noahsraven

[noahsraven]

Hyacinths and Black Licorice

Returning to Tumblr for the first time in what feels like a hundred years 😅

Anyways, here’s Wonderwall

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Hyacinths and Black Licorice

Chapter One: I’m Going Back to Colorado

She keeps her wedding ring in an empty cigarette pack. It’s tucked into the deep and forgotten corner of the glove box; has been for almost a year now. The cracked ring band hits the side of the box going down bumpy roads, but the sound is too small for her to hear. It hasn't been forgotten, but all the same if someone where to point out the ring’s presence to her, maybe she would throw it away. 

But no one knows it’s there at all. 

                                        🪻🪻🪻

Loveland, Colorado 

There are a handful of things in life that Nicole Wilder truly loves. Some of them seem paradoxical, like the way she loves early mornings and late nights with the same feeling of wild wonder. Others are more mundane, like rose lemonade on a summer day or black coffee… well, at any time. She loves the way hyacinths and crocuses pop through cold dirt on warm spring days with the same warmth that she loves good music and rainy candle lit afternoons that crackle with thunder. She loves bonfires and menthol cigarettes, candy coated black licorice and big hardback Stephen King novels with illustrated covers. More than all of these things, she loved that she was finally the fuck out of Wyoming. 

The sun was sinking low when she pulled into Loveland. The feeling of watching the sign announce that she had crossed state lines back into Colorado filled her with such relief that she added it to her running list of beloved things she kept in her mind. It was an even better feeling when she crossed into Loveland itself. 

“Thank God,” she said softly, as if she were afraid someone would hear her. She turned off the main road and headed down the familiar side roads that lead to a small homestead a few miles outside of town. She looked over to her dogs in the back seat of her pickup. They were as content as always, with Midas sleeping with his nose pressed against the window. Seal yawned and smiled as she panted softly, her ears flopped over in a calm position. They had been road warriors over these confusing months of pain and searching, but they never complained about the new reality of their situation. She was no longer a wife, and they were no longer the pampered couch puppies that they had been at the start of everything. Nicole had a quiet suspicion that the three of them were okay with that, though. Better off, even if it meant that their life led them to far away and uncertain places at times. Besides, they could always come back to Loveland. As the gate to the homestead swung open, Seal stood up in recognition of her surroundings. She patted Seal’s head before letting them out of the car, watching them get their zoomies out in the yard as she smoked a cigarette and finished the last of her half-cold coffee.

Am I a hunter now? She wondered, she didn’t feel like a hunter. Sure, she lived with hunters, even if they were semi retired. And she had just gone back into Wyoming to try and gather more info about the night everything in her life became unfamiliar, and that had proved a dead end, and that had ended up with her working a job. But she didn’t feel like a hunter, just a girl that had ended up in a wild circumstance.  

That’s what he called me, she thought to herself, watching Midas and Seal roll in the fresh spring grass. He asked me if I was another hunter, and I heard myself say yes before I had even considered the question. 

That was the easy answer for the situation. In a small town called Reliance, Wyoming, she had crossed a police line to get a closer look at an active crime scene. The good thing about Wyoming is that it is made up of small towns, and small towns can be pretty lax with proper policing. When the sheriff and his men had left to respond to another call across town, she had slipped through the barricade to see what had happened in that old mine that warranted being guarded (poorly, but still) until the feds arrived. 

As she walked though the halls, there was a shattering sound behind the door marked “OFFICE.” She had drawn her gun and hid where she could see through the little window in the door without being seen from inside the office. There were two figures inside arguing. It was a hen-pecked and half hearted kind of arguing that she recognized from banter with her own brother. The broken glass sound must have came from the display case behind them, as one brother was holding a crowbar and the other was holding what looked like maybe an old teddy bear. 

“Just burn the damn thing, Sammy.” 

Sammy? Nicole reholstered her gun, but kept her hand near it just in case she was wrong. 

“I can’t, Dean. When the duffel got knocked out of my hands, my lighter got wet.” Sam sounded exasperated. 

“That’s why you should stick to zippos instead of flicking a bic.” Dean said with a grin, thinking he was hilarious.

Sam rolled his eyes, “And where is your Zippo again?”

The smirk fell from Dean’s face, “Oh like you’ve never left something in your coat pocket before—”

“I’ve got a light,” Nicole said, pushing open the door. She knew these guys, though she had never met them. Her grandparents in Loveland had been talking about them for a few months now, ever since their old friend John had dropped by and left them with something before he told them not to say anything to his boys if they came by looking for it. That was all she knew, but she trusted that her grandparents wouldn’t keep secrets that did more harm than good. 

Despite her effort to not surprise them, she did. Sam jumped and they both turned to the door and surprise to see her there, extending her lighter to them. Dean took a hesitant step forward, “Where’d you come from?” 

“Sorry, wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.” Nicole said, tossing Dean the lighter. She almost asked them their names just to confirm, but she hadn’t encountered other hunters in the wild before, and wanted to play her cards close to her chest. “I’m here to torch the bear, same as you guys.” 

The brothers exchanged a glance and communicated something subtlety between them before Dean handed Sam the lighter and turned back to her.

“Are you another hunter?” Dean asked. Sam tested the lighter, it lit up with a click. He picked up the salt container from the glass-scattered ground and opened the lid, prepping to burn the haunted object. 

“Yeah,” Nicole said without a thought. “My name’s Nicole Wilder.” 

“Dean Winchester,” Dean said with a less guarded smile, “Thanks for the light.”