i'm leaving you my last curse

[bravebartender]

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indiana

[acdc_rules]

[Ben, Lisa, Rudy, Dickerson]

[acdc_rules]

I did something stupid.

[This is not where he wanted to say those words.

He had planned to do it alone, with Dickerson, where Rudy wouldn’t overhear and be eventually forced to share with his mother, but immediately after he gets that initial statement out, Rudy and his mother return from overseeing the Turkey Trot.

“Hey, now, buddy. It can’t be that stupid.” Rudy, always so quick to reassure. Ben grits his teeth before flashing his mom a smile.]

Hey. You’re back fast.

[camber]

( He respects other people's houses, so he spokes in the garage

Dude had an entire two cigarette's worth of time to get what he wanted to out.

Maybe it's on Dickerson, he was going on about how awkward it was running into Mandy the night before (but also chill, too), rags on Ben for not joining him for the rowdiest night of the year. Or how his old man wants him in on Saturday to help with this gnarly restoration, so Ben's going to have his partner-in-crime. He's not a talker, but with Ben, sometimes he just talks.

Unless they're not talking, cause he sits in the most comfortable silences with his best friend. With the only guy who just gets him.

They get each other.

He knows when Ben has a bone to pick, though. He can see it nagging behind his eyes, just letting Dickerson talk and talk, but the guy's gotta take his own initiative.

He does regret not pushing harder before they let themselves back into the house because at that exact time, the folks return and timing can't really be worse, can it?

Not that he knows what's in store for him.

Lisa stops in the foyer, removing her coat and hanging it up.

"Well, it wasn't the tortoise trot," she reminds her son. She toes off her boots. "And I echo Rudy. I mean, you've done some done stuff, but never anything that just makes me think, whew, that was a dumb thing my son did." )

Nah, he's the smartest guy I know.

[acdc_rules]

Don't start lying for my benefit.

[He's kidding though. He knows he's not stupid, but this? This is stupid. This is something he probably should have opened his mouth up about sooner.

And now his Mom is here so might as well rip the band-aid off.]

I 23andme'd myself.

[Bracing for the inevitable criticism to come.]

[enate]

( Ben has done dumb shit, so's Dick. And Dick's pretty sure there's something wild in Ben's mother's past. She takes to everything in Battle Creek too well, has the nice husband, she's not perfect (God, not even close to perfect) and she busts his balls any time she can - but she's also been there for him, too. So, he knows the stakes when Ben lets it rip so-to-speak.

Lisa removes her scarf next, their little family still there in the foyer. She doesn't react just yet, a wry smile forming. Her son. )

I'd ask if it was for school, but you said you did something stupid. Let me guess. ( She twists the scarf she's holding with both hands, since she has something to wring. She doesn't even know she wants something to wring, she didn't think this would be her reaction but it all feels a bit confrontational since they're all just standing there. ) Cilantro doesn't taste like soap for you? ( They both like their Mexican.

She lets the silence linger between them. ) Maybe we shouldn't do this right here?

( Dick stands back, holds back, to see what transpires, sharing a sympathetic look with the other semi-outsider in all of this, the nicest nudge he knows.

And still, Lisa doesn't move. )

Why didn't you tell me you wanted to submit yourself to one of those websites?

[acdc_rules]

It wasn't really something I thought through. I was a little drunk and ... it was more impulsive than anything else.

[Did he drink so this would feel easier to do or was it easier to do because he was drinking? The world may never know.

But even if it was premeditated, he isn't sure he would have been able to tell her before it was done. To risk her talking him out of it. Never mind that he doesn't know how to put into words why. These pieces of his life that he feels like have been held at arm's length from him. He doesn't take it personally, his mother's past. He knows that she has never hedged about how he came to be, but there's part of him that still has questions.

Rudy reaches over, giving Lisa's shoulders a soft squeeze of support, before glancing over to Dickerson. "Why don't we give them a minute and you come help me with the turkey?"

This feels like a mother and son conversation.]

No, wait. I need D here too.

