Chapter Text
They’re just sitting down for dinner at the bunker when Dean’s phone rings. It’s not a number he recognizes, but that’s hardly uncommon as a hunter, so he steps away from the table and hits answer, smiling fondly as Cas and Jack debate the merits of different salad dressings in the background.
“Is this Dean Winchester?” The voice that comes shakily through the phone is equal parts familiar and strange, and Dean can’t place it.
“Yup.”
“Uh. This is, uh, it’s Ben.”
Dean swallows hard. He doesn’t have to ask for elaboration—his voice has changed over the years; he must be, god, he must be in his twenties now—but he can still hear that little boy he used to know somewhere in there. Dean has, over the years, pushed down every single thought of Ben and Lisa that tried to surface, but he’s never been able to forget them.
His voice comes out strangled when he says, “Ben?”
Cas’s head jerks up, and he gives Dean a worried look. Dean holds up a placating hand, and steps out of the kitchen, ignoring Cas’s eyes on his back.
Ben doesn’t speak for a moment, and Dean almost worries he’s hung up, before he says, “I didn’t know who else to call. People here are showing up drained of blood. A witness swears he saw a vampire. Cops think he’s nuts, but they also don’t know what to think. I thought it might be your sort of thing.”
It takes Dean a second to compose himself enough to answer. “Right. Yeah, that sounds like our sort of thing. Where are you?” Ben names a town in Oregon, and Dean quickly runs through the logistics. “We’re in the area, we’ll be there in an hour.”
“Oh,” Ben sounds surprised, and okay, it’s probably not the most realistic thing, but it’s believable enough, and Jack can get him there, so. “Okay. Uh. Meet me at the Starbucks on main street.”
“I’ll see you there,” he says, and then pauses before he hangs up. “Ben, uh, how do you . . .”
“Remember you?”
“Yeah.”
“Hit my head, the one year I played high school football, so uh—end of ninth grade, I guess. It all came back in bits and pieces after that.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They both stay on the line for a moment, not speaking.
“I’ll see you in an hour, Dean,” Ben says after a beat. Then he hangs up.
—
“Get packed,” Dean says the second he walks back into the kitchen. “Jack, finish your meal first, you’ll need to get us to Oregon. Meet back here in twenty minutes.”
“I’m done,” Jack says, with a grin and a half-finished plate in front of him. “I thought you hated travelling like that.”
“I do. This is urgent. But you’re not done. Finish your fucking food.”
The kid complains how hungry he is the whole time they’re making dinner, and now he’s trying to skip out without eating enough, for fuck’s sake. Kid needs to learn to take care of himself.
“Dean,” Cas scolds, before he can leave to grab his bag. “You need to eat too.”
“I’m fine.”
Cas just stares at him, until he sighs and grabs a fork, shoving a few bites of dinner into his mouth.
“You happy?”
Cas does not look particularly happy, but he lets Dean push past him and leave.
—
Dean’s the first one ready, and he busies himself tidying the mess they left in the kitchen. Cas shows up a moment later, but Dean ignores him until he feels a gentle hand on the small of his back.
“Dean.”
“That’s my name.”
Cas lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Are you alright, Dean?”
“I’m fine,” he says, voice short.
“. . . are you mad at me, then?”
“Why the fuck would I be mad at you?”
“You know why.”
Dean closes his eyes. Of course, Cas would still be worrying about that, but honestly, it’s been too long. He’s lost Cas too many times since then for the old betrayal to even register anymore. Hell, working with Crowley sounds like a non-issue at this point. Everything that felt so big all those years ago feels smaller now.
“No, Cas, I’m not mad at you.”
Cas looks at him with those piercing fucking eyes, and Dean knows he’s gotta give him something or else Cas will keep fucking staring at him, and if Cas does that, all his walls are going to fall down and he’s going to break apart at his feet.
“I’m just worried about Ben. He says there’s vamps in town, so sooner we can gank the bastards, better I’ll feel.”
