nowhere_mods (nowhere_mods) wrote in road_nowhere, @ 2008-01-14 23:32:00 |
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Who: John And I'm Not Crazy Winchester & Grace Hamilton
What: A wanderer on her property gets Grace more than she bargained for.
Where: Durango, Colorado
When: August 26, 2007.
Warnings: John Winchester. Need we say more?
It was getting late when she finally decided to head back in, and it was a little less than a mile out when she spotted a figure moving through the trees. Whether or not the man had noticed her or not, she wasn't sure, but she brought her mustang to a stop and easily dismounted. "Hey! You! What the hell d'you think you're doing out here?"
Not many people made their way onto her land, and those who did ... well, she could deal with them, if they meant trouble.
John--that was his name, wasn't it? yes, it was-- tensed at the woman's voice, going automatically and instinctually on the defensive.
A thousand questions that he couldn't answer sprang to mind.
Where was he?
Well, that one was somewhat answerable: the middle of fucking nowhere.
How did he get here?
Of this he had no recollection, which was already frustrating him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just appeared there.
The third most prominent and most worrying question was thus:
Who was he?
All he remembered of his identity was his name: John.
John also knew he wasn't supposed to be here. Wasn't supposed to be alive. But he couldn't remember why he felt that was the case.
It crossed his mind to lie, like he feels he has a thousand times before in a life he can't remember. But with no clue where or who he is or how he got there, he decided against it. He needed help, and besides, she didn't look like a person you could lie to.
"I don't know," John finally said in answer to her question. "If you'd believe it, I just sort of... woke up here."
"You just sort of woke up here," she repeated, slowly, and he would have to forgive her if she sounded just a bit dubious. Even with everything she'd seen, most people didn't wake up in the middle of nowhere -- in the middle of her land -- with no recollection of how they got there.
"You're not drunk, are you?" was the first question to pop into her head, though he didn't seem like it to her. It was still something to be asked, rule out general intoxication.
"No ma'am," John said (she seemed more like a ma'am than a miss to him, despite her age) as politely as he could manage. He got the feeling that if he knew he knew who he was, he would be a lot more annoyed than he was now, when he didn't. "Do I seem drunk to you?"
"Not particularly, but I've known some drunks who were able to pass as sober," she replied, shrugging vaguely. She gave him an appraising look, considering, then shook her head as though in answer to some unspoken question. "Do you have a name, cowboy?"
He held her appraising look steadily, giving her one of his own. Trying to figure out if he could trust her. He got the feeling he didn't trust many people, though he couldn't be sure of that.
"John," he replied. "And I'm not crazy."
"Well, John and I'm Not Crazy," she said, and she couldn't help but laugh quietly -- the girl had a twisted sense of humor, if nothing else. "You've got two choices here. One, you can get the hell off my land and I won't call the cops, or you can let me make you a cup of tea, and answer a few questions."
"Considering I don't know where the fuck I am or how I got here, and since you're just bluffing about calling the cops because you want me to choose door number two, I'd say there's really only one choice," John retorted, less trying to be abrasive and more stating how he saw things.
That made her laugh again, full-throated and thoroughly amused. "Touche, John and I'm Not Crazy." Yes, she would continue to call him that until he fessed up to a last name. She thought it was funny, at any rate.
She wasn't rude enough to ride and make him walk, so she fisted her hand around her horse's reigns and clicked her tongue to get the animal moving, and led the way back towards her home. "By the way? You can call me Grace."
John nodded.
"It suits you," if it was weird to go from behaving like something of a jackass to paying a sincere compliment in the span of a few seconds, well, he didn't really give a damn.
"The horse got a name?"
The compliment caused Grace to raise a brow, though she didn't say anything in return to it. "Her name's Selene," she replied, reaching a hand back to stroke affectionately along the horse's muzzle.
She was content to make the rest of the trek in silence, if John had nothing to say, and she paused only once to unbridle the horse and turn her loose into one of the paddocks, with the intention to come back to take her saddle later.
John was, well, lost in thought didn't quite work as a description since he was actually trying to recall thoughts... recall anything he could about his identity and how he'd wound up her, on this strange woman's land in the middle of nowhere.
I shouldn't be alive was the only thing he could think, even when concentrating hard on trying to remember simple things about his life. I shouldn't be alive.
Why was it his brain was willing to give up that disturbing thought, but kept the more mundane things (like his last name, his birthday, hell, his favourite color) inaccessible and secret? It didn't make any sense.
Well, he had to start somewhere.
"I know you're the one who's supposed to be asking the twenty questions, but I think I deserve at least one: Where am I?"
She gave him a searching look before answering. "Colorado. More specifically, Durango. A bit more specific than that? ... Well, I'd need a map for that one." No one could ever say she didn't try to be as honest as possible, when people wanted the truth.
