Primal- Seeing is believing, Part 3 too
Dean had been mulling over the matter ever since they had returned with the stolen amphora. That last look he had exchanged with the Sandman had told him everything he needed to know about that particular monster.
Morpheus, Greek god of sleep and dreams, once revered and even worshiped, knew how to hold a grudge. And they had stolen its chance to claim a victim the previous night. It would be back tonight and every single night after that until it got what it’d come for.
That was the easy part. The hard part was knowing that Sam had zero chance of succeeding in trapping a monster that he couldn’t see and Dean had no other choice but to confess to his brother that, despite his injury, he would still be able to see Morpheus.
“It didn’t stop because my eyes are currently not working,” Dean said, trying to look at anything in the blackness of the room other than the shimmering colors of confusion building up around Sam’s spot. But every moth is drawn to light and Dean’s... what-the-hell it was, was like the neediest moth of all times. When the shimmering solidified into something smoother and quieter, Dean knew Sam had understood.
“It’s not just the Sandman that you can see, is it?” Sam asked, even though he already knew the answer. “You can see other things too. That’s how you knew. You can see me.”
Dean nodded, feeling the heat creeping up his neck, threatening to consume his cheeks. “Saw a couple of ghosts at the hospital and I’m pretty sure there is a werecat lady two houses down.”
“How long?” Sam asked, sounding wounded even though Dean seemed willing to confess everything now.
Like it had happened before with the sword, Dean had once more tried to hide what was happening to him from his brother. He was all too aware that Sam felt those actions as a personal betrayal and saw it as a lack of trust on him from Dean’s part. It wasn’t true, but it was not a subject matter that Dean felt comfortable enough talking about to convince Sam otherwise.
It wasn’t about Sam, not really. But when Dean himself didn’t want to face the truth himself, how the hell was he going to share it with someone else, even someone as close to his heart as his own brother?
“Sam...”
“Yes, lets not talk about this too,” Sam offered sarcastically. “I’m done here. Let’s go.”
:o:
The reflective police tape, shinning back whenever a car passed by, was the only source of light that came from the empty house.
Sam clutched the glued amphora in his hands, the slightly warm clay under his fingertips his anchor in the storm of thoughts inside his head.
On one side, there were the harsh winds of doubt about what they’d came to the hunt and how they were about to plunge head-on; there were too many variables to this ritual that they didn’t know about, too many things that could go wrong because they were not prepared enough. Was there any particular word from the several etched on the patterns outside the amphora that they were supposed to say out loud for Morpheus to be lured and/or trapped inside? And if they actually managed to get the thing inside the amphora, would a cork lid be enough to keep it there, or was there some sort of special cover that was lost when the amphora was initially broken? If Sam was to play bait for Sandman, did he actually have to sleep or would it suffice to lie in the bed?
On the other side, there was the plummeting pressure in the whole Dean issue atmospheric shitstorm. When he had first found out about the tattoo that Dean had gotten in Purgatory Sam had made no effort to hide the fact that he found the benefits it brought kind of awesome. Who wouldn’t want a weapon that is always there and upon which you can always rely?
When it became clear that Dean could see Morpheus when no one was supposed to, Sam had been more intrigued than frightened with the idea. But now, all of a sudden, it seemed like it wasn’t just one type of being Dean could see, now he had this sort of inner sight ability that allowed him to glimpse every being on the surface of the planet: alive, dead or in-between
Now that tattoo was not just a cool tool that could be used for one purpose, now, it seemed, it was something that was taking control of his brother and changing everything about him.
Sam feared that, when it was over, he would not recognize Dean as his brother anymore.
Dean’s confession had not only surprised him but also made Sam wonder what would come next, or worse yet, what other changes had Dean already noticed but neglected to tell him about.
The trek to Tobias Jones’ house wasn’t a long one. Other than a quick detour to gather some supplies from the Impala, it was mostly walking across the street. If Dean, with his hand on Sam’ shoulder, felt as awkward as Sam did, he wasn’t showing it. The job always came, Sam needed to remind himself.
“Lets do this,” Dean blurted out, like he had received some kind of secret ‘go!’ signal. For all Sam knew, that was exactly what had happened.
Conspicuous as Sam felt, him with his backpack and crutches and Dean with his bandaged eyes, both walking up to a house sealed by the police, no one gave either of them a second look.
