fic: dreams of drowning (1/?)
Dreams of Drowning
Dean/Lisa, Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lisa/Castiel
Adult
Summary: Dean is injured in an accident, saving Sam from a house fire. Jess dies and Dean is badly scarred. Blind out of one eye, burns on the side of his face and arm. He begins pulling away from Lisa and their son Ben, and is weary to be near Lisa now that she’s expecting their second child. Sam has completely changed. He’s hard, he’s reckless, drifting further away from his family.
Castiel Novak is suddenly in charge of his niece Claire after the death of his brother and wife. Unsure of how to cope with the loss of his twin, he begins attending grief counseling at a local church where he meets Dean, who has been attending unbeknownst to Lisa. They form a bond over what it is to be a brother, and (according to them, fail at it).
Lisa is forming her own bond with Castiel (also unknown to Dean) when they meet and Ben strikes up a friendship with Claire that makes the little girl talk and smile since the death of her parents. Neither Dean, nor Lisa, realize they are both having feelings for the same man, while Castiel is unaware that he’s falling in love with a married couple.
.one.
Lisa wakes up alone. Well not really alone as the barely-there bump of her belly reminds her. It’s not really noticeable, not yet anyway. Strangers can’t tell, he friends can’t really tell either. Not unless she stands and pulls up her shirt, pulls down her pants just a bit. She’s fit, strong stomach muscles from years of yoga and jogging. She didn’t show early with her first child, so she doubts this one will make an appearance soon. But as Lisa stretches her long legs, one long arm to the other side of the bed where her husband (and she uses the term loosely because they never had a wedding, just their names on paper) should be, but like so many mornings since the fire, since he got out of the hospital, she finds his side of the bed empty. So, yes, despite the growing life inside of her, she feels terribly alone.
She opens her eyes into the bright orange glow of morning, the far window cracked open letting in a breeze, cool and salty, coming right off the bay. The curtains which she made (and not very well, Dean actually had to finish them) move with the wind. She runs her fingers over the neatly made side of the bed, then pulls his pillow to her. She buries her face in the material and inhales deeply. The smell of his shampoo, his body-wash. Something that promises a manly scent, fresh with some silly adjective. Swagger. Robust. Whatever it is, it’s him and she holds that pillow like it’s his body. For a few minutes she stays folded like this; wrapped around his pillow, cocooned by sheets and a thin quilt, until the alarm sounds.
With a groan, she releases the pillow and rolls over to slam her hand down on the shell-shaped clock radio. 7:15am, time to get started.
She pulls open the curtains on the way to the bathroom. She finds it in pristine condition, sparkly sink and chrome fixtures, smelling of citrus and 409. Early, before the sun had come up, she thought she heard clanking and rinsing, but had ignored it; a lot of the time, he wandered the house, cleaning, arranging. Sometimes just going to sit in their son’s room, watching, and falling asleep on the floor.
As Lisa leans over the sink, she thinks she may vomit. The morning sickness had subsided a few weeks ago, but still occasionally made an appearance. She waits, bracing her hands on the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She’s gained some weight all ready. Not too much though. Her face is rounding a bit, her breasts just starting to swell. They-well, she-has only started telling people in the last month. Dean doesn’t say much to anyone nowadays.
The sick feeling passes and she goes about her routine. Pees, washes her hands, brushes her teeth, pulls back her hair. She dresses in frilly pink longue shorts, pulls on one of Dean’s old rock tees. Blue Oyster Cult and she thinks that’s what they had been listening two when this second child was conceived.
On her dresser is a vase, with fresh picked lilacs. She pauses at them, touching the fine petals and wishes she had been awake when Dean placed them there.
Down the hall, she checks in on Ben. All of three-and-a-half and lying on his back in his racecar bed, black like Dean’s precious Impala, because Ben wants to be just like Daddy. Ben is awake; he’s making his teddy bear dance in the air, singing the wrong words to “Don’t Stop Believing”.
“Morning,” she greets.
He drops the bear and sits up. “Can I get up now?” He’s under strict regulation to stay in his room until Mommy or Daddy is awake.
“Yeah. Are you hungry?”
He nods and jumps out of bed, rushing to her. He wraps his little arms around her legs and presses his face to her stomach, kissing through the material. “Morning, baby.” They told him last week that in the fall, he would have a brother or sister. He takes this notion very seriously despite his overwhelming excitement.
In the kitchen, Ben pulls himself into a chair at the table. Lisa discovers the kitchen spotless as well. The dishes from last night’s dinner washed and put away, Dean’s coffee mug rinsed and placed in the drying rack. No breakfast for him, not even toast. She frowns, going for the fridge.
There’s a note, in Dean’s neat script. Went for a run, then I’m going to the shop to start on some fresh pies. - Dean. Their pie shop, Mary’s Pies, named after his dead mother, because that’s where most of the recipes came from. A small composition notebook filled with all kinds of pies and cakes. Fruit and cream pies, meringue and sweet fillings. It had been Lisa’s idea to add the meat pies to the menu. And even though he never said, you were right, he knew that the idea helped double the business.
Last night at closing, she had started a few of the fruit pies for today, and Dean had stayed after to clean, and she was sure, make more.
“I want pancakes,” Ben says. He taps a spoon against the table.
“Will do.”
