milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

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 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.)

Dean's not waiting, not exactly, given how time runs for them between the world and the bar, but Susannah's point hits home all the same.

Especially these days, since thoughts of time passing and Dean tend to be pretty closely and constantly intertwined.

Sam nods, and glances down for just a second, hoping to hide the sudden darkness that he knows has to be visible in his eyes.

"Okay." He looks back at her with a half-wry smile. "Some other time. When we both have time. But for now..."

He moves over to the box she'd indicated before and crouches down to get a good grip on it.

"Thank you," she says.

She tries to think of something trite and birthday-related, something about how they grow up so fast, but she's pretty sure she already said something about that.

"Sure, no problem. Any time."

He stands, holding Ingress's box, and looks to Susannah.

She pivots the chair around--she's not that fond of being stuck in the electric chair these days, but that mother can turn on a dime, she'll give it that--and leads him back upstairs and to the bar.

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