#prodigil

Cường sniffles, brows furrowing, forehead digging into his shoulder. Ow. This book is so... “Don’t take on anymore guests. They’re not fond of sharing. They’ll fill you until you burst. You’re using a different detergent.”

They should react more to HIS reaction —— but they don’t.  Yuu just stares at him, eyes guarded and prepared, waiting for him to either strike out or be of assistance, and prepared for either reality.  He slams on the break, and they sputter to a stop.  Dark eyes go more suspicious. 

There are certain levels of indignities J’onn has learned adjust to with his time as a hunter. Cheap motels, long rides on the Greyhound, hitchhiking with his last two dollars in cash in his wallet. Filthy motel rooms and the ugly, dark underbelly of small towns and closed communities, too-old coffee and days on end with nothing to eat but cheap instant ramen.

Though perhaps his least favorite of all are the ones associated with his monstrous side; mainly vulnerability associated with changing shape. Tearing off his skin, growing and shrinking his bones, feeling every bit the monster most would accuse him of being if they saw what was only within his nature to do. It was why he so very rarely indulged in shifting outside of necessity, it made him weak and open to attack. And more importantly, it made him feel revolting.

J’onn has never quite learned to move past that well of shame associated with his kind.

So to be caught mid-shift with his metaphorical pants down is, as one could imagine, a worst-case scenario for him, and one that he’s not all-too-thrilled to have come to fruition. He freezes in the middle of reshaping himself, fingers dug deep into a layer of skin that he was in the process of tearing off.

Were he in a less compromising position, he would have a great deal more generosity to be walked in on unprompted. As it is, he is feeling less than kindly, and without his vocal chords being reformed properly yet the most he can manage is a distorted utterance at the intruder.

“Get out.”

It’s the laugh that apparently startles Sam’s otherwise impeccable stance.  Not his own laugh,  nonono,  but the clown’s :  he laughs something powerful and rough,  a roar with an undertone of rust.  The Joker,  observant man that he is,  has picked up all the possible reactions to that barking sound of his ;  out of them all,  from the quaking little old ladies to grown ass men shitting themselves,  Samuel Winchester looks the least freaked out.  That’s not boring,  that’s new.  And he’s a big guy,  too :  poor startled Sammy proved himself a neat puncher,  splitting the Joker’s upper lip and giving him a taste of a relatively copious trickle of his own blood darkening trickly the red gash of paint over his mouth.  Sam’s knuckles are red,  too,  either smeared with blood or clown makeup.  But the Joker,  hyena-like,  laughs it off.  And poor Sammy begins to freak out a little bit !  He sees it in the way his broad shoulders shrink a bit,  and the light hits the pooling bark-brown of his eyes a bit differently,  and his slightly wrinkling cheek when he sucks nervously the inner walls of his mouth.  

The Joker sees it,  and stops laughing all together,  as if the joke was never really that funny anyway.   ‘  Ah-ah-ah  ’   he drawls on each sound disapprovingly,  like a disappointed parent.  Sam keeps him at arm’s length with an old machete that lost most of its sharpness,  but likely still does a wonderful job at cracking bones and tearing muscles,  the clown bets.   ‘  Sammysammysammy ... Sammy.  ’  Joker’s steps stretch like a panther’s around the other ;  feral and delighted as a panther would be around its freshly hunted meal.  

 ‘  Let’s not,  uh,  fuck this up.  Look,  I like you.  Big knife  - maybe a bit too big,  but I appreciate the sentiment -  and a good grip.  Wannabe heroes these days don’t even know where to stick it ...  the,  huh,  the knife I mean.  ’

A steely,  nasal chuckle escapes him.   

"hey."

times like these, loki worries. she always worries, it seems, and maybe too much about sam: she's wondered if he ever feels smothered by it, even if she never sees him except when he comes... back, not home, because as much as she'd like him to think of here as home, she shouldn't make assumptions. shouldn't be so bold as to think she can carve out this home for anyone just because she managed it for herself. (how hard did she have to work to do that? how could she ever measure what it would take for somebody else?)

shouldn't make assumptions, no. but it doesn't stop loki being grateful that he can take a little comfort in her, and worrying when she does something wrong. she isn't afraid of him, and she doesn't think she could ever be. worse things than sam winchester with his soft grey-gold eyes go bump in the night, no matter what he thinks of himself. like her. there's a reason nothing has ever followed him here.

here, they're safe. with her, sam should always be safe, and never flinch from her. she would never hurt him. "i know you're not, sweetheart," she says, reaching to tuck one of those brown locks back behind his ear. "it's okay. i know. sometimes things just come back, and it happens."

it'd be a lie for her to pretend that she's never been frightened sam might suddenly be disgusted with her and leave, and that sometimes in the long absences she's terrified she's done something wrong and he'll never turn up on her doorstep again. but he didn't put those fears there. worse things than sam winchester, with his soft grey-gold eyes, and his rough but cautious hands, and how he never so much as raises his voice to her, did that.