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Entry tags:
Dream On, SPN, PG-13, gen (minor Dean/Lisa)
Title: Dream On
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Pairing: PG-13, minor Dean/Lisa, mostly gen
Length: ~19,000 words
Spoilers: Everything, everything, everything through 5.22 // Not related to anything floating around out there for S6.
Summary: Dean saw Sam every night.
Also in one part on AO3: Dream On
Dean saw Sam every night.
Pretty standard stuff, he thought. Cliché, almost. Every night, back in the middle of Stull, watching as Sam tossed the rings and hell opened up, and Sam turned back and stood there, looking at Dean. It should have been a nightmare, but it was comforting in some weird way.
Dean wasn't going to argue about it.
* * *
Dean had no idea how long it was before he actually noticed the world again, his days taken up with--nothing, really. He worked on the car, and worked at not drinking more than a fifth of Jack every week, and that was about it, until the afternoon he walked in on Ben and Lisa in the kitchen during what Dean thought was a school day.
"I mean it, Ben," Lisa was saying, the sharp edge in her voice slicing through the detachment Dean wore like Kevlar. "Pick a book from the reading list--you're not going to be spending hours and hours doing nothing but playing video games--"
"It's not just video games," Ben said, and Dean could have told him whatever he was about to throw out there wasn't going to go over too well, not with the look on Lisa's face, but he gave the kid points for trying. "Me and Spencer and Joey, from the other side of the street, we've got this plan. There's this old tree in the woods out past the school and we figure we can build a fort there, since we don't have to go to school--"
"Benjamin--"
"Okay, okay," Ben said. "I got it. I'll read one of their dumb books. Don't Hulk out on me or anything."
"Thank you," Lisa said, and then turned to Dean. "It's ridiculous," she added. "They've basically given up and canceled school, because of all the absences."
"Everybody's all freaked on account of all the weird stuff that's been happening," Ben explained, grabbing his coat and making his escape in a thunder of boots on the wooden steps out the back door.
"What weird stuff?" Dean asked, the alarm bells going off in his head blowing apart the last bits of his self-centered fog. "Dammit, Lisa, you should have said some--"
"The weird stuff that mostly ended right before you showed up," Lisa interrupted, as though Dean was no older than Ben, which, come to think of it, Dean probably hadn't been acting like. "We're just out here in the suburbs of nowhere and it takes a while for everyone to calm down."
Dean looked at her, really looked, but she met his eyes easily, and when he flipped on the TV and made a quick run through the news channels, he didn't see anything but coverage of clean-up and recovery efforts going on around the world.
"It is over," Lisa asked, and now that Dean was listening, he could hear the fear under the calm. "Right?"
"Yeah," Dean said, quietly. "It's over."
* * *
The first time the dream wasn't in Stull but in one of the thousand rented dumps they'd grown up in, Dean woke up with his face wet from tears. He'd been with Lisa and Ben for over a month--the longest he'd stayed anywhere since Sam had been in high school--but he was still sleeping on the couch in the office. Lisa had a guest bedroom, complete with its own bathroom, but the office was better, far enough away from the other bedrooms so he didn't wake anyone. Lisa had agreed to it only after he'd let it slip that the four hours of sleep he'd been getting in her house was twice what he'd been getting for the last year. No one saw him when he stumbled into the shower. He stayed there until he could breathe without choking. He felt lighter, somehow, but when he checked the mirror, he didn't think he looked any different than usual.
He must have been acting differently in the morning, though, because Lisa shooed Ben out as soon as he'd finished breakfast. She didn't say anything, but when he asked if there was anything in particular she needed help with around the house, she sat down and made him a list, smirking a little when he blinked at the length of the damn thing.
"What do your neighbors think?" Dean asked, halfway out the door to go see what kind of tools she had in the detached garage. He wasn't counting on much. "About me being here, I mean?"
"No one's had the nerve to say anything to me about it." She smiled at him. "But I can tell they think we're fucking like bunnies."
"Glad I asked," Dean muttered after a couple of seconds of not knowing how the hell he was supposed to follow that. He heard her laugh as he pulled the door closed behind him--a real, honest laugh, and fuck if that wasn't something in short supply--so he didn't feel bad at all about stripping down to jeans and a 'beater while he got up on the roof and cleared all the leaves and debris off.
"Let's give them something to talk about," he said later, and she laughed again, which was definitely worth the freaking sunburn he'd gotten.
* * *
Running had never been Dean's idea of fun, but you didn't have to be a genius to see Dad's logic in making sure all of them could move when they needed to. Even Sam hadn't argued--much--and Dean could tell he'd kept it up when he'd left for school. Dean had always done it, but he’d lost the habit when Lucifer and Micheal and all their crew had crashed down around them. During first few weeks after Jess had been killed, Dean made sure to run Sam into the ground just so he'd get a couple of hours of sleep every night. He supposed he could take his own advice even if there didn’t seem to be much left to run from.
In Lisa's tidy neighborhood, people went to gyms to work out; Dean had the early-morning streets and the paths through the parks almost to himself. He was in crap shape to start; apparently, chasing down Lucifer and the Horsemen hadn't done shit for his endurance. Dad would have kicked his ass if he'd ever seen Dean doubled-over and winded like he was on the first morning, but whatever. It was only Dean these days. He was taking whatever he could get.
A couple of nights, when he couldn't get back to sleep--the last big fight when Sam was leaving for Stanford was never going to be one of Dean's favorites no matter that he'd take it over never seeing Sam or Dad again--he got out a little earlier than usual, which meant it was pitch black out, dark enough that the bats were still swooping in crazy circles in his peripheral vision. He took it slower to keep from losing his footing in the darker patches between streetlights, but made up for it by going farther out, 6 or 7 miles, rather than his usual 3 or 4..
It was almost dawn by the time Dean made the last turn onto Lisa's street; she lived about a half-mile down from the corner which was a good enough distance for a final sprint. He eased into it, and then really pushed it, finally getting the feel that his body was maybe starting to work again, and nearly ran over a group of guys who stepped out from behind the shrubs two houses up from Lisa's.
They shied back and Dean dodged and nobody ended up on the ground, which was good, but even in the stumbling-around-confusion, Dean was getting weird vibes off them. Not demonic, but definitely not friendly either. They looked like your average dudes who worked 9-to-5 and maybe played golf or softball or something safe and normal on the weekends, except they had walkie-talkies clipped to their waistbands and Dean was pretty sure at least one of them was carrying. Then again, Dean had a knife in a sheath in the small of his back, so he wasn't judging. Just observing.
It was four-to-one odds, and Dean hadn't exactly been keeping himself in fighting shape, but they didn't actually look like they were up for anything serious, no matter what they thought. Dean made himself stay loose and easy on the outside, but on the inside he was gauging the distances and angles of which one to take out first. Maybe that showed somehow because after standing around and staring at each other in early morning light, one of them--Dean vaguely recognized him as one of the husbands he'd seen mowing lawns on the block--muttered something Dean was going to be magnanimous and take as an apology, and the whole group headed on across the street and back down toward the main road. Dean heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie as they moved off.
Lisa was sitting on the top step of her front porch, waiting for Dean with one of her environmentally-friendly refillable water bottles and a vacuum-pump thermos of coffee next to her.
"What's with the play-sheriff and his posse?" Dean took the water bottle and drained it.
"People are a still spooked," Lisa said. "Everything might be calming down, but it takes people a while to relax, so there's a group that's organized nightly patrols."
"Walkie-talkies and guns? I'm surprised nobody's ended up in the ER," Dean muttered.
"You're not supposed to be practical about it," Lisa said, not quite smiling. "You're supposed to admire them for their manly resolve."
"I suck at doing what I'm supposed to," Dean said, dropping down next to her and reaching for the coffee.
"Really?" Lisa said, the smile finally breaking through. "I never would have guessed."
* * *
Even on the nights that he was back at Stull, the dreams narrowed down to only the parts where it was Sam looking at him. Dean almost liked those better than the greatest hits of growing up, if only because he always saw something new in those few familiar seconds. Either way, he'd gotten to the point where he knew he was going to dream and it wasn't like before, when he was dreaming of Hell, when he only slept when his body literally gave out on him. It was just how it was: he went to sleep and dreamed of Sam.
Sometimes it was right before Sam died and sometimes it was when he was a kid, and neither one of them were what Dean wanted, but it was better than never seeing him at all. He was okay with it, at least until the night that it was Sam on the granite steps of a building, something Greek-looking, with columns and people around him, and Dean knew he'd never seen anything like that before.
He'd gotten to the point that he could stay there on the couch until the sun came up, and had even fallen asleep again once or twice, but after dreaming of a Sam he didn't remember, he was off the couch and stumbling into the kitchen within seconds of jolting awake.
He made it all the way to the coffee maker before he realized Lisa was awake, too, sitting at the little desk tucked into the corner, her hair twisted up on the back of her head in a messy knot and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
"More dreams?" She sounded tired and a little flat, which maybe wasn't surprising given that it wasn't much past four in the morning, but Dean didn't think that was all of it.
"New hits every night," he said, shrugging. "What's got you up?" He didn't think she'd fall for it and let him change the subject, but he could at least try.