[Ben appreciates what Rudy is trying to do but there's a reason was telling Dickerson beyond the man being his best friend.]

[camber]

( Did Ben decline his friendly invitation to stay home, drink, overthink and do something stupid? No, he'd bet money Ben has results or he wouldn't be wringing his hands like this. Something stupid indeed.

"I invented stories that start with 'I was a little drunk,'" his mother says. She glances at Rudy, silent in her appreciation before Ben turns down their mother-son chat. She turns to Rudy again, now apologetic with consternation.

"Can you check on the turkey?"

She doesn't mind Dickerson being in this conversation. He's her best friend's son and sometimes, she sees something bonded between them, something deeper, but she doesn't ask questions and he's never had a big network of friends. Maybe because he had to check his 23 and me.

When Rudy leaves them all, Lisa relocates them to the dining room, to at least not have this civil conversation by the front stairs.

Dick posts up close to Ben, standing if he's sitting, or sitting if he's standing, there for backup.

"Okay, Ben. Talk." )

[acdc_rules]

[Rudy nods, and gives Ben's shoulder a squeeze as well as he makes his way inside, leaving them to their family conversation.

Ben waits until the door closes before taking a deep breath.]

Okay, so I did it, and I got a hit on the paternal side. This guy named Adam Milligan is supposedly my paternal uncle. I tried sending him a message and didn't get a response, so I googled him and turns out he passed away like ... twenty years ago. I read his obit and it didn't mention a father or any surviving family so I wanted to see if D would run him to see if he could like ... find the father on the birth certificate or something. That's all I got.

[enate]

( Dickerson takes mental notes of every detail, it's muscle and mental memory at this point and it feels like a debrief in the squad room.

Ben has always been the light of his mother's life and she has championed him where she can. There is nothing he could do that she wouldn't get behind. She doesn't like it, but she listens.

Lisa tries to stay neutral (13) as he speaks. A paternal hit. And he has an uncle somewhere.

She stays silent as Dickerson pulls out his phone and then his notes app.

"What do you know about Adam Milligan?" )

[acdc_rules]

Born September 29, 1990 in Windom, Minnesota. I'll send you the obit.

[He reaches for his phone before pulling it up and sending it over to his friend.]

Doesn't say he had any siblings though, so who knows?

[He then glances over to Lisa, his expression softening a bit.]

You okay, Mom?

[enate]

( Dickerson taps out his answers, glances briefly at the obit, then switches back into his notes.

"Doesn't mean he doesn't have 'em," Dick notes, knowing full well he does. "He might not know he has them."

Dick's dad isn't philandering, being a single dad, but Dick knows dads do philander.

Lisa stays silent, taking a long, painstaking breath. )

I'm fine. I just wish you would've told me you wanted to look into your father. You always seemed find he wasn't in the picture.

( And she can't help but wonder, how long has he been lying to her about caring he wasn't. )

Maybe if you run his DNA in the system, something will come up. But, that then means your dad's in the system. ( Booked. ) So, do with that what you will.

( She sits back. She has to ask. )

Are we okay?

23andU2

[camber]

( Nobody blinks when Dickerson comes in on his day off. Always a dog with a bone, he's always chasing something, and this is no exception. It's not "using" resources because they're the department's, and nine times out of ten every time he finds his man so-to-speak. His partner does find him at the computer, leans over and he gives her the cliff notes. He really could be a PI if he wanted to and if he breaks the rules as consistently already does, that may be in his future. It's a slow day, and normally he'd let her tag along, but he's already working a pretty cold trail and one charismatic guy is different than a guy and a girl.

Any DNA match in the system is going to take time, so he gets going early. He cases her old yoga studio which is now a full-scale luxury gym and the bar - the bar hasn't changed, that could mean the staff hasn't change, but it's been thirty-ish years.

The gym's records are not the yoga studio's even though they do have a studio, five in fact, different work rooms.

It's a dead end in specifics at the old bar but the owner used to bartend there a lot and he's told he'll be in at eleven.

