Meet the Parents

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Meet the Parents
Date of Scene: 14 September 2017
Location: SHIELD Facility - South Dakota
Synopsis: Fred stays with her parents while waiting for them to wake up. Sam keeps her company and they discuss the previous events as well as his blood addiction.
Cast of Characters: Sam Winchester, Winifred Burkle
Tinyplot: Blood on My Name


Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam actually was considerate enough to text Fred that he was taking Dean for some drinks. This seemed like a totally reasonable thing to do to him apparently.

Winchesters.

He’d also said he’ll be in to see her and her parents shortly. He maybe had the update that Mr. Burkle was still alive from other sources, because he also texts that SHIELD doctors are the best in the world, a form of reassurance, he hopes, that Roger will pull through.

But he had to heal this relationship with his brother.

Still, he doesn’t get too drunk and he doesn’t wait too long. It’s almost impossible to tell he has been drinking, other than the scent of hard whiskey on his plaid shirt and flak jacket. He knocks gently on the door of the room that has been assigned to Fred’s parents.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred has been with her parents ever since they collapsed on the yard of Bobby’s house. She knows that Dean is in dire straits, but he’s also with Sam. She knows he’ll ensure his brother is safe and right now her place is with them. If she’s upset that he’s not with her, that doesn’t show at all. The text from Sam is quickly read, but she has too much nervous energy to reply back in a timely manner. There’s some relief to know that if Dean is well enough to slip out to go drinking, that he’ll pull through.

In the sterile, white SHIELD medical room, Fred sits down for a few minutes before getting up and pacing. The beeps of the machines monitoring her mother and father almost echo in the silence. She’s not sure what else to do. Writing on the walls here is not going to fly, she knows that. However, she did manage to get some sheafs of paper and a pen. In an attempt to occupy her thoughts, she’s just started to write down Pi to the last decimal she can remember. The document is impressively long, even considering that it gets paused every now and again so she can pace.

Buried deep down in her worry is her guilt. This is her fault. She did this to her parents. And now her father is barely surviving and her mother has been badly injured, too.

The knock on the door causes her to swing about, a bit wild eyed until she realizes that most evil things don’t knock. She makes her way to the door and opens it to find Sam there. There’s a soft exhale of relief and almost immediately she moves to wraps her arms around him in a fierce hug.

Sam Winchester has posed:
A lot of people think the jury is still out on that evil thing, but Sam knocks. He catches her in his arms and holds her close and tight, exhaling sharply. He strokes her hair, and a rush of feelings he wasn’t feeling come barreling in. He could have lost her. She could have lost her parents. He kisses her too, so glad is he to see her. It’s probably more than parents want to see, but he’s just suddenly so relieved.

Delayed reactions are a thing.

He’s a little pale and a little peaked, and he sure does taste like Jack Daniels, but he doesn’t seem drunk and he doesn’t seem too deep in withdrawal yet. The time is coming, but for now he holds it together. It’s been almost a day though. Sam had fallen asleep in the chair by Dean’s bed. His four to six hour dosage schedule is off. His fault, for not thinking to grab a supply, but rescuing Dean had been all that was on his mind. Truthfully he could have stopped to grab other allies too, but…

Well. All’s well that ends well.

If it does. “How are they?” he asks her in a soft whisper, smoothing some of her hair back from her face.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Delayed reactions are certainly a thing. Throughout the ordeal and afterward, Fred kept the worry about Sam and Dean to a lower pitch. She had her parents to think about, so it was a bit easier to do. Now, though? With Sam there, the rush hits her all at once. He could have died, they could not have been able to rescue Dean. So many things hung in the balance that they are now dealing with.

As such, Fred merely holds tightly onto Sam. Eagerly, she kisses him, unembarrassed by the fact that her parents are resting behind her. She certainly tastes the Jack Daniels, but he told her he was going drinking with Dean, so that is not exactly a surprise.

