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Ficlet set in the Watchmen/SPN crossover verse that I still am not writing. No matter how much I long to make Hunter!Laurie my personal crossover-crack Mary Sue.
When Laurie was nineteen, an uncomfortable-looking young man in Marine dress blues knocked on her front door. He was holding a pair of dogtags in his hands, glinting silver in the afternoon light. There was a smiley-face pin looped through the chain, a dark brown stain across its bright yellow face that she knew without asking was blood.
"Miss Blake?" he asked. "Is your mother home?"
That was when Sally came into the front hallway behind her -- "Laurie, who's at the door?" -- and Laurie could feel the world reshape itself around her as her mother went pale and put a hand to her mouth, staring at the marine and what he was holding.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, oh Eddie, you bastard." Then she set her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at the man, and Laurie could almost see the costume she wasn't wearing as she demanded, "What happened?"
He hesitated. "There... there was a girl."
Laurie thought, at first, that he meant that the Comedian -- because that's who the pin belonged to, who 'Eddie' had to be, and what the hell the the Comedian have to do with her mother? -- had died saving a girl, but something in his voice, a note the Silk Spectre had learned to recognize that meant that people were concealing the truth, said that there was something he wasn't telling them.
"Of course there was," Sally spat. "Because he was a god damned idiot who thought everything in a skirt ought to roll over and beg for him."
"He had a picture of the two of you," the man said, his body language screaming discomfort. "In costume. It was a top secret mission, plausible deniability, so no one was going to be notified. There were going to list him as MIA. So I thought I should-"
"What does this have to do with us?" Laurie asked sharply, and in the resounding silence, when her mother failed to answer, she remembered her parents fighting -- they always fought, it had seemed like, and her father had accused her mother of... of...
Sally and Larry both had light colored hair. Red and blond. Laurie's hair was dark.
And then she knew.
"I don't want them," Sally said, when the marine held the dogtags out to her. "Do whatever you want with them. Throw them out."
Laurie watched him go, marking the name on his nametag and the direction he went.
Six hours later, the Silk Spectre knocked on John Winchester's hotel room window.
After the two of them had swept of the broken glass from the bullet she'd barely dodged -- knocking on the third-story window of a marine who'd just returned from a tour in Vietnam was not, she learned, a smart move -- Laurie made him tell her how her father had died.
He gave her the dogtags before she left. The next time her mother saw her in costume, the little yellow and black pin fastened to the choker around her neck where Sally's old stylized skull necklace had once been, she pressed her lips into a flat, hard line, but said nothing.
The bloodstain never completely washed off. Fifteen years, two costumes, a retirement that wasn't really, and a small apocalyse later, Eddie Blake's blood is still there, his symbol a bright spot of color at Laurie's throat, the only thing that relieves the solid, non-reflective black of her costume.
Dan doesn't understand why she wears it. Rorschach never asked, but when she fingered her choker after one two many sharp-eyed and faintly concerned glanced from Dan and said, "It keeps me honest," he nodded at her.
"Nitzche," he grunted. "Very poetic."
"He who fights monsters should take care that he does not become one," she quoted. "And I was ninteen and angry and it bothered my mother."
When life plays cruel jokes on you, she didn't add, the best thing you can do is laugh at them. Rorschach understood lines, and irony, and gazing into the abyss. You could never be certain whether or not he'd grasp humor.
When Laurie was nineteen, an uncomfortable-looking young man in Marine dress blues knocked on her front door. He was holding a pair of dogtags in his hands, glinting silver in the afternoon light. There was a smiley-face pin looped through the chain, a dark brown stain across its bright yellow face that she knew without asking was blood.
"Miss Blake?" he asked. "Is your mother home?"
That was when Sally came into the front hallway behind her -- "Laurie, who's at the door?" -- and Laurie could feel the world reshape itself around her as her mother went pale and put a hand to her mouth, staring at the marine and what he was holding.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, oh Eddie, you bastard." Then she set her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at the man, and Laurie could almost see the costume she wasn't wearing as she demanded, "What happened?"
He hesitated. "There... there was a girl."
Laurie thought, at first, that he meant that the Comedian -- because that's who the pin belonged to, who 'Eddie' had to be, and what the hell the the Comedian have to do with her mother? -- had died saving a girl, but something in his voice, a note the Silk Spectre had learned to recognize that meant that people were concealing the truth, said that there was something he wasn't telling them.
"Of course there was," Sally spat. "Because he was a god damned idiot who thought everything in a skirt ought to roll over and beg for him."
"He had a picture of the two of you," the man said, his body language screaming discomfort. "In costume. It was a top secret mission, plausible deniability, so no one was going to be notified. There were going to list him as MIA. So I thought I should-"
"What does this have to do with us?" Laurie asked sharply, and in the resounding silence, when her mother failed to answer, she remembered her parents fighting -- they always fought, it had seemed like, and her father had accused her mother of... of...
Sally and Larry both had light colored hair. Red and blond. Laurie's hair was dark.
And then she knew.
"I don't want them," Sally said, when the marine held the dogtags out to her. "Do whatever you want with them. Throw them out."
Laurie watched him go, marking the name on his nametag and the direction he went.
Six hours later, the Silk Spectre knocked on John Winchester's hotel room window.
After the two of them had swept of the broken glass from the bullet she'd barely dodged -- knocking on the third-story window of a marine who'd just returned from a tour in Vietnam was not, she learned, a smart move -- Laurie made him tell her how her father had died.
He gave her the dogtags before she left. The next time her mother saw her in costume, the little yellow and black pin fastened to the choker around her neck where Sally's old stylized skull necklace had once been, she pressed her lips into a flat, hard line, but said nothing.
The bloodstain never completely washed off. Fifteen years, two costumes, a retirement that wasn't really, and a small apocalyse later, Eddie Blake's blood is still there, his symbol a bright spot of color at Laurie's throat, the only thing that relieves the solid, non-reflective black of her costume.
Dan doesn't understand why she wears it. Rorschach never asked, but when she fingered her choker after one two many sharp-eyed and faintly concerned glanced from Dan and said, "It keeps me honest," he nodded at her.
"Nitzche," he grunted. "Very poetic."
"He who fights monsters should take care that he does not become one," she quoted. "And I was ninteen and angry and it bothered my mother."
When life plays cruel jokes on you, she didn't add, the best thing you can do is laugh at them. Rorschach understood lines, and irony, and gazing into the abyss. You could never be certain whether or not he'd grasp humor.
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