driftfleet | voice. a quick sad post.

Entry tags:

voice. a quick sad post.

Who: Sam Winchester
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: Red Fish
When: after a sad shuffle :C

[Sam's very much subdued the day that Dean vanishes. If he reacts more viscerally to it, to knowing that this Dean was returning to his inevitable death at Sam and satan's own hands, nobody'd know it — he closes himself up in his room, keeps himself distant for a little while. It helps, because it also gets him away from those damned echoes that have begun to snowball. He's tried his best to ignore them, and with Dean suddenly gone... he doesn't trust himself to be anything but stressed at the sight.

Anyway. Um. Best to move forward, right...? Get back into things. Working at the bar keeps his mind busy, as does helping with the garden, and there's also helping with the weird messages from the planet, and — dammit, Sam, get back into things. Fake it 'til you make it. This too shall pass, if you pretend hard enough that you're fine. So he breathes in deep, breathes out, and addresses the fleet.]

My brother, Dean, um. Dean Winchester's left the fleet. I wasn't sure how many people knew him, but...

[A pause.]

Anyone want to talk? I could use something to keep me occupied. Your choice of topic, just shoot. I can be a pretty good listener, too.

[Help me get out of this funk, huh.]

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[He raises his eyebrows.]

To be honest? I'd get a feel for it. You never know when it'll become a necessity.

[He's totally not pulling a Max Rockatansky and implying that they may be without self-producing food one of these days and could therefore starve out — but that's also exactly what he's saying.

He starts down the hall, a tall lanky shadow.]

I'll admit, I'm not much of a gardener. My girlfriend had been the one who showed me how to not kill a plant.

I very much like the idea, Sam, [ she hedges her hesitation. ] Growing up, my mother kept a modest vegetable garden. The last war was still long in many memories and no one much cares for rationing -- but I find myself busy. Anything I planted would be doomed to neglect, I fear.

[Then maybe you should get yourself a gardening girlfriend, Peggy. :)

Though, you can probably relate to your loved ones being doomed by proximity.

So, don't do that.]

Then I'll just have to keep an eye on your section of the gardens for you.

[He gives a cheeky little grin.]

[ when they reach the kitchen, she sets straight to work on the kettle. but, glancing over her shoulder: ] Are you offering to nanny my non-existent plants?

[:)))))]

What, would that be a bad thing? Maybe I'll do it for a credit a day.

[Then he would make enough credits in a month to, like, buy a shirt.

It's gr8.]

[ a snort of laughter. ]

I'm not convinced I can afford you.

[You have not dissuaded him, good madam.

His grin persists.]

Then what about a bartering system? Cup of tea for my services.

-- So I start out in the red. [ her smile quirks. ] After all, you brought today's tea. I'm the one who owes you.

[Scoff.]

Today's a free-be. Courtesy of me.

You're lucky, with Winchesters it's usually cheap liquor.

Now -- cheap liquor, I can do. [ peggy taps her nails against the counter. ] I've never had much of a problem finding a bottle of brandy. Not since my school days.

[He gasps, though it's hardly serious.]

That's not very becoming for such a proper lady.

[But he snorts, shaking his head.]

Actually, you'd fit right in with the women in the hunting community. Growing up, they held their liquor as much as my old man. I remember... [He blinks, suddenly self-conscious of his trip down memory lane, but figures it's okay.] I remember being five or six, sitting in bars while my dad worked on research. This really nice lady, Ruth, she went around the corner to drag a drunk out by the ear. Gave me a cup of juice and a sucker and taught me how to play gold fish.

[His smile softens, and he shrugs.]

The things that stick with you, I guess.

[ peggy smiles, and doesn't deign to comment on her ladylike qualities (or her lack thereof) -- it's an old battle, and one she won regardless of how many switches the teachers broke on her. stealing that brandy made her the school hero, regardless.

she places a mug of fragrant tea in front of sam, and then takes a seat for herself. ]

She sounds formidable. And kind. [ -- never mind that she's curious about this hunting community. but: ] Were you often in her bar?

[Sam blows gently on his cup, holding it in hands that really dwarf the drink, makes it look inadequate for a guy his size. But he's a lean beanpole, hasn't had the heavy muscle he did when he was soulless for a long while. He's more long and acrobatic in design, always has been. Dean's more of the solid, sturdy wall. The rock beside the long and bendable reeds.

He's certainly the most polite and quiet hunter you're likely to come across. For the most part. Hunters are far more akin to rowdy soldiers celebrating at a pub, a world weariness masked with boisterous and lighthearted (and sometimes quite offensive) banter.]

When my family was around northern Texas, yeah. Um. Sometimes a few a year, sometimes just once a year. It depended on how much work my father had around there. She had a good bar for hunters to mingle and exchange information.

