#and get shifty at the same time so we can be silly critters together | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mothmanismyuncle · 4 years

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can i offer you a crossover in this trying time?

A/N: hello, critters, and welcome to critical hiatus! we all are sad that we don’t get to spend our time with our favourite people this week, but i hope we all understand that they’ve gotta stay safe, just like us. so i decided that we needed something goofy, silly, and fun to do while we ride this out to get our minds away from how heavy the world around us has become, even if it’s just for a minute.

let’s all take a trip down memory lane! add on, spin off, make silly memes in ms paint, tag your stuff with “critical hiatus” so we can all find it, and most importantly: don’t forget to love each other. we’re gonna pull through, and we’re going to do it together.

no lemons, no pairings, canon non-compliant ;) i don’t own these characters so pls don’t sue me ^.^’

chapter one under the cut

~*~Chapter One~*~

The Mighty Nein, as a whole, were used to both strangeness and being strangers. They’d been on the road since they’d met each other, chasing some goal, some creature, some hidden danger waiting to strike. So when they’d come to rest in a town called Lawrence, somewhere nebulously east of Trostenwald and south of Alfield, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, it was somewhat of a relief.

“Don’t you think this place is a little… Shifty?” Nott asked, peering around Caleb on their horse to look at the rest of the group.

Fjord scanned the slowly approaching town, an eyebrow raised, and turned to Beau. She seemed to be doing the same.

“How come?” Jester asked, half-turning on her horse to face Nott.

“Well, you know that phrase? ‘Never trust a person with two first names’? What if a whole town had a first name?” Nott trailed off, fiddling with the mask dangling by its cord around her neck.

“How could a town even have a first or last name?” Fjord asked, relaxing a bit on his horse. “They just have the one,”

“Doesn’t that make it twice as ominous?” Nott wondered, spreading her hands wide in front of her. It was probably for the best that Caleb was leading the horse, if one was being honest. She spoke often with her hands and it would only take one conversation with the group to send Nott careening off into the forest on her horse, never to be seen again.

“What even makes a name a first name, anyway?” Beau asked, leading her horse to ride alongside Caleb and Nott. “Couldn’t somebody’s last name be Lawrence?”

“I guess,” Nott agreed, begrudgingly crossing her arms in front of her. “I still don’t trust it.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Caleb replied, shrugging once. “We haven’t been many places we can trust from the start.”

“We should give them the benefit of the doubt,” Caduceus said, adjusting his straw hat against the sun. For what it was worth, it was a lovely scene. The late-afternoon sun shone above, not a cloud in the sky, and the rolling foothills of the Ashkeeper Peaks had offered them a few wildflowers for Yasha’s book and trees and the sounds of blowing boughs and wildlife. It was peaceful, a balm to soothe the chaos of the past few days. “If nobody gave us the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think we’d be half as well-off as we are now.”

They rode in amicable silence for a spell, the buildings of the town of Lawrence coming ever closer. To call it a town, now that they were nearing the smattering of low, thatched-roofed homes and shops, could have been an overstatement. There were no more than a handful of thin tendrils of smoke, curling into the sky from chimneys, and the usual sounds of a town were few and far between.

As they breached the city, riding towards the centre where an inn or tavern were most likely to rest, they saw a few children playing in front of a house where a woman hung clothes to dry and a man carrying a heavy burlap sack over one shoulder, but the streets were otherwise quiet, save for the sounds of their horses.

“It’s quaint,” Caleb offered. “Would we like to sleep here for the night? Turn in early, get some rest and some supper before we have to set off again tomorrow?”

“If they even have an inn,” Beau murmured. “That kinda looks like they’ve got stables and stuff? Want to check there?” She motioned towards the largest building on the main drag with a few stalls standing empty behind it. They steered their horses toward the hitching posts and dismounted, unpacking their bags. The faded wooden sign swinging above the door named the building “The Winchester”, and though it was as quiet as the rest of the town, there was a man standing behind the modest counter with a stained rag over his shoulder and a book in front of him.

“Hello,” He called, raising a hand in greeting. He was tall, only a head shorter than Caduceus, had dark brown hair that grazed his jaw and was in need of a shave. “How can I help you all?”

