#with kitsy

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Bourbon Street | Get back on the horse

Tig sighed, setting her newly emptied ice cream container on her bedside table, allowing it to join its fallen brethren in the Ben and Jerry graveyard that was slowly overtaking the table. On her television, a teary-eyed Marius Pontmercy cradled a dying Eponine Thenardier, and Tig's own tears started anew. Normally it was merely because Lea Salonga had the power to move her to tears, but tonight it was largely because of emotional aftershocks of a particularly painful breakup.

She usually wasn't a total wreck in the aftermath of a relationship. But Reese had been different. They'd been together for a long time, shattering Tig's previous record of two months. And unlike her other former flames, she couldn't even find it in herself to be angry with Reese. He was too sweet. Too kind. Tig supposed that her cousin dropping by to urge her to be civil about the split hadn't exactly hurt. She adored Malcolm, and it was clear that he thought very highly of Reese and perhaps even knew something about the end of the relationship that Tig seemed to be missing. 

While she wasn't angry, she didn't exactly feel happy about it. She still cared about Reese, and then more insecure parts of her mind were now left to wonder exactly what had been wrong with her, what hadn't been enough. With a heavy sigh, she looked back to the TV. She'd told her father that she really didn't need a smart TV, but now she was glad that he had ignored her. Somehow the tragic power of Les Miserables was even more cathartic when it took up most of her wall.

But Eponine was gone, and she knew that soon Grantaire would start singing, and that was probably the very last thing in the world that she needed. She jammed her finger down on the pause button, taking a moment to appreciate the freeze frame close-up of Michael Ball (not her favorite Marius, but he'd do in a pinch) before retreating back under her blanket. She hadn't left her bed except for a brief excursion into the kitchen to get her ice cream, and she had no plans on leaving it again until she needed another therapeutic dose of Phish Food.

It was only a matter of time before her roommate would pay her a visit. She knew Hecky was concerned, and she knew that he was probably concocting a way of getting her out of bed and that it would probably work. He was a genius like that. She was well aware of the fact that she would have to eventually shuck off her hoodie and yoga pants, take a shower, put on real clothes, and venture back into the world. 

But not at this very moment.

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World's End | Up all night for good fun

Malcolm stood in front of the mirror, quickly flossing his teeth. The steam from his shower still lingered in the bathroom, fogging the edges of the mirror, sticking to his skin. He did a mental checklist to make sure he'd told Crosby all that he needed to know.

The Warehouse was closed for the night, and if anyone came around and tried something stupid while he was gone, Crosby was to just stay inside. The protective spells would do the rest. Malcolm was pretty sure that Crosby could handle himself, but he didn't want to take chances, especially with the kind of clients that liked to make unexpected visits at night.

He tossed the spent floss into the trash, checking his teeth in the mirror just to make sure he was in the clear. It wasn't that Wrench would judge him or anything, but Malcolm always put a little extra effort where his friend was concerned. Though if he was honest with himself, "friend" didn't exactly cover what Wrench meant to him.

He wasn't sure there was even a word for what he and Wrench shared. Bastian seemed to think that there was some kind of epic love affair. Malcolm wasn't keen to disagree, but he didn't share the werewolf's confidence. He knew that Wrench cared about him, but he was never quite certain that Wrench harbored the same romantic feelings. He shook his head a little. He was overthinking again.

Emotions were complicated; Malcolm tended to shove them to the side and ignore them. He threw on his outfit for the night, a pair of dark-wash jeans and a simple, dark blue v-neck, both of which which perhaps just a little tight on him. But that was the point, wasn't it? He and Wrench were going out. It would be fun and would probably involve some moving and grinding.

He ran his hands through his hair, causing it to stick up. He'd perfected the "I just rolled out of bed" look, but it still took time to get his hair to sit just so. Wrench would probably turn up at any minute, but Malcolm just assumed that he would teleport directly into his room.

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World's End | Flashback | The truth will set you free

In four hundred years of life, Tig had learned many things about many people. She'd seen kings come and go, some of whom she'd ended herself. She'd seen great minds try to unravel the truth of the universe. If there was one thing that bored, rich Greek men liked to do, it was ponder, and she watched them muddle about, arguing about whether or not souls were unlimited in number or if they just kept living and dying in an endless circle.

