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

Entry tags:

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

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

( coming soon. )

Edited 2024-05-14 20:57 (UTC)

( 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. )

( For two and a half years, the Roadhouse has taken up the same spot in the Horizon. Always open, always welcoming, never too crowded but often with at least a handful of folks circulating through it — be it for drinking, for the music, for shooting pool or playing darts, or for the wealth of hunting-related information pinned to the wall that serves as their communal intel board.

It feels a little emptier now than it has in years.

Him and Jo used to alternate most days, and tag-team a few times a week, so at least one of them made an appearance to man the bar in the evenings. To restock imaginary liquor that didn't need manually restocking. To wipe down tables that could be magicked clean, but were instead painstakingly hand-scrubbed. To serve anybody who didn't seem to know how to serve themselves.

Now, Dean's the only one behind the bar. The jukebox still plays quietly. He still wipes down the glasses himself. He'll still greet anyone who happens in, but it's all with a slightly more somber air. Outside, it's grey and overcast, occasionally sprinkling rain. Welcome in; don't mind the mood, he'll make up for it as soon as there's company to perform for. )

[ Dean's been exceedingly hard to pin down since they've returned, rarely at the house, and when he is, passed out on the couch. cas doesn't begrudge him for it. they'd convinced dean to take a leap of faith, risk his heart and indulge the love he held for her, knowing it would abruptly end, one way or another. it's motivation enough to avoid the empty house, to avoid him, even if what they learned from home weren't lingering there on top of it all.

cas mourns jo's loss, of course, but it was something they spoke often about. she knew it was coming, and castiel's just glad she was able to have something of her own, something she truly wanted, that didn't come with a price tag, and wasn't constantly under threat. she was vibrant, she was beautiful, she taught him so much he'll never be able to repay her for. she seemed happy, for the time she could.

if they ignore the mess of the last 800 years. the intensity of the love between the three of them never waned, but communication broke down past what Jo was able to mend for them. it shouldn't have been her job, all that time, to navigate rocky waters between dean and cas when they were too stubborn (too afraid) to.

there were a million different excuses they found to bicker over, and none of them the heart of contention. a last second admission of a love held back from a bond they'd thought hid nothing, confessed only because he had to, and only seconds before he'd be gone forever. cas heard his prayers, but left them unanswered. he had his reasons. likes to think, if he'd known then what he does here, he'd been back to earth the second the empty released him. but that didn't happen, and months later, dean died on a rookie misstep.

in the last week they've been home, dean's been repairing every building and house and shed in town, and castiel's ripped up his entire garden in a frenzied frustrated, guilty, angry, terrified storm of grief both ancient and fresh. he hasn't felt particularly willing to hold counsel on any of it yet either. but eventually, he knows they're both stalling as long as they can, old habits of a world that never was slinking poisonously back into their present.

the horizon sky outside the roadhouse is dark and gloomy, barely holding back rain, and cas watches it briefly before ducking inside, shoes announcing him with a hollow sound against the floorboards. Dean's behind the counter and Cas watching his back for a moment while struggling with the complexity 800 years of a false reality left him with. He wants to run over there and shake him. He wants to drag him into his arms and hold tight until their world rights itself. Cas beelines to a barstool. ]

Whiskey, with rocks.

[ 'on the rocks', he means, but close enough. ]

( He's retained some memories of those eight hundred years. Not all, not everything, a lot of it's blurry — the truth is, the human mind wasn't built to be able to recall that much information. He has impressions, though. Feelings about himself, who he was, who he became. He'd like to think he felt steadier, the older he got. More patient, more calm, more mature. Better able to wade through the sea of emotions in his chest and parse them with a level head. It was harder with Cas, with all the crap surrounding them, with how fraught their arguments got, but-

He was okay at it then. He wants to be able to retain some of that now, he wants to keep the wisdom he earned in that alternate universe. He put a lot of work into understanding himself, and feeling it all slip away like grains of sand is frustrating. The tighter he grips, the faster it sieves through his fingers.

Part of him is angry. Part of him hurts. Part of him feels abandoned. There's more than a small handful of grief, now that those back home memories feel prevalent and recent — more real now than the godly memories do. The ache of loss is still a hollow pang, Cas's death hit harder than almost anyone's. As much as his mother's did the first time. As much as his father's did the first time. He feels robbed, cheated, and knowing — knowing that Jack brought him back, but that he stayed gone? Hurts worse.

And it all loops right back around again to anger, because it's easier for Dean to feel angry than to feel left behind.

He doesn't want to be angry anymore. He's tired. He was supposed to have been done, finally. He feels old, older than his body gives him credit for. Not just because of those hallucinated lifetimes of memory, but the extra almost-decade's worth crammed in from home.

