#back to what happened to Crowley when he got literally sucked into the ground in Edinburgh

[comicallybadwriter]

“You don’t need to talk.” Aziraphale started, making an obvious choice to keep his hands to himself, even though reaching out to comfort the demon was all he wanted in that moment. Crowley had to chide himself for thinking it was what he wanted as well. “But I need to apologise, for everything I’ve done to you Crowley, everything I’ve put you through and all I’ve kept from you.”

Crowley swallowed thickly, still refusing to look the angel in the eye. He was staring out the window, watching as Nina’s shop took customers in various numbers. A couple of humans were sitting in their designated spots. It made the demons heart stutter.

“I-” The angels voice faltered, then came back after a second of breathing- “I’m sorry for leaving you Crowley, and for not explaining why. I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted to be an angel again, I just- I remember you so vividly with that beautiful bright smile and those stunning white wings, and I got excited.” Aziraphale had started fiddling, not that it was uncommon for him to do that, but it was always a weak point with Crowley’s ability to stay mad. “I wanted to be able to change Heaven so bad, to be fit for you, and safe for the world. For humanity. I wanted- I still do really, to be able to say we were on the same side, and Heaven not be able to do a damned thing.”

That got Crowley’s attention, “You can’t just-!” His eyes went wide in search of something to say, but Aziraphale shushed him again, “I said far worse things upstairs before I got back, let me finish.” The angel shifted on the bed, and sucked in a breath, “You had done nothing to be forgiven for… after you- we, I mean that is-”

“I get it, Aziraphale.”

“Yes, well,” He cleared his throat, face warming up at the memory. “I shouldn’t have… it shouldn’t have happened like that. There was just something nagging me in the back of my head, shouting over and over again, that it wasn’t- that I had to leave. That there were far more important things to do in that moment in time.” Once the words had left his mouth, Aziraphale realised how it sounded, “That isn’t to say I’m making excuses! I merely mean, I’d never felt like that before, my head was… fuzzy. And after what the Metatron had offered me, and oh- I was so excited to tell you- to change the whole thing. To let you know that I would be there for you at the drop of a dime But I-"

Silence filled the room until Aziraphale spoke again, desperately hoping that he’d get Crowley to speak to him again, to say anything to him, scream shout. Not just one worded answers. “So I- I well, I came back down when I heard you were… well it doesn’t matter does it. I came back down, and I don’t regret a thing.”

Finally, Crowley grumbled something incoherent, and Aziraphale perked up. “Pardon, dear?”

“I said, it does matter.” Crowley stood up from the bed, then reached out to nothing in particular, before dropping his hand again. “It should matter. I should matter Aziraphale! But you-!” His voice broke for a moment, before the demon took an unsteady breath in- “You chose them. When it mattered.”

It wasn’t supposed to go like this, Crowley knew that, but he couldn’t help it. He was tired, he was scared, and he was angry. He wanted to go back to before, when they could get drunk in the bookshop downstairs without visitors, and Crowley could snap his fingers, so the record player was making beautiful music that seemed to always entice the angel to hum along no matter how intoxicated. He wanted to go back.

“I was the one breaking into the shop when it was burning to the ground, terrified you had been taken from me forever, and who drove through literal fire and flames to get to you when I found out you were okay! I was the one who went up to Heaven. I was the one Gabriel told to walk into Hellfire, and I was the one who had him look at me- who he thought was you- and tell me to shut up and die. Me not them!” Crowley felt tears slipping down his face as he waved his hand upwards towards Heaven. “I went up and found out what was wrong with Gabriel! Told that anyone involved would be erased with the book of life! Me! Me! No one else!” Crowley felt like he was losing his grip on reality, jumping around with every shouting word he let out. His hair flailing at his shoulders as he sniffed and wiped his face.

“And I-” he took another breath in, though it did nothing but indicate how he was shaking- “I was the one who stood beside you when push came to shove. I believed in you.”

The anger collapsed alongside the demon, and he fell back on the bed, a right sobbing mess. If Aziraphale wasn’t the issue there, then Crowley would have sunk into the angels arms and appreciated the hug, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“Crowley I-” shouldn’t have left you alone to carry so much- “I-” loved you so much it hurt to be near- “I- I can’t possibly find the words to apologise. If it meant I had to stand on my hands for the next century and do our apology dance upside down, I’d do it for you. I need you to know how sorry I am.”

[natewriteslol]

Hey! Could i request the dorm leaders with an esper MC? Kinda like Mob psycho or Saiki k :) and maybe they don't really use this ability of theirs that much since in their world they're literally a teen who's trying to live a normal life(like Mob basically), so nobody knew about their psychic powers except Grim since the mirror said that he couldnt sense any magic in them(i'm pretty sure that psychic powers don't really count as magic but idk lol).

Feel free to ignore if you don't wanna write it! :)

 A/N: Ooh this was a fun one! I haven't watched Mob Psycho (I know about that fine ass blonde man-) but I have watched Saiki k and I loved it, still need to finish it tho jlafljhdas 

Characters: Kalim Al-Asim, Riddle Rosehearts, Leona Kingscholar, Vil Schoenheit, Azul Ashengrotto, Idia Shroud, Malleus Draconia

P.S: I’m so sorry this is so long omg but I guess this is a strong comeback-

Warnings: none except for language

Riddle:

-You wanted to stay as far away as possible from him

-Riddle was part of the trio of people you wanted to stay away from: Riddle, Vil, and Azul

-Riddle paid so much attention to fine details that if something was up, he'd definitely notice it

-But unfortunately you were best friends with the two goobers of Heartslabyul: Ace and Deuce

-And Riddle had started to pay attention to you and your habits, and something was off with you

-It's almost as though you tried too hard to be normal, like Jamil

-And he could never let something like that happen again, so yes he was watching you

-One day you accidently slipped up and was irresponsible with your powers

-Grim was bothering you since he got into a deal with Azul for tuna and they were standing outside with the twins, since Grim lost

-You told him to fend for himself and teleported, however you didn’t plan where you would go

-And you teleported into the Heartslabyul dorm

-What sucks is that your teleportation power was literally flashy with a bright ass green light every time you popped in somewhere

-Just when you thought you were lucky since the whole dorm was uninhabited...except for Riddle who watched the whole thing

-He was completely shocked, he didn’t know what to say other than “What did you just do?!” 

-You explained to him, and that just pieced everything together

-How you solved overblots with such ease, and that one day you had a “strength potion to test for Azul” was such bs!

-Riddle ends up keeping your secret, since he values your privacy but if you do something major and mess up then he will tell!

-”I understand but please be more careful with your powers. I need to institute discipline and you are no exception, Y/N.”

-He really does care about you and doesn’t want you to be found out 

-Goes the extra mile to cover for you often, and in exchange you help him out with things :)

Leona:

-He didn't really care about you at first but as you started to hang Jack and Ruggie, Leona started to get more suspicious

-Your scent had proven that you had some trace of magic, but Leona just couldn't put his finger on it

-So he sent Ruggie after you for a couple of days

-If you were a threat to Savanaclaw, Leona would crush you

-But Ruggie had only reported back that everything with you was perfectly normal

-"Just give it up Leona, they're just an ordinary human. The scent is probably weird because they're from a completely different world."

-But Leona still had that feeling, so he was keeping an eye on you

-You had made a deal with Crowley to keep your powers secret to solve problems on campus (it did cut repair costs and handymen costs in half so-)

-Your new quest was to rid the forest of the Angolo fungus that was manifesting into living fungus blobs 

-The one thing that gave you away was Grim, as you both had to stop by the Greenhouse to read some info about the fungus

-The cat beast was being far too loud, not understanding why he had to go and mess around with the icky fungus

-You simply replied “It’ll be quick, I’ll just use Hydrokinesis and dry out the fungus since they’re mainly filled with water. They become fertilizer once dried so we can just leave them there.”

-And there Leona was, ears perked up once he heard your voice

-Hydrokinesis? What are you talking about?

-So he set off, following you to the forest

-You started to fly, turning the once green and lively fungus to brown dust while Grim napped against a tree

-Leona for the first time in the while, was left speechless

-Once you noticed him, you realized you had to talk to him

-Confronting him later on, luckily Leona didn’t spill to anyone 

-He promised to never tell anyone about what he saw, and had no clapbacks for what you had to say 

- Leona doesn’t even benefit from this secret...besides mayyybee one day asking for your help if his pride lets him

-By the Great Seven why does everything have to not be in his favor-

Azul:

-Another one who you have got to be careful around, since he’s incredibly observant

-More observant than Riddle

-Azul noticed that you’re an incredibly average person, and were incredibly relaxed even during the most stressful situations

-And almost every single time whenever you were in a tight spot, it works in your favor

-Just how is that possible? Solving overblots left and right? Every single time you disappeared the infestation of magical beasts are gone? 

-One day, you were getting picked on by a three guys, their stature far above yours and incredibly strong. How could you possibly win?

-Just as he was about to scoop in a save you, you slammed one of the men into the concrete, taking on the other two by electrocuting them, the blue lightning buzzing in your palms

-They were completely knocked out, dusting off your palms and picking up your things only to face Azul’s eyes

-After giving an explanation of what that was, he was still speechless

-Azul at first was incredibly shocked and then since Azul is Azul... later on realized this had benefits

-He could just blackmail you to be his new bodyguard!

-Oh how he always manages to bend life to his will-!

-So you could just wipe his memory... or turn him into stone...nvm

-You’re now Azul’s arch nemesis since you end up saving people from his scamming and you’re basically untouchable and there’s nothing he can do about it

-But he does find your great strength admirable (and a lil hot, I mean what can u say seeing someone floating in the air with electricity flowing through them is a nice look okay Nate shut up)

Kalim: 

-Oh Kalim my beloved

-He just thinks that you’re incredibly talented and a little mysterious

-You have your little quirks and he has his! Who is he to judge?

-Until one day you wanted to make the load lighter on Jamil, since the berries that Kalim had requested for were only in season in one country

-You decided to just teleport and then come back with the berries so Kalim wouldn’t be pouty 

-You were outside the door ready to teleport when last minute you felt a hand on your shoulder

- “Oh Y/N you forgot-!”

-And there both you and Kalim were, in a berry field thousands of miles away from the Scarabia dorm

-Kalim screams, falling to the lush green of the field

-What happened?! Where are we?! How did you do that?!

-You quickly gathered all the berries at light speed, making sure that you got back before Jamil realized that you were gone

-Kalim wasn’t scared of you, rather impressed that you were able to keep a secret for that long, he could never!

-You’re already super cool, and on top of this you have otherwordly powers!

- “It must’ve been stressful living your life like this! But don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret!”

-Yes he sometimes asks you to perform some of your powers for him, sorry Y/N-

Vil:

-While you were his friend, he was incredibly suspicious of you

-Even though you wiped everyone’s memory, he still had the faint memory of when he was in overblot mode of you blasting him with a beam of light

-Vil was incredibly upset as one of his assistants had mixed up his items, and left one of his vital skincare items on the set of where they were filming a new commercial

-It was being shipped and would take 3 days to reach NRC

-His mood was horrible and you had to do something about it to give grace to the Pomefiore dorm

-So you went to the second story of the Pomefiore dorm, ready to use Apport (the power to pull anything before you) 

-However, Vil felt incredibly guilty

-He was acting like a child and he shouldn’t have taken it out on the people who he loves and values

- “Y/N, how I was acting was incredibly inappropriate and- is that my moisturizer? How did you get it?”

-Starts freaking out as this was impossible as it was on it’s way from being shipped from another country

-This was the last straw for him ther was no justification for this that wasn't done by some form of magic

-He takes you to his room to make you sit down and give him an explanation for this

-Once you finished, Vil understood but was still freaked out

-He cares alot about keeping your powers a secret and will cover for you

-"So my aport powers need to exchange something of equal value so... I exchanged it with that Scucci purse over there-

-"MY LIMITED EDITION SCUCCI PURSE?!"

-He loves you, but you're dead to him, Y/N dear

Idia:

-Before he knew you, he didn't really notice anything off with you

-A little quiet sure but he minded his own business, he had bigger things to focus on

-Until you hung around Ignihyde more often for a project, fixing a huge generator by yourself for one of your partners for a project

-They took a break only after you told them that they could and apprehensive went to go get food and water

-Anyone with eyes could see that there's an overbearing amount of energy flowing through the fairly large sized cube

-Wait, you were wearing no gloves, you could get electrocuted! Why would have your bare hands on something like that?!

-Just as he was able to yell, it was too late, your whole body was flowing with the bright blue energy... and then you let go

-You were walking completely fine, you went and held a random wire on the ground, placing the electricity inside

-The static from your hair was gone, and you looked completely normal. . .

-Just what the hell are you?

-He did hours of research trying to figure you out, even sending Ortho to monitor you

-Yet there was nothing, you were just a “regular teen” 

-Was ready to get S.T.Y.X.S on your ass- (is that too soon to joke abt my bad overblot boys-)

-Until one day he caught you again bending electricity to your will

-Is incredibly impressed with your power (lowkey wanting to experiment on you)

-After he realizes that you can read minds Idia is so damn frightened

- “O-Okay I promise not to say anything, just don’t tell anyone what I’m thinking a-alright?!”

Malleus:

-You were one of the only people who he trusted

-Malleus had always detected some form of magical aura that was otherworldly from you and it never seemed to fade

-And it wasn’t often, but it was almost like you knew what he was thinking

-Whenever he was deeply upset he felt a twinge of energy from you, and then you would insist and help him out with his problems

-And he flat out says “Are you reading my mind, Y/N?”

-You had never been directly outed like this before, you felt horrible 

-You never read people’s minds unless it was very necessary

-whenever Malleus felt deeply gloomy you felt like it was important to just read his mind and help him with the problem

-You explained it to him and apologized, but he wasn’t upset

-In fact, he was smiling?

- “It seems like we have alot of things that we’re hiding from each other. But... you always had the best intentions whenever you used your abilities”

-He let out a sigh and reluctantly admitted, “And, I know that I’m quite stubborn with revealing my feelings.” 

- “I will keep your secret as long as you keep mine, Child of Man,” the dragon fae said, you both shaking on it

- “I always had a feeling that you were special, but I never thought it would be something of this caliber...” 

[d-hasselhoff]

That’s Not My Cass 1/?

Castiel x reader

Warnings: Power Hungry God Cass, some swears I think, mentions of heaven&hell + god and angels, by the way I literally hit the max number of text blocks so this’ll be a multiple part thing

Y/n stood next to Bobby and Dean, trying not to let Cass know she was scared of who he’d become. This new Cass, the power hungry god, terrified her. But she couldn’t tell him. Cass’ hand touched Sam’s forehead and Y/n knew what had happened. Castiel took down the wall.

As Cass mumbled about the power he would now hold, Y/n was able to sneak behind him. She closed her eyes for a moment, the Cass she used to know, used to love, flashed in her mind. It hurt her to realize she had to do this, she had to do it for Sam, but she knew it wasn’t really her Cass. so, she raised her arms, the angel blade striking down into Cass’ back. She squeezed her eyes shut, slowly opening them when the bright light that was supposed to emerge from his body never came.

A deep, rumbling laugh emerged from Cass’ chest. “You really think an angel blade will work on me anymore? I’m a god, Y/n a mere angel blade will do me no harm. You can’t kill a god.”

Her eyes widened and she stepped back as he turned to her, pulling the blade from his chest. “You foolish, foolish girl. I hope for your sake I never see you again.” The blade dropped as he flew away, the brief whoosh of his wings left behind.

She collapsed, her knees digging into the cement floor. Sam rushed over, picking her up off the ground, aiding her in standing up, allowing them to walk out of the building and to the vehicles. 

“I’m sorry Y/n/n. I didn’t think this would happen. It didn’t seem like Cass could get this way.” Sam gave her a sympathetic smile as they sat cleaning each other’s wounds.

“I don’t know who that was, but that was not my Cass.” She murmured, carefully pulling the thread tight on his chest, cinching the wound.

“I know. Turn your head for me? I can’t quite get to the gash in your hairline.” The gash covered the exact spot Cass used to kiss on her head before they left each other, easily helping her anxiety before cases.

As the four of them, Dean, Sam, Y/n, and Bobby stood in front of the water reserve they watched, perplexed, as Cass pushed himself into the water, a whirlpool taking him under. The only thing left of him was his beloved trench coat.

Y/n picked up the coat, folding it gently and carrying it out.

“He’s really gone, huh?” Bobby asked, more to himself than anyone else.

“I guess so. Rest in peace, if that’s even an option.” Dean replied, opening the door to his impala.

Lucifer had taken over Sam. He hadn’t slept in days, Lucifer constantly nagging at him, not letting him sleep even a wink. Y/n felt horrible for the man, especially when she was able to sleep soundly. Of course, she would never sleep the same, not without Cass next to her. But at least she was able to sleep some. Poor sam.

Now, as Dean and Y/n stood in the office of Dr. Kandinsky waiting to see Sam after his accident, the two were made aware of the efforts put in by the doctors to help Sam’s “issues”.

“Relatives of Sam Smith?” Dr. Kadinsky asked as the two of them stood impatiently, waiting on the whereabouts of their brother.

“Yeah. Where is he?” Dean asked, flailing his arms.

“You have to calm down,” she turned her attention to dean before facing the doctor again. “Sorry, he gets a bit temperamental.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Can we see him? He’s recovering from the accident, right?”

“So you’re aware of his car accident.” The doctor mentioned.

“Yeah, is he alright?”

“Sam was admitted. He was treated for a busted rib and minor wounds.” Dr. Kadinsky explained.

“Alright, we’ve seen worse. And?” Dean’s exasperation flooded the room.

“And… he’s locked on our psychiatric floor.”

Dean scoffed. “He’s had trouble before, but nothing major, why now?” Y/n asked.

“So you’re aware Sam’s experiencing a full blown psychotic episode?

“Psychotic?” Y/n raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, it’s not like he’s freakin Norman Bates!” Dean shouted, causing Y/n to pull on his shoulder, calming him down slightly.

“I’m sure he isn’t. But, we need to determine whether the episode is brought on by insomnia or whether the insomnia is a symptom of his condition.” The doctor explained. “So we can figure out how to treat him.”

“The uh, the sleeping issue is new.” Y/n told him.

The doctor pulled in a large breath. “Well, we’ve pumped him full of sedatives as much as we safely can, but he won’t go under.” This caught their attention. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The doctor led them through the psychiatric ward, leading them to Sam’s room. “Hey, how are you feeling?” Y/n asked, knocking on the door lightly.

Sam seemed to pick himself up when he saw the two of them. “I think you should cancel my ufc fight.” He snickered, patting the spot next to him for his sister.

Dean and Y/n looked at each other, communicating without speaking. This was worse than they thought.

“We’re gonna get you help Sammy.” Dean smiled, patting his leg lightly.

Sam scoffed lightly.

“I don’t think that’s out there, Dean.”

“We don’t know that.” Y/n protested.

“As good as anyone.”

“Last faith healer we hooked up with had a reaper on a leash, remember?” Sam looked up at the two of them, eyes droopy. It was clear he hadn’t slept in days. “I’m just saying”

“What that you don’t want our help?” Dean asked.

“No, don’t waste your time on me.”

“If- If we don’t find help-“

“I’m gonna die. I know. Cass warned us about this, putting my soul back.”

“Screw cass!” Dean shouted.

“It’s really hard to keep the motivation to help you when you accept this so quickly Sammy.” Y/n smiled lightly at him, trying to make him understand.

“I know. I’m just exhausted. Death sounds good right about now.” Sam pleaded. “This is what happens when you throw a soul in Lucifers dog bowl.” Sam laughed pathetically. “There’s not just a cure out there.”

Dean stomped out of the room. Y/n shook her head lightly, lightly grabbing Sam’s head with both her hands and kissing his hair.

“Hey, we’re going to help you.” She gave him one last smile and followed Dean out the door.

Now, as Dean sat on the couch of Bobby’s old place, calling you every number he could think of to help him, Y/n stood opposite of him, researching anything that could help them.

Dean abruptly stood up, mumbling to the fridge to grab a beer. Bobby’s book whooshed off the table. “What the hell?” He turned his attention to his sister.

“What? I didn’t do that,” she motioned to Bobby’s book on the ground. “I assumed you threw it on the ground when you got frustrated.”

“No I didn’t- what is that?” He furrowed his brows as he picked up the card, flipping it around to “call 605-555-0102” written on the back.

So, Dean picked up the phone and called the number. “Hi, uh, my name’s Dean, a friend of Bobby Singers. I, uh, was looking for some info and a card with your number popped up. If you could call me back, thanks.”

“Well, let’s hope, huh?” Y/n asked, standing up from the table and wrapping her arms around her ‘brother’. He closed his eyes and let his head drop into her neck.

“Yeah.” He mumbled. They might not be blood but they were the closest thing to two had to family right now.

They sat at the small table, looking at whatever when Dean’s phone rang. “This is Dean.”

Y/n’s eyebrows raised. “Mackey. Calling you back. Real sorry to hear about Bobby.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“What you called about, I might have something for you.” Dean put the phone on speaker. “There’s this guy, goes by Emanuel. Kinda roams. First started hearing about him a couple months back. He healed the sick, cured the crazy. Naturally, I think something ain’t right. So, I went looking. Easiest way to get to him is through his wife, Daphne out in Colorado. So, I go. Told her I was going blind. Wasn’t a lie, my right eyes burnt out. She tells me, “go home. He’ll come.” So, I went. I set every trap, every test in the book.”

“That’s what we would have done.” Dean mentions.

“Shows up, passes every one. There ain’t nothing weird about this guy. Except… he’s the real deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“He touched me, my eye was fixed.” Mackey explained.

“I don’t believe in much that don’t suck your blood, but I wouldn’t call you on maybe.”

So, the two left for this so called “Emanuel”.

Dean knocked on the door as they approached, the door opening to a middle aged looking man.

“Hi, this is Daphne Allen’s house? We’re looking for Emanuel.” Y/n asked

“Well, you found him. Daphne’s resting if you don’t mind.” He led the two farther back on the porch.

“Yeah, Sure.”

“Um, so, we were hoping-“ Dean was cut off by Y/n lightly hitting his back. She motioned lightly toward the window where Dean caught a glimpse of supposedly Daphne tied up to a chair and gagged. The two made eye contact and he looked back at “Emanuel”, only to be greeted with a demon. The demon grabbed Dean, throwing him against the glass.

“I’d be careful, don’t you know your boss has out a hands off memo?”

“Please, what have you done to help him lately? Roman’s head on a plate? Whatever Emmanuel is, Crowley’s gonna want him. A lot more than he wants you lately. So-“ The demon was cut off by an angel blade stabbing into back. He had forgotten Y/n was with, giving her the opportunity to grab him before any real damage was done. He screamed as the electricity sparked through his body.

Dean pushed the body down the steps, landing at a man’s feet. He nudged Y/n, and she turned around, mouth dropping open. Cass was back? And in a sweater? The two made eye contact, but it didn’t feel right. “What was that?” The gruff voice she had grown to love sent shocks through her system. She thought she’d never hear it again.

“That’s not cass.” She whimpered lightly, head falling onto Dean’s shoulder.

“Did that creature hurt you?” He asked his wife as he untied her.

“I’m okay.” She murmured, sucking in a deep breath as she was freed. “But Emanuel, they were looking for you.”

“It’s okay.” He comforted as he held her. She caressed his face and Y/n bit her cheek. Emanuel seemed to notice the confusion and lead his wife over to the two, introducing them.

“I’m Emanuel.” He held his hand out to the both of them.

Dean hesitated momentarily. “Dean. I’m Dean. And this is my sister, Y/n.”

“Thank you for protecting my wife.” Y/n blinked.

“Your wife. Right.” Dean nodded, casting his glance to a frozen Y/n at his side.

“I saw his face.” Emanuel turned to his wife. “His real face.” He turned back to the two.

“He was a demon.” Dean explained.

Emanuel glanced at the ground. “A demon walked the earth.” He seemed astonished.

“Demons. Whackloads of them. You don’t know about…” Dean stopped. He must have been sheltered for some reason.

“You saw the demon’s true face.” She turned toward dean and Y/n again. “Emanuel has very special gifts.”

“So we’ve heard.” Y/n spoke. “You can heal people.” Her stare seemed to bore into Emanuel’s.

“I seem to be able to help to a certain degree.” She knew it wasn’t really Cass, but god did it feel like it. “What’s your issue?”

“Our brother.” Dean explained.

The three of them sat in the impala, the tension seemed unbearable. “So, Daphne. Is that uh, is that your wife?” Dean asked, looking over to Emanuel who sat rigid in the front seat.

He nodded. “She found me, and took care of me.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s a strange story, you may not like it.” Emanuel mentioned.

“Believe me, I will.”

“Well, a few months ago she was hiking by the river, when I wandered into her path. Confused, drenched, and unclothed. I had no memory. She said god wanted her to find me.” Dean and y/n made brief eye contact. Something was up.

“Who named You Emanuel?” Dean asked.

“Bouncybabynames.com.”

The two of them nodded confused. “Well, its working for ya.”

“It must be weird not knowing who you are.” Y/n mentioned.

“Well, its my life. And it’s a good life.”

“Yeah, well what if you were some kind of, I don’t know, bad guy?” Dean brought up.

“Oh, I, don’t feel like a bad person.” Y/n nodded, leaning back against the seat.

This was going to be a long car ride.

“So, your brother…”

“Sam.”

“Sam. What’s his diagnosis?” Emanuel asked.

“Well, it’s not exactly medical.” Dean explained.

“That should be fine. I can cure illness of the spiritual.”

“Spiritual.” Dean scoffed lightly. “Well, someone did this to him.”

“You’re angry.” Emanuel observed.

“Well yeah, dude broke my brother’s head.”

“He betrayed you, this, dude. He was your friend?” Emanuel asked.

“Yeah well he’s gone.” Dean sighed.

“Did you kill him? I sense that you kill a lot of people.”

“No, I uh, I don’t know that he’s actually gone. I just know that this… whole thing couldn’t be messier. I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was. It might take me some time, but I always could.” Dean sighed. “What Cass did I just can’t. I don’t know why.”

“Well it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does!”

“No it doesn’t. You’re not a machine, Dean.” Dean shook his head lightly. “You’re friend’s name was Cass? That’s an odd name.” Y/n scoffed lightly from behind the driver’s side.

The impala pulled into a convenience store and Dean jumped out. “Oh, hey, just uh, sit tight, alright? And you stay with him?” Emanuel and Y/n nodded and the two walked into the store.

Dean felt a presence behind him. He turned around, about to attack, when the demon threw him into the beer fridge. He stood up, shoving the knife deep into the demon’s abdomen, sending the electricity spiraling. He pulled it out and turned around to two more.

He swung with the knife, missing and being hurtled to the ground, his knife blown out of his grasp.

He sighed, pushing himself up to fight when suddenly the one was stabbed, and the other began seizing, releasing the demon.

“Emanuel, you son of a bitch.” He looked up and was met with Meg.

“Emanuel? Yeah, not so much.” Meg smirked, pulling him up.

“Dean, Dean, Dean. You got some ‘splaining to do. Imagine my surprise when I track this Emanuel down, cozied up with you two? And he just so happens to be the spitting image of poor dead Castiel? So Dean, what’s poor dead Castiel doing in that junker out there with your sister?”

“Christmas caroling.” Dean snarked.

“Fun. But how’s he alive? Last I heard he tried to play god and went poof.” Meg drawled.

“I don’t know. And neither does he so I’d like to keep it that way. You’ve gotta stay quiet about it.”

“Oh I do?”

“He doesn’t know he’s cass.”

“Oh I know. I’ve been watching you for hours. So here’s the deal. You might remember Crowley and me were frosty back in the day? Well times haven’t changed.”

“Good.”

“That hurts my feelings. I’ve been so good to you Dean.”

“No, you’ve been good to you, sweetheart.”

“Look. Right now rumors of this wandering healer are strictly low-level. But body count’s getting high enough to change that. Folks start poking they sniff angel dust.” Meg explained as Dean shoved various snacks in his jacket.

“Yeah, they start falling all over each other trying to tell Crowley.”

“Now picture Crowley with his hands all over poor little amnesia Cass. Don’t get my wrong I’m gonna burn that smarmy dick. My time’s coming. But right now my army-of-one situation is not cutting it. It’s cold out here, there’s a price on my ass and I need friends.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I ain’t it.” Dean shook his head, starting to walk past the demon.

“That’s where you’re wrong Dean. ‘Cause I’m here to help you, and that makes us friends.”

“Help, huh? You mean see if you can turn harmless little Cass out there into an angel sized weapon?” Dean snarked.

“Like you’re taking him caroling. And by the way do you really want to keep going without any backup? Hey, I don’t trust you either. But I could really use Emanuel. And he trusts you, so for now it’s in everybody’s best interests to hold hands and cross the street together, okay?”

“We go straight to Sam. No detours.” Dean sighed.

“I love it.” Meg smirked.

“And one more thing. My knife.” Meg held the smirk, resisting lightly as Dean pulled the angel blade from her grip.

“You sure we won’t be safer traveling with a full throttle angel? I could jog his memory.” Meg offered.

Dean stared at her.

“Kidding! We wouldn’t want to upset the poor guy.”

Dean and Meg approached Y/n and Cass- Emanuel, standing outside the impala.

“Her face she’s-“ Emanuel started.

“Meg?” Y/n stared in shock lightly.

“Y/n, it’s a pleasure.”

“You scheming bitch. I can’t help but feel a weird attraction to you.”

“It’s a mutual feeling Honey.” Meg laughed. Dean rolled his eyes.

“We come in different flavors. I’m here to help.” Meg informed Cass.

“I think we’re going to be great friends.” She smirked.

“Alright, can we just go?” Dean threw his hands in the air and Meg and Y/n laughed.

“Good to see you again Meg.”

“You too Y/n.”

The drive to the hospital was, well, uncomfortable. Dean still didn’t quite trust Meg, and Y/n while she was around Meg, but Emanuel was fully shaking. It was terrible.

“This silence is very uncomfortable is there something I should know?” Emanuel suddenly asked. So many things ran through everyone’s minds, but meg settled with,

“I don’t know. Dean?”

“No. Meg has that effect. Awkward, you know?”

“That must be difficult for you.” Emanuel met Meg’s eyes.

“Dean’s making a joke, Emanuel.”

Emanuel chuckled lightly. “Oh.”

Y/n stifled a laugh, her head falling onto Meg’s.

Baby’s engine stopped and the crew rolled out, taking in the fight before them. Demons crawled around the entrance to the hospital dressed as nurses and doctors.

“How many of those knives do you have?” Emanuel asked.

“Just the one.” Dean sighed.

“Forgive me, but how else are we going to get through there?”

“Yeah Dean, got any other ideas?” Meg smirked.

“Excuse us.” Dean flashed Cass a polite smile and led Meg and Y/n away from the angel.

“Oh for the love of God. Sam’s in there! I know you two are enjoying the trip with your old pal, you especially Y/n.” Meg snapped.

“You think it’s really what cut and dry? Really? You know what he did. And you want to tell him and just hope that he takes it in stride? He could snap. He could… disappear. Who knows?” Dean’s anger cooled as Y/n tugged lightly on his shoulder.

Castiel’s voice broke the tension. “I take it we know each other.”

Meg smirked. “Just a dollop.”

“You can tell me. I’ll be fine.” Cass reassured.

“How do you know?” Dean questioned.

“You just met yourself. We’ve known you for years.” Y/n explained.

“You’re an angel.” Meg cut in.

Dean and y/n stopped, staring at Meg.

“I-I’m sorry? is that a flirtation?” Cass was utterly confused.

“No. It’s a species. A very powerful one.”

“She’s not lying. Okay? That’s why you heal people. You don’t eat.” Dean explained.

“I’m sure there’s more, we just don’t know.” Y/n gave Cass a reassuring smile.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” Castiel asked, sounding almost offended. “Being an angel- it sounds pleasant.”

“It’s not. Trust me. It’s bloody.” Dean explained.

“It’s corrupt. It’s not pleasant.” Y/n finished.

“They would know. You all used to fight together. Bestest friends actually. And a little more with Y/n here.” Meg smirked.

“More? Like, love, more? Am I Cass?” Cass cocked his head slightly.

“Yeah. We had been together for years. Around three years I believe.” Y/n gave him an awkward smile and leaned back into Dean.

“I had no idea. I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.” Y/n’s breath hitched. She knew this was coming, but it still hurt more than she could imagine. Dean kissed the top of her head.

“Look. You got the juice. You can smite every demon in that lot.” Meg explained.

Cass turned to face the lot. “But I don’t remember how.”

“It’s in there.” Y/n said, reaching up and patting his chest.

“I’m sure it’s just like riding a bike.” Dean commented.

Cass turned toward Dean. “I don’t know how to do that, either.”

Dean turned his head and blinked dramatically and Y/n stifled a laugh. He turned to face Cass again and gave him a look. “Alright I’ll try.” He said before venturing down the hill.

“This ain’t gonna go well.” Dean sighed.

“I don’t know. I believe in the little tree topper.” Meg smiled.

Cass walked up to the guards, nervous as all hell. “Hey I know you. You’re dead!” The demon told him.

“Yes I’ve heard.” Cass replied, placing both his hands on the demon’s chest before reaching one up and smiting him. The memories came rushing back.

He stomped up to the two others and did the same, more flashes of the prior years. He remembered the god, the deals with Crowley, sam, his relationship with Y/n, everything.

“That’s my boy.” Meg smirked.

“Cool it sister. I’m still a little pissed at you for making out with him.” Y/n smiled.

“Oh please you weren’t even together.”

“Still.” She laughed. Dean rolled his eyes.

The last remaining demon tried to run, but Cass was quicker.

The three approached Cass, who seemed to have relived every moment of his past. He looked, ruffled, to say the least.

“That was beautiful, Clarence.” Meg smirked.

“Cass?” Dean asked.

“I remember you. I remember everything.” Cass seemed a little more sullen than he usually was. His attention turned toward Y/n and she could barely look him in the eye.

“I’m so sorry.” Castiel met her gaze. “I never intended to hurt you.”

Something about the odd tone Cass had taken with his ‘sister’ rubbed Dean the wrong way. He had seen too much of her pain caused by him just to be swept off her feet with one feeble apology. “Of course you didn’t! No one does! But a simple “I’m sorry” isn’t going to cut it! You weren’t around to feel the pain radiating off of her! She was in shambles because of you! She deserves so much more than that!” Castiel became dead silent. Along with the rest of the group.

“Dean- it’s okay. I’m alright. Just happy to have him back.” Y/n tugged on his shoulder, pulling him down into her embrace. “It’s alright.”

He closed his eyes, breathing in the peach shampoo, calming the rage swimming in his body. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to flip out.”

“It’s okay, Dean. You were just protecting me. Thank you.” She smiled, kissing the top of his head.

“What I did. What I became. Why didn’t you tell me?” Cass speaking again pulled Dean from his state of comfort.

“Because Sam’s dying in there!”

“Because of me. Everything. All these people. I shouldn’t be here.” Cass finished, marching away from the three of them.

“Cass. Cass!” Y/n shouted after him. “You two stay here.” She turned to Dean and Meg before following the angel. “Cass!”

Y/n followed him up the hill, lecturing him as they went. “If you remember, then you know you did the best you could at the time.”

“Don’t defend me. I hurt you. Do you have any idea the death toll in heaven? On earth?” Nothing seemed to slow him down. “We didn’t part lovers, or even friends, Y/n.”

“So what?” She argued, throwing her arms up.

“I deserved to die.” Cass held her gaze.

Y/n bit the inside of her cheek. She knew he was right. He did deserve to die. But not him. Just the corrupt part. Maybe this did it. Maybe he’d be okay now.

“Now, I can’t possibly fix it… So why did I even walk out of that river?”

“Maybe to fix it.” She argued. An idea popped into her head. It may be dumb, it may not even be helpful, but it’d at least maybe bring back a part of the Cass she knew.

[hellersqueen]

i cant stop thinking about how s8 did sam so dirty, and by extension s9 as well. 

lets think for a bit about how much better it would’ve been to start s8 directly after the ending of s7. lets focus on sam and the fact that for the first time in so long he is completely alone. bobby is dead, kevin and meg have been captured, dean and cas both just disappeared and are probably dead as well

like imagine how we couldve been feeling for sam. sam who doesnt know who to call, sam who doesnt know what to do, sam going to motels and trying to reach some hunter contacts but unable to get to anyone (even garth cause lets just assume dean had his number but not sam okay lets assume garth is still building his contact list and no other hunters know his number yet idk) 

imagine sam trying to repair the impala that is still running but is also real damaged and he’s having so much trouble cause he’s alone and he was never the mechanic one in the family and maybe he should try to get the car to a garage but also the car is so recognizable better stay low, so we see him finally have an actual break down in the car and he’s driving and crying at the same time and then 

he hits a dog. and the dog looks like it might die. and obviously he’s freaking out and everything is going wrong and he gets the dog to the animal clinic immediately and we see him enter in a state of panic and his eyes are red and he lost everyone and he might have just killed a dog and now he’s crying again

just how much more could we have been able to empathize with him. i didnt like amelia that much but lets say this meeting still happens and amelia is actually fucking nice to him because obviously his life sucks and when he eventually tells her he lost everyone she can actually understand him because she lost her husband. 

lets say the episode goes through the scenes like that but we get to see sam reach a point where he feels better and he is starting to help around at the motel he stays in and he meets amelia again the same way except now he’s trying to hope for some stability and a normal life cause he finally accepts that there is nothing else for him to do but move on, he can’t keep going like this. and maybe garth calls because he can’t get to dean’s phone and then sam can be like “look garth, dean is probably dead and kevin the prophet was captured by crowley and i cant deal with any of this” and so we have him basically confirming he’s taking a break from hunting and trying to actually build his life literally from the ground up. 

and then we see months pass like a cheesy twilight montage of the seasons idek and sam actually has a real job and he still has the dog and amelia (who was nice to him!!!!) is now his girlfriend and he’s preparing to go to dinner with her and her dad (who was nice enough to help with getting the impala into a better shape) and then his phone rings and it’s an unknown number so he answers and the voice says “hey sammy” 

and then we’re back on track with episode 1 except we have no purgatory flashbacks YET and dean got out and we dont know how and cas is dead according to dean and we dont know how it happened either and when dean is feeling angry at sam for not looking for him or kevin then we can actually FEEL for sam because we were there!!! we saw him being completely alone and lose hope!!! we see how much it costs him to go back to the life he left when he really thought it was over and how weird this is for him because we know how much effort it took him to get there!!!! 

and the fact that all season he’s trying to redeem himself because he feels like he failed dean and kevin and cas, he’s ready to die at the end of the trials to put a real end to it because he feels responsible like it wouldve had much more impact on me if i had seen him react to dean’s supposed death and him being alone like at all! instead of the small flashbacks that are more there to flesh out a stupid romance and him TELLING us.

[cannot-decide-on-a-fandom]

I understand that it’s currently (well, it has been for a while, but still) fun and cool to make fun of Supernatural and treat it as if it was always just a stupid, mediocre at best show, but the reason why the entire thing going on with it sucks is that it really wasn’t.

I’m not saying it hasn’t done the things people are saying, like killing off every LGBT character and the one important disabled character over, at the time, 12 seasons (well, apart from Bobby, but he got cured, which is a whole other can of worms), had little diversity in terms of people of colour, because it has, and while I don’t think it’s inherently bad to kill minority characters, when you kill/mistreat all of them, that’s very different to “this one character died and he was gay”. I’m in no way denying the problematic writing of the show, and yeah, feel free to call the shitty writing in that aspect. Because that is shitty.

But Supernatural actually did have a lot to love. (this turned out longer than I expected, so I’ll put it under the cut, but please read it if at all interested, because I am curious what other people think. Also, this is based off of what I’ve seen, so our views of reactions might be a little different)

There are no finale spoilers in this, apart from “it was bad”

In terms of characters, I still love Cas with my entire heart, he is generally a well written and fascinating character (not flawlessly written, obviously, but still interestingly), and has a really cool opening role, season 4 still being among my favourites of the show. The characters were incredibly flawed which is actually a really cool thing to see because perfect characters take me out of the story, Sam and Dean were generally good protagonists to follow, I love Crowley and Jack, 2 of the other characters who were at some point listed as lead cast members, I didn’t even have the hate regarding Bela’s character or Ruby’s, there are some really interesting side and recurring characters too (Charlie, Kevin, Jo, Ellen, Bobby-all dead admittedly, which is definitely the frustrating and irritating thing), and they’re likable while still feeling relatively grounded, a surprise in a show about the supernatural.

As for the plot, I’m not gonna act like there were not bad storylines or badly executed ones. I don’t hate season 7 as much as others do, season 8 is my personal least favourite, but that entire season felt like filler for most of it, and to be honest I barely recall any episodes from s7. Plus the villains were probably the weakest (not strength wise, but writing wise) of the entire run. But every season up to season 5 had so much to care about and love, and while for me seasons 6-8 were not great, seasons 9-11 are all some of my most loved hours of TV (which I know is controversial, as people are so quick to say everything went bad after season 5, but I disagree with that too). Yes, the stakes may have escalated way too far and saying stuff like “ooh, God’s sister is the enemy” can seem ridiculous, I never once felt that they lacked heart and lacked a genuine desire to create. It really felt to me as if the people working on the show really did care and wanted to create and tell their stories.

The one off, meta, and special episodes are really fun and Supernatural has kind of become known for them. Things like Changing Channels, The French Mistake, Baby, Stuck in the Middle (With You) are all interesting concepts to apply to the show and whether you like all of them or not I think being able to have some unique or cool things up their sleeves even after a decade deserves props for at least trying (also, writing this now, I have a strong temptation to rewatch 12x12)

And one thing that I still genuinely commend Supernatural for (again, not that they did it perfectly, but I didn’t sense any malice from it) is that the show has encouraged its fans to explore what they want in their own writing and supported them in that. Some people may hate the meta stories, and that’s perfectly fine. But episodes like Fan Fiction were used as a thank you and an ode to the fans, not as a way to mock their interpretations. Dean explicitly says that his interpretation of the stories is not any less valuable than anybody else’s. The Real Ghostbusters did have Sam and Dean shocked at there being a Supernatural convention, but it was because anyone would be uncomfortable if their lives had cons around them, it wasn’t treated as if it was just wrong to be interested and love stories. I understand the issues with Becky’s character and yes, she was not a great example of a fan and I wish it wasn’t done in that way (especially one particular episode, which the show, ever so slightly to their credit, addressed in season 15), but I think that for the most part, the cast and crew recognise how much interpreting the story in your own way matters.

Supernatural wasn’t a shitty TV show that never deserved the success it had, it’s a show that was full of lovable characters, interesting concepts, some actually really good lines (even though it became most known for the memey, jokey lines like “I lost my shoe” I will die on the hill that there were so many thoughtful, deep, interesting lines of dialogue in the show. I am tempted to rewatch the show and make a list honestly because a lot of them I recall really stuck with me for a while and there were actual lessons, believe it or not, in them), actors doing their absolute best and mostly succeeding, a show that tried to do things outwith or a twist on their base genre, and over all a show with a lot of good in it.

The reason the way the season went is so frustrating is specifically because it wasn’t as bad as people like to claim. If it was always bad, yeah, people might be disappointed, but it wouldn’t be as big of a deal if it always sucked. It’s upsetting because throughout most of its run, Supernatural has shown that it is capable of creating interesting, enjoyable, emotional stories, and it’s show it can have interest, enjoyable, and emotional finales.

Of course it really fucked up with its representation throughout the whole show, nobody is denying that, and good. #TheySilencedYou/Us is important. It should exist, because it’s ridiculous how some of their characters were treated. They literally brought Eileen back for 30 seconds one time specifically to kill her, and that really annoyed me, among many other instances. But Supernatural did have a lot to love and a lot to care about, which is exactly why it pisses me, even as someone who hasn’t watched the show in years until this year, off that they threw away 15 years of character arcs, story writing, and 15 years of the positive things the show gave us to create a finale where it’s clear they did not give a crap as to what the fans or even their own cast members would be happy with.

So no, I don’t think Supernatural is a crappy show with bad writing that did not deserve to survive as long as it did. I think Supernatural had heart and love and passion put into it and through 15 years some stories were halfbaked and haphazard but it wasn’t just a bad program. Which is why what happened to it can fuck off, and why I feel bad for the fans, and also cast members who are dealing with a) letting go of their characters in a way that they’re unhappy with (eg-Jensen) and b) dealing with the backlash directed at them when they really aren’t the ones who should be dealing with the problems, because the writers should have known better (Misha)

(One last thing, I’m aware most fans aren’t cruel to the cast, this is a vocal minority, it doesn’t mean I don’t still feel bad for them)

[mittensmorgul]

I know this is a weird question, but with his waning powers, how do you think Cas got out of hell?

Hellevator?

I have a companion question for you. When Cas shoved Belphegor through the rift, of everywhere they could’ve potentially landed in Hell (we know it’s a huge place that holds billions of souls and demons, and we’ve seen a number of different regions of it over the years), how did they land right exactly where they needed to be?

They landed just a few steps away from the vault containing the horn they were looking for. At this point, I’d like to introduce you to some of my other anons who’ve been sitting in my inbox waiting for replies for a while...

[Contents of anon message: hold on how did cas get out of that pit. did he wall up the side like a mountain climber. did he bring bungee cords and slingshot himself out??? im confused]

and these two that I think go together (apologies if I’m mistaken, but they seem a continuation of one another, and I wanna address both of them here anyway):

[contents of two anon messages: Hi Mittens! Quick question. If the Lilith’s horn thing was capable of sucking up souls and demons, why didn’t Cas use it in season 6 for his whole god plan? Crowley had to know about it, right? (He was Lilith’s lover, wasn’t he? If Bel knew about, Crowley had to too) Idk... Retcon makes me dizzy. what was the point of looking for Purgatory if there was a simpler solution that Crowley could have very easily accessed?

For that matter, why didn’t Lucifer use the horn to suck up all the souls to defeat Amara? Would that have been a possibility?]

This... is gonna get long here... There’s actually two ways to approach all these questions, which I think all have the exact same very simple answer. But first, I need to lay out why these questions are all so interesting in the first place, and demonstrate that attempting to give separate answers to each of them using canon to justify all the answers is an exercise in futility.

Let’s begin with the first two questions, which are functionally identical. How did Cas get out of Hell so quickly? And the companion question I posed above... How did he and Belphegor get IN to Hell so quickly, or at least to their specific destination. Because that was... indescribably convenient, yes?

They could’ve fallen ANYWHERE in Hell. Why would the bottom of a magical hole into Hell drop them in the exact destination they were searching for? Do portals to Hell have something to do with intent? I mean, we use the symbolic visual of “falling into a hole” for going to Hell (like Sam diving into the Cage in 5.22), but Hell is no more “underground” than Heaven is “in the sky,” you know? They’re not physical places in the human world, any more than the Alternate Universes we’ve visited over the years are. Without going into a physics lecture, I’ve been thinking of the wound in the ground in the graveyard as metaphysically the same as the Sandbox Portal to Heaven, or the glowy space vagina portal into an alternate universe. Walk up to it, walk through it, and ZAP you’re on the other side, in another dimension of reality.

They don’t step into the Heaven Sandbox and physically ride up into the sky like an elevator, you know? They step, it glows, it spits them out in Heaven, no climbing required. I think the Hell Portal/Big-ass Hole is the same sort of thing. But with the added drama of getting to watch them fall into a big-ass hole. So... we didn’t get to see it, but reversing the process, I think it would’ve just... booped Cas back out and deposited him on the grass where he’d jumped through in the first place.

More interesting to me is the fact that Belphegor presented them with this solution (bearing in mind he’d been gradually manipulating them all along into agreeing to Bigger and Bigger Spells, and each time TFW being desperate enough to agree to give his spells a try, and each time they proved moderately successful. But this was The Big One, you know? This was the one he wasn’t performing to continue earning the trust and assistance of TFW, this was the one he engineered SPECIFICALLY to enact all along-- earning Dean’s trust, getting Cas to the point where he not only could look at him, but actively work with him (even grudgingly). He NEEDED Cas in that room to unlock the box with the horn, much like Cas needed Dean to unlock the box that contained the Angel Tablet in 8.17. Much like Lucifer needed Crowley to “escape” so he could follow him to the storage locker where he’d hidden the Staff of Aaron in 11.15. Much like Zachariah plotted out everything that happened in s4 to get Sam where he was needed to release Lucifer in 4.22 (and manipulated into it so that he’d be willing to do the series of Terrible Things required of him by “prophecy.”)

Which is all a little suspicious when you start looking at past canon to explain it all, you know? All this “prophecy” and “destiny” stuff starts to look a bit contrived, right?

Belphegor and Cas somehow miraculously landed in the Dramatic Entrance Hall to the exact room they needed to find. Where a demon Bel was friends with happened to be looting the place (discovering a ring that received a weird amount of focus for something we’ve never heard of before nor the powers it holds described in any way, and yet ALSO featured in the SPPT promo video, despite being entirely irrelevant to their current situation... which is weird in itself... and something that could come up again later... or not, but it could). 

So, did Belphegor’s intent lead them to fall directly to that spot, or is something else at play here?

That brings us to the next question: Lilith’s Crook, which wasn’t a crook at all, but a Horn. First off, why was it called a “crook” when it was plainly a “horn?” A Crook is a specific tool used to catch wayward sheep around the neck like a lasso, but also can be used as a walking stick or a weapon. Wolves come after your flock, you can whallop them with your big stick.

But like all the “horns” introduced in canon, this one has... other powers. We had the Horn of Gabriel introduced as a concept in 6.06 but demonstrated in “reality” only in s9... which wasn’t a horn at all, but a spell. But it did summon angels the same way Lilith’s Crook sucked in demons and souls. Even the shape of the sigil in the spell had a “crook.” 

Bringing in the flock, as it were.

We also saw the Horn of Joshua, where the original purpose of the “weapon” was rendered irrelevant by being of interest to TFW as a “Hand of God” potentially imbued with God’s powers they hoped to use to defeat Amara back in s11. All this previous “horn fuckery” in canon has left me inherently suspicious of ANY sort of horn now. But I’ll get to that in a minute... Let’s focus on the rest of the horn-related questions first, since this one is so big that I think the only way to truly justify it is with my final answer...

The next question is, “why didn’t Cas use THIS horn back in s6?” combined with “didn’t Crowley know about this horn back then too? Why did he never mention it when he was searching for power?”

Well... even if Crowley DID know about this horn, it wouldn’t have actually done what he was trying to do back then. Crowley already HAD the throne of Hell, you know? All of that power was already his. He LOANED Cas 50,000 souls to smack down Raphael, which Cas presumably returned to Hell after that. But Crowley had been looking for ADDITIONAL power for himself. The horn... only brought in the souls of Hell-- which were already in Crowley’s possession. Hoovering up all the souls that already made up his current power base would’ve been... power cannibalism, you know? It wouldn’t have given him anything he didn’t already have. He was looking for MORE power. The horn would’ve been worse than useless to him. And he DEFINITELY wouldn’t have given it to Cas back then, because Cas would’ve used it to soak up all the power Crowley DID have and steal it for his own, you know?

So, what would the purpose of the horn have been to Lilith? I’ve been considering the possibility that it was actually an Apocalypse Failsafe, if Sam had failed to kill her to release Lucifer. I mean, as a last-ditch effort to bring about the Apocalypse, she could’ve called all the power of every soul and demon in Hell to her and theoretically have the power to smash open the cage, or otherwise bring Apocalypse-Level Drama of some sort. Evil Vengeful God Powered Demon does seem to make for a formidable foe for Michael to defeat.

Or... maybe something along those lines? But that brings us to the next question: Why wouldn’t Lucifer have used it himself to suck up all the souls to defeat Amara in s11? Or even further, why wouldn’t Lucifer have used it to suck up some souls to defeat AU Michael when we literally saw him eating other Angels for power in s13? He’d been desperate for additional power in both of those circumstances. He even spent time in s11 specifically looking for Hands of God weapons and other power enhancing weapons, and the contents of his crypts was brought to him at one point in 11.15. He was disappointed that whatever he’d been looking for was not among the meager selection of weapons from his apparently looted crypts. But if anyone HAD known of this apparently incredibly powerful weapon, why would nobody have even mentioned its existence before?

Which makes me wonder if Lucifer DID know of its existence, you know? Maintaining the belief that the horn had existed all along, locked away in a box that only angels (or someone able to read and sing Enochian) could even access, Lucifer at least could’ve had reason enough to use it if he thought it would help him replenish his own power either in s11 or in s13. Yet he never even mentioned it. Could it have been something Lilith made for herself after Lucifer had been locked away? Weird, right? WHY?!

Why ANY of this? Why even make something like this, only to have it mentioned NOW, at the very end of the line?

Because every answer I’ve attempted to give here eventually breaks down and fails to satisfy the original question, only leaving us with more questions. So I’d like to present my thesis. While the canon-related questions are a bit of personal fun for me, because I love attempting to reconcile canon like this, I think the show has already told us exactly what’s happening here. I think it’s both DEEPLY rooted in past canon, but also hanging a lampshade on a lot of specific events of past canon.

I think Chuck is basically pantsing his way through writing yet another Dramatic Cosmic Plot that TFW doesn’t even realize they’re still part of yet. And that this “weapon” was invented on the spot by Chuck to force TFW into enacting a hastily scrawled rewrite of some of his favorite scenes from his own Grand Story.  Just enough to give him time to figure out what he actually wants to DO with the story, since he’s effectively trapped himself in this iteration of it by one of his own hastily created plot devices... kinda “backfiring” on him-- The Equalizer gun.

Chuck has been repeatedly characterized as kind of a hack writer, not a Great Storyteller, you know? He’s really... not very good at this. He’s like Anne Rice after she fired her editor. He’s got no direction, no original ideas, only “cool plot twists” that entertain nobody but himself. He makes up rules on the fly to try to solve narrative problems of his own making. And he’s been doing that for years.

And he’s been getting worse at it, and more desperate about it, since Amara showed up to confront him from a perspective that began this entire “unmasking the creator for what he really is” process we’ve been seeing unfold since 11.20.

Which is closer to what I think the *actual* mytharc plot of s15 is.

Right now, TFW is caught up on the details-- these magical things they believe are manifestations of a Post-Chuck-Involvement universe. When in reality, it’s STILL Chuck interfering directly in all of their lives. I think right now Dean is the only one even remotely on the right track with that one, even if he’s emotionally reeling to the point where he doesn’t actually *know* he’s realized the extent to which Chuck has fucked with all their lives.

Sam is reeling from the things he had to do because of “prophecy,” the fact he believed he had no other choice. This was one level of remove from his resignation about needing to say yes to Lucifer in 5.22 to personally drag him into the Cage. Emotionally, I’m not sure if he sees it any differently than all the suffering his actions back then brought about. This time, it wasn’t *him* making that sacrifice, but someone he truly cared about making it for him. Sam is having to deal with this from the other side this time around. He’s not seeing the bigger picture, that Chuck was responsible for ALL of this. He’s convinced that this was the price they needed to pay in order to “fix the universe once and for all,” which... we know as viewers isn’t true at all. Chuck is still out there, and magically hooked directly into Sam via that equalizer wound. Is Sam even CAPABLE of seeing outside of his current apparent situation, or is Chuck somehow directly influencing his choices and thoughts? That remains to be seen, but it is a primary concern-- how is that wound affecting both Sam and Chuck, and what part did it have to play in Rowena’s apparent sacrifice?

(and potentially, will Sam be able to eventually wrest control of what that connection is doing once he becomes fully aware of what the consequences of that wound really are? I mean this also goes directly back to the sorts of visions he was manipulated into believing in s11, only to learn when it was too late that they were all a manipulation from Lucifer. This feels thematically similar, but potentially giving Sam power over the situation that he hasn’t realized yet...)

Cas is stuck on his own guilt, he believes now validated by Dean’s rejection of him. He’s not seeing Dean’s perspective here, that it’s not just Jack’s death or even Mary’s death that Dean is angry about. Cas had invested HIS ENTIRE SENSE OF SELF and his entire sense of family and belonging into Jack directly. Jack had been the symbol of Cas’s lifeline to the people he loves and chose to stand with and the symbol of what someday losing those people to mortality would leave Cas with... another immortal being to endure by his side for eternity. The immediacy of Cas’s anger is all tied up in that singular act of Chuck’s, in killing Jack. And seemingly not understanding that Dean is angry about... all of it. About an entire lifetime of direct manipulation and loss and tragedy.

Dean’s big fear, in pushing Cas away, was that Cas himself had been just another one of Chuck’s plot devices written specifically to force his choices or disrupt his life. Dean can’t see the forest for the trees, and he has NO IDEA (or had no idea until Cas chose to walk out of his life) that Cas has repeatedly chosen HIM, DIRECTLY, for A DECADE. Dean has no idea, because right now he’s so blinded by his own hurt, his own disillusionment, and his own anger to see Cas clearly. He trusts nothing and no one, because everyone and everything might just be one more plot device.

He’s having a hard time seeing Cas as anything other than on a par with the Equalizer gun-- hastily invented on the spot to solve a problem of Chuck’s own devising. And I think it’s gonna take a while for Dean’s mental state to settle out enough to be able to accept the truth that *we* know.

I mean, Cas has defied every supposed law of the universe, coming back to him over and over again, inexplicably, from death and the Empty and situations that never should’ve been possible to come back from. I believe he’s questioning if any of that was even real now, you know? but we’ve now got the long haul of emotional coming-to-terms, and narrative progress into Chuck’s story but also Chuck’s storytelling. I think we’re finally gonna come to understand not only his writing process, but also expose all his storytelling weaknesses and failed drafts and eternal rewrites. And his intended ending that TFW will now have to plot their own way out of.

And to me, in s15, that’s the story I’m actually interested in dissecting, because that’s the real story of Faith vs Free Will, and I think that’s what must become the final showdown of the season.

And all of these narrative WTF moments, like these questions have raised above, will go to serve as Red Herrings or Chekhov’s Guns, or both. Because Chuck’s panic writing without an editor, and his head’s so far up his own ass and is more interested in narrative vengeance on his rebellious characters that he’s losing touch with what the reality of the universe he’s created actually *is.* Or what his theoretical audience would actually want for these characters as an emotionally satisfying ending after 15 years of them becoming “real” in his story.

I think this will be the main point of 15.04 (and possibly 15.05, based on the very little I actually know about that episode yet). So as painful as it is for us right now, try not to lose sight of this larger picture. And don’t let yourself become too obsessed with Chuck’s increasingly improbable plot devices, because they’re a narrative distraction (for TFW and us-the-audience alike, like an incompetent stage magician pointing over the audience’s head and yelling OMG IS THAT BIGFOOT?! and hoping the audience will all turn around long enough to shove a rabbit in his hat...)

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

Yours, When Ready

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, voice scratchy, taking a step forward. “I’ve given you a lot of time.”

Aziraphale flinched, like he knew what was coming.

His mangled heart rattled with anxiety. “I would’ve been fine with giving you more, if we had it.” His voice weakened. “But we don’t. You know we don’t.”

Aziraphale looked at him miserably. “Whatever you’re playing at, don’t do it.”

But the words had been pushing at his lips for thousands of years, and there was no stopping them now. “I’m not playing at anything, and I think you know that. I know I’m a demon, but when have I seriously lied to you?”

He didn’t answer.

“We can quit,” he said. “We can get away from Heaven and Hell and go where they’d never find us. There are no sides in space.” His wounded heart was on the floor of the bandstand between them.

“You know God is everywhere,” he protested.

“But angels and demons aren’t.”

“You won’t tempt me away from my duty to earth,” he said haughtily.

“I’m not tempting you!” Crowley snapped, past his breaking point. “I want to go off with you.”

Aziraphale bit his lip, wincing. “No.”

“I do,” he said desperately, aware of the ticking of his watch. He sucked in a breath. “You know I do.”

Aziraphale squeezed his hands together anxiously. “Crowley,” he said, face raw with emotion. “We can’t—”

“We can,” he insisted. “If we can’t save the world, we can be together.” He was vaguely aware of his knees shaking. “I’m not lying to you. I’m—I’ve got to tell you how much I—”

“Don’t say it,” he said softly, pleading.

“But I might never be able to. Please.” Was he begging? It felt like he was begging. He couldn’t stop now. “I can’t deal with this. What if they get their war and Heaven loses? I can’t think about what Hell will do to you.”

Aziraphale looked down at the ground, eyes squeezed shut.

“And what if Heaven wins? They won’t let me seek asylum. I’d rather not die by holy water, thanks very much. If we can’t stop this, I need you to know everything.” He didn’t want to die without saying this—or worse, have Aziraphale die without knowing he was loved.

“We shouldn’t be like this,” Aziraphale lifted his face, and his eyes were wet and the color of the dark clouds above. “This isn’t permitted. You shouldn’t want to be with me.”

Crowley had nothing to lose, here on the day of Armageddon, and Aziraphale wasn’t yelling anymore, so maybe he was getting through to him? “I don’t care what I should or shouldn’t want,” he stepped closer, wishing he could reach out to him. He was scared, but found the strength to speak. “I want to be more than friends. You know, don’t you? After that performance of Hamlet, in the pub, remember?”**

Aziraphale was biting his lip and breathing heavily, shoulders noticeably moving up and down. “You were drinking. You didn’t know what you were saying.”

“I knew exactly what I was saying,” he countered, and it was now evident that Aziraphale did know since then, but was telling himself it was a slip of the tongue for centuries. That was too much to unpack right now. Crowley was starting to feel sick. “You ran. So I gave you more time. I don’t want to do this, either,” he said, because he hated doing this, pressuring Aziraphale, but they literally had a few hours left on earth.

Aziraphale’s eyes darted around like he was looking for a way to escape. “I…”

Crowley’s bleeding heart thumped hard, taking his breath away. “I’m in love with you,” he confessed, voice broken and small even to his own ears. “You must’ve known for a long time.”

Aziraphale exhaled harshly out his mouth, shaking his head more. “No, please,” his voice shook.

Crowley never felt this close to tears in front of another being before. “I am, so much. Aziraphale, please, I’ve loved you for eons,” he reached out and grasped his hand. Instantly, intense fear from Aziraphale’s essence shot through Crowley and he staggered back with a gasp.

Aziraphale was shaking his head roughly, stepping backwards, too. “Stop,” he said faintly, agony in his eyes. “I can’t give you what you want. I can’t do this , Crowley,” he lamented. His face hardened. “I won’t.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Read about what got them to this point, and what happens after, here 😊 Happy ending, I promise!

[maxineswritingcenter]

The Dark Side

@laphirablack asked: Heeey, can u do a fic with moc!dean x demon!reader, like she's trying to convince him to go dark side. Maybe some hot smutty smut smurder??

Alright, demons are a go.

-------------------------------------------------

"So you want me to seduce your pet into going to the darkside?" (Y/N), one of Crowley's most trusted spies had been asked to meet her King at a local demon bar.

"Essentially." Crowley said, drinking his fruity drink through his straw. (Y/N) sighed, looking back at the bar tender and tapping her glass signalling him to refill it.

"What's in it for me?" She asked. Crowley wasn't cheap and the rewards from his little gigs were usually pretty good.

Crowley hummed, "The usual payment?" He asked. The usual payment was usually money and a higher position on Crowley's list of friends.

"No way." She said, "Don't try to fool me. I know who this cat is. That's Dean Winchester. The Dean Winchester, who will literally murder me on sight. I'm not going in there without a greater incentive." She took a drink from her Jack and Coke.

"And what exactly would be a greater incentive." He leaned forward.

"I want the usual. And I want you to get involved." She spoke the last part quickly.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked, almost choking on his drink.

"They trust you. Sort of. You just talk to them with that sexy accent of yours and tell them that I am here to help them. Especially after that Ruby situation." She grinned, crossing her legs.

Crowley tutted, looking her up and down, "I suppose you learned something."

"Oh Fergus," she placed her hand on top of his, "I learned from the very best." She winked.

"Fine." He said and smiled tightly. She hummed, looking down at herself.

"I suppose I'll need a new wardrobe." She looked at him expectantly.

He sighed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. Handing her a few hundred dollars.

"Should be enough. All they wear is in the sporting goods department. Lots of flannel and jeans." She grinned and stood, leaning down and pressing a kiss on his cheek.

-

The Winchesters had agreed to meet Crowley in the usual place. An abandoned warehouse covered in anti angel sigils.

"Alright, what's this about?" Dean asked, he was opening and closing his hand on the arm that had the mark. The Mark always pained him and made him anxious.

"I don't know. I just got a call from Crowley saying to meet him here." Sam said, looking around.

"Hello boys." Crowley appeared behind them with another woman behind him.

"Is that your trainee or something?" Dean asked, looked around Crowley at the woman.

"Hardly." She said, stepping around him.

Crowley smiled, "Meet (Y/N). She's going to be on call for me while I'm out on business. So don't bother me unless she's dead."

Sam looked at her warily, "How do we know we can trust her?" (Y/N) hummed, stepping forward and unzipping her leather jacket. She pulled it open, revealing her bra.

Dean stared then tried very hard to avoid the merchandise. She pointed to the sigil on chest by her clavicle.

"This mark locks me to this vessel and essentially has me locked to whatever job I take. I can't leave until it's satisfied. Or else." She drew her finger across her throat to mimic a knife.

"Test it if you want." She said, zipping up her jacket.

"Okay, uh, get me a piece of cherry pie." Dean said. She snapped her fingers and disappeared. Soon after she reappeared soon after with a plate of steamy cherry pie and a fork. She held it out to him and watched him grin and take it.

"I'm satisfied." He smirked, starting to dig into it.

"Could you get the heart of a werewolf?" Sam asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

She smirked, "A challenge. I like it, Moose." She snapped her fingers and disappeared. They stood for a few minutes. Crowley looked at his watch and smiled.

She reappeared finally. Her jacket was torn and her hair was disheveled. There was blood coming from her lip. She grinned, holding up a brown paper bag. The bottom of it was soaking and dripping with blood.

"Sorry for the wait. It was not ethically harvested." She tossed it. Sam panicked and caught it. There was a wet slap as it fell into his hands. Dean looked up from his almost empty plate.

"That sucks." He laughed and kept eating.

"Well, boys, satisfied?" Crowley asked. (Y/N) smiled, blowing a piece of hair out of her face.

"Fine." Sam said, "We'll call if we need you."

Crowley snapped his fingers, the two disappeared.

Dean was scrapping cherry filling off the plate with the side of his fork. Sam stared at him, the noise of the metal against the plate echoed throughout the empty building. Dean put the fork in his mouth, looking up at Sam. He pulled the fork out of his mouth and shrugged, "What?"

---

The next few weeks were essential. Gaining the Winchester's trust wasn't easy. She went on errands and even helped kill a demon or two. Crowley said whatever was necessary.

After a hunt one night, Dean and (Y/N) went to a bar to drink to a job well done on a shifter hunt.

"Cheers." He grinned and lifted his glass.

She smiled and clinked her glass, "Cheers." They both knocked back a shot. He cleared his throat, looking at the shot glass.

"So... What's the story with the Mark?" She asked innocently.

"Crowley didn't tell you?" He said, avoiding eye contact.

"He did, but I wanted to hear it from the that pretty mouth of yours." She rolled the sleeves of her red flannel up to her elbows.

Dean hummed, "Well it's more of a pain in the ass than I thought. It's taking over my life. Some days... resisting it is harder than others. I don't know when I'll be able to stop myself."

(Y/N) shrugged, "Maybe you should give in every once in a while. Ya know, when you really need it." She motioned to the bartender.

"I was thinking the same thing." He admitted, surprising her.

"If that's what it takes, to give into the mark and kill Metatron. Then... Am I willing to take the consequences? Would I could back from it?" He looked at the new shot on the counter, "For Sam? I'd do anything to keep him safe." He took the shot.

(Y/N) began having doubts. I'm the last few weeks they had gotten so close. It almost felt like they were... Something...

She hissed in pain, grasping at her chests. The Mark on her chest burned, signalling that she was straying from her path.

Dean leaned forward, grabbing her arm, "What is it? What's wrong?"

She couldn't tell him. He would never trust her again.

"I'm straying from my assignment..." She said, looking him in the eye.

"How?" He asked, his eyes narrowing.

"For wanting to drag your pretty ass in the back and showing you a thing or two." She bit her lip. Dean smirked, none the wiser.

"I think that could be arranged." They made their way towards the back, leaving through the back entrance. He pressed her up against the brick wall, leaning down and began leaving sloppy kisses over her neck. He gripped onto her sides, keeping her against the wall. She sighed, running her fingers through his hair and tugging. Her eyes had been shut, but they fluttered open. There was a group of men standing there.

"Dean." She whispered, shoving him away slightly. Dean looked up, looking over the the men.

"Uh... Kinda busy here. You mind?" Dean asked, his hands still held her to the wall.

"Didn't know Crowley's pet was free game." The one at the front said, "Pass her over here, friend." His tone was threatening. The group began closing in. Dean glared And stepped in from of her protectively.

"I would take a step back if I were you." Dean said. The demon scoffed and punched Dean in the face, shoving him away.

"Asshole!" She punched him, but was shocked when it did nothing. The head demon pushed her back into the wall. He grabbed at her arms, and smirked. Dean looked up at them. His hold body was shaking with rage. The Mark started burning on his arm.

"Dean!" He heard her shout. Dean felt his rage burst in his chest.

(Y/N) watched as Dean roared, bringing out the demon killing knife. He just tore through each demon like they were flies. When the last one fell, he looked at her. His breath was ragged as he came down off his high. He looked around then grabbed his arm, his face contorted in pain. When it passed and he looked up at her, his eyes were widening horror. He looked around, seeing the dead bodies on the ground. He looked so scared.

-----

(Y/N) sat at the bar, nervous for the time ever in her afterlife. She had asked Crowley to meet.

"Alright, darling." He said as he arrived and sat in the stool next to hers, "You'll have to make this quick. I have to go to the hell grounds. The hell hounds have been escaping."

"Release me." She said quickly.

"Excuse me?" He asked, grabbing his drink off the counter.

"I can't do this. When you had me do this before it didn't matter what happened to them. Now it does." She said, "Crowley, he blacks out and when he comes out from under the influence, he's scared and guilty. He can't handle it."

Crowley narrowed his eyes at his most prized demon, "You actually have feelings for him, don't you?" she didn't meet his eyes. He sighed and stood, smoothing out his suit.

"Well, (Y/N). Know that this gives me no pleasure." He snapped his fingers. The Mark on her chest started to burn again. She shouted in pain, sliding down to the floor. She ripped open her flannel and watched as the mark on her chest because to to turn the skin around it black, eating away at her skin. She screamed, curling up in a ball on the floor. The pain was intense and spread throughout her body. Wet streaks began making their way from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears. She tasted her own blood. Crowley had started to walk away.

"Wait!" She called out. She screamed again, feeling the black start to invade her heart.

"Crowley! I'll do it!" She screamed. He stopped, snapping his fingers again. She gasped for breath, watching as the black faded back into the mark.

"Don't forget your place." Crowley didn't even look at her as he walked out. The other demons in the bar stared at her, then looked away when she stood. She snapped her fingers, leaving the bar behind.

---

Later, Dean and Sam had finally caught wind of Metatron. Dean would use the power or the mark and the first blade to kill him. Sam and Dean would go in alone.

Just as they were leaving, (Y/N) grabbed Dean by the jacket.

"Look, I know there's not time. But... Don't lose yourself, Dean." She ignored the burning in her chest.

"I'll be careful." Dean smiled weakly and leaned down, pressing his lips to her forehead as a sweet goodbye.

-

After Dean's death, (Y/N) went out on the run. Hiding from demon trackers and hell hounds to avoid Crowley. She had found a way around her mark. If the mark was broken, she would be free. The only issue was she had to keep breaking it. Everyday slicing through the mark with a blade forged in hell fire. Unfortunately, her running came to a halt. They caught her off guard and brought her to a tiny motel room. She was tied to a chair, but no devil's trap, nothing to keep her contained. Which only meant something worse was coming. The door opened to reveal Crowley.

"Well, don't you look comfortable?" He asked. He stood in front of her, moving her shirt collar to the side to reveal the scared mark on her skin. She looked away, not wanting to meet the face of someone she used to spend her whole existence trying to please.

"That would explain why I couldn't just snap you out of existence. Not after what you did to Dean." Her head shot up.

"What are you talking about? You're the one who-" she was about to finish but stopped. In walked the only human she had ever loved. Dean was alive. But... Something was wrong, very very wrong. He ... He was like her. A demon.

"What did you do to him?!" She shouted.

"Me?" Crowley said Innocently, "I helped resurrect him. If you had told him to give into the mark... Why... He would still be alive and not a knight of hell."

Dean looked down at her as if she were a stranger.

"Dean, I...." She started to say but her words left her when she saw the first blade in his hand.

"I thought what better way to kill two birds with one stone. With you gone, I can avoid anymore incidents. And Dean can get his revenge.

Dean grinned and looked at the first blade thoughtfully.

"Dean, please." She begged, "You never wanted this." Her heart rate soared as he got closer.

"Personally," Dean said, finally meeting her eyes. He grinned, usually s face that made her heart leap, but now it just sunk. She watched as his eyes flickered black.

"I like the the disease." He raised the blade and struck.

-------------------------------------------------

Take it how you will. I may or may not have a thing for the idea that when Dean becomes human again the pain of this will just KILL him, ya know.

I hope you liked it!

General Taglist:

@happy-little-marvel

@hobby27

@somebodyto-love

@beanie-beebo

@vicmc624

@ria132love

[luckyspike]

Adventures in America, Ch. 11 - The Ribs are Probably Symbolic, or Maybe Just Delicious

In which Adam and Lucky have a serious Discussion about The Past

it’s a lot of emotions and talking, and also a low key ode to barbecue ribs

Start with chapter 1 here

Refresh on chapter 10 here

or check out my fic tag for all kinds of stuff

---

Adam waited for the waiter to drop off two sodas and leave with their food orders before he dropped the opener. “I’m the Antichrist.”

It didn’t get the reaction he’d been afraid of. In fact, it hardly garnered any reaction at all. Lucky watched him for a long minute, then slowly reached across the table, picked up his soda, and sipped through the straw. He looked pensive. After a while, he swallowed, and said, “Go on.”

“Any questions about that?”

“Yes, but I want to hear you out first. I think …” He looked around. Leaned forward, wove his fingers through his hair, and stared fixedly at the table. “I think this is going to answer a lot of weird questions I’ve had about my life.”

Adam frowned. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?” It wasn’t a question of validation, for Adam, but for confirmation. Lucky nodded. “You don’t want me to like … prove it, or anything?”

“The haunted doll was plenty, but I mean, if you want to get us a free meal and no one has to die or anything …”

Adam shook his head firmly and said, “No, no messing around. I don’t do that. I try not to do any of it, anymore. Not unless I really have to. And … and you know, the longer I go without using the powers …”

Lucky nodded. “You don’t use it, you lose it. Heard that all my life.” He nodded to Adam. “So … explain stuff. Please.”

Adam sighed, folded his hands. “I didn’t know ‘til I was eleven. An’ then it kind of just … happened overnight. My Dog showed up - he’s a hellhound, or he used to be, I dunno if he still is - an’ I thought he was just a regular stray dog. But then I started hearing these voices, tellin’ me to change things an’ take over the world an’ I kind of … lost it? For a little while, anyway.” He stopped to gauge Lucky’s expression, but the other boy just nodded again, encouragingly, urging him on. “An’ then, uh, this is gonna sound crazy, but I guess, um. Well, me an’ my friends met the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse an’ like, defeated them or something, an’ my godfathers were there, plus some other people, Anathema and Madam Tracy and Newt and Mister Shadwell, and I thought I did it? Like told ‘em to stuff the whole Armageddon thing.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucky was wide-eyed, and he took a long sip of soda as Adam continued to talk. 

“But I didn’t.” He swallowed. “‘Cause then this angel and this demon showed up - not Aziraphale and Crowley, two other ones - to try to convince me to re-start it, but I didn’t. I told ‘em off, and they left and said they’d tell … um. You know.”

“Lucifer? And, wait … Francis and Nanny are an angel and a demon?”

“I guess,” Adam said wretchedly. He groaned. “Anyway, then he got angry and was gonna come and tell me off for not starting Armageddon, but Crowley stopped time for a minute -”

Lucky held up a hand. “Which one is Crowley? Demon or angel?”

“Your Nanny. I’m pretty sure. But definitely a demon.”

Lucky grinned. “Oh, kick ass.”

“Yeah, it was. Anyway, that gave me time to think about what to do, ‘cause at that moment I had literally all the power in the world, ‘an so we came back to the present and I told the devil to piss off because he wasn’t my dad. An’ then my dad showed up,” he finished, a little lamely. Lucky’s mouth was open.

“You told Satan to fuck off? Piss off,” he amended. “Actually those words? And you were eleven?”

“Not exactly those words.” Adam sighed. “I actually yelled ‘you’re not my dad’ at him like ten times and then he like dissolved into a cloud.” 

“Dude that’s still awesome.” Lucky sat back. “Holy shit. Fuck. I … I dunno what to say. Then what?”

“What? What do you mean, then what?” He shrugged. “I dunno? The world didn’t end?”

“I mean clearly. But like, you gave up that evil stuff and whatever, and then you just … went home? Went back to school?”

Adam considered it. He’d never really focused much on the afterwards part. “I got grounded. For being on a restricted military air base and uh, being out when I was supposed to be in bed.”

“You rebel,” said Lucky, faintly. “But you still know - Crowley? Nanny? Shit, I still call her - him, ugh, what …” He rested his forehead on his hand. “She’s still Nanny.”

“I always knew him as Crowley.” Adam shrugged. Cautiously, he took a drink, taking a minute to glance around the restaurant. Nobody seemed to be paying them any attention, and he didn’t see anyone he recognized. “Yeah, after the whole thing I found a paper with his number on it in my jacket pocket. For if I had questions, it said. So I called him up one day and I guess he had handed in his retirement papers to Hell or whatever, I never really found out, but after that we just … we started meeting like once every month to talk about stuff, and I think he wanted to keep an eye on me, but then like, him an’ Aziraphale - I’m 99% sure that’s Brother Francis - just sort of kept hanging around even when I didn’t have that many questions left an’, you know how it is.” He shrugged again. “I dunno. They’re cool. An’ I learned at church that back in the day your godparents were supposed to be the ones to teach you about religion so I figured godfathers worked as well as any name for them.”

“I’d say so, yeah.” Lucky blinked. “Wow. Okay. That explains … like in some ways that explains nothing, but then in other ways that explains literally everything, so I don’t know how to take it.”

Adam sipped his own soda. “Well, you haven’t called the cops to have me committed to a mental hospital yet, so I’d say you’re doing better than I expected.” That got a laugh. “Right, so that’s me. Tell me your side. Because uh, I think that’s gonna answer a lot of questions for me, too.”

Lucky shrugged. “It’s not as dramatic. But basically, growing up until I was seven I always had Brother Francis and Nanny. And they were always like ‘do good unconditionally’ - that was Francis - or ‘crush your enemies to bloody pulp beneath your shoes when you assume your throne’.”

“Nanny.” Adam nodded knowingly. “Which is really funny, actually, if you get to know Crowley, ‘cause - sorry, never mind. Go on.”

“Well no, you’re right, because she was mostly all talk. She was actually a super good Nanny. And, like, she was always encouraging me to get into mischief but like I think the worst thing we ever did was vandalize museum plaques and cut down literally all the hedges on the property because she said they were pathetic excuses for plants. The rest of the stuff was like, just kind of goofy pranks.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s definitely Crowley.”

“But she left! Her and Francis.” He looked sad then, and as a basket of dinner rolls arrived he seized one and started ripping it in half, scowling at it the whole time. “When I was seven. Said I was too old to have a Nanny anymore and I’d have tutors or whatever. But I thought I might still see her since she and Francis were always together, but he handed in his resignation the same day.” He sighed and jammed half of the roll into his mouth. “Pfufthed.”

“Uh …”

Lucky swallowed. “It sucked,” he clarified. “Sorry. But she did leave me her email address. So I started writing her then and I’ve pretty much written her twice a week ever since.” His eyes widened. “Wait a minute, I have her phone number! She just told me never to just call, because she doesn’t have good reception, but I can text her and if we want to talk we set up a time. She always calls on my birthday.” He held out a hand. “Lemme see your phone.” 

Adam had already seen where this was headed, and he had his phone on the table in a blink. He pulled up Crowley’s contact information, and Lucky pulled up Nanny’s. They checked the numbers once, twice, and three more times, and then Lucky swore. “It really is her!”

“And I’m sure Francis is really Aziraphale.” He crossed his arms and considered the phones. “Wonder if I can convince ‘em to video chat later. I want to ask them about the doll, anyway.”

“Oh, good idea.” He consumed the second half of the dinner roll, and went on. “Anyway, so I never actually saw them after that, just talked and wrote and stuff, but then when I was eleven, the other weird thing that happened was the whole trip to Israel.” He shook his head. “So my dad gets this memo from the White House, right, that we’re expected right away in Tel Megido, Israel, for some kind of diplomatic meeting with a field researcher. Or something. Anyway, we all three go - me and my parents, plus all the bodyguards - and we meet this professor guy there that looked super weird. And he stank. Like, literally, smelled like a dirty public toilet. But he kept asking me about the voices in my head, and the dog, and all this stuff I didn’t understand but he freaked me out so I was trying to play along. But then when I didn’t like, know the answers because I wasn’t you, I guess, he straight up bit his finger off and ran into the avocado grove and then it exploded.” He shrugged. “Honestly I thought he died.”

“He was probably a demon or something.” Adam swallowed. “Did he have a name?”

Lucky thought about it, brow furrowed and then, unexpectedly, he laughed. “Yeah, actually! He said is name was Dr. Hastur La Vista.”

“Oh God.” Adam winced. “Hastur.”

“You know him?” 

“Never met him, thank you very much, no. But Crowley’s told me about him. He’s a Duke of Hell. I think … I think you got really lucky, Lucky.”

The other boy, under his mop of dark hair and his increasingly-shaggy beard, paled. “Duke … of Hell.”

“Yeah.” 

“So what confuses me -” he stopped short, because the waiter arrived with two plates of ribs, which were each deposited in front of the boys. They said their thank yous, smiled politely, and then Lucky lunged forward, stuffing a french fry into his mouth, deadly serious. “How did they think I was you?”

Adam looked down at his food, and started pulling the ribs apart. “All I know,” he said slowly, “was there was a mistake. The only person supposed to be giving birth that night was your mum, but my mum went into labor early. So they both must have given birth at the same hospital, with the Satanic Nuns.” He leaned in, lowered his voice. “Crowley delivered me in a basket, and they were supposed to switch me with whichever baby your mom had. But with three babies I guess things got mixed up, and I ended up with my parents.”

Lucky blinked and, slowly, set down the french fry he had been holding. “Are you … are you saying my parents aren’t really my parents?” He looked lost, suddenly, eyes wide and shiny. “But … but I look so much like my mom …”

“I don’t know,” Adam replied hurriedly. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I don’t know. Everything got so mixed-up, I guess, and Crowley assumed they’d got it right and put me with your parents so when they took you home they thought …” he trailed off. Lucky wasn’t talking, wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at his food, hands limply resting on either side of the plate. “Your parents might be -”

“They’re not,” he snapped, before Adam had a chance to finish. “They might have fucked up but they wouldn’t have fucked up that bad. They would have swapped me and the baby my mom actually had.” His eyes watered. “Shit. Oh, shit.” And then he was crying, all at once, tears and snot and all. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said softly, because he was. “I wish it hadn’t happened.” He let the other boy cry, for as long as he needed. No one noticed, Adam made sure, because he felt like he owed it to the other guy to keep him from becoming a barbecue restaurant spectacle in the middle of a total breakdown. He picked at his food - suddenly, he was not very hungry at all - and waited, while around them the diners came and went, their own food got cold, and Lucky kept crying. 

He petered out eventually. “I bet your parents are my actual parents,” he said, voice shaking and hitching as he spoke. “That’s what happened. Bet you anything.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Probably.”

“What happened to my mom’s baby?”

“I don’t know. He’s … he’s okay,” Adam finished, because he knew that was true, somehow. He’d felt it in his soul back at the airfield, although he hadn’t known what it was at the time, and he felt it now, too. In a way, it was a relief to finally be able to label that feeling of ‘okay’. “I just know. I don’t know how, but I know.”

Lucky took a shaky breath. “My parents … the people that raised me … fuck, even that’s not right, that was always Nanny and Brother Francis.” He sobbed again. “God damn it. My dad - Thaddeus - always thought I was weird, my mom - Harriet - never wanted anything to do with me if I wasn’t interested in exactly what she wanted to do.” He sniffled. “This whole trip … they don’t give a shit. Oh, they acted like they were worried or whatever, but they haven’t called. Haven’t texted. I think when I’m not home they forget I exist.” He sobbed. “And you talked to your parents. They’re good parents.”

Adam didn’t deny it. He was surprised to find that he too had tears running down his cheeks. “Yeah. I’m so sorry, Lucky, I’m really sorry, but I … I don’t know what to say.” He sagged, swiped his sleeve across his face. “I can’t fix it anymore.”

Lucky bit back another sob, and took a deep breath. Swallowed. “Can I meet them?”

“Absolutely,” he replied without hesitation. “Whenever you want, any time you want. Any time.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t cry again, at least not audibly. Tears ran down his face for a little while longer. He prodded at his fries. “God, and it was Nanny’s fault … I thought she loved me.”

“I bet she does.” Adam was surprised with the conviction with which he said it. “You know if Crowley likes you. If Crowley likes you, he … like, okay, he has literally run into a burning building at least twice to save someone he likes.”

Lucky laughed wetly at that. “Doesn’t sound like she’s a very good demon.”

“No, terrible demon. That’s why he retired. Aziraphale’s kind of a shit angel too, to be honest. I think if he had his way he’d be a hermit and live in a hollowed-out mountain full of books. He retired too,” he added. And then, because he felt he had to defend Crowley a little bit, “I don’t think there was much of a choice. I don’t think any of us - definitely not you or me or our parents, or Aziraphale, and I don’t think even Crowley - had much choice.”

“He could have not dropped you off at all,” Lucky challenged. “Just taken you somewhere else and …” he swallowed.

Adam didn’t need to hear him finish the sentence. “He doesn’t kill kids,” he replied. “It’s kind of one of his things.”

“Wow, he really is a shitty demon.”

“Totally.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry, man. Maybe … I probably should have kept all that to myself, huh?”

The answer didn’t come right away. It didn’t come after a minute, after Lucky sipped his soda full of melted ice and thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “No, I’m … I’m gonna be glad you did, eventually. I kind of hate you right now, but you were a baby when everything went down initially, and you didn’t know, and then when you did know you told the actual devil to fuck off and stopped the Apocalypse, so I guess that counts for a lot.”

“All sounds pretty fair,” Adam agreed.

“I think we should find the other guy. The third baby.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do too. But he is okay.”

Lucky looked at Adam warily. “Yeah. Yeah, I … believe you. And maybe we don’t tell him. But I just want to make sure.”

“I’m in. It’s a deal.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Bet he’s in England.”

“Probably.”

“We can find him.”

“We have to.” He took a deep breath, and then, as if realizing his mostly-untouched food was still there, blinked down at it. “Ugh … I was really looking forward to those.”

“I can warm them up.”

Lucky glanced at him slightly askance. “You’re not gonna like … start breathing fire or something, are you?”

“No, I can just …” he waved a hand and made a vague noise he’d probably picked up from Crowley at some point. “I can just make them warm again. It’s just a little thing, I can still do those.”

“... Alright. But only ‘cause I’m curious.”

Adam shrugged. “Okay. There you go. Warm and fresh.” And indeed, when Lucky held his hand cautiously over the ribs, they were as warm as they’d been when they first came out of the kitchen, the red ochre-colored sauce glistening and sweet-smelling. 

“Jesus.”

“No I’m like … the exact opposite of him.” 

Lucky stared at him and then laughed again. “Yeah. Yeah, you are, dude.” He tore a rib from the rack and bit into it. “Ugh, these are good. You didn’t do that too, did you?”

“Literally just reheated them. Like an infernal microwave oven.” That did it. Oftentimes, when someone has received terrible news, and they’ve cried over it, or begun to mourn, or even just compartmentalized the whole thing away for the time being, the first even vaguely-funny thing that is said afterwards is like a piece of flotsam big enough to grab during a shipwreck. And like a sailor stranded in a sea of confusing history and misunderstandings, Lucky clutched onto Adam’s bad joke and started to giggle. And then to laugh, hard, leaning forward with his forehead resting on the back of his hand, his hair dropping into his barbecue-sauce-coated fingers. Adam laughed too, mostly at how hard Lucky was laughing, and before they realized it the two of them were cackling like hyenas over a plate of ribs and a newly-discovered bond that had tied them together their whole lives, whether they’d known it or not.

“God, that wasn’t even that funny.” Lucky wiped his eyes. “Oh, man. Oh … God.” He looked up, no longer laughing, but definitely curious. “You don’t think … do you think it was a coincidence, us meeting up like this?”

“It’s ineffable.”

“Definitely un-fuckable, you have that right.”

Adam laughed again, and shook his head. “No, no, ineffable. Aziraphale’s always saying that. “Oh, it’s ineffable, God’s plan. Means it can’t be discerned, known, or understood.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” 

“Don’t think about it too much,” Adam advised, with all the experience of someone who had been thinking about it off-and-on for the past seven years. “You think about it too much and you get a headache and a panic attack. My conclusion is always: I dunno, but here I am and so what am I gonna do about it?”

Lucky gnawed at another rib. “Yeah,” he said, around the bone. “Yeah, you’re right. Man, I’m sorry for falling apart like that, but it was kind of a lot.”

“Do not apologize for that.” Adam shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not. And if you want to be cross with me or upset or whatever, do it. You deserve to. It sucks, what happened.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean look at you.” His face softened a little. “Do you know who -”

“Nope.” Another firm head shake. “Here I am and so what am I gonna do about it,” he repeated like a mantra. 

“Yeah.” He stared at the rubs. “What are we gonna do about it?”

Adam sucked on one of the ribs, savored the sauce, and then shrugged. “I think step one: figure out what the doll was about.”

“Cool, yeah, agreed.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and streaked sauce across his cheek. Adam elected not to say anything. 

“Step two: uh … chase more tornadoes? I mean, it’s what we came here for, right?”

Lucky looked a little less certain about that. “Yeah. Yeah, it was but now I … I dunno. It feels weird to keep doing whatever I was doing. Like. My whole life …” He frowned. “Should my life be different?”

Adam finished the rib he was working on, partially because it was really good, but also partially because he wanted to be sure that he said the thing he wanted to say next right. “Okay.” He set the bone down, and looked at the other boy very seriously. “Don’t take this the wrong way. Because I’m not tryin’ to minimize anything we talked about here. But … this whole new information, right. Is it gonna change your day-to-day?”

Lucky bristled. “Maybe. I mean, it’s sure as fuck gonna affect my relationship with my parents.”

“Not what I meant.” Adam shook his head. “You’re right, it absolutely will. An’ that’s gonna take a lot of time, believe me. I’m still …” he sighed. “It’s still weird, even though I’ve known for a long time. It gets less weird, though.” He squared up his shoulders. “But no, what I’m talking about is, does it change the stuff you like to do? Are you gonna like the weather less, is what I’m saying,” he finished lamely, while Lucky stared at him. “‘Cause if the answer is yes, then I think your step two is gonna be different from mine. I’m gonna keep chasing tornadoes for the next three weeks.”

“I … argh.” Lucky took a bite of his rib with a little more feral energy than was strictly necessary. “This is heavy shit, man. I dunno.” He swallowed the meat. “How are you so chill about all this? Just had a ton of time to deal with it?”

“Partially.” He shrugged. “Also I’ve had like an on-call angel and demon for the past seven years who’ve always been available to talk to me during a personal crisis.” He sighed. “They’re actually super helpful to talk to when you don’t know what to do, because at this point I’m pretty sure they’ve literally seen it all.”

“You’re gonna call them tonight, right?” Lucky looked worried again, a little pale. “About the doll, at least?”

“Yeah. And, uh.” Adam thought it over. “I think you should talk to them too. If you want to. I think it’d be good.”

The answer came fast, and Adam suspected Lucky had just been waiting for the offer. “I want to. I really want to.”

“Alright. So amended plan.” He pushed one of the rib bones off to the side of the others as he spoke. “One: call Aziraphale and Crowley and figure out what the doll was about. Two: figure out what we want to do for step two.” He raised his eyebrows. “Sound better?”

“Can I add something before step one?”

“Sure.”

“Step pre-one: finish these ribs because holy shit, man.” He had another, and then said, “Life’s fucked up right now, but at least these are really good.”

--

Now with chapter 12!

[dsmadmin]

#reunion

Written by @MidnightRiderDW @King_D_Crowley and @SammyWDSM

Sammy -Hey Bro, it been a long time since I've seen you Midnight. When did my bro get so many clones? Just working out my life here in this world. What's happening with you? With the mention and appearance of @King_D_Crowley on my brother's shoulder.

Midnight - Thru that rift. More importantly, where the hell have you been?

-Midnight looks back seeing Crowley behind him. He rolls his eyes looking back at his brother and shrugs.-

He's like a bad cold, annoying and hard to get rid of.

Crowley - And still you called me to find a way to get to your Moose.

I feel so used right now. [He sighed loudly]

Sammy - [ Sam stood tall looking over at his brother and Crowley]

Just one day you were right here next to me and the next you were gone, Dean. What happened to you. I've looked for you for months. Just to find you here with no word. Me my life is just peachy Dean.

- Shaking his head at the thought of losing you for good. Stepping away from his brother when he could smell the pastries and coffee. His stomach was grumbling moving over to pick up a glass and filling it with Milk. When he turned to see a face he knows but was different from the one from In his world. -

What's there a Crowley on this world too? Does he follow you everywhere Dean, Like a little puppy dog?

Midnight - Midnight rolls his eyes looking back at Crowley.-

You say you feel so used hm? Funny cuz when I called you your ass was here in seconds.

-Running his fingers thru his hair Dean shakes his head. Does Sam honestly think he didn't do or wasn't still doing anything and everything in his power, and even not within his power to get him here. Now it's Dean who has a look of hurt in his eyes.-

Seriously? You're fuckin' with me right now, right? You don't think I haven't been lookin' for a way to get you here? You think I planned on coming here, leaving you behind? I called this ass for help, that should tell you how damn desperate I've been. I was driving, one second I'm looking out at a sunset next I'm being sucked thru this damn rift and I couldn't stop it. Oh, and FYI, you're not the only Sam Winchester in this world.

Crowley - [Winchesters drama would always be Winchesters drama. A broken record. Getting in the middle of it wouldn't do him any good but he made a mental note to remind Dean he was no ass later]

Sammy - Sam took a drink of his milk downing it in one. Listening to Dean talking. Swiping his mouth with his sleeve before talking.

“Yeah yeah, right now I don't know what to believe Because all I know you had left, I was hoping for some kind of sign and something but there was nothing. Dean his kind in Crowley took over our world, with the hunter's numbers were limited. The months had passed when I found my way to a strange lighting storm, When everyone was dead or gone Dean, I even thought you were dead Dean. It took everything of me to leave our world. To the unknowing to what or where I was going. Now I find you here with you murdering arse friend in Crowley beside you. Did you make a deal with him? “

-He watched his brother closely. Moving his eyes in the direction of Crowley. -

“I should have known you would crawl your way into being in Dean's good graces and life again. Wishful thinking Dean, there would be a world without your bromance Crowley following your ass. Just look at him always keeping an eye on you as normal. What do you mean there's are more Sams here too? what is this world, that you seem to call home. Clone’s world? “

Midnight - Jake and Cowboy who literally saved my sanity, saved me so hate me all you want but don't you dare accuse me of leaving you behind on purpose.

Crowley - [Ok he was fed up of all this]

ENOUGH BOYS!

First Dean stop calling me an ass, I’ve been kind enough to help, AGAIN, I’ve answered when you called, AGAIN.

As for you Moose, don’t ct like a child, do you think Dean wouldn’t have looked for you? Where has your brain gone? He’d blow up the moon for you and you know it.

You don’t like me, good, I don’t like you either but can you for one second just ask the right questions?

What caused that rift? Why, who and where, and who do you have to pay a visit to so it will never happen AGAIN!

Sammy - Just them with Crowley and his empty threats that Sam never took seriously at first.

Dean, I never received anything message from you. All I know you were out in baby and you never came back home, You were gone.

*He shrugs his shoulders not knowing how a better way to Answer Dean question about him leaving him behind. Without being an ass*

Sam was just going on his facts of the truth over the past year. Sam had many questions about Dean life here. Who was this Cowboy and Jake he spoke of?

*Sam stepped back and listened to Crowley putting

His two cents in. Raising an eyebrow to him*

"You are an ass, Crowley, you will never change always looking after number one. What were you hoping to get from Dean if you managed to help him? Answer me this Crowley. " He asked.

He wasn't wrong about me not likely him as he was one of my least favourite people in any world as he wanted to find a way to get rid of Crowley for good.

Sam never knew anything about this rift until he had reached it. Dean seemed to know everything as it seems to me what Dean is saying we aren't the only ones that came through this? Does this world want to keep this rift open for more people to come through Dean?

Midnight - -Midnight first turns and looks at Crowley, the Demon of Hell being the logical one and actually what he's saying, or rather ranting about is true. He rubs the back of his neck.-

Thank you Dr Lecter

-He puts his focus back on his brother.-

The call must've not gone thru, Sam I was literally driving down the street tapping my fingers to Highway to Hell, go figure, anyway within a split second Sam it just appeared. I felt it drawing me in, i grabbed my cell and called you but it sucked me in and before i could even blink i was thru it. I swear to you the second i seen it i tried to call you, Sammy. As far as the rift and Blackwater go, they have been trying to find a way to close that decades. Sam, Colt and Jake have been here for over 20 years. That's how long it's been open that we know of, it could be longer.

-Sighing Dean rubs the back of his neck.-

There is no way to close it, there is no way to turn it around. It's always being monitored in case something that shouldn't come thru comes thru but closing it just isn't possible. Now, instead of fighting, will you com'er for a second?

Sammy - -Sam stood head over his brother, watching and reading his body language listening to him talking. He listened to everything Dean was saying some of it may be right. His expression on Dean's face wasn't a lie as he knew his brother better than himself at times. When he relaxed a little knowing the elephant in the room was still here in Crowley. -

I don't know anything about this rift in our world. As you said it pulled you in Dean? The rift was on the top of the cliffs just outside of Oregan, as I looked night and day between every high and low ground looking for you. Damn Dean even in every little dive Pub and fast food place for you. Now I found you just sitting here with a whole new life.

-Sam walked past

Dean glares a look in the direction of Crowley before turning back to Dean gather his thoughts-

there are others from a different world here too? There are multi Winchester's here too. Who is this Colt? Twenty years. Are you positive there is no way back to try and save some of our worlds? I don't know if I can accept giving up. Looks right now what you are saying I don't have a choice.

Crowley - If I may darlings, let me give you my two cents on this.

[He noticed how Sam looked at him, he was more than unwelcome but he didn’t care, he wasn’t here to be loved, he was here because he was fucking Crowley]

Are you even one bit accounted with the parallel universes theory? Sam… you must know about that. Every choice yo make open a fork, you pick one road but the other one stays open and there’s a parallel universe when you’ve chose the other path. That creates a zillion of different universes where you could be someone or something else… Seem like it’s no that much of a theory for you’ve been in different universes with many other Sams and Deans making different choices.

Midnight -Dean rubs his hand down his face. He can imagine was his brother is thinking seeing him in the new life. He's now married, for all intent and purpose, to two guys, opening a brewery, working at a company called Blackwater, but what he doesn't seem to understand is the fact that he's been here for over a year.

He's settled into life but not a day or a minute in a day has he not thought of Sam, not a day he hasn't worked on trying to get him here, or reverse that rift which is completely impossible.

The eldest hunter looks over at Crowley, actually, what he says makes sense.-

First off, I haven't 'Settled' into life without you, Sam, and second, what ass here -He looks at Crowley- says has a lot of value behind it. We can fight about 5his till the day we die but the facts are this, I got sucked into that rift, I couldn't get back, I've never stopped trying to get to you, yeah I've made a life here but it's been over a year Sam, and that doesn't mean I've been happy without you here.

As far as the other...us...'es or whatever, yeah there are. We're working on figuring the reason behind this but I can assure you, we sure could use that genius brain of yours. As for Crowley, no, I'm not making any kind of deals with him, believe or not, he's actually been helpful in the task of trying to get to you.

-Dean turns to Crowley.-

And don't say anything smart assed either.

Sammy - *Sam looked over to the small demon in the room with his eyes rolled back and forth. Typically Crowley always got something to say. Two cents. Knowing this might cost Dean and himself more If I needed to listen to this I need a stronger drink than Milk. *

Where is the booze in this place Dean, I know I'm not talking for the both of us, with you having a brewery now. I haven't had a decent

drink in ages?

*Looking back at Crowley*

What is this Mr helpful information Crowley trying to give us the in and out of the universe to suck up until you get whatever it is you want. Crowley answer me this What are you after?

*Sam moved around the room trying to find some beers*

Dean and Sam haven't seen each other for over a year and the Dean standing in front of him was certainly different from the one he was with a year ago plus. Maybe this world might not be as bad after all after a few characters were dealing with, especially one in black coat standing not too far away. Sam was intrigued over this black waters, Sam never thought he or Dean would settle down but Dean has found his place here with two others and a business. Sam had a dream like a zillion years ago not being in the life. This was the life he knew and he wouldn't change to what he is.

Sam found two beers. Picking up two bottles and taking the lid off them and passing one to Dean and the other to himself. Clink his beer against Dean's bottle. *

To Living your dream, Dean. Sorry, Crowley next time I’ll get you one. When you aren't sniffing around Dean so much.

Dean, what is the gig like here with hunters like us? Are you still hunting as much as you being a business and that now? I would like to get on this rift thing. Can you pull some strings for me, like old times.

*Sam jumped up on the tabletop and sat taking a swig of his beer*

Crowley - [Every question you asked seemed to need no answers, you had always disliked him, but it was worst now. Whatever he’d say you wouldn’t listen… he had offered the best of explanation and you didn’t even listen. You didn’t want to think, you just wanted your brother back, brother who had a life now and a good one… and it was really hard for you. Dear dear Sam… whining Sam…]

Midnight- I'll call up Colt and let him know you came thru and that you want in with all this.

-Looking over at Crowley Dean sighs.-

Don't be pissed at Crowley Sam, he hasn't asked for anything in return for his help.

Crowley - [Indeed he hadn’t asked for anything in return and oddly enough didn’t intend to. He had a soft spot for Dean, he was a determined man, clever sometimes, wild pretty much all the time… well, he liked him, and without Sam around he had been pretty glad to be treated as a friend It’s not as if he had many… or at all. So yeah he hanged around more than he should, but never had he been what Sam remembered he was… oh he was a demon alright, did his demon stuff and wasn’t a boy scout… but to Dean,

he was as good a friend he could be. With you the younger Winchester back on the map he sort of feared he’d lose that]

Midnight - -Dean plops down in a chair looking between Crowley and his brother. Extremely grateful that he is here. He knows he has to figure a way to let Sam know Crowley is no longer a threat to them of any kind. Of course thinking this and proving this is two different things.-

Sam trust me when i tell you he isn't the same ass he used to be. I'm not tell you that you should or need to trust him but what i am telling you is that i do.

trust me when i tell you he isn't the same ass he used to be. I'm not tell you that you should or need to trust him but what i am telling you is that i do.

* Sam embraced his brother with a big hug before letting go*

I'm Sorry Dean for jumping down your throat over when I thought you forgot about me. Can we just move on and get back to being brothers somehow, with this new life you have here. You look happy here. like being back home. I would like that very much to get back on the road and get working on the rift thing and saving people. Our family business.

*Sam rolled his eyes at Crowley with the whiny Sam comment as he took another gulp of his beer. *

The demon wasn't doing himself any favors to get on Sam’s good side. Indeed he didn't trust Crowley as he wanted to find a way to kill him once and for all, because a lot had happened in his world after Dean fell into this world. No way Sam wasn't ever going to let it go, he was unsure if this if this was the Crowley from this world or his, but he wasn't going to let his guard down. Indeed Sam wanted his brother back as he was the only family he had not like Crowley had any family, more likes slaves.

* in the past few months Sam even came across a red-haired witch in Rowena who was Crowley's mother and she never wanted him. They were just the same always after number one. When he study and learned all about Cowley and everything he had done in the past. Looking over to Dean, he didn't say a word over the full subject of Crowley, to Dean Over the new concerns with Him and his mother. There might be a soft spot in Crowley as somehow Dean had Crowley under his little finger. *Letting out a small smirk as he pulled up a seat to sit next to Dean. *

he hasn't asked anything at all from you Dean, What’s your secret?

Midnight- To me how you got thru that rift. Maybe if we can figure out how it's working, we can figure out why it's happening. Oh, and here, they call me Midnight. Easier to keep track of all of us Dean's.

Crowley -[The brothers needed time to bond again. Dean had pleaded Crowley’s case pretty well and more than enough for now. The “talking too much, I love the sound of my own voice” demon knew when to shut up and now was the time to close his mouth. It didn’t mean he’d leave them be, he had every intention to be there, with them. He’d act like a man trying to tame a wild animal, being around, letting them come closer and closer with time. Sam was that wild animal. He could be patient from time to time. And… he had Dean on his side. That “rift situation” would have to be investigated though, it was a real problem]

Sammy - Sam took another swig of his beer. With one of his feet resting over the other knee. Scratching his knee over what Dean was saying about the full relationship with the slimy Crowley. Indeed Sam never wanted to hurt Dean but to protect him over the things he had learned over the past year. Right now he would brush over the crumbs over the idea of Crowley has now changed. He would always keep an eye on him for the sake of his brother. Turning back to look over to midnight a name that would certainly different to him as Dean was just Dean to him but with many clones of his older brother. He would try to remember that. Making a mental note of the Deans that his brother had told him already in. One called Colt, cowboy, and his brother. That's not too many to list three he thought. -

Cheers Dean would be good to get working in the family business.

-Resting his beer on his groin and he stretches out his long arms to lift the cuff on his flannel shirt. Rolling up the cuffs to under his elbow. -

For me to get here, your car had a flat tyre in oregan. When I was on a hunt for one of the horsemen. War had set our world to make the humans fight with each other when they were killing each other thinking some were demons. *Sam looked over at Crowley and then back to his brother before continuing * In the last town over. I was following in his tracks when this storm came out of nowhere with the lightning strikes were certainly unusual for sure. I don't know what it was was make me go and have a look after I managed to change the tyre of when you taught me how. After getting back on the road I follow the strikes always beginning release from one spot over the cliffs. In the wake of the storm hitting some homes and destroying buildings, I made my way up to the top of the cliffs, and there it was. It's only lighting bubbles sending small waves every minute. I took some time to leave baby as I was working Pattern of the strike when some were violent and some weren't. After I found the perfect pattern I step out of baby with my bag on my shoulder after trying to send you one last message to where I was and I am across the lightning thing. I made myself towards it and now I landed here. In this city feeling lost. To know where I was. Now everyone and everything feels normal here. With your new friends too in a Crowley too. Is there anything else changed in your life here Dean? *Crowley was very quietly as Sam rambled on* Are any of the horsemen here? I would like to try and settle a score with war someday too.

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Rough Day

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 3055

Summary: After a hard day at work, Baz comes home to one more wonderful disaster. Based on "playful kiss" request on Tumblr.

Read on AO3

AN:  Another done! This is so fluffy and cheesy I love it. Thank you to @carryonmylovelies for helping with this fic and so many others. Enjoy :D

Baz

Today has been a nightmare. My boss decided to be a total wanker and make me rewrite all my reports. I had to stay for an extra two hours. My bones ache and my brain is foggy. Being a responsible adult with a job really sucks sometimes. I told Snow to order in since I wouldn’t be home to make dinner. All I want to do is eat some disgustingly greasy take out food, then maybe that ice cream sitting in the freezer for desert. A dream come true.

I walk in through the front door of our apartment. I violently kick off my oxfords and drop my briefcase on the ground with a thud.

“I’m home!’ I announce. There’s a faint smell of tomato in the air. Snow must’ve ordered pasta or pizza. Both sound good right now.

Little feet pad down the hallway closer and closer. Tasha nearly slides into the wall with her fuzzy princess socks. She runs up to me with big happy 5 year old smile. My mood immediately improves.

“Hi Papa,” she says.

“Hello, Tasha,” I reply, ruffling her curly black hair.

She lifts up her arms. “Can I have a hug?”

My arms are tired beyond belief, but who can say no to that freckle covered face? I sigh and pick her up in a big swooshing spin. I can lift her over my head even at her age (vampire strength has it’s benefits.) She squeals and giggles gleefully, little feet kicking in delight. When I slow, she wraps her arms around my neck. I rest her on my hip and hug her fiercely.

I remember the idea of being a parent scaring me when I was younger. How could a monster like me care for a child? But when I see the way Tasha looks at me, I realise she doesn’t care what I am. All she sees is her Papa.

“How was your day, little puff?” I say.

“It was great! Ms. Taylor gave me a gold star for reading.”

“Oh that’s wonderful. Good job, sweetie. You’ve been working hard at that.”

She puts her hands on her hips and smiles smugly. (Snow says she gets the pompousness from me.) “I have. Soon I’ll be reading all your grown up books.”

I tickle her stomach, making her writhe and giggle. “I bet you will, love. You certainly did very well today. I think you deserve an extra slice of pizza.”

Her face scrunches up in childish confusion. “What pizza?”

“Well, from the sauce smell I assume your Daddy got us pizza. Hopefully it’s at least the mildly good stuff.”

“Oh, that reminds me. Daddy said you aren’t allowed in the kitchen.”

My heart stops. I stare at her very seriously. “Tasha, why am I not allowed in the kitchen?”

“Because Daddy destroyed it. But he said that I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

“Natasha Penelope Snow-Pitch, you are a rotten rat!” Snow’s loud voice carries down the hall with ease.

Tasha frowns and leans in closer to me. “What’s a rotten rat?”

“It’s nothing, sweetie. Daddy’s being silly. Now go play with your toys.”

She smiles brightly. “Okay!”

She slides down out of my embrace and is off like a little rocket. With calm but brisk pace, I walk to our kitchen. I freeze wide eyed in the doorway. Destroyed is an... apt description.

There’s about ten different pots out, all filthy with various substances. The counter is covered in dirty cooking utensils and different foods and spices. Spaghetti covered in tomato sauce clings to the wall. Baby Ebb is just playing with his blocks in the corner, blissfully unaware of the destruction around him. (He's as oblivious as his Daddy.) Snow stands in the centre of the room like the eye of a hurricane. He looks just as tired as me, tomato sauce on his face and in his hair. Crowley, I think there’s even some on his wings.

“Good evening, love,” I say as calmly as possible. “Did the Tasmanian Devil come to visit?”

Snow scowls slightly. “Our daughter is a betrayer. She gets it from your side.”

“Yes, Bunce.” I receive a steely blue glare. “But I’m very glad she did tell me. What in Merlin’s name happened here?”

He groans and rubs his forehead, getting more sauce on it. “I got your text, and decided to try to make fancy all homemade spaghetti. You know, to surprise you. But I’ve never done it before. And uh... I probably should’ve read the recipe more closely.”

“You are terrible at following instructions.”

“I know.” He sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, darling. I wanted to make you a nice meal after such a stressful day. But all I’ve done is make more stress. Ugh, I’m a disaster.”

Two long strides later, I’m standing right in front of him. With one finger, I knock up his chin so we’re eye to eye.

“Yes, you are certainly a mess, Simon Snow,” I say quietly.

He frowns (it’s scary how similar his is to Tasha’s). “Gee, thanks, I-”

“Shut up, I’m not done yet.” He closes his mouth. “You are a mess. But you’re a wonderful, kind, thoughtful mess. Who I am proud to call my husband and father to our children.”

His face turns more red than the tomato sauce. “Oh. You should’ve lead with that, you jerk.”

I chuckle and lean forward to lightly kiss him. We both smile between every press of lips. I trail my mouth over to kiss the sauce off his cheek. He laughs heartily, throwing his arms around my neck. I playfully peck every tomato splattered part of his face. It’s like we’re careless teenagers all over again. I hold his lower back and press him to me. He’s comfortably warm like always. How lucky I am to be able to know that. With one head tilt, he crushes his mouth against mine. I groan and hold him tighter. He runs a hand through my hair. My stress melts under his lips.

“Ew! Daddy and Papa are snogging!”

We both pull away and sigh. I turn to see a little girl standing in the doorway, her tongue sticking out very far.

“And where did you learn that word, Tasha?” I say flatly.

“From school.”

Snow leans in close my ear. “I think we need to have a talk with our daughter about appropriate language.”

“Agreed.” I scan the disaster zone that was once a kitchen. “There is no way we can eat in here. How about we order a pizza and camp out in front of the TV?”

“Yeah!” Tasha throws her arm up for effect.

I turn to Simon with a half smile. “Tasha seems to approve of my plan.”

Snow rolls his eyes like their two footballs in a tumble dryer. “Of course she does. She’s five. Pizza and telly are her two favourite words.”

“Well what do you think?”

“Well,” he sighs, observing his destruction, “I don’t think we have any other choice.”

“There’s the sensible man I married.” I pat his cheek.

His eyes narrow at me. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been mocking you since we were 11 years old, Snow. Keep up.”

He frowns again. But with one peck from me it turns into a soft smile. We reluctantly pull away from each other. I realise there’s a sauce stain on my shirt now.

“I think I need to go change before the rest of my clothing is desecrated.”

“And I will order the food! But...” Snow walks over to Ebb and scoops him up. “While you’re getting changed, I think someone else needs a change too.”

Snow holds our 1 year old in front of me like he’s a teddy bear. Ebb gurgles and grabs my tie, immediately sticking it in his dirty baby mouth. (Having nice clothing and young children is absolutely impossible.) I sigh and take him in my arms.

“Very well. C'mon Ebenezer, let's both get cleaned up.”

Ebb coos and keeps gumming my tie. Tasha runs over to Snow and starts tugging on his trouser leg. “Daddy, can we get a pizza with pepperoni? And sausage? And olives?”

Snow scoops her up this time, resting her on his hip. They walk off towards the undestroyed living room. “You, my darling, have the weirdest taste buds.”

I chuckle as I move in the opposite direction. Ebb has now abandoned my tie and chosen instead to gnaw on my collar. Over my years as a parent, I’ve realised many things. One being that no matter how bad your day may have been, it's impossible to stay cross when your adorable child is trying to eat your shirt. Today is no exception.

“And then,” I say, “with their magic combined, the two princes defeated the dragon, sending it back home. The great castle was saved!”

Tasha squeals and claps her hands. I sit on the edge of her bed, bouncing a giggling Ebb on one knee. She leans forward with wide eyes. “What happened to the princes after?”

I just look at Tasha's sweet innocent face for a moment. Someday, I'll tell her and Ebb the hard parts of this story. What happened to both their namesakes, why I drink “tomato juice” all the time, and why Snow has wings and a tail. But for now, they don’t need to know all that. I'll save those stories for when they can understand them better.

“Well, by working together, the princes realised they had more in common than they thought. They became friends, and eventually fell in love.”

“Like Anna and Kristoff?”

I sigh under my breath. Currently everything for Tasha is somehow related to Frozen. I slightly regret showing her that movie. “Yes. Just like Anna and Kristoff.”

“Did they live happily ever after?”

I smile at her softly. “Yes, most certainly.”

She grins. “Good. I like happy endings.”

I cup her face, running a thumb over her cheek. Damn right I got my happy ending. I’m looking at it. “Me too, sweetheart, me too.” I stand up, practically looming over her small bed. “Now, it's time for this little princess to go to bed.”

“I’m not tired,” she literally yawns. She’s adorable in her stubbornness.

“Well, you can just put your head down. You don’t have to sleep. That's up to you.”

“Okay.” She lays down, snuggling into her blue pillow.

I kneel next to Tasha, brushing some stray hairs out of her face. She’s already almost asleep. (Tiredness always wins out over stubbornness.) I kiss her forehead. “Goodnight, little puff. Love you lots.”

She smiles, humming happily under her breath. “Love you too, Papa.”

I turn off the light as I leave, sneaking one last look before I shut the door.

Ebb’s crib is in our room. Partially because our London apartment isn’t huge, and mostly because he has a habit of waking up in the middle of the night in need of feeding. I lay him down. With his own big yawn, he stretches out and falls asleep. I pray to Merlin and Morgana he’ll stay that way for at least a few hours.

As I’m reading the Times, I hear the characteristic thumping of a dragon man trudging down the hall. He arrives at our door triumphantly, hands on his hips and grin nearly splitting his face in two. There’s still spaghetti remains on his hands and face.

“It is done!” he shouts.

“Snow!” I hiss. “Erratically sleeping baby, remember?”

He looks at the crib, expression immediately falling. “Oh right. Sorry.”

I shake my head with a chuckle. “Come here, you big idiot.”

Snow crawls up onto our bed and I open my arms, wrapping them around his shoulders. He holds my torso and snuggles into the crook of my neck. His warmth makes me sigh happily under my breath.

“You know I could’ve helped with the kitchen,” I whisper.

He shakes his head, hair tickling my skin. “We always tell Tasha she has to clean up her own messes. And I think parents are supposed to practice what we preach. Besides, I wanted to impress you. The kitchen is sparkling like always.”

I look down at him with one raised eyebrow. “Snow, we have two small children. That kitchen hasn’t ‘sparkled’ in five years.”

He sighs and nods. “Okay true. But it’s mostly sparkling now.”

“Good job, darling.” I kiss his head. He holds me tighter, nuzzling against my shirt.

“So your boss was a jerk today, huh?” he mumbles into the material.

I grumble slightly. “M-hm. Selfish jackass made me rewrite four reports. The wanker doesn’t seem to understand we have lives outside of work.”

“I’m sorry, love.”

“No need to apologize. It’s not your fault I work for an asshole.”

“No.” He pulls away to look right at me. His blue eyes are round and caring, but his mouth is a determined thin line. “I mean that you had a shit day and I made it even more stressful. I’m truly sorry about that.”  He looks to the side, obviously embarrassed.

I sigh and turn his head to face me. “Simon, I meant what I said earlier. What you tried to do was lovely. You’re an incredibly thoughtful person. You just messed up a bit. We all do sometimes.” I tap our foreheads together. “You didn’t add to my stress at all, love. Seeing you and Tasha and Ebb always makes me feel better. No matter what.”

Snow smiles and closes the small distance between us. I can feel the love behind his kiss, which I gladly reciprocate. If I could stay here forever, I’d be in heaven.

He hugs me again, squeezing me tight. “How did I get someone as amazing as you?”

I shrug. “Hm. Good question. I think you seduced me with all that raucous snoring and ravenous scone eating.”

He gapes at me with his mouth hanging open. “I do not snore!”

“I’ve slept near or next to you for over two decades, Snow. You snore.”

He pouts like our daughter when she doesn’t get ice cream. “Well, your nose whistles.”

I pull him back to me. He doesn’t resist. “Then I guess we’re made for each other.”

“Duh.” He nuzzles closer. His tail wraps around my leg protectively. “Like you always say, we match.”

“That we do.”

We silently hold each other, contentment hanging in the air. He’s right, we do match. And we’ve created an amazing life together. It’s the kind of calm, domestic, easy life I never thought I’d get. Neither of us did, really. We just bask in the wonderful reality of it all.

“I should take a shower,” Snow says quietly. “I smell like oregano and spaghetti.”

“No,” I grumble. “I’m never letting you go. Till death do us part.”

“I don’t think that’s what that means.”

“Too bad. You’re never leaving this bed again.”

I roll him onto his back and use my legs to pin him down. “Hey!”

I shut him up easily with a bruising kiss. He groans and arches up towards me. I grip his shoulders tightly. Strong fingers weave into my hair. His wings stretch out beside us. My head is swimming. And... it feels wet.

I pull away and feel my hair. My fingers come back red and goopy with tomato sauce. Snow smiles sheepishly.

“Well, I told you I needed a shower.”

“That you did.” I release his torso and stand next to him with my hands on my hip “And now we both do. Your kitchen disaster is contagious.”

He stretches out with his thin arms behind his head. “You can go first, if you like.”

“I was thinking we could, save on water?” I dance two fingers up his thigh.

Snow nods vigorously. “Good plan. Gotta save the environment and all.”

My arms fall limp at my side. Sometimes I cannot believe him. Age has not improved his ability to pick up on subtlety at all. I just keep staring at him blankly until he looks over.

“What?” He says.

I raise an eyebrow. The realisation slowly dawns on him, his eyes widening and his dumb perfect mouth falling open.

“Oooh. You're trying to be sexy.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Yes, you lovable moron. Crowley you are thick sometimes.”

He kneels on the mattress and tosses his arms lazily around my neck. With one flash of that gorgeous Simon Snow patent smile, my heart stutters out of control.

“You love me,” he whispers playfully.

I sigh, running my hands up and down his stomach. “That I do. Despite your thick headedness.”

“And I love you despite your smugness. Fair is fair.”

He leans in to kiss me, but I pull back, almost making him fall over. His arms flail about wildly. Luckily those wings are good for balancing. Snow stares daggers at me.

“You’re such an arsehole,” he grumbles.

“And you married me anyways. Now,” I saunter towards the door with a swing in my hips, “I’m still a bit stressed from today. Care to fix that, Snow?”

I walk down the hall without looking back. But I don’t need to. I can hear Snow’s fast, incredibly eager feet following me.

Afterwards, we lay silently in darkness on our bed. There’s no sound except for our breathing and Ebb’s, (still sleeping, thank Merlin). Snow is on his stomach. His wings lay flat on his bare back in total relaxation. I hold his left hand, touch lingering over the gold ring on his finger. He chuckles under his breath.

“Checking to make sure it’s still there?” he mumbles.

“Nope. Just admiring it.”

“Hm, understandable. It’s very pretty. So’s your’s.”

“Of course. I picked them.”

Snow sighs and throws his arm over me, pulling us closer. I press a feather light kiss to his band, making him giggle. He takes my hand and intertwines our fingers over my stomach. He touches my wedding ring, spinning it slowly.

“I love you, Baz,” he whispers sleepily.

I squeeze his hand and play with his soft curls. “I love you too, Simon.”

He smiles as he drifts off into slumber. I can hear our son and daughter both sleeping peacefully. And I know now more than ever, no matter how tough the day to day can get, this life has all I could ever ask for.

AN: Hope y'all liked that future domestic fluff.

Sidenote: I'm starting university in less than a week, and there are three more kiss requests left. I will try to do them, but uni is going to kick my ass so they probably won't be published until Christmas break. So sorry. Life gets in the way sometimes. But I shall do my best! :D

[elizabethrobertajones]

I just want to say, and I haven't had any coffee yet, so I hope this makes sense/doesn't sound rude, but I don't *like*, at all, being someone whose opinion is somehow more important, final, or intimidating than anyone else's. My blog is literally just *my blog*, which I have been talking on for years about Supernatural and people enjoy talking back to me. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don't, sometimes I grudgingly reblog 100 pieces of meta on a subject I kinda hate or am disinterested in (like Amara after season 10 or Jack after season 12 for "disinterested" examples although I'm not gonna spill what I hate :P) because I have weird principles about at least trying to collect meta that makes sense to me or something...

But yeah, my meta is one thing, my opinions, as I said last night but I'll repeat here in another post, are entirely my own thing and your opinions are entirely your own thing, and they do NOT cancel each other out because I gob on all the time about mine on a blog which has a fair number of followers and a large collection of meta to trick people into thinking I know what I'm talking about all the time. All I've done is survive multiple mass-exoduses of fans who got fed up with the show and its ways before it ended, and left, leaving me in a weird position of being kinda prominent and well-established by sheer attrition that much smarter or more talented people up and left to greener pastures. I don't feel like any part of this process makes me somehow better and scarier than everyone else. In real life I'm an awkwardly laughing nerd who falls asleep in the corner at parties and has been keeping an intense fandom blog for like 4 years, to whatever detriment to the personality that causes in polite company. :P

Anyway I weighed in on a debate last night as I usually do when I talk about something here by explaining a huge chunk of meta for where I saw this thing coming from textually (see also: nerd), and threw in my opinion on the end, and now I have a bunch of replies where people sound like they're dying of horror to even dare disagree with me, despite me trying to cram in multiple disclaimers that I'd reached the opinion part of the discussion, that I knew people had different opinions, and this was literally the part of my discussion that was my own bias for why I want to see things go a certain way.

The textual analysis was not meant to scare anyone into thinking I can't be argued with, I just wanted to sound the whole thing out and explain in detail why this was even a thing back to the roots as far as I knew about them. As I said to the first reply that sounded like I was going to literally murder them for disagreeing, everything that anyone's disagreeing with here is the second part, my opinion on it all, which I have tried SO HARD to convey is the bit which is mine, my own, my precious. And you can't take it from me, you CAN agree with me, and I am not going to go around taking other people's preciouses when I'm already sitting in my dank cave with THIS one. All I can do to disagree is clarify to the best of my ability what I meant and where I think our opinions differ. I mean the replies on that post are now deeply upsetting to me because it sounds like people think that the louder, chattier people in this fandom have *any* special power to be agreed with other than "talked louder; inevitably someone either pays you money to shut up, or people start listening".

So okay apparently people listen to me and I have an intimidating opinion. Here's my intimidating opinion of the day: my opinion, nor anyone else's, is worth ANY more than yours, whoever you are reading this.

Meta is just a discussion of the show, and the meta I've generally written and reblogged has been textual analysis where opinion is mostly in the spec at the end, but most of the post is trying to say "what does this mean if the show put this in"... It also causes problems where people think the meta is authoritative, trying to dictate the show, whatever, by being phrased as saying what we think the show is saying usually without disclaimers about personal investment or degree of credulity we're lending it all... but there's a difference between trying to work out the message and writing down what we think it is (even when we don't like it, even when the message is something like telling us we take it too seriously :P) and having an opinion on it.

So I can think the show has put in some pretty heavy subtext that Dean and Crowley hooked up. I didn't particularly *like* it at the time, and that was my opinion, but I still reblogged bunches and bunches of meta about it (and eventually warmed up to the concept once we were out of several different danger zones that really put me off what the show's message seemed to be at first), because it was something I saw in the show and it was so obvious it was hard at times to talk about anything else. I know there are people out there who are still clinging on that it didn't happen at all and that is also an analysis and an opinion, and probably an easier one for them to deal with on the subject. There's people who grudgingly give the show that they had that subtext, let it have happened, but refuse to engage in it because they think it sucks and they don't like Crowley. That's also their right. There's people who love it to bits and immediately shipped it and it's really important to them. That's ALSO their right and still not exactly where I am with it although since I kinda got into the middle of all that by reblogging so much meta about it we seem to be on the best terms of all these different options :P There's myriad other opinions on it all, including probably that meta writers are being ridiculous for even daring to look for any kind of subtext in the first place. (A refusal to engage with the text is, ironically, also engaging with the text at least for discussion purposes, hence like, MOST fandom drama between people who just want to spread hate and think they have a definitive reading of it all >.>)

I read a lot of posts here from more than just the specific bits of opinion I agree with, and I see a lot of opinions flowing by in all different camps of the show that I think are fine that people have. And as people have got disillusioned with the show I used to agree with on every point I learned their opinion was still just their opinion and that it still didn't affect what I wanted to feel, and so I carried on mouthing off my opinion as people I once agreed with left or fell out of love with the things we used to have an equal love in. And all these opinions are based in things people read in the show and they can offer up their evidence for it, and if it's well argued, I'll read the whole thing, and even agree with every point they argue, and still walk out of there with my original opinion intact if I can be absolutely sure that I have my own footing for why I think what I think. And that's that. I read a 70k long meta about why Sam is a horrible person and I still love him and will defend him for these things, but the meta I read made some awfully good and intelligent points about the writing of the show that at the very least I will from now on take deep into my understanding of the writing in the bit it was talking about, while still not feeling like Sam as an emotional construct is something I now have to hate or that I can't find his side and feel empathetic towards it as well. (Also I am the sort of person who reads a 70k meta on why a fave is awful if it's well-argued, without raising my own blood pressure or changing my mind on the important parts, so I suppose there's that to know about me... :P)

Anyway. As usual a lot of words to say something simple. I'm not an authority. I'm glad people enjoy my meta and look to me to talk about the show in my own rambly way, but when I have an opinion on something you're allowed to disagree. I knew that debate was sensitive but I wanted to explain my own side properly because I thought that would be *more* sensitive than just saying my opinion, as if it were fact, and people are treating it like they're having to fight the system now and I am way too anarchic for that. Please don't turn me into a pillar of authority, I'm a dweeb in sheepie pyjamas. I should not be dictating people's opinion on a TV show, just offering textual arguments and my own opinions for people who are too lazy to type it out and agree with it themselves, and if they don't agree with me, to be able to make their own posts about their own opinions.

If the reason you want to disagree with me is the opinion part of my posts, then that's okay, you can do that. You can make your own posts, you can reply to my post although I'm not going to have a clue what to say. Your opinions are your opinions, and YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH OPINIONS. I am NOT going to go reply to people who have a deep investment in an opinion who are disagreeing with MY OPINION and say "You can't have that opinion, your subjective emotional stake in a thing is WRONG".

I think we have a slight misunderstanding going around between meta and opinion. Meta is analysis. Opinion is how we feel about it. Me laying out a bunch of analysis is not disagreeing or throwing a pile of quotes around to try and prove I have some higher ground on my opinion (in fact in this case I thought there was a broad agreement on the textual reading and a vast gulf on the opinion, of which I was asked mine >.>), it's an attempt to explain and lay down the facts I think are at work to inform opinions, and the narratives I see that have already been put into the show on something. My opinion is what I think should happen with that with an emotional stake of what makes me feel good or bad about it. Nothing is going to change what I feel good or bad about here except for the show doing more with it.

I felt bad about Dean and Crowley after 10x04 because Dean said he was "embarrassed". I felt good about Dean and Crowley after 10x17 where they were philosophical and friendly. I felt horrified about Dean and Crowley after 11x02 when Crowley made the "choirboy" comment that seemed to go waaay over the bounds of implying the dub con I was worried about all along. I felt conflicted about Dean and Crowley after 11x06 where Dean turned out to have kept Crowley's messages on his phone. I started to feel better after 11x22 and 23 where they had the dynamic from 10x17 which put me at ease. In 12x15 I was actively nostalgic along with Crowley because they'd moved to such a good place and the narrative showing Crowley to the door wanted to make a final comment on how this relationship had been for them. My OPINION and what made me feel good or bad kept changing. My READING that the show's subtext was telling us pretty much directly that they'd hooked up, had not changed since 10x01 and the comment about how they'd "Had a room" that I think was even in a promo before the episode, never mind once we got the actual episode and we learned about the triplets :P This is the difference between meta and opinion to me. In the early part of season 11 I was actively upset about this dynamic because I thought it had gone too far. The writing made me feel better and now it's all over I'm genuinely fond of it as the way they managed to leave off, which is an impressive feat for a ship that once made me laugh in hysterical confusion, and at another point actively squicked me out.

Anyway current canon has left me at a point on the other thing where I see a pattern that has emotionally meant pretty much the same thing to me the entire time it's been unfolding on my screen and I've been watching along with fandom and reading all the meta explaining the stuff I see on screen. I feel like there's not a great deal of wiggle room on interpretation of some instances for the basic message the show is trying to convey about where it's going or why it's doing certain things, and it's usually just the weight you give them that your opinion can affect the reading. A lot of these things are fairly black and white meaning to me because the context was so heavily laden with that overflowing Carver era symbolism that I learned to read from meta writers past (and a few thankfully still present). I'm going to assume and act like it's a prevailing opinion because when I was fandom new it was a loud and often-repeated idea and everyone I saw talking about it seemed to be excited and excitement is infectious. The excitement was the feeling, the opinion, the bias rolling off of all this. The meta underneath was what was making them excited and debating it as a concept a thousand miles an hour. My opinion that it's a good thing probably comes from this season 9 era happy acceptance of the idea, and nothing's really happened to change my opinion or make me feel differently. So the meta I call on is mostly of the era I remember it being discussed the most in the text and therefore by the fandom, and the feeling I have about it hasn't much changed. If that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about, it's because this is an extremely well-worn groove to me, always leading to the same conclusions and generally being soaked in positive feeling.

I'm sorry there are people who are upset by the concept but I'm not sorry for my opinion and feelings and I feel like this whole thing is a really weird mess where people are using my post to debate my opinion with their own opinions, and feelings will always be at cross purposes and I can't help that. I can't meta away feelings. I can't meta up new feelings. The only thing that will change my opinion is the show producing new context which makes me feel weird and uncertain about my previous opinion, which I am liable and happy to change. And we're at a really weird and upsetting for everyone cross purposes where opinions are being given the debatable value of meta and treated as if they're the main statement, the main idea, the main reason anything is happening. When a subject's debatable issue is entire in what everyone FEELS about it, everyone is always going to be upset, and someone who writes long wordy posts and then attaches an opinion at the end is going to seem, apparently, like they're some sort of undebatable pillar when in fact their opinion is meaningless to yours and they just like talking a lot about the show and explaining where their opinion even comes from in the first place.

The debatable part to me would be anywhere I mention something that happened in an episode and then explain my reading of what it meant in fairly straightforward terms of parallels and symbolism or contrasts and seeming statements on character feeling and intent. My opinion attached to the end is not something I am going to let go of, NOR do I expect YOU to let go of YOUR opinion to engage me on the subject.

And that goes for basically everything.

So I will not be replying to that post and its replies because they're all opinion based on what makes people feel good or bad, and I see it as completely futile because *ALL I CAN DO* in this case is hurt people by doubling down on my opinion of what makes me feel good and bad about that speculation.

So all I can say is that I am NOT an authority and opinions are NOT META (which is still just a reading that can be argued in different ways, but for the sake of opinion posts, the basis on where that opinion comes from and the ~authority~ you're using to feel that way, even if the authority you get that opinion from is your own interpretation), not mine, not yours. They're a discussion about how we feel about the show and carry little weight in analysis, so we need to stop arguing with each other on entirely theoretical speculative subjects where people have high emotions about it, without recognising what we are doing and how people will get hurt when posing the idea that opinions can ever be objective or a way to force people to agree with you. I'm sorry only that my disclaimers last night were not enough to make it clear I was worried about this exact thing happening, and that this lead to people expressing that I'm somehow a master opinion you can't argue with.

By all means collect up people who share an opinion and make friends and feel better about it. It's OKAY to disagree with people who you see as otherwise apparently making a lot of sense and being worth listening to. No one agrees on everything all the time and it's weird if you do. There's a couple of meta writers I agree with on just about everything except one particular topic where I was quite amused to see those two disagreeing on every point and then though I didn't reply I had my own, different and wildly conflicting, opinion, from the BOTH of them, on every single example they gave. So we'll just... not discuss those sort of things with each other I suppose :D And we get on and on every other point, it seems, continue to reblog from each other and agree loudly. And I hope people disagreeing with my opinion and each other's opinion on these things don't just cut off ties from each other despite agreeing on many other topics, because of this one thing.

TL;DR - I am not interested in starting an opinion or personality cult where I'm always right. I'm really really not interested in smacking down people's opinions who disagree with me. I'm completely chill with other people's opinions existing out there, and I really really hate that opinions upset people because they're taken as fact, and I think rather than saying opinions are inarguable, I kinda think we should just be allowed to HAVE them and go about our business. And I'm hereby releasing my opinions on everything people disagree with into the void to say they are utterly meaningless if you disagree with them, and hold absolutely no weight on what you're allowed to think or publicly express.

(PS: pls talk more all the time about the ideas you have and don't feel like there's some sort of meta authority. I am so socially anxious I used to sweat and shake and triple-read my replies to people I thought were meta authorities until I realised I was always going to admire them, but we were all basically doing the same thing, shooting the breeze about the show, and no one was more important or authoritative than the others. If there's some sort of wall between communicating because there's a perceived meta ivory tower, please know that everyone you think is at the top of the tower is someone who still sees themselves as standing in the ground floor lobby of said tower, confused about how they were even let in the door, and seeing someone else above them on the higher floors.)

[inkyanimatronic]

Crowley Stories: Puppy Love: Chapter 1

Hello everyone! How is everyone night or morning? I had the idea earlier to make separate stories not relating to “He’s a Monster...” all involving Crowley and more than likely myself because I suck at reader inserts lol. Plus he deserved to be loved by someone. 

Anyway, I don’t know what all i’ll write but they’ll probably be oneshots/twoshots/threeshots or short stories. This one will be a short story so maybe 5-6 chapters. Depending on how creative I get and what ideas I think of. 

Now onto what you’ve been waiting for: 

Summary: In this short story, Crowley and myself (Lexi) get turned into dogs after falling asleep in the bunker and waking up in a alley in a unknown, or mostly unknown, place. Due to being dogs, they can’t help but chase squirrels, bark at cats, or become afraid of storms. 

For the most part, Crowley has control over himself and can hide the fears he now has easily, allowing him to have more time stopping Lexi from killing herself by running into the streets or comforting her when she’s scared. 

On their journey to find who did this and return to their old selves, they learn to enjoy the other’s company more than they already did, start to like the attention beings dogs gives them, and even end up running into familiar people before the fun ends when they get caught and taken to the pound. 

With Crowley powerless, they are forced to sit and hope someone gets them both out of there before they get put on death row. Crowley just hopes whoever gets them out doesn’t have him neutered or they’ll have to put him down due to his aggression he already shown when they tried to split them up. 

With the boys busy dealing with Lucifer and the soon to be birth of his son, it seems they are on their own to battle their problems together. 

Holy shit that was a long ass summary huh? Lmao. Moving on to other things:

Rating: This will be a cutesy story full of fluff with swears mixed in but otherwise nothing too bad. So... it’s gonna be rated T for the swears but it won’t be a lot. 

Warnings: None. 

Characters: Mainly Crowley and Lexi (OC/myself)

I think that’s about it. Enjoy!

Crowley One-Shots & Short Stories

Puppy Love Chapter 1 -

“Finally. They’re gone.” I mutter to myself as I stand by the door to the garage and watch the boys and Mary leave to go find Castiel.

Once they’re out of sight, I shut the door and head back downstairs to where Crowley was sitting and looking pissed off.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I roll my eyes as I walk back up to him.

“What? I can’t glare at my baby-” Crowley let out a yell when I pulled the knife out of his hand.

“No. No you can’t glare at your babysitter.” I reply, setting it down on the table as he gave me a weird look. “Now why are you looking at me like that? Did you want the knife to stay in?”

“Uh no.” He blinked and shook his head. “Just wasn’t expecting you to take it out.”

“Well, the boys are gone and what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Besides, it would’ve gotten boring sitting and staying here instead of moving around the bunker and quite frankly, I need a walk.” I shrug.

“Should I get a leash?” Crowley smirked and stood up.

“Haha. You’re hilarious.” I say with a straight face.

I glance down to his hand and see that it’s still bleeding out.

“We should get that taken care of. And clean all that blood up too.” I say, still looking at it.

“Got any bandages?” Crowley asks and I nod. “Follow me.” I reply and turn to walk away.

“Well, what should we do. Go help the boys or stay here and have some fun ourselves?” Crowley asks as we walk to the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t mind having a beer and I’m sure you’ll like a whiskey, right?”

“I could go for one.” I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. ’

“Let’s get that hand taken care of first though.” I say as we reached the kitchen. “I’ll grab a first aid kit. As you can imagine, we have like 10 of them in here.”

“I wonder why…” He said sarcastically.

After about 20 minutes, I cleaned up his wound and put some bandages on it. Once that was done, we went back to the main area, cleaned up the blood, and got some whiskey and a beer.

“Lexi?” Crowley started suddenly.

“Hm?” I hummed, checking my phone for any messages since I left it there while I took care of Crowley.

“Why didn’t you just go with the boys?” He asked.

“Because they told me to stay here.” I replied.

“Still. You’re 20 years old. You could’ve just left with them.” Crowley replied, taking a sip of whiskey, watching me scroll through my phone.

“Can I admit something to you?” I turned my phone off and glanced up to him to see him staring at me, curiously.

“Anything, darling.” Crowley said. “What’s wrong? I can tell something is bothering you.”

“Well…something is bothering me.” I replied with a sigh and look away, focusing on my bottle. “Go on…” He urged.

“Yah know how you saved me from the BMOL a while back after they kidnapped me and was slowly and painfully torturing me to death instead of just terminating me quickly like they did with other American hunters?”

“Yes.” Crowley nodded, feeling a sudden anger overwhelm him. He knew how damaged and in pain I was and used his magic to fix me the best that he could so I’ll be my old self again.

“Mary was actually the one to shoot me with this special gun that weakened me severely. And this was before she was even close to being brainwashed.”

“I didn’t know mama Winchester was the one that kidnapped you.” Crowley said and I nodded.

“Yeah. Well, it happened….literally right there.” I pointed to the other side of the table we were at.

“Where were the boys?” Crowley asked.

