A Supernatural Musing 3/10
Title: A Supernatural Musing
Topic: Supernatural
Genre: Het, Friendship, Adventure, Horror, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, OFC
Pairings: That would be spoilers ;-)
Beta: jooles34
Summary: The Winchester brothers investigate a few supernatural deaths, and quickly discover that there is more to them than meets the eye. Even their guardian Angel, Castiel, is unable to help them, only point them in the right direction. The boys follow that path, and soon find out that there are things more ancient than Heaven, more evil than the Devil, and that the old saying "Women are complicated" barely scratches the surface.
Spoilers: It's set sometime during Season 6, between episodes "Unforgiven" and "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning." Everything before that is fair game for spoilers.
Authors Note: Sorry for being so late!
Previous Chapter
Since Dean was heavenly connected to their guest, Sam became the official go-for by default. He was currently out on a beer/food/women’s clothing run, along with stopping by the morgue and sweet talking the coroner into allowing them to bring someone else in to examine the bodies. They both believed that was going to be the easy part in all this. Getting a five thousand year old young adult across a city full of things that she couldn’t even imagine exist was going to be the difficult part.
Speaking of the out-of-time woman, she was currently sitting in the middle of Sam’s bed, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins. Her chin was resting on the tip of her knees, and she had been staring at the wallpaper opposite the bed for almost an hour. Her striking green eyes hadn’t moved a centimeter, and Dean was pretty sure that she hadn’t blinked, either. He guessed it was some sort of shock. He knew he’d be pretty screwed up if he was five thousand years out of his time. Surviving that long in a room of nothing had to take its toll as well. He was starting to realize that she might not even be completely with them. She had sounded sane enough in the white room. Then again, when standing in a Heaven holding cell in Israel while listening to an Angel and an ancient human argue, anything sounds sane.
He fidgeted in his seat and looked around for something to do. He stared forlornly at the magic fingers, but he was pretty sure that a vibrating bed would freak her out even more. Plus, he had used up all his quarters. He wondered how Sam made it through this; those long hours that he was out and about after giving Sam strict orders to stay in the room. He glanced at the laptop. Oh, right. Research. Dean sent silent messages of hate to the computer, then shifted his gaze to his wrist. The symbol that Castiel had pressed into his skin was unlike ones that he had seen before. The same symbol was on her wrist now; her previously clean wrist. Something Dean had noticed in these past sixty minutes was that she had a lot of tattoos. There was one on her left wrist, her right palm, and small ones under each fingernail. How she had gotten those there, he didn’t want to think about. His fingernails had been pulled out every day in Hell, but he couldn’t imagine doing it to yourself.
He checked his phone; no messages. He wondered what was taking Sam so long. All he asked for was some Bud Light and a fast food value meal. It couldn’t take this long. Then again, his brother had also been sent to grab some clothes for…Dean faltered. They had no idea what her name was, and he was sure that as soon as Sam got back and found out he didn’t know, the younger man would get on him about it. Dean could hear him now. ‘You spend five minutes with some empty blonde and she’s given you every form of contact information available. But you can’t get a name out of an older woman after an hour?’
Dean cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Hey, um. Yeah. I’m Dean. The tall awkward one who left about an hour ago is my brother, Sam. Castiel - that son-of-a-bitch Angel - tied us together, if you don’t remember, so we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. You have a name or something?” He faltered at the end. What if they didn’t have names at the beginning of civilization? Then what?
She didn’t answer him. A few awkward seconds of silence went by. She didn’t even move an eyelash. Getting up off his chair, Dean moved closer, squatting down right in front of the bed. He waved his hand up and down in front of her face. No response. A little worried - and secretly wondering how her eyes hadn’t dried out if she really hadn’t blinked in an hour - he shifted closer, his eyes lined up with hers. He slowly reached his hand out, aiming for her shoulder to give her a good shake.
She blinked.
Dean froze, his hand seconds from her shoulder. She blinked again, her eyebrow raising slightly upward as she tilted her head. The tips of her mouth tugged downward. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Dean stood up, coughing to cover the move and to hide his surprise. The words he heard hadn’t aligned with how her lips were moving. It made sense, remembering what Sam had said about Castiel giving her a translator. “Nothing, I was just asking what your name was…were you zoned out that entire time?”
She blinked again, her frown increasing. “I don’t understand…”
“Um…What were you doing?” Dean decided to go for the more basic wording. He had no idea what kind of words existed five thousand years ago. This was going to be interesting.
