InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You got me!"

Ben Winchester (inhisfootsteps) wrote in parabolical,
@ 2009-09-27 21:51:00

Entry tags:

ben braeden-winchester (future plot), ruby

WHO: Ben Braeden-Winchester, Ruby
WHERE: L.A. streets
WHEN: Wednesday, September 27, 2006; 6 p.m.
WHAT: Future!Ben arrives, identities are mistaken and confusion, suspicion and lulz are had.
RATING: TBD
STATUS: thread; in-progress!

At 6:00:35 p.m., the world changed around Ben Braeden-Winchester without him even realizing what had happened. It wasn't for lack of observation skills, because right now, the eldest son of Dean Winchester was using every last skill his father, uncle, grandfather, aunt and more had taught him because people he loved were missing. It was that the change in timeline hadn't even interrupted the mostly empty stretch of street he was on, and very few landmarks in this are of the city had changed much since he was a kid.

Spotting a familiar brunette making her way down a sidewalk, Ben slowed sharply and pulled the Impala up to the curb – towzone, but he wouldn't be here long anyhow – and called out to her.

"Ruby! Hey, over here!"

Slipping up and out the window, he parked his backside on the door like a seat, with one arm casually resting on the top of the Impala, clearly expecting the demon woman to stop, turn around and come to the car. Might as well give her a ride to the next demon bar or wherever her part of the search was supposed to go next.

"Still nothing, goddammit." He dropped his head into his free hand, growling in exhausted frustration. "I don't know how much more of this shit I can take, Ruby. Nat and Megan and all the rest are out there and they're doing God knows what to them and I didn't-."

Protect them. Keep them safe. Those two and all the kids he collected to him like his own little posse (or gaggle of girls in many situations) to protect and teasingly harass, to treat with varying degrees and types of affection and attention. He was supposed to make sure as few bad things happened to them as possible as, realistically, bad things inevitably happened. But he hadn't been able to minimize this.

Shaking his head to clear off the unwanted 'emo', he looked up at her, still not realizing she wasn't exactly who he thought she was because she looked no different. "What about you, find anything? Anything at all?"

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 07:17 am UTC (link)

Ruby was NOT in the mood for this. Timelines clashing. Kids. KIDS. She hadn't thought about or expected kids but she suppsoed it made sense, Future kids coming back to warn of potential doom. Yeah that would have been real handy a few months back, some Mini Sam or whatever coming back to tell his father off for being stupid.

An irrational stab of...something she didn't want to name later Ruby had decided tequila was the only way. Castiel had nothing to say as of yet on the subject, and what would he tell her, it was all how it was supposed to be or that it was the Higher Powers of this world and there was nothing to be done.

She was walking, furious, and wishing she could bury her head in the sand till it was done. Joy. A whole new generation to watch her screw up.

And thats when she heard her name called. She spun on her heel and shook her head, that damn car,

"What the hell do you want with me De..."

On closer inspection it wasn't Dean. Maybe someone was trying to steal his car. The thought made her happy if she did say so herself. But a someone that knew her, a someone that called her.

Weirdly her first thought was Azazel. But he was dead here, and she didn't think he'd be this pleasent with her. And who the hell were Nat and Megan.

Ugh this was ridiculous.

"Got the wrong girl" she said coldly making to move on.

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-28 07:36 am UTC (link)

Confusion shifted quickly to dawning understanding at Ben stared an apparently very pissy Ruby. Oh, wait, he knew what this was about. Dammit.

Sighing the sigh of put-upon men everywhere – for a demon, she could be such a damn girl sometimes – Ben got out of the car Dukes of Hazzard style and jogged over to where she was standing.

"Oh, come on, Ruby! What're you pissed at me for?" he asked, offering her a playful pout that his heart wasn't really in, "it's not like everything Grandpa says is the same shit everybody else is thinking. I wasn't thinking it, that's for damn sure."

He knew Ruby and even after all these years, she still needed her confidence boosted when John reminded everyone that some people would never forgive and forget.

"You don't have to go all solo-demon-of-emo on me because, one, I think you fucking rock and that should be enough, and two, and because I need you." His expression grew serious again. "You know I do. Somebody out there has answers and I'm not getting them on my own."

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 07:44 am UTC (link)

He left the car and came over to her, talking like he knew her. He didn't know her. How could... Grandpa?

Impala. Grandpa.

No frigging way.

"I hate this city so much sometimes" she said closing her eyes for a moment, was this Ben? Is that what this was? Was this Ben from some timeline in the future where she still was atoning for what she'd done. Where Faith was still some kind of saint and she still hadn't even begun to make up for what she'd done to Sam. Where Castiel said he loved her but could never forget what she'd tried to do for his brother. Had he cracked and left her?. Had everything changed and left her with nothing like she deserved.

