#but his moments in bright lights dean city? fuck me up a bit not gonna lie

[grinchwrapsupreme]

Cody is the most fucked up thing on The Venture Bros like he's a guy who catches fire any time he's exposed to oxygen and it hurts the whole time and he doesn't die like what the hell

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter five

Baby rumbles against Dean’s back, purring as she idles at the roadside.

He’s been sat here, hands on the wheel in a stiff 10 and 2, languishing in indecision for a good while now. Though the windows are down and the visor out, he’s still sweating a wet spot onto the back of his henley, hair damp at the base of his skull.

He glances at the passenger seat, empty but for his phone lying face down.

The phone was something of a turn up. It had appeared at his bedside sometime during his first night in Heaven. He’d awoken to the sound of it buzzing against the tabletop, a message from Sam - You good? - flashing on the screen. He’d picked it up and fiddled with it, running his fingers over the burnished metal and smooth glass. If he’d never seen any of the crazy shit Charlie’d cobbled together, he would’ve said the thing looked Space Age - all sleek lines and sharp angles, no buttons to speak of.

As it stood, he’d shrugged and tapped on the message from Sam. He’d typed out a brief response - Peachy - and chucked it back onto the nightstand, pulling the covers over his head. He’d slept until the sun went down.

Dean winces as a bead of sweat drips into his eye and cranes his neck to wipe his face on his shoulder. He looks back at the phone and rolls his eyes.

It’s in his hand a moment later, his thumb hovering over the screen. There are no icons, no home screen, just a blank black surface. Like most things in Heaven, it seems to just... operate as expected - to do whatever it is he wants it to.

Trouble is, Dean doesn’t know what he’s expecting. And he certainly doesn’t know what he wants.

He peers through the windshield, eyes squinting against the light, and observes the sparse spring clouds drifting over the pass. If he looks hard enough, he can probably find Sam and Eileen’s place - a little white dot on the mountainside. Instead, his eyes cut to the lowest point between the peaks, though he can see neither hide nor hair of what lies beyond.

His thumb brushes against the phone’s screen, and he glances down when it illuminates.

On first glance, it looks no different from any other satellite map - a blinking blue dot with his name hovering over it, little broccoli trees and crosshatch roads. But as he looks closer, he sees movement: the trees seem to sway, the shadows shift, and there’s a dancing white speck where a bird flies figure eights.

On a whim, Dean double taps his location, zooming in tight. He sticks his other hand out the window, waving skyward. On the screen, he sees himself, flailing his arm like an idiot, crystal clear and moving precisely in time.

Dean’s eyebrows pop up, and he snorts. “We have the technology,” he mutters, pinching the screen to zoom out again. “We can make it better, stronger—”

He stops short at the sight of another little dot, this one in a soft, glowing white. It’s across the bridge on the other side of the forest, in what looks like a sprawling botanical garden.

The Library, reads the text.

Dean frowns and lowers the phone, staring blankly at the steering wheel. He’s got that feeling again, like he’s a damn open book - though he’s not sure why anyone would bother to read.

He shakes his head and huffs a dry laugh, chucking the phone onto the dash. He flicks on the radio, Zeppelin IV blaring from the speakers, and throws Baby into gear.

“Over the river and through the woods,” he murmurs, and he pulls onto the road in a cloud of gravel dust.

~*~

Though stately and finely architectured with pillars and white stone, the building that houses the Library is surprisingly small.

He’s driven past it a few times, but never gotten too close; there’s something mildly forbidding in the way it juts out of the earth, its stamped concrete walkways a jarring foil to the surrounding flora. From his perch on the front steps, it looks like any other city library - modern and well-maintained, if a bit oddly placed.

Dean presses his phone closer to his ear, eyes fixed on the tall, imposing doors at the top landing. “You sure this is a good idea?”

Charlie’s voice comes through, clear and a little echoey. “Well, it was your idea, so… No, not at all.”

Dean’s eyes roll skyward at her chipper tone, and he fiddles with the odd little trinket in his other hand. “I mean, is it gonna work,” he grunts out.

Charlie makes an offended noise, and there’s a low thud that sounds like a book snapping shut. “Of course it’s gonna work,” she says, tone sharp with a nerdy bluster that has Dean cracking a smile. “I poured my flesh and blood and a tiny bit of weapons grade plutonium into that amulet.”

Dean feels his smile slip, and he peers down at the little talisman. It’s a rusted iron triquetra with shining gemstones inlaid, the whole thing no bigger than his palm.

He’d called Charlie just as he pulled up to the garden. After a brief back-and-forth, she’d given a disgruntled “you owe me one,” and - through some sort of Heaven-magic that he doubts anyone besides Charlie could pull off - the amulet had appeared in his glovebox.

She definitely hadn’t mentioned any fucking plutonium. “Did you say—”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Winchester.”

Dean pulls the phone away from his ear and briefly presses the back of his hand into his eye socket. He nods to no one in particular, pulling his lips through his teeth. Sure, plutonium. Why not.

“Jesus,” he grumbles. “Yeah, okay.” He holds up the amulet, extending his arm as far from his body as possible; he’s pretty sure nothing can kill him now, but he’s not particularly interested in testing the theory. “So how do I use this thing?”

Charlie clears her throat. “Push on the gems - red first, blue last. Plop it on the door, and it’ll automagically—” Dean frowns, automagically? “—open. Badabing...”

“Badaboom, right.” Dean nods around a grimace and casts his eyes about the courtyard. It’s quiet and empty, the last rays of the evening sun glinting on the white stepping stones. “And if someone from the Arch sees me?”

“Well,” she begins, lofty and facetious. Dean gives a preemptive sigh. “They can’t kill you, can they. They’re angels, not juggalos with rusty barn nails.”

Forty years. He’s been dead forty years, and he still hasn’t lived down the juggalo thing. “Alright, first off,” he says, gesturing wildly with the nuclear weapon in his hand, “it was rebar. Not a nail. Rebar. And second,” he ticks two fingers up, “they were vampires,” he complains. “Big, scary vampires.”

Charlie snorts indelicately. “Yeah, well, I got gutted in a motel bathtub by a frickin’ Frankenstein. So, I win.”

“You—” Dean pauses for a moment to consider his argument. But toeing up against Charlie is a bit of a nonstarter, and, well... Frankenstein is pretty badass.

He sighs, resigned, and gives a shrugging nod. “Yeah.”

There’s a crack and hiss in the background - a beer can opening, Dean thinks - and he can hear the snarky smile in Charlie’s voice. “Tell Kevin I say hi.”

Dean blanches. “I—”

“Toodles!” Charlie says, and the line clicks dead.

Dean pulls the phone from his ear, glaring at the black screen. “Toodles,” he sneers, and slips it into his back pocket.

Dean peers around the plaza again, though there’s not a soul (he snorts) in sight. He squares his shoulders and straightens his spine, giving himself a little shake.

The steps are short and shallow; he takes them two at a time until he comes to the landing. Up close, the building looks bigger, the door a huge, imperial thing towering several feet over his head. It’s a smooth, dark wood, its wide panels inlaid.

Dean grasps at the amulet, sucking in a deep breath. “Here goes,” he murmurs.

He ghosts his fingertips over the gemstones. Red first, blue last. He pushes his forefinger against the red stone, face screwing up in a wince. It depresses and clicks into place.

After a tense moment, during which his entire body clenches like a vise, he opens his eyes. He peers down at himself, patting a hand around his chest. He’s still— well, not alive, per se, but at least he’s not a smear on the stone floor. He breathes out a relieved sigh and wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

He runs his tongue over his chapped lips and clicks in the green stone, then the blue one.

For a moment, nothing happens. He frowns down at the amulet, turning it between his hands. Then there’s a soft pop and a little sizzle, and the metal begins to glow, warming against his palm.

“Uh...” His eyes go wide as it glows brighter, nearly scalding him now. “Shit, shit—” He approaches the door in two long strides and smacks the amulet against the lacquered wood.

He draws back his hand, blowing out another sigh when the damned thing stays put. It’s glowing almost painfully bright now, the light leaving red spots on his retina. He peers around the landing, wondering belatedly if he should take cover.

There’s a soft click and a groaning creak. Dean turns toward the sound just as the amulet winks out and falls, clinking as it lands. He stoops down to pick it up; it’s cool to the touch now, and Dean shakes his head. As he slides it into his pocket, a musty draft hits his face - the scent of old paper and tanned leather tickling his nose.

The door is open.

~*~

Dean gets the sense, as he steps over the threshold, that he’s walking through several doors - all of which, he presumes, are marked ‘staff only’. Confirmation comes when he steps fully into the room - not a foyer or a lobby, but a sprawling study, densely packed with overstuffed bookshelves.

He turns around to shut the door - quite a different door than the one he opened, knotty pine and regular sized. Dean feels the weight of the amulet in his pocket and gives an involuntary shiver; this magic shit always gives him the willies.

He steps further into the study proper. There are two rows of bookshelves to his left, one directly before him, and several more a little ways down on his right. The books are all bound the same, in a deep beige leather with some sort of gold insignia etched into the spines. He doesn’t recognize the symbols, or any of the books themselves. He doubts any of them are Vonnegut.

He peeks around the nearest shelf and finds a central area with several long oak tables. He glances left, then right, then down at his feet.

It occurs to him, of a sudden, that he’s got no damn idea what he’s doing here.

“You’re late.”

Dean sucks in a sharp breath and whirls around, hands going for the gun he no longer carries.

The door he came through is gone, and the wall along with it. Instead, there’s a raised platform with short stone steps before it, and what appears to be an exact replica of the Resolute desk at center stage.

Seated behind it, slightly frazzle-haired and scribbling away, is Kevin Tran.

Dean feels his jaw go slack, and his eyes get a little misty. Kevin is in Heaven, and he’s sitting at a giant desk with a frickin’ eagle carved on the front, and he’s running what Dean imagines is the celestial Library of Congress, and Kevin is finally - finally - in Heaven.

Dean gets a sudden, painful urge to hug the kid. He takes a faltering step forward to do just that, and the amulet jostles in his pocket.

Oh, right. This is a B&E.

Dean’s arms flop down to his sides, and he feels his face warm.

He runs a hand over the back of his neck and tries for nonchalant. “Heeey, Kevin,” he says, wincing at the slight crack in his voice. “How ya doin’, bud?”

Kevin glances at the little clock on the desk, then turns back to the tome he’s scribbling in. “Your appointment was ten minutes ago.”

Dean frowns and takes a cautious step forward. “I... didn’t make an appointment.”

“I made it for you,” Kevin sniffs. He turns a page, unperturbed.

Dean frowns harder. “How’d you know I was—” He bites down on his tongue, swallowing down the stupid question with a snap of his fingers. “Right,” he nods. “Prophet.”

Kevin gives a hum of confirmation and continues his writing. Dean clenches his jaw against the sudden awkwardness; he feels out of place (which he is, it’s a frickin’ library), like an interloper (which he also is, in an almost too literal sense). He sucks his teeth and saunters over to one of the long tables, running his fingers over the polished surface.

He glances up at Kevin, still scrawling away. He looks different than Dean remembers - broader in the shoulder, stronger around the jaw. There’s a dusting of stubble across his chin and a line etched into his forehead. He’s gone a little grey at the temples.

Dean squints, perplexed. While he himself looks almost exactly as he did when he bit the bullet, nearly everyone else in Heaven looks younger than he remembers them; Charlie looks about the same as when he first met her, and his mom looks almost as she did in his childhood memories. Kevin, on the other hand, looks quite a bit older. Certainly older than he was when—

...when he died.

Dean curls his fingers into a fist, pressing his knuckles into the table until zinging pain shoots up his arm. Dean’s not a complete idiot; he gets Heaven’s schtick. It gives people what they want - what they couldn’t have during their lives. Charlie wanted a 64K TV. Mary wanted a house with a white picket fence. Apparently everybody wanted endless spring days.

And Kevin wanted to grow old.

Dean swallows dryly, and his teeth grind together.

“So,” Kevin says, setting his pen down finally. “You’re here.” He looks up at Dean, and his eyes are dark, lined with crow’s feet. “Did you...” He pauses for a moment, head tilted in mild expectation, “...need something?”

