(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.

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[weary-head.livejournal.com]

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.

[one--song.livejournal.com]

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?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"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."

[one--song.livejournal.com]

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."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"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."

[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]

"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.