Dean Winchester (the_new_low) wrote in witchinghour, @ 2014-06-05 12:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: dean winchester, character: lisa braeden |
If Heaven's grief brings Hell's rain
Who: Dean and Lisa
What: Winding down with some unexpected gifts
When: Late Sunday night, 6/1
Warnings: Language, feels
Progress: Complete
The day had been…
...long.
It hadn’t just been a day, Lisa found out not long after Dean pulled her back from what could only be called the other side; she’d been wandering in that desolate gloom for almost five, while someone -some thing- else drove her body around like a stolen Toyota. Like the two days that Marrowood went black and monsters oozed out of the dark, slashing and tearing their way through the town, the aftermath was written on the faces of those around clear as a bell. They were exhausted, haunted, and close to their own kind of despair- especially those that lost people. The whole atmosphere reminded Lisa of the huge tornado that ripped through Michigan last year- except, so much worse.
Part of her wanted to say ‘at least it’s over’, but she knew somewhere in the back of her head the thought was foolish. They were all still trapped in Horrortown and nothing was right. The idea of anything becoming ‘normal’ in this place did the same thing to her stomach as sour milk.
And then… there was Dean.
The apartment she’d moved into before everything went haywire had three furnished bedrooms, and now that they all assumed (for some reason) that the problems with this ‘other side’ business were manageable if they persisted, Dean came back with her. A random face from her past, which happened to have changed her entire life, regardless of how briefly he was in it- he was her only connection to the world she knew and wanted desperately to get back to. But that wasn’t all.
There was more there. To him… from him… Lisa felt it while disconnected with her body, every time she heard his voice. It struck her hard as lightning when she actually saw him there, and it was confusing as ever-loving-hell. Now awake, showered, and in more appropriate clothes, they worked together to (literally) piece the apartment back together after the spirit’s rampage, and Lisa could still feel it whenever she looked his way. Whenever she caught him looking at her. Especially when they were close. The most vivid and aggravating sense of forgetting something horribly important she’d ever encountered in her life- that’s what it was. And all the little connections and coincidences between the two of them didn’t help.
Neither did the very vivid memory of him beating something to death five feet from her. But the reason she was weak in the knees and shaky as all hell was more pressing.
“I think…” Lisa leaned on the back of the recliner with a palm pressed on her brow- pausing so the words could actually process through her malnourished brain. “Did I eat anything in the last couple days?”
As much as Lisa had been trying to figure out the pieces she was missing, Dean was persistently ignoring it. All of it. The town and their grief, their secret past, and his unstable current predicament, just... all of it. Almost as if ignoring it would delete it all from both their minds.
So far, though, it didn't seem to be working.
The face he wore while putting the apartment back together was not one that seemed like it wanted to deal with any of this shit - actually, the only thing it really wanted to do was sleep, but the rest of him was still too wired to lie down. The battered hands portion had just finished pushing the couch back into place when the question was aired.
He paused, straightening himself and looking towards the sky in wonder. Had she eaten? Hell, had he? Besides a couple of things he'd found around the station, he couldn't remember actually eating since getting into town. Now that she mentioned it, though, he was starving.
"Not that I saw. They have any diners around here?"
“Probably…” Lisa’s tone sounded the opposite of enthusiastic about the prospect of being ‘waited on’ by the puppet-projections of Marrowood. She was light-headed and felt like a stiff breeze could toss her down the street, and after the last week’s events, a large part of her just wanted to curl up on the floor under a blanket with a gallon of ice cream and cry. Or a huge pile of chili-cheese fries.. Not that it would help anything in the long run.
Sighing defeatedly, the hand on her brow drove itself through her curling hair. She pushed off from where she was leaning and headed past him, and into the apartment’s medium sized kitchen. “Don’t think I’ve ever wanted the greasiest meat-lover’s pizza on the plan--”
Out of his field of vision, Lisa’s voice trailed off. Actually, it just abruptly stopped, right in the middle of a word. The pause was heavy and stretched on for a few hard heartbeats before it picked up again. “Dean- c’mere and look at this…” Confused and obviously alarmed.
On the so-far unused kitchen table, where there had been nothing only ten minutes ago when she went for a glass of water, sat the most appetizingly perfect pepperoni pizza she’d ever seen. The cheese was still bubbling and the steam was fragrant with garlic and herbs.
Dean had gotten busy with the furniture again the second she walked by, not getting very far before his attention was needed in the other room. His mind still fresh with the image of the pizza she had planted there which wasn't completely wiped away with the confusion in her voice.
