Shells
Title: Shells
Author: plumoneoneseven
Rating: Probably PG-15 or so for swearing and death.
Genre: Crossover. Band of Brothers/Supernatural. This is purely due to Richard Speight Jr being in both. And due to me loving both series with the hard, fierce kind of love that occasionally makes me want to punch life/tv execs/just everything generally for being unreasonable and unfair.
Warning: Indulgent pretentious bullshit like you wouldn't believe. Blatant character hijacking. Comma abuse. British spellings.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Also not meant as any disrespect of the actual people involved in the conflict described, or indeed any other conflicts they were in. Purely based on the TV Series Band of Brothers and all blame goes to someone with an icon of Skip and Gabriel (Found it!) icon_evolutions for THIS icon of Gabriel and Skip, which put this idea into my severely warped head. Cross-posted from sortoftrickster
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It takes him a moment to realise, because he's been distracted. He's been concentrating so hard on keeping Luz safe that he forgets about himself and Penkala and fuck it if a damned shell doesn't come swooping over right at that moment and blow them both to hell.
He's lying in pieces. Him and Penkala mixed together like soup, and for a moment, just a moment, he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do.
Then he's swimming in pain, and the first thing he's going to do, he's going to put himself back together, because this? Fuck this. But everything's gone. Bits of him he'd never really thought about; atomised. So instead he clings to the pain, because it's that or he dies, and if his human shell dies he has to go back to heaven and what with having successfully avoided going back home for millenia he's not keen to start having to explain himself now.
Eventually, fuck, it feels like 20 years easy, but is probably no more than an hour or so, maybe even less, the shelling stops and everything is calm. Deathly calm, but since people have died and he was nearly one of them he isn't going to bitch about it.
People, his friends, his brothers in a human sort of way, come out from hiding in dirt and snow, and scoop what's left of him and Penkala into the hole left by the explosion and bury them. There are too many pieces for anyone to tell which bits are whose.
They take his tags.
It's a formality, since Luz saw the whole thing in front of his eyes, but they take them anyway, since they can find 'em and it feels weird to be without them, even though he's only had them for two and a half years. Two and a a half years is no time at all. But even though he hasn't anywhere to feel it, he still manages to miss the weight of them around his neck.
He's pissed.
Of course he's pissed, he's dead. Kind of. But that's not the only thing he's pissed about. His friends, his brothers, are all out there getting killed, and without him to look out for them. His friends, his brothers, his company dammit, and he wasn't there to see them get shot in the ass again or get falling down drunk and make bitchy jokes about sex and violence. That's just plain wrong.
He concentrates on the anger and feels some of his power coming back. He concentrates not on healing, but on building. This body is done for. There's nothing he can do about that, but he liked it. It was comfortable and fun. Still squishy and human, but in weird ways he can't really describe, it felt like it fitted.
It takes him months to build a body from the ground up. Literally. He has to take bits of what's lying around, atoms, elements and particles and push them until they come together and he has to do it all the time to keep them from flying away. He's never concentrated so hard in his life.
He spins himself a new body. It looks pretty much like the old body. He has to keep it hidden of course, and that too takes energy he can't really spare, but he knows all about exhaustion and fear. He keeps going.
And eventually, one day it's finished. He sighs, even though he has nothing really to sigh with, and lets go of what's left of Sergeant Warren 'Skip' Muck and breathes himself into his new body.
It aches, but it doesn't hurt and it takes him a while to realise that it isn't his body that aches, it's him. He hasn't rested in so long. He's tired. Tired of being scared, angry and alone. Tired of concentrating on not dying and tired of dying by degrees. He's rusty and exhausted. Not just bone deep, but all the way to his core he's tired, so he's careful when he makes the jump. Snaps his fingers for the first time in months. It's the first time in months he's had fingers to snap.
He arrives somewhere. He doesn't know or care where it is exactly, only that it's not the middle of the fucking woods and it has a bed. He makes careful arrangements so that no one will bother him and then he collapses like a marionette with all it's strings sliced through. Collapses like dead weight and is too far gone to notice the irony of it.
He sleeps for close-to a week.
He wakes up and he's still angry. Fuming now, in fact. And he has his powers back. He goes to see the company and is struck by the loss. Hardly anyone left now. A bare handful from the ones who jumped with him on D-Day. Winters is still there. Overseeing, looking after the ones who are left. Nixon too, although mostly that's because he's watching Winters. They're looking after each other, shoring each other up like brothers are supposed to do. There are only a few others, although he's painfully pleased to see that Luz and Malarkey are alive and mostly well.
Peace has broken out in his absence and there isn't much for anyone to do besides look out for one another and try not to get killed in stupid ways.
He doesn't let them see him as he hangs around.
One day they get their orders. Home. Ragged cries of joy tinged with fear sound out, and he's pleased they can go home and he hopes that they can start to live again instead of just surviving.
He follows them home. Makes sure. Checks in on them all until he knows they're safe. It isn't until then that he breathes a sigh of relief.
Well.
America's pretty big and there's a lot to do there. He might hang around for a while. Not to keep tabs on them or anything, just... He's tired of running all over the world. He wants to settle for a bit. And America's as good as anywhere else to do that in.
Not that he's making excuses or anything.
Yeah. He'll just hang around for a little while. It'll be fine...
Besides, there's a lot of fun to be had in America, and considering the past three years he's pretty sure he's earned all the fun he can grab from now on.
