fic: it would be this (2/2) -- SPN
title: it would be this (2/2)
rating: R
summary: "I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
words: 12,000
notes: mildly AU, taking place after "Clap Your Hands" in season 6 but before Sam's soul was restored, entirely due to the fact that I've been writing this since shortly after "Live Free and Twihard" originally aired. Thanks so much to destro for support and oddmonster for an awesome beta.
part 1/2
There was indeed beer in Lisa's refrigerator. Not El Sol this time, but something local: Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. Sam popped off the cap and took a sip. He thought there'd be more shouting but instead only a low murmur of voices reached him, mostly Lisa's from the pitch, and after awhile even that dropped off into silence. Sam was halfway through his second bottle when Lisa appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying the laundry basket from her bedroom, her face set in lines of exhaustion that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. She shot him an indignant look and then stalked past him into the adjoining laundry room, so he followed.
"Those weren't painkillers," Lisa accused, dropping the basket onto the concrete floor with a thunk.
"No," Sam agreed.
He watched her yank open the washer and pull at the knobs to start the flow of water. "He's practically a zombie, Sam. What did you give him?" she asked, dumping a capful of detergent and the clothes from the basket into the washer and slamming the cover shut.
Sam shrugged and tossed her the prescription bottle. Raised a brow when she managed to catch it one handed. She glanced at the label and blanched.
"He's got a concussion and you gave him Xanax?" Lisa hissed. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"He was out of control."
Lisa just stared at him. "That wasn't your brother out of control," she said after a long moment, voice flat again. "Not by a long shot."
Sam settled against the door frame and took another sip of beer. "Really?"
Something of his genuine curiosity must have leaked through, because Lisa cocked her head, aiming the kind of distaste at him that he'd gotten used to receiving from Samuel.
"So he's out already?" Sam asked.
Lisa's moue of disgust deepened. "Not yet. He's in the shower." She shook the pill bottle. "You took this from my bathroom?"
Sam shrugged.
"You're not what I expected," Lisa said.
"What did you expect?"
Lisa's mouth turned down, not quite a frown. "Not someone who would drug his brother because he was upset."
Even in what were obviously her chores-around-the-house sweatpants and t-shirt, her hair back in a ponytail, there was something poised about Lisa. Maybe it was all the yoga.
"I might have only met you the one time but I recognized you, you know." Lisa pressed on before Sam could say anything. "I thought maybe... I don't know what I thought. But when I found out you weren't dead after all everything made sense."
"Everything?"
"You weren't very subtle. Watching us from across the street back in Cicero? You're lucky the neighbors didn't call in a peeping tom." Her expression went brittle. "I'm pretty sure Dean saw you once or twice. But my guess is you didn't think about the effect that would have on him. Given that he believed you were in hell at the time."
So, Dean had told her about his stint in hell. That was unexpected.
"Well, technically," Sam said, "I was in hell at the time. Still am."
"What?"
"I'm told it's an interesting philosophical question."
Lisa stared at him for a beat and then lifted her chin, ignoring the obvious bait. "Does it explain why you didn't tell your brother you were alive? A year, Sam. He thought you were suffering the whole time. The way he did."
"Yeah, I know."
"You know? I don't think you do. You watched us eat dinner through the window a couple of times and you think you know anything about that year?"
"You're protective of him," Sam said, tipping back the last swig of beer. "It's nice, he didn't get much of that growing up."
"You think this is just about Dean? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? Who do you think made sure your brother didn't fucking kill himself those first few months? What do you think that was like, for me and Ben?"
"He promised he wouldn't," he said evenly, rolling the empty beer bottle between his hands. Sam knew in a distant kind of way that given Dean's past flirtations with suicide what Lisa was saying should have rocked him. But he wasn't that Sam anymore, and so it didn't.
"It doesn't work that way, and--"
"He's still alive, isn't he?"
"--and the whole time, you were alive, out playing hunter."
Sam let the bottle slide through his hand, until it dangled from his fingers. "He wouldn't have stayed if I'd told him I was back. You've got to know that."
Lisa flashed teeth, a sardonic grimace. "Aren't you the hero. You think you did him a favor, not telling him? Or was that for my benefit?"
His own smile felt tight on his face, unfamiliar. He shifted his grip on the neck of the beer bottle. Watched Lisa's attention drift down to his hand, to the bottle, and something in her face went still, careful. Maybe she'd seen Dean hold a bottle like this, maybe she'd had to pull him out of a bar fight or two. Her gaze slid past him to the open doorway and he couldn’t help a laugh at how obviously she was telegraphing her fear.
"Is something about this funny to you?" Lisa asked, a hint of nerves creeping into her tone. This happened sometimes since he got topside -- people came down with the jitters around him and he wasn’t always sure what he’d done to set them off. She didn't wait for his answer, just pushed past him back out into the kitchen. Sam let her go, gave her a moment, and then followed.
Lisa was leaning against the kitchen counter, one hand fingering the knob of one of the drawers. Smart, not giving him her back, even though he was Dean's brother. He wasn't sure what had rattled her, probably the bottle, so he set it down on the counter top and turned to run his fingers over the edges of the snapshots tacked to a cork board on the wall by the phone. She must have brought it from Cicero when Dean moved them.
"He looks happy," Sam said. "He's smiling, anyway, but with Dean you have to look at the eyes. He can't lie worth shit if you look him in the eye."
He could hear Lisa easing one of the drawers open behind him. "Those a new set? I bet Dean got them custom made."
The drawer clicked shut. "What?"
"The knives. They're silver, right? Probably got them for your birthday, or Christmas? Weird gift from anyone else, but you knew what he meant by them. Silver, for protection. The Winchester way of going steady, I guess. Where was this taken?"
He turned around, holding out a photo of Dean and Ben covered in sunscreen and sand. Dean was terrified of flying so the answer was obvious but he waited anyway. Lisa stood stiff in her corner, a silver plated knife in one hand. Sharper than it looked, he'd bet.
"Lake Michigan?" Sam said, nodding. "He probably taught you how to sharpen those too, huh? What else did he teach you and the kid?"
Out here he could hear the high pitched sound of water rushing through the pipes above them, Dean in the shower.
"What are you doing, Sam?" Lisa asked, low, her fist white-knuckled around the handle of the knife.
Sam glanced at the picture of his brother sunburned and smiling for the camera on some Midwestern lake shore and back over at Lisa and shook his head. "Nothing. Dean cares about you. I know that." He tried on a grin, tried for friendly, knew by her face he wasn't hitting the mark, even though he meant it as much as he was able. "I don't have any reason to hurt you, Lisa. I'm here to make sure nothing does."
"What's wrong with you?" she asked after a long moment. Her grip had loosened around the knife but she didn't put it down.
He remembered going to the ocean with Jess, a long time ago. The way they got sand everywhere, the taste of salt on her skin. But Jess had died and Sam knew that had still ached when he'd jumped into the pit with Lucifer, but now it didn't.
"Left my soul in hell," he said.
"Literally? You mean... you actually meant that. What you said earlier." Lisa tilted her head, like she was adding him up. Factoring in what she knew from Dean's behavior since Sam had shown up on her doorstep. It wasn't much, but then Dean didn't usually fall for airheads. And it was kind of nice, being honest about it with someone who wasn't a hunter. A relief.
