#hi this is bones here. as someone where hard water is the norm I WISH hard water gave me superpowers

[stealingyourbones]

Do you think that Danny would be mad that his lab accident was incredibly traumatizing and gave him superpowers whilst Jay Garrick’s (the first flash) lab accident that gave him his powers was breathing in hard water vapors after having a smoke and knocking over a beaker of hard water?

[sativaasiren]

Kid

Relationship: Hawks x Reader

Genre: one shot, hurt/angst

Summary: A companion piece to “Tolerate It” from an alternate point of view. Hawks keeps secrets and lies from Reader while she slowly unravels their relationship. Based on the song “Kid” by the Pretenders (slowed version)

Notes: I wanted to flesh out the scenario I set in Tolerate it with a different point of view. Fic is best enjoyed while listening to “Kid” by the Pretenders (slow live version)

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*Kid, What changed your mood? You got all sad. So I feel sad too*

Takami Keigo was many things, but being unobservant wasn’t one of them. He could pinpoint the exact moment he felt (Y/N) pulling away from him. It was about a year into their relationship, he had been gone on a scouting mission with a few other heroes and was gone for almost 3 weeks. The mission required him to maintain a cover in public spaces, blending into his surroundings.

Hawks looked down at his phone absentmindedly. He had told (Y/N) not to worry but she did anyway. She was always so apt to forge her own path and make her own choices regardless of what he suggested, he loved that about her but they had fought the morning he left.

She had asked him when she could expect him home and what he might want for dinner when he got back but he was up to his ears and snapped at her, the probing questions hitting his patience just right. “How should I know what I would want weeks from now? I’m busy”

Keigo looked up from the paperwork to see her pained expression, and he had to hide how it crushed him inside.

“I understand. I’ll give you some space. I love you, Keigo, please stay safe”

(Y/N) backed away from the kitchen table and headed towards the bedroom.

“Love you too, kid. I’ll see ya later”. He got half of the sentence out before he heard her gently close the door. Keigo had pretended their entire relationship to not be as sharp with his hearing as he was his eyesight. He wanted to protect her and make her feel safe to do things behind closed doors without him listening in.

But he heard everything. He could hear the choked sob that came from deep inside her chest once she felt she was tucked away safely in their room, away from prying minds. Keigo looked back down at the papers scattered around and shoved them off the table.

Hawks was mad at himself. He could feel himself hurting you but was not fully able to stop himself. He wanted to be your protector but it was easier to cut himself off from someone like her, who loved him. Keigo never felt deserving of your love and was quick to show you, prove he was right.

Shaking his head, he returned to the present moment. His phone had been silent since he left, the fight between them laying thick in the air. Keigo found solace being stuck on a mission in a bar right now, and while he was techinically off the clock, he could drown his sorrows as much as he desired. Keigo flagged down the bartender and ordered another glass of Jack, settling into his bar stool.

Hawks had since lost count of the drinks he had. Somewhere between 2 and not enough to get him cut off, but the room seemed hazy and the edges of his vision were softer.

A woman had sat down in the seat next to him and he was completely oblivious to her presence until she tapped on his shoulder. “You’re far too gorgeous to be drinking here alone but that doesn’t seem to have stopped you. Can I buy your next round?”

She was pulling on his jacket collar gently and staring up at him from under her lashes, eyes green and piercing.

Hawks wanted to grab her hand and move it off of him, put an end to her flirtation, but he wasn’t feeling strong enough to resist. He was still pissed at himself, and it had migrated to being pissed at (Y/N). Keigo looked down at his phone and internally announced “If she doesn’t text me in the next 10 minutes, she probably wants me gone anyway.”

Keigo looked back at the woman. “Yeah, another jack and coke. Thanks”

She beamed back at him, hoping that his acceptance of a drink was the next step in this seamless dance they were doing together. Her goal was to go home with the handsome stranger, and she was determined to get her way.

The bartender made Keigo’s order and swapped out his empty glass for the new one. Hawks took the drink and smirked at the lady. “Thank you for the drink...”

“Mami”

“Mami. Mami. Pretty name, I think it suits you” Hawks punctuated his comment with a long sip of his drink, enjoying the way it scorched his insides on the way down.

“Thank you....”

“Kosuke. Name’s Kosuke”

“What are your plans for tonight, Kosuke?” Mami leaned back towards him and resumed fiddling with his collar and fur around the jacket.

Keigo looked down at his cell one last time. Her 10 minutes was up, and he was decided.

“Whatever you want them to be, gorgeous” Keigo sealed his fate and (Y/N) an unknowing participant in his game, was too late to change his mind.

When Hawks finally returned home 4 days later, he had changed. He had begun to dread walking through the front door where (Y/N) was probably waiting, eager to greet him and shower him with affection. It would take more than a small spat for her to break her pattern of love.

His stomach knotted itself while he slowly turned the handle. How long could he keep it a secret?

(Y/N) was standing 3 feet from the door, holding her hands together to calm her nerves. She was always afraid he would come home too broken for time to mend.

Keigo slowly walked through the door and he wished he was anywhere other than home.

“Keigo! I’m glad you came home safely!” She outreached her hands in excitement, reaching for him to come close.

Hawks looked at her for only a moment, making a poor attempt at eye contact. Something was wrong, he may be tired when he came home but this was the first time he was despondent.

“Sorry Kid, it was a long mission and I’d like to get some sleep. We’ll talk later”. Keigo shuffled past (Y/N) with his head hung low, refusing to allow her a look at his face. He shut the bedroom door behind him and Y/N was still standing in place, arms outstretched, processing what had even happened.

*I think I know. Some things you never outgrow. You think it's wrong. I can tell you do.*

Hawks had been home for a few days and had been no more forthcoming than he was when he got home. (Y/N) waited for him to open up about his time away but it never came. She would return home from work to the same empty shell of her boyfriend.

(Y/N) would clean to calm her anxiety, it helped her process her feelings while keeping her focused on a mundane task. Keigo was in the shower and she toiled away on the dishes when a chime sounded from the kitchen. (Y/N) turned the water off and headed towards the sound, assuming it was her phone but she was wrong. On the screen, the notification read:

“1 NEW TEXT MESSAGE: FROM MAMI”

(Y/N) fought the urge to snoop through his phone, but she felt her stomach sink and knew there were very few explanations for why another girl would be texting Keigo. (Y/N) locked the phone to dim the screen and resumed the dishes, stuck on an internal panic that she couldn’t stop. Who was Mami?

Keigo returned to the living room in only a towel, choosing to not acknowledge (Y/N) and heading directly for his phone. (Y/N) was standing over the sink, gripping the basis and trying to steel herself for what she was about to do.

“Who’s Mami?”

Hawks froze in his tracks, staring through your back. What did she say? “There’s no way she figured me out in 4 days. Not possible” he mulled to himself.

After an extended pause used to prep his trail of lies, he started to answer “Mami was another person I worked with on my mission. She was the eyes on the inside. Nothing to worry about”

(Y/N) turned around to face him, eyes growing reflective and watery. She refused to cry to him, reveal her jealousy and her insecurity but it was impossible to hold back everything she was feeling at the same time, one emotion had to leak through the cracks in her wall.

“Is that all?”

*How can I explain. When you don't want me to.*

Keigo nodded slowly. “I love you Kid. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s only ever been you”

(Y/N) grimaced and turned back towards the sink, choosing to believe Keigo over risking losing the one she loved. She kept quiet, softly scrubbing the plates in front of her.

The guilt sank deeper into his bones. He was too far in now, he could never go back. Was this the right choice? He loved her but Hawks knew that what they had came with a fast expiration date, it didn’t matter what they did, it would end.

*Kid, My only kid. You look so small. You've gone so quiet.*

The days felt longer when they didn’t speak to fill the silence. (Y/N) only spoke a fraction of the time she used to. Mostly her repetitive questions about dinner, when he was leaving, would they spend time together before he left. It was what wasn’t being said that sat in the air. If neither of them touched the subject, they could pretend it didn’t exist and they would have to shatter the illusion they were intent on living.

*I know you know what I'm about. I won't deny it.*

Months went on following the new norm. Hawks went away for weeks at a time, distance himself while he was gone, and returned home drunk when he finally decided to go home. (Y/N) was just as doting and loving as she always had been, she refused to give into the dark cloud that hovered in her head. It took all of her inner strength to not ask him where he was and who with upon his arrival. Why ask him if he was going to lie anyway? What good would it do?

Keigo had been playing charades his entire life, this was no different, but (Y/N) could throw a curveball into his web and tear a hole in it with a single question. The more he lied, the more she pieced together why. Some nights, it was too hard to lie to her. To give her the comfort she was so craving. After about 4 drinks, his softness rotted away and all that remained was his sandpaper exterior.

Hawks had come home late one night, a bit weak on his feet but still mobile. He was drunk, and only the door frame was holding him upright.

He stumbled his way to the kitchen table and dropped into the chair, groaning and nursing a headache.

(Y/N) stood in the hallway, watching him from afar. He caused quite a ruckus trying to come inside and it had interrupted her reading. She was worried, and she wanted to bring him a glass of water and some medicine. (Y/N) didn’t hesitate this time, she loved taking care of him, and it would take a lot more than deception to break her love for him.

She walked past him to the cabinet and took out a small glass. Filling it up at the sink, she set it down in front of him and went to the medicine cabinet to grab him something for his pain. (Y/N) returned and gently set the pills next to the glass.

Hawks reached over and grabbed them from the table, grazing his hand against hers. Something inside him snapped, she was warm and he had forgotten, and soon she will be gone. His eyes went dark and he smirked at the glass of water, reaching for it and popping the pills into his mouth.

“Thanks Kid.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Keigo shut his eyes and stopped breathing for a moment. He knew he was going to be backed in a corner but he couldn’t take any more time to process without making the situation worse.

“Yeah, what?”

“Do you even miss me when you’re gone doing God knows what?”. (Y/N)’s voice was cold and seeping with anger. She had surprised herself, not expecting for that choice of words and tones to leave the confines of her mind.

Keigo opened his mouth like he was laughing but no sound came out. He was pissed at and for no valid reasons. She was asking him something she earned the right to ask but he was mad she was doubting him. The hypocrisy of his thoughts didn’t go unnoticed but he started to speak before he was finished. Time’s up.

“Only sometimes”

(Y/N) flinched like she had been hit. She reached her fingers out towards him and crumpled them into her palms. She would not touch him this time.

She slowly retreated for the safety of the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She barely finished the task before gripping onto the counter and crumpling to the floor, sobbing into her elbow in a poor attempt to hide the sound. Her world was crumbling in around her, and she still loved him.

*But you forget. You don't understand. You've turned your head. You've dropped my hand.*

(Y/N) stopped asking questions about Keigo’s alter life outside of their shared apartment. The answers were killing her but she couldn’t let him go just yet. She would need time to brace herself, steel against the pain in her chest, and leave.

Hawks could tell he was going to lose (Y/N). She spent their time home together in silence, wanting. When he returned home, she only held his hand for a moment and then retreated to the kitchen, finishing dinner.

Keigo stopped sleeping. Who knew that this choice in the vats of many would be the one to kill him and keep him awake. (Y/N) was asleep soundly beside him, curled into a ball, and he watched her breathe. Hawks reached out a finger and gently brushed her arm, stroking in straight lines from shoulder to elbow. “If this was a different life, and I was a different man, we could have been perfect. But I can’t be who you need.” He whispered to himself, barely audible.

*All my sorrows. All my blues. All my sorrows.

Hawks kept drinking and every time he got drunk, he would black out and go home with someone. He had lost count of how many women or men it had been so far. Anything to numb how he felt inside. Keigo never thought he would be deserving of love and he was out to prove it.

(Y/N) had been packing in small amounts. Drawers that he never used, boxes from under their bed, things tucked in the back of the closet. She slowly packed pieces of her life away and traveled them to her new apartment. It wasn’t far from where you were and made it easy to smuggle out her belongings. (Y/N) wanted to leave but she needed time to do it.

Hawks noticed things going missing when the books on the shelves seemed fewer. Then he started pacing around the house while (Y/N) worked, searching for what was gone. After discovering that more of her things were gone than remained, it dawned on him where this was headed. She’s going to leave soon. I made her leave.

*Full of grace, you cover your face.*

Keigo returned home drunk once again but this time (Y/N) didn’t seem as cold as she had been. She was red in the face, flushed, and trembling slightly.

“Keigo, I made dinner if you’re hungry?”

Keigo looked over at her on the way to the couch, but it overwhelmed him. He needed to get the hell out of there fast.

“I’m only home for a few minutes before i’m going back out. I have plans”.

“Oh okay, I was hoping to spend time with you today. Maybe later then?” (Y/N)’s voice cracked when she got to later then, it was a piss poor attempt at courage but it was all she was capable of.

Keigo didn’t reply, just exhaled loudly. He was tired of playing games and lying to you but it had to be done. Hawks sat up when his phone started to buzz on the coffee table. He snagged it up and looked at the message lightning fast and made his way back to the front door.

You shakily reached out towards his back and retracted your hand before he saw. “I love you, Keigo. Please be safe”

Keigo slowly smiled at you and replied with his usual comment. “Love you too, kid. I’ll see ya later”

Keigo rushed out the door and into the alley near their house, hoping for privacy. Once he was midway through and in the darkest part of the alley, he punched the wall and threw his phone into the cement. I love her and I made her leave me. Hawks started to break down, holding his face in his hands and crying. “I wanted to love you but I was kidding myself. I don’t know how to be the man you need me to be.”. Keigo shook his head violently and jumped off for a flight to somewhere, anywhere but this neighborhood. It all reminded him of you.

*Kid. Precious kid. Your eyes are blue but you won't cry I know. Angry tears are too dear. You won't let them go.*

Keigo came home late that night, sneaking into his house quietly. He made his way to your bedroom and saw your sleeping form in bed. Hawks couldn’t bear sleeping next to you tonight when he was still raw from earlier. He slipped off his jacket and boots and curled up on the small loveseat you had by the window. It smelled like (Y/N) and lulled him to sleep.

Keigo woke up when he heard movement. He opened one eye to see the bed empty and the house dark. He closed his eye again and squeezed them shut. It’s today.

Time moved slow while he waited to hear the door open and shut, shutting you out of his life forever. His eyes closed, he pictured your face on your first flight with him, full of joy and excitement. Keigo saw that light drain out of you, and he was to blame. This would sit heavy on his soul for the rest of days.

He heard a soft squeak at the doorway and knew you were standing there.

“I love you, Keigo. Please be safe”. (Y/N) whispered.

Keigo listened for her receding footsteps and heard the click of the front door lock. He stared up at the ceiling, cursing himself.

“Love you too, Kid. I’ll see ya later”. Keigo whispered to the empty room, wide awake. She was gone, and he was alone.

[vgckwb]

P5R: Rebel Girl (A FeMC Story/P5R Rework) Chapter 41: Varying Kinds of Trash

Monday was the clean up day the school had organized. Instead of classes, students had to go to the park to clean it up. However, only half the day was mandatory. Monday was also the day the Phantom Thieves would meet up to plan the Madarame heist. Ren woke up, stretched a bit, and then proceeded to get ready for the day.

One her way to Shujin to pick up her gym clothes, she heard someone say “Hey beautiful” in a slimy voice. She looked and was horrified at the sight. One that was all too familiar. Sumire was being harassed by someone. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Sumire insisted.

“OK OK” the guy said. He looked her over. “So, you go to Shujin, huh? I’ve heard things are getting a bit rough there.” He took out his phone. “If you need anything, we can exchange numbers. You can give me a call, and I’ll be over in a jiff.”

“Please stop,” Sumire told him.

“Huh?” the guy said.

“Sumire…” Morgana lamented from the bag. He looked at Ren. “Huh?”

Ren was having a conniption. The girl she liked was in the midst of getting harassed. Yet she knew, she KNEW, that doing something was what got her in trouble last time. It could get her in trouble again, and it would jeopardize more than herself. It would jeopardize the Phantom Thieves, and by extension, the world.

However, Ren couldn’t let this go. Come Hell or high water, she knew she had to stop this. She dashed over. “She told you to stop,” she said, confronting the creep.

“Huh?” the man said.

“Senpai?” Sumire said.

The man looked over. “Is she your friend?” he asked. He grinned a slimy grin. “We can all be friends here. There’s no need to get jealous.”

“I’d prefer not to,” Ren said.

“What was that?” the guy jerked.

“She SAID she doesn’t want to!” Sumire interrupted with force, taking both the creep and Ren by surprise. “And I SUGGEST you respect her wishes.”

The perv got angry.”Maybe YOU ought to learn some manners.” He lifted his hand in an attempt to strike one of them. However, someone grabbed his hand before he could unleash his anger. The three of them looked over to see that it was Kosuke. Kosuke gave the man a look that could kill.

The attempted playboy was scared. He broke off from Kosuke’s grasp, put his hands in his pockets, and regained his composure. “Tch” he said in a huff. “Fine! Be like that. You’re not special anyway.” He walked off, frustrated.

The girls sighed in relief. “You alright?” Kosuke asked. The girls looked up at him. They nodded. “Good.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry.” The girls were confused. “I’m sure you could have handled a creep like him on your own. I didn’t mean to underestimate you.”

Ren chuckled slightly. “It’s OK. When it comes to people like that, I’ll take all the help I can get.”

“Fair,” Kosuke chuckled back. He then realized. “Hey. You’re that girl from the coffee shop, right?” Ren nodded. “Thought so. Hey, just so you know, your portrait will be ready tonight. Will you be at the coffee shop then?”

Ren got slightly embarrassed. “I’ll be there, yeah.”

“Great,” Kosuke said. He began to walk off.

“Wait!” Ren called out. Kosuke turned back. “Uh, how much do I owe you?”

Kosuke grinned. “It’s alright. You can have it for free.”

“Are you sure?” Ren asked.

Kosuke nodded. “Positive.”

“Well, if you say so…” Ren said, sounding unsure. She bowed. “Thank you.” Kosuke nodded and walked off.

Ren and Sumire began walking towards Shujin. “So, that’s Kosuke?” Sumire asked. Ren nodded. “Hmmmm. He seems nice, despite...you know…everything…”

“I bet he is usually nice,” Ren explained. “Remember, we had to fight Shiho before, and she’s practically the salt of the Earth.”

“...You’re right,” Sumire said. She sighed. “I guess I should have known that. I know what it’s like to change dramatically when faced with difficult situations…”

Ren looked over at her. “I get it,” she said. Sumire looked up. “It’s jarring because you’ve only seen his mean side. I’m sure if you knew him better, you might see that kind of interaction as the norm, rather than the exception.”

Sumire thought about that. “I guess that that’s how Yusuke-senpai sees him then. Usually, anyways...”

Ren was shocked. “Hm. I guess you’re right.” She smiled, gazing at Sumire as the two continued heading to the school. Upon arrival, they headed to the locker room to get changed. Once they got into their gym clothes, they headed out towards the park for cleaning.

“OK everyone!” Makoto called out on her megaphone. “Today, we are doing our part to clean up the park. You will be split into groups of four. Each group will be given a section to clean. A lunch will be provided. After lunch, you can decide to stay, or leave if you would prefer. Now, find your assignments, and get cleaning!”

The students checked the assignment list. To their surprise, Ren, Ann, Ryuji, and Sumire were in a group together. “For real?!” Ryuji wondered.

“That’s quite the coincidence” Ann remarked.

Makoto walked up to them and just said “You’re welcome” before leaving.

There was a slight pause. “I guess Niijima-senpai did that for us.” Sumire concluded.

“Huh” Ryuji said.

“Well, I guess we can’t let a good thing go to waste,” Ren said. “Let’s get cleaning and see how far in our planning we can get.” The others nodded.

“Wait, what’s Morgana going to do?” Ann asked.

They all looked at Ren. Morgana popped out of the bag. “I guess just keep me close.” The teens nodded and started cleaning.

“So, do we have any ideas for what the card should say?” Ryuji said. “Cause I’ve been thinking, and boy howdy, do I have some ideas.”

“I think we should let Yusuke handle writing it,” Ann said.

“Yeah, this is kind of personal to him,” Sumire added.

“Oh. Sure. That makes sense” Ryuji said. He sighed. “I guess it’s mostly his demons we’re tackling here.”

“It’s fine,” Ren said. “Believe me, I have some choice words for him as well. But I think it worked for Kamoshida because we all had a bone to pick with him on a personal level.”

“RIght…” Ryuji said.

Sumire was thinking. “How should we distribute it?”

Morgana popped out. “That’s a good question.”

“Hmmm” Ann thought. “If we send it to Madarame’s house, he’s sure to get it.”

“Yeah, but I doubt that Kosuke would see it” Ren reminded them. “We need something that gets his attention too.”

“What about the exhibit itself?” Sumire asked.

“Good thinking!” Ryuji said. “Kosuke’s guarding the place as it is.”

“Right, even if he’s not there, he’s in charge,” Ren said. “I’m sure they’d call him in for such an event.”

“Wait!” Ann said. “That place is guarded by cameras and stuff. If anyone gets caught, they’ll know for sure it’s us!”

“Well, almost anyone…” Morgana said. They all looked at him. “I mean, I look like a cat to most people. If they saw me, we’d be clear.”

After a slight pause, Sumire said “Right. And since your fur is black, and we’ll be doing this at night, you’ll be harder to spot.”

“How does that help?” Ryuji asked.

“It’s simple,” Ren said. “If Morgana’s hard to see, they can’t trace it back to me.” Sumire nodded.

“Oh. I see” Ryuji said.

“Wait!” Ren said. She sighed. “I can’t take Morgana tonight.”

“Why not?” Ann asked.

“Because Kosuke told me he’d be bringing my portrait in tonight” Ren explained.

“Wait, when did he tell you that?” Ryuji asked.

“This morning,” Sumire said. Ann and Ryuji got really confused. “The two of us ran into him.”

