fridgetothefire | 060 ☣ when we were gone astray

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060 ☣ when we were gone astray

[Filtered Away from Dean]

...so, I seem to have gotten a few presents I distinctly remember sending to someone else. Anybody else have return-to-sender troubles?

[Because if Dean did what she suspects he did, she's not the only one.]

The real question is, do we gather all his presents together and bring them to his door at once in an enthusiastically festive parade, or do we all go one at a time so he doesn't go more than an hour or two without visitors bearing gifts for the next few days?

[Spam, for Dean]

[The barge being busy and disorganized as it is, I assume everyone will settle on option two.]

Knock, knock.

[Performed and then also spoken. At least she isn't caroling. Yet.]

[Gift List]

Ben - a music box kit, so that he can make them inscribed with any melodies he wants, a book of australian folklore, Unfinished Puzzle, and some of those long distance touch and response bracelets. But magic, please, soft leather, durable, with no distance limit or batteries.

Dean - LED lights set in a few of those small crystal rosette formations from Ville de Rachat, warm and full spectrum. Windowboxes for that sill above his sink, with herbs growing in them. An aloe plant, definitely, and a young little Kilcarnock willow. Things more useful for healing than ritual magic, although if there are any herbs he particularly wants for cooking that overlap, go ahead and include them too. A little watering can with good fortune charms on it. And one of those constant little personal fountains.

[A reminder of a time he got everyone out alive; living things; peaceful things.]

Cassel - some of those ridiculously elaborate outfits he had in the Emperor's world, and a very cheesy #1 Brother coffee mug with a picture of the two of us falling on each other drunk. Matching Erik's #1 Dad mug for font and general design.

Stephen - some Cambrian plushies that tell nerdy jokes when you squeeze them.

Zane - a book of children's tales from his world as it is now, or as it will become. One with Steelheart in it, if you can. And some treats for his bunnies.

Riddick - a plant he discovered during his survey days, or one he just particularly liked. Both, if you can.

Cass - a complete Mystery Baking Companion outfit in her size, please. the decorations on the hat should be in either purple or yellow. A snowglobe that shows her playing with friends in the snow, past present or future, with different scenes when she shakes it.

Morgana - sweets from her own time - honeycakes, maybe? A full set of the Oz books. A sound system, with some modern music and some vocals from the druid traditions of her world.

Jean - a big old fashioned orrery, and a pocket version.

Scott - Muzzy tapes for learning French, Tooth and Nail, a zombie doll to match the one he gave me last year, that resembles him, and the Wolves of Yellowstone documentary.

Touko - the complete works of Ursula Heigl, and a small punching bag with Junko's face on one side.

Peter - a possum plushie.

Steve - A Change of Scenery

Mason - some music he misses, or recordings of concerts he remembers with happiness. Bunny treats as well.

Iris - everyone gives lots of pictures this time of year. Give her a seriously bedazzled hologram locket that can hold them all, just like her hearts can. And throw in a few pictures of friends she hasn't met yet. Also, On the Upswing.

Horatio - charts and maps for seas he's never seen. Topographical maps of the ocean floors from Earth seas that he has. Alpine Navigation.

Clementine - The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce

Andrew - Gossip Girl DVDs

Cambridge - a morbid cookie jar

T'Pol - a beginner's knitting kit

Abigail - Light Flurries

Arthas - a big ridiculous amp to match his guitar. Avalanche of Horses.

Bush - a good toolkit, water, salt, and corrosion resistant. In Search of Sea.

Sylvanas - more futuristic armor

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because I'm a terrible Jew, obviously. It's not my fault I'm so into Christmas, the admiral got me really hard my first year.

[Lightly, but it covers the weight of truth in a way Dean will probably recognize. She was nearly catatonic when her first christmas spirit flood wore off, devastated by the absence of a bright happiness she hadn't felt in years, had long forgotten.]

[She might understand, then, his reticence to allow that selfsame happiness back in, especially when it's artificial, forced, and fleeting; it never stays. The only way he can avoid the loss of it is to never have it, which is eminently more viable for him than keeping it by any means.

He does recognize the not-lie. It makes him finally look over at where she's putting up lights where there is evidence he ripped something else down.]

