Finally, it's done.
Title: The Seven Virtues of Lisa Braeden
Rating: R (swearing, sexual content)
Characters: Dean/Lisa, Castiel
Length: 5500 words
Spoilers: General through season 5, heavy for 5.22
Summary: Coda for 5.22. Castiel watches from between heaven and earth, checking in periodically on Dean.
Author's Note: This is an honest attempt to resolve for myself just exactly how Dean was supposed to manage an apple pie life. I couldn't wrap my head around it even being possible until I sat down and worked it out on paper. This isn't a fix-it story AT ALL, there's no fluffy ending, and I've tried to keep all the characters as close to what's been demonstrated in cannon as I could, as well as tried not to create any story that I think isn't a legitimate possibility headed towards the beginning of Season 6. This is the story of how I imagine Dean might actually make it to September still breathing.
This is what it sounds like when doves cry. -Prince
Lisa Braeden is a brave woman. She invites Dean into her home with only a moment’s hesitation, with only her trust in him giving her faith that tragedy isn’t nipping at his heels, rushing headlong into her life to devour her and her son whole. I have indeed been keeping watch over Dean, as his mother told him, and for now, at least, the only tragedy present is the one in Dean’s heart.
Dean Winchester is my oldest friend. I know him far better than he cares to acknowledge, as it was me who took his arm and dragged him screaming from the deepest part of Hell. I know that he dreams every night of Hell, and every day of a new way to end his own life. I know that he would be defensive and angry if he knew I was watching. I also know that he is determined to try to keep the promise he made to his brother, and my concern for his well-being far outweighs my concern for his sense of masculine pride.
Lisa Braeden is a brave woman. She is well aware of the implications of taking Dean into her home and her heart. She is aware that only utter catastrophe has brought him to her door with desperation in his eyes after their previous parting. She knows that he comes to her broken and defeated, and yet I can hear the absolute truth of her words as she answers his question. For Dean Winchester, it is never too late.
There is none of his usual hesitation as he reaches for her, and she wraps him in a mother’s arms, soothing fingers at his neck and soothing words from her lips. For a moment, she is Mary, and he is utterly vulnerable in her arms. This is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Braeden, one sided as the introduction may be, and I find myself in awe of her quiet, radiant strength. It is a gift given to mothers, to hold a piece of Grace much like that of angels. He clings to her like a rock in shifting sands, and I see her heart break for the ragged, gasping pain drawn from his throat. For that moment, he has no sense of pride, and weeps as though if only he can gather enough flawless tears together, if each one of them is a perfect prism of grief, they will be valuable enough to purchase back his brother. Her arms are the only thing holding together the shattered pieces of his soul while tiny sparkling fragments continuously erode and blow away like dust in the wind.
Once before, I took those broken pieces, scoured the darkest parts of hell for every bit of dust, and reassembled them, bit by painstaking bit, until he was nearly himself again. I regret still that there were not enough shining pieces left, after Alastair’s razor carved them from the radiance of Dean’s foundation, for him to ever be whole. So very many were corrupted beyond redemption by the attentions of hell’s Grand Inquisitor and the terrible choices Dean was forced to make in order to preserve the rest. Now, I fear that the newest missing piece is so immense, so much a part of his very core, that the elegant architecture of his personal light is too fragile to endure.
None of us actually believe the words she whispers to him over and over, trying to soothe a hurt she does not yet understand. It will never be all right, what has happened to the Winchesters. I still reel at the terrible unfairness of their entire lives. I am still very, very angry with God.
* * *
Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. - Jeff Buckley
Lisa Braeden is a generous woman. She has offered him a beer, offered him a listening ear and a place to rest his head. She already loves him, his words the last time they met ring still in her ears and she waits patiently for the proper time to tell him that she has long felt the same way. She offers him her home, and her heart. Her offerings are nowhere close to concluded.
Dean Winchester has swallowed so many emotions in his lifetime that for the moment he has none left to feel. He is desolate and empty, and sits in her living room staring numbly at his beer while she fills the silence with meaningless words. When he is silent for far too long, she places gentle fingers beneath his chin and forces him to meet her eyes. She is frightened by what she doesn’t see there, and I am familiar with her emotions. Dean Winchester has never believed he deserves to be saved. He would gladly lay down his head and die, but for a promise. Her soul flickers uncertainly in the face of the vast emptiness of his, an emptiness which threatens to swallow her light and leave her as hollow as his eyes.
