SPN fic -- Seen and Unseen 5/?
Feb. 10th, 2007 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanillafluffyTitle: Seen and Unseen 5/?
Authored by:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vanillafluffy
Pairing: None at the moment
Rating/Work-safeness: PG-13 ish
Approximate word count: 2150
Disclaimer: All rights to canon SPN characters belong to individuals and corporate entities who are not me.
Summary: Sam assists Nancy with a problem of long-standing, while Dean tries to learn more about the mystery woman.
Seen -- Nancy McGill
The world is bright and clear and white, and although it's fucking cold---Nancy hasn't been warm for months and she really hopes Hell is as hot as everyone always says---the postcard quality of the scene does a lot to restore her peace of mind. She slept fitfully, in between wrestling with her conscience about attempting to bring back John, but awakening, she feels optimistic. Not out of any foreknowledge, but because she has the Demon-Killer, and Michael has promised help. That's well ahead of where she was 24 hours ago.
Her first act is to pay a visit to the motel's front office and charm the desk clerk into letting her use the copy machine for a half hour. She can't very well keep John's journal, but there's enough precious information in there that Nancy isn't about to just hand it back to the boys without making a back-up copy.
Sam answers the door when she knocks, and she smiles at him and extends the volume. He looks relieved; she's a little surprised they haven't come knocking on her door before this, but then, where was she going to go in such crummy weather? She inquires solicitiously about Dean---poor kid didn't look too good last night, not that she's surprised---that crummy diner food on top of too many beers would turn anyone's stomach. Glad to hear he's resting, finally. She doesn't linger; the deep gray horizon suggests they're in for more snow pretty soon, and she has things to do first.
There's a tarp in the truck and a twenty-yard stretch of woods between the road and the nearest motel building, bony trunks sprouting skeletal branches limned with mounds of white.Nancy rigs a backdrop behind one of the trees with the old blue tarp. As long as she has time for practice, she'll keep trying...she's been at it for how many years? and she still can't land a knife in a target. She can hit the damn target, she just isn't able to wound it....
This morning's results are no exception; the closest she comes is shaving the bark a little on one side as a protectile topples past. She isn't using the whole set; it's easier to find just a few of them in the snow, which is gradually getting stomped down between her, the target tree and the tarp. Most often, they wind up sliding down the backdrop. A couple times they puncture it.
It's mortifying that John's boys witness her futile attempts as they saunter back from breakfast. "You're doing it wrong," Dean says, as if she doesn't know that. "Look, it's simple---" He plucks one of the knives from the open roll on her smaller duffle and flicks it at the target, where it hangs, quivering. "It's all in the wrist."
The boy is definitely his father's son. And, Nancy reminds herself through gritted teeth, it's a good lesson in humility. Although she's strongly tempted to discuss the probable grease content of his breakfast---he proved last night how suggestable he is---she bares her teeth in a smile and thanks him for the pointers. Not that he's making any sort of sincere attempt to be helpful---just as well; if it was irritating when John did it, it's even more exasperating coming from this punk kid.
Dean smirks and strolls away. Nancy flings a few more knives, fuming, knowing he's standing back there watching and snickering.
The crunch of booted feet walking through snow warns her, but this time it's Sam who approaches. "If you're gonna tell me it's all in the wrist," she says through gritted teeth, "keep in mind that I'm holding sharp, pointy objects."
"Uh, no," he says hastily. "No, I, uh, wanted to ask you about something."
Sure he did. Nancy's eyebrows go up and she regards him silently. The wheels are turning, he's trying to think of something to say that isn't going to piss her off.
"You said you used to ride with bikers?"
Nancy blinks, because that's the last question she expected. "Yeah, back when I was about your age." Not the happiest era of her life, but as a creative diversion, she gives Sam points. "A bunch of Hell's Angels wannabes called The Knights." The full name of the club had been The Knights of the Kingdom of the Damned; they'd been Goth long before anyone had coined the term. It's been two and a half decades, and she's done her best to forget those years; they hadn't ended well.
"So you probably spent a few nights hanging out in bars and pool halls."
What's he getting at? "A few? Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Why?"
"Playing pool, maybe some darts?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" she demands, staring at him. "Yes, I fucked up my life for a couple years of screwing around and I regret the hell out of it!" Sam flinches, and she takes a deep breath. "Yes, I shot some pool and threw some darts. So what?"
Sam nods at the knife she's been waving around. "Throw it like a dart."
"Excuse me?"
"Throw it like a dart," he repeats. "Don't put all that follow-through into it, you don't need it." She thinks about the motion involved in throwing darts, which she used to be decent at, and he's right, it's a different kind of form.
Like a dart, Nancy imagines, and lets it fly. And nails the tree dead center, not two inches from the blade Dean stuck in there. Sam's grin broadens, and she sends another knife into the slender trunk, and another.
"Sam," she says, around the lump in her throat. "I've been busting my ass at this for close to ten years now. You set me straight in a minute and a half. Thank you."
He smiles and shrugs. "It was nothing."
"Lawyer, my ass," she says, euphoric as she skips over to tug the knifes from the wood. "You ever go back to school, you ought to be a teacher. You'd be a good one."
He looks so aw-shucks embarassed that she's charmed. From all John's grumbling about his problem child, Nancy's expected some hostile punk with an attitude---more like his brother, in fact---but Sam is bright and has a smile so like his father's that it hurts. He's not the rebel she thought he'd be---he's actually a sweet young man---and so helpful.
Thinking of how she spent the previous evening, she starts a conversation with him---in Latin!---to see how he'll react, and to her delight, Sam goes along with her. They have a pleasant hour of correcting each other's pronunciation and arguing conjugation as Nancy consolidates her progress. He seems taken aback when she asks him if he believes in angels, but unlike his daddy, he's got an open mind on the subject.
There's not a damn thing wrong with her aim---never has been. That's one of the things that frustrated her so. Now that she's got the action she needs, Nancy works on distance, on throwing while she's in motion---trickier, but she's not doing too badly, and Sam is encouraging. He helps her retrieve the knives that miss the target---these scrawny little trees are only four or five inches across, she's bound to miss a few---and cheers her on when she makes a really good shot.
Practice goes so well that she's surprised when the first flurries drift down. Better go clean her gear and have a sandwich...her breakfast banana has definitely worn off. She thanks Sam again for his help and heads back to her room, smiling. There's something to be said for the satisfaction of achieving a goal...this is the first time in months she hasn't felt cold.
0000
0000
Unseen -- Secrets and Memories
Dean eases back around the corner of the building. Sam is keeping the McGill woman busy, so he strolls over to the door of her room, pulling the picks from his pocket with no more concern than if they were normal room keys. There's no one around to observe him as he opens the door and disappears inside.
There's not a lot to see. Her bedroll is stowed neatly beside the bed. Next to it is a well-worn duffle bag, half-empty, and Dean quickly begins rifling through it. He's not even sure what he's searching for, he only knows that he's never met anyone he distrusted so much on sight.
The clothes are more of what he's already seen her in: another pair of jeans, a couple more tee shirts. Socks, cheap underwear. A hairbrush, a toothbrush. No cosmetics or jewelry. One of the outer pockets gives him data he can use. Several envelopes, their postmarks months old, are addressed to Nancy McGill, Cassadaga, Florida---utility bills, nothing exciting there, but he makes a note of the address, rummages deeper. Damn it, she must have all the good stuff in the bag with her knives in it, because this is freaking useless.
There's a brown envelope, blank, and that's probably crap, too, but Dean's nothing if not thorough, so he slides the contents out onto the ugly motel bedspread.
His dad's face smiles up at him, and his breath catches. John has an arm loosely around Nancy's shoulders. They're sitting at a picnic table under a tree somwhere, and his dad smiles indulgently at something she's saying. He has fewer silver hairs than Dean's recent memories, and the laughing woman in the photo is prettier than the woman currently throwing knives at a defenseless tree. Her face is softer, and she's wearing something pink with lace at the neckline.
In a second picture, John and a younger man in overalls are peering into an engine compartment---John's pointing at something, and Dean knows that look on his face. It's the one that says, there's the trouble, and here's what we're gonna do about it. He has no clue who the redneck twerp in the picture is, but the guy doesn't know how lucky he is; Dean's furious that he shared that moment with John Winchester.
Dean clenches his fists at memories of a hundred afternoons spent hunkered over the Impala with his father, images scented with gasoline and sweat and overlaid with a soundtrack of classic rock. It's a sudden shock to recall that it wasn't all about hunting, that there were moments of quiet camaraderie that weren't fueled by vengeance and defying death.
