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angelfishofthelord · 3 years

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(and heal)

hurt/comfort fic, set in 11x02 if Ephraim followed through on his threat of "what should we cut off first?"

It’s been a few days. A few days since they killed Death and unleashed the Darkness and fought off hoards of zombie-like infected people. A few days since the Darkness became a baby and then disappeared from her own nursery. A few days Sam found a cure for the infected after having the poison coursing through his own veins.

It’s also been a few days since they’ve heard from Castiel.

They can’t track his phone, no matter how many times Dean has told Sam to check again.

(What I have, you can’t help me.)

They followed up on a sightings of seeing a man like him but they still haven’t turned up anything that will lead them to where he is now. From the eyewitness reports it sounds like he’s been hexed with Rowena’s attack dog curse.

(Sam, Dean. Goodbye.)

They’ve also been looking for Rowena and Crowley, hoping one would lead to him Neither of them have been found yet.

(It may be some time before we see one another again.)

A few days stretches like a chasm before them, black and boundless. They keep circling and searching the same area where the last sighting was reporting, more to make them feel like they’re doing something than because it’s actually effective. They don’t talk much; not about Dean finally being free of the Mark, or about the Darkness, or if Castiel is going to be found dead or alive. The scratchy throat of the radio is the only running conversation as they move from town to town, the long shadow of the Impala crawling like a funeral procession of one.

Then they hear something: a rumor in a diner. Nothing more than the chatty whispers of teenagers at the next table slurping giant gulps of soda between munching on sliders. One of the girls is talking about an abandoned sawmill on the edge of the next town that sometimes screams at starry nights; about dusty black windows illuminated with sparks that another boy dismisses as a trick of the moonlight.

Stars don't scream; Sam and Dean know better than to think the natural is responsible for the unnatural.

If they can’t find Castiel, Sam and Dean figure, they may as well get rid of whatever spirit might be haunting the sawmill before some kid believes the stories enough to check it out for themselves. As soon as they pull up to the skeletal building, however, Sam reaches over and switches the radio off. Dean’s fingers move to turn off the engine, but it takes him a few seconds to connect with the key because his eyes are fixed on the sight in front of them.

There’s no mistaking the familiar style of the mark etched in blood on the outside of the building. It’s warding sigils. Angels. Angels are here, or have been here, which means Castiel must be here, or close by at least.

The two brothers arm themselves, silently, thoroughly. Blades two each. Sigiled cuffs. Holy fire in one pocket, lighter in the other. Flashlights with beams wide as the mouth of a cave. The door squeaks when they push it open, a long, protracted hiss of rusty hinges. There’s enough cobwebs hanging from the ceiling to reach their nostrils so they breathe shallowly, trying not to inhale too sharply as they move forward. More sigils are painted on the walls inside, blood mingled with the unwiped sawdust. Whoever was--is--here didn’t want to be found by anyone, man or inhuman.

Towards the back of the main room Dean finds the first body. A man in his late twenties, perhaps, wearing a dark suit, striped tie christened with a gaping, bloodless hole in the center. Angel. Dean steps over him, aiming the flashlight left and right until the beam falls across a second body lying face down. Then he turns the flashlight to the other side of the room and it illuminates the wide-open mouth of a third dead angel. His mouth hangs open as he sits propped up against the corner, one hand clasped over a deep wound at his side that has long stopped sputtering grace.

“So angels got him,” Sam whispers, unnecessarily, more because the thought had never crossed their mind. In the past few days of searching for their friend the two had entertained the thought of spells or demons or perhaps the Darkness taking Castiel hostage, but not his own family.

“Bastards,” Dean mutters, kicking the foot of the one face down beside them. “Looks like they got what was coming to them.”

Sam frowns slightly, squinting in the pale light as they walk forward. The sitting angel with the side wound looks familiar, like the vessel Hannah took when they talked to her at Heaven’s gate. He’s about to say something when Dean lowers the light down to a spot on the ground. “Sam,” he vocalizes hoarsely.

He follows his brother’s gaze to the glint of metal near his feet. The breath of the flashlight washes over the scattered tools on the floor--a wrench, a rusty circular saw leaning against the wall like a dark moon, and then-- Sam recognizes what it is. It’s been several years but it’s hard to forget the curve of the metal contraption that was fitted on the screaming angel in Crowley’s lair.

“What’s this doing here?” Dean breathes, bending towards it. The torture device is speckled with blood--fresh blood that leaves a smear on his finger when he touches it. Half of the long pins in the side are missing. One of them is glimmering a few inches away under the toppled over table, the sharp end slick and red.

“Let’s just get Cas and get out of here.” Sam steadies his own voice with determination and nods towards the doorway ahead. The plastic flaps of the entrance shimmer as they push them aside and walk in to find themselves standing in a windowless dark room. While Dean fumbles with his sputtering flashlight and then goes towards the side to feel for a light switch, Sam moves forward cautiously, only to crash into a round, hard corner of what must be another table.

“Shit,” he mutters as he stumbles to his knees, hard, just as Dean flips the switch.

Light drowns the room.

Sam’s eyes widen. He stays on his knees, body electric with shock. Besides him his brother makes a horrible choking noise that sounds very similar to “Cas.”

“No,” Sam whispers. His tongue feels heavy and swollen.

Dean’s legs are pitching him from side to side and he means to make them walk forward but they don’t. They can’t. His eyes flicker from side to side, up and down over the sight before him, like tracing a dot-to-dot pattern again and again.

Castiel--pinned against the wall, arms eagle spread. Metal pins driven into either side of his head, giving him long bloody side burns. His feet --shoeless, sockless-- are dangling limply from his ankles where two more pins are driven in. The palms of his hands are stretched open, fingers curled limply around the spikes embedded into the center.

Castiel’s eyelids are shut. Somewhere in the back of the mounting scream in Dean’s mind he realizes that he’s looking at a corpse and every muscle in his body dissolves.

Before he too, hits the ground beside his immobile younger brother, the corpse blinks.

They both leap to their feet and sprint forward immediately. “Get him down,” they gasp to each other at the same time. Sam goes to pull out the pins in his ankles while Dean hooks his arms under Castiel’s to hold him up so he won’t tear his palms when the weight sags.

