#on a lighter note i did always wonder why the bleachers were always empty

[sollucets]

rowan!! that prompt you wrote that takes place around ep 10 has me REELING <33 it made me want to rewatch all over again! i'm obsessed with the way you write akkaye, you're one of my favorite writers for them. may i please request another prompt around that same canon timeframe (aka anywhere from the sort-of-secret-sort-of-official boyfriends stage in ep 10 to ep 12)? [rattles can] in return i'm offering u all my savings and my eternal devotion!!

i can't decide between 45, 20, or 8 so feel free to pick either (or all) as you please! thank you thank you thank you, and congrats on your milestone! <33 Xx

(the prompt in question) ah nonny thank you so much :') i loved writing it hehe. i refuse ur savings but i'll accept ur devotion so long as i can reciprocate!

touch prompts 8 (shielding the other one with their body) + episode 11, combined for ~1.2k of pain

💜

Aye loses track of time on those steps. He loses track of a lot of things, actually, focus narrowed to the places where he’s touching Akk, to all the points of their connection. He has a hand around the back of Akk’s neck, his thumb over Akk’s pulse point, anchoring, holding. Clinging, the same way Akk’s fingers are tangled in his uniform jacket. He wishes he were closer. He wishes he could wrap himself around and through Akk, close enough to cover his bones, to keep him from this. To keep him here. 

It’s a while before he masters himself enough to remember, faintly, that this isn’t sustainable. They’re still in the middle of campus, collapsed on the ground in a little puddle together, and if they were supposed to be following along with Wat’s story they’ve already failed. 

The thought of letting go of Akk while he’s all jagged edges and crumpled limbs in Aye’s hold is — impossible, though, unthinkable. He can’t. But they can’t stay here. 

Aye takes a deep breath that comes out ragged and painful, ignores the tear tracks on his cheeks, and pulls back, just a little. Akk looks up at him, face red and mouth trembling. 

“Akk,” he says, barely a whisper. He slips his hand around the front of Akk’s neck, brushes tears away even as they’re immediately replaced. “Akk, baby, we need to get up.” 

Baby. He’s never said it before, but it feels right enough in his mouth. He’d say every sweet little thing if Akk would let him. 

He does let him, this time, but Aye thinks Akk might honestly let him do anything right now. “Come on,” he says, shifting enough to catch Akk under the arms. “Let’s go somewhere quieter.” 

Because it’s starting to be not quiet, here. These are the front steps of the school, and class being in session by now aside, people pass here enough, and Aye wants to hide them. They need time to decompress before anyone can even start thinking about what to do next. 

Akk goes with him after a moment, though his legs don’t seem entirely steady under him once he’s standing. Aye slips an arm around his waist, though he doesn’t actually have that much confidence in catching the taller boy if they should both slip. He just needs to hold on. Akk is warm under his hands, like he always is. Warm and still here. 

“Let’s go to the bleachers,” Aye says, because it might not be completely private but vanishingly few people ever go there at this time, unused as the space is outside of club hours. 

He doesn’t get a response, verbal or otherwise, but Akk doesn’t fight when he starts walking, and so that’s how they go. There are a few people around, and they stare, but whatever Aye’s face is doing must be enough to warn them off. 

It’s unreal for a moment. Here they are, clinging to each other openly in the halls of Suppalo, all the truth out in the air. Aye used to think it’d be a triumph, that Akk would finally admit to it because he’d come to terms with it, and then they could — he doesn’t know, but he thought it’d be a moment of catharsis, of relief. Maybe it was naive. Maybe it was always going to be like this, them both going to pieces for everyone to stare at and pick apart. 

He just has to get them both through a couple of tight hallways and across part of a courtyard, and then they’ll — he doesn’t know. Sit more, maybe. Wait. Even though that was the big bombshell, it doesn’t feel like the barrage is over. It still feels too still, like they’re waiting for something else. 

People are mostly in class right now, he thinks, although he doesn’t know how much learning is actually getting done after something like that. They pass some people in the hall, people who stare, their gazes sticking in accusation as they pass. 

They almost make it, too. They’re just across the courtyard from the bleachers when they pass too close in the hall to someone with a blue armband. Aye doesn’t know his name, but he’s seen him a couple times, a junior of Akk’s. He stares at first, like everyone else, and Aye ducks his head, tightens his grip on Akk’s waist, and speeds up. 