Inside everything was pitch black until Sam broke a couple of light sticks and tossed them on the ground. The ghostly yellow light cast long shadows into the ruins of the house; it wasn’t much of an improvement but it was enough to keep Sam’s hands free to maneuver the crutches instead of holding a flashlight.
“Upstairs?” Dean broke the silence first. “Can you see a way up?”
Sam nodded before remembering his brother’s handicap. “Yeah,” he answered looking at the large chunk of missing steps. “There’s a portable, metal staircase in the exact same place as the original stairs were. Guess the cops set it up to access the second floor.”
“Nice of them…” Dean grumbled and turned toward his brother. “Well, at least it’s not a ladder, eh Sammy?”
Dean was trying so hard to prove to him that everything was just the same as before that Sam couldn’t help but respond to his effort.
“No shit,” Sam huffed his agreement; still, even the staircase would prove to be a challenge. Using crutches on level ground was hard enough but hobbling up a set of stairs while dragging his cumbersome casted leg? This was going to suck. “This way,” he called out, unsure how much help he should offer Dean.
Dean, however, was doing fine on his own. He seemed to remember exactly where the set of stairs had originally been and, feeling his way around, quickly grasped the handrail of the portable stairs.
By the time Sam reached the top of the stairs, short breathed and covered in sweat, he kind of envied Dean’s currently two working legs.
The main bedroom looked pretty much as they had left it, except it was now decorated with yellow police tape and pink print-dust on most of the surfaces.
“Show time!” Dean said with fake enthusiasm.
Sam felt stiff and wrong, lying on a stranger’s bed. Deep inside, he was pretty sure this whole thing was not going to work.
Dean was sitting on a couch right in front of the bed, his silhouette mingling with the darkness like he belonged there. Sitting beside him was the amphora, already filled with saltwater and at Dean’s feet, two more buckets filled with the stuff. They were as prepared as they could ever be.
But nothing was happening.
“Want me to tell you a story or something?” Dean asked, shifting in his chair for the hundredth time in the last two minutes.
“Fuck you,” Sam mumbled against the pillow. The damn thing had to be stuffed with actual feathers because it was making his nose itch like crazy. “You come here and sleep on command.”
On command.
The missing piece suddenly clicked for Sam at the same time it must’ve clicked for Dean because there was a slap sound in the otherwise quiet room as Dean smacked his palm against his head.
“The damn sleeping pills,” Dean voiced for the both of them. “That’s why Morpheus goes after some but leaves the others alone. He only kills the ones on sleep medication!”
“I thought it was the Morpheus’ job to put people to sleep,” Sam pointed out, “but I guess somewhere along the way he forgot and took the concept to a whole new level.”
“Funny,” Dean offered dryly as he leaned back on the couch, his whole body a monument to deep frustration. “Well, there goes our only plan down the drain.”
Sam sat up on the bed, wincing when the gesture pulled at his broken leg. “Why?”
One eyebrow rose above the white bandage. “Shall I point out the obvious matter of drugging you being bad for hunting or skip straight ahead for the fact that the only sleeping pills that either of us possesses are currently in my duffel, back at the motel, and there is no chance in hell I’m letting you take one of those?”
Instead of searching for a valid argument against Dean’s case, Sam just leaned over and opened the top drawer on the nightstand. If they were right about the reason for Morpheus picking its victims, there should be a bottle- “Ah!” Sam let out, shaking the orange bottle in his hand. Four white pills rattled inside, like a pissed off snake.
Dean crossed his arms in front of his chest. “This is a bad idea, Sam.”
“It’s a sleeping pill, Dean, not an anesthetic,” Sam said, squinting to read the label in the dim lit room. “The second that thing shows up, you can wake me up and we’ll deal with it together.”
Sam could almost see the cogs turning furiously inside Dean’s head, weighing the pros of taking such a risk or missing their opportunity altogether.
“There’s a reason why I don’t take them when we’re hunting, Sam” Dean warned him. “And it’s not because I’m operating heavy machinery.”
All of their current options involved losing track of Morpheus forever or getting someone else killed. “We really don’t have another choice here,” Sam pointed out.
Dean’s silence was Sam’s cue to grab one of the pills from the bottle and dry swallow it. The sooner they were done with this, the faster he could go back to trying to understand what Dean was becoming and how much should he be worrying.