“Hey, hey,” he repeats, brushing the matted hair out of Castiel’s eyes. “We’re here, Cas. We’re here.”

Castiel blinks, opening his left eye half way. “D’n.” The white of his eyes are webbed in red streaks. His lips are split and yellow-crusted.

“It’s okay.” Dean sucks in a breath and puts two finger on the pin in the right side of Castiel’s head. “It’s okay.” He pulls quickly, hurling the pin behind him before reaching for the next one. Castiel doesn’t even so much as flinch, which worries Dean even more.

When the pin on the left is removed the angel suddenly sags forward, sending Dean lurching back slightly before he bends on one knee to balance the weight. “I’ve got you,” he gasps, circling a hand around his back only to sink into the dampness of open flesh. Castiel’s entire back is lacerated to the point where Dean can’t tell where the skin ends and the exposed muscle and tissue begin. The marble white of his spine shows through the blood, black lines on the ridges showing where his back had been scraped raw against the concrete wall. Dean tries not to look at the spot on the wall where Castiel had been impaled, but he sees it anyways, the red spread of blood filling the corner of his eyes.

Castiel slumps bonelessly into his shoulder. “It’s okay,” Dean murmurs thickly. “S’okay.”

“They cut off his hands.” The announcement comes from above, in a strangled voice that must be Sam’s. Dean jolts his head up and then nearly falls backwards. He’d assumed that Castiel had fallen forward because Sam had removed the pins in his palms.

But his brother is standing there, immobile, next to a hand impaled into the wall. Dean drops his eyes to Castiel’s arms, the ones hanging loosely beside his. The ones that end in a smooth circle sliced clean from the wrist.

“They cut off his hands,” Sam repeats, unaware that he’s repeating himself. He tugs the pin loose and the amputated appendage falls into his outstretched hand. It feels heavier than he thought, fits smaller into his own palm. His knees are starting to fold again and he braces himself against the wall with one hand to keep from collapsing. Somewhere at the side he’s dimly aware of the sob-like sound coming from his brother as he clutches the angel in his arms tighter.

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#gotta get this one before whumptober #tw aftermath of torture #my spn fic #userjeb #slipper007 #rambleoncas #userbon #seraphcastiel #offbeattraxx #playedwright #tuserari #lyntracks #friendshapedcastiel #hurt comfort fic #spn s11

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painless-innit-colourful · 3 years

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‘The Revive Incantation’

During today’s Techno stream (June 21st), he referred to the contents of the revive book as an “incantation”. Well, my brain immediately thought of Dream singing the Healing song from Tangled to revive Tommy, and a few hours later I present this. The revive book requires a few things to work, and one of those things is a willingness to do a little backwards karaoke. (And yes, I rewrote the song from Tangled for this.)

Swirling around the words on the page were these beautiful gold pattern illustrations. They twisted and curled like the timid edges of a plant’s leaves, and each corner even featured a little golden flower. The muted ochre and emerald-green they had been painted with evoked the appearance of a totem, although there were no direct references to the other known method of cheating death. If there had been, it would’ve made the mystery behind the book’s origins - or indeed how Schlatt got his hands on it - a whole lot easier. But that hardly mattered now.

Dream ran his finger below the final line of the poem on the page for about the eightieth time, ensuring he’d fully committed it to memory again in case Sam were to unexpectedly arrive and he’d need to burn the book. He’d stopped visiting regularly since Tommy’s death, and he’d also ceased coming in the cell entirely. Still, one could never be too careful. His entire reason for still being alive was right there, a single stanza copied hastily from memory and hidden in the bottom of his chest weeks ago. The original revive book had been ornate and probably an antique: now it was ash, but as the process of revival required a physical reproduction of the text, here he was, double-checking he’d copied it down correctly one more time. God help him if he’d remembered it wrong.

Or rather, he thought, as he glanced over at the lifeless form of a teenager sat propped up against the wall a couple metres to his right, god help Tommy.

He wasn’t sure what he’d do if it didn’t work. As the text described, he had all the required components: the verses on parchment, the exanimate flesh and bones, the willing soul and a voice with which to… Sing? The poem. Incantation. Aloud. He wasn’t sure if those instructions were meant to be taken literally, and if so, what tune to follow. Unfortunately, much of the book’s compact contents were written in riddles and couplets and audaciously purple prose. The incantation itself was something of a curiosity: it was a spell to raise the dead, but it also appeared to carry a warning to those bold enough to speak it. A deterrent to those impermanent earthlings that trifled in the affairs of the deathless deities. But Dream hadn’t got this far by heeding warnings. And, whether he liked his current position or not (he didn’t), he and he alone held the ability to reverse a killing blow, so who’s really smiling.

With no conceivable reason to drag this out any longer, the prisoner got slowly to his feet and went to retrieve Tommy’s corpse. The boy’s eyelids were half-closed, and the eyes beneath were dull, devoid of the light and life the kid had once brought to everything. His skin was mottled in places, his bottom lip had bruised, he had a black eye and dried blood glueing it shut from where it had leaked from a gash in his forehead. Luckily, decomposition hadn’t started to set in yet, or Dream would’ve had to burn the body to avoid the smell. No, he was simply dead, and goodness, had it been a nice few days of quiet after a week of Tommy’s non-stop incessant talking and complaining and obnoxious humming. Sam had looked at him like he was crazy when he’d said he was enjoying the peace, but had he ever been stuck in a room with the kid for more than a few hours before? Maybe that’s how Tommy used to bend people to his will. Annoy them until they either backed down or declared major conflict.

Carefully, like one might handle a sleeping baby, he laid Tommy down in front of the book, and resumed his seat behind it, legs crossed. He turned the page so he could see the scribbled instructions again, scanned them one final time, then flipped the page back to the stanza he was supposed to sing. As if someone else had possessed him, within three words he knew instinctively and miraculously what melody to follow as he recited the verse:

‘Vessel torn apart Soul too weak to stay Gift another chance And wash lost days away Written on this page Mortals should not say Men must not play god And wash lost days away Lost days away’

As he sang, something incredible began to happen, so mesmerising for someone trapped with so little for so long that he almost stopped singing. The prompt on the page began to glow, golden light radiating off the page as the words took short-lived form in the air while he sang them. They danced and collapsed into each other, forming a sizable disk of light above them, before it began to slowly dissipate, filtering down into a stream that enveloped Tommy. His skin took on a new sheen; from beneath his eyelids, a soft yellow light emanated, and, during the time the light was fading, his fingers twitched, curling unconsciously like a newborn’s would as they slept.

It worked.

Without taking his eyes off Tommy slowly rejoining the land of the living, Dream fed the book to the lava stream endlessly running past and pooling below the cell. It melted quickly into the molten rock, stinging his fingers as it dissolved: Dream barely felt it, staring intently at the boy whose body once again contained a consciousness.

I did it. I brought someone back.

Tommy’s elbows found purchase on the obsidian floor and he sat himself up, hands then going to wipe his eyes. He winced in pain as he pressed the heel of his hand directly into his black eye, mumbling a few curse words under his breath in typical Tommy fashion. That seemed to bring him to his senses. He turned his head rapidly to compensate for being down fifty percent on sight, and his working eye made contact with Dream’s. His murderer practically watched as the reality of his situation came crashing around Tommy, and he physically recoiled, face contorted with shock.

I’m a god.

---

“Let me out! Or I’m gonna revive him.”

That is the power he holds now. The ultimate bargaining chip, and it works. Bless Schlatt for giving up this ace for something as trivial as allies. Tommy, Sam and Ghostbur are all screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, and for his purposes, it couldn’t be more perfect. He has gripped firmly in his left hand the crumpled paper he just quickly scrawled the stanza upon, and he’s reaching for Ghostbur with the other, because thanks to his protocols, it’ll only take a tap. They're all screaming and shouting and then the lava's coming down with a great groaning of pistons, and it’s plenty enough to cover for him to quickly and quietly sing the tune he’s memorized since last time. Sometimes he’d sing it when he sat alone in the endless hours without a clock or a visitor; a dirge to his dominance over the server, once and forever. Goodbye Ghostbur. So sorry. His eyes are dilated with fear when Dream pulls him sharply against the barrier, and he dies with a sickening crack. Tommy’s screams drown out the end of the song entirely.

They do say, however, that there’s a new busker on the train platform, and he’s got a rather interesting song to share.

#good god crim your tangled fan is showing #my it's been a while since i've listened to the healing incantation that many times in a row #anyway enjoy the fic. this is such a random idea i can't believe people actually wanted it #dream smp #dreamwastaken #tommyinnit #ghostbur #crim writes #dsmp fic #as always rbs/comments are valued so much :D

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kaimaciel · 5 years

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Top Worst Books I’ve read in 2018

It’s that wonderful time of the year again, where I scream and rant at books that disappointed or pissed me off all the while trying to avoid hate comments.

This is my personal list of books that I did not enjoy. If one of your favorite books is in here, don’t take it as an insult towards you. I’m not saying these books are bad, I just did not like them.

Alright? So, let’s start.

The Shatter Me Trilogy by Tahereh Mafi

There was a lot I didn’t like in these series. First of all, the writing style. I understand what the author was trying to with the crossed words that represented Juliette’s true thoughts, but it really got on my nerves.

Then there was the plot. This is supposed to be a dystopian future, but that’s really a backdrop for the romance and, a love triangle. While I agree that Adam was not suitable for Juliette, I really couldn’t get into Warner. In the first book, he was straight up a sadistic psychopath, then the rest of the books he does a complete 180º, it felt like a completely different character was created so that he could be a good love interest for Juliette.

And if the romance is the most important thing in the plot, it’s a bad sign I was mostly interested in the secret connection between the Adam and Warner and how much I wanted to see that developed. At the end of the third book, I sort of wanted to follow another character but Juliette.

And what the hell was that ending? It was one of the most anti-climatic endings I have ever seen.

I know the series will continue with another 3 books, but I doubt I will continue it. I’m not interested enough.

The Fandom by Anna Day

Okay, what the hell were the people in charge of the Portuguese cover thinking?

It’s so ugly! At first, I thought I was looking at a Jo Nesbo book. Oh well... I could forgive the cover if the story made up for it, but it did not.

This book had so much potential. A group of cosplayers is transported into their favorite dystopian series and realize how reading about it is a lot better than living through it.

The main character Violet was so annoying and I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. Everyone except for Katie, Nate and Ash were scum or really annoying. I couldn’t connect with any of them. And the way they went after Alice for her looks and her fanfictions (she dared to write stories in the bad guys POV!!!) it really pissed me off. I understand in the context of the story but my God! I write fanfiction. If someone said stuff like that to me I would kick them in the gonads.

And that ending. What the hell?!

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

I like plot twists. One plot twist is fine. Two is awesome. Three... it might be too much. Four, five... just what the hell am I reading?

There were so many twists and lies in this book I honestly can’t give you a synopsis because I can’t remember what happened and who was supposed to be who.

This book felt like being drunk and high during a festival. A lot of pretty colors, but nothing substantial.

The Savior’s Champion by Jenna Moreci

Oh, Jenna... why?

I've watched Jenna's videos for a while and I was pretty excited to finally read one of her books. First the positives, the writing style was very good and the plot very intriguing. I could not wait to read the next chapter and find out who lived and who died. Unfortunately, I must admit that in the end I was disappointed with the story. For someone who makes such good list of tropes and character pet peeves, there were a lot of characters who felt tropey, with their trope being the only characteristic they had. I did not really like the relationship between Tobias and Leila, most because they became each other's whole world. I also felt disappointed on how Flynn's character was handled, the selfish, coward rich boy has been done to death and I wished that trope could have been avoided for something different. Regarding the twist, I saw it a mile away and kept reading hoping it wouldn't come true, that I would be surprised, but no.

It was not bad, but it could have been a lot better.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James

Pride and Prejudice with a murder mystery written by the great P. D. James. This book had everything to be a blast and it felt so flat on every front.

The characters we know and love from Pride and Prejudice are boring caricatures of themselves, the mystery was dull and resolution equally boring.

This was a bad fanfiction from start to finish. What a waste!

