but oh what a year

[patrols]

Comments

[geminated]

It's not always. It depends what new local distillery she manages to find.

[She goes back to peeling off the paper, revealing the label for a distillery a couple of hours from the bunker.]

Our relationship is mired in alcohol, for better or worse.

[cholesterol]

Mystic Falls has local distilleries?

( Oh, close to the Bunker. This one is in Kansas. She means anywhere. She's thoughtful like that. )

There are worse things a relationship could be mired in.

( He picks through the mixers. Plum, plum. He holds up the 2-liter of Sprite. Hm? )

[geminated]

[She considers, then nods, because that should work. She also goes to start working on the wrapping paper for the second bottle.]

I'm Liv, by the way. Not sure if we've been properly introduced.

[cholesterol]

( he collects ice and pours some into two cups, setting them down on the table. )

Dean. ( he sifts through names. his (10) lands him squarely in the 'this name is familiar' column, but not why. so she's mystic falls. so, he provides more information. ) I'm Elena's boyfriend.

( and partially why she moved away. )

[geminated]

Tyler's girlfriend.

[There's their appropriate six degrees of separation.

She pours a shot of the vodka into each of the cups, before screwing on the top and leaning back.]

I've heard good things.

[cholesterol]

Right. ...Armory.

( Once he has two names and a fact behind it. She's also a witch. But not a crazy house-wife one. It's always the crazy suburbans that witch wrong.

He unscrews the Sprite with a sizzle and fills both cups with two shots equal for flavor and replaces it, setting it down. )

Really. From Tyler?

[geminated]

From my sister, Jo Laughlin.

[She probably should have led that she was a Gemini witch.]

Though that may have been purely from a school parent perspective.

[cholesterol]

Right, right. Jack. ( He can - make regular conversation not about hunting PTSD. ) It's a good school. Real happy hunters didn't have their way. Didn't know Jo had siblings.

( Again, what a small world. Jo Laughlin - Saltzman - didn't read Parker. He's also a bit behind on all that drama from being apart of the Elena side of the kidnapping. )

You, uh, went to Williamsburg, right?

( Fuzzy details after the fact. )

[geminated]

There's four ... well, I guess technically there's five of us right now. Me and Luke, Shep and then Jo and Kai.

[She makes a face at the mention of Kai. Unfortunate that he's real at the moment.]

Yeah, Luke and I did.

[cholesterol]

Yeah, I got the skinny on Kai. He did not score an invitation. Haven't heard about Shepherd. He going to make an appearance?

( Giant family, what's that like, Liv. )

Thank you, for helping with Elena.

[geminated]

Shep is a recent development and not today. At least, not that I'm aware of.

[She thinks that he and Annie are on Underground duty after being off for Thanksgiving, but she and Shep haven't confirmed beyond Merry Christmas texts in the group chat this morning.]

Of course. Elena is my second favorite of Tyler's friends.

[First being Bonnie, though as she weighs that thought.]

Though Matt being back means she may be getting demoted down to third.

[Not important. She probably shouldn't have a hierarchy of Tyler's friends but what can you do.]

Besides, that curse ruined my life long before I met her. It was long overdue for it to get broken.

[cholesterol]

I got one of those, too.

( apparently, they have a lot in common. )

I'll keep that between us.

( No need for Elena to be in the middle of a ranking that only names her. )

Yeah, but, she didn't get kidnapped for your curse. Just - thank you.

[geminated]

No problem.

[She takes a sip of her drink.]

So what's next for you guys after this? Heading back to Kansas?

[cholesterol]

Probably. Things are finally winding down. Elena and Damon are kicking around those kids right now, so it may depend on them.

( Or, are they going back to New Orleans. )

Feels like there are a lot of promises nobody asked for up in the air.

[geminated]

[Liv nods. She also knows Elena has a job she probably isn't looking to walk out on, but that's something that's probably going to depend on the kids too. Where they want to go. Who they want to live with.]

You've got some time to figure it out. I think Elena said she didn't have to be back to work until after the New Year.

[cholesterol]

Enough of it. There's also Ben. Who, I'm trying to do right by. And our matching set of the returning dead. Big fifty-two card pick-up of people.

( Just feels like a lot of plates to spin. )

[geminated]

[Fortunately for Dean, Ben has a suggestion on that front. But that's for a later conversation.]

If it makes you feel better, you or Elena may not wind up responsible for all of them. I'm pretty sure Matt and potentially Jo are going to wind up on our couch just as much as yours.

[Liv is going to make a group chat called "Tyler and the Blonds."]

And most of them are grown adults. They may want to do their own thing.

[cholesterol]

Not worried about Matt and Jo. Jo always lands on her feet. And she better be on the horn if there are in hellhounds in the vicinity.

( Even her mom. It's still just a lot. And it's weird, but it could be more. And he's thinking about their Bobby, their Charlie, Kevin, Sam's Sarah. Crowley. Just people they utterly failed. )

True. And we'll let 'em provided they get enough to get off the ground.

[geminated]

Right. So maybe I'm just talking out my ass, but it sounds like the ten directions you're trying to drag yourself in might be more like three.

[Three's a little more manageable. Elena's job, his kid and her kids.]

Still more than you may want, but not nearly as painful.

[cholesterol]

I would rather only drag myself in three. Even two and a half. Thanks.

( But, she's right. The immediate shit he needs to think about. Even Sam's, Allison, her pack, is still Sam's. It's still a brother thing but... very manageable. )

Sam took care of a whole lot of displaced hunters from another universe once. If anyone can.

[geminated]

[Liv nods, before taking another sip of her drink.]

I don't really like how little information we have about why they're here. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth and magic does seem complete but ... some of it is too neat for it to wholly be a side effect of the ritual.

[Maybe this is too much talking shop for a holiday party, but like Dean, Liv will never not be looking for the other shoe to drop. Nice things don't just happen and Kai is not enough of a consequence for the scale of this.]

[cholesterol]

You think there's something more. Like, something that took advantage of the ritual?

( He could see that, because there are people that connect to who were there - blood-wise, even, heart-wise, and then there's a six degrees of separation he can't shake. )

[geminated]

[Liv tips her head to the side like "yeah, kind of."]

A powerful coven tried a major binding ritual at the same time a centuries-old curse was broken. Those are both pretty big magical shifts. If it was just an accident, like with Elena bleeding on Matt and the magic doing what it does, it would probably be just Matt and the end of the spell wouldn't have been so ... clean. Complete.

[Liv shakes her head.]

Someone with a lot of power - or the ability to control a lot of power did this. And there are very few witches that could pull something like that off.

[A beat.]

In fact, the only two I can think of were with us in Williamstown. So it wasn't them.

[cholesterol]

Elena bled on me, too. So, I could see Jo, too. Even her mom.

( But she's right, from there it's real hard to see the rest. Elena didn't bleed on Jeremy to get Jenna back. Nobody bled on Caroline or Tyler. They weren't even there. Cordelia, Angel, weren't there to get their friend Fred back. )

Rowena and Freya Mikaelson?

[geminated]

Yep.

[Her brow furrows as she considers.]

Maybe it would be worth it to have one of them have a look at them once everyone is here.