“That Angel friend of yours jammed those memories into me all jumbled. I was putting them in order.” Her language was as much hand gestures as it was words, and Dean found himself getting dizzy watching her fingers move deftly around the open space in front of her.
“Oh.” he said in response, like what she was doing was normal. Of course, things like that shouldn’t surprise him anymore, really.
“And for my name…I guess I don’t have one anymore.” she said, sadness in her voice. She fell silent then, as if the gravity of the situation had finally hit home. She had been in a bubble for the past five thousand years, just existing, shielded from everything outside. Now, she was thrust into the real world, out of time, with no one familiar and nothing to remind her of what life was. She was totally and completely alone. Dean glanced at his wrist and stared at the Enochian insignia. Well, maybe not completely alone.
“Well, can’t go around without a name - people’ll look at you funny.” Dean joked, turning and grabbing Sam’s laptop. His brother had wanted him to do research. Baby names were a kind of research. He logged in and pulled up a browser before offering it to her. She stared at the device, her eyes wide as she fell backwards from it, landing on the bed with a large intake of breath. Right. Five thousand years old. Laptops were a new thing since he was a kid.
“It’s called a laptop.” he tried.
“Lap. Top?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in a fashion that Dean’s brain classified as cute before he realized what was going on. “Why name it something like that?”
“You sit it on top of your lap. It connects to the world wide web, a place that holds all the information in the world, where you can access and read it. A lot easier than searching through old dusty library books, if you ask me.” Dean sat next to her on the bed and showed her, pulling up a baby name website. She watched the entire time with wonder in her eyes. She reached out hesitantly and giggled when the key she typed showed up on screen.
“Magic…” she breathed, and Dean laughed. This was going to be fun.
-
Sam wanted to shoot something. Preferably something evil, but at this point in time, anything would do. The gun didn’t even have to be filled with silver bullets, or be the Colt. An ideal situation would be a Demon (or other monster) chained up, so he could empty clip after clip into the damn thing without repercussions, like the monkey on Pirates of the Caribbean.
Demons, he understood. Ghosts were simple. Monsters were easy. People? Screw it. He was three hundred dollars lighter thanks to that son-of-a-bitch coroner who decided that was the entrance fee for non-badges to step onto the floor of the morgue and examine a body. He was one hundred dollars lighter and at least fifty pounds heavier due to beer and all kinds of food he thought existed because he had no idea what was around five thousand years ago, or what her stomach would be able to take. And finally, he was another two hundred dollars lighter because he had no idea what size she was, what kind of clothes she would like to wear, or where to find the best deals. It was uncomfortable enough shopping for undergarments. The looks the shopping attendants were giving him made him wish that Dean was with him to diffuse the situation. Although, after thinking about that for a few moments, he withdrew that wish.
He didn’t understand how women were able to do it. Jessie loved to go shopping; would disappear for hours at a time and come back with one or two new items of clothing to model for him. It drove him crazy. So many ignorant people bumping into you and stealing the shoes you were looking at when they happened to be the last pair in that size. He was really glad he wasn’t a woman. Sam paused for a moment, unsure whether or not he had actually just thought that. He shivered when he realized he had.
He knocked on the door to their motel room, his hands too full to open it himself. When there was no reply, he pressed his ear to the door, only to hear…laughing. Curious, he balanced the boxes and bags on his arm while he slipped his pinky finger cautiously around the handle, twisting it slowly so not to upset the delicate pyramid of items on his arm. They held, and he quickly slid them back to their original position on both of his arms.
“What the hell took you so long, man?” Dean asked from his position on the floor. He sat Indian style, his shoes off, jacket thrown on the top of the bed and shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up. Any other woman would be staring at the six-pack peaking out from the open shirt, but apparently, not their guest. She sat across from him, staring intently at the cards in her hand, completely focused on the shapes and numbers printed on them.
Sam narrowed his eyes and dumped the bags on the closest flat surface, which happened to be the table. “I thought you were going to research.”
Dean shrugged. “I was, but then she woke up, and I couldn’t let her be all by herself in such a strange world.”
She turned then, lowering the cards enough for Dean to be able to look at them. Surprisingly, the older brother purposefully ignored them. She smiled at Sam and waved with her fingers. “Dean is teaching me the game of ‘Jack the Black.’ You should join us!”
“She’s good - great poker face, you could learn from her, Sammy.”
