|| Re-Introduction: If You Need Him, He'll Be There Again ||

[surfaceshine]

[SPOILERS for Supernatural up to 5x22 in this post, and likely in the course of play with my Dean.  Sorry.]

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[crimson_sugar]

For once, Sugar has some time to herself - she's left Sophie in the trusted hands of Mrs. Fox, and so she's huddled up alone in a quiet corner of the library. As she's told Alice, writing has become a cathartic thing for her: she does it to relieve her suffering more than in the hopes of being published. Hence the need to be alone, to be left to her own devices, alone with a quill, ink stains on her callused fingers and sheets that won't stay flat on the desk

[surfaceshine]

Libraries are decidedly Sam's domain; Dean has never been comfortable in them, it's always painfully obvious that he doesn't belong the moment he steps into one. At one point he was too loud, too active, too rough around the edges to ever fit in; he's none of those things now, just hard-eyed and professional, here for the only reason Dean ever sets foot in one of these places.

Research.

It takes him a moment to notice the woman as he prowls among the shelves, trying to discern some kind of sorting system. He's not really surprised to find it's not the Dewey Decimal System, because he's broken into his fair share of small town libraries that basically did whatever they wanted to do, but that does make his search a little harder. Makes it more necessary to stop the second time he passes and interrupt her.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, because he's not exactly feeling flirty yet. His lips do smile, though, muscle memory and old habit. "You know where I might find the newspaper clippings?"

[crimson_sugar]

Sugar meanwhile is writing steadily. It's nothing impressive, but she's trying new things - not writing Sugar-the-Ripper like she used to in London, but rather...

And so it was that in the days of old, the women of London Island were left alone to tend to the babes while their men died, fighting enemies greater than they. In truth it was a battle on its own - one hardly recorded at the time, but this is a tale my grandmother told me, one of sadness, loss and despair, though I have ever derived hope from it.

She pauses, dips her quill in the inkpot, goes on, It was a frozen winter of 1567, and they were then a small coterie of youths, living in a cozy cottage, off the road that leads to Birming---

And an interruption.

"... I beg your pardon?"

She was completely focused, now she lost her sentence.

Well, bugger.

[surfaceshine]

Quill. Inkpot. Dean processes that for a moment, blinking slowly, then decides fuck it. Some people juggle geese.

And really, he should've known, maybe. Except he hadn't been paying that much attention to how she's dressed or, really, how the rest of this house seems to be stuck somewhat further behind than he's accustomed to. That's actually fairly standard for houses as big as this in his experience. Usually he's trying to get out before anyone knows he's there, of course, not asking for directions.

Times have changed, he supposes. He holds the smile he doesn't really feel, already bracing for the annoyance of a woman interrupted. He's familiar enough with that, too.

"Newspaper clippings. Is there a place for 'em in here or am I up shit creek without a paddle?"

[crimson_sugar]

For a split second Sugar looks annoyed, but then (her eyesight’s been getting low, what with the poor lighting), she blinks, and recognizes both the voice and the face

[surfaceshine]

He'd been ready for a reaction, but not the one he gets; there's a moment of nearly comical alarm when she lights up and comes at him, his hands going up instinctively but ultimately ineffectually when her slap lands and he's just staring at her. She knows his name and she's acting like she's happy to see him, and normally that wouldn't be enough to stay his hand from violence, but it is; for some reason it is, and for a moment, a brief, flashing moment he thinks he recognizes her too.

Except he doesn't know who she is at all. Christ. An eight year old? Crap.

"I uh," he hedges intelligently. "Wait, what?" There it is. "Quake? Uncles? I don't know any kids. Who're you?"

And why are you so goddamn happy to see me?

[crimson_sugar]

We're evil, so we're going to let Dean potentially believe maybe Sam shagged the redhead, because the quiproquo really amuses us.

Despite the comical disarray of their reunion, Sugar spots that Dean is completely lost. Oh, dear, oh dear. Or rather, oh, shite. Because she's seen this happen before, people coming back, not remembering their past at the Mansion.

She's been repeatedly hoping this wasn't going to be the case with Cal.

“I'm Sugar,” she says. “And I have a daughter called Sophie, who loves you very much.”

She blinks, stares at him.

“Fucknuts, Dean, you don't remember a bloody thing, do ya? Well that'll mess with everyone and everything.”

She frowns.

“Good to see ya regardless. Still want those clippings, or should we wander off to the kitchen, have tea, and catch up?”

She's not even questioning that he'll believe her. Because, quite simply, he'd better.

[surfaceshine]

Dean is staring fairly blankly at her, answering the question silently long before he gets around to it verbally; he's thinking it doesn't sound too out of the question that he knows a girl named Sugar who says things like fucknuts, and Sophie vaguely rings some kind of mental bell, only...

...only his eyebrows pull together as he frowns back at her. "I uh. Shit." Just, shit. He knows his own instincts, honed in the past year by being on the run from pretty much everything and everyone they can be, have developed a hair trigger for paranoia, but it's just not coming for her. He doesn't feel threatened, which is new, just confused.

Okay. It seems like it'd be okay to admit to the pretty damn obvious.

"No, I don't. Uh... sorry?" She doesn't seem like she wants an apology though, so he steps back a bit before answering. "We should probably talk. The clippings were for information, anyway, so no loss there."

He can always just find them later for fact-checking.

[crimson_sugar]

Sugar is just relieved that Dean is giving this a chance, really - because her kid could do with one less loss in her life. (Not to mention herself, but priorities.)

“Jolly grand,” Sugar drawls in her slightly less than posh accent - she's from the bowels of Dickensian London, after all. “Let's scarper off, aye, and I'll put the kettle on. No scones o'whutnot, tho, not wiv all I got hangin' of late. But I'll rabbit as much as you like, got nothing to hide.”

She winks at him, and starts to gather her notes, puts away her quill.

“It's right good you're here, even though you don't remember a bloody thing,” Sugar goes on. “Gives hope, even if your noggin's all messed with. Feckin' house, messing with us this way.”

And if Dean allows, she'll lead him back to (we're so sorry) the kitchen. She couldn't write now if she tried, anyway - she's much too excited by this new development, she's even lost all her polish in the process.

[surfaceshine]

"What?" Dean is unfamiliar with the accent, posh or Dickensian or not, and it takes him a moment to chase after all the replaced words and the foreign pronunciations until they make sense. What he does understand plainly enough is the motions that go with it, so he at least knows they're leaving.

And that she's someone who he'd have been glad to know a few years earlier; maybe he could be again. He certainly feels more amused than annoyed, which is unusual for him.

"Well, if it helps, I'm a pretty quick study," he offers, following her after the smallest hesitation. He does need information and, if nothing else, she seems friendly. He tries to rouse some wariness for where she might be leading him, but there's none of it; either he's already under her spell if she's something he would normally hunt, or he can trust her.

He does his best to keep that in mind until he hears more. "And besides, ask anyone: My noggin's been messed with pretty much from the go."

[crimson_sugar]

“All of ours,” Sugar replies, and having noted his confusion, she makes a conscious effort to master her language.  She smiles, and exercises her self- control a little more, because she’d hug Dean if she could. If she dared. Instead, she hugs her paperwork, and keeps on leading Dean to the kitchen.

“Did you just come?” she asks, slower, enunciating better, like she would for the bourgeois johns who came for her, in another life.

She's trying to act casual, but her excitement is probably visible, palpable.