A Fresh Start (Book 6 Arrow/SPN Series)

Nostalgia

I handed Sam his beer settled back down in the recliner and focused on Roy. I didn't really need to pay attention to Sam, I lived it after all. What's behind the questions? As Sam went over Jessica's death and a very, very brief recap of the next few years; my trip to Hell, his walk on the dark side and the Apocalypse Roy kept glancing back and forth between the us. I don't think he could quite believe we were both still here, hell sometimes I don't. The few times he said anything his comments were aimed more at what we were feeling at the time, not the monsters or the resurrections.

Sam paused and took a drink of his beer so I decided to jump in again."Trust me, we should have been dead years ago. Well technically we were."

It was kind of odd that our various deaths weren't what he focused on, "Yet you're still a team, Dean, even with all of that."

"Who the hell else would put up with this crap? Not that we haven't had our moments, but yeah, we usually manage to muddle through somehow."

"Huh," Roy pulled his phone out and took a quick look at it. "It's pretty late and I need to work at the club tomorrow morning. Thea rented it out for some event, I should get going." It was weird because he cut things short, put his shoes back on and got ready to leave "Thanks for telling me all that."

That threw us both off, "Sure. Is something going on?"

Roy's face went blank but not fast enough, something was seriously bugging him, "Not really. Thanks." He bailed way too quickly for it to be casual, leaving Sam and I staring at each other.

We waited until the door closed then Sam set his beer down, "Okay, that wasn't odd."

"Did you talk to him at all before the ritual?"

"Not much, had other things on my mind. When we were prepping the basement he asked how we managed to keep doing this for so long and how we know what choices to make. He brought up how Oliver handled the whole League of Assassins thing, he didn't seem too thrilled with it. I got the impression that he felt Oliver was going a bit off the rails, not listening to anyone. Not that we would ever do that."

"Course not, we're the poster children for rational decision making." I caught myself rubbing at where that damn Mark had been, seems to have become a new thing. I kind of have to force myself not to do it. Weeks later and I still can't quite believe it's actually gone.

"I brought that up, but he said that I seem to think ahead and try to see consequences before picking a path."

"He's not wrong on that one."

Sam stood up, grabbed our bottles and tossed them in the makeshift recycling bin we'd made in the kitchen, then grabbed the last two cold ones out of the fridge and handed me one as he walked by. "I kind of get Roy though, Oliver's a lot like you and Roy sees him as a role model of sorts."

I opened mine, took a long drink. Why the hell they look up to me I don't know. "You both should have higher standards for who you look up to. We aren't exactly stable productive members of society."

"C'mon. What superheros are?"

"Superman was sane and Oliver and I are hardly superheros."

"Yeah, but he was an alien. I'm talking the human ones."

"Yeah, okay, point. Still though."

"I don't know, the whole group was pretty messed up when we got here. Maybe he's trying to figure out how to help them work past whatever happened."

"Maybe."

We stayed up for another hour or so then went to bed. Roy didn't show up again until the following week.