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bewaretheundead91 · 5 years

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The Devil’s Son Part 5: Sleep Awake

Parts 1-4

Summary: Leo is a fallen angel, but does not remember anything that has lead her up to being held captive by Michael Langdon. Michael is intrigued by the angel. Michael wakes one night to find his body is changed and his bed chamber door is open. Curious he leaves his room to check on Leo.

Michael Langdon X OC (Vague description for easy self insert)

A/N: So there is a chance I might be editing this story again to be a (y/n) fic, that will just take some time. This update will need to be edited again, but it’s been on my comp not posted for a while so I hope at least some people enjoy reading it. At this point I know where this story is going to go, I’m just writing it to explore a few fantasies lmao (just being honest). If it’s confusing I apologize. I’m also sick atm. Please don’t take any of this too seriously as well.

Warnings: Not really any other than sexually suggestive language and mentioning of blood.

Michael jumps up in bed, flinging his silk sheets to the end of his bed. A layer of sweat coats his body that in turn makes his hair stick to his bare shoulders and back. His places a hand over his chest, heart is racing, making his body pulsate. He leans forward catching his giving himself time to catch his breath.

With growing confusion, he throws the rest off his covers off and stands up, allowing his bare feet to meet the cold hard service of the old wooden floor. His skin was on fire and he was experiencing hot flashes, even though he only wore low hanging, silk pants.

Michael Snaps his fingers and several candles light, illuminating his large bed chamber. Briefly he catches a glimpse of his appearance across the room and furrows his brows. He slowly approaches the oval, ornate mirror that hangs on the near by way and throughly, gazes at his reflection. His skin was alive with blotches of flush and his lips were red, plump, and moist. He squints his eyes, noticing how dark they were, as if he was in contact with his father. His fingers meet the ends of his hair, which is damp with with perspiration.

“Hmmm,” He hums as he presses his fingers to the sharp line of his jaw. He winces at how irritatingly, sensitive the surface of his skin was. He then runs the pads up his chin and over his lips feeling the fullness of them. “Curious.”

He is interrupted by a soft circulation of air that flows over his sweat dripping, back that cause Goosebumps crawl down his spine. Michael turns around to see the door to his bed chamber was open. He swipes his hand across the air and the door opens wider exposing only darkness from the hallway.

“Hmmm,” He thinks to himself and walks to the door frame. The vivid dream he had of Leo flows through his mind like a whisper. Flashing images of blood in his memory, her bare soft skin against his, the heat, and lastly the ritual. “Was it a dream? Or was someone in my room last night? I should go check on our guest.”

Before he walks out of the room he waves his hands and a matching, silk robe flies into his hand. He pulls it over his long, slender arms and leaves it untied and walks out and down the dark hallway. It was early morning, around 4 am and no one would be up at that hour. He walks until he stops at Leo’s door. It too was slightly ajar. He could hear her tossing and turning beneath her covers with loud rapid breaths. His head begins to pound and a new ache forms in his temples.

He opens her door with a swipe of his hand. The fire was out again, that left him with more confusion, because of the spells he had casted to keep it blazing. He snaps his fingers and the room illuminates, catching the logs on fire. He welcomes the heat against his bare skin. The fire also gives Michael enough light to see the state of the girl.

The girl is struggling in her sleep and Michael watches. She lets out quiet sobs that makes him rush over not sure of what he should do and question why he wants to rush over to her in the first place. Part of him wants her to suffer and the other part wants to relieve her of what was causing her pain. But he knew what it was. Him.

“I didn’t choose it,” Leo says softly through parted lips. “I didn’t.”

Michael stops in his tracks, full of shock by what Leo was saying. His head pounds again and sweat drips down his temple.

“No.” Leo whispers. “Michael I didn’t choose this.”

“What is happening to me?” Michael asks aloud steadying himself, by placing a hand on the girl’s bed. He looks up at the tall ceiling and take a deep breath in. “Father? Are you here? Did you do something?”

Silence. There was no response.

Micheal lowers his head and looms over the bed unmade bed attentively. He watches Leo turn onto her side with her slender fingers squeezing at the comforter that covers her. She flips onto her back and the struggles comes to a quick halt. Michael watches as her breath slows and the furrowing of her brows disappear and he takes in a deep breath feeling his own body relax. Still leaning over her he sees tears pool in the inner corners of her eyes and stream down her face.

“Angel,” Michael speaks sternly, breaking the short silence. He knew their interaction would be inappropriate, by the standards he has made.“Wake up.”

Leo did not wake up or move. Michael extends a hand and pulls the covers from her slowly heaving chest. Beneath her covers, sweat drenches the dress clinging to her frame is almost translucent allowing the flushed skin to show beneath it. Michael timidly extends his hand and removes the sweat dampened hair from her right temple and cheek. He then presses the back of his hand against her forehead, her skin was on fire even in comparison to his own.

“Leo,” He cooed down at her tenderly. His voice so soft, so gentle, that he himself felt it in his gut. “Leo, Angel, wake up.”

A sigh or relaxation escapes from Leo’s slightly parted lips and Michael’s heart skips a beat.

“Leo,” He leans down toward an ear and whispers. “My fallen angel, wake up.”

Leo’s Pov

Leo bolts upwards in bed, cold sweat soaks the dress on her body and the sheets around her. Heaving, she looks up to see the familiar outline of Michael’s slender frame and long hair. She kicks her covers off her legs and jumps out of bed wrapping her arms around her chest. She feels bare. The very sound that broke her from a deep sleep was his soothing voice. Michael cocks his head and goose bumps speckle all over her skin when she meets his strong gaze.

Her throat feels dry and she needs water. Leo’s eyes fall lower, noticing not just his lack of clothes, but the lack of tailored, form fitting clothes he so routinely wore. Instead, on his body were loose fitted, silk like pants that were hanging low on his hips and an untied matching robe.

“What are you doing here?” She weakly asks, her eyes taking a glance as his exposed skin, that appears to glow against the fire. His garments gave it away that it is night, along with the disheveled hair that was usually brushed neatly. She furrows her brows into a sharp frown. “It must be late. Even late for demons and devils.”

“I awoke to my door open,” He says clasping his hands around his back, in turn opening his robe even further. “ It made me curious. You know you are not permitted to leave your bed chamber. But I guess I also did not state the regulations with my own bed chamber.”

“I..” Leo whispers brings a hand to her head. She was feeling hazy with something familiar. There was a scent of clove in the room. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?” Michael takes a step closer towards her. She can smell his sweat, familiar scent of rich deep clove, and feel the heat that is radiating off his skin. “Your door was open when I arrived at your bed chamber, but I oddly found you here asleep.”

“I’m not sure if it was real?” Leo glances at her door. It was still open. She immediately take a step toward it. Michael waves a hand in the air and the door closes. Leo looks downs feeling confusion wrap itself around her. “I remember candles and a dark hallway…but I..”

“A dream perhaps? Did you dream it?” He asks as he extends a hand to her chin and she hisses at how sensitive she was to his touch. He gently lifts her face up towards him and smirks. She can feel his gaze looking at every inch of her face. His eyes fall to her lips. “Was it a dream or did it really happen?”

“I’m not sure,” Leo says. “Whatever it was, it felt real, I saw you. I saw blood everywhere and you.”

“Your skin is quite hot to the touch,” Michael says, he boldly runs his thumb over her lower lip and she shivers. “Your face is flushed and lips look plump. Body covered in sweat.”

She examines Michael’s body to see he, himself was disheveled and his skin was glistening with sweat. His face appeared more human than statue.

“You are as well.” She extends a hand boldly and touches his face. She trails her fingers over his cheekbones and down to his jaw fluidly against the sweat on his skin. His eyes close and lips part. She lowers her fingers to his neck, tracing a bead of sweat. She can feel his heart beating through his skin. “How…”

“Your fingers,” Michael says, his vocal cords vibrating against her finger tips. “Are they burning? Is the flesh melting off?”

“You’re burning up, devil,” Leo snarls the last word and starts to drop her hand. Michael grabs her wrist keeping it there. “But your body more than likely welcomes it.”

“Oh I feel..” He parts his lips even more and lets out a low moan that made Leo’s stomach flip. His eyes roll and his tongue slowly trails along his bottom lip. “I feel hazy and hot with a new sense of pleasure. I’m exquisitely feverish. But you must know what I’m feeling.”

Leo’s fingers wrap her around his throat and his lips part again with a slight smirk. His eyes widen in amusement.

“Would you like to choke me harder?” He says in a mocking tone.

“You’re sick.” Leo spits digging her nails into his skin and he lets out a gasp.

“Don’t knock it until you try it, my fallen Angel.”

“You actually held me by my throat not too long ago.” Leo recounts on.

“Would you like me to choke you again?” He asks innocently.

“What is wrong with you, this fever must be making you sick,” Leo spits. She shakes her head. “I’m burning up and my head is unclear and my body feels…There was so much blood and this symbol and I was…”

“Not wearing any clothes?” He lifts a brow.

“You sliced at my skin with a dagger. And your hands were all over me,” Her body flashes hot and her legs began to throb. “And I remember things. You wanted me to meet your father.”

“We did,” Michael says joyfully, facing lighting up. He takes a step forward, leaving but a foot between Leo and him. “We dreamt the same dream. How marvelous. Just how I used to dream about you.”

“Was it a dream, devil?” Leo asks tightening her grip on his throat again. Michael rolls his eyes, finding it deliciously amusing. “Did my blood mix with yours? Did I meet your father?”

“You can call me by my name, Leo,” Micheal places an emphasis on her name. His voice made her body vibrate and her stomach flutter. “It did feel real, how smooth your skin was and how delicate it was against my hands. But I can assure you, it was not real.”

“How can you assure me on that?” Leo shouts.

“I can just tell, you know I have abilities. I have the ability to tell.”

Leo shoves Michael to his knees easily, almost falling over on top of him. She releases her hold around his neck and stands up straight. He runs his fingers over his neck, then slowly trails them down his chest, and all the way down towards his knees.

“Why aren’t you standing your ground or defending yourself against me?” Leo was shocked. Maybe she should make a run for it.

“Do you want me to?” He asks gazing up at her with heavy lidded eyes. He licks his lips and his eyes trail up her bare legs to her heaving chest. “Do you want me to hurt you, my fallen angel? I can, if you desire. Do you want me to do something else for you? Relieve something. Perhaps the ache between your thighs.”

“I’m not yours and I’m not fallen…and I do not…” Leo words were loud and quickly transition into a whisper. “There is no ache between my legs for you.”

“But we shared blood, symbolically,” Michael chuckles, the same boyish expression curves across his face. “You are mine and I am yours.We are linked, two sides of the same coin remember? I am the only one who can sooth your irritated skin and you’re the only one that can sooth mine. And I’m the only one who can relieve that feeling between you legs.”

“It was a dream. It was. It didn’t happen. There was no blood shared. I’m sure of it. There is nothing to be relieved except for me to leave this place!”

“It was a dream,” Michael says rolling his eyes and stands up fluidly. “I get such raging pleasure fooling with you, my fallen Angel.”

“You despicable, horrid, disgusting…”

Leo brings her hand across his smooth face in an abrupt slap. He doesn’t retaliate and she brings her hand back up to slap him again. Michael snatches Leo’s wrists and she feels her body spin around. Michael snakes an arm up and laces his fingers around her throat delicately. Nexts she is being pressed, firmly against his bare chest. His skin upon her sensitive skin made her shiver and dare she think it remedied how painful it was feeling. She relaxes.

“I’m letting you handle me like this. Does that do anything for you? Please play with me. But let me warn you, I tend to get a bit rough,” He whispers in her ears. “Do you want me to hurt you?”

“I don’t want to be harmed,” Leo leans her head back and Michael tightens his grip on neck. “I want you to let me go, I want out of this confined space. I don’t want to play with you.”

“That saddens me,” Leo can hear him pout. “I’ve been so bored here.”

“If you’re so bored perhaps you shouldn’t have caused the apocalypse.”

“The world needed to be reshaped in my image.”

“The image of death?” Leo asked.

“You think you’re so clever don’t you?” Michael asks Leo. “So bold to ask me these questions. And I don’t sense any fear coming you either.”

“I’m not afraid of you anymore.” Leo says. “I shouldn’t be.”

“Then perhaps you’d partake in the blood ritual for real?” Michael chuckled.

“No!”

“Then I suggest you go back to bed and forget that this little interaction ever occurred.” Michael’s demeanor changes instantly. He goes cold and reserved again and his fingers around Leo’s throat tightens. She gasps for air. “And do not leave this room.”

“You’re…” Leo breaths and struggles against his holds. His touch was no longer soothing her skin. “You’re hurting me.”

“Good.”

“Michael,” Leo wheezes feeling herself about to go limp. “Please.”

Michael quickly drops his hands from Leo’s throat and takes a step back from her. Leo falls to her knees onto the wood floor with a thud, coughing. She grabs her neck and appears up at Michael who was frozen in place. He places a hand over his mouth and Leo could see tears accumulating in the corner of his eyes. The tears pool over and run down the sides of his cheeks.

“Are those tears?” Leo asks confused.

“I…” Michael says taking a step back. He quickly walks over to the door and leaves the room. And Leo hears the door click locking.

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #Michael Langdon fic

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until-theend-oftheline · 6 years

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Kari’s Marvelous 2k Writing Challenge

Thank you so much, guys. I honestly didn’t expect this blog to grow the way it has when I started it. I love this fandom and I love reading for these characters as much as I love writing for them, so let’s celebrate with a challenge, shall we?

Since I reached the milestone before my 1 year anniversary I will as open up drabble requests using a prompts list - I’ll make a post about that as soon as I can.

Also, check out and please participate in my Spread the Love event for my 1 year anniversary.

This challenge is for you guys to have fun with. I set the due date a few months in the future to make sure you got plenty of time to complete it.

The prompts for this challenge are all dialogue prompts. They are all a little odd and a little sassy. Cause well I am a little odd and sassy ;) On to the rules and have fun Y'all!

Due Date: June 1st, 2019

Word min: 500 words

Word Max: 6k words

Style: It can be a drabble, one shot or beginning of a series. Do not put in in the middle of an ongoing series since I plan on reading them and don’t want to read 10 parts of something to understand the entry.

Fandom: MCU - mostly

Will you read and reblog my fic?

You betcha :D I am behind on reading for previous challenges so patience is a virtue here

When Do I Post?

Right now. Sign Ups start now and end when there are no more prompts or when the due date rolls around

Genre: Anything you want. You have to be over 18 if you write smut and you always have to warn accordingly! Fluff, angst, AUs, and crack are all welcome.

Limits on what you can write: No Mommy/daddy kinks, no non/dub con, no A/B/O, no merpeople. No half animal anything, please. No mobster aus. No monster porn (this counts Venom and Hulk) No glorification on cheating (it’s okay as a plot device but use it with thought), no wife, s/o (even exes) or actor hate in rpfs! - if you got any questions at any time feel free to send me an ask,

NO BDSM INVOLVING BUCKY - NEITHER IN SHIPS OR READER INSERTS! PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL OF HIS PTSD! DON’T TURN HIS ARM INTO A KINK FOR ANYONE - IT’S A DISABILITY AND CONNECTED TO GREAT TRAUMA.

Format: State in your A/N that it is for my (until-theend-oftheline) Kari’s Marvelous 2K Challenge. And use the # Kari’s Marvelous 2K Challenge in the first 5 tags.

Pairing and word count also have to be easy to spot in your header!

Submit: After you posted on Tumblr you have to add yourself and your fic to this doc. If you don’t do this you will not be added to the masterlist I create when the challenge is over. If you got questions - just ask :D

Doc link it case Tumblr is an ass: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16FmPbXuA6oF23M5qiR5jRCSiUpaW_RiDIPUHG_LziBk/edit?usp=sharing

How do I join?

You pick a prompt and a pairing off the list. Send me the prompt number along with a backup just in case and your pairing of choice. ASKS ONLY!! REPLIES, REBLOGS AND IMS WILL BE IGNORED!

There are no limits on the pairings but I only allow 2 people per prompt so think before you sign up. If you don’t think you will be doing it then don’t take the spot from someone else. For now, 1 person can sign up 3 times (one prompt per story).

Prompts and people are under the cut.

Pairings

No male readers - gender neutral are fine otherwise female.

General Fics - character or rpf are both fine.

All genders, skin tones etc. OCs are welcome as well.

Sister/daughter/romantic/friendship reader pairings for following are all fine - just let me know which (I prefer romantic or friendship but no pressure):

Actors

Sebastian Stan

Chris Evans

Bradley Cooper

Chris Hemsworth

Robert Downey Jr.

Tom Hiddleston

Elizabeth Olsen

Tom Hardy

Characters

Bucky Barnes

Steve Rogers

Thor Odinson

Tony Stark

Wanda Maximoff

Sam Wilson

Brunnhilde/Valkyrie

Natasha Romanoff

Clint Barton*

Wade Wilson

Eddie Brock (no monster porn please!)*

Ships (all are allowed as poly with reader too):

Stucky*

Winterwitch*

Winterwidow

Winterhawk*

Winterfalcon*

Sam x Clint (I don’t know their ship name)

Clintasha

Steggy

Thundershield

Thor x Valkyrie (also forgot the ship name)

Prompts

1 “I’ve never been so insulted!” - “You don’t listen much do you?” @jewelswrites-ish (Chris Evans x Reader) / @avengerscompound (Winterhawk)

2 “On a scale of one to Australia. How dangerous are we talking?” @avengerscompound (clintasha) /

3 “When did you become so smart, oh wise one?” - “Since I stopped listening to you.” @writing-mermaid (Tony x sister!reader) /

4 “Seven billion people in the world and you are overreacting because we killed one man.” - “But…” - “Seven billion people! Now shut up and drink your smoothie!” @queen-of-the-avengers (Tony x Reader) /

5 “Oh God. I think I am in love” - “For your sake, I wouldn’t tell her/him that” @docharleythegeekqueen (Winterhawk x Reader) /

6 “Don’t trust him” - “Funny that’s exactly what he said about you” @readitandweepfics (Steve x Reader) /

7 “Children shouldn’t play with guns” - “Who said I was playing”

8 “On a scale of one to ten how bad do you think it would be if….” - “At least twenty” @fangirlfiction (Stucky x Reader) / @queen-of-the-avengers (Tony x Reader)

9 “What’s our exit strategy?” - “Our what?” - “Ohmygod we’re going to die” @acreativelydifferentlove (Steve Rogers x Reader) /

10 “I taught you how to pick locks and this is how you are using that skill?” @messy-random-bitch (Clint Barton) /

11 “What’s the little blinking light mean?” - “It means…. Wait? Blinking?!”

