O hai thar, Dean- can I kick you while you're down? Yes? Awesome.
Title: My Happily Ever After
Summary: After averting the apocalypse, Dean needs a happily ever after and Lisa wants to give it to him. Ben just got caught in the crossfire.
Word count: 2,500
Rated: pg-13 (language)
Notes: Set post-S5; Spoilers through “Swan Song”
Warnings: Written in the first person, some questionable parenting choices
Genre: Gen, angst
Characters: Dean, Lisa and Ben
A/N: From roque_clasique ’s plot bunny; her exceptional take on the idea is here. Many thanks for letting me play, too ;)
Disclaimer: You know who makes their fictional avatar into God? No talent douchebags! (I love you Kripke, plz don’t sue)
***When Dean Winchester walked into my life that summer, Mom made a point of introducing him, as if maybe I’d forgotten. Honey, this man saved your life a couple years ago. Remember him?
Yeah, I remembered: Fire and monsters, saving the day! Dean had been everything a hero was supposed to be, and he’d been mine. Somewhere in America he was driving in that big beautiful car to a classic rock soundtrack, teasing his brother and remembering a boy in Indiana. I wanted to grow up just like him and be heroes together, or partners, or friends.
That’s not true. I wanted him to be my dad, only I didn’t want to jinx it by using the word, even in my own head.
Let me start again: when Dean Winchester came back, it felt inevitable, and perfect, and I wanted it to be forever.
*
But that isn’t right either. The Dean who showed up in my kitchen confused me. I was out of school for the summer, so he was always awake first, sitting in my chair at the table. A few times I forgot he lived in my house, now, and he startled me. The idea of Dean versus Dean’s laundry on the couch and Dean using the bathroom when I had to go took some getting used to.
But I saw some benefits, along with the strangeness of sharing: I had soccer practice with the other boys my age who I was just learning to envy. I wanted someone to take me to practice and to show up the other dads with feats of physical prowess and pure cool. Dean killed monsters for a living, for god’s sake; a dad like that could make me the most popular kid on the team.
But Dean never came to my games. He didn’t even have a job, spent most of his time inside. When I wanted to have a snack, he tracked my every move around the kitchen with hungry eyes. It made me nervous. He stared too much in general, at odd things like our lawnmower, or a broken streetlight. Mom was so gentle with him, and he’d smile at her with his mouth but not his eyes.
Ten is supposed to be too young, and they were mostly quiet- but I could tell when they were having sex. It was lonely and awkward to lie in my bed, knowing. A couple more years would pass before my not having a father prompted anyone called my mother a slut- but I still had the vague idea that a stranger living in my house sleeping with my mom was something private, and maybe a little shameful.
*
I remember that he tried too hard. He bought me stuff, toys meant for younger kids. Batman with batarang throwing action, that kind of thing. And he’d be so excited about it I would be halfway there with him and halfway embarrassed on his behalf.
“Pretty cool, yeah?” he said, searching my face for whatever it was he wanted to find so bad.
“It’s nice.” I said, pushing a button to fire the plastic weapon a measly few inches. “Maybe we can go paintballing? I went for Shane’s birthday and it was awesome.” It felt strange to try and coach him on being a father, but I was willing to try; Dean wasn’t what I’d hoped, but he was what I had.
He sucked in a breath. “Maybe later, kiddo.”
We never did go. In retrospect, I think that he probably didn’t care for playing at violence. But at the time, all I could think was, this is not the father figure I signed up for. Can you take him back now, so my mom and I can go back to our lives? It’d be nice if she could stop slinking around her own house, afraid of what new innocuous thing will set him off this time. I’d like to have my fantasy again, thanks.
What I mean to say is that he was a big, fat, disappointment.
*
After a while I asked him why Sam wasn't around.
“Sa-” Dean said, and stopped to clear his throat. “He kinda had this thing he needed to do. He would have…” Dean stopped, nodded to himself and started again. “This is great, you know? We’re gonna be great.” He smiled at me, then, desperately needing something I didn’t know how to give.
“Sure, yeah,” I said, because I thought it was what he wanted to hear. It was the first time I had to comfort an adult.
