Dean Winchester (rambledon) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-09-21 10:25:00 |
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It was early yet. The streetlights, which were several stories below, were probably still on. But way up here, on the seventeenth floor, streetlights seemed like a distant memory. There was only the lights of neighboring buildings, and the faint glow of dawn, still too faint to pierce the Manhattan morning. Barely enough light to read by, but enough. Dean leaned against the wall, knees bent so that he could rest his book on them. If he wanted to. Right now, he was using his knees as an old-fashioned type of desk, hastily scribbling in the margins a thought that had occurred to him whilst he slept. Life is complicated, unpredictable, busy, busy, busy. The thought had occurred to him because, like most things that Dean liked, he liked Vonnegut with a fervent passion. And he had read Cat's Cradle enough times to know the tenets of Bokonism inside and out, even if he thought they were absurd. Even if they were meant to be absurd. So, it was that he found himself, sometime in the early hours of the morning, bent over a copy of the book. He never slept more than five hours anymore, maybe more if he was lucky. Usually less. He didn't enjoy sleep in that way that people did, in that way that meant he was safe slowly drifting into a state of unconsciousness. The only unconsciousness Dean really liked was death, and frankly, he wasn't keen to die soon either. And now that Dean had nothing to keep him awake, to keep forcing himself out on the road again and again, he had taken up reading. Home improvement activities. Hobbies. "God," he said aloud, knowing that Jo was just as awake as he was (they fit together like that), "Vonnegut was a crazy son of a bitch." Jo moved lightly and smiled softly at him, she had just been laying next to him, enjoying the quiet presence and the moment to relax. She had been happy listening to him write in the book as he read. Jo too, didn’t sleep much, rarely did she get more than three hours a night. Nightmares often woke her up but she’d found sleeping next to Dean made things a little less - she could sleep four hours instead of three. It was a comforting thought to know he helped stave off the nightmares. She glanced out the window, noting the darkness that still hung over the city like a blanket, spotted with lights from buildings, and sighed. Something she wasn’t loving, still, was how many lights there were. She missed seeing the stars sometimes. Jo moved to sit up, tucking her legs beneath her for the moment. “Certainly, but, why this time?” she asked curiously. Slender fingers raked through her blonde curls, tousled by sleep, before tucking a sheet around her chilly feet.. Jo was content, which was a rarity. She was restless in the mornings, and anytime she wasn’t near someone she loved, it was the loss of their lifestyle that made her so. She, like the boys, was so used to being on the move, on the run, on the Hunt day after day, downtime felt weird. Foreign. Unnatural. It might be why she took as many day trips out of the city as possible, or hunted down petty criminals. She couldn’t handle the inactiveness of their new life. "Just - how he gets it. He really gets it." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Humanity, war, religion… all of it." He didn't know how to say what he wanted to say, not really. Dean wasn't so much a talker as a doer. But it would have been hard to reenact his thoughts on Cat's Cradle, seeing as the book mostly involved made-up science, made-up religion, and made-up islands. It really was perfect. He set the book down, the pencil holding his place, and looked at his girlfriend. He liked being here, even if he wasn't about to explicitly say so. This was okay. Good. Fun, maybe. And seeing how quickly things could change, with the Tesseract, suddenly the words of Vonnegut came back to him. "You know, like, life is complicated and unpredictable, and busy, busy, busy." He smiled a little bit. "I like it." Which, in Dean's own way, also meant I like you. Some things were better left unsaid. Jo smiled at his words and tilted her head a bit. She nodded lightly and smiled. “He is rather an impressive writer, Dean. And he does seem to get it. “ she had, of course, read many of his works. Time spent in the Roadhouse lent itself to many many time spent reading. There was often little else to do. She gave him a little knowing smile. “I like it, too.” she said with a smile, knowing full well he wasn’t just talking about Vonnegut’s works, or life, or the chaos of their lives. Jo was happy to be one of the few people Dean could actually be himself around, and strangely that self was intelligent and well read, which if a lot of the public knew, they’d have heart attacks. But Jo liked when Dean was in a thoughtful mood. She never knew what he was going to talk about. Neither of them had to put into words