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apocalypsosTitle: A Little Fear Upon My Back
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,400 words
Pairing: None (Gen)
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just like playing with them.
Summary: Hey, somebody's got to fight the darkness.
Author's note: I wanted happy futurefic with no children in it, so ... well, this would make me happy in its own little way, which is the point, really. ;)
*****
A Little Fear Upon My Back
*****
She wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't taken up so much of so little space, sitting in a wheelchair in an awkward slump as if someone had folded him into it against his will. One of the orderlies must have positioned him in the corner of the room facing the large bay windows of the nursing home and left him there, and in his condition, the old man didn't have much choice about arguing to be taken elsewhere. Places like this, you went where they rolled you and you liked it.
The others in the room speak in muted conversations as if their voices have been dampened and shrunk. Little old ladies murmur to one another about their boisterous grandchildren. Old men whisper memories of war stories as if there are still enemies hiding under the ratty common room couch waiting to fire.
She's always liked the sounds of places like this, as if someone's started up an old-time radio and caught the frequency of some period radio station down through the years.
But the old man in the corner doesn't speak to anyone. His hands grip the arms of the wheelchair tight and strong, and she keeps waiting for him to get up, keeps expecting to have to stop looking over the photos of Mrs. Morrison's grandsons and race over to pick him up off the floor.
It never happens.
She crosses the floor before she can stop herself, white shoes squeaking on the cheap blue linoleum in that irritating way that makes the patients wince. He doesn't, though, not even a flinch, and if she thinks that's strange, she keeps herself from saying it.
"Mr. Tyler?"
It's like he catches her small voice like a moth landing on his nose or something, the way he tilts his head just so after a long moment to fix his gaze on her. As soon as she can see into his eyes, icy shivers dance across her skin, even when he flashes her a charming smile a moment later that must have made any woman in her right mind go right out of it when he was young.
"Still keeping an eye on me, Molly?"
She shrugs at that, returning his smile. He's like that, she's learned, his moods infectious whether he's happy or depressed. They may have to move him out of the nursing home entirely on his worst days, if he keeps this up. "I always watch over the new patients," she says, slipping her hands into the pocket of her uniform as she rocks on her heels. "Meadowlark isn't exactly the most heartwarming place in the world at first, I'll admit, but it grows on you."
His gaze darts away from her face for the briefest of instances, almost too fast to catch. Behind her, to her hands in her pockets ... she can't be sure where he's looking just then. "Tell me, Molly," he says, and leans forward in his chair as if he's about to question a great secret. "Are the stories true, the ones about the murders here?"
"Oh, surely you don't believe those ridiculous rumors," she says, drawing out a sigh of disappointment. She would have thought better of the old man, would have thought that the tall man with the sharp glint in his eyes that she'd met only a few short days ago knew better than that. "Meadowlark is a nursing home, Mr. Tyler. People pass on here all the time."
"Not from being so dehydrated their bodies are practically ash," he says, and even the hint of that charming grin again isn't enough to make her unease fade.
Behind them, Mrs. Morrison gives them a strange look and leans over to Miss Berry to speak in hushed tones, and Molly can just see it coming, the moment the patients start asking too any questions. "We should probably get you back to your room now," she says, trying not to let her voice tremble as she takes a hold of the wheelchair and switches off the brake.
She only manages to roll the chair a few meager feet before Mr. Tyler says, "I'd rather stay here, thanks."
The brake slips back into position, stopping the chair in its tracks.
She freezes then because something's not right, not the sudden silence in the room, not the strange steady way that Mr. Tyler's looking at her. That's when she sees the dark expectant looks on the faces of the others as well, how every other patient in the room watches the scene like they know something's about to happen.
Her hand's in her pocket again quick as anything, and Mr. Tyler doesn't seem like such a scary man anymore, not with his old body folded into that chair like he is. Maybe he isn't quite as helpless as she thought before, because his shoulders are far too broad and there's strength coiled there like a waiting rattlesnake behind his gaze.
But she can taste ashes in the air, and that strength will end soon enough.
The gunshot rings out like the death knell it is, sharp and loud and painful. No one in the room screams like they're supposed to, she notices, like they've all been waiting for this with bated breath. She hears someone sigh almost happily, and thinks it's Mrs. Morrison.
