Fic: Suburbia. Dean/Lisa. G
What do you do when you can't write? You fiddle with old WIPs and post one of those instead, making it look like you're actually still writing and not stuck in the same old vacuum of nothingness, once again. I think I haven't posted this one already, at least I can't find it anywhere. But if you've read it, let me know.
Title: Suburbia
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Dean/Lisa, although nothing actually happens
Rating: G
Word count: 1627 words
Summary: Sam is in the cage. Dean is in the suburbs. Things are not okay.
Author's note: Something I initially wrote for Uni, with a vet suffering from PTSD as the main character, although really, it was always Dean. Set between the end of S5 and start of S6. Unbeta'd. Sorry, candygramme, I just needed something to do.
Anger issues. That’s what they keep telling him. Lisa. His doctor. His boss after that one time Dean punched his fist through a wall. Anger issues. Like that’s all it is, anger boiling in his belly towards everything and everyone.
They’re not wrong. He does feel angry, so damn angry, a lot of the time, but it’s more than that. There’s this feeling he doesn’t quite know how to describe. Like ants crawling under his skin or vines growing inside his chest, twisting around his heart and lungs until he can’t breathe. The way they’re doing right now.
He rubs his fingers together, rubs his chest with his fist. Nothing helps. His jaw starts twitching, his teeth grind. He holds his breath, trying to choke whatever it is that’s crawling inside him, feeding on the air in his lungs, the blood in his veins. All it does is make him feel lightheaded. He stares down at the table in front of him, seeing patterns in the scars and bruises of wayward cutlery and spilled grease. Omens.
“Your coffee, sir,” says a bored voice, as a cup is placed inches from his twitching fingers. Dean looks up to see grey eyes, black hair, and an indifferent copy of a smile. He tries for a smile of his own but the effort is wasted on thin air, she has already turned her back. His fingers curl into a fist but he breathes slowly until they straighten out and he can wipe his palms on his thighs, sweat staining the denim dark.
He rips open a bag of sugar and stirs it in. The coffee is bitter and only lukewarm. He has to close his eyes and count to twenty, to keep from jumping up and marching to the counter, spitting out curses along with the taste in his mouth. How hard can it be to serve coffee at a decent temperature, for fuck’s sake?
Instead he adds more sugar and sips the coffee slowly. He’s had worse, so much worse, and all things considered, what does it matter?
Once the last drop has been drained, Dean throws some money on the table and leaves. It’s raining - of course it is - and so it doesn’t take long before the drops start leaking under his shirt, tickling their cold way down his spine. He throws up the collar of his jacket, head pulled down between hunched shoulders as he makes his way across the street and to his car. Curses as he slides into the seat, wet as a dog. He hates getting the upholstery wet, the leather is too old and worn and already threatening to crack in places. Dean shuts down that thought before it does any real damage and turns the switch. Then mutters under his breath as the engine hiccups and coughs before stubbornly rumbling awake.
“Good girl,” he coos and his spirit lifts just a little. Over forty years old and still she has less trouble getting up in the morning than he does.
Just as he is swerving away from the curb some asshole speeds by, his ugly Honda missing the Impala’s side mirror by inches. Dean hits the brakes, hard, knuckles white on the steering wheel. His heart pounds into his ribcage. Jesus! He feels dizzy for a moment and then the anger flares up again, so suddenly it feels like his chest might explode from rage. He rolls down the window and screams, “You goddamn fucking son of a bitch, watch where you’re going!” after the fucking bastard who’s already way past and gone. “Fuck you! Fuck you, you damn fucking asshole!” He hits the wheel with his fists, again and again and again. Fuck, fuck, fuck! If he only had his gun in the glove department he’d go after that fucker and-
Stop.
He swallows. Breathes slowly. Waits for his head to stop spinning. Then puts the car back in gear and carefully eases into traffic.
