Jeremy Gilbert (_onyourmark) wrote in witchinghour, @ 2015-08-06 23:34:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | character: claire novak, character: jeremy gilbert |
Who: Claire and Jeremy
What: Exploring
When: The morning after Jeremy arrives
Where: The streets of the new town
Warnings: PG-13, Lowish, maybe some language.
Status: Complete
Claire knew both Sam and Dean would probably raise a stink about her heading out on her own again, but honestly she was having trouble caring. Not that she was actively defying them- far from it. Claire just had impulse control issues; once she had an idea in her head, it was damn hard to remove or change. And considering she stayed up all night talking to the new resident of Marrowood- or Grimoire, as it were now- she’d been stewing on that idea until the sun came up and she could actually head out without too much fear of being overwhelmed.
It was a gamble, but she wasn’t going to live her life huddled in a corner behind a testosterone wall, no matter how fond she was of the Winchester brothers. At least, because she cared for them, she gave them the benefit of actually knowing where she was going- having shouted it toward the inside of the house right before leaving it. She was going to help the new guy around, check out some of the city, she had her phone-thing on her, and would check up often.
At least her clothes were clean and dry now, though still a little scratchy from the dip in the river. Her sword clinking lightly in the hilt from the thick black leather belt Killian made for her, in pure pirate fashion, was nearly the only sound besides her footsteps on the middle of the road. There was also the rumble of the city bus that eased by her, empty save for the animatronic driver- she and Sam had seen one stop at one of those glass enclosures yesterday. They seemed to run whether there were people to use them or not. Occasionally she thought she heard someone following her, but no one was there when she looked- and that sensation was fairly normal in this world.
The fancy hotel wasn’t too far from the neighborhood; she sent Jeremy a text when she rounded the street half a block from the entrance. Claire checked her gun- the revolver that Dean gave her for her birthday, which was down to a single round, and pushed through the glass doors into the lobby.
Jeremy wished that coming into this world had brought him with more than just the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet. That whole job thing was going to have to happen soon if he didn't want to keep wearing the same damn thing every single day. He supposed that was what happened when you died, though; you didn't get much choice about what you were wearing at the time. Either way, he still showered even if he had to put his clothes right back on afterwards. At least he didn't smell bad. Small favors and all that. The whispers weren't as loud in the bathroom either. Maybe the ghosty things that he kept hearing had some sort of respect for privacy. Yeah right.
When Claire texted him to let him know she was close, he left the hotel room, taking his device with him, and was just getting down the stairs to the main floor when the doors opened into the lobby. As his feet touched the first floor, his eyes fixed on the blonde girl that had entered. Claire. Definitely not a troll. The comment stuck in his head and made him smile just a touch as he closed the space between them.
"Claire?"
She’d been occupied getting a close (and very cautious) good look at the creepy teller behind the check-in desk when she caught his footsteps behind her, followed (thankfully) by the voice she recognized from before. The Grim-bot thing was silent and still, presumably because she didn’t talk to it. She still couldn’t decide if these things were decidedly less or a hell of a lot more creepy than the dead-eyed ones back in Marrowood. Either way, she looked up to greet him with a slightly lopsided grin.
She would not have guessed he was younger than her- even if by a tiny bit. Dude could easily pass for a college-bound wrestler.
...not that Claire knew why she was suddenly thinking about wrestling.
“That’s me,” she nodded. Her hands found themselves shoved in the back pockets of her ripped jeans, because ...she didn’t know why. In the meantime, she angled her chin back toward the doors. “Ready to get outta here?”
Jeremy had once been a scrawny stoner that kept to himself, but he'd certainly come into his own over the last year or so. Now he was built like a brick shithouse and he knew it. The added bit of strength from being a hunter certainly had its advantages and he wasn't complaining about the way it made him look or the way it made girls look at him. Right now, though, he wasn't thinking about his own form, but about Claire's and that grin of hers.
His eyes flicked to her hands as she stuffed them in her pockets, but the sword caught his attention and he arched a brow. "Yeah, sure," he said. "You plannin' on usin' that to make sure I'm not a serial killer?," he teased.