"Yep." Sam shrugged, then glanced at the photo in his hand. "You still have his picture up. His pills in your medicine cabinet."
"Sam," Lisa said, and now her voice was soft, something other than wary distrust or disgust filtering into her expression, though he noticed she hadn't let go of the knife.
"You were right to break it off with him. He understands that, you know."
Lisa shook her head, but Sam couldn't tell whether it was in disagreement or something else. "That's why you're... different?" she asked. "Can you feel it? Whatever's happening to your soul?"
A laugh hiccoughed out before he knew it was going to happen. "Nope. Didn't even know it was gone."
"How--"
Sam laughed again. "It's a long story."
Lisa's attention drifted up to the ceiling, towards the sound of rushing water. “I didn’t know you’d dosed him up with Xanax when I left him alone. I should make sure--”
"Probably a good idea." Sam half turned, tacked the photograph back in place on the cork board.
She took the knife with her but at least this time she gave him her back.
By the time Sam had finished a check of the outside perimeter and returned to the kitchen the rushing-water sound had cut off, leaving the house blanketed in a bright silence.
A flock of Deans smiled at him from the wall by the phone. Dean with his arm draped around Lisa or Ben, Dean looking as relaxed as Sam had ever seen him. In one snapshot his head was thrown back in laughter at something just out of frame. In another someone had caught him unawares as he dozed on a lawn chair, a paperback book loose in one of his hands. The image was too small for Sam to read the title but the cover was well worn, the spine cracked. Sam plucked the photo from the cork board and flipped it over. A neat cursive on the reverse recorded the date: a month and a half after Stull. On closer scrutiny, Dean's face was drawn even in slumber and the knuckles of the hand holding the book were scabbed over.
Back at the house in Cicero the cork board full of pictures had seemed thrown together, just another part of the shifting tumult of life. Here it looked as carefully preserved as a shrine.
Sam replaced the photo of his sleeping brother and traced his way through the kitchen to the living room. Paused at the foot of the staircase and listened, but all he could hear was the ticking of an antique clock on the mantel over the fireplace.
At the top of the stairs he found Lisa sitting with her knees drawn up and her back to the closed bathroom door, her head in her hands. He must have made a sound because she jerked a little, one hand flying to the knife where it rested next to her on the carpet. Then she blew out a breath and let the knife go. Rubbed her face with both hands.
"He lock you out?"
Lisa tilted her head to stare up at him, washed out in the dim light of the hall. "What does it look like?"
Sam felt his mouth quirk, didn't suppress it. "Looks like he locked you out."
"What happened?" she asked.
"We took down a nest of vamps last night. One of them threatened you."
"I gathered that much." Lisa looked away, down the hallway towards her bedroom. “Is it... how do they know where we live?”
She didn’t know that Dean had been a vampire himself, that the vamps were connected by some kind of telepathy to their Alpha. She didn’t know because Dean hadn’t told her, and Dean hadn’t told her because... well, Sam wasn’t clear on that part.
Lisa picked up on his hesitation and took a breath, like she was running through some kind of mantra in her head.
“How long before they find us?”
She picked up the knife again, weighing it in her hand. It wouldn’t be much use against a vampire but at least she was prepared to try. She was something, Lisa. Most civilians would be a mess by now but the first time he’d met her she’d survived a thing that had looked like her kid and tried to eat her and had come out the other side okay.
“We’re not sure,” Sam said. “We’re not sure they’re even coming.”
“Better safe than sorry?” Her laugh was slightly shaky.
“Something like that. Look, we’re gonna take care of it.”
“Yeah, I know you will.” She spoke like she only half-believed her own words and was trying her best to ignore that fact. Fiddling with the knife, she hesitated before continuing. “Last time Dean was here. Do you know what happened? Why he..."
"Oh," Sam said. What would a souled guy do here? Tell the truth? Dean kept going on about not keeping secrets, but he’d also harangued Sam about time and place and empathy and how people should be treated. Sam wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be empathizing with here, though. It was all so contradictory. “I dunno--”
“It's just... he was really freaked out and I didn't know why.” Lisa shook her head. "I can usually... I used to at least have a grip on why, what set him off, but..."
"He never told me what happened," Sam said. "But--"
"Sam--" Dean's voice punched hoarse and muffled through the door, and they both turned.
"Thought he'd passed out." Sam jiggled the doorknob. "Dean, let me in," he called.
Lisa pulled herself to her feet, stretched up onto her toes and slid something from the top of the door jamb. Handed him a slim nail. "I'd really rather not have to buy a new door."
"Why didn't you just open it?" Sam asked, turning the nail over in his hand.
She didn't answer. Just backed up to lean against the wall opposite the door, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Sam popped the lock and shoved but the door only moved inward about an inch, enough to give him a glimpse of one of his brother's bare feet. After a moment Sam heard the rustle of fabric and the door gave way, giving him space to squeeze through into the bathroom.
Dean sat hunched over his knees against the tiled bathroom wall, dressed in a clean Henley and a pair of track pants he must have left in Lisa's closet. The clothes he'd changed into at the rest stop were wadded up in a corner next to the tub. His hair was plastered to his forehead in damp spikes and water still dripped down the back of his neck to soak a small wet patch into the collar of his shirt. The uncovered fang marks stood out livid and ugly on the side of his throat.
Sam glanced back at Lisa and shut the door behind him.
The mirror over the sink was still half fogged over, the shower head dripping an uneven patter and plunk of wasted water. Moisture condensed into a thin film on Sam's skin, the room still muggy as a sauna from Dean's protracted shower. Faint traced letters were fading from the mirror, an E, a T, two L's. Ben's doing, probably. At twelve Dean had been obsessed with Metallica too.
"It'd be nice if you'd stop treating me like I'm a moron," Dean said, soft and a little blurry, without looking up from the floor. "I can recognize my own meds, you know."
Sam stepped over him and took a seat on the closed toilet. "So why'd you take it?"
Dean let out a mangled sound, something between a laugh and a cough. When his head lifted, Sam could see the vagueness of the tranquilizer glazing his eyes. "So what's the plan, Sam? Lise can handle herself but she's not a hunter. And I'm down for the count."
"No sign of 'em yet," Sam shrugged. "I could call Samuel in."
"I thought," Dean said slowly. "I thought if I wasn't here they'd be okay."
"You know that's not how it works."
Dean rubbed at his face with one hand and blew out a puff of air. "I think I liked it better when you were faking it."
"Like that's a surprise." Sam clasped his hands between his knees and studied the top of his brother's head. "You ever going to tell her what happened?"
"Doesn't matter," Dean said finally. "What would it change?"
Sam's stomach cramped in hunger. Maybe he should leave Dean here to mope and go get something to eat. "Probably nothing."
Dean nodded. Shielded his eyes with one hand, like he had in the car. He hadn't had breakfast and paired with the booze and the blood loss it was only a matter of time before the drugs pulled him under.
"Your head still bothering you?" Sam asked.
Dean nodded again. Gingerly touched the edge of the goose egg.