"Going over the books," she answered. "Again. Like I somehow missed an income-stream somewhere the last five times I did them." She took her glasses off and sighed, rubbing hard at the bridge of her nose. Dean kept himself busy with the coffeemaker, because listening was the least he could do. "We're okay," she said, finally. "Not great, because when the world starts ending, people tend to cancel their yoga classes, but God, somewhere in there, I got responsible. Me, can you believe it? Saving money. Between that and what you've given me, I don't think we're going to be out on the streets."
Dean got down the mugs and reached up high on the top shelf to where Lisa kept her stash of peanut M&Ms. When he'd found them originally, Ben had laughed and told him that she kept them up there because she's a shrimp and she has to get a chair to get at them, so she only eats them when it's an emergency.
"Sounds like a good reason to go for the good stuff," Dean said, and dropped the bag on the counter.
"It is too sad, that this is as much vice as I've had in a year," Lisa said, half-laughing. and grabbing for the bright yellow bag. "Promise me you don't think I'm boring now."
"Nah," Dean said, pouring the coffee and pushing one mug across the counter. Lisa drank it black and scalding, the way she always had, and she watched him thoughtfully over the the top of her mug.
"I thought they were getting better," she said, and he should have known she wasn't going to let it go that easily. "The dreams."
"Yeah, me too." He tried not to be short, and didn't think he'd done all that good of a job, but she didn't look as though she was offended, so maybe he was okay. "They're not worse, just… different."
She nodded, and then put down her mug and came around the counter, until she was close enough that he could feel her warmth. "I know you're not into yoga or meditation or anything like that, but … may I?" She reached out toward him, slowly, like he might spook--which, given all the shit going on, probably wasn't all that crazy of an idea.
"Yeah," Dean finally managed to whisper, through a throat that was suddenly dry.
Lisa touched people all the time--hugs for Ben, her arms around friends, careful guidance for her students--but she never got close to Dean, not unless he initiated it, not after the first night when she'd brushed a hand across his shoulder and he'd flinched away from it. It was another one of those things they didn't talk about. Now, though--now, she traced her hand along the side of his face and all the air bled out of Dean's lungs at the touch. She got him to sit on one of the bar stools and her hands changed to a light feathering touch.
"This some of your PTSD stuff?" Dean kept his eyes open and locked on hers.
"I thought you probably saw the books," Lisa said, and yeah, he had, a dozen books from the library mixed in with Ben's sports books and DVDs for when the residual crap from all the solar flares knocked the TV stations off the air. "I just--I don't really believe I can make everything better--I know there's no magic wand--but I didn't want to do something stupid because I didn't understand. I don't want to make it worse."
Dean nodded, once, not trusting his voice again, and let her have at it. She talked to him the whole time she had her hands on him--acupressure point here and breathe for me now and focus on your breath, in and out of your body and okay, center your energy--and yeah, definitely not his thing, but he did his best, and she didn't drag things out, and after maybe fifteen minutes, when she stopped, he was at least breathing a little more easily and his shoulders and neck didn't feel quite as knotted up. He wasn’t thinking about how his body had felt like a desert in a rainstorm just from being touched, but he thought he might not be quite as much of a freak about it going forward. Maybe.
"Okay," Lisa said, picking up the coffee pot and refilling her mug. Dean waved her off on a refill of his own; maybe cutting back on the gallons of caffeine he routinely downed wasn't such a bad idea. "Now that we've exceeded your New-Age quota for the week, feel free to go change the oil in the cars or chop wood or something."
Dean snorted and knocked back the rest of his coffee, but on his way out the door, he hesitated long enough to say, "It's not worse."
* * *
The granite staircase took to showing up in Dean's dreams at least every other night. After the next few times, Dean tried harder to remember details. Sam had a couple of different shirts that he wore--nothing special, only a couple of ratty tees with a flannel shirt over them--and a old, worn backpack sometimes. The steps were outside, and a couple of times, Dean got glimpses of sculptures on them, enough that he was pretty sure they were animals, maybe lions or something mythological, but definitely not people. It always felt as though it was a big city, even though he never saw anything for sure. At first Dean thought it might be Stanford--though why he'd dream of seeing Sam there, he didn't know--but Sam wasn't the skinny kid who'd gotten on that bus, or even the slightly more grown man Dean had met back up with. Dean was seeing the Sam who'd taken Lucifer back down to Hell, even if most of the time he was sitting with his back braced on the base of a sculpture, reading a book and making notes like half the memories Dean had of him.
Dean expected the dreams to shift--because that was what they'd been doing right from the start--but the only change was that he saw the present-day, unfamiliar Sam more and more often, while the others faded off. His sleep patterns started to ease up, until he was almost always getting a solid six hours a night, which was still pathetic, but considering where he'd started from, it was pretty close to a miracle.
He let Lisa give him a dose of the touchy-feely stuff a couple of times, which helped some, and made her feel better, too, so he counted it as an extra bit of win. The weather kept on being freaky--seriously, snow? In June?--so Ben was inside more than he was out. The tree fort idea was still high on his list of things to do, and Dean had taken him to the library more than once, so he could wait for his turn on the public computers to research plans and designs. Ben was a good kid, and was dealing with all the craziness pretty okay, even in spite of knowing what was really going on and not being able tell anyone. He accepted Dean showing up and not leaving with good grace, and yeah, he'd been cool with Dean before, but that had been a couple of years earlier and kids could change a lot in that time. Lisa had rolled her eyes when Dean said something about it, muttering about how superheroes never went out of style, but Dean was still a little surprised when Ben laid all his sketches and plans out on the kitchen table one morning and asked Dean if he thought they would work.
Dean looked them over seriously, and pointed out a couple of places where he thought they might have some issues. Ben listened and made changes, and then the next morning asked Dean if he could come with them and help them with an old, falling-down shed that they wanted to tear apart for the wood. The way he looked at Dean when he asked, clearly expecting Dean to have more important things to do… well, Dean couldn't say anything other than yes and Ben nearly exploded with excitement. It'd been a long time since anyone had been that happy about being around Dean. It was almost worth hiking through brambles and poison ivy with six pre-teen boys.
Dean checked out the wood and gave a qualified okay for the kids to be using it, with the strict understanding that he would have to approve each individual plank before they put it into the fort itself. Tearing apart the shed was pretty cathartic--anything that got him ripping shit apart had always been good in Dean's book. They dragged as many planks as they could back out to the woods where they were going to build their fort, barely making it back home in time for dinner. Ben practically face-planted in his spaghetti and Dean wasn't far behind him.
He dreamed about Sam on the steps three times that night, but every time, he was able to go back to sleep.
* * *
Sam's laptop was still in its case; Dean hadn't been able to make himself touch it, not after Stull. It hardly mattered--Internet connections were pretty spotty, and there wasn't anyone left for Dean to keep in touch with by email anyway. It sat there next to Dean's duffel, until he accidentally kicked it one day and then made himself pick it up and check to make sure it was okay. It booted up fine and wasn't making any weird noises, not that Dean would have known what to do if it had, but he couldn't make himself put it down.
It wasn't only that he had a thousand memories of Sam with the computer, peering at it intently, fingers flying over the keyboard. That was one thing, but then there was the gut punch of all the icons on the desktop, the freaking wallpaper from National Geographic that he'd given Sam shit about (Seriously, man, the *Alps*? Who puts mountains on their computer?), and of course, all the nerdy links Sam had strung across the top of his browser. Dean sat and stared at the computer on his lap for long enough that the screensaver kicked in, and even then he stayed where he was and watched the pictures fade into each other. Sam had a ton more from National Geographic: the Eiffel Tower turning into El Capitan turning into a South Pacific beach. He'd given Sam shit about those, too, but then, Sam probably would have hauled him off to a doctor if he hadn't. There was no telling how many pictures Sam had rigged up into the rotation. Dean recognized most of them, but there were a few that were unfamiliar, and he found himself wondering why Sam had grabbed a picture of a desert or whether he'd wanted to visit Prague and Budapest and that was why he'd added their pictures to the group. Before he could get too far down the path of all the other things that they'd never been able to do, dreams that were never going to happen, one last picture flicked onto the screen, granite steps leading up to Greek-looking columns, framed on either side by massive granite lions, and though he'd never seen the picture before and had never even been there, Dean knew the place.
He saw it every night, the steps that Sam walked down and the statues he sat nest to in Dean's dreams. It faded off the screen, replaced by a bird in a jungle somewhere and Dean fumbled with the keyboard, his hands almost shaking as he typed out the password and started hunting for wherever Sam stashed the pictures the screensaver used. He told himself it was nothing, that he must have seen the picture before and his subconscious was working through losing Sam in whatever way it could, but that didn't stop him from clicking almost frantically through folders and files and sub-folders and more files, because his brother was an organizational freak who couldn't just dump everything on his desktop and be done with it.
Dean ended up going through twenty different folders, opening file after file, but he found the picture finally, and took back everything nasty he'd thought about Sam being anal, because his freakishness extended to precise names for every damn thing he downloaded, so now Dean didn't just know that place in his dreams was a real place, he knew it was the Schwartzman Building of the New York Public Library, and if Sam's thing was being organized, Dean's thing was having a map of pretty much the entire country in his head, so he already knew how to get there.
