Fic: Rage, Rage, and All That Crap [SPN futurefic, R] 3/3

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Title: Rage, Rage, and All That Crap
Author: nwhepcat
Spoilers: Set shortly after 7.02, skipping ahead through months at a time.
Rating: R, for copious F-bombs
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Lisa, Sam
Summary: As Dean begins to lose something he can't get back, he longs to regain another irreplaceable part of himself.
Part 1 is here: http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/505254.html
Chapter 2 is here: http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/508218.html



He saw Ben before he ever crossed paths with Lisa.

Dean was waiting in the checkout line at Trader Joe's, in a foul mood because he'd forgotten his reading glasses and the ingredients lists were a bitch to read, and now his head was hurting. He was just about to the point where the next cashier who clanged a big brass bell was going to have his spleen torn out.

Normally Dean liked the reliably friendly cashiers at TJs, who made him feel like he was more established in the neighborhood than he really was. Today, though, he wished the kid at his register would knock off the chitchat with the woman ahead of him. When the two of them finally made their teary goodbyes, Dean pushed his into its little dock and the kid greeted him with a smile and a "Hey, how's it going?"

Ben. Dean was certain of it even before he checked the kid's nametag.

God. He was sure of it, even though the kid was almost as tall as Sam and the last trace of baby fat was gone from his face and rangy body. His dark hair was slightly shaggy, curling a little at the collar of his Hawaiian shirt.

Realizing he'd left an awkward pause, Dean stammered, "Good, good. I'm thinking I needed a little more coffee this morning." Because what else was he going to say -- Remember the guy who caused that car accident you only remember very fuzzily?

The kid -- Ben -- laughed. "I feel your pain. I've been studying for finals. The library last night was like Night of the Living Dead."

Weird to hear him talking about supernatural shit like any other clueless civilian. Weirder still to realize he was actually college age.

Dean chuckled like he had the slightest idea what studying for finals was like. "What are you majoring in?"

"Criminal justice."

He felt a little thrill of pride at this. "Going into law enforcement?" At Ben's nod, he said, "I was on the job myself." He'd told this lie any number of times back when he was a hunter, but now that he was saying it in the past tense, it seemed like he should follow it up with something. An explanation of why he'd gotten out, maybe, but that was nothing he wanted to go into, even fictionally. Instead, he added, somewhat lamely, "Back in Indiana."

"Hey, no kidding. I lived there until I was about twelve. Just a ways north of Carmel."

He'd been right. It was Ben. Dean realized he was white-knuckling the edge of the counter, but he couldn't make himself let go.

Ben, unaware, kept ringing up Dean's purchases. Dean handed over his cash when Ben gave him the total, picked up his bags and walked out of the store.

The encounter had gone exactly the way he'd envisioned it, though he'd always thought it was Lisa he'd run into. Brief, casual, a pleasant but meaningless exchange, at least to one party.

But Dean hadn't realized how fucking hard on him it would be.

***

It made Dean feel like a chickenshit, but he laid low for a while after that, spending less time out in the neighborhood. He had plenty to keep him occupied anyway. Once he'd gotten his apartment into a habitable state, which he'd mostly accomplished by the time he'd run into Ben, he started on setting up his shop downstairs.

Signing a lease had felt probably as nerve-wracking for him as a 30-year mortgage was for people with normal lives. Bobby worked overtime producing enough paperwork for Dean and Sam that he could open his own witness protection program.

Dean kept himself busy enough that he didn't miss Sam -- at least that's what he told himself. There were DIY projects out the ass in the shop and apartment, online gunsmithing classes and smutty Western paperbacks in a series called The Gunsmith, which he'd discovered by accident while on a search for supplies.

By the time Dean emerged from his self-imposed exile, he'd forgotten his wariness of neighborhood encounters. He spent a few days craphounding at thriftshops in the city, scrounging some of the furniture items he'd considered non-essential before, like a kitchen table and living room chairs that weren't beaten-up frames upholstered with thick foam and blankets.

Dean was on his last stop of the day, focused on finding something more for Sam's room. He'd been on a mission the last few days, determined that when Sam came it would not be a bare, impersonal space that could in any way remind him of Bobby's old panic room. Earlier in the week he'd scored a big wooden sleigh bed -- a ridiculous extravagance, really, but it was as far from the narrow metal cot as he could get -- and a book case. It was ludicrously small for Sam's enormous appetite for books, but it was the intent. Dean had arranged his growing collection of Gunsmith paperbacks on the top shelf as a joke.

