn't have a Dad to run him to PTA events or something made Dean furious. It wasn't Ben's fault that his Mom fell for a certain kind of guy, it wasn't his fault that his Dad probably never even knew there had been a kid born out of a short bendy fling. If anyone ever said something about Ben's parentage to Dean Winchester's face, there would be hell to pay, but Dean knew full well that most bullies picked on people who were smaller than they were, or otherwise unable to defend themselves, not anyone who really had a chance.
"There's not a guy around who wouldn't stick around if a cool kid like you was involved." Dean said honestly, and he meant it. When he first met Ben, he had been living on a few months of borrowed time, he had been desperately looking for a way not to go to hell...he didn't have time for kids, and yet, if Lisa had so much as hinted that Ben was his kid, Dean would have stopped fighting so hard to stay alive. He would have spent time with the kid, taught him everything he knew. He damned sure wouldn't have left.
Pulling back just slightly, to put the bowl of popcorn on the table and face Ben without any obstacles in their way, Dean cleared his throat. "You know when I went back to visit your Mom, I hadn't seen her in years, right? I didn't even know she had a kid. I thought...when I saw you I thought you were a really cool kid. You remind me..and everyone, of me when I was your age."
He had changed his mind at the last moment. He was about to tell Ben that he asked Lisa at first, on that first day, about being Ben's father, but the last thing he wanted was to get the kid pissed at his Mom. If this worked out...well maybe later they'd talk about that...and maybe not.
Without the popcorn to fiddle with, Ben was left with either just playing with his fingers, which he knew would give away that this wasn't a fun topic for him, or looking up at Dean, looking like he could handle talking about it. He chose the latter, and was surprised by what he heard. There was, for a moment, that brief pang of wanting the details to fit - his mom had said his dad didn't even know about him, and Dean admitted he hadn't known about him - but he pushed it away. He was used to it.
And then Dean mentioned that Ben reminded people of Dean and suddenly Dean had Ben's full attention.
"Really?" The tilt of his head, the expression that bloomed and then was hastily, but ineffectively, reigned in was one of pleasure, of hearing that people thought he was like Dean.
Dean nodded, feeling a little bit of hope spreading out when Ben looked so pleased a the comparison. "It's not necessarily a good thing." Dean said, his trademarked teasing tone doing nothing to hide the fact that Dean clearly thought it was a great thing. "I'm not sure that the restaurants of LA are really prepared to deal with two of us, but I think it's pretty cool."
Forcing a serious look to come back to his face, because he knew they needed to talk about this rather than get into some sort of eating contest that would make his parents bang their heads against the wall when he told them about it later, Dean cleared his throat. "You know, a few of them even started thinking there might be something going on, a reason why we're so much alike."
Here was the hard part, actually voicing what he had been hoping for so badly. "Ben, Dad and I were talking, and we think there's a chance that you might be my son."
At the remark about food, Ben opened his mouth to say something smart in return, but closed it again at the serious look. Dean thought it was cool, so this couldn't be a bad talk, could it? But serious, in his experience, was often not good.
Shifting on the bed to get a better look at Dean, Ben listened intently as Dean spoke. He continued to listen intently even after Dean finished speaking. In fact, the same exact expression remained on Ben Braeden's face because he was in shock.
There's a chance you might be my son. Maybe he'd heard Dean wrong. Maybe he'd heard something he wanted to hear, like a crazy person. Isn't that was happened to people when the were kidnapped, sometimes? They went crazy?
His mom had never said Dean was, but she hadn't exactly said he wasn't in a way Ben had one hundred percent accepted. It was the face she made when she said something because she was supposed to, not because she wanted to, like how she always said she loved playing bridge with Mrs Hendersen next door but Ben knew she didn't really like card games at all, especially with grandma types. Like, not cool grandma types who wore jeans and baked chocolate chip cookies, but the stupid lacy knitted table things, oatmeal cookies and ten cats grandma types.
Had his mom lied?
Dean waited for a reaction. He waited for anger at Dean waiting so long to investigate the similarities, he waited for sadness at being without a dad for so long, he waited for joy or rejection or something, anything to tell him how Ben was taking this...but he got nothing. The poor kid's face was almost frozen.