Leave it to a man to make things unnecessarily complicated. The facts were these: humans were stupid, and even the occasionally smart one refused to see truth when it was right in front of them. And that truth was that there was nothing that could be accomplished in the span of a single, mortal lifetime that would ever truly last. This was, of course, because there were things out there that most people couldn't even fathom. 

Humanity was, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant. There was no real point in life, the universe's beautiful lie. Tig had learned this the hard way. There had been a time when she'd believed in the rise of the sun and the joy on the winds and the freshness of spring. But Brand had seen to it that she'd abandoned such optimism long, long ago. They were all of them just a fist full of strings, pinched between the fingers of the Fates, waiting to be cut.

But sometimes the strings could not be severed. Tig was one such string. No matter how many times she'd died, no matter how gruesome or painful her passing, she always stayed alive. Her wounds healed on their own. She didn't age. Immortality was a gift that most mortal men yearned for. To Tig is was just a curse that kept her trapped.

The market smelled of spices and shit. Years and years into the future, people would forget about the latter, another truth overlooked in favor of a lovely falsehood. She was there to buy food. Normally, Brand would send one of his shells to the market, but he'd lifted the door to Tig's cage, shoved a coin purse into her hands, and told her to be quick because he needed some good wine, among other things. Tig didn't question Brand. Not anymore.

She stepped lightly, as she'd been trained to do, keeping her head down, her hair falling like a veil around her face. It discouraged people from talking to her. She avoided conversation when she could. It only reminded her of how much she didn't belong. A chill crept up her back, but it was like nothing she'd ever felt before.

For starters, it wasn't a chill, per se. It was a strange warmth that seemed to curl around her spine. It was pleasant, actually, though she'd been so long without a comforting touch that it felt strange and vaguely uncomfortable. And the thing of it was that it wouldn't go away.

Furrowing her brow, she looked up. No one else appeared to be afflicted by the sensation. On edge, she reached up, gathering her hair into a neat, tight braid, the same way she wore it when Brand sent her on a job, just in case things were about to get violent. Most things got violent eventually, at least in her experience.

And that was when she spotted a man across the market, not a particularly remarkable observation on its own, but there was something different about him. For a moment she could only stare. He had thick, dark hair and eyes to match, and even clothed she could spot the tone of his musculature. 

Her hands fell to her sides as she stared, and her feet began to move, carrying her towards him. This was tactically foolish. She could be walking into an ambush. But she couldn't help it. The buzzing in her spine felt more familiar, more inexplicably right as she stepped closer, and all the while she could not stop herself from marveling at his beauty.

A god, she thought. He was a god, maybe. He looked just like a god to her, the way he carried himself, the way the air seemed to crackle and shift around him. And as handsome as he was, she would've guessed Eros, but there was such strength and grace to his posture that he couldn't have been anyone but Apollo.  

Brand would punish her if he caught her approaching someone, but she could not be bothered to care. For once, it felt like all the weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She reached the man, her Apollo, and bowed her head reverently.

"Your grace," she said breathlessly, looking up.

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Devil's Trap | Walk five hundred miles to fall down at your door

Dean was going to kill her. Or at least that was what Elia imagined he would say. It was usually his phrase of choice when she showed up in the middle of the hotel room in the middle of the night. Normally she would appear outside of the door, knock several times and wait.

Eventually, she would hear the aforementioned threat (usually, she hoped, an empty one), and then one of the Winchesters, usually Sam, would pad over to the door. There was a customary beat between him reaching the door and the door actually opening, during which he was likely checking to see who it was, undoing the locks, and moving anything they had warding the door.

Of course, Elia didn't have time for all of that right now. She was much too flustered to think about all the tiny little steps. One of their very good friends had risen from the dead, and she was tasked with retrieving Sam and Dean. So tonight she appeared right in the middle of the motel room. It was pretty much the average motel room, done up with tacky wallpaper splashed with chunky seashells. In theory, she supposed the room was going for an "under the sea" theme.

She'd always been quiet, so her initial arrival hadn't made any noise. Still, she knew better than to wake either Sam or Dean by putting a hand to their shoulder. It wasn't wise to wake a sleeping hunter in the first place, but when she had no choice, she definitely opted for an auditory warning.

"Sam? Dean?" she ventured tentatively. She was quiet enough that her voice wasn't a startling shout, but loud enough to rouse them from their sleep. Predictably, Dean, jerked awake, reaching to the gun on his bedside table, turning and aiming in one, fluid motion. Elia didn't flinch. She was more than used to having guns pointed at her by now, and at any rate she was quite a bit more resilient than all of that. She waved, mustering a soft smile.

"Elles," Dean exhaled, and she couldn't tell if the growl in his voice was annoyance or if he was just groggy. Probably both. It didn't help that the hunter had a natural rasp to his voice anyway. But he set the gun down, putting his hands in his face and swinging his legs off of the bed. His fingers crawled up through his hair, making it stand up at improbable angels. "Jesus, Elles, I told you not to Cas us like that."

The mention of their mutual friend, the socially awkward but ever-faithful angel, was enough to make Elia's smile genuine. She had a special fondness for Castiel, who was something like a brother to her. She imagined that he would also want to know that Jo was alive, but for right now, she focused in on the task at hand.

"Sorry, Dean," she apologized, rubbing at her arm. "But it's really important, I swear." She waited, glancing over at Sam to make sure that he was awake. However rushed she'd been to get to them, she wasn't about to be so clumsy in delivering her message. 

"Hey, Sam," she said softly, waving her fingers again. There'd been a time, way back when she'd first started hunting, that she'd had a crush on the younger Winchester, who she thought was almost unrealistically gorgeous. Not that Dean wasn't. Both Winchesters looked like they had just stepped off of a runway, but Dean reminded her of her older brother, and Sam... Well it was hard not to have a crush on Sam, in her opinion.

It hadn't been more than a wayward affection, but sometimes she still found herself caught off guard, like right now, with her hair mussed from sleep, his shirt clinging to him, disheveled from where he'd been lying down. She quickly looked back to Dean, her thought turning to how he would react to this.

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Devil's Trap | I don't think the warranty covers this

Elia didn't do a lot of hunting anymore. Since the Apocalypse had broken out, she'd found herself quite preoccupied with the newfound duties of her life as a Trickster. Especially after Gabriel had disappeared. Died, she supposed, was the common consensus. That's what the Winchesters had said, and there'd been a body and everything. Elia wasn't really sure what to believe.

It was a hard sell to paint her former mentor as a necessarily good person. He'd spent the past two millennia on earth causing trouble and killing people. There was a crooked sense of justice to it, if she squinted, but by and large, the Archangel Gabriel, also known as the Trickster God Loki, had done a metric crap ton of bad stuff. Even so, he'd also taken her in and trained her, showed her what she really was and all that she was capable of. He'd protected her, and in the end he'd decided to do the right thing.

And now he was probably dead. Elia knew better, though. Where the supernatural was concerned, death was never a solid fact. And in her experience, angels had a way of cheating it. Well, actually, Castiel specifically had a way of cheating it, but she liked to think that somehow, someway, Gabriel was still running free. In the meantime, she had been left with a heaping plate of responsibility.

She wasn't in charge of the Tricksters. Not by a long shot. She was new to the ranks, and as far as power ranking went, she was definitely towards the bottom of the list. But she'd been Loki's last apprentice, and as such had been sort of adopted into a small cluster of those that remained loyal to his ideal.

Reynard the Fox had the best claim in the current war of succession, but so far he'd expressed very little interest in seizing command. And so factions had emerged, and things were starting to get out of hand. Elia spent a whole lot of time helping to make sure that things didn't erupt into global conflict. The world had barely started to recover from one apocalypse; it hardly needed another.

Every now and then, though, she found some spare time to help some of her hunter friends out. She was doing just that, as it happened. Sam and Dean had called her in to help locate some old thing that belonged to some old guy that would help break some old curse. Standard hunter stuff, basically. She hadn't been able to locate what they needed until a stupid hour of the morning. The sun was starting to think about coming up, and there was just enough light out that Elia could see the outlines of the cars in the parking lot.