“I see,” Ryuji said.

“What’s he like?” Ann asked. “Out here I mean.”

Sumire smiled gently. “He’s actually really sweet and considerate.”

Ann was shocked. “Wow. I did not expect that.”

“Neither did I” Sumire explained. “But it makes sense when you think about it. In the end, he’s only after Madarame.”

“Right…” Ann said.

Morgana looked on uncomfortably. “Sumire…”

Sumire smiled. “It’s fine.”

“What is?” Ryuji asked.

“Oh, uh, it’s just the circumstances of him crossing paths with us weren’t ideal” Sumire told them.

“‘Weren’t ideal’ how?” Ann asked.

“Well…” Sumire began.

“Some creep was trying to get close with Sumire,” Ren said.

“WHAT?!” Ryuji said.

“I stepped into help, and then Kosuke came to help when he tried making a pass at both of us,” Ren continued.

“Well, he jumped in when he threatened to hit us when we didn’t comply” Sumire clarified.

“That’s… not better,” Ryuji said.

“Ugh!” Ann grunted. She sighed. “Well, I’m glad that things didn’t get worse.”

Sumire nodded. “Thanks.”

“So, where were we?” Ryuj asked. “I got so mad thinking about that guy I lost track.”

“Oh, right,” Sumire said. “We were talking about how to distribute the calling card.”

“Ohhhhh, riiiiiiiiight” Ryuji said. “Ren can’t do it because she’s meeting with Kosuke tonight. Yeah, I’m caught up now.”

“Well, I don’t think my parents would want me out so late,” Sumire said.

“Yeah, I don’t want to walk in and wake up my mom,” Ryuji added.

“I guess I’ll do it,” Ann said. “My parents just left for a business trip, so I’ll be fine.”

“When did they leave?” Ryuji asked.

“Just last night” Ann said. “And it’s only for about a week, but still.”

“Hey” Ryuji said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “If you need anything, you can always give me a call.”

Ann smiled. “Thanks.”

Ryuji let go. “So, is that everything?”

“I think so,” Ren said. “We’d need to meet up with Yusuke and Jose to finalize everything, but this is pretty much everything I could think of.”

“Well then, let's finish cleaning up,” Ann cheered. They continued to clean the area they were given.

“OK everyone!” Makoto called out. “It’s time for lunch. Please line up in an orderly fashion.”

As the students began to line up, the thieves managed to be first in line. Upon getting to their food, they were greeted with a surprise. “Dr. Maruki?” Sumire called out.

“Hi” he responded.

“What are you doing here?” Ann asked.

“I’m doing my part to help,” Maruki answered. “I, and some other students, spent all morning preparing lunch for you all.” Ren looked on and saw that most of the students helping Maruki were girls helplessly infatuated with him. Although to Ren’s surprise, she noticed one of the guys helping him was infatuated with him as well.

“You can cook?” Ryuji asked.

Maruki chortled. “It’s a skill you need to develop once you start living on your own. Although I’m not as good a cook as…” The thieves looked at him as he made no attempt to finish his sentence. “Well, anyway, enjoy your food.”

“Uhhh, not as good as who?” Ryuji asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Maruki said. “For right now, just enjoy some food.”

“Uhhhhhhh, OK?” Ryuji said.

“Let’s not push it for now,” Ren whispered. She walked up to get some food. “Thank you, Dr. Maruki.”

“You’re quite welcome,” he replied.

The thieves took their lunch to a bench and began eating. “So, what do we do after lunch?” Ryuji asked.

“Well...” Ann pondered. “There’s not much we can do. We’d have to wait for Yusuke and Jose to be done with school before doing anything.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Ryuji said.

“We could stay here and clean,” Sumire said. “We’re allowed to do that after all. And… I dunno, I’ve been having fun.”

“Not a bad idea,” Morgana said.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t have to clean,” Ren noted.

“Hey! That’s not… entirely true” Morgana defended.

“So it’s partially true?” Ann questioned.

Morgana continued. “It’s a nice look. You were all called out by the principal, were you not? This might help improve your image.”

“I getcha,” Ren said. “Plus, it’s a nice deterrent. People might not think we're the menacing Phantom Thieves if we’re among the few who stick around on a cleaning day.”

“...I guess” Ryuji relented.

“Were you not having a good time, Ryuji-senpai?” Sumire asked.

“Not entirely…” Ryuji said. “But I guess hanging out with you all has been fun in its own way.”

“Well, it sounds like we have a plan,” Ren said. “Let’s finish lunch and continue cleaning.” The others cheered, and they continued eating.

After they were done, They messaged Yusuke and Jose about meeting up, then they spent the rest of what would be their school day cleaning up some more. However, since most of the other students and staff were gone, they were a bit more free to just have fun at times. Once they got a reply from Yusuke, the group headed out.

They met up at the access hall. “So, are we ready to make a move?” Yusuke asked.

“Almost” Ren said. “We need to go over a few things first.” Ren explained to Jose and Yusuke what she and the others had discussed.

“I see…” Yusuke said. “Well, as much as I would love to write such a calling card, Madarame would recognize my prose immediately.”

“Oh” Ren said.

“Hey, why don’t I write it, and you can punch it up a little?” Ryuji offered.

Yusuke smirked. “What a marvelous idea.”

“Um, where?” Jose asked. The thieves looked around.

“I guess this place isn’t really conducive for writing, huh” Ren lamented.

“Condu-whu?” Ryuji wondered.

“It’s not a good place to write,” Sumire said.

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” Ryuji asked.

“She did,” Morgana replied.

“May I suggest that beef bowl place you took me to Ryuji?” Yusuke asked. “I’ve been wanting to go again.”

“Do they allow cats?” Ann asked, looking at Morgana.

“I don’t think so,” Ryuji said.

Yusuke looked sad. “Perhaps another day.”

“The diner on Central Street it is then!” Jose said.

“Would it look suspicious if we kept going there though?” Ryuji asked.

“Not really,” Jose pointed out. “I’ve seen groups of people going there daily. It wouldn’t seem odd in the slightest.”

“It is kind of a popular place,” Ann added.

“And thei cuisine is excellent” Yusuke said.

Ren smiled. “I guess being a place that’s welcoming has it’s advantages. Let’s go.” The group proceeded to make way to the diner.

While Ryuji was drafting the calling card, Ann took out something from her bag. “Hey Yusuke.” Yusuke looked at her. Ann slipped him a piece of paper. “Could you perhaps redesign our logo?” Yusuke looked at the piece of paper. “I designed it when we sent our calling card to Kamoshida… but I think it needs a bit of touching up.”

Yusuke looked it over. “Just to confirm,” he began, “what is this a picture of?”

“It’s a thief peering through a top hat,” Ann explained.

Yusuke looked at the image again. “That’s what I thought.” Yusuke continued to look. “Ah! I think I have something!” He sketched something. He showed the rest of the group. “What do you think?”

They all looked at it. “I like it,” Jose said.

“Me too!” Ann exclaimed. “It had the spirit of the original, but there’s something fierce that wasn’t there before.”

“It looks really cool, Yusuke-senpai!” Sumire chimed in.

“You did a really good job,” Ren said.

“Thank you,” Yusuke said. “Although I would like to thank Ann for her guidance.”

“Aww, you’re too kind,” Ann said.

“You could say that again,” Ryuji said.

“What was that?!” Ann snarled.

“N-nothing!” Ryuji whimpered. “Good job Yusuke, good job.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ann said.

“You’re doing excellent as chief artist for the Phantom Thieves” Morgana said.

“Why does Yusuke get to be chief artist?” Jose asked. “I’m an artist too.”

“Well, uh…” Morgana panicked.

“You can both be chief artist” Ren offered.

“Huh. OK” Jose smiled.

“What a splendid solution,” Yusuke said.

“That worked?” Ryuji said. “Anyways, I think I have the calling card written out.” He handed it to Yusuke. “What do you think?”

“Hm” Yusuke said, observing it. “Question: How long have you and Ann known each other?”

“Since middle school” Ryuji answered.

“But we were pretty close,” Ann said. “Wait, why are you asking that?”

“I’m getting a similar feeling looking over both your logo and Ryuji’s calling card” Yusuke said.

“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense” Ann said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Yusuke said. He took some time, but he rewrote Ryuji’s calling card. “There. A nice combination of mine and Ryuji’s work.”

“Wait” Ryuji called out. “Should it go through a few more people to hide your voice?”

“I think this is fine enough,” Yusuke said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryuji asked.

“It means your style and his clash a lot” Ann giggled.

“Um, didn’t he say that Ryuji’s card reminded him of your drawing?” Jose asked.

“Yeah, and-” Ann answered. “Hey!”

“My apologies,” Yusuke said. “It’s just… very different from what I’m used to.”

“We do go to Kosei,” Jose said. “The people there are top notch artists.”

Ann kept her glare for a bit. She dropped it to say “Well, in that case, I’ll forgive you.”

“Yeah. What she said” Ryuji tagged on.

“Well, it seems like we’re pretty much set,” Ren said. “All that’s left to do is drop it off.”

“I’m ready!” Ann said.

“A whole evening with Lady Ann” Morgana said, grinning ear to ear.

“Before you go, I have a question,” Ren said. “Is it not possible for Jose to do it?” They all looked at her. “I just don’t want him feeling left out.”

Jose smiled. “It’s OK. I’m fine with being more of an observer for now. And I can’t go. The dorms have a fairly strict nighttime policy. You can go out, but you have to sign out and state your reason.

“Yeah, I guess I can see where that’d be a problem,” Ryuji said. “You can’t just say ‘delivering Phantom Thief calling card’, otherwise they’ll get you.”

They looked at Ryuji confused. “I was thinking more ‘this outing corresponds to witness accounts and security data’” Jose explained.

“Oh” Ryuji said, embarrassed. “That too, I suppose…”

“Ryuji…” Ann said, facepalming.

“Alright then” Ren said. “I’ll message you once the coast is clear Ann.” Ann nodded. “Are we all set then? Tomorrow’s our only shot at getting Madarame’s treasure. Failure is not an option.” They all nodded. “Let’s get a good night’s rest, and bring the storm tomorrow.”

They all began to leave. Morgana slid between Ren’s bag and Ann’s. Ann took the calling card with the new logo and headed off, while everyone else returned home.

While in LeBlanc, Ren was working on some schoolwork when she and Sojiro heard the door open. They looked up, and sure enough it was Kosuke carrying a canvas. “Hi,” he said. He set the canvas down in the booth across from Ren. “What do you think? I call it ‘Portrait of a Girl in Love’.”

Ren was absolutely stunned. “It’s...amazing,” she said.

“Heh heh” Kosuke giggled. “I’m glad you like it. It’s been a while since I got to paint something like that. It felt really good to do. Thank you for being such a wonderful subject.”

Ren smiled. “Thank you for painting such a beautiful painting.”

As Kosuke was about to leave, Sojiro called out. “Wait!” Kosuke stopped. Sojiro threw down a wad of cash on the counter. “Here.”

Kosuke walked over. “What’s this?”

“Heh. Don’t think I’m letting you leave without paying you for that painting” Sojiro told him.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Kosuke said.

“I insist,” Sojiro said.

Kosuke looked at Sojiro, and then the money. “Well, if you insist.” He took the money. “Thank you.” He left.

Sojiro looked at Ren and the painting. “It really is a nice painting.” Ren nodded. “Were you planning on paying him for it?”

Ren was taken back a little. “Well, I ran into him this morning and he said he would give it to me or free after I asked about it.”

“I see,” Sojiro said. “What a wonderfully peculiar man.”

Ren smiled. “I agree.”

“Well, I’m gonna call it here,” Sojiro said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight” Ren called out. Sojiro left. Ren messaged Ann. Ann and Morgana had just finished, and started to head over to LeBlanc. Ren changed into her pajamas and hung up her painting in her room while she was waiting.

She got the arrival message from Ann, and went down to meet her to pick up Morgana. “How’d it go?” Ren asked.

“It went purr-fectly” Morgana said.

“Ugh” Ann said. “I was nervous the entire time. But it went well, so that’s good.”

Ren nodded. “Thanks.”

“No problem!” Ann said. “I should be heading home now. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight” Ren said.

“Goodnight Lady Ann” Morgana called out. Ren carried Morgana up to her room and plopped the both of them on the bed. Ren got under the covers, while Morgana curled up, and the two fell asleep almost instantly.

[boreothegoldfinch]

chapter 12 paragraph viii

Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster? Is Kitsey right? If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement, the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or—like Boris—is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? It’s not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn’t understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out. A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help. Though my engagement isn’t off, not officially anyway, I’ve been given to understand—gracefully, in the lighter-than-air manner of the Barbours—that no one is holding me to anything. Which is perfect. Nothing’s been said and nothing is said. When I’m invited for dinner (as I am, often, when I’m in town) it’s all very pleasant and light, voluble even, intimate and subtle while not at all personal; I’m treated like a family member (almost), welcome to turn up when I want; I’ve been able to coax Mrs. Barbour out of the apartment a bit, we’ve had some pleasant afternoons out, lunch at the Pierre and an auction or two; and Toddy, without being impolitic in the least, has even managed to let casually and almost accidentally drop the name of a very good doctor, with no suggestion whatever that I might possibly need such a thing.

[As for Pippa: though she took the Oz book, she left the necklace, along with a letter I opened so eagerly I literally ripped through the envelope and tore it in half. The gist—once I got on my knees and fit the pieces together— was this: she’d loved seeing me, our time in the city had meant a lot to her, who in the world could have picked such a beautiful necklace for her? it was perfect, more than perfect, only she couldn’t accept it, it was much too much, she was sorry, and—maybe she was speaking out of turn, and if so she hoped I forgave her, but I shouldn’t think she didn’t love me back, because she did, she did. (You do? I thought, bewildered.) Only it was complicated, she wasn’t thinking only of herself but me too, since we’d both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike—too much. And because we’d both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn’t, and couldn’t, understand, wasn’t it a bit… precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn’t doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn’t it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn’t that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? and though this was left to float in the air a bit, I realized instantly, and with some considerable astonishment, what she was getting at. (Dumb of me not to have seen it earlier, after all the injuries, the crushed leg, the multiple surgeries; adorable drag in the voice, adorable drag in the step, the arm-hugging and the pallor, the scarves and sweaters and multiple layers of clothes, slow drowsy smile: she herself, the dreamy childhood her, was sublimity and disaster, the morphine lollipop I’d chased for all those years.)

But, as the reader of this will have ascertained (if there ever is a reader) the idea of being Dragged Down holds no terror for me. Not that I care to drag anyone else down with me, but—can’t I change? Can’t I be the strong one? Why not?] [You can have either of those girls you want, said Boris, sitting on the sofa with me in his loft in Antwerp, cracking pistachios between his rear molars as we were watching Kill Bill. No, I can’t. And why can’t you? I’d pick Snowflake myself. But if you want the other, why not? Because she has a boyfriend? So? said Boris. Who lives with her? So? And here’s what I’m thinking too: So? What if I go to London? So? And this is either a completely disastrous question or the most sensible one I’ve ever asked in all my life.] [That little guy, said Boris in the car on the way to Antwerp. You know the painter saw him—he wasn’t painting that bird from his mind, you know? That’s a real little guy, chained up on the wall, there. If I saw him mixed up with dozen other birds all the same kind, I could pick him out, no problem.] And he’s right. So could I. And if I could go back in time I’d clip the chain in a heartbeat and never care a minute that the picture was never painted. To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I’ve been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it’s there. [Do you ever think about quitting? I asked, during the boring part of It’s a Wonderful Life, the moonlight walk with Donna Reed, when I was in Antwerp watching Boris with spoon and water from an eyedropper, mixing himself what he called a “pop.” Give me a break! My arm hurts! He’d already shown me the bloody skid mark—black at the edges—cutting deep into his bicep. You get shot at Christmas and see if you want to sit around swallowing aspirin! Yeah, but you’re crazy to do it like that. Well—believe it or not—for me not so much a problem. I only do it special occasions. I’ve heard that before. Well, is true! Still a chipper, for now. I’ve known of people chipped three-four years and been ok, long as they kept it down to two-three times a month? That said, Boris added somberly—blue movie light glinting off the teaspoon —I am alcoholic. Damage is done, there. I’m a drunk till I die. If anything kills me—nodding at the Russian Standard bottle on the coffee table—that’ll be it. Say you never shot before? Believe me, I had problems enough the other way. Well, big stigma and fear, I understand. Me—honest, I prefer to sniff most times—clubs, restaurants, out and about, quicker and easier just to duck in men’s room and do a quick bump. This way—always you crave it. On my death bed I will crave it. Better never to pick it up. Although—really very irritating to see some bone head sitting there smoking out of a crack pipe and make some pronouncement about how dirty and unsafe, they would never use a needle, you know? Like they are so much more sensible than you? Why did you start? Why does anyone? My girl left me! Girl at the time. Wanted to be all bad and self-destructive, hah. Got my wish. Jimmy Stewart in his varsity sweater. Silvery moon, quavery voices. Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight. So, why not stop then? I said. Why should I? Do I really have to say why? Yeah, but what if I don’t feel like it? If you can stop, why wouldn’t you? Live by the sword, die by the sword, said Boris briskly, hitting the button on his very professional-looking medical tourniquet with his chin as he was pushing up his sleeve.]

And as terrible as this is, I get it. We can’t choose what we want and don’t want and that’s the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us. We can’t escape who we are. (One thing I’ll have to say for my dad: at least he tried to want the sensible thing—my mother, the briefcase, me—before he completely went berserk and ran away from it.) And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic. And—I would argue as well—all love. Or, perhaps more accurately, this middle zone illustrates the fundamental discrepancy of love. Viewed close: a freckled hand against a black coat, an origami frog tipped over on its side. Step away, and the illusion snaps in again: life-more-than-life, never-dying. Pippa herself is the play between those things, both love and not-love, there and not-there. Photographs on the wall, a balled-up sock under the sofa. The moment where I reached to brush a piece of fluff from her hair and she laughed and ducked at my touch. And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky—so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime.

And that’s why I’ve chosen to write these pages as I’ve written them. For only by stepping into the middle zone, the polychrome edge between truth and untruth, is it tolerable to be here and writing this at all. Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair. But the painting has also taught me that we can speak to each other across time. And I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch. For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time—so too has love. Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in that immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.

[kareofbears]

blinding lights, chapter 3/4

Their height gap is a wide one, but in no way is Sumire going to let Akechi keep looking down on her. “It became my business the minute we wanted the same thing: to fix this reality.“

—

Akechi and Sumire have to traverse through the events of the third semester without Akira (or rather, against him).

read on ao3 or under the cut!

——

On a technical standpoint, rain doesn’t bother Akechi.

Whenever it rains, no matter if it was just a drizzle or a downpour, people scramble to the nearest overhang, praying that they don’t get drenched. Such a trivial thing to get panicked by, he thought. City rain like this was hardly something to fear, yet it remains a constant in societal culture—water starts falling from the sky and people stop whatever they’re doing to duck for cover.

And since Akechi had long since accepted to reform himself into the mold of society rather than the other way around, here he was, in the middle of Kichijoji, shoulders pressed back against the building of Darts & Billboards, waiting for the rain to tire itself out.

Out of all the habits he’s practiced and perfected from his days of deceit, it’s strange that hiding out from rainfall is one of the few that he still can’t shake, inconsequential as it was. He had learned that mimicking what can be considered societal norms and exercised it in everyday life can at least trick most people that he, Akechi Goro, can be lumped in with the norms and be heightened to excellence later on. People hid from droplets and because the path of normalcy is what he wanted, he decided that he’ll hide with them.

It took him a long time to narrow down why it bothered him. Why, for some reason, it had pissed him off that idiots would commit to such an insignificant action. It’s because when people run for cover, when they prioritize the act of hiding over everything else, they’re essentially allowing the rain—this overall harmless entity—to prevent them from reaching their destination. Fools let their decisions be dictated by the weather, wasting their time waiting it out, letting themselves be dictated beyond their control.

It’s a product of the collective unconscious; rather than pushing past the drizzle to reach their destination, or continue living their life as it were before the storm clouds rolled in, the masses decided that the better decision was to cease all movements because it would be easier. When it rains, society comes at a standstill.

“D’you always just stand in the middle of the promenade lookin’ pissed, or am I just lucky?”

Akechi blinks and turns his head to see a patch of bright, blond hair with an even brighter grin. His purple hood was pulled up, but it’s too short that it does little to block out the downpour.

Sakamoto Ryuji stands in front of him, completely drenched and unbothered.

“I’d hardly call it luck, so much as a coincidence.” Flicking his eyes downward, Ryuji adjusts the heavy looking plastic bags hanging off of his wrists. “And you?”

“Doing some grocery shopping for my ma. She’s been real busy at work, so…” he shrugs.

It really was a strange coincidence that he shows up like this, unprompted. The universe, if it ever was sentient, had never thrown him a bone. However, for Ryuji to show up, it almost seems like a waste to let it go.

If he’s been wanting to see Sakamoto up close, this is as good as it’s gonna get.

“How do you feel about joining me in some people-watching?” Akechi asks.

Ryuji’s eyes light up. “Sure! These bags are getting heavy anyway, could use a break.” He dodges a stream of water flowing cleanly from the gutter and joins Akechi underneath the overhang. Whether he can sense Akechi’s discomfort or perhaps it’s a feeling residing from the real reality, Ryuji had kept a gap of about a meter between the two.

“I hope I didn’t take you away from any pressing matters, Sakamoto.”

“Nah,” he gently sets down his bags before turning to give Akechi his full attention. “Don’t got much waiting for me back home with my ma at work, but can’t stay for too long,” he nods his head down to his bags. “She’d kick my ass if I let the milk go bad.”

