Notes: possibly more angsty than schmoopy? Also contains hugs/cuddling though not of the Sam/Dean variety
Lisa Braeden has known some damaged people in her life. Her father was a vet, Vietnam always buried somewhere in the back of his psyche. He tried to keep it locked inside, to self-medicate with alcohol and cigarettes and work, to keep whatever dark things lurking inside him away from his family. And he mostly succeeded; he was a good father and a reasonably good husband. He died of a heart attack when Lisa was fifteen.
Later, in her wild years, Lisa was drawn to a certain type of man. Wild boys, yes, but damaged souls also. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her what she was looking for, whose approval she was seeking: whose damage she was trying to repair. Dean Winchester had been exactly her type back then: handsome and cocky, all cool car and James Dean leather jacket, something vulnerable in the back of those too-pretty eyes.
After she found she was pregnant, she stopped looking for damaged people. She worked hard, started her own business, bought a nice house in suburbia with the profits and a bit of money her dad had left her. She worked hard to make sure that Ben had what he needed, that his life was sunny and open and simple. She tried not to spoil him: to make sure that he worked hard and did his chores and his homework and kept his room clean. But she tried to keep the shadows from his life as much as possible.
When Dean Winchester turned up on her doorstep for the third time, she knew she had to take him in, shadows or no. Dean was the most damaged person she had ever met: shadow had permeated his existence to the point where it was almost visible as an aura. Grief darkened the hollows beneath those still too-pretty eyes, and clung to every gesture, every step. He was like a puppet, those first days: like someone had cut the string and left him motiveless and broken.
She took him in anyway. Dean was a hero, she knew that much. He’d saved her and Ben and half the neighbourhood a couple of years back, from the bogeyman, or something like it. He’d saved the world, apparently, from something so much bigger and badder than she could even imagine, and lost the person who meant the most to him while doing it. Lisa believed in trying to make the world a better place: she recycled. She taught free yoga classes at a local women’s shelter. She and Ben helped the school raise funds for victims of tsunamis and earthquakes and whatever other disasters. She always had a place to stay for friends fleeing ugly divorces or lost jobs, the ordinary disasters that befell people in the course of life.
It seems only right to do the same for someone who has risked, and, lost, so much.
So she makes up the spare room, and lets him sleep. She holds him when he cries out from his nightmares, though it never goes further than that. She feeds him home-cooked meals. She does his laundry, sorting out the clothes she knows to be Sam’s and packing them, clean and folded, back into the duffel, leaving it in the garage for whenever Dean’s ready to deal with it. Dean, after a day or so of shell-shock, helps around the house, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, fixing a leaky faucet. He’s good with his hands. He plays Xbox with Ben, or shoots hoops in the backyard. He doesn’t talk much.
One night Lisa wakes to a sound from the garage. She finds Dean sitting on the floor, the duffel empty and Sam’s clothes spread around. Dean is rummaging through them frantically, clumsily.
“What’s wrong, Dean?” she asks gently.
“I can’t find it,” Dean says, and she can tell he’s been drinking. He hold his liquor pretty well, but there is something just a little uncoordinated in movements, and his voice slurs slightly. He looks very young, all of a sudden.
“Can’t find what?” she asks, kneeling down to help.
“Sam’s hoodie. S’big and brown, and I can’t find it.” He reminds her of Ben when he was little, trying very hard to be brave and not cry, even though something terrible has happened. Like losing this hoodie is really only to be expected, because that’s how the world works, but it’s maybe the last straw, the last awful thing in a lifetime of awful things.
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branchandroot
Tatters; Dean, Lisa; gen; prompt #3
Date: 2010-06-24 12:06 am (UTC)Lisa Braeden has known some damaged people in her life. Her father was a vet, Vietnam always buried somewhere in the back of his psyche. He tried to keep it locked inside, to self-medicate with alcohol and cigarettes and work, to keep whatever dark things lurking inside him away from his family. And he mostly succeeded; he was a good father and a reasonably good husband. He died of a heart attack when Lisa was fifteen.
Later, in her wild years, Lisa was drawn to a certain type of man. Wild boys, yes, but damaged souls also. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her what she was looking for, whose approval she was seeking: whose damage she was trying to repair. Dean Winchester had been exactly her type back then: handsome and cocky, all cool car and James Dean leather jacket, something vulnerable in the back of those too-pretty eyes.
After she found she was pregnant, she stopped looking for damaged people. She worked hard, started her own business, bought a nice house in suburbia with the profits and a bit of money her dad had left her. She worked hard to make sure that Ben had what he needed, that his life was sunny and open and simple. She tried not to spoil him: to make sure that he worked hard and did his chores and his homework and kept his room clean. But she tried to keep the shadows from his life as much as possible.
When Dean Winchester turned up on her doorstep for the third time, she knew she had to take him in, shadows or no. Dean was the most damaged person she had ever met: shadow had permeated his existence to the point where it was almost visible as an aura. Grief darkened the hollows beneath those still too-pretty eyes, and clung to every gesture, every step. He was like a puppet, those first days: like someone had cut the string and left him motiveless and broken.
She took him in anyway. Dean was a hero, she knew that much. He’d saved her and Ben and half the neighbourhood a couple of years back, from the bogeyman, or something like it. He’d saved the world, apparently, from something so much bigger and badder than she could even imagine, and lost the person who meant the most to him while doing it. Lisa believed in trying to make the world a better place: she recycled. She taught free yoga classes at a local women’s shelter. She and Ben helped the school raise funds for victims of tsunamis and earthquakes and whatever other disasters. She always had a place to stay for friends fleeing ugly divorces or lost jobs, the ordinary disasters that befell people in the course of life.
It seems only right to do the same for someone who has risked, and, lost, so much.
So she makes up the spare room, and lets him sleep. She holds him when he cries out from his nightmares, though it never goes further than that. She feeds him home-cooked meals. She does his laundry, sorting out the clothes she knows to be Sam’s and packing them, clean and folded, back into the duffel, leaving it in the garage for whenever Dean’s ready to deal with it. Dean, after a day or so of shell-shock, helps around the house, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, fixing a leaky faucet. He’s good with his hands. He plays Xbox with Ben, or shoots hoops in the backyard. He doesn’t talk much.
One night Lisa wakes to a sound from the garage. She finds Dean sitting on the floor, the duffel empty and Sam’s clothes spread around. Dean is rummaging through them frantically, clumsily.
“What’s wrong, Dean?” she asks gently.
“I can’t find it,” Dean says, and she can tell he’s been drinking. He hold his liquor pretty well, but there is something just a little uncoordinated in movements, and his voice slurs slightly. He looks very young, all of a sudden.
“Can’t find what?” she asks, kneeling down to help.
“Sam’s hoodie. S’big and brown, and I can’t find it.” He reminds her of Ben when he was little, trying very hard to be brave and not cry, even though something terrible has happened. Like losing this hoodie is really only to be expected, because that’s how the world works, but it’s maybe the last straw, the last awful thing in a lifetime of awful things.
He breaks her heart.