12 “Right now I don’t know if I want to kiss you or push you off the cliff!” - “Can I pick?” @sweeetmonstrosity (Sam Wilson x Reader) / @averyrogers83 (winterfalcon x reader)

13 “This is what the third time I crashed my own funeral” - “Fifth” - “Really? That many?”

14 “Bring them home. All of them.” - “But…” - “All. Of. Them.” - “Fine!”

15 “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you!” - “And I am subtly trying to avoid it.”

16 “What’s with the face?” - “Small fire! I said to set a small fire. Small was important!” @queen-of-the-avengers (Natascha Romanoff x Reader) /

17 “What the hell kinda noise was that?” - “I sneezed.” - “That was NOT a sneeze!” @jewels2876 (Chris Evans x Reader) /

18 “You got blood on your knees. No one goes nowhere and gets blood on their knees.”

19 “Is that blood?” - “No?” - “That’s not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question!” @nekoannie-chan (Steve Rogers x Reader) / @becs-bunker (Stucky x Reader)

20 “Obviously I’ve been gone for way too long. You managed to kill all the houseplants” @awkwardfangirl2014 (Bucky Barnes x Reader) / @queen-of-the-avengers (Tom Hiddleston x Reader)

21 “Don’t you know who I am?” - “Yup. I just don’t care.” @queen-of-the-avengers (Elizabeth Olsen x Reader) /

22 “You’re going to break his heart if you pull a stunt like this” - “He has a heart?” @keepgrindingwaywardsoul (Bucky Barnes x Reader) / @yougetkilled-walkitoff (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

23 “Sorry I got a cold and feverish assassin on my lap. I’ll call you back when I convinced him a cold doesn’t mean he is dying.” @keepgrindingwaywardsoul (Bucky Barnes x Reader) / @acreativelydifferentlove (Steve Rogers x Reader)

24 “I hate you” - “Why? I’m lovely” @barnesrogersvstheworld (Bucky Barnes x Reader) / @queen-of-the-avengers (Natascha Romanoff x Reader)

25 “You’re one insult away from starting a war” - “That’s presumptuous of you. It already started”

26 “What are you doing in the chandelier?” - “You know. Just hanging out”

27 “Can we please try not to kill anyone today?” - “Well you are no fun” @kentuckybarnes (Bucky Barnes x Reader) /

28 “You missed!” - “I never m… FUCK!”

29 “You nearly took my head off!” - “I told you to dug didn’t I?!” @raqnorok (Bucky Barnes x Reader) /

30 “If you weren’t so goddamn annoying I would kiss you right now” - “Well if you weren’t such a pain in the ass…. Wait what?” @tranquil—heart (Steve Rogers x Reader) / @awkwardfangirl2014 (Chris Evans x Reader)

MCU WRITING CHALLENGES

@ifyougetkilled-walk-it-off @captain-rogers-beard @dolphinpink310 @grace-for-sale @docharleythegeekqueen @rebelslicious @thorne93 @hillywooddestiel @peterman-parker @queen-of-deans-booty @acreativelydifferentlove @emilyevanston @blacktithe7 @becs-bunker @roxyspearing @blacktithe7 @cassiefanfic @readitandweepfics @kayla-of-shield @fangirlextraordinaire @thatfanficstuff @danijimenezv @hopes-archer @marvel_madam08 @averyrogers83 @thelookingglassalice @slowlywithfreedom @awkwardfangirl2014

And a few others cause I love their writing

@jewels2876 @becs-bunker @roxyspearing @barnesrogersvstheworld @sebs-potato @moonbeambucky @tropicalcap @softlybarnes @bucky-at-bedtime @evanstarff @fangirlfiction @i-dont-do-rpfs @avengerscompound

#kari's marvelous 2k challenge #2k celebration #marvel writing challenge #mcu writing challenge

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zukalations · 6 years

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Mori Keaki - 120% Darling: Part 1 Chapter 4 - Building up barriers

Mori Keaki published this essay book the month before her retirement as Top Star of Snow Troupe. It is mainly a memoir of her personal journey in Takarazuka, as well as her early life. Her writing/formatting style is kind of unique, and I tried to reproduce or reflect it as much as possible. 120% Darling has around 24 chapters, and I plan to post one every Friday.

It’s a really lovely book, that ended up making me cry many times. I hope you enjoy it!

For a table of contents with links to all the chapters, go here.

Building up barriers

When I try to recollect, there are so many deep and intense emotions.

In junior performances and Bow performances, even as a junior student, I kept being given all sorts of roles to perform…

Which of course was something to be happy about, but,

The truth is, I, Mori Keaki…

In terms of personality, I was both extremely timid and very bold.

When performing on stage, if I had to say, I was more daring.

And as a junior student I was very saucy.

I was still firmly holding onto that ideal of ‘I’m gonna be a real man!!’, so I would pester the directors with all kinds of questions, and once I felt ‘yes! This is good!’ I wouldn’t be swayed from that…

So, when it came to stage performance, I was quite bold, I suppose.

But on the other hand.

“If I mess this up, they’ll never let me have a role again!!”

I was always scared and expecting something terrible to happen.

While I was pursuing my ideals, I was so scared inside…

But!!

I suppose I can say now (!?), or write, rather, that even though it was the “Pure, Proper, and Beautiful” Takarazuka, it was still the world of the Arts, and to state that us students never ever thought of each other as rivals would certainly be a lie.

We were only human, and all of us were stage performers. And on top of that, we all entered Takarazuka because we loved it.

It was only natural that we all wanted to stand out somehow. So of course to see someone else standing out more than you would end up causing jealousy.

And due to the position I was in, a lot of things happened.

But even if I explained all my grievances here, it’s all in the past now, so I would rather leave those old wounds alone.

So.

Even in times like those, on the surface I looked like the ‘daring’ Mori Keaki.

But actually I just wanted to avoid getting hurt.

I have to protect myself!! I thought.

So, I put a brave front up whatever happened……

While I might have looked totally composed, as if to say ‘Who cares what happens!’, I was actually hard at work building up barriers around myself.

Those barriers were strongest around the time I was Ken-4, -5, -6!!

It wasn’t as if there was anyone I could go to. That was the only thing I could do. I was so nervous, after all.

But actually, I kept being given good roles one after the other.

And, I know I’m the one writing this, but they were always well received by the general audience...it wasn’t as if I was unworthy of them……

“I’m fine with this!”

I tried very hard to believe that.

But, somehow, I ended up feeling depressed.

“Am I really fine like this?”

Some confusion began to take root inside me.

As seen by the world around me, ‘Mori Keaki’ was a star student type, wasn’t she!? She was a junior student, of course, but her singing was decent, her acting was solid, and her dancing was certainly passable. That was all definitely true. But I had told myself that I that was enough, and I was the only one who I would allow inside my barriers… “Look, are you really enjoying this?”

I thought.

Both the one holding firm and the one protesting were me, so while I understood both sides of the issue it was so frustrating and upsetting…

It was a real dilemma.

But still, I didn’t want to show weakness to anyone else.

And at the same time, when it came to performing, I was totally dedicated. Earnest.

After all, I was a stubborn type who would never compromise about anything.

Therefore, during this ‘Unbreakable Barriers’ period, I think I must have caused a lot of trouble for my acting partners…

The person who makes me think the most “I really pulled her into my issues, didn’t I,” is Kitahara Youko*. I think some of you must remember her: she passed away in a tragic airplane accident. She was a junior student 2 years below me, a beautiful actress with great promise for the future…

But at the time, in junior performances and Bow performances, it was ‘Mori Keaki and Kitahara Youko’, we were being paired together all the time.

So……

Around this time, the Mori Keaki with ‘Unbreakable Barriers’......

Despite my depression and frustration, I was always searching for something different, something new, something, something, something, something, something. I also felt like if I and my acting partner didn’t totally understand each other from the bottom of our hearts we’d never be able to perform together!! Therefore, although I didn’t want to take down my barriers, I wanted to bring my partner inside of them so that we could reach our goal!!

Well, that…

I was so young, wasn’t I.

Thinking I could just invite people inside my barriers…

Looking back, I end up blushing a bit (right now, I’m smiling bitterly at myself again!!).

But considering that time, and that situation, it was just like me, I think.

Even now, when it comes to acting, I think that while form is important, the mental aspect is the most vital.

So I always want to have in-depth discussions with my acting partners.

That hasn’t changed.

Of course, that feeling of “maybe they won’t give me a part next time!?” is gone since I was given the opportunity of becoming Top Star. But as a junior student…

I felt really powerfully that “This role is my only shot!!” and treated each one as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

With my acting partner, as well…

“Now we’re acting together, you and I. Will you go into it as if we’ve sworn to die together!?**”

That kind of attitude.

We would be together all the time until we totally understood each other……

I would get upset if she didn’t understand.

My partner would say “I don’t get you!!” and cry.

But even so, we wouldn’t get discouraged, and keep talking and talking and talking…

Finally! In the moment it felt our hearts had united we both started crying at once.

On the roof of the rehearsal building we gazed up at the stars and cried in each others’ arms, that kind of thing…

I wonder if I could call that my ‘feverish era’.

I was definitely like that, back then.

Inside the barriers I had built up, I was burning.

I had been building and building and building…

I acted as if I didn’t care if the whole world turned against me!!

Even though it was so forward of me, I chose who I would allow inside my barriers and pulled them in completely……

I thought that I was fighting by myself, but.

I feel like my acting partners who came inside my barriers and didn’t run away, or become discouraged, who responded to my demands of ‘more, more!!’...must have actually been far stronger, far kinder, far greater than me… Yes. That’s definitely true.

Especially Kitahara Youko.

Sometimes when I look up at the night sky.

I’ll call out “Thank you so much! I’m doing well. I’m working hard!!”

At that time, I was alone in feverish pursuit of something.

I didn’t mean to, but I ended up ignoring what was happening around me.

And a lot of that passion ended up going nowhere… During that time.

I was so young,

And so determined.

Since I was so young,

Even though I was giving it my all, I was uncertain what tomorrow might hold.

Even though I was uncertain, I tried to look strong.

Even though I was trying to look strong, I was scared to death.

Even though I was scared, I was able to protect myself.

Even though I didn’t want to be hurt, I wasn’t content to just run and hide!!

That is…

Hm… That’s youth, I suppose.

That’s how it was.

I’ve never regretted anything about my youth, I think.

Since I built up those barriers, I was able to understand what it was like to let them down.

And I was able to understand which kinds of people could come inside my barriers, and which wouldn’t.

So because of that.

I feel like I’m actually thankful to everyone who made me build up those barriers.

Taking everything all together.

I don’t think there was a down-side to that.

That’s what I think, anyway.

...

Kitahara Youko-chan.

You’re in the other world, the ‘heavens’. I hope you’re happy.

Mori Keaki will never forget you!!

* Kitahara Youko debuted in 1981 with the 67th class and was a prominent musumeyaku in Snow Troupe until she abruptly retired in 1984, due to conflict between the Takarazuka board of directors and a television company she had done a screen test for. She was one of the fatalities of the 1985 JAL Flight 123 disaster.

** The term she uses is one for a double suicide of two lovers.

#takarazuka #book translation #OG materials #troupe: yuki #sienne: mori keaki

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arianaofimladris · 6 years

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Mistakes

Chapter 1 http://arianaofimladris.tumblr.com/post/177132346092/mistakes

Chapter 2 http://arianaofimladris.tumblr.com/post/177159697417/mistakes

Chapter 3 http://arianaofimladris.tumblr.com/post/177206403712/mistakes

Chapter 4 http://arianaofimladris.tumblr.com/post/177375468317/mistakes

Chapter 5 http://arianaofimladris.tumblr.com/post/177520433452/mistakes

Chapter 6

The next day and a half was one feverish dream. Whatever Alcarino gave him, it sent Amras to sleep for the night and most of the following day. He barely remembered the moments when he woke. Every time there was Celegorm or Caranthir sitting by him and forcing him to answer their questions he did not remember later. But they let him sleep and didn’t touch his leg, so Amras wasn’t about to complain.

The second day he felt well enough to sit up and eat a proper meal. Later Alcarino changed his dressings, but didn’t bother him for long. Before he left, he closed the curtains and Amras was grateful for the dimness. Despite Alcarino’s herbs, his head was still pounding, but it was bearable in peace and darkness. Amras was drifting half asleep, but as the doors opened, he glanced at them, fully awake.

“How’s your head?” asked Maedhros quietly. He was wearing a cloak as if he was about to leave, and he had a map and a leather tube in his arms.

“Usually better,” muttered Amras, but he dragged himself up to sit. “But at least I no longer see you in double,” he sent his brother a crooked smile.

“Good, because I want to show you something before I go to Nolofinwe.” Maedhros sat down on the bed, confirming Amras’s suspicions. He placed the map on his knees, one of those Amras had made the previous Summer when they had gone exploring Eastern lands.

“We divided the lands with Kano,” said Maedhros, pointing at the lines running through the terrains on the East. The uneven line left no doubts who drew it, but Amras swallowed the light remark about ruining his work that way when he noticed his own name.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“You will go south,” stated Maedhros, pointing at the right spot on the map.

Amras blinked and wiped away his hair from his face, then looked at his brother with offense and disbelief.

“You are sending me away,” he said bitterly. “I made a mistake, I wasn’t careful enough and you are sending me away like a child, far from danger.”

“Don’t be silly.” Maedhros shook his head, as if that thought had never crossed his mind. “I was caught because of far more stupid actions. But you said there are good hunting forests on the South, so we thought it a suitable place for you. Besides, we will need supplies,” he added, rolling the map to put it in the tube.

“It’s Morifinwe who enjoys trading, not me,” Amras reminded him. He closed his eyes and winced. Sitting and talking made his head hurt more.

“This the final decision. I am going to present it to the king.” Maedhros tossed the tube over his shoulder. “We’ll talk when I’m back. Now rest,” he smiled warmly and squeezed his brother’s hand, then stood up and left, though Amras was about to object.

The youngest son of Feanor sat upright and tossed the blanket from his knees. He placed his legs carefully on the floor and reached for crutches Alcarino had brought him. The healer said nothing about getting up, but Amras was not going to just let Maedhros leave like that and pass the arrangements to the king.

He pushed himself up on his good leg, but as soon as he leaned on the crutches, he hissed, because his arms hurt more than he anticipated. He made two unsteady steps, but then his arms could no longer support his weight and slipped from the crutches. He fell.

His cheeks burned from humiliation and embarrassment way more than his arms and leg hurt. Amras sat and leaned against the bed. There was no way he could catch up with Maedhros, who was clearly in a hurry and had no time to wait for his youngest brother. Was he really so eager to forget the time of his own weakness that he didn’t even slow his pace? Yes, they began their preparations for travelling East when the Spring came, but those few more days would not make any difference.

Furious, Amras waited a moment, grateful that his brother closed the doors behind him and no one would see him like this from the corridor. He dragged himself back to bed, weak and sore, because moving reminded him about all the cuts and bruises he could ignore as he laid. He left the crutches on the floor and closed his eyes, hoping to sleep through the pounding in his head.

***

Walking quickly proved to be slow, tiring and painful. Though Amras learned to use the crutches quite quickly, his arms were still bothering him and he had to be careful, or else he would risk falling down again. Alcarino warned him to limit walking for a week or two and let his shoulders heal, but Amras had too much to do.

He wasn’t just going to swallow such humiliation. Maedhros could be the eldest and he was the one who took upon himself all the arrangements with Fingolfin, but during their private councils they could all express their opinions. But this time his brothers changed the arrangements at last moment, without even waiting for him to feel well enough to join them.

But firstly, there was a grim responsibility waiting for him – talking to the families of his fallen comrades. Amras had no doubts they already knew, but he felt he owed them to pass the news personally. He knew he survived only because he was mistaken for Maedhros. He was trying not to remember the filthy hands on him and the pain they inflicted, nor his fear when he thought Maedhros would not get him in time and later, when he thought the enemy managed to capture his brother again. He had no doubts nothing would have changed, but he couldn’t help but muse what if he hadn’t fallen off his horse, hadn’t broken his leg, hadn’t...

Amras sighed and got up from his chair, pleased that at least the pounding in his head stopped. He grabbed his crutches and limped to the doors.

***

The camp was buzzing with life. With each Spring day the preparations went forward. The yards were full of wagons that were going to transport their belongings. Caranthir expected the first groups to be ready within a few days. Even though there was no immediate reason to rush, he knew Maedhros wished to go East as soon as possible. It was indeed getting crowded by the lake.

As reluctant as he was, Caranthir had to admit that Maedhros’s decision about giving up the crown was showing positive results. Of course, there were still groups regarding the sons of Feanor and their elves with reluctance, but the majority welcomed the reconciliation with relief. Many families were brought together after long years of separation and they moved to the southern shore of the lake. Additionally, some elves from Finrod’s host liked the lands on the South and as their prince was going to stay in the North, they moved to go with the sons of Feanor.

Caranthir supervised the latest delivery from the Sindar, then went to the forge to pass Curufin their orders. The raw material they brought was of good quality, but it was less than it should have and it would be best for Curufin to decide what to do with it.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting you in here,” he commented at the doorstep as he saw his youngest brother.

