kore_logs | the road so far

It's truly not much longer until Chuck makes his way into the diner. He's glad, grateful even, that Dean decided to spell out what has occurred after the Apocalypse. Even more so that he has elected to do so in a diner. With food. Because trying to eat regular meals in a house full of angels who do not eat can be a daily challenge.

And so he takes the seat across from Dean and takes a bite of Dean's deliciously made sandwich as he considers where to start. There are a multitude of questions he wishes to ask, but none seem more important than,

"So, uh. Becky said I was dead?"

Dean has a mouthful of food, and he looks up at Chuck with his eyebrows raised and his mouth full. He finishes his bite slowly and then nods.

"Starting off with the big stuff. Okay." He sighs and puts his sandwich down, resting his elbow on the table instead, and he levels his gaze with Chuck's. "No one's actually seen or heard from you since the apocalypse showdown with Michael or Lucifer, and then one day, bam. Some new kid gets called up as a prophet."

Which means Chuck has to be dead.

"And all the, um. All the archangels are dead, or you know, in a lockbox in Hell, so it's rough out there for a prophet right now. You could've died sometime after Raphael bit the dust. There was what... a year? About? After that happened and this poor kid got tapped."

"Well, you know, it's, uh. Go big or go home, right?"

Truth be told, he'd much rather go home - home home - than go big. But he doesn't exactly have a choice now, does he? Especially with so many people here who had been taken from his future. He's bound to find out sooner or later, might as well be sooner and when he's prepared.

He does remember hearing something about Raphael being dead, but he can't remember how or why. And he gives a slow nod. Because that does make sense, he supposes, with Raphael and Gabriel dead in the real world (It's hard to think of either of them as truly dead when they're both here and both alive) and with Michael and Lucifer in the Cage. Raphael had saved his life a couple of times during the Apocalypse. With him gone, it seems like he has less than a year left. That's... good to know.

~~If that had, indeed, been the case.~~

"But I, uh. Didn't know there were other prophets?" Because Zachariah had threatened him. That's why he couldn't help Dean as much as he would have liked. Threatened to stop him, and threatened to bring him back to life if he killed himself. Why would he do that if there were other prophets to torment?

"Apparently there's a whole string of 'em in line waiting for their number to be called. I don't really know a lot about it, but Crowley managed to torture all the names of this generation out of -- " He hesitates for a second. "Out of some poor angel, and he rounded 'em all up and threatened the prophet that he'd kill him if he didn't help him and just wait for the next in line to be called."

Wait, Dean skipped a lot. He waves his hand.

"And Crowley was interested because we found this tablet that holds the Word of God on Leviathans and another one on demons, namely how to lock them all away forever, so he was pretty, you know. Invested. See, that's the other thing. He doesn't do prophet stuff like you do. He got called up to read these tablets, and that's like, all he can do. He can't see the future, doesn't get visions, none of that."

Woah, woah, woah. That was a lot of information to throw at him. You'll have to give him a second for him to fully process everything.

Crowley had always been in a moral gray area. He'd been a demon fighting on the side of the humans during the Apocalypse. He'd been waiting, honestly, for Crowley to make a heel-faced turn and betray the boys in a similar manner to how Ruby had. But he hadn't. It actually seemed like he was (selfishly, demonically) on their side the whole way through.

But now, hearing this? Hearing that Crowley had tortured an angel and then a prophet? Well, needless to say, Crowley is no longer on his 'nice' list. "Oh." It's probably a good thing Crowley is no longer in Kore.

But if Crowley was torturing prophets, then reading the Word of God might be something Chuck could do. So maybe it was a good thing Chuck was... gone by this time, or else he'd be put through the same thing as the other prophet. And without an archangel, that definitely wouldn't have ended well.

Speaking of the Word of God, Chuck tries to ever recall if he'd heard of that before and shakes his head. "I've never head of any... Word of God tablets before. Do you think... different prophets have different powers?" What other powers would there even be?

