This is side one, flip me over,
I know I'm not your favorite record.
The songs you grow to like never stick at first
She wakes up the next morning feeling rather well rested for the first time since being dropped off with the Winchesters. She yawns before getting out of bed. She trudges down the stairs lazily despite being wide eyed and bushytailed. It's eerily quiet and the creaking of her weight on the stairs is sort of setting her off. She reaches the last stair and her ears are greeted with the sounds of someone soft snores. She lets out a breath that she didn't know she was holding in and quietly treads into the kitchen to raid Bobby's fridge.
His refrigerator is much neater than she had been expecting it to be. There are fruits (mostly apples, but that works) and vegetables of many colors spread throughout the shelves and drawers. There is fresh milk and cranberry juice on the top shelf surrounded by packages of take-out. And of course, he has a whole shelf solely devoted to his beer, which she was expecting to be frank. She grabs the milk, turns and sets it down on the table cluttered with papers and books. She proceeds to search for the pantry to dig out some cereal (which she finds about ten minutes later. For how organized his fridge was, his pantry was eight times worse.)
She found a bowl in the cabinet above the sink; she carried to the cluttered table, placed it and put about a cup of stale oat cereal into it. She poured some of the milk into the dry cereal and put it back in the fridge. She was just about to seat herself when she remembers that she doesn't have a spoon and it would be painfully awkward if she tried to eat her cereal without one.
Her only problem was that she had no idea where the silverware was kept and she isn't too keen on looking through all of Bobby's kitchen cabinets and drawers. (She digs through them anyway. She was hungry, and a hungry Clara is a determined one.) She goes through three out of five drawers before she finds his silverware, which to her inconvenience is all mixed together.
She cringes every time she hears the tiny clang of metal while digging for a spoon. Eventually, she finds one; she tip-toes over to sit down and eat her now soggy breakfast. She sits in silence except for the occasional snore and the scraping of the spoon against the bottom of the bowl. She finishes and brings her dishes into the sink and begins to wash them. The faucet is loud and she desperately hopes that the boys sleep through it. (God knows they probably haven't slept in three years.)
xXx
When she's done with her dishes, she decided to go back to her room and do a little digging around, hoping to find clean clothes, her dress and sweater were starting to smell funky. She pranced up the stairs, hoping that the tiny little footsteps wouldn't make much noise. She reaches her bedroom and opens the nearest dresser.
The top drawer is bare. The next one down has mouse droppings, a rosary and an old newspaper in it. The third contains a black lacy bra (she doesn't even want to know, though it roughly her size, so she pulls it out anyway), a half empty water bottle, a red and black flannel shirt that looks like it belongs to a lumberjack which she takes out and tosses onto the bed, and what seems to be the full discography of ACDC in a collection of tapes. In the fourth drawer, she finds a few more flannels and two pairs of sweatpants that are going to be monstrously large on her; they'll have to do until she can get to town and get some cheap American apparel and other things that are sort of important to her life as a female.
She waltzes back over to the door and shuts it quietly, then walks over to the bed and strips out of her clothing. She takes off her bra and replaces it with the black lacy one, which feels a lot more comfortable than she was expecting. She puts on the black and red flannel that smells vaguely like the elder Winchester (which she doesn't really mind; he does seem to smell kind of nice, rugged, but nice nonetheless).
The shirt is huge on her small body, but the shirt is well worn and comfy which cancels out the 'I'm actually wearing a dress' factor of the article of clothing. (She actually feels a little cute in it, so sue her.) She puts on the sweatpants and she laughs. They need to be rolled at the waist a good six times for them to not fall off her hips. He legs are way too long and she rolls them as well.
She feels ridiculous. (As in she needs to find a washer fast ridiculous, because she won't be caught dead in what she's wearing.)
Luckily for her, Bobby and Sam could sleep through the TARDIS exploding. Unluckily for her, Dean is a light sleeper, so when she gets finds the laundry room and starts her wash, he's there trying not to look like the sly bastard that he is.
She turns around, trying to hide her internal horror of being seen with a look of amusement (it's not working) and notices that his short hair is disheveled and though his face shows amusement and liveliness, he looks exhausted. She feels guilt-ridden knowing that she's most likely at fault for his unrest and desperately wants to apologize to him; he never asked to be in this mess (neither did she, but its different when you're assigned to take care of someone with next to no notice.)
But she doesn't. Instead, she tells him to screw off, a command that he directly ignores.
"Good morning to you too, sweetheart." He mutters.
She doesn't reply. She turns around and tries to escape the laundry room (where she's escaping to is another question entirely, but she's not thinking about that right now.) Her plan fails, seeing as Dean's blocking the door. She lets out a sigh as she plows into him, hoping the small amount of force her tiny body has will be enough to knock him over.