But unlike everyone else, he stops walking, partially in front of them. Akk stiffens in his arms, although Aye doesn’t see him look up from under the curtain of his bangs. 

“Phi,” the prefect says slowly. He has light eyes, clear and amber and conflicted. “P’Akk, is it— really true? I know you said— but that was in front of everyone. Really?” 

“Yes,” rasps Akk, before Aye can even figure out how to address this. “Yes. All of it.”

The boy takes a quick breath, and looks, for half a second, shattered. Aye empathizes, but he can’t deal with this right now, so he starts to move them again. 

Their path is blocked. 

Aye fixes his gaze on the other prefect. He has no idea, again, what his face must look like, but the boy very nearly shrinks back. He sees it.

It isn't enough, though. “Then you did that to all of us, too,” he says, very quiet. 

It’s true, is the thing, if you only look at it from where the prefects had been standing on those steps. Akk dragged the entire club along with him into enforcing that curse, into believing in those rules, into hurting those people. 

But the real problem is a lot older than Akk, and a lot bigger than him, and a lot harder to properly place the blame for. And even if it wasn’t — Aye is too far in now, too far lost in the stars in Akk’s eyes. 

Akk takes a hurt breath in next to Aye, a ragged little gasp, and that’s enough. They need time. He shoves himself forward, placing himself bodily between the prefect and Aye just as the boy starts to take a step towards them. 

“And why,” snaps Aye, “did you follow?” 

The prefect’s eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to say something else. One hand still at Akk’s waist, Aye moves forward again.

They’re almost the same height, Aye probably a little shorter. There are still dried tear tracks on his face. He cannot possibly be physically intimidating in any way that matters, but he snarls, still, at the end of his rope. “Shouldn’t you be in class, little prefect? Get going. Listen to your seniors. Isn’t that supposed to be what you’re good at?”

He keeps himself between Akk and the boy the entire time as they pass him, and he doesn’t move again as Aye pulls Akk with him all the way to the bleachers, their bleachers. There’s enough of a line of sight here that he’ll see if anyone’s coming, and he can get Akk’s back to a fence and see if he can eventually bring himself long enough to get them both a drink. They’ve lost a lot of water. 

The moment they arrive, Akk drops like a puppet with its strings cut, legs falling out from under him. Aye hates this, hates it with a force he hadn’t been sure he was really capable of. He follows Akk down, sits next to him. He can’t let go yet. Not while he doesn’t know Akk will stay.

He doesn’t know what to say yet, if there’s anything he can say. He’ll think of something soon. He tips their heads together, grip tight, and waits, because at the very least, Akk hasn’t let go either. 

[katehuntington]

Title: My Brother’s First Hunt Fandom: Supernatural Timeframe: Pre-series (1993) Characters: Dean Winchester (POV), Sam Winchester, John Winchester (mentioned), Jessica Moore (mentioned) Pairing: Dean & Sam (platonic) Summary: Fourteen year old Dean takes his younger brother on a simple salt and burn, but soon regrets his decision when the hunt goes sideways and Sam finds himself in harm's way. Warnings: angsty, canon typical violence, swearing, mentions of smoking. Further than that Weechester feels and brotherly love. Word Count: 2427 words. Author’s note: I love to write these little insights of their lives before 2005. Thank you so much @littlegreenplasticsoldier for beta’ing this one shot! I gave it a once-over before posting, though, so all errors still in there are on me.

    “Wait, I thought you were supposed to bring that.”

    My ten-year-old brother Sam stared at me with wide open eyes, curtained by his fringe. He had frozen mid-action, holding the jerrycan over the six-foot deep hole in the ground as the last drops fell. Beneath our feet, the remains of Josephine Henrey were bared for the stars above to see for the first time in over a twenty-five years. Gasoline shimmered upon the bones, and enough salt to keep the road to Hell from freezing over covered the body like snow on a winter’s day. Because on my first hunt without Dad, I just had to be safe. I’d stuffed enough supplies in my backpack to light up this entire graveyard... If I only had a lighter.

