Tweak says, "Do you think I'm a nasty girl?"
Elisabeth Glorianna Braddock // Psylocke ( shadow_lust) wrote in parabolical,
Entry tags: elisabeth braddock, sam winchester
A different kind of killer with a brand new initiative
WHO: Sam Winchester and Elisabeth Braddock.
WHAT: Elisabeth has no one to turn to and so she runs to Sam.
WHEN: Directly after her confrontation with Ryan (which is almost wrapped up).
WHERE: Sam and Dean (and others?) place.
RATING: M (she's hysteric and having a breakdown).
STATUS: COMPLETE - Half log, half thread.
Elisabeth was…she was…at a complete loss as to how she could even describe herself; broken, disgusted, tainted, justified, ill. She'd left the monster behind on the hotel, shadow-porting randomly and running the moment her feet touched the ground. She could narrow her location vaguely down to a wooded area, as shades of green flashed by in her peripheral. She had no idea how long she'd been running, or even when the sobbing began, but it all ceased as her body heaved the contents of her stomach out, forcing her to keel over a bush, supporting her weight on the nearest tree. She wasn't sure if the animosity she felt was lingering from seeing Ryan or if it was now directed towards her. She held no regrets over punishing the kid, but she wasn't exactly comfortable with the means she'd gone to achieve it.
Panting, she slowly slid her back down the tree, faintly aware of the scraping pain through her semi-numb state. Elisabeth didn't know who to turn to in this moment of desperation. She certainly couldn't go home yet, assured that they would someone know what she had done, as if they would smell the sin on her skin. She feared their judgment; afraid they wouldn't hear her reasoning out and shun her. She couldn't go to Gabriel, for the very same reason and more. If he saw her in the wrong, surely he'd never touch her again for what she'd almost done. And Remy was out of the question. Not only were they on terse terms, she didn't have it in her to face him with any more issues than they currently had.
Weakly, she extracted her cell phone and dialed Sam's number. The hunter and not the Cylon, because even he, she felt, would not understand. Hell, Elisabeth had no guarantee that this Sam would, but he was the only person she could risk sharing this with. For now. And if it meant losing him as a friend in the end...that was a bridge she would cross when it built itself. She slumped over in the grass, resting the phone to her ear and waiting, praying, for him to answer.
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shadow_lust
Lifting his gaze from the screen of his laptop, Sam slid over the stack of paperwork piled onto his desk and searched for his cellular phone, which had suddenly given off a muffled version of his Def Leppard ringtone (courtesy of Dean, tampering with his phone). Elisabeth's name glowed on the screen and Sam instantly flipped the phone open and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?" His voice echoed loudly in the quiet hotel room. He leaned back in his chair and settled back into a more comfortable position, one hand resting on his shoulder, which had been stabbed and bruised up from the hunt that he and Heather had gotten themselves tangled into.
She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled noise, whimper and disgust mingled, managed to escape her lips. She took a deep breath and mentally screamed at herself to focus, goddamnit!!, trying to pull herself together long enough to get coherent words out. "Sam? Where...can I come by?"
Elisabeth moved the phone away from her face to bury her mouth into the crook of her arm and scream, muffling as much of the horrific noise as she could before bringing the phone back to her. "Please."
She sounded upset. Something was wrong, Sam picked that up right away. Nodding, even though he knew well enough that she couldn't exactly see him, Sam glanced down at his watch -- it wasn't terribly late. Dean wouldn't be home for a while.. They could get some private time in before his brother stumbled on in and made it hard for them to have some privacy. "Yeah, of course. I'm at 1222 Fuller Street. Sundown Hotel, room 21." He leaned forward a little, brow furrowing. "Is everything okay?"
Elisabeth closed her eyes to focus on the location, already shrouded in enough shadow to teleport easily. She grunted as she heaved herself back against the tree and then into a somewhat standing position. "No. Far from it." And because it was difficult to form what had happened into words just yet as the horror was too fresh, she hung up and teleported into a janitor's closet. Elisabeth wasn't exactly in proper attire to be seen in the lobby. She looked down at the skimpy red dress and wondered how it would look to Sam…but she couldn't think of that now. She'd already made the call and, without another though, was moving down the hall in staggering steps until she reached room 21. Elisabeth pulled her lips into her mouth and hugged herself with one arm, using the other to rap on Sam's door.