Sam eyed the slumped posture, the way Dean was sliding by increments into bonelessness and yet remained clenched fist tight at the core. "What about the rest?"
"You mean am I sprouting fangs? No," Dean snorted. He didn’t look at Sam, but there was a bitter twist to his mouth. "Looks like I dodged that bullet."
Sam didn’t say I told you so, but after a moment’s silence Dean’s hand dropped from his face and his chin came up and he let out a sound that was more an exhale than a laugh. “Not gonna rub it in?”
“D’you want me to?”
Dean sagged against the wall, heavy-lidded and drifting. He didn’t track when Sam stood up and swiped the condensation from his forehead with the back of one wrist.
“Come on,” Sam said. “You pass out in here and we’ll have to step over you to take a piss.”
“There’s another bathroom downstairs,” Dean mumbled.
Sam kicked lightly at his ankle. “Get up. I’m not carrying you.”
In the end Sam had to grip his brother under the arms and haul him off of the floor like a sack of cement. Dean pawed at him in protest the whole way up, his face going ashy and slick with sweat at the sudden change in altitude. Once Dean’s feet were under him he managed a loose-limbed stumble under his own power out into the hallway, but he came up short at the sight of Lisa and had to palm the door frame for balance.
Sam squeezed past him and eyed Lisa. “He should lie down before gravity does the job for him.”
Lisa nodded but her attention was locked on the bruised holes in Dean’s neck. “Jesus,” she breathed. “Vampires, I mean, you said vampires, but--”
Dean shook his head and edged away from Sam, away from Lisa, one hand trailing along the wall as he lurched towards the stairs.
“Sore subject,” Sam said. “Dean, where are you going?”
“Downstairs.”
“No, no, wait,” Lisa said, catching him by the sleeve. His head shot up and around and he twisted in her grip and she immediately backed off, hands out and open at her sides. “Stay up here. In the bedroom.”
“No,” Dean said, mulish.
“Dean--” Lisa looked to Sam then, as if Sam should be able to convince him. Sam could overpower him easy at this point but short of tying him to the bed it’d be pointless. And Dean was far less susceptible to manipulation than you’d think. It’d been a long time since their father had been able to make him guess how high with a look.
“What’s the hangup?” Sam asked him.
Dean shook his head. “No hangup.” But he didn’t meet their eyes as he started picking his way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.
Lisa’s mouth went tight and she nodded to herself like she got it. “Your brother’s a gentleman,” she bit off, and then yanked open a hall closet, pulling out a knit afghan.
Sam left Lisa behind and did a quick circuit of the inside of the house, checking the doors and windows starting in the cellar, where a folded ping-pong table rubbed elbows with an old stationary bike and a stacked pile of worn cardboard boxes labeled “xmas” -- up to the second floor bedrooms. One of the windows in the master bedroom overlooked the backyard where the snow was just as trampled as the front, useless for tracking any new footprints. A concrete patio, empty of everything but a covered gas grill, butted up against the detached garage where patio furniture and bicycles were probably stored for the winter.
It was all very sitcom suburbia. Sam still couldn’t imagine his brother living like this for a year, couldn’t picture Dean carefully turning pieces of barbecue-sauce slathered chicken on the grill. Maybe Lisa did the grilling -- it wasn’t like Dean had a lot of experience. Sam certainly didn’t. He’d always left the beach cookouts up to Brady and Jess and their friends.
Sam had held the photograph of Dean stretched out asleep with a book in a folding lounge chair, seen the incongruous set of golf clubs in the closet back in Cicero. He’d watched from a distance as Dean sat down to a dinner table, as he mucked around doing yard work. Once he’d even followed Dean to one of Ben’s baseball games but it had been like watching his brother inhabiting a character from one of the reruns they’d watched on countless shitty TVs in countless shitty motel rooms growing up. That buttoned-down guy hadn’t even looked like Dean, not really. The body language had been all wrong, too contained; Dean playing the role of the keeps-mostly-to-himself neighbor, the one who would surprise you by tossing your ball back for you with a pitcher’s perfect aim if it strayed into his yard.
Maybe it was what Dean had always wanted, maybe it was something Sam had wanted years and years ago, but it all seemed so painfully sedate, so unchanging, so mind-numbingly boring.
Downstairs Dean was still trying to pretend he wasn’t going to pass out any minute now. He was on the couch at least, propped heavily against one arm, his boots planted on the floor as if that proved something. Lisa sat at the other end of the couch with the afghan wadded in her hands. They weren’t looking at one another and the air hung heavy with whatever they’d been saying before they heard Sam’s footsteps descending the stairs.
“Sam,” Lisa said, looking up, “there’s a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen.”
The vamp bite, right. Their kit out in the Impala was probably better stocked but Sam didn’t argue, just retreated to the kitchen. The cabinet under the sink was full of cleaning supplies: a squat bottle of bleach, a spray bottle of electric blue window solution, a shriveled sponge sitting on top of a green can of Comet cleanser, some kind of lemon-fresh liquid for the floors. The kit he was looking for was back behind the collection of plastic bottles, not exactly convenient for an emergency. He pulled the little red vinyl bag clear of the cabinet and unzipped it on the counter to make sure it was decently stocked.
Voices drifted in from the living room as Sam poked around the packages of gauze and anti-bacterial cream and standard plastic band-aids, the kind good for splinters and scrapes and not much else.
“I’m not doing that again,” Lisa said evenly. “I’m not going to uproot Ben on the off-chance that--”
“Lisa--”
“No. We can’t live our lives like that, Dean. We moved once and I understood why, I did. I got it. But I’m not going to do this every time something happens. We’ve been over this.”
“It’d be the last time,” Dean grated. “You’d go and not tell me where. That way--”
“You’re not hearing me. We’re not going to move again. I know you’re worried, I know... but it wouldn’t be the last time. There’s always going to be something else.”
“You don’t understand.” Dean’s voice had gone low, miserable. “I brought this on you. I can’t--”
“You can,” Lisa said. “You’re going to have to, unless you and Sam are planning on tying us up and sticking us in your trunk. Maybe vampires will find us today, maybe they won’t. Maybe it’ll be a year from now and it will be some other kind of awful thing. Or maybe I’ll slip in the shower and crack my head open. Would that be your fault, too?”
“It’s not the same,” Dean said as Sam packed the kit back up, and sensing a lull in the argument, rejoined them in the living room.
“Yeah, it is.” Lisa turned at Sam’s approach, set aside the afghan and gestured for the first aid kit. “Thanks,” she said as Sam dropped it into her hands. Sam didn’t know if she had any idea what she was doing but she’d raised a kid and lived with Dean for a year so she probably at least had some experience with the ways of gauze and tape and terrible patients. It wasn’t like she was going to be performing surgery and the wounds were mostly closed up anyway.
Lisa scooted over on the couch and Dean held very still, staring straight ahead at the bank of windows that faced the front yard. The curtains had been drawn since the first time Sam had been in the room, casting everything in a sleepy dullness with just an edge of sunlight around the perimeter. Lisa turned Dean’s chin away an inch or two with one hand so she could get a better look at the wounds on his neck.