    “Why am I supposed to be the one with a lighter, Dean? You’re the one who smokes!”, Sam returns annoyed.    “I do not!” I denied, lying through my teeth.     “Do too!” Sam countered, triumph in his stance. “I saw you with Jenny under the bleachers after practice.”     “That was one time!”     “Uh-huh.”     I glared at him, not too happy with the attitude my little brother was giving me. Maybe he wasn’t as tall as me just yet, but the days I could have fooled Sam were in the past.     “Fine. So maybe I do. But don’t even think about snitching on me and telling Dad, because I’ll kick your ass,” I warned him.     “Is that really the point now? Because we just dug up a body of an angry spirit without anything to start a fire,” my clever brother reminded me.

    He had a solid point. The fact that this situation was going from bad to worse became clear as soon as the atmosphere around us changed. A cold wind sent shivers down my spine and the temperature dropped below freezing point in only a few seconds. Suddenly the local cemetery did not seemed like such a peaceful resting place anymore. The pitch black shadows of the trees and crypts drew long silhouettes, creeping closer, like they were trying to gulp us down. Something was coming, and we had to hurry.

    “Dean?” Sam whispered, scanning his surroundings.     “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”     I kneeled down next to the backpack, pulled out an iron steel pipe and started searching the extra pockets for anything that could ignite the fuel. My little brother held the flashlight above me so that I could see what I was doing, his unsteady hands giving away his fright. Truth be told, he wasn’t the only one, because I was scared shitless, too.

    At the age of fourteen I’d had a couple of hunts under my belt, always with Dad. He would track the thing, he would figure out what it was, he would kill it. I was just there to watch and learn, maybe assist if it was easy enough. Never had I ever hunted on my own, but when I read a suspicious newspaper article in the local newspaper, I was crawling the walls of that motel room. Dad was on a job in Minnesota and was gone for at least three weeks, so I couldn’t wait for him to get back. Something had to be done. I lasted one day after reading that article. My old man was going to kill me, that was a sure thing, but I couldn’t let anyone else die.

    Research turned out to be tough, and that’s where Sammy came in. In no time, he’d figured out whose ghost was haunting the old warehouse and where she was buried. But now that he’d had a part in the case, the little pain in the ass wanted to come along. I was gonna get in a lot of trouble for hunting solo at the age that didn’t even allow me to drive a car, let alone if I took a ten year old with me on the job. But Sammy begged, gave me that puppy dog stare that I have always been a sucker for.

    Those same eyes shimmered fearfully now, trying to read in mine if I had a plan to get us out of here. Boy, little Sam must’ve been regretting this field trip. The beam from the torch began to flicker and soon our only lightsource died. Sammy slammed the flashlight in the palm of his hand a couple of times, but it wasn’t faulty batteries, nor the wiring, that caused it to fail. I stood up, my brother mirroring me, as we alertly scanned the cemetery. Suddenly Sam yanked the sleeve of the leather jacket that Dad gave to me, and stared at a dark figure about thirty yards away; a bony old woman with dark messy hair hanging in front of her face. I gulped, my eyes widening, but before I could respond, the image vanished into thin air.

    Seeing her was scary, but not knowing where she was now ignited a whole new level of anxiety. Shit! This was so not how I planned this. For a few terrifying seconds the spirit was gone and I gripped the pipe.     “Listen to me, Sammy,” I said, keeping my voice down. “I need you to think of everything that Dad taught us so far. Don’t be scared, okay? I’ve got your back. We need to keep our heads together now.”     He only nodded, jaw clamped shut as his eyes darted from shadow to shadow. Then, out of nowhere the elderly woman flicked into my sight, right behind Sam, claws out to get him.

    “Sam, get down!”

    Without hesitation he dropped as I swung the iron bar over his head, tearing through the spirit of Josephine. She dissolved into smoky fog and reappeared, obsessively focusing on Sam again. Then I remembered the connection the victims had: all were younger siblings. In shock, I watched my little brother stumble back until he tripped over the backpack at the edge of the grave and fell.     “Sammy!”

    The helplessness, the desperation; I could see it in his eyes. Even at ten years old, the little guy knew he was facing death. No way in hell I was gonna let that bitch touch my brother, so my instinct kicked in. Every fiber in me suddenly knew exactly what to do. I had to fulfill the task Dad gave to me when I carried my baby brother out of the fire ten years ago. I had to protect him, with my life if necessary. That urge pushed all the fear that I carried for this supernatural being out of the way and I marched on the ghost, my weapon above my head as I lunged at her. Furious, the spirit threw me off her back, but I got on my feet and held the line.     “You wanna kill someone that bad? Pick someone your own size!” I challenged her, arrogantly spreading my arms.

