(no subject)

[weary_head]

Dean's body ached from the inside out, every last part of it wound so tight it was a wonder he had any strength left for walking, but walk Dean did. His feet had carried him to every part of the island at least twice, and now they'd brought him to the tree Sam had taken from the jungle and planted the last time Dean disappeared.

What, you made me into Arbor Day?

Sam hadn't smiled then, and Dean didn't smile now. Between Sam's screaming absence and Castiel's news, Dean wasn't sure he'd ever smile again. Not once, back home, not once had he taken Sam for granted, and on the island it'd taken all of a year to relax his guard, let himself reach for things that made him happy, and now his little brother was gone. Back to the worst of all possible futures, and Dean was as powerless to save him as a child.

He pushed his fingers over his eyes, holding back the panic as best he could. Sam was out there, fighting Lilith with only Ruby at his side, and Dean was in fucking Margaritaville. With a grunt of dissent, Dean walked forward, head shaking angrily from side to side. They hadn't been through all of this to be separated now.

The fistful of leaves tore easily away from the branch. Dean stalked north with his prize, to the place where the path split four ways. In times past, a left would have taken them to the baseball field where the both of them had played in a way they'd never been able to as children.

He punched rather than dug the hole in the ground.

When the last leaf was buried in the ground, Dean sat back on his haunches and waited. He didn't have anything left to barter with, even if a demon did come, but he had to know.

He had to know if this was truly done.

Comments

[off-the-ceiling.livejournal.com]

Jess took a moment to swallow back her reaction to that, to the permanancy of the suggestion. "I'll take the couch," she said. "I just need... clothes, personal items. Everything else can stay."

[devilwoman]

The last time Dean disappeared, Saffron had found Sam in the Hub and had gotten drunk with him. This time, Sam was the one who was gone and she found she couldn't drink, maybe because of before, when the situation had been reversed.

They'd been there for each other through some gorram tough times, and now she couldn't imagine him not on the island.

Saffron only had a vague idea of what Dean and Sam and their daddy and all them did where they came from, but she had a feeling whatever Dean was doing, burying something in the ground, had something to do with it. "What's the hole for, honey?" she asked, quiet, weary from the crying she'd been doing off and on for the past couple of days.

[steel-singer.livejournal.com]

A crossroads, a hole dug in the ground, a hopeful person waitin' for the demon to appear to make the deal. Bobby didn't have to ask to know what Dean was doin'. It was the same thing he'd done before to bring Sam back, and Bobby still remembered openin' the door to find Sam standin' there, thankin' Bobby for patchin' him up like it had been no big deal. You stupid ass! he'd yelled at Dean, out among the junked cars in his yard.

He wasn't doin' no yellin' now. Wouldn't do anyone any good. So he just went and stood a little off to the side, where Dean could see him if he wanted to talk, and waited for the Crossroads Demon that was never showin' up.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

The worst part was, Dean couldn't deny that that was true. He'd seen every member of his family die, every person that'd ever hard a part in raising him save Bobby, and now Sammy was gone. Sam was gone. The only thing that hurt more than that was the thought of O-Ren feeling it, too.

"I won't go." Dean took a deep breath. "Not by choice, I promise."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean nodded. He stood there, fingers twitching for a moment before his hand shot out to take her own. "I'm sorry," he said, holding her hand as delicately as he might've a baby bird. "If I could've stopped it - " Those fingers jerked, tightening Dean's hold. "I would, I swear."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"I don't know." The words were as weary as her own, threaded through with exhaustion and tight with tears Dean hadn't yet left himself shed. The hole was useless - he'd known that when he'd dug it, somewhere deep down.

Dean pushed the dirt from his palms. "You should get back to the Club. I won't - I don't think I'm coming in for a while."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean felt him there, that presence just within his range of sight, radiating disapproval and worse - pity. Those were Dean's assumptions, at least, when at last he raised his head from that hole in the ground.

"Not gonna shout this time?" he rasped out, too tired even to clear his throat.