Ryuji laughs, shoulders shaking. “But y’know, I see you hangin’ with ‘Kira sometimes, and any friend of that bastard is a friend of mine. And, uh, speaking of…” With an expression of guilt and reluctance so tremulous that Akechi can only compare it to a child getting caught with their hand in a cookie jar. “That’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Yes, technically he’s an unforgivable hypocrite for advising Sumire against speaking to Ryuji, but that won’t stop him from getting the information he needs. (It never has.)

After all, there must be something special about Sakamoto in order to have Kurusu Akira wrapped around his finger.

“Oh?” he responds.

“Yeah, it, uh, might be a bit awkward so I’ll do my best to be straight about it,” Ryuji looks embarrassed, but determined. “I know the feeling of not wanting to say something, to have it weigh you down and shit. Basically, what I’m tryna say is: you don’t just gotta rely on Akira!”

Akechi’s eyes widen. It should’ve been impossible. How did he figure out about Akira and the other reality when he hasn’t even been snapped out of it—

“You looked super stressed back in New Year’s and I get that you’d rather talk to Akira, but he’s a busy guy. And I know we aren’t close, but if you want to vent, or just, I dunno, get some ramen together?” he shrugs and throws a smile in Akechi’s direction. “I’m here for you.”

Akechi’s face is carefully blank. He’s wrong, because of course Sakamoto didn’t figure it out. (Has he ever figured anything out?)

He had done extensive research on the Thieves the second he got a whiff of who they might be, and that was especially the case for the initial members of the group. Sakamoto Ryuji, a second-year in the now infamous Shujin Academy. Formerly the star of the track team, his leg was snapped beyond repair by Kamoshida, the Thieves’ initial target. While he had always possessed a temper, it had grown exponentially when the teacher had faced no charges and he was shunned by the rest of the school. It’s like the Boy Who Cried Wolf—except there had undoubtedly been a wolf, and the boy ended up with a lifetime’s worth of permanent damage.

At first, he had chalked up Ryuji’s temper as yet another weakness—Akechi had learned firsthand just how fast the hand of authority strikes if one were to place a toe out of line. It’s how he decided to perfect the weapon of deceit. Akechi learned from his mistakes, to the point that his heart had split itself into two people he could become: Loki as his true self, and Robin Hood as who he needs to be.

Even Akira had understood the hubris of exposing himself, had felt the same punishment that Akechi was subjected to (ironically by the same person). In a world where a mask can be the difference between life and death, Akechi and Akira had decided to be its executioner rather than the one subjected to the sharp end of the guillotine.

By the nature of these rules, Ryuji should have been beheaded. And he was.

But instead of learning his lesson the way Akechi and Akira had, he had been rejuvenated. Instead of bending to the will of authority, he let that pressure mold him into something tougher, let the anger inside him fester and grow.

It had made sense, in hindsight, why Ryuji had treated him the way he did (it’s not like Akechi had the best intentions). So seeing him like this, where he never found out Akechi’s true personality, allowed him to see Ryuji in his natural state.

A feeling surges within Akechi, so foreign that it takes him slightly too long just to name it. All around him, deep in his gut, spread all the way to the tips of his fingers and his toes is wave after wave of…

“I’m done here,” Akechi says.

Discomfort.

“Huh?” Ryuji cocks his head. “Uh, was that weird of me to say? My bad, Ann’s always said I had a big, fat mouth. Sorry, yeah we aren’t close and stuff. Just thought it’d be nice—”

Akechi holds back a click of his tongue and, with a little effort, morphs his expression into one of false platitudes and plasticity. A slight quirk in his lips (not too high or it’ll scare them), tilt his head at a certain angle, and raise his voice an octave to indicate an apology. “Sorry to leave so suddenly. Thank you for your time.”

The rain had stopped sometime during their conversation and he hates that the universe seemed like it had taken pity on him.

Ryuji says something to him, but Akechi refuses to listen to another word—he doesn’t need to. He got what he wanted. All it took was one conversation for Akechi to know exactly what Akira sees in him.

That incessant authenticity and kindness shouldn’t exist in a world like this. It shouldn’t have existed in an angry boy like him.

Akechi tries (and fails) to look like he isn’t running away.

It was only when he was in bed later that night that he realized he didn’t find out what Ryuji’s wish was. Given the way he said Akira’s name though, Akechi didn’t have to think too hard.

—

AG: The biggest gray area in this has to be with Niijima Makoto YS: wow. I didn’t think you’d be straight-forward with your relationship with her. thank you for your honesty. YS: you both must have a difficult history with one another :( AG: What are you talking about? AG: I’m saying I don’t know where to find her. YS: ah. i see. YS: haha how about we just pretend that never happened?

They checked Shujin Academy (closed for winter break), Aoyama Itchome (for good measure), and finally the bookstore in Central Street (the smell of books is so lovely) before Akechi began to lose his temper.

“It wouldn’t be a huge surprise if we just found her in the middle of Tokyo University impersonating a research assistant as some sad excuse to feel some adrenaline for the first time in her life,” he says as they walk down the escalator, prepared to hop on the train and try somewhere else.

Sumire frowns. “Being studious doesn’t make someone boring.”

“Of course it doesn’t. Kurusu is at the top of his class and a huge public nuisance. No, Niijima’s absolutely underneath the sole of academics and government propaganda from her father since day one.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I don’t like anyone,” he replies. “Especially not someone so tied with practicing law like she plans to.”

They round the corner. “You can talk to her about that yourself.”

Standing by the overpriced-looking smoothie bar is Niijima Makoto, accompanied by a beautiful older woman who looks like she can melt down a rusted car with a single glare.

“I would think that Sae-san would quite actually murder me if I were to bring that up.”

“You know the other woman?”

“It would be rude not to know my co-workers after all,” says Akechi. “That’s prosecutor Niijima Sae—Makoto’s sister as well as one of the Thieves’ targets from the past.”

Sumire ponders over the odds for a second. “Did she happen to have a casino as a Palace?”

He pauses. “Yes. As a matter of fact, she did.”

“Amazing! What luck!” she beams. “May I try and guess what their wish may be?”

“Is this nothing but a game to you?” he says immediately, before stopping himself. “…One guess.”

Brows scrunching together, she leans towards him, shoulders sagged as if she was carrying a secret so heavy that it physically weighed her down. Poker chips, alcohol bottles, and slot machines… “Did Makoto-senpai wish for Sae-san’s gambling addiction to go away?”

Akechi stares at her. “Who was it again that taught you how Palaces work?”

“Morgana-senpai.”

“If that’s the case, I’m simply over the moon that he didn’t join us on our mission.” They walk towards the Niijimas, who were still chatting amicably with one another. “Their father passed when they were young; it left their family jaded, it was traumatizing, et cetera, I’m sure you get the gist.”

“Wait, I really don’t—”

“Akechi? What a coincidence!”

The sisters greeted them with kind eyes and soft smiles, and Sumire has to accept that she’s out of her league for this one—the student council president may have been a common name around school, but it hardly ever came with more information other than how good her grades were, as well as the potential ‘narc’ comment. But despite what Akechi thinks, no Phantom Thief could possibly be on the side of the police; they’ve all had enough firsthand experience with that particular institution to see just how often the system has failed them.

Akechi nods. “It truly is,” he says, as if they hadn’t spent half the day walking around Tokyo scrounging for them. “This is Yoshizawa Sumire, Sae-san.”

“Pleasure to meet you!”

“Likewise,” Sae says.

“I have to admit, I’m quite surprised to see you here,” Akechi says. “Did we interrupt you both?”

“Not at all. We were just doing some grocery shopping for dinner tonight. Our father’s been having a craving for teriyaki,” she answers. “Why so surprised, Akechi?”

“Nothing in particular,” he says, and Sumire can feel his smugness radiating from where she’s standing. Well, he is a detective, so she’s not too shocked. “It’s simply refreshing to see you spending time with your family, despite being as busy as you are.” With a tilt of his head, he turns to Makoto. “I haven’t heard about your father for a long time.”

Makoto recoils a little, and winces. “My…father? No, wait, dad’s been gone for…It doesn’t make any sense…:

Sumire nearly startles when Makoto suddenly straightens up, gaze clouded. Akechi clicks his tongue.

“Sorry,” she says, a bit dizzily, already taking a step back. “Sae and I need to make it to the grocery store before it closes.”

Sumire waves half-heartedly and sighs when they’re gone. “Niijima-senpai perhaps had the most graceful escape so far,” she comments.

Pulling back his sleeve, Akechi peers at his watch. “It’s two pm. She could’ve done better,” he scoffs. “It’s a shame. I had high hopes for her to be the first one. She’s the only one in that circus who had more than one brain cell and isn’t named Kurusu.”

“…May I ask you something?”

“You’re already asking a question, just ask it.”

Sumire rocks back and forth on her heels. “Why do you call him that?”

“Because that’s his name?”

“Last name,” she corrects. “Why not call him by his first name?”

“What kind of question is that? Is this a test? A trial to prove that I’m willing to be honest?” Sumire stays silent. “Alright then, if it’ll help you sleep at night. I can’t possibly fathom how you still haven’t figured out that he and I aren’t as buddy-buddy as you think.”

“Well, yes, I know that but—”

“And you?”

Her heart rate skyrockets. “What about me?”

“You call him by his surname as well, even topped off with a ‘senpai’ at the end,” Akechi raises a brow. “Why not on a first name basis?”

“W-we aren’t that close!” she exclaims. “That’s reserved for people who’s close to him, like a good friend, or a girlf—boyfr—partner. We just… aren’t that.”

“Strange, isn’t it?” Akechi says. “We aren’t even on a first name basis with him, yet here we are; fresh from New Year’s, running around Tokyo for his friends who should be doing this instead.”

(Sumire very nearly says it, what’s been on her mind since Maruki’s Palace. But as it stands, she doesn’t want to ruin the foundation—very unstable, can most definitely blow away with a strong gust of wind, but a foundation nonetheless—that she and Akechi reluctantly built.)

“Yes, it really is strange.”

—

AG: Are you particularly close with Okumura? YS: unfortunately not, no. i’ve heard about what happened to her father, though. Perhaps her wish is related to his passing. AG: …Yes, I believe it is. I would think that the two of them would look at ways of expanding the Big Bang business. So basically, Tokyo Hotspots. YS: kichijoji? that place is always bustling YS: not to mention, i’d love for them to open up there. their milkshakes are incredible ( ◜‿◝ )♡ AG: Good call. We’ll try there first then. AG: At any rate, it will be a very quick confrontation with her.

“So I’ve been thinking—”

“A dangerous pastime, but go on.”

Sumire huffs without heat as they traverse Kichijoji—busy even in this time of year, though in no small part because of the shrine nearby. “We’ve been doing this…” What are they doing? “Saving our known reality business for nearly a week now. It hasn’t been going the best.”

Neither of them need a reminder that their victory ratio is currently at a strong zero to six. “So maybe we need to change it up a bit! I thought up a strategy last night that I think we should implement today,” she beams up at him.

Akechi’s gaze can wither flowers. “Do you need me to explain how idiotic that sounds?”

“Oh, come on Akechi! We need all the help we can get, especially since we only have two left. Plus, you haven’t even heard the strategy. Would you like to hear it?”

She doesn’t wait for his response before eagerly pushing through. “I understand and accept that you’re a bit ruthless, which is great! Well, great if that’s who you are. And since you called me a goody two shoes that one time, I figured we can go with that.” Sumire steps in front of Akechi and raises her hands to the sky, chin tilted upwards. “We can do the ‘good guy, bad guy’ strategy! That’s what we’ve been doing anyway. It can be like Zootopia.”

A silence stretches out—Sumire’s grin unfaltering and Akechi’s perfectly blank.

Then, “What the fuck is a Zootopia?

“Did you not watch that movie? It was pretty big.”

“Do I look like someone who’d watch a documentary on the animal kingdom?” His eyes zero in on something. “Lucky us, we found them.”

Okumura Haru stands with whom Sumire can only assume is her father. The speak amicably with each other, adoration radiating off of them as they point and gesture at the various businesses around the promenade.

“Don’t forget the strategy,” she whispers.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he responds sarcastically.

A feeling of optimism blossoms in Sumire’s chest as they approach the Okumuras. Maybe it’s the nice weather, or it’s another opportunity to finally achieve their goal of gaining one of Akira’s allies. Mostly though, she chalks it up as relief that even though it’s far from perfect, Akechi’s finally starting to let down the drawbridge, bit by bit.

And that’s when Haru decides to look in their direction.

Instead of the initial small talk, the breadcrumbs that hint towards their other reality, instead of gently edging them to the truth, Haru had completely bypassed all of that. A feeling of deja vu tugs strangely at Sumire as she takes in her expression—the usual confusion and pained tightening of the brows, but this time, a raw, unquestionable fury morphs onto her features.

It’s a near-perfect replica of Futaba’s expression.

After a few seconds, Haru says something to her father, and they leave, leaving Akechi and Sumire mid-stride in the middle of the promenade.

Another silence reigns over them, heavy and suffocating despite the bustle of Kichijoji.

“We didn’t even need to talk to her,” Akechi says. “An efficient failure.” The silence stretches on. “You have something to say..”

Sumire shoots him a dark look. “Alley,” she says, voice uncharacteristically low. “It might upset the families if we speak rudely in front of them.”

She leads them to the backstreets, where most stores are closed until the nightlife crowd rolls in. It was empty, and only the metal shutters and stray plastic bags strewn about the pavement were present to hear them.

“Of course I have something to say,” Sumire says, fists clenched tightly at her sides. “You promised back at Leblanc. You said that you won’t withhold information from me anymore, for the sake of the mission.”

She points behind her in the direction of where the Okumura’s left. “Despite what you may like to believe, I’m not an idiot who won’t notice something as obvious as Okumura-senpai running away the second she sees you. She didn’t even speak to us before she ran, which is considerably worse than Sakura-chan.” Sumire’s eyes narrow. “What are you still hiding from me?”

Throughout her speech, Akechi didn’t even blink. “Has it occurred to you that I simply lied when I made that pesky promise to you, or are you still the same person who fell right into Maruki’s waiting hands last spring?”

Sumire recoils as if she’d been hit. “Don’t bring that up, it has nothing to do with this—”

“Doesn’t it?” his voice is cold. “Isn’t the reason why you’re so desperate for me to be open with you is that you have some sort of trust issues?”

“That’s not it.”

“Finally we’re getting somewhere,” Akechi’s red eyes seem to be glowing despite the darkness in the shadowed alley. With a sickening feeling, she realizes he’s enjoying this. “Let me take a guess. You’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, an overflowing kindness that you have to act on and spread across the globe. And, if you’re simply good and lucky enough, maybe, just maybe, your beloved ‘Kurusu-senpai’ will look away from his little group long enough to see how sweet and kind you are—”

“Shut up,” she cuts him off. Her voice is slow and deliberate. “You want to know what I’m doing this for? It’s because I’m sick and tired of these hellish lies.”

Akechi stays quiet as she continues, struggling to speak while her eyes blazed with fury. “I basically just found out that I’m not who I thought I was for the past ten months. Do you know what that feels like? It’s like if someone kidnapped me, shoved me in the back of a van, blindfolded. Maruki, bless his soul, forced me to believe whatever garbage he thought was best for me. It makes me sick to think that I fell for that reality, never once did I question it.”

She clenches her jaw. “You know what I want, Akechi? It’s not the philanthropy you’re so obsessed with, or senpai’s affection. What I want is my kidnapper to fail. I want him to regret what he did to me, to stop what he’s doing to everyone else. Even if his intentions were good, I am not going to let him get away with this,” Sumire looks directly into Akechi’s eyes. “And you are not going to be the one to slow me down.”

Chest heaving, she realizes she’s breathless. After a brief pause, Akechi speaks.

“Our motivations aren’t too far off from one another,” his voice is strangely cool, as if his fury and long since dissipated from the surface and had manifested into something sharp and dangerous. “You said you’re tired of the lies? Of being used like some kind of puppet, a test subject? Of having the rug pulled from you just because someone fucking felt like it? Good. But our similarities stop there.”

He leans back against the metal gate of a closed bar. “At the root of it, you want to stop Maruki so that he doesn’t push his beliefs to anyone else. Whether you like it or not, your motivation is accidental philanthropy. I could not give less of a shit about Maruki, or Tokyo, or even the rest of this damned world. I just want to be able to live in a reality where I get to choose what I want to do.”

“So let me help you!” she exclaims, frustrated. “Some detective, you are—keeping secrets isn’t going to help this situation.”

“You still don’t get it, do you? I tried to make this as easy to understand as possible, but I guess I just have to make it obvious.” Akechi straightens up and from the smirk resting on his mouth and the way his brow is lifted, condescension is simply dripping from him. Sumire refuses to recoil. “I don’t care if you want to help me. I am a selfish person who does what he wants. I’m willing to tear down anyone in my path, use anyone in my way, if it means that I get what I want.”

“Maybe you are!” Sumire says. “A selfish person, I mean.”

Akechi blinks, and throws his head back, loud laughter echoing through the alley. “‘Maybe I am?’” He laughs again, nearly doubling over. When he sobers up a bit, she has to force herself not to flinch. It’s as if something had unhinged in Akechi and she’s seeing the result of that—his eyes are twinkling as his smirk stretches even further over his face; an edged grin. “Do you need an example, Yoshizawa? Proof? Citation for what I’ve done just so you can understand? Look forward to it, since you’ll learn at long last why Sakura and Okumura took one look at me and fled.”

Bending over slightly so that he’s eye-level with Sumire, he announces: “I killed Sakura Futaba’s mother and Okumura Haru’s father. I am a murderer.”

“So am I.”

Akechi stops breathing, blinking as he processes what Sumire just said. She only looks back through narrowed eyes, daring him to say something.

When he doesn’t, she relaxes a bit. “Are you in the mood for darts? Since we finished with Okumura-senpai much earlier than expected, we have some time. And besides,” Sumire brushes her bangs out of her eyes. “There’s more to discuss, and I’m not really feeling this alley anymore.”

—

“It’s different. You must know that it’s different.”

Sumire waits until she gets their darts from behind the counter. “I know.”

Darts & Billiards was never particularly full, but it was never empty either. There were a few groups, pairs, and serious soloists that filled the entire room with indecipherable chatter and the loud clack of eight-balls colliding with one another. Anything that Akechi and Sumire might talk about thankfully gets shrouded by the white noise.

“Any preferences?” she says, waving around the dart in her hands.

“701,” he says immediately. “Anything lower is child’s play.”

Sumire nods as she inputs the settings. “Kurusu-senpai said something before he went with Dr. Maruki,” she began. “He said that he was doing this for his friends—the Thieves, myself,” she glances back. “And in his words, ‘especially you.’”

“And what of it?” Akechi asks.

“I believe that Kurusu-senpai knows of your past, knows your struggles and whatever you’ve gone through. I can only guess what you’ve had to endure, and how it led you to what you did to their parents.” Sumire offers him his set of darts. “May I go first?”

Akechi nods and she takes her stance—despite everything, she’s a little nervous playing darts with someone who actually plays to win.

Sumire throws it as best she can when Akechi speaks. “Does it justify it, then? If my life was difficult enough, would you give me a pass for killing innocent people?”

“No,” she casts another dart. “It doesn’t. Nothing really justifies that.” Pinching her last dart between her fingers, she fiddles as she thinks. “But I accidentally killed my sister over my incompetence in gymnastics.”

“But that’s the difference,” Akechi waves his hand. “It wasn’t an accident that they died by my hands. I had planned it, plotted it, and accomplished it. What you did wasn’t deliberate; it was a spur of the moment decision to run into traffic.”

Sumire hurls her final dart a little harder than usual. “I didn’t say that you should be forgiven, Akechi! I mean, I still don’t forgive myself. But even if it is different, I can at least understand your sentiments a fraction better than anyone else can. Do I think that it’s fine that two people who’re the same age as us lost their parents? Of course not. It makes me ill just thinking about it.”

She walks to the board and gingerly plucks off her darts. “But if I tried to pretend that I don’t understand what you’ve done—that isn’t right, either.”

He has a thoughtful expression on his face, his darts rolling between his fingers similar to how people fidget with loose change; Sumire hadn’t even known it was possible to do that. “Interesting.”

Stepping up to the mat, Akechi tilts his body sideways, obviously practiced in the game. His expression doesn’t change when it lands on a triple twenty.

“Do you regret it?”

His hand is steady as he throws—another triple twenty. “The murders? It depends.”

“On?”

“Do I regret being caught, used, and humiliated by losers who I thought were beneath me? Yes. Do I regret ending the lives of many?” casting his third dart, it lands so close to the others that they wobble in unison. “No. Not really.”

Sumire’s next round was a silent one, Akechi’s confession playing on repeat in her mind. He had simply said it with no hesitation; his tenor hadn’t changed, posture didn’t shift. The words that flowed out of him had no emotion whatsoever—they were clinical, like a doctor stating the facts to a terminal patient.

The ongoing background noise paid no mind to their silence, stuck in its blissful ignorance despite the pair’s topics. If there’s one guarantee in this world, it’s that it’s extremely likely that no one will listen just as the conversation is getting important.

Akechi’s on his second turn when he says, “You took well to the fact that I’ve killed in cold blood.”

“I knew that you were hiding something,” she says. “It’s because of how you act. You were a little cruel back in the Palace, and while it’s no excuse, people who have…” she scratches her head. “A hardened heart usually has a nasty past, and what Kurusu-senpai said only confirmed it.”

No matter how many times he does it, Sumire still gets impressed by his casual triple twenty.

Swapping places with him, she closes one eye as she ponders over her strategy. “But despite the fact that you’re a ruthless sort of person—” her dart sails forward and sticks to the board. “I’m willing to look past it if it means we can change reality.” Sumire cocks her head at him. “Can you?”

Akechi stays silent as Sumire launches another dart—one more and they can win it. “Selfish is what we call ourselves, right?” she says. “That we’re only in it for yourselves, regardless of what happens to everyone else. If we work together and it raises the odds of getting what we want, doesn’t that still play into the fact that we’re acting for our own benefit?”