But Lisa Braeden is a generous woman. She gently wipes the moisture that has spilled to his cheeks and presses her lips to his, feather light. She knows Dean Winchester also, and she knows how to put light back into his eyes, even if just for a moment. She offers a kiss in a silent promise. When she draws away, he is present within his eyes again and she offers him understanding in her smile.
Dean searches her face, eyes questioning. Lisa moves closer, gentle fingers in his hair are her only answer. It is an offering laid at his feet, needing only to be picked up or ignored, without fear of repercussion for either choice. It isn’t love, respect, or affection that draws him to her arms in this moment. It is the most basic of primal needs, to reaffirm life in the face of death, an undeniable force of nature to assure the continuation of the species. She offers her body as sanctuary, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Dean simply takes.
Ripped clothing and gasping breaths are the only sound as he drives into her, eyes mad and feral. He takes her sweet scent, takes her warm flesh, and takes every unspoken promise she has to offer, not caring if she can keep any of them. There is no tenderness in fingers clenching painfully into soft flesh. Her name is a benediction on his lips, whispered over and over, rising to a strangled shout against her throat as he collapses into her embrace.
He hides in her hair, face turned away from the world, and I see the warm flare of her soul limn the edges of his in a pale, fragile light as he sinks into unconsciousness. It is a start.
* * *
After the life we’ve been through, I know there’s no life after you. -Daughtry
Lisa Braeden is an attentive woman. She listens carefully to the man on the other end of the phone. She listens to his words, and ponders the possible meanings behind them, trying to decide if this man is friend or foe. She is a good judge of character. Bobby Singer only wants to know that Dean is there, and still alive, that he made it safely to her care.
Bobby will not be let off so easily. Dean is still asleep on her couch, too exhausted from recent events to have even heard the phone ring. She takes the phone outside and begins to interrogate Bobby, demanding to know what has happened to bring a broken Winchester to her doorstep once again, committing every word to memory. Bobby evades what he can, it is not his place, he says, to air Dean’s laundry. I do not understand the phrase, but Lisa does. Bobby instead volunteers advice on how to deal with Dean. There is a long pause as Bobby gathers his thoughts.
“Firstly, he’s not likely to answer any direct questions dealin’ with anything in his head. Boy’s like a steel trap of emotional denial, and you’re gonna have to work at keeping him talkin’. He’ll clam up, go total lockdown if you let him,” Bobby offers.
“And how do I keep him talking? Do I just pull the pull string in the back and listen to one of twenty two exciting phrases?” Lisa demands, frustration giving rise to anger.
Laughter explodes from the receiver and she pulls it away from her ear, glancing at it. “That attitude right there, darlin’. That sarcasm is your best weapon with Dean. You speak your mind, bully him if you have to, and make sure you use that tone right there, and he’ll be yellin’ right back at you in no time. If you can take the volume, you’ll be just fine.” Bobby’s tone sobers and he adds, “Don’t be afraid to fight with him. I imagine there’s gonna be a lot of time where he needs to be handled like glass, but for most of his life, all he’s ever known is fighting. It’s all he knows how to respond to.”
Lisa knows much of this already. This is not my first rodeo, she says, and as I remember seeing cowboys determinedly clinging to a bucking bronco, I believe I understand that reference just fine. I can hear from the warmth in his tone that Bobby likes Lisa as much as I do.
“Is there anything else? Is he going to go all Universal Soldier on me and get dangerous? Is there some special codeword I should know about?”
“I can tell you one not to say,” Bobby replies in a voice gone dangerously quiet.
The warning in his voice cools her temper. She asks, “What’s that?”
“Sam,” he says softly. The word seems to echo sorrow, not just down the phone line, but across the entire landscape.
And Lisa Braeden is an attentive woman. She listens, not only to Bobby’s words, but to what he doesn’t say. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together and she boldly points to the elephant in the room.
“Bobby,” she asks, “is Sam dead?”
