milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Suresh really doesn't know Elle's father like she does.

This wasn't a surprise for her. It doesn't mean she was in any less a foul mood in the time after their meeting, as she stalked through the halls of the Facility, more acutely aware of her confinement than she could ever remember being before.

For whatever that was worth.

The appearance of the bar when she returns to her room is enough to slow her pace, at least, though it doesn't stop her from slamming the door. When she's settled on a stool, the Bar greets her with one of Bela's books.

She snatches it up without complaint.

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He spots her when he heads up to the bar for a beer.

"Hey, Elle."

At which point she's resting her head in her hand and leaning over the open book.

(She might not get the point of vampires, but at least 'decapitation' is straightforward.)

When she hears Sam, Elle does look up, her left arm moving over the book in what could almost be qualified as stealthy. At least, for her.

"Hi."

She doesn't sound all that welcoming.

Not that he can blame her, really.

Sam stops a few feet away, not crowding her.

"Um, how's it going?"

This doesn't seem to improve her mood. She straightens in her seat, lifting herself away from the book and closing it.

"Why're you asking?"

"... mostly just because I was interested? In how things were going for you?" he tries, awkwardly.

She finds his lack of malice disturbing.

"A demon didn't possess you and throw me into anything again."

Beat.

"If that's what you're asking."

"It wasn't, actually," Sam tells her. "I mean, that's good, but it wasn't what I was asking."

A beat.

"Elle, you do get that I'm trying to be friends, right?"

Elle pushes herself of the stool, pacing right through the space Sam provided to not crowd her. It looks like she's doing this to get a better look at him, but she steps much closer than could really be necessary for that.

Then, without so much as a glance away: "I liked the demon better."

Every muscle in his body tenses.

"Did you."

It comes out flat, and Sam's looking at her with a mixture of shock and sudden wariness.

"Okay. Why?"

"I knew it."

Even if it had lied about who and what it was.

Elle's expression doesn't change.

"I don't know you."

She'd felt more comfortable with the murderous thing that had wielded his abilities or its own as weapons than with him.

Even as the shock of that spreads through him, Sam realizes just how much this says about how bad things might be where she's from -- or how bad they could get, the demon's anything like what Elle recognizes as normal.

If Dad was right, in other words.

"It doesn't have to be that way."

There's got to be something--

She'd felt more comfortable with something that wanted to hurt her.

At least it made its intentions plain.

"I didn't lie to you."

Her voice can be awfully flat, too.

Edited 2009-08-19 07:27 (UTC)

"Guess not."

A beat.

"You're pretty good at not answering questions, but no, I guess you didn't lie. Then again, maybe I didn't either. I just didn't tell you. Until you asked."

"I asked if there was anything like that in your world."

Of course, it was the first time they'd met, and he'd given a perfectly ambiguous, non-lie answer. But she may not like the next part.

"Your brother told me."

And even had the decency to look ready to shoot her over it.

Of all the things he might have, could have possibly expected, this was nowhere near any of them.

Sam looks as though he's been punched in the gut, even as his jaw drops open.

"Dean told you about me?"

No way. No way in hell, and a second later he's figured out what she's got to mean.

"Or just about the job?"

It takes Elle a moment to even sort out what he means. 'Job' and 'me' are not concepts she has to disassociate very often.

"Your job," she answers, finally.

And just as quickly as the world had tilted underneath him, it's righted again.

"Yeah, well. Neither of us was supposed to do that, but things are kinda different here."

It's not really even about his job. It's about the sense that he knew more about everything, knew more about her, and didn't tell her.

And she can't begin to explain that.

Unable to come up with any point to argue, she just replies, dully, "I don't know what you want."

"What I want," Sam tells her, "is to try to be friends."

For a whole slew of reasons, among them the fact that giving up on Elle would be weirdly like giving up on himself.

Edited 2009-08-20 04:02 (UTC)

And she doesn't know what that means. At least, or especially, when it comes to Sam.

She's not going to be saying that. Really, it's her first instinct to just say no.

But -

"Why?"

Edited 2009-08-20 04:34 (UTC)

Now it's Sam's turn to look frustrated.

"Because, okay? Do I have to have a reason?"

He sounds it, too.

"Maybe you remind me of someone -- you kinda do. Maybe I just want to do something about the fact that the idea of having a friend seems to be such a totally alien thing to you, 'cause if your life sucks that bad, well, it shouldn't, okay?"

Her composure, which she'd kept relatively even until this point, quickly deteriorates as he goes on, until her fingers are curled up against her palms and, quite suddenly, small sparks actually snap up at the ends of her hair.

It makes her jerk back, and probably stops her from hitting him. She looks down at her hands, and slowly loosens them, before walking away (without turning away from him, ever), to retrieve her book from the bar.

Once she has it, she steps back, though not as close as she had before.

"That demon didn't tell me about you."

Her voice is very, very low.

Sam stares at her.

"It didn't?"

Beat.

"Wait-- then how did you know?"

"It wanted me to know."

She's gripping that book rather tightly, maybe to keep her hands in place.

"But it didn't just say it. Some girl from your world told me, I didn't know she meant you until then."

"Some girl--"

There's only one girl he knows who comes here that might possibly have the first clue about this.

"Ava? You know Ava?"