Amras was sitting on a chest by the door, watching Curufin with a bored expression he didn’t even bother to conceal. He kept his leg outstretched and looked far from comfortable.

“They tore off the hook from my scabbard,” he replied indifferently. “I can’t repair it myself right now.”

Curufin snorted as if he doubted Amras could ever perform such a task. He didn’t stop working, but he seemed to be displeased with their company.

“Curvo, if you would, we have some stock to organise,” said Caranthir, heading straight to the point.

Curufin nodded and put the scabbard aside. Amras looked impatient and clearly displeased that his brother didn’t finish his work first. Caranthir had seen him earlier, limping around the camp with his hunters and he began to wonder why his brother was in such a hurry.

It took them a while before Curufin decided what to do with all the raw material, as the storages behind his forge were already full and some of it had to be transported elsewhere. When they finally returned to the workshop, Amras was still sitting there. He was so lost in thoughts, busy planning something, that he didn’t even grant his brothers a glance until Caranthir stood over him.

“Are you coming back home with me, or do you intend to sit here?”

Amras jerked and looked up. He kept his arms tightly crossed, resting on his lap.

“Curvo hasn’t finished yet,” he remarked. “I’ll wait.”

“I’ll bring it to you later,” offered Curufin. “It’s not like you need it right now anyway.”

“You overtaxed yourself, didn’t you,” Caranthir summed up, looking at his youngest brother. “Which one hurts more?”

“Left,” admitted Amras reluctantly, clearly not intending to move even for an inch. “I won’t be able to put any weight on it right now.”

Caranthir shook his head in disapproval, then put his arm around his brother and pulled him up from the chest. He took one of his crutches and slowly, step by step, they made their way to the house. He could see Amras’s right arm shaking with effort and once again Caranthir wondered what made him move so much, as it clearly served him ill.

Amras sat down on his bed with relief and pulled up his broken leg, but then he asked his brother to pass him a notebook and a quill. Undisturbed by the fact that he still had company, he started writing something down. He stopped only when his brother sat beside him and glanced at his notes with interest.

“Alright.” Caranthir crossed his arms and his keen eyes rested on Amras. “Care to tell me what are you up to?”

His youngest brother hesitated for a moment, then nodded. And answered.

#Mistakes #my fic #The Silmarillion fanfic #Amras #Caranthir #Maedhros #Curufin

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davamuramatsu · 4 years

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Awakening the Senses

No doubt, Spring has arrived. Ready or not. Slightly resistant of the notion, personally, since as I’ve gotten more mature I embrace fall and winter. But it’s the time to embrace and not hold back. Make way for what wants to enter. Clear the space. Spring is here! And here we have Wisteria, Italian style. The color is simply divine. The species is rather invasive. I wanted to begin my post with nature, as always, and thought this was a great way to sum up Spring’s arrival via a shot I took in Italy. Welcome to this journey.

Below we see the unusual cypress trees indicative of the Italian countryside. I love them! When I shoot photos, I just go with my instincts and what captures my eye.

Easter has come and gone, but I spent my time in bed with a flu that I never saw coming. The trip to Italy this month I pretended to be my end-all, be-all. The trip with answers. My salvation. Enlightenment. Or so I thought. I am on the up from being so far down, hallucinations during the night and all in a numb yet feverish state for more than three nights in a row. In retrospect, I think it was a mind altering drug. Not. I now realize my body shut down. Had no choice but to embrace hiding from the 80+degree days Easter Sunday and Marathon Monday. Simply hiding. Tossing and turning within my deep charcoal linen sheets enveloping me in within this tumultuous turmoil of fever. Thank God for grapefruit juice and blinds. This too, shall pass. I digress.

Palm Sunday

The Church. It’s Palm Sunday. I am in Florence. For the second trip from our home base of Montecatini- Tuscany. The highlight of my trip to Italy, in all honesty was the serendipitous discovery through the scent. Incense smoke from the cobblestone back streets in Florence, not far from the Santa Maria Train Station, leading my sister and I towards this elegant antique structure. The the overpowering fluid scent moving with intoxicating lure through the air – beckoning a surprise discovery. Here comes the mystery…..Embarking on this beauty and spirituality in this environment.

Palm Sunday 2017 Florence. Love. Heart opening. The scent of Frankincense filled the Church’s entirety. Oh Bless.

We took part in Palm Sunday Mass, in Latin, like eras gone by in the US. The experience and the authenticity of church, the nuns, looking like a painting, the architecture. I was transported to another century. The history was soul grounding. Aren’t the ladies gorgeous? Their graceful voices filled with melody envelop the entire church. The scene below I captured with my phone during mass. A no no. But look at them! This scene looks like a painting. Their cloaks so majestic! This Latin mass set the tone of the day trip to Florence for me.

As we left this beautiful scene behind us, we ventured out by foot into the tourist driven scenes around the city of Florence. I placed my eyes and camera to work, seeking new discoveries and nuances along the beaten path. No stone left unturned. Taking nothing for granted. The history and age depicted below from a simple shot of these weathered shutter doors spoke to me of their years of wear and oh, what a beautiful patina tones.

OH the architecture with effortless beauty and stature. I recognized various tones of Ochre sprinkled throughout the country as its signature color. The rustic buildings and terrain lend themselves to these earthy tones.

I never tired of seeing these colors everywhere. The building below is a bit more elaborate than those above, regardless the natural age and beauty took breath away.

Food, Glorious Food

I wish I had a bevy of photos portraying the amazing food we had, but much to my dismay, the food was not that at all. It seems to me that there are more Italian restaurants with better ambiance here in the United States. And you can be sure you will not have to listen to the likes of Joe Cocker or Elton John while dining, as we did there in these very brightly lit rooms. WHAT THE HELL? I say. And no, we were not in tourist areas. We found little places family run, speaking next to no English. No candlelight. Just artificial flowers and ghastly lighting! Crazy!

The pasta was light, certainly delicious, but what’s with the lack of vegetables on every single menu? This dish below was the best one on the entire trip. Succulent. Fresh wide pasta tubes crawling with seafood. Simply delicious! Not to mention the Tuscan wine we had to accompany our meal. Just a delight! So wrapping up my trip, I will say that I missed having vegetable options, and am perplexed as to the void of them. Upon my return home, I hightailed it to Russo’s market in Watertown. I was immediately elevated back to a level of sophistication, in-depth produce offerings and fresh pastas unlike I’d ever seen. Alas it IS Spring.

I am totally perplexed as to the absence of all vegetables in Italy. Not in the street, on the menus, no where in sight! Perhaps it was the region we visited. I am not certain, but I do know this – here, they prominently thrive and exist. I am very grateful and blessed to be a part of this earth here in New England. You serve us well! Spring represents many things, but in the realm of food, as the soil becomes richer and richer in nutrients, the spring bounty awakens. Artichokes and asparagus are the most obvious foods that represent Spring to me. Stuffing artichokes is a ritual I grew up with. It was our holiday food. I celebrate many different holidays with this beautiful vegetable. Slightly complex, but worth every moment. The Romans and Greeks advocated the medicinal and health benefiting qualities of this thistle. The high fiber content not to missed either. The antioxidants and vitamins also offer vitamin C, vitamin K, rich in the B complex not to mention high in potassium. They need some time to prepare, but worth the effort. I love to sautée them after they have been cut in quarters and trimmed, with shallots, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. They are delicious one leaf at a time. The stems are especially hearty and fibrous.

Mushrooms on the other hand are plentiful at Russo’s market. They have so many varieties, and in all honesty- slightly scary to me since I am unfamiliar with many of them. The concept of foraging mushrooms turns me on, but that is not my calling. I’ll leave that to the pros. Radicchio, baby lettuce and fresh asparagus below in major abundance. The bitter deep red leaves of radicchio just taste so good raw, or grilled. Have you ever tried to grill them? They take on a very nutty flavor. Drizzle a little olive oil, salt, pepper and just a dash of balsamic before they hit the heat. I’ll show you a salad I conjured up in celebration of my return from Italy below, using escarole, radicchio, clementine slices and black Moroccan olives.

This salad was so refreshing, especially after the absence of raw vegetables. The colors, textures and the taste was spot on, balanced and divine. Oh did I mention shaved fennel? I’ve posted the dressing recipe in the past, I believe. Please for pardon the repeat. 4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 2tsp dijon country style mustard, 2 minced cloves garlic, 2/3 cup olive oil drizzled into the mix. Add a small amount of cracked pepper. Voila. Done.

Marilyn Sang ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’

There you have it! Spring has sprung. April. The month of Diamonds. The birthstone for April. Clarity. Purity. Diamonds glistening in the sun, catching the light with grace. The healing properties of this magnificent stone are abundant. Diamonds truly are the symbol of purity. Their white light can help you bring your life into a cohesive whole. They bond relationships bringing love and clarity into a partnership. This stone has been the symbol of wealth for centuries. It is a stone of manifestation, attracting abundance. Diamonds are also well known to impart fearlessness, invincibility and fortitude. Diamonds clear emotional and mental pain, reducing fear and bring about new beginnings. This is a highly creative stone stimulating imagination and inventiveness. Happy Birthday you April babies! One of my new pieces, AMODINI, shown below looks like a relic from the Victorian era. The multi strands of hand cut amethyst stones are wire wrapped making the connection. I’ve attached a locket as the pendant, swinging from a diamond bale which is held by all 5 strands. A halo of diamonds surround the enclosed locket. The circle measures 1.25″ and the necklace is 17″ in length.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend! They simply make you feel good and rich when wearing them. Anywhere on the body! For some reason, I’m favoring the circular shape, so here are a pair of diamond disc earrings, PRAMA, suspended on 18k gold earwires. These babies are 15mm and ready to order. I have 11mm in stock. Aren’t these dangle and drop earrings gorgeous?

And let me introduce to you a brand new piece featuring a circular Sunburst with a dangling tourmaline in the center. The piece is suspended from black onyx, spinel, lava and olive wood. The only color visible here is the subtle blue tourmaline. It was shot in early morning light against my zinc desk. Soon enough the weather will break and allow me to shoot outdoors once again.

This Diamond Sunburst makes me think about the sun growing higher in the sky, as the season sets in. Summer will be here before we know it. It’s time to embrace the warmth and all of the newly sprouted plants. Our souls are also sprouting. Remember that. We are living creatures with awakening senses. Time to celebrate our renewal!

I hope you enjoyed this blog journey.

Yours in joy,

Dava

(Originally posted April 23, 2017)

#Italy Florence PalmSunday diamonds architecture travel jewelry vegetables

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fapangel · 7 years

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The North Korean Counter-Force Catalog

Or, What We Can Learn From Google Earth IMINT

The world once again finds itself on the brink of a North Korean crisis, and this time matters have come to a head - the DPRK has developed a capable solid-fueled ICBM and a tested thermonuclear warhead to place upon it. Theories have been overturned by the cold facts of capabilities, and now there is only a matter of months before these new weapons are fielded in significant numbers. The free world in general, and America in particular, now have very little time to weigh the consequences of action versus inaction.

Unfortunately, the academics and thinkers whom usually inform and enrich the public debate seem largely unable to grasp the nature and gravity of the current crisis, preferring retreat to the familiar bastion of Cold War era deterrence theory. As Crispin Rovere neatly summarized: "There are analysts discounting the possibility of war, but based on shallow reasoning: North Korea has nuclear weapons, nuclear war is unthinkable, therefore there will be no war." More and more frequently, the terrible specter of war is dismissed out of hand in the opening sentences of op-eds and think tank columns, as if ignoring the beast will compel it to leave. Recent rumblings from the Pentagon have made clear, however, that our military leaders cannot indulge these luxuries - they must confront the possibility, and thus the actual balance of capabilities that determine the outcome.

Unfortunately, public discussion is badly hindered because open-source information on the actual capabilities in play are painfully scarce. Even Barry R. Posen of the New York Times came up nearly empty, forced to extrapolate from published estimates of North Korean Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) numbers and pragmatic worst-case assumptions (every TEL in its own hardened bunker) to work out the weapons required - and thus the scope of the military effort needed. Indeed, this dearth of information is so complete that Roger Cavazos's now well-known article debunking the myth of DPRK artillery leveling Seoul, "Mind the Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality," relied heavily on amateur Google Earth IMINT research done by an anonymous internet user known only as "Planeman!" And even this well is dry, the original internet discussion forum Planeman's work was hosted on having been shut down ages ago, and few others pursuing the same efforts. It's perhaps no surprise - at least one other talented amateur IMINT analyst received a job offer from Janes. (If you’re good at something, never do it for free, as they say.) Thus the public discussion of the potentials and perils of “the military option” in North Korea has been starved of information. The voting electorate are the final arbiters of power in American democracy, as they will eventually hold their congressional representatives - and their President - to account for whatever outcomes generated by their decisions now. This grants popular opinion great influence over events (and North Korea knows it,) yet those commentators seeking to sway the masses have almost no information or evidence to present them with.

Though unschooled and unworthy in the art of IMINT, I am an educated journalist, and can at least attempt the “footwork” to aid others. Fortunately, I can stand on the shoulders of giants in this effort - especially Jacob Bogle and his amazing work on “Access DPRK,” a colossal project to comprehensively map places and features in North Korea via free satellite imagery in Google Earth. Without Mr. Bogle's work - and all 53,722 Google Earth placemarks he generated - my efforts would be in vain. I also owe a debt to bookmarks compiled by “nkbypanda,” an anonymous amateur analyst, and even the original Google Earth .kmz bookmark file by “Planeman.” Building on their work, I've taken the next step and tried to classify hardened sites in North Korea, with an emphasis on identifying every hardened bunker or facility that might accommodate a TEL, in order to quantify the true scope of the challenge facing the Pentagon.

The Google Earth .kmz bookmarks file can be found here. Though still very much a work in progress, some general points of great significance are immediately apparent and are worth sharing now (especially with the ever-shorter timelines of potential crisis on the peninsula) and by publicizing I might invite the critique of the more informed.

Scope Of The Counter-Force Problem

Any preemptive strike on North Korea must assume worst-case scenarios - namely, that the regime will respond to any attack, no matter how limited, with full scale retaliation against Seoul, Tokyo and even the United States with a significant fraction of the weapons in their inventory, including conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. In other words, counter-force strike is the only feasible preemptive option. The conventional military balance on the peninsula being what it is, the equation is predominantly an “allied counter-force strike versus DPRK counter-value arsenal” problem. Even the oft-lamented artillery threat to Seoul is only notable when considered as delivery systems for chemical warheads.

Of the DPRK's known capabilities for delivering counter-value WMD attacks, three systems are predominant. In order of lethality, these are their SRBM arsenal, their 240mm Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, and their 170mm “Koksan” self-propelled heavy artillery guns.

This owes to several practical considerations. First, their solid-fueled, road-mobile IRBM and ICBM forces are still in their nascent phase, with their first successful tests conducted very recently, late last year at best, (in the case of the Pukkuksong-1.) Thus, at time of writing, North Korea simply hasn't had the time to produce and field them in significant numbers. This leaves their only operational MRBM the “Nodong,” a liquid-fueled weapon which is leashed to fixed bases and sizable support convoys, hindered by long (and fairly obvious) prep times, and above all is a 16 meter long weapon which makes it particularly ungainly to lug about the rugged North Korean terrain - especially on wheeled TELs.

The DPRK's SRBM arsenal (chiefly domestic variants of the 12-meter long, solid-fueled Scud) are far more mobile, compact, and quick to prep and launch. They can be dispersed faster, across more possible terrain, and hidden in more places for a longer time than the Nodong. Most crucially, their TELs - which determine how many they can fire at once - are available in numbers (published estimates vary widely, the median being 200 TEL vehicles or so.) Combined with their ability to deliver North Korea's first generation of fission weapons, (unlike MLRS or artillery,) the DPRK's Scud force is the most survivable counter-value asset they have, and - despite the bevy of land and sea based anti-missile systems now deployed to the ROK - the one most likely to survive in numbers sufficient to saturate defenses and strike Seoul. (Striking America or even Tokyo is unnecessary, as the potential devastation of even a single low-yield warhead striking Seoul proper is more than enough to constitute an effective deterrent - which is why North Korea still exists.)

Thus, quantifying the scope of the counter-force challenge depends on finding the Scuds, the MLRS, and the 170mm artillery. This is what I've found so far.

The Bunker Blitz - A Concerted Asset Dispersal Effort

The most telling insight so far has been a downright feverish effort by North Korea to build new reverse-slope bunkers, mostly near the DMZ opposite Seoul, beginning in 2009 but peaking between 2011 and 2013. Especially in the latter timeframe, new bunkers on reverse slopes appeared almost everywhere - the .kmz file has northwards of 300 so far. They come in three distinct styles, which I've dubbed “large,” “medium,” and “Koksan.” The lattermost one is distinctive, and sheds light on the goals of the entire reverse-slope building effort:

The curious shape, with its narrow room off the back, was ultimately explained by “nkbypanda's” past work, which provided a ground-level view of storage sheds for the 170mm Koksan gun and overhead imagery to reference. The presence of these storage sheds in close proximity - invariably with gun barrels visible, and occasionally an entire gun parked outside - confirmed the purpose of these bunkers. (The narrow room accommodates the long barrel of a Koksan gun.) They're almost always built in sets of six, with two sets placed as close together as terrain allows (for a full battalion of 12 guns.) The distinct shape of these bunkers (visible in post-construction surface scarring) and presence of Koksan gun sheds allows identification even when imagery of the construction phase is poorly lit, poorly timed, or even nonexistent. So far I've found nine Koksan battalions (about half within 60km of Seoul's center) and a few half-battalion (6 gun) or single-battery (4 gun) dispersal sites for use in wartime (no unit permanently stationed there.)