* * *
Dean had stopped asking Lisa what she needed done before he'd even reached the end of her first list; at that point he'd started doing whatever he thought was necessary. Now, though, he looked over the house and property with new purpose. He'd already carved sigils and wards around the exterior doors and windows, filling them in with wood putty mixed with salt and sanding them smooth before he'd repainted, so they were good there even if everything didn't stay quiet on the demonic front. There were still practical matters to deal with, though. He went over the doors and windows again with an eagle eye, puttying every seam and join twice, sealing them up as tight as he could. He'd laid in about a half a cord of split logs, but he worked his way through another full cord, so even if the weather took a while to recover from all the shit Lucifer and Michael had laid on it, Lisa would have enough to keep the house warm for a long time. Lisa didn't say anything, only leaving out antibiotic ointment and extra band aids for how he was tearing up his hands, and sending Ben out every night to help stack the day's logs neatly along the inside walls of the garage.
Dean made extra time to help Ben with the tree fort, okaying all the wood the kids were using and lending an extra bit of muscle as they hauled the boards up. Everything else, he let them do on their own. So far, the worst they'd dealt with was a couple of thumbnails that were going to fall off after getting nailed with the hammer and a minor cut when somebody cut through a board and into his thigh. Gory, but not so deep that it needed anything but a couple of butterflies. Dean thought they were doing pretty good.
"You're leaving," Lisa said, crouching down to look into the cabinet Dean was half-in, half-out of in as he fixed the slow drip in the master bathroom. She didn't laugh when he nearly levitated off the floor and into the pipe, only handed him a wrench and sat back watched. He couldn't tell anything from her voice, whether she was pissed or relieved or what.
"I need to check something out," Dean finally said, using a little more torque than was probably necessary to tighten the pipe-fitting. He'd been having the argument with himself from the second he'd seen the picture, but that was what it was coming down to. He couldn't not go.
"And you don't think you'll be back," Lisa finished for him, and whoa, pissed. Definitely pissed. "And I mean that in a you don't think you'll live sort of way, not in a you think you might find a better offer one."
"I can't count on it," Dean said. She edged back enough to let him slide out, and they sat there on the bathroom floor, all the crap that had been under the sink, nail polish and cotton balls and bath salts and a million other pieces of female paraphernalia spread around them. "I'm not looking to check out--I'm not, okay? I mean, yeah, it was a pretty thin line at first, but… "
"That's not what this is." Dean said it as firmly as he could, because, yeah, that'd crossed his mind more than once, too. "But I'm not sure what I might be walking into and I need to do as much here as I can." He started gathering up all the crap he'd dumped on the floor, but Lisa waved him off.
"Leave it," she said. "I should go through it and get rid of the junk I'll never use."
"Okay," Dean answered, hauling himself to his feet. "I think that's the last thing I need to take care of inside."
"Dean--" Lisa shook her head, her hair spilling down across her shoulder and hiding her face. Dean wanted to tell her he'd be okay, but they both knew he had no guarantees on anything.
"Hey, at least your reputation won't be trashed," Dean said. "Once I'm gone, they'll all forget about--" Lisa's head whipped up at that, pure fury on her face, enough that Dean was surprised that she didn't slap him as she rolled to her feet in one quick, graceful motion.
"You did not just say that to me," Lisa said, her voice shaking. "You did not just say that I give a flying fuck what the hypocrites at the PTA think; that, that I care about it more than I care about your life."
She pushed past him and out into the hall, the front door slamming hard enough to rattle picture frames a few seconds later. There were days, Dean thought, that he really shouldn't be allowed to open his mouth.
* * *
Dinner was quiet, which wasn't much of a surprise. Ben caught on quickly that something was wrong, looking at Dean a little anxiously; Dean nodded and shrugged and murmured, "I screwed up, buddy," when Lisa's back was turned.
"Full-on Hulk?" Ben asked in a whisper, and when Dean nodded, he made a sympathetic face and carried the conversation like it was no big deal. He skipped out pretty quick once he'd inhaled his four plates of macaroni and cheese, though. Dean sat and watched Lisa push macaroni shells around on her plate for as long as he could take it, but when he started to help her clean up, she sighed and waved him off.
"I'm fine," she said. "This--I'm fine." It didn't take Dean being an expert in denial to see the holes in that, but he let it be.
"What do you want me to tell Ben?" Dean asked.
"The truth," Lisa said, quietly, but at least she was looking at Dean again. "He'll understand."
"I'll talk to him tomorrow," Dean said, and there didn't seem to be anything else to say after Lisa nodded, so he left. He only went as far as the living room, though, and once she'd gotten Ben settled for the night, she came and joined him.
"Look, if things go to hell, this is where you two need to be," Dean said. "Not just my kind of shit--physical stuff, too. You've got the fireplace in here and you can shut off the rest of the house, keep it warm. Bathroom right down the hall, and the kitchen should be okay, too. Might get a little cold, but cook in there unless the gas goes. Then you can work with the fire--that heavy aluminum stuff you've got will do fine over an open flame--"
"Dean," Lisa said. "We'll be fine, better than most people."
"--and goddamnit, I should have been teaching Ben how to handle a gun, not fucking around building treehouses with him--"
"Dean." Lisa had the voice he'd heard her use maybe once on Ben, the one that said my turn to talk. He swallowed down the rest of words that were spilling out--it wasn't as though they were anything useful anyway--and took a deep breath.
"Do you really want to talk to me about Ben and guns?" Lisa said, with a hard look that Dean met head-on, because like it or not, from what Dean could see from the bits of stuff filtering through the news, knowing what to do with a gun was looking to be a handy life skill in these times. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. "Putting that aside," she said, more quietly. "We'll be fine."
Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, and he was, but he was leaving them anyway.. "I shouldn't--"
Lisa hushed him, one hand gentle on his mouth. "No 'shoulds,'" she said. "I'm glad you came--glad you felt you could come, but you don't owe me anything. You never have."
"Yeah," Dean said, after a bit. "I do." He wasn't stupid enough to think she missed all the empties he filled her trash cans with, especially the first month or so, and the nightmares were never a secret--the more he thought about it, the more he wondered why she'd let him stick around long enough to clean up his act.
"A couch and some not-very-good vegetarian cooking?" Lisa had a pretty smile, but its real beauty came from her eyes. "You're always welcome to that."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about--" Dean started, his voice rough and almost shaky.
"I know," Lisa said, leaning up to press her mouth against Dean's, quick and soft, but not at all sweet. "And you know that's not what I'm talking about."
Lisa traced the back of her hand along the edge of Dean's jaw, like she did when she'd had enough of his shell-shocked routine and gave him a dose of the New Age stuff, except not. When she touched him like that, it was careful and sure; this was feather-light, electric, and Dean could feel her hand tremble against him. When she started to draw away, Dean couldn't not follow, couldn't help turning his head into the touch.
"Yes?" Lisa's eyes were wide and dark in the low light, but she pressed her palm to the curve of his jaw, moving closer when Dean caught his breath
"You sure?" he whispered.
"Very," she whispered back, and he caught her wrist in one hand and brought her fingers back to where he could press his mouth across the tips, trace a path down to her palm, end at the thin, soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Her pulse beat fast and strong against his lips, and it probably shouldn't have pleased him as much as it did, but it had been a long time since he'd cared like that. "Very, very sure," she murmured, and took him upstairs to her room.
* * *
The weather was still pretty freaky, bouncing between normal summer weather and cold snaps that were playing hell with the farmers. Dean didn't think there'd been a hard freeze, not even when it had snowed early in June, but he was still glad he'd talked Lisa into spending a couple of days stocking up on canned goods. He’d converted what had been a utility closet into a storage pantry and it was crammed full of every vegetable they could get their hands on. She'd drawn the line at beef jerky, though.
As cool as it was in the morning, it was clear and bright, high clouds blowing across the sky as Dean poured himself a cup of coffee and stared out the window. Lisa had murmured quietly when he'd eased out of bed, but she hadn't stopped him, and when Dean had gotten out of the shower, as quick as it was, she was back asleep, the sheet low on her hips. Dean had pulled the sheet and blanket back up over her, watching as his hand trailed over her skin as though he hadn't spent the night wrapped up in her.
Dean ran through the list of things he still had to do, double-check the transmission fluid, stockpile a couple of cans of gas in case it was as bad as he thought it might be out on the road, lay in a supply of the beef jerky Lisa had rolled her eyes over. Most importantly, he had to talk to Ben.
As if he knew something was up, Ben stayed gone all day, sliding out before Dean even knew he was awake and not even coming home for lunch. A part of Dean was happy for any reason to put off telling Ben he was leaving, but the rest of him was getting more and more wired the longer he had to wait. Lisa stuck her head in the garage to tell Dean she was leaving for the studio; he nearly tore a hole in a radiator hose just from someone calling his name.
He finally ran Ben to ground late in the afternoon, right as he came trudging down the street, part of a little pack of kids, one after the other peeling off as they passed each house.
"Hey, buddy, got a second?" Dean called, and Ben veered off toward where Dean was leaning against the garage wall.
"Sure," Ben said, and Dean steeled himself for the conversation. "What's up? Mom still mad?"
