Fic: Promises to Keep
Title: Promises to Keep - a 5.22 Coda
Author: Sulwen
Pairing(s): Sam/Dean, Dean/Lisa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: Dean tries to keep his promise.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the order of the words.
Dean sleeps with Lisa that night, alcohol and grief clouding his senses so that he hardly knows what he’s doing. She’s soft and warm and her bed is the most comfortable place Dean has been in ages, and it feels like cheating. All of it.
He wakes up alone, Lisa at work and Ben at school, a cheerful note on the nightstand telling him to help himself to the kitchen. She says she hopes he’ll be there when she comes home. He tears up when he reads it, knows there’s nowhere to go.
The fridge is full, diet soda and fresh strawberries and pudding cups. Dean stands with the door open for long minutes, staring at the food as if he’s never seen it before. He feels empty, detached, like he’ll never want to eat again. Eventually, he closes the door, only to be faced with the pictures hung there with alphabet letters. Lisa and some other women. Friends. Maybe sisters. Dean realizes he doesn’t even know if she has family. Then he shies away from the thought, everything too raw and fresh to examine just yet. Possibly ever.
He showers. The water is hot and strong, and the tile is scrupulously clean. Dean wonders if Lisa is a neat freak or if she maybe has a cleaning service. He’s never had to worry about cleaning the bathroom, doing the dishes, not tracking mud in on the rug. That kind of effort is best reserved for hunting, for those things that are necessary. The Impala. Guns. Ammo. Things that will keep them alive and moving for another day.
His clothes are in a pile on the bathroom floor, and he finds that he doesn’t want to put them back on. They look like a costume for a character he's no longer playing. He has nothing else.
The house is too big, too many rooms. Dean opens door after door, looking into closets and guest rooms. He quiets the voices in the back of his head and falls back on instinct. Two-story suburban house. Feels like a hunt, so he treats it like a hunt. He has everything he needs. It’s all still there, stashed in the trunk of the Impala. For a while, it feels almost good. He’s halfway through a sarcastic remark about the décor when he realizes there’s no one to hear.
Everything checks out clean, as normal as it gets. He’s almost disappointed.
Apparently, Lisa picks Ben up from soccer on her way home. They bustle in together, noise and activity and life, and Dean wants to hide. Instead, he forces a smile and goes to greet them at the door. Lisa kisses him on the cheek and looks up at him with shining, hopeful eyes, and his smile fades a bit. Ben drags him to the backyard and drafts him as a soldier in the Nerf Wars, and this time the grin is halfway genuine. He doesn’t forget, but for a few minutes, he manages to not think at all. It’s a start.
It’s a memory of Dad that gives him a chance at staying. Dad and his ex-marine buddies, running their households like the military, shirts on white hangers, pants on black. Not breaking old habits, just shifting, adapting. Surviving. And Dean has always been good at surviving.
He doesn’t make Ben call him “Sir.” But they do spend a lot of time fixing, repairing, checking. Keeping the house and the cars in perfect condition. Working out, building strength, daily cardio. He tries for a job at the local mechanic but finds they aren’t hiring, and he ends up working on appliances for a department store. The managers are gruff and business-like, and they don’t take too well to his brand of humor, but it gets him out of the house. As far as he can remember, it’s the first honest money he’s made. It’s all right for a while, but eventually he starts to get restless, and going in each morning becomes more and more difficult. He keeps doing it, because the alternative is silent, empty rooms and alcohol and loneliness, and the disappointment in Ben’s eyes when he doesn’t want to play.
He comes to like Lisa. If he’s honest with himself, the only reason he remembered her in the first place was Ben - otherwise, she was just another in a long line of flings. But she’s sweet and kind and creative in bed, and she’s content with what Dean can give her. She has to know he doesn’t love her, probably never will. But he’s good to her, and sometimes they laugh together, and sometimes they hold each other in bed, silent, comforting.
For a while, he tries to be happy. He remembers his promise and his long-ago dreams and tries to make it enough. It’s not, and eventually he concedes that this part of the promise he just can’t keep.
There’s a routine he follows day by day, to the letter, like a memorial, a tribute. A remembrance. It becomes habit, and more often than not he’s running on nothing but autopilot, but Dean never forgets why he’s doing it, who he's doing it for.
Time passes, and Dean falls more and more into an unthinking haze. His world is made up of daily minutiae - what to have for dinner, what’s on TV, Ben’s homework. Sometimes something will spark a memory, and he’s quick to stifle it. It feels like betraying himself, denying that there was anything before this - another life, another love, another Dean. But he has a promise to keep, has to be this Dean, and it’s easier if he shuts his former self out entirely.