In addition to being direct evidence of very scarce reports and anecdotal evidence concerning reverse-slope basing of 170mm Koksan guns, this casts other bunker-building efforts in the same timeframe in a decisively offensive light. Half the battalions so far discovered are more than 60km from Seoul's city center (the maximum theoretical range of the Koksan if using Rocket Assisted Projectiles.) They are, however, well-positioned for deep fire on the Chorwon invasion corridor (see page 11.) This makes their other bunkers more suspicious - despite being much closer to the DMZ (and thus more vulnerable) than required to range Seoul, such aggressive forward basing also maximizes penetration chances (steeper, faster re-entry trajectories to avoid ABM defense) and their reach into the southern ROK. In other words, they’re not sited for strictly counter-value employment.

If Pyongyang harbors hopes of forceful unification still (after precluding American involvement with threats of ICBM strikes on American soil,) then they'll need the asymmetric advantage of WMD-equipped ballistic missiles to overcome the conventional forces imbalance on the peninsula, especially to strike more distant ROK bases, transportation chokepoints and other military targets. (The DPRKs recent pursuit of long-range precision conventional fires such as the KN-09 300mm MLRS, and local Tochka derivative, the KN-02 - both of which are rumored to have optical scene-matching terminal guidance - lends strength to this suspicion. If Pyongyang's motives are strictly self-defense deterrence, then pouring scarce money into new precision capabilities instead of more mature, legacy counter-value systems capable of carrying the DPRK's heavy first-gen fission weapons makes little sense.) With nuclear warheads, even Scuds are tactically and operationally relevant weapons, not just counter-value assets - which suggests that at least some of the new bunkers, outside of the 136 Koksan bunkers so far identified are meant for dispersal of Scud TELs.

Which Bunkers Hold What?

Discovering where TELs might be is easiest to do by ruling out where they can't be - i.e. where they cannot fit, or cannot access. The dimensions of bunkers are an obvious starting point.

Outside the Koksan bunkers, two other types predominate - a “medium” bunker (measuring roughly four and a half to five meters wide, and thirteen to fourteen meters long,) and a “large” bunker with a six or seven meter width and a 17 to 18 meter length. Even with many bunkers floor plans open and visible during construction, solid measurements are a bit difficult due to various factors - slant angle distortion, shadows hiding the bases of walls, and above all the half-meter resolution of the free DigitalGlobe imagery that predominates in the Google Earth database. When considering the impact of interior wall thickness on overall internal dimensions, the resolution limits impose obvious problems in calculations. The figures given are an overall guesstimate produced over the course of identifying, measuring and cataloging many bunkers.

Can a North Korean Scud TEL fit in these? That depends on the TEL, which complicates matters because various TELs have been shown off in DPRK parades, owing to their need to import and improvise with whatever they can spirit past the sanctions. The length of a Scud missile puts a hard limit on length, however - 12 meters. And a great number of their extant Soviet-delivered stock (as displayed in parades) are likely the Maz-543, which gives us a width. Determining a turn radius required some hunting, but a variety of sources confirmed 15 meters as a reasonable approximation. (Interestingly, half that of the American HEMTT owing to the unique two-axle articulation.) Thus informed, one can analyze road access:

Once one begins sliding around a to-scale rectangle of cardboard around their screen making motor sounds with their mouth, the lesser glamour associated with the IMINT disciplines becomes apparent. Nonetheless, it's effective, and once practicalities are accounted for (such as room to open vehicle doors, and the icy nature of severe Korean winters) certain conclusions become more or less probable. As usual, there's always another wrinkle, such as North Korea's recently revealed tracked Scud TEL, but given the presumption of a mostly wheeled legacy fleet, broad conclusions can still be drawn.

Observing Patterns and Environs

Overall, some patterns emerged:

Every “medium bunker” site had road access that could accommodate a MAZ-543 TEL (though some were tight fits.)

“Large bunker” sites invariably had good road access, but not always sized to comfortably accommodate a MAZ-543's 3.06m wide TEL, even when it would've been easy to do so (see second image above.)

“Medium bunkers” are often associated with large, vehicle-capable tunnels (with widths, slopes and turn radii that can accommodate a MAZ-543 TEL) boring into presumed large garages or bases beneath hills or even mountains, facilities that the oldest imagery shows predates the 2009-2013 construction blitz.

“Large bunkers” are often associated with large nearby military bases with a preponderance of barracks, usually favor areas with flatter, wider-open terrain and are more often found very close to the DMZ (as little as four kilometers on occasion.)

This may imply:

The “medium bunkers” are dispersal bunkers for wheeled TELs, and perhaps for 240mm MLRS, which can be difficult to conclusively separate from the HARTs built for the latter system (predominantly distinguished by presence of firing revetments and shrapnel-shield dirt mounts in front of the entrances, as seen here.)

The “large bunkers” are meant for housing APCs, IFVs and supply vehicles for forward-positioned troops who might be called upon to drive on Seoul in event of war.

There's many caveats to these conclusions - the “medium” bunkers would accommodate a pair of 240mm MLRS (with room for reloads and accommodation for the crew as well) much more comfortably than a MAZ-543 (which can just about squeeze in with room for the driver to wiggle out,) to say nothing of the road access at some sites as well. Additionally, the “large” bunkers, aside from being a more comfortable fit, could provide room for extended crew accommodation (cots, stove, basic maintenance equipment, etc.) which would be of obvious use when TELs are dispersed in times of high tension - which may last indefinitely. Given the well known and longstanding concentration of American ISR capabilities near the DMZ, moving TELs around is something the KPA will try to avoid.

However, the preponderance of evidence seen across multiple sites impels me towards the above conclusions - especially in light of what the sudden bunker-building effort implies.

Deliberate Dispersal of High-Value Assets Away From Legacy Bases

Tangible information on the famous North Korean Hardened Artillery Shelter - outside of a single Nautilus publication from the late 80s and the occasional KCNA propaganda clip - is hard to come by. Looking at the sites themselves, however, reveals a multitude of types with varying protection - and that HARTs for self-propelled guns, including the Koksan, never provided overhead protection for guns while they were actually firing. Indeed, some of the new Koksan bunker sites were built at already-extant Koksan battalion bases, with the gun sheds visible pre-2009 and the old firing revetments nearby still visible today. The bunker-building is almost certainly a reaction to the drastic shift in artillery effectiveness enabled by modern computer fire control and fast proliferation of cheap GPS guided shells with impressive accuracy, which render revetment protection mostly useless.

This strongly implies the other bunkers were also built as intelligent adaptations to changing ROK/US capabilities as well. Almost no information is available on North Korean missile bases (outside of a handful of badly outdated anecdotes from defectors and vague military press releases,) leaving us with naught but ludicrous claims of missile bases deeper than 1,000 feet (despite defector's testimony about the DPRK's inability to deal with the water table) that are nigh impregnable to all attack. Impregnable though the bunker may be, the exits are not so blessed:

As long as the bunker-busting bomb goes off on the right side of the blast door, the occupants will be unharmed (the image illustrates how the GBU-57 MOP subverts the bunker-builder's expectations in dramatic fashion.) But intact or not, a few tons of rock in your tunnel entrance complicates vehicular traffic some. A TEL that cannot sortie is a TEL that cannot fire. If DPRK missile bases are indeed buried deep under mountains, the last decade of rapid advances in precision standoff guidance weaponry and ever-more advanced and effective bunker-busting warhead design can be expected to compel rapid KPA efforts away from these newly vulnerable bottlenecks.

Indeed, this seems to be the case. The facility I dubbed the “Kaesong Missile Base” features three generously-sized tunnels that lead under a sizable hill, and in historical imagery a 16-meter long vehicle is visible - almost certainly a Nodong missile on its TEL. Though the number of recently-dug bunkers in close proximity to this base are far more vulnerable than the under-mountain base, each must be attacked individually - a far higher burden on any would-be attacker than simply sealing every missile underground by hitting just three tunnel entrances. Given the short distances of the entire Korean theater, and conventional Allied military strength, by the time base occupants dig themselves out, they'll be in occupied territory. Thus the mass of the first retaliatory salvo is paramount. In light of modern weapons, this strongly favors dispersal of SRBM assets.

In light of this logic and the frequent observed association of pre-existing, TEL-accessible bases beneath hills and the “medium” sized bunkers, I find it highly plausible they're meant for dispersing SRBM launchers.

Conclusions

This document is informative; detailing the research and rationale that underlie the guesses offered within the .kmz file itself. I advance no argument from this data as-is, especially as the research is incomplete (in MLRS HARTs and hardened airbase facilities especially) and I must expose it to the criticism of the more experienced and informed before trusting it with such weight. However, a few simple conclusions are self-evident:

The DPRK is an alert, adaptive and responsive enemy who is keenly aware of allied counter-force abilities. The enemy is never idle.

From their decision to keep investing great money and effort into dispersal bunkers, despite concurrent investments in TEL mobility and the obviousness of construction efforts (for instance, amateurs can easily find them on Google Earth's low-res imagery) one may conclude they rate their chances of evading modern ROK/US ISTAR assets in a compact and terrain-constrained theater to be too low to ensure force survival alone.

Once the tracked TELs revealed this year are put into mass production, the counter-force targets will go from two-hundred odd wheeled SRBM TELs to more mobile, nimble and survivable TELs - and their already-mobile Scuds will be an order of magnitude more elusive.

In sum: time is short.

Commentary and questions best directed to my twitter, or use the anonymous “ask” box on this blog.

#north korea #counter-force #dprk #dprkorea #imint #north korea war

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while-im-home · 5 years

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Sunday 15/03/2020

So today I was finally hit by whatever plague has been circling my immune system. I’ve had a kind of sore throat for about 3 days and feeling like I’m burning up every now and then and this morning, I felt like I had been hit by a tonne of bricks. My body aches, I’m sweating buckets, I feel a little confused and dizzy, my sore throat doesn’t seem to be here but something is definitely up. I climb into bed and put the fan on to try and combat this hot flush I’m having. There I stayed for the rest of the day, watching YouTube on my phone all day and hoping I would feel better as the day went on. This did not happen. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of that evening other than feeling sad that this was how I was feeling.

Monday 16/03/2020

Today was hard. Today was the anniversary of my mum passing away. I felt really horrible mentally and physically today. My soul ached not just because she was gone but also because I felt too crappy to do anything to remember her by. I planned to bake some cupcakes and B had given me a wonderful gift to remember her by, a video message that can be sent into space and he was going to record me and pay to send it into space through a company he found last year and had been keeping it a secret until today. It was so sweet of him. I cried for hours that day. I spent this day in bed again, feeling sorry for myself and also a little angry as my online food shop had arrived and half of my order was missing because of those asshole panic buyers swiping all the things. I took a turn for the worse tonight. I felt as though my face and body were pressed against scalding radiators and I felt very tired and delirious. B said I didn’t feel as though I had a temperature but my cheeks felt like they were going to catch fire any second. We tried to call 111 but we couldn’t get through. A lot of other panicked people it seemed. At this point we had been convincing ourselves that there was no way I had coronavirus, I had only seen one person and I was housebound anyway due to my agoraphobia. It must’ve just been a flu. I was drifting in and out of sleep as my body battled all these horrible feelings, my arms and legs felt so heavy and ached heavily. I managed to get to sleep with a cold flannel on my face.

Tuesday 17/03/2020

I woke up feeling a little better. I didn’t feel as though I was burning up anymore but I did feel shortness of breath and I messaged my friend who I had seen around a week prior to see if she had this feeling. She did. Granted her feelings were a lot more cold based where as I primarily had a fever and an achy body. She recommended I call 111 and see what they say. I decide to do it later when B had woken up (he had stayed up really late the night previously). Thankfully B had brought my Xbox into the bedroom for me and I began a playthrough of L.A.Noire. A game I adored but had never fully finished before. I will be talking about this a lot. I flew through Traffic and Homocide that day but before I could even think about starting Ad-Vice B had woken up. He was very anxious. He takes medication for his anxiety and was late in taking it so he was in rather a bad state mentally but called 111 for me anyway as my symptoms had started to worsen again. My ear was bright red and was burning up and that slowly traveled to my cheeks again. We got through this time and the woman was rather rude to me. She said because I had a fever and shortness of breath, they were going to transfer to me to the coronavirus specialist phonelines. I was sure I didn’t have it because I don’t have a cough. And that was the main symptom. They gave them my number and eventually called me back, she was the loveliest woman ever and said that they would keep me on their radar in case my symptoms worsen or anything but until then all I can do is self isolate and rest up. I fell asleep that night struggling to breathe and woke up many times in the night because of it. It was horrible.

Wednesday 18/03/2020

I don’t remember much from today. I remember feeling short on breath all day and feeling incredibly lonely. Self isolation is incredibly isolating, who would’ve known. I miss my friends and my boyfriend. He’s being cautious with me but is still managing to be a loving and caring boyfriend. My dad visited me but didn’t come into my bedroom, was the first time I had seen him in weeks. We don’t really have the best relationship. I remember eating more than I had done the day previously. And I remember that drinking had been a problem, I was struggling to force myself to stay hydrated, I only managed to force myself to drink one cup on one of the days but today I managed to drink around 4-5 pints of water (and a couple of them had orange squash in ☺️). I didn’t feel as feverish today but I did briefly that night. I was mostly very scared because the doom the media has been churning out had kept convincing me I was going to be put in hospital or that I was going to die.

Thursday 19/03/2020

Today was bad but for a different reason. After 5 hours of sleep I was rudely awoken by my own body. I was cramping. Hard. My period had arrived and wasn’t going easy on me. I managed to go and clean myself up and get back in bed. Unfortunately one of the symptoms I get with my period is that I get bad hot flashes. I burn up. So on top of my fever, it was hard to tell if it was my fever or my period causing me to toast marshmallows. And I couldn’t even have a hot water bottle to combat the cramps without completely overheating myself. I pushed through and it got better as the day went on. My shortness of breath felt a little easier but my sore throat had returned. Win some lose some. I finished L.A.Noire properly this time. And oh. My. God. I cried. I cried hard. The ending was so... unexpected and FUCKING SAD???? I have so many thoughts and feelings and although I’m really upset with the ending, it did make me love the game even more on a deeper level. I wasn’t in the mood for another game after that and ended up spending the entire rest of the day watching 2 Broke Girls on Amazon Prime. I’m actually really enjoying it. The writing is a little off and after a while it gets very repetitive. Caroline whines about how far she’s fallen and Max says vagina. There that’s the whole show. Fr though I am enjoying it. It’s a good distraction. B went out today, we know he wasn’t supposed to but we desperately needed some groceries that our online shop couldn’t get us. He was cautious, covered his mouth and tried not to touch ANYTHING he didn’t have to or wasn’t going to purchase to keep chance of spreading whatever I have to the absolute minimal. He also got me a present to cheer me up AND as an early birthday present. It was a Yachemon plush from Overwatch, I laughed so hard when I saw it my shortness of breath got worse. Oops.

Friday 20/03/2020

Today was the best day by far. I felt so much like myself, I barely felt hot at all, my shortness of breath was practically non existent and I actually felt a lot more human, however, I do have a lot Of phlegm in my throat and have had to cough and clear it a few times, still wouldn’t say I had a cough though. I’m a little wary of the people that have said it gets worse before it gets better so am keeping to the bed for a few days longer just in case. I feel so much like myself and was even able to get up briefly without feeling like I was going to pass out! It’s a step in the right direction at least! I was still mourning the L.A.Noire ending and was feeling incredibly lonely again (a common theme, I complained of loneliness to B a thousand times even though we both know he should only really come and see me if he HAS to). But he came down to hang out with me briefly to help me pick a few games to buy from the Xbox store. We picked some that were on sale, the first 5 chapters of Life Is Strange and Mafia II. I decided to start with Life Is Strange and I’m sadly really unimpressed with it. I’m not a massive fan of games where your choices effect certain things because they make me anxious I will choose the bad endings! I’m a little disappointed that it’s a supernatural storyline, I was hoping for something a little more realistic but it doesn’t ruin the game. I love the art style and voice acting, it’s a beautiful game with a promising storyline (even if it’s not specifically my cup of tea). I think the chapters were a little short considering how much they are at original price separately but I guess I’m just lucky I caught it on sale. I’m not itching to play more but I will anyway, I just hope it gets a little better :/.

We’re all caught up. I’ll try and write a diary entry every evening. It will mostly focus on reviewing the entertainment I have and describing my symptoms and just what I get up to. I’m writing for myself and people reading it is just an extra. It’d be nice to have something to talk at like a diary for a while. Even if it’s not talking back I appreciate the social effects it’s having on me.

Anyways. I’ll post today’s diary entry either tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then we take it easy. ✌🏻

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asksythe · 7 years

Text

FtGoG Snippet: Mouse sees the Wind fall - part 3

Her voice breaks a little near the end, just before she stops completely. Something wells from her eyes. Not tears, but a silent, dark despair that no words can describe. And beneath that despair—Mouse breaks out in cold sweat—is madness. Black and lurking like oil at the bottom of a dry well. He sees then that though her body is whole and largely unscarred, she has nevertheless been horrifically brutalized by this ordeal; sees then that she has been kept quiet by shame, by guilt, by pain; that though three years have passed, little has truly healed. And now, the wound opens to show the rotted blood and fetid flesh, opens to show that something else—something more dreadful and abominable than even the enemy that was devoured by her, has grown in its place.

For a single feverish moment, Mouse fears that this madness would subsume her, that from her flesh a monster would grow and feast upon the souls of all those who walk this earth. But then it passes. She leans back in the chair and suddenly she seems shrunken: a slender young woman, clad in simple white, with tired blue eyes that are steeped in sorrow.

“I said it.” The words gush from her mouth like blood from a wound. “Finally... I said it. I have… I have never ever said this to anyone before… not even out loud to myself. I never thought I…never thought I would...” She brings one hand to her lips. Though her eyes are dry, a single sob wracked her slender frame and breaks free from her mouth.