She makes the batter and throws in some chocolate chips, then starts to brew coffee. A glass of milk for Ben, juice for her and they sit in a well known silence. The percolating coffee, the sizzling pancakes waiting to be flipped.
Then the door to the basement opens. Ben’s ready to jump out of his chair, run across the room and greet his Uncle Sam, but Lisa puts up a hand and mouths, no and defeated, Ben stay sin his seat, but kicks his legs under the table. Ben doesn’t really know why, doesn’t understand that Sam is different.
Sam moves across the living room in almost unsure steps, his broad shoulders slouched, his head drawn down, long hair mussed and covering his face.
“Morning.” She smiles.
“Morning,” he echoes, with little vigor. He uses Dean’s mug and pours himself coffee, then sits at the table across from Ben.
“Hungry?” she asks, flipping the pancakes.
“No thanks.” He just sips his coffee.
She frowns and moves the cakes to her and Ben’s plates, then sits. They eat in that same heavy silence. Just the sound of the forks scraping plates, Ben slurping his milk.
Half-way through the meal, Lisa gets the sick feeling again and pushes aside her plate. Ben plows through two pancakes and a whole glass of milk. Lisa checks the time. “Go up and start getting ready,” she says. “I’ll be up in a minute.” He nods and runs off.
She clears the plates and starts to run the sink, but Sam stops her, taking gentle hold of her wrist. “I got it, Lise,” he tells her, looking up at her and giving the best smile he can manage. “Go ahead.”
It breaks her heart. The dark circles under his eyes, the visible energy it takes him to force that smile. Like his brother, Sam is different since the fire. His shoddy house (which is why Dean was there in the first place) up in flames, his fiancé with it, and Dean burned. He lives in the basement, makes appearances in the morning for coffee. Wanders around at night, but never at the same time as his brother.
“Thanks.” Lisa smoothes over his hair before going up stairs. This family is full of false smiles.
A separate routine for upstairs and getting herself and Ben ready. While Ben is in his room, Lisa changes. A flowing teal skirt because the first pair of jeans she tries are a bit tight. A black tank, silver bracelets that jingle as she walks. A pendant of Saint Jude on a chain around her neck. She brushes her teeth again, and braids her hair.
When she checks on Ben his progress is…well he has on pants and socks and shoes, but no shirt, and he stands in front of his mirror, singing along with the radio. She laughs and that catches him off guard, but he plays it cool. “What are you doing?” she asks.
He shrugs, folds his arms. “Rocking out.”
“Oh.” She clicks off his clock radio and hands him the black Led Zeppelin shirt he selected. He puts up his arms and she yanks on the shirt, ruffles his hair into some sort of part. Lisa is taken aback momentarily at the striking resemblance. The older Ben gets, the less of herself she sees. Just her dark hair, the curved mouth. The rest is all Dean; the eyes and nose. The attitude and appetite. “Well.” She shakes her head and ushers him along. “You can rock out in the car. We’re going to be late.”
The routine continues and Lisa imagines some sort of music, an instrumental piece that plays as they walk through the house, like in the movies. That’s what her life is slowly becoming. A sappy film played on the Hallmark Channel late at night. She grabs her jean jacket-ignoring Dean’s sweaty and dirty gray sweatshirt on the rack-and a green flannel for Ben. While she gets his racecar bookbag from under the end table by the door, Ben runs over to Sam sitting at the couch and gives him a kiss before meeting Lisa at the door, and taking the pack from her hands. “Bye Uncle Sam.”
The smile that Sam gives is close to the one that Lisa has become familiar with. Te ones from all the pictures, the one she used to see all the time from before. “Have a good one, bud.”
“I’ll be at the shop until close,” she tells him. She clutches the car keys. “I don’t know…” she doesn’t know Dean’s plans. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Sam nods and settles back into the couch.
“Come on.” Lisa pushes Ben out the front door. The lawn is also perfect. Crisp green grass freshly cut, the hedge by the front bay window pruned. She sees where Dean had plucked the sprig of lilacs.
She loads up Ben, straps him in. As she slides into the driver’s side, he starts to kick. “Rock on, Mommy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She starts the car, finds the classic rock station and pulls out of the drive. The sun shines bright, butter-yellow against a blue, cloudless sky. She slips on her sunglasses and croons along with the song, Ben still singing the wrong words.
::
“Mr. Novak?”
Castiel finally looks away from the window where he ash been watching the traffic on the street below. The lights changing, an old lady on a bicycle almost getting run over by a truck making an illegal left hand turn. “Yes?”
“Just one more paper.” The lawyer, JW Brown, slides a sheet across the giant oak desk and Castiel signs, like he’s signed all the others.
He glances over the paper. Not much different than the one before. He’s inheriting his brother’s estate, the money, the house. Of course it’s meant for Claire. When she turns eighteen, she’ll get half of what Castiel has now, if the house accumulates any value, all the royalties from the book series. Castiel doesn’t need any of it, but now he has Claire, and one day Claire will.
“Is that everything?” He caps the pen and sets it gently on the large desk. The office, the whole building really, makes him feel small, and school aged again. Like the time he’d been called to the office, with Jimmy, because Castiel had been skipping gym class, and the staff hadn’t quite put it together that James and Castiel Novak were twins, and not one person.
