(Untitled)

[weary_head]

Dean remembers his first deer hunt, how small he'd felt with that big gun in his hands, how afraid he'd been, all alone in the woods with a weapon he hardly knew how to fire, let alone aim

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[poison_lipstick]

Saffron had been going over to Dean's for a visit or maybe a little sparring, not a shootout, but her surprise at the sound of the single gunshot didn't stop her pace from quickening. Once she was in view of the place, she blew out a relieved breath, going the rest of the way at a more normal speed.

"Target practice?" she said, her eyebrows lifting with curiosity as she caught sight of what was on the porch. "Well now, that's quite a collection." She stepped a little closer, stopping just short of actually gaining the porch, and remembered a day now long in the past when she'd come upon Dean cleaning an array of weapons - the very ones she was looking at, for all she knew.

[weary_head]

"Shoulda seen my dad's truck," Dean replies, clicking the safety on with sore fingers. Fifteen freaking minutes with the bow, and already so many reasons to hate it. "Between it and his weapons chest, you'd think he was compensating for something."

[poison_lipstick]

She took a step closer, just onto the bottom step, to get a better look inside the trunk. "I can only imagine," she said, peering in the direction of the trunk for a moment more before turning her head to Dean.

"How are you doing with that?" Saffron continued, nodding at the bow and arrows. "I haven't picked up a bow since the Academy."

[weary_head]

Dean looks up at that, trying to look neither desperate nor eager, but he can't say what kind of job he does at it. "Pretty damn bad. You know how to shoot a bow?"

[velation]

The waterfall hides most noise in this area of the island. Sometimes, that's why Faye goes there at all, still wary after so many years of being followed, chased down, pinned somewhere with no way to escape, made to pay of debts that weren't even hers to accumulate in the first place. For all the times that she's wanted an anchor in her life, what's even more important is getting to choose where that weight plants down, and Tabula Rasa has the effect of making it feel like none of that is within her grasp. It makes her shaky, nervous, the effect doubled by the fact that she's had to keep a guise up in front of almost every person she's met on the island. She's not really scared, she tells herself. She's just hating the way that everything seems to be backing her into a corner, and sooner or later, she'll have to force her way out. Away from her ghosts, away from Spike Spiegel walking around the island, and back to the endless expanse of sky and space that she's come to know of as home

[weary_head]

She's familiar. Dean might've gone home blackout drunk that night, but not even fine whiskey is enough to wipe the memory of a woman like the one stretched out on the rocks, and through the haze of heat and the frustration surfaces a name: Valentine.

Dean squints, pushing at the sweat dripping into his eyes, and his hands might be shaking but they find the safety well enough, push the gun away and out of sight again. "That's what they teach in high school?" he calls back. Faye, he thinks. Her name is Faye. "Sure didn't miss anything dropping out."

[velation]

Her boots are lined up in a row by the side of the rock. It's a step. There was a period of time shortly after her arrival when Faye had hardly consented to change her clothing at all, not wanting a single detail out of place, perfectly content to sit atop a washing machine only wrapped in a cotton robe as she waited for her laundry to finish. Slowly, though, she's moved away from that unyielding order. Sometimes, she pulls her hair up into a tie. Others, she walks around in flip-flops, classless though the shoes are, because it's just easier. Maybe there's something to laying down one's burdens at times. It's the same red shirt slipping off her shoulders, the same yellow shorts that highlight her legs, but today the boots are often as she slides down the rock, barefooted, feet meeting earth with hardly any noise at all.

"Never said that's all they teach," she counters with a quirked brow, leaning to the side and shooting a quick glance toward the man's arsenal of weapons. It makes the whole hunting story a lot easier to believe.

[weary_head]

How is he feeling? Pissed, sweaty. Shitty at archery. Hungry and a hell of a lot thirsty, for water as much as whiskey, if he's being honest. "Sober," says Dean with a tiny arch of his brow, figuring that's surely on her mind after the way they met. He could wish it wasn't true - drunk, he'd at least have an excuse for missing so spectacularly with the arrows, but he isn't, and Dean's expression soon sours again.