"Uh, well…" Dean started to say they'd worked it out, but first off, it kinda sounded sleazy, what with everything that had gone on the night before; and then, on top of that, Dean was pretty sure she'd have the same reaction if he was stupid enough to say the same thing again, so he just shrugged. "As long as I'm not an idiot again, we'll be good."
Ben grinned. "She can be kinda touchy sometimes."
"Dude," Dean said, shaking his head. "They all can be. But most of them aren't as cool as your mom, so keep that in mind."
"Sure," Ben agreed. "She is pretty awesome. Most of the time."
"Yeah, so," Dean took a deep breath. "Listen, man--I'm gonna need to take off here soon." It was best to say outright, be honest; Dean knew that, but it still didn't make it easier to watch the smile fade off the kid's face.
"Yeah, sure," Ben said quietly. "I mean, yeah, you've got stuff you have to do. Sure." He studied the ground. "It's not 'cause of Mom, is it? I mean, yeah, she can be--"
"No!" Dean said, kicking himself for not seeing that coming and heading it off before it even crossed Ben’s mind. "No. Nothing to do with that, I swear." Ben nodded, but he still wasn't looking at Dean, and Dean sighed. "Your mom--she's not real happy about me leaving. That's what the whole thing was about."
"She's worried about you." Ben looked up at that and Dean half-shrugged.
"Yeah… and that's not really something that I'm used to."
"It's not 'cause she thinks you're dumb or can't take care of yourself," Ben said, with a serious, earnest expression that was Lisa in miniature. "It's 'cause she cares about you."
Dean fought to keep a straight face. "I know, man. It's still kinda strange."
It got quiet again, but at least Ben wasn't in complete avoidance mode, and, when Lisa pulled into the driveway and announced that they'd better come help if they wanted dinner, he turned to Dean and said, "I'm gonna miss you."
"Me too, buddy," Dean answered. "Me too."
* * *
Dean would have bet anything that dinner was going to be a nightmare, but Lisa declared it to be Free-For-All Night, at which point Ben whooped and dove for the pantry, coming back up with jars of marshmallow fluff and Nutella, and a giant squeeze bottle of strawberry syrup.
"I didn't think you let crap like that in the house," Dean said under his breath to Lisa as Ben started assembling a gooey, sticky sandwich, adding the marshmallow fluff with a spoon big enough to be a ladle.
"Whole wheat bread," Lisa murmured back. "It's not a total disaster. Besides, it's only for extra-special occasions when Mom does not want to deal."
Dean watched with what started out as amusement as she put together her own sandwich, but by the time she finished it was peanut butter and banana with mayo and lettuce, and Dean was leaning toward outright horror.
"And Sam thought I fed him weird shit growing up," Dean muttered, and stopped dead, because that was the first time he'd said Sam's name, actually said it out loud since it'd all gone down and it wasn't tearing him up inside. Lisa's smile said that she got it, but she didn't say anything, only pushed the loaf of bread toward him.
Dean took a deep breath and surveyed the options. He ended up going with your classic peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, three of them, washed down with the strawberry milk Ben was making, almost more syrup than milk, so full of red dye it was nearly glowing. Lisa contributed apples, which Ben promptly dunked in caramel goo, and for dessert there was something she called S'more S'prise, which turned out to be smashed up graham crackers and more marshmallow fluff dumped into a bowl, with a handful of chocolate chips thrown on top before it got microwaved.
"That is… truly disgusting-looking," Dean said, with no small amount of admiration.
"I never was much of a Girl Scout." Lisa smiled and handed him a spoon.
* * *
Once he'd said goodnight to Ben--promising not to leave before breakfast the next morning--Dean rounded up all the crap he'd scattered around and packed, the old USMC duffel battered and stained but still as familiar as the Impala.
"That didn't take long," Lisa said, from the door. Dean managed not to jump; it was quiet in the house, but Lisa could give stealth lessons to a ninja when she wanted. She nodded at the duffel. "Is that everything?"
"Spent my whole life living out of one bag," Dean said. "Guess I'm too old to change now."
"Does that apply to everything?" Lisa asked. "You've spent your whole life leaving, too. Are you too old to change that?"
"Probably," Dean admitted. "It's better that--"
"Don't," Lisa said, crossing the room in quick, purposeful steps. "You can tell me that that's how it is, but don't tell me it's better that way." She didn't stop or slow down until she crashed into him, and he only barely managed to keep his balance enough that they ended up on the couch and not on the floor. "Don't tell yourself that either," she said, fiercely.
"I don't want to fight with you…" Dean started.
"Then don't," she shot back, and then sighed. "I can hear that 'but' at the end of your sentence."
"I don't want to lie to you either," Dean said, which was true, but not something he'd ever admitted before, to anyone.
"I'm good with that, too," Lisa said, and then smiled. "Okay, compromise. Don't tell me and we work on the not telling yourself. Deal?"
"Deal," Dean said, a little shocked that it didn't feel like he was saying it just to be saying it. Lisa was watching him with one eyebrow arched, as though she was waiting for a smart remark or a joke, but Dean honestly didn't feel the need. Instead, he found himself brushing the hair back from her face with long slow strokes, her hair heavy and smooth against his skin. She relaxed against him with a little sigh and low hum. "You gonna start purring?" Dean asked, amused.
"Possibly," Lisa answered, not opening her eyes. "You're not planning on stopping any time soon, are you?"
"No, ma'am," Dean said, and the silence that fell after that was easier than anything Dean could remember for a long time. "It's Sam," he said, after a while. "I don't know what's going on--I mean, there's a pretty good chance I've lost it completely."
"Doubt it," Lisa murmured.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I'm not so sure," Dean said. "I have to check it out, though."
"'kay." Lisa nodded into his shoulder. "Doesn't mean you can't ever come back."
Dean was quiet for a long time--too many things in his head that he had no idea how to say--but finally nodded, too. "Thanks," he said. "I--thanks."
"You're welcome," Lisa said, and maybe Dean was kidding himself, but he thought that she got some of all the crap he couldn't figure out how to say. She sat up and gestured toward the fireplace. "And not to ruin the mood here, but maybe you could show me how to build a real fire? All I ever do is buy those fake logs from the grocery store and I don't think they're going to cut it if I really need to keep us warm."
"See?" Dean said, running his hand through her hair one last time hauling himself to his feet. "You should have been paying attention in Girl Scouts after all."
"Oh, there were lots of things I was doing instead of selling cookies and camping,” Lisa said, standing up and stretching her arms up over her head to loosen her back before she dropped down and put her palms on the floor. “Be nice, or you won’t get any kind of demonstration.”
"I can be nice," Dean said, and went to bring in some wood.
* * *
Ben was quiet in the morning, but it was a thoughtful quiet rather than a sulk. He watched Dean seriously all through breakfast, until Dean finally bought a clue and asked him to come help pack up the Impala. Dean got him to check through the first aid kit while Dean pretended to be re-arranging stuff in the trunk, and let the silence settle into something comfortable.
"Everything checking out?" Dean asked. "Tell me if I missed anything--"
"Everything's really weird now, and…" Except for one quick, nervous glance, Ben didn't look up from the checklist he held. "I know everybody says the earthquakes and stuff are over but--"
He stopped just as suddenly as he'd started, and Dean slammed the trunk shut and came over and sat down next to him.
"I think everything is over," Dean said. Ben nodded, but still didn't look up. "I'm not blowing you off, okay? Stuff's still going to be weird for a while, I guess, but not like it was."
"Mom says you know what you're doing and how to take care of yourself," Ben said. "But that was before, and everything's different now."
"Yeah," Dean sighed. "It is. But a lot of it's because the stuff I used to take care of came up to the surface. It got a little bad, but mostly it's still the same, and I've been doing it all my life." He took the first aid kit from Ben and tucked it under the front seat of the car. "I know the phones are a mess these days, but I'll try to call, okay?"
"That'd be good," Ben said, nodding. He took a deep breath and his voice was almost steady when he added, "Mom'll like that."
Dean remembered saying good-bye to his dad, a hundred different times when Sammy likes it when you call masked a hundred fears of Dean's own. Dad had known, of course, but they always played it like he hadn't, like Dean was only asking for Sam, and life probably wouldn't have happened any differently if they hadn't kept pretending, but that didn't mean Dean had to do it the exact same way.
"Me, too," Dean said. "It'll be good to talk to you, hear what's going on here."
"Yeah?" Ben shot him a look, as though Dean couldn't possibly mean it, but relaxed when Dean didn't take it back. "Yeah, it'll be cool."
Part One || Part Two
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Pairing: PG-13, minor Dean/Lisa, mostly gen
Length: ~19,000 words
Spoilers: Everything, everything, everything through 5.22 // Not related to anything floating around out there for S6.
Summary: Dean saw Sam every night.
Also in one part on AO3: Dream On
Dean saw Sam every night.
Pretty standard stuff, he thought. Cliché, almost. Every night, back in the middle of Stull, watching as Sam tossed the rings and hell opened up, and Sam turned back and stood there, looking at Dean. It should have been a nightmare, but it was comforting in some weird way.
Dean wasn't going to argue about it.
Dean had no idea how long it was before he actually noticed the world again, his days taken up with--nothing, really. He worked on the car, and worked at not drinking more than a fifth of Jack every week, and that was about it, until the afternoon he walked in on Ben and Lisa in the kitchen during what Dean thought was a school day.
