abraxaslogs | Iɴ Hᴇʟʟ, I'ʟʟ ʙᴇ ɪɴ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴʏ → sᴇᴍɪ-ᴏᴘᴇɴ

( She rolls in with the witty intro line, and it earns her a laugh and a flash of teeth for her trouble. Accompanying it, a grand gesture toward the nearest chair by his table set-up, a little ironic-theatrical. )

And here's me without my letterman jacket or beer pong table.

( A click of his teeth, a shake of his head. Shame on him for not being prepared.

Not that he ever went to college. The closest he came was sleeping with sorority chicks when he was still young and dumb enough to sneak into campus parties. )

So where are we slappin' this bad boy?

[Nadine does her best to block out the rest of the tavern. It's fine. This is basically her downstairs, she lives right above. Taking a deep breath, she sits.]

It probably won't surprise you.

[The placement of the tattoo. She lifts her skirt on one side, as she's done before in front of Dean.]

Right...around it.

[She has no idea if proximity will lend any potency, but if nothing else it will camouflage the branding. Draw attention from the initials themselves, overshadow them. Besides, it's easier to hide that way. Even more free with her wardrobe, Nadine dresses to the modest side.]

( She's right. It doesn't surprise him. There's a weighty significance to the look he gives her that implies he at least has some idea how serious this is, like he gets it on some level deeper than just aesthetics and practicality. A loud silence lasts for only a second, and then he nods. )

Alright. You got it.

( Accompanied by the businesslike shift in vibe, and him pointedly shuffling his chair a little closer so he can position properly between her knees. Another pause spent considering, and then he pats his thigh. )

Lemme get you to sling that leg up here for me, darlin'.

( Somewhere across the not particularly populated tavern, a drunk guy missing too many teeth leers over at Nadine from somewhere out of her sight line for several long, gross seconds. It's not out of Dean's sight line, though, and the dude's got a passive perception out of this world. He double-takes at the figure over her shoulder, scowls, then lets out a sharp, short little whistle to get him to look up. )

Hey. Pal. This ain't a free show. Turn around. ( The dude stares at Dean, measuring up how serious he's being and whether or not he's bluffing. Dean doesn't break eye contact. ) Do I look like I'm kidding?

( Evidently the guy decides he does not, and there's an awkward scrape of chair on wood as he scoots to face another direction. Dean shakes his head in exasperation, and ducks back in with the transfer paper, muttering: )

Friggin' reprobates.

Oh, this isn't awkward at all...

[Nadine looks upwards and closes her eyes, fighting down that hot spike of anger at being ogled. Dean's taking care of it. She just has to get through this and then she can go back upstairs to her room.

Maybe she should have just asked Dean if he could do her in the privacy of her own apartment, but they're already here and ready so there's no point now.]

Sister Mary Margaret is rolling over in her grave somewhere. One of the nuns at the children's home. She was Irish, from Boston, and she was one of those nuns that just didn't care. Believed in the holiness of whiskey and spoke her mind - but in a Godly way, if you know what I mean.

[Talking helps Nadine take her mind off of the fact that she's very exposed in public and about to get a tattoo. She wonders if tattoos to ward off demons get a pass from nuns...]

( He glances up at her as she mentions Sister Mary Margaret, just to take stock of the expression on her face. To see if it's fondness she's wearing, or something else. Seems to be, more or less, so his attention drops back down to his work again.

Template's in place. Looks good. The paper goes off to the side in exchange for the gun; he whirs it once above the table, just so she knows what it sounds like. So it doesn't startle her when he kicks it on where it actually counts. )

Met a handful of nuns over the years.

( He says with a sway and a shrug. )

Think I know what you mean. Most of 'em are total badasses. Nobody on the planet's as buff as a mean nun. ( And then a quick warning: ) Here we go. Deep breath.

( The gun kicks on. The needle touches down. So begins the delicate art of repeatedly scratching ink into delicate flesh. It doesn't tickle. )

Sister Mary Margaret wasn't mean, exactly, but...she was tough as brass. But she had a good heart. She...she looked after me. Took a little extra time, you know? And she always gave it to me straight. Even when I was really young. I, uh, was in and out of the children's home a lot.

[Nadine supposes she does have rather fond memories of the woman. She'd been something of a comfort, especially during that first transition, when her adoptive parents and brother had died and her adoptive grandmother was reluctant to take her.

As the gun whirs to life, she settles herself. The potential pain doesn't worry her - she imagines she willingly went through worse, those months Flagg was here. Nights had been a battle between them as much as anything else, one they both eagerly partook in.]

