#right before ellen fell unconscious

[crqstalite]

yk sometimes i briefly think abt the fact that with the twins being 22 theres a really high likelihood one or both graduated college/university right before they left for andromeda which makes me think that was the last big event they had with ellen.

do you think they cherish that photo in their new quarters? the last time their mother felt well enough to stand for a few minutes and embrace her children — whether or not alec was behind the camera or even there?

(sobs)

[miraclesnail]

kronus AU, title still pending

chapter 12, 13, 14, 15

First chapter, previous chapter

@oopsies-i-did-a-thing

12

Google, what do you do when your childhood friend is set on beheading you in some crazy, apparently well-known and well-loved contest to be the absolute best at killing him? 

Travis’s limbs shake with exertion and fear. He’s not scared. This isn’t scary. Just stay focused, stay one step ahead, don’t engage, don’t get close, run run run, and he’ll be fine. He’s going to be fine.

Annabeth glares at him and tries to stab him in the neck again with her knitting needles. Travis ducks and scrambles to the other side of the room. Annabeth lunges again and he dodges again, scrambling to the other end. 

She’s getting really frustrated, glaring even more now. A pissed off Annabeth is not someone he wants around. He should really just make a break for it, but Annabeth isn’t giving any wiggle room. A second of distraction is death. A second of turned back is a needle through the skull. A hesitation and he’s dead. But it's okay. He's not scared.  Not scared in the slightest. 

Annabeth attacks. He runs. Annabeth taunts. He remains tongue tied. Annabeth tries to end him. He's barely keeping himself alive. 

Travis doesn’t know how long the cycle went for. A few minutes. Hours maybe. Maybe just a couple seconds. But it’s interrupted by a knock on a door and Bianca’s voice, suspicious and wary. “Travis? You alright in there? I’m coming in, okay?”

Annabeth and him share a look. The hinges squeak. 

“W—Wait! Anna—”

He talks first. 

But Annabeth moves first, lunging for the door. And still he can’t do anything except watch as the door opens. The needle goes straight for Bianca. Travis is sure if he was in Bianca’s position, he would be dead. But the daughter of Hades steps back just in time, barely evading the needle with wide eyes and panic in her face. 

Without missing a beat, Annabeth grabs Bianca by the back of the head and slams her head against the door frame hard. Bianca slumps over*** unconscious, blood pooling beneath her head. 

Annabeth stands over Bianca’s down body with a blank expression. A finger curls and uncurls. An eye twitches. Her mouth fell open. But then it all snaps into cruel disdain and Annabeth rears her foot back for a kick.  

His body moves then. 

He tackles Annabeth and they both tumble over ungracefully. Annabeth picks herself up first and immediately tries to stomp his face in. Travis wishes he could say it was his well-developed and honed instincts from a decade of fighting that saved him but it was Silena ramming a pitchfork through Annabeth’s chest that did it. 

“Run!” Silena yells at him, digging and twisting the metal deeper into Annabeth’s sternum. She turns her head back to face him and Travis can see that Silena is terrified. She’s petrified. Eyes blown wide and pupils dilated. Her hands holding onto the pitchfork are shaking way too much. Voice high and quavering. Fake bravado if he has never seen it before. Even with all that, Silena orders, “Take Bianca and let’s get out of here!” 

He nods but his eyes are drawn back to Annabeth, unflinching and unbothered with the prongs sticking through her. Annabeth still has her knitting needles in her hand and it didn’t even register in his mind that she could fling it. It flies at him, right for his eye, and —

Dodge, his mind screams. You have to dodge. But Bianca is behind him. If he dodges, it’ll hit her. Block it then. He has to block it. Move. Go. Don’t die. Fight. Win. Survive. You have to survive. 

But Silena takes the hit for him, shifting enough so it stabs her in the thigh. The force of it unbalances her and Annabeth grabs the pitchfork by its handle and rips it away from Silena. 

Travis watches Annabeth yanks the tool out of her, punctures sealing shut in seconds. Like with what happened to Lou Ellen’s eye. Not a single injury save for the bruise on the neck. Then Annabeth twirls the rusty pitchfork smoothly with a single hand before tossing it aside, rolls her neck again, and charges. ****

It’s personal experience that’s telling him Silena won’t, can’t react in time. A racing mind. An adrenaline riddled body. The knowledge of knowing what to do. The technique to do so. None of it matters when someone is chained down by doubts and hesitancy. But Silena is still standing in front of him, unbudging. If anything, bracing herself even more. Stupidly brave and selfless like when she impersonated Clarisse to lead her cabin into Manhattan, when she attacked the drakon knowing she’s no match for it. 

Annabeth comes at her needle raised and aimed at the neck. Silena hesitates and moves a second too late, realizing it too.

Travis sprints forward. Grabs Annabeth by the wrist, halting the blade just inches from Silena. His hand shakes with the effort. His body trembles with not at all concealed fear. He’s sure his face gives it all away, mouth twitching into an involuntary smile. His voice is a wavering mess, but he says it still and he says it loud.

“Don’t hurt her.” 

He hears his phone vibrating somewhere in the midst of the neverending room decorating and shadow travel. 

Someone is calling him. 

The rule is to text first. Calls are only for emergencies. 

As soon as Nico takes him to Annabeth, he kicks Perseus in the chest and creates a barrier to separate Perseus from them. There’s twins yells of concern but he ignores both Annabeth and Nico in favor of hitting the green accept call on the vibrating phone in Annabeth’s hands. 

Silena’s screams for help come clear through. And his own voice, chattering about … apples? Something absurdly mundane. He can hear the sound of struggle. The screen shakes wildly. He can’t make anything out. Then Annabeth’s voice, the Annabeth he knows, the Annabeth he’s familiar with (dangerous, cruel eyes, persistent), and ah. This is bad. This is dangerous. And he’s not there to protect them. He’s useless over here. Powerless. Useless. Helpless. A failure. A loser. 

[Fullscreen]

“Full screen, Silena,” he orders. A wave of dizziness overcomes him but he clings to consciousness stubbornly. He hopes he doesn’t mind. He grabs the phone from Annabeth’s lax fingers and places it flat on the ground. It’s unfortunate he has an audience. He would have preferred minimal distractions. But if he had to have anybody, then at least it’s just these two. They’re smart enough to not try anything. At least, he hopes.

The phone flashes black before it blinks back into focus, the screen white. The light extends outwards and pixel by pixel, Silena’s environment comes into view as holographic images. *****

They’re in their sleeping room. Bianca is down — dead, she’s dead. She’s gone. She’s gone. Dead. Gone. No no no [She’s alive. I can see her breathing.] 

Silena, clutching the phone in shaky hands close to her chest. She’s yelling, teary-eyed, watch out Travis behind you duck oh my god Travis Travis Travis — 

And him. Himself. In the orange shirt. Barely holding Annabeth at bay with quick dodges and ducks and evading that’s only millimeters away from certain death. Except he’s doing nothing but just avoiding attacks and Annabeth is fiercely aggressive, fiercely calculative in her strikes. A single step back, a single sweep of the leg, and Travis falls back on his butt and Annabeth is above him with her needle raised.

Immediately he dives in between them and holds his arms out, power itching in his fingertips but he holds it back for now. It stops Annabeth right away, her sharp eyes darting between him and the one behind him now scrambling to get back on his feet. Then to Annabeth, silent and unreadable, further behind him. To Nico. Then back to him. He can see her gears ticking and whirling. 

“There’s two — two of you. And another me. I’m…fine. A parallel world? Time travel? Doppelganger? A long lost brother?” His Annabeth clutches a hand over her wrist. Her eye twitches once. She’s fighting. She’s fighting for them. Now’s their chance. 

He lowers his arms and puts it behind his back but doesn’t budge from his spot. A glance at Silena and she understands right away, slowly inching her way behind him to his other self. 

“Yeah.” He nods. He has to buy time, as much as he can. “That’s right. It’s weird, isn’t it? It’s impossible, right? You would like to know more, don’t you? You’re dying to know more, right?”

xxxxxx

Travis is so so so lost. After saving Silena, he figured that both of them can fight Annabeth off together. But  Silena more or less tells him to hold Annabeth off while she calls someone. Which… well, not to be a downer, but that sounds like a shit plan. He can’t even beat Annabeth on her off days. On a good day? He has no chance. But he does as Silena asks while she fiddles with her phone. 

Then the room fizzles with a bright white light for a second. And now there’s another Annabeth but this one is in a familiar orange shirt. Also this Annabeth is a lot nicer, not trying to stab his eyes out really helps with that. There’s Nico too and that knife-wielding, motorcycle-helmet Connor from earlier is here too. No. The guy said he’s not Connor. His look-alike then. His look-alike is throwing him signals with his hand behind his back in some secret code. 

Sign language, his brain tells him after a few more signs. 

Get Bianca and leave. 

Get Bianca and leave. 

Over and over. 

Silena is inching her way to him, slowly, foot sliding and then the other foot sliding, shaking like a leaf and eyes locked onto other-him and other-Annabeth. Silena glances at him for a moment, signaling for him to stand. 

He does with wobbly knees. His shoe squeaks against the tile on his way up and Annabeth, the crazy one, the deranged one, the dead one, immediately goes to attack him. 

He doesn’t panic. He didn’t even cry or squeal. He just freezes up and stares as Annabeth sidesteps other-him with her needle raise and a killer look in her eyes. 

“No!” other-him yells, darting to be back right in front of him again. “You can’t! This guy isn’t me. We’re not the same. Do you really want to win the contest this way? Against a guy who doesn’t even know what’s going on? Will you really be satisfied with a win like that? No, right? Besides, he’s not me so is that really a win?”

xxxxxx

Not good. Not good. Not good. Not good. 

“Annabeth,” he tries again, “Winning like this will just make you angry.”

“So what?” Annabeth says, her eyes twitch again. She scowls, sneers, grimaces, winces, flinches, eyes glazing over before coming back into focus. Her free hand clutches her wrist again and forces her weapon down. “Am I supposed to let you guys go? I won’t hear the end of it if — Ah. H—Hurry up. Get the fuck out —I do that.”

“Wait for me to come back,” he says to her, signing behind his back. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. “I’ll be back soon and then we can fight together all we want.” 

Annabeth squeezes her eyes shut. She whispers something. An apology. A plea. Then like a switch of a light, Annabeth straightens herself. Cracks her neck. Her gray eyes are devoid of any and all emotions except for fierce fire and unyielding focus. ****

Crap.

“Go now!” he yells, heart in his throat, helpless as he can only watch Annabeth charge past him, phasing through his holographic body. 

Silena, stupid brave selfless idiotic Silena, intercepts Annabeth, standing in front of other-him. Silena yells, maybe as a way to psyche herself up, but it doesn’t help her look less terrified at all. *** And he hates that. 

Don’t look so petrified. Don’t do it if you don’t want to. Don’t be a hero. You should have just ran. Why did you run? Why are you doing this?

“Annabeth! Stop!” he yells, but it doesn’t deter his dead friend in the slightest. Annabeth charges and he can only watch as Silena blocks the first swipe of the needle. Silena blocks the following roundhouse kick with her forearm but it leaves her reeling and unbalanced. She’s wide open for the third attack. Silena isn’t as fast as him. She’s not as battle experienced as he is. Silena isn’t going to block the third attack. Silena is going to be cut open. Silena is going to die. 

The power in his hand releases, but it does nothing but batters the wall weakly with gentle gusts 

“Silena! You have to get it together!” 

But Silena can’t. Not in time, at least. And he’s stuck in an entirely different plane. Can only watch just like back then. Do something. He has to do something. 

[There has to be something]***

Something. 

Anything. 

Don’t just stand there.

Do something. 

Please. 

Please… 

Don’t take another person from him. 

xxxxx

He’s tired of fighting. He’s tired of people dying. He’s tired of losing friends. Michael and Silena. Beckendorf and Castor. He has enough of it.

It’s adrenaline pushing him forward, to tackle Annabeth by the waist and bring her down. They tumble and roll over each other. Travis learned from his mistake. He hooks his leg around Annabeth and angles it to prevent her from getting up. He has a hand on her wrist with the weapon. Other hand on the other wrist. They twist and roll and scramble all over, bumping into walls and shoving each other into the ground. 

Annabeth fights to get free and he fights harder to stay in place. 

Beyond that? He doesn’t have a plan. Maybe that’s why he’s losing this tumble. 

Annabeth flips him over onto his back and presses him down with a knee on his stomach.

She’s raising the needle. 

Silena screams. Nico, Annabeth, Connor — no other-him — somebody, everybody is telling him to get up.

Then Annabeth rams the needle down.***

Blood splatters against his face. 

Travis grits his teeth against the pain, bites his tears back with his cheeks, and thanks the gods for his incredible speed. A few seconds slower and he would probably be eyeless or something. Blood trails from his impaled forearm and drips onto his cheeks steadily. People are still screaming at him, but there’s blood roaring in his ears. All he can focus on right now is Annabeth tightening her hold on her needle, her other hand gripping his hurt arm. 

She’s going to yank it out, his mind calmly informs him. 

It hurts. It hurts so much to do so, but he holds her hands away with his good hand and wrenches his hurt arm away. He tries to roll Annabeth off him. But she holds fast and wraps her hands around his neck instead. Then she squeezes. Hard. 

Travis wheezes and claws and beats at the hands on his neck but Annabeth clutches tighter, digs her fingers into his trachea. 

She’s scowling. Annabeth’s scowling, pained and tormented, like she’s doing something unpleasant but the pressure increases. His vision goes hazy. Other-him is screaming at him, at Annabeth. And he sees Silena trying to shove Annabeth off him. But strength is leaving his body with every passing second. Is this how he’s going to die? Is this how it’ll end? After all he has been though? No… no… He doesn’t want to die. He wants to live. Desperately. With Connor and Chris. Katie and Miranda. Annabeth and Percy. Will and Nico. Cecil. Alice. Julia. Holly. Laurel. Lou Ellen. Clovis. This can’t be how it ends. He can’t die like this. *****

His vision narrows down to Annabeth and her scowl, the peripheral nothing more than a blurry shadow. 

But his eyes are drawn to Bianca popping up from behind Annabeth in a flash, a shovel raised and poised, half her face covered in blood. Bianca swings, hits the edge against Annabeth’s nape. The pressure is immediately gone as Annabeth crumbles on top of him. And Travis scoots himself away and sucks in air, coughing and rubbing his sore neck. 

“Tha-thanks,” he says, voice raspy. 

But Bianca just raises the shovel again, metal pointed down, and slams it against Annabeth again. And again. And again. The metal reverberates against tissue and bone horrifyingly loud, echoing off the walls. Skin and flesh slice open. Bones crunch and shatter. But Annabeth doesn’t bleed. Zombies don’t bleed, he guesses. But pieces of flesh and gore fly with every hit.

Travis doesn’t like the anguished look on the daughter of Hades' desperate face. 

“Bi…anca?” 

Oh hey. Nico’s here too, right. He forgot about him. Travis really doesn't like the look on either of their faces right now. 

“H—He—” He coughs and tries to intervene, “That’s enough.” 

But Bianca raises the shovel again and brings it down with an enraged scream. The swings grow wild and uncoordinated. 

Silena kneels beside him with a bottle of water, tears in her eyes, trembling body pressed to his, eyes darting around like they’re in danger, and stammers, “Bi-Bianca, enough. Annabeth’s down. You don’t have to—”

Another swing, a disgustingly loud crack. And a piece of what he’s sure is bone hits his cheek. 

“Bianca.” 

One word from other-him, voice’s heavy and a hint of regret, and Bianca pauses mid-swing. She’s heaving, wheezing almost. Muscles straining with yellowing bruised arms. Travis almost thinks Bianca is going to cry but she just whips around to them, almost losing her balance, with a wobbly smile and a shaky laugh. 

“Travis, I can’t believe I had to save you like that. Hahaha… that’s a first. Lots of firsts today actually.” 

Bianca stares at him for a moment, then her eyes move to Other-Him. Then to Nico, then to the nice, non-killing Annabeth and then back to him. 

“Oh.” Bianca giggles and slumps against the wall, sliding to the floor, her feet kicking against not-so-nice Annabeth’s mangled body that’s already reforming. 

They should probably get out of here. Soon. Like now. Right now. They should leave right now. 

“I’m dreaming. Of course. That’s what's going on,” Bianca mumbles.

“You guys need to get out of there,” Other-him says, a tinge of desperation in his otherwise calm if a bit anxious voice. “Reyna and him and the others — they’re never far behind from Annabeth. Bianca, can you walk?”

Bianca shakes her head and chuckles to herself, mumbling under her breath about how this dream sucks, how she wished she dreamt about camp instead. 

“I’m going with no,” Travis says to the other-him, who pinches his eyes and rubs his neck for a moment. When they reopen, they’re tinged with the beginning of panic and familiar, chaotic energy. 

“Okay. Okay. That’s okay. Can you carry her?” Then he spots the needle still stuck in his forearm and revises it to, “Or help support her weight? Or were you hit in the head too?”

“I’m fine! A-okay.” But he guesses he’s not as convincing as he thought he was because other-him still turns to Silena instead. He’s about to ask her the same until his eyes land on her thigh wound. 

“I can do it,” Silena says, flinching as she pulls the needle from her thigh. It bleeds profusely, a dark patch growing fast underneath her navy blue yoga pants. Silena pulls a rope from her belt, slaps a piece of rag over the wound, and ties over it. But it looks like it did nothing. 

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Silena reassures them, tucking the needle into a holster on her utility belt. She picks up two dirty travel backpacks off the ground and hands it to him. 

“I can carry her and you just hold the bags,” Travis offers in her stead. 

“No, no, you’re hurt. I can get—”

“Bianca?” Nico says, taking a hesitant step towards his dead sister, voice cracking in a way Travis never heard before, eyes desperate in a way Travis never seen before. “Are you… are you really Bian—”

“Later,” Other-him states, just as desperate. Like he knows what’s going on, like he understands. “You can ask later. But right now. Right now. Everybody needs to get moving.”

“But—”

“Later.”

“Neeks,” Bianca groans, attempting to pick her head up but it lolls to the side, and the whimper Nico made is something Travis could have lived without, “Travis said to do it. So let’s just do it. He knows best after all.” 

“…okay.” 

A whisper of a word. Barely audible. Nico steps back into the shadows without another peep. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth but now’s not the time to reconcile the siblings. 

As Travis hefts Bianca onto his back with Silena’s help, blood dripping and staining his already ruined Camp shirt, he tries hard not to laugh at what Bianca said. Him? He knows best? Really? No way they’re the same person then. He’s a complete mess without Connor. 

13 NICO **** flesh this out later

Bianca. Bianca. He’s sure that’s Bianca complete with the fond exasperated nickname. But she looks older. And her hair is shorter than he remembered. And she’s thinner now. A bit taller. More bones than muscles. And she doesn’t have any of that baby fat she had when she was still 12. 

But that’s definitely his sister. His sister with her warm and soft smile. 

Why? 

How? 

And Silena… Annabeth, the Annabeth that was trying to kill Travis. Two Annabeth … Two Travis… 

Nico watches the weird Travis, the stabby and violent one. He talks fast, directs the trio around, pointing at empty shadows and telling them there’s a zombie there and here. He speaks clearly, confidently, encouragingly as he guides them to hop over a six foot gap to go from one room to another. (His Travis pauses and double-taked and panics and complains before relenting. Silena makes the long jump no problem. His Travis takes a running leap, jumps, barely clears the gap, and slips onto his back.) And again, down a ten foot caved-in floor (Travis complains even louder for that one before he gives in.) ****** flesh out or delete

Bianca had called this weirdo Travis too, but Nico disagreed. The guy is far too capable and competent to be the same person. 

They made it to a room, their designated ‘safe’ zone though to Nico’s eyes it looks just like everything else. Dirty. Broken down. Ramshackled. A wall is even knocked out. Rain is pouring in. Half the room is unusable. 

But Silena rushes them in and shuts the door, collapsing against it with a sigh of relief as the tension melts from her body. 

“We survived,” Silena says, half a laugh, half a cry as Travis lowers Bianca to the floor. “We—we survived!” 

Travis beams. “Yeah, we did! High five!” 

“Shh. Not so loud. Starting treating the injuries,” Weird-Travis commands, bending to be eye level with Bianca with a grimace. “I think you need stitches this time, Bianca. Silena, if you don’t mind, could you do it?”

It’s not hard to understand when watching Weird-Travis flits across the room, hunching over Silena’s and Bianca’s wounds and offering advice. The way he’s brimming with worry. The way his hands fidget with each other. The way he talks and looks at them with this certain softness that he only ever seen him use for Connor. 

He cares. He cares a lot for Silena and Bianca. 

And as Nico watches the parallel version turn his attention to their own Travis, he could see the same worry in his eyes, could hear it in his voice, could see it in his movements. 

Travis isn’t dangerous, Silena had told them. And Nico believes her now. If anything Travis just looks lost and scared.  

14

“Silena, are you sure you don’t need stitches too? Annabeth may keep her needles clean but they’re not exactly sterile. Wait, Bianca, don’t get up by yourself. Do you need to throw up? No? How are you feeling then? Bianca? Bianca? … Do you think she’s concussed, guys?”

With the danger now gone and his mind could actually catch up and observe, Travis is noticing some really strange things. Like how Silena is holding a bracelet with Kronos’s trademark scythe on it as she carefully stitches Bianca’s wound close with supplies from a really bare medical box. Like how Bianca has a hair piece also with the symbol as she sits there quietly and motionless, staring intensely at Annabeth. How Nico looks extra pale and extra traumatized than usual standing far in the corner. How Annabeth can’t take her eyes off him with that same unnerving, calculating look as the one that just tried to kill him. How other-him isn’t as tall as he is. He’s actually a couple inches shorter than him, like how Connor is. How other-him talks sure and confident and … and… 

Travis cocks his head to the side as he listens. He doesn’t really pay attention to how he talks normally, the words just come spilling out without much thought actually. But … but … the way other-him is talking… 

Travis frowns. For some reason, it doesn’t sound like him. And when other-him turns his eyes to him, the off feeling intensifies. Instincts tell him that’s not him. Experience tells him something is wrong. A hunch tells him to not believe.

“We can’t leave that in there,” other-him says. 

“Huh?”

Other him points and Travis looks down and remembers that mean—Annabeth did jam one of her needles in his arm. And now that he’s aware of it again, the dull pain comes back. 

“Oh. Yeah. That. Uh, can I remove it when I get back home?” He hates how whiny he sounds. “Just pull out another one of those clover things like you did earlier.”

But Other-him shakes his head, grimacing for just a moment before he hides the pain. “I’m out. They disintegrated otherwise I would have hopped back to save you myself. Silena, Bianca, do you guys still have yours?”

Silena jumps at her name, nearly sticking the needle into Bianca. She cuts the thread and lays the needle down on a bloody gauze, fidgeting with the fraying end. “The clover? Oh. Um.” Silena reddens and looks away. “I... was hungry so… I ate it. I’m sorry.”

Bianca snaps her eyes away from Annabeth, brows creasing. “I don’t remember what happened to me. I probably gave it as a prize to Holly and Laurel.”

His heart clenches and he does his best to remain calm. But his voice may have given him away. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, d-does that mean I’m stuck here?!” 

Other-him starts to shake his head again but thought better of it. “No. There’s more. We can get it tomorrow. But one thing at a time. Your arm—”

“Tomorrow? Why not now? I don’t want to make it sound like I hate it here, but I hate it here.”

“The sun is setting. It will get dark really fast. Less visibility. Zombies. Not a good combo. So let’s take care of your—”

Travis is getting desperate. “Ambrosia? Nectar? Some kind of numbing agent or something?”

Other-Travis grimaces. “We’re out. We’re also out of working hospitals too so getting an infection is potentially life-ending.”

Travis stares at him hard for a moment, searching for a fib, but he stares back without a blink, unreadable and unflinching. Annabeth’s no help, shaking her head. Nico isn't any help either, too busy staring at Bianca who’s too busy staring at Annabeth who’s too busy staring at him. Thanks guys. Thanks so much. 

“Alright.” Travis looks away, chewing at his cheek. “Okay. Let’s do this then. I just need a moment to —”

The second Travis gives his permission, Silena leaps forward and yanks the needle out, clamping the gauze down in her ready hand with an iron grip. And holy fuck. It stings and burns and fuck. Tears well up but he refuses to let it spill over. He replaces Silena’s hand with his own, pushing harder, fingers digging into the uninjured part.

Far away, he can feel Silena rubbing his back, Bianca telling him to breathe through the pain, Nico reminding him the pain will fade soon, Annabeth asking if there for sure isn’t any ambrosia and really? None? Nothing at all? You guys have nothing? 

The excruciating pain is in the forefront of his mind, encompassing and overwhelming. But distantly, he can hear another voice. Calmer, steady, familiar, blunt but in a comforting way. Grounding in a way that the others aren’t. 

