fic: sketched on the barrel of my gun
Well, I have a bunch of fics I should (I want) to be writing. So...I wrote something that has nothing to do with any of the aforementioned fics. Because I am awesome that way. This is another one of those purely-for-my-benefit fics that I tend to inflict on fandom for no apparent reason. More specifically, this is a post s5 AU oneshot (AU because I kind of just reinterpreted the very end of Swan Song to fit my whims here, so *waves* ARTISTIC LICENSE, PEOPLE. Or, rather, that's my excuse for nearly everything I post, ahahaha YAY).
OMGWTF: ~6,000 words; unbeta'd; Dean-POV; Sam/Dean UST; Dean/Lisa UST (one-sided); BEN (:D don't you love my warnings? They make no sense, rly); canon character...disappearance? Spoilers for s5 (Swan Song, in particular); angst; my, you know, style of writing ('nough said, I think).
sketched on the barrel of my gun
The whiskey burns. It's expensive stuff, Dean knows that, knows it by the way Lisa brought down the bottle, found a dusty thick-cut glass to pour it in.
It's good and it burns and scratches at his throat, all the way down. He stares at the window, hard to see past his own reflection bobbing around in the glass, but he does. Leans forward and frowns, like that's the key that lets him see inky black air.
He doesn't move when he sees Sam. His brother's tall, still. The kind of stoic Dean's had months and months of, the kind of stoic that he hates. He can see the broadness, the almost untouched image.
No, he thinks. Just that. No. It's not real, can't be. Sam's in the ground, in a cage, maybe dying over and over and being reborn right into it. Dean left him there. He knows. So if Sam ever came back, he wouldn't be - untouched.
Dean's eyes move, aching and circling over and over. Maybe Sam means to wave, but his hands come up, and they're mangled, bloody, nails ripped off, flesh open and exposed. He can see dried blood tracing all the way over wrists and down to the elbow.
Digging, Dean thinks. Digging free from hell.
The streetlight shudders, flickers, and he can almost imagine the hiss and spit as it wavers between dark and light.
When it steadies again, Sam's gone.
He doesn't use what he saw (a dream, a wish, stupid make-believe shit, he tells himself) as an excuse to go chasing off, hell bent for leather after the image of his supposed to be dead and gone brother. He thinks Sam would have a melt down, wherever he is, if Dean used the first thing that came along as a reason to give up.
Instead, he pushes the image down and gets on with life: goes to the grocery store with Ben, stands and idly stares at boxes of cereal, pink purple green evil little leprechauns bouncing all over thin cardboard. He goes to the dairy aisle and gets Lact-Aid because Ben's lactose intolerant and that's a mistake Dean has to make only once. He buys vegetables and fuckin olive oil and. And life just moves.
He sleeps on the couch and he ruffles Ben's hair, nods at Lisa, and checks the want ads for jobs. He goes to interviews and stumbles blindly through them. He goes home. Home. Lisa's.
Whatever.
He doesn't think about Sam or Sam's hands, not how Dean wanted to see the blood drip, pump out with Sam's heartbeat, because that means alive, that means here. He falls into the routine of the house, because fuck that if he's actually going to make a kid and an overworked single mom revolve around him.
He doesn't dream, either. Stretched out on the overstuffed, overpriced sofa, headlights zooming crazy through the cracks in the blinds and through the sheer fabric of whatever Lisa has draped all over the place. It's always quiet, just the creak of the house and Dean's breathing, the empty static of the turned-off tv. He doesn't dream about falling, about screaming and pain and blindness. Doesn't dream about Sam being everything Dean couldn't be.
Dean doesn't wake up knowing he's failed. The sealed up hole in the ground becomes a memory, a hazy almost forgotten maybe-fact. Dean's face cracks, open and raw, and he hopes the mess resembles a smile. Hey, kid. How'd school go? Okay, let's go. Let's eat. Let's get to bed. Let's clean up.
Good, he thinks. This is the way it's supposed to be.
**
He gets a job at a bar, passing out drinks and wiping down counters and tables and doing inventory late at night. He sleeps maybe four hours, because he takes Ben to school and picks him up and goes to games with Lisa and the rest of the parents every Monday and Friday.
He's tired and gritty with the smell of sharp, bitter alcohol clogging his nose and pores. He can hear the drunken slur of down and out voices, right before he cuts them off, calls whoever to come get them out of the joint. Those half-assed conversations are a thready pulse under every word anyone says to him outside of work. The thick, insular night air hovers around him, cool and crisp when the sunlight is blank, hot, and unavoidable.
He works and gets paid. He takes up a portion of the bills, along with trash duty and meals on the weekends and picking a movie to watch every third Saturday.
But he still sleeps on the couch and doesn't dream and doesn't wake up with vomit in the back of his throat and sweat tacky and salty against his skin. He knows he doesn't dream, because no one ever comes, no one's ever there when he wakes up.
**
"What are you doing?"
The words are even, calm, and Dean turns to see Lisa standing, dark hair knotted and frizzy, bathrobe half open, in the little archway connecting the living room and the kitchen. He sometimes wonders if she expected something else, someone better. If she regrets opening her door and saying I'm here to whatever was left of him.
She hasn't said, and Dean knows she won't, but he wonders.
"Trying to decide between over easy and scrambled," he says and finally gets out the carton of eggs. He hears her sigh and move to the little dinette set in the corner of the kitchen ("Breakfast nook," she said that first morning, "it's where Ben and I usually eat." Now, with three, it's too small to crowd around it, but Dean has a feeling the beat up table and patchwork padded chairs are going to stay. Just in case).
"Scrambled," she finally says. "Definitely. With hotsauce and bell peppers."
"Yeah," he says, "okay," because he can do that. Slice strips of the red and green and orange vegetables into tiny cubes because otherwise Ben won't eat them, and Lisa'll sigh and get up and make pancakes or oatmeal, and come back to a hard, cold mound of flecked eggs.
The kitchen fills with the crack and sizzle of the eggs dropping into the frying pan, and when Ben sidles in, voice high and broken with sleep, Dean doesn't turn and doesn't say anything at all.
**
The first time he misses Ben's baseball game, it's because he told Wesley he'd take over the early shift at the bar. Dean squats down beside Ben, feeling stupid and condescending even as he's looking up into Ben's face, sullen and a little bit heartbroken under his team cap. "I'm sorry, man," Dean says and knots his fingers together to avoid giving the kid a fake punch to the arm or something equally retarded. "Just this once, okay? It won't happen again, alright?"
And Ben sighs, but leans against him, warm even weight against Dean's side. "Okay," Ben says, and smiles over at Dean like he believes everything Dean said, like Dean's honest and fair and there.
"Okay," Dean says, right arm coming up and around Ben for a moment. Pat, pat, and Dean thinks it's easy, it's all too easy.
