“Robbin' people with a zip gun”
- I Fought The Law, Bobby Fuller Four
The thing about Cassie was that she'd been easy to fall for.
She'd been beautiful, smart, laid back, funny, independent, everything a guy wanted in a girl minus her not believing him when he'd admitted what he did for a living. It had been the first time that he'd felt more for a woman than lust and Dean had gone with it. He'd thought their relationship would last, it hadn't been the first time he'd been wrong.
Liz wasn't nearly as easy.
Sure she was smart, funny, independent, and gorgeous but she was also stubborn, quick to anger, closed off, and no matter how laid back she appeared to be she wasn't about most things. The slip of a woman who made people think that she was flying by the seat of her pants but she wasn't. There was a plan, even if he wasn't privy to it.
Liz was much darker than Cassie had ever been but the attraction was stronger too. She fit better.
At first she'd been Sam's annoying friend then just another one of the guys but somewhere along the way he'd started seeing her as some sort of... girlfriend. He had no idea what he was suppose to do with that. They got along better than before, did more than just sleep together, and watched each others backs closer, but nothing had really changed.
Either their relationship was just that easy or he'd missed a step somewhere.
Liz caught his eye in the rearview mirror and rolled hers, a smile playing at her lips as she continued to argue with Sam jokingly. She refused to impersonate an FBI agent, it was her only limit in the costume department.
At the moment she was trying to convince Sam that while yes she couldn't have helped in the jewelery store she should be allowed to question the former security guard of Milwaukee National Trust her way in the belief that a less intimidating method would be more successful.
It was an argument she knew she wouldn't win but kept at to annoy his brother.
Dean caught her eye again, his smile deepening when she silently mouthed 'hi' her eyebrows raised and a faint blush on her cheeks at getting caught looking at him.
There was just something about her.
*
“I hate shapeshifters,” Liz shivered slightly as she stared at the tape.
In all her years dealing with shit that wasn't exactly normal, she'd never met one that she'd liked. Cal was selfish bastard, Nasedo was a sadistic bastard, and the one in St Louis was the bastard that framed Dean for murder. They all deserved to be strung up.
Flipping through the material that Sam had 'confiscated' from Ronald, she was starting to think that the current one wouldn't be a shining beacon of humanity either.
*
Zooming in to where Liz was sitting at the desk of some poor unsuspecting banker staring at the ceiling in boredom, Dean shook his head. It'd been her idea to pretend to be opening an account instead of watching the camera's with them. She said it was so that there was someone on the floor in case the shapeshifter made a run for it.
They'd been there for an hour and she'd only just got seated at a desk.
A banker finally took a seat across from her and his hand tightened on the camera's control as she smiled flirtatiously, her hand playing with her necklace. The man smiled and nodded before getting up. Dean had the urge to go down there to put him in his place.
“We're supposed to be looking for eyes.”
“I'm getting there.”
“Dean, she's fine,” with barely a nod at his brother he kept watching the screen. The man came back with the bank manager whose eyes flared. “Hello, freak.”
“Got him,” they both pushed back their chairs. Leave it to Liz to attract the attention of the one being in the building that she shouldn't. “Dean!”
“What?” he turned from the door to look at the monitor Sam was staring at.
“Hello Ronald.”
*
“Can you put the gun down Mr Resnick?”
“How do you-” Liz had her hands up but she wasn't joining the rest of the people on the floor against the counter, a fact that seemed to be unsettling Ronald. Dean quickly crossed the room, Sam a step behind, and moved in front of her.
“Hey, buddy. Calm down. Just calm down.”
“What the- You! Get on the floor, now.”
“Ok, we're doing that. Just don't shoot anybody, especially us,” he kept one hand extended to the side, keeping Liz as far out of harms way as possible being stuck in a bank with a shapeshifter and a crazy man with a big gun.
“I knew it as soon as you two left. You weren't FBI. Who are you? Who are you working for huh? The men in black? You working for the mandroid?”
“We're not working for the mandroid,” Sam was not helping thing.
“You, shut up! I'm not talking to you. I don't like you,” a light snort sounded behind him.
Liz looked between him and Ronald apologetically, “Sorry.”
Dean shook his head. He wondered if this was what Sam felt when he threw himself into things without thinking.
*
A couple of years back she'd helped Charlie look up information about Stockholm Syndrome for a psychology class. The case studies they'd found had been interesting and Liz had found herself reading a couple of articles just for the hell of it.
It was too early for she-of-many-questions to be suffering from it.
Sam took yet another deep breath and she stifled a laugh. The girl had been talking about Dean non stop since he'd locked them in the sweltering safe. No matter how amusing it was to watch her friend being harassed by hero worship for his brother, if she didn't shut up soon Liz was going to hit her on behalf of all the hostages.
'Cause really, questions about the great looking 'hero' could wait until after they weren't being held against their will.
“Oh my god, you saved us!” the heavy door swung partially open letting in some cooler air. Dean shot her a confused look at the woman's enthusiasm. “You saved us!”
“Actually, I just found a few more. Come on everybody, let's go.”
“What are you doing?”
He ignored the girl, looking to Liz and Sam, “Uh, Ronald and I need to talk to you.”
Sighing in relief she followed Sam out, stopping as Dean gently grabbed her wrist as she passed, “You ok?”
Did he mean because she'd been locked in a vault or because she could see police lights flashing outside, “Yeah.”
*
“Get down! Now!”
Sam's voice echoed around the room but it was too late. The small red target of the snipers laser sight was centered on Ronald's back. A small shape rushed past him as Dean turned to watch.
“Liz!”
Heart pounding he grabbed her quickly and spun them around behind a low wall as the sound of gun fire told him that Ronald was dead. Liz turned her head into his chest, his hand cupping the back of her head. He'd almost lost her. If he hadn't reacted she would have been next to Ronald in an attempt to save him when the shot was taken.
“This is so fucked up.”
“You're ok,” his arms tightened around her. “You're ok.”
*
Anger and frustration coursed through him as he hung up the phone. Whoever the hell this Hendrickson was, Dean was going to have a long... talk with him if they ever came face to face. The man had no idea what he was talking about, he had no right to talk about his dad like that.
“What'd they say?” the panic that had graced Liz's features since he'd said 'Federal Agent' was still there, tempered only for her obvious concern for him.
The tension in his shoulders lessened at her touch. He didn't know why she was so good at that but he didn't think it was because of her mojo, “We've got an hour.”
“Son of a bitch,” he could feel her heart pounding. She looked up at him, silently pleading for him to trust her. He already did. “They're not going to wait an hour.”
He hadn't thought so, “I know.”
“Dean, we can't get caught,” it was said in a way that told him she knew he wasn't going to let that happen but that she needed to say it. He was still trying to adjust to someone having that much unquestioned faith in him. “I really need for them to not know I was here.”
He'd been thinking of a way out since Ronald had locked them in. Being caught wasn't really an option, “Can you change the way you look?”
She'd only done it a couple of times and never in front of him. Like the rest of her abilities Dean wasn't sure how it worked but he had considered it as a way for them to get past the police. If they could get the shapeshifter before SWAT came in that plan might still work.
Liz brought shaking hands up to her face, he lightly stopped her, “This is going to work.”
With a nod, he watched as she transformed in front of him. The changes were subtle at first. Her skin lightened a shade, her lips thinned, nose widened. Hands going higher her hair shortened and turned a color closer to his. The only thing that remained the same was her eyes.
Watching had to be one of the oddest things he'd done.
“You like?” he pulled her closer to press his lips against the sensitive spot on her neck.
“I like the original better.”
*
Agent Hendrickson entered the bank and watched the members of SWAT methodically search the building. The Winchester's were dangerous men especially Dean. That man had brutally murdered at least one and had attacked another in St Louis. There was no telling what damage they'd find.
Keeping his eyes peeled for either brother and the woman that the investigation had shown was traveling with them. They didn't know anything about her except that as of a month ago she'd been with them but she needed to be brought in too.
An officer passed him guiding a dazed girl. Her cropped light hair and freckles made her look young, probably between the ages sixteen and nineteen. She tripped over her own feet as she glanced at him, her eyes made her seem much older.
“Are you alright miss?”
She looked down to his gun and back up, “Yes.”
*
“So, what was that all about back there?” Liz jumped slightly as Dean sat down on the neighboring swing.
As soon as they'd booked the room, she'd escaped to the nearest place she could find which turned out to be the park across the street. She'd come too close to opening Pandora's box. All she needed was one person to make a connection between the Winchester's and the name Parker and all the work they'd put into getting the FBI off their backs would be for naught.
She'd chanced putting Luca into danger, she couldn't forgive herself for that.
“What I can do, it's not normal,” Dean nodded but looked slightly puzzled. “The FBI doesn't like not normal. If my name gets connected with anything unusual they won't let it rest. Not after last time.”
“You're with us. They won't get you,” she really wished it was that simple.
The summer before Stanford the Special Unit had tried to come after them again and it hadn't ended up well. More agents had been killed adding to the count from when they'd held Max. No covert organization just let things like that go. She had blood on her hands and that would always make her a target.
“They won't just come after me and then I'll have to go after them and...”
It was always her plans that resulted in a body count. Michael hated her guilt, said it wasn't her fault but if the agents deaths were a direct consequence of her actions how could they not be? Only one of the three had technically died at her hands, it'd been when she hadn't had control of her abilities – he'd gotten caught in the crossfire - but the other two were just as much her fault.
Agent #2 had come at her after she'd walked into a trap because she hadn't been willing to take anyone else's advice. Michael had killed him. Agent #3 had died as a direct result of a plan she'd composed. Wrong place. Wrong time. There hadn't been any other way.
“Hey, nothing will happen. I won't let it.”
She believed he'd try.
*
He wasn't so sure how it was suppose to go. With Cassie there hadn't been any declaration of feelings. Him telling her what he did had been his way of showing how he felt. But Liz wasn't Cassie. Hell, this thing with Liz wasn't comparable.
“You know... ” Dean scratch back of head as he watched her pull a sweatshirt over her head. “I...”
In the year and a half that they'd been hunting together, he hadn't really considered how dangerous it was for her. He didn't know what he'd do if she was seriously injured because of what they did.
She smiled at him brightly, “I know, me too.”
Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) COMPLETE
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, Erina, Forum Moderators
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vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
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- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/06
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/09
Ok, fair warning, this needed to be done to reach the next stage of the story...
“Oh...seems like I'm always on my own,
Seems like I'm never coming home”
- Stars and Boulevards, Augustana
Liz was pushing off his top shirt as he worked on her belt buckle. Her shirt had been abandoned by the door, her skin warm and flushed under his fingers. They had to be quick, Sam was out getting burgers which wouldn't take very long.
Smiling against his lips, tiny hands grasped his shirt pulling down him with her as she went to lay back. He landed on the floor before he could register that they were rolling off the edge. A groan escaped his lips as Liz landed on top of him, her laughter shaking her.
“That hurt.”
Straddling him as she slowly worked his shirt up his chest, she leaned down lips barely touching his, “Poor baby.”
*
“You don't know where he is?”
“I really have no idea,” leaning against the overpass Liz glanced quickly over at Dean. He was talking to Ellen again in the hope that many be the bar owner would have heard anything about Sam.
It had been a week since he'd gone out to get burgers and they hadn't seen or heard from him since. If he was ok and had just decided to skip out AGAIN, for the third time, she was going to kill. Alright, so not kill since that was an empty threat but give him a serious talking too and let Jess freak on him when they got back together. If he'd been taken, she really would kill who had done it.
“Do you think he'll come here?” there was skepticism in Dani's voice. She always had a hard time believing that Sam was all that Jess said he was. Men, in her book, didn't come that near perfect.
“Probably not. He shouldn't know about baby girl so I can't see why he'd go,” she could hear the pace of Dean's conversation change. “Just watch your back. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“You got it.”
She hung up the phone and put it in her pocket.
Sam deciding that he needed some time alone, she could deal with. Him going missing, that was another case all together. For all they knew it could've be the YED starting a new stage of his master plan, the war thing. They wouldn't be able to do anything about it either.
The colt was gone, lost in the chaos after John was murdered. They couldn't find Sam. No one had heard anything.
“Liz,” Dean was getting back into the Impala. “I've got him.”
*
The gas station attendant was the typical high school kid trying to make some cash, probably for booze or gas. Pretending to be a concerned friend, Liz passed the picture of Sam - who was impatiently waiting in the Impala - to the kid, “Please, he's been missing a week if you know saw where he went.”
“That asshole. He's lucky I didn't call the cops,” the feeling of wrongness that she'd been fighting against since they'd found Sam, flooded her. Something wasn't right. She had no idea what it was but it was there.
There had to be something messing with Sam.
“What'd he do?”
“Jerk comes in yesterday, stinking drunk, grabs a forty from the fridge, starts chugging it.”
Dean's hand froze where it was sitting on her waist, “This guy?”
“Yeah, and he whipped the friggin' bottle at my head.”
“This guy?”
“Dean,” she smiled apologetically at the kid. “When he took off yesterday, where did he go?”
“Asshole went north, route 71 straight out of town. Didn't pay for the booze or the smokes.”
*
Sam had killed a hunter or someone that looked like Sam or something controlling Sam but that still left a dead hunter whose pissed off friends would be looking for who did it.
“Dean, you promised,” he always tried to believe the worst of himself. “You promised me.”
Liz sat down heavily on the bed, her head swimming. He didn't want her to connect with him. She might be able to figure out what happened during his missing week and he kept avoiding her.
“No. Listen to me. We're going to figure this out. Okay? I mean, there's got to be a way, right?”
“Yeah, there is,” she tried to blink her sight clear, tried to say something. Sam shouldn't think that his brother had to kill him. It was the second time that he'd done that. Why did he want to die? “I don't want to hurt anyone else. I don't want to hurt you.”
Pain laced through her gut as he handed Dean the handgun. She had to do something. She had to.
“You won't. Whatever this is, you can fight it.”
“No. I can't. Not forever. You gotta do it.”
Unsteady hands grabbed her head. It wasn't right. Nothing was right.
“You know, I've tried hard to keep you safe.”
“I know.”
Swallowing nausea, Liz pushed herself to her feet. Sam was wrong. That wasn't him. It couldn't be him. She opened her mouth to say anything.
“I can't. I'd rather die,” her legs gave out dropping her to the floor heavily. “Liz.”
Concerned hands moved her head, she opened her eyes, “It's not... that's...”
“What? What is-” Dean fell backwards unconscious, Sam standing over him.
*
“Yeah, right there. Duluth, Minnesota. Yeah, that is a long way to go for a concert. I appreciate you help,” Dean hung up the phone and with one last look at the information on the screen, left.
That thing, the thing that was possessing Sam had Liz. He didn't know want it'd do to her but if it hurt her, he was going to do whatever he could, short of seriously hurting Sam, to return the favor.
He should have known that it wasn't his brother. Things had just been so fucked up that he hadn't given it any thought. Sam wasn't ever himself when he was convinced that he was going to turn evil. The worst part, the kicker was that Liz had known. She'd tried to warn him.
Dean had no idea what was in Duluth but he'd find out when he got there.
*
It was dark and small, barely big enough for her to shift onto her back.
Liz hated small spaces and the trunk of the Impala was turning out to be her least favorite. The constant roar of the engine was giving her a headache, every bump they hit sent her colliding with the hood, and there was nothing to make her stop thinking about one of her closest friends having bound her and trapping her in the trunk.
She knew that it wasn't Sam but she was having trouble separating the face from the person.
“Sam,” her voice was little more than a whisper, having been screamed hoarse after her head had cleared. Like every other time, there was no answer.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed when the engine finally stopped, just that Sam got out and she was alone.
*
“Sam, get off me!” Jo tried to get Sam off her. Pushing off the bar, squirming, it didn't work. He was bigger and stronger than she was. “Sam, get off me! Sam!”
All the times that her mother had warned her about men. That they were dogs, that some of them were vicious, that they'd take advantage of any opening they could get. Even one created by physical force. She'd brushed her off. Jo had thought that given her training she could fight them off.
The bottle she'd reached for smashed into tiny pieces, the pressure forcing her into the bar increased, her face shoved into the wood, “Sam, no, no! Please!”
Suddenly he was off of her. A relieved sob escaped her as she turned to tell him off for scaring her that way but instead of a sheepish or apologetic Winchester, his friend - Liz - had her arm around his neck, legs around his middle. Her hands were digging into her features.
He harshly drove her back into a pillar and her grip loosened. Jo looked around for a way to help but was too panicked to think straight.
“Jo! Run!” Sam had flipped her onto her back, pinning her down. “Run! Jo!”
*
“Fucking bastard,” her head was pounding, she could feel the bruise on the back of her head swelling. “You're a real dick, you know that?”
“Is that anyway to talk to your friend?”
“Cristo,” Sam's eyes flashed black. “Still think you're my friend?”
Liz's head snapped to the side as she was backhanded, “You think you're so great and yet, you're still bait.”
“Bait?”
“The temptation used for a trap,” she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That would only hurt her.
“You really think that Dean would fall for this? You're stupider than I gave you credit for.”
“Hmmm... Dean would do anything for his brother, for you. He'll be here,” Sam roughly tried the gag around her mouth while she glared.
The door burst open and Dean came in followed closely by Jo, both with guns out, “Sam!”
Cool steel pressed into her neck. Sam's expression shifted to one of panic. The demon was certainly a good actor, “I begged you to stop me, Dean.”
“Put the knife down, dammit,” she could feel it slice through her skin, her blood started to slowly drip.
“I told you I can't fight it! My head feels like it's on fire, all right Dean? Kill me, or I'm going to kill her. Please. You'll be doing me a favor! Shoot me,” he stepped away. “Shoot me!”
“No, Sammy. Come on,” Dean lowered his gun but Jo didn't.
“What the hell's wrong with you, Dean? Are you that scared of being alone that you'd rather let Liz die?”
Sam let out a hiss as steam rose off his body, “That's holy water, you demonic son of a bitch!”
With a growl Sam jumped out the window, Jo's shot going wide and burying into the frame, and Dean rushed to her side.
“You alright?” she nodded.
*
He was there, then he wasn't.
Liz managed to keep herself behind the crates long enough to make sure that the demon was gone before diving into the shallow water. Dean was heavy in her arms, waterlogged and not able to use one of his arms, she hadn't appreciated how heavy he was.
With a final gasp and heave, she flopped down on the dock next to him, “You've got to stop getting hurt.”
He smiled at her wearily, “I could say the same.”
*
Jo watched as Liz patched up Dean, their heads drawn close together.
The last time they'd seen each other, the pair had been dancing around the topic and it had given her crush a little hope. Since they hadn't done anything, maybe she'd have a chance. Looking at them now, there wasn't even the shimmer of a possibility.
With the bullet out, Dean used his good arm to pull Liz closer. She couldn't hear what they were discussing but the way there was nothing but intimacy between them. He lightly kissed her, pulled back to say something before kissing her again. It wasn't until Liz shook her head that he leaned back resigned.
That was what Jo wanted, that kind of relationship. Now, she'd have to find someone else.
*
Dean snaked his good arm around her waist and pulled her close enough that he could feel her heartbeat, “Are you ok?”
“You already asked me that.”
“I know,” he pulled her down into a kiss before pulling back so their lips were barely touching. “I want you to stay here.”
“Bobby could be in trouble.”
He kissed her again, “I won't let anything happen to him but if I have to worry about you...”
“I'll be fine. Dean," she shook her head, "I'm not going anywhere.”
He wished that wasn't the problem.
*
Sam was asleep in the bedroom down the hall with the charm Bobby had given him, salt circled around the bed, and locks drawn on the entrances. There was a bed in the room for Liz as well but she hadn't left the couch where she'd been laying with Dean since his brother had gone upstairs.
Her head was resting on his chest, lifting with every breath, each heartbeat making a small thread of relief string through her. She'd appreciated how precarious life was since she'd almost lost hers at sixteen but everyday that she spent hunting was making it more obvious. The demon would have killed her, Dean, and Sam if it had been given a chance.
He was drawing patterns on her back where her shirt had ridden up and it was slowly soothing her into sleep, “I love you.”
It was the first time that either of them had said those words and it was a hell of a lot more tangible than their sort of confession. She grinned against him, “I love you too.”
*
He pushed back a strand of hair letting his fingers glide down her face barely touching the bruises blossoming around her neck. She smiled in her sleep, snuggling deeper into the couch. He didn't want to leave her but it didn't matter what he wanted anymore.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Bobby stood in the doorway, taking them in.
Dean knew that Bobby had easily figured out his feelings for Liz. The man lived observing those around him, besides he'd been told that they were fairly obvious. He figured that the only person that didn't know was Sam. His brother had always been obtuse when it came to things like that.