Yeah, sorry. There's a lot to cram into this lunch meeting, and Dean maybe got a little carried away. He eats while Chuck processes because he's not sure how long that's going to take. Could be here all day. Thankfully they aren't, and he shrugs at Chuck's question.

"How should I know? The only prophets I know have been you and Kevin." Poor kid.

"We found the first tablet kind of by mistake. All we knew was that the Leviathan boss was after something special, and we stole it. Turned out to be the Leviathan tablet, and our handy dandy prophet could read it to tell us how to send all those mouthbreathers back to Purgatory."

Strangely, he doesn't seem quite as eager to blurt out how they all escaped in the first place. That one doesn't just tumble out.

By now, Chuck's gotten sort of used to... well, the supernatural. He's seen it in his visions and he knows it's real and he's seen some of it in real life, and now, he's hearing about it. And while that's definitely not as hard as living it, it's still... disorienting. But he tries, okay?

"Leviathans." Because yes, that's about where he's stuck. "That's... That's what Balthazar was when we all... got powers and stuff, right?"

(Never mind the fact that it was Chuck who told Anna what, exactly, Balthazar was. Because while he has rules for living as a prophet, he'd broken that rule because it was necessary. But it's no longer a necessity for him to know something he simply shouldn't and he can fall back into easy ignorance.)

"I mean, I thought leviathans were all like, H. P. Lovecraft. Not... humanoid."

"That's right." And they're lucky he didn't eat everyone, though he guesses maybe the angels were keeping him in check. Well, the usually full-time angels.

"I don't know what they look like on their own, but they can copy a human body, which means taking on their memories, all that. And when it's feeding time, the head opens up and it's just all teeth, one big mouth. All the better to eat you with."

Chuck should be so glad to have Dean telling him this bedtime story.

"Not a pretty sight, man."

Chuck tries to imagine what, exactly, that would look like. When Balthazar had been a leviatha, Chuck had been bit -- he things there might actually still be bite marks on his leg -- but Balthazar's jaw hadn't like... unhinged or anything. He'd simply... latched onto Chuck's leg and refused to let go of it for anything. In fact, Chuck had been forced to zap Balthazar with lightening in order to get him away.

The thought of Balthazar, or anyone really, having an entire facefull of teeth makes him shiver. He's pretty thankful he never had to see that, and hopefully never will. Or, failing that, more than one.

"So, uh. I mean, how did they show up?" Oh no, you're trapped now, Dean.

He opens his mouth only to close it again, his eyes moving back and forth over the table. This is a hard story to tell because he still hasn't pinned down how he feels about what happened, yes, still; he's moved on, and he knows he needs Cas regardless of whatever betrayal happened, whatever Cas turned into, and really that had been the biggest hurdle. Just embracing the idea that he can't write off what Cas did as being part of some inhuman, monster-style thing, the kinds of things he hunts.

"Someone, um. Someone opened up a portal to Purgatory and absorbed all the souls inside. Then they tried to spit 'em all back in, but the Leviathan hung on, and when he couldn't hold 'em all anymore, they burst out. Escaped. Went everywhere."

Casually leaving out large chunks of that story. He frowns at his sandwich, then busies his hands and his mouth with taking a drink.

It's extremely obvious that this is not a subject that Dean wants to talk about. And really, Chuck doesn't think he can blame him too much. Because leviathans are not something to be taken lightly, they aren't something to just shrug off and move on with. They are dangerous and they need to dealt with carefully.

Although, he supposes this is when the Word of God tablets come in. Things are finally beginning to make sense. Chuck gives a slow nod, taking a few seconds to fully absorb this information and putting the pieces together.

The next logical question, of course, is, "Why... why open a portal to Purgatory?" Because Purgatory was a locked door for a reason. And if this someone is trying to get to Purgatory they are either really stupid or really desperate.

Dean looks over at him curiously, eyebrow raised. It took him a while to get to this realization, mainly because he was focused on the Cas part, but he's surprised Raphael didn't say anything. Dean doesn't actually know what all Raphael remembers, but he had to know about the war.

"Raphael didn't mention any of this? There was a civil war in Heaven. One half wanted to bring back the apocalypse, and the other one wanted to let angels have free will. That half is the one that wanted into purgatory, so he could suck up all the souls and use the power to win the war."