Well ---" Someone was already knocking at the door. Sam remembered that Elisabeth could teleport. Flipping the phone shut, he walked over to the door and pulled it open with his good arm -- the other one still had a lot of healing to do -- and stepped back, eyes raking over Elisabeth the second she fell into sight. She didn't look very well. Not at all. Something was very wrong and it was showing. Pulling the door open a little wider, he gestured for her to come inside before pushing it shut behind her and turned around to face her. "Wanna sit down? What happened?"
Oh, fuck, why had to com here? She struggled to withhold the flood of tears that threatened to break free again, fought to keep control over herself long enough to at least explain. She had barely moved past him when she took his offer to sit more literally than was intended and just crumbled to the floor like a broken bird, resting her forehead on her hands. "I had to, I'm so sorry, I had to do it, no one's going to understand and they're all going to hate me, Sam, you're going to hate me and they'll want to leave and everyone just keeps leaving and I only did it to protect them, I only want him to finally feel safe and sleep for once, without nightmares." It all came out in one vile rush, her tone desperate and breaking at times when she felt she might break down again.
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"Whoa, whoa," Sam started, instantly kneeling down beside her. A hand was quick to take it's place on her shoulder and the concerned puppy eyes kicked into action almost at once. "Slow down. Tell me what happened from the beginning, okay? Come on." He didn't know what was going on, but it was obviously disturbing the hell out of Elisabeth and that naturally became something that worried him greatly. What had she done? What was making her feel this way? Sam wanted to know. He really, really did.
Elisabeth flinched under his touch, playing opposites roles as she shied away, shaking her head. "Please don't touch me right now, please, please, please don't touch me." Because she begged how often? for someone like Sam to not touch her? She took in a shaky breath and tucked her hands under herself, focusing her eyes in a glaze at the carpet. "I…there's too much involved. I went after that foul mouthed, horrible excuse for a human being, Ryan, because he…tortured Arthur. He's this wonderful kid, has no family here, so I took him, yeah? Convinced him to leave Lex Luthor and live with me. I couldn't…couldn't just let Ryan go unpunished. And he said awful things to Nicholas, not that that would be enough reason for what I did, but he deserved it for the damage he left on Arthur."
She leaned forward as she moaned, closing her eyes. Elisabeth began to rock back and forth on her hands, eyes reaming shut tight. She wouldn't be able to see Sam's face this way. "I lured him to a hotel. Made him think…" her dress would say enough here and she pressed forward. "He had no idea what was about to happen." Though it meant looking Sam in the face, she snapped her eyes open and stared at him imploringly. "I swear I didn't sleep with him, Sam, I wouldn't do that, I couldn't, but he had to be completely clueless, he had to think I wasn't there to rip him the fuck apart!" She clutched at her head, burying her fingers into her hair and slightly pulling. "I just…made him re-think ever touching my family again." And because it was far easier to show than tell, Elisabeth tentatively reached out for Sam's hand and sent him flashes of what had happened, only allowing so much to show; the bamboo shoots under the nails, the psionic blades into Ryan's shoulders…and all this time, silent tears fell in streams and again, her eyes had dropped away from her friend's face.
The images that flickered through his mind disturbed him. He wasn't going to lie. His eyes screwed shut at the images and, for a moment, he considered just yanking Elisabeth up by the hair and throwing her out of the hotel room himself. But he bit back his distaste, remembering that, despite it all, Elisabeth had always been a pretty good person. This was something else. It had to be. "You need to explain this to me. And fast, before I really freak out."
Elisabeth appeared to choke at first, her body jerking, until a raspy laugh emerged from her throat, her mouth. It wasn't a happy laugh, no, it was just…gone. She licked her lips and brought her face to level with Sam's, her voice dull. "If you think what I just did was bad, then you don't want me to show you what that fuck did to my Arthur."
She blinked slowly, digging her nails into the carpet. "I did what I had to to protect them. If you can't understand that, then there is no way I can ever face them. They have to understand, Sam. He's a monster, he was on the loose, and no one was stepping up to teach him a lesson. You weren't there when I had to rescue Arthur. The kid doesn't cry and he doesn't like to be touched…and he would.not.let me go that night. Ryan tortured him for days, Sam. What I did? What I just showed you? Was heaven compared to what he put Arthur through."