“You two getting along?” my mom asked, coming into the room with another sandwich for Dean; food was easy.
“Yes,” Dean announced, turning to her with that same needy smile. “We should have a barbeque. Can we do that?”
Mom laughed. “Sure, we can do that.”
He went over and took the sandwich from her, and with the other hand he gave her a squeeze and a peck on the cheek. She bit her lip and beamed at him, and it seemed like things would be ok.
She loved him, then. I believe that. She remember him saving us same as I did; how could that sort of heroism not be romantic? But somewhere in between constantly comforting him, and cooking for him, and sheltering him, it stopped being love and started being duty because love is a two way street. I was never told too much about what he did that made my mom feel like she owed him a happily ever after. I hope it was something important, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference, in the end.
*
“Why don’t you go play outside with Dean?” Mom asked, holding out the baseball he’d got a few days ago, spouting promises of season tickets and birthday games.
I didn’t want to play a stupid game of catch, and baseball bored me. But mom wanted Dean to be happy; I felt like it was the least I could do to try and help her. This was mid June, and I was in the phase where I blamed him for ruining everything- right up ‘till we were in the same room and I just wanted him snap out of it and be cool again.
Dean was by the window, one hand on the glass, peering out.
“What are you looking at?” I asked. I wanted to know what he saw out there so I could look too, and understand.
“I…Nothing, just thought I saw someone.” He put on a smile and clapped my on the shoulder. “That a baseball, champ?”
I think we played for a long time, tossing the ball back and forth into the dusk, no noise but the firm slap of the ball contacting our palms. I don’t remember how I felt, or what thoughts I had. Maybe I didn’t even know at the time. What I wanted those moments to be was, and is, so much larger.
*
One time when Mom was at work I turned up my music at full volume, figuring that either he’d come in and tell me what good taste I had or he’d shout at me to turn it down, and that would be normal too.
I played through the entire CD at least twice, long past when the volume had started hurting my ears. Finally I went looking for him, pretending I just wanted a sandwich or chips. He wasn’t there. After I checked all the rooms I turned off the blaring music and sat in the empty living room in the middle of my empty house. Mom never left me alone, and I was kind of angry and scared that he was gone. Mostly, though, I was just waiting. For what, I didn’t know. The other shoe to drop, I guess. For my life to make sense again.
Dean got back way after my mom. They had one of their hushed discussions in the other room, starting as always with mom angry and ending as always with comfort and tears. My general impression is that he just walked away sometime around the opening bars of Back in Black, and that he didn’t even think about if a ten year old needed any supervision. None of us ever talked about it afterwards, though I did get a talk about what the rules were when Mom wasn’t there- not when I was alone, when Mom wasn’t there.
I guess that says it all, doesn’t it?
*
The other kids wanted to know who Dean was, obviously. I had bragged at the beginning, before I realized what a disappointment I’d been saddled with.
“He’s just this guy,” I said.
“What does he do?”
Nothing cool, that was for sure. I saw him crying a few times, shameless like a child. There was never even a reason for it, not that I could see, but there he was, sobbing. It made me so mad I went out in the back yard and punched the fence till the splinters in my hand let me feel alright again.
“I dunno,” I said. “He used to be a-- a cop. Yeah, he saved me and my mom one time.
“Wow.” Shane didn’t look quite like he believed me, but he also looked impressed. I was mad all over again because I wasn’t even really lying, but Dean wasn’t like that now.
I think that’s what I hated most: that he used to be so much more. I was ten years old and he taught me that a hero could end a pathetic dead-eyed shell eating someone else’s apple pie and crying in someone else’s guest room.
*
He never drove the car, anymore, and he didn’t even fix the spider-web crack obscuring the windshield. Like everything else, he’d stare at it once in a while like it was supposed to do something, but obviously it never did. Around the fourth of July he decided it needed cleaning, and left it unlocked while he found the windex. I did what any self-respecting kid would, and clambered in.
He came back out and I was prying at a toy soldier in one of the ashtrays; I had nicer, newer ones inside, but this one was hard to get and you know how that is. Dean grabbed my arm and hauled me roughly out onto the driveway. If he hadn’t been holding me so tight I would have fallen.
