fic: World is so Wrong
Title: World is so Wrong
Pairings: Gen
Rating/warnings: PG-13; mentions of child abuse
Word Count: ~4000
Summary: Two nights before Christmas, Ellen picks up a hitchhiker. He says his name is Dean Plant and he's going to visit his uncle.
Notes: Fills the prompt Hunger/Starvation on my hc_bingo card. I wanted to have this done for Christmas, but, uh, that didn't happen. Title and lyrics are taken from John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is Over).
December 23, 1997
Ellen Harvelle almost never picked up hitchhikers, not anymore. She used to, when she was young and wild, but not now. Never since she and Bill had gotten into the business, and especially now that she was all Jo had left. She wasn’t going to risk giving a lift to someone that looked like a poor lost fool; she knew that the chances of him or her turning out to be a vampire, or a werewolf, or a shifter -well, granted, they weren’t high. Probably. But they were there, and as long as it was possible for the hitchers to be the wrong type of monster, she’d be damned if she was going to risk herself like that.
But then again, she didn’t usually go out hunting either, ever since Bill had gone and gotten himself screwed over. It was her job to run the Roadhouse and be a center point for the web of hunters out there; it was risking it to take time off and go trotting on out after a hunt herself. And Jo, Jo needed her. She was too young to have that glamorous image of monster hunting that she had in her head shattered through experience.
Still, every now and then, she would just get the urge to go out and actually do something, something more hands-on than passing on info on the goblin attacks in Austin, or making sure everyone knew that their favorite ammo was now illegal in Maine and parts of Florida. And Jo, well, Jo needed to learn more about what was out there for her own good, and Ellen was fully willing to admit that she wasn’t the greatest teacher out there. So when Jim volunteered to take her in for a few weeks, show her the ropes of demonology and exorcisms, Ellen couldn’t resist jumping on the offer. And Jo had wanted to do it too. Jo wanted to learn everything about hunting, even if it meant leaving behind her ma for a few weeks.
So that was how Ellen came to be driving down from North Dakota, right along the South Dakota/Minnesota border, on the evening before Christmas Eve. And that was when she saw the hitchhiker.
He couldn’t have been any older than sixteen. The only things he had so far as weather-appropriate winter clothes were a pair of ripped jeans and an old leather jacket. His hand, the one he wasn't sticking out, was shoved into its pocket. Beyond that, there wasn't anything, not even a hat on his head. He was hunched over, had to be freezing, and walking the same way she was driving.
For a moment, their eyes met. She shook her head and drove on.
The street they were on was empty, and Ellen had the freedom to be coasting down it at whatever speed pleased her. It wasn’t long before the hitchhiker was long out of sight in her rearview mirrors.
She wondered what he had been doing out there, especially in this weather. It looked like it was about to snow, for God’s sake; the last of the sunset was almost completely obscured by silky grey clouds that stretched over its bright rays. The fields and the empty, treeless spaces she saw in her rearview mirrors were already slushy from a recent snowstorm, and likely to be entirely white by Christmas day.
He was probably just a kid who’d fallen in with the wrong crowd; probably going to meet up with some more of his druggie friends. Reputable kids didn't hitchhike -she should know; she had, and all of her friends, and none of them had been anywhere near upstanding citizens. The hitcher couldn't have been up to any good.
But damn, he had looked desperate. And cold.
Ellen reached over, fiddling with the radio. Hell, the last vampire she’d axed hadn’t looked that happy either. Bad things came in sad-looking packages.
The sound of John Lennon singing filled the car.
"So this is Christmas
And what have you done..."
She grimaced. Christmas carols, of course they would be the only things that she got in clearly out here. Even John Lennon couldn't make up for the fact that they were the songs that graced the Roadhouse's (admittedly poor) sound system from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, on the insistence of the patrons there, most of whom were large, burly men -the very image of hard, rock-music masculinity- and who had no logical reason to like Christmas, anyway, seeing as Jim was the only Christian hunter of any denomination that she could think of.
Ellen reached over, fully intending to switch it --listening to something that was fuzzy but likeable would be a fair trade for a song with clear reception that she'd grown sick of years before-but instead she hesitated, one hand hovering over the dial. Jo loved John Lennon. Hell, she loved all of the Beatles.
Reluctantly, she placed her hand back on the wheel without changing the stations. For Jo.
If anything ever happened to Jo, if her daughter ever had to hitch for a ride for whatever reason, she'd want someone to be there for her. Some stranger, some good Samaritan. Someone who'd get her where she needed to go without exposing her to the horrors that humans could cause.
"A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear..."
She shivered. It was cold in the car, and she'd been driving for over an hour. Couldn't be more than forty-five degrees in it. Had to be half that outside.