She lines herself up for the last point, and takes a deep breath. “What did you call it? Accidental philanthropy?” she throws her dart and watches as it curves beautifully—only for it to miss her mark by quarter-inch. “Oh no!”

“Accidental philanthropy…” he muses, indifferent to their loss. “That doesn’t sound half-bad.”

Sumire raises her eyebrows, skeptical. “Really?”

“I know that my past actions may have dictated our failure to some extent. That was my fault,” Akechi crosses his arms. “I won’t let it happen again.”

Maybe she was too forgiving, or too trusting, or maybe it’s the closest she’ll get as an apology out of Akechi, but she finds herself nodding. “That’s all I wanted.”

He moves to put on his coat. “Was it to your satisfaction?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve wanted to talk even before we discovered Maruki’s schemes,” he shoves his arms through his coat sleeves. “Are you satisfied”

“Pretty much,” Sumire nods. “I understand you much better than before, at least.”

Collecting his darts, he heads to the register. “Why do you want to understand?”

“…Because I’m curious. You changed so abruptly, I didn’t even know who you were anymore—not that I did to begin with. Not to mention, the people Kurusu-senpai knows are always interesting, and you’re definitely not an exception.”

Akechi turns, and from the doubt on his features, he doesn’t take the bait.

“Fine. That wasn’t a lie, though. I just…” she hesitates, and decides to throw caution to the wind. “I want to get to know my teammate better.”

Anything could’ve happened in that beat of silence, much to the ignorance of the loitering patrons.

“See,” he replies. “Now that I can believe. And here I thought I was the only one who needed to practice honesty more.”

He walks back to register. “I’ll handle the bill. Call it a repaying of debts, in a way.”

“For what?”

“That’s what teammates do, don’t they?”

Sumire feels herself smile widely. It had only taken about six days, their entire reality shifting, and a busted game of darts, but it finally feels like she and Akechi are fighting the same battle.

—

AG: If it all goes to plan, we should’ve at least been able to convince one of them AG: As much as it truly pains me to say it, putting our faith in them is our best chance at success. AG: Worse comes to worst, there’s a reason why we’re making him the last one to convince. He’s our trump card. YS: you mean sakamoto-senpai? AG: Ugh, don’t make me say it.

According to Akechi’s knowledge of Ryuji’s whereabouts (as unhappy as he was to recite it), there are two places that he frequents—the arcade in Shibuya or loitering around Shujin.

The arcade was full of random teens and pre-teens, all deeply invested in games that Sumire had never taken up but Akechi was apparently knowledgeable in (“Good practice,” he had replied when she asked, and she opted not to pry any further).

The two had hopped back on the train to Aoyama-Itchome, forced to stand as life resumes back to normalcy post-holidays. Despite the tight fit of the car, Akechi had placed a good amount of space between them—whether it’s for his sake or hers, she can appreciate the gesture.

The morning was a strange one. Ever since their darts game and impromptu heart-to-heart, the atmosphere between them had shifted. It’s still a few miles off from being friendly, but it’s easier now; there’s an unspoken understanding between them, a common goal that drives them forward.

Still, it would’ve been nice if they had gotten their act together prior to meeting with their last Phantom Thief.

“By the way,” Akechi says, and Sumire’s eyes flicker up at him in interest. They had been silent since they stepped on the train. “In the acknowledgement of…team spirit,” his lips curled, unable to keep the mocking out of his words at such a ridiculous concept. “I should let you know that I’ve spoken to Sakamoto.”

“Oh.” She can’t seem to muster up any shock. “When? Did you plan it?”

“A few days ago, and no, it was by chance,” his eyes narrowed. “Did you speak to Sakamoto?”

“Not on purpose!” Sumire defends, shifting her sweaty grip on the plastic handle. “He just happened to be there.”

“He seems to have a knack for that,” Akechi says, and Sumire doesn’t comment on the strange quality of his voice—bitterness? “Well? Anything worth repeating?”

“Uh…” she racks her brain. Somehow, she doesn’t think that Ryuji’s blow by blow of the new shounen manga was what Akechi’s looking for. “Nothing in particular. Oh! He spoke quite a bit about Kurusu-senpai, but that’s not too surprising, considering his wish and all.” ‘Quite a bit’ might be a bit of an understatement.

He squints at her. “Whose wish?”

“Kurusu-senpai’s? Obviously Sakamoto-senpai would still be affected since he’s directly tied Kurusu-senpai’s wish.”

His stare doesn’t relent. “Why on earth would Kurusu’s wish still be affecting Sakamoto? He already broke free of the fake reality, meaning that Sakamoto isn’t affected by Kurusu’s wish,” says Akechi. “The idiot has his own wish. Did you not know?”

Sumire would describe herself as a person with a decent amount of pride, but an obvious fact like that has heat rushing to her cheeks. She ignores him and instead asks, “Did you figure out his real wish?”

“On a technicality, no. Though I have a rather strong hunch on what it is, based on my interaction with him,” he cringes a bit when the train rocks someone into him. “It’s likely that his wish may be the exact as Kurusu’s.”

“As in…” she blinks. “He wished to be with senpai?”

“It’s possible. Disgusting, how desperate they are to bring something to fruition that could easily be done without the Metaverse.” And he adds, “Your conclusion wasn’t too far off.”

“Wow,” as articulate as it was, it was really all she could say about his observation. It sounds like an impossibility; having two people wish for each other, like some cheesy rom-com but with way more monsters and magic. Yet it makes sense—the way Ryuji spoke of Akira like he put up the moon, with a feeling of undeniable admiration and respect sandwiched between friendly jabs at him. It sounds like an impossibility, she realizes, because it probably is one. It would take something as insane as the Metaverse to create something as equally improbable as their level of requited love.

The speaker overhead announces their station and they both exit with no small amount of polite shoving.

It’s a short walk from Aoyama to the school, a route familiar enough to Sumire that she can probably traverse it with her eyes closed.

“Do you know where in Shujin he might be?” Akechi asks, and belatedly she realizes she hasn’t given him any indication for where to go. Not that it was a problem—for someone who doesn’t go here, he seems to know the path just as well as she does. “Is the school even open?”

“It should be fine,” Sumire says. “The grounds, maybe? Actually, the track is probably our best shot, since he goes for a run pretty often.”

A beat passes.

“How often?” he asks slowly.

“Um—” she spots a familiar patch of bleached hair. “Look, there he is! It looks like he’s talking to…is that the track team?”

Akechi hums. “Is it, now?”

“Pipe down, dumbass!” Even half a block down, Ryuji’s voice rings loud and clear. “I’m only tryin’ my best so you guys don’t laugh me—oh, no effin’ way. Yoshizawa! Akechi! Sorry, gimme a sec,” he calls back to the others as he half-jogs towards them.

“I knew it,” Akechi mutters.

“Huh?” she asks.

“His leg. He isn’t limping.”

Sumire’s brow creases. She’s about to ask Akechi to clarify when it dawns on her:

Kamoshida had explained to her (in full, descriptive, unhesitating detail) about the delinquent students that roamed the walls of Shujin, there was one in particular he had a special hatred for—Sakamoto Ryuji. Rumors had done little to reveal the truth of his declaration, but a single conversation with Ryuji had cleared away any possibility that he was the type for unnecessary violence.

However, there is one truth that came from every lie that was spread about him; his leg has been damaged to the point where professional running is no longer a possibility.

Ryuji approaches them, smiling and limp-free.

Which means—

“What’s up?” he asks. Just like when Sumire saw him before, Ryuji is donned in the standard school P.E track pants (red and white and cuffed at the bottom). It didn’t mean much to her then. “Whatcha doin’ here, Akechi? You transferring schools, or something?”

In all of ten seconds, Ryuji had proved them wrong without even knowing it.

“I was here to pick up a few books from the library when I bumped into him,” she lies for the both of them. “And you, senpai?”

Ryuji takes a step back, shocked. “Damn! You’re makin’ the rest of us look bad. Nah, the track guys just forced me to hangout with them to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“Yeah, uh,” sneakers scuffing the concrete, Ryuji turns a light shade of pink when he admits, “The school might’ve let slip that there’s some colleges that might be scouting after me after my last meet.”

Even Akechi looked a little impressed. “That’s no small feat.”

“That’s incredible, senpai!” Sumire cries, unable to hold herself back. “That’s—that’s huge! Bigger than huge, it’s being scouted! Do you know how cool that is? Of course you do, you’re the one who got scouted!”

She throws both her hands up to the sky and Ryuji slaps them, the pleasant echo resounds through the alley and leaves them both shaking out their palms.

“Thanks,” Ryuji grins. “But don’t get too excited. It ain’t confirmed or anything,” he tries to keep the elation out of his voice and fails miserably. “I’m just so dang happy cause that means things’ll be easier for my mom down the line, y’know?”

It’s like a slap to the face, a jolt that sends her crash landing back to reality. Because she isn’t here to congratulate Ryuji for his success—she’s here to take that away from him. Not for the first time, she wonders if they should be doing this.

Then she recalls the painful but relieving feeling of getting her own memories back. Yoshizawa Sumire back. She recalls the boy beside her who’d do quite literally anything to get rid of this reality. She recalls a busy street, blood pooling on the concrete.

Sumire focuses. If not for herself, or for Akechi, then she’d focus for Kasumi.

“I’m happy for you,” she says, meaning every word. “How did Kurusu-senpai react?”

“Oh, that guy? I haven’t told him yet, so let’s keep it between us, y’know what I’m sayin’?” Ryuji goes for a wink, though it’s definitely closer to a blink.

Akechi coughs. “Is there a reason you haven’t told him yet? You both are quite…close, after all.”

“He’s been tough to contact the past week,” Ryuji shrugs, and neither of them mention that working with a Palace ruler probably consumes a good chunk of one’s leisure time. “I really wanna surprise him, though! Considering that he supported me more than anyone when it comes to track.”

“That’s kind of him,” says Akechi.

“Well, yeah. Both of us had to deal with Kamoshida toge…ther…” he seemed to listen to what he was saying, and stops abruptly. Any excitement that was on his face is wiped clean. Finally.

“How did you deal with Kamoshida together?” Akechi asks slowly. They had to be careful—this is their last shot.

“It, uh,” he purses his lips. “It was an accident at first, I think. Didn’t mean to.” Eyes sliding shut, he mutters, mostly to himself. “It was raining, I remember that. So why can’t I…?”

The two of them lean forward unconsciously as they gauge Ryuji’s reaction.

“You’ve got this, Sakamoto-senpai,” Sumire prompts gently.

It isn’t too different from watching someone do a math problem and seeing them do one, tiny thing wrong; seeing that tiny mistake being overlooked, even though it’s so obvious to the observer. He is so close, one breath away from—

“Sakamoto!”

Ryuji jerks, eyes flinging open and her heart sinks, irritation blossoming towards this random athlete who unknowingly jeopardized their known reality.

“Uh, yeah!” he calls back, shaking his head as if ridding himself of a bad dream. “Be there in a sec!”

“If that pesky runner is in Mementos, I swear he’ll be dead by tomorrow,” Akechi mummers darkly, because he always takes things too far.

“Sorry, gotta bail,” Ryuji apologizes. He still looks slightly unsettled, a little unnerved. “It was good to see you. We should grab some food sometime!”

“Wait!” Sumire blurts out before he can leave. She scrambles for something to say, finding the thought of their failure unbearable. “If—if you change your mind (or start to remember), we’ll both be in Odaiba tomorrow! At the stadium, to be exact,” she tries for a reassuring smile. “You were there in the summer, remember?”

“If I change my mind…?” he repeats, blinking. “Nah, you guys are wild. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but thanks for the invite. Later!”

He throws double peace signs up before joining his track mates once more, laughing and shoving each other in a way only teenage boys can pull off.

“An outstanding zero to seven loss,” Akechi dictates with a dead voice. “What a team we make. I’m floored.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice!” Sumire exclaims, slapping her hand to her forehead. “I literally saw him running, and I didn’t put the pieces together.”

He shakes his head. “How are you focusing on his wish?” Akechi asks, leaning against the stone pillar near him. “It doesn’t matter what his wish is. The point is, we lost. We wasted this week, and we don’t have a choice other than to confront Kurusu alone.”

“You forgot about the whole point of our plan, Akechi. Just because his friends didn’t realize the truth right away, doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“They probably won’t.”

“We’ll just have to see, then. If Kurusu-senpai has one talent, it’s his natural…thing, with people. You get what I mean, right?”

“No.”

“Liar. And hey!” Sumire gives him a pointed look. “You aren’t doing this alone! We’re working together—like two peas in a pod.”

“Yes, I haven’t forgotten our oath of team spirit. But still, that doesn’t change the fact that with the combined powers of Maruki and Kurusu, we’re as good as dead,” he says, and pauses. “Unless Maruki isn’t there.”

Sumire frowns, “Even if we could, I don’t think we should kidnap a doctor.”

“I meant that he might willingly not be there. He’s quite democratic and trusting—I can see that he might leave this in Kurusu’s hands. Don’t be fooled, though. If Kurusu wanted us gone, we probably would be.”

“I can’t imagine that he would ever do something like that.” The idea of Akira using his powers in that way… she doesn’t even want to indulge in the thought.

“He won’t,” Akechi agrees. “He never shoots to kill when it comes to real people,” he sighs. “A weakness on his part.”

“But you’re still saying that we should fight senpai. Fight Kurusu Akira.”

“I’m saying we should beat some sense into him. Convince him like we tried to convince all of his little gremlins, except we succeed this time around,” his face pinches together, as if he had something sour. “It’s not as if we have a choice.”

She hesitates, despite knowing that Akechi’s right. He scoffs at her. “Worried about scratching up the pretty boy? Trust me—we couldn’t finish him off even if we tried.”

It’s a little worrying to see how sure he is that Akira is apparently very difficult to murder. “Fine,” Sumire relents. “But I’m still going to hope for the best with his friends.”

“Then I’ll prepare for the worst, as per usual.”

A water droplet hits Sumire’s cheek, startling her. She looks up to be greeted by dark clouds.

“It’s raining.”

“I suppose we should rest for today, considering what we’re up against.”

“Hold on,” Sumire says, feeling bold. “The Metaverse—I’m still a little unsure about all that but bear with me—is about the strength of the heart and cognition, right?”

“Yes?” he nods at her in a go on manner.

“So, hypothetically, if we got some…cognition strengthening breakfast food together—”

“No.”

“I think it would be beneficial to us!” she says. It really did seem like a good idea when she first thought it up, but she really should’ve expected the resistance that comes with it; Akechi seems to hate the notion of fun. “The way you looked at my plate from back then is still stuck in by brain on loop—”

“That look is called disgust—”

“It would be really fun! Or um, not fun, but advantageous to the strength of our—our Personas?”

She’s grasping at straws, but optimism is one of her better traits. Still, Akechi’s withering glare is proving to be a tough foe. Sumire’s not going to back down, though. Whether she wanted it to happen or not, she finds herself liking his company more and more despite his thorns (many, many thorns).

Sumire couldn’t help but break out into a grin when Akechi speaks, voice void of any emotion:

“I’m picking this time. IHOP is an abomination.”

—

She didn’t think that hole-in-the-wall breakfast cafes existed, and if she did, she most definitely never would’ve guessed that Akechi would be leading her to one.

Laughing out loud at the situation would grant her a death wish through Loki, but it’s impossible not to. The light pastel shades of the cafe are comically paradoxical to Akechi’s eternal conniving expression and tone, yet the employees seem to light up when he enters and even greet him by name.

He orders without even looking at the menu and she decides to get two of whatever he’s getting; partly because she has no idea what to get, mostly out of curiosity.

They seat themselves in one of the frilly booths and once the food arrives, she has to physically stop herself from drooling.The three tall stacks of pancakes were steaming, thick, fluffy, and perfectly golden brown. The neapolitan ice cream was placed precariously on top, slowly melting and all completely drizzled in chocolate and strawberry syrup. Akechi almost looks like he wants to tell her that it physically isn’t possible to fit both stacks inside of her, but she’s already halfway through her first stack by the time he eats a forkful.

Unable to hold back, Sumire brings up his comment from back when they all went to the Kichijoji cafe with Akira.

“Oh, that?” Akechi reaches over to grab the syrup bottle. “I said I didn’t like sweet bread. Sweets are, in and of itself,” he pours an alarming amount of strawberry syrup on his plate. “Not bad.”

The conversation is light—none of the darker topics that were present during their darts game. Sumire hesitatingly asks him what it’s like to work with the police as a detective. She wasn’t expecting a detailed point-by-point explanation about the cops being the most ‘incompetent people who have ever wielded any amount of power, and yes I’m counting Mona in his normal cat form.’

In turn, Akechi seems genuinely interested in Sumire’s athletic career, wondering if her skills help her fight in the Metaverse.

Eventually, they even start talking about more mundane topics; clubs that they might have been participating in (“Gymnastics, obviously” and “Detective work if that counts, but not so much anymore”), what Akechi’s high school is like (“Boring, but I get excused often enough that it makes it bearable”), if they’re on social media much (“Yes! But my smartphone can barely open up any apps” and “I have a phone number and an email—that should be enough”).

Despite Akechi’s ever-present clipped comments, Sumire has to admit that this was all a nice change of pace. She’s having fun, sitting here, eating pancakes and talking. And if his replies were getting less snippy and more talky, maybe he’s feeling the same way.

Even if it’s only for an afternoon, even if they have to fight their counselor who now apparently controls reality, even if they have to fight Kurusu Akira—

It’s nice to just act like two teenagers with a sweet tooth for a day.

—

It’s just as cold as it was a week ago.

They’ve already been transformed into their Metaverse customers, and it’s blessedly warmer near the elevator than it is on the outskirts. None of that matters though; not with them standing in front of Maruki’s Palace once again.

“It has a certain beauty,” Sumire comments. “The Palace.”

“It’s a safety hazard, is what it is. Realistically, these would all crumble like tissue paper without Maruki holding it all up.”

“Still,” the abnormal swirls and teetering light fixtures possess a charm that she finds lovely in it’s own way. “I can admire it for what it is.”

Akechi nods at the elevator, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Wait.”

He stops. “What?”

“Kurusu-senpai gave sort of a battle plan before we went in,” Sumire reminded him. “Do you have one?”

“Hit him harder than he hits you,” Akechi pulls out his serrated steel, reflecting the light of the entrance hall. “Other than that, don’t die, and don’t fall behind.”

All things considered, it isn’t the worst pep talk she’s ever heard.

They start off to the depths of the Palace. The journey to see Akira is different without him present, but it’s as if the shadows are purposefully less aggressive with them—whether it’s because Maruki wants them to get there safely or what, but it lets them traverse through the lab with a fair amount of ease.

An announcement rings through the grand halls. “VIP patients identified. We will now begin the grand tour—please head to the auditorium through the door on your left.”

Definitely Maruki, then.

“How kind of them to politely inform us of their location,” Akechi remarks, and they head further inward.

They pass by what looks like research centres—powerpoints plastered by pie charts and numbers, shadows giving lectures on cognition (which is a strange sight to see), brain scan posters and lab coats strewn about. Sumire imagines that this might be what a university would look like in amidst of organized chaos.

Turning the corner, a double-door awaits them.

“Alright,” Sumire steels herself, hand finding her rapier’s hilt. “I hope senpai’s ready for us.”

“Trust me,” he reaches out to grab the handle. “He will be.”

A hallway meets them when they pass through. A long, white staircase elegantly leads them down and into what looks like a small version of a football stadium—seats filled up with faceless shadows and unlit theatre lights are hung from the beams above. Maybe it’s because this area has an uncanny resemblance to her competition venues, but she feels a tingle run down her spine: the feeling of anticipation.

They walk to the centre of it with caution, footsteps slow yet it resounding out all the same. She glances forward, squinting slightly against the darkness; a set of stairs that lead atop a stage are laid out in front of them, carpeted and plush. Ready for a performance.

Suddenly, all the lights flash on, white fluorescence blaring down on them mercilessly. Sumire and Akechi cringe against the unrelenting assault on their corneas.

“Welcome back.”

On top of the steps stood Akira, cloaked in his black Phantom Thief garb and drenched in blinding lights.

“I’m glad you two seem to be doing good. Honestly, I was a little nervous at first,” he descends the staircase, unhurried, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Looks like I was worried for nothing.”

“Worried? About us?” Akechi levels him with an incredulous look. “We aren’t the ones who are actively advocating the side of brainwashing.”

“I’m advocating the side of my friends being happy again,” he corrects firmly, turning to make eye contact with Sumire. “I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me that they weren’t happy, that they weren’t over the moon with euphoria. If you can tell me that, then I’ll join you in the fight against Maruki.”

Gazing into Akira’s eyes, Sumire opens her mouth, before looking away.

“That’s what I expected,” he shrugs, “It’s nice seeing them happy, right? But I’m not stupid—that won’t stop you two. You’re nearly as stubborn as I am.”

“Senpai,” she pleads. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Neither do I. But you need to get Maruki to revert reality back to what it was,” Akira adjusts his gloves, and they both tense. “And to get to him, you have to get through me.”

“He’s really not backing down, isn’t he?” she mutters, her heart rate picking up rapidly.

Akechi snarls. “The tide sooner stop washing up before he quits being a fucking idiot.”

“You guys ready?” Akira calls. His tone is light, but there’s an undeniable glint to his eyes, similar to how the edge of a knife reflects light, and spreads his arms out. “Give it all you’ve got.”

Sumire meets Akechi’s eyes, and they nod.

They had a strategy, as loose as it was; there’s strength in numbers, and for once they have the advantage—pin him down, corner him, whatever they can manage, and incapacitate him until he listens to what they have to say. While this plan would certainly be more effective with more people, two should be enough to get the job done.

The air whistles around them as they dart forward, masks burning blue.

“Give him hell, Loki!”

The monochrome trickster bursts from the cinders with its eyes dead set on Akira. He raises a heavy hand and brings down his blade, slamming into the flooring as if it was warm butter, but Akira was already gone—he had hopped away just in time, giving them a cocky little smile.

Akechi snarled and swung again, only for Akira to bend backwards as if he’s in the most crucial game of limbo in recorded history, Laevatein missing him by an inch.

Before he can straighten himself again, Sumire shouts, “Dance, Cendrillon!”

As if the bells of midnight were calling her, a woman of glass and elegance manifests, white cloak blowing back from an unknown wind. A burst of light shoots from her crystal form but Akira had expected it, turning his bend into a backwards roll, not even trying to hide his grin. She’s starting to think that he was lying to her when he said he had no history with gymnastics. Maybe once this is all done, she could introduce him to her coach.

This back and forth continues, black and white and red all clashing together without anyone finding a target at all—that is, if Akira even had a target to begin with.

It’s as maddening as it is impressive to see him dodge and parry every attack; a hop here, a tilt there. It’s almost as if he knows what they were going to do before they even did it. It’s glaringly obvious why, yet it was another simple fact they overlooked—he was their leader, the person who made sure they had two, three, four possible strategies in their back pocket going into every fight. If not to ensure victory, then he does it to make sure that each and every one of them were capable enough to keep themselves safe.

But that just makes it all the more impossible to gain the upper hand.

By the time Akira had traversed nearly half the stadium in his evasion, not a hair out of place and unperturbed, Akechi and Sumire were breathing hard.

“He has,” Sumire gasps between breaths. “No intention of hitting us.”

“Dammit,” he hisses. “He’s turning this into a stamina battle.”

“Did you guys think I’d attack?” Akira frowns. Squinting at Sumire, he rummages through his pockets and tosses something to her. She catches it on instinct and peers down at the bottle of Arginade in her hand.

“It isn’t much, but I don’t want you hurting yourselves over this. I’d, uh, give one to Akechi too, but I think he’d throw it at my head or something.”

“Thank you,” Sumire sets the bottle down gingerly. “But I don’t think I should.”

“Suit yourself.”

“He’s wasting our time,” says Akechi. He points his steel at the corridor behind Akira. “Let’s just move past and find Maruki ourselves.”

She nods and they take a step forward before—

“Come, Black Frost.”

A flash of blue and a split second is all it took for the hallway’s entrance to be completely concealed in thick ice. “If you do that though, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“That wall won’t be enough to stop Cendrillon, senpai.”

“Probably not,” Akira agrees, gloved hand touching an invisible mask. “But a week was a lot of time to mix up some Personas.”

The implication makes Sumire swallow—Akechi wasn’t exaggerating.

“We have to stop him here,” she says quietly. “Even if we got lucky and ran, there’s no way we can reach Dr. Maruki with senpai trying to catch us.

Akechi clicks his tongue. “Unfortunately. We can’t win against him in a battle of stamina, but if we move fast and hit hard enough, we can catch him off guard.” His eyes flicker at Akira watching them speak, posture relaxed. “I’ve never had to reserve energy in a fight much, so this is the best plan with what we have.”

“Got it.”

“Don’t hold back,” Akechi huffs the same time Sumire says, “Don’t kill him.”

And then they sprint forward, rapidly closing in the distance to Akira.

Akechi meets her look before they split off wordlessly, approaching their target from either side.

“Hit him hard, Loki!”

“Aid me, Cendrillon!”

Curse and bless, dark and light come at Akira like a hand of judgement, narrowly escaping by flipping backwards with one hand and throwing out the other. “Let’s go, Yoshitsune.”

And like a scene from a classic Japanese period tale, a swordsman emerges from the embers, dual-wielding Katanas in either hand. WIth an air of divinity, he slices sideways, forcing the two to jerk away.

Perhaps it’s the effect of the Metaverse, its link to cognition, but the use of words became futile beyond the calling of their Personas—she can judge what Akechi had in mind without language just as he can support her in her strikes, where to stand so they don’t get caught in each other’s crossfire.

Sumire pulls out her rapier and swipes at Akira’s torso but it’s too slow; he shifts out of the way and again to dodge Akechi’s bullets like a true Phantom Thief—as elusive and hard to catch as mist.

“You’re pulling your punches, Yoshizawa!” Akechi shouts.

“I’m not trying to kill him!” Cendrillon moves her own weapon impossibly quick, glowing lines appearing midair like a child drawing on paper, and it all bursts in unison—slicing through everything indiscriminately, yet Akira remains untouched.

“Give me some credit,” he calls, coattail swishing stylishly. “I don’t think I’m doing too bad.” Yoshitsune dashes forward, armor glinting and steel sparking as lightning shoots from his katanas, several inches to Sumire’s right. It leaves her hair filled to the brim with static.

Exhausting as their back and forth was, Akira hadn’t once attacked them directly. Even when they roll or sidestep, every movement is accounted for and he adjusts his blows in turn—close enough for them to stagger back from him, but never enough for them to be touched. The message was clear: I’d never hurt you, but there’s no chance in hell I’m letting you win, either.

Still, Sumire wipes her glistening temple as Loki brings down his blade where Akira was and into the ground, the collision forceful enough to make the stage lights above rattle. It’s beginning to be clear that it would be near impossible to maintain Akira’s pin-point accuracy, given his lack of compromise on it. His rolls are getting lethargic, backflips half-assed; whether he knew it or not, he’s beginning to slow down.

And Akechi is starting to get desperate.

Precise swings from before are losing control, wild ones taking place instead.

Akira reaches up once more. “Lend me a hand, Metatron.”

What looks like an archangel crafted during the industrial revolution bursts forth where Yoshitsune once stood, eyes filled with divinity and judgement as he launches a small army of rainbow, psychokinetic spheres around Akechi’s vicinity, but fatigue causes a slight miscalculation—one of the pink orbs barely grazes his brown hair, causing him to flinch back from shock.

It didn’t hurt, it couldn’t have hurt, but it’s the first hit the Akira had landed all day, accidental or otherwise.

A beat passes as they both freeze, and Sumire slows when she sees the expression on Akira’s face, unobstructed by his mask; all the bravado, the cockiness and boldness is gone like it was never there. In its place, a gaunt, horrified look.

“I…” he breathes, unnaturally pale. “Shit, I’m sorry. Here, just…” he starts rummaging through his pockets, hands shaking. “I know I have a bead in here somewhere, just let me—” Akira’s voice cracks. “Dammit, of course I can’t find it when I actually—why can’t I—”

Akechi takes an uneasy step backwards, overexertion threatening to take over. As if it weighs a hundred pounds, he raises an arm, red eyes disturbingly bright and dead-set on Akira.

Sumire feels her breath catch in her throat; she’s in a clear position to see it happen. Akira is still frantically looking through his stuff, an overwhelming guilt seeming to cloud his senses. Akechi, in his state of mind and body, is refusing to see the facts in favor of following his instincts—because even now, he still truly believes that Akira will remain untouched, no matter what.

Because, to Akechi, he is Kurusu Akira.

“Come, Loki!”

“Goro, wait!” Sumire cries.

Time slows down as Loki raises his blade, serrated steel exuding a curse potent enough to bring down any archangel to its knees several times over. And Akira looks up, eyes wide and dilated, but it’s too late to do anything other than take a deep breath and tense himself for the devastating blow—

Footsteps resound behind them, light and fast, and before Sumire can even turn around, a familiar voice yells out:

“I don’t fucking think so.”

Sakamoto Ryuji sprints past her and as Loki brings down his sword, stands directly in front of Akira, arms wide and acting like a barricade between him and the rest of the world.

[geraltofriviasleftbuttcheek]

a breath of sunlight

geraskier | teen | 2.3k | soulmate au

he’s just past thirty when he gives his soul to a witcher on a whim, because those lonely gold eyes look like they’ve seen too little love and jaskier has nothing but his lute and his love to give.

( read on ao3 )

When he was a kid, Jaskier turned up his nose at the idea of finding his soulmate.

“You don’t want to meet them?” one of his friends—he doesn’t recall their name anymore, a time that seems so, so long ago—had asked, as they played with sticks in the streets in the town.

He remembers scrunching his face up, lips pursed as if he’d just eaten a lemon. "Why? So I can grow old and die? That doesn’t sound very fun.”

And it didn’t—there was so much to do, how could he possibly do it all in a single lifetime? Jaskier wanted to see the world, to travel and learn things and make a name for himself across all the countries and in all the cities and towns outside of the only one he’d ever known.

“I think it would get lonely,” another of his friends had said softly, looking off into the distance. “You’d meet so many people, maybe even love them, and then you’d have to watch them die when they found their own soulmates. You don’t think you’d want an end to it? Your own soulmate to love?”

Jaskier never did find a response to those questions that felt satisfactory. Of course he wanted someone to love! He wanted to love lots of someones, but he also didn’t want to wake up one day and find he couldn’t move for the arthritis in his joints, or the rattle in his chest as he breathed, or even remember his own name.

He isn’t the only one to scoff at it all, wanting instead to live forever, but it doesn’t sit right with him when the hunters come through, slitting the throats of the people unfortunate enough to have soulmates who’d rather they were murdered than grow old together. Jaskier wants to live, but not at the cost of his own soulmate’s life.

It doesn’t sit right with him but it doesn’t stop him from turning his eyes away and strumming louder notes on his lute when cries and screams fill the air as someone is beheaded for sharing a soul with the wrong kind of person.

He’s a coward like that.

Which is maybe why, when he turns twenty-five, and he’s still obviously aging where he should still look like a young-faced baby of eighteen, it seems only fair that the universe should curse him to have no soulmate at all, and his plans of living forever crumble at his feet.

And it’s not that he’s met his soulmate, he knows. Even if only in passing at a market, everyone knows if they’ve met their other half—you feel it, they say, somewhere deep in your bones and it’s like being able to breathe after being underwater for far too long, like the sun rising after the night ends.

Jaskier still feels choked by water making it hard to breathe, still sees darkness even in the middle of the day. It’s not because he’s found them, but because he has none at all.

It’s a rarity, and not a good one. Most people stop aging at eighteen, just on the cusp of adulthood, to wait for the other half of their soul so they can live together and grow old together and die together. It’s the ultimate achievement: meet your soulmate, and live, and die. Those that don't, that continue to age despite not meeting anyone they can call their own? It's because there isn't anyone for them; their soul is whole on its own and doesn't need another—or is so jagged and rough that no other will fit it, and why would destiny let a soft soul suffer that kind of pain?

Jaskier will live, and he will die, but he will never have a soulmate. His soul is too rough, too jagged for another to fit with it.

He tells himself he won’t let it bother him. So he won’t live forever—fine. He’ll just have to live the fullest life he can while he has it, and it will have to be enough. And for a time, it is: he travels and he plays and he sings and he loves and he loves and he loves, and it never fills the emptiness in his chest where his heart is supposed to be when he’s not throwing it at whoever smiles at him like he might just be something more to them than he is.

He’s just past thirty when he gives his heart to a witcher on a whim, because those lonely gold eyes look like they’ve seen too little love and Jaskier has nothing but his lute and his love to give.

He knows the tales of witchers, with no feelings and no souls and no soulmates—the mutagens deaden whatever bond might have been there, sever it like the head from any beast by a witcher’s silver sword, so they live long, lonely, empty lives.

Unnatural, people hiss in behind their hands, evil and vile, no better than the monsters they hunt—before turning around and having their soulmates killed for immortality, and Jaskier thinks them hypocrites.

Geralt of Rivia has lived a long, lonely life, but Jaskier thinks he is far from empty.

He is lonely, but he craves companionship and compassion. Jaskier sees it in the way he talks to Roach, always soft, with gentle hands on her neck; in the way he holds himself surrounded by people, careful of his presence like just breathing might have him looking at his hands to see innocent blood on them; in the way he lets Jaskier follow him even when his words say otherwise, and the almost-smiles he gives when Jaskier plays something soft and just for them on the road.

Jaskier thinks their loneliness matches, jagged souls rough around the edges, craving love and eager to give it. He’s more than happy to let Geralt have all his love he wants.

Loving Geralt is like taking a deep breath after holding it for too long, like seeing the sun for the first time on a cloudless summer day after being in the dark. Jaskier looks at him and feels the empty space in his chest fill up with gold eyes and white hair and a body covered in scars, feels complete for the first time that he can recall, and it seems like a cruel joke on destiny’s behalf to make him feel so much for someone who will outlive him by lifetimes.

For the first time in his life, Jaskier wishes he had a soulmate—not because he doesn’t still want to live forever, but because now his eventual death seems like a waste. Here he is, heart and soul belonging to a witcher that deserves nothing short of all the love in the world, and Jaskier will eventually pass on, leaving him alone yet again, taking his love with him.

If he had a soulmate, Jaskier wouldn’t feel like he’s leaving Geralt behind in the end, teasing him with sweet promises only to disappear in the night—Yennefer does that enough for all of them.

But he doesn’t, so he plays his lute and sings songs and keeps following Geralt on the path laid out for him by destiny, and he keeps giving his love despite it all.

It’s Ciri that asks about him about his soulmate, holed up in Kaer Morhen and spending a rare day off from training by Jaskier’s side, listening to him pluck notes on his lute and hum suggestions of songs. Geralt is out doing...something that witchers do, probably, Jaskier wasn’t paying attention.

“What’s it like?” she asks, and Jaskier raises his eyebrows at her in question. “Having a soulmate, I mean.”

His throat closes up and a heavy feeling settles in his chest. He thinks of Geralt and pushes the thought away, swallowing thickly. “I—I don’t know,” he says, and his voice is rough with longing. He has to clear his throat. “I don’t have one. I mean, I don’t like drawing attention to them, but can’t you tell by the wrinkles around my eyes that I’m aging—” he smiles like he's making a joke of it, gestures around, “—and there’s no one around that could possibly be the cause of it? I’m getting old all by myself, thanks.”

Ciri looks...concerned comes to mind, but mostly confused, brow furrowed and lips pursed. “You don’t know, do you?”

Jaskier just looks at her. He doesn’t understand. “I don’t know what?”

“Jaskier,” she says slowly, gently, like he might spook if she speaks any louder, “you’ve looked the same as you always have for as long as I've known you.”

It makes him smile a little. “Well, thank you for your kindness, Ciri, but—”

“I’ve known you for fifty years, Jaskier,” she cuts him off quickly, but kindly. “Since Geralt found me and you were with him. And according to him, he’s known you at least half that many years before me.”

What? He doesn’t—he doesn’t understand. “What?”

She apparently realizes this is news to him—and oh, what news it is—because she smiles even more gently, almost playfully. “You have a soulmate, Jaskier,” she says, and Jaskier is, hysterically, glad she’s spelling it out for him. “And you’re living your life with him, like you’re supposed to. It’s just a little backwards from the norm. Sounds like him, doesn’t it?”

It’s like opening his eyes after being asleep: at first everything is blurry, but as he wakes up, it clears. Ciri’s words—You have a soulmate, Jaskier—float in his head, circling his mind, finding parts to cling to.

I have a soulmate.

Jaskier forces himself to look at Ciri—really look at her—and when he finally sees her it clicks: she’s grown up quite a bit, the round curves of childhood in her face now mature, more angular, though still soft. Her body is that of a woman’s, and while Jaskier could never find himself attracted to her—gods, he’s basically her father, that would be too uncomfortable—he still recognizes that she is attractive, in a way a woman is. Her eyes no longer shine with the innocence of youth, now more world-weary and wise, very much like Geralt’s on quiet nights around a campfire.

And Jaskier is still here. He’s still with them, still follows Geralt when he leaves Kaer Morhen to travel and slay beasts to make some coin—still sings his songs in taverns and sleeps on rough ground beneath the stars and it’s still not fun but his back doesn’t protest it and his joints don’t ache as he strums his lute, his steps still spry and lively as they’ve always been, no cough rattling his lungs when winter sets in, making it hard to breathe.

He feels alive, as full and complete as he has since he fell in love in a tavern, stale bread in his pants and a yearning to tell the stories of a witcher who wanted to be loved.

“How?” he asks, breathes it into the air like it might break, like destiny might come down to him and laugh in his face and tell him it’s not true after all, he’s going to die any minute now and it will all have been for nothing—

But perhaps destiny likes him a bit better than that, has always meant for this to be, because Ciri says, “The same reason my grandmother didn’t begin to age until she met Eist: it’s your destiny to be with him, Jaskier, and destiny wouldn’t separate you so soon.”

It’s...a comfort to hear it, that perhaps the reason he’d aged for the first part of his life wasn’t because he didn’t have a soulmate, but because he did and that soulmate was a witcher, a being meant to live a long, long life. It was destiny telling him, You will need to be more than a child to be with him as long as he needs you.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, to be needed by someone who fears being needed at all!

Jaskier realizes he did know, like they all said he would: he knew it by the way looking at Geralt was like coming up for air, like being blinded by light. He felt it in his soul that this was the one he wanted to give his love to for the rest of his life.

His soulmate.

“Well then,” Jaskier says, finally, settling back into his seat. He picks his lute up from where it had fallen out of his lap. Ciri looks at him curiously, and he gives her a smile. “I suppose, then, my answer is that having a soulmate is like being able to breathe after being underwater, and seeing light after a dark night.”

He looks up at movement in the door, and he smiles when Geralt comes in, dropping his swords and taking off his coat. Geralt raises an eyebrow at him, mouth quirked at the corner, like he’s asking a question—What’s going on in here? probably—and Jaskier feels at peace. He turns back to Ciri, strumming thoughtful notes out into the air.

“It’s seeing them and wanting to give all your love to them, because they deserve it and it’s all you have to give, and following them wherever their path takes them because there’s nowhere else in the world you’d rather be than by their side...”

He lets himself talk as Geralt comes to sit next to him, and Jaskier leans into him as he waxes poetic to Ciri about what it’s like to have a soulmate—because he does, and isn’t that just a hell of a thing?

Really, having a soulmate is the greatest adventure out there, and Jaskier thinks his child self would forgive him for wanting one of his own if he knew it would be Geralt of Rivia.

[magioftheseas]

Scale for a Wish

Summary: In which Nene climbs a mountain to get her desire for a chivalrous romance granted by a dragon. It turns out that she didn't think this through very well.

Rating: G

Warnings: None.

Notes: I just thought this would be a cute idea to write Nene confronting dragon!Hanako. It’s pretty short, simple, and sweet. It’s more about writing them banter than any of my usual overly complicated setups. But also this is dedicated to the several rocks that hit my character in the face as I was trying to get the blue feather in Harvest Moon: Magical Melodies. I wish I married Jamie, my precious genderfluid rival. Please get remade so that I can marry them.

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

There is a legend that speaks of a powerful dragon seated upon a high, treacherous mountain. It is said that the dragon is a mischievous sort—a being that grants wishes to those with the strength and courage to confront it within its domain. But be warned—for the beast’s power is great and great power cannot always be comprehended, especially to those who do not wield it.

Yashiro Nene, a mostly normal young girl with very little to lose beyond her life after the decimation of her pride, is too bull-headed to heed such warnings. She’s also too stubborn to be deterred from her efforts in scaling the treacherous mountains even as the climb is arduous and the wind whips her face mercilessly.

Legends aside, it can truly be said that humans have no limits in their bravery.

Nor their stupidity.

--

The (mostly?) normal girl has arrived at the peak. She is covered in dirt and sweat, her gloved hands bruised and calloused. She is determined, even as she has to take a moment of rest. After panting and gasping like a fish out of water, she recovered, regained her poise, and marched her way towards the cavern where the dragon slept.

Keeping her hands clasped, her heart racing, Nene entered the cavern. Her gaze darted about nervously, not sure what she was to bear witness. Riches? Bones? Books? A dragon’s hoard could be unpredictable. And it seemed—this dragon was sleeping on paper. Blinking a few times, Nene stepped forward carefully, soundlessly.

Hands tightening, she took a deep breath, and called out to the mound of shadow and obsidian scales.

“Hanako-san, Hanako-san. Please grant my wish.”

The dragon stirred. Slowly but surely, eyes the color of liquid gold began to open. Its head began to raise, and it towered over Nene, so enormous that its very shadow threatened to fully encompass her being. It turned its great, terrifying head towards her, snorting a puff of smoke.

Yashiro Nene, allegedly mostly human, trembled under its glare but she kept her head high, her own gaze fierce and defiant.

“I’ve come to have my wish granted,” she exclaims, voice clearer. “Hanako-san!”

“You...”

“Eek!” She jumped, nearly cowering. “S-Sorry! Sorry! I probably shouldn’t have woken you.”

The dragon stared at this girl, curled up and shivering with fear. It let out a throaty chuckle that was—surprisingly high-pitched. Actually, it sounded less like a fearsome dragon’s snarl and more like a cheeky boy’s snicker. Almost doing a double take, Nene turned back to face the beast, still falling to her knees from shock.

“It’s been a while since a human made it this far,” the dragon admitted, surprisingly good-natured. “And you’re quite—different from the norm, aren’t you? Quite plucky, aren’t you? Miss Heroine, I presume.”

H-Heroine?! Such flattery! Nene quickly got to her feet. But! No! Not yet!

“My name is Yashiro Nene!” she cried, puffing out her chest. “I have come to Hanako-san to have my wish granted! And that wish—is for you to hold me hostage so that a super handsome knight on a while horse can come to my rescue!”

The dragon stared. It did not answer. The silence stretched on. So much so that Nene ended up faltering.

“That’s—something you can do, right?” she asks, frowning and tilting her head. She then realizes. “Oh! No, I’m not asking you to die for something like that, Hanako-san! No, no, no!” She waved her hands furiously. “I just want you to face off against the knight! Once he proves his worth and defeats you honorably, you can just—fly away! Leave us to our happy ending! That’s not too much to ask for, right?”

The dragon continued to stare.

“I-I mean,” Nene stammered, beginning to feel surprisingly awkward. “I’ve heard you grant all kinds of amazing wishes. Um. Riches. Magic. Entire kingdoms. Compared to all that, this...shouldn’t be that hard, right? A lot of fair maidens have found their knights this way, and I—I’ve yet to be abducted by a dragon naturally, so that’s why I’m here! To request the services of Hanako-san!”

And, then, finally...the beast lays its head back down. Its eyes fall shut. It resumes sleep, to Nene’s dismay and exasperation.

“I-It’s not a joke! Nor is it a dream!” she cried, flailing. “I’m serious! And I scaled the mountain! You owe me a wish! That’s how it works, right? Right?! Hanako-san? HANAKO-SAN?!”

She pushed at the dragon’s side repeatedly, wailing and whining as she did.

“H-Hanako-san! Come on! Come on, come on, come ON!!”

It only rolled away from her, onto its back. Nene chased it desperately.

“Hanako-san!”

And then, to her utter shock and dismay, the beast was trembling. Trembling with restrained bouts of laughter. Its tail flailed, clearly trying to not smack either the ground or the wall, but the mountain still shook from mirth. With a yelp, Nene fell down and curled up, covering her head.

It didn’t last for long. Everything stilled after less than ten seconds, but Nene’s heart was still hammering terribly.

“Ah, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that, Yashiro.”

The dragon had settled back into a more harmless position, head on the ground with rather doleful eyes. Even when talking, it seemed careful to not show Nene too much of those rows of razor-sharp teeth, many of them about the length of her arm. She still shuddered in spite of the dragon’s best efforts.

“I-I-I-I-It’s fiiiiine.”

“You don’t sound very fine,” Hanako said quietly. “I really am sorry. So what was that about abduction and knights? I mean...it sounds to me like you’re looking for a matchmaker.”

“That’s—about right.” Nene nodded in quick succession. “I’d like to be set up with a noble, handsome, knight in shining armor on a white horse. Please and thank you.”

Hanako turned its head to snort so that the ensuing smoke didn’t hit Nene in the face. She still coughed a little. As she rubbed her throat, those slitted golden eyes softened.

“You climbed all this way. It couldn’t have been an easy feat.”

“It wasn’t that bad!” Nene exclaimed. “Actually, I’m used to scaling mountains for herbs and flowers! I’m pretty accomplished in agriculture!” Though she seemed proud of that fact, she did falter as she added, “Just not so much romance. It’s pretty difficult just talking to a guy, and when I try, a lot of them are pretty disinterested in me compared to my friend, Aoi. I think—well, a guy who’d go out of his way to save me... That’s at least someone I might be able to thank earnestly?”

“So, it’d just have to be someone who’d go through trials for your sake?”

Nene’s cheeks puffed.

“When you put it that way, you make me sound pretty selfish and demanding. I just want a good man, I’ll have you know. Someone cool, confident, and chivalrous!” She huffed. “I’ve got no interest in a shallow prick who only cares about slender legs!”

“Slender legs...” Hanako muses, gaze drifting down. The dragon is deterred, however, by Nene yanking down her jacket with quite the ferocious glare. The dragon averted its stare, pretending nothing was amiss. “Well, unfortunately, not every man who goes out to fight dragons for fair maidens is—all you’ve said. Some of them are just glory hogs. But, I could always just eat those types since I’ll be the one guarding you.”

“Oh.” Nene shook her head furiously. “N-No eating! Murder is a bit—it’s a bit much, don’t you think? Or, well, I guess you’re a dragon... S-Still, it’s extreme! Just scare those guys off!”

Hanako does show more teeth, and Nene paled even more.

“Don’t do it!” she pleaded. “Murder is bad!”

Hanako doesn’t answer. There’s just a nod before Hanako’s head drops docilely to the ground.

“Your strange wish comes with caveats, so I suppose you are smarter than I thought.”

Nene bristled even as she remained visibly anxious.

I did come this way to make requests of a dragon... Anyone could point out that’s pretty reckless. But, I—

“I wasn’t exactly sure what else to do besides wait, and I didn’t even know how long I’d have to wait be it months or years. In the time it took, I’d probably get left behind.” Fidgeting, Nene’s eyes flicker to the ground, a solemn glimmer in her stare before they fell shut. “I don’t want that. So I guess—here I am? Instead? Hanako-san, I... Please do grant my wish. There are always knights looking to save maidens from dragons. Surely, among one of them is someone that I can...!”

Hanako hummed softly.

“You’ll still have to wait. You really think that because you won’t be in easy reach that it’ll make you more desirable? Well—it’s true that humans are drawn to that which is difficult to obtain. Even then, it’s not exactly a noble attribute. But I guess what you’re really looking for is someone who’s so compassionate and true that they simply can’t ignore a maiden in trouble. That said—you’ll still just be one of many saved by them.”

Nene flinched.

When you look at it that way—it’s true, isn’t it? There are tons of other maidens to save. I’m not special just because I made a deal with the dragon.

“Of course, who knows,” Hanako went on. “You might get lucky, and I’m pretty bored so maybe we can try it. How about it, Yashiro?”

Rather than look pleased, Nene was now on the verge of tears.

“U-Uh.” Hanako’s eyes widened considerably. “Y-Yashiro?”

“This was stupid!” she yelled, covering her face. “This was so stupid! I’m so stupid! There’s not even a guarantee that this would work the way I want it to! I’m so dumb!” She began to sob. Wail, even. “I-I’m so, so dumb! What was I even thinking?! Waaaaah!”

“H-Hey,” Hanako stammers. “I-It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay!” she shrieked. “I’m so tired! I ache all over—I could have died just getting here a-and for what?! J-Just to try and get a dragon to abduct me?! In hopes I’d be saved?! What kind of desperate, s-selfish—s-stupid—?!”

“U-Um, even if that’s true, you still...”

“Even Hanako-san knows!” Nene wailed, tears running down freely. “It’s so obvious! It’s so, so obvious! Why did it take me this long to see how dumb I was being?! Urgh! I’m—I’m the worst! Just the worst!” Pressing her weeping face back into her palms, her shoulders quaked and quaked. “S-So stupid...! So humiliating...! All I ended up doing...was making an absolute fool of myself...!”

And then, suddenly, surprisingly gentle clawed fingers brushed her hair back, brushed some of the tears away. Confused, Nene uncovered her eyes to blink tearfully at the nervous figure before her.

A boy—of sorts. With messy black hair, golden eyes with slit pupils, and dressed in a black cloak. If it weren’t for the claws, those eyes, the horns protruding from his head, the tail, and the remnants of scales on his cheeks, this person could’ve been mistaken for any other human. But with an expression like that—Nene found she didn’t doubt his humanity at all.

“Please don’t cry,” he murmured, awkward but kind. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”

“...Hanako-san?” Nene blinked, and Hanako wiped away more of the tears that came down her face in rivulets. Sniffling, Nene rubbed at her nose. “I—no, I’m sorry. It’s not Hanako-san’s fault this happened. I... I should be apologizing. First for wasting your time...”

“I don’t mind visitors,” Hanako muttered, not looking at her, but seeming a little embarrassed. “Regardless of the reason—it’s nice to have company. It’s lonely up here.”

Nene does look around. Now that Hanako was roughly the same size as her, she could see just how large and empty the cavern was.

Why—does he even stay here, I wonder? Maybe he has nowhere else to go?

“Well... I can still make the climb pretty easily, all things considered,” Nene pointed out meekly. “If you want someone to visit you more often, I can do that.”

Hanako does stare at her, perplexed.

“You came up here to ask me for a favor.”

“I-I know! B-But I don’t mind being nice to you, either!” she stammered, flustered. “Being lonely is sad. I know that, even though I have Aoi. You don’t seem like a bad person, er, um. Dragon?”

“This is as much my form as the other one,” Hanako said. His tail beat a little against the floor. “You’re not scared by it.”

“I was surprised, but...” Nene shook her head. “Hanako-san comforted me. So, you must be nicer than you are scary.”

“I could still kill someone like this.”

She does recoil, gritting her teeth with fear flashing over her features before her eyes narrowed sharply.

“N-Now you’re just being difficult, Hanako-san! I-I just wanted to be nice!” Puffing her cheeks, she pouted quite fiercely at him. “If you’re uninterested, just say so!”

“I wouldn’t say I’m...uninterested.” His gaze is sweeping over her, rather intense. Nene felt herself warm, her heart skipping a beat. “Yashiro, what kind of person were you hoping would save you?”

“I-I... Um.” She can’t help but be sheepish. “L-Like I s-said, someone cool, confident, and chivalrous. S-Someone who would cherish me and protect me... But also someone kind.”

“I can be kind,” Hanako said, rather sweetly. “And I’m definitely strong enough to protect you.” He does reach out, but he hesitates for a moment, instead gently pinching a lock of her hair between his claws. “So, how about it? This is much less complicated, don’t you think?”

With her face flushed and her eyes wide and watery with emotion, Nene waited until he had let her hair slip from his grasp before she made an X with her arms.

“Sorry! You’re not my type! I like tall, princely guys! Not short, dragon boys! I’m really, really sorry.”

“Oh.” Hanako exhaled. “Okay. Well. I guess that’s to be expected.”

“That! Said!”

Before he could pull away completely, Nene had grabbed his clawed hand and squeezed, mindful of the edges but firm all the same.

“Hanako-san, let’s still be friends!” she exclaimed. “I don’t mind being friends!”

Hanako blinked at her, seemingly taken aback before he laughed.

“Even though I’m a dragon that can eat people?”

“W-Well,” Nene swallowed. “You haven’t actually eaten anyone, right?”

“Who knows?”

“I’m taking that as a no.” She didn’t have any interest in pondering it further if Hanako was going to be so vague about it. She’ll just take it as him not being used to having friends. Or something. Yeah. Yeah. “So, let’s be friends. I mean. For my wish, I guess...you can just bring me down the mountain safely?”

“That’s a small price to ask for. But, yes, I can do that easily.” Hanako showed a rather toothy grin. On a face like that, it was much less intimidating than before. “Consider it the favor of a friend, though, not a wish granted.”

Nene smiled back brightly, completely unaware of the mischievous glimmer in Hanako’s eye.

“I’d really app—aah!”

Before she even had a chance to protest, she had been swept away with ease. Carried like a princess, Nene could hardly even breathe. She only remembered to when she was met with Hanako’s grin.

“Hold on, Yashiro.”

Just what did I—

He was off at a speed she could barely comprehend.

Just what did I get myself intoooooo?!

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: you gave up half your life Fandom: Supernatural Summary:  When Dean and Cas disappeared, Sam was lost. But in a world that had nearly broken apart so many times, he wasn’t the only one who needed support and guidance. AN: Remember when I ranted about season 7? Yeah good times. Here’s my 10.000 words Salty Post Season 7 Fix-it in which Sam Winchester accidentally starts organizing a bunch of Hunters all while trying to find his brother.

Read on AO3

Sam didn’t remember the first 48 hours after Dean had disappeared. He knew he must have gotten out of the building, away from the Leviathans, the demons and every pretty little hell his mind could have thrown at him, and driven away in the Impala. He had woken up covered in black goo at the side of a road outside of some tiny town he didn’t even know the name of, miles and hours away from where they had stopped the apocalypse 2.0.

Dean was gone.

Sam had to get him back.

The two of them had a pact, of course. If one of them died, the other would continue on with his life. No shady deals, no sacrifices, no years wasted away chasing after the barest whisper of hope.

That pact was lie.

Sam had known as much from the moment he had died for the first time. They had sworn it to assure each other that they weren’t too far gone yet, that they could still be functional members of society that weren’t utterly codependent.

During his time at Stanford, Sam had taken a course on children’s psychology. Siblings that grew up with absent parents tended to cling more to each other. The younger they were, the stronger the bond.

The course had been eye-opening and confronted him with more than just one uncomfortable truth. (Sam had never cried out for their father after a nightmare.) As long as Dean was out there, somewhere, Sam could manage.

But now Dean was gone.

Not dead, not possessed, just gone.

The pact was a lie and Sam was alone.

His next course of action was clear, he knew his mission (had done so once already in a fantasy land created by a cowardly angel): find Dean, consequences be damned.

(He heard Lucifer singing, oh, so sweetly, “This is why you were made for me.” He ignored it.)

X

Sam started to research. He had always liked that part of the job the most. Ever since he could think, he’d been absorbing knowledge. It was the most ordinary, white-picket-fence like part of being a Hunter. When he had been younger, Sam used to pretend that he was preparing for a school project instead of trying to figure out what was going to kill his family if he didn’t do his job correctly.

He began collecting books from all kinds of places. All his Leviathan research was already stored on his laptop and about five different hard drives he carried with him at all times. It was hard to find anything online Sam didn’t already know or the Leviathans hadn’t covered up themselves. The lore on purgatory, which Sam had already gone through, was about as vague and contrasting as possible. According to the Catholic church, it didn��t even exist anymore. At the same time, the older the lore, the more accurate and Dante had written a whole adventure about it. Sam should have asked Cas how reliable Dante's account of hell, purgatory, and heaven was. Sam had only been to two of those realms and his memories of both were hazy. What little the monsters had let slip out about purgatory didn’t help him either.

Sam was looking at a puzzle he didn’t know how to solve, where to start searching. Usually, Dean would throw in some random comment now, sparking a new thought process.

But Sam was alone.

(For now.)

He had to keep looking.

X

After he had gotten back from the Cage, Sam had to stop himself whenever he introduced Dean.

“This is my brother-,” he would say and halt. Dean took over then, playing whatever role he had assumed at the moment.

Sam had been too much of a coward to ask Dean if he knew that it took months for Sam to get it under control, until Adam was no longer the first name on his tongue.

“You’re my brother Adam,” Sam had whispered for a century, wrapped tightly in Grace while sheltering his younger brother.

The least damage to the most innocent of us, three of them had decided down there. The Cage did not provide any space for raging battles or accusations, and it was meant for only one of them. There was companionship to be found in equal suffering.

(Even in the darkest place on Earth, Sam hadn’t been on his own.)

Sam had lost one brother for eternity. He wasn’t going to lose another.

X

Sam had almost forgotten that he had a phone until it rang one day. He had been lying half asleep on the small table of the motel room, which still had two queen-sized beds because Sam hadn’t gotten out of the habit of asking for such yet. Last time, it had taken almost two months. Sam didn’t intend to be separated from his brother long enough to get rid of the habit again.

The ringing of the phone startled him awake. In his disorientation, he knocked his mug, half-filled with cold coffee, off the table.

“Shit,” Sam cursed and threw the nearest piece of fabric he could find over it.

He then rushed over to his bag, searching for his phone.

Please, he thought. I need just this one miracle.

Sam didn’t recognize the number on the phone. Memorizing numbers of hotel rooms, license plates, phones, holes in jeans, and bullets had been one of the first things John Winchester had taught Sam.

After Dean had shown Sam how to read such numbers.

“Hello?” Sam answered the phone. His voice was rough – when had he last talked to someone?

“Sam Winchester?”

Sam’s first reaction was to recoil. He wanted to scream, shout, throw something.

He did neither of those things.

“Kevin? Is that you?”

A sob rang from the other end of the line.

“Oh, God. It really is you. I know I memorized your number correctly, but the tablet messed with my head and I just, I need-“

“Kevin, breathe,” Sam ordered. “Where are you?”

“New York,” Kevin stammered. “State, not city. I managed to escape, but Crowley will know soon because I blew up his demons and I don’t know where to go or what to do-“

“I’ll come get you. Go somewhere safe and ward the room like you’re expecting the devil himself to knock and then call me again.”

He sent a quick and silent prayer to Castiel, the only angel worth praying to left these days despite everything, and began to pack his things. Truth be told, Sam hadn’t really thought about Kevin since that day. Crowley had just grabbed him and vanished, and Dean, always Sam’s priority, had been more important.

Dean would be ashamed Sam had let himself get so absorbed in such a single-minded attitude. This hyper-focusing, while it helped fighting one cause, could get you killed just as quickly. A Hunter couldn’t be entrenched. They had to think quickly and be flexible and open to other ideas. For all that Hunters hated deviating from the norm, if you only knew how to salt-n-burn bones, your third ghost would get you.

Within fifteen minutes, Sam was packed. He loaded his belongings into the Impala and drove off into the direction of New York.

X

Sam found Kevin in an overcrowded motel, hiding out in a wardrobe that was covered in so many sigils, it might as well be drenched in ink. Kevin had picked up on quite a lot of knowledge in the short time he had been exposed to the supernatural. Though, maybe, that also had to do with his status as a prophet of the Lord. Perhaps this knowledge was written into his soul.

When Sam opened the door, Kevin was cradling the demon tablet with one hand and a water bottle with the other.

“Hey, Kev-“

Sam didn’t get much further, as Kevin hit him with a glass full of water.

“I’m not a demon, Kevin,” Sam said slowly. He knew better than to scare the younger man now.

“You could have been possessed!” Kevin insisted, bloodshot eyes wide open with a crazed look.

Sam shook his head and pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck to expose his anti-possession tattoo.

“Not with this. As long as I’ve got this one intact, I’m good.”

Kevin stared at the black ink.

“Is that Hunter standard?” He asked. “And can I get one?”

For the first time in weeks, or so it felt like, Sam managed to twist his face into something resembling a happy expression with the hint of a smile.

“Sure, Kevin. If you’re up for a long drive right now.”

Kevin was tired. It was written all over his face, his posture. He had a haunted look in his eyes, one Sam knew all too well. It was easy to forget that not everyone had been raised in this life like Sam and his brother had. But right now, staring in Kevin's sunken-in face, Sam was reminded of just how much Kevin had had to adapt since he’d woken up as a prophet.

“I need to keep moving,” Kevin insisted, subtly shifting so the tablet was pressing into his body uncomfortably.

“Okay. Then we keep moving.”

Kevin fell asleep in the backseat of the Impala within fifteen minutes, still holding onto the tablet. Once in a while, Sam glanced at Kevin, but he slept peacefully. The past weeks must have been an enormous strain on his body and mind if he rested as well as he did now, with no nightmares haunting him.

(The first few nights after Cas had taken Lucifer from him, Sam had been so out of it as well. He had fallen asleep and just woken up again, not chased by blood, torture, and screams. Nowadays, if he slept, he had night terrors. It almost made him miss Lucifer. Almost.)

Sam wished he could say the same.

X

After a couple days of pretty much non-stop driving, Sam and Kevin arrived in a relatively small town. They got a motel, checked for any signs of demons and promptly warded the room to withstand a minor assault. Then they left the Impala in the parking lot and headed for a diner. Kevin hadn’t eaten properly in days (not that Sam had either, but he also wasn’t recovering from a kidnapping) and needed something nutritious.

“Where are we?” Kevin asked while he was swirling his soup around with his spoon, not eating any of it.

“Nebraska, passed the state lines a couple hours ago.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I can read road signs, Sam. But you were heading to this city specifically – why?”

“There’s a retired Hunter here, or at least, I hope he’s still here. He owns a tattoo shop.”

Kevin stared at him, not giving Sam the impression that he had made the connection. Then again, he’d been so out of it when Sam had picked him up, he might not even remember.

“You wanted to get an anti-possession tattoo,” Sam elaborated.

“Oooh, yeah.” Kevin looked down on his bowl. “I forgot about that. But why here? Couldn’t we have walked to any shop?”

The answer was yes, they could have, but Sam didn’t want to. Marty McKinnons never really left his state for hunting. Sam had met him when he was on his way to Stanford, seven days separated from Dean. Sam may or may not have had a minor breakdown in the passenger seat of Marty’s car while they drove away from a graveyard.

“I only managed seven fucking days of normal before the crazy came back again. What the hell was I thinking?” Sam had said then.

Marty had let Sam crash on his sofa that night and set his head straight again. He had been managing a shop and a band while hunting. “You don’t have to give it all up, kid,” Marty had said. “Or push it all away. If you see a ghost, take care of it or call someone who can. No need to go searching for cases like your daddy. If your neighborhood’s good, so are you.”

And then he had given Sam breakfast and driven him to the bus station.

“We could,” Sam finally replied. “But I’ve wanted to check out who else is still in the game, and if they know what the demons are up to.”

Kevin mustered Sam a little while longer. “Alright.”

He went back to pretending he was actually going to eat more of his soup and Sam picked at his salad.

X

Marty’s shop was crammed into an alley, an off-shoot of the main road. It was still standing. Sam took that as a good sign. Kevin walked slightly behind Sam, staying as close as he possibly could without full-on taking over Sam’s personal space.

Sam opened the door to the shop and the old bell attached to the doorframe rang. Marty had stolen it out of an abandoned church. Sam couldn’t quite recall what monster church bells warded against, but he could remember in perfect detail Marty’s hilarious tale about its acquisition. It had involved neon pink paint and lucky charms and had sounded like something out of a comedy sketch.

“Welcome to Artemis Tattoo’s, what can I do for you?”

Marty looked a little different than Sam recalled. It shouldn’t surprise him, it had been over a decade. The red-haired man was well into his fifties now, and his hair was graying, giving him a silver-fox look.

“Hey, Marty,” Sam greeted lamely. “It’s me, Sam-“

“Sam Winchester?” Marty interrupted him with wide eyes.

He took off his glasses and rubbed them over his black t-shirt before putting them on again.

“Christo, is that really you, kid?”

Sam shrugged helplessly. “Still me, still kicking.”

Compared to Sam, most people were smaller than him. Marty was the only person Sam knew who was taller than him still. When he marched towards you, it was impossible to not feel intimidated. Nobody would expect a man of Marty’s age and built to be as silent and fast as he was, so when he suddenly rushed towards Sam, Sam was caught off-guard. He didn’t even have a chance to act before Marty pulled him close.

He was hugging him, Sam realized belatedly.

“Holy fucking hell, kid,” Marty cursed. “You’re alive. You wouldn’t believe the shit I heard about you Winchesters in the past years. Where’s your brother?”

Sam tensed and Marty slowly let go of him. Marty had started hunting because his older sister had been killed by a witch, Sam remembered.

Sam didn’t have it as bad as him.

“Dean’s- he’s gone.”

(But he would be back.)

“Hell, kid. I’m sorry-“

“He’s not dead,” Sam insisted. Each time he said it out loud, he managed to stand a little bit straighter. “He’s just lost. I’ll find him. But that’s not what I’m here for. Look, this is Kevin.”

Sam stepped aside to let Marty get a good look at Kevin. Kevin waved timidly and nervously took in Marty’s many tattoos. The older man was covered in them from head to toe. Most of them were for the aesthetic, but quite a lot were there because they helped on the job.

Marty specialized in taking down witches, and while you couldn’t protect yourself from all of their spells, there were quite a lot counter measurements one could ink into their skin.

“Kevin’s a prophet. Crowley’s had him for a while-“

“Crowley?”

Right. Sometimes Sam forgot that not everybody dealt with demons on the daily like him.

“Current King of Hell,” Sam continued. “Kevin managed to escape, but we need to get him some extra security.”

Marty nodded slowly and then grinned, warm and toothily like Sam remembered. It was nice to be looked at in kindness for once instead of hatred and fear like most Hunters did nowadays.

“Anti-possession tattoo, you’re thinking?”

“Yes,” Kevin spoke up for the first time since they had entered the shop. “I don’t want one of those bastards in my head. If they know what I know…”

“Could get bad, I got you. Man, am I glad I don’t deal with those sons of a bitch. And you, Sam? Can I get you anything?”

Sam stuck his hand in his jeans pocket and pulled out a paper sheer that used to be white once upon a time.

“Yes, actually,” Sam said. “There is something I want.”

X

In the years Sam and Dean had been hiding from Heaven and Hell, they had learned more about wards than their father had in his entire life. Most of them had to be powered by blood, freshly spilled. A few of them, like the Enochian sigils Castiel had branded onto their ribs, could be applied and would work without a sacrifice, or one that only needed to be paid once.

Sam had never thought about putting anything other than the anti-possession tattoo on his skin (it was too easy to alter wards, to make them turn on the one using them, to have them drain you, they made you recognizable) but the last years had worn him down.

And if anything ever got close enough to him again to manipulate him (wear his body, wrap his soul in sweet lullabies while they tear into his brother’s flesh-), then perhaps Sam deserved it.

He wasn’t young and weak anymore.

(He had pulled Lucifer apart.)

Sam could afford to wear the wards he wanted.

“Are you sure?” Marty asked, studying the paper Sam had handed him. “This is… I don’t even recognize half of this.”

(Nobody would. Something had been meant for Archangel Grace only, but Sam had been there and he had listened. And he remembered.)

Kevin looked over the paper as well, frowning. When he met Sam’s eyes, he was troubled.

“That’s a lot,” Kevin said, something old lingering in his voice.

Maybe being a prophet didn’t just mean that Kevin could read God’s Word.

“I know,” Sam said. “I want it.”

(I consent.)

X

When they separated from Marty, the man pulled both of them into another heartfelt hug. Kevin looked like he was about to break and Sam’s hug was a little awkward as Marty was mindful not to touch Sam’s back.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” Marty said. “You have my phone number. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call.”

“Same goes for you, Marty,” Sam replied. “And if anyone wants to get the wards, but has questions about them, they can call me. I can explain.”

Marty smiled warmly and messed up Sam’s long hair. “You’re a good kid. Stay safe.”

X

They drove westward, hitting old libraries and archives, universities and churches. Sam kept learning, kept going. He couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. He felt a little bit like he was losing his mind.

(Except this was reality.)

Kevin wasn’t any better.

He barely slept. Most of the time, he was staring at the demon tablet, taking notes and trying to make sense of everything written there.

After a month of traveling, Kevin admitted defeat.

“I can’t do this if we keep moving,” he admitted quietly. “I need peace and calm to actually understand what I’m doing here.”

“Okay,” Sam said. He had expected it. “I’ll find a place.”

Some Hunters never traveled far away from their home, others were so lost they drifted until some monster killed them. As much as Sam had detested it, he had been raised on the road. He had studied for his finals lying on the backseat of the Impala. He had gotten a full-ride to Stanford with sticky-notes pinned to the windows.

(Sam wondered what he could have been if he had been able to recover in peace.)

X

Sam left Kevin at an old abandoned church. They set up traps for demons, bought enough non-perishable food to ensure Kevin wouldn’t have to leave the church for a while (until Sam found a better solution) and said their quiet goodbyes.

(“Looks like you’re well and truly on your own.”)

Everybody left.

Sam should be used to it by now.

It didn’t stop him from watching Kevin in the rearview-mirror until the distance ate him up.

X

Dean was gone two months now. Kevin called sometimes, but Sam couldn’t always keep up with his rambles. The Impala was stocked full with books kept in a neat organization system that hadn’t ever made sense to anyone but Dean.

X

Sam hunted a vampire in Colorado.

Then a witch in Utah.

A werewolf in Arizona.

Ghouls, shifters, ghosts, wendigos, rugaru-

And then, blood splattered over his clothes, Sam killed a demon.

Two hunters with twin shocked expressions pointed at Sam, then at the dead body and threw up their arms in defeat, shouting, “You can do that!?”

X

Sam had been avoiding demons to the best of his abilities. He knew they were hunting him and Kevin down, and while at some point he had entertained the thought of using himself as bait to lure them as far away from Kevin as possible, he had settled on trying to stay as far away from them as he could.

Until he couldn’t.

The demon was working on his own and he hadn’t been really all that well-informed or strong. It was easy enough to trap him and get him to break.

Sam hated torture, but not as much as Dean did.

(Because Dean wasn’t just good at it, he was great.)

But he could get a demon to start speaking if he wanted it to. The demon had boasted so proudly about how much he had made the owner of his meatsuit suffer until the soul had died, not knowing that his actions had only made it easier for Sam.

And then, when he had stabbed the knife through the demon’s heart, two college kids broke into the warehouse.

X

They must be siblings, twins maybe even, Sam thought. Both of them had curly dark hair, equally dark skin, and their expressions were too similar for them to not be family.

“You just killed a demon,” the smaller one said. “How do you- what. Just. What?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“Dude, who are you? You just offed a demon!”

They couldn’t be older than twenty-five at most, at best if Sam allowed himself to hope. They knew about demons, so they had to be Hunters. Probably not in the business for long if they didn’t know demons could be killed. That was common knowledge amongst the community, or what was left of it. At least Sam thought it was. He and Dean had never really been close to a lot of Hunters because of their reputation.

“I’m Sam Winchester,” he introduced himself.

The eyes of the pair widened.

Not good.

Sam slowly shifted his body into a more versatile position and counted the exits. He would defend himself, no questions asked, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone. If he could get away from the two without the situation escalating into a fight, everything would be alright.

“Sam Winchester,” the taller twin spoke up. “You’re really Sam Winchester?”

And then something curious happened.

The twins dropped their shoulders in pure relief, hope lighting them up like they still had something to believe in that hadn’t been broken by blood and deals.

Well, that was a first.

“Dude,” the smaller one said. “Thank you so much.”

What.

Sam hadn’t said a word, but his confusion must have shown (damn it, he used to be better at acting, at pretending, at reassuring everyone that he was fine) because the kid immediately began to babble.

“You saved us. Just. Thank you. Just, thank you for everything.”

“You are welcome?”

Sam still didn’t know what they were talking about, but he sincerely hoped that he was right in assuming the two of them meant no harm. They put away their guns, practically vibrating with energy.

“I’m sorry, but have we met before?” Sam asked.

“No,” the taller replied. “I’m Gregory Rosswell and this one here next to me is my brother Frederick. Our parents got snatched by Leviathans a couple months back. We’ve been going after them ever since and everything else that came our way.”

Gregory glanced at the dead demon behind Sam. “Mostly ghosts though. Caught one demon, but he almost blew our brains out. Couldn’t chug enough salt and holy water at him fast enough.”

“Yeah,” Fred agreed. “How did you catch one so easily?”

“Devil’s trap,” Sam said.

“Oh.”

The twins shared a look. “Can you teach us how to draw one?”

X

Gregory and Frederick Rosswell were twenty-years-old (too young, children still, they shouldn’t be here) and had both been home from university when their parents had been replaced by Leviathans. When they had tried to do the same to Frederick, Gregory had cut off their heads with a cutlass from their father’s ancient weapons collection.

Sam refrained from asking whether the cutlass hidden beneath the backseat of the twins’ car was the one Gregory had used. They had a fairly impressive collection of knives and swords, but only two small handguns.

“We don’t need those much since we mostly go after Leviathans,” Gregory explained. “Didn’t even know there was more crazy out there until we ran into our first ghost.”

Gregory said it so casually that Sam didn’t know whether to be impressed or shocked. Leviathans weren’t easy to kill, even depowered as they now were, and Hunters, whose introduction to life was so violent, tended to die sooner than later.

When Sam tried to explain that, the Rosswells only looked at him in disbelief.

“Yeah, man. Back up a second. Vampires are real too?”                           

The twins turned to each other, conveying thoughts in half-smiles, a groan and a tap on the shoulder. Then they decided to invite Sam back into their conversation.

“What else is there?” Gregory asked. “And how do we kill it?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said.

They were twenty, they shouldn’t be hunting when they had their whole lives still ahead of them.

(Sam was twenty-nine, was two-hundred-twenty, centuries, ages, older than his brother would ever be.) 

“We know,” Frederick replied. “But we don’t want to stop. We can’t stop.”

Sam had never met a Hunter who could. (Himself included.)

X

Sam had never actually taught someone how to be a Hunter. Frederick and Gregory got the basics done already and research wasn’t unfamiliar to them. Their father had been a policeman, so they knew how law enforcement worked and could pretend to be a part of it well enough. Sam didn’t feel like he was actually teaching them a lot by giving them a list of America’s Top Twenty Monsters and a How To Kill Them All manual.

If he was honest, he thought the twins did most of the work. For the weeks they stuck with him, they asked countless questions, treating him like a tired college professor.

“How much Holy Water can you bless at once?”

A lot, but no, you can’t just bless the ocean. That’s not how it works.

“Wooden stake for tricksters? Where does that even come from?”

Yes, wooden stake. Works if they’re not angels in disguise.

“Angels are real!?”

Yes, and they all suck. Never let one of them possess you. They may need your consent, but it doesn’t need to be an informed or gentle one. You’ll be out of control and feel like you’ve been strapped to a comet. (Like you’re trapped in the softest dream, surrounded by memories of your siblings when they still loved you and the world was whole and untainted.)

“I know Latin and I’d been learning Greek for my bachelor, but how many languages do you need to know?”

A lot.

“Why do you carry so many books around in your car? Wouldn’t it be easier to get a place to store them in?”

“And organize them properly?” Frederick teased.

Sam looked at the backseat of the car and yes, true enough, he had accumulated a small library.

“Oh, shut up, you two,” Sam muttered, and pointedly ignored that one of the stacks of books had fallen over, making the twins grin like idiots.

When they went their separate ways again, Sam was a little more convinced that he wasn’t sending the two of them off to their deaths. And if they ever met anything they didn’t know, they could call him. It was the least he could do.

X

What Sam hadn’t expected when he handed the Rosswells his number, was how often they would call. Sometimes they asked for help regarding hunts, but more often than not, they just asked about him or talked about whatever kind of crazy had happened to them lately. When Sam had started attending Stanford, he’d had to train himself in the delicate art of small talk. While attending school, he’d never connected much with his peers, too aware that he’d soon move away again, and with Dean around, he hadn’t needed to say a single word more than necessary. Even with all their differences, the choices that had made them grow apart, they got each other.

(Except when they didn’t and the world had to pay for it.)

At Stanford, though, Sam learned that small talk wasn’t just something you took part in to stay busy but to build longer-lasting relationships. The years on the road had made his skill rusty, but the Rosswells were doing their best to bring it back.

Sam didn’t know why telling them what he had for dinner was a good topic choice (but it did make him more conscious of the meals he kept skipping) or why he could listen to Gregory talking for a good fifteen minutes about how difficult it was to eat healthy on the road.

He always accepted their calls, never hit decline, even when they called in the middle of the night (Sam wasn’t sleeping anyway).

Marty called a few times too, his latest call informing Sam of his new partner Caitlyn, a young florist, who had set up her shop just a few meters away from him and put all her bouquets in holy water.

“She’s new to all of this. Vamps got her husband last year – that’s why she moved town.”

Kevin checked in less regularly and to even more random times than the twins. After one more erratic call that almost chased Sam halfway across the country, he asked the twins to go check in on Kevin.

At 3 a.m., his phone rang, and Sam got to stare at a picture of three young men, squatting in a confessional box and watching a movie on a laptop. Kevin was smiling tiredly and Frederick’s new scar was healed enough to be exposed.

They were healthy.

(They were alive.)

Sam could keep going.

X

Month four without Dean started by Sam staring at his phone and the many messages he had received in the few hours he had been asleep. Apparently, his friends had decided to team up and create a group chat.

The last dozen messages were everyone trying to make out what the hell Kevin’s sleep-deprived 4 a.m. message had meant while the prophet in question was probably (hopefully) fast asleep for once.

That’s Enochian, Sam typed mindlessly. It means Protection, but specifically referring to a situation in which demons are trying to possess someone who used to be an angel vessel.

Gregory: What?

Frederick: Hi Sam!!!

Marty: how is that ever a likely situation?

Sam grinned. It can also mean Protecting someone who is Loved by God. Angel vessels are precious to them. Ruining them is a severe offense.

Marty: yeah no goodbye I’m out. 

X

Sam met the Hilllains on a ghost hunt. They had three kids, fifteen, twelve and six years old, who all knew how to handle knives and shoot guns and what to do when your mom fell over because she had a vision. The Hillains usually didn’t leave their state since “Raising kids on the road is just irresponsible”.

Susan Hillain-Waterbury was the descendant of a long line of gifted people and Terrence Hillain was a priest turned Hunter after a run-in with a demon. Most of the time, they hunted on the weekends and brought home fast food as a treat on Sunday afternoons.

Sam stayed with them until Monday evening because Susan insisted on making her world-famous lasagna for him as a thank you.

X

Four months and two weeks into his search and Sam had stopped asking for a room with two beds. When he realized that, he abandoned most of his weapons except the knife and headed for the nearest bar. People made space for him when he walked past them, and he didn’t think it was just because of his height.

The bartender took one look at him and filled a crystal clear glass with something that smelled so strong it burned in Sam’s nose.

“First one’s on the house,” she said.

“Thank you,” Sam muttered and downed the drink in one go.

(“Free booze! Awesome. C’mon, Sammy. Smile at her! See if you can get a second!”)

“Just keep them going, please.”

Alcohol couldn’t properly knock Sam out anymore. He hadn’t tried drugs (strong ones, anyway), but those shouldn’t have much of an effect on him either. He remembered the peaceful embrace of another, the oblivion that came with being lulled into memories of happy times when Father still loved them all.

Sam was tired.

His research was going fucking nowhere and he couldn’t keep everything organized and he was failing Dean yet again. He hadn’t been able to get his brother out of hell and he wouldn’t be able to get him out of purgatory.

What a fucking waste of space he was.

X

When he stumbled out of the bar, he stabbed a man with blonde hair and green eyes right between his ribs, watched as the demon within perished. Wordlessly, he dropped the body in a side-alley where it would be found by morning and a mourning family would have a place to grief at.

What did Sam have left?

(Nothing.)

He put the few belongings he had bothered out pack back in the car and drove off.

X

The next day he hit a dog.

X

Sam wasn’t thinking when he wrapped the dog into his towel and drove to the nearest animal clinic.

“I need help,” Sam exclaimed when he entered the clinic. Admitting more than he wanted to. “The dog needs help.”

“He just came out of nowhere, right in front of my car. We need a doctor. Are you a doctor?”

The animal couldn’t die. Not now, not right in front of Sam because he had made another mistake. It shouldn’t have to pay for Sam’s flaws.

It couldn’t die.

It couldn’t die.

It couldn’t-

X

Sam’s shirt was still drenched in (Dean's) the dog’s blood. The smell didn’t bother him, it was too familiar to him to register on his mind.

When the doctor entered the room, everything was still a blur. Sam tried to keep his breathing under control, stop his hands from shaking and not fall into a panic.

Somehow, it ended with him owning a dog.

X

The motel he was staying at didn’t mind that he was keeping Dog, who still didn’t have a proper name. Sam had always been terrible about naming anything at all. When he was younger and had wanted a pet, Dean had collected the spiders of their motel rooms and named each and every one of them.

The various hero names Dean had slapped on them hadn’t been very creative either, but better than anything Sam had come up with.

The doctor who had done Dog’s surgery assured him that he was recovering well. Amelia Richardson, that was her name, was much kinder to him now that he apparently didn’t classify as a total asshole who hit animals while driving irresponsibly.

She still thought he was creepy and that there was something wrong with him (he was torn to bits and pieces, no amount of tape could fix him), but she stopped with the random accusations. The cash he earned at the motel, fixing a little bit of everything here and there, was enough to help him pay for Dog’s medication.

Sam felt like he was holding his breath and he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

X

Five months after Dean’s disappearance began with another random call. He didn’t recognize the number displayed on the phone screen, nor the voice speaking.

“Is this Sam Winchester?”

Sam evaluated the pros and cons of lying but settled on stating the truth. If it turned out this person meant to harm, Sam knew how to disappear quickly.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

The woman on the line sighed.

“My name’s Penny. I’m a… Hunter?” She trailed off, sounding unsure. Sam thought he heard a second voice ring in the background, saying something like, “That’s what Mackey called us!”

“Okay, jeez. I didn’t ask for your opinion Himari and Chasers sounds way better, it’s like Harry Potter,” Penny muttered. That was probably not meant for Sam’s ears. “Anyway. We already called Mackey – he’s another Hunter – but he couldn’t help us, and the Rosswells said you always help them with their cases so they gave us your number, and people are dying and we don’t know what to do.”

While Sam had gotten accustomed to his new network over time, he hadn’t expected the others to hand out his number. There was a certain risk attached to it but- Never mind. He could help out another Hunter, especially if she 

“Okay,” Sam said. “Yes, sure. Of course, I can help you. What are you hunting?”

“No idea.”

Sam grimaced and put the phone on speaker, another habit stemming from being around Dean 24/7. Whenever Bobby called them to give them a little help, they put the phone on speaker so the other could listen in. Sam didn’t need to do it anymore. He did it anyway.

“What and how does it kill then?”

“It burns the victims,” Penny said. Her voice sounded a little off, she probably hadn’t come across many burned corpses then already. The smell and the sight were always a little nauseating. “But there are also multiple bite marks and poison and the only reason we think it’s only one monster is that all victims have at least two of those signs.”

Sam couldn’t think of a single monster that killed in such a way, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. If the whole catastrophe with Eve had shown one thing, then that America’s monsters didn’t care about staying traditional. Much like humans, they had immigrated over the centuries and spread and there was no way to keep track of every country’s varied monster population.

“I’ll go do some research, Penny. Just send me what you have so far per SMS,” Sam replied, already packing his messenger bag. “I’ll call you back as soon as I got something. If a new victim pops up, give me another call.”

Sam hesitated. Penny couldn’t be doing this for long if she was unfamiliar with the term Hunter, right?

“Otherwise, stick to silver, iron, salt, and holy water. Those works on most things.”

Seasoned Hunters would think of such advice as patronizing, as much as they appreciated help on a challenging hunt, they were all fairly arrogant, considering themselves experts.

“Thank you, Mr. Winchester.”

Sam snorted. “Just call me Sam, everyone does.”

He ended the call and halted, just for a moment. Everyone?

(He sure had surrounded himself with more people than he thought he would, than he ever should.)

X

Sam didn’t expect to run into any trouble while researching for Penny until he stood in front of the library, Dog’s leash still in his hand. He couldn’t take a dog into a library, could he? A bit helplessly and lost he stood in front of the library until a young girl took pity on him and told him he could leave Dog on the west side of the library, where they had a small sheltered space for dogs. Sam thanked her and quickly got to work.

He started looking for any incidents happening in the town Penny was in, but couldn’t find any. Then he moved on to ghosts, covering the basics before returning to researching all kinds of monsters. When the American usuals didn’t bring any results, Sam turned to European folklore and myths, where he soon discovered something fitting.

Sam dialed Penny’s number. “Hey, Penny? I think I know what it might be.”

“Really? But- what. That took you barely 3 hours!”

Sam glanced at the time displayed in the corner of his laptop. It really hadn’t taken that long.

“Well, want to hear what I found?”

“Yes, please.”

Sam smiled and scrolled to the top of his word document. “Okay, so, it looks like you’re dealing with a chimera from Greek mythology. It’s a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the forepart, a goat in the middle, and a dragon or snake behind. In the myth, Bellerophon kills it by lodging a block of lead inside the Chimera's throat.”

“How are we supposed to stuff lead inside such a monster?” Penny replied, her voice bordering on hysterics.

“Look,” Sam said. “Myths like to make things more complicated, heroes more heroic and cunning. Most likely, you’ll be fine by using weapons made out of lead.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as you can be with those things.”

Penny took a deep breath, probably to calm herself. Sam waited until she was done to speak up again. “Do you need back up?”

“No,” Penny said. “Himari called Mackey again to tell him I called you – he says hi by the way? You called him after Bobby’s death apparently…?”

Oh, that Mackey. He was one of Bobby’s contacts. Sam had rung them all up to tell them about Bobby’s death. Not all of them were glad to hear of him, but a surprisingly high amount was.

“Yeah, I know Mackey. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, Himari worked with him before. Anyway, he’s driving our way to help out. I guess I’ll call when it was a success?”