The Cinderella Murder by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke

A bit of context. Mary Higgins Clark was my favorite mystery author when I was a teenager. I collected all the books I could find and read them on the same day. They were compelling and easy to read.

As I grew up and started reading other books by different authors, I found myself looking for more complex themes and characters.

Clark’s books are good and simple, just like her characters, but they were too simple for my adult tastes now. The good guys are practically saints, the bad guys are evil. They became too flat for me to truly enjoy like I used to.

The mystery part is fine, but I can’t for the life of me remember the plot or the ending a few months after reading the book. A forgettable book is sometimes worse than a bad book. It left no impression on me.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

DNF (Did Not Finish) around page 200

Long story short, this book wasn’t for me.

The premise looked very interesting. People are tested and only the very best get sent to a prestigious magic school, it looks like Harry Potter in college and, sure enough, it is a lot more mature.

But the plot was all over the place. The main character, Quentin, was such a boring and annoying protagonist that staying inside his head was giving me a migraine. His lack of interest on anything unless it’s magic related or the Fillory books seriously pissed me off.

The plot felt rushed and very weird at several parts of the book. I lost interest. I don’t care about the characters, the magic or the weird sex stuff happening in animal form.

I’m out!

And finally, it pains me to announce my number 1 worst book of 2018. I can handle bad books or forgettable books, but this was my most anticipated book for 2018, from a series that I love with all my heart. It let me down so much...

The Testament of Loki by Joanne Harris

Now, let me say this isn't a bad book, it was well written and ties the events between Gospel, Runemarks and even Runelight quite well. I'm glad this book promoted a bit of friendship between Loki and Thor. My disappointment with this story was mostly due to my dislike of the whole body sharing, switching and stealing, which I personally hate.

Also, Loki's love for Meg felt rushed and confusing, as if it was only there to give Jumps a girlfriend and a damsel in distress for them to save. Meg was nice and BAM, both Loki and Jumps were in love with her. What? Are we talking about the same Loki from Runemarks? I know human emotions were influencing him and all, but that was one of the worst cases of insta love I have ever seen.

And the fact that Jumps’s eating disorder and other mental health problems get resolved because Loki makes her eat pizza and gives her a makeover. That is not how mental disorders work, not by a long shot.

The human characters were flat, merely vessels for the gods to inhabit. Evan is his disability, Stella is a shallow beauty, Meg is nice and likes girls, and Jumps, the human girl sharing her body with Loki, was little more fleshed out but, honestly, aside from her problems with her body image and her sexuality, I can’t remember anything about her. I really wish this sequel didn’t happen inside a YA contemporary novel.

This isn't a bad story, but it fails to capture the magic and wonder I felt while reading Runemarks.

#books #worst books #joanne harris #the testament of loki #the magicians #lev grossman #mary higgins clark #p.d. james #pride and prejudice #jenna moreci #the savior's champion #caraval #stephanie garber #the fandom #anna day #shatter me #tahereh mafi

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vankoya · 7 years

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Aphelion; Perihelion.

✗ Part of the Across the Multiverse series!

Genre | Cowboy Bebop AU.

Pairing | Jeon Jeongguk / Feminine Reader.

Words | 2,309 words.

Conspectus | The call will always come, and Jeongguk will always forget. That is just how it is, how it always has been, how it always will be.

Warnings | Alcohol, smoking and gambling addiction. Somewhat unhealthy relationship. Weapons.

The radio crackles sometime after midnight. Well, for anybody in the Tharsis timezone, at least.

Such a flimsy, manmade concept is nothing but precisely that when the ship is suspended somewhere near Ganymede. Thrust into the oblivion of outer space, where the stars are always visible against the pitch infinity and the sun remains to burn fiercely in the distance. Existing simultaneously when, back in the years that Earth was the only colonised planet, you could only see them one after the other.

But out here in this vast, tenebrous eternity, there is no day or night when the two elements that defined them come to coincide. Thus, no means for time.

It really screws around with your body clock, that is for sure.

Though based on Tharsis time, and the fact that it is a Saturday down on Mars, it should be near two in the morning. This is generally the appropriate time that the crackling occurs and you, slung within the limbo of not quite asleep though desperately needing to be, heave that same old sigh. The one loaded with past burdens and bad decisions and the name of that sole crew member you would fight blood and bone for, would die for, but would never admit it.

Jeongguk fucking hates Mars, which always has you wondering why he spends his every Friday night in the thick of its casinos. Losing the woolongs you split from the last bounty on blackjack tables, slot machines, and another pack of cigarettes that Namjoon will convince to trade him for a can of beef or something trivial. Disgustingly broke scavengers, the lot of you.

Lazily, you stretch for the receiver on the coffee table, swiping your fingers this way and that until they come into contact with cool metal. Answering with a click of a button, you part your lips to speak. Before you can, words are tumbling through the other end of the line in a voice that both clutches your heart and makes you wish to stomp the feeble vessel underneath your heeled boot.

“Baby, fuck, thank– Thank fuck–” And god, if it were not for the way the words were slurring together like melting ice being swilled in a glass of whiskey, the fact that you can practically smell the liquor on his tongue through the receiver is a clear indicator that Jeongguk is blind drunk.

“Hey baby, sweetheart,” he continues to coo and you are already lifting yourself from the draped position across the couch. You step over a face-down, sprawled out and snoring Taehyung in your progression towards the front of the ship. “Y'there, baby? I m’need a favour, pretty please.”

“What?” There is nonchalance in your tone, cutting and firm. But your actions juxtapose the lack of empathy you wear like an artificial shield around him. You enter the bridge and light up the touch-screen monitor to reroute the ship to Mars. Namjoon is going to be pissed, but you really could not care less.

“C’mere ‘nd give me a kiss,” Jeongguk whines, which directly translates to: I am too intoxicated to drive my ship home, so please come and pick me up before you and Namjoon decide to bail on me and fly to the farthest planet from here. He sounds terribly genuine, so sickly sweet like melted sugar, full of divine promise.

You have to swallow the heart-shaped lump in your throat before you thickly answer.

“We’ll come pick you up in two hours.”

