ᴀʟʟ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ's ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ (open.)

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Cadens, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: A catch-all of open & closed starters.
Warnings: A little grief, a little alcoholism, probably canon-typical violence and suicidal ideation. Mentions of fruit turbo-hell.

I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ sᴀʟᴠᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Nᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
I ɢᴏᴛ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀs sᴜᴄʜ I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴀsɪʟʏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ
Aʟʟ I ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴅᴏ ɪs ʙᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ
ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Comments

ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[righteously]

( Things... aren't great. They're not great for anyone. They're not great for Dean, they're not great for Cas, they're not great for- for Jo. They're especially not great for the city of Cadens, which has been battered by the storms all those weeks before the world changed. He can't do much about the first few things, but he can do something about that.

So he picks up his tools, and he gets to work.

Dean can be found alternating between construction zones. His (now largely empty, too big for two people) house gets some TLC a couple hours a week. Mag's gets the majority of his attention; you can find him re-shingling the roof, repairing siding, replacing windows, even fixing the damn landscaping. The Sarstina's not the only busted building in the city, though, and he's happy enough to pitch in among other places. Anywhere that might need some help, especially Summoned-own businesses, might have him showing up unannounced and without asking for any sort of payment.

He just works, with steady and competent hands, sweating through his clothes, talking very little, from sun up to sun down.

And then, after cleaning up, he goes to the Sarstina for hours, drinking slowly and quietly at the bar there. He doesn't return to Hunter House until well past midnight, and it's usually only to get a few hours of sleep on the couch before he's back at work again just before sunrise. )

Re: ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[sonofacesius]

[Will's also up around dawn, because far be it for an Apollo kid to miss their dad in all his assholeish glory driving the sun. Even if his dad was actually here and this wasn't earth. Blame the ichor. When Will wasn't manning the clinic, he was milling around town, stocking up on necessities and generally trying to care for rando adults just like he wasn't supposed too. Which is exactly how he ended up on the roof, handing Dean a cookie. If you were really lucky and said please and thank you, he had a frosted one. The look on his face is definitely one of 'FAFO', which is totally the expression you want to give someone when handing them a confectionary treat.]

When was the last time you had something to eat or drink?

[This was the desert Dean. One s. If there was one thing he learned in his little trip to SuperHell, it was that no one could survive everywhere. For Will, that was the Underworld for him. No sun. And regular humans in a desert? Needed water. Be glad Camp's Water Boy was in Thorne or he might have him hose you.]

[righteously]

( It goes a little something like this;

Dean, as is customary and entirely automatic when he is handed food, takes it with an ooh and a: )

Thanks.

( Only after it's already in his mouth does his brain process what's wrong with this scenario, and he says around a mouth full of baked good: )

Wait, what in the hell are you doing up here? Get off the roof, you maniac.

( He will not be held responsible for teenagers slipping off his roof and snapping their freakin' spines on the ground, okay. Give him, like, two extra old-man seconds to climb down off the ladder after Will, and they can have this conversation on the ground like normal people. )

[sonofacesius]

[Dean should probably be really thankful he didn't just jump off the roof like the demigod maniac he was. Luckily, Will did inherit some sanity that wasn't completely driven out of him by fun traditional Camp activities like climbing a wall of lava or playing Capture the Flag with deadly weapons. And he's treated enough broken bones that he does not want to treat his own. So. He uses the ladder. You're welcome. Will scampers down like the athletic sixteen year old that he is. He lets out a laugh, like he's actually starting to have a good time.]

I got bored and you looked busy.

[He handed Dean another cookie, this one with frosting. Wait till he finds out about your love affair with pie.]

Have another one.

[righteously]

( Dean's face is wholly disapproving and completely unimpressed.

Naturally, that does not stop him from snatching that cookie from Will and stuffing the entire thing into his mouth in one defiant bite. Do not let his love of confectionary detract from his paternal shame look, he can manage to wear both at the same time.

He dusts his hands off, crumbs and splinters casually smeared along the sides of his trousers, and then he settles on one of the bottom rungs of the ladder. Might as well take a break, if he's suddenly a babysitter for some reason. )

You don't have a boyfriend runnin' around here to keep you busy or somethin'? Or like- school? Is that a thing? Do they do school here?