By that point, they'd reached the house, and she led the way inside, directing him to a couch in the living room before she vanished into the kitchen, and it was about five minutes or so before she returned with two mugs, offering one to her guest.
While Grace was in the kitchen preparing the tea, John took the opportunity to examine his surroundings.
The two arm chairs in white plush, the coffee table, the couch and the two end tables on either side of it were standard fare, normal. Even the massive amount of candles could pass for normal, just a little over the top.
What caught his eye was all the decidedly not normal possessions she had scattered about the living room, usually on the bookshelves along with her books. Talismans, knives, other strange knick-knacks.
And her books were equally not normal. Well, some of them were, like Harry Potter. But the Egyptian Book of The Dead? How did you even get your hands on a copy of something like that?
All those things combined should have made him wary, should have made him get the fuck out of there and to hell with the fact he couldn't remember a damn thing; but it just made him relax. These things felt familiar for a reason that still eluded him.
"Interesting collection you've got there," John said when she returned. "But I gotta tell you, Harry Potter's a bunch of crap."
He took the offered mug gratefully. "Thanks."
It was tea, but it would do, because he suddenly felt like he hadn't had anything to drink in months.
"Angelica," he pronounced after taking a sip.
John wasn't sure how or why he knew that, but he was certain of it.
His assessment of the tea caused her to arch a brow in surprise. "Most people don't recognize it," she commented, making herself comfortable in one of the arm chairs. John and I'm Not Crazy was certainly proving to be more and more interesting, that was for certain.
She allowed a few moments to pass in companionable silence, she sipping her own tea -- thyme and rosemary, for the record, both for the properties of the herbs as well as the taste -- as she eyed the man. "So why don't we start at the beginning, hm? What's the first thing you remember?" Prying? A bit -- but then, with as many stains as he had on his aura, she couldn't help but be curious.
"I'm not most people," John said with a hint of a smirk in his voice and playing at his lips.
What's the first thing you remember? Well, wasn't that the $64, 000 question.
He was in the other armchair, angled towards her, but rather than relaxing into it, he sat on the edge with the mug in his hands.
He stared at it, watching the steam.
"The ground," he answered honestly. "Waking up on the ground in the middle of your woods." and I shouldn't be alive.
Grace frowned -- there was that feeling that he wasn't sharing everything. "And ...?" she prompted gently, toeing off her boots before she drew her feet up into the chair and using her knee as a place to rest her mug.
"Anything you remember. Thoughts, feelings, smells. Even if it seems unimportant." The tinest details could, after all, be worth the most.
"My name," he said unnecessarily (he'd already told her it, after all). "And..."
An icy knot settled into his stomach when she mentioned smells. "And sulfur. I smelled sulfur. That's what woke me."
The smell of sulfur was connected to his only recurring thought, John was sure of that now that he remembered it.
"I shouldn't be alive," he said miserably, his voice barely a whisper.
Sulfer. That was interesting, and she filed that away mentally, a note for later. "Mm, well, shouldn't be's are often subjective, you know. Apparently someone or something thought so, otherwise you wouldn't be here," she pointed out wisely, though the 'someone or something' had her a bit concerned.
The house was definitely getting a full cleansing before she went to bed. Just in case.
"You don't get it," John burst out, suddenly angry. His entire body tensed with the effort of keeping it contained, because Grace didn't deserve to be subject to an anger he couldn't control.
"When I say I shouldn't be alive, I mean I. Really. Shouldn't. Be. Alive," he paused between each word to stress his point. "It's not a pity seeking move. Just the truth. I shouldn't be alive and the fact that I am, well, it's a mistake. A dangerous mistake."
If he expected any reaction other than a quirked brow and a look, well, he was bound to be disappointed. She waited out his outburst, then just shook her head. "Assuming you're not delusional here, the fact that you're alive, if it is a mistake? Hate to break it to you, boy, but that kind of mistake doesn't come without power."
A pause, as she assessed him -- looking more around John than actually at him, as though examining something invisible to most people. Which was true enough. "And that kind of power doesn't get loosed without purpose. So, the only logical conclusion is, for whatever reason, someone or something wants you alive."
Another brief pause. "And that potential something is what concerns me."
"I'm not," he said firmly. "And don't call me 'boy'. I'm old enough to be your father." Here another question nagged at the edge of his memories: was he a father?
John's snarky, angry atttitude deflated with her explanation, however. He looked utterly miserable again.
"That's what I was afraid of."
And he was afraid of it. Really and truly afraid of what the ramifications would be for who ever it was that had been stupid enough (because it was stupid) to want him alive when he shouldn't be.
"Someone's going to pay because I'm alive," he said. "Someone I care about."
The question was: who?