Dean stares for a second, jaw working soundlessly. Then he bites down on the inside of his cheek, giving Kevin a tight, crooked smile. “Oh, just,” he gives a twitchy shrug. “Thought I’d stop by.”

Kevin watches him for a short, taut moment, eyes flicking across Dean’s face. Dean swallows again, shoulders coming up.

Finally, Kevin gives a solemn nod and picks up his pen. He turns back to his notebook and jots something down. Dean thinks he sees a tiny smile around his mouth.

Kevin turns another page. “If you’re looking for Lady Death in Lingerie, it’s been checked out.”

Dean frowns for half a second, then his chin drops to his chest. Right. Cartoon porn.

Dean nods his head, pursing his lips. “Funny,” he murmurs, and Kevin’s eyes flick to his for an instant, squinted and wry.

Kevin goes back to his scribbling, and Dean inches closer, curious, but a low harrumph from Kevin has him taking a step back.

He sits down on the end of the nearest table, twiddling his thumbs. From this distance, he can barely hear the pen scratching over the paper, and the interminable silence grows oppressive.

Dean clears his throat. “So,” he says, and waves a hand in a broad gesture. “What, uh. What all you got in this place?”

Kevin turns another page and doesn’t look up. “Everything ever written, said, or done by everyone in the universe.”

Dean’s eyebrows pop up, and his head tips in a bemused nod. “Oh, is that all.”

Kevin sniffs. “And the Ark of the Covenant.”

Dean’s eyes go wide, brow furrowing. “Wh-. Seriously?”

Kevin gives him a flat, baleful look that clarifies precisely zero, then turns back to his giant book.

Dean nods at nothing in particular and chews his lip. “How do you keep it all organized?”

A muscle in Kevin’s jaw twitches. “Automagically.”

Dean blows out a sigh, making a note in his head to inform Charlie that he’ll be cheesing Scorpion for the rest of eternity, thanks. Presuming Kevin doesn’t send him off to Heaven jail.

Dean winces. “So you heard all that, did ya.”

Kevin hums, scribbling away.

Lost for words, Dean casts his eyes about the study. Now that the door through which he entered is gone, there don’t seem to be any doors at all. He sighs and peers around at the walls; maybe there’s a window he can throw himself out of.

His eyes catch on something high up on the far wall - not a window, but a block of text in a language Dean doesn’t recognize. It looks to be handwritten in some sort of deep gold paint. It glows faintly against the eggshell wall.

Once he sees that first scribble, he begins to notice several others. There’s one nearly at the ceiling kitty-corner to Kevin’s desk that looks like it might be in Japanese. Another on the wall opposite him that’s comprised of funny little hieroglyphs in a spiral pattern that he thinks might be Linear A.

Dean points a finger toward the script and glances at Kevin. “These wards?”

Kevin looks up briefly, eyes flicking to the symbols on the wall. He shakes his head, going back to his notebook. “Inspirational quotes.”

Dean gives a rumbling snort of laughter, and Kevin peers up at him, one eyebrow arched. He gestures with his pen towards the far corner of the room. Dean frowns and looks over.

Smooshed up against one wall is a rudimentary drawing of what looks like a fluffy kitten clinging to a tree branch. Underneath, scrawled in plain English: Hang in there!

Dean’s eyebrows pop up, and he nearly laughs before wrestling his face into a bland smile. “Oh,” he says, glancing back at Kevin. “Uh. Cool.”

Kevin huffs a dry laugh and leans back in his seat. “It’s not really,” he says, and points a finger toward another quote Dean hadn’t noticed. “That one’s a proto-Germanic joke about a walrus. And that one—” he points towards the circular one done in hieroglyphics, “—is in a pre-Sumerian language. No one has any idea what it says.”

Dean’s lips turn down, and he nods. “Huh.” He cuts his eyes sidelong to Kevin. “Who wrote them?”

Kevin shrugs and hunches forward, eyes settling again on his book. “Senior members of the Arch. Angels mostly.” He breathes out a little sound that might be a laugh. “Pretty sure a couple of them are just graffiti.”

Dean nods and stands up. He spins in a slow circle, looking for any that he’d missed, and finds one directly to his right. It’s one of the only ones written at eye level, but its lettering - Latin, Dean notes - is pale, almost translucent. As he stares at it, it appears to grow darker, bolder against the wall.

Si ego loqui, it reads, lingua angeli, autem ego sine amare, ego modo sum turpi strepitu.

Dean’s face scrunches up in a frown. He wouldn’t have called himself fluent in Latin, even on a good day, but now that he hasn’t read any in forty odd years, he can barely suss out any meaning at all. Lingua angeli, he thinks. Angelic mouth? He smirks a little bit. Kinky.

He stares at it for another few moments. It’s eerily familiar, though he can’t place why. There’s something manifest, nearly recognizable about the handwriting.

“I’ve read this one before,” he surmises, nodding towards the text.

Kevin glances up, following Dean’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says, matter of fact. “Most people have. First Corinthians thirteen.”

Dean frowns for a moment. Corinthians. Corinthians. Corinth—

“The Bible?” he says, incredulous.

Kevin gives him a bland, slit-eyed look. “This is Heaven, Dean.”

Dean’s jaw snaps shut, lips pursing, and... yeah, that tracks. “Right,” Dean murmurs, tipping his head back in a nod.

Kevin’s eyes roll, softened by the tiny smile around his mouth, and he goes back to his writing.

Dismissed, Dean turns back to the latin inscription. He wracks his brain for Corinthians, but comes up empty; generally, everything he remembers from the Bible is out of Revelations, since he’d essentially lived his entire life in a state of on-again-off-again apocalypse.

He eyes the script, following its neat, angled lines. He recognizes a few of the words - ego, loqui - but can’t quite attach them to their meanings. He squints his eyes tight, as if by looking hard enough he might divine a translation.

There’s a deep sigh from behind him, and he turns to see Kevin, weary-eyed and grumpy, peering past him to the inscription.

Kevin taps his pen against his open book. “If I speak,” he recites, “in the tongue of angels, but have not love...” he squints his eyes in a frown, “...I am only a vile noise.”

Dean stares blankly at him for a moment, then turns back to the wall. He remembers the verse now, and the bit that follows: love is patient, love is kind. He recalls seeing it printed on greeting cards, boxes of chocolate, Valentine’s bouquets - the sort of shit normal people busied themselves with.

That first bit, though. If I speak in the tongue of—

Dean sniffs and hunches his shoulders against the swelling pressure in his chest. Kevin said these were written by Arch members - angels. He clenches his jaw, grunting, “Funny sort of thing for an angel to say.”

Kevin hums. “It’s also mistranslated.”

Dean frowns and cranes his neck to glance at Kevin. “Oh?”

Kevin peers up at the verse again. “Amare should be caritate.”

“Caritate,” Dean intones. He rolls the word around in his mouth, and it’s coming back to him now. “Charity?” he guesses.

Kevin tips his head side to side with a little shrug. “Literally, yes. But it’s usually used to connote a—” he frowns, chewing his lip, “—a general kind of love. Caritate would mean love for all humankind.” He tips his head toward the inscription. “Amare is love for one person.”

Kevin holds Dean’s gaze for a split second, face inscrutable, before hunkering back down over his work.

Dean’s face goes hot then cold - the thing growing in his chest reaching some sort of critical mass - and the words resound in his head:

Love for one person.

Love for one person.

Love for—

Dean sucks in a breath like he’s breaking the surface.

Because you cared, I cared.

His hands clench up tight, fingernails digging into his palms. The whispering voice speaks full volume now, coming from somewhere near his heart, echoing through the hollows inside.

I cared about you.

No. Shut up. Just—

I cared about the whole world because of y—

Dean’s fist comes down on the table - harder than he’d intended - with a dull thud and a sharp, throbbing pain.

He looks over at Kevin scribbling away, oblivious. Dean calls his name, but it comes out in a cracked, stammering whisper. He clears his throat and tries again. “Kevin.”

Kevin’s head tilts, but he doesn’t look up. “Hm?”

Dean licks his lips, dry tongue sticking to the skin. “Who wrote this,” he whispers.

It’s a stupid question. He already knows the answer - knew the second he saw the sharp, looping script. The instant he read the word amare.

It’s almost funny, really. Turns out living in the Happiest Place Not on Earth hasn’t changed Dean much; he still divides his time evenly between knowing he’s wrong and hoping he’s wrong.

Trouble is, with the thrum of a headache pulsing at his temples and the ache in his eyes from the overbright sun, he’s not sure he’s even got it in him to hope.

“Couldn’t say,” Kevin says, voice cutting through Dean’s wayward thoughts. “It was there before I got here.”

Dean’s jaw clenches, and he nods to himself. Kevin scribbles on for another few seconds, then stops and glances up, face bemused. “Kinda weird though,” he says, squinting, “the mistranslation.” He shrugs mildly and turns back to his book. “Guess even angels make mistakes.”

Dean frowns and curls forward, chin dropping to his chest. The whisper in his head makes a short utterance, and Dean sees himself, greyscale in his memory. Face blank in the aftermath, bones numb from the onslaught, and all he can think, can feel, can say is—

Why does this sound like a goodbye?

“Yeah,” Dean says, and his voice is gruff and too loud. He thinks one of his fingernails might have pierced the skin of his palm. “Yeah, they do.”

Kevin looks up at him - face blank, eyes opaque. He stares at Dean for a long moment, and whatever he sees on Dean’s face has his eyebrows rising.

Dean holds his gaze for barely a second, then looks down at his feet. His boots are scuffed, layered in fine dust. He glances at the floor - pristine white marble shot through with gold rivulets - and wonders if he’s tracked dirt onto it. He figures he must’ve done. It’s sort of his M.O., after all. Messing things up.

“Look, Dean,” Kevin says, sotto voce. “It’s...” he shakes his head, thumping his pen against his palm. “It’s nice to see you and all—”

Dean snorts a bitter laugh, and sucks in his lips. He peers up at Kevin with sharp, squinted eyes.

Kevin sighs, and his face softens, mouth forming a flat line. He gives Dean a look - admonishing, with the barest hint of pity. “It is good to see you, Dean,” he reiterates, and the sincerity in his tone nearly makes Dean believe it. “But...”

Kevin sucks in a breath and gestures to his open book, then to the stack of several more at his elbow.

Dean’s spine stiffens, and he nods. Right. Some people do more in Heaven than just drive around in circles, listening to the same six cassettes on an endless loop.

“Yeah,” Dean says, clearing his throat. “Yeah, no, I- sorry, I just, uh...”

He just... what? Broke into Heaven’s Library? With a frickin’ plutonium bomb? Drove a hundred miles (or maybe a thousand, he didn’t check the odometer) because, what, his SpacePhone™ told him to? What is he doing here?

What is he doing here?

“There’s a- a place,” Dean blurts, then scrubs a hand over his face, shaking his head. “Just past the mountain. A little forest in a field. Apparently there’s rain and lightning, and I. I’m just—” paranoid. Terrified. Losing my goddamn m— “It’s pretty close to Sam’s place,” he posits, which is ostensibly true. “And I—”

Dean’s not sure what more to say - what more he could say without making him sound crazier than he rightfully is. Fortunately, Kevin is already pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. He comes around the desk at a trot and descends the stairs.

He arrives at the head of the table, nearly abreast of Dean, and smoothes a finger over the pale wood surface in an intricate pattern.

Instantly, the tabletop is transformed. From the tight woodgrain rise sweeping swathes of squiggly lines, odd little symbols and soft, muted colors. Dean’s eyebrows shoot up, and he leans closer.

The whole thing is a sprawling map. Not the sort he’d seen on his phone, but the sort at the beginning of a fantasy novel, with little hand-drawn forests and ink-flowing rivers. Dean stares for a moment, dumbfounded, his eyes running over the fine details and cross-hatching.

A soft harrumph draws his eyes to Kevin, staring at Dean with mild amusement and open expectancy.

Dean frowns, face warming. “Sorry, what?”

Kevin gives a crooked half smile and nods toward the map. “Your little forest,” he says. “Where is it?”

Dean sucks in a short breath and nods. He steps forward, thighs nudging the table edge, his shoulder nearly butting against Kevin’s. He does a quick double-take when he realizes that the kid - that Kevin - is nearly as tall as he is.