She looks at the Lord Kazekage. She is waiting for his response, waiting for his judgement. He is her lover and her protector. He is also the avowed leader of his people and sworn upholder of the law. And she has just confessed to possibly the most horrific crime in recorded ninja history. It might not have been committed in Sunagakure, but that does not change the possibility of a repeat in the future. Beyond even the Biju, she is without a doubt the single greatest threat to Sunagakure’s existence. If she were to lose control again…

She waits with bated breath, the tension coiled tight and hot in her ribcage. Half of her is fear and sadness, and the other half a self-flagellating eagerness. Would he cut her from him? Would he throw her out? She is the beacon of hope for a lot of people in Sunagakure, but in truth she may be the single greatest existential threat their village has ever faced. It is the duty of the reigning Kazekage to deal with such threats as quickly and decisively as possible.

He sits there in his big chair beside a desk filled with papers and unsigned documents, still like a statue. It is only Mouse’s many years of service as a shadow that allow him to parse the minutiae of lord Kazekage’s reactions. Beyond that stillness is the tightness of his shoulders, how his left hand is balled into a fist and his right hand strains to hold back the nervous tic he has whenever he is agitated. If he had a kunai in his hand right now, Mouse is more than sure he would have started twirling it round and round without even realizing it. He is trying to make it seem like it doesn’t affect him that much but in truth it does. Beyond the carefully blank look of his eyes flit recognition and pity, but curiously no fear, and no anger.

Eventually, the stillness breaks. He turns to stare at the ceiling above him, draws in one big breath, turns back to her. Mouse sees the tension bleeding out from him, some weighty choice having been made. He seems almost sad in that moment. It makes for a strange expression on the face of the usually fierce Fourth Kazekage.

“Well…” he says as if he’s discussing the weather. “We are going to have to adjust your training. Less exercise, more meditation. And we need to bring in a genjutsu specialist and probably someone similar to the Yamanaka to see if you still have that vulnerability to mental assaults. If no, good. If yes, there are measures we can take.”

Now it is Mouse’s turn to still with shock on the rafters. Measures? We?... She just admitted to murdering seventeen million people because she could not control her own power! He turns to the side to see if he’s alone in his shock. He isn’t. Diamondback crouches rigid in the corner, fingers and pen frozen, while Eagle merely looks back at Mouse, his head shaking imperceptibly. And yet the Miko below does not look surprised in the slightest. On the contrary, she looks as if she has been expecting this.

“...Are you sure?” There’s an odd timbre to her voice. She says the words slowly, as if by lingering she might offer him the time to rethink and retract what he has just said. But he does no such thing.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She stares at him. “Even by your laws, I am a mass murderer.”

“And by your laws, I am a war criminal,” he replies with a shrug. “Are we going to compare our mistakes and see which one of us is worse? Because I am sure I can match your quality with my quantity.”

She doesn’t answer him, merely looks away. He sighs, loud and audible, as if he has expected this.

“Or would you rather I tear you apart with words?” he asks. “Tell you what a monster you are? Would that be more to your liking? To be flogged for crimes none but you remember? But what point would that make? That subjectively, we are both monsters? That objectively we are humans, and are bound to mistakes like all humans do? But because we were born with the burden of extraordinary powers, that our mistakes are so much more extraordinary compared to those of others?”

She turns around at that and stares at him. Her eyes are dry like drift glass, and they seem to see into him, and then through him altogether. She wears a strange expression on her face, a rictus of intermingled gratitude and some vague, aimless anger. Eventually, it fades into a sad smile.

“This is so like you,” she says faintly. A hint of wistfulness clings to her voice. “I tell you I murdered seventeen million people, and you say we should adjust my training. I tell you that I am burdened by a world-rending power that has no true counter, that I’m a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and you say there are measures we can take. As if there are measures to deal with what I can… what I did. Do you know how weird you sound to me?” Despite the wording of her question, her words are undeniably infused with an exasperated fondness.

He blinks, cocks one eyebrow. “I’m the weird one?” He parries right back. “Shouldn’t I be the one to say that? For as long as I have known you, you would cry for the pain of complete strangers, for people you have never known, for sinners and innocents both, but for yourself, you would not even shed a tear. I would say you are a glutton for punishment. And you tell me I’m the weird one? You cried for me...” He pauses. There is a look of faint surprise, as if he himself is caught off guard by the secret he has just confessed. But then it passes, as if it does not merit more than a single thought. He looks down for a second this time. “…Knowing what I did.” Then backed up. “But not for you. Do you truly think so little of yourself? Put so little value in yourself?” Another pause, and slower this time, with quiet words pregnant with a sincerity that seems ill-fitting in their usually ruthless Kazekage, he says. “Do you not know that you are precious to me?”

Now it is she who is stunned into near speechlessness, her eyes wide and mouth parted. Mouse doesn’t blame her for that reaction. For someone like lord Kazekage, that is probably as close to a declaration of love as it’s ever going to get. In front of Mouse, Eagle makes a warped hand signal that roughly translates to either ‘awww…’ or ‘aewwhhh...’

She sits like that for a full minute, silent. She looks down and for the first time, Mouse sees wetness in her red-rimmed eyes.

“Rasa…” she says, and somehow imbues that single word with so much weight. He wipes the wetness from her eyes with one hand.

“This is no longer about that boy, isn’t it? It couldn’t have been easy telling me the things that happened to you, the things that you did. But that’s not even the main point, isn’t it? What are you trying to tell me, my dear? What brought this on?” An almost imperceptible shiver runs through her. Lord Kazekage must have picked up on it, because immediately he states as if to reassure her.

“I promise you, whatever deep, dark secrets you have left, chances are I have seen or heard of worse, and I am not walking out on this, not until we lay to rest every bone of your past.”

............................................................................

TBC in part 4 (last part)

..............................................................................

A/N: see this?

https://asksythe.tumblr.com/post/159451304375/sythe-updates-please-anything-ill-take-anything

I’ve been... well... busy. I am perpetually exhausted these days and it’s looking like it’s going to be like this for at least a while more (maybe a month? I don’t know. I can only hope). Reason why this snippet takes so long and also reason why I’ve been quite lately. I have a free day today... well... free night more like, so I’ll try and finish this snippet. If you don’t see anything new tomorrow, chances are I didn’t manage to finish it.

Thank you for all the people who asked after my sister and wished her well. You made my day.

#Ask Sythe #From the Garden of Gods #excerpt

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seenashwrite · 8 years

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Easy As Pie.

Status: Complete Word Count: 12.8K Category: One-shot; Behind-the-scenes canon-compliant; On-the-case; Cross-Over [“Pushing Daisies”]; Humor; Friendship Rating: Teen & Up Characters: Dean, Sam, “Pushing Daisies” Main Cast, Minor Male O/C Warnings: None ...However! The facts are these - If you've never seen "Pushing Daisies", this might leave you wanting, possibly feeling a bit like an angel lacking understanding with regard to references and verbiage and tone.You can see what the cast looks like by scrolling to the bottom of this post. And find a link to hear The Narrator's voice. AND a link to watch "Pushing Daisies" (for free!) Just go clear past the daisy banner, so you won’t see the ending of the story. Author's Note(s): Narrator’s “voice” is in BOLD ITALICS; more post-story Overall Summary: Herein lies a tale of the Winchester brothers, who are investigating the story of a zombie being harbored in an unusual eatery called The Pie Hole.

At this very moment in a town not terribly far from Coeur d'Coeurs, a black Impala has brought two visitors to an idyllic little hamlet.

Sam Winchester is 33 years, 9 months, 17 days, 10 hours and 16 minutes old.

His older brother Dean is 38 years, 2 months, 20 days, 9 hours, and 18 minutes old.

And not one minute older.

SPLAT!

Dean had spotted The Pie Hole and was enraptured, overtaken, bewitched, intoxicated at the sight of his soulmates waiting for him in the windows, and thus did not pay heed to the very large, very old-fashioned milk truck plowing down the street.

So it was that Sam found himself in a state of wonder. The wondering regarded how he could possibly be finding himself in this situation.

Again.

And he wondered why there existed a museum-worthy milk delivery truck in this strange little place.

Or, at all.

Sam also wondered why, apart from the occasional dialogue, this case seemed to be accompanied by a narrator.

Suddenly, a man exactly one inch taller than Sam came rushing out of the fanciful eatery that had so captivated his older brother and knelt by said older brother's corpse.

"Is it very important that he lives?" the man with the large eyebrows asked Sam.

Sam's own eyebrows raised in astonishment as he slowly nodded his head.

"There may be enough squirrels..." the nervous man muttered.

Nervously.

Sam glanced around, putting a hand on the gun tucked in his waistband, hidden under his suit jacket. As the voice from nowhere went on, he pulled it out and began aiming down the empty street, then up at closed, curtained windows, then back down at innocent trashcans and an unsuspecting fire hydrant.

It seemed that one Greer Garmin-Gelleher, a local arborist, had worked wonders on the trees in the small park just up the block from The Pie Hole and as a result, dozens upon dozens of squirrel families had set up shop, fiercely foraging, then making dozens upon dozens of little squirrels.

They wreaked havoc, exploring neighboring apartment attic spaces and scaring cats and children, and seemed to gain arrogance when the bumbling animal control dispatchees failed to capture even one bushy menace. That, however, is another tale.

Sam now picked up Dean's body.

"Sam did what, now?" Sam asked the air.

"I can help," the aproned man told Sam. "We just need to get him to the park."

Sam now picked up Dean's body.

Huffing at The Narrator, Sam returned his gun to his waistband, picked up Dean's body, and tossed him over a shoulder. Then Sam spoke to the would-be helper with more than a little glare from his eyes.

"You better start talking, and I mean right now. I have a gun."

"I noticed. It's a nice one." A pause. "I mean, I would think. I know more about gunshot wounds than guns--"

"Good," Sam said through a grunt, adjusting his grip on Dean. "I'll let you pick the spot if I need to shoot you."

As Sam carried Dean to the park with no help whatsoever, the man - who introduced himself as Ned, the owner of The Pie Hole - began to explain that he'd heard talk of supernatural investigators coming to town.

Well, more precisely--

"I think you two are here to find me. I've been threatened," said the pie-maker.

"Who threatened you?" asked Sam.

Sam laid Dean under a cluster of trees. The squirrels were practically growling at the intruders. Some began gathering walnuts to throw. They were suspicious of these super-sized bi-pedals.

"You're gonna want to go now," said Ned.

"I'm not leaving my brother," said Sam.

Sam's voice was quite firm.

"Knock it off!" Sam yelled up into the air with more firmness, hoping to shut up the voice invading his mind.

This was for naught.

Sam rubbed his forehead. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He looked to the pie-maker once again. "Why do I need to go away?"

"That's the thing," Ned said. "It's why you're here."

"We're here about a zombie report - and you're not one."

Ned hesitated. "I prefer to call them alive-agains."

Sam waited as a few moments passed, then finally prodded the pie-maker. "What does that mean, Ned!?"

"I can raise the dead."

Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he were trying to decide how to respond, when a kamikaze squirrel landed on his shoulder. It issued a battle cry before dragging teensy scratches down Sam's neck.

Making a mental note to check the date of his last rabies inoculation, Sam knocked it away.

This was quite ill-received, as the men noted a distinct uptick in the chatter amongst the trees.

"They're plotting now," Ned warned.

"So what did you mean when you said there may be enough squirrels?"

"If one minute passes after I touch something dead and bring it back, something else nearby dies. It's a trade-off. But I can't pick the trade."

Sam stayed quiet. He didn't need Ned to tell him what an awful burden that must be. He knew from life-and-death choices, deals made that had uncontrollable ripple effects. He knew all too well.

"This time I'm hoping it will be a something. Somethings," Ned added.

The pie-maker glanced up to the trees and Sam followed his gaze. The fluffy-tailed demons all clutched nutty missiles, seemingly poised to launch an aerial assault. The two men looked at each other once more.

Sam nodded. "So I should get away."

"You should get away," Ned confirmed.

Sam got away.

The delightfully congruous nature of the situation was not lost on Sam, that Dean would be saved in a round-a-bout way by squirrels. Dean would likely note the same, were Sam to be saved by a moose. Following an abundance of side-splitting laughter.

"Funny, ha-ha," Sam commented, and dryly.

Sam ran his hands through his luxurious mane.

"Thanks," Sam said, and with a little smile.

And back in the park, after a tap to the tip of his nose, Dean sat up, no worse for the wear, once more exuberant to be this close to true love.

Except he was not staring into an empty plate inside that marvelous eatery shaped like a pie.

Instead he stared into the eyes of a man with quite the worried face.

"Who are you?" he asked the hovering stranger in a very gruff manner.

"I'm the pie-maker," Ned answered simply.

Ned chose to leave out the fact that he was also Dean's resurrectionist, his life-giver du jour, though he had already made himself a hero in the elder Winchester's heart by way of his occupation.

It was then a series of soft plops began to occur all around them as squirrels went to meet their maker.

Dean did a brief double-take at the litany of rodentia corpses beginning to surround them before getting back on task with a simple request:

"Pie?"

Sam had gone all the way back down the block and was standing where they had started, across the street from The Pie Hole, when he spotted his very alive and very excited brother.

Dean had come running around the corner, a bright smile on his face, Ned following behind at a slower pace with a less-bright, more solemn expression.

"Dean!" Sam cried out, waving to get his attention.

For you see, while Ned was troubled over facts yet revealed, Dean was in love. His eyes were shiny with unwept tears of joy. The glistening desserts in the windows of The Pie Hole were whispering his name almost seductively. His desire was beyond measure.

"Okay, wow," Sam called out to the sky. "I am really done with this!"

Sam was persistent.

Sam rolled his eyes.

The freshly reborn hunter then ran up to Sam, pointing excitedly to The Pie Hole, his own private wonderland which held his most divine wishes come true.

"Dude, pie!" Dean exclaimed, grabbing his brother by the upper arms. "I think I may have to move here."

"I think I may be schizophrenic," Sam replied.

The brothers followed Ned's lead, all three meeting up at the door to Dean’s new idea of heaven.

"How old is that pie?" Dean said to the pie-maker, pointing to a specific one in the window.

"That pie?"

"That pie."

"That pie is two hours, sixteen minutes and 45 seconds old. Forty-six. Forty-seven..."

"We get the point," Sam interjected.

The fruit-and-sugar-scented air poured out to greet them as soon as Ned opened the door.

But they were prevented from entering, as a horrified yelp shot through the sugar, highlighted by the sound of minuscule steps hitting the sidewalk at a feverish pace, headed right for them.

Those steps belonged to one Olive Snook, proprietress of The Intrepid Cow, which was dedicated to the fine art of crafting all manner of macaroni and cheese, from plain to exotic, made with any kind of noodle one could desire.

And the petite blonde was currently wracked with guilt.

"I am just wracked with guilt!" Olive exclaimed, rushing up to them and then stopping cold in front of Sam.

Olive's tiny voice matched her tiny feet and tiny stature, as she stood exactly 4 feet, 11 inches tall. And she took a moment to gaze up at Sam, giving him a thorough once-over. A tiny giggle emerged from her tiny lips.

"Olive?" said Ned.

She blinked, pulled from her admiration for the moment, turning her head towards her friend and speaking rapidly. "Magoo had asked if he could deliver to The Intrepid Cow early today and I said yes and then one of my assistant chefs said he thought he saw Magoo run over something after he left, and I was scared to death it was all my fault and then I was scared to death that it was Digby."

"Yeah. Something got run over alright. Him," Ned clarified, sticking his thumb in Dean's direction.

Dean's brow creased, his gaze drawn away from the window at this revelation. "I did?" he asked Ned, then looked to Sam.

"You died," Sam informed him.

These words had passed between the brothers many times before.

Dean thought on this for a moment. “Huh. Like, all the way?"

It could be said that Dean Winchester was better at dying than he was at living.

Perhaps more accurately, it could be said that Dean himself often thought this to be so.

Sam Winchester did not comment on The Narrator's posit as he found it quite a sad thing to consider.

“Did you do the thing?" Olive asked Ned.

Ned sighed.

“Did you tell them about the thing?” Olive asked Ned.

Ned sighed more.

“You don't seem very shaken up, are you in shock?" Olive asked, but not of Dean, whose forehead was leaned against the window, surveying his options, biting his lip. She was speaking to Sam, reaching up and rubbing one of his biceps.

Olive's stature was at odds with her large amounts of bravado.

"Oooh," she said under her breath.

"We're used to weird things," Sam said by way of an explanation, stepping to the side a bit when Olive's comfort began to edge around to his back.

Entering slowly, Dean resumed ogling the offerings while Olive rushed forward, kneeling and hugging the dog that had just come from the back.

"Oh, Digby! I'm so glad you're safe!" she exclaimed as the dog wagged its tail and gave her cheek a quick lick.

A woman came from the kitchen and walked behind the counter, carrying a freshly baked pie, placing it carefully on a tiered stand.

Dean immediately walked over. "What kind is it?" he asked.

"It's pear, with a little gruyere in the crust," she answered with a big smile.

"Ohhhhh..." Dean murmured, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

She laughed. "One piece, coming right up?"

Dean nodded, eyes now open and shining with anticipation.

Ned locked the door, flipped the sign to "CLOSED", and then slowly walked towards the counter. "Um, Chuck, I need to tell you something," he began, an eye starting to twitch.

"Chuck?!" the Winchester brothers exclaimed at once, eyes wide.

"Well, Charlotte, really. I know, it's a silly nickname for a girl, isn't it?" Chuck replied.

"No... no, we just know a Chuck is all," Dean told her, then took a seat at one of the counter stools, watching as she plated his piece of pie.

"Chuck, I really need to ---" Ned tried again, only to be ignored.

"Nice suits!" Chuck commented. "You two here on business?"

She set the pie in front of Dean, along with a fork and napkin, which he practically snatched out of her hands.