Seriously, what the hell are you doing?

Installing your presents.

I didn't ask for any presents.

That's why they're presents and not, say, incredibly gracious favors.

Seriously?

[He straightens now, turns to look at what she's actually brought, but his eyebrows are pulled together darkly.]

Just because you call them one thing and not another doesn't mean they don't come with a price. I'm not interested.

Yes seriously, I am a very precise person, Dean, I do in fact use different words to mean different things. That's why there are so many of them.

The price is that you have to actually water your plants once in a while or I will frown at you and disturb your much vaunted solitude once again to replace them.

Edited 2014-12-28 07:51 (UTC)

As if not having dead plants has done anything like keep it undisturbed so far.

[He crushes, mercilessly, the part of him that raises a vague protest based on familiar, familial feelings newly stirred. He took such pains to wipe them out of himself before and had been mostly successful; he reminds himself it's only a matter of time and completely ignores the fondly exasperated thought that she's been strong-willed since she was a child.

They didn't know each other as children.]

You're a very precise person, apparently, that uses many different words. Tell me this, then: do you understand compulsion?

This particular visit was entirely avoidable, you know. Silent santa all the way, but no.

[She tests the first light; it flicks on, warm and bright, illuminating the layers of the stone in soft creamy glows. She turns to face him to answer, paused in her work, abruptly and arrestingly somber rather than cheery or brusque or sarcastic, giving him her entire attention.]

Quite well.

[She remains still, waits for him to elaborate. What particular point does he want to make about it?]

[He doesn't bother responding to the first; they both know if it weren't one thing it would be another, that if nothing else - if nothing else - they live in too small of an enclosed space not to disrupt each others' sphere of privacy periodically. It has also not escaped his notice that when she does, she is more deliberate about it than most, more difficult to turn out for having a reason to be there.

His eyes flick to the light when it turns on, something he almost recognizes, something right there if he were to think about it which he doesn't, so that's where it stays. His gaze is there to meet hers when she turns, though.

It's strange. He doesn't move though he remains intent.]

Then you understand why I want nothing to do with anything anyone sent me because something made them do it. And why I'm not wild about being made to do the same.

[Closer, though still not right on it.]

He made me write a list. He didn't make me put you on it.

And he didn't have to make me, either. I've been planning my wishlists for a while.

[Before the compulsion; because it's an opportunity, too. She thinks for a moment of her diamond ring from Omar, what it means to be able to ask for almost anything, as long as it's for someone else.

Next objection.]

Stop nitpicking like that makes it any better. Awesome for you. What about everyone else?

[But that's a losing battle and he knows it, knows better than to give her the entirety of the Barge which is her domain and the things that happen aboard it to use to discount what he knows damn well is true.

Turning something he's being forced to do to his advantage doesn't negate that it started out against his will. Dean isn't stupid enough to miss the opportunity, either - he has merely been burned far too many times to trust something that seems like too good an opportunity.]

And how's that working out for you? People deciding to put you on the lists they don't have any choice but to write?

[The materialistic things, the end result, aren't the only opportunity after all. He may not trust it and he may not believe it will work, but he knows how to turn something to his will, too, in his way.]

It makes it better for me.

[Quietly; an acknowledgment that it isn't that way for everyone. But if he's uncomfortable having anything to do with gifts that were forced - everything she's brought him, it's because she chose to.]

It's worked out pretty well. To be honest. I've been lucky to have thoughtful friends.

[Past tense. She is not thinking about his gift. Not unless he forces the issue less obliquely. She is not - ready. Historically, the answer to his question is well.]

[Dean has become, necessarily, more skilled at being oblique when his is a personality forged into straightforward lines of thought; it will never be his forte, though and when pushed he still almost exclusively resorts to the latter over the former.

Or when he just loses patience. She's already proven she can outmaneuver him if she feels like it, which is not something he's eager to be caught up in despite it being true for most of his life. So he takes that evasion, tilts his head, and responds by taking that more direct shot.]

Even mine?

