fic#6 - gen by dolimir_k
Secoond fic for the day! Gen this time!
Title - Draw
Pairing - none, gen
Author - ???
Draw
"Mississippi in the middle of a heat wave…"
"Dude, we're in Louisiana."
"Whatever." Sam had an overwhelming urge to hang out the passenger-side window in an attempt to let the breeze created by the car moving through the stagnant air to cool his sweating body. The only thing keeping him from such an antic was knowing his brother would never let him live it down.
Ever.
So he contented himself with trying to get the lay of the land. Huge willow trees struggled valiantly to keep the weight of the saturated air from touching the ground. Spanish moss hung from the trees like a home decorator had been unable to stop from adding one more little touch to the surrounding area.
He straightened in his seat as Dean eased the Impala down a corridor of magnolia trees, which all but blocked out the sweltering sun above.
"This it?"
Never taking his eyes off the deeply rutted road, Dean nodded, too hot to verbalize his answer.
"How are we going to play this?" Sam felt the beginning tendrils of excitement and fear begin to curl around his spine, a feeling he normally got before most hunts.
Before Dean could answer, sunlight all but blinded them as the car slipped out of the long grove. Dean took his foot off the gas as his eyes readjusted themselves, then blinked in awe as one of the most beautiful antebellum homes they had ever seen came into view.
"It's like stepping back through time," Sam whispered.
Dean nodded again as he merged the car onto the white gravel drive and followed it until they were at the bottom of the stairs to the house's front porch.
Neither of them lingered in the car. Sam watched his brother's face as Dean stepped around the Impala and stood by his side, but before he could say anything, their attention was caught by the sound of a creaking rocking chair.
Dean shot him a look that said follow my lead as he made his way up the porch steps. A woman of indeterminate age and race faced them, her right hand waving a paper fan back and forth in front of her chest.
"Afternoon, ma'am. Bit of a cold spell you're having here I see."
Sam was always surprised by the charm his older brother was always able to exude around older people, although Sam wasn't sure she was exactly older. She had an ageless beauty that defied definition. As far as he knew, she could be their age.
She grinned brightly at Dean, then waved her hand toward the wicker love seat beside her chair. "Pour yourselves some lemonade, boys. I expect y'all aren't used to this type of heat."
"Thank you, ma'am." Dean sidled over to the loveseat, putting himself between the woman and Sam.
The urge to roll his eyes over his brother's over-protectiveness was nearly overwhelming, but he managed to restrain himself.
Dean poured lemonade into two glasses. Until the lemonade slipped past his lips, Sam had no idea how thirsty he truly was. He took several swallows before he turned his attention back to their impending interview.
"I expect you two are here to try your hand at giving Walter peace," the woman said with preamble.
Sam all but choked on his drink, while Dean deliberately put his glass down on the wicker table.
"Now don't you boys be getting your panties in a wad." The woman chuckled as she reached for her own glass of lemonade. "Hunters such as yourself give off such a distinctive aura that I'd have to be truly blind not to see them." After taking a sip, she shook head again. "Where are my manners? My name is Arsalene Jackson. I look after Magnolia Grove."
Sam leaned forward and offered his hand. "Sam. Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean."
Arsalene shook his hand delicately, then reached out to Dean, who also shook her hand.
"I suspect you're John Winchester's boys."
Unable to hide his surprise, Dean nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Nice man, although a tad on the stubborn side."
Sam grinned. "Yes, ma'am, he is."
"Had a tourist who saw Lester steal her watch and was all up in arms about it. Your daddy wanted to send him into the great beyond, and while I agree that stealing is a sin, I didn't figure it was enough to reveal the location of Lester's bones. Besides that Yankee got her watch back the next night, but she just couldn't stop gripping about it. Some people are never happy. People come here because they want to interact with ghosts and then they be upset when it happens. There's no pleasing some folk, that's for sure."
"So, the house is haunted?" Dean asked carefully.
"Of course, it's haunted, son. I couldn't very well run a haunted bed and breakfast without at least a few ghosts."
Sam studied the house blinked in front of them. "Just how many ghosts do you have, ma'am?"
She smiled proudly at him. "Fifteen. Although Jebediah tends to stay in the barn more often than not and Isaiah only comes out when we have Europeans visiting. I think he's fascinated by their accents. And before you ask, there's not a malevolent one in the batch. Mischievous, but that's why folks come."
"What about Walter?" Dean asked quietly.
