InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "BE PREPARED!"

Dean Winchester hugs baby trees (withgunsdrawn) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2013-06-19 21:20:00

Entry tags:

ben braeden, dean winchester

Who? Dean & Ben
What? Talking.
Where? Dean & Ben's place.
When? Tonightish, post-devamping.
Why? Because issues.
Rating: Shouldn't be high, will update if it changes?
Status: Incomplete, in-progress.

Dean honestly didn't understand why this had happened. He'd been trying to figure it out since the start - since he'd first found out that Ben had decided to leave, hadn't listened to the warnings and gone out at night, gotten himself turned.

Was he that bad at this parenting thing?

He must have been. If he wasn't, then something else was wrong - and as far as he could see, there wasn't much else that it could have been. Sure, Ben missed his mother - but that shouldn't have made things this tense, shouldn't have made him have worse teenage mood swings than Sam ever had. Dean didn't know how to do this - with Sam, he'd mostly had to just leave him alone with his books for a few hours, and the kid would calm down enough to not glare a hole in his face when he brought him dinner (or dragged his skinny ass out to a diner, more often than not).

Ben wasn't like Sam. Ben had all of Dean's anger and none of his walls, the lines he'd learned to keep himself inside when he'd been a teen (because his early life had been take care of Sammy and hunting monsters, and Ben's was school and video games in the apocalypse). It hadn't been until Hell that Dean's walls had started to fall, and they were built back up, now, everything was in it's neat little boxes, except for when it wasn't.

"Hey," he started from the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. His posture was passive, but at the same time it was obvious that he was serious; that he wasn't going to be easy to get rid of. Ben was in his room, now, it had been a few hours since he'd become human again, and Dean had been giving him some space - but not much. Now, it was time to deal with this. "You okay, kiddo? No vampire hangover?"

He was trying for a lighter tone, he was trying to be understanding - assuming Ben had a reason beyond stupid cranky teenage moods, assuming there was something here he could fix - and he was trying not to simply grab his son and shake him. Dean usually tried not to think about losing Ben - it was easier, that way, and it made him feel like this whole 'normal childhood' thing he was trying to give Ben was actually helping him. Keeping him safer.

It turned out, maybe that wasn't the case.

(Post a new comment)

zeppelinrulez
2013-06-21 01:15 am UTC (link)

Ben felt like shit for some of the things that he had said. Most of them weren't really how he felt, some had been hard truths, but overall he didn't feel that way. He was at a confusing time in his life, though. He didn't get why everything that surrounded him was so fucked up. He didn't get why the one person he'd had all his life had been taken away... Ben struggled with the loss of his mother every day. It was weird not to have her there to bitch at him about videgoames and how much time he spent playing them. He usually managed to cope and deal with that, but that didn't mean that his world was anywhere near perfect.

Ben struggled with the change. He didn't want to be a burden. He didn't want to be useless, which was what he felt like his current family thought of him. Winchesters. He definitely didn't feel like one in general. He usually felt like they didn't think he was capable. He felt like they thought he was a baby. He felt like, some of the time, he wasn't wanted.

And he was pretty damn positive that nobody else in the world understood him. Nobody got what he was going through. There was no way that anybody could get it.

He didn't even remember why he had decided to leave, arguably, the safest house in Kansas during the whole vampire thing. Ruby had made such a big deal about how they wanted Sam, but that wasn't really the reason that he had left. Part of him had wondered if anybody would notice that he was gone, but that wasn't even the reason behind it. He couldn't really pinpoint a reason. He hadn't been expecting to get bitten, though. Even that wasn't because he was wanted or sought after. He had been a way to get to the great and wonderful Winchesters, to Sam.

Ben just felt so out of place. He didn't know where he fit in. Was he expected to be the one Winchester that was supposed to be normal? That felt like a lot of pressure to him, and all he wanted to do was be like his dad, be like the family that he had left. He wanted to be a part of that. His little vampire temper tantrum probably hadn't gotten him anywhere, though. He only realized that now.

Hindsight was 20/20.

Ben sat up, looking toward the doorway as his dad spoke, finding it hard to look at him. Instead, Ben found a point on the floor. "Hey." Much as the kid could be a brat and mouthy he wasn't exactly feeling at his best at the moment. He did feel bad for the stupid shit he'd done. He hadn't wanted to hurt anyone, not really. Lifting his shoulders up in a bit of a shrug, Ben adjusted his focus spot, looking at his dad's feet. "Guess I'm okay? Feel fine."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

withgunsdrawn
2013-06-22 10:35 pm UTC (link)

"Good," Dean replied. The way Ben's eyes didn't meet his - or even really make it far from the carpet - didn't go unnoticed. He said he was okay, he said he felt fine, and Dean was fairly sure that wasn't entirely true. Sure, maybe he wasn't having crazy blood cravings, or wanting to rip anyone's throat out, or even feeling physically ill after the whole ordeal, but Ben wasn't okay right now.

Dean didn't linger in the doorway for terribly long before he entered the room, pulling the chair away from the desk and sitting on it backwards. "You wanna tell me what's going on with you, lately? I might not be the smartest guy ever, but I'm not an idiot, kiddo. You're not happy."

He'd noticed before this, of course. Just, he hadn't realized it was this bad. And he didn't know what he was supposed to do to fix it, so he'd done nothing, really. The normal things, of course, and he'd tried to be obviously around, in case Ben felt like telling him what was going on, but he hadn't asked, and he knew, now, that maybe he should have. Or maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, before now.

Winchesters were frickin' stubborn, sometimes. Name or not, Ben was a Winchester. It was stupid to expect anything else.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

zeppelinrulez
2013-06-29 05:57 pm UTC (link)

Ben felt fine physically, but that really didn't mean that everything was okay. Despite having grown up most of the time so far with a mom, he still wasn't all that good about sharing what was going on with him. And being in the middle of an apocalypse with his father and that side of his family hadn't changed that fact or made it any easier for the teenage boy. He didn't feel good about the fit that he had thrown. He didn't feel cool about the shit he had said. That being said there had still been some truth in his words, even if it had been twisted around and made worse.

His dad wasn't leaving, though. Ben had figured he might leave him alone a little longer. He'd been wrong about that too, apparently.

Ben looked up at his dad in the chair, shrugging a little bit. He didn't know how to say what was bugging him. He didn't know how he was supposed to explain it. "I dunno." Ben said, picking at the blanket quietly for a moment. "I try to be happy sometimes. I dunno though. You wouldn't get it even if I tried to explain it." Ben said, reaching up to rub his face and then rake a hand through his hair.

(Reply to this) (Parent)