piper90 | BACKDATED: An Aftermath of Ghosts [locked to New Hires, including Kokichi]

Uh. Pretty sure somebody may have gotten to see something out of my past. If you wanna talk, you can say something here.

[Locked to Stacia]

So. One, you make a cute wolf. And two, I now understand why you've never mentioned your boyfriend's name around me. I imagine that could be a bit awkward.

You did show up in mine. Let's meet on the roof, it's nice and quiet and I can smoke up there. [Until he disables that smoke detector, which he's planning on doing, except that he can't read the directions as to how, and smashing it with one of Sam's library books just pissed it off and made it beep all day.]

***

[Dan's already on the roof by the time Stacia arrives, and despite his attempts to ration a limited resource, he can't help but be on his third cigarette. The "weird dreams" rattled him, and it's a rough time of year, and he's concerned about what he saw not just in Stacia's images, but in the others', too.

He flicks the the cigarette off the edge as he sees her approach. The werewolves back home don't appreciate the smell. He brought more coffee up here, too, one for each of them in a styrofoam cup. His is filled with sugar packets and cream to the point of looking light beige.]

Hey.

I did, Sam. Nothing traumatic, nothing serious, nothing deep, just a nice Christmas with you and your brother. Figured you should know.

Adults or kids?

Adults. [Dan's not going to add in 'your brother's super hot'.] Just you guys exchanging some gifts, drinking eggnog and watching some sports.

The Ghost did tell me that things went downhill for y'all after that, but I didn't press for answers. Seemed kind of too personal for me to go digging, you know?

Ah. Yeah.

We. Umm. Don't really do that sort of thing very often. So I can tell you right now that I know when that happened. And...it wasn't a bad Christmas, really. Just not exactly a great one, given everything.

I. Uh. Should also tell you that I saw one of yours, too. Early to mid teens.

Sounds good, be there shortly.

***

[When Stacia shows up on the roof and finds Dan waiting for her with coffee, she actually squeals in delight.]

Oh my god, you brought me coffee? You are officially my second favorite person on the Rig!

[She bounces over and makes grabby-hands in the direction of the cup.]

Bunny's got forever-dibs on the number one spot obviously, so second is very respectable.

One, of course I make a cute wolf! I may not be pedigreed or anything, but I am very soft and very fluffy.

Two: oh my goooooooooooood. [Insert pathetic teenage whining noises here.] Yes, I have been trying really hard not to mention his name around anyone here because someone will absolutely make fun.

That's what the Ghost implied. I'm glad you got to have at least that nice one, at least. There was...it did feel a little somber, but warm.

I'm just glad you got to have it. Seems rare in your world.

[Dan pauses, looking a little obviously crestfallen, like he never actually wanted to talk about this with anyone.]

Ah. Bunker or van? [There's a very clear delineating line.]

Brought creamer and sweetener too, if that's your taste. I can't stand it black. May as well drink battery acid.

[Lord, but is Stacia charming. Dan takes a sip of his coffee and gives her hers.]

That's fine, Bunny might be my favorite too. He's certainly easy on the eyes.

So. I saw a memory of yours, and I wanted you to know I'll keep it secret if you want.

blood and/or violence seems like a theme here
for that weird shared dreams shit i mean
but also kinda all our lives in general
i mean did anyone here actually come from a nice happy nontraumatizing household

Mine was pretty normal.

I mean, some of the other kids were pretty traumatized, I guess, but that's an orphanage for you.

uh

[Shit.]

i guess this is probably the point where i should tell you i saw some of your shit huh

I told you last time, none of that was mine!

what
oh [PROFANITY CENSORED]

[Ah, there's that filter finally kicking in on him.]

no im not talking about that
and honestly i would rather not talk about that literal excrement ever again if thats cool
no i mean like
the freaky gruesome dreams thing

I've had good black coffee, but the shit they serve here really isn't.

[Stacia accepts the coffee and starts to doctor it with creamer and sugar, pausing only a moment to process that comment about Bunny and deciding that she doesn't want to poke at it until after she finds out what the Ghosts showed Dan. She takes a sip of her coffee and sighs.]

I appreciate the discretion. Technically, I'm not supposed to talk about werewolf stuff to people who aren't werewolves or werewolf-adjacent, so I'm trying to walk a line between letting people here know what they need to know about me and not saying anything that would get my ass kicked back home.

[She pauses, sighs again, then turns toward Dan.]

So, what did you see?

My household was fine, it's the rest of the world that's the problem.