"I mean it, Ben," Lisa was saying, the sharp edge in her voice slicing through the detachment Dean wore like Kevlar. "Pick a book from the reading list--you're not going to be spending hours and hours doing nothing but playing video games--"
"It's not just video games," Ben said, and Dean could have told him whatever he was about to throw out there wasn't going to go over too well, not with the look on Lisa's face, but he gave the kid points for trying. "Me and Spencer and Joey, from the other side of the street, we've got this plan. There's this old tree in the woods out past the school and we figure we can build a fort there, since we don't have to go to school--"
"Benjamin--"
"Okay, okay," Ben said. "I got it. I'll read one of their dumb books. Don't Hulk out on me or anything."
"Thank you," Lisa said, and then turned to Dean. "It's ridiculous," she added. "They've basically given up and canceled school, because of all the absences."
"Everybody's all freaked on account of all the weird stuff that's been happening," Ben explained, grabbing his coat and making his escape in a thunder of boots on the wooden steps out the back door.
"What weird stuff?" Dean asked, the alarm bells going off in his head blowing apart the last bits of his self-centered fog. "Dammit, Lisa, you should have said some--"
"The weird stuff that mostly ended right before you showed up," Lisa interrupted, as though Dean was no older than Ben, which, come to think of it, Dean probably hadn't been acting like. "We're just out here in the suburbs of nowhere and it takes a while for everyone to calm down."
Dean looked at her, really looked, but she met his eyes easily, and when he flipped on the TV and made a quick run through the news channels, he didn't see anything but coverage of clean-up and recovery efforts going on around the world.
"It is over," Lisa asked, and now that Dean was listening, he could hear the fear under the calm. "Right?"
"Yeah," Dean said, quietly. "It's over."
The first time the dream wasn't in Stull but in one of the thousand rented dumps they'd grown up in, Dean woke up with his face wet from tears. He'd been with Lisa and Ben for over a month--the longest he'd stayed anywhere since Sam had been in high school--but he was still sleeping on the couch in the office. Lisa had a guest bedroom, complete with its own bathroom, but the office was better, far enough away from the other bedrooms so he didn't wake anyone. Lisa had agreed to it only after he'd let it slip that the four hours of sleep he'd been getting in her house was twice what he'd been getting for the last year. No one saw him when he stumbled into the shower. He stayed there until he could breathe without choking. He felt lighter, somehow, but when he checked the mirror, he didn't think he looked any different than usual.
He must have been acting differently in the morning, though, because Lisa shooed Ben out as soon as he'd finished breakfast. She didn't say anything, but when he asked if there was anything in particular she needed help with around the house, she sat down and made him a list, smirking a little when he blinked at the length of the damn thing.
"What do your neighbors think?" Dean asked, halfway out the door to go see what kind of tools she had in the detached garage. He wasn't counting on much. "About me being here, I mean?"
"No one's had the nerve to say anything to me about it." She smiled at him. "But I can tell they think we're fucking like bunnies."
"Glad I asked," Dean muttered after a couple of seconds of not knowing how the hell he was supposed to follow that. He heard her laugh as he pulled the door closed behind him--a real, honest laugh, and fuck if that wasn't something in short supply--so he didn't feel bad at all about stripping down to jeans and a 'beater while he got up on the roof and cleared all the leaves and debris off.
"Let's give them something to talk about," he said later, and she laughed again, which was definitely worth the freaking sunburn he'd gotten.
Running had never been Dean's idea of fun, but you didn't have to be a genius to see Dad's logic in making sure all of them could move when they needed to. Even Sam hadn't argued--much--and Dean could tell he'd kept it up when he'd left for school. Dean had always done it, but he’d lost the habit when Lucifer and Micheal and all their crew had crashed down around them. During first few weeks after Jess had been killed, Dean made sure to run Sam into the ground just so he'd get a couple of hours of sleep every night. He supposed he could take his own advice even if there didn’t seem to be much left to run from.
In Lisa's tidy neighborhood, people went to gyms to work out; Dean had the early-morning streets and the paths through the parks almost to himself. He was in crap shape to start; apparently, chasing down Lucifer and the Horsemen hadn't done shit for his endurance. Dad would have kicked his ass if he'd ever seen Dean doubled-over and winded like he was on the first morning, but whatever. It was only Dean these days. He was taking whatever he could get.
A couple of nights, when he couldn't get back to sleep--the last big fight when Sam was leaving for Stanford was never going to be one of Dean's favorites no matter that he'd take it over never seeing Sam or Dad again--he got out a little earlier than usual, which meant it was pitch black out, dark enough that the bats were still swooping in crazy circles in his peripheral vision. He took it slower to keep from losing his footing in the darker patches between streetlights, but made up for it by going farther out, 6 or 7 miles, rather than his usual 3 or 4..
It was almost dawn by the time Dean made the last turn onto Lisa's street; she lived about a half-mile down from the corner which was a good enough distance for a final sprint. He eased into it, and then really pushed it, finally getting the feel that his body was maybe starting to work again, and nearly ran over a group of guys who stepped out from behind the shrubs two houses up from Lisa's.
They shied back and Dean dodged and nobody ended up on the ground, which was good, but even in the stumbling-around-confusion, Dean was getting weird vibes off them. Not demonic, but definitely not friendly either. They looked like your average dudes who worked 9-to-5 and maybe played golf or softball or something safe and normal on the weekends, except they had walkie-talkies clipped to their waistbands and Dean was pretty sure at least one of them was carrying. Then again, Dean had a knife in a sheath in the small of his back, so he wasn't judging. Just observing.
It was four-to-one odds, and Dean hadn't exactly been keeping himself in fighting shape, but they didn't actually look like they were up for anything serious, no matter what they thought. Dean made himself stay loose and easy on the outside, but on the inside he was gauging the distances and angles of which one to take out first. Maybe that showed somehow because after standing around and staring at each other in early morning light, one of them--Dean vaguely recognized him as one of the husbands he'd seen mowing lawns on the block--muttered something Dean was going to be magnanimous and take as an apology, and the whole group headed on across the street and back down toward the main road. Dean heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie as they moved off.
Lisa was sitting on the top step of her front porch, waiting for Dean with one of her environmentally-friendly refillable water bottles and a vacuum-pump thermos of coffee next to her.
"What's with the play-sheriff and his posse?" Dean took the water bottle and drained it.
"People are a still spooked," Lisa said. "Everything might be calming down, but it takes people a while to relax, so there's a group that's organized nightly patrols."
"Walkie-talkies and guns? I'm surprised nobody's ended up in the ER," Dean muttered.
"You're not supposed to be practical about it," Lisa said, not quite smiling. "You're supposed to admire them for their manly resolve."
"I suck at doing what I'm supposed to," Dean said, dropping down next to her and reaching for the coffee.
"Really?" Lisa said, the smile finally breaking through. "I never would have guessed."
Even on the nights that he was back at Stull, the dreams narrowed down to only the parts where it was Sam looking at him. Dean almost liked those better than the greatest hits of growing up, if only because he always saw something new in those few familiar seconds. Either way, he'd gotten to the point where he knew he was going to dream and it wasn't like before, when he was dreaming of Hell, when he only slept when his body literally gave out on him. It was just how it was: he went to sleep and dreamed of Sam.
Sometimes it was right before Sam died and sometimes it was when he was a kid, and neither one of them were what Dean wanted, but it was better than never seeing him at all. He was okay with it, at least until the night that it was Sam on the granite steps of a building, something Greek-looking, with columns and people around him, and Dean knew he'd never seen anything like that before.
He'd gotten to the point that he could stay there on the couch until the sun came up, and had even fallen asleep again once or twice, but after dreaming of a Sam he didn't remember, he was off the couch and stumbling into the kitchen within seconds of jolting awake.
He made it all the way to the coffee maker before he realized Lisa was awake, too, sitting at the little desk tucked into the corner, her hair twisted up on the back of her head in a messy knot and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
"More dreams?" She sounded tired and a little flat, which maybe wasn't surprising given that it wasn't much past four in the morning, but Dean didn't think that was all of it.
"New hits every night," he said, shrugging. "What's got you up?" He didn't think she'd fall for it and let him change the subject, but he could at least try.
"Going over the books," she answered. "Again. Like I somehow missed an income-stream somewhere the last five times I did them." She took her glasses off and sighed, rubbing hard at the bridge of her nose. Dean kept himself busy with the coffeemaker, because listening was the least he could do. "We're okay," she said, finally. "Not great, because when the world starts ending, people tend to cancel their yoga classes, but God, somewhere in there, I got responsible. Me, can you believe it? Saving money. Between that and what you've given me, I don't think we're going to be out on the streets."
Dean got down the mugs and reached up high on the top shelf to where Lisa kept her stash of peanut M&Ms. When he'd found them originally, Ben had laughed and told him that she kept them up there because she's a shrimp and she has to get a chair to get at them, so she only eats them when it's an emergency.
"Sounds like a good reason to go for the good stuff," Dean said, and dropped the bag on the counter.
"It is too sad, that this is as much vice as I've had in a year," Lisa said, half-laughing. and grabbing for the bright yellow bag. "Promise me you don't think I'm boring now."