He checks out the neighborhood next. It's very small-town cookie cutter every house looks the same and he can imagine everybody was probably in everyone else's business back then, probably still is. The custody lie is easy and salacious enough to get the wives talking. While nobody can confirm ever hearing about Ben's father (beyond a one-night stand), one of the neighbors remembers Dean vividly. And he gets quite a story.

Irrelevant to the search at hand, maybe, but a lead nonetheless.

Back inside his car, he rattles off a voice message to the group. )

Alright, I got an update for a contender. Does the name Dean Winchester mean anything to either one of you? Apparently, right around the same weekend Ben was kidnapped when he was eight - and we're talking about that later on, this guy Dean came out of the woodwork. Some - we'll call it colorful language was used to describe him and Lisa's connection to him. ( best night of my life (sex, obviously) Dean. ) Not saying this Dean guy kidnapped Ben, because I heard other kids were also kidnapped by your realtor who set herself on fire rather than be taken in. Gruesome stuff. Apparently, the realtor also, like, killed a bunch of parents.

Anyway, one of your old neighbors said he split after that weekend until two years later when he was suddenly living with you guys. Said you lived with Dean for a year or so before all three of you moved away. By the time she caught back up with you, Dean was out of the picture and you didn't even mention him, so she figured you didn't want to.

Apparently, you made it clear to all of them Dean wasn't his father. Even let him down easy, apparently. And were - "lightly rebuffed" when you invited him to stay.

Dean, aside, they can't think of anyone else. You had a wild streak but that was before they really knew you, before you uh - moved to the suburbs. This owner of ( the bar ) is in today and worked when you were frequenting there, so, that'll be my next stop. I'll keep you apprised.

( He lets the voice note end, taking a moment before he hits send. And then he gets a call from his partner.

"You need to hear this. Or, or, see this." )

[acdc_rules]

[Ben doesn't leave a voice memo, because he's working, so he squeaks out a quick text message around lunch when his hands are clean:]

Mom, did I suppress us joining a cult or something?

[He's wracking his brain for a guy named Dean, but all he can come up with is:]

You got a picture?

1/2

[enate]

( Dickerson takes time to sift through his next leads, which leaves the door open for Lisa to listen to all of this behind closed doors inside her office. )

If you suppressed joining a cult, then so did I, kid.

There's no cult.

There was Dr. Mike, but that was after we moved away and we were only together a few months. Not years and not at the old neighborhood. Those harpies probably have nothing better to do than stir the pot.

It was your birthday weekend and yeah, the neighborhood realtor was a psychopath.

( Among other, incredibly unexplainable things, like how she knew Ben wasn't her. And the disturbing things about Katie. But that had nothing to do with maybe his dad. )

I really don't know what to say, we were on our own for a long time before I dated Dr. Mike.

Please provide a picture.

[camber]

( The blood is easiest to follow, but the facts in each of the Winchester's files aren't. Nor why the eldest Winchester dropped off the face of the earth in the early nineties before dying. It's a bizarre twist in a bizarre story made even more bizarre that neither of them remember him...

So, armed with facts, he just goes for it )

Alright, brace yourselves...

There are two matches to Adam Milligan, also paternal and matched paternally. Adam Milligan, Sam Winchester, and Dean Winchester all shared a father: John Winchester. He was a veteran of Vietnam, his wife died in a fire in the early nineties and he dropped off the face of the earth not long after that. Sam Winchester was a baby and Dean Winchester was four, according to records, birth certificates and inactive social security.

Sam and Dean attended a record number of schools over the course of their childhoods. I linked Sam to Stanford University, but he never graduated. Dean never went to college.

Brace yourself, because it gets weirder. Both Sam and Dean Winchester have records and they're both legally dead. Except, Sam and Dean were declared legally dead more than once. Dean was a suspect in several murder investigations, but he was cleared of the first and second. And Sam and Dean both were suspects a few years after that, neither cleared. Dean and Sam were arrested a few times, but charges never stuck if they ever could in the first place. Their files are long, but a lot of unsubstantiated. There are two members of law enforcement who have spoken in their favor, both are dead now. One died in Monument, Colorado in some sort of explosion and the other officer died of old age.

