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location(s): [ spiral 2, house 1404 // the clinic ]
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From:

dedikated

Depends on the beer. [ She has tried some fucking toxic ones in her time. Ones that state 10% and come with enough bite to make you wonder if that wasn't an understatement when you find yourself face down on the bar after three pints.

The one problem with shots is that they need to be topped up too quickly, so she grabs the attention of someone and just asks for the whole bottle and enough lime - or whatever these citrus fruits actually are - slices to get them through it.

Much simpler. ] Never tastes right, does it? [ The burn is like tequila, but something in the aftertaste lingers all wrong in the back of her throat. ]

From:

kickingand

Point. [ Because hoo boy some beer is crap and that hipster shit? Is not somethi--- okay that's a lie, some of the hipster shit is pretty good and he's ashamed of that fact, but once again: whatever. The point he's making is that he's desperately looking for things to hide behind and so far? It's effective.

But hey, the bottle is making its way over and for that, Dean is thankful. He feels a bit like he's had something glass and alcoholic glued to him nonstop for days now and the trend doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon but it's there and so is the weird fruit and that's all that matters, because Dean is already lining himself up for another shot like an afterthought. ]

Got it close enough to count, though, didn't they? [ He bobs his head a bit, almost apologetically, as if he's the one who has something to make up for. ]

From:

dedikated

[ The hipsters make good beer. It's basically their only real use.

Unlike her drinking partner, Kate does at least take a few moments to let the taste of the last shot settle in her mouth before pouring another. ]

Like everything else here. [ She guesses. What with the furniture that doesn't look right and the appliances with their strange settings. This place feels like it was built by children who wanted things to look cool without much consideration of how they, practically, would work. Another shot gone and Kate tilts her head, letting the taste linger without a chaser for a moment.

Nope. Not better without the chasers. She rips into the salt and the lime and starts pouring another. ]

From:

kickingand

[ It's true. Dean won't fess up to it because he has no reason to, but it's... undeniably true.

But Dean isn't interested in letting the booze languish. He just wants it absorbed, wants himself doused and drowned in it, doesn't want to have to think about anything at all apart from how much can he get away with drinking and still be able to get his sorry ass home without Cas' help. But he's still not thinking about it hard enough - another shot, another chaser, and at least this time Dean is wrinkling his nose and peering suspiciously at what would normally be a lime. ]

You'd think they could'a at least read a Dummies Guide or two. Starter manual to fucking our shit up.

From:

dedikated

[ starter manual or no, the gods certainly seemed to know how to do that. the thought flits across her face in a sour twist that has nothing to do with the last shot she knocked back - everything, damn near everything that's happened here so far seems to be geared to fucking them up. designed to drag out all the wounds and shit she thought she'd buried under a nice layer of being too busy to think about it. there is nothing worse for her - perhaps for anybody - than idle time, which ticks by until you're thinking of that kid whose pen you nicked when you were seven and feeling like a dick for it.

all that time plus a skewed understanding of their prisoners? somehow made it that much worse down here.

fuck it. ] Fuck 'em. Don't want to think about their ideas. [ actually... she'll take another shot, thanks. because trying not to think about a thing inevitably means you're going to think about that thing and kate is expecting that they're not getting a break this month. last month seemed too tame already. ]

From:

kickingand

[ It's the worst part of this all - all this sitting around on his ass with nowhere to go. Nowhere to drive; escapism is Dean's finest art and one he was taught to achieve at an early age without even the solidity of meaning behind it. But it's all Dean knows - how to go, how to run, and there's none of that here except within the bottom of a bottle of booze. The God's have forced him here and he hates it, can't stand the walls closing in on him and the terror on the edge of his seat is enough to propel him into stupid acts just because he has nowhere to hide. ]

But they've got such good ones. [ It's bitter sarcasm and down with it goes another shot, this time Dean foregoing the chaser just so he taste the acrid twist of it across the back of his throat, the burn that chokes. ]

Keep telling myself it could get worse and then, hell- [ but he doesn't truly mean the gods. Not really. Not when it's himself he's starting to hate more than everything else. ] Lookit that, it just keeps getting worse.