The ripples of Bobby’s regret echo across time as he replies, “Yeah darlin, I suppose he is.”
Dean is sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee when Lisa returns inside, more frightened than ever before. She suddenly needs something to keep her hands busy while she sorts her thoughts.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got eggs and bacon, and-” she stops short as he pales, shaking his head. “Dean, you should try to eat at least a little something. How about some toast?”
Dean struggles with nausea before deciding she is correct. He agrees to try to eat toast. He picks at the first two slices for a few minutes while she makes small talk about her students. After a few minutes, he makes an effort to join in and it becomes a real, if somewhat forced, conversation. With his mind engaged elsewhere, his hands have thoughts of their own. Lisa covertly toasts and butters two more slices as they talk, sliding them onto his plate as she bends to refill his coffee mug. I am awed of her skill as he absently rips a corner off the sixth slice and shoves it in his mouth, talking around it while chewing. He stops, looking down at his plate and then back at her with narrowed eyes. “That was a dirty trick,” he says with a lopsided grin.
“Yeah, well,” she offers with a returning smile. “I‘ve learned a trick or two since becoming a mom. In fact, I have a whole bag of tricks.” She raises her eyebrows in a mock threat. “And I’m not afraid to use any of them.”
Dean Winchester might just be counting on it.
* * *
Lock the last open door, my ghosts are gaining on me. -Evanescence
Lisa Braeden is a perceptive woman. She is not oblivious to the ghosts that have invaded her home. She tolerates them, as they have given her only heartache, not actual harm.
One of them is nearly invisible. It makes the dishes disappear from the sink and appear clean and shining on their shelves before anyone else in the house is awake. It mows the lawn when she is at work, even does the edging and trims the bushes. It prowls the house at night on cat-quiet feet, checking and rechecking windows and doors, straightening lines of salt that she pretends she hasn’t noticed are hidden beneath the edges of every carpet. It stalks the hallways during the daylight, tentative instinct keeping it close to the walls as if fearful for some separate, unseen danger. It makes her beer disappear, dozens of bottles at a time, and conjures empty bottles of scotch deep in the bottom of the trashcan, buried nearly out of sight. It whispers in the night, horrifying, terrible murmurs of half-heard words that make her skin crawl, escalating to a strangled, soul-rending cry and the sound of retching in the bathroom across the hall. But she rarely, if ever, actually sees this apparition unless she actively searches it out.
The second ghost is easier to see. It sits every night at the dinner table in the fourth chair, the salad bowl always passed to Dean’s left before hesitantly being set back in the middle of the table. It sits, patiently waiting in the passenger seat of the big black car that Dean can’t even bring himself to look at, and makes ridiculously plausible excuses not to drive. It sits in the gaping empty space on the couch between them while they watch the game. It sits on the bench at the park while Ben plays baseball, where Dean cheers and shouts encouragement louder and with more zeal than any other dad on the sidelines, yet always suddenly seems to have somewhere else he needs to be when a child walks by with a soccer ball in hand. It sits on the curb in front of the coffee shop downtown where Dean flinches each and every time someone in line orders a decaf vanilla latte. It is standing in the parking lot of the Cicero Pines Motel each and every time they drive by, brown backpack slung over its shoulder, and its tan hoodie the same color as the sign. It blocks the doorway to the library so that Dean can’t even step a foot inside, and Ben must locate and check out his own research materials so that Dean can help him with his science project at home.
It is every dark haired head that stands above a crowd that Dean’s gaze locks on with a mix of hope and fear. Lisa doesn’t like the ghosts that follow her, which she now sees even when Dean isn’t with her, so deeply have they become a part of her life.
Lisa Braeden is a perceptive woman. She sees the meals that Dean doesn’t eat. He pushes the food around on his plate in a show convincing enough to fool Ben, but the tiny circle of leather that she finds on the bathroom floor is the same color as his belt. She sees the way the veins stand out across the backs of his hands, the way his shirts hang loose from his shoulders, and his face is all sharp angles now, around dull sunken eyes.
