Dean was surprised that Lexi barely reacted to his offhand musing of watching a movie with him, after everything.  It wasn’t like he believed for a second that they would be able to watch a movie and keep their hands off each other.  He shook himself from his thoughts as she mentioned the whole reason they were out in the first place, and he turned to walk with her as she patted his arm and turned to the store.

As they entered the store, Dean glanced down at Lexi, and picked up one of the hand baskets at the door, “Basic stuff.  Plenty of booze and I think we need more popcorn and some chocolate for you, if we’re gonna do the whole movie night thing again.”

He chuckled and grabbed his favorite whiskey off the shelf closest to the register, a habit that he didn’t figure he could break all that easily.  He nodded at the cashier, who was sizing Lexi up as if she couldn’t believe Dean had a girl with him.  He brushed off the uncomfortable thought that flooded his mind, sending an image of Mika through his headspace, “And if you’re staying for a bit, we may need some more…girly things for the shower.  Or I guess you could just use Sam’s.  It’s close enough.”

He teased her as he reached his free hand out to guide her with her lower back into the next aisle to grab snacks.

[hr]

Anya sighed with relief as Sam understood a bit of her sign language, at least good enough to understand that she was doing her best not to scare him off.  He seemed nice, and she wasn’t completely an angry mess of a human, other than when she was incredibly frustrated.  His agreement to have coffee with her pulled her smile even higher into her cheeks and she held up a thumbs up, before signaling for him to follow her to the cafe across the street.

Once they were out on the street, she looked down at the pad of paper, and began scribbling, “I’m not always so angry.  You seem nice.  Sorry if I seem aggressive.”, she wrote down, before tilting the pad of paper toward him, as they stepped up to the door of the coffee shop.  She pulled the door open, holding it to where he could catch it with his much taller frame, and then she stepped inside.

She wrote her simple coffee order down on the pad, sighing in frustration that she even had to, and then turned it around to the barista as soon as they stepped up.  She then placed the pad against her chest, looking up to scan over Sam’s face, just taking in his features.  There was something about the worry lines on his face, and the way his eyes drooped just a bit at the edges that told Anya he had been through a lot, and was either working on getting to a better place, or was happier, now.

After he ordered his own coffee, she scribbled on the pad, and turned it to him, “Clinical or loss?”, asking about his sad eyes.