You hang up the radio immediately after the confirmation is spoken—before he can make a snarky comment to your outright neglect. Slamming the receiver on the panel, you run your other hand down your face, groaning.

Taehyung appears by your side as he does in that Taehyung way of his—uninvited and usually scaring the damn wits out of you. You stifle a yelp when he slumps beside you out of thin air, smacking the side of his face beside your hand where it lays upon the control panel desk. You retract it against your chest as if you have been electrocuted.

Taehyung is a loopy, noodly teenage kid that the three of you found on Earth, roaming about with nothing to his name but the clothing on his body and a jacked up laptop. Yes, a jacked up laptop that he used to hack into the ship’s system, reconfiguring the flight sequence to have it land right before his toes. To say that the three of you were screeching like banshees while all of this occurred is a severe understatement. But it is completely understandable when your spaceship suddenly starts hurtling through the atmosphere towards grand expanses of desert plains, and one strange, gangly boy with skill hidden in his goofy grin.

Taehyung’s eyes are drooping with lethargy. A trail of drool is dried to his chin. “Mars?” he mumbles, yawning. “For Jeonggukie?”

“Yup, the dumbass got drunk again,” you hum, listening to the engines groan as they guide the lump of junk that is the Helios through a one-eighty, heading towards the Astral Gate. “Maybe we should just leave him there. What do you think?”

“Can’t, sissy!” Taehyung whines, scrunching up his nose and staring at you accusingly, which has you raising your eyebrows in question. “Not when sissy loves Jeonggukie so much!”

Namjoon turns out to be more pissed at the fact that you woke him up by throwing the receiver at the wall of the ship with a bloodcurdling scream, smashing it to smithereens.

The passage through hyperspace takes half an hour less than anticipated. Yet surprisingly, Jeongguk is already slouched beside his battered, steel grey zipcraft, the Aphelion, when you arrive at the casino. A cigarette dangles unlit between his lips.

Really, you hate Mars just as much as he does with its low density, causing the lighter gravity that keeps easy on complexions. Lifting wrinkles from the skin; softening any marring in the form of scars. You can barely see the one that thinly slices Jeongguk’s cheekbone. The smoother skin is ugly and unsightly.

He looks more beautiful with it. Natural and real. He looks like Jeongguk.

Mars apparently makes him a different person in a lot more ways than one.

“There’s m’girl!” Jeongguk hollers. The cigarette falls to the ground in his haste to get up, and he does not seem to notice as he crushes it in his drunken stride towards you. He smells like a liver abused by alcohol and lungs sticky with tobacco when he envelops you in a crushing hug that is so unbearably warm. So unbelievably home. “Y’made it, baby. Missed you.”

“How haven’t you sobered since you called?” you groan against his throat, moisture gathering on the skin from your hot breath, arms hanging limply by your sides.

Jeongguk pulls back then, rifling around in the pocket of his black bomber jacket. He retrieves a stainless steel flask, which he holds up next to his liquor-slack grin. His breath smells like a casket full of death.

“Poor men come prep–”

You snatch the flask out of his hand before he can finish, weighing just under half full in your hand. Twisting off the cap, you knock back the last of the contents and then ditch it into the finely trimmed bushes. His grin only widens at the way you cringe with realisation as the alcohol burns a fire down your throat, knowing full well how much you hate gin.

“Let’s go, dumbass,” you cough, wiping the back of your hand across your mouth, ignoring the way Jeongguk stares at your lips. “The Helios is parked on the port down the road. We’ll pick up the Aphelion once you’re sober.”

“You’re always s’hot when you’re demanding,” Jeongguk cuddles into your side with a devilish simper, beginning to walk in the direction of the home ship with an arm draped limply around your shoulders. He hums a tune that he knows you once listened to long ago.

“Even if you were broke, my love don’t cost a thing,” he croons, tucking you closer, but you refuse to appease him, eyes set on the destination floating in the bay like a giant beast down the hill’s slope.

Silence is your only solace, secluding your voice to the back of your throat where it itches and burns with the urge to form. Because when Jeongguk wakes up in five hours time, he will have forgotten all that he has said on this ugly Friday night in Tharsis. Just like he does every other time.

Jeongguk, for quite possibly being the biggest out of all four crew members, has the smallest room on the Helios. Back when the ship was a fishing trawler, it must have been a storage room. Now, it is fitted with some overhead drawers and a double bed that has its sides touching all walls but the entrance.

“Help,” he slurs, spine against the mattress, legs dangling off the edge and either side of your own that stand between the bed and the door. He cracks one eye open, juts his lower lip. “Pretty please?”

Begrudgingly, you take him by the wrists and haul him upright. His head slumps forward and presses to your stomach with the slackness of his muscles. You shuck off his jacket first and then lean over his shoulder, reaching for the hem of his shirt and pulling it up, exposing the curved bumps of his spine, the slashes of scars against tanned leather. Jeongguk obediently lifts his arms.

Once you have pulled the cotton over his elbows and wrists, he lays back against the bed again. His arms are tucked behind his head, and his torso stretches in unadulterated, wrecked and ruined display.

You wonder how many bullet holes he will have marring his flesh by the time he eventually loses. How many gunshots it is going to take until he is dead.

From his position, he waggles his eyebrows. “Like what’ya see, baby?”

“Fuck you, Jeongguk,” you spit, tearing your eyes from the gentle caramel tone of his skin, soft and innocent. You turn on your heel to leave.

“Wait, stay!” he suddenly insists, lurching forward and curling his fist into the hem of your sweater, tight enough to keep you in place. You glance at him out the corner of your eye, try to not let the hope become obvious in your gaze. His expression has become twisted, pained, though strangely unreadable.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

“Why, Jeongguk?”

“Because I want you. I want to remember this.”

The ship, for once, is silent. No engines run to power you through the distances of the universe. No Taehyung screeches like a dying animal in front of his laptop. No Namjoon complains to his thirteen bonsai about the rest of you and how there is never any damn peace and quiet.

Instead, it gently bobs on the water in the port and the late night liveliness of Tharsis sounds far, far away. Jeongguk is staring at you like he is repenting for his sins and you are something holy. Yet the both of you know that you, of everyone onboard, is aeons from that.