Curiosity overtook alarm as he rounded the corner and laid his eyes on the same mystery she'd found. He stood in silence a moment, running through about a million thoughts - most of which consisted of 'to eat or not to eat' - before his slightly agape mouth decided to work.
"You didn't mention magic pizzas in the 'welcome to Marrowood' tour." His tone was an odd mix of accusatory relief as he shrugged off the warning signs and moved to grab a slice.
Despite a bunch of traumatized alarm bells going off in her head, a stomach that’d been empty for days and barely fed for weeks before that had a way of overriding caution. Especially when Dean went for it first. Lisa stood still for a few more moments, her body held in check, but only by the skin of it’s teeth.
“Yeah-well…” she started, interrupted by her stomach’s very irritated growl at the delay. “First magic pizza I’ve come across.”
Then a second later, a bulb flashed in her head. “Emma’s resident ghost apparently steals bread for them. God- that’s a weird sentence.”
Screw it. In barely two steps, she was sitting in the chair next to him, and already had a slice in her hand before her butt hit the wood.
Dean’s entire world revolved around that slice of pizza for a good few moments, just getting lost in a taste from back home. God, he hoped it wasn’t poisoned. Or worse, knowing this place. He was already finishing up his first piece when Lisa’s comment was formed.
Though he smirked at the strangeness, he didn’t seem fazed by it. “So, you’re saying this was some kind of poltergeist delivery?” He asked around his mouthful of food, inspecting the food in his hand a little more closely. What he expected to find, he wasn’t sure, but after all the weirdness going on in that place his mind was pretty open to surprises.
Lisa wasn’t the type to be put off by anyone talking with their mouth full- she lived with a teenage boy- especially when she was stuffing her own face at the same time. Despite the demonic puppet people that ran the pizza parlor in Marrowood, she remembered still wanting a piece based on the smell alone. That thought plus Dean’s muffled theory, it all suddenly clicked. She knew this pizza. Weird as that sounded.
Setting her half-eaten slice down on the bare table (they were too hungry for plates), Lisa’s eyes wandered the generically decorated kitchen around them, as if she’d actually see the hands that delivered their insta-meal, she wondered.
“I did say I wanted a pizza..” Her gaze back on Dean, Lisa’s eyebrows slowly rose. “I could really go for a few beers...”
For a heartbeat, nothing happened; no answer, no ghostly mist, no sound- then from inside the refrigerator two feet from where Dean sat came a muffled, but jarring noise, like something mildly heavy had just fallen from an inside shelf- and that something sounded like several little somethings made of glass. It startled Lisa enough to make her jump, and shoot a wide-eyed look at Dean.
Dean shot that look right back before staring at the fridge. The rest of his pizza was shoved in his mouth as he marched up and opened the metal door, revealing a pack of bottled beers on the bottom shelf. “This is the best kind of creepy,” he mumbled with a cheek full of pizza crust, bending down to grab a beverage in each hand.
Inspecting them just like he did with the pizza, he found nothing out of the ordinary - besides the obvious fact that they’d shown up out of nowhere. What did it mean? Did they somehow acquire an invisible servant? Or maybe this was just Marrowood’s way of apologizing for the Hell it just put them through.
Really, though, Dean didn’t give a shit. All hunter-based concerns he had about the matter were washed away by the fact that he was starving and had been craving a beer all week. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, or whatever. Though, that didn’t stop him from testing it’s limits. Meandering back over to the table, he set Lisa’s drink in front of her, setting his eyes toward the ceiling at nothing in particular.
“I’d like a way off this planet and back to reality,” he sounded off to the immediate universe, hoping beyond hope that they would suddenly find themselves at a bar in Tennessee or something. After a moment of this not happening, Dean just shrugged, opening his beer. “Worth a shot.”
Lisa had no idea what to think of the situation, but like Dean, she wasn’t complaining. Not after the last week, not after the ice cold beer tasted as close to Heaven as she’d ever get on her lips. Her first three swallows went down in quick succession, and ended with a tired, but easy smirk at Dean’s request toward the ceiling fan. Felt like the first time she’d smiled- even half smiled - in goddamn forever.
“Thanks anyway,” she followed suit, tipping her longneck in cheers to to their spiritual waitress, or waiter. Maybe it was just this apartment’s resident spook- not like either of them had had much time to get to know the place this week, but they all seemed to have them. Lisa was too tired, too hungry, and too shaken to worry about something that was actually benefiting her for once.
