#WHAT ELSE IS NEW

[conswayo]

through the blue in my eyes

[shanastoryteller]

Apocalypse Never

They help Dad into the cabin, more coherent than he was when they first broke him out, and Sam heads back to the car for their bags, for the Colt, and tries not to think about how everything has gone so quickly to shit. Mom and Jessica’s killer got away, again, but they’re all alive. That’s not nothing, that’s –

The pain hits him so completely and suddenly that he has no chance to brace himself for it. Usually it builds, first prickling pain then greater, but this is something else. It feels like nails are being shoved into his skull, images coming almost too fast for him to follow. He doesn’t realize he’s screaming until it stops, until he comes to with his head in his brother’s lap, Dean’s arms pinning him down and his face white and terrified above him. “Sammy? Sammy, you’re bleeding. What’s wrong?”

His throat is too raw and tight to speak even if he wanted to. He does want to, but he can’t, he can’t say a goddamn thing.

I saved the world for you, he thinks wildly, and I didn’t even get to keep you. How fucked up is that?

~

He doesn’t know if his future self couldn’t send it all back any further, or if he thought that this would give Sam less time to fuck things up.

For a couple terrifying minutes, Sam had taken control of Lucifer. For a couple exhilarating minutes, Sam had the power of an archangel.

That sending the knowledge of the future back four years in the past was the best thing he could think to do with it leaves Sam with a poor opinion of the man he became. Then again, he had saved the world, so. There’s that.

He doesn’t want to think of the him that had fallen into the pit with Lucifer and Michael. He hopes he can save him by making different choices, but maybe he can’t. Alternate universes, or parallel ones, or whatever. Maybe that Sam is damned for good and the best he could do was save a different version of himself, a different version of his brother.

There’s not much point in wondering about it. He’ll never know either way.

It’s memories with no emotions, thank fuck, because just the knowledge of it all is enough to drive him to his knees, to edge him to weeping and whimpering and slitting his wrists if he lets it.

He’s not going to. He has work to do. There will be time to fall apart after, when the world is safe. When Dean is safe.

Dean after Dad had died and given him that ultimatum had been bad enough. Dean after forty years in hell had been nearly unrecognizable.

He wipes the blood from his face, ushers Dean back inside, and tries not to think too hard about what he’s about to do.

Dean figures out it’s Azazel in Dad’s body and they’re pinned to the wall and Sam waits until Azazel is hovering over him, hand next to his head as he tilts his head back and breathes over Sam’s lips. It’s a torture and a powerplay, to let the want in his eyes come out in his father’s face, to make it John’s body that’s pressed so nauseatingly close to his own.

Sam isn’t the same person he was four years ago, ten minutes ago.

Breaking out of Azazel’s hold is easy. He’s using the equivalent of a single finger to keep them down, like pinning down a butterfly, and it's only enough until it isn’t.

He grabs Azazel’s face and pulls him close, hears the beginning of his laughter before Sam seals their mouths together. He’s making a deal here, selling his soul sure as anything, just not with Azazel.

Azazel leans into it, just like Sam knew he would, shoving his tongue in Sam’s mouth and getting off at his instinctive flinch of disgust, of the way Dean’s screaming bloody murder behind him. Azazel hasn’t hurt Dean yet. Sam’s going to make sure he never will.

He bites down hard. Blood fills his mouth and he sucks on his tongue, drinking as much as he can. It doesn't tase like iron, not like it should, instead it's sweet and thick like honey. He thought Azazel would pull back now, but he’s still laughing into Sam’s mouth, even bites the inside of his cheek to add to the blood from his tongue, and he just lets Sam drink his fill. Of course, he doesn’t know what Sam knows. If Sam had done this the first time, the only thing the blood would have done would be to get him high and useless.

It means he gets more than a mouthful, that it’s long minutes of keeping his eyes closed and swallowing and trying not to think too hard about how it’s Dad’s hands on him and Dad’s hard on at his thigh and Dad’s tongue he’s sucking on. He’s already got four years’ worth of nightmares in his head. No need to add more than necessary.