:o:
There was a crack of static in the room followed by an intense feeling of skin threatening to crawl away from his bones and Dean knew for a certainty that Morpheus had finally made his appearance. “Sam.”
Slithering through the corner where two walls meet, Morpheus moved like quicksilver. Its silvery colors shimmered and glinted, making it hard to stare at for too long.
Dean looked away, his focus on his brother. “Sam, come on, wake up!” When only a faint grunt answered him, Dean opened his mouth to call louder.
Morpheus picked that exact moment to make its move. A silvery ball shot from the main mass and hit Dean in the face. Suddenly, his mouth was full of sand and he couldn’t make a sound. It was their last confrontation all over again and Dean already knew how that one had ended.
He got up, fumbling in the dark, hacking and wheezing. He tripped and staggered until one boot collided with a bucket of saltwater, upending the container and spilling its contents. The water had the desired effect; Morpheus hissed and backed away, giving Dean enough time to reach the bed.
Keeping an eye -so to speak- on the Sandman, Dean fumbled around, shifting sheets until he grabbed muscle. “Wake the fuck up!” he hollered, voice raw like it’d been scrubbed in saw paper, hands shaking Sam’s shoulder as hard as he could. The familiar tingling in his arm came and went without the sword making an appearance. It was useless against this monster anyway and Dean needed both his hands free.
“Five ‘moe minuss’,” Sam mumbled.
Dean cursed, scurrying back for the second bucket of salted water. He got on all fours on the carpeted floor, fingers groping the fibers until he came across a wet patch. The remaining bucket, still full, was standing right next to the empty one.
He wasted no time. On the edge of his perception, like a passing shadow, Dean could see another of those damn balls of sand heading his way. Ignoring it, he looked for the warm colors of Sam presence before dumping the entire contents of the bucket on his brother.
Sam came awake with a gasp at the same time as twin balls of sand hit Dean in the gut, sending him flying against the something solid and unforgiving, a wardrobe, judging from the size and sound it made when Dean crushed against it.
Blood trickled down Dean’s forehead and for a moment darkness became blinding white. Somewhere in the room, he could hear his name being called out.
“Dean! Dean, is it still here?”
Dean shook his head, the bandage around his eyes coming loose at the edges. He looked ahead and smiled, balling his hands. Morpheus looked pissed, a mini-tornado of fury because his intended victim, Sam, was utterly covered in the one thing that it couldn’t touch. Saltwater.
And now, for the big finale...
“Get out of the bed,” Dean urged Sam even as he advanced on the mass of rapidly moving sand. It was time for them to switch roles.
“Careful,” Sam warned. Even though he couldn’t see the Greek god, the strong wind and the amount of flying sand inside the bedroom made for enough challenge.
Dean nodded, even though ‘careful’ was something that was pointless at their current junction. His only job was to stop the damn thing from leaving the room and herd it towards the bed.
As Sam was no longer viable as victim, Dean figured that the only way to bring the metaphorical horse to the water was to present it with a really nice carrot. “Come and get me, you piece of shit!”
The second Dean’s boot hit the mattress, Morpheus was on him and Dean was drowning in silver light, bright enough to hurt his brain. “NOW, SAM!”
There was a ripping sound, a second of sand turning into mud and the absolute certainty that his lungs would never taste oxygen again. The silver light shimmered and exploded in a million colors and Dean screamed soundlessly, unable to push air past his throat.
And then it was over.
There was a hand over his face, gently urging him to breath. Dean did just that, just to get the voice to quiet down. His head was killing him and he really could do with some silence.
The hand moved then, fingers curling around his eyes. “Don’t open them,” Sam whispered. “The bandage fell off, I need to find something to replace it.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist before he could get out of range. “Is he gone?” He asked. “Did it work?”
There was a pause, long enough to send Dean’s heart racing. There was no B plan, it was either get it right on the first shot or-
“Yeah, Dean, we got him,” Sam said, and Dean could practically hear the smile in his voice. “Morpheus turned into a pile of goo. We just need to find a spoon and scoop it out of the sheets and into the amphora.”
:o:
The plan had been nuts, granted, but Sam could see somewhat of a stroke of genius in it… even if they’d had to sacrifice their best sleeping bags.
The idea had been simple enough: grab a couple of waterproof sleeping bags, turn them inside out, fill them with salt water and lay the trap over the bed, under the sheets. Sam would play the cheese and they just had to hope that he was enticing enough that their rat wouldn’t notice the giant trap.
