ben braeden-winchester. (littlepimp) wrote in parabolical, @ 2009-11-24 06:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | ben braeden, narrative |
WHO: Ben Braeden.
WHERE: the Impala in the driveway.
WHEN: Friday, November 24, 2006; 4 a.m. or so – onward.
WHAT: Even the most determined have moments of weakness.
RATING: PG-13.
WARNING: Marginal, but very underage, alcohol use.
STATUS: narrative; complete.
The door of the Impala closed with its usual, familiar sound, but for once Ben wasn't in the passenger seat or the back seat. No, he was in the driver's seat, where his dad should be, the seat worn by years of Winchester men driving it all over the country into a dent Ben couldn't fill. He was too young, too small, too not good enough to fill that spot physically or figuratively. He tossed the pilfered baby monitor up on the dash, the lack of sound telling him that Mary was still asleep. None of this was easy on her, at all, especially that John Winchester was still nowhere to be found, and Ben had tried so hard to be strong for her. It was what she deserved, it was what people expected, it was what everyone who was gone would expect of him. He'd taken to sleeping on a cot in her bedroom, since he hadn't wanted to disturb her by flailing all over the bed in his sleep, but he'd wanted to stay close to her. For her. For himself. But after a week plus of the house not being any fuller and his failure all those hours ago, Ben had wanted to be where he could feel closest to his dad, and more than even his bedroom full of possessions, that place was the Impala. After Mary had fallen asleep, he'd pulled open the baby monitor packaging, set it up and then snuck out here, to be near something dad-like and to be alone with his thoughts and feelings. Collected in the car with him, or on him, was an assortment of things that were not his. His dad's jacket, the 'Dad' smell starting to fade due to Ben using it as a blanket when he actually slept, was wrapped around him now. Brunette Claire's engagement ring and the Impala bolt, both dangling from a study cord around his neck, were securely tucked under his t-shirt where he could keep them safe. One of Sam's flannel shirts, the sleeves rolled up almost halfway just to fit properly, was beneath the jacket, and just like the jacket, the 'Uncle Sam' smell had begun to fade. John's journal, the newer one that had been made since being in Los Angeles, was jammed under his leg. Blonde Claire's purse was there, the contents half-spilled on the seat in Ben's attempt to find something that was her. A stake, one of the ones Faith had carved especially for him, was near the journal and purse. One of the laser tag vests that Eve had bought him during her first time here was propped up against the seat. There was even one of the puppy collars that Jack had outgrown long since, one of the ones that Ruby had made to keep Jack safe, hooked around Ben's wrist like a bracelet. There were just things. That was all they were, cold and inanimate things, and they were what Ben had left of the 'right' versions of nearly everyone he loved. His proof, his explanations, his logic, his insistence, his grandma there to back him up, his own memories in his head for people to see – none of it had gotten him his family back. He could type and scream and produce thing after thing and nothing he did was good enough. He had been determined to get his family back together and he had failed in the biggest way he could fail in his mind... by his dad not being there right now. The meeting with Dean had been, in ways, better than the others, because his dad had tried to wrap his head around it all even with the priestly mind whammy, but in the end it was a crushing blow of defeat because it hadn't ended with his dad remembering or at least believing enough of it to come home. Sure, as Ben had told himself and others, it was taking multiple attempts with everyone, but with his dad, he'd hoped for – no, he'd expected – that father-son connection to matter more than any others, even Eve's connection as an angel. He'd gotten a dad... only to have that taken away from him in a cruel and horrible way that no blood could heal and no word could fix and no action, no matter how determined, could change. It hurt. It hurt so much and Ben didn't want to hurt, for just a little while. To say that any one person and their actions influenced the final item being in the car with him would be unfair. It wasn't that this person or that person using alcohol to numb their pain that had motivated him, he wasn't trying to be like anyone with the action or feel cool and have some kind of assumed 'cred' for his actions with which to impress girls. It was the knowledge that people in general used alcohol to get away from feeling like shit – and that there was no one left to ground him but his grandma and nothing to ground him from that he really cared about – that had led to the half-empty bottle of whiskey being in the car along with the rest. It was half-empty, but not from him drinking it; it had just been that way went he'd sneaked the bottle outside with him. For a time, he just replayed the night in his head and twisted the bottle's cap off and on and off and on, over and over, but when the tears began to fall, even if he was quick to dash them away with his hand, the cap came off and stayed off. Reasoning that he was still a kid (who, by sane, expected logic, shouldn't be anywhere near whiskey, let alone ready to drink it) and didn't have any use-related tolerance, so maybe a few swigs would be enough to make things all cottony and removed from him, the bottle was lifted to his lips. The taste of that one swig left him with a hacking cough that lasted minutes and a need for air to follow the excessive coughing. It burned his throat, it made his eyes water more than he'd actually let fall as tears and it tasted so awful. How did people drink this stuff? The bottle earned a watery-eyed glare when the coughing and gasping had subsided, and then the cap was put back on and the bottle chucked into the backseat. "Fucking alcohol. Fucking bad guys. Fucking city." Even when he missed his mom desperately, even when he'd been kidnapped by Lilith, even during the worst of the times with Sam because of the blood... he had never wished to be sent back. Los Angeles was his home from the moment he'd gained a family here and he'd never wanted to be anywhere else. But now, knowing that going home would mean having his mom with him and, selfishly and horribly more than that, that there was a Dean Winchester somewhere in that world who was Dean Winchester and all that was needed was those paternity test papers to prove to that man that the father-son connection was true... he couldn't help but wish, in these hours of bleak hopelessness, that he and his grandma could just go back there. Being alone hadn't helped. Gathering the things to him like some desperate squirrel hadn't helped. Even alcohol hadn't helped, because in the end he was just a kid, so he was left to cope the only way children for eons coped when things were too much to bear. With a sob ripped straight from his soul, he curled up in a ball and cried until there was nothing left to cry. |