[Fic] faithburke: Sour Cherry Pie Life
[ Crossovers ]
Title: Sour Cherry Pie Life
Writer:faithburke
Alternate links: ff.net
Status of work: complete
Characters and/or pairings:Dean Winchester, Lisa Braeden, Ben Braeden, Criminal Minds ensemble, and surprise guests.
Rating:PG
Warnings, kinks & contents: [Click to read]Gore, mentions of child molestation and suicide
Length:19.000
Summary: Dean has retired to the civilian life. Too bad no one told the serial killer currently stalking teenagers in Indiana.
Reccer's notes: This is an awesome missing year fic, that is unlike most other CM/SPN crossovers, it fits more in the CM verse than it does in the spn verse, but that definitely shouldn't stop you from reading it.
[Short excerpt]Lisa had only asked Dean for three things when he moved in: that he quit drinking, that he look for a job, and that he tell her when something was wrong. He'd worked on all three with varying degrees of success, though that last item was somehow the hardest for him.
She'd never demanded that he give up hunting. He'd decided that on his own, before he showed up at her doorstep, and sometimes she regretted that particular decision of Dean's. His focus as he studied the map, marking every school that he thought might be a target and adapting a plan to keep the kids at that school safe, made her think that this was what he was like on a hunt. It suited him. He came alive on the hunt.
Ben was sitting at the table with him, listening as his father explained in low tones why he'd settled upon that area as the bad guy's comfort zone. He was lapping up the information, paying far more attention to Dean than he probably ever showed to his teachers. It reminded her of the way her son had taken to the gun lessons, even while she struggled with loading and firing the .22 Dean had made sure she could use and insisted she carry. The Winchester genes bred true, the ones that mattered anyway. Ben might have her eyes and hair, but the rest of him was Dean.
Dean leaned in while Ben asked a question, a small smile on his face when he answered, and Ben lit up at whatever he had said.
"So what's the count up to?" she asked, sitting down across from the two of them with her tea.
"Eleven public schools and four private," Dean said, setting down his pen and rubbing his forehead. "Luckily seven of them have similar layouts so I won't have to do much to fix a plan for them."
"Do you need to?" Lisa asked. "Shouldn't those principals see the danger and fix things?"
Dean and Ben shared a startlingly similar look, master to apprentice. "There's too much risk that they won't know what's wrong until after something happens. The cops haven't exactly been putting out a statewide bulletin on this . . .creep." She could tell he'd wanted to use another term for the bad guy, and appreciated his restraint in front of Ben. If there was one guarantee from Ben right now, it was that whatever his father said or did would be carried over into Ben's own behavior and vocabulary. His teachers were less than appreciative.
"All right. How are you guys doing at the garage during the day?"
There was a smile, almost a grin. "If nothing else, they're picking up a trade. Even Katie knows how to change the oil in a car now."
That was pretty impressive. Lisa didn't know how to change the oil in her car, though she could change a tire if she needed to. "Mike's all right with them hanging out all day?"
"They're all pretty good kids. He said if they stayed out of trouble and didn't cause any damage they could stay as long as I needed them to."
"Just so you know, you're not pulling Ben out of school permanently just so he can keep you company at the garage. No matter how much he begs."
"Aw, mom," Ben complained, and she couldn't help but laugh and smooth his hair down.
"Go upstairs and get ready for bed. You've got a big day ahead tomorrow." She waited until her son had disappeared upstairs, grumbling under his breath, before turning to Dean. "Something happened."
"If the bastard sticks with his schedule, the missing girl is going to turn up dead tomorrow and he'll grab someone else that afternoon. They're running out of time to catch him."
Well, that explained the tenseness of his shoulders. Lisa ached for the family of the girl. She wondered if they knew their daughter was probably already dead, if it would be better to know or to be blindsided by the news. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to keep Ben and his friends safe and hope that the teachers are doing the same at the school. Not much else that I can do against humans." He looked tired now, worn down, and Lisa leaned down and wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder.
There was a lot that she could say now, from 'it's not your responsibility' to 'I know you'll protect Ben with your life,' but Dean probably wouldn't react well to any of them. Instead she just whispered, "I love you," in his ear. It was all she could do for him.
xxx