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

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[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.]

[There is a moment after she answers, when she smiles, in which Dean feels everything that makes him a good, dangerous, sound hunter turns and expands like heat contained in a vessel too small; it pushes at his skin from the inside, makes him ache to act, to close the door and get her, somehow, into a devil's trap that will hold her, to move right now, right NOW.

But then it is past, the only outward sign the absolute stillness of his frame, the hard, cold light of his eyes narrowed intently on her; then it is past and he shakes himself out, tucks the new knowledge safely away where he won't forget it, where he can think about it and research it and prepare.

Clementine has her devil to overcome. So, too, now does Dean, if no one else on this Barge will cross her; if no one else would look twice at a gruesome display that clearly marks her as belonging to a ship they all claim to hate. The hunter licks his lips, and moves back to sit on the edge of his bed, heavy but within reach of what little stockpile remains to him - most of it from her, which means it's not likely to be effective at all.

It's a place to start.] Lucky you.

Lucky, lucky you, I guess. Doesn't mean I'm leaving those fucking things up.

[She's not sure what changed; she knows, with a prickle of soft instinct, that something has, but she can't put her finger on it, because he's always blunt and stubborn and resigned, but -]

Lucky me.

Doesn't mean you have any real reason not to. Unlike you, I didn't pick my gifts trying to hurt you.

[There's no bitterness; no anger or even surprise. It's something he tried, and it turned out intimate and strange. But facts are facts.]

It's houseplants, Dean. Useful ones. Just water them a little.

What can I say. Once an asshole, always an asshole.

[It was something he tried very deliberately, and some people still can't wrap their heads around it, he's seen. They scold him and tell him it's rude like he doesn't know, like that's not exactly why he did it. Anya, at least, is acknowledging that he isn't an idiot.

It would gain her some ground with him, except. Except.]

What if I'm allergic to chlorophyll?

Break a leaf off the aloe, the raw stuff is good for rashes as well as burns.

[Blithely pragmatic, as though it weren't an entirely ridiculous conjecture.]

Well thank God, 'cause I'm fresh outta benadryl and the sun out here is ridiculous.

[He drawls this, drags it right over the bitter edge in his voice because thank God for nothing. Thank God for all the useless loopholes that don't mean anything in the end and thank God for being too busy to care. There's no energy in the sarcasm, a grudge by rote, recently renewed but old, tried, true.

He frowns past her, brow a little more furrowed than its standard setting these days, actually looking at what she's doing for the first time since she's come in.]

What are those, anyway?

Edited 2015-01-09 07:49 (UTC)

Lights.

[She flicks the first one on; the light is bright and yellow and warm, diffused by the translucence of the stone, highlighting its formations and striations.]

Spectrum's good for the plants and for you.

[Dean glances at it, but what's left of his natural curiosity has been securely boarded up; his heart was always made up of incredibly thick-walled chambers, but now there are more compartments than ever. He has more need of the kind of safeguards that allow one section to be flooded and another to remain dry than ever. He has more need not to sink and a harder time staying above water.

He points up instead, at the single bare bulb in its practical metal shade and wire grate.]

I got lights.

And now you've got more lights. Better lights!

[You're such a fuss, Dean. There's the others settled.]

Where do you want your fountain?

I liked my environmentally conscious amount of lights I had before.

[Dry, dry, dry; not actually an argument at this point, not the least because if he really wants to be rid of them, it's much less energy just to pull them back out and toss them overboard himself later.

And not just those.] What, now you care where I want it?

Wherever. Whatever.

I was willing to consider it.

[She finds a corner where it won't be in the way and switches it on, a quiet mundane burbling.]

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060 ☣ when we were gone astray

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