JW Brown gathers all the papers and gives a tight smile. “It is. Here are the keys to the house.” He hands over a default set of keys (which is dumb because Castiel has had his own for years), and a folder with copies of everything he’s signed. The house, policies, the literary licenses, and Jimmy’s daughter Claire, are now his. “All yours,” JW says, like Castiel has won a prize.
“Yeah.” Castiel shakes the lawyer’s hand before pulling on his coat, and walks out of the office.
In the waiting area, the receptionist sits with his niece, coloring in the books that she said she keeps in her desk for other kids who are stuck in a stuffy waiting room. “Want to show him?” she asks.
Claire nods and jumps off the chair, trots over to Castiel and presents him a picture of an elephant and a zebra colored in bright rainbows. He cracks a small smile. “It’s beautiful. Are you ready to go?”
She nods again and grabs his hand. Castiel picks up her little pack, a bright pink bag that carries more than it looks like it can. Castiel and Claire walk out of the building hand in hand. She’s stronger than she looks, which is frail and tiny. Knobby knees and flame-white hair. Crystalline blue eyes, like his own. Like Jimmy’s.
In the car, Castiel checks the rearview. She’s looking out the window and flipping her doll in her hand. “Well,” he says, unsure. “Ready to go home?” She makes eye contact and nods. He tries to smile for her, but just puts the car in reverse and starts down the road.
He’s not from this town, only been by to visit in the last few years since Jimmy and Amelia bought the property. After the book series started to take off, they wanted a small, comfortable time to raise Claire, and any other possible children.
His eyes start to tear up for the third time today. First after waking up with Claire in his bed, and then when she actually smiled at the receptionist and seemed gleeful to be coloring.
It’s been a month since Castiel had been living in DC, selling his paintings on the street and he received a call saying that his brother and his wife had been killed in a car accident. After the reading of the will (and Castiel knew he would have custody of Claire; he and Jimmy had discussed it) Castiel packed up his the station wagon with everything he owned, except furniture that went donation.
Castiel glances around the town. Ma and Pop stores, a tiny post office, lots of restaurants. On the main strip where he drives, he sees the bay, dark green waters, sun glinting bright on the waves. Jimmy always wanted to live by the water.
Pulling up the driveway to the house, Castiel checks the rearview again to find Claire asleep. He sighs and slows the car to a stop, right outside the garage doors. He leans back his head and closes his eyes and concentrates. A game he and Jimmy often played trying to test the limits of the supposed, twin telepathy. See if it was real. They’d both lie side by side in bed and think of a word to see if the other could hear it. But most of the time they ended up picking the same word, so they decided that test wasn’t a good measure. But there was something.
When one cried, so did the other. Castiel felt a sore in his arm when Jimmy broke his, Jimmy often complained of migraines when Castiel hit a block with his painting. Rarely did they ever need words for each other.
And now, Castiel just feels…nothing. He’s plagued by that feeling he’s forgotten something, or left something behind. The oven is on, his shirt is on backwards, someone is looking over his shoulder. But the oven is always off, his clothes are (generally) in correct order, and no one is ever there.
He rifles through a mental dictionary and picks a word. Rosebud. He grins.
The serenity is suddenly broken (and Castiel is sure he can just smell Jimmy again) when Claire screams. At the top of her lungs, like she’s been stabbed. Castiel flails, almost falling out of the car as he jumps out the front seat to get to the back.
He unhooks her and pulls Claire to him. She falls easy into his grasp, sobbing against his neck. This is the fourth time this has happened; she wakes up screaming and crying. Scares the daylights out of him. He doesn’t know what she sees, what terrifies her so; she hasn’t spoken a single word since the funeral.
“I know.” Castiel exhales a stuttered breath and sinks against the seat. She cries and he starts to cry and then gets the funny feeling that he’s left his cell phone at the law office.
::
Dean takes long drags from his cigarette, holds the smoke in his lungs until it itches, then exhales a thin and wispy plume of smoke. The breeze takes it away and rustles up the smell of the dumpsters a few yards away. He snorts and takes another long drag, covering up the scent. Dump trucks were by about an hour ago, when Dean first came to the shop. But the tattoo parlor a few doors down emptied their day-old trash after the trucks left. The owner, Saul, gave Dean a head nod, said Morning and ducked back in.
Dean has three tattoos, well two now. The sparrow that he’d gotten in memory of his mother when he was seventeen is buried under layers of burned skin; the only evidence is a black smudge. His stomach sours just thinking about it. He takes another drag, holds this one in until it hurts. He checks his watch, then the window on the back door. She’s not in yet. But soon, Lisa will be coming in the front. That also makes his stomach sour. Fuck.
He crushes the cigarette under the hell of his boot and stands, going back inside. Locks the door behind him. The little hallway with the staff bathroom is covered with graffiti, mostly their hand writing. Dean and Lisa’s. Sam and Jess. Jo scribbling lyrics to classic rock songs. Ben’s crooked and large print of the alphabet, of him trying to write out his full name. Benjamin Isaac Winchester is a bit much. So he just managed Ben, and Dean filled in the rest. He checks his watch again, minutes ticking faster than he expects. He washes his hands, then heads out to the front.
Everything is wiped down and gleaming. A spotless floor, a clear and wide display case for pies that people can buy and take with them. Baked this morning (and a few last night around close). The whole shop smells heavy of sweetness, of flour and fruit. Chocolate bubbling. A soft mixture of the meat pies, seared steak and sautéed mushrooms. Crust that just makes your mouth water lookin’ at it.