[sonofacesius]

[Will feels totally right at home with the disapproving and unimpressed look. What still shocks him is that Dean seems to care. It was something that he understood on an intellectual level, but it was still weird to see in action. Like realizing your teachers had lives outside of school. Seeing Dean shove the cookie in his mouth Will smiles satisfied, and sprawls on the ground while Dean rests on the ladder.]

Nico's still asleep. [Nico was a master at naps. And mythomagic card games, but no one heard that from him!]

If they have school here I haven't attended it. Actually, I haven't gone to school since I was ten. Monster attacks kind of put a stop to that. Besides, what would they teach me that I don't already know?

What's that look for?

[Sorry Dean, you were going to have to explain the parental thing to him. It was confusing.]

[righteously]

( This is the most teenagery crap he has heard since Claire. What would they teach me that I don't already know, Jesus Christ. He cannot, physically cannot, stop his eyes from rolling. )

I don't know, algebra? Chemistry, maybe? Magic, science, home ec?

( Stuff that even he, a fully grown adult, does not know? Granted, he dropped out of high school so maybe he's not up to par with your Viktor types, but still. )

Unless you're some kind of supergenius child prodigy, I'm sure they could find something you aren't an expert in.

[oversight]

"Hey, stranger."

It's well past midnight when Blake finally makes a move. He doesn't know if Dean's sensed his presence before now, but for three nights in a row Blake's waited around Hunter House to see him, lingering at later and later intervals only to miss each opportunity over being too damn tired to hold up his head. A week ago, it wasn't an issue. A week ago, he was a god (or some approximation) and a week ago he was also something to someone, a fact that hasn't left his head since.

As he moves closer to Dean's front door, Blake's demeanor shifts. His steps become lighter and more tentative. There's an urge to reach out because the darkness feels oppressive around them and that's what they would have done in the past. A past. But this is now. It's a reality — their reality — and knowing how to approach it isn't in Blake's emotional repertoire. He needs help here. (Again.)

"Not a good time, I know—" He looks apologetic even in the low light, all body language and vulnerable tension. Is this an egregious understatement? Yes. Everyone is reeling and no one is safe from the consequences of the past however many hundreds of years. Blake presses on despite the knot in his stomach that says he shouldn't. "But I was hopin' we could... make time." Later nearly rolls off his lips, but he holds fast, concerned he won't work up the courage to ask again.

[righteously]

He's a little drunk. This is hardly unusual, considering his lifetime of functional alcoholism, but it means it takes him a beat longer than usual to register the knock at his door, and another beat to realize who he's looking at on the other side of it once he grumpily swings it open.

When he does, a sharp spike of sobriety spears through him, unwelcome but probably necessary. The memories follow it — a lot of them blurry, some of them crystal clear. He's retained more associations than facts, he remembers who people were to him better than he can recount the individual details of their time together.

He remembers that Blake was important. He remembers the shape of their hands together, and the feeling of skin underneath him, and the warmth of sleeping in a tangle, and the comfort of being known without judgment. These feelings bring with them a flush of guilt, sponsored by that voice in his head that likes to remind him of all the things he does not deserve, and why he doesn't deserve them.

He swallows it down.

I was hoping we could make time.

The record in his brain skips, and so it takes him a half-second too long to respond. When he does, it's a quick, earnest nod.

"Yeah, no, yeah, of course. Uh- yeah, come on in." He angles himself sideways, opens the door a little wider to make room. It's late. He's exhausted. The alcohol's not sticking around with as much commitment as he'd really like. This- whatever this conversation is, he's not sure he's got the emotional bandwidth for it, but he never feels like he has the emotional bandwidth for anything, so... hell, might as well try anyway, right? As Blake passes through, he rubs his eyes — trying to inject some clarity into himself through sheer force of will.

[oversight]

Brushing past Dean brings with it similar waves of emotion, each cresting against the rocky shore of Blake's mind. He feels the tidal tug when he recognizes the bone-deep exhaustion: The sensation of running his fingertip against the short hairs behind Dean's ear creeps in and his hands twitch, resisting the urge to cup gently at the other man's face. Instead, he closes the door for Dean and touches his elbow, gesturing for the nearest seat that might accommodate them.