“You do that. Much success and don’t forget to aim for the head.”

Penny laughed, still a little nervous but at least not as much as before. “Thanks for the help again, Sam.”

X

A week later, Sam got a call from Mackey, asking if he had any use for chimera blood.

“Always split the spoils with Bobby,” Mackey said. “I swear, Bobby had everything stored down there in his basement.”

“He did,” Sam agreed. He remembered spending two months at Bobby's by himself while John was out like always and Dean was gone. Sam had done a lot of research during that time, not all of it necessarily child-friendly despite Bobby’s attempts to keep him away from it. He’d spend at least one weekend labeling all the weird monster parts Bobby had been keeping on old shelves.

“Thanks for the call, Mackey, but I don’t have the space for that.”

Sam’s eyes drifted to the books and weapons already taking up most of the space in the Impala and some more.

“Too bad, I don’t have any either. You know any Hunter shops?”

“I…” Sam’s thoughts drifted back to Marty or rather Caitlyn. She didn’t hunt as much as the rest of them, only really when Marty asked her to be his back up. But she did start to collect more unusual ingredients, even if most of them were plant related.

“Actually, yes. How far are you from Nebraska? I know a good place there.” 

X

Sam began to run into Amelia everywhere or so it felt. She was funny and kind, and she understood what it was like to lose something so dear to you, you forgot how to breathe.

“So, Sam, I was thinking: Do you want to go out on Friday? A proper restaurant, I mean. Not another motel room talk.”

“I like our-“

Sam’s phone rang. Frederick was calling him. Last Sam had heard, the twins were a couple hours away from him. “Hold up. Hey Fred, everything alright?”

“Sam!”

Frederick’s panic immediately put Sam on edge. “Fred, what’s going on?”

“Can you come drive up? Gregory and I stumbled upon a werewolf pack and they’re hunting kids for sport and I think they’re onto us and I know there are four at least and we have no idea what to do. Just. Please. I know you’re busy searching for Dean, but we’re at our wit's end.”

Sam looked at Amelia. She was smiling softly still, much happier than the first time he’d met her. Riot, the finally renamed Dog, was lying next to her and wagging his tail.

“Sam?”

People were relying on Sam.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible, give me your coordinates.”

Dean’s cursing about dog fur on the Impala’s leather chased Sam over the highways. He broke the speed limit on most roads, haunted by images of two death he could prevent if he was just in time. Riot looked out of the window, peaceful and healthy. All of Sam’s belongings were crammed into the trunk and on the backseat. A whole life and five months.

X

Sam made it just in time. The werewolves had indeed caught up to the twins and jumped their motel room. When Sam emptied a whole load of silver bullets into the werewolves, Frederick was only wearing sweat pants and using a towel to cover up his chest, holding onto his unconscious brother whose head was bleeding.

The werewolves dropped to the ground, dead. Frederick, blood splattered over his face, didn’t let go of his silver knife or Gregory.

Sam didn’t bother checking whether the werewolves were really dead, they had taken a bullet to their heads and wouldn’t return from that (unless heaven or hell took mercy on them and neither were kind to anyone but themselves).

“Frederick,” Sam said. “You need to get up.”

Frederick didn’t move. The motel was pretty empty, but someone was bound to have heard the attack, the fight or the murder, and they would come looking. They couldn’t afford to lose time now.

“Fred, get up,” Sam ordered. He held out his hand and when Frederick, shaken up, lifted his, Sam quickly took the knife out of it and threw it in the small suitcase on the bed. “Get dressed, I’ll take care of Greg.”

Frederick seemed to be moving in slow motion, but he was finally returning to the action. Sam pulled the pillowcase off one of the pillows lying on the bed and used it to stop Gregory’s bleeding. He probably only had a concussion.

Then Sam picked Gregory up as carefully as he could and carried the man to the Impala. Riot looked up in interest when Sam laid Gregory on the backseat.

“Keep watch,” Sam told him and returned to the Rosswells’ room to help Frederick finish.

When he arrived, Frederick was as good as dressed and gathering everything of importance. Sam picked up two bags and threw one last look at the corpses on the ground. They had no time to get rid of the bodies, they would have to stay.

Frederick sits down next to Gregory and pulls his brother’s head in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Frederick murmured. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, …”

The mantra followed them down the road until they were three cities further and utterly safe from being accused of any of the crimes they had committed.

X

“Do you have a safe place to stay somewhere?” Sam asked.

They were near Kansas now and could easily swing up to Nebraska. Neither Caitlyn nor Marty had enough space for the two hunters, but it would do long enough for Gregory to heal until the twins could hit the road again.

If they still wanted to after this encounter.

Sam had been injured so often in the past years, he hardly even blinked at a concussion anymore, he and Dean just kept on driving.

“We’ve got a house,” Frederick replied. “I don’t know what shape it’s in, but we were meaning to go check it out anyway.”

“Alright. Directions?”

X

Frederick led Sam to an abandoned house that was a good twenty-minute drive into the woods in the north of Kansas. It looked fairly old and was surprisingly big and in a good shape.

The entire façade of the building had been painted in a soft green. The color was starting to peel off in some places, but it was mostly intact.

“What is this place?” Sam asked after they had carried Gregory inside and let him continue resting on a sofa in the living room.

There was something off about this place that Sam couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it put him on edge. He felt like somebody was watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake. He began mustering the painted walls. Elaborate landscape paintings of a forest covered the living room. The longer he looked at it, the more did he think he was seeing familiar symbols.

“It’s our great-grandmother Agatha’s house,” Frederick said. “Never met her. According to our grandmother, she was a wicked witch who should have never been allowed to have a child. As soon as Grandmother was sixteen, she left and married a nice man and had a completely normal daughter who then had us. Agatha died back in 2009 shortly before you stopped the apocalypse that almost happened and she left everything to our mother. Mom wanted to sell the house, but no deal could be made. People had unfortunate accidents as soon as they stepped into the house.”

Sam stepped closer to the entrance door, tracing over carvings in the wood. “What?”

Frederick grimaced. “That’s why we were heading here. We wanted to check it out. We thought a ghost might be haunting the building.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that,” Sam muttered.

“No?”

“These symbols spread all over the room, they’re runes. I’m pretty sure they’re wards. Any chance your great grandmother worshipped pagan gods?”

“I don’t know. But she got super old and she was from Norway.”

Sam sighed. “Alright. Let’s track down which god is protecting this house and get them a proper offering before they kill us.”

X

In the end, it was quite easy to figure out which god Agatha had worshipped. Sam found her altar in the eastern kitchen window, the first to see the sun in the morning. Old, half-burned candles with a sugary sweet smell stood around a handmade clay flower pot filled with small pink flowers that appeared to be blooming although nobody was taking care of them. And right next to the flower pot stood a bowl filled with sweets.

The irony of this situation wasn’t lost on Sam.

“It’s Loki,” Sam said when he returned to the living room. “Your great grandmother was a follower of Loki.”

“That was the trickster angel, right?” Frederick asked. “The one who died? Shouldn’t this house be clean of his influence then?”

Sam shook his heads. “You can never really kill a pagan god. More than any other beings, they cling to faith. As long as someone believes in them, they exist. Gabriel might be dead, but the idea of Loki is still around.”

(He wondered what that meant for angels. They did die, expect when God or whatever interfered. Castiel had died and come back. So why did God let one of his oldest angels die?)

“Anyway, I’ll get a package of chewing gum from the car. Not his favorite, but it’s sweet and an offering.”

“You’re not going to destroy the altar?”

Frederick’s expression was neutral. He wasn’t judging Sam or implying anything. He only wanted to know why Sam wasn’t getting rid of the threat.

And honestly? Sam didn’t know why. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“This place has pretty strong wards,” Sam said. It was true, they must have been powered by Loki. If Agatha’s life force had also been included in that, it was no wonder she had died when Gabriel did. If the twins took up residency here, offering their blood and redrawing some of the ownership-tied wards, they had a pretty protected place to stay at. It shouldn’t cost them more than a couple sweets every now and then and some new candles. “There’s a bigger advantage to keeping it.”

X

The twins got settled and Sam spent a couple hours exploring the house. The wards Agatha had set up were truly impressive, even more so after they had made the offering. The house itself was a pretty nice place too. Sure, it needed some fixing and a new paint job, but the amount of knowledge stored in the crammed library in what must have been Agatha’s study was astonishing. Sam would definitely take a closer look once he had the time. Since they had no food or drink, Sam went back to the car to head to the nearest grocery store and buy some supplies.

X

After about two days, Gregory was already up and running again - or walking. Every time Frederick even just suggested Gregory take it slow or, God forbid, brought him food to his bed, Gregory looked slightly more murderous. His injuries weren’t as bad as they had seemed, but it had scared Fred regardless. It reminded Sam a little of his childhood when he’d been deemed old enough to give first-aid but too young to hunt still and Dean or Dad had come back already half out of it and Sam had to stitch them back together. They’d always looked as if they’d come straight out of a horror movie, but nothing vital had been hurt (well, except maybe once or twice.)

Sam and Fred had cleaned up what appeared to have been a guest bedroom and settled Gregory there. To avoid going stir-crazy, they’d cleaned up the other rooms afterward. The house had electricity and warm running water and Sam was sure those had only shown up after Sam had added a lot of treats to Loki’s altar.

He might have gone a little overboard, but Sam owed the guy. He’d died for them, the whole world, when he could have certainly taken up a golden throne right next to Lucifer. As twisted as Lucifer was, killing Gabriel had hurt him and that showed how much he would have loved to have his favorite sibling by his side.

And Gabriel has said “no”.

Frederick had only glanced questioning at the mountain of candy, porn magazines, crossword puzzles, honey, and candles, but Gregory was the one to actually ask about them.

“I thought altars were all blood, dark magic and-“ Gregory moved his hands through the air in the bad imitation of a TV witch. “You know?”

“Blood is for worshippers and, in this case, the owner of the house. The stuff I brought is just a guest gift.”

Maybe not just merely a guest gift, but also a little bribery to protect the three of them as they resided here.

“So whoever offers blood owns the house?” Gregory inquired.

Sam shrugged. “Basically.”

“And non-basically?”

Right, Sam had forgotten he was talking to an ex-history student. Without further prompting, he latched into a lecture on Pagan gods, worship, and ownership rules, only halting once to give Frederick a chance to get settled comfortably when he joined them.

X

Caitlyn: Fred & George are okay?

Gregory: It’s Greg

Frederick: Don’t ruin my fun, bro

Gregory: Of all the names you could have picked, why did it have to be Frederick again?

Sam: @Caitlyn They are getting better

Caitlyn: Sweet. We got a couple Hunters here asking how to get phoenix feathers. Anybody got some ideas? And can I give them your number? @Sam

Sam: Sure, tell them to give me a ring and I’ll see what I can do

X

Frederick and Gregory were up to something. Sam didn’t just guess so, he saw the incriminating looks they shared. Sam had been in and out of their house for a month now. He’d spent two weeks there going through the books their great-grandmother had possessed, but unfortunately, those didn’t provide much information on purgatory either.

Another dead end.

After that, Sam threw himself into helping other hunters. His number of acquaintances had grown exponentially the more the word spread that one Winchester was still alive and kicking and willing to just hand over everything he knew (while the other was gone, never dead. All of them thought it, Sam knew, but they didn’t dare say it around him.).

Hunters were guarded people, they wouldn't survive otherwise. Even information was just shared sparingly, so of course, they all jumped on the opportunity. It was strange to be confronted with Hunters who worked very specialized or were just at the beginning of their careers, as far as you could call killing monsters a job.

Of course, the older ones didn’t exactly trust Sam (he did have a history filled with a lot of dangerous bullshit such as letting Lucifer out of the Cage), but he was America’s expert on everything angelic and demonic.

Even if he didn’t really feel like it. There was so much to know about heaven and hell, Sam’s active knowledge barely scratched the surface and he didn’t dare try to reach for the memories he had buried.

(The Cage hadn’t been all bad, but trauma didn’t let you pick how you’d react to any memory at all.)

But compared to everyone else, that was still more so he taught how to exorcise demons and kill angels and hoped it was enough.

X

“So,” Gregory said one morning. “I’m all healed up and Himari called, asking for backup, so we think it’s time to leave again.”

Sam nodded and closed his book. “Time to move on then.”

“Yeah, about that…” Gregory trailed off and turned to his brother.

Frederick pushed himself away from the wall and began walking up and down.

“Look, Sam. We don’t really have use for this place. And you’ve got Riot.”

“A car’s not a home,” Gregory added. He bent down to pet the dog, who definitely enjoyed his stay at the house more than the endless hours on the road.

Frederick pointed at his brother. “Right? And a dog needs a home and you need a space for the library in your car.”

Sam frowned, realization only dawning slowly upon him. “You can’t-“

Gregory held up has hands. “We can. Look, we still got our parents’ house and all these wards and stuff? That’s your niche. We like hunting stuff that doesn’t require enchantments and we can’t even read half of the words painted on the ceiling.”

“You can learn,” Sam insisted. “This house belonged to your great-grandmother.”

Legacy was important to Hunters. All the lives saved, the knowledge passed on – many Hunters didn’t have any blood relatives left, so their hunting partners were the ones who carried their memories.

But Frederick and Gregory didn’t know that and Sam struggled to find the right words.

Frederick shrugged. “We never even met her, Sam. This house might as well belong to a stranger. We’ll, of course, come visit and crash here whenever, but otherwise? You need a place to search for your brother. Take it.”

X

It took another week for them to wear Sam down, and even then they wouldn’t leave until Sam had gone to the nearest supermarket and returned with new offerings for their pagan god and finally bled over the altar.

Frederick had looked smug the whole time while Gregory sent Sam’s new address to their mutual friends and acquaintances.

It didn’t even take a week for the first person to show up at his doorstep.

X

Sam had always liked doing things with his hands, repairing broken items, stitching up shirts. A lot of handiwork had come out of necessity, but there was also something soothing attached to it all. Over the course of the next weeks, Sam drove to the construction market about every day until the cashiers there greeted him by name.

He bought paint and tools and wood and started to repair the house where it was damaged and touch it up where it just didn’t look all right.

He added his books to the library/study and organized the artifacts Agatha had left lying around pretty much everywhere. The room that once must have belonged to the twins’ grandmother was turned into a guest room with two beds, as was another storage room, a corner of the basement, and the attic.

When Sam was finally satisfied, too much time had passed already, but Kevin Tran, while tired and exhausted, was not bitter and welcomed the change of scenery.

X

Fact was, a lot of Hunters distrusted Sam Winchester. He had a reputation that made them uneasy and the stories haunting him made him out to be much less human than he ought to be. Those Hunters relied on Garth to collect info for them, give them back up and so on. They pointed the new Hunters they found in his direction and Garth-

Well, Garth gave them Sam’s number.

Old school Hunters relied on old and proven methods, they would not suddenly think of recording exorcisms on their phones or starting a Supernatural Wikipedia. These New Age Hunters, as they liked to scoff, didn’t know how much the world had changed.

And they were right in that assessment.

When your first hunt involved leviathans and demons, angels stealing people who returned as mere shells, then you didn’t miss the times when the world was straightforward and didn’t include more than ten types of monsters.

X

“Hello, Agent Mercury? One of your field agents is claiming our body here is part of an FBI investigation-“

“The heads, Sam! It only leaves the heads!”

“-and the Park Rangers really-“

“So like, they steal from blood banks, but otherwise they’re vegan?”

“The military must be really desperate if they try to recruit people off the police.”

“Hypothetically, if a werewolf and a vampire had a kid together-“

“Winchester! Holy Christ, you won’t believe-“

“It’s Kevin,” the prophet interrupted Penny. “Sam’s making dinner.”

Silence. Kevin had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

“Oh. Hi, Kevin! How’s it going?”

“Good, but it’s been busy. How can Agatha’s help you today? Need some spells to get rid of a wicked witch or brain for your local zombie population?”

“Zombies…?” Penny trailed off, sounding unsure. Kevin imagined her shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Do you guys know anything about a spell or a monster going after the blood of two drained lambs, the liver of a lion, and the eyes of a monkey? We got a bizarre case here in a zoo.”

Kevin glanced at the clock. He wasn’t going to work on the tablet anymore today and if he could help it, Sam wouldn’t shut himself away in his study/purgatory lore cave.

“Yeah, we can do some research. We’ll ring as soon as we got something.”

X

Soon after word had gotten out that Sam had settled somewhere, Mackey showed up at his doorstep, only Himari in tow. Penny, her better half in Himari’s own words, was apparently visiting family up north.

Sam didn’t buy the lie, but he saw no point in questioning her.

“Oh, man, Sam. I love what you’ve done with the place. It’s like Roadhouse and Bobby’s in one,” Mackey said.

Sam smiled and looked around. It really was starting to look like a proper place for hunters to crash at. “Not enough books and dirt for Bobby’s yet.”

Marty laughed and knocked his beer against Sam’s. “True enough. I swear the cleanest I ever saw Bobby’s was when your Daddy had dropped you off at his place again.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but still managed to smile softly. “That’s only ‘cause Bobby made me and- made us clean to keep us busy and away from the books depicting torture.”

“Oh, yeah. That sounds like Bobby!”

Himari, who up until then had only been nursing her tea silently, spoke up for the first time since she had stepped into Sam’s house. “What is the Roadhouse and Bobby’s?”

Mackey's cheerful expression fell and Sam too, who had been making all kinds of calls over the past weeks and should be used to it by now damn it, couldn’t stop his throat from closing up.

“That was before your time, kid,” Mackey replied. “The Roadhouse was the Hunter equivalent to a community center – a place to recover after or before a hunt. I swear, nobody ever managed to talk me out of a hunt before without even saying a word but Ellen. And Bobby was the meanest son of a bitch you could ever meet. You vaguely describe him your latest crazy, and he’d call you back within a day to tell you what the hell you’re facing and how to kill it. Also our go-to man if the authorities came calling. Without the two of them, the community’s shot to hell. Garth’s been picking up some slack, but he ain’t got time to teach anyone… That reminds me.”

Mackey picked his backpack up from the ground and rummaged through it until he found what he was looking for – a dirty sheet of paper apparently – and held it up victoriously.

“Here,” he said and gave it to Sam. “I got into contact with a couple Old Timers. Not sure if they’re on your contact list already, but they offered to help out with the huge influx of newbies so you’re not stuck handling all their questions.”

Sam scanned the list. A few names stuck out to him, but others he was only vaguely aware of or didn’t know at all.

“Thanks, Marty. I’ll give them a ring.”

X

When the Hillains asked for Sam’s help, he expected a little more “Could you be our back-up?” and less “Can we leave the kids with you for the week?” but Sam agreed anyway.

It was certainly an experience to have three kids running around for a week, but not one he minded. He had babysat couple times as a teenager to earn some extra cash, and the experience was familiar enough.

Besides, all three of them loved Riot and the dog was more than just happy about the extra attention.

X

Irv Franklin liked to think he was as good a man as a Hunter could be. Of course, he didn’t have utter faith in Sam Winchester, everybody knew the Winchesters messed around with Heaven and Hell and a whole lot of other things that shouldn’t be touched, but the kid was also Bobby’s kid.

And, really, everybody who actually cared about Bobby knew those two Winchester brats had been his whole world.

Tracy hadn’t wanted to come to Winchester’s place – called Agatha’s for some unfathomable reason – and Irv couldn’t blame her. He had told her she could stay in the motel, but she had decided to meet the man the demons had killed her family for.

From the outside, the house looked comfortable, not as militant as Irv had expected. Sam was kneeling on the porch, painting something on the windowsill. As soon as he spotted Irv and Tracy, he stood up.

“Irv! Good to see you.”

“Right back at you, Winchester,” Irv said and followed Sam inside.

The kid led Irv and Tracy into the kitchen and took a couple beers out of the fridge. “We only got beer and water right now,” he said apologetically.

Irv wondered who exactly we were, but didn’t ask. He had heard rumors about prophets, and everybody who went after demons knew that hell had been in an uproar lately. Sometimes it was better if you didn’t know anything.

“I did look into the killings you described,” Sam continued. “Couldn’t find anything directly, but the books in the living room contain everything I’ve got on ritualistic murders. Feel free to look through them, just don’t run off with them. One of the upstairs’ rooms is already occupied, but you can sleep downstairs in the basement if you want.”

Irv reached for one of the beers on the kitchen table. “Thanks, kid.”

They left two days later.

“He’s not really what I expected,” Tracy admitted carefully.

Maybe she could start to heal properly now.

Irv grimaced. “Winchesters rarely are.”

X

Sam’s study was a bit of a mess. Papers covered half the floor and whole books the other. Kevin kind of wanted to sigh in frustration, but that wouldn’t help anyone. Instead, he sat down on the ground next to Sam.

“Is everything alright?” Kevin asked, already knowing the answer.

Sam laughed bitterly, his ink-stained hands still brushing through Riot’s fur. “No, nothing’s alright. Just look at me, Kev, what am I doing? It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t found a way to save him.”

Sam didn’t need to say out loud who he was talking about, it was as clear as day.

“I have only been wasting my time trying to- to-“

“Keep over two dozen hunters alive, researching about fifteen different things at the same time with more dedication than I ever put into my term papers despite my mom?” Kevin said drily. “Give yourself a break, Sam. You’re already doing more than humanly possible.”

“But it’s not enough!”

Sam’s outburst was not unexpected but that didn’t make it any more pleasant.

Kevin was used to it, though.

They kept themselves together well enough around others, but some things needed more than the duct tape they stuck onto their wounds.

“I want to visit my mom,” Kevin said into their silence. “I haven’t left the house in months and I think it’ll be safe enough. Just a quick trip. One last time.”

“Alright,” Sam agreed quietly.

Maybe this was healing. (Maybe it was giving up.)

X

Sam would never know.

Lazarus rose once more.

(Rinse. Rise. Repeat.)