“Hello, there,” Fjord replied, moving toward the front of the group with a winning smile. “We’re just some weary travelers, hoping that you’ve got rooms and maybe some dinner for us.” He leant an elbow on the counter a few paces away from the man, close enough to be friendly but far enough away to avoid crowding him. The man shut his book over a finger and took a quick headcount of the group. Beau and Fjord locked eyes for a brief moment as he glossed over Nott’s mask, Yasha’s big, fuckoff sword strapped to her back, Jester’s wide smile, and Caduceus in general before giving them a regretful grimace.

“We don’t really have rooms,” The man began. “Just a few beds in the addition out back. There are eight, though, so there’s that?” He offered, hooking a thumb to the door at the back of the room. “Nobody else is staying right now, so you’d have it to yourselves. We can definitely see about some dinner, though,”

“Then we’ll have the beds, right?” Fjord said, looking back at his friends. Six degrees of varying assent looked back at him so he turned back, reaching for his purse. “How much for one night and a meal?”

“And some pastries?” Jester chimed in, leaning in on Fjord’s right.

“And a drink,” Beau sighed, sliding into a stool to Fjord’s left and resting her head on her fist.

“Uh,” The man blinked back at them. “Eight silver for the beds,” He began, making Fjord look at his purse in surprise. He wasn’t even sure he had any silver anymore, and the thought made him chuckle a little. He could remember a time when a handful of silver was a fortune to him, a goal for the end of the week to drink on and find some hard bread to fill his belly.

How times had changed with the Nein.

“As far as dinner and drinks goes, for everybody,” The man trailed off, wiping his hands on the rag from his shoulder as he looked between them. “Maybe four gold?” He said, clearing his throat with a frown. “We probably have pie?”

“Clearly, you’ve never seen my friend here have a drink,” Fjord said with a laugh, clapping Beau on the shoulder. Beau grumbled, but grinned as she slapped at his hand. He put ten gold on the counter in a small tower and turned toward the front door. “Are the stables out back available for our horses?”

The man stared down at the small tower of gold on the counter for a moment before he looked back up at the Nein and nodded, gaping for only a moment before recovering.

“I can settle them in, if you’d like,” He said, slipping the coin into his pocket. He moved around the bar and stuck his hand out, first to Fjord, then to each of the rest of the group. “I’m Sam. Sam Winchester,”

“I’m Fjord,” Fjord offered, pointing to each of the Nein in turn. “And that’s Beau, Jester, Yasha, Caleb, Nott, and Caduceus.”

“Hey,” Beau said, tipping her chin up at him with a firm handshake.

“Hello!” Jester trilled, shaking his hand with both of hers. “What kind of pie?”

“Hi,” Yasha murmured, shaking his hand once with a little smile.

“Pleased to meet you,” Caleb said, shaking Sam’s hand and putting the other on Nott’s shoulder.

“Hello,” Nott said quietly from behind her mask. Sam paused for a moment, but only smiled when she shook his hand.

“How’re ya doin’,” Caduceus said, leaving Sam’s handshake hanging in the air for a brief second before bobbling his staff to the other hand and offering his own handshake.

“Can’t complain,” Sam replied with an incredulous grin. “I’ll go get your horses settled if you all want to take a seat,” He looked around the room. “Uh, I could push some tables together,”

“Oh, we got it,” Beau said, standing and moving towards one square, oak table. “Yash, Jess?” Yasha and Jester pulled some chairs away from a second mismatched table and took the other two sides. Nott peeled herself away from Caleb to leap onto the tabletop with a shrill cry: “Onward, noble steeds!”

“I’ll help, they’re kinda heav—Oh,” The women of the Nein picked the table up from the ground, as to not scratch the already-weathered wooden floor further. Jester threw her head back and laughed, carrying her side in one hand while she pumped the other in the air with Nott.

Fjord clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“I think they got it covered, friend,” He said with a chuckle.

“Sure do,” Sam replied, swallowing once. “I’ll just go settle your horses,” He said turning for the door. He still carried the book he was reading, a finger marking his place, and realized as much with a sigh. He took a few quick steps back to the bar, turning back to plunk it on the counter, spine up, before making his flustered exit.

