Review are appreciated because it's been a terrible, terrible month for me. I've not been able to update as often because of psychological and family matters, so I'm sorry about that. Many of the places mentioned are important to me because I've grown up near them. Lily, in particular, was a classmate of mine who was always sick, but was a fantastic person. She was always kind to me during middle school, and one of the reasons why I'm still here today. She was one of the first to show physical kindness to me, and got me on the path to accepting physical greetings like hugs instead of handshakes. (I still flinch at surprise-attack hugs). I don't live in the area now, but I'm giving thanks to Lily in particular
Everyone that's favorited or followed has my sincere thanks, but I want to give a particular shout-out to a guest who reminded me that Supernatural angel wings are not visible. I'll explain the situation in a later chapter, as it's part of the plot. I'll be inserting references to other fandoms as much as possible. Particularly Sherlock.
As for any other mistakes about the series, I'm taking liberties with unmentioned monsters in the Supernatural fandom, so please feel free to suggest any monsters that you want mentioned or fleshed out. Reminder, I've only watched part of Supernatural season one.
Regards,
Seoul81
Harry is starving. He's faces hunger before, but never at such a length.
It's been half a week since he's arrived in New Jersey, and he's wandered into a no-name area named Plainsboro. There's a multitude of farm-land, rivers and posh public-schools that boast multiple awards for academics. There are also a cloud of students drifting out onto the school grounds for recess.
It's almost a hazy cloud of hunger that hits him as he smells packaged boxes of rice, stir-fry chicken, and fish sauteed in soy sauce. The Dursleys had at most shut him into his cupboard for two days at a time with small amounts of bread shoved in between periods of darkness. It's a terrible, terrible feeling to be in what little shade the tree that he's hiding in can give him while nearly gasping in pain at the feeling that his stomach gives. The deep feeling of shy, shameful envy he feels while watching the middle schoolers chat amiably or playing frisbee seems to form a cloud of gloom around his person.
It's miserable, he thinks as his stomach growls again.
There are a few children coming from out of the shade to near his grassy patch of shade, and he can see the heavy textbooks held near oily school cafeteria food. He's watching enviously before startling as one of the student's eyes meet his own. He's poised to take flight, standing, muscles tensing and wings slightly spread before stopping as a single girl creeps towards him.
He's suddenly held paralyzed in fear, stomach curdling and sweat laden fingers twisting the coarse cloth of his shirt.
"Hi"
The single world from the girl is enough to startle him out of his panicked thoughts, and he makes an unintelligible sound in response.
The girl is young, chubby-cheeked, and chinese; a bright pink plastic flower tucked behind her long, dark hair. She's bending slightly downwards to look him in the eye, brown eyes wide in curiosity, and the faint smell of something sweet coming from her hands.
"I'm Lily."
The girl is gently smiling, a full mouth of braces doing nothing to distract from the paint splattered purple sweater bunched around her shoulders.
Harry isn't used to the another human being paying attention to him. He's heard Petunia coo over Dudley, and heard teenage girls at stonewall middle coo over neighborhood dogs, but to have such a sort of stranger show affection to him? It's terrifying. His senses finally seem to catch up, and he begins to bolt away from the girl, running away from the shaded area he was staying at. There's the faint exclamation of surprise from the girl, and he faintly sees her puzzled look as he glances backwards.
With a single flap, he launches into the cloudy sky directly above the grassy field of the school. There are pained shouts behind him, and he looks back to see the girl lying on the ground, panicked shouts of the girl's friends causing a faint feeling of guilt in his mind. He turns back towards the sky and continues to gain altitude through steady wing beats. His stomach mumbles again, but he ignores the feeling in favor fleeing away from the strange, altogether foreign feelings invoked by what happened
.
.
By the fifth night in New Jersey, Harry is desperate. Wings hanging bedraggled after continuous flight, and eyes sunken with hunger. He's constantly shivering now, the ever present feeling of cold fingers lancing across his body as his stomach no longer protests.
He's considered begging, but the thought of approaching loud, concerned people who might send him back to Britain (back with the Dursleys) is enough to discourage his feeble attempts at socializing.
At this point, he's hungry enough to scavenge from the trash bins behind the stores and homes he sees.
Harry knows that Vernon Dursley had always threatened to drive him to London and throw him on the streets, but considering the amalgamation of smells coming from behind a store that he wandered behind, he doesn't think it would have been that bad.
It's an asian food store, one that he knows from the continued muttering of his uncle about the "Yellow skinned, squid-eating, pointed-eyed freaks". Harry's seen a couple stores selling raw fish and raw pig ovaries across from the grocery stores that his aunt frequented, but never a market large enough to hold all of private drive. It's a haze of red silk, pottery, and hawking vendors displaying bags of rice and fried foods sizzling on grills.