“This job has cost us too much already, it won't take her too.”
*
Liz blinked herself awake to find that she was alone on the couch and that the house was eerily quiet for one that the Winchester's were residing in. Stretching out, ignoring the twinges from too many bruises, she made her way to the kitchen. Like Dean she needed caffeine in the morning, though she was more inclined to drink a cup of tea than down a bottle of Coke.
“Mornin' Bobby,” she slid into the seat across from him. “Where're the boys?”
The older man glanced around the room awkwardly before finally settling on her. There was guilt in his eyes and it took her a minute to understand why it was there. Dean wouldn't have let her wake up alone. Knocking over the chair she rushed to the front of the house. The Impala wasn't there.
“Where'd they go Bobby?” her chest felt like it was going to cave in. “Where'd they go?”
“I don't know.”
“Oh...seems like I'm always on my own,
Seems like I'm never coming home”
- Stars and Boulevards, Augustana
Liz was pushing off his top shirt as he worked on her belt buckle. Her shirt had been abandoned by the door, her skin warm and flushed under his fingers. They had to be quick, Sam was out getting burgers which wouldn't take very long.
Smiling against his lips, tiny hands grasped his shirt pulling down him with her as she went to lay back. He landed on the floor before he could register that they were rolling off the edge. A groan escaped his lips as Liz landed on top of him, her laughter shaking her.
“That hurt.”
Straddling him as she slowly worked his shirt up his chest, she leaned down lips barely touching his, “Poor baby.”
*
“You don't know where he is?”
“I really have no idea,” leaning against the overpass Liz glanced quickly over at Dean. He was talking to Ellen again in the hope that many be the bar owner would have heard anything about Sam.
It had been a week since he'd gone out to get burgers and they hadn't seen or heard from him since. If he was ok and had just decided to skip out AGAIN, for the third time, she was going to kill. Alright, so not kill since that was an empty threat but give him a serious talking too and let Jess freak on him when they got back together. If he'd been taken, she really would kill who had done it.
“Do you think he'll come here?” there was skepticism in Dani's voice. She always had a hard time believing that Sam was all that Jess said he was. Men, in her book, didn't come that near perfect.
“Probably not. He shouldn't know about baby girl so I can't see why he'd go,” she could hear the pace of Dean's conversation change. “Just watch your back. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“You got it.”
She hung up the phone and put it in her pocket.
Sam deciding that he needed some time alone, she could deal with. Him going missing, that was another case all together. For all they knew it could've be the YED starting a new stage of his master plan, the war thing. They wouldn't be able to do anything about it either.
The colt was gone, lost in the chaos after John was murdered. They couldn't find Sam. No one had heard anything.
“Liz,” Dean was getting back into the Impala. “I've got him.”
*
The gas station attendant was the typical high school kid trying to make some cash, probably for booze or gas. Pretending to be a concerned friend, Liz passed the picture of Sam - who was impatiently waiting in the Impala - to the kid, “Please, he's been missing a week if you know saw where he went.”
“That asshole. He's lucky I didn't call the cops,” the feeling of wrongness that she'd been fighting against since they'd found Sam, flooded her. Something wasn't right. She had no idea what it was but it was there.
There had to be something messing with Sam.
“What'd he do?”
“Jerk comes in yesterday, stinking drunk, grabs a forty from the fridge, starts chugging it.”
Dean's hand froze where it was sitting on her waist, “This guy?”
“Yeah, and he whipped the friggin' bottle at my head.”
“This guy?”
“Dean,” she smiled apologetically at the kid. “When he took off yesterday, where did he go?”
“Asshole went north, route 71 straight out of town. Didn't pay for the booze or the smokes.”
*
Sam had killed a hunter or someone that looked like Sam or something controlling Sam but that still left a dead hunter whose pissed off friends would be looking for who did it.
“Dean, you promised,” he always tried to believe the worst of himself. “You promised me.”
Liz sat down heavily on the bed, her head swimming. He didn't want her to connect with him. She might be able to figure out what happened during his missing week and he kept avoiding her.
“No. Listen to me. We're going to figure this out. Okay? I mean, there's got to be a way, right?”
“Yeah, there is,” she tried to blink her sight clear, tried to say something. Sam shouldn't think that his brother had to kill him. It was the second time that he'd done that. Why did he want to die? “I don't want to hurt anyone else. I don't want to hurt you.”
Pain laced through her gut as he handed Dean the handgun. She had to do something. She had to.
“You won't. Whatever this is, you can fight it.”
“No. I can't. Not forever. You gotta do it.”
Unsteady hands grabbed her head. It wasn't right. Nothing was right.
“You know, I've tried hard to keep you safe.”
“I know.”
Swallowing nausea, Liz pushed herself to her feet. Sam was wrong. That wasn't him. It couldn't be him. She opened her mouth to say anything.
“I can't. I'd rather die,” her legs gave out dropping her to the floor heavily. “Liz.”
Concerned hands moved her head, she opened her eyes, “It's not... that's...”
“What? What is-” Dean fell backwards unconscious, Sam standing over him.
*
“Yeah, right there. Duluth, Minnesota. Yeah, that is a long way to go for a concert. I appreciate you help,” Dean hung up the phone and with one last look at the information on the screen, left.
That thing, the thing that was possessing Sam had Liz. He didn't know want it'd do to her but if it hurt her, he was going to do whatever he could, short of seriously hurting Sam, to return the favor.
He should have known that it wasn't his brother. Things had just been so fucked up that he hadn't given it any thought. Sam wasn't ever himself when he was convinced that he was going to turn evil. The worst part, the kicker was that Liz had known. She'd tried to warn him.
Dean had no idea what was in Duluth but he'd find out when he got there.
*
It was dark and small, barely big enough for her to shift onto her back.
Liz hated small spaces and the trunk of the Impala was turning out to be her least favorite. The constant roar of the engine was giving her a headache, every bump they hit sent her colliding with the hood, and there was nothing to make her stop thinking about one of her closest friends having bound her and trapping her in the trunk.
She knew that it wasn't Sam but she was having trouble separating the face from the person.
“Sam,” her voice was little more than a whisper, having been screamed hoarse after her head had cleared. Like every other time, there was no answer.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed when the engine finally stopped, just that Sam got out and she was alone.
*
“Sam, get off me!” Jo tried to get Sam off her. Pushing off the bar, squirming, it didn't work. He was bigger and stronger than she was. “Sam, get off me! Sam!”
All the times that her mother had warned her about men. That they were dogs, that some of them were vicious, that they'd take advantage of any opening they could get. Even one created by physical force. She'd brushed her off. Jo had thought that given her training she could fight them off.
The bottle she'd reached for smashed into tiny pieces, the pressure forcing her into the bar increased, her face shoved into the wood, “Sam, no, no! Please!”
Suddenly he was off of her. A relieved sob escaped her as she turned to tell him off for scaring her that way but instead of a sheepish or apologetic Winchester, his friend - Liz - had her arm around his neck, legs around his middle. Her hands were digging into her features.
He harshly drove her back into a pillar and her grip loosened. Jo looked around for a way to help but was too panicked to think straight.
“Jo! Run!” Sam had flipped her onto her back, pinning her down. “Run! Jo!”
*
“Fucking bastard,” her head was pounding, she could feel the bruise on the back of her head swelling. “You're a real dick, you know that?”
“Is that anyway to talk to your friend?”
“Cristo,” Sam's eyes flashed black. “Still think you're my friend?”
Liz's head snapped to the side as she was backhanded, “You think you're so great and yet, you're still bait.”
“Bait?”
“The temptation used for a trap,” she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That would only hurt her.
“You really think that Dean would fall for this? You're stupider than I gave you credit for.”
“Hmmm... Dean would do anything for his brother, for you. He'll be here,” Sam roughly tried the gag around her mouth while she glared.
The door burst open and Dean came in followed closely by Jo, both with guns out, “Sam!”
Cool steel pressed into her neck. Sam's expression shifted to one of panic. The demon was certainly a good actor, “I begged you to stop me, Dean.”
“Put the knife down, dammit,” she could feel it slice through her skin, her blood started to slowly drip.
“I told you I can't fight it! My head feels like it's on fire, all right Dean? Kill me, or I'm going to kill her. Please. You'll be doing me a favor! Shoot me,” he stepped away. “Shoot me!”
“No, Sammy. Come on,” Dean lowered his gun but Jo didn't.
“What the hell's wrong with you, Dean? Are you that scared of being alone that you'd rather let Liz die?”
Sam let out a hiss as steam rose off his body, “That's holy water, you demonic son of a bitch!”
With a growl Sam jumped out the window, Jo's shot going wide and burying into the frame, and Dean rushed to her side.
“You alright?” she nodded.
*
He was there, then he wasn't.
Liz managed to keep herself behind the crates long enough to make sure that the demon was gone before diving into the shallow water. Dean was heavy in her arms, waterlogged and not able to use one of his arms, she hadn't appreciated how heavy he was.
With a final gasp and heave, she flopped down on the dock next to him, “You've got to stop getting hurt.”
He smiled at her wearily, “I could say the same.”
*
Jo watched as Liz patched up Dean, their heads drawn close together.
The last time they'd seen each other, the pair had been dancing around the topic and it had given her crush a little hope. Since they hadn't done anything, maybe she'd have a chance. Looking at them now, there wasn't even the shimmer of a possibility.
With the bullet out, Dean used his good arm to pull Liz closer. She couldn't hear what they were discussing but the way there was nothing but intimacy between them. He lightly kissed her, pulled back to say something before kissing her again. It wasn't until Liz shook her head that he leaned back resigned.
That was what Jo wanted, that kind of relationship. Now, she'd have to find someone else.
*
Dean snaked his good arm around her waist and pulled her close enough that he could feel her heartbeat, “Are you ok?”
“You already asked me that.”
“I know,” he pulled her down into a kiss before pulling back so their lips were barely touching. “I want you to stay here.”
“Bobby could be in trouble.”
He kissed her again, “I won't let anything happen to him but if I have to worry about you...”
“I'll be fine. Dean," she shook her head, "I'm not going anywhere.”
He wished that wasn't the problem.
*
Sam was asleep in the bedroom down the hall with the charm Bobby had given him, salt circled around the bed, and locks drawn on the entrances. There was a bed in the room for Liz as well but she hadn't left the couch where she'd been laying with Dean since his brother had gone upstairs.
Her head was resting on his chest, lifting with every breath, each heartbeat making a small thread of relief string through her. She'd appreciated how precarious life was since she'd almost lost hers at sixteen but everyday that she spent hunting was making it more obvious. The demon would have killed her, Dean, and Sam if it had been given a chance.
He was drawing patterns on her back where her shirt had ridden up and it was slowly soothing her into sleep, “I love you.”
It was the first time that either of them had said those words and it was a hell of a lot more tangible than their sort of confession. She grinned against him, “I love you too.”
*
He pushed back a strand of hair letting his fingers glide down her face barely touching the bruises blossoming around her neck. She smiled in her sleep, snuggling deeper into the couch. He didn't want to leave her but it didn't matter what he wanted anymore.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Bobby stood in the doorway, taking them in.
Dean knew that Bobby had easily figured out his feelings for Liz. The man lived observing those around him, besides he'd been told that they were fairly obvious. He figured that the only person that didn't know was Sam. His brother had always been obtuse when it came to things like that.
“This job has cost us too much already, it won't take her too.”
*
Liz blinked herself awake to find that she was alone on the couch and that the house was eerily quiet for one that the Winchester's were residing in. Stretching out, ignoring the twinges from too many bruises, she made her way to the kitchen. Like Dean she needed caffeine in the morning, though she was more inclined to drink a cup of tea than down a bottle of Coke.
“Mornin' Bobby,” she slid into the seat across from him. “Where're the boys?”
The older man glanced around the room awkwardly before finally settling on her. There was guilt in his eyes and it took her a minute to understand why it was there. Dean wouldn't have let her wake up alone. Knocking over the chair she rushed to the front of the house. The Impala wasn't there.
“Where'd they go Bobby?” her chest felt like it was going to cave in. “Where'd they go?”
“I don't know.”
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/13
“Please take me back to your bed
I love you so much that it hurts my head
I don't mind you under my skin
I'll let the bad parts in the bad parts in
Well, you're my favorite bird and when you sing
I really do wish that you'd wear my ring
No matter what they say I am still the king
Now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in.”
- Degausser, Brand New
The rental car shook and sputtered its way into the guest parking lit ending with a shutter that had her questioning if it would start again when it was time to leave. It had been the cheapest on the lot, Liz didn't care if it died. That would only mean the rental agency owed her a car.
Ignoring the looks she was getting for slamming the door shut harder than was strictly necessary, she made her way to the Administration building. The campus was alive with activity and just as beautiful as it had bee the first time she'd stepped on the grounds for freshman orientation.
Brick buildings, stone walkways, Standford looked like the prestigious university it was which wasn't surprising since in the United States aesthetics was one of the more important factors when choosing the right college. That and its party school ranking. Granted Stanford wasn't on any of those lists but that wasn't the point.
The Administration building was busy as usual. She didn't think there had been a time when she hadn't had to wait on line for at least twenty minutes. Like all school bureaucracy it was, ineffective, and annoying as all hell. Though she'd heard that it wasn't as bad as the ones at other schools.
Finally at the front of the line she held back a groan at the familiar face, “I was told that paperwork was being held for me.”
When Jess had been attacked, Liz had basically been done with her fall classes except for the term papers/lab reports that had been due finals week. Being the overachiever that she was, the lab work had been done ahead of time and the papers had just needed to be fleshed out. All she'd had to do was flesh them out after discussing the situation with a couple of her professors. They knew her and had given her a break.
“Name?”
Spring semester, having followed Serena's advice about how to plan her course load, she'd only had to take filler credits: electives and the like that had nothing to do with her major or gen-ed requirements. She'd signed up for distance-learning classes so that all she needed to finish her credits was her laptop. It was one of the reasons that she had left school without question, she'd known she could still get her diploma.
Come May, she'd been a college graduate. All she needed was the piece of paper that said that.
“Elizabeth Parker,” the curly head finally raised from the solitaire screen.
“Lizzy?”
“Hi Amber,” she'd hoped that she'd never have to see the human-poodle again.
“Oh my god, I can't believe this. We were all so worried when you and Sam,” and there it was. It had to be a record. She should have figured that the girl wouldn't have grown out of the unhealthy obsession she'd had with the youngest Winchester despite it having been nearly two years since she'd last been dodged, “just disappeared. What have you been up too?”
“Working, you?”
“Same, and Sam?”
“Don't know,” didn't particularly care. They didn't want her around that was fine with her. It had been a courtesy to offer assistance, that was easily revoked.
“Oh, we thought you two...”
“I haven't seen him in a while,” Liz fought back a smile, “but the last time I spoke to him he mentioned you.”
“Really?” it was pathetic how excited Amber became.
“Oh yeah, he said he missed you.”
“He's such a sweetheart.”
“That's Sam,” she gave a bitter smile that went over the girls head. “Thing is neither of us had your number for him to call.”
A piece of paper and pen were in her hands in a flash, “I can give it to you now.”
“You know what? Why don't I just give you his? I know he'd love to hear from you.”
*
Everything she'd learned since getting in the Impala was lining the walls of the basement.
Things she'd seen first hand, information from Elkins journal – which was keeping her laptop company in the corner, and things she didn't understand yet. If there was one thing Liz had learned it was that she had to always trust her gut. The last time she hadn't she'd ended up tied to a pole with a knife to her throat.
Which was why there was a lot of information on the walls that she didn't get. Her instincts said it was important so it got a place next to the weather charts and pages of Armageddon mythology taken from her grandmothers work. Random tidbits that on their own meant nothing but put together were part of a war that humanity was hurtling toward at a breakneck speed.
A bell with a tree: Cold Oak, South Dakota.
A steel star: Wyoming.
The book of Apocrypha.
Samuel Colt: who there was a lot of lore on, not much of which could be verified even through shadier channels.
Dante's Inferno.
Legion.
Usually she loved puzzles and took joy in solving what others couldn't. In school, she'd always been the one to figure out the labs first. She was good at seeing things other people didn't. Maria had once said that Liz could solve anything that didn't involve her heart, she was going to have to add the mess in front of her to that. Connected by strings and arrows, highlighters and thumbtacks: She couldn't make out.
It was starting to piss her off.
She couldn't find the one thing that would make the picture clear. In labs there had always been something missing, an equation overlooked or a stage accidentally skipped. The supernatural didn't work like that, it wasn't an exact science. There was too much conjecture. Following her gut got her information, it didn't get her answers.
The door behind her opened but she didn't turn, “You hungry?”
“Nah,” it needed to fit.
Maybe she wasn't smart enough to solve it. Maybe she thought the wrong way.
“Ryan and Lipa are here, why don't you come make an appearance?”
“In a little while.”
“Liz,” there was concern there and a lot of exasperation but a second later Charlie was walking back up the stairs.
She knew what they were worried but they shouldn't have been.
Sure, she spent almost all of her time in the basement despite that she was technically supposed to live on the top floor with Charlie, at least until Dani left for school and Liz got her floor. And she knew she looked like crap but she was fine.
All she needed was answers.
*
“Upstairs.”
Liz looked up from her research, surprised by the harsh tone Serena was using, “What?”
“Upstairs.”
“Serena-”
“Now!”
Slowly following her friend, feeling as if she was a child being scolded, she closed the door behind her with a click and proceeded into the living room. The house was quiet, much more so than on a normal day which meant that the other three inhabitants were out.
“This better be good,” she took a seat on the couch and did her best to make it seem like Serena wasn't as intimidating as she really was when pissed.
“Excuse me?” her friend raised her eyebrow before clicking her tongue. “You need to clean up your act. This shit with staying in the basement all day, that ends now.”
“What?”
“You heard me. It's getting ridiculous. I know they hurt you-”
“I'm fine.”
“Bullshit,” Liz clenched her fists, her nails digging into the soft skin of her palm. “You're a fucking mess. You don't eat. You've dropped at least ten pounds since you got back-”
“No I haven't.”
“- you've barely said a word to any of us and it's been a week since you last showered or changed your clothes.”
She looked down at her jeans and tee. It couldn't have been that long, “I don't have to listen to this.”
Serena moved in front of her blocking the doorway. She turned to use the one on the other side of the room but her friend once again moved to stand in front of her. Out of the five, Serena was the oldest and the tallest. Her cool expression coupled with her constantly tense demeanor kept people from pushing her.
Liz glared up at her, “Get out of my way.”
“Or what,” her friend leaned down, smirk still in place, “you gonna hit me?”
Once upon a time she wouldn't have. They were sisters. They watched out for each other, they didn't turn against each other. Serena easily blocked the predictable fist and shoved her back into the wall, arm across her neck keeping her still, “You can do better than that.”
Liz grabbed Serena's wrist, doing her best to twist it back but a well placed foot put her on her back painfully, “Ugh.”
“If you're so fine. If it meant nothing, say his name,” she tried to get up but stronger arms kept her down.
“Let me up.”
“Say it Liz.”
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” she slid away from Serena propping herself up against the desk.
“Because you deserve better than that,” her vision blurred as the familiar burn built up behind her eyes, her breaths coming quicker. She shoved against the concerned hand on her shoulder. “What hurts more Liz? That he left or that you didn't get to leave him first?”
“Shut up.”
“You can't keep it bottled up. It'll kill you,” she didn't realize that the tears were pouring down her cheeks until Serena brushed some them away. “He was wrong to have left you. No matter what his reasons were, Dean shouldn't have left you.”
Dean.
Her body shook as she sobbed. He'd left her asleep on a couch without a word. He'd walked out reinforcing every reason why she'd kept him at arms length initially. People didn't just leave, they just left her.
“I hate him.”
“No you don't.”
“I wish I hated him,” Serena's arms tightened around her.
“You'll be ok,” caring fingers smoothed back her hair like her father used to do when she was sick.
“Why does everything have to bite me in the ass?”
“It's the way we live,” they lived to protect their loved ones, protecting themselves wasn't a part of it. “You can't save everyone, sometimes things go wrong, and life is a bitch that hits you when you're down but we survive. It sucks but this is what we do Liz. Everything else comes second.”
I love you so much that it hurts my head
I don't mind you under my skin
I'll let the bad parts in the bad parts in
Well, you're my favorite bird and when you sing
I really do wish that you'd wear my ring
No matter what they say I am still the king
Now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in.”
- Degausser, Brand New
The rental car shook and sputtered its way into the guest parking lit ending with a shutter that had her questioning if it would start again when it was time to leave. It had been the cheapest on the lot, Liz didn't care if it died. That would only mean the rental agency owed her a car.
