The Third Wheel
by Destiny's Darkness
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Disclaimer: I'm saddened to announce that the brilliance that is Supernatural is not mine. I claim no credit and can only hope that I don't defile it too much. Charlie Palmer's mine, but if you want to use her in something (anything) just let me know so I can see what kind of trouble she gets herself into.
Author's Note: I'm so incredibly stunned and flattered by the positive feedback I've gotten so far. It's been a long while since I've written anything outside of NaNoWriMo, and I was fairly nervous that my writing might have deteriorated as a result. All of these reviews have been so reassuring.
I'm glad people seem to like Charlie. I felt that someone who'd been through so much would be a little less self-assure than most as a result of the constant upheaval it caused, which bears the possibility of becoming a doormat, which I know could be annoying. I'm also really grateful to the folks that pointed out how strange it was for a younger woman to so willingly leave her home and go off with two strange guys at the drop of the hat. I hope I explain that satisfactorily in this chapter.
On an interesting note: I was trying to figure out the best place to enter the canon storyline, hoping I could work it out so that the first hunt could work out to be from the episode "Hell House" in season 1, but still have them go through Chicago to pick up Charlie. Lucky me -- the episode before, "Shadow", was based in the Windy City itself.
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Chapter Three : Hurry Up and Save Me
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Previously: Sam thought for a moment. "Someone who can keep Dean out of trouble. You know, I'm kind of glad you're stuck with us."
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Sam and Charlie stared, opened-mouthed in Charlie's case, at the single she would be staying in that night. "Um, Dean," she asked uncomfortably, unable to even turn away from the sight to face the man as he was walking out of the next room, "you're not paying for this place by the hour, are you?"
It was beyond a doubt the sleaziest room the girl had ever seen. A box of condoms sat on the night table next to a lamp whose shade was covered by a flimsy piece of cloth. The paper advertising discounted pay- per-view reflected in the mirror mounted over the bed. There were three travel-sized bottles of mouthwash on the counter by the sink.
"Holy hell," Dean exclaimed, "he gave you a nookie room!"
Sam had simply been struck speechless.
"I'm not sleeping on that bed."
Dean flashed a grin. "Want to see if we can get him to change the sheets?"
"I'm not sure I want to even step on that carpet, either." She stared a moment longer. "Yeah, there's not a chance. I'm sleeping in the car."
"You can't stay the night in the car," Sam argued, finally regaining his abilities of speech. "You can take my bed."
Blue eyes lit up with amusement. "You don't have to prove to me that chivalry isn't dead, Sam. I got the idea when you willingly took on the burden of dragging me around with you. But I'm certainly not stealing your bed." She looked at him for a moment, but studied Dean longer. "Either of you sleep in the nude?"
They settled the matter by agreeing that she would sleep on the floor between the beds and return the keys to the extra room back to the desk clerk. He had turned a nearly florescent red when he realized just which room he'd given her, but she just laughed if off the reasoning that is was just a sign not wander to far from her "brothers". With the extra blankets and pillows he gave her, she made a cozy little nest on the floor and declared it perfect.
Dean was surprisingly courteous, excusing himself and his brother to go find a restaurant for breakfast the next morning while she showered and prepared for sleep. He figured that sharing a room with two strangers was awkward enough without having them in the next room while she was naked. But when they came back twenty minutes later, the shower was silent and the room empty. Dean immediately turned back to see if she'd gone out to the Impala, but Sam's eyes were drawn to the shut bathroom door.
"Charlie? Is everything all right?"
He heard a faint laugh coming from behind the wood door, but as though she was on the floor. "Define all right."
The older Winchester returned just in time to hear Sam ask, "What's wrong?"
There was another laugh, this one a little more resigned than the first. "The door's stuck."
"You're kidding me," Dean drawled out, looking frustrated. He instinctively reached for the door knob, but the metal was immobile, as if it had solidified. He pressed his shoulder to the door, preparing to bust it down before he had a second thought. "Shit. Charlie, how big is that bathroom?"
"Ungodly tiny. Why?"
"I don't have anywhere to bust down the door."
"...what?"
He grinned. "I have to bust down the door, but there's nowhere for the door to go when I do." Sam looked at him, exchanging one of those looks that told each other what to do faster than they could with words.
"I... I can stand back in the bathtub." There was a scuffling sound and then, "Okay."
