Author's Note: This occurred to me while I was watching the finale again and oddly enough watching Katy Perry's video to "Teenage Dream"…yeah, I don't understand it either. But I don't think Dean would blend into the apple pie life without a few hurdles to clear. Let me know what you think!
Promises didn't mean much to the dead.
At least, that was what Dean kept trying to tell himself. Maybe if he hadn't spent so much time being dead, he might have been able to convince himself.
But he'd been to Heaven and Hell, and sometimes, the only thing he could think about was at least Sam was keeping his promises to him, even though he was gone.
So as much as Dean wanted to break his word, he didn't. A promise is a promise, even to the dead.
Dean didn't fit in to the cookie cutter life. He felt like a shadow of a person, only partially aware of what he was supposed to be doing. He couldn't relate to the other parents. He couldn't remember what it was like to be a normal person. He was thirty-one years old, and he hadn't had a real life since he was four. No one could fault him for not having a clue, but that didn't make it any less painful to realize just how hollow he really was.
He found himself struggling to do even the most simple things with Ben that he used to do without thinking for Sam when he was that age.
Maybe that was part of the problem. He would catch himself looking at Ben, or playing catch in the backyard, helping with his homework and would be hit with memory of Sam so hard he could hardly breathe.
Then he was forced to face the facts again.
Sam was gone.
Sam was gone, and he was never, ever coming back. He was locked in a whole so deep and dark even the Devil couldn't climb out.
It was bad enough that memories of his old life would come out during the day. But at night, it was so much worse. You couldn't lead the life he had and not coming away without a few nightmares. In truth he'd always had them. They got worse when he escaped Hell. Bu then, he'd had Sam. He didn't have to talk to his brother for him to realize the horror story his life was, because Sam lived it right along with him. Just knowing someone else shared it made it a little more bearable.
But not anymore.
He dreamed about Heaven and Hell, and Lucifer beating him to death in the feeling of bones breaking and cracking under the fist of a monster wearing his little brother's face. He dreamed of his father and mother, the fire, the car wreck, watching both his brothers sucked into a black pit deep in Hell, and everything in between.
Now he woke up screaming.
Usually it only took a few moments for him to realize where he was.
Other times, when he dreamed of Hell, it would take Lisa minutes to get through the nightmare to remind him he wasn't there anymore.
She never asked what could make a man like Dean scream like that, and he was grateful she left the lights off as she tried to soothe him back to sleep, stroking his head like he was a five year old. He felt like one too.
Sleepless nights began to take their toll on him. His once muscular frame was bordering on gaunt, and his eyes took on a sunken, haunted look that made the neighbors steer clear of him and whisper about what type of monster had wandered into their midst.
Lisa told them he was a veteran, suffering from PTSD. She wasn't wrong. Dean was the only survivor of his own private apocalypse. His world had ended, and now he was trying to move on like it never happened.
Had it not been for Ben, Dean probably would've given up. He wouldn't kill himself, but that didn't mean he wouldn't just let himself die. But Ben made life, or something like it, bearable again.
For being a little kid, Ben was surprisingly understanding.
After a while, Dean took to sitting out on the front porch for hours, staring off into the distance, and hardly responded when Lisa would try and talk to him. It was like he wasn't really in control of his body any more. He wanted to answer, he wanted to live the life he always wanted but couldn't have until now. But it was like now that he was living the dream, he couldn't make himself believe it was real.
Neighbors warned Lisa about him, about he wasn't safe to have around either her or Ben. A man who acted like him could hardly be considered a man at all, but was something else, something dangerous and unpredictable.
Lisa might have believed them, if he didn't wake up from his nightmares trying to escape from her, like she was the one hurting him. He shrank from her touch like a badly beaten child who couldn't trust the simplest gesture of kindness.
It made her want to cry along with him when he cried out for his brother in his sleep. She knew she was all he had, even though he never actually said what happened to Sam. No one called out for someone like that unless they knew in the waking world they weren't still there.
One day while Dean was sitting on the front porch, an unopened beer getting warm in the sunlight next to him, it hit her that Dean had given up. He was barely eating, and what little he did she heard him throw it up later. The harsh shadows under his eyes and the prominence of bones was suddenly so painfully obvious. She gripped the counter and covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle a sob. Her arms shook and her heart stuttered, realizing she was watching a man she loved slowly die in front of her, and there was nothing she was able to do about it.
Without her realizing it, Ben walked up behind her and carefully hugged her around her waist. "It'll be okay, mom. Don't worry."
She didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise, and she felt his arms slip away.
The porch door quietly squeaked open and shut as Ben went out to the porch and carefully sat on the seat next to Dean, without saying anything and putting his hand on Dean's.
Dean blinked, and turned his head towards Ben, who smiled at him.
Keeping eye contact with him, Ben spoke very quietly and very sincerely. "I'm not afraid of you, Dean. Neither is mom. I just wanted to let you know that. And it's okay to be sad that you don't have your brother anymore. But I want to keep you. Don't go away."
With that, Ben flung his arms around Dean's neck, holding on for dear life.
"Please don't go Dean," he whispered.
Dean didn't move for what seemed like the longest time, and Lisa was afraid that even Ben hadn't managed to get through to him.
Then slowly his arms came up, like he was moving through long forgotten motions as he carefully hugged Ben back. His hands froze for a moment on Ben's back before they tightened around him in an almost desperate hug, as if he feared if he let go, it wouldn't be real.
She could see his shoulders start to shake and with a start she realized he was crying. It was the first time she'd seen him openly grieve for all that he lost. His brothers, his family, his way of life. Everything.
Ben didn't seem to mind, and she could see there was a glassy sheen in his eyes, trying not cry and be strong for Dean because he thought he needed it.
Lisa felt like a weight had lifted off her, and her heart could beat again. Somehow, she knew things were going to be okay. Not immediately, but eventually.
And for Dean, she was willing to wait. As long as he came back to her, she would wait forever.
Dean promised Ben he wouldn't leave.
A promise was a promise, even to the dead. But so it was for the living too.