(Untitled)

[one__song]

Sleep was coming easier and easier, and whether or not this was a good thing for Roger's health was yet to be determined. Dean insisted the more and more he took his medical what-the-fuck-ever classes that sleep was the best thing for him, but if Roger slept "too much" (what the determining factor was to Dean, Roger had no fucking clue), Dean was

Comments

[priorlives]

Prior had been putting off a certain conversation with Roger for a few weeks now. First, because he was hoping that if his supply dwindled enough, then maybe the AZT that was nearly gone would just magically replenish itself. Which, so far, it hadn't. And second, because he had a feeling that talking to Roger about anything might necessarily involve his having to confess his relationship with Freddie. Which, for some reason... he thought might not go over well.

But his last bottle was half empty, and so here he was. Though he was surprised when he walked up to Roger's porch to find him standing there with a baby.

"Taken a side job babysitting?" he asked with a lifted brow. "You do realize you look like you're about to punt it."

[one__song]

Roger was a rocking chair away from feeling like someone's grandfather. True, the bright yellow board shorts and lack of shirt didn't quite come off as a sweater and tan slacks, but watching a young one with a book on the ground next to him was just about as old man as Roger was ever going to get.

"This is Corri," Roger said, setting the little tyke down in on her butt in the sand to play around and be generally adorable within his sightline. "Dean's little sister. Dean's got calculus with some scary chick so he's studying and I'm... yeah, babysitting, I guess." Corri slapped her hands in the sand with a bounce and a giggle, so Roger decided that was good enough for her and sat back in the chair. Behind his sunglasses, it wasn't exactly obvious that he wasn't looking at Prior.

[priorlives]

"Ah," said Prior, and wasn't exactly sure that he'd have trusted Roger with a kid, but then, maybe he wasn't giving him enough credit.

"Hi Corri," he said, looking down at her. "I hope you don't mind if I sit and talk to your Uncle Roger."

Without waiting for an invitation, he sank down into the other chair because his leg was killing him after the walk.

"My AZT is almost gone," he said, getting right to the point.

[one__song]

Roger's immediate reaction was to look down at Cori to see what she thought of it. Cori, in turn, looked at Roger before looking to Prior, then back at Roger, then she -- for lack of a better word -- judged Prior. Her fae remained neutral, except for slightly knitted brows, and then she was back to banging a block or something into the ground.

"Oh," Roger said, and that was as much as he could give at the moment. He shifted, and Cori readjusted to sit between his legs, using Roger's body as a tent as she crawled around his legs and poked at sand.

[weary_head]

"She flies now," said Dean, nursing a cup of coffee at the table. He poked at his calculus homework with a pen, then decided the coffee was infinitely less punishing. "Did I forget to mention that?"

[one__song]

Roger made a displeased noise before depositing the small child onto her blanket by the table. He went straight for the coffee. "Aren't you supposed to be watching it?" He was stepped over Cori, then plopped himself into a chair.

[weary_head]

"I'm on break on account of calculus and the scary lady who teaches it," Dean grunted. "Unless you want to tell Uhura why my homework isn't done. Also." He kicked Roger's leg under the table. "Stop calling my sister It."

[one__song]

A wince and a glare later, Roger was quietly sipping his coffee, staring down at the child as she amused herself with folds in the blanket and her feet and such. Roger wished his life was that simple.

"Where's Angua?" He was getting the feeling that he was the only one that was going to be able to watch her, and he wasn't actually sure what that entailed.

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden was on her way down to the Compound when she spotted the pair of them in the yard. She recognized them, in the way everyone who'd lived in this place a while was recognizable, but that being all wasn't enough to prevent her slowing down and smiling. "Hey there," she said, waving mostly to the little girl. She couldn't help it if she was a sucker for cute kids. Besides, he looked kind of awkward with her. "Having fun?"

[one__song]

At the detection of the kid-directed tone, Cori looked up to the new face neutrally. A quick glance to Roger later she was looking at the newcomer again, hands in her lap.