He's been yelled at multiple times to "get out of the way" as whole roasted pigs and ducks hang on hooks towed by broad shoulders cooks thunder past. He's bumped into curious toddlers tugging at his wing-tips and a few young adults who do a double-take as he walks past. He's eaten delicate peach jellies, stuffed meat-buns, fried pancakes with bean-paste at the stands that give out free-samples, and multiple tidbits of dried fruit snatched from vendors unaware.
It's loud, it's dizzying, it's madness; but Harry loves it because of the fact that he can become one of the crowds slowly drifting across the floor without notice.
He's still somewhat hungry, but he's unwilling to go back into the shopping market to get more samples in case the vendors begin to recognize his face. He wanders into the back of the store, intent on snatching a few more bites of roasted meat, but pauses in favor of watching a cook with a pinched face cart trays of food through the back door. It's simple logic and a sort of desperate hope that drives him to creep along after the man.
The back of the market seems drained of life in comparison to the warm red haze of the front of the store. There are strewn fish heads around garbage bins, large cuts of bloody bones thrown about, but more importantly; trays and trays of uneaten food.
He hits gold with the first stack he digs in.
It's filled with the remains of a lunchbox-Stir fried greens, rice balls with fish wrapped in seaweed, breaded fried pork, and potato salad lie on the napkin, slowly soaking the paper with oil. Harry throws caution into the wind as he digs in.
He's never had anything so delicious in his life. With sweet and savory flavors, it's a wonderful reprieve from coppery sink water and whatever wild plants he can recognize from his aunt's garden.
He finds several more boxed lunches inside the garbage bag, and eats until his stomach hurts from the amount of food inside.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Harry doesn't know who he's thanking, but the sheer relief from not dying from starvation is enough to bring tears.
Thank you
.
.
After watching his host battle with hunger and thirst for the past few days, Gabriel can admit that he'd overreacted.
So sue him, he had family issues. Even the half-deaf "prophet" that Gabriel had delivered his message to knew-despite the fact that the crotchety old man had "heard" him say that eating shellfish was a sin.
It's a bit pitiful, watching his waif of a host shove the leftovers of another's meal down his throat. Harry's tiny hands trembling as he scooped the last bite of rice away incurred a vague feeling of sympathy in him, but not enough to make him disband the mental shield between himself and Harry.
Every time Harry fell asleep or fell unconscious from exhaustion, Gabriel was thrust into the forefront of Harry's mind. So what if he knows that Harry is walking towards a certain destination? If he flew back a few miles from his host's destination every time Harry fell unconscious, it meant nothing to him. If Harry died, he'd just to find another host.
The cloud of vague feelings of regret and desperation within Harry's mind are ignored.
He's bitter, and no one can call him out on it.
Except for himself
.
.
Holden Marksfield considers himself a decent hunter.
He's had werewolves shot-gunned within a foot of his person, vampires snarling at his face while dying from drinking blood of the dead, and multiple other creatures that went bump in the night crushed under heel.
Today, he's hunting thunderbird.
There are hazy gray clouds crossing the skies and nothing but swamp and soy fields across the country roads he's speeding across. It's a balmy day, the sun peeking out of pockets of cloudless sky and humidity threatening to choke the docile citizens stewing around the asian market place.
It's a tiny community hidden in a niche.
There are small, chinese children running around busy mother's legs and begging for the chocolate character coins on candy-laden shelves, fragrant roasted duck and box lunches piled on metal shelves, and cold air drifting from ailes holding soy milk, plum drink, and aloe juice. Everywhere that he looks, he sees an influx of well fed children and plump adults.
It almost makes him sick at the thought of such an area completely disappearing under a flood of fury, rain, and lightning..
Holden is by no means a decent person. He's done things that would horrify those around him, that would probably cause the people around him to cringe away in disgust. He's not proud of his record, but the loss of his hometown due to a rampart ghost made him apathetic to most cases.
But Holden can't help but see himself in every sticky-cheeked child living in this tiny pocket of life in the middle of nowhere. He tries to convince himself that it's just a job, but he's not in the habit of lying to himself anymore.
Finishing his meal with a last scoop of rice, he discards the empty box into the nearby trash-bin. There's a faint shimmering green-gold emanating from the corner of his eye that makes him reach towards his gun, but as soon as he looks towards the area, the presence disappears. He's tempted to further investigate the matter, but decides against it before he can entangle himself in the matters of the town.
He can't afford to get emotionally attached to this case.
He had gotten the case off of a complaint about abnormally large bird sightings around a school, and that was what he was going to be investigating. He'd take it for the money.
It seems like he hadn't gotten over his habit of lying to himself after all
p.s: The food mentions were written while I was hungry, so pardon the multiple mentions of asian foods
p.s.s: Holden is a made-up character that I'm not sure will continue to appear for plot purposes. I'll lead that to general opinion and fate to decide
p.s.s.s: The story will be edited by my beta outside of fanfiction, I'll not mention her by name right now, but only until she actually publishes her first story.
p.s.s.s.s: I don't really like Dumbledore because he kept on sending Harry back to his emotionally abusing relatives. I'm sorry if anyone likes him, but he's going to be a bad-guy for this fic.