Well, I saw you talking werewolf stuff. For what it's worth, my best friend back home's a werewolf, and they got a similar code of secrecy for their inner workings.

[He leans against the rail of the roof at just less than a dangerous angle to fall off.]

I saw a conversation with you and your mom that was [distant and seemingly loveless] you were updating her that someone had been executed, and four more died in a fight, and then she sent you to bed.

Yeah. Things kinda went to shit after that. It's been going downhill for a while. Starting to look up a little bit where I'm from, but...it's still pretty shit.

[Sam looks a bit uncomfortable, but it's not fair for Dan not to know.]

Bunker. The Ghost said it was your last one together. And...uh. May have gone a bit further to you overhearing your parents talking.

I should note that I'm absolutely a dog person. If that's ever something that you need to know.

[He absolutely starts laughing, but it's not a mean laugh. It's the kind of bright laugh of somebody sharing a joke.]

I mean. Just because you have a tall, brunet boyfriend named Sam? Why would anybody make fun of that?

Age 10 to 18 wasn't too bad for me. Rest of the world is pretty ████, admittedly.

Well, look on the bright side. You're on the Rig. [Dan says that with false, cheery sarcasm, and then he gets quite blank, like if it doesn't show on his face, it isn't real.]

They were good people who made a mistake. Someone died each year - horrible-like - and now I'm the only one left. That's the long and short of it.

Yeah, I got that much. Or deduced it. Ghost may have mentioned a few things and I could figure out the rest from there.

[He goes quiet a moment, considering. Is this something that should be talked about in person? Maybe. But sometimes the distance that the comms allows helps. Physically and mentally.]

The Christmas of mine that you saw. I shouldn't have been there. I died earlier in the year. Like, there's a scar on my back from where the asshole stabbed me. It was kind of a battle royale that I need to be pretty drunk to actually talk about because there's a lot of underlying shit to it.

Suffice it to say, though, that it didn't take. Because Dean made Deal with a Crossroads demon for my life. Because our dad made the same deal for HIS life a year earlier. Only Dad got maybe half an hour to say good-bye. The Crossroad demon gave Dean a year. And I spent as much of that year trying to find a way to stop him dying.

I'd prefer if you not mention it to anyone. Bunny knows, from the last time our memories got all... [Dan makes a gesture with his hands.] I just don't need a lot of people knowing.

[Not because of pity, but because if people know, sometimes they want to talk about it, and there are only a few people he would even care to talk about it with.

But as Sam talks, he realizes Sam knows it the same. Has suffered it the same.

There are questions he could ask. Did you save him? Did he regret it? Did you even get to say goodbye to Dean? How do you live with the grief?]

I'm sorry.

[A moment, and then Dan speaks with more bitterness than Sam has ever heard from him, might not have even thought possible.]

████ing Deals, man. Ours weren't even for a person, it was for our ████ing farm. That shouldn't have been your last Christmas. That shouldn't have been our last Christmas. None of it's fair. My brothers and sisters should have had a chance to grow up, and instead- brothers shouldn't have to die for brothers-

[He takes a breath, returning to that relatively calm demeanor Sam knows from him, but sad.]

I appreciate the solidarity. And I'm so sorry for it.

Yeah, it ████ing sucks.

[One day, when they have the actual GOOD alcohol, it'll probably all come pouring out. All the shit that the Winchesters have gone through over the past several years. Hell, their entire lives, maybe.]

[But he is going to have to be VERY drunk to deal with it.]

Just...you know. So you know that you aren't alone.

[And one day, if that ever happens around Dan, he'll listen to every word. Commiserate with half of them. Allow the ones Sam doesn't want to elaborate on to go by.]

Yeah. [It's the saddest sentiment in the world, to be comforted by someone else's suffering.] Thank you.

I think before we answer this question it's worth establishing a baseline for what qualifies as "normal."

(I can already say mine was not, either way; but I suspect yours was by no means normal by the standards of some of our homes.)

Are you suggesting that I spend some of my free time acting as pettable stress-relief?

[She hasn't not considered it...

She pouts when Sam laughs, but it breaks into her own laughter too quickly to have any affect.]

A tall, brunet boyfriend named Sam who knife fights monsters in back alleys. At least he's not as tall as you, or I'd need to carry a stepladder around all the time.

[Stacia 'ooh's under her breath and takes another sip of her coffee before matching Dan's lean against the rail.]