“He seems nice enough,” Caleb said, moving to lean over the book. He scanned the spine and cover.

“How’s his taste in reading material?” Fjord ribbed, spinning a chair around and kicking a leg over the seat to straddle the back.

Caleb’s cheeks flushed as he took the chair between Nott and Yasha. Fjord noted that he faced the front door, sitting only after he made sure Beau sat with an eye on the back door. He responded by angling his body towards the kitchen door and he watched Caleb relax by a fraction.

“It didn’t have a title on it,” Caleb replied. “I was only curious.”

“We could see if they’ve got a book shop,” Nott offered, kicking her feet a little in her seat.

“They don’t seem like they’ve any shops,” Caleb said, beginning to worry a thumb nail.

“It is a little town.” Yasha said, settling her pack to the side of her and crossing one leg over the other. “But it could surprise you. You never know what we could find.”

That was all it took to sell the Nein, really. When Sam returned from the stables, they were directed toward a squat, one-story building at the very end of the main drag.

“It’s not much, but sometimes Bobby will have a couple of books,” Sam offered. “There’s time before dinner yet, anyway. Might as well explore.” He spared a glance and a grin for Jester. “Dinner and pie.”

They traipsed down the street together, each deciding that they didn’t have anything better to do than go meet a shopkeeper named Bobby, and they found themselves at the door in mere moments. They met no one else on the road, save a little brown dog that had spared a bark for Frumpkin before ducking into an alley, and Beau had said as much before Caleb rapped on the door.

“Town’s pretty fucking empty for like, three in the afternoon,” She said, leaning on the wall to the side of the door and scanning the street.

“Half past three, actually,” Caleb murmured, knocking sharply three times and taking a step back should the door swing outward.

“That’s even more weird,” Beau hissed, looking around again.

“Why is three thirty weirder than three?” Jester asked, drawing something in her journal with a flourish. When no one answered, she looked up and around the group before landing on Beau. Beau fumbled for a second as Caleb reached up to knock again.

“I thought you were telling a joke,” Beau said, Caleb’s harder knocking startling her into a sidestep and a huff.

“Yeah, I was waiting for the punchline,” Caduceus replied, looking over Jester’s shoulder at her book. “Oh, wow. That looks just like him!”

“Thanks, Caduceus!” Jester said, shooting him a big smile. Caleb debated knocking again as Jester turned her journal around. “I drew Sam for the Traveler,” Caleb turned to see, his fist in the air, but he heard the door swing open and he turned back around in surprise.

“Can I help you?” A man asked, giving Caleb’s raised fist a weary, but thoroughly unsurprised look. Caleb lowered it with a sheepish smile.

“We’re just passing through for the evening,” Caleb began, gesturing at the Nein. “And Sam, from just there,” He pointed at The Winchester. “He recommended that we come to see you if we were in need of some new literature to keep us company during our travels.”

Bobby, Caleb assumed, scanned the assembled Nein behind him before nodding slowly.

“Sure, I’ve got a few books I could part with. Watch your step.” He warned, taking a double take at Caduceus and Yasha. “And your head.”

The Nein were given entry to the shop as Bobby stepped back, sweeping an arm around the interior before moving to sit back down at a workbench at the back of the single room.

Three wobbling wooden steps took them to the lowered floor of the shop and Caleb paused at the top to survey the scene.

The shop, if one could call it that, was a cacophony of oddity and mismatched harmony. In one corner sat a pile of dry-rotted horse tack in front of an incredibly accurate oil painting of a farmhouse and a pasture in a broken gilt frame.

From the ceiling hung dented pots and pans, bunches of dried flora, a smattering of baskets, bunches of candles in a rainbow of hues, and over the workbench in the back, a number of horseshoes and coloured glass bottles, filled with grain or seeds. Caduceus and Yasha strained their necks to avoid disturbing the web of goods as they peered around the room, true to Bobby’s words of warning at the door.