She and dad had a lot of fights. But he tended to get into a lot of fights, when it came to me and my brother.

[He shakes his head, smiling.]

I didn't have my mother. I think -- I don't know, maybe I mentioned it when I was a kid. I can't remember. But she tried to be something nice. Give us crayons or fish out some doll she probably had waiting for hunter's kids passing through.

[ peggy curls her palm around her mug. leaches heat, and sits back to let sam share precisely as much as he wants to share -- and no more needed. ]

She must have seen a great deal of it. Children, passing through. Did a lot of hunters travel with their families?

[He hums, thoughtful.

Really, when it came to growing up?

He had nothing to hide. No, the shame and misery and true agony happened many, many years later. When it came to looking back on his youth... Strangely, it feels more like reciting a memoir. Remembering a sweet, sad book. Something like that.

It's nice to remember that kid.

Sam's been trying lately, to not feel like he completely let him down.]

Wasn't as much as you'd think, actually. I remember wishing some of them would bring their kids to work too. [He laughs.] But that was me not knowing what my father did. Didn't know until I was eight. When he'd leave for a few days, my brother told he traveled for work, and my brother's lips were always sealed about what that even meant.

... There was always a bag of guns around, but it was all I ever knew, so until I went to school for a few years I thought it was perfectly normal. The world was big and I was pretty educated on the human evil in it, after all. Stranger danger.

[He still trusted easily, compared to his brother. He was a curious kid, and lonely, very lonely. He was lucky to have Dean to keep him leashed, he supposed.]

[ she thinks about her own upbringing -- staid, suburban, and safe. things had been strained, of course, in the wake of the first world war. rationing and the far-reach of the depression kept things thin, but the carters never went hungry. things had seemed idyllic even during the second war...until michael died. ]

Seems as if it might have been a lonely upbringing for the pair of you, at times. [ she sips her tea -- and peggy nods in appreciation. it's got a fine flavour to it. ]

[He smiles, a bit sadder.]

Yeah.

At least I had my brother. Don't know how long I would have stayed if he didn't reign me back in and watch my back as much as he did.

[Considering Dean — not quite his Dean, but still his — had just vanished, he figures it's only fair to his brother that he remember him today. All the shit they've dealt with, all the good Dean's done, especially for him. Even if it hurts, it's a hurt he'd rather have than never have had him at all.

He has to make sure the timeline this Dean was from never happens.

Ever.]

I did eventually go to school, though. Full-ride scholarship and everything.

Goes to show what you can do when you're a nerdy bookworm. Even a traveling one.

[He gives a cheeky grin over his cup.]

Edited 2016-11-26 19:37 (UTC)

Clever clogs, [ she comments. half-smiling all the while. ] I never quite made it past sixth-form. Bookworminess aside.

[ her education grew into something wholly different. travelling, but different. ]

[He raises his eyebrows.]

Hey, you came out great. Besides, I never graduated.

[He drinks, a self-conscious smile ghosting his face.]

... 'Shit happens'. That's the saying. But I'm getting old, so it means I'm getting better at not dwelling on stuff. [That was child's play, compared to what happened afterward — though the loss of Jess is still a yawning hole in his chest. He wishes he had a picture of her, something from their past. Everything she and he ever owned went up in smoke, though.] I've always wanted to go back, but usually I have other responsibilities.

I sometimes tell myself it's all a bit overrated. [ there's a ghost of strain to her smile. not regret, exactly, but a hunger pang for what could have been. shit happens? well, the war happened. whole nations were sidetracked. lives lost. lives ruined. lives changed ] And it's not like I don't love my work. I do -- no matter what the downsides.

[ ... ] You may yet go back. I think we all surprise ourselves, from time to time.

Go back?

[He smiles softly at her.]

Don't know about that. But, um. Even if it's unlikely, I still work with books. I still study plenty, look up a lot, work with a pretty big library. At the end of the day, I'm part of something important.

Even if I wish things could have worked out... I am where I am, I suppose.

Edited 2016-11-29 10:06 (UTC)

-- Which library?

Oh—! Uh, it's a library in a big bunker.

People don't really know about it; it's the library that belongs to a defunct secret organization that specializes in things like the supernatural, the occult, things like that. They were more scholars than anything. Called themselves the Men of Letters.

My grandfather was one of them. Unfortunately, the American sector had been wiped out.

We only just rediscovered the bunker a few years ago.

Men of Letters. Forgive the offense, Sam, but that sounds awfully pompous.

[ and a little too much like an old boy's club for her liking. ]

[He winces a smile.]

A little. They weren't very fond of hunters. I was able to meet my grandfather, uh — he time-traveled forward, anyway, and he pretty much referred to my kind as uneducated monkeys.

So pompous probably works best.

... He was a good man, though, for the most part.

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