Ignoring the looks she was getting for slamming the door shut harder than was strictly necessary, she made her way to the Administration building. The campus was alive with activity and just as beautiful as it had bee the first time she'd stepped on the grounds for freshman orientation.
Brick buildings, stone walkways, Standford looked like the prestigious university it was which wasn't surprising since in the United States aesthetics was one of the more important factors when choosing the right college. That and its party school ranking. Granted Stanford wasn't on any of those lists but that wasn't the point.
The Administration building was busy as usual. She didn't think there had been a time when she hadn't had to wait on line for at least twenty minutes. Like all school bureaucracy it was, ineffective, and annoying as all hell. Though she'd heard that it wasn't as bad as the ones at other schools.
Finally at the front of the line she held back a groan at the familiar face, “I was told that paperwork was being held for me.”
When Jess had been attacked, Liz had basically been done with her fall classes except for the term papers/lab reports that had been due finals week. Being the overachiever that she was, the lab work had been done ahead of time and the papers had just needed to be fleshed out. All she'd had to do was flesh them out after discussing the situation with a couple of her professors. They knew her and had given her a break.
“Name?”
Spring semester, having followed Serena's advice about how to plan her course load, she'd only had to take filler credits: electives and the like that had nothing to do with her major or gen-ed requirements. She'd signed up for distance-learning classes so that all she needed to finish her credits was her laptop. It was one of the reasons that she had left school without question, she'd known she could still get her diploma.
Come May, she'd been a college graduate. All she needed was the piece of paper that said that.
“Elizabeth Parker,” the curly head finally raised from the solitaire screen.
“Lizzy?”
“Hi Amber,” she'd hoped that she'd never have to see the human-poodle again.
“Oh my god, I can't believe this. We were all so worried when you and Sam,” and there it was. It had to be a record. She should have figured that the girl wouldn't have grown out of the unhealthy obsession she'd had with the youngest Winchester despite it having been nearly two years since she'd last been dodged, “just disappeared. What have you been up too?”
“Working, you?”
“Same, and Sam?”
“Don't know,” didn't particularly care. They didn't want her around that was fine with her. It had been a courtesy to offer assistance, that was easily revoked.
“Oh, we thought you two...”
“I haven't seen him in a while,” Liz fought back a smile, “but the last time I spoke to him he mentioned you.”
“Really?” it was pathetic how excited Amber became.
“Oh yeah, he said he missed you.”
“He's such a sweetheart.”
“That's Sam,” she gave a bitter smile that went over the girls head. “Thing is neither of us had your number for him to call.”
A piece of paper and pen were in her hands in a flash, “I can give it to you now.”
“You know what? Why don't I just give you his? I know he'd love to hear from you.”
*
Everything she'd learned since getting in the Impala was lining the walls of the basement.
Things she'd seen first hand, information from Elkins journal – which was keeping her laptop company in the corner, and things she didn't understand yet. If there was one thing Liz had learned it was that she had to always trust her gut. The last time she hadn't she'd ended up tied to a pole with a knife to her throat.
Which was why there was a lot of information on the walls that she didn't get. Her instincts said it was important so it got a place next to the weather charts and pages of Armageddon mythology taken from her grandmothers work. Random tidbits that on their own meant nothing but put together were part of a war that humanity was hurtling toward at a breakneck speed.
A bell with a tree: Cold Oak, South Dakota.
A steel star: Wyoming.
The book of Apocrypha.
Samuel Colt: who there was a lot of lore on, not much of which could be verified even through shadier channels.
Dante's Inferno.
Legion.
Usually she loved puzzles and took joy in solving what others couldn't. In school, she'd always been the one to figure out the labs first. She was good at seeing things other people didn't. Maria had once said that Liz could solve anything that didn't involve her heart, she was going to have to add the mess in front of her to that. Connected by strings and arrows, highlighters and thumbtacks: She couldn't make out.
It was starting to piss her off.
She couldn't find the one thing that would make the picture clear. In labs there had always been something missing, an equation overlooked or a stage accidentally skipped. The supernatural didn't work like that, it wasn't an exact science. There was too much conjecture. Following her gut got her information, it didn't get her answers.
The door behind her opened but she didn't turn, “You hungry?”
“Nah,” it needed to fit.
Maybe she wasn't smart enough to solve it. Maybe she thought the wrong way.
“Ryan and Lipa are here, why don't you come make an appearance?”
“In a little while.”
“Liz,” there was concern there and a lot of exasperation but a second later Charlie was walking back up the stairs.
She knew what they were worried but they shouldn't have been.
Sure, she spent almost all of her time in the basement despite that she was technically supposed to live on the top floor with Charlie, at least until Dani left for school and Liz got her floor. And she knew she looked like crap but she was fine.
All she needed was answers.
*
“Upstairs.”
Liz looked up from her research, surprised by the harsh tone Serena was using, “What?”
“Upstairs.”
“Serena-”
“Now!”
Slowly following her friend, feeling as if she was a child being scolded, she closed the door behind her with a click and proceeded into the living room. The house was quiet, much more so than on a normal day which meant that the other three inhabitants were out.
“This better be good,” she took a seat on the couch and did her best to make it seem like Serena wasn't as intimidating as she really was when pissed.
“Excuse me?” her friend raised her eyebrow before clicking her tongue. “You need to clean up your act. This shit with staying in the basement all day, that ends now.”
“What?”
“You heard me. It's getting ridiculous. I know they hurt you-”
“I'm fine.”
“Bullshit,” Liz clenched her fists, her nails digging into the soft skin of her palm. “You're a fucking mess. You don't eat. You've dropped at least ten pounds since you got back-”
“No I haven't.”
“- you've barely said a word to any of us and it's been a week since you last showered or changed your clothes.”
She looked down at her jeans and tee. It couldn't have been that long, “I don't have to listen to this.”
Serena moved in front of her blocking the doorway. She turned to use the one on the other side of the room but her friend once again moved to stand in front of her. Out of the five, Serena was the oldest and the tallest. Her cool expression coupled with her constantly tense demeanor kept people from pushing her.
Liz glared up at her, “Get out of my way.”
“Or what,” her friend leaned down, smirk still in place, “you gonna hit me?”
Once upon a time she wouldn't have. They were sisters. They watched out for each other, they didn't turn against each other. Serena easily blocked the predictable fist and shoved her back into the wall, arm across her neck keeping her still, “You can do better than that.”
Liz grabbed Serena's wrist, doing her best to twist it back but a well placed foot put her on her back painfully, “Ugh.”
“If you're so fine. If it meant nothing, say his name,” she tried to get up but stronger arms kept her down.
“Let me up.”
“Say it Liz.”
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” she slid away from Serena propping herself up against the desk.
“Because you deserve better than that,” her vision blurred as the familiar burn built up behind her eyes, her breaths coming quicker. She shoved against the concerned hand on her shoulder. “What hurts more Liz? That he left or that you didn't get to leave him first?”
“Shut up.”
“You can't keep it bottled up. It'll kill you,” she didn't realize that the tears were pouring down her cheeks until Serena brushed some them away. “He was wrong to have left you. No matter what his reasons were, Dean shouldn't have left you.”
Dean.
Her body shook as she sobbed. He'd left her asleep on a couch without a word. He'd walked out reinforcing every reason why she'd kept him at arms length initially. People didn't just leave, they just left her.
“I hate him.”
“No you don't.”
“I wish I hated him,” Serena's arms tightened around her.
“You'll be ok,” caring fingers smoothed back her hair like her father used to do when she was sick.
“Why does everything have to bite me in the ass?”
“It's the way we live,” they lived to protect their loved ones, protecting themselves wasn't a part of it. “You can't save everyone, sometimes things go wrong, and life is a bitch that hits you when you're down but we survive. It sucks but this is what we do Liz. Everything else comes second.”
Last edited by vaifeal on Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/16
Warning: This and the next three posts are shifting focus temporarily. One part each for Serena, Charlie, Jess, and Dani. In that order.
“I could possibly be fading
Or have something more to gain
I could feel myself growing colder”
- Into Dust, Mazzy Star
When Serena had come back home during spring break of her senior year she'd expected to drop off some of her stuff, go on a couple of interviews, hang out with some old friends, and visit her family. But like with everything in her life, that plan went to hell.
In the past three years she'd had to deal with the consequences of being shaped into a person that she'd rather not be. Preferring to have been the weird scientist who, just as she had told the Parkers a million years before, wooed funding from tightwads. She was good at being charming, really good.
She blamed her uncle for everything being so screwed up.
Then and now he, dear Uncle Blas, was the eternal fuck up who was determined to bring the rest of his family down with him. Starting with her father who'd lost his job because he'd had to leave early one too many times to bail his big brother out of jail, who couldn't find a new one because everyone assumed that he was just like 'the other one', who found it so easy to follow his brother into a less esteemed occupation.
Blas was the one that got her dad addicted and it was Blas that got him killed.
The man was a poison. He'd ruined his brother and after he was gone had thrown his family on the streets. It had taken years for the courts to finally hand back over the house that their grandmother had bought when she'd come to New York, leaving it to her baby boy when she'd passed. By the time they had, Blas had turned it into a mess of a halfway house with tenants living on top of each other.
That man liked a profit.
When she'd come back for break, Serena shouldn't have gotten tangled in his affairs. It'd been stupid, a rookie mistake for someone that had grown up dealing with his and his crews crap because her mother couldn't handle anything outside her own little reality after the first round of chemo started.
She really should have walked away when he'd made trouble.
Instead she'd been 'noble', stepping between him and his target. Got him sent to Rikers creating a minor vacuum and landing her a job with the nasty son of a bitch that Blas answered to. She'd ended up trapped between her two families.
The Pinto's, because of Blas, made a trade of the illegal. The Doherty's, her mothers family, made a trade of influence. In law enforcement from city cops to several levels of the federal government, firefighters, nurses, lawyers, they were one of the most well known names in the five Boroughs civil service.
The Doherty's weren't always legal but they always made sure that people only looked where they wanted them too.
Before she knew what had happened she'd been party to both sides.
To the public another Pinto gone awry, a shame since her mom had been from such an upstanding family. Only a handful of people knew what she was really doing. Her Uncle Timmy, the man who'd tried to give her a way out of a bad situation and then helped her when she'd wanted to do the 'right' thing. Ryan because she couldn't keep anything from him, let alone give him the impression that she'd gone bad. Liz because there was camaraderie in suffering.
Charlie might be her sister and she'd do anything to protect her but Liz was her best friend, a kindred spirit. Serena had spent so much time trying to shield her baby sister from their father, their uncle, their mother, all the things that were wrong in the world that they were too different to really understand each other but Liz got it.
In the time that she'd had been back they'd fallen back into the old routine, both helping the other in anyway they could. Dani had called them the CO and the XO which she supposed was true in some ways. They were mama duck 1 and mama duck 2 of their dysfunctional little group functioning under the same mentality:
Keep your loved ones safe.
Sacrifice yourself. Your future. Your possibilities. Perform questionable acts. Blur the line between right and wrong. Ignore the law. Protect your family be they by choice or blood.
Serena had expected to graduate and finally step away from the role she'd been forced to take the first time that her father had stumbled in his breath reeking of liquor his eyes glazed over from the latest product Blas was pushing. Things changed.
This was her life and it was bitch.
*
“Be good,” Serena said giving Liz a cheeky smile as her friend twisted her head around.
Things had been better since Liz had had her forced meltdown. That was just the way she worked, she bottled things up until she was ready to burst. Serena was glad that her friend was now spending more time out of the basement than in it, it made it much easier for them to help her.
Sometimes all that was needed was a fresh perspective.
“Isn't that my line?”
"Nah, I'm always good."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself."
*
They'd met toward the end of her senior year in high school because her friend had had a crush on the pitcher of the school team and had dragged her on her only day off from work to watch the baseball game.
Serena had complained the whole time up until Ryan, the shortstop, had caught her eye. It'd been much easier to watch after that. A week later they'd ended up on the same bus together. Two days later they'd gone on their first date: dirty water dogs at a Cyclones game.
A relationship she'd thought would be just for the summer was now approaching it's seventh year.
Four on opposites sides of the country, Serena at Stanford and Ryan at Fordham, during which they both pretended that they had an 'open' arrangement but never bothered to do anything preferring to make-believe that they had nothing better to do than talk on the phone for hours or text throughout day.
Three years getting really serious after graduation waiting for the right time to officially move in together even though they spent almost every night together. They just had to wait till the demon that went after Jess was killed and for the case against her 'employer' to be made. The latter was getting close, the former depended on things beyond her control.
His head rested against hers, arms wrapped around her waist as they both watched the waves crash on the shore. He had the graveyard shift so they didn't have much time, not that his firehouse cared when she hung out there. Well, not as long as she brought them food.
Men.
“We'll fly down to Barbados and elope,” she could feel his smile.
“Right on the beach. No shoes allowed,” his breath tickled her cheek in silent amusement. She had a thing against shoes on the beach.
They'd do it too, no engagement, just jump right in. As soon as the case was over, they'd hop on a plane and go. Ryan had a travel agent on speed dial for when she was ready. Serena would go in a heart beat.
“Spend a week at a resort being waited on hand and foot.”
It was her fault that they hadn't already done that. Because she was too afraid that making it official would put him in more danger. Because she had a knack for getting into trouble. No not trouble, Charlie got in trouble. Serena got herself in mortal peril.
“I'm sorry,” he gently turned her around hand cupping her cheek tenderly. He was too good for her. “I just... I'm in this so far over my head I don't know how to get out. I want out so badly.”
Ryan pulled her close. She was allowed to be vulnerable around him, no one else but him, “Don't worry babe. It's going to be alright.”
*
Despite her best efforts sand had remained in her shoes, grating slightly in her socks and sticking between her toes. It wasn't uncomfortable but she'd never liked the sensation. Her key entered the second lock smoothly allowing her to turn the nob.
They'd had to replace the locks when they'd moved in. It'd been first thing Serena had done: put in a couple of deadbolts and an alarm system. Blas wasn't getting back in.
Cool morning air chilled her skin as she pulled her keys out. She moved to drop them in her jacket pocket but stopped at the familiar sound of a pistol hammer being cocked back. Easily slipping into her mask, she turned looking down at the man at the bottom of her front steps as if he was the worst kind of filth.
It wasn't hard. He was one of her uncles remaining men so he was.
“Put the gun down or you'll be down before you have the chance to pull the trigger.”
The man scoffed at what he viewed as an empty threat, his face paling as a tap on the front windows brought his attention to where Liz was standing there shotgun in hand. Her friend always made sure that she was awake when Serena was traveling on her own just like she tried to watch out for Liz whenever she went out on a hunt.
“I don't know what you're up to girlie but I'll figure it out.”
Her eyebrow raised as the man backed his way to his car, “That, I highly doubt.”
“I could possibly be fading
Or have something more to gain
I could feel myself growing colder”
- Into Dust, Mazzy Star
When Serena had come back home during spring break of her senior year she'd expected to drop off some of her stuff, go on a couple of interviews, hang out with some old friends, and visit her family. But like with everything in her life, that plan went to hell.
In the past three years she'd had to deal with the consequences of being shaped into a person that she'd rather not be. Preferring to have been the weird scientist who, just as she had told the Parkers a million years before, wooed funding from tightwads. She was good at being charming, really good.
She blamed her uncle for everything being so screwed up.
Then and now he, dear Uncle Blas, was the eternal fuck up who was determined to bring the rest of his family down with him. Starting with her father who'd lost his job because he'd had to leave early one too many times to bail his big brother out of jail, who couldn't find a new one because everyone assumed that he was just like 'the other one', who found it so easy to follow his brother into a less esteemed occupation.
Blas was the one that got her dad addicted and it was Blas that got him killed.
The man was a poison. He'd ruined his brother and after he was gone had thrown his family on the streets. It had taken years for the courts to finally hand back over the house that their grandmother had bought when she'd come to New York, leaving it to her baby boy when she'd passed. By the time they had, Blas had turned it into a mess of a halfway house with tenants living on top of each other.
That man liked a profit.
When she'd come back for break, Serena shouldn't have gotten tangled in his affairs. It'd been stupid, a rookie mistake for someone that had grown up dealing with his and his crews crap because her mother couldn't handle anything outside her own little reality after the first round of chemo started.
She really should have walked away when he'd made trouble.
Instead she'd been 'noble', stepping between him and his target. Got him sent to Rikers creating a minor vacuum and landing her a job with the nasty son of a bitch that Blas answered to. She'd ended up trapped between her two families.
The Pinto's, because of Blas, made a trade of the illegal. The Doherty's, her mothers family, made a trade of influence. In law enforcement from city cops to several levels of the federal government, firefighters, nurses, lawyers, they were one of the most well known names in the five Boroughs civil service.
The Doherty's weren't always legal but they always made sure that people only looked where they wanted them too.
Before she knew what had happened she'd been party to both sides.
To the public another Pinto gone awry, a shame since her mom had been from such an upstanding family. Only a handful of people knew what she was really doing. Her Uncle Timmy, the man who'd tried to give her a way out of a bad situation and then helped her when she'd wanted to do the 'right' thing. Ryan because she couldn't keep anything from him, let alone give him the impression that she'd gone bad. Liz because there was camaraderie in suffering.
Charlie might be her sister and she'd do anything to protect her but Liz was her best friend, a kindred spirit. Serena had spent so much time trying to shield her baby sister from their father, their uncle, their mother, all the things that were wrong in the world that they were too different to really understand each other but Liz got it.
In the time that she'd had been back they'd fallen back into the old routine, both helping the other in anyway they could. Dani had called them the CO and the XO which she supposed was true in some ways. They were mama duck 1 and mama duck 2 of their dysfunctional little group functioning under the same mentality:
Keep your loved ones safe.
Sacrifice yourself. Your future. Your possibilities. Perform questionable acts. Blur the line between right and wrong. Ignore the law. Protect your family be they by choice or blood.
Serena had expected to graduate and finally step away from the role she'd been forced to take the first time that her father had stumbled in his breath reeking of liquor his eyes glazed over from the latest product Blas was pushing. Things changed.
This was her life and it was bitch.
*
“Be good,” Serena said giving Liz a cheeky smile as her friend twisted her head around.
Things had been better since Liz had had her forced meltdown. That was just the way she worked, she bottled things up until she was ready to burst. Serena was glad that her friend was now spending more time out of the basement than in it, it made it much easier for them to help her.
Sometimes all that was needed was a fresh perspective.
“Isn't that my line?”
"Nah, I'm always good."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself."
*
They'd met toward the end of her senior year in high school because her friend had had a crush on the pitcher of the school team and had dragged her on her only day off from work to watch the baseball game.
Serena had complained the whole time up until Ryan, the shortstop, had caught her eye. It'd been much easier to watch after that. A week later they'd ended up on the same bus together. Two days later they'd gone on their first date: dirty water dogs at a Cyclones game.
A relationship she'd thought would be just for the summer was now approaching it's seventh year.
Four on opposites sides of the country, Serena at Stanford and Ryan at Fordham, during which they both pretended that they had an 'open' arrangement but never bothered to do anything preferring to make-believe that they had nothing better to do than talk on the phone for hours or text throughout day.
Three years getting really serious after graduation waiting for the right time to officially move in together even though they spent almost every night together. They just had to wait till the demon that went after Jess was killed and for the case against her 'employer' to be made. The latter was getting close, the former depended on things beyond her control.
His head rested against hers, arms wrapped around her waist as they both watched the waves crash on the shore. He had the graveyard shift so they didn't have much time, not that his firehouse cared when she hung out there. Well, not as long as she brought them food.
Men.
“We'll fly down to Barbados and elope,” she could feel his smile.
“Right on the beach. No shoes allowed,” his breath tickled her cheek in silent amusement. She had a thing against shoes on the beach.
They'd do it too, no engagement, just jump right in. As soon as the case was over, they'd hop on a plane and go. Ryan had a travel agent on speed dial for when she was ready. Serena would go in a heart beat.
“Spend a week at a resort being waited on hand and foot.”
It was her fault that they hadn't already done that. Because she was too afraid that making it official would put him in more danger. Because she had a knack for getting into trouble. No not trouble, Charlie got in trouble. Serena got herself in mortal peril.
“I'm sorry,” he gently turned her around hand cupping her cheek tenderly. He was too good for her. “I just... I'm in this so far over my head I don't know how to get out. I want out so badly.”
Ryan pulled her close. She was allowed to be vulnerable around him, no one else but him, “Don't worry babe. It's going to be alright.”
*
Despite her best efforts sand had remained in her shoes, grating slightly in her socks and sticking between her toes. It wasn't uncomfortable but she'd never liked the sensation. Her key entered the second lock smoothly allowing her to turn the nob.
