AN: Holy shit. This is the longest UW I have ever done. This is actually the fic I was supposed to post the weekend after the last UW, completely separate from this collection. But then I wound up getting really into it and I decided that it works better here because it's going to work as sort of a Table of Contents. Some of these totally needed to be expanded on (7, 9, 14 and 20 demand full length versions, oh my god) and some of them (1, 3 and 18) would just be fun universes to play around in.
Also, definitely let me know in the comments which alternate lives you'd like to see fics about!
Also, HOLY SHITBALLS at last night's SPN finale. I hate it and I'm sad and I'm mad (SMAD, I'M SMAD) but I also wanna fic it so bad. I just feel like Laurel as Captain America and Dean as the Winter Soldier is super important and probably a thing I'll be exploring in the next five months.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters you recognize nor any of the poetry or lyrics featured here.
Underdogs Wednesdays
Written by Becks Rylynn
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where did you sleep last night?
Twenty five lives Dean and Laurel never lived (and one they did)
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and the part where i push you
flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks -
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(1)
but i do know that i love you
and i know that if you love me too
what a wonderful world this would be
In one world, there are no superheroes, and there are no monsters.
Dean Winchester and Laurel Lance are two totally normal people who meet at a coffee shop when their orders get mixed up. Numbers are exchanged, he doesn't wait three days to call, and their first date is a success. They make each other laugh. They make each other happy.
They date for two years. One day, in that very same coffee shop, he proposes to her. He tells her he wants to spend the rest of his life making her laugh. She says yes. A little over a year later, they have a spring wedding.
It's a gorgeous wedding.
He promises her the world. She promises him happily ever after.
Eventually, they have an army of little rugrats.
He's an engineer. She owns her own flower shop. They live in Southern California, near the beach. Their lives are hectic and busy, with work and kids, two dogs and a rabbit. One time, they forget their third child at home when they go on vacation and don't notice until they make their first gas station break, where there is a major freak-out among both parents. Another time, they forget their oldest son's birthday and he winds up running out of the house at midnight to go buy presents and party decorations while she jumps out of bed to go bake a cake. One Thanksgiving, the rabbit gets loose and the dog chases it through the house, up onto the dining room table and the turkey winds up being dragged away by the other dog while the cranberry sauce winds up splashed all over the littlest boy, who doesn't mind it all that much.
They spend every weekend at the beach, where she teaches the kids how to do a cartwheel and he plays soccer and builds sandcastles with them. The night before their children's birthdays, they stay up late and decorate the living room, blowing up balloons and wrapping presents, so the birthday boy or girl will have something just for them the morning of their birthday. He films Christmas morning and dance recitals and birthday parties and Easter egg hunts and the first day of school. She takes pictures of everything. Their daughters watch their wedding video over and over and over again.
Every night, no matter what, after the kids have gone to sleep, even if the house is a mess and the dishes need to be put away, even if they're fighting, or if there is no music, they dance together in the living room.
They are happy.
He dies in his sleep, at ninety three. When she dies less than a year later, in a hospital bed, surrounded by kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and even a great-great grandkid or two, no one is surprised. They were never meant to be apart in this world.
It's a good world. It's a good life.
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(2)
you're a ghost
In one life, Oliver is a good boyfriend.
Laurel gets on the boat with him.
Dean never gets the chance to meet Laurel in this life.
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(3)
the woods are lovely, dark and deep
and i have miles to go before i sleep
Laurel gets on the boat.
When it goes down, Oliver goes down with it. Robert Queen kills the captain and himself to save her. Laurel survives five years on a deserted island with Slade and Shado. They train her to survive. Shado teaches her how to shoot an arrow, Slade teaches her how to fight, and they both teach her that no matter how broken you may seem, healing is always possible. Laurel Lance never does come home. At least not the Laurel Lance that got on that boat with her boyfriend. She's Black Canary now. There is no going back.
In this same life, Sam dies in Cold Oak.
Sam dies in Dean's arms and in this cruel world, Dean can't bring him back. The Crossroads Demon turns down his offer and refuses to bring Sam back. Dean is warped by this, shattered into so many pieces that he can't ever glue them back together again. He cuts himself off from the people who love him - from Bobby, Ellen, Jo - and in an effort to find some kind of meaning, he carves himself into a whole different kind of weapon. And that demon war on the horizon? He stops it all by himself. Dean Winchester becomes a bedtime story. A warning.
They meet a year after she returns from the island, in Starling City.
Laurel has a sharp tongued, orphaned teenage girl living with her, Tommy has figured out her secret and refuses to let her do this on her own, despite the fact that he has very little combat skills and he's not an easy student, and Slade and Shado are living overseas, happy but worried about her and her crusade. Her father and Sara are still in the dark, although sometimes Laurel thinks Sara might know more than she lets on.
Dean has Charlie, who is incredibly excited about everything. She's really on there because she refuses to stop following him. Back in the beginning of their partnership (whenever he calls her a sidekick, she punches him in the throat), he kept trying to lose her, but she found him wherever he went, and she is flat out not intimidated or afraid of him at all, so he can't even pull a White Fang. Also, sometimes there's that stupidly sweet Southern vampire who also refuses to stay away.