A coatrack in another corner held a leather duster and a linen apron, topped with an absurd tricorn hat with a peacock feather pluming from one side. A table in the centre of the room glittered with broken jewelry, golden timepieces, beetle carapaces, an array of glassware, a tarnished silver hand mirror, scattered musket balls and a length of perfectly clean chain. Other tables held rusted armor and pristine swords, a bushel of apples that proclaimed on a slate that they were from “Mary’s Farm”, a small brass statue of a young man with a bow and arrow, a smattering of glass jars of dried herbs, unidentifiable powders, and small rocks, and a few stacks of neatly folded clothing.

Two clocks ticked on one of the walls, neither showing the proper time, and Caleb saw himself reflected in a variety of ways in a handful of mirrors hung throughout the shop at varying heights. Other paintings hung crookedly on the wall, the subjects landscapes, houses Caleb had never seen, waterfalls and forests caught his eye as he moved further into the shop.

Curios, some with broken glass in the doors and some that seemed to be in beautiful shape, littered the shop floor in a labyrinthine pattern that didn’t seem to have a rhyme nor reason and created slim walkways, filled with curiosities from clay jugs of unknown liquids to sparkling baubles and chipped teacups.

Under the side widow sat a low bookshelf holding a few gadgets that even Caleb couldn’t wonder at their function, a few cases that promised scrolls, and exactly what Caleb was looking for: a few dusty, leather-bound books.

The rest of the Nein had quietly scattered to the shop, tapping one another and pointing at this and that and having snippets of whispered conversations. No one had told them that this place was one that valued quiet; they had all decided that for themselves, but Caleb didn’t disagree as he knelt before the shelf of books. An aura of hushed voices and careful movement permeated the shop as dust from the floor ground itself into the knee of his pants.

“Not too much for literary types, I’m afraid,” Bobby’s voice came from behind him, shocking him slightly and shattering the heavy air in the shop. “Sam’s kept me cleaned out for a few weeks.”

“More’s the pity,” Caleb murmured, eyes scanning over titles. At the first glance, he saw an almanac from a number of years past, a biography of a bard he’d never heard of, a recipe book, and a collection of sacred texts of the approved deities of the Empire. On a whim, Caleb tugged the last from the shelf and thumbed open the cover to discover a hollow centre, containing a small flask of whiskey.

“Not for sale,” Bobby coughed, reaching around Caleb to close the book and take it back to his workbench. Caleb spared a little chuckle and turned back to the shelf to scan a number of untitled books. “Anyway,” Bobby drawled, turning to the rest of the Nein with a raised eyebrow. “What brings you through town? Haven’t had travelers for quite some time,”

“Just passing through,” Beau said, easily avoidant yet honest, holding a large, glittering hoop up to her nose in a dusty mirror to the immediate approval of Nott and Fjord. “I’m actually pretty sure we took a wrong turn a few miles back, but like, Fjord was too embarrassed to say so?”

“I did not,” Fjord interjected, retracting his thumbs-up at Beau’s proposed nose ring with a frown.

“Did too,” Jester laughed, holding a man’s suit jacket up in front of Yasha. Caduceus nodded beside her, but held a white blouse with a frilly collar up to her instead. Jester refolded the suit jacket excitedly and began to herd Yasha toward a curio with a full-length mirror.

“I did not,” Fjord insisted again, crossing his arms in front of him for only a moment before being unable to resist offering Beau a different earring to try on in the mirror.

“It’s alright, dude,” Beau said in lieu of thanks for the offering. “We’ve got a little time for the scenic route.” The earring was a single pearl on a stud, a shade of blue that complimented her clothes and her skin tone perfectly. As Caleb opened a weathered book, she frowned and took the earring out. “Good idea, but it just looks like a big blue zit on my nose.” Fjord conceded the point and replaced the earring from whence it came.

“I was so sure of the route,” Fjord murmured, handing over an even bigger hoop from the table. Caleb narrowed his eyes at Nott from across the room as her fingers landed on a small jewelry box. She looked up at him with a shrug and she placed it back on the table. Caleb narrowed his eyes a fraction more in warning before tipping his head down at the first page of the book.

“I mean, is it so hard to believe?” Caduceus drawled from where he was being coerced into the same jacket Jester had offered Yasha moments before. “You have troubles keeping the maps straight, sometimes,” He said, not a lick of judgement in his tone. Fjord nearly dropped the earring he was holding before he darkened from the neck to the hairline with a pained grimace.