That kid had looked like he was freezing. And the road they were on, it was dead. There was almost no chance anyone else would be coming along.
"For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong..."
"Oh, fuck it!" she snapped and, without really knowing why she was doing it, she gripped the wheel and swung the car around, pulling a move that would have gotten her a ticket so high she'd have to sell off the Roadhouse to pay it.
Ellen reached into her glove compartment one-handed, making sure that she still had that pistol in there for easy access. There was a knife holstered to her wrist, covered by her jacket, but that wasn't always enough. And while the boy probably was nothing more than a boy, a human who figured that the things she hunted were tales told to scare little children, no one was ever killed by being too careful.
When she withdrew her hand, she was holding two flat, coin-like discs, silver and iron. She dropped them on the passenger seat. He could move them, and if he couldn't, well, he wouldn't be allowed in.
At the speed she was going, it was only a few minutes before she saw him again, a dark silhouette still determinedly walking down the road, thumb hitched out. She turned around again, slowed until she was alongside him, and rolled down the passenger-side window.
Even in the dim light, she could see the relief in his face as he loped towards the car. When he bent down, looking into the window, she could see the bags under his eyes, making him look much older than the impression she had gotten when she saw him for the first time. "Where're you heading, kid?"
"Sioux Falls. South Dakota."
He even sounded weary, and relieved, and hopeful. Ellen would be damned if that didn't tug at her heartstrings just a little bit.
Sioux Falls, that was where Bobby Singer lived. It was on the way to Blue Earth. If she kept driving -and she would; she wanted to surprise Jo by being back before noon on Christmas Eve- she could get him there in two hours, maybe a bit more if traffic was bad on any of the highways.
"I've been there before, and it's on my way to where I'm off to now." She paused. The kid didn't look dangerous, not at all. He just looked cold, tired, and sad.
But she couldn't take risks. "Tell you what. My name's Ellen. I'll give you a lift to where you need to get to now, but you're gonna have to let me frisk you first. I'm an officer -retired one, anyway- and I can't have any weapons brought into my car."
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
She parked the car on the side of the road -hell, there was no one else coming-and stepped out, shivering. The sun had just finished setting, but already it felt like it was below freezing.
“What’s your name?” she asked, walking around to where he was standing. He was digging around in his jacket, looking for something -money, gloves, whatever. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She wouldn’t take any payment even if he offered it.
“Dean. Dean… Plant.” He -Dean, she reminded herself-withdrew his hand from inside his jacket. A switchblade lay in his palm, still folded up.
Ellen reacted before he could, grabbing his wrist and twisting it. “Drop it!” Goddamn it, this was what she got for trying to help?
“Take it. Please.” Dean let it fall out of his palm and into the slush, hand shaking with cold. “Please; I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you, I swear; I figured -just thought that it would be better to give it to you now than have you find it on your own; I swear, it’s all I’ve got on me.”
She didn’t relax, though she did let release his wrist. Years of finely-honed senses told Ellen that he was telling the truth, but that wasn’t enough to make her let down her guard. She bent down and picked the blade off of the ground, eyes never leaving Dean’s face. Slipping it into her own pocket, she stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Take off your jacket,” she ordered.
He complied, slowly peeling it off one arm and then the other. His movements were hindered by his shivers, and she couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been out on the road.
When he was done, the jacket in her hand, she could see that all he had on under it was a thin white t-shirt. That’d explain part of it, then. Who the hell went out into a South Dakota winter in clothes meant for summer?
Ellen tossed the leather coat onto the hood of her car, and began patting down Dean’s shoulder and torso. She was almost certain he didn’t have anything concealed under the shirt -it was too thin for that; hell, if she could see the outline of his ribs and his shoulder blades, she would probably have been able to see a weapon, but it still wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.
Trying to distract him from the somewhat humiliating search (because damn, she was getting soft; usually, she’d be fine with him squirming around as an old lady felt him up, seeing as he was the one hitchhiking, after all) she asked, “What are you goin’ to Sioux Falls for?”
He flinched as her hands worked lower, checking for weapons holstered to his hips and thighs. “I got family there.” After a moment he elaborated, “My uncle and my brother.”
"Can't come to pick you up?"
"Didn’t have any way to call ahead.”
“Hmm.” The kid didn’t have any other weapons on him. Ellen picked his jacket back up and felt around inside its pockets. Nothing there, save for a few crumpled tissues and a couple of coins.
She tossed it back to him. “Hell, more of a question is why the hell a kid your age is out here on his own, without even a winter jacket. Not that I’m asking,” she added. “None of my business. Just, Cristo, it’s cold out here, and, well, you saw hitchhikers back when I was a kid. These days, it’s a dead art -most people just take the bus.”