“Do you remember when you were seven and you just came to camp? You couldn’t sleep because everything was so different. A warm bed rather than a dirty alleyway. Crickets rather than engines. Near darkness, no headlights in sight. It was scary, wasn’t it? It was new and different and scary so you couldn’t sleep even though you trusted Chiron and Luke and Annabeth. C…Connor was asleep, finally sleeping soundly after so many restless nights, so you got up for a walk alone. Stupidly you went into the forest. Do you remember being lost for hours? Wandering around under the moon, underneath the tree’s shadows, even more scared than before because there’s no one there with you, tripping over the branches and then face planting into a tree, breaking your nose. 

You almost cried from the pain, right? But you didn’t. You screamed and stomped your feet and rolled around in agony. But you picked yourself back up and got yourself out of the forest and into the infirmary. You ate an ambrosia square and then slunk back in the cabin just in time before everybody woke up, pretending you never went out. Annabeth kicked your ass during training and got really mad because she thought you threw on purpose. Luke almost had an aneurysm when you fell asleep on the climbing wall and lost your grip. This pain is just like that. It will pass. You can’t scream so just roll around. It will make you feel better.” 

“What! H-How do you know any of that?” Travis squeaks out, face flushing in embarrassment. The pain now a dull ache if he doesn’t think too much about it. “I never told anyone! Did you have Clovis look through my memories? When was this? Clovis would never do this to me. You’re lying. None of that ever happened to me. Nuh-uh. Nah-dah. No.”

“It’s because I’m you,” other-him says, emotionless and straight faced and scarred and serious and. No. Liar. This guy is lying, his guts sing to him. He’s being lied to. “And you’re me.”

He doesn’t want to ask. 

He wants to know. 

He doesn't want to be right. 

He has to confirm. 

It’s fine to pretend things are okay.

Nothing’s okay. 

Not everything needs to be said. 

But this isn’t something he can just ignore. Not with Silena’s varelet. Not with Bianca’s hairpiece. 

He blurts it out without coming to a decision. 

“What makes us different then?”

Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Lie. Make something up. Anything but the truth. 

Other him squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in. “The summer when I turned thirteen, Luke asked me to be his spy.” 

“And you rejected and stayed loyal to the gods and your friends because there is nothing more important than your family — both immediate and extended?” he says, hopeful. 

”No.” he looks away, shame and pain and hurt obvious on his face no matter how much he tries to hide it. “No. I didn’t. When Luke asked, I accepted.”

xxxx

“Oh.” 

Is all Travis says. 

They stare at each other for a few seconds. Travis’s face tells him all he needs to know. [he’s melting down inside] The hurt. The betrayal. The fear.  

And though he knows it’s not Connor, they share the same face and he can never find it in himself to hurt his brother. He says quickly, hurriedly, “It doesn’t matter now since the titan still lost the war and almost all of his power. He can’t do much other than a couple cheap tricks.” His head pangs and he flinches at the sudden pain. [don’t taunt him] 

Bianca and Silena both rise to say something but he shoots them a look. Don’t. Not now, at least. Not in front of them. Silena backs down immediately but Bianca stares with defiance, nose flaring before she looks away too, arms crossing unhappily. At least she stopped staring at Annabeth.

Travis nods unsurely but his eyes go to the caved-in wall to the ruined cityscape. “If the Titans lost, then why is your world so… apocalyptic? What’s with the zombie? Why is everything dirty and broken? What’s with Silena and Bianca being alive again?” [What?] What? “What’s with this world Annabeth and Lou Ellen trying to kill me? And—and—and—” Travis starts wringing his hands and jumbling his words, eyes darting back and forth between the ground and him. “Where … where is this world Connor? Forget the other questions, just answer that one. Where is Connor?”

His throat tightens. Connor. He doesn’t want to talk about Connor. “I don’t want to talk about him,” he says without meaning to. [I can handle this if you want.]

“Why not?” Travis asks innocently. 

He squeezes his neck, ignoring Nico’s disapproval, ignoring Annabeth’s silent, piercing stares, “I just don’t want to.” 

“Why though?” Travis says, not backing down. “Did Connor do something here? Like, was he pissed that you betrayed camp for Luke? Because I would be pissed and I think Connor has every right to be mad at you. Are you guys enemies? Is he with Michael right now?”

“I don’t want to talk about this. It’s not relevant anymore,” he bites out. Images fill his mind. Of the Empire State Building. Of a blood-stained blade. Of screams for help. He digs his nails in the neck and the images disappear. 

“I think that’s a good idea too,” Silena says, eyes flying between him and the others. “There’s probably other things more important right now.” 

“What’s more important than Connor?” Travis says simply, matter of factly, without a hint of joke in his voice, dead serious, with eyes that demands him to match it.

“Nothing is more important,” he finds himself saying. This throat tightens. His vision blurs. Jumping off the building sounds more and more appealing. [no. don’t think that.]

A phantom hand holds his and squeezes and takes over, voice firm and sad all at the same time. “But Connor is dead. He's nothing but a shell of himself, just like Annabeth. He’s gone forever. Nothing you do will ever bring him back.”

“… what?” Travis’s blank face stares at him, not understanding, and he gets it. He couldn’t believe it when Connor died. For the longest time, he thought he dreamt it or hallucinated or it was a Connor look-a-like and the real Connor is somewhere out there, injured but alive, and — [He’s not coming back]. 

**** His chest hurts, like a punch to the heart. “Yeah. I know. But…” 

Because even still… even still… 

His fists clench and he stands with conviction, black dots floating in his peripheral that he ignores. “Nothing is more important than Connor. I get that. But Connor is dead. Has been dead for two years. The only thing that matters now, the only thing, is making sure no one else dies anymore. Silena, Bianca, Nico, Katie, Miranda, Clarisse, Percy, Michael. You. Me. Not a single one of us.”

“The only thing,” he repeats like a scratched record, stuck and never moving on. 

xxxx

He’s not lying. He’s not lying this time. The entire time Other-Travis has been talking, his ‘they’re a big freaking liar’ senses have been blasting around in his gut. But when he said Connor is dead, it all shuts off. 

He’s not lying.

Connor is dead. 

Other-Travis is saying more stuff but it goes in one ear and out the other.

Connor is dead, this guy says. And all he could think about is how. When. Where. What happened? Is he like Annabeth and Lou Ellen in this world? Then where is dead-Connor now? Did someone killed him? Or was it an accident? What was he doing? How could he let it happen? What’s wrong with you? He’s your little brother. Why didn’t you protect him? What were you doing? How can you live with yourself? 

He wanted to say all of that, to shout, to blame but it’s the haunted look in his doppelgänger’s face that makes him bite his tongue. This guy isn’t Connor but their faces are the same and he can’t bear seeing his brother in pain. 

In what could not be a more awkward transition, he asks, “So, uh, New York. Kind of went through a major makeover, huh? I don’t think it looks too great though.” ******

Other-Him sags in relief, face grateful. 

And even though his throat burns with the questions, his heart soothes a bit and the weight crushing Travis ever since he got here lifts just a little. 

xxxx

He knew. He read his face and knew not to ask. Just like he knows all the questions running through other-him’s head because he thinks of it constantly himself. [you shouldn’t. It’s not your fault] 

And even though the wall he made goes falling down and Perseus Jackson hacks his way in with Riptide with Will and Leo and Piper not far behind, even though Bianca finally stops her insistence staring at Annabeth and starts pointing her shovel at Perseus and begins yelling and summoning skeletons, even though Annabeth and Nico tries to cool the situation down, even though Silena begs him to do something, even though he knows he should. He needs to do something. 

He can’t help but stares at Travis, not unhinged and deranged, more human than monster, and imagines his own brother in Travis’s place. That this weird, tiny flicker of warmth and safety he feels isn’t from his lookalike, but from his own brother.

He wonders, if he had died back then, just plunges the knife into his gut, he could have this moment of bliss with Connor instead. 

15 BIANCA

Annabeth is dead. Connor is dead. Dad forsaken her. Nico no longer speaks to her. Clarisse hates her. Katie despises her. Michael can’t look at her. Miranda is terminally ill, clinging barely onto life out of sheer stubbornness that’s running out. Jason’s life is ruined because of her. Percy is basically dead. Lou Ellen is dead. Chris is dead. Will. Kayla. Austin. Dead, dead, dead. All she has left that's still alive is Silena and Travis. 

They’re all she has in his cruel world she created. 

They’re all she has in this empty world she made. 

As soon as Percy bursts through the wall with Riptide in his hand and points it at Travis, fear makes Bianca raise her shovel at Percy. Without much thought from her, nearly a hundred skeletal warriors pop up from the ground. Not in her world surprisingly, but where Percy is. They refrain from sticking their spears and swords at the child of the sea at her discretion. Once he attacks, you guys are free to do so too, she asks of them. 

There’s a pull on her control. Nico, she guesses. Stronger than what she’s used to, a lot stronger actually to her surprise, but still not enough for Nico to take over. Not even a fraction of her attention and she’s in command again.

“Touch him and I’ll tear you to shreds,” Bianca growls, ignoring how her hands shake (from exhaustion, not fear. She’s not scared), how her head pangs and throbs (from Annabeth slamming her hand into the wall, not reluctance. She will attack if she has too), how she hasn’t cleaned her shovel yet. **** 

Bianca expected Percy to just ignore her like he always does. She didn’t expect Percy to glance at her and lower his weapon, his eyes becoming haunted, a look that’s all too familiar. 

“Bianca?” he whispers, like he's seeing a ghost and she wonders what their history is in that world. 

Behind Percy, three more people come tumbling in. Will. Piper. Leo. All alive too and it’s unfair. It’s so unfair. Just the mere sight of Leo and Piper sends Bianca’s vision red and hazy with anger. Why is everyone alive over there? Why can’t they have that? What’s so different? She refuses to believe Travis is the sole reason why things are different. There has to be something else. 

“Percy, wait. Things changed,” Annabeth says, getting in between them. Then Annabeth looks at her, no familiarity in her gray eyes, no warmth either. Only just the barest of recognition. “That means you too. Put away the skeletons.”

“Cap Riptide and I’ll consider it,” is all she says when more are bursting at her tongue. 

Annabeth. Bianca clenches her shovel tighter. Annabeth. Annabeth. Annabeth is alive. And she’s looking at her with this look like she’s a stranger. That hurts. That hurts more than Bianca thinks it should. 

“But Bianca. Bianca is,” Percy stutters, then his eyes drift to Silena and they widen further. “Silena too! Silena is—” his eyes go to Travis, the weird Travis, the normal Travis, the Travis that existed before she fucked his life up, that Travis. 

“Percy! Hey! You would not believe the day I had. It’s totally crazy. Also, never get Annabeth mad to the point of being homicidal because she is terrifying,” weird-Travis beams and Bianca forgot how bright Travis used to be. And how Travis used to be friendly with Percy. It’s… strange to consider when it shouldn’t be. It hurts to think about. Another part of Travis’s life that she ruined. 

“You… there’s… two of you,” Percy says dumbfounded, eyes going between both Travises. 

Connor comes barrelling in, okay and whole, and Bianca can’t remember to breathe.

“Connor!” a delighted voice chirps as one looks away. 

More people file in. Lou Ellen. Miranda. Sherman. More people peeking behind the wall. Clovis. Holly. Laurel. She recognizes each and everyone even without the cut throats and missing eyes and detached arms. The sight alone makes the hand choking her heart squeeze tighter and tighter. It’s cruel how unfair this all is. She wants to scream. She wants to cry. Anything to make this pressure in her chest go away. 

But it’s the stares she gets from Will, from Leo and Piper, from everybody over there, the confused glances between her and Nico. The contemplative looks on their collective faces. Their whispers. The pieces all come together. 

“Dude, that girl looks like Nico.”

“Is… Is she controlling those skeletons?”

“Who is she?”

“She doesn’t look familiar.”

“I don’t know her. Pssst, Percy, do you know her?” 

It all clicks together then. 

She’s dead there. 

She’s dead over there. So nobody knows who she is.

She’s dead over there. Everybody is still alive. 

She’s dead and Connor is alive, Travis is happy. 

She’s dead and there’s no zombies.

She’s dead and there’s no apocalypse. 

She’s dead and the world continues.

Piper was right. If she had died back then. If she just let herself be killed. If she just offed herself sooner. If she wasn’t so scared. If she wasn't so selfish. If she hadn’t believed Jason and Travis and Silena. If she hadn’t wanted to live. Then all of them, all of this would have—

“No.”

The word cuts through her hazy thoughts immediately and she turns to find Travis, no longer lost to his thoughts but staring at her.

“Oh. Hey. Welcome back,” she tries to be cheerful because showing anything but happiness will make Travis worry and she caused enough pain to last 12 lifetimes. It never worked though. Travis will forever worry. Travis just shakes his head and she sees desperation and the hurt that’s always in his eyes. 

“Bianca,” he says, desperation tinged in his voice. 

It's then she sees her warriors, weapons no longer pointed at Percy but at her. More are at her heels, right in front of her, pointed edges inches from her. Silena is shaking her shoulders and pleading with her. She hadn't even noticed. With a wave of her hand, the skeletons leave to go back underground.

“Whoops, my bad,” Bianca mutters, hunching and scratching the back of her head. Not that it soothed anything. Travis and Silena are still worried. As bad as it sounds, Bianca can ignore their reactions. It’s inevitable. Something she just got used to seeing day after day. Just a constant stream of disappointment from her. 

What she’s not used to seeing is Nico. In the corner of the room, far and hidden in the shadows, is her little baby brother Nico. Nico who’s staring at her like she’s not even his sister, like she’s a complete stranger, like she’s just committed a grave crime, like she’s a monster, like she’s inhuman even though they share the same blood. 

Nico stares at her with what could only be disgust and loathing just like that day when she fucked up the world.******edit later.

[votederpycausemufins]

Just about everyone is back together. There’s only a few minor concerning things happening. I’m sure it’s fine.

@petrichormeraki and @helleborusangel

Bad had taken Grian and Jrum back to Jrum’s section of his house, helping plug the bot into his charger. Grian couldn’t find a chair immediately, so he just quickly built one, leaving Bad blinking in surprise.

“So, I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Grian, one of Jrum’s dads.” And he held out a hand while fumbling for his comm with the other. 

Bad shook Grian’s hand hesitantly. “I’m BadBoyHalo, or just Bad. I adopted Jrum while you weren’t showing up.”

“Yeah, Tommy sent me a message about that earlier.”

“Wait so that really was Tommy we saw earlier? He’s not dead?”

Grian shook his head. “No. He’s been living with us and some friends in a different world for a bit now.”

“Oh… then… he’s not going to like hearing some bad news.”

Grian tilted his head, worried. “Why? What happened?”

“Just after those two showed up,” Bad gestured to Jrum. “A message showed up that Tubbo died and he didn’t respawn.”

Grian leaned back in his chair. “Oh, no he’s alive too. My guess is your admin lied to you so you wouldn’t question his disappearance. Philza and Techno have also been away, so anything you’ve heard about them is probably also false.”

“Wait… so if they haven’t been here, who’s dealing with Ghostbur?”

“Who’s that?”

“Phil’s son Wilbur. He died but came back as a ghost and now he goes by Ghostbur.”

Grian looked down at the ground. “Right… Wil’s dead…”

That took Bad off guard. “Did you two know each other?”

“Yeah. Yeah we did. But I hadn’t seen him in years.” Grian then distracted himself by reading his comm finally. “Well it looks like I’ve missed a lot.”

<MumboJumbo> Found EX. He’s seen both the boys. Jrum’s got a nylium problem and Grum is… 

<MumboJumbo> I think I want to throw up.

<Tubbo_> Tommy and I were sort of kidnapped by Dream, and I think he also did something to Ranboo.

<Tubbo_> but we’re out now and have Grum. I’ve also got Michael.

[Eyes] Current X-S, Y-S, Z-S

[Eyes] End X-F, Y-F, Z-F

<EvilXisuma> What do you mean Tommy is with you? He’s with me.

<EvilXisuma> give me an answer!

<Ph1LzA> I found Ranboo, but he’s got no clue what happened.

<Ph1LzA> no sign of Dream either.

<EvilXisuma> fuck

<EvilXisuma> that’s got to be Theseus with Tubbo, and he’s going after Dream to try and revive his version of him.

<Tubbo_> Hi! We’re fine now! Mumbo found us, though uh, Theseus and Dream are gone now.

<EvilXisuma> that’s… mostly okay. Has anyone heard from Grian or that pig guy.

<Grian> hey! I’m here! I found Jrum and he’s doing okay now! Though just to get things out in the open, I do not quite remember how.

<Grian> whatever was possessing him is gone now though. Still trying to deal with the angry parent who adopted him.

<Grian> How’s Tommy doing btw?

<EvilXisuma> he’s still not awake.

<Grian> any chance you can bring him here? I’ve got Jrum charging and I think we should all meet up in one place.

<EvilXisuma> Pretty sure the giant thing in this place is also a charger though.

<Grian> It did sound like the boys were split up, so that makes sense. Can you still come over here?

<EvilXisuma> Fine, but only because you blacked out before

Grian sent his coordinates and then set his comm down. Then he started crying. Jrum’s condition had been bad enough and the fact that he still seemed upset at him without the plants controlling the bot hurt Grian. And then Mumbo’s reaction to just hearing about Grum without seeing him was terrifying. What had they done to his kids?

His wings flared open when a large hand touched him and he glared up to see the blurry form of the demon that was helping him. “Don’t touch me right now.”

“Just trying to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m not. My kids are… they’ve… it just hurts. It’s only been a few days but they’ve been alone for months and I couldn’t do anything! At least when they were stuck where we first built them we could visit, but even with everything I have, I couldn’t get in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you- Have you ever heard of the Watchers?”

There was a slight hum as Bad thought. “Yes, though I haven’t really looked into them. I just know they’re really powerful and occasionally interact with various worlds.”

“Well, I’m that. And I’ve been trained as an admin. And based on what I have learned in the past few days, my mom is literally death, so that’s fun.”

“Is that related to you being able to kill the egg?”

Grian let out a short laugh. “No. That’s uh, Mother Spore. She tried using my body as a host, I tried killing her, we have a bit of a stalemate now.”

“You’re not going to-”

“It’s fine. It helped, didn’t it?” Grian asked.

Bad nodded, it had indeed ended up helping them. “Just making sure it doesn’t cause more of the same.”

Grian nodded before looking back over to Jrum. He was currently in sleep mode as he charged which was fine, but Grian still wished the bot was awake. His eyes then fell on Jrum’s empty arms. He checked his inventory and was glad to find one of the backups on him, so he pulled out a faux diamond block and carefully put it in Jrum’s arms. The bot stirred slightly, but then hugged the toy when it was in his arms.

“Oh, you have another one of those?”

Grian nodded. “Yeah. Jrum and I were out one day and found a trader selling them. We got eight of them for an emerald and a real diamond block.”

Bad’s eyes widened. “You must really love him if you’d spend that much.”

“It’s not actually that much to me, but I would have gladly spent more if it would make him happy.”

Bad nodded and then went over to a chest and pulled out an identical toy that seemed to have been dyed red. “Here, this is the one he had before. He got upset when it turned red. The egg was able to change blue things red and red things to white.”

Grian nodded and took the toy. “I’m pretty sure I can fix this. Just not until we get back to Hermitcraft. I’m pretty spent right now and still need to get us back home.”

Then Xannes was suddenly in the room holding Tommy in his arms. “Get me somewhere to put him down.” Bad jumped up and grabbed a bed for them to set Tommy down on while Grian started checking Tommy over. He looked mostly uninjured, but he seemed to have a large scar that hadn’t been there before over his stomach area. Grian carefully tested the area and was glad to see he was at least reacting to what was going on, but not in pain from the new injury.

“How’s he doing?” Xannes asked as Grian continued to look Tommy over.

“Well, him still being unconscious is extremely worrying, but I’m not seeing any physical injuries other than this large scar.”

“He got killed and revived. I didn’t get a good look at what happened, but I would assume that scar is from what killed him.”

Grian nodded, then carefully worked on sitting Tommy up. “Any head injuries?”

“He ended up against a wall, could’ve been slammed there.”

“Good to know.” Grian moved Tommy’s hair around to see if he could spot anything that was hidden. “You said revived?”

“We have a three life system here.” Bad spoke up. “If a death is important enough, we lose a life. After we lose all three, we’re dead for good. Though there are exceptions.”

“Yeah, Tommy mentioned those. Took us a while to convince him we didn’t have that.” Grian looked over to Xannes. “How do people normally react when they’re revived?”

“Normally they’ve got ghost pains for a while and are more violent.” The helsmit explained. “But everyone has a different reaction. I’m also not sure how different this is from hels, plus the fact that it was an instant revival.”

“That’s probably it then.” Grian frowned. “Makes me almost consider trying to contact Ellen. But she might not be around anymore…”

“Who?” Xannes asked, but Grian brushed him off.

“Our best bet is to try and kill him again and let him stay dead for a few minutes before reviving him again. I… It’s not the greatest thing in the world, but it… should work. And he should be linked to this bed.”

“Wait, are you just going to kill him again?” Bad asked, making sure he was really understanding the situation. “That seems like it would make it worse!”

“I know! But it’s probably that he died and got revived quickly enough that his mind or soul or whatever you want to call it didn’t catch up.” He then sighed, noticing his hands trembling and trying to calm them down. “I mean, I still can’t be sure… but again, best bet.”

Xannes looked skeptical, but relented. “Fine, but we try this once. Even if it only sort of works, we’re not trying it again.”

Grian nodded. “Alright, so I’ll just step outside while you do that… okay?”

“What, you’re making me do it?”

“You’re the one with evil in your name.”

“My name is Xannes!”

Grian held up his communicator. “Yeah, but it’s evil on here, and you got to choose that for yourself, so don’t complain.”

Xannes grumbled, but accepted the answer as Grian stepped out of the room.

“Grian finally got back to us.” Tubbo told Mumbo since his hands were still full from carrying Grum. “He’s also got Jrum with him and I’m guessing he’s killed the egg.”

“The what?”

“Uh, a plant that was possessing people.”

“Ah, EX did mention that.” Mumbo nodded. “Anything else?”

“Well he says he doesn’t remember how he did it.”

“Ah, have to talk to him about that once we get back home to ask if it was a conscious decision or not.”

“And Michael, someone found Boo and he’s okay.” Tubbo told the ziglin, who oinked happily. He then read more and looked back to Mumbo. “Still nothing from Techno though, but Grian wants us to meet up with him at some coordinates. Xannes and Tommy seem to have already moved there.”

Mumbo nodded, pausing to heft Grum up a little to readjust his grip on them. “Which way is it from here?”

“It’s on our current path. Closer actually. That’s the location of Bad and Skeppy’s mansion. Technically the house you had us going towards would have been closer, but only because of the trident path.”

“That makes sense.” Mumbo nodded, before noticing something in the distance. “What’s that?”

Tubbo squinted to make it out at first, but then it was obvious what it was to him. “Pandora’s Vault. It’s a prison Dream commissioned. So far it hasn’t been used as far as I’m aware, but obviously a lot has happened, so I’m not sure anymore.”

Mumbo nodded. If there weren’t more pressing matters at hand, he would be curious, since Tommy had said large builds such as that weren’t common on the server if they existed at all. He was still staring at it when Grumbot suddenly stiffened up and he nearly dropped the bot in shock.

Life Counter active. Entity Check TommyInnit. Death: canon. Life counter: Infinite lives remaining. Commence Respawn.

Just as soon as it had happened, Grumbot was back to normal, though trembling again. Mumbo hugged the bot just a little tighter for a moment before looking at Tubbo. “Are you sure there’s not a faster way?”

“The only other option is still boats.”

Mumbo looked down at Grumbot. There was no way for the four of them to all sit in one boat. He couldn’t row since he needed to make sure nothing happened to Grumbot and obviously the robot wasn’t in any condition to row instead. Theoretically they could manage to get the two of them and Tubbo into the boat if Mumbo scrunched up and continued to hold Grumbot in his lap, but that would involve leaving Michael behind since the child couldn’t row a boat on his own.

“Right, okay. Still walking.”

The group continued to travel, Mumbo and Michael both getting spooked by suddenly getting mining fatigue as they got too close to the prison. There was a small river which they were able to cross easily, but a second wider river had them pause as Tubbo built them a bridge. “The mansion is essentially right on the other side of this river. We’ll just be passing the entrance to the prison first.”

“Is it that place made of quartz in the distance?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo answered, before getting a second look at it. “Looks like they got an extension built onto it though. So that’s new.”

“Might be where the others are. You said they were charging Jrum. I saw the one charger in the other house and it had to be built pretty big. That might be where it’s housed.”

Xannes came out in a few minutes to bring Grian back into the room. “I didn’t need to revive him. He respawned naturally, which isn’t a good sign. Because of that, nothing’s changed.”

“A-Are you sure? Nothing at all?”

Xannes rolled his eyes but did his best to keep Grian from spiralling. “Yeah, but that’s just from trying this. We’re still waiting on the others to show up and they should be able to come up with other ideas.”

