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There was something nice about having a lull in the work. Not that Coraline Jones didn't love her work. She did. But she also loved riding her Harley-Davidson Breakout for hours in late evening without running the latest case history through her archive of usual suspects like some kind of Lovecraftian slot machine in the back of her mind until something matched up, and having Janis Joplin on the bluetooth instead of Wybie's logistics or her parents' inevitably horribly-timed token check-ins. It freed up space in her mind for other kinds of multitasking.

Like singing to the radio.

"Freedom's just another word forrrrr nothin' left to lose, nothin' oh it ain't nothin' honey if it ain't f--ffffFUCK!"

The surprise change in lyrics came in immediate and direct response to a pair of headlights bearing down on her in her lane, going the wrong way. She swerved hard to the right, tried to halt the spin for half a second, worried about possible pedestrians, then realized first that there were none, and secondly that she was headed for an impressive donut, then let go and rolled away from the spin. She tumbled to a stop in the grass of some sort of park, wincing with the pain of the fall and the crash of the bike stopping as well. Against what, she wasn't sure yet.

She lay on the ground for a minute, willing her nerves back to normal, then slowly pushed herself up, half leveraging herself against a nearby tree to stand and half falling into it while her knees readjusted to the idea of gravity under a great deal of protest. Pulling her helmet off, she scanned the area for her bike, finding it having halted itself almost neatly against a bench. The bench had seen better days, but at least the bike seemed okay.

Thank God for saddlebags, I guess, she thought dazedly. Then disorientation turned to alarm with a hint of dread as she realized all the cars were going the wrong way. And this neighborhood didn't look the least bit like the sleepy Appalachian roadside town she'd been passing through moments ago. She stumbled back to the bike as quickly as she could stand to. A sudden change in worlds was rarely a happy occurance..

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Truth be told, Claire Novak did not want to play welcome party to the newest arrival. She didn't exactly have the best people skills even on the best of days and, truth be told, wasn't sure she completely agreed with the whole situation to begin with. She understood the necessity but that didn't mean she liked it. Trying to hide that displeasure wasn't going to be easy. However, Adam had asked her to help him out this once because apparently his mother had put her foot down and demanded he be present for their family portrait and he didn't think making himself be two places at once was the best of ideas.

Claire completely agreed with him on that one and had headed out to do as he'd asked. It was a little ridiculous that the powerhouse leader of Team Free Will had a ten o'clock bedtime and had to eat his vegetables every night, but changing that would mean changing Adam. So she would do her part to help him out, just this once, then suggest maybe next time he not yank someone out of their reality until he was already standing there.

Any other thought on the subject was cut abruptly short at the sudden, unexpected appearance of someone on a motorcycle. She waited until the rider - a girl who looked close to her own age - began to move back to her miraculously un-wrecked bike before making her way over. Claire briefly considered feigning concern, even surprise, but decided against it. She didn't like to lie and wasn't going to earn anyone's trust by playing dumb. No, best to just get to the point and let the chips fall where they may.

"So I'd ask if you're okay but I don't see any broken bones or blood, and with how quick you jumped up I'm guessing this isn't your first crash," she said by way of greeting, coming to a stop a few feet from the bench. She kept her tone friendly enough, her body language casual. "I have to say, though," she continued, "that was pretty impressive. How's the bike?"

Coraline turned to the girl with a forced smile. "ATGATT," she said. All the gear, all the time. And in her case, that meant what was in her saddlebags as much as what was on her. Not that I don't trust any of this and want the small armory I carry was something you said to a stranger. "Broke an ankle and wrist first time I wiped out. Learned my lesson then, after that it gets easier. Wear your shit no matter how hot it is and bail early." She laughed shortly. "Helps being at city speeds too. I'd be a wreck coming from the highway even..."

She stopped. New place, possibly new reality. Not sure if native or captive. First things first.

"You, um... local? Know any clinics for a dumb tourist to get checked out? I'm going to feel this in the morning."

She turned her attention to the bike. "Hell, I don't know," she muttered. Depends on how real this is. Who my host is and how good they are at this whole thing. Even if it was real, she was looking at at least surface repairs. Maybe more. She leaned on the bench, trying to look through the bent slats to assess damage but not having any luck with it. What she could see that wasn't down there looked okay, which was reassuring, but the bottom rear half was stuck under the bench. "Mind helping me get it unwedged from this thing? Won't know for sure til it's out. Definitely won't be pretty, but I'm hoping for 'works enough to get there or at least let me get to my stuff'... I've got no hotel, no nothing."

