“Are you sure you’ve got everything?”
“I packed everything on the list.”
“You’ve got your toothbrush?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Your heart medication? Your hormones?”
Delina sighed, but ran another mental check of her inventory. The bottles were nestled in the first slot of the medicine section, just like they’d been the last five times Rasia had asked. “Yes, mom.”
“All your clothes? Socks, shirts, underwear?…”
“Mom!” she hissed, ears red. “Can we not do this now?”
“C’mon, Delina, cut your mom some slack.” Sam mussed Delina’s hair, ignoring her protests with an easy grin. “It’s not every day a mother first sees her child off to college, you know! And they grow up so fast…”
Tag: sam
Spirit and Such, Chapter Ten
The star was there again.
His brightness had faded slightly, enough that she could see beyond the glow – not that it helped much. In the fashion of dreams, he was many things: a shining orb, a child, a wisp cradled in black wings, the man in the apple tree.
And he was Sam. And Sam was him, and had been all along. Or something?
She waited for rage to flare, but all her anger had burnt out, leaving her throat coated in ash. Clouds of the stuff billowed when she coughed.
Pale fingers over her mouth. “Don’t… don’t do that.”
Sam looked worn. His suit was rumple and singe more than fabric, and the robin’s-egg of his shirt only served to emphasize the sallow of his skin. “You know, when you promised you’d ask for help? I kinda hoped that meant you’d do it before ending up dead.”
She had nothing to say to that.
Spirit and Such, Chapter 9
“I knew Alcor was strong, but he completely maxed out the reading on my Sight Specs. There’s no way we can defeat him face to face. If we’re going to keep you from ending up like every other Mizar, we need to do something, before he claims you.”
“Like what?”
“Dad’s journals didn’t get that far. I think I have a plan, but it’ll take some time to put together.”
“How much do we have?”
“If he were a more typical demon, I’d say maybe til the next eclipse, or some other conjunction of celestial bodies, but Alcor is completely unpredictable. He could strike anytime from next year to tomorrow.”
She swallowed, static dancing at the corners of her eyes. He met her gaze. “I know it’s scary, but you’ve got help. Just come back at midnight, okay? I’ll get as much as I can together and we’ll do it then.”
“I will save you, Delina. I promise.”
Hey A- er, Sam! How did you find out about Delina’s powers? Even her friends at school didn’t know about them.
Sam: Well, for one thing, Delina’s parents keep her out of school specifically so people don’t find out about her fire magic. I have… other means.
Sam: I might not have put it the best way before, but it’s true that I’ve been keeping an eye on her for a while now. Since birth, you could say. It’s the least I could do when it’s my fault she has that power in the first place.
A Mob Boss Sam? That sounds like a story- you willing to tell?
Sam: There’s not much of a story to tell, honestly. Being a Pines, I’ve got some old family ties to the Dinner Crew, and I owed some people. It was a pretty shortlived arrangement.
Delina: Sure sounds like a story to me… Also, wait, didn’t the Dinner Crew disband, like, 500 years ago?
Hey Sam! What did you do before you became a psychic?
Sam: A professional psychic, you mean? People are born with psychic powers. It’s not the kind of thing you can just pick up.
Sam: Before I was doing this, though… well, I’ve had a bunch of odd jobs. Guest lecturer, model, archaeologist, mob boss, plumber… that one was probably one of my least favorites, if we’re keeping track… Tooth fairy, museum curator, programmer. I was a traveling exorcist for a while, too.
Sam: Am I lying about any of this? You tell me.
Spirit and Such, Chapter Six
The trees seemed to shift around their little group as Sam lead the three of them through the forest. Delina tried to count the twists and turns, mapping them against the route she normally took, but then they would pass a landmark that, by her reckoning, should have been entirely somewhere else and she would have to start over.
Had the path been this long the first time Sam walked her here? Shivering, she pressed a little closer to him.
“Well, here we are,” Sam announced, fumbling with a ring of clanking metal strips. He scraped one against the doorknob, muttered something, and tried a different one, which slid in, but refused to to turn. The third went in and turned, but the door stuck until he kicked it open, grumbling. “The – ow – office. Make yourselves at home.”
Mags stared as Delina made her way to the sagging couch, taking in the torn posters, paper-littered desk, and peeling, smoke-stained wallpaper. “This is your office? Looks like the apartment a washed-up TV star moves into when he finally hits rock bottom.”
Spirit and Such, Chapter Five
“What do you mean?” Delina gasped, struggling to get her breathing under control. “I… what are you–”
Sam dragged himself out of the bush with a huff and sat on his heels, brushing twigs and dirt off today’s azure suit. “I was waiting for you, obviously. Didn’t want to risk your mom’s temper again.” He shivered. “I’ve faced down monstrosities that would haunt your nightmares, but I swear, nothing strikes fear into the heart like an angry mother.”
Delina, who had once been caught roasting s’mores in bed, could sympathize. “Okay, that explains why you’re out here. But what do you mean, ‘call you’?”
He flapped his arms at her. “You know, call? Like…” His hand made a strange sign, thumb coming up behind his ear and pinky hovering over his mouth – the same gesture he had made the last time she’d seen him. Not that that made understanding it any easier.
When her eyes failed to glow in comprehension, he slumped. “Let me guess. No one uses telephones anymore.”
“Those things?” She gaped at him. “They’re, like, a thousand years old!”
Spirit and Such, Chapter Two
“I want you to set this on fire.”
“Huh? But –”
“Which one of us is the teacher here?” Sam flapped the sheaf of papers at her. “If you want to learn how to control your fire, you’ve got to learn how you make it, and the only way to do that is to do it. So… just – do it!”
Delina stared blankly at him. He sighed. “Sorry, old joke. But seriously though. Let’s get some sparks going!”
Loss
Blame demo-ness for tagging my Toby Pines Death HC ficlet thing with a request for a painful Dipper POV of the event. At least I did not write out the funeral scene also requested because I couldn’t think of what to cover there which was not covered in what I did write plus the Maddie POV snippet in that previous fic…so. Here we go.
Tyrone
Pines was “sleeping” when the call came. It was the merest tug, powered by
little more than a drop of blood and a pocket-sized circle and a whisper of the
demon’s name – nothing like the big shebangs that usually got him out of bed, the
ones with a circle painted across the floor of an entire basement with two
dozen candles and extensive Latin chanting and a small farm animal for a
sacrifice. Normally such a paltry little pull would be ignored by a demon, but
there were three things about this one that had Alcor up and following it
within seconds.It was
from Toby. It was past midnight. And the blood he had used, the sound of his
voice, screamed of mortal fear.
backup 