There's a draft in the room ghosting through the hole in her chest and there's something just not right about that.
She turns toward the door to the common room, the one that leads out into the hallway where she left the bodies of the orderlies, and the old man standing there stares down the barrel of a gun with a crooked, cocky grin. "Hey, princess," he says, "You ever consider picking on someone your own age?"
Molly bares her fangs then, clutching the charm in her pocket so tight it dampens with her blood.
The old man takes her open mouth as an invitation to put another silver bullet in it.
The patients in the room watch her body sag to the floor with something that wants to be relief but can't, because sometimes seeing something still isn't believing in it. Even when it grows more monstrous as it decays, even when it crumbles into the same dusty ash it turned its victims into.
The first one to move is Mr. Tyler, rising from the wheelchair in one graceful easy move that betrays any reason he might ever have needed to be in it in the first place. The heavy stench of toxic smoke permeates the room, and after a cautionary sniff of the air on Mr. Tyler's part, the windows slide open on their own. You'd think the world outside knows exactly what went on just now, the way a well-timed breeze dances through the room and catches the remnants of what had once been a nurse named Molly or something else entirely and sends them on their merry way into the night.
Mr. Tyler may be the first to move, but it's Mrs. Morrison who's the first to speak. "Is that it?" she asks, sounding almost disappointed.
"Is that it?" the man in the doorway says, and when he walks into the room it's with a confident swagger that makes more than one of the female patients wish they'd met him when they were younger. "You know, Becky, I'm sure Sam would pull a rabbit out of his hat if you asked him nice."
Mrs. Morrison shakes her head, the same old antics still a little amusing, and the old man adds, "If he had a hat."
Mr. Tyler chuckles at that, old habits dying hard just like things with fangs and claws, and gives the other man a skeptical look as the last of the ashes of the thing that had terrorized Meadowlark Nursing Home for months drifted through the windows on the wind. "'Princess'?"
The other man frowns. "What?"
But Mr. Tyler can't stop laughing then, something about this whole thing more ridiculous than their usual hunts, and he mutters, "You're such an ass."
A pause, then ... "Geek."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Yeah, Dean, because that hasn't gotten old."
"Shut it, Sammy."
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,400 words
Pairing: None (Gen)
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just like playing with them.
Summary: Hey, somebody's got to fight the darkness.
Author's note: I wanted happy futurefic with no children in it, so ... well, this would make me happy in its own little way, which is the point, really. ;)
A Little Fear Upon My Back
*****
She wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't taken up so much of so little space, sitting in a wheelchair in an awkward slump as if someone had folded him into it against his will. One of the orderlies must have positioned him in the corner of the room facing the large bay windows of the nursing home and left him there, and in his condition, the old man didn't have much choice about arguing to be taken elsewhere. Places like this, you went where they rolled you and you liked it.
The others in the room speak in muted conversations as if their voices have been dampened and shrunk. Little old ladies murmur to one another about their boisterous grandchildren. Old men whisper memories of war stories as if there are still enemies hiding under the ratty common room couch waiting to fire.
She's always liked the sounds of places like this, as if someone's started up an old-time radio and caught the frequency of some period radio station down through the years.
But the old man in the corner doesn't speak to anyone. His hands grip the arms of the wheelchair tight and strong, and she keeps waiting for him to get up, keeps expecting to have to stop looking over the photos of Mrs. Morrison's grandsons and race over to pick him up off the floor.
It never happens.
She crosses the floor before she can stop herself, white shoes squeaking on the cheap blue linoleum in that irritating way that makes the patients wince. He doesn't, though, not even a flinch, and if she thinks that's strange, she keeps herself from saying it.
"Mr. Tyler?"
It's like he catches her small voice like a moth landing on his nose or something, the way he tilts his head just so after a long moment to fix his gaze on her. As soon as she can see into his eyes, icy shivers dance across her skin, even when he flashes her a charming smile a moment later that must have made any woman in her right mind go right out of it when he was young.
"Still keeping an eye on me, Molly?"
She shrugs at that, returning his smile. He's like that, she's learned, his moods infectious whether he's happy or depressed. They may have to move him out of the nursing home entirely on his worst days, if he keeps this up. "I always watch over the new patients," she says, slipping her hands into the pocket of her uniform as she rocks on her heels. "Meadowlark isn't exactly the most heartwarming place in the world at first, I'll admit, but it grows on you."