Before, Lisa joked that he was going to gain a thousand pounds before the first week after opening. Because he tested all the food, ate when he cooked-he did the same thing at home. Had done so his whole life, growing up after Mom died, when he had to be both parents to Sam, because Dad was too drunk and sad to do anything. And Dean tested and ate while baking and Lisa laughed and said he’d get fat, and then he grabbed her by the waist and trapped her against the counter.
‘but you’ll still love me right?’
‘I guess so.’ And she kissed him and wiggled away to go take more orders.
But that was before. Now, Dean doesn’t eat much. Coffee and cigarettes, sometimes bourbon at night. Like Dad. But Dean won’t drink in front of Ben. Won’t let his son see him like the way Dean often saw his own father.
The second oven dings and Dean pulls on a pair of frilly oven mitts-a gag gift from Jo for his is thirtieth birthday-and takes out two meat pies. Steak and mushroom, chicken and asparagus with a lotta cheese. Bubbling yellow and a bit brown around the corners, Dean sets them both on the cooling rack, then shuts off the oven. There’s an hour until opening, he could clean the ovens again. Get the glass of the front and back door, the glass of the display. Wipe down all the counters again. Write out the specials on the dry-erase board. Lots he could do before they flip the sign to open and he scuttles to the back office to do paper work for a few hours, then go out to Bobby’s to spend the afternoon under some cars.
He freezes when he hears the jingling of keys and bracelets. He stands at the register watching Lisa unlock the front door. Her head pointing down, strands of her dark hair falling around her face and out of the braid. The sun is right behind her, making her glow, like the goddess that she is and he feels sick again.
She gets in and locks the door behind her, then reaches over to turn on the lights. He squints and she walks further in, but pauses in the middle of the room, pulling her jean made purse over her shoulder, dropping the keys in the bag. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” he says back.
“Didn’t think you’d still be here.” She keeps walking and comes behind the counter, walks right by him to the back, leaving a wave of perfume in her wake. Flowers, she’s always smelled like flowers. He listens. She drops the purse on the desk in the office, her bracelets jangle with her every movement as she pulls on an apron and comes back to the register and display area.
He clears his throat. “Yeah. Uh, made a few things. Cleaned.”
“I see that.” A smile, tight. She’s so careful around him. Doesn’t ruffle his feathers, doesn’t ask too many questions anymore.
He scratches his head. “I could do the oven again-”
“They’re all clean, Dean.” She leans against the counter.
A silence of hitched breaths and cleared throats.
“How’d Ben do this morning?” he remembers. When they first started dropping him off at the pre-school, four days a week, eight to twelve, he had been a crier. Didn’t wanna leave Mom, or Dad. Didn’t want to leave Sam or Jess the few times they did it. But he’s been getting better, by Lisa’s accounts.
She nods, crosses her arms over her chest. “Good. He was real good this morning. Saw Sam. Did fine there.”
At the mention of Sam, Dean tightens again, ducks his head, closes his eyes a second. He can’t see out of the left one, hell the left eye isn’t even real. A white, glass orb stuck in there so he could blink, so he wouldn’t scare people. “Good,” he answers. “Good.”
It used to be so easy, before, being them. Secret smiles and touches all day long. If they had staff to cover the front, and it was a slow day, a quickie in the back office. How he’d get down on his knees for her, eat her out while she was perched on the desk.
“And uh, things goin’ okay? No more throwing up?”
A real smile, with her teeth and bright eyes. “Yeah,” she chuckles. “Yeah things are good.”
Ben had been a bigger surprise than this one. They’d been talking about a second one, right around the time they found out she was actually pregnant. But that was around the time of the fire too.
“I have an appointment,” she says. “Next week. I was thinking we could get Jo and Ash to open, cover the morning.”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Good.”
Then they separate; Lisa starts baking and Dean cleans out the second oven once it has cooled. Silence of the kitchen noises.
When Lisa goes to flip the sign and officially open, Dean takes off his apron. “I’m gonna do some paper work,” he says. “Then head out to Bobby’s.”
“Don’t forget Ben.” She unlocks the doors.
Shit. It’s his day to have him in the afternoon. But the kid likes being up at Bobby’s, spending time with Ellen, who doesn’t have grandkids of her own. “Yeah. No problem.”
The paper work doesn’t take him long since he did most of it last night. He sits back in the squeaky leather chair and looks at the pictures in frames on the desk. Lots of Ben, lots of her. One of his mother and father. One of him and Sam as kids. All from before. When his face and arm weren’t fucked up, when Sam was happy, and when they were all a family, and he wasn’t just some disfigured grunt who did odd jobs around the house, the hunchback up in the bell tower.
When Dean hears the front door ding and some customers walk in, he stands and grabs his jacket from the rack in the corner. Old and leather, worn. Dad’s. If Dean thinks real hard, he can still pick up the faint scent, though he’s been wearing it for the last twelve years. It’s a little loose on him, especially since being in the hospital. He heads out the back.
From the narrow hall, Dean sees Lisa at the front. She stands at the register with one leg up in the air; she has a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. People shine around, they laugh, they smile. An angel, a goddess. But when she turns around and their eyes connect, her face drops to a tight mouth, glazed eyes. She sticks a pencil behind her ear and goes to the fridge. Dean ducks out the back door, kicking it shut with a heavy boot.