With rocks is just Castiel enough for a spike of fondness to interrupt his sea of too-many-feelings, and he lets out a soft huff of breath — but doesn't correct it. He goes about the motions, pulling down a glass, filling it with a few cubes of ice, topping it with mid-shelf whiskey. Quietly, he slides the glass across the bar to Castiel's seat. Then goes about pouring his own, because screw it, he might as well. He's probably gonna need it.

Jo's gone. He has to remind himself Cas is probably hurting too, and Dean being away... not being there for him through it? Is a shitty move on his part. He sees it now in hindsight, he feels guilty for it, but he doesn't know where in the hell to even begin with unpacking it all. It's just issue stacked on top of issue on top of issue, all grappling for priority and precedence. How do you start dealing with one without dealing with the others first? )

[ It's not the first time she's been in this particular Horizon, but the details of how or when are hazy. Earlier days, perhaps, of a life long lived and shortly passed. The imprint enough of its importance to know who's it is before she has to ask; Ears searching for the sound of music to see if she can place it in the long repertoire of music that Quill and Rocket subject them all to. It's unfamiliar.]

[ Leaves a little less in the room of small talk. Fine with her, she hates smalltalk to begin with, and given her trip into this Horizon was as much accidental as it is incidental she decides... It's foolish to back out when she'd already proverbially opened the door. ]

[ Feels the cling of the dismal air and thinks little more of it; It's not as if plenty of others haven't been in dour states with all of this. And where was she? In typical Nebula fashion, she hasn't thought about it. Only approaches the bar with a short nod and her right, metal arm leaning against the bar. ]

What's the bartender's suggestion?

( This, he's starting to realize, is a sensation he's going to have to start getting used to — seeing familiar faces, feeling a knee-jerk association in his chest that doesn't necessarily belong. Dean is not a man who forms attachments easily but, once they exist, he refuses with every scrap of himself to let them go.

That reality, that history he shared with the rest of the summoned, was like a shotgun blast of connection. Now that it's over, it's disorienting to separate his head and his heart.

She looks different now than she did toward the end of it all, but she still feels like her. She still carries the echo of quiet conversations, of his hand on her shoulder, the understanding of losing something and finding oneself in the process. The memories are blurry, but the impressions linger.

Whatever they had might not have been reality, but doesn't it at least merit looking a little closer? In case it could be?

So, after a beat of hesitation spent studying her, he breaks the tension with a nod and a knowing snap of his fingers. )

Think I got just the thing. Pop a squat.

( And then he goes about snatching up a bottle, a couple of shot glasses — and a lime. )

You ever learn the right way to shoot tequila?

[ Nebula tries not to think about the what ifs. She's not the person in those memories, she can't be. That person had become more whole, had forgotten all the shit that had torn her apart and threw her back together. The actions that couldn't be forgiven. Had healed in a way Nebula herself cannot - hasn't even dreamed of, even if the possibility now presents itself as an itch under her skin. ]

[ She hasn't forgotten, though, and some part of her doesn't want to. Even if her nose wrinkles in distaste as she mumbles: ]

Hell kind of phrase is 'pop a squat?'

[ Stupid Terrans. She might complain, but she does obey as she moves to sit resettling elbows on bar. Brows hiking up as she considers: ]

Haven't had a Terran drink do much for me that the right or wrong way hasn't mattered.

( Ah yeah, this tracks. He went and adopted another alien that doesn't get pop culture references. Girlstiel over here has him shaking his head, though there's something wry and faintly fond in the shape of his lips, the corners of his eyes. )

Is that right?

( He asks, pausing with his hand on the tequila bottle. If that's the case, he's gonna have to break out the big guns. )

On second thought--

( Away goes one lime wedge. Away goes one shot glass. Instead, he pulls out a dark, unlabeled jug from deep beneath the counter. A healthy portion is glug, glug, glugged into a thick, frosted mug. It's the stuff Geralt brings by when he actually wants to feel something. Don't ask him what it's called, he can't remember. If it works for Witchers, maybe it'll work for her. One way to find out. )

Here you go, sister. Fair warning, it's got a kick.

It's not boasting.

[ She retorts to the way he intones that. Hell if she'd want a skill that was being able to drink someone under the table, what good would it do her? ] Humans have weak constitutions.

[ Plain fact. They're weak in a lot of other ways she thinks, too, but doesn't say. Once, she might have looked down on them - seen them as worthless. Certainly, she thought that of Quill the first time she saw him. Now, it's just a fact. ]

[ She stiffens some, between the change of course and the phrase he gives. 'Sister,' from his mouth feels way more personal than it should. She doesn't like it. Scoffs. ]

Don't make promises you can't keep.