He shakes himself and peers down at the map. His eyes follow the mountain range, inked in broad jagged lines, to the river - a flowing swirl in a dull, washed blue. North of the mountain is a colorless expanse, marred only by a cluster of tiny dots.

Dean points. “There. I think.”

Kevin notes the location, tapping the spot with his finger. A tiny block of text appears next to the cluster, its symbols strange and unfamiliar.

Kevin gives a little hum, then extends his other arm, hand outstretched. A book - identical to all the others lining the shelves - materializes on Kevin’s palm, as Dean watches with wide eyes.

Kevin lays the book on the table, rifling through the pages. Dean peeks over his shoulder, but the text is inscrutable, Greek to Dean.

Apparently not to Kevin, though. He stops on a page about halfway through, tapping his finger near the top.

“It’s a domicile,” he murmurs, squinting at the little symbols.

“A—” Dean starts, then shakes his head. “Someone lives there?”

Kevin gives a humming nod, inching his finger across the crinkly page. “An Arch member, it looks like.”

Dean’s jaw tightens, molars grinding together. An Arch member.

That could be any number of people. Eileen, Jo, Ellen. His parents, Bobby. Even Charlie has offered a hand here and there.

But it isn’t any of them.

Dean bites the inside of his lip, pressing his palms - clammy and tense - against his thighs. “Who lives there,” Dean asks, and it’s a stupid question again, barely a question at all. Dean’s heart beats in his ears.

Sine amare.

Kevin shakes his head. “No name listed.”

Sine amare.

Dean’s fingernails scratch against his pants, hangnails catching on the denim. “How would I find out?”

It’s another stupid question, and Kevin clocks it quick. He sighs a dry laugh and snaps the book shut.

“Well,” he begins, making a swift volte face toward his desk. “You could do it in some—” another soft chuckle as he climbs the short stairs, “—convoluted Winchester way.” Dean rolls his eyes, head tipping forward, but he doesn’t offer a counter.

Kevin moves around the desk and settles himself in his chair, grabbing his pen. He clicks it once, twice, three times, and presses it to the page, jotting something down in quick, spare movements.

“Personally,” he murmurs, as he inks a full stop, “I’d just knock on their door.”

chapter four | chapter six

table of contents

[katehuntington]

Title: Changes - part six Word count: ±5000 words Summary “Changes”: Huntress Zoë Sullivan (OFC) crosses paths and swords with the Winchesters, when the brothers stumble on a case she’s already working. When complications arise, they are forced to work together. Summary part six: Zoë remains one step in front Dean, which annoys the cocky hunter. As new details about the case unravel, both Winchester brothers find out that the independent woman is not planning to share. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures. Demon possession, supernatural creatures/entities. Smut, swearing, alcohol use/addiction. Kidnapping, mentions of torture and murder, illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks.  Author’s note: I couldn’t be more excited to share Supernatural: The Sullivan Series with you. There are quite a few people I want to thank: @coffee-obsessed-writer​​​, @soupornatural​​​ & @mrswhozeewhatsis​​​, who edited the early drafts, and my girls @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish​​​ & @winchest09​​​ who are deciphering the recent version. Everyone who encouraged me to go for it, you are awesome!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist 01x01 “Changes” Masterlist

     Dean squints when he steps into the light. A clear blue stretches out across the sky, the bright color gradually turning paler as it closes in on the horizon. He’s outside in the parking lot crammed with cars; the desk clerk wasn’t lying when he said he was fully booked. The place doesn’t have a sinister feel to it anymore like it did last night, allowing the hunter to let his guard down on this caffeine-deprived morning. The older Winchester brother needs a fix and he needs it badly. Sam drank all the instant coffee and he refuses to drink that shit from the machine in the lobby. 

     He expected it to be chilly outside, but the sun feels pleasantly warm. Sam woke him up, turning up the volume of the radio completely during the drum solo of a Guns ‘N Roses song. Not because his little brother likes that particular music, but he does like to watch Dean bolt upward in bed. Payback, because the older Winchester can’t deny that he pulled a similar prank on his brother more than once. Honestly, he’s glad Sammy is starting to mess with him again. It’s been a while since they acted like siblings. The joke was a good wake up call, too, he has to admit, but he still feels hungover: wrecked, tired and in desperate need of a cup of coffee, or several. 

     Traffic rushes by, most of the cars and trucks entering the city of Rochester. It’s a big town, big enough for people to disappear in without others noticing. For a moment, he thinks of those the shapeshifter already took. Sam found a string of at least three disappearances and that conclusion was drawn from the information he had access to offline while Dean was driving up north. These people could be anywhere. Dead? Probably. Going to die if they don’t find that bastard’s hideout fast? Definitely. But before he can work, he needs food, too. Dunkin’ Donuts, now that would be a treasure in this town. 

     When he asked Sam where Zoë was, all he got was “out”, followed by, “she’s already getting us lunch” when Dean grabbed his wallet and intended to leave. He went outside anyway, in need of some fresh air. His shoulder is throbbing, shooting daggers through his arm whenever he moves it, but as long as he keeps it still, it’s not too bad. In the bathroom earlier, he did peel the gauze back slightly to check the injury, and he has to admit that he was impressed. He might not be able to stand Zoë, but she did an awesome job removing that bullet and sewing him back together. Plus, the painkillers she offered are a God’s gift.

     Slowly, he strolls towards his car. The pitch-black Chevrolet Impala blinks in the sun, chrome glistening. Dean smiles; what a sight for sore eyes.      He’s honored to own the car Dad gave him a while back. Not just because she’s such a joy to drive, but because it was Dad’s first car. He kind of owes it to his old man to take good care of her. It’s what he expects him to do; to look after the family.      “Hey, Baby,” he greets his Chevy, letting his fingertips glide over the trunk.      “Since when have we reached the phase that you call me ‘baby’?”

     Dean looks over the top of the Impala and finds Zoë’s Harley parked on the other side, but he can’t spot the owner. When he moves around his car he finds her, laying on her back underneath her bike.      “Who says I was talking to you?” Dean returns, leaning against the hood.      She crawls from under the Road King and judgmentally observes him for a few seconds, then she grabs a socket wrench and slips back under. “Right, men talk to their cars. I forgot they do that,” she nags.

     Dean grins and decides not to respond; it’s still early and he’s not sharp yet. The rhythmical sound of the bolt being turned sounds like music to his ears and he has the sudden urge to pull his tools out of the trunk and get some work done himself. But Baby is fine, she doesn’t need any TLC right now.      “What’s wrong with your bike?” Dean asks curiously.      “I was in a bit of a hurry last night, probably hit a speed bump. It’s just the gasket, nothing serious,” she explains, keeping her eyes on the exhaust.      “And what’s wrong with you?” he rephrases his question.      “Excuse me?” Caught off guard, she pauses, but doesn’t make an effort to get out from under her Harley.      Dean doesn’t bother to repeat himself. “You heard me.”      “There’s nothing wrong with me, Shortbus.” Zoë continues tightening the bolt, faster than she did a moment ago, annoyed about the fact that she doesn’t know where he’s going with this.      “Then what is that bandage doing there?” Dean asks smartly.      Startled, Zoë sits up and hits her head hard against the chrome outlet of her bike, causing a loud bang. Cursing like a sailor she lands back on the ground. “Ow! Fucking hell!”

     She didn’t realize her shirt crawled up. Dean smirks at the string of strong language, but hides his smile when she surfaces from under the bike. Irritated, she pulls down her buttoned shirt to hide the gauze through which a little bit of blood has formed a perfect circle in the shape of a bullet wound. She uncomfortably pretends like neither he nor she saw it and disappears under her Harley again. Dean, of course, isn’t going to let it go.      “Did Sam shoot you?”      “What?”      “Last night he fired two bullets. Did he shoot you?” Dean repeats.      The huntress scoffs. “Ha! Your little bro isn’t that fast on the draw.”      “I’m not kidding,” he states seriously. “Someone apparently was.”

     She gives the bolt one last turn and appears from under the bike, this time without hitting her head. Annoyed, she looks up at him, lightning in her brown eyes. Zoë is nowhere near admitting to him what went down. Shit. How the hell is she gonna talk herself out of this one?      “Don’t worry, Sam won’t get the credit,” Zoë comments snarky, as she grabs a dirty cloth and cleans her hands, looking away.      “If he didn’t do it, who did?” he interrogates, clearly not accepting a smart answer.      “What does it matter? It’s nothing serious,” she mutters, getting up.      “It is. You got shot, damn it,” Dean argues.      “So did you. How’s that shoulder by the way?” Zoë quickly changes the subject, but Dean is smart enough not to take the bait.      “No - no - no,” He shakes his head and grins. “I’m not gonna fall for that one. My shoulder’s fine, thanks, but you’re still answering that question.”      She sighs; seems like there’s no way out of this.      “It’s not that bad, it was a clean shot,” she assures, still avoiding Dean’s question.      “Did you get the bullet out?” Dean asks, almost parental.      Zoë narrows her eyes at him. “Of course I got the bullet out.”      “Who shot you?” he asks again, slowly this time.

     Zoë doesn’t answer and saunters up to him, after which she leans against Dean’s Chevy as well. Her hair, still damp from the shower she took earlier and seems black. Despite the crappy night, her natural tan gives her a healthy appearance. The only thing that gives away that she’s tired, are the slightly visible dark circles under her eyes. When she looks aside, she meets Dean’s gaze, who’s waiting for some kind of response.      With a sigh, she gives him an answer. “The shapeshifter.”      Dean’s eyebrows shoot up, needing a moment to analyze her words. He doesn’t know which question he needs to ask first. “You ran into him?”

     Zoë averts her gaze, debating her conscience. Should she tell him? She knows he will keep digging until he does, but she could lie, obviously. Oh, what the hell. She might as well give him the whole story.      “Yeah, yesterday evening. I had an appointment with a possible next victim, this guy called Cliffer. Turned out the son of a bitch already shed into him,” she explains.      “Wait… Cliffer? As in Terry Cliffer?” Dean double checks.      She suspiciously tilts her head while looking at him. “Yeah.”       “Shit.” He rubs his face, realizing what is going on. “You’re Sharon Evans.”      “What? How the hell do you know my alias?” Zoë asks with a tone.      “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think Sam technically did get you shot,” he starts off hesitating.      “Beg pardon?!” she cries out, turning towards him, completely stunned.      “We rang Cliffer around five yesterday afternoon, to meet up with him,” he admits.      She stares at him as the missing links connect. She places a hand on her hips, switching her weight to one leg, radiating her attitude. “Let me guess! FBI?”       “Yeah. He asked if Sam was Sharon Evans’s partner. We didn’t realize we were on somebody else’s case,” he admits.      “You son of a…”

     She swallows down another waterfall of curse words and turns around furiously. That’s why the bastard changed! She didn’t give herself away, those dumbass Winchesters did! It’s a bit of a coincidence that two federal agents call, being on the same case without knowing it. The shapeshifter was tailing Cliffer already, she was suspecting that, but when it learned about the appointments, it changed shape quicker than planned. The fucker knew there was at least one hunter in town. It was on to her!      “Fuck!” she exclaims.

     Furious, she turns away and walks back and forth between Dean’s car and her bike. Dean just follows her with his eyes, not saying a word. He knows that anything coming out of his mouth will only make her angrier, even if it’s just a smart attempt to lighten the mood.      “What time’s that appointment?”      “Five-thirty.”      “Where?”      “A bar. I’m not sure where.”       “You don’t know?!” she snaps.      “Sam knows. He made the appointment, not me,” he returns.      Zoë rolls her eyes and forks her fingers through her hair, staring at the passing traffic for a moment. 

     “I don’t see why this is a bad thing,” Dean starts off, casually, but she doesn’t take it well.      “You don’t see why this is a bad thing? It probably means the real Terry Cliffer is dead!” she hisses, lowering her voice when guests walk out the Motel Six.       “You don’t know that. There could be two of them walkin’ around,” Dean argues. “The shifter doesn’t know that we’ve met. That gives us the advantage. It doesn’t know we know.”      “What was your major plan then, Hannibal Smith?” she taunts.      “I don’t have a plan. Like I said–-”      “- Sam’s the geek, I know. God, seems like your folks saved the brains for the second child,” she huffs, turning on her heels as she crosses her arms firmly in front of her chest.

