(no subject)

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Time: October 14th, 2000
Place: Lobby
Status: Semi-private (Pepper, Crowley, War, John, Bast, Wensley and Roger) [Complete]
Summary: An unexpected visitor


Pepper had spent the day moving various plants into the lobby and trimming them as best she could, throwing the extra leaves and little branches in a garbage bag she'd brought with her. The place needed some greenery and some flowers, and she figured it couldn't hurt now that it was getting colder and things outside would take care of themselves more.

She thought she'd bring in some poinsettias soon.

Granted it wasn't even Bonfire Night, but being English meant that she started preparing for Christmas in October, like everyone else. Besides, Adam had promised a good winter, and she was looking forward to it.

The plants had generally been behaving themselves, all except one. Whoever'd had the bright idea to grow wysteria on the pergola near the garden should have been caught and executed, in Pepper's opinion. The plant had a history of growing up the sides of buildings, destroying framework quite effectively, and yet someone had let the thing go. Pepper had spent half the summer trying to tame the thing and it still wouldn't stop spreading. She was certain that countless people at the manor had probably seen her pitching a fit while hanging upside down from pergola, cursing the wysterias ancestors into oblivion. Those branches were thick.

Maybe that was why she'd decided that she deserved time working in the lobby.

So now she was enjoying a moment of rest, sitting in a chair near the front desk and rereading The Man in the Iron Mask. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed the book, hadn't read it since she was fourteen or so, and was pretty caught up in it. Pepper had a tendancy to be very expressive as she read or watched movies, and she was currently engaging in gnawing her fingernails down with her teeth, eyes wide as two pound coins, while King Louis ordered d'Artagnan to arrest Porthos and Aramis.

Comments

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

It was the scent of greenery that drew Crowley to the lobby when he'd been intending to go into the bar. Then a redhead behind a book he'd read many times, first in French, then in English, made him stay.

"I have in that Japanese vase two roses gathered yesterday evening in the bud from the governor’s garden. This morning they have blown and spread their vermilion chalices beneath my gaze; with every opening petal they unfold the treasures of their perfume, filling my chamber with fragrance. Look now on these two roses; even among roses these are beautiful, and the rose is the most beautiful of flowers. Why, then, do you bid me desire other flowers when I possess the loveliest of all?" he quoted with a smile.

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Absorbed as she was, the voice that chimed into her thoughts was a perfect accent to them, and she closed her eyes and listened. Many people could read out loud, but it meant nothing if you didn't understand the meaning of the words. This voice understood. Pepper set her head against the back of the chair and drank it in.

"If flowers constitute liberty, I am free, for I possess them," she murmured back, and finally opened her eyes, smiling back even before she knew there would be a smiling face to greet her. "Hello there," she said simply, setting the book in her lap.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"If you didn't before, you do now," Crowley agreed, producing a small bouquet (http://www.wishlist.com.au/images/Products/RO05/stunning_L.jpg) and handing it to her.

"Hello, Pepper," he said, voice pitched slightly deeper and richer than usual. "Always a pleasure. But I didn't mean to interrupt. I just couldn't help myself..."

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper blinked once or twice when he held out the flowers. Had anyone ever given her flowers in a bouquet like that before? She couldn't recall it happening, so the answer had to be no. And they were beautiful, she thought, reaching out and taking them hesitantly, certain that her imagination was playing tricks on her.

But then it couldn't be, because even her incredibly vivid imagination couldn't produce a scent like that. "Nothing says freedom like lilies," she teased, holding them under her nose and breathing in deep.

Why was it that whenever he said her name, her toes tried to curl on her? Didn't seem fair. "You're not interrupting," she assured him, hardly daring to think of how she must have looked as she read when he walked in, excited and terrified and ridiculous. "If I'd been intent on privacy, I'd have known better than to read in the main lobby." She looked up at him keenly. "And you? Do you normally go around quoting poetic prose out of the books of anyone reading nearby?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

He laughed. "Actually, lilies say 'youthful innocence'. It's water willows that say 'freedom'. Or so people used to think. The Victorians worked out an entire language with flowers."

