#also til that yes man has two different shaped hands

[hiramaris]

Dusk til Dawn

Part 2

Summary: Following Episode 9. And spoilers for Episode 10. 

Author’s note: As Episode 10 is just released I just want to say heads up for those who are not yet finished. Completing the game without spoilers really made a difference, and as much as possible I want everyone to experience that. And for those finished, I’ll gladly welcome you to my domain where MC took a different route.

Disclaimer:  I do not own Duskwood or any of the related characters. Duskwood is created by and owned by Everbyte Studio. This fanfiction is intended for entertainment only. I am not making any profit from this story. All rights of the original Duskwood story belong to Everbyte Studio.

Warning: Mentions of blood, suicide, violence, pedophiles, drugs, gun, murder, sex offenders, kidnapping

Gif by @Vivi_ZSC  

Every step you take feels quite heavy, but not in a way that makes it sounds bad. The nerves were getting to you, and it wasn't a feeling you were used to. You’ve faced a lot of life-threatening events in your life besides being constantly threatened by the man without a face. Still, the idea of facing Hanson all by yourself is becoming a more tempting notion than making a fool out of yourself in front of Jessy.

Yes!

You’ve been handling a case dangerous enough to get you either killed or put into prison, and you weren’t even deterred by it but the thought of meeting this girl in person had you feeling like a bumbling idiot.

Funny, you had been called many things, but being shy was not one of them. 

Lost in your own thoughts, you failed to notice Jessy leaning against the doorframe, a smile playing at the corners of her lips as she watched you with amusement dancing in her hazel eyes.

“Hello, Y/n.” 

Your eyes found hers, and that made her smile even wider. Out of instinct, you closed the distance between the two of you, wrapping her in a tight embrace. “Hey. Are you okay?”

She lets out a contented hum, her hands still gripping your arms tightly. “It just feels weird,” she said, her tone contemplative. “We’re waiting for a murderer. A murderer who threatened to kill us all. And yet,” she pauses. “I’m a lot calmer than I thought I’d be in a situation like this.”

“Give yourself some credit, Jess. You were always so brave, and I think,” you smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair on her ear, “everything that’s happened has made you stronger.”

“But I don’t feel like I’m any stronger,” she replied, leaning into you even more despite her expression falling into a frown. “It’s more like... as if I’d gotten used to living in fear.”

You pulled her close once again, all worries about how to act around her diminishing. “I’m sorry you have to experience all that. Just a little longer, Jess. Everything will be okay soon.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” You assured her.

“Thank you, Y/n. It feels so nice having you here with me.” She smiles at you, and you hope she knows how much happy you are being here with them— with her here. Even though danger is lurking just around the corner, you feel better knowing you’re with them, you can now do something, as opposed back then when you were just with your phone, helpless and unable to help and protect them from your enemy. “Come inside, I still have to finish reading all these files, and watch over the front.”

With a nod, Jessy gestured towards her room, which looks exactly like the one in Cleo's pictures you thought back then that it quite suited Jessy’s taste, apart from the color of the mattress which is black and white stripes. You wandered your eyes towards the pile of files on the bed. There’s also an L-shaped sofa on the right side, and a dresser just by the window.

“It’s so quiet.” Jessy muttered as you approached the window. 

“Yeah,” you murmured. You leaned forward, peering out to see outside, and damn, it was so dark out there aside from the light inside the house. You turned to her. “Do you need help sorting out those files?”

She shook her head, already settling herself on the bed. “Thank you, Y/n but I got this. Why don’t you take some rest first? Come lay here.” She pats her side.

You chuckled. “Now that’s quite tempting, Miss Hawkins, but resting is quite the luxury I cannot afford right now. I’ll be our lookout for now, while you do your thing.”

She rolled her eyes playfully, a soft laugh escaping her lips.  “you sounded like Jake just now," she teased. "Speaking of him, how are things between you two and the case?"

"He's off chasing a lead, so I'm still waiting for an update," You scanned the world outside with active eyes. Thankfully, your eyes began adjusting to the dark. You made sure to be as discreet as possible, just in case. You didn’t want to alarm him that you were here. You then turn your attention back to her, "Dan seems to be in his element, though. Smart move stationing everyone in different spots around the house."

She hummed in agreement, her eyes scanning the file in her hands. "I just hope he's not biting off more than he can chew. He can fight sure, but he’s still not completely okay.” 

“I’m glad he’s here though.”

"And we're glad you're here, too. Especially me, of course. It was a very pleasant surprise, Y/n." she admitted, making you turn to look at her. Her eyes were so captivating, and it felt like you have to use every ounce of willpower not to get lost in them. "But I'm worried about you. Hanson is clearly after you. To be honest, I felt better knowing you’re safe in your city, but at the same time I’m happy you’re here.”

You sat down beside her, taking her hand in yours. “Jess, I feel better knowing I’m near you. I won’t ever let something happen to you again. I promised you that, didn’t I?” 

“As long as you’ll be safe, too.” she intertwined your fingers together, and somehow, this feels so intimate, but not entirely unpleasant. It feels warm, almost like home.

You never had any expectations when you come here. Of course, meeting these people online is one thing, but meeting them personally is a whole other story.

And it feels weird meeting them like this, and you have never actually gotten a proper introduction with one another yet it feels like you've known each other for ages. You wish you could have met your friends in a different way, no kidnapping, no murderer. But the reality is cruel like that, and somehow, even if it feels wrong to think about it, without all of these happening, you will never get to meet them.

"Sometimes things happen in life that we can't influence," After a few moments of silence, she spoke again. "Even though we wish things would be different and we try avoiding them as good as we can."

"Yeah..." you agreed quietly. "I know."

"If anything should happen to me tonight," you frown, knowing where this is heading, "or to the others. Then I want you to know that it wasn't your fault."

Your grip on her hand tightened, "don't say that, Jess." You held a firm gaze at her, and she battles it with little effort.

"Y/n, listen. It's really important to me that you know this." she pleaded, her eyes held a deep sadness that tugged at your heartstrings. "Anything can happen tonight, and I want you to know this. You've done everything in your power to help us. We all know that. And in case things go south, it won't have been your fault."

"I—" You were about to say that it should have been you who should tell this, that there's no way you'll let anything happen other than all of you winning, getting Hannah and possibly Richy back.

Both of you whipped your phones when you heard a notification. And if you only knew what was said in the chat, you would have never opened your phone, to begin with.

As you read the message on your phone, your cheeks turned red with embarrassment. Typing a reply.

Cleo: I hope you two aren't smooching in there You: Huh? Cleo: You and Jessy Jessy: Sorry, Cleo but we don't kiss and tell 🤭 You: 😳

But Jessy beat you to it apparently, giggling next to you.

You tried covering your face with your hands but Jessy is still holding the other one and is laughing quietly at you. You're not embarrassed per se but it just made you flustered up to the tips of your ears.

"You should have seen your face," she teased. And she kept trying to catch your gaze and that only made your cheeks burn even more. You're sure the redness went down your neck. "Usually you were the more forward one between the two of us, it's a nice change." She was grinning triumphantly.

You scoffed, struggling to regain your dignity, "you just caught me off guard, that's all."

"That would have been believable if you weren't so red, Y/n."

"Right," you say, standing up but Jessy tried to pull you back down but you didn't budge. "I'm gonna go back to my station now."

"Hey, I was just joking." she pouted.

You chuckled. Did this girl really think she can make you mad?

You leaned down a bit on her eye level, "we can smooch up later. For now, we got a job to do." You flicked a finger on her forehead softly, and laugh on your way to your place by the window.

"You're a tease."

"I know." You winked.

Both of you went back to your respective tasks. On your end, it doesn't seem Hanson is getting here anytime soon. Suddenly, the thought of him triggered a memory you had yet to ask about. Without hesitation, you grabbed your phone and typed a message.

You: Will it be safe for a video call right now? Cleo: I think so Lilly: Why? What's wrong?

It didn't take long before Lilly started a video call. It's much safer than texting, at the very least with this, they can still be able to focus on their tasks. The only people on the call were Lilly, you, Dan, and Thomas. Cleo and Lilly were in the same area, so they used one phone, and the same went for you and Jessy. She brought the files and went to sit on the couch near to you. That way, she can hear, and she can also join the conversation.

"Alright, so Hannah visited the Pine Glade Festival's website not too long ago." You paused, looking if some of them is getting where you are heading. They all seemed confused, so you continued, "Tomorrow could be a very important day for Michael Hanson as it is also exactly ten years prior to the day Jennifer died. I want to ask if anyone of you see or went to the festival with Hannah ten years ago?"

"I'm pretty sure I was there," Cleo says with certainty. Lilly was holding the phone for her, while they take turns watching their area. "Just 'cause I'm there every year. But I definitely didn't go with Hannah as I'm always busy helping out at the festival. And there's never been a year where I haven't been busy."

"That's too bad..." You replied. But it could not be impossible that none of them remembers it, even if it's been a decade that had passed. "I want to find out how the accident happened. Hannah might have met Amy there. It could be important."

"I'm sure I went to the Pine Glade Festival with Hannah and the others at some point," Jessy mentioned, catching your attention.  "But there was also one year where I was really sick and couldn't go. I don't know if that was the one ten years ago or some other time. Sorry, Y/n."

"It's fine, Jess. Maybe the others—"

"Excellent question as always, Y/n." You don't even have to look to know it's Dan.

"I know," you replied with the same level of sarcasm. "Be serious. Dan."

"Like I can remember what happened ten years ago. I can't even remember what happened ten days ago," he complains and you only rolled your eyes at him.

"I remember." That made you perk up in attention.

"Excellent. Lilly, can you tell me every detail you could possibly remember?"

"Yes, I think I can. Oh, and Dan," she called. "You went there with me."

"What? Me?"

"Yes. You even got me some cotton candy and even let me ride the carousel."

"Yo sounds like me." He scratches his head and you grin. You're gonna note that for future reference, and it would stand perfectly beside his picture working in the florist shop with his pink apron.

"You even won a prize for me at the shooting range."

"Haha Dan, my man. What a strong guy you are." You quipped and Dan only flexed his biceps which made it only funnier as you don't see anything. Jessy only giggled at your antics.

"Hmm, I'm trying to remember everything that happened that day." Lilly mused. Suddenly, her eyes widened as if a light bulb had gone off in her mind. "Don't you remember, Dan? The prize was a small teddy bear. His nose glowed red when you poke his belly."

You saw the realization dawning on him. "What the fuck— wait, yeah I remember! Hannah asked me if I could keep an eye on you. And that's what I did, yo."

"Okay, great!" You say, turning into your usual interrogation mode. The others know you're unstoppable until you get satisfied with the answer you were looking for. "What were you doing when she asked you?"

He shrugs, "eating a hot dog? I don't know."

"Do you remember what Hannah was up to?"

"Not the faintest idea. She just turned up out of nowhere."

That grabbed your full attention. If she wasn't with Lilly or Dan, where the heck was she? Maybe she was hanging out with Richy and Jessy, but Jessy couldn't remember, and Richy was not there. It was feasible that she was with one of them or even both of them, but if not, then there was only one person left she could have been with.

"Did you see Amy with her?"

"Nah. Hannah was on her own. Lilly was riding ponies or something. She asked me to pick Lilly up there, and then she left."

"So, she was in a hurry?"

"I guess," Dan replied, scratching his beard as he tried to recall the details. "Hannah said she was gonna be back for the fireworks. So, I went to Black Water Lake with Lilly, but she never came."

"You're right, Dan!" Lilly confirmed. "You took me home after the fireworks. I remember that."

"Yeah, you were pissed. Had a real temper tantrum."

"That sounds like the Lilly I know." You laughed. "Can you think of anything else though?"

"Nah."

"Me neither, sorry, Y/n."

"Hmm," You hummed. You mentally note every little detail they told you. Suddenly, a question pops into your head. "I forgot to ask why didn't you wait for Hannah? Or even look for her?"

"Dunno. I had to bring Lilly home, didn't I? The fireworks begin really late. That's when the festival also ends and the drinking begins. That's no time for a little girl to be up and about."

"Dan has always been very vigilant when it comes to Lilly. Now we know why." Cleo mentions, popping slightly from Lilly's side.

"That's just how I am." He grinned.

"And you're sure that was at the festival ten years ago?" You probed once more. You got to understand what happened before.

"I remember not being allowed to walk to school on my own for weeks afterward," Lilly told you. "I'm sure that must have had something to do with the Jennifer incident."

"I see," you murmured, trying to make sense of it all. You were getting closer to solving the case, but there was still one piece of the puzzle missing. The bridge between the gaps. "Thanks you two."

"So," Jessy prompted from behind you. "Hannah met Amy somewhere at the Pine Glade Festival. And then asks Dan to keep an eye on Lilly. She assumed she'd be back for the fireworks."

"Yeah, that's right. Nice thought there, Jess." You agreed with a smile, proud that you both have the same line of thought. "Which she was not able to because of the incident."

"Hmm."

Jessy hummed thoughtfully. But you couldn't shake off the feeling that something was missing. What caused Hannah to drive for Amy? What happened back there to Amy? And you knew deep down Ted Madruga is at least involved in this case.

Turning to Thomas, who had been quiet for the most part, you inquired, "How about you, Thomas? Do you know anything?"

"No, I didn't know Hannah ten years ago or anyone from the group."

Oh, you didn't know that. But you do remember that Thomas mentioned meeting the gang at the Aurora when Phil took over ownership of the bar. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that everyone had been friends for a long time, except for Thomas, who had only joined a few years ago, and yourself, who had recently become part of the group.

"Oh, well then. I've found out more than I expected." You announced. "I just need to analyze the facts and the timeline. Jake is also working on something."

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll divert my attention back to the window. I've got a feeling our legendary poultry is about to show itself."

"Right, thanks for the help, everyone. Be careful, okay?"

"You, too Sherlock."

~~~~

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#duskwood #duskwood jake #duskwood jessy #duskwood lilly #duskwood mc #duskwood cleo #duskwood richy #duskwood dan #duskwood thomas #duskwood jessy x mc #duskwood phil #jessy hawkins #lilly donfort #hannah donfort #dan anderson #richy rogers #duskwood ep10 #duskwood episode 10 #thomas miller #duskwood mwaf

[cherrycocaineee]

19. Sam Winchester - Hospital Visit

It was extra busy today at the hospital, there were three patients in need of major surgeries along with a line of people either waiting at the clinic or waiting for their minor surgeries to take place. I had been running around all morning wherever I was needed, and since I was the lead surgeon that was pretty much everywhere. Every time I got the chance, I glanced up at the ticking clock that was mute amongst all the loud chatting and alarms going off. I needed to hang on til three, and then another head surgeon would be here to help. I wiped the forming beads of sweat off of my forehead as I headed to the bathroom, wanting to escape from all the chaos that was hitting. Of course I loved being a doctor but I wasn’t made for such large groupings like this. It sent anxiety through my body causing me to sweat. So I just needed a small break to calm my nerves.

   Pressing my back against the cool wall felt almost painful against my hot, sweaty skin. I was just praying silently that I was wearing my doctor’s coat over a turtleneck sweater, stopping most of the chilling pain. Finally catching my breath after fifteen minutes, I pushed myself off of the wall, the cold no longer bothering me, and headed back into the jungle that awaited outside. Not much time passed before my Nurse, Lacy, ran up to me.

  “Doctor,” she said, her voice frantic and filled with worry, “come quick, there’s two new patients in need of medical treatment.”

   Nodding curtly, I followed after her quickly to wherever the patients were. There weren’t many rooms open, so when we did eventually find them, they were in the last two rooms. I went inside the first room, the room that was closer to us, and peered inside at the man lying on the hospital bed. My eyes widened at the sight of John Winchester, an old family friend from way back then. He was covered in slash marks, fresh blood that still needed to be cleaned off of his unconscious body. He was also covered in sweat, glass, and dirt.

   Lacy looked up at me.

 “Bring me a rag,” I muttered, “and some warm, soapy water.” 

  Nodding, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. I took another glance at John Winchester then headed out of the room, silently praying that the other person in the second room wasn’t one of his sons.

  But I wasn’t lucky. Lying in the next hospital bed was his older son, Dean. I frowned, my forehead creasing slightly. Like his father, Dean was covered in blood, sweat, glass, and dirt. He would need to be cleaned up as well.

  “Doctor.”

  Looking up, I spotted my nurse standing at the door with the bucket of water and a rag hanging over it.

  “Thank you. Please, get another one for this patient.”

 “Of course.”

I took the bowl from Lacy and headed back into the room where John was waiting. Sitting beside his bed was Sam, also covered in blood but not as much as his dad and brother. His eyes met mine, widening as he saw my face.

  “Noel?” He questioned, his voice soft and surprised.

  “Hey Sam,” I replied, placing the bowl down.

  His eyes shifted to the ground. The last time I saw the Winchester’s was when I was twelve years old. I was a year younger than Sam. Out of the two Winchester boys, Sam and I had become close. I knew all about their hunting and everything they did.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?” I asked, grabbing the cloth and beginning to clean John up.

  The blood wiped away easily, revealing his tanned up, scarred skin.

  “I’m not so sure that’s a great idea,” he admitted.

 “Maybe not, but I still think you should tell me.”

  He was quiet for a moment, contemplating inside his head whether telling me would put me in danger. It probably would but I could handle myself. Finally, he told me what happened. They had gotten into a fight with a demon, one who called herself Meg, and these shadow things came out of nowhere attacking them. They were practically defenseless, their only saving grace was light. That’s how they were able to escape, along with throwing Meg out a tall window. By the time he finished telling me what happened, I had finished cleaning his dad up.

   Placing the cloth inside the now bloody water, I faced Sam.

  “Is she dead?” I inquired.

  “We think so,” he huffed, his hair shifting with the breeze escaping his lips, “but we’ve never dealt with a demon before so we’re unsure.”

  Nodding quietly, I started stitching up the large gashes displayed on John’s body. Lacy was right, he did need quick medical attention but not so much that he needed to be placed in the operating room. Not while there were people who needed surgeries on their brains waiting, or even their stomach. This was an easy fix.

  I could feel Sam’s eyes watching me while I sutured up his dad. Clipping the final set of stitches, I got rid of all the leftovers, then washed my hands.

  “I’m going to Dean’s room,” I muttered, “he needs more care than your father, so I’ll need more time to deal with him. Wait here.”

   Sam didn’t argue, he just nodded his head.

Taking care of Dean’s injuries were much harder than I had realized. He was losing lots of blood, and no matter how much of it I tried to wipe away, there would always be another rush of it pouring from the wound. So I had to deal with the large, several gashes that covered his body. Fixing him up took me almost three hours. When I was finished with him, it didn’t seem to matter, he was in a coma from the amount of blood he lost. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it and that was going to be hard to tell Sam and John.

   Lacy informed me that John Winchester was now awake, so now I was heading to his room to give them the bad news. Some doctors would call it semi-bad news but that didn’t really make any sense to me considering. I walked into John’s room, seeing him speaking to Sam, neither of them looking happy about whatever was being discussed. Sam was first to spot me.

  “Dad,” he said.

  John turned to face me, and at first I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me but when his eyes widened, I knew he did.

  “Noel,” he said, “it’s been a long time.”

  “It sure has,” I replied, smiling, “it seems you guys got yourself into a pickle.”

 “Seems that way.”

 I walked completely inside the room, my hands folded together.

  “How’s Dean doing?” Sam inquired.

  My heart felt like it was hammering against my chest but I tried to remain professional.

  “I’ve stitched him up, and cleaned up his body. However, he’s lost a lot of blood and is now in a coma,” I informed, sadness lurking in my voice, “right now, it isn’t looking so good. If he doesn’t pull through soon, then I would start preparing for the worst.”

  “Noel,” Sam said standing up, “he has to come back.”

  “There isn’t anymore that I can do, Sam. Had he’d been brought in earlier, maybe, but he’s lost way too much blood. We’re replacing it, he’s getting round the clock treatment and blood is being added to his body through an IV, but that’s all we’re able to do.”

   He looked away from me, his eyes noticeably filling with tears, then grabbed his jacket and walked out of the room. A soft breeze brushing against me as he passed me. John didn’t say anything to Sam as he left. I sighed and walked over to John, removing a small flashlight from my pocket.

  “Let me have a look at your pupils,” I muttered, “how are you feeling?”

 The bright light danced across his now dilated pupils.

  “Much better,” he replied.

It was quiet for a moment before John spoke again, asking about Dean.

  “He was in really bad shape, huh?” He asked.

  “Yes,” I muttered, removing the light from his eyes, “I wish there could be more done but right now, all we can do is wait and see.”

  John’s eyes looked away from me, staring down at his covered legs. I could tell he was feeling bad about what he did to Sam and Dean, specifically Dean since he was in a coma now. I stuffed the flashlight into my doctor coat, taking another look at the oldest Winchester. All three of these boys were tough as nails but everything seemed to be shattering right before their very own eyes.

  “I know this is hard, Mr. Winchester,” I replied, “but I promise you, I’ll do what I can to help Dean get better. For now, it’s best if you pray for his healing.”

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t even nod. Something seemed to be brewing around in his head, so I left after giving his shoulder a small squeeze. After leaving John’s room, I went to go look for Sam, taking a final look at Dean in his room. A small pang in my chest rippled through me before I headed off to find the youngest Winchester.

I found him sitting outside on the hospital steps. The breeze was starting to pick up, ruffling Sam’s hair along with my own. I walked over to him, my white shoes slapping quietly against the concrete. Sitting down next to Sam, I watched him look over at me. I folded my arms around my stomach and looked away, watching the hundreds of people walking around. Either lost in their own world or talking with someone who was with them. I didn’t want to say anything that would anger him or cause him to get up and leave.

  “It’s all my fault,” Sam whispered.

 My head snapped towards him, shocked completely at his sudden admission to guilt.

  “How so?” I inquired.

 “If I hadn’t gotten mad at Dean, if I hadn’t ran into Meg, then we would have never been tricked into this situation.”

  I clicked my tongue, shaking my head. My long, jet black hair waved in the wind.

 “Sam, you couldn’t possibly know that Meg was a demon. Like you said before, you guys have never dealt with one before so how are you supposed to know the difference between one of them and a girl. I mean look around you.”

  Our eyes scanned the area around us, watching the people who caught our eyes do what was normal: eating ice cream, talking, laughing, walking, etc.

  “Anyone here could be a demon but how could we know?”

  A soft sigh escaped from his lips.

  “All I’m saying is, there’s no need for you to worry too much. Dean is a fighter, I’m sure he’ll pull through. However, if he isn’t, then you can’t walk around blaming yourself. It’s not what your dad would want and it’s definitely not what Dean would want.”

   I touched his shoulder and smiled sweetly at him. Sam smiled back before nodding.

 “You’re right,” he said.

 “Of course I am. I’ve never been wrong.”

 A laugh left his mouth, colliding with the wind that was picking up more and more. I couldn’t help but giggle along with him. Soon Sam and I were discussing how life had been after we departed so long ago. I learned that Sam had previously gotten out of the whole family business, hunting things to attend college at Stanford to become a lawyer. He had only joined back up with his family because his girlfriend, Jessica, was killed by the same demon that killed his mom. Yellow eyes. It had its ups and down, constantly worrying about one another and the consistent fighting back and forth. Dean was ultimately too childish and took any opportunity to pull a silly prank on Sam. But, according to him, it wasn’t all too bad since he missed his brother a lot. And now that he and his dad were together again, he remembered that he loved him too while disagreeing with him like he had when he was younger.

   Once he was finished catching me up on how his life had been going, I told him about mine. How my mother passed away a year after they had left, inspiring me to go to medical school. I had also been engaged for a little while before finding out that my fiancé was cheating on me behind my back. The rest of my life wasn’t much to gossip about, considering most of it was just me going to school and being cheating on.

   “Despite everything though,” I replied, “I enjoy what I do and hope that I’m making a big difference every single day.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling my pager buzz beside my hip. Pulling it from beside me, I saw that Lacy was paging me, letting me know that another lead surgeon had arrived and that I could go for lunch. Standing up, I held out my hand to Sam.