Their bodies are covered with scars, but it's nothing compared to the scars on their hearts.
They meet for the first time on a rooftop, but the first time they see each other is two days earlier, in The Glades, when he takes out the four men that she was trying to interrogate. He's very adamant that he saved her life. She's very adamant that he was in her way. And then she chases him through the city.
''He was good,'' she tells Sin and Tommy, later that night. ''Especially at the rooftop jumping thing. He had gadgets.''
''We need more gadgets,'' Sin agrees.
''I recognized them,'' Laurel goes on. ''He's been spending time in Gotham.''
''Oh my god,'' Tommy moans. ''I fucking hate Batman. He's such a tool. And he's a baby. He's a whiny baby with muscles. You know who he reminds me of? Bruce Wayne. If there's anyone I hate more than Batman, it's Bruce Wayne.''
Laurel bites her lip and can't look him in the eye.
''Was he wearing a hood?'' Sin asks.
''...Yeah, how'd you - ''
Sin tosses a newspaper onto the table. ''Wild guess.''
Two days later, when Black Canary finally catches this new vigilante guy and subdues him long enough to pull the tacky hood off his face, the first thing she says is, ''Are you aware that the press is calling you the Red Hood?''
There's a pause before he says, ''That's a really stupid name,'' and then he twists her arm behind her back. ''What do they call you sweetheart?'' He asks, breath hot against her neck.
''Not sweetheart,'' she says, and flips him onto his back.
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(4)
tell me how ugly i am
but that you'll always love me
In one life, they are serial killers.
You don't want to know about that life.
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(5)
tell me there's some hope for me
i don't wanna be lonely
for the rest of my days on the earth
In a world where everything is normal, there are no monsters or boat accidents or substance abuse, they meet in a library.
She's in her final year of law school and she's there for a study session. Her phone is turned off - she doesn't have time to deal with Sara's latest crisis in her love life right now and she refuses to be the one Oliver and Tommy call when they need to be bailed out of jail -, her hair is pulled up into this sloppy bun held together by a pencil, and she's wearing her thick, black rimmed glasses. Naturally, because her life is extra awful and apparently the universe hates her, this is when the hottest guy in the universe approaches her to ask for a pen. She is painfully embarrassed by the way she stammers nervously and nearly falls off her chair before she hands him the pen.
The blushing awkwardness kind of dries up when she watches what he does next. And what he does next is sit at the far end of the table she's sitting at, put his feet up on the table like an asshole, and chew on her pen while he absently circles apartments for rent in a newspaper. It's the pen chewing that really gets her. She hates pen chewing. It is her number one pet peeve. The feet on the table is disrespectful and douchey, but the pen chewing. And it's not even his pen!
She sits there for five minutes, squirming in her seat, trying her best to study and not look at him, and then she kind of snaps. It's a combination of annoyance because fucking pen chewing and stress because fucking law school. She stands up, marches over to him and proceeds to go off on him for chewing on her pen. By the end of her somewhat hysterical rant, she's apologizing because she's very tired and she's trying to cut out caffeine but it's going so horribly and she just really hates pen chewing, okay, and he's staring up at her, pen still held between his teeth, beaming like she's the most amazing thing he's ever laid eyes on.
He tells her he'll buy her a new pen. And a cup of coffee.
It's the beginning of something extraordinary.
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(6)
if it makes you happy
Dean never leaves Lisa to go back to hunting. He loves Ben like his own. He has twin daughters with Lisa. They host barbeques and he's on the PTA. He never steps foot in Starling City.
In Starling City, Laurel chooses Tommy over Oliver. They get a puppy, they get engaged, they have a big wedding, they have one son, and they are happy.
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(7)
i want you to know you're the best part of me
In one of these lives, Dean is Sara's boyfriend, before.
They meet at a bar in The Glades. She's underage with a fake ID. He's the bartender who sees right through her. For some reason, they hit it off. He loves her. She does not love him. Not as much as she should.
Here's the thing: Dean is not a bad boy. He is a sweetheart who treats Sara like she put the stars in the sky. He helps Dinah carry in groceries and helps Quentin make dinner. But he is rough around the edges, all leather jackets and ripped jeans, drives a muscle car, works and lives in the worst part of town, and speaks gruffly, sometimes without proper grammar. Plus, he's older. Six years older. And so Sara uses him as her bad boy phase. He is her number one weapon in her constant quest to get a rise out of her family.
It works, too. Quentin hates Dean and treats him accordingly. Dean takes this with the ease of a man who is used to being treated like shit. Dinah is never fully comfortably around him, tiptoeing her way through conversations with him awkwardly. He accepts this without complaint and doesn't try to suck up to her.
Laurel never once treats him like he is less than her, because she doesn't believe he is.
Dean quotes Charles Bukowski and The Odyssey. He knows the law. He knows the law like a law student knows the law. He built a car once. No, seriously, he built a car once. Dean Winchester is a literature savvy ex-law student who works two jobs, one as a bartender and one as a mechanic, so he can help put his brother through Stanford. He lives in the roughest part of town because that's where the alcoholic, emotionally abusive father he just can't seem to break free of lives.