"Oh, Walter's not really malevolent. He's just grumpy."
"Grumpy?" Sam couldn't help but ask. When Arsalene just grinned and nodded at him, he tried prompting her further. "What can you tell us about him?"
Arsalene leaned back in her chair. "Well, when he was alive, Walter was something of a recluse. He had his home back in the swamp and kept to himself. But he was a God fearing man and he'd come out every Sunday to go church and do his grocery shopping. He didn't cotton much to talking. Didn't like people in his business. He made his living by supplying certain herbs and flowers that only grow in the swamp to scientists, priestesses and witches. He'd also occasionally sell a gator skin. But he never caused anyone no trouble."
"So what happened?" Sam prompted.
"Near as we can figure it, he fell asleep one day while fishing, which would have been okay if he had been in his boat, but for whatever reason he had made his perch under one of the trees and Ezekiel got him."
Dean looked over at Sam, who asked, "Ezekiel?"
"An ornery nine foot gator, who had made something of a name for himself by being bold enough to come out of the swamp every once in a while for a heifer. Now as your daddy figured it, Walter got himself attached to Ezekiel, probably because his bones were digesting inside the critter for a while, although where they be now is anyone's guess."
"Rumor has it that Walter is luring people to the alligator now," Dean said quietly.
"Well, he may be, boys. He may be." Arsalene shook her head sadly. "At first, he didn't realize he was dead and he couldn't figure out why he couldn't get away from the gator. People kept hearing him scream for help. But as the years passed, he apparently realized what was going on, and, he began to ask people for their help whenever someone was near. Folk did try to kill the gator for him, but Ezekiel is just plump too smart. I can see where after a while Walter might get a tad frustrated."
"Do you mind if we try to free Walter?" Sam asked, surprised himself by seeking her permission.
"Please do. Just watch yourselves. The swamp's a dangerous place for two Yankees like yourself."
"Now, ma'am," Dean said, laying his charm on pretty thick. "We're not Yankees, we're from Kansas." Arsalene just grinned at him good-naturedly and waved her hand at him, indicating that she had meant no offense.
"Do you happen to have a room we could rent?" Dean's charming smile was back.
"Yes, if you have cash." Arsalene just laughed uproariously at Dean's shocked expression, and Sam could only catch a few words like Daddy and smarter than she looked. Once she calmed down, she looked both of them over, as if trying to see into their souls. "I'll tell you what. You grant Walter some peace and you can have a room and meals for free. Deal?"
Before Dean could answer, Sam jumped in. "Deal!"
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"DUDE!" Dean's eyes were wide, and he had one hand over his chest and one on the side of the boat as he desperately tried to keep their little canoe from overturning in the wake of waves slapping at its sides. "She said that thing was only nine feet long."
Sam breathed hard through his nose, trying to process the fact they were still alive. "No, she said he was nine feet long when he ate Walter. I…I don't even want to guess how long he is now."
"That wasn't a alligator. It was a Great Green with legs."
Sam opened his mouth, but couldn't disagree with his brother's assessment.
"Just how long has it been since Walter died?" Dean demanded.
"County records said about twenty-five years ago."
"And how big can these things get?"
"Well the largest in the United States was supposedly recorded at a little over nineteen feet."
"Sammy, that…that thing was…"
"Way over nineteen feet. I know."
"We are seriously out gunned here, man. I mean I shot the thing twice and the bullets bounced off its scales. We need some kryptonite or something, man."
Sam nodded, because he suddenly understood why people had told him that they felt sorry for poor Walter's soul and promised to pray for him, but didn't know what else they could do for him.
"We need like a rocket launcher or a bomb. Yeah, like a friggin nuclear bomb."
"He's really not that bad once you spend a decade or so hanging out with him."
Both of them started at the new voice. Their hands scrabbled for the edge of the canoe, each instinctively acting as a counterweight to the other to keep it from capsizing.
"What the fu--" Dean begins, but Sam cuts him off. "Walter?"
The image of a short, gray-haired man appeared beside their canoe on the root of a nearby tree. Dressed in blue jeans and a dated shirt, the ghost looked incredibly relaxed.
"The one and only."
Dean looked frantically around the boat. "Does that mean--"
"Don't worry about Zeke. He's over there a ways. You gave him a start."
"We gave him--" Dean's eyes are wide in disbelief.
The specter shrugged. "Well, it's been a while since someone came looking for us."