From:

dedikated

[ The place is a true cage, and she'd understand that probably better than most. The way the walls seem to cling at you and no amount, no amount of bounding from roof to roof - no matter how often she does it or how many time she changes the circuit - makes that go away. Nothing the gods have done can truly make this place feel like the kind of cities she's used to jumping across and the decorative efforts - no matter how relaxing they were at the time - just do nothing but somehow drive that point home even better.

God, she hates the underground. Even one as spacious as this. Even with the good things that can be scraped out of this situation, nothing quite erases the fact that she will always feel, on some level, that this is some delayed punishment for all the things she did with The Agency. Like she isn't allowed to forgive herself for that, even if Glacius asks her to try.

It's too much like those things for her to see anything else in it, no matter how much she distracts herself with work. It doesn't change the place she has to see when she walks from building to building.

She waits on a shot for a moment, until Dean's finished talking, and then pours herself one, the slowly building buzz of alcohol enough to ask the kind of question that would normally have that little, Marc-sounding voice in the back of her head talking about tact and other things. ] You don't just mean the shit they put us through, do you? [ She glances to the side when she says it, watches someone walk past and keeps her voice low enough to not leave their table. ]

From:

kickingand

[ It's a slow death, this breed of suffocation, and Dean doesn't know what to do about it. He doesn't know how to escape himself right now and it's driving him further up the wall than he might usually crawl, desperate to find a home away from himself when there is no escape, no respite. There are no long stretches of road, no loud speakers, no music to dull the steady, furious ache. He's raging, mad at himself for a million and one things and all of them rest so steadily on his shoulders that it makes it hard to breathe and god, sometimes he hates it here more than he wants to admit to.

But right now; right now he hates it more because he hates himself most of all. He hates the confusion, the sickening taste of not knowing himself beyond the rampant alcohol, not knowing where to find his own limbs and how to access his own mind. He feels foreign and lost, like he keeps stumbling into walls onto to find himself on the other side of the room where he wasn't meant to be in the first place.

He doesn't want to blame it on Cas, because it's not his fault, this terror. This terror that he'll lose it all, lose himself and more. But he can't help being angry - it's what he's good at. It's what he knows, and what he knows is all he cling to right now.

The words don't entirely catch him off guard. Not that he's expecting them, but they aren't a shock either, and he narrows his gaze a bit, staring a sharp hole through the table because right now apparently he's forgotten how to lie. He even stumbles over some empty words through parted lips as if he can brush it aside easy and when he finally looks up he's got nothing. Nothing good at least. Though he does manage to shake his head and almost force a laugh, anything at all to provide that isn't a lost cause. ]

This place isn't actually any worse than home. [ He shrugs a shoulder, as if that's an answer. As if it means all the things he wishes he could make it mean. ] I got the bullshit down pat.

From:

dedikated

[ She's heard enough about home for Dean to know that's actually true; heard from spewed out late night confessions all sorts of ways that their fucked up life caused Sam to fuck up and she's not innocent enough to believe that was all of the shit that happened.

(She would like to believe it, she really would, as if she could believe hard enough to make it true. But she can't do that any more than she can bury the memories of her parents' bodies or Marc's throat being slit in front of her.)

The slowly building haze of alcohol is, however, not quite enough to have her trip up on those revelations - not verbally anyway. The fact that her expression barely twitches at those words, that she doesn't bother to turn her head back to the table just yet, though... That might come across as a little unusual.

Or maybe her own world just sucks that much, who knows?

(Hint: she actually likes home, now that her life doesn't have to revolve around killing and torture any more.)

Eventually, Kate gives up watching the people in the bar and rests her chin on threaded fingers, just watching Dean silently for a moment. ] Therefore booze? [ It sounds like a quip, said lightly and easily, but her expression remains this flat, inscrutable thing. Yeah. Therefore booze. That is something she knows how to do. Things hurt and you drink until the only thing you can find space to concentrate on is how to move your limbs to get yourself standing, walking. ]

From:

kickingand

[ He's thankful for the fact that there's no questions on what home is and he has to know why that's the case without thinking too hard about it. It's not as if he was teasing Sam for no reason whatsoever - they've talked, the two of them, Sam and Kate, and Dean isn't jealous so much as he wishes he knew how to speak about anything anymore. Words have suddenly become frozen in mid air between him and everyone and Dean feels like a wreck, as if his mind was handed away without his permission. Trying to verbalize a single thing is like finding himself entwined with his own foul carnage and it's one more useless attempt to find himself.

Another shot is pounded by Dean, another chaser gone down and Dean wouldn't care if they were quips or jokes or softly offered gestures that she's giving. All he knows is that he doesn't know how to speak or react or be himself anymore but he's been lost since the second he stepped foot in these damned caves.

All he wants is to go home, but now he has to wonder if that would even help. If that would take back the moment he was forced to step back and wonder if he had always been all these things, and if he'd just never noticed.

It's Dean's turn to look away, to people watch, or more like stare at anything that isn't Kate, the warm blur of alcohol finally starting to make an entrance. Dean can't even pull apart his own threads and yet everyone seems to know better than him and it's insane, it hurts, it makes him feel like he's battling far more than the Mark and he just doesn't know where to turn. There's no part of him left in his own access and it's turned him inside out. ]

Not like there's anything else. [ Except Cas - the words are so obvious they make even Dean cringe. ]

From:

dedikated

[ Words never are easy. They're only ever pulled out from the mouth like wisdom teeth without anesthetic and every time it hurts just as much. She's left far too many things unsaid in her life because of it and trying to change that comes in stops and starts of too much and not enough said, comes with that never-changing urge to stop dead halfway through and wrap those layers around her heart again.

The answer she gets, unlike the last, does get her full attention, earns a flicker of surprise that crosses her face and disappears into nothingness quickly enough that it could have been imagined if it wasn't for the fact that whatever neutral expression she usually defaults to is decidedly not there, is replaced by something cagier and more melancholy.

Nothing else, when they both know he isn't here alone - that his brother's here, that Cas is - and it's painful to admit, it's always painful to admit that she can never really stop being jealous of the people down here who have their loved ones from home by their sides, no matter how many reasons she lists that it's better to be anywhere but shithole cavetown. ] Or like you're by yourself. [ Those words could be saccharine, could be pure after school special if said the right way. But instead they're said after three shots in a row without a chaser and can't properly shake the bitterness that's crept into her mind. ]

From:

kickingand

[ Dean knows what it's like to be alone. He's been there, done that, lived that life. Maybe he did it with his father in tow when Sammy was away at college and maybe he experienced Hell without a life raft of anyone cushy around so why the fuck is he bitching? He knows, and the words she give in response make him feel like shit because he knows. He's got Sam, he's got Cas, and therefore he's got more than his fair share already and it's shit to say he's got nothing when he's got both of his everything's and then some. They're his whole world, isn't that enough?

Except right now he can't grapple with it and it makes him feel even worse, like he's rotting from the inside out, unable to access the two things he needs most. Makes him feel lost when he's standing with a map, as if the guide book should be telling him the way when all it is, is in another language entirely. ]

Yeah, I know, I know- [ He hangs his head, runs his fingers through his hair in something like apology because like hell is he going to say those words (i'm sorry is reserved for the very few) and yet it's his problem in a nutshell. He's convinced he's running on empty with nothing left to give, that he can't even find himself amongst the two people who know where to look, and he's just so goddamn sorry that there's nothing else he knows how to say. ]

I got nothin' to bitch about.

From:

dedikated

[ It's more complicated than that, though, isn't it? She should know that - hell, she does know that. Having Marc sure didn't stop her drinking when she was younger, or feeling like there was nothing else to do but drink. It didn't stop the resentment she felt (still does, sometimes) at him for leading them this way, either. For making her follow when she never knew how to handle blood or death or any of the things he knew they'd have to deal with working at The Agency.

(That? Was kind of a dick thing to point out. She knows. She fucking knows.)

Kate exhales in that way she does when she knows that she's saying things that are hypocritical as fuck. ] Not saying that. [ Because who can blame anyone for bitching in this place? Really, just bitching is kind of one of the better outcomes for this place. ] Just-

[ She taps her fingernail against the shotglass in front of her. ] Trying to remember that it doesn't all suck down here.

