(no subject)
John Winchester hasn't come around the Roadhouse in years.
Places like this, you've got your regulars, like any other saloon out there, and you've got your steadily rotating cast of drifters. You could divvy it up into main and minor characters if your mind slanted that way, like all of them were sitting on the set of some bad horror movie; Ellen's mind sure as hell doesn't work like that. This is a life, what they've got -- it's as real as any, no different from the rest of the world except in how they all know things no sane person ought to be knowing, and life doesn't wrap up its little plots as neat as that.
Sometimes folks just disappear and there's no explanation for it. It's not an uncommon thing in this line of work, all told.
Be real nice if it were, but, well.
The lucky ones, though: they may stop dropping by, but that doesn't mean they've stopped working. You also get your gossip in places like this, fish tales (ones more likely to involve a stray wendigo than a rainbow trout, mind) and all kinds of speculations as to what the big shots are up to lately. Ellen serves the drinks, cleans the bar, breaks up the fights, kicks out the rowdy ones when she's got cause to, and keeps an ear cocked the whole time she's doing it.
John Winchester may not come around anymore, but he's still got a hell of a strong presence over here.
"John, it's Ellen. Again."
It's the fifth time she's called him in so many months. One arm folded across her chest, Ellen's mouth thins as the brief and faintly expectant pause stretches: the son of a bitch isn't going to pick up for the fifth time. Behind her, one of the hunters drops a quarter into the jukebox and starts up Aerosmith.
"Look, don't be stubborn," she says as she leans against the edge of the bar. "You know I can help you."
There's a lot she could add to that, like how silence'll drag you into a rut after a while and she knows it's been a damn long time on both their ends. That's just excusing the behavior; say all you want, come up with every rationalization out there, but if it keeps walking like a pigheaded ass and talking like a pigheaded ass, it'll still be a pigheaded ass. So Ellen doesn't say any of it.
What she says instead before she hangs up, in a tone that's a quieter cousin of the exasperation that's been running rampant all over her words, is a simple, "Call me."
The clatter of the receiver dropping into its cradle hits right on the beat of "Janie's Got a Gun." Ellen turns away and slips her other arm over the first, lips pressing tighter as she watches the far wall.
A minute later, she fetches three shotglasses for the group that's walking in and gets back to work.
She doesn't call again after that.
(Neither does he.)
Just because Ellen's not bothering to be around anymore, though, doesn't mean she stops listening.
Places like this, you've got your regulars, like any other saloon out there, and you've got your steadily rotating cast of drifters. You could divvy it up into main and minor characters if your mind slanted that way, like all of them were sitting on the set of some bad horror movie; Ellen's mind sure as hell doesn't work like that. This is a life, what they've got -- it's as real as any, no different from the rest of the world except in how they all know things no sane person ought to be knowing, and life doesn't wrap up its little plots as neat as that.
Sometimes folks just disappear and there's no explanation for it. It's not an uncommon thing in this line of work, all told.
Be real nice if it were, but, well.
The lucky ones, though: they may stop dropping by, but that doesn't mean they've stopped working. You also get your gossip in places like this, fish tales (ones more likely to involve a stray wendigo than a rainbow trout, mind) and all kinds of speculations as to what the big shots are up to lately. Ellen serves the drinks, cleans the bar, breaks up the fights, kicks out the rowdy ones when she's got cause to, and keeps an ear cocked the whole time she's doing it.
John Winchester may not come around anymore, but he's still got a hell of a strong presence over here.
"John, it's Ellen. Again."
It's the fifth time she's called him in so many months. One arm folded across her chest, Ellen's mouth thins as the brief and faintly expectant pause stretches: the son of a bitch isn't going to pick up for the fifth time. Behind her, one of the hunters drops a quarter into the jukebox and starts up Aerosmith.
"Look, don't be stubborn," she says as she leans against the edge of the bar. "You know I can help you."
There's a lot she could add to that, like how silence'll drag you into a rut after a while and she knows it's been a damn long time on both their ends. That's just excusing the behavior; say all you want, come up with every rationalization out there, but if it keeps walking like a pigheaded ass and talking like a pigheaded ass, it'll still be a pigheaded ass. So Ellen doesn't say any of it.
What she says instead before she hangs up, in a tone that's a quieter cousin of the exasperation that's been running rampant all over her words, is a simple, "Call me."
The clatter of the receiver dropping into its cradle hits right on the beat of "Janie's Got a Gun." Ellen turns away and slips her other arm over the first, lips pressing tighter as she watches the far wall.
A minute later, she fetches three shotglasses for the group that's walking in and gets back to work.
She doesn't call again after that.
(Neither does he.)
Just because Ellen's not bothering to be around anymore, though, doesn't mean she stops listening.