"Sort of," Sam answered slowly, glancing over at Ned. "I'm Sam, and that's Dean."

Dean glanced up, raised a finger in silent greeting, then continued his assault on the pie.

Walking over to stand by Dean, Sam rubbed his temples, no longer bothering to address The Narrator, accepting his reality.

"Not so much," Sam said through gritted teeth.

"Sorry?" Chuck asked sweetly.

"There's this voice, it keeps telling me what everyone's doing, even telling me what I'm doing," Sam explained. "But then it doesn't tell me some things - it's only telling me what it can make sound witty or poetic or something."

Sam shook his head in amazement and awe at The Narrator's discretionary tastes.

"Nope, no, no, no - it's annoyance,” he - loudly - corrected The Narrator.

“Oh, that's just your narrator," Chuck said, patting Sam's hand. "It's really nothing to worry about."

Olive and Ned and Chuck explained to Sam that The Narrator is different for everyone. Sometimes on special occasions, everyone is blessed with the same one.

And so that is how he should think of the words melodically tickling his ears: a blessing.

More or less.

"Yeah... well, my Narrator should know that one of my specialties is getting rid of mysterious voices that come from nowhere, and I'm about to start handing out blessings, myself," Sam stated, glancing around with a not-so-friendly grin and narrowed eyes.

.............

"That's what I thought.”

“At first, I wondered it was my guardian angel - well, other than Ned," Chuck said. The lovely brunette's cheeks grew as pink as her cardigan when Ned shot her a tiny smile. "Or, you know, maybe even a higher power, like God."

"It's not God," Sam and Dean said at precisely the same time.

"My Narrator sounds like Stockard Channing," Olive said in a dreamy tone, rising and walking behind the counter. "We sing 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' all the time."

"I didn't know she sang that!" Chuck exclaimed.

"That was Olivia Newton-John," Dean informed them through a partially chewed piece of pie.

They stared.

Dean swallowed.

Chuck noted his now-empty plate, so she reached into one of the cases and selected a new treat. "Here! Try a Cup-Pie. Coconut Chocolate Cream."

Dean's eyes narrowed at the chunky treat she'd plopped onto his plate, then he brought those eyes to hers, suspicion over this cupcake-like confection written all over his face.

"I will leave you to it," Chuck said, a bit of trepidation in her expression as she slowly backed away several steps before turning, in the way one might behave when faced with a rabid animal.

"He is very serious about pies," Ned commented in a low voice to Sam.

Sam then made a decision - he would be taking the lead on the case, since Dean was apparently only going to be good for dying and pie-ing.

Olive clearly knew Ned's secret, Chuck and Ned were clearly in love, so he had reasonably assumed they clearly must know about Ned's predicament.

Thus, Sam asked:

"Can we maybe get serious about this threat thing? About the zombie thing? I mean, exactly how many people have you brought back?"

Sam was mistaken.

(That dying and pie-ing line notwithstanding, that was quite good, well-played)

Perhaps his Narrator could have prevented his error in revealing Ned's secret. Alas, we'll never know.

Sam tightened his jaw.

And Chuck's jaw began to drop as she turned her head to Ned.

And Ned's head dropped as he looked at his shoes.

“Magoo ran Dean over with the milk truck," Olive said, going to the shiny machine at the end of the counter and making herself an espresso.

Chuck turned to Olive and her eyes widened. "What?"

"Yup."

Chuck whipped back around to Ned. "But... but..."

"That's what I needed to talk to you about," said Ned sheepishly, coming behind the counter.

"Uh-oh," Dean mumbled to Sam, shoving more Cup-Pie into his mouth. "Now ya done it."

"How? Ned! Who took his place?" Chuck cried.

"The squirrels."

"The squirrels?"

"Oh, goooood thinking, Ned!" Olive complimented him, coming back over with her cup and saucer. "Those tree rats were out of control, kept digging the Almond-Pecan Brie-Right-Back Tortellini out of our trash down at the 'Cow."

Dean raised an eyebrow.

"They like to nut up."

Dean raised both eyebrows.

Olive huffed. "To get ready for winter." A pause and a giggle. "You nut!"

“But ALL of the squirrels?" Chuck asked, astonished.

Ned nodded and shrugged. "He's a big guy."

"Yeah, you should try carrying him," Sam pointed out.

"More like a growing boy," Dean said, holding up his empty plate at Chuck and grinning.

Her neck flushed and her cheeks flamed. "What next?" she asked.

"What's your favorite, sweetheart?"

Sam covered his face with his hand.

Ned attempted a glare, though the persistent twitch took off its edge.

"Give him the Kahlúa Cream Cheese," Olive suggested.

Chuck nodded in agreement and selected it from the stand.

Dean looked over to Sam mouthing all manner of incomprehensible words, his expression practically post-coital.

"I'm going to our car," Sam announced to the group, "and I'm going to bring back all kinds of fun things. And then I'm going to exorcise what is, I'm pretty sure at this point, a spirit who is haunting one of you. Or this place. Or this town." Then Sam shrugged. "Doesn't much matter. It'll be packing it in all the same."

Sam was a bit wild-eyed, making silly suggestions that certainly wouldn't work. No. They wouldn't work at all.

The Narrator is definitely not some sort of harmless, lonely poltergeist who doesn't want to cause mischief, and only wants to bring de... de... deliiiiiight....

Sam glanced around, slightly perplexed. “Are you... was that a sniffle? Are you crying?"

Someone's cutting onions.

“Ned, what is going on? You tell me right this instant, or I'm going to my aunts' house and I'm not coming back," Chuck said, and nothing about her indicated she was anything other than serious.

"They're here... Dean and Sam are here because... they're here to look into us. Me. You," Ned began.

"What?" Chuck said again, now in a whisper.

Olive had been sipping from her cup, then spat it right back in at Ned's revelation, followed by upping the ante on Chuck's reaction. "What?!" she bellowed.

Dean and Sam jumped, startled at the booming voice that practically shook the pies from their stands.

"Is she just a giant pair of lungs inside?" Dean muttered to Sam.

"Holy moly, Ned!" Olive went on.

Then she turned to Dean and Sam.

"Are you guys feds? Like X-Files feds? You look like feds."

"How would you know what federal agents look like?" asked Chuck, briefly distracted from mulling over Ned's kept secret.

Olive let out a tiny chuckle. "Heh-heh. You know, I'm going to go check on that pie, is there pie in the oven, sure does smell like it, be right back." And with that, Olive dashed away to the kitchen.

"Wait, are you saying your gal here's the zombie?" Dean asked bluntly. Then he rolled his eyes, scooping the last bite of pie onto his fork. "Yeah, right."

Chuck's face crumbled like the crust detritus on Dean's well-scraped plate. It was rude of Dean to say it this way, and he darn well knew it. His mother would be ashamed of his behavior.

Dean's eyes darted around briefly, but didn't ask about the voice when he observed how right it was, noting the look on Chuck's face.

“Sorry," he told her, but only received a solemn nod in response.

Olive came out of the kitchen. "I just got off the phone with Randy - he's going to take care of all the squirrels," she informed the group.

"Who's Randy?" asked Sam.

"My fiancé," Olive replied. "He's a taxidermist."

Dean frowned. "How many squirrels we talkin'?"

"I think about a hundred, give or take?" Ned replied.

"Is there that much of a market for real stuffed squirrels?" Chuck pondered.

"Oh, you'd be surprised," answered Olive.

"I wonder how that balances on the scales with five pigs?" Sam said, shooting a grin at Dean; it was met with a scowl.

"I'd say that's at least six pigs, maybe even seven," Olive replied.

They looked at her.

She huffed.

"My recipes don't just have noodles and cheese - any ol' body can do that!"

"Recipes like, say..." Dean replied, interested.

"Well, there's The Royal Mountie. Canadian bacon and bow-ties, tossed with a Yukon Jack-and-poutine sauce with extra curd, and topped with crumbled maple-candy-coated bacon."

Like no other woman before her, Olive had Dean's undivided attention.

"And then there’s The Fiver."

Dean licked his lips. "What's, um, what's the--"

"It is love in a bowl," Olive replied with a wink. "Pecorino, Prosciutto, Pancetta, Porcini, and Pappardelle. Not to mention the times when I practically just fondue a wad of bacon-stuffed shells. Hello. I know pig. Our prized truffle-sniffer is my pet, Pigby."

"No kidding?" Sam asked. "How do you manage--"

"You just have to make yourself keep the work and the personal separate," Olive explained.

Dean and Sam might learn a thing or two from Olive.

Now Dean pointed at Sam. "First - we're going to The Intrepid Cow when all this is done. Second - Crowley never hears of this."

Sam once more grinned, but he nodded in agreement.

Now that the elder Winchester's head was clear of the fog brought on by the pie, the bright light of a question cut through the last bit of haze.

"WHAT is that VOICE? Is anybody else hearing this?" Dean asked.

Dean got back on track and asked about the squirrels mentioned only moments ago.

"FINE! Third thing is, I wanna be real, real clear on this whole I'm-back-from-the-dead-but-bye-bye-squirrels thing," Dean continued.

And though the pie-maker said this next part in his typically gentle tone, he unknowingly said the exact right thing to make both brothers' blood run cold.

"I granted you life after death, Dean. And I can take it back."

Dean blanched. "Sam. What does he mean?" he asked.

"There's a price," Sam answered. "Something nearby dies when Ned brings back the dead."

“Not touching a dead thing twice means something else... maybe even someone else... has to die," Chuck added, her voice very soft and very sad.

The sadness extended to both Ned's face and her own as they gazed at each other, with as much love as Dean had channeled whilst gazing at the pies.

And it occurred to the brothers that this meant the pair could never touch each other, else Chuck would be lost. Permanently.

Permanent death was a difficult concept for the Winchesters to fully grasp. Nonetheless, they did feel pangs of sympathy for this unusual zombie and her equally unusual reaper.

Sam cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Ned, I really don't want to push, but--"

"We're going to need to know some facts," Dean finished.

The facts were these---

"There's definitely a lack of facts," Chuck said pointedly to Ned, interrupting the voice Dean heard ever-more-clearly. Now that all his mental faculties were no longer focused on pie. And only marginally on the cheese and bacon Valhalla awaiting him.

Dean's eyes and brows darted up, around, to, fro, this way, that, his face twisting and turning, yet somehow remaining so handsome it made both Chuck and Olive swoon against the counter top, leaning on their elbows and placing their chins atop their clutched hands, uttering twin sighs.

"The hell?" Dean muttered, possibly questioning in equal amounts both the voicing and the swooning.

"Just go with it," advised a very resigned Sam.

And then they all looked to Ned, who began the explaining.

"We - Chuck and Olive and I - used to work with a friend, a P.I. here in town," Ned began. "I would touch murder victims, get the story on how they died, then touch them again so they'd go back to being dead."

"You guys are heroes, maybe collect rewards, yeah, got it," Dean cut in, trying to rush him along.

If Dean would be patient, his Narrator would be pleased to present a montage for him.

Dean rolled his eyes, took his brother's advice, sighed, and then said, "Knock yourself out."

Ahem. As I was saying, the facts were these:

Ned had told neither Chuck nor Olive about the threat he'd recently received, wanting to investigate further. And investigate he did, learning that the person behind said threat was none other than THE investigator about town, one Todd Cod.

Their friend, the town's former premier solver of mysteries, was Emerson Cod. He had handed over his P.I. agency to his cousin, the aforementioned Todd Cod. It was a fiscally sound decision, as none of the advertising needed to change - Todd Cod was a dead ringer for his cousin. They simply marked through Emerson's name and wrote in Todd's.

Emerson had moved with his daughter to Australia, funded by the success of his popular children's book series, "Lil' Gumshoe". Seeing as Australia is the second largest producer of wool, this made reasonable sense to his pie-maker partner, the pie-maker's true love, and the diminutive cheese connoisseur.

Emerson's love of knitting was only surpassed by the love for his daughter, and he found the yarn down-under to be---

"Don't give a squirrel's ass!" Dean proclaimed loudly.

"Thank you, that was getting tiresome," Chuck admitted.

"The point is, we all thought it was a good time to let it go," Ned concluded. "Our part in it. We didn't want anyone else to know about my... my gift, just wanted to go on with our lives."

"As it were," Chuck added. Then she looked at Dean with a bit of a twinkle in her eye when she tacked on, "My fellow zombie."

Dean had been served humble pie and put in his not-so-dead place.

"So how do you think Todd found out?" Sam asked.

"There's no way Emerson would have told him, no way," Olive answered with confidence, and Ned and Chuck agreed so heartily, the brothers believed them.

"Meaning somebody else around town must know about it, too," Sam concluded.

With that, Dean stood, wiping his hands and dusting crumbs off his suit, then tossing his napkin onto the counter. "Let's take care of business.”

Sam gave a confident nod. "We're on top of it."

The Winchesters emitted such taking-care-of-business tones and assumed such being-on-top postures, reminiscent of what one might find described in a dictionary under “manly”, that Chuck and Olive promptly swooned once more.

Ned huffed, looking around and pointing into the air. "You know, I've always been nice to you ---"

My apologies, Ned. I confess I am also swooning more than I would like.

"Apology accepted."

"Okay, here's what I think," Dean began, looking at Olive. "You help... Randy?"

Olive nodded.

"Help Randy wrangle up the squirrels - the last thing we need is someone else asking around."

Olive nodded again.

"And we ---" Now Dean gestured at himself, Sam, Ned and Chuck "--- are gonna split up, do some digging. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Ned and Chuck said in unison, but Sam was silent.

"What?" Dean asked his brother.

"You and Chuck should pair up and I should go with Ned," Sam answered.

"How you figure?"

"They know this town, the people in it," Sam pointed out. "Two fake feds are gonna make them clam up, but this way they've got a friendly face. Plus, you shouldn't be anywhere around Ned."

Ned nodded. "He's right, Dean - what if we accidentally bump into each other?"

Dean thought on this briefly. "Fine." Then he looked to Chuck. "You okay with that?"

Chuck smiled and shrugged. "Team Zombie and Team Colossus it is!"

Olive scurried from behind the counter and had opened the door only slightly when she stopped and turned, snapping her fingers. "I think I just... hey, Sam?"

"Yeah, Olive?"

"Which way did the milk truck come? When it ran over Dean?"

Sam's brow creased slightly as he tried to recall on which side of him the sun had set. "I was across the street, facing The Pie Hole, so... East-West?"

Olive let the door close and came back over to them, pure joy lighting up her face. "I knew it!" she cried.

"Care to share with the class?" Dean asked.

"Magoo only uses that truck twice a day," Olive explained. "Once at the crack of dawn, to re-supply the supermarkets, and then once in the evening, to The Intrepid Cow, so I have plenty of milk for the mac the next day."

"The cow, how, what, now?" Dean interrupted.

"Sshhh," Olive scolded him with a quick slap to his arm.

Sam, Ned and Chuck grinned at one another upon Dean's rapid-fire facial expression reaction.

"Anyway," Olive went on, "the 'Cow and the markets are the dairy's biggest customers, he doesn't need that big ol' eyesore for the rest of his runs. So if he was still in that truck this evening, and he was leaving from the ‘Cow to go back to the dairy when he ran over Dean... Get it?"

They did not get it.

Everyone looked at Olive blankly, when suddenly Ned spoke.

"East-West!" Ned exclaimed.

Olive nodded excitedly. "East-West!"

Now Chuck gasped and clapped her hands together a few times. "EAST-WEST, Olive, you GENIUS!"

Dean frowned, saying, "Up, down, forwards, backwards, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, full cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, what the hell are you people talking about?”

“You know, I liked you better when you had your face stuffed in my pie," Chuck commented, crossing her arms and frowning right back.

Dean then fought a mighty internal battle.

He was biting the inside of his cheek in an effort to halt a stream of word vomit that would have included several tasteless and assuredly unfunny jokes.

Again, The Narrator ponders what his mother would think.

"Well she ain't here, now is she?" Dean shot back.

"You know what is in that direction, though," Chuck said.

"Lemme guess - the office of Todd Cod, Private Investigator?" Sam asked.

The trio nodded in unison.

"It's late and everything's closed," said Ned. "So if we want to look into the Magoo thing ---"

"And Todd Cod," Chuck added.

"--- then there's sneaking around to do, and I vote we should probably do it now, put off questioning townsfolk til tomorrow."

"Yeah, it's too weird a coincidence," Dean said. "This Cod character and the Magoo dude, there's gotta be a connection."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

So it was that as Olive went to meet Randy at the park, Sam and Ned climbed into the Impala. They drove some fifteen miles away, over a bridge and then around some woods, until they reached Grandma’s Dairy. Dean and Chuck, however, remained right where they were - only higher.

"The building where Cod's office is - well, we actually have a pretty good perch on our hands," Chuck explained to Dean as they went up the stairs.

She'd already shown him how she and Ned lived above The Pie Hole, and he got to see their quaint apartment when dropping off Digby and picking up Chuck's binoculars. And onward and upward they went, until they emerged on the rooftop. Then Dean's eyes went wide.

"It's not even a mile away, just a block or so, really, and since his office is on the top floor and the building is a little lower than ours, we have a---- oh goodness, what's wrong?"

Chuck had cut herself off because while she walked over to the telescope near the ledge, Dean had remained by the door, staring at the line of pedestaled box hives that made up a modest apiary.

Chuck smiled. "It's my bee yard."

Dean glanced from the hives to her.

"My comb away from home."

Now Dean's eyes went narrow - puns were typically his job.

"My honey pot!"

Dean stared. "I can't with you."

Unlike the pie comment from earlier, Chuck seemed to know precisely what she'd said based on the wiggling of her eyebrows and the widening of her smile. "Don't worry, they're all buzzed out for the day. C’mon, let's get this cranking," she said, waving him over to join her at the telescope.

Meanwhile, Ned and Sam had stealthily climbed over the modest fencing at Grandma's Dairy, entering the large field and making their way towards the barn.