“That’s not yours,” he said, giving me a shake. And he wasn’t the loser I’d started to secretly scoff at, he was six feet of muscle and anger squeezing my arm. It didn’t hurt, but it scared me. No, that’s an excuse; he didn’t try to hurt me, but my shoulder was sore the next day and I was terrified of that car for weeks.
*
Mom stopped trying, after a while, to get him to interact with other people. It never seemed to make him any happier, and he freaked people out. Nothing specific, but he started laughing when he shouldn’t, or went still and somber at odd moments, or he wandered off before Mrs. Murray was done talking.
What this meant was he spent plenty of time in our house alone. Once, I came back from a friend’s birthday with Mom, and he’d layered was salt over every doorway, even in the hall. There was a symbol on the hardwood floor that it looked like it’d been spray-painted. Dean was drunk, which in retrospect I think he was most of the time. He covered well enough, but I have a lot of memories of him drinking hard liquor out of tumblers.
“Dean… what’s this?” my mom said carefully, walking over to him where he was laying down some more salt at the window.
“We gotta…” he murmured, turning towards her. “I gotta keep you guys safe, there’s things, I can’t...”
“Dean,” my mom said, even more softly, like talking to a child or a dog. “Is that shotgun loaded? Honey, please put that down.”
He turned towards her, and for a vertiginous second the gun was pointed right at her stomach. I pressed up against the wall, salt crunching under my sneakers, heart clenching a staccato rhythm in my chest.
But he looked surprised that it was still in his hands and set it down against the couch. He reached for my mother, to apologize maybe.
“Jesus,” she yelped, grabbing suddenly for his arm; her body blocked me from seeing whatever upset her.
“Angels,” he said. “I don’t know if it needs to be fresh, or…”
“Ben, go to your room,” Mom said. I ducked into the hallway, and watched her guide Dean, stumbling, to the bathroom.
I could hear her saying, oh my god, oh my god, and he said fuck God, and she started crying, I think, and he started saying no, I’m fine, it’s nothing, I’m fine.
I put myself to bed.
*
In late August all the heat sat on the earth rich with the smell of fallen fruit and dead grass. Mom didn’t smile much that month. She was throwing everything into caring for Dean, who repaid her in smiles that didn’t reach his eyes.
Mom was in the kitchen, and we were waiting at the table, me with cranberry juice and him nursing three more fingers of bourbon, looking out at his car.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.
“I know I’m not your real dad,” he started, mouth smiling and his eyes flat as ever.
As if that was the problem. “You don’t even like us,” I interrupted.
“Ben,” Dean said, in that way that made me sound like I was precious. “I like you, both of you. I…like you a lot. I promised I’d be here for you guys.”
“I don’t want you here if you don’t wanna be here.” A pat sentiment that I thought sounded pretty damn adult and had practiced saying with conviction. It was an offer, but it was also a test- and as disappointing as he was, I knew what I wanted the answer to be. I wanted to believe the way he said my name mattered.
Dean closed his eyes and folded in on himself, and he didn’t argue. It was over and I knew it.
*
Next day he was gone, along with that big, beautiful car. Mom found a note apologizing, but that was for her. She tried to explain why he left to me, a whole bunch of bullshit about how some things just don’t work out and it’s nobody’s fault.
The house felt empty for months; I was angry with him for longer than that. I deserved more than a summer of needy smiles and flat eyes, bourbon and silence. But getting older, I understand. I don’t forgive him; I spent years punishing myself for not being good enough to heal him or make him want to stay- but as an adult with my own fuck ups, and compromises, and regrets, I understand. You don’t get to choose who to love; Wanting to want gets you close enough to see, but not to touch. Whatever was broken or empty in him wasn’t mine to fill or fix.
I wonder what his father was like, and what happened to Sam. I wonder if my son will look to me for more than I can give, and if I’ll be a disappointment in the end, too. I wonder if everyone goes on like this, loving and hating tangled up so badly they’re almost the same thing. And sometimes, I wonder if Dean ever remembers a boy in Indiana.