Simultaneously the brothers braced themselves and kicked out, striking the door milliseconds apart. It held, but cracks appeared up and down its length with an explosive bang. Sam barely registered the startled squeak from the girl trapped inside before they kicked again. This time the door shattered, and the instant it did, Dean swept inside, his eyes sweeping from side to side. He reached behind the curtain where Charlie was standing, holding her to his side protectively and taking another look at the bathroom. "Sammy, get in here!"
When his brother stood next to him, making the tiny bathroom even more crowded, he could tell they saw the same thing. Following their gaze, Charlie saw it too: can't run can't hide, scrawled across the top of the door. She made a quiet, involuntary whimper and started to turn to burrow into Dean's shoulder, steeling herself just as her face pressed against him. He felt her muscles tense, felt the slight shaking that overcame her when she saw the love note, and was moderately impressed by the way she pulled herself straight and walked back into the main room.
He was impressed enough that he managed to keep himself from overly ogling her figure in that skimpy hotel towel. Sam noticed anyway, and when Charlie gave them the thankful go-ahead to come back in, he was rubbing the bruise forming on his shoulder.
"So, this thing's a jerk," Sam announced. "What kind of ... thing makes a door knob stick like that?"
"Melt," she corrected. "I could smell it when I got out of the shower. Plus this isn't actually a new trick."
"Think it's running out of nasty ideas?"
Dean fielded that one. "No, it's just making sure that we know it's the same entity." He looked to the wet blonde combing out her hair. "You all right?"
She made a face. "Yeah. Last time it fused together the parts of my apartment front door, back in Boston. I think it wanted me feeling more vulnerable now." She shrugged. "Didn't work as well as it could have. I knew you two were coming back."
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Lying in their beds that night, Sam and Dean were in perfect agreement. They were going to find this thing and they were going to take it down.
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Charlie amused herself the next morning by keeping a mental note of just how much the brothers devoured, while she downed her significantly smaller breakfast.
"So, kid," Dean started, not bothering to finish what he was chewing first, "gotta ask: why'd you leave your apartment so easily?"
She smiled. "Something evil messed up my walls."
Sam argued, "Yeah, but it was still your home. You had to feel something about leaving it."
"A little sad, I guess. But I've moved around a lot since the accident. You know, San Francisco, Denver, Albuquerque, New York, Boston, Charleston, Atlanta, and then Chicago. Anytime things started to get weird, I'd pick up and go. Head to the next city that sounded interesting. Sure I'd been living in that apartment for a while, but I've learned not to form attachments if I can help it." She paused as Dean flagged down their waitress for another order of hash browns. "Then you two showed up."
The younger brother leaned forward in interest. "About that. Why did you trust us? You agreed to leave with us after we had just met."
"You'd been asking about me." They were both startled by the admission. "A couple folks you talked to called me afterwards to let me know, one or two looking for more gossip and the rest just wanting to make sure that I knew."
Sam frowned. "We told most of them we were asking because of an ongoing investigation."
"I know, but you may have noticed that I'm practically a poster child for innocent and non-threatening looking. My boss Max actually called because he thought you were trying to frame me for -- oh my god, my job!" She started scrambling for her phone in her purse. "I never told them I was leaving!"
As she fled the restaurant for some relative privacy, Sam and Dean knew to take the opportunity to lay out their plans. "She's right, you know, Dean. She doesn't seem the type to break the law, and a lot of what we do is illegal. We can't hide that from her for long."
"So we tell her."
"Do you really think she'd be okay with that?"
Dean shrugged. "Probably not. But I don't know what other options we really have."
They sat in quiet for a minute, eating their breakfasts and contemplating the decision. Sam looked up, "We could call Dad. Maybe he would know -- "
"No," Dean interrupted, grimacing, "Dad probably doesn't need to hear about this latest development. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't approve, to say the least." He got a reluctant nod in response. "We'll just have to tell her and hope for the best."
Sam watched as Charlie hung up and made her way back to their table. "How'd they take the news?" he asked her.
"They're disappointed, but they'd already given me some time off already because of the article, so they're already set up to cover for me." She reached over and grabbed a forkful of the fresh hash browns off Dean's plate. "I told them some long-lost cousins were taking me on a trip to get my mind off things." The trio shared a smile.
"Everyone finished up?" Dean asked, pushing plate away. "Cuz I'm thinking about ten minutes and we're on the road."
Sam stood. "On to Texas."
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Post Author's Note: I'm kind of surprised at how quickly I'm getting these chapters out, thought they're about a thousand words shorter than I usually aim for. Hope they're still worth the read.
Destiny's Darkness
1/30/2009