The ride home is way too short. The whole reason he went out this morning was to give them both a chance to calm down, but if anything he’s tenser now than when he left. Without wanting to, Dean starts rerunning their conversation (Argument. Row. Fucking fight.) in his head, remembering the cool reasoning in Lisa’s voice, the sharp words that stung harder than he’ll ever admit, because he knows they are true. Yes, he drinks too much. Yes, he has trouble with his temper. Yes, he’s paranoid, and unfair, and a fucking jerk to both her and Ben a lot of the time, but he’s trying. He’s trying the best he can and if she would just back off, would just give him some space, and allow him to work his way through this … this life. This fucking useless life he shouldn’t be living. Not him. Not without Sammy. How the fuck could Sam ever expect that of him? How can anyone?
Her car is still in the driveway. Dean parks behind it then just sits there, staring out at the rain still pouring down. He wonders if Lisa is still angry. If she is, he’ll walk right back out again because he’s too damn edgy, and too damn terrified he’ll say something he’ll regret. Do something he’ll regret. He waits to see if there’s any movement, an anxious face staring out from behind the curtains, a shadow cast on the wall. There’s nothing. He kills the engine and steps out into the rain.
It’s quiet inside. Everything seems to be like he left it but still, there’s something different. Something beyond the silence of the house. There’s a smell, a sweet scent that for some reason reminds him of his mother, before. He frowns, wary, and then he enters the kitchen and sees the mess, exploded all over the kitchen wall. Screaming red, spread in a halo on the wall, right where Lisa stood, just hours ago.
For a moment he forgets where he is and when. The floor turns to withered grass under his feet, the air heavy and cold. The silence roars in his head. His heart speeds up, trapped in the weed-woven cage in his chest. His face feels cracked and swollen, blood seeping between his teeth. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He’s-
“Dean?”
He blinks. Turns around. She’s standing in the doorway, at a safe distance. She’s carrying a bucket and a mop but sets them aside when she sees the look in his eyes. Takes a step forward, palms up, eyes steady.
“It’s just me,” she says. Her voice is calm and quiet and he lets out the breath that’s been stuck somewhere low in his throat.
“What happened?” he asks hoarsely. “Did I ...?”
She shakes her head, smiles a little sadly. “No. I was angry, that’s all.”
Dean looks over at the wall and to the floor, sees red chunks and shards of glass, the remains of a massacred jar of preserved jelly. “Oh.”
He didn’t know she could get that angry. It’s one of the things that tend to piss him off, how infuriatingly calm she is, even when they’re fighting. Even when he’s hurling insults at her, ugly lies and twisted truths, she just stands there and catches every one, as easy as anything, serving back words of reason for every accusation he throws her way. It makes his fingers curl into fists, his breath stutter in his throat. Makes him scared for what he might do if he runs out of insults before she runs out of patience. That’s why he leaves, why he walks straight out and gets in his car and drives around until he stops feeling like the killer he is.
“Strawberry?” he asks after a long while of silence. He doesn’t know why, except he likes strawberry and there was only one jar left.
“Cherry,” she says and he finds himself grinning despite everything. “What?” She frowns but there’s that twinkle in her eye that he loves so much it hurts.
“You got so damn mad you searched until you found the one jar we never use, just so you could smash it into the wall?”
She shrugs. “Well, you know, no use wasting good food.”
He chuckles and she smiles back at him.
“Here, give me that,” he says and she hands him the bucket, hands him the mop, then goes to make coffee while he cleans up the mess. It leaves a pink starburst stain on the wall. Guess he’ll be painting next weekend.
She pours coffee into the Star Wars mug Ben gave him last June, for some reason Dean still doesn’t get, and they sit at the kitchen table on opposite sides, sipping their coffee, studying each other. Reassessing the situation. Her feet find his under the table, toes rubbing at his ankles.
“How about next time you go for a run?” she says. “I don’t like knowing you’re out there driving, not when you’re angry.”
He thinks about the ugly Honda that almost clipped his side. Gun or no gun, he knows if the asshole had left as much as a scratch on his baby, he’d have hunted that fucker down and smashed his crappy Japanese tin can to pieces. He thinks about the red light he ran because he wasn’t paying attention, the truck that barely missed him as a result. Thinks about his pride and joy, twisted and broken with glass all over the worn leather seats and blood dripping on the floor. Again.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, grimacing a little. “I could use the exercise.”