**
There are motels stretched all around the place Dean works, the interstate hidden but not so far away. The twists and turns of ramps and exits, trash leading like breadcrumbs to old pavement and broken concrete dividers. Sometimes, at the end of his shift, when he's hauling out bag after bag of empties and heaving them into the giant brown dumpster behind the bar, he stops, turns toward the sound of screeching tires and horns and the rush of traffic too early in the morning to still be night.
He can almost see the angry red of brakelights, flashing warnings, the pure white of headlights behind and coming at him. It's been a long time since he's felt the air stirred into a breeze, Impala steady and easy, holding at ninety but waiting for more.
Case to case to case, and Sam's face shadowed and eerie and beautiful, always to the right of him. Safe.
Days spent driving, nights cramped and close and perfect.
He turns back, toward the smell of puke and shit and piss. Too many bodies in too little space.
He'll never get it out of his skin.
**
Dean keeps working at the bar, keeps sleeping on Lisa's couch, keeps drinking a whiskey in front of the window whenever he's off nights. Keeps seeing just his own reflection, wrinkled and unkept and pale.
And then he lays down one night, and it hits him. A year.
He gets up in the morning and Lisa's already up, making breakfast, and when she makes to ask him if he wants anything he just mumbles, "no," pours a cup of coffee and stumbles outside.
The sky's gray, sun a murky dark thing, still. The air's cool, swirling into cold when the wind whips around.
Everything's quiet. People still inside making a ruckus within their own thin four-walled territories, not spilling it into the street yet. As Dean watches a porchlight a few blocks down clicks off, and a second later a dim yellow glow lights the front window. Dean turns back to Lisa's and it's dark, house and yard, only the faint smell of meat and grease slipping out the door Dean left cracked.
It's a second, a minute, an hour later when Lisa comes outside, carafe in hand to refill Dean's cup. "Ben has soccer camp this weekend, and I'm going to - to visit my parents, okay." She's staring up at him, sweet eyes dark and liquid. He nods, sips hot coffee and flinches at the burn. "We'll be back Sunday night." It's said with expectation and disappointment, and it's only when she heads back inside that Dean realizes he was supposed to ask.
Lisa and Ben clear out pretty quick. It's not even afternoon and the house is utterly still. He has work tonight but he calls Wesley up and gets him to cover today and Saturday. It's not hard - best days to work the bar are the weekend evenings. More people and more tips, and he can almost hear Wesley cackling with glee when he says, "yeah, sure, man. Whatever."
He's not sure what he's expecting when the sun starts sinking and the street lamps buzz to life. He leaves the house dark, parks himself at the table with his whiskey, and waits.
Maybe it'd be now, he knows how important anniversaries are to the dead (supposed to be dead, caged, tortured, maimed, evil).
He waits and waits and waits. Knuckles aching around the grip he has on the half-filled tumbler. Maybe he wants and maybe he doesn't. Either way, he has no clue how he could ever be forgiven. Sam might have - might have done...things...but he never gave up, never left and pretended his brother didn't happen. Sammy held on and fought and tried.
Died, or is as good as (bad, worse, worst), and for a Winchester that's saying something.
It's just Dean and the street lamp. Night spreading thick and oily outside the window.
Nothing. There's nothing there.
He wakes up to his face pressed against the hard table top, lines etched deep and painful into his cheek. His mouth is fuzzy and stale, and the stink of old alcohol drifts up from his empty glass.
He gets up, rinses his cup out in the sink, raises his cupped hands to his face and splashes himself with ice cold water.
His eyes sting, and he stares out the window into the backyard. There's an old metal playset of Ben's aging and breaking apart in the corner of the lot. He should maybe take it down before it becomes a jumble of rust and nails.
**
He keeps the guns far away from Lisa and Ben. He doesn't talk about cases, or rituals and spells, doesn't say anything in Latin. He boxes up the weapons cases in the Impala's trunk and shoves Sam's old books on top. He turns up Dad's journal from its resting place in the bottom of Dean's dresser and slides it in the last available spot before he seals everything up and stashes them in a storage unit right outside Cicero.
He burns the old i.d.s, then dismantles the compartments in the trunk, so that it's only a plain space, something it hasn't been for over two decades.
Lisa doesn't say anything, although there's a grim look on her face. She wasn't sure, Dean knows, still busy remembering the changelings, the fear and the dying kids and parents. But Dean shrugs; this is all about the normal life, the one Sam wanted so badly that he even forced Dean into it when they all realized Sam would never have it.
Heart attack, stroke, old age. Skin walker, werewolf, ghost. Everybody dies, Dean thinks. Maybe he'll be the poor schmuck on the front page of the paper that gets a few suspiciously acting outsiders snooping around town.
**
The second time Dean skips out on Ben, Dean misses a play. Ben'd dropped baseball, took up the fledgling drama club. More and more like Sam, geeking out over history and English, doing plays - although this is only a bunch of elementary kids racing around stages and mangling lines, at this point.
It's a small thing, a one night production, and Dean can't. Every time Ben recites lines, throws his arms out in jerky stretches, Dean can only see Sam, lanky and awkward, so fuckin serious it used to make Dean's heart pound off rhythm and kinda scary. And it's - Ben's not; he still wears his leather and his attitude like he owns the place, but there's a spark, something else that's either real or Dean's fucked up imagination, but it makes it hard to be around the kid.
So he shrugs, says, "ah," going for upset or torn, something besides the no, hell no no no that wants to escape. Guilt and grief well in his throat, and he just turns around and walks out, walks all the way to the bar, and gets there an hour early, but Wesley's more than happy to fuck off back home, just a single customer at the far side of the counter and some waily emo song playing in the background.
"See ya," Wesley tosses over his shoulder before the door slams, sticking and bouncing on the hinges. Just like that, Dean's left polishing half-dirty cups and recapping the bottles Wesley'd used earlier.
The guy in the corner looks up, and his eye sockets look like someone beat them black and blue, but Dean thinks it's too much cheap liquor and too little sleep in places the man probably can't even remember getting to.
"Another?" And the guy nods, slides his glass to Dean's waiting hands. "Long night," Dean mutters, sending the full glass back, and the guy wasn't supposed to hear, but he cocks his head anyway, and raises the drink in a salute before downing the whole thing.
**
It's not long after the one-year mark that Dean finally lets Lisa pack up the spare room-turned-study and revert it back to a bedroom.
"It's about time, Dean," she says, sweat and dust covering her face and clothes, hair slipping into her eyes. She's beautiful, Dean thinks for the millionth time, and soft and gentle, and when had that become a turn off? Except it has, somewhere along the welcome in, and the arms so sure and tight around him. Everything's...weirdly platonic. "No matter what," she continues, tape making sharp snip sounds every time it's cut and sealed down to the box Lisa's packing, "you're part of this family. Here to stay." And it's still strange to hear the hopeful lilt at the end.