Luckily, she thought to herself, the Impala was fairly distinctive. She stepped through the lot, envelope of instructions in one hand and scalding hot latte in the other. She could remember a time when the taste of coffee made her pull a face, but that was a distant and laughable memory now. She had just gotten to the Impala when she head the flutter of feathers behind her.

Her first thought was that it Castiel, but there was a scent of perfume on the breeze. Her heel ground against the pavement as she turned in place. A woman with brown hair, elegantly dressed, stood a few feet away, arms crossed over her chest.

"Raven," Elia gasped out, throwing herself to the ground just as a wave of magic flew over her. Ever since she'd began honing her powers, she could see the supposedly invisible blasts of magic. It wasn't colorful fireworks or sparks of light. It was more like ripples in the air, like heat wafting off of the top of a car in July. Whatever Raven was trying to do had literally flown over Elia's head.

She had no idea why the other woman was there, or what she had up her sleeve. Most tricksters had some kind of specialty; Raven's seemed to be making Elia's life difficult. The younger trickster scrambled to her feet. By some miracle, if those even existed, she still had a hold of the envelope, and her latte had barely spilled.

Elia decided to celebrate this by hurling the scalding beverage at Raven, sending the cup flying at her face. Predictably, the older trickster easily dodged the improvised Starbucks missile, but it freed up a hand, and in the time it took Raven to turn back, Elia had raised said hand, fingers poised to snap. Not every trickster had to snap to use their powers, but that's how Elia had learned, something she'd gleaned from Loki.

"Try something," Elia challenged, ready to move if necessary. "Go ahead. One move, and I will call Reynard here." Raven glared for a moment, but then her gaze shifted, looking over Elia's shoulder.

"Well, it's not what I was hoping for, but I think that should keep you occupied for now," she said, quirking an eyebrow. And with that she vanished. Elia blinked to adjust to the sudden absence. It was always a punch to the perception to see something disappear right in front of her eyes, no matter how many times she'd seen it happen. The coast now clear, her mind refocused, and she quickly turned back around.

The Impala had been right behind her, and she fully expected to see poor Baby with her rear windshield blown out, or something similarly horrible that would result in Dean having a coronary. what she saw instead was a man lying on the ground. Had he been there the whole time? Elia could've sworn that the Impala was behind her, but maybe in all the confusion she'd seen it wrong. She knelt by the man, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"H-hey, are you alright?" she asked, hoping that Raven hadn't killed the poor guy.

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World's End | Reconnaissance Mission I

Remy started preparing for the mission in the manner in which he prepared for every mission. His belt was unfurled on top of his bed. He pulled open a drawer, which had probably been intended for clothes. But all of Remy's clothes fit neatly into one drawer, so he used the spares for his weaponry. He had a lot more knives than outfits, anyway.

He didn't know which weapons would be best suited for this particular mission. This problem stemmed from a lack of data rather than a lack of know-how. He wasn't entirely sure what it was that we was tracking. All he knew was that something was out there, something that woke the animal in him and set his teeth on edge. He had a tendency to trust his instincts. They generally served him well.

This mission of his was not official in any capacity. It was just his curiosity, the overwhelming need to find out what was prowling in the wilderness around the base. If their well-being was at risk, then he wanted to do what he could to identify a threat and prevent it from escalating, but if it was nothing then he didn't want to alarm people unnecessarily. It would only annoy them, he felt, and he didn't need any help when it came to turning people against him.

He selected a variety of weapons, attaching them to his belt. There were several knives of various sizes, some throwing stars, smoke pellets, a tranquilizer gun, a collapsible bo staff. He strapped he belt around his middle, grabbing the full quiver from his bedside. He'd have to carry the recurved bow that he favored, but he didn't mind. He wanted to be prepared.

The only thing left now was to recruit his partner of choice for such a mission. All of the hunters in the Alvaro base were particularly gifted, even Sheppard, who reminded Remy of a vaguely domesticated creature of some kind. Even Sheppard's younger brother, though he had no faith in his own skills had an uncanny ability to tread so softly that sometimes Remy couldn't hear him coming, which was rare, all things considered.