From:

kickingand

[ Dean wants to say he hadn't meant it in a way that implied that he had no one. Hell, all he'd really meant was that he didn't have Baby, that he had no other outlets, no venues like fucking his little heart out to save the day. There was nothing but the booze left over to pick him up off his feet and dust him off and even that was starting to fail, a steady trickling over of what he needed and what he wanted and what he couldn't have all becoming a steady blur until there was nothing left to do but sleep. And even that's a waste- he has to do something.

Except there is no something's anymore.

But he's guilty as fuck for saying it in the first place, for letting the words drop, and he scrubs his mouth before pouring another shot and souring the taste in the back of his throat. The bitter feeling that he's left Sam and Cas out in the for the benefit of earning a little pity.

And pity? Is not what he wants. No, he wants answers, he's desperate to know. To understand. To get a grip on himself with fingers that don't keep slipping. ]

Not like we're alone, right? [ Except he near chokes on the words and it's stupid, he feels stupid, and he wants to get up and walk away because of it. Find where the gravel notes of his voice have wandered off to and shake the life out of them for betraying him and his confusion, for pedaling out the pain of his self hatred and leaving nothing in its wake. ]

I know Sam likes place more than I do- nothing wrong with that.

From:

dedikated

[ Does anyone really understand themselves? Truly and deeply? She's not entirely sure it's possible and - if anything - being down here has only made her more sure of that, where twists and turns lead to things she didn't even think of. Chances or fuck ups in equal measure, but so many of them brought about because of things, of issues, she had buried so deep as to ignore completely.

(She knows the underground, this place and its limitations and walls, is a problem now, but it took months to understand that. Months to even realise that her restlessness wasn't just her typical need to do things, but something deeper that clawed at her insides, begging her to get the fuck out.) ]

He always been like that? [ Good at finding the bright side, she means. The query comes out before she even thinks about it, stumbling across her tongue in that way words do after this many shots, where thoughts flow like water between brain and mouth.

She pours them both another, tequila splashing up and out of the glasses with the kind of careless abandon that comes when you've lost track of how many shots down you are. At least it's only a couple of drops that escape and flow over. ]

From:

kickingand

[ Talking about Sam? Now there's a thing he can do. It's not talking about Cas, it's not himself, it's not the way his skin has been crawling lately with the remnants of all the ways in which he hates himself. It certainly isn't his confusion - Sam he knows and he almost twists a smile into place as he watches the tequila dribble over the edges, long lost memories frothing up in the back of his mind, replacing his fears and his terrors over all the parts of himself he cannot fix, cannot make right. ]

You mean the, uh- [ He waves a hand before pulling a shot glass near, already lining up another lime, preparing himself for the downpour of booze, the numbing waves he needs right now to drown out the static noise that's raining down in the back of his mind. ]

Optimistic puppy dog thing? Always looking up, always gonna get better, just look on the bright side? [ He's not sure why he's trying to offer her something here, like showing baby photos out of his back pocket that he does not possess of a little brother he wants to give the world to. Whatever makes you happy, Sammy, whatever gives you what you need most, Dean would give him the world and then some if he could. And so he gives what he can before he downs a shot, because taking care of Sam, even without taking shit, is easy. He can do it asleep, with his eyes closed, dangling with his life on the line. Sam is what he knows when he doesn't even know himself and it tinges him with an ease he can't begin to find anywhere else right now. ]

Yeah. Always. Pain in the ass when you're stuck with him in a car for sixteen hours straight but hey- some days it gets you through even when you hate it.

From:

dedikated

[ Look on the bright side. Maybe it is a few too many shots in her system (tequila was always that one drink for her, although the hangover is somehow never as bad as vodka), but that gets something in her head that earns a quick whistle of half a tune. With a quick flick of her wrist, the shot burns down her throat but by now Kate can barely notice the taste of the liquer, only that it buzzes in her head pleasantly as it enters her system.

It would be impossible to deny that Kate wants to prod Dean about Cas, just a little, because she likes Cas and has no reason to dislike Dean either, and she wishes she were even half as good at advice and fixing things as Dagny or Faith or even Diana, who could untangle interpersonal problems like she was playing Cat's Cradle - easy little plucking movements and gentle words. But she isn't, and even now the promise not to say anything about her conversation with Cas lingers quietly in the back of her mind.