Sam dug through the bags, finding the clothes. “I got us an appointment with the dead tomorrow morning.”
She frowned, tilting her head. “You can communicate with the deceased?” She turned to Dean. “Why haven’t you told me this?”
He chuckled in return. “It’s another one of those ‘sayings.’ He means that we can see the body tomorrow.”
Her mouth formed the shape of an ‘O’ before she lost interest and turned back to the cards, using her frail fingers to trace the numbers and images, lost in a world of black and red. Dean stood up, groaning as his joints creaked in protest of being stationary too long.
“Dude, she’s like Castiel, only cute.” Dean whispered once he took up shop besides his brother. Sam cast him a look, but bit back the acidic comment on his tongue.
“Beer’s in that bag.” Sam pointed at a plastic bag and Dean went refreshment hunting. The younger brother pulled out some food and grabbed the packages that were full of clothes.
“I’m guessing you’re hungry, and pretty sick of those clothes.” Sam sat down across from their guest, getting a good look at her for the first time. Dean was right - she was cute. Her frame hinted at a once healthy person, but her sunken cheeks and skin-and-bone legs and arms exposed the abuse she had received from the Angels. She looked like her bones didn’t fit inside her body; like they needed to be in a bigger vessel.
She looked at him and smiled, her green eyes piercing his own, and for a moment Sam felt like she was peering into his very soul. Then she leaned forward, glancing hesitantly at the bags. “What are those?”
“Um…” Sam stammered. “I’ve got burgers, tacos, subs and salad to eat.”
“What’s a burger?”
“It’s a patty made from cow meat…” He drifted off as a look of horror crossed her face. “Salad, then.”
Sam handed her the salad enclosed in a plastic container, complete with a knife and fork inside. She grabbed it from him and stared at it, a puzzled look on her face. “You’re people eat their own kin, and enclose natures plants in clear bubbles. I don’t understand.”
She was a cute Castiel.
“Um, you have a name?” Sam asked, digging into the second salad in the bag. Dean, having satisfied his need for beer, sat down next to the two of them, reached across Sam’s lap and grabbed the burger, unwrapping it and erasing half of it in one large bite. Dean and their guest shared a look.
“How about Cassidy?” She asked from her sideways position on the bed, her eyes glued to the computer screen as she used the ‘magic-invisible-mouse…I don’t understand, how can a mouse cause a magic box to work?’ to scroll down the page of names.
“No.” Dean said automatically from his position on the floor. He was staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the lack of beer and the addition of a very attractive and very confused woman who was currently sitting on his bed.
“Why not?” Her stubborn streak was showing already. Dean glanced at the temporary tattoo on his wrist. Castiel sure knew how to give him a good time, even if the Angel hadn’t known what he was doing. Dean had been tied to worst things in his days; one of which being blood.
“Because that’s a long name, and I like making nicknames, adn then I’ll call you Cas, and that’ll just get annoying, confusing, and in some cases, extremely embarrassing.”
She giggled, even though Dean was sure she hadn’t understood the humor. “What about Samantha?”
“No!” Dean shouted before the name was even fully out of her mouth. “Just no.” He was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that she actually did have some sort of idea what was going on. He narrowed his eyes. She could have been lying when she said she would sort out the memories Cas jammed into her when she was sleeping.
“Why?” That was definitely an evil giggle. She turned on the bed, rolling until she was upside down and her head was over the end of the frame, so her hair hung down until it pooled on the floor, and she was staring at him from a tilted world.
“Cause then I’ll call you Sam or Sammy, and that will get really embarrassing and awkward.”
“I don’t understand why it would…It’s a good name.” she stated with a straight face, her demeanor challenging him to say otherwise.
Yeah. Definitely screwing with him. “Pick another name.”
“Fine.” she pouted. Her head disappeared, and Dean went back to staring at the ceiling, this time not thinking about the woman on his bed. It didn’t work very well.
“Shyloh Muse.” she said with a smile, her lips syncing with the correct syllables. Her pronunciation was extremely good.
Sam nodded. “Good name.”
Her smile lit up with the praise, and Dean rolled his eyes, leaning over with his free hand to help her open her salad. The plastic bubble defeated, she dug in, using her fingers as utensils. The brothers exchanged a look, and a silent ‘let-her-be’ passed between them. They had two months to teach her about the etiquette of the twenty-first century.
