tumbataure | 171st page

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mossy forest

171st page

After the hole is sealed and Ninurta's done away with, your entire party is bippity bopped to the other side of the forest. If there were stragglers that got separated, you're all in one place again. If you lost gear, weapons, phones, whatever, it's back on your person, functional again. If you lost any organs you're on your own though. No but basically you've been bewitched to safety out of the forest and the evil noises have stopped, you're homefree, homies. There's a crow perched on a rundown fence post along the road watching you with beady little eyes before it takes off back into the forest.

The map takes you to a rundown little bed and breakfast not but a fifteen minute walk out that looks like it was abandoned a while ago. No foul play, just closed for business, the economy is rough when you're located next to a haunted forest. Feel free to avail yourself of its beds, there's no room service but least you don't have to pay.

[Mission: get your bearings, make sure all your shits there, do a headcount, follow the road. call dibs on a room. rest up]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ winces, ever so slightly, when dean insists on using that euphemism. the suggestion of impotence didn't used to bother him much, and he can't exactly reason out why it's more uncomfortable now than it had been before. he shifts on the windowseat, hands on his thighs, and clears his throat before he looks up again. because of all the talking, not any other reason. ]

I'm relieved to be at full strength again, yes.

[looks away and scratches at the side of his face absently like he hasn't completely moved on from the emotions but he'll latch onto whatever else comes his way in the meantime]

Well enjoy it while you can. Smoke it while you got it and all that.

[given tumba's track record of unangeling him he means. you know, go prance with the bees or cloudhop or sing naked in the rain or whatever angels do in their freetime while they're not trying to start apocalypses or matchmaking]

[ already doing what he does in his free time. ]

[ not completely moved on from the emotions either. after all, there's a fairly large elephant in the room with them still, even after discussing the moose standing next to it. ]

I don't find smoking enjoyable...or attractive, but if I'm to believe what advertisements tell me, it's supposed to be "sexy."

[gives him a weird look as he pushes off the edge of the stand and loosens up his posture a little to shuffle in a circle, testing the water and blowing out a sigh when it just squeaks dryly in answer]

Yeah if you're from the 50s and so were poodle skirts.

[jim carrey hands at sink after he smacks the tap once. work. who would have thought an abandoned b&b wouldn't have running water.]

I was pleased to learn it wasn't one of your preferred vices.

[ unfolds himself from the windowseat and crosses the room while dean's back is turned to him. reaches his arm out underneath dean's gesturing to angeltap the faucet, which groans and rattles ominously before spitting out lukewarm water into the waiting pitcher. ]

[jerks his elbow up out of the way when he goes in for the faucet until he realizes that's what he was going for and kind of simmers down with an awkward huff]

...Thanks.

[for the jhorror water. that's not traumatizing. reaches over to turn it off after it's already spat out half a sinkful and does another aborted doubletake at him before leaning over to run his hand through it. make sure there's no floating haunted lady hair in it or some shit.]

[ it just looks like kind of silty water, probably from rain barrels or a water tower on the rooftop. ]

[ watches dean paw at it, with the same sort of expression you'd expect to see on the face of someone at a museum of fine art. ]

[ hovering, not realizing he's hovering, until he does realize because of all the tension gathering between dean's shoulderblades. sighs as he takes a step back to give dean his much-valued personal space. ]

[it's just a little baby elephant most of the time until cas decides to hover there like a freakin jerk and it becomes that elephant from that one gag story that killed the dude at the zoo]

[chances a look over his shoulder when he backs off before leaning over to splash the water over his face and work some of the dirt and whatever else out, pulling his shirt up to wipe it off and flicking his fingers dry over the bowl]

I miss water pressure.

[sulky but what can you do. turns back to him like that's the extent of his nighttime routine. i mean it basically is sans toothbrush and razors]

[ chews his bottom lip while the splashing and scrubbing sounds are going on. ]

[ it's really a bit of self-inflicted torture at this point, listening to this, the gentle human noises of dean's personal care and the rustling of his clothes as he tugs them to and fro. ]

[ but retreating all the way to the windowseat won't make it any less audible for him, either. ]

"Mojo" can't do much for that in this instance, I'm afraid. The closest I could do to accomodate would be...a rainstorm.

[gives him a look as he passes by him to drop down on the bed with a heavier flop than his usual fare like sweet, sweet creaky dusty mattress and reaches over the side to bring up the map from his bag, unfolding it like a newspaper over his stomach to go over it for lack of newspapers and internet to peruse for cases. more of a nighttime ritual than anything else.]

You're not my butler, man. Don't have to see to my every need.

But I am your friend. And I don't have needs of my own to see to.

[ shrugs his shoulders, even though it's a gesture that still needs a little practice before anyone could consider it one he's mastered. ]

[ looks over his shoulder at the abandoned windowseat, then forward toward the door. judging by where dean is on the checklist of winding down to sleep, it won't be long before he has to leave. no point in sitting down again now. ]

[this is the point where he'd talk about the next destination and set up some plot for the episode but we don't know about the next place yet so you're spared the exposition peppered with pop culture references to keep it interesting]

You're gonna get grass growin under your feet.

[looks up from fruitless map study at him doing his awkward should i stay or should i go dance. helpfully does not offer any indication as to which]

[ he said he would leave when dean falls asleep, and he isn't going until then. not a moment sooner. ]

Not my fault. You've been staring at the map for six minutes, but the dilation of your eyes means you haven't even been looking at it for the past four.