So. Sam. Who is far easier to talk about, and - under the haze of alcohol - who she can't help smiling over, just a little, at that description. Optimism is something that does, somehow, kind of grow on you, even if you can't quite give into it yourself. That whole balance shit that people talk about, probably. Can't look at the shit all the time, or something. ] It's nice. [ It reminds her a little of Faith, in that same we can change things, make them better way. And that actually worked. Mostly.

Kate's fingers can't help but glide to her ear, to her piercings, fiddling with the bar she placed back in after finishing work; an old self-conscious habit that's even more obvious after a few drinks. ]

From:

kickingand

[ At this point, right now, Dean doesn't care about which booze it is, as long as it's burning its way through him, carving a path that he can't see, emptying out everything he doesn't need and can't stand to exist within. It's always been his relationship with alcohol, a thing to hide inside of, a thing to abuse when he needs it most. When the world is a thing he can't tolerate but when he is the thing he can't stand most of all. It blurs his everything, makes it so he can't see the monster he's become and he's sure that Cas knows it. Knows that Cas is watching him drink, watching him hate himself, watching him self destruct. And there's nothing he can do but walk the same path he's wandered a hundred times before.

But talk of Sam is like offering cake to the hungry - giving something good where it's needed. He may have had issue with Sam and women before, in Purgatory where Amelia became what Sam craved more than saving his life, but this isn't Purgatory and this is Amelia and right now he can't find it in himself to be upset or jealous that Sam has something that's somehow easier than what he's trying so hard not to look for.

And that smile: it's so obvious and it makes Dean shake his head, lingering on just how much of a matchmaker he isn't, but he can still offer tidbits. Give his brother away as best as he can, tease and torment and still say the good shit. ] It's annoying. [ But his words lift upright, almost jovial, amused at his brother for being the man he is and for himself for being something opposite. ]

But someone's gotta like it.

[ The key missing word there being: you. You have to like it, you get to like it because he knows you do. The hair tuck, the nervous gesture, it's all there and Dean doesn't push because he's not one to talk right now (or ever) but it's there. He isn't blind. ] Not like I know where it comes from either, but hey- he's pulled me outta more trenches than I can count. Even with the feel good talk.

From:

dedikated

[ It makes it easier to forget, drinking. Drinking until you don't have the mental capacity to recall the way the tunnels cave in around you. Letting enough alcohol settle into your system that you just let your body take over and don't think about the kid who was screaming when you pressed cigarette stubs into his bound arms. One would think she has less to forget now - the memories of the end of June, while still lingering, aren't the only thing on peoples' tongues any more and a lot of things are going right. The healing trinkets worked, and are proving popular enough that she's busy making more most nights and -

Well. There's also the obvious.

But looking at the good and the bad and trying to concentrate on the former sounds far more simple than it is. There's no cure-all for the kind of issues that lurk deep in memories, waiting for the moments where everything stills and lurching, making it impossible to remember any of the good things.

So, one distracts oneself with alcohol. Or, on days like today, drinks until one starts thinking about all the reasons one usually distracts oneself.

And then distract yourself from those, too.

(There was a point in here. She's pretty sure it disappeared with the last shot she had.)

Kate would thank Dean for not mentioning the betrayal of her facial muscles or her fingers as they seem determined to let themselves be seen in ways she normally has under lock and key, but she doesn't do more than let her face rearrange into something more neutral and glance away for a moment. Marc was good at that too - pulling her out of bad situations; less with nice words and inspiring speeches (he was never all that optimistic either; more determined and practical, personable when he needed to be) and more literally, but all the same. ] Someone has t' do it. [ Be optimistic, drive the others insane with their incessant sunny outlook. ] World would be boring otherwise. [ It's one of the few things she believes, even when everything feels like it should be grim. People should be different, have different views and opinions. Different ways of getting to places, even if those places are the same.

(If Faith says we can do it, we can change things!, Kate says we have to do it, or no one else will and Alicia is I want to do it, for me.) ]

From:

kickingand

[ Someone has to do it.