Suddenly, Jeongguk defeatedly exhales. He runs his free hand through his hair before he uses the other to hook his fingers around your wrist, yanking you on top of him where you collapse in a heap of limbs. Silently, he hoists the both of you up to the head of the bed where only one rumpled pillow lays.

He helps you unclip your bra without taking the sweater off, threading the straps through the sleeves with precious ease. Then, he rolls your jeans down the muscles of your thighs, calves, and you are about to kick them off your ankles when you both notice that your boots are still intact. You slide each shoe off, and Jeongguk uses one to throw at the light switch by the door, effectively drawing the tiny room into a swathe of shadows. It is only when he is tugging off his own black jeans that he cusses under his breath.

“Forgot ‘bout that.”

He is nothing but a hunched over outline at the centre of the darkness. “Forgot what?”

“Gun,” and you notice it then when he chuckles and pulls the handle out of his waistband. He lifts it up so that you can see the weapon—loaded, no doubt—before he drops it onto the pile of clothes at the end of the bed.

“Jesus, Jeongguk.”

Jeongguk laughs louder, and it is gruff and beautiful, ringing around the room; smothering the sound of your trembling heart. He climbs back next to you, an inch of space separating two bodies that long for one another. Though it only lasts for a moment before he, glacially, curls his arms around your waist, slips his cold palms underneath the back of your sweater, and lays them crossed over on your shoulder blades. Holding you closer than he ever has.

There, with his nose touching to the tip of your own, your legs toasty and entwined, you can see his eyes glimmering, the drunken haze fading. They are a shade of onyx, exceptionally more gorgeous than the galaxies the four of you sail as bounty hunters, scavengers, thieves. Human beings with no other place in this vast universe.

But here, with Jeongguk closing in, his breath hot on your mouth and his fingertips dancing patterns across your skin, you cannot help but think that maybe, this really is it. Here, with him, you belong.

“M’not letting myself forget this time,” he whispers, and then he does nothing more than kiss you, lips of heat and home tucked against your own in a promise that you finally, at long last, allow to blossom happiness within your heart.

Prompt | Call Me: I will write a drabble about my character asking for yours.

Series | Across The Multiverse is a collection of drabbles based around the prompts from this list, each taking place in a different universe. The updates will occur whenever I am inspired by a prompt to write a small piece, most generally done as a warm-up.

#jeon jungkook #bts scenarios #reader x jungkook #noonanet #bangtan bookclub #atm #across the multiverse #gukvory #you bet that was a play on across the universe fgdfgd #cowboy bebop au #you also bet I made jeongguk sing jlo HAHA

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fanforfanatic · 7 years

Text

Kisses by Sunflower Beds

ao3 // for @reallyelegantsharkfish

In his last moments, Dean sees his life flash before his eyes which is how he knows that this time it will stick, knows it’s for good and there’s no coming back from this one.

In truth, he doesn’t actually see his life but feels it. He’s overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment and he associates it to every time he took care of Sammy when they were children, got them through the night, got his kid brother to laugh instead of ask questions. He associates it with the first time he shot a firearm and his dad called him a natural. The first time he saved a life. The first time he saved the world. The first time he made Cas come.

A wave of joy hits him after that. Prank wars with Sam. Antics with Charlie. Driving Baby. His first lazy Sunday with Cas. Every lazy Sunday with Cas after that.

With his dying breath, Dean smells motor oil and pie and sex and honey and it all smells good. It smells perfect melded together, though it shouldn’t, and if it were bottled the label would read Life of Dean Winchester. He doesn’t smell blood or burning flesh or sulfur.

He hears his favourite tune along with Cas’ clumsy mumble and Sam’s off key singing.

Dean feels his life slip away with all his senses—save for sight. That’s not to say he doesn’t see anything. He sees tree twigs that look big in the chubby hands of children, he sees long dark hair he hasn’t encountered before, a stone path and a bed of sunflowers and the sight of an ugly yellow backpack in Baby’s backseat. He doesn’t remember any of these things, not really, but he still somehow recognises them. They feel like memories, like they belong to him.

Dean’s last thought is of the botanical garden Cas had wanted—insisted on—them going to. Dean didn’t care much for it but agreed because he wasn’t one to deny Cas anything. Still, it took them years to find the time to make the trip.

Sam decided to come along because there’s a library in the area that has a whole section on South American lore, something the bunker was lacking. He was essentially crashing their date so Sam offered shotgun to Cas.

He was a little cramped in the backseat and had to angle his body sideways to make room for his legs, but when Dean’s hand wasn’t on the gear shift it was in Cas’ so Sam didn’t mind so much.

Halfway there they got the call that lead the brothers to their final case. To this final moment where Dean’s only regret is that he doesn’t get the chance to be led around between patches of green by Cas as the angel prattles on about one fact or another.

—

It’s not like Cas didn’t know it would happen eventually, inevitably, but he thought he’d be the first to go. He’s the immortal one, and the Winchesters had a knack for surviving.

Still, knowing that something is going to happen, knowing that Sam and Dean would not live forever even though it felt like they should, doesn’t prepare him at all.

Sam and Dean go out like they always promised they would. Fighting. It’s an honourable death but what is the point of an honourable death, Cas wonders, when your loved ones are lost to you.

He drives the impala back to the bunker. He could have flown it but that didn’t feel right. He gets pulled over once and he thinks the officer takes pity on him. Cas can imagine what he looks like, the blue of his puffy eyes contrasting with the veiny red, hair looking like it’s been tugged at—because it has— his chapped gnawed-at lower lip stained red from iron-tasting blood.

He doesn’t make it to the bed he shares with Dean. He pretends it’s because the bedroom is too far down the hall and he’s so tired, but it’s because he can’t bear the sight of it. He stumbles—he is exhausted—into a random room, sheds his trench coat halfway to the bed before he lands on it. Or lands on something on the bed.

SUPERNATURAL by Carver Edlund

It’s the room Charlie would stay in, he knows now. He doesn’t mean to, but he ends up cracking open the book and reading all about the first time Sam and Dean came across the croatoan virus.