But for this unofficial mission, Remy had a specific hunter in mind. He made his way down the hallway,going over possible ways to broach the subject of an unauthorized excursion that had a potentially dangerous side to it. He could hardly march up to his basemate's room, knock on the door and ask him to accompany him on a mission that wasn't an actual mission and spend the day searching the woods for some creatures that may or may not have had the potential to literally rip off their faces.

He reached the door in question, knocking and then stepping back, As soon as the door stepped open, he cleared his throat, nervously, waving.

"Greetings, Jace," he said softly, keeping his expression neutral as always, even though the sight of the blond hunter made him genuinely want to smile. If he'd been anyone else, then he would've called Jace his friend. But as it was he was not naive enough to think that he was deserving of a friend at all, never mind a friend such as Jace. After all, once they discovered how vile Remy was, they would surely banish him to a new base, make him someone else's burden. He felt dishonest, like he was in some way deceiving Jace by letting him think that he was a viable candidate for friendship, but he quite enjoyed spending time with him. He wanted their interaction to continue for as long as it could.

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World's End | Rock the boat

Another night, another Porter party. They were a family that liked to have fun, and when they were out at sea, it wasn't like they had much else to do. Someone had turned up in the kitchen and said something along the lines of "shots," and the next thing that Tish knew, she was pleasantly drunk, listening to Solo as her cousin rambled on about a dream he'd had where he'd been a piano player at some restaurant back home.

It kind of made Tish sad. She knew that Solo loved playing, and if they weren't shifters, he'd probably be living that dream. Tish wanted that for him, wanted her cousin and all of her brothers and sisters to be able to have what they wanted, but as it was, they were practically outlaws, walking contraband. Maybe one day things would be different for shifters, but presently it was the pirate life for them. They had each other, and for Tish it was enough, but she couldn't help but think about what-ifs.

Solo suddenly stopped talking, and Tish looked down and realized that he'd ducked out, and the duckling was currently waddling on the table in little circles. Tish chuckled and reached out, cupping her hands. Solo got the hint, hopping into her palm and snuggling against her hands. Careful not to drop him, Tish stood and weaved through her brothers and sisters until she found Riley.

"Hey, you," she smirked, holding Solo up. "We've got a code yellow. I'm gonna take him to his room, but I was wondering if you wanted to come with. You know, just in case he forgets himself. You're better at calming him down like this." This was true, but Tish was also looking for an excuse to talk to Riley one on one, maybe get in a little bit of alone time with him. Solo quacked from her hands, as if encouraging their friend to come along.

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World's End | Art and history

Rett didn't like to be melodramatic, but she was pretty sure that she was dying. She didn't get sick often, something that she attributed to her Astika immune system, but occasionally she would catch something, and that something always seemed keen to make up for all the times that she hadn't been ill. Currently, she was stuck in bed with some kind of sore throat/fever/horror show. A blanket pulled around her shoulders, she sighed as she chased ice cream around in a bowl with a spoon.

It helped with her throat, but whatever illness she'd contracted had drastically depleted her appetite. She felt a lot better than she had, but she wasn't one hundred percent yet, which she felt was worse. At least when she'd been totally sick, she'd been unconscious and hadn't really had to deal with it. Now she was mildly sick and awake and tragically bored.

She had a canvas propped up at the end of her bed, and it was half-full with a replica of a picture that she'd seen while the team had been casing a target. It hadn't looked all that difficult to recreate, so she'd thought to have a go at it. She hadn't really gotten to do much with it since she'd taken ill, though, and she'd been staring at the unfinished work for so long that she was starting to mentally pick at every little detail, every teeny mistake. The brushstrokes weren't quite right. The blue wasn't exactly the same as the original. She was annoyed. This painting was annoying.

She set her bowl down on her nightstand and scooted to the end of the bed, reaching out to the easel and grabbing the blue pastel, marking and smudging the color across the canvas, spreading it with her thumb. She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth, squinting as she worked, stopping occasionally to cough. She barely recognized that someone had knocked, muttering out a distracted, croaky-sounding "Come in" without looking away from the portrait.