single_man_tear | Neighbor, Michigan

Liliana glared at him over the coffee she was clutching in her hands like a lifeline, violet eyes glowing while she fantasized about rotting him from the feet up so that he was alive and aware of what was happening to him the entire time.

But first, she was going to corrode his fucking two-pedal car into dust and shove it down his throat.

"So talk," she snapped, resolving to do exactly what she pleased, when, and how as was exactly her way.

Look, Liliana can be mad at Dean all she wants but don't you dare take it out on Baby.

Dean double checked the shotgun, grabbed the gas container full of salt and the crowbar before shutting the trunk. "The game plan is we go in, get the ghost to come to us and you do the mojo thing where you make him not an insane killer," Dean explained. "And then we'll take it from there."

Liliana could and would take it out on anyone and anything she damn well pleased, up to and including cars, pets, and fourth cousins thrice removed.

...Probably not actually pets, though. Animals were so much less obnoxious than people.

"I see you give as much thought to your battle plans as you do your lesson," she snarked, reluctantly exiting the car. "How do you intend to get the ghost to come to us, hmm?"

She could just drag it to them with the force of her will, but she had promised to cure it of its insanity and that was precisely what she was going to do. Anything else Dean wanted done? That was on him and she had no intention of lifting a single finger to help.

"Trust me. He'll show up," Dean muttered as knelt down and picked the lock on the door. With the tip of the lockpick he slit the police crime scene tape and pushed the door open.

The house was very nice. It had gone through some slight renovation since the last time Dean was here. Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He opened up the gas container and started pouring out a large circle of salt and then stepped inside. "Get in the circle. It's more for my protection than yours."

Liliana gave serious thought to scuffing a good third of the circle just for funsies - as he said, it was for his protection and her fucks were in the negatives regarding that - but she was moderately interested in what his bargain basement magic looked like.

And besides, perhaps she'd get lucky and he'd fuck up and then she'd have a front row seat to watch a ghost eat his face. That sounded delightful. So she stepped inside and waved for him to get on with it.

While she inwardly chanted 'Face eating! Face eating!' to herself.

*Vessel of destruction...*

NOT NOW!

Edited 2024-04-30 12:25 (UTC)

Dean did his best to ignore the waves of hate and ill-wishes emanating off of Lils. There was something else he had to take care of first.

"KEVIN! KEVIN TRAN!"

Dean paused for a moment looking around the room.

"KEVIN! IT'S DEAN! DEAN WINCHESTER!

The room immediately dropped about twenty degrees in temperature; Dean's breath coming out as mist due to the change. One by one light bulbs began to pop and explode around the room.

Dean scoffed. "Told you he'd come to me."

Quite frankly Liliana, the third entity in this house hated Dean much more than you do right now.

Edited 2024-04-30 12:36 (UTC)

Ah! A kindred spirit, then! Quite literally!

Liliana gave him a poisonous smile. "My, my, my. Your ability to make friends is legendary, I see."

Whatever the issue was, Liliana was taking the ghost's side based on having met Dean even one time.

"Somehow I am utterly unsurprised that your version of magic is to stand in a room and just be obnoxious."

Edited 2024-04-30 12:43 (UTC)

"You don't know the half of it," Dean muttered under his breath.

In the dimly lit living room, an eerie presence materialized, its form twisted and contorted with madness. With a bloodcurdling shriek, the insane ghost lunged at Dean Winchester and Liliana, its malevolent intentions palpable in the air. Yet, just as it reached out with spectral claws, it recoiled violently as if struck by an invisible force. The barrier of salt, doing its job and repelling the vengeful spirit.

For Liliana this was no doubt nothing. For Dean it was a very grim reminder.

"Hey Kev," Dean said quietly and then turned to Liliana. "He'll figure out the salt thing soon enough. Do your thing."

And as an afterthought: "Please."