“So you’re staying, huh?” Sam said as she rummaged through the kit for a package of sterile gauze.
Dean closed his eyes, swallowed. Lisa didn’t answer right away. She tore open the paper package and pressed the gauze against Dean’s neck. “Here, hold this,” she told him, drawing up his hand to keep the gauze in place while she tore off a few lengths of tape. Dean obeyed with a sharp snatch of air like maybe the touch still hurt. “Sorry,” Lisa said into his ear. Sam was about to ask her again when her attention slid briefly in his direction.
“I’m going to my sister’s for the rest of the weekend,” she said. “Might stay through Monday.”
Dean just sat there with his eyes closed to everything, expressive as a store mannequin, while Lisa taped the gauze in place. Maybe he was ignoring them, maybe he was just done. Maybe none of the above, who knew. Since Dean had been turned in that alley Sam had lost the grip he thought he’d had on what his brother would do in any given moment. It was probably for the best; taking Dean for granted was lazy, unobservant. Might get them killed.
“Come on,” Lisa said to Dean once she’d finished. “Off with the boots.”
Sam crossed to the windows and twitched open the curtains a crack to scan the street outside. Lisa didn’t wait for Dean’s cooperation, just bent down and picked apart his laces, pulled the boots off herself. Then she zipped the first aid kit back up and stood looking down a moment at Dean before disappearing back into the kitchen. After a minute or two of silence Dean slumped against the couch cushions, blinking sluggishly.
The thought that Sam should say something arrived and left again just as quickly. Dean didn’t seem to remember he was there anyway, so Sam followed Lisa into the kitchen. Found it empty, but heard her banging around in the laundry room.
“You know, I do get it.” Lisa didn’t turn around as she pulled wet clothes out of the washer and stuffed them into the dryer. “Why he wants us to leave. I do. These things, I know they’re real. It’s just--”
Sam didn’t try to hide his smile. “You can’t live your life that way?”
“So you were listening. I thought it’d taken you too long to find that kit.” There was something wry in Lisa’s face when she threw him a glance over her shoulder. “I’ve got a twelve year old,” she said, as if that explained everything, and maybe it did. He kept underestimating her.
“I get more than he thinks I do,” she continued, her expression dropping into tired lines. “But what am I supposed to do with that?”
Sam leaned against the door to the laundry room, watching her slam the dryer door shut and start the machine tumbling. “Do with what?”
Lisa turned and crossed her arms over her chest, considering him. “No offense, Sam, but from what I’ve seen today I don’t think you’d understand.”
She was still pissed about the Xanax, then. He lifted a shoulder. “You’re probably right.”
Sam considered trailing after Lisa as she headed back upstairs to her bedroom to pack but decided another beer would be a better use of his time. While he was poking around in her fridge he came up with a bag of green grapes. He was popping one into his mouth when voices rose again from the living room.
“I can’t believe you’d risk Ben like this,” Dean grated. He’d apparently taken Lisa’s reappearance as an opportunity to rouse himself for one more kamikaze try.
Sam leaned against the doorway between the living room and kitchen, unnoticed. The back of Dean’s head bobbed above the couch like a fishing lure about to be dragged under the water. Lisa must have just bought the grapes, they were that crisp, but he probably should have washed them. Sam pulled another handful free of the bag as Lisa stopped at the foot of the stairs, a plastic grocery bag of trash in one hand.
“Ben’s not your responsibility any more,” Lisa snapped, her jaw set. Without glancing down, she nimbly tied the handles of the plastic bag together and pulled the knot tight with a jerk of her hands.
Sam could practically hear his brother’s teeth grinding from across the room. “You think I don’t know that?” he said. “I’m not saying he is. But Lisa--”
“Nothing is ever going to be enough, Dean. You want Ben to grow up like you did, is that what you think will keep him safe?” The words skittered out of her like she was trying to draw them back even as they escaped. She twisted the loose handles of the bag around her fingers, tight enough to turn the skin pink and white. “Because that worked out so well for you.”
There was a long, long silence, the air in the room thick with it. Beer with grapes was a strange combination, Sam decided, but it worked.
“No,” Dean said finally. Sam was beginning to be seriously impressed with his brother’s tolerance for benzodiazepines and booze -- his speech was slurred more than it had been twenty minutes ago, but still articulate. “That’s... that’s the last thing I want. The very last thing.”
“I know.” Lisa said. She looked away toward the curtained windows as if she was trying to see beyond them. “That’s why you have to let us go.”
Dean didn’t have a response to that, it seemed. Lisa nodded to herself and turned away, then came up short when she saw Sam standing there.
“Go ahead and help yourself, Sam,” she said curtly, gesturing at his bag of fruit.
Sam shrugged. “I already did.”
Lisa took a breath, like she was having some kind of internal argument, and then let it out.
“You’re both welcome to stay here while you, you know. Make sure. About the vampires.”
Sam hadn’t planned on asking. “Thanks,” he said.
“And anything you need, just -- it’s yours.” She hesitated then like she wanted to say something else. Her gaze went to the couch and she shook her head then disappeared up the stairs.
Dean had finally dragged his legs up onto the couch and was lying on his side, wilted against the cushions, the afghan still wadded up by his feet. Sam watched his body move with shallow even breaths, free of the twitchy restlessness he’d carried since the warehouse.
Sam had finished the grapes and tossed the bag of stems by the time Lisa returned, the sweats gone in favor of jeans and a sweater under a ski jacket, a small suitcase in one hand and her purse in the other.
“Well,” she said, and then stopped, taking in Dean’s apparent unconsciousness. “Um--”
“You’re welcome,” Sam said. She frowned, so that must have been the wrong thing to say. “Do you want me to tell him anything?”
Her frown smoothed out, so maybe this time he’d hit the bull’s eye, but she was shaking her head. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say,” she said too evenly, and he couldn’t quite read the emotion there. “I’ll be back on Monday.”
With that she swept by him and out the side door. He tossed the towel onto the counter and crossed to the living room windows, pulling the curtain aside to follow her progress out to her car. There was a soft sound behind him from the couch, a rustle of blankets. He waited until Lisa’s Honda turned the corner at the end of the block to let the curtain swing back into place.
“She’s gone,” he said, turning to face the couch. Dean was good, and sure the past 24 hours and the tranquilizer had taken their toll, but Sam knew Dean’s minute tells just like Dean knew his. Or had. Before. “You can stop faking now.”
Dean stirred but didn’t sit up. “Wasn’t faking,” he muttered, eyes still closed.
“Uh-huh.” Sam folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the window frame.
Dean’s mouth thinned out but he didn’t have anything to say to that, apparently. He blinked a couple of times in slow motion then squinted at Sam like even the muffled light was too much now. Sam tried to prod him once more but Dean had years of practice ignoring him when he wanted to and eventually he slipped into a real sleep.
Sam prowled the perimeter of the house again, searched through all the rooms, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. He was beginning to suspect there never would be. Coming here had been his idea, what he’d thought Dean’s brother would have done, the right thing. Instead it was turning out to be a colossal waste of time with consequences he was going to have to work around for weeks, if Dean’s last trip to Battle Creek was any indication.
