chapter three / season two episode two.

"YOU LIED TO THOSE BOYS." Ellen stated the truth.

It was two days later, around noon and Evangeline was perched at the bar, her fingers tapping against the wood of the bar and nursing a glass of lemonade. (Ellen had refused to pour a rum and coke at this time of the day.) (The woman was getting close to denying a rum and coke at anytime of the day.)

Evangeline simply hummed, it was no use in rejecting the truth, especially when it came to Ellen.

Ellen sighed, pausing the cleaning of the glasses and turned to Evangeline, "Why?"

Why? It was a good question. And the answer felt like a bunch of scrambled nonsense in Evangeline's head. She had this gut feeling as to why but she felt like she couldn't verbalize it.

So, she shrugged.

"Don't do that." Ellen warned, her tone of that of a scolding mother. Or, at least what Evangeline would assume scolding mothers would sound like— Ellen was the closest she'd got to one. "You ain't just shrugging this off like you shrug everything else off."

Why? Why won't you help, Evangeline? Is it because you know what happened that night but you don't understand it? Is it because you've lived your life ever since that night just thinking about the burning of your mother and the wailing of your brother?

It had been years. Years since that night. She was ten the night it happened, and was nearing on her late twenties now... yet she was still there. Evangeline was stuck in the night, on a constant loop, the night everything had been taken from her and had fallen to pieces at her feet.

Her world had crumbled into tiny sharp pieces that night, and she had not been able to pick those pieces back up and fix what the demon had broke. The pieces were jagged and caused her more harm than good. It was better for her to wallow and waste her life away stuck in the loop of that night.

It's what her father had done. It's what her brother had done. It was only right that Evangeline followed in their footsteps.

(She'd never done anything but follow in their footsteps. It would be unnatural and frowned upon for her to start her own way of life.)

"I don't know those boys, we just met 'em but they're better than John." Ellen said with conviction. "They ain't gonna interrogate you, and make you feel uncomfortable, Evangeline."

"If anything... you three are all rocking the same boat."

She knew that. Evangeline knew that. She knew that Dean and Sam were just two boys who had lost something to yellow-eyes. They'd felt the searing pain of loss at the hands of a demon, and the numbing it left you with. This... feeling of being lost because you have no clarity in what happened. You just know it happened and you have no reasoning.

It just happened.

Perhaps that was the worst thing about demons; most of them took and took without any explanation. They didn't stand around an audience and explain their slaughterings, they just did the deed and left. They left rage, confusion and misery in their wake but they didn't care because the killing had been done.

"And I know you don't trust 'em, hell I don't trust them." Ellen laughed quietly, under her breath. "But, trust is earned, Evangeline. And you can never trust anybody if you don't even try with them."

People weren't her speciality. I think that's already been established. She was an awkward little thing, with her anxious finger tapping and the second guessing herself with every word she said. She wasn't a conversationalist by any means. She didn't like talking.

She wasn't supposed to talk. Evangeline was supposed to sit in dark corners of rooms and not be heard. Children should be seen and not heard. She could leave a room as quiet as a mouse because that was what she had been taught. She'd been taught to be this unnoticeable presence.

Sometimes, Evangeline found herself subverting every one of her dad's rules. Mainly when she was drunk and the imaginary zipper on her lips found itself forced open and she'd be filled with quick remarks and wit. But, come sunrise that would all be gone and she'd revert back to this... could you even call her a person?

"And," Ellen sighed, frowning at the woman sat in-front of her. The quiet child she'd watched grow into a quiet adult. "I think it'd be good for you. It ain't everyday two boys come in here 'round your age and wanting to know about something you specialize in."

Specialize in. Evangeline fought the urge to scoff. She was only specialized in the demon because it killed her Goddamn mom and brother.

"I think it'd do to the world 'a good to at least think about it." Ellen said.

Evangeline glanced up from the wood of the bar, "What would I even say?" She knew she sounded like one of those whiny teenagers, but Evangeline just didn't know. She didn't know how to talk to people.

"Offer them your help," Ellen shrugged, as if conversing with other people was merely that simple. "You don't have to lead with the whole 'yellow-eyes killed people I love too.', that'd be a bit heavy for your first real conversation."

