|| Re-Introduction: If You Need Him, He'll Be There Again ||

[surfaceshine]

[SPOILERS for Supernatural up to 5x22 in this post, and likely in the course of play with my Dean.  Sorry.]

Comments

[abadland4gods]

It's one of those mornings when Shadow wakes with the uncomfortable feeling that he's been shagging someone he shouldn't have. Of course, he hasn't - he doesn't look for sex, nor has it come to him, aside from those past few blessed weeks in which Laura was around. And then the world fell to pieces, and he woke up with that kid he's saved from the woods, blunt enough to call him a dweeb, which he agreed to formally when he realized what he'd asked Jacquel to do

[surfaceshine]

Walking isn't really calming Dean, but then again, he's not very excited right now either; he's nothing at all outside of wary, a state of being which only sharpens when he finally makes it out of the trees and finds himself... nowhere he recognizes.

At first glance the Mansion raises the hair on the back of his neck, and he's learned not to ignore that, ever; it makes him uncomfortable without his knowing why, but not really alarmed. That's not unusual. He's survived enough by this point that his own sense of self-preservation, never very great to begin with, is nearly nonexistent. He could probably be staring down pretty much anything but a pack of hellhounds right now and not be actually alarmed. The damaged buildings and peculiar structures around the main house, though, get a longer look from the hunter, and those do disturb him a little bit

[abadland4gods]

The guy who's walking over looks.... he looks incredibly normal. Well, normal, to Shadow, just means he looks like he's from twentieth-century America, which he certainly seems to be. He's got spare chemical hand warmers in his pockets, but no spare jacket, and it's cold.

Much too cold for what the guy's wearing - that jacket wouldn't keep a mouse warm in this weather, he muses. And no-one's stupid enough to go for a health stroll dressed like that - not even Shadow, so probably not that guy.

"Don't worry about it," Shadow replies, close enough for conversation, far enough for respect. "Bet you're freezing to death - we'll turn around and get you to shelter. It's that way."

He points, then shrugs. He's expecting questions - but he'll deal with them as they come.

[surfaceshine]

The guy doesn't look like he's about to pepper Dean with buckshot or anything, so the hunter goes ahead and closes the distance a bit more. He does glance the way Shadow points, adjusts his own course obligingly, because yeah. He doesn't exactly care right now, but he knows he should, and he's pretty cold.

"Thanks," he says, and means it. "If I could just use a phone or something, I'll be outta your hair." He pulls a face - he'd tried his cell phone a couple times despite there being no one he really wants to talk to on the other end of it anymore, and the dead device is still in his inside jacket pocket. "Reception must be shitty up here. Uh. Wherever here is."

[blindbomber]

Icarus still has one wing wrapped up, but it itches now as the bone heals and new feathers grow to replace those he lost under that wall. He's sitting on the porch of the Mansion, giving his mom time to visit with friends at the cottage she's resting at, and drinking hot chocolate. Being just over six and a half feet tall with huge white and grey wings, he might catch the eye of a hunter...

He knows Dean, though not well, and will likely recognize his voice.

[surfaceshine]

Dean isn't exactly surprised by the sense of almost-deja vu that vanishes the moment he tries to look at it; he remembers Heaven, figures there's a lot of things he doesn't remember but should. He keeps thinking that here but it won't come, so he stops looking for it and begins exploring; the trick to it all will turn up in good time.

Besides, here is as good as any.

Indeed he notices the wings straight away the moment he steps out onto the porch, and most people would think angel but Dean knows better; also once upon a time he would've gone straight for his Colt, but again, he knows better now. Not that he's not ready, but. He stops, raises an eyebrow, and says, "Those must be a bitch to get dressed around."

His voice is a bit older, a bit gruffer than Iggy will probably remember; it's not physical age, necessarily, but Dean's been through the wringer.

[blindbomber]

It does take Iggy a bit longer than usual to recognize the voice.

He shrugs his good shoulder. "It's easier when they both work," Iggy points out. "Bit harder when one doesn't move."

[surfaceshine]

Well, Dean can't fault that logic, no matter what it is sitting in front of him right now. He goes ahead and raises the other eyebrow.

The past couple years have taken what little tact he ever had, too, it seems: "Alright, what gives?"

[crimson_sugar]

For once, Sugar has some time to herself - she's left Sophie in the trusted hands of Mrs. Fox, and so she's huddled up alone in a quiet corner of the library. As she's told Alice, writing has become a cathartic thing for her: she does it to relieve her suffering more than in the hopes of being published. Hence the need to be alone, to be left to her own devices, alone with a quill, ink stains on her callused fingers and sheets that won't stay flat on the desk

[surfaceshine]

Libraries are decidedly Sam's domain; Dean has never been comfortable in them, it's always painfully obvious that he doesn't belong the moment he steps into one. At one point he was too loud, too active, too rough around the edges to ever fit in; he's none of those things now, just hard-eyed and professional, here for the only reason Dean ever sets foot in one of these places.

Research.

It takes him a moment to notice the woman as he prowls among the shelves, trying to discern some kind of sorting system. He's not really surprised to find it's not the Dewey Decimal System, because he's broken into his fair share of small town libraries that basically did whatever they wanted to do, but that does make his search a little harder. Makes it more necessary to stop the second time he passes and interrupt her.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, because he's not exactly feeling flirty yet. His lips do smile, though, muscle memory and old habit. "You know where I might find the newspaper clippings?"