“Yeah, thanks,” he added, mimicking Lisa’s cheer and taking a seat next to her at the table. Stuffing their faces with Italian seasoned goodness didn’t leave much room for conversation, though it did give Dean’s mind an opportunity to wander. Thoughts, of course, all pointing to home. To Sam and Cass, and the war they were now fighting alone with their secret weapon now locked in some alternate universe. Moreso, though, they went to Ben, and the fact that he too was alone. It was a painful thought, made worse just knowing he’d nearly lost the kid’s mother. Again. At least this time he couldn’t blame himself for her traumatization.
Lost in thought, his gaze had settled on the locket dangling from the chain on her neck, wanting so badly to ask about how Ben’s life had been the past couple years, but having an even stronger feeling that it might not be good for his facade if he brought it up. Besides, where would he even start?
Instead, his attention went to Lisa, looking up at her as he leaned back in his chair, opening another beer. “How’s your head been? Any more dizzy spells or… weirdness since you woke up?”
There wasn’t much room for cognitive thought processes once the smell of that pizza saturated her brain, it was all about food for a good slice and a half. It also happened to be the best meal she remembered having in a long, long time. Maybe it was psychological- it probably was. While she was eating, she really didn’t care. The silence wasn’t heavy or thick with unspoken things she couldn’t think of. It was gentle- almost relieving.
The longer it went on and the more protein and fat and alcohol that filtered into her system, the fewer roadblocks in her brain, and things she’d been thinking about during the shower and their tired attempt to put the place back together… they started to trickle in. She caught Dean looking at her- her necklace, more specifically, and at first she wondered why. Then, remembering how he’d acted when she first showed him the thing, Lisa felt her chest tighten. When she blinked, his eyes were on her face, and for some reason it twisted harder.
Weirdness... boy, was that a relative term.
“No dizziness… not-- I mean, not unless you count a mean hunger migraine. This is doing a good job of killing it, though-” Again, Lisa tipped her beer in reference, then swallowed the last teaspoon and set the empty on the table, next to the crumbs of an eaten pizza.
“You know… I don’t even know your last name.” Lisa looked back at him for a moment, her tone was apologetic, but in a way she hoped he saw she wanted to correct that. “I feel like I should know you better...for everything you’ve done for me here.”
Dean nodded in approval of her condition as he tipped his bottle back, feeling as the cold liquid seeped toward his now full stomach. His beer soon joined hers on the table as her words sent him into an ironic and unamused laugh. She didn’t even know his last name…
Damn, in a perfect world, she would have his last name by now.
“Winchester,” He stated, letting his gaze fall to the table, followed by his hand, which began fidgeting with forgotten crumbs on the surface. Normally, he would’ve left it at that, but a good dose of alcohol and his hardly suppressible guilt complex kept words flowing. “And all that… everything I’ve done for you, I owed you that. Believe me, I owe you.”
Same as his first name had done, his last rolled through her mind like distant thunder, more than just the association with a type of firearm- of which she barely knew of anyway. Lisa consciously scoured her last memory of him, from the hospital, searching for any mention of his last name- because she knew it. Now that she’d heard it, she knew it’d been there before. It was undeniable.
Her eyes flicked up to his face, her face showing every bit of the weird connection, and the confusion of where it came from. More so, the need to know more. She didn’t say anything for a moment, watching his hands, the fingertips heavy and calloused, rolling around a burnt crumb until it disintegrated.
“How…” She stopped, reworking what she wanted to say. “Who do you have back home?”
Dean’s attention remained on the table for a few moments before he caught sight of her face, the look on it wrenching his gut in compassion. He could only imagine what she must be going through, having that wall in her head constantly beaten at with nothing getting through. Their entire life together just barely out of her grasp. It was clear on her face, and Dean wasn’t sure how much he wanted to push the envelope.
“I got a brother. Sammy. And… that’s it, really. No parents. No girlfriend. Not even a dog.” He nearly mentioned Cass, but since he happened to be the being that put up that blockade in the first place, not even bringing him up seemed like a better option.
The smile that appeared on Lisa’s lips was a sad one, empathetic in a way that clearly said she knew what that was like. “Sammy,” she repeated for reasons she didn’t understand; it was just a reaction. “Younger?”
In all honesty, it was just a guess; most older siblings used childhood names for their younger counterparts even into adulthood. Though as was every idea revolving around Dean Winchester, there was a tickling feeling in the back of her head that said she was right. She leaned back in the chair, feeling the fatigue from the last week mix with an over-full belly and a touch of alcohol. It was warm, drugged sort of feeling, but she didn’t want to go to bed. The very thought threatened to pour ice water down her spine, so she pushed it away and moved on. “Kinda the same boat on my end… It’s just Ben and me, which keeps us both pretty busy so…”
She trailed off just a little, filtering words through her head to make sure she didn’t come off wrong. “I don’t mind. I have friends and my studio- gave up on the whole dating thing. Always seems to end in disaster.”