     Dean glares at her, offended. Not that she notices, with her back already turned to him. She picks up the tools she used for the repair and puts them back in a small case, resting on the saddle. While she cleans up, Zoë tries to figure out some kind of plan, but if she’s not even sure who Sam actually made that appointment with, then how can she work out a strategy? Big chance that she’ll meet the shifter, but it could very well be Terry, so she can't actually go in guns blazing. Cliffer hasn’t been reported missing yet, even though he has a wife and kids. If he did disappear, they would have called the authorities and Zoë would know about that. Nothing is certain, which makes this job so much more impossible to work. 

     She stops what she’s doing and stares at the asphalt. Gears are turning in her head as she goes over every scenario. Dean observes her for a moment.      “Did you eat?” he asks out of nowhere. “Or have coffee?”      “No,” she answers confused; what does that have to do with anything?      “Then how the hell can you think properly?” he wonders.      She shrugs, only just now realizing that her stomach sounds like there’s a war going on inside. She could certainly go with a good latte macchiato to jumpstart her brain, too. It’s no fun to admit, but Dean has a point.      “You’re right. I’m off.” Zoë throws her right leg over her Harley and lands in the black leather saddle. She picks up her old biker jacket from the handlebar and puts it on.      “Can I come?”      The way Dean asks is like a little boy would, innocent and hopeful, adding ‘pretty please’ with his green eyes without actually pronouncing the words.      She chuckles and shakes her head. “Sorry, Dean. I fly solo.”      Her engine starts with a satisfying purr instead of the louder sputter it produced earlier. Content, she smiles and puts on her helmet. Dean, on the other hand, looks at her just like that same little boy, disappointed, even though he tries to hide it. Without another word, she turns the throttle and exits the parking lot. Just before she turns on the parallel road to the 52 highway, she glances over her shoulder with a smirk from ear to ear.      “Thanks for lunch!” she shouts, overruling the sound of her Harley. 

     Puzzled Dean watches her drive off. Lunch? What lunch?       He feels his pockets, knowing he’s missing something. When the identical roar seems to come closer again; he looks up. The Harley Davidson isn’t exactly coming back, but drives up the ramp going to the city. She heaves her hand victoriously, holding his wallet as she drives by. Dean’s eyes follow her, his jaw dropping to the ground.      That dirty little thief! She just stole my wallet!       He gapes at Zo��, as she and her Harley merge into busy traffic in the distance. How could she…? When did this…?      Stunned, he scoffs. Un-fucking-believable. He, one of the best goddamn hunters in the world, just got pick-pocketed. While shaking his head he turns around and walks back to the lobby, muddling softly.      “Son of a bitch.”

     An hour later, Zoë slips her key in the lock of room 82 and walks in like she owns the world, a straw coming from her iced latte on-the-go firmly between her lips.      “Finally!” Dean complains.      He made himself comfortable on the bed with his shoes on the bedspread again, sitting up against the back wall reading a magazine Zoë doesn’t want to know the content of. Sam is behind his laptop, not surprisingly. The older of the brothers smiles happily when he sees the Taco Bell symbol on the paper bags she’s holding. It might have taken her a while to get back, but at least she brought the good stuff. 

     Without responding to his comment, she throws him back his wallet without Sam noticing, who is occupied by research. Dean catches it with his left hand and answers her victorious grin with an unintelligible mutter. She sets down a small tray with two more coffee containers.      “I didn’t know how you guys like your coffee, so I brought you both an Americano,” she says.      “Francis over there prefers a half-caf double vanilla latte,” Dean comments, wiggling his eyebrows at his brother, who on his turn glares at him and takes his coffee.       As if Dean hasn’t eaten for days, he attacks the burrito, quickly tearing away the paper wrap and taking a big first bite. Zoë isn’t surprised by his manners. Sam, however, can’t help but stare at his brother for a moment and clears his throat, disapprovingly. His sibling doesn’t seem to be bothered at all and lets out a satisfied ‘mmm’.      “This is good,” he comments with his mouth full.      “Thanks, Zo,” Sam says, after which he also takes a bite of his lunch.      “Don’t thank me,” she nods at Dean. “He’s the one who paid.”            The younger brother frowns and looks over at Dean for an explanation. Dean and paying the bill? That’s new. He doesn’t need to observe him for long before Dean stops chewing and his facial expression goes blank. Uneasy, he looks away and swallows his bite. Zoë watches him, too, smirking like a cheshire cat.      “She - uh,” he pauses, studying his taco for a moment. “She kinda… stole my wallet.”      Sam almost chokes on his food and laughs out loud, the action earning a lethal glare. He then continues to look the huntress up and down. “That explains the new jacket.”      Dazed, Dean looks up. New jacket? What new jacket? Then he spots the black leather Harley Davidson bomber jacket on Zoë, brand new by the looks of it.      “You didn’t,” he reacts, shocked.      She grins at him, clearly enjoying herself. “Oh, I did.”      He grinds his teeth, trying to keep calm. “How much was it?”      “Not sure, actually. I didn’t bother to check the price tag when I slipped your card,” she returns, utterly satisfied.      For a moment Dean just stares at her, his upper lip nervously twitching. What would that jacket be worth? 400, 500 bucks, maybe?      “Oh, don’t be such a cheap jerk about it,” she comments, when she notices his expression, as if he has eaten something spicy yet disgusting. “You have at least a dozen more credit cards hidden in the trunk.”      “How the hell would you know that?” Dean snarls at her.

     As she takes a bite of her burrito, she looks up, digs deep down in her pocket and tosses him his car keys. While she casually continues with her lunch, Dean stares at the keys in his hand with his mouth agape, trying to figure out how the hell she got those as well. Sam has a hard time keeping a straight face, and who could blame him? There’s no finer entertainment than this: Dean is getting played.      “You touched my fuckin’ car?” his brother hisses.      “Obviously. I need to borrow this, by the way.” Zoë holds up a demon protection amulet.      “Give that back, Zoë,” Sam demands, trying to be strict. “What else did you take?”      “Some herbs, nothing expensive,” she admits, carelessly.      “You fucking thief. What did you take, Sullivan?”      It’s Dean who rises to his feet, holding his hand out to collect the stolen items. Reluctant, Zoë reveals a dried vine of Viburnum from her inner pocket.      “Gardener over here -” Dean nods at Sam, “- went through a lot of trouble to get ahold of that dead plant you have there. I’d give it back if I were you.”      “No. I need it,” she decides a matter of factly.      Sam narrows his eyes at the huntress, trying to read her. Why would she need that herb? He stares at it, two dried out plants tied together with a double shoestring. It only works for one thing…      “Not for yourself, I hope?” Sam asks, carefully.      “A case I’m working on the side, actually. Can’t find the damn plants anywhere,” she clarifies.      “Keep the damn twig, but I want the amulet back. Get your own supplies.” Dean ushers Zoë to hand the item over, which she does with a sigh.      He snatching his coffee from the table and returns to the bed without thanking her. In fact, he’s not happy at all that she has been sniffing around in his car. The silence that follows is awkward, even for Zoë, and she decides to change the subject.

     “I reckon you updated Sam while I was out?”       Dean nods, taking a sip of caffeine. “In detail.”      “Let me get this straight.” Sam, seated on one of the chairs by the table, leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The shapeshifter knows you’re a hunter.”      “It does, but it didn’t know that at the time of the meeting. It knew one of the callers was out to kill him, but for all it cared, I could have been an FBI agent. The fucker shot me anyway,” she elaborates, finishing her drink and tossing it in the trash.      Dean crosses his arms in front of his chest. “What’s your point?”      “Her point is that if we go to Beetles Bar, pretending to know nothing, it won’t take any risks. If the shifter shows instead of the real Terry Cliffer, it will try to kill us both,” Sam understands.      “You guys are not going in,” Zoë makes clear right away, taking a mental note of the bar’s name that Sam just mentioned.

     “So, what then? Lure him out and shoot the bastard?” Dean suggests.      “Not until I’m sure it’s the shifter, not Terry,” Zoë replies, as she walks over to the fridge.      Two confused faces follow her as she opens the door and looks inside.      “You’re not making any sense at all,” Dean returns, puzzled, after which he apparently gives up on the conversation and props his feet up on the bed again.      “You might actually have made an appointment with the real Cliffer guy, not with that chameleon. No one would be able to tell, unless you shine a flashlight in his face,” she explains, as she takes out three beers.

     Sam looks back at Zoë, who beckons one of the bottles to him, but he rejects it. Dean takes both the beers without hesitation.      “You’re serious? You haven’t even been up for two hours,“ Sam scolds at the older Winchester brother, astonished by the both of them.      “It’s happy hour somewhere,” Zoë defends, puts the bottle against her mouth and takes a swig, earning a grin from Dean.      “Want anything else, Sammy boy? Some juice, or milk perhaps?” she coos cheerily as if talking to a child.      Dean snorts, almost choking on his beer, but when Sam shoots daggers at him, he quickly takes another sip.

     “Don’t call me Sammy,” he warns the huntress, continuing their discussion on the case. “So, there is a possibility that we might actually have a meeting with Terry Cliffer–-”      “Okay, stop there for a second. Let me make something very clear: there is no ‘we’.”      Zoë leans on the table, her knuckles resting on the surface. Her body language is strictly business all of a sudden; apparently she’s not very happy about Sam and Dean joining in on the case, especially not without her permission.      Dean eyes her as he sits up. “You could use our help, Zo.”      “Help?” She scoffs. “Thanks to the big ‘help’ you’ve been, I couldn’t finish the case last night!”      “That happened, sorry about that. But as long as we’re here, we can offer a hand. Besides, we have an appointment with Cliffer,” Sam argues.      “I don’t care. This is my hunt. I’m going to that appointment myself,” she clears up.      A quick glance at the clock tells her that it’s a little past three. She still wants to dig up more information on her guy. The boys better get going.      “No, you’re not. That’s our appointment,” Dean bounces back.      “Seriously? You really wanna fight me on this?” she returns snappily, pushing herself from the table and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “That appointment that you scheduled fucked up my entire case! I was here first and I’m gonna end it!”      “Oh, come on. How old are you? Five? Haven’t learned how to share yet?” Dean chuckles with an attitude, adding fuel to the fire. 

     Before Zoë can counter him, Sam comes between the two hot-blooded hunters.      “Knock it off, both of you. It will be easier to catch that shapeshifter with three hunters than with one, Zoë. Why don’t we go there together? You lay low and when we find the shapeshifter, we shoot it. We know he’ll probably be in the bar anyway, either as Terry Cliffer or someone else.”      “No,” she decides without any consideration. “I’m gonna deal with this alone and I do not need your help.”      “I can see that,” Dean comments, nodding at her abdomen, reminding her of the bullet wound that’s covered by her shirt.      “Who’s fault is that again?” she snaps. “I’m gonna say it one more time: I fly solo. I don’t do teamwork, certainly not with you two. End of discussion.”

     She takes one last sip of her beer and sets the bottle down on the table with a loud bang.      “Who do you think you are, ordering us around like that with your ‘end of discussion’? Our dad?” Sam bites back, defensive for the first time today.      She freezes at the comparison and turns her head. The boys can see the fury burning in her eyes, as if they just lit the fuse of a bomb that’s about to explode. His comment stirred something inside of her they should have left alone.      “I am nothing like your father!” she hisses.      “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean questions, offended.      “Exactly what it sounds like, Winchester,” she counters with a tone.      “What did he ever do to you? He exorcised that evil son of a bitch that was wearing you to the prom, for fuck’s sake.” Dean gets up and steps towards her, clearly not too happy about the way she’s talking about his father. 

     Trying to not lose her cool, Zoë chuckles sarcastically, looks away, and places her hands on her waist.      “You owe him,” Dean pushes, halting before her.      “I do not owe him a fucking thing,” she snarls fiercely, staring him down.      Their eyes battle, waiting for the other to look away, but both Dean and Zoë are determined not to be the first. Her anger towards John Winchester radiates from her; the brothers can both feel it. They struck a nerve, that’s for sure.      “I want you out,” Zoë declares without even blinking. “And I’m serious.”

