Okay, short entry, because I just want to get something down. This one's way more stream of consciousness than the others.
forgot, there's a brief mention of the possibility of suicide that might be triggery for some.
contusio varians: a bruise which waxes and wanes according to an unknown cycle
-5-
It’s just that he’s Dean, and she’s Lisa, and the memory of how good it had been has never quite faded. Even in the state he’s in right now he’s hot and sweet and good with her kid in a way that weirdly turns her on as much as he’d turned her on back when he was a knife-edged grin and a leather jacket that might as well have had “trouble” spelled out on the back in neon letters. She tells herself it’s a bad idea, she tells herself it’s the last thing either of them need, the last thing she needs, the last thing Ben needs.
She tells herself that while she watches him under the hood of the junker truck he fixes up in the driveway over the course of a week, grease smeared in a decidedly non-attractive way up the side of his cheek, sweat stains on this back and pits, smelling of gasoline and rust. Alternating between silent monofocus and patiently explaining the inner workings of the transmission to Ben, Dean even finds a wisp of a smile now and again at Ben’s curious enthusiasm, and she can’t help it, she’s human, and Ben has never shown the slightest interest in anything mechanical, and Dean’s got big hands with unexpectedly fine-tapered fingers and keeps his nails neat even when they’ve got black gunk under them and his shoulders stretch out the grubby fabric of his tee-shirts in firm arcs and oh god, she sounds like she’s writing porn even in her own mind.
Anyway. It’s not like she does anything but think about it. And she doesn’t really even think about it until he’s been there awhile, has settled into their routine, emerged a bit from the shell-shock. Up to that point she was more worried about him actually eating and sleeping and not driving off in his car and putting a gun in his mouth, because she knows he wouldn’t do it here, where she or Ben would find him.
He relaxes around Ben more than he does her at first, almost like he can’t help it. Ben’s a pretty easy going kid, and he and Dean have a weirdly similar taste in music, and apparently at some point Dean read a lot of comic books because one day she finds them both in Ben’s room sitting on the floor with Ben’s cardboard boxes of plastic-enveloped comics between them and it’s the first time she hears Dean laugh, arguing with Ben over some obscure point of Batman lore. And maybe that’s when she starts to relax a little too, seeing Dean and Ben so easy together, knowing her son made Dean laugh. Later she wants to hug Ben and tell him how proud he makes her sometimes, his way with Dean, but she knows he wouldn’t understand, because he’s just being a kid.
The first time she really thinks about Dean with anything but the purest of intentions Ben’s teaching him how to use the Wii. They’re playing a tennis game, and Dean doesn’t even have a clue how real tennis is supposed to go so it’s something of a learning curve but Ben’s patient with him in the thoughtless way that kids have.
“No, backhand,” Ben says, and Dean throws up his hands. On the screen, his avatar does the same and Ben’s peal of laughter brings out one of those rare grins on Dean.
“I feel like an idiot waving this thing around,” Dean says, flailing with the white plastic controller.
“But it’s cool,” Ben says, “see, you go like this and then like this...”
Lisa isn’t really listening. She’s curled up on the couch with a book that she’s not really reading, she’s watching them play. She’s pretty good at real life tennis but somehow this refuses to translate into virtual skill, so Ben’s long since given up on her. Dean’s got this look of intense concentration crinkling his forehead and he’s squinting at the tv like maybe he needs glasses or maybe he’s just as confused by the hand/body/technology coordination as she is. Lisa watches the muscles in his arms and back bunch and flex as he swings the controller and then lets out an undignified hoot when the racket on screen connects with the ball for the first time.
Ben’s grinning at him. “Now you hafta hit it again, though,” he says, and then laughs at the dismay on Dean’s face.
They go on like that until Dean untangles himself to make dinner, and the whole time Lisa tries very carefully not to stare at his ass.
It doesn’t work.