Nodding, Dean grinned a little. Thoughts of his brother, they were bittersweet, and brought sour memories of the state of their relationship when he woke up here. Still, it wasn’t as much of a kick in the gut as was the mention of Ben. Just the mention of his name threw his emotions back up a creek without a paddle, and it wasn’t until she continued talking did he realize he probably should’ve countered her inquiry with one of his own. Just because he thought he knew everything about her life already didn’t excuse him from social cues.
Letting out another empty laugh, he settled himself a bit in his chair, his hand turning it’s attention from the crumbs to his beer. “You and me both. That dating game, it’s a harsh one.” He trailed the sentence with the last of his drink, letting the bottle retake it’s claim on the table before speaking again, struggling a bit with what he wanted to say. “What about Ben? Has he found a girl, yet?”
For the first time in more than a week, Lisa’s full smile spread across her face, accompanied by a small, tired, but genuinely warm chuckle. Maybe it was the beer. Who cared? It felt good, and she wasn’t going to ruin it.
“Too many to count,” she added on the tail end of her laugh, letting her eyes roll back pleasantly with a sigh only a proud- if slightly exasperated- mother could make. “And he isn’t exactly shooing them away. Thankfully I learned early on that the more rules he has to follow are more rules he tries to break, so to save us both some sanity, I made it simple. One- he respects me, and I’ll respect him. Two- he respects them, even when it’s not easy.”
Lisa felt her cheeks warm from smiling, a sign that she hadn’t been doing it nearly as much as normal. That and the welling heartache that came with talking about her son- when she’d been separated from him for weeks, the most that’d ever occurred in his entire life- dulled the grin to a close-lipped smirk, and near-heartbroken eyes that she turned down to the table. She’d done her crying already. The first two weeks in Marrowood had been one long sobfest; occasional break-downs happened recently but they were always short. Right now her eyes stung horribly, but she didn’t dissolve into sobs. Just wiped away the one escaped tear before it got too far down her cheek.
“He wants to be a fireman…” Not sure where it came from, Lisa still said it. Felt easier than warbling about how much she missed him.
Automatically, Dean’s smile mirrored hers, even laughing with a bit of his own pride. It also tightened about the same time hers did, though he didn’t find himself tearing up. He couldn’t pretend to know what Lisa was going through, he had years to miss Ben, and he was already familiar with the dull ache those memories caused. Not to mention, when he left, the kid didn’t even know who he was. This was his mother, and they’d been together his entire life. He could only imagine that she felt like a part of herself was missing.
“Firefighter, huh? Admirable. Saving lives…” He trailed off, thinking of his usual speech about ‘the family business’ and acquiring another small smile. “Sounds like a Hell of a kid,” He went on, a heavy emotion weighing on his words which he tried to excuse away by clearing his throat. “See, I never had time for kids. Family. Now… kinda wishing I did.”
Dean’s comrade-like cheer, even if it was slightly rueful as her own and detached by the fact that he didn’t know Ben, lifted Lisa’s spirits enough to pull her back from the brink of another break-down. She smiled at him for the effort, small and sleepy and understated in its emotion.
“Well- long as we get out of here…” Trailing off for half a beat, just enough to shrug one shoulder in the most minute way possible, Lisa answered with simple, subconscious optimism.
“It’s never too late.”
Those words hit Dean someplace deep, and for a moment he couldn’t pinpoint why. But, he was physically taken aback, and it showed on his face as his eyes left focus, searching for a memory. She’d said that to him before, the scene replaying in his mind clearly, and cutting him like a hot knife.
’It is too late.’ Part of him wanted to scream it at her, helplessly. ’It’s always been too late for us.’ Refocusing on her face, though, he knew he could do no such thing. And, in that moment, another part of him wanted to believe it was true.
“Yeah. Soon as we get out of here… just maybe.”
Lisa didn’t realize she’d been rolling the drawstring of her pants between her fingers until she felt herself pause, not because of his reply, but because of a word it contained. We. Feeling everything in her chest cavity suddenly constrict just because of one little word was unnerving, and reminded her of the dizzy spells. But she wasn’t dizzy… and he had definitely said we.
And half a second later, she realized she’d said it first. No wonder his face looked like his thought-train just hit a cement wall.
Heat spread through her cheeks in an uncontrolled blush the likes of which she hadn’t felt since high school, half from personal embarrassment. A Freudian Slip? Maybe. It didn’t feel like it- she didn’t know what it felt like, but the whole few seconds put that teeth-flashing smile back on her face. Cut by a breathy, somewhat mortified half-laugh.