Claire snickered, scraping air in the back of her throat in the process.
“Don’t give me a reason,” she teased, but there were a few drops of seriousness there to make a point. She didn’t wear the thing because it looked cool. Flashing him another one-dimpled smile, she pivoted on one black and white Chuck Taylor and spun for the doors, leading the way.
“Let me put it this way,” she said as she loosed one hand to push the door open for both of them, and heading out to the street. “The story with my sword is probably as long as the story with your tattoo.” Which she was definitely checking out every now and then. Maybe she’d look closer later, but definitely not in the hotel-creepsville lobby.
"Yeah, I'll try not to," he said. He knew all too well that there were plenty of reasons to be armed, especially after what they'd talked about the night before. This place wasn't somewhere you wanted to be without a weapon to protect you. He was wishing he had one himself, if he was being honest.
"Point taken," he said, laughing a little. "Maybe you'll tell me all about it later. FIrst, though, let's just get out of here, yeah?"
Out on the street, the city was eerily quiet in the tilted dawn light. There wasn’t really any ‘sun’ to speak of- this place seemed to have the same hazy gloom common in Marrowood; an overcast sky with no discernable ball of light to tell time by, and a weird fuzzy quality to everything in the distance. Like smog, but it didn’t smell. It was just… there.
Claire didn’t wear her leather jacket this morning because it was still drying out from the river- just a simple baseball-tee that seemed half a size too big, jeans ripped at the knees and some in the thighs, and old All Stars tennis shoes. The addition of the gun holster and pirate sword hilt may have seemed odd to new arrivals, but she was hardly the weirdest dresser among the residents.
“Is this all you woke up with?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at all of him. His clothes, mainly. No bags or anything- unlucky. “You’re gonna need some more clothes…”
He looked down at himself and nodded. "Yeah," he said. His long sleeved henley, which he'd pushed the sleeves up to his elbows on, a pair of dark colored jeans, and his boxers, shoes, and socks. "I figured I'd probably need some," he sighed. "I didn't know you could come through with more than just what you were wearing at the time. When Silas bit me, this is all I had on. Guessing I drew the short straw on that one."
Claire stopped moving for a moment or two, long enough to peg him with a look that was clearly trying to figure out the significance of what he’d said. After a moment of intense study, her brows popped up over her large blue eyes.
“Guessing Silas isn’t a St. Bernard,” she commented with meaning. Still watching him, her hand resting on her sword hilt, she kept walking.
He shook his head. "No," he sighed. "He was a witch. A very powerful one. He created immortality, so I guess you could say he was the very first vampire ever," he muttered. "My sister's bitch doppleganger basically fed me to him. I don't know what happened after that since I died and got sucked into this place, but that's the short version." He kept up with her and tried not to think about the pain that he could still feel in his neck. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and it sat in his stomach instead.
"So you came through with more than just a set of clothes?"
Six months ago, Claire may have paused to consider the weirdness of his story, even though she was well acquainted with weird herself already. Now? She wasn’t even phased. Sounded like a sucky time, the likes of which she actually kind of understood. Then again, being in this place for months had a major effect on how easily weird things could be accepted. It helped to stay sane.
“Yeah- but I was actually goin’ somewhere at the time,” she told him as they walked down the street. “I was… I’d been tracking my mom for two years after she went coo-coo looking for my dad. Turns out a rogue angel called a Gregori was feeding on her that whole time. Sam and Dean found me and tried to help, but the douchebag killed her- so I stole his sword and killed him with it.” Claire patted the hilt of the ancient weapon, shooting him a look for emphasis. Her eyes though, were a little distant. “The bros and my dad- well, the angel that took over my dad, packed me up and sent me to live with a friend of theirs. I never made it.” That was definitely the short version of the story.
“I had a bag on me with everything I owned at the time. Guess that was kind of lucky- though I’m on my last set of clothes, too.” Her other set was shredded beyond recognition.