She finished swallowing her first bite of food for five thousand years and frowned. “This plant…it’s not natural. It tastes like metal and sweat and blood. The stench of corruption and death.” Then she shrugged, and continued to eat.
The boys exchanged another look. Ok, then.
“Uh…I got you some clothes too. You can’t go out tomorrow with those on. I wasn’t sure what size you were, so I grabbed a bunch.” Sam offered another bag. Shyloh stopped eating and took the bag, looking inside with curiosity. All the clothes were simple and plain, Sam not wanting to get her anything too loud. She looked from the pieces in the bag to Sam several times over, her mind clicking into place what exactly they were for as more memories found their place in her mind.
“Thanks.” she replied, again her lips matching the words. She was learning quickly. She rifled through the bag until she found a pair of jean shorts and a simple black t-shirt. She grabbed underwear as well, but stopped when she came to a particular piece of clothing. “What’s this for?”
Dean started to laugh while Sam’s face turned decidedly red.
“I’ll show you later.” Dean said jokingly with a wink, and Shyloh raised an eyebrow in response. She shrugged, tossed the sports bra back into the bag, and turned around, promptly stripping in front of the boys.
They both let out strangled noises as they turned, Sam putting up his hands to block the view faster than his head could turn, while Dean just closed his eyes. It was out of decency, of course. She was new and innocent to this world. They probably ran around naked five thousand years ago.
But Dean had caught a glimpse of her, as he had turned, and he was sure Sam had too. And he really hoped that what they had seen caused a flame of anger to flare up in Sam’s mind too, because if not, Dean would have to check with Castiel and make sure that his brother still had his soul back.
She had tattoos peppering her skin, placed seemingly randomly across her back. There was also a string of them on the back of her left leg, and Dean had seen some previously on her feet. But that wasn’t the issue. The problem was her body shape. He could count her ribs from her back, and her spine looked like it was trying to fight its way through the skin. There were also a shit ton of scars, including stab wounds and lines that looked like they were from whips. They didn’t have weapons like that five thousand years ago, Dean was sure. Which meant those wounds had been inflicted while she had been in the Angel prison, the winged creatures the only things that had access to her.
Dean made a decision that moment. He glanced at the tattoo on his wrist. Shyloh wasn’t going back to that hell-hole. Not if Dean had anything to say about it.
Next Chapter
Topic: Supernatural
Genre: Het, Friendship, Adventure, Horror, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, OFC
Pairings: That would be spoilers ;-)
Beta: jooles34
Summary: The Winchester brothers investigate a few supernatural deaths, and quickly discover that there is more to them than meets the eye. Even their guardian Angel, Castiel, is unable to help them, only point them in the right direction. The boys follow that path, and soon find out that there are things more ancient than Heaven, more evil than the Devil, and that the old saying "Women are complicated" barely scratches the surface.
Spoilers: It's set sometime during Season 6, between episodes "Unforgiven" and "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning." Everything before that is fair game for spoilers.
Authors Note: Sorry for being so late!
Previous Chapter
Since Dean was heavenly connected to their guest, Sam became the official go-for by default. He was currently out on a beer/food/women’s clothing run, along with stopping by the morgue and sweet talking the coroner into allowing them to bring someone else in to examine the bodies. They both believed that was going to be the easy part in all this. Getting a five thousand year old young adult across a city full of things that she couldn’t even imagine exist was going to be the difficult part.
Speaking of the out-of-time woman, she was currently sitting in the middle of Sam’s bed, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins. Her chin was resting on the tip of her knees, and she had been staring at the wallpaper opposite the bed for almost an hour. Her striking green eyes hadn’t moved a centimeter, and Dean was pretty sure that she hadn’t blinked, either. He guessed it was some sort of shock. He knew he’d be pretty screwed up if he was five thousand years out of his time. Surviving that long in a room of nothing had to take its toll as well. He was starting to realize that she might not even be completely with them. She had sounded sane enough in the white room. Then again, when standing in a Heaven holding cell in Israel while listening to an Angel and an ancient human argue, anything sounds sane.
He fidgeted in his seat and looked around for something to do. He stared forlornly at the magic fingers, but he was pretty sure that a vibrating bed would freak her out even more. Plus, he had used up all his quarters. He wondered how Sam made it through this; those long hours that he was out and about after giving Sam strict orders to stay in the room. He glanced at the laptop. Oh, right. Research. Dean sent silent messages of hate to the computer, then shifted his gaze to his wrist. The symbol that Castiel had pressed into his skin was unlike ones that he had seen before. The same symbol was on her wrist now; her previously clean wrist. Something Dean had noticed in these past sixty minutes was that she had a lot of tattoos. There was one on her left wrist, her right palm, and small ones under each fingernail. How she had gotten those there, he didn’t want to think about. His fingernails had been pulled out every day in Hell, but he couldn’t imagine doing it to yourself.