Summary: After averting the apocalypse, Dean needs a happily ever after and Lisa wants to give it to him. Ben just got caught in the crossfire.
Word count: 2,500
Rated: pg-13 (language)
Notes: Set post-S5; Spoilers through “Swan Song”
Warnings: Written in the first person, some questionable parenting choices
Genre: Gen, angst
Characters: Dean, Lisa and Ben
A/N: From roque_clasique ’s plot bunny; her exceptional take on the idea is here. Many thanks for letting me play, too ;)
Disclaimer: You know who makes their fictional avatar into God? No talent douchebags! (I love you Kripke, plz don’t sue)
***When Dean Winchester walked into my life that summer, Mom made a point of introducing him, as if maybe I’d forgotten. Honey, this man saved your life a couple years ago. Remember him?
Yeah, I remembered: Fire and monsters, saving the day! Dean had been everything a hero was supposed to be, and he’d been mine. Somewhere in America he was driving in that big beautiful car to a classic rock soundtrack, teasing his brother and remembering a boy in Indiana. I wanted to grow up just like him and be heroes together, or partners, or friends.
That’s not true. I wanted him to be my dad, only I didn’t want to jinx it by using the word, even in my own head.
Let me start again: when Dean Winchester came back, it felt inevitable, and perfect, and I wanted it to be forever.
*
But that isn’t right either. The Dean who showed up in my kitchen confused me. I was out of school for the summer, so he was always awake first, sitting in my chair at the table. A few times I forgot he lived in my house, now, and he startled me. The idea of Dean versus Dean’s laundry on the couch and Dean using the bathroom when I had to go took some getting used to.
But I saw some benefits, along with the strangeness of sharing: I had soccer practice with the other boys my age who I was just learning to envy. I wanted someone to take me to practice and to show up the other dads with feats of physical prowess and pure cool. Dean killed monsters for a living, for god’s sake; a dad like that could make me the most popular kid on the team.
But Dean never came to my games. He didn’t even have a job, spent most of his time inside. When I wanted to have a snack, he tracked my every move around the kitchen with hungry eyes. It made me nervous. He stared too much in general, at odd things like our lawnmower, or a broken streetlight. Mom was so gentle with him, and he’d smile at her with his mouth but not his eyes.
Ten is supposed to be too young, and they were mostly quiet- but I could tell when they were having sex. It was lonely and awkward to lie in my bed, knowing. A couple more years would pass before my not having a father prompted anyone called my mother a slut- but I still had the vague idea that a stranger living in my house sleeping with my mom was something private, and maybe a little shameful.
*
I remember that he tried too hard. He bought me stuff, toys meant for younger kids. Batman with batarang throwing action, that kind of thing. And he’d be so excited about it I would be halfway there with him and halfway embarrassed on his behalf.
“Pretty cool, yeah?” he said, searching my face for whatever it was he wanted to find so bad.
“It’s nice.” I said, pushing a button to fire the plastic weapon a measly few inches. “Maybe we can go paintballing? I went for Shane’s birthday and it was awesome.” It felt strange to try and coach him on being a father, but I was willing to try; Dean wasn’t what I’d hoped, but he was what I had.
He sucked in a breath. “Maybe later, kiddo.”
We never did go. In retrospect, I think that he probably didn’t care for playing at violence. But at the time, all I could think was, this is not the father figure I signed up for. Can you take him back now, so my mom and I can go back to our lives? It’d be nice if she could stop slinking around her own house, afraid of what new innocuous thing will set him off this time. I’d like to have my fantasy again, thanks.
What I mean to say is that he was a big, fat, disappointment.
*
After a while I asked him why Sam wasn't around.
“Sa-” Dean said, and stopped to clear his throat. “He kinda had this thing he needed to do. He would have…” Dean stopped, nodded to himself and started again. “This is great, you know? We’re gonna be great.” He smiled at me, then, desperately needing something I didn’t know how to give.
“Sure, yeah,” I said, because I thought it was what he wanted to hear. It was the first time I had to comfort an adult.
