strangetrip | Swayze Always Gets A Pass

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Swayze Always Gets A Pass - OTA

Dean had entered the library - yes he knew there was one, but he wasn't a fan of the one at the Inn because of all the 'Black Magic Women' that were in charge of it. He didn't trust it - or rather them and by extension, it. But he'd heard there were VCR machines to be rented and he'd gone in, got what he needed and got out - sort of like how he did clothes shopping.

Videos were another matter entirely. That was like going into an old school Blockbuster and not around the magic types. Win/win. He was looking at the selection in the VHS 'lending library' area. "Man this is awesome!" He grabbed, 'The Outsiders, Roadhouse and Rudy' then went down the next aisle and made a face when the first movie he saw was 'Dirty Dancing'. "Swazye always gets a pass."

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"My grandmother. But she died before I was born, so..." Sunny shrugged. "I didn't actually learn anything, or even know, until I was older and a friend of mine finally noticed."

It was weird to think of witches as someone not trying to kill him and Sam. But Dean was trying. Sort of.

"That must have sucked trying to figure out what was going on before your friend noticed." At least his dad had prepared him and Sam for what the hell was out there.

Sunny shook her head at that. "No, you don't understand. I didn't know anything. I didn't even know magic was real. When Chichi started talking about spells, I thought she was clean out of her mind." There had been strange things about her even then, in retrospect. That spell with malaria when she was two was something she shouldn't have survived. She should not have been able to creep up so silently on her father when she was small. "My mother didn't have magic, so my grandmother didn't, couldn't, tell her anything. There was nothing for me."

It was like his father. He'd had no idea what the hell was out there until he saw his wife pinned to the ceiling in fire.

"Damn, that must have been rough."

Shit, now he was feeling empathy. What the hell?

"How did your friend convince you it was real and not just crazy shit?"

"She... woke me up, I guess you could say," Sunny mused, thinking back to the touch of the juju knife on her tongue. All of a sudden everything was just more. In those first few minutes there had been too many colors, too many sounds and smells.

"I still thought it was kind of nuts until I got properly initiated, though. That was way too weird to deny anything anymore."

Dean debated about telling his father's story but it wasn't like strangers didn't know, thanks to Chuck's books. They were just safely hidden in this world.

"My dad learned about the supernatural like that. Had no idea it was out there and thought he was seeing things. Went to a woman named Missouri that opened his eyes." Sometimes he missed Missouri. He didn't miss her screwing around in his head though.

"Sam and I were lucky that we learned about it since we were kids." Dean earlier than Sam.

Sunny pressed her lips together in thought. "I don't exactly regret being innocent of it in my childhood. Only when I got older, I was behind all my friends who were raised with it. I'm still playing catch up in a bunch of little ways."

"I get that." Dean remembered what it was like trying to learn everything to both impress his father and keep Sam safe. So much he put on his own shoulders.

"But I'm going to guess that you push yourself harder than your friends do because you're still playing catch up." Or Dean was projecting what he did.

Sunny shrugged. "It's either that or get myself killed more often than I'd like, so. Yes."

"Trust me, coming back from death is never easy." Dean said it jokingly but there was an undercurrent of truth in his voice. "And there's nothing wrong with being an overachiever with the added bonus of survival."

"I know," Sunny said. Technically whenever she went invisible, she was dying just a sliver and coming back. Someday she would have to go all the way into death in order to pass on to the next level in her studies, and she would of course have to come back in order for it to mean anything. But that was a ways away yet.

"But that also comes from being a free agent. I'm not allowed to mess up. Too many stereotypes to confirm lying that way."

The comment got the better of Dean and he was actually curious, so he asked. He must be getting soft. Dean blamed Charlie, Benny and Sam.

"Free agent? What do you mean?" He knew what it meant connected to sports, he just wasn't sure what it meant with witchcraft.

Sunny's mouth twisted. "That's what people call children of non-magical parents in my part of the world. It's not a flattering term."

"Huh." Was all Dean said for a minute, before he added sarcastically. "So they're proud of their inbreeding. Nice."

Okay, he might have bragged about being a Men of Letters legacy but that was through his grandfather not his father. Same as Sunny.

And sure he bragged about his mother's family as Hunters, but turned out they were dicks and not something to be proud of. His grandmother didn't count, just his cousins and grandfather.

Sunny shrugged. "Matter of survival. We're not allowed to tell non-magical people. My grandfather never knew, my mother and her sisters never knew. Ozo was lucky in that her family still trusted her, but she was lonely. How successful is a relationship or marriage going to be if you need to keep a secret like that?

Dean thought of his own with Lisa and Ben. His mother and father. Hell even his father and Adam's mother.

"You can't tell them anything? I get not telling them secret shit but it will probably come bite you on the ass when someone wants you and goes after them for leverage."

Or you know that might just be a Winchester thing.

"I can't tell them anything," Sunny confirmed. "And that rule is very strictly enforced. This place is the first I've been able to be entirely honest, even open. The only reason I haven't been punished since I got here is that we're completely cut off from anybody who could and would."

"What happens if you did tell? Would you get stripped of magic? Killed?" Dean was honestly curious about how strict they were.

He'd never thought about covens or whatever the hell they called themselves, except how to destroy them.

"Depends. The first time I slipped and used my magic against one of my school's bullies, I was told that next time I'd be caned and sent into the Library's demon-infested basement." Sunny said this as if it were simply a fact of life. And it was. The indignation and fear were years ago. "Sugar Cream was true to her word. Three days."

"Damn." Dean literally understood that type of punishment but his tie with a demon infested place - not counting his time in hell - was months in Purgatory.

"That is harsh, but it strengthens the shit out of you when you come out the other side." There was an underlying of truth to his tone. He was definitely a different person, not the least of which calling a vampire "brother".

That was interesting. Usually when Sunny shared things like that with white people they started talking about child abuse. Which, she couldn't say that was wrong, but it served a purpose in the Leopard world. A caning was nothing compared to what the eldritch beings they dealt with could do. If it made a kid smarter, sharper, and willing to think things through, it was a service.

She had a complicated relationship with the whole thing, to say the least.

"It does. And it teaches you a lot about priorities and when taking consequences is worth it. The time I did get punished, it was to save my brother's life. I'd do it again."

"Damn straight. Anything is worth saving a brother's life." That was said with conviction. "I'd go to hell and back for Sam." And he had.

Sunny's half-smile was small and worn. "You're older, aren't you? I don't mean right here and now exactly, I mean even without the time warp whatever we're living in, you're supposed to be the older brother."

"Yeah, I'm four years older than Sam. It was just him and me for a really long time." Even when it wasn't just Dean and Sam, their father was so obsessed with the Yellow Eyed Demon, that it was just Dean and Sam.

Sunny nodded. "I had a feeling." Much as she gave Chukwu a rough time for being an egotistical jackass, she didn't know what she would do really without him. And oldest children tended to have a similar feeling to them. Probably because parents kept telling them that they had to take care of any younger siblings.

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