They'd had to replace the locks when they'd moved in. It'd been first thing Serena had done: put in a couple of deadbolts and an alarm system. Blas wasn't getting back in.
Cool morning air chilled her skin as she pulled her keys out. She moved to drop them in her jacket pocket but stopped at the familiar sound of a pistol hammer being cocked back. Easily slipping into her mask, she turned looking down at the man at the bottom of her front steps as if he was the worst kind of filth.
It wasn't hard. He was one of her uncles remaining men so he was.
“Put the gun down or you'll be down before you have the chance to pull the trigger.”
The man scoffed at what he viewed as an empty threat, his face paling as a tap on the front windows brought his attention to where Liz was standing there shotgun in hand. Her friend always made sure that she was awake when Serena was traveling on her own just like she tried to watch out for Liz whenever she went out on a hunt.
“I don't know what you're up to girlie but I'll figure it out.”
Her eyebrow raised as the man backed his way to his car, “That, I highly doubt.”
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/20
I've got people singing outside my apartment... it's frakkin' annoying.
“There was more to my queen than first met the eye.
She had a chain of lovers who died her slaves
With a notion of blood for every drop that she gave.
I never thought she could break my heart
but all her contradictions are tearing me apart.
The secret she hides.
The beauty she flaunts
She’ll stop at nothing just to get what she wants.”
- (Who Discovered) America?, Ozomatli
Charlie knew that when it came to the Doherty-Pinto sisters, everyone thought that she was the screw up. Less than two years apart, she'd spent her whole life being compared to her older sister and had been found lacking. It didn't help that where Serena took after their mothers side of the family, she took after their father. Their father whose fall from grace had thrown his family into the abyss for more than a decade.
She'd never truly understood why everyone seemed to have a problem with her dad.
He'd been a sweet man. Funny, caring, handsome, smart. When she was little he'd spend hours playing with her in the backyard after school. He'd take her and Serena to the beach, letting them bury him in the sand. Her clearest memories from childhood were snuggling on the couch with him after he'd gotten back from work. He'd smell like soap and sometimes they would take a nap together.
There was no doubt that she had been a daddy's girl.
For the longest time both of them had been. Dad had spoiled them. He let them get away with everything, couldn't say no for anything. They had been his baby girls but at some point that had changed. She couldn't remember what had happened just that suddenly Serena wasn't his girl.
They still didn't see eye to eye on their dad. Serena didn't like to talk about him and only did so when forced. Charlie loved him and liked to reminisce.
Her big sis was twenty months and two grades older than she was but it might as well have been a decade. For her, when things had started to fall apart it had been marked by her mom being more stressed, Serena keeping her to the park everyday after school, and her uncle being around more. She didn't know what it had been like for her sister.
But she could guess.
If it had been anything like what Charlie had experienced when her mom lost it after the chemo than they were lucky that Serena was as normal as she was, even if she'd ended up a criminal.
She did remember what it was like growing up after their dad was gone, especially when their mom had been diagnosed with cancer. By the time they'd caught it, it had been everywhere. The drugs they'd put her on had ended up doing more harm than good.
At first it had been okay. That hadn't lasted long. When their mom couldn't work anymore it seemed like nothing she did was right. There'd been yelling, verbal lashings that had taught her that she didn't have much self control, and the occasional slap.
Serena had tried to protect her but since her sister worked everyday to make the rent on the shit apartments they'd lived in, she hadn't been able to. Still in terms of the harshness of the abuse where Charlie had been on the receiving end more, Serena had taken the brunt of it. The worst was always saved for the eldest Pinto girl.
By the time their mother had passed, she hadn't felt guilty about the relief she'd felt.
That hadn't stopped her from running to the otherside of the country after graduation. Her grades hadn't been good enough to get into Stanford so she'd gotten as close as possible. A small Catholic private school that let her play basketball for some money but otherwise wasn't really her scene.
Finally back in New York, she'd stepped into the life she'd left behind with ease except that she spent more time with the women she'd met in California than her oldest friends. They had always been more Serena's crew than her own but they had accepted her with open arms.
Loyalty wasn't cheap. She didn't hand it out to just anyone and she didn't brush it off when others offered her theirs. Charlie enjoyed hanging out with them. Especially Dani, that girl was all kinds of crazy.
Considering how weird their situation was, she found herself enjoying her life more than she had in a long time.
*
Work at the station wasn't what she'd pictured working on radio would be like and it certainly wasn't what her professors had made it seemed like in class. So far in the year she'd been employed all she'd done was get coffee and organize music.
Charlie knew that she had to earn her place before she'd get any real responsibility but her patience was wearing thin. She was an action driven kind of girl. It was in her genes to want things to get done as quickly as possible. This continuous patronizing testing of her worth needed to end soon.
That several of her coworkers kept referring to her as a Cali girl pissed her off to no end. None of them looked beyond her university address to realize that she'd spent her whole life moving between the boroughs. Apparently they thought that she was imitating the distinctly New York urban culture like so many did.
If she wouldn't get fired, and possibly have charges brought up against her, Charlie would have decked someone by now.
*
It was a universal truth that for people who messed around with/on others, turn about was fair play. No one, no matter who they were, should assume that they could escape that. Dean Winchester was going to get his for fucking with Liz's feelings and Sam Winchester was gonna get it worse for being a conceited ass by blowing off the help that Liz had been giving him.
And Charlie was gonna be there when it happened.
Hell, if she had her way she'd be instrumental in it. Her and her little book of revenge tactics also known as her journal. She only wrote in it when she was upset which skewed the content extraordinarily but it also made it the bible of all things delightfully vindictive.
She was very proud of it.
“I still think that laxatives should be a part of stage one,” Dani's smile was wide. It was the third time she'd suggested that.
“I was thinking more along the line of an arrest for indecent exposure as stage one.”
Her friends dark head shook again in disbelief.
Dani and Charlie had similar personalities. They were both standoffish towards those who wanted to forge lasting connections, sarcastic, loyal, kind of absentminded, turned on by bad boys but attracted to unassuming weird looking good guys, and students who rarely put effort into their studies. However there were two major difference between them.
Where romantic relationships were concerned Charlie was a closet romantic while Dani was a firm believer that all men were good for was sex and they dealt with being crossed differently. Dani couldn't hold grudges. She always ended up laughing things off fairly quickly.
Charlie kept her vendettas. She plotted revenge and followed through. Forgiveness wasn't a word usually in her vocabulary.
The Winchesters had better hope that she never had the chance to give them what they had due.
“There was more to my queen than first met the eye.
She had a chain of lovers who died her slaves
With a notion of blood for every drop that she gave.
I never thought she could break my heart
but all her contradictions are tearing me apart.
The secret she hides.
The beauty she flaunts
She’ll stop at nothing just to get what she wants.”
- (Who Discovered) America?, Ozomatli
Charlie knew that when it came to the Doherty-Pinto sisters, everyone thought that she was the screw up. Less than two years apart, she'd spent her whole life being compared to her older sister and had been found lacking. It didn't help that where Serena took after their mothers side of the family, she took after their father. Their father whose fall from grace had thrown his family into the abyss for more than a decade.
She'd never truly understood why everyone seemed to have a problem with her dad.
He'd been a sweet man. Funny, caring, handsome, smart. When she was little he'd spend hours playing with her in the backyard after school. He'd take her and Serena to the beach, letting them bury him in the sand. Her clearest memories from childhood were snuggling on the couch with him after he'd gotten back from work. He'd smell like soap and sometimes they would take a nap together.
There was no doubt that she had been a daddy's girl.
For the longest time both of them had been. Dad had spoiled them. He let them get away with everything, couldn't say no for anything. They had been his baby girls but at some point that had changed. She couldn't remember what had happened just that suddenly Serena wasn't his girl.
They still didn't see eye to eye on their dad. Serena didn't like to talk about him and only did so when forced. Charlie loved him and liked to reminisce.
Her big sis was twenty months and two grades older than she was but it might as well have been a decade. For her, when things had started to fall apart it had been marked by her mom being more stressed, Serena keeping her to the park everyday after school, and her uncle being around more. She didn't know what it had been like for her sister.
But she could guess.
If it had been anything like what Charlie had experienced when her mom lost it after the chemo than they were lucky that Serena was as normal as she was, even if she'd ended up a criminal.
She did remember what it was like growing up after their dad was gone, especially when their mom had been diagnosed with cancer. By the time they'd caught it, it had been everywhere. The drugs they'd put her on had ended up doing more harm than good.
At first it had been okay. That hadn't lasted long. When their mom couldn't work anymore it seemed like nothing she did was right. There'd been yelling, verbal lashings that had taught her that she didn't have much self control, and the occasional slap.
Serena had tried to protect her but since her sister worked everyday to make the rent on the shit apartments they'd lived in, she hadn't been able to. Still in terms of the harshness of the abuse where Charlie had been on the receiving end more, Serena had taken the brunt of it. The worst was always saved for the eldest Pinto girl.
By the time their mother had passed, she hadn't felt guilty about the relief she'd felt.
That hadn't stopped her from running to the otherside of the country after graduation. Her grades hadn't been good enough to get into Stanford so she'd gotten as close as possible. A small Catholic private school that let her play basketball for some money but otherwise wasn't really her scene.
Finally back in New York, she'd stepped into the life she'd left behind with ease except that she spent more time with the women she'd met in California than her oldest friends. They had always been more Serena's crew than her own but they had accepted her with open arms.
Loyalty wasn't cheap. She didn't hand it out to just anyone and she didn't brush it off when others offered her theirs. Charlie enjoyed hanging out with them. Especially Dani, that girl was all kinds of crazy.
Considering how weird their situation was, she found herself enjoying her life more than she had in a long time.
*
Work at the station wasn't what she'd pictured working on radio would be like and it certainly wasn't what her professors had made it seemed like in class. So far in the year she'd been employed all she'd done was get coffee and organize music.
Charlie knew that she had to earn her place before she'd get any real responsibility but her patience was wearing thin. She was an action driven kind of girl. It was in her genes to want things to get done as quickly as possible. This continuous patronizing testing of her worth needed to end soon.
That several of her coworkers kept referring to her as a Cali girl pissed her off to no end. None of them looked beyond her university address to realize that she'd spent her whole life moving between the boroughs. Apparently they thought that she was imitating the distinctly New York urban culture like so many did.
If she wouldn't get fired, and possibly have charges brought up against her, Charlie would have decked someone by now.
*
It was a universal truth that for people who messed around with/on others, turn about was fair play. No one, no matter who they were, should assume that they could escape that. Dean Winchester was going to get his for fucking with Liz's feelings and Sam Winchester was gonna get it worse for being a conceited ass by blowing off the help that Liz had been giving him.
And Charlie was gonna be there when it happened.
Hell, if she had her way she'd be instrumental in it. Her and her little book of revenge tactics also known as her journal. She only wrote in it when she was upset which skewed the content extraordinarily but it also made it the bible of all things delightfully vindictive.
She was very proud of it.
“I still think that laxatives should be a part of stage one,” Dani's smile was wide. It was the third time she'd suggested that.
“I was thinking more along the line of an arrest for indecent exposure as stage one.”
Her friends dark head shook again in disbelief.
Dani and Charlie had similar personalities. They were both standoffish towards those who wanted to forge lasting connections, sarcastic, loyal, kind of absentminded, turned on by bad boys but attracted to unassuming weird looking good guys, and students who rarely put effort into their studies. However there were two major difference between them.
Where romantic relationships were concerned Charlie was a closet romantic while Dani was a firm believer that all men were good for was sex and they dealt with being crossed differently. Dani couldn't hold grudges. She always ended up laughing things off fairly quickly.
Charlie kept her vendettas. She plotted revenge and followed through. Forgiveness wasn't a word usually in her vocabulary.
The Winchesters had better hope that she never had the chance to give them what they had due.
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/23
“Far far, there's this little girl
she was praying for something to happen to her
everyday she writes words and more words
just to speak out the thoughts that keep floating inside
and she's strong when the dreams come cos' they
take her, cover her, they are all over
the reality looks far now, but don't go”
- Far Far, Yael Naim
When it came down to it, Jess knew that she had had an easier life than those around her.
Serena and Charlie had spent their lives trying to keep their family together, Dani had had a mess of a time in the foster system, and Liz had had to deal with the consequences of being saved by someone not of this earth. Even her Sam had lived a life far removed from her suburban normality.
In their group, even after her staged death, she was the innocent and all of her friends were trying their damnedest to keep it that way. She didn't know if it was for her benefit or theirs. The jaded found solace in those they might consider naïve. Those five were definitely jaded.
But Jess wasn't naïve. At one point she might have been before she'd went to school, when getting grounded was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Things changed. She knew how the world worked. Was aware that the monsters in the closet could be real and that there was such a thing as a purely bad person.
The difference between her and them was that she was committed to seeing the brighter side of things. There would be a point where Serena became what she had the potential to be, Charlie would eventually stop reacting so extremely to every wrong that came her way, Dani would stop keeping people at arms length, Liz would stop feeling as if she was responsible for everyones problems, and Sam would come home.
Sure it wouldn't happen all at once and there would be plenty of bumps along the way but it would happen.
Until then she would make the best out of the way things were. She was living in a great apartment in one of the greatest cities in the world, had supportive friends, and a budding writing career. Granted she was known in the field under a penname but she could just keep it when the time came.
It was letting her parents know that she was alive that she wasn't looking forward to. She wasn't going to tell them about demons and the rest of the supernatural phenomenon that existed instead Liz had forged a bunch of documents about some federal investigation and witness protection. The Moore's were going to be understandably upset.
Sam would take most of the blame. They didn't like him so he always did.
Jess leaned back and stretched out the muscles in her back, the laptop screen before her filled with the words of her latest story. It was slightly darker and more autobiographic compared to her usual works. If she wanted to win the contest in the New Yorker, that's what she needed.
Around her the kitchen was alive with smells and activity. Charlie had decided to cook which meant that no one was going to miss it. She was certainly the most talented in that area, the rest of them ranged from edible to poison but Charlie could have been a chef. Tostones were frying, rice was boiling, red beans were being stewed, tres leches was waiting for its topping, chicken was cooling, and sliced avocado was sitting next to the salt ready to be eaten.
All of it was making her mouth water.
By the way everyone kept getting their hands slapped by the cook, she wasn't the only one.
Lipa, Serena's boyfriends' friend, was giving Charlie the eyes and by the blush encroaching on her friends cheeks she was enjoying it. He spent a lot of time at the house, even when Ryan wasn't around, enough so she knew he was a good guy. Even if he was a bit odd looking.
Jess was sure that if it wasn't for the fact that Lipa had sole custody of a year old little girl – who was currently playing in the backyard with Dani – Charlie would have jumped him already. He was just her type.
She wistfully watched the barely there touches the pair were sharing as they worked together to plate the food. Sam and her used to be that couple, disgustingly cute who worked together seamlessly. She missed it, missed him.
*
She woke with a sob, her heart racing, and sweat sticking to her skin. A cool hand was brushing the hair back from her face, words that meant nothing in her confusion slowly trickled in. It was Dani. She was always there when Jess woke up from a nightmare.
Forcing herself to calm down, she rolled to her side burying her face in her pillow.
The nightmares had been worse since Liz had come home despite that details had remained few. It was the thought of Sam out there going up against things that defied conventional knowledge that got her. She knew he had his brother and from what Liz had told her, Dean wouldn't let anything happen to him, but it had felt safer when she had been getting continuous updates.
It had been the calls, often short and vague, that had kept her together when she'd gone into hiding. Without them anything could happen and she wouldn't know.
He'd be gone. No warning.
There had been too many times that Liz would call with news of another injury, usually to the elder Winchester, for her to feel comfortable not knowing where he was. Jess didn't know what to do. She just wanted Sam home and safe.
*
“How are you feeling?” Jess asked plopping down on the couch next to her friend who was sprawled out, her heavily bandaged leg resting against the ottoman.
“Like I'm hungover without the fun part.”
Charlie had already left for work, Serena had spent the night at Ryan's, and Dani was still dead to the world. It was just her and the newly released hospital patient. Liz had been taken down on one of her 'weekend getaways', her knee cap barely avoided getting shattered.
They'd picked her up from a hospital in Connecticut the previous morning, lucky that they had gotten a call. Liz had been and still was bruised enough to look like a Pollock painting.
“You promised you'd be careful.”
“I'm always careful,” the coffee she'd been sipping found its way out of her hands.
“Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“Because your faith in humanity had been usurped by a growing sense of disappointment and cynicism.”
Jess blinked at her friend and shook her head, “That's not it.”
“I am careful but this job rarely goes according to plan.”
Dread built in her gut. Sam could get caught off guard. It wouldn't matter how much Dean watched out for him or how much they thought they were prepared for what they were facing. Things went awry, they always did. It was there, just waiting to happen.
“I...”
“Sam's going to be fine. The little bastard is great at what he does," Liz patted her hand in an empty gesture. "Just you wait Jess soon enough he'll be back to being your lovable pain in the ass.”
she was praying for something to happen to her
everyday she writes words and more words
just to speak out the thoughts that keep floating inside
and she's strong when the dreams come cos' they
take her, cover her, they are all over
the reality looks far now, but don't go”
- Far Far, Yael Naim
When it came down to it, Jess knew that she had had an easier life than those around her.
Serena and Charlie had spent their lives trying to keep their family together, Dani had had a mess of a time in the foster system, and Liz had had to deal with the consequences of being saved by someone not of this earth. Even her Sam had lived a life far removed from her suburban normality.
In their group, even after her staged death, she was the innocent and all of her friends were trying their damnedest to keep it that way. She didn't know if it was for her benefit or theirs. The jaded found solace in those they might consider naïve. Those five were definitely jaded.
But Jess wasn't naïve. At one point she might have been before she'd went to school, when getting grounded was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Things changed. She knew how the world worked. Was aware that the monsters in the closet could be real and that there was such a thing as a purely bad person.
The difference between her and them was that she was committed to seeing the brighter side of things. There would be a point where Serena became what she had the potential to be, Charlie would eventually stop reacting so extremely to every wrong that came her way, Dani would stop keeping people at arms length, Liz would stop feeling as if she was responsible for everyones problems, and Sam would come home.
Sure it wouldn't happen all at once and there would be plenty of bumps along the way but it would happen.
Until then she would make the best out of the way things were. She was living in a great apartment in one of the greatest cities in the world, had supportive friends, and a budding writing career. Granted she was known in the field under a penname but she could just keep it when the time came.
It was letting her parents know that she was alive that she wasn't looking forward to. She wasn't going to tell them about demons and the rest of the supernatural phenomenon that existed instead Liz had forged a bunch of documents about some federal investigation and witness protection. The Moore's were going to be understandably upset.
Sam would take most of the blame. They didn't like him so he always did.
Jess leaned back and stretched out the muscles in her back, the laptop screen before her filled with the words of her latest story. It was slightly darker and more autobiographic compared to her usual works. If she wanted to win the contest in the New Yorker, that's what she needed.
Around her the kitchen was alive with smells and activity. Charlie had decided to cook which meant that no one was going to miss it. She was certainly the most talented in that area, the rest of them ranged from edible to poison but Charlie could have been a chef. Tostones were frying, rice was boiling, red beans were being stewed, tres leches was waiting for its topping, chicken was cooling, and sliced avocado was sitting next to the salt ready to be eaten.
All of it was making her mouth water.
By the way everyone kept getting their hands slapped by the cook, she wasn't the only one.
Lipa, Serena's boyfriends' friend, was giving Charlie the eyes and by the blush encroaching on her friends cheeks she was enjoying it. He spent a lot of time at the house, even when Ryan wasn't around, enough so she knew he was a good guy. Even if he was a bit odd looking.
Jess was sure that if it wasn't for the fact that Lipa had sole custody of a year old little girl – who was currently playing in the backyard with Dani – Charlie would have jumped him already. He was just her type.
She wistfully watched the barely there touches the pair were sharing as they worked together to plate the food. Sam and her used to be that couple, disgustingly cute who worked together seamlessly. She missed it, missed him.
*
She woke with a sob, her heart racing, and sweat sticking to her skin. A cool hand was brushing the hair back from her face, words that meant nothing in her confusion slowly trickled in. It was Dani. She was always there when Jess woke up from a nightmare.
Forcing herself to calm down, she rolled to her side burying her face in her pillow.
The nightmares had been worse since Liz had come home despite that details had remained few. It was the thought of Sam out there going up against things that defied conventional knowledge that got her. She knew he had his brother and from what Liz had told her, Dean wouldn't let anything happen to him, but it had felt safer when she had been getting continuous updates.
It had been the calls, often short and vague, that had kept her together when she'd gone into hiding. Without them anything could happen and she wouldn't know.