He wasn't sure what he expected her story to be like, but he found that it was easier to believe than it would have been if he was any other person in the world. Weirdness had a way of not sounding quite so weird when you had enough of it going on in your own life to dilute it. Still, hearing about rogue angels wasn't something he was used to. He decided, though, that if vampires, werewolves, and witches existed, then maybe angels and demons weren't any different.
"I guess I should be thankful that I have clothes on and didn't get pulled into the wormhole while I was showering or something," he laughed.
Claire snorted, once again scraping air in the back of her throat in the process; a laugh that was delivered with an appropriately crooked, and toothy grin.
“Oh yeah- that would’ve been horrible.”
It would have been, in ways. In pretty much every way, actually. Yet she still managed to put enough sarcasm in her tone to inflect, maybe it wouldn’t have been so horrible after all.
"You're only saying that because you want to see me naked," he told her. "Don't think that I've forgotten," he teased. "I think, though, that the only reason is because you want to steal the only clothes I've got," he smirked. It was nice to tease and it distracted him from everything else. "So… where to first?," he asked. "Pick a direction?"
Claire just smirked at him in response, enjoying the distraction just as much. When they came to the t-section, she stood in the middle of the street, looking one way for a while, then the other. She could see the hints of the amusement park on the skyline one way- she’d seen them when they crossed through from Marrowood. To say she wasn’t curious about it would’ve been a lie, but she knew better than to take on something like that by herself- and with a newbie.
The other way looked fairly business like. She pointed, then started moving. “Let’s see what’s this way.”
Jeremy looked down both directions like Claire, but left the choice up to her. He followed after her, nodding a little at her words. "So, if you've got a whole bunch of protective fatherly types… how did you manage to get them to agree to letting you out alone?," he questioned. "With some random, strange guy you met on the device, no less," he teased, flashing her a smile. "I mean I'm not planning on being a freak or anything or someone you have to watch out for, I'm just curious. And betting on you sneaking out before they got the chance to tell you no which is what I probably would have done," he smiled. "Course, you're all legal and adult so technically you can do what you want." Which was amusing. An older woman and all.
“That’s actually exactly how I did it,” Claire snickered back at him, though she only kept her eyes on his smile (which she liked) for a short time. She kept sweeping the streets, the alleys, and every shadow that moved beyond it. “And I’ve got a gun, and a sword, and I know how to use both.” Not that it was a threat- it wasn’t. More like an explanation, and maybe a little bit of a show-off. “Truth is, they’re probably not worried about you more than the things that live here.”
He laughed at that, grinning again once he'd stopped. "At least you've got a gun and a sword," he told her. "I think that I need to add 'weapon' to that list of things I'm in desperate need of right before clothing." He could deal with wearing the same thing if he had to, but he didn't like being unarmed. Hand to hand combat was fine with people who were evenly matched, but he wasn't going into a fight with a ghost - or whatever else there might be - unarmed. "Glad I'm not a threat, though," he said. He wondered if her pseudo fathers were going to think that way if he continued to hang out with Claire.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said. Or… if they came to it. There was a weapon shop in Marrowood so she presumed there would be something like it here, but this place was huge, and definitely new. “Might take a while to find something- unless you just want to carry around a big stick.”
Which sometimes would’ve been better than nothing.
“Hey...check this out.” Claire’s shoes slowed as they came to an intersection in the street, and right around the bend, there sat an obvious restaurant. One of those greasy-spoon all-night diners with big booths, a counter you could sit at, and a big cooler full of different kinds of pie. The lights were on, too. She glanced at Jeremy, then back down to her hand after it fished a small wad of Marrowood money from her back pocket. “You hungry?”
"Guess I'll just have to improvise if something happens that makes me feel like I need a weapon," he told her, shrugging his shoulder. So far, he'd done alright without one. He didn't hold his breath about that being something that would last, but he would be happy to have it for as long as it stuck.
He looked in the direction she was looking when she mentioned the diner. "Already going to cost you money?," he teased. "You really don't have to do that." His stomach, however, disagreed and rumbled its disapproval of his refusal of the offer. "Are you? We can stop if you want something."