"Hey?" He said, voice soft and concerned. Was this too soon? This was definitely too soon. Maybe he should have given Ben a few days to get over the whole kidnapping thing? Maybe Ben wouldn't even want to take the test? What if this was a mistake? "You gotta say something soon, dude, or I'm gonna tell Dad you've frozen in one place and we're gonna have to research a way to get you moving again."
At another time, that would have been enough to shake Ben out of his reverie with a laugh and a retort, but this? This was big. Huge. Bigger than huge. Huger than bigger than huge!
"You think you're my dad? Really?" The note of hope was unmistakable but the expression on his face likely hard to define, a cross between a hunger for something he'd never had and disbelief that the words said were meant how they sounded.
It was too soon in the revelation for the questions, the struggling through past upsets at not having had a dad there, questioning further the idea his mom hadn't told the truth, and all the rest. Right now, it was just letting that idea, that there was a chance Dean could be his dad, sink in to his brain.
The sinking was taking some time.
Dean nodded, his eyes fixed on Ben as he tried to decipher Ben's expression. Was he happy?
"I knew you and I were a lot alike, but I never really thought there was a real chance until Dad said so. It doesn't have to change anything if you don't want it to, Ben. No one is going to make us take the test if you don't want to, and no matter what, you're still gonna stay here with us and be one hell of a cool kid." His hand wasn't that steady as he reached out to squeeze Ben's shoulder. "You can do whatever you want with this, Ben, I just wanted you to know."
Ben looked from Dean's hand on his shoulder to Dean's face, then back to the hand, then to Dean again. After nine years, he might have a dad. There was a chance he had a dad, and a better on than the one he'd always wished for - and there had been wishing. Imagining what the man would be like, imagining him showing up not knowing he had a son and then wanting to stay once he knew, wishing to be able to do all the stuff his mom tried to make up for but wasn't the same as doing it with a dad.
The kind of stuff he already did with Dean.
For a moment, he shook a bit, like a puppy ready to burst because it couldn't decide whether to run for the ball rolling away to the left or the dish being set down on the right and then he slammed into Dean's chest face first, arms wrapping around Dean's torso.
He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't that much of a girl. Really. He wasn't. It was just popcorn salt in his eye. Really.
And just like that things seemed like they finally made sense again. Ben was hugging him hard and it felt natural to close his arms around the boy and return the gesture. God how he wanted to be right about this, to have Ben turn out to be his.
"We both know I'm not really good at the technical stuff." He said with a small squeeze of his arms. "I could be wrong about this, Ben." The last thing Dean wanted was to get the boy's hopes up for nothing. "But even if I'm wrong, I'm still gonna be here." It was flirting dangerously close to a chick flick moment to talk about stuff like this to begin with, and he doubted that Lisa would be impressed with him taking stuff in his own hands, but now that Dean had started talking, he couldn't stop.
"No matter what, I want you to remember I still want to be your dad, ok?" Because at the end of the day, there was a huge difference between thinking you were a parent and wanting to be one.
Even if it made sense that this was a maybe, not a definite, Ben didn't want to hear it. In fact, he didn't really hear it. It was hard to hear the counter sides to the idea that Dean could be his dad.
Of course, hearing about wanting this intensified that. It negated the need to ask one of the first still-restrained questions - what if he wasn't - because Dean had answered it.
"You want to be my dad?"
Aware he was repeating pretty much everything Dean had been saying, Ben sat back up - not letting go of Dean entirely, because he didn't want to, just attempting to reassert some tough kid behaviour into this - and looked up at Dean.
"Can we go do it tomorrow, the test?" The eagerness was all too clear, but his posture shifted slightly then, affecting that lazy 'too cool for this' look that he wore naturally, that he perfected by watching Dean. "I mean, since it's gonna be the weekend the next day, it'd be stupid to not do it tomorrow."
Dean couldn't stop a wide, ear to ear grin from coming to his face. Not only did Ben seem to like the idea that he might be Dean's son, he wanted to take the test right away. Truth be told, Dean had been pretty eager to take it too, to know one way or the other what he was dealing with so they could go from there. Either way, as far as he was concerned, Ben was his responsibility now.