“R-Right… I guess you’re right.” Grian nodded before going back to his chair.

Bad moved closer to Xannes and whispered to him. “I’m guessing he’s close with Tommy?”

“Obnoxiously so. I’ve heard a number of stories from Jrum about Grian and Tommy doing something together. Honestly not sure how they didn’t realize they were related in the first place.”

“What the muffin?!”

“...Did… Did you just use the word ‘muffin’ as a curse?”

“Maybe I did! Now what do you-” Bad cut himself off to go back to a whisper. “What do you mean they’re related?”

“The two of them are brothers. Not sure the current state in this dimension, but as far as I know, Grian’s a triplet and Tommy’s younger brother to the three. Same parents too.”

“Tommy’s mom is also a fridge?”

This time it was Xannes’ turn to be shocked. “Their mother is a what here?!”

Before much else could be clarified, there was a whine as Jrum woke up. “Stop yellinggggg. I’m sleepyyyy!”

“Jrum! You know that’s no way to act when guests are over.” Bad scolded, but Grian stopped him.

“Let him sleep. Charging in the middle of the day always messes with his sleep schedule.” Then Grian pulled out a certain shiny blue rock. “Besides, it just means he won’t get any diamonds.”

Immediately Jrum was fully awake and jumping off the bed to grab the diamond out of Grian’s hand. “Give give give give give!!!” Grian tried to hold the diamond up in the air, but Jrum just started climbing up him like he was a tree.

“Calm down! I’m not- mmph! Don’t step on my face! Okay fine! Take it!” Grian gave the diamond to Jrum who instantly put it into his inventory. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Now that the diamond was safely in his possession, Jrum realized exactly who was there and went back to his bed with a slight angry frown. “Well what do you expect when you just offer him up a diamond like that?” Bad asked, going over and patting Jrum’s head comfortingly.

“For him to wake up for it. I mean, he did, but the climbing and being very grabby is different.”

“Again, you offered up a diamond. To Jrum. He’s got a love for diamonds that could rival just about anyone. More than once he killed someone just because they hadn’t put their diamonds in their ender chest quite yet so he took them.”

“Jrum!” Grian scolded the bot, who just got angrier.

“Why do you care? You weren’t here.”

“Jrum, I swear we were doing everything we could to find you and Grum. Your daddy and I would never want to lose you. Some bad people just made things really hard for us. But once we could come to find you, so many people wanted to help because they know how much your daddy and I love you and how much you mean to us.”

“But why’d it take so long?! You should’ve figured it out sooner!”

“Well, you know the stories I’ve told you about my time machine, right?” Grian asked, Bad looking over to Xannes and mouthing the words as a question for clarification. “Well, it was like someone took this whole world and put it in the time machine, so that way everything seemed so much longer for you.”

“Well that’s stupid.”

“It is! But now we’re here. And I know you’re upset. You’re upset like I was at your grandpa.”

And that was what got through to Jrum. Back before any of this had happened, when Phil had first arrived and Grian had been upset at the older avian, Jrum was worried about ending up the same way with his dads. He didn’t want that to happen, but now it was starting to. He started crying and mumbling out apologies, but Grian just hugged the bot and rocked him. “It’s okay. You don’t have anything you need to say sorry for. It was scary and we weren’t there. But it’s okay now. It’s okay.”

The door opened up with a slight slam, making everyone there jump. “Oh thank goodness, you’re all here. Along with… a very tall… man?” Mumbo questioned, his previous train of thought already out the window.

“Demon actually.”

“Alright. Now what was I going to say?”

Tubbo poked his head out from behind Mumbo. “We’re back with Grum.”

“Right! Yes that was it!”

“I’ll get another bed.” Bad said, leaving the room to find one. While they waited, Grian and Mumbo met eyes and smiled sadly at each other, glad that at the very least they had their boys back.

“How’s Jrum doing?”

“Okay. Just upset that he was so angry at us.” Grian answered, rubbing the bot’s back for some comfort. “What about Grum?”

Mumbo frowned and looked down at the bot in his arms. “Not good. He’s a mess to the point I’m worried we’d have to…” He trailed off, not wanting to complete the sentence. “The admin ended up abusing the fact that he was a robot, barely treated him like a person. God… he’s in such disrepair just physically, and while Tubbo said he was speaking earlier, he hasn’t said a word since I’ve seen him.”

“Well, maybe once he wakes up, he-” Grian started to suggest, but Mumbo cut him off.”

“No, Grian, he’s been awake the whole trip here.”

Grian’s eyes widened and he shifted to calmly speak to Jrum. “Can I set you down so I can look at your brother?” Jrum shook his head and held Grian tighter. “Alright then.” Part of Grin wanted to push to get Jrum to say yes, but he also knew that that could just find a way to make things worse.

Bad finally returned with a bed and put it down between the two already existing beds. Mumbo tried to put Grumbot down, but the robot refused to let go and they ended up needing to pry it off of the redstoner. They nearly stopped trying when it was enough to get Grum talking, it simply saying ‘no’ a number of times. But still, they needed to get a good look at Grum, and being held in Mumbo’s arms wouldn’t help with that.

For the most part, Grumbot was still the same as when Tubbo had found it. The only difference was the screen flickering back and forth between the one it had been stuck with and its regular face. Also, instead of lying down on the bed normally, the moment Grumbot was on the bed, it curled up into a ball.

It hurt Grian to see his son in such a state. He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until Mumbo was next to him taking deep breaths for him to follow with. He slowly helped Grian lie down on the bed with Jrum, obvious to the fact that the avian needed rest with everything going on around him.

Xannes pulled Tubbo out of the room at one point, and when they returned, the two of them were accompanied by Phil and Ranboo who talked in hushed tones. When Grian had finally gotten to sleep, Mumbo took Jrum into his arms to discuss things with everyone else.

Tommy pressed his hands against his closed eyes. He hated how sore he felt, but he supposed that’s what happened when you get your last life taken. Then he paused. If he lost his last life, was he alive? Tommy pulled his hands away and opened his eyes. He didn’t look see through, but his skin definitely wasn’t supposed to be ash gray.

He cursed and got out of his bed, looking around. That was his bed, but not from the SMP. The wood around him was all from Grian’s old hobbit hole, and the last place he had slept before… well before everything happened. 

Tommy started looking through chests, glad to find a spare comm in one of the chests. He turned it on and was glad to see it was one of the backups X had made him after the first time he managed to break one. He hadn’t wanted to accept it at first, but apparently a number of the hermits lost or broke their communicators a lot, so he was more willing to take one.

<TommyInnit> Alright, hey guys. Guess who is having a crisis

<TommyInnit> btw, how long has it been since I left?

<GoodtimeswithScar> What seems to be the problem?

<Xisuma> Not that long. Definitely under half an hour.

<TommyInnit> I think I’m dead.

<TommyInnit> I died in the smp and I guess I lost my last life, but I respawned here

<Iskall85> Okay, and?

<TommyInnit> Well I didn’t respawn right. I look like I came out of some of those photos Grian had of demise.

<Rendog> black and white?

<TommyInnit> Skin yes, clothes no. blood is currently blue.

<Xisuma> I’m on my way over

<StressMonster> Does it hurt?

<TommyInnit> I mean, I’m sore? But not really. It’s not raining, right?

<joehillssays> nah, you’ll be fine Tommy

<TommyInnit> Okay.

<TommyInnit> panickign more now

<TommyInnit> i cna;t fucking get outside

<ZombieCleo> Someone blocked the door?

<TommyInnit> np. Nothing theere.

Tommy had tried going outside, but ended up running into something invisible. He tested it and found it was just a sort of invisible wall in front of the door. He remembered Xannes making something similar to trap dream in, so for a moment he thought it was the helsmit's doing. So Tommy broke a hole into the wall and tried going through that. But he just ran into another invisible wall. Had it been just outside where he mined, he would just be upset, but this time it was right in the space where he mined. He tried not to panic too much, but it was hard not to.

<TommyInnit> i’m jus stuck

<TommyInnit> help

[scarlettwitcher]

Big Guy

Request: By @nitelotus: Hi. Noticed you're open for requests. How about for Valentine's day, Geralt one night in a tavern sees his first love and wants to reconnect with her again? Please and thank you.

Summary: Geralt reconnects with his first love and thinks back on their relationship.

Characters: Geralt, Reader, Brief mention of Yennefer and Jaskier

Word Count: 1455

Warnings: Angst, fluff if you squint, flashbacks to memories are italicized, implied frickety frackety

Author’s Note: I’m actually really proud at how fast I got this one out. Here’s my first of many for Geralt. I’m thinking of starting a posting schedule. I haven’t figured it out yet but when I do, I’ll let y’all know. I am in search of betas for some fics, if anyone is open, send me a message! This was beta’d by the beautiful @queenxxxsupreme. I recommend EVERYONE to follow them and show them love for their writing. I am obsessed with it. It’s so good! Requests are open and I’m hoping to have a functioning Masterlist(which will contain the taglists that I have. If you’d like to be added to any list, don’t hesitate to let me know) by tomorrow as well as the first chapter of You’re Mine, Omega! As always, thanks for all the love and any feedback is welcome!

*~*

That scent. 

That terrorizing scent. 

Geralt's senses were plagued with a very familiar scent that he hadn't encountered in years as he stepped into the tavern. In the midst of the dirty, sweaty men and bitter ale, was the sweet scent of vanilla, brown sugar, and rain. A scent that could only belong to one person. One foot inside the tavern, he stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He should've recognized the town, the houses, the people, but his head was elsewhere, thinking about his last meeting with Yennefer, the unfortunate way the relationship ended, and the way he treated Jaskier at the forefront of his thoughts. Taking a few steps forward, he finally sat at the bar, his back to the patrons, and his head down. 

"Hey there big guy." Geralt instantly tensed as he heard her gentle voice calling him her favorite nickname for him. He swallowed thickly and raised his head, his golden eyes locking with her y/e/c eyes. 

"Y/n."

"You know you don't talk too much.. It's kinda creepy."

"Hm."

"There you go again, grunting, like a- like a, I don't know, a bear. Like a big bear. You a bear?"

"Sure, princess." She beamed under his gaze, a blush creeping on her cheeks at the nickname.

Geralt willed the memories away as he watched her, convinced if he looked away she'd disappear once more. None made a move, the tavern full of the idle chattering of the patrons and the occasional cup hitting a wooden table. Y/n decided to break the silence between the two. "I was almost convinced I wouldn't ever see you again. That or you forgot about me." Geralt huffed quietly. They both knew that wasn't true but her soft smile insinuated she was only joking. "And I can see that you're still pretty quiet. How's it been, big guy?" 

"You wouldn't want to know. It's been the same as you remember, worse perhaps.." She bit her lip softly and nodded. She took a deep breath before leaning closer and resting a hand gently on one of his. She swore he relaxed under her touch but said nothing as she rubbed her thumb gently over his calloused knuckles. Her eyes drifted down to their hands, her courage leaving her for a second, knowing she didn't want to see his reaction to her words, scared of what she would see. 

"I've missed you big guy. It's been years. I-" She swallowed thickly as the words left her lips in a shaky whisper. She spent countless nights remembering her time with the Witcher. After the first year passed and he hadn't returned, her hope started to dwindle. By the second year, it was almost faded and by the third year, it was gone. He wasn't going to return to her. It all felt like a dream to her.

"I missed you too princess." Y/n's eyes immediately jumped up to his and no more words needed to be said. Everything Geralt was feeling, he conveyed to her through his eyes. 

"Y-you what?" Y/n was standing in front of Geralt, looking up at him. He was a good foot taller than her, if not more and she had to crane her neck back to see him. He always teased her about her height, loving how riled up she always got. He was watching her every reaction. He listened to the way her heart rate quickened, her shallow breaths, the way her eyes widened at his confession. He reached a tentative hand up gently and cupped her cheek before tracing his finger down to her chin, making her look up into his eyes. 

"I love you."

Geralt smiled gently as he brought his hand up to her cheek, bringing the back of his fingers gently across her skin. It was almost as if time had stopped and they were the only two people in the room. He brought his hand back down moving his pointer finger under her chin, tilting her head back just a bit as he dragged his thumb across her bottom lip. It took Geralt a second to realize he was touching the woman who really had his heart. He could replay the moment he met her over and over in his head.

"Hey, uh, is that your horse?" Geralt watched the rather small woman approach him as she pointed to Roach. He only grunted in response before nodding. He watched her smile brightly as she neared the pair, standing next to him to watch the horse. "Can I pet 'em?" Geralt eyed her and sighed, while nodding. He watched her beam with excitement as she reached up, scratching Roach's nose gently and then moving to the neck to scratch the horse in a lovingly manner. Roaches huffed at the girl and nudged her shoulder playfully. Geralt watched silently, curiosity getting the better of him. His horse was never this kind to anyone. "I'm Y/n, by the way."

"Geralt."

"Well, Geralt, welcome to our small town. My family owns the only tavern and inn in town so if you need food and a place to stay, you know where to go." She pointed to a large farm house across the street before leaning into Roach, whispering something and rubbing their nose once more before leaving towards the farm house. Geralt watched her walk away with furrowed brows before grumbling to himself quietly. He had noticed her scent and was rather captivated by it but chose to ignore it. 

After grabbing a room and preparing for a bath, he was only able to strip off his shirt before he heard a soft knock at his door. The scent from earlier in the day flooded his senses and he knew who was at the door. He opened it and looked down at her expectantly. "Hey there Geralt. I've just come to bring you some towels for if you wanted to bathe and some blankets since it can get chilly at nights." 

"Hm."

Y/n looked at him, an unreadable expression on her face, before continuing. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"... No. This is fine. Thank you."

"No problem, big guy." With that, she took her leave, leaving an irritated Witcher in her wake. 

The third time he bumped into her was an accident, or in this case, her falling on him was an accident. Y/n was working at the tavern as a server and maid for the patrons to help her father. She had a few mugs of ale in her hands and had placed them on the table for the men that ordered them. One of them tried to flirt with her and even went as far as grabbing her, and in her haste to get away, she tripped on her dress… and fell on the Witcher's lap. He quickly caught her, wrapping his arm around her waist, holding her tightly against him. She looked up at him with wide eyes but he wasn't looking at her, he was glaring at the men who had touched you. Before long, punches were thrown and the men took the fight outside the tavern. Y/n could only watch in horror as five men went against Geralt by himself. But her worries were silenced when she watched him handle himself well. By the end, all the men were on the floor, bloodied and unconscious. She took him to her home after that and cared for his wounds from the fight. 

"Thank you for what you did." 

"They didn't have a right to touch you."

"I know.. Just comes with the job."

"Hm."

"You grunt a lot Big guy." This earned her a small huff and she just shook her head as she finished cleaning him up. If Geralt was totally honest, he really loved the nickname. He could sense the kindness behind the words and he would never say it but he knew he would only ever allow the woman in front of him to call him that. 

Y/n watched him for a few seconds, truly admiring the man. She was standing between his legs and she slowly reached a hand up to cup his jaw, soaking in all of the details of his face. Geralt watched her silently. He unconsciously moved a hand so it was gripping one of her thighs. Not before long, did he have her in his lap, and minutes after, sprawled out on her bed, under him. 

And that was how they spent their time together. Before either realized, months had passed and they both had fallen deeply in love with each other.

"Let's go home." 

"I'd like that very much princess."

*~*

Forever Tags: @iwantthedean @authoressskr @sorenmarie87 @reigningqueenofwords @goldenolaf25 @giftofdreams @winchesterprincessbride @chelsea072498 @kitchenwitchsuperwhovian @itakeawfultoawholenewlevel @fictionalabyss @gabby913 @angelkurenai @sea040561 @sleepylunarwolf @smoothdogsgirl @carryonmyswansong @feelmyroarrrr @evyiione @supersassyprobablysad @sofreddie @sis-tafics @trexrambling @dancingalone21 @manawhaat @mermaidxatxheart @winchest09 @ellen-reincarnated1967 @mrswhozeewhatsis @just-another-busy-fangirl @lovebodymindstuff @backseat-of-deans-67chevy @chook007 @akshi8278 @evansrogerskitten @bringmesomepie56 @queenxxxsupreme

[thinkingaboutyoungroyals]

Carrying On

A/N: So... I ended up writing a thing.

AO3

Dean knows he’s dying.

The warm blood running down his back and the excruciating burning pain somewhere near his spine only confirms that he got himself into a situation that he has no way out of. He’s been stabbed and burned so many times that he’s almost numb to the idea that he’s not long for this world.

A nail in the back.

What a fucking stupid way to die.

It’s not how he thought he would go but at least it’s a death he has control of.

But, truth be told, he’s scared. There’s so much he still wants to do. So many monsters to slay. Places to see. New pie flavors he’s yet to try.

And Sam... Sam...

Even with his vision darkening, all he can see is Sam, his baby brother. The most precious and most important person in his life. His dorky, giant, book nerd of a brother.

Dean is so proud of him. Now, Sam can go wherever he wants and do whatever the hell he feels like without Dean holding him back. He should look for Eileen, she's good for him.

He hopes Sam takes good care of Miracle, go on walks with her, and let her eat the leftovers off his plate. It’s funny how he and Sam always wanted a dog when they were kids but John wouldn’t let them. And now that they finally got one... now that they finally have some semblance of a normal life, Dean has to leave.

But, despite all that, he really has no regrets.

He can be at peace now.

Well... he's got one regret.

But, maybe… just maybe…

The thought leaves him as his eyes finally close and his mind blanks.

.

.

.

He’s not sure how long he’s been out for but there’s a whispering in his ear. Various voices he can’t name. What they’re saying, Dean can’t decipher. But, they’re there. They’re kind of annoying.

Is this hell?

God knows he doesn’t belong in heaven. But, then again, if Jack’s in charge now, maybe he’ll get special treatment.

Dean wants to laugh but finds himself unable to do so.

Is he allowed to laugh in hell?

He continues to stay in darkness with the whispers. He strains to hear what they’re saying but every time he thinks he’s caught a glimpse of a familiar word or phrase, it escapes him again.

He tries to think of other things, then. Brighter things.

Like Sam. And Miracle.

Bobby. Jodie. Charlie. Donna. Kevin. Claire. Ellen. Jo.

Crowley. Rowena. Heck, even Ruby and Meg crosses his mind.

His mom. Dad, too. And, Adam, why the hell not?

And…

Is this his special brand of hell? Boredom? It’s pretty effective.

Dean will do anything for a spot of entertainment.

And another thing about this weird state of nothingness is that he can’t feel anything. Not his hands and feet. He can’t even wiggle his toes or twitch his nose. He can’t smell anything, either. He can't talk.

There are only the voices.

And they’re getting louder now.

“…octor says….. blood….”

How long has it been?

“…. Sam….”

What about Sam?

“…… wake up….”

Wake up from what? He’s dead.

“….. please….”

If Dean still has a beating start, it has surely stopped at hearing that voice.

That familiar, gravelly, pleading voice.

And, suddenly, he can feel.

Very light touches, at first.

Almost a whisper against his skin, if he even has any.

And, then, the pain followed.

It’s not the familiar burn of a stab.

More of a tightness of a wound after it’s been treated.

His wound has been treated.

Then, slivers of bright white light come peeking through the void.

Dean tries to squint and the light disappears again… and then reappears.

What the fuck?!

And, then, he feels, hears, and smells it all at once like a giant punch to the gut.

The pain of the wound on his back.

The voice talking.

A beeping.

The smell of antiseptic.

Fingers gently caressing his arm.

He can feel his arm.

He. Can. Feel.

Slowly, he uses all his strength to peel his eyes open. To finally see.

Blinding light momentarily forces him to close his eyes again.

“Dean?”

He’s pretty sure the pace his heart is beating right now is not good for his current condition.

He forces his eyes open again, slowly this time, so he can adjust to the light.

At first, everything looks blurry. He blinks a few times until things came to focus.

The familiar white walls of a hospital. A plastic chair. A closed door.

“Dean…”

Dean moves his gaze upwards.

Messy black hair. Ice blue eyes. The 5 o’clock shadow that never seems to go away.

And an ugly trench coat that never looks good on anyone but Cas always manages to pull off.

Cas.

Castiel.

He’s here.

“Y-You…” Dean tries but his voice refuses to cooperate.

Castiel smiles and it shoots an arrow right at Dean’s heart as he’s reminded of the last time he saw that smile.

“Hi, Dean.”

“Dean!” a new voice joins them.

Within seconds, Sam comes into view. He looks awful. The mop that he calls hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days. The dark circles under his eyes are even darker like he’s some kind of giant raccoon. And his clothes are the same ones he wore during their hunt.

The hunt. With the vampires and the clown masks and the missing kids.

The hunt where he died.

Or… almost died… right?

“S-Sam…” he manages.

“Don’t talk,” his brother says, coming to his side.

Castiel moves to make room for him and, for a moment, Dean panics.

If this is Hell’s way of torturing him… showing him his brother and Castiel and making him believe he’s alive only to take them all away again… damn them all.

The beeping sound he has been ignoring grows frantic as he tries to get up.

“Dean, no!” Sam pushes him back down and Dean realizes that he’s laid on his stomach.

That makes sense, he was stabbed in the back, after all.

“Lie back down, you shouldn’t try to get up yet. The doctor said you lost a lot of blood. And it’s a miracle you pulled through.”

Sam looks like he’s aged ten years as he sighs and occupies the empty chair next to the bed. “Can you not... do that again, please? I really can’t…”

Dean opens his mouth to answer but, again, his voice refuses to cooperate. And he’s tired again all of a sudden.

“It’s okay, you can go back to sleep,” Sam says, managing to smile at him.

Dean forces his voice out as his lids get heavy. “C-Cas…”

The angel comes into view again. “I’m here Dean. I’m not leaving. Get some rest.”

Dean loses the battle to his eyelids and closes his eyes. He feels himself drifting off and this time, the void of darkness no longer feels like hell. He doesn’t dream, though. And he’s scared again.

Scared that it’s not real.

He’s not sure if he’ll survive if it’s not real.

He’d rather die again.

.

.

.

The next time he wakes up, he’s less confused. Still a little suspicious. But upon seeing Castiel the moment he opens his eyes, he allows himself to hope that it’s all true.

He’s here. He’s still alive. And Castiel has returned to them. To him.

He’s still on his stomach and he struggles to move himself to a more comfortable position. He’s hooked to an I.V. and a few other wires, which is really annoying.

But, Castiel moves forward to help and Dean lets him.

“You shouldn’t be moving this much, yet,” the angel scolds, fondly.

Sam appears behind him with a cup of water and helps Dean drink.

He gulps it down, greedily. Water had never tasted as good as it did at that moment.

He drinks and drinks until he couldn’t anymore and Sam moves out of view again to put the cup away.

Dean focuses on Castiel.

“You’re here,” he finally says, his voice much better than it was the last time.

Castiel nods. “Yes, I am.”

“How did you…”

How did you get out of the Empty? Was there a way all along and they hadn’t known? Why didn't he back come sooner?

“Jack saved me,” Castiel answers. “He got me out. Took me to heaven.”

Of course, Jack did. He’s a good kid. Better than all of them.

There’s silence now. There’s a lot to say but Dean doesn’t know how to start. The last time they talked…

What little blood he had left rushes to his cheeks. He hopes Sam and Castiel don’t notice.

A throat clears and Sam comes into view again. “I’m gonna go get a coffee. Cas, you want one?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll… uh… leave you two to catch up.”

Sam smiles at Dean, patting his leg before heading out of the room and shutting the door firmly behind him.

Castiel settles on the empty chair, pulling it closer to Dean’s bed.

“Sam hasn’t slept,” he says, avoiding Dean’s eyes. “I told him I’d watch you in his stead so he could return to the bunker but he refuses to do so. He only went once to make sure Miracle has enough food. You adopted a dog. She’s beautiful and so well-behaved-.”

“Cas,” Dean interrupts, happy to hear that Castiel likes his dog but there are important things he needs to say. “Did Sam call you?”

Castiel shakes his head. “No, he didn’t.”

“But, how did you…”

“I heard you... Dean.” The angel finally makes eye contact. “You called for me and I heard you.”

Dean vaguely remembers thinking about Castiel before he fell unconscious. How he hoped that they would meet wherever he ended up. He knew, even back then, that it was a long shot.

Still… he had hoped.

Turns out that hope was well-placed.

“So… you saved me.”

To his surprise, Castiel shakes his head and lets out a chuckle. “No, the paramedics did. Sam called them as soon as I arrived after you lost consciousness.”

Dean blinks. “Oh.”

Less dramatic than he thought but, at least, for once, he wasn’t saved by some outside power he had no control over. Just by human beings. That’s fine.

Then, Castiel’s demeanor saddens. “You gave up so soon, Dean. We almost lost you.”

Dean really hates it when Castiel is upset. He’s like a puppy who got kicked. And who kicks puppies? Monsters, that’s who.

“Hey.” He wants to lift a hand to nudge the angel but his limbs feel too heavy so he just grins. “I’m alive. By some miracle, apparently.”

