He Sits Alone
It's half past ten. The bar is poorly lit, throwing him into darkness. A stale smoke hangs in the air, impressive when the smoking ban has been effective for over two years, but this is some backwater dump after all, the law probably don't care, definitely don't care, through the gloom a large man in uniform is sucking on the end of a lit cigar, probably most of the source of the majority of the ambient smoke in the room. He may need to be watched, but for now the cops eyes are fixed on the slim, busty girl that served him his beer – warm if his own is anything to go by – hands occupied with glass and cigar.
The music is somewhat terrible, a low drone that's interrupted persistently by static. Part of him wants to take hold of the shotgun, lay salt lines around the bar and get the walkman-come-EMF reader, make a full sweep of the place and take out the son-of-a-bitch that's fucking with the music, but then the rest of him asserts itself and points out that the jukebox, much like the rest of this place (calling exception to the busty barmaid) is just shit.
The glass is half empty. Warm to start with, and warmer still now no doubt – he has one hand wrapped around the slightly fingerprint-blurred glass for a while now – he would have normally pushed it aside by now and called for a new pint, although normally he wouldn't have sat for at least forty minutes with his half empty glass, wouldn't have noticed the bad music or the smoky haze. Normally he would have had the optimism to consider the glass half full. Normally.
Normally he'd be in the motel room, still damp from cleaning the grime of the hunt from himself, joking with Sam and getting ready to head into the bar he'd have seen in an optimistic light whilst he checked Sam over for his latest injuries. And there would be injuries, there always were. Sam was ginormo after all – like some kind of human King Kong – but with the height came a rise of awkwardness that even the grace that came from their job couldn't eliminate. If the hunt didn't get them, Sam tended to trip over his own feet or brain himself on the car as he climb into the passenger seat.
Today Dean sits brooding in the crappy little bar the other side of the road to the slightly better motel. Today Dean nurses his half empty glass, feel the twinges in his back from strained muscles and bruised skin, and only gives the busty bar maid a dull version of his winning smile, only watches her move for several moments before he turns to the glass – full at that point mind you, he'd not long sat down after all – and (and this he will never admit to Sam, for this is something Dean Winchester does not do, ever) sulks
He can still feel the grime of the day, would be shocked if he couldn't to be honest, he'd come here straight after locking up the car, feeling Sam's hurt and reproachful gaze following him as his crossed the road (nearly getting hit by a speeding truck but barely flinching, and hearing no sound off Sam, though no doubt the kid wanted to, always had something to say about Dean's actions since that groundhog day he'd had), he hadn't turned around once, hadn't even glanced back. He knew Sam wouldn't follow, but turning would let him see the look full on. See the look and the tight lines of pain around Sam's mouth and the old holed Zeppelin t-shirt he held to his bleeding shoulder. Tonight Sam could sort himself out. Dean couldn't handle being around him right now.
Except as soon as Dean had stepped over the threshold of the bar he hit the wall. Had had to push pastit, that heavy wall of guilt and move over to the bar, sit down and order his beer with his dulled smile and unenthused eyes.
And now. And now as he sat, the glass half empty, the beer getting warmer and the smoke getting thicker, the wall was pushing at him again, and as much as he tried to ignore it he couldn't, because it was Sam damn it, his little brother who didn't have to like but did have to love, that he had left bleeding from the shoulder to patch himself up, and good luck to the kid in doing that, but Dean knew he would only be able to do a half-way decent job. Knew from experience that arm wounds are damn hard to fix on oneself. And so he found himself up and half way across the room before his mind was really registering what his feet were doing. The busty bar maid was stepping in front of him, smiling flirtatiously in the way that suggested she'd allow him to stop back in at closing time, and he pushed by her without pausing. The cops eyes were on him now, you learnt to recognise the feel of the eye of the law upon you, but he wasn't causing any trouble and was leaving anyway, the cop would leave him be.
It was cold outside, not that he really noticed, and he was over the road quickly, patting the bonnet of the car briefly and feeling dust under his hand – his baby would be getting a bath and some heavy duty servicing soon – and then he was fishing in his pocket for his key, opening the door and stepping into the dark room.
Not completely dark. The lights were off but Sam was bathed in that eerie glow from the laptop, the lines still around his mouth and his eyebrows drawn down in that brooding frown. Like Dean he was still covered in the grime of the hunt, and whilst one hand rested on the table, fingers touching the plastic of the laptop, his other hand was raised at his shoulder, holding that bloodied t-shirt to a wound he'd been unable to tend to.
He didn't move when Dean closed the door, hadn't batted an eyelid when he'd entered the room, but the kid damn well started when Dean snapped the main light on, blinking at his brother in the new light, arm flexing like he wanted to drop his hand from the wound but realising he shouldn't at the last second. He raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth to question Dean's appearance.
"I need a shower," Dean said bluntly "Can't pick up girls like this." A lie, one they both recognised, when they were younger Sam had bet Dean that he couldn't pick up a girl after digging up a grave, and had been sour-faced the next day when he'd had to do the washing and give his brother forty dollars, but neither said anything. Not then, nor when Dean didn't move across to the bathroom but instead stepped over to the table, pushing aside the laptop and perching on the edge, pushing Sam's hand and the t-shirt aside to examine the wound.
"It needs stitches," he said after a minute, and then "Dammit Sam, were you just going to bleed all over the table? 'Cause they'll bill us for that, you know." Sam said nothing, didn't need to. The lines were still around his mouth, would be until the tablets Dean was going to give him kicked in, but a smile had settled onto his face. Neither said anything about the argument, Dean had forgotten what it was about anyway, and if Sam remembered he wasn't bringing it up again anytime soon. Neither would say anything about Dean's self-induced banishment to the bar whilst his brother bled, as far as they were concerned that had never happened, as far as they were concerned everything was normal.
And when Dean sat on his bed later – the television flickering silently and his brother asleep on the bed over from his – he would consider the cold beer he'd pulled from their supply in the fridge, and consider it half full.