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MEANWHILE IN SUBURBIA--
lol, this is probably the wrong time to post this, but whateva. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
metonomia asked for missing D/C details from Interim and I accidentally ended up writing missing-year Dean fic. (August, Indochesters are next on my list, swears.)
Simple Kind of Life
Supernatural. Dean. (Dean/Lisa goes without saying, no?) PG13.
"I shouldn't need a fucking spell." ~1600 words
He stares at his scar when he's brushing his teeth, the way it's gone pale, fading into his skin like a birthmark, and maybe that's not too far off the mark, so to speak. He was in hell; he was reborn again. He remembers the fire and the screams and the feel of a knife cutting into flesh, and then he remembers the bright flash of light that followed forty years of darkness.
He spits into the sink. He rinses his mouth.
The bathroom door opens and Lisa sleepily shuffles in, murmuring, "I gotta pee," and then she just pushes down her pajama pants and sits on the toilet.
How strange, Dean thinks to himself as he fries up the eggs. How strange to fall into this situation with Lisa, to cook their breakfast, to become such a fixture in her life that she doesn't mind him seeing her pee. John Lennon plays softly on the radio, telling him to imagine impossible things, but also to imagine lies. There is a hell below them. There is so much more above them than just the sky.
Dean changes the station.
+
There is lore about bargaining with Charon, riddling with Anubis, taking your chances with Baron Samedi, but none of them are quite what he's looking for, and then he finds a spell about sending your heart up to heaven so that they may hear your plea, and it gives Dean pause.
Why has he been put in a position where a spell about talking with heaven gives him pause? He shouldn't need a spell. They shouldn't need a spell. If you did it all for me, then I shouldn't need a fucking spell, but he reads through the ritual anyway.
Whatever.
Dean turns the page.
Not like snake blood is easy to come by in Cicero anyway.
+
He's drinking too much again, he's always drinking too much, and Lisa knows it and hell, even Ben knows it, looking at him in that way kids do when they know you're wrong but they're not sure if they have the authority to rebuke you.
Lisa's just tired. "We talked about this." Like she doesn't have the energy to be angry or to dish out the discipline like Dean's some wayward kid and I already have a kid, Dean, I don't need to raise two, and she says, "You're sleeping on the couch tonight."
And Dean says, "Fine," except his voice cracks a little, and he doesn't want it to be like this but maybe he's a little fucking shit for thinking it can be otherwise.
Lisa says, "I'll see you in the morning." She puts her arm around Ben's shoulders and leads them up the stairs, saying, "Come on, sweetie." And Ben looks back over his shoulder, and Dean has to look away.
He pours out the rest of the whiskey in the sink. His flask, the bottle of Wild Turkey in the fridge, and he almost pours out the rest of the six-pack of beer but then he remembers that those are Lisa's so he leaves those alone (and maybe just beer is okay, the reasoning of the drunkard), and there's a bottle that he keeps under the sink and one that he keeps in the trunk of the Impala, emergency stash, and he pours those down the sink too, because he loves Lisa and Ben, god damn it, he loves them and he isn't gonna--He isn't--
+
One week later and he's made a dent in this bottle of Jim Beam and the only comfort he has is that Lisa can't see because she's at her sister's and Ben is sleeping over at a friend's house. Dean is alone.
He isn't sure, isn't quite sure when and how and why he's sitting in the Impala in the dark of the garage, tarp all askew on the ground, and he's still got that Jim Beam in hand, and what the hell is he saying, why is he saying it--
"Where are you?" Dean asks, and it feels like one question too many. It's the question that never gets answered, so it's the one that feels like a burden, and it's just like being a teenager again and Dad disappearing all the time. "When are you gonna come back?" "When I can, son." Cas might as well never come back, might as well be down in a hole with Sam, fuck him. Fucking guy never drops by to say a fucking hello, and you think you know a guy. You spend a year fighting the end of the world with a guy and you think you know him, you think you know the both of you. He has called Cas's cellphone but the number has been disconnected. Sometimes he tries again anyway.
They are supposed to be better than their fathers.
In this solitude, there is nothing to distract him from the past, and somewhere near the fuckteenth drink of whiskey, he thinks maybe that is all he can have of history. The silence. The past, undiluted, or at least amplified by regret, which is the only way he can have the past, these days. The thing that sustains him and takes him apart, the thing that has him going through ancient tomes looking for resurrection spells. It's made a praying man out of him. Cas, it's me. No answer.
His scar itches sometimes. It itches now and he puts his hand over it, and this specific memory has become very vague, the memory of being branded, marked by heavenly fire. He remembers Anna's eyes lighting up curiously in the Impala, the care with which she places her own hand over the handprint, the thrill that had run through him, the Pavlovian thrum of grace. Dean touches it now and feels nothing, just hardened skin and the memory of a wound.
He passes out at some ridiculous AM hour and dreams fever dreams of Alastair. "Oh, Dean, I've missed you," he purrs, but then suddenly around them, a bright white light...