"She, uh, doesn't talk much," Roger murmured, proving the duality of the statement. In that week that Maureen was trying to get Mark to knock her up because she'd thought having a kid would give her a more of an edge (though how a kid would help her accomplish that, he had no idea, and since she decided to munch some rug, she was obviously over that whole kid thing), he remembered her babbling about something like a kid's ability to talk at certain ages having some kind of reflection on who was raising it and the attention the guardians were paying. So he amended quickly, "uh, she can she just... doesn't." He smiled a touch to seem a little bit warmer and... well, not like a complete dick for no fucking reason.

[wishesandsmoke]

"Oh," said Eden, careful not to get closer so she wouldn't alarm the child. "Yeah, I wasn't much of a talker when I was little either." In fact, she'd been pretty much silent until she left home; she could sympathize in that respect, though she figured it wasn't so much for the same reasons as because the girl was so young. "She's adorable. Yours?" She doubted it, but it seemed kind of rude to ask if she wasn't.

[one__song]

"No!" Roger said sharply, shocking Cori upright for a moment before she was content to go back to playing in the sand. "Sor--uh, no. She's... my... She's a Winchester." That was probably a pretty universal thing, he figured, since it seemed like damn near everyone knew Dean.

[badblood_rising]

Sam knew, rationally, that with Roger living in Dean and Angua's house, he was bound to end up babysitting sometimes. He would end up being a part of Cori's life, maybe just as much as Angua, Jess, O-Ren or Cas, depending on how much he wanted to put into it. Roger wasn't Cori's blood family, but he was part of the... web of people Dean had pulled in around him.

That still didn't make Sam feel any better about the canon fodder watching over his sixteen month old sister, unsupervised himself.

"You guys having fun?" he asked tentatively, giving Cori a quick, but thorough, once over look.

[one__song]

Even though a few conversations had transpired between the younger Winchester and Roger (well, more than a few, but probably only a few even marginally comfortable ones, for Roger's part), there was still a sense of... togetherness that Roger felt he should try and achieve. He never gave a shit about how Mark's family viewed him because they weren't around, but since Dean had a family member that meant a shitload to him virtually next door, Roger felt some kind of obligation to try.

He was pretty sure he ritualistically failed, too.

"Uh, yeah," Roger said, trying to make it sound convincing and failing at that, too. "Dean's..." Roger thumbed behind him toward the door. "Doing calculus or... something. So he asked me--" Well, he never asked because Dean never asked anything. "We're good." And he decided to leave it at that.

[badblood_rising]

As Sam came up the stairs, boots falling heavily on the boards, Cori reached out for him and Sam obediently bent over to pick her up.

"Hey kiddo," he greeted, giving her a kiss on the cheek which she returned clumsily. "Yeah, I figured he'd be working so I thought I'd stop by to see if he needed quiet time." Not that Cori was very loud for a kid, but she was definitely distracting. "Thought you might be busy too or something."

[one__song]

"Not really," Roger shrugged. "Neil's been good with the radio and I have a double at the club tonight, so I just figured..." He shook his head. "Truth is she climbed into my room and your cockjob brother decided that was a good time to tell me I was watching her.

"It's cool, though," he added quickly. "I'm just..." Trying. Not good with kids. Fucking terrified. Any of those would have worked.

[wallace_wells]

"Adorable tot you've got there," Wallace comments, pausing in his exploratory walkabout. Having happened by a hut and discovered the Guy From Rent playing with a baby outside of it merited stopping and being a nosy neighbor. Never mind that he didn't actually live out here.

[one__song]

Bright yellow board shorts could only flatter a certain kind of body type, and recently, that type wasn't Roger's. For an AIDS patient, he probably would have been the envy of the ward, thanks to the demanding regiment of island life, but for the rest of the chiseled gods and sculpted goddesses, he felt he was sufficiently lacking. To remedy this, he did what any rockstar would have done: hid the insecurity behind some dark-ass shades.

"Not mine," Roger corrected, immediately finding the top of Cori's head instead of looking at the stranger, save for one brief moment to see if he knew him. "Roommate's. I'm just watching her." And doing his best not to touch her so she didn't break or something.

[wallace_wells]

This is vaguely reassuring to Wallace's world view, as he had never pictured this guy as the paternal type. "Lucky you," he replies of the babysitting with a smile. "Fortunately, I have yet make friends with anyone who makes it a priority to procreate," and thank god for that, because the last thing Scott needed to do was spawn.