This is increasingly more painful. It'd be easier if he could blame it all on Crowley, but... Well, he can shift a lot of the blame there. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Chuck shakes his head. Raphael hadn't mentioned anything about back home, not as far at he can remember. "No, Raphael hasn't mentioned anything about this. I just... you know, figured he didn't know anything about this."

That does sound vaguely familiar, and Chuck struggles to remember where, or who, he heard it from. And then it hits him. "No, but, uh. Balthazar did mention something about Heaven being in disarray." He does remember that conversation being focused a lot on Castiel, who had some plan Balthazar wasn't certain of.

That, at least, would make sense. Castiel did understand the concept of free will better than any other angel in Heaven, it would only follow that he would want the same for the rest of the Host. That would make it Castiel versus Raphael, with Casitel being desperate enough to look to Purgatory to win that war.

A war that Castiel must have won, since it ended in Raphael's death. And then, leviathans.

"He was involved. He was really involved, up until he lost." And then Cas killed him. He's leaving deliberate holes in this story that Chuck isn't calling him on, and Chuck's a lot of things, but Dean knows he's smart, too. He knows the people Dean's talking about inside and out because he's written them; hell, he knows Dean, and that's one uncomfortable thought. If he's not pushing, it's because he's letting Dean skip it or he doesn't want to press. Fine with him.

"And then everyone was screwed for a while. Leviathans almost took over, but -- that's when we found the tablet that called Kevin into service, the new prophet. He read up on how to kill the toothy bastards, and we did, which is how Cas and I wound up in purgatory."

So yeah, Dean's just plunging ahead.

"We got caught in the blastwave that came from killing the head Dick. Uh, Leviathan."

He's leaving deliberate holes, yes, but he's giving him just enough clues for Chuck to be able to piece it all together. It might take him a second or two, but really... in the end, it's kind of basic storytelling? And if Chuck is nothing else, he is a storyteller.

He got a degree for it and everything.

He takes this time to take another bite of his sandwich as he thinks things through. The sandwich is really good, though. And he's not just saying that because he lives in a house full of angels that have no idea how to cook whatsoever.

"How did you get out of Purgatory? I mean, that's just like being trapped in Hell, right?" It occurs to him only after he says those words that Dean's memories of Hell probably aren't something he wants to think about. "Uh, sorry."

Dean stops and glances up at Chuck, and no, he doesn't really want to think about his memories from hell. Purgatory was different, though. In purgatory, it was constant combat, but at least the things he tortured were all monsters. It was fighting for his life, but it was something he can more easily live with. And it wasn't Alistair teaching him, grooming him, telling Dean how proud he was of him.

No, now he's thinking about it, and he tries to push the memories aside as he goes back to what he was doing. There was only a brief few seconds of pain, of dark memory, before he stuffs it all aside again.

"Not exactly. I ran into a guy who knew about a portal back to Earth. It'd only work on a human soul, though, since purgatory wasn't made for humans, especially not ones that didn't technically die. So he and I fought our way out."

Chuck meets Dean's glance with an apologetic look. He doesn't mean to burst out with painful memories that the brothers had lived through. But, honestly, for the longest time he'd thought they were fictional. And details like that - Dean going to Hell, Jessica dying - they're painful, yes, but sometimes he forgets.

He knows, logically, the Dean Winchester is sitting in front of him, and Dean Winchester has been through events that he doesn't like to speak about. But as an author, bringing up plot details - because that's what they were, for almost four years - isn't a big deal. And mixing the two together isn't as easy for him as it should be.

"But, uh, obviously you made it out." Suspense is good in storytelling and all, but with Dean sitting right across from him, telling him the story, the suspense is kind of... lost.

Dean frowns, totally almost insulted. Come on, dude, work with him here. He isn't the novelist.

"Yeah, but it was hard!" Jeez. Chuck made it sound like a walk in the park. He grumbles to himself and goes back to his food, trying to put his thoughts together to fill Chuck in on everything else that happened. It's closer, so it's hard to pick out the big details.