At dinner, while Sara is texting, Quentin is glaring and Dinah is uncomfortable, Laurel is the one who engages Dean in friendly conversation. They get into a spirited debate about Vonnegut, whether or not The Great Gatsby is overrated, and the first amendment.
The truth is... Laurel worries about Dean. Sara cares about him, that much is obvious, but she doesn't love him. She doesn't treat him the way he deserves to be treated. Laurel is so worried about Dean being Sara's doormat that she fails to realize she has become Oliver's doormat.
When the Queen's Gambit goes down, taking Oliver and Sara with it, Dean and Laurel are left alone with grief, betrayal...
...and each other.
Five years later, after his miraculous return, Oliver Queen is left hiding in a fire escape, watching the love of his life laugh comfortably with her best friend, Detective (and that particular plot twist is going to be a major pain in the ass for Oliver, he can already tell) Dean Winchester as they debate over what to get for dinner.
It's unexpected.
It really shouldn't be.
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(8)
put on the suit. let's go a few rounds
In one very different life, they're Marvel instead of DC and CW.
And Dean sings America, the Beautiful whenever she enters a room.
This is not at all what Laurel expected her life would be like when she was younger, growing up in Brooklyn with Sara, a weak little thing with asthma. And it's not just the superhero thing either. She's gotten used to that. It's the whole engaged to Iron Man thing. It's the whole engaged to Mary Winchester's son thing. This isn't what she thought would happen.
But then Dean will look at her, just...look at her. During family movie night, in the middle of a briefing, while he's tinkering with whatever he's working on in his workshop, and she'll just...know. Despite his arrogance and his sometimes overtly mean jokes, despite his recklessness and the fact that he thinks she's too soft sometimes, too nice, Dean is a good man and Laurel is supposed to be here. She is supposed to be right here, in this time, with him.
This is not what she expected from life. It's far better.
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(9)
i heard that you like the bad girls, honey, is that true?
There's one world where Dean is the lawyer and Laurel is the hunter.
He runs a legal aid office with his best friend, Castiel, he has a complicated, tense relationship with his ADA younger brother, an even more complicated relationship with his Police Chief mother, a totally non-existent relationship with his flighty, absentee father, and he has this nasty habit of, like, getting kidnapped by people who want to use him as bait for the vigilante. Which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Just because he's helped her a few times and maaaybe, at one point, had a little bit of a crush on her doesn't mean they have some sort of epic love or anything. He doesn't even know who she is. I mean, there was this brief period where Bela was suspected because the vigilante did happen to show up right as she returned home, but honestly, Bela Talbot a hero? Please.
You know, just once, Dean would like to have a relationship that isn't complicated.
She's the righteous woman. And her life sucks. When she and Sara were kids, their father died under freaky circumstances and their mother raised them to be warrior women. This is great and all. All women should be warriors. She knows the world needs people like her. But it's kind of a lonely life. She has died more times than she can count, as has Sara, they're apparently the only ones responsible for saving a world that continues to do nothing but step on them, and ever since Tommy died, their only sidekick is Helena, who, yes, is a badass angel, but she's also really prickly and hard to have a conversation with. All Laurel really wants is a normal life. She wants to take a break from apocalypses and angels and demons and running through Purgatory for a year ruining her new leather jacket with John Diggle, the sweetest vampire.
The closest she ever got to that was the year she spent with Oliver and his son, Connor, after Sara pulled a Buffy and did a swan dive into Hell to save the world, and she knew that wouldn't last.
Their paths aren't meant to cross in this life. It's not written down. It's not fate.
Laurel has never been much for fate or what is written.
Somehow, some way, they still fall in love.
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(10)
you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
In one life, they meet in AA.
He needs a sponsor.
She takes a chance.
It's not a conventional love story in any way whatsoever, and it's never easy, but it works for them. They are each other's light in the darkness.
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(11)
i see nothing worse than to sail this world without you
Dean is a nomadic hunter.
Laurel is a lawyer in Starling City.
They still meet. They still fall in love.
They're together for about five years. She runs Birds of Prey (a legitimate business, thank you very much) with Helena and Sara. He works at a garage in downtown Starling City and is mostly retired from hunting. They have a real life together. They have a fucking puppy, for goodness sake. They're happy. He is finally getting his chance at a normal life, aside from when he helps her out with her night time activities every now and then. She is finally getting her chance to be the hero we all know she can be. It's like living a dream.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Somewhere, deep down inside, he is always waiting to wake up and be right back where he was five years ago, stuck inside a living nightmare. They both spend so much time preparing for the worst. But that's the thing about life, you see. No matter how much time you spend preparing for the worst -
- you are never prepared.
The Birds have enemies. That's just one of the risks of being a vigilante. Moves have been made against them before. But they're always one step ahead of the villains. Badass ladies get shit done, you know? In the years since the Birds have been active, they have taken down twice the amount of wrongdoers than Team Arrow did in two years. So, yes, of course they have enemies.
One night, one of those enemies decides to make a move.
They're in the clock tower for a meeting. Everyone's there. Laurel, Helena, Sara, Dean, Sin, Tommy and Quentin. Nothing really major is going on in the city right now, so it's a relatively relaxed meeting. They've got Team Arrow on speakerphone and Helena and Oliver are bickering quite viciously, which Tommy says is foreplay. Dean and Laurel are trying to find the time in their schedules to go visit Sam and Amelia in Texas.
