weary_head | (no subject)

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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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.

"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."

"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.

"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.

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."