"A lot of people're old enough to be my father," Grace responded to his first statement, giving a shrug that meant everything and nothing at the same time, but at how utterly miserable he looked, she could only sigh.
"You know ... as much as I hate to say it, you're probably right. Magic like that? Someone powerful enough to work that isn't going to be giving it away for free. There're always consequences to magic, and with something that powerful? I daresay, they're never good." She would know, after all.
... And she inwardly cringed at just how uncomforting that had sounded. Truly, she'd meant for the opposite!
"You daresay they've never good?" John laughed, harsh and bitter. "I may not remember who I am or much about my life right now, but even I know that."
It was perhaps a bit cruel, considering she was only trying to help him, but... he couldn't help it. Couldn't help the nagging feeling that this was somehow all his fault in the end, this whole damn situation.
"You know more than you're letting on about this," it wasn't accusatory, just a statement of fact, "and you're going to tell me what you know, or what you think you know."
That last part? That last part was something of an order.
Grace had never responded well to orders, and the only response to that one was an arched brow and a sip from her mug. "You know, you're not nearly as intimidating as you think," she said finally, giving him a look that clearly said she wasn't having any of it, being bossed around.
Still, she wasn't one to leave questions unanswered. It went against her nature. "What I know is about as much as you. Maybe a bit more." A pause, and a shrug. "I don't know where you've been, or who you are. But it's plain as day that you've been touched by something ... unnatural. Something dark and evil, and I don't like it one bit."
John very nearly laughed at her reaction to being given an order.
"I think the fact you aren't intimidated says more about you than it does me, sweetheart."
He didn't quite know where that came from, but he did know he could trust her now. Might even call her a kindred spirit if he were someone prone to believing stuff like that, which he sort of doubted.
He sobered, though, when she continued.
"How dark and unnatural are we talkin' here, do you think?"
"Drink your tea," she instructed, almost at random, gesturing towards his forgotten mug.
She then lapsed into silence, studying him and trying to figure exactly how much to say -- after all, he didn't seem the type to buy into witchcraft as a science, but what the hell.
"Most people don't exactly have a uniform aura. It blends, you know? Primarily one color, but one color leads to the next, to the next. They can tell you anything and everything you need to know about a person. Where they've been, what they're headed towards. You get reds and blues and greens and every shade in between." A pause, and she shrugged lightly.
"Yours is ... broken." That seemed the best way to say it, right? "You've got bits that aren't there at all and bits that look like they've been scorched. And the rest is ... black." There was little need to say why the black worried her -- there was a reason evil was associated with the color, after all.
John did as he was told and drank as he listened to her explain about auras.
It didn't sound New Agey or full of shit coming from her; on the contrary, it made sense.
He considered what she had to say about his aura for several long moments. Somehow, for some reason, what she said fit.
He was broken. Even with no memory, he could acknowledge that as a fundamental truth about himself.
Nor was he surprised to learn that pieces of his aura were missing entirely. It did frustrate him, though, that he couldn't remember why they were missing.
It was sort of like the reason was just out of the corner of his mind's eye or just out of reach, taunting him.
"Well, this is good. We know one thing for certain about me now."
"Only one? I thought we were pretty certain that your name is John and I'm Not Crazy," she teased lightly, unable to keep from quirking her lips into a semblance of a grin.
Still, she was all business a moment later. "The problem with that is ... well, your aura's your basic defense system. A strong, healthy one blocks against psychic attack, possession, things like that. Not to say someone with enough power couldn't force their way through, but it's a help. It's ... like your skin, I guess. Without skin, you're wide open to infection. The aura's the same way, on a metaphysical level."
She sipped at her tea, ignoring the fact that it'd gone cold, and waved a hand in the direction of his. "Drink the damned thing, boy, or I'll hook an IV of the stuff up to you while you sleep." And no, she wasn't playing.
"Three things, then," John retorted. "Now we also know that I'm fucked up and my dark spots are pretty dark."
A vague smirk played at his lips at that as he drank more of the tea.
He felt strangely defensive as she explained how, with the way his aura was, he'd left himself open to being infected on a spiritual level.
"Look, whatever I did to make my aura that way, I had a damn good reason for it. I'm not a bad person."
He sighed. Even as he said that, even as he told her he wasn't a bad person, he wondered if maybe he was wrong about that.
Another drink of tea, then: "If an I.V. of the stuff would actually help, I'd tell you to go for it, but I think you'd need more angelica tea than exists or is sold in the state of Colorado to cleanse my aura."
"Oh, the amount isn't what I'm worried about. I can get my hands on as much as I need." Mostly because she had a rather large herb garden on the property. But she shook her head, scrubbing a hand tiredly across her face. "Believe me, if I thought you were a bad person, I'd've buried you instead of bringing you back here."
It wasn't threat as much as utter fact.
