Wonderful Now
Lisa sends a prayer to the skies every night she wakes up to the sound of Dean screaming for his brother from his side of the bed.
Shitty angst! As stated before, I can't write angst to save my life, so look out.
(I disclaim all rights to Supernatural)
The first thing Dean says to Lisa when they sit down at the kitchen table for that beer is, "I want you to know something before I ask if we can be together." His voice is casual but hollow, and there's a sincerity in his eyes behind something else that Lisa can't quite recognize. His tone worries her, and she tightens her fingers around her bottle, waiting.
"The reason I came back here..." Dean looks down at his beer, swishing it around without taking a sip, and when he looks up Lisa realizes what she sees in his eyes is agony - pure agony. "I care about you, Lisa, don't get me wrong. I used to dream about coming back here and staying with you and Ben, 'cause that's the kind of life I wanted."
Lisa smiles uncertainly, her heart swelling because she'd never have expected to hear that from Dean Winchester, and then her heart throbs because something is wrong. "And now?"
"Now I'm here because I promised Sammy I'd come back," Dean says. "I promised him I would, so I did. And that's not fair to you. I promised him, but I'm telling you the truth so you can decide. Do you want me in your life because of a promise I made to someone else?"
Lisa looks at him for a long while.
Dean moves in that night.
Three weeks in, Dean begins to have nightmares.
They start off mild. Twitchy, incoherent mumbles of protest. Then they get louder, and Dean starts to toss and turn, which is what wakes Lisa up. She props herself up on her elbows, watching him anxiously. She wonders if she should wake him, but Dean still seems exhausted everyday, as if whatever ordeal he'd just returned from still tires him out.
Dean turns again. "Unnngh...no, no. Sammy, no." He turns over again, and Lisa sits up, her hand hovering over him hesitantly. When he arches against the mattress suddenly, screaming, "SAM!" that's when Lisa shakes him awake. He rockets up in bed, eyes flying open wide and his chest heaving.
"Dean," Lisa says gently, "it's okay."
His eyes are wild when he looks at her, and suddenly he winds his arms around her and crushes her close to his chest, burying his face in her hair. "Yeah, it's okay," he murmurs into her hair, and his voice might sound clogged but it could just be that he's sleepy, "It's okay. God, Lisa."
Lisa opens her mouth to ask him what's going on but their bedroom door opens and the hallway light spills in. Ben stands in the doorway. Dean loosens his desperate hold on Lisa but does not let go completely.
"Ben," Lisa says, smiling tiredly at him, "what are you doing up?"
"Are you two having sex?" Ben asks bluntly, suspiciously. "I heard Dean screaming."
Lisa isn't sure whether she should be embarrassed or amused at Ben's question as she says, "Uh, no, honey..."
Dean laughs suddenly, and Lisa stares at him in surprise because Dean is laughing. Dean says, "No, not having sex, I just had a bad dream is all." He swings his legs over the side of the bed, sighing, "Ben, c'mere," and he strides over to the door to hug Ben tightly.
For a while, Sam's whereabouts were vague, open to interpretation, since he was just gone and Dean didn't talk about him.
But Lisa's not an idiot. It doesn't take her long to decide that Sam is dead. She officially comes to that conclusion in the middle of washing the dishes with Dean, and she reaches over to squeeze his hand tightly. He looks confused, but he smiles slightly and squeezes back.
Lisa never had religious beliefs, really. She thinks the term would be "agnostic" if she were to describe her views. But since Dean explained changelings after that incident, she supposes Heaven isn't all that far-fetched in comparison, and so she doesn't feel too silly when she looks up at the clouds and asks them for help.
Lisa sends a prayer to the skies every night she wakes up to the sound of Dean screaming for his brother from his side of the bed. She asks aloud (it doesn't feel right if she just says it in her head) while her voice is drowned out by Dean's, and when she's done, she wakes him up.
Every time she does, he hugs her. Given that Dean has pretty much lost everyone, Lisa doesn't think it's conceited for her to think that he's happy just to wake up to find that she's still there.
The nightmares are almost routine, but Dean will be Dean and shake things up sometimes.
Lisa prays as Dean's cries start to grow louder. "No. Sammy. Sammy, no. Sam...SAM!" Lisa reaches over to wake him up when suddenly Dean sags back into the bed, and he hears him say in a voice that's almost a sobbing whimper, "Cas."
She's making a grilled cheese sandwich in the kitchen for Ben when she hears the sound of shattering glass. It's a familiar sound - her grandmother's vase, the one that Ben had knocked over three years ago and cracked in half. Lisa had superglued it back together, but a second time might not work.
"Benjamin Braeden, that had better not be what it sounded like!" she says angrily, storming in the direction of the guestroom where she keeps the vase. She stops short at the end of the hallway, staring down it into the guestroom, where she sees Dean sitting on the edge of the bed. Before him stands a man Lisa has never seen before, setting the vase back where it belongs, and Lisa can see that it is unharmed - in fact, she can't see the crack from three years ago. But the man - he's wearing black pants and a tan trench coat (guys in trench coats are creeps, Lisa knows, why is one in her house with Dean?) and he is speaking with Dean.
Lisa hangs back, watching. Their voices are low so Lisa can't hear, but Dean seems to be speaking harshly to the stranger, whose expression is stoic for the most part, but now and then Lisa sees a flash of something like the painful sympathy she feels for Dean. She watches Dean put his face in his hands, hunching forward, and suddenly he stands up to get right in the stranger's face, threateningly closing his fists in the lapel of the trench coat. Lisa tenses nervously, but the stranger does not seem intimidated, and after he says something, Dean's hostile stance melts away, and Lisa can see on his face the utter anguish from that night she had taken him in. Lisa's heart sinks; she thought she done so well to fix Dean up a little, but clearly that is not not the case.
The stranger reaches up, then, to press his hand to the side of Dean's face, and Lisa sees his lips say, "Rest." Dean's eyes glaze over, and the man lowers him carefully onto the guest bed. He stares at him for a long while, until Lisa feels uncomfortable and says, "Excuse me, who are you?"
The stranger turns his head to look at her from down the hall, and he approaches her. He has eyes a raincloud that Lisa can nearly feel piercing her skin, and she can sense a strange power about him.
"My name is Castiel. I've heard your prayers, Lisa Braeden." As Lisa stares in shock, he adds, "I apologize for not answering them sooner. I am very busy."
And suddenly his hand comes up to her face, as it had for Dean, and Castiel says, "I will check in on Dean again soon. Thank you for taking care of him. Now rest. Be happy."
Lisa feels warmth seep into her core, a heavy, sleepy, peaceful warmth that she wants Dean to have, and she thinks angels are real and she thinks that one is Dean's.
She feels hands on her skin, the leather couch beneath her, and before she slips away, she looks up at Castiel and says, "Thank you."
LOL FAIL. Shut up. I know it sucks. It's angst, I wrote it at 11:30 on a Friday night. I just graduated and I got home from a party and I'm a little drunk, so sue me.
I hope spell check worked 'cause holy shit.