Ain't Gonna Drown

Stability. A hunter’s white whale. Always on the horizon, almost always hungered for, so rarely found.

Alix had cursed herself for even trying for it after Ralphy had dragged her back in. There was no way she was keeping it when every full moon came with an increased chance that someone would find her out there on her isolated and dusty run. Some hiker getting a little too close, a rancher with a shotgun and a perfectly justifiable concern for their stock, a hunter (sent by her family or not). Percentages ticking away until Ralphy had wiped any of her options there. Out on the road, doing what her family did best, saving people, slaughtering things.

Maybe if she’d stuck to doing that in the first place she’d never have ended up here, working her way into other people’s lives, bringing the wreckage of her own with her. Shoot a guy in the head for giving a damn about her, training another up just far enough that he was able to kill his wife when he discovered the monster she’d been turned into by the same person who’d cost them their unborn child. Turn your cousin’s life on its head when you went looking for him and slotted the last pieces into a foul jigsaw designed by her own family’s hands.

None of that was stable, no matter how many props she shoved around it in the deluded belief that it would help disguise what was there, let alone actually change it. The minute the Big Bad Wolf, AKA Ralphy, huffed and puffed, it was all coming down. Her own hoarse breathing wouldn’t give her much more time to play in that house.

A hunter to the last and she wasn’t the only one.

The Winchesters had played this game far longer than she had. Their dad dragging them into it after their mom had died, Sam and Dean raised in it until they realised there was no way out for them any easier than their had been for her. In the yard of the rugaru’s house Sam had pretty much told her so – like she hadn’t quite realised it when their families had hunted together. There was no stability for someone who might become a host to Lucifer. No stability for the family who had to try and stop it happening while Sam had them chasing him around with one hand pretty much tied behind their back.

Still, they were still in town too, that had to speak for something. Alix had spent the night trying not to see signs of hope in things, and then it had walked through the door in a different form to the one she’d expected. She drew in a deep breath, leaning her elbows against the edge of the bar. ”Dean,” she tossed back lightly, the civilities of a greeting escaping initially. Alix raked her teeth over her lower lip, watching him sit beside her with a cool, appraising look. Was just asking about his presence here the last puff that would blow his own house of cards down? Or was it just the need for a little optimism, for something to be working out for someone here.

Probably risking something by it, Alix performed the sign of the cross, touching the bottle lightly to her forehead, her chest, both shoulders in turn. Hallelujah. Blasphemous as hell but how else could you put any of that? Her mouth twisted wryly as she tilted her head back towards the door. ”I kinda figured with Sam … since the town’s still here.” Another thing she’d hoped for, where silence had been promising instead of the opposite. Alix bobbed her head lightly at his assurances about both of them. Settled, safe, even if it was in a shag carpeted motel hell for Sam, one that probably felt like a cell still when the walls started closing in.

Didn’t she know that feeling? The raw edges that left you twitching at every sound. Sam had to share that space with Dean … she willingly kept that door open for Christian, knowing that it was overwhelmingly likely that what she had told him would end up pushing him out the door to … she didn’t even want to consider it. The laugh that rolled out at Dean’s question was weary but her lips tipped up at the corners as she eyed him all the same. ”I’ve been here,” Alix promised. ”Same old, same old. Working, trying to juggle family politics. You been taking a look at that list?” The dead pool list had been around for months on end, even before it had been widely distributed here in town. Maybe it was shrinking still but what had happened with Sofia had stopped her even looking at it again. There were too many questions about it, too many doubts about who was on it.

Tagged: DEAN WINCHESTER * Word Count: 815

The Dread Doctors had been the one reason Alix had come to Mystic Falls in the first place. Her white whale, the one that had left its scars on her before it had disappeared again. Being tethered here afterwards had been just as much Ralphy’s fault. She’d been his blunt instrument in town, the one that had swung indiscriminately until her hands were coated with innocent blood. Was there any redemption possible after that? Maybe not, stamping out the people who had turned her was only going to have those scales swinging back part way. Continuing to defy her family, protecting those here who were incapable of shielding themselves from the real monsters, that was continue the work, one life at a time. And there were plenty at risk here.

Corkboards full of photos and notes covered the walls of her darkroom, hidden away after others had started to work their way into her life here despite the ditches she’d dug around herself to try and keep them all bay. Brady would only see her looking to kill people like them, unless the evidence was pinned there just as prominently as the surveillance. Christian would see the work she was doing to try and track down who’d turned his wife in the first place and she was sure he wasn’t ready for that – not that he’d have told her now. If Derek had been able to stomach looking at her again all he’d have seen was the monster he’d accused her of being. Once you burned the bridges they’d laid over those ditches, that was that, even if what you were doing was done with the best of intentions.