Ellen watched him carefully, checking to see if the “Cristo” had gotten a response, but Dean didn’t seem to have noticed. He just shrugged, hands stuffed into his pockets, and mumbled, “Buses cost money.”
“Fair enough.” She walked over to the driver’s door, breath forming visible clouds in the icy air. “Come on in. It’s unlocked; you can just clear the junk off of the passenger’s seat.”
She waited as Dean slid in, picking the discs up as he did, and then dropping them down onto the dashboard. They didn’t hurt him; he didn’t flinch as he dropped them down, and they hadn’t marked his hand at all. If she could, she would have tried piercing his skin with a silver knife -but for all she could tell, he was human. He was just a human kid, who needed to get to Sioux Falls, to where his uncle and his brother were.
When he’d pulled the door behind him and buckled his seatbelt, she revved up the car and turned in the direction of Sioux Falls. She glanced at the clock -just past five. They’d make good time.
They drove in silence, Dean sitting rigidly in his seat while she sat back and coasted down the road, still cautious of black ice. It was a picturesque Christmas Eve Eve, she thought. Looking out of her windows, all that she could see were fields stretching out into the horizon, with an occasional house off in the distance. Snow was just beginning to fall, not yet coming down hard enough to screw with her visibility. As screwed-up as she knew things usually were behind the traditional image of small-town Americana, and as little as she sometimes had to celebrate, Ellen had to admit that she loved the classic picture of Christmas.
Time passed uneventfully. The snow fell steadily around them, and Ellen wondered if maybe she should find some place to hole up after she dropped the kid off in Sioux Falls. Maybe even room with Bobby Singer for the night; God alone knew how many nights she’d let him spend at the Roadhouse without board.
In the seat next to her, Dean hadn’t said a word. He just curled in to the faded leather seat, tucked his hands into his jacket, and stared out the window, like the swirling white patterns held something for him.
Ellen was contemplating turning on the radio, seeing if they could get anything better than Jingle Bells in, when she heard Dean’s stomach rumble. It was undoubtedly him-sure as hell hadn’t been her, and she’d been around enough masses of starving folk to know the sound.
She spared a glance towards him. In the dim glow of the headlights, she could see how tense his jaw was. The distinct flush of embarrassment was clear on his face as he wrapped his arms tighter around his body and sank even further into the seat. He pointedly ignored her look.
Fuck. He was skinny enough as it was, and the mother in her--which, for that matter, was damned near all of her--had to wonder where the hell he'd come from. What parents, if any, would let their child fall into that sort of shape.
"Kid," she said, watching the road ahead of her, "When was the last time you had a good meal?"
There was a pause, and she knew he was debating whether or not to lie to her. A moment later he answered in a low voice, "I dunno. Day or two."
She nodded, believing him. And from his appearance, she had her doubts about how good those meals before were. “Where you coming from?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Ellen raised an eyebrow, hiding a smile. Dean almost reminded her of Jo, if a less-fed, more lawless version of her. He sure had lip enough to match her. “I’m the one driving the car you’re in. Seems I got the right to ask what a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself is doing hitchhiking two days before Christmas.”
He snorted at that. A moment later he said, “It’s nothing. I just…screwed something up and my father kicked me out.”
“Your dad sent you to hitchhike across the country in the middle of winter? With no money. Or food. He do that a lot?”
She had tried to keep her words light (although God knew that she had a hell of a lot of words for any bastard who’d do that to their own child) but by the way Dean tensed up, she had failed. “My dad’s a good man,” he said quietly. “And anyway, it’s not like he was planning to. He was just pissed cause I’d messed up so badly.”
“My girl would have to have killed someone before I’d do that to her.”
Dean shrugged and muttered something about how sometimes mistakes could do that. And after that Ellen let the car lapse into silence, because there wasn’t much else that she had to say. Only that Dean’s father was an ass and a half, and that wasn’t something that he was going to want to hear.
They were fifteen miles from Sioux Falls, having since turned off the highway, when Ellen spotted made a snap decision. She couldn’t just sit there and let the probably-abused kid sitting next to her starve. Fuck, that wasn’t even her being soft. That was her being a decent human being.
Dean sat up a little when she turned into the parking lot of the McDonalds (which, as a connoisseur of diner food, she knew sucked pretty badly, but it was late and beggars couldn’t be choosers). He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but she was at the drive-through and ordering before he could.
“Two double-cheeseburgers. Everything on them. Large fries.” She glanced at Dean. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
He frowned and shook his head, like he had no idea where she was going with this. Which, maybe he didn’t.