“Okay,” Cas says, a note of skepticism still in his voice. “How does he remember you?”
“Hit his head.”
“Ah, that would do it.”
“Yup.”
They fall silent for a second, then Jack is there, and Dean’s double checking that he and Cas are properly armed and ready, and a moment later they’re outside a motel in a little town in Oregon.
They check in, stash their bags, and then Jack zaps them to the alley behind the Starbucks. All in all, it takes about 35 minutes from getting the phone call, before Dean’s seated at a table with an overpriced cookie he doesn’t really want, anxiously tapping his foot and looking around for Ben.
If he’s honest, he’s not sure he’ll even recognize the kid. It’s been so long, and Ben was so fucking young when he knew him. He’s thought about looking him up online, dozens of times, but he’s always shut it right back down.
He was supposed to be out of Ben’s life. It was best for both of them.
Glancing down, he realizes he’s started breaking his cookie into pieces. He can’t bring himself to eat it; he sort of thinks he might throw up. Distantly, he considers begging Cas and Jack to join him, instead of sitting a few tables away to give him privacy. He’s not sure he’s ready to face this.
Ten minutes before they’re supposed to meet, the bell jingles, and Dean’s breath catches when he sees the young man who’s just walked through the door. He’s older now, so much older, and his hair is longer, but he’s unquestionably Ben.
As Ben’s gaze sweeps the coffee shop, Dean takes a second to just take him in. He figures it might be his only real chance to just look at the kid. He’s wearing a jean jacket over an old Queen T-shirt, and his hands are stuffed awkwardly in his pockets. He’s got something on a chain around his neck, but it’s tucked under his shirt. His face is almost clean shaven, but he’s got a hint of stubble, enough that it’s clear he could grow more if he wanted. It almost hurts, to see him so grown up.
Dean can tell the second Ben spots him. Something in his face shutters closed, walls going up. Dean swallows hard and raises a hand in greeting; tries not to throw up as Ben sits at the empty chair across from him and sets a file on the table.
“Uh. Hi, Dean.”
“Hey, Ben.”
Ben glances around, brow furrowed. “Where’s Sam? He’s alright, isn’t he?”
Something in Dean’s chest clenches at the concern. Sure, Sam’s not the one that skipped out on Ben and Lisa, but it’s something. “Sammy’s fine. Honeymoon in Ireland. My backup’s over there.”
He jerks a thumb toward Cas and Jack, just in time to watch Jack’s face come away from his mug with a big moustache of foam. Cas chuckles and pushes a stack of napkins toward him, but Jack just grins and breaks off a chunk of his cookie, not getting the hint.
Backup isn’t really a word that does them justice, but it doesn’t feel fair to sit here across from Ben and tell him all about his new family.
“Uhh, isn’t that the guy who . . .?” Ben gestures vaguely at his head, and Dean winces.
“Yeah, but he can’t do that anymore.”
Ben eyes him suspiciously. “And if he could?”
Dean can’t quite bring himself to look him in the eye. He stares at Ben’s hands on the table instead. “It wasn’t fair of me to . . . That wasn’t my call to make. I shouldn’t have messed with your head, Ben.”
Ben’s quiet for a moment, looking everywhere but Dean. Then, quietly: “I understand why you did it. I’m not saying . . . it’s okay, or anything like that, but I get it. Mom was . . . happier, I think. After. Those first months after you left were really hard. Which was also shitty, by the way. But it was easier for her, in a way, once she didn’t remember. When things didn’t . . . fit right, she just blamed it on the car accident and hitting her head. But I just . . . something always felt like it was missing, and I could never place what, until I hit my head and everything came flooding back.”
Something strange and melancholy fills Dean at that. He’s glad that she’s happier. That maybe he made the right choice, even if it wasn’t his to make. And he’s not still hung up on her, not romantically—not when Cas is fifteen feet away and Dean is so fucking head over heels for him. Honestly, he’s not sure how much he ever was, versus how much he just wanted to feel normal. Still, there’s a pang of longing for what never could have really been.