Laurel is standing in front of the window, trying to figure out if taking a vacation in July is doable or if August would be better.
Everyone is busy with their own thing. Nobody sees the flash of the sniper rifle on the rooftop of the building across the street. Nobody except Dean. He spins Laurel around just in time to take the bullet for her. He's taller than her, the intended target, so the bullet misses his heart. This is not a good thing.
It just means he has a few minutes to choke on his blood before he dies in her arms.
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(12)
all that is beautiful
but born to die
Everything is the same as in #11, except for one major difference.
Dean doesn't notice the glint on the rooftop across the street.
There is a split second of confusion after the initial gunshot and Laurel's startled sounding gasp, someone starts to say what the hell was that, and Dean is watching red spread across his wife's chest.
The bullet hits her heart.
She's dead before she hits the ground.
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(13)
i'm the blade
you're the knife
In one life, Dean is a hunter and Laurel is a lawyer, and they meet and they fall in love.
But they can't make it work. They try. They're together for two years. They're in love, but they love too much and they drink too much and it's all just too much.
They love each other; they do, but sometimes love is not enough.
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(14)
i grow old and i forget your name
He is born too early in one life.
She only finds out when she is eighteen years old and she has to do a history project on a World War II soldier. That's how she learns about Dean Winchester, an American soldier who fought in World War II. He's in a history book she finds in her father's study. When she decides to do her project on him, she's really only thinking about how this is fifty percent of her final grade for history and how she better do a damn good job. Naturally, because she is Laurel Lance and she always does 500% on her school work, she winds up getting in far too deep with Mr. Winchester. She spends months working on the project, learning everything she can about him, falling headfirst into the life he lived, educating herself not only on what he did in the war but who he was as a person and the life he lived after the war. She even gets in touch with his family. She talks with his granddaughter through e-mail and is eventually contacted by his oldest child, Ben. Ben is a sweet, kind man and this soft, fragile kind of pride drips from every word when he talks about his father. He sounds grateful that the world hasn't forgotten about his father, the hero. He is quick to agree to help.
He sends her a box full of information. There are pictures, copies of love letters sent from Dean to his wife and her responses on paper that still smells faintly of lilac, letters for Laurel, written in neat handwriting all about the life Dean lived after the war, signed by his daughter. Laurel spends almost all of her free time learning about the handsome man in the pictures, with the eye crinkles and the toothy smile, and it's entirely possible that, at some point, she may develop something of a crush.
It's hard not to. He sounds like a great man.
Dean survived the war, she learns this. He survived and he went home a hero. His best friend, Castiel, the man standing beside him in the picture, arm slung around Dean's shoulders, came home in a body bag. Dean never got over this.
He married twice. His first marriage was to Lisa Braeden. They were only married for about five months before he enlisted, leaving her pregnant and alone while he went off to go fight. She died in childbirth. His second marriage, to a woman named Lydia, lasted ten years and produced a daughter, but ended in a bitter divorce. Emma, his daughter, tells Laurel that the marriage didn't last because Dean never got over his first wife. He never forgave himself for not being there when she was pregnant and when she died. Laurel is not surprised by this. She has copies of the correspondence between Dean and Lisa. When Lisa told him she was pregnant through a letter, his response was that he would do anything it took to get home to her. She had to beg him, in her next letter, not to go AWOL, promising him that she would be fine and that he was needed more where he was. A few months later, Lisa's mother wrote Dean to tell him that Lisa had passed away but that he had a son.
Laurel researches Dean until she feels like she knows him. She knows how he would react to things, she knows how he would speak, how he would stand, she knows his sense of humor, his unflinching loyalty, and she knows how deep he loves. She knows he was a devoted father, a loving brother, and she knows that he worshipped the ground his first wife walked on and tried so hard to love his second wife the same way but couldn't quite manage it. She immerses herself in Dean's life so thoroughly that people begin to worry about her. Oliver doesn't like any of this because Oliver is jealous, Sara straight up tells her that she has ''lost her fucking mind,'' and her father thinks she needs therapy. The only people who aren't worried about her are Tommy and her mother. Her mother says that she has ''an extreme amount of heart and an endless curiosity'' and that it's not anything to be worried about. ''Your heart is a gift,'' she is told.
Then, one day, during a phone call with Ben Winchester, he asks her, hesitantly, ''Would you like to meet him?'' She nearly drops the phone. Perhaps this is a gross oversight on her part but she hadn't actually been aware that he was still alive. ''Because he'd sure like to meet you.''
''He knows my name,'' Laurel tells Sara, later, while her mother is talking to Ben and her father is trying to argue that this is not a good idea.
Sara says, ''You need help. Seriously, you need for real help, Laurel. You're falling in love with an eighty year old man. I am legitimately terrified for your mental health.''
''...He's ninety one, actually. And I'm not in love with him. I admire him.''
''No, Laurel,'' Sara says, and her voice is quiet this time, completely serious. ''You're falling in love with him. You think I don't know what you look like when you're falling in love? It's how you used to look whenever you talked about Oliver.'' She drops her nail file onto the table. ''What do you think is going to happen if you go see this guy? You think he's going to be the same young, hot dude in the pictures? You think he's gonna be your Prince Charming? And even if by some disgusting miracle he does magically fall in love with you, he's still going to be ninety one years old and you're still going to be eighteen.'' She shakes her head. ''Don't do this, Laurel. Don't meet this guy. I think it's a bad idea.''
Stubborn as ever, Laurel ducks her head down and goes back to studying for the SATs. ''Lucky for me,'' she mumbles, ''I don't care what you think.''
Sara stands, growls out, ''Those love letters weren't for you, Laurel. You're not Lisa.'' And then she spins on her heel and storms out of the room.
It's really only when she breaks up with Oliver before she leaves that she begins to think maybe there is something wrong with her.
When she meets Dean Winchester, he is no longer the young, handsome hero from the pictures. He is an old man now and he's fading slowly, life draining out of his eyes bit by bit, day by day, mind warped and mangled by Alzheimer's. He doesn't recognize his own children and can't remember his own name, but he remembers that he loves Lisa Braeden, and he remembers that he is sorry, that he is so very sorry. When he sees Laurel, young and beautiful, he thinks she is Lisa.
It's a truly ridiculous thought, but when she holds his shaking hands and pretends to be Lisa for him, she begins to wonder if, maybe, in some past life, she was Lisa Braeden.
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(15)
until you're here
i'm only wasting time
In one life, Dean the hunter meets Laurel the lawyer outside a coffee shop in downtown Starling City while they are both between cases.
She's on her way in, he's on his way out, and they bump into each other. She loses her purse and the contents spill everywhere, lipsticks rolling away down the sidewalk, the screen of her phone cracking upon impact. His coffee is spilt all over his shirt and he starts cursing almost immediately, hissing at the onslaught of burning liquid. She apologizes profusely, cheeks reddening, but he waves it off with a small, tired smile and picks up her things for her. They buy each other a coffee and then they walk away.
She turns around once, just once, to watch him walk away. So does he.
They never see each other again.
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(16)
love me like fireworks
They go to high school together, and Dean asks Laurel out before Oliver even has a chance to think about whether or not he likes that Lance girl.
Years later, when the Queen's Gambit goes down, she hears about it on the news. Laurel thanks God that Sara broke up with Oliver Queen when she did. She doesn't know what she would have done if Sara had been the one on that boat.
From the kitchen, Dean calls out, asking her what she wants for dinner.
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(17)
keep the nightmares out
give me mouth to mouth
Sara dies in one life.
There is no second chance. There is no miraculous return. There is only the tragedy of a young life cut short and a family left alone to deal with that grief in the only way they know how.
A few months later, while Laurel is trying to bury her grief, her anger, and her heartache in the law, strange things start happening. It starts with lights flickering in her apartment, so she replaces the light bulbs and goes back to studying. But things get worse. No matter how many times she changes the light bulbs, the lights keep flickering and the electrician she hires can't find a reason for it. She keeps losing things and finding them in the strangest places. Her furniture is completely rearranged when she wakes up one morning. And...
And then there's Sara. For awhile, Laurel is able to shrug it off as stress and grief, but she keeps seeing her everywhere. She's in her class, in her apartment, at the precinct when she goes to see her father during lunch hours, across the street when she gets home. Sara is everywhere. She's in Laurel's head. She's in her heart, in her bones, in her soul. Just flashes of her. Fragments. Pieces left behind.
Laurel is losing her mind. She's sure of it. It's the only explanation. She makes an appointment with a therapist and tries her best to keep it from her parents. They find out anyway and when they ask her about it, she has no choice but to tell them the truth. When she tells them that she's been seeing Sara, her mother drops her mug of tea and her father pales drastically.
Apparently it's not just her.
Dean and Sam Winchester, called in to investigate by an old friend of Dinah Lance's, are pretty sure the Lance family has a ghost problem.
Laurel is honestly hoping that there's a gas leak and they're all just really sick and hallucinating or something. This whole thing is ridiculous. They're just grieving. Sometimes crazy things happen when you're grieving. Sometimes you see dead people because you're sad, not because there are ghosts. Ghosts aren't real. Which is exactly what she tells them, standing on her tip toes, with her hands on her hips, glaring up at Dean with narrowed eyes (damn them for giving her parents false hope that they will somehow see Sara again), right before the lights flicker and Sara's water logged corpse appears behind his shoulder.
It's not an extremely eventful case for Dean and Sam. Turns out, Sara just needed to apologize to her family before she moved on. Especially Laurel. It's nice, to be honest. It's good. The experience saves Dinah and Quentin's marriage, and it gives Laurel at least a little bit of closure.
It also changes the entire course of history.
Before Dean and Sam leave town, Laurel makes them sit down with her and tell her what's real in this world. Dean doesn't want to tell her, but Sam is quiet, calm and matter-of-fact about it, which definitely helps keep her from hyperventilating. Ghosts are real. Monsters are real. Demons, vampires, werewolves, fucking ghouls, they're all real.
Is she just supposed to ignore this? Is she supposed to ignore the fact that there is a war going on out there, or that any case in the system could be supernatural? Is she supposed to go back to her normal life after this? Because she's not sure how that's possible now.
