This is A Something.

[asellus]

As far as road trips went, Asellus had... really never been on one before. She'd been on short realm-hops, but long, winding roads, small towns... things like that were pretty much completely foreign to her. So the first few hours of the trip had been a completely new experience-- they'd driven down a road that had seemed to disappear into the horizon, and she was sure Dean had taken much amusement at how quickly she got absorbed in looking out the window. At some point she'd fallen asleep, though she'd had the sense to kick off her shoes and curl up with her head against the window. It had been a short nap-- an hour or two at most-- but she woke up shortly after; it took only a moment to reorient herself and remember where she was.

"...Are we there yet?" She joked, stretching and arching her back. Sitting forward a little, she scrounged around on the floor for the map she'd kicked off, and began scanning it and the landscape for clues, though Dean probably could tell her just about exactly where they were. She wasn't very good with maps, after all.

Comments

[zombie]

What Dean really wanted to see (and here he kept his mouth shut and fought the grin that threatened) was to see Sellz fold that map back up small enough to fit in the glove box. He was pretty sure that would never happen.

"Nah, still a couple of hours left." He paused, leaning over to turn on the radio and scan for a station. He'd been through this particular stretch of country a million times before, and there was one really awesome classic rock station out there...He just had to remember where it was.

"Why, you bored already? We're just gettin' started." Which...Might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but she didn't know that. Besides, they were head to a small town far flung from the larger cities of the country, where he'd gotten some info through one of his sources (Bobby) about a haunting gone The Shining, and he'd wanted to check it out. Just to be on the safe side.

"There's a place about fifteen minutes from here. We could make a pitstop." Because it wasn't like he'd had many women travel along this far before. He and Sam...They were masters at stopping on the side of the road when nature called, and anything like that, but girls...Girls were a mystery in that respect.

[asellus]

"Who's bored?" Possible or not, she was going to try; the map, fully extended, would probably cover her entire field of vision. Time to fold it. "I'm not. Just curious, that's all."

This thing was a little harder to control than she'd previously thought, though-- it thwarted her efforts to fold with a spite that seemed almost human, so she dropped it to the floorboards with a glare. "Anyway, a pitstop might be a good idea. Need to stretch my legs a little, anyway. Maybe get something to drink." She didn't really need to do anything else, and if she did, the side of the road wasn't really an issue-- she'd spent long enough on the battlefield that shame was reserved for when she had the time to have it-- though she couldn't well say she didn't have time right now.

"So where exactly are we headed?" She was sure she should have probably asked this before, but to be honest-- with herself, not with him; he'd get an appropriately vague 'I was bored' response if he asked--, she was kind of alright with the prospect of seeing the place the Winchester boys were from, and time in Dean's absolutely wonderful car and his slightly less wonderful presence was completely fine with her. "It's a pretty long trip-- where's the endgoal?"

[zombie]

He glanced at her a moment. "Chickasaw. In Alabama." He didn't mention that the place had about four thousand people, or that there was a homicidal ghost on a rampage taking that number even lower. Or that the county that housed it had a ridiculously high number of natural disasters. That was all beside the point. She'd figure it out when they got there.

Of course, he also realized she didn't have a clue what Alabama even was, or how where he came from was set up, but again: Beside the point.

He shot a glance at the map, now in the floorboard, and said nothing, but his expression said it all anyway, like a neon sign. "There's a diner on the main strip of the next town. Pretty okay place. Has a mean cheeseburger." On cue, his stomach growled, and he pressed the gas pedal a little harder.

[asellus]

"Quit looking so smug." She poked the the map with a socked foot as if to make a point, and leaned back, watching him. There was definitely something he wasn't mentioning-- there was almost always something he wasn't mentioning, honestly--, but she knew when to push and when not to.

Was this a work thing? She figured it was, by default, and that was fine. She'd help out if she thought he needed it, or stand by and wait if he didn't seem to. He might be a little on the bumbling side sometimes, but he was capable-- as capable as anyone she knew, anyway.

But there was a conversation to be having here, so he didn't catch on to her mind working the mile-a-minute she was going. "A greasy spoon?" Her voice was mock-disapproving, a matter of pride for her as a cook. "Guess it'll do. I could use some tea or coffee or something. Still a little bit sleepy. How do you even stay awake, driving this long?"

She had the sneaking suspicion that she'd be spending a lot of time drowsy on these flat roads. Realm travel was much faster-- an hour or two, usually, sometimes more if you were on a high-class vessel like the Cygnus, or headed somewhere particularly far. The shuttles out of Facinaturu took somewhere around two hours to get to the main hubs. Not the... five, six hours this trip was taking.

They weren't quite as comfortable, though. Driving like this, she could almost understand the look Dean got sometimes, when he talked about the open road. She'd probably understand completely, by the end of this trip.