Liliana took a disdainful step out of the salt circle - not even more tempted to scuff it, since she didn't even get to see interesting magic happen - and examined the ghost curiously. It, of course, flung itself at her, claws extended and mouth opened wide. And then froze as Liliana raised a single eyebrow - backed by her necromancy, obviously, but then, she was always one for a bit of a show.

"Yes, yes, you're quite terrifying," she told it, "now hush and let me see what I'm dealing with here."

She released it from full immobility, keeping it still but allowing it gibber and claw at the circle and do other ghost things at Dean (just a little ghosting, as a treat) while she prowled around examining it.

"Oh darling," she said, a moment or so later, the bored disdain gone from her voice and replaced by perhaps the lightest brush of sympathy. "You have gone quite mad, haven't you. There's barely anything left of you but the rage." She reached out and stroked the ghost's face.

“He’s been in the veil too long,” Dean said, somewhat boggling at the scene in front of him. “It’s what we call the place between life and the afterlife.”

"Didn't ask you, Dean!" Liliana called back to him.

Another brush of magic and the ghost's eye sockets flared purple briefly and it just...calmed. Stop trying to claw through the salt, stopped ravening in Dean's general direction, just went still and slack.

"You can come out now, if you wish," Liliana said. "I've bound him to my will, he won't attack. This is a temporary measure, mind. He's not fixed - this is, oh, the equivalent of putting a blanket over a birdcage."

Did you trust her enough to step out of the salt, Dean? Knowing that she could let go at any point and Kev would come for you?

He stayed where he was. It wasn’t a matter of trust. Just instinct.

Especially since the coffee she got earlier was from a gas station.

“Can you make him not crazy for Cocoa Puffs?” Dean asked. He tried to make it sound flippant but his voice cracked just slightly towards the end.

“I need him lucid. Not just under your control.”

Clearly this was more than just a hunt for Dean.

Edited 2024-04-30 14:33 (UTC)

Well he was absolutely no fun.

"Don't be insulting, of course I can," she said, turning back to face Dean. "There are two ways to do it. The fast way, which is going to hurt him a lot, or the slow way, which is much kinder, but will take much longer. We're talking weeks, if not months, of calming, soothing, and bringing him back to himself. He's like three-quarters rage by volume, so it will be fairly slow going."

And your driving lessons certainly weren't worth months of her time. She was having difficulty accepting your lessons being worth minutes of her time.

"So, let me know if you want to pay for a necromancer on Innistrad to rehabilitate him for the next few months, because otherwise, I'm going to do this the fast way. When I'm done, you'll have about two, possibly three minutes to speak to the person he was." She sighed, closed her eyes, beseeched the Blind Eternities for patience, and then added, "If it helps any, I will also take away the memory of the pain I will cause."

Edited 2024-04-30 15:12 (UTC)

Dean groaned and muttered curse words under his breath.

No. He couldn't do it. As nice as it would be...

"Fast. And take away the memory," Dean replied, firmly. "We don't have months and I can't take the chance."

"I already said I was going to," Liliana replied, turning back to the ghost. This time, when she touched his face, it wasn't for comfort. But it was, in its own way, a kindness. "You won't be needing this," she murmured softly.

As Liliana Vess delved into Kevin Tran's tormented psyche, she encountered a maelstrom of anguish and madness. Purple light spilled out of the lines of her skin as Dean Winchester stood nearby, his jaw clenched with concern.

Kevin, once a bright and determined young man, now trapped in the limbo of the veil, thrashed and writhed in the grip of his own torment. His ghostly form flickered with erratic energy, his eyes blazing with a wild, haunted fervor.

As Liliana began her work, her magic weaving through the tangled threads of Kevin's shattered mind she would encounter barriers erected by Kevin's own fractured psyche, defenses born from his deep-seated anguish and despair.

Each memory she unraveled was bound with pain and trauma, woven into the fabric of Kevin's very being. With each strand she severed, Kevin cried out in agony, his spectral form contorting with the intensity of his suffering.