“You two getting along?” my mom asked, coming into the room with another sandwich for Dean; food was easy.
“Yes,” Dean announced, turning to her with that same needy smile. “We should have a barbeque. Can we do that?”
Mom laughed. “Sure, we can do that.”
He went over and took the sandwich from her, and with the other hand he gave her a squeeze and a peck on the cheek. She bit her lip and beamed at him, and it seemed like things would be ok.
She loved him, then. I believe that. She remember him saving us same as I did; how could that sort of heroism not be romantic? But somewhere in between constantly comforting him, and cooking for him, and sheltering him, it stopped being love and started being duty because love is a two way street. I was never told too much about what he did that made my mom feel like she owed him a happily ever after. I hope it was something important, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference, in the end.
*
“Why don’t you go play outside with Dean?” Mom asked, holding out the baseball he’d got a few days ago, spouting promises of season tickets and birthday games.
I didn’t want to play a stupid game of catch, and baseball bored me. But mom wanted Dean to be happy; I felt like it was the least I could do to try and help her. This was mid June, and I was in the phase where I blamed him for ruining everything- right up ‘till we were in the same room and I just wanted him snap out of it and be cool again.
Dean was by the window, one hand on the glass, peering out.
“What are you looking at?” I asked. I wanted to know what he saw out there so I could look too, and understand.
“I…Nothing, just thought I saw someone.” He put on a smile and clapped my on the shoulder. “That a baseball, champ?”
I think we played for a long time, tossing the ball back and forth into the dusk, no noise but the firm slap of the ball contacting our palms. I don’t remember how I felt, or what thoughts I had. Maybe I didn’t even know at the time. What I wanted those moments to be was, and is, so much larger.
*
One time when Mom was at work I turned up my music at full volume, figuring that either he’d come in and tell me what good taste I had or he’d shout at me to turn it down, and that would be normal too.
I played through the entire CD at least twice, long past when the volume had started hurting my ears. Finally I went looking for him, pretending I just wanted a sandwich or chips. He wasn’t there. After I checked all the rooms I turned off the blaring music and sat in the empty living room in the middle of my empty house. Mom never left me alone, and I was kind of angry and scared that he was gone. Mostly, though, I was just waiting. For what, I didn’t know. The other shoe to drop, I guess. For my life to make sense again.
Dean got back way after my mom. They had one of their hushed discussions in the other room, starting as always with mom angry and ending as always with comfort and tears. My general impression is that he just walked away sometime around the opening bars of Back in Black, and that he didn’t even think about if a ten year old needed any supervision. None of us ever talked about it afterwards, though I did get a talk about what the rules were when Mom wasn’t there- not when I was alone, when Mom wasn’t there.
I guess that says it all, doesn’t it?
*
The other kids wanted to know who Dean was, obviously. I had bragged at the beginning, before I realized what a disappointment I’d been saddled with.
“He’s just this guy,” I said.
“What does he do?”
Nothing cool, that was for sure. I saw him crying a few times, shameless like a child. There was never even a reason for it, not that I could see, but there he was, sobbing. It made me so mad I went out in the back yard and punched the fence till the splinters in my hand let me feel alright again.
“I dunno,” I said. “He used to be a-- a cop. Yeah, he saved me and my mom one time.
“Wow.” Shane didn’t look quite like he believed me, but he also looked impressed. I was mad all over again because I wasn’t even really lying, but Dean wasn’t like that now.
I think that’s what I hated most: that he used to be so much more. I was ten years old and he taught me that a hero could end a pathetic dead-eyed shell eating someone else’s apple pie and crying in someone else’s guest room.
*
He never drove the car, anymore, and he didn’t even fix the spider-web crack obscuring the windshield. Like everything else, he’d stare at it once in a while like it was supposed to do something, but obviously it never did. Around the fourth of July he decided it needed cleaning, and left it unlocked while he found the windex. I did what any self-respecting kid would, and clambered in.
He came back out and I was prying at a toy soldier in one of the ashtrays; I had nicer, newer ones inside, but this one was hard to get and you know how that is. Dean grabbed my arm and hauled me roughly out onto the driveway. If he hadn’t been holding me so tight I would have fallen.