She hears the name that is never said. She hears every sentence that trails off, every conversation abruptly ended if it veers too close to that name. She never speaks that name, partly out of fear for Dean’s reaction, partly out of respect for the dead. What she cannot know is that Dean uses every ounce of control that he has learned in his thirty-one years, every tactic he knows for avoiding emotions, every minute of every day, to avoid that name. He has no time to eat, he must spend his energy on concentration, must spend his concentration on never letting his mind wander. Dean never speaks that name, never even thinks that name, because he is afraid that if he does, he will never stop screaming.
* * *
I’m alright, I’m alright. It only hurts when I breathe. -Greenwheel
Lisa Braeden is a gentle woman. She is careful with Dean’s hurts, tends them with soft fingers and soft lips and murmured reassurances that it will all be okay. The hole in Dean’s soul is a gaping, bleeding wound and he refuses to even look at it. Only Lisa’s tender ministrations keep it from festering.
She is frightened the day she finds him in the shower, missing for too long, and the water flowing onto the back of his bowed head has long gone cold as ice. She calls his name, and terror builds as she receives no response. He simply sits in the bottom of the tub with one hand wrapped around the opposite wrist, fingers tapping against his knee. Tap,tap. Tap,tap. It takes her a long moment to figure out that he is counting his pulse. She gently wraps slender fingers over his and his voice is hoarse as he says to no one, “Two minutes.”
She turns the water off, stating firmly, “No, Dean. You need to get out now. You need to get warm.”
He shakes his head slowly, stating absently, “Two minutes. Every time my heart beats, it’s been two minutes in Hell.” His eyes are utterly empty as he looks at her. “You have no idea what they can do to you in two minutes.”
She is more frightened by the lack of anything sentient in his eyes than by his words. Gently, she pulls him to his feet, wraps him in a towel and push-pulls him to bed. She climbs in next to him, even though he hasn’t touched her since that first night, and tries to warm him with her own body heat. It is a long time before he stops shivering and falls into a fitful sleep.
It is well past the small hours of morning when he wakes her, thrashing and crying out in the clutches of a nightmare. She barely ducks away from the fist that he throws at her as he startles awake at her touch. His eyes are wide and horrified as he says, “I’m sorry.”
Lisa wraps gentle arms around him. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
He shakes his head against her shoulder, whispers into her hair, “I’m sorry that I don’t want to be here, Lisa. I’m sorry.” For a moment, she is wounded by his words before he continues. “I mean, you’ve been so good to me, you’ve been a fucking saint. But…” he pulls back, gathers the courage to look her in the eye. “I’d rather be in hell.”
She is hurt, angry, starts to pull away. Dean clutches her tight, leaving bruises in her soft arms and forces her to meet his eyes. “I have to say this. You have to know, Lisa, and now might be the only time I can ever say it out loud.” She frowns at him, then finally nods, pulling her arms carefully from his and wrapping them around her knees.
Dean tells her everything that night.
She never tells him it will be okay again. She finally understands that for Dean, it will never truly be all right.
She does her research, reads every article she can get her hands on about living with soldiers and dealing with post-traumatic stress. She takes the information very seriously. She is always careful to make noise when she walks, so as not to startle Dean. She always speaks before she touches him so that his mind can register who is pulling him from his blank-eyed reverie. She wears the same perfume to bed every night so that if he wakes, his senses will know that she isn’t a threat. She understands that there are aspects of his past that she cannot possibly identify with, and trying to talk with him about them will only be more frustrating for both of them than not talking at all. She tries very hard not to take it personally when he slips from her arms and calls Bobby in the dead of night.
Lisa Braeden is a gentle woman. She has learned that there are things that he needs that he will not ask for. She is clever, putting her face near to his without tilting it towards him, available to be kissed without asking. She rewards him with a smile like the sun when he slides fingers into her hair and captures her lips. Sometimes she stands close, well into his personal space, silently smug when he slips an arm around her waist and pulls her close. She never pushes, but is quietly, gently available to him, and in time he learns that it is alright to ask for her affection and support. Slowly, the light begins to return to his eyes.
* * *
The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better. -Beatles
Lisa Braeden is a beautiful woman. She reminds me of Eve, dark hair and dark eyes highlighted by the sunlight through the window, generous curves and supple limbs accentuated by bronze skin. She has a smile like bottled sunlight, and her soul shines through it with a radiance like Grace. She is the embodiment of everything that is woman, and even God had to try twice to make something so lovely.