Dean winced at the sight, watching the young man who had been dragged into the world of the supernatural against his will and died because of Dean's failures.

With every memory she purged, Kevin's essence grew lighter, the darkness that had consumed him slowly dissipating like a fog lifting from a battlefield.

And finally, after what felt like an eternity of anguish and struggle, Kevin's form began to stabilize. The frenzied madness in his eyes softened, replaced by a glimmer of recognition and clarity.

He looked around, bewildered yet somehow serene, as if emerging from a long and troubled dream. He looked at the woman in front of him in confusion until he then settled on...

"Dean."

And then his eyes grew dark. A bit of the malevolence coming back to him.

"Dean."

Edited 2024-04-30 15:40 (UTC)

"Hey Kevin," Dean said quietly. "Been a while. You've been stuck in the veil too long."

He paused for a moment. "People got hurt. By you."

Kevin just glared in return.

"It's not your fault," Dean said evenly. "But I can't let it go on."

"We both know who's fault it is," Kevin growled back.

"Mine. 100%," Dean agreed. "But it has to end."

"Great. So I go back to hell," Kevin replied.

"I can't have you here and going crazy again," Dean said solemnly. "I'll take ownership for what happened to you but I'm not the one who hurled you to hell. That was Chuck. And I can't help it that means you don't get what you deserve. I'm sorry, Kev. I really am."

The room began to vibrate.

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" Kevin screamed and as he did the glass in all the windows fractured and broke.

"I'm so sorry, Kevin," Dean said, remorsefully. "You have no idea."

Edited 2024-04-30 15:54 (UTC)

"Ah, ah, ah," Liliana chided Kevin gently. "Darling, we all want to drag Dean down ten miles of bad road on his face, but let's not destroy the building I'm in, thank you."

She looked back at Dean, still vastly unimpressed with pretty much every aspect of this. "Now why would this boy get sent to one of the nine hells? He seems mostly nice, save from where you aggravate him into shattering windows, but that very much strikes me as your fault, not his."

"He died on my watch," Dean admitted. "That's on me. And it's not his fault he went to hell. Or mine."

"That was God's fault," Kevin said with a twitch. "Even though I did what he asked. Even though I gave up my entire life to be a prophet for his stupid words. Even though I had a psychotic break down from living on a boat for a year eating nothing but hot dogs. Even though I did everything I could, I'm the one who got screwed over. And even though there's a new guy upstairs the old rules still apply. Once someone is hurled to hell by the one and only, they can never go to heaven."

"Typical god," Liliana snorted, tugging up her glove. Dean might have strong-armed her into 'fleece' and 'Daisy Dukes' (actually, she quite liked the shorts, but she wouldn't let him know that), but she'd insisted on keeping her boots, gloves, and headdress, and her taking off the Chain Veil had never been a possibility. "I do keep suggesting you steer clear of those, darling, but you're as hard-headed about that as you are--Wait."

She looked up at Dean, eyes narrowed. "Is this the god with all the angels?"

"Different god but, yes, the one with the angels," Dean said with a slightly painful shrug. "Why?"

Then Dean's eyes narrowed.

"What are you thinking?"

Liliana didn't answer, regarding Kevin for a loooooooooong moment. "There are thousands of you," she murmured. "Tiny little tragedies played out over and over again about the Multiverse. But at least in my corner, spirits go where they are meant to go."

They became one with the Aether, not damned to the Abyss by a petty man-child with a temper tantrum.

She turned back to Dean, suddenly all business. "I certainly didn't wake up before six in the blasted morning and then come here and spend time and effort dragging a ghost back through the dregs of madness just to discover my time was wasted because some jumped-up planeswalker with a host of over-preened angels at his back said he can't come to their stupid heavenly party, now did I?" she demanded. "I bound this boy's spirit, he is mine. And just because you're negligent doesn't mean that I'm ready to let one of mine either obey angels or enrich demons, never mind both at once."