Elisabeth shook her head so fast it made her dizzy, plum lockes flying everywhere. Her emotions were switching like light fixtures bring turned off and on, not that she was able to help herself. "I'm sorry I came here, I'm so sorry, you don't need this shit." She was supposed to stand then, to march toward that door and leave…but she was glued in place, crying again.
God, this was all so fucked up. This Ryan kid screwing with Arthur, Elisabeth going back and doing the same to him. Sam ran his fingers through his hair and drew in a breath. What was he supposed to do? Tell her that it was all okay? It wasn't. Not at all. She had gone out and did something horrible and there was just no way that he thought that she'd ever really be able to come back from that. But, judging from her reaction toward it all, it was obvious that she regretted it and he knew that meant something. It had to, right? "You shouldn't have done that," he said quietly. "You should have found another way." He wanted to hug her, but he wanted her to understand that she had messed up. She needed to understand that before he offered her any comfort
Elisabeth howled something awful, on the brink of a scream, shaking her head again (over and over), slumping over in the position she hadn't much moved from. She wanted to run, but she didn't have the energy to do so. "Don't hate me," she whispered, something she knew she would be begging from the others when the time came to tell them what she had done. "Don't hate me, I can't deal with that right now, I can't, I can't, I can't!" It wasn't so much that, in the long run if Sam chose to end their friendship, she wouldn't be able to accept it, but tonight she was too much of a hysteric wreck to deal with rejection.
"I don't hate you," he told her. "But I'm not exactly going to cheer you on and say that what you did was right. It's not. It was sick and wrong and you should probably consider --- this isn't something that you can just let go, you know? You hurt someone. Badly. And he was just a kid!" Sam didn't want to make her feel worse, but it seemed as though that was probably all that he was doing. "I'm sorry for making this harder than it already is. You're upset." He rose from his spot beside her and frowned. "Look, go sit on the bed. I'm gonna get you some water. Let's get you to calm down a little before we get into this, okay? I can't talk to you if you're gonna be all hysterical."
"What is wrong with you?! Do I look like I am in a celebratory mood? That I'm not so fucked up I can't even function correctly at the moment?" She barked incredulously, blinking at Sam rapidly. She ripped a hand through her hair, taking in a shaky breath and trying to make it into three deep ones.
"Sorry. Bed. Right." Elisabeth moved robotically, slowly pushing herself up and just as slowly walking towards what she hoped was Sam's bedroom. "You know you don't help when you call a person names….right?" She stared down at the floor, curling and uncurling her fingers into the sheets, playing with the fabric in order to distract herself.
You don't help when you beat and torture a person up," he countered, walking over to pour some water into a glass. He returned at her side and handed it to her, sitting on the bed opposite her (Dean's). "Look, Elisabeth. You need to find a way to make this right, because there's honestly only but so much I can do in this situation." Honestly, right about now? Sam would be the one chasing after to turn her in or something along those lines. Under the circumstances though, he was letting her slide. But for how long?
She rolled her eyes, taking the glass with minimal shaking of her hand. "Are you honestly trying to tell me you wouldn't have gone after the bitch that killed your brother?" It wasn't an accusation, as much as it might have sounded, because her eyes were pleading with him, begging for some understanding or someone to be just as vengeful as her. Had it been over some bloke…but it was family. If Sam was this resistant, how the hell would the others see her? She was terrified of them seeing her negatively and leaving.
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demonblood
His chest twisted painfully at her words. You wouldn't have gone after the bitch that killed your brother? Sam tensed, eyes narrowing slightly as he stared off at her. "Don't even compare that to your situation," he snapped. "The circumstances were different and she's not even human." And he had gone after her. Back before he had gotten here. And now he was preparing himself for whenever she returned. If she ever did.
Biting back his anger, Sam clasped his hands together and leaned forward. He didn't look away from her at all. "I know that you're having a hard time and I understand your anger," Sam told her. "But that wasn't the way. You never should have chased after that kid. You should have turned him in. Let the police handle him. Revenge will only get you but so far. And as of now? All it's done is scare you to death."
Elisabeth pulled back as if he'd slapped her straight across the face, nearly pouting and dropping her eyes in shame. She barely whispered a sorry, twice, gripping the edge of his bed. Ironic that she'd find herself here in the first place; Sam's bed.