She hated this, all of this.

But she supposed he wasn't being awful to her.

"Ben..." she said, mostly by way of confirmation "I'm not...who you think I am. Or well, I am, I'm Ruby, but not..."

She decided just to get it over with, looking down at the pavement, still pissed at the world.

"Its 2006 here" she said simply "I'm not the Ruby you're after. Sorry"

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-28 08:07 am UTC (link)

Yeah, well, Ben hated it too sometimes, and the last few days was one of those times, but that didn't change she was confusing him-

"2006? That's not fucking possible-"

-a confusion that slowly and horribly changed to understanding. It was possible. In fact, it was what had been threatened, albeit toward those who had been kidnapped. How had he gotten caught up in that? Had he been close to where they were when people had been sent back.

Alright, 2006. What had gone down in 2006? He'd found out Dean was his father. Uncle Sam had nearly broken the family. Ruby had nearly broken the world.

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

"You're the Ruby I'm after," he said, daring to sling an around around her shoulder. He'd have hugged her, but he knew there was a chance she'd knock him to the ground at an unannounced hug and he wasn't really in the mood for that, "just not as old. And I still need your help. I have to stop the Senior Partners from totally fucking up the future."

Telling her wouldn't lead to breaking it, he was convinced of it. He trusted her to do what was best for everyone, to keep her silence and let the future play out, even with her knowledge, because he knew that she knew the value of helping the many.

Of course, that was Ruby fifteen years from now. This Ruby didn't know it yet, did she? But he found that fact didn't matter, not after all he'd been through with Ruby.

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 08:15 am UTC (link)

She tensed automaticly at the contact not sure what to make of it. Ben from the future and he didn't hate her. What kind of messed up world had he come from that he didn't hate her.

He should hate her.

"No." she said again "I'm not, and I'm hardly what you need to help you. Go find Faith, she's the hero"

Bitter. A little, but she wasn't denying it at least. Why was he so convinced she'd help, why was he so convinced that she could help. She'd get him to Cas, maybe that would help, Angels could fold time, he'd told her once. So she'd get this older Ben to him and hopefully the world wouldn't explode from the mixing of timelines or whatever it was, God damn senior Partners.

There were so many questions on the tip of her tongue, all these kids, she wanted to know was one of them Sam's. But she shouldn't know, besides he wouldn't be stupid enough to have one. Not after the last time, not with what had happened. He wouldn't and it would end with him and that would be better, safer.

She moved out from under Ben's arm and turned to face him.

"Like I'm sure you've heard all your life, never trust a demon. How is it they put it. Poison. So you'll get better help elsewhere."

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-28 08:28 am UTC (link)

"Actually, A-" Lightening quick correction. "Faith would be a really bad choice. She'll want to fix everything bad that ever happened, just like Dad and the rest. And I can't let that happen. Plus? I trust you. With my life and with the lives of everybody I know."

This was sucking far more severely than Ben had bargained for in the first minute of processing his predicament. It wasn't that he wasn't tough enough to deal with Ruby on a downswing – he wasn't a ten year old kid anymore – but he hated to see her like this. It made him think about a time he was a hell of a lot happier making very, very small in his memories – a time he was apparently now stuck in – including who Ruby had been at that time. It hadn't been a good place for her.

"Fuck," he swore on an exhalation, shoulders sagging a bit at the thought. "It must be really close to the middle of the year. What month is this?"

The later part of 2006 was a good place to start some epic future changes, when it came down to it. This was going to be such a bitch, especially as there were things he knew he couldn't tell Ruby. Not this one, not right now, or it would ruin her path even more than the world, but clearly she thought the future sucked, so he had to find something to tell her.

Something to help her see that things weren't always going to suck this hard.

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 08:36 am UTC (link)

She would. Thats what she did. Fixed things. So everything was better right. Just like Sam, just like all of them. And Ben was coming to her because what? Because she didn't think the world could be fixed. Because there was always someone with a plan like hers, always someone with a reason they thought was the most valid in the world. There was always a way for the world to turn to shit in a heartbeat. She'd proved that three months ago.

It wasn't that long a time ago at all.

"Its September, coming on the end of the month" she told him simply. She didn't want to be his hero anymore, not with where that had gotten them the last time, she didn't want this, any of it.

And beyond a happiness he'd turned out as well as she figured he did she really wanted nothing more than to get back to her tequila.

"Maybe not Faith. But there are better people Ben. Much better people. I'm not the one you need okay. So just let me get back to ignoring all this would you?"

