Holding a Grudge
Who: Dean and Oz
Where: Their House
When: Sunrise
When dawn came, Oz had still been outside gathering up bits of Lullaby. The vamps had retreated a while ago, after he and Billy had gone out to pick as many off as they could. Which was probably one of the most awful things he'd had to do in a good long while. Or...possibly around ever. He'd fought things, he'd seen awful shit, but gathering pieces of a teenage girl that was killed on your lawn...that wasn't pleasant. Especially when he'd kind of liked her in the first place. Either way, he was doing it, because it didn't seem right not to. He was still tracking some pieces down when he noticed something weird going on.
He'd laid her body over by the porch, not sure where else to put it quite yet, but as he watched, dawn starting to shine a little brighter now, he could see her...fading out. Almost like the breeze that was blowing across her corpse was blowing away ashes. He padded over, but it happened pretty fast. One minute she was there, then next...poof. Blinking a few times, he stared then slowly started to squint his bad eye shut more, with the morning light getting brighter. Unable to do anything else but stand there staring, he turned, and headed back inside. Once in there, he ducked into the bathroom and shifted back to his human form, throwing clothes on and ignoring all the aches and pains screaming at him.
"Sunshine, I'm going to go let the boys out..." he started, sounding distracted. He'd tell her in a second about the magic disappeary body. Then he padded barefoot down the steps, keys still in his pocket since he hadn't left them down there. He walked over to the cage, and unlocked it, more or less standing back just in case there was something inordinately violent going to happen...though he kind of doubted it. Best safe, though.
Dean had been waiting, trying to work out how long it would be before sun was up, figuring that's when they'd be let out. He'd been quiet for the last hour, thinking, planning, going over things. He heard the creak of the top step and looked up as Oz started down - and the minute the cage door was open, he was gone, taking the stairs up two at a time, not even pausing for anyone as he sprinted through the kitchen and outside. For all he knew, Joshua could have been hot on his heels and he wouldn't have noticed.
But there was nothing - no sign of her body, not even any blood. Dean did a circuit of the house, even headed out into the woods. He was gone a long time before he headed back to the house.
Oz was sitting on the porch, waiting for him. He had a mug of tea, and there was one waiting for Dean too, though he didn't know if the kid would want any. He had his shades on too, and had taken some nice, heavy dosage painkillers. He'd properly crash out in a bit, but he kind of wanted to make sure Dean was alright first. He'd told Sophie and people about what had happened with the girl's body, now he just had to tell Dean. He half wondered when it had become his sworn duty to deal with Dean, but somewhere along the line it had. It was weird how little things like that happened and you didn't even realize they had become automatic until you were in the middle of it.
"They took her, didn't they," Dean stated as he sat down and eyed the mug of tea. He paused a moment and then picked it up, cradling his hands around it, but not drinking. There was something about a mug of tea that needed to be held, no matter what the situation. And it gave him something to do.
"No." Oz answered. He was kind of glad Dean hadn't gone in again, that he'd get to talk to him for a minute. He wanted a better idea of how he was dealing. And to sort of let him know that he wasn't pissed about the whole having been punched, kicked and fought. "She..." he paused, and looked down into his own tea for a second. "She disappeared. And I'm really not sure if that's normal for...what she is. But I brought her over towards the house, and...yeah. Just before I came to let you out. It was kind of like ashes."
Dean looked down into the brown liquid of the mug. "Oh." Just that, nothing more - he didn't even look at Oz to say it, possibly something to do with an appreciation of how good Oz' hearing was and that the rules were different for him. But his mind wasn't on that - it was on what Oz had told him. That she'd just... gone. Was that good? Bad? Did it mean that she was definitely coming back? Or that something about the spell had gone wrong and she definitely wasn't going to. Was this normal? He'd have to look it up - have a look at that book. It wouldn't make any difference - he was still planning for her return tonight.
Oz watched Dean out of the corner of his eye for a few long moments, absently rubbing at a gash on the side of his wrist. "Are you okay?" he asked. He knew it was kind of a stupid question, but he didn't mean the basic sort of answer anyhow. He meant with everything. Would he be alright. Oz was definitely thinking if that girl wasn't back at some point, however, he was going to decidedly Not be. He'd been careful when he'd said 'what she is' instead of 'what she was', hoping that little present tense thing helped, even if it was on an unconscious level.
He looked over then, his face blank and unreadable. "I spent the night in a cage in the basement," he stated, not going into the rest, still pissy about that. Still pissy that they wouldn't let them out when they could have done something.
