Everything You Ever/Want, for my fake Cliche Bingo Card
Title: Everything You Ever/Want
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: Dean/Lisa, Dean/Cassie, Ben, Sam, OCs
Warnings (including spoilers): Spoilers for 5.24 Swan Song, 6.01 Exile on Main Street, vaguely for 1.13 Route 666
Wordcount: 3,024 words
Author’s note: So, there's a fair amount of stuff in here that'll only be meaningful if you actually live in these places or do the idiotic amount of research I did for this. Basically, I swear this is better written than it seems. Inspired by Vertical Horizon’s ‘Everything You Want’ and filling the ‘Ghosts and hauntings’ square on the cliche_bingo card I made for myself, don’t ask and don’t sue me.
Summary: Some days he looks at Lisa and feels like he's finally made it. He loves her. And then once in a while he blinks and she looks... different. And he feels different, not as grateful, but more content.
The moon is full overhead, and high. It both matters, and doesn't, anymore.
~~~~~
And then he blinks, and he's in the bright kitchen of Lisa's house. Clean counter-tops, flowers by the window, light wooden cabinets all around. The radio buzzes slightly the corner, and it's on his favorite station. Lisa's back is to him, she's making her omelet while he finishes the scrambled eggs Ben didn't want.
Everything's normal.
~~~~~
“So, Dean.”
“Yes sir,” he says respectfully, turning his attention away from the television. Beside him on the couch, the devil incarnate lounges, as comfortable in Lisa and Ben's house as the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's.
Lisa's step-father is one of those hulking, graying men who you'd expect to start telling old war stories, but he's really just a retired school teacher. Nevertheless, his dissatisfied glare would make a lesser man turn tail and run from twenty paces. Dean's been with Lisa nearly a year now, and every time her parents come over he feels the urge to hop in the Impala and be across state lines by sundown.
Mr. Floyd's thick, wiry mustache twitches. “Are you a Reds, or a Cardinals man?” The look in his eyes promises death, in the form of extensive sports stat interrogation and drawn-out humiliation.
Behind his back, Lisa is standing in the doorway and mouthing 'REDS!!' Beside her, Ben's eyes are wide with fear.
Den opens his mouth to take their advice, but what comes out is, “Actually, sir, I gotta root for the home team.”
He just about shits himself.
Mr. Floyd's gaze zeroes in on his target. “You mean the Indians?”
Ben has run into the kitchen to find refuge with Mrs. Floyd. Lisa's loving eyes say she's going to miss him.
Dean gulps. “That's right.”
Mr. Floyd has heavy eyebrows, with gray hairs sprouting out like weeds. When they come together, underlining the deep furrow of his forehead, they look like storm clouds crashing. Dean thinks there should be thunder. “That's quite respectable of you, son.”
He turns back to the game, and Dean sort of blacks out until Mrs. Floyd is calling for dinner, and then Lisa is sitting beside him on the couch, tears in her eyes.
“God, Dean, you are so lucky!” she whispers, cheeks red from internalized giggles. “In twenty years, not one person has won that question!” She grabs his hand, and he squeezes it tight.
“I don't know where that came from,” he says hoarsely.
“Yeah, me neither.” Lisa checks over her shoulder to be sure they're alone, then shoots him a conspiratorial glance. “I had no idea you paid attention to the minor leagues. You're amazing, Dean,” she tells him with another suppressed laugh, and heads toward the kitchen.
Dean stares at the empty television screen and blinks. “I don't.”
~~~~~
He's on his lunch break behind the site with Antonio and Jim, chowing down on the turkey sandwich Lisa made him and listening to the others complain about their mortgages. He doesn't know the first thing about 'em, never had to, God knows he never wanted to, and he finds himself drifting off, eyeing the mountains on the edges of the plateau.
“Knee slide and get back up. Control the ankle!”
“I'm behind you, Dean, but I'm not sure you've thought this through.”
“Are you being serious? Dean?”
“Dean?”
He blinks, and Jim's looking down at him curiously. “Where'd you go, man?”
Dean clears his throat. “Uh, I was, thinking about what you said. I mean, in this economy, it's a great time to get a mortgage, but are we really willing to jump right back on the horse and trust the banks again?”
