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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.

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"Doesn't matter. They're all the same." Dean's eyes burned in spite of his better efforts, thinking of Ruby standing there at Sam's side instead of Dean himself. "Soulless, greedy. If they thought I had something they wanted, they'd take it."

"I'm willing to agree with you!" Roger said, holding a hand back to gently extract Dean from the edge of the site, "but let's say one of those soulless, greedy motherfuckers shows up right where we stand and it's something you don't know how to deal with. Something cooked up on a magical fucking island." He turned his hand so it was held out for the leaves, rather than gently suggesting Dean back. Throughout his little speech, he managed to edge himself between Dean and the hole he'd dug, eyes still imploring but with a bit more force.

"Getting my ass kicked is pretty much the last thing I'm worried about," Dean murmured, eyes on Roger's outstretched hand. Giving him the leaves, that wasn't such a big deal. Dean could go and grab some more, but that would only make Roger angry. It wouldn't make him understand.

"I need to know, Roger. I just need to know if this is it."

The frustration in Roger was building. He couldn't begin to understand what it was like. If Roger had known that selling his soul was an option when April died, he probably would have done the same thing, and it would have been just as selfish and self-righteous as Dean was being right then.

"So what?" Roger asked angrily, hand still outstretched, "you're just gonna keep giving your soul up? Just gonna keep dying until you're both dead?" He emphasized his arm. "Give me the Goddamn leaves, Dean!"

It was the shouting that did it. Dean was angry, by god he was, and even though it wasn't at Roger the other man was making the transference damn easy.

"Take the fucking things," he ground out, shoving them into Roger's hand. "There's a whole goddamn tree where that came from."

It seemed that the great unwashed had two ways of dealing with hurt: crying in their cereal and furthering the unwashed portion, or screaming and scratching until half the world felt their pain. It also seemed that Dean planned on running the gambit on emotional responses.

Roger was surprised when he looked down and saw the leaves in his hand. He was right -- no matter what he did, no matter how many leaves he crushed in his hand and watched rain to the ground, Dean would return, maybe deep in the night and try again.

"What does it need to be?" Roger asked, pulling his eyes from the ground and settling them on Dean. "What would go in to make it work?"

"You're looking at it," Dean snapped. "Some part of yourself, some essence to let the demon know who's knocking."

His mouth twisted. Bastards could pick and choose from the herd that way - who dwelling topside was the most deliciously desperate? Dean rubbed at his eyes. He was tired and strung out all at once, and the thought of drudging back to that tree damn near undid him.

"Huh." As Roger ran a hand seemingly innocently through his hair, he had to wonder how many times this had been done. How many souls had the demons claimed in the name of wealth, jealousy, greed, love? And how could he blame Dean for giving himself up for the last? Roger had done it himself in so many words so, so many times, and to the point where he wasn't sure what was left to give.

In the span of a second, Roger was crouched at the site. The hand that had been in his hair snapped forth violently, and the hand he produced was clutched around a clump of long, dirty blond hair. He shoved both hands -- that and the handful of leaves -- deep into the Earth and gathered some of the fallen leaves as well to shove in. He scooped the earth surrounding in to fill the gap and still quickly, once again placing himself between Dean and the crossroads.

Later, Dean would blame exhaustion for the fact that Roger managed to bury that clump of hair before Dean even had a hand out, but the truth was, he'd been too shocked to move.

That blissful numb of surprise didn't last for long, no, in an instant it was replaced with cold, blind panic. Dean's knees hit the ground, one hand beating frantically at the earth covering the hair and leaves, the other slipping the gun from his waistband. "Fuck you," he muttered around a throat locked up so tight it was a wonder he could speak at all. His head spun wildly, searching for a threat to Roger, and when he found none Dean used the barrel of the gun to dig deep, desperate grooves in the ground until he saw green.

The stumble back only lasted a step before Roger clamped his hands around Dean's shoulder, wrenching him back from the resting place Roger had been only moments ago. It wasn't exactly easy, and neither was placing himself in Dean's way, once again.

"Stop!" He barked, and loud as it was, he looked absolutely pained. "I've already lived past when I was supposed to. If this fucking thing shows up, anything it will give me is more than I was going to get."

"You'll go to hell," Dean bellowed, scrambling up from the ground. His arm ached, the elbow with dirt buried in it a centimeter deep, but he levered himself back towards the mound of earth. "Whatever you've been through, that's worse. It's everything you've been through, every day for the rest of forever, Roger."

"What the fuck does it matter?" Roger called back, arms tangling with Dean's to shove him backward again -- anything to keep him far enough away from the buried offering. "I shot heroin, I don't believe in God, I've watched my friends die, I did fucked up shit for cash while I was on the street and I fuck other men. I'm hellbound already. Maybe this way I can make a fucking difference." He turned sidelong, ready to hold Dean off with all of his strength. God, he really hoped this thing had no... jurisdiction or whatever on the Island. But if it went down...

He lifted his chin, ready to take Dean on if he came at him again. It was a fight he would surely lose, but if it held him off, he was willing to take that chance.

