milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Second verse, same as the first.

Susannah is back, trying once again to get some work done away from her troublesome menfolk. Not that she doesn't have a perfectly good office to hide in if she really felt like playing the recluse. But they don't keep liquor in the house, and where would she be without her Dragonfly?

The mountain of paper situation has only gotten worse; more resumes, print-outs of her memos that she's now marking up in red pen, and a file from the Vannay Institute about Stephen King's latest publications. Among other things.

She's open to distraction; just don't bring up Ron Howard.

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"He's not quite as hard-boiled as either of those old boys," she says. "And McBain is a little procedural for the way Eddie writes." Eddie might point towards his stuff under the name Evan Hunter instead.

"When he talks about his heroes he brings up Richard Stark," she says. "You know, the Parker novels? And Elmore Leonard. Eddie loves Dutch. He gave him a very nice blurb early on."

Her office is small and tidy; there's a large desk with a lot of drawers, and a large hope chest-style trunk in one corner. A lot of pictures of the usual suspects.

He shakes his head at Stark, but nods at Leonard.

"He did? Cool."

Sam glances around the office, absently checking sight-lines and corners. As he does, his glance falls on a framed picture of a young woman who bears a distinct familial resemblance to Susannah.

"... your daughter?" he asks.

"That's her," she affirms. "You can set those down on the desk, by the way."

"Her senior picture," she says, "so it's pretty recent. She's at that age, though--looks older every time I see her."

And if you're observant--there's a jump, between the senior picture and the others. She was always slim, but in the later picture she's lean, and more muscled. The eyes are different.

He stacks the papers in the middle of the desk's workspace, not letting go until he's sure the pile's not going to fall over, then steps back.

Sam studies the pictures for a second, then glances at Susannah.

(gunslingers)

"Well, technically she is older every time you see her," he points out, straight-faced. "So there's that."

She snorts at that, and sighs. "She's awfully young still. There's a report in there--" she indicates the papers-- "Of some business she got into in a town called Nazareth. A creature we call an allegory, for lack of a better name. Or one of the Calvins favors anonanimal, but it's a silly word, I think."

He reaches automatically for the papers before stopping himself. Instead, he looks a sharp query at Susannah.

"An allegory?" Beat. "What kind of creature?"

Sam's intent focus is near-impossible to miss.

There's a flicker of something like dark amusement in Susannah's eyes, and she completes his aborted motion; despite the chaos, she picks out the plastic file folder she wants on the first try.

"You told me once about a ghost truck, so you know about the way someone can feed a lot of hate and poison and misery out into the world. Into an object, as a sort of psychic fetish. Especially if they have a little bit of a shine. You can get haunted houses that way, and cursed things, and poltergeists... no real spirit, necessarily, just a lot of unhappiness stored up like a battery."

"And of course--" She frowns. "Anyone that unhappy, and putting it out like radiation... well, they're likely to just go on getting more unhappy. They bring misery down on themselves without knowing why, and bit by bit they pull away from the world."

She holds out the file with an unreadable expression. Sympathy is part of it. "An allegory is a person who channels all their feelings, their power, into their own body. They start to change. And most of them, the kinds we see the most, are that kind of person... they start out lonely and suspicious, and they become withdrawn and paranoid. They don't trust anyone and people can tell there's something wrong about them. And one day they disappear."

Sam nods.

"We see a lot of that sort of thing in hauntings. A lot of the time spirits -- well, they get stuck in the moment of their death, or something like that, which isn't usually a good place."

A beat.

"Less often with someone who's still alive, though, although there're some creatures, some lore that's related, about people who... change. For whatever reason; there's a few different ones."

A shadow seems to cross over his face for an instant, although his expression doesn't change.

"So these allegories. Where do they disappear to?"

Edited 2010-06-03 19:55 (UTC)

"The box for Ingress is downstairs," she murmurs, and puts the chair in gear. He can hang onto the report; it's just a print-out, anyway.

"Generally somewhere underground. A lot of them make a sort of hole or room for themselves that others can't see or find easily. People tend to forget about them altogether. They just... drop out, and keep changing."

She heads back towards the elevator.

"The body becomes quite frail, although it's stronger than it seems. Head's armored. The fingers become like... tendrils, long, bony, jointed, and very strong. It uses them to reach out, to survive without leaving." She pushes the elevator button. "The first one we found was in the sewers under Brooklyn. It hadn't moved in... we guessed about forty years. Its fingers were spread through the pipes for miles in every direction."

"We think--there's no way to know for sure, of course--we think quite a few of them just never come out. It's when they do, when they start to become lonely or curious about the outside world again, that the trouble starts, generally. Or when they're found."

Sam glances down at the report, then half-folds it, takes hold of it with his left hand, and follows Susannah.

"Out of sight, out of mind, but still... yeah." A beat. "I'm gonna guess that getting in past the fingers might be part of the challenge in dealing with it? If it's that extended-- it could probably lose extremities and still keep the whole alive."

She nods. "That's about the size of it. Or so I understand." She grimaces, just slightly, and taps the side of the chair. "I haven't at my best in tight corners in a long time. I haven't seen one alive."