This was nearly textbook supernatural abduction, and abduction was her Thing. Right now the biggest question was whether she'd been spirited away to a different physical place or if this was some kind of alter dimension. The first test was consistent appearance and feel. If it looked like it had bowed a bench or just like the last time she'd happened to look at it, how heavy it was to move. If the person next to her changed in appearance at all now that she'd lookied away. Once she'd established that, she could worry about what it wanted.

Edited 2018-08-20 19:21 (UTC)

With each passing moment, as the new girl continued to talk - seemingly chitchatting away, although Claire had the sneaking suspicion she was also stalling in a subtle way to get a vibe for the place. No screaming or yelling or hysterics, though. That was a plus. Finally, at the request to help get the girl's ride unstuck, Claire nodded.

"Sure, I can help," she said firstly, covering the distance between them but also coming up on the other side of the bench for a different look at the problem. "And I'm not local, but I've been here for a little while. We're in a town called Lower Tadfield, by the way. A few hours outside of London." She looked up from the mess beneath the bench with as reassuring of a glance as she could manage. She was fairly certain Adam wouldn't let the girl's ride be ruined. Or, if it was, he'd fix it. Best not to just announce such things, though. Not right away.

Instead she settled for, "I'm Claire, by the way. Claire Novak." by way of introduction and left it at that.

Coraline studied the other girl, looking for subtle inconsistencies. Small slips, an inexplicable change in what she was wearing, a glitch in voice or movement now that she'd been asked to interact beyond just talking. But her movements were steady and her speech was casual, and natural enough.

"Coraline Jones," she replied, smiling back. "Thanks, I appreciate it. That was pretty wild... did you see what happened?"

Where I just popped out in the middle of the street? Or does whatever it is not let people notice?

She gripped one end of the bike and braced to pull, glancing over at Claire. "On three?"

Edited 2018-08-22 07:01 (UTC)

She nodded and, at the count of three, began to help get the bike loose. As she pulled, Claire said aloud in a slightly strained tone, "You mean did I see you appear out of thin air? Yeah. Gotta admit, your entrance beats mine by, like, infinity. I just showed up in a living room. But my dad was there. That was a plus." As the bike began to give way, she gave Coraline as reassuring of a look as possible. "And no, I'm not the one responsible for all of this, before you ask. But I do know what's going on. I can fill you in, if you want. Or you can try to figure it out on your own. Your call. Either way, I vote we get the bike free first."

Considering how casually she was saying it, one might think Claire was almost blase about the whole reality jumping thing. In a way, she supposed she was, but her reason for downplaying it was more about being unsure about her audience. Sure, the girl seemed pretty chill - who knew? They might even end up hitting it off and becoming friends - but for now, Claire wanted to avoid any more of a scene than was already created by the girl's mere arrival.

Speaking of which. She and Adam really were going to have to talk about his way of doing things, she decided as she felt the bike finally begin to give way. You didn't gain allies by nearly killing them with their arrival. And that officially made the top of the list of things she never thought she'd have to explain to someone.

Oh, good. She knew what was going on and she wasn't the cause herself. Coraline could get some information and not have a fight on her hands right away. She hauled on the bike again, feeling it give with their combined efforts.

That slot machine in the back of her mind was fired up again, though.

"A run-down of what's going on here would be great, if you've got one to give. So you said..." She sat on her heels after they dragged the bike out, leaning forward to inspect the locks on the saddlebags, wanting to make sure she could still get at her gear. They were scratched up but didn't look bent out of shape. "You said showed up in a living room? And your dad was there?"

Family--comforting family--present on arrival. Slot one locked.

She looked up at Claire. "A living room? Not yours--or a copy of yours, I mean? A living room you'd never seen before?"

Of all the questions to be asked, Claire had to admit she hadn't expected that one. She blinked, not because she needed to think to answer but because she was somewhat taken aback. "Uh, no. I mean, not a copy of mine or anything. A friend of mine's living room, in fact. He's the reason I'm here." She paused, corrected herself. "We're here, I mean."

She waited while Coraline inspected the bike but couldn't help offering, "It should work just fine. Adam wouldn't want to damage it, or you. But he's young. Stupid powerful, but just a kid. He doesn't always think." She winced a bit and tipped her head toward the road. "Hence you showing up like you did. It probably never occurred to him you'd be driving on the other side of the road."