"Since then Sam and I and Kevin were working on locking up Hell for good. Kevin had the demon tablet, and he told us about these three trials. It didn't really work out because Sam would've had to kill himself to finish it." And that was that. No more explanation needed.

Does anyone here know what happened with the angels other than him and Meg and Cas? He's not even sure.

Chuck raises his hands in a symbol of surrender at Dean's defensive outburst. "Yeah, no, I believe you! I mean... Purgatory." That's impressive, is what it is. After all, how many people get to say they broke out of both Hell and Purgatory?

He's pretty certain that's a list that begins and ends with Dean Winchester.

"Oh." Yeah, he can certainly see how that would be a problem. Closing up the gates to Hell was a good idea, and Chuck is totally supportive of it... but if the cost of doing it was Sam's life, then he understands that's not a thing that's going to get done.

"There's not another way to do it or anything? No fine print?"

He narrows his eyes, but fine, okay. He will accept Chuck's frantic backpedaling as appropriate acknowledgment of the difficulty of escaping purgatory. And really somehow underneath that he's managing to be blase about what was maybe one of the hardest experiences of his life -- maybe because he's had a lot, from Hell to watching Sammy die the first time -- but the 24/7 combat was tiring.

"I don't think so. We were lucky enough to get that kid to read the big print." That actually isn't doing Kevin any favors; he did read all the fine print, which wound up being Metatron's notes.

"So there you go. You're... basically caught up." He stops because wow that's sort of a whopper, and he looks at Chuck sharply for a second and then shakes it off. No big. He doesn't have to mention that all the angels were falling when they left. Nope.

Dean's always been blase about big, huge events. Chuck knows that. It is, after all, part of Dean's character. Not that Dean's a fictional character or anything but, you know what he means. Even when he met the Winchesters for the first time, they shook off mentions of their worst experiences like they were nothing.

That, and Chuck honestly has no idea what Purgatory would even be like. He can imagine, of course, but his imagination would never live up to the real thing. And so Chuck is perfectly fine leaving things as they are. Besides, he's not quite sure Dean would tell him, if he asked for more.

(Deciding not to tell Chuck about the angels falling, all things considered, is probably the best option. He would hate to give himself away when the person responsible for such an act isn't even present in Kore. )

"Oh. That's... a lot." He's sure Dean didn't explain every little thing, but even as far as major detail points go... there was a lot there. Clearly, several years had passed, and while Chuck knows exactly what all can happen in a year in the life of the Winchesters... that somehow as a lot more than what he thought there would be.

Dean has to agree, yeah. Jo said something similar. He's starting to wonder if he should write this stuff down, but no, he'd rather not have a written record of any of this -- heh. He hadn't been thinking of Sarah and what happened with Chuck's books, but that does bring us back around to that topic, however inadvertently. The moment is here; he could dump that on Chuck's lap and let him stew with it, but Chuck can't jump back in time and unwrite those books.

What happened to Sarah is something Dean can stash away, pull out if he ever wants to deliver Chuck a blow, but for right now he keeps it to himself.

"Yeah, you missed a few chapters, but those are the Cliffsnotes. I don't know, man. We stopped the apocalypse; I kinda thought that'd be... something. Seems like in the end it was just the least terrible option."

A few chapters? More like an entire series. Or, rater, a good two series. He's sure, if he had enough information, he could write an entire series on the leviathans and then, about the closing of the gates, however that pans out.

But Dean's two for two today, in the list of things he's opting not to tell Chuck. Because he would, he'd feel awful if he ever learned about what happened with Sarah, what his books did to her. But.. well, it's not like he really ever had another option. Kevin's prophet abilities might not include seeing and narrating the future, but Chuck's did.

But Chuck doesn't know about Sarah, or the consequences of writing those books and so he lets out a sigh, instead. "Yeah, I though... I mean, what could be worst than the Apocalypse, right?" A lot of things, apparently.

the road so far

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WOW ignore all the typos in my previous post OTL I can write, I promise.

NBD <3333

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