Evangeline sighed, "I already told Dean that it 'sucks' that his dad's dead."

"Were those your actual words?"

"Yeah."

"Good Lord, Evangeline." Ellen murmured.

"I said sorry." She spoke quietly, as if she was confessing some grave sin.

"I bet you did." Ellen patted Evangeline's hands, "I bet he's already forgot about it, alright? So, when they come back don't think about it. Just try and talk to him like you talk to me. You find that easy."

"I've known you a long time, Ellen." Evangeline deadpanned and she followed it up with a somber tone as if she was ashamed of what she was saying. "'S not that easy to me."

"I know." Ellen frowned, "I know it ain't, honey. But, we gotta try, okay? Just have one conversation with Dean or Sam, that's all I'm asking."

Evangeline couldn't tell but Ellen had many ulterior motives. If Evangeline made successful conversation with Dean or Sam then the offer to bring her on their hunts would arise again, and then Ellen could work her magic and convince Evangeline to go.

Ellen loved Evangeline. She truly did. She'd known Evangeline since she was five. And whilst that meeting was brief and wasn't exactly an opportunity for Ellen to look after Evangeline, it still presented all the details Ellen needed to know; Adam Warren was no father, Eve Warren was clinging to a dead and buried marriage, Cain Warren was troubled and Evangeline... she was quiet. Silently crying into her mom's chest after having not seen each other for years.

Adam had whisked Cain and Evangeline away from their mom for a small number of years. Claiming they needed to toughen up and become acquaintances with the hunting world; that meant being stuck in motels and their dad telling them how to clean guns, or narrating stories of how to kill vampires, werewolves... Even her childhood memory could remember all the fear Evangeline had felt during those years she was with her dad and brother.

Adam was an angry man.

And Cain was his angry son.

She'd just wanted to go home. She dreamt of the perfect scenario every night where she ran straight into her mom's arms and cried and cried until all the fear had left her body and she was at peace with her mom.

The day came when she was five and her mom had demanded that Ellen find Adam and make him bring their children to the Roadhouse and put an end to this. Evangeline hadn't wasted a second once she stepped over the threshold of the Roadhouse and barreled into her mom's legs. Clinging onto Eve as if she was afraid this was all a dream, that once she let go it would all be over.

Ellen noticed it then that all Evangeline ever needed was a mother. She needed someone nurturing and caring, not like Adam or Cain. She needed her mother.

Evangeline never got her mother for long. She had a much nicer brother in the form of Abel but she could not be loved by her mother. She didn't know how to accept it after years away with her father.

When she was thirteen, Evangeline turned back up at the Roadhouse with her angry father in tow. And for a year Evangeline received love. She didn't understand it or why it was happening to her but she felt it.

She'd felt the warm fuzzy feeling in her heart when Jo would hug her right or hold her hand when they crossed the road, or when Ash ruffled her hair and offered to cut it for her. Or, when Ellen would give her those forehead kisses before bed every night.

That was love.

Evangeline was far too uncomfortable to brand it as 'love'; the word was frightening. And she was comfortable with what she had now. This was her little bubble; the Roadhouse, with all the booze, her family and drunkards you could imagine.

She was too comfortable here. Ellen thought. As a parent you always hope your kids dream big, experiment outside the comfort zone and Ellen knew you had to push your kids out of their happy little bubble that they grow comfy in.

And that was what she was currently working on with Evangeline.

And Ellen would have to start praying to God if it didn't work out.

✸

"Hi." Evangeline had the smallest of smiles as she slid into her seat at the bar. Luckily, Dean had seemingly claimed the stool next to her designated stool.

They would have had a real issue if he'd attempted to unknowingly steal her stool. (Who was Evangeline kidding? She would've let him steal her stool, it's not as if she'd ever speak up for herself even if it was over a damn stool.)

Dean glanced in her direction, shooting her a quick smile before turning to Sam. The brothers didn't speak, Dean just stared at Sam.

Evangeline watched them in confusion. They weren't twins so they didn't have any twin telepathy, but Dean clearly had some sort of mental communication skills as Sam stood up and said, "I gotta go... over there... right now."