Dean had thought, a week or so after dragging his sorry ass back to Indiana, that he'd eventually get a job at a garage, crawl into Lisa's bed and take up the Father Knows Best approach with Ben. Apple-pie life, and that's what he knows of it, some whacky cliche of black and white sitcoms, and aw-shucks laughter reel. Instead, he gets to be half-broken and almost mindlessly accepted. He gets to be part of an awkwardly intimate life with people who really don't know the first thing about him.
"Oh, and hey," Lisa's bright and perky, grinning over at him, "I picked up some plaid sheets and a green comforter," because yeah. Dean had seen what she had - pastels and all kinds of comic book hero sheets. "Bet that'll make your day."
The bed linens will smell like lavender and detergent, warm and soft from the dryer. Dean'll wake up day after day in them, in this room, with that lamp and the same light carpet with the same slight squeaks of the floor. Over and over and over until he dies.
He huffs, and it's maybe close enough to laughter to get Lisa doing her absent-minded humming as she pushes the box toward Dean's feet. "Basement," she says, and Dean hefts the weight into his arms, tries not to think about just how many lives have gotten rearranged since Sam's been gone.
Too many, and Dean doesn't want the responsibility or the blame, but he can't let them go, either.
**
Dean's dad was never one to linger in the doorway of his kids' room, arms crossed and asking, "what is it? Would you just let me in?" In all honesty, if it didn't affect a hunt, John figured his boys would work it out on their own, whatever it was. Or, at most, he told them exactly what was going on, and what they were feeling. Just so everyone was clear.
But when Lisa leans against Dean's doorway, he suddenly feels all of maybe thirteen, in trouble and not sure why. He can hear Sam's voice in his head, after that weird ass run in with the wannabe body snatchers way back when, and Sam's bewildered, "man, they are some weird parents," when they were finally able to repossess the right bodies and get the greasy faced kid back home to his gluten-free existence or whatever.
It's not something Dean's ever wanted, that kind of complete involvement, and he shrugs uncomfortably before Lisa even says a word. Just no. No touchy-feely heart-to-hearts, because fuck if Dean's really not in the mood.
"Hey," she says, and Dean grits his teeth, smiles blandly. "I know..." she stops, and Dean's waiting, timing the taptaptap of the summer storm currently knocking treelimbs into the nearest window. "Well, I get that you haven't really, uh, moved on. From whatever happened to you." Dean opens his mouth, but she holds up a hand. "I'm not trying to tell you what you should be doing, and I'm not trying to pry. Honestly," she smiles, shaky and almost scared, "I just. I just figure you lost some one or - you know - more than one, maybe, and sometimes having a place to go, to - to remember them can help."
"A grave," the words come out even. An empty grave, and Dean doesn't even want to think about overturning earth, about refilling a hole left behind. Jesus.
"Or, you know," it's her turn to shrug stiffly, "a memorial? Just - just an idea. If you hadn't thought of it."
"No," Dean says, "no, that's. Thank you."
Quick like a bandaid, he thinks as Lisa disappears, creak and groan of the floorboards giving away her every step.
**
There was a week, the year Sam turned seventeen, when they were in San Diego and Dean spent the time sharing a bed with his hog of a little brother. He'd woken up, pressed flush to his brother's back, arms locked tight and dick half hard. He'd freaked out at first, all that wrong bad dirty shit flooding through him, and Sam never knew, never woke up before Dean, never threw a hissy fit about it.
It was kinda like permission. Not that Dean ever did anything, he's not that much of a perv, but he quit freaking out, would just wake up, slide back over to his side of the bed, when the arousal was lowkey and easy to forget, or get up and jack off in the bathroom if it wasn't.
All good, and no one had to know. Except it doesn't explain now, doesn't explain why Dean's braced above Sam (and they're back in that motel room, yellow/green wallpaper and fuckin orange carpet and orange comforter, what the fuck), and Sam's grinning, soft and affectionate like Dean hasn't seen in fuckin years, and rolling his hips up toward Dean like he can't help himself.
Dean's hard, almost painful because of it, but when he lowers his head, it's only to rest his face in the crook of Sam's neck, and he can feel the tilt of Sam's head as his brother makes room for him. "Sammy," and he wants to roll away, get up, get out, when he hears how stupid and broken his own voice sounds. But he can't, because he's not really here, Sam's not really alive, and this is all Dean will ever have.
Dean falls sideways, until he's resting alongside his brother, not over him. He wills his erection away, almost sobs when Sam - quiet and shushing Dean like Sam knows, like he's something besides a figment of Dean's crazy imagination - rolls toward him, buries himself impossibly deep in Dean's arms.
Sam's weight is heavy and warm, and Dean's left holding back, hanging on, waiting for a chance to catch up.
Dean wakes up and the pillow he's curled around is bunched up around his face, slightly damp. "Goddammit," he mumbles, rolling away and wiping at the tracks drying stiff on his face. There's a heavy weight knotted at the base of his spine, and it takes him a minute to remember what desire feels like, even if it's only for a missing-dead brother and no one he can have.
He hadn't really thought about Sam like that after that one week in San Diego. It was a thing, and then it wasn't, want and horniness creeping out of him just in time to have Sam toss a thick packet of papers at him and say, I'm going, okay? I'm.
But now he can't escape it, and maybe if he was ever interested in armchair psychology he'd say it was because he's desperate to keep Sam with him, and sex. Well, what's better? Especially the way Dean does it, wink wink.
He wonders if Sam would have let him. It's a bitter rush, knowing that towards the end Sam was desperate, too, wanting Dean to have whatever he needed, like Dean's spent his whole fucking life doing for Sam.
He can almost hear it in his head. Hey, Sam, I wanna fuck you.
Yeah, Dean. Yes.
In his head, Sam's spread eagle and easy, just waiting.
In reality, Dean's staring off into space like a reject, hard and aching behind a thin, scarred counter. Clink-clack of glasses being raised and dropped back onto wood. Smell of piss and beer, cheap ass vodka and rum.
The rush and pull of the door opening and closing lets in hot, humid air, sticking Dean's shirt to his chest and he wants to break everything, throw punches and knives til he's covered in blood and no one in this godforsaken place is left standing.
He pours and serves, pours and serves. The clock in the corner ticks over to midnight.
**
Lisa pleads with her eyes. He can read everything, almost thankful for the silent version until she forces the words out anyway. "I haven't really wanted to date since Ben's dad. But I - "
"You like him," and it's ridiculous that she thinks he actually cares, but he can see she does in the tense lines of her small shoulders and the grim set of her mouth. Like dating some doctor from the next town is like signing up for a four-year tour on the front lines.
"It's really casual," she offers, "this is still your home."
And the fact she says that at all lets him know it won't always be. To be fair, he's known for a while now that that was the case. He'd never even thought this was permanent. This was - this - until Lisa got tired or scared or fresh out of pity.