Yeah, that was right before I ended up here. [She glances out at the horizon, chewing on her lip, then looks back.] So, the short version is that some other asshole werewolves decided that my pack was getting ideas above our station or whatever. They broke into my parents' house and forced my mom to call me so they could ambush me. They hurt her badly enough that she was in the hospital for a couple days. I was...badly hurt, but I survived. Two of my five-person pack were murdered, and a third had to cut ties for his own safety. They thought they'd covered their tracks, but we found out who they were and a bunch of other bad shit they'd done and we turned it over to the werewolf justice system.

[Sort of. She and Ace had handed the information off to King Albrecht and then asked him to let them handle a few things. The fight the four Silver Fangs had died in hadn't been an accident. Stacia had spent six weeks constructing it, driven by rage and grief, and set it off like throwing a match into a tent full of fireworks. Alloran and Remus saw the final event the last time the New Hires had been in and out of each other's memories, but it's a need-to-know kind of thing. She shakes her head.]

But Mom and I haven't...things had been tense for more than half a year by that point, between us. It sucks.

Edited 2021-01-09 08:14 (UTC)

[He holds up his hands.]

I'm not NOT saying that. But if you need your ears scritched at some point...

[The amusement isn't going anywhere.]

That's a good thing. Carrying around stepladders gets unwieldy. And I try to avoid fighting with knives in back alleys, though it's a bit easier with longer reach. But it's really easy to get blocked in, too.

Baseline normal, at least in my world, is middle class family, married parents, one or two siblings, with no major tragedies or injuries beyond perhaps a broken arm or leg.

Oh. Rose Tattoo?

[It's the only gruesome thing she can think of involving her, really. Unless he saw some of her kills, but...]

I think my world would define "normal" similarly, at least.

[He looks out at the horizon as she talks too, because if she wants to avoid eye contact he'll respect that as she fills him in with the context. It's her story to divulge, as much or as little as she wants.

Werewolf culture is...in Dan's world, not terribly different. Rival packs, a justice system that's more a bludgeon to punish your enemies than enact fairness, bloodiness. Kids shouldn't have to be involved in it, and they always end up involved anyway.]

And that was right before you came here?

[When Dan's mother died horribly, he was on beautiful terms with her. Even finding out that his parents' foolishness was what cursed all his siblings to die, he never once doubted that they loved him, never had any memories of periods of tension or cold shoulders or distance.]

That sounds difficult.

The attack happened about two months before I ended up here. Long enough for contractors to fix all the damage in the foyer, and my friends to have funerals. Lilly's-- Lilly's kids are set up with a foster parent who'd happily gut anyone who looks at them funny.

[And hopefully that just sounded like a grief-stutter rather than Stacia almost saying 'pups'. Stacia swallows hard and forces a laugh.]

You're not wrong about that. It sucked. Being a werewolf sucks a lot, but most of the other options seem to suck more.

[That's so recent. That's more recent than when he lost Ellie, and that still feels like it happened hours ago.]

My friend back home, Lionel - he got turned and then left for dead, so he didn't start with a pack. And my world ain't kind of werewolves, so everywhere he went he got cursed at - literal curses, we're just lousy with magicians - or shot at or beat. He and me got a drink one time and I recognized what he was and he was so surprised I didn't turn on him that he started crying.

[Dan takes a long sip of coffee. He's trying to articulate why he's telling Stacia this, except that maybe it can make her feel safe.]

Once he told me, "being a werewolf at least sucks less than being dead", so I reckon there's truth in that.

[Stacia sucks air through clenched teeth.]

Poor guy. No one should have to go through that shit alone.

[She takes another sip of coffee herself.]

It's a family thing, for us. Something we're born to, not something we can...share or inflict, whichever word is more appropriate. Not everyone in a family shifts, most don't, no one knows for sure why or how, but if you don't have it in your family tree, it's never going to happen.

[She grips the rail with her free hand, knuckles whitening.]

But some families are shitty, and some people leave shitty families to start their own and try to leave the old family secrets behind.

He found a pack, eventually. Became the leader of it, honestly. And he was a good man, so he'll do right by them.

[Some stories do have happy endings.

He watches as Stacia's knuckles whiten, reads the tension on her body, pretends he doesn't by drinking more coffee.]

Is that how your family started? Breaking off? [He pauses.] Sorry, I'm not trying to pry.

Good, I'm glad. Humans and wolves are both social creatures, neither is meant to be alone.

[She sighs and lets go of the rail to flex her fingers.]

No, it's okay. I'd like to talk about it with someone. Maybe you can help me figure out if I'm right to be mad, or if it's just something I should get over.

