a quick succession of busy nothings
Meg doesn't think either of them ever suggested that they make lunch a standing appointment, but it seems to have become one. It's easier, maybe, to have structure and a pattern, to not have to make a conscious decision about when to knock on the door between their rooms. Or maybe it's just a habit they fall into for no reason, if a "habit" can be said to form in under a week. (Meg thinks it can, in this case anyway. Five days in their current situation is a lot longer than five days at home.) Regardless of how it happened, though, it happened.
Conversation gets easier, though it never gets to easy. Part of that, Meg would guess, is that they don't have that much to talk about at the best of times and the innocuous topics you discuss with people you don't know well just don't work all that well right now. Like sports, which they can discuss only in broad terms -- as a nineteen-year difference in starting points means you can't exactly trade notes on who's in the lead in the American League Central Division. (Especially considering there is no American League Central Division in Meg's day, and won't be for another half dozen years).
Pop culture, if they talk about her era, works fairly well. Movies that she saw in the theatre in the last six months are things he watched as a kid -- Indiana Jones and James Bond -- but at least they've both seen them. Music, too, for the same reasons; television less so, because she just doesn't watch all that much of it.
As far as personal questions, she doesn't ask much beyond how are you?, reasoning that, like the leaving the room, he'll bring things up when he wants to, if he wants to. She doesn't know if that's a cowardly approach to take, but the one time they even came close to it, he shut down faster than she's ever seen anyone do. And she's fairly certain that that will not help, so she doesn't push. She joins him for lunch every day, she gives him an opportunity to talk, and if they discuss nothing more personal than their opinions on Connery vs. Moore vs. Dalton vs. that Australian who only did the one movie, well, so be it.
She still does more of the talking than he does, but she would no longer say she does most of it. She thinks Dean is making more of an effort at his part of the conversation, but it's also obviously an effort. As she told Castiel, it's like talking to a Dean who remembers that he used to be a different Dean, but can't quite remember how to. And when she asks him how his first visit down to the main bar went, she gets something close to a self-depreciating smile and the statement, "I'm a little rusty," followed by a pause that's a beat too short, and then a far-from-smooth change of topic.
They play a lot of cards, hand after hand of poker, betting with M&Ms until she thinks to get poker chips from Bar. It's low pressure human interaction, and it provides its own topic of conversation, both of which Meg would put on its pros list. On the cons list would be that she tends to lose -- Dean wins three out of five hands the first day and closer to four out of five by the fifth. Meg knows how to play -- she's never going to do something like put three aces and two queens on the table and ask, "Is this good?" -- but she's risk adverse enough that she tends to fold fair to middling hands quickly. (Dean is possibly more aware of that fact that she is.)
Dean seems tired in a drained sort of way, and fidgety, often spinning poker chips or tapping his foot, not quite still. Aside from taking the tray from her each day, so she can get her chair, he doesn't come all that close to her. When she's dealing, he waits till she's picked her cards up before reaching for his hand. When he's dealing, she follows his lead and waits until his hands are clear of the table before taking her cards.
She stays a little longer each day, but when it's not hard to tell when it's time to leave -- Dean and the conversation both show the strain, and for all Meg knows, she does, too. And then she and the tray and her chair go back to her room.
They're not friends -- they weren't before all this happened, and she doesn't really expect them to be when it's over, whenever that is. The best analogy she can find for it (and she's looked) is that she feels like his caseworker from some sort of Heavenly Ministry of Community and Social Services.
Castiel comes by every so often, knocking on the front door and waiting for her to open it, now. He asks about Dean, and she gives him variations on the same answer -- Dean seems a little more at ease than the day before, but there's no magical breakthrough, no sudden dramatic improvement. There's progress, and she'd even call it steady, but it's slow. No, she doesn't think he's ready to go back yet.
But, then, knowing what Castiel wants to take Dean back to, Meg's still not sure how she'd ever be able to honestly say that she thought he was ready. Which makes her feel a little disloyal to Castiel. And who is she to say, really, . . . except the person being asked. Castiel doesn't push, though occasionally she thinks she sees an edge of impatience.
