[Scott] Day 18 (night): Psychics Anonymous (tag Sam, open)

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Night fell on the impromptu and nearly silent camp. Most everyone in the overland group sat or lie near the campfire, exhausted from the long march. The exceptions were Dean and Molly, who'd taken first watch, and Sam, who sat at the edge of the firelight whittling a piece of wood.

Now that the Doctor was deep into his healing trance, Scott was more than ready to turn in for the night. There was one last thing to do before he could. He strode over to Sam. "Hey," he said quietly, prompting the gangly kid to look up. "Do you still want to talk?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, if you're up to it."

Scott smiled mirthlessly as he sank to the ground a short distance away. "I look that bad, huh?" Sam shrugged, and Scott chuckled. "I'll take that as a yes." He nodded at Sam's geometric carving. "That's pretty cool. What is it?"

Sam frowned at the half-carved wood for a moment before answering. "The Key of Solomon." Scott shook his head, puzzled. "A protective symbol."

"Protection from... demons?" Sam nodded solemnly. Scott studied the straight lines crisscrossing the circle Sam had carved. "I didn't think demons existed before coming here," Scott added quietly.

Sam deepened one of the lines with the tip of his knife. "Demons, and lots of other things."

"Great," Scott muttered, thinking of what Mara had been through. (If Sam and Dean hunt these things like they claim, at least someone's fighting back.) The thought was somewhat heartening. "You said you're psychic," Scott stated, keeping his voice down. "Is that why you and your brother hunt demons?"

Sam barked a laugh, of all things. "No. Well, sort of." Scott raised an eyebrow skeptically. "It's a long story," Sam said with a sigh. He continued in a near whisper. "Something's happening to me. Started earlier this year. I have dreams... nightmares... that come true. I never know what I'm going to see when I close my eyes. I try to sleep for only an hour or two at a time to avoid them, but I can't. Now I dream when I'm awake. Premonitions, visions, I guess. Complete with skull-splitting headaches. They'll get Dean and me killed if it keeps up like this." The young man looked positively miserable.

Scott opened his shields a bit to push reassurance to the kid. Sam sat a little straighter. "You're sure it's something psychic?" Sam frowned defensively. "You and your brother mentioned magic before, and again, since coming here, I know that magic exists, too."

"It's a psychic thing. Missouri and the damned demon said so."

Scott blinked, puzzled. "Missouri?"

Sam nodded. "She's a psychic. Helped my family." The young man was quiet for a few moments. Fear pushed aside some of his bitterness and resignation. "Max was psychic, too. Like me, 'cept better at telekinesis."

"You're precognitive and telekinetic?"

Sam's mirthless half-smile returned. "I guess. I've only done it -- moved stuff -- once. Didn't know what I was doing. I had to get to Dean before Max killed him."

Scott stared at Sam, horrified. "Max *was* psychic? He died?"

Sam nodded. "He was psychotic. Not sure if it was from abuse or being psychic." He finally looked up from the carving and met Scott's eyes. "You're psychic and sane. Am I gonna lose it?"

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[Faith] Fruis and Nuts (tag open)

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"Hell yeah, we are," Faith agreed as she popped a few berries into her mouth. "They have no idea who they're fucking with."

"Eloquently stated," Molly smiled.

Faith shrugged, "I never was the sort who stood on ceremony, ya know?" She looked around their group consideringly. "I mean really, either the big bad is totally fucked in the head, or just plain dumb, or they've got a huge kick ass trump card that they ain't played yet. Experience tells me that they're just doing the typical - confuse the hell out of the vicks, and take advantage.

"Stupid, 'cause we clearly ain't your normal vicks. A bunch of normal John Does would probably be crapping their pants and squeezing their eyes shut, but that's not most of us. How do y'all think the normies are handling it?"

"Are you saying that we're not normal?" Jon asked.

Faith leveled a look at him.

"Speak for yourself. I'm normal."

"Haven't we all been over this already with Daniel? Ain't not a one of us here normal. You may not be an alien or a psychic, but dude, you got some serious take charge, kick ass knowledge been in the shit before attitude and mojo goin' on, all right? I think that everyone here - except our friendly, helpful and cool resident noobs know that. We all got something that's *different* or *special* and that's why we're here."

"I'm normal," Blaise declared, "Just a marine sargeant."

"Who has seen a helluva lot of shit or you wouldn't just take it in stride and keep going. 'Sides, I know all 'bout some soldier boys who were knee deep in some serious weirdness, fucked one of 'em, well sorta," Faith paused, pushing aside the memory of her time with Riley while in Buffy's body. "Anyway, I'm not falling for that 'just a soldier.'

"Just brings me right back to what I was sayin' anyway," Faith gave a wicked grin, "The Big Bad really fucked up this time. We're gonna hit so hard and so fast that they're not even going to know we were coming."

[Mayday] Fruits and nuts (open)

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OOC: Sorry, was MIA most of yesterday. Took me a while to decide whether or not May would bring this up without knowing about Sam's premonition, but given that I was actually thinking about it earlier and with the whole trust issue, I figured she would. If you DON'T want anyone to consider this til it's too late, let me know and I'll repost.

After stretching and grabbing a banana and some water - and hopping up into the trees to check for anything new on the horizon - May dropped down again in time to hear Jon and Faith arguing about normalcy.

She actually didn't think Jon was normal at all, but held her tongue about that. He probably had good reasons to insist that he was an ordinary guy, and she understood that enough to respect it.

What did catch her attention was Faith's comment about "the noobs" - namely herself, Dean and Sam. It brought to mind something she'd been stewing over the previous day, but had forgotten about it in the wake of the Doctor's injury. "Speaking of 'the noobs,'" she interrupted, "I thought of something. If we actually find the ladies first, and we have to split up, maybe Dean and Sam should go with some of you and I should go with another group of people they'll recognize."

"Hey, nobody's said anything about splitting up," Jon said, seeming grateful for the change of topic.

"Doesn't mean we won't have to," May said. "The whole trust argument the other day got me thinking. Say Dean or Sam or I get split off from the group and stumble on one of them first by dumb luck? I don't think they'd believe we were there to help. I know I wouldn't."

[Jon] Fruits and nuts

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"I don't think I would either," Jon agreed, glad that she'd brought the idea up before anyone else had to. Sam might play along, but he doubted that Dean would otherwise.

"Time to go!" the Doctor called out, far more cheerily than anyone with a recent shoulder injury should. "That horizon's got a cup of tea with my name on it." He frowned slightly. "I hope it's PG Tips. Hmm. Come on!"

Jon choked on his last piece of papaya, but scrambled up all the same. Tea? Crazy time-traveling aliens liked tea? What next, cricket?

He took a spot behind a thoughtful Molly and eyed her bow, grinning. The temptation to nickname her Legolas was greater than ever, but he didn't rate his chances of survival too highly.