supernatural – rennegades backup

rennegades:

When it comes to Ben Braeden, Claire is of two minds.

She wishes her relationship with him was as easy to define as her relationship with Jesse Turner. When it comes to the Antichrist, her opinion is simple and straight forwards: she means it when she calls him “Assbutt”. She doesn’t care very much for the magical misfit, and doubts that will ever change. There are just too many years of mutual antagonism between them.

She doesn’t care for his relationship with Ben, either. Although the boys are closer in age to her, it grates on her nerves that Jesse has so much more influence than she does.

But Ben himself… her feelings for him are so difficult to pin down. Jesse is dislike and mistrust but she has no word, no definition for what Ben means to her. It is something… more than anything she’s ever felt. She cares so very deeply for him, enough so that she would and has dropped everything to come when he calls for her. She has gone to him when he needed a shoulder to lean on, and when all he wanted to do was share a beer in celebration of his mother’s birthday.

The part that frustrates her is that Ben doesn’t quite feel the same pull.

(She would be absolutely devastated to learn just how similar her relationship with Ben is to the one that Castiel once had with Dean Winchester. She would be horrified to think that of all the things that Castiel had to leave her with it was that.)

She hates the unknowing hold that he has over her, but she can’t find it in herself to hate Ben. She has kissed him and lain with him. She has hit him and run from him. She has caught him in bed with others, and he has cheered her on as she flirted and teased her way across the country, scoring them cheap eats and cheaper beds.

She loves him, but she hates his effect on her.

Last one for today, I think. Another unfinished Supernatural fic. I do miss playing around in Claire’s head…

It is strange coincidence that leads to Krissy Chambers and Claire Novak meeting. Not that Claire puts much stock into “coincidence”. She’s experienced too much, learned of the real world in too hard a way to not realize that someone out there (up there) is keeping an eye on her. She can hope that it is Castiel, keeping his promise, but this… this doesn’t feel like Castiel’s work.

She’s gone back to school. Despite running for her life, running from everything she’d ever known; despite angels and demons and possessions, Claire is still just a normal human girl. Normal human girls, Amelia reminds quietly, go to school. They learn how to function in the world and they don’t go chasing after angels. They don’t hunt demons and they don’t get involved.

Normal girls settle into a little town in the middle of nowhere and don’t react when their daddies appear on television after proclaiming themselves God and murdering everyone involved with a political campaign. That’s not Daddy anyways. Just whatever is wearing his body today (it’s not Castiel, it can’t be Castiel), and normal girls don’t know that creatures and beings can wear humans like suits so you really should just forget about all of that, Claire. Just be a normal girl.

So Claire goes back to school. She’s rough around the edges, a couple years on the road running will do that; her education is shot through, but she’s not even using her real name (they are missing people, with a body found in their home, and now the police have reopened the case believing Jimmy may have killed them, too) so what does it matter? Amelia managed to put together enough money to have fake identities cobbled together, and if it says that Claire’s poor grades are because of disinterest and not being on the run? Well, that’s just good cover.

She’s not the only one in the school that has to deal with after school “lessons” to catch up. There’s a smattering of kids deemed too rowdy or rough or disinterested that wind up sitting in the counselor’s office every afternoon. Supposedly they’re there to get caught up, or learn new study habits or something like that, but all Claire ever hears from the teacher is that they’re too stupid to learn anything, so why don’t you just do your homework for once you little brats?

Claire doesn’t bother to complain. The teacher doesn’t even bother to check what they’re working on, so she normally brings her bible and one of the old books they’d come across on the run. She’s trying to correlate biblical evidence with hunter resources, trying to find something (anything) that will help her find Castiel and Jimmy and get her Daddy back. It’s easier to do it here than try to work it around Amelia.

And if that reinforces her bad grades and the image of poor work ethic? Well… Claire doesn’t care. She has more important things to worry about.

There is so much more to worry about and consider and fit together that she doesn’t even notice the new girl for a few weeks. Logically, she knows the dark haired girl is there; they share classes and Claire knows she was introduced, but Claire doesn’t have the time or patience to bother with any of her classmates and so put the girl out of her mind.

