Outside Looking In
Title: Outside Looking In
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1400
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Dean is staying with Lisa. Sam is still dead and Dean is barely holding it together.
I wrote this forEVER ago for nwspaprtaxis. Never quite figured out what I don't like about it, but the hc_bingo deadline is approaching and this seems like the perfect counterpoint to the cutesie, fluffy fic I posted yesterday. I have a reputation to lose here. Fill for 'Cuddling'.
Note to self: You can crosspost next year. Just put up all the fics so you can get that motherfuckin' blackout!
There are seven knives in the drawer under the kitchen sink that are probably sharp enough to kill a man with one stroke.
Lisa knows where they are and she makes sure to never use any of them when it's Dean's turn to do the dishes.
There is also a Bowie knife that Lisa can't have missed, but Dean is pretty sure she's pretending that she has; sharp and deadly and Dean polishes it every night when he's sitting on the steps to the front door with his good night drink. Beheaded a vampire with it, not six months ago.
Pretending she doesn't know about the knife is gonna be damn near impossible from now on though. Kinda hard to go on pretending your boyf- whatever Dean is to her didn't hack off half of his fingers right in front of her only child.
Dean takes care to lean forward so the thick, dark red drops land on the wooden table instead of the sofa. There is a wet, cooling blood stain on his jeans right above his knee where he pressed his cut-up palm against his leg before Lisa made him show.
"It's okay," she says quietly and Dean knows it's only because she's still working up the nerve to tell him that it isn't. She wipes a cloth over the deep cut and Dean doesn't even flinch at the sharp sting of antiseptic.
He's pretty sure he didn't sever a tendon or any important arteries. Should probably be stitched up anyway, but he doesn't tell Lisa that.
He nods silently, would apologize again for the mess he made on the porch, for the shock he gave Ben, but suddenly her lips are covering his, soft and warm and it's almost enough to sooth the cold, stinging ache in his chest that never goes away.
He kisses her back, tongues moving against each other in a fast, hungry dance, but then her hands wander down, dangerously close to the zipper of his jeans and he pulls back.
He shakes his head, his eyes fixed on the red, quickly darkening spot that he knows will stay weaved into the fabric of his jeans forever, no matter how much detergent he throws at it. "'m sorry." He doesn't understand why he just can't do this.
"Sssh..."
Lisa's hands slide back up his chest, like he never interrupted her and this is what she was going for all along. She cups his face in both her hands, forces him to look her in the eye.
"It can wait," she tells him, her breath caresses his face, like a warm breeze and Dean is almost convinced she isn't lying.
She lets go of his face and sits back to pick up the fresh, white roll of gauze from the table. She took it out of a sterile plastic bag. It's never been soaked through with blood, never been bleached faint yellow with cheap detergent in a midnight laundromat run, 'cause people tend to ask questions if your laundry looks like you just lost a wrestling match in a butcher's shop, dude, that's why.
Their thighs are pressed against each other where the soft sofa cushion dips under their collective weight. Dean can feel her heat through the velvety fabric of her grey sweatpants. He sighs. For a moment it feels like he belongs here, like they're sitting on a squeaking mattress in a run-down motel room where Dean doesn't have to worry about getting dust and grime and blood on the furniture.
She wraps the bandage around his hand, quick and gentle, going across the palm way too often and not enough around the wrist. Dean thinks he should probably do it over again, later tonight, so it doesn't slip over his thumb till morning.
"Sorry," he says again, more of a tired sigh and an actual word.
Lisa makes a soft, exasperated sound in the back of her throat, like she's looking at a golden retriever pup who's peed all over the carpet yet again. She lowers his hand to rest in his lap, keeps her own slender fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist.
"Knives or Jack Daniels," she says quietly in that deep, husky voice that Dean has dreamed about for years. His heart speeds up again, his breath gets caught in his throat and for a never-ending second it feels like he's going to get sucked into that gaping hole in his chest.
She guides his head to rest on her shoulder, his ear right over her steady pulse point and the panic receds just a tiny bit. When she talks he can hear the words reverberate through his entire body. "You can't have both. I'm not going to watch you hurt yourself anymore."
Dean makes a noise. It comes from somewhere high in his chest, somewhere between a laugh and a whimper and it makes his eyes sting.
This isn't even close to hurting myself, he wants to say. It's the only thing that's keeping me away from the guns. Maybe he should just drive the car off a cliff and be done with it.
"'m not trying to hurt myself," he says, because he isn't. Not in the way Lisa thinks he is anyway. "This is what I do. I clean guns and I sharpen knives...and maybe sometimes I drink a little too much."