So much for the right thing.
rating: R
summary: "I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."
words: 12,000
notes: mildly AU, taking place after "Clap Your Hands" in season 6 but before Sam's soul was restored, entirely due to the fact that I've been writing this since shortly after "Live Free and Twihard" originally aired. Thanks so much to destro for support and oddmonster for an awesome beta.
part 1/2
There was indeed beer in Lisa's refrigerator. Not El Sol this time, but something local: Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. Sam popped off the cap and took a sip. He thought there'd be more shouting but instead only a low murmur of voices reached him, mostly Lisa's from the pitch, and after awhile even that dropped off into silence. Sam was halfway through his second bottle when Lisa appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying the laundry basket from her bedroom, her face set in lines of exhaustion that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. She shot him an indignant look and then stalked past him into the adjoining laundry room, so he followed.
"Those weren't painkillers," Lisa accused, dropping the basket onto the concrete floor with a thunk.
"No," Sam agreed.
He watched her yank open the washer and pull at the knobs to start the flow of water. "He's practically a zombie, Sam. What did you give him?" she asked, dumping a capful of detergent and the clothes from the basket into the washer and slamming the cover shut.
Sam shrugged and tossed her the prescription bottle. Raised a brow when she managed to catch it one handed. She glanced at the label and blanched.
"He's got a concussion and you gave him Xanax?" Lisa hissed. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"He was out of control."
Lisa just stared at him. "That wasn't your brother out of control," she said after a long moment, voice flat again. "Not by a long shot."
Sam settled against the door frame and took another sip of beer. "Really?"
Something of his genuine curiosity must have leaked through, because Lisa cocked her head, aiming the kind of distaste at him that he'd gotten used to receiving from Samuel.
"So he's out already?" Sam asked.
Lisa's moue of disgust deepened. "Not yet. He's in the shower." She shook the pill bottle. "You took this from my bathroom?"
Sam shrugged.
"You're not what I expected," Lisa said.
"What did you expect?"
Lisa's mouth turned down, not quite a frown. "Not someone who would drug his brother because he was upset."
Even in what were obviously her chores-around-the-house sweatpants and t-shirt, her hair back in a ponytail, there was something poised about Lisa. Maybe it was all the yoga.
"I might have only met you the one time but I recognized you, you know." Lisa pressed on before Sam could say anything. "I thought maybe... I don't know what I thought. But when I found out you weren't dead after all everything made sense."
"Everything?"
"You weren't very subtle. Watching us from across the street back in Cicero? You're lucky the neighbors didn't call in a peeping tom." Her expression went brittle. "I'm pretty sure Dean saw you once or twice. But my guess is you didn't think about the effect that would have on him. Given that he believed you were in hell at the time."
So, Dean had told her about his stint in hell. That was unexpected.
"Well, technically," Sam said, "I was in hell at the time. Still am."
"What?"
"I'm told it's an interesting philosophical question."
Lisa stared at him for a beat and then lifted her chin, ignoring the obvious bait. "Does it explain why you didn't tell your brother you were alive? A year, Sam. He thought you were suffering the whole time. The way he did."
"Yeah, I know."
"You know? I don't think you do. You watched us eat dinner through the window a couple of times and you think you know anything about that year?"
"You're protective of him," Sam said, tipping back the last swig of beer. "It's nice, he didn't get much of that growing up."
"You think this is just about Dean? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? Who do you think made sure your brother didn't fucking kill himself those first few months? What do you think that was like, for me and Ben?"
"He promised he wouldn't," he said evenly, rolling the empty beer bottle between his hands. Sam knew in a distant kind of way that given Dean's past flirtations with suicide what Lisa was saying should have rocked him. But he wasn't that Sam anymore, and so it didn't.
"It doesn't work that way, and--"
"He's still alive, isn't he?"
"--and the whole time, you were alive, out playing hunter."
Sam let the bottle slide through his hand, until it dangled from his fingers. "He wouldn't have stayed if I'd told him I was back. You've got to know that."
Lisa flashed teeth, a sardonic grimace. "Aren't you the hero. You think you did him a favor, not telling him? Or was that for my benefit?"
His own smile felt tight on his face, unfamiliar. He shifted his grip on the neck of the beer bottle. Watched Lisa's attention drift down to his hand, to the bottle, and something in her face went still, careful. Maybe she'd seen Dean hold a bottle like this, maybe she'd had to pull him out of a bar fight or two. Her gaze slid past him to the open doorway and he couldn’t help a laugh at how obviously she was telegraphing her fear.
"Is something about this funny to you?" Lisa asked, a hint of nerves creeping into her tone. This happened sometimes since he got topside -- people came down with the jitters around him and he wasn’t always sure what he’d done to set them off. She didn't wait for his answer, just pushed past him back out into the kitchen. Sam let her go, gave her a moment, and then followed.
Lisa was leaning against the kitchen counter, one hand fingering the knob of one of the drawers. Smart, not giving him her back, even though he was Dean's brother. He wasn't sure what had rattled her, probably the bottle, so he set it down on the counter top and turned to run his fingers over the edges of the snapshots tacked to a cork board on the wall by the phone. She must have brought it from Cicero when Dean moved them.
"He looks happy," Sam said. "He's smiling, anyway, but with Dean you have to look at the eyes. He can't lie worth shit if you look him in the eye."
He could hear Lisa easing one of the drawers open behind him. "Those a new set? I bet Dean got them custom made."
The drawer clicked shut. "What?"
"The knives. They're silver, right? Probably got them for your birthday, or Christmas? Weird gift from anyone else, but you knew what he meant by them. Silver, for protection. The Winchester way of going steady, I guess. Where was this taken?"
He turned around, holding out a photo of Dean and Ben covered in sunscreen and sand. Dean was terrified of flying so the answer was obvious but he waited anyway. Lisa stood stiff in her corner, a silver plated knife in one hand. Sharper than it looked, he'd bet.
"Lake Michigan?" Sam said, nodding. "He probably taught you how to sharpen those too, huh? What else did he teach you and the kid?"
Out here he could hear the high pitched sound of water rushing through the pipes above them, Dean in the shower.
"What are you doing, Sam?" Lisa asked, low, her fist white-knuckled around the handle of the knife.
Sam glanced at the picture of his brother sunburned and smiling for the camera on some Midwestern lake shore and back over at Lisa and shook his head. "Nothing. Dean cares about you. I know that." He tried on a grin, tried for friendly, knew by her face he wasn't hitting the mark, even though he meant it as much as he was able. "I don't have any reason to hurt you, Lisa. I'm here to make sure nothing does."
"What's wrong with you?" she asked after a long moment. Her grip had loosened around the knife but she didn't put it down.
He remembered going to the ocean with Jess, a long time ago. The way they got sand everywhere, the taste of salt on her skin. But Jess had died and Sam knew that had still ached when he'd jumped into the pit with Lucifer, but now it didn't.
"Left my soul in hell," he said.
"Literally? You mean... you actually meant that. What you said earlier." Lisa tilted her head, like she was adding him up. Factoring in what she knew from Dean's behavior since Sam had shown up on her doorstep. It wasn't much, but then Dean didn't usually fall for airheads. And it was kind of nice, being honest about it with someone who wasn't a hunter. A relief.