The question is met with a moment where she tries to gather her thoughts. “Mom is doing better. She doesn’t have any lasting injuries. Dad is still…” she rests her head against his chest. “He’s still in bad shape. They think he should make make it, but he was…” it’s hard to say. “He was under longer. More malnourished.” These demons certainly didn’t expect to care for the people they were wearing for long. “It takes a toll.” Her voice is soft, pained as she says it. “They couldn’t have prepared for something like this.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“The good news is if the vessel doesn’t die from shock directly after exorcism the survival rate is high.” Words like ‘vessel’ may seem like callous choices, but Sam’s words are very gently put and even gently meant. It’s just...terminology that he’s used to using. The less robotic-version follows anyway.

“He’ll pull through, Fred. Truly, these doctors are incredible here. They once healed my broken arm in 4 weeks instead of 6; that’s unheard of. They will take care of your Dad.”

He is loathe to let her go, so doesn’t, resting his forehead against her forehead. “You were brilliant,” he murmurs. “Fierce, brave, and amazing.” He knows to his toes she probably doesn’t /feel/ that way, but it doesn’t change the fact that she /was/, and he thinks nobody ever suffered from knowing they were fierce, brave, and amazing.

“I love you so much.”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
A shiver goes down Fred’s body as Sam tells her that if her father didn’t die from shock immediately, he has a high chance of survival. She knows he’s trying to help, trying to assure her the the worst is over. She can still hear her father’s voice taunting her in a tone that is certainly not his own, feel the pressure as she is pressed against the car.

He’ll pull through. That’s what she’s been clinging to this whole time. “It’s still my fault,” she says, softly, wracked with guilt. “I shoulda...I shoulda told them, warned them. Maybe they coulda stopped it.”

Sam’s quite right in thinking she doesn’t feel fierce or brave or amazing. She feels guilty, horrible. A part of her wishes to pull away, to sequester herself away again, away from everything and everyone. “I love you, too.” It’s the truth, murmured against him. And so, she stays. Still tense under his arms, but there.

She can’t describe to Sam right now how unlike a fierce, brave woman she feels, so she instead asks, “How’s Dean?”

Sam Winchester has posed:
He puts his hands on her shoulders and looks down at her solemnly. “No. It was Azazel’s fault. It was Alistair’s fault. Never yours. You had no way of anticipating that. Don’t do that to yourself. And we’re going to make sure it never happens again. Hope your parents are up to getting some ink. And you, for that matter.”

He smiles ruefully at her. “In the meantime, mind if I draw on your parents in Sharpie? I’ve warded this building, but I’m not interested in taking chances.”

She asks how Dean is, and his face softens. He smiles. “We talked,” he says.

For them, that’s huge. Maybe it says everything it needs to say. But some of the raw guilt and pain that has literally haunted Winchester the Elder in regards to his brother has lifted. It seems almost unfair, as guilty as she feels.

He withdraws his Sharpie. “I wanna draw on you in Sharpie too. I’m feeling very mature.”
Winifred Burkle has posed:
Rationally, Fred knows that it is not actually her fault. She wasn’t the one to possess her parents. However, she does still feel the stab of guilt in knowing that this never would have happened if the demons weren’t trying to get to her, to break her. The kernel of it is that they were hurt because of her. She knows what she would - and has - told Sam in situations like this. It feels so hypocritical to now not accept the same logic. Yet, she can’t help that feeling.

“It never even occurred to me that they’d take them. They’re not a part of any of this, not anywhere near it. They wouldn’t’ve even seen it coming, had no way to prepare.” They might not even have known why they suddenly couldn’t control their own bodies. “I was so stupid.” And she’s not used to being stupid.

Being drawn on in Sharpie is met with a surprised blink. “If Sharpie’ll work, okay.” The last thing she wants is for any of them to get possessed ever again.

Hearing that Sam and Dean talked is met with just as surprised a look, truthfully. She knows exactly how little the brothers tend to talk to each other about feelings or matters such as this. It’s something she’s yelled at both of them about. “That’s good,” she says softly, meaning it. “I’m glad. Will he be okay?”

Sam Winchester has posed:
He takes her arm and begins gently drawing the anti-possession ward on her right wrist. He’ll save the lecture on /why/ this works for later, though it might make good car talk. A whole delve into the collective unconscious and the theories on why hedge magic works for anyone. He draws as he listens to her. Sometimes logic isn’t enough.