"Are you—?" As he sits, Blake finds hesitation plaguing him again. He can tell how hard Dean's been going since they'd all found their way back from... whatever that was, but in the absence of other options and despite days of trying, he tells himself a few minutes isn't too much to ask.

"I-I wanted to see if you were okay," he says, and with it comes a ridiculous squeak, as if one second of extremely delayed puberty has just caught up to him. It registers little more than a tighter knit of Blake's eyebrows — he already can't look Dean in the eye for more than a second and damn if he won't find himself laying in the dark reliving that horror for a time to come. "You're not, but I mean—" Not suicidal is what he's getting at.

He's worried. He would have been before, but now that things have been raveled and unraveled and raveled again, the knot in Blake's stomach won't abide by the distance they'd easily navigated while living out some... fantasy together. The urge to fall into old habits and pretend like nothing has changed is only lessened by the fact that Blake knows well some people don't appreciate manipulation. Hell, Blake normally doesn't either. It's pure selfishness that's allowed him to consider this situation differently. Or maybe it's all those years of wisdom screaming you'd be stupid to let a good person go.

"Are you?" Will you be? Will we be?

The intensity with which he asks is more an indicator of his understanding and willingness to help. He doubts Dean feels all that willing to unburden, but considering all the secrets they share — up to and including Blake's alternate identity — he isn't a bad choice for this. Dean will (hopefully) know that regardless of how he chooses to respond.

[righteously]

The touch to his elbow is soft and familiar, and it strums a strange, deep ache in Dean's chest that he can't properly define. It's strange, to miss something that isn't real, that never was. Strange to feel hollow over a loss that doesn't exist. Through the blur of fading memories, he knows he had something.

They had something. Him, and this man in his living room. This man that he gently leads to the couch, settling in on the opposite end — but at an angle, his body turned to face Blake, an elbow on the couch back and one knee bent onto the center cushion.

This gesture means a lot. The question, the understanding behind it. He doesn't have very many people in his life that know him this well. He can count on probably one hand the number of people alive who have this kind of insight into who he is, and the baggage he carries, and how not okay he always is.

It can't be called abrupt, he's known Blake for a long time now, it's just... it feels like they've jumped up several levels faster than Dean could blink, and now he's trying to catch his breath and hustle along to match pace.

There's silence for a few moments, and he spends it passing calloused fingers back and forth across his lips, an absent gesture from that arm settled on the couch back. Debating, weighing.

He thinks... yeah, he thinks it feels right to just let this happen. To let the honesty and realness surface, when he might otherwise muscle them down and throw a blanket over this whole mess to hide it. Who they were-- or, who they could be, deserves at least that much from him now.

"I'm not. I'm not okay. I will be, because I have to be, but- right now... a lot of things are hitting me all at once, and it's a lot to swallow. Jo's- Jo is gone. I got some memories from back home that are... too big. And then there's the whole god thing right on top of it, like an eight-hundred-year weight on my chest that I don't know how to even start unpacking, so... no. Not okay." He at least sounds composed enough through the confession, which is something. He's got a grip on it all, but that's the truth, hand-delivered only to Blake.

[oversight]

Hard to imagine how much it takes for Dean to lean into this sort of vulnerability and honesty. The raw edges of Dean's being are further frayed, their taunting wave a reminder to Blake that not all that long ago (or maybe so, so very long ago), he wasn't all that well put together himself. In fact, it's Dean that had helped piece him back together, puzzling back into reality most of a man. Enough to make things — all manner of things — worth weathering.

Dean had done it for him. It's about time he tried to return the favor.

As Blake watches this go down, he fidgets. The descent back to reality — or, at least, what he thinks must be reality (for as unreal as it sounds) — hasn't been easy. Wondering what all to keep for himself, wondering who's doing the same... Truth be told, he'd been almost relieved to miss Dean the first night if only for the opportunity to turn it all over in his head again. Nothing had changed, of course (because he still felt— no, feels devoted), but having that time to walk through at least a scenario or two had at least helped get him to this point. He knows Dean hasn't offered himself the same mercy and wonders even more how he hasn't made the guy feel cornered after all that.