His skin is buzzing, feeling stretched out over him like his body is too big for it suddenly, almost like the aches of growing pains but more electric. Azazel pulls back and licks up the side of his face, leaving blood and spit behind, and breathes into his ear, “If you missed me feeding you, boy, all you had to do was ask.”

Yeah, that’s enough of that.

He shoves Azazel back without moving his hands, hard enough that he stumbles, and he has to move fast, before he gets a smart idea like snapping Dad’s neck or bursting his heart. He raises his hand and he’d settle for an exorcism, but power is lying heavy and thick in his veins. Destroying Lilith nearly killed him and Azazel is more powerful than Lilith and the blood he drank shouldn’t be nearly enough.

But fear sparks in Azazel’s yellow eyes and he starts choking, black smoke leaking from his ears and out his mouth. “How-”

Sam doesn’t let him finish. He remembers killing Samhain, killing Alastair, killing Lilith. He knows what to do.

Azazel dies screaming. Mom and Jessica are avenged. It’s not as satisfying as he thought it’d be.

Dad is on his hands and knees, taking in deep lungfuls of air. Sam knows from experience that being possessed isn’t pleasant.

“Sammy?”

He forces himself to look over, sees his brother approaching him with hands outstretched. The fear hasn’t gone anywhere even with Azazel dead, even with Dad alive, even though he doesn’t have any of the devastating injuries he sustained last time.

He doesn’t have the emotions to go along with the memory of the first time Dean saw him drinking demon blood, but he imagines it was something like this. “I’m sorry.”

“Sammy,” Dean says again, but Dad’s getting to his feet, Dad’s looking at the Colt, and Sam can’t die yet. He still has work to do.

It’s not a conscious thought, not something he actively tries to do, it’s just one minute he’s there in a cabin with his father and brother and the next he’s in the middle of a field, the night air crisp and clear and a million stars shining above him.

He couldn’t do that before.

There’s something wrong, he thinks, because he doesn’t remember what drinking demon blood felt like, but he remembers describing it, and this isn’t right. He should be drained after that, should feel almost normal again, but instead it’s like there are bees pinging around inside him, like there’s molten lava in his veins, like he’s dying.

He’s dying, he realizes suddenly, the power threatening to eat him alive. He looks down at his arms, like he’s expecting to see them crisping up beneath moonlight, but they look normal, like skin. Of course it’s not killing him, no matter what it feels like. He’s Lucifer’s perfect vessel. There’s no power his body can’t contain, none except God’s, maybe, and it looks like he’s long past making house calls.

It won’t kill him, but it hurts like hell, and he can’t think, he needs to burn it off somehow. He’s never had this problem before, not even when he drank all that blood for Lucifer.

He’s standing in Bobby’s living room and he doesn’t understand why until he sees the body on his kitchen table wrapped in a white sheet. He doesn’t know how Bobby got rid of the paramedics, if he’s maybe holding the body for her family, but Sam thinks he knows how to get rid of some of the itching along his skin.

Sam died a lot, in those weeks he and Dean were apart. Lucifer was true to his word. Sam came back every time.

He pulls down the sheet, sees the ways Meg’s face has settled into death in the past day, how decay has started to take hold and left her blue and cold and her skin slack. He leans down, presses a kiss to her cheek, and thinks that this is the least he owes her, for what she endured because of him, for trying to help him even at the bitter end.

She gasps to life beneath him, warmth flooding her skin and air stuttering into her lungs. “Sam?” she asks, fear and confusion and a pain that’s not physical.

Maybe she won’t want to live, considering everything she’s been through, but at least now the choice is hers and not a demon’s. There are footsteps and he turns to see Bobby standing in the doorway, gun pointed to the ground and mouth open in shock. Sam doesn’t have time to worry about it, instead he’s gone, the same burning still clawing its way out of his bones.

Caleb lies slumped in the chair Meg had tied him to, throat slit and eyes empty. Sam puts his hands on his shoulders, presses his lips to his bald head, and feels the moment his heart starts beating again. He sends the ropes falling with barely a thought and he’s gone the moment he hears his first confused groan.