He decides to answer her question first, then circle back around. “Okay is relative for us,” he says, pretty matter-of-factly. “But he’s tough, and he’s bouncing back.”

Now for this other thing. Okay is relative for Fred now, too, he suspects. And for her parents, maybe.

“Nobody who gets into this life asks for it. Nobody who gets touched by it asks for it. You can’t stop evil from touching people. All you can do is resist it, and then move forward when it does. I’ll make them a copy of my journal, and they’ll have Supernatural 101 to read through. It will help them make basic preparations, teach them how to defend themselves. You told me your Mom once ran over a giant bug with a VW, so...my guess is they’re damned tough, and they’d be pretty upset that you’re blaming yourself. They seem to be good parents, and they probably feel just as guilty about you falling through a portal to another dimension. You’d be sad if they blamed themselves for that.”

He doesn’t lift his head through all of this, concentrating on drawing the ward just right.
Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam pulls away to draw on her arm, Fred tries to keep her arm steady and turns it wrist up. It tickles just slightly, but she manages to not pull or twist her arm too much. She knows it’s important that he gets all the little pieces and drawings just right for it to have any sort of potency.

Okay is relative. That certainly seems like a motto for the Winchesters at times. The kidnapping and possession of her parents - and near death of her father - has been particularly rough on Fred after the events of the Hydra base. She was just starting to get a sense of safety when something else was proven to be unstable, able to be exploited. It’s, again, left her feeling a bit adrift.

Her eyes continually shift from the Sharpie drawing Sam’s etching on her arm to his face as he concentrates. “He is. I’m glad he’s doing better.” Despite all this and despite their drag-out fight at the Crossroads, that’s a point of fact. She’s sure what the brothers spoke about was personal, so she doesn’t yet pry into their topics of conversations. Whatever it was eventually ended in some hard liquor, it seems. That’s, hopefully, a good thing. By Sam’s demeanor it certainly is.

As Sam continues to reassure her, Fred’s attention is drawn to the bed where her mother lays, still. “It was actually a Greyhound bus,” she says softly in remembering, almost smiling. “Not a VW bus. My mom’s a bus driver, so she used what she knew.” That might be just where Fred gets her adaptive and innovative drive. She exhales. “None of us knew about portals when I fell through. How could any of us have known that was even a possibility? No one was at fault for that. It was just something that happened. But these demons? We fought one the night I met you, I knew just how nasty they could be. I should’ve...I don’t know. I should’ve kept them more up to date, but I didn’t want to scare them.”

The mention of a journal to help with preparations and to make sure this never happens again is met with a resolute nod. “That’ll be a good start. Thanks. For everything. For saving my mom.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“You’d have saved her if I didn’t.” He finishes up. Mischievously, he blows on it a little to tickle her, giving her his most impish grin, tilting his eyes up to see her reaction. It’s a point of fact that humor is something he uses to try to make people feel better, whether it’s Dean or Fred or James Barnes. He learned to act the clown early, because sometimes it even broke up John Winchester’s rages. He doesn’t rely on it exclusively, but it is a tool in his toolbox. He takes her palm and kisses that, then goes to sit by Mr. Burkle’s bedside.

He took the worst, so he gets the first temporary ward. “Hope he doesn’t choose right about now to wake up,” he says, as he starts to color, flashing Fred a grin. Sometimes talking it out isn’t the same as communicating. Sometimes addressing the issues directly doesn’t solve them. Sometimes just acting a little bit normal does that. “Can you imagine? Hello, Mr. Burkle, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Sam Winchester, dating your daughter, drawing on your arm…”

Sometimes there’s only moving forward, and doing so confidently. She can go round and round and round in circles. He has a feeling she’ll forgive herself only when they wake up.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Unable to help herself, Fred laughs pulls back from Sam. The sound breaks some of the tension in the room. She stands a little easier. A hand reaches out to touch the temporary tattoo that has been drawn on her - but she hesitates at the last minute, not wishing to smudge it. Instead, for a few moments, she merely studies it. Though she’s seen the tattoo on Sam’s chest, it’s a bit different to see it on her own wrist.