"Oh." Evangeline watched him go to the other side of the bar with a frown, "He didn't have to go— I didn't mean to—"

"Nah," Dean waved his hand before taking a sip of his beer, "He had other things to do."

He clearly did not, Sam was now sat in the dark corner of the bar with his beer bottle in his hands.

"You sure...?" Evangeline asked with furrowed eyebrows. "I don't want him to think—"

She didn't want to seem like an intruder. Or, a bad person who had come along to wedge between the two brothers. (Although it seemed that John Winchester's death was doing that well enough.)

"He'll be fine." Dean said. "He needs allocated brooding time in his day."

"Oh." Evangeline mumbled, "Okay."

Do not make a fool of yourself— do not mention his dad— or that it sucks— don't be a fool. Evangeline! Do not be a fool—!

She tapped her fingers against the wood of the bar, "Look, uh, I am really sorry 'bout what I said about your dad and—" she avoided the word death. At least that might make her more of a conversationalist than before? "'M not good at talking, if you hadn't noticed."

She laughed quietly at herself. Maybe at her own misery, or her own foolishness. It didn't matter what, she was just laughing at herself.

Dean laughed quietly with her.

She hadn't expected him to.

"We've all got one quality that falls short." He shrugged, his eyes falling onto the constant rhythm of her fingers tapping against the bar.

Dean realized that Evangeline didn't even notice she was tapping her fingers; it was all a natural response for her, so deeply imbedded within her that her fingers seemed to tap on their own.

"Yeah." She nodded her head, "Guess so."

Ellen eyed them from the other side of the bar, and she was proud that Evangeline was trying her hardest.

"And— uh," Evangeline peered up at Dean, "Yellow eyes— I know some stuff, 'm sorry I lied and said I didn't but... I don't know you, so I don't exactly wanna just bare my soul to you."

She ran a hand down her face, "Does that even make sense?" She huffed, her cheeks flushing pink at what she thought was her own stupidity, "I wanna help, I do, I wanna gank this son of a bitch as much as you do, I just... I needa trust you."

"What I know about yellow-eyes is all personal experience and I don't just tell anyone about the freak." Her fingers stopped tapping against the bar, and Dean watched her hand turn into a clenched fist, her nails digging into the skin of her palm.

"The end goal... is kill it, right?" She looked him dead in the eye, for perhaps the first time since meeting her two days ago. (By God did she have beautiful eyes.) "I wanna help you kill it."

I want to kill the bastard that took everything from me. If she'd known Dean longer and they were perhaps more than acquaintances she might've said that.

But, they weren't and she didn't.

"And if you don't want anymore help— and 's a family thing that's fine— I don't wanna get in the way of you and Sam—"

Dean sipped his beer before speaking, "You want revenge on this ugly son of a bitch?"

"What would anyone else want with him?" She replied.

"Ellen said you're a good hunter, quick on your feet and a quick thinker. She said she'd trust her life in your hands."

That was high praise. Praise Evangeline wasn't entirely sure she deserved, considering she didn't think she was capable of saving anyone let alone someone she loved.

"I don't." Dean said, blankly. (Evangeline thought he was better off for thinking that way.) "I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

Evangeline shrugged her shoulders, he wasn't wrong for his thinking; they'd met two days ago and they knew nothing about one another. Except that they shared a common enemy.

"But, as much as I hate to admit it," Dean sighed with a small shake of his head, "Me and Sam need help. We need someone who knows something to kill this freak."

And if Dean said yes to whatever Evangeline was actually proposing here, it would get Ellen off his back. He wasn't a fool, all the time, and he could tell when someone was dropping hints; and that woman had been dropping enough hints to suggest she wanted Evangeline out of this Roadhouse and with other people. Why? Dean didn't know, and he didn't exactly think it was his place to ask.

He would work with Evangeline for however long this took and then she could return back to the Roadhouse, and everyone emerges victorious; Evangeline makes friends, learns how to converse with people, Ellen doesn't have to see Evangeline become a drunkard and all of them have yellow-eyes dead!

A win is a win!

"Where've you guys been?" Ash questioned, making his presence in the bar known. "I been waiting for you."

