Book Three: It's a Cookbook

There were still mornings when Dean genuinely couldn't make himself get out of bed.

The longer it had been since Sam had died, the fewer mornings he had like that. It got easier with Lisa and Ben there; it was nice to have someone to reach for when he first woke up and the memories were still clinging to him like a bad hangover. It helped to have someone there relying on him; it gave him a reason to get up no matter how badly he wanted to linger in those memories when memories were all he had left of Sam.

He debated staying in bed for a while longer. It was a Sunday. He didn't have anywhere he needed to be. Plenty of people took lazy Sundays to themselves, right? This was a perfectly normal thing to want as part of the picket-fence life he'd promised he'd live.

Except he was trying not to give himself permission to laze around too much, because if he did, he flat out wouldn't get up most days. And besides, he'd promised to mow the lawn while the weather was good. It was supposed to storm for the next six days straight, so he wouldn't have time to do it any other day. And if he wanted to beat the summer heat, he needed to get out early.

So, he stretched and then leaned over to kiss Lisa's cheek while she was still sleeping. When she smiled and turned into him in her sleep, he couldn't help but smile as well.

He was getting used to this life.

Out of old habit, he checked Ben's room as he passed and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. And he checked some of the protections he had set up all around the house. It gave him a little peace of mind, even if things had been quiet since he moved into the neighborhood. The last thing he wanted to do was bring down his kind of trouble on a perfectly good family.

But everything seemed to be okay, so once he had walked the perimeter, he put in some headphones and got to work.

His neighbor to the right had just gotten a riding lawnmower, and he'd talked to Dean about how much easier it was, but for Dean, there was something relaxing about pushing the mower himself. He'd given up the hunter lifestyle, sure, but there was a part of him that didn't want to get too relaxed, too out of shape.

It wasn't just vanity, either. There was just a little thought in the back of his mind, something that said he wasn't ever going to get to relax—not really.

He figured that would go away eventually. Once he'd lived the quiet life long enough to be sure that it was actually going to be quiet, maybe he'd be able to let go of some of the habits that had kept him alive in a different, louder life.

He was just finishing up the front yard when he saw an unfamiliar car park outside the neighbors' house. The couple that stepped out looked like honest-to-God movie stars—tall and slender and obviously artificial. There was something about their faces that said they'd had work done; they looked unnatural in a way that instantly had Dean's attention.

Old habits died hard.

They stopped and talked to the neighbors at the front door, who greeted them warmly. From what Dean could tell with his rudimentary lip reading skills while he was mowing and trying not to look too much like he was eavesdropping, the unnatural couple had met the neighbors at a school fundraiser, and they'd decided to get together for a friendly breakfast.

At least, that was what he had gleaned from such context clues as "school," "pancakes," and "finally," which were relatively easy to lip read from a distance.

Dean watched for a while longer until the door closed behind them and tried not to think too hard about it. It was probably fine, right?

He watched the neighbor's front door for a while longer before he decided on a plan of action. He knew he couldn't just let the matter drop, but he didn't want to go overboard with his paranoia. He didn't want to drag his old life into this new one. So, if he didn't see the neighbors—even in the windows—by the time he was done out in the yard, he'd go check on them.

Nothing wrong with being neighborly, right?

Yeah, sooner or later, he was going to have to learn how to be normal. He definitely wasn't good at it yet. And he wasn't sure he would ever be.

Still, he sighed and turned his music back on, keeping half an eye on the neighbors as he worked. He did see them moving around the kitchen—their window looked out toward his lawn—so that was encouraging.

After a while, he finished mowing, and the neighbors took their guests outside while Dean finished up by pulling weeds, feeling almost silly for overthinking things as he nodded his head along to the old AC/DC song:

The love that I want

It's your love that I need

It's your love, got to have

It's your love

What's next to the moon?

Movin' round the skies

Oh, baby, say "bye-bye"

You're right next to the moon

And on the moon

Oh, I've been around the moon

He finished what he was doing and pulled his headphones off, yanking his work gloves off to then wave toward his neighbors with one in his hand. They waved back—not overly friendly, since he was still relatively new to the neighborhood, but congenial. But it was the visitors, the ones who looked unnatural, who waved Dean over, beaming at him.

And Dean was honestly too curious by that point to turn them down.

A little small talk wouldn't kill him, right?