It's been awhile since this journal saw any posting action.   /CHANGES THAT

I hope everyone on my f-list that I haven't talked to in awhile is doing well.  ♥  Time for a MEME REDUX.

01. Put your music player on shuffle all.
02. Write a drabble for whatever song comes on.
03. You only have the time of the song to write it.
04. Once the song is over you’re done. You can’t write anything more for that drabble.  Cheat like crazy on this step.
05. Do this five times    Do this once to get back in the swing of writing drabbles 8|

This is counted_stars specific so Sam is imnot_likeyou and Gabriel Gray is intuitivelyapt.  They are used without permission, nyah nyah nyah.

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#1 (and only):  Secret Karma Serenade by Yasushi Ishii

Most of the cantinas Dean tended to frequent were the kind of New Hope fare that he could feel right at home in, but this club on Zeltros was something else.  He would have sworn it was a strip joint with the way chicks were writhing to the sensual pounding beats, if it weren't the fact that Sam had come along willingly, and he'd been the one to research the place before they arrived.   

Their contact lounged in a purple vinyl couch near the back, two chicks with bright red skin and minimal clothing cradled up to either side of him.  Dean raised an eyebrow in appreciation, as Sam rolled his eyes.   

"Rykk?" Sam asked pointedly, and the guy touched a button on the side of his shades.  The dark lenses retracted, revealing two eyes that were completely blue, void of pupils.  He looked between them both, and behind them, where Gabriel was skulking, with an expression that made it clear he thought they were as good as the dirt on the bottom of his dura-shoes.  

"Who's asking?" he said coolly, in a smooth voice that would have made Lando Calrissian envious.  

"Karma," Dean said, tossing a datapad onto the table in front of him, where it clattered right into the guy's plate of exotic appetizers.  "She's a real bitch like that."   Rykk shot him a poisonous glance as if he knew what was coming and picked up the datapad hesitantly.   The manifests laid out a pretty dark trail.   One that would land him in jail pretty easily, if it got out to the right authorities.

He smiled, revealing teeth as sharp as knives, and his voice dripped with malice.

"You have my attention," Rykk said, making that sound remarkably like a threat.  "What can I do for you boys?" 

Dean grinned.

"I was hoping you'd ask."

Prompt: Our Space by the Cardigans
Characters: Dean Winchester and Elle Bishop
Timeline/Verse: Everybody's Fucked verse, non-binding.
Disclaimer:  I don't own Supernatural, or Heroes.  Dean is likedillinger and Elle is blueshocks .

And with that, I have finally conquered this drabble meme!  \o/

my dear, please see my dear
how we invented the fear
inside that space
no one could interfere
my dear, please see my dear
how we invented the tears
inside that space
no one could interfere

Hell on earth didn't come in storms of fire - or at least, it didn't stay that way. 

It was cold, and it was empty - and the reality of it was in the way it scraped out the survivors from the inside out.  

Armageddon came internally.

Maybe he was hoping she'd snap, and he'd go the way of her last Dean.  It'd be easier that way, some days. 

He didn't go into her arms to feel alive.  He went with a death wish. 

She never fucking followed through. 

He wondered what she was getting out of this some days, but he figured it might be the same thing he got sometimes.  Pretending.  Or self-loathing.  Both were pretty popular hobbies in the post-Apocalyptic era.

He thought he might hate her.  But it required an effort of emotion he didn't feel like summoning up.

So they just existed.  Shared space.  Shared nothing. 

It was theirs, at least.  That was something.

Prompt: Freedom of Choice by A Perfect Circle
Requested By: phasing_cat
Characters: Dean Winchester and Kitty Pryde with mentions of Claire Bennet, Tony Stark, Liz Sherman, and Sylar.
Timeline/Verse: Brave New World verse.  In the future, right after Tony Stark's proposed mutant registration act goes through.
Disclaimer:  I don't own Supernatural, Heroes, or X-Men.  Dean is likedillinger and Kitty is phasing_cat .  The mentioned Claire is autophoenix , Sylar is intuitivelyapt , Liz is liz_firestarter , and Tony is newagedavinci . All are used with permission and love.  Events are non-binding to all muses. 

Still accepting requests here!

We're victims of sedition on an open sea
No one ever said that life was free
Sink, swim, go down with the ship
Just use your freedom of choice

I’ll say it again in the land of the free
Use your freedom of choice
Freedom of choice

In ancient Rome there was a pawn
Who followed along and watched it fall
He cast a stone
He felt secure
He felt that he would never be heard

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom of choice!

