hauntedsandbox | (no subject)

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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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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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