-1Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. I wish I did, I've promised to share, but still I own nothing -tear- Because no body loves me.
Title: When Boredom Strikes
Summary: Athena and Dean are on the road to the next hunt, and she's being a Chatty Kathy
A/N: It's like 11am no one is online, my sibs are still asleep (hence the reason I can be on the pc), and my folks are gone. I REALLY need something to do. Did I mention I'm getting a cold too?
"I spy with my little eye" Athena starts her game again. I'd only just managed to forget the last thing she spied and here it was again.
"My boot in your ass?" I ask hoping against all my knowledge of her that she'd give up the game and not ask what was eating at me.
"Who peed in your Wheaties?" she asks frowning. Sam's right when she's thinking she does get creases in her forehead.
"Santa Clause, now can we shut up?" I reach forward turning up Pink Floyd, anything to tune the blonde next to me out.
"Nope," she calls over the music before leaning across the front of the car to kiss my cheek. "Have I told you lately that I love you?"
"Athena, its to early to be drinking so what do you want?" I leave the music up, hands on the steering wheel, and eyes on the road. Maybe, just maybe, if I try to show I'm not interested in her source of conversation by my actions she'll stop talking. It's no wonder Autumn banished her out of the Mustang at the last stop.
"Pushy. Pushy." she tsks leaning back into her seat and closing her eyes. "Why don't you like flying?" she asks suddenly sitting back up and turning the radio off. I sigh and send her a sidelong look that puts Sammy off for hours. "Pinky swear! I won't tell a soul!" she promised.
"Why does it matter?" We've been on the road the better part of three days, driving to some hunt Autumn picked up. Something about old folks and nuts disappearing from a nursing home in Rhode Island, I didn't need details, if she thought it was worth checking chances are it really was. There was a perk of course, she's got some friends in New England, somewhere, hunters. Hunters that might shed some light on the years she keeps in the dark. Athena is fidgeting in her seat, picking at the upholstery. "Stop that." I smack her arm, as if she's a disobedient child.
"It don't really matter, but what if we need to fly? I'd like to know, is all." She followed her words by rounding those big blue cow eyes, and making her lower lip quiver. Sammy is better at the abused puppy thing, but God, who could say no to a pretty girl?
"Why are you afraid of ostriches?" Oh yea, I can say no. I don't very often but lately its getting easier to tell women no, or ignore them completely.
"They're huge!" she shrinks a little on the spot. "The big talons, and long legs. That tiny little brain and those great big staring eyes." Athena managed something that I didn't think she could, she was quiet for a full five minutes. When I looked back over to check on her I knew why, she was txting Sam. "Autumn just got a call from Jen." she announces.
"What's up?" calls from Jen weren't ever social. Jen had given her legs to hunting, she dedicated her life to bettering the lives of other hunters. I doubted her mind could leave hunting. She was obsessed, with no reason, no solid enemy.
"Don't know, Sammy says he'll tell us when we stop, that its too hard to explain on here." she shrugged dropping the phone between her legs and looking a back to me. "How'd you know about the ostriches?"
"You must have mentioned it." I shrug , knowing she wouldn't buy my lie. She eyed me for a minute before sighing.
"Fine. But I can't not talk so you better think of something." I can't help but thinking that this would be a nice moment to drop a mass of Christmas lights in her lap to unravel, instead I reach around in the back seat and grab her journal.
"You don't hunt because you want to." I state. She knows me well enough to know the question I won't ask.
"I hunt because I need to." she answers too quickly. "I hunt for the same reason you do."
"The Demon?" I play stupid. She hunts so she don't lose her family, so she can be with them and do their will.
"Yea, the Demon." she nods. "If you weren't hunting what would you do?" The question catches me off guard.
"I wanted to be a fire fighter when I was a kid. You?" I spouted off the only job I'd ever put serious thought into, and shot the question back at her.
"I'd be married to some guy I went to high school with, we'd have a handful of kids and be living in his daddy's house, raisin' livestock, and waiting for the day we both admit the love is gone." she didn't bother to hide her annoyance with the life she knew she'd be leading. I could never see her being a mom, she wasn't cut out for that. I always pictured her more of the eternal bachelorette type, more my kind of girl than Sam's.
"Why?"
"Because that's what we do. We get scared of being alone forever, latch on to the first warm body that walks by and try to create a life with them. Then its all waiting until that life shatters, it's the life Autumn always wanted. Until she couldn't escape her demons back home by staying back home." she gave me another shrug. "Wonder why that is. Autumn and I are so very different, but were raised the same way. Just like you and Sammy are worlds apart."
To me the reason was obvious, Autumn and I had spent most over our childhoods protecting our younger siblings, making sure they didn't have to know any more of the truth than absolutely necessary. I let her ponder a while and kept driving. The sun would be setting soon and not long after that we'd be pulling into Rhode Island. We'd pull of for gas then, and decide if we wanted to stop for the night or switch drivers and keep going until we reached our town. More likely than not we'd keep going, at least after I pulled Autumn aside for a moment.
"Daddy," Athena whined. I look over to see what wrong this time. "I'm bored." she complains.
"Then take a nap." I plug in a cassette tape, my way of telling her I'm done talking. She steals my jacket from behind us on the backseat and wraps up in it, settling in for a power nap. She looks so harmless when she's a sleep but I'm not fooled, I don't care how much she annoys Autumn I'm never riding alone with her again. She and Sam can have the Mustang tomorrow for all I care. But never again will I be standing around when boredom strikes my little blonde.