Dean/Lisa, Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lisa/Castiel
Adult
Summary: Dean is injured in an accident, saving Sam from a house fire. Jess dies and Dean is badly scarred. Blind out of one eye, burns on the side of his face and arm. He begins pulling away from Lisa and their son Ben, and is weary to be near Lisa now that she’s expecting their second child. Sam has completely changed. He’s hard, he’s reckless, drifting further away from his family.
Castiel Novak is suddenly in charge of his niece Claire after the death of his brother and wife. Unsure of how to cope with the loss of his twin, he begins attending grief counseling at a local church where he meets Dean, who has been attending unbeknownst to Lisa. They form a bond over what it is to be a brother, and (according to them, fail at it).
Lisa is forming her own bond with Castiel (also unknown to Dean) when they meet and Ben strikes up a friendship with Claire that makes the little girl talk and smile since the death of her parents. Neither Dean, nor Lisa, realize they are both having feelings for the same man, while Castiel is unaware that he’s falling in love with a married couple.
.one.
Lisa wakes up alone. Well not really alone as the barely-there bump of her belly reminds her. It’s not really noticeable, not yet anyway. Strangers can’t tell, he friends can’t really tell either. Not unless she stands and pulls up her shirt, pulls down her pants just a bit. She’s fit, strong stomach muscles from years of yoga and jogging. She didn’t show early with her first child, so she doubts this one will make an appearance soon. But as Lisa stretches her long legs, one long arm to the other side of the bed where her husband (and she uses the term loosely because they never had a wedding, just their names on paper) should be, but like so many mornings since the fire, since he got out of the hospital, she finds his side of the bed empty. So, yes, despite the growing life inside of her, she feels terribly alone.
She opens her eyes into the bright orange glow of morning, the far window cracked open letting in a breeze, cool and salty, coming right off the bay. The curtains which she made (and not very well, Dean actually had to finish them) move with the wind. She runs her fingers over the neatly made side of the bed, then pulls his pillow to her. She buries her face in the material and inhales deeply. The smell of his shampoo, his body-wash. Something that promises a manly scent, fresh with some silly adjective. Swagger. Robust. Whatever it is, it’s him and she holds that pillow like it’s his body. For a few minutes she stays folded like this; wrapped around his pillow, cocooned by sheets and a thin quilt, until the alarm sounds.
With a groan, she releases the pillow and rolls over to slam her hand down on the shell-shaped clock radio. 7:15am, time to get started.
She pulls open the curtains on the way to the bathroom. She finds it in pristine condition, sparkly sink and chrome fixtures, smelling of citrus and 409. Early, before the sun had come up, she thought she heard clanking and rinsing, but had ignored it; a lot of the time, he wandered the house, cleaning, arranging. Sometimes just going to sit in their son’s room, watching, and falling asleep on the floor.
As Lisa leans over the sink, she thinks she may vomit. The morning sickness had subsided a few weeks ago, but still occasionally made an appearance. She waits, bracing her hands on the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She’s gained some weight all ready. Not too much though. Her face is rounding a bit, her breasts just starting to swell. They-well, she-has only started telling people in the last month. Dean doesn’t say much to anyone nowadays.
The sick feeling passes and she goes about her routine. Pees, washes her hands, brushes her teeth, pulls back her hair. She dresses in frilly pink longue shorts, pulls on one of Dean’s old rock tees. Blue Oyster Cult and she thinks that’s what they had been listening two when this second child was conceived.
On her dresser is a vase, with fresh picked lilacs. She pauses at them, touching the fine petals and wishes she had been awake when Dean placed them there.
Down the hall, she checks in on Ben. All of three-and-a-half and lying on his back in his racecar bed, black like Dean’s precious Impala, because Ben wants to be just like Daddy. Ben is awake; he’s making his teddy bear dance in the air, singing the wrong words to “Don’t Stop Believing”.
“Morning,” she greets.
He drops the bear and sits up. “Can I get up now?” He’s under strict regulation to stay in his room until Mommy or Daddy is awake.
“Yeah. Are you hungry?”
He nods and jumps out of bed, rushing to her. He wraps his little arms around her legs and presses his face to her stomach, kissing through the material. “Morning, baby.” They told him last week that in the fall, he would have a brother or sister. He takes this notion very seriously despite his overwhelming excitement.
In the kitchen, Ben pulls himself into a chair at the table. Lisa discovers the kitchen spotless as well. The dishes from last night’s dinner washed and put away, Dean’s coffee mug rinsed and placed in the drying rack. No breakfast for him, not even toast. She frowns, going for the fridge.
There’s a note, in Dean’s neat script. Went for a run, then I’m going to the shop to start on some fresh pies. - Dean. Their pie shop, Mary’s Pies, named after his dead mother, because that’s where most of the recipes came from. A small composition notebook filled with all kinds of pies and cakes. Fruit and cream pies, meringue and sweet fillings. It had been Lisa’s idea to add the meat pies to the menu. And even though he never said, you were right, he knew that the idea helped double the business.
Last night at closing, she had started a few of the fruit pies for today, and Dean had stayed after to clean, and she was sure, make more.
“I want pancakes,” Ben says. He taps a spoon against the table.
“Will do.”
She makes the batter and throws in some chocolate chips, then starts to brew coffee. A glass of milk for Ben, juice for her and they sit in a well known silence. The percolating coffee, the sizzling pancakes waiting to be flipped.