But… she didn’t correct herself- or Dean. Fresh out of a Nightmare world inside of a Nightmare world, after being possessed, losing Robin, and knowing others had lost people too… and here she was, flirting. Apparently subconsciously.
“I must be exhausted,” she finally breathed, groaning lightly into both palms as they pressed to her face, then swept back through her hair, her eyes on the man across the table. Everything she’d seen him do in the last week was there, too- from sheltering her from the psycho spirit, to finding her, to killing that thing... even dabbing antiseptic on the several cuts over her fingers and hands left in it’s wake. “But I don’t want to sleep.”
“Can’t blame you,” He came back with a hint of a smirk, noticing how red she’d turned in a matter of seconds. It felt so natural to him, the near flirting, even if the place or situation didn’t at all call for it. It actually lifted his mood a little bit, which had taken an alcohol lubricated nosedive since the pizza showed up.
“Maybe…” He started, pulling his entire face into a shrug, “you just turn your brain off for a while. This place has T.V. doesn’t it?” Before waiting for an answer, he stood, making his way for the living room and the television he was sure he just put back on it’s stand.
Dean had only actually used the televisions in town once so far - the day he woke up at the Sleepy Hollow and tried to gain his logistics - and it didn’t seem very comprehensible at the time. Still, he was ready to kill for just some assemblance of ‘normal’ for the day. Even if it meant watching some spooky cable. His face lit up as the screen did, excited that the thing still worked after being knocked over, beaming his smile towards the kitchen over his shoulder.
There in the doorway with a shoulder against the frame, Lisa smiled back at him, though because of how tired she was, it more resembled a smirk. She’d turned the TV on lots of times back at the Sleepy Hollow, and never recognized anything- no commercials, no shows, no movies, just the most random stock-footage shots for long stretches of time. At least, she figured they were on for a long time, she could never get past fifteen minutes of waiting for the tea pot on the screen to steam or be picked up or something. To see him so thrilled about it tickled her. For some reason.
“Turning my brain off would be perfect,” she agreed, bumping off the wall to round in front of the couch to see what was on the screen. This time it was an upward shot of an old steel-frame bridge, a stream ran under it in the sun. Trees and bushes swayed with a silent breeze. As she plopped down on the cushions, she could’ve sworn she saw something drop from the bridge and into the water, but she wasn’t sure. “Not sure this will do the trick, but guess it’s worth a try.”
Barely ten minutes later, Lisa was dead asleep.
Dean had made himself comfortable on the couch, waiting with little enthusiasm for something to happen on the screen that might perk his interest. It never did, but at least he had stopped thinking, so it seemed to be a worthwhile decision. Especially after he felt Lisa’s head fall to his shoulder, though before his mind could make anything of it, it was already following hers into dreamland.
A few hours passed before his eyes fluttered awake again, groggily noticing that they’d both ended up laying lengthways on the couch, with Lisa all but on top of him. It was cozy, for a moment, right up until the alarm bells sounded. The first one reminded him that he wasn’t dating Lisa anymore, making their current position rather awkward. Though, it was the second alarm that prodded him into alertness, propping himself up just enough to check her breathing and pulse before nudging at her shoulder.
“Lisa? Are you still in there? You didn’t leave me again, did you?”
Lisa’s body was racked, exhausted beyond its usual capacity by the events of the last week, but more so was her mind. It’d zoned out at the first chance of safe rest, and would continue to do so for as long as it took. An A-bomb could’ve gone off down the street, and she wouldn’t have dragged herself back into the waking world.
But she was in there somewhere, with something completely comfortable beneath the surface of her conscious thoughts switching on at the sound of Dean’s voice. A hum, barely that, floated out in reply in a long breath, mostly lost against his chest; the arm that had been trapped under her shifted thoughtlessly, draping itself around his middle before curling in his shirt. Then she went still.
That little noise, slight as it was, was good enough for Dean, who immediately relaxed beneath her. A breath caught in his throat as she put her arm around him, and for a good few minutes, he refused to move. That is, until he caught himself dozing off again, having enough conscious thought left to know that wasn’t a position either of them would want to find themselves in once they woke up.
His hand trailed her arm as he rolled hesitantly out of her grasp, stretching as he stood up just before bending again to take the smaller body in his arms. Footsteps fought to muffle themselves as they made their way to her bed, where he laid her down to sleep off the rest of her exhaustion.
Again, his body was reluctant to move, just watching as she slept. It was peaceful in a way he hadn't felt for a long, long time. Finally, he knelt down, his lips touching up with a soft smile before he pressed them to her forehead.
"Goodnight, Lisa..."