Years later, Laurel is in Lebanon, Kansas when she gets the phone call.
She's sitting in the library of the Men of Letters bunker, perched on the sturdy wooden table, doing inventory. Her hair is still wet from the shower, she's wearing one of Dean's shirts, and she's got one eye trained on Dean and Sam, because they're currently having a sword fight with real swords and she's fully aware that if she doesn't watch them, there will be blood. Cas, feet up on the table, is talking to a downright giddy Bobby, who can't wait to get his hands on all of the books, and he looks embarrassed just being in the same room as the two grown men having a sword fight. (She doesn't blame him, really. She's not positive, but she thinks Dean and Sam might also be pretending they're pirates.)
Laurel is in a good mood.
There is a scar above her eyebrow, given to her by Crowley two years ago right before she killed him, and her left pinky finger never quite healed right from that incident with the werewolf in Purgatory, but she's still alive and kicking, and she's a damn good hunter. She's smart, she's quick, she's efficient, and she's a woman, which means they don't expect her. They never see her coming. Crowley sure didn't. She gets results and she gets them fast. She is good at what she does.
She has just pulled an ancient porn magazine from the 50's out of a box (there really needs to be more women hunters, honestly, the sexism in this business is just out of control; Jody agrees with her) and wrinkled her nose when her phone buzzes in her pocket. It's her mother.
''Oliver Queen is alive,'' Dinah says, all in one rushed breath.
Laurel debates whether or not to go home for three days before she decides she's not going back to Starling City. She doesn't really need to see Oliver. Besides, that's not her life anymore. This - hidden bunkers, monsters and magic, Winchesters and Singers, angels and demons - is her life now.
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(18)
cosy in the rocket
In one life, they're both trauma surgeons who terrify interns and frequently make out in on call rooms.
That life is a good one.
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(19)
i want you to tell me all the ways you've been unkind
One night, when she is twenty, she is walking home in the dark, when this cloud of this black smoke rushes at her, forces itself down her throat, and Laurel gets so lost for so long.
Ruby dyes her hair.
She buys her a new wardrobe with Oliver's credit card. She tells her that she needs her help to save the world. Laurel knows it's a lie. Somewhere inside, she knows it's a lie. Ruby is bitter and angry and broken and seductive, and Laurel wants to badly to believe that she is good. There are moments, short little moments, where she actually does believe in Ruby. Where she actually does believe that her body is being used for something heroic. But Ruby is not the hero of this story. Laurel can feel that.
Dean and Sam Winchester aren't either.
She thinks they might save the world one day. But they don't even try to save her. She tries, you know. She tries so hard to scream for help when she meets them. She tries everything. She tries gaining control of an arm, a foot, her tongue. She tries to write a note. Once, for a second, she gains enough control to grasp desperately at Dean's arm before Ruby squashes her down. The Winchester brothers don't help her. They can't hear her, they can't hear her screaming and pleading with them to help her, and even though they damn well know there's an innocent girl trapped inside, they do nothing to help her.
Nothing.
They are only heroes when they feel like it.
About a year after Ruby takes her, Laurel wakes up on the blood stained floor of the house in Pontiac, Illinois where Dean was ripped to shreds, bloody and blonde and alone.
Her head is quiet.
Years later, Dean and Sam find their way into Starling City.
The first thing they do when they see her is try to kill her. She supposes she can understand this. All they see when they look at her is the woman who screwed them over. But you know what? All she sees when she looks at them is the men who failed her. And she is not helpless anymore. Her body is hers, her head is still quiet, and Laurel has changed. She is the Black Canary. She turned herself into a weapon because of Ruby, because of these stupid, foolish boys.
She wins the fight.
With Dean down on his knees in front of her, the tip of Ruby's knife pressed against his neck, Laurel says, softly, ''Tell me you're sorry. Tell me you're sorry you failed me.''
He swallows. ''I'm sorry.'' His voice is deeper than it was back when Ruby knew him, gruffer and harder, and yet there's a certain sort of softness to it that wasn't there before. He sounds genuinely sorry. It's not enough. ''Laurel,'' he meets her eyes. ''I'm sorry.'' Nothing will ever be enough.
She narrows her eyes. She considers him carefully. She hasn't asked how he's alive. She doesn't much care, to be honest. She pulls the knife back and watches as he lets out a breath. ''I'm not a killer,'' she says, voice just as quiet as his. ''I'm not her, Dean,'' she shakes her head. ''I don't know if you want me to be. But I'm not. I will never be her. Now,'' she places the knife back in his hand and steps away from him. ''Get out of my city.''
There's really no chance of love in this universe.
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(20)
she broke your throne, and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah
There's one universe out there where Laurel Lance is dead. She's been dead for awhile now. She committed suicide years ago, after the boat went down. She was drunk, betrayed, angry, grieving, and depressed, and she saw no way out. She didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. She didn't see a chance for happiness. And she just wanted some peace and quiet. She just wanted it to stop.
So she jumped off a bridge, into frigid water.
No one knows this, of course.
After all, she may not be the real Laurel Lance, but Ruby thinks she has done a damn good job of pretending for the past several years.