It’s the real Dean; the depiction is accurate and these are real events from the hunter’s life, but it’s not really Dean. It grows the already too wide hole inside of Cas. He can’t bring Dean back. But he can’t be without him. So Cas leaves to meet versions of Dean he hasn’t come across before, versions of Dean even Chuck didn’t take the time to write about.

—

Dean is three, almost four, when Cas, invisible, appears in the boy’s Lawrence home. Dean is kneeling on the sofa beside a pregnant Mary who tells him that it’s ok to touch.

“It’s your little brother in there, Dean,” she says.

Dean purses his still thin lips, scratches a hair full of hair that’s only blond like Mary’s in the summer, and says, “That’s where Daddy put him?”

Mary chokes a little when she laughs and moves into a tamed explanation of the birds and the bees.

Cas doesn’t listen; his eyes are peeled on Dean. This little boy who has no idea he’ll one day save a dying sun. This little boy that scrunches his face just like his Dean does, that shakily places a hand on his mother’s belly all false bravado, that has freckles splayed across his cheeks.

All Cas wants to do is to move closer. Is to stare. Is to see if three year-old Dean has all the freckles his Dean has or if some appeared with time. All Cas wants is to hold this boy. To tell him he’s perfect. To tell him he is loved. Cas can’t do any of these things.

He decides that’s unacceptable.

—

At eight Dean already knows how to shoot a firearm, so when the kids in his class want to pretend the sticks they find along the fence of the school lot are guns, he’s happy that one boy wants to stack twigs as high as he can instead.

Every recess, Dean looks for a pair of blue eyes and the darkest hair on the playground and the two go off together. Cas—though Dean calls him Scottie in this vessel—recounts to Dean these wild stories about a pair of heroes, and they run around reenacting them.

In this town, Dean doesn’t mind so much that he’s responsible for getting Sam and himself home to the motel. He doesn’t mind that his dad doesn’t pick them up like all the other kids’ dads do, because Dean gets to linger around the school and hang out with one of his first real friends.

One day, maybe two weeks since Dean transferred to this school, Dean says, “You can be the righteous man this time.” It's awesome that Scottie always lets him play the hero but Dean doesn’t mind trading.

Cas shakes his head. “It has to be you, Dean.”

—

At twelve Dean has seen more horror than most men twice his age, than men thrice his age, so when his new teacher asks Dean why he won’t just apply himself, Dean has a biting retort ready at the tip of his tongue.

Another kid in class speaks up first. Her name is Olive, an army brat that transferred in February just like Dean. She’ll probably get to finish the year here, Dean thinks. He knows he, on the other hand, won’t be around next week.

Cas uses Olive’s voice to rebel for Dean and tells the teacher to promptly fuck off.

Dean laughs, loud and rambunctious, a type of laugh he hasn’t had since Sammy started asking so many questions, then says, “Yeah, sweetheart,” with his trademark-to-be smirk directed at the professor.

Dean gets more than a full week at the school. They end up staying long enough, a solid two months, that John rents a trailer for them. He’s in detention almost every day but it’s okay because so is Olive.

They’re often left alone, so they get up to no good. Trolling the halls of the school after hours, setting up pranks and playing games. Dean thinks Olive must be really smart, must really know how to get inside people’s heads, because she always knows where he stashes himself when they play hide-and-seek. Or maybe she’s just good at looking for things. Or maybe she’s just good at finding Dean.

It’s very Breakfast Club and Olive is the Molly Ringwald to his Judd Nelson. Or maybe not because she’s not much of a princess and all Rebel. Maybe, with her, Dean doesn’t feel quite as angry as Bender anyway.

Until he is twenty nine, Dean will remember her as his first crush.

—

At fifteen, Dean is already a ladies man so he’s kissed a lot of pretty girls, but it’s his first time kissing a pretty boy. His hair is blond and curly (Dean wants to wrap a ringlet around his finger immediately.) and his eyes are blue and bright.

Cas introduces himself to Dean as Noah and they hit it off almost instantly. Noah is the furthest thing from every teenage stereotype Dean’s encountered through hopping from one school to the next. Noah knows too much about everything, more than a fifteen year old should know about anything. He speaks almost methodically and always with intent, and Dean likes that he talks to him more than anyone else.

They hang out in the patch of woods behind the high school and they talk about nonsense but sometimes they talk about things Dean wouldn’t tell another living soul. Things Dean usually doesn’t even dare to think about too loudly in case he taints his surroundings with his personal strand of sick.

Dean thinks Noah’s smile is too wide and earnest to corrupt. Like this boy could take Dean on, bruises and flaws and all.

Sometimes, they don’t talk at all. Dean just sits at the foot of a tree, arms resting on bent knees, and watches Cas watch the plants around them. Cas tells Dean about the different flowers, he picks up ladybugs on his finger tips, and he grins all the while. Dean watches.

John leaves them the impala for emergencies when he goes off on solo hunts now, opting instead for a stolen vehicle. Dean isn’t of age yet but it’s not like he doesn’t have a fake license and it’s not like he didn’t learn to drive years ago, so when Cas brings up the famed botanical garden in Athens, Georgia, just a two towns over, Dean only needs to be cajoled a little to agree to go.

Mostly he wants to see what Noah looks like in the only home he’s known. He looks good. He looks ethereal, with the sun filtering in through Baby’s window, illuminating the boy’s light hair like a halo.

At the garden, Dean allows himself to get dragged around and at first he only really listens to Cas because he likes the sound of his voice, deeper than his appearance suggests. Eventually, though, he listens because Cas tells him things like oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree and carrots were originally purple, you know? Dean didn’t know.

Cas is talking about the bees now, about how it’s all there, the whole plan, about how there’s nothing to add. They’re by a bed of sunflowers, tall enough to shade them from the sun, when Dean decides he doesn’t want to hear Cas talk anymore. When he gently places a hand on the blond boy’s elbow to turn him. So that they’re facing each other. So that they’re leaning in. So that their lips brush and press. So that tongues can meet and take and taste.

Noah tastes like honey and something nutty.

John packs them up the very next day. He’s back and he’s got a lead, and he doesn’t allow Sam or Dean to say bye to any of their friends. Dean scolds himself. He should know better by now than to want things he can’t have.

