Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There is also mentions of injuries to a child, callous regard from immortal beings, and then reference to an implied character death that's only sort of onscreen. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: Tell me honestly, did anyone really expect this chapter to not have the Character Death warning?

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4); Whumptober 2021
Individual Challenges: The Real MC (Y); In a Flash; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Old Shoes (Y); Old Shoes; Above Average Natural; Zed Era; Magical MC; Gryffindor MC; Hunter MC; Best Stories (Y); La Vie Boheme; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Rian-Russo Inversion; Ethnic & Present; Immortal MC; Immortal MC; Claimed; Hold the Mayo; Endings
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 08
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [284](Tragedy)
Other Challenges: Whumptober [D03] ("Who did this to you?")
Other MC4A Challenges: Chim [Alcium] (Crimson; Hurt/Comfort; Life/Death); Fire [x3](Into the Multiverse; We Angelic Beings; Jam It Janet); Garden [Meteorology (Polar Vortex)]; Hang [Phrase 03] (Outside Challenge/Competition)
Representation(s): Desi Harry Potter; Team Free Will as Fam; Tessa; Raphael
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Bad Beans; Morrigan's Tentacles; Shiver & Shake; Call Me Dantes; Forked Path; Sitting Hummingbird; Some Beach; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Found Family; Nontraditional; Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Lovely Coconuts; Grease Monkey; Lyre Liar; Most Human Bean; Muck & Slime; Rock of Ages; Hot Apple); Chorus (Wabi Sabi; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Eternal Boredom; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Creature Feature; Wind Beneath; Abandoned Ship; Head of Perseus; In the Trench; Surprise!; Turtle-Duck)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: TY (Enfant; Kulonbozo; Ntaiv); War (Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); Mea (Ennui; Rampant); Wings (Scintillate)
Word Count: 840 words

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Needs and Wants
Chapter 14: Reaper
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Dean watched as Tessa walked closer to them. Her practical flats made quiet slaps against the pavement that sound supernaturally loud in the sudden silence that descended upon them. Her black eyes reflected the lightning streaking the sky above their pocket of dryness. Even still, they were like staring into the eyes of Death all over again. He could almost feel the same weight in the air that he felt sitting across from the entity in that pizzeria in Chicago.

"Dean," she greeted as she crouched down beside them. Dean's arms instinctively tightened around Harry's bleeding form. The kid's glasses pressed sharply into Dean's chest at the angle, and it was a bit ridiculous to act like Dean could do anything against the reaper even if she wasn't just as protective over the kid. Luckily, Tessa smiled briefly at Dean's attempt before she turned her dark gaze towards the kid and any trace of being pleased disappeared under a careful mask of blankness. Careful of the many cuts littering Harry's skin, she used two fingers Harry's chin to turn his face towards her. Harry shivered at the touch. "Who did this to you?"

Harry didn't answer. Instead he seemed to almost shrink in Dean's arm. Something like ice ripped through Dean at how quiet the kid was being, despite the pain he had to be in. A voice that sounded a lot his father whispered triumphant about how strong Harry must be to withstand the torment. Something a lot like his mother screamed about how wrong it was that someone so young could do that, never mind that Dean himself would have been able to do the same thing by Harry's age. They weren't the same. Harry was just a kid.

"Shh," Tessa whispered as if Harry had made any kind of sound. She pressed a kiss to the pale white scar that cut through Harry's brown skin at the center of his forehead. Harry shivered again. "I'll take care of this."

Rocking back on her heels, Tessa rose back to her feet. Dean pulled himself and Harry closer to the Impala. With his back now braced against the car, Dean could watch as Tessa walked towards the archangel who still hadn't moved. Her crimson cardigan flapped in a breeze that should not exist with whatever freaky weather barrier Raphael had up.

"You should not be here, reaper," Raphael said. He had folded his hands in front of him like he didn't have a care in the world, as if the tiny woman in front of him was just a woman or lesser angel who posed no possible threat to him. "It is not your place to intervene."

"You are mistaken," Tessa corrected. Her tone was similar to how the counselor at the last high school Dean had bothered attending had sounded as he explained why Dean shouldn't bother applying to any kind of college or even a trade school. By some flash of intuition, Dean didn't think Raphael was going just storm off at the end of the conversation, though. "Reapers have let you angels and demons make your little deals and go about your business, just as we have the fairies and the orisha and all of the gods. Death does not care about such things. Death always gets what Death is due."

"Exactly," Raphael agreed. "Which is why you should—"

"I wasn't finished," Tessa interrupted, with a sharp gesture of her hand to emphasize the point. "You have overstepped your bounds, archangel. Heaven and Hell were given their allotments by Destiny. Taking more is theft."

"More souls wouldn't be needed if the Winchesters would play their parts," Raphael argued. His dark eyes flashed like the lightning above them. His voice was as deep and rumbling as the thunder that followed. "Apocalypses do not fuel themselves! Culling the humans of a few individuals is harmless. Besides, Dean Winchester could have ended the boy's suffering with a single word."

"Free will is such an irritable trait, is it not?" Tessa said calmly, sounding only vaguely as if she was agreeing with Raphael. Her arms rose from her sides. "You still cannot take more than what was negotiated for. Death is fair. Death does not care about status or power. Death always comes just the same."

The temperature in area dropped suddenly. Dean's breath came out in a fog in front of his face, obscuring his sight for a moment. He could feel frost spreading over the metal body of the Impala next to him. On the other side of the vapor cloud before him, he heard something wet being torn apart. A scent that was sickeningly similar to the warehouse where Castiel turned himself into a bomb hit Dean like a baseball bat to the skull. Harry finally made a sound, a low whimper that sounded like it had escaped without permission.

The weather returned to what was expected for a July night in South Dakota.

Dean's stomach clenched when he saw only Tessa in front of him.

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To Be Continued
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