He checked his phone; no messages. He wondered what was taking Sam so long. All he asked for was some Bud Light and a fast food value meal. It couldn’t take this long. Then again, his brother had also been sent to grab some clothes for…Dean faltered. They had no idea what her name was, and he was sure that as soon as Sam got back and found out he didn’t know, the younger man would get on him about it. Dean could hear him now. ‘You spend five minutes with some empty blonde and she’s given you every form of contact information available. But you can’t get a name out of an older woman after an hour?’
Dean cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Hey, um. Yeah. I’m Dean. The tall awkward one who left about an hour ago is my brother, Sam. Castiel - that son-of-a-bitch Angel - tied us together, if you don’t remember, so we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. You have a name or something?” He faltered at the end. What if they didn’t have names at the beginning of civilization? Then what?
She didn’t answer him. A few awkward seconds of silence went by. She didn’t even move an eyelash. Getting up off his chair, Dean moved closer, squatting down right in front of the bed. He waved his hand up and down in front of her face. No response. A little worried - and secretly wondering how her eyes hadn’t dried out if she really hadn’t blinked in an hour - he shifted closer, his eyes lined up with hers. He slowly reached his hand out, aiming for her shoulder to give her a good shake.
She blinked.
Dean froze, his hand seconds from her shoulder. She blinked again, her eyebrow raising slightly upward as she tilted her head. The tips of her mouth tugged downward. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Dean stood up, coughing to cover the move and to hide his surprise. The words he heard hadn’t aligned with how her lips were moving. It made sense, remembering what Sam had said about Castiel giving her a translator. “Nothing, I was just asking what your name was…were you zoned out that entire time?”
She blinked again, her frown increasing. “I don’t understand…”
“Um…What were you doing?” Dean decided to go for the more basic wording. He had no idea what kind of words existed five thousand years ago. This was going to be interesting.
“That Angel friend of yours jammed those memories into me all jumbled. I was putting them in order.” Her language was as much hand gestures as it was words, and Dean found himself getting dizzy watching her fingers move deftly around the open space in front of her.
“Oh.” he said in response, like what she was doing was normal. Of course, things like that shouldn’t surprise him anymore, really.
“And for my name…I guess I don’t have one anymore.” she said, sadness in her voice. She fell silent then, as if the gravity of the situation had finally hit home. She had been in a bubble for the past five thousand years, just existing, shielded from everything outside. Now, she was thrust into the real world, out of time, with no one familiar and nothing to remind her of what life was. She was totally and completely alone. Dean glanced at his wrist and stared at the Enochian insignia. Well, maybe not completely alone.
“Well, can’t go around without a name - people’ll look at you funny.” Dean joked, turning and grabbing Sam’s laptop. His brother had wanted him to do research. Baby names were a kind of research. He logged in and pulled up a browser before offering it to her. She stared at the device, her eyes wide as she fell backwards from it, landing on the bed with a large intake of breath. Right. Five thousand years old. Laptops were a new thing since he was a kid.
“It’s called a laptop.” he tried.
“Lap. Top?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in a fashion that Dean’s brain classified as cute before he realized what was going on. “Why name it something like that?”
“You sit it on top of your lap. It connects to the world wide web, a place that holds all the information in the world, where you can access and read it. A lot easier than searching through old dusty library books, if you ask me.” Dean sat next to her on the bed and showed her, pulling up a baby name website. She watched the entire time with wonder in her eyes. She reached out hesitantly and giggled when the key she typed showed up on screen.
“Magic…” she breathed, and Dean laughed. This was going to be fun.
-
Sam wanted to shoot something. Preferably something evil, but at this point in time, anything would do. The gun didn’t even have to be filled with silver bullets, or be the Colt. An ideal situation would be a Demon (or other monster) chained up, so he could empty clip after clip into the damn thing without repercussions, like the monkey on Pirates of the Caribbean.