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-28 08:51 am UTC (link)

September. Well, that still fit, but Ben was drawing a blank as to the exact happenings of one month fifteen years ago. He knew that, in this general timeframe, he'd been torn between being a good kid and not trusting 'the demon' and starting to believe the things she said, but she'd still wanted him back in her life at this point. He knew that. At least, he was nearly certain of that fact.

"No." The definitive answer came along with him squaring his shoulders. "I'm not gonna let you just go off and," he leaned it a bit, sniffing briefly before scowling, "drink alone, and if that pisses you off, fine. Be pissed off at me. It's not like it's the first time and it won't be the last for either of us because that's what friends do."

He reached out again, this time only holding the edge of her shoulders lightly so he could try his best to get her to look at him, whether she did or not. "I don't want better people. I want the better demon, and that's you, even if you can't see that right now."

Goddammit. What was enough to say? What was too much? "The future... it sucks sometimes, still. It's just how living here works. But it's also awesome, and not just for me, but for you too." Okay, it wasn't awesome ALL the time for her because while the others had moved on, John had only let murderous hatred simmer to open dislike, but this was a pep talk, dammit. Creative license was allowed.

He fixed her with his most stubborn face, clearly not budging. "You can't tell me you don't want to have an awesome future. Or, well, I guess you could, but you'd be full of it. And you can't tell me that you don't care about what happens to me."

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 11:57 am UTC (link)

A better future.

A Ben was gripping her by the shoulders, an older Ben, mid twenties at least, maybe a little younger than Sam, maybe around the same age, she wasn't sure, and telling her that the future was better, that he wanted her around. She wasn't sure she knew how to be mad at him either.

"I'm not better" she said with an unusual softness "I'm not. Its not posssible and I'm not capable of it and its better everyone in your damn family accepts that. I'll keep going, I mean with the shop and the promising not to try and end the world again but 'better'. Its not going to be better"

She didn't want that future. It was a lie, it had to be.

But then Ben brought it home, made it about him.

"...I care what happens you. I just...So much is falling apart Ben, and I can't believe its ever going to be better. Ever going to make sense, because thats hope and hope means belief and faith and that screws things up, because so very often its wrong. So very often it makes things worse."

She didn't want him to make her care about some future. She didn't want to be involved in this, any of this.But he was being so stubborn.

"...I'm not worth it" she tried.

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-28 11:32 pm UTC (link)

The hardest part of this was that Ben couldn't remember experiencing a Ruby this broken, but there was nothing suspicious about that fact. He simply hadn't been there when she was going through this stage, because he hadn't been ready to make that leap of faith with her. She'd been the first real best friend he'd ever had, in terms of somebody knowing everything about him and his life and not treating him like some stupid kid, and her betrayal had hurt more than he'd known how to deal with at any age, let alone ten. But time did actually heal most wounds, and that broken trust had been one. Broken to the base, but the rebuilt foundation was stronger for it.

"Shut up," he said fiercely, not only daring to pull her closer, but to wrap his arms tightly around her and rest his chin on his head. He guessed the last time she'd even been hugged by a Ben, his chin still fit under hers.

Oh well, if she kicked him in the balls or made him start vomiting pins or something else, he'd deal. She needed this hug, he was convinced, but even more, he needed to hug her, needed to do something, anything, to take a chip out of her pain.

"Yes, you're worth it," he said, the words voiced in an almost rumbly growl – a deep voice, like his grandpa – that spoke of agitation on his part. "And I'm probably older than coma girl now, so you gotta listen to me. Those are the rules."

After a moment, he sighed softly, talking just as soft. "I'm sorry it sucks so much right now. It's not... it's not gonna get better right away and it's gonna keep sucking sometimes even after it's better, but you do get better, Ruby."

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-28 11:40 pm UTC (link)

She didn't do anything of the sort when he hugged her. Mostly it was just that same tense confusion. He sounded like a Winchester. That same tone, like they all got when they cared deeply enough.

She didn't expect it to get better right away. She had to come to terms with broken trust, broken friendships, outright hate. That betrayal. She had to accept Sam would never think of her like he used to. Never trust her again, not completely if even a little. But it got better?

Things got better, she got better.

She had to ask it, Selfish as it was with Ben having come back from some future, she had to know. If there was anything guarenteed to make her give up it would be the wrong answer to this question.

"Castiel" she said, finally relaxing into his grasp a bit. "Don't tell me anything else about your time, but is he...are we still... Did it get good again?"

She waited, she wasn't about to cry, not at all.

She wondered would Ben still tell her off for being a girl if she did.