Meg mostly keeps to her room the rest of the time, reading and knitting and listening to music, adding to the small but growing collections of books and cassettes on Castiel's desk, wondering what she's going to do with the gloves and scarves and hats she's made. She doesn't start any larger projects -- no sweaters or blankets -- refusing to speculate that she might be here long enough to finish them.
Even though she's starting to suspect she might.
Conversation gets easier, though it never gets to easy. Part of that, Meg would guess, is that they don't have that much to talk about at the best of times and the innocuous topics you discuss with people you don't know well just don't work all that well right now. Like sports, which they can discuss only in broad terms -- as a nineteen-year difference in starting points means you can't exactly trade notes on who's in the lead in the American League Central Division. (Especially considering there is no American League Central Division in Meg's day, and won't be for another half dozen years).
Pop culture, if they talk about her era, works fairly well. Movies that she saw in the theatre in the last six months are things he watched as a kid -- Indiana Jones and James Bond -- but at least they've both seen them. Music, too, for the same reasons; television less so, because she just doesn't watch all that much of it.
As far as personal questions, she doesn't ask much beyond how are you?, reasoning that, like the leaving the room, he'll bring things up when he wants to, if he wants to. She doesn't know if that's a cowardly approach to take, but the one time they even came close to it, he shut down faster than she's ever seen anyone do. And she's fairly certain that that will not help, so she doesn't push. She joins him for lunch every day, she gives him an opportunity to talk, and if they discuss nothing more personal than their opinions on Connery vs. Moore vs. Dalton vs. that Australian who only did the one movie, well, so be it.
She still does more of the talking than he does, but she would no longer say she does most of it. She thinks Dean is making more of an effort at his part of the conversation, but it's also obviously an effort. As she told Castiel, it's like talking to a Dean who remembers that he used to be a different Dean, but can't quite remember how to. And when she asks him how his first visit down to the main bar went, she gets something close to a self-depreciating smile and the statement, "I'm a little rusty," followed by a pause that's a beat too short, and then a far-from-smooth change of topic.
They play a lot of cards, hand after hand of poker, betting with M&Ms until she thinks to get poker chips from Bar. It's low pressure human interaction, and it provides its own topic of conversation, both of which Meg would put on its pros list. On the cons list would be that she tends to lose -- Dean wins three out of five hands the first day and closer to four out of five by the fifth. Meg knows how to play -- she's never going to do something like put three aces and two queens on the table and ask, "Is this good?" -- but she's risk adverse enough that she tends to fold fair to middling hands quickly. (Dean is possibly more aware of that fact that she is.)
Dean seems tired in a drained sort of way, and fidgety, often spinning poker chips or tapping his foot, not quite still. Aside from taking the tray from her each day, so she can get her chair, he doesn't come all that close to her. When she's dealing, he waits till she's picked her cards up before reaching for his hand. When he's dealing, she follows his lead and waits until his hands are clear of the table before taking her cards.
She stays a little longer each day, but when it's not hard to tell when it's time to leave -- Dean and the conversation both show the strain, and for all Meg knows, she does, too. And then she and the tray and her chair go back to her room.
They're not friends -- they weren't before all this happened, and she doesn't really expect them to be when it's over, whenever that is. The best analogy she can find for it (and she's looked) is that she feels like his caseworker from some sort of Heavenly Ministry of Community and Social Services.
Castiel comes by every so often, knocking on the front door and waiting for her to open it, now. He asks about Dean, and she gives him variations on the same answer -- Dean seems a little more at ease than the day before, but there's no magical breakthrough, no sudden dramatic improvement. There's progress, and she'd even call it steady, but it's slow. No, she doesn't think he's ready to go back yet.
But, then, knowing what Castiel wants to take Dean back to, Meg's still not sure how she'd ever be able to honestly say that she thought he was ready. Which makes her feel a little disloyal to Castiel. And who is she to say, really, . . . except the person being asked. Castiel doesn't push, though occasionally she thinks she sees an edge of impatience.
Meg mostly keeps to her room the rest of the time, reading and knitting and listening to music, adding to the small but growing collections of books and cassettes on Castiel's desk, wondering what she's going to do with the gloves and scarves and hats she's made. She doesn't start any larger projects -- no sweaters or blankets -- refusing to speculate that she might be here long enough to finish them.
Even though she's starting to suspect she might.