He isn't exactly sure what else he's supposed to do with his free-time.
Lisa laughs softly, her fingertips playing over the short, stand-uppy hairs on his neck.
Dean knows he's pushing their limits. He can see Lisa regret that beer she offered him a little more every time she finds him in the garage, curled up around a bottle of whiskey, his head nestled into the familiar upholstery, where Sam's ass left an eternal print in the soft leather. He knows Ben inches further away from him every time Dean screws up and calls him Sammy.
He's around all the time. Never held a decent job in his life and with the economy the way it is, people aren't exactly falling over themselves to hire a high school drop-out with not a single reference. Sure, he could fake all the neccesarry documents and come up with the most impressive CV in the history of fake job applications, but then what? He couldn't bullshit his way through a single day at the kind of job that requires a proper application in the first place. Looking great in flannel will only get you so far.
"You could get a hobby," Lisa suggests and a sharp, painful bark of a laugh almost knocks Dean off the couch. "No, you could. It would take your mind off of things."
Things. She doesn't say Sammy or Adam or the apocalypse. Dean thinks for a moment that he might love her for that.
"I could...play minigolf," he blurts out the first thing that enters his mind.
Lisa nods, like there is nothing ridiculous about that idea at all. A stray dark curl tickles Dean's nose. It smells like shampoo (a brand. Dean's seen it in the shower and it smells nothing like the stuff you sometimes find in motel bathrooms) and a tiny bit like the oils they use at that new-agy massage place she works at. Dean breathes in the scent. He wonders how she can stand to spend even one minute sitting next to him. Death and blood and pain cling to his skin, no matter how many times he tries to wash them off.
"Or you could start with jogging," she says. She presses a chaste, close-mouthed kiss over his lips so he can feel her smiling. "Or maybe cooking. Ben is really into mountain biking. I bet he would take you some time."
Dean nods at all her suggestions. He doesn't tell her that running reminds him of Dad and cooking is something he did for Sammy and that he hasn't been on a bike since the summer he was four years old.
"I'll find something," he tells her. His voice sounds strange to his own ears. Flat and far off, like his ears are stuffed with cotton. "'n I'll get red of the knife."
There's a gun in his bedside table anyway.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1400
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Dean is staying with Lisa. Sam is still dead and Dean is barely holding it together.
I wrote this forEVER ago for nwspaprtaxis. Never quite figured out what I don't like about it, but the hc_bingo deadline is approaching and this seems like the perfect counterpoint to the cutesie, fluffy fic I posted yesterday. I have a reputation to lose here. Fill for 'Cuddling'.
Note to self: You can crosspost next year. Just put up all the fics so you can get that motherfuckin' blackout!
There are seven knives in the drawer under the kitchen sink that are probably sharp enough to kill a man with one stroke.
Lisa knows where they are and she makes sure to never use any of them when it's Dean's turn to do the dishes.
There is also a Bowie knife that Lisa can't have missed, but Dean is pretty sure she's pretending that she has; sharp and deadly and Dean polishes it every night when he's sitting on the steps to the front door with his good night drink. Beheaded a vampire with it, not six months ago.
Pretending she doesn't know about the knife is gonna be damn near impossible from now on though. Kinda hard to go on pretending your boyf- whatever Dean is to her didn't hack off half of his fingers right in front of her only child.
Dean takes care to lean forward so the thick, dark red drops land on the wooden table instead of the sofa. There is a wet, cooling blood stain on his jeans right above his knee where he pressed his cut-up palm against his leg before Lisa made him show.
"It's okay," she says quietly and Dean knows it's only because she's still working up the nerve to tell him that it isn't. She wipes a cloth over the deep cut and Dean doesn't even flinch at the sharp sting of antiseptic.
He's pretty sure he didn't sever a tendon or any important arteries. Should probably be stitched up anyway, but he doesn't tell Lisa that.
He nods silently, would apologize again for the mess he made on the porch, for the shock he gave Ben, but suddenly her lips are covering his, soft and warm and it's almost enough to sooth the cold, stinging ache in his chest that never goes away.
He kisses her back, tongues moving against each other in a fast, hungry dance, but then her hands wander down, dangerously close to the zipper of his jeans and he pulls back.
He shakes his head, his eyes fixed on the red, quickly darkening spot that he knows will stay weaved into the fabric of his jeans forever, no matter how much detergent he throws at it. "'m sorry." He doesn't understand why he just can't do this.