That first laugh already broken, a second joins it. Moving over to Sam, she leans against the back wall and watches this drawing happen as well. Almost ruefully, she reminds him, “You did want to meet my parents one day.”

Shaking her head, she imagines that conversation. It might be a strange way for her father to wake up, but that also means he’d be awake. She’d take that. She’d take an awkward first meeting if that meant he woke up, she knows that. Outloud, she says, “Y’know, I can’t tell if he’d be upset or amused. Probably just confused.” Especially since she’s sure the last time he was in control of his own body he was in Texas, not South Dakota. “ Probably’d try and tell a lame joke. He’s fond of those.”

Fred looks down at her shoes, words still spilling out of her mouth as usual. “I told them, when I was about to move out to LA for that graduate program, I promised them I’d be boring and dull. They were so worried. Thought I’d get taken in by some drug dealers or pornographers. They must’ve been terrified when I disappeared for those years, thinking the worst. And even when I came back, I didn’t go back to Texas. I sent them a letter to let them know I was okay, but I didn’t go home. Didn’t visit. I couldn’t. I couldn’t let them see me. Even though I tried to keep my promise, everything went bad. They hired a PI to find me.”

She pauses, gathering the story about her as she tries to tell it. “And y’know my first reaction on seeing them? I ran. I ran so fast. I tried to skip town, get away from them, but they followed me. They saved me. I didn’t really get over Pylea till they came for me. It didn’t matter that I got trapped, that I ran from them. They’re so...they’re so good, Sam. And what happened to them? Look.” A hand reaches up to press against her face, the tears now spilling down freely against her cheeks.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam gets the first ward does while he’s listening to her, but he puts the Sharpie down to go fold her in his arms when she starts to cry. He strokes her hair and just holds her there for a little while.

“I already knew they were good. They raised you,” he says quietly.

“You’d been through something horrific, Fred. I think running sounds pretty natural. I think in your shoes I’d have run too.” He can imagine the feelings of shame and panic she must have been feeling. It’s one of the basic unfairnesses of life that traumatized people tend to blame themselves first and their captors second, if ever.

But he decides she might just need to cry it out, so he leads her over to a chair by the bedside, gently coaxes her into it, and kneels beside it so she can lean on him while he wraps his big arms around her.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
There’s embarrassment in her crying. They all went through horrible things. Jo’s mother was taken, Sam’s brother and yet she seems to be the one - again - ill equipped to emotionally handle it. “I’m sorry,” Fred apologizes as she cries against his chest. “I shouldn’t…” She shouldn’t cry, shouldn’t interrupt his drawing of the wards. “I’m such a mess.”

Despite that, she allows him to guide her to the chair and sits down onto it. There, she leans forward one hand on her face and the other resting on Sam’s shoulder as he wraps his arms about her in comfort.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Even though Sam has readily given her a place to cry herself out, she tries to rein those tears in, to stop herself. “I keep doing this, keep breaking down. I don’t mean to.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
She apologizes, and he shakes his head. “There’s nothing wrong with emotions.” He’ll probably need the reminder himself, at some point. “You’re not breaking down, you’re processing. It’s healthy.”

He takes her hand. “There’s no standards here. There’s nobody out there handing out prizes for the person who cries the least when horrible things and people do horrible stuff to you and the ones you care about. You are allowed to have any reaction you want to have. I promise. And though I wouldn’t have thought any less of you if you had, you definitely didn’t break down when it counted.”

He pulls back, but only so he can take her hands. He squeezes. “You walked right in there with me, Fred. And if you hadn’t been that brave, your parents might not be okay right now. Because I’d have had no clue who they were, do you understand me? I needed to know who they were. It’s something that shouldn’t have mattered, but right then it did. Because it made me think twice. You saved them. By doing nothing more than saying no way, Sam, we go together. Do you know how courageous that makes you?”

He rests his forehead against hers again. “Do you know how rare it is, to be there for someone like that?”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“What about walk it off?” Fred asks, hand slipping from her face to rest in her lap. It’s the thing she’s heard him say so many times. Of course, she has also attempted to get him to not do that every time it has come up, but she can’t help but ask the question.

