Family Don't End With Blood /Destiel//Sabriel//Michifer

Changes For The Better

Elsa woke up to a knock on her bedroom door.  She considered ignoring it, until it sounded again, more insistently. 

A muffled voice drifted through from the other side; "You gotta get up now." 

Through her tiredness she could vaguely distinguish the voice of her older brother, Dean. 

Elsa paused, hoping her silence would grant her peace. 

"I'm serious.  Sam was up two hours ago."

"Fine."  Reluctantly, she pushed herself out of bed, allowing the covers scattering on the floor around her. 

As she started opening draws and pulling out clothes, she heard the sound of footsteps retreating down the hallway.  Sneaking a glance at her watch, she saw that Dean was right; she was already late. 

Deciding to shower when she got back, she pulled on some jeans and a large grey flannel shirt; she was pretty sure that she'd permanently borrowed it from one of her brothers, but couldn't remember which one.  Brushing the thought aside, she carefully pulled on her old black combat boots and headed downstairs.

"Idjit!" Bobby greeted her in the kitchen.  "How many times have I told yeh about boots in the house?" 

"Sorry."  She grinned, placing two weetabix into a bowl and making no effort to remove the boots.  "Where's Sam?"

"Sammy's still upstairs, trying to sort his bag," Dean answered, strolling into the kitchen and making a B-line for the fridge.

Elsa smiled, picturing her brother trying to cram every book he owned into his school bag. 

Sam had always been a big studier and was the leading expert on achieving outstanding grades.  Aside from that, he was also a pro at making friends and fitting in, seeing as he'd spent most of his life trying to do nothing except fit in.  He often lost sleep trying to over-study for tests, on top of socialising during school hours, and rarely ran on more than six hours of sleep.  Still, with his habit of eating strictly healthily, or 'rabbit food', as Dean called it, he always managed to stay just about on top of things, and was liked by almost everyone he met.

It wasn't as easy for the other two. 

Dean had never seen the need for academics and had never really bothered with school, especially as John had been so intent on training him to kill instead.  Dean would slot into the popular crowd in ever school they had attended and within a week he'd be running the place.  People often seemed intimidated by him, quickly learning that he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and couldn't care less if he was sent to the Principal's office.  He had a self-confident air to him, sprung from his various attempts to try and please his father, who had, as always, blatantly refused to take any sort of fartherly interest in his eldest son.

Elsa, on the other hand, was somewhere imbetween her brothers' extremes.  She was much more of a casual learner.  If she was interested: she'd listen.  If she wasn't: she'd daydream.  She kept the minimum in her bag, so it stayed light, with the exception of a pocket knife, concealed within her history book, having been raised to be cautious and prepared, but far from paranoid.  People often seemed to find her unnerving.  She could be off school for days at a time, due to her irregular sleeping pattern that had caused her to be ill on more than one occasion.  She'd developed a habit of rarely speaking to anyone outside of the family, as she'd only ever been able to keep a friend for a few months before they'd moved on again, and she'd gotten tired of having to say goodbye to people she cared about.  As a general rule, most people either thought that she was overly shy or slightly unhinged.

She wasn't a blood relative to Sam or Dean, having been orphaned at birth and then adopted by their Mother, Mary.  Of course, John had resented having to raise another child after his wife had died, and so Elsa had learned to play it safe and try to obey John to the letter: just as Dean did.