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At the wall where the farmhouse is afforded the least possible visibility from the more crowded areas of the farm, a quarter-lump of brick falls pointlessly to the ground. Mel, nursing her knuckles, glares at it.

She's familiar with the practice, when you're so pent up with frustration and anger and hatred that you have to punch something, of finding an innocent wall and taking it out on that, and is annoyed to fins out that a) it's not nearly as satisfying as common wisdom holds, and b) it's much much less of a good idea when there's a possibility you might actually win a fight with a building.

She nudges the brick against the base of the house, deciding she'd better get Toph to reattach it later, and turns her attention back to her hand.

Frustration not satisfied, hand hardly injured, house probably not hurting that much from its loss. All in all, a completely no-win situation.

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Mel looks at the arm and meets his eyes before she moves, but she does, leaning against his side and finding that the height difference is just enough for her to find a comfortable spot for her head against his shoulder.

"You don't hafta be here," she points out. He's here for the sex, right? Not picking up the pieces of a stupid girl who can't even keep her family alive and unscarred.

Well, he was here for the sex, but now he's here because of a promise. Which is just as important, if substantially less fun.

He shrugs with the shoulder she's not leaning on, arm wrapped around her shoulders. "I got nothing better to do."

A promise which, should Mel know of its existence, result in a termination of sex and probably a few choice words for Sokka as well.

"Your life must suck right now then."

Dean laughs and shakes his head. "Nah. I'm out here while m'brother does what he does best - research. Christ, if I never see another mouldy-lookin' book again it won't be too soon. I freaking miss the Internet."

"The grid?"

Mel looks up at him in the same action that brings her eyes into a roll.

"Never touched the thing."

"It's damn useful," Dean says, smirking, not bothered by her reaction. "Beats mouldy library books any day."

She smells good, this close. His smirk lingers and turns into a grin.

"'Scept the laws can trace everything you do on the grid," Mel replies. "Paper's got history. Worth more, too."

It's not the subject matter that matters, it's that there's conversation.

"Paper smells," Dean argues, without any real force - mostly just for argument's sake. "And carryin' too many books weighs my car down. Pain in the ass, those things."

"Like the smell of paper," Mel replies. By now she's a little more animated, walking fingers along Dean's belt.

"It's all cute and antique-y."

"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Smells like old, dead things. I like things're alive, personally."

His hand on her shoulder slides up a little so he can rub her neck with his thumb gently.

There's a beat in which Mel's still; no change in attitude or position or facial expression, she's just still. And it's more obvious how relaxed she very much isn't.

"Yeah, me too."

"No kidding."

Dean doesn't stop rubbing her shoulder, gently.

"You gonna keep beating the buildings up for it?"

"No."

Mel's shoulder is more than tense; it's rock-hard. But her neck stretches towards his thumb as it begins to do the work of easing it.

"I'd just like to go a month without someone in my family dying or turning evil. I'm running out."

"Yeah, I kinda know whatcha mean." Dean thinks of that other Sam in Lawrence, frowning. He shifts a little against the wall and tugs Mel's shoulder. "C'mere."

So he can do the massage thing properly, if in an amateurish way.

She obeys without fuss, exhaling in relief as she lifts her hair out of the way and around the front of her shoulders.

"Kinda?"

"Well, I didn't have that much family t'start with," Dean says, both hands on her shoulders to knead carefully, tongue sticking out slightly in concentration.

"Thought I'd run out a couple years back. Turned out I was wrong." Luckily.

"Yeah," Mel says. "I thought I had, too. I was wrong, but seems it was only 'cause losing them the first time wasn't painful enough.

"What happened with you?"

Dean massages her shoulders quietly for a moment.

"Made a deal t'bring him back."

Mel's hands cover his, stilling them for a moment. The side-effect of that is - he can feel the strength with which she swallows.

"Did it work?"

Dean swallows.

"Yeah. Cost somethin', though."

Mel slides her hands down from his, using one to push her hair back so when she turns her head she can see him.

She's had three people back so far (not counting Erin) two of them were disasters.

"What?"

"Me." He goes back to rubbing her shoulders, meeting her gaze with a vague attempt at a smirk. "They gave me a year, though."

Mel breaks the gaze by glancing down, thinking.

It hasn't occured to her that this is more than a year ago.

After a second, she nods. "I'd've done that, once."

Those years without Harth, she'd've traded her life for his in a heartbeat.

Dean nods, understanding.

"I warned Sokka it could turn bad," he says after a minute, quietly. "Don't think I warned him enough, though.

"Told him the only guaranteed way t'make it work was - what I did, trading. He said he wouldn't. So there's that."

"...he knew," Mel says, after the pause that's beginning to punctuate every sentence in this conversation. She's looking forward again, hugging herself as she leans into his fingers. "We've seen it go bad - really bad."