Today he'd found a large rug in greens and blues with a pattern that made him think of ocean waves, pretty much as far as you could get from hellfire. Dean wanted something for the walls that had some of the same colors and the same -- well, feeling as the rug, as lame as that sounded. This place, just around the corner from Dean's, tended to have a big selection of art -- from mass produced sofa-sized nature crap to your standard evil clowns and paint-by-number masterpieces, but some of them were actually good.

Dean crouched by a leaning stack of pictures, flipping through them like he sometimes did the old vinyl albums at the back of the store, even though he had nothing to play them on. Toward the back of the second stack, he came on a canvas that made him pause. It wasn't a picture of anything, just streaks and patches of color, but he liked it. Blues and greens again, with little shimmers of gold and orange. It was like a view from underwater.

"I like it," said a congested female voice behind him. Great. He'd been hearing sneezes and snuffles from various areas of the store, and now she'd come to breathe on him.

Dean shifted to look at her, but the light in the ceiling was directly behind her, hurting his eyes and letting him see only a dark shape. It was a nice shape, that much he could tell. "Sorry, am I blocking your way?"

"No, I was just peeking over your shoulder at the pictures. That one's really nice."

Rising to his feet, canvas in his hand in case she had any ideas, Dean suddenly found himself face-to-face with Lisa. Scarf-wrapped, nose red and chapped, but still Lisa and still gorgeous.

Dean couldn't imagine what his own face was doing. It felt like he was giving his best imitation of a goldfish staring out of a fishbowl, mouth working soundlessly.

At least Lisa had her own look of startled confusion. "Do I know you --"

When Dean's mouth finally joined the party, it didn't stop to invite the brain along. "Lisa."

"-- from somewhere?" she said simultaneously. "I guess I do."

"Car accident," he stammered.

"Oh, sure, sure. You came by to see how Ben and I were. I didn't think to ask if you were okay." She swiped a ragged-looking Kleenex under her nose.

Waving a dismissive hand, Dean said, "It was a long time ago. Nothing that didn't heal up and hair over in two days' time." Right. Just a crushed heart and compound guilt complex.

"This is about the last place I thought I'd run into you."

"Oh. Well. I was just looking for something for my brother's room." That sounded lame. Like they still lived with their mom and dad. "The guest room, I mean. He'll just be the first to use it."

"Oh, I just meant in Portland. So you just moved here?"

"A while back. But I've been focusing on other things. Sam's visiting in a week, though, so I'm back to getting the place set up. My brother's been up to his eyeballs in stress with grad school, so I wanted to get something peaceful to hang on the walls."

"Let's see that again."

Dean raised the canvas at exactly the moment Lisa uncorked a huge sneeze, spraying a few droplets of spit on it.

"Oh god! I'm so so sorry!" Pulling her sweater sleeve over her hand, she wiped at the surface of the painting as Dean held it steady.

"Jeez, lady," he said, "I know you were eyeing this, but I'm not giving it up that easily."

"No, seriously!" Her protest ran out of steam when she saw that he was stifling laughter. "That is the single most mortifying thing I've ever done. Jesus." She wiped carefully at another droplet.

Dean lost all control at this point, laughing until he staggered back and bumped against a shelf unit and knocked a knickknack onto the hardwood floor.

"Crap!" Lisa yelped, but the word was swallowed by her own snorts and giggles, which triggered what Sam liked to call the Mirth Feedback Loop. (Mirth. Who the fuck but Sammy even uses that word?)

They were still feeding off each other, Lisa barking coughs as much as laughing, as the shopkeeper approached.

She was about Lisa's age, a little on the hippie side with a breastplate of piled-on necklaces, including the obligatory turquoise squash blossom. "Am I going to have to throw you two out?"

"I'm sorry," Dean promptly offered, as straight-faced as he could. "It's my fault. I'll pay for these and go."

Lisa put a hand on his arm, and the light touch drives all the laughter from him. "No, she's joking." She was still fighting her hilarity, squeezing her voice like a pothead talking past a lungful of smoke. "This is Allison. She's my college BFF." She hacked two small coughs. "Oh, god, I'm sorry. I don't remember your name."

"It's Dean."

"Well, let's see the damage," Allison said, thogh her light tone indicated no real concern. "Ooh, it's the soul-eating bunny! You win a prize for killing the ugliest thing in the store."