The boxes are stacked in the foyer; two wooden Japanese-style travel chests. There's a crate nearby they've been recently removed from. She indicates one of them. "The other's for Rose, to take to school with her. They've got hidden compartments. We're renting a storage unit in town so she doesn't have to try and hide a full warchest on campus, but she needs a place to keep a few things."

"She went in on the one in Nazareth with a shotgun and a Bowie knife," she says. Her face has gone still as it does some times, as impassive as carved wood. "Of course, it had had less room to spread out, and less time."

There are photos in the file; a few caught of it dead, and one where it's hard to see (http://knowyourmeme.com/i/33266/original/slenderforest2bcopy852.jpg?1262502301).

"Nicely made," Sam approves, with a glance at the boxes. "Wish I'd had something like that."

He glances at Susannah's face, then down to the file, flipping it open.

It doesn't take him more than a second to spot it. Sam stares down at it and the look in his eyes is dark and calculating.

"Shotgun's a good weapon," he remarks. "For a lot of things."

"It's for her birthday, too, really," Susannah says. "But she wasn't here to get it, then." The one for Ingress, the secret compartment is broken. Unless you're an Opener

She watches him out of the corner of her eyes.

"People have a visceral reaction," she says. "Like Charley and bears, if you read Steinbeck. It's wrong and they know it."

"Rose got it to surrender," Susannah adds, impassively. "Even saved someone. But the local law shot it on sight. You can read it all in there."

"Knowing something and admitting it are two different things."

He looks up from the file to meet her eyes.

"I will." A beat. "One question: can one of these allegories change back from what it's become?"

Edited 2010-06-07 03:55 (UTC)

"I doubt it very much," she sighs. "Not in the long term."

She holds his eyes with a steady regard. "I've seen a lot of miracles, Sam. And I'd like to believe that even something that's so thoroughly forgotten how to be human could be saved. But I doubt it."

She looks down at her lap wearily. "Rose was pretty upset, you can imagine. And I understand that But I find it hard to blame the sheriff, myself. She had a job to do and she did it."

"I've only seen it happen once."

His expression is blank now, the look in his eyes shuttered.

"It's a hell of a risk to take, in any case."

"She's very young," Susannah says. It's very quiet; little more than a breath.

She looks up, and her eyes search Sam Winchester's closed-off face. It's hard to say what she's seeking.

"Sam, there's something I want to give you. It might not be any use at all, in your world, but I'll feel better having done it."

He blinks, visibly startled.

"... okay."

"It's just information."

She keeps her purse in a pocket of the chair; she gets it out.

"I tried to offer it to you once, the way gunslingers do their business. You can read about that, too, in Rose's report. I asked the first question, and you... didn't quite trust me enough for the right answer. I understand why."

"But this--" She takes a card from her purse, and a pen, and she makes a notation on the back. "What year are you coming from, Sam?"

Edited 2010-06-07 04:47 (UTC)

"Two thousand and seven."

He watches as she writes, thinking back. It takes a few seconds for him to hit on it, but not all that long; her focus on that question at the time had been pretty clear.

"'Will you open to me as I open to you?' That's the one, isn't it?"

"There are three," she says. "And that's the first."

She finishes writing. "I'll give you the warning first. There's every chance we don't exist in your world. But if we do--this is the number for Tet Security, and the extension for the supernatural branch. The other password identifies you as a friend of mine, even if you're a friend I don't know yet. Today, that wouldn't get you much. In 2007... it's worth a little more."

She holds it out between two fingers. "I know you boys take care of yourselves. But as a mother to a mother's son... I want you to take this. Just in case."

Whether they can use it or not, she'll feel better having done what she can.

Edited 2010-06-07 05:05 (UTC)

He takes the card, but doesn't look down at it immediately. Something about the look in his eyes is startled again; it makes him look younger.

"... thanks."

He glances at the card. There are two words besides the number: Sam reads them out, sounding them carefully.

"Sigul. Oppoponax."

A beat.

"I'll remember. And, uh, I know my... our mom would say thanks too, if she could."

She wonders, but she doesn't ask. He doesn't have to open anything to her for this.

"You are your brother remind me a lot of boys I've known." Most of them didn't get to grow old.

Sometimes she thinks it's a terrible thing to grow old; to be tired and suspicious and full of regrets. So why does she want it for the young so badly?

(under the elders)

"If it doesn't work... or even if it does... my door is always open," she says wryly. "So to speak."

"I'll remember that too," Sam says. "Thanks."

A beat; he looks hesitant for a moment, but says,

"Susannah? What -- the ones we remind you of?"

Another beat. Sam's studying her face.

"What happened to them?"

"Two of them are still alive," she says, her voice low. "Run out for ice cream, but they'll be home soon enough. And I guess your brother's waiting, too. It's a long story, even telling it the fast way. But I'll tell you some time, if you like."

"I'll tell you about the others." And the Dark Tower, too, she supposes--but then, if not for Roland Deschain and his tales of the Tower, those other boys might still be around.

(That's not fair and she knows it, but sometimes she can't help hating him a little.)