ic contact

[venatoris]

This is Dean Winchester. If this is an emergency, leave a message.

Comments

Text; UN R.BECKET April 1st

[righthemisphere]

Hey Dean, It's Raleigh. I'm not sure if you remember me. A lot has happened the last six months.

I'm looking for your brother, he and I used to go running and I haven't seen him around in a while. I've got some seeds for his seed bank.

Is he with you? Everything okay?

[venatoris]

I don't remember you.

Sam's fine. Hasn't mentioned seeds. We're kinda busy, I'll let him know.

[righthemisphere]

Ok, thanks man. If you guys need a hand with anything let me know. Happy to help a friend.

text; after getting his shit wrecked :')

[endoftheverse]

Im back
Im coming over, if

thats okay.


Im sorry, dean

[He's a little scared that maybe Dean's changed his mind about this whole... loving him still thing. Nobody'd blame him. The stilted texts are one part emotion, the other part, uh. A concussion. Probably.]

*INCOMING CALL FROM UN: IMPALA67* fuck ur text sam

[venatoris]

[ Answer the goddamn phone. ]

[endoftheverse]

[Sam clumsily answers. Of course he does.

... And is quiet, words stuck in his throat. The hand holding the phone to his ear trembles. For a moment he's eleven or twelve, standing on some empty highway with the payphone to his ear, regretful about the duffel he'd packed and the running away he'd done. He remembers Dean answering the hotel phone then, remembers the words getting stuck in his throat then, too.]

Voice.

[endoftheverse]

[Sam has kinda been building up to talking to Dean about this, and after consulting other, less-grumpy-Dean-Winchester-from-the-future people, he's sort of decided to just go for it and tell him what his gameplan is... for better or worse. Sam honestly thinks for better, but he'll have to gauge Dean's reaction.

God help him.]

Hey, Dean. I've got something I'm thinking about doing, but I didn't want to just do it without talking to you, so... I guess I'll just get it out there. But. Uh. What's your opinion on informing the town at large about Lucifer?

[venatoris]

[ God. Dean is so...fucking exhausted from all of this. He's lonely in his cabin, worried, traumatized, running out of booze... ]

...Sam, man. I don't know. I am tired.

[endoftheverse]

Hear me out. You don't have to do anything. Okay? I'll handle it all.

It's just... People died and got hurt, and if they'd known about it, maybe they wouldn't have. I shouldn't... I shouldn't have hidden it from the people here. It wasn't fair to them, was it?

April 30th (before the fog bruh) | TEXT

[endoftheverse]

[Despite being the more morose and quiet Sam Winchester, he is positively radiating with awed energy. Let's see if it bleeds through text:]

Dude
you're not going to believe what I found.
You're gonna lose your mind.

[venatoris]

i thought you found that when you were 7

[endoftheverse]

Shuddup
trail behind the cabin
get your ass down here.

[He'll just wait on the outskirts for ya, pal.]

[beforetheverse]

is the devil real

[venatoris]

what? why?

[beforetheverse]

demons are real. angels are real.
is the devil real, too? is he real where we're from?

text; un: Wesson

[family_remains]

Where are you.

[venatoris]

[ jesus fucking-- ]

neck deep in baby. whats up

text;

[beforetheverse]

What happened to the Impala anyway?
She looks like something Bobby'd pay to tow off his lot.
Do you have the parts to fix it?

[Remember how Sam always asked 10000000 questions???]

Re: text;

[venatoris]

don't insult my baby

i'm working on getting her fixed up. still missing some things, though. current conditions make it a little difficult

[ u lil shit ]

..... and now something serious, dated whenever; cw: drug abuse

[kingoftherats]

[Paint thinner always messes him up the most. He really shouldn't use it.

But there was a perfectly good tin of it, and let it be known: when he's in a bad way, Charlie Kelly does not let a single drop of poison go to waste.