“Sure, but this time… Ah, whatever,” He said, taking the rejected earring back from Beau and gently prising a bracelet the size of a gold piece from Nott’s fingers in one swoop.

As Caleb scanned the few pages of what appeared to be a journal of some kind, he wondered how many things were already in her pockets that they hadn’t caught her taking. He hoped this Bobby was the kind of man that would accept a payment and a few apology gold from the Nein should Nott be discovered.

From the way he was stood, leant against the work bench with his arms crossed lightly over this stomach, watching the Nein explode in his otherwise quiet store, Caleb had high hopes.

Something caught him while reading and he stopped, turning his full attention to the page at hand.

We don’t know how it happened. We only know it was gruesome. I told the guard, the doctor, my children, the others, everyone that it had been a robber, but… Well, that could still be so, but how, I’ll never know. What I saw burst through our front door that morning was an enormous black horse with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen.

The rest of the book was empty, save for a few pages torn out from the back of the journal.

“Excuse me,” Caleb asked, holding a hand up to the man he presumed to be Bobby. “What is this book here?”

He stood, placing the book in Bobby’s hand.

“Oh, that,” He said, frowning at the name signed in the front cover. “Journal. Picked it up at an estate sale couple miles north of here. Most of that jewelry’s from there, too,” He gestured at the pile Fjord was picking through for Beau’s new nose ring. “Sad story, that one.” He declared, giving Caleb a quick once-over.

“Oh?” Caleb asked coolly, locking eyes with Beau in her reflection. She turned back toward the room after fiddling with her jewelry and Caleb quirked an amused eyebrow at the dangling, glimmering crystals dripping from the side of her nose. She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back toward the mirror.

“Yep,” Bobby drawled, handing the book back. He offered nothing else and Caleb awkwardly cleared his throat as he moved to put the book back.

“Well?” Beau said, a different dangling earring swinging from her nose. “You can’t just tease us like that and leave us hanging!” Despite Bobby’s glare, it appeared that he’d been waiting for those magic words, as he wound up for a tale.

“Well,” He said, turning to perch back on the work bench. “Family up in the hills raised horses. Not work horses, mind, but these pretty show horses. Backs’d probably snap in two at the first hint of a real ride, but the rich folk around here go nuts over ‘em.” He scoffed, rolling his eyes at the very notion. Caleb wondered briefly what Bobby would think of a horse named ‘Shitter’ before Bobby continued his tale. “Last week, we hear tell that the husband’s been killed. His wife said it’d been robbers.” He said, letting the pause in his tale stretch until it seemed that one of the Nein were ready to break it. “But, if it had been a robber, how’d I end up with all this jewelry when she had to sell the house and everything in it? Wouldn’t you think a robber would at least take something?”

“What if they did?” Jester asked, making grabby hands at the unreachable hat on Caduceus’s head. When he obliged and bent down, she plopped a different hat in its place. “What if you just didn’t know because you don’t know what stuff she had?”

Bobby tipped his head at her with a frown.

“Sure, they could’ve taken something smaller, but why leave all of that behind? For that to happen to a guy, there had to have been at least ten of them,” Bobby said, looking around the group for hints of queasiness or meekness. He appeared to have found none, or perhaps just the right amount, because he continued. “Supposedly, beaten so badly that the only way they’d identified him was that he was lying in his bed.”

“Did he perhaps have an enemy? Someone who’d have an interest in seeing him turned into mush?” Fjord asked, absently taking the rejected earring from Beau and putting a different one in her hands.

“Fjord, this is a brooch,” She hissed, handing it back.

“My bad,” He said, looking at the offending bauble quickly before trading it for another.

“Not that I can imagine,” Bobby said, stroking his beard with a deep frown. “They kept to themselves, really. Just bred and sold the horses.”

“That is strange,” Caduceus said, bending down for a third hat swap.

“And a shame,” Fjord said somberly, giving an irate Beau a thumbs-down on a proposed nose ring.

“And a shame,” Bobby agreed quickly, holding a hand up in deference. “But definitely strange.”

