My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.
TITLE: Collision Course
FANDOM: X-Men 919/Supernatural
CHARACTERS: Scarlett Summers, Riley LeBeau-Summers, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester. Mentions of others.
RATING: Mid/High Teen [Language, demons, exorcisms, voodoo, sexual situations.]
SUMMARY: It was supposed to be a simple job. The Winchester brothers just didn’t expect to cross the Summers sisters in the process.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This is entirely Katt’s fault. Just so you all know.
For those following the 919 Universe, this occurs after the yet-to-be-published (since I’m still working on it) “Sibling Rivalry”. All you need to know is that Scarlett and Riley are genetically sisters. It’s not a spoiler, it’s comic canon dammit, and no amount of retconing will convince me otherwise.
As to Supernatural, this is fairly early in the series. Early to mid season one for sure. The reference to a New Orleans job is canon; it’s mentioned somewhere in the first couple episodes.
Any and all mistakes in the representation of voodoo or the 'Supernatural' mythos are my fault and not those of any resource I learned from.
“A demon,” Scarlett said, logic fighting with what had just been explained to her. “We’re dealing with a demon.”
Sam nodded as he and Dean continued to lay down salt along the windowsills. Dean had taken to muttering while doing so.
“Let’s do this job, you said. Should be easy, you said.”
“Would you just shut up and keep salting, please?”
“There’s a demon out there, Sammy. A very pissed off demon who is gonna try and get in here, and I’m pretty sure we get to blame you for this one.”
“Which is why we need to salt faster. You can do the I-told-you-so dance later.”
“Boys?” Riley said as she peeked out the window of the living room they were currently barricading themselves in, “As cute as y’all are arguing, short n’burly’s got a point. The demon-thing is here, but I can’t see him. An’ if I can’t see him, then we definitely gotta worry."
Scarlett frowned a little. Riley had explained some of her background a while back. Not much, but enough for Scarlett to know that when her sister - and god, was she still having difficulty wrapping her head around that - said anything to do with surveillance or observation, one had best take heed...though they could safely ignore any innuendo or poor jokes that tended to accompany it more often than not.
“I’d listen to her.”
“I figured the whole worry thing out myself, thanks.”
“Dean. Salt.”
“Should I even ask what that’s for?” Scarlett asked, eyeing the lines that had been poured out across windowpanes and doorways; every conceivable entrance into the room. Sam answered as he took all the salt and shoved it into the duffel bag he’d thrown on the couch when they’d all rushed in to the house.
“Demons can’t cross lines of salt. It’s a protective barrier that should buy us some time.”
Throughout this whole conversation, Riley had walked over to the fireplace. It was a nice one. Classic design, fancy mantelpiece, the works. She crouched down and ran tentative fingers along its hearth.
Red brick.
And that was enough to spark an idea.
“I need me something to pry this apart.”
The initial reaction was Dean’s. Did the woman actually think destroying the fireplace would be of any use at all? He’d dealt with all sorts of civilians. They tended to trust his and Sam’s expertise once who they were and what they did had been explained. Why exactly did Riley think she knew what she was doing here?
“What? You gonna try and knock the thing out with a brick, Miss Sunglasses At Night?”
Both women bristled at his comment, Scarlett touching lightly at her own glasses as Riley’s posture improved tenfold.
“No, asshole,” she replied, smiling brightly through a bitch-face. “It’s an old voodoo thing. Red brick dust keeps bad juju and anyone who means you harm away. Don’t know about you, but if this demon’s as big a pain in the ass as you’re saying, I’m pretty sure we can use any protection we can get. Now do we got something I can rip this apart with or not?”
Sam dug around in the duffel bag, pulling out some of the guns he and Dean had packed along and finally produced a crowbar. He tossed it to Riley, who set to prying a few bricks out as Dean looked at his brother in mild confusion.
“Why the hell did you throw a crowbar in the bag?”
“I didn’t, you did. It’s been in the bag since Iowa.”
Dean gave a grudging noise of assent as he realized that yes, this had been the case. He was less sure of the reason why he’d figured a crowbar was useful enough to pack in their on-the-go hunting bag.
A few bricks now at her feet, Riley snatched up a magazine that had been sitting on the coffee table and set it on the ground open somewhere near the middle. Grinding the bricks against one another, the resulting dust fell to the pages below.
“Y’can jump in and help anytime, guys,” she said.
It was Sam who ended up sitting down next to her and helping the rust-coloured pile grow.
Dean and Scarlett set to loading the guns, and once done that, Dean picked up the magazine and carefully funnelled the brick dust from the pages to the floor. Eventually, all the white lines of salt were accompanied by thin red ones.
“The demon’s biding its time,” Sam said as he kicked aside a rug and started to sketch on the hardwoods. “He can’t get in, but he’s not going anywhere. He’s just waiting for us to screw up so he can screw with us.”
As he walked back to the pile of weaponry, Dean answered this charge.
“So let’s finish getting the welcome wagon ready.”
Scarlett looked at the image Sam was drawing with a sort of distant recognition. She walked over and sat down, and followed the lines of the completed symbol with her index finger.
“A pentagram. Sacred geometry. The golden mean.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, visibly impressed. It was a rare person who recognized that sort of thing. “How do you-”
She shrugged.
“Riley and I work at a school. I teach physics and shop, but mainly math courses.”
“She a teacher too?” he asked, jerking his chin towards Riley.
“Art, P.E., and self-defence.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Some days I wish I was.” She tapped on the pentagram in a less than subtle subject change. Any real discussion of Xavier’s was something she was hoping to avoid. “So how does this work?”
This brought them to something Sam could explain with confidence.
“It’s called a devil’s trap. If a demon walks in to it, they can’t get out. While they’re trapped we can exorcise them, send the demon back to hell.”
On the other side of the room, Riley and Dean busied themselves double-checking the guns as he quickly explained about the rock-salt shells they were going to use. While he did so, Riley raised one of the sawed-off shotguns to a firing stance.
“Little heavy on the backside for my liking,” she announced, lowering it. “Still a nice piece of work though.”
Dean looked on appreciatively. Maybe he’d judged Corey Hart chick number two a little quickly. It was hard to maintain a sense of animosity towards someone who looked like they knew their shit. A hot chick especially, he noted. For posterity. Obviously.
“See, that’s what I told Sam here.”
“Y’can’t go wrong with a Winchester saddle carbine like this - model ’94 if I’m right. The lever action’s fantastic. If it’s gotta be firepower though, I tend to lean towards handguns. I’m partial to Beretta 92s myself.”
It was official now. Dean was in love.
“She knows voodoo and guns?” Sam asked Scarlett, whose response was martini-dry.
“And bojutsu, and free-running, and parkour, and ballroom dancing, and the list goes on. I’ve stopped being surprised by any of it and just threaten her with bodily harm when she starts showing off.”
“Ever followed through?”
Scarlett held up her right hand, showing off knuckles covered with a faded rainbow of oilslick colours.
“There’s a bruise shaped like this on her jaw. She’s just got some good concealer is all.”
“She doesn’t strike me as the type to take that sitting down.”
“Oh, she doesn’t.” Scarlett lifted up her shirt just enough to show a yellowing bruise from a kidney shot. “Doesn’t stop us from wailing on each other though.”
The incredulous head-shake Sam gave was accompanied by a small smile. The clear sign of siblings.
“What kind of school do you guys work at?”
“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”
---
“So what, ‘zactly, is the plan here?”
“We’re going to let him in,” Sam said simply, and Dean nodded.
“We get the bastard to come in through whatever opening we pick - probably that window there - and get him in the trap.”
“And then you do the exorcism,” Scarlett finished. “You’re ready to do this then?”
“Yeah. We just have to get in to position, and open the window.”
“I’ll run backup,” piped up Riley. “I need some liquor though.”
“A drink? I mean, normally I’d be all for it, but now doesn’t really seem like the time.”
Riley turned to Dean and regarded him cooly.
“Cher, I grew up in N’awlins. My momma pretty much raised me in the cemeteries and my babysitter was a houngan. I know my way around the supernatural. You wanna get this piece o’shit back into hell? I can talk with the gatekeeper personally so we stay safe, and get them gates opened nice and wide for you to shove him through with your exorcism. So get me some goddamn liquor and let me lend a goddamn hand.”
Any statement to the effect that Dean did not find this irritatingly attractive would have been a lie.
From her seat on the couch, Scarlett snorted.
“And people call me the hardassed one. Is that actual authority you’re exercising?”
“I can do maturity on occasion, despite what’chu might think. I just don’t much care for it.”
“Clearly. I’m going to have to remember this.”
“What, you’re gonna go and give me responsibilities or somethin’?”
“I know you better than that. I was thinking more along the lines of using it as an excuse to kick your ass from here to Sunday when you do stupid shit from here on out seeing as we now know you’re capable of acting your age.”
“I’m quaking here.”
Part decision, part intervention, Sam interrupted.
“Dean? Give Riley your flask.”
Dean looked reticent, at which Sam sighed.
“If she needs alcohol, she needs alcohol. It can’t hurt to have her do her voodoo thing. You were the one who told me about that job in New Orleans, how that mambo helped you out. If she’s gonna do it we should make sure she can do it right.”
The man had a point. Had it not been for that mambo, he would probably have ended up dead or worse. There was something to the whole voodoo bit. Plus, messing with the details of rituals had a tendency to screw things up royally. Dean yanked a hip flask from his side and tossed it across the room. Riley caught it neatly before cracking it open and taking a sniff.
“Bourbon,” she said, tucking it into her belt so it fit snugly against her hip. “Good stuff to boot. This should work.”
They all took up their weapons as Dean took on the role of general. Time to go to war.
“You two, get behind the couch and give us some cover fire. Sam and I’ll get him into the devils trap, and then we can start the exorcism and let you do...whatever it is you’re gonna do.”
Riley cocked her shotgun, and smirked.
“You just do your thing, boys. Scarlett and me’ll be peachy.”
---
The whole thing took seconds to play out. From their position, Riley and Scarlett played target-practice with the air around the demon to draw its attention. Dean and Sam stood on either side of the window and jumped the thing while it was distracted, managing to shove it the few feet across the floor onto the carpet that hid the devil’s trap. When the demon tried to move and found itself caught by the trap’s walls, it looked at all four of the people in the room. The women had vaulted over the couch, Scarlett following the guys’ lead and keeping her gun trained on the demon as Riley pulled out the flask.
“Oh, this is good,” the demon cackled. “Dead mommies, daddies, boyfriends, and girlfriends all around. We’ve got a real fun crowd tonight!”
“Mouthy little thing, inn’t he?” Riley said, splashing some of the bourbon in his face. It wasn’t strictly necessary for what she was trying to do, but was certainly satisfying.
“Tasty,” it grinned.
The remainder of the bourbon was poured out around the devil’s trap, soaking a circle in the carpet roughly along the outer line of the pentagram. “Laugh it up. We just gettin’ started here.”
“The way you say that, it sounds like you actually believe it. Adorable.”
Looking up once she’d poured out the last drop, she returned the demon’s grin with one that rivalled its own for sheer creepiness.
“I ain’t the one stuck in a circle, putain.”
“Start the damn exorcism, Sammy!”
Setting aside his gun to grab the large, leatherbound book he’d put on the coffee table, Sam flipped it open to a page he’d marked and started to read aloud.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas...”
The demon started to writhe in obvious pain, but somehow managed to laugh as it locked eyes with Scarlett.
“Your boy’s with us, you know that, right? Rising up the ranks real fast. He’s a mover and a shaker, that one.” It then looked to Sam as the body it inhabited contorted in almost impossible ways, managing to squeeze out a little more through ragged gasps. “We got your girl too. Jessica. I hear she’s a screamer.”
Sam faltered for a second, during which Scarlett only heard Riley speaking. It sounded like French, but that was all she was really sure of.
The major thing she didn’t know was that Riley was busy crossing her mental fingers that she was properly remembering the words she’d heard Oncle Mattie use so often - she’d never invoked Baron Samedi herself, just watched others do it. God help her if she got any of this wrong.
Sam picked up his ritual again, speaking a little louder in the hopes that it would help him focus. It didn’t, but it at least gave him the air of confidence. The further along he got, the easier the words came, and the more relieved Dean looked.
The thing tried to speak again, looking to both Dean and Riley, but couldn’t get any further words out as the Latin and French mixed once more and grew to a climax. It twisted in increasing agony until large cloud of black smoke burst out of the body’s mouth with a scream. The cloud disappeared through the opened window, and with a choking cough, the man standing inside the trap looked around in pure bewilderment.
“What the hell just happened?”
---
Dean drove the guy who had been possessed - his name was David - back to his own house. He gave David the whole story of what had happened and let him go, seeing as both men knew no-one would believe any of it should David have said anything to anyone. One of the perks of dealing with the supposedly impossible was that any outsiders that found their way in figured out right quick to keep their traps shut. Speaking the truth wasn’t worth getting written off as crazy.
The Winchesters and the Summers decided that they’d camp out for the night in the house. The sisters didn’t much feel like continuing their drive back to New York at two in the morning, and the brothers were happy to save themselves the cost of a motel (as good as Dean was at credit card fraud, the less they had to rely on it the further under the radar the Winchesters stayed). There was also the fact that the house was not only abandoned, but warded too. The salt and the brick dust in the living room were left in place, and while Dean was gone the rest of the motley crew lined all the doors and windows in the house with the apparently quite powerful combination. The house was left a veritable fortress against anything else that might come after them in the wake of the exorcism before the four crashed for the night.
Some slept better than others.
Sam and Dean had set up in what had probably been a kids’ bedroom - two twin beds, pastel coloured walls. While Dean was out like a light, Sam stared at the ceiling.
It was difficult to drift off when you had a significant chance of having incredibly disturbing, incredibly visceral dreams. Sam didn’t want to see Jessica dying before him again, and with the mention of her by the demon, he was fairly certain that if he did sleep he’d fall into that familiar nightmare.
After about an hour of counting the cracks in the plaster, he faced the fact that he wasn’t going to sleep.
He left the bedroom and headed for the living room, his laptop and Dad’s journal under his arm. If he couldn’t rest then he could at least try and be productive. Maybe he’d even hit on something useful. At worst, it would be the time-waster he’d need to get through the rest of the night.
Scarlett was sitting on the couch when he arrived, looking at the fireplace.
“Can’t sleep?”
Scarlett shook her head.
“Me neither,” Sam said, sitting down next to her and putting his computer and the journal to the side. She leaned back in the couch as she considered.
“You deal with this stuff all the time?”
“Yeah.”
“How the hell do you get in to something like this?”
“Family business,” came the good old stock answer. He attempted to keep any contempt or weariness from the statement, but he wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself. He sounded exactly as bitter as he felt. The journal next to him remained the tangible presence it had always been, right from the beginning of Dad’s crusade. Damn the man for managing to be there even while he was off wherever the hell he was. It was a good reminder that he and Dean needed to get back on the road sooner rather than later. The sooner they found Dad, the sooner they could track down whatever it was that killed Jess, and it would all be over.
Keep dreaming, Sam thought to himself. You walked back in. You really think you’ll be able to walk out again?
Scarlett gave a quick, harsh chortle.
“Some family.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Yeah, well. My family isn’t normal by any stretch either. Even by your standards.”
There was no intention on her part to go in to further detail. Sam hunted things people didn’t think existed, sure, but she was fairly sure that space pirates and alien races and interstellar travel would probably be abusing any and all of his suspension of disbelief. That wasn’t even touching on her and Riley’s relationship, and the latest theory about exactly how that worked.
(It involved mad scientists and cloning. There was not enough alcohol in the Mansion to erase that kind of weird. Scarlett and Riley had looked in to this in great detail.)
Sam had watched Scarlett carefully throughout their small conversation as a way to ignore truths he wasn’t quite ready to face. Scarlett’s expression was clear.
“Something’s bugging you.”
“Congratulations, Captain Obvious.” The softened tone the words were delivered in blunted their actual meaning. “I’m just thinking. About what the demon said to me.”
“Your boyfriend.”
“John. He’s a teacher at the school Riley and I work at too. He...he died. Six months ago, actually.”
This simple statement glazed over the rather pertinent fact that this was John’s second go-round with death.
The fact that Sam didn’t press any further, just nodded, was a reassuring comfort. He recognized boundaries, and she could make a solid guess as to why.
“What about you?” she asked. “He said something about a Jessica.”
“Yeah. Jessica.”
Tamping down on everything the mention of her name brought up was beginning to become old habit for Sam, even with the relatively short amount of time since the actual incident. God, she hadn’t even screamed. She couldn’t have. She had already been dead when he’d opened his eyes and saw her there on the ceiling, a discarded shell that lit up and exploded.
“We were a thing. She was killed by a demon.”
Images of their significant others burning and dying before their eyes were silently confronted by both Scarlett and Sam. Had either of them known what the other was thinking, they would have found the similarities eerie.
She drew her knees up against her chest.
“I miss him.”
The statement was true even if the assumed reason of regular grief wasn’t all that was behind it. It hadn’t really been John who had come back from the grave. It had been the Phoenix, and that just made the loss of John worse. Having to fight and kill something wearing his skin had been both surreal and painful. What the demon had said, about him being a ‘mover and a shaker’ rising up the ranks in hell, had renewed Scarlett’s fear of the Phoenix returning again alongside a retread of the cycle of mourning for the man she’d lost.
The real question was why she was talking about this at all with Sam. She’d barely discussed John’s death - deaths - with the Professor, never mind anyone else on the team.
Maybe it was because she didn’t know Sam. He wasn’t familiar with her baggage in the same intimate detail that the folks at the Mansion were. He was an outside party that she could express this uncharacteristic vulnerability to without having to worry about what her friends - her surrogate family - would think or say, seeing as she’d seen it all the first time John had died. She didn’t need a repeat performance. Seeing as Sam had lost Jessica, he more than likely wouldn’t be patronizing or give her trite sorries and its okays. He’d get it.
She was right. He did.
“I miss Jess too.”
Back when he was in school, he’d never really thought especially long term. It had all been hazy. He’d had a general idea of what the future would hold, sure: he was going to become a lawyer, put his entire past behind him, and make his own life apart from being a Winchester and all that meant. It was only later that he’d realized that he’d wanted Jess to be a part of that. Not that he’d gotten as far as picking out a ring or anything like that, but he had wanted her in his life and wanted her to stay there. Maybe that had meant a ring in the future. He’d never know.
Scarlett’s jaw had tightened significantly.
“They say it gets better with time. Easier. The more time that passes, the more I think it’s all bullshit.”
“It is. Completely. God,” Sam said, barely keeping the shake from his voice. “I just keep wondering if there was anything I could have done that would have changed it.”
The whole exchange was growing more and more confessional and desperate as it continued. Scarlett pulled her knees in tighter, a bizarre posture for the woman who led the X-Men.
“I keep asking myself if I could have done anything at all. I don’t think I want the answer. If it’s yes, then I’d hate myself for not doing it. If no, I’d hate myself for killing myself over this.”
“It’s this huge mess. I’m trying to clean it up, but I don’t know if it’ll be better if I do.”
“It just screws you up because you don’t know. You don’t know.”
They sat there in the heavy silence of admission for a while, practically marinating in it.
“Fuck,” Scarlett eventually said, hardly audible as she burrowed her face into her knees. “Fuck, it hurts.”
Sam couldn’t help but agree, if only with a deep swallow.
It wasn’t clear who then initiated it, because when it did happen it happened quickly. One moment they were sitting there on the couch, pulling off bandages to compare the wounds beneath. The next, they were holding one another. The next, they had hands to one another’s faces, kissing furiously, frantically. The next, Scarlett was straddling Sam’s lap and pulling off her shirt as he unhooked her bra.
When he made to remove her glasses Scarlett put her hands on his and guided them to her hips. Pressing her lips to his ear, she whispered.
“The glasses stay on. You’ve got to trust me on this one.”
He would have asked more about this, but the questions disappeared as she took off his shirt and went for his belt.
---
It wasn’t a release thing. It might not even have been about sex. There wasn’t even some weird sense of kindred souls either. They just needed so badly. They’d been through such similar pains and needed something to hold on to. Someone. If they were acting as surrogates for those they had lost, or if it was just a method to pull themselves away from grief they didn’t want hardly mattered. It wasn’t even clear if they were sure of any of this themselves. They both needed though, whatever the reason, and it was pure chance (or fate, take your pick) that right there, right then, someone they saw bits and pieces of themselves in was right in front of them.
---
The next morning, they all rose bright and early. Sam and Scarlett especially. They snuck back to the rooms they were supposed to be sharing with their respective siblings without a word to one another, the tacit understanding that what had happened last night should probably stay between the two of them.
Once everyone was packed up and ready to go, Riley dug a two-thirds empty pack of clove cigarettes out of her back pocket and dropped it in the remains of the devil’s trap as the group headed for the door. She answered the questioning looks she received as they all left the house.
“It’s a more than bad idea to ask for Baron Samedi’s help empty-handed. The bourbon was to call him last night, those were t’say thanks for comin’ out.”
The boys didn’t say anything (they were hardly in a place to comment since, again, they knew the importance of proper completion of rituals), but Scarlett did.
“You actually believe in all that voodoo stuff, huh?”
