Okay, here is the usual disclaimer: I do not own supernatural, nor any character created by the show, nor some of the ones in this story 'cause I stole them from almost 'real' life (my friends). Nor am I making any money from this unless my friends try and bribe me not to put it up, but I will anyway, so alas no money.
A/N1: To everyone I'm SORRY I took so bloody long in putting this up, it tortured me, similar to Meg's brand of torture but more painful. So here it is and now after this one is up I promise to do some more fluffy ones before I revisit this kind of stuff, I promise. However since I started this evil Meg thing I will no doubt be coming back to this, so sorry to anyone not so found of this.
A/N2: I'm sorry to anyone who didn't like the previous chapter, but it can't all be sugarplums and puppies there is the dark too. I'm going to do more fluffy ones in the future (I promise B.J.) but I will also do some darker ones every now and then just to keep you on your toes. So hang in there, I'm sure I'll eventually do a chapter you really like, one can only hope, eh?
Thanks: The title was inspired by Fireman Phil from a PM I got from him, thanks Phil you're brilliant!
Beta'd: as usual the always patient morning sunlight.
Good writing to everyone
Serenity for all
Sincerely Rae Artemis
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Aftermath of the Dark Side
"Hey Rae, we're back!"
"Dude, its 1:30 am, quit yelling." Sam admonished his older brother, shaking his head at Dean. "She could be sleeping."
The brothers walked through her basement suite hoping to see the telltale glow of a TV or computer monitor.
"C'mon Sammy, Rae never sleeps before 3:00 am, you know that."
"Most days, but sometimes she does crash early. And if you wake her up she will kill you, you do know that, right?"
They checked the rest of the suite with the exception of Adele's room, Rae's roommate. Both had been moving as quietly as they could, with the exception of Sam crashing into the coat rack. He and Dean had both frozen, eyes darting to Adele's door, praying she wouldn't wake up. Adele was Rae's, somewhat psychotic roommate, who didn't like being woken up at night at all. Getting no reaction they finally noticed that Adele's car wasn't in the driveway and therefore she had to be out because no one else drove her car, ever.
"Thank the powers that be for small favours." Sam grinned at Dean who didn't like Adele and, though the two had never really met, Sam had a feeling she wouldn't like him much either. They ended up standing outside Rae's, uncharacteristically closed, bedroom door.
"Rock, paper, scissors to see who knocks." Dean offered Sam, who rolled his eyes and knocked carefully, getting no answer. "Dude, you can't knock like that, you know she sleeps like the dead."
"Dean, all the dead we meet are pretty active, what with the hauntings, zombies and the rest." Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother who ignored him and pounded on the door, the hinges groaning under the barrage. The brothers leaned towards the door hoping to hear some sign of life.
"Well, Rae's car is in the driveway, there are dishes in the sink, there's bread baking in the oven and according to that last email we got she hadn't seen or heard from Meg since we left, right Sammy?" Dean leaned against the doorframe, listing the points on his hand, a worried look crossing his features.
"Yeah, but that email was a couple of days ago Dean and it was pretty strange…for Rae." Sam shrugged, mentally reviewing the unusual email he'd gotten from Rae. He hadn't mentioned to Dean his concerns over the email as they'd been hot on Meg's trail and he hadn't wanted to distract his brother from the hunt.
"Strange how, Sammy?" Dean demanded, straightening up from his laid back posture and attempting to stare down his too tall, little brother.
"Um, well you know how she's a writer and so all her emails are really long and overly descriptive? This one was…really short and sounded a bit…nervous somehow. I don't know man, it just wasn't quite right but we had almost caught up to Meg when she was stalking Bjxmas, then she ran and went after Kat, then poor Jessica! I still say she had something to do with that accident that happened when we dropped by Phil's, that night. I swear she's been going after everybody we see, in some way, its almost as if-"
"Sam!" Dean finally broke Sam's rambling speech, his own suspicions being voiced by his brother didn't help his anxiety. "We already figured out that Meg was intimidating writers on fanfic and that some of them were ones we've hung out with which, while it seems like proof but hopefully it's just coincidence." Dean resisted the urge to shake Sam by his broad shoulders to get the email out of him. "Exactly what did Rae say?"
"The unusual thing about it was that she didn't use her signature and the email was only about three lines and she didn't sign off like she always does." Sam pulled his Palm Treo 650 to recheck the message. "Yeah here it is, 'Everything is okay here. My sister's okay so no worries. Just find Meg and make her stop.'"
Sam looked at Dean, who was now staring at the door helplessly, the eternal dilemma confronting him, to open a girl's door without permission or not. Sam was still staring at him with puppy dog eyes, silently begging his older brother not to be mad at the lack of information Sam had given him.
"I mean while it doesn't sound 'normal' for Rae, maybe she was busy and didn't have time for a long email?" He offered knowing, as Dean did, that Rae always had time for emails, she'd even stay up late into the night to finish up her messages.