“Definitely,” Caleb echoed with a small frown. “Well, how much would you like for it?”

After a moment and a long glance, Bobby shrugged.

“You can take it with you, if you’d like. Nobody else has been interested and it’s just cluttering up the shop.” There was a brief beat from the Nein as they, in unison, panned around the shop. “Okay, it’s helping to clutter up the shop,” Bobby amended drily.

They were quick to make their purchases after that.

Caleb bought a second untitled book without flipping through it in embarrassment for the perceived slight, and Nott actually paid for two rings that were only a little big for her fingers. Fjord wound up with an earring of his own, while Beau bought none, opting instead for a signet ring with a chip in the side.

“It’ll hurt when I punch stuff wearing it,” She had explained later. “And like, maybe if I punch hard enough, they’ll get like, branded. With the seal. Like, y’know, on a letter? Pretty dope, right?”

And Caleb couldn’t disagree. In all honesty, he hoped she would. He wasn’t sure if that was a thing that could happen or not, as punching wasn’t really his area of expertise, but he at least wanted to know what would piss Beau off so badly that her fists would leave tiny welts shaped like a stag with the letter H over the horns.

They returned back to The Winchester with their various finds and shuttled to the back room to discover eight modest beds.

“Hey, I can’t remember the last time we all had our own bed,” Fjord remarked, putting his pack under the bed across from the door. Caleb cautiously put his own pack on a bed farther from the door, while Yasha and Beau took the beds to the left and right of the door, respectively.

“One of us could even have two, if we wanted,” Jester quipped, bouncing lightly on the bed next to Beau’s.

“What if one more person comes in for a bed?” Caduceus said, laying his staff on the bed next to Fjord’s. Nott took the bed across from Caleb and began inspecting the pillows.

“They won’t,” She said, finding it up to snuff and flopping down, face first. “There’s probably four people in this whole entire town.”

“So what do you think about that story that guy told us?” Beau asked, testing her new ring out on varying fingers and giving the air a practice punch. “Anything in the book, Caleb?”

“Well,” Caleb began, looking down at the journal still in his hand. “The reason why I asked in the first place is the last entry. It’s short, but it says that she saw a horse break into her home,” He said, trailing off. “I’m not sure what to say to that, honestly.”

Beau reached for the journal and began to flip through.

“A horse robbed their house?” Nott asked in disgust. “What kind of horse robs a house?”

“You don’t think Crapper looks a little shifty to you?” Fjord teased, opening one eye at Nott from where he lounged on his bed. Nott stilled and stared back at him with wide eyes.

“What if Crapper robs us?” She cried, clutching at her chest. Caleb shook his head with a laugh as he took the book back from Beau.

“Crapper wouldn’t rob us,” Yasha said, coercing her pack to sit upright under her bed. “He would only stomp us to death in our sleep.”

A full beat of silence followed before Fjord burst into laughter.

“Sometimes,” He gasped. “Sometimes I don’t know when you’re joking. You’re so deadpan,” He sat up with a belly laugh, pantomiming someone blocking their head in terror. “Could you imagine? ‘No, don’t do it, Crapper! I thought we were friends!’ What if ‘Don’t stomp me to a hideous and painful death, Crapper!’ were your last words,”

The rest of the group soon dissolved into laughter and chuckling at Fjord’s performance, chiming in with their own iterations of Crapper’s sudden, but inevitable betrayal, and with each new version, the laughter began anew.

Their joke ended, Jester sobbing with laughter at Caduceus earnestly trying to tell everyone that Crapper was the calm one and that they should actually keep an eye on WC, when there was a knock at the door. Beau answered, wiping tears from her face, to see Sam on the other side. He wore a linen apron and a confused but entertained face.

“Dinner’s nearly done,” He said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “And, uh… Who’s Crapper?”

That sent another wave of laughter through the Mighty Nein as they began to gather for dinner in The Winchester. They never did answer Sam’s question, though.

Every once in a while, one of them will remember and ask through their laughter: “Do you think that Sam still thinks about Crapper?”

A/N: he does

#critical role #cr #cr crack fic #critical hiatus #critical role crack fic #supernatural crossover #no fanfiction authors were harmed in the making of this fic

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