Of course, Sam falling asleep and failing to wake up the second Dean called him had not been part of the plan. To be honest, Sam had been sure that the pill wouldn’t even work: either it would have no influence over whether the Sandman came or not or -and- it would have no effect on Sam and the first point would be moot.
The effectiveness of the pill had taken him completely by surprise.
In the end, however, and against all odds, they had managed to get Morpheus over the bed in time to rip the sleeping bags open and drown it in salt water.
As soon as it had come in contact with the water, the Greek god stopped being invisible and what Sam saw truly scared him. From the way the muddy sand wrapped itself around Dean, like a revolving grave, he had been sure that Dean was going to be Morpheus’ final victim.
Finally the saltwater won and the monster stopped wiggling and trying to bury Dean under its weight. It gave one final inhuman screech before settling on a condensed puddle in the middle of the bed. In a gross way, it kind of looked like someone had soil itself.
Sam’s eyes, however, were focused on the human figure lying next to the puddle of goo.
Dean’s bandage had come loose in the middle of the chaos and Sam could see that his eyes were closed. The skin around them was red raw even over the dark bags underneath and the lids looked puffy and filled with liquid. He doubted that Dean could open his eyes even if he tried, but Sam wasn’t about to take any chances. The second he put his hands over Dean’s eyes, his brother stirred awake.
After reassuring Dean that Morpheus was temporarily disabled, Sam looked around, desperate to find something to replace those bandages. The sheets were disgustingly filthy, so Sam wobbled unsteadily to the dresser and threw opened the first drawer. “Socks,” he muttered. “Perfect.”
He just grabbed one random pair and knotted one to the end of the other.
“Did you just say ‘socks’?” Dean asked, slightly backing away from Sam as he returned to the bed.
“Orange socks, if you must know,” Sam goaded him, tying the plain white socks around Dean’s eyes. “With little red hearts.”
Even covered up, Dean’s glare was a powerful and scary thing. And very, very amusing for Sam.
:o:
The knock on the door was so unexpected that Sam’s first reaction was to grab a gun and take cover behind the bed. He and Dean had moved motels yet again, just in case someone had seen them leave the Jones’ house.
Neither could really drive, or else he was sure Dean would’ve insisted they’d skipped town altogether.
Bottom line was, no one was supposed to know that they were there.
With one last look around, making sure that nothing too suspicious was in view and that Dean was still sound asleep, Sam opened the door.
The dark skinned woman standing outside was a stranger, and yet she looked familiar somehow. “Can I help you?” Sam asked, trying to place her.
“Oui... is Dean around?” she asked with a smile that said she knew perfectly well that he was.
And then it hit Sam just from where he knew her: it was the same woman Dean had snuck out to see. The realization must have been too explicit in his face, because the woman’ smile deepened.
“Hi, Sam,” she said, extending her hand. “I am Madame Lapin, Blanche Lapin. I offer my services as a Voodoo priestess to those who seek me out. Your brother has been... consulting with me.”
Sam’s eyebrow rose. His high school French was kind of rusty, but this one he knew very well because he’d had a teacher who had insisted that the whole class read ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in French. “White Rabbit... so, Dean has been following you into some deep holes, has he?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Sam realized how bad they actually sounded. The urge to apologize for his crudeness was almost as strong as the feeling of wrongness at her presence there. Had Dean picked up a stalker on top of everything else?
The woman, however, didn’t seemed to take offense over his words. Instead, she smiled and grabbed Sam’s arm, pulling him outside. “Let’s leave him to rest while you ask your question, shall we?”
Sam was too dumbstruck to fight back. He took one look back, making sure that Dean was safe, tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and, snatching his crutches from beside the door, closed it as he left. The curtains had been pulled close to avoid prying eyes, so how could she have possibly known that Dean was inside, resting?
This woman knew far too much to be just one of Dean’s one-night stands. Or to be just a woman, for that matter. And what the hell did she mean by ‘his question’? Sam didn’t have any questions to ask, certainly not to a complete stranger. All of his questions, at the moment, were for Dean and Dean alone.
“My mother had a certain sense of humor when naming me, I’ll give her that,” she started, ignoring Sam’s suspicious face. “Can’t say that it didn’t come in handy in my line of work.”