Author: plumoneoneseven
Rating: Probably PG-15 or so for swearing and death.
Genre: Crossover. Band of Brothers/Supernatural. This is purely due to Richard Speight Jr being in both. And due to me loving both series with the hard, fierce kind of love that occasionally makes me want to punch life/tv execs/just everything generally for being unreasonable and unfair.
Warning: Indulgent pretentious bullshit like you wouldn't believe. Blatant character hijacking. Comma abuse. British spellings.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Also not meant as any disrespect of the actual people involved in the conflict described, or indeed any other conflicts they were in. Purely based on the TV Series Band of Brothers and all blame goes to someone with an icon of Skip and Gabriel (Found it!) icon_evolutions for THIS icon of Gabriel and Skip, which put this idea into my severely warped head. Cross-posted from sortoftrickster
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It takes him a moment to realise, because he's been distracted. He's been concentrating so hard on keeping Luz safe that he forgets about himself and Penkala and fuck it if a damned shell doesn't come swooping over right at that moment and blow them both to hell.
He's lying in pieces. Him and Penkala mixed together like soup, and for a moment, just a moment, he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do.
Then he's swimming in pain, and the first thing he's going to do, he's going to put himself back together, because this? Fuck this. But everything's gone. Bits of him he'd never really thought about; atomised. So instead he clings to the pain, because it's that or he dies, and if his human shell dies he has to go back to heaven and what with having successfully avoided going back home for millenia he's not keen to start having to explain himself now.
Eventually, fuck, it feels like 20 years easy, but is probably no more than an hour or so, maybe even less, the shelling stops and everything is calm. Deathly calm, but since people have died and he was nearly one of them he isn't going to bitch about it.
People, his friends, his brothers in a human sort of way, come out from hiding in dirt and snow, and scoop what's left of him and Penkala into the hole left by the explosion and bury them. There are too many pieces for anyone to tell which bits are whose.
They take his tags.
It's a formality, since Luz saw the whole thing in front of his eyes, but they take them anyway, since they can find 'em and it feels weird to be without them, even though he's only had them for two and a half years. Two and a a half years is no time at all. But even though he hasn't anywhere to feel it, he still manages to miss the weight of them around his neck.
He's pissed.
Of course he's pissed, he's dead. Kind of. But that's not the only thing he's pissed about. His friends, his brothers, are all out there getting killed, and without him to look out for them. His friends, his brothers, his company dammit, and he wasn't there to see them get shot in the ass again or get falling down drunk and make bitchy jokes about sex and violence. That's just plain wrong.
He concentrates on the anger and feels some of his power coming back. He concentrates not on healing, but on building. This body is done for. There's nothing he can do about that, but he liked it. It was comfortable and fun. Still squishy and human, but in weird ways he can't really describe, it felt like it fitted.
It takes him months to build a body from the ground up. Literally. He has to take bits of what's lying around, atoms, elements and particles and push them until they come together and he has to do it all the time to keep them from flying away. He's never concentrated so hard in his life.
He spins himself a new body. It looks pretty much like the old body. He has to keep it hidden of course, and that too takes energy he can't really spare, but he knows all about exhaustion and fear. He keeps going.
And eventually, one day it's finished. He sighs, even though he has nothing really to sigh with, and lets go of what's left of Sergeant Warren 'Skip' Muck and breathes himself into his new body.
It aches, but it doesn't hurt and it takes him a while to realise that it isn't his body that aches, it's him. He hasn't rested in so long. He's tired. Tired of being scared, angry and alone. Tired of concentrating on not dying and tired of dying by degrees. He's rusty and exhausted. Not just bone deep, but all the way to his core he's tired, so he's careful when he makes the jump. Snaps his fingers for the first time in months. It's the first time in months he's had fingers to snap.
He arrives somewhere. He doesn't know or care where it is exactly, only that it's not the middle of the fucking woods and it has a bed. He makes careful arrangements so that no one will bother him and then he collapses like a marionette with all it's strings sliced through. Collapses like dead weight and is too far gone to notice the irony of it.
He sleeps for close-to a week.
He wakes up and he's still angry. Fuming now, in fact. And he has his powers back. He goes to see the company and is struck by the loss. Hardly anyone left now. A bare handful from the ones who jumped with him on D-Day. Winters is still there. Overseeing, looking after the ones who are left. Nixon too, although mostly that's because he's watching Winters. They're looking after each other, shoring each other up like brothers are supposed to do. There are only a few others, although he's painfully pleased to see that Luz and Malarkey are alive and mostly well.
Peace has broken out in his absence and there isn't much for anyone to do besides look out for one another and try not to get killed in stupid ways.
He doesn't let them see him as he hangs around.
One day they get their orders. Home. Ragged cries of joy tinged with fear sound out, and he's pleased they can go home and he hopes that they can start to live again instead of just surviving.
He follows them home. Makes sure. Checks in on them all until he knows they're safe. It isn't until then that he breathes a sigh of relief.
Well.
America's pretty big and there's a lot to do there. He might hang around for a while. Not to keep tabs on them or anything, just... He's tired of running all over the world. He wants to settle for a bit. And America's as good as anywhere else to do that in.
Not that he's making excuses or anything.
Yeah. He'll just hang around for a little while. It'll be fine...
Besides, there's a lot of fun to be had in America, and considering the past three years he's pretty sure he's earned all the fun he can grab from now on.