[off-the-ceiling.livejournal.com]

"Nobody can stop it," said Jess tightly. "We don't have any choice in anything, do we. Things just happen and we can't do a damn thing about it, no matter how hard we try."

[devilwoman]

"Don't you worry about the club. You come back whenever you're ready," Saffron replied. It wasn't that she didn't need him there, but it was more important for him to take whatever time away he needed. She'd figure something out.

For once, she didn't know what to say. Sorry wasn't going to cut it. Platitudes and optimistic statements that Sam might come back because Dean had done so twice seemed meaningless. So she simply crouched down next to him, reached one hand out to touch his lightly, letting him know she was there, and she cared.

[steel-singer.livejournal.com]

As angry as Bobby'd been at Dean the last time, he couldn't say he didn't understand it. Hell, if he'd known how back then, he probably would've done the same thing to bring his wife back. What he was feelin' for Dean right then wasn't pity, not at all. Definitely not disapproval.

"Not this time," he said, gruffer than usual, hat pulled low on his forehead. "Wouldn't do much good."

[one--song.livejournal.com]

"I don't think you should be, either," Roger said, somewhat unhelpfully. "Fact of the matter is, you're supposed to lose your shit for your family. But... Your family's bigger than just them, now. And that's nobody's fault but your own." He wasn't going to lecture him on responsibility because Roger's own sense of it was pure shit, but he would clasp his best friend on the shoulder and face the light beside him. "Not like you're gonna let me go that easy, Dean. And I wouldn't let you go like that, either." And he didn't about two seconds ago. So there was that.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"I gotta help Jess, you know," Dean said, even though she'd just given him a free pass. The feeling that he'd let Sam down wasn't going anywhere - it was too much to think he'd be letting her down, too. "She - she can't stay in that hut all alone."

It'd make her crazy. As empty as the passenger seat in the Impala had felt when Sammy went away to Stanford, Dean knew it'd make her crazy. Sam wasn't a few days' drive away this time. Sam wasn't anywhere.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"No, we can't." It hurt him to say it, and not just for her sake. Back home there was always a way out, however stupid or suicidal, and here there was nothing. No demons, no charms, not even a god to pray to.

But maybe that was okay, in a small but significant way. Dean had just about had his fill of watching people lose their minds with grief. Sam had been all but mad with revenge when Jess died, to say nothing of what their father had done - maybe having nothing to rail against wasn't such an awful thing this time. "You want anything, you need anything, I don't care what it is," he rasped out. "You tell me."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"Well, that just feels wrong," said Dean, pushing wearily to his feet. "I do something stupid, and nobody yells at me. Bet I start acting out soon if this keeps up."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"God, you are such a pain in my ass." The words were hard to get out, tight as Dean's throat had become. Roger meant that, he could tell, and that meant...everything.

"Why is that? Do I look like a man who needs another pain in the ass?"

[one--song.livejournal.com]

A soft smile slipped past Roger's radar and he anchored Dean closer with the hand that gripped his shoulder.

"You look like a man who takes it up the ass," Roger said behind that grin. "Does that count?" The mood needed desperately to be lightened, and Roger needed just as desperately for it not to be acknowledged that he'd just thrown himself in front of a demon for Dean. Dean already knew that he would, and no one had to know he did.

[off-the-ceiling.livejournal.com]

"You too," she said. "All right Dean? You too. Because I just... I can't-- no, I don't want to do this alone. We're not alone."

[devilwoman]

Saffron felt awful for Jess. As hard as it was for Saffron to lose Sam, she knew it was immeasurably worse for Jess, and what was more, Saffron considered Jess a friend, one of her very few female friends, and that meant she was worried about her.

"I know," she said softly. "I'm glad she's got you. And I'll be there for her as much as I can, too."

[steel-singer.livejournal.com]

"I could yell, if it'd make ya feel better," Bobby replied, stuffin' his hands in his pockets. "Call you a stupid ass again."

[babyviper.livejournal.com]

"Do you mean it?" O-Ren stood where she was, looking about five years younger than usual and trying to fight it. "Not even if they let you?" Who they were, she didn't know. Except that they took everything away, eventually.