He either doesn't know Dean lives in the basement, or he doesn't remember; the outcome is the same, anyway. He's as quiet as a mouse — sorry, quiet as a rat. He moves a lot like them, even when he's high as a kite, and so he wanders down into the depths of the cabin without waking a soul. A glassy-eyed gaze doesn't particularly land on any one thing in Dean's sparse room; nobody here just yet, not that Charlie was particularly looking for anyone. He wanted somewhere dark like the sewer, somewhere quiet like his Bad Place, and he found it. He doesn't break bottles against walls like he usually does at the pub, but he does proceed to wedge himself into the nearest corner and curl up to try and sleep it off.

His eyes play awful tricks on him, though, and his dreams aren't any kinder when he fades in and out (or at least he thinks they're dreams, though he's not sure if he actually sleeps or not). He twists and turns and his shoulder blades scrape uncomfortably against the meeting walls like a whittling knife on wood.

Whenever poor Dean gets back from whence he'd vanished, he'd probably notice something was off just by the smell of JASCO brand thinner as he lays down, honestly... That is, if the sensation of something else just living in the darkness of his room doesn't immediately throw him into hunter mode.

It's the bogeyman, obviously.

A bogeyman who is currently curled up tight in a fetal position, looking every sort of pathetic and entirely isolated compared to the fast-talking, over-energized goblin that had been using his shower and eating all his food. A bogeyman who sniffs loudly, his nose red, one smear of blood under one nostril.

You let this wretched thing into the house, Dean. You invited the awkward moonshine-making, paint drinking vampire through the doorway. He wheeled in a little bit of baggage behind him while he was at it, that's all.]

[venatoris]

[ There is a lot going on in the Winchester cabin these days; there are a lot of people staying in the month of May, there is a lot of noise, a lot of people coming in and out.

That's not to say there aren't moments of solitude to be found - there is a surprising amount of nooks and crannies available in the cabin where someone can find a moments peace, away from the monsters and from the other people who are coming in and out.

The basement is one, especially before Cas arrives. Dean and Sam spend most of their time above ground, patrolling the perimeter, making sure monsters don't get too close and killing the ones that do. It isn't as difficult as one might think to slither into the basement unseen, which is what Charlie manages to do.

Sam's got the grounds covered, taking over from Dean this evening; Dean is so exhausted he thinks he may drop onto his bedroll when he gets down there.

The moment he opens the door to the basement, though - he's on high alert. Spidey-sense tells him there's someone or something already down there and lurking, and he's got a gun out and trained into the darkness, coming down the stairs one by one, with all the training of a military soldier. It's not just the paint thinner he can smell - there's a presence, a soft exhale of air, a disturbance in the force.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs and reaches over, silent, and flicks his zippo open to light one of the candles, other hand still gripping his gun, aiming it into the darkness.

Dean is not expecting to see Charlie in his goddamn basement, and it's a damn lucky thing Dean is as trained up as he is; anyone else may have shot the bastard out of sheer surprise. ]

Charlie? [ Fucks sake. He lets out a breath, tucks his gun back into his belt and comes over, kneeling down in front of the little gremlin, brow furrowed. ] Hey, what's going on? You alright?

...

How did you get in here?

Text; UN: Wesson 01 June

[family_remains]

[Texting for safety from upstairs. God knows what he'll find if he goes down into that basement.]

you up?

un; impala67

[venatoris]

did you really just 'you up' me

6/6, after reading Sam's letter

[foolintherain]

[ The really terrifying part, as Cas skims the letter on the table that Sam has left, is that he doesn't know how long ago this was written, or how long ago Sam left. Cas's mind jumps to a million places, to home, to Dean, and he can't breathe. He panics, and when he calls around the house for Dean and there's no answer, the panic grows, and when he storms out front and finds the Impala missing from the lawn, a shadow of dead grass and mud in its place, the panic hits him like a wave. Fight or flight. Those are his only options, and he hasn't been able to fly in years. ]

"You have five missed calls."