Sam couldn’t care less for her family history. “Who are you?”
She stopped, fixing deep, eerily bright green eyes on him. “That is not the question you want to ask, Sam.”
There was a world of unsaid things inside her eyes, a universe that Sam had spent his whole life fighting, a universe that he had almost called home for a dark period in his existence. Whoever she was, Madame Lapin was not human.
Dean had come to her, willingly. In fact, Sam was pretty sure that the only reason why they had taken a case in New Orleans was so that Dean could visit this Voodoo priestess.
From the amount of chumminess between this woman and Dean, Sam could almost think that they were old time acquaintances but that clashed heavily with the fact that Dean had kept her a secret from Sam. And if her relationship with Dean was a secret, it stood to reason that the motive that had led him to seek her was just as secretive.
Lapin’s eyes were studying his face, a smile occasionally gracing her lips as if she was riding the same train of thoughts as Sam; it was unnerving.
“I’m still waiting for your question, mon chéri” she urged him, glancing briefly at her watch. “As my Alice counterpart would say, I’m getting late for an important date.”
Sam gripped the rubber handles of his crutches harder. He should just turn his back on that woman and go back to the motel room. And yet, she was standing right there, offering to shed light over a matter that he hadn’t dared to put to words until her arrival.
He knew exactly what the question was. “All those changes,” Sam started, not feeling the need to explain which changes or to whom they were happening. “Where does it end? What is my brother becoming?”
Her smile reminded him of a chemistry teacher Sam had in high school. Whenever a student made even the slightest leap ahead in her teachings, she would offer that smile. Like a proud mother staring at her son.
She stepped closer to Sam. “A monster,” she said, staring into his eyes. “A hunter,” she whispered into his right ear. “A protector,” she whispered into the left. “A brother,” she said, her lips touching his like the lightest of feathers.
The moan that followed had nothing to do with pleasure. Her whole body shuddered before she collapsed against Sam.
Unbalanced by the unexpected added weight, Sam stumbled to the ground with her. The reason for her fall became painfully obvious when Sam spotted the arrow sticking from between her shoulder blades. “What the hel-“
There was no blood on the wound and as Sam pulled it out, he could see the blackened blood that covered the tip. He sniffed it. Dead man’s blood.
“Are you okay, son?”
Two men, one carrying a machete and the other the crossbow that had clearly shot Lapin, knelt before him. Hunters, just like him.
“She didn’t bite you, did she?” one of them asked, unceremoniously turning Sam’s head sideways to have a look at his neck.
Sam blinked, taken off guard by the intrusion. They were treating him like any other victim, which meant that they had no clue who or what he was.
“I know what you’re thinking, son,” the one with the machete started, his sympathetic voice grating in Sam’s ears. “You’re confused and scared, but you can rest assure that this monster here will not be hurting anyone else... ever.”
Madame Lapin was a vampire. And those hunters were going to kill her.
Both realizations weren’t as surprising or striking as the possibility that she had been perfectly aware that they had been hunting her and that events would unfold exactly as they did. The watch. This was what she had been waiting for.
Sam wished she had shared that apparent knowledge of the future with him and told him what he was supposed to do now.
He could just walk away; let them keep on assuming that he was just one more civilian, grateful that they had saved him from becoming a vampire-snack. He could even throw in a small nervous break down at being introduced to the supernatural in such a violent way. God knew he’d witnessed plenty to be able to rip one off in perfection.
Lapin would die if he chose that option. And that should be perfectly fine with him, really. Who was she, other than a vampire who had concealed her true nature? And her claim of having such deep knowledge of what was going on with Dean, even though Sam was pretty sure that his brother had only met her a few days before? The possibility of it being complete bullshit could not be ignored.
Sam could give her the benefit of the doubt and rescue her. But to do that, he would have to fight two humans, possibly hurt them, and all of that to save a vampire. A monster.
Lapin’s final words came rushing back to Sam. At the time, they had made absolutely no sense to him, other than the gut wrenching feeling he’d had at hearing his brother labeled as a monster.
A monster, a hunter, a protector. A brother.
Sitting on the scalding asphalt, with a passed out vampire in his arms, Sam finally understood what she had been saying.
And he knew what he had to do.
“Something wrong, son?”
“Yeah...” Sam was really growing to hate the way that stranger kept calling him ‘son’. “I can’t let you do this,” he said, quietly and with all the self-assurance of a man not sitting on the ground with a busted leg.