He forces himself to look at the rest of it. A much-creased sheet of notebook paper, unfolded, bears the words "Merry Christmas. Keep practicing." in John's handwriting. There's a yellowed newspaper clipping about disturbances at a bed-and-breakfast in Savannah, a brochure from the same B & B, and notes about the place, also in the familiar scrawl, on the back of an advertising flyer addressed to her. Not exactly steamy love letters, but evidence that John had a secret life they hadn't suspected, and she was a part of it. It's like losing Dad all over again, and he has to struggle to dislodge a rock in the back of his throat.
There's a small bundle of blank cards held together with a brittle rubber band, and he investigates them. The top card has been turned to face the rest of the stack, but they all advertize the services of Nancy McGill, psychic. He takes one of the cards, sliding into his back pocket, and as he's replacing the rubber band, it disintegrates between his fingers. Well, hell. He carefully replaces the stack of cards in the envelope with the band wrapped around so maybe, if she notices, she'll think it snapped on its own. He steals a last look at John working on whatever car or truck it is---it's blue, clearly not any vehicle of theirs---and puts the scraps back into the envelope.
On the counter of the kitchette, a bunch of ripening bananas rests beside a large jar of peanut butter and two loaves of bread, one about half-gone. That's one way to avoid food poisoning, he thinks with grim humor. Dean wonders if he hawked a loogie into the peanut butter and stirred it up, if she'd notice. The idea brings a brief smile to his lips. Swapping spit with her in any way, shape or form...nah, better not.
Confident that he's erased every sign of his presence, Dean exits the room. He has a lot to think about. She claims to be a psychic? Interesting. He'd like to get her in the same room as Missouri Mosley, call her bluff.... He stalks over to the corner of the building to see what Sam and his quarry are doing. He's annoyed to see his brother talking a mile a minute. God knows what family secrets he's spilling to that woman.
If she doesn't already know.
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
_________
Previously in the John-Nancy 'verse....
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/135447.html The Girl From Cassadaga
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/138894.html The End of an Era
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/140653.html What Fresh Hell
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/146321.html Seen and Unseen, Part One
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/146652.html Seen and Unseen, Part Two
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/148999.html Seen and Unseen, Part Three
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/156387.html Seen and Unseen, Part Four
Feedback is love.
Authored by:
vanillafluffy Pairing: None at the moment
Rating/Work-safeness: PG-13 ish
Approximate word count: 2150
Disclaimer: All rights to canon SPN characters belong to individuals and corporate entities who are not me.
Summary: Sam assists Nancy with a problem of long-standing, while Dean tries to learn more about the mystery woman.
The world is bright and clear and white, and although it's fucking cold---Nancy hasn't been warm for months and she really hopes Hell is as hot as everyone always says---the postcard quality of the scene does a lot to restore her peace of mind. She slept fitfully, in between wrestling with her conscience about attempting to bring back John, but awakening, she feels optimistic. Not out of any foreknowledge, but because she has the Demon-Killer, and Michael has promised help. That's well ahead of where she was 24 hours ago.
Her first act is to pay a visit to the motel's front office and charm the desk clerk into letting her use the copy machine for a half hour. She can't very well keep John's journal, but there's enough precious information in there that Nancy isn't about to just hand it back to the boys without making a back-up copy.
Sam answers the door when she knocks, and she smiles at him and extends the volume. He looks relieved; she's a little surprised they haven't come knocking on her door before this, but then, where was she going to go in such crummy weather? She inquires solicitiously about Dean---poor kid didn't look too good last night, not that she's surprised---that crummy diner food on top of too many beers would turn anyone's stomach. Glad to hear he's resting, finally. She doesn't linger; the deep gray horizon suggests they're in for more snow pretty soon, and she has things to do first.
There's a tarp in the truck and a twenty-yard stretch of woods between the road and the nearest motel building, bony trunks sprouting skeletal branches limned with mounds of white.Nancy rigs a backdrop behind one of the trees with the old blue tarp. As long as she has time for practice, she'll keep trying...she's been at it for how many years? and she still can't land a knife in a target. She can hit the damn target, she just isn't able to wound it....
This morning's results are no exception; the closest she comes is shaving the bark a little on one side as a protectile topples past. She isn't using the whole set; it's easier to find just a few of them in the snow, which is gradually getting stomped down between her, the target tree and the tarp. Most often, they wind up sliding down the backdrop. A couple times they puncture it.
It's mortifying that John's boys witness her futile attempts as they saunter back from breakfast. "You're doing it wrong," Dean says, as if she doesn't know that. "Look, it's simple---" He plucks one of the knives from the open roll on her smaller duffle and flicks it at the target, where it hangs, quivering. "It's all in the wrist."
The boy is definitely his father's son. And, Nancy reminds herself through gritted teeth, it's a good lesson in humility. Although she's strongly tempted to discuss the probable grease content of his breakfast---he proved last night how suggestable he is---she bares her teeth in a smile and thanks him for the pointers. Not that he's making any sort of sincere attempt to be helpful---just as well; if it was irritating when John did it, it's even more exasperating coming from this punk kid.
Dean smirks and strolls away. Nancy flings a few more knives, fuming, knowing he's standing back there watching and snickering.
The crunch of booted feet walking through snow warns her, but this time it's Sam who approaches. "If you're gonna tell me it's all in the wrist," she says through gritted teeth, "keep in mind that I'm holding sharp, pointy objects."
"Uh, no," he says hastily. "No, I, uh, wanted to ask you about something."
Sure he did. Nancy's eyebrows go up and she regards him silently. The wheels are turning, he's trying to think of something to say that isn't going to piss her off.
"You said you used to ride with bikers?"
Nancy blinks, because that's the last question she expected. "Yeah, back when I was about your age." Not the happiest era of her life, but as a creative diversion, she gives Sam points. "A bunch of Hell's Angels wannabes called The Knights." The full name of the club had been The Knights of the Kingdom of the Damned; they'd been Goth long before anyone had coined the term. It's been two and a half decades, and she's done her best to forget those years; they hadn't ended well.
"So you probably spent a few nights hanging out in bars and pool halls."
What's he getting at? "A few? Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Why?"
"Playing pool, maybe some darts?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" she demands, staring at him. "Yes, I fucked up my life for a couple years of screwing around and I regret the hell out of it!" Sam flinches, and she takes a deep breath. "Yes, I shot some pool and threw some darts. So what?"
Sam nods at the knife she's been waving around. "Throw it like a dart."
"Excuse me?"
"Throw it like a dart," he repeats. "Don't put all that follow-through into it, you don't need it." She thinks about the motion involved in throwing darts, which she used to be decent at, and he's right, it's a different kind of form.
Like a dart, Nancy imagines, and lets it fly. And nails the tree dead center, not two inches from the blade Dean stuck in there. Sam's grin broadens, and she sends another knife into the slender trunk, and another.
"Sam," she says, around the lump in her throat. "I've been busting my ass at this for close to ten years now. You set me straight in a minute and a half. Thank you."
He smiles and shrugs. "It was nothing."
"Lawyer, my ass," she says, euphoric as she skips over to tug the knifes from the wood. "You ever go back to school, you ought to be a teacher. You'd be a good one."
He looks so aw-shucks embarassed that she's charmed. From all John's grumbling about his problem child, Nancy's expected some hostile punk with an attitude---more like his brother, in fact---but Sam is bright and has a smile so like his father's that it hurts. He's not the rebel she thought he'd be---he's actually a sweet young man---and so helpful.
Thinking of how she spent the previous evening, she starts a conversation with him---in Latin!---to see how he'll react, and to her delight, Sam goes along with her. They have a pleasant hour of correcting each other's pronunciation and arguing conjugation as Nancy consolidates her progress. He seems taken aback when she asks him if he believes in angels, but unlike his daddy, he's got an open mind on the subject.
There's not a damn thing wrong with her aim---never has been. That's one of the things that frustrated her so. Now that she's got the action she needs, Nancy works on distance, on throwing while she's in motion---trickier, but she's not doing too badly, and Sam is encouraging. He helps her retrieve the knives that miss the target---these scrawny little trees are only four or five inches across, she's bound to miss a few---and cheers her on when she makes a really good shot.
Practice goes so well that she's surprised when the first flurries drift down. Better go clean her gear and have a sandwich...her breakfast banana has definitely worn off. She thanks Sam again for his help and heads back to her room, smiling. There's something to be said for the satisfaction of achieving a goal...this is the first time in months she hasn't felt cold.
0000
0000
Unseen -- Secrets and Memories
Dean eases back around the corner of the building. Sam is keeping the McGill woman busy, so he strolls over to the door of her room, pulling the picks from his pocket with no more concern than if they were normal room keys. There's no one around to observe him as he opens the door and disappears inside.
There's not a lot to see. Her bedroll is stowed neatly beside the bed. Next to it is a well-worn duffle bag, half-empty, and Dean quickly begins rifling through it. He's not even sure what he's searching for, he only knows that he's never met anyone he distrusted so much on sight.
The clothes are more of what he's already seen her in: another pair of jeans, a couple more tee shirts. Socks, cheap underwear. A hairbrush, a toothbrush. No cosmetics or jewelry. One of the outer pockets gives him data he can use. Several envelopes, their postmarks months old, are addressed to Nancy McGill, Cassadaga, Florida---utility bills, nothing exciting there, but he makes a note of the address, rummages deeper. Damn it, she must have all the good stuff in the bag with her knives in it, because this is freaking useless.
There's a brown envelope, blank, and that's probably crap, too, but Dean's nothing if not thorough, so he slides the contents out onto the ugly motel bedspread.
His dad's face smiles up at him, and his breath catches. John has an arm loosely around Nancy's shoulders. They're sitting at a picnic table under a tree somwhere, and his dad smiles indulgently at something she's saying. He has fewer silver hairs than Dean's recent memories, and the laughing woman in the photo is prettier than the woman currently throwing knives at a defenseless tree. Her face is softer, and she's wearing something pink with lace at the neckline.
In a second picture, John and a younger man in overalls are peering into an engine compartment---John's pointing at something, and Dean knows that look on his face. It's the one that says, there's the trouble, and here's what we're gonna do about it. He has no clue who the redneck twerp in the picture is, but the guy doesn't know how lucky he is; Dean's furious that he shared that moment with John Winchester.
Dean clenches his fists at memories of a hundred afternoons spent hunkered over the Impala with his father, images scented with gasoline and sweat and overlaid with a soundtrack of classic rock. It's a sudden shock to recall that it wasn't all about hunting, that there were moments of quiet camaraderie that weren't fueled by vengeance and defying death.
He forces himself to look at the rest of it. A much-creased sheet of notebook paper, unfolded, bears the words "Merry Christmas. Keep practicing." in John's handwriting. There's a yellowed newspaper clipping about disturbances at a bed-and-breakfast in Savannah, a brochure from the same B & B, and notes about the place, also in the familiar scrawl, on the back of an advertising flyer addressed to her. Not exactly steamy love letters, but evidence that John had a secret life they hadn't suspected, and she was a part of it. It's like losing Dad all over again, and he has to struggle to dislodge a rock in the back of his throat.
There's a small bundle of blank cards held together with a brittle rubber band, and he investigates them. The top card has been turned to face the rest of the stack, but they all advertize the services of Nancy McGill, psychic. He takes one of the cards, sliding into his back pocket, and as he's replacing the rubber band, it disintegrates between his fingers. Well, hell. He carefully replaces the stack of cards in the envelope with the band wrapped around so maybe, if she notices, she'll think it snapped on its own. He steals a last look at John working on whatever car or truck it is---it's blue, clearly not any vehicle of theirs---and puts the scraps back into the envelope.
On the counter of the kitchette, a bunch of ripening bananas rests beside a large jar of peanut butter and two loaves of bread, one about half-gone. That's one way to avoid food poisoning, he thinks with grim humor. Dean wonders if he hawked a loogie into the peanut butter and stirred it up, if she'd notice. The idea brings a brief smile to his lips. Swapping spit with her in any way, shape or form...nah, better not.
Confident that he's erased every sign of his presence, Dean exits the room. He has a lot to think about. She claims to be a psychic? Interesting. He'd like to get her in the same room as Missouri Mosley, call her bluff.... He stalks over to the corner of the building to see what Sam and his quarry are doing. He's annoyed to see his brother talking a mile a minute. God knows what family secrets he's spilling to that woman.
If she doesn't already know.
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
_________
Previously in the John-Nancy 'verse....
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/135447.html The Girl From Cassadaga
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/138894.html The End of an Era
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/140653.html What Fresh Hell
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/146321.html Seen and Unseen, Part One
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/146652.html Seen and Unseen, Part Two
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/148999.html Seen and Unseen, Part Three
http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/156387.html Seen and Unseen, Part Four
Feedback is love.