strangetrip | [EP] A little fuss

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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Corbie's eyes went wide, momentarily horrified at the idea that anybody could be that cold. "I hope she didn't say that. That's make her an awful bitch."

But she wasn't going to let it distract her from enjoying today. "It's my birthday. I think. I had to do some math to figure it out 'cause the calendar's all different and I didn't mean to tell anybody 'cept Caroline got it out of me, but yeah best I can figure, I'm nineteen today."

Sam didn't bother explaining the rest of the cake versus brioche scholarly debate. It was pointless and it would only be unpleasantness on what should be a happy day.

"Caroline's good at that," Sam agreed and smiled at Corbie. "I'm glad, too. Otherwise I wouldn't know to wish you a happy birthday." Or know that she was nineteen, which made him feel a lot better about New Year's Eve.

"I didn't think she'd remember, though," Corbie laughed. She jerked a thumb back at the table. "Is that a yes or a no to sugar?"

"I'm not big on sweets," Sam admitted, even though that made him even more of a freak than all the other freakish things about him (at least in Dean's opinion). "Maybe a little piece to help you celebrate, though."

It wasn't that he disliked cake, particularly. He'd just rather eat a salad.

Corbie had been about to go hard on that one, her eyes getting very big and her lower lip pouting. It was an exaggeration, yes, but she knew the power of her eyes and she wielded it shamelessly.

At the acceptance, she smiled. "You and your brother ain't very alike are you?" she asked, moving to cut him a (small, fine) slice of cake.

"Not when it comes to food, anyway." Sam did note, and appreciate, that Corbie hadn't decided that because he was a big guy, he didn't mean it when he said small. "Dean and I we're a lot more alike than either of us likes to admit, but that's because the ways we're different are a lot easier to talk about."

It was polite, yes, but there was also the pragmatism of not wanting to waste perfectly good cake on someone who didn't want it. Corbie smiled and passed him the plate and a fork. "Yeah, I'm an only child--least as far as I know--but it seems pretty true of what I've seen between siblings." Felix and Mildmay in particular were superficially very different people, but in order to be as close to them as she was, she'd needed to understand the two of them as individuals and as a unit.

Sam took the plate and fork from Corbie and then raised an eyebrow to see if she was going to pick up some for herself. It wasn't like toasting or anything, but it sort of felt like he should wait, since it was her birthday.

"It's weird, but I don't really know that many people who have siblings." Except Molls and she had so many that probably didn't work the same way. "Or maybe it's just that I'm always running into people when something bad just happened to their only sibling..." Being a hunter was kind of like being a cop that way. You were always meeting people on the worst days of their lives.

Corbie had her own piece that she was working her way through, which she picked back up. She shook her head. "Oh no, that ain't me. I mean, I'd guess my parents had other kids by now, wherever they are, though prolly not with each other." She paused a beat. "I wasn't exactly planned."

Though none of this particularly bothered her. It just was.

Sam had sort of guessed that, just from the way Corbie was sometimes. He couldn't pinpoint anything particular, but he'd met a lot of orphans and street kids, and she just had that feel about her.

"Planned or not, you turned out pretty great," he said instead of any of the other things he might've said. Because she had, and it was a good 'toast'.

Corbie grinned. "Dunno if Gran would agree with you on that, but I do try." Her grandmother would probably be more than a little disappointed with how Corbie's life had gone. Prostitution, magic, and now willingly fucking more than one man and one of them married at that. She didn't worry constantly or anything, but sometimes at night when there was nothing to distract her from it, she did wonder what Gran would make of her.

"I'm bigger than she is," Sam answered with a smirk. It didn't matter he'd never met the woman. He was bigger than very nearly everyone. "Besides, it's your birthday. Today, you're perfect." And with that pronouncement, he pointedly ate a forkful of (really good) cake.

[EP] A little fuss - OTA

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