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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Fuck you," I mutter, rolling my eyes and scrubbing a hand across my face. "I didn't exactly go over too well over there, either," I say, jerking a nod toward where his brother's still hunched at the bar, "He pretty much told me to fuck off."

"He did what?" Dean followed Neil's brief gaze to the bar, expression suddenly as pinched as the set of Sam's shoulders. That wasn't like Sam, he'd always been the one with social graces. Try as he might, Dean couldn't picture him telling Neil to fuck off. "Why?"

"I dunno. I acted like I knew him, I guess. Said he wanted to just drink his drink and be done with it," I shrug, "It was my own fault, anyway. I called him a jackass." Which isn't the entire truth, but now, looking at Dean's face, I feel an unfamiliar need to take the blame.

I shouldn't have said anything at all.

"Well, I'm not...arguing that he can earn the title, some days," said Dean slowly, turning back to Neil. He was doing some shuffling, too, trying to push that information into a place that didn't make Sam out to be the bad guy.

"He's had a long day. Came right out of a battle back home," he said, willing Neil to understood it. Things weren't pretty back home, and neither were the Winchesters, most of the time. "He'll chill out. What'd he say, anyway?" he added, expression almost making it to a smile. "That made you call him a jackass."

"Yeah, I know he has," I say, coughing out a laugh and returning that weak smile as best I can, "Asked if we brewed the booze inna bathtub. I don't even know where this batch came from. He'd have to ask Ianto." I guess I'm more protective of this place than I thought.

"It doesn't matter, man. He doesn't even know me. I'm just the fuckin' mouthy bartender."

Dean whistled low, managing a decent smile this time. "Ought to know better than to insult another man's baby," he said, nodding at the Winchester. "He'll settle down. 'specially when he figures out that out of the few places to hang on the island, this is easily the nicest."

"Damn right," I say with a quiet laugh, "What we lack in decent booze, we make up for in... whatever the fuck this is," I wave my hand around the room, "Fuckin' ambiance or whatever."

I guess nudity and stripper poles counts for ambiance too, though.

"Atmosphere," Dean agreed, knuckles rapping light against the table. It was good to think of something else for a moment, even if thoughts of Sam had led him to it, and even if all thought would eventually wander back the same way.

"He'll get a look at those fucking concrete Compound walls and think better, I promise you."

"Yeah, whatever," I mutter dryly, rolling my eyes and propping my chin up in one hand with a snort of laughter. "I don't need his fuckin' approval."