Crowley sat gracefully. "Not just anyone," he insisted playfully. "I only go quoting poetic prose if it's likely to impress a pretty girl. But it helps that you're reading a favourite of mine." She had looked very... animated while reading, but that was nothing to be embarrassed about. It showed her to be a passionate person. The kind that never did anything halfway. It made her interesting and the demon was intrigued despite himself.

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

It was possible that she clutched the flowers a little closer at that, though she was raising her eyebrows in skepticism. Well, she could play the history game too, if need be. "If I r'call correctly - out of textbook readin', mind you, so maybe my information is faulty - the Victorians also thought an entire group of women in the country 'superfluous' because their weren't enough men around to marry 'em, an' they found bustles quite attractive, so I'm not quite sure we should believe 'em." They also believed it was great fun to watch some conjuror raise a person from the dead, but Pepper didn't voice that one, far too worried at the idea that it could come true in a place around here.

And then he was implying that she was pretty and her cheeks were all warm and really Pep, get a grip, you're being such a bloody girl. "Well, colour me 'mpressed then," she said, figuring it would make up for pink freckles at any rate. "A favourite? Really? Somehow 'one for all an' all for one' doesn' strike me as a particularly demonic code." She was teasing again, of course, but she was genuinely curious. A demon who read Alexander Dumas? It certainly wouldn't grace a common List of Expectations.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I never said they were bright. The womens' clothes were frankly awful, though I was glad that they finally invented trousers for men, but I did enjoy sending secret messages with flowers. I missed most of the period, though. I still haven't decided if that was a good thing or not..." The demon got lost in his thoughts for a moment, wondering what could have been had he been awake during the nineteenth century. Then he shook his head slightly and smiled at his companion. Better to live in the present.

"Are you kidding?" he asked, bemused. "Political intrigue, sword fighting, torture, adultery, treachery, and everyone dies at the end. What's not to like? The real thing wasn't nearly as exciting, I'm afraid." Crowley was just as surprised to find Pepper reading a hundred and fifty year old book as she was that he also enjoyed it.

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

She made a face. "Wearing stockings before trousers came along must 'ave been awful, I can't stand the things. But sending messages with flowers sounds like fun." Pepper's mind automatically tried to think of some dramatic message you could send with flowers, something probably involving death and scandal. Until she registered the rest of what he'd said. "But how could you miss most of it? Did you run off to Antarctica or summat?"

The more she considered it, the more logical it seemed for him to like a story like that. "Well, if that's your cuppa, I'll make sure to read something from Shakespeare's Histories next around around. One of the Richards, maybe. Or Henry IV. You can surprise me with Falstaff quotes." Pepper quirked her eyebrows laughingly.

Then she thought back to long history classes about French politics and Louis the XVI and citroyens, and cringed. "No, I can't imagine the real thing would be very much fun at all," she conceeded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "But if you had all of history to live through, it probably means that you picked up some pretty impressive skills along the way, besides knowing about flowers. Let me guess - you're an expert archer? You can paint like Michelangelo?" She slapped one hand against her thigh in a universal 'I've got it!' gesture. "You can ballroom dance!" she said jokingly.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I hate them myself," Crowley agreed. "I always assumed they were invented by the Church for some sadistic reason. But sending messages with flowers was fun." He made a mental note to send Pepper a floral message in a week or two. "Um, no. I went to sleep for a while. A good eighty, eighty-five years. Slept through most of it. I woke up and huzzah, there were trousers." He tried to play it lightly. Humans got weird about the whole tuning out for a lifetime thing.

"Falstaff?" Crowley raised an eyebrow. "The, 'If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned,' Falstaff?" He grinned. "Shakespeare's more the ang... he's not my thing. But you see those damn plays enough and the words get stuck in your head."

The demon didn't want to get into a discussion of French politics and his role therein, so he took the out she offered. "I'm not an archer, though I'm pretty good with a sword. And I can't even paint like Pollack. However..." he looked left and right before leaning in and speaking in a low, intimate voice like he was divulging a state secret, "I can dance. But I'd rather word not get around. I've a reputation to maintain." Crowley sat back in his chair, looking smugly innocent.