Snapping her fingers impatiently like a Boomer at a waitress, she added, "Tell me how to get to this heavenly plane."

Edited 2024-04-30 16:26 (UTC)

"You mean other than dying?" Dean snarked back.

"Reapers usually escort the souls to the proper place," Kevin said, sighing at Dean. "They work for Death and they're not interested in helping anyone who chose to be in the veil. However if you had angelic assistance, which they won't offer, they could get you in. Spells have a shot but you'd need some sort of item from there in order to divine a path."

"You mean something like this?" Dean asked as he reached behind his back and pulled out an angel blade. "Angels always carry these with them."

"Where do you even store that? It has to be uncomfortable," Kevin asked.

"Whatever," Dean said rolling his eyes and offered the blade to Liliana. "Would this work to make a path for him?"

Liliana frowned at the blade, thoughtfully. "It would work to make a path for me," she said. "With this, I could absolutely use it as a guide through the Blind Eternities towards your heavenly plane. And once there, I could fight my way through whatever angels tried to impede my way." A dreamy little smile crossed her face. "It wouldn't be the first time I slaughtered a Silver City and if I'm a very lucky girl, it wouldn't be the last, either."

She let herself enjoy that image for another second or so, then shook her head. "But as delightful as it would be for me, I doubt it will solve the actual problem. I don't know how it will get Kevin there. I can't take him with me, even as a ghost the Blind Eternities will shred his soul to its component parts and leave me with a handful of ash." And for as gleeful as she'd looked a moment ago, now her expression had been briefly haunted for a moment before it had flickered to smooth neutrality.

Another few moments of thought. "All right," she said. "I think I've come up with a way to do this. It's going to be complicated and slightly bullshit, but I am Liliana fucking Vess and I do as I please."

She beamed at them. "Play nice while you're alone, children." And with a swirl of inky black tendrils enveloped her and she was gone.

Dean frowned and looked over at Kevin. "I can't tell you how sorry I-"

"Save it," Kevin snarled back. "Every time I trusted you, I got screwed over. I'm not sure how this is any different."

Walking through the Blind Eternities was always exhausting, but even moreso when she didn't know where she was going. Following a guide, be it another Planeswalker or an angelic sword that sang of home, only added to the burden.

I'm doing this for me, she told herself during the interminable no-time that was traversing the way. No godling is the boss of me or mine.

It felt like forever - it felt like no time at all - it felt like pink prickly velvet and tasted like chalk and razor blades and colors not found in nature - that she stepped onto the plane she was aiming for. And even here, she could tell, was not quite right. If heaven were a city, she landed in a nearby suburb, close enough to see, but not properly there. Furthermore, the city itself was surrounded by something that sometimes looked like a wall and other times a barrier. She narrowed her eyes and sent off a blast of mana. It impacted with the barrier and left a small mark.

Excellent. What she could affect, she could destroy. Though this plane was predominantly white mana; she would be limited to her own power. Well. That and the Chain Veil.

"Didn't come this far to give up now," she muttered to herself, and spent yet more mana to summon Kevin to her side through the shackles she'd placed around him for his binding. "Mine."

"Every time, Dean. Every single-"

Kevin blinked and looked around. "Wait. What's going on? This is not heaven."

"No," Liliana replied carelessly as she dialed Dean's number. "But that is." She gestured up towards the city above them. "My theory is that once I punch a hole through there, you'll either be drawn in or I'll be able to fling you inside. What happens to you after that darling is beyond my ken or concern."

One moment Dean was getting berated by a ghost and the next there was nothing. And then Dean's phone was playing the "Witchy Woman" ring tone by the Eagles. He sighed and answered the phone.

"Uh. I'm assuming Kevin's with you?" Dean asked, still looking around the room.

