Dean has a nice life with a nice family now. But, does he?
Ooof this took ages! I've had tons of homework and exams, but I stole a little time and came quickly to update! Hope you guys who have been reading are liking it so far. I know it's going slow now, but I promise it will flow better when I get to where Cas appears and, well... Please share with me your thoughts on it! If it's complaints, or suggestions, anything!
Hope you enjoy :]
Dean would he lying if he said his heart didn't skip a beat at the news. He had thought about having kids, sometimes, but only because he had thought of the concept of a family, and families had kids. But he had never thought of it as something that would actually happen. He was very good at taking care of people, if Sammy was any proof of it, he could teach, defend, cheer up, and soothe, the basics. So more than having chills of the scared-the-crap-out-of-you kind, he was actually feeling the anticipation ones forming in his stomach. He smiled gently at Lisa, who in return offered a confused look.
"Are you not shitting your pants?" she asked backing a little as if Dean was somehow dangerous.
"Of course not, Lis, why would I be shitting myself?" Dean moaned.
He might be a little wierd and a stranger to certain social interactions sometimes, but he was a damn human being, not a monster.
"Well, all men shit their pants when their wives are pregnant"
"Not those who love their wife" he winced internally at his words, because he always did when he was being too cheesy.
Lisa's arms flew to his bak and tightened there, and her lips curled into a smile. But her eyes. They looked...uncomfortable? When Dean frowned at the look, Lisa quickly turned away and laughed.
"You are the sweetest, Dean" she said and sank into his chest.
Dean tried to push her away so he could see her eyes, and when he finally managed to, the previous feeling was gone, and instead, there was warmth in the brown eyes. So he let it pass. He might would have wanted not to, but he did. After he and Lisa drank a glass of milk to toast, he ran to the small study and started writing. When he was done, he was smilig goofily, as he walked to his front fence and placed the letter in the mailbox. He just hoped Sammy would answer quickly. When the night was deep and Lisa was asleep, Dean went down and called his aunts to give them the news. Lisa would never approve him to tell them, but this was something huge and Dean wouldn't let them out of it.
"Oh, Deanie! I'm so happy, sweetie, congratulations!"
He could listen to Pam's smile on the other side of the phone, and also Ellen's grunt. He of course expected that, and knew he deserved it, he had stopped talking to them after all. Ellen was in all her right to be mad at Dean. But she loved her gentle, kind nephew, and him being so happy was something she couldn't begrudge on him. So she asked her sister for the phone once she had finally stopped fussing over names for the baby.
"Dean, dear! I'm so happy and proud for you, and know that anything you or the baby need, we are here for you!" she said cheerfully, ad yes, just Dean or the baby. She knew very well who had had the idea of stopping talking to them. She knew very well Lisa was just as every other single person in the town, blinded by all the prejudices time had given them.
"I know, thank you Ellen." Dean said, sounding relieved and letting go of the breath he'd been holding since Ellen started talking.
He chatted for a couple of minutes with them and said bye, promising taking the little tike to visit its aunties.
They named him Ben, much to Dean's disappointment. He wanted to call his son after his father, but Lisa insisted that by naming him John, Dean was holding on to his past. Dean rolled his eyes and glared at Lisa before storming out of the house, not without almost crushing the door. He knew he had wanted a little change from how he previously lived, but not entirely. Dean didn't complain about his magic, and he had spent his whole life with withces and knew very well they were not evil. It was starting to irritate him a little that Lisa was always asking him to completely forget about his life! It was his life, and people he loved were in it, Sam was in it, and Lisa, who supposedly loved him, wanted him to erase everything. He just couldn't. He couldn't leave beautiful moments behind.
But then, after a lot of thought and a couple of beers, he reckoned too he needed to start having new moments to remember . This happy family lifestyle was his new lifestyle, and Lisa was sharing it with him. He could give something back . He decided they could always have another baby, and name that one instead.