“That’s not yours,” he said, giving me a shake. And he wasn’t the loser I’d started to secretly scoff at, he was six feet of muscle and anger squeezing my arm. It didn’t hurt, but it scared me. No, that’s an excuse; he didn’t try to hurt me, but my shoulder was sore the next day and I was terrified of that car for weeks.
*
Mom stopped trying, after a while, to get him to interact with other people. It never seemed to make him any happier, and he freaked people out. Nothing specific, but he started laughing when he shouldn’t, or went still and somber at odd moments, or he wandered off before Mrs. Murray was done talking.
What this meant was he spent plenty of time in our house alone. Once, I came back from a friend’s birthday with Mom, and he’d layered was salt over every doorway, even in the hall. There was a symbol on the hardwood floor that it looked like it’d been spray-painted. Dean was drunk, which in retrospect I think he was most of the time. He covered well enough, but I have a lot of memories of him drinking hard liquor out of tumblers.
“Dean… what’s this?” my mom said carefully, walking over to him where he was laying down some more salt at the window.
“We gotta…” he murmured, turning towards her. “I gotta keep you guys safe, there’s things, I can’t...”
“Dean,” my mom said, even more softly, like talking to a child or a dog. “Is that shotgun loaded? Honey, please put that down.”
He turned towards her, and for a vertiginous second the gun was pointed right at her stomach. I pressed up against the wall, salt crunching under my sneakers, heart clenching a staccato rhythm in my chest.
But he looked surprised that it was still in his hands and set it down against the couch. He reached for my mother, to apologize maybe.
“Jesus,” she yelped, grabbing suddenly for his arm; her body blocked me from seeing whatever upset her.
“Angels,” he said. “I don’t know if it needs to be fresh, or…”
“Ben, go to your room,” Mom said. I ducked into the hallway, and watched her guide Dean, stumbling, to the bathroom.
I could hear her saying, oh my god, oh my god, and he said fuck God, and she started crying, I think, and he started saying no, I’m fine, it’s nothing, I’m fine.
I put myself to bed.
*
In late August all the heat sat on the earth rich with the smell of fallen fruit and dead grass. Mom didn’t smile much that month. She was throwing everything into caring for Dean, who repaid her in smiles that didn’t reach his eyes.
Mom was in the kitchen, and we were waiting at the table, me with cranberry juice and him nursing three more fingers of bourbon, looking out at his car.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.
“I know I’m not your real dad,” he started, mouth smiling and his eyes flat as ever.
As if that was the problem. “You don’t even like us,” I interrupted.
“Ben,” Dean said, in that way that made me sound like I was precious. “I like you, both of you. I…like you a lot. I promised I’d be here for you guys.”
“I don’t want you here if you don’t wanna be here.” A pat sentiment that I thought sounded pretty damn adult and had practiced saying with conviction. It was an offer, but it was also a test- and as disappointing as he was, I knew what I wanted the answer to be. I wanted to believe the way he said my name mattered.
Dean closed his eyes and folded in on himself, and he didn’t argue. It was over and I knew it.
*
Next day he was gone, along with that big, beautiful car. Mom found a note apologizing, but that was for her. She tried to explain why he left to me, a whole bunch of bullshit about how some things just don’t work out and it’s nobody’s fault.
The house felt empty for months; I was angry with him for longer than that. I deserved more than a summer of needy smiles and flat eyes, bourbon and silence. But getting older, I understand. I don’t forgive him; I spent years punishing myself for not being good enough to heal him or make him want to stay- but as an adult with my own fuck ups, and compromises, and regrets, I understand. You don’t get to choose who to love; Wanting to want gets you close enough to see, but not to touch. Whatever was broken or empty in him wasn’t mine to fill or fix.
I wonder what his father was like, and what happened to Sam. I wonder if my son will look to me for more than I can give, and if I’ll be a disappointment in the end, too. I wonder if everyone goes on like this, loving and hating tangled up so badly they’re almost the same thing. And sometimes, I wonder if Dean ever remembers a boy in Indiana.