Then the door to the basement opens. Ben’s ready to jump out of his chair, run across the room and greet his Uncle Sam, but Lisa puts up a hand and mouths, no and defeated, Ben stay sin his seat, but kicks his legs under the table. Ben doesn’t really know why, doesn’t understand that Sam is different.
Sam moves across the living room in almost unsure steps, his broad shoulders slouched, his head drawn down, long hair mussed and covering his face.
“Morning.” She smiles.
“Morning,” he echoes, with little vigor. He uses Dean’s mug and pours himself coffee, then sits at the table across from Ben.
“Hungry?” she asks, flipping the pancakes.
“No thanks.” He just sips his coffee.
She frowns and moves the cakes to her and Ben’s plates, then sits. They eat in that same heavy silence. Just the sound of the forks scraping plates, Ben slurping his milk.
Half-way through the meal, Lisa gets the sick feeling again and pushes aside her plate. Ben plows through two pancakes and a whole glass of milk. Lisa checks the time. “Go up and start getting ready,” she says. “I’ll be up in a minute.” He nods and runs off.
She clears the plates and starts to run the sink, but Sam stops her, taking gentle hold of her wrist. “I got it, Lise,” he tells her, looking up at her and giving the best smile he can manage. “Go ahead.”
It breaks her heart. The dark circles under his eyes, the visible energy it takes him to force that smile. Like his brother, Sam is different since the fire. His shoddy house (which is why Dean was there in the first place) up in flames, his fiancé with it, and Dean burned. He lives in the basement, makes appearances in the morning for coffee. Wanders around at night, but never at the same time as his brother.
“Thanks.” Lisa smoothes over his hair before going up stairs. This family is full of false smiles.
A separate routine for upstairs and getting herself and Ben ready. While Ben is in his room, Lisa changes. A flowing teal skirt because the first pair of jeans she tries are a bit tight. A black tank, silver bracelets that jingle as she walks. A pendant of Saint Jude on a chain around her neck. She brushes her teeth again, and braids her hair.
When she checks on Ben his progress is…well he has on pants and socks and shoes, but no shirt, and he stands in front of his mirror, singing along with the radio. She laughs and that catches him off guard, but he plays it cool. “What are you doing?” she asks.
He shrugs, folds his arms. “Rocking out.”
“Oh.” She clicks off his clock radio and hands him the black Led Zeppelin shirt he selected. He puts up his arms and she yanks on the shirt, ruffles his hair into some sort of part. Lisa is taken aback momentarily at the striking resemblance. The older Ben gets, the less of herself she sees. Just her dark hair, the curved mouth. The rest is all Dean; the eyes and nose. The attitude and appetite. “Well.” She shakes her head and ushers him along. “You can rock out in the car. We’re going to be late.”
The routine continues and Lisa imagines some sort of music, an instrumental piece that plays as they walk through the house, like in the movies. That’s what her life is slowly becoming. A sappy film played on the Hallmark Channel late at night. She grabs her jean jacket-ignoring Dean’s sweaty and dirty gray sweatshirt on the rack-and a green flannel for Ben. While she gets his racecar bookbag from under the end table by the door, Ben runs over to Sam sitting at the couch and gives him a kiss before meeting Lisa at the door, and taking the pack from her hands. “Bye Uncle Sam.”
The smile that Sam gives is close to the one that Lisa has become familiar with. Te ones from all the pictures, the one she used to see all the time from before. “Have a good one, bud.”
“I’ll be at the shop until close,” she tells him. She clutches the car keys. “I don’t know…” she doesn’t know Dean’s plans. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Sam nods and settles back into the couch.
“Come on.” Lisa pushes Ben out the front door. The lawn is also perfect. Crisp green grass freshly cut, the hedge by the front bay window pruned. She sees where Dean had plucked the sprig of lilacs.
She loads up Ben, straps him in. As she slides into the driver’s side, he starts to kick. “Rock on, Mommy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She starts the car, finds the classic rock station and pulls out of the drive. The sun shines bright, butter-yellow against a blue, cloudless sky. She slips on her sunglasses and croons along with the song, Ben still singing the wrong words.
::
“Mr. Novak?”
Castiel finally looks away from the window where he ash been watching the traffic on the street below. The lights changing, an old lady on a bicycle almost getting run over by a truck making an illegal left hand turn. “Yes?”
“Just one more paper.” The lawyer, JW Brown, slides a sheet across the giant oak desk and Castiel signs, like he’s signed all the others.
He glances over the paper. Not much different than the one before. He’s inheriting his brother’s estate, the money, the house. Of course it’s meant for Claire. When she turns eighteen, she’ll get half of what Castiel has now, if the house accumulates any value, all the royalties from the book series. Castiel doesn’t need any of it, but now he has Claire, and one day Claire will.
“Is that everything?” He caps the pen and sets it gently on the large desk. The office, the whole building really, makes him feel small, and school aged again. Like the time he’d been called to the office, with Jimmy, because Castiel had been skipping gym class, and the staff hadn’t quite put it together that James and Castiel Novak were twins, and not one person.
JW Brown gathers all the papers and gives a tight smile. “It is. Here are the keys to the house.” He hands over a default set of keys (which is dumb because Castiel has had his own for years), and a folder with copies of everything he’s signed. The house, policies, the literary licenses, and Jimmy’s daughter Claire, are now his. “All yours,” JW says, like Castiel has won a prize.