You've been given a voice- you don't want it
It seems to be the rule of thumb
Don’t be tricked by what you see
You've got two ways to go

"Yeah.  Fine," Dean said, glad Claire couldn't see his face on this end of the phone.  There was displeasure etched pretty clearly across his features.  "Thanks for the heads up."  His thumb slid to END before she could get in another word.

Paying attention to the news had kept him aware that this was coming, and he'd heard things, peripherally, from Claire and Sylar.

Still, it didn't sit well with him that this was happening now.  Yeah, the dangerous mutants had to be kept track of, but they were the ones likely to dodge registration somehow anyway.  And he didn't like the thought of the government keeping lists of people who were his friends - or in some cases, basically his family.

Sylar would've already heard the act was going through, so his mind traced over who else he knew, who might be out of the loop.

He had to get her number through Liz, in the end.  It wasn't like he had her on speed dial.  They didn't talk much except on the rare occasions they bumped into each other. 

But she'd trusted him, with a pretty hefty secret, no less.  And he hadn't forgotten her or the burden she was carrying.  This would just be another thing to add to the pile.

She was just a kid.

Except not, because murder had a way of speeding you past that adolescent phase pretty damn quickly. 

Would that show up in her file?

Would she end up stamped 'dangerous'?

Not if he could help it.

"Hello?"

"Hey kid," he said, keeping it light.  Cheery.  

"... who is this?"  Suspicious.  He couldn't blame her.  He threw around a few potential responses in his head before settling.

"It's your supplier," he joked.  "I heard you'd be needing a new set of fake IDs soon."

Silence for a second.  Then:

"Dean?"  She was excited to hear from him.  That would be short lived.  "... what are you talking about?"

He settled into a chair, grabbing himself a beer and popping it open with his free hand.  He had to catch the overflow by quickly bringing it to his lips.  That, at least, felt comforting.

"Hope you're sittin' down."

Prompt: Fairytale by Sara Bareilles
Requested By: snarky_blonde
Characters: Dean Winchester, Elle Bishop
Timeline/Verse: Brave New World verse; after this log, before 99 Problems
Location:  New York City
Disclaimer:  Kripke and Kring own Supernatural & Heroes, not me.  Dean is likedillinger and Elle is snarky_blonde  who is used with permission and love.

Still accepting requests here!

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that i should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he's handsome in hindsight
But i don't want the next best thing
So i sing and hold my head down and i break these walls round me
Can't take no more of your fairytale love

Cause i don't care for you fairytales
You're so worried bout the maiden though you know
She's only waiting on the next best thing
She's only waiting spent the whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb
Appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
Cause i don't want the next best thing

He doesn't really think of the damage he's done for a substantial number of blocks, when the cold night air threatens to replace some of his haze with painful impending sobriety.  He'd managed to just focus on finding his way back to the hotel, but now, he can see Elle's face, the expression she wore of not recognizing him - of being...  disgusted?  No.  Worse.  Disappointed in what had stumbled across her threshold at some odd hour of the early morning.  He tries to calculate which one, but the effort sends his head into spirals, and he quickly retracts from the process.

Disappointed.  That was the word.  He wonders just how much he'd had her fooled - they both had started out down this road towards... whatever they had with all caution lights lit.  No real attachments, right?  Just harmless fun.

But he knows they'd both veered off that road a long time ago, whatever their intentions had been.  He stuffs his hands into his pockets, huddling into the collar of his coat as his eyes trace the weeds bursting out amid the cracks in the pavement.  Each one trampled over.  Flat.  And yet more coming up to replace them in some futile bid for air.

So he'd somehow misled Elle into thinking he was gonna be the hero of the story.  No, it wasn't 'somehow' - he'd always played up the role, rolling into town on his eight cylinder white horse, never letting anyone see the weeds breaking through the cracks.

But that facade had slipped now.   She'd seen what was underneath.  No Prince Charming, no white knight, no fairytale.  Just when he'd sworn to himself he wouldn't contribute to being another of those things in the world that were just illusions, like so much of the shit she - and all the Elles - had already had to deal with, he'd fucked it up.  And once that illusion is gone, there's no going back to pretending everything's gonna be castles and glass slippers and slaying dragons.

He's not gonna be her hero.

He's not anybody's hero.

He's just one sorry sonuvabitch.