“Wanna get some coffee with me?” I inquired, “It’ll help clear your thoughts. Maybe you can figure out a way to help Dean behind bringing him to the doctor.”

 I hoped that he caught on to what I had to say. By the smile that appeared on his face, I knew that he did. Taking a hold of my hand, I pulled him to his feet and headed across the street to the small coffee shop where I normally went when I was able to have a small break. On the way over, the two of us talked with one another and laughed at stories about each other's life. It was nice to reconnect with a friend from so long ago. Sam and I had always been close to one another when we were young. And on the way to the coffee shop, I hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time I saw Sam. And hopefully under much better circumstances than the one that brought us together today.

#sam winchester #sam #supernatural #spn #sam winchester x female!reader #sam x reader #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester one shot #supernatural imagines #sam winchester fanfiction #fluff #sam winchester fluff #imagines #one shot #fanfic #sam winchester x reader #smut #supernatural fluff #supernatural smut

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

songs that make me think of vampy and why

this is for drea and leyla ONLY thank u

daylight- taylor swift "i don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you, i don't wanna think of anything else now that i thought of you" bc vampy loves her so much he only wants her 😔 midnight love- girl in red "I know I'm the last one you try to call but I always give in to give you it all" "your silver is my gold" bc miss chiropractor treated him terribly but he loved her with everything and would have gone back to her no matter what watch you sleep- girl in red this one is obvious: bc vampy watches bloodbag sleep :) also "the scar on your spine, you fell off a roof when you were nine" is all appreciating the tiny details about someone and that is definitely something vampy would do :( paper rings: taylor swift "i hate accidents except when we went from friends to this" line without a hook- ricky montgomery "oh baby i am a wreck when i'm without you" bc vampy loves bloodbag so much he just wants to be with her always 😔 dead girl in the pool- girl in red this one is kinda weird but i feel like bloodbag is gonna die at some point and then vampy will just be like "theres a dead girl in the pool (or wherever her corpse is laying slfjskldfjkldsj) i don't know what to do" and then he's gonna make this face

bad habits- ed sheeran bc he was just slutting around before he met bloodbag demons- imagine dragons dont make fun of me for this I KNOW but fr it's vampy renegade- taylor swift "you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody" he needs bloodbag 😔 starting line- luke hemmings i can't really explain this one but it's like how you always talk about how his happiness is overshadowed by the fact that he's a monster or whatever million dollar bills - lorde "theres nothing i want but money and time" and vampy has literally all the money and time :) solar power- lorde this is harrys hot girl anthem idk happiness- taylor swift "there'll be happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you" this is him reminiscing on miss chiropractor i wanna get better-bleachers "i didn't know i was lonely til i saw your face" "I didn't know i was broken til i wanted to change" come on 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 good 4 u - olivia rodrigo this is his fuck u song for miss chiropractor my tears ricochet- taylor swift "if i'm dead to you why are you at the wake" it's ironic innit 😌 what a feeling- one direction "what a feeling to be right here beside you now, holding you in my arms" please 😔 "everybody needs someone around" 😔😔😔 "but i can't hold you too close now" bc he has severe attachment and commitment issues :) all you had to do was stay- taylor swift "had me in the palm of your hand, then, why'd you have to go and lock me out when i let you in" omg miss chiropractor really hurt him 😔 king of my heart- taylor swift "and all at once you are the one i have been waiting for" bloodbag @ vampy 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 cruel summer- taylor swift "I love you ain't that the worst thing you ever heard" bc he knows getting close to bloodbag will ultimately only lead to pain for everyone involved "i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you" bc he can't tell bloodbag everything about him even tho he probably wants to :( thank u next- arianna grande this is weird BUT if miss chiropractor hadn't fucked him up so much he never would have met bloodbag tear in my heart- 21 pilots again don't make fun of me for this I HAVE AN EXPLANATION "you fell asleep in my car i drove the whole time but that's okay i'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine" if bloodbag fell asleep in his car he would definitely do this :( shape of you-ed sheeran "now my bedsheets smell like you" his room probably smells like honey and lavender all the time now and he's probably foaming at the mouth constantly cowboy in LA "let's skip the club, lets skip the crowd, i wanna take you on a date" bc they both hate clubs!!!!! "I'll hold your hand I'll hold the door bc that's how i was raised" he's a gentleman 😔😔😔😔 & burn- billie eilish "i'll sit and watch your car burn with the fire that you started in me, but you never came back to ask it out" idk for some reason this has vampy and miss chiropractor vibes take me to church- hozier religious trauma babes 🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼 speechless- dan+shay "i'm speechless, staring at you standing there in that dress" love 😔 yours- russel dickerson "i came to life when i first kissed you, the best me has his arms around you, you make me better than i was before, thank god i'm yours" SCREAMING AND CRYING AND SHAKING tolerate it- taylor swift "i know my love should be celebrated, but you tolerate it" MISS ******** DIDN"T APPRECIATE OR CELEBRATE HIS LOVE MIA- anarbor "thinking about my life and everything i did wrong along the way"😔 lay low- josh turner for when bloodbag and vampy go to a cabin in the woods for a week and just love each other 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 who can save me now- anarbor "you stabbed me in the back" this one is pretty literal LSKFJLKSJFLKDSJ "you could have at least been kind enough to let me turn around" ouch 😔 dopamine- anarbor "i'm hooked on your dopamine" vampy and bloodbag ugh lie to me- 5sos this give me vampy and ******** vibes "i wish we never met, cause you're too hard to forget" "while i'm cleaning up your mess i know he's taking

off your dress" bc she probably cheated on him while they were together 😔 and he would have stayed with her if she told him she loved him, even if he knew it was a lie 😔 cotton candy- yungblud it's just a happy song with good vibes like bloodbag and vampy currently have :) small talk- niall horan i don't even have to say anything here pillowtalk- zayn "so we'll piss off the neighbors" chappy 9 vibes dancing with our hands tied- taylor swift "i loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us" vampy rn 😔 once in a lifetime- one direction vampy will live a million lifetimes but he will only ever have one bloodbag 😔 holy ground- taylor swift "tonight i'm gonna dance for all that we've been through but I don't wanna dance if i'm not dancing with you" they've come so far omg 😔 since we're alone- niall horan "you can show me your heart, if you put it all in my hands no i swear no i won't break it apart" crying if i could fly- one direction "for your eyes only i'll show you my heart" rollercoaster- bleachers again i can't explain it but it makes me think of him 😔 so long- niall horan "so if we knew all along why did it take so long" good question bestie current location- LANY "i need your current location to be my current location" they're idiots in love and want to be together all the time 😔 why dont we go there- one direction "hey i don't want you to be the one that got away i wanna get addicted to you you're rushing through my mind i wanna feel the high i wanna be addicted" well hes already addicted to her blood so might as well like you lots- LANY bc they both have issues and can't say love lmao too much to ask- niall horan vampy though wanting love was too much to ask of miss chiropractor 😔 walking in the wind- one direction this one just has his vibes man 😔 heartbeat- carrie underwood "dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat" bc vampy is obsessed with listening to bloodbag's heart (fan behavior if you ask me) idfc- blackbear this is vampy and ******** bc "tell me that you love me even if it's fake" city of angels- 24kgoldn "i sold my soul to the devil for designer" yes this made me laugh the woods- olivver the kid "waking up in the middle of the woods" "don't you wanna get out of here, out of the woods" flashback to when he was dead in the woods oop "you brought me down to the river, and you pushed me in, hoping that the white rapids would challenge my ability to swim" bc... she's a murderer omg this verse is talking about leaves and i'm freaking out it fits 100% this is crazy "You pick up two handfuls You tell me they're all dried up & dead You know that's nothing like us We'll live forever instead" just a little bit of your heart- ariana grande vampy bc he loves so deeply and completely that he will give all of himself to someone even if they won't do the same my strange addiction- billie eilish bc he is addicted to her blood :) cross your mind- niall horan this is vampy and ******** "love the way you hurt me and it doesn't even cross your mind" "leaving me in pieces (literally lmao) but i swear it's worth it every time" everywhere- niall horan that scene where vampy smelled some perfume or soap or something and it made him think of bloodbag 😔 everything makes him think of her now 😔 "swear it's hard to think it's hard to breathe when you're in the air" put a little love on me- niall horan "you're the only one i need" 😔 bend the rules- niall horan VAMPY AND ******** ALL THE WAY "i'm not saying that you're lying but you're leaving out the truth" heartbreak weather- niall horan "all of my life i've been sleepwalk living, running around the same bars i've been in, it can be so lonely in this city, but it feels different when you're with me" bloodbag and vampy 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 mr loverman- ricky montgomery "i miss my lover man" vampy is probably dramatic like this all the time now that they're official 😔 bad blood- taylor swift again, just for the irony 😌 vapor- 5sos "i want to breathe you in like a vapor i want to be the one you remember i want to feel

your love like the weather all over me" they're so in love like this 😔 catch fire- 5sos "all my life i've been waiting for moments to come" he's been waiting for bloodbag his entire life 😔 beside you-5sos "i wish i was beside you" they want to be together all the time 😔 black and white- niall horan "that first night i was standing at your door fumbling for your keys then i kissed you" ARE YOU KIDDING ME not in the same way- 5sos this is vampy and ******** just bc they were so toxic lkfjskldfjsdlkjf lonely heart-5sos "and i haven't slept in days" lmao ghost of you-5sos "my feet dont dance like they did with you" thinking about when vampy danced for bloodbag and what if they break up 👁️👁️ why wont you love me- 5sos vampy at ******** 😔 he just wanted to be loved 😔😔😔😔😔 fool's gold- one direction "i let you use me from the day that we first met" "i know your love's not real, but that's not the way it feels" STOP IM SAD last first kiss- one direction "let me be your last first kiss" i want them to be together forever 😔 truly madly deeply- one direction "foolishly completely falling and somehow you kicked all my walls in" bloodbag really snuck into his heart huh 😔 fireproof -one direction "nobody saves me baby the way you do" ugh 😔 long story short-taylor swift "clung to the nearest lips long story short it was the wrong guy" (or in vampy's case the wrong vampire) gold rush-taylor swift "and the coastal town we run around has never seen a love as pure as it" bloodbag and vampy are all i want 😔 no judgement- niall horan bc vampy would never judge bloodbag 😔 daddy issues- the neighborhood again im not even gonna say anything here new angel- niall horan "the touch of someone else to save me from myself" this is vampy 😔 god is a woman- ariana grande vampy after he brought bloodbag home the first time something like this- the chainsmokers "just something i can turn to, somebody i can kiss" ALL VAMPY WANTS IS LOVE sweater weather- the neighborhood idk this song makes me think of him all of me- john legend "all of me loves all of you all your curves and all your edges all your perfect imperfections" KSFLKSDJFKLDJSFLJSDKLFJDSKL i like me better- lauv "i like me better when i'm with you" she makes him a better person 😔 sex- eden "oh no, i think i'm catching feelings" vampy when bloodbag went on a date with someone else half a heart- one direction bc bloodbag completes him 😔 theyre so disgusting 😔 only angel- harry styles "turns out she's a devil in between the sheets" woman- harry styles vampy when she was on a date with someone else bc hes a jealous moron temporary fix- one direction this has chappy 1-2 vibes a.m.-one direction when they first started falling in love and he wanted to be with her more often 😔 something great- one direction "i want you here with me like how i pictured it so i don't have to keep imagining" through the dark- one direction just all of this song 😔 happily- one direction "you know i wanna be the one who holds you when you sleep i just want it to be you and i forever" 😔 electric love- borns "i can't let you go now that i got it" canyon moon- harry styles they're just happy like this rn 😔 sunflower vol. 6- harry styles "kiss in the kitchen like it's a dancefloor" "mouth full of toothpaste" when they brushed their teeth together 😔 adore you- harry styles obviously