“Yeah.” Castiel shakes the lawyer’s hand before pulling on his coat, and walks out of the office.
In the waiting area, the receptionist sits with his niece, coloring in the books that she said she keeps in her desk for other kids who are stuck in a stuffy waiting room. “Want to show him?” she asks.
Claire nods and jumps off the chair, trots over to Castiel and presents him a picture of an elephant and a zebra colored in bright rainbows. He cracks a small smile. “It’s beautiful. Are you ready to go?”
She nods again and grabs his hand. Castiel picks up her little pack, a bright pink bag that carries more than it looks like it can. Castiel and Claire walk out of the building hand in hand. She’s stronger than she looks, which is frail and tiny. Knobby knees and flame-white hair. Crystalline blue eyes, like his own. Like Jimmy’s.
In the car, Castiel checks the rearview. She’s looking out the window and flipping her doll in her hand. “Well,” he says, unsure. “Ready to go home?” She makes eye contact and nods. He tries to smile for her, but just puts the car in reverse and starts down the road.
He’s not from this town, only been by to visit in the last few years since Jimmy and Amelia bought the property. After the book series started to take off, they wanted a small, comfortable time to raise Claire, and any other possible children.
His eyes start to tear up for the third time today. First after waking up with Claire in his bed, and then when she actually smiled at the receptionist and seemed gleeful to be coloring.
It’s been a month since Castiel had been living in DC, selling his paintings on the street and he received a call saying that his brother and his wife had been killed in a car accident. After the reading of the will (and Castiel knew he would have custody of Claire; he and Jimmy had discussed it) Castiel packed up his the station wagon with everything he owned, except furniture that went donation.
Castiel glances around the town. Ma and Pop stores, a tiny post office, lots of restaurants. On the main strip where he drives, he sees the bay, dark green waters, sun glinting bright on the waves. Jimmy always wanted to live by the water.
Pulling up the driveway to the house, Castiel checks the rearview again to find Claire asleep. He sighs and slows the car to a stop, right outside the garage doors. He leans back his head and closes his eyes and concentrates. A game he and Jimmy often played trying to test the limits of the supposed, twin telepathy. See if it was real. They’d both lie side by side in bed and think of a word to see if the other could hear it. But most of the time they ended up picking the same word, so they decided that test wasn’t a good measure. But there was something.
When one cried, so did the other. Castiel felt a sore in his arm when Jimmy broke his, Jimmy often complained of migraines when Castiel hit a block with his painting. Rarely did they ever need words for each other.
And now, Castiel just feels…nothing. He’s plagued by that feeling he’s forgotten something, or left something behind. The oven is on, his shirt is on backwards, someone is looking over his shoulder. But the oven is always off, his clothes are (generally) in correct order, and no one is ever there.
He rifles through a mental dictionary and picks a word. Rosebud. He grins.
The serenity is suddenly broken (and Castiel is sure he can just smell Jimmy again) when Claire screams. At the top of her lungs, like she’s been stabbed. Castiel flails, almost falling out of the car as he jumps out the front seat to get to the back.
He unhooks her and pulls Claire to him. She falls easy into his grasp, sobbing against his neck. This is the fourth time this has happened; she wakes up screaming and crying. Scares the daylights out of him. He doesn’t know what she sees, what terrifies her so; she hasn’t spoken a single word since the funeral.
“I know.” Castiel exhales a stuttered breath and sinks against the seat. She cries and he starts to cry and then gets the funny feeling that he’s left his cell phone at the law office.
::
Dean takes long drags from his cigarette, holds the smoke in his lungs until it itches, then exhales a thin and wispy plume of smoke. The breeze takes it away and rustles up the smell of the dumpsters a few yards away. He snorts and takes another long drag, covering up the scent. Dump trucks were by about an hour ago, when Dean first came to the shop. But the tattoo parlor a few doors down emptied their day-old trash after the trucks left. The owner, Saul, gave Dean a head nod, said Morning and ducked back in.
Dean has three tattoos, well two now. The sparrow that he’d gotten in memory of his mother when he was seventeen is buried under layers of burned skin; the only evidence is a black smudge. His stomach sours just thinking about it. He takes another drag, holds this one in until it hurts. He checks his watch, then the window on the back door. She’s not in yet. But soon, Lisa will be coming in the front. That also makes his stomach sour. Fuck.
He crushes the cigarette under the hell of his boot and stands, going back inside. Locks the door behind him. The little hallway with the staff bathroom is covered with graffiti, mostly their hand writing. Dean and Lisa’s. Sam and Jess. Jo scribbling lyrics to classic rock songs. Ben’s crooked and large print of the alphabet, of him trying to write out his full name. Benjamin Isaac Winchester is a bit much. So he just managed Ben, and Dean filled in the rest. He checks his watch again, minutes ticking faster than he expects. He washes his hands, then heads out to the front.
Everything is wiped down and gleaming. A spotless floor, a clear and wide display case for pies that people can buy and take with them. Baked this morning (and a few last night around close). The whole shop smells heavy of sweetness, of flour and fruit. Chocolate bubbling. A soft mixture of the meat pies, seared steak and sautéed mushrooms. Crust that just makes your mouth water lookin’ at it.