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper didn't think it was weird, in fact, she burst out in hysterics at the explanation. "You were sleeping? My mum used to come and bat me with a rolled up newspaper if I tried to sleep past ten-thirty on weekends, and you slept for eighty-five years?" Once she'd calmed down a bit, she swiped a hand across one eye to collect tears. "That's a really nice nap."

She pointed at him when he gave the next quote, saying, "That's the one. Shakespeare's not a real favorite of mine either, but the Them went through a MacBeth period, an' that was truly horrific. Though we all decided together that Romeo and Juliet was complete rubbish no matter how pretty it sounded." She didn't miss the way he'd almost finished the one sentence. Was that why he'd seemed so down the few times she'd seen him pass by more recently - a fallout with the angel? It had worried her a bit, actually, seeing his expressions go so dark.

"What kind of sword?" she immediately asked. She only had experience with three herself: broadsword, foil and Hollywood single sword. But he was certain to be much better than she was, making her automatically interested. As for Pollack, the image of him spattering paint all over a canvas in suits like the one he was wearing now was enough to provoke more laughter on her part before she went perfectly silent as he told his secret. She smirked. "Oh, you can then? Well fine, I promise not to divulge your great secret in an effort to keep your reputation intact. But you have to tell me when you learned and which dances, or no deal." A little blackmail never hurt anyone when it was for fun, right?

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

How could you hear her laugh and not laugh back? Crowley did. "Yeah, well, I did have to get up in 1832 to use the loo..." He grinned. "But I like sleeping. It's one of the pleasures of the world. I just did it because I could. And I thought that century was going to be bloody boring. Like the fourteenth. Guess I was wrong. But I deserved a break after the French Revolution anyway."

Crowley shook his head slightly. "Romeo and Juliet is complete rubbish. I hope Adam was MacDuff, though, and not MacBeth or we're all screwed. Dare I ask who played Lady MacBeth?" He somehow doubted it had been Pepper. Although she was probably one of the few powerful female figures in theatre.

"What kind of sword? I don't know. Whatever I could get and was pointy. You can bet that Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan didn't mess about with kinds of swords. They used whatever kept them alive. That's how real fighting works." He had a bit too much experience with that, really. Although he tended to prefer being apparently unarmed. No one expected claws.

"Ah, so it's to be blackmail, is it? I knew I should keep an eye on you. Well, you've got me, so I might as well confess. I picked up the Spagnoletta during the Renaissance. da Vinci was fond of that one. Tried up the Chaconne, the Tambourin, and the Gavotte in the French Court in the seventeenth century. I learned the Quadrille during the Regency, took my little nap, and when I woke up, I needed to learn the Waltz. It was a short step to Swing in the 30's and I gave it all up when the Twist came around. But turn about is fair play, right? Now you have to confess a secret..."

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

The idea of sleeping all that time only to have to get up for the sake of something as simple as going to the loo made the whole thing even more absurd, and Pepper clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent another bout of hysterical laughter. At least he was laughing too, so she didn't feel like a complete idiot. "I'd never really thought of sleepin' that way, but I guess you're right. An' I suppose as a demon you're supposed to indulge in those sorts a things, right?" She was tempted to ask about the French Revolution, but decided that was probably a long conversation that she didn't have the concentration for at the moment.

And then she was remembering the makeshift stages the Them had created around Tadfield, any place they felt needed a performances space. Her expression turned a little sardonic. "It's Adam - he got to play whoever he wanted to play. It all depended on his mood for the day. He actually had a fleetin' interest in Hamlet for a bit, and that was worse. An' you can certainly dare ask who played Lady MacBeth, but dun't look at me. I never let 'em make me play the girl, told them they were bein' sexist if they did. Usually Brian played Lady MacBeth, he thought she was wicked." Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "Actually, when Adam played MacDuff, I got to be MacBeth..."

She tried to imagine grabbing any sword, any dagger or shield she might find and fighting with what was on hand. It was hard to picture. "I'm too used to stagin' it," she told him, "tryin' to make it look good to an audience. 'Cept for when it was unarmed because I did that a lot when I was little. Takes a lot of the reality out of it, I s'pose."

Pepper straightened up triumphantly in her chair when her coercing paid off. And the list was... impressive. "I don't even know what most of those dances are," she confessed, grinning. "And the ones I do know, I only know from seein' 'em in films. Must 'ave been fun." Or she hoped it was, at least, so he hadn't learned all of it for nothing. As for the rest... "You want me to confess a secret? Like my secrets are going to be half as good as any of yours!" She mock pouted and tried to come up with something. "What do you want to know? Give me some sort of guideline...."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley shrugged, smiling. "Technically, I'm supposed to encourage other people in those sorts of things. Although tempting people to sloth isn't generally much fun. But we're allowed to dabble a bit. Just so that we understand how it works, right?" A twitch of his lips said that he wasn't being entirely serious.

He tried to imagine Adam as Hamlet and winced. "Brian, huh? He's that other one...?" Crowley had met Wensleydale, Pepper, and Adam, of course, and only dimly remembered a fourth rather scruffy little boy. "I don't think I've met him yet. I'm sure he made a lovely wife for you, though. But if you were MacBeth you got that excellent speech at the end:

"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Okay, he was really showing off now, but it was pretty much his favourite Shakespearean speech. Crowley had never ceased to be surprised that a moral could understand mortality so well. He wondered briefly where Will had ended up, made a mental note to ask Aziraphale if he knew, then kicked himself for forgetting that they weren't talking.

"Yeah?" he asked, trying to distract himself with conversation. "Well, I have no idea how my sword fighting looks. Probably not terribly interesting to anyone other than the participants. But I won most of my battles, so it can't have been too bad."

The demon shook his head. "I can't say it's my favourite past time. Mostly I learned because it was expected to know. But with the right partner, in the right atmosphere, it can be fun." The grin slipped back onto Crowley's face. "Hey, a secret is a secret. How about something you did once that was really fun but you'd be embarrassed to tell your friends about? Or something about yourself that even Adam doesn't know. Well, something Adam's not supposed to know, anyway..."

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

The more Pepper thought of it, tempting someone to sloth sounded an awful lot like saying, Go ahead, you can sit in that chair all day. Won't hurt anyone. And that did sound pretty bloody boring. "So in case they ask what sort of work you're doing, you can tell them that you are a Master of Sleep," she said with a great expansive gesture as though it were something to be proud of. It actually made her wonder, though; if sleep for him was the same as sleep for her. "Do you dream, like everyone else?"

She snorted when he suggested Brian as a "lovely wife", now because it had so many new connotations for her friend. "Oh, I don't know if Brian qualifies as that. Mostly, he was just dirty and couldn't remember his lines. Mem'rization isn't one of his strong points. We just shouted 'Out damn'd spot! out, I say!' at him a lot," she recalled, giggling. "I dun't think you've met 'im proper yet, though."

Pepper smiled through the speech. If it was showing off, she didn't seem to notice in the least. Only than it sounded much better coming from him than it ever had from her, but then again, she'd been pretty young the last time she'd recited it. "Excellent speech 'ndeed," she agreed, applauding lightly when he was finished. "Of course, you don't want to actually view your life that way, or you'd be pretty d'pressed the whole way through it, but it doesn' make the point any less powerful."

Crowley was probably good with a saber, came her next thought, rather suddenly. She had no idea why she thought that, it was just a feeling. "If you won most of your battles you must be pretty damn good, I'd say." Though people tried to make it look graceful all the time, actual fencing was really hard in her experience. "I mostly learned because of the games we played, and then I just kept at it. 'Cept the hand to hand stuff which was mostly because I was little and female and wanted to make sure that everyone listened to what I said." And didn't make fun of her name. But that was another story entirely.

"Something Adam's not supposed to know?" She grinned wickedly. "There are lots of things that Adam's not supposed to know...." Like you giving me flowers a minute ago and me getting all light-headed over it, that'd be a start. "That reminds me, don't ever invite him to read your mind, it's not smart." Pepper thought hard for a moment, staring at the ceiling, tongue peeking from between her lips just like during maths tests. "How about my first year at uni on Hallowe'en when everyone in my buildin' decided it would be funny to get me drunk and make me Queen of the Hallowe'en Parade. Dressed as a domintrix. It was pretty horrific, and I couldn't look anyone on my floor in the eye for a month. I still refused to wear the heels, apparently. So they had a barefoot dominatrix, which I'm pretty sure doesn't make sense..." She was sure to be bright red now. It was still embarrassing, and she was surprised that she'd managed to say it aloud.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

He had to smirk at being called a Master of Sleep. "I'll be sure to put that on my resume. But, yeah, I do dream (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/23903.html#cutid1). Although I have no way of knowing if my dreams (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/79981.html#cutid1) are like everyone else's. They tend to be very literal..."

Crowley laughed. "Now if we do meet, I'll have to yell 'Out damn'd spot!' at him and see if he remembers." He grew thoughtful. "And perhaps it would be a bit depressing to a mortal. I find it rather comforting, though."

There was a quiet moment before the corners of his mouth twisted up. "I'm pretty damn good at a lot of things. It's amazing how much practice you can get in on something in six thousand years, even if you don't do it very often. And I won't say I'm surprised that you learned as a child. Must have been hard to keep up with three boys."

He shuddered slightly at the idea of Adam reading his thoughts. "No, I certainly wouldn't invite such a thing. I'm sorry that you did. It must have been very disconcerting." But at the telling of her secret, Crowley threw his head back and laughed. When he'd calmed down enough to speak again, he said, "Now that's a fair trade. I'm going to have to call you BD from now on..."

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper's dreams were usually a pretty wide range, from the very literal to things so far out there that they could have been plots for fantasy novels. "Literal. Huh." She wondered if she had been expecting something else, but found she wasn't sure. Maybe she thought he wouldn't dream at all.

She chuckled at the thought of Brian having that shouted at him by someone he didn't know. "If you ever do, you be sure to tell me how he reacts," she told him. At the thought of asking him why he found the MacBeth speech comforting, she paused, unsure if she wanted an answer. Immortality was something that she was still having trouble coming to grips with, and she figured she should ask when she felt less confused on the subject.

"Wouldn't you forget if you didn't do it that often?" she wondered aloud before smirking in spite of herself. "Oh, those three weren't the hard ones to keep up with. They knew better. It was the other ones, the taller, bigger ones that I had to deal with. Adam, Brian and Wensley sorta knew after Day One that fightin' with me would get them lots more hurt than fightin' with each other. So they stuck to beatin' each other mostly." The times they hadn't had been rather unfortunate for them.

Her mouth quirked anxiously, remembering that conversation with Adam. "Yeah, disconcertin'. And embarrassin'. I shoulda known better, but I think part a me just wanted to know if he could really do it." And then Pepper smacked Crowley lightly on the knee in warning, her mouth gaping wide open, scandalized but smiling nonetheless. "Don't you dare! That'd be one helluva thing to try an' explain if anyone heard you...." And had she been paying attention, she might have heard the front door open a bit earlier....

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

All Roger wanted was to take care of Pippin. He was her boyfriend, after all, and that was his job. He’d known already that Pippin was feeling a little lost lately; it’d been obvious enough, though she hadn’t wanted to talk about it and of course he hadn’t pressed her. He’d hoped that a little time at home, away from the pressures of Uni and long hours of studying and papers, would get her settled again. But apparently he’d been wrong. She needed his help.

So he’d borrowed his father’s car and driven down to Lower Tadfield. It was a nice place, he supposed, quite and unassuming, but he couldn’t really imagine what an intelligent girl like Pippin could find here to occupy her time for a whole year. She’d be bored out of her mind within a month.

The place was a little difficult to find, but once he’d found it he knew without a doubt that it was the right place, and he began to revise his early judgment that Pippin would be bored. This looked like exactly the sort of building that would appeal to the imagination of a girl who took classes in stage combat. She could be so childish sometimes.

He came in the door in time to hear Pippin’s exclamation and see her smack the man in sunglasses smartly on the knee. He frowned at the gesture behind her back before saying cautiously;

“Pippin?”

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pippin?

Pepper frowned instantly. The only person at the manor who was allowed to call her by her real name was Shadow. And that didn't sound like Shadow. In fact, it sounded like -

"Roger?" Pepper said disbelievingly, her eyes narrowing furiously on the new visitor. Her head started spinning. Why was he here? She had said goodbye to him two weeks ago. "What are you doing here?"

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

“Hi.”

He gave her a shy half smile, not sure what kind of reaction to expect. Pippin was funny like that; usually so calm and quiet but every once and a while she did something crazy (like suddenly deciding to take a year of from Uni) and it was always when Roger least expected it.

He spread his arms, hoping for a hug.

“Everyone says hi. We miss you at school.”

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Oh, there went the bloody puppy smile of his again, like he was expecting to be sratched behind the ears for tracking her down like a good boy. And adding everyone into it, like a National Worry for Pippin Society, like they wouldn't go on because exams just wouldn't be the same without her.

She gave him his hug, briefly, and only because she knew he could be a real pain in the arse about stupid things like that. He'd probably stand there with his arms spread all day, waiting for her to come over if she didn't. But she drew back an instant later, stepped away to maintain distance and suspend familiarity. "You still haven't answered my question, Roger. How'd you even get down 'ere, you're s'posed to be in London."

If you don't want this here, tell me 'n' I'll delete it...

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War was coming down the stairs, planning to head outside to the grounds to work off some energy, when she heard voices in the Lobby - Crowley, and Pepper, and one she didn't recognise. Curiously, she ducked her head down to look, just in time to see a strange man standing with his arms outstretched and Pepper uncomfortably give him a brief hug.

Something was clearly going on here, and it didn't feel right. She froze at the top of the stairs, watching, one hand on a hip knife without her even noticing.

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

“Borrowed Dad’s old car,” Roger replied, adding jokingly, “He can do without it for a bit, it’s not like he needs it to get to work or anything.” Pippin was one of the few who knew that Roger’s dad was unemployed, and had been for years. “I just wanted to come check on you; you know you suddenly decided to blow off Uni for a year just like that, and then you wouldn’t answer my calls…” he trailed off there, looking at her a bit accusingly, then continued “I was worried. So I thought I’d come down and make sure you were alright.”

And get you to come to your senses and come back where you belong.

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper cringed at the mention of Roger's father. In her humble opinion, that man had effectively turned Roger into the semi-anal, horribly neurotic person he was, she was sure of it. She felt certain he could have been a looser, more spontanteous guy if he hadn't always been worried about his family as a child, and completely job-obssessed. A steady job was the only thing that Roger really cared about, something to keep the future secure. He would rather do something he hated for the rest of his life than risk stability and find a little adventure. It scared her, that.

"I'm not blowing it off," she said defensively, unsure as to why she was letting his neurocies rub off on her in that moment. He had a funny effect that way. "I need the year to help with... things around here. There's stuff goin' on that I need to be around for is all. At home. Nothin' to do with uni, just is. It's not a problem, I'll be back," she lied, as she really wasn't certain it was true. "But..." Here came the hard part. "That-it still doesn't change what I said to you 'bout us, you know."

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

Roger frowned. Somehow, he’d half hoped that just coming down here would make everything okay, that Pippin would be glad to see him and that they could put all the ridiculousness of the past few weeks behind them. Of course nothing is that easy, he should know better than to be so idealistic.

He took a step closer and dropped his voice as he placed his hand on her elbow.

“Pip, look, I know things have been rough for you lately, but don’t you think you’re overreacting? I mean, what is this really about? I could tell you weren’t being honest with me over the phone. Whatever’s wrong, I’m sure we can fix it.”

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper tensed when he touched her. Too much sense memory involved that she didn't want right now. She laughed bitterly because this whole thing was just stupid. He couldn't fix it, there was no way he could fix it, he didn't even know what it was. Only Adam could fix it, and that was why she had to be here. To make sure that Adam was fine. To make sure her friends and family were safe and help as best she could.

"How would you know how things have been lately? You dun't know what I'm doin' out here, or why I came home. I'm fine, Roger, nothin' to fix. People just need me back here, and it's no big deal takin' time off." She was a little embarrassed that this whole conversation was taking place in front of Crowley, but she didn't give him any signal to leave. For some reason, she felt stronger having someone there at her back, especially someone she felt she could count on if things got a little ugly here. Because if Roger didn't back off soon, it was going to get difficult.