Dean almost laughs, though the sound ends up wrecked and broken, as if Dean can't help thinking about the times when he hasn't been around to do it. The times when he's endured a lack of optimism and Dean has had to ride on his hard follow through alone, his dire need to keep pushing simply because it's the only thing he has. To slam bodily his way through life, pummel and claw and destroy and what the fuck is he destroying now other than himself? He can't stand it, this hatred, this deep seated need to push himself so far over the edge that there's nothing left to save, and he knows he clings to the things he has to keep him grounded.

To Cas, to Sam - they are his life rafts, all the time, they are his only bright spots and someone has to do it. Someone has to be there for him to hold onto and he thinks - remembers dreams - knows what it is to have nothing there to sink his fingers into, imagines a world without their voices tinged within it. ]

Hell yeah, course it would be. Not like I want him to stop. Wouldn't be Sammy if he wasn't bein-- [ Everything that Sammy always is. Stubborn and forthright and giving; genuine and his little brother and all the things he is not combined into a man that Dean tries so hard to let go of. ] Y'know. All that he is.

[ But right now, it all just wraps around and falls back onto Cas and Dean stares down at the table, looks at his tequila might it might reach up and strangle him and he downs it anyway because no matter where he is, no matter what he does, all Dean can feel is the loss. Their impending absence like the rumble of a stormcloud and he shoves as hard as he digs tooth and nail, trying to hold on to the sacrifices he's given to keep his family held together taught. He is terrified of their loss, of their nonexistence, and Dean tries to quirk a smile into place, though it's worried and carved into sorrow. His mistakes, he think, they just run too damn deep. ]

Wouldn't change the kid for the world.

From:

dedikated

[ There's another smile there, but it's less because of Sam and more because of Dean's words. Because she can never help the swell of warmth at sibling affection and when she's countless drinks down there's no way of hiding that. (And should anyone really want to hide their delight at that? Probably not.) She can't help it the same way she - or at least, her dream-self - couldn't help the bragging about her totally smart totally a genius younger brother who better be going to one of the best universities in the world in seven years so help her god.

(He didn't. He should have. It's still her fault and her failure. Her fault for acquiescing and keeping all these things between them - she could have alerted someone, anyone. It didn't even have to be the family friends that took them in, just someone who could deny his wants better than she ever could.

He got what he wanted and she did things she was too good at and ignored her own wants in the process.)

But instead he's seven years dead and fuck, even when she thinks she's used to no white noise in her head at all, it all comes rushing back. Dreams where he appears in the Colosseum, fighting off Creatures or some random monster of the month, and the noise is just so vivid, so realistic that she wakes up with her chest aching when everything goes dark again. ] I'll- [ The sentence starts and stops before she even really knows what she's about to say, but there's that sibling need simmering - that fuck she really likes this guy need burning just as strongly (the one she thought was non-existent for all but friendship, when there really was no time to concentrate on anything about romance): the ones that say protect protect protect because the last thing she needs (that any of them need) is more loss.

(She is still too damn terrified of that possibility. That she's opened herself up to way more hurt by letting Sam crawl under her skin like this, here where people can be killed over and over again or just disappear into the ether without fanfare or goodbyes.) ] -try and make sure he doesn't. [ Change. Try because guaranteeing that would be impossible.

But she wants to try. She has to try, because this damn place will do everything to change all of them. ]

From:

kickingand

Change?

[ Dean lifts his head minutely and quirks it to the side and thinks that Sam has changed a hundred ways to Sunday and it's nobody's fault but his own. If he hadn't- if only- if he could've- he should have gone it alone. All those years ago, he should have left Sammy the hell alone, should have let him walk the footsteps he needed to walk to save his life and yet here they are. Dean changed Sam in all the ways he was never meant to be changed and just like everything, all those mistakes, those dripping failures can be traced back to him. He led Sam away from the college, the life of his dreams, and he took Sammy back from all his happiness. All his dogs and his girls and his many lives that should have been led without all his discontent.

Dean warped those paths, Dean got it wrong, Dean changed the world until it was all lost in his hands - he was the righteous man who fucked it all up and nothing will ever take that back the way it should be given. ]

If you're gonna, might as well do it for the better.