"Nah," Dean said, pouring the coffee and pushing one mug across the counter. Lisa drank it black and scalding, the way she always had, and she watched him thoughtfully over the the top of her mug.
"I thought they were getting better," she said, and he should have known she wasn't going to let it go that easily. "The dreams."
"Yeah, me too." He tried not to be short, and didn't think he'd done all that good of a job, but she didn't look as though she was offended, so maybe he was okay. "They're not worse, just… different."
She nodded, and then put down her mug and came around the counter, until she was close enough that he could feel her warmth. "I know you're not into yoga or meditation or anything like that, but … may I?" She reached out toward him, slowly, like he might spook--which, given all the shit going on, probably wasn't all that crazy of an idea.
"Yeah," Dean finally managed to whisper, through a throat that was suddenly dry.
Lisa touched people all the time--hugs for Ben, her arms around friends, careful guidance for her students--but she never got close to Dean, not unless he initiated it, not after the first night when she'd brushed a hand across his shoulder and he'd flinched away from it. It was another one of those things they didn't talk about. Now, though--now, she traced her hand along the side of his face and all the air bled out of Dean's lungs at the touch. She got him to sit on one of the bar stools and her hands changed to a light feathering touch.
"This some of your PTSD stuff?" Dean kept his eyes open and locked on hers.
"I thought you probably saw the books," Lisa said, and yeah, he had, a dozen books from the library mixed in with Ben's sports books and DVDs for when the residual crap from all the solar flares knocked the TV stations off the air. "I just--I don't really believe I can make everything better--I know there's no magic wand--but I didn't want to do something stupid because I didn't understand. I don't want to make it worse."
Dean nodded, once, not trusting his voice again, and let her have at it. She talked to him the whole time she had her hands on him--acupressure point here and breathe for me now and focus on your breath, in and out of your body and okay, center your energy--and yeah, definitely not his thing, but he did his best, and she didn't drag things out, and after maybe fifteen minutes, when she stopped, he was at least breathing a little more easily and his shoulders and neck didn't feel quite as knotted up. He wasn’t thinking about how his body had felt like a desert in a rainstorm just from being touched, but he thought he might not be quite as much of a freak about it going forward. Maybe.
"Okay," Lisa said, picking up the coffee pot and refilling her mug. Dean waved her off on a refill of his own; maybe cutting back on the gallons of caffeine he routinely downed wasn't such a bad idea. "Now that we've exceeded your New-Age quota for the week, feel free to go change the oil in the cars or chop wood or something."
Dean snorted and knocked back the rest of his coffee, but on his way out the door, he hesitated long enough to say, "It's not worse."
The granite staircase took to showing up in Dean's dreams at least every other night. After the next few times, Dean tried harder to remember details. Sam had a couple of different shirts that he wore--nothing special, only a couple of ratty tees with a flannel shirt over them--and a old, worn backpack sometimes. The steps were outside, and a couple of times, Dean got glimpses of sculptures on them, enough that he was pretty sure they were animals, maybe lions or something mythological, but definitely not people. It always felt as though it was a big city, even though he never saw anything for sure. At first Dean thought it might be Stanford--though why he'd dream of seeing Sam there, he didn't know--but Sam wasn't the skinny kid who'd gotten on that bus, or even the slightly more grown man Dean had met back up with. Dean was seeing the Sam who'd taken Lucifer back down to Hell, even if most of the time he was sitting with his back braced on the base of a sculpture, reading a book and making notes like half the memories Dean had of him.
Dean expected the dreams to shift--because that was what they'd been doing right from the start--but the only change was that he saw the present-day, unfamiliar Sam more and more often, while the others faded off. His sleep patterns started to ease up, until he was almost always getting a solid six hours a night, which was still pathetic, but considering where he'd started from, it was pretty close to a miracle.
He let Lisa give him a dose of the touchy-feely stuff a couple of times, which helped some, and made her feel better, too, so he counted it as an extra bit of win. The weather kept on being freaky--seriously, snow? In June?--so Ben was inside more than he was out. The tree fort idea was still high on his list of things to do, and Dean had taken him to the library more than once, so he could wait for his turn on the public computers to research plans and designs. Ben was a good kid, and was dealing with all the craziness pretty okay, even in spite of knowing what was really going on and not being able tell anyone. He accepted Dean showing up and not leaving with good grace, and yeah, he'd been cool with Dean before, but that had been a couple of years earlier and kids could change a lot in that time. Lisa had rolled her eyes when Dean said something about it, muttering about how superheroes never went out of style, but Dean was still a little surprised when Ben laid all his sketches and plans out on the kitchen table one morning and asked Dean if he thought they would work.
Dean looked them over seriously, and pointed out a couple of places where he thought they might have some issues. Ben listened and made changes, and then the next morning asked Dean if he could come with them and help them with an old, falling-down shed that they wanted to tear apart for the wood. The way he looked at Dean when he asked, clearly expecting Dean to have more important things to do… well, Dean couldn't say anything other than yes and Ben nearly exploded with excitement. It'd been a long time since anyone had been that happy about being around Dean. It was almost worth hiking through brambles and poison ivy with six pre-teen boys.
Dean checked out the wood and gave a qualified okay for the kids to be using it, with the strict understanding that he would have to approve each individual plank before they put it into the fort itself. Tearing apart the shed was pretty cathartic--anything that got him ripping shit apart had always been good in Dean's book. They dragged as many planks as they could back out to the woods where they were going to build their fort, barely making it back home in time for dinner. Ben practically face-planted in his spaghetti and Dean wasn't far behind him.
He dreamed about Sam on the steps three times that night, but every time, he was able to go back to sleep.
Sam's laptop was still in its case; Dean hadn't been able to make himself touch it, not after Stull. It hardly mattered--Internet connections were pretty spotty, and there wasn't anyone left for Dean to keep in touch with by email anyway. It sat there next to Dean's duffel, until he accidentally kicked it one day and then made himself pick it up and check to make sure it was okay. It booted up fine and wasn't making any weird noises, not that Dean would have known what to do if it had, but he couldn't make himself put it down.
It wasn't only that he had a thousand memories of Sam with the computer, peering at it intently, fingers flying over the keyboard. That was one thing, but then there was the gut punch of all the icons on the desktop, the freaking wallpaper from National Geographic that he'd given Sam shit about (Seriously, man, the *Alps*? Who puts mountains on their computer?), and of course, all the nerdy links Sam had strung across the top of his browser. Dean sat and stared at the computer on his lap for long enough that the screensaver kicked in, and even then he stayed where he was and watched the pictures fade into each other. Sam had a ton more from National Geographic: the Eiffel Tower turning into El Capitan turning into a South Pacific beach. He'd given Sam shit about those, too, but then, Sam probably would have hauled him off to a doctor if he hadn't. There was no telling how many pictures Sam had rigged up into the rotation. Dean recognized most of them, but there were a few that were unfamiliar, and he found himself wondering why Sam had grabbed a picture of a desert or whether he'd wanted to visit Prague and Budapest and that was why he'd added their pictures to the group. Before he could get too far down the path of all the other things that they'd never been able to do, dreams that were never going to happen, one last picture flicked onto the screen, granite steps leading up to Greek-looking columns, framed on either side by massive granite lions, and though he'd never seen the picture before and had never even been there, Dean knew the place.
He saw it every night, the steps that Sam walked down and the statues he sat nest to in Dean's dreams. It faded off the screen, replaced by a bird in a jungle somewhere and Dean fumbled with the keyboard, his hands almost shaking as he typed out the password and started hunting for wherever Sam stashed the pictures the screensaver used. He told himself it was nothing, that he must have seen the picture before and his subconscious was working through losing Sam in whatever way it could, but that didn't stop him from clicking almost frantically through folders and files and sub-folders and more files, because his brother was an organizational freak who couldn't just dump everything on his desktop and be done with it.
Dean ended up going through twenty different folders, opening file after file, but he found the picture finally, and took back everything nasty he'd thought about Sam being anal, because his freakishness extended to precise names for every damn thing he downloaded, so now Dean didn't just know that place in his dreams was a real place, he knew it was the Schwartzman Building of the New York Public Library, and if Sam's thing was being organized, Dean's thing was having a map of pretty much the entire country in his head, so he already knew how to get there.
Dean had stopped asking Lisa what she needed done before he'd even reached the end of her first list; at that point he'd started doing whatever he thought was necessary. Now, though, he looked over the house and property with new purpose. He'd already carved sigils and wards around the exterior doors and windows, filling them in with wood putty mixed with salt and sanding them smooth before he'd repainted, so they were good there even if everything didn't stay quiet on the demonic front. There were still practical matters to deal with, though. He went over the doors and windows again with an eagle eye, puttying every seam and join twice, sealing them up as tight as he could. He'd laid in about a half a cord of split logs, but he worked his way through another full cord, so even if the weather took a while to recover from all the shit Lucifer and Michael had laid on it, Lisa would have enough to keep the house warm for a long time. Lisa didn't say anything, only leaving out antibiotic ointment and extra band aids for how he was tearing up his hands, and sending Ben out every night to help stack the day's logs neatly along the inside walls of the garage.