[If shock could be a slow thing, molasses poured on ice, congealing and crystalizing at the edges, a shattering half-expected but inexorable and unavoidable, that's what breaks gradually across her eyes; she draws in a breath sharp but also rigidly held, drawn out, beaten into a deliberate shape. She does not look away. Her jaw tightens but there's no anger in her her face, in her eyebrows or the set of her shoulders.]

Before I'm willing to answer that, I need to know what she did to you.

[Before she can even understand herself, before she can try to excavate an honest response.]

[He watches, intent, with eyes that miss considerably less than he's willing to allow others to believe on a regular basis. He doesn't have the context yet but he will, and he wants to be able to read it accurately when he does.

Like his confusion when she entered, his question now is honest; there are to many people she could be asking about even if he's certain he knows which one it is, and he won't give away more than he has to.]

Need, huh?

Which she?

Yes. Need.

[Her voice is quiet, a little raw. Precision, again. She doesn't lie to him. She is nuanced, often, and keeps many things to herself, but this is the price of what he's asked for, one of the few she's set, plainly stated. She will, she thinks, she hopes, know the shape of some of the nameless things when she hears his answer, that they will coalesce, collapse out of wave forms, when he casts enough light to see just how much horror and remorse and grief are staining the maw of her id.

She never blinks, watching him, like her eyes could devour him waiting for an answer.]

You know which she. The girl who wore them.

Edited 2014-12-28 11:29 (UTC)

Nothing.

[He looks back at her for several long moments, to see if this moment will settle and she will fall more to one side or another or if she'll hold the line; when he does finally answer, it's not a dismissal or an evasion either. The line of his shoulders and spine are subtly tense, the rest of his posture deceptively casual, self-possessed, as if he ever possessed his self. She didn't do a damn thing too him, not anything that even registers, although he remembers...]

She had a price for trading what I needed. I was easier for her, I think, for some reason.

She had bigger problems and I wasn't useful for them. She only showed up when I couldn't get away, but all we did was argue about gods and how little they care. About how much fun it is to fuck up worlds.

[She breathes out, slowly, slow, and her eyes fall closed in time with it, and it is only half relief because the tension in her jaw and her spine goes precisely nowhere. She unfolds, walks over to him from memory, eyes still lightly shut. She reaches for him, grabs a fistful of his shirt, stands close enough to feel each other's warm breath, her radius pressed unevenly against his chest, not a neat angle. Her knuckles are white. She is, entirely, a clutching thing.

Her eyes are still closed. Some confessions can only be made in the dark.]

Dean Winchester. That necklace is the one thing I would never, ever have allowed myself to ask for. Not if I live a thousand years.

Edited 2014-12-28 11:49 (UTC)

[There is an ominousness to the way she reacts, to her movement towards him, something Dean has seen far too many times to miss or doubt; there is the abrupt, familiar nagging feeling that he may not have come to this place with good intentions but he didn't mean to end up where he is. There is the instinct to strike out, to fight, or to run.

Like every other time, he does none of it. He stands stock still and wary, and beneath the cover of his clothing he is someone capable of standing steady beneath where she is holding onto him, sinew and muscle and bone that has survived an apocalypse and can survive whatever this is. He doesn't let himself hold his breath, and doesn't let himself retreat.

It isn't reassurance so much as plain stubbornness, the kind of stillness that prey animals hope means that death will pass them over; it might be mistaken for it in the dark, though. He's come this far whether he meant to or not, he might as well see it through.]

Why?

Because it is everything the cruel, capricious, selfish, blood-soaked worst of me treasures.

[Me, now, not she. It counts. She agreed with another half-him, will always agree, it counts.]

Because it has the power to hurt and horrify someone I love very much, moreso if I sought it.

So. Neither of us asked for our presents.

[Let the record show. I didn't ask for this, your honor. I can't be expected to resist, not when it was literally gift-wrapped for me.

She leans in even closer, for a moment, rests - hides - her face in his shoulder, breathes in the smell of him, minutely different from his predecessor. The musty wood of the cabin, no engine oil, a trace of flour from his new job assignment. She is almost whispering now, and all of it is full of weight, intoned, like a sacred thing, like an invocation of terrible powers. Like the words were commanded in just this arrangement centuries ago, and it is her unshakable duty and her fervent honor to speak them.]

Thank you for thinking of me.