what they felt about each other. Neither really knew how, but they knew. It wasn’t something that had to be reiterated over and over again. She leaned up and kissed his cheek softly. Her way of saying I like you too. Before snuggling down against him again. Dean moved closer to Jo, until his hand was almost touching hers. He sat there, for what seemed a long moment, not really thinking about anything. His mind passed fleetingly from their lives to their lives here and back to his book, but nothing stuck. He was simply content. For the first time in a long time, he could be here, and he didn't have to be anywhere else. And it was okay. "It's different," he said, finally. "Living in the city. I don't think I like it much." What an ugly city every city is. "I mean - you have the obvious perks, and then there's the all night noise, lights, traffic, pollution…" He listed each of these, his head leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed, hand pressed close to her. "I almost miss Kansas." The silences weren’t a problem, they were comfortable and quiet. It was almost peaceful, despite the noise of the city below. She tried hard to filter that all out and just enjoy the moment. They rarely had this kind of comfortable peace going on, and she was not going to let the city ruin it. No way. She was savoring the presence of Dean next to her, when she was alive, she never thought she’d get a moment like this. She had no desire to forget it now. “It is.” she replied with a quiet smile. “I don’t think I do either. It’s too loud, too crowded, to dingy. It’s not even a good crowded and loud and dingy.” she lifted her head off the wall to look at him a bit. Slender fingers moved a smidge, just a hair closer. “I hate the fact you can’t see the stars clearly at night. I don’t like the constant sound of cars and police.” she commented softly. “I miss Nebraska.” she sighed a bit. She laid her head back, eyes closing again. It was rare that anyone got Jo to really stop talking. She liked to talk, it kept people complacent, thinking she was just another dumb blonde, but when she was happy, or with people she knew well, she enjoyed being able to be quiet and soak up everything around her. He knew they couldn't go back West, not with the Tesseract and everything here. They couldn't leave behind their friends, or the potential dangers that might come through that big blue box, the big blue box that had changed all their lives. But that didn't stop a part of him from wanting to go. He watched the flicker of lights on the ceiling, brushing his fingers against hers. "We're going to have a bunker," he said, more to himself than her. He didn't like, either, that they lived in a building with a seemingly literal target on its back. "Underground a little house in the country, and we'll have a little garden, maybe, and a garage…" The image he had in his mind was a mixture of idealism and reality, half what he had already seen on TV and half what he actually wanted. "And, you know, Sam'll want to bring Veronica, so you'll have to come as well." He didn't look at her as he suggested this. He didn't want to see her reaction. He hadn't planned to come over and ask her to move in with him. That was supposed to be several months down the line, when they actually owned property, and were settled, or something. Not that the Winchester brothers ever settled, or settled down; that seemed to distance a reality to actually be a part of it. Jo missed the life on the road. That was how things went for them. They moved. They wandered. Settling in one spot wasn’t something she was used to. Even at the Roadhouse she traveled a lot. Staying in one place felt incredibly weird. And unnatural. She let a pinky finger brush over his lightly. A ghost of a touch. “Sounds like a great place, Dean.” she said quietly. She’d imagined their kind of house, and a bunker fit the bill rather well. Protection and efficiency in one. Plus a place to grow food and tinker. It was perfect, mostly. Not quite the same but good enough for this reality. Jo kept the surprise off her face, and out of her voice as she heard the end of his comment. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on the batcave.” she said softly but there was a smile in her voice. “But as long as you really want that and aren’t just saying it to make me happy, you know I won’t say no.” she said quietly, not sure if he wanted that or if he was just trying to make her happy. She’d deal either way. But there was an ideal dream to move in with them, if only because she belonged there and not in this tower of misfits. He took her hand into his, and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. "You're not," he said softly. "You're not an intruder. I wouldn't ask, if I didn't want it to happen." Which was true. Dean didn't like to discuss his feelings, or the future, or the possibility of a future, as it were. But he also didn't bullshit. He was straight with the people closest