[ It's an offering, one of those big brother things. He's not gonna ruffle her hair or tell her 'go ahead, i trust you enough' but it's something akin to that. A willingness to accept this into their lives as if he has any control over it - he doesn't. But he still thinks he has a say sometimes, thinks he can put his foot into the door before it shuts permanently into his face and he doesn't. He has no words, no true offerings, but he can still say his piece. That he doesn't mind it, thinks it's a good thing, a needed thing- Sammy deserves this. This happiness, this piece of mind away from their own breed of devastation.

Sam deserves it because hell, how many times has Dean taken it away? How many times has their life stolen it, refused to give it back, kept them from having the things they could never have dreamed of, never touched. If Sam can glimpse it, can rest his fingers upon it for even a moment, than that's alright. Deserved even, and Dean just wants Sammy to have it, to hold it, to keep it. For long enough to count. ]

From:

dedikated

[ That... seems even more impossible than trying to prevent him losing his optimism in the first place. Not just because he's infinitely a better person than she is already, but-

Well, she still doesn't know if she trusts herself enough to manage something like that. Every part of her that wants to try is still at war with all the old habits and parts that wear distance like armour and only want to concentrate on all the bad things. On the things she couldn't do before so why would it begin now?

But she wants to try more than she thought she ever could. It smoulders deep in her chest in the same way that determination to take on Dagny's apprenticeship did - the kind of thing that makes Kate grit her teeth and try to ignore the warring, rather than anything else. She wants this, wants her own mind to stop overthinking everything and just let them be for a while. Maybe she can stop this self-imposed exile that she's - consciously or not - been doing for years. Be a little bit selfish, but in a better way than usual.

She doesn't bother to say anything to that, just pours them both a shot and downs hers, silent until; ] If anyone I know turns up, tell 'em nowt. [ It's all been so serious that she needs to joke a little. And joking at her expense is a good enough way to do it.

(Seriously though? If Carl or Alicia turn up, she's never hearing the end of it.) ]

From:

kickingand

[ Maybe Dean presented it as a possibility because he's an asshole - he doesn't really know. He doesn't think Sam can get much better than he already is; like Cas, they are the only two objects in the universe that he wouldn't want to be any different than all the things they are. He can take their pains, their annoyances, their oddities and run with them because they're family. Because they're his, his people, his brothers in arms. They are all he knows, and the idea of splitting them into the parts is an obscenity, as if pulling one thing from them will set the whole world unravelling.

He wouldn't want them any different, not for the world, not for anything. They are all he knows, all he cares for in life, all he steps forward for. To think of them changing is a terrifying thing amongst all other terrifying things and Dean is already scared shitless, scared that he is their ruination, that they will leave because of all that he is. And maybe they will and maybe, at the end of the day, he would deserve every ounce of that.

But her comment still makes him almost come up with a laugh, lifting up another shot and almost sloshing the liquid sideways (party foul!) because it's just funny. It just is and he doesn't really know why, the absolute teenager racket of it, the teasing and the flirting and the bubbly not knowing. ]

Believe me, i'm not the type to go around spillin' secrets. [ Down the hatch goes the shot and Dean's starting to feel real damn cozy, like he wants to put his head down and blot out the world, but he shakes it instead and something spins sideways as he drags a hand across his eyes. ] Everybody else can tell 'em for me.

From:

dedikated

[ At least they might sleep easy tonight - if by sleeping, blacking out is meant. That's pretty much the same thing, right?? There's enough hours in blacking out that no one will complain. And Kate snorts because that's kind of true, because Cas kind of spilled secrets already without any of Dean's help. Unless that post counts, and she doesn't think it does.

It is daft and stupid and a thousand things she doesn't think she did even as a teenager, back when dating meant three weeks of awkward snogging and eventually breaking up because of some random detail that really means nothing when thought about in any long-term context. But it keeps things lighter than they have been in a long time. In most of this session, at least. ] Fair enough. [ she laughs, mostly because yeah, no one in this place seems to be able to keep a secret too long. Whatever the gods do to elicit emotion, it seems to be all about bringing out those secrets. Old scars and all the rest of it, whatever cliche a person cares to use for those secrets. ] Doubt they'll turn up anyway. [ it could happen, but it's been so long now that she really thinks that this place has decided she's the only chaotic link in her world.

... it's probably right. ]

Edited Date: 2016-08-07 12:32 pm (UTC)

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