"Yeah sure and maybe you will one day be considered cool." Dean sourly shot back.
Taking a deep breath, Dean gripped the door handle and turned it, or at least tried to, however the door was locked and wouldn't budge. He and Sam exchanged a disgusted look and Dean swiftly picked the lock, gently opening the door. Dean held his breath, a deep pit of dread opening in his stomach as he inched into the darkened room, Sam following along behind him like a nervous shadow.
They slowly crept into the room, taking in the details that had changed since their last visit. All the furniture was still there, bookcase, desk, dresser and a double bed taking up most of the room set in the middle of the wall, the rest of the furniture around it. Normally the room was a cross between a frat house, a craft shop and a library. Rae maintained that, because she was a writer, she needed a certain amount of mess to keep creative, Sam thought that it was because she was a student, who also wrote too much and Dean figured that she just didn't care. Whatever the reason it didn't matter anymore as the room was spotless and organized. They were awestruck at the difference from before, all the shoes put away, the clothes no longer strewn across the floor and just in general the perfect cleanliness of the room. It was horrifying by how wrong it seemed.
The only light in the room was the gentle glow from the laptop screen and the light leaking in from the open door. Rae was asleep in her bed, twisted in her many quilts, blankets and headphone wires, her laptop playing an episode of 'Firefly'. As he approached the bed, a squeaky floorboard groaned under his weight. Ignoring it, Dean continued forward only to be pelted in the face by a familiar teddy bear. Leaning down, he picked up Rae's favourite stuffed animal, her bear Bramwell Brown, a worn 23 year old bear. Dean glared at Rae, who was apparently still asleep, though all he could see was an arm poking out from the blankets. How she managed to sleep with Sammy laughing in the doorway was beyond him.
"Shut up." Dean growled at his hysterical brother.
"I did warn you-"
"Hmmm?" Rae inquired from her nest of blankets, waking up to the sound of voices in her sanctuary. As the realization she was no longer alone truly hit home she twitched, pulling the covers to conceal her arm.
"Good morning Rae!" Dean chirped at her, knowing not to get with in arm's reach when waking Rae.
"Why'd you go to bed so early?" Sam asked.
"What the Hell? Why are you guys here? I thought you were in Australia? Or New Zealand or something?" Rae said, suspiciously still hiding under her covers.
"Have you started sleeping naked or something?" Dean asked, a smirk on his face, ducking as yet another stuffed animal dive bombed him.
"No, but…why are you in my room?" Rae quickly changed the subject. "I thought we made this clear last time, come in here and I kill you?" Rae purposefully avoided the subject, not wanting them to see the aftermath of her night with Meg, it had only been a couple days before and she was still finding new bruises and pains; a little gift from the sociopathic blonde.
"We've seen them before and they're so cute." Dean cooed sarcastically, remembering Rae's embarrassment before. "Don't bother changing, we need to talk about Meg, she's on the move and is on a bit of a…" Dean looked at Sam, unable to find a word appropriate to Meg's current activities.
"Rampage, she seems to be taking it out on writers who give us a positive spin to us and paint her in a less than nice light." Sam sighed remembering the stories of the people they'd heard in the last two days.
"Yeah, that bitch is really making the rounds and we had been tipped off by Kat and Meg also made a visit to Jessica! We've been getting emails at all hours of the day from writers who we've been to see, saying that Meg has visited them and made some kind of offer or ultimatum to most of them." Dean began to pace in frustration while Sam looked on with his haunted puppy dog eyes. "She's been everywhere, from graceandfire's place, to Azulsky's, to morning sunlight, to carocali. Honestly she's targeting people we talk to on a regular basis, Meg scared the Hell out of P.L. Wynter at work, showed up in public threatening gdspgcfan and taunted Anna in front of her friends! She even went after those two girls who are under our names, SammyandDean! Seriously she has been stalking writers and every time we show up it's too late!" Dean felt like punching something but instead settled for glaring at the blanket-covered lump that Rae huddled under.
Unable to properly vent his frustration he pulled off the quilts, Rae tried to snatch them back but was not quite able to. As Rae's appearance sunk in on Dean he dropped the covers and took a step back in horror. Sam gasped as he took in the cuts, the bruises and the cast, it was all so wrong! Rae scrambled back, grabbing the blankets back up to try and cover the damage boldly shown by her tank top and capri-like PJ bottoms, her eyes downcast and filled with tears of shame.
"I'm sorry." She sighed, her breath shallow and rapid. "It was my own fault, I went out to write and she showed up and…it was my fault." At the declaration of her 'guilt' Dean looked up sharply but had to look away as the violence was too much to take in.
"It. Is. Not. Your. Fault." Dean said very clearly, a current of anger just underneath this attempt at a calming tone.