[ Cas calls Dean's Fluid repeatedly between lacing up his boots and pulling on his jacket, and Dean's voice in the form of a recorded messages feels like drowning. The panic buzzes in his ears as he saddles up Mister Ed as Dean had showed him only a week before, right before a night full of fire and music and wine that still feels like a dream. It was all just a dream. They knew this world was ending, and they always knew how it would end. ]

dean where are you?
DEAN

[ They've all felt the charged electricity in the air and the draw towards the outskirts of town and the rumble of a great, wide storm, but seeing the end of the world in front of you, knowing what it is, is truly terrifying. It's nothing like the slow decay of civilization over years. It's raw and immediate, and Cas is too fucking sober for this. He unmounts the horse, pets its muzzle and whispers a fond goodbye before leaving it untethered to find its way home, as Dean assured him once it would, and Cas walks into the storm. ]

i'm coming for you

[ He doesn't pace the periphery like Dean does. He never finds Sam knelt in the space between reality and dream, or sees the welcoming yellow headlights of the Impala cutting through the churning smoke. The lighthouse welcomes him, and through the door is gunfire. ]

[venatoris]

[ Dean doesn't realize he has missed calls and messages; the moment he found that note, he bolted into the unknown, cranked the Impala and tore ass out of the yard at lightning speed. He assumed, incorrectly, that one of two things would happen: One, Cas would be too blitzed/distracted to realize Dean was even gone, or two, Sam would find the note first, and keep it from Cas.

Neither of those things happened.

Dean comes back, frog marching the youngest Winchester into the cabin, pours him a shot and does his best to calm him down. He's bleeding from something sharp in his back, but he doesn't want to worry his little brother, so once Sam is settled and, hopefully, napping after the shot of bourbon, Dean heads out to the car to make sure he didn't put any unnecessary strain on a newly repaired vehicle.

That's...when he sees them. The missed calls. The texts. The final message that makes his blood run cold and his heart stop in his chest.

im coming for you

The bile in Dean's stomach rears up again for the second time that day, bubbling up into his throat, his head spinning and he very nearly is sick. No...this cannot be happening. Sam was another story. Sam lived, in a way, his body used as a vessel for Lucifer. Of course he could come back.

But Cas...

Dean sent him to his death, he's sure. There was no other way for their story to end.

The car stops, and Dean gets out, staring into the twisting smoke that beckons and calls, drawing him in. His back aches, his shirt wet with sticky blood, the smell of ozone in the air.

The storm rages around him, the pull of home tugging him forward by the chest, one foot in front of the other taking him to the lighthouse that he knows is his world, his home. Home, where the battle rages, the gunfire is deafening, and where all has been lost.

He steps in without thinking twice, and lets the darkness take him.

* * *

Gunfire echoes in the abandoned sanitarium, and Dean twitches as he’s dragged from sleep, brain fuzzy from a dream filled with deer and firelight kisses, of Cas’ under him, a cabin on the outskirts of town, the Impala brought back to life. The dream that wasn’t a dream lingers as he stands and brushes himself off, dirt and dead leaves sticking to his faded jeans and stained jacket. He’s here for a reason, he knows - find Cas, he has to find Cas. That’s the prevailing thought that carried him home, that lingers the sharpest in his dream-fogged mind.

I have to find Cas.

A mantra that’s repeated again and again as he forces himself to move, rolling his shoulder with a wince as he rounds the corner of the building, fingers groping for the gun that’s slung over his body, absently checking to make sure it’s loaded and ready, because there’s Croats here, aren’t there? That’s a danger again, unlike in his dream where there were monsters of another kind; some friendly, some not.

He stops dead at the sight before him and hustles back to the edge of the building, ducking for cover because that’s Lucifer right there, standing over…

His dead body, while his mini-me looks on.

Blood roars in Dean’s ears and he can’t...really quite hear what’s being said for a few moments, because seeing the Wastes burn is one thing, but seeing yourself dead on the ground under Lucifer’s shoe is quite another.

Whatever you do, you will always end up here.

He chokes back a sob, and he can’t listen anymore, he turns and bolts, gun in hand as he runs straight into a building filled with Croats looking to kill, screaming for Cas. ]

Cas! Cas?!