"Yep." Sam shrugged, then glanced at the photo in his hand. "You still have his picture up. His pills in your medicine cabinet."
"Sam," Lisa said, and now her voice was soft, something other than wary distrust or disgust filtering into her expression, though he noticed she hadn't let go of the knife.
"You were right to break it off with him. He understands that, you know."
Lisa shook her head, but Sam couldn't tell whether it was in disagreement or something else. "That's why you're... different?" she asked. "Can you feel it? Whatever's happening to your soul?"
A laugh hiccoughed out before he knew it was going to happen. "Nope. Didn't even know it was gone."
"How--"
Sam laughed again. "It's a long story."
Lisa's attention drifted up to the ceiling, towards the sound of rushing water. “I didn’t know you’d dosed him up with Xanax when I left him alone. I should make sure--”
"Probably a good idea." Sam half turned, tacked the photograph back in place on the cork board.
She took the knife with her but at least this time she gave him her back.
By the time Sam had finished a check of the outside perimeter and returned to the kitchen the rushing-water sound had cut off, leaving the house blanketed in a bright silence.
A flock of Deans smiled at him from the wall by the phone. Dean with his arm draped around Lisa or Ben, Dean looking as relaxed as Sam had ever seen him. In one snapshot his head was thrown back in laughter at something just out of frame. In another someone had caught him unawares as he dozed on a lawn chair, a paperback book loose in one of his hands. The image was too small for Sam to read the title but the cover was well worn, the spine cracked. Sam plucked the photo from the cork board and flipped it over. A neat cursive on the reverse recorded the date: a month and a half after Stull. On closer scrutiny, Dean's face was drawn even in slumber and the knuckles of the hand holding the book were scabbed over.
Back at the house in Cicero the cork board full of pictures had seemed thrown together, just another part of the shifting tumult of life. Here it looked as carefully preserved as a shrine.
Sam replaced the photo of his sleeping brother and traced his way through the kitchen to the living room. Paused at the foot of the staircase and listened, but all he could hear was the ticking of an antique clock on the mantel over the fireplace.
At the top of the stairs he found Lisa sitting with her knees drawn up and her back to the closed bathroom door, her head in her hands. He must have made a sound because she jerked a little, one hand flying to the knife where it rested next to her on the carpet. Then she blew out a breath and let the knife go. Rubbed her face with both hands.
"He lock you out?"
Lisa tilted her head to stare up at him, washed out in the dim light of the hall. "What does it look like?"
Sam felt his mouth quirk, didn't suppress it. "Looks like he locked you out."
"What happened?" she asked.
"We took down a nest of vamps last night. One of them threatened you."
"I gathered that much." Lisa looked away, down the hallway towards her bedroom. “Is it... how do they know where we live?”
She didn’t know that Dean had been a vampire himself, that the vamps were connected by some kind of telepathy to their Alpha. She didn’t know because Dean hadn’t told her, and Dean hadn’t told her because... well, Sam wasn’t clear on that part.
Lisa picked up on his hesitation and took a breath, like she was running through some kind of mantra in her head.
“How long before they find us?”
She picked up the knife again, weighing it in her hand. It wouldn’t be much use against a vampire but at least she was prepared to try. She was something, Lisa. Most civilians would be a mess by now but the first time he’d met her she’d survived a thing that had looked like her kid and tried to eat her and had come out the other side okay.
“We’re not sure,” Sam said. “We’re not sure they’re even coming.”
“Better safe than sorry?” Her laugh was slightly shaky.
“Something like that. Look, we’re gonna take care of it.”
“Yeah, I know you will.” She spoke like she only half-believed her own words and was trying her best to ignore that fact. Fiddling with the knife, she hesitated before continuing. “Last time Dean was here. Do you know what happened? Why he..."
"Oh," Sam said. What would a souled guy do here? Tell the truth? Dean kept going on about not keeping secrets, but he’d also harangued Sam about time and place and empathy and how people should be treated. Sam wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be empathizing with here, though. It was all so contradictory. “I dunno--”
“It's just... he was really freaked out and I didn't know why.” Lisa shook her head. "I can usually... I used to at least have a grip on why, what set him off, but..."
"He never told me what happened," Sam said. "But--"
"Sam--" Dean's voice punched hoarse and muffled through the door, and they both turned.
"Thought he'd passed out." Sam jiggled the doorknob. "Dean, let me in," he called.
Lisa pulled herself to her feet, stretched up onto her toes and slid something from the top of the door jamb. Handed him a slim nail. "I'd really rather not have to buy a new door."
"Why didn't you just open it?" Sam asked, turning the nail over in his hand.
She didn't answer. Just backed up to lean against the wall opposite the door, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Sam popped the lock and shoved but the door only moved inward about an inch, enough to give him a glimpse of one of his brother's bare feet. After a moment Sam heard the rustle of fabric and the door gave way, giving him space to squeeze through into the bathroom.
Dean sat hunched over his knees against the tiled bathroom wall, dressed in a clean Henley and a pair of track pants he must have left in Lisa's closet. The clothes he'd changed into at the rest stop were wadded up in a corner next to the tub. His hair was plastered to his forehead in damp spikes and water still dripped down the back of his neck to soak a small wet patch into the collar of his shirt. The uncovered fang marks stood out livid and ugly on the side of his throat.
Sam glanced back at Lisa and shut the door behind him.
The mirror over the sink was still half fogged over, the shower head dripping an uneven patter and plunk of wasted water. Moisture condensed into a thin film on Sam's skin, the room still muggy as a sauna from Dean's protracted shower. Faint traced letters were fading from the mirror, an E, a T, two L's. Ben's doing, probably. At twelve Dean had been obsessed with Metallica too.
"It'd be nice if you'd stop treating me like I'm a moron," Dean said, soft and a little blurry, without looking up from the floor. "I can recognize my own meds, you know."
Sam stepped over him and took a seat on the closed toilet. "So why'd you take it?"
Dean let out a mangled sound, something between a laugh and a cough. When his head lifted, Sam could see the vagueness of the tranquilizer glazing his eyes. "So what's the plan, Sam? Lise can handle herself but she's not a hunter. And I'm down for the count."
"No sign of 'em yet," Sam shrugged. "I could call Samuel in."
"I thought," Dean said slowly. "I thought if I wasn't here they'd be okay."
"You know that's not how it works."
Dean rubbed at his face with one hand and blew out a puff of air. "I think I liked it better when you were faking it."
"Like that's a surprise." Sam clasped his hands between his knees and studied the top of his brother's head. "You ever going to tell her what happened?"
"Doesn't matter," Dean said finally. "What would it change?"
Sam's stomach cramped in hunger. Maybe he should leave Dean here to mope and go get something to eat. "Probably nothing."
Dean nodded. Shielded his eyes with one hand, like he had in the car. He hadn't had breakfast and paired with the booze and the blood loss it was only a matter of time before the drugs pulled him under.
"Your head still bothering you?" Sam asked.
Dean nodded again. Gingerly touched the edge of the goose egg.