Then, on a wholly unremarkable night, everything changes. His instincts are still razor-sharp despite the fog clouding his conscious mind, and, laying in bed, Dean suddenly knows there’s someone outside. He hasn’t heard anything, can’t quite pinpoint why he knows this - a change in the light, perhaps - but he does. Careful not to wake Lisa, he slips a shirt on over his pajama pants and takes a gun from the nightstand drawer. He steals down the stairs, casts a glance in at Ben, makes sure he’s ok. The kid is sleeping soundly, all crazy angles and tangled Batman sheets, and Dean’s lips quirk into a smile despite himself.
The front door creaks open and Dean slips outside, concrete stinging his bare feet. The night air is cool and fresh, and he can smell fall coming on the breeze. Staring into the darkness, he can sense…something. Deep within him, a tiny hopeful thing begins to awaken, and the fog begins to shift, clear. He can hear his voice break as he calls out softly, a word he hasn’t spoken in months but one that will never be unfamiliar to his lips.
“Sammy?”
A shape begins to form in the darkness, a face, and Dean thinks he’s imagining it for a moment, thinks he’s finally cracked for good. But then there are strong arms around him and a warm body pressed against his, and more than anything the way his heart feels like it’s leaping out of his chest.
Eventually, Sam lets go and takes a step back, his eyes locked on Dean’s. He waits for the questions, but Dean almost can’t believe how much he doesn’t care, doesn’t even want to know. Sam’s here, now, and that’s all that matters.
Sam clears his throat, gestures toward the house, seems at a loss for words. Dean understands, realizes what a mess things are, knows how much of an asshole he is for wanting to pick up and leave right now and pretend the last few months didn’t happen. The rationalizations will come later, along with the guilt. But right now, more than anything, he needs Sam to know what he wants, really wants, and he simply doesn’t have the words.
The kiss is long and desperate and breathless, and it should feel like cheating, but it doesn’t. It feels like coming alive again, like crawling out of his grave and into the sunlight, like the first drink of water after the long drought of death.
Lisa is hurt, more than she tries to let on, but on some level she understands. She’s been waiting for this. Ben is harder. He yells and then cries, and Dean cries with him, and he wishes he’d never come back here.
Finally, after the packing and the apologies and the goodbyes, they’re on the road again, Dean driving down the highway with Sam in the passenger seat. There’s a little piece of his heart that he’s leaving behind, back in that pristine two-story suburban house, and he suspects that it will always hurt a little. But Sam is beside him, and the road is ahead of him, and there is no great destiny weighing on their shoulders. And for the first time in a very long time, perhaps for the first time ever, Dean is exactly where he wants to be.
Author: Sulwen
Pairing(s): Sam/Dean, Dean/Lisa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: Dean tries to keep his promise.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the order of the words.
Dean sleeps with Lisa that night, alcohol and grief clouding his senses so that he hardly knows what he’s doing. She’s soft and warm and her bed is the most comfortable place Dean has been in ages, and it feels like cheating. All of it.
He wakes up alone, Lisa at work and Ben at school, a cheerful note on the nightstand telling him to help himself to the kitchen. She says she hopes he’ll be there when she comes home. He tears up when he reads it, knows there’s nowhere to go.
The fridge is full, diet soda and fresh strawberries and pudding cups. Dean stands with the door open for long minutes, staring at the food as if he’s never seen it before. He feels empty, detached, like he’ll never want to eat again. Eventually, he closes the door, only to be faced with the pictures hung there with alphabet letters. Lisa and some other women. Friends. Maybe sisters. Dean realizes he doesn’t even know if she has family. Then he shies away from the thought, everything too raw and fresh to examine just yet. Possibly ever.
He showers. The water is hot and strong, and the tile is scrupulously clean. Dean wonders if Lisa is a neat freak or if she maybe has a cleaning service. He’s never had to worry about cleaning the bathroom, doing the dishes, not tracking mud in on the rug. That kind of effort is best reserved for hunting, for those things that are necessary. The Impala. Guns. Ammo. Things that will keep them alive and moving for another day.
His clothes are in a pile on the bathroom floor, and he finds that he doesn’t want to put them back on. They look like a costume for a character he's no longer playing. He has nothing else.
The house is too big, too many rooms. Dean opens door after door, looking into closets and guest rooms. He quiets the voices in the back of his head and falls back on instinct. Two-story suburban house. Feels like a hunt, so he treats it like a hunt. He has everything he needs. It’s all still there, stashed in the trunk of the Impala. For a while, it feels almost good. He’s halfway through a sarcastic remark about the décor when he realizes there’s no one to hear.
Everything checks out clean, as normal as it gets. He’s almost disappointed.
Apparently, Lisa picks Ben up from soccer on her way home. They bustle in together, noise and activity and life, and Dean wants to hide. Instead, he forces a smile and goes to greet them at the door. Lisa kisses him on the cheek and looks up at him with shining, hopeful eyes, and his smile fades a bit. Ben drags him to the backyard and drafts him as a soldier in the Nerf Wars, and this time the grin is halfway genuine. He doesn’t forget, but for a few minutes, he manages to not think at all. It’s a start.