#music #og post

[inb4belphienaps]

warnings: demon hunter au, monsterification (?), blood, gore, fighting (physical), death word count: 2028

Through the sounds of one man’s grunting and the clash of metal meeting hardened flesh, the ground of the forest shakes. Whatever birds had remained in the wake of the battlefield signal to one another (warning not just their own, but also the other inhabitants) that the current fight taking place could have devastating repercussions. More devastating than the smell of iron continuing to linger in the area.

As the earth shifts, flashes of bright light mingle with green smoke, creating a pool of fog that, were it privy to the eyes of outsiders, would hint at sorcery being afoot.

Magic holds its weight here in these lands. Depending on where your loyalties lie, you are either the hunter or the hunted. The former is normally trained in combat and taught to wield their powers as well as their swords. The latter, on the other hand, is feared, for the reasons that they are hunted are rooted deep in their very nature.

They go by many names – creatures of the dark, harbingers of evil, infernal bearers of sin. The list continues. And the stories grow. Generation after generation, children are taught to fear them. They are…demons. Children too in fact, of the King of Hell.

A royalty shrouded in mystery. The legend says that those who look upon his face never again see the light of day. And, since, no one has been able to confirm nor deny the numerous depictions of him, littering the books of those whose teeth chatter at the very mention of his title and covering the walls of the temples erected in honor of those who fight against him, he is better thought of as the very embodiment of your worst fears.

The soldiers are easier to motivate that way, more willing to be shaped into obedience. Whether that is seen as the mangled bodies of their loved ones or heard as the cries of the innocent, they are to never show mercy to the beings that do his bidding.

However, there are those who (baring the markings of a heretic), believe that these monsters were once human. That they sold their souls and gave into the darkness. That they were swayed by sweet words of promises unkept and in the end only saw suffering.

There are also those who, in the same manner, believe that these monsters take on the forms of humans. Either the humans they’ve converted or humans that they are to ravage, soon-to-be victims of a plague that cannot be cured or forgotten.

Dangerous thoughts like these are what make the difference between a good soldier and an immovable hunter. If there is doubt or a shadow of sympathy when facing these beasts, you may very well find your head removed from your body, and then, shortly after, consumed in its entirety.

(Yes...they feed on humans.)

Blood mars the surrounding trees and smothers the leaves, painting them an ugly copper. Where the dirt turns black, Simeon knows a struggle took place. How valiantly his brothers and sisters must have fought, he thinks. And how unsavory a death they must have met.

With this in mind, he steels his resolve and focuses all his energy into the magic materializing in his hands, imbuing it into his sword. He’d perfected his techniques. Trained until they’d become an extension of him and his will.

“Why”, the creature says, “they didn’t tell me they were saving the best ‘til last.”

Simeon neither flinches at nor acknowledges its voice. A voice that would otherwise send humans fleeing, pushes him to carry on, to increase his speed and thrust forwards with accuracy.

“But I suppose I should’ve known. The ones before you were far too weak to stand against me.”

He lunges, twisting half-way when he’s met with a swipe of a giant arm and a lash of a bright-green tail. Green. The color of evil. Green. The color of sin.

“They never had a chance.”

“Quit your blithering, monster. I have no intentions of hearing you speak.”

The creature smiles. Though its features are ghastly and covered with remains, Simeon can make out the ends of its mouth and how they curl upwards.

“You’ll have to cut out my tongue then, hunter.”

With each instance that their magics meet, the world around them becomes all the more obsolete. The serene landscape is instead transformed into an arena, of which only the strongest contender will leave from unscathed.

Simeon has hunted many of these puppets in his time. Cutting their strings and burning their shells, he’d gotten used to the smell of them. Except their appearance is another matter entirely. This creature that stands before him is a testament to that.

Its scales shine in the sunlight, like jewels beneath clear waters. Its limbs are strong and impressive. Its horns, like the antlers of a magnificent stag, demand his attention. Disregarding the loathing he feels; the creature is almost beautiful.

Almost.

He creates some distance between them, reconfiguring his stance and propelling himself off the scarped face of a mound of rocks piled atop one another just so.

The creature is quick to respond and close in on him, running on all fours at him head-first, like a raging bull. Its strides are far and wide, causing Simeon to abandon future attempts at discouraging close combat.

There is a menacing, contained kind of anger that permeates from the creature. He senses it every time its magic brushes against him be it the patches of exposed skin or his armor.  There’s a heat to it too. A hot measure of lethality that reminds him to be careful.

Demons are after all, tricky beings with a history of dabbling in the dark arts (necromancy was nothing to them). These are experienced fighters, unhinged and free to do as they please without their need for self-preservation or the need to maintain their dignity getting in the way.

The sheer force of their clash resounds, akin to a clap of thunder and the sparks that fly as its talons scrape against Simeon’s metal gives ode to the lightning that would normally accompany it.

When they part, following a further exchange of blows, Simeon is panting, and the creature seems excited by the notion.

“You are a creature of the dark. You take solace in the shadows, so you may attempt to flee from your sins but make no mistake, beast”, he hisses, jutting his chin out defiantly with a type of pride that the creature knew all too well, “I will have your head.”

The creature laughs and bares its fangs. Only…the hunter in front of him pictures how they’d glint on his neck, to serve both as a reminder and as a medal for his efforts.

Taking this monster down and fashioning his remains into something wearable? It was the least he could do for his companions who had sacrificed themselves and died fighting. Hell itself would have to freeze over before he’d admit defeat in any sense of the word so that their deaths would not have been in vain.

Suddenly, something splits in the air, the fractures dissipating in a myriad of pieces that could pass for shattered glass and Simeon is temporarily rendered immobile. His eyes widen, and he feels the creature within him. It was invading his mind.

Sentiments of nights spent practicing on his own and memories of harsh winters spent in front of crackling fires cause his shoulders to shake. There, amidst the confusion and horror, his friend’s cheerful visage startles him back into reality.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you?”, the creature chides. “It’s dangerous to go looking for the dead.”

So, the creature knew his intentions. To find his friend and give him a proper burial. His friend, who was probably now disfigured beyond recognition, was waiting for Simeon to find him. He could feel it. His friend, the one who had been there to see him through the hardest times of his life, was calling to him.

“Silence”, Simeon spits, venom coating his demand as he hurtles daggers and magic alike at the looming silhouette shrouded in mist. Each one ricochets off of its hide, and he clenches his jaw. He wasn’t focusing hard enough.

“I’ll give you two seconds to prepare yourself”, it says.

The creature then comes to a standstill and Simeon feels the first inklings of dread. A sentence like that meant that he was either going to be met with a resistance he had no hopes of fathoming or it had a trump card up its sleeve – another nasty trick it could use to its advantage.

“One.”

Wind rustles the foliage above and carries his scent towards it. He tightens his grip on his trusty weapon and tilts his head to the side to crack his neck.

“Two.”

With inhuman speed, it leaps, first into the thickets, disappearing from view, then to his side, grabbing him by the scruff as he’s rendered helpless.

Simeon squirms, his sword doing little to better the situation, and he kicks at the creature’s torso. The dull sounds of his foot colliding with its build send a rush of panic through him. And then-

And then he is falling. And the creature is smiling, eyes narrowing in satisfaction as he looks down at the devastation tainting his features. The creature stands at the edge of the cliff, watching him descend into the abyss.

“What a shame”, it says. “You put up such a good fight, little hunter.”

As the creature turns his back, its ears twitch and it swivels around in disbelief. Was there a humming noise? A buzzing? A ringing in its ears?

It doesn’t have the chance to come to a conclusion. Simeon surges upwards from within the depths, colliding with its giant frame, and crushes it to the ground, with the same foot he’d used to kick it just moments before firmly planted on its chest.

“You…you have wings”, the creature whispers.

Simeon resists the urge to shiver. He hadn’t known he’d had them. He hadn’t known he was even capable of conjuring such things.

In its moment of weakness, he plunges his sword into its chest, watching the expression in its eyes change from bewilderment to indifference. Perhaps this was its way of dealing with death. Upon realizing that it too, like him, is capable of it, perhaps it resigned itself to its inevitable fate.

“What is your name, hunter?”, the creature rasps.

He hesitates. It is said that once a demon utters your name, you are forever cursed. And yet, with the outcome of the battle decided, he’s willing to take his chances.

“My name is Simeon.”

The creature nods once and sighs, as if vaguely fatigued.

“And what do they call you? Do your kind even have names?”

It snickers, and Simeon removes his sword, the severe movement causing it to stiffen and clutch at the fresh wound, talons covered in its own sanguineous substance. He feels no remorse or contrition at the pitiful sight, and he digs his sword in once more, eliciting a grunt. The creature assesses his hands – vigorous and seemly, and baring a ring too.

“Satan. That is my name.”

.

.

.

As the sun sets on the horizon and bathes the scenery in twilight, a shadow emerges from the edge of the forest close to the border. His clothes are ripped, and his blonde hair is covered in mud.