The two hunters seemed at lost for words. Their expressions kept ping-pong-ing from being sure that he was kidding to taking him deadly serious. “Look, kid... I know she looks like any other woman, and I know its kind of hard to accept that there are things out there that-“
Sam pulled the gun from the small of his back, aiming carefully at a spot in between the eyes of the hunter holding the loaded crossbow. “Let this one go, fellas,” Sam warned, hoping that they were not stupid enough to test his resolve. “Go hunt something else.”
The hunters exchanged a look between them and Sam knew that, to them, he looked like nothing else but a freaked-out young man trying to be a knight in shinning armor. They lunged for him.
A single bullet bit the asphalt in the space between Sam and the two hunters.
Sam blinked, confused, his finger frozen on the trigger. He hadn’t fired so...
“Everything okay out there, Sammy?”
Sam bit his bottom lip, stopping himself from laughing out loud when he looked back and saw Dean, standing at the door of their room, long range riffle in his hands. He had nothing on but the pajama bottoms he’d fallen asleep in and the bandage around his eyes.
Sam stole a look at the hunters. They could clearly see the bandages and, from the size of the gap in their mouths, they didn’t quite believe what they were seeing.
The one in the front took another step, clearly having decided that what ever had happened, it had been a lucky shot.
A second bullet flew, sharp as the first, this time close enough to touch the tip of the hunter’s boot. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Dean warned, his tone so bone-shilling that Sam believed that, if he wanted to, his brother could make a lightning bolt fall down right on top of them, in that very second.
“W-What the fuck is going on in here?” the hunter gasped, slowly backing away and pulling his partner with him. Finally, they were getting a clue. “Who are you freaks?”
Sam knew the answer to that one. “The kind you don’t wanna mess with,” he offered with a predatory smile.
By the time Dean made his way to Sam, the two hunters were long gone. “They’ll be back,” Dean voiced, offering his brother a hand up.
“I know.”
“Rabbits should be more weary of hunters, you know?”
Sam looked at his brother, confusion in his eyes until he realized that Dean’s words weren’t aimed at him. Lapin was coming around.
She gave a raspy laugh, accepting Dean’s help to get to her feet. “I’d figure you would go for the rabbits and watches joke instead, mon chéri.”
Dean smiled in return, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “ You know me... never change, but always keep them guessing,” he said with a squeeze, letting him know that the words were for him as well. “Now, what do you say we get out of here before our friends come back?”
:o:
They left Lapin at her place. She had a few things to round up and then she too would be moving on from that place. She offered to lend them her assistant as a temporary driver and, to Sam’s surprise, Dean took her up on it.
They had one final stop to make before leaving New Orleans.
:o:
Mrs. Figgs opened the door on the second ring. She had the same amber glow that Dean remembered from the last time.
Dean heard a gasp as soon as she took in the bandages. “Oh, dear! What happened to you?” the words were laced with honest concern, even though he was nothing but a stranger to her.
Dean ducked his head, embarrassed at the warm feeling that the old woman exuded so openly. “Nothing to worry about, Jo,” he offered with a smile. His expression grew serious as Dean remembered what he was there to do. “I came to tell you that it’s over.”
Jo’s reaction was quiet, but Dean could see the amber glow grow darker and turbulent. The guarded sniffle made him reach out and wipe the silent tears from her face.
“Is that it?” She asked. Dean knew she had spotted the amphora he’d placed at her doorstep.
“Yes.”
She took a deep breath, gathering her strength. “What do I do with it?”
“Toss it in the ocean,” Dean said. “Make sure that it stays there.”
A pair of wrinkled hands grabbed both sides of Dean’s face, pulling him down until soft lips caressed his cheek. “Thank you.”
The end
BACK TO MASTER POST
Author’s Notes: My deepest thank you to jackfan2 for, once again, pulling the diamond out of the chunk of rock I gave her. My friend, you are the best! To my wonderful artist, evian_fork, goes my profound admiration because I send her a crappy, half-backed, no-end in sight story and she still managed to produce such an evocative and beautiful art. Thank you, my dear! To reapertownusa, you rock! Thank you for once again putting up with us and working to give us such a wonderful source of entertainment!
To all of you who’ve read this story, I take a bow. It was a pleasure entertaining you!