The baby was beautiful. His cheeks were so round and big, especially when he smiled, which he did a lot. His hair was dark, like Lisa's, and his eyes were brown. Both mother and son shared their frown as well. Dean could spend hours discovering what features Ben had identical with his mum, and still miss many at the end of the day. The first times, when he actually sat with his kid and just stared at him playing or gurgling or sleeping, he had been content with how alike he was with Lisa. But little by little, Dean started looking for himself in the little boy. First he noticed was the eyes. When Ben's eyes stopped changing their colour and settled in brown, Dean was a tad disappointed. But he kept on looking. He focused on his hair. He waited for grazes of light brown to appear, but on the little head only dark brown blossomed. His mouth was fuller than Dean's, and his eyes didn't wrinkle when he smiled. The shape of his hands wasn't similar to his dad's, and his face was rounder, even if Lisas' and Dean's were slim. Ben also had no freckles, not even one. Dean didn't let this turn him down. Ben was still very young and more changes to his appearance would come. Also, his mood and nature could be just like Dean's, they just had to wait. But when Ben grew older, no change came that would make him look like Dean. This couldn't be, could it? He at least had to be in some way like his dad, Dean's chromosomes couldn't be all recessive, could they?
"He doesn't look like me, at all. Not even a freckle!" moaned Dean over his tea in Pam's and Ellen's house.
There was a sale off at Lisas' shop and she would come home late, so Dean had seized the opportunity and visited his aunts while Ben still babbled and made no coherents sentences yet.
"Maybe he has to grow more?" he said, looking at the baby with a mouth smeared with raspberry jam.
Pam and Ellen looked at each other while Dean pouted at his son. They had had a quick argument with their eyes, and Pam nodded in defeat. Ellen glared at her before turning to his nephew.
"Honey, Ben is two already. His first words are already coming out. I don't think any more important changes will come, and he should be looking at least a bit like both his parents and not just one."
Dean turned to look at her, and his face was cladden with sadness at the words. "What, do you mean he'll never look like me?"
"Never is a strong word." Offered Pam, looking at Ben.
Ellen shot her a warning look before speaking again. "I don't think he'll ever look like you, sweetie."
"Why not? There is me in him, after all..."
"There is something, Dean, but it's not exactly yours."
Dean brows shot up, and he looked confused at his aunt. "What do you mean, Ellen?"
Ellen looked at him sadly, then pulled her chair until she was arm with arm with Dean. Dean leaned into the caress his aunt gave him on his cheek. "Dean, honey, I'm going to tell you something heavy. I'm sorry for being the one bringing you these news, but I must say it, even if it will be painful. I think Ben, is not your son. I think Lisa has been seeing another man, we have seen her drive to the other side of the town with him, and his mouth looks a lot like Ben's. We should have said something. We're sorry."
It took a little for Dean to take the information in. When it did, he moved back away from Ellen's touch. He looked at her as if she was contagious. "What?"
"Ben has a father that is not you, Dean."
His head boiled suddenly. How could Ellen say this? His Lisa with another man? She loved Dean! How could Ellen even dare? His head was screaming, though nothing cane out of his mind. He was staring down at Ben, who was gurgling happily at the mashed apple Pam was feeding him now. He wondered. He should be shouting, shouldn't he? At the nasty implications Ellen was doing about his wife. But he couldn't get the sound come out of his mouth.
You've thought about it too
His back felt cold at the thought. His own mind was betraying him now. Only, no, it wasn't, it was true, Dean had thought of it, when Lisa came too late with the excuse of covering the shift of her friend Meg. One day, though, Dean called the shop because he couldn't find his tools, and Meg said Lisa had left about an hour ago. Or when it was Lisas' day off, but she said the owner, Missouri, needed help that day and asked Lisa to be there. When Dean called to ask if Lisa would be home for supper, they said she hadn't been there. Once it happened after Ben was born. Dean called to ask where the baby's pacifier was, and Lisa had been gone for at least an hour. When Dean gathered the courage to ask about it, Lisa would always say she had run into a friend ad lost track of time while chatting, or that she had gone to her mum's. And Dean had no real reason to doubt. Lisa had a lot of friends, and she loved being in her mother's house. So he'd shrug it off and go on with his life. But now it was not only him. Now his aunt, who loves him, is telling him his thoughts are the same as hers. It's not only Dean now who suspects. He turned to look at Pam. She had her hand hanging in front of Ben's mouth, and the baby was straining his neck to reach the spoon full of sweet apple pulp. Her look was sad and her smile sympathetic. She believed it as well. Could it really be then? He shook his head after a moment of hesitation. No it couldn't. Lisa loved Dean. She was happy. They had a son. Why would she need another man, if Dean gave her everything?