    A frightening hissing murmur erupted from her throat. Her eyes sank deeper into the dark holes of her sockets and her mouth opened so wide that I heard her jaw crack. Moving faster than my eyes could register, the spirit sped towards me and then froze. Suddenly I was lifted from the ground like a feather and I found myself in mid-air, being thrown several yards away. My course of flight was interrupted by a tree and I hit it head first. A sharp pain shot through my skull, a wave of nausea disorientated me. The impact made me lose long vital seconds.

    Sammy? Where’s Sammy? It was all I could think of. I had to make sure the ghost kept her focus on me, I had to give Sam a fair chance to get away. Fighting to keep my ground I sat up at the roots of the tree, trying to blink the black spots and odd colors from my blurred vision. By the time I’d managed that, the spirit of Josephine Henrey was hovering over me and there was no way I could escape her grip. She placed her hand on my chest and I felt every muscle in my body tense, my heart rate increasing to a pace that was just plain unhealthy. The pain was unbearable and I cried out as her nails penetrated my skin. This is it, I realized. My first solo hunt was destined to be my last, I was going to die.

    Then without a sign, the ghost backed off, arching her back as she let out a horrifying scream. Flames engulfed her until there was nothing left but a few burning embers that twirled up the night sky. Unsure of what just happened, I laid my head back against the bark, out of breath as the discomfort wore off. Then my eyes caught Sam, standing next to the grave from which an orange light shimmered on his features. His innocence didn't seem compromised by the setting nor by his actions, but nevertheless he looked years older. His hair, due for a haircut was messy, and the hoodie I used to wear got muddy at the cuffs, the sleeves too short for him now. Although my brother was only ten, right there on the spot I became aware of how fast he was growing up. That growth wasn't just physical, it was his bright mind too.

    Sammy’s hazel eyes now jumped to me, still wild.     “You okay?”     “Yeah, yeah....” I muttered as I got to my feet. “What took you so long?”     “You try starting a fire without a lighter or matchsticks with a angry spirit looking over your shoulder,” Sammy scoffed.     He crouched down, collecting the empty jerrycan and his flashlight from the ground. After testing my balance first, I approached the fire pit slowly, feeling my forehead.     “How did you light up Josy anyway?” I wondered.     Sam picked up two pieces of rock and showed them to me.     “Two strike stones. Oldest survival trick in the book. Dad taught us, remember?”

    That he thought of Dad’s survival lessons was impressive, but how he stayed calm enough to get a spark while I was under attack by that spirit, I didn't know. I was sure, though, that Sam had what it took to become exceptionally good at this job. He would fill Dad with as much pride as I carried in that moment. Sammy was an outstanding hunter in the making. I smiled at my brother, but masked my true feelings with my usual bullshit.     “Awesome. But then, of course, you had all the time in the world, while I had that ghost on my ass.”     “No, I didn't,” Sam objected, as we started walking back to the road. “You would have been dead if I hadn't been so fast.”     “I was handling it,” I shrugged.     “Really, huh? Yeah, you dad everything perfectly under control.”     “I did!” I kept it up, resting the wooden handle of the shovel on my shoulder.     “Sure. You weren't scared either.”

    Sammy now glanced up at me, victory shining in his eyes. Of course, I wasn't going to admit that I was so frightened I nearly pissed my pants when that spirit worked me over. Fact is, though, that I love my little brother, and  it unleashed a new form of bravery I never thought I had. Fear never stood a chance.     “I wasn't,” I returned, cocky.     “Why did you scream like a girl then?”     “I didn't scream like a girl!”     “You so did.”     “She was trying to rip my heart out, jerkface!”     “You still screamed like a girl.”     Bickering, we strolled down the path, our walks synchronized like siblings often do. When we arrived at the main road, the lamppost shined a light on my brother much like one does now on Halloween night in Palo Alto, California, twelve years later. Sam is taller, he even outgrew me, but he still has the same hair, the same lean posture and that same innocence. These days he wears clothes that fit him, not my hand me downs. He’s his own person now.

    We just wrapped up a case considering a Woman In White, but since we didn't find our Dad like we set out to, I’m forced to drop him off at campus. An interview tomorrow morning is the reason our paths separate once again and there is nothing left for me but to face the road alone.