Sam probably would’ve said that running from his family and trying to handle Lucifer himself was just the same – done with the best of intentions to protect others – that wasn’t the way any of them were going to see it though. Dean’s grimace was barely visible, but it was still telling. Whatever had happened to get Sam free had taken a toll. Alix made a low sound, her expression growing serious as she studied Dean’s profile. ”It’s not entirely oven then?” she asked tightly. More specific questions weren’t made for a place like this. The sign on the door stated that no trouble was allowed on the premises, but there were a million ways around that, especially when you didn’t give a shit about stirring it up. People listened and information trickled right where you didn’t want it to.

The itch had been there between her shoulder blades from the moment she’d rolled into town in Derek’s truck. Feeling eyes on her, just waiting for her to screw up one way or another. You could’ve been a saint here, but if something wanted to make you suffer it would do. One by one they stamped out the things looking to do it, they were cockroaches though, you couldn’t get every single one of them.

Alix propped her elbows on the edge of the bar, trying not to feel the itch of those eyes as she chuckled at Dean’s question. She tipped her head slightly, her smile turning wry. Would she have counted herself amongst the good? Yeah. No matter what had happened with her family, with Derek, with Christian, she was still trying to do more good than harm and that counted for something. ”I guess we’re lucky you’re back then. Get folks looking up to the Great Dean Winchester and you really starting changing hearts and minds.” And with the Winchesters leading the charge, there were sets of extra powerful and skilled boots on the ground, twisting, crushing, stopping anybody else’s life from being devastated the way Christian’s had been.

Maybe the Dread Docs had taken a backseat to all of that, but no matter what had happened, she believed it wouldn’t be long before Christian started to try and take the list apart with her again. There had been too many innocent people on it, killed with their own hands in a way that had left cracks through their confidence. Alix wrapped her fingers around her glass, but didn’t lift it to drink from it. Her gaze cut sideways instead, amusement vanishing. ”That’s the ultimate question, isn’t it? I think … maybe my family are helping to raise that Hell. Do you remember my uncle Ralphy?” Ralphy had been there on that last hunt before her family had cut ties with the Winchesters. Naming and shaming him now could open a can of worms, but if Ralphy decided to start applying pressure elsewhere to get her to break, it could be on the Winchesters. ”He had me working the list before it got passed around here. If there’s anybody that knows just who put it out, it’d be him.” Of course Ralphy hadn’t been stupid enough to come to town himself. The target would’ve been on his back instantly with a single word from her and if there was one thing Ralphy would protect at all costs it was his own neck.

Tagged: DEAN WINCHESTER * Word Count: 843

Ralphy had always swaggered his way through life, like somehow he’d boosted himself up onto a pedestal and was looking down on the rest of them. Her parents’ arrogance hadn’t been apparent though. Neither one of them was showy or demonstrative – hard, yes, opinionated, definitely, but never as over-confident as Ralphy had been. She’d looked at them and seen what she’d thought was their mirror image in John Winchester and the way he was raising his boys. The hard lines were drawn, little wiggle room given - for their own good. She’d never seen that fanatical gleam in John’s eyes though, or Sam or Dean’s. Alix had seen it far too often in her dad’s though, gradually growing brighter until Ralphy had pushed her over that line by having the Dread Doctors take her. It would have flared as bright as her own eyes in that final moment and would have done it again if he’d discovered what Sam had become.

More than once she’d imagined them rolling into town, a little hit squad with Ralphy out front – all beaming smiles (ones that would vanish the moment weapons appeared). The town still had its issues, was still attracting hunters to deal with them. At some point they’d catch wind, or Ralphy would suggest a little busman’s holiday – catch up with Alix, do a little slaughtering at the same time. How long would it be then before they realised that she wasn’t the only one who had been corrupted by the things they hunted? It wouldn’t matter that they’d hunted with the Winchesters before, only what Sam had become. They would see him the same way they would her, as something to exterminate. And Dean wouldn’t stand for it.

Dread pooled dark and greasy in the pit of her stomach with those four little words out of Dean’s mouth. Lucifer was out of Sam, leaving God only what sort of a state behind, but Lucifer himself? Alix swallowed back the bitterness that pooled on her tongue. Later they were gonna talk about this – out of the bar, in the security of the warehouse if they had to go that far – she wanted to know what dark clouds were likely to start brewing on the horizon, joining the dozens that already lingered there ominously. She drew her upper lip between her teeth, dragged it against their sharp edges as she nodded. That horizon was never going to be clear for any of them – that was the curse of being what they were.

The town might’ve muddled along without the Winchesters in it, as it had done for centuries before this, but she sure as hell felt better with their backup here. Alix huffed out a breath that was heavy with wry humour. She bumped Dean with an elbow, shooting him a half smile. ”This town’s full of trouble with or without you, Dean. I’m not gonna try talking for anybody else here, but I feel better with you and Sam here. I know I’ve got someone to watch my back if I need it.” She wanted so badly to believe that Christian still had hers, but what had been stripped away between them might have permanently changed that. ”The same goes. You bring trouble, we deal with it.” Her brows rose, daring Dean to argue with it. If he’d even opened his mouth like that in front of Bobby Singer he’d probably heard all of that in far less polite language.