As he nears the crest of a hill, the sun breaks red in the sky beyond the city, and he pauses for a moment, brow furrowed staring up at it with a tightness in his throat.

No sunset to ride off into here. 

Just a blood red sunrise.

He hopes it won't end the same way for her.

Prompt:  Carnival Town by Norah Jones
Requested By: getyourownpie 
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Claire "Zebra" Bennet
Timeline/Verse: Brave New World verse; S4 finale of Heroes, before Claire jumps, but after stopping Samuel
Location:  Central Park, New York City
Disclaimer:  Kripke and co. own Supernatural, not me.  Dean is likedillinger , the Sam mentioned is getyourownpie  and the Claire is autophoenix .   All are used with permission and so much love.   It's short but I just... couldn't add to it without butchering the effect, I thought. ;;  Forgive me.  It's an... actual drabbley drabble for once.

Still accepting requests here!

Round 'n round
Carousel
Has got you under it's spell
Moving so fast...but
Going nowhere

Up 'n down
Ferris wheel
Tell me how does it feel
To be so high...
Looking down here

Is it lonely?

There was always that stolen time between the big showdown and the moment when the car door slammed shut, and they pointed towards a new town, a new mission.  Dean would never admit to Sam - to anyone, really - how much he valued those moments.  For a minute at least, they were done.  They could be satisfied.  Especially when things went the way they just had: everyone survived, the bad guy was thwarted, the heroes hadn't had to give something up to do so.  It was as close as he ever got to feeling done.  There was a hunger in him somewhere for that moment, or for things promised by just being finished with this: a normal life, a road that didn't stretch endlessly into the horizon.  Somewhere to come home to at night.

Beyond the hanging glow reflected off the still spinning carousel between him and the sporadically gathered others, he could see Claire pressed against Sammy's side, her hand clutched in his.  Red lights, blue lights, yellow lights danced across their backs, though they remained oblivious to the kaleidoscope.   Dean slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he watched them.  Claire obviously had something on her mind, but it didn't stop her from getting caught up in the way Sam was intently staring down at her.  His brother brushed a strand of hair off her face, and there was a tenderness there that Dean had never really seen in him.  When Claire's eyes flashed up to meet Sam's, there was a moment of connection between them that he could feel all the way across the space that reverberated with colors.  They were wrapped up in their own little moment.  Focused on each other while everything whirled around them. 

And for just that moment, Dean wondered exactly what it was like to ride the ride that they were on.

Claire's hand slipped out of Sam's and she slid away from him, moving through the crowd as the police cars arrived, and the moment slipped away just as easily.

He shook his head slightly, and an empty smile touched the edge of his lips as he felt the feeling vanish inside him as well.

It wasn't as if he were tall enough to ride that ride anyway.

Prompt:  All The Things She Said by T.a.T.u.
Requested By: toughgirljo
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, mentions of Jo Harvelle
Timeline/Verse: sixwordstories  verse, several weeks ago 
Word count: 1038.  Yeah, this stopped being a drabble at some point.
Disclaimer:  Kripke and co. own Supernatural, not me.  Sam is getyourownpie  and the Jos referenced are toughgirljo  and canon-season 5!Jo.  The two former are used with permission and much, much love.  For some reason, this ended up being way easier to write from Sam's POV to really get what I was going for, so... here you go.  My one and only horrible attempt at writing from Sam's perspective. 

Still accepting requests here!

I can try to pretend, I can try to forget
But it's driving me mad, going out of my head

All the things she said
All the things she said
Running through my head

This is not enough

Sam heard the hotel door slam from the other room, and concern knotted his brow when Dean didn't even pop his head in, or shout out some kind of insulting remark about what Sam had been doing with his evening by way of hello.  It seemed to be the new norm for him to just get back, say nothing, go grab a shower, then a beer before maybe watching some TV.  He'd grant Sam a good night, or give him a few jibes now and again, but he'd always find a way to avoid even a semblance of real conversation at this hour.  Not that Dean was ever a master of conversation, but this was different.

Something was up.

He was fine during the day, all jokes and machismo and easily bruised ego over drinking contests with Claire.  So where the hell was he going every night, anyways?  If he was out with a chick, he'd be gone until who knew when in the morning, not coming back around one or one thirty.   Sam pushed his chair back, the squeal of the legs against the hotel floor giving Dean some advance warning that he was coming, and he wandered into the next room, casually folding his arms as he watched his brother digging through the mini-fridge.

( 'Where have you been, anyway?' he asked... )