+
He doesn't wanna count how many books he's read and articles he looked up and sketchy paranormal types he's consulted, and none of them have anything that can bring Sam back. Sam's gotta have a fuckton of research somewhere about bringing people back from the dead, all probably tossed out, but Dean still searches the Impala top to bottom and when he can't find them, he leans against his ransacked car with his face in his hands and his heartbeat in his ears and waits until he can breathe again.
"If you were here, I bet this'd go by a lot faster," Dean mutters under his breath as he drives back from a psychic/stoner who lives out in the boonies and is entirely full of shit. (He told Lisa he was going to the driving range with Sid.)
And still no answer.
He is tired. He is bone-tired and he is sick to his heart, and when he steps into his kitchen -- his kitchen, funny how he's started thinking of it as his now -- he sees Lisa washing dishes at the sink and the sight of it triggers an overwhelming wave of love in him. Love for her, love for her love, her mercy, the way she took him under her wing when he is in this condition, when he suspects he might be in this condition forever. How does a guy like him end up with a girl like her? Sometimes there's perks to the world being unfair.
Lisa says, "Woah, hey there," when Dean slips his arms around her waist, and he kisses her neck, then he kisses her cheek, and Lisa turns around and he kisses her mouth, and then they just stand there making out in the kitchen like a couple of teenagers, and it guts Dean in that good way, allows him to think that maybe at the end of it all, he can have this too. Waking up next to a good woman and making her breakfast and taking her son to baseball practice and making love to her at night. Maybe, maybe, maybe this too.
"What's gotten into you?" Lisa smiles against his mouth.
He says, "You're the only thing I have left."
She touches his face. She runs her fingers through his hair and says his name, then she presses her lips to his forehead, and they stumble up the stairs to the bedroom in a whirlwind of tangled limbs and impatient kisses and I love you and I love you too, and the dishes are forgotten for the rest of the evening.
+
Dean opens his eyes.
In twenty minutes, the alarm will go off. He tries to hang on to the remnants of the dream, but already it is slipping away. There's just one thing he remembers. That's okay. He thinks it might be the most important part anyway.
+
It is midsummer. The sky is some endless shade of blue, the tufts of clouds, the warmth on his skin. Before him is a lake, and in his hand is a fishing pole. He hasn't caught a fish all day, but he thinks he's okay with that. Hard not to be okay with most things, beautiful day like this.
The dock creaks and Dean feels someone approaching, and he stretches his neck to look over his shoulder. And smiles. "Hey," he says. "Been waitin' for you."
"Sorry I'm late," Cas says, and smiles back.
metonomia asked for missing D/C details from Interim and I accidentally ended up writing missing-year Dean fic. (August, Indochesters are next on my list, swears.)Simple Kind of Life
Supernatural. Dean. (Dean/Lisa goes without saying, no?) PG13.
"I shouldn't need a fucking spell." ~1600 words
He stares at his scar when he's brushing his teeth, the way it's gone pale, fading into his skin like a birthmark, and maybe that's not too far off the mark, so to speak. He was in hell; he was reborn again. He remembers the fire and the screams and the feel of a knife cutting into flesh, and then he remembers the bright flash of light that followed forty years of darkness.
He spits into the sink. He rinses his mouth.
The bathroom door opens and Lisa sleepily shuffles in, murmuring, "I gotta pee," and then she just pushes down her pajama pants and sits on the toilet.
How strange, Dean thinks to himself as he fries up the eggs. How strange to fall into this situation with Lisa, to cook their breakfast, to become such a fixture in her life that she doesn't mind him seeing her pee. John Lennon plays softly on the radio, telling him to imagine impossible things, but also to imagine lies. There is a hell below them. There is so much more above them than just the sky.
Dean changes the station.
+
There is lore about bargaining with Charon, riddling with Anubis, taking your chances with Baron Samedi, but none of them are quite what he's looking for, and then he finds a spell about sending your heart up to heaven so that they may hear your plea, and it gives Dean pause.
Why has he been put in a position where a spell about talking with heaven gives him pause? He shouldn't need a spell. They shouldn't need a spell. If you did it all for me, then I shouldn't need a fucking spell, but he reads through the ritual anyway.
Whatever.
Dean turns the page.
Not like snake blood is easy to come by in Cicero anyway.
+
He's drinking too much again, he's always drinking too much, and Lisa knows it and hell, even Ben knows it, looking at him in that way kids do when they know you're wrong but they're not sure if they have the authority to rebuke you.
Lisa's just tired. "We talked about this." Like she doesn't have the energy to be angry or to dish out the discipline like Dean's some wayward kid and I already have a kid, Dean, I don't need to raise two, and she says, "You're sleeping on the couch tonight."
And Dean says, "Fine," except his voice cracks a little, and he doesn't want it to be like this but maybe he's a little fucking shit for thinking it can be otherwise.
Lisa says, "I'll see you in the morning." She puts her arm around Ben's shoulders and leads them up the stairs, saying, "Come on, sweetie." And Ben looks back over his shoulder, and Dean has to look away.