Who knew what would’ve spouted out of that unfiltered mouth if he knew just what sort of role Ralphy had taken in the hit list. With proof he could’ve become someone else’s problem, and undoubtedly someone would’ve found the balls to stamp him out like the cockroach he was – she just didn’t want that to be the Winchesters. ”That’s him,” Alix said hoarsely. ”He’s hard to miss.” Especially when his ego had a tendency to fill any room he walked into like a cloud of cheap of cheap cologne.

Wanting to wash away the bad taste talking about him put in her mouth, Alix gulped down what remained in her glass, blinking back the momentary sting of the alcohol. ”A couple of months,” Alix admitted, looking at Dean fully finally as he turned towards her. ”I haven’t seen him face to face since the day I left them, but the calls started about a year later. Just enough time for me to settle into thinking I was out of the game. I’d get a name, just enough detail that I’d be sure they deserved what was coming. Once the list went out, all the money was going in his pocket. I found out after that a couple of people on it weren’t who they were made out to be. Did you take any of the kills?” She wasn’t gonna guilt him into believing that the people he killed, on that damn list or not, were innocent, but she’d seen it herself. The professor Christian had killed had sworn he hadn’t done what he was accused of and the guilt of that killing had nearly broken a good man.

Tagged: DEAN WINCHESTER * Word Count: 857

Ralphy, maybe even her parents, wouldn’t have known loyalty if it had leapt up and bitten them on the face. Their twisted version of it had seen them murdering their own sister for choosing an animal over them. She’d barely put it all together when she’d turned up at Derek’s place. She’d only known him a few months, but he hadn’t turned away. That was loyalty, maybe it had been something more before her constant lies had tarnished how he’d felt, but beneath everything else was that desire to make sure that she was alright.

It went deeper than that with the Winchesters. The need was still there though. They’d been friendly, had hunted side by side and that’d left her with the need to watch their backs. You slapped your hands over those wounds, slapped on tourniquets when necessary. You protected one another, especially when you didn’t have many to do that for. Dean was laughing at the idea of it now, but Alix was smirking at him as he threw his hands up, like he had to cave to the idea instead of just knowing that she would. ”You better not,” she warned. She’d give him about as much choice as she had Sam.

When the tables turned, Alix trusted that the reverse would be true. She swallowed back that momentary bite of fear that she was dragging people into situations that were gonna get them hurt, or worse, killed, the same way she had Derek. Her fingers curled into her palm, the sick feeling swallowed down. It wasn’t the same. Dean, Sam, even Christian, knew what Ralphy was like, they knew not to trust the greasy son of a bitch and that would make a difference. Humour tugged briefly at her lips at Dean’s agreement, but then she was having to gulp back the rest of her drink to get her story out.

”When he stopped blackmailing me into killing people,” she said dryly. She wanted another drink, but it wasn’t like it had been when she’d been too young to drink and Rohan had been the one slipping her bottles on the sly. There wasn’t that pleasant buzz after a couple of drinks. She could’ve drank until this place closed, but unless she spiked it with the thing that was meant to be poison to her, it would barely make a dent. She’d still remember the fear that had spike every time her phone had rung, the dread that it would be another kid turning on her to tell her all about how they were absolutely innocent. Alix looked up from the glass and shook her head on Dean. ”That greedy son of a bitch wouldn’t be spending his hard earned dollars on Mai Tais.” Ralphy wouldn’t quit until he had everything and that included her life.

A shift of her foot on the rung of the stool and she felt the weight of the cameras shift in her bag. He’d believed he’d owned every part of her, survival more important to her than escaping the death row prison of remaining with her family. Alix nodded slowly, her smile ghosting back into place. ”Wise move,” she drawled lightly. ”I wouldn’t have done if he hadn’t threatened to talk to my parents about me. We can’t secrets in our family.” She tossed his words out there, feeling a stabbing ache in her heart that she shouldn’t have felt for people who’d seen the hunt as more important than their own blood.

Her gaze settled back on Dean’s, her throat working for a moment before she found her voice again. ”I completed some of the … kills … before I realised something was wrong. They were innocent, someone I drew into this was fooled too.” And realising that the world had flipped and you were the monster was devastating. Shakespeare had it right, blood was harder to wash off your hands that it would seem. ”I couldn’t fix that for him. If you hear anything more about it will you tell me? I need to know if Ralphy’s just keeping this out of my sight to make sure I don’t get pissed enough to start fighting back.” It was too late for that. She was done crawling at the man’s feet to protect herself. Most of the people who’d come to matter knew now and unlike her own blood, it didn’t matter to them.

Tagged: DEAN WINCHESTER * Word Count: 736