"Sssh..."
Lisa's hands slide back up his chest, like he never interrupted her and this is what she was going for all along. She cups his face in both her hands, forces him to look her in the eye.
"It can wait," she tells him, her breath caresses his face, like a warm breeze and Dean is almost convinced she isn't lying.
She lets go of his face and sits back to pick up the fresh, white roll of gauze from the table. She took it out of a sterile plastic bag. It's never been soaked through with blood, never been bleached faint yellow with cheap detergent in a midnight laundromat run, 'cause people tend to ask questions if your laundry looks like you just lost a wrestling match in a butcher's shop, dude, that's why.
Their thighs are pressed against each other where the soft sofa cushion dips under their collective weight. Dean can feel her heat through the velvety fabric of her grey sweatpants. He sighs. For a moment it feels like he belongs here, like they're sitting on a squeaking mattress in a run-down motel room where Dean doesn't have to worry about getting dust and grime and blood on the furniture.
She wraps the bandage around his hand, quick and gentle, going across the palm way too often and not enough around the wrist. Dean thinks he should probably do it over again, later tonight, so it doesn't slip over his thumb till morning.
"Sorry," he says again, more of a tired sigh and an actual word.
Lisa makes a soft, exasperated sound in the back of her throat, like she's looking at a golden retriever pup who's peed all over the carpet yet again. She lowers his hand to rest in his lap, keeps her own slender fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist.
"Knives or Jack Daniels," she says quietly in that deep, husky voice that Dean has dreamed about for years. His heart speeds up again, his breath gets caught in his throat and for a never-ending second it feels like he's going to get sucked into that gaping hole in his chest.
She guides his head to rest on her shoulder, his ear right over her steady pulse point and the panic receds just a tiny bit. When she talks he can hear the words reverberate through his entire body. "You can't have both. I'm not going to watch you hurt yourself anymore."
Dean makes a noise. It comes from somewhere high in his chest, somewhere between a laugh and a whimper and it makes his eyes sting.
This isn't even close to hurting myself, he wants to say. It's the only thing that's keeping me away from the guns. Maybe he should just drive the car off a cliff and be done with it.
"'m not trying to hurt myself," he says, because he isn't. Not in the way Lisa thinks he is anyway. "This is what I do. I clean guns and I sharpen knives...and maybe sometimes I drink a little too much."
He isn't exactly sure what else he's supposed to do with his free-time.
Lisa laughs softly, her fingertips playing over the short, stand-uppy hairs on his neck.
Dean knows he's pushing their limits. He can see Lisa regret that beer she offered him a little more every time she finds him in the garage, curled up around a bottle of whiskey, his head nestled into the familiar upholstery, where Sam's ass left an eternal print in the soft leather. He knows Ben inches further away from him every time Dean screws up and calls him Sammy.
He's around all the time. Never held a decent job in his life and with the economy the way it is, people aren't exactly falling over themselves to hire a high school drop-out with not a single reference. Sure, he could fake all the neccesarry documents and come up with the most impressive CV in the history of fake job applications, but then what? He couldn't bullshit his way through a single day at the kind of job that requires a proper application in the first place. Looking great in flannel will only get you so far.
"You could get a hobby," Lisa suggests and a sharp, painful bark of a laugh almost knocks Dean off the couch. "No, you could. It would take your mind off of things."
Things. She doesn't say Sammy or Adam or the apocalypse. Dean thinks for a moment that he might love her for that.
"I could...play minigolf," he blurts out the first thing that enters his mind.
Lisa nods, like there is nothing ridiculous about that idea at all. A stray dark curl tickles Dean's nose. It smells like shampoo (a brand. Dean's seen it in the shower and it smells nothing like the stuff you sometimes find in motel bathrooms) and a tiny bit like the oils they use at that new-agy massage place she works at. Dean breathes in the scent. He wonders how she can stand to spend even one minute sitting next to him. Death and blood and pain cling to his skin, no matter how many times he tries to wash them off.
"Or you could start with jogging," she says. She presses a chaste, close-mouthed kiss over his lips so he can feel her smiling. "Or maybe cooking. Ben is really into mountain biking. I bet he would take you some time."
Dean nods at all her suggestions. He doesn't tell her that running reminds him of Dad and cooking is something he did for Sammy and that he hasn't been on a bike since the summer he was four years old.
"I'll find something," he tells her. His voice sounds strange to his own ears. Flat and far off, like his ears are stuffed with cotton. "'n I'll get red of the knife."
There's a gun in his bedside table anyway.