His actions drew her eye back to him, and she could only nod at first, getting sick of hearing herself crying or cracking voice. She hiccuped, gnawing at her lower lip. "D-do you think they'll still want to live with me? I never thought I'd love them this much, yeah?" Elisabeth shook her head, baffled by the sudden and unlikely change. She also never expected to fall for someone and want to only fall for them; stay loyal.
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But I do know that you obviously care a hell of a lot about them, even if the lines that you crossed were a little more than severe." He ran his fingers through his hair, looking down toward the floor as he did so. Christ, this situation was so messed up.
"You cared enough about them to do something like this. I'm betting that they care just as much about you to look past that and get over your choice of action. As long as you're honest with them up front. I think they'll get over it."
Elisabeth managed to crack a tiny grin, her eyes welling with a sense of hope as she looked across at Sam. She nodded and finally took a heavy drink from the water he'd given her, the trembling having faded away some. "Thanks Samuel," she whispered, peering into her glass. And while it was highly unlikely, it was as though she could then see her reflection and she froze, only her eyes moving as they slid along her mostly exposed body and the screaming red dress.
"Get it off." The first time was dead, calm, quiet. The next three were no less hysteric than she had been just moments ago on his living room floor, and she was tearing at the thing, having discarded the glass. It was evident she was pathetically useless in the sense of being unable to remove a simple, skimpy piece of material. She felt dirty and awful, burning and disgusting, and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of the dress, to destroy it and scrub at her skin for hours.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sam grabbed at her arms, a look of alarm suddenly taking over his features. "What are you doing?!" She was acting like a crazy person. A hysterically crazy person. He didn't blame her, of course, but that was the only way he seemed capable of putting it.
"Come on, Elisabeth," Sam said, trying to keep himself calm. "I need you to just breathe for a minute. Relax."
It didn't take much to restrain her, and she allowed Sam to take hold of her flailing, ripping, pulling arms, dropping her head in shame, or guilt, her plum and black hair concealing her face in a makeshift veil. She let out a small whine and clenched her fists against his sides.
Without moving her hair, she nodded and, pouting (though the look was hardly childish and more heartbreaking than anything), she moved her arms over her head, like a daughter seeking help. "Please?" Elisabeth couldn't meet his gaze as she pleaded with him to help her out of the tainted dress.
She wanted him to undress her? He pulled his head back a little, an uncertain look quickly taking him over. The dress wasn't exactly clean. He supposed that was one reason for the panic attack. "Ahm..." He cautiously reached forward and carefully helped her out of her dress. Then he put it aside and cast his eyes in every direction but her own.
"There's a bathroom," he started, sounding unbelievably awkward. "You can use it. And I'll..." He shuffled over toward his drawer and began to pull out something for Elisabeth to wear. "I'll...find you something." Which would be difficult, he figured, considering the massive size difference between the two. But he was sure that anything would be fine, so long as it wasn't that dress.
She mumbled a 'sorry' somewhere amidst the removal, broken and defeated. She knew what it meant to ask him to do this, but there was no one else...and she was just too tired (emotionally, physically, mentally) to even attempt it, least she have another breakdown.
Elisabeth hugged herself tightly, her nails beginning to dig into her skin as she watched him not watch her. It would be the only time she managed to even be remotely close to her teasing self as she smirked half-heartedly and said, "Definitely not the way I pictured this." And then the smirk was gone, the time and setting far from appropriate for joking, and Elisabeth was moving towards the bathroom.
Before she fully closed the door, she removed the lacy undergarments and dropped them at the foot of the door, telling Sam, "Burn them. Throw them away. All of it, just get rid of it." She closed the door, but held onto the handle, staring with eyes glazed over at the floor for what felt like hours but was only minutes.
The shower was methodical, the water as hot as she could possibly stand...until it all caught up with her again and she was scrubbing at her skin like some obsessive-compulsive germaphobe. At some point, she slid down the cool tile and just sat in the tub, letting the water carelessly wash over her as it mixed with her heated tears. She would make this up to Sam. She owed him so much for tonight and Lis felt he would never fully know her gratitude.
When Elisabeth was finished, she emerged with a small amount of control over herself now. She would at least cease crying and breaking into hysteric fits. She grabbed one of the hotel's towels and used one to wrap around her head and hair, and the other to tightly clench around her body. She poked her head out and announced, "I'm coming out," sliding along the floors until she resumed her spot on Sam's bed.