Before, Lisa joked that he was going to gain a thousand pounds before the first week after opening. Because he tested all the food, ate when he cooked-he did the same thing at home. Had done so his whole life, growing up after Mom died, when he had to be both parents to Sam, because Dad was too drunk and sad to do anything. And Dean tested and ate while baking and Lisa laughed and said he’d get fat, and then he grabbed her by the waist and trapped her against the counter.
‘but you’ll still love me right?’
‘I guess so.’ And she kissed him and wiggled away to go take more orders.
But that was before. Now, Dean doesn’t eat much. Coffee and cigarettes, sometimes bourbon at night. Like Dad. But Dean won’t drink in front of Ben. Won’t let his son see him like the way Dean often saw his own father.
The second oven dings and Dean pulls on a pair of frilly oven mitts-a gag gift from Jo for his is thirtieth birthday-and takes out two meat pies. Steak and mushroom, chicken and asparagus with a lotta cheese. Bubbling yellow and a bit brown around the corners, Dean sets them both on the cooling rack, then shuts off the oven. There’s an hour until opening, he could clean the ovens again. Get the glass of the front and back door, the glass of the display. Wipe down all the counters again. Write out the specials on the dry-erase board. Lots he could do before they flip the sign to open and he scuttles to the back office to do paper work for a few hours, then go out to Bobby’s to spend the afternoon under some cars.
He freezes when he hears the jingling of keys and bracelets. He stands at the register watching Lisa unlock the front door. Her head pointing down, strands of her dark hair falling around her face and out of the braid. The sun is right behind her, making her glow, like the goddess that she is and he feels sick again.
She gets in and locks the door behind her, then reaches over to turn on the lights. He squints and she walks further in, but pauses in the middle of the room, pulling her jean made purse over her shoulder, dropping the keys in the bag. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” he says back.
“Didn’t think you’d still be here.” She keeps walking and comes behind the counter, walks right by him to the back, leaving a wave of perfume in her wake. Flowers, she’s always smelled like flowers. He listens. She drops the purse on the desk in the office, her bracelets jangle with her every movement as she pulls on an apron and comes back to the register and display area.
He clears his throat. “Yeah. Uh, made a few things. Cleaned.”
“I see that.” A smile, tight. She’s so careful around him. Doesn’t ruffle his feathers, doesn’t ask too many questions anymore.
He scratches his head. “I could do the oven again-”
“They’re all clean, Dean.” She leans against the counter.
A silence of hitched breaths and cleared throats.
“How’d Ben do this morning?” he remembers. When they first started dropping him off at the pre-school, four days a week, eight to twelve, he had been a crier. Didn’t wanna leave Mom, or Dad. Didn’t want to leave Sam or Jess the few times they did it. But he’s been getting better, by Lisa’s accounts.
She nods, crosses her arms over her chest. “Good. He was real good this morning. Saw Sam. Did fine there.”
At the mention of Sam, Dean tightens again, ducks his head, closes his eyes a second. He can’t see out of the left one, hell the left eye isn’t even real. A white, glass orb stuck in there so he could blink, so he wouldn’t scare people. “Good,” he answers. “Good.”
It used to be so easy, before, being them. Secret smiles and touches all day long. If they had staff to cover the front, and it was a slow day, a quickie in the back office. How he’d get down on his knees for her, eat her out while she was perched on the desk.
“And uh, things goin’ okay? No more throwing up?”
A real smile, with her teeth and bright eyes. “Yeah,” she chuckles. “Yeah things are good.”
Ben had been a bigger surprise than this one. They’d been talking about a second one, right around the time they found out she was actually pregnant. But that was around the time of the fire too.
“I have an appointment,” she says. “Next week. I was thinking we could get Jo and Ash to open, cover the morning.”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Good.”
Then they separate; Lisa starts baking and Dean cleans out the second oven once it has cooled. Silence of the kitchen noises.
When Lisa goes to flip the sign and officially open, Dean takes off his apron. “I’m gonna do some paper work,” he says. “Then head out to Bobby’s.”
“Don’t forget Ben.” She unlocks the doors.
Shit. It’s his day to have him in the afternoon. But the kid likes being up at Bobby’s, spending time with Ellen, who doesn’t have grandkids of her own. “Yeah. No problem.”
The paper work doesn’t take him long since he did most of it last night. He sits back in the squeaky leather chair and looks at the pictures in frames on the desk. Lots of Ben, lots of her. One of his mother and father. One of him and Sam as kids. All from before. When his face and arm weren’t fucked up, when Sam was happy, and when they were all a family, and he wasn’t just some disfigured grunt who did odd jobs around the house, the hunchback up in the bell tower.
When Dean hears the front door ding and some customers walk in, he stands and grabs his jacket from the rack in the corner. Old and leather, worn. Dad’s. If Dean thinks real hard, he can still pick up the faint scent, though he’s been wearing it for the last twelve years. It’s a little loose on him, especially since being in the hospital. He heads out the back.
From the narrow hall, Dean sees Lisa at the front. She stands at the register with one leg up in the air; she has a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. People shine around, they laugh, they smile. An angel, a goddess. But when she turns around and their eyes connect, her face drops to a tight mouth, glazed eyes. She sticks a pencil behind her ear and goes to the fridge. Dean ducks out the back door, kicking it shut with a heavy boot.