(no subject)

Afer this, which followed this.

Angua'd only been gone a moment before Dean got sick of staring at the bedroom wall. He stood up slowly, feeling like he'd gone a few dozen rounds, when in truth all he'd done was welcome his baby brother back to the island. He wasn't sure how great a welcome that'd been, either, but it was hard to think fast when his head was suddenly full to bursting with thoughts of the apocalypse.

"Dammit," he muttered. Rubbing at his tired eyes, Dean wondered how long it'd take Angua to find Cas, wondered if he even wanted to know what the angel would have to say. Right now, as unbearable as the uncertainty was, Dean thought he'd take it over full knowledge of what had happened to his brother back home. He wandered out into the living area, stopping short when he saw Roger still sitting there, expectant look on his face.

There was something in it that made Dean's heart twitch painfully in his chest, made him want to sit down and spill his guts. Even now it shocked Dean - it'd been almost a year, and he was still getting used to what having a best friend was like.

"Hey," he said quietly.

(no subject)

Dean sat where Angua had deposited him, staring after Angua's back as she went to rummage for pie ingredients. Sam was still at the bar, still hunched over his glass, shoulders tight and too long hair falling over his ears and into his eyes.

It made him look younger than he was, younger then the new lines around his eyes and mouth betrayed, and Dean's heart twisted a little tighter in his chest.

Sam would be okay here. Somehow, Dean could make that happen, and if not Dean than Jess or Dad or Twerp or any combination of people left on the island that loved him. The only person in the way of that was Sam himself, but Dean would find a way around that, too.

He just had to find a way around whatever it was that stood between them, first.

Sam had arrived on the island spitting words like apocalypse and Lucifer from his mouth, and those scared Dean, but not nearly as much as the look in Sam's eyes when he said them.

Dean sighed, tucking himself further into the booth, watching with an anxiousness barely contained while those around Sam came and went. Occasionally he looked away, out into the jungle beyond the Winchester, to his hands and the small but growing marks on his palms his own fingernails had left behind, but always Dean's focus shifted back to Sam at the bar.

"Fuck," he murmured, twitching helplessly as the long line of uncertain questions restarted themselves in his head. What the hell happened to us?