It’s a memory of Dad that gives him a chance at staying. Dad and his ex-marine buddies, running their households like the military, shirts on white hangers, pants on black. Not breaking old habits, just shifting, adapting. Surviving. And Dean has always been good at surviving.
He doesn’t make Ben call him “Sir.” But they do spend a lot of time fixing, repairing, checking. Keeping the house and the cars in perfect condition. Working out, building strength, daily cardio. He tries for a job at the local mechanic but finds they aren’t hiring, and he ends up working on appliances for a department store. The managers are gruff and business-like, and they don’t take too well to his brand of humor, but it gets him out of the house. As far as he can remember, it’s the first honest money he’s made. It’s all right for a while, but eventually he starts to get restless, and going in each morning becomes more and more difficult. He keeps doing it, because the alternative is silent, empty rooms and alcohol and loneliness, and the disappointment in Ben’s eyes when he doesn’t want to play.
He comes to like Lisa. If he’s honest with himself, the only reason he remembered her in the first place was Ben - otherwise, she was just another in a long line of flings. But she’s sweet and kind and creative in bed, and she’s content with what Dean can give her. She has to know he doesn’t love her, probably never will. But he’s good to her, and sometimes they laugh together, and sometimes they hold each other in bed, silent, comforting.
For a while, he tries to be happy. He remembers his promise and his long-ago dreams and tries to make it enough. It’s not, and eventually he concedes that this part of the promise he just can’t keep.
There’s a routine he follows day by day, to the letter, like a memorial, a tribute. A remembrance. It becomes habit, and more often than not he’s running on nothing but autopilot, but Dean never forgets why he’s doing it, who he's doing it for.
Time passes, and Dean falls more and more into an unthinking haze. His world is made up of daily minutiae - what to have for dinner, what’s on TV, Ben’s homework. Sometimes something will spark a memory, and he’s quick to stifle it. It feels like betraying himself, denying that there was anything before this - another life, another love, another Dean. But he has a promise to keep, has to be this Dean, and it’s easier if he shuts his former self out entirely.
Then, on a wholly unremarkable night, everything changes. His instincts are still razor-sharp despite the fog clouding his conscious mind, and, laying in bed, Dean suddenly knows there’s someone outside. He hasn’t heard anything, can’t quite pinpoint why he knows this - a change in the light, perhaps - but he does. Careful not to wake Lisa, he slips a shirt on over his pajama pants and takes a gun from the nightstand drawer. He steals down the stairs, casts a glance in at Ben, makes sure he’s ok. The kid is sleeping soundly, all crazy angles and tangled Batman sheets, and Dean’s lips quirk into a smile despite himself.
The front door creaks open and Dean slips outside, concrete stinging his bare feet. The night air is cool and fresh, and he can smell fall coming on the breeze. Staring into the darkness, he can sense…something. Deep within him, a tiny hopeful thing begins to awaken, and the fog begins to shift, clear. He can hear his voice break as he calls out softly, a word he hasn’t spoken in months but one that will never be unfamiliar to his lips.
“Sammy?”
A shape begins to form in the darkness, a face, and Dean thinks he’s imagining it for a moment, thinks he’s finally cracked for good. But then there are strong arms around him and a warm body pressed against his, and more than anything the way his heart feels like it’s leaping out of his chest.
Eventually, Sam lets go and takes a step back, his eyes locked on Dean’s. He waits for the questions, but Dean almost can’t believe how much he doesn’t care, doesn’t even want to know. Sam’s here, now, and that’s all that matters.
Sam clears his throat, gestures toward the house, seems at a loss for words. Dean understands, realizes what a mess things are, knows how much of an asshole he is for wanting to pick up and leave right now and pretend the last few months didn’t happen. The rationalizations will come later, along with the guilt. But right now, more than anything, he needs Sam to know what he wants, really wants, and he simply doesn’t have the words.
The kiss is long and desperate and breathless, and it should feel like cheating, but it doesn’t. It feels like coming alive again, like crawling out of his grave and into the sunlight, like the first drink of water after the long drought of death.
Lisa is hurt, more than she tries to let on, but on some level she understands. She’s been waiting for this. Ben is harder. He yells and then cries, and Dean cries with him, and he wishes he’d never come back here.
Finally, after the packing and the apologies and the goodbyes, they’re on the road again, Dean driving down the highway with Sam in the passenger seat. There’s a little piece of his heart that he’s leaving behind, back in that pristine two-story suburban house, and he suspects that it will always hurt a little. But Sam is beside him, and the road is ahead of him, and there is no great destiny weighing on their shoulders. And for the first time in a very long time, perhaps for the first time ever, Dean is exactly where he wants to be.