    From behind the wheel of my car I watch him walk away towards the apartment he shares with his girlfriend Jessica and I sigh as I lay my arm on the back of the seat. The passenger’s side already seems cold and empty and a tightness in my chest brings to mind how badly I want him to get back in the car and help me find Dad. But I can’t, I can't expect him to. This is the life Sam wants. A normal one, without monsters, weapon training and shitty motels. How many hunters get out? How many hunters get to go to university and live a normal, apple pie life? Few, but Sam is one of them. And if there is anyone who deserves that chance, it’s him.

    “Sam?” I call out.     He turns around, questioning eyes meeting mine. There’s a breath that escapes his throat when he sways and shifts his balance, a trace of annoyance, even though he tries to hide it and be patient with me. His body language makes me hesitate, but I tell him either way.

“Y’know we made a hell of a team back there.”     Sam keeps a hold of my gaze, then nods slightly as a small smile forms on his lips.     “Yeah…” he acknowledges.

    I grant him a few seconds to change his mind, but then I straighten my back, put the car in ‘drive’ and steer the Impala back onto the road. I bite down the frustration, my jaw flexing as I do so, doing my best to cast out my emotions. I've been here before, when Sam left for Stanford in the first place. An uneasy feeling settles in my stomach now that we’re apart, torn between what I’m supposed to do and what I truly want. Pain stings my heart now that I find myself alone, without my brother by my side. And as I drive off only accompanied by old tunes on cassette tapes, I don't see that Sam watches me leave. I don't hear the shuddering sigh that leaves his lips as the rumble of the engine fades in the distance. 

    I don’t know that deep down, Sam feels it, too.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to send me a message or leave a comment!

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[prompt-and-circumstances]

Pop Tart Heart

Pop Tart Heart

Characters/Pairings: No Pairings! Reader Insert, Original Characters, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester

Prompt: Pop Tart Heart for the 2016 Louden Swain FanFic Project by @mrswhozeewhatsis!

Word Count: 2,273

Warning(s): Violence, Death, Teen Angst, Revenge, Gore?

A/N: My very first song-based piece of fan fiction for the very first Louden Swain Challenge. This is a reposting and there is a sequel.

Pop Tart Heart with a Side of Shotgun Shells

“They’re coming for us!”

You turned to stare, horrified, at Toby and the gang. Those things were breaking through. Deep down you knew, you couldn’t finish what you started. “Yeah, they’re coming for us. But guess what? We came for them too. I’m not leaving until this accursed job is done.” You turned to face the double doors, shotgun at the ready. As if on cue, a pack of broken-hearted dudes were knocking at your door. Toby emptied the gas can into the chainsaw and started her up; Chelsea strapped on her belt of aerosol containers she stole from her beauty school classes and held up one in a series of lighters. Maddox, determined to go out as any self-respecting nerd would, braced himself not far from Chelsea with a sword. You hadn’t really paid that much attention when he got it, but you thought he had said it was a replica from Game of Thorns or whatever the hell it was.

Chelsea shrieked, the dudes had created a hole in the door though thankfully it was not large enough for them to enter, yet. Hands reached through the hole, grasping for something. On the other side you could hear them singing some forgotten carol. The doors wouldn’t hold for much longer. Reciting to yourself that you had to finish what you started, your finger twitching above the trigger. A deafening sound came when the doors collapsed under the onslaught of the dudes; all dressed in the same apparel they rushed towards the lot of you.

Having grown up with four brothers in the sticks, you didn’t hesitate with that shotgun. You managed to blow away two heads before you had to start walking backwards with each shot. It was like smashing open a piñata but instead of candy, you won somebody else’s biological hard drive. Thank God your parents were not here to see this, they’d never let you hear the end of it. There was a downside to retreating backwards without looking though, as you quickly discovered when you fell. Shotgun almost flying out of your hands, you scrambled to get upright and in a shooting position again.

In those spare minutes you were open for attack, which a dude exploited. Grabbing your ankle, he twisted hard to get you onto your stomach, preventing you from getting off a shot in defense. His filthy nails dug into your flesh; the flesh of his hand was cold and slimy from perspiration, at least you hoped it was perspiration. You felt a solid thud against your back but it wasn’t followed by pain; turning to see what happened, the dude lay at your ankles. Blinking hard you noticed what was missing, his head. Standing above you and pulling you to your feet was Maddox. He nodded quickly, acknowledging your silent gratitude and then charged off after Chelsea with his sword. Note to self, never bully nerds again.