He'd be gone. No warning.
There had been too many times that Liz would call with news of another injury, usually to the elder Winchester, for her to feel comfortable not knowing where he was. Jess didn't know what to do. She just wanted Sam home and safe.
*
“How are you feeling?” Jess asked plopping down on the couch next to her friend who was sprawled out, her heavily bandaged leg resting against the ottoman.
“Like I'm hungover without the fun part.”
Charlie had already left for work, Serena had spent the night at Ryan's, and Dani was still dead to the world. It was just her and the newly released hospital patient. Liz had been taken down on one of her 'weekend getaways', her knee cap barely avoided getting shattered.
They'd picked her up from a hospital in Connecticut the previous morning, lucky that they had gotten a call. Liz had been and still was bruised enough to look like a Pollock painting.
“You promised you'd be careful.”
“I'm always careful,” the coffee she'd been sipping found its way out of her hands.
“Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“Because your faith in humanity had been usurped by a growing sense of disappointment and cynicism.”
Jess blinked at her friend and shook her head, “That's not it.”
“I am careful but this job rarely goes according to plan.”
Dread built in her gut. Sam could get caught off guard. It wouldn't matter how much Dean watched out for him or how much they thought they were prepared for what they were facing. Things went awry, they always did. It was there, just waiting to happen.
“I...”
“Sam's going to be fine. The little bastard is great at what he does," Liz patted her hand in an empty gesture. "Just you wait Jess soon enough he'll be back to being your lovable pain in the ass.”
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/27
“I was so lost back then
But with a little help from my friends
I found a light in the tunnel at the end”
- Smile, Lily Allen
Dani had spent most of her life some version of lost. Mostly it had to do with deeper meaning of self. Intellectually she knew who she was expected to be and she almost knew who she wanted to be but the gap between the two had always puzzled her. So like many others she had taken to playing rolls. A different facade for each person she was with.
The therapist she'd been made to see after she'd been caught making yet another stinkbomb in the chemistry lab at her third high school had said that it was a kind of self preservation.
She called that bullshit.
Yeah, sure, so at times it could seem like she had some level of dissociative identity disorder but what was really wrong with that? Everyone had times where they acted completely out of character.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her, outside of her slightly sadomasochistic tendency of pushing everyone that meant something to her away. She didn't think about it. It was just, bam, push. That's why she loved her current friends so much. They liked their own personal space but were stubborn enough that when she was a complete and total bitch and started shoving at them, they laughed at her.
They were there for the home stretch.
Not even moving back to Fort Collins, where she'd briefly lived as a kid, for veterinary school would get in their way. This they had told her several times a times quite rudely. They were her family.
The first one that she really remembered. Her dad had run off after she was born, her mom had died when she was in kindergarten, and her grandfather had passed the year after that leaving her with no blood relations to speak of. She'd never been placed in a permanent situation, instead moving from family to family with the occasional group home thrown in the mix.
Not that it mattered.
What hadn't killed her – after all to the best of her knowledge she was still alive though who knew with all those ghosts and demons and things running around – had made her stronger.
She was a perfectly normal psychotic asshole. Ok, so that was a slight over exaggeration. She was more the obligatory scifi geek/random absentminded wierdo of the group. If she didn't hate physics with the burning passion of a supernova she'd be researching methods for instantaneous travel.
'Cause driving was a bitch.
It took hours to get anywhere. Especially in the city. People really were too stupid to drive. Hell, they were too stupid to walk most times. And aggravating as all hell. Outside of wanting to strangle most of the unfortunate souls to cross her path, Dani could put up with them.
Really.
Sorta.
In a manner of speaking.
It was more she'd occasionally flip off the poor unsuspecting stranger that managed to get in her way or 'accidentally' throw things at their heads before brushing it off. She'd never been good at the whole angry thing, being more of a pleasure person than anything else.
Life was too short to hold grudges and she'd be damned if anything of the like was going to trip her up.
*
Bobbing her head to her new favorite song of the minute she continued to shove her shirts into the case. The song was one of the few free itunes downloads that she could actually stomach, it wasn't all in English and had a bit of a techno thing going on but she thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably because it wasn't hard to keep the beat.
Going to close the last suitcase of the things she was going to bring with her to CSU she shouldn't have been surprised that it closed on fingers. Accident's loved her. It was a trait she shared with Liz, “Frak!”
Dani waved her hand like a manic idiot for a moment before flexing her fingers to make sure that none of them were broken. It'd be just her luck that she'd do that on her last night at the house. They weren't. It was that stupid frakkin' suitcase she'd found in the basement.
There was a reason that she usually stuck with dufflebags.
With a huff she once again turned to lock the damn thing. It wouldn't do for it to come undone on its way down the stairs. Abandoning what little packing was left, she made her way downstairs mumbling her favorite curse words under her breathe.
Bugger.
Feck.
Fungunkin.
Asshat.
Brickshit.
Frak which was the current highlight of her arsenal. 'Cause really, BSG was love.
*
“You are not allowed to laugh about the couscous incident,” she tried to point indignantly at Liz but only ended up sloshing half the contents of her glass down her hand. She'd just filled the damn things and now half of it was wasted.
The grass did not deserve the deliciousness of the mudslide.
Liz's shoulders shook with suppressed mirth, “Yeah, whys that?”
“Because it was your fault.”
“How do you figure?”
Dani stared at her friend ignoring the snickering of the others. As if they didn't know. It was pretty damn obvious why it'd been her fault, “If you hadn't made the couscous I wouldn't have gotten it stuck in my nose.”
“If you hadn't been laughing at me for dropping my sunglasses in the soup you wouldn't have snorted it,” Liz replied laughing harder.
She did have a point. It hadn't been the best idea to try and swallow when laughing. And it had hurt like a bitch too. AND THEN she'd accidentally swallowed the disgusting mass when she'd been trying to get it out, “Yeah, well... it still tasted like ass.”
“HEY!”
They all laughed slowly sipping their drinks, feet dug into the sand. Serena had had the idea to spend the day on the beach and they'd all been in favor of it. They'd left the house earlier than any of them tended to wake up on the weekends to beat the heat which had scorched down on them all day. That they knew the locals made it even better.
It was like having room service without having to pay for it. Bathroom. Food. Drinks. Showers before they got around to leaving. Definitely wasn't a bad way to spend her last night before ending her break and starting the hell that was school.
Eventually when the reminiscing was over and they'd all shared the happening of their weeks which was always more amusing than informative, the ever popular questionable questions game came up. It had become a kinda tradition to play since they'd been at Stanford and had found one of those 'Twenty Questions To Break The Ice With Your New Roommates' sheets that dorms were so fond of.
Though, their questions tended to be more interesting than the dribble the uni had given them.
“I got one,” Charlie said with a smile as she again filled her glass. “If you could bang any fictional character, who would it be?”
Serena rolled her eyes, “Nice wording.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Helo,” the words were passed her lips before she'd really thought of them. Not that he wasn't the subject of one of Dani's favorite fantasies. “Karl Agathon. He's just so tall and hot and knows how to treat a girl... mmm, I'd take him anyday.”
They all knew to a degree who she was talking about, all having been subjected to the day long marathons she was fond of. Jess shook her head. They'd argued once about who was the most attractive of the characters on scifi. The conversation had been ended before they could come to an agreement. Jess had gone with John Sheppard. Dani with Helo.
“Mr. Darcy,” Jess blushed as they all groaned, “any of his incarnations.”
“Come on.”
“Jeez Jess.”
“You can do better than that.”
“I know he's not your wet dream.”
“Ok. Ok,” the blond held her hands up in surrender. “Cillian Murphy's character in 28 Days later after he shaves his head. I can't remember his name...”
Liz scrunched her face thinking, “Jim.”
“Yes, that's him.”
“Not bad but I'd have to go with Billy Costigan,” Dani passed the jug to Liz as her friend stared mournfully into her empty glass. “I think I dreamt about him every night for a week after I saw The Departed.”
“The guy from Green Street,” Charlie nodded sending a smirk at Dani. They both said his name at the same time. “Pete Dunham.”
“Nice,” she couldn't keep the appreciation from her voice. There was a reason she was single.
“What about you sis?”
Serena looked at them all troubled, “I don't know. There's just so may.”
“Ah, that's a cop out,” Dani snorted. Their fearless leader couldn't back out of the question. “I know there's got to be one that gets to you.”
“Hmm, I guess I'll go for a classic.”
“Who?”
“Indiana Jones.”
Dani didn't manage to avoid chocking on air in surprise, “An old guy!”
But with a little help from my friends
I found a light in the tunnel at the end”
- Smile, Lily Allen
Dani had spent most of her life some version of lost. Mostly it had to do with deeper meaning of self. Intellectually she knew who she was expected to be and she almost knew who she wanted to be but the gap between the two had always puzzled her. So like many others she had taken to playing rolls. A different facade for each person she was with.
The therapist she'd been made to see after she'd been caught making yet another stinkbomb in the chemistry lab at her third high school had said that it was a kind of self preservation.
She called that bullshit.
Yeah, sure, so at times it could seem like she had some level of dissociative identity disorder but what was really wrong with that? Everyone had times where they acted completely out of character.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her, outside of her slightly sadomasochistic tendency of pushing everyone that meant something to her away. She didn't think about it. It was just, bam, push. That's why she loved her current friends so much. They liked their own personal space but were stubborn enough that when she was a complete and total bitch and started shoving at them, they laughed at her.
They were there for the home stretch.
Not even moving back to Fort Collins, where she'd briefly lived as a kid, for veterinary school would get in their way. This they had told her several times a times quite rudely. They were her family.
The first one that she really remembered. Her dad had run off after she was born, her mom had died when she was in kindergarten, and her grandfather had passed the year after that leaving her with no blood relations to speak of. She'd never been placed in a permanent situation, instead moving from family to family with the occasional group home thrown in the mix.
Not that it mattered.
What hadn't killed her – after all to the best of her knowledge she was still alive though who knew with all those ghosts and demons and things running around – had made her stronger.
She was a perfectly normal psychotic asshole. Ok, so that was a slight over exaggeration. She was more the obligatory scifi geek/random absentminded wierdo of the group. If she didn't hate physics with the burning passion of a supernova she'd be researching methods for instantaneous travel.
'Cause driving was a bitch.
It took hours to get anywhere. Especially in the city. People really were too stupid to drive. Hell, they were too stupid to walk most times. And aggravating as all hell. Outside of wanting to strangle most of the unfortunate souls to cross her path, Dani could put up with them.
Really.
Sorta.
In a manner of speaking.
It was more she'd occasionally flip off the poor unsuspecting stranger that managed to get in her way or 'accidentally' throw things at their heads before brushing it off. She'd never been good at the whole angry thing, being more of a pleasure person than anything else.
Life was too short to hold grudges and she'd be damned if anything of the like was going to trip her up.
*
Bobbing her head to her new favorite song of the minute she continued to shove her shirts into the case. The song was one of the few free itunes downloads that she could actually stomach, it wasn't all in English and had a bit of a techno thing going on but she thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably because it wasn't hard to keep the beat.
Going to close the last suitcase of the things she was going to bring with her to CSU she shouldn't have been surprised that it closed on fingers. Accident's loved her. It was a trait she shared with Liz, “Frak!”
Dani waved her hand like a manic idiot for a moment before flexing her fingers to make sure that none of them were broken. It'd be just her luck that she'd do that on her last night at the house. They weren't. It was that stupid frakkin' suitcase she'd found in the basement.
There was a reason that she usually stuck with dufflebags.
With a huff she once again turned to lock the damn thing. It wouldn't do for it to come undone on its way down the stairs. Abandoning what little packing was left, she made her way downstairs mumbling her favorite curse words under her breathe.
Bugger.
Feck.
Fungunkin.
Asshat.
Brickshit.
Frak which was the current highlight of her arsenal. 'Cause really, BSG was love.
*
“You are not allowed to laugh about the couscous incident,” she tried to point indignantly at Liz but only ended up sloshing half the contents of her glass down her hand. She'd just filled the damn things and now half of it was wasted.
The grass did not deserve the deliciousness of the mudslide.
Liz's shoulders shook with suppressed mirth, “Yeah, whys that?”
“Because it was your fault.”
“How do you figure?”
Dani stared at her friend ignoring the snickering of the others. As if they didn't know. It was pretty damn obvious why it'd been her fault, “If you hadn't made the couscous I wouldn't have gotten it stuck in my nose.”
“If you hadn't been laughing at me for dropping my sunglasses in the soup you wouldn't have snorted it,” Liz replied laughing harder.
She did have a point. It hadn't been the best idea to try and swallow when laughing. And it had hurt like a bitch too. AND THEN she'd accidentally swallowed the disgusting mass when she'd been trying to get it out, “Yeah, well... it still tasted like ass.”
“HEY!”
They all laughed slowly sipping their drinks, feet dug into the sand. Serena had had the idea to spend the day on the beach and they'd all been in favor of it. They'd left the house earlier than any of them tended to wake up on the weekends to beat the heat which had scorched down on them all day. That they knew the locals made it even better.
It was like having room service without having to pay for it. Bathroom. Food. Drinks. Showers before they got around to leaving. Definitely wasn't a bad way to spend her last night before ending her break and starting the hell that was school.
Eventually when the reminiscing was over and they'd all shared the happening of their weeks which was always more amusing than informative, the ever popular questionable questions game came up. It had become a kinda tradition to play since they'd been at Stanford and had found one of those 'Twenty Questions To Break The Ice With Your New Roommates' sheets that dorms were so fond of.
Though, their questions tended to be more interesting than the dribble the uni had given them.
“I got one,” Charlie said with a smile as she again filled her glass. “If you could bang any fictional character, who would it be?”
Serena rolled her eyes, “Nice wording.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Helo,” the words were passed her lips before she'd really thought of them. Not that he wasn't the subject of one of Dani's favorite fantasies. “Karl Agathon. He's just so tall and hot and knows how to treat a girl... mmm, I'd take him anyday.”
They all knew to a degree who she was talking about, all having been subjected to the day long marathons she was fond of. Jess shook her head. They'd argued once about who was the most attractive of the characters on scifi. The conversation had been ended before they could come to an agreement. Jess had gone with John Sheppard. Dani with Helo.
“Mr. Darcy,” Jess blushed as they all groaned, “any of his incarnations.”
“Come on.”
“Jeez Jess.”
“You can do better than that.”
“I know he's not your wet dream.”
“Ok. Ok,” the blond held her hands up in surrender. “Cillian Murphy's character in 28 Days later after he shaves his head. I can't remember his name...”
Liz scrunched her face thinking, “Jim.”
“Yes, that's him.”
“Not bad but I'd have to go with Billy Costigan,” Dani passed the jug to Liz as her friend stared mournfully into her empty glass. “I think I dreamt about him every night for a week after I saw The Departed.”
“The guy from Green Street,” Charlie nodded sending a smirk at Dani. They both said his name at the same time. “Pete Dunham.”
“Nice,” she couldn't keep the appreciation from her voice. There was a reason she was single.
“What about you sis?”
Serena looked at them all troubled, “I don't know. There's just so may.”
“Ah, that's a cop out,” Dani snorted. Their fearless leader couldn't back out of the question. “I know there's got to be one that gets to you.”
“Hmm, I guess I'll go for a classic.”
“Who?”
“Indiana Jones.”
Dani didn't manage to avoid chocking on air in surprise, “An old guy!”
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
- Location: somewhere this side of unstable
- Contact:
Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 4/30
Both feet, yeah?
“If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.”
- All I Want Is You, Barry Lewis Polisar
She'd taken to wearing pinstriped black jeans, chucks, and tee shirts that amused her. There was something important about that but she didn't know what it was. The only reason she could think of for the fashion change was that maybe, just maybe, it was her way of moving on with her life. Away from worn in boots and worn out jeans into the wardrobe of a quirky professor.
Or it could have just been that all of her old clothes have too many holes in them to wear anymore – as illustrated by the draft she got when wearing most of her old jeans - making it kind of feel like the end of an era.
But at the moment her clothes didn't matter except that she could toe chucks off where she couldn't boots and the clasp on her pants was easier than buttons because her head had been pounding all day and all she wanted to do was pass out. The migraine was about ready to make her toss her cookies and was making the room spin.
It was a relief that she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
*
Dean would have known that something was wrong as soon as he woke up even if his last memory isn't of the djinn pressing a glowing hand to his forehead. Years of training have him alert immediately but it still takes a minute for his surroundings to set in.
An old black and white horror film is on the television providing the only light to the room its volume barely audible. He's not dressed which should concern him more than it does and he's not alone in the absurdly comfortable bed that definitely doesn't belong to a motel.
The room is completely foreign but as the woman beside him groans slightly in her sleep and her legs tangle a bit more with his, he has to admit that it kind of feels like what he thought home would. As carefully as he can, he tries to slip out of bed without waking his companion but isn't surprised when familiar brown eyes blink sleepily at him.
“Dean?” she says in that husky just-woke-up voice that gets to him without fail.
He's half tempted to crawl back into bed just so he can feel her like he has thought about more than he's willing to admit. Instead he places a delicate kiss on her bare shoulder, forcibly ignoring the way her skin feels against a days worth of facial hair, “Shh. Go back to sleep.”
“Mmmkay,” Liz buries her face in the pillow he's just abandoned as he looks for some clothes.
*
His mom's alive.
Mary Winchester's alive and she's standing in front of him asking him if he's been drinking. It's the second time that night that he's been asked that but the fact that his MOM is standing in front of him in their home just like he remembered her doing last time he'd been in Lawrence but without the poltergeist attacking them.
A part of Dean is waiting for the other shoe to drop just like it has at every other point in his life. The other part of him is too stunned to do much more than stare and try to string more than two words together.
He's got his mom. He's got Liz. Sam sounded fine if not a tad annoyed. Their dad didn't have his head blown off in front of his sons' girlfriend.
Distantly he registers that his mom is saying that she's going to call Liz to pick him up and he manages to send her to bed instead. He's torn between going back to Liz - because its been months and they've never not had to worry about Sam walking in on them - and staying in the house he barely remembers with his mom.
In the end he lays back on the couch and lets his eyes close.
His mom's alive.
*
Dean has never at any point in his twenty-someodd years mowed a lawn but it has to be the best thing he's ever done. It's so normal. The bane of adolescents forced to do it as part of their chores and he can't imagine why. Sure he has a hard time maneuvering it but it's great.
After ghosts, demons, a werewolf, a demi-god, and being wanted by the FBI, mowing the lawn is as perfect as he's ever really gotten.
Maybe the djinn really did reach into his head and grant him a wish he'd never let himself say outloud.
He's sitting on the front stoop when Liz shows up. Her smile easier and more open than he's ever seen it and she's dressed more casually than anytime except the night at Sam's place in Stanford when she'd been trashed and had put on his brothers pants without realizing that the white tank she'd been wearing was more revealing than she probably wanted.
“I like the shirt,” he really did. Brighter than he usually went for but the 'Bears like people. They taste like chicken' is actually kind of funny.
“You would,” again that easy smile and an innocent kiss.
There's none of the baggage from before.
She takes the beer from his hand as she sits down next to him before taking a quick sip and handing it back. It's just right. Sitting there with her, nothing to fight or protect her from. No reason to leave her behind when all he wants is to crawl inside her and stay there.
“What's that?” Dean asks nodding slightly to the package next to her.
“Cake,” a confused look drops down over her features casting them into familiar darkness. She forcibly shakes her head and smiles at him again. “You can never have enough cake.”
He gets the distinct feeling that he's being teased for his love of pie but Sam pulls up before he can say anything back. Jess steps out and he can't stop himself from scooping her up in a crushing hug.
“Good to see you too Dean,” he lets her go, turning to his brother and for a second wonders why Liz isn't surprised to see Jess step out of the car but then he remembers that she wouldn't know that her friend had been dead.
“Hey baby girl,” he barely catches the confused look that the Jess gives her.
He knows he's not making sense to the people around him but he can't help it. He's been dropped into a situation he has no information about and he's happy which apparently translates into drunk in this reality. Dean's not sure how he feels about that.
“I see you've started off mom's birthday with a bang as usual.”
“Wait, mom's birthday. That's today?”
“Yeah, yeah Dean. That's today. That's why we're here. Don't tell me you forgot,” it sounds more like a statement than a question. Honestly, Sam comes off as an ass and that hurts but his brother is happy. He can handle Sam being an ass if he's happy.
“Stop being an ass Sam,” he gives Liz a sharp look. “He's just tired. I've had him doing chores all day.”
“You don't have to cover for him.”
“I'm not,” her hand slips into his. “He even helped me bake her a cake last night.”