[She stops flexing her fingers and takes a deep breath. She lets it out again, and starts tapping her nails against the side of her cup, staring down at the ripples.]

She didn't...warn us that werewolves were a thing. Not just that, she lied to me when I tried to ask about it. When I tried to tell her about the "weird dream" I had, she looked...well, I assumed that she'd repressed some traumatic memories. There's a bunch of asshole werewolves out there, it wasn't a stretch. So I didn't push it.

[Stacia takes another deep breath and works her jaw to keep from clenching it.]

And then a year later, my new boyfriend, who knows about the stupid werewolf stuff, calls me to tell me that there's a strange woman creeping around outside his house. And it was my mother. I hadn't introduced him to my parents or even mentioned him yet. So I went and I confronted my mother, and she tells me that she'd known about the werewolf stuff all along.

[Stacia turns away to glower out at the horizon.]

I'd almost died at least a dozen times, I'd had to pick bits of monster out of my teeth, I couldn't sleep through the night for nightmares, and she'd know the whole time and hadn't said a damn thing.

[And Dan's a good listener. He's an excellent listener, even, not interjecting but sensing when the silences are actually invitations for input, picking up between the lines, intuiting when someone wants advice or someone just wants to be heard.

He won't tell Stacia this, but once upon a time - before he really stopped being able to feel anger at all, it seems - he wrestled that same question about his parents, who got themselves and all his brothers and sisters killed. In the end, anger wasn't productive, so he didn't let it go so much as it just faded out of him until one day he realized he didn't have any of it left anymore. It took a few years. A shockingly few years. So few years. He's not wired to hold onto anger.

When she's finished her story, he takes a moment to consider it.]

The way I see it, you have the right to do both. Stay angry - hell, furious - and get over it at the same time. Anger's how you feel. Getting over it's how you act about you feel, if that tracks.

[He takes a deep breath and drinks more coffee.]

You got the right to be hurt and angry that the person who ought to have been protecting you decided not to step up and be honest and help you when you were scared and horrified and confused and needed someone. That is your right. She did wrong by you. She did so wrong by you.

And if you want, you got the right to get over it by going ahead with life without that anger making the decisions for you. If you want, when all this is over, even in how you treat her. You can hold onto still being mad and hurt but decide that's not going to be the determining factor in the way you love her, if you still want to.

I guess my point is that it ain't something you should get over. It's something you can, if you want to, and that getting over it don't mean denying how much it hurt you or pretending it didn't happen. But she hurt you bad enough that there's no 'should' anything.

[He's sure that's a garbled mess, but it's sincere.]

[Stacia breathes a sigh that sounds somewhere between relieved and heart-broken.]

Okay. Okay, good. I was worried...when I asked her if she was sorry for not telling me sooner, she just said that she wasn't going to apologize for protecting her family. I wasn't sure if I was being unreasonable. [She scoffs.] I thought being hurt and mad was reasonable, but I didn't have an unbiased source to check with. Just angry assholes and people who have to deal with those angry assholes. Maybe she'd explain herself to you differently, but she never explained it clearly to me, so I can't tell you her defense.

[She wraps her fingers around her coffee.]

I'm not even mad about the ambush, though I guess we should talk about code words in the future. Just the lying.

You don't got to tell me her defense. You don't owe it to her. [But he knows how tempting it is to try and defend one's parents who did wrong. Sometimes he even just hears things about other people's parents who did similar things to his, and he wants to jump in and play devil's advocate.

He drinks more of his coffee, then holds the styrofoam cup up to the sunlight to see how much more he has left.] Having an unbiased source or two around definitely helps sometimes.

[Stacia laughs.]

I'll keep that in mind. I wouldn't make the same offer to Kenzie though, I don't think her sense of humor runs that way.

[Petting an Ahroun probably wouldn't be very soothing for a human anyway, not with all that Rage.

Sam's comment about it being easy to get boxed in when knife fighting in alleys gets a snort.]

Oh yeah? What's your preferred alleyway fighting style then? Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer he take up shooting so that he stays out of disembowelment range, but apparently Sams are gonna Sam.

[Stacia smiles, small and vulnerable instead of her usual toothy grin, but still sincere.]

You're right. I guess I don't.

[She takes a swig of her own coffee, then copies Dan's trick for checking how much remains.]

Thanks for listening to me vent, I really appreciate it.

BACKDATED: An Aftermath of Ghosts [locked to New Hires, including Kokichi]

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