“Yes.”

Dean clears his throat. “About… the last time I saw you…”

Castiel quiets and looks away again.

Dean almost bites his tongue. But, then, he remembers how he didn’t have enough time to even sort out his thoughts the last time. He didn’t even get the chance to answer before Castiel was taken away.

“You said… that your happiness… is the one thing you can’t have.”

Castiel still refuses to look at him.

“Cas… what if… you can…?” Dean swallows the lump in his throat but forces his voice out. “Have it… I mean… You know…”

Finally, Castiel lifts his head up and meets his gaze, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. His hands, firmly folded on his lap, reaches out to take Dean’s own.

“Thank you, Dean.” But, then, the smile disappears again. “But… I can’t.”

Dean’s heart dropped to his stomach.

Did Castiel change his mind? Is it because Dean didn’t try to get him out of The Empty? Is he angry? Did Dean mess things up before they even started?

Castiel must have seen his face because he shakes his head, smiling again.

“Nothing has changed in how I feel about you,” he explains, squeezing Dean’s hand, comfortingly. “It’s just… I’m not human anymore, Dean. And I have responsibilities again.” His smile widens to that of a proud parent. “Jack is rebuilding Heaven. And I’m helping him. We’re going to get it back to the way it was always meant to be. A place for everyone to come and rest and be happy the way they deserve. But… Dean… It’s not your time to be there, yet.”

Dean protests. “But-.”

Castiel shakes his head. “Everything you did… everything you sacrificed… You saved the world. You and Sam. And you both deserve to see the fruits of your labor. You’re still needed here on Earth, Dean.”

“But… what about you?”

What about us? he wants to say.

The angel laughs. “Me? I’ll wait. Like I always do. It appears that I’m quite good at waiting when it comes to you.”

Dean’s heart skips a beat.

“But, don’t come up too soon. I mean it, Dean.”

He snorts, forcing himself to look away and seem nonchalant. “If you’re that mad about me dying too soon, fine.” He smirks. “Gotta play nice with God’s dad, right?”

Castiel laughs again. He tries to let go of Dean’s hand but Dean holds on, flashing him a look that he hopes says everything he can’t physically say, himself.

And, as always, Castiel understands and leaves their hands entwined.

Now that that’s out of the way, there’s another matter that’s niggling in the back of Dean’s mind.

So, he looks away again, focusing his gaze on the foot of his bed.

“How long are you here for?” he asks.

Castiel doesn’t answer, at first. Dean dreads the answer.

“Until you’re well enough to leave the hospital.”

A couple of days then. Maybe a week. Dean’s not sure. He should have asked Sam.

But, it’s more time than he ever hoped to have.

He’s not stupid enough to waste it.

He turns his gaze back to smile at Castiel again, reassuring the angel that he’s okay. He’s going to be okay.

“So… how’s Heaven looking?”

.

.

.

He ends up staying at the hospital for several weeks. And true to his word, Castiel doesn't leave. He’s there when Dean wakes up and still there when he goes to sleep. Sam is also there most of the time but now that Dean is awake and is, for sure, going to live, according to the doctors, he goes back to the bunker to make sure Miracle is fed, watered, and walked.

Meanwhile, Dean gets his bandages changed and his back poked and prodded by doctors and nurses. He gets physical therapy and regains control of his arms and legs again.

His recovery is unusually fast and miraculous, according to the hospital staff. Dean wonders if Castiel had anything to do with it but decided not to ask.

So, you’d think that when the doctor gives him the green light to go home, he’d be happy. And, he is, really. He can’t wait to leave.

He’s tired of hospital food. He’s tired of only seeing the four white walls of his room and, occasionally, the tiny hospital garden that Sam and Castiel would take him to when he was feeling bored.

But, when he leaves the hospital, Castiel also leaves.

Dean’s not sure if he’s ready.

But, time or fate or destiny or whatever doesn’t give a crap if he’s ready or not.

He’s now dressed in an old Led Zeppelin shirt, his green cargo jacket, and jeans. He’s wearing jeans! After weeks of only wearing an itchy hospital gown, it feels a little weird to be wearing real clothes again.

He fixes the cuff of his jacket. In front of him, Castiel stands in silence. Waiting for him.

Sam is down at the lobby, getting paperwork done so they can check out. He and Castiel had already said their goodbyes, giving each other tight hugs before parting.

Now, it’s Dean’s turn.

He’s not ready to say goodbye again.

When he lifts his head, Castiel is watching him in that close and examining way he often does. As if he’s taking a photo of Dean and imprinting it in his memory.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

No, Dean thinks.

Instead, he shrugs.

Castiel smiles softly and steps forward. He places a hand on Dean’s left shoulder and Dean can almost feel the remnants of that old handprint from when the angel first rescued him from the depths of hell.

It felt so long ago.

“Will you promise me one thing before I leave?” Castiel asks.

Dean places a hand over his, gripping it tightly. “Anything, Cas.”

Castiel continues to smile but there’s now a hint of sadness to it. “Live. Please. No matter how tempting it may be to die, just live. I want you to live.”

Dean nods. “Okay.” He means it.

The angel releases a breath of relief. “I will watch over you. Like I always do. Like I always have from the very beginning.”

He can feel the familiar sting of tears but refuses to let them fall. “Will you hear my prayers?”

Castiel doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Always.”

“Will you and Jack come by and have dinner with us sometimes?”

Castiel laughs, genuinely. “We’ll do our best.”

Dean lets out a chuckle and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Rebuilding Heaven is a busy job. But, nothing you two can’t handle. Can’t wait to see it.”

“Not-.”

“Not any time soon, got it.” He squeezes Castiel’s hand. “I promise.”

Satisfied, Castiel nods.

“Say ‘hi’ to the kid for us? And Bobby, too. Mom and Dad. Charlie.”

“All of them. I swear it.”

Castiel steps closer, his eyes focused on Dean’s face. Dean, too, memorizes his face. Takes a picture of it and saves it in his memory.

This angel who saved him. This angel who taught him to believe. This angel who loved him despite his faults and mistakes.

“I’ll miss you, man,” he confesses.

“As will I.”

With that, Castiel wraps his arms around him and Dean closes his eyes and doesn’t hesitate to return the hug. When he feels lips press to the side of his head, soft and affectionate, his heart swells with joy.

“Goodbye for now, Dean.”

“See you, Cas.”

When Dean opens his eyes, he’s holding nothing but air. The room is empty. Castiel is gone.

Yet, Dean has never felt such peace.

.

.

.

Miracle is running towards him, barking her head off. Laughing, Dean crouches down, carefully, and opens his arms to hold her.

“Hey, there, girl! You missed me? I missed you! Has Sammy been taking good care of you? I bet he doesn’t let you eat off the pans, does he? Don’t worry, things are gonna be back to normal now.”

Behind him, Sam snorts. “You spoil her you know! She wouldn’t leave me alone when I was doing the dishes!”

Dean scratches the dog’s head, affectionately, before carefully getting to his feet.

“And that, Sammy, is why I’m her favorite.”

He can’t see him but he can imagine his brother rolling his eyes.

Together, they cross the hospital parking lot to where the other love of his life, his Baby, stood parked and waiting for them, loyal, as always.

He was under meds so he’s not allowed to drive. It sucks.

Sam flashes him a look when they reached the car, his hand held out.

Dean sighs, resigned, and throws him the keys. “This is the last time,” he insists, knowing that it’s a lie.

Sam simply shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

Dean opens the back door and Miracle happily hops in and settles down on the seat. He gave her one last head scratch before closing the door and sliding into the passenger side.

Reverently, he runs his hands all over the leather seat and the dusty dashboard.

“Hey, Sam.”

His brother slides into the driver’s seat. “Yeah?”

“Do you think if I died, Baby would have come with me?”

Sam snorts as he inserted the key. “Don’t be ridiculous, Dean. Cars don’t go to heaven.”

“Baby is special.”

“She’s still a car.”

“After all this time, Baby, he never appreciated you.”

Sam snorts as he turns the key to start the engine.

The beautiful rumbling sound of Baby coming to life is accompanied by a voice from the radio.

“Carry on my wayward son… There’ll be peace when you are done… Lay your weary head to rest… Don’t you cry no more…”

Dean grins as Sam pulls out of the parking lot and drives them home.

“Man, I love this song!”

Everything is going to be okay now. They will carry on. They will live.

[growningupgeek]

Amazing Grace 2

I forgot this was in here. Bonus post just because.

Part 1

  Gabriel slipped his arm around Elaina's shoulders trying hard not notice how thin she'd become.  It was just one more thing to add to his list of things Ketch and Asmodeus would pay for.  Her eyes opened briefly to see who it was.

   “ Time to go, kiddo, nobody here but lower level demons.   Do you know where those meatheads might be,” he said into her mind.

    He picked up the image from her mind of a large room with a metal staircase done art deco style.  He stretched his wings, reveling in the feeling flying again until he hit what felt like a brick wall. He bounced to a safe zone and created a bed to put Elaina on while he figured out his next move.  He should have expected them to have wards against angels.

    He felt Elaina waking and hurried too put her back to sleep. As he touched her forehead he caught a thought from her, , “Cas might be there, tell him to have them take the wards down or you won’t be able to get in.”

   “Could have said something before,”  he muttered. Then he reached for a long unused private channel of angel radio to contact his little brother.

Sam swore at his computer screen and muttered under his breath, “What do you mean location not available?”

Dean and Cas looked at the younger Winchester, surprised to hear him speak for the first time since Elaina had called earlier that day.  All three of them were supposed to be researching alternate universes, but Sam was  obviously doing something else.  

“What’s wrong, dude,” Dean asked him.

Sam looked up, surprised that he’d been heard, and shook his head.  He didn’t want to say anything about his suspicions until he could back them up with more facts, even though every instinct he had was screaming about how wrong his last conversation with Elaina had been.  He looked back at his computer and pulled up another website to start again.  

Dean got up and went to stand behind Sam.  “Why are you trying to track Elaina’s phone?”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Sam pushed his chair back so fast Dean almost didn’t get out of the way and started pacing around the library.  “It’s not like her to be gone this long.”

“She’s been at Jody’s, what two weeks,” Dean asked looking over at Cas, who just shrugged. “She’s been gone longer.”

Sam stopped pacing for a second to stare at his brother, “She’s been gone over a month. And Jody says she never made it there.”

Dean stared at him as he resumed pacing. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because he didn’t start questioning that he was talking to Elaina until I got back,” Castiel broke in.

Sam nodded, “Once Cas told us about Asmodeus, I called Jody.  Elaina has a logical reason why she never made it but it just doesn’t feel right.”

“Come on, Sam, she’s taken off for longer,” Dean said.

“When you were under the influence of the Mark,” Sam shot back. “And you know exactly why she left then.”

Dean flushed, knowing he was the reason and turned to ask Cas what he thought.  The angel was sitting still, head cocked to one side with a look of surprise on his face,  “Hey, Cas! You okay, buddy?”

Cas waved Dean off, now looking like he was listening intently to something. “I think we’ve got another problem, Sam.”

As Sam started towards the two men Cas said, “Take down the wards!”

Dean jumped away from the angel as Sam turned to follow Castiel’s order without thinking because of the urgency in his voice.  As soon as the wards were down there was the sound of wings, a thud and a soft grunt from the war room.  Once they were back up Sam followed Cas and Dean that way, pulling his gun out as he walked.  He stopped dead in the door at the sight that greeted him.

Cas was kneeling next to a figure with matted hair in clothes that were grey with dirt, but Sam’s attention was drawn to what was in the person’s arms.  They were cradling Elaina, who was unconscious and far too thin. Slowly, he walked towards the figure with his arms out.

“Give her too me,” he said in a low voice.  The figure looked up to revel the battered face of Gabriel.  He nodded, his eyes showing relief as he allowed Sam to take Elaina from his arms, then he fell heavily against Cas.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, brother,” Sam heard Cas say as he carried Elaina to their room.  She felt so small and light in his arms that he would have thought she was dead if it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of her chest.  He placed her gently on their bed, closing the door before undressing her.  She didn’t move as he got a washcloth and soaked it in warm water but she whimpered and flinched away when he began cleaning her up.

“It’s me, babe,” he told her softly, brushing her dirty hair away from her face. “It’s Sam, Gabriel got you home, you’re safe now.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she breathed out a soft sigh, “Sam. Thank Chuck, we made it. Where's Gabe?”

Cas appeared in the room. “Gabriel is in the shower, Elaina.  He won’t let me help him until I’ve looked you over.”

Elaina inched away from both of them, “I'll be fine, Cas. Gabriel's in worse shape.”

    Castiel rolled his eyes. “Hunters and archangels. There are times when I could do without either. He said the same thing about you.”

    Elaina opened her mouth too retort but never got a word out.  Her eyes got a far away look that scared Sam until he looked over at Cas.

“Gabriel is speaking to her,” Cas said in reply to his unvoiced question.

“How is he still alive, Cas,” Dean asked from the door.  “I thought Lucifer killed him years ago.  And how did they end up together?”

Cas rolled his eyes and sighed, “I don’t know, Dean.  Until they have both rested I don’t think we’ll be getting any answers.”

Elaina’s eyes focused on them again. “Gabe says to let you take care of me or he'll send me to Antarctica.”

She slid back across the bed and touched Sam’s arm, as if she were trying to reassure herself that he was real.  He put his hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, then leaned over and began to clean her up.  She trembled but didn’t pull away as he wiped the dirt off her face, she just sat there as Cas pressed two fingers to her forehead allowing him to check out her physical condition.  

“I think a light meal and some rest will help,” he said finally. “There’s nothing physically wrong for me to heal.”

The look Cas gave Elaina told Sam that something was up.  After he went back to Gabriel and Dean went too make Elaina some toast and tea, Sam helped her over to the sink so that she could finish cleaning up.  He leaned against the wall next to the sink with his arms across his chest afraid to ask the questions running through his mind as she cleaned up.  The fact that he could tell she’d lost weight scared him almost as much as not knowing where she was.

Finally, he couldn’t stand the silence any more. “What did you do that’s got Cas so upset?”

Elaina moved slowly away from the sink and got a tee-shirt and some boy shorts out of the drawer.  “I may have used some of my life-force to replenish Gabe’s grace.”

Sam shot away from the wall and across the room, keeping his voice deadly quiet he said, “You did what?”

“I used some of my life-force to replenish Gabe’s grace,” she replied in an equally quiet voice.  “I didn’t have a choice if either of us were going to get out of there alive.”

Sam bit his lip to keep what he was thinking inside. He didn't want to yell at her right now, he was too happy she was home and safe.  She glanced over at him and smiled, “You're cute when you bite your lip like that, Winchester.”

He couldn't help but smile back as she moved slowly back to bed. “You're in so much trouble when you're feeling better.”

Elaina pulled the old tee shirt of his that she slept in over her head and pulled the blanket up before answered, “I did what I had to do, Sam. Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing if you could.”

He climbed into the bed and pulled her close to him, “You may be a badass hunter but that doesn't stop me from worrying when you vanish for a month.”

Elaina snuggled closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Is that all it's been?  Feels like it was longer.”

Sam didn't reply, just held her until felt her heart slow and heard her breathing even out.  Dean returned shortly afterwards carrying a tray of food. When he saw Elaina sleeping next to Sam he smiled at them.

“She can eat when she wakes up,” he said softly. “You get some sleep too, don't think I don't know you haven't been sleeping.”

Sam smiled as his brother left the room and closed his eyes. It wasn't long before he was asleep for the first time in days.

@darkcastersruletheworld 

@iwantthedean 

@little-red-83  

@ashleymalfoy 

@isometimeswritesomethings 

@sammy-moo 

@mrswhozeewhatsis 

@kittenofdoomage 

@fast-times-in-the-impala 

@wonderless-screwup  

@deascheck  

@mrssamfuckingwinchester

@winchesterprincessbride

@tjforston   

@writingthingsisdifficult  

@mysaintsasinner 

@mogaruke 

@wheresthekillswitch 

@skybinx-blog

@bohowitch  

@ellen-reincarnated1967 

@masksandtruths 

@born-to-be-his-baby88 

@oneshoeshort  

@grace-for-sale   

@winchestergirl-13 

@bethbabybaby   

@apeshit7x

[katehuntington]

How You & I Will Be - part four

Fandom: Supernatural Timeframe: mid-season 2 Main characters: Reader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Pairing: Dean x Reader, Sam & Reader (friends) Series summary: When a hellhound case in the mountains goes sideways, Dean and Y/N find themselves trapped in a small cabin, miles from civilization. A serious injury forces the two hunters to come to terms with their true feelings for each other. Rescue is on its way, but will it be in time? Warnings part four: angst, pining, fluff, swearing, alcohol, description of blood and injury, possible character death, saying goodbye, all the tears.  Word Count:  3926 words Author’s note: Part 4 of a 5 part mini-series.  @idreamofhazel and @littlegreenplasticsoldier, thank you so much for being awesome betas! Hold on to something, because it’s gonna get dark and sad. Tissues are mandatory.

Find the ‘How You & I Will Be’ masterlist here!

     Unlike the raging blizzard that is whirling around the cabin outside, inside it’s completely quiet. The flames in the fireplace have died down to a few glowing chunks of charcoal, barely breathing. Dean settled against the wall hours ago and hasn’t moved since; Y/N fell asleep against his chest this afternoon and has been out of it for most of the time. And so he watches the lighting of the scenery change outside as sun goes down and the night comes in, washing dark clouds through the valley.       It has been three days since the hellhounds attacked her. Not allowing himself to sleep has him exhausted, but Dean refuses to let his guard down. He has to stay on watch, he has to keep going. Maybe if he keeps fighting, she’ll be able to hold on, too.

     His arm is wrapped around her, his cheek on her hair. The leftover moonshine keeps him company, comforting him whenever he lets the liquor burn his throat. He was able to contact Sam through the satellite phone again. His smart little brother found a ritual to send the hounds back to the doghouse, but getting his hands on the exotic ingredients has been a challenge. Several hunters are pitching in; Bobby, Ellen and Jo are all working around the clock. But when he glances down at the woman they are all desperately trying to save, he hopes it will be enough. He lets out a worried and shuddering sigh after registering the paleness of her skin and the shallowness of her breath.

     In his entire life he prayed once or twice, maybe. When he was little he would ask God to bring his mom back, but he grew up quick enough to understand that he could pray all he wanted, his mother was never coming home. Today he prayed, though. He begged the man upstairs not to take her, to give her a chance.

     But her condition is getting worse. The infection has caused blood poisoning, by the looks of it. Her fever spiked even higher few hours ago, causing restless dreams and hallucinations. Sometimes she is so far off that she mistakes him for her father. She cries for him, for her mom, too. She told him she was sorry about a hundred times, Dean can’t figure out what she meant. But damn, Y/N is putting up one hell of a fight. 

     ‘I’m not gonna die, I’m not gonna die, I’m not gonna die!’ 

     She keeps repeating it as if she’s trying to scare the reaper away. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him if one is already lurking in the corner of the room, like a vulture waiting for the wounded animal to die. The bastard can wait all he wants, Dean can still feel her chest rise and fall, he can feel her shiver. He can feel the intense heat coming from her clammy skin. She’s alive, and again Dean closes his eyes and rests the back of his head against the wood, letting another weary breath slip from his lips.

     God, please…. Please, let her win this fight. I’m begging you here, okay? I’m on my knees, I’ll do everything you ask. Please, just this one time…

     As if it’s a sign from above, the satellite phone rings. Startled, Dean opens his eyes and stares at the piece of equipment laying a few feet away from him. Y/N stirs for a moment, awakened by the beeping sound, but he is able to slip his arm from behind her back and gets up without disturbing her any further. In three big strides he’s next to the phone, picks it up and presses the green button.      “Sam?”      “Dean, hey.”      Relieved, the oldest Winchester places one hand on his hip and stares through the window into the dark night. It’s always good to hear his brother’s voice, especially in desperate times like these.  “Tell me you’ve got something.”      His words come out with a tremble in his voice he didn’t mean to be audible. But his brother heard it nonetheless. “I do. We got all the ingredients and Bobby is lifting the curse as we speak.”

     During the following silence, Dean can hear the soft chanting of his surrogate father in the background. A sigh of relief escapes his lips and he silently thanks the man upstairs. But then Sam’s tone dawns on him. The words weren’t cheery or excited, not relieved like you would expect from the bringer of good news. Before Dean can ask about the downside, his brother continues.      “How is she doing?” he wonders. “Did she get worse?”      Dean turns around to observe Y/N’s unconscious figure leaning against the wall. He swallows thickly when he notices her grey skin tone, the dark shadows under her eyes, her lips pale and dry. He has seen it before, on the faces of hunters and victims whenever the monsters got to them before the Winchesters could. It’s as if the skull illuminates through the skin, eyes sunken in their sockets slightly more. The face of death. Dean turns away, having trouble to accept what is right under his nose.      “She’s on the verge, Sammy,” he speaks softly, trying to stay strong.

     “There’s a rescue team on standby in the valley, but they won’t be able to make a move until dawn, and that is if the storm passes,” the youngest Winchester breaks to him, as gently as possible. “It might take until tomorrow evening before we can reach you.”      Dean gulps, witnessing the bad weather outside. The realisation that Mother Nature might be a major deal-breaker sinks in and Sam can hear a trace of panic when his brother objects.      “No.” Dean shakes his head stubbornly. “No, no, no. She needs help right now. What about a chopper?”      “They don’t fly during blizzards like these.”      “A snowmobile then,” he thinks out loud, pacing back and forth. “How long will it take if you hike up this fucking piece of rock?!”      “Even if we manage to reach you guys on foot, she will never survive the way back in her condition. It’s fifteen degrees outside, winds blowing over 70 miles per hour…”      “Well dammit, Sam! There must be something!”

     Dean turns around, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. He glances over at her for a second, making sure she is still asleep, but Y/N has barely moved since he picked up the phone. He knows his little brother heard the desperation in his voice. He knows how this looks, but he can’t accept it. He can’t allow it.      “Bobby contacted a witch he owes, maybe she’ll be able to tame the weather. But it’s gonna take a couple of hours at least.…”      “She doesn’t have that much time, Sam. I-I don’t think she’s.…”      The line cracks a little when silence is the only thing that remains between the brothers. Dean presses his trembling lips together as he fight the tears, but he’s unable to continue. He doesn’t need to finish his sentence for Sam to get where he’s going. It takes a while before either of them speaks.

     “Dean, listen to me...” Sam says eventually, his voice broken too, “you’ve got to tell her.”      The older brother stares outside the window, watching the wind taunt the snow, shooting it across the night sky like razors. The fact that Sam doesn’t tell him that it’s going to be just fine, but instead chooses to offer advice on how to handle the final hours, states the obvious.      “No. Maybe if I don’t, she’ll be able to keep throwing punches,” he refuses, the words coming out shaky.       “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Sam rephrases. “You need to tell her what we talked about in the car. You have to tell her that you’re in love with her.”

     Again, silence as Dean bites his lip, moving the speaker away from his mouth slightly to make sure Sam doesn’t pick up on his quivering breath.      “If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life,” he pressures. “She deserves to know the truth.”      “She’s dying, Sam. I don’t think she wants to listen to some dude pouring his heart out. This isn’t about me,” Dean responds somewhat agitated.      “You are not just ‘some dude’ to her, Dean! You have no idea, do you?”      He can hear his younger brother sigh on the other side before he continues.  “You’re not the only one I had long night conversations with. It’s a two way street, man.”

     Struck by realization, Dean stares into the storm, eyes wide, mouth slightly opened. Is Sam telling him that this profound feeling is mutual? Sure, a part of him hoped it was. But living a hunter’s life didn’t allow him to feel that way. Sometimes he picked up on something, but he always thought of it as harmless flirting. Besides, she knows him. She knows him better than any girl he has ever come across. She knows about his inability to cope with sorrow and loss. She saw him wreck the trunk of his own car with a crowbar after his father’s death. She knows about the drinking, the urge to hit the liquor cabinet every time life gets rough. She knows about the many, many women, a girl in every town they passed through. He put her through silent-treatment, he raged at her when she confronted him with his habit to stuff up all his pain, grief and anger. How could she possibly love him back?        “She’s in love with me?” he whispers in disbelief.      “Yeah, head over heels,” Sam acknowledges. “She couldn’t stop talking about it.”       Stunned, Dean runs his hand down his face, a mix of emotions knocking him over. If only he had known, maybe they could have made it work. Maybe, just maybe, they could have had something beautiful.       “It would mean the world to her, Dean. Tell her.”      He nods, even though Sam can’t see it.      “Alright, I will.”      A trace of a small smile forms on the corners of his mouth. He never knew he could feel so conflicted. Intense joy opposite an even greater grief. He only just became aware of her feelings for him and he’ll barely have time to act upon it.             “I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam continues, sadder than a moment ago. “I really hoped you wouldn’t have to live through this.”       Jessica Moore, the love of Sam’s life. She pops into Dean’s mind instantly. He met her once, when he broke into their home in the middle of the night to he pick up his little brother up and search for their father. The way Sam looked at her was almost foreign to him, Dean didn’t understand any of it. He sure does now. He also understands Sam’s desperate attempt to save her when Jess was burning on the ceiling. If anyone can relate to how defeated, hopeless and scared Dean feels right now, it’s his brother.      “I know,” he sighs, appreciating his sympathy.

