HELL OF A NIGHTMARE // ;

it has to count for something that she's here at all. right? some consolation award for showing up when it would be easier to stay gone. it's a shitty basis to run off of but deanna winchester's standard of morals is a limbo bar set in hell.

"you got a nice ass. who wouldn't wanna kiss it?" she counters, reaching for that bottle when ravyn swaps whiskey for breadsticks. the drink deanna takes is a gulp and then some. the burn is welcome. it skitters and soothes over raw nerves. she wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and then drops into a seat just beside ravyn. "he's fine," she says, nose crinkling as a burp threatens to push its way up. drinking on an empty stomach.

it's what the pasta had been for.

@helltapestry​.

     she’s seen the car.  talked to the owner,  as much as she really  talks  to anybody these days.  what she hadn’t seen was the younger kid with the huge backpack,  hunching out of the passenger seat and slouching off towards the main doors,  like by trying so hard to blend in he’s just making himself more visible.  she slips a headphone off of one ear,  expression as flat as her tone because otherwise,  it could almost sound like an accusation.   “  you have a brother?   ”

     a bad feeling. a thought process he can’t pretend he hasn’t gone through himself, a dozen times over, since lena had called him down to sickbay three days before. delirious people will say anything — that’s what he’d told her, because the man was too far gone to make any real sense. the existence of a cure so within reach had to be some kind of miracle, and miracles are bullshit. miracles aren’t real. there’s just chance. choices. fighting until you can’t fight anymore.

     jasir had called it faith. faith and prayers. the mother protects us. but there has to be more to it than that.

     doesn’t there? 

     “hey, i get it. we let everything ride on a pipe dream and it just sounds like we’re settin’ ourselves up for disappointment. we all have a lot to lose.” 

     laughter drifts from across the yard on a mild breeze that smells more like the sea than the dead. even that, in itself, feels like something.

     crane’s head tips in an upward nod. “you heard bilal. his brother was bitten months ago and the guy’s still here, the same as ever. no antizin, no — anything, that we know of. and he’s not the only one. these people, they’ve … found a way to survive, and i think it’s more than just prayer circles and kumbaya. i — i think we might really be onto somethin’ here. that’s gotta be worth at least a couple of eggs, right?”

      they all have a lot to lose. they do. every single one of them. and it’s not that deanna doesn’t know that, she does. but there’s still that inner voice begging her to be selfish in a situation where it would serve no purpose. being selfish doesn’t let her keep this little group of people close. it doesn’t cure him. it doesn’t keep him from losing himself to whatever happens next when they run out of antizin. it doesn’t stop her from losing him if it comes to that. her lips purse, but she nods. and then she nods again, picking her way through darker thoughts to hold tight to those flashes of things that look damn close to hope.

     “a couple, yeh,” she says after a few seconds, drawing away from him just so she can press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “i gotta meet your parents, right? dropping eggs in the basket for that seems pretty worth it.” 

     the feeling is still there. it’s going to remain there. but it’s quieter now. something that’s going to keep her up at night or catch her in the moments when she thinks no one’s looking. for now, she can stow it. everyone needs a little hope. maybe sammy had a point all those years. 

     there’s plenty more to unpack than what comes second to last, but that’s where he lands; can’t find traction beyond it or mask the flicker of confusion that takes shape in the sudden crease between his brows. they’re out here to find a cure. to chase a clue brought to them by the delirious ramblings of a one - eyed dying man in possession of a map out of harran, ramblings about a place where people who were bitten never turned. they’re here because in another couple of weeks, the tower’s antizin cache will have run dry. because lena was right when she’d told him that they couldn’t afford to leave any stone unturned. 

     and, for some reason, deanna has the feeling that he won’t be coming back with the others when it’s time. 

     “hold on … what?” 

     across the yard, bilal returns with a toolbox and thwarts any of the boys’ further attempts at playful sabotage. all of that fades to background noise. 

     “why — why wouldn’t i come with?” an unbidden feeling, cold and uncomfortable, coils uneasily in his stomach’s pit. what the fuck. “don’t tell me all that prophetic cult shit they were tossin’ around at jasir’s place is actually startin’ to make sense to you.”

       there’s something to be said about self-fulfilling prophecies. she could’ve played it off like she was kidding, detoured the conversation, kissed him so that he forgot what she said at all. but they don’t do that to one another. there’s an honesty and openness that feels even more raw and unique, something completely their own, and she doesn’t want to betray that. not after everything they’ve been through. 

      “bad feeling,” she replies, first reaching up to smooth out that wrinkle in his brow before winding her arms around his middle to keep him close. she searches his eyes for long enough to warrant saying something, anything, and then continues. “call me a pessimist, i just ... i’unno. the weird prophecy sounds like mumbo-jumbo and fuck the cult shit, but all this cure stuff?”

     instinctively, deanna’s arms wind a little tighter around him. 

     “if it’s any consolation, the bar’s pretty low.” he can’t even try to sell it with sincerity. “would you shut the hell up? we’re not there yet. but i’ll tell you one thing, my dad’s cooking is gonna be worth whatever meltdown you’re tryin’ not to have right now.” 

     no pressure, is what he’s getting at. a glance is thrown again towards bilal and the boys, movement catching his peripherals; bilal’s disappeared back inside the shop, and nate, brazen as ever, already has the driver’s side door open with a shit - eating grin plastered across his face. 

     “hey, speed racer,” crane calls out, stopping the kid in his tracks. “don’t even fuckin’ think about it.” 

      briefly, for only a fraction of time, she feels stupid. meeting parents is so far out of her realm of comfort or expertise and it’s laughable. at least, it would be, if she didn’t realize just how much it matters to her that his parents like her. but he’s good, like usual, with assuaging the onset of overthinking. and that’s not fair either, she thinks. that he’s able to read her as well as he can, but it goes both ways.

     she’ll thank nate later for pulling the heat off her ridiculous internal monologue of doubt.

      “that li’l shit,” she says with nothing but fondness, head shaking. “alright so you’re right. he definitely was playin’ dumb and already knew,” not that she doubted that for one second. “which means i’ll think up somethin’ for you to have won.” gaze lingering on the boys, making sure they both don’t try to pull a quick one, deanna drops a quick kiss to the corner of crane’s mouth. 

     “shit, we can’t have that.” he catches her by the hand, pulls her close enough to slip an arm around her waist and draw her in to where he leans against the shop’s outer wall. there’s an easy spill of laughter within the breath he blows out. then he shakes his head. “not to send you running for the hills, but — you realize if we make it official, my parents might get involved. you sure you’re up for it?”