He pulls her in with an arm around her shoulders, and she tips her head toward his chest like she's hurting or wanting or something Dean can't even name. But he grins into her hair, tries to mean it, and says, "it's fine," while the for-rent section of the paper flicks behind his eyes.
Dean finds a little one bedroom apartment near the bar. Even though he's stayed in one spot for more than a year, he hasn't accumulated a lot of stuff, and he's packing up what little is there and tossing it into the new place less than a week later. It's a sleazy-ass place, so it's cheap, but it's also a sleazy-ass place, so Lisa forbids Ben from spending any time there.
Dean makes it a habit to pick Ben up almost every afternoon and go - somewhere. Out for ice-cream, to the lake, to the basketball court, something. Like he's a new breed of those big brother sponsors or some shit, now with bonus PTSD and survivor's guilt.
Ben would be cussing up a storm, Dean thinks, if he were allowed. The kid finally collapses onto the splintery mess of park bench after pacing up and down and calling Lisa's new boyfriend every single name he's allowed to get away with.
"I hate him! He's so stupid," Ben rages, lifting his head to stare at Dean. Ben's eyes are bright with tears, and Dean thinks, fuck. Don't cry, jesus. But Ben just shakes his head, keeps staring until Dean can see the you were supposed to be him; you were supposed to stay, clear as day and scrolling like some fucked up marquee across the kid's forehead.
Dean looks away. It doesn't hurt, and he doesn't feel guilty. Dean would never have worked all his shit out, won't ever be whatever Ben thinks he should be, but he doesn't know how to say that to an almost twelve year old, not without it sounding more like you're not good enough than Dean's comfortable with.
Instead, he says, "you never hated me," and he can hear Ben shift on the bench, quick yelp, and Dean grins. Ben snorts. Dean adds, "it'll be okay. You'll see," and hopes to hell he's not lying.
Dean runs into Lisa's guy on accident. Brad. And Dean almost wants to roll his eyes just at the name, at the bleach blond surfer dick that pops up behind his eyes whenever Lisa tells him the guy's name.
And then he does roll his eyes, because he wasn't wrong. Some Cali hotshot transplanted to Indiana, and of course Lisa finds him. But the guy's nice, only a little stiff when Dean grins, says, "Ben," and doesn't ask to come in.
"Okay," Brad says, and almost-but-not-quite shuts the door in Dean's face.
Life goes on.
It's weird, but he gets sucked into the whole Brad thing, like he's the cardboard cut-out friend in some twisted romcom. All because he catches her on the leaving side of visiting with Ben, tired circles under her eyes, and the old grief straining the lines around her mouth.
He signs his death warrant by asking, "what?", by nodding when she offers a beer and conversation. It shouldn't be weird, stepping into Lisa's living room, but it's been six months since he'd moved out, and the place already feels strange (because it wasn't home, he thinks, never was. Not when home's supposed to be the hum of the Impala, an almost numb ass from driving too long, Sam's sweat and borderline b.o., adrenaline from a finished case or excitement from heading into one).
"I thought it'd be easier than this," Lisa says after she hands him a beer. Miller Lite, and Dean frowns at the taste but drinks it anyway. "I mean. I've had relationships." Dean wants to stop her here, say thanks but no thanks to this whole thing, but he can hear Ben still moving around upstairs, the hint of some whiny-ass band drifting down the steps (no taste, Dean thinks, and Sam would've cackled in glee). Suddenly, it's enough to stay, to listen through someone's listless love life. She matters; not that she'd ever be enough if Sam were here - standing desolate and bloody outside the window, waiting for Dean, just for Dean - but since that scenario's not even an option anymore, he can nod and lean back and let her worries wash over him.
"I just - it's so hard to explain...you," Dean would object to the emphasis, but, well. She has a point, even Dean can see that. "To people, you know? Or guys, I should say. You're not Ben's dad, you're not really an ex. You're a friend," she looks up at Dean then, and Dean gets it right the first time, nods, and watches Lisa smile like that's the best thing ever. "But, you know, you're hot. Brad," and even Lisa can't escape using the condescending tone. Dean's aware that's probably not the best thing for a healthy relationship. "Is jealous. Or - or insecure about," Lisa waves a hand between them, and then between Dean and the ceiling. "And maybe if it were any other situation I wouldn't blame him, but it's you and I do."
They sit there quietly, and Dean scrambles to decode what Lisa's actually saying, but he can only come away with something that screams relationship, and no. No.
His panic must shine through, because Lisa laughs, dry and broken around the corners. She shakes her head, half rueful and half denial. "No," she says, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief, distantly hoping it's low enough that Lisa doesn't hear. "I just miss your scrambled eggs."
It's almost as good as a blatant, "come back," which she gives him next. He knows how this goes. He's been down this road before, where his presence is just enough excuse to be stagnant, circling over and over and coming back to him.
He's spent pretty much his entire life doing that to Sam, and Sam had spent his whole life doing it to Dean, neither one ever moving on, ever really finding something outside of their fucked up dynamic. It broke him for anyone else, Sam broke him for anyone else, and he wants to open his mouth and say no. No, I won't. You need something else, you don't need me.
But Dean had promised Sam, and Sam will always be more important. So if he has to do this stupid apple-pie life bullshit, he's just selfish enough to admit that he doesn't want to do it alone, no matter what it does to anyone else.
"Yeah," he says, and it's almost as weighty as signing a contract, making a vow, except he's not going to be the only one paying this time. "Okay."
He nods, she laughs, they drink.
They're splayed out on the grass like a pair of kids, warm and dizzy with a few too many beers. When he rolls his head to the side, he's not surprised to see her already looking at him.
There's something bitter and painful in his chest, sucking the air out a bit at a time, and it's almost a gasp when he says, "it would have been you." He's oddly comfortable saying that, even aware that it'd be too easy for her to take it the wrong way. It would have been you. If. If I never knew Sam, if he never were my brother, if I'd never said I'm here, I'm here, I won't leave you.
"I know," she whispers, and her lips are dry, chaste, when they touch his. He knows how to get at her warmth and wetness, knows he could, but he pulls back, and she just sighs, smiles into the sudden distance between them. "Hey."
He closes his eyes and starts talking. Explaining. Defending. Almost everything (almost the truth, almost) spills out, and she stays, close and small and dedicated, not touching but there.
When the threat of sun and morning starts turning into fact, he says, "I saw him, outside your window that first night. Just standing." Looking at me, studying, seeing. Almost real.
"It wasn't." The words sound like a fact, but he can hear the lilt, the question she won't ask.
He can see Sam falling, Adam's body trailing after with no choice. He can hear the sound of the earth sealing itself back up, the sound almost like the roar of Dean's anger, like his snarled, I'll hunt god himself, before he was left completely alone.