"Yes, I tempted fate, I pissed off the writing gods or something as not only did I get my butt handed to me by a 5'4" blonde who's witty banter sounded like a bad Bond villain. Worst of all, I should have known what to do, I've fought before, schoolyard stuff, a self defence course in college but no, I stood there and let her beat me!" Rae's voice became brittle as the tears were fought off. "I allowed her to do this, because I was afraid that if I fought back she'd do worse or go after my sister! What kinda person lets that happen? She threatened my sister and I let her walk away!"
"She's a demon, there was nothing you could've done, nothing at all." Sam walked towards her, past Dean who couldn't move close to a person he felt he had failed.
"She said she'd go after my sister! I shouldn't have let her walk out of that park! No one threatens Nicole, nobody!" Rae pulled at her hair, tears tracing the cuts on her cheeks, as she recalled all the times she'd taken care of her sister's 'problems' at school.
"Rae, when did this happen?" Rae refused to meet his eyes, so he moved forward and she flinched at his approach, an automatic, instinctual reaction to his too quick movement. "When was she here? We need to know so we can track her down." Dean's fist ached to hit the blonde bitch.
"She was here two nights ago, well not here, at the lake. I went to write, 'cause I'd heard she was in Europe or Australia or something and…and I c-couldn't write in the house so I went to the lake as usual and she made me 'an offer' that I refused, which resulted in…this."
"Did she break your arm?" Sam asked, carefully settling himself beside Rae on her bed, gently putting his arm around her shoulders in a show of support.
"No, I did it running away." Rae laughed brokenly, her shame of that night still fresh. "I was running up a hill and fell wrong and the damn thing broke, it's not bad but just really bad timing. Oh Gods, I should have done something; she said she'd kill my sister. She flipped a coin and said I had to choose and that if I was 'fun' she might not kill my sister-"
"What did she say? Is Nicole safe? Do you need us to watch her?" Sam asked quietly, his eyes intent on Dean, who appeared to be silently berating himself for something that he had no control over.
"She flipped a coin to see if I'd live or die and it came down tails." Rae swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, rocking slightly as Dean and Sam listened to her rambling explanation. "Tails which meant just torture. She said if I promised to write a death fic, she wouldn't kill my sister. She said she wouldn't so I promised." Rae shivered at the remembrance of Meg's voice whispering in her ear, 'Rae, do you want to guess how the coin landed?'. That phrase would wake her out of sleep for nights to come, she just knew it. "I know I promised you guys but I just couldn't let her hurt Nikki, I couldn't." She drew a shaking breath, as she looked them in the eyes, her own filling with more tears. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't, I really sorry but Nikki has no defense and she won't listen to me. As soon as Meg let me go I phoned her and tried to warn her but now she thinks I'm crazy and…and she doesn't know, she has no idea…" Rae's rambling broke apart as the tears over took her and she cried against Sam's shoulder, as Dean watched helplessly. As she sobbed, she kept murmuring 'she even doesn't know'.
Eventually Rae stopped and wiped her tearstained face with her teddy bear that Dean had handed her in the middle of her breakdown.
"Well not to rip off the writers on the show but 'how can you make that right?' Because Nikki won't even talk to me as she thinks I'm WAY too obsessed now and was talking about mental health care and Meg will no doubt go back on her word." Rae snuffled embarrassed at her lack of composure. "I am really sorry about the death fic thing but…as much as Nikki drives me crazy, she is my little sister and I would have promised Meg my soul to save that kid." She looked at Dean who gave her a look of perfect understanding.
"It's okay, it's not like you made a secret deal with her or anything, you just have to write a death fic and I know you'll do your best on it." Sam chimed in from beside her, not quite getting the older sibling moment that was going on, or the fact that Rae's eyes dropped away from Dean's at this comment.
"So do we need to hug now or something?" Dean asked sarcastically, hoping for Rae to crack a smile, he was rewarded by with a grin.
"No, we don't need to hug, though I'm not against it." Rae replied archly, causing Sam to laugh as Dean gaped at Rae's comment. "Don't worry I'm done being a spaz. I just had to vent and…and let you guys know what happened. At least something good came of all this, Adele moved out! She got sick of my late hours, 'bad' music and me coming home beat up was apparently the last straw."
"Really? Wow, and here I thought I'd have to haunt her or something. So who are you going to get as a new roomie? Someone hot?" Dean eagerly asked, rubbing his hands together as he considered the possibilities.
"I don't know yet but they can't be as bad as Adele, that's for sure." Rae gently pushed herself off the bed walking to the door. "Well getting rid of Adele is something to toast, that's for damned sure." She paused at the door, looking over her shoulder a smile lighting her face. "Pizza and beer? Or should we go more exotic?"
"Exotic how?" Dean asked, the usual evil glint in his eyes.
"Exotic, like we three cook?" Rae raised a challenging eyebrow. Dean looked at Sam who shrugged willingly.
"It worked for Thanksgiving."
"True enough."