Like a ship on the ocean

[soaringeverhigher]

[After Game 6]

After the angel incident — after his last message to Palmer — Shawn goes silent for several nights. He'll answer texts, if someone sends them to him... eventually.

One night, Danielle will come across Shawn's '69 Ford Boss, parked in a mostly-empty lot some way off the Strip.

Decades back, Shawn rigged up The Boss' backseat so he could flip it open and spend the day in there. Mobile haven, a place to rest on the road when a motel was even less convenient than usual. More comfortable than conking out on a bathroom floor, in any case.

Shawn isn't anywhere to be seen in or around the car, but that doesn't mean he's not inside.

Comments

[beyondthisillusion]

She'd splurged the night before. A hotel room, since there wasn't time to return to her haven. Anyway, Danielle hadn't been sleeping much, and for all of her Coil mastery, it was beginning to take a tole. A missed button on her shirt was hardly the worst of it. No. This was an emotional tole.

Just after sunset, she was on her way out of the city and away from the Strip, heading toward Henderson. Since she was an early 'riser,' she'd decided to take the trip on foot. Some time and open air to try to clear her head.

Hadn't helped.

When she spotted the car, she broke into a brisk jog, heading over. "Shawn?" she said, leaning over to peer in through the windows. When she didn't see anything, she cupped her hands around her eyes. Still nothing. "Shawn?" She turned around, going in a full circle. And when she still didn't see him, she activated her Auspex.

[soaringeverhigher]

Aaand there he was. Curled up under the backseat, giving a little wave in her general-ish direction. He'd been counting down to her use of Auspex.

One upgrade that hadn't been made to the car was automatic locks. So he still had to pop open his little hidey-hole, snake out an arm, and — chunk — hit the unlock button on the passenger-side door.

[beyondthisillusion]

Her brother knew her. And usually, she felt like she knew him too. But something was off. Which shook her already-frayed nerves even more.

She crawled in, once he unlocked the door, slipping over the middle compartment to slip into the backseat. It was a tight crunch, even for her petite frame. But that was fine. Danielle kind of liked closed spaces. Old habit or something like that.

"The car smells," she said. Which was her way of saying 'are you okay?'

[soaringeverhigher]

Shawn stayed lying down, with the seat flipped up over him.

"Haven't had the maid in." Which was another way of saying 'of course not.' Why was okay anymore?

[beyondthisillusion]

Danielle rolled herself up on to the bench seat. It was like bunk beds. Or what she imagined bunk beds would be like. Now there was a fantasy of normal that she hadn't had in long time.

Things were circling around these days.

It wasn't pleasant.

She stared up at the roof of the car, thinking of a thousand different ways to ask Shawn how he was feeling. Of the two of them, she'd always been the more outwardly introspective. And normally, she respected that. But with hell bubbling up beneath them...neither of them could afford the luxury of denial any more.

"What are we doing?" she finally asked.

[soaringeverhigher]

"Nursing a hangover." Or they would be, if hangovers were a thing that happened to kindred. He almost felt like he was having one. It was probably just sense memory. "Waiting to slip into the fiery pit."

He didn't know what to do anymore. He'd fucked up at his job, let Liv get away with the angel, and all the Bishop had had to say was 'do what you feel is right.' Which was a problem when you didn't know what that was.

Hell would be here any minute now. He was kinda getting impatient.

[beyondthisillusion]

She let her hand fall over the side of the seat, reaching out to find his.

There was nothing she could say in response to that, really. It was all true. All of it. Just a matter of shades of urgency. Anyway, Shawn wasn't one for affirmations. And, as of late, neither was she.

But the silence made her uncomfortable. He just didn't feel like her chatty, devil-may-care brother. Her one constant.

Likely her only constant, considering what was going on with Palmer and Buckley.

"Yeah..."

[soaringeverhigher]

There wasn't much of a pause before his fingers tangled up with hers. And there was something nostalgic about their hands dangling together: there'd never been bunk beds, but there had been playgrounds, occasionally, and trees. Rarely. Dad hadn't been so big on them going out in the woods alone.

The nostalgia came with a chaser of guilt, like he'd been neglecting something in the last few months. Failing as a brother. Not as spectacularly as he'd failed everything else, but...

"Fuckin' angel," he muttered, for a start. "Y'know, the Lance are supposed to be the ones puttin' the fear of God in people. Son of a bitch is stealing our thunder."

[beyondthisillusion]

Danielle laughed a little. As if it were all just a matter of credit. Who got to be the king of the hill.

That was always what she'd hated about vampires. That unrelenting need to be on top, no matter who or what got hurt along the way.

She applied a little pressure to his fingertips, remembering all the nights that he'd tucked her into bed and assured her that, yes, the monsters under her bed were real, but that he wouldn't let them get to her. "I guess that just means we have to gank him," she said. As if that were an easy thing.

[soaringeverhigher]

"Oh yeah," he quipped, "lemme just get out my angel-killing knife."

Maybe it was the isolation. Maybe it was because he couldn't see her face. Either way, he was in a truth-telling mood.

"Honestly, I dunno if we can." Or should. "I mean, if the big man upstair's actually given the word, not much we can do about it."

[beyondthisillusion]

"I refuse to believe that." She said it with a certainty that surprised even herself. After all, she wanted to be realistic. And there was definitely nothing in the lore to back up her confidence.

Still.

"If God made us, then he, she, or it created angels too. And everything he, she, or it made can die. Somehow."

Somehow.

She lost steam with that one word. It was the tantalizing promise she'd been chasing after her whole life. Unlife. Both. The idea that somehow there was a perfect possible future open to her. If only she could make the right deals, find the right friends, stick close to her family and behave like a good, little Palmer.

[soaringeverhigher]

"God made angels to do His job for 'im, same as anyone." And therein lay the source of all his stress and angst over the past week. This was the Word of God. Clearest order any of them had ever been given. And Shawn knew more specific orders would be coming for him, soon enough.

He went on, responding more to his own thoughts than anything she'd said: "I mean, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Literally. Kill the angel or don't kill the angel. This whole thing's still a shitshow, supposedly brought to you by the Almighty."

[beyondthisillusion]

"Well," she mused. "I think the keyword there is supposedly." Her memory of scripture wasn't exactly as up to snuff as Shawn's, but still... "Isn't there something about how the devil can speak just as sweetly or...something like that?"

Dad would know.

The thought sort of struck her out of nowhere. And it was strange and unexpected and bizarre. It left Danielle unsure how to feel for a second.

It was hard to reconcile the fact that he was gone. Despite all of her anger and determination to...

"Or what if Father Christopher's right? What if this is all some kind of test? God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son..."