[ crosses his arms over his chest and shifts his weight to one hip. ]

Are you going to sleep, or not?

But it's not even my bedtime yet.

[don't sass me i'm gonna sass you you're in my room bitch. sets paper down and leans down to grab a pencil to start marking up the map with commentary. it's like, he has to keep himself busy and do something otherwise he's just floating through letting shit happen to him. if he doesn't even make an attempt to figure out what's going on ahead of time.]

Man I got work to do, you think running a group this size is easy? And you do know just standing there watching waiting for me to fall asleep isn't any less creepy than watching me sleep right?

[without looking up as he takes down some other noteworthy things from recent events in another notebook. it's like johns journal v2, because unlike some people he realizes he's not actually familiar with everything here and it'd be a good idea to keep records of it for future reference]

[ well now he's interested. ]

[ looks down at his feet like. there's no grass here fuck you. then takes a few steps toward dean's left side, coming close enough to the side of the mattress and his elbow that he can look over and see what dean's working on. zeroes in on the little doodles and sketches in the notebook, blocky little representations of some of the ghosts and creatures that had appeared in the dark forest. ]

...it didn't look like that. The teeth, you're exaggerating them.

Oh you wanna do it Michelangelo?

[looks down at his drawing with defensive eyebrows and mouthshrugs. good enough. better than sam. glances back up and over at him hovering again and pauses for a second like that before clearing his throat and scooting over a little to make room]

I didn't say it wasn't skillfully done. I said it was exaggerated.

[ sits without looking, still focused on the content of dean's narrative, lips twisting this way and that at the distinctive way he has of chronicling their trials and tribulations. it's easy to hear the words on the page as though they'd been said aloud by his voice, even though dean's just pursing his lips, silent. ]

When did you start doing this?

Uh, a while ago.

[scratches at his temple with pencil as he flips through some of the pages for him. he's no john about it, the notes are far from comprehensive and they're kind of all over the place with scribbles in margins and crude drawings and shit scratched out and wrote over again, but it's kind of a for your eyes only deal so he's not too concerned about it. you know, how something is organized, but only in a system the person that organized it would understand]

Mostly since we jury rigged a way to hold off the Arrowhead Project crap. [stops on the page with some fogbaby scribbles to tilt it toward him, mostly the sigils that ended up working and a lot of question marks] I mean, most of the stuff has pretty much fallen in line with what I already know, but there's the few odd men out. Brave new world.

[ firmly with sam in holding the "dean is the best hunter in the world" opinion. touches a page with his fingertips, abdomen leaping under his ribcage with nervousness and excitement, like he's just discovered some priceless treasure. ]

[ assessing all of the information that's been gathered, humming here and there at observations he missed or didn't think were of note at the time. one the page with the weeping angels, he taps a forefinger in the book's spine, then plucks dean's pencil out of his fingers to scratch an equation into the margin. ]

Given the energy of what they feed on, capturing one and harnessing that energy could, potentially, power magics I've only heard of in theory.

[leans over him while he's chicken scratching to pluck his room temp beer off the nightstand before settling back in next to him to tilt his head and read it as he drinks. eyes glaze over. yeah the practical stuff he gets but start talking to him about the al einstein mathematics and he just nods off]

You mean like boost us out of Third Earth kind of magic?

[ sort of forgot that he was speaking, caught up in the urge to record his knowledge in supplement to dean's work. ]

Crossing the borders of worlds isn't theoretical, it's very possible. You and I have both done it multiple times. The fact that we haven't found the right spell [ since we know there is a spell, just not one we're willing to recreate ] or the working portal isn't the same as "it has never been done."

[ the pencil stills, taps twice, then he holds it out to dean blunt-end first. ]

I meant, something more akin to reversing the stream of time. Undoing what's already come to pass. Or, or creating a new world, a realm beyond God's creation.

[ eyebrows furrow. ]

For all we know, maybe that's how this place came to be.

Well you're getting really Salvador Dali on me here, I'm not looking for big bang theories. Unless you think that's gonna help.

[glances down to take it but returns to looking at him with some measure of expectancy, raised eyebrows and lips parted like he gets when he's cautiously curious about a lead on something big. i mean, he's no historian, so how this world came to be means about as much to him as hook's opinions.]

The spellwork it would take to open a portal at will only required six deaths. These creatures consume impurities in Time. [ said in the sort of tone that suggests that clarifies everything, but he knows even before he looks at dean that it didn't clarify jack crap for him. ]

The potential energy could be applied to fueling almost any known magic. But Dean, they're too volatile to risk an attempt to capture. [ remember? we only escaped with one paradoxed-out-of-existence and me ditching the jimmysuit. ]

What'ya think it'd take to lure one of the fugly bitches out though?

[just shrugs at the but dean addendum, like that just sounds like the prologue to any of his too stupid to be real plans that always pan out. come on. as though it's a deterrent. he skipped the arguing for it to beeline straight for the how to basic]

You're kinda like a impurity in time or whatever on legs aren't you?

...Grace does have the potential energy to create impurities in Time, yes, but they seemed capable of creating the scars in the stream themselves. I'm not sure you could lure one, not unless it was starving already.

[ you need to take it back to the ten yard line, mister, this isn't a play that'll make it easy to score. ]

There's so many variables involved here, I'd fill this book and countless like it trying to list them all.

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