*
Sam announces that him and Jess are getting married and even with the suit and the overly fancy food that Liz shakes her head at, Dean is happy for them. Really truly happy for them.
It's not until he realizes that Liz isn't congratulating anyone but staring over at the door, that dark look on her face again, that he stops smiling. The girl. The one he keeps seeing is standing there. Putting another chink in the dream.
*
“You ever been somewhere that should seem so right but it's just wrong,” her saying it for anyone to hear makes it more real. There is something wrong but Dean doesn't want to think about it. He just wants to sit on the couch with her.
So he pretends he doesn't understand, “What?”
“Nothing,” her fingers brush along his jaw line. “Nothing at all.”
After a couple of minutes he pulls her closer, “You know I get it."
“Get what?”
“Why you're the one,” she smiles biting her lip slightly before moving into his lap and kissing him.
It's not the desperate kind that they shared after a hunt or the slow intense ones that had meant more than either were willing to say. It's coming home, as corny and cliché as that sounds. His hands work their way up her thighs and under her shirt delighting that she still reacts the way he remembers.
“I love you,” he stills for a minute, pulling back to look at her face. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes.”
Dean's not sure what to say to that. Somehow 'I love you too' seems to fall flat so he just pulls her closer and tell her in another way.
*
Sweat was clinging to her, trying to cool skin that was steadily becoming more heated. She could feel him. Liz could feel the ghost of his hands working her pants down her legs, feel his lips make their way to the sensitive spot right behind her ear and down to the hollow of her throat.
Her back arched against her bed, her breathing coming in short shallow gasps occasionally mingled with moans. She shouldn't be able to feel Dean so clearly. Even her unconscious mind knew that.
She bit back a cry as she felt him slowly enter her.
Real life wasn't needed when she could dream like that.
*
They were all dead.
Everyone that he, Sam, and his dad had saved. The people on that plane. The little girl with the imaginary friend that was really a ghost. Everyone.
Dean finally gets to be happy and everyone is dead. He's willing to bet that the girl he is seeing would be dead soon too if he isn't willing to give it all up. Liz. Mom. Jess. Sam. Why did they have to be the ones to save everyone?
He knows that he has to find the djinn and set things right. Knows it like he knows he'll go talk to his dad before doing it. But he doesn't want to. Sam's engaged to Jess, mom's alive, and Liz is asleep in their bed.
It wasn't fair.
“I love you,” she stirs slightly in her sleep. Her hand tightening on his. “I just want to keep you safe.”
He tries to pull away, he needs to leave, but her hand tightens more and pulls him slightly. She's awake. Her eyes wide, her bottom lip shaking, “Don't leave me again.”
There's something there that says she knows more than he thinks but that doesn't matter. He just wishes that he didn't have to.
*
They're all standing around him. Sam and Jess and mom, all of them trying to convince him to stay in the dream. Let the djinn feed on him until he is dead. Liz is staring at him then the others then back to him like she doesn't understand where she is or what is happening.
He needs to plunge to knife into his gut and wake up.
“Why did you have to keep digging? Why couldn't you have left well enough alone?” the real Sam wouldn't have asked him that. “You were happy.”
“Put the knife down honey.”
“You're not real. None of it is,” he's trying not to look at them.
“It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had,” his mom wouldn't have ever said that.
“What?”
“It's everything you want. We're a family again. Lets go home.”
“I'll die,” Liz sucks in his breath and he turns to her. His instincts are saying to just keep looking at her. “The djinn will drain the life out of me in just a couple of days.”
“But in here, with us, it'll feel like years. Like a lifetime. I promise. No more pain or fear. Just love and comfort,” Liz is shaking her head, “and safety. Dean, stay with us. Get some rest.”
“You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. You get to watch him live a full life,” he turns toward Jess. Sam deserves her. They deserve to be happy.
“No. No. No. No,” gentle shaky hands pull his face to them. Liz is crying even as she leans ups so that he can feel her lips against his ear. “You need to wake up. I can't loose you. Please wake up.”
“What?”
Sam pulls her back and but he keeps his eyes locked with hers, “Wake Dean. WAKE UP.”
She's still crying as he pushes the knife into his stomach.
*
A rough sob jerked from her throat as she woke with a sob, her blankets were wrapped around her too tight, her shirt soaked with sweat. The image of the knife entering Dean was still sharp in her mind making her body quake.
Her room was pitch black, she'd done it that way purposefully, but it made it harder for her to find what she needed. Her phone. Quick fingers bring the familiar number to stare at her from the screen. All she had to do was press send and she'd get to hear his voice. Hear that he was ok.
It took all of her to drop it.
He didn't want her around. Didn't want her. Even in dreams he left her. It wasn't fair and she wasn't going to let him hurt her more by calling him and having him tell her just how little he needed her compared to how much she needed him.
Quickly changing into her pajamas she slid back into bed. It was just a dream.
*
“Yeah, I'm alright,” he was always alright. “You should have seen it Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy.”
“So we didn't get along then huh?”
“No,” that was one way to put it.
“Yeah. I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy.”
“It wasn't. It was just a wish. I wished for mom to live. Mom never died, we never went hunting, and you and me just never, you know.”
“I know. Well I'm glad we do and I'm glad you dug yourself out Dean. Most people wouldn't have had the strength. They would have just stayed.”
“Yeah well lucky me,” he got to lose their mom all over again. Lost Liz too. He was still fighting the urge to call her and ask her to come back. “I got to tell you though man. You had Jess. I had... Mom was going to have grandkids.”
“Yeah but Dean it wasn't real.”
“I know,” he knew, “but I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean ever since dad all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. And we've sacrificed so much.”
“But people are alive because of you. It's worth it, Dean. It is. It's not fair, and you know, it hurts like hell but it's worth it.”
Dean really hoped that it was.
“If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.”
- All I Want Is You, Barry Lewis Polisar
She'd taken to wearing pinstriped black jeans, chucks, and tee shirts that amused her. There was something important about that but she didn't know what it was. The only reason she could think of for the fashion change was that maybe, just maybe, it was her way of moving on with her life. Away from worn in boots and worn out jeans into the wardrobe of a quirky professor.
Or it could have just been that all of her old clothes have too many holes in them to wear anymore – as illustrated by the draft she got when wearing most of her old jeans - making it kind of feel like the end of an era.
But at the moment her clothes didn't matter except that she could toe chucks off where she couldn't boots and the clasp on her pants was easier than buttons because her head had been pounding all day and all she wanted to do was pass out. The migraine was about ready to make her toss her cookies and was making the room spin.
It was a relief that she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
*
Dean would have known that something was wrong as soon as he woke up even if his last memory isn't of the djinn pressing a glowing hand to his forehead. Years of training have him alert immediately but it still takes a minute for his surroundings to set in.
An old black and white horror film is on the television providing the only light to the room its volume barely audible. He's not dressed which should concern him more than it does and he's not alone in the absurdly comfortable bed that definitely doesn't belong to a motel.
The room is completely foreign but as the woman beside him groans slightly in her sleep and her legs tangle a bit more with his, he has to admit that it kind of feels like what he thought home would. As carefully as he can, he tries to slip out of bed without waking his companion but isn't surprised when familiar brown eyes blink sleepily at him.
“Dean?” she says in that husky just-woke-up voice that gets to him without fail.
He's half tempted to crawl back into bed just so he can feel her like he has thought about more than he's willing to admit. Instead he places a delicate kiss on her bare shoulder, forcibly ignoring the way her skin feels against a days worth of facial hair, “Shh. Go back to sleep.”
“Mmmkay,” Liz buries her face in the pillow he's just abandoned as he looks for some clothes.
*
His mom's alive.
Mary Winchester's alive and she's standing in front of him asking him if he's been drinking. It's the second time that night that he's been asked that but the fact that his MOM is standing in front of him in their home just like he remembered her doing last time he'd been in Lawrence but without the poltergeist attacking them.
A part of Dean is waiting for the other shoe to drop just like it has at every other point in his life. The other part of him is too stunned to do much more than stare and try to string more than two words together.
He's got his mom. He's got Liz. Sam sounded fine if not a tad annoyed. Their dad didn't have his head blown off in front of his sons' girlfriend.
Distantly he registers that his mom is saying that she's going to call Liz to pick him up and he manages to send her to bed instead. He's torn between going back to Liz - because its been months and they've never not had to worry about Sam walking in on them - and staying in the house he barely remembers with his mom.
In the end he lays back on the couch and lets his eyes close.
His mom's alive.
*
Dean has never at any point in his twenty-someodd years mowed a lawn but it has to be the best thing he's ever done. It's so normal. The bane of adolescents forced to do it as part of their chores and he can't imagine why. Sure he has a hard time maneuvering it but it's great.
After ghosts, demons, a werewolf, a demi-god, and being wanted by the FBI, mowing the lawn is as perfect as he's ever really gotten.
Maybe the djinn really did reach into his head and grant him a wish he'd never let himself say outloud.
He's sitting on the front stoop when Liz shows up. Her smile easier and more open than he's ever seen it and she's dressed more casually than anytime except the night at Sam's place in Stanford when she'd been trashed and had put on his brothers pants without realizing that the white tank she'd been wearing was more revealing than she probably wanted.
“I like the shirt,” he really did. Brighter than he usually went for but the 'Bears like people. They taste like chicken' is actually kind of funny.
“You would,” again that easy smile and an innocent kiss.
There's none of the baggage from before.
She takes the beer from his hand as she sits down next to him before taking a quick sip and handing it back. It's just right. Sitting there with her, nothing to fight or protect her from. No reason to leave her behind when all he wants is to crawl inside her and stay there.
“What's that?” Dean asks nodding slightly to the package next to her.
“Cake,” a confused look drops down over her features casting them into familiar darkness. She forcibly shakes her head and smiles at him again. “You can never have enough cake.”
He gets the distinct feeling that he's being teased for his love of pie but Sam pulls up before he can say anything back. Jess steps out and he can't stop himself from scooping her up in a crushing hug.
“Good to see you too Dean,” he lets her go, turning to his brother and for a second wonders why Liz isn't surprised to see Jess step out of the car but then he remembers that she wouldn't know that her friend had been dead.
“Hey baby girl,” he barely catches the confused look that the Jess gives her.
He knows he's not making sense to the people around him but he can't help it. He's been dropped into a situation he has no information about and he's happy which apparently translates into drunk in this reality. Dean's not sure how he feels about that.
“I see you've started off mom's birthday with a bang as usual.”
“Wait, mom's birthday. That's today?”
“Yeah, yeah Dean. That's today. That's why we're here. Don't tell me you forgot,” it sounds more like a statement than a question. Honestly, Sam comes off as an ass and that hurts but his brother is happy. He can handle Sam being an ass if he's happy.
“Stop being an ass Sam,” he gives Liz a sharp look. “He's just tired. I've had him doing chores all day.”
“You don't have to cover for him.”
“I'm not,” her hand slips into his. “He even helped me bake her a cake last night.”
*
Sam announces that him and Jess are getting married and even with the suit and the overly fancy food that Liz shakes her head at, Dean is happy for them. Really truly happy for them.
It's not until he realizes that Liz isn't congratulating anyone but staring over at the door, that dark look on her face again, that he stops smiling. The girl. The one he keeps seeing is standing there. Putting another chink in the dream.
*
“You ever been somewhere that should seem so right but it's just wrong,” her saying it for anyone to hear makes it more real. There is something wrong but Dean doesn't want to think about it. He just wants to sit on the couch with her.
So he pretends he doesn't understand, “What?”
“Nothing,” her fingers brush along his jaw line. “Nothing at all.”
After a couple of minutes he pulls her closer, “You know I get it."
“Get what?”
“Why you're the one,” she smiles biting her lip slightly before moving into his lap and kissing him.
It's not the desperate kind that they shared after a hunt or the slow intense ones that had meant more than either were willing to say. It's coming home, as corny and cliché as that sounds. His hands work their way up her thighs and under her shirt delighting that she still reacts the way he remembers.
“I love you,” he stills for a minute, pulling back to look at her face. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes.”
Dean's not sure what to say to that. Somehow 'I love you too' seems to fall flat so he just pulls her closer and tell her in another way.
*
Sweat was clinging to her, trying to cool skin that was steadily becoming more heated. She could feel him. Liz could feel the ghost of his hands working her pants down her legs, feel his lips make their way to the sensitive spot right behind her ear and down to the hollow of her throat.
Her back arched against her bed, her breathing coming in short shallow gasps occasionally mingled with moans. She shouldn't be able to feel Dean so clearly. Even her unconscious mind knew that.
She bit back a cry as she felt him slowly enter her.
Real life wasn't needed when she could dream like that.
*
They were all dead.
Everyone that he, Sam, and his dad had saved. The people on that plane. The little girl with the imaginary friend that was really a ghost. Everyone.
Dean finally gets to be happy and everyone is dead. He's willing to bet that the girl he is seeing would be dead soon too if he isn't willing to give it all up. Liz. Mom. Jess. Sam. Why did they have to be the ones to save everyone?
He knows that he has to find the djinn and set things right. Knows it like he knows he'll go talk to his dad before doing it. But he doesn't want to. Sam's engaged to Jess, mom's alive, and Liz is asleep in their bed.
It wasn't fair.
“I love you,” she stirs slightly in her sleep. Her hand tightening on his. “I just want to keep you safe.”
He tries to pull away, he needs to leave, but her hand tightens more and pulls him slightly. She's awake. Her eyes wide, her bottom lip shaking, “Don't leave me again.”
There's something there that says she knows more than he thinks but that doesn't matter. He just wishes that he didn't have to.
*
They're all standing around him. Sam and Jess and mom, all of them trying to convince him to stay in the dream. Let the djinn feed on him until he is dead. Liz is staring at him then the others then back to him like she doesn't understand where she is or what is happening.
He needs to plunge to knife into his gut and wake up.
“Why did you have to keep digging? Why couldn't you have left well enough alone?” the real Sam wouldn't have asked him that. “You were happy.”
“Put the knife down honey.”
“You're not real. None of it is,” he's trying not to look at them.
“It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had,” his mom wouldn't have ever said that.
“What?”
“It's everything you want. We're a family again. Lets go home.”
“I'll die,” Liz sucks in his breath and he turns to her. His instincts are saying to just keep looking at her. “The djinn will drain the life out of me in just a couple of days.”
“But in here, with us, it'll feel like years. Like a lifetime. I promise. No more pain or fear. Just love and comfort,” Liz is shaking her head, “and safety. Dean, stay with us. Get some rest.”
“You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. You get to watch him live a full life,” he turns toward Jess. Sam deserves her. They deserve to be happy.
“No. No. No. No,” gentle shaky hands pull his face to them. Liz is crying even as she leans ups so that he can feel her lips against his ear. “You need to wake up. I can't loose you. Please wake up.”
“What?”
Sam pulls her back and but he keeps his eyes locked with hers, “Wake Dean. WAKE UP.”
She's still crying as he pushes the knife into his stomach.
*
A rough sob jerked from her throat as she woke with a sob, her blankets were wrapped around her too tight, her shirt soaked with sweat. The image of the knife entering Dean was still sharp in her mind making her body quake.
Her room was pitch black, she'd done it that way purposefully, but it made it harder for her to find what she needed. Her phone. Quick fingers bring the familiar number to stare at her from the screen. All she had to do was press send and she'd get to hear his voice. Hear that he was ok.
It took all of her to drop it.
He didn't want her around. Didn't want her. Even in dreams he left her. It wasn't fair and she wasn't going to let him hurt her more by calling him and having him tell her just how little he needed her compared to how much she needed him.
Quickly changing into her pajamas she slid back into bed. It was just a dream.
*
“Yeah, I'm alright,” he was always alright. “You should have seen it Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy.”
“So we didn't get along then huh?”
“No,” that was one way to put it.
“Yeah. I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy.”
“It wasn't. It was just a wish. I wished for mom to live. Mom never died, we never went hunting, and you and me just never, you know.”
“I know. Well I'm glad we do and I'm glad you dug yourself out Dean. Most people wouldn't have had the strength. They would have just stayed.”
“Yeah well lucky me,” he got to lose their mom all over again. Lost Liz too. He was still fighting the urge to call her and ask her to come back. “I got to tell you though man. You had Jess. I had... Mom was going to have grandkids.”
“Yeah but Dean it wasn't real.”
“I know,” he knew, “but I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean ever since dad all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. And we've sacrificed so much.”
“But people are alive because of you. It's worth it, Dean. It is. It's not fair, and you know, it hurts like hell but it's worth it.”
Dean really hoped that it was.
Last edited by vaifeal on Thu May 01, 2008 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
-
vaifeal
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- Posts: 186
- Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 4:08 pm
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Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 5/04
“I need to know I broke your heart.
The truth is that it's about me
Hurting just to find a line,
This is giving me trouble”
- Bullets, Vega4
Her break through wasn't the smoothest. More of a trip, crash, holy crap kinda moment that left her hurting in more than one way. 'Cause really no fall down a flight of stairs was ever graceful. Even less so when it tooks the person, namely her, five minutes to register that they were in a twisted lump at the bottom.
Grace wasn't her strong point.
Muscles painfully twitching, Liz stood and ran up the stairs wary not to go too fast in her haste. It all made sense. All the pieces had fallen together. The information that had seemed liked fractured useless bits suddenly fit together. Not particularly clearly and not seamlessly but it was good enough.
The path was in her head, she just had to follow it.
Shoving her bedroom door open she bounded over the bed, barely avoiding getting her kicks stuck in her sheets and once again falling on her face, to get the dufflebag shoved in the corner of her closet. It was her emergency sack.
Everything she needed or thought she needed for a hunt that she couldn't keep in her car was there. A pistol, a revolver, a sawed off pump action shot gun. Silver and normal bullets. Rock salt filled shells. Copies of her more important research. A small but well stocked first aid kit. A machete. A bowie knife. Extra flashlights and batteries. Her brace.
It was heavy.
Really heavy and stuffed to the seams.
She didn't ever leave home without it. Her eyes checking the clock every couple of seconds, Liz pulled on the least ripped pair of hunting jeans she still had, her boots from under her bed, and pulled a ratty sweatshirt over her tee. An easy transformation into a hunter.
*
Charlie had heard the telltale crash at the base of the stairs that signified someone had fallen down them. It wasn't an all together strange sound in their house but one that usually came in the wee hours of the morning when one or more of them were stumbling in drunk or on a workday morning when they weren't awake.
That's what happened when a house was filled with klutzes.
Deciding that it would be best for all parties involved if she made sure that whoever fell wasn't unconscious and slowly bleeding death, she went to the bottom floor only to find a black duffle and to hear the basement door slam before Liz came into view.
Her friend was dressed like she had when she'd been traveling with the bastards who should not be named.
“I'm taking the mini coop,” Charlie shrugged watching her juggle the familiar journal with her other belongings. It was Liz's car anyway, bought after for hunts after Blue had finally hit the dust.
“Where're you going?”
“It's the demon,” Charlie followed Liz outside and into the garage, pausing only as Liz stopped to stare at her in confusion, “Azazel?” she shook her head turning back to the car. “I dunno but I got to go. Tell Jess I'll give her a call and to watch her back.”
“Yeah, sure. You too.”
With half a smile she was gone. A bit like a storm.
*
Dean was freaking out, to put it mildly. Sam was gone, a diner full of people were dead, and he had no clue where to look first. Neither did Bobby. He was the big brother, he was supposed to protect Sam, and there was nothing he could do.
Resigned to the fact that he was going to have to get Liz involved on the off chance that she knew something, he dialed her number. It was picked up after two rings, “Parker's phone.”
“I need to speak to Liz.”
“She's not here.”
“It's a cellphone bring it to her.”
“Listen asshole, I don't know who you think you are but Liz isn't here and no amount of shouting will make her suddenly appear.”
“Where is she?” he ran his hand through his hair. First Sam then Liz. It was turning out to be even more of a mess than usual.
“I don't know but if you see her tell her that her roommate has a bone to pick with her,” the call ended with a click before he could respond.
Shit.
*
Her eyes felt much too heavy and like they were made of sand paper which meant that it was long past the time where she should have pulled over to grab a couple of hours of sleep. She wouldn't. She had pulled over but only for a redbull and a large coffee. Then again for a bag of sweets and to use the facilities.
Coffee always did make her pee.
Liz wouldn't afford to sleep. The vice was closing around her, time was running out. It was bad enough that despite somehow knowing exactly how to get to where she needed to go, she still had to follow certain traffic laws. For example, she couldn't keep the gas pedal on the floor because she'd just get pulled over.
The time breathing down her neck was just gonna have to be enough.
It had to be enough.
She promised Jess that she'd watch out for Sam, after all the effort she put into doing just that no one was going to get in the way. Liz didn't break her word.
