Note to Self: I do not own this. Must not pretend I do.
A/N: Can you tell I feel like shit?
oOo
Thursday
oOo
He meets her in a laundromat of all places. Sitting there, watching the dirty, bloodstained clothes he wore on his last hunt go round and round and round, endlessly. It's boring but he's too tired to even turn his head. The only reason he's here is that if he doesn't wash those clothes tonight, they'll be beyond saving tomorrow. Hell, the shirt's probably done in for anyway.
His back hurts from where he got flung into yet another wall, his shoulders are a mass of bruises. His left wrist is sprained and there's probably something wrong with his ankle but he can't really reach it. Damn poltergeists.
"Hey," she says, out of the blue, "You okay there?"
He jerks around, startled enough to go for the gun at the small of his back. Then his gaze falls on the slip of a girl watching him with worried eyes and his hands drop to his sides. Spooked. He's too damn spooked. If the girl notices where his right hand went, she doesn't let on. Instead she smiles at him, almost carefully. She's short, dirty blonde, and not really a girl at all. Late thirties, maybe older. She wears faded jeans and a band shirt that's been washed so often, the letters splashed on the front are all but gone.
He smiles back, his cocky, devil may care grin and knows it falls flat even before the worry enters her eyes. He hasn't shaved in a week, his left cheek is more bruise than skin and bloodshot really does nothing for the color of his eyes. He lets the expression drop, knowing that he missed his chance to con this one. The truth will have to do now.
"'M okay," he tells her and, geez, even his voice sounds pathetic, rasping along the scab of a split lip.
"You don' look it, honey," she informs him and he stiffens immediately. Her expression falls and she takes half a step back, back from the animal he looks and probably is. The warm metal of his gun presses into a blackish bruise and he feels dirtier than he ever has in his life. Scaring this chick who's only being nice. Might as well start eating kids now. "Sorry," she says, and her voice is almost steady as she pulls back.
It's been three weeks since he heard from dad, three years since Sam picked up the phone and he just spend an entire night locked in a haunted house, getting thrown around as he tried to do a two man job on his own. He's hurt, tired, fucked seven ways from yesterday and he wants nothing more than to go home, crawl into bed and fall asleep to the sound of someone rambling on about all kinds of shit like Sammy used to.
But all that's waiting is an empty motel room with one unused bed and another one with a lumpy mattress that'll make his back worse. That, and the silence. That's always waiting for him. A few more months of this, he figures, and he won't be fit for human society anymore. Either that or dead.
"Sorry," he echoes and reaches out to lightly brush his fingers along her shoulder in apology. He shouldn't and normally he wouldn't but dad's not there to get on his case about giving away the big secret and Sam can't roll his eyes from across the continent and he fucking hurts, okay? "Sorry. My mom used to call me honey all the time, 's all."
And yeah, he's being big, tough and manly, admitting that he doesn't like anyone calling him that because that name, that word, is reserved for the space in his head where he stores all his faded, scraped together memories of a woman twenty years dead. Mom called him that and he's let no-one since, not even one of the million barflies he's fallen into bed with. Sugar, darling, hey you, anything but that. Anything but honey.
That careful smile is back on her face. "Unlucky," she comments and it takes him a moment to catch on to the fact that she's talking about her word choice, not his life story. Then she changes tracks and tells him idly, "Washing machine broke down at home and my youngest is in this phase where she rolls through the mud three times a day. If I want to dress her tomorrow, I gotta get this stuff clean tonight."
She waves a hand at the two machines next to his, tumbling sluggishly round and round. He makes out dizzy pinks and reds, some purple thrown in. Little girl clothes. What's he doing talking to that little girl's mom in a laundromat at ten pm on a Thursday evening?
"My little brother used to be the same. Had to change him constantly." Which wasn't always Sammy's fault. Sometimes shit splattered on him, blood and bits, and sometimes he simply forgot that little Sammy couldn't properly use a spoon yet and at other times… when he was too exhausted and tired of it all, Sammy sometimes tried to be grown up. Those messes took longest to clean up, always.
He sits back down, watching his own clothes go round, black and blue and olive, colors made to make you forget who's wearing them, just blending in, wherever, whenever. She sits next t him and the question on her face is plain as day. So your mom died when you were young? Where was your father?
And in his head he answers, Saving the fucking world for you and forgetting all about us.
Out loud he says, "He got better when I made him sit and watch every time I had to clean his crap. Got tired of having to sit still."
She laughs. "That's an idea!"
Yeah, sorry, he didn't have any fancy parenting magazines to carry him through. He runs a hand through his hair, the motion itself almost too exhausting to manage and grimaces as the fingers come away sticky. He already took two showers but some shit just doesn't wash off. Ever. When Sam was twelve, he got a full load of ectoplasm on his favorite shirt when some fugly manifestation exploded after he stuffed its ass with salt. The shirt was a goner and Sam bitched and bitched and bitched until he gave him his own favorite shirt as compensation.
"I…," she hesitates, then stands, digging into her jeans pocket. If she's about to try and play charity you might just start screaming, but all she does is dig out some quarters and ask, "I'm getting a coffee. You want one?"
He hesitates because that is charity, in a way. But she looks so guileless and open. Just wants to be nice. People don't do nice when he's around. They do scared, traumatized, angry, injured, freaking out and dead. But not nice. Not since Sam left and took his little boy grin and easy charm with him. Sam is all apple pie and hot chocolate. He's burnt black coffee and sweat slicked skin. A different kind of charm, one that sets people on edge. And tonight even that fails.
He nods. Coffee. Coffee is good. Coffee makes his tired brain and body function a bit longer. She smiles again, quick and obscenely pleased by his acceptance of her offer. Maybe he shouldn't drink that coffee after all. Maybe she's going to drug him and drag him home to offer to the munchkins for dinner. That'd be just his kind of luck and he's not sure he cares.
She makes her way down the aisle toward the clerk with the coffee machine and comes back a moment later with two paper cups wrapped in napkins. There's steam. Hot. Hot coffee. It's been a while. He takes one cup from her, tries that smiling thing again and almost succeeds His gun digs into that bruise and his head hurts and the goddamn laundry takes goddamn forever. He doesn't check for drugs.
"I'm Jenny, by the way," she tells him, blowing on her drink between words.
And he's Jeff and John and Dan and Mike and Warren and Hector. He's anything he needs to be, anything Jenny wants him to be and it's been ages since he heard his real name on another human being's tongue.
"Dean."
"Pleasedtameetcha," she chirps, too chipper for a place like this, too bright. Then she sinks back into herself and they sit side by side, sipping hot, bitter coffee and watching the machines tumble, round and round and round.
He thinks that the jeans will come out alright, but his green shirt is probably a goner.
oOo