Dean's first "apple pie life" Thanksgiving.
Takes place after Swan Song.
Lisa makes the pie from her mother's recipe. On the night before Thanksgiving she peels apples for what seems like hours, her delicate fingers deftly working the knife, while Ben snatches up the longest peelings and eats them like spaghetti. She slices them and mixes them with cinnamon sugar and lemon juice. There's a careful process to making the crust involving buttermilk, sour cream and pastry flour; she cuts the butter into the flour with a special kind of wire whisk and gently kneads it together, rolling it out and placing it in a ceramic baking dish.
The dish has a ruffled edge and a heavy, wholesome feeling that speaks of quality. The dish, like the tradition, has been handed down through the generations. After she fills the crust with apples, and places on the top, she cuts careful, flower-shaped slits in it to allow the steam to come through. She brushes it with egg yolks and bakes it for a half hour.
It fills the big, comfortable kitchen with warmth and a smell that isn't just good, it's everything Dean barely remembers.
He sits at the table while Lisa works, drinking a beer and joking with Ben. Dean laughs too much lately-a strained, false kind of laughter, every fake smile twisting at that broken place deep inside him. He puts on a pretty good show, Ben can't tell, Lisa suspects, but no one really knows how much he's suffering.
Only one person could have seen all the way through Dean's mockery of happiness...but he's gone now.
Lisa shoos Dean and Ben out to the living room to watch football while the pie bakes, and, after it has cooled sufficiently, she brings them both a huge, steaming slice.
They sit curled under blankets and eat their pie. Lisa is flush against Dean's side while a fire crackles in the fireplace.
Warm and flaky, with crisp apples and golden crust that melts into butter on your tongue, it's the best apple pie Dean has ever tasted.
He makes it halfway through the slice before it turns to sand in his mouth and his throat closes up, refusing to let him swallow.
Lisa looks at him but doesn't ask any questions when he sets it aside without explanation.
She reaches for his hand and holds it tightly, pretending not to notice the tears tracking down his cheeks.
They stay curled up together long after the game ends; Ben sleeping comfortably in a pile of pillows and blankets at the foot of the couch.
Lisa turns the tv off and the only sound in the room is the restless pop of the neglected fire as it burns down slowly.
"He would have loved this."
Dean breaks the silence suddenly, his voice a low murmur. He says it so quietly that Lisa wonders if he even realized he's spoken it aloud. A moment later he continues.
"He'd always watch those dumbass Christmas movies where everything was so perfect, you know? Like those families with suburban houses and 2.3 kids and moms that wear pearls to the dinner table." Dean chuckles sadly. "I'd say to him, *nobody* really lives like that, there's no Norman fucking Rockwell in the world. Dean shakes his head. "But I didn't really blame him, I guess. I mean holidays for us just meant we'd eat at a nicer diner, sometimes we'd stay in a hotel instead of a motel for the night, but that was about the extent of it. And usually dad was too busy looking for holiday spirit in the bottom of a flask to pay much attention to us." Dean drifts for a minute then starts talking again. He's still barely speaking above a whisper but Lisa listens carefully and quietly, afraid to stop this much needed reminiscence. "It wasn't all bad though." He laughs again. "I remember this one year we were..." Dean stops and checks to see that Ben is still sleeping before he continues "Hunting werewolves." He whispers. "And we stayed in Bobby's little cabin in Michigan. It was an easy hunt-just a milk-run-and dad said we would leave the next day on Christmas Eve, but during the night it started snowing. I've never seen that much snow at once, never before or since, I mean it was an honest to god blizzard, Lisa." There's a wistful tone to Dean's voice as he speaks, staring into the fire like he can see through it; like it's a portal to another time, a past when everything was pretty messed up but somehow more alright than it is now.
"It was so white we couldn't see out the windows. We were snowed in before we woke up. It must've snowed two feet in two hours. Dad couldn't stand it-he was so damn antsy-but there was no way we were leaving so he just gave in. Built us this this huge fire and Sam..." Dean chokes out into silence when he speaks his brother's name aloud for probably the first time since he lost him.
"Sam what?" Lisa prompts gently. Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and he doesn't meet Lisa's eyes but he goes on after awhile. "Sam..." he says his brother's name again-it comes out reverently, like a prayer, and there's a raw catch in his voice. "I've never seen him as happy as he was that year." There's a smile on Dean's face that is so soft and so painful that Lisa has to look away. It's a grief too private for her outside eyes. "I made us this stupid checkerboard out of a piece of paper and we used bullet casings for pieces...we played checkers by the fire for hours on end. We didn't have anything-no food, except snacks and not even any presents. All we did was lay around goofing off and talkin' shit."
Dean shakes his head and drifts off into silence once again as the memory drips away like rain.
The sweet, nostalgic look on his face has fallen, along with his eyes that now stare down at his lap. He's not crying-he's just breathing-quick, short breaths that start high in his chest and end in a tightening of his sharp jaw. He's trembling with a sort of static tension that spreads out across him and makes Lisa wish she was big enough to wrap herself completely around him- surround him and comfort him like she comforts Ben after a nightmare, holding on until he can finally be still. She can't do that so she just squeezes his hand tighter, presses her body into his side. Dean doesn't speak again that night and neither does she. There are no words deep enough to heal this wound.
The neglected pie on the coffee table assumes room temperature, the fire burns down to embers, and Thanksgiving morning finds the strange, little, makeshift family still huddled together.
~End
I hope all of you had a good holiday.
I wrote this is for anyone who finds the holidays a difficult time, whether that's because you lost someone, or you can't be home, or just because home doesn't feel homey anymore. You're not alone-try to be happy anyway.
Love you all!