"Us?" The incredulous disbelief made Dean's voice lower than normal. "But I thought-"
"Yeah. Well things change."
"What things?" Sam asked, truly curious.
"Well, see, at first I was upset that he up and et me. I mean I was just minding my own business when he grabbed my leg, drug me into the water and basically stuffed me under a submerged log. Then I was scared because I figured I'd never be finding my way to heaven if I was stuck with this damn gator."
"But now?" Sam prompted.
"Well, I love the swamp. Always have. And now I don't have to leave it no more for groceries and things. As far as I'm concerned this is heaven."
Both boys blinked at the ghost, but it was Dean who finally spoke. "So do you promise not to lure anymore people toward Ezekiel?"
Walter sighed. "I never lured nobody toward Zeke. I was trying to warn them away. Stupid Yankee tourists. Zeke likes his nap, but he tends to wake up a tad on the cranky side. It's really advisable not to provoke him unnecessarily. But with Ms. Arsalene running her haunted bed and breakfast down yonder, people lose their god-given sense of preservation. I can't be blamed for tourists who don't listen."
How were they supposed to argue with that, Sam wondered. "Maybe a bit of discretion when it comes to future interaction?"
Walter sighed. "I suppose. But I make no such promises regarding poachers."
Dean looked like he was going to protest, but Sam nodded in agreement.
Walter grinned brightly. "Well, alright then. You boys tell Ms. Arsalene that I'm seriously considering her offer, but not until Zeke is gone, of course."
Although he didn't have a clue what Walter was talking about, Sam nodded. "We will.
After they made their farewells and were paddling as quietly as they could toward the plantation, Sam noticed that Dean seemed rather quiet. "Dean?"
His brother looked at him as if he was mulling something over. "Do you think we gave Walter peace?"
"What? You worried about paying Ms. Arsalene?"
"Dude, while she may be a sweet woman, there's no way I'd ever try to skip on her. I have a feeling our life would get really complicated really fast if we tried."
"I think you're right."
"We didn't exactly accomplish what we set out to do, but we didn't fail either. We sort of reached a--"
"Draw?"
Dean frowned. "Do you consider that peaceful?"
Sam considered the jobs they normally took, then smiled brightly. "Yeah, Dean, in this case, I do."
-END-
and now, the poll!!
Poll guess the author!
Title - Draw
Pairing - none, gen
Author - ???
Draw
"Mississippi in the middle of a heat wave…"
"Dude, we're in Louisiana."
"Whatever." Sam had an overwhelming urge to hang out the passenger-side window in an attempt to let the breeze created by the car moving through the stagnant air to cool his sweating body. The only thing keeping him from such an antic was knowing his brother would never let him live it down.
Ever.
So he contented himself with trying to get the lay of the land. Huge willow trees struggled valiantly to keep the weight of the saturated air from touching the ground. Spanish moss hung from the trees like a home decorator had been unable to stop from adding one more little touch to the surrounding area.
He straightened in his seat as Dean eased the Impala down a corridor of magnolia trees, which all but blocked out the sweltering sun above.
"This it?"
Never taking his eyes off the deeply rutted road, Dean nodded, too hot to verbalize his answer.
"How are we going to play this?" Sam felt the beginning tendrils of excitement and fear begin to curl around his spine, a feeling he normally got before most hunts.
Before Dean could answer, sunlight all but blinded them as the car slipped out of the long grove. Dean took his foot off the gas as his eyes readjusted themselves, then blinked in awe as one of the most beautiful antebellum homes they had ever seen came into view.
"It's like stepping back through time," Sam whispered.
Dean nodded again as he merged the car onto the white gravel drive and followed it until they were at the bottom of the stairs to the house's front porch.
Neither of them lingered in the car. Sam watched his brother's face as Dean stepped around the Impala and stood by his side, but before he could say anything, their attention was caught by the sound of a creaking rocking chair.
Dean shot him a look that said follow my lead as he made his way up the porch steps. A woman of indeterminate age and race faced them, her right hand waving a paper fan back and forth in front of her chest.
"Afternoon, ma'am. Bit of a cold spell you're having here I see."
Sam was always surprised by the charm his older brother was always able to exude around older people, although Sam wasn't sure she was exactly older. She had an ageless beauty that defied definition. As far as he knew, she could be their age.
She grinned brightly at Dean, then waved her hand toward the wicker love seat beside her chair. "Pour yourselves some lemonade, boys. I expect y'all aren't used to this type of heat."