Sam eyed the slumped posture, the way Dean was sliding by increments into bonelessness and yet remained clenched fist tight at the core. "What about the rest?"
"You mean am I sprouting fangs? No," Dean snorted. He didn’t look at Sam, but there was a bitter twist to his mouth. "Looks like I dodged that bullet."
Sam didn’t say I told you so, but after a moment’s silence Dean’s hand dropped from his face and his chin came up and he let out a sound that was more an exhale than a laugh. “Not gonna rub it in?”
“D’you want me to?”
Dean sagged against the wall, heavy-lidded and drifting. He didn’t track when Sam stood up and swiped the condensation from his forehead with the back of one wrist.
“Come on,” Sam said. “You pass out in here and we’ll have to step over you to take a piss.”
“There’s another bathroom downstairs,” Dean mumbled.
Sam kicked lightly at his ankle. “Get up. I’m not carrying you.”
In the end Sam had to grip his brother under the arms and haul him off of the floor like a sack of cement. Dean pawed at him in protest the whole way up, his face going ashy and slick with sweat at the sudden change in altitude. Once Dean’s feet were under him he managed a loose-limbed stumble under his own power out into the hallway, but he came up short at the sight of Lisa and had to palm the door frame for balance.
Sam squeezed past him and eyed Lisa. “He should lie down before gravity does the job for him.”
Lisa nodded but her attention was locked on the bruised holes in Dean’s neck. “Jesus,” she breathed. “Vampires, I mean, you said vampires, but--”
Dean shook his head and edged away from Sam, away from Lisa, one hand trailing along the wall as he lurched towards the stairs.
“Sore subject,” Sam said. “Dean, where are you going?”
“Downstairs.”
“No, no, wait,” Lisa said, catching him by the sleeve. His head shot up and around and he twisted in her grip and she immediately backed off, hands out and open at her sides. “Stay up here. In the bedroom.”
“No,” Dean said, mulish.
“Dean--” Lisa looked to Sam then, as if Sam should be able to convince him. Sam could overpower him easy at this point but short of tying him to the bed it’d be pointless. And Dean was far less susceptible to manipulation than you’d think. It’d been a long time since their father had been able to make him guess how high with a look.
“What’s the hangup?” Sam asked him.
Dean shook his head. “No hangup.” But he didn’t meet their eyes as he started picking his way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.
Lisa’s mouth went tight and she nodded to herself like she got it. “Your brother’s a gentleman,” she bit off, and then yanked open a hall closet, pulling out a knit afghan.
Sam left Lisa behind and did a quick circuit of the inside of the house, checking the doors and windows starting in the cellar, where a folded ping-pong table rubbed elbows with an old stationary bike and a stacked pile of worn cardboard boxes labeled “xmas” -- up to the second floor bedrooms. One of the windows in the master bedroom overlooked the backyard where the snow was just as trampled as the front, useless for tracking any new footprints. A concrete patio, empty of everything but a covered gas grill, butted up against the detached garage where patio furniture and bicycles were probably stored for the winter.
It was all very sitcom suburbia. Sam still couldn’t imagine his brother living like this for a year, couldn’t picture Dean carefully turning pieces of barbecue-sauce slathered chicken on the grill. Maybe Lisa did the grilling -- it wasn’t like Dean had a lot of experience. Sam certainly didn’t. He’d always left the beach cookouts up to Brady and Jess and their friends.
Sam had held the photograph of Dean stretched out asleep with a book in a folding lounge chair, seen the incongruous set of golf clubs in the closet back in Cicero. He’d watched from a distance as Dean sat down to a dinner table, as he mucked around doing yard work. Once he’d even followed Dean to one of Ben’s baseball games but it had been like watching his brother inhabiting a character from one of the reruns they’d watched on countless shitty TVs in countless shitty motel rooms growing up. That buttoned-down guy hadn’t even looked like Dean, not really. The body language had been all wrong, too contained; Dean playing the role of the keeps-mostly-to-himself neighbor, the one who would surprise you by tossing your ball back for you with a pitcher’s perfect aim if it strayed into his yard.
Maybe it was what Dean had always wanted, maybe it was something Sam had wanted years and years ago, but it all seemed so painfully sedate, so unchanging, so mind-numbingly boring.
Downstairs Dean was still trying to pretend he wasn’t going to pass out any minute now. He was on the couch at least, propped heavily against one arm, his boots planted on the floor as if that proved something. Lisa sat at the other end of the couch with the afghan wadded in her hands. They weren’t looking at one another and the air hung heavy with whatever they’d been saying before they heard Sam’s footsteps descending the stairs.
“Sam,” Lisa said, looking up, “there’s a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen.”
The vamp bite, right. Their kit out in the Impala was probably better stocked but Sam didn’t argue, just retreated to the kitchen. The cabinet under the sink was full of cleaning supplies: a squat bottle of bleach, a spray bottle of electric blue window solution, a shriveled sponge sitting on top of a green can of Comet cleanser, some kind of lemon-fresh liquid for the floors. The kit he was looking for was back behind the collection of plastic bottles, not exactly convenient for an emergency. He pulled the little red vinyl bag clear of the cabinet and unzipped it on the counter to make sure it was decently stocked.
Voices drifted in from the living room as Sam poked around the packages of gauze and anti-bacterial cream and standard plastic band-aids, the kind good for splinters and scrapes and not much else.
“I’m not doing that again,” Lisa said evenly. “I’m not going to uproot Ben on the off-chance that--”
“Lisa--”
“No. We can’t live our lives like that, Dean. We moved once and I understood why, I did. I got it. But I’m not going to do this every time something happens. We’ve been over this.”
“It’d be the last time,” Dean grated. “You’d go and not tell me where. That way--”
“You’re not hearing me. We’re not going to move again. I know you’re worried, I know... but it wouldn’t be the last time. There’s always going to be something else.”
“You don’t understand.” Dean’s voice had gone low, miserable. “I brought this on you. I can’t--”
“You can,” Lisa said. “You’re going to have to, unless you and Sam are planning on tying us up and sticking us in your trunk. Maybe vampires will find us today, maybe they won’t. Maybe it’ll be a year from now and it will be some other kind of awful thing. Or maybe I’ll slip in the shower and crack my head open. Would that be your fault, too?”
“It’s not the same,” Dean said as Sam packed the kit back up, and sensing a lull in the argument, rejoined them in the living room.
“Yeah, it is.” Lisa turned at Sam’s approach, set aside the afghan and gestured for the first aid kit. “Thanks,” she said as Sam dropped it into her hands. Sam didn’t know if she had any idea what she was doing but she’d raised a kid and lived with Dean for a year so she probably at least had some experience with the ways of gauze and tape and terrible patients. It wasn’t like she was going to be performing surgery and the wounds were mostly closed up anyway.
Lisa scooted over on the couch and Dean held very still, staring straight ahead at the bank of windows that faced the front yard. The curtains had been drawn since the first time Sam had been in the room, casting everything in a sleepy dullness with just an edge of sunlight around the perimeter. Lisa turned Dean’s chin away an inch or two with one hand so she could get a better look at the wounds on his neck.