The three Winchesters, Dean, Sam, and their dad were all connected to a 67' Chevy Impala that's still registered to this day, but hasn't ever been sold. Except, the current title's under Richie Sambora and I know that Richie Sambora isn't living at a PO Box in Lebanon, Kansas.

I know this is a lot, I didn't expect one DNA hit to blow everything wide open and still not give us any real answers. I'm still doing some research and I have a few calls into a few stations that claim they held them or that Sam and Dean passed through. I don't have clearance for one part of a shared file which implies something high up in the government that, honestly, I can't even wrap my head around.

Their only paper trail is their police record, so it's likely he may not have even given you his real name, except, everyone's account of Dean in your life and this guy's name being Dean.

Anyway, here are Sam and Dean's outdated mugshot. Dean does look like a douche, sorry, but maybe don't judge a book by its' cover.

[acdc_rules]

[Ben takes one look at the mug sot and blinks.]

That's the guy that hit us.

[Ben remembers him standing in the doorway of the hospital room, looking real upset about the accident. Something about him never added up, but Ben couldn't quite put his finger on why.]

When did he "die"?

1/?

[camber]

Sam or Dean? Guessing Dean.

Dean died the first time in 2005. He was arrested in 2006, and even went to jail in 2007, along with his brother, Sam. He died again in 2009. He was wanted again for murder in 2011. That sealed file I was talking about is from 2016 but something tells me he's craftier than being held at Blackwater.

They might be working for the country. Or, someone else. Something deep cover. The MO's for these murders are all over the place and Dean got himself arrested in 2006, and again, Sam and Dean were easily tracked down in 2007.

It's a really weird trail.

[enate]

He came to the room after our accident. He seemed remorseful. Left us alone. Took care of our hospital bill, too.

DONE

[camber]

Dean Winchester hit you with a car? Or your car with his car?

The same Dean Winchester the suburban harpies said played house with you for over a year?

[acdc_rules]

I don't know, man, I don't remember him playing house with us. But the accident was in 2011. The details are hazy but Mom got hurt pretty bad and he came to see us in the hospital to apologize. He said his name was Dean.

[This is ... so weird. Like what the fuck dude.]

I think Matt was driving. He didn't make it.

[Because rereading the wiki I just remembered that Lisa's boyfriend got ganked.]

1/2

[enate]

He didn't. That was the only time we saw him. Ever. He introduced himself and apologized.

( Right, Dr. Matt, not Dr. Mike. Her memories of that time aren't her best, but that wasn't an easy time. They recovered. Her and Ben did, together. )

I don't know if he knew about Matt, he seemed to... feel bad enough.

None of this makes any sense.

[camber]

So, October 2007, you turn eight, you're kidnapped and your neighbors say this guy Dean turned up.

Does any of this help? Almost three years later, suddenly, he's living with you guys. They spoke highly of him, said he was great to both of you. Taught Ben the ins and outs of his classic car. Worked in construction. Word was, he didn't talk about anything before, but his brother had recently died and people thought he might've been just discharged from the army. He was nice, just... going through it.

Any of that ring a bell?

[acdc_rules]

None of it. How the fuck did we lose two years of our lives?

[There's a pause.]

Except I remember those two years. Just this guy wasn't in them. I know this sounds crazy dude, but I swear I'm not.

1/2

[camber]

Your possible biodad weaves in and out of jurisdictions and legal trouble and then drops off the face of the earth, there's nowhere to go but weird.

Sealed file could also mean... WitSec.

But it wouldn't explain why you don't remember the guy. Last I checked, Men In Black's SciFi.

[enate]

He wasn't in those two years. Or, there in 2007. And I don't know why everyone is saying he was.

Rudy, are you home? I have an old photo album in the closet from when Ben was younger. Mostly his birthdays. Some of the moms took pictures at his eighth birthday. Left behind a polaroid camera.

I really don't remember any of this. It... didn't happen, Dick.