It takes him a minute to respond, his brain stuttering out was it was it was it. "No," he finally says, the answer like lead weights against his lungs. "No. I was dreaming."
She doesn't say anything else, and they stay like that, watching the day unfurl in bright, bloody streaks across the blue-black sky.
OMGWTF: ~6,000 words; unbeta'd; Dean-POV; Sam/Dean UST; Dean/Lisa UST (one-sided); BEN (:D don't you love my warnings? They make no sense, rly); canon character...disappearance? Spoilers for s5 (Swan Song, in particular); angst; my, you know, style of writing ('nough said, I think).
sketched on the barrel of my gun
The whiskey burns. It's expensive stuff, Dean knows that, knows it by the way Lisa brought down the bottle, found a dusty thick-cut glass to pour it in.
It's good and it burns and scratches at his throat, all the way down. He stares at the window, hard to see past his own reflection bobbing around in the glass, but he does. Leans forward and frowns, like that's the key that lets him see inky black air.
He doesn't move when he sees Sam. His brother's tall, still. The kind of stoic Dean's had months and months of, the kind of stoic that he hates. He can see the broadness, the almost untouched image.
No, he thinks. Just that. No. It's not real, can't be. Sam's in the ground, in a cage, maybe dying over and over and being reborn right into it. Dean left him there. He knows. So if Sam ever came back, he wouldn't be - untouched.
Dean's eyes move, aching and circling over and over. Maybe Sam means to wave, but his hands come up, and they're mangled, bloody, nails ripped off, flesh open and exposed. He can see dried blood tracing all the way over wrists and down to the elbow.
Digging, Dean thinks. Digging free from hell.
The streetlight shudders, flickers, and he can almost imagine the hiss and spit as it wavers between dark and light.
When it steadies again, Sam's gone.
He doesn't use what he saw (a dream, a wish, stupid make-believe shit, he tells himself) as an excuse to go chasing off, hell bent for leather after the image of his supposed to be dead and gone brother. He thinks Sam would have a melt down, wherever he is, if Dean used the first thing that came along as a reason to give up.
Instead, he pushes the image down and gets on with life: goes to the grocery store with Ben, stands and idly stares at boxes of cereal, pink purple green evil little leprechauns bouncing all over thin cardboard. He goes to the dairy aisle and gets Lact-Aid because Ben's lactose intolerant and that's a mistake Dean has to make only once. He buys vegetables and fuckin olive oil and. And life just moves.
He sleeps on the couch and he ruffles Ben's hair, nods at Lisa, and checks the want ads for jobs. He goes to interviews and stumbles blindly through them. He goes home. Home. Lisa's.
Whatever.
He doesn't think about Sam or Sam's hands, not how Dean wanted to see the blood drip, pump out with Sam's heartbeat, because that means alive, that means here. He falls into the routine of the house, because fuck that if he's actually going to make a kid and an overworked single mom revolve around him.
He doesn't dream, either. Stretched out on the overstuffed, overpriced sofa, headlights zooming crazy through the cracks in the blinds and through the sheer fabric of whatever Lisa has draped all over the place. It's always quiet, just the creak of the house and Dean's breathing, the empty static of the turned-off tv. He doesn't dream about falling, about screaming and pain and blindness. Doesn't dream about Sam being everything Dean couldn't be.
Dean doesn't wake up knowing he's failed. The sealed up hole in the ground becomes a memory, a hazy almost forgotten maybe-fact. Dean's face cracks, open and raw, and he hopes the mess resembles a smile. Hey, kid. How'd school go? Okay, let's go. Let's eat. Let's get to bed. Let's clean up.
Good, he thinks. This is the way it's supposed to be.
**
He gets a job at a bar, passing out drinks and wiping down counters and tables and doing inventory late at night. He sleeps maybe four hours, because he takes Ben to school and picks him up and goes to games with Lisa and the rest of the parents every Monday and Friday.
He's tired and gritty with the smell of sharp, bitter alcohol clogging his nose and pores. He can hear the drunken slur of down and out voices, right before he cuts them off, calls whoever to come get them out of the joint. Those half-assed conversations are a thready pulse under every word anyone says to him outside of work. The thick, insular night air hovers around him, cool and crisp when the sunlight is blank, hot, and unavoidable.
He works and gets paid. He takes up a portion of the bills, along with trash duty and meals on the weekends and picking a movie to watch every third Saturday.
But he still sleeps on the couch and doesn't dream and doesn't wake up with vomit in the back of his throat and sweat tacky and salty against his skin. He knows he doesn't dream, because no one ever comes, no one's ever there when he wakes up.
**
"What are you doing?"
The words are even, calm, and Dean turns to see Lisa standing, dark hair knotted and frizzy, bathrobe half open, in the little archway connecting the living room and the kitchen. He sometimes wonders if she expected something else, someone better. If she regrets opening her door and saying I'm here to whatever was left of him.
She hasn't said, and Dean knows she won't, but he wonders.
"Trying to decide between over easy and scrambled," he says and finally gets out the carton of eggs. He hears her sigh and move to the little dinette set in the corner of the kitchen ("Breakfast nook," she said that first morning, "it's where Ben and I usually eat." Now, with three, it's too small to crowd around it, but Dean has a feeling the beat up table and patchwork padded chairs are going to stay. Just in case).
"Scrambled," she finally says. "Definitely. With hotsauce and bell peppers."
"Yeah," he says, "okay," because he can do that. Slice strips of the red and green and orange vegetables into tiny cubes because otherwise Ben won't eat them, and Lisa'll sigh and get up and make pancakes or oatmeal, and come back to a hard, cold mound of flecked eggs.
The kitchen fills with the crack and sizzle of the eggs dropping into the frying pan, and when Ben sidles in, voice high and broken with sleep, Dean doesn't turn and doesn't say anything at all.
**
The first time he misses Ben's baseball game, it's because he told Wesley he'd take over the early shift at the bar. Dean squats down beside Ben, feeling stupid and condescending even as he's looking up into Ben's face, sullen and a little bit heartbroken under his team cap. "I'm sorry, man," Dean says and knots his fingers together to avoid giving the kid a fake punch to the arm or something equally retarded. "Just this once, okay? It won't happen again, alright?"
And Ben sighs, but leans against him, warm even weight against Dean's side. "Okay," Ben says, and smiles over at Dean like he believes everything Dean said, like Dean's honest and fair and there.
"Okay," Dean says, right arm coming up and around Ben for a moment. Pat, pat, and Dean thinks it's easy, it's all too easy.
**
There are motels stretched all around the place Dean works, the interstate hidden but not so far away. The twists and turns of ramps and exits, trash leading like breadcrumbs to old pavement and broken concrete dividers. Sometimes, at the end of his shift, when he's hauling out bag after bag of empties and heaving them into the giant brown dumpster behind the bar, he stops, turns toward the sound of screeching tires and horns and the rush of traffic too early in the morning to still be night.