     Dean's jaw tenses as he grids his teeth. “Fine.”       With a sigh, Sam gets up from the bed and grabs his duffel, Dean already on his way out. The younger brother doesn’t feel like leaving her alone on this case, but Zoë clearly isn’t going to change her mind anytime soon.      “If you need us-–”       “- I won’t,” she immediately intervenes.      “If you do, we’re going south.” He leaves a card on the bed.      “Don’t bother, Sam. The stubborn bitch won’t call us anyway,” Dean responds, holding the door.

     She ignores his words, annoyed by the slightest sting that his bitter voice leaves. In a quick glance, Zoë sees two phone numbers written down on the card, but she doesn’t intend to pick it up. Sam looks over his shoulder, but he isn’t angry with her. His eyes ask her to please reconsider, but all she returns is a cold gaze. The door closes behind them and the brothers walk down the hallway.      “Unbelievable,” Dean scoffs. “What a fucking waste of time.”      Their footsteps echo through the hall as they pass the front desk. Sam nods at the younger guy who took over for the day when they exit Motel 6, and enters the parking lot. The sun is still shining and shimmers on the cars passing by on the 52 highway, tires rush over the blacktop. Dean halts on the driver’s side of his Impala.

     “Where to?” he asks, opening the door to get in.      “We’re staying in town,” Sam decides before he sits down in the passenger seat.      “What? No! We have better things to do, Sam,” Dean argues, still mad at the huntress.      “I know we do, but I have a bad feeling about this,” Sam admits.      Dean sighs. “Here we go again with that feminine intuition shit.”      Sam rolls his eyes at him, but doesn’t respond to his words. He can’t understand why, but somehow he has the urge to look out for Zoë, almost like it’s instinct. Unnecessary, of course; she has been fine by herself for four years. Why should today be any different?      “Let’s just go. You said something about a possible case in Iowa yesterday? If she can handle this, why bother to stick around if we can hunt something else?” Dean reminds him.      “One night. We book a motel, check on her, and if she nails it, we leave. She doesn’t even have to know we’re there,” Sam suggests.      “I thought you were determined to find Dad?” Dean looks aside at his brother, waiting for a response.      “I still am, but we have no lead, not even a single clue where he is,” Sam points out.      “Hey, that’s what I’ve been telling you, but it didn’t stop you from looking. You were the one who was all, ‘I gotta find Dad, it’s the only thing I can think of,’ Dean bounces back, imitating his voice. “And now you’re ditching him for some chick?”       “I’m not ditching him for some chick!” Sam denies.      “Ah, come on. You like her and you know it,” Dean carries on.      “I do not like her, Dean! Jess just died, damnit!” he exclaims.

     Dean looks away and pulls at his bottom lip with his teeth. He knows he went too far, so he keeps quiet and turns the ignition. When he flips the key, the V8 motor under the hood growls, impatiently waiting for Dean to back up and hit the road.      “You said it yourself: Dad doesn’t want to be found. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing to spend the night here, unless you have some kind of lead I don’t know about,” Sam suggests.      “Fine, whatever. As long as that motel has a bed. I really need to get some sleep.” 

     He puts his car in reverse and looks in the rearview mirror as he guides her out of the parking spot. The shift of his body causes him to grimace, pain cutting through his shoulder.      “Feeling alright?” Sam checks.                             “Yeah, just tired. I need more painkillers, that’s all,” he mutters.      Sam takes out his phone and calls a booking agency he had listed in his contacts earlier. As the call goes through, he sighs. It’s going to be a difficult task to find a room with that poker event in town. He waits for someone to pick up on the other side, meanwhile wondering why Zoë got so worked up about their father. Dean has a point; John saved her from that demon, so how could she possibly despise him? Something must have occurred; maybe she crossed paths with him later on and John did something to upset her. She wouldn’t be the first to cross blades with him, after all.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work or buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page).

Read part seven here

The Sullivan Series tags: @a-gir1-has-n0-name​ @destielhoneybee​ @fookinghelljensensthighs​ @heartsaved​ @idksupernatural​ @laphirablack​ @magssteenkamp​

[waywardimpalawriter]

Ear’s or Tail’s? Fluffy Winchester family fic

Ear’s or tail’s?

Summary: The age old debate of ears or tails which one to eat first. Does it really matter?

SPN Mixed Bingo Square: Easter @spnmixedbingo​

Pairing: None

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Mary Winchester, Castiel

Setting: Childhood then moves to season 12

Rating: PG

Warnings: Tooth rottening fluff

Word count: 1,369

Notes: Written for the SPN Mixed Bingo card, just a cute little idea that kinda revolves around Easter and the much beloved chocolate bunny.

April 1987

“No, no not like that Dean, you start with the ears it’s the smallest part. You eat that first then move on saving the tail for last it’s bigger,” mouth full of chocolate. Smiling so brightly at his declaration it could light the whole city or at least the run down motel room they currently found themselves in. Looking between his brother, who had his own chocolate bunny, to his dad who sat shaking his head. Rare smile turning up the corners of his lips.

Shaggy brown head shaking, teeth sinking into the fluffy chocolate tail his own grin spreading across confectionary covered lips. “You’re wrong Sammy you start with the tail more chocolate first then work your way up towards the ears.”

Quiet snort leaving his lips, attention divided between reading the latest tabloids, and newspapers and his two sons. Eyes lingering for longer moments on his sons wishing and not for the first time that Mary could be there watching them fight over something as simple as tails or ears. A moment of peace in a life that’s been anything but since her death, almost stealing these precious times to store in his heart when things looked bleak.

“Boys,” trying to hide the laughter when both look up at him covered in chocolate, eyes the sizes of saucers. “How about your both right would that stop the fighting?”

“NO,” they both exclaim at the same time making John burst out in gruff laughter, shaking his head at their antics.

“At least save me a piece?” Hopefulness in his hazel eyes thought not fully sure he’d want a piece with the way they were eating the chocolate. Devouring the little bunny’s like its their last meal or that they’ve never actually had chocolate before.

Getting up Sam, hands covered in chocolate, mouth coated as well, sweet smile over his lips as he steps over to his father. Holding out a small, quarter size piece, eyes big and hopeful. “I saved you a piece dad,” holding it out pride showing in those sweet golden flecked green eyes.

“Thank you Sammy,” carefully taking the piece from his small fingers trying not to drop or break it. Hesitating for a moment till he looked at Sam noticing the little boy was watching the whole time. Semi reluctant to eat it not 100% sure of where his hands had been throughout the day or if he’s washed them. Which reminds John he’s gonna have to watch the boys a little more carefully. Popping the little piece in his mouth, chocolate flavor bursting on his tongue. Only to be presented with another piece a little bigger from Dean’s out stretched hand. Not wanting to be out done by his baby brother, proud smile stretching across his face when John takes it. “Two pieces very thoughtful of you Dean, thank you.”

Beaming at his father, who can’t help but chuckle at the two of them covered in chocolate, shirt fronts caked with the melting brown confectionary. “Welcome dad, can we have some more?” Giving him the best puppy eyes he could, “That was my last piece.”

Chuckling, shaking his head, “Good thing you shared it with me then huh?” Standing from the couch to usher both boys into the bathroom to clean up. “Looking like little chocolate monsters. I think you both have more on yourselves than went into your mouths.”  

“But dad Easter is almost over with there won’t be anymore chocolate bunnies till next year. How will Sammy and I settle our argument?” Looking at his father’s reflection in the dingy bathroom mirror while washing his hands.

Wetting the cloth John set to work on cleaning up four year old Sammy, seeing the same pleading looking in his eyes. “Then you’ll have to wait for next year won’t you.”

April  2017

“You know we never did settle that little debate,” deep whiskey roughen voice chided teasingly, bag hiding behind his back.

Golden fleck green eyes narrow on his old brother for a moment, “What debate are you talking about Dean?”

“Ears versus tails,” bringing the plastic bag from behind his back to show Sam.

Shaking his shaggy brown head fond smile sliding over his lips at the sight of those palm size chocolate bunnies.

“I don’t think I’m familiar with this debate. What tails and ears are you referring to Dean?” Castiel’s gravel voice held a tone of curiosity in the deep timber.

“Only the most hotly disputed topic of mine and Sammy’s young life,” ever the dramatic, Dean makes a show of pulling four paperback book sized cardboard boxes from the thin plastic bag. Tossing them on the nearest table.

Entering from the war room having missed the first part of the conversation, “What’s going on boys?” Coming around to stand next to Dean, confusion drawing her brows together. “Uh don’t we have better things to be doing?”

“Than eating chocolate? Mom,” fake gasp leaving his chapped pink lips. Looking over at Mary as if she committed a heinous crime agains his person. “You wound me I thought you of all of us would appreciate a fine piece of chocolate.”

“Which these are not Dean, just gas station knock offs of the real deal,” picking up one of the small boxes to examine. Remembering a time long ago when he and Dean demolished those little guys by the handfuls when John would let them. “What brought this up anyway? That debate, which I won, was decades ago.”

“One we never finished if I remember. Since Dad never got us another chocolate bunny and when the next year rolled around he wasn’t…” leaving the words hanging knowing all three of them would understand what he meant.

Fond smile crossing his lips his own vision turning inward to remember that little fight. “We were covered in chocolate that day. Dad had a fit trying to get the clothes clean. I don’t even recall how many pieces we actually ate, and the sugar high afterward, he didn’t let us have that much candy again,” wisps of sadness colored his tone. Eyes dancing to land on Mary who took in the story with rapt attention, shining quality to her eyes. Letting him know a sheer coat of tears covered them. “I remember giving him the bigger piece when he asked for some though,” smug smirk tugging at his lips.

“The fuck you say Sammy,” playful growl leaves Dean’s lips as he takes a seat, reaching for one of the bright colored boxes. “I gave him the bigger piece and don’t try to get off topic we got to settle this.”

“I’ll have to agree with Mary, we do have more important things to be taking care of then your chocolate animals Dean,” though he takes a seat when Dean gives him a dole stare.

Exasperated sigh leaving his lips, “I know that Cas, just thought taking a few moments out of our shit show of a life would help boost spirits. Call it a human tradition on Easter to argue about which end of a bunny to eat first.” Unboxing the treat and automatically taking a huge bit out of the tail. “That’s the stuff right there,” eyes closing in pleasure, savoring each bite.

Handing Cas a box of his own, who takes it just looking over the wording for a moment before glancing back up noticing Dean has almost all of the lower half of the bunny gone.

“See that’s the problem Dean you want to rush things too much. You start small, savor the bunny  the right way, ear’s first. Right mom?”

Like a dear caught in headlights both men look at her, chocolate bunny hanging from her teeth ears first. “Sorry Dean,” giving a little apologetic shrug.

Soft pop makes all three turn to look at Castiel, who’s broken the head off the bunny, taking a bite from the broken piece. Seeing the looks on all three faces, “I’ll save the body for later, eat the head now,” stating it so matter of factly they burst out laughing.

For a few moments the weight of the world is lifted from their shoulders, enjoying a simple piece of chocolate and family.  

[drkcnry67]

your destiny is an archangel

title: your destiny is an archangel (drabble)

pairing: gabriel x reader

h&h sq: archangels

rating: pg-14

tags: following the light, being told to do something you have no say in, being forced into something that you didnt want. 

created for @heavenandhellbingo​

mentioning @sweetness47​

H&H list

ordinary, you were far from it. your brothers were the Winchesters, your father was John Winchester, tho you were the youngest winchester you were still the ever brighter star in the winchester family tree. 

your brothers often left you in charge of the impala and all the technical stuff making bullets and things like that. but this was your first hunt. this was the first time being out in the field after months even years of training. 

your brothers had sent you to a simple hunt while they handled a vamps nest and a werewolf den. you enter upon the scene after speaking to the locals who all claimed to have seen a really bright light and heard screaming and voices calling their names. 

you see the light and suddenly your surrounded by it. the light clears and you are being held back by what look to be several armed soldiers. 2 more walk toward you: one blond hair, blue eyes really ripped. the other chestnut brown hair, brown eyes also really ripped. 

the guards holding you back made you drop your handheld as they forced you to bow before the 2 men standing before you. 

Michael: why do you look at us like you dont have a clue what or who we are?

you were in a bad mood right then unsure of what would come out of your mouth you didnt think about it you just spoke. 

YN: cause i dont you dumbass, now let me go or i swear my brothers will not be kind to you when they find out you have their little sister.