Antonio's ever-present grin has slipped into confusion, and Jim shakes his head like a dog. “Did you just say something smart?”
“Screw you,” Dean grumbles, and they start laughing. Antonio starts to argue against Dean's point, and he pretends to care, but he really has no clue what they're saying. Or any clue what he just said. Or any idea why he feels like something huge is missing.
~~~~~
Later that night, the feeling hasn't gone away. He checks all the locks in the house, squints at the devil's traps in blue-light ink on the ceilings, drinks his whiskey. He goes to check over his lesson plans, then blinks and suddenly he's staring at Lisa's tired face, staring up at him from the doorway to the den.
“Everything okay?” There's a hint of alertness in her eyes that says she could be wide-awake in a second if necessary. He loves her for it; wishes it didn’t need to be there.
“Yeah. Everything's good.”
Her mouth purses, and he sighs. “Dean--”
“Just a long day at work, babe.”
Lisa studies him, then gives him a warm smile. “Come to bed soon,” she requests.
“I will,” he promises.
Instead, he goes out to the backyard, to the lawn chairs down by the fence, and stares at the house.
It's the first house he's lived in this long since he was a tiny kid, and some days it feels like home. It feels like a safe haven, like what he's secretly wanted his whole life. And other days it feels like he's back in Gabriel's playhouse, acting some role for an unknown audience, spitting out whatever lines come into his head and going along with it when they stick.
Some days he looks at Lisa and feels like he's finally made it. He loves her. And then once in a while he blinks and she looks... different. And he feels different, not as grateful, but more content.
The moon is full overhead, and high. It both matters, and doesn't, anymore.
~~~~~
The sun is crossing the horizon by the time he reaches Burkittsville. He's driving the truck, not the Impala, but in a town like this, people will have long memories. He doesn't stop at the gas station, doesn't stop at the diner with the apple pies. Doesn't stop til he reaches the field that once was home to a living scarecrow.
It's gone, of course. So is the First Tree that he and Sam burned down years ago. The orchard still looks well tended, but it's not as vibrant as he'd have expected. He remembers Sam's dopey haircut around that time, and the loss squeezes his chest like it's hollow. He remembers the way Sam left him, got out of the Impala and walked away, headed for California and his girl. He remembers that it's been months since they talked. He reaches for his phone, and blinks.
His phone rings at 7:01, as expected. Lisa isn't frantic; just worried, and when he tells her where he is, confused. When he says he's not really sure what he's doing there, she sighs.
“Babe, you've got work.”
'No I don't,' he wants to say. 'It's Friday, no classes Friday mornings.'
And then he blinks, and he's driving, and his phone is turned off in the passenger seat, and maybe it should be on but he doesn't reach for it.
It's one in the afternoon by the time he drives through Lawrence, and the sun is bleaching the colors from the fields. Or maybe it's his eyes, dry and drooping, barely paying attention to the road and driving on autopilot. He wants to sleep, but something's pulling him forward, something that refuses to be denied. Not again.
The cemetery is just as desolate as the last time he saw it, except for the burn marks and the deep divot in the ground. For some reason, he'd expected the place to look untouched by the enormity that had taken place.
He stands where he stood, and looks around. That's where Bobby's body crumpled, that's where Cas was standing when he exploded. The Impala's tracks are gone after a year, even in the soft soil. And of course there's no way to tell where Dean’s blood spattered, where he lay dying until his brothers were gone and Cas brought him back.
His brothers... Sam, closing his eyes tight against the devil and taking the leap, falling into the waiting arms of
Adam, barely recognizable with that dick's face behind his face, smiling at Dean smugly, waving as he got out of the car and came up the driveway toward
“Cas,” he whispers, closes his eyes tight against the dull light and prays, and says it again, but angels have never been watching over them, not really.
“CAS!” For a moment, he thinks he feels a hand on his shoulder, one that belongs there, and he feels the love and concern emanating from that presence. When he turns around, there's nothing but the echoes of his own voice returning from the mountains.