“So you’re staying, huh?” Sam said as she rummaged through the kit for a package of sterile gauze.
Dean closed his eyes, swallowed. Lisa didn’t answer right away. She tore open the paper package and pressed the gauze against Dean’s neck. “Here, hold this,” she told him, drawing up his hand to keep the gauze in place while she tore off a few lengths of tape. Dean obeyed with a sharp snatch of air like maybe the touch still hurt. “Sorry,” Lisa said into his ear. Sam was about to ask her again when her attention slid briefly in his direction.
“I’m going to my sister’s for the rest of the weekend,” she said. “Might stay through Monday.”
Dean just sat there with his eyes closed to everything, expressive as a store mannequin, while Lisa taped the gauze in place. Maybe he was ignoring them, maybe he was just done. Maybe none of the above, who knew. Since Dean had been turned in that alley Sam had lost the grip he thought he’d had on what his brother would do in any given moment. It was probably for the best; taking Dean for granted was lazy, unobservant. Might get them killed.
“Come on,” Lisa said to Dean once she’d finished. “Off with the boots.”
Sam crossed to the windows and twitched open the curtains a crack to scan the street outside. Lisa didn’t wait for Dean’s cooperation, just bent down and picked apart his laces, pulled the boots off herself. Then she zipped the first aid kit back up and stood looking down a moment at Dean before disappearing back into the kitchen. After a minute or two of silence Dean slumped against the couch cushions, blinking sluggishly.
The thought that Sam should say something arrived and left again just as quickly. Dean didn’t seem to remember he was there anyway, so Sam followed Lisa into the kitchen. Found it empty, but heard her banging around in the laundry room.
“You know, I do get it.” Lisa didn’t turn around as she pulled wet clothes out of the washer and stuffed them into the dryer. “Why he wants us to leave. I do. These things, I know they’re real. It’s just--”
Sam didn’t try to hide his smile. “You can’t live your life that way?”
“So you were listening. I thought it’d taken you too long to find that kit.” There was something wry in Lisa’s face when she threw him a glance over her shoulder. “I’ve got a twelve year old,” she said, as if that explained everything, and maybe it did. He kept underestimating her.
“I get more than he thinks I do,” she continued, her expression dropping into tired lines. “But what am I supposed to do with that?”
Sam leaned against the door to the laundry room, watching her slam the dryer door shut and start the machine tumbling. “Do with what?”
Lisa turned and crossed her arms over her chest, considering him. “No offense, Sam, but from what I’ve seen today I don’t think you’d understand.”
She was still pissed about the Xanax, then. He lifted a shoulder. “You’re probably right.”
Sam considered trailing after Lisa as she headed back upstairs to her bedroom to pack but decided another beer would be a better use of his time. While he was poking around in her fridge he came up with a bag of green grapes. He was popping one into his mouth when voices rose again from the living room.
“I can’t believe you’d risk Ben like this,” Dean grated. He’d apparently taken Lisa’s reappearance as an opportunity to rouse himself for one more kamikaze try.
Sam leaned against the doorway between the living room and kitchen, unnoticed. The back of Dean’s head bobbed above the couch like a fishing lure about to be dragged under the water. Lisa must have just bought the grapes, they were that crisp, but he probably should have washed them. Sam pulled another handful free of the bag as Lisa stopped at the foot of the stairs, a plastic grocery bag of trash in one hand.
“Ben’s not your responsibility any more,” Lisa snapped, her jaw set. Without glancing down, she nimbly tied the handles of the plastic bag together and pulled the knot tight with a jerk of her hands.
Sam could practically hear his brother’s teeth grinding from across the room. “You think I don’t know that?” he said. “I’m not saying he is. But Lisa--”
“Nothing is ever going to be enough, Dean. You want Ben to grow up like you did, is that what you think will keep him safe?” The words skittered out of her like she was trying to draw them back even as they escaped. She twisted the loose handles of the bag around her fingers, tight enough to turn the skin pink and white. “Because that worked out so well for you.”
There was a long, long silence, the air in the room thick with it. Beer with grapes was a strange combination, Sam decided, but it worked.
“No,” Dean said finally. Sam was beginning to be seriously impressed with his brother’s tolerance for benzodiazepines and booze -- his speech was slurred more than it had been twenty minutes ago, but still articulate. “That’s... that’s the last thing I want. The very last thing.”
“I know.” Lisa said. She looked away toward the curtained windows as if she was trying to see beyond them. “That’s why you have to let us go.”
Dean didn’t have a response to that, it seemed. Lisa nodded to herself and turned away, then came up short when she saw Sam standing there.
“Go ahead and help yourself, Sam,” she said curtly, gesturing at his bag of fruit.
Sam shrugged. “I already did.”
Lisa took a breath, like she was having some kind of internal argument, and then let it out.
“You’re both welcome to stay here while you, you know. Make sure. About the vampires.”
Sam hadn’t planned on asking. “Thanks,” he said.
“And anything you need, just -- it’s yours.” She hesitated then like she wanted to say something else. Her gaze went to the couch and she shook her head then disappeared up the stairs.
Dean had finally dragged his legs up onto the couch and was lying on his side, wilted against the cushions, the afghan still wadded up by his feet. Sam watched his body move with shallow even breaths, free of the twitchy restlessness he’d carried since the warehouse.
Sam had finished the grapes and tossed the bag of stems by the time Lisa returned, the sweats gone in favor of jeans and a sweater under a ski jacket, a small suitcase in one hand and her purse in the other.
“Well,” she said, and then stopped, taking in Dean’s apparent unconsciousness. “Um--”
“You’re welcome,” Sam said. She frowned, so that must have been the wrong thing to say. “Do you want me to tell him anything?”
Her frown smoothed out, so maybe this time he’d hit the bull’s eye, but she was shaking her head. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say,” she said too evenly, and he couldn’t quite read the emotion there. “I’ll be back on Monday.”
With that she swept by him and out the side door. He tossed the towel onto the counter and crossed to the living room windows, pulling the curtain aside to follow her progress out to her car. There was a soft sound behind him from the couch, a rustle of blankets. He waited until Lisa’s Honda turned the corner at the end of the block to let the curtain swing back into place.
“She’s gone,” he said, turning to face the couch. Dean was good, and sure the past 24 hours and the tranquilizer had taken their toll, but Sam knew Dean’s minute tells just like Dean knew his. Or had. Before. “You can stop faking now.”
Dean stirred but didn’t sit up. “Wasn’t faking,” he muttered, eyes still closed.
“Uh-huh.” Sam folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the window frame.
Dean’s mouth thinned out but he didn’t have anything to say to that, apparently. He blinked a couple of times in slow motion then squinted at Sam like even the muffled light was too much now. Sam tried to prod him once more but Dean had years of practice ignoring him when he wanted to and eventually he slipped into a real sleep.
Sam prowled the perimeter of the house again, searched through all the rooms, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. He was beginning to suspect there never would be. Coming here had been his idea, what he’d thought Dean’s brother would have done, the right thing. Instead it was turning out to be a colossal waste of time with consequences he was going to have to work around for weeks, if Dean’s last trip to Battle Creek was any indication.
So much for the right thing.