[It was a thoughtful gift, in that he thought about it, in that he intended it for a specific purpose. That he has accomplished something else entirely is of no import to her gratitude.]

Edited 2014-12-28 12:12 (UTC)

[She hides in his shoulder; he stands his ground, does not raise his arms to encircle her, does not wish to comfort her, not exactly. She doesn't exactly need comfort anyway, not from him, not for this, so she breathes in and he thinks, weighs the words and the gratitude and the delicate horror and the deep possessiveness and can find no falseness in any of it.

Another him, another place and another time, with black eyes and that leaves the scent of sulfur wherever he stays long enough, would hear that it has the power to hurt someone she cares about, know it instantly for Ben, and know at the same time that is where to push, would not hesitate, would not flinch. This Dean hears that and knows only that it means the power is secure, still does not think to leverage someone else against her for the sins he suspects her of; he isn't that far gone.

A muscle in his jaw tightens.] You kept it. [Has, not had. She didn't toss it overboard like he expected. None of this is what he expeccted.]

Oh yes.

[Another breath in, this one finally loosening her shoulders, a bracing breath, dragging herself back to someone more human, warm and appreciative, with a sharp edge to the smile she tries to keep mild, mostly succeeds. She takes a step back, opens her eyes to gaze at him. Lets go of his shirt last of all, reluctantly, has to force her clawed fingers to uncurl.]

It's mine.

[And on her head everything that comes with it, more viscerally in some way than it was before, when she accepted it but never reached for it, was always forced into each collision. It is hers in a way it wasn't before, now that she has chosen to hold it; and it was always hers. One blink; a moment of shadows across her face. Something that would be disturbed if she didn't accept it so completely, something that is not shame, not regret, not even sorrow. Not revulsion, not morbid fascination. Something deeper and steadier than any of those.

It is a thing made of terrible, desperate, psychotic, vicious love. It fits her neck.

She walks back to the windowsill, picks up the second light, and her drill, eyes on her task.]

I don't know how it will work out for me in the long run. But I still consider myself very lucky in my gift-givers. Even you.

[Especially you; you harrowing and intimate and absolute, lucky like winning the lottery every day for a year is lucky, lucky like one monkey typing hamlet. He picked the perfect impossible almost unbearable thing.]

Edited 2014-12-28 12:39 (UTC)

[She opens her eyes and he is still there, his expression closed, his heartbeat measured and even, his fingertips numb. The skin at the back of his neck prickles with a slow kind of electricity, a familiar dangerous hum, and part of him strains towards it like being called home through the dark. His stomach turns, but he doesn't move, because he may not have meant to be here but now he is and he has had to learn what to do with that.

Christo christo, christo he snarls in his head, but his teeth and his lips don't move. He won't tip his hand, and anyway, she showed him the key of solomon around her neck his first day here. She's powerful, if he's right - in ways he doesn't understand, in ways he must understand before he moves, because wrapped this deep in her territory there is only one way to succeed and that is to strike hard, fast, and sure.

He breathes out, watches her go back to work, and shakes his head.]

And what about when your fellow wardens find out? That you're wearing some of their teeth?

[That's the other thing, the peculiar thrilling horror of walking among people knowing she's responsible for their death, that they could find out at any moment and tjey outnumber her, would do god knows what to her. The particular detached anxiety that he is both desperate to share, and terrified that he will. What about when your peers find out that you're a traitor?]

[Technically, she isn't wearing it. She's just keeping it. But it's not an important technicality.]

Everyone who's been around for a while knows I'm weird.

[A little smile, now, less strange and sinister but still slightly secretive, a sweet nostalgic little thing, all its sharp points playful. She thinks of Scott, of the Death Knight doll on her mantle, of Cassel's laughing grossed-out delighted face when she showed him the bloodstain on her father's cape. Of Cambridge's easy assistance with the cryobox for Lydecker's head, and Jean's literal incandescence when Anya called the network with a bruised throat, covered in Two-Face's blood, and Touko's stunned joy discovering that Anya had shoved Junko into an endless abyss.

What a hideous wreck of a teetering war zone to live in. What a wonderful lurching fierce family.]

060 ☣ when we were gone astray

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