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Feb. 16th, 2009 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elderwittyFandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,443 this chapter/11,124 total
Warnings: Mentions of past violence. Violence. Discussion of a suicide. Shifting POV.
Spoilers: None
Pairings/characters: No pairings. Sam, Dean, OFC, OMC. Gen.
Summary: Not your usual after hunt occurrence.
Chapter One http://elderwitty.livejournal.com/7079.html
The Gift
Chapter Two
2 hours later
Hmnh? He’s nudging me. I’ll start petting again. “Mm, soft.” Man, he likes to nudge.
“Hey, move.”
“Huh?” It’s all the sense I can make after so little sleep.
Suddenly I’m flipped onto my back and held down. “HEY!” in anger (panic), pushing his chest and grabbing his arm, ready to scratch his eyes and kick and run - but catch his worried face and turn to see. The tall one is twisting and looks to be in pain. Still with the headache?
Back to worry and fearing helplessness. “Sammy, wake up,” shaking him.
Tall one is Sammy – check.
Trapped under the other what can I do? I reach for Sammy’s right hand and hold it. Human contact is always good, right? Slowing down and waking up he pulls away to rub his forehead. I try the silent thing; brows up and forehead forward – Are you okay? , then realize he doesn’t want some random woman staring at him. Drop my eyes and turn away ‘I’m not here, I didn’t see, no need to be embarrassed’ to let him get his equilibrium back. A slight rasp against stubble makes me shiver.
Feel the bed shift as he gets up, catch a glimpse as he passes and track him until he closes the bathroom door and we lose most of the light. Switch my gaze to the one still on top of me. He’s looking at me like I’m a bug on a slide; a curiosity. He rolls off and watches the bathroom door. He looks like a worried guard dog, poor guy. Crap! He doesn’t want me staring at him either. I join the door vigil before asking, “That happen a lot?” Careful to let him face me before I focus on him.
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Dean sighs. That was a bad one – nightmare, vision, whichever. And just what Sam needs, this chick to label him “freak” and look away like he’s a leper. Sammy heads into the bathroom to pull himself together without an audience and I turn to give her an earful but she’s watching him go, eyes full of concern and sympathy. What the hell? Now she’s looking at me and I realize I still have her pinned. I roll off to watch for Sam’s reemergence. “That happen a lot?” She’s staring at the bathroom door like it’s covered in feathers before she meets my eyes.
“More often recently.”
“Do you know why?” I consider how much to tell this almost total stranger.
Something about sharing a pillow in the almost dark must breed confession, ‘cause even though I don’t get personal with the people we help, I hear myself saying, “He has visions.” I watch expressions chase across her face – surprise, doubt, cynicism, worry and wonder – before she mouths, “Wow.” I give her a moment.
“His whole life?”
Shaking my head, “Just the past year.”
She scoffs, a small smile in place and says, “Right. ‘Cause your life wasn’t hard enough already.”
Who is this chick and where does she get off looking down on us? “What would you know about it?” Flat, not friendly. She blinks and disappears; no longer a person interacting but a mask, impersonal and impregnable.
She looks down, then says, “I know it sucks.”
“What?” I expect her to glare when she meets my eyes again, but she isn’t angry; just resigned as she starts reciting facts that should be obvious to all. I hear her counting the ways and things our life lacks and realize I was wrong. She wasn’t judging us – she was seeing us.
I’m not sure which is worse.
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I hear them talking while I’m drying my face and hands. A low murmur, can’t make out the words. I open the door in time to hear “--t would you know about it?” in the voice that usually announces a bar fight. Her half-smile disappears as she freezes like a startled animal. She drops her gaze and lowers her head, a courtier showing submission to the king. She’s so tense I’m not even sure she’s breathing until I hear, “I know it sucks,” in a matter of fact voice. Not cowed then, just regrouping.
She lifts her chin to lock eyes with Dean and continues, “It can’t pay much – you’re living in a shit motel. I’m betting not a lot of gratitude either. People just aren’t thankful when you rip their blinders off. Always on the road. No home base. No home. Never enough rest, ‘specially when you’re hurt. No security. No one who understands, ‘cept him,” flicking a glance at me. “Can’t ever really relax. Certainly can’t trust people.”
What, another psychic? There’s no way she could peg all that from knowing us, what, three hours? Two of which we slept. I can see Dean’s thinking the same thing. “You’re right. I don’t know the first damn thing about it. But I can imagine.” Dean opens his mouth, either to apologize or accuse her of being a witch, but she stops him with, “I need my arm.” That he’s lying on. From while she was petting him into a pleasure coma. Yeah, no one can say ‘Thank you’ like Dean Winchester.
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He lifts his head enough for me to slide my arm from under his neck. I drop it onto the pillow between us, forearm elled above my head, and close my eyes to create some privacy, some distance. I know the tall… Sammy…can see my face from the doorway, so I concentrate on keeping my breathing deep and regular. I’ve exposed myself to enough ridicule for one night. I stupidly thought it’d be different this time, especially after they helped me with the skeleton, and the silent…whatever – thing with Sammy, before, but it seems like it’s starting again already.
I feel him shift and hear, “Look..”
I cut him off with a tired flip of my hand– I don’t expect or need any half-assed apology. “Don’t. I get it. You’re worried and you’re stressing, it just slipped out, you didn’t mean to snap at me. Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
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She’s not. Her face has the particular blankness that comes with massive effort to conceal the need to either cry or run the hell away.
“Dean, I was gone for two minutes. What did you do?”
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Mean one is Dean—check.
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“Me?” Wha-? Why does Sam always assume I did something? “Lucy Librarian here is the one who went all leper judgey on you, then started acting like we’re old buddies and she knows something about our life.”
“I’d say she has a good idea, Dean, and what does ‘leper judgey’ even mean?”
“Sam, you didn’t see how she looked at you, like…”
“Y-You know I can hear you, right? And I’m not a librarian,” without opening her eyes.
“Well, you look like one; a spinster librarian.”
“Dean!” Why’s Sam so surprised I’m defending him? It’s not like I haven’t done it before, a million times.
That gets a reaction, anyway – she’s rolling away and muttering, “That was fast,” pulling something from under her as she settles in on her left side.
“Holy crap! Where did all that come from?!” Her hair is down to her waist at least.
Sarcastically, “Uh, librarian hair bun, maybe?”
“Damn, that’s gotta be more trouble than it’s worth… no point in hair longer than shoulder length.”
“Uh, o-kaay.” she says, in the vocal version of backing away slowly.
“And I better not roll on the clip.” Sighing, she reaches into her neckline and pulls out a barrette, holding it up briefly before tucking it back away. Huh. I’ve never seen that used as storage before. “What else do you have in there?”
“Dean!” Sammy Hall Monitor, always on the job.
Silently, she pulls out the clip again and transfers it to her left hand. It’s joined by a tissue, a $20 bill, and a driver’s license, which I take.
“Give that back!” twisting around and grabbing for it.
Angling it toward the light – “Millicent?” No wonder she didn’t want that to get out.
Sighing and annoyed, “Yes, Millicent. And you can’t say anything I’ve never heard. Can I have it back now?”
Handing it over, “Wow, just born and your parents didn’t like you already,” not sure what it is about this chick that makes me keep saying stuff like that.
Tiredly, “Yeah. Just proves how smart they were. It takes most people longer.” She tucks the license back in and turns away and, wow, now I really feel like a puppy stomping jackass.
“Dean, what is wrong with you?”
Chapter Three - http://elderwitty.livejournal.com/7471.html