~~~~~
He comes home from work and finds Lisa and Sally, one of the yoga instructors, chatting over coffee in the living room. He bends over the couch to kiss Lisa on the cheek and steal a sip of her coffee. Lisa glares playfully and he hands back the cup.
“How was work?”
“Great!” He smiles, stretching his sore shoulders as he takes off his jacket. “I think we've got a real shot this year.”
“Shot at what?” Lisa asks, amused.
“Ah...” He blinks. And blinks again. “The, uh...”
Sally tilts her head. Lisa frowns.
“Small business of the year. Joe's been dating one of the panelists an' he says we're a shoe-in, but I'm thinking he'll screw it up before the end of the month and we'll have no shot at all.”
Sally laughs, scrunching up her nose, but he blinks and erases the word ‘cute’ from his internal description. Lisa is smiling, too, but there's a concerned cast to her expression that's been there, off and on, since he returned from his road trip last week.
“And what have you ladies been discussing?” he says, covering.
Sally starts talking about the new nutritionist's boyfriend, and Dean makes a note to check the guy out after his next class.
~~~~~
He blinks, and he’s hanging up the phone, except it’s still in his hand, and Sam’s name is flashing because his cell was disconnected months ago, but… he was just talking to him.
Well. Some days it feels like he never left, is all. It's to be expected.
~~~~~
Dean looks up from the paper at breakfast and sees Ben, staring back at him in confusion. Ben is pale, and his hair… what happened to his hair?
“What’s up, sport?” he asks. Dean tries to stay calm, not let on that something is wrong.
“You called me Charlie,” Ben says in his patented mortally offended pre-teen tone.
Dean feels… he feels…
“Yeah, it’s a, you know,” he shrugs, “a nickname. My Dad used to call me that.” He blinks. That’s true. But he’s never told anyone, not even Sam.
“Oh.” Ben’s mouth pulls down, and he nods with his whole neck. He looks real happy, but like he’s hiding it to seem more mature. Dean stifles a smile of his own. “I guess that’s okay then.”
“Good.” Dean replies. “Uh. You got homework?”
“Nope bye!” Ben skedaddles.
Dean chuckles and goes back to the paper, but there’s a wrinkle between his eyebrows and he thinks, faintly, ‘You’ll never be a reporter if you don’t do your homework.’
~~~~~
“Wow. Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Now how are we going to make contact?”
“Dad? Does this mean I get to have a brother?”
“Okay, now the hematite, Sam. Charlie, you wave that smudge stick any harder you’re gonna take an eye out.”
“Dean!” Lisa’s voice splits his head seconds before she appears in his vision, blocking his long view of the hallway with the nurses and the gurneys. Her body wraps around him, all supple muscle and organic fabrics and floral scents, and Dean breathes in and everything is right with the world. “Dean, what the hell is wrong with you?” she whispers in his ear.
“I don’t… what?”
“Do you have a concussion?” Lisa leans back and squints at his eyes.
“He was like that before he got the knock to the head, ma’am.” Jim is standing beside Dean, thumbs tucked behind his belt. “Stared the pillar dead in the eye as it fell on top of him.”
“God, Dean,” Lisa mutters. He can’t read her expression. Sometimes it feels like he doesn’t know her. He blinks.
They’re in the truck, she’s driving them home. The scenery is wrong. Mountains… something’s wrong.
“I need to know if this is related to your family, Dean,” Lisa is saying. Her hands are tight on the steering wheel. She has a grip around it, one of the ones you can buy at Wal-Mart, and it has Looney Toons. It looks like she’s trying to strangle Bugs.
“You know I got out of the business years ago, babe,” Dean reassures her. “No more ghosts, I promise.”
Lisa looks at him, her dark eyes wide. A truck comes up behind her and smashes into their car.
He blinks.
~~~~~
“Is he alright?” Ben asks, voice hushed, in the kitchen. Dean is sitting on the living room couch, but he can hear the fear in his son’s voice. He never wanted Charlie to have to be afraid growing up, like he and Sam were. Dean puts his head in his hands.
“I don’t know,” Lisa says. “But we’re gonna do our best for him. Right?”
“Right,” Charlie replies.
~~~~~
The television turns itself on.