Toby looked like another person altogether, covered head to toe in guts and blood. His trusty chainsaw eating away at anything that tried to come near its master. Chelsea was actually surprisingly accurate with her homespun flamethrowers; she stood back-to-back with Maddox and they were cutting down the dudes like a well-oiled machine. They didn’t have to come with you on this mission, you planned on coming alone but they wouldn’t have any of that. Friends stand by each other, that’s what they said. How could you ask for more?

After an hour of grueling battle, the dudes lay on the floor in pieces if they were lucky, or mush if they weren’t lucky. Silently offering praise to whatever deity would listen, you took in the sight of your faithful companions. So far the only injury sustained was your ankle and you honestly have had worse. Chelsea stifled a sob as she looked at the singed dude laying inches from her feet. “Tha-that thing was Tommy!”

Tommy. Thomas Bandenberry. Leader of the Scholastic team and an up-and-coming track star. You all just assumed he’d get a track scholarship for college someday, but that day will never come now. You hadn’t thought of it until now but every last one of these dudes had a name, and you knew them all. You were all students at the same high school. Hell, you knew some of these dudes since grade school. That’s why they all had the same apparel, school uniforms. Twenty-five of your peers lay slaughtered before you and you wondered if feeling relieved made you a bad person.

Toby threw his arm around your shoulders, “Hey, let’s finish what you started once and for all.” Maddox gripped his sword tightly and voiced his agreement while Chelsea, still choking back tears, vigorously nodded her agreement. Resting your shotgun on your shoulder you stared at your friends, all of you in silent agreement. This ended now.

The four of you walked in silence back to the school, where this all began. You were bringing up the rear, lost in your thoughts. Last year, all twenty-five of those dudes died in a freak accident. It devastated the entire county; then two weeks ago they came back but they seemed to be missing something. You couldn’t quite place it, but for two weeks they got weirder and weirder. They were all athletic, all-American boys with healthy appetites but the more days that passed, the hungrier they became.

Tommy had been sitting in the bleachers just two days ago talking with you like you always had before the accident. You forgot that he was dead, or re-alive, or whatever the term was. All you remembered two days ago was that you had your best friend back. It was natural talking to him about everything. You had been doing that since you learned how to talk. You confided in him forty-eight hours ago; you told him of your nightmare.

I had a dream, that I ate your heart Tommy. It was toasted like a strawberry pop tart; all hot, and soft, and sweet. It took its place inside my belly and then my insides turned to jelly and your pop tart heart slowly began to beat.

He never said anything, just nodded as if he understood. And then the change came. Twenty-five hungry athletes turned on whoever was near them, and the dudes began to devour human flesh. You became convinced that it was your fault, that you had somehow flicked on an internal switch inside them. If you hadn’t told Tommy your dream, then he and his friends wouldn’t have become zombies, right? This was your fault, you started it and now you had to finish it.

You were jerked from your thoughts when you bumped into Chelsea. “Why’d you stop walking? We’re not to the school yet.” Chelsea didn’t answer, just stood there panic-stricken and shaking uncontrollably.

Following her gaze, you saw a mass of people previously dead now lumbering towards you. “What the hell?” Stepping in front of Chelsea, you’d be damned if you were going to let any of them get Tommy’s little sister, you raised your shotgun but didn’t pull the trigger. Walking in front of the mass with a ten-foot lead at least, was Colin Rottergut. Colin’s parents were from the Caribbean and he was a first-generation American. You didn’t recall him having that many friends, he was always talking about the weird creepy things they did on the islands. Voodoo and crap like that.

He sniggered at you, “Payback’s a bitch.”

“Payback? What are you paying us back for?” you demanded.

“Oh I’m not paying them back; they didn’t do anything. But you, you my little butterfly slighted me.”

To your left you could hear Toby growl in disgust. Colin must be referring to prom. He had asked you but you had to turn him down, Toby had already asked you a month in advance. Besides, it’d be weird not to go to prom with your boyfriend and with some other boy instead. “So, you’re paying me back by turning the cemetery into zombies? Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?”