     He turns away from the icy window to face her again. She stirs, restless by a fever-dream, but then she wakes up. Confused eyes scan the room for her companion. When they focus on him standing by the window, she settles. Not for long, though, because his facial aspects are almost out of character. Tears are shimmering on his bottom eyelashes, eyes filled with desperation. The always optimistic Dean Winchester, who counters every problem with either a joke or another way out, is looking at her as if the world is about to come crashing down. He still has the satellite phone pressed against his ear and she realizes it’s probably Sam on the other side. It’s then when it clicks in her mind and she understands what’s going on.      “Bad news, huh?” she presumes, voice raspy.

Dean opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. The single tear that was still clinging to his eyelid comes down his cheek. It’s impossible for him to lie to her as he intended. She would see right through the deceit anyway, having the ability to read him like a book. Dean bites his tongue to keep back the false promises, his jaw flexing in the process. Not trusting his voice, he nods as he swallows apprehensively. Without words he is able to explain exactly what is happening. He would have given anything to tell her otherwise.

     Y/N breaks her gaze away from him, her mouth slightly opened as it starts to sink in what this means: no one is coming to save her. Her breath hitches in her throat when she tries to breathe in deeply and she identifies it as panic immediately. ‘Calm down, slow breaths, you got this’, she tells herself.       In all fairness, she saw it coming. Even when Dean remained hopeful, she felt the life slipping through her fingers. Her body has been whispering it in her ear, so has her common sense.      “Is that Sam?” she ask softly.      Again Dean nods and she reaches out for the phone. He hands it to his partner, after which he turns away and runs his hand down his face, wiping away the tears.

     “Sammy, you there?”      Immediately, her voice calling out for his brother, calling him Sammy, causes Dean to tear up again. No one calls Sam that, the youngest Winchester would stubbornly correct those who dare to use that nickname. Except for Dean, except for her. That’s how much she’s like family to the brothers.      “Hey Y/N, it’s good to hear your voice,” Sam replies, having trouble keeping a steady tone. “Hanging in there?”       “You know me; not going down without a fight,” she forces a smile, wearing her mask well.       Dean has walked away slowly, his arms crossed in front of his chest. When he reaches the fireplace he leans against the warm stone shaft that runs up to the roof. He waits, listening, while trying to figure out how to deal the inevitable.        “...So there’s no way you can reach us in time?” she asks, after listening to Sam’s explanation.      “Y/N, I-I’m so sorry.…” Sam’s voice breaks.      She nods, her eyes watering. “It’s okay, Sam. You did everything you could.”      The one who is about to die, comforting the one who will live. It’s heartbreaking at least and Sam is touched by her attempt.      “Who’s gonna watch Breaking Bad with me, huh?” Sam smiles, taking a little trip down Memory Lane in order to lighten the mood.       “The big question is who’s gonna be my partner in crime in Vegas upstairs. I can’t count cards without my personal Einstein,” she chuckles through the sadness.       It remains quiet for a few long seconds as both search for things to say. It’s the youngest Winchester who speaks first. His message is as sincere as they come.      “I’m gonna miss you so, so much.”

     Sam doesn’t mean to, but his words hit so hard, that she crumbles. The curtain falls and so do the tears. Her eyes seek Dean, who is watching her having one last conversation with her best friend. He knows that the dam is about to break, so he approaches her slowly and crouches down to level with the girl he cares for so much. Even though he is having a hard time himself, he puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it lightly, letting her know he’s right there.      “I’ll miss you too,” she responds, her voice quavering. “Do me a favor, will ya? Take care of your brother for me?”      Dean looks up and away, anything but in her eyes, because he knows it will destroy him. The knot in his stomach tightens and fresh tears roll down his face anyway. Breathing gets a little tougher, a constraint in his chest builds up. God, this hurts.      “I will. You have my word,” Sam promises, unable to tie his emotions down.      “Bye, Sammy.”      “See you again, Y/N.”

     Despite the tears glistening in her eyes, she smiles. Y/N cherishes the moment, then lets the air flow from your mouth and presses the red button. Dean takes the phone from her hand and lays it on the floor next to him, then faces the woman who has his heart. Numb and drained she stares at the fireplace that is barely spreading light anymore. The final words she just exchanged with Sam forces her to face the facts. God, she’s scared. She doesn’t want to die, not after everything that she missed out on saying.      “I fucked up, Dean,” she whimpers.       “Hey, now why would you say that?” he wonders, trying to read her.       “I should’ve done things differently. I- I should’ve lived more, should’ve had more fun, worked less, maybe for once listened to that ticker in my chest,” she pauses, catching her breath when panic causes her to ramble. “It’s just that - that now my time is up, it becomes so clear how bad I fucked up. I just, I wish I….”

     The words flow out together with soft sobs until she can’t continue anymore, so he hushes her softly. Where in the past Dean would have hit the breaks the moment he felt the urge to show affection past the borders of a platonic relationship, he does the exact opposite this time. Dean takes her hand in his, letting their fingers entwine with each other. Somewhat surprised Y/N casts her gaze down at their hands, then up into Dean’s eyes. His touch sends a warm sensation up her arm and spreads through her entire body. God, does it feel wonderful. A warmth she didn’t think she’d feel again since the approach of the end has left her feeling stone cold. It’s only now that she notices how he leans into her, until his forehead rests against hers. A quivering sigh leaves her lips as she squeezes her eyes shut, moved by his tenderness.

     After some time, she whispers, “You know what?”        She creates a little distance, cupping his face and rubbing her thumb through his scruff. His pupils bounce between hers, taking in every feature. For a second her eyes light up, ignited by the connection between the two of them.      “Of all the people, dead or alive, that I could spend my final moments with, I’m glad it’s you,” she says, contented. “I want you to know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

     A smile spreads across Dean’s face, creating lines that tell exactly how much those words mean to him. She mirrors his expression as he reaches up to sweep her hair from her face, then traces her jawline with his fingertips. The look that he gives her is unlike any gaze he’s given her before, because this time, he doesn’t hold back. 

     Dean leans in, inching closer and about to do the one thing he has been longing for.      “I should have done this a long time ago.”      He kisses her, in the most loving, gentle and yet passionate way possibly imaginable. Only now he realizes how desperate he was for this moment, how long he waited. How long he kept torturing himself by convincing his heart with his mind that he could never have her, that she would never love him.

     Y/N lets it wash over her and returns this symbol of his love by pulling him deeper into the kiss with the little strength that she has left. Dean takes his sweet time to let her feel how much she means to him, his lips lingering on hers. Then he slowly breaks the connection, cherishing the moment as he rests his forehead against hers. His  eyes remain closed, but eventually he allows himself to gaze at the universe in her eyes. Overcome she stares back, witnessing a shade of green somewhere between hidden rainforest and soothing emerald. Suddenly, she feels it. An urge, the words on the tip of her tongue waiting for her mouth to open. Of course she’s scared of rejection, of the aftermath, but she doesn’t let it win. No, for once she says exactly what her heart tells her to say. Then the one man who she never expected to say it out loud, beats her to it.

     “I love you, y’know that?”      Stunned she stares at him, tears welling up again.      She didn’t know.      She hoped, she dreamed, but she didn’t know. God, she wishes she knew! She would have spent her time differently, she would have stayed by his side every minute, every second. She would have been more careful.  She would have told him how much she loves him so many times that maybe one day he might even start loving himself instead of remaining hateful for the wrongs and mistakes he made. Now might be a good time to let him know. Better late than never.       “I love you, too,” she tells him.

     The realization of being loved is a beautiful thing to witness. The moment of disbelief, then astonishment, followed by a gratitude that grows to a volume that causes his eyes to pour over. It’s astounding that despite the grim future, he is able to shed a few tears of happiness. She loves him, how amazing is that?      “We’ve got piss poor timing, though,” he remarks, making her chuckle.

     The comment was meant to be funny, to bring back that bright smile and those bright eyes once more. It works, but then it also states the awful truth. This story barely began and it’s already coming to an end. And so her smile fades as she comes back down from her cloud. The rush of her amazing moment with Dean was coursing through her body like ecstasy, but its effect fade fast. It’s beginning to sink in how exhausted she truly is, how much of an effort it is just to sit upright. Breathing is becoming a mission and the pain from her leg has spread through her entire body.      “I could use that drink right now,” she says, hinting at the bottle of moonshine.

     ‘Let's disinfect that wound first and get desperate later, okay?’ That was Dean’s response when she asked for the drink last night. That they’re desperate would be an understatement, so with a little reluctance he hands her the liquor.      Letting her drink the alcohol feels like giving up in a way, but he helps her take a sip nonetheless when she is unable to heave the bottle to her mouth on her own. Just a sip is all it takes to trigger a cough.      “It’s not Jack…” she admits. “But it’ll do.”      Dean sets the bottle down and scoots up against the wall next to her, slipping his arm behind her back. Tired, she rests her head against his chest after he pulls her close. His steady heartbeat drums against her ear as he caresses her shoulder. It feels so good to finally let her guard down around Dean, to be close to him without having to be afraid to show too much affection.

     “I don’t want this to end,” she whispers.      Dean nuzzles his nose in her hair, trying to comfort her with his touch. She can’t see, though, that he has closed his eyes, trying to prevent himself from falling apart.       “Me neither,” he responds, his voice soft. “We still have some time, right?”       She nods, weakened, although she can’t say for sure if ‘some time’ can be expressed in hours or minutes.

Oh, boy... I know, it hurts. If you wanna rant, cry or scream at me, go right ahead and hit up my inbox. Stay tuned for the finale soon!

Read the final part here!

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[noneya-business-me]

Aftershock

Kind of based off of a scene from Grey’s Anatomy that kind of stuck with me. 

Pairing: Kiribaku and kind of Iidabaku

Summary: Kirishima breaks up with Bakugou to which he decides to show him what he’s going to miss. 

“I can’t believe you actually convinced me to go to Mina’s stupid party.” Bakugou laughed, setting their food down on the table. 

“Yeah,” Kirishima replied quietly. 

“It should be fine though since you’re going to be there.” He added with a smile. 

“I think we should break up.” Kirishima stated with a grimace. 

The smile that Bakugou had on before fell slowly into hurt confusion. “What?” He asked softly.

They sat across from each other at the dining room table of the dorms eating a meal that Bakugou had made.

“I think we should break up.” Kirishima repeated, seeming more confident the second time. 

“Why?” Bakugou asked, the sadness clear in his voice, “I don’t understand.”

“I just don’t think this is going to work the way we wanted it to.” He replied, hesitantly looking down at his plate. 

“Did I do something?” Bakugou asked desperately, “What did I do?” 

Kirishima just stared at him with a sad expression. “Eiji please. Talk to me. Tell me how I can fix this.” 

“I’m sorry Bakugou.” He said, standing up from the table and walking out of the room leaving Bakugou to stare at him as he walked away. 

“What the fuck.” Bakugou sniffed, his head falling into his hands as she started to cry. 

He sucked in a stuttering breath as he picked up Kirishima’s plate and hurled it at the wall with a miserable yell. “You son of a bitch!” He yelled. 

He did the same with his own plate.

“Kacchan?”

Bakugou turned startled to the doorway of the kitchen. “What do you want?” He sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve, “did you come to laugh at me?”

Midoriya quickly shook his head in defence. “I would never do that!” He reasoned, “I just heard someone crying and I was worried.” 

Bakugou sniffed again, glancing at the mess around his feet before grabbing the broom from the closet. 

Midoriya watched him for a moment before stepping closer. “Is everything okay?” He asked softly. 

Bakugou stared at him for a second before returning his eyes to the ground as he swept up all the fragments from the plates. “Nothing is okay.” He hissed.

“What going on?” Midoriya pushed. 

Bakugou remained quiet as he shook the dustpan into the garbage. “Eiji broke up with me.” He replied, as tears rolled down his cheeks again, “and I don’t know why. He wouldn’t tell me.” 

“Kacchan, I’m sorry.” Midoriya said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

“Why? I had it coming.” Bakugou stated, “I’ve been an asshole my entire life, and when i finally found someone who liked me for the way I was it turned out he didn’t.”

He stared at Midoriya with narrowed eyes. “It’s exactly what I deserve.”

Midoriya stared at him in shock. “Kacchan, everyone deserves happiness.” He said. 

Bakugou stared back at him with equal shock before it seemed the dam broke completely. “I just don’t understand.” He cried, trying to wipe away the tears that fell from his eyes, “he didn’t say anything except ‘I’m sorry Bakugou’. He didn’t even call me by my name.” 

Midoriya suddenly grabbed him in a tight hug. “It’ll be okay Kacchan.” He soothed, “just breathe.”

Bakugou returned to his room shortly after, ignoring everyone until he stood in front of his door. He unlocked it slowly, and changed before curling up in his bed. He placed a hand on the wall that he shared with Kirishima with a forlorn expression. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt a lump grow in his throat again. A sob made its way past his lips again as he curled away from the wall to cry into his arms. 

He held his phone up to his ear, listening as the dial tone repeated itself a few times. “Hello?” His dad’s voice answered politely. 

“Hi dad.” Bakugou sniffed.

“Hi Kit Kat!” His dad replied overjoyed. “It’s been such a long time since you’ve called! How are you?”

“I really feel like shit right now.” He whispered. 

“What happened? What’s going on?” His dad said, suddenly alert. 

“Eijirou broke up with me.” He cried, “I want to go home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Your mother and I are away for work but we’ll be back back tomorrow night. Do want us to come and get you for the weekend?” He quickly offered. 

“Yeah, please.” He sniffed, unconsciously nodding his head. 

He could hear his dad muttering to his mom on the other side before her voice cut in. “KATSUKI RUIN THAT MOTHER FUCKERS LIFE!” She yelled, “MAKE. HIM. REGRET. IT.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?” He asked. 

“Your closet is packed with the best clothes and products that money can buy.” She replied, “you’re a model Katsuki. Show that asshole that he’s not even worthy of you.”

He sat up at her words, his eyes flicking to his closet before narrowing. “You’re a Bakugou, which means you’re at the top of the food chain.” She added.

“There’s a party tonight.” He stated, moving to his closet and throwing the doors open.

“Katsuki, don’t do anything crazy!” His father interjected.

“Turn that sadness into revenge!” His mother yelled. 

“If you’re going to do this Katsuki just do me a favour please.” His dad sighed.

“I won’t do anything crazy dad. I promise.” He replied.

“That’s not it Katsuki.” His dad stated, “punch Kirishima in the throat for me.” 

There was stunned silence before Mitsuki erupted in laughter. “I love you guys so much.” Bakugou said, pulling out some clothes from his closet, “I’ll call you later.” 

“Love you too!” They both called before he hung up.

‘Come to my room. We’re going to a party.’ He texted to Midoriya. 

It felt like 20 seconds before Midoriya was crashing into Bakugou’s dorm room. 

“What the hell do you mean a party?” He asked, concerned, “no offence but you were crying in the kitchen an hour ago.” 

“Yeah, but then I talked to my parents.” He replied. 

“Your mom?” He asked hesitantly. 

“Dad wants me to punch Kirishima in the throat for him.” 

“Well I guess we’re going to a party.” Midoriya sighed, “how do you even know he’s going to be there?”

“He’s going to be there.” He stated, laying the clothes on his bed and spraying them out, “it seems that he would break up with me but he would still be able to make his plans with his friends.”

“Can I borrow some clothes than?” Midoriya asked, “I’m not going to go as your plus one and show up looking like a wreck.”

Bakugou stared at him before shrugging with a snort. “This really has been the weirdest day.” He laughed, “knock yourself out.”

He grabbed a pair of black heeled boots and setting them with the clothes he already picked out. “I remember those.” Midoriya said, shuffling the hangers around, “you did a photoshoot with them right?” 

Bakugou nodded, as he started to style his hair. “Yeah, they were a gift. I think they’re my favourite.” 

“Who are they from?” 

“Look at the bottoms.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Midoriya deadpanned, lifting them to see red soles, “aren’t these like a thousand dollars?” 

“Only the best for me.” He chuckled, spraying hairspray in his hair. 

“Holy shit, these are incredible.” Midoriya gasped, pulling out a pair of dark red suede dress shoes.

“Really? Out of all the shoes in the closet you choose the ones that mostly resemble the ones you already have?” Bakugou sighed, “take them. They’re not really my style anyways.”

“You’re like Ellen.” 

“Shut up and get dressed.” 

“I don’t know what to wear though.” Midoriya whined. 

“I’ll help you Jesus.” Bakugou sighed, “Just let me finish my eyeliner.” 

Midoriya watched him for a second before crossing his arms. “Why me?” He asked.

“What do you mean?” Bakugou replied. 

“I mean you have friends that you’re closer to than me.” 

“You were the one that came a checked on me.” Bakugou replied, putting down his eyeliner pen and checking it over in his mirror, “I know there was people sitting in the common room who weren’t there when I left. I’m not stupid I know that I’m not the approachable but still I consider you a friend above a lot of people.”

He turned to look at him with a small smile, “and besides between you, me, and All Might I think we’re a lot closer than we have been in a long time.”

“Awwww Kacchan! You do care!” Midoriya cooed, grabbing him in a hug. 

“Okay, Jesus. We need to get you an outfit.” He wheezed, tapping him on the back.

He stepped back from him, glancing him over. “I hate to admit it, but you’re a lot bigger than me now.” He sighed, “you’re really starting to look like All Might.” 

He riffled to the back of his closet where he pulled out a garment box. “Try this on.” He said, holding out a black button down to him, “and these.”

He was soon standing in the black button down tucked into dark wash blue jeans. “Roll the sleeves up.” Bakugou added with a finger on his chin thoughtfully. 

He grabbed a gold collar chain, pinning it in place. “There that’s perfect.” He said, “now you look decent.”

“Just to clarify this isn’t some rebound things right?” Midoriya asked, smoothing out his shirt, “because I really don’t feel that way about you Kacchan.” 

“God no you idiot.” Bakugou replied, rolling his eyes, “this is like GBF thing. You’re supporting me in my ‘fuck you I’m hotter without you’ revenge plot.”

“When does Mina’s party start?” He asked, “shouldn’t you get dressed?”

“I’m doing that right now.” He replied, throwing off his clothes.

He wore a pair of fish net leggings under a pair of ripped light wash jeans cuffed at the ankle with the black heeled boots. On top he wore a loose long sleeved crop top. 

“Geez you really do have a tiny waist.” Midoriya gasped.

“Yeah, I know.” He chucked, “ready to go?”

“Yep!” Midoriya responded, as they wrapped an arm around each other, “let’s go kill this fucker.”

***

“The party started half an hour ago where is Bakugou?” Mina whined, “why isn’t he with you?” “I’ll tell you later Mina.” Kirishima replied, taking a drink from his cup. 

“What’s going on?” Kaminari asked, already slightly tipsy. “You don’t look too happy.”

“Look, I’ll tell you guys l-“

“Holy shit.” Sero said, hitting him in the shoulder and motioning to the door.

“What?” 

His eyes widened in dumb shock as Bakugou and Midoriya walked in together. “Holy crap he looks hot.” Mina gasped. 

“I’ve never seen those clothes before.” Kirishima muttered. 

“Hey Blastly what do you want to drink?” Mina asked running up to him. “It’s about time you showed up. Your boyfriends been here forever.” 

Midoriya flinched, “lets get drinks Kacchan.” He said nervously, “God knows we’ll need it.” 

Bakugou nodded as he lead him away but not before sending a meaningful stare at Kirishima. 

Kirishima downed another shot and slammed it down on the table. “what the fuck was that?” Kaminari asked. 

“Leave it alone for right now.” Kirishima growled with a frown.

The pair made their way over to Midoriya’s friend group. “Hey guys.” Midoriya greeted. 

They gave their greetings before focusing on Bakugou. “Whoa Bakugou you look amazing!” Uraraka said with a smile. 

“Thanks.”

*** 

Regardless of the sadness that Bakugou had been feeling he was actually having a lot of fun. Midoriya’s friends were actually pretty cool and fun to be around. “Honestly, it’s not the type of clothing I would ever imagine you to wear outside of school.” Iida commented. 

Bakugou shrugged taking another sip of his drink. “I really like fashion because of my parents.”

He leaned over into Midoriya who raised his arm to lay it across his shoulders. “I do a lot of modelling still and runways so I have a lot of presents from the designers.” 

“That’s crazy, I heard designers have really specific and crazy standards for models.” Uraraka commented. 

“I’m pretty lucky honestly. I was blessed with a freaking amazing body.” He scoffed.

The group snorted. “I’m serious.” He deadpanned. 

“It’s true.” Midoriya added, “show them the waist.” 

He promptly stood lifting the crop top up a little. “Holy shit how did I not notice that?” Uraraka asked, “It looks like someone could wrap their hands all the way around you.” 

“I bet the Prez could.” He shrugged, glancing at him.

Iida who was already multiple drinks in shrugged with a smirk. “I’ll try it if I have your consent Bakugou.” He said.

“I’d like to see you try.” Bakugou challenged, sending another glance to Kirishima who was watching them intently much to the confusion of the ‘Bakusquad’.

Iida stood up from the couch and stood in front of him already reaching out his hands. HIs hands were warm on him as they rested on either side of his waist and squeezed a bit before the tips of his fingers touched each other. “That was almost too easy.” Iida commented, staring in wonder.

“I told you,” Bakugou purred, “model body.” 

“He what?!” He suddenly heard from across the room before Midoriya was in front of them blocking a high heel from hitting him. 

“What the fuck?!” He yelled, as Kirishima stormed over to him with Mina, Kaminari, and Sero in tow. 

“Are you serious?!” Kirishima hissed, “First you come in all over Midoriya and then you have Iida’s hands all over you?” 

He motioned to the both of them. “One guy isn’t enough for you? Are you giving yourself out to everyone?” 

“Excuse me?” Bakugou snapped, “Are you serious? It’s none of your fucking business anyways.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Mina cut in, “why would you even show up?”

“Not only that but you break up with him and then come here dressed like some kind of slut.” Kaminari added. 

Bakugou froze as Midoriya and Iida took a step forward. “That’s highly uncalled for.” Iida growled.

“Where the hell do you get off saying that?” Midoriya added, gritting his teeth. 

The two stood taller and broader than most of the class. “What did you do Bakugou?” Sero taunted, “you break up with Kirishima and immediately run to these two or were you already going at it before?”

“Are. You. Fucked?!” Bakugou finally screamed, “are you seriously going to let them spew that bullshit at me?!”

His shouldered his way over in front of Kirishima. “Are you going to actually stand there while they continue to believe that I broke up with YOU?”

Kirishima’s enraged expression from before fell before his eyes stared at the ground. “Shit.” Mina whispered to the side of them. 

“You are such a fucking dick.” Bakugou hissed, “you don’t get to break up with me without even an explanation and then get your pack of assholes to call me a whore. That’s just fucking cruel.” 

The three looked at them in shock and guilt. “I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you.” Bakugou spat as a tear rolled down his cheek. 

“Katsuki I’m sorry.” Kirishima said still looking at the ground. 

“At least look at me when you’re saying that.” Bakugou hissed, sadness still evident in his expression. 

Kirishima looked up at him with extreme guilt. “Am I ever going to get an explanation?” Bakugou whispered.

Kirishima stayed silent. “Fine.” He snapped, turning away from the group. 

“Can I escort you back?” Iida asked hesitantly.

“That would be great.” Bakugou sighed with a small smile, wiping his face carefully. 

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Bakugou said, turning back around. “My dad wanted me to give you a present from him.” 

He stared at him for a second before punching him in the throat. 

[controloffandoms]

Underground + Bomb

Prompt: @flowerguyflowerpie

Hi :) can I put in a request for a macgyver one shot? 

+ Anonymous: hi, can i have one shot with Angus MacGyver?

Pairing: Macgyver x Reader

Words: 1349

Warnings: Just anything that can happen in Macgyver is a warning

Notes: I hope this is a little like something you wanted! Also, I do not speak Russian, I’m sorry if my tiny bit of Russian is wrong!

Russian Outpost

“You really shouldn’t hit that, (Y/N).”

“Well it doesn’t seem like your macgyvering is doing anything,” you responded.

“It will, but you have to stop hitting it or you’ll blow us up.”

“Well it’s either die by bomb or die by firing squad out there. I say take them with us if we have to go out.”

“When did you turn into Jack Dalton?”

“When I had to carry his unconscious body for seven miles in the Amazon while being chased by the goons you were suppose to take care of,” you glared at the man.

“I apologized even though I shouldn’t have had to,” the blond man responded.