He's giving her a look, looking at her shirt (specifically her chest, which was what she honestly expected from him) and grinned.
"Nice shirt you've got there." She's a little flushed, but doesn't back down.
"Thank you." She replies with a smile, which is actually more like a grimace. She would love if he just left her alone, "If you could let me out of here, I'd show you the rest of my flannel collection." He scowls, as if he remembers something important (Which she's sure has something to do with the drawers and the shirts, which really shouldn't be at the top of his priorities).
And then he picks her up by the waist and throws her over his shoulder. She doesn't fight it, she's too worn out by his antics to even put up a fight. She doesn't kick while he carries her body out to his car, and she sure as hell doesn't scream when he gets in the drives seat and starts driving into town.
He turns up the stereo (they're listening to more classic rock, surprise surprise) and starts mouthing the words of Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n' Roll, which almost makes her giggle, almost being the operative word. She watches him and the scenery carefully, both he and the landscape share an uncanny beauty. (Which is weird, she's only known him for like two days. He shouldn't be having such an infuriating effect on her.)
"Where are you taking me?" she asks after five minutes of his horrendous car dancing.
"Well, I can't have you wearing my favorite flannels now can I?" he suggests with mirth; she cracks a smile.
"I suppose not. Although I think I'm going to keep this one. Sorry, Dean." He gives her that look again, it's strange and she doesn't like it so she pretends he's not looking at her in the first place.
"It's 'right." He chuckles, "We're going to town, well not Suix Falls, the next one over, seeing as it's bigger and there's more shops and stuff."
"Dean, I hate to say it but I'm sort of low on cash so this shopping excursion may have to be put on hold until I get a job or something." She says, embarrassed. She already feels bad enough being a burden to the both of them while they're trying to figure out how to stop the world from ending. She doesn't want them to spend all their money her – some British girl with enough issues to cause political unrest on several different planets.
"This one's on me, seriously; don't worry about it."
"I just feel like I'm imposing; I don't want you to spend all your money on me." She sighs, "You're doing so much for me already – I don't want to seem like a bother."
"Clara," he begins, "You're here because the Doctor said you important in this saving the world ordeal that Sam and I got ourselves flung into – you're here because he's a part of it too. You also seem to be here because the Demons seem to have taken a keen interest in you, which you should find flattering; they like you as much as they like me. You're not a burden; damn, I don't know what got you thinking that way. Must be a chick thing."
"That doesn't mean you have to pay for me –" she starts.
"Plus I kind of owe you, you know you did save my sorry ass when you saved this fucking planet."
She doesn't know what to say, so she replies with an earnest "Thank You." The rest of the ride is spent listening to Dean's overplayed tapes. There are no more heart to heart conversations.
xXx
When they arrive, she finds a store that sells cheap clothes (that seem durable) and underwear and she stocks up on tees, flannels, and the much needed undergarments. Dean sweet-talks the cashier into giving them a five percent discount (how he managed that, she isn't sure; maybe it's because Clara looks like some homeless chump and she felt guilty.)
On their way home, they stop at the drugstore, where she and Dean grab medication and her feminine products (he didn't act like a whiny seventeen year old boy about it, which she was thankful for. There wasn't a fuss or anything.)
They arrived back at Bobby's shortly after that. She carried her bags inside and up to her room, noticing Sam and Bobby sipping coffee at the table in the kitchen on her way up. She quickly changed out of the sweatpants that looked like they belonged to a mountain and put on a pair of jeans that were actually her size. She refused to take off dean's flannel; she was way too comfortable in the way-too-big shirt.
As she receded back downstairs and joined them at the kitchen table, she listened to them talking about a case that they would be leaving for shortly (Bobby said it would be a simple salt and burn, whatever the hell that meant). And then she realized that she would be helping them doing whatever it is they do and she was both terrified and exceptionally excited at the same time.
(She was half tempted to recite Ghost Busters theme song when Sam told them to get their stuff together to leave soon, but she thought that he might beat her up if she did, so she wisely kept her mouth shut.)
AYYYYY HEY GUYS! IT'S BEEN A WHILE because I've been really busy with the beginning of my Sophomore year *shrieks* and we're redoing my kitchen, so I haven't had a spare moment of time to work on anything.
Since doctor who comes back tomorrow (well today, seeing as its 12:30 am) I decided to work on my doctor who xover.
This chapter is mostly a filler, and I promise with the next one we will get more plot development and hopefully more pre-osdean moments.
I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDER DOCTOR WHO PREMIER AND DON'T CRY TOO MUCH. (Gosh I'm so excited
Don't forget to review, favorite and follow! Constructive/positive feedback is appreciated!
Lots of love,
bleuboxes