His words of comfort slow the tears. She’s been crying in front of him a lot lately and she wishes she were stronger. After scrubbing at her eyes, she watches him take her hand and tell her that she didn’t break down when it counted. Remembering her mother’s screams and her father’s taunts, she shakes her head a little again. She’s not actively attempting to dismiss that line of thought, but she also isn’t sure she’s ready to accept that what she did was at all connected with strength - to her it was all pure survival instinct.

When Sam takes her other hand to explain just exactly how else she contributed, she keeps her focus on their held hands. “I wasn’t gonna let you go in there alone.” That’s a simple fact to her, a truth of which she wouldn’t consider the opposite side.

The assertion that Sam knowing Roger and Trish were her parents saved them is met with a shake of her head. “You wouldn’t have hurt them,” she says, firm in her belief in his goodness and wish to save others. She hasn’t actually seen Sam extract the demon blood that he injects and she certainly did not see him drink from a gash in his brother’s leg in order to gain the amount of power needed to expel Alistair.

What she does think on, though, is how weak her father is now and how any wound from a shotgun shell filled with salt or draw of blood might have tipped the scales against him surviving the exorcism. She can see her father attempting to subdue Sam and him needing to drive him back, had she not been there. The thought of it makes her wince. “Even if…” She can’t quite say she would be okay with Sam hurting her parents in any way, but she also understands to a certain extent. “I know it was dire circumstances. We had the shotguns filled with salt, we had the bomb. Any of them might have...” might have been too much for Roger. Even if she can’t say that thought aloud.

As she presses her forehead against his, Fred closes her eyes. She takes a breath, circles back to another topic. “I’m not sure I could’ve saved my Mom if you didn’t,” she says softly. “I couldn’t open my eyes after the first exorcism. I couldn’t bear to see if I’d exorcised him and all that was left was…” nothing, a body. “By that time, it felt like my head was being crushed. I don’t think I could have remembered all the right words.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
‘What about walk it off?’

He looks down. “Our father taught us a lot of messed up stuff. Some of it spews out of even my mouth sometimes without examination. Walk it off is one of those things. Just...please be patient while I try to root that stuff out of my head, okay? I don’t really believe that ‘walk it off’ is a standard we should be trying for. Even if I sometimes try to apply it to myself.”

It would also be very easy.

To be very dishonest.

That’s his impulse. That’s what he was taught. His knee-jerk reaction is to keep things hidden. But that’s just shutting people out, cutting them off, running away. The thing he just asked Dean to stop doing.

“Maybe,” he says, quietly, doubtfully. “I was pretty desperate. I think Alistair set it up that way to make me berserk out. Make me attack all those demons for their blood so I’d have enough juice to shove him out of my brother. Because if I’d killed your parents, and Ash, and Ellie, and all those other people just to save Dean, I would have truly become the monster he wants me to be. And I think it would be...hubris. To assume I don’t have that in me somewhere.”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“Okay,” Fred says, simply. She can give him that - time to work through his own thoughts. She certainly knows that she needs her own when it comes to big thoughts as she has recently. “I will.” There’s a sigh. “I just wondered if it was...better.” Better than breaking down into tears, better than feeling wrung out and weak, like she feels right now.

As they talk and Sam is honest, telling her exactly what he was thinking in that moment, there’s a prolonged silence. It’s certainly a charged subject, even though it shouldn’t be. This should be how she would react should he tell her that he might kill a random innocent person; however, the horrible truth is that it holds even more weight in the fact that her parents were the ones that were in the balance.

Beneath his arms, Fred tenses at the thought of it. That he could have killed her parents to save Dean. A part of her understands and yet another rages at the idea that he could have killed her parents for Dean. That trade seems so personal, the way it should have before this.

“Is that…” she trails off, unsure what to say, how to phrase this. “Is it the blood that makes you think that? Or is that you?” She needs to know. It is a question born of need to know rather than judgement, reflected in her voice. “Do you know?”

Sam Winchester has posed:
He feels her tense, and he stands up.

