Falling as far as you can go...

[mini_dean]

ooc: takes place after this. Foul language and drug use behind cut.

Ben sat on the couch, looking at the little piles of white powder and weed. So Mom was running to shack up with Dean again. He was in town a day, and yet there she was all over him again.

He was disgusted. Not that Mom was leaving Jeff - Ben would happily kiss that man goodbye with a bullet to his skull if he could - but for Dean of all people?! Was she just a glutton for punishment? He was just going to hurt her and leave her again. Maybe with another kid too. Yeah, that would be wonderful. How many other half siblings did he have out there anyway? Dean was probably a one man baby depot.

The anger led him to open the white powder packet. Shelia wouldn't notice one missing. He found the pipe and the razor, making the little lines expertly and leaning down, sniffing one up, then the second. He rubbed at his nose, then leaned back as the blessed numbness fell over him.

Now he felt better. Here he didn't give a damn about the world. It was nice like this. Peaceful. Painless.

But the world was shattered about 20 minutes later when his door was kicked down. Ben barely opened his eyes when he felt the hand on his throat, lifting him off the couch and throwing him against the wall.

"Where are they?" Jeff growled, slamming Ben's head back into the wall.

It took Ben a moment to remember, then he laughed. "Like I'd fucken tell you. Check the local motel. They're probably humping like bunnies."

"You're still a little shit, aren't you?" Jeff threw Ben across the room. Moments later he pinned Ben to the floor, his fists flying into the boy's ribs and face. Ben tried to fight back, but he was seeing double and the drugs were making it hard to block Jeff's fists.

"Pathetic. If you were my flesh and blood, I would have killed you a long time ago like the worthless runt you are," Jeff growled, pulling Ben to his feet and looking at him. Ben just laughed, then spat blood into his stepfather's face. Jeff growled, smacking Ben across the face hard, throwing him to the side as Ben then crashed into the counter of the kitchen area. Jeff looked down at the drugs on the table and laughed. "Still doing the small time drugs, aren't you, Benny boy?"

"Not... mine." Ben reached up to touch his head, finding blood where his head had connected to the wooden corner of the counter.

"No, just like there's not white powder on your lip." Jeff grabbed one of the needles that had been used to help test the drugs and knelt down, holding it against Ben's neck. "Now, I'm only going to ask you one last time, Ben; where did Dean Winchester take your mother? AND... if you say you don't know - you won't live to see either one of them again."

Ben's blue eyes looked at his step father, trying to look intimidating but he wasn't able to focus on him. "Go to Hell. I'd rather my Mom be with Dean than you any day."

Jeff laughed. "Oh, I'll find her, Ben. And what I did to you will be nothing compared to what I do to her and him. But for now, I'll just remind Lisa just how much she hurt me."

Ben winced as he felt the needle press against his neck, praying for someone to save him.

Comments

[ilove_atallman]

Ruby was annoyed. Not only was she doing a favor for Dean of all people, but the guy she was going to save, aside from living in one of the biggest shit holes she'd ever seen -- and she's been around a long time, so she's seen a lot of shit holes -- had made his place practically demon proof. She said practically because there was one window where the salt line hadn't been quite as well maintained. However, that was the window for the bathroom.

The bathroom was gross. When this was over, she was going to shower for a week.

But she wasn't thinking of that for the time being. For right now, she was trying to get her way to the poor kid that was currently having the crap beat out of him. When she got out of the bathroom, she spotted Jeff leaning over Ben, and she made her way into the room, before kicking up towards the guy's face, hard. She was pretty sure she broke the guy's nose, and that made her feel just a little bit better.

After that, she leaned down, grabbing the needle out of Ben's neck, and starting to try and push him to his feet. "You boys are all alike -- always leaving me to run in to save the damsel in distress."

[mini_dean]

He gave a soft cry as she pulled the needle out, the drugs already starting to hit his system. Jeff only got a bit of the mixture pushed in as a reaction from Ruby's kick, but it was enough to interact with the drugs already flowing in his system.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked, starting to shake as he let her push him around.

[ilove_atallman]

"I'm your knight in fucking shining armor, kid," she snapped, shifting Ben's weight onto her shoulders so that she could maneuver him a little better. "And you're going to have to break the salt line, because I'm not hauling your sorry ass out the way I came in."

Because getting someone who was high and beaten out a broken window was like trying to get a five year-old on sugar to sit still and play nice -- it just ain't happenin'.

She looked over at Jeff and narrowed her eyes slightly. "Now, just so you know, you may think you're some kind of badass, but I can kick your ass and still leave him standing, so either get the fuck out of my way, or be advised that you're in for a great deal of pain, because I'm so not in the mood to sit around and talk."