Dean snags a silver switchblade from the drawer in the coffee table and stands up. On the screen, something that looks like him puts up its hands. “Stand down there,” it says. “We come in peace.”
Something that looks like Sam is behind it, but
He blinks. Sam is dead.
But Cassie is in the background, her arms crossed and that patented disapproving look on her face, the one that Dean knows means he is severely in the doghouse. Charlie peeks out from behind Sam’s legs.
“What the hell is this?” Dean growls. “How are you-- what--” He blinks.
He blinks. He shifts his grip on the switchblade
Lisa walks in. Charlie is
He blinks.
Ben is gone, probably sent through the garage to hide in the laundry room as they drilled. “Dean, what’s happening?” Lisa asks.
“Old enemy put a curse on me,” says the thing that looks like Dean on the television screen. “Made me start to bleed through time.”
“I don’t know,” Dean says, but he remembers the nelapsi coming to Ohio, how Sam followed it in and they reconciled over hunting it down.
“Bobby’s been funneling us his very best grimoires,” the Sam on screen says. “Seems like you guys are a timeline that diverged from us.”
“You work construction, by any chance?” the other Dean asks.
“Yes,” Lisa replies, while Dean swallows his words. “And you… are you a coach?”
Other-Dean grins. “I teach gym class, but I coach wrestling and football.”
Lisa nods faintly, then firmly. “Okay. How do we fix this?”
Other-Dean elbows Other-Sam. “Looks like I pick up the best chicks in any timeline, hey?”
Cassie clears her throat pointedly.
“Wait,” Dean says. His mouth is dry, and Charlie is watching him with his jaw dropped and his eyes full of wonder. Dean loves him. He loves his son. “I don’t… Does Cas talk to you?”
Other-Sam frowns. His forehead wrinkles, and it feels like a knife in Dean’s chest. “Uh.” He looks behind him at his sister-in-law. “Yes?”
“No, Castiel. The angel?”
The brothers look at each other. “You got angels?” Other-Dean says. “Freaky.”
Dean is light-headed. Colors burst in front of his eyes like somebody has him in a chokehold. He wants to tap out. “Can you make our world like yours?” he rasps.
He blinks.
Lisa has a hand over her mouth, her eyes shining and hurt. He hurt her. Dean takes a deep breath, sobs. “It’s-- Lise, I need Sam, I need him, you know I--”
She nods shakily, comes over and squeezes him tight. He buries his face in her hair, even though it’s smooth and silky instead of bursting with tight curls, and she’s too short.
On screen the brothers are arguing. Other-Dean looks guilty. Cassie is dragging Charlie out of the room, and he’s protesting, and
He blinks.
~~~~~
Lisa sidles up to the Impala as Dean’s checking over the contents of the glove box for the last time. She leans her arms in the window. Her neckline’s too high for him to get a good view, but she meets his eyes and smirks, and he kisses her.
“You’re coming back,” she tells him. Dean nods.
“I hope so.”
“You’ve got something else you should be doing,” Other-Dean said. “Don’t talk yourself out of it. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know that.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean asked. “I should be here.” He gestured around the living room that he’d painted, at the door where Lisa just went to go tell Ben everything was going to be okay.
“It’s been years since I had such a craving for the road,” Other-Dean says. He nods at Dean. “Feels like you’re supposed to be somewhere.”
“No, I’m telling you,” Lisa says, her gaze gentle enough to cow him and make him smile at once. “Fight the Devil, rescue your brother.” Her lips curl like she can’t believe what she’s saying, but she says it, for him. He really does pick up the best chicks. “And then come home.”
Dean looks over her shoulder at the house. He didn’t take out a mortgage on it, but he was planning to build them a new back deck. Maybe lay out that garden Lisa was talking about. In the window, Ben’s pretending like he’s not watching, even though he said his mature adult goodbyes this morning and refused to come out and see Dean off.
Dean doesn’t belong here. He never did. But he wants to, and they want him, and maybe someday he could. “Okay,” he tells her, and Lisa kisses him again, lingering. Goodbye.
Dean turns the key and the Impala purrs under him as he pulls onto the road.
~~~~~
He blinks.
Cas is sitting in the passenger seat.
My fake Cliche Bingo Card
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