I'll be fine. I married a demon, Dean, I have a really high pain tolerance.

[And while the bite of the tattoo gun isn't exactly pleasant, it's not that bad. There's only a slight wince at first, and a tensing, the sensation brand new and as odd as it is anything else. It almost burns, a little. She hadn't expected that.]

( Something catches his attention briefly, visibly — in and out of the children's homes has his eyes flickering up to her, something knowing or at the very least understanding written in there. He's familiar with that feeling.

Understanding turns into vague discontent at high pain tolerance. Is it great that she married a demon? Hell no. Does he believe her pain tolerance is plenty high? Yes.

Still doesn't mean he's cool with running her through the ringer for no reason. Doesn't like that implication, or the fact that she was put through whatever she went through to make her pain tolerance that high.

He bites that commentary back, and opts instead for: )

I did a stint in a few boys' homes growing up. Just a couple months off and on.

( Casual conversation, or at least casual compared to the other half of what they could be talking about. )

Wasn't ever run by nuns, though. Matter of fact, the last one was an ex Con.

( Sonny really turned his life around when he got out of prison. He's a good guy. )

Edited 2022-08-16 02:02 (UTC)

I grew up in the heart of New England Catholicism. My first family adopted me through the church when I was a baby, and when they died I went to my 'grandmother' - my adopted mom's mother - and she was crazy Catholic. The holding hands is a sin, obey every commandment, fear God kind.

[Talking helps. It gives Nadine something to focus on besides the sensation of the needle. At least it's all taken away from her unease at doing this right out in public.]

But yeah, after my grandmother died it was a few months in the home, a few months in a foster home, back to the nuns and just again and again until I aged out. Were you in the system?

[She's found that, without knowing, she's been drawn to a number of others with similar rough childhoods. Childhoods lacking stability or a permanent home. It's something that immediately sparks a sense of kinship. No surprise, then, that Dean's another in that group.]

( Nadine's lengthy Catholicism roots earn a raised eyebrow from Dean — not that there's anything inherently weird about it in general, just that for him personally... Religion was pretty much a non-starter for the ol' Winchester household, right up until the universe started hamfisting it down his throat.

He shakes his head slowly at her question; lowers his eyes back to his task. Talking about it in detail is easier somehow when he's got something to do with his hands, when he's got an excuse not to make eye contact for more than a few moments at a time. )

Nah, it wasn't... like that exactly.

( A pause, wherein he debates between telling her the short version or the long version.

But hell, they're gonna be here for a while, and Nadine's being pretty open. It's a compulsion to meet people half way when they offer him something like that. )

A demon killed my mom when I was a kid. My dad, he didn't take it too well. Went into hunting. Raised me and my brother into the life, but until we were old enough to hunt with him he'd leave us at motels for a few weeks at a time. Once in a while I'd get into trouble. Get caught shoplifting, get in a fight, whatever. If he was too busy to come get me and I pissed off the cops bad enough, they'd ship me to a home somewhere for a while. He'd roll back in and pick me up after he finished the job.

( As he speaks, his hands continue their graceful, meticulous movements. Line by line, a centimeter at a time, patiently inked into her skin as delicately and with as much care as he can manage. )

I'm sorry.

[There's no pity in the words, but there's an honesty to them. A difficult childhood, one marked by trauma and instability...it's awful. No kid should ever have to go through it.]

I probably would've ended up going a similar route, if things had been different. The stealing and getting into trouble, I mean. But I was too terrified to ever step out of line or draw attention to myself. I went inward, instead. I was the quiet weird kid that didn't talk to anybody.

[She hadn't needed anyone to talk to, after all. She'd had Randall. Any time, right there in her mind. A secret friend that only she could contact. And the reason she'd been so scared to do anything to draw eyes onto her.]

That's part of why I became a teacher, back home. To help kids.

( Insensitive as it might seem, quiet weird kid gets Nadine a gentle laugh — there's no spite in it, no judgment, just amusement. He'd make a crack about her sounding like his brother, but that pang of missing Sam has him swallowing it down gently.

His hand works over the knotted pattern of the star, the overall outline taking shape, waiting to be shaded. )

Well, I'll tell you something, if you were one of my teachers it'd be the only damn class I'd have paid any attention to, that's for sure.

( It's harmless flirting. The companionable kind, the kind without any real intention behind it. Stupid, friendly banter more than anything — cemented when he glances up and shoots her a comically exaggerated, dumbass wink. )

Iɴ Hᴇʟʟ, I'ʟʟ ʙᴇ ɪɴ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴʏ → sᴇᴍɪ-ᴏᴘᴇɴ

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