"Thank you, ma'am." Dean sidled over to the loveseat, putting himself between the woman and Sam.
The urge to roll his eyes over his brother's over-protectiveness was nearly overwhelming, but he managed to restrain himself.
Dean poured lemonade into two glasses. Until the lemonade slipped past his lips, Sam had no idea how thirsty he truly was. He took several swallows before he turned his attention back to their impending interview.
"I expect you two are here to try your hand at giving Walter peace," the woman said with preamble.
Sam all but choked on his drink, while Dean deliberately put his glass down on the wicker table.
"Now don't you boys be getting your panties in a wad." The woman chuckled as she reached for her own glass of lemonade. "Hunters such as yourself give off such a distinctive aura that I'd have to be truly blind not to see them." After taking a sip, she shook head again. "Where are my manners? My name is Arsalene Jackson. I look after Magnolia Grove."
Sam leaned forward and offered his hand. "Sam. Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean."
Arsalene shook his hand delicately, then reached out to Dean, who also shook her hand.
"I suspect you're John Winchester's boys."
Unable to hide his surprise, Dean nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Nice man, although a tad on the stubborn side."
Sam grinned. "Yes, ma'am, he is."
"Had a tourist who saw Lester steal her watch and was all up in arms about it. Your daddy wanted to send him into the great beyond, and while I agree that stealing is a sin, I didn't figure it was enough to reveal the location of Lester's bones. Besides that Yankee got her watch back the next night, but she just couldn't stop gripping about it. Some people are never happy. People come here because they want to interact with ghosts and then they be upset when it happens. There's no pleasing some folk, that's for sure."
"So, the house is haunted?" Dean asked carefully.
"Of course, it's haunted, son. I couldn't very well run a haunted bed and breakfast without at least a few ghosts."
Sam studied the house blinked in front of them. "Just how many ghosts do you have, ma'am?"
She smiled proudly at him. "Fifteen. Although Jebediah tends to stay in the barn more often than not and Isaiah only comes out when we have Europeans visiting. I think he's fascinated by their accents. And before you ask, there's not a malevolent one in the batch. Mischievous, but that's why folks come."
"What about Walter?" Dean asked quietly.
"Oh, Walter's not really malevolent. He's just grumpy."
"Grumpy?" Sam couldn't help but ask. When Arsalene just grinned and nodded at him, he tried prompting her further. "What can you tell us about him?"
Arsalene leaned back in her chair. "Well, when he was alive, Walter was something of a recluse. He had his home back in the swamp and kept to himself. But he was a God fearing man and he'd come out every Sunday to go church and do his grocery shopping. He didn't cotton much to talking. Didn't like people in his business. He made his living by supplying certain herbs and flowers that only grow in the swamp to scientists, priestesses and witches. He'd also occasionally sell a gator skin. But he never caused anyone no trouble."
"So what happened?" Sam prompted.
"Near as we can figure it, he fell asleep one day while fishing, which would have been okay if he had been in his boat, but for whatever reason he had made his perch under one of the trees and Ezekiel got him."
Dean looked over at Sam, who asked, "Ezekiel?"
"An ornery nine foot gator, who had made something of a name for himself by being bold enough to come out of the swamp every once in a while for a heifer. Now as your daddy figured it, Walter got himself attached to Ezekiel, probably because his bones were digesting inside the critter for a while, although where they be now is anyone's guess."
"Rumor has it that Walter is luring people to the alligator now," Dean said quietly.
"Well, he may be, boys. He may be." Arsalene shook her head sadly. "At first, he didn't realize he was dead and he couldn't figure out why he couldn't get away from the gator. People kept hearing him scream for help. But as the years passed, he apparently realized what was going on, and, he began to ask people for their help whenever someone was near. Folk did try to kill the gator for him, but Ezekiel is just plump too smart. I can see where after a while Walter might get a tad frustrated."
"Do you mind if we try to free Walter?" Sam asked, surprised himself by seeking her permission.
"Please do. Just watch yourselves. The swamp's a dangerous place for two Yankees like yourself."
"Now, ma'am," Dean said, laying his charm on pretty thick. "We're not Yankees, we're from Kansas." Arsalene just grinned at him good-naturedly and waved her hand at him, indicating that she had meant no offense.
"Do you happen to have a room we could rent?" Dean's charming smile was back.