“Out getting food.” I said, sadly and avoiding his eyes. “You know what she said to me at that very moment?”

“Hm?” Crowley hummed and I looked back to him.

“That she felt that I was only fooling the boys by making them see me as a ‘younger sister’ and was planning on backstabbing them one day. That I should be executed before I got the chance to hurt them.” I started. “Among other hurtful words that I tried to laugh off but failed…”

“….I know Ketch was probably putting things inside of her head, even if she wasn’t brainwashed yet. But it still hurt. And all because I’m friends with you and I guess in a odd way, Rowena too.” I finished with a huff.

Crowley was silent for a moment and allowed that to sink in. he felt a mixture of anger and happiness. He hated hearing that I was still hurting in a few ways and the boys didn’t even know it. But he was happy to hear that I did see him as a friend. “That’s awful.” He finally said. By that point, my head was resting on my left arm on the table and I was staring at the wall on the other side of the room. “I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.”

“To make things worse, I already had a very low self esteem and confidence. The boys actually helped me come out of my shell. But hearing how I was a lost cause and a not a hero…how I deserved to die for simply knowing that not all monsters are evil… that really fucked whatever confidence I finally had and now my self esteem has been back to being dangerously low.”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be so low. Has Mary even apologized for hurting and trying to kill you?” He asked.

“Hm hmm.“ I gave a confirmation hum. “I told her I forgave her but truth is, I didn’t. I can’t bring myself to forgive her no matter how much I want to. And I can’t find it in me to trust her either.”

“What reasons, other than her being their mother, would you have to even want to trust her? Especially since she helped kill other hunters. Yes she was brainwashed by that point but she was perfectly aware of what she was doing when she tried to have you killed.” Crowley replied.

“True…” I trailed off and lifted my head, looking to him. “Yah know, I still don’t like how hostile she was towards you when you first met before saving Cas. Thanks for that by the way.“

“You already thanked me for that. I’m surprised she didn’t start trusting me even slightly after that.“ Crowley said.

“Why would she? Especially since everyone in that barn was almost killed due to her not wanting to give up that damn thing.“

“I suppose.“ He shrugged.

“To be honest, I was hoping they’ll tell me to stay here with you rather than sitting in the back with her.” I smiled.

“I’m glad you’re here keeping me company and got my hand taken care of.” He smiled back.   I giggled happily and finished my drink. After yawning, I decided a nap sounded nice.

“Getting sleepy, darling?” Crowley asked and I nodded.

“Sort of.” I rubbed my right eye.

“Well, why won’t we move to your bedroom. After all, you didn’t want to stay in here the whole time anyway.” Crowley suggested.

“Okay.” I nodded again. “Come on.”

After getting to my bedroom, I laid down on one side and patted the other, motioning Crowley to lay down too. Once he did, I relaxed my muscles and closed my eyes.

“Crowley?” He hummed as a response. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to wake up bored and alone.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Crowley said after a few seconds. “Now go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.” He put two fingers to my forehead, effectively knocking me out.

Once I was sleeping, Crowley sighed and closed his eyes too. He didn’t need to sleep but a little rest didn’t hurt anyone.

------ Later ------

A few hours later, I woke up with a whine. I wasn’t on my bed anymore that’s for sure. If Crowley moved me as a joke, I’m going to kill him and make sure he stays dead.

“Crowley…?” I started as I opened my eyes.

Looking around, I noticed immediately that I was on the ground and in a alley. And that everything seemed bigger than usual.

“What the Hell…” I made a move to get up on my feet but stayed on all fours instead. “Huh…?” I looked down and what I saw surprised me. I could still see in color, thank Chuck for that, but when I looked down I saw brown legs and white paws with black nails. Walking a few times in a circle, I could see the rest of my small body was mostly brown with some dark brown on my back and tail and more white on my chest.

“What in the name of HELL did Crowley do to me!?” I literally growled out loud. He was asking to die.

“What are you growling and yelling for you mutt?!” I heard Crowley’s voice down the alley a ways and turned around to head that way.

“What did you do to…” I looked around but only saw a black pug, wearing a gray tie, that shakily got up to his feet. “…me…”

“What are you talking about-” The pug, with Crowley’s voice, said as he stared at me and looked me up and down. “…Lexi?”

“…Crowley?” I said back.

“Why are you a actual mutt now?” He questioned.

“Why are you a pug?” I asked and he stared at me for a moment before laughing.

“Very funny.” Crowley said.

“Dude. Look around, everything is bigger now and don’t you feel like you’re on all fours instead of two feet?” I asked, taking a few steps towards him as he took a few towards me.

I could see the smile that was on the dog’s face drop as we reached each other. Crowley looked down and behind him, realizing what I already knew and told him.

“WHY AM I A BLOODY DOG!?” He yelled towards me.

“I was hoping you’ll know.” I replied.

“Why would I turn us both into dogs and ditch us God knows where?” “I don’t know.” I titled my head. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I put you to sleep and closed my eyes to relax and wait for you to wake up.” Crowley said, confirming what I remember.

“Okay. That’s the last thing I remember.” I said. “Would Rowena do this as a sick joke and to annoy us?” I sat down as I asked that.

“I don’t know…maybe…” Crowley shook his doggie head and sat down across from me. “But I feel like this wasn’t done by a witch…”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It feels more like what a trickster or something would do. I mean, if my mother did this, she would‘ve sent us to the pound and lied about us attacking her to have us killed.” Crowley said and I thought about what he said, which was true.

If Rowena did this, she would’ve sent us straight to the pound. Or split us up and abandon us wherever. She wouldn’t keep us together like a trickster would do.

“Now that you mention it, this does seem like something a trickster would do but why us? And whose the trickster?” I asked.

“Would about that archangel?” Crowley suggested.

“Gabriel? Isn’t he dead?” I asked. “Maybe Chuck finally brought him back but now is a pretty random time to do it. Unless he is going to help the boys take care of Lucifer and his kid but why would he turn us into dogs first?”

“I don’t know…” Crowley huffed and stood up. “Come on, Lexi-pup.”

I stood up and followed him out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

“We have to find a sign or something to figure out where we’re at.” Crowley said and began walking a random direction.

“Let’s hope we find something soon.” I said as my stomach growled. “Really? You’re hungry now?” Crowley looked back to me. “Actually…”

“What?” I asked. “I can’t help that I’m starving!”

“Literally.” Crowley muttered and looked at my sides. “You’re ribs are showing slightly.”

“Same as yours.” I said, inspecting him as he inspected me. “I also just noticed I’m not too much bigger than you. You’re about the average size for a pug, other than being really malnourished that is. And I assume I’m about the size of a Pit Bull? Maybe smaller?”

“Sounds right.” Crowley nodded. “Well, let’s go look for a sign AND food cause now I’m hungry too.”  

“Why don’t you just use your demon powers?” I suggested as we began walking in a random direction.

Crowley stopped walking and tried to face palm himself.

“Stay.” He commanded to me and tried to teleport. “…They aren’t working. None of my powers are working!”

“None of them?” I pinned my ears back, unconsciously. “That’s not good! So we’re both really hungry, normal dogs?”

“It would seem so.” Crowley replied with a huff. “This is going to suck.”

“You can say that again.” I replied and started walking with him following.

“Well, we aren’t in a big city. That’s obvious.” Crowley said, looking around.

“Yah know, I feel like I’ve been here before…” I say as I begin to recognize the area.

“You probably were.” Crowley said.

“Hmmm.”

I’m actually working on a picture of the dog versions of them. It’ll be a awful pug cause I can’t draw them but oh well. I’ll probably post the picture here whenever it’s finished.

[mittensmorgul]

Survival of the Fittest rewatch airs today. I have still never forgiven Sera Gamble for putting the words in Dean's mouth that no one cares that Cas is broken. :) I don't care how frustrated Dean was, no wonder Cas doubts where he stands with the Winchesters. I always imagine Cas remembers all of the times Dean made those comments like being called junkless sissy. This is not really a serious complaint, just sharing an observation that Ritchie was right, "Words hurt, Winchester." :) :)

Ooh, if we’re bringing Richie the Incompetent Hunter from 3.04 into things, let’s remember the context in which we’re quoting, because that’s key here:

RICHIE: Oh, man. You should have seen the rack on this broad. Freakin’ tragedy when I had to gank her.DEAN: Whoa, whoa. Wait. Who killed her? If I remember, your ass was toast until I showed up.RICHIE: Oh, I forgot what a comedian this guy was.DEAN: Richie, Richie, know what? I told you then and I’ll tell you again — you’re not cut out for this job. You’re gonna get yourself killed.(RICHIE’s phone rings)RICHIE: (to caller) : Talk to me.(to DEAN): FYI, Winchester — words hurt. (to caller): Yeah? (pause) No, it’s not a good time, babe. Later.DEAN: So you find anything in this town, anyway?RICHIE: Ah, no. I got nothing. Oh, wait a minute. You mean as in demons and whatnot?DEAN: Yeah.RICHIE: No, I got nothing.

There’s the quote in context. We’ve just met Richie, completely distracted by his “sister,” who is clearly a hooker, in a town that’s supposedly overrun with demons that he was theoretically hunting. His first story up there makes us wonder if he’d really had things under control on that previous hunt, but combined with his comment about the physical distraction the succubus provided and the fact that he also has NOTHING on the demons in town but is distracted so easily with the, uh… local entertainment… and the serious way Dean delivered his line about him not being cut out for this job, AND the fact that Dean was right and he DID end up getting himself killed… well… 

There’s also the joking bantering way he delivered that line to Dean about words hurting while he was talking on the phone with yet another woman he was hooking up with… I mean… Dean wasn’t trying to be hurtful, and Richie wasn’t actually hurt by his words. He was trying to be honest. Richie didn’t take his advice, and Dean ended up having to bury him. So take the quote in context.

Just like the quote about 7.23:

CASTIEL: I can’t help. You understand? I can’t. I destroyed… everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?DEAN: No. [He gets up.] No, we can’t.SAM: Dean…DEAN: We can’t leave it. You let these friggin’ things in. So you don’t get to make a sandwich. You don’t get a damned cat. Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas. Clean up your mess!

Out of context, it sounds awful. But look back at ALL of s7 (and really most of s6 too). What’s the advice that Dean himself got from Frank, and from Bobby, and from Eliot freaking Ness, and pretty much everyone else all season long?

That his personal problems aren’t as important as getting the job done. Paste on a smile and decide to keep doing the job or just give it up. That there was no time for wallowing in his own depression:

Eliot: Boo hoo, cry me a river, ya nancy! Tell me, are all hunters as soft as you in the future?

AND AS AWFUL AS IT WAS, IT KEPT HIM GOING UNTIL THINGS STARTED TO TURN HIS WAY AGAIN.

This… wasn’t a one-off pissy comment from Dean to Cas. Because why had Dean needed to suffer through pretty much everything he did in s7 until Cas came back? Bobby laid it out in 7.02:

Bobby: Course. You just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and purgatory’s most wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but you know, yeah, I get it. You’re fine.

But what was the DIRECT CAUSE of all of this? Cas’s actions in s6. This is why he had such a hard time forgiving Cas at first (which he talked about with Emmanuel in 7.17, before he actually DID extend the olive branch and essentially INSTANTLY forgave Cas for EVERYTHING). But as long as Cas was alive, and there, they could fix things. There was still hope that everything could be made right again.

In 7.21 when Cas first woke up, Dean let himself hope (despite Meg’s warning that he wasn’t quite the same) that Cas would progressively “get better,” because no matter how bad things sometimes got, Cas was still his friend, and still someone he relied on, put his faith in, because Cas had always come back to him… I mean, in the “Playing Sorry” scene, the nature of the board game and the moves they make essentially define the dynamic Dean’s struggling with here.

Dean plays first, and starts talking with Cas, but Cas refuses to engage with his questions at all. Instead he talks about something else entirely at the same time playing the game and knocking Dean’s piece back to the start. But Dean knows that Cas has information that can help begin to put this entire mess to rights. They literally have a tablet in their hands that may hold all the answers, and Cas is ALIVE and AWAKE, and he remembers EVERYTHING… and yet he doesn’t even seem to care ABOUT DEAN AT ALL. One of the things Cas can’t engage with due to his sense of abject guilt over IS DEAN. And what he did to Dean at the end of s6 and in 7.01. In his present state, Cas can’t see any way through to redeeming himself to Dean (which was ALL he wanted in 7.01 before the Leviathans took over).

But all season long, Dean’s been fighting mostly alone (or at least that’s how it felt to him) to try and clean up this mess that he’d tried to stop Cas from making in the first place. And goddammit, take ALL of that, Dean’s frustration from s6 and his desperation and loss throughout s7, mix it in a huge pot and serve it up when he’s so close to the finish line of saving the entire planet, knowing Cas holds the final key to taking Dick down… 

And he knows that CAS knows this. Dean’s spent three episodes trying to be understanding, trying to coddle Cas along, hoping HIS Cas that he knows is still in there somewhere, the one whose dying promise in 7.01 had been to redeem himself to Dean, the one who remembered everything and saved Sam in 7.17, the one Dean told they COULD fix it all if they worked together, the one who cares about humanity so much he stood alone against Heaven to save it.

The one Hester accused DEAN of having broken in the first place in 7.21:

DEAN: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off. We’re actually trying to clean up one of your angel’s messes! You know that.CASTIEL: He’s right. An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.DEAN: Look, just give us some time, okay? We will take care of your Prophet.HESTER: Why should we give you anything… After everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! For that, you’re going to pay.HESTER walks towards DEAN.CASTIEL: Please. They’re the ones we were put here to protect.HESTER: No, Castiel.HESTER backhands CASTIEL and he falls to the ground. INAIS and the other MALE ANGEL each hold up two fingers to stop DEAN and SAM from going to CASTIEL’s aid.HESTER: No more madness! [She punches CASTIEL.] No more promises! [She punches CASTIEL again.] No more new Gods! [She punches CASTIEL repeatedly and then holds up an angel knife.]

SHE DIRECTLY BLAMES CAS’S FRIENDSHIP WITH DEAN FOR EVERYTHING. “The very touch of you corrupts.”

Meanwhile, Cas is unable to even talk about his own actions in the first person. He’s doing everything he can to distance himself from his guilt. It’s the only way he’s able to engage with everything he’s feeling guilty about. And now Dean’s just got one more item on his checklist of things to feel like shit about– ruining an angel of the Lord– and not even through his actions or words or deeds, but by the simple fact of his existence. He’s poison.

Yet… he’s still fighting. He’s still swinging, until he just can’t anymore. And some combination of desperation over all of this, after a season where he seriously contemplated just giving up so many times, where he cared so little about himself or the fight or just… anything… Cas’s current state is just the last straw.

Look at what Dean tells Kevin in 7.21 about being “chosen”:

DEAN: Oh, I don’t know, man. What can I say? You’ve been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There’s no use asking “why me?” ‘Cause the angels – they don’t care. I think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just… breaks them apart.

THAT line always breaks my heart. Because it’s ABOUT CAS. And Dean’s guilt over what’s happened to Cas. HE feels like it’s entirely his fault that Cas is broken apart now.

Cas had done all of this to protect Dean. ALL of it. Including sacrificing himself to heal Sam in 7.17, which directly resulted in his current state.

And back to 7.23, Cas drops the bombshell on them that the entire garrison of angels is dead or in hiding– including the ones who’d been guarding Kevin Tran– and then veers off topic to talk about monkeys because he doesn’t want to get involved, he doesn’t want to fight, and he certainly doesn’t want to feel his personal guilt for yet another loss (of both the angels from his garrison AND the prophet).

This is also the first time that Dean tells Cas they don’t want him to fight, they’re just worried, and they need the information he has about Kevin in order to try and save him:

CASTIEL: I don’t want to fight.DEAN: No, I’m not – [very calmly] we’re worried.CASTIEL: They took him. He’s alive. I felt such responsibility, but it’s in your hands now.DEAN: Wait. Hold on a freakin’ minute.CASTIEL: I feel much better.

It’s in your hands now. As if that just absolved him of all that responsibility.

And that’s… just not how any of this works.

Plus, after what Crowley said:

CROWLEY: Certainly. Oh, bonus. Meg, I’m gonna scoop you up, take you home, and roast you till you’re jerky. [CASTIEL starts to move towards CROWLEY.] But not… yet. Cas can have you for now. Hilariously, it seems he’d be upset at losing you. And the boys need Cas to get Dick. Don’t they, Cas?CASTIEL: Oh, I – I don’t fight anymore.CROWLEY: Come on. Given the particulars of your enemy, sadly, you’re vital.

CAS IS VITAL. They’d can’t get Dick without him. And from Cas’s reaction to Crowley’s assertion there? Cas knows it. He goes so far to avoid that truth as to make the Solidarity Sandwiches in order to dodge his responsibility AGAIN. Because again, he can’t look them in the eyes when he says it:

SAM: And Cas, why was Crowley so certain that you need to come with us?CASTIEL: Crowley’s wrong. I’ll be waiting right here. But please – accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.

When Sam and Dean show up at Sucrocorp the first time, they discover there are MULTIPLE Leviathans who ALL look like Dick. Their weapon only works once, so they can’t afford to bone the WRONG Dick, and they understand. Cas is the only one who can tell them which is the Real Dick. This is why they need Cas. And CAS KNOWS THIS. Yet he deflects AGAIN.

But WHY is he deflecting? Because just like Dean, who’s believed he was “poison,” and has been reminded of it very recently, Cas believes the same of HIMSELF. This is right in Dean’s personal wheelhouse. DEAN GETS IT. But he’s really got a limited set of tools in his personal emotional tool box for coping with that feeling he knows so well… 

This is also where they finally catch up with Bobby, and finally burn the flask keeping his ghost tethered to the planet, and Cas stands in the shadows witnessing Sam and Dean’s loss (that he also feels responsible for) of the closest thing to a father they had. He begins to realize that Dean and he are of a similar mind here…

CASTIEL: I’m not good luck, Dean.DEAN: Yeah, but you know what? Bottom of the ninth, and you’re the only guy left on the bench… Sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not. And anyway, nut up, all right? We’re all cursed. I seem like good luck to you? [CASTIEL stares at DEAN.] What?CASTIEL: Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.DEAN: Yeah, well, I’m probably gonna die tomorrow, so…CASTIEL: Well, I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.

And despite Cas still not being able to forgive HIMSELF, he sees that Dean can’t really forgive himself either… yet they’re both able to forgive each other. It’s a start.

This story isn’t about just one or the other of them. It’s about BOTH of them, feeling the same weight of guilt and failure and loss. It doesn’t work unless you see that from both sides, in context of the gravity of the entire story, and what circumstance has taken from BOTH of them.

Which is why they BOTH ended up in Purgatory.

It’s not Dean “being mean” to Cas. And that one comment that Cas completely understood in context– he KNEW he was actively dodging his responsibility. Which is why I feel really uncomfortable labeling this incarnation of Cas “crazy.” Because he’s not. He’s in abject denial, but he isn’t crazy. The moment they land in Purgatory, he makes sure Dean knows what’s happened and where they are, and then takes off running to keep the Leviathans away from Dean. Perfectly lucid, perfectly aware, and doing the only penance he has left to him– protecting Dean by sacrificing himself.

Which is honestly how we got into this whole mess in the first place. It’s not DEAN’s words that drove him to this point. It’s just what angels DO.

Remember, Cas has been a warrior of Heaven for billions of years, reprogrammed at need to follow orders. His entire existence had been nothing but THIS. His notion of “family” in Heaven was an understanding that he had a purpose and a job and a place because of what he DID, not just because of who he WAS. It’s not even something Cas could truly understand yet– what family means to humans as opposed to what it means to angels.

Cas judged his personal worth on how useful he could be, not on the fact that he was someone Dean just cared about REGARDLESS of how useful he could be to them. Sure, in this case Cas was instrumental in fixing things, but no matter how many times Dean has told him he’s family, that they work better together, Cas still doesn’t have a human frame of reference to understand what that means. He will soon enough… *waves at s9 in the distance*

And wow, okay, I just spent nearly 4 hours on this. Wow. But this is important, this is everything, because this right here is the absolute Stone Number One in the foundation of ALL of Dean and Cas’s future relationship. This guilt on BOTH sides, for very different reasons. This feeling that they’re both poison. That they corrupt everything they touch… THIS pushed BOTH of them to find forgiveness in themselves through finding forgiveness in each other. I mean… without this there would BE NO DESTIEL. I mean… that’s the big picture here.