Room 320, Saturday Morning

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria was not, per se, sleeping in, since she hadn't bothered going to sleep after last night's radio fiasco. She had instead spent the dark hours of the morning slicing at imaginary opponents in the preserve with her newly-returned sword, before she had to once again stow it in the weapons locker.

Now, after returning to an empty room, she was staring at Sam Winchester's empty bed and... not sulking. At all. The phrase you were looking for was meditation.

Until the banging on the door began.

[For the OMGWTF you're not breakfast, are you. Sam and Peter's boomshakalaka elsewhere modded with permission.]

Comments

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

"Mooooooooooommy!" came a loud, if rather high voice. "I know you're in there! Open'a dooor!"

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria raised both eyebrows, but didn't raise herself from her cross-legged seat at the end of her bed. "My name is Illyria, not 'mommy' and I have no desire for visitors. Leave."

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, she was being silly. Well, Mitch could open the door all by himself, thank you. He was tall for his age like that. "Mom, mommy mom mom mom there wassa poooortal! I didn't go by it but it came by my bed and schlooooooooooop sucked me up like sketti!"

He was already jumping onto the narrow bed by the time he got to schlooooop, and trying to crawl into her arms on 'sketti.'

"Can we have that for lunch? Where's Dad? Why're you blue?"

[bitchy_smurf]

This was worse than being attacked by squirrels, and if Illyria had been allowed to keep her sword in the dorms.... well. She probably would have remembered the whole not killing humans thing, but let's just say the weapons ban was not necessarily a bad idea.

She pushed the child away from her firmly, but not with enough force to harm it. "Do not touch me! I am not your mother; aren't human children supposed to recognize their parents by the time they can speak?"

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

She was yelling at him! Mom didn't yell, not unless he was about to get hurt, or he had got hurt and she was really scared.

"You mad at me?" he asked, eyes huge. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to go by the portal, mommy, honest!"

[bitchy_smurf]

"I don't know you, I don't care about your proximity to portals, I am not your mother, and I am only angry because you keep insisting that I am! Stop it, and I won't be."

Illyria, honey, he's three. Your logic, despite it almost approaching Earth logic today, is not going to work on him.

"Who are you? Who is your mother? Go to her, and leave me be."

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

Yes, that worked. Now he was blinking back tears and working his way up to a full-on bawl in a moment, because the only reasons he could think of for her acting like this would be that he did something really, really bad, or this wasn't his mommy, it was just some monster that looked like her. Mom and Dad told him about those - those were the reason for Rule #1: Don't Invite Anybody Into The House, Even People You Know.

Instead of the bawling, he went for yelling right back.

"My name is Mitchell Roger Wyndam-Pryce and my daddy's name is Wesley and my mommy's name is Fred and I live at three twenty-two Svulpeda Bovelard--"

Not quite, Mitch.

"--and I dunno why you're YELLING AT ME I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! If you're not my mommy then you're A BAD VAMPIRE AND YOU HURT HER AND I HATE YOU!"

[bitchy_smurf]

It was difficult to find Illyria at a complete loss for words, but this... this brought her close. "I...am not..."

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

That would be about when he hit her with the stuffed rabbit. "I WANT MY MOM!"

[bitchy_smurf]

It bounced off her face to land on the bed. She was fast enough that she could have - should have - snatched it from the air, but Illyria just sat there, hands open, as the word "Feigenbaum," crackled through her memory.

She'd stared at the toy lying there on the blanket for a full five seconds before she realized the word had been spoken aloud, not entirely in her own voice.

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

Mitchell snatched the bunny back, scrambling backwards across the bed to the wall. "I want my mommy," he repeated, but not so much with the yelling, now, Now was the time for not being able to see because the tears were getting his glasses all messy, and hugging the bunny to his face in the hope that if he didn't look at the bad monster thing, it would turn into his mom when he opened his eyes again, or at least be gone. He did lift his face enough to say, "If you hurt her, my daddy's gonna stake you and make you go POOF!"

[bitchy_smurf]

Too late for that said the same voice that had spoken aloud, and Illyria shut her eyes. BE SILENT. BE GONE.

Why can't I stay? was all that echoed in reply.

"I am not a vampire," she said, aloud and in her own words. "Nor am I your mother; I merely look like her." When she opened her eyes again, Illyria stood up, and put out her hand. "Come with me."

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

Mitch wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, which only smeared his glasses more. "No! M' not s'posed to go with strangers." Even if his watch said she wasn't. He must have broke it when he fell.

[bitchy_smurf]

"You're in my room now, on my bed. If I planned to harm you, I could have done it a thousand times over by now."

Again with the Earth logic. Also, note the part where she didn't claim not to have hurt his mother. "You've traveled here from a divergent timestream. If events proceed as I've been told such things do, you'll be returned to your parents within several days. Until then, I'll take you to someone who can properly monitor your well-being."

Hand: still out.

[not4eating.livejournal.com]

"DAYS?" Mitch scrambled off the bed and put one hand on his hip, the other still clutching Feigenbaum to him. "I want Mom NOW!"

Look, he was smart, okay, and kind of mature for his age, which happened when your parents had more degrees than anybody had a right to and books at hand that could, with a whispered request, explain harmonic convergences and demonic possession in language any three year old could understand, but he was still three.

"Now, now, now!" Which, coincidentally, was when the actual bawling started. The loud, hicuppy sobbing sort.

[bitchy_smurf]

"Then come with me!"

Yes, that was kind of unfair, since she wasn't taking him to Fred, couldn't take him to Fred even if she wished to, but child. Wailing. In her room. And smacking her shins with a stuffed rabbit now. While something made disgusting sounds of grief at lost futures and the cruelty of the universe from the back of her skull, and enough.

She bent down and scooped the boy up, throwing him over her shoulder. She gripped the back of his trousers as he kicked and hit at her, and made her way out the door, "Let me gooooo! Mom! Mom!" ringing in her ears.