"And if you hadn't spent the night there, you wouldn't be sitting where you are right now." Oz said. He sighed, reaching up to drag his fingers through his hair. "Dean...you would have gotten yourself killed. You would have gone out there, she still would have died, and you would have gone with her."
"You don't know that," Dean told him, stubbornly. "I could have done something - I could hear them, you know, downstairs? I could hear them taunting and..." And playing, they had her, didn't they? They were dancing her body all round the garden, weren't they? "It's not right - I could have done something."
"Okay fine. What exactly would you have done?" Oz asked. His voice was calm, and he set his tea down, to turn his full attention on Dean. "Exactly. What would your course of action have been, right there in the moment? Because let me tell you...there were a lot of them out here. What would you have done up against...what...seven vampires or so by then?"
Dean looked away, out over the garden, turning his head totally away from Oz. "Dunno - would have thought of something," he mumbled, hunching his shoulders slightly, too wrapped up in the fact that he'd been locked in a cage, denied the chance to even try - and that she'd still been alive when they'd done that. Maybe he could have saved her. And then, afterwards... At least then he could have maybe given her some dignity.
"You would have run out there, and they would have tortured you too. Probably at least for a little while, before they killed you. And I would have gone out after you too, and I? Am not that good. Billy and I went out and took a few out, but that was tactics. That was drawing them in where we wanted them then taking them down. If I would have run out there after you--and trust me on this, I would have--then Billy would be burying you, me, and your cousin this morning, and then, Lullaby would be back and have even less in her life than she did yesterday." Oz said. He didn't put the 'in theory' in there like he had kind of wanted to, not putting anything into play right now that might be taken as doubt that she'd return.
Dean didn't say anything to that, still facing away from Oz, his entire body language closed off and defensive, sullen. "I can do tactics," he said, eventually. So, he'd been angry - but they'd been left in that cage all damn night. He'd calmed down, he could have been let out soon enough to do some damage, help out somehow. Oz could have trusted him.
"You sure as hell weren't thinking about it right then." Oz said. "Trust me, I know." He had a nice shiner to prove it. "You can be pissed at me all you want for saving your life, but...I'd do it again. I'm not letting you suicide on us."
Dean stood then, taking a couple of paces away, the tea in his hand sloshing slightly as he turned. "I wasn't out to get myself killed - she was still alive out there, maybe I could have done something! Hell - you just said that if it had been me, you would have come after me! What's the difference with me wanting to do the same?" he exclaimed, hotly, his eyes flashing as he finally looked at Oz.
Oz's gaze followed Dean, though he didn't stand up, he merely shifted, resting his back against the rail, and feeling some nice sore bruises yell at him for the trouble. "Right then, you would have just rushed out there. I know she was still alive." And he'd probably be having bad dreams about it for the next few months unless Billy took care of that. "But they'd dragged her off into the yard. There were far more of them than all of us put together. There's a pretty small selection of us that can even fight effectively against an enemy like that, and even then--outnumbered, and you would have been going directly in where they wanted you. I've seen these fuckers before, remember. This is what they do." He paused, then actually answered Dean's question. "The difference is I'm just as much your guardian as Sophie is, you're family, you're pack, and you're not allowed to go diving headlong into something that'll get you killed. If you've noticed, I haven't actually said shit to you about you wanting to do it. I get that. You know I get that. Doesn't mean you get to go through with it. Not on my watch. Not until I know you'd take more time to think it all through. And the awful fact of the matter is...last night, there wasn't time."
Dean looked at him for a moment, then started to move, walking past him into the house. "I have things to do," he said, bluntly, not giving any indication about whether he'd taken any of that on board at all. Maybe he would, eventually, but right now, very little was getting through. Right now, Dean didn't want things to get through, far too wrapped up in what had happened last night.
Oz sighed and got up to follow him into the house. He'd only been outside in the first place to wait for Dean, he and sunlight weren't the best of friends. He didn't say the other things on his mind, letting Dean go do...whatever it was he felt the need to do. Which was he hadn't really thought even after Dean had calmed down some that letting him out was a good idea. That he didn't particularly think letting Dean see her body strung across the lawn would have been especially healthy. That when people wanted vengeance, especially as fresh as that was, they didn't think terribly clearly. He was pretty sure Dean would resent him for at least half of it. Shutting the door behind him, he sighed, then started into the house proper, to figure out what the fuck else to do before he tried to sleep. Though he was wondering when people should think about tranqing Dean, since he'd need sleep too. And from the look of things? He wasn't going to be getting any now.