It’s a bit of a surprise when she thumps down across from Claire at lunch time one day, looking frustrated and annoyed. The blond stares at her blankly for a long moment, before the brunette huffs a slightly awkward “it’s raining, I’m not eating outside” and waves to the rest of the room. There are a few other open seats, but Claire wouldn’t want to sit in them either.

Another moment of awkward silence passes by before the other girl sticks her hand out. “Krissy Chambers.”

Claire’s gaze flicks down to the offered hand. After a moment, right as Krissy looked about ready to take it back, Claire reaches out and gives it a good shake. “Claire Strider.” The name falls easily off her lips after so long, but every syllable feels like another pound of pressure on her soul. Krissy doesn’t say anything else for the meal, but apparently giving her name was enough for her to decide that they should sit together at their after school lessons.

The blond isn’t too happy with that, leaving the hunting journal she’d been browsing in her bag. She takes notes on stories in the bible that might be relative to her search, while Krissy… Krissy is actually trying to do her homework. She has what looks to be photocopies of a psychology textbook spread out across her half of the table, highlighter in hand and pen between her teeth.

Claire does her best to ignore her.

That goes right out the window when the pen drops from her mouth and she starts swearing. When she doesn’t stop after a few seconds, Claire clamps a hand down over her mouth with a glare. “Do you want us to get detention? Because I sure as shooting don’t.”

Krissy looks pale and bewildered, peeling Claire’s hand away and scrambling to gather up her papers. She’s not fast enough for Claire not to see the mug shot on the page and the name slips out before she can stop herself “Dean?”

Krissy stills. Her hands shake just the slightest bit as she smooths out the paper, but her small laugh is flippant. “Oh, I guess you’ve done this assignment before?”

“No.” the word is sharp and clipped and Krissy stares blankly at the hand held out to her for several long minutes before she understands that what Claire wants is the photocopies. Then she takes a few more minutes to decide if she really wants to hand them over, but really there’s no reason not to.

Claire takes them with all the delicacy of someone who’s been searching for this treasure for a very very long time. The information on the pages is next to useless to her, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless. If she hadn’t had direct experience with angels and demons and Sam and Dean Winchester, she might have bought into the idea presented to her in the case study.

Because that’s what it is; a psychological case study on a pair of brothers that were so lost in their religious delusions that they “hunted” demons and killed no few good people along the way. It’s old enough that it doesn’t mention anything about the serial killing spree of a few months earlier, but it’s certainly an unnerving read.

Krissy has puffed up some while Claire read, trying to make up for her loss of composure with bravado. “Crazy, huh? That there would be people out there who think demons exist and would kill others over it? Kinda makes me glad we’re small town, you know?”

“Is it?” Claire’s fingers curl around her bible as she stands. “I doubt that being in a small town would protect you from any such thing.” she doesn’t clarify whether she’s talking demons or serial killers, but the way that Krissy’s eyes narrow is… telling. Claire doesn’t know what it tells her, exactly, only that Krissy caught her ambiguity.

The dark haired girl crumples her papers and shoves them haphazardly into her bag before bouncing up after the blond. “So how did you know his name was Dean, if you haven’t done this assignment before?”

Claire shoots her an annoyed look, not exactly pleased that she had decided to follow. They’re cutting out early, but at this point Claire doesn’t think it will matter. She never uses the time for what it was meant for, after all, and the teacher knows it. Claire is one of the “stupid” ones. She’s already walking away when she answers: “None of your business, Chambers.”

Krissy pulls a face at that, shoving her hands into her pockets and trotting after the long legged teenager. Really, they’re almost the same height, but there’s a coldness to the air around Claire that makes her seem taller. She’s not going to give up on this, not now that her curiousity has been struck. “Oh c’mon, Strider. I bet it’s not even that interesting!”

Claire doesn’t say or do anything that could be considered a response; no sharp looks, no walking faster, no twitches or tells and Krissy is reluctantly impressed. The girl is good, but Krissy is nothing if not determined. Claire knows that the other girl is doing nothing short of stalking her, trying to find a chink in her armor and wriggle the information out of her.

And Claire is kind of impressed by her tenacity, and decides to take a leap of faith. She has angels at her back, after all. If Krissy is a demon or creature, she has that protection. So she takes the only hunter’s journal she has to their “after school study” session, and starts to compare the notes she’s taken over the last few days of stalking to the notes the hunter took.