You were currently on a mission to get Russian Underground intelligence to stop a terrorist attack on America. It had started out fine. You and Mac had acquired the information and uploaded it to the Phoenix servers where Riley was currently working on tracking where the attack would happen so that Bozer and Dalton could go stop it while you and Mac got out of Russia. Someone had tipped off the Russian Underground to your location and they were currently trying to kill you and Mac. They had even set off one of their archaic nuclear bombs that was slowly but surely counting down. You assumed that this was like the device that they had sent to America.

“Mac, I’m running out of bullets. Work faster,” you growled. You had lost comms with the team twenty minutes previously. It was just you and Mac.

“Убивать ero.” (kill them)

“Whatever you’re going to do, Macgyver, you need to do it now. We don’t have a lot of time left.” You peeked around the bomb and immediately moved back into your spot. “New plan, you work on this and I’ll buy you more time seeing as they’re closing in on us.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, (Y/N/N). I’m almost done,” Mac replied, sparing you a look.

“Gotta go, Genius or they’ll find us both. Just do this as quickly as possible.”

“(Y/N),” he hissed as you started sneaking around the warehouse.

Once you were sure that you were far enough away from Mac, you started making sound. “There,” one of them shouted. You climbed some of the crates, laying across them and making yourself as small as possible while you waited for the shooters to approach. You had three bullets left, they’d have to do. You waited until there were at least three men in the area. You shot the first one in the neck, barely blinking before doing the same to the other two. You jumped from your perch and took down another two by breaking their neck before the others caught up to what was going on.

Once the Underground fighters caught up with your actions, you were soon outnumbered and outgunned. Three men grabbed you, holding you tightly while another raised his gun to your head. You glared at him and continued to try and get out of the men's’ hands.

Just as you saw him tighten his finger on the trigger, he fell. Blood pooled on the floor where he landed. The distraction allowed you to break free of the men, taking them down one by one while beating the shit out of them and them beating the shit out of you. As the last man fell, Mac grabbed your arm and started to run towards an exit. “We have one minute before this place goes up. I was able to take the nuclear out of nuclear bomb, but it’s still going to explode.”

“Might as well set them back a while after this,” you both rushed out of the building. You reached the forest line before it all blue. Mack put his body over yours to shield you as much as possible. You pushed him off lightly once the explosion was over. “We need to move, Exfil will leave without us.”

Mac nodded, placing your arm around his shoulders to take pressure off your leg. “We’ll move faster if you’re not limping.”

When you had gotten to Exfil, you had been able to contact Matty to tell her of how it went. Soon enough, you were back in California. You walked into Matty’s office and smirked at Jack, “so while we were fighting off the Russian Underground, you were sitting here on your ass, Dalton?”

He gave you a smile and stood up, bringing you into a hug. “Actually, Bozer and I stopped a terrorist attack while you two were off dozing in Russia.” He released you from your hug and grabbed Mac next. “Y’all are okay, right?”

“Some bumps and bruises, no big deal,” you responded.

“But we will be going to medical after debrief,” Mac gave you a look.

“Glad to have you back safely, Mac and (Y/L/N).” Matty pulled up photos on her monitor, “from the information you sent back, we also got names of some of the hierarchy in the Russian Underground. We believe that they are orchestrating attacks all over the world. They have people in England, Italy, the U.S...the list is endless. We’ve also-”

An alarm went off and the monitor changed. “What does that mean,” Jack asked as the alarm stopped.

“It notifies me when one of my agents is in trouble,” Matty replied. She riffled through the information before a picture of you from the warehouse popped up.

“Why is my picture up there,” you asked softly.

“The Underground put a hit out on you,” Matty responded. You looked at the picture closer. It had been taken when you were distracting them while Mac took care of the bomb. “It seems they couldn’t get any pictures of Mac but gave out a general description.”

“How did they get a picture of you anyway,” Bozer asked.

“We were dealing with an armed nuclear bomb. We needed more time so I distracted the guards so Mac could do his thing. We must have not cut all of the cameras like we thought we did.” You approached the screen and went through all of the information. You gave out a short laugh, “they didn’t even get his hair color right.” You flipped to the next document. It was in Russian. “They would prefer me alive but the bounty can still be carried out if I’m dead. 400 Million dollars. They must be really angry about our op, Mac. I mean, 400 million for one person? That’s a little dramatic. Hey, I’m worth Ellen Degeneres’s net worth!”

“Why are you joking about this? This is serious (Y/N).”

You laughed, “why am I?” You laughed more. “I mean, someone just wants me dead and has put a worldwide bounty out on my head! What’s funnier than that? Oh, I know! The fact that I’m the only one that they’ll catch because they have no fucking idea who Macgyver is! All the crazy mercenaries are going to make appearances and I might actually die or be taken back to Russia. Why shouldn’t I laugh at this? It’s actually ironic. I thought Afghanistan was going to kill me. I thought these ops were going to kill me. In reality, a stupid picture taken of me is going to kill me. This is great guys,” you laughed. “I should just go ahead and take one of my broken ribs and shove it through my lung. You said it yourself, Matty, they have people everywhere.”

You stopped laughing and turned your back to the team. You placed a hand on your forehead and rubbed it. “Let’s just face it,” you sighed, “if they want me bad enough to pay someone 400 million for me dead or alive, they’ll get me. No matter what we do or what plan we come up with. They’ll get me and they’ll kill me.”

“That’s quitter talk, (Y/N). You’re going to be just fine. We’re not gonna let them take you,” Jack responded immediately.

“All we have to do is outsmart them,” Mac stated.

“It’s not going to be that easy.”

Macgyvers

@omni-bot

[stusbunker]

Known: Case of the Weak, Part C

A Supernatural DARK Fan-fiction

Featuring: Dean x Demon!Reader, Dean x Female Vessel OC, Sam, Alan OMC, Crowley, Abaddon

Summary: The Winchesters do what they do, Chloe is still a bit occupied, our reader waits for the bus and Abaddon meets her match. Not anything worth warning you about, unless you haven’t watched season 9. And if you haven’t what are you doing here?! xoxo Stu

Series Masterlist

Still in Rock Springs, WY

April 12, 2014

“Exorcizamus te-,” Sam’s voice rang out behind you, Dean’s face smugly twisting with vindication.

“Omnis immundus spiritus,” you continued, whispering in disbelief beneath your breath. That made Sam stutter briefly as your eyes went black against the chant. You reached out to stroke Dean’s face, but he ducked out of your reach, swatting your new vessel’s hairy arm away.

“omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursion infernalis adversarii,” Sam spoke louder as he stepped closer.

“Figures.” You sighed dramatically before squaring your feet, preparing for another vacancy. “Good luck and take care of our girl,” you said directly to Dean’s stunned face, ignoring Sam’s looming sneer. You jumped from Alan’s body and out through the bathroom window out to the limitless night sky.

*^*

“What the hell was that about?!” Dean shuttered against the uncomfortableness, catching the guy in front of him before he hit his head on small table. Alan’s eyes blazed open, panic and confusion escaping in gulps and off-putting moans. “Hey, man it’s going to be okay. We gotcha, just breathe.” Though still visibly annoyed Dean’s tone seemed to soothe the recently unpossessed man to functionally acceptable levels.

“What the hell, who was she?!” Alan glared at Dean like he had kicked a puppy.

“That was a demon,” Sam sat on the table top and began to give the spiel.

“Why was she was obsessed with you?! Her mind was filled with you doing all sorts of awful things, man.” Alan started to get scared again as he tried to reason with the memories of his possessor and the reality in front of him.

Dean cocked his head and met the accusations with a rueful squint. “Forget about that bitch, demons mess with your mind. Make you see things and worse. I think it’s time you go home, maybe get drunk and sleep this whole night off, like a nightmare, mhmm?”

Alan left on shaky feet, the world wider and darker than he had ever imagined. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean carefully moved CC back to their room, playing drunk themselves as to why they were carrying an unconscious woman into their hotel room. After securing the doors and windows, they were able to think about their next steps.

“Where’d you think it went?” Sam was watching Dean carefully, unsure of how much it was run-of-the-mill demonic manipulation and how much of the bravado was sincere.

“How the hell should I know? Did you see that, man, it tried to put the moves on me,” Dean scrunched his face before stepping back to let Sam check on CC himself.

“Yeah, pretty clingy, for a demon,” Sam acknowledged offhandedly as he checked CC’s eyes, not sure what he was looking for beyond reaction to light, which he hoped was normal. She was breathing and her heartbeat was steady. “Think Cas can swing a visit or are we really going to send you back in?”

Dean stared at Sam like he had something on his face. “What?”

“Yeah, that came out wrong.”

^*^

The road was endless and smooth, the slight breeze swaying the massive vehicle enough to keep up the illusion. The trucker played a slightly staticky station, humming along at random. She knew he would have had a GPS or the CB going if he was real, but he was just another ferryman. If everything was so obvious, why couldn’t she work out what decision she had to make? Chloe huffed, shifting against the seat belt as the heat waves rose before them in wilted warning.

“You know you ought to have just stayed home, don’t ya?”

She closed her eyes against the accusation, however gentle. “Nothing back there has to do with what’s happening to me now.”

“Well, there’s nothing out here for you that’s gonna help until you know the question.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you could just tell me and save the return trip?” CC didn’t want to be rude, it was a free ride and he had been nothing but kind. Even if he kept changing faces, Bobby, Rufus, Roger, Reynolds, Ellen, and now it was Pastor Jim. It was the faces that didn’t turn up that made her uneasy, her mother, the other elders, John even. The one face she had never seen that she longed for above all others.

“Can’t tell you something you already know.”

“If I wanted to answer a riddle, I would have found a bridge,” CC grumbled, rolling the heavy crank in the door, needing to stick her head in a wind tunnel for the sheer mindless pleasure for a few minutes. She let her eyes tear and her hair trail behind her to inevitable knots. The sun was warm, and the air dried the trails of saline as fast as they formed. The hiss of brakes and the sudden pull of gravity broke through her revelry. She fell suddenly against her chest strap. Confused, she looked back to see the driver’s side door hanging open. An ear-piercing screech followed by a jarring thud forced her to see what her guide was up to. The entire trailer had been unhinged, whatever load left precariously angled against the blacktop.

“What’d you do that for?!”

Geoff’s mischievous smile greeted her, his eyebrows waggling conspiratorially. He swung back into the seat and started the engine, spinning the unweighted cab deftly on its remaining ten wheels. “Better?”

“We’ll see.” Chloe held onto the handle above her head, a hopeful glimmer spread through her.

^*^

Dean didn’t know what he had expected, but the potion still tasted like the wrong end of a junkyard dog. He sucked it back as Sam watched with a look of sheer disgust on his dumb face. Dean inhaled the musty motel room air and coughed, the taste burned, spreading through his chest. He didn’t know why exactly, but he dropped down beside CC’s body, and threaded his hand through her cool fingers. Before he could finish listening to Sam’s instructions, Dean drifted away.

He awoke in the passenger seat of the Impala, parked at an awkward angle in a forgotten, yet familiar driveway.

He knew he was younger, by the easy roll of his shoulders and the old leather jacket stuck with sweat to his face, while bunched against the window. The Mark blatantly missing from his forearm as he brushed down his sleep-ruffled hair, he checked his face in the sideview mirror. For a second, he thought he saw a gangly Sam in the backseat, but as soon as he turned around, he realized he was alone. Good, Sammy should be watching out for them in case the demon returned, not jumping headfirst into CC’s head. He felt bad enough about doing it without her knowledge, even if invading privacy was par for the course of desperate times.

Dean climbed out of the car, closing the door with a resounding clunk. He walked up to the old cast iron framed porch. The inside door swung open before Dean could knock, his hand held precariously in the air as he breathed out his greeting, “Uh, hi.”

“Go home, Dean.” Old Man Collins was exactly like he was the last time Dean saw him, in a word, dead. The entire right side of his face was peeled off, he remembered the chunks the wendigo had slashed from the ancient hunter before they had found him. Luckily for the situation at hand, his clothing was obscuring the more grotesque wounds. “This isn’t about you, boy.”

“Sir, I, uh,” Dean opened the screen door and met Chloe’s grandfather’s deep-set eyes. “Look, I need to find her, she got possessed on my watch and I need to make sure she is okay. I fucked up, bad and its on me to fix it.”

“Save your guilty sob story, son. That thing had its sights on you before CC showed up, but it’s not why Chloe’s gone. Not really.”

Dean’s mouth froze open, brow pinched in confusion. “Okay? But I need to know that CC is going to wake up.”

“She’ll live.”

“Forgive me, but that’s not too reassuring.”

The old man walked away, back into the house and settled in the recliner near the half wall between the living room and the kitchen. Dean followed, looking around as if someone else would appear at any moment. “Sit down, since you can’t bother to listen to reason, at least relax.”

The television was on, but the sound was off, an outdoor channel with fly fishing tips flickered on the old console set. They sat in uncomfortable silence before Dean stood suddenly. “Do you know when she’ll be back or, do I need to hop in the car and track her down?”

“She’s on her way now, but you’re going to leave before she gets here. She has enough things she needs to answer to without you mucking it up.”

“But I can help.”

The old Cheyenne man stood to size up the spunky upstart hunter. “You really can’t. You know I’m not Old Man Collins, right?”

Dean paused, nodding slowly. “You’re part of Chloe’s subconscious.”

“Yeah, the logical, bullshit free part. So, take that shiny black car and get. Before I start listing the reasons why you are no longer welcome in my home.”

“But, Cease and me–,” Dean gestured awkwardly then fumbled for words, the more he thought and spoke, the more he realized the apparition before him was right. Amused acknowledgement sparkled in the man’s dark eyes as Dean’s sheepishness stilled his tongue. “Is she going to wake up?

“That’s up to her, but she’ll live, neither Hell nor Holy water can snuff her out so easily.”

The walls shook and the sun set in a blaze as if in time-lapse, the dark room groaned as Dean caught himself on a lamp stand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not for you to know. Now, go. She can’t face what’s in the woods until you’re gone.” Dean felt lightheaded, he struggled to hold himself upright. Old Man Collins approached him, patting him firmly on the back. “Goodbye, Dean.”

“No, wait, Mr. Collins, please–,” Dean sat up, wrenching CC’s arm up as he turned to face the dream in which he was no longer welcome.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice and face were suddenly close as Dean squinted into the dim morning light.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Dean groaned, untangling CC’s hand from his before kicking his legs off the side of the bed.

“What happened?”

“I got kicked out. Couldn’t even get to her.”

“By whom?”

“Her grandad.” Dean shrugged. “Well, the stubborn ass part of her brain that showed itself as her grandad.”

“Huh.” Sam chewed on the information.

“Yeah, well, good news? She’s fine, physically, apparently. So, what’d you say we head home? Get her set up in safety while we wait for her to come to?”

Sam nodded, watching Dean’s disappointment bury itself behind action and planning. They carefully laid her in the backseat, consequently, it was still early enough for them not to draw any concern from other guests. Sam paid for both rooms, while Dean stopped to gas up her truck. Simple, easy tasks, busy work to be done as the Mark made its renewed presence known, tingling along his skin.

^*^

Denver, CO

Slipping back into your dissipated form was overwhelming, especially as you traveled farther away. You tested your limits, spiraling as fast as you could go, paying little mind to direction or destination. Experiencing the world as a raging cloud of damnation meant you sensed emotions and actions instead of seeing them. You bee-lined toward a city, with vessels to spare and fear and anger pulling you from your own thoughts. Thoughts of the ultimate rejection, and the look on Dean’s face as he let Sam’s words sweep you into the dust bin. Like you were nothing, or nothing more than the kill of the week.

If you had a gut, it would have rolled with your swift descent.

In the formlessness, with the vast sea of humans littered beneath you, every molecule of your being seemed to hum. Emotions and justifications rushing through your thoughts as you streaked against the heavy spring air. You were bombarded with their feelings like sound vibrations, rattling from an untested speaker system. When you found a corner where a pair of people sat, drenched in fear and lust, you landed at last.

The man was buzzed, but you weren’t sure if it was the gin or the pain killers for his back that were making everything fuzzy. They were on a bench, waiting for a bus. The African American woman sitting on the furthest edge away from the portly white man, who had clearly been making her uncomfortable. Once you got your bearings, you turned to her and smiled. “Don’t worry, Miss, he’s going to be out of commission for a while.”

She muffled a shriek and called on her savior as you stood and sauntered down the street.

*^*

May 6, 2014

Humboldt Hotel

Cleveland, OH

Dean’s body pulsed with purpose, defined by the certainty of his mission and its now tangible completion. If he could just keep Sam from getting in the way; it would be clean and quick. God help him, Dean’s brother always questioned direct orders; Dean tried to come off as practical, cautious. Meanwhile he was jonesing for the fight. The elevator seemed to take forever, the Penthouse unrestricted to even the likes of him, which set his hunter’s logic from four to twelve in the time it took for him to breach the top floor.

Crowley was scared, but he wasn’t stupid. The minion went down easy, almost too fast for him to enjoy it. Before Dean could continue his search, she was there. The Ginger Bitch herself, red lipped and gloating. He couldn’t wait to finish this, and the tug of a not-so-distant strand of memory told him that even this demon couldn’t hold him for long. The lethal combination of the Mark and the Blade only increased his confidence. The Knight that would be Queen was his to finish, if he could just get his ass off of this wall.

Abaddon wasn’t fucking around either, she knew he was her biggest threat despite her haughty sass. She didn’t even hesitate to throw everything she had at him. As the First Blade slipped through his fingers, Dean’s resolve stuttered, but the pull from the Mark centered him, honing the rage and blood lust to draw the weapon back into his grasp. At the moment of reconnection, Dean knew she had reached the bottom of the barrel, her powers no longer strong enough to contain him.

He didn’t register Sam’s entrance, or Crowley’s astonishment, he narrowed his eyes and stalked toward his prey. It was almost sad how easy it was now, the mangled bone slicing into her voluptuous vessel, impossibly smooth and satisfying. Once he had a taste, he needed more. Abaddon’s cries a siren’s call. Dean hacked into the demon, even as the flashes of her essence faded. The blood smattering his face and the floor, it’s warmth delicious, but the hunger never abated. It was only Sam’s voice breaking through the fog that got Dean to look beyond the corpse before him and his need to destroy.

The tunnel vision righted, and Dean was himself, or the new version of himself, the marked and armed version. Letting Crowley talk his way out of their demands, Dean knew that his list of potential kills held few as deserving as the King of Hell. But a Winchester didn’t back out on a deal and Crowley had done right by them, until CC’s face floated through his thoughts. He never even asked whose stooge had made a vegetable of her. Unfounded retaliation sounded perfectly acceptable now. The calm returned, because Dean would find the demon and he would take his time.

Tags: @mogaruke @dontshootmespence @mrswhozeewhatsis@smi727@sassykayla255@supernaturalboi@dumbthotticus@eve05glee@veroinnumera@spn-dean-and-sam-winchester@fanfictionrecommendations-com@soullesscollection-world 

Next Chapter: Angels are Assholes

[jennaschererwrites]

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.

[karenninaaa]

Chapter 1- The Clash of the Dead and the Living

Read it on ffn

PART I

PUNISHMENT

I - WILL

When Will Solace had received a call from Lou Ellen, his friend and who also happened to be the on-duty nurse at the emergency room, he had a sudden ominous feeling that he wasn't going home any time soon that morning. Call it, doctor's instincts, but years of working at Jupiter Half blood Hospital polished the said instincts that it rarely failed him. So, Will swiped his phone screen to answer the call. He was staring at the window in front of him as he held his phone against his ear. His light blue eyes were paler from the sunlight seeping through the window.

"Hello, Lou-"

But Lou beat him on the other line, her voice was rushed. "I'm so sorry. I know that your duty's finished and you're about to go home but we could really use a cardiothoracic surgeon right now. There's an incoming patient with multiple gunshot wounds and one bullet wound in the chest."

"All right, I'm coming." Will said. See, doctor's instincts scored points again early in the morning.

"You're the best, Will. You're teaming up with Dr. Fletcher on this one. Patient's ETA is five minutes."

"Yeah, sure, I'll be waiting in the operating room." Then Will hang up.

Will looked down and stared longingly at the backpack on the table waiting for him to be carried back at home. He hadn't been home in two days and he missed his own bed back at his apartment. But of course, it was duty's call and it meant he had to set aside his own pleasure and comfort for the sake of others. It was something he had accepted long before he embraced this job. There were people who were relying on him to live and it's not like Will could deny them of that.

So, Will found himself standing in front of a full body length mirror in the corner of the on-call room. The room was mostly littered with empty packs of Chinese takeouts and bottles of energy drinks. The bunk bed, that was situated by the wall, almost turned into a coat rack with doctors' white lab coats hanging on its corners. A shelf was pushed by the other side of the wall. It was loaded with several thick medical books and some were haphazardly shoved in it. The room was a whirlwind of a mess than Will would have liked but that room was the closest place he could call home. He shoved his tanned arms inside the sleeves of his long white lab coat. He tugged the collar of the coat for final adjustment. Underneath the white coat, was his light blue surgeon's scrub shirt. He combed his tousled blond hair with his fingers and briefly stared at his reflection. There were bags under his eyes and he looked like he badly needed to crash a bed and rest.

Which, he really needed.

But again, duty's call.

So, Will smiled, his dimples showing up.

This was his life most of the time, always tired and occasionally sleeps but hey he didn't say that he didn't love his job.

Will entered the operating room with a mask on his face and scrub hat covering his mop of blond hair. A nurse came to him and assisted him in wearing protective clothing and another nurse was helping him wear a pair of latex gloves. Will was gazing at the patient unconscious on the bed and hooked to several medical machines.

"You've seen his CT scan results?" Dr. Lee Fletcher came up to Will who was also geared in the same attire as the blond doctor. "Jesus, I don't know how he's still alive-"

"And let's be thankful, that he is." Will strode towards the patient. "I'll go first, it was just an extraction of a bullet that stopped at the pericardium, it should only take a minute." He reached the side of the bed.

"Of course," Fletcher nodded in awe at Will as he stood on the other side of the bed "It will probably just take a minute for you and hours for me since I have to extract bullet wounds around the pancreas, small intestine, and kidney."

"Good luck," Will looked up at Fletcher.

And so, the surgery began when Will sliced up the chest open with his scalpel.

"Suction," Will ordered to Lou. And the blond continued to work as his hand moved skillfully on the chest cavity, hands that knew what to touch inside a human chest and what instrument to pick to aid him. It was more of muscle memory, from years of practice and training.

True to his words, Will had managed to extract the bullet wound in a minute, as he pulled out the tweezers with a bullet from the opened chest. Will dropped the bullet in the metal plate. The bullet made a clinking sound as metal hit another metal.

"Gosh, I felt like, it only lasted thirty seconds," Fletcher commented, still in awe.

"Don't, just don't make it sound easy. It made me feel queasy. Nothing is easy when it comes to surgery." Will had started to stitch up the perforated heart. His gloved hands were expertly moving swiftly with every twist and knot he was making with the nylon thread.

"Cut," Will ordered again, and Lou cut the thread with a pair of scissors.

Will gazed up once again at Fletcher, "Now, he's all yours-"

Suddenly the heart monitor of the said patient beeped. A flat line was indicated on the screen that alerted them.

"He is in cardiac arrest!" Lou Ellen reported.

"See, I told you nothing is easy in surgery," Will muttered and picked up the two metal spoon-like equipment with wires attached at its end, the internal paddles of a defibrillator.

"Charge to 20 Joules," Will ordered.

He put the paddles at either side of the heart. "Clear,"

Will looked at the heart monitor as he pulled out the paddles from the heart, still flatline.

"Charge to 60 J," Will said again.

"Clear," He repeated the process.

There was still no response.

Suddenly in the corner of the operating room, a guy clad in all black appeared from a wisp of black smoke. Will noticed him immediately and his eyes widen. He knew the guy in black very well, as a guy like him always appeared every time there's someone who's in the brink of dying. He's a death angel with a name of Nico di Angelo. Not everyone could see a death angel but Will was one of the few.

"No!" Will growled underneath his mask.

"He's mine, Solace." Nico gritted his teeth.

"I said no," Will whispered. He knew that Nico heard him.

Will set aside the paddles and started massaging the heart.

"Just give him up!" Nico hissed.

"No, he still has a chance," Will said and smirked. Suddenly, he glowed in a golden light invisible to everyone else but to Nico.

"No! You little-" Nico cursed.

Meanwhile, Will continued to massage the heart while repeating the mantra in his head. You will live. Seconds after, the heartbeat of the patient went back. The lines on the monitor rose and fell. And as Will looked down at the heart, it was truly beating back.

Will smiled in relief as the glow around him faded. He gave Nico a wink.

Nico just continued to glare at him. He dissolved in the air, leaving a trail of black smoke behind.

It was already afternoon when the operation had successfully ended and all the bullets had been removed from the patient, whose name was Percy Jackson. Will was exhausted, the kind of I-am-going-to-drop-on-the-floor-any-second-by-now exhausted. It didn't help that he used the glowing trick that he could barely make a walk back to the on-call room and get his things so he could go home.

