weary_head | (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?

Threaded | Flat

As soon as I can get away, when everybody has their drinks and everybody's preoccupied with questions and worries and excitement and all that shit, I slip away, bottle and two glasses in hand. I slide into the booth across from him, wordlessly pouring him a drink whether he wants it or not.

I'm quiet for a long time, then I ask, "You okay?" It just might be the stupidest question ever.

As a general rule, I didn't spend that much time at the Winchester. It was a great place, don't get me wrong: Neil had done a wonderful job with it. I just didn't drink much, didn't find much time to sit around randomly shooting the shit, and didn't have anybody to take me to dinner. Still, I popped in from time to time, usually to see if Dean or Jess were around, or just to be friendly; that day, I thought maybe I'd talk to Neil about his cake, try to get a better idea of what he wanted.

I spotted Dean before I'd even walked in the door, and could tell immediately that something wasn't right. Even from a distance I could tell he had that vaguely pinched look to his face he got when something was genuinely worrying him, and I was already frowning by the time I crossed the threshold into the bar.

Something that O-Ren remembered from her time with Dr. Sweets was that it was better to stare at people from inside where they could see you do it than say, up in a tree where they couldn't. Apparently, it was less creepy in the long run. She didn't really understand it, but when trying to make an impression, she was as willing to take advice on her social skills as her sword skills.

She finally moved from the doorway to where she saw Dean sitting, to talk to him instead. There was a nervous, skittish feeling in her stomach that she hated. She slid into the other side of the booth.

"Fuck what?"

Rollie has a habit of talking to Dean whenever he runs into him, sometimes just small talk, sometimes talking shop for a while, but after stopping in to the Winchester to see if he can pick up some hot food for the kidlet for dinner and spotting Dean there, he thinks this conversation is going to be neither of those things.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted go over a few procedures tonight," he says while he's waiting for his takeout, "but you look like you've got other things on your mind."

Where Sam was, of course Dean was not far.

"Your brother is a prick," Castiel growled as he slid into the booth next to Dean. He took the bottle from Dean's hand to have a drink of his own and grimaced, forgetting how bitter it tasted.

Edited 2009-10-28 03:23 (UTC)