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(21)
ready for those flashing lights
In one life, they're actors on a procedural crime dramedy. It's the highest rated show on the network right now. He plays the straight-laced, dry witted detective, she plays his free spirited yet brilliant psychic consultant. Kind of the exact opposite of who they are in real life. In real life, she's way more down to earth and spends a lot of time being a grown up while he has his head permanently in the clouds and spends a lot of time doing insanely wacky sitcom-ish things. People love this apparently. Their characters have had a will they/won't they thing going on for about three seasons now.
Fans of the show are convinced that the two stars are secretly dating because of behind the scenes pictures, twitter flirtations, and they way they look at each other in interviews. Some of them have written startlingly in depth essays about the body language between the two at red carpet events. They went to the Emmys together one year and presented an award and it was gifed from every angle. Someone photoshopped flower crowns on their heads in one picture on tumblr. Fans have a ship name for them. Lanchester. Dean thinks this is the most horrible thing he has ever heard. Laurel thinks it's hilarious. Their co-star, Tommy, refuses to call them anything else whenever they're together. There's even fanfiction about them out there on the internet. Not their characters. Them. RPF. Dean thinks this is fucking fantastic (''and also, informative''). Laurel thinks it's a little intrusive but creative.
Let's be honest: The fans are not wrong.
When they do officially come out as a couple, before their characters even get together, they break both Twitter and Tumblr.
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(22)
you were a kindness
when i was a stranger
Laurel decides to become a teacher instead of a lawyer.
She moves out of Starling City and gets a job at a high school in Michigan. Kevin Tran is her best student.
When he gets pulled into the supernatural world, she does too.
Technically, she could leave. She is not a prophet of God. She has no destiny. She does not have to be here. She is told that many times. Kevin tells her in the beginning, Sam tells while he's stitching her arm up, and Dean tells her many times, most notably after they get back from Purgatory and he begs her to stay away and have a nice, safe normal life. She doesn't listen.
She should have.
Instead of leaving, instead of going back to her normal, safe life, she promises Kevin's mother that she'll always be there to look out for him, and she seals her fate.
She and Dean spend far too long dancing around each other, flirting, touching, and there are so many close calls. While they were alone together in Purgatory, trapped in darkness, with only each other, loneliness clouding their judgment. During the trials, while Sam was sick, when Dean paced and ranted to her and she just wrapped her arms around him and didn't let go. After Castiel, brainwashed, beat Dean to a bloody pulp and Laurel saved his life. Finally, shortly after Charlie leaves for Oz with Dorothy, and after Dean has told her about Zeke, she kisses him.
They could die any day. They could die any second. She doesn't want to waste time.
A couple months later, when Ezekiel (not Ezekiel, as they will learn, his name is Gadreel) goes after Kevin Tran, Laurel shoves him out of the way.
Dean watches his brother's hands kill the woman he loves.
A few months later, he follows her into death.
This is not a happy life.
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(23)
i have saved all my ribbons for me
Dean and Laurel meet, they fall in love, they get married, and they have a baby boy.
He is an ex-hunter who has found a home and a family. He works mostly in the command center for the Birds of Prey organization. Occasionally, he does field work. Extraction and such. She is an ex-lawyer who wears leather, a wig and a mask at night. She is almost always in the field.
One night, during a rare occasion where Dean is needed in the field to extract Helena from a potentially dangerous undercover operation, something goes wrong.
He wakes up in the hospital three days later.
Laurel is at home when she gets the call. She has spent every second at Dean's bedside, but today her father and Sam forced her to go home, eat something, shower and spend some time with her son. It figures he would wake up when she wasn't there. Turns out, it was probably for the best.
When she bursts into Dean's hospital room, after ignoring Sam and Sara's yelped protests, Dean is sitting up in the hospital bed. He doesn't look like himself. There's something oddly cheerful about him. Something...child-like. Something unbroken. He looks weightless. Her husband has never been weightless. Whatever it is, it makes her stop in her tracks. When he sees her standing there, breathless in the doorway, his eyes light up. ''Hi!'' He greets her, and waves.
She takes a step back. That's not Dean.
He grins at her and says, cheerfully, ''Do I know you?''
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(24)
i see the man is mad with love
In one terrifying, bitter, sad world, Dean is branded with the Mark of Cain.
And Laurel is his Colette.
Make of this what you will.
Maybe this means nothing. Maybe she tries to be there for him. Maybe she tries to pick up the shattered pieces as he spirals, as the Mark begins to control him like the alcohol used to control him. Maybe she can't save him. Maybe, one night, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, when he wants to stop but he can't stop, he snaps and, without even realizing what he's doing, his fingers wrap around her neck and he squeezes.
Now, maybe she is strong enough to fight him off long enough to get away. The question is: would she? The man she loves is standing in front of her, in dire need of help, and he's dangerous, yes, but she's stubborn.
Would she leave him?
Then again, maybe she's not strong enough to fight him off. Maybe she tries, fingernails scratching at his wrists and his eyes, gasping and gagging, trying to breathe, trying to get through to Dean: the Man instead of Dean: the New Cain. And maybe she fails.
Maybe Dean is able to fight it, swimming against the tide, just long enough to realize what he's doing and stop. Maybe he is able to stop, just long enough to tell her to run. Or maybe he's not.
