strangetrip | [EP] A little fuss

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[EP] A little fuss - OTA

Some time ago, Corbie had found a calendar and counted back from the spring equinox. And then ahead from the winter solstice. And settled on a date. And then she’d done it again the next day. And again the next, until she was finally satisfied that she’d correctly translated between calendar systems and definitely had the correct date. Caroline had caught her at it and pried it out of her that Corbie had been trying to figure out when her birthday was and, wheels turning behind her eyes, Caroline had left it there. And Corbie had forgotten all about it.

Which was how she could be surprised now as she was shunted into the cafe that Caroline had bullied cake out of Pike and had possibly bullied other people around the inn to come eat it.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. It was a kind gesture, since Corbie hadn’t told anybody. Hadn’t intended on telling anybody. Growing up, her birthday was only so big a deal. She and Gran hadn’t had very much money for presents or treats, though Gran had tried when Corbie was small; they were both always more concerned with having enough to get by. Birthdays were for rich kids. Or at least bourgeois kids. And then there was just the part where… well, what was the point? They were here. It made doing anything special for anybody kind of hard. If anybody cared enough.

… Okay, she was being entirely unfair, because here were two people who had cared enough and had tried for her and it was incredibly sweet.

Unexpected tears in her eyes, Corbie laughed and flitted to the café door, calling out to anybody in earshot. “Come help me eat cake!”

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"Of course. I'd never pass up the chance to help a pretty girl out." Dean smiled. A pretty girl with food was an added bonus. "What's the occasion? Not that there has to be one to eat cake." For Dean it was any day that ended in Y.

"Turned nineteen today," she said, standing up a little straighter. Corbie was starting to get used to the idea that maybe she didn't have to fold herself up and keep out of the way. At least for this one day. "I'm Corbie, by the way. Dean, right?"

Edited 2018-02-24 04:48 (UTC)

That took him aback for a minute that she knew his name, but then realized there was another version of him here before. That still was hard to wrap his head around.

"That's me and happy birthday." It had been a little over a decade since he'd celebrated his nineteenth. "Did you know the other version of me when he was here?"

"Not really. He left not long after I got here. I know Sam," Corbie said simply, shrugging one shoulder. "I dunno if we're friends exactly, but he's been kind to me." And he'd very nearly nailed her to a wall that one time.

And so far, you're the only person to come back.

"Trust me, if you know Sam, he thinks of you as a friend." There were very few people that Sam didn't think of that way when they were in his orbit.

That made Corbie grin like a kid.

"I know your momma, too," she said as she slipped back into the cafe to get Dean a slice of cake. "Or maybe I shouldn't call her that? That's gotta be weird."

"No, that's fine." Dean assured her as he took the slice of cake. It looked good but he knew from experience that Pike was a good baker. "It is a bit weird but in a good way to have mom here."

Mary must be younger than him, which made Corbie feel a sting all over again for how the woman must miss her babies, even if the men they'd grown into were right here. It was still more family than Corbie had, here or anywhere else.

She passed Dean a fork too. "I dunno what I'd do if I met mine. She was gone before I remember. We probably wouldn't know each other."

"Yeah you would." Dean said around a mouthful of cake. "First time I met my mom I knew it was her even though she didn't look like I remembered. She was a lot younger."

That was a huge lie, Dean had flirted until he realized who she was. "You might not know she's your mom but you'd know there was a connection."

Considering Corbie had wondered a time or two if she'd ever been bedded by a relative during her time as a jezebel, she was more than a little skeptical of this idea. But she couldn't exactly say that. Eventually she shrugged. "Wasn't really a connection, so I dunno about that. My gran was my real mother."

Dean got that, too. "Sam ever tell you about Bobby?" It might have sounded like out of left field but it was actually connected to someone that was a real father to him and Sam.

Corbie shook her head, but her eyes lit up with curiosity. "He don't talk about himself much. At least, not to me."

Dean was surprised that he hadn't at least mentioned Bobby. Sure he was alive in Sam's timeline, but still.

"Before we hunted full time with dad, he used to drop us off at Bobby's. He became like our second father. He used to say family don't end in blood."

Being raised by a single grandmother, Corbie's childhood too had involved being taken care of by people who were not related by blood. "That's sweet." Then she paused and considered something. "So how old were you when you were old enough to hunt?"

"I was six when I learned to shoot and ten when I made my first sawed off shotgun." Dean said fondly. He had better memories of those days than Sam did. "My first hunting trip with my dad, I was probably fourteen or fifteen."

Which was how old Lord Brightmore had been when he first rode to war and then became margrave. How old she'd been when she'd buried her grandmother.

In other words, probably too young to be an adult, but what were you gonna do.

"... What's a sawed off shotgun?"

Dean took another bite of the delicious cake. "It's a gun that's usually long and if you saw it off, cut it, it gives you a broader pattern." And when you were talking about supernatural big bads, that's what you relied on.

Corbie's knowledge of guns was limited, but she'd asked Jackson questions about his before. She understood a little that the barrel length had to do with how far you could shoot accurately, so why would you take a gun and make it less accurate?

"... And that makes killing monsters easier?"

"It makes killing a lot of monsters at once easier." Dean nodded. "It depended on the monster, but usually it's better to cover a lot of ground when they're attacking." Not that Dean ever missed, but he was less accurate when he was younger.

Corbie in general wasn't good at the idea of herself doing a lot of damage to anything. Something Illyana had noticed, so offensive magic wasn't a big part of her education. But the basic idea made sense. Do as much with as little as possible.

Almost reflexively she summoned a little flame to her fingertip and considered it. Fire was the most destructive thing she knew how to do--Regina's doing--but the problem was that there was no way to contain it. Once you unleashed it, it spread on its own.

She put the flame back out. "Usually? When would that not be?"

Son of a bitch. Just his luck. Dean should have known that where Sam was in his life, he'd befriend a witch. Long before they'd both been screwed over and almost killed by witches.

"You're a witch?" It was said in an almost defeatist of course you are tone, rather than accusatory.

He wasn't above using magic. He had many times, but witches were different. Except for Pike. She was a warrior, hunter first. At least that was how Dean viewed her.

The tone wasn't accusatory, but it was an accusation all the same. Corbie shrank from it. She should perhaps have known better; Mary had clearly considered attacking her. But Sam had never had a problem with her and what she was.

That was what got her to straighten her back and hold her head up. She wasn't ashamed of her magic. "Wizard. I'm a wizard."

"I thought wizards were old guys with pointy hats." Dean said before he could stop himself then added because he wondered about the difference since it might save his life one day. "What's the difference between a witch and a wizard?"

"Far as you're concerned, prolly nothing," Corbie admitted with a shrug. "I've got magic. Came in when I was thirteen, along with other more normal shit. I can't get rid of it, and I wouldn't want to even if I could." It was perhaps an interesting comparison to people in her own world to put magic alongside other parts of puberty like breasts or menstruation, but the fact of the matter to Corbie was that magic was just as much a part of her as any part of her body. It just was.

But the word 'witch' carried certain stigma with it that she didn't think she could explain properly.

"Wait, it just appeared? Genetic? You didn't get a spell in a book and try it? Huh."

Dean was having a hard time wrapping his head around that. He just figured it was learned. Hell even Pike got it through a goddess or whatever.

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