“Good. A small chicken McNuggets too, please. Dean, what do you want to drink?”
Dean seemed to have regained his bearings. “Look, I can’t just-”
“And a medium Coke. Thanks.” There was no line for the pickup window; at this hour, they were the only ones there. “Hope you’re not into Pepsi.”
“No. Shouldn’t you be having something to drink?”
It was more challenge than genuine question, and they both knew it. “If I ate like that, my arteries would be clogged in a day. But - and don’t take offense at this-you look like you could use some more fat on your bones.”
The window slid open, and a tired-looking worker traded her cash for an ice-cold plastic cup and a bag that smelled like salt and grease. She checked the order over once, and then set the Coke in the cup holder and held the food out to Dean as she drove one-handed. “Here you go.”
“Look, I can’t just take this, I-”
“Eat,” she said firmly, pressing the bag against him. “You know I didn’t poison it ‘cause you’re sitting right next to me. And I know it’s not the best-tasting stuff out there, and it sure ain’t doing points for you health-wise-but kid, you’ve gotta eat something.”
“I’m not some charity case,” he replied. The words were made considerably less effective by the way that his eyes were glued on the bag.
“Yeah, well, I’m not some soft-hearted Samaritan who feeds every hitchhiker I see. But I am the one that’s driving this car, and if you want to make it to Sioux Falls, I’d suggest you stop talking and start chewing.”
He glanced at her for a moment, and then shook his head, a small smile dancing at his lips. “You drive a hard bargain, you know that?”
“I do my best,” she replied, and she didn’t show her elation when he finally reached into the paper bag and pulled out a fat, greasy burger.
They didn’t talk until she reached the Now Entering Sioux Falls sign. Dean, who’d been eating like a starving man (which, she figured, he probably was) glanced up, frowned at it, and swallowed down the last of the fries. “You can just drop me off here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
He busied himself with gathering up the wrappers from his meal, deliberately not meeting her eyes. Which was good, because she didn’t think he’d take well to the “Fuck no” expression she knew she had. Where in Sioux Falls he was heading Ellen didn’t know, but it was a damn big city. Not a good place for someone to be walking around alone after dark.
“It’s snowing out. You’ll freeze.” She shook her head. The first part wasn’t entirely true-it was actually clearing up; she could see the waning moon poking out above them-but she figured that the lie was justified. “I’ve taken you this far; I can drive-”
“No,” he replied firmly. “I can walk. I’ll be fine.”
She sighed. His jaw was set and his eyes were stubborn, the sort of expression she’d seen on Jo time and time again. Maybe she could win an argument against it when she had the “I am your mother and you’ll do as I say” card, but now? Against a strange boy that she knew next to nothing about, who already had made it clear that he was determined to accept the absolute minimum of her goodwill? She had lost from the moment that he’d stepped inside the car.
“It’s not gonna trouble me any,” she said in a last-ditch attempt to save him from frostbite in unpleasant places.
“I know. I’d just rather get there by myself, okay?”
She nodded, slowing down and pulling over. “You sure you got somewhere to go? You’re not just telling me to drop you off ‘cause you need to find a bridge or something, right?”
“If I didn’t have anywhere to go, I’d just stay here all night. It’s a hell of a lot warmer than the streets,” he replied, smiling for a moment. “Look, I’d just rather…not have you know where I’m going. I mean, you seem like a good enough lady and all, but…”
He shrugged and she nodded. She might not want him out there by himself, but it made sense. Just because she’d driven him this far didn’t mean that he should automatically trust her. “Well then. Take care of yourself, Dean Plant.”
“I will. Thanks for everything…” he paused, and she realized that she’d never told him her name.
“Ellen. And, hey. Don’t forget this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out his switch blade. “Hope you don’t have to use it.”
“Yeah, me too.” He pocketed it and reached for his door handle. Not opening it immediately, he nodded at the empty McDonald’s bag and asked, “You want me to take the trash out?”
“No. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” He lingered in the warmth of a car for a moment longer. Then, just as Ellen was about to repeat her offer to take him all the way to his uncle’s, he opened up the door, and stepped out onto the empty road. “Again, thanks. And, uh, merry Christmas.”
“My pleasure. And same to you.”
Ellen watched him jog up the street, apparently knowing right where he was going, until finally he was out of sight. She resisted the urge to trail him; something told her that he would notice, and he wouldn’t be too happy about it.
It was no longer snowing, and the night was cold and clear. The encounter with the hitchhiker had left her feeling alert and awake, and she knew that she could make it to Blue Earth before the sun rose. She could stop by Singer’s another day.
She started up the car and began the drive to where Jo was waiting for her, and let herself hope that Dean had someone out there who was waiting just as eagerly for him.