"That's a lot," Blake says in lieu of an apology. He doesn't expect Dean will take one anyway; it's not his fault and Blake's sympathy at this juncture's worth about as much as real estate in the badlands. Instead, he offers out his hand, palm up and finger's twitching.

He presses his lips together, and regardless of whether Dean makes that physical connection, Blake is closing his eyes and trusting the process.

"When things got too big for me, I'd go somewhere small." Usually a closet. (And look where that got him.) But it's a means to an end, if nothing else, and in this case he doesn't mind offering the option. "So if you need a place that's a little... less, my door's always open."

[righteously]

Blake offers his hand out, and Dean looks at it for a long moment. Lingering in the air between them, a bigger gesture than he probably realizes for a man as tangible as Dean is. Creature comforts, something simple and hands-on, are exactly the language he speaks. He's not sure he deserves it — but he takes it anyway, slowly reaching his own hand out to settle over Blake's, palm to palm.

This isn't who they were before the three-week hallucination. He's not sure it's healthy or sane to pretend like it was real, or wasn't real. You can't just speedrun a relationship like that, especially based on false pretense, based on a narrative he doesn't personally believe he could ever support in reality. Him, a god? Absolutely not. The path Sam went down, the path Cas went down, like he'd let either of them happen? So much of that place was false, it seems strange to take relationships like theirs as truth.

But it was something.

And he likes Blake. He does. Genuinely, as a person. He doesn't want to pretend they're something they're not, but he doesn't want to shoot it stone-dead, either. He does feel like he owes the guy honesty.

And so, after a beat, he exhales.

"I need to tell you something. The truth, about... the way things were. The way I was, right after you got here." His eyes fall to somewhere roughly around the coffee table. He chews the inside of his cheek. "You were right about me, back then. You were right to be suspicious. There's some stuff you should probably know, before you go... inviting me into your place like that."

[gynvael]

[ Dean is simple to track down. Geralt first locates him at the Sarstina, but the amount of people means he doesn't stay long. Stays long enough to be sure that it is, in fact, Dean he's looking at, with no signs that Death has sunk her claws into him. Not here, at least.

He arrives several hours later instead at Dean's house. The sky dims with the sinking sun, taking the late spring heat with it. He doesn't knock—just pushes open the door. ]

You're in one piece. [ And looking like he's been through hell, but that isn't new. They've all got those fucking memories to sort through. Geralt isn't sure what to do with his, either. How he's meant to take what they discovered. For now, he's retained his focus on reconnecting with what is real. The desert, the people, his horse. Trying to shed the fragments of a skin he once thought he wore. It both does and doesn't feel like him. He was not so different in that vision that he can disconnect himself from what he became.

The bottle in his hand clinks against the table. He eyes the area Dean's cleared away to make room to build...hm. He tilts his head, unasked question in the air. ]

[righteously]

( He needs something to keep himself occupied when the sun goes down, and it can't always be warming up a barstool at the Sarstina. Thus, the scene before Geralt: thick planks of wood which were not cheap to get his hands on, sheaths of felt and leather, piles of small tools on wheely-tables scattered around it, sanders and larger power tools borrowed from Viktor taking up the vast majority of what was once the living room.

And there's Dean, posted up by the head of the wide slab on his makeshift woodworking-table-meets-sawhorse setup, with a few lit lamps doing their best to keep the place bright enough to make this entire enterprise remotely viable this late in the day.

He's not expecting company. Clearly.

It's also clear he doesn't mind who walks in, because his shoulders release their tension again as soon as he recognizes the face.

No comment on that in one piece bit. He'll focus instead on the unasked question in Geralt's look, and his answer's a concise: )

Pool table. For Mag's. ( And, after a beat of assessing Geralt's general vibe on whether or not he's likely to stick around, he nods his head toward the corner opposite himself. ) Gimme a hand?

[gynvael]

[ Mm. Of course it is.