Dean made extra time to help Ben with the tree fort, okaying all the wood the kids were using and lending an extra bit of muscle as they hauled the boards up. Everything else, he let them do on their own. So far, the worst they'd dealt with was a couple of thumbnails that were going to fall off after getting nailed with the hammer and a minor cut when somebody cut through a board and into his thigh. Gory, but not so deep that it needed anything but a couple of butterflies. Dean thought they were doing pretty good.
"You're leaving," Lisa said, crouching down to look into the cabinet Dean was half-in, half-out of in as he fixed the slow drip in the master bathroom. She didn't laugh when he nearly levitated off the floor and into the pipe, only handed him a wrench and sat back watched. He couldn't tell anything from her voice, whether she was pissed or relieved or what.
"I need to check something out," Dean finally said, using a little more torque than was probably necessary to tighten the pipe-fitting. He'd been having the argument with himself from the second he'd seen the picture, but that was what it was coming down to. He couldn't not go.
"And you don't think you'll be back," Lisa finished for him, and whoa, pissed. Definitely pissed. "And I mean that in a you don't think you'll live sort of way, not in a you think you might find a better offer one."
"I can't count on it," Dean said. She edged back enough to let him slide out, and they sat there on the bathroom floor, all the crap that had been under the sink, nail polish and cotton balls and bath salts and a million other pieces of female paraphernalia spread around them. "I'm not looking to check out--I'm not, okay? I mean, yeah, it was a pretty thin line at first, but… "
"That's not what this is." Dean said it as firmly as he could, because, yeah, that'd crossed his mind more than once, too. "But I'm not sure what I might be walking into and I need to do as much here as I can." He started gathering up all the crap he'd dumped on the floor, but Lisa waved him off.
"Leave it," she said. "I should go through it and get rid of the junk I'll never use."
"Okay," Dean answered, hauling himself to his feet. "I think that's the last thing I need to take care of inside."
"Dean--" Lisa shook her head, her hair spilling down across her shoulder and hiding her face. Dean wanted to tell her he'd be okay, but they both knew he had no guarantees on anything.
"Hey, at least your reputation won't be trashed," Dean said. "Once I'm gone, they'll all forget about--" Lisa's head whipped up at that, pure fury on her face, enough that Dean was surprised that she didn't slap him as she rolled to her feet in one quick, graceful motion.
"You did not just say that to me," Lisa said, her voice shaking. "You did not just say that I give a flying fuck what the hypocrites at the PTA think; that, that I care about it more than I care about your life."
She pushed past him and out into the hall, the front door slamming hard enough to rattle picture frames a few seconds later. There were days, Dean thought, that he really shouldn't be allowed to open his mouth.
Dinner was quiet, which wasn't much of a surprise. Ben caught on quickly that something was wrong, looking at Dean a little anxiously; Dean nodded and shrugged and murmured, "I screwed up, buddy," when Lisa's back was turned.
"Full-on Hulk?" Ben asked in a whisper, and when Dean nodded, he made a sympathetic face and carried the conversation like it was no big deal. He skipped out pretty quick once he'd inhaled his four plates of macaroni and cheese, though. Dean sat and watched Lisa push macaroni shells around on her plate for as long as he could take it, but when he started to help her clean up, she sighed and waved him off.
"I'm fine," she said. "This--I'm fine." It didn't take Dean being an expert in denial to see the holes in that, but he let it be.
"What do you want me to tell Ben?" Dean asked.
"The truth," Lisa said, quietly, but at least she was looking at Dean again. "He'll understand."
"I'll talk to him tomorrow," Dean said, and there didn't seem to be anything else to say after Lisa nodded, so he left. He only went as far as the living room, though, and once she'd gotten Ben settled for the night, she came and joined him.
"Look, if things go to hell, this is where you two need to be," Dean said. "Not just my kind of shit--physical stuff, too. You've got the fireplace in here and you can shut off the rest of the house, keep it warm. Bathroom right down the hall, and the kitchen should be okay, too. Might get a little cold, but cook in there unless the gas goes. Then you can work with the fire--that heavy aluminum stuff you've got will do fine over an open flame--"
"Dean," Lisa said. "We'll be fine, better than most people."
"--and goddamnit, I should have been teaching Ben how to handle a gun, not fucking around building treehouses with him--"
"Dean." Lisa had the voice he'd heard her use maybe once on Ben, the one that said my turn to talk. He swallowed down the rest of words that were spilling out--it wasn't as though they were anything useful anyway--and took a deep breath.
"Do you really want to talk to me about Ben and guns?" Lisa said, with a hard look that Dean met head-on, because like it or not, from what Dean could see from the bits of stuff filtering through the news, knowing what to do with a gun was looking to be a handy life skill in these times. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. "Putting that aside," she said, more quietly. "We'll be fine."
Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, and he was, but he was leaving them anyway.. "I shouldn't--"
Lisa hushed him, one hand gentle on his mouth. "No 'shoulds,'" she said. "I'm glad you came--glad you felt you could come, but you don't owe me anything. You never have."
"Yeah," Dean said, after a bit. "I do." He wasn't stupid enough to think she missed all the empties he filled her trash cans with, especially the first month or so, and the nightmares were never a secret--the more he thought about it, the more he wondered why she'd let him stick around long enough to clean up his act.
"A couch and some not-very-good vegetarian cooking?" Lisa had a pretty smile, but its real beauty came from her eyes. "You're always welcome to that."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about--" Dean started, his voice rough and almost shaky.
"I know," Lisa said, leaning up to press her mouth against Dean's, quick and soft, but not at all sweet. "And you know that's not what I'm talking about."
Lisa traced the back of her hand along the edge of Dean's jaw, like she did when she'd had enough of his shell-shocked routine and gave him a dose of the New Age stuff, except not. When she touched him like that, it was careful and sure; this was feather-light, electric, and Dean could feel her hand tremble against him. When she started to draw away, Dean couldn't not follow, couldn't help turning his head into the touch.
"Yes?" Lisa's eyes were wide and dark in the low light, but she pressed her palm to the curve of his jaw, moving closer when Dean caught his breath
"You sure?" he whispered.
"Very," she whispered back, and he caught her wrist in one hand and brought her fingers back to where he could press his mouth across the tips, trace a path down to her palm, end at the thin, soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Her pulse beat fast and strong against his lips, and it probably shouldn't have pleased him as much as it did, but it had been a long time since he'd cared like that. "Very, very sure," she murmured, and took him upstairs to her room.
The weather was still pretty freaky, bouncing between normal summer weather and cold snaps that were playing hell with the farmers. Dean didn't think there'd been a hard freeze, not even when it had snowed early in June, but he was still glad he'd talked Lisa into spending a couple of days stocking up on canned goods. He’d converted what had been a utility closet into a storage pantry and it was crammed full of every vegetable they could get their hands on. She'd drawn the line at beef jerky, though.
As cool as it was in the morning, it was clear and bright, high clouds blowing across the sky as Dean poured himself a cup of coffee and stared out the window. Lisa had murmured quietly when he'd eased out of bed, but she hadn't stopped him, and when Dean had gotten out of the shower, as quick as it was, she was back asleep, the sheet low on her hips. Dean had pulled the sheet and blanket back up over her, watching as his hand trailed over her skin as though he hadn't spent the night wrapped up in her.
Dean ran through the list of things he still had to do, double-check the transmission fluid, stockpile a couple of cans of gas in case it was as bad as he thought it might be out on the road, lay in a supply of the beef jerky Lisa had rolled her eyes over. Most importantly, he had to talk to Ben.
As if he knew something was up, Ben stayed gone all day, sliding out before Dean even knew he was awake and not even coming home for lunch. A part of Dean was happy for any reason to put off telling Ben he was leaving, but the rest of him was getting more and more wired the longer he had to wait. Lisa stuck her head in the garage to tell Dean she was leaving for the studio; he nearly tore a hole in a radiator hose just from someone calling his name.
He finally ran Ben to ground late in the afternoon, right as he came trudging down the street, part of a little pack of kids, one after the other peeling off as they passed each house.
"Hey, buddy, got a second?" Dean called, and Ben veered off toward where Dean was leaning against the garage wall.
"Sure," Ben said, and Dean steeled himself for the conversation. "What's up? Mom still mad?"
"Uh, well…" Dean started to say they'd worked it out, but first off, it kinda sounded sleazy, what with everything that had gone on the night before; and then, on top of that, Dean was pretty sure she'd have the same reaction if he was stupid enough to say the same thing again, so he just shrugged. "As long as I'm not an idiot again, we'll be good."
Ben grinned. "She can be kinda touchy sometimes."
"Dude," Dean said, shaking his head. "They all can be. But most of them aren't as cool as your mom, so keep that in mind."
"Sure," Ben agreed. "She is pretty awesome. Most of the time."
"Yeah, so," Dean took a deep breath. "Listen, man--I'm gonna need to take off here soon." It was best to say outright, be honest; Dean knew that, but it still didn't make it easier to watch the smile fade off the kid's face.
"Yeah, sure," Ben said quietly. "I mean, yeah, you've got stuff you have to do. Sure." He studied the ground. "It's not 'cause of Mom, is it? I mean, yeah, she can be--"
"No!" Dean said, kicking himself for not seeing that coming and heading it off before it even crossed Ben’s mind. "No. Nothing to do with that, I swear." Ben nodded, but he still wasn't looking at Dean, and Dean sighed. "Your mom--she's not real happy about me leaving. That's what the whole thing was about."
