Heirs and Heirlooms

By PaBurke

Summary: A side story to the Hunters and Prey storyline. Ben Centric

Spoilers: Season Three of Criminal Minds, only a minor part of the story. Ignoring most of Season 4 of Supernatural, it's still long into the future.

A/N: The beta has been trying to get more out of this universe, her primary attempt had centered on Ben. We know Dean's artistic talent and Sam's, so what was Ben's? Nothing seemed to fit…

Ben moved the sketchbook from the kitchen table and hid his smirk. Sam wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought he was. Ever since the man had been blindsided by his brother's talent, he had been trying to suss out Ben's. The various types of paints had been shelved, far from Dean's spray paints. The paintbrushes were in a drawer with the pencils and pens and even the artist's charcoal. The canvases had disappeared into the vast depths of the library, probably never to be seen again. The odd molding clay was still in its packaging, but Bobby had been eyeing it and Ben would bet a pretty penny that it would end up some sort of protective hanging. The expensive play-dough would be good for his eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.

Ben looked around to make sure that Sam wasn't hiding out in the pantry and then checked out the quality of paper. It was nice and heavy, better than the thick, but small spiral sketchpad he had been using. He didn't need paper like this for his stuff. So Ben put it aside and started fixing dinner. Soup was on the menu tonight. Bobby's medicine wasn't helping his appetite and hopefully he'd be able to keep down some. The liquid and some of the nutrients would absorb into his system faster than solid food and he wouldn't complain about eating 'old man mush.' Dean's doctor had also mentioned that his customary diet wasn't helping his healing process. Soup would get the older man to eat some vegetables with minimal complaining. The weather was about to change as well and something warm might ease his aching leg.

None of this Ben would dare to speak aloud. It wasn't as if he was a girl. He did know about it since his mom (a total girl) used to say stuff like that about the elderly neighbors. His mom had forced him to learn how to cook and he had impressed more than one female with his ability to throw things into a pot and not burn it.

Ben finished tossing all the cut ingredients into the cooking pot and turned. And jumped. Dean stood there. For an old man with a bum leg, Dean still could get around quietly when he wanted to.

Dean nudged the sketchpad abandoned on the countertop. "Sammy?"

"Yeah."

"He never gives up." The older man grabbed himself a cup of coffee (Ben had just brewed a fresh pot), sat at the table and stretched out his bad leg. Ben ignored the friendly warning, picked out a monthly gun magazine and sat at the table with his father.

"You should show him," Dean said unexpectedly.

Ben looked up. "Huh?"

Dean rolled his eyes, not at all fooled. "Sammy. Your work. Make the two meet in the middle. He'll keep on spending money, shooting in the dark, trying to figure it out."

Ben offered a cheeky grin, inherited straight from this man. "You've got the money to spend."

Dean huffed and drank the rest of his coffee. He looked between the empty cup and the half-full pot and considered. Ben would have offered to get him some, but Dean hated any reference or help prompted by his injury. Dean sat there for a couple minutes before forcing himself up and refilling his cup.

"Want one?" Dean offered.

Ben glanced at the fridge. He couldn't drink the sludge black like Dean and Bobby, but he wasn't as bad as Sam with his frou-frou drinks.

With a soft clink, Dean set a mostly full mug in front of Ben, his own mug on the table and sat down again. "You get your own cream."

Ben did so, and stirred the soup while he was standing.

"Can I see what's new?" Dean asked.

Ben considered it, since he was already up… and he knew he was being conned. He gave Dean a look to tell him that he was on to him and Dean merely smirked in return and raised an eyebrow. What was Ben going to do about it?

It was Ben's turn to huff and concede. He placed the cream on the table and climbed the stairs to his room, glancing in on a sleeping Bobby as he passed. He snagged his sketchpad from its hiding place and walked back downstairs. Sam would be home soon and Ben liked the silent game they were playing too much to end it. He flipped the book to the appropriate page before handing it over.

Dean looked at it and immediately grinned. "Yeah, that's what I remember."

"Figures you'd focus in on that part of the case."

Ben jumped and turned. There ISam/I stood looking over their shoulders, his extra height giving him a decided advantage. Ben swore he never learned the art of quiet walking as they had. (Bobby swore he had, but Ben was pretty sure it was Bobby's hearing getting worse, not his footsteps getting softer.) While he was thankful that he hadn't needed to hunt more than a couple times a year and always with a partner (or three) who had been threatened by all of his family, sometimes he yearned for the excitement. He had tried going on a hunt with Sam once.

Never again.

If John Winchester was anything at all like Sam in hunt-mode, Ben could totally understand running off to Stanford. Hell, Ben would run to a different continent if any one ever seriously suggested a repeat. And Sam said that he was nothing like his father. Whatever.

Ben wished Dean was good enough for hunts, but Dean was out of game for good and everyone, even Dean, knew and admitted it. Ben wouldn't go off on his own and hunt, he didn't have the experience. Whenever he was out in the 'real world,' he stayed very far away from the supernatural. It was a deal that he and his mother had made before she had died and he never strayed from it. When Dean had found out about the deal, he had reinforced it with every cuss word in his vocabulary. (Who knew that Dean knew even that much Arabic?)

"So you're making a comic book of our cases?" Sam said as he pulled the sketchpad out of Dean's grasp.

Dean willingly gave it up and Ben realized that he had been conned six ways from Sunday. The whole conversation today had to get Ben to this point just as Sam was walking in the door.

"Graphic novel," he corrected.

Dean grinned, not caring that he had been caught out.

Sam sighed. "It's not enough that the Trickster had very scantily dressed women kicking Dean's ass, you had to make them impossibly over-endowed as well?"

"Of course," Dean and Ben chorused.

"Boys," Sam grumbled, but then he had to show his approval. He couldn't do anything less. "You know, it wouldn't be too hard to change the coding of the webpage and add this in the header and we could change it every week and have it be a comic strip for hunters to read. Hell, if you can get a following, then maybe we can get a hold of more hunters more often." The webpage and message board was Sam's contribution to the hunt these days. Dean didn't like Sam going solo any more than he liked Ben doing it, so Sam had created a really secure site and moderated it. He answered questions and gave advice and tried to hook hunters up with the nearest backup when needed.

Ben successfully grabbed for his work and escaped the kitchen with his dignity and with his sketchpad… and with the new sketchpad that Sam had bought him. (Sam had insisted.) Okay, so he might have left a little of that dignity in the kitchen, but what else was family for? He sighed in relief at the top of the stairs. He put the pads away and then checked his hiding place for his real 'art.' The graphic novel was just a distraction. He was never ever going tell anyone about this. Then he noticed that his journal had been moved and a new one had been placed underneath.

No note. Either Dean or Bobby had done it; Sam would have wanted to talk about it. Ben's money was on Dean. Since he had blabbed to Sam about the cartoons, Dean had given Sam enough truth that he would never go looking for the rest of it. Dean was conning Sam now and giving Ben an out.

Heavens knew that Sam would want to put his hunting Ipoetry/I on the website if he ever found out.

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