"And for the record, it doesn't have to be something you did. Situations can screw you to hell as badly as your own actions. But whatever the case, the damage is repairable, if you trust me." Most people in his state, she would've turned her back on. It wasn't cruelty as much as practicality -- someone that touched by evil was bound to bring it crashing down on her head, and it wasn't just herself that she was worried about.
But John? For whatever reason, despite all her better instincts, she couldn't turn him out.
"If you had buried me, what would you have put on my headstone, out of curiosity?" he asked, amused by her forthright, blunt delivery.
When she tried to ease his guilt by saying that the damage to his aura might not be his fault, John shook his head no.
"I appreciate the thought, and maybe some of it was beyond my control, but I don't think all of it was. I take accountability for my actions, whatever they were. At least with myself."
He drained the remainder of the tea before answering her largely unspoken question of if she trusted him or not.
"I trust you."
John couldn't say for certain if that would have been the case if he'd known who he was, but if he knew that he might not be in this mess to begin with.
"Do you trust me?" he asked, equally blunt but with a hint of caution behind it.
Whether he believed the damage to be his fault or not, there was a chance it simply wasn't. Not that she felt like arguing the point, not then -- there was too much unknown about the whole situation for her to speculate on what had caused it.
"First rule of my world is I trust no one initially," came her eventual reply. "But the fact that you're not out on your ass right now says I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and trust in my own intuition that you've no plans of trying to kill me in my sleep." The words were light, but honest. "Give me a few days, then ask me that again, hm?"
"You don't have to trust your intuition on that," John told her honestly. "If I'd had it in my mind to kill you, I wouldn't have waited 'til you were asleep, I would have tried it already so I could be done with it. I wouldn't have come up with some story about how I'm not supposed to be alive."
It was disturbing that he could say that to her and know it was the truth, but given the things they'd just been talking about, he thought she might understand.
He smiled (and quite genuinely too), though, to indicate that he didn't mean any real offense by that.
"You would have tried," she teased, emphasizing what he'd said, even as she returned the smile. "Don't think you would've gotten too far with that plan, though." Cocky? A bit -- but when one didn't have anything in her past to indicate otherwise, well, it was just a little deserved.
"Mm, so, since you say you trust me ... do you trust me enough that the words Tweety Bird don't scare you?" Grace couldn't help but offer a wry grin.
"Tweety Bird?"
John was suddenly reminded of a time when he'd wake up to the sound of Sunday Morning cartoons playing on the TV.
The memory threw him a little, because of implication. That he'd shared his life with someone--most likely a child or else someone who never quite grew up, but child seemed to fit there--at some point.
He knew logically it had to have been several years since that, but with no other memories yet, it felt like more than a lifetime.
"As long as you're not asking me to try and hunt him for dinner, Tweety doesn't scare me," he said at last, alluding to Sylvester's many failed attempts in the cartoons to try and eat the little yellow bird.
"Of course not. That bird's probably smarter than the both of us." She couldn't help but laugh and shook her head. "No, I mean in the attire sense. Because the washer simply doesn't work properly while the bath is running, and I'm afraid I'm about to make you and my tub become the best of friends."
She didn't have a shower -- it had been the first thing to go, when she'd purchased the house, favoring long, relaxing soaks to showers any day -- but she didn't think he'd care how he got clean (unless it involved a garden hose and ice-cold water), as long as it happened, right?
"That's probably a good idea," John agreed. With all the talk about his aura and it being black and broken, not to mention everything else that had been touched on, he definitely felt like scalding himself clean.
"Do you have a guest room I can make friends with after?"
"Naturally. It shall be your second new best friend," she replied, setting aside her empty mug and getting to her feet. "The bathroom's directly down the hall. Give me a minute, and I'll grab you a towel and a change of clothes."
And without waiting for a reply, down the hall she went, vanishing into her room. True to her word, she returned a minute or so later, with a fluffy towel and a change of clothes -- a Tweety tee-shirt, and a pair of sweatpants that, even with the drawstring tied, had never quite fit her. And on top, a packet of herbs. She offered him the bundle.
"Lemme guess, you want me to bathe in the stuff too?" he said drily, eying the herbs on top.
As he took the bundle including the herbs from her, part of him couldn't believe he was going along with that; but another part of him said she was right, that it would help.
John stopped and turned back abruptly in the doorway.
"Thank you," he said sincerely.
"The road to recovery isn't quick, but anything to speed it up can't hurt," she replied, rolling her eyes at his immediate reaction.
She gathered up the forgotten mugs, intending on heading to the kitchen to wash them, but at his thank you, she threw a smile over her shoulder. "You're welcome. Now go, get clean. You'll feel better for it, I promise."
The packet also had a bit of lavendar in it -- great for relaxation, and she was pretty sure he could use it.