"Didn't meant to interrupt the mermaid impression."

[badblood_rising]

"Dude," Sam calls out. He's coming closer from Dean's left side, far from the target, but it doesn't hurt to give fair warning when someone's handling a loaded weapon. Especially when they're handling it as badly as Dean is.

Sam knows why, of course. It's more troubling than reassuring to see Dean taking up arms, what might have been interpreted as a step towards recovering -- a sign of life getting back to normal and of falling back into old hobbies and habits, weird and dark as they were in the Winchester family -- tainted by the knowledge that he's in no shape to be doing something this dangerous. It's stupid is what it is, but Dean's the one with a gun in his hands so Sam's not going to shout that, too.

"Leave some ammo for the rest of us," he says instead as he strides to his brother's side.

[weary_head]

"Tryin' to," Dean mutters, letting the gun drop loose at his side. He's sweating like a bitch, could almost blame the fat rivulets running down his arms for his shitty aim with the arrows, but he got along fine with the gun.

"I think it's busted," he says with a nod towards the bow. "I can't hit anything with it."

[badblood_rising]

"Really?" Sam asks, his voice perfectly bland and casually interested. He stops by his brother with a considering downward turn to his mouth.

"Let me try. See what's wrong with it."

[weary_head]

Dean's eyes narrow, but he picks the thing up, handing it off to his brother. "Dude, if you know how to use this thing," he says, but can't think of a threat impressive enough to ward off Sam being better with it.

[knowthyexits]

She's on the way home from the Winchester and a shift that felt twice as long as it had actually been when she hears the sound. It's familiar, but something that she hasn't had to use in a very long time, not since she was desperate and the jungles of Central America closed in on her. She lingers by the shooter, recognizing him as one of Neil's friends.

She raises her brow at the gunshot, wishing fervently for more weapons, more ammo, anything to help her sleep better at night. "Looks like you've got a definite strong suit, there," she says evenly, of the hole in the target.

[weary_head]

Dean huffs out a laugh, dried up and crackling at the edges, but he means it. "Just making sure the thing wasn't moving on me," he says. He knows her - he's in the Winchester most every night now, save for the ones he spends behind the bar of the Catscratch. Doesn't explain why she's here now, looking at the hole he just blasted through cloth and wood as cool as a cucumber.

"You know, most people hear a gunshot, they don't head towards the sound."

[knowthyexits]

"I'm not most people," is her reply, instant and half-amused. She tips her head to one side and studies the target and them him. Then the other marks that aren't nearly as accurate as the gunshot. "What's with the archery?"

[weary_head]

"Winchester needs meat," says Dean, and it's still a little weird, his own name shared with the island eater. "I figured arrows might be better in the long run, only have so many bullets and all, but." He shrugs. "Don't have the hang of it yet."

[little_moons]

It reminds me of an afternoon, a long time ago. Sitting with him, while he cleaned his guns. Sitting with him, long before I know him as well as I do now. Little things keep reminding me of those old days. I don't know...

In some ways, I can't help but feel like we're all moving backwards.

"Lookin' a little rusty," I say, coming up beside him, far enough away from the target where I figure the chance of getting myself shot is pretty fuckin' slim.

[weary_head]

"Can't be rusty at something I've never used," Dean returns, blast still ringing in his ears when he looks away from the target. He's prepared to hold the sour expression on his face forever, but it slips the moment he catches sight of Neil's.

"Oh what, this? Me sucking at archery, this is what it takes to make you smile?"

[little_moons]

"All sorts of things about you make me smile," I say with a teasing smirk, pretending for a moment like I don't notice how awful he looks.

It's not an unfamiliar scenario. Back when I was a kid, I did the same thing with Mom, long before I even knew what was goin' on with her.

"Since when has it ever been that hard?" Lately, I know, it has been, but things are getting better. There are whole chunks of time now where I feel like myself.

[weary_head]

"Whatever, you morose bastard." Dean picks up the bow, tosses it in a clean arch Neil's way. See? He can fucking aim. "You give it a shot. Harder than it looks."