He stood up, strided to the other side of the table and took Ben in his arms. He glared at both his aunts and left without another word. Blood was pounding in his ears, he couldn't listen to the engine of his car, or to Ben's cries at being so abruptly taken away from the apple. He couldn't even hear his thoughts. But he didn't want to. He knew what they were saying, and he didn't want to believe it. He parked at the side of the road to cool his head down. His breaths were heavy and quick, and his head started feeling light. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, shutting down the screams from behind. Deep in he inhaled, relaxing on the seat. It wasn't working. Ben was crying hard and loud and wouldn't calm down until he was soothed and kissed in the forehead. So Dean climbed to the back of the car and cradled Ben in his arms. He hushed and stroked the small boy, rocking him into the rhythm of Ramble On. Until that moment, when Ben's outburst was dying out, Dean's own head felt better. He smiled down at Ben and kissed him before putting him back in his car chair. He climbed back to his seat. The engine started under his fingers, and he pressed the accelerator, putting the car back on the road, heading for his house. Dean really didn't want to get home, because it meant asking Lisa and finding out the truth. But it had to be done, for his own sake. With his heart hammering again inside his chest, he took Ben out of the car and went into his house. There he put Ben in his chair, and the baby started playing with the animal figures hanging from te handle. Dean grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down to wait for Lisa to arrive. A couple of hours, maybe more, she got home. Ben had fallen asleep in his chair with his feeding bottle dropped next to him. Dean had only managed to come out of his anger cocoon because of Ben's desperate yells of hunger.
When Lisa opened the door and went in, she turned around, looking confused to arrive to a silent and dark house. This seemed melodramatic, Dean waiting on a chair in the dark, still clutching his untouched beer and watching his wife walking hesitantly in, but he didn't want to make himself look normal, because he didn't feel normal. When Lisa finally spotted him she gave a tiny jump back and gasped.
"Dean! God you scared me! Thought there was no one home, don't you ever do that again!"
Dean said nothing, just stared darkly at her.
"What are you doing with all the lights off, and why is Ben not in his room?" Lisa strided towards the snoring child and lifted him. "Dean? I'm talking to you"
Dean had followed her with his eyes, searching for anything that might tell him if the suspicions were right and would spare him the trouble to ask. Up and down he swept his wife's figure, but he found nothing. He sighed heavily and stood up, draged himself to where Lisa was still standing with the baby in her arms.
"Lisa, are you seeing another man?" He almost moaned at how hurt his voice sounded. He wasn't even sure if Lisa was in fact cheating on him, and still, he was here, a full grown man asking his grown wife as if they were in high school of she was taking him to prom.
Lisa's brows went up all the way to her hairline. She stared incredulously at Dean for a moment before speaking. "Dean, I really hope you have a good background story to that question"
"Answer the question, Lisa, I'll give you my story right after you answer"
Lisa looked taken aback, and for an instance, Dean thought of leaving the problem there and sayin it was all a joke, hugging and kissing his wife and put his son into bed. But his stomach was already clenched and his throat made a tight knot, so he just as well better end this now. He crossed his arms and didn't move his gaze from Lisa. She stood there for a moment, still holding Ben, shifting his weight from one arm to another, but when she saw Dean wouldn't budge, she sighed.
"I'll put Ben in bed, then we'll continut with this nonsense you are talking about."
Dean followed her with his gaze until she disappeared upstairs. He ran his fingers through his hair and wished what Ellen had said was a lie, and that all this was a bad dream, that he would wake up to Lisa snuggled comfortably next to him.
Dean took a swig of his now warm beer and grimaced at the flavour, and at the very uncomfortable talk that was about to happen. But it had to happen, he knew it. So he sat on the chair to wait again.
A/N Sorry for not remembering exactly on which episode this happens, but Dean says his favourite song is a tie between Ramble on and Traveling Riverside Blues, and, well, I like Ramble On better (sorry, this is selfish, again), so, yes :]