"Yes, if you have cash." Arsalene just laughed uproariously at Dean's shocked expression, and Sam could only catch a few words like Daddy and smarter than she looked. Once she calmed down, she looked both of them over, as if trying to see into their souls. "I'll tell you what. You grant Walter some peace and you can have a room and meals for free. Deal?"
Before Dean could answer, Sam jumped in. "Deal!"
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"DUDE!" Dean's eyes were wide, and he had one hand over his chest and one on the side of the boat as he desperately tried to keep their little canoe from overturning in the wake of waves slapping at its sides. "She said that thing was only nine feet long."
Sam breathed hard through his nose, trying to process the fact they were still alive. "No, she said he was nine feet long when he ate Walter. I…I don't even want to guess how long he is now."
"That wasn't a alligator. It was a Great Green with legs."
Sam opened his mouth, but couldn't disagree with his brother's assessment.
"Just how long has it been since Walter died?" Dean demanded.
"County records said about twenty-five years ago."
"And how big can these things get?"
"Well the largest in the United States was supposedly recorded at a little over nineteen feet."
"Sammy, that…that thing was…"
"Way over nineteen feet. I know."
"We are seriously out gunned here, man. I mean I shot the thing twice and the bullets bounced off its scales. We need some kryptonite or something, man."
Sam nodded, because he suddenly understood why people had told him that they felt sorry for poor Walter's soul and promised to pray for him, but didn't know what else they could do for him.
"We need like a rocket launcher or a bomb. Yeah, like a friggin nuclear bomb."
"He's really not that bad once you spend a decade or so hanging out with him."
Both of them started at the new voice. Their hands scrabbled for the edge of the canoe, each instinctively acting as a counterweight to the other to keep it from capsizing.
"What the fu--" Dean begins, but Sam cuts him off. "Walter?"
The image of a short, gray-haired man appeared beside their canoe on the root of a nearby tree. Dressed in blue jeans and a dated shirt, the ghost looked incredibly relaxed.
"The one and only."
Dean looked frantically around the boat. "Does that mean--"
"Don't worry about Zeke. He's over there a ways. You gave him a start."
"We gave him--" Dean's eyes are wide in disbelief.
The specter shrugged. "Well, it's been a while since someone came looking for us."
"Us?" The incredulous disbelief made Dean's voice lower than normal. "But I thought-"
"Yeah. Well things change."
"What things?" Sam asked, truly curious.
"Well, see, at first I was upset that he up and et me. I mean I was just minding my own business when he grabbed my leg, drug me into the water and basically stuffed me under a submerged log. Then I was scared because I figured I'd never be finding my way to heaven if I was stuck with this damn gator."
"But now?" Sam prompted.
"Well, I love the swamp. Always have. And now I don't have to leave it no more for groceries and things. As far as I'm concerned this is heaven."
Both boys blinked at the ghost, but it was Dean who finally spoke. "So do you promise not to lure anymore people toward Ezekiel?"
Walter sighed. "I never lured nobody toward Zeke. I was trying to warn them away. Stupid Yankee tourists. Zeke likes his nap, but he tends to wake up a tad on the cranky side. It's really advisable not to provoke him unnecessarily. But with Ms. Arsalene running her haunted bed and breakfast down yonder, people lose their god-given sense of preservation. I can't be blamed for tourists who don't listen."
How were they supposed to argue with that, Sam wondered. "Maybe a bit of discretion when it comes to future interaction?"
Walter sighed. "I suppose. But I make no such promises regarding poachers."
Dean looked like he was going to protest, but Sam nodded in agreement.
Walter grinned brightly. "Well, alright then. You boys tell Ms. Arsalene that I'm seriously considering her offer, but not until Zeke is gone, of course."
Although he didn't have a clue what Walter was talking about, Sam nodded. "We will.
After they made their farewells and were paddling as quietly as they could toward the plantation, Sam noticed that Dean seemed rather quiet. "Dean?"
His brother looked at him as if he was mulling something over. "Do you think we gave Walter peace?"
"What? You worried about paying Ms. Arsalene?"
"Dude, while she may be a sweet woman, there's no way I'd ever try to skip on her. I have a feeling our life would get really complicated really fast if we tried."
"I think you're right."
"We didn't exactly accomplish what we set out to do, but we didn't fail either. We sort of reached a--"
"Draw?"
Dean frowned. "Do you consider that peaceful?"
Sam considered the jobs they normally took, then smiled brightly. "Yeah, Dean, in this case, I do."
-END-
and now, the poll!!
Poll guess the author!