“How is she?” he asks quietly. He’s not even fully sure he means to say it.
“She’s good. Really good. She’s, uh, she’s just got engaged, actually.”
“Oh.” He’s not sure why he didn’t expect it. “Well, uh. I’m happy for her.”
And honestly, he is.
“How are you, Ben?” he asks after a moment.
Ben shifts in his seat, then says quickly, “I’m fine. But, uh. The case. The police reports and shit are in this file. If you need more, my, uh, my roommate’s uncle is the sheriff, so just let me know.”
“Right. Uh. Yeah, we'll probably head down to the station in a minute, try and get a look at the bodies. Do you want us to just—?”
“Uh. Cops might trust you more if you’re with me? Tom’s uncle knows me, so.”
The thing is, he’s probably right—interacting with the cops is always a little risky, and having whatever edge they can get pretty much never hurts. The less the cops view them as outsiders swooping in and stealing their case, the better their chances of not getting found out are. But. “I know this ain’t the dangerous part, but you get tangled up in a case like this, sometimes you can’t avoid the dangerous part, Ben.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Dean.”
“Yeah, you are.” He’s so grown up, but he still feels so young. Dean knows he was hunting at his age, so was Sam, but . . . so help him, the kid deserves better.
“Okay, well I’m not your kid anymore.” Dean tries to hide the way he flinches at that. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Dean swallows hard. “Okay. Let’s go. Uh. We’ve not got a car.”
“What?”
“It—uh—it broke down. Yeah. It broke down. We . . . took a taxi here.”
It’s a stupid lie, he knows it is. Ben knows enough about the supernatural that teleporting here wouldn’t seem that odd. But Ben doesn’t need to know he dropped everything and teleported across the country for him, because Ben doesn’t need to know how much Dean still fucking cares.
“I can drive you. Get your friends.”
Dean nods, and walks over to Jack and Cas to let them know they’re ready to go, barely resisting the urge to drop a kiss on the top of Cas’s head as he does. He’s not really sure why he stops himself, just . . . Ben’s right there.
“Are you okay, Dean?” Cas asks quietly as Jack throws out their garbage.
“I’m just as fine as I was last time you asked that.”
“Dean.”
“Cas, I’m fine.”
Cas sighs. “Okay, Dean.”
“Will you stop saying my name like that?” Cas glances down, but not before Dean sees the hurt flash over his face. “I’m sorry, man. It’s not you. I’m just . . . stressed.”
“It’s okay, Dean.” He can tell he means it, and it sort of makes him want to sink into the floor. He doesn’t deserve Cas. Never has. But somehow Cas still wants him anyways.
Jack rejoins them, and they file awkwardly after Ben and pile into his car.
“Nice car,” Dean says as he climbs in.
“Yeah. I had to fix it up, but it was dirt cheap.”
Dean looks away. He remembers teaching Ben how to fix up a car. He wonders if Ben thought of him when he worked on it, or if the memories don’t mean the same thing to him that the do to Dean.
“You did a good job,” Dean says as they pull away from the curb. “Runs nice.”
“Thanks.”
They don’t speak for the rest of the drive, not that it’s particularly long. The town is tiny, and Dean would wager a guess it’s the sort of place where everybody knows everybody. He wonders how many of those people know Ben, how many get to see him every day when Dean had to give that up.
He doesn’t really have any right to grieve it, but he can’t help himself.
When they pull up at the station, Dean tosses Cas a badge, and instructs Jack to stay in the car.
“Why?” Jack complains.
“Because you look about twelve, no one believes you’re an agent.”
Jack rolls his eyes, but sits back in his seat.
When Dean glances back at Ben, he sees him watching them, expression tight. The second he meets Dean’s eyes, he looks away, but not fast enough. Dean can’t tell whether the emotion there is anger, or grief, or something else altogether, but something deep in his gut tells him whatever it is, it means Ben still cares.
He can’t tell whether that’s a good thing or not.