to him, and that's just the way it was. "Besides, you make me happy, and if I make you happy…" He rested his head close to hers, thinking. "I believe that's what Cas calls 'going with the flow.'" He smiled, a little bit, because he had actually taught Cas that phrase, and he wasn't even sure it had stuck. Vocabulary and angels, there was a lesson to last a lifetime. "Or, maybe…" And here he paused, turning the words over in his mind. "...it's just tending your own garden. All the metaphors I know are shit." She curled her fingers with his and smiled as he kissed her forehead. She treasured the moments where he was actually sweet. And she was happy they happened in private. She could have the sweetheart while he never lost any face with the public - she cherished these moments because she knew him. She knew neither of them were the outwardly sappy kind, so keeping it their little secret was a nice feeling. “Then you know I’ll be there when it’s all ready to move in, to help move then come stay. I’d like nothing better.” she leaned her head against his lightly. A soft smile curled her lips. “That would be the right phrase, I think.” Jo said softly, not wanting to break the spell. The moment. She wanted it to last as long as possible. This? Was sweet and she loved it. “We don’t need a metaphor - if it makes us happy then it’s something to continue. No metaphor required.” she had once been the type to pussyfoot around her feelings. Then she died. And found herself alive here. And she decided that hiding her emotions had gotten her no where. So now she was more apt to say what she felt. Not that she’d go into detail on her emotions like a typical girl. But she was also unafraid to tell him that he made her happy. “Don’t ever doubt that you make me happy, because you do.” she looked upwards at him, and smiled softly. He didn't care if he was being a "girl" here. He could afford to be the romantic, especially now, especially after everything that had happened back in their world. They couldn't go back to that and be together, so what they had was here, now. It was immediate, or it was not at all. Because, as he seemed to know well from his unremembered experiences, either of them could come and go at any time, and forget that this ever was. Even if this happiness were to be fleeting, he'd take it. And there was no one here who could judge him for that. He let the moment pass, the shifting lights of the outside world growing fainter on the ceiling as the day approached. He didn't want to let this go, but he had to. "You know, I love you, right? Even if the world ended tomorrow, which it won't… That stands." He spoke quieter than usual, but with his same straightforward approach. He wasn't ashamed that he had feelings, or that he was expressing them right now, or that there had to be some sort of cosmic effect in the air to put those two things together. As it was meant to happen… Vonnegut might have said. And he knew that to be true. They didn’t get a chance when they went home. She very pointedly was dead for good. She didn’t get to come back to fight another day. And while for the longest time it ruled her thoughts here, she was finally accepting that fact. She was here, it was time to live and not mull over what couldn’t be changed. She had encouraged Sam to be happy here. She encouraged all her friends here to be happy but she hadn’t been happy herself. She’d let the one bad conversation about it with first!Dean ruin her feelings. Then Dean showed back up and things suddenly fell into place. Right time. Right place. Fate finally said, here you go! So she was going to take it. Good. Or bad. Jo looked up at him and smiled, a soft, warm smile. “I know. I love you, too. World could end and it wouldn’t change it. Agreed.” she reached up with her free hand to rest her fingers against his face, a light touch. She liked being able to lay a hand on him without feeling awkward. It was rather nice. He felt her hand on his face, and he looked down on her, smiling. He could have let this go on all day, maybe. In a perfect world, they could sit around talking, and drinking coffee, and reading, and talking about epic hunts -- that'd dissolve into a sort of competition over who had killed the best monster, and so on. Hunter talk. But here, this wasn't a perfect world, and like back home, there were things that still had to be done. "Hopefully, it won't end before breakfast," he said. "Do you think talking cats like coffee?" Jo enjoyed the moment but it wasn’t a world where it was just them and peace and quiet. Truth be told, neither of them could handle that for longer than an hour anyways. It just felt wrong to not be active and doing something. Even if it wasn’t Hunter talk, it was normal. “It best not. I actually like breakfast.” she teased before laughing. “I don’t know. I haven’t asked.” she smiled at him and moved to give him a quick kiss. “Shall I meander off to make us some coffee?” she asked, with a smile. |