[ She takes the drink and for a brief blink and you'd miss it moment, stares at skeptically. (Could she trust it? Would it eve nbe worth it?) Discarded quickly and she takes a long drink. Unfortunately, the world says what works for Geralt, does not work so well on her. ] You serve this to people?

( Boy, he sure does know how to pick 'em, doesn't he? He's gonna have to get her and Cas in the same room together sometime so they can have a frank conversation about weak human constitutions, or whatever. He looks, if anything, more amused than offended.

— and he definitely refuses to think about the fact that he's not so sure he's entirely human anymore these days, even before the eight hundred years of crazy godly bullshit. Better to just let that thought slip away back into the spooky void it came from. )

Nope.

( He responds pleasantly, pouring himself a nice, normal shot of tequila. Personally, he can manage all of about a glass and a half of the stuff Geralt drinks before he's black-out smashed off his friggin' ass, and that's with his own superior S-tier alcohol tolerance. Liquor's practically vitamins to him and that crap still rocks his world. His most sincere condolences about her booze immunity, he'd have jumped off a bridge years ago without his functional alcoholism crutch. )

I serve that to people who have stupidly high fun-sucking constitutions. ( Big Shrug. ) Figured it was worth a shot. If that ain't cutting it, I can make you a girly-fru-fru appletini instead. I'm sure I got tiny umbrellas around here somewhere.

( At least it'd taste better, if it's all the same amount of useless. )

[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.]

( 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. )

[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.

( 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?

[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.]

"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.

( 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.

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.

[Thank you Dean, that little eyeroll made him feel right at home. He appreciates it.]

Okay, I'll give you that. Chemistry sounds fun. But, let me rephrase that. What can they teach me that would help me survive past 20? Because, I'm probably not going to. The fact that I'm 16 is amazing. Clarisse is in college. In demigod age she's old as rocks. Since we're not from the same world, let me tell you. That's really, really rare. So school? Algebra? Not really high on my priority list. Unless, you know, I'm stuck here for my entire life. Although even here, I wouldn't bet on my chances.

[He appreciates the thought. The idea. Going to school. Learning stuff that wasn't how to kill monsters and how to get yourself out of crappy situations you had absolutely no control over. Like....how to make scrambled eggs or solve for x. That would be so cool. But? That's also not his life, and Will's accepted that. Mostly. Kind of. ]

Edited (spelling/slight addition.) 2024-05-18 17:07 (UTC)

( He exhales slowly — oh boy, this talk was not on his bingo card for today. )

Alright, settle in, junior, because I wanna tell you something.

( He ruffles a hand over his too-long hair, makes a mental note to dig out his clippers sometime soon, and then turns a studious eye on Will. )

Where I'm from... we have monsters, too. Me and my brother were raised to fight them, ever since we were little kids. There was a time, back when I was your age, where I felt the same way you do now. Stuff like that- normal people stuff, it wasn't for me, and it was pointless, and odds are I was gonna die before I ever needed to use anything I would've learned anyway. My brother, Sam... he's the smarter one, you know what he did?

( A beat for emphasis and then- )

He got out, and he went to law school. Stanford. Believe it or not, what he learned there's actually come in handy more than a few times in the field. The point I'm trying to make here is, don't live your life thinking it's gonna end next week. Don't let things you're interested in feel pointless. If you're strong, and you're smart, and you surround yourself with people who are as interested in keeping you alive as you are them? Who knows, you might live to be an old man that yells at teenagers and re-shingles roofs.

[Will sprawls on the ground as Dean tell him to settle in, because if he's going to listen, he's going to be comfy and listen. And Dean was right. His arguments were the very same ones he himself had said. To himself, to Nico, to his siblings. They were stronger together. So what happened when everyone kept dying?]

Stanford? That's one smart brother you got there. I want that, I want what your brother had. But, I also know, that doing what I'm doing now? In the depths with the monsters, trying to survive and keep everyone else alive? That's what I was born to do. So, is making myself happy worth sacrificing someone else's life? Because I wasn't there to help? Because I'd rather learn chemistry?

Nico and I are stronger together. I couldn't have survived Tartarus without him. And I suppose you never know, something I learned in school could have come in handy there. I mean, eventually I'm going to have to come up with a really good lie as to how I can tell when someone's about to have a coronary just by touching them but....I guess that's a little ways off? If I can survive without getting eaten.

[Will's trying to work this out in his head as he talks, he likes Deans ideas, he just doesn't know how possible they are.]

You and your brother fight monsters? You were taught how too?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 6

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

ᴄᴀᴅᴇɴs.

ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏʀɪᴢᴏɴ.

ɴᴏᴄᴡɪᴄʜ.

no subject

ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅʜᴏᴜsᴇ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject