milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Susannah is once again working in the bar, although she has less of a pile of documents with her tonight. All she has is a notebook, in which she is alternately taking notes, scratching out notes, and doodling.

She is not a bad teacher, but some things are hard to approach.

She also has a large bottle of water, because proper hydration is important.

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Sam looks a little startled.

"Wasn't up to you?"

She blinks at his startlement. "Well, we didn't get a menu. Or even much of a map, come to that. Just a destination. Whatever was on the road between us and there..." She shrugs. "We were up for it."

Dean snorts.

"Pretty sure no line of work comes with a map, sweetheart. Fuckin' instruction booklets're useless anyway."

Dean is a man infinitely capable of programming a VCR.

Or building one.

That earns him a sharp look. "I wasn't the one who asked the question, sugar," she says sweetly. "Just explaining the way it was."

Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Dean.

"So you guys were on your way somewhere, and were gonna get there come hell or high water," Sam sums up. "I'm guessing from what you said that this wasn't the sort of trip with a lot of different routes."

"Our leader was the kind of man who thought in straight lines," she says. She sounds a little amused. "But no. Not a lot of options. Like the train--Blaine was crazy, but he was the only one who could take us where we needed to go."

"Most of the time, there was just one way forward, and we took it. Come, as you say, hell or high water."

Yeah, so this is one of those times where Dean's got nothing to say.

Could be because Sammy's trying to drive a point home. Could be because he thinks all this is bullshit.

Whatever it is, he just crosses his arms and leans back against the table.

Might as well be comfortable while they hash it out, right?

"So what changed?"

She takes a sip of her cocktail. "That's a pretty personal question, Sam. And not a short story."

"The question I have in my mind to ask is--will you open to me as I open to you? Or is this just an interrogation?" Her expression is calm and pleasant, even open, but there's something like steel in her eyes.

Dean's jaw tightens, but he stays right the hell where he is.

Could be he wants to see which way Sam'll jump before he opens his big mouth.

Could be he already knows.

And if Susannah's got something like steel in her eyes, there ain't no mistaking the steel in Dean's.

There never has been.

Sam shrugs.

"Thought it was a conversation."

He meets her gaze and holds it.

"Generally interrogations involve badges and things."

"Is that a no?"

"Can't say yes without knowing what you wanna know."

Dean's casual as anything.

"Gotta watch our backs, right?"

"That's fair enough," she says. She considers.

"Tell you what; we'll drop it. There's nothing you can use to hurt me or anyone else in your question, nothing important. It's just not fun to talk about. You're doing good work and I don't mean you any harm. I'd like to help you, if I could." That's the point of the questions, ultimately.

"You can decide how much you want to trust me in your own time."

Edited 2008-10-12 04:22 (UTC)

"Who said we--"

Dean's posture shifts, and he drops his arms out of their defensive cross.

"We'll do that."

Dean cracks a smile.

"Nothing against you, Susannah. There's just shit here and at home that's kinda--fucked up. Guess you know how that goes, too."

He's never been good at diplomacy, but he can say what's on his mind clear enough. Sometimes it even works.

She nods. "Like I said," she says. "It was a pragmatic decision."

Her armor is going up; twenty years of suburbia melting away before their eyes. The woman underneath is like a statue carved out of stone. "We set out on our journey, and along the way we found work. Important work. We did the job. We paid the price. And after that... only the destination was left, and it wasn't worth it anymore. Not to me, not the way things were."

"We didn't get many choices on that road. When I had a chance to get out, I took it."

Edited 2008-10-12 04:41 (UTC)

Sam nods, and doesn't look at Dean as he asks,

"So what do you do these days? I mean, aside from hanging out at bars between worlds."

"You've mentioned the monsters you've met, but I don't know if you've ever met... organized resistance, on a massive scale. We did. They have their pawns and fronts in multiple worlds; we established our own. A company."

Staccato and short; like a report.

"There are people, places and things that are important. They want to control or destroy them; we want to stop them. You mentioned consecrated ground. It's a little like that."

"We left the company to its own devices, to do the work we 'd set them, but when I came back, they had a place for me." At the top. "Some of what we do is very simple and mostly legal, and some of it--isn't."

"Just lately? I spent two weeks in an pretty ugly future. Now we're trying to figure out if we can stop it from happening."

"How's that working for you?"

Dean is trying really hard to keep the sudden sting of desperation out of his voice.

The hope gets squashed even faster.

"Could be better," she says, in measured tones. "We have a message we're trying to translate. If I'd known what to look for when I was there--"

She shrugs. Ka. "The people who sent it, who brought me there accidentally, were all killed before I could find much out."

"Sorry to hear that."

Sam trades a quick look with Dean.

"Is it in another language, or something?"

She nods. "A dead language from another world. I can understand it, sometimes, and we've got a lot of experts on payroll, too. I think we're getting there."

She hopes.

There's the murmur of Fur Elise from the pocket of her chair, and she apologizes as she gets out her cell. "All right. All right. I'll be home shortly."

"Small family emergency. I'll talk to you boys later, all right? Have a good night." For a moment she hesitates, as if about to add something else, but in the end she doesn't.

Edited 2008-11-13 04:32 (UTC)

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