Her sister hardly seemed the sort who would subscribe to such notions. Then again, up until last night, she hadn’t thought she’d ever encounter demons or sleep with a guy she’d only known for a couple hours.
Riley shrugged. “Not completely. But we’re alive and kicking and the demon’s gone, yeah? I ain’t gonna gamble on the why and risk pissin’ the Baron off.”
Riley and Dean headed for their respective vehicles, leaving Sam and Scarlett to stand around awkwardly.
“So.”
“So.”
This served as the cue for both of them to resume their lives, to become who they were outside of last night. Scarlett had returned to the cool, collected, professional demeanour twisted through with passive-aggressive tendencies that those who knew her would recognize as being distinctly Scarlett. Sam had shifted back in to his analytical practicality mode, thoughts jumping forward to continuing the hunt for his dad even as he dealt with what stood before him.
“You’ll understand if I don’t ask for your number or anything,” he said.
“I was going to say the same thing. It’s fine. It’s probably better that way, actually.”
“Not that it wasn’t-”
“I know, Sam. It wasn’t.” Scarlett rolled her shoulders, looking over to her car, where Riley sat waiting in the driver’s seat. “And it’s not like we have lifestyles conducive to keeping in touch anyways.”
Sam’s face screwed up.
“I thought you were a teacher.”
“Remember how I said you didn’t want to know what kind of school Riley and I work at?”
“Yeah.”
“Still the case. It’s safer for you and for us if you don’t know.”
“Because telling you about what Dean and I do is so safe for you two.”
“Trust me Sam.”
“You ask for that a lot.”
“I need to, especially here. I have students to look out for. Co-workers too. They’re all the reason you don’t know my last name and why I’m not even going to tell you what state the school is in.”
The way she said it left no real room to contest. It wouldn’t have surprised Sam if Scarlett was the Principal or something of the school she talked about. Something about her rather authoritative manner suggested she was well-suited to leadership.
“Unique school.” It wasn’t exactly what he’d hoped to say, but it was good enough.
“Very.”
There was a pause during which it felt appropriate to scuff one’s shoe against the ground. Neither did. They stood there, waiting for who knew what, Sam eventually being the one to speak.
“What now then?”
Scarlett’s smile became slightly wicked, and looked jarringly like Riley’s for a second.
“Making sure Riley doesn’t find out. I highly doubt she’d let me live it down, and then I’d have to beat her ass soundly.”
“You sound like you’d enjoy that.”
“Any other place or time, you’d be right. The question today is if her ribbing is worth the satisfaction of a beatdown. I’m still weighing my options.”
“Good luck with that.”
The honk of a horn came from Dean.
“Good luck yourself.” She looked down at the ground before looking back at Sam. “Take care.”
“You too.”
Without anything further, not even a handshake, they each went their separate ways. There was no point in drawing out the end of something that couldn’t be and probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Scarlett dropped herself down in the passenger seat and buckled up. Riley watched her do this with a quiet intensity. Something was nagging at her, which never boded well. What was worse was that she couldn’t place what was up with Scarlett. Being that unclear was a new, rather unpleasant thing for Riley, seeing as she prided herself on being very, very good at reading people.
“Something up, girl? You seem...” She tried to puzzle out the right word for what she was thinking. “Different. Off your game or somethin’.”
“Just drive, Riley.”
Looking at Scarlett, she followed the woman’s line of sight to Sam getting in the shotgun side of the Impala. Suspicion grew in to full-fledged amusement. Things suddenly became rather clearer.
“That Sam’s a cutie, no mistake,” Riley said. “I mean, Dean’s more my type, but you gotta give credit where credit’s--”
“You know the just drive bit? You might for wanna get on that.”
“We’re stopping for smokes and breakfast then.”
“Your definition of breakfast is black coffee and a cigarette. If we’re stopping, we’re stopping at an IHOP or something.”
“Picky, picky.”
“Drive, LeBeau.”
“LeBeau-Summers, thanks.”
“God, don’t remind me.”
“But the expression on your face when I do is priceless.”
“Do you really want to get in to this before either of us have had coffee? Because I’m okay with that. Knocking some of your teeth out will just be a little less satisfying without having been caffeinated.”
Riley grinned as she turned the key in the ignition. The two of them were due for a tussle; it’d been at least seventy two hours since the last one.
“Love you too, sis.”
-Fin-