"Obviously," Liliana said, swapping the call to video. "We're standing outside of heaven now, I'm presuming. There's some kind of barrier I'm going to have to break through. Slight problem with that. Heaven has no black mana so I'm going to have to use something else to boost my power. And that has an obnoxious side effect of nearly killing me when I draw on too much of its power. I'm assuming you'll let me replenish much of what I lose from you, yes? Or anything else you can find that's living, but I make no guarantees it will be when I'm done."

There was a pause at the other end of the line as Dean processed this all and then just nodded. "Ok. I'll do it."

Kevin on the other hand was starting to freak out. "Wait. What? Hold on! Dean, you can't-"

"I am and that's the end of it," Dean growled back.

Kevin just stood there flabbergasted and looked over at Liliana. "Why are you even doing this? I don't even know you."

"The same reason I do anything, darling," Liliana purred. "Because I want to. And because I really, really hate angels." She handed the much-more-corporeal Kevin her phone. "Do drop that if you feel yourself starting to float or go insubstantial or whatnot? I have things on my phone that I will be annoyed to have to replace."

Once Kevin took her phone, Liliana reached down for the Chain Veil at her hip and fastened it over her face. Immediately the voices of the Onakke began whispering in her head.

*The root flourishes...the seed blossoms...*

"Oh do shut up," she snapped viciously. "You wanna talk destruction? Let's see some of that in action."

She held up her hands and black lightning shot from her hands slamming into the glimmering field/wall/barrier. It went on and on and on and as it did, the lines on her skin that had been blazing purple suddenly went red as her skin tore open and began to bleed. It started with slow drops, but sped up, turning into streams as she continued to pour her power into breaking through into heaven proper.

"Uh. What's going on?" Dean asked and Kevin turned the camera around to show the crazy woman trying to blast through the walls of heaven.

"Holy crap!"

"Dean," Kevin said flipping the camera around again. "I appreciate this but this is too much. I'm just a nobody."

"You're somebody," Dean growled back. "And you deserve this."

"Dean..."

"No chick flick moments," Dean said shaking his head.

Kevin turned and looked back at Liliana. "I don't even know your name. I... Oh God she's bleeding everywhere!"

Edited 2024-04-30 19:29 (UTC)

"My name...is Liliana Vess," Liliana said, legs buckling. She hit her knees, but still the power poured through her. This wasn't the power she used to have, no, not when she could create whole planes and order stars to her will, but it was as close as she'd ever get these days and she'd be lying if she said it wasn't intoxicating. Not just the feel of the power flowing through her, but throwing herself against something huge and unmoving and bending it to her will. "I am the strongest..." The pool of blood around her was getting larger. "...necromancer..." Her already pale skin grew chalky, red leeching from her lips to a pale rose, her breathing came fast. "...in the Multiverse!"

There! The barrier had been cracking under her onslaught, and a small hole, barely more than a crack, opened up within it. She crooked her hands into claws and dragged them apart, her power doing the same thing to the barrier. It wouldn't hold, she could feel it trying to close already, and she struggled to keep it open. It wasn't the power of the Chain Veil that was failing, but her own body.

You were mine...and I...protect...that which is mine.

The pull on Kevin was instantaneous.

Not sure what else to say he looked at the phone one last time.

"Goodbye Dean."

The pull was even stronger now as he took the phone and knelt down to place it close to Liliana. "I still don't understand why you're doing this for a total stranger. But thank you."

And with whatever will he was using to remain he let go. Being pulled in like a rifle shot into the breach that Liliana had made.

As soon as he was through, Liliana dropped her arms, flopping over onto her side as all the pain she'd been ignoring came rushing through her. "Did it...for me," she muttered thickly. "Everything I do. S'for me."

She wanted to give herself more time, but her heartbeat was already weak, thready. Not as bad as when she'd 'Walked out of Kothophed's throne room, but enough that she knew she'd be in serious trouble if she stayed.