Evangeline jumped slightly, having not heard Ash's loud footsteps for once in her time here. Had she gotten that engrossed in conversation? Is this what it felt like to speak and not just watch everyone else? She glanced over her shoulder, her eyebrows furrowing, "Why are you wearing a waistcoat but no shirt?"

Ash shrugged, holding whatever he was holding, "Free the nips."

"Jesus Christ." She muttered in response with a shake of her head.

Dean's lips quirked upwards as Sam responded to Ash, "We were working a job, Ash. Clowns?"

"Clowns?" Ash repeated in confusion, "What the—?"

"You got somethin' for us, Ash?" Dean interrupted the man with raised eyebrows.

His clunky laptop was placed on the bar, Ash hovering over Evangeline's shoulder as he logged in and whatnot.

Evangeline looked up at him with a glare, "Heard of personal space?" He was essentially breathing down her neck, and he enjoyed it because he knew she despised it.

"Not recently, no." Ash shook his head.

Sam ran a hand down his face, "Did you find the demon?"

"'S nowhere around, at least nowhere I can find. But, if this fugly bastard raises its head, I'll know. I mean I'm on it like divine dog dookie." Evangeline and Jo both shared an exasperated look at his words.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

"I mean," Ash says, turning his laptop round to face them, "I mean any one of these signs or omens appear anywhere in the world my rig will go off like a fire alarm." When Dean's hands reached out for the laptop, Ash pulled a face. "What's up, man?"

Sam scoffs in what seems to be disbelief, "Ash, where did you learn all this?"

"MIT, before I got bounced for fighting."

"Okay. Give us a call as soon as you know something?" Dean asked.

"Si, si, compadre."

Dean and Sam got up from their seats, and Ash reached out for Dean's half drunk beer bottle, Evangeline swatted his hand, "Do not drink from that bottle. Get your own."

"Then I'll have to pay." He shrugged.

Evangeline narrowed her eyes, getting up from her own seat as Ellen offered the Winchesters a place to stay if they needed it, "You've never payed for a single drink of yours at the Roadhouse."

Ash's tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, "Oh, yeah."

Evangeline shook her head before hurrying out the door to catch up to Dean and Sam, "Hey, hold on!" She called.

Dean instantly spun around to face her.

Sam frowned in confusion.

"About the whole helpin' thing... I can't exactly help you if we don't trust each other, so I was thinking that— maybe, only if you guys wanted to— uh, I should come on a couple cases before we try yellow-eyes, just to know we've got each other's backs—"

Fool. The status of fool was wholeheartedly achieved at this point. All her words were fumbled and she wasn't even sure if the words falling from her lips made sense, they were just coming out and she couldn't stop them.

Fucking fool.

Dean just simply nodded his head. "Alright."

Alright.

Evangeline just let all these words tumble from her lips and he just said 'alright'. You're such a fucking fool.

"Oh." She began tapping her fingers against the side of her leg, "Okay."

Dean nodded his head again, "Okay. If we get anything we know where to find you."

"What's—?" Sam asked.

"I'll explain in the car."

As they turned around, Evangeline waved at them, "Drive safe."

They couldn't even see her wave. Oh, my God? Why did you wave?

Stupid, stupid—!

Evangeline dug her nails into her palm as she retreated back into the Roadhouse. Sighing deeply as she plopped down at her stool.

Conversing was exhausting. And embarrassing.

Ellen slid the girl a glass of lemonade, a smile on her face. "Good goin', honey."

"Thank you."

"Proud of you." Ellen smiled.

It was such a small thing to be proud of. Evangeline wondered if she should be proud of herself or rather embarrassed.

She sipped her lemonade instead of deliberating on it.

Ash huffed, "Ain't you proud of me?"

"F'what?" Ellen laughed.

"All these demon tracking! 'S hard work y'know!"

All three of the girls exchanged a look before laughing at the look on Ash's face. They couldn't help it. He looked genuinely enraged.

And the laughter was so beautiful sounding.

Evangeline should laugh more.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
dean and evangeline friends for once chapter ruined by the next! I LOVE IT! LOL!

and im sorry for VERY sporadic or infrequent updates i just started year 13 and the homework is CRAZY so it will never be scheduled