—

Dean’s first solo hunt isn't exactly pre-approved by his father. In fact, Dean sneaks off to pursue the case. He’s freshly turned nineteen, has a GED in his back pocket and no prospects other than the family business. He’s not like Sam who could do so much more, be so much more, not that Dean thinks Sam would ever leave them.

Dean figures if hunting is going to be his career he’s going to have to strike off on his own, eventually. The case he tracks down is supposed to be an easy salt ‘n burn but quickly turns into a multi-haunting situation. Which is where he meets Cas for the umpteenth time, only this time Cas goes by Dylan.

She’s the town’s minister’s daughter, old enough to need convincing to let Cas in but devout enough that it doesn’t take much. He pretends she’s a hunter, showing up at the house Dean is scanning for EMF, as though she’d stumbled on the same case.

Dean might have tried to blow her off, this is his hunt, but Dylan is hot with long, dark, brown hair that’s only a shade lighter than her eyes. Besides, the pair work really well together; it’s uncanny. If Dean didn’t know any better he’d think this wasn’t their first time teaming up.

Once the box of antique gems is salted and burned, Dean wants to take her out, wants to take her to bed, on some level he doesn’t totally comprehend, he wants to take her home.

The Dylan vessel isn’t as strong as the others, however, too far from the Novak bloodline to withstand the toll of containing an angel and his grace. So when Dean proposes they have a drink for a job well done, Castiel turns him down.

—

In his life, Dean falls in love exactly twice and it’s always with Cas. The first time, he calls him Cassie Robinson.

Cas is selfish and wants to keep Dean, like this, naked in the bed of his vessel’s dorm room, forever. But Dean needs to get going, needs to get Sam from Stanford, needs to start on the path that will land him in hell just so Cas can raise him from it. Just so Dean can pull him from heaven. Just so they can be together, really be together, where they’ll always belong.

It surprises Cas, when Dean opens up about hunting, when he tells Cassie all about the life, all about the family business. It breaks Cas’ heart to break Dean’s, to pretend like he doesn’t believe the hunter’s confessions, to pretend like what he wants is for Dean to leave.

—

Cas only watches after that. He can’t risk interacting with both Winchesters, can’t risk Time and Space and the Continuum. Sometimes he thinks it’s more torturous than if he’d stayed in the bunker. Looking and never touching, never talking, never being seen, it chips away at him.

He caves in small doses. He takes over the vessel of a sheriff, of a pathologist, of a mechanic selling parts. They’re brief encounters, mostly case-related, but charged with something Dean can never name.

Dean is twenty-nine and Hell bound when Cas serves him a beer at a dingy bar.

“Something stronger after this,” Dean pauses to read the name tag. “Casey,” he finishes, looking into the familiar blue eyes of the bartender. He double checks the tag, thinking maybe it’ll read Scottie, or Scott he supposes. The man’s name is Casey.

Cas raises a brow at him and Dean feels properly chastised.

“Please.”

“Of course.”

Dean takes him back to his motel, more grateful than ever that he took the week away from Sam, and Cas lets him. Cas thought brief encounters would be enough, but he was wrong. They’re not. Cas is always going to need more.

It’s Dean’s first time with a man and it’s not what he’s imagined over the years but it’s exactly what he expects from Casey. Casey, who tastes like peanuts and something sweet. His calm nature at the bar translates into the way the man opens him up slow and deliberate. It has Dean ready to come before a condom is even rolled on.

The way Cas slips into him is slow too, too slow for Dean. Dean is angry and afraid and he knows it’s only going to get worse. He knows he’s going to hell. Knows what he’ll become there.

He tries to goad Cas into being rougher, into slamming into him harder, into getting Dean to hurt a little so that he doesn’t drown inside himself.

Cas knows what Dean is doing of course, and it’s not what the man needs. If there’s one thing Cas knows it’s how to take care of Dean Winchester.

Turns out, Dean doesn’t need pain to lose himself that night. The languid but hard drag of Cas’ cock inside him, the murmured words against his spine, the firm press of a hand between his shoulder blades, it all takes Dean somewhere else.

Dean hadn’t been touched like this, this tenderly with so much care, since Cassie, but he's been needing to be touched just like this for years. He feels starved for it and Casey keeps giving and giving.

Dean doesn’t realise he’s about to come until he’s already coming. It’s the best—it’s the best orgasm he’s ever had, though not the best he’ll ever have, which makes sense because it’s the first time Cas fucks him.

It knocks the wind out of his chest but Dean still manages to whine out a Case , the nickname he’d chosen for Casey earlier in the night.

If Cas tries hard enough, he can almost hear Dean saying his real name instead.

They go again an hour later, after a heated discussion about something Cas knows riles Dean up, and then again in the morning before a nap. Cas doesn’t sleep but when Dean slips out of bed he pretends to.

He also pretends he doesn’t know why he does it, but it’s definitely because he doesn’t know how to say goodbye to Dean again, one final time. Cas doesn’t want to.

Dean dies for the first time a few weeks after that.

Four months later he meets Castiel. The angel feels so familiar which is maybe why he decides to trust him so quickly, but Dean doesn’t remember any iteration of Cas he’s met up until then. Cas left those memories in the pit, to keep from jeopardising the future. Everything they do, always for the greater good.

Cas doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. He’s borrowed too much time from Dean’s youth and he can’t interact with him now that Dean has met him, really met him. Cas is alone. He doesn’t see that ever changing.

—

Dean dies for the last time at forty-two.

His most prominent regret, ridiculously enough because Dean has made greater mistakes in his life than this, is that he doesn’t get the chance to be led around at the garden Cas has raved about. Cas had mentioned sunflowers in the garden once, almost shyly as opposed to how he spoke about all the other exhibits. Dean thinks Cas’ tone meant that he wants to be kissed there. Dean plans to kiss him there. He dies thinking that he never will, doesn’t remember that he already has.

Read @reallyelegantsharkfish’s version of this story here if you want to cry

#destiel #destiel fanfiction #destiel drabble #destiel angst #destiel fluff #also #my writing #fanforfanatic #kisses by sunflower beds #spn #spn fanfiction #a little #destiel smut #this premise ruined my mind body and soul

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