His gaze darts away from her face for the briefest of instances, almost too fast to catch. Behind her, to her hands in her pockets ... she can't be sure where he's looking just then. "Tell me, Molly," he says, and leans forward in his chair as if he's about to question a great secret. "Are the stories true, the ones about the murders here?"
"Oh, surely you don't believe those ridiculous rumors," she says, drawing out a sigh of disappointment. She would have thought better of the old man, would have thought that the tall man with the sharp glint in his eyes that she'd met only a few short days ago knew better than that. "Meadowlark is a nursing home, Mr. Tyler. People pass on here all the time."
"Not from being so dehydrated their bodies are practically ash," he says, and even the hint of that charming grin again isn't enough to make her unease fade.
Behind them, Mrs. Morrison gives them a strange look and leans over to Miss Berry to speak in hushed tones, and Molly can just see it coming, the moment the patients start asking too any questions. "We should probably get you back to your room now," she says, trying not to let her voice tremble as she takes a hold of the wheelchair and switches off the brake.
She only manages to roll the chair a few meager feet before Mr. Tyler says, "I'd rather stay here, thanks."
The brake slips back into position, stopping the chair in its tracks.
She freezes then because something's not right, not the sudden silence in the room, not the strange steady way that Mr. Tyler's looking at her. That's when she sees the dark expectant looks on the faces of the others as well, how every other patient in the room watches the scene like they know something's about to happen.
Her hand's in her pocket again quick as anything, and Mr. Tyler doesn't seem like such a scary man anymore, not with his old body folded into that chair like he is. Maybe he isn't quite as helpless as she thought before, because his shoulders are far too broad and there's strength coiled there like a waiting rattlesnake behind his gaze.
But she can taste ashes in the air, and that strength will end soon enough.
The gunshot rings out like the death knell it is, sharp and loud and painful. No one in the room screams like they're supposed to, she notices, like they've all been waiting for this with bated breath. She hears someone sigh almost happily, and thinks it's Mrs. Morrison.
There's a draft in the room ghosting through the hole in her chest and there's something just not right about that.
She turns toward the door to the common room, the one that leads out into the hallway where she left the bodies of the orderlies, and the old man standing there stares down the barrel of a gun with a crooked, cocky grin. "Hey, princess," he says, "You ever consider picking on someone your own age?"
Molly bares her fangs then, clutching the charm in her pocket so tight it dampens with her blood.
The old man takes her open mouth as an invitation to put another silver bullet in it.
The patients in the room watch her body sag to the floor with something that wants to be relief but can't, because sometimes seeing something still isn't believing in it. Even when it grows more monstrous as it decays, even when it crumbles into the same dusty ash it turned its victims into.
The first one to move is Mr. Tyler, rising from the wheelchair in one graceful easy move that betrays any reason he might ever have needed to be in it in the first place. The heavy stench of toxic smoke permeates the room, and after a cautionary sniff of the air on Mr. Tyler's part, the windows slide open on their own. You'd think the world outside knows exactly what went on just now, the way a well-timed breeze dances through the room and catches the remnants of what had once been a nurse named Molly or something else entirely and sends them on their merry way into the night.
Mr. Tyler may be the first to move, but it's Mrs. Morrison who's the first to speak. "Is that it?" she asks, sounding almost disappointed.
"Is that it?" the man in the doorway says, and when he walks into the room it's with a confident swagger that makes more than one of the female patients wish they'd met him when they were younger. "You know, Becky, I'm sure Sam would pull a rabbit out of his hat if you asked him nice."
Mrs. Morrison shakes her head, the same old antics still a little amusing, and the old man adds, "If he had a hat."
Mr. Tyler chuckles at that, old habits dying hard just like things with fangs and claws, and gives the other man a skeptical look as the last of the ashes of the thing that had terrorized Meadowlark Nursing Home for months drifted through the windows on the wind. "'Princess'?"
The other man frowns. "What?"
But Mr. Tyler can't stop laughing then, something about this whole thing more ridiculous than their usual hunts, and he mutters, "You're such an ass."
A pause, then ... "Geek."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Yeah, Dean, because that hasn't gotten old."
"Shut it, Sammy."
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Date: 2006-04-22 11:29 pm (UTC)