"Tell him what he's won, Allison," Lisa said in game-show host tones.

Allison the game show riff going. "Dean, you've won a fabulous hand-painted canvas, artist unknown. Retail value, five dollars."

"Hey, no, that's--" Dean protested.

"But wait," Lisa said, still in game show mode. "This is a DNA-enhanced artwork, infused via a special organic process generating speeds of 100 mph, making this particular work priceless."

Reaching for his wallet, Dean said, "This is nuts. I'll pay for this and the evil bunny."

Allison put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Seriously. This is on me. I haven't heard Lisa laugh like this in forever. It's worth $8 -- you can't even see a crappy movie for that anymore."

Lisa flushed to her hairline. "Allison, Jeez."

Dean could feel his own face reddening, but it was the sudden blossoming of hope in his heart that made him cover by saying, "I'm not leaving without buying something. I know exactly what, too." He went back to the first stack of artworks he'd looked through and found the hideous and disturbing clown painting he'd paused over earlier. "I'm gonna hang this on the inside of my brother's closet so I can hear him scream like a girl."

"Is this the same brother you wanted the nice serene picture for?" Lisa asked.

Quirking a grin, he said, "He's studying to be a shrink. He'll get over it."

Dean helped Allison sweep up the bunny remains while Lisa honked copiously into an unknown number of tissues. Once both those things were done and hand sanitizer was passed around, they stood around and talked for a long while in different configurations: Lisa and Dean; Lisa, Dean and Allison; the three of them with a random customer or two. For the first time he felt he was becoming part of the neighborhood. People on the block, he discovered, had noticed the new business setting up down the street and were curious. Nobody seemed eager to run him out of Portland on a rail because he was a gunsmith -- it probably didn't hurt that he emphasized the reconditioning of antique weapons, rental of authentic non-firing guns for costume dramas and sales of hand-made ammo to reenactors and creative anachronism freaks (all Sam's ideas).

The chat hadn't even started to wind down when Dean decided he'd better get himself home, so he paid for the clown painting and took it and the other one, heading for the door. "Shit," he muttered.

"Did the rain start up again?" Lisa asked.

"No, it's dark." Here was the point where he sounded completely pathetic -- No, I'm not allowed out after dark. -- but hell, Lisa had sneezed on his painting and survived the embarrassment. He could at least take this with as much grace as she had. Dean went for the truth. "I've got a thing. My night vision is shot to shit, so I don't drive at night anymore." That sounded amazingly matter-of-fact. "I usually walk after dark, but I've got a carload of stuff I bought today."

"No problem," Lisa said without hesitation. "I can drive you there. You live close to your shop?"

"Right above."

"Cool. I'll just grab my coat and bag." She ducked behind the counter where Allison was taking a phone call. As Lisa indicated what was up with a series of gestures, Allison flicked a look toward him, then grinned at Lisa and made the "call me" sign with thumb and pinkie.

Hot damn, Dean had met Lisa and gotten the BFF seal of approval on the same day. He waited for lightning to strike him dead, just to keep the universe in balance.

"That's your car?" she asked when they stood on the sidewalk.

"You don't approve?" Almost as bad as a lightning strike.

"It's not that, it's just ... BIG. I'm afraid I'll leave paint stripes on cars on both sides of the street."

"She's easier to drive than you think." And Lisa was a good driver, but he couldn't admit to the knowledge. Unlocking the car, he stowed his paintings on the back seat, then handed over the keys.

"She?" Lisa asked. "Should I get an introduction first?" At Dean's puzzled look, she added, "What's her name?"

Giving her a grin, he said, "The Impala."

"Hey," she said abruptly, and Dean's heart stuttered in sudden anxiety.

"What?"

"I just remembered. I never got any bills from that accident, or any paperwork from your insurance or anything. It was like it never happened."

Dean felt himself redden to the roots of his hair. "Well, it was my fault."

"Even so, I'd have thought your insurance company would have made me sign something at least."

"Oh. Well, I was working for a pretty high-powered organization at the time. They took care of the whole thing."

"Wow."

Dean wished he could read her expression better, but the light and shadows falling across her face made her a mystery.

"Well. Thanks. It sure lowered the stress levels to have life go on without a second thought."

Grief welled up in him at that, so sudden and overpowering it was almost a physical pain. "Well, it was the least we could do."

"What made you leave that job?" Lisa asked once they'd settled into the front seat. "If I'm not being too nosy."