Pairings: Gen
Rating/warnings: PG-13; mentions of child abuse
Word Count: ~4000
Summary: Two nights before Christmas, Ellen picks up a hitchhiker. He says his name is Dean Plant and he's going to visit his uncle.
Notes: Fills the prompt Hunger/Starvation on my hc_bingo card. I wanted to have this done for Christmas, but, uh, that didn't happen. Title and lyrics are taken from John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is Over).
December 23, 1997
Ellen Harvelle almost never picked up hitchhikers, not anymore. She used to, when she was young and wild, but not now. Never since she and Bill had gotten into the business, and especially now that she was all Jo had left. She wasn’t going to risk giving a lift to someone that looked like a poor lost fool; she knew that the chances of him or her turning out to be a vampire, or a werewolf, or a shifter -well, granted, they weren’t high. Probably. But they were there, and as long as it was possible for the hitchers to be the wrong type of monster, she’d be damned if she was going to risk herself like that.
But then again, she didn’t usually go out hunting either, ever since Bill had gone and gotten himself screwed over. It was her job to run the Roadhouse and be a center point for the web of hunters out there; it was risking it to take time off and go trotting on out after a hunt herself. And Jo, Jo needed her. She was too young to have that glamorous image of monster hunting that she had in her head shattered through experience.
Still, every now and then, she would just get the urge to go out and actually do something, something more hands-on than passing on info on the goblin attacks in Austin, or making sure everyone knew that their favorite ammo was now illegal in Maine and parts of Florida. And Jo, well, Jo needed to learn more about what was out there for her own good, and Ellen was fully willing to admit that she wasn’t the greatest teacher out there. So when Jim volunteered to take her in for a few weeks, show her the ropes of demonology and exorcisms, Ellen couldn’t resist jumping on the offer. And Jo had wanted to do it too. Jo wanted to learn everything about hunting, even if it meant leaving behind her ma for a few weeks.
So that was how Ellen came to be driving down from North Dakota, right along the South Dakota/Minnesota border, on the evening before Christmas Eve. And that was when she saw the hitchhiker.
He couldn’t have been any older than sixteen. The only things he had so far as weather-appropriate winter clothes were a pair of ripped jeans and an old leather jacket. His hand, the one he wasn't sticking out, was shoved into its pocket. Beyond that, there wasn't anything, not even a hat on his head. He was hunched over, had to be freezing, and walking the same way she was driving.
For a moment, their eyes met. She shook her head and drove on.
The street they were on was empty, and Ellen had the freedom to be coasting down it at whatever speed pleased her. It wasn’t long before the hitchhiker was long out of sight in her rearview mirrors.
She wondered what he had been doing out there, especially in this weather. It looked like it was about to snow, for God’s sake; the last of the sunset was almost completely obscured by silky grey clouds that stretched over its bright rays. The fields and the empty, treeless spaces she saw in her rearview mirrors were already slushy from a recent snowstorm, and likely to be entirely white by Christmas day.
He was probably just a kid who’d fallen in with the wrong crowd; probably going to meet up with some more of his druggie friends. Reputable kids didn't hitchhike -she should know; she had, and all of her friends, and none of them had been anywhere near upstanding citizens. The hitcher couldn't have been up to any good.
But damn, he had looked desperate. And cold.
Ellen reached over, fiddling with the radio. Hell, the last vampire she’d axed hadn’t looked that happy either. Bad things came in sad-looking packages.
The sound of John Lennon singing filled the car.
"So this is Christmas
And what have you done..."
She grimaced. Christmas carols, of course they would be the only things that she got in clearly out here. Even John Lennon couldn't make up for the fact that they were the songs that graced the Roadhouse's (admittedly poor) sound system from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, on the insistence of the patrons there, most of whom were large, burly men -the very image of hard, rock-music masculinity- and who had no logical reason to like Christmas, anyway, seeing as Jim was the only Christian hunter of any denomination that she could think of.
Ellen reached over, fully intending to switch it --listening to something that was fuzzy but likeable would be a fair trade for a song with clear reception that she'd grown sick of years before-but instead she hesitated, one hand hovering over the dial. Jo loved John Lennon. Hell, she loved all of the Beatles.
Reluctantly, she placed her hand back on the wheel without changing the stations. For Jo.
If anything ever happened to Jo, if her daughter ever had to hitch for a ride for whatever reason, she'd want someone to be there for her. Some stranger, some good Samaritan. Someone who'd get her where she needed to go without exposing her to the horrors that humans could cause.
"A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear..."
She shivered. It was cold in the car, and she'd been driving for over an hour. Couldn't be more than forty-five degrees in it. Had to be half that outside.