In the car, Ned had explained that the owner of the dairy for which Magoo served as delivery man was none other than his grandmother. Due to Grandma Magillicutty's advanced age, Magoo was practically running the place though he was not even part owner.

This was because of Grandma's stance that every cow should be milked by hand - she did not believe in having the cows stuck in stalls, being milked by machinery. Her cows were all descendants of the first little herd the Magillicutty clan had raised from calves generations ago.

Grandma wanted it done just as it always had been - because Grandma knew the milk tasted better when the cows were happy.

And according to Olive, Magoo had been grumbling about it for ages. Said with the milking machines, they’d be making triple what they were now, could hire more drivers, expand to other towns.

But both Olive and Chuck agreed with Grandma. They - and The Intrepid Cow and The Pie Hole customers alike - could taste the difference anytime either cooked with any brand other than that which came from the Magillicutty herd.

Sam immediately began to speculate that this could have something to do with the blackmailing, though neither he nor Ned were certain now how cows meant something was afoul.

"Really?!" Sam whispered to The Narrator, then promptly came to a halt and sighed deeply, as he’d now been the recipient of a different sort of pie for the third time.

Sam had enough forethought to remove his suit jacket and tie, but neglected to change his dress shoes. And though abnormally bright moonlight - par for the course in this strange little place, Sam supposed - was on their side, it didn’t illuminate as much as one would desire.

That “one” in this case being Sam Winchester.

Some, possibly The Narrator, might consider this comeuppance for a grumpy attitude.

"Let's get closer to the side of the barn," Ned whispered. "Should be safer for your shoes there."

The towering duo were fortunate to have an even taller stack of hay bales to hide behind, and it wasn’t long until, there amongst the occasional mooing of the bovine army stalled inside, they hit - heard - pay dirt.

“.....and things change, Cod!”

Sam and Ned glanced at each other.

"Magoo?" Sam mouthed to Ned, who nodded.

“Those investigators of yours? The paranormal ones?”

Sam made a little face but then shrugged. Close enough.

“Well when I was on my way back here from your office, one of the idiots ran clean out into the middle of the road! They’re morons! They’re not gonna get done what we need getting done and you know what that means for your little scheme! It's like Grandma says - those dogs won't hunt!”

"Dogs?" Ned mouthed to Sam, who nodded.

Sam pulled out his phone, but Ned touched his shoulder to get his attention and shook his head. Then he made a motion in the air with his finger, circling it around.

Sure enough - barely any bars. But he took his best shot, sending Dean a short, simple, understandable text.

"...and I'm telling you that unless you get that pie-maker to lay off the fruit and start laying on the cows, your puppy plans are over!"

And then Sam watched as a somewhat horrified look of realization swept over the pie-maker’s face.

Dean frowned. "Cod Dog."

"What?" asked Chuck, leaning up and removing her eye from the telescope.

She was seated on a small stool, keeping close watch on the windows of the P.I. office, as well as the building in general. Dean had been scoping the street with the binoculars. They wanted to make certain everything was good and vacated before they - well, Dean - picked the lock and started snooping around.

Yet now, Chuck observed that her new hunter friend was looking down at his phone with quite the quizzical expression, for his younger brother had sent what he found to be the stupidest text ever.

"Oh, not ever, but close," Dean replied to The Narrator casually, then darted narrowed eyes side-to-side, considering how he was suddenly finding it normal to talk to a disembodied voice.

Chuck giggled. “What’s that supposed to mean, do you think?”

“Well, unless there’s a corner stand around here that’s serving fish wieners, I guess Ned and Sam found out something to do with our friendly neighborhood blackmailer and some pooches.”

“You know.... Todd has made the papers off-and-on because he’s been so good at recovering stolen dogs.” Now it was Chuck who was frowning. “Come to think of it,” she continued, “there’s been SO many dogs going missing! For months and months! That’s not normal, right?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Normal to you is gonna be a hell of a lot different than my kind of normal, and believe me - that’s saying a lot.”

Chuck grinned. “Fair enough.”

Dean glanced around at the hives again. “We’ve got a friend who would love this, he’s a big fan of bees.”

Chuck put her eye back to the telescope as she responded. “Well, if he happens to have a rooftop handy and can get his hands on some friendly bees, I highly recommend it.”

A tiny smile crept to Dean’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, I know a pretty good place with a big rooftop. Even got a telescope hanging around.”

“I’m beginning to suspect Ned got this for me just so he could spy on Todd,” Chuck commented. “It was my half-birthday gift this year.”

“Half-birthday?”

Chuck nodded, pulling her eye away to look at Dean once more. "My aunts started it - back when they thought I was dead," Chuck explained. "It’s more an anniversary, I suppose. They said it was because it was the day that was exactly one-and-a-half birthdays prior to... you know. Prior. Pre-nose dive off a cruise ship."

"So they know about the... about how Ned does the..."

"Mmm-hmm," Chuck replied, but then she looked a little worried, adding, "They have nothing to do with this, I promise. Plus, they've been on tour, with their mermaid act," she added.

Dean asked nothing about this, wisely assuming he could consult The Narrator for this tale at a later date should he find it of import.

And then The Narrator could tell by the smirk on Dean's face that he was imagining "tail" instead of "tale". Nicely done, Dean - I let that one slip right by.

Dean reassured her he wasn’t suspicious of her family, then walked back over to the ledge and put the binoculars to his eyes. Chuck followed suit with the telescope. After a few moments of silence, Dean spoke.

"This isn't the first time it's happened. To me. The dying and the... I’ve got some priors, myself," he said quietly.

Chuck thought on this over a few more silent moments. "You did seem pretty relaxed about it," she observed, adjusting the focus on the telescope a bit.

Dean moved his head as he scanned another area of the street. "It's ah... it's weird, huh? Being back."

"I didn't even know I'd died at first. Did you?"

Dean didn't answer right away, but when he did, he said, "I knew. Every time."

This made Chuck quite sad.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Dean said to The Narrator, and then pulled the binoculars away to glance down at the top of Chuck's head. "I'm sorry. I mean, I’d guessed it probably would make you sad, but... with Sammy and me... talking about that stuff sometimes..."

Chuck looked up at him. "You get on a merry-go-round? Just keep on bumming each other out?"

Dean nodded. "And getting pissed at each other, for him doing what we did, then him thinking I wasn’t grateful. He'd just... you know, he’s made a real mess of things, trying to do what he thinks is best for me, and... that. What you said, that's it. Merry-go-rounds."

"Just no horses or cotton candy," Chuck commented, the corners of her mouth turning up. She was pleased when Dean's mouth followed suit.

"I'm a muscle car and pie kinda guy anyway."

"I was mad at Ned at first, too. Well. Disappointed. Then mad and sad when I found out about the proximity person. And then there was the thing with my father."

“Thing with your father? Does that mean what I think it means?”

Once settled back in the Impala - Sam’s feet now in boots and his destroyed dress shoes now residing in the trunk - Ned explained his reaction back behind the hay bales.

It had suddenly occurred to him why Magoo had mentioned fruit.

While Olive had spoken the truth earlier regarding Magoo’s routine, he did on occasion have to make a stop before heading to the supermarkets - and that stop was The Pie Hole.

By virtue of their menus, Olive needed milk - and a lot of it - every day. And while Chuck needed milk to make certain recipes, a weekly delivery from Grandma’s Dairy sufficed. The more frequent needs were the flour and the sugar and the butter and so on.

And of course, the flowers.

"Flowers..." Sam muttered under his breath.

But the one thing they never needed on a frequent basis was fruit for the pies. Ned could stretch several baskets of peaches for a week or two. A crate of bananas for three or four. A bushel of apples for perhaps a month. The Pie Hole’s fruit never had to go bad - and only a handful of daisies had to die to make it so.

Ned had concluded that Magoo must have witnessed this during an early morning milk bottle drop-off. The pie-maker’s own daily routine was to deal with the fruit rejuvenation only when the shop was free of customers - late at night or early mornings were it, as he’d almost been caught one too many times. He never thought about who could be peeking through the back door.

Then the conversation between Sam and Ned abruptly took a turn, just as abruptly as Sam had slammed on the brakes, halting their progress across the bridge.

"I accidentally killed her father when we were ten."

Sam's eyes grew wide.

They were going over the bridge when Sam stopped for a pair of meandering box turtles - an unusually slow pair, even by turtle standards. And Sam had just been moving to exit the car so he could help them along to the river when Ned dropped his bombshell. The two had actually been having a conversation very similar to the one being had on the rooftop by Dean and Chuck, though The Narrator kept this to himself.

Settling back into his seat, Sam looked at Ned, who shrugged.

"It all started when I made Digby come back."

"That's not so ---"

"Then I made my mom come back. And then next thing I knew, Chuck's dad just fell over in their front yard. It’s how I learned about the proximity side-effect."

"Wow, Ned, I'm... jeez," was all Sam could manage.

"And then a few years ago? I made him come back."

Ned then uttered the understatement of the century.

"It didn't work out."

"How do you mean?"

"He was... he was what I would consider a zombie," Ned explained. "He'd been dead for so long... First off, it was disgusting."

Sam stifled a chuckle, but couldn't help a little grin. "I bet."

"And he was different. Kind've mean. He was really mad about it, when we told him what happened. I figured he would be. But it was what Chuck wanted."

Sam stared at him for a moment. "Why are you telling me this?"

Now the pie-maker's expression and voice were filled with earnestness. And perhaps a touch of desperation And most assuredly love.

"Because she's not a zombie. Chuck. She's just a girl who got murdered, and... and it wasn't supposed to be that way. So if you and Dean need to take out something supernatural? Then it's me. Do what you want with me, I'm the problem, not Chuck."

Sam's brow creased. "Whoa, Ned - hang on here, man. Dean and I aren't 'taking out' anybody, alright?”

Ned looked at him almost skeptically.

“There's plenty of people out there with... with gifts... and they do just fine,” Sam explained. “I mean, I know I haven't known you long, but listen - you've got a good handle on this, you know exactly when and where to use it. Trust me. I've seen what it looks like when gifted people let things get out of hand."

"But when I've make mistakes, there's really bad consequences, Sam," Ned said, the earnestness now sliding into grave seriousness. "I've been selfish."

A highlight reel of all the times in his life that Sam had felt and behaved precisely as Ned had began running on fast-forward through his mind. He had also been selfish. He had also brushed aside consequences to save the person he loved more than anyone else in existence.

He'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

And he told Ned so.

"I don't see it as selfish," Sam said. "I've been in your shoes. This is definitely not the first time Dean or I have dodged death. We've just used... well, not the same means as you do. When we've done it, though? There's been... there's been times we could've really screwed over the entire world."

"I just think the world - the universe - is a better place for having Chuck in it," Ned replied softly.

Sam nodded. He and the pie-maker weren’t just on the same page - they were reading from the same book.

Both men exited the car, each picking up a turtle and carefully navigating down the small embankment to ensure the shelled duo were safely in reach of the river. They took the opportunity to watch the happy pair slowly get closer to each other before they made a move towards the water's edge.

"What can I say?" said Ned. "From the time I was a kid, from the first time I saw her, I was pie-eyed."

"I had somebody like that once," Sam told him, then paused for a moment. "Several somebodies like that - people you love so much, you can't imagine life without them. So I get it, Ned. I do."

The light of the moon was briefly hidden behind a few stray clouds.

“There's only one thing I worry about," Ned said, and now he sounded so heartbroken, it made Sam wonder if somewhere in the dark, the pie-maker's eyes were filling with tears. He knew his own did, once he heard what Ned had to say.

"I just wonder what's going to happen when ---"

"--- when he's gone," Chuck said softly.

Dean had grown very quiet while she shared with him her greatest worry. He couldn't just merely sympathize - he knew exactly how she felt.

"I tell ya, Chuck - I can't picture my life without Sammy. Can't do it, haven't been able to let it happen."

Chuck's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Don't tell me ---"

Dean nodded. "Afraid if we're callin' a spade a spade here, then both the Winchester boys are... what'd you say Ned called it? Alive-agains? Try again-again-again-again agains."

Chuck's face was awash with compassion. "I'm sorry you two have had to go through that.”

“Yeah, well..." Dean had resumed his observations when not five seconds later, he found himself batting at Chuck's arm and passing her the binoculars with his other hand. “Hey. Hey, look!"

Chuck did so, then glanced up at Dean with excited eyes and an equally excited nod. "That's him," she confirmed.

Dean had spotted what he thought might have been a new shadow down the sidewalk, bulging out from a little alley, but didn't put much stock in it until it moved and a silhouette began to take shape.

Sure enough, there was Todd Cod, looking up and down the street, glancing around with every step he took, finally opening the door to the office building.

Dean and Chuck watched as the light went on in the front room of the office. He seemed to be moving around quickly. And then just as suddenly as he'd arrived, Todd Cod shut off the lights, moments later exiting the building and performing the same not-so-effective routine of keeping out of sight as he scurried back down the street.

But before they left the roof to investigate the office, Chuck did not bat at Dean's arm as he had hers, rather she took hold of it gently and slid her hand down to grasp his and squeeze it.

"You were the one who did it, weren't you? Bringing Sam back."

Dean just looked at her, his eyes answering the question for him.

"I'm going to tell you what I told Ned when I found out what he'd done."

"Thank you?" Dean replied, giving her a little half-smile, trying to cut the mood.

But while Chuck's face remained full of goodness and sweetness, it was also quite burdened. And when she spoke again, it was in possibly the sincerest tone Dean Winchester had ever heard.

"Every minute I'd been celebrating? They didn't belong to me. Those minutes belonged to someone else."

Dean kept silent for the moment, just listening.

"That first minute? The one he has, the one where he can take it back? Ned calls it 'death's grace period'. He really got it down, too, to where he sees it as a long time. And I think he's right - a lot really can happen in a minute."

"What are you getting at?"

“It's good that it's a minute. The longer someone's around when they're not supposed to be around... Ned says the longer they're around, it's more likely that something will happen. Not necessarily because of them. Just... because."

"And?" Dean pressed, but he hadn't dropped her hand. He didn't know why. He just had the feeling she was about to tell him something he needed to hear.

"And..."

Chuck told him a secret. Her biggest one, he already knew. But this one might’ve bested it. It was the secret of how she'd managed to start seeing those minutes as her own.

And how Ned was right - the longer someone's around who isn't supposed to be around, things DO happen. Except the gifted pie-maker had gotten the last part all wrong.

Things WERE happening because of that undead someone. Because of her. Because of Sam. And, to be sure, because of Dean as well.

Dean squeezed her hand one last time before letting go. "Let's go bust into that office," he said with a grin.

And now they were moments away from completing that very task.

"Whatta you think we'll find in here?" Dean asked once they were inside the building, the lock had been picked, and Chuck's hand was on the doorknob, ready to turn.

"It'd be too much to wish for a document laying out on the desk detailing the terms of the blackmail on Grandma's Dairy stationery, right?" she joked.

"I mean, it ain't like we're gonna find dairy cows in there, right?"" Dean added on, chuckling.

Exactly 82 seconds later...

“What is happening?"

Dean had finally found his voice again after being in an understandable state of shock for approximately 49 of those 82 seconds.

"We may've died again, gone to heaven, I think!" Chuck exclaimed breathlessly from her seated position on the floor, where she was practically being consumed by lightning-fast balls of energy.

The not-so-dead hunter and the not-so-dead girl were surrounded by no less than twenty-two dogs, most of them small, including a baker's dozen worth of puppies. The grown members of the menagerie were lying about on a variety of fluffed and tufted floor pillows as if they couldn't have cared less about the unexpected visitors.

Though there was a Great Dane eyeing Dean carefully from Cod's desk chair. A very excitable Schnauzer humped one of his legs. And Chuck was accepting puppy kisses from a pudgy Golden Retriever on one cheek and a curly-eared Cocker Spaniel on the other.

Dean's jaw was set and his neck flushed. "Cod. Dog," he said through gritted teeth.

"I'll say this for Sam, when he's right, he's ---" Chuck cut herself off, and she and Dean looked at each other with wide eyes, both pairs then turning towards the door as it opened.

And there stood Todd Cod.

Dean began edging his right arm around slowly, prepared to pull his gun if need be.

There was no need to be had, however, because while Todd Cod did react to the intruders, it was not to confront. It seemed comfort was on the menu instead - and Todd was the one in need.

He broke down into sobs, shuffling through the pile of puppies on and around Chuck in two strides, enveloping Dean in such a hug that it lifted him right off the ground.

Dean shot Chuck a HELP ME look, and she stood, patting the weeping man on his back.

"Todd! What is all this? What are all these dogs doing here? Isn't that Patchy over there, Mrs. Luna's dog? And didn't Mr. Wainscott's retriever just have a litter?"

A sniffling Todd Cod let Dean down. "I thought you were dead, I can't tell you how tied in knots I've been, drinking the pink stuff and the white stuff like crazy - which one are you, Sam or Dean?" he asked.

Dean just stared back with one of his indescribable looks.

The indigestioned investigator then turned to Chuck.

"I'm gonna tell you everything, I just want this over, Miss Charles."

And so he did. Todd began to explain how, following the transfer of investigatory duties to himself from his cousin, the aspiring P.I. soon found himself in a slump. There seemed to be a shortage of cheating spouses and missing jewelry and just suspicious people in general. To make ends meet, he decided to take a different tack--

Dean cut off Todd's explanation. "Hey, shut your pie hole about the whys - I don't give a crap about your reasons. I care why you and the dairy douche are coming after my friends."

Hearing this made Chuck's heart so full, she thought it might run out of beats before all the happy could be distributed from tips-to-toes.

As for Dean, he was momentarily distracted as the puppy he’d somehow managed to end up holding licked along his jawline, making him shiver and grin.

He summarily cleared his throat, though it somehow served to make his already gravelly voice even rougher, then causing it to hit an even lower register.

“Start talking about what this blackmailing’s all about - and what it is exactly that you and Magoo think you’ve got on Ned and Chuck,” Dean ordered Todd, probably more sternly than he normally would, but there was that puppy thing to account for and all.

And Todd's shoulders began to slump so much it traveled to his entire body, slumping him so far down his rump slumped right onto the edge of his desk.

All three groaned at The Narrator.

"Not your best," Chuck commented.

The Narrator plans to take five once there’s certainty regarding that nasty exorcism business from before.

Dean closed his eyes, rubbed across his forehead with his un-puppied free hand. Then he sighed. Then he made a promise he hoped he wouldn’t regret. “If you can get us through this faster? Do it. And no exorcism. Deal?”

The rest of the facts were these:

Todd’s search for more in his life led him down a path of pup-related treachery. He was allergic to cats and birds made him nervous, so dogs it had to be. As Dean and Chuck had already come to suspect, Todd Cod, the number one finder of lost and stolen dogs had only become so due to kidnapping them himself - and, it would seem, keeping them in the office’s side rooms until it was time for them to be “found”.

That is, until he became too greedy and shortly found himself overrun. Todd's great need for cash and the even greater desire for recognition that outpaced his famous cousin led him right into Magoo’s scheming.

Magoo knew Emerson Cod had been quite close to the pie-maker and the once-reported-to-be-dead but suddenly alive-and-well Charlotte Charles. So when he’d witnessed Ned seemingly turning back time for various fruits one morning, a plan began to hatch in his mind.

If Grandma Magillicutty wouldn't listen to reason about mechanizing the dairy, then he'd have to make her listen - and he was going to do it through her beloved cows.

Magoo was no fool. He had connected the dots - at least, the ones around the edges of the picture - to surmise that not only had Ned brought strawberries and a childhood sweetheart back to life, he had likely also brought corpses back to life. Specifically for the gain of one Emerson Cod. And yet the bodies at the center of Emerson's solved cases stayed dead.

If Ned could reverse death and give life back to things, then make them dead all over again, that was all he needed to know - he would put something in the water troughs to do the cows in, then show Grandma Magillicutty that her bovine beauties could be made well again.

Her eyesight was worse than his own - she wouldn’t know they were actually grazing at the big cow pasture in the sky. And he was sure she’d finally hand over the dairy.

The dairyman wasn't sure how Ned was doing these things, but he convinced himself that Todd Cod must. And when Todd couldn't say, Magoo watched him carefully, skirting his duties at the dairy to extend his time in the delivery truck, earning him more ire from Grandma but also earning him some primo blackmail material:

Todd Cod was running a con.

“So you’re being blackmailed, too!” said Chuck.

Todd nodded, then reached behind him, picking up off his desk a small stack of photos that had a single sheet of paper clipped to the top, and then handing it to Chuck.

Dean scratched the puppy’s head as he looked over Chuck’s shoulder. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said in a dry tone.

“This is so stupid,” Chuck stated, the first critical thing either man had ever heard pass her lips.

And she was right - it was very stupid, just the thing Dean and Chuck had only wished they’d find.

As one might expect, the photos captured multiple instances of Todd’s dog-napping, even the time where he’d struggled to wrangle the Great Dane into a Prius. They were fuzzy, not quite in focus, but it was unmistakably Todd Cod in every one.

The note - written in Magoo's handwriting - was indeed on Grandma's Dairy stationery, and it detailed his intent to blackmail Todd with said photos unless he helped make Ned start working his magic outside of The Pie Hole once more.

Todd’s solution had been to blackmail Ned with the summoning of the Winchesters if Ned did not comply - only unbeknownst to Todd, Sam and Dean had already heard of the supposedly-harbored zombie on their own.

Dean - almost regrettably - put the puppy down and then took the letter from Chuck as she continued to look over the photos. Dean scanned the rest of it, rolling his eyes at how Magoo had actually signed it, then looked up at Todd.

“And you believed this crap? Raising the dead? Fruit un-rotting?”

Chuck glanced at Dean out of the corner of her eye but kept quiet.

“Well you all showed up to investigate it, didn’t you?” Todd snapped in response.

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Me and Sam? Ha! We’re the ones who expose fakes, my man. We call out con-artists. I mean, not the puppy-popping kind, but those jerks on TV that stage all that haunted house ghost crap for the camera. Psychics. Tarot card readers. All that jazz.”

“And you don’t think that voice we’ve all been hearing is as fishy as my last name?” Todd countered.

“First thing we’ve ever come across that may actually be real and hell, I could chalk that up to whatever’s in those pies of hers!”

Chuck briefly seemed to be taking umbrage with Dean’s statement, but she was thankful he was going to bat for them, and was thankful The Narrator was going along with it.

And also because, well, his lie happened to contain a bit of truth, though he didn’t know it.

“I do eat pie from you all on occasion,” Todd said, casting suspicious eyes on Chuck.

Dean gave her an encouraging look.

“Well if you must know, we put drops of homeopathic mood elevators in all the fruity pies,” she replied, adding on a faux-offended huff for good measure. “And you do love your Peach-and-Berry Cup-Pie Surprise, don’t you, Todd?”

Now Chuck leaned in, punctuating her words via little jabs to his chest with an index finger. “You do, and I know you do, because it’s not occasionally - you eat one every day!”

While Todd stroked his chin and seemed to be considering this, Dean shot Chuck some side-eye - that particular delicacy had not been on his binge-tour of The Pie Hole.

“What’s the surprise?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.

Chuck gave him a look. “Can we stay on track here, please?” she hissed back.

Dean raised his eyebrows once more.

Chuck sighed. “It’s like a molten center in a brownie dessert, except mine is vanilla bean-and-honey whipped frosting.”

“I love you,” said Dean.

“I still don’t understand what Magoo wanted to happen to Ned after the cow-tipping,” Chuck said, ignoring Dean and again speaking to Todd.

“Well, maybe he can answer that for all of us later - assuming Randy and Olive didn’t kill him.”

All three humans and the canine cadre turned at the sound of Sam’s voice coming from the doorway. He and Ned made their way into the office carefully, to prevent furry escapees. The Great Dane sauntered up and stopped beside them briefly before positioning himself in the middle, sitting up nice and tall, apparently feeling as if his pack had finally arrived.

Ned did a double-take at what he supposed was the newest member of his and Sam's team, then went to elaborate on his human partner's statement. He opened his mouth, but seemed to reconsider and closed it, glancing up and around the room warily, almost positive The Narrator was going to jump in.

Chuck and Dean widened their eyes and gave mini head shakes at the same time.

Ned took the hint, and spoke. "When Sam and I were coming back, we drove by the park and it was just in time to see Olive and Randy knock out Magoo. He was hiding behind a tree and taking pictures of them."

"What?!" Chuck and Dean and Todd exclaimed.

"How did they manage it?" asked Todd.

"Olive jumped on his back and Randy nailed him in the head with a bag of squirrel."

Ned said it in such a bland manner, like it was just an everyday thing, that Dean burst into laughter, so raucous he bent at the waist and clutched his knees. A beagle sprang up and licked his nose. He laughed even harder.

"Well all kidding aside, is Magoo okay?" asked Chuck.

Sam nodded. "But out like a light. We helped load him into Randy's taxidermy truck. They're taking him to The Pie Hole now."

"Truck?" Dean managed to gasp out.

"That's his motto ---" Chuck began, and Ned and Todd joined in for the rest:

"Randy Mann, Traveling Taxidermist: I'll Bring The Stuffing To You."

Dean stood up, trying not to choke on the last of his laughs, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Dean and I have explained to Todd that Magoo is full of... stuffing... and that what he's said about Ned is a total sack of... squirrel," Chuck said, giving Ned and Sam pointed looks.

"And Ned - I can't tell you how sorry I am, Magoo had me by the nu... the, ah, squirrels," said Todd.

"Listen, let's just get back over to The Pie Hole and finish this, can we?" Dean asked, and everyone - including the Dane - nodded in agreement.

"Say, you got any more of those peach ---" Todd began to ask Chuck as he was locking up.

"Yeeees," she cut in, but with a smile. Then she announced: "Pie for everyone! I think we've all earned it.” Chuck glanced down at the Dane, who had calmly exited with them, and whom no one felt up to wrestling back into Todd’s office. She gave him a scratch or two behind the ears. “You, too,” she whispered, and his tail wagged.

Back at The Pie Hole, they found Olive sitting at the counter, singing to herself as she flipped through the pictures on Magoo’s camera. Digby was at her side. And there was Magoo, tied to a chair positioned in the middle of the floor, still out cold.

Dean elbowed Sam, then pointed with his chin towards Olive. “She’s radio good,” he whispered.

“No kidding,” Sam whispered back. “She’s Broadway good. Wow.”

"What the heck are those, Olive?" Chuck asked, pointing to the bottle-thick glasses perched atop her friend's head.

"These are Magoo's glasses - they were in his pocket, I didn't want 'em to break - you know how near-sighted he is," Olive replied.

"Well that explains the blurry photos," said Todd.

"And me," Dean commented under his breath.

"Where's Randy?" Ned asked.

"He tied up our blind blackmailer here, then had to get those squirrels back to his place," she replied. "Besides, I have Digby to help keep me safe."

"Can't hurt, but I couldn't honestly say that you need any help looking out for yourself - way to go back there, Olive," Sam told her, holding up his hand for a high-five, which she met with her own hand happily.

"Thank you!" she beamed.

The Dane and Digby sniffed at each other briefly, then The Pie Hole's newest guard dog laid down next to the veteran, both keeping a wary eye on Magoo.

Ned offered to warm up the Cup-Pies Todd was craving so that Chuck would have the opportunity to add a little homeopathic sleep-aid glaze to the crust. And as he was dozing off in one of the booths, Magoo began to come around.

The Winchester brothers and the spirited trio started firing questions at the captive, all at once.

Magoo squinted his eyes in an effort to make out the noisy blurs. Olive sighed, hopping off the stool, walking over and putting his glasses on. And once his now-usable eyes lit on each of them in turn, he finally spoke.

"I ain't telling a darn thing!"

Perhaps I might be of assistance.

“YES!” everyone - but Magoo - shouted.

The facts - for the final time - are these:

Magoo’s plan for Ned following the pulling-of-cow hide over Grandma Magillicutty's eyes were quite odious, indeed. He wanted to continue his chicanery, taking a hefty cut of The Pie Hole’s profits as well as profits from Todd Cod’s investigations - of which he’d insist Ned and Chuck play their parts once more.

And he’d found it fortuitous to spot Randy and Olive in the park that night, cleaning up a curious amount of squirrels. Convinced Todd had failed in his mission to blackmail Ned on his behalf via the manipulation of the Winchesters, Magoo had been en route to reveal his identity to the pie-maker as the true blackmailing mastermind and proceed with making his demands.

But the peculiar actions of the traveling taxidermist and his cheesy fiancée ---

“Hey!” Olive exclaimed.

--- his enigmatic and quite talented fiancée made Magoo wonder if yet another scheme could be executed, bringing him even more profit from both of their businesses.

“What!?” said everyone at once.

“Maybe Ned made all those squirrels die so they could get mounted and blondie here could dip the rest in her cheese!” spat Magoo.

“Bleerrrgh,” said everyone at once.

But now Magoo found himself hoisted on his own petard.

For little did he know that at this very moment, Sam was in the kitchen alerting the authorities that he and his brother had not uncovered other-worldly activity in this - sometimes - quiet little town.

Instead, the devastatingly handsome duo had stumbled upon a web of deceit, blackmail, and fanciful accusations, all stemming from the clearly confused mind of one Magoo Magillicutty.

Sam grinned as he pulled out his phone and walked into the kitchen.

And it would seem quite likely that Dean - a master at talking his way into and out of anything and everything - would be very convincing when he pointed out that perhaps Magoo’s poor eyesight had led him down this futile path, his actions further fueled by a vivid imagination.

For you see, Dean would most assuredly then go on to explain to the authorities that before embarking on a career as a supernatural debunker, he was actually a psychologist, specializing in delusional disorders.

Dean would definitely have them nodding in agreement over his suggestion that Magoo be committed to a psychiatric facility. For his own well-being. Immediately.

Dean leaned against the counter, a smirk planted on his face.

“You can’t do that! You won’t get away with it!” Magoo gasped.

Oh, but they did.

The new group of friends had a bit of a roving party that night - first waking up Todd Cod, of course, who was elated to hear that Magoo had been carted off while he slept.

They then dropped off the Great Dane, snuggling him into his spacious dog house in the front yard of his owner’s home with one of Digby’s treats, leaving a note on the front door inviting him back to The Pie Hole anytime.

And over a late-night meal at The Intrepid Cow, Todd vowed to return all the dogs first thing in the morning. Olive offered her assistance by way of Randy’s taxidermy truck, then immediately realized this was likely a bad idea, not wanting owners to assume the worst.

But then she had a very good idea.

“You’re great with those dogs, Todd. You couldn’t have managed them for so long if you weren’t. I think you should give up the P.I. stuff, start a dog charity! We’ll hold a fundraiser! Sell some of Chuck’s cup-pies and ---”

“Oh! We could do cup-mac-cheesy goodness,too!” Chuck cut in.

“--- so we’ll do that ---”

“It is so, so much goodness,” Dean cut in, barely looking up before leaning over his bowl of Macaroni Mania to engulf the last few bites.

“--- and Ned can juggle ---”

“I-- I don’t - I don’t juggle,” Ned cut in.

“--- and I don’t know what I’ll do, but ---

“Olive? You sing,” Sam cut in, and a round of emphatic nods backed him up.

“I’ll sing! And everyone will love you!”

A slow smile spread across Todd’s face. “That ain’t a bad idea, Little Bit. And, you know... now that those squirrels are gone... what do you all think about kicking off the charity by using all the reward money I got and turn that joint into a dog park?”

While the Winchesters pulled the Impala around to the front of The Pie Hole, preparing to say their goodbyes and get on the road, The Narrator spoke to them one last time, since for the moment, the brothers were alone.

Todd Cod, the one-time wannabe private investigator with pie-in-the-sky ambitions, would indeed become the founder of Cod's Canine Charity, shortly finding himself almost too busy, a proverbial finger in every pie.

Olive Snook, following the vigorous response to her singing at both the charity kick-off and the opening of the dog park, would dip her toe into community theater whenever she wasn’t busy helping customers dip her new invention of Pasta Pocket Fondue-It-Yourself into table-top buckets of cheese.

Ned and Chuck would get married, following quite the interaction with what Chuck knew in her heart to be her guardian angel.

She would find him on the rooftop one crisp fall evening, admiring her friendly colony of bees with the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen. His touch to her forehead would serve to make her touchable to anyone of her choosing, from that very moment on.

And as for what would happen to The Narrator?

Sam and Dean shared a look, but then both said in unison:

“Nothing.”

Olive and Todd came down the sidewalk from the direction of The ‘Cow just then, both carrying armfuls of foil take-out containers with the logo of a mooing cow perched on a brick of Swiss cheese on the tops.

“Nooooo....” Dean said in disbelief.

“YES!” Olive replied in a no-nonsense tone. “Now open a door on that black beauty so we can load this baby up!”

As Dean complied, Ned and Chuck caught Sam’s eye from behind the display windows and when he saw what they had done, his jaw dropped and he quickly moved to hold the door for them.

And then when Dean saw the ten-to-twelve carry-out boxes in their arms:

“NOOOooooo....”

“He’s not actually saying ‘no’, is he?” Todd inquired.

“No,” answered Sam, Ned, Chuck and Olive.

Once the food was securely settled, Todd extended his hand to Sam and then Dean, shaking and thanking them for their help. Then he headed back to his office to check on the dogs, a stash of bacon from The ‘Cow tucked in his pocket.

And Olive reached up, almost yanking Dean down, hugging him tightly around the neck, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. She moved in front of Sam, performing quite the impressive vertical jump, giving him the same treatment before skittering away, heading to her own apartment above The Pie Hole.

Chuck enveloped both brothers in a warm hug, stretching her arms around them as far as she could. “Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart,” she said upon release.

“We really can’t tell you how much ---” Ned began, but Sam held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s our job,” he said simply. “It’s the family business.”

“Will you... is there any chance that...”

The pie-maker was still filled with trepidation as he glanced to Chuck, then back to Sam and Dean.

“You don’t have to worry,” Dean promised.

“Your secret’s safe with us,” Sam promised.

Ned believed them, just as he believed their goodness did not stem simply from job-related dutifulness or carrying on a family tradition. His concern faded, transforming into a very happy smile. He and Chuck remained on the sidewalk, waving goodbye until their heroes were out of sight.

And so, as the Winchester brothers drove off into the sunset with boxes of pies and cheesy pasta filling the backseat of the black Impala, they agreed that this was a job well done.

For the rest of their lives - and they were long ones, indeed - both Dean and Sam kept their promise.

They never spoke of what they'd seen to other hunters, or even to their spouses, their children, their grandchildren. Nor did they ever document their adventure in any files or journals. Never again did they visit that little town not terribly far from Coeur d'Coeurs.

And they kept the singing macaroni-maker, the charitable former detective, the pie-making reaper, the cheerful zombie - and even the friendly poltergeist - in their hearts, down to their very last minutes.

See Nash Write : Master / See Nash Write : Mobile

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Author’s Note #2: Originally written for the SPN Writing Challenge "Do It Like Dean", courtesy of @jalove-wecallhimdean , in celebration of her 500th follower.

Challenge Prompt: “Dude, Pie!”

Author Prompt(s)/Inspiration(s): Dialogue, narration & characters from Bryan Fuller's "Pushing Daisies".

~ The Pushing Daisies Cast ~

The Original Trailer for the Show

The Narrator's Voice

The Entire Series [for FREE!]

#supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #500doitlikedeanchallenge #dean winchester #sam winchester #Pushing Daisies meets Supernatural #SPN meets Pushing Daisies #Nash Writes

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