“Well, I didn’t want to mention it,” she says lightly and he laughs and kicks her under the table.
And for just one moment, he feels almost happy.
fin
Title: Suburbia
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Dean/Lisa, although nothing actually happens
Rating: G
Word count: 1627 words
Summary: Sam is in the cage. Dean is in the suburbs. Things are not okay.
Author's note: Something I initially wrote for Uni, with a vet suffering from PTSD as the main character, although really, it was always Dean. Set between the end of S5 and start of S6. Unbeta'd. Sorry, candygramme, I just needed something to do.
Anger issues. That’s what they keep telling him. Lisa. His doctor. His boss after that one time Dean punched his fist through a wall. Anger issues. Like that’s all it is, anger boiling in his belly towards everything and everyone.
They’re not wrong. He does feel angry, so damn angry, a lot of the time, but it’s more than that. There’s this feeling he doesn’t quite know how to describe. Like ants crawling under his skin or vines growing inside his chest, twisting around his heart and lungs until he can’t breathe. The way they’re doing right now.
He rubs his fingers together, rubs his chest with his fist. Nothing helps. His jaw starts twitching, his teeth grind. He holds his breath, trying to choke whatever it is that’s crawling inside him, feeding on the air in his lungs, the blood in his veins. All it does is make him feel lightheaded. He stares down at the table in front of him, seeing patterns in the scars and bruises of wayward cutlery and spilled grease. Omens.
“Your coffee, sir,” says a bored voice, as a cup is placed inches from his twitching fingers. Dean looks up to see grey eyes, black hair, and an indifferent copy of a smile. He tries for a smile of his own but the effort is wasted on thin air, she has already turned her back. His fingers curl into a fist but he breathes slowly until they straighten out and he can wipe his palms on his thighs, sweat staining the denim dark.
He rips open a bag of sugar and stirs it in. The coffee is bitter and only lukewarm. He has to close his eyes and count to twenty, to keep from jumping up and marching to the counter, spitting out curses along with the taste in his mouth. How hard can it be to serve coffee at a decent temperature, for fuck’s sake?
Instead he adds more sugar and sips the coffee slowly. He’s had worse, so much worse, and all things considered, what does it matter?
Once the last drop has been drained, Dean throws some money on the table and leaves. It’s raining - of course it is - and so it doesn’t take long before the drops start leaking under his shirt, tickling their cold way down his spine. He throws up the collar of his jacket, head pulled down between hunched shoulders as he makes his way across the street and to his car. Curses as he slides into the seat, wet as a dog. He hates getting the upholstery wet, the leather is too old and worn and already threatening to crack in places. Dean shuts down that thought before it does any real damage and turns the switch. Then mutters under his breath as the engine hiccups and coughs before stubbornly rumbling awake.
“Good girl,” he coos and his spirit lifts just a little. Over forty years old and still she has less trouble getting up in the morning than he does.
Just as he is swerving away from the curb some asshole speeds by, his ugly Honda missing the Impala’s side mirror by inches. Dean hits the brakes, hard, knuckles white on the steering wheel. His heart pounds into his ribcage. Jesus! He feels dizzy for a moment and then the anger flares up again, so suddenly it feels like his chest might explode from rage. He rolls down the window and screams, “You goddamn fucking son of a bitch, watch where you’re going!” after the fucking bastard who’s already way past and gone. “Fuck you! Fuck you, you damn fucking asshole!” He hits the wheel with his fists, again and again and again. Fuck, fuck, fuck! If he only had his gun in the glove department he’d go after that fucker and-
Stop.
He swallows. Breathes slowly. Waits for his head to stop spinning. Then puts the car back in gear and carefully eases into traffic.
The ride home is way too short. The whole reason he went out this morning was to give them both a chance to calm down, but if anything he’s tenser now than when he left. Without wanting to, Dean starts rerunning their conversation (Argument. Row. Fucking fight.) in his head, remembering the cool reasoning in Lisa’s voice, the sharp words that stung harder than he’ll ever admit, because he knows they are true. Yes, he drinks too much. Yes, he has trouble with his temper. Yes, he’s paranoid, and unfair, and a fucking jerk to both her and Ben a lot of the time, but he’s trying. He’s trying the best he can and if she would just back off, would just give him some space, and allow him to work his way through this … this life. This fucking useless life he shouldn’t be living. Not him. Not without Sammy. How the fuck could Sam ever expect that of him? How can anyone?