[mini_dean]

Ben looked at Ruby in disgust. "Fucken demon," he snarled, but he really didn't have a choice and kicked at the duct tape where the tape was coming up, breaking the line after a few attempts.

Jeff held his nose, glaring at Ruby before pulling out a gun from behind his back. "Don't try me, bitch. I don't know who you are or what you think you're doing - "

[ilove_atallman]

Ruby sighed heavily, before shoving Ben off on the door frame with a finger. "Stay. Don't move."

After that, she turned back to Jeff with a thin smirk. "Alright, hot shot -- you want to shoot me? Go ahead. Hit me with your best shot." He was going to be in for a world of shock when he did. She reached for the knife on her hip, and held her arms open wide, gesturing for him to go ahead and shoot her already.

[mini_dean]

Ben wasn't able to voice a complaint as he hugged his arms around his body, trying to control the shakes. The shit in the needle had been uncut and he was hurting.


Jeff smirked and aimed at Ruby, then shifted his aim at the last moment and fired at the perfect target she had left for him.

Ben.

[ilove_atallman]

Predictable. Absolutely predictable. But really, what did Jeff expect her to do with a guy who could barely walk. As soon as he fired she dove in front of the bullet feeling it enter and slice through as she landed on the ground. It took her a minute, but she rotated her neck lightly as she got up, before looking down at her shirt.

"You know -- I really liked this shirt."

But see, now Ruby wasn't just annoyed. Now she was pissed. She went after Jeff like a bear, taking advantage of the shock of her not dying -- hell, not even bleeding -- to go in for the attack. She took out all the aggression she had for the day, ending the fight with slamming Jeff's head into the floor beneath her, leaving him in an unconscious heap at her feet. She sighed, rotating her neck slightly, before turning back to Ben.

"Let's get the hell out of here. I feel dirty just looking at this place."

[mini_dean]

Ben just looked at Jeff on the floor, then up at Ruby. "Aren't you going to kill him?" His voice was a mixture of disbelief - isn't that what demons did? - and wanting to see it.

[ilove_atallman]

"Generally speaking? I don't kill humans unless they've got another demon inside them or they're trying to kill me and I don't have a choice. And while I don't think the world will be lamented the loss of that douchebag, I'm trying not to have every hunter in fifty miles on my ass."

She started to reach for him again, glancing around the room as she did. "You got a phone?"

[mini_dean]

Ben nodded, looking around the room. Where was it? He couldn't think about where it had gone... not even seeing it on the ground by the couch where he had thrown it after hanging up with his mother.

"I don't know..." His arms were the only thing keeping him from shaking, and he had wedged his foot on the opposite side of the door frame to keep him from slipping down to the floor again.

[ilove_atallman]

There was a sigh. A heavy one. "You know, for a Winchester, you're completely unhelpful." Usually Sam and Dean were at least somewhat helpful.

Ruby had no idea of Ben's history with his father. All she knew was Dean had told her that his son was in trouble, and after a minute of asking Dean how drunk he was that he'd gotten the sex of his own kid wrong, she'd gotten the full story. He hadn't mentioned that things were on rocks between them, or even the fact that Ben hated his guts. But then again, Ruby didn't really care either.

She finally spotted the phone leaving Ben where he was standing at the door and making her way over to where it'd been dropped. She then sighed heavily as she tried to remember the number Dean had given her a long time ago, but she'd never really needed till now. Usually he called her. It took her for a moment but then she started dialing and placing the phone to her ear.

[mini_dean]

Ben watched her, not daring to move. He would lose his balance if he did. But he felt sick to his stomach now and his eyes were starting to glaze over. Eventually his head just lolled to the side and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

He had wedged himself in the doorway, and as the drugs from the needle started to take effect, he effectively made himself trapped in a standing up position as he started his acid trip with nothing to distract him to keep him planted in reality.

[ilove_atallman]

There was another heavy sigh as Dean picked up the phone, his voice rough in her ear as she made her way over to where she'd kicked away the needle from Ben's neck, to see what exactly it was that Jeff had tried to inject into his system. She figured she should be at least grateful that the needle wasn't empty -- all he would probably get out of this was a decent trip, rather than an air embolism.

"Ben?"

"Try again," Ruby sighed. "You need to come here -- I'm not getting him far as is."

"Is he okay?"

"Define okay, Dean," she replied, looking back over at him. "He's about halfway to Wonderland at this point, and pretty beaten up, but give him a little medical attention, and he should recover."

