Purgatory Line

"i'm sorry that i'm getting you down, dude, but i used to not share at all."

"i'm sorry that i'm getting you down, dude, but i used to not share at all." - that one limp bizkit song - sledding with tigers

content warnings: graphic descriptions of violence & blood & trauma, mentions of death, descriptions of physical/mental/emotional abuse, mentions of parental death, allusion to pedophilia but nothing specific or graphically described, parental abandonment

Jude didn't recognize the footsteps as they approached. She would have if they would have been Desmond's, so she didn't worry too much. If it was just a civilian, she could handle herself. She had her knife in her pocket and enough hand to hand training to take down a trained law enforcement officer. Whoever it was sat down on the edge of the merry-go-round and jostled it. They sighed, and then spoke. "Rough night?"

Oh, it was Dean.

Jude was more confused, sitting up and moving back until she was barely in the circle in the middle of the merry-go-round. His back was to her, and she wound her arms around her legs. She was trying to protect herself, knowing that the one person she wouldn't be able to take down would be one of the Winchester brothers. Jude hadn't heard a lot about them, but she had heard enough. They were like machines. "You could say that." She finally caved and responded, "Why are you here?" Jude watched more than heard Dean laugh sarcastically, his elbows on his knees, his head dipped to look at the ground. "You here to take me back to the motel?" Jude pretended like she didn't care.

"Nah." Dean spared her a glance over his shoulder. It was like he had caught on, but Jude hoped that he hadn't. Another thing she had heard about the Winchester family: they had an unfortunate moral spine, and that was the last thing she needed needling around in her life. "Not right now. I'm assuming you were told to scram?" Jude didn't answer. "Castiel is worried about you."

Jude made an idigant noise in her throat - was she supposed to believe that? "He doesn't even know me, man." She shook her head, moving her arm from her legs only long enough to tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

"He's an angel, kid, of course he knows you." Dean turned, groaning as he repositioned himself and scooted forward and mirrored her body language. "Want to tell me what's up?" Jude's face hardened, Dean's face in shadows because the Impala's lights were still on. The merry-go-round was spinning, slowly but surely. Eventually it would be her face in shadows, and honestly? She hoped it stopped spinning then. It was easier to hide in the dark, she had figured out. That's why the monsters she hunted liked it so much - she hated comparing herself to those things that went bump in the night, but it was hard not to.

Jude shrugged at him, doing her best not to show Dean that she was uncomfortable. His gaze was too analytical, too knowing. "It was a hard hunt and I got hungry. Castiel caught me at a bad time. Sorry he fuckin' narced on me to you, man."

Dean cocked his head, ignoring her snark. He looked like he had too much practice with angsty teenagers for a man who barely looked older than thirty - if he was even thirty in the first place. Jude thought it was familiar, that weight on his shoulders. Then again, nearly everything about Dean was familiar in the way that things you've never seen before could be sometimes. "Why didn't Desmond send you with money, then?"

"He passed out after I stitched him up." Jude said like it explained everything. It did, to her at least.

"You stitched him up?"

"Of course I did!" Jude answered. If it was too fast, or too harsh, Dean didn't say anything. "What? Was I supposed to let him stitch his own stomach up? Jesus. I know I'm a kid, but my stitchin' is good enough for state work." She looked away, settling her chin on her bicep as she watched the trees around the park. "Why do you care anyway?" Jude struggled against the instinct to bare her teeth again - she wasn't some fucking feral child, no matter how much she looked or ate like one.