Hope sparks in my heart as she gazes up at him with sparkling, amber-flecked eyes, and for the first time in months he truly sees her, his Lisa. This is the woman he sought to bargain for with his life. This is the woman he once allowed himself to imagine forging a life with. For the first time he begins to allow himself to believe that he can actually have her, that there is something beautiful and loving in his life that he can keep. This is not how he imagined it would be, but she could be his nonetheless, for as long as they are willing to care for each other.
Dean buries his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, and grins mischievously at her as he draws away.
“What are you planning, Dean?” Lisa asks warily.
He shakes his head, says softly, “Just thinking, your hair smells like cinnamon.”
Lisa nods with a quizzical look. “It’s an herbal blend, I picked it up-“
“It reminds me of pie,” he interrupts, fingering the dark strands.
“Oh, great. My hair smells like pie? That’s sexy,” she teases.
“I don’t think you understand how much I love pie,” he murmurs into the curve of her throat as he begins to worship at the altar of her flesh with lips and fingers.
She kisses the freckles across his nose, her lips following their path to his shoulders where she bites gently. Lisa only has one freckle, just above her left hip, and Dean gives it special attention. I do not understand the fascination with freckles, but the sounds they draw from each other are lovely. There was a time when I never thought to hear any sound from Dean’s lips beyond tears and rage.
Lisa Braeden is a beautiful woman. Her flesh is tanned and smooth except for the faint remnants of the marks on her stomach from carrying her son. She wears them proudly, and as Dean kisses them with tender reverence, I begin to understand. It is the blemishes that make them beautiful.
I am awed as I watch them together. I know, in the part of me that learned to be human, that it is inappropriate to observe this intimacy, but I find I cannot turn away. He teases her, refusing to push her over the brink of release until she digs fingernails into the flesh of his back and begs breathlessly. Still he holds back, holds her still when she tries to take what she needs, whispers softly that she knows what he wants. She struggles to find coherent thought as his body sets hers alight and her soul’s light begins to bleed into his. Understanding dawns in her eyes and she breathes his name, drawing hers from his lips in response as he lets go his control and drives them both over the edge.
The lights of their souls are a blinding flare as they tangle together to match the bodies they are contained within. They are brilliant, a twisting symphony of light more beautiful to me than even an angel’s Grace. Finally, I understand why my father loves them so. They are most beautiful in pain and in love, their hearts beating a holy cadence. This is a sacred beauty. This defiant, desperate passion is far more glorious than the quiet, patient affection I have always known.
Angels do not love like this.
* * *
What am I supposed to do, when the best part of me was always you? -Script
Lisa Braeden is an intelligent woman. She has found ways to cleverly distract Dean from the countless seconds of idleness that allow him to dwell within his own thoughts. She is smart enough to let Dean think that these ideas are his own, with carefully placed hints and thoughts voiced out loud, and not a single smug grin of triumph when he pieces them together.
Ben’s baseball team needs a new coach, she mentions, and didn’t Dean play baseball when he was young? Of course Dean should be the one to take Ben shopping for a new glove, she doesn’t know a thing about baseball. She’d probably get him one for a left-handed girl. She doesn’t mention that she knows for a fact that three of the other team fathers will be at the sport shop, carefully arranged by baseball mothers to trap them all into the hour-long conversation that Dean falls into hook, line, and sinker. What a fantastic idea, she says, that Dean volunteered to be the new coach. Why didn’t she think of that? I have to laugh at the idea of Dean falling for tactics that he himself might use.
I find that in my observations of Lisa and Dean over the last five months, I have learned to love her as much as Dean has. She has taken very good care of my friend. It saddens me that I will, in just a few minutes, shatter her peace and break her heart. They are in the back yard, now, surrounded by an entire neighborhood of friends who have come to partake of Dean’s famous barbeque. Dean’s careful research of all things grilled was a week long investigation as detailed as any Winchester hunt plan, and a subject of much amusement for Lisa until the day she tasted a mouthful of the results of all his careful study and planning. It is, I understand, very good barbeque.