He stands, taking a deep breath in, and closes his eyes. When next he opens them, they glow a vibrant chartreuse – its yellow and green hues mixing together to create an uncanny image. The dust has settled and so has the blood running through his veins.

A body lies beneath his feet. Its uniform indicates that the man was once a solider. And as he turns him over, a familiar-looking ring falls out of the soldier’s pocket. He stoops down to pick it up and admires it in the low light.

Yes, those seemly hands and those crystalline irises that’d shown unwavering tenacity.

He will return. If only to cradle that hunter’s pretty little head in his hands.

#when i first considered this pair #this concept was FAR from what i thought i'd write them in #also that lrb was too perfect not to have come before #might have to edit this when i wake up omg #obey me au #obey me writing #obey me angst #obey me simeon #obey me! simeon #obey me satan #obey me! satan #satan x simeon

[stardewshanebae]

It’s so fluffy Im gonna die

Stardew Valley had been blanketed in night. Dark clouds rolled overhead, blocking any view of the starry sky. Rose loved walking in the woods south of her farm. There were few people and she could sit on the edge of the cliff and stare at the horizon. Her stomach churned as she approached the cliff. She knew what lay ahead. She held her breath even though the stench of beer already made its way into her nostrils. Her heart was either racing or stopped entirely as she waited to see if the familiar shape was breathing. Shane coughed and sputtered.

“Man, what’s to stop me from rolling off this cliff right now?”

“Shane, please! We’re having a baby, you were excited for this!”

Shane stood, this tall, looming figure and stumbled toward the edge of the cliff.

Thump. Thump. THUMP!

Rose lurched out of bed, panting and heart racing. 

What the hell? She thought. Who is here this early in the morning?

Rose quickly threw one of Shane’s hoodies on over herself before answering the door.

“Good morning, babe.” Much to her surprise, Shane stood before her clean shaven with a bouquet of roses and a to-go container.

Still half asleep, Rose took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Oh umm do you want to come in?” Rose stepped aside to let Shane in the farmhouse.

“Thanks, I won’t be long, since I have to get to Joja on time, but I wanted to ask you something.” Shane stepped in and set the container and flowers on the table. “First,” Shane kneeled down and kissed Rose’s belly, “Good Morning baby” Rose giggled. Shane stood up. “Rose,” Shane put his hands on her waist and pulled her in closer, “make yourself available tonight at 6:00. I’ll meet you here. “ Before she could reply he leaned in and kissed her. Before pulling away he smirked and whispered, “I’m not asking”.

Rose smiled. “It’s a date then.”

Shane pulled away and turned to leave. He commented, “By the way, you look good in my shirt”.

Rose laughed as Shane closed the door behind him. She couldn’t help but smile to herself. 

It was just a bad dream, Rose. He’s better. He is. 

It was so good to see him on the upside. He was even beaming since they found out they were expecting, though they hadn’t told anyone yet. Since that day he always brought her breakfast and dinner, often staying over, and helped her with the farm. 

She turned to the to-go box on the table— inside was a delicious homemade breakfast scramble of eggs, sausage, peppers, cheese, and tomatoes. Shane was a phenomenal cook when he set his mind to it. Those Rose still struggled with food, she couldn’t bring herself to turn down such a kind act from Shane

After her breakfast she cleaned up and went to tend to her farm. She started by letting all the animals out, grooming, and collecting, then proceeded to work in the fields. By the time she was finished, it was well past lunchtime. Rose decided to head inside and shower to wash the grime off herself. 

As she washed her hair, she wondered what on earth Shane could want. He looked so excited, and confident. She smiled. He has been gaining confidence recently. A part of her always worries though, she knows what that darkness feels like, and how easy it is to relapse. 

Rose stepped out of the shower and dried off. Looking through her wardrobe, she tried to decide what would be best to wear. 

She looked through her drawers until she found a long brown skirt, a white shirt, and a soft blue cardigan. She cinched her belt around her waist. She was starting to notice the baby bump, but it was easy enough to cover up. She pulled up some socks and tied up her boots. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. It’s been a while since she’s gotten all dressed up, but she was happy to be dressed up for once.

 She didn’t love wearing makeup, but the occasion seems to call for it. Rose dug around in some of her boxes until she found it. “Aha! The makeup pouch”

Rose looked at her reflection and applied some light makeup. She dabbed some blush, added some mascara, and finished by applying some light lipstick and smacking her lips together to fade it out. She reassessed herself. Now for this hair. She brushed her hair out, and pulled two of the front pieces back with a blue ribbon. 

A few minutes later, Rose heard a knock on the door. She opened the door to see Shane with yet another bouquet of flowers, dressed in jeans and a grey button down shirt. His hair was combed back and he stood in the doorway. “Wow” he breathed. 

Rose blushed and smirked. “You should wow yourself” 

Shane handed her the flowers. “I know I already got you flowers, but I really wanted to get you more.”

Rose took the flowers and put them in a second vase. “Thank you so much” She kissed Shane on the cheek. He was warm. “So where are we going tonight, Mr. Bossy?” 

Shane held out his hand for Rose. “I suppose you’ll have to trust me”. He walked her out of the farmhouse and down toward Cindersap Forest. 

They strayed from the path to a small clearing in the center of a grove by the lake. There was a blanket with a basket in the center. Bowls with candles were scattered around the clearing. Some string lights were strung from the trees. Some throw pillows were scattered on the blanket. Shane led Rose to the blanket, took a seat and patted the blanket next to him. Rose obliged and joined him on the blanket. Shane opens the basket to reveal an assortment of fresh foods and artisan goods. He moved the basket off of the wooden board and started spreading the food out. Shane layed out various cheeses, crackers, cut bread, oils, pepperoni, pepper jam, grapes, sliced oranges, and deviled eggs. Shane held up an egg to Rose’s mouth. She took a bite. It was so good. The filling was creamy and flavorful. Shane smiled “Charlie lays the best eggs.” Rose smiled back, “She sure does, huh?”

Across the lake, Rose could see the pier where she and Shane shared so many memories together, drinks, making out like reckless teens, swimming, their first time… 

Shane has always had a warm aura. He was the kind of warm that Whiskey made you feel on the inside after a shot. He was warm in the way that the sun warmed the floorboards of the farmhouse in the afternoons. He could also burn you like a hot pepper if you didn’t know how to cut the heat. His cold front never got to her though. 

Rose and Shane snacked on the board as they talked. 

Shane looked across the lake at the pier. “You know, I’d like to say I knew you were different the moment I met you, but that would simply be a lie. I didn’t know you were different until we sat on that pier and drank beer together with our feet in the water. You sat with a depressed drunk everyday, even when I gave you the cold shoulder and cut you short. You were always there. You saw me on that pier and you sat with me. No judgement. Just kindness. It sounds pitiful that kindness is what made me see you differently. It wasn’t that I didn't feel anything for you, I was scared of getting my hopes up. So I tried to push you away. But it didn’t deter you. “ 

“Of course it didn’t Shane. You’re special and I love all the parts about you, even when you’re a grump.” 

“Rose, I love you so much. You are a light. I chose this spot for our date tonight because, well, that night you joined me on the pier, for the first time I could see past the night through til tomorrow. I started to look forward to seeing you in passing, even if I couldn’t express it. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself or ruin the friendship. But you kept being kind, you kept going out of your way to see me, and you melted me. It wasn’t until you helped me get to Harvey’s that I knew I couldn’t live without telling you how I felt. I was so scared but you smiled and loved me more. I didn’t deserve that from you. You gave me tomorrow over and over and over again. ”

“Of course you did Shane. You’ve always deserved love. Even when you were at rock bottom, you deserved love. And I'm happy to love you.” 

Shane smiled and cupped Rose’s cheek. “I love you.” 

“I love you too”

Shane reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a necklace with a small blue shell at the end of it. It shimmered and glowed before Rose’s eyes. “Rose, I can’t imagine a day without you by my side. I know I still have a long way to go and grow, but I want to grow with you. I know you’re going to think this is because of the baby, but I’ve had this planned for a long time. I love you. Jas loves you almost as much as I do. I want tomorrow with you, forever. Rose, will you marry me?” 

Tears welled up in Rose’s eyes. She was feeling a rush of joy and excitement, “Yes, yes of course. “ 

Shane fastened the necklace around Rose’s neck before pulling her into a kiss and wrapping his arms around her. “I promise to love you and cherish you and grow with you as long as I can”

Rose pulled away and cupped Shane’s face in her hands. “I promise to love you and our babies as best I can.” 

“Babies? Plural?” Shane looked worried. 

Rose smiled and nodded, “Jas and our sweet baby girl.”

Shane smiled and grabbed Rose’s hand “I don’t want to wait. Let’s get married in 3 days. We can get everything together for it by then, hell, the only thing you’ll need to do is get your dress ready. I think Emily could certainly help you with that.” 

Rose laughed. “Yeah, she’s gonna be so excited too. Say, did you tell anyone you were doing this?” 

Shane smiled, “Well, I did talk to Emily about it, and I asked Jas about it about 4 months ago. “

“Four months? But tha-”

“I told you, I’ve been planning this for a long time, Rose.” 

Rose leaned into Shane. “Spend the night tonight?” 

He smiled and hugged her. “Of course.” 

They cleaned up the picnic set, and started to stroll around the lake, just enjoying each other’s presence. 

“I’ll have to call my parents and let them know we’re getting married. “

Shane smiled. “Yeah, you’ll be Mrs. Caulfied come Saturday.” 

Rose blushed. Her fingers intertwined with Shane’s and everything felt right. The cool fall air nipped at her cheeks and the leaves crunched under their feet. 

Shane dropped the picnic basket off in front of the ranch and they walked to the farm together. 

#fluff #stardew shane #shane stardew valley #shane #shane sdv

[elysiashelby]

In Another World - T. Shelby Imagine Ch. 3.3

Paring: (Eventual) Thomas Shelby x Aliena Welsh (OC)

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Word Count: 4, 479

WARNINGS: Cursing

Summary: Aliena Welsh has been living in the universe of the show Peaky Blinders for 7 months now. Tommy and Aliena have worked out a bargain on how he should be dealing with his PTSD. Will it help him? Or will it just make everything awkward? Also, she travels to London with Ada, but ends up making a new acquaintance. 

MASTERLIST  CHAPTER 3.2  CHAPTER 4

A/N: This chapter and 3.2 are both considered extras. You can move onto chapter 4 without really reading them. I honestly wrote chapter 4 before 3.2 and 3.3. So, that will explain why Ch. 4 is a little different. THANKS FOR READING!

“Ali, wake up.”

Instantly, me eyes opened and Tommy was there towering over me with his hand on me shoulder.

“What?” I asked, kind of annoyed.

“Get in the bed. You have about 30 more minutes before you need to get up, all right?”

All I heard was get in the bed. 

Say no more, sir, I will! 

With me feet, I launched meself into his bed and pulled the covers over me body. Me left arm and neck ached like a mother, but I was determined to go back to sleep.

Through squinted eyes, I watched him leave and once he did, I closed me eyes. 