Pastor Jim is laid out in his home, church workers Sam vaguely recognize huddled around him in prayer, his final send off. He’s just glad he got here before they burned him. They start screaming when they see him but he leans down, internally wincing at how Jim’s going to explain his way out of this one, and kisses his forehead, a reversal of the paternal tenderness Jim had shown him as a child.

His chest rises and his eyes open and his eyebrows push together. “Sam, what-“

He doesn’t stick around to hear the end of that question, figures it’s not anything he can answer anyway.

It takes him a long moment of staring out at the snow covered peaks and too close sky and the brilliant sun hitting his face even though it was just the middle of the night for him to place himself, even though it shouldn’t be enough, but he knows where he is even though he shouldn’t.

The air’s too thin and he’s going to give himself altitude sickness if he lingers and he should probably be freezing to death but his blood is still running too hot. Not burning, not like it was before he brought three people back from the dead, but still far from comfortable.

Still. He can’t say he ever thought he’d ever get to see the view from Mt. Everest.

“Castiel,” he says. “It’s Sam Winchester. We need to talk.”

Nothing. Typical.

“I know about God’s plan, about Lucifer and Michael, about my role as his vessel. I know about you, Cas. You’re going to want to hear me out.”

There’s the rustle of wings behind him and he turns to see Cas, younger than he looked before. Jimmy Novak younger than he’d been before. He wonders about that for a moment. He’d half expected Cas to show up as a sherpa rather than nip to America for a vessel, but Cas had kept the shape of Jimmy Novak even after his physical body perished, so maybe there’s a deeper preference there than just convenience.

His face is as cold as their surroundings. “You have strayed from God’s light.”

“Yeah, well, what good has he ever done me?” he asks tiredly. He used to believe. He believed yesterday. He prayed this morning. Even when he met Cas the first time, he believed. “I can’t explain. Can you just read my mind? We don’t have time.”

His eyebrows push together, but Cas has to be curious, otherwise he wouldn’t have said anything. He steps forward and presses two fingers against Sam’s forehead. He doesn’t feel any different, but when Cas lowers his hand, he’s lost his stoicism. Shock, despair, and anger chase themselves across his feature and Sam can’t blame him.

He’s not the only who lost his faith in the future.

“You said there were thousands of seals,” he says. “How many exactly?”

His eyes snap to Sam’s. “What?”

“God loved Lucifer,” he says. “It’s why he imprisoned him rather than destroying him. It’s why he left him a way out. Maybe it’s why he set up the apocalypse in the first place. I don’t know, I don’t care. All I know is that I’m not letting him out, ever. So we’re going to destroy every seal we can.”

Some can’t be undone, like the first one, a righteous man torturing an innocent soul in hell. But there are plenty that can, hopefully enough, hopefully most. If there are less than sixty six seals available, then Lucifer is never getting out of his cage.

“There were originally ten thousand seals,” Cas answers and Sam gets lightheaded for reasons that have nothing to do with thin air. “Only two thousand and thirty four seals are still viable.”

Okay, that’s better. Not great, but better. “Let’s get that number down to sixty five.”

“You are different,” Cas says.

Of course he’s different. His father’s alive. His brother never went to hell. Sam has never known the utter desolation of being completely alone, of grief and guilt so heavy he’s surprised it didn’t break his spine as surely as Jake’s knife in his back. He doesn’t actually remember feeling it, which is no small mercy, but he saw the effects of living with it, which is almost as bed. He'd thought what he’s feeling because of Jessica is as low as he could get. It’s not even close.

He wants to dig up her bones and breathe life into them, but at almost a year dead he thinks that’s beyond even this strange new power. Even like this, he’s failing Jessica one more time.

“Got any ideas?” he asks. “It wasn’t like this before. With the blood.”

He’d drank Ruby nearly dry more than once. It had been a high and then a crash and never did it give him access to this type of power.

“Azazel is – was a prince of hell,” Cas answers.

Sam frowns. “I thought he was king?”

“He was regent,” he corrects, “but to be a prince is separate from being ruler of hell. Lucifer created Lilith from bone, as Adam and Eve were made. The princes were created from his blood. Azazel’s blood is, in a way, Lucifer’s.”

Lucifer’s blood. Sam, his vessel, drinking down Lucifer’s blood, as a baby and now. Except as a baby he’d only had a few drops. He’d consumed a lot more than that back at the cabin.