He'd thought he didn't have room for more grief, but sorrow for Castiel crashed over him like a second wave on the beach. "The guy I worked with started thinking he was God," he said.

"Oh, I know how that feels," she said, and Dean thought, no, you really don't.

"Starting up a business has its challenges. I've worked for myself in the past, though not right now. But Allison and I would be happy to help you navigate the waters around here, and we know some good people to talk to. Just say the word."

"Thanks." Because he realized he should, he asked, "What is it you do?"

"I teach yoga at a holistic wellness center." She pulled up in front of Dean's home and cut the engine. "And there you are. Can I help you carry your stuff inside? That carpet's going to be a pain to carry solo."

It meant a few minutes more to spend with Lisa, so he readily accepted, despite the fact that anyone who could tote Sam Winchester in a fireman's carry wouldn't have a problem with a rolled-up carpet.

Once they got the carpet stashed in Sam's room, Lisa said, "I'd better get back. Allison and I have dinner plans after she closes the shop."

"Thanks a lot for the ride," Dean said, suddenly feeling -- well, he guessed this was what shy felt like.

"Glad to do it," she said, and fumbled in her purse. Producing a business card and a pen, she scrawled a number on the back and held the card out to him. "Here. It's my cell number. If you need to be somewhere at night, I'd be glad to drive."

"That's really good of you," Dean said. "And yeah, I think I might need that soon. This is kind of awkward, but I'm planning to ask a woman out."

"Oh." Her face was carefully impassive as she said, "Well, when would that be?"

"When are you free?" he asked.

"Shouldn't you ask her first?" He watched the realization dawn on her. "Oh. You are asking, aren't you?" She gave him a mock scowl. "No fair. Having this much snot in my head makes me stupid."

Dean laughed maybe harder than was warranted, but he'd heard her say the exact same thing in that year that she no longer remembered. And call him weird, but it seemed like a good sign when a woman was comfortable enough to say snot on first meeting.

They didn't kiss when she left, but they had a date for the next night. The kiss could wait.

Comments

[gluisa88.livejournal.com]

I love it- I hope you write more in this verse!

[primrose-1.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Dean and Lisa makes me happy! Except that I think the date shouldn't be the next night- that poor girl needs to get better! :) I'm loving the story- here's to many more chapters!

[jennytork.livejournal.com]

Keep going with this 'verse -- this is amazingly good!

[rince1wind.livejournal.com]

Very nice!

[snowphilosophy.livejournal.com]

I love this. I really like Dean and Lisa together and I would love to see what happens next. And I want to know how Sam likes his room (and the clown).

[i-speak-tongue.livejournal.com]

Adorable sneezing Lisa! Awesome gunsmith shop! Contagious Laughter! This was great. This HAS to be continued, you realize?

[twigletmoo.livejournal.com]

Really enjoying this fic! And I don't really normally read Dean/Lisa, but I guess the eyesight issues that Dean is (and will be) having is what drew me in!

Great stuff! :)

[(Anonymous)]

Nooo! That CAN'T be the end! You've got hurt Dean AND Lisa -- two of my favorite things ever! Seriously, if you would continue to add little one-shots and stuff to this series (Yes, I've decided it's going to be a series), I would love you forever. Please please pleeeeease.

In other news, I liked it. A lot.

[beth-summer.livejournal.com]

Loved this! I'm a huge fan of Dean/Lisa and hated the way they left it on the show so I loved seeing them meet up again in this story. And, well, I also like blind Dean, so really this story has a few of my favourite things. :) Hope to see more of this 'verse in the future!

[fifimom.livejournal.com]

This is a really nice read. Thanks for sharing.

[corbyinoz.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is *beating up* my heart. It's - lovely, but I'm just waiting for it to all go pear-shaped. Is there *any* chance Dean isn't going to end up destroyed again? Any? ~whimpers~

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

oh PLEASE keep writing this. the world needs more Dean/Lisa fixit LOVE!!!!


:D

[sagaluthien.livejournal.com]

Liked it and I would love to see more in this verse.

[turquoisetumult.livejournal.com]

Ok, so this is a very late comment, but I wanted to say that this piece was very interesting! I liked how Dean decides to settle down and how Sam suggests psychotherapy (and then actually pursuing a degree). I love the Lisa and Ben stuff too. I enjoyed how Dean bumped into them at random places and how you gave the impression that they would all start anew! Nicely written, overall. Great work.