[crimson_sugar]

Sugar meanwhile is writing steadily. It's nothing impressive, but she's trying new things - not writing Sugar-the-Ripper like she used to in London, but rather...

And so it was that in the days of old, the women of London Island were left alone to tend to the babes while their men died, fighting enemies greater than they. In truth it was a battle on its own - one hardly recorded at the time, but this is a tale my grandmother told me, one of sadness, loss and despair, though I have ever derived hope from it.

She pauses, dips her quill in the inkpot, goes on, It was a frozen winter of 1567, and they were then a small coterie of youths, living in a cozy cottage, off the road that leads to Birming---

And an interruption.

"... I beg your pardon?"

She was completely focused, now she lost her sentence.

Well, bugger.

[surfaceshine]

Quill. Inkpot. Dean processes that for a moment, blinking slowly, then decides fuck it. Some people juggle geese.

And really, he should've known, maybe. Except he hadn't been paying that much attention to how she's dressed or, really, how the rest of this house seems to be stuck somewhat further behind than he's accustomed to. That's actually fairly standard for houses as big as this in his experience. Usually he's trying to get out before anyone knows he's there, of course, not asking for directions.

Times have changed, he supposes. He holds the smile he doesn't really feel, already bracing for the annoyance of a woman interrupted. He's familiar enough with that, too.

"Newspaper clippings. Is there a place for 'em in here or am I up shit creek without a paddle?"

[cantplaygod]

He might find this one at a table in the library, a pot of coffee within arms reach, at work cleaning a handgun, the pieces laid out on newspaper covering the table top.

Reese only recently returned to this place himself, after a painful passage during the earthquake and Pandora's own brand of compassion. But he's settling in quickly, better than he settled in on his first arrival, back in the summer.

[surfaceshine]

Dean has just about decided that there's not much of interest in here for him when he passes the man with two things that do interest him: coffee and a disassembled handgun. It's the openness of the weapon that surprises him if anything does, and prompts a quick glance around. Sam used to flip out about him carrying a concealed firearm in the Holy Cathedral of Academia; never mind openly cleaning one on a table.

He raises an eyebrow, tries to figure out what make and model it is out of professional curiosity, and says, "Got a permit for that thing?"

[cantplaygod]

"Got several permits in my world, didn't know they were issuing them here. Don't remember anyone checking out my creds the first time I got here," the dark fellow says, wryly, running a brush down the barrel of the gun.

[surfaceshine]

"Well what kinda three ring circus are they running here?" Dean quips back, easily if not exactly whole heartedly. He walks around the edge of the table so he can see better. ...And keep his own back turned away from the other man.

"Just outta curiosity, what kinda creds you packin'?" If it's a misstep, he's been able to talk himself out of more suspicious circumstances; if not, it's the more direct path to what he wants.

[eight_livesleft]

She's barely been here a week or so, but you'd think Carol's been here a year. It's all Daniel's fault, really: he's not Sophia (of course not) and he is most definitely not Carl (not a bad thing), he's just a normal kid in a normal (almost normal) place, with normal (well, Ed wouldn't say so, but he can fuck off) parents. It's a sharp contrast to everything she's known in the last three years, and she's still thinking there must be something rotten with this place. But there's Daryl here, too - and she feels safe (and going soft) and this is a problem only as long as it means she may die and reanimate

[surfaceshine]

Dean knows he should be hungry. He's really not, but he's a familiar enough companion to stress and grief by now to know that he won't ever be, not for a while. Doesn't mean he doesn't need to eat, so when he thinks about it, the hunter backtracks to where he remembers passing the kitchen with only a quick glance to clear it.

The first thing he notices, honestly, is the turnips; there's more of them than he's ever seen in one place, certainly, and in no small part because Dean's experience with cooking from raw ingredients is almost nonexistent. He'd recognize them more readily canned, honestly, but he still gets it after a moment. Then he notices the woman, and something in him recognizes something in her without his permission or his knowledge.

They're both not really quite sure what they're doing here.

"Hey," he says belatedly. Then, because he doesn't know what else to do or say, offers, "Want some help?"

Maybe he can learn something; maybe he can trade labor for a part of whatever it turns into.

[eight_livesleft]

Carol was deep into her work - it's a way for her to escape whatever plagues her (no pun intended), by focusing on very simple gestures. When she lost her daughter, that kept her going long enough to survive, long enough to find a new brand of will to survive

[surfaceshine]

Dean is watching her closely enough that he knows he surprised her, but he just cocks his head slightly to the side to field the look she gives him, then follows her point to the drawer. Nodding, he crosses to rummage through it until he finds the peeler in question.

"No, we haven't - I'm Dean," he replies, returning to her. He wastes another few seconds staring at the pile and wondering if there's any kind of rhyme or reason to it, but there's not; there's only peeled and unpeeled, as far as he can tell, so he just picks one up and turns it until it fits comfortably in his palm. It doesn't really occur to him to wash his hands.

"I'm uh. New, I guess," he admits dryly, amused in a morbid way because it's been a while since he's been new to anything. Except, maybe, getting his ass handed to him by biblical figures. He glances across at her, then back down at the vegetables. "Nice to meet you. What're we making?"