Geralt, of all people, understands the desire to abate one's restlessness with excessive construction. There's a reason nearly every piece of furniture in his home was built by his hands when Jaskier can afford to buy it all.

A brief pause as he gauges Dean's desire for his company. The request is invitation enough. Geralt takes his place on the other side, holding the plank of wood steady. It's strange to be back here like this. He has a memory, clear as crystal, of thinking that might be the last time he saw his friend of countless decades. And it is an unreleased grief that became tangled up with Nero's loss—freshly back in his mind, as though it happened yesterday and not weeks ago.

Nero is still gone. But Dean is here. He can hold onto that. There's no purpose in abandoning the living for the dead.

For a while, he's quiet. The house feels hollow. His last visit, it was filled with colourful tinsel. Warmth. Now a chaotic clutter covers the ground. Jo's absence does not yet strike him—they're hunters; they come and go—but. Something is different.

He holds out one of Dean's custom powered tools. ] Mag says she can't get you to fuck off with that hammer.

[ Coming from that woman, an affectionate remark—and perhaps an edge of concern. ]

[righteously]

( The memories of it all are complicated, for Dean. Without the bolstering of the Singularity propelling him to Godhood, his mostly-human brain isn't really built for retaining eight hundred plus years of solid, crystal-clear memories. A lot of it has begun to blur, with only the most important bits lingering. What he has are mainly impressions, associations, summaries. High-level details, with only snatches of nuance.

Unfortunately, other memories are clearer. Memories from home, memories he knows are real, and not the product of whatever prescient bullshit that big magic rock gave them.

It's a lot to wade through. A lot to reconcile, on top of other things. Recent losses. Revelations. Everything with Cas. What this all means for him, moving forward.

So, yeah. He's been doing construction about it. Of course he has, that's what he does. )

Mag's got crappy siding and she'll thank me when the dust storms can't yank it off anymore.

( It's dry, a little dismissive. He knows concern when he hears it, and he's fine. Matter of fact, let him take this opportunity to redirect the spotlight before it can fully settle on himself — )

How you holdin' up? How's your whole- you know.

( He does a vague gesture roughly around his own cranium. How's the noggin treating you? )

[gynvael]

[ Geralt raises an eyebrow, leaning forward on the resting plank. He replies with a plain: ] Intact.

[ And that is all Dean will get out of him because he knows deflection like the underside of a horse hoof. They can discuss his state of being later. He is, for all intents and purposes, fine. He is not disturbed by the vision. He does not fear what he became. What he wants to know is how much of what he saw might come to pass—and why they were given such a glimpse. Who did it? The Singularity? The discordant voice of an unknown god?

Prophecy is never carved in stone (even when it physically is). The reasons behind whoever set this in motion, on the other hand, is tangible, real. That is the point he finds concerning.

But Geralt is not the one aggressively sawing into the evening right now.

He softens the silence by uncorking the bottle and holding it out. An offering. ]

[righteously]

( He sighs, and under his breath slips out the softest, barely-audible, damn it. Alright, fine. He knows what that clipped answer means, he knows he's not getting out of it quite so easily, so he takes that open bottle begrudgingly and brings it to his lips.

One long, bolstering swallow later, he lets himself lean on the flat of the wood before him in a posture slightly more resigned.

He doesn't give the bottle back quite yet. After a long minute of waffling on which part of it all he's willing to crack open to appease Geralt, he settles on: )

Jo's gone.

( Because he knows they had a... weird dynamic, maybe something almost approaching friendship, and because it's news. It's worth sharing. He's the right source to divulge it, if anybody were going to find out from anywhere it probably ought to be him.

And then he takes another, slightly shorter, drink — just to chase it. )

Re: ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[demigoth]

[ Sometime around noon, someone pitches a rock onto the roof of the inn. Not a big rock, about the size of a shooter marble, and with rather good aim. Nico deliberate nails the next patch of missing shingles. Still in the man's line of sight, but he doesn't want to be mistaken as trying to bean the dude.

Then, he does it again to make sure he gets the man's attention. The second rock sends the first skittering along the rooftop. Nico squints up at him with one hand curled above his eyes from the bright sun.]

