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[forestcrap]

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]

Comments

[inenochian]

[ 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.

[sawedoff]

[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?

[inenochian]

[ 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.

[sawedoff]

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.]

[inenochian]

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. ]

[sawedoff]

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?

[inenochian]

...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.

[sawedoff]

Yeah but it- this could work. This could really be our golden ticket?

[your harsh realities can't slow his roll. nope. he's already working himself up to an elbow, gesturing animatedly, looking the least dead inside probably since he got here. but he does pause for a thought]

But there's Fraggle Rock's spell too. This portal business- like cheating the system right? It's just gonna keep pulling in every joe blow it can get its hands on. We gotta shut it down if we're gonna skip town.

[inenochian]

[ now, okay, that makes him pause. ]

With the spellcaster dead, it's unclear as to why his magic still holds. Our priority should be shutting it down, agreed. [ saving others and tucking this weird little world away again, swept back underneath God's carpet like embarrassing mess. he's on board with that idea. ]

[sawedoff]

Okay well we'll figure out how to bag us an angel after we find the off switch.

[those are plannin words. tips the notebook cover shut and tosses it over the side of the bed onto his bag, looking accomplished for a guy who actually accomplished jackall

all in a days work]

[inenochian]

[ nose scrunches at dean's liberal application of the word "angel." ]

[ looks over at where he tossed the notebook, elbow bumping dean's when he moves. ]

[sawedoff]

[excuse u. my plot buzz]

[looks down between them and back up at him before clearing his throat into the bottle as he draws another drink. he's still kind of smiling though, like that tiny little light at the end of the tunnel is enough to slap him out of his what if we never make it back funk. not even their little elbow love connection can shake his mood]

[inenochian]

[ buzz all you want but you know better. like saying "indian" instead of native american. ]

[ had wanted to keep flipping through the book, but sacrificing an appeasement to his curiosity for an improvement in dean's mood is acceptable. whatever had been affecting his mood earlier seems to have dissipated for now. ]

From the map, it seems like we may not see another settlement for a few days.

[sawedoff]

[raises eyebrows at him mid-swallow. leans over to set empty beer bottle on the floor opposite side]

Good thing I love camping. [he fucking hates camping] Not like it matters to you, sleepless in Seattle. You don't have to bunk with a leggy teenager that sleep-kicks.

[inenochian]

[ there are only two teenagers in their group: neri and faith. for planting the idea of bunking with either of them, dean earns another nose scrunching. ]

[ but then he's struck with a sudden urge to ask something, the answer one that only an observer would know. ]

Do I sleep kick?

[sawedoff]

[actually icarus though he's not actually a teenager dean just thinks of him like one because he acts like it. there's only a couple people in this group dean would deign to share anything nearing a sleeping vicinity with and it's cas clara nick and him. family runner ups.]

No you sleep like you're planking.

[leans back against headboard and lays an arm over his middle, glancing to him with the judgey eyebrows as he pulls a pillow out from under his butt to get comfortable]

FYI you're doing the whole agreeing not to talk about it thing wrong.

[inenochian]

[ startles out of a strange little moment of self-reflection that dean's revelation brought on. he'd just assumed he would have tossed and turned and made noises, or kicked and thrashed while sleeping, since the entire process is one that he's had little practice doing and can still be fairly uncomfortable. learning that he sleeps like a plank of wood, which he assumes means very still and rigid, is interesting. ]

[ still, dean's reluctance to acknowledge what's happened, the few moments that aren't really few anymore, isn't getting less frustrating. ]

I generally do things wrong when they don't make sense to me.

[sawedoff]

[watches him for a drawn out moment with something akin to mirrored rising frustration before breaking off with a short sigh]

Yeah well I don't talk about crap that doesn't make sense to me.

[folds his other arm in against his chest defensively and crosses his feet at the ankle like that'll be the end of that]

[inenochian]

[ watches his repositioning, trying to sort out what his body language is saying.
communicating, but not talking. ]

[ it's impressive that, for all humans are limited by physical bodies and senses, they've managed to take advantage of all the tools available in order to convey thoughts and emotions between their unmergeable minds.]

[ makes a deliberate choice to follow suit, to rearrange his limbs to speak for him. the one foot that had stayed on the floor, anticipating the need to leave, joins his other on the bed. ]

[sawedoff]

[shifts his elbows against his side restlessly as he watches him invite himself, mouth open to protest but not quite getting there. he casts a look up to the locked door before down at his lap with a drop of his eyebrows and a wry kind of smile, not for any enjoyment but more the sort that he gets when he's too confused for life.

drops his arms out of their defensive fold and sits up to swing his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his hand over his eyebrow like something out of a viagra ad]

[inenochian]

[ interprets that as a pretty strong cue that he's just made a mistake, and shifts his weight again to get his feet back on the floor. there's a difference between pushing and outright disrespecting a boundary, he gets that much. ]

[sawedoff]

[kind of twists around on the mattress when it creaks as cas' weight shifts again and looks back down after sucking in a breath like steeling himself before reaching over to grab his shoulder, push him back into the pillows. he's leaning over him before he has time to talk himself out of it, all one movement like, breathing out the held breath through his nose against the closed-lipped kiss]

[inenochian]

[ the bed at his back is a surprise, so comparatively, what comes next is enough to shock him right out of keeping his vessel's heart beating. at the stillness in his chest, his first thought is did i just die again?

it comes rushing back, the need for the heart to beat and the lungs to fill, and his next inhalation is soaked in the scent of dean, sweat, and rainwater. cas's hand spasms open and closed when his heart lurches back into motion, zero to sixty and pounding in his chest as he stares up at dean's freckled eyelids. he remembers learning that he ought to close his eyes so he does, but he can't think of when or how he learned it. once his hand relaxes, he drops it from it's startled suspension onto dean's shoulder. ]

[sawedoff]

[aw fuck did he kill him.]

[kept it pg, nothing but a curl of fingers against his shoulder and the stubborn, experimental brush of his mouth against cas'. it's a slow pressure, doesn't even move his mouth against his or move his hands to involve himself more in it, more like a statement than a kiss. he's already pulling back at the touch to his shoulder, watching him uneasily and breath coming too fast with the nerve it took to work up to that much]

[inenochian]

[ also breathing too fast, though not as much from nerves. he doesn't try and stop dean from leaning back, but his hand doesn't fall from where it settled on his shoulder either. ]

[ he pries his eyes back open, which is more difficult than he anticipated given the fact he'd forgotten to close them in the first place. now the nerves are setting in; he opens his mouth to say something, he isn't sure what but something, only for dean's face and his words about crap he doesn't understand to make him change his mind. instead of talking he just shifts his hand a little lower on dean's shoulder, fitting it with perfect accuracy even through the sleeves, and holds on. ]