He can almost see the angry red of brakelights, flashing warnings, the pure white of headlights behind and coming at him. It's been a long time since he's felt the air stirred into a breeze, Impala steady and easy, holding at ninety but waiting for more.
Case to case to case, and Sam's face shadowed and eerie and beautiful, always to the right of him. Safe.
Days spent driving, nights cramped and close and perfect.
He turns back, toward the smell of puke and shit and piss. Too many bodies in too little space.
He'll never get it out of his skin.
**
Dean keeps working at the bar, keeps sleeping on Lisa's couch, keeps drinking a whiskey in front of the window whenever he's off nights. Keeps seeing just his own reflection, wrinkled and unkept and pale.
And then he lays down one night, and it hits him. A year.
He gets up in the morning and Lisa's already up, making breakfast, and when she makes to ask him if he wants anything he just mumbles, "no," pours a cup of coffee and stumbles outside.
The sky's gray, sun a murky dark thing, still. The air's cool, swirling into cold when the wind whips around.
Everything's quiet. People still inside making a ruckus within their own thin four-walled territories, not spilling it into the street yet. As Dean watches a porchlight a few blocks down clicks off, and a second later a dim yellow glow lights the front window. Dean turns back to Lisa's and it's dark, house and yard, only the faint smell of meat and grease slipping out the door Dean left cracked.
It's a second, a minute, an hour later when Lisa comes outside, carafe in hand to refill Dean's cup. "Ben has soccer camp this weekend, and I'm going to - to visit my parents, okay." She's staring up at him, sweet eyes dark and liquid. He nods, sips hot coffee and flinches at the burn. "We'll be back Sunday night." It's said with expectation and disappointment, and it's only when she heads back inside that Dean realizes he was supposed to ask.
Lisa and Ben clear out pretty quick. It's not even afternoon and the house is utterly still. He has work tonight but he calls Wesley up and gets him to cover today and Saturday. It's not hard - best days to work the bar are the weekend evenings. More people and more tips, and he can almost hear Wesley cackling with glee when he says, "yeah, sure, man. Whatever."
He's not sure what he's expecting when the sun starts sinking and the street lamps buzz to life. He leaves the house dark, parks himself at the table with his whiskey, and waits.
Maybe it'd be now, he knows how important anniversaries are to the dead (supposed to be dead, caged, tortured, maimed, evil).
He waits and waits and waits. Knuckles aching around the grip he has on the half-filled tumbler. Maybe he wants and maybe he doesn't. Either way, he has no clue how he could ever be forgiven. Sam might have - might have done...things...but he never gave up, never left and pretended his brother didn't happen. Sammy held on and fought and tried.
Died, or is as good as (bad, worse, worst), and for a Winchester that's saying something.
It's just Dean and the street lamp. Night spreading thick and oily outside the window.
Nothing. There's nothing there.
He wakes up to his face pressed against the hard table top, lines etched deep and painful into his cheek. His mouth is fuzzy and stale, and the stink of old alcohol drifts up from his empty glass.
He gets up, rinses his cup out in the sink, raises his cupped hands to his face and splashes himself with ice cold water.
His eyes sting, and he stares out the window into the backyard. There's an old metal playset of Ben's aging and breaking apart in the corner of the lot. He should maybe take it down before it becomes a jumble of rust and nails.
**
He keeps the guns far away from Lisa and Ben. He doesn't talk about cases, or rituals and spells, doesn't say anything in Latin. He boxes up the weapons cases in the Impala's trunk and shoves Sam's old books on top. He turns up Dad's journal from its resting place in the bottom of Dean's dresser and slides it in the last available spot before he seals everything up and stashes them in a storage unit right outside Cicero.
He burns the old i.d.s, then dismantles the compartments in the trunk, so that it's only a plain space, something it hasn't been for over two decades.
Lisa doesn't say anything, although there's a grim look on her face. She wasn't sure, Dean knows, still busy remembering the changelings, the fear and the dying kids and parents. But Dean shrugs; this is all about the normal life, the one Sam wanted so badly that he even forced Dean into it when they all realized Sam would never have it.
Heart attack, stroke, old age. Skin walker, werewolf, ghost. Everybody dies, Dean thinks. Maybe he'll be the poor schmuck on the front page of the paper that gets a few suspiciously acting outsiders snooping around town.
**
The second time Dean skips out on Ben, Dean misses a play. Ben'd dropped baseball, took up the fledgling drama club. More and more like Sam, geeking out over history and English, doing plays - although this is only a bunch of elementary kids racing around stages and mangling lines, at this point.
It's a small thing, a one night production, and Dean can't. Every time Ben recites lines, throws his arms out in jerky stretches, Dean can only see Sam, lanky and awkward, so fuckin serious it used to make Dean's heart pound off rhythm and kinda scary. And it's - Ben's not; he still wears his leather and his attitude like he owns the place, but there's a spark, something else that's either real or Dean's fucked up imagination, but it makes it hard to be around the kid.
So he shrugs, says, "ah," going for upset or torn, something besides the no, hell no no no that wants to escape. Guilt and grief well in his throat, and he just turns around and walks out, walks all the way to the bar, and gets there an hour early, but Wesley's more than happy to fuck off back home, just a single customer at the far side of the counter and some waily emo song playing in the background.
"See ya," Wesley tosses over his shoulder before the door slams, sticking and bouncing on the hinges. Just like that, Dean's left polishing half-dirty cups and recapping the bottles Wesley'd used earlier.
The guy in the corner looks up, and his eye sockets look like someone beat them black and blue, but Dean thinks it's too much cheap liquor and too little sleep in places the man probably can't even remember getting to.
"Another?" And the guy nods, slides his glass to Dean's waiting hands. "Long night," Dean mutters, sending the full glass back, and the guy wasn't supposed to hear, but he cocks his head anyway, and raises the drink in a salute before downing the whole thing.
**
It's not long after the one-year mark that Dean finally lets Lisa pack up the spare room-turned-study and revert it back to a bedroom.
"It's about time, Dean," she says, sweat and dust covering her face and clothes, hair slipping into her eyes. She's beautiful, Dean thinks for the millionth time, and soft and gentle, and when had that become a turn off? Except it has, somewhere along the welcome in, and the arms so sure and tight around him. Everything's...weirdly platonic. "No matter what," she continues, tape making sharp snip sounds every time it's cut and sealed down to the box Lisa's packing, "you're part of this family. Here to stay." And it's still strange to hear the hopeful lilt at the end.
Dean had thought, a week or so after dragging his sorry ass back to Indiana, that he'd eventually get a job at a garage, crawl into Lisa's bed and take up the Father Knows Best approach with Ben. Apple-pie life, and that's what he knows of it, some whacky cliche of black and white sitcoms, and aw-shucks laughter reel. Instead, he gets to be half-broken and almost mindlessly accepted. He gets to be part of an awkwardly intimate life with people who really don't know the first thing about him.