Her car is still in the driveway. Dean parks behind it then just sits there, staring out at the rain still pouring down. He wonders if Lisa is still angry. If she is, he’ll walk right back out again because he’s too damn edgy, and too damn terrified he’ll say something he’ll regret. Do something he’ll regret. He waits to see if there’s any movement, an anxious face staring out from behind the curtains, a shadow cast on the wall. There’s nothing. He kills the engine and steps out into the rain.
It’s quiet inside. Everything seems to be like he left it but still, there’s something different. Something beyond the silence of the house. There’s a smell, a sweet scent that for some reason reminds him of his mother, before. He frowns, wary, and then he enters the kitchen and sees the mess, exploded all over the kitchen wall. Screaming red, spread in a halo on the wall, right where Lisa stood, just hours ago.
For a moment he forgets where he is and when. The floor turns to withered grass under his feet, the air heavy and cold. The silence roars in his head. His heart speeds up, trapped in the weed-woven cage in his chest. His face feels cracked and swollen, blood seeping between his teeth. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He’s-
“Dean?”
He blinks. Turns around. She’s standing in the doorway, at a safe distance. She’s carrying a bucket and a mop but sets them aside when she sees the look in his eyes. Takes a step forward, palms up, eyes steady.
“It’s just me,” she says. Her voice is calm and quiet and he lets out the breath that’s been stuck somewhere low in his throat.
“What happened?” he asks hoarsely. “Did I ...?”
She shakes her head, smiles a little sadly. “No. I was angry, that’s all.”
Dean looks over at the wall and to the floor, sees red chunks and shards of glass, the remains of a massacred jar of preserved jelly. “Oh.”
He didn’t know she could get that angry. It’s one of the things that tend to piss him off, how infuriatingly calm she is, even when they’re fighting. Even when he’s hurling insults at her, ugly lies and twisted truths, she just stands there and catches every one, as easy as anything, serving back words of reason for every accusation he throws her way. It makes his fingers curl into fists, his breath stutter in his throat. Makes him scared for what he might do if he runs out of insults before she runs out of patience. That’s why he leaves, why he walks straight out and gets in his car and drives around until he stops feeling like the killer he is.
“Strawberry?” he asks after a long while of silence. He doesn’t know why, except he likes strawberry and there was only one jar left.
“Cherry,” she says and he finds himself grinning despite everything. “What?” She frowns but there’s that twinkle in her eye that he loves so much it hurts.
“You got so damn mad you searched until you found the one jar we never use, just so you could smash it into the wall?”
She shrugs. “Well, you know, no use wasting good food.”
He chuckles and she smiles back at him.
“Here, give me that,” he says and she hands him the bucket, hands him the mop, then goes to make coffee while he cleans up the mess. It leaves a pink starburst stain on the wall. Guess he’ll be painting next weekend.
She pours coffee into the Star Wars mug Ben gave him last June, for some reason Dean still doesn’t get, and they sit at the kitchen table on opposite sides, sipping their coffee, studying each other. Reassessing the situation. Her feet find his under the table, toes rubbing at his ankles.
“How about next time you go for a run?” she says. “I don’t like knowing you’re out there driving, not when you’re angry.”
He thinks about the ugly Honda that almost clipped his side. Gun or no gun, he knows if the asshole had left as much as a scratch on his baby, he’d have hunted that fucker down and smashed his crappy Japanese tin can to pieces. He thinks about the red light he ran because he wasn’t paying attention, the truck that barely missed him as a result. Thinks about his pride and joy, twisted and broken with glass all over the worn leather seats and blood dripping on the floor. Again.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, grimacing a little. “I could use the exercise.”
“Well, I didn’t want to mention it,” she says lightly and he laughs and kicks her under the table.
And for just one moment, he feels almost happy.
fin