Michael: chill out little winchester, we know who you are... wait let me start this again. my name is Michael son of God archangel of the highest ranking and the leader of the army of God. this fellow beside me is my brother Gabriel also an archangel i believe your people would call him a trickster. 

all you could do was stare, you were in a bit of shock and a state of disbelief. you were talking to angels, never mind that archangels, the biblical ones you had red about in the bible. 

YN: okay so now i understand who you guys are, but what are you doing here and what does it have to do with me and my current predicament.

Michael: cause its your destiny YN to marry my brother Gabriel and become his wife. he would help you in your quest to help your brothers stop every single damn monster that invades earth. 

you instantly looked at Michael like he had just blown up the state building in new york. you looked at him like he had just melted an entire city or brought the dinosaurs back. 

but he did non of those things he instead had just told you that you were to marry someone, nevermind that it was the freaking archangel Gabriel. you were not sure of how your brothers, dean especially would react. 

YN: are you guys insane? you are telling me that at 25 years old i have to marry Gabriel the archangel who spoke to the virgin mary and announced to her that she would bare Jesus. your telling me that when you both should know full well that my brothers will not like this idea at all... never mind the fact that i like earth i am not moving anywhere that isnt earth. nevermind the fact that my phone is ringing, its my brothers if i dont answer it they will get worried and come after me they know where i am and...

Gabriel spoke for the first time since arriving, tho his eyes had never left your form. 

Gabriel: guards release her to allow her to answer her phone 

The guards released you, you reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone answering it immediately.

Yn: hey Dean!

Dean: you took a bit to answer, everything okay.

Yn: well umm I found out the cause of the disturbance. But Dean it's archangels. I am being starred at by archangels.

Dean: I'm sorry what? Archangels as in the biblical beings. Did they speak? Do they have names?

YN: I have had the pleasure of speaking with the archangel Michael and the archangel Gabriel. But what they told me I have a hard time grasping the concept of. And your not gonna like it.

Dean: what did those douchebags want?

Yn: Michael said I have the destined honor of becoming the wife of Gabriel. Apparently God set this in his book long time ago.

You could hear the roar of the impala you knew that your brothers were now pissed.

Dean: stay there we are on our way there in 10 min.

The line went dead, you hung up the phone it was Gabriel who spoke next.

Gabriel: is everything okay?

YN: my brothers are on their way. They are coming here they did not take too kindly to the news.

Michael: as it is written the brothers Winchester shall come to bare witness to this auspicious union for it will bring some light into this world.

Gabriel: Michael, dear brother, can I take YN to speak in private?

Michael gives a swift nod, Gabriel holds his hand to you.

Gabriel: would you like to take a stroll with me?

YN: is this of our own free will?

Gabriel: completely..

Yn: then sure we have a few moments to kill before my brothers arrive.

You take the hand of Gabriel, the two of you walk away from Michael and the God squad. Gabriel turns to you a short while later.

Gabriel: how do you feel about this ordeal?

YN: honestly I don't know. I mean my entire life I've been trying to find the person I'm meant to be with for the rest of my life. all my life i have tried to find love before it sneaks up on me. when my father died i shut myself off from love. i have not thought of the idea of love in a long time. but now being told that i am destined to marry, i just dont know what to think.

Gabriel: what does your heart tell you right now?

you closed your eyes for a moment, taking his position right behind you. 

YN: that you are good for me. that with a little work and effort we can be the happiest people on earth we can build a future together based on love, protection and kicking so much ass. 

Gabriel at that point spun you around neither of you noticing the lights from the impala nor the people walking toward you. but instead he kissed you, your brothers, michael, the guards all saw this kiss. 

the thing that snaps you both out of the kiss is a very very familiar voice speaking in a harsh tone.

Dean: YN what the fuck do you think you are doing? 

You stand in defense of Gabriel as your big brother strides towards you. sam just smirked. you knew he wasnt as pissed about this as Dean. 

YN: dean stop thats enough. i dont want to hurt you. 

Dean: you would dare to challenge family? have you lost your senses completely? he is an archangel, your a human!!!!! 

YN: its my destiny to marry him. for once in your life stop thinking the worst and just listen. please dean, for me. if you love me bro, you will listen to what Michael has to say. 

dean backed off and went to stand near sam and started pacing. you nodded at michael to start talking. 

Michael: peace be with thee Dean for i nor my brother nor my guard wish your sister or family harm. we bring this night news of great joy for all of you. this night ordained by God in his book is the night that i release Gabriel into his new life with YN on earth. i of course will return for the wedding but tonight is the release. whenever thee decides the wedding date my dear brother knows how to get ahold of me. Dean tho you are only ever looking out for your family, take a good look at your sister with my brother, tho they not have known each other for very long have started the release process. gabriel had no idea that the release starts with a kiss and ends with my pronunciation and blessing. but you and Sam need to agree as well otherwise your sister will never find her happy ending nor the ending you wish for her.  so what say the mighty brothers winchester. do you both consent to this?

Sam steps towards you and Gabriel giving you a big hug which you return. when he lets you go he speaks soft tones loud enough for all to hear. 

Sam: i Sam Winchester, give my permission and consent to this destined union cause it makes me happy to see my sister smile.

you watched as Sam went to Gabriel and shoke his hand welcoming him into the family. then sam went to dean and had this little conversation.

Sam: look Dean i know that you are the older brother and your supposed to look out for me and Yn i get that but this is how her story is destined to go, we are still a family, just an expanded family and at least one of us should be happy in our lifetime of killing all the evil sons of bitches we can find. if you remotely care at all about our sister and how this will affect her if you say no then think about it this way. all mom and dad wanted for all of us was a normal life. with Yn and the destiny squad she gets part of the normalcy while we all still get to keep doing what we do and to top it off we get to see our sister be happy in the ways we never could dean.

dean paced some more he knew what the right choice was but he also had to convince himself that it was the correct choice. he looked at how you were smiling with Gabriel and he started walking towards you Sam became prepared to step in just in case, but both you and gabriel turned towards your big brother and watched his emotions reflect in his facials. 

Dean: im such an ass. i mean i walked up in here acting like, well dad did when sammy wandered off to college. look sis im so sorry for how i acted and after pacing round arguing with myself i finally came to the realization that this is not gonna hurt the winchester legacy. in fact it will strengthen it. Michael i know that things are gonna change but tell me one thing, did both our parents end up in heaven? and is it possible for them to join us for their wedding. 

you walk closer to your brother

YN: dean does that mean?

Dean: yes i consent you both have my blessing. but i wasnt kidding either that was a serious question. 

Michael: unfortunately i am unsure. for you see, i do not know who is up and who is down im too busy training the troops for gods army. the matters of state are not up to me. they are left up to the one person who was anointed by god to do the job fairly. moses. but hey i cant complain. now if everyone is ready i will do the pronunciation and give my blessing.

You all take stance in front of Michael is you facing Gabriel, behind you is Dean, behind Gabriel is Sam, the guards stand away from us witnessing what happens.

Michael: Heaven rejoices this glorious day for here is one destined promise from God this shall be the release of my brother from his heavenly duties but keeping his connections to heaven, and into his new life here on earth with YN. Both of these 2 are about to become more deadly than anyone knows. I was there when YN was conceived. I told John that his daughter would be wonderful that her destiny would be full of family and joys beyond measure. My brother you have no idea how much pressure I have endured from father. When he told me about this day, what was to happen, he said I would feel the emotion of releasing you more deeply than anyone. Gabriel son of God angelic prince of the lower realms, do you accept this destiny as is ordained in the book dad wrote out?

Gabriel: yes I accept what is being laid out before me

Michael: YN child blessed by the upmost holy of hollies, sister to the brothers winchester who have become feared among the supernatural. now here before these witnesses do you also accept the destiny written out before you in the book of God? 

Gabriel’s hand grasped your own, suddenly your fear was gone. this allowed you to speak. 

YN: i accept the destiny laid before me

Michael: very well, your first task is to get used to this new life, within the time ahead heaven shall expect the following from you both: a wedding, a child, and defeating whatever crosses your paths. can you both promise that?

you nod as does Gabriel. 

Michael: by the powers and laws of heaven in accordance to the written word of God i now pronounce this ceremony finished releasing my brother into the arms of this beautiful young woman forever. brother i believe you know what to do.

Gabriel pulls you into a dip and kisses you. 

Everyone applauds, congratulations flow in from every guard then it comes to your brothers.

Sam: kiddo, you were radiant up there. That was amazing.

Dean: so I guess we need to start figuring out a sturdy place to put down roots.

YN: for now we are gonna be just as content living on the road with you 2 nuts and besides its the family business, just because this is my destiny doesn't mean i have to stop the family mission. To kill every evil son of a bitch that dares to reek havoc on the earth. Plus we don't have a definite set placement for much of anything at this time. Where to next?

That's when Michael approached you lot.

Michael: don't forget the promises and oaths taken here today. Brother to wish you all the luck in this new life of yours. YN take good care of my bro, he is certainly one of a kind. I'll also expect a formal invite to the wedding it's not every day one of my own brothers gets married. Now I must go still have to patrol the east part. Farewell, till we meet again.

Michael and the guards disappeared. This left you, Gabriel and your brothers, you took into consideration that you had walked to this location so as not to draw suspicion. And you certainly were not up to walking back to the hotel or where ever.

Dean: we have the bags and shit from the hotel, we are heading to Bobby's from here. There is trouble Kansas close to where me and Sam were born. Bobby's gonna brief us before we go, hell he might even join us. But onto bigger issues, the 2 lovebirds can sit in the backseat just no having sex in the car ever not ever. Rule number 2 I pick the music no one else does and number 3 let's hit the road to make it to Bobby's for dawn.

You got into the backseat sliding over gabriel, you were not stranger to conversation but you stretched out your head was in gabes lap, you were exhausted mentally anyway. 

physically you felt fine. you felt amazing actually, feeling gabe just running his fingers through your hair and the lull of the impala made you just stare into the eyes of the man to be your husband with love and calming affection. 

about 2 hours into the drive, you had fallen asleep. Sam was also sleeping, taking the time to rest and relax. this left Dean and Gabriel still awake. 

Dean: for what its worth, you seem to see the best in my sister. i know this is very new for you too but know that you and i have alot to discuss if i am to train you and her. 

Gabriel: for what its worth, i could see it in your eyes when you saw me with your sister, saw me holding her in my arms, kissing her. dude i get it, we will figure this out, we are going to approach this new relationship one step at a time. 

Dean: by the way how are you feeling after the whole being released from the heavenly duties thing. after the whole basically becoming human thing.

gabriel: honestly it feels like i am floating in a suspended reality that could disappear at any point. honestly i love this feeling. i have to ask tho why are we going to Bobby’s right now. why drive through the night. 

Dean: cause i know that YN will need to train, she usually sleeps off an adrenaline rush than crashes with a massive burst of anger in the morning. so if we get there before she wakes up, i will be able to set up the yard make it look like its ready for training. so that way she can spiral and we can watch while she tries to prove her worth. but she will do that for about two hours or so until she crashes on her knees crying. 

Gabriel looked down at your sleeping form, knowing that your entire future together would bee full of these moments of learning and hard times together. 

Gabriel: and how often does this happen?

Dean: only when something dramatic changes or after sam and i come home with broken bones and such. usually she will go into her burst after she resets us or patches her up. but i was thinking about this a while now, this started just after dad passed. could that have been the thing to set her hunting skills into over drive?

Gabriel: you think these are her hunters skills trying to break through. and what it causes her to crash after 2 hours. that doesnt sound right. i mean it does but it doesnt. you understand that trauma affects people differently, maybe loosing your dad was harder on her than she let you believe. 

Dean: then why would she lie to us. say that she is fine when she isnt?

Gabriel: probably cause she didnt want you and Sam to look at her differently. she respects your opinion, as her older brother its your job to notice when she is not being completely honest and she probably does this to try and get your attention. she knows that you wont do anything otherwise so she has to try something else. 

Dean had to stop for a second and analyze what Gabriel had just said. he realized that he was right, so within a few more hours you all arrived at Bobby’s. Carefully Gabriel carried you inside and up to your room. your brothers were gonna stay in the living room on the couch, in order to explain things to bobby. 