"Oh, and hey," Lisa's bright and perky, grinning over at him, "I picked up some plaid sheets and a green comforter," because yeah. Dean had seen what she had - pastels and all kinds of comic book hero sheets. "Bet that'll make your day."
The bed linens will smell like lavender and detergent, warm and soft from the dryer. Dean'll wake up day after day in them, in this room, with that lamp and the same light carpet with the same slight squeaks of the floor. Over and over and over until he dies.
He huffs, and it's maybe close enough to laughter to get Lisa doing her absent-minded humming as she pushes the box toward Dean's feet. "Basement," she says, and Dean hefts the weight into his arms, tries not to think about just how many lives have gotten rearranged since Sam's been gone.
Too many, and Dean doesn't want the responsibility or the blame, but he can't let them go, either.
**
Dean's dad was never one to linger in the doorway of his kids' room, arms crossed and asking, "what is it? Would you just let me in?" In all honesty, if it didn't affect a hunt, John figured his boys would work it out on their own, whatever it was. Or, at most, he told them exactly what was going on, and what they were feeling. Just so everyone was clear.
But when Lisa leans against Dean's doorway, he suddenly feels all of maybe thirteen, in trouble and not sure why. He can hear Sam's voice in his head, after that weird ass run in with the wannabe body snatchers way back when, and Sam's bewildered, "man, they are some weird parents," when they were finally able to repossess the right bodies and get the greasy faced kid back home to his gluten-free existence or whatever.
It's not something Dean's ever wanted, that kind of complete involvement, and he shrugs uncomfortably before Lisa even says a word. Just no. No touchy-feely heart-to-hearts, because fuck if Dean's really not in the mood.
"Hey," she says, and Dean grits his teeth, smiles blandly. "I know..." she stops, and Dean's waiting, timing the taptaptap of the summer storm currently knocking treelimbs into the nearest window. "Well, I get that you haven't really, uh, moved on. From whatever happened to you." Dean opens his mouth, but she holds up a hand. "I'm not trying to tell you what you should be doing, and I'm not trying to pry. Honestly," she smiles, shaky and almost scared, "I just. I just figure you lost some one or - you know - more than one, maybe, and sometimes having a place to go, to - to remember them can help."
"A grave," the words come out even. An empty grave, and Dean doesn't even want to think about overturning earth, about refilling a hole left behind. Jesus.
"Or, you know," it's her turn to shrug stiffly, "a memorial? Just - just an idea. If you hadn't thought of it."
"No," Dean says, "no, that's. Thank you."
Quick like a bandaid, he thinks as Lisa disappears, creak and groan of the floorboards giving away her every step.
**
There was a week, the year Sam turned seventeen, when they were in San Diego and Dean spent the time sharing a bed with his hog of a little brother. He'd woken up, pressed flush to his brother's back, arms locked tight and dick half hard. He'd freaked out at first, all that wrong bad dirty shit flooding through him, and Sam never knew, never woke up before Dean, never threw a hissy fit about it.
It was kinda like permission. Not that Dean ever did anything, he's not that much of a perv, but he quit freaking out, would just wake up, slide back over to his side of the bed, when the arousal was lowkey and easy to forget, or get up and jack off in the bathroom if it wasn't.
All good, and no one had to know. Except it doesn't explain now, doesn't explain why Dean's braced above Sam (and they're back in that motel room, yellow/green wallpaper and fuckin orange carpet and orange comforter, what the fuck), and Sam's grinning, soft and affectionate like Dean hasn't seen in fuckin years, and rolling his hips up toward Dean like he can't help himself.
Dean's hard, almost painful because of it, but when he lowers his head, it's only to rest his face in the crook of Sam's neck, and he can feel the tilt of Sam's head as his brother makes room for him. "Sammy," and he wants to roll away, get up, get out, when he hears how stupid and broken his own voice sounds. But he can't, because he's not really here, Sam's not really alive, and this is all Dean will ever have.
Dean falls sideways, until he's resting alongside his brother, not over him. He wills his erection away, almost sobs when Sam - quiet and shushing Dean like Sam knows, like he's something besides a figment of Dean's crazy imagination - rolls toward him, buries himself impossibly deep in Dean's arms.
Sam's weight is heavy and warm, and Dean's left holding back, hanging on, waiting for a chance to catch up.
Dean wakes up and the pillow he's curled around is bunched up around his face, slightly damp. "Goddammit," he mumbles, rolling away and wiping at the tracks drying stiff on his face. There's a heavy weight knotted at the base of his spine, and it takes him a minute to remember what desire feels like, even if it's only for a missing-dead brother and no one he can have.
He hadn't really thought about Sam like that after that one week in San Diego. It was a thing, and then it wasn't, want and horniness creeping out of him just in time to have Sam toss a thick packet of papers at him and say, I'm going, okay? I'm.
But now he can't escape it, and maybe if he was ever interested in armchair psychology he'd say it was because he's desperate to keep Sam with him, and sex. Well, what's better? Especially the way Dean does it, wink wink.
He wonders if Sam would have let him. It's a bitter rush, knowing that towards the end Sam was desperate, too, wanting Dean to have whatever he needed, like Dean's spent his whole fucking life doing for Sam.
He can almost hear it in his head. Hey, Sam, I wanna fuck you.
Yeah, Dean. Yes.
In his head, Sam's spread eagle and easy, just waiting.
In reality, Dean's staring off into space like a reject, hard and aching behind a thin, scarred counter. Clink-clack of glasses being raised and dropped back onto wood. Smell of piss and beer, cheap ass vodka and rum.
The rush and pull of the door opening and closing lets in hot, humid air, sticking Dean's shirt to his chest and he wants to break everything, throw punches and knives til he's covered in blood and no one in this godforsaken place is left standing.
He pours and serves, pours and serves. The clock in the corner ticks over to midnight.
**
Lisa pleads with her eyes. He can read everything, almost thankful for the silent version until she forces the words out anyway. "I haven't really wanted to date since Ben's dad. But I - "
"You like him," and it's ridiculous that she thinks he actually cares, but he can see she does in the tense lines of her small shoulders and the grim set of her mouth. Like dating some doctor from the next town is like signing up for a four-year tour on the front lines.
"It's really casual," she offers, "this is still your home."
And the fact she says that at all lets him know it won't always be. To be fair, he's known for a while now that that was the case. He'd never even thought this was permanent. This was - this - until Lisa got tired or scared or fresh out of pity.
He pulls her in with an arm around her shoulders, and she tips her head toward his chest like she's hurting or wanting or something Dean can't even name. But he grins into her hair, tries to mean it, and says, "it's fine," while the for-rent section of the paper flicks behind his eyes.