"She's worried about you." Ben looked up at that and Dean half-shrugged.
"Yeah… and that's not really something that I'm used to."
"It's not 'cause she thinks you're dumb or can't take care of yourself," Ben said, with a serious, earnest expression that was Lisa in miniature. "It's 'cause she cares about you."
Dean fought to keep a straight face. "I know, man. It's still kinda strange."
It got quiet again, but at least Ben wasn't in complete avoidance mode, and, when Lisa pulled into the driveway and announced that they'd better come help if they wanted dinner, he turned to Dean and said, "I'm gonna miss you."
"Me too, buddy," Dean answered. "Me too."
Dean would have bet anything that dinner was going to be a nightmare, but Lisa declared it to be Free-For-All Night, at which point Ben whooped and dove for the pantry, coming back up with jars of marshmallow fluff and Nutella, and a giant squeeze bottle of strawberry syrup.
"I didn't think you let crap like that in the house," Dean said under his breath to Lisa as Ben started assembling a gooey, sticky sandwich, adding the marshmallow fluff with a spoon big enough to be a ladle.
"Whole wheat bread," Lisa murmured back. "It's not a total disaster. Besides, it's only for extra-special occasions when Mom does not want to deal."
Dean watched with what started out as amusement as she put together her own sandwich, but by the time she finished it was peanut butter and banana with mayo and lettuce, and Dean was leaning toward outright horror.
"And Sam thought I fed him weird shit growing up," Dean muttered, and stopped dead, because that was the first time he'd said Sam's name, actually said it out loud since it'd all gone down and it wasn't tearing him up inside. Lisa's smile said that she got it, but she didn't say anything, only pushed the loaf of bread toward him.
Dean took a deep breath and surveyed the options. He ended up going with your classic peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, three of them, washed down with the strawberry milk Ben was making, almost more syrup than milk, so full of red dye it was nearly glowing. Lisa contributed apples, which Ben promptly dunked in caramel goo, and for dessert there was something she called S'more S'prise, which turned out to be smashed up graham crackers and more marshmallow fluff dumped into a bowl, with a handful of chocolate chips thrown on top before it got microwaved.
"That is… truly disgusting-looking," Dean said, with no small amount of admiration.
"I never was much of a Girl Scout." Lisa smiled and handed him a spoon.
Once he'd said goodnight to Ben--promising not to leave before breakfast the next morning--Dean rounded up all the crap he'd scattered around and packed, the old USMC duffel battered and stained but still as familiar as the Impala.
"That didn't take long," Lisa said, from the door. Dean managed not to jump; it was quiet in the house, but Lisa could give stealth lessons to a ninja when she wanted. She nodded at the duffel. "Is that everything?"
"Spent my whole life living out of one bag," Dean said. "Guess I'm too old to change now."
"Does that apply to everything?" Lisa asked. "You've spent your whole life leaving, too. Are you too old to change that?"
"Probably," Dean admitted. "It's better that--"
"Don't," Lisa said, crossing the room in quick, purposeful steps. "You can tell me that that's how it is, but don't tell me it's better that way." She didn't stop or slow down until she crashed into him, and he only barely managed to keep his balance enough that they ended up on the couch and not on the floor. "Don't tell yourself that either," she said, fiercely.
"I don't want to fight with you…" Dean started.
"Then don't," she shot back, and then sighed. "I can hear that 'but' at the end of your sentence."
"I don't want to lie to you either," Dean said, which was true, but not something he'd ever admitted before, to anyone.
"I'm good with that, too," Lisa said, and then smiled. "Okay, compromise. Don't tell me and we work on the not telling yourself. Deal?"
"Deal," Dean said, a little shocked that it didn't feel like he was saying it just to be saying it. Lisa was watching him with one eyebrow arched, as though she was waiting for a smart remark or a joke, but Dean honestly didn't feel the need. Instead, he found himself brushing the hair back from her face with long slow strokes, her hair heavy and smooth against his skin. She relaxed against him with a little sigh and low hum. "You gonna start purring?" Dean asked, amused.
"Possibly," Lisa answered, not opening her eyes. "You're not planning on stopping any time soon, are you?"
"No, ma'am," Dean said, and the silence that fell after that was easier than anything Dean could remember for a long time. "It's Sam," he said, after a while. "I don't know what's going on--I mean, there's a pretty good chance I've lost it completely."
"Doubt it," Lisa murmured.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I'm not so sure," Dean said. "I have to check it out, though."
"'kay." Lisa nodded into his shoulder. "Doesn't mean you can't ever come back."
Dean was quiet for a long time--too many things in his head that he had no idea how to say--but finally nodded, too. "Thanks," he said. "I--thanks."
"You're welcome," Lisa said, and maybe Dean was kidding himself, but he thought that she got some of all the crap he couldn't figure out how to say. She sat up and gestured toward the fireplace. "And not to ruin the mood here, but maybe you could show me how to build a real fire? All I ever do is buy those fake logs from the grocery store and I don't think they're going to cut it if I really need to keep us warm."
"See?" Dean said, running his hand through her hair one last time hauling himself to his feet. "You should have been paying attention in Girl Scouts after all."
"Oh, there were lots of things I was doing instead of selling cookies and camping,” Lisa said, standing up and stretching her arms up over her head to loosen her back before she dropped down and put her palms on the floor. “Be nice, or you won’t get any kind of demonstration.”
"I can be nice," Dean said, and went to bring in some wood.
Ben was quiet in the morning, but it was a thoughtful quiet rather than a sulk. He watched Dean seriously all through breakfast, until Dean finally bought a clue and asked him to come help pack up the Impala. Dean got him to check through the first aid kit while Dean pretended to be re-arranging stuff in the trunk, and let the silence settle into something comfortable.
"Everything checking out?" Dean asked. "Tell me if I missed anything--"
"Everything's really weird now, and…" Except for one quick, nervous glance, Ben didn't look up from the checklist he held. "I know everybody says the earthquakes and stuff are over but--"
He stopped just as suddenly as he'd started, and Dean slammed the trunk shut and came over and sat down next to him.
"I think everything is over," Dean said. Ben nodded, but still didn't look up. "I'm not blowing you off, okay? Stuff's still going to be weird for a while, I guess, but not like it was."
"Mom says you know what you're doing and how to take care of yourself," Ben said. "But that was before, and everything's different now."
"Yeah," Dean sighed. "It is. But a lot of it's because the stuff I used to take care of came up to the surface. It got a little bad, but mostly it's still the same, and I've been doing it all my life." He took the first aid kit from Ben and tucked it under the front seat of the car. "I know the phones are a mess these days, but I'll try to call, okay?"
"That'd be good," Ben said, nodding. He took a deep breath and his voice was almost steady when he added, "Mom'll like that."
Dean remembered saying good-bye to his dad, a hundred different times when Sammy likes it when you call masked a hundred fears of Dean's own. Dad had known, of course, but they always played it like he hadn't, like Dean was only asking for Sam, and life probably wouldn't have happened any differently if they hadn't kept pretending, but that didn't mean Dean had to do it the exact same way.
"Me, too," Dean said. "It'll be good to talk to you, hear what's going on here."
"Yeah?" Ben shot him a look, as though Dean couldn't possibly mean it, but relaxed when Dean didn't take it back. "Yeah, it'll be cool."
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Everything is realistic and believable, including the characterizations, all of which I like. The story has a smooth rhythm, like deep, slow waves.
Dean's feelings and his healing are moving and poignant.
The dreams, and the glimpses of Sam are fascinating.
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Loved what Dean did!
"Now that we've exceeded your New-Age quota for the week, feel free to go change the oil in the cars or chop wood or something."
She's so COOL! XD
I loved the fact you wrote about her using her yoga abilities and knowledge to help Dean. It's one of the reasons I believed Lisa was the ideal woman for Dean after what happened to him in 5x22. (only I feel bad for Lisa, because she deserved far more than being used just as a safe haven for the male hero!)
Being a yoga instructor hints at an entire life philosophy, and I hope Sera Gamble doesn't use Lisa's job just to make "bendy sex" jokes like she did in 3x02, but explore its deeper meanings and possibilities.
"And Sam thought I fed him weird shit growing up," Dean muttered, and stopped dead, because that was the first time he'd said Sam's name, actually said it out loud since it'd all gone down and it wasn't tearing him up inside.
Oh, Dean! Oh, Lisa!!!
The goodbyes at the end were moving.
I was sad in part 2, when we didn't see any of the phone-calls with Dean. I hoped he'd have been more attached, perhaps even drop in and visit them with Sam. But you did say "minor Dean/Lisa", so I suppose I should have been prepared! (I hope it's bigger in the show and he keeps visiting them because they're included in his family now)
I've rec'ed this here (http://community.livejournal.com/dean_lisa_love/8525.html).
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As I was writing, all this stuff about PTSD kept falling into my life and so much of it sounded like/fit with what we know about Lisa, so that was an easy fit. And then it took me a month to figure out how Dean said good-bye, so it's great to hear they felt real to you.
I hesitated to post this as Dean/Lisa (it felt almost like false advertising) but I do think Dean takes Sam to Lisa's as they move across the country, at least once.
Again, thanks so much!
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Loving this so far :>
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