Demon blood always wore off. The few drops of Azazel’s blood he’d gotten as a baby never had. He probably should have taken that into consideration, but there hadn’t been any time.

“Lucifer is evil but he is not a demon,” Cas continues.

Sam realizes suddenly that he did have power like this once. When he locked away Lucifer inside of him and took his power for his own. It’s not the same, not even close, but it’s similar. “This is what angel blood does?”

“No,” he says. “This is what Archangel Lucifer’s blood does to his perfect vessel. I believe. This has never happened before, so I cannot be certain. You are, as always, one of kind, Sam Winchester.”

It’s not quite a compliment, but it’s not as combative as he remembers Castiel being in the beginning. He’ll take it. “Guess we’ll figure it out together, then. If you’re sticking around to help prevent the apocalypse.”

If he’s not, this is going to be more than difficult. Tracking down all the seals without an angel on his side isn’t going to be impossible, but pretty damn close. And he doesn’t know how much time he has. Hell is going to be pissed about him killing Azazel. Heaven is probably going to take notice once he starts destroying seals so they can never be opened. Not to mention, he’s definitely going to be on hunters’ radar. Even if Dad can keep his mouth shut about him drinking demon blood, which he knows better than to rely on, him bringing back people from the dead is going to spread quickly. He’s going to be hunted at all sides, just like last time.

At least last time he had Dean, even broken, even when he was broken himself. He still had his brother.

But this is the price for saving him. For making sure that Dean is never in the position to kick off the apocalypse in the first place, to make it so Lucifer never again walks the earth even if heaven and hell reincarnate him and Dean and try and start this all over again.

He’s going to be killed for it, he knows, by demons or angels or hunters. But that doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.

“Yes,” Cas says. “It is better for us all if the future you saw never comes to pass. I will help you.”

He grins, clapping Cas on the shoulder, and only laughs at the glare he receives in return. They have to get out of here before the altitude makes him loopy. Maybe it already has.

He’s going to save the world for his brother and he’s not even going to get to keep him.

How fucked up is that?

[yilinglaozu]

@asiandramanet december bingo - comfort

[gatorbites-imagines]

Could I request, if you want, a conquest fic. It can be short, it can be bullet points, I don't care- I am STARVED because there's no content of him at all.

Maybe like, a little blurb of him just laying in bed next to reader and wondering how he ended up falling in love with a little human, questioning his life (not in a bad way) while reader is sitting up and reading a book or something- basking in the afterglow of pounding his beloved old man. Or it doesn't have to be smut related at all, I'm okay with pure fluff!

Thank you for the consideration ❤️

Conquest x male reader 

Blurb 

My new classes are starting tomorrow, and I can feel jitters all up under my skin, like every time I do anything new with my life. So, im ignoring that by writing. 

i tried to fluff this up, enjoy gamers.

Falling in love was not a feeling many, if any, viltrumites got to experience. It is such a vulnerable feeling, like an exposed nerve pulled to the surface, a nerve ending that only that other person could press and pull. 

It is a weakness, the greatest weakness Conquest has ever experienced. For his lonely heart to be taken from between his own grizzled bloody hands, and held near someone else's chest, as if it mattered and carried importance. 

Being held as if you mattered, to be kissed and appreciated, to have meaningful nothings and words that carried such a deep emotional weight, was almost unbearable.  

At least, those were the thoughts going through Conquest's mind as he laid in the bed you two shared, a bed you had specially ordered to be able to fit him and his weight. Covered in a duvet that had to be ordered large enough to fit, and still be comfortable.  

His heart... ached in ways he still struggled to understand as he let his seeing eye turn to you. There you were, sitting and reading one of your favorite books, one you had reread at least five times since you two became an “item”, as you earthlings say. 

Because earth was not just for worms anymore. If it could create someone like you, someone who could look at somebody as violent and bloody as Conquest, a man with a title and no name, and still feel love? Then earthlings were not worms at all. 

There were moments where Conquest wondered if he should kill you, not because he truly wanted too, but because feeling so weak and vulnerable was... unusual, new and scary. Never could he find it in himself to hurt you, his hands cradling instead of crushing, for once he found himself being careful. 

You must have noticed his quiet staring, his usually intense face looking lax and calm, thoughtful even. “What is it?” you ask, putting the bookmark between the pages you were reading. “Was I not good enough?” you joke, putting the book on the bedside table so you could give Conquest your full attention. 

Conquest's prosthetic hand twitched by his side, before he lifted it, fingers that had killed hundreds, thousands, millions, brushed so carefully against your skin. 

“You really are so cute sometimes” you chuckle, your voice making his heart clench, his insides flutter, his face heat up. And as you lean down the kiss him, Conquest finds his eyes shutting to simply bask in this feeling. Such a human feeling, such a weakness, but so very good.  

Yes. Good. Thats what it is. The vulnerability, the warmth and care, makes the fear of the unknown worth it. To be held in your arms, as if Conquest was someone who needed to be protected, was special. Something he could never see himself without, not anymore. 

[nomeniko]

march on!!!

[fandomfairyuniverse]

Kim and Kenta are going to be living together apparently and that is absolutely hilarious. Can you imagine getting out of prison and you’re sent to live with the guy you once held hostage for a bit. And then y’all fall in love. This is going to be incredible

[cloud-hymn]

“Who said please that made you hate the word so much?”

“I did.”

Nora please what if that was my final straw

[bklily]

I keep getting spiraled on the motives of Gabriel writing that letter and his final moments. He obviously wrote it after the whole alliance ring shtick began, after he was hit by the cataclysm. My immediate thought is that he wrote it right before he shipped Adrien off to London, since it was inside a photo album inside a box for furniture to be moved, which implies it was when they were moving away his things.

I can only imagine that he wrote that as a "If everything goes to shit this is my back up plan' which is fair tbh. Maybe his plan wouldn't work 100% and the cataclysm would get to him before he could revive Emilie. Since he accounts for Nathalie also still being in the picture I imagine he didn't think she'd die so... Fast? Suddenly? Maybe he thought she would still be weak and frail and sick but alive to guide Adrien after he found the letter.

So far this is all well and good but now when it comes to his final scene with Maribug and him asking for her to not Adrien know the villain that he was, I'm of two minds about it. The first one is that, somewhere deep deep down in his rotten pathetic weak little heart, he really meant it and hoped Adrien wouldn't find the letter and he'd get to die and be with Emilie in the afterlife. Which is. A fair interpretation but you'd need to pay me a lot of money to believe Gabriel Agreste has any actual remorse for what he did lmao.

My second interpretation is that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. It's not that he 100% wanted to control the narrative of how Adrien found out his misdeeds (though I think that's a valid interpretation), but in my head he just thought like-

"hey, I have an emergency plan in place with that letter right? Might as well go out faking a sacrifice and guilt trip this 14 year old girl, gaslight my son's memories and later down the line if he finds that letter, my chances of him actually bringing me back are way higher! Win win!"

In other words it wasn't a selfless sacrifice (obviously) but more so a, "I'll do this good deed so I might get something better in return later down the line" deal. Which I think fits his overall character narrative imo.

[starfleetshrimps]

sisko ball

honorable mention to this thing that happened while i was making this:

[eloscore]

i miss them just a tad, boys

[nosleepbutcaffeine]

Wenn Heide Kakao gekocht und Wunden desinfiziert hat, hat der Junge Narben und das aus einem Alter, wo er noch nicht selbst desinfiziert hat

[ofswordsandpens]

the funniest (cursed) thing about the whole "actually since its normal for parents to get overwhelmed when their kids act out, it's realistic (and thus good) that they made Sally get frustrated with young Percy in the show" thing is that the extent of young Percy acting out is like... crying no at the swimming pool? Locking a car door? Quietly asking his mom why she wants to get rid of him? Like I cannot imagine more tame expressions of fear from a young child

[gunsatthaphan]

👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻.

[wynandcore]

You don’t know who you are, but you know that you should be someone.

[cryinganabell]

Hhhhh teeth

[rainesjupiter]

Theatre kid, Rosa Isabelle's delight.

(+bonus with no crown because I liked it )