Gabriel having now laid you on the bed pulled off your shoes and your sweater putting a light blanket over you. then he took off his own shoes, his coat and his shirt and crawled under the covers beside you. that was when your sleeping form curled up against him. 

that was the first time he had felt truly happy. he passed out short while later anxious to see what the new life would bring. dawn rose high in the sky, the sound of bobby and your brothers arguing in the morning was a sound you knew all too well. you quietly stretched out. 

Gabriel: morning beautiful.

you turned to him and smiled. 

YN: morning, im gonna take the dog outside. im sure if you went downstairs there will be food for you. ill see you when i return. 

you went out the door and downstairs the 3 men in the kitchen heard you, Gabe grabbed one of the muscle shirts out of the pile of mens clothes in the room before he went downstairs. 

Gabriel: its an honor to meet you Bobby. 

Bobby and Gabe shoke hands thats when Gabriel noticed that you were standing outside with the dog sitting by your legs as you stood at the barrel, with the hand held in your hands and just shooting the tree stumps out in the field. 

Gabriel: now i finally feel like i am beginning to understand this thing that humans call love. 

Dean: its a funny thing thats forsure. but we have a theory. what if you went outside and see if you could talk to her. she has threatened to shoot any of me, sam or bobby if we get too close but she might let you near. 

Gabriel continued to watch you shoot the tree stumps. he just watched, he was waiting for the right moment to go out there. 

Gabriel: i just hope that i can get through to her. if the great dean winchester thinks i can bring his sister back into the light then it must be true. 

Dean: you know what why dont you go out there right now see if she opens up. cause im sure she wont shoot you down if you ask her if you can join her.

Gabriel hesitates a few short moments before he puts on his shoes and walks out the door. he slowly approaches you. Rumsfeld barks to let you know someone is approaching.

Gabriel: mind if i join you? your brothers mentioned that you might be over here.

You turned to face Gabriel... you were staring into the eyes of the man to be your husband. you felt your knees begin to go weak. you were unsure of the conszequences to what you would soon do, but you did it anyway. 

YN: there is another handheld on that stump over there. just hold it like i am and pull the trigger aiming for the tree stumps. 

gabriel mimics your movements and stances. you were the most radiant person he had ever seen shooting a gun. gabriel shoots the stumps with you for a bit. but your knees buckle out from under you and you break down in tears. 

Gabriel: are you alright?

YN: ever since my father died, i have been living a lie. im no hunter, im not even a proper one. i can barely hold my own when im fighting my brothers, i can only shoot a gun when im by my self in this field with rumsfeld and nothing but the wind. i know i have worried my brothers, i know they are never gonna look at me the same way. im a fool for thinking that i could ever join the family business, help get revenge for dad’s death, i am never gonna amount to what my brothers are. 

Gabriel: dont talk like that. you are every bit the woman that your brothers would ever want you to be. dean mentioned to me about how you mihgt just open up if i came out here. but that isnt why i came over here, i came to you cause you are my present and my future, im not gonna let you suffer in this alone. i know we are still new to this whole idea that we are to be married and such, but i promise you this you will never be alone. i might not be fully angelic anymore but i can still be pretty angelic when i want to be. part of my negociation with my brother about my release was that i get to keep my wings. so thats exactly what i plan to do. how bout we go for a nice flight? maybe to Paris, have some breakfast?

you got up with Gabriel for support, you had stopped crying sort of, but those tears got wiped away by the love of your life. you sent a quick text to Dean before Gabriel pulled you flush with his body, his wings came out and he flew you both off to paris. 

this left Bobby, Dean and Sam in awe as they had just watched this take place from the window. 

but that is another story for another time.

[rollinsuniversal]

stars that do not give a damn

prompt fill for this anon!

pairing : seth rollins/dean ambrose (ish)

genre : angst, unrequited love

words : 2k

summary : something went wrong on that monday night. seth needs to know it won’t happen again.

a/n : this is the first ambrollins fic i’ve ever written, so bear with me if there’s any inconsistencies with their characters.

out of respect for Joseph’s real-life diagnosis, i won’t be incorporating any mentions of his leukemia here. i wish him only health and happiness, and hope he takes all the time he needs to recover.

for narrative purposes, in my version of events, roman was attacked backstage by an incensed brick lesnob and was kayfabe hospitalized, leaving seth and dean to capture the titles later that night. the original plan was simply for dean to perform one dirty deeds on seth and then leave the ring. but as we all know, that isn’t what happened.

gravity’s a heartless bitch, and she’s trying her damnedest to bring seth to his knees. if it wasn’t for the aides and medics pulling him onto the gurney, he’d most definitely have passed out by now.  the ringing in his ears paired with the screams from the audience are only making his aches worse, but at least he has something to concentrate on other than the enormous, dean-shaped elephant that’s sat itself right on top of his chest.

fuck, his head hurts. it takes a ridiculous amount of focus for him to center himself once on his back, and his head feels like it weighs 50 pounds. he’s strapped in, shutting his eyes for a moment before he’s being hit on the face, muffled orders from lovell prying them open again. the gurney’s moving quickly, the crowd’s noise gradually melding into one loud roar, and it’s all seth can do to keep his chest moving up and back down again, keep his eyes open, and do everything in his power to keep from screaming his own confusion into the raucous chorus.

***

dean lost the script somewhere between that first kick and driving seth’s head into the concrete ground. as bad as seth wants to think it was a lapse in memory, or even an attempt to really sell their chaotic emotions, he knows it’s something deeper, darker stirring in dean’s head--

***

“keep me updated,” lovell hands seth his backpack, his gear having been sent to the hotel already.

“will do.” seth finishes tying up his hair and sits up on his cot, watching techs scrambling to break everything down for transport. “please tell me i can sleep.”

“sleep’s the best thing i can prescribe for you right now,” lovell assures him. “and i’ve already got you dropped from tomorrow’s card, so take advantage.”

seth nods, fiddling with one of the bag’s straps and watching a tech hustle in for a cart of first aid kits and run it in the direction of the loading docks. he swings his feet back and forth, trying to be casual and failing if the doctor’s raised brow is anything to go by.

“nothing better to prescribe?”

“by better you mean stronger,” lovell corrects, already shaking his head. “keep you up for 18 hours and make you fall over every two minutes stronger. i’ve got nothing for you.”

failing miserably, seth notes with a purse of his lips. he slides off the cot and puts his pack on, grabbing his cap and phone and leaving the doctor with a pat on the shoulder. “thanks again.”

“i don’t have to send anyone after you, do i?” lovell keeps his back turned, though the intent in his voice is serious.

“no sir,” seth responds, not without a bit of bite. “those days are behind me.”

no response. seth mutters expletives under his breath, blood beginning to boil. he zips his jacket up and pulls the hood on, tucking his chin towards his chest and keeping his face blank as he makes his way to the garage.

***

“why do you keep doing this to yourself?” dean’s voice is sharp, though he pitches his concern deep enough so only seth can hear. he keeps his body language hostile to prevent anyone from approaching them and readjusts his hold on seth, hoping it looks more like they’re deep in conversation as opposed to dean being the only thing between seth’s face and the garage’s concrete floor.

“i’m try—“ seth’s head lolls forward, his legs stiffening up so the weight of his entire body is driven onto dean, who catches him with a hissed curse.

there are eyes on them now, and dean glances around hastily, spotting mike talking with his driver by his bus and waving them over.

“what’d he take?” mike’s instantly sliding down to catch seth, helping dean lower seth to the ground and propping seth’s head up on his thigh. he motions for his driver to find a doctor and begins batting at seth’s face until seth comes to and shoves his hands away.

“hydro,” dean huffs, settling beside seth’s legs and feeling for the stiffness so he can start massaging it away.

“call it what it is, dean,” seth slurs, panting and bringing his hands to his face. “vicodin, right? mike, you know, you were there.”

mike grits his teeth, “i helped you. you came to me, remember?”

“i don’t remember you stopping me when i kept coming back.” seth groans and lifts one hand. “lower.”

dean obeys, finding the taut muscles and digging his palms in.

“is he responsive?” lovell’s voice breaks through the tension around them, and he kneels at seth’s side.

“i don’t know, is he?” seth throws his hands up, barely missing mike’s face. “go ahead and assess me, good doctor. 20 bucks says you can’t figure out what it is this time.”

“pay up,” lovell waves a small vial in seth’s face, bright yellow pills rattling around.

“you went on my bus.” seth is staring at the pills, an unreadable look in his eyes. dean tightens his ministrations, pulling seth’s focus onto him briefly. “what the fuck?”

“policy,” lovell supplies, rooting around in his bag for a bottle of water and his radio. “drink this.” he gets to his feet, muttering something into the radio.

seth snatches the bottle, angrily beginning to chug but choking with his haste. mike shoves him to a sitting position, smacking his back a little harder than necessary.

“stop fucking hitting me!” seth lurches away, trying to get to his feet. dean pulls on his leg, keeping him down and holding him still as more medics arrive with a gurney.

“i’ve gotta go,” mike grabs lovell’s arm. “make sure this disappears before it reaches the top.”

“already on it.”

seth’s placed on the gurney. everyone in the garage is accounted for and paid off for their silence. dean eventually texts roman to let him know what’s happened, though his only reaction is to ask if seth’s okay and whether or not they’re still going on the next week.

dean wishes he could be so flippant, just leave seth to his demons and only associate with him in the arenas and forget about him once he heads out.

god, if only it were that easy to forget about seth rollins.

***

“feeling blue, boss?” hugh greets seth the second he swings the bus door open. “heavy stuff.” he motions to his phone screen, where he’s watching a recap of the night.

“yeah,” seth nods, unable to ignore his faithfully jolly driver. “pretty heavy.”

“ambrose is riding with us,” hugh thumbs over his shoulder. “something about his tires being out.”

“he’s here?” seth throws his pack onto the front table, shutting the door.

hugh nods. “he looked pretty ko’d. haven’t heard a peep from him since he got on. he’s probably asleep.”

seth mulls this over, not registering his phone buzzing in his hand until hugh points to it.

“hey, rome.”

“i’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that wasn’t all part of the script.”

“good guess.” seth rubs at his neck, the muscles still smarting. “think he’s just giving the fans the heel they’ve been wanting.”

roman pauses, some indistinct noises coming from his end, then an audible click and it’s silent apart from his breaths.

“you see his face after he did it?”

“yeah.”

seth considers telling roman about his blood running cold when dean stayed on his knees after his first dirty deeds instead of leaving the ring, and the desperation he felt as he repeated assurances and pleas for dean to remember what they’d planned.

“how are you feeling?” he asks instead.

roman’s surprised inhale is enough to reveal his own confusion, but he goes with it. “sore. but i’ll be okay. how soon till you’re cleared?”

“i’ll be good by next week.”

“good.”

neither of them speak. it’s that way between the two of them pretty often now. seth can’t remember exactly when they started drifting this way, but aches as he realizes this space between them isn’t going anywhere soon. with dean switching over, it’ll only make the divide deeper, the silences heavier and all the more noticeable.

“i should go. gotta rest up.”

“yeah,” roman sighs heavily and it turns into a yawn. “me too. talk to you tomorrow?”

“sure. bye.”

“bye, bro.”

***

seth knows he’s being a coward. this is his bus, yet he hasn’t made it past the couch directly behind hugh and they’ve been driving for two hours. by now, he’s figured out that dean’s tucked away in one of the bunks between the communal and private half of the bus because of the occasional shuffling he’ll hear behind the curtain.

seth’s tired, and he wants nothing more than to rush past those bunks, dive into the shower and fall into his bed to pretend that none of this has happened. he sighs, readjusting his cap for the hundredth time before tossing it aside with a huff.

“you need some sleep, boss. you took some real damage tonight.”

“yeah, hugh, i know.”

“not trying to step on your toes—“

“i know.” seth reaches over, patting hugh’s shoulder to take the sting from his words. “i just need a minute.”

hugh nods, lowering his voice. “was i right to let him on?”

seth scratches his thumbnail across the bottom of his chin in thought for a moment. “i wouldn’t want him stranded there.”

he watches the road over hugh’s shoulder for a few moments, taking in the city lights until they blur together, his eyes fluttering open and shut a few times before he pushes himself to his feet with finality.

there’s no reason they can’t talk this out like the grown men they are. dean’s emotions got the best of him, and that’s okay. it happens. seth just needs to hear from him that that’s all it was.

hands in his jacket pockets, he lifts his chin and strides over to the bunks, switching on the light and parking himself in the middle of them before turning to the curtain he’s pretty sure dean’s tucked behind.