"Yeah, of course we can take the test tomorrow." Dean said, leaning over to ruffle Ben's hair. "It will take a week or two to get the results back and everything, but they just moved the new King Kong movie to the dollar movies and they have better popcorn than the regular movie place. We could go and take the test and then go to the movie."
After all, they'd likely both need the distraction, and Dean wanted to make it clear that they'd still do stuff, no matter what the silly test said.
Grinning back at Dean, because he couldn't resist, Ben didn't squirm too far away from the hair ruffling, just enough for dignity's sake. The grin, however, didn't last long, because the time to wait felt, even to a nine year old, who was growing out of the age when short times seemed like an eternity, far too long.
"A week or two?" he asked, crestfallen as he slumped. "Science sucks."
He wanted to go now, have the test and know now. He didn't want to wait to be able to tell people he had a dad. The test would have to say that. It would just have to.
Dean smiled sadly, torn between being unhappy that he couldn't magically produce the results himself, and being elated that Ben wanted to know as much as he did.
"Yeah, it does," he said, trying to think of something that could make the moment light again instead of something that would lead to weeks of anxious waiting. After all, this was a good thing. Ben was home and safe, and they both wanted this. He could tell that Ben already wanted this a lot, and that he had his heart set on it, so Dean didn't bring up the other things he had been thinking about, like adoption, to make sure that the boy was legally his in case he got separated from the Winchesters again. He'd bring that up if he had to, but for now they'd just be happy and take this slow.
"So where do you want to eat tomorrow? We can go anywhere you want."
This close to finally having a dad and now he had to wait. Dropping back against Dean's side, the action sulky but his expression lightening a bit with the talk of food, Ben sighed. He'd just had to stay really busy for now.
"That place near Claire's house," he said after some consideration, "the one with the awesome burgers and the fifteen kinds of pie every day." Not that Ben didn't like cake and cookies and everything almost as much, but he knew Dean definitely loved pie, so it was a good choice.
After a moment, he slid a glance sideways at Dean, hesitant. "Hey, Dean?"
Dean had never been particularly patient for something that he wanted, so acting like he was cool with this was hard, but he had to be the grown up and show Ben that they could make it through a week or two of not knowing. He sat there, trying to think about something about the diner that Ben had mentioned to cheer the kid up when Ben spoke again.
"Hmm?" he questioned, hearing the hesitant tone to Ben's voice and a little concerned again. "What is it, Mini Me?"
Mini Me. There was something about that that wasn't ridiculous and instead, made Ben feel a bit better about all of this. The test would take way too long, but Dean wanted him in his life. He seemed to like that they were the same, he said he wanted to be his Dad. There were still questions about the past, the whys and hows, but even that eased those for now. He was wanted, by Dean at least.
Still there was the hesitation, because the question he wanted to ask was an important one. Crucial. Something he'd never gotten to do and wanted to so bad.
"After all this, do I get to call you Dad?" he asked, then bit his lip. He wanted to say something cool, to take the weight off the question, but for once it just wouldn't come.
The way that Ben phrased the question meant everything to his potential father. Dean had been prepared for a great many things, a 'Do I have to call you Dad,' or 'Am I supposed to call you Dad,' but 'Do I get to call you Dad,' felt very different. It was like the kid was asking for a present, and the hesitancy that Ben had used when beginning the question, the way he was biting his bottom lip, cut straight to Dean's heart. After all, Dean and Sam had missed out on a lot of things growing up, having a mom, a normal childhood, but one thing that Dean had never doubted was that he had a dad who loved him and would do anything in the world necessary to keep him and Sammy safe.
"Yeah," He said, voice rough. Reaching out, he pulled Ben close into a hug, not caring if the gesture was straight out a chick flick because the lump in his throat was chick flicky too. "Of course you can, Ben."
It felt like he waited forever for Dean's answer, the seconds to process and respond moving so slowly, but finally Ben heard him and was then enveloped in another hug, this one initiated by Dean. Somehow, that made the words even better. He could call Dean 'Dad' if everything played out right.
Dad. He'd save it for when they knew, hold tight to that word until he could say it and know without a doubt it was true, and then he'd shout it to the world and not care if it made him look uncool. He'd have a Dad, cool wasn't even a consideration for that moment.