That kid had looked like he was freezing. And the road they were on, it was dead. There was almost no chance anyone else would be coming along.
"For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong..."
"Oh, fuck it!" she snapped and, without really knowing why she was doing it, she gripped the wheel and swung the car around, pulling a move that would have gotten her a ticket so high she'd have to sell off the Roadhouse to pay it.
Ellen reached into her glove compartment one-handed, making sure that she still had that pistol in there for easy access. There was a knife holstered to her wrist, covered by her jacket, but that wasn't always enough. And while the boy probably was nothing more than a boy, a human who figured that the things she hunted were tales told to scare little children, no one was ever killed by being too careful.
When she withdrew her hand, she was holding two flat, coin-like discs, silver and iron. She dropped them on the passenger seat. He could move them, and if he couldn't, well, he wouldn't be allowed in.
At the speed she was going, it was only a few minutes before she saw him again, a dark silhouette still determinedly walking down the road, thumb hitched out. She turned around again, slowed until she was alongside him, and rolled down the passenger-side window.
Even in the dim light, she could see the relief in his face as he loped towards the car. When he bent down, looking into the window, she could see the bags under his eyes, making him look much older than the impression she had gotten when she saw him for the first time. "Where're you heading, kid?"
"Sioux Falls. South Dakota."
He even sounded weary, and relieved, and hopeful. Ellen would be damned if that didn't tug at her heartstrings just a little bit.
Sioux Falls, that was where Bobby Singer lived. It was on the way to Blue Earth. If she kept driving -and she would; she wanted to surprise Jo by being back before noon on Christmas Eve- she could get him there in two hours, maybe a bit more if traffic was bad on any of the highways.
"I've been there before, and it's on my way to where I'm off to now." She paused. The kid didn't look dangerous, not at all. He just looked cold, tired, and sad.
But she couldn't take risks. "Tell you what. My name's Ellen. I'll give you a lift to where you need to get to now, but you're gonna have to let me frisk you first. I'm an officer -retired one, anyway- and I can't have any weapons brought into my car."
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
She parked the car on the side of the road -hell, there was no one else coming-and stepped out, shivering. The sun had just finished setting, but already it felt like it was below freezing.
“What’s your name?” she asked, walking around to where he was standing. He was digging around in his jacket, looking for something -money, gloves, whatever. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She wouldn’t take any payment even if he offered it.
“Dean. Dean… Plant.” He -Dean, she reminded herself-withdrew his hand from inside his jacket. A switchblade lay in his palm, still folded up.
Ellen reacted before he could, grabbing his wrist and twisting it. “Drop it!” Goddamn it, this was what she got for trying to help?
“Take it. Please.” Dean let it fall out of his palm and into the slush, hand shaking with cold. “Please; I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you, I swear; I figured -just thought that it would be better to give it to you now than have you find it on your own; I swear, it’s all I’ve got on me.”
She didn’t relax, though she did let release his wrist. Years of finely-honed senses told Ellen that he was telling the truth, but that wasn’t enough to make her let down her guard. She bent down and picked the blade off of the ground, eyes never leaving Dean’s face. Slipping it into her own pocket, she stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Take off your jacket,” she ordered.
He complied, slowly peeling it off one arm and then the other. His movements were hindered by his shivers, and she couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been out on the road.
When he was done, the jacket in her hand, she could see that all he had on under it was a thin white t-shirt. That’d explain part of it, then. Who the hell went out into a South Dakota winter in clothes meant for summer?
Ellen tossed the leather coat onto the hood of her car, and began patting down Dean’s shoulder and torso. She was almost certain he didn’t have anything concealed under the shirt -it was too thin for that; hell, if she could see the outline of his ribs and his shoulder blades, she would probably have been able to see a weapon, but it still wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.
Trying to distract him from the somewhat humiliating search (because damn, she was getting soft; usually, she’d be fine with him squirming around as an old lady felt him up, seeing as he was the one hitchhiking, after all) she asked, “What are you goin’ to Sioux Falls for?”
He flinched as her hands worked lower, checking for weapons holstered to his hips and thighs. “I got family there.” After a moment he elaborated, “My uncle and my brother.”
"Can't come to pick you up?"
"Didn’t have any way to call ahead.”
“Hmm.” The kid didn’t have any other weapons on him. Ellen picked his jacket back up and felt around inside its pockets. Nothing there, save for a few crumpled tissues and a couple of coins.
She tossed it back to him. “Hell, more of a question is why the hell a kid your age is out here on his own, without even a winter jacket. Not that I’m asking,” she added. “None of my business. Just, Cristo, it’s cold out here, and, well, you saw hitchhikers back when I was a kid. These days, it’s a dead art -most people just take the bus.”