Are you Dean?

[ The voice is decidedly teenager, but mercifully past the squeaky stage. Having to holler up to the roof makes Nico think that he must sound too eager, but his usual volume wouldn't carry above the sound of a hammer.

He should probably explain why he's asking. People - okay, fine, Nico - can get shirty when other people just walk up and ask him are you Nico?. Nobody likes their reputation proceeding them. It's usually the worst bits. ]

Will said the Dean who knows about swords was fixing the roof.

[righteously]

( That first rock bounces off of a nearby shingle, tink tink tinks into his field of view, and has him pausing, brow screwed up in confusion.

The second rock, he catches in mid-air before it lands out of sheer reflex. He turns it over in his hands, then shifts to peer over the steep ledge down toward the source of this shenaniganery.

Ah. Right.

He's learned from his mistakes today, after the last time a wayward teenager found his way up the nearby ladder and onto the roof without so much as a warning. Talk about a walking OSHA violation. Today, there is no ladder.

Instead, two enormous white wings fold into this plane of existence at his back, and beat heavy gusts into the air as he glides from the roof above to the ground before Nico. In one hand, he carries a sheathed long sword. )

You must be the goth boyfriend. You here for the demonstration?

[demigoth]

[ Wings weren't mentioned in the description, and Nico swears under his breath, because - only for a moment, the man looked like an older form of Eros. He's not; Nico can tell he's not by the time he lands, if only because he's not pretty enough to be Eros. Too attractive for a male harpy - do they even exist? He doesn't think so. ]

The "goth boyfriend?"

[ Nico practically spits it out, indignant at being reduced down to goth boyfriend and without fear. Dean can have as many wings as he wants. He's not a god - he's not a normal human, but not a god, so Nico's fine. And he has an aesthetic, okay, but unlike most people who go for the all black pale skin looks-like-Cesare look, he's actually seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and only found out about the Cure a few months ago. ]

My name's Nico di Angelo, and I don't need a demonstration. I just need a sword.

[righteously]

( That last bit earns one short, sharp laugh — and he holds up his free hand in a hold your horses gesture. )

No, no, no. You got it twisted, Danny Phantom. You're giving the demonstration.

( This ain't a Dean gives a safety lecture first situation. This is a Nico has to prove himself before Dean will even consider hooking him up. He's not in the business of handing deadly weapons to teenagers he doesn't trust to use them.

He holds his sword out, still sheathed — but doesn't let go of it quite yet. )

This one is mine. You show me what you can do, and if I'm confident you're not gonna take your own damn head off, then I'll think about getting you geared up. Understand?

[demigoth]

[ He isn’t sure who Danny Phantom is, but Nico’s pretty sure he’s just been insulted. He’ll have to ask Will about it later. For now, scowls are free. ]

It’s Nico.

[ He steps forward and takes the sword by the hilt, although he doesn’t draw it out of the scabbard with Dean still holding onto it. Nico doesn’t want to dull the blade against the scabbard. It’s not the sword’s fault Dean’s an idiot. ]

I’m not going to take anyone’s head off accidentally or on purpose, so you might as well start thinking. Everyone says there’s monsters outside the city and I’m not waiting for them to get hungry. What am I demonstrating on?

[righteously]

( It's alright, he's long since gotten used to the people around him not understanding his references. It is a way of life at this point. You'd think that would inspire him to stop making them, but no, they are forever. They're his love language. His mother tongue.

If he's at all bothered by Nico's attitude, it doesn't show on his face. He's been around more hunter teens than he can even count off the top of his head, and almost all of them have the exact same attitude. Grumpy, egotistical, dismissive and yet simultaneously defiantly intent to prove themselves. It's normal, for the kind of lives they lead. Demigod kids, as far as Dean's concerned, are the same brand with a different title.

He was one himself, once. He gets it.

But it's still his responsibility as the adult to make sure this is safe for everyone, including Nico himself. And so he releases the scabbard, and conjures instead a much shorter blade into his empty hand. )

Me.

( He gives the blade a little flip in his hand, and offers Nico a jerky nod. )

Whenever you're ready, kid.