For as wise as he could be, Adam was still very much a child in some aspects. It was hard to remember that, sometimes. Then others, such as now, it was glaring obvious he needed to learn to think before acting. Right. First things first, though. She didn't want to get too far ahead of herself.

"So I met Adam Young in another reality - a really awful one. A lot of people were stuck there, including my dad, who had died back where I came from. Well, one day, they sent everyone back home. Except my dad somehow ended up here. So Adam, realizing sending my dad back to our reality would be making him dead all over again, decided to bring me here instead." She paused and shook her head. "And I'll be honest," she admitted almost sheepishly. "I really don't know exactly how to sell what I'm about to tell you. I mean, there's no easing into it and either you're going to believe me or you're going to think I'm crazy and run, screaming, for the hills. Either way, I don't have all day so... here goes."

And with a pause, and a breath, Claire just spit it out. "Adam's father is an angel named Lucifer, also known as the Devil. Adam is the Antichrist. He was supposed to destroy the world. Instead, he decided to protect it. That was all fine and good until God or the angels or whatever decided to force the issue. Now, he wants to try to stop the war but, if he can't, he needs help."

She eyed Coraline. "I don't know why he picked you, and I'm not asking unless you're in the sharing mood, but I do know that Adam is a good kid who is trying to keep his world from ending. Literally. All he asks is that you hear him out and, if you decide you don't want to help, he'll send you back where you were, on the spot." She hesitated, snorted softly, then grinned a little. "And normally this is where he'd probably say scout's honor or something but, uh, I wasn't exactly good at selling cookies. I do promise you're not in any danger, though. The trauma of your arrival aside." She was teasing a bit with the last bit. Dark humor was just how she helped to break the ice.

"Oh." A friend's house. That was... different. Interesting.

Coraline fished out her key from the ignition and quickly popped the saddlebags open just to make sure they worked and everything inside was all right, then closed them again. There wasn't much wrong outside some scratches. And the longer she listened to Claire, the more "interesting" turned into "complicated"--then took a sharp turn into "did NOT see that coming" before arriving at "heavy, but what the hell, I have nothing else in my calendar."

Coraline let out a short puff of slightly overwhelmed laughter. "Well, out of all the weird things I was ready for this to be, 'Apocalypse' was not on the list! With what you'd said about suddenly finding yourself in a different reality, only your dad was here waiting for you, I was expecting more along the lines of what I normally deal with. Some kind of monster or spirit with a taste for abducting young people."

She grinned at Claire. "At the risk of suddenly turning into the weird one in the conversation... back home, I hunt monsters. Like, for a living. I don't spend a lot of time on the demonic end of the hunting spectrum, but I know the basics. I'm pretty sure I can deal. Laugh in the face of danger and all that." She stood, dusting herself off, then reached down to offer Claire a hand up before worrying about getting the bike upright again. "Eh, I survived. Definitely need to talk to your Adam about the roads, though. I get making sure I had my bike, I've got all my gear in here, but we gotta talk traffic laws if this is going to become a regular thing."

Now things were making more sense. Claire couldn't help but return the grin at Coraline's explanation of what she did for a living. Having recently retained her own memories from back home, it now made perfect sense why Adam had asked her to be the one to greet the girl. Sneaky, kid. Sneaky.

"Actually," Claire spoke up, taking the offered hand to help pull herself to her feet, "being a hunter isn't so much grounds for being weird. More like part of the norm. I'm one, back home, too." She paused then tacked on, "Although most of mine is on the demonic side, definitely." And sometimes celestial, but that was splitting hairs and not important. She refocused.

"I agree, though. We need to make sure the kid thinks before doing something like this again. Not only are there traffic laws but, I mean, just yanking someone in mid-ride is dangerous by itself. He could've at least waited until you'd come to a stop somewhere." Of course, that might have made getting her bike there a bit difficult, or something, but if there was anyone capable of thinking outside of the box to solve a problem, she had absolute faith in Adam's ability to do so.

Glancing down at girl's ride, she looked back to Coraline. "And, for the record, thanks for taking this in stride. I was worried I was going to have to deal with hysteria or something. So not my thing."

Coraline bent, gripped the handlebars and hauled the bike upright. "No problem," she replied lightly. "I've never been a hysteria kinda girl. I find it gets in the way of your survival instincts. But then, I started early."