*
The Roadhouse was gone. Ash and his information with it. Dean was quickly running out of options.
*
He was damp and tired and so on edge that if anyone startled him, Sam was pretty sure that he'd kill them on instinct. They needed to get away from Cold Oak. Before the demon came back to finish them. Before Jake changed his mind and decided that he really did want Sam dead. Before he started to focus on the thing that Ava had become and what had happened to Andy.
All he wanted was a shower, someplace he could lay flat without having to think about the events of the last day, and for Dean to be there. At some point it had to end.
“Sam!” he turned to the voice and was surprised to see Liz duck out of the trees running toward him. She was limping slightly, her expression relieved.
“Liz?” Jake moved behind him but he ignored the other man. What the hell was Liz doing in South Dakota?
“SAM!” her expression turned horrified, her hand automatically moving to the pistol strapped to her leg.
He saw her raise it, heard it go off, and felt the pain shoot up his back before he dropped to the ground.
*
He ignored the man running off into the dark. Ignored Bobby running after him. Ignored the sound of Liz shooting until she emptied her clip at the assailant who had still managed to thrust the knife even after she's put one in his shoulder.
Sam was hurt. Dean hadn't been fast enough to save him.
“Sammy. Come one Sammy,” his brother let out a groan but didn't open his eyes. “Dammit Sam don't do this.”
A small figure dropped down beside him one hand quickly pushing up the back of Sam's jacket to see the pale skin and the blood that was pouring out of it and the other pulling off her sweatshirt to press against the wound. He distantly recognized the shirt from the dream the djinn had given him.
Sam was hurt.
“Dean,” her voice was sharp enough to break him out of his trance, “we need to get him to a hospital. I don't know if I can stop the bleeding on my own.”
*
Sam was going to be ok.
He had lost a lot of blood and they wanted to give him a booster to prevent tetanus but the knife had missed his spinal cord and major damage to other organs. The doctors were confident that he'd make a full recovery. His body needed to rest.
She'd never seen Dean so out of it as he'd been and she's never seen him as relieved as he was when the doctor came out to give the news to the relatives of Mr Walla. Liz was guessing Sam had chosen the name. She highly doubted that Dean had ever heard of Death Cab let alone Chris Walla.
“What happened?”
She blinked away the sleep that was threatening her, “Hmmm?”
“Your knee, what happened?”
“Busted it on a routine salt and burn,” he gave her THAT look. The one that said she had let him down in some fashion. She just shrugged and closed her eyes again. “It's nothing time won't fix.”
“Liz,” she kept her eyes shut.
“Hmmm?”
He didn't respond but she could hear the heavy sigh.
She wanted to sleep but she wouldn't. Not around him. Instead she sat there resting her eyes waiting for him to leave so she could follow.
*
She'd always liked Bobby's house.
At least up until she'd woken up there cold and alone. Now it put her one edge. As if the floor was going to give way or she'd wake up on that couch again to a silent house. Liz didn't trust the place anymore and she certainly didn't trust the men in it.
Though Ellen was cool. She could work with Ellen.
“I told you,” all three of them turned her way. She pointed at the map. “Wyoming, a big ass star in Wyoming.”
“Liz -”
“No, don't try to bullshit me. I told you but why the hell would you listen to me, huh? Not like I've never helped you before. Not like I've saved your ass in the past.”
“That's not -” Dean was getting frustrated. He always did have a short fuse when he was tired.
“Only one of us has screwed over the other and it wasn't me. You don't want me around? Too bad, you don't get a say.”
A rough hand grabbed her arm, “It's not safe.”
“I don't give a shit!”
“I do!”
*
He ignored Bobby and Ellen's concern as he dragged Liz from the room. Despite that she was tugging on her arm and digging in her heels it was easy. She was too small to be able to stop him. Dean wasn't about to let her walk into a fight with the Demon. Not with Sam in the hospital and not while he could stop her.
“Let go of me,” he shoved her into the room finally releasing his grip.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
She gave him THAT look. The one that said she was a minute away from zapping his balls off. Usually he'd back off, give her some space, and wait till she'd calmed. He wasn't about to do that. Knowing her she'd climb out of a window and they'd be lucky to find her before she got herself killed.
“When Dean? You have be a little more specific,” Liz glared at him moving as far away from him as possible. “You mean when I tried to save Sam back there? How bout when I found out where Azazel was going to head? Or was it when I didn't kill you after you abandoned me here? No, I know what it is. 'Cause I ask myself the same thing: What the hell was I thinking when I fucked you?”
He felt like he'd been punched in the gut but he didn't let it show. He wanted an answer for all of it:When she'd came with them in Palo Alto. When she'd followed on every hunt. When she'd gone with him to get Sam. When she'd decided it was ok for her to hunt on her own. When she'd gotten to Cold Oak. When she thought about going with them.
All of it.
“You're hunting on your own.”
“I am.”
His jaw clenched. They didn't have time for this, “You're not coming with us.”
“Fuck you.”
“You've already done that sweetheart.”
“Right, and what a let down that was,” she stood in front of him, her chest heaving in anger. He barely avoided the desire to push her against the wall and have his way with her. “I'm going.”
“No, you're not.”
“I really am and if you try to stop me I'll put you down so hard you won't get back up.”
She shoved past him with more than physical strength so that there was no stopping her. Dean punched the wall before he could stop himself, leaving a slight indentation. He'd have to apologize to Bobby for that.
*
Jake.
The bastard that stabbed Sam, his name was Jake. A former soldier from Iraq and a psychic punk that she'd really like to put up against Ava. Or maybe Tess. They were both marvelously creative about how they fucked with peoples heads. Too bad she couldn't give them the chance.
Guns were just so messy.
He was staring up at her piteously from where she'd flung him away from the crypt, too late to stop him from inserting the colt but before he could turn and make the others do something she'd be unable to stop. He'd collided with a headstone, a big solid piece of marble.
Sucker had probably broken something. His neck. His back. His head. Liz didn't give a shit. She ignored the way he was trying to plead with her and pulled the trigger.
*
Liz was straining against the YED or Azazel like she'd called him or whatever the hell it was called. It was going on about how it was too bad it hadn't known about her earlier, that she would've made a good soldier for it. Her return remarks were undermined by the strain behind them and the slow stream of blood dripping down her face.
Dean reached for the colt against his protesting body. It's weight made his hands shake briefly before he could steady it. The surprise on the things face would always be one of his favorite memories.
*
Bobby leaned against the closed crypt in relief, Ellen beside him. He gave her a brief smile before pushing off and moving toward the younger pair. The Demons body was on the ground, a gapping wound in the center of its forehead. After so many years it was over. One of the nastiest, if not the nastiest, piece of work he'd ever come across was finally gone.
Dean had done it.
John would've been proud.
He watched as Liz pushed herself on to unsteady feet to make it the short distance to Dean where she collapsed on top of him. Her face buried into the boys shoulder, arms tight around each other. It looked like she was trying to bury herself in him by getting as close as possible.
Dean was a good kid, Bobby had never had a problem with him except that he was too much like his father at times. Trying to protect everyone even when it wasn't possible. He'd told the boy that he shouldn't have left her the way he had. Told him it'd create more problems than it solved but he'd gone and done it anyway.
The Winchester's deserved to be happy. He only hoped that Dean hadn't screwed up too bad because that girl, she'd make him happy.
*
“Can I borrow your phone? I kinda left mine in the kitchen,” she gave him a sheepish smile and took it from him when he held it out.
Liz was still mad at him. Forgiveness wouldn't come that easy but she was too relieved that they'd all made it out of that alive to fight him. Given time it'd come back and she'd lash out. She was too tired. Walking away from the others she dialed Jess's number and waited.
“Liz?”
“Yeah,” she bit her lip at her friends concern. Perhaps she should have called earlier.
“Where have you been?”
“It's over Jess. It's over,” she heard the phone hit the floor and the uncoordinated effort to pick it back up.
“What?”
“It's over. That thing is dead. You're safe,” the phone once again hit the floor, distant sobs coming across the line.
After a minute it was picked up again but with a different voice on the other end, “The way she's going on I hope you're not dead.”
“Nope still alive Serena.”
“That's good. So what's the deal?”
“I need you to get Jess on a plane to Rapid City South Dakota as soon as possible. She'll need to rent a car and head to the city hospital. Tell her to ask for Martin Walla...”
*
It was slow. Drowsily slow.
They'd both driven in separate cars back to the hospital to check on Sam before checking into a local motel. One room, a decision that they both agreed to without asking the other. Dirt sticking to their clothes, blood dried to their skin, they made their way to the bathroom.
Without speaking they undressed each other, article by article. They didn't look away as they climbed into the stall and their hands didn't wander as they washed. It was enough to be together, feeling skin on skin, the heat building between them.
When the water had gone cold they didn't need words to prompt the other to dry them off. She didn't have to say anything for Dean to follow her to the bed and he didn't say anything when she pulled him to her, her actions tinged with a sliver of desperation.
He was alive. They were alive.
“You're going to stay,” it was more a question than a statement and the first words they'd said to each other since she'd asked for his phone. She gave him a small smile tinged with sadness and she could tell that he took it as assent.
She wished he hadn't.
*
Commitment was no longer a strong point. It was always at the back of her mind screaming for her to run. Most of the time she listened, even with her friends and family, they got to close and she bolted. Off to Stanford. On the road with Dean. To Inwood and the pull of research. Sometimes she could fight it enough to slow down. Sometimes she could even stop. It was the thing she had on Dani. Liz could just... be.
But the voice was always there. A whisper. A groan. A shout.
Run little girl. Run like hell because staying only resulted in hurt.
It was why she hadn't drifted off into sleep like she wanted. Before Bobby's that's what she would do. Fall into some of the best sleep she'd had in years, pleasantly exhausted and trusting that the world would be ok when she woke.
Now, she would barely drift off waiting for the shift of the bed next to her that said he was leaving. He didn't get to leave her again. Fighting against the instinct that told her to lay back down, Liz grabbed the clean clothes she'd brought in with her and slipped them on.
*
It was the cold that woke him up. He rolled in his sleep to get closer to Liz's body to be met with cool sheets instead. His hand had reached trying to find her but there was only empty space. That was when he'd sleepily blinked himself awake, blurry eyes searching for her.
She wasn't in the room.
Dean got out of bed and checked that bathroom but she wasn't there either. Trying not to think that she would do to him what he had done to her, he opened the motel door. Her car was gone. She'd left him.
*
There was a blond in Sam's room and it wasn't a nurse.
He had the gun out from where he kept it tucked into the back of his jeans before she could turn and only held it steadier when she did. Dean needed to get rid of it before Sam woke up. Seeing it there would break his brother.
The thing was staring at him in fear, eyes wide and innocent.
Before he could tell it to get up a groan came from the bed and he moved next to him, “Dean?”
“Hey Sammy,” he tried not to look towards it so Sam wouldn't but when it let out a choked cry there was no stopping him.
“Jess,” the voice was strangled through the rawness from the ventilator.
“Hi baby.”
“Jess,” the thing flung itself at his brother too fast for him to get a clean shot. Dean didn't want to have to kill it in front of Sam or in a hospital.
“I'm here. It's ok. I'm here,” it stroked back Sam's hair like their mom used to do before she died. It sure as hell was a good actor.
“H-How?”
“Liz. Liz did it,” she turned toward him, his gun already drooping slightly at the name. “Please put that down Dean. I'll tell you everything. Liz said I can tell you everything.”
The truth is that it's about me
Hurting just to find a line,
This is giving me trouble”
- Bullets, Vega4
Her break through wasn't the smoothest. More of a trip, crash, holy crap kinda moment that left her hurting in more than one way. 'Cause really no fall down a flight of stairs was ever graceful. Even less so when it tooks the person, namely her, five minutes to register that they were in a twisted lump at the bottom.
Grace wasn't her strong point.
Muscles painfully twitching, Liz stood and ran up the stairs wary not to go too fast in her haste. It all made sense. All the pieces had fallen together. The information that had seemed liked fractured useless bits suddenly fit together. Not particularly clearly and not seamlessly but it was good enough.
The path was in her head, she just had to follow it.
Shoving her bedroom door open she bounded over the bed, barely avoiding getting her kicks stuck in her sheets and once again falling on her face, to get the dufflebag shoved in the corner of her closet. It was her emergency sack.
Everything she needed or thought she needed for a hunt that she couldn't keep in her car was there. A pistol, a revolver, a sawed off pump action shot gun. Silver and normal bullets. Rock salt filled shells. Copies of her more important research. A small but well stocked first aid kit. A machete. A bowie knife. Extra flashlights and batteries. Her brace.
It was heavy.
Really heavy and stuffed to the seams.
She didn't ever leave home without it. Her eyes checking the clock every couple of seconds, Liz pulled on the least ripped pair of hunting jeans she still had, her boots from under her bed, and pulled a ratty sweatshirt over her tee. An easy transformation into a hunter.
*
Charlie had heard the telltale crash at the base of the stairs that signified someone had fallen down them. It wasn't an all together strange sound in their house but one that usually came in the wee hours of the morning when one or more of them were stumbling in drunk or on a workday morning when they weren't awake.
That's what happened when a house was filled with klutzes.
Deciding that it would be best for all parties involved if she made sure that whoever fell wasn't unconscious and slowly bleeding death, she went to the bottom floor only to find a black duffle and to hear the basement door slam before Liz came into view.
Her friend was dressed like she had when she'd been traveling with the bastards who should not be named.
“I'm taking the mini coop,” Charlie shrugged watching her juggle the familiar journal with her other belongings. It was Liz's car anyway, bought after for hunts after Blue had finally hit the dust.
“Where're you going?”
“It's the demon,” Charlie followed Liz outside and into the garage, pausing only as Liz stopped to stare at her in confusion, “Azazel?” she shook her head turning back to the car. “I dunno but I got to go. Tell Jess I'll give her a call and to watch her back.”
“Yeah, sure. You too.”
With half a smile she was gone. A bit like a storm.
*
Dean was freaking out, to put it mildly. Sam was gone, a diner full of people were dead, and he had no clue where to look first. Neither did Bobby. He was the big brother, he was supposed to protect Sam, and there was nothing he could do.
Resigned to the fact that he was going to have to get Liz involved on the off chance that she knew something, he dialed her number. It was picked up after two rings, “Parker's phone.”
“I need to speak to Liz.”
“She's not here.”
“It's a cellphone bring it to her.”
“Listen asshole, I don't know who you think you are but Liz isn't here and no amount of shouting will make her suddenly appear.”
“Where is she?” he ran his hand through his hair. First Sam then Liz. It was turning out to be even more of a mess than usual.
“I don't know but if you see her tell her that her roommate has a bone to pick with her,” the call ended with a click before he could respond.
Shit.
*
Her eyes felt much too heavy and like they were made of sand paper which meant that it was long past the time where she should have pulled over to grab a couple of hours of sleep. She wouldn't. She had pulled over but only for a redbull and a large coffee. Then again for a bag of sweets and to use the facilities.
Coffee always did make her pee.
Liz wouldn't afford to sleep. The vice was closing around her, time was running out. It was bad enough that despite somehow knowing exactly how to get to where she needed to go, she still had to follow certain traffic laws. For example, she couldn't keep the gas pedal on the floor because she'd just get pulled over.
The time breathing down her neck was just gonna have to be enough.
It had to be enough.
She promised Jess that she'd watch out for Sam, after all the effort she put into doing just that no one was going to get in the way. Liz didn't break her word.
*
The Roadhouse was gone. Ash and his information with it. Dean was quickly running out of options.
*
He was damp and tired and so on edge that if anyone startled him, Sam was pretty sure that he'd kill them on instinct. They needed to get away from Cold Oak. Before the demon came back to finish them. Before Jake changed his mind and decided that he really did want Sam dead. Before he started to focus on the thing that Ava had become and what had happened to Andy.
All he wanted was a shower, someplace he could lay flat without having to think about the events of the last day, and for Dean to be there. At some point it had to end.
“Sam!” he turned to the voice and was surprised to see Liz duck out of the trees running toward him. She was limping slightly, her expression relieved.
“Liz?” Jake moved behind him but he ignored the other man. What the hell was Liz doing in South Dakota?
“SAM!” her expression turned horrified, her hand automatically moving to the pistol strapped to her leg.
He saw her raise it, heard it go off, and felt the pain shoot up his back before he dropped to the ground.
*
He ignored the man running off into the dark. Ignored Bobby running after him. Ignored the sound of Liz shooting until she emptied her clip at the assailant who had still managed to thrust the knife even after she's put one in his shoulder.
Sam was hurt. Dean hadn't been fast enough to save him.
“Sammy. Come one Sammy,” his brother let out a groan but didn't open his eyes. “Dammit Sam don't do this.”
A small figure dropped down beside him one hand quickly pushing up the back of Sam's jacket to see the pale skin and the blood that was pouring out of it and the other pulling off her sweatshirt to press against the wound. He distantly recognized the shirt from the dream the djinn had given him.
Sam was hurt.
“Dean,” her voice was sharp enough to break him out of his trance, “we need to get him to a hospital. I don't know if I can stop the bleeding on my own.”
*
Sam was going to be ok.
He had lost a lot of blood and they wanted to give him a booster to prevent tetanus but the knife had missed his spinal cord and major damage to other organs. The doctors were confident that he'd make a full recovery. His body needed to rest.
She'd never seen Dean so out of it as he'd been and she's never seen him as relieved as he was when the doctor came out to give the news to the relatives of Mr Walla. Liz was guessing Sam had chosen the name. She highly doubted that Dean had ever heard of Death Cab let alone Chris Walla.
“What happened?”
She blinked away the sleep that was threatening her, “Hmmm?”
“Your knee, what happened?”
“Busted it on a routine salt and burn,” he gave her THAT look. The one that said she had let him down in some fashion. She just shrugged and closed her eyes again. “It's nothing time won't fix.”
“Liz,” she kept her eyes shut.
“Hmmm?”
He didn't respond but she could hear the heavy sigh.
She wanted to sleep but she wouldn't. Not around him. Instead she sat there resting her eyes waiting for him to leave so she could follow.
*
She'd always liked Bobby's house.
At least up until she'd woken up there cold and alone. Now it put her one edge. As if the floor was going to give way or she'd wake up on that couch again to a silent house. Liz didn't trust the place anymore and she certainly didn't trust the men in it.
Though Ellen was cool. She could work with Ellen.
“I told you,” all three of them turned her way. She pointed at the map. “Wyoming, a big ass star in Wyoming.”
“Liz -”
“No, don't try to bullshit me. I told you but why the hell would you listen to me, huh? Not like I've never helped you before. Not like I've saved your ass in the past.”
“That's not -” Dean was getting frustrated. He always did have a short fuse when he was tired.
“Only one of us has screwed over the other and it wasn't me. You don't want me around? Too bad, you don't get a say.”
A rough hand grabbed her arm, “It's not safe.”
“I don't give a shit!”
“I do!”
*
He ignored Bobby and Ellen's concern as he dragged Liz from the room. Despite that she was tugging on her arm and digging in her heels it was easy. She was too small to be able to stop him. Dean wasn't about to let her walk into a fight with the Demon. Not with Sam in the hospital and not while he could stop her.
“Let go of me,” he shoved her into the room finally releasing his grip.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
She gave him THAT look. The one that said she was a minute away from zapping his balls off. Usually he'd back off, give her some space, and wait till she'd calmed. He wasn't about to do that. Knowing her she'd climb out of a window and they'd be lucky to find her before she got herself killed.
“When Dean? You have be a little more specific,” Liz glared at him moving as far away from him as possible. “You mean when I tried to save Sam back there? How bout when I found out where Azazel was going to head? Or was it when I didn't kill you after you abandoned me here? No, I know what it is. 'Cause I ask myself the same thing: What the hell was I thinking when I fucked you?”
He felt like he'd been punched in the gut but he didn't let it show. He wanted an answer for all of it:When she'd came with them in Palo Alto. When she'd followed on every hunt. When she'd gone with him to get Sam. When she'd decided it was ok for her to hunt on her own. When she'd gotten to Cold Oak. When she thought about going with them.
All of it.
“You're hunting on your own.”
“I am.”
His jaw clenched. They didn't have time for this, “You're not coming with us.”
“Fuck you.”
“You've already done that sweetheart.”
“Right, and what a let down that was,” she stood in front of him, her chest heaving in anger. He barely avoided the desire to push her against the wall and have his way with her. “I'm going.”
“No, you're not.”
“I really am and if you try to stop me I'll put you down so hard you won't get back up.”
She shoved past him with more than physical strength so that there was no stopping her. Dean punched the wall before he could stop himself, leaving a slight indentation. He'd have to apologize to Bobby for that.
*
Jake.