Ellen watched him carefully, checking to see if the “Cristo” had gotten a response, but Dean didn’t seem to have noticed. He just shrugged, hands stuffed into his pockets, and mumbled, “Buses cost money.”
“Fair enough.” She walked over to the driver’s door, breath forming visible clouds in the icy air. “Come on in. It’s unlocked; you can just clear the junk off of the passenger’s seat.”
She waited as Dean slid in, picking the discs up as he did, and then dropping them down onto the dashboard. They didn’t hurt him; he didn’t flinch as he dropped them down, and they hadn’t marked his hand at all. If she could, she would have tried piercing his skin with a silver knife -but for all she could tell, he was human. He was just a human kid, who needed to get to Sioux Falls, to where his uncle and his brother were.
When he’d pulled the door behind him and buckled his seatbelt, she revved up the car and turned in the direction of Sioux Falls. She glanced at the clock -just past five. They’d make good time.
They drove in silence, Dean sitting rigidly in his seat while she sat back and coasted down the road, still cautious of black ice. It was a picturesque Christmas Eve Eve, she thought. Looking out of her windows, all that she could see were fields stretching out into the horizon, with an occasional house off in the distance. Snow was just beginning to fall, not yet coming down hard enough to screw with her visibility. As screwed-up as she knew things usually were behind the traditional image of small-town Americana, and as little as she sometimes had to celebrate, Ellen had to admit that she loved the classic picture of Christmas.
Time passed uneventfully. The snow fell steadily around them, and Ellen wondered if maybe she should find some place to hole up after she dropped the kid off in Sioux Falls. Maybe even room with Bobby Singer for the night; God alone knew how many nights she’d let him spend at the Roadhouse without board.
In the seat next to her, Dean hadn’t said a word. He just curled in to the faded leather seat, tucked his hands into his jacket, and stared out the window, like the swirling white patterns held something for him.
Ellen was contemplating turning on the radio, seeing if they could get anything better than Jingle Bells in, when she heard Dean’s stomach rumble. It was undoubtedly him-sure as hell hadn’t been her, and she’d been around enough masses of starving folk to know the sound.
She spared a glance towards him. In the dim glow of the headlights, she could see how tense his jaw was. The distinct flush of embarrassment was clear on his face as he wrapped his arms tighter around his body and sank even further into the seat. He pointedly ignored her look.
Fuck. He was skinny enough as it was, and the mother in her--which, for that matter, was damned near all of her--had to wonder where the hell he'd come from. What parents, if any, would let their child fall into that sort of shape.
"Kid," she said, watching the road ahead of her, "When was the last time you had a good meal?"
There was a pause, and she knew he was debating whether or not to lie to her. A moment later he answered in a low voice, "I dunno. Day or two."
She nodded, believing him. And from his appearance, she had her doubts about how good those meals before were. “Where you coming from?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Ellen raised an eyebrow, hiding a smile. Dean almost reminded her of Jo, if a less-fed, more lawless version of her. He sure had lip enough to match her. “I’m the one driving the car you’re in. Seems I got the right to ask what a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself is doing hitchhiking two days before Christmas.”
He snorted at that. A moment later he said, “It’s nothing. I just…screwed something up and my father kicked me out.”
“Your dad sent you to hitchhike across the country in the middle of winter? With no money. Or food. He do that a lot?”
She had tried to keep her words light (although God knew that she had a hell of a lot of words for any bastard who’d do that to their own child) but by the way Dean tensed up, she had failed. “My dad’s a good man,” he said quietly. “And anyway, it’s not like he was planning to. He was just pissed cause I’d messed up so badly.”
“My girl would have to have killed someone before I’d do that to her.”
Dean shrugged and muttered something about how sometimes mistakes could do that. And after that Ellen let the car lapse into silence, because there wasn’t much else that she had to say. Only that Dean’s father was an ass and a half, and that wasn’t something that he was going to want to hear.
They were fifteen miles from Sioux Falls, having since turned off the highway, when Ellen spotted made a snap decision. She couldn’t just sit there and let the probably-abused kid sitting next to her starve. Fuck, that wasn’t even her being soft. That was her being a decent human being.
Dean sat up a little when she turned into the parking lot of the McDonalds (which, as a connoisseur of diner food, she knew sucked pretty badly, but it was late and beggars couldn’t be choosers). He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but she was at the drive-through and ordering before he could.
“Two double-cheeseburgers. Everything on them. Large fries.” She glanced at Dean. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
He frowned and shook his head, like he had no idea where she was going with this. Which, maybe he didn’t.
“Good. A small chicken McNuggets too, please. Dean, what do you want to drink?”