"So he got there." There was no mistaking the raw venom in Dean's voice and Ruby was confused. The last person that she'd heard mentioned with that much venom was Alastair, and well -- Alastair had done a lot more to Dean than the douchebag on the floor did.

"Yes -- he came, he saw, he got his ass kicked by a girl. He's out cold and should be for a few hours, but the sooner you get here, the better for us all."

"I'm on my way."

After that, the line went dead, and Ruby made her way back over to Ben, bracing his shoulders with one hand and smacking him lightly on the face with the other. "C'mon Alice -- now's not the time to be chasing the white rabbit."

[mini_dean]

Ben's eyes blinked awake, then his body clenched and he pushed her out of the way as he fell to the ground. His stomach didn't like even the lightest smack and he just started to heave, the little that was in his stomach going out the wrong way as the drug interaction in his body took a wrong trip on the yellow brick road.

Then he collapsed on the floor, shaking bad now.

[ilove_atallman]

There was another sigh as Ruby moved over to him, stepping over to straddle him and crouching down to check his vitals. His heart was racing, which was normal for someone on drugs, but otherwise he seemed like he would be okay long enough to wait for Dean to get there.

She pulled back after a minute, before moving over to where Jeff was. She hooked her arms lightly under his shoulders, before dragging him back towards the bathroom and tossing him none-to-gently inside. The lock on the door was broken -- go figure -- but she picked up one of the chairs in the room and wedged it under the door knob, should Dean take longer than expected getting to them.

[mini_dean]

Ben was back awake again when Ruby came back into the room. He was sweating bad, trying to turn onto his back to breathe better.

"Why...?" he asked, wanting to know why she had come to save him. A demon, of all people. Not that he wasn't grateful, but she surely wasn't what he had been expecting.

[ilove_atallman]

Ruby looked over at him with a smirk before replying. "Because it means your dad owes me a favor. And frankly -- I love having things to hold over Dean Winchester's head." She paused again, before picking herself up and glancing around, her nose wrinkling in disgust slightly. "Besides -- saving Winchesters and Winchester spawn is kind of what I do best."

[mini_dean]

Ben's eyes rolled a bit, more from the drugs than the mention of his father. "He got a ... guilt complex or... something? Never cared till now..."

[ilove_atallman]

Ruby paused for a minute, a little unsure how to answer the question, because she had a feeling she was going to have to clarify either way. "Well -- he does, but that's a whole other story. But look, kid -- " Because she still didn't know the kid's name and frankly, didn't care all that much. " -- your dad got mixed up in some bad shit not too long after he met you. Big time demons wanted his head on a plate. He wasn't going to put a little kid in danger -- especially when he was told that the kid wasn't his. Once things cleared up -- I guess he just never got back to your end of Indiana. Maybe he figured that he'd been gone long enough, and you two were probably okay, and didn't even remember the guy who saved your life once a long time ago, maybe he thought you were better off without him at the time, whatever. I'm sure he regrets it all now, but hey -- what can you do."

[mini_dean]

"Better if he... stayed gone."

Ben's eyes slid shut and his head fell to the side. He was still awake, but the lights were hurting his eyes that were already hard to keep open.

"Don't need him."

[ilove_atallman]

"Yup," Ruby replied, smacking him hard on the back as she pushed herself to her feet. "You're just doing a bang-up job on your own." Sarcasm, but it was sarcasm with love.

Not.

[mini_dean]

"Fuck you," Ben muttered, curling on his side so he didn't have to look at her.

[ilove_atallman]

Ruby snorted slightly, before her head snapped up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and she moved to stand in the doorway, giving Dean a look as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I got shot. You owe me big."

"Where is he?" Dean frowned, looking down and spotting Ben on the floor. "Jesus."

"He's fine, he's just tripping," Ruby replied, get him out of here, and have a doctor look him over when you're far enough away, and he should be fine."

"Where's -- "

"I took care of it. Get him out of here, settle your male aggression issues later. You want to lose him you have to leave. Now."

Dean sighed slightly, before reaching over for Ben, placing a gentle set of hands on his shoulders to get him up. "C'mon -- let's get you out of here."

[mini_dean]

Ben struggled feebly, trying not to let Dean help him. "No, leave me alone..." he tried to push Dean away. His eyes, while still glazed, where a mixture of pain (both mental and physical) and anger. "I don't need you..."

[ilove_atallman]

"Dean. Your kid is an ungrateful little shit. I say we leave him here."

"Ruby." He shot her a look, and she gave him one right back before rolling her eyes slightly, and reaching for Ben.

"Sorry, kid -- you have no say." She picked Ben up before he had a chance to struggle, hauling him up roughly so he could lean on her shoulders, and starting to walk him slowly towards the door.