He pours out the rest of the whiskey in the sink. His flask, the bottle of Wild Turkey in the fridge, and he almost pours out the rest of the six-pack of beer but then he remembers that those are Lisa's so he leaves those alone (and maybe just beer is okay, the reasoning of the drunkard), and there's a bottle that he keeps under the sink and one that he keeps in the trunk of the Impala, emergency stash, and he pours those down the sink too, because he loves Lisa and Ben, god damn it, he loves them and he isn't gonna--He isn't--
+
One week later and he's made a dent in this bottle of Jim Beam and the only comfort he has is that Lisa can't see because she's at her sister's and Ben is sleeping over at a friend's house. Dean is alone.
He isn't sure, isn't quite sure when and how and why he's sitting in the Impala in the dark of the garage, tarp all askew on the ground, and he's still got that Jim Beam in hand, and what the hell is he saying, why is he saying it--
"Where are you?" Dean asks, and it feels like one question too many. It's the question that never gets answered, so it's the one that feels like a burden, and it's just like being a teenager again and Dad disappearing all the time. "When are you gonna come back?" "When I can, son." Cas might as well never come back, might as well be down in a hole with Sam, fuck him. Fucking guy never drops by to say a fucking hello, and you think you know a guy. You spend a year fighting the end of the world with a guy and you think you know him, you think you know the both of you. He has called Cas's cellphone but the number has been disconnected. Sometimes he tries again anyway.
They are supposed to be better than their fathers.
In this solitude, there is nothing to distract him from the past, and somewhere near the fuckteenth drink of whiskey, he thinks maybe that is all he can have of history. The silence. The past, undiluted, or at least amplified by regret, which is the only way he can have the past, these days. The thing that sustains him and takes him apart, the thing that has him going through ancient tomes looking for resurrection spells. It's made a praying man out of him. Cas, it's me. No answer.
His scar itches sometimes. It itches now and he puts his hand over it, and this specific memory has become very vague, the memory of being branded, marked by heavenly fire. He remembers Anna's eyes lighting up curiously in the Impala, the care with which she places her own hand over the handprint, the thrill that had run through him, the Pavlovian thrum of grace. Dean touches it now and feels nothing, just hardened skin and the memory of a wound.
He passes out at some ridiculous AM hour and dreams fever dreams of Alastair. "Oh, Dean, I've missed you," he purrs, but then suddenly around them, a bright white light...
+
He doesn't wanna count how many books he's read and articles he looked up and sketchy paranormal types he's consulted, and none of them have anything that can bring Sam back. Sam's gotta have a fuckton of research somewhere about bringing people back from the dead, all probably tossed out, but Dean still searches the Impala top to bottom and when he can't find them, he leans against his ransacked car with his face in his hands and his heartbeat in his ears and waits until he can breathe again.
"If you were here, I bet this'd go by a lot faster," Dean mutters under his breath as he drives back from a psychic/stoner who lives out in the boonies and is entirely full of shit. (He told Lisa he was going to the driving range with Sid.)
And still no answer.
He is tired. He is bone-tired and he is sick to his heart, and when he steps into his kitchen -- his kitchen, funny how he's started thinking of it as his now -- he sees Lisa washing dishes at the sink and the sight of it triggers an overwhelming wave of love in him. Love for her, love for her love, her mercy, the way she took him under her wing when he is in this condition, when he suspects he might be in this condition forever. How does a guy like him end up with a girl like her? Sometimes there's perks to the world being unfair.
Lisa says, "Woah, hey there," when Dean slips his arms around her waist, and he kisses her neck, then he kisses her cheek, and Lisa turns around and he kisses her mouth, and then they just stand there making out in the kitchen like a couple of teenagers, and it guts Dean in that good way, allows him to think that maybe at the end of it all, he can have this too. Waking up next to a good woman and making her breakfast and taking her son to baseball practice and making love to her at night. Maybe, maybe, maybe this too.
"What's gotten into you?" Lisa smiles against his mouth.
He says, "You're the only thing I have left."
She touches his face. She runs her fingers through his hair and says his name, then she presses her lips to his forehead, and they stumble up the stairs to the bedroom in a whirlwind of tangled limbs and impatient kisses and I love you and I love you too, and the dishes are forgotten for the rest of the evening.
+
Dean opens his eyes.
In twenty minutes, the alarm will go off. He tries to hang on to the remnants of the dream, but already it is slipping away. There's just one thing he remembers. That's okay. He thinks it might be the most important part anyway.
+
It is midsummer. The sky is some endless shade of blue, the tufts of clouds, the warmth on his skin. Before him is a lake, and in his hand is a fishing pole. He hasn't caught a fish all day, but he thinks he's okay with that. Hard not to be okay with most things, beautiful day like this.
The dock creaks and Dean feels someone approaching, and he stretches his neck to look over his shoulder. And smiles. "Hey," he says. "Been waitin' for you."
"Sorry I'm late," Cas says, and smiles back.