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-29 02:57 am UTC (link)

There were a ton of things Ben would have told her about where he was from, but that one... if felt wrong to tell her. Not because it wouldn't be what she wanted to hear, but because it was. What was it Cas had always said when he was a kid? Something about it being important for Ruby to have things for herself. Ben, at that age, had always guessed that it meant Ruby needed to 'get a life', but now, at this age and looking back? He could see what Cas had meant. If he told Ruby, and she latched on to a future with Cas to keep her going, maybe she'd never get better for herself.

"I'm gonna break the future if I tell you, you gotta know that," he said, still quiet with an edge of desperate. If he fucked this up, it would ruin the future. Hers, his, everyone's. "The future's good, Ruby, good for you. That's enough to know, isn't it? Can't the rest be a really kick ass surprise?"

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dontcallmebitch
2009-09-29 06:19 am UTC (link)

Her first instinct was he'd left her. But Ben was saying her future was good, and that meant Castiel in it. It had been a horrible few weeks, and whatver people thought of her motivations she really had gone off the taste of fries just cause to her, it was something she and Sam had shared that she had lost along with him. She knew the obsession with Sam had to stop, but it had been years in the making, training to be what he needed, studying him, planning, and then she'd met him and he'd become a friend, and she'd lost that. By her own actions she'd lost that. And it had made her scared for what else she'd loose.

She was anti future because she didn't know if she could cope with having nothing left. If she didn't have Castiel left. With not knowing something. Anything about the future and the man she loved.

"... I just need to know he's there. Ben, I think about the future and its this...empty world without him. I know theres so much further I have to go and apparently by your time I have. Thats not going to make me stop working toward it assuming it happens no matter what. So if you tell me Cas hates me I will do all in my power to change the future, if you tell me he loves me. I'll still fight for that all over again. I know the things he's annoyed about. I understand them. And I'm trying. But I need something Ben because I just have this...knot inside me. Any time I think about him, or you, or Sam, And it won't go away"

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inhisfootsteps
2009-09-30 06:12 pm UTC (link)

Ben was quiet for a short time before he let out a long, labored groan. He knew how to tell Ruby no – even as a kid, really – so it wasn't that stopping him. It was that niggling feeling in his gut that he knew wasn't going to go away. Instinct, one he should trust as a person, as a hunter, and it said she needed this.

Could it break the future? Maybe not. Ruby and Cas had been back together before he'd known they really were, other than a kid's intuition that had said they probably would get back together because Cas was capable of having faith even after it had been shattered. Would this really speed anything else along all that much?

The silence stretched on, likely far, far longer than would have been hopeful, before Ben swore into the hair atop Ruby's head. Stupid Winchesters and their ability to be stupid pushovers with women in their lives, friends or loves.

He pulled back to look down at her, not disengaging the hug at all. "Alright. But no more, got it? One and only one spoiled surprise for the future," he said severely.

A breath, a prayer to God that this wasn't a mistake and he spoke. "He's there, Ruby. He'd never be anywhere else."

Maybe because he hadn't been raised in a life where a demon had killed his mother and his father had to hunt every other demon because they were all bad in that world, Ben was able to see beyond it in ways the others never quite would. But killing vampires every night didn't mean that ones like Spike and Angel, no matter how much he'd disliked the latter as a kid, couldn't be different. All the demons of his birth world could arrive and try and destroy L.A., and Ruby herself had nearly tried, but it didn't change that Ruby had become that redeemed demon she'd once only pretended to be.

And just because angels, starting with Uriel, had been raging dickwads who wanted Ruby dead and thought Castiel was some kind of blasphemous sell-out, didn't mean that an angel couldn't love a demon and still love God as well, couldn't be hurt and still forgive later.

So it made sense to Ben, even if it would take the others a long time to understand and accept it.

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dontcallmebitch
2009-10-01 08:04 am UTC (link)

He told her, he actually said it. She didn't loose Castiel. He stayed beside her, helping her, guiding her. He loved her, even after everything. The tension seemed to leave her body in one go, relaxing into the hug and more than a little suprised even now.

Yes there were still issues, yes there was a still a knot in her stomach everytime she thought of any of it. But here was something she could remember when it got bad.

And it usually got bad.

"Thank you Ben, I mean it, you have no idea how amazing it is to know that. Just that. I needed to."

She paused for a moment, worried, the thought had crossed her mind that if Castiel had committed to stay with her, what would that have done to his status with the Winchesters. Was it bad?, Did they hate him? She began to ask, How badly do they take it?, I mean with Castiel...Is he still okay with the family?"

She paused,

"No, actually you've said more than enough, the future should stay where it is. Even if I'm proud to have met you. I knew you'd grow up good."

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