As I step onto Lisa Braeden’s porch, I can see the latest fruits of her distractions through the window. On her mantle sit tiny cars forged of plastic, painstakingly assembled and painted over many weeks. A black Ford pickup sits next to a primer colored Chevelle. I am surprised to see the yellow car with the black stripe that I believe is called a Mach One Mustang. Between them, a miniature replica of the Chevrolet Impala I have come to know as “Baby” claims her place at center stage. Each of them is a miracle of detail, the Chevelle even having rust spots and a dented fender.
Lisa Braeden is an intelligent woman. She does not recognize the man standing at her door in a tan trench coat and half-knotted tie, yet she knows I am not here for barbeque. Her eyes widen as I address her, “It is good to finally meet you, Lisa Braeden.” She does not turn her back to me as she calls for Dean, and her fingers hover near the silver plated switchblade that Dean insists she always carries in her pocket. I am not offended that she is afraid of me. She is lover to the world’s best hunter. She would be a fool to be unafraid of any stranger at her doorstep, especially one who knows her name. The slight tremor in her voice summons Dean quickly, and he stumbles as he meets my eyes. Fear flashes through his eyes for the briefest moment before a stone mask of control seals around it. He knows I would not be here unless the situation was dire.
“Lisa, meet Castiel,” he says icily, careful not to touch Lisa as he steps around her and onto the front porch. My last vision of her is of wide, beautiful eyes shimmering with terrified tears as he shuts the door.
I explain myself as briefly as possible when Dean demands to know what I am doing on his porch. Dean staggers as if the breath has been knocked out of him, face paling to an ashen hue before his legs give out and he sits heavily on the steps.
“Sammy’s alive?” he demands, not daring hope.
“I am uncertain, Dean. The null space surrounding him suggests that the Enochian sigils I etched into your ribcages are intact, which would insinuate that what I saw was indeed Sam’s flesh. I cannot be certain that it is your brother’s soul contained within unless I can find him again.”
Dean nods, eyes filling with anger and resolution. He stands, muttering “Well if it isn’t, whatever’s wearing my brother is fucking toast.” He opens the door far enough to reach in and retrieve the Impala’s keys from the hook. He is halfway across the yard when he realizes I have not followed.
“What are you waiting for, Cas? We have to get moving while there’s still a trail.” He follows my gaze back to the house, a mumbled obscenity escaping his lips as he stops. He looks from the house to the car, takes a step towards it, stops again.
Lisa bursts from the house, barely contained panic in her voice. “Dean!” she cries, rushing towards him. He turns, guilt and resignation warring for dominance on his face.
“Dinner’s at eight,” she says breathlessly as she nears him.
He takes a step towards her and brushes a wayward strand of hair from her cheek. His voice is hoarse as he tells her, “Lisa, I’m sorry. Cas thinks he found…I have to-“
“Does Sam like meatloaf?” she interrupts.
Dean’s face registers his surprise and he looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. His eyes drink in her beauty and marvel at her silent courage. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears as she steadily holds his gaze. She pleads with him as she always has, with quiet acceptance, asking nothing more than what he can give. She will exact no promises from him today, but a thousand other words are silent between them as her eyes convey her understanding and beg him to come back to her safe, with or without his brother. Dean has no promises to offer. He simply nods, and there are no words spoken as he tells her that he will try. His hand lingers as he gently tucks the lock of hair behind her ear. “Sammy loves meatloaf.”
“Just,” she searches through a million things she wants to say. “Just call if you’re going to be late,” she chokes, as the tears burst the dam and flow unchecked down her cheeks.
He takes her face gently in both his hands and rests his forehead against hers. “I love you,” he says softly, shaking his head in amazement.
“I know,” she whispers as she presses her lips to his.
The Impala gives an angry growl as Dean turns her key, protesting months of neglect. The evening sun paints the clouds pink and red, violet and gold as it dips behind the distant hills. The slash of sky just at the horizon is crimson, and it reflects off every surface, washing the world in the color of blood.
Lisa grows small behind us as she stands with her arms wrapped around herself, stained with heaven’s blood. Silhouetted against a backdrop of red-tinged suburbia, she watches her cowboy drive his black horse into the sunset.
Dean’s eyes stay locked on the rearview mirror until she is out of sight.