Under the cover of getting the Sharpie and going to her mother’s bedside, he puts distance between them. It is for his sake as much as for hers. He has been honest, but he has also admitted the darkness inside himself. She has reacted in wholly reasonable ways.

“The blood can’t make me into anything I’m not already. It can make it easier to give way to my worst impulses, but I wouldn’t be capable of expediency with it if I weren’t capable of it without it. I think we all are. I think it boils down to choice.”

A pause.

“I hope it does.”

He sighs, carefully creating the protective sigil, refusing to look at her. “And berserk is...berserk. It’s snapping and going nuts and-- I don’t think I would do it as a calculated thing, if that’s what you’re asking. I just think knowing made a difference. It made me stop and think. Hold myself back. It was-- Alistair is--”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam stands and makes his way to her mother’s bedside, Fred remains in the chair. Even as he puts a little distance between them, he’s ensuring that her mother can’t be possessed by drawing on her in Sharpie. Again, she feels guilty, feels as if she’s pushing him away and that’s the last thing she wants, even with this latest insight.

“I think it does,” she tells him as to choice mattering. “You’re a good man, Sam. I’m sorry, I’m doing this all wrong.” Fred sighs and runs a hand through her long hair, grabbing a handful of it and tugging at it idly. “I don’t think you’re a killer.” Even though he says the possibility is still there within him, she doesn’t see him that way.

His mention of berserk is what spurs her next string of words. “When you get angry, when you think someone you love is in danger? Sometimes your eyes change. It happened when the Soldier tried to kill me. It happened when you were talking to Alistair on the phone when he had Dean. Your eyes go black. Not entirely, not like...it’s just your irises.”

She pauses, trying to gather her thoughts, then continues. “And I understand that. I think about what that thing did to my parents, what it did to you and Dean and I want...I want to make it suffer. I don’t know what it would take to hold me back from unleashing all manner of inventions and bombs against it.” Finally, she stands and then moves behind Sam. She doesn’t reach out to him just yet, as he’s paying attention to the ward on her mother and as he has yet to look at her again. Yet, she still stands there.

Sam Winchester has posed:
He doesn’t draw away from her closeness. He welcomes it, though he doesn’t stop what he’s doing now that he’s doing it. It’s still a spell, and if it’s one he can do with a minimal amount of focus he still needs some. He’s listening to her, but it’s clear by the slight tic in his cheek and the fearful swallow he hadn’t known that.

“Demon eyes,” he murmurs.

He swallows. “I’m getting off this stuff, Fred. Soon as I can. Alistair wants me on it. No powers, no matter how good, can be worth playing into his plans. I’m terrified I won’t have what I need to bring about a good outcome without it but I can’t…”

He shakes his head roughly. “I trust Claire. Claire can help me with this. If it can be done, Claire can do it.”

Memories of Hell dance in his mind. He stares grimly back at them, and colors away.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Of course, Fred doesn’t attempt to interfere with Sam’s work. Instead, she stays close by. His immediate thought on the matter is met with slight shake of her head. “Not exactly,” she tells him in a soft voice, but also observationally. “Not fully black eyes.”

It’s more than a minor relief that Sam says that he’s going to get off of the demon blood. She knows how powerful a hold it has on him, how he has been using it to help people, but she does not like it. It seems to be hurting him and turning him toward something Alistair wants him to be, which they both do not want.

Without hesitation, she puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. She doesn’t want to interrupt him, but she can’t help but reassure him. “It’ll be enough,” she says, sure of herself, of him. “You’re a good man and a good hunter.” His choice of help in getting him to detox is met with a nod. “If anyone can help, I think it’s Claire.” She doesn’t know the nurse incredibly well, but what she saw made her trust.

Sam Winchester has posed:
There is some relief for her clarification. The slight shift of his body welcomes the fall of her hand.

It would be so easy not to disclose. She clearly missed his desperate third option.

But the honesty they are developing between them is valuable to him.

“It’s going to be harder. I took blood from Alistair instead of from our people. His was…” He lifts the pen briefly to avoid fouling his work to the slight shaking of his hand. It was incredible. It was a rush of pleasure unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was feeling strong and powerful, free from fear.