"Dean," she said, looking like a Carrie remake as she picked up her phone. "You better keep your fucking promise." She didn't know if he was still there. Didn't much care, either.

She forced herself to her feet, adjusted her headdress, and tottered forward into the Blind Eternities.

Dean looked at his phone and the mess that Liliana had turned into and then suddenly Liliana was right there in front of him, drenched in blood from head to toe.

"Son of a bitch!"

He reached forward to grab on to her.

"What in the hell did you do?!"

"My job," Liliana rasped, and grabbed him right back. "Greatest...necromancer..."

He could figure out the rest. She was holding him to his promise, greedily pulling at his life force to replenish her own. Second after second, drop by drop, she drained his living essence from him, feeling her flesh reknit, her blood replenish, her heart return to its steady beat.

His vitality streamed into her like a thundering river and she drank deeply of it. She could keep this up until he died. Had half a mind to. She was still weak. Still hurting. It would be so easy to just let herself fall into it and not stop until he was dry.

She stopped, wrenching herself away from him. Her wounds were closed but the markings still livid. Her heart was fine but her breathing was still shaky. She needed more, but she'd live now and that was enough.

The taking of his life force was something that Dean had agreed to but as usual Dean did not think this thing through. He forced himself not to break away as he felt his vitality taken away from him and by the time Liliana pulled away he was stumbling and doing his best to keep his balance.

Probably a good thing that Liliana forgot about the automatic transmission from earlier.

"Whoa. Son of a bitch," he said trying to pull himself together. And that's when his phone notification went off.

Cass

DEAN! DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN! THERE IS A LITERAL HOLE IN HEAVEN!

Dean frowned. "What about Kevin?" he texted back.

Cass

We will not hold him responsible for someone else's actions. However: No more exceptions. Understand?

"Sure. For him you make an exception," Dean grumbled before turning to Liliana. "You're a mess."

He stepped over to give her support or something to lean on. "Come on. We better get going before someone investigates."

"Fuck you," she muttered, but leaned on him heavily. "There was a lawn outside, yeah?"

There wouldn't be for long. By the time anybody arrived, the entire yard would be brown and brittle and completely dead, right down to the soil.

Everything continued to hurt, even after that, but do you know what made her feel better?

She was gonna get blood all over Dean's stupid two-pedal car.

It wouldn't be the first time blood was spilled in that car.

Mustering his strength, Dean bent down and gathered up Liliana to carry her back to the Impala. "Lawn? Yeah there's an entire-"

He pulled the door open to watch the yard turning into a dead vegetation zone.

"Oh. Good. That won't attract any attention," he grumbled, carrying her out to the car. He got there and put her back on her feet as he opened the door to the back seat. "I heard you over the phone. I know you said you did it for yourself but-"

He looked at her in all her blood and gore glory.

"Clearly it cost you something. I... Thank you."

"Of all the people I didn't do it for, I didn't do it for you the most," Liliana said, settling into the passenger seat with her eyes closed. Her head was pounding and the glorious morning sunshine wasn't helping at all. "I will take any opportunity to spite angels and your god isn't the boss of me."

Look. You be mature when most of your blood was decorating heaven's antechamber.

"He certainly isn't," Dean said buckling her in and then closing the door. "But you went above and beyond to spite someone. As in nearly killing yourself."

He got in the car and immediately got lightheaded.

"I'm taking us someplace so we can recover. We got hours before we catch the next portal."

"I am very good at spiting," Liliana mumbled. "Yes. Good. Somewhere warm. I'm cold."

Colder than normal, even.

"Comfortable accommodations." Liliana, honey, you needed to specify better than that.

"I know just the place," Dean said as the engine roared to life. Within moments they were back on the road.

Neighbor, Michigan - Early Tuesday Morning

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"KEVIN! KEVIN TRAN!"

"KEVIN! IT'S DEAN! DEAN WINCHESTER!

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