Will discovered his glowing trick when he was nine and when he accidentally healed a pet dog. And ever since that day, he also had started to see death angels from time to time. Witnessing those death angels took the souls of those dead people, was the reason why he became a doctor. He wanted to save lives and prevented the sorrows of those people because their love once died.

Where this power came from, Will had no idea. But it doesn't matter to him, as long as he was able to save people with his power. Using that power too, he created some enemies from the Dead. Because every time Will glowed it means no soul for the death angels. One of those enemies was Nico di Angelo.

Will leaned on the wall to rest for a bit. He closed his eyes. He was so tempted to sleep on the floor right there.

Then, he opened his eyes and stood straighter. He summoned last of his strength to make a trip back to the on-call room. He turned to walk but paused when he saw Nico di Angelo striding towards his direction. From years of knowing the death angel, Will hardly jumped out of his skin in surprise every time Nico would appear out of nowhere.

Since there were no other people in the hallway, Will spoke raising an eyebrow. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes, I have a tight schedule since I wasn't able to reach my quota because of meddling people like someone I know," Nico said as he continued to walk towards him, he had this hard look on his face.

Will shrugged. "Couldn't help it. It's my job."

"But you're cheating!" Nico hissed stopping in front of Will. "No normal doctor would be able to save Perseus Jackson from his demise. You are always interfering with the course of death!"

"He responded to my power that means he can be saved and it's not my fault if I have this glowing trick, I am just putting it into use." Will shrugged again and then he sighed. "And besides you already know the cycle of all these things, shouldn't you at least get used to it?"

"What? Get used to having overtime in the Underworld just because you happened?" Nico spat.

Will was going to throw some witty remark when his vision suddenly tilted and he fell forward.

"What in Hades Solace?!" Nico said in outburst holding both of Will's shoulder preventing the doctor from kissing the floor.

"Sorry about that, lack of sleep and the glowing trick was not a good combination." Will tried to steady himself. Nico immediately released him.

"Why do you keep on using that power when you know it's dangerous? When you drained yourself, your soul is possibly the next one I need to take to the Underworld." Nico said.

Despite Will's growing vertigo, he couldn't help but smile while rubbing his temple "Did I detect some concern from an enemy?"

"Concern?!" Nico looked scandalized. "We death angels don't feel human emotions. Nothing beats here." He pointed at his chest.

Will frowned at his statement. "Pity. Human emotions are quite fascinating if you asked me."

"We don't need it. Emotions make one person pathetic." Nico said

"Another Pity." This time Will put his hands on the front pockets of his long white coat.

"I don't care." Nico walked passed him. "You need a rest."

Will looked back at the retreating figure of the death angel. Most of the time, he was annoyed at Nico because he was always grumpy and angry and cold-hearted. But there were teeny-tiny moments that Will couldn't help but feel amused every time Nico was going to throw random things that were out of his character, like throwing a you-need-a-rest line. It was a mere statement from Nico's own observation rather than a show of sympathy or concern but still...

So, there were also times that Will would question if death angels didn't really have emotions….

[emptywithout]

Bloodlust (part 2)

Garth’s House

Summary: Dean and Y/N arrive at Garth’s house and find an injured Sam. He seems to be ok, but the salt-and-burn was not what he thought. There is a large Vamp’s nest he accidentally fell into. Dean and Y/N agree to join Garth to finish the hunt While Sam recovers. Tragedy strikes.

Warnings: injuries, blood (not graphic)

Word Count: 1204

written for @tatertot1097

“Dudes. You’re here. Thank god,” Garth swung the door wide, inviting them in. Dean pushed past him.

“Where’s my brother?” Dean demanded.

“Cool your jets, Dean,” Garth sighed. “He’s in here.” Garth led them to a small sitting room off the front entryway.

“Whoa.” Y/N stopped in the doorway, taking in the sight. The entire room was decorated in frogs. There were frog posters, frog statues, frog planters. There was even an aquarium with live frogs in it. It was…well, it was very Garth.

Dean seemed not to notice the tremendous amount of frog overload and headed directly for Sam, who was laying on the couch. He was unconscious, his head wrapped neatly in a bandage. His right arm was wrapped up as well. Garth had put a frog blanket over him. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Dean swallowed.

“Garth, was he…” “No! Thank god I was there, Dean. I ganked that smarmy vamp before he could take a chunk out of ole Sammy here.” He grinned, quite proud of himself.

“What?” Dean turned to Garth.  Y/N stifled a giggle.

“What? He ain’t been bit, alright? Geez, you could at least thank a guy for saving his brother.” Garth looked hurt, and turned to sit in a green chair with frogs carved into the arm rests.

Dean sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah Garth, thank you for saving Sam. Now, what’s wrong with him? He unconscious or what?”

Garth nodded, wiping away fake tears. “Yeah. He got knocked out when the vamp threw him across the room. He has a big gash on his head and his arm is messed up. But I patched him up. He’s gonna be fine.”

“Dds you treat his wound? Did you disinfect?”

“I’m not an idjit, Dean.” Garth’s words were bitter.

Dean sighed. “No Garth, you aren’t. You’re a very – a very good hunter. Thank you for being there to help Sam and patch him up.” Garth’s expression changed from hurt to proud. He stood up excitedly.

“Well, at least there’s not bad news on our anniversary,” said Y/N softly. She was looking for a place to sit that wasn’t covered in green or frog something. There wasn’t anywhere, so she just knelt in front of Sam, tucking a lock of stray hair behind his ear.

“It’s your anniversary? Oh shit, Dean, I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault vampires have bad timing,” Dean shrugged, kneeling beside Y/N. “He okay?” Y/N nodded. “Yeah, I think so. His breathing is fairly even. His bandages look good.” She turned to Garth and smiled. “You did great, Garth. Nice job with patching him up.” Gath smiled sheepishly.

“I do my best,” he said. Then his face turned dark and serious. “But guys, there’s bad news.”

“Bad news? What bad news? I thought you said he was fine?” Dean stood, turning angrily to Garth. Y/N stood too, her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised.

Garth put his hands up. “Not with Sammy, geez, Dean.”

“It’s Sam, Garth.” All heads turned to Sam, who was slowly sitting up, putting a hand to his head.

“Hey now, just relax, Sam. Sit back. You ok?” Y/N asked, kneeling again, putting her hand on his knee.

Sam winced, feeling the bandage wrapped around his head. “Yeah, I think so.” He looked up at Garth. “You ok, man? You totally ran in there like a crazy man, yelling your head off. You injured?”

Garth shook his head. “Just doing what I do best, Sammy. Uh, Sam.” He smiled and crooked his left foot across his right.

“Did you…did you carry me out of there? Did you patch me up?” Garth nodded, and flexed his arms.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up, as did Y/N’s” “You? Lifted Sam?” asked Dean incredulously. Garth just smiled.

“Hmm…Nice work, Garth.” Sam grabbed his wounded arm, holding it close to his body. “What about the…”

“Ganked him Sam. But…just the one. The others took off when they saw my mad skills.” Sam turned away so he could hide his smile.

“Wait, the others? What happened to this being a simple salt and burn, huh?” Y/N looked from Sam to Garth and back again, her concern growing.

Sam and Garth looked at each other. Sam nodded. Garth continued.

“We thought it was. Sam came out here and we ended up on the same case. We thought it was just a haunting. Well it was, but after we torched the corpse, we were ambushed. Turns out the vamps were using the ghost to scare people towards them for their own late night snacking.”

Dean and Y/N looked at each other.

“Monsters working together?” Y/N asked. “That’s unusual.”

“Yeah, I don’t think the ghost knew about it. But anyway. There’s a nest. We gotta stay and take care of it, Dean,” Sam said, trying to sit up without wincing.

Dean let out a short laugh. “You ain’t doing shit, brother. Y/N and I can handle it.”

‘And Garth.” Said Garth.

Dean clenched his teeth and rolled his eyes, but only Sam saw it. “Yes. And Garth.” Garth stood up and headed for the doorway.

“I’m going to clean off my machete.” Garth almost skipped out of the room.

“Hey Garth?”

“Yeah?” he stopped, poking his head in the doorway.          

“Thanks for saving Sam.” Dean’s voice was sincere.

Garth gave a thumbs up and walked out.

That’s when Dean seemed to notice the room.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, his hands going up questioningly. “Frogs?”

Y/N laughed. Sam smiled.

“Frogs are awesome!” came a voice from the other room.

“Guess we’re going vamp hunting. Happy anniversary babe.” Dean wrapped his arms around Y/N and pulled her close, kissing her deeply. They finally broke apart when Sam cleared his throat.

“I love you, Y/N.”

“Love you too, Dean.”

Garth jumped back into the room, literally jumped, startling everyone. He held his machete up, a huge grin on his face. “Let’s go gank some evil sons of bitches.”

** NINE HOURS LATER **

Sam was restless. He hadn’t heard anything from anyone since they left. He was sitting up now, feeling better, but still woozy. He tried to pace, but standing made his head throb, so he just sat down, staring at his cell phone.

That’s when the door burst open.

Dean and Garth ran in, Y/N limp in Dean’s arms. Dean had tears streaming down his cheeks. Garth still clutched his machete, now dripping with blood. So was Y/N’s face and neck.

“Dean, fuck! What happened! Y/N?” Sam stood quickly. Too quickly. Losing his balance, he fell backwards on the couch, grabbing his head. Dead did not answer. He just put Y/N on the floor, his fists clenched. He was nearly hyperventilating. Sam slipped off the couch, crawling over to Y/N. She was unresponsive.

“Dean? Dean! What happened?” Dean didn’t even look up. Sam turned to Garth. “Garth! What…is she ok? What happened?” He raised his voice, shaking now. Sam’s fear was growing.

Garth’s voice was calm. Too calm. “Vamp’s nest has been cleared Sam. But…Y/N. She’s been bit.”

Sam sank to the floor. “No.”

Dean lifted his head and screamed louder than Sam had ever heard him scream. It was a scream filled with pain.

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Bloodlust: @tatertot1097

[hazbinextgeneration]

Lab Partners 3

WARNING: Fear of touch and panic attack mentioned It's ok. Just breath in and out. Just like Charlie taught you. In. Out. In. Out. There ya go, ol boy. Just keep your nerves down and don't panic. "You don't seem to be enjoying yourself." He froze before daring to make eye contact with the much taller demon sitting across from him. The red eyes gave him a curious look as he held the tea cup to his mouth. The fish demon was nervously shaking and smiling under that gaze. The contants of his own cup threatening to spill out from his shaking. "W-Who me? N-N-No! No. I-I'm doing just f-fine. Hehe. Um...W-What tea is this?" She smiled wider while trying to change the subject off himself. ".....Earl grey. Can never go wrong with the classics I say. Now, about that little favor you still owe me.~" Baxter choked on his drink and almost dropped the cup he was holding. He put his cup down forcefully and pounded on his chest to help get the drink down his throat. Alastor watched with a calm face as he got himself together and looked up to him in horror. "B-B-But, I thought you j-just wanted t-t-to talk."  "And I do. But you seem very nervous. Tell me, do you really fear me like everyone else?" That made the fish demon pause and meet his face with scared red eyes. Alastor slowly brought his teacup down from his mouth when Baxter didn't respond and met his eyes evenly.  "I see....If it's any comfort, I'm not about to snap and kill you. Oh, no no no. It would be very rude to shred apart guests, especially when I enjoy their company." He gave a wide mouthed grin...but it only seemed to put Baxter more on edge. "Tell me. How's those experiments coming along? You must be quite busy." "...They're coming along fine." He made to reach for his cup again never loosing eye contact. "I-I'm not really done yet." "Well it takes quite a while to do such things. While not a science man myself, I can understand many effects on one's body." Baxter flinched at that and Alastor quickly noticed. "But I promise I won't be harming anyone in the hotel anytime soon. I did promise Charlie and a true demon always keeps their promises."  Baxter nodded before looking down at his own cup, avoiding eye contact. This was not where he wanted to be right now. For f*cks sake! ! This was THE RADIO DEMON sitting across from him right now! Cannibal killer tyrant of hell with more power than any normal demon in the nine circles! And he just wanted to 'talk' in private? Yeah right. His mind briefly went back to Angel's comment about how Al wanted to 'get to know him' and how Al grabbed his cheek back in the lab, but quickly pushed those thoughts aside. He was probably look for a seafood dish and wanted to get him alone and drop his guard. Well, lucky for him his guard was not easily pushed awa- He suddenly froze.  "Baxter, lad. You look lost in that head of yours. What seems to be the problem?'' He didn't answer. There was a hand on his shoulder. He didn't want it there. He didn't want that touch. He hated being touched. It reminded him too much of those incidents. His cup dropped to the floor and shattered getting glass and tea everywhere. Alastor blinked in slight surprise at that before he felt Baxter shaking more under his hand. His smile faded slightly as he cocked his head to the side in confusion.  "Baxter. Are you al-?" SMACK! A force quickly made his hand get off him and he stood up so quickly the entire tea set on the table went over or jingled. The smaller blue demon was now standing a few feet away from him with a look he could only describe as pure horror looking at him. His hand wasn't hurt, far from it. Baxter wasn't physically strong enough to hurt Nifty let alone him. But it did catch him completely off guard as he slowly looked at his hand before back at Baxter. "....N-N-N-No. NO!," he forced out. "No what, Lad? If you don't want me to grab your shoulder, you could have said so-" "N-No! I mean no t-to this!" He threw his arms out gesturing towards the little set up and chairs. "ALL of this!" "....I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'this'? Are you not a fan of the tea brand? That can be easily fixed-" "No! I-I'm not s-stupid, Alastor! I-I'm not going to be fooled by y-your t-t-tea parties and 'talks'!" Tears of fear were threatening to fall now. "I-I can't take t-this! I-I won't be eaten by anyone y-you hear me! I'd rather be forced into one of A-Angel's l-lewd chats!" An eerily calm silence filled the room other than Baxter's heavy breathing. Alastor continued to stare silently at him before silently standing up and staring down the smaller demon. At this point, he instantly regretted his words and his eyes got small at the shadow looming over him. Whelp! He had a decent run in the realm of the undead. Maybe there would be someone else to at least finish his work and he could get credit for it. Maybe he would taste bad and he would dismember him so much- "Do you really think so lowly of me?," he asked in a calm but strange tone. Even for Alastor, "Even though I haven't even threatened you in the slightest? I think I made my intentions clear." He eyed the tea set and the mess Baxter made with a strange look in his eyes. "This is what Mimzy said men usually did when they expressed interest in her." He froze. ".....I-Interest? W-Wha- ....I-I-I don't taste good I swear!" He immediately went into begging mode. A common survival tactic. "P-Please! I-I-" "I am NOT going to eat any part of you," he interrupted his ramble, "I made that clear a while. I invited you here to express my infatuation towards you. Though maybe I should have asked Charlie instead of Mimzy for advice." "....I-...Infatuation?" Infatuation? As in...romantic feelings for another person? Or just interest in getting to know him better? A new fear made itself present when he realized his outburst may have just sealed his faint in getting eaten, or cursed if he was extremely lucky. His breathing got quicker and his mind fuzzed as he felt another panic attack coming. He wheezed and clutched at his chest, leaning onto the chair he was sitting in for support. Alastor must've noticed because he said something to him he couldn't make out. His body swayed slightly and black began to creep towards his vision. All he could see as he fell over was a red blur grabbing towards him before he fell unconscious. 

Contest prize for @ellen-jello   All mentioned characters belongs to Vivziepop

[bamby0304]

The Hart II: Highway

Summary: Off on her own, without the Winchesters, Bobby, Ellen or Jo, Lizzie tries to get back to what she does best… hunting. But time is running out, Dean’s soul is on the line, and now everyone knows Lizzie is psychic like Sam. Can the brothers and Lizzie work through their problems? Or will they lose everything?

Bamby’s Masterlist

The Hart Masterlist

The Hart II: Highway Masterlist

Part Twenty-Eight: Chasing Immortality

Warnings: Angst. Violence. Medical stuff.

Bamby

EPOV

I was willing to do whatever it took to save Dean. So was Sam. The fact the three of us were standing in an abandoned cabin, looking at a demon we'd caught, tied up and locked in a devil's trap so we could torture him... honestly it meant nothing to me. As long as Dean was saved, I didn't care.

Dean threw some holy water on to the demon who then screamed and thrashed around, the pain waking him from his unconsciousness.

"You ready to talk?" Dean snarled.

"I don't know. I don't know anything!"

Dean grinned, looking over to Sam and I. "Oh, you hear that? He doesn't know anything."

Sam smirked, nodding. "Yeah, I heard."

"I'm telling you the truth," the demon insisted.

"Oh, you are? My God, then I owe you an apology. Allow me to make it up to you." Stepping forward, Dean forced more holy water down the demon's throat. "I'm gonna ask you one last time... who holds my contract?!"

The demon fell silent for a moment, his head hanging. As he slowly began to look up at us, he revealed his black eyes and wide smile. "Your mother. Yeah, she, uh, showed it to me right before I bent her over."

Dean leaned closer to him, holding back his anger. "I want a name. Or else-"

"Or what? You're gonna squirt your holy water in both ends? Please. Brother, that's like a flea bite compared to what's coming to me if I tell you jack. Do what you want. The only thing I'm scared of is the demon holding your ticket."

Pulling back, Dean gave me a simple nod. Turning my attention to the demon, I began to recite an exorcism.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus..."

"How does that feel?" Dean circled the demon. "Does that feel good?"

"Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio..."

Groaning, the demon forced words out through gritted teeth. "Go ahead. Send me back to hell. 'Cause when you get there, I'll be waiting for you... with a few pals who are dying for a nice little meet and greet with Dean Winchester."

I paused, my eyes wide as I looked to Dean. We were close, family, friends... lovers. He meant a lot to me. The idea of anything bad happening to him… I couldn't bare it.

Moving closer to me, Dean pressed a kiss to my temple. "Send him some place he can't hurt anyone else."

Nodding, I took a shaky breath as I continued with the exorcism.

"Infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te..."

DPOV

I walked up to Liz as she stood on the porch of the abandoned cabin we were squatting in. She was waiting for me, her arms folded over her chest, hands tucked under her arms as she hugged her dark red leather jacket to herself.

Before I could even stop walking, she spoke up, "I'm scared we're gonna lose you."

I had already been aware of that. As each day went by she changed. She was still the strong and capable woman we knew her to be, but at the same time she was becoming more fearful. As if her worry for me was taking control of the rest of her.

Sighing, I stepped up to her, unfolding her arms before sliding my hands down to her waist. "You're not gonna-"

She cut me off, rolling her eyes and pulling away. "Don't bullshit me, Dean. Unless you're a psychic, and you just forgot to mention it, don't try to predict the future."

"Aren't you doing the same?" I countered.

"No." She shook her head. "I'm preparing myself for the worst. Part of me hopes for the best, but I'm not setting myself up for disappointment. I'd much rather be happily surprised than heartbroken."

Grinning, I stepped closer to her again, my hands grabbing her waist once more as I pulled her to my chest. "Heartbroken?" I pressed a kiss to her neck as my hands moved around to the small of her back.

"Don't play dumb with me, Winchester." She fought against a smile. "We may not be a couple, but you're certainly the closest thing to a boyfriend I've had." Pulling away, she looked up at me with scared and sad eyes "I don't want to lose you… but it feels like I'm going to."

Time was running short. Three weeks was not much, and the closer to my end we got, the worse we were all feeling.

Just being here with Liz, or spending time with my brother, I knew how precious it all was. I knew how much I'd need it if things were to go south- literally. So, for a moment longer, I was going to let us stand there, in the embrace, enjoying it just a little while longer.

EPOV

Walking back into the cabin beside Dean, we just caught the end of Sam's phone call.

"You ran the prints twice? Are you sure? Okay. Yeah, just chalk it up to lab error. Don't I know it. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I'll tell the lieutenant." He hung up and turned to us without pausing. "Bury the body?"

Dean gave a sharp nod. "Yeah. Looks like these demons ride 'em hard just for kicks." He walked us over to the table, grabbing and opening a beer before handing it over to me and then grabbing his own. "What was the phone call about?" he asked as we moved to sit on the couch.

"Remember that thing in the paper yesterday?"

Dean took a drink of his beer before answering. "'Stripper suffocates dude with thighs'?" he answered, causing me to elbow him in the ribs. "Hey." He turned to me. "What was that for?"

"Pretty sure Sam was talking about the other thing," I told him, a smile on my face as I moved to snuggle into his side. "The guy that walked into the ER and died before anyone could help him. His liver was ripped out or something, right?"

Sam nodded. "I just found out something pretty damn interesting."

"What?" Dean asked, turning to his brother as his free arm moved to drape over my shoulders.

"The dead body was covered in bloody fingerprints, not the victim's."

"Okay, great." Dean shrugged, seeming uninterested. "My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it."

"Those fingerprints match a guy who died in 1981."

I sat up, interested. "Really?"

"So, what are we talking? Uh, walking dead?" Dean grinned. "Walking, killing dead?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe."

"Zombies do like the other, other white meat. Huh." Dean took another drink of his beer. "Speaking of, what do you care about zombies?"

Sam frowned, giving a short shake of his head. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you've been on soul-saving detail for months now. And we're three weeks out, and all of a sudden, you're interested in some hot zombie action?" Dean did have a good point.

Sam shook his head, scoffing. "Hey, man, you're the one who's been all gung ho to hunt. I just thought I'd be doing you a favour." He turned to leave.

"Hey, no, no, no, no, no." Dean got to his feet following his brother. "I didn't say I didn't want to do it, okay. I mean obviously I want to hunt some zombies."

I sighed, a grin on my lips. "Looks like we've got a case."

DPOV

The three of us stood in the coroner's lab as he explained the case to us. "Yeah, the rest of the body was intact. The liver was the only organ missing."

"Now, where the liver was ripped out, did you happen to notice any... ah... teeth marks?" I asked.

The corner frowned at each of us as if he thought we were insane. "Can I see your badges?"

"Of course, sure." Sam nodded as we all pulled out our badges to show him.

After taking a moment to look at all our badges, the corner sighed. "Fine. So, you're cops and morons."

"Excuse me? No, no. We're very smart." I insisted.

"The liver was not ripped out," the corner explained as he led us to the body. "It was removed. Surgically." He showed us the stitches. "By someone who knew their way around a scalpel. Didn't you read my report?"

"Of course we did," I lied. "Oh, it was riveting. It was a real page-turner, just delightful."

Raising his eyes brow at me, the corner sighed. "You done?"

"I think so." I gave a sharp nod.

"Please go away."

"Okay." I turned to leave, only to stop as Liz spoke up.

"I just want to apologise on behave of my partner. He's new, and we were told to give him the lead on the case." She smiled charmingly at the corner. "We can't exactly leave without any solid information that might help... so, if you wouldn't mind, could I have a copy of the report. I'd rather get it straight from the brains behind the operation."

My jaw dropped as the corner's face softened. He was eating everything she said, swimming in the look she was giving him as if he hadn't had any female attention for months. But it was when he turned and grabbed a copy of the report without so much as I noise, that's what shocked me the most.

Reaching forward to take the file, Liz's smile grew. "Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it."

...

As we walked down the hall, I noticed Sam grinning to himself.

"What?" I snapped, annoyed. Liz was too charming… I didn't like it.

He shook his head at me. "Nothing." Bullshit. "So, that kind of punches a hole in our zombie theory, huh, that scalpel thing?"

"Yeah, zombie with skills, 'Dr Quinn, medicine zombie'." I chuckled.

"Maybe we're on the wrong track, Dean, looking for hacked-up corpses," Sam suggested.

I frowned slightly, confused. "What should we be looking for?"

"Survivors," Liz answered for him.

Sam nodded, agreeing with her. "This isn't zombie lunch. This is organ theft."

SPOV

"I told the cops all of this yesterday. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

The three of us were standing by the bed of a patient who'd had his kidney stolen. Unlike the other victim, this guy had survived.

"It's just a couple of questions, sir," I assured him.

"Hey, man. I just got my kidney stolen. I'm tired."

"We'll be out of here quick." Dean tried to be gentle as he attempted to persuade the guy. "Don't you want to get the guy?"

The patient turned to him. "Will it get me back my kidney?"

"Look." Lizzie sighed, stepping closer to the man. "I understand that this has been a traumatic experience, and honestly I don't blame you for not wanting to bring up the memories. But there have been more victims. Some people aren't surviving like you did. So if you could give as some information, anything, then maybe we can stop this person."

She was good. I could see the guy actually thinking about it before he gave a sigh and a short nod, letting us know he was willing to cooperate.

I pulled out my pen to write some noted down in my pad I was holding. "So what's the last thing you remember?"

"Feeding my meter. I got jumped from behind... and then I wake up strapped to a table. And then the worst pain you could possibly imagine, only worse. And then I black out again. Thank God. And then I wake up screaming in some no-tell motel in a bathtub full of ice."