He did as he was told. Sam cautiously grabbed onto all of the clothes that she had tossed out and dropped them into the trash. He knew that he'd have one hell of a time trying to explain the women's clothing to Dean later on. Knowing his brother, he'd probably hear some sort of witty retort over how he didn't know that Sam had two jobs -- one being a hunter while the other was a hooker. The thought made him roll his eyes and Sam returned to his dresser and began to dig around for clothes again. He came up with a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. The pants were the smallest that he had, which was why he really didn't wear them anymore. And the shirt? Well, he had lots of them. He wouldn't mind losing one shirt.
"Okay." He looked down again, clothes in his hands. When she appeared, he carefully set them onto the vacant space beside her and cleared his throat. "Right. Well. I'll just...ah, go to the bathroom. To wash my...arm." To wash his arm? Fitting. Sam quickly turned away and headed in that very direction.
She frowned at his behaviour, though she was trying to understand it. "I'm not naked, Sam, Christ." Her feelings were not hurt. This was not the time. Only, she couldn't help but take it all personally, as if the thought of what she had done disgusted him so thoroughly that he couldn't bare to the sight of her.
Elisabeth looked at the clothes and sighed, not watching him leave, but addressing him anyway. "You know how much that reeks of bollucks, right?" She looked at the back of his head, one brow raised. "Washing your arm." She started to unravel the towel on her head, finger coming the hair and trying to get as little loose hairs and water on Sam's bed.
"I know," he replied. "But still. You're not entirely clothed either." He didn't want to look at her like that. She wasn't his girlfriend, she was a woman sitting on his bed with a towel on. That was not something that he wanted to deal with having images of in his head right now. "I'm just...there's a factor. With me being polite. And yeah."
He didn't wash his arm. He just awkwardly stood in the bathroom, arms folded over his chest as he attempted to wait patiently for Elisabeth to finish. After a short while, he poked his head out of the door and said, "Are you dressed yet?"
Elisabeth for once didn't argue and instead, quickly dried and dressed herself. She pulled her knees up to her chest and loosely hooked her arms around them, pressing her nose to the fabric to breathe in Sam's scent. It was a soothing thing, and she watched the door for him to emerge.
"Yes...and I'll make this up to you. Everything. You've...helped and I appreciate it. Thank you, Sam Winchester." She blinked over at him, a heaviness in her chest.
"You don't owe me anything," he told her, finally returning to the main room. "You can come to me anytime you get..." He shrugged. "Well. I hope you don't screw up this badly again, but I'll be around if you do."\
He tried for a smile. It wasn't a full one, but it at least showed that he did care and that he did mean what he was saying.
Because she'd been watching him carefully, through her eyelashes, through her hair, directly onward, Elisabeth caught the smile and in turn, was able to return it. "Thank you," she said in a rush of breath, sincere and nearly on the brink of tears again, but remembering her promise to keep her composure, she didn't. "You have no idea...how much this means..."
Elisabeth held her arms out, making a quick nervous bite to her bottom lip. "I know you don't like being physical so...you don't have to." And she meant it. While she herself loved affection and showing her love through touch, she was learning to ween herself from doing so often with Sam.
In this case, he decided, there was more than enough room for an exception. He moved forward and settled down onto the bed beside her, then he pulled her into a hug and have her a light pat on the back.
"Just don't grope me or anything," he joked, slowly pulling back and giving her another small sort of smile. "I think I've had enough of that."
Elisabeth's sigh was short, but soft, content, as she wrapped her arms around Sam in a much needed hug. One without judgment or worry, and just comforting. And it meant a lot, coming from Sam, all things considered.
She chuckled, nodding. "For once, sex is the farthest thing from my mind, darling." She crooked her lips into a grin, adding, "I know I've said it enough to last you months, but thank you, again. Thank you so.much." Elisabeth stood and kissed his forehead, knowing she hardly had enough energy to shadow-port home and taking a deep, lung filling breath. "I'm going to turn your light off so I can teleport. Just so you don't think I'm sneaking a grope in the dark." She winked before crossing the room to switch the light off, shadow-porting the moment darkness surrounded them.
The only thing she said before departure was, [I owe you extra practice time.]