She stretched, trying to work out the remaining soreness in her muscles. "So where is little big man? At home, in school...? And how far along are we in this whole end of the world timeline? I guess that's the first order of business."

Well, that and living arrangements. But she figured that was a question for when they were all together.

Getting straight to important matters and shaking off the crazy like it was an average Tuesday... yeah, Claire definitely could appreciate Adam's decision in the newest addition to Team Free Will. She grinned. "Actually," she replied, "his mom insisted they get a family portrait done. So he had to stay home, and keep himself and his clothes clean, two things which he is not fond of doing." Her tone was affectionate when discussing Adam. He was like the little brother she never wanted.

"As far as the end goes, we're still pretty early on. No one has made a major move, yet. Adam was just given warning that it's coming." She shook her head in bemusement and cast Coraline a sideways glance. "Apparently Heaven and Hell here are all about an even playing field or something. It's pretty weird, and so not what I'm used to, back home, but I guess reps from both sides sat down with Adam and told him he'd better be ready to do something because choosing to just sit it out this time wasn't an option."

Motioning in the way they should go, she thought for a moment before continuing. "For the most part, the town itself is nice enough. Apparently Adam subconsciously kept it from changing too much when he was growing up, so crime has stayed low and the only supernatural stuff centers around him and is all on our side, so far." She considered for a moment before deciding she should probably mention the key players. "That's two angels, one former angel turned demon, one witch, a couple of guys that hunt witches, and a handful of kids. Plus me and my dad."

She looked to Coraline once more. "And now you."

Coraline laughed. "Me neither, when I was a kid." She thought about it a moment, then shook her head. "I guess you could say it's what ended up getting me into this line of work..."

Without going stir-crazy in the old house, she'd never have found the door. Never have known to look for answers beyond the obvious human explanations when the cousin of the kid she babysat for as a teenager disappeared, or come to be curious how what was out there and how many other people were affected by these occurrences.

Even though it was apparently End Times, the two sides seemed to have a healthy attitude toward sportsmanship. Which was weird, because in her world good and evil clawed their way to victory by any means necessary. But she wasn't about to complain.

"Well, that was nice of them."

She guided the bike in the direction Claire indicated, listening to her list off what--and who--they had to work with. It was certainly an interesting bunch. "That sounds like a motley crew," she said. "They all get along okay? The demon and the witch, they're cool with... well, everyone else?"

Okay. First, Claire decided, she'd answer the question she was asked, but then they were definitely getting back to what Coraline had said about herself as a kid. Because there was a story there. Claire was sure of it.

"The witch is more a descendant of an actual witch who tries witchcraft but mostly just has a book of prophecies that, according to Adam are, and I quote, 'Nice and Accurate'." Yep. She even did the airquotes. Then she cut Coraline a sideways glance. "No clue what that means but Anathema is a pretty cool lady and super smart. Has a PhD and everything. She's probably the most sensible person that openly practices magic that I know." Not that she knew too many magic practicing people but, well, it was still the truth.

"And Crowley..." She thought, briefly, about the fallen angel before snorting a bit. "He likes to push buttons, and he can be a real jerk sometimes, but he's not evil or anything, and he definitely is on our side. He and Aziraphale - that's the angel on our side who is from this reality - they were Adam's allies last time stuff almost went down. He trusts them completely which means so do I."

And, without missing a real beat except to draw a breath, she asked, "So, what brought you into the whole supernatural side of things, anyway?" She offered a friendly grin. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Not literally, of course. That would be weird.

Coraline laughed at the description of prophecies. "Best kind," she said.

She raised an eyebrow at angel on our side from this reality--the other wasn't?--but filed it away for later. She flashed Claire a return grin when asked what had gotten her started hunting. "Sure thing."

Coraline rolled one shoulder as she spoke, thinking back. "I guess it really started when I was a kid. That's technically when I tackled my first monster. It was a beldam. See, we moved to Oregon, and into this weird house that had been paritioned off into apartments. It had tiny door right on our side, and during the day it was bricked off, but at night when no one was around... it opened into a tunnel, and at the other end was another version of my house, only better, more fun. Parents, neighbors and all, and they all paid way more attention to me than the genuine article--except they all had buttons for eyes. And my other mother, as she called herself..."

She fought down a compulsive shudder. She was used to monsters now but that first moment the beldam pushed the button box across the table toward her still sent an invisible hand of needles up her spine.