“Hey baby, if there’s an itch you gotta scratch it. If there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Ah, now you remembered Colin! He was that guy that when he thought he was on a roll with something, kept going until he had beaten a dead horse. And tonight was apparently no different.

“You don’t debate, you gotta nab it. It don’t come for free, there’s a fee and you gotta pay it now!”

The mass of undead bodies ran toward you and your friends, but they didn’t get very far. Just three feet from you they all dropped. Colin furiously shrieked, ‘What did you do to my lovelies?”

Toby looked helplessly at you, Maddox just shrugged his shoulders. Chelsea wrapped her arms around you and hugged you so tight you thought your head would pop off from the pressure. You just look dumbfounded past Colin. Two men, two very tall men, walked up behind Colin. The shorter one had a strange gait, bow-legged but determined. Somehow he managed to keep up with the long strides of the taller one.

Catching up to Colin, the short one placed a bloody hand on his shoulder. “So you’re the little punk who caused this mess.” Colin started at the touch and Toby later mentioned he thought Colin was going to piss himself. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done Junior Mint?”

The tall one turned to look at the shorter one, “Dean!”

“What?”

“Dude, that was totally racist.”

“So? The kid just raised an entire frickin’ town!”

“Yeah, key word there Dean. Kid.”

Maddox literally raised his hand as if he were in class before clearing his throat and timidly piping up, “Um, excuse me, but who the hell are you guys? And what the hell just happened?”

The tall one stepped forward to address the four of you while the short one, Dean, kept a firm grip on Colin. You noticed Dean’s other hand was holding a gun held dangerously close to Colin’s ribcage.

“Hi, uh, my name’s Sam Winchester and this is my older brother Dean. We came to help with your zombie apocalypse here. You see, your sheriff is friends with someone we know, who also happens to be a sheriff. Our friend, Sheriff Mills told us about the goings-on in your town and sent us to help. I guess you could say we specialize in this kind of thing.”

Maddox had taken up the spokesman job for you guys, “Specialists? In zombies?”

Dean pushed Colin forward, “We’re hunters. We kill all the things that go bump in the night. Your little buddy here raised them with a voodoo spell. We mess up the spell, everybody drops permanently. Kapisch?”

You weighed in without thinking about it, “I thought it was my fault. I had a nightmare about eating hearts and told one of them about it. Shortly after that they started eating people.”

Sam patted your shoulder, “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you were quite brave to stand up to them. You guys are armed to the teeth.”

Dean grunted at his brother, “What do I do with this one?”

Toby had an idea. “Why don’t we cuff him to Tommy and leave him there until morning? These two can make an anonymous phone call to the police and tip them off to Colin’s whereabouts, and let the cops sort it all out.”

Sam and Dean seemed to like that idea. You all marched back to the barn and it was kind of amusing to watch two “specialists” go green when they saw the place. “What the hell happened here?” they asked simultaneously.

Chelsea explained the whole thing to them. Dean looked like a proud Dad but Sam seemed sad to hear about your exploits, and you couldn’t have that. “Hey, don’t look so glum. They were coming for us and I thought I started this mess so I had to finish it. I grew up hunting deer and skinning them, I handled it. Besides, it was either kill them or be killed.”

“I know, but you’re just kids. You should be doing kid stuff, not blowing heads off of zombies.”

“We’re not kids, we’re seniors. Next year, we’ll be going to college. Now we know monsters are real so at least now we’ve had a taste of it and we won’t be caught off guard next time.”

���Next time? No way, promise me and Dean you guys won’t go looking for this stuff.”

Toby put his arm around your shoulders again and pulled you close, “she promises and so do the rest of us. We’re prepared now if they come for us, but we sure as hell aren’t going looking for it intentionally. Do you have any idea how hard this was? Tommy was Chelsea’s older brother. Can you imagine watching your brother die twice?”

Sam and Dean subtly exchanged knowing glances, you were fairly certain they did know. Maybe you could ask them about it next time you saw them, if you ever saw them again. They spent the rest of that night teaching you, Chelsea, Maddox, and Toby about hunters and hunting and made sure you were all alright. An hour before dawn they walked each one of you home, swearing each of you into secrecy.

That night, you dreamed about eating hearts that tasted like pop tarts. It wasn’t as scary this time now that you knew, no zombies were going to come from those dreams.