Maybe she can save him. Maybe the thing that saves them all, just this once, this one time, is the simple power of human love. Maybe her presence beside him, her loyalty and her love, is enough to stabilize him. Maybe she reverses the effects of the Mark just by being with him. Maybe she is an antidote.
Maybe, one night, while he is drinking instead of sleeping, pacing and tearing out his hair with shaking hands because he feels like there are bugs crawling under his skin, she drifts out into the library and watches him. He doesn't see her. He is far too busy trying to ignore the erratic pounding of his heart, the harshness of his breaths, and the way his entire body feels electrified with rage. She only approaches him when he collapses on the ground, leaning against the wall, staring down at his trembling hands with a clenched jaw.
She crouches down in front of him and closes her hands around his shaking hands. She is wearing white; this flowing, white silk nightgown and her hair is curled. She looks so angelic, so perfect, that even the sight of her helps ease the persistent ache in his chest. Maybe, when she brings her hand to his face and he leans into her touch like he's starved, it will be enough to heal him.
One of these things happens in this world.
Choose your own adventure.
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(25)
if you fall asleep down by the water
baby, i'll carry you all the way home
There's a world out there where Dean and Laurel are in love.
Maybe things aren't always happy, maybe life is still rough for them, maybe they're still broken down and battle weary, but they're together, and they're in love.
And that's enough.
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.
.
(and one they did)
you want a better story.
who wouldn't?
In this world, Dean Winchester is a hunter. Laurel Lance is a lawyer. He was born in Lawrence, Kansas, but his home is the road and a car and his brother. She was born in Starling City and she never leaves, even though sometimes she itches to run.
He saves the world she lives in more than once. She wins cases.
One day, he will die. It will be bloody and final and he will be too young. One day, she will become a superhero. It will not be the life she planned, but she will be damn good at it.
Their paths cross once, maybe twice. Maybe their shoulders brush as they pass each other on the street when Dean and Sam stop in Starling City for coffee on their way to a case. He'll look back, but he'll only catch a head of dark hair walking away from him. She'll pause and turn her head, but he'll be crossing the street.
They will never meet.
There is an ache that never goes away, in their hearts, in their heads, in their guts; there's a chasm inside that they can't fill. Neither of them will ever realize what it is that they're missing, just that they miss something.
Happiness is not allowed here.
All these lives, all these ways to fall in love, and this is the world they are stuck in.
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- shut up.
i'm getting to it.
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end
Main title from the song ''Where Did You Sleep Last Night?'' originally by Lead Belly, although I prefer the Nirvana version.
Poetry excerpts at the beginning and end from the poem ''Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out'' by Richard Siken.
but i do know that i love you
and i know that if you love me too
what a wonderful world this would be
- from the song ''(What a) Wonderful World'' by Sam Cooke
you're a ghost
- from the song ''Ghost'' by Sir Sly
the woods are lovely, dark and deep
and i have miles to go before i sleep
- from the poem ''Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'' by Robert Frost
tell me how ugly i am
but that you'll always love me
- from the song ''Love the Way You Lie Part II'' by Rihanna ft. Eminem
tell me there's some hope for me
i don't wanna be lonely
for the rest of my days on the earth
- from the song ''Perfect Situation'' by Weezer
if it makes you happy
- from the song of the same name by Sheryl Crow
i want you to know you're the best part of me
- from the song ''Best Part of Me'' by St. Leonards
put on the suit. let's go a few rounds
- a quote from The Avengers (2012), said by Steve Rogers to Tony Stark
i heard that you like the bad girls, honey, is that true?
- from the song ''Video Games'' by Lana Del Rey
you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
- from the song ''Somebody That I Used to Know'' by Goyte
i see nothing worse than to sail this world without you
- from the song ''We Are Stars'' by The Pierces
all that is beautiful
but born to die
- from a poem by Dylan Thomas (I can't seem to find the name of the poem)
i'm the blade
you're the knife
- from the song ''Breathing Underwater'' by Metric
i grow old and i forget your name
- from the poem ''Mad Girl's Love Song'' by Sylvia Plath
until you're here
i'm only wasting time
- from the song ''Hurricane'' by Midnight Cinema
love me like fireworks
- from the song ''Catch My Disease'' by Ben Lee
keep the nightmares out
give me mouth to mouth
- from the song ''Home'' by Daughter
cosy in the rocket
- from the song of the same name by Psapp (aka the old Grey's Anatomy theme song)
i want you to tell me all the ways you've been unkind
- from the poem ''Asking Too Much'' by Andrea Gibson
she broke your throne, and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah
- from the song ''Hallelujah'' by Leonard Cohen
ready for those flashing lights
- from the song ''Paparazzi'' by Lady Gaga
you were a kindness
when i was a stranger
- from the song ''You Were a Kindness'' by The National
i have saved all my ribbons for me
- from the song ''Bird on a Wire'' by Leonard Cohen
i see the man is mad with love
- i can't remember where this is from. it's something that has stuck with me for years. i think it's from a poem by Dylan Thomas
if you fall asleep down by the water
baby, i'll carry you all the way home
- from the song ''Down by the Water'' by The Drums
left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
you want a better story. who wouldn't?
- from the poem ''Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out'' by Richard Siken