[zombie]

"If man were meant to fly, he'd have wings. Do I look like Cas to you?" Dean drove everywhere for a million different reasons, the first and foremost being his hellacious fear of flying. "Besides," he said, sliding his hands over the steering wheel, "when's the last time you saw a plane with such a nice set up?"

He glanced out of his window at the green scenery and flat field flying past, and gave a shrug. This was just how he traveled, and would probably always be the way he did it, until he couldn't climb behind the steering wheel anymore, and at that point, he figured it would be time to give it up. Or find someone else to drive.

"Besides, it's too quiet in here." Said over the loud exhaust of the Impala, and as he finally landed on the radio station he'd been searching for and turned it up. "Usually got Sam yapping at me, so I have to have some kind of distraction."

[asellus]

"Not really. Cas would just be staring and asking weird questions," she admitted, tracing the upholstery of the passenger-side door and suppressing the urge to tease. "I didn't say it wasn't nice, you know. Just... different." Cars were huge luxuries, in the realms that had the streets for them. She'd been in one a handful of times in her life, before she'd met Dean.

"Besides, realmships aren't quite flying. Closer to... I don't know, those sci-fi shows Nigredo likes. You don't look outside, really. You just... wait. Like a cruise ship, minus the ocean. Or the buffet." She stifled a grin. "Which I bet would invalidate the whole purpose for you."

She quieted, listening to the music. She'd gotten mostly used to Dean's taste, once he'd figured out how to rig the jukebox at Haze, but it was still a little... rough for her taste. "What does he find to talk about, anyway?"

[zombie]

"It's Sam. What do you think he talks about?" There was a rough form of affection in his tone, along with a touch of exasperation at his little brother. "Feelings are the big one. Jobs are usually next on the list. Occasionally he'll whine about something. The usual." He shifted in the seat, stretching out his free leg. He didn't mention how normally, on a good day (or a bad), they were both usually quiet, wrapped up in their own separate thoughts. He and Sam had the kind of relationship where they didn't necessarily have to talk to know. And it was kind of weird. But it was the one he and Sam had, and there was no point in justifying it to someone that wasn't a Winchester.

It wasn't a harsh thought: To Dean it was simply the honest-to-God truth.

He fell silent after that, barely noting as they blew past the sign marking the county line. Long moments passed, as the wild and wooded countryside started to give way to a straggly building here and there, the road more smoothly paved.

"You think this place has a copy center? Can't remember from the last time I was here."

[asellus]

She snickered. That sounded about right, from the times she'd chatted with Sam. He'd always felt like the more sensitive one; more than once she'd wanted to pat him on the head like the world's tallest puppy, especially when Dean picked on him. A good kid, she thought, even if he didn't seem younger than her.

It wasn't her place to ask much more, though. Dean never asked about her family and private business, so she had been trying to do the same, out of respect. If he had something to talk about, usually he would eventually find a way to bring it up. Trying to drag it out of him went over like a lead balloon most of the time.

"A copy center? This place barely looks like it warrants a post office. But I bet there's somewhere you could find one. I can't imagine any place getting by without in this day and age." She was watching the buildings roll on by. The outskirts of towns generally seemed the most abandoned. "Probably closer to downtown, though. These look like old warehouses.

That where the diner is? We could kill two birds with one stone that way."

[zombie]

"Something like that, yeah." He turned his attention to the strip of buildings slowly growing in numbers and shrinking in size. He scanned each building as they passed it, the memory of blowing through this place on more than one occasion coming back to him. "If not, we'll find one between here and Chickasaw. Have to." Or he was kind of screwed. He had to have a copy shop with a color copier, or he was boned as far as finding out what the whole deal in Chickasaw was.

Not that Sellz needed to know that.

The diner appeared a few moments later, and he pointed vaguely in its direction with the hand resting atop the steering wheel. "There it is. Best burger in Alabama." And was it a dump. Run down, full of old men at the counter, and looking for all the world like food poisoning's summer house. Not that...That kind of appearance had ever run Dean off before, which was why he slowed down to pull next to the curb and park. "Their coffee's okay, too."

/finally has a moment to think DON'T SCREW ME OVER, RANDOM ICON

[asellus]

"Okay's good enough," she shrugged, getting out of the car and almost immediately stretching. Her legs ached with having been in the car for as long as they had without a break, her neck hurt from sleeping in an awkward position, and as she came up from a toe-touch, her stomach rumbled an annoyed complaint of hunger.

She led the way into the diner, not waiting on him, and ignored the stares of the patrons. It wasn't something she paid much attention to anymore; a few hundred years ago, she'd have been self-conscious, or she'd have clamped down on her control, or any number of insecure reactions. Here, though, it was more likely the green hair and bare limbs that had attention more than innate Charm. Her magic felt a lot more subdued in Dean's world-- probably because it didn't fall into the power dichotomies of Heaven and Hell.

It worked for her, anyway. Sliding into a patched vinyl booth, she propped her feet up across from her and waited for Dean to catch up.