The bastard that stabbed Sam, his name was Jake. A former soldier from Iraq and a psychic punk that she'd really like to put up against Ava. Or maybe Tess. They were both marvelously creative about how they fucked with peoples heads. Too bad she couldn't give them the chance.
Guns were just so messy.
He was staring up at her piteously from where she'd flung him away from the crypt, too late to stop him from inserting the colt but before he could turn and make the others do something she'd be unable to stop. He'd collided with a headstone, a big solid piece of marble.
Sucker had probably broken something. His neck. His back. His head. Liz didn't give a shit. She ignored the way he was trying to plead with her and pulled the trigger.
*
Liz was straining against the YED or Azazel like she'd called him or whatever the hell it was called. It was going on about how it was too bad it hadn't known about her earlier, that she would've made a good soldier for it. Her return remarks were undermined by the strain behind them and the slow stream of blood dripping down her face.
Dean reached for the colt against his protesting body. It's weight made his hands shake briefly before he could steady it. The surprise on the things face would always be one of his favorite memories.
*
Bobby leaned against the closed crypt in relief, Ellen beside him. He gave her a brief smile before pushing off and moving toward the younger pair. The Demons body was on the ground, a gapping wound in the center of its forehead. After so many years it was over. One of the nastiest, if not the nastiest, piece of work he'd ever come across was finally gone.
Dean had done it.
John would've been proud.
He watched as Liz pushed herself on to unsteady feet to make it the short distance to Dean where she collapsed on top of him. Her face buried into the boys shoulder, arms tight around each other. It looked like she was trying to bury herself in him by getting as close as possible.
Dean was a good kid, Bobby had never had a problem with him except that he was too much like his father at times. Trying to protect everyone even when it wasn't possible. He'd told the boy that he shouldn't have left her the way he had. Told him it'd create more problems than it solved but he'd gone and done it anyway.
The Winchester's deserved to be happy. He only hoped that Dean hadn't screwed up too bad because that girl, she'd make him happy.
*
“Can I borrow your phone? I kinda left mine in the kitchen,” she gave him a sheepish smile and took it from him when he held it out.
Liz was still mad at him. Forgiveness wouldn't come that easy but she was too relieved that they'd all made it out of that alive to fight him. Given time it'd come back and she'd lash out. She was too tired. Walking away from the others she dialed Jess's number and waited.
“Liz?”
“Yeah,” she bit her lip at her friends concern. Perhaps she should have called earlier.
“Where have you been?”
“It's over Jess. It's over,” she heard the phone hit the floor and the uncoordinated effort to pick it back up.
“What?”
“It's over. That thing is dead. You're safe,” the phone once again hit the floor, distant sobs coming across the line.
After a minute it was picked up again but with a different voice on the other end, “The way she's going on I hope you're not dead.”
“Nope still alive Serena.”
“That's good. So what's the deal?”
“I need you to get Jess on a plane to Rapid City South Dakota as soon as possible. She'll need to rent a car and head to the city hospital. Tell her to ask for Martin Walla...”
*
It was slow. Drowsily slow.
They'd both driven in separate cars back to the hospital to check on Sam before checking into a local motel. One room, a decision that they both agreed to without asking the other. Dirt sticking to their clothes, blood dried to their skin, they made their way to the bathroom.
Without speaking they undressed each other, article by article. They didn't look away as they climbed into the stall and their hands didn't wander as they washed. It was enough to be together, feeling skin on skin, the heat building between them.
When the water had gone cold they didn't need words to prompt the other to dry them off. She didn't have to say anything for Dean to follow her to the bed and he didn't say anything when she pulled him to her, her actions tinged with a sliver of desperation.
He was alive. They were alive.
“You're going to stay,” it was more a question than a statement and the first words they'd said to each other since she'd asked for his phone. She gave him a small smile tinged with sadness and she could tell that he took it as assent.
She wished he hadn't.
*
Commitment was no longer a strong point. It was always at the back of her mind screaming for her to run. Most of the time she listened, even with her friends and family, they got to close and she bolted. Off to Stanford. On the road with Dean. To Inwood and the pull of research. Sometimes she could fight it enough to slow down. Sometimes she could even stop. It was the thing she had on Dani. Liz could just... be.
But the voice was always there. A whisper. A groan. A shout.
Run little girl. Run like hell because staying only resulted in hurt.
It was why she hadn't drifted off into sleep like she wanted. Before Bobby's that's what she would do. Fall into some of the best sleep she'd had in years, pleasantly exhausted and trusting that the world would be ok when she woke.
Now, she would barely drift off waiting for the shift of the bed next to her that said he was leaving. He didn't get to leave her again. Fighting against the instinct that told her to lay back down, Liz grabbed the clean clothes she'd brought in with her and slipped them on.
*
It was the cold that woke him up. He rolled in his sleep to get closer to Liz's body to be met with cool sheets instead. His hand had reached trying to find her but there was only empty space. That was when he'd sleepily blinked himself awake, blurry eyes searching for her.
She wasn't in the room.
Dean got out of bed and checked that bathroom but she wasn't there either. Trying not to think that she would do to him what he had done to her, he opened the motel door. Her car was gone. She'd left him.
*
There was a blond in Sam's room and it wasn't a nurse.
He had the gun out from where he kept it tucked into the back of his jeans before she could turn and only held it steadier when she did. Dean needed to get rid of it before Sam woke up. Seeing it there would break his brother.
The thing was staring at him in fear, eyes wide and innocent.
Before he could tell it to get up a groan came from the bed and he moved next to him, “Dean?”
“Hey Sammy,” he tried not to look towards it so Sam wouldn't but when it let out a choked cry there was no stopping him.
“Jess,” the voice was strangled through the rawness from the ventilator.
“Hi baby.”
“Jess,” the thing flung itself at his brother too fast for him to get a clean shot. Dean didn't want to have to kill it in front of Sam or in a hospital.
“I'm here. It's ok. I'm here,” it stroked back Sam's hair like their mom used to do before she died. It sure as hell was a good actor.
“H-How?”
“Liz. Liz did it,” she turned toward him, his gun already drooping slightly at the name. “Please put that down Dean. I'll tell you everything. Liz said I can tell you everything.”
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
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vaifeal
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Re: Delicate (XO,SN,UC,Mature) 5/08
Sorry bout the late post. I had a final this morning so yesterday was filled with the joys of memorizing planning legislation and the like.
“I can still remember just the way you taste”
- It's Been A While, Staind
The words spilled out of her with no filter, flooding the room with a barely coherent picture of what had been done two years previously, why it had happened, and why it was possibly. Some of it was things Jess had been an active participant in, much of it wasn't. She played a very small part in the story. A minor player in a fantastical work of nonfiction.
She'd been attacked, put in a coma, rescued, and hidden. Understanding the danger she was in, as much as anyone could based off another's description, she'd done what she was told and hadn't contacted Sam, her family, or any of her other friends.
Maybe Liz hadn't made the right decision, maybe she hadn't had the right to make the ones she had, but Jess wasn't about to reopen old wounds.
She was alive. Sam was alive and while she could tell by the way his jaw clenched and his eye twitched that her friends lies were going to be a sore spot for a long time. She didn't care. After two years she was finally where she wanted to be.
But it was hard to tell if they believed her.
They accepted the story, they'd seen people with unexplainable abilities. Sam was one of those people. It was the alien factor that seemed a little much. Jess believed it because that's what Liz said it was and Liz didn't lie about the big things. Avoided them, talked around them, but she didn't lie about them. People that refused to believe in her friends made her defensive. She didn't like to be defensive.
By Sam's stormy expression, Jess knew that he thought that she had been duped and she briefly wondered if they could make their relationship work after two years apart. They were different people now. She shook the thought away. They'd make it work.
Dean was harder to read than his brother. She didn't know him, had barely met him before her attack. He kept staring stoically at the space right in front of him not giving anything away except for a brief moment of devastation he'd let slip when she told them what Liz's life was really like. What it had been like since she was sixteen and she'd been brought back from the brink of death.
She could see why her friend had fallen for him so hard. They were kindred spirits. Wounded, stubborn, and experts at pretending that they weren't looking for the one person that made it ok when the world didn't make sense.
The Winchesters' were all kinds of dangerous and she doubted that they really knew how much.
*
New Orleans wasn't particularly on the way back to New York from South Dakota, more completely out of the way but she couldn't bring herself to head back yet. There wasn't anything there. Just an empty apartment, no job, and mounds of information that she didn't need any more.
Liz was tired. She needed a break.
She hadn't seen Maria since the summer before senior year and hadn't talked to her in months. Both of them were busy. Her with the demon business. Her friend with her music career. It was odd that they had let it happen. They'd been sisters once.
For the first sixteen years it'd just been her, Maria, and Alex. Then it had unraveled. After Alex had been killed before Ava had rolled into town with the truth, it'd been obvious how much things had changed. Maria hadn't believed her when she'd said it hadn't been an accident. Liz hadn't ever forgiven her friend for that.
Still it was easier to drive twenty-three hours in the wrong direction to lose temporarily lose herself in the Big Easy than it as to find herself at home – Roswell or Inwood – with memories at every corner. Besides, Michael would be there. She missed him.
When she'd broken up with Max he'd been the only one that hadn't wanted to discussed it. When she'd pretended to sleep with Kyle he hadn't cared less. When everyone else had turned against her after Alex he'd been there. She'd tried to return the favor, especially when he was having trouble with Maria, but his silent support was worth more than she could ever payback.
Not that he'd make her.
*
Dean didn't know how to make heads or tales of what Jess had told him.
Liz had saved his life, saved all of theirs. Saved the life of a woman she didn't know just because it was what he had wanted. Had stepped into a whole new type of trouble to save her friend. The vague details of her life before meeting her friends, delivered by a woman who couldn't answer the follow up questions, put things in perspective.
It made sense that she was used to fighting, it explained how easily she'd slipped into hunting, how she hadn't even blinked at the creatures they faced. She'd seen crazier.
Dialing a familiar number he waited for her to answer but was instead met by three chimes, “We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”
*
Maria wasn't the easiest person to tell a story to. Michael tempered her a bit it was still like pulling teeth. Every other sentence she would interrupt. Luckily Liz had learned how to deal with her a long time ago. Now she tried her best to find it amusing even if the disbelief grated on her nerves.
“You just left him?” that was the current sticking point.
She wasn't actually sure why Maria found that so important out of everything she'd been told. In her book psychotic ghosts and vampires ranked higher than her screwed up love life.
“Yep.”
“Hun, that was cold,” Michael's well placed hand left the 'even for you' unspoken and the apology already in her features. She shouldn't have expected Maria to get it.
Maybe Roswell would've been a better idea. Ava listened, made a comment, and shrugged it off. The blond half-alien was one of the most laid back people she'd come across. A nice counter to Max's anal-retentiveness. The only time that carefree attitude disappeared was when her family was threatened.
Liz was family. She was trusted.
Ava would have gotten it.
Doing her best to show that it didn't hurt that her oldest friend had such a low opinion of her Liz smiled and shrugged, “Yeah well, turnabout's fair play.”
*
“Have I really changed that much?”
Michael settled on the railing next to her in the same restless fashion he did everything, “We've all changed.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“If this is going to be one of those conversations,” she caught his eye trying to convey that she was being serious. Liz knew that she was different but somehow she'd always believed that it hadn't been that much. They'd all had to change. “You couldn't stay little Lizzy Parker forever.”
“Doesn't stop people from wishing that I had.”
“You know Maria,” the halfassed shrug that he should have patented when the pair had started dating. “She's just afraid that you're leaving her behind.”
They fell into silence listening to the sounds of the city around them. Always changing, reinventing itself. That was what life did. It shifted. Stagnation was a death sentence. People liked to think that they stayed the same but that was bullshit. Even the most backwards people had some part of themselves that the them ten years earlier wouldn't recognize.
Warm arms pulled her to them and she buried her face in his chest. She had known, all those years ago when she'd come to bloody on the diner floor that her life was going to change. They'd entered the crucible and were lucky to survive. Michael got it. He always got it.
He'd had a lot of hurt over a long period of time. She'd had a lot of hurt in a short amount of time. It had made them both wary. Liz was lucky to have him.
A couple of minutes later he awkwardly cleared his throat and stepped back. Same old Michael, “So this Dean guy, you need me to have a word with him?”
“Nah,” she smiled at him feeling better already, “I can handle him.”
“Good. If you...”
“I know.”
*
Settling back in had been easier than she'd expected.
The apartment hadn't been too bare, Jess hadn't collected much stuff over the last two years, and it had been easy to ignore the lingering feeling of emptiness by spending more time with Serena and Charlie. It was odd though, being without two of their group. Talking on the phone wasn't the same as lounging on the couch together.
Finding her place was the hardest. Liz didn't want to hunt full time but she didn't want to forget everything she'd learned. In the end she'd ended up working with Serena. Not the undercover thing, that was almost over anyway, but as an intelligence/middleman sorta thing. There had been limited training and an obligatory exam that meant nothing.
It turned out that the Doherty's had more influence than she'd given them credit for.
Her days were as normal as she could get. Woke up, went to work, came home, had diner with her girls, went to bed. On Friday's and Saturday's they went out. She never brought anyone home. It just felt wrong. She'd assumed that when things were dealt with her room would be their room. Even if he kept hunting and rarely spent time in it. It was stupid. She'd thought she'd out grown things like that.
Dreams didn't come true. The world didn't work like that.
“I can still remember just the way you taste”
- It's Been A While, Staind
The words spilled out of her with no filter, flooding the room with a barely coherent picture of what had been done two years previously, why it had happened, and why it was possibly. Some of it was things Jess had been an active participant in, much of it wasn't. She played a very small part in the story. A minor player in a fantastical work of nonfiction.
She'd been attacked, put in a coma, rescued, and hidden. Understanding the danger she was in, as much as anyone could based off another's description, she'd done what she was told and hadn't contacted Sam, her family, or any of her other friends.
Maybe Liz hadn't made the right decision, maybe she hadn't had the right to make the ones she had, but Jess wasn't about to reopen old wounds.
She was alive. Sam was alive and while she could tell by the way his jaw clenched and his eye twitched that her friends lies were going to be a sore spot for a long time. She didn't care. After two years she was finally where she wanted to be.
But it was hard to tell if they believed her.
They accepted the story, they'd seen people with unexplainable abilities. Sam was one of those people. It was the alien factor that seemed a little much. Jess believed it because that's what Liz said it was and Liz didn't lie about the big things. Avoided them, talked around them, but she didn't lie about them. People that refused to believe in her friends made her defensive. She didn't like to be defensive.
By Sam's stormy expression, Jess knew that he thought that she had been duped and she briefly wondered if they could make their relationship work after two years apart. They were different people now. She shook the thought away. They'd make it work.
Dean was harder to read than his brother. She didn't know him, had barely met him before her attack. He kept staring stoically at the space right in front of him not giving anything away except for a brief moment of devastation he'd let slip when she told them what Liz's life was really like. What it had been like since she was sixteen and she'd been brought back from the brink of death.
She could see why her friend had fallen for him so hard. They were kindred spirits. Wounded, stubborn, and experts at pretending that they weren't looking for the one person that made it ok when the world didn't make sense.
The Winchesters' were all kinds of dangerous and she doubted that they really knew how much.
*
New Orleans wasn't particularly on the way back to New York from South Dakota, more completely out of the way but she couldn't bring herself to head back yet. There wasn't anything there. Just an empty apartment, no job, and mounds of information that she didn't need any more.
Liz was tired. She needed a break.
She hadn't seen Maria since the summer before senior year and hadn't talked to her in months. Both of them were busy. Her with the demon business. Her friend with her music career. It was odd that they had let it happen. They'd been sisters once.
For the first sixteen years it'd just been her, Maria, and Alex. Then it had unraveled. After Alex had been killed before Ava had rolled into town with the truth, it'd been obvious how much things had changed. Maria hadn't believed her when she'd said it hadn't been an accident. Liz hadn't ever forgiven her friend for that.
Still it was easier to drive twenty-three hours in the wrong direction to lose temporarily lose herself in the Big Easy than it as to find herself at home – Roswell or Inwood – with memories at every corner. Besides, Michael would be there. She missed him.
When she'd broken up with Max he'd been the only one that hadn't wanted to discussed it. When she'd pretended to sleep with Kyle he hadn't cared less. When everyone else had turned against her after Alex he'd been there. She'd tried to return the favor, especially when he was having trouble with Maria, but his silent support was worth more than she could ever payback.
Not that he'd make her.
*
Dean didn't know how to make heads or tales of what Jess had told him.
Liz had saved his life, saved all of theirs. Saved the life of a woman she didn't know just because it was what he had wanted. Had stepped into a whole new type of trouble to save her friend. The vague details of her life before meeting her friends, delivered by a woman who couldn't answer the follow up questions, put things in perspective.
It made sense that she was used to fighting, it explained how easily she'd slipped into hunting, how she hadn't even blinked at the creatures they faced. She'd seen crazier.
Dialing a familiar number he waited for her to answer but was instead met by three chimes, “We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”
*
Maria wasn't the easiest person to tell a story to. Michael tempered her a bit it was still like pulling teeth. Every other sentence she would interrupt. Luckily Liz had learned how to deal with her a long time ago. Now she tried her best to find it amusing even if the disbelief grated on her nerves.
“You just left him?” that was the current sticking point.
She wasn't actually sure why Maria found that so important out of everything she'd been told. In her book psychotic ghosts and vampires ranked higher than her screwed up love life.
“Yep.”
“Hun, that was cold,” Michael's well placed hand left the 'even for you' unspoken and the apology already in her features. She shouldn't have expected Maria to get it.
Maybe Roswell would've been a better idea. Ava listened, made a comment, and shrugged it off. The blond half-alien was one of the most laid back people she'd come across. A nice counter to Max's anal-retentiveness. The only time that carefree attitude disappeared was when her family was threatened.
Liz was family. She was trusted.
Ava would have gotten it.
Doing her best to show that it didn't hurt that her oldest friend had such a low opinion of her Liz smiled and shrugged, “Yeah well, turnabout's fair play.”
*
“Have I really changed that much?”
Michael settled on the railing next to her in the same restless fashion he did everything, “We've all changed.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“If this is going to be one of those conversations,” she caught his eye trying to convey that she was being serious. Liz knew that she was different but somehow she'd always believed that it hadn't been that much. They'd all had to change. “You couldn't stay little Lizzy Parker forever.”
“Doesn't stop people from wishing that I had.”
“You know Maria,” the halfassed shrug that he should have patented when the pair had started dating. “She's just afraid that you're leaving her behind.”
They fell into silence listening to the sounds of the city around them. Always changing, reinventing itself. That was what life did. It shifted. Stagnation was a death sentence. People liked to think that they stayed the same but that was bullshit. Even the most backwards people had some part of themselves that the them ten years earlier wouldn't recognize.
Warm arms pulled her to them and she buried her face in his chest. She had known, all those years ago when she'd come to bloody on the diner floor that her life was going to change. They'd entered the crucible and were lucky to survive. Michael got it. He always got it.
He'd had a lot of hurt over a long period of time. She'd had a lot of hurt in a short amount of time. It had made them both wary. Liz was lucky to have him.
A couple of minutes later he awkwardly cleared his throat and stepped back. Same old Michael, “So this Dean guy, you need me to have a word with him?”
“Nah,” she smiled at him feeling better already, “I can handle him.”
“Good. If you...”
“I know.”
*
Settling back in had been easier than she'd expected.
The apartment hadn't been too bare, Jess hadn't collected much stuff over the last two years, and it had been easy to ignore the lingering feeling of emptiness by spending more time with Serena and Charlie. It was odd though, being without two of their group. Talking on the phone wasn't the same as lounging on the couch together.
Finding her place was the hardest. Liz didn't want to hunt full time but she didn't want to forget everything she'd learned. In the end she'd ended up working with Serena. Not the undercover thing, that was almost over anyway, but as an intelligence/middleman sorta thing. There had been limited training and an obligatory exam that meant nothing.
It turned out that the Doherty's had more influence than she'd given them credit for.
Her days were as normal as she could get. Woke up, went to work, came home, had diner with her girls, went to bed. On Friday's and Saturday's they went out. She never brought anyone home. It just felt wrong. She'd assumed that when things were dealt with her room would be their room. Even if he kept hunting and rarely spent time in it. It was stupid. She'd thought she'd out grown things like that.
Dreams didn't come true. The world didn't work like that.
"Like many non-violent men since that time, he was deeply hated." - on Desiderius Eramus
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child
"Where there is life, there is hope." - Terence
"The mind has no sex." - Descartes
"As long as their is life there is pain. I'm damned to breathe and to be insane." - Old Man's Child