It couldn't have been more than the space of a breath or two, but Dean felt frozen for an eternity before he lunged. He'd known Roger had issues, far more than even the multitude he wore on his sleeve, but to hear them spoken so brazenly...

Dean's body was moving forward before he had time to will it so. "Fuck you," he snarled, catching Roger around the waist. They hit the ground hard enough to send up a spray of dirt. "None of that means anything. You're a good man and you don't deserve this. Nobody does." He startled at the drop of wet that exploded suddenly against Roger's cheek. Dean swiped hard beneath his eyes, ensuring no more would find a similar mark. "Two good men have died for me already. That's two too many, and I wouldn't - I'd never want that for you." Dean shook his head. "Not you, no matter what I got out of it."

Roger had expected Dean's bile, hell, he'd counted on it, but what he hadn't expected was to land flat on his back with Dean hovering murderous and righteous over him.

"Then don't make me have to!" Roger said, the fight in him returning as he jolted his right shoulder in a likely futile attempt to throw Dean off. "Don't play the fucking martyr and leave me here to deal with this place by my self!" It was a little too much honesty, and Roger swung a leg free with surprising and unknown momentum.

"Goddammit," Dean snarled, catching the leg against his ribs. "You don't - " Dean's head whipped around at a sound from behind them, faint as a twig snapping. He had his gun off the ground and pointed in the direction of the noise before Roger's leg even returned to earth.

Dean blinked fiercely, but there was nothing there but jungle. Green and blue and brown met his eyes, but not an ounce of red. For the first time since Roger had smoothed dirt back over the ground, Dean began to wonder.

Was nothing coming after all?

Though he hadn't heard anything at all, he pushed himself up to a seated position, legs sprawled uselessly in front of him as he trained his eyes to where Dean's were. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and dropped his head for a moment.

"See?" Roger said softly, almost entirely unable to hear his own speech over the thudding of his heartbeat. "We're out of the coverage area." He remembered vaguely that he kicked Dean a second ago and swallowed over that misstep. "I'm sorry, Dean. That it had to happen." He knew better than the reiterate what 'it' was. "But I'm not sorry that you're still here."

Dean's arm was locked out and at the ready, but gradually he lowered it, Roger's words sinking into him in a way he couldn't fight off. He rolled slowly off of him, slumping against the ground next to Roger.

"I'm - " he began, forcing a breath of humid air into his aching lungs. "I'm glad you are, too." For once in his life, he had more to lose than just family. "I just don't know how to be without him. Took me all of a day to crack last time."

"Took you about an hour to crack this time," Roger finished, sitting fully up Dean was off of him. He swiped a hand quickly through his hair to free it of displaced earth and leaves. He licked his lips in the silence, scratched at the place he'd pulled a chunk of hair out. "Not like he was around a lot. You were living without him, making your own way. You just didn't have to realize it." He canted his head to the side, gauging Dean. "It doesn't make you a bad brother. And maybe this isn't the life you always wanted...

"Listen." He stood and held a hand out to Dean. "I'll give you the time you need, just like you did for me when I lost Brian. But I'm not gonna let you stop your life. The life that you built."

Dean had barely had time to imagine another life, but he thought if he had, it have been like this. With Angua and Roger, all his friends, all his family, and Sam most of all. It was so close to perfect and still so far away that his heart squeezed painfully in his chest.

He took Roger's hand, letting him pull him slowly up. "Do you think it'd have been different? If I'd stuck around, would he be here?" He thought he knew what Roger would say, but Dean had to ask.

And pull him up slowly he did, taking his time since he'd kinda kicked him in the ribs. Not hard, but it was a kick the the ribs anyway.

"Stuck around?" Roger echoed, looking doubtful. "How much more sticking around could you have possibly done without literally attaching yourself to him?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "Slept in a bed next to his, stuffed him into the car next to me, day in and day out?" He shook his head. "Things were different here. It felt like a reward. Now I don't know what it is."

Roger had felt like that before. Like what if he'd met April injection for injection, tied every tourniquet for her, held her hand through every nightmare. Maybe then she wouldn't have felt so lost, so alone...

But he knew that wasn't why she'd done it. Lonely wasn't what she felt when she'd dragged Roger's dull razor over her arms. Lonely was something Roger could have quieted.

"Just because there's an angel up your ass doesn't mean that God's looking out for you," Roger said, taking a deep breath. "I actually feel more comfortable thinking there's not a God. Then there isn't someone to answer to for all this. My point is, the island wasn't a reward any more than this was a punishment. People come and go. People you love." He clasped Dean on the shoulder gently. "I did a lot of shit when Brian disappeared, but I never blamed myself. It's happened too many times to too many people for there to be a pattern."

"Everytime something happens to one of us, another one goes off the chain." Dean sucked down a breath. "My dad flipped when my mother died. I did when my dad went. Back home, Sammy's in a bad way because of my Deal. I don't - " Dean's head shook in frustration. "We're not good at letting each other go. I don't think we should be."

"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.

"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?"

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one--song.livejournal.com - 2009-07-31 00:39 (UTC) - Expand

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