"...She said it was cool if I wanted to stay on permanently, all I had to do was let her sew buttons into my eyes. Which I said no to, but she wasn't really asking, you know? She let me 'escape' for a bit, but she took my parents hostage. I got them back with the help of the ghosts of the kids she'd fed on before me, as well as the kid next door." And the cat. But that would just make her sound crazy, even in a hunter-to-hunter chat.

"Fast forward a few years, I'm seventeen and babysitting this kid, and her cousin comes up missing. Same nothing little town, less than nothing going on. Investigation goes nowhere, no strangers in town, no paneled vans cruising around, nothing. And then this FBI agent turns up--but he's driving an old Mustang. You have any idea how many hunters drive their classic cars and whatnot while impersonating a fed? Blows my mind. Like, I don't roll up on my Harley and ask people to think I'm a marshal, I rent a black Towncar two cities over." She shook her head.

"Anyway, he knocks on the kid I'm sitting's door and I'm like 'hell no, this is bullshit,' and just play dumb when he starts asking me stuff. But I find out where he's staying, and I tell the motel owner it's my dad's friend who's a fed, and he has something for my dad and can I just duck in and pick it up because my dad's real busy... well, of course, I find out pretty quick he's not an agent, and when he gets back I blackmail him into letting me help out." She sighed. "Turned out to be undergrounders, so we got the kid back, but it made me wonder how many other things were out there, how many kids are affected by it. Made me want to help. And I just kept going."
She raised an eyebrow at Claire. "So--how about you?"

Edited 2018-09-10 09:32 (UTC)

Claire listened as Coraline gave her a rundown of how she'd gotten into the hunting life. It started out like a pretty typical story - girl meets monster, girl survives. However, in Coraline's tale, her family made it, too. It had a happy ending. So the typical vengeance angle - the way that so many had fallen into the life - didn't apply. That was interesting.

By the time the girl had finished, Claire found herself wondering if the part of the reason Adam brought Coraline here was because she had the best luck ever. She tossed her a grin. "Okay, first off," she replied, "I have to say that you probably have the happiest hunter origin story around." She paused then amended, "Not to lessen what you went through. I just meant, you know, you didn't get inducted by monsters eating your family. That's hard to come by. I'm impressed."

She paused, collecting her own thoughts, then continued. "Anyway. I was nine when my life first went wacky. My dad went missing one night." Her mind couldn't help but return to the image of that night in her yard. I am not your father. She shook her head slightly. "He was gone for a year, then showed back up one day, out of the blue. He said he'd been a vessel for an angel." She snorted slightly at the memory.

"I thought he was nuts. I mean, I was raised in the church, and I believed in angels and God and everything, but I still thought he was crazy." She stopped speaking long enough to cross at the corner. They were reaching a residential area now. Almost there.

"Except," she went on, picking up where she'd left off, "that same night, after the most awkward family dinner ever, our neighbor showed up... possessed by a demon. My mom and I wound up being used as bait, basically, and long story short, the same angel that had been using my dad for that year - Castiel - was suddenly there and asking if I wanted his help. I said yes and for, like, the freakiest five minutes of my life, I was his vessel."

And this is where it got painful. Claire kept going, keeping her voice purposefully steady. Much like reading a story, rather than reliving painful memories. "Afterward, Castiel began using my dad as a vessel again and they disappeared. My mom took off a couple of years later, trying to find them, and left me with my grandma. When she died - of natural causes, for once - I was sent to stay in foster care. Then, a few months shy of my eighteenth birthday, Castiel suddenly shows up still using my dad's body as his vessel."

She paused at the corner, waved absently at the woman walking her dog across the street, then took a right onto Adam's road. The scenery began to take on a very Normal Rockwell-esque appearance. White picket fences, impossibly green lawns, people merrily coming and going. Claire ignored it all and finished her story.

"He helped get me out of foster care and, after some pretty heinous life choices on my part, I decided to start helping people instead of spending all my time being pissed at the universe in general and God and angels in particular." She gave Coraline a sideways glance. "And now is probably the time to let you know that the angel that's here from my reality is Castiel. Adam gave him his own body. Pretty much a clone of my dad's but," she shrugged, "at least I get my dad back."

She nodded at the house up ahead. "And there's Adam's place." As if on cue, a happy sounding yip broke out and, a heartbeat later, Dog came bounding across the yard and toward them, barking excitedly.

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