Demons, he understood. Ghosts were simple. Monsters were easy. People? Screw it. He was three hundred dollars lighter thanks to that son-of-a-bitch coroner who decided that was the entrance fee for non-badges to step onto the floor of the morgue and examine a body. He was one hundred dollars lighter and at least fifty pounds heavier due to beer and all kinds of food he thought existed because he had no idea what was around five thousand years ago, or what her stomach would be able to take. And finally, he was another two hundred dollars lighter because he had no idea what size she was, what kind of clothes she would like to wear, or where to find the best deals. It was uncomfortable enough shopping for undergarments. The looks the shopping attendants were giving him made him wish that Dean was with him to diffuse the situation. Although, after thinking about that for a few moments, he withdrew that wish.
He didn’t understand how women were able to do it. Jessie loved to go shopping; would disappear for hours at a time and come back with one or two new items of clothing to model for him. It drove him crazy. So many ignorant people bumping into you and stealing the shoes you were looking at when they happened to be the last pair in that size. He was really glad he wasn’t a woman. Sam paused for a moment, unsure whether or not he had actually just thought that. He shivered when he realized he had.
He knocked on the door to their motel room, his hands too full to open it himself. When there was no reply, he pressed his ear to the door, only to hear…laughing. Curious, he balanced the boxes and bags on his arm while he slipped his pinky finger cautiously around the handle, twisting it slowly so not to upset the delicate pyramid of items on his arm. They held, and he quickly slid them back to their original position on both of his arms.
“What the hell took you so long, man?” Dean asked from his position on the floor. He sat Indian style, his shoes off, jacket thrown on the top of the bed and shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up. Any other woman would be staring at the six-pack peaking out from the open shirt, but apparently, not their guest. She sat across from him, staring intently at the cards in her hand, completely focused on the shapes and numbers printed on them.
Sam narrowed his eyes and dumped the bags on the closest flat surface, which happened to be the table. “I thought you were going to research.”
Dean shrugged. “I was, but then she woke up, and I couldn’t let her be all by herself in such a strange world.”
She turned then, lowering the cards enough for Dean to be able to look at them. Surprisingly, the older brother purposefully ignored them. She smiled at Sam and waved with her fingers. “Dean is teaching me the game of ‘Jack the Black.’ You should join us!”
“She’s good - great poker face, you could learn from her, Sammy.”
Sam dug through the bags, finding the clothes. “I got us an appointment with the dead tomorrow morning.”
She frowned, tilting her head. “You can communicate with the deceased?” She turned to Dean. “Why haven’t you told me this?”
He chuckled in return. “It’s another one of those ‘sayings.’ He means that we can see the body tomorrow.”
Her mouth formed the shape of an ‘O’ before she lost interest and turned back to the cards, using her frail fingers to trace the numbers and images, lost in a world of black and red. Dean stood up, groaning as his joints creaked in protest of being stationary too long.
“Dude, she’s like Castiel, only cute.” Dean whispered once he took up shop besides his brother. Sam cast him a look, but bit back the acidic comment on his tongue.
“Beer’s in that bag.” Sam pointed at a plastic bag and Dean went refreshment hunting. The younger brother pulled out some food and grabbed the packages that were full of clothes.
“I’m guessing you’re hungry, and pretty sick of those clothes.” Sam sat down across from their guest, getting a good look at her for the first time. Dean was right - she was cute. Her frame hinted at a once healthy person, but her sunken cheeks and skin-and-bone legs and arms exposed the abuse she had received from the Angels. She looked like her bones didn’t fit inside her body; like they needed to be in a bigger vessel.
She looked at him and smiled, her green eyes piercing his own, and for a moment Sam felt like she was peering into his very soul. Then she leaned forward, glancing hesitantly at the bags. “What are those?”
“Um…” Sam stammered. “I’ve got burgers, tacos, subs and salad to eat.”
“What’s a burger?”
“It’s a patty made from cow meat…” He drifted off as a look of horror crossed her face. “Salad, then.”
Sam handed her the salad enclosed in a plastic container, complete with a knife and fork inside. She grabbed it from him and stared at it, a puzzled look on her face. “You’re people eat their own kin, and enclose natures plants in clear bubbles. I don’t understand.”
She was a cute Castiel.
“Um, you have a name?” Sam asked, digging into the second salad in the bag. Dean, having satisfied his need for beer, sat down next to the two of them, reached across Sam’s lap and grabbed the burger, unwrapping it and erasing half of it in one large bite. Dean and their guest shared a look.