He clears his throat and says, just a little bit hoarsely: “Potent.”

Like all he can think about, like he could all but summon Alistair just to fall to his knees and beg for more…

He looks up at her, and then, rapidly, away. He returns to his work. It is not just anger that brings the black eyes it seems. Other darknesses, other needs, can transform them. This one can make the desperation and need all but shine from them.

And the sick sensation of a self-loathing that was always present, but which has found a great deal more fuel for the fire of late.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred certainly did miss Sam’s third option. There was quite a lot going on and her attention was almost immediately grabbed by the possession of her parents and they managed to certainly keep it through most of the showdown. The worry and the fear gave her a bit of a narrowed view of the yard and so the desperate drink of blood from his brother and Alistair’s blood to ensure he could banish the demon.

The hand still stays there after she learns of his desperate ploy. She knows that he injured his brother to ensure that he didn’t hurt her parents and that means quite a bit to her. Briefly, she dips her head to kiss Sam on his forehead when he pauses, noticing his shaking hands as he describes why this will be more difficult after the events of earlier. Part of the reason it will be harder on him was a choice he made to help her.

“We’ll help,” she tells him softly. When he turns to look at her, eyes changing color, she doesn’t pull away. “However we can.” Gently, she bends over to rest her cheek against gently against his head. “Thank you. For doing that instead of the alternative.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
He turns briefly to bury his face in her stomach, just wanting to hide there. He feels the urge to cry suddenly, but he doesn’t want to. She needs him, not the other way around. His eyes remain dry, but his shoulders slump.

It should not have mattered who it was, but it did matter, and that is perhaps the thing which frightens him most of all. His mission is to save people, not to sacrifice them. He takes a few deep breaths and lets them out again, noting that she’s starting to accept him how he is now, to be more matter-of-fact about it.

He’d be hard pressed to explain why all the long, worried looks from his friends have driven him so batshit. But they do. He can handle just evaluating the situation and making decisions in response to it. He can’t handle all those weighted, worried looks.

At last, he pulls back. He has a ward to finish. He smiles at her, a boyish grin that doesn’t quite touch his (hazel, again) eyes. “So. Care to help me find a tattoo parlor that plays Zeppelin? I think we need a giant ward party. And Dean won’t do it unless they are, and I quote, not hippies who don’t even know who Zeppelin is.”
Winifred Burkle has posed:
Unfortunately for Sam, Fred will worry. It’s in her nature to care and worry for the people she loves, especially after living so long without anyone. Having people who care about her tends to bring out a fierce sort of protection and loyalty. Worrying about those people comes along with that.

When he presses his face against her stomach, she adjusts. Her arms wrap around his shoulders and she keeps her own head bowed over him. She can feel his shoulders slump and worries that she has disappointed him somehow or made him feel worse. That’s not what she wants.

For the moments that he stays there, she holds him tightly and quietly against her. After he pulls back, she returns the smile in much the same manner that he does. “Are there a lot of hippie tattoo artists? I always thought of them to be like bikers and stuff.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“That’s what I thought too,” Sam says, in an airy fashion that says he knows damn well most are. “But apparently I was totally wrong on that count.” But he won’t /tell/ on Dean by saying that he’s afraid of needles. He just enjoys the joke. He squeezes her again, and exhales. She’s better than he deserves, and he feels an overwhelming surge of love for her at that moment. He doesn’t want to let her go--

But he has to see to her mother. So he murmurs, “Don’t go far, you,” while he turns to do that.

And then, “Unless you think it’s going to be super awkward for her to wake up and see that,” he says. Then again this whole situation might be mildly to moderately awkward for a whole host of reasons. Why not that one? He just wants her close.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“Huh.” Fred takes that mostly at face value, but there’s a bit of skepticism. It’s not exactly important as to why Dean is so adamant on finding a tattoo place with Zeppelin, after all. They just need to do it in order to ensure Dean will get the tattoo. “Okay. We can find one.”