When me eyes opened again, I checked the clock. I only had a minute left to myself. I sighed tiredly. I ruffled the front of me hair, playing with it a little bit then hauled myself up. I made up Tommy’s bed, then left. 

I opened the door to me room, went in, and immediately walked to the mirror. I looked at me bruises. There was literally like no change. I sucked on me teeth before looking away. 

‘What the kinel am I going to do now?’

I didn’t have another turtleneck dress. I huffed while shuffling through me clothes. There was absolutely nothing in me closet that would cover me neck. I picked a dress that had like a “mid-necklike.” It didn’t cover it fully, but it got most of it. 

I got down on me knees, laid flat on the ground, and then pulled out me suitcases from under the bed. I opened them both up. I rummaged to find anything that resembled scarfs, and Lady Luck was on me side today ‘cause I found a couple! 

I smiled in delight and chose the one that went best with me pale pink dress. I put it on, put back all the items I took out, and slid them underneath me bed. I got up only to take off the scarf because I had to do me hair. 

Once I was done, I went downstairs. Polly was there, drinking her morning tea. 

“G’morning, Pol.” I said while aiming for the stove.

“Mornin’, Ali.” Polly replied, “Today, I need you to go to get groceries.”

I nodded, but then it struck me. Lizzie’s been getting the groceries for John. I hummed while looking at Pol. 

I started. “So, Polly about John’s groceries...?”

“Yes?”

“Last time I got them, the house was already packed.”

“What?” She asked loudly. I heard her cup clink on the table.

“Yeah. I think John found ‘imself a woman.”

“No shit!” Polly huffed before laughing. “Finally! I mean those kids of his have been needing a mother, Ali. They can’t have just you. Besides, you’re the nanny. Oh, I hope it’s someone who won’t break his heart. Did you see her?”

I couldn’t exactly lie to her outright. I mean this woman can tell when Tommy is lying, you think I’m gonna be the exception? Nah.

I nodded. “She had short black hair and was tall. Not taller than ‘im, but way taller than me. Like way taller.”

I heard her light a match then a puff. She chuckled. “Aliena, sorry to break it to you, but everyone is taller than you. Finn will end up passing you in a year!” 

Oh, did that make her laugh!

I looked at her from the corner of me eye and made a “tch” sound. 

She walked over to me with her arms open, so she could hug me. “Oh, I’m sorry. But you have to admit it. How short are you again?”

“5 feet.” I grumbled.

“What-? What was that?”

“5 feet.” I said clearer this time, but still soft.

Pol stepped away from me and patted my head. 

“Ali, you’re only 5 feet?” Ada yelled while coming into the room. 

I groaned loudly. I whispered to myself, “For fuck’s sake!” 

“Yep, I’m only 5 feet and a quarter of an inch.” I said loudly.

A chair scraped against the floor. “Huh, how about that! I thought that you had to have been, what, 5’2. But, 5 feet, wow!”

“Yeah, shut it.” 

Ada had a smug smile. I put her food down in front of her and then Polly’s. I had to finish making me own scran. Ada and Polly were talking. I was just swaying while cooking. 

“Aliena, how would you like to have the day off?” Polly asked.

I twirled ‘round to face her. “Really?” The excitement practically dripped from me voice. 

“Yeah. You and Ada should go into the city. Have a girls day! I’ll take care of the kids today.”

Me gaze shifted to Ada. Me excitement gone. She avoided me eyes. I sighed. “Okay, then! Thanks so much, Polly!”

I was halfway done with me scran when Polly got up and put her dishes in the sink. She walked over to the both of us and rubbed our shoulders before heading off. 

I waited ‘til I heard the door slammed shut and then kicked Ada under the table. 

“Ow!”

“What the hell are you roping me into, Ada?” It’s hard to shout and whisper at the same time! She wouldn’t look at me. “Is this about Freddie?”

Her eyes practically bulged out of her head. I poked the inside of me cheek with me tongue, folded me arms, and leaned back against me chair. 

“Fuck, Ada! What do you need me for?”

“Pol has been watching me lately! She’s not falling for my stories, so I figured I’d start telling her that I want to spend days off with you. And hey, you get paid leave!” She smiled before getting up and putting her dishes in the sink. “C’mon. I’ll be with you ‘till the afternoon.”

I smoothed out me forehead, resting me elbows on the table.

I muttered. “You’re lucky that I needed to go and buy some new clothes.” I stabbed the fork in me omelet.

Ada and I took a train to London. We looked ‘round a few stores, but we were talking so much that I kept forgetting to buy clothes. True to her word, Freddie came to pick her up after we ate lunch. I was left all alone after that, sitting at a table sipping on hot chocolate. 

Yeah, don't care for coffee or tea. So, I opt for hot chocolate. Luckily, it was always cold here, so I get to feel validated!

After finishing me drink, I went back into some of the stores that Ada and I went into. I bought three new dresses that had a turtleneck. I also bought two regular dresses and a nightgown. I would have bought some undergarments, but they were just too different and difficult for me to like understand. They did have cup sizes and yeah! I'm not going to explain it. I'm gonna need Polly or Ada for that adventure. 

To be frank, walking around with no supervision was terrifying and liberating at the same time. I was deathly afraid of the possibility of a man dragging me into an alleyway and mug me or... yeah. However, it was also one of me rare moments where I'm being independent. 

I was in London on me bill!

I was walking around with me new threads when I was tapped on me shoulder. 

"Excuse me, can you help me?" The girl said with an American accent. She was absolutely beautiful despite the fact she looked absolutely bladdered.

"Ye wha?" I slipped out. 

"What?"

I shook me head and said. "Sorry, um, I said Pardon. What did you need?"

She chuckled. "Oh, okay! You know I've never heard that accent before. Where's it from?"

As I answered I started taking in her appearance with more detail. 

She had dirty blonde hair. "Liverpool. It's Liverpudlian. I can do an American accent, if you can't understand me!"

She was at least 2 to 3 inches taller than me and her eyes were blue. 

"Really! I mean you don't have to do it, but I'd love to hear it." 

She was quite thin. Her breasts were large, probably bigger than mine. Her body shape might be a pear like mine or maybe an hourglass. 

I started to talk with an American accent. "Um, I don't know what to say. So, I'll just say Hi and how are you?"

Her makeup was smeared. Her eyes resembled a raccoon's and her lipstick dragged from the corner of her lip to the middle of her cheek. She had her heels in one hand, leaving her barefoot. Her hair had previously been kept up, but it was now mostly undone. 

She giggled. "Oh my god! It's so good! Have you ever been to America? Is that why you're so good at it?"

I nodded. My analysis was over. "I lived there practically my whole life. I learned how to do this to like blend in. Kids are pretty vicious."

"Ugh! Adults too! I always get shit just because I don't have an English accent. I mean I wasn't born here, what do you expect? My dad was born here, though. We came here after my mom died and then he became an MP. So, I'm basically stuck here with no real fucking friends!"

She hummed while picking at the dirt under her fingernails. Then, she clapped and snapped her fingers. "Right! Can you help me get to the Ritz Hotel?" 

I laughed and nodded. "Yeah, I can help you. Follow me. You were going the wrong direction, love." 

I heard her mutter, "Fuck." 

We started walking to the Ritz. 

"So, what's your name? I'm Cassiopeia Johnson. But everyone just calls me Cassie."

"Aliena Welsh. So far my nickname has been Ali." 

"Did you have a different nickname?"

"A friend who I considered to be my best friend used to call me Rosie. She said she would know I was coming because I brought the scent of roses with me." I smiled at the thought. It was a true story. The girl who I considered to be my best friend back home gave me that nickname because I would always buy rose fragrant stuff. 

"How come she still isn't your best friend? Did you guys have a fight?"

"No, actually. It was because I moved here. It was a sudden move. I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to her." I pretended to be saddened as I looked down at me hands. 

Cassie put a hand on me shoulder. "Why don't you send her a letter or something?"

I shook me head before meeting her concerned gaze. "She's off becoming a nurse. I don't want to interrupt her with my drama."

She hummed and removed her hand from me shoulder. 

"So, how far are we exactly from the hotel?" Cassie asked me. 

I hummed as I wondered. "I think about 20 blocks. That's about a mile, I think."

She groaned loudly. "Fuck! God, that lame party was not worth all this." Cassie rubbed her face with one hand. 

I smiled at the sight.  

"How old are you, Ali?"

"I'm 16. I'll be turning 17 in January."

"Oh, really! How nice. I'm 17 too! I'm gonna be 18 in February. When? What day were you born? Maybe we have the same zodiac sign!"

I chuckled at her peppy attitude, I just told her me age and she forgot within a split second. "January 24th."

"This can't be real. Mine's the 10th! We're both Aquariuses. This has to be fate or something!" She clasped her hands together as if she was gonna pray. 

That's when I gave her a face. I haven’t been around this much energy in a while!

She saw and stopped. "Sorry. I had a lot to drink last night."

I shook my head. "No, you're fine. It's just been a while since I've been around someone so cheerful. And someone who is crazy about horoscopes and zodiac signs. I had another friend who was like that. She used to swear up and down that she was an Gemini even though she was actually a Aries. I think her zodiac sign was correct."

Cassie nodded and smiled. "So, do you live here in London?" Her tone was meek and she kept twisting her hands. 

"No. I live in Small Heath, Birmingham." 

"Oh…"

There was a slight silence after that. 

"Well," Cassie said, "you know where I'm staying at, so maybe if you want to chat sometime? We could?" Her face was red. 

I laughed. "Yeah, I'd love to hang out. I work almost all week, though, so that'll be hard."

"You have a job?" She asked, quite shocked might I add. 

"Yeah. My parents are dead, so I have to fend for myself. My bosses gave me a room in their house."

"That's just-! Wow! You know I always thought about teaching kids, or working in a flower shop if I ever needed to work. What is it that you do?"

"I'm a nanny-slash-maid. I take care of one of my employer's kids. I make sure they are fed, clothed, bathed. I teach them how to read and write. Then, I make sure that all my employers are fed and that the house all of us live in is clean. I don't do all of the cleaning in the house in its entirety. I get help from my female boss. Her name's Polly. Yeah, she basically splits up the work for me." While talking, I was gesturing with me hands and nodding me head a lot. 

"Are they nice?"

"Yeah. Of course, they are. They have to be nice, if they don't want spit in their food." I looked at her and stuck out me tongue. We both laughed. 

Cassie grabbed me arm and linked them together. 

When I finally managed to deliver her to the hotel, she offered me a ride home. I took her offer. I had to wait for her to get dressed properly, though. 

"So, you live here by yourself?" I shouted since she was in the shower. 

"Yeah! I come here really on the weekends, or when I don't want to be near my dad! But believe me, Angelica's room is so much bigger." Cassie shouted over the running water. 

"Who's Angelica?"

"Angelica Sallow! She's the daughter of Earl William Sallow! She's also been my friend here since I arrived. She's a nice enough girl, to be completely honest, but I don't know. She's so stuck up. She always goes on and on about never getting married. Or, the man needs to realize that he's beneath her for the relationship to work. I swear I pity the poor soul who falls for her. And God, don't even get me started on her shadow!" Cassie walked out with a towel wrapped around her body and another wrapped her hair. 

I was sitting on a lounge chair with me feet up. "Too late, love! You already started. Get on with it!"

Cassie walked to her closet. "The name is Christiana King. She is the granddaughter of a Viscount. Angelica and Christiana have been since childhood, and it's known among high society that wherever Angie goes Tina is not too far." 