Dean seemed to have regained his bearings. “Look, I can’t just-”
“And a medium Coke. Thanks.” There was no line for the pickup window; at this hour, they were the only ones there. “Hope you’re not into Pepsi.”
“No. Shouldn’t you be having something to drink?”
It was more challenge than genuine question, and they both knew it. “If I ate like that, my arteries would be clogged in a day. But - and don’t take offense at this-you look like you could use some more fat on your bones.”
The window slid open, and a tired-looking worker traded her cash for an ice-cold plastic cup and a bag that smelled like salt and grease. She checked the order over once, and then set the Coke in the cup holder and held the food out to Dean as she drove one-handed. “Here you go.”
“Look, I can’t just take this, I-”
“Eat,” she said firmly, pressing the bag against him. “You know I didn’t poison it ‘cause you’re sitting right next to me. And I know it’s not the best-tasting stuff out there, and it sure ain’t doing points for you health-wise-but kid, you’ve gotta eat something.”
“I’m not some charity case,” he replied. The words were made considerably less effective by the way that his eyes were glued on the bag.
“Yeah, well, I’m not some soft-hearted Samaritan who feeds every hitchhiker I see. But I am the one that’s driving this car, and if you want to make it to Sioux Falls, I’d suggest you stop talking and start chewing.”
He glanced at her for a moment, and then shook his head, a small smile dancing at his lips. “You drive a hard bargain, you know that?”
“I do my best,” she replied, and she didn’t show her elation when he finally reached into the paper bag and pulled out a fat, greasy burger.
They didn’t talk until she reached the Now Entering Sioux Falls sign. Dean, who’d been eating like a starving man (which, she figured, he probably was) glanced up, frowned at it, and swallowed down the last of the fries. “You can just drop me off here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
He busied himself with gathering up the wrappers from his meal, deliberately not meeting her eyes. Which was good, because she didn’t think he’d take well to the “Fuck no” expression she knew she had. Where in Sioux Falls he was heading Ellen didn’t know, but it was a damn big city. Not a good place for someone to be walking around alone after dark.
“It’s snowing out. You’ll freeze.” She shook her head. The first part wasn’t entirely true-it was actually clearing up; she could see the waning moon poking out above them-but she figured that the lie was justified. “I’ve taken you this far; I can drive-”
“No,” he replied firmly. “I can walk. I’ll be fine.”
She sighed. His jaw was set and his eyes were stubborn, the sort of expression she’d seen on Jo time and time again. Maybe she could win an argument against it when she had the “I am your mother and you’ll do as I say” card, but now? Against a strange boy that she knew next to nothing about, who already had made it clear that he was determined to accept the absolute minimum of her goodwill? She had lost from the moment that he’d stepped inside the car.
“It’s not gonna trouble me any,” she said in a last-ditch attempt to save him from frostbite in unpleasant places.
“I know. I’d just rather get there by myself, okay?”
She nodded, slowing down and pulling over. “You sure you got somewhere to go? You’re not just telling me to drop you off ‘cause you need to find a bridge or something, right?”
“If I didn’t have anywhere to go, I’d just stay here all night. It’s a hell of a lot warmer than the streets,” he replied, smiling for a moment. “Look, I’d just rather…not have you know where I’m going. I mean, you seem like a good enough lady and all, but…”
He shrugged and she nodded. She might not want him out there by himself, but it made sense. Just because she’d driven him this far didn’t mean that he should automatically trust her. “Well then. Take care of yourself, Dean Plant.”
“I will. Thanks for everything…” he paused, and she realized that she’d never told him her name.
“Ellen. And, hey. Don’t forget this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out his switch blade. “Hope you don’t have to use it.”
“Yeah, me too.” He pocketed it and reached for his door handle. Not opening it immediately, he nodded at the empty McDonald’s bag and asked, “You want me to take the trash out?”
“No. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” He lingered in the warmth of a car for a moment longer. Then, just as Ellen was about to repeat her offer to take him all the way to his uncle’s, he opened up the door, and stepped out onto the empty road. “Again, thanks. And, uh, merry Christmas.”
“My pleasure. And same to you.”
Ellen watched him jog up the street, apparently knowing right where he was going, until finally he was out of sight. She resisted the urge to trail him; something told her that he would notice, and he wouldn’t be too happy about it.
It was no longer snowing, and the night was cold and clear. The encounter with the hitchhiker had left her feeling alert and awake, and she knew that she could make it to Blue Earth before the sun rose. She could stop by Singer’s another day.
She started up the car and began the drive to where Jo was waiting for her, and let herself hope that Dean had someone out there who was waiting just as eagerly for him.