She’s reluctant to let him go, too. For a quick moment she squeezes him tight. It’s when he turns back to finish the ward on her mother that she pulls back. There’s a soft laugh when he asks if it will be awkward for her parents to wake up and see her holding him.

“No, I don’t think so,” she says and wraps her arms around his shoulders while he works. She stays close by, comforted by his presence, resting her cheek against him.“Or, if she does, it’s okay. She might be pleased. For awhile she was telling me all about these eligible bachelors from back home. Might be pretty pleased to see a big handsome man like you here.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
A duck of Sam’s chin and a flash of that boyish grin. His long lashes flutter down to conceal his eyes. He’s flattered. He even preens a little. This man likes being told how handsome he is. It’s one of his faults. It’s not going away anytime soon.

It doesn’t hurt that once he was a scrawny kid with floppy hair, and nobody would have called him handsome. He still remembers being that kid. He got in the habit of wearing multiple shirts and a big jacket over that to make himself look bigger. Ironic as that was. Of course. Kids always did get surprised when he turned out more than capable of beating the shit out of them despite his small size and depressingly round face.

He finishes the ward and finally caps the sharpie, then leans his head back against her, closing his eyes for a moment and smiling. As with Dean, he’s going to steal a happy moment while he’s got it.

“I am crazy in love with you,” he says, and though he says it before, he’ll say it again. “So all those bachelors are just going to have to run away and be sad.”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“I love you, too,” Fred replies against him. Once the ward is finished, she shifts. Still keeping her arms about him, she circles him until they’re facing and then kneels down. Folding herself more tightly against him, she finally starts to relax some from all the adrenaline and fear that has filled her for so long. She grins at the idea of the long line of bachelors her mother has discussed with her running off. “Those poor young men, so callous about their feelings!” she teases. “How’re they ever gonna recover from that?”

The worry about her father’s condition remains near the forefront of her thoughts, but now that Sam is here and helping, things seem a little more manageable a little less dire. A tiredness starts to wash through her and she’ll attempt to move Sam so that they can sit down on the floor and lean against the wall and then she can curl against him.

If her parents wake up to see her and Sam like that, she certainly doesn’t seem like she minds.

Sam Winchester has posed:
He has a better idea. As soon as he realizes what she wants he just scoops her up. It’s like she weighs next to nothing to him, which may or may not be true. He retreats to the “concerned loved one’s chair” at the side of the room.

Since it’s a SHIELD medical facility and not a cheap hospital the thing is plush and well stuffed, if vinyl. And slate grey. Because SHIELD and its obsession with branding. He hooks the ottoman with one foot, dragging it closer, then settles down with her in it.

He settles her into his lap and wraps his broad arms gently around her, then starts stroking her hair. “There,” he murmurs. He is behind this plan. And if they do wake up, well, Roger’s probably in no shape to punch him in the nose. He’ll have time to win them over with charming smiles maybe.

“If you need to catch some shut-eye go right ahead. I can wake you when they wake up.” Dean needed to get out, to go drink, to hit the road for a little while, if only for 40 minutes or so. Fred might need someone to stand sentry for her, to give her back that sensation of safety.

Fortunately he’s well equipped for both sorts of comfort.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam scoops her up, Fred gives a soft surprised sound. However, she gives no struggle or noise of protest against his thought. Instead, she rests easily against him. Once he settles them down on the concerned family chair, she lets out a breath.

The fear, the worry, they’re still there. Now, though, she finally feels as if she can relax with Sam there and looking out for her. Much as he’s already suspected, he makes her feel safe and that’s exactly what she needs at this moment after the demons demonstrated just how vulnerable she can be.

So, she rests her head against his chest, murmuring as he starts to stroke her hair, “Mm, no, I don’t need to sleep. Just...lie here for a bit..” Her words are spoken sleepily into him, contradicting herself even as she says them.

Indeed, it takes little to no time for her eyes to shut and her breathing to even out. A few minutes after settling, she’s asleep.

Sam Winchester has posed:
He’d chuckle fondly at this display.

But it might shake her awake. Instead, he swallows it back, hazel eyes twinkling, and just stays right where he is, stroking her hair and holding her for however long she needs.