"Do you remember anything about the surgery? You know, what the guy looked like, any details about the room?" Dean pressed for more.

"Let me think about that." The patient paused for a moment. "Yeah... one thing is coming back to me. You know what I remember? Getting my kidney cut out of my body!" he snapped, clearly done with the questioning.

DPOV

I moved to join Liz and Sam at the table as they did some research. Placing my paper bag in front of me, I reached into it and pulled out my burger, smiling eagerly at it.

"So, I got a theory," Sam started.

"Yeah?" I asked, taking a large bite out of my burger.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I talked to Mr Giggle's doctor. Turns out his incisions were sewn up with silk."

I frowned slightly. "That's weird," I noted as Liz reached over and took a bite out of my burger. "Hey!" I pulled it away from her.

She grinned, moving her chair next to me, batting her eyes. "It just looks so good."

"Anyway." Sam tried not to look at us as he failed to hide his smile. "Silk used to be the suture of choice back in the early 19th century. It was really problematic. Patients would get massive infections. The death rate was insane." He turned his computer around so I could take a look.

I flicked through the tabs on his screen. "Good times."

"Right, so doctors, they had to do whatever they could to keep infections from spreading. One way was maggots."

Pausing my chewing, I gestured to my burger. "Dude, I'm eating."

But Sam just kept going, "It actually kind of worked because maggots, they eat bad tissue, and they leave good tissue. And get this. When they found our guy, his body cavity was stuffed full of maggots."

"Dude, I'm eating!" I repeated. "Alright, let me get this straight. So, people are getting ganked, right?"

Sam gave a short nod. "Yeah."

"A little 'antiques roadshow' surgery, some organ theft. But why is this all sounding familiar?"

"Because you heard it before." Sam actually looked excited. "When you were a kid... from dad. Doc Benton... real-life doctor, lived in New Hampshire, brilliant and obsessed with alchemy, especially how to live forever. So, in 1816, Doc abandons his practice and-"

I cut him off, knowing the rest of the story, "Right, yeah, nobody hears from him for like twenty years, and all of sudden, people start showing up dead."

"Dead or missing an organ or their hand or some other kind of part."

"Cause whatever he was doing was actually working. He just kept on ticking. Parts would wear out, he'd replace them. But I thought dad hunted him down and took his heart out."

"Yeah, I guess the Doc must have plugged in a new one."

Liz reached for dad's journal that sat on the table. "So, if this guy is still kicking, where do we find him?"

"According to dad's journal, Benton's picky about where he sets up his lab. He likes dense forest with access to a river or stream or some kind of freshwater," Sam answered.

I took another bite of my burger before asking, "Why?"

"Because that's where he likes to dump the bile and intestines and faecal matter." He smirked at my disgusted face as I gagged. "Lost your appetite yet?"

Looking down at my burger, I considered it for a moment. My eyes moved from the burger, to Sam and then back, before I shook my head. "Oh baby, I can't stay mad at you." I took a large bite out of it.

EPOV

I had to admit, this was a pretty exciting case. A man turned Frankenstein like monster. Not only was it fascinating, but it was a nice change from our usual activities. Chasing down Bela. Trying to find a way to get Dean out of his contract. Catching and torturing demons for information.

This was actually a little fun.

Standing by the bed with Sam and Dean, we looked down at the map laid out on the blankets in front of us.

Sam pointed to some areas on the map which we'd circled red. "So these are all the cabins. Most of them have been abandoned for years."

"So, what the hell are we waiting for?" Dean asked, seconds before his phone began to ring. Moving to the table, he answered, putting it on speaker. "Bobby."

"Hey. Think I finally got a lead on Bela."

"I'm listening."

"Rufus Turner."

Ah, yes, Rufus Turner. Never met the guy, but heard enough stories. Not all were bad, not all were good. Honestly, he was a good hunter and that's all I cared about.

"Who's that?" Dean asked. "Like a Cleveland steamer?"

"He's a hunter, or he used to be."

"And now?"

"Hermit mostly. Does a little selling on the side. Anyway. I put the word out on Bela months ago. He just called. Said a woman got in touch, wanted to buy some things."

"And he thinks it's Bela?"

"British accent, went by the name Mina Chandler."

Dean paused, turning to Sam and me. "She's used that before. Well, it's kinda of a sloppy move, isn't it? Getting in contact with one of your old friends."

"Friend?" Bobby scoffed. "Haven't laid eyes on him in fifteen years. He's not the Christmas card type. I doubt she knows I know him. Canaan, Vermont."

"Thanks, Bobby. We're on our way."

"One other thing. Take a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue."

"Okay." Hanging up, Dean nodded to Sam and me. "Come on."

"What?" Sam frowned. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second."

Dean didn't stop as he moved to grab his jacket and bag. "Come on. Get your stuff. The clock's ticking."

But Sam still didn't do as he was told. "Look, I think we should stay here and finish the case."

"You insane?"

"Dean, there's no way she still has the Colt! That was months ago! She probably sold it the second she got it." Sam had a good point.

"Well, then I'll kill her." Dean shrugged. "Win-win."

Sam sighed. "Dean..."

"Sam. We're going!"

But Sam wasn't having a bar of it. "No."

Dean turned to him, getting more and more worked up by the minute. "Why the hell not?"

"Dean, this… this here. Now. This is what's gonna save you."

Dean shook his head. "What? Chasing some Frankenstein?"

I was about to explain that we had a responsibility to keep going with the case and to stop the guy who was killing and chopping up people to take their organs. But Sam spoke up first, and what he had to say shocked me.

"Chasing immortality," Sam explained, earning startled looks from Dean and I. "Look, Benton can't die. We find out how he did it, we can do it to you."

Dean wasn't angry anymore, just confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You have to die before you go to hell, right? So, if you can never die, then-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Dean cut Sam off, stepping closer to his brother. The tension in his body had me stepping back. "Wait a second. Did you know that this was Doc Benton from the jump?"

"No." When Dean kept looking at Sam, not believing him, Sam sighed, "Look, I was hoping."

"So, the whole zombie thing, it was lying to me?"

"I didn't wanna say anything until I was sure, Dean. All I'm trying to do is find an answer here."

"No. What you're trying to do is chase Slicy McHackey here. And to kill him? No. You wanna buy him a freaking beer. You wanna study him."

"I was just trying to help."

"You're not helping! You forget that if I welch on this deal, you die. Guess what, living forever is welching."

Sam shrugged. "Fine! Then, whatever the magic pill is, I'll take it too!"

Dean shook his head, walking back to his bag. "Oh, what is this? Sid and Nancy? No. It's just like Bobby's been saying. We kill the demon who owns the contract and this whole damn thing wipes clean. That's our best shot."

"Even if you had the Colt, Dean, who are you gonna shoot? We have no idea who holds the ticket."

"Well, I'll shoot the hellhounds then before they slash me up. Now, you coming or not?" He looked to both Sam and me.

I was the one to speak, my voice quiet. "We're staying."

Dean looked to me, shocked once more. "You too?" He shook his head. "No, you're not. 'Cause I'm not gonna let you wander out in the woods alone to track some organ stealing freak."

Sam stood his ground. "You're not gonna let us?"

"No, I'm not gonna let you."

"How are you gonna stop us?" Sam asked, startling Dean again. "Look, man, we're trying to do the same thing here."

"I know. But I'm going. So, if you wanna stay," Dean actually looked hurt, avoiding my gaze, "stay." He pulled his bag over his shoulder and started for the door, only to stop when he was next to me. Cupping my face, he turned me so I'd look at him, pressing his lips to mine in a deep kiss. As he pulled away, he sighed and looked over my head at his brother. "Sammy, be careful."

I could hear that Sam had turned to face Dean as he responded, his voice soft. "You too."

There was a moment's pause as Dean looked from Sam to me before he let my cheek go and walked to the door and out of the room, leaving us.

DPOV

It wasn't goodbye. It wasn't goodbye. It wasn't goodbye. It wasn't goodbye. I had to keep repeating those three words in my head to reminded myself that I would see Liz and Sam again. Just because they were going after an immortal serial killer, and I was going after the slimy bitch that had stolen the Colt, did not mean any of us were going to die. It wasn't goodbye.

Climbing the porch steps, I came to a stop at a door where a sign hung. It read, 'No solicitors, that means you! No asking for donations. No selling ANYTHING!'. Shaking my head, I lifted my hand and rang the buzzer before knocking on the door.

A noise caught my attention. Looking up, I spotted a camera moving to face me.

"What?" a voice called through the intercom.

"Hi, uh, Rufus?"

"Yeah, even if I am, the question is still the same. What?"

"Uh, I'm Dean Winchester. I'm a friend of Bobby Singer's."

"So?"

"You called him this morning."

"So?"

"Uh..." I tried grinning at the camera, but this guy was wearing down my patience. "You told Bobby about a British chick who made contact with you."

"And so?"

"You know where she is?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Could you tell me where I could find her?"

"No."

"Course not," I mumbled to myself before speaking into the telecom again. "Look, Rufus, man-"

The door opened as Rufus- an African American man around Bobby's age- stepped out. "Look, let me point something out to you. You are knocking at my door, so don't 'Look, man' me. I'm not your man."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"All right, let me tell you a little story. See, once upon a time, Bobby called me, asked me to call him if I got a whiff of this Bela Talbot. I got a whiff. I called. The end."

"Okay, yeah, if you could just tell me where she is, I mean, that would be great."

"Dean Winchester, right?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

"Dean, do I look like I'm here to help you?"

"I'm gonna say no."

"Then get the hell of my property."

"All right, yeah, fair enough. I got one more question for you, though." I reached into my bag that sat on my shoulder. "See, I got this, uh, this bottle of scotch, and... uh, is this considered good?" I asked, pulling out a Johnnie Walker Blue Label out.

Rufus eyed the bottle and then me, before smiling.

Bamby

[zinecuntroll]

3 decades of Queer Women making Herstory through Music

Written for Pink Washed Zine issue #3

by Raquel Silva aka Raquel Smith-Cave

             I turned 30 this year, more precisely last August and it’s also been 12 years since I had my first girlfriend. When I started thinking about my queerness more seriously back in 2005/2006 I quickly realized how it wasn’t that usual for girls to be fascinated by Linda Perry in boxer shorts and combat boots like I was at 5 years old. My mom says 4 Non Blondes “What’s up” was my favorite song back then and she even bought the CD so I could listen to it on repeat and not just wait for the video to magically appear on the TV. Thanks Ma!

              Through my teenage years I had “Baby Can I Hold You” by Tracy Chapman constantly playing in my head. Mind you, I always have a song in my mind and I burst into singing at the most unexpected times, it’s mostly an unconscious act which can be embarrassing in front of people who don’t know me well. Honestly I  don’t care much, it’s just a part of my nature and if I’m not murmuring or humming some melody it usually means there’s something wrong. So at around 15/16 I remember starting to sing the chorus for “But you can say baby…” out of nowhere in school breaks or while walking home. This happened constantly and exactly why my brain was stuck with this melody was a complete mystery to me. Maybe I heard it in passing or on the radio…? I could never find the answer but I did buy Tracy’s self-titled vinyl this year during Record Store Day and discovered it was released exactly 30 years ago. It’s a precious record, her voice is warm and familiar and her guitar is so soothing to the soul. I think I finally answered my teenage self on all that musical haunting.

             Cássia Eller is a Brazilian artist who made the 90s a really wholesome, magical, golden time for every lesbian in love with husky voices. Her hit song “Malandragem” was part of this series called Malhação but I only found out she was the mystical singer behind that iconic childhood tune years after listening to it on the show. She tragically died in 2001 and even after that she still created major impact in society, when her longtime girlfriend won custody of their son, after battling against Cássia’s father who had never cared about his daughter until money was involved. Cássia was a shy person who became a complete lion on stage. Humble and almost too pure to handle the hype. She just wanted to sing to people and exorcise her demons while making others happy. Which she did and so much more. Her legacy is tremendous, as it still resonates with so many of us today and the world hasn’t really witnessed anyone quite as ingenious as her ever since.

               It’s 2007 and I’m watching a live concert in a Portuguese music festival on TV featuring a wild ass singer with the screaming voice of my wildest grrrl dreams. It’s The Gossip! And Beth Ditto is rolling around the stage, singing her lungs out in front of a pretty chill crowd. I wanted to BE THERE. I probably discovered Gossip’s music through CSS who I was obsessed with at the time or probably from watching The L Word. The truth is: the more intrigued I was by the words of this fat, dyke, goddess the more comfortable I felt about my own identity. I was fat for most of my childhood and got bullied for it on a regular basis, just part of being in an all-girls catholic school life I guess. At 13 someone called me “Fufa” which is basically “Dyke” in Portuguese and it was the most traumatic experience ever. Years later I wish I could have thanked the girl who bullied me out of a closet I wasn’t even aware I was in. I don’t believe I was ever in the closet though. Honestly, falling in love with a girl was just as natural as having crushes on boys. It was just another question I had finally found an answer for. Beth Ditto’s pride in her queerness and blatant attraction to butch people while being a proud femme, fat, dyke made me feel represented in a way I hadn’t seen myself before and ok with my own desires. Ditto!

                The first glance of The L Word I watched I didn’t really enjoyed. The image was dark and the plot seemed so tragic. It was Jenny somewhere in the first season. After one year I finally watched the whole 2 or 3 seasons that were out by then. Tegan and Sara play in one episode and are featured in the soundtrack, which I still go back to sometimes to remember really great tunes. What a blessing to have Tegan and Sara guide you through your first acid trip and “coming out of that closet” am I right Dana? (RIP) My love affair with Canadian people started right there with Tegan’s goofiness and Sara’s witty remarks. By 2007 “The Con” came out and became a staple to the LBGTQ+ community. So much so that the band released a special covers album last year, with many queer artists recreating those magnificent songs. In the records that followed their sound was purposefully re directed to more pop melodies which I couldn’t relate to anymore. They did make good use of their huge platform by launching the Tegan and Sara foundation, which fights for LGBTQ girls and women all over the world with the help of some amazing queer people.

                 The other tiny Canadian who owns my heart is Ellen Page. Ever since Juno, my gaydar was just screaming out loud in every direction possible and I’m so happy that she is now able to be herself freely. Just like Juno, my musical top 3 included Patti Smith and Iggy Pop… but not The Runaways. For me it’s actually Nick Cave. I never gave too much attention to The Runaways, though I knew about Joan Jett and her extremely queer badass persona from being a teenager obsessed with punk rock and riot grrrl herstory. Until Kristen Stewart got cast to play Joan for The Runaways movie and I finally listened to their 70s records. I fell in love with Kristen and Dakota’s version of “Dead End Justice” as well as the original. Gaystew was born to play that part. Just last week I saw Bad Reputation, a documentary about Joan’s life with lots of awesome people speaking about how incredible she is, as both a pioneer for women in rock’n roll and an advocate for human and animal rights. At 60 she’s still rocking the fuck out of leather pants, inspiring kids to start bands, making everyone smitten by her confidence and flipping the finger to the all the hypocritical social definitions of gender, sex and music.

                It’s really difficult to write about Janelle Monáe. Not because I don’t have words but mostly because I have too many. Janelle caught my eye and ears with “Tightrope” where she’s prancing around wearing her uniform, as she proudly used to talk about her suit, an homage to her working class parents and Kansas City upbringing. I saw her live at the end of 2010, at a winter festival, where all my other friends went on to watch Sting’s daughter I Blame Coco and I stood front row waiting for Janelle. It was life changing. She danced, jumped, screamed and even painted something into a blank canvas throughout the whole set. Her band was impeccably orchestrated and the show was extremely cinematic, since many of Janelle’s inspirations are from sci-fi movies. Her music is layered and complex just like her personality. Over the years she has been extremely mysterious, one of the things I appreciated the most about her. This year that changed. After much speculation in the media, she said in an interview she’s pansexual, as someone who has had relationships with men and women, that’s how she identifies more comfortably. Above all she’s an artist with a very specific vision and talent, carving the path for Afrofuturism; to create space for black people but especially queer POC to conquer over the systematic racism, lack of opportunities and prejudice in our society. Her new record “Dirty Computer” is the materialization of that evolution, the most “Janelle” album ever. Covering everything from sexual freedom to political issues while using a pop funky beat. Reminiscing one of her heroes, Prince, who became a friend and mentor before passing away in 2016. And all I want for 2019 is to be in the same room as Janelle and take on another voyage dans la lune with all the other androids.

                 Annie Clark has also played around with the idea of being an alien or a cyborg, especially on her self-titled album from 2014. That’s when I saw her live for the time and I had to give into my friend’s obsession with her music. Last year St. Vincent released “Masseduction”, an almost perfect record, in my opinion. The song with the same title is most definitely an anthem for our generation “I can’t turn off what turns me on…” and after a long relationship with model/actress Cara Delevingne or that summer fling with Kristen Stewart, it was clear, Annie is queer. (Pun so intended) While songs like “New York” or “Los Ageless” can be associated to both of those relationships, Annie’s talent as an exquisite guitar player, fearless innovative sounds and unique live shows, have made her the intergalactic rock Goddess of our queer dreams.

                 Widely inspired by Annie Clark is my next musical Queeroe. Mackenzie Scott aka Torres. There’s something about debut albums that I really love and Torres self-titled LP from 2013 is definitely in my top favorites list. It’s really fucking sad music with raw emotion, as you can hear in “Honey”, “Jealousy and I” or “When Winter’s over”. Her second album “Sprinter” showed a very exciting evolution in her sound but it’s “Three Futures” from 2017 that encapsulates Mackenzie’s desire towards experimenting with her sexuality in a more explicit way. As seen in the video for the first single where she takes on gender roles as both feminine and masculine characters who are living the dreadful “American Dream”. Plus the cover picture for that record is her staring at a semi naked woman on a pole, marking 2017 as very gay year for music.      

                Laura Jane Grace’s voice first made waves through my ears because of the collab Against Me! did with Tegan Quin back in 2007 for the single “Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart”. The song didn’t stick to me that long and although I had heard Against Me! was my kind of band I never took the time to really listen to them. Until 2014, when “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” was released and it rapidly became one of the most important records of my life. I started watching many interviews with Laura Jane about the struggles of coming out as a trans woman in this fucked up world, specifically while being part of the punk scene, where there’s not much space for anything other than toxic masculinity. I related to Laura’s journey and with every single lyrics on “True trans soul rebel” since it felt like the most authentic punk anthem I had heard in a while. I went to their first ever gig in Portugal in 2015 and screamed as much as I could surrounded by my family of misfits, all wearing black and their heart tattoos on their sleeves. I dug into Against Me! discography but other than the single “I was a teenage anarchist” which I already knew, nothing got me hooked as much as “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” did. Laura Jane’s name is very much appropriate, for her Grace is felt through her screams as much as her written words, something I found fascinating while reading her auto biography: “Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout”. I loved every page of it, with original diary pieces, she takes us on a wild precious ride from her childhood and family issues to all the drama in the music industry or the tribulations of managing a band in this time and age. There’s really nothing more punk rock than being yourself and Laura Jane does it with so much effortless coolness and Grace.

            I tried not to listen to Courtney Barnett for months. I had seen the hype around her but didn’t feel quite ready to embark in that journey and my queers did I regret it… She played at Primavera Sound Porto in 2015 and I started listening to her on loop only weeks after that. The heartbreaking part is that I was also at that festival. The good part is that she came back in 2016 to another festival in Lisbon and I was there just for her (and Father John Misty). Which felt like the stars had aligned with my musical desires. She’s unapologetically herself but not in the way that you would say so about Cardi B for example. She’s wickedly smart with her words and unexpectedly brutal with her chords, right before she opens her mouth she looks like the sweetest person you will ever meet and after you are transported to her own island, full of genius puns, sarcastic inputs about daily life or the state of the world. My favorite verse is from “Pedestrian at best” and I almost got it tattooed… “Give me all your money and I’ll make some origami honey”. Which to me roughly translates to: Fuck Capitalism! She’s also very open about her long term relationship with her wife and fellow musician Jen Cloher, making them the ultimate indie rock’s queer power couple.

                 2016 was the darkest year of my life. I stopped listening to music for months, stopped sleeping and my panic attacks would strike me even if I was in the middle of a busy street. It was scary to lose myself in such dark thoughts but then one day I listened to Shura’s song “Too shy” and felt like a little bit of me was alive again. Her debut album “Nothing’s real” came out around that time and her lyrics for the title song were exactly what I felt through my depression. In this song she is writing about her own experience with a panic attack that makes you feel like dying. And they do. “Too Shy” is a beautiful tune about unrequited love because you are simply too fucking shy to ever go for it and ask your crush on a date. Being shy and anxious almost always go hand in hand, as an awkward, quiet, weird introvert myself, discovering Shura’s songs and story gave me hope and made me gather the lost pieces of my own identity, leaving all the pain, shame and constant anxiety behind. Music really is medicine for the soul.

                 Julien Baker also has one of the best debut albums I’ve ever heard. Personally, it’s very special because it marks the beginning of my current relationship, as my girlfriend surprised me with Julien’s “Sprained Ankle” vinyl just weeks after we started dating. That vinyl did not leave my record player for the last months of 2016 and whenever I listen to it now, I am instantly transported to that moment in time. I was finally getting back on my feet and everything was falling into place, Julien’s gigantic voice echoed my natural melancholy, embracing my demons with a new found strength.  I’ve seen her twice, both times a very out of body experience and had the pleasure to let her know how much her music has helped me. We hugged, talked and she even has the zine I make (CuntRoll) in her living room table because she likes it so much. She is someone I could definitely see myself hanging out in my group of friends and that’s what I love the most about this new generation of artists, who aren’t trying to be something they’re not for the sake of money or exposure. They embrace who they are and let the world decide if they wanna take it or leave it. And that’s exactly what we need right now, to accept and embrace people for who they are and the art they make. So we can all to the same in our own lives.

                 “Yeah I’ve got it I’m a man now…” are the verses that got stuck with me for weeks after listening to Christine and The Queens single “iT”. Yes, the capital T is on purpose as it represents testosterone, the hormone used by many Trans AFAB people to start the process of becoming more themselves. This androgynous handsome French creature original name is Heloise and since her worldwide success with her first record “Chaleur Humaine” she has shredded so many stereotypes through her music, her dancing and her style. I hate comparing artists but some people call her “ the French Michael Jackson” for a reason. My chin dropped while watching her cover for Beyonce’s “Sorry” which she transformed into her own song like it’s nobody’s business (please go watch it asap). This year she blessed as with her second LP just called “Chris” inviting the world to be a little bit closer to her. Chris is her nickname and presents us with a new image for Heloise, embracing her masculine vibe more than ever before, with short hair, loose clothing and talking proudly about queer issues in many interviews. The video for the single “5 dollars” is the epitome of gender fucking and the reason why I am even gayer now tbh.  (You should watch that also!) The future is genderqueer.

                 I stayed away from the hype of “Girls like Girls” back in 2015 because I’m mostly suspicious of pop artists using gay stories to go with the trend of pink washing, ie Katy Perry “I kissed a girl” is a fucking jam but also really fucking problematic, coming from a cis het white female who has no idea the struggles of being queer. Hayley Kiyoko is most definitely not one of those artists though, as she has slowly but certainly become the Lesbian Jesus we’ve all been praying for. With “Curious” she let us know there’s a new fucking boss in town and she’s so fucking gay. What a time to be alive, 20gayteen is real and we are here to witness it all. Hayley’s not the greatest singer in the world, but she uses the best of her skills to give voice to all the kids who struggled with feeling alienated because they couldn’t fit in anywhere. She creates videos which are more like short stories, where she not only acts, but also writes and directs with her own team, never compromising her vision to tell the stories she wants to tell. Stories that resonate with so many queer people and we all know how important representation is, especially coming from an authentic source. To have such a person in the mainstream is what Tegan and Sara were thriving for a few years ago but the result wasn’t very genuine, something that doesn’t happen with Hayley’s songs. Her album “Expectations” doesn’t have big hits, other than “Feelings and “Curious” but it’s the debut album of someone with a huge potential and vision to take up the space for ourselves to tell our own stories and no one else.

                Linn Da Quebrada is the musical Goddess of the moment. Eloquent, inspiring, caustic, no one is left indifferent after listening to her. And that's exactly what she wants, to leave us on our tiptoes waiting to be carried away by words of pleasure, empowerment, trans feminism and especially so much self-love. Each verse is a lyrical genius clapback in the face of this transphobic, sexist and racist society. Prejudices that kill so many queer people of color in Brazil every year. Her existence is transforming, rewriting the HERSTORY of the world and of her country, through the re-appropriation of funk, where SHE finally gets to be the protagonist of her own story and that courage surpasses linguistic or cultural barriers. In 2017 she released her first album “Pajubá” after a very successful crowdfunding campaign and also has her own documentary called “Bixa Travesty” which has gathered accolades through many film festivals around the world. The song “Bixa Preta” is a fucking iconic anthem for 20gayteen and for all of my maricones family out in the world fighting everyday for our existence to be respected.

We will NEVER be erased.