“How about Cassidy?” She asked from her sideways position on the bed, her eyes glued to the computer screen as she used the ‘magic-invisible-mouse…I don’t understand, how can a mouse cause a magic box to work?’ to scroll down the page of names.
“No.” Dean said automatically from his position on the floor. He was staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the lack of beer and the addition of a very attractive and very confused woman who was currently sitting on his bed.
“Why not?” Her stubborn streak was showing already. Dean glanced at the temporary tattoo on his wrist. Castiel sure knew how to give him a good time, even if the Angel hadn’t known what he was doing. Dean had been tied to worst things in his days; one of which being blood.
“Because that’s a long name, and I like making nicknames, adn then I’ll call you Cas, and that’ll just get annoying, confusing, and in some cases, extremely embarrassing.”
She giggled, even though Dean was sure she hadn’t understood the humor. “What about Samantha?”
“No!” Dean shouted before the name was even fully out of her mouth. “Just no.” He was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that she actually did have some sort of idea what was going on. He narrowed his eyes. She could have been lying when she said she would sort out the memories Cas jammed into her when she was sleeping.
“Why?” That was definitely an evil giggle. She turned on the bed, rolling until she was upside down and her head was over the end of the frame, so her hair hung down until it pooled on the floor, and she was staring at him from a tilted world.
“Cause then I’ll call you Sam or Sammy, and that will get really embarrassing and awkward.”
“I don’t understand why it would…It’s a good name.” she stated with a straight face, her demeanor challenging him to say otherwise.
Yeah. Definitely screwing with him. “Pick another name.”
“Fine.” she pouted. Her head disappeared, and Dean went back to staring at the ceiling, this time not thinking about the woman on his bed. It didn’t work very well.
“Shyloh Muse.” she said with a smile, her lips syncing with the correct syllables. Her pronunciation was extremely good.
Sam nodded. “Good name.”
Her smile lit up with the praise, and Dean rolled his eyes, leaning over with his free hand to help her open her salad. The plastic bubble defeated, she dug in, using her fingers as utensils. The brothers exchanged a look, and a silent ‘let-her-be’ passed between them. They had two months to teach her about the etiquette of the twenty-first century.
She finished swallowing her first bite of food for five thousand years and frowned. “This plant…it’s not natural. It tastes like metal and sweat and blood. The stench of corruption and death.” Then she shrugged, and continued to eat.
The boys exchanged another look. Ok, then.
“Uh…I got you some clothes too. You can’t go out tomorrow with those on. I wasn’t sure what size you were, so I grabbed a bunch.” Sam offered another bag. Shyloh stopped eating and took the bag, looking inside with curiosity. All the clothes were simple and plain, Sam not wanting to get her anything too loud. She looked from the pieces in the bag to Sam several times over, her mind clicking into place what exactly they were for as more memories found their place in her mind.
“Thanks.” she replied, again her lips matching the words. She was learning quickly. She rifled through the bag until she found a pair of jean shorts and a simple black t-shirt. She grabbed underwear as well, but stopped when she came to a particular piece of clothing. “What’s this for?”
Dean started to laugh while Sam’s face turned decidedly red.
“I’ll show you later.” Dean said jokingly with a wink, and Shyloh raised an eyebrow in response. She shrugged, tossed the sports bra back into the bag, and turned around, promptly stripping in front of the boys.
They both let out strangled noises as they turned, Sam putting up his hands to block the view faster than his head could turn, while Dean just closed his eyes. It was out of decency, of course. She was new and innocent to this world. They probably ran around naked five thousand years ago.
But Dean had caught a glimpse of her, as he had turned, and he was sure Sam had too. And he really hoped that what they had seen caused a flame of anger to flare up in Sam’s mind too, because if not, Dean would have to check with Castiel and make sure that his brother still had his soul back.
She had tattoos peppering her skin, placed seemingly randomly across her back. There was also a string of them on the back of her left leg, and Dean had seen some previously on her feet. But that wasn’t the issue. The problem was her body shape. He could count her ribs from her back, and her spine looked like it was trying to fight its way through the skin. There were also a shit ton of scars, including stab wounds and lines that looked like they were from whips. They didn’t have weapons like that five thousand years ago, Dean was sure. Which meant those wounds had been inflicted while she had been in the Angel prison, the winged creatures the only things that had access to her.
Dean made a decision that moment. He glanced at the tattoo on his wrist. Shyloh wasn’t going back to that hell-hole. Not if Dean had anything to say about it.
Next Chapter