I made the word "Wow" with my lips, but didn't say anything. 

"I know right." Cassie said while buttoning up her dress. "Sometimes, I get the feeling that they are more than just friends. If you get what I'm saying." 

I instantly tensed up. The next thing she says will determine if I ghost her or not. "And so what if they were?"

She shrugged. "I think it's Tina that likes Angie. But Angie is straight, she's been with a guy or two in secret. Meanwhile, Tina has never been with one! Even if they wanted to be in a relationship, they probably never could. High Society is too strict about a woman's image for them not to be married off. Or, they’ll have to be married off for political gain."

She passed. 

"That's true. Poor Tina, then."

"Yes, poor Tina. You know, I've talked more to you than anyone else these past few years. I mean it's so easy to open up to you."

I nodded as I had me head tipped back on the chair. "Well, it's easier for people to rant when it's to a stranger." No consqeunces, usually.

Cassie laughed. "Oh, come now! Don't say that! We're not strangers anymore. I've told you loads of things." She paused for a moment. "I know, it's because you haven't shared anything. How about you get something off your chest?"

I brought me head back up and faced her. I had to sit on me knees in the chair to look at her though.

We talked the whole walk too. I felt a real bond with her. I mean if we decide to stay friends, then she'll be me first one here.

 "Alright!" I said. "Let's see… Oh, well I find one of my bosses attractive."

Cassie gasped. "No way!"

"Yep! Oh, Cassie, if you'd only seen him. He is so fit! His eyes are so dreamy and his cheekbones are so defined!"

"Aliena, how old is he?"

"He's 28. We're 12 years apart."

"Huh, not too bad. By my luck, I'll never meet a decent guy and will be married to a guy three times my age."

"Eee!" I exclaimed in disgust. 

She gave me the same face. 

"Well, are you gonna pursue him?" She asked while doing her makeup. 

"I don’t want to make the first move. Plus, I'd doubt he'd even see me in that way. He's not exactly an open book, ya know. So, you have to be slow and patient with him. He's barely let me in like a month ago and we've known each for seven months now. But you know what, that makes sense. I mean the man is 28 and if we did get chummy fast, that would've been weird, to say the least."

"That's true. But can't say it would be illegal. Age of consent is 16 here."

"Maybe so, but it goes against a lot of social constructs and moral values and ethical principles of our modern society."

We both hummed. 

"Would you mind being with a 28 year old?" I asked. 

"Nope. I wouldn't even mind a 38 year old as long as he was good-looking and wealthy." She smiled at me through the mirror. 

Me mouth fell open in shock. The corners of me mouth turned into a smile. "Cassie, you're my fucking soulmate!"

We started having a big 'ol laughing fit. 

When we calmed down, I said. "But I'm still not going to do anything! I admit he's very attractive, but he is my boss. I need this job and helping him find happiness is completely fine with me."

"Aw, aren't you a saint!" Cassie exclaimed, quite sarcastically. 

"Was that sarcasm, Cassie?"

She stuck her tongue out at me. 

I scoffed playfully! “Oh, I don’t play with sarcasm!"

I leaped for her and she screamed. Let's just say the fight ended in a draw. Yeah, a nice tie!

When we finished, we went down and Cassie had her car running to take me home. I felt pity for the driver who was probably waiting for a good two hours. 

'I've done this loads of times. I've relinquished all of me troubles and secrets to a person who claims they want to be me bestest of all best friends, only for us never to contact each other again. It's disappointing, but again- I'm used to it.'

I hopped out of her car and waved her goodbye. 

"Next time, I won't go for the back of your knees!" Cassie yelled. 

"Ta' even though we both know that's a cheap shot." 

She stuck her tongue at me and I did the same. Then, she left and I watched. A weird pit in me stomach formed. 

'It sucks to get used to something so sad. I really just wanted that movie trope kind of best friend, but I never had it before. I wanted Cassie to be it. But only time will tell.'

I sighed heavily, kicking a pebble before turning around and unlocking the door. I heard the sound of shoes against the floor, but I didn't pay attention to it. 

“And where the fuck have you been?” Polly shouted.

Me eyes almost came out of me head. She was yelling at me.

“Wha-?”

“Do you realize what time it is? Do you?”

“I, uh. Innit about 8?”

“It’s 10 pm, Aliena. 10 pm!”

I pursed me lips while looking down at me shoes. “Oh…” I let out a nervous chuckle.

“Oh. All she says is ‘Oh’.”

Tommy cleared his throat. “Ali, Ada said she lost you while youse were shopping. What ‘appened?”

I looked at Ada. She was biting her nails with her gaze trained away from me. 

The little-!

I sighed, tightly closing me eyes before making up at lie. “Yeah, something caught me eye at a different shop. I just went out of the shop we were in without even realizing it. When I went back, she was already gone. Then, there was this girl who needed help with directions and I helped her out and I made a friend. She gave me a ride home.” I was switching me weight on each leg, bouncing like a divvy.

Thomas sighed. A ciggie in his hands. “There you have it, Pol. She made a friend.”

The crowd dispersed while Polly walked over to me. She put her hands on me arms. “Never run off by yourself like that again. Understand me?” She said.

I nodded. “Never again.”

Polly pulled me into her arms and hugged me. 

“Go on. Go to bed.” She pushed me towards the staircase while a hand flew to her mouth, covering it.

I did as she wanted.

I was just abar done brushing out the tangles in me hair when there was a knock on me door. 

“Come in.” I said.

The door opened ‘n Tommy walked in. I gave him a tight lipped smile.

He cleared his throat. “Are we doing this therapy thing t’night, or?”

“Yeah. Yep.” I put down me hairbrush and started walking toward him.

Tommy curtly nodded, turned ‘round, and walked into his room. 

I’m not going to lie. It was very awkward. 

Very stiffy, he sat down on his bed while I stood there, kinda just watchin’. Then, he rolled over to his side and laid down. 

Once he did, I found me same spot. I sat down at his bedside, me arms folded and resting on a sliver of space on the bed. 

I barely opened me mouth to start talking when I was rudely interrupted. 

“No. I don’t like this. Get on the bed. I can’t have you falling asleep there like last time.” 

He grabbed me arms and started pulling me into the bed. 

I reflexively snickered. “Wait! Wait.”

“What?” He asked with his beautiful, enchanting eyes staring up at me. 

I was standing on me knees on the bed, his hands still on me arms. 

“Can I be on the other side?” I asked.

He blinked rapidly. “Why?”

“I don’t like sleepin’ so close to the door. If someone comes in, you’ll die first, then me.” I shook me head as if that was the most obvious piece of information that everyone knew.

Tommy laughed. He actually laughed at me. “Yeah, whatever. Fine by me.”

He let go of me arms and started shuffling back to where he originally laid. I, on the other hand, climbed over his lap to get where I wanted. 

Once I was there, I sat criss-cross applesauce style with me hands in me lap. It was just for safety reasons. I didn’t want him to accidentally see me undies. 

A silence enveloped the room.

I huffed before deciding to start talking. “Ok! The friend I made today was a girl around my age. Her name is Cassie ‘n she’s staying at the Ritz Hotel. It’s a real classy joint. Made me feel small, but whatever. She’s really air-headed like I coulda been a thief and nicked some of her stuff, but she let me into her room without a thought. But, you know a lot of people back home always told me that I looked really innocent despite me ‘aving a resting bitch face.” 

Tommy snorted.

“It’s not funny!” I pushed him. “Kids at school wouldn’t talk to me ‘cause I intimidated them. Anyway, she told me that her dad is an MP.” His eyes darted to meet me own.

 I scoffed and pushed him again. “You liked that bit, didn’t cha? Geez. Focus on going to sleep, dummy. Close your eyes. Go on! Close them.”

Tommy scooted his body down and did as I said.

“She was really nice. I don’t know if we’ll actually be friends, though. It would be nice. We got along really well, but could’ve been fake. You never really know when people are fake until after you shared a moment with them, if that makes any sense? Yeah.”

I didn’t know what to say after that, so I started to hum for a little while. 

“Oh, I’ll try singing a song. And before you try resisting, it’s not any song that you would know. So, just shut up and listen.” 

Just then an evil thought ran across me mind.

‘I’m not gonna lie. I’m dying in the inside!’

“Happy or sad, Tommy?” Me nails were digging into me palms. I was trying so hard not to tick. It would either be a bunch of snaps or I’ll clap me hands wildly. However, I didn’t stop the grin on me face.

His eyes never opened. “Sad.” 

I instantly hated meself ‘cause the way this man said that one simple word broke me heart. 

I cleared me throat and racked me mind for a sad song. I couldn’t really decide on one, so I went with my default which was “Bitches Broken Hearts” by Billie Eilish. I went onto sing “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey. Then, I sang “I’m Not The Only One” by Sam Smith, and let me tell you even though I had fun singing it- it was still embarrassing ‘cause me voice kept cracking at some of the high and low notes. 

I sang “ilomilo” by Billie Eilish. For me unexpected “final” song, I sang “The One That Got Away” by Katy Perry. 

Even though I was sure he was asleep, I still sang until it was more yawns than lyrics. The difference was that I was singing anything I wanted. Since I was already singing Katy Perry, I sang “Teenage Dream.” 

Me final song was “Boyfriend” by Best Coast. I gave up halfway, laid down, and fell asleep.

TAG LIST: @amirahiddleston​ @nemesis729​

#thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby fanfic #in another world #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby x reader

[jackandthesoulmates]

Innocence Lost

Author: jackandthesoulmates / tintentrinkerin

Title: Innocence Lost

Created for @winklinebingo

Squares filled: Teen Rebellion, Dating Apps, Virginity

Pairing: Winkline [SamJack], [dysfunctional] Destiel mention

Warnings: Attempted Non-Con

Additional tags: Identity Crisis, Sexuality Crisis, Roofies Mention, Canon Divergency, Original Characters, pan/demi Sam Winchester, Swearing

Word count: 15,691

COMPLETED [READ ON AO3]

Inspired by “Gods and Monsters” (Lana Del Rey)

I Was An Angel

She’s a pretty girl. She really is. 

Long curly, glossy hair and she always smells like flowers. Or cherries. Sometimes bubblegum. Jack is very sensitive to sweet smells and tastes and this girl is just a bouquet of the sugary and most flowery things. He likes smelling her and he likes her voice, it always sounds like she’s singing or telling a fairytale. She even has a princess name: Aurora. 

Her eyes remind him of Castiel, intense blue with yellow speckles. Jack has read some love poems before, by Shakespeare and Wilde and Rilke and he thought of this girl when he read them. She is love poem perfect.

But, look. Thing is, yes she’s cute, she’s stunning, she’s like a spring breeze and a lot of boys would probably sacrifice a hand to be with her. And Jack is her boyfriend. For about two weeks now. 

Jack has no idea how to do this whole relationship thing. He met her when he was about to go buy some bread and pie. He had gone out with his pajama shorts still on and he didn’t even notice. Aurora was behind him in line and when they both were done buying their groceries, she stopped him and whispered in his ear, “You’re still wearing your pajamas!”

The whole which-clothes-when issue was still new to him, that’s why he messed up. And he apologized to her, but she only laughed. And her laughter made him feel better. She made him feel better all around. 

Jack didn’t know much of the world. Of course, he already knew a lot. He knew about hunting and friendships, about family and good and evil. He had experienced a lot already.

In theory, he knew about love. He asked Dean about love and sex. The