Dean finds a little one bedroom apartment near the bar. Even though he's stayed in one spot for more than a year, he hasn't accumulated a lot of stuff, and he's packing up what little is there and tossing it into the new place less than a week later. It's a sleazy-ass place, so it's cheap, but it's also a sleazy-ass place, so Lisa forbids Ben from spending any time there.
Dean makes it a habit to pick Ben up almost every afternoon and go - somewhere. Out for ice-cream, to the lake, to the basketball court, something. Like he's a new breed of those big brother sponsors or some shit, now with bonus PTSD and survivor's guilt.
Ben would be cussing up a storm, Dean thinks, if he were allowed. The kid finally collapses onto the splintery mess of park bench after pacing up and down and calling Lisa's new boyfriend every single name he's allowed to get away with.
"I hate him! He's so stupid," Ben rages, lifting his head to stare at Dean. Ben's eyes are bright with tears, and Dean thinks, fuck. Don't cry, jesus. But Ben just shakes his head, keeps staring until Dean can see the you were supposed to be him; you were supposed to stay, clear as day and scrolling like some fucked up marquee across the kid's forehead.
Dean looks away. It doesn't hurt, and he doesn't feel guilty. Dean would never have worked all his shit out, won't ever be whatever Ben thinks he should be, but he doesn't know how to say that to an almost twelve year old, not without it sounding more like you're not good enough than Dean's comfortable with.
Instead, he says, "you never hated me," and he can hear Ben shift on the bench, quick yelp, and Dean grins. Ben snorts. Dean adds, "it'll be okay. You'll see," and hopes to hell he's not lying.
Dean runs into Lisa's guy on accident. Brad. And Dean almost wants to roll his eyes just at the name, at the bleach blond surfer dick that pops up behind his eyes whenever Lisa tells him the guy's name.
And then he does roll his eyes, because he wasn't wrong. Some Cali hotshot transplanted to Indiana, and of course Lisa finds him. But the guy's nice, only a little stiff when Dean grins, says, "Ben," and doesn't ask to come in.
"Okay," Brad says, and almost-but-not-quite shuts the door in Dean's face.
Life goes on.
It's weird, but he gets sucked into the whole Brad thing, like he's the cardboard cut-out friend in some twisted romcom. All because he catches her on the leaving side of visiting with Ben, tired circles under her eyes, and the old grief straining the lines around her mouth.
He signs his death warrant by asking, "what?", by nodding when she offers a beer and conversation. It shouldn't be weird, stepping into Lisa's living room, but it's been six months since he'd moved out, and the place already feels strange (because it wasn't home, he thinks, never was. Not when home's supposed to be the hum of the Impala, an almost numb ass from driving too long, Sam's sweat and borderline b.o., adrenaline from a finished case or excitement from heading into one).
"I thought it'd be easier than this," Lisa says after she hands him a beer. Miller Lite, and Dean frowns at the taste but drinks it anyway. "I mean. I've had relationships." Dean wants to stop her here, say thanks but no thanks to this whole thing, but he can hear Ben still moving around upstairs, the hint of some whiny-ass band drifting down the steps (no taste, Dean thinks, and Sam would've cackled in glee). Suddenly, it's enough to stay, to listen through someone's listless love life. She matters; not that she'd ever be enough if Sam were here - standing desolate and bloody outside the window, waiting for Dean, just for Dean - but since that scenario's not even an option anymore, he can nod and lean back and let her worries wash over him.
"I just - it's so hard to explain...you," Dean would object to the emphasis, but, well. She has a point, even Dean can see that. "To people, you know? Or guys, I should say. You're not Ben's dad, you're not really an ex. You're a friend," she looks up at Dean then, and Dean gets it right the first time, nods, and watches Lisa smile like that's the best thing ever. "But, you know, you're hot. Brad," and even Lisa can't escape using the condescending tone. Dean's aware that's probably not the best thing for a healthy relationship. "Is jealous. Or - or insecure about," Lisa waves a hand between them, and then between Dean and the ceiling. "And maybe if it were any other situation I wouldn't blame him, but it's you and I do."
They sit there quietly, and Dean scrambles to decode what Lisa's actually saying, but he can only come away with something that screams relationship, and no. No.
His panic must shine through, because Lisa laughs, dry and broken around the corners. She shakes her head, half rueful and half denial. "No," she says, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief, distantly hoping it's low enough that Lisa doesn't hear. "I just miss your scrambled eggs."
It's almost as good as a blatant, "come back," which she gives him next. He knows how this goes. He's been down this road before, where his presence is just enough excuse to be stagnant, circling over and over and coming back to him.
He's spent pretty much his entire life doing that to Sam, and Sam had spent his whole life doing it to Dean, neither one ever moving on, ever really finding something outside of their fucked up dynamic. It broke him for anyone else, Sam broke him for anyone else, and he wants to open his mouth and say no. No, I won't. You need something else, you don't need me.
But Dean had promised Sam, and Sam will always be more important. So if he has to do this stupid apple-pie life bullshit, he's just selfish enough to admit that he doesn't want to do it alone, no matter what it does to anyone else.
"Yeah," he says, and it's almost as weighty as signing a contract, making a vow, except he's not going to be the only one paying this time. "Okay."
He nods, she laughs, they drink.
They're splayed out on the grass like a pair of kids, warm and dizzy with a few too many beers. When he rolls his head to the side, he's not surprised to see her already looking at him.
There's something bitter and painful in his chest, sucking the air out a bit at a time, and it's almost a gasp when he says, "it would have been you." He's oddly comfortable saying that, even aware that it'd be too easy for her to take it the wrong way. It would have been you. If. If I never knew Sam, if he never were my brother, if I'd never said I'm here, I'm here, I won't leave you.
"I know," she whispers, and her lips are dry, chaste, when they touch his. He knows how to get at her warmth and wetness, knows he could, but he pulls back, and she just sighs, smiles into the sudden distance between them. "Hey."
He closes his eyes and starts talking. Explaining. Defending. Almost everything (almost the truth, almost) spills out, and she stays, close and small and dedicated, not touching but there.
When the threat of sun and morning starts turning into fact, he says, "I saw him, outside your window that first night. Just standing." Looking at me, studying, seeing. Almost real.
"It wasn't." The words sound like a fact, but he can hear the lilt, the question she won't ask.
He can see Sam falling, Adam's body trailing after with no choice. He can hear the sound of the earth sealing itself back up, the sound almost like the roar of Dean's anger, like his snarled, I'll hunt god himself, before he was left completely alone.
It takes him a minute to respond, his brain stuttering out was it was it was it. "No," he finally says, the answer like lead weights against his lungs. "No. I was dreaming."
She doesn't say anything else, and they stay like that, watching the day unfurl in bright, bloody streaks across the blue-black sky.