“i’m not too good with the long, drawn-out silences. that’s more your thing. so, if you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s okay. i just want to make sure you’re okay.”

there’s no response, and seth’s nodding to himself. “i get it. i’ll see you in the morning.” he squares his shoulders and takes a few steps into his bedroom.

“can’t hear you with your back turned to me.” dean’s voice is gravelly, tired, and coming from the bunk exactly opposite from where seth had been speaking.

the curtain opens with a swish, and seth puts his arm on the door frame, pulling himself back into the bunk space with a small smile that falls when he sees the look on dean’s face. his face is red, eyes irritated and puffy and just sad. he shifts so he’s on his side and seth immediately moves closer, raising a hand to place in that familiar spot just behind dean’s ear, but stopping himself at the last second.

“i know i said i could handle this, and i really thought i could.” dean sniffs, running a quick thumb under the tip of his nose. “but i’ve told you before, it’s just.” he gestures vaguely to his head. “sometimes the pressure just keeps building and i can’t think—“

“—i know.” seth assures him. and i hate seeing you like that. but you need to give yourself credit because you did what you were supposed to do. you did the job, and it’s what the fans wanted. did you hear the pop?”

dean scoffs dryly, keeping his eyes averted from seth. “yeah it was great. you’re not gonna say anything about what i did to you?”

it’s definitely a fair question. throughout their entire run, seth’s been the one focused on the big picture and calling the shots necessary to steer their story in the right direction. but his frustration with tonight’s plan being derailed pales in comparison to his concern for the erratic, pained way dean unloaded on him.

“do you want me to say something about it?”

“just tell me if this changes things between us.” dean mumbles. “if you want to go method and make this real, cut the cord, i don’t blame you.”

seth is already shaking his head and follows his urge this time, cupping dean’s face in his hand and bending so they’re level. dean’s eyes stay cast down, but his mouth trembles a bit, betraying how distraught the thought makes him.

“can you look at me?” seth rubs one of his thumbs over dean’s cheek, hoping to encourage him.

dean sniffs again, exhaling shakily at the touch and slowly bringing his eyes up to finally meet seth’s. seth feels his brows knit together immediately and he crowds himself closer, pressing his forehead to dean’s.

“eight years.” he asserts. “we’ve had each other for eight years and i’ve given you plenty of opportunity to leave me behind. i need you to believe me when i say that there’s no chance in hell i’m turning on you now. we’ve got a job to do and i have no idea what’s coming next, but i can’t — i won’t — go forward without you at 100%.” seth can feel his hands beginning to shake and pulls back, praying his feelings are visible.

dean’s mouth is hanging open in ponderous uncertainty, eyes shining. “i’m usually the one doing the worrying around here.”

seth raises a brow and purses his lips in acknowledgment, recalling each time he’d stumbled back from a blow to find dean there to catch him, how many times he’d been a second too slow to stop an oncoming kick or punch that dean would take to give him time to recover.

dean’s always been the punching bag of the group, branded as a lunatic to make up for his penchant for taking the brunt of the shield’s opposition. it’s broken seth’s heart more than once to see him busted up — that fateful backstage attack that left dean’s arm pinned beneath a road case came to mind — but the thought of those wounds going deeper is enough to harden his resolve and strengthen his voice as he leans in once more.

“promise me you won’t let a script make you think i don’t need you.”

“i—“ dean stops as he takes those words in, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth pensively before fixing seth with a steady azure gaze. “can you promise you’ll let me know if i go too far? no matter what it is.”

“no matter what,” seth nods. “you’ve got me and my word.”

“and you’ve got mine.” dean lurches forward, awkwardly wrapping his arms around seth, who instinctively tucks his head into the warm crook of dean’s neck.

if things were different, if the company they represented were a bit more open-minded and a lot more progressive, perhaps this storyline could end with a joyous reunion culminating in the romantic angle execs have been scoffing at since fans first got a whiff of the chemistry between the two of them. and perhaps it could’ve extended beyond the ring, placed an actual ring on seth’s finger that matched the one that felt like a hot brand being pressed into the back of his neck.

it’s wishful thinking, but not at all unwelcome or even unusual in seth’s mind. in fact, it’s been there in the back since that first meeting eight years ago, when they shook hands and seth felt as if every step he’d taken in his life had brought him to that exact spot in a humid Florida parking garage.

it pulls at his head and heart, aching in a way only the worst kinds of torture can and so he smothers it down with a light few slaps to dean’s back. the answering wobbly grunts that come from the other man reveal that he isn’t ready to let go just yet, and seth’s once again in an all-too-familiar predicament.

he won’t let dean go. not now, not ever. but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy the pain that comes with holding onto someone destined for another path.

for not the first time tonight, this week, or this year, he shuts his eyes and silently prays for a reprieve from the addictive anguish that is loving dean ambrose.

***

end

[teejaydeetrip]

Keep Newtown Weird and Safe

So I woke up on Sunday with a compounded headache. I’ve been drinking for days. Again. It was about 1.30 in the afternoon when I finally dragged myself out of bed, unsure of my ability to stand, but sure I needed to do it. Keep Newtown Weird And Safe is on in 2 and a half hours. I need to coordinate with Newtown Police, who are sending 15 officers out to escort what could be anywhere between 200 and 1000 punks, ravers, clubbers, crossdressers, and family unit’s down the busiest street in the inner western suburbs. I burp and I taste stale beer and nearly throw up. I message Alex, who has forgotten about the event today, and tell him to meet me at Railway Square. Only ramen can make this right. He takes forever to respond and during this time I keep hearing my phone ring, but when I walk to the bedside table to check it, there is no sound, there is no light, there is no notification.

I meet Alex at 3. One hour till showtime. We eat our ramen and it’s fake tonkotsu, thin, and the pickled ginger I pile into the bowl dyes it slightly red. Fake tonkotsu fucking sucks, but I slurp it down and feel somewhat rejuvenated anyhow. Out of the corner of my eye, I keep seeing something that looks like flailing tentacles in the kitchen, but I know it’s probably just cooking chopsticks and exhaustion combining in my brain to fuck with me. 

Alex is talking about how depressing it is to begin to accept that he will not have enough money to go to FujiRock in Japan and I am agreeing. Aphex Twin, Bjork, Queens Of The Stone Age, Major Lazer, Lorde, and The XX are all co-headlining and holy shit am I sad I am responsible enough to accept that I can’t afford it. Even if I could, I’d be shooting myself in the foot as far as leaving the country for good at the end of the year goes. 

We finish our bowls around 3.30 and start walking down to the park. We stop at Broadway Cellars, because of course we do, and I intend on skulling down a quick, cheap mini of whisky. Instead, I find a cold drip coffee infused IPA from Rogue. It costs $16 but there’s no way I’m not trying that, and I am still waist-deep in the throes of a hangover that’s been building like a bad dream since last Wednesday. We sit on a step across the road from the park and I drink a 16 dollar beer in 8 minutes then spot the police arriving in the park across the road. 

Time to head. Alex veers off to chat with crew, as he is holding a 1.5 litre bottle of high alcohol cider. I find Vicki and we trudge over to the police.

I ask where Tony is, my contact for today, and an officer with skulls tattooed on his arms and a big smile points over at a big bald officer with a fancy hat. His nametag says Anthony and he extends his hands to shake and says  “Tony, nice to meet you” and I nearly burp but hold it in and say  “TJ. Not Anthony then?” and motion at his name tag, completely forgetting that Tony is absolutely short for Anthony. He gives me a forced grin. I get the vibe that Tony and the 4 officers flanking him think I just have a lame sense of humour. “Nope. Just Tony” he says. Good good. I run him through our exit plan, then rush off to join the others and notify the stages. Then I realise that our exit plan won’t work. So I grab Kieran,  who is wearing an amazing silver reflective jacket, and we walk a new route, then notify the police, then notify the stages. The only speedbump is the Weird stage, who’s psytrance sound system gets cut off a number of times and they spend the last 3 minutes before the march kick off freaking out and trying to get their generator running.

So from Victoria Park, we march. Keep Newtown Weird and Safe is a party run by Reclaim The Streets and what we are, is a disorganised but effective collective of young and old, anti-establishmentarianists. RTS started in the UK in the 80′s as an anti-gentrification protest. London, I think. There are a few around the world. Austin, Berlin, Quebec, Manilla. Chapters spring up every few years, some lasting, others not. 

Sydney’s chapter has been the most active in recent years, holding at least two rallies per year.  We take over public spaces usually reserved for cars and create a temporary autonomous zone populated by bright colours and happy people dancing to improvised sound systems. Usually we take a street as our final destination after 30-60 minutes of marching and we dance in defiance for as long as we can. 

The march goes well this year. I ran into tons of people I haven’t seen in years and I say my hellos and I promise to have a drink with them at the end point and I rush off to go live on Facebook or post some pictures of the crowd to Instagram with all the usual hashtags or check with the cops that everything is still going well or tell a sound system to slow down or speed up a little. Jack tells me to relax at one point and I tell him that the moment I relax is the moment where my body will remind me it is falling apart.

We have 5 stages rolling down King st, flanked by partygoers, girls on roller skates, people twirling LED poi or blowing bubbles. Under police escort. People are hanging out of windows taking photos and I’m sipping Deans Soju and screaming at them to come join us and taking more photos for the Instagram. At some point, a light from the Umami stage drops off it and clocks Blake, the guy who built the stage in the head. He has blood pouring down the side of his face but a huge smile anyway. 

At the end point, we roll into the park and find spots for the stages and I shake hands with Tony and he says he is handing us off to Redfern Police, who never show. On a run to the bottle shop with Alex, I run into Jess, an old flame from back in the day who I haven’t spoken to in years. She’s wearing a silver leather jacket and a silver skirt with a skeleton design on it, like a space age x-ray around her crotch. We promise to catch up later and I don’t think it will happen, but lo and behold, she approaches as we watch the fashion show that Vicki has organised. 

A guy in a lobster suit, a couple in matching floral print, a transgender woman named Joe and a Victorian era steam punk lady are marching up and down the catwalk and I’m catching up with Jess about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen since we stopped talking like 5 years ago.

When I get distracted, she talks to Alex and I hope he realises that I’m drunk enough to kind of have the hots for Jess and she’s offering me work for her media company and I think there’s something going on. Me, being the guy helping run this gig though, I keep getting distracted. I take Jess and Alex along with me to help shut the gig down after Jack and I decide which stages get shut down and which ones we are gonna just let keep playing. We shut everyone down and Jack, Vicki, Caitlin, Alex and I walk all our gear to a friend of theirs on Lord St. Jess follows. Back at the park, everyone is in packdown except for the Umami stage, who have rolled their rig deeper into the park. We go sit down and enjoy the music. I doubt the police are going to show. I realise I am way too drunk too drink in a park and message Jack to see where he and the crew went.

Townie. But by the time we get there, it’s Oporto that they are at and he is considering going into the city to 77. I message Matty to ask if I can get in for free and he says only if I hurry and I don’t ask about Alex or Jess, who are behind me talking about skateboarding. At Oporto it’s just Caitlin and Jack, and Caitlin is going home. So Jack, Jess, Alex and I all pile into a cab and Jess pays for it. Jack and I get Jess and Alex in for free and A Guy Called Gerald (that is his performer name) is playing a live techno set that I never see because I’m too busy drinking for free on the cool kids side of the club. 

I catch up with K, who gives me a bump of K and we talk long and hard about everything music and I realise I haven’t actually seen K in like 3 years. It’s been a day of catch up’s with old friends, even if I have been shamelessly flirting with one of them and ignoring most of my friends apart from her.

I ask Marina if I can go behind the bar and make some cocktails for my friends and she says yes but only this once. -60ml Scotch -15ml Licor 43 -15ml Passionfruit pulp -30ml Lemon -30ml Egg white

I don’t remember much else except that I got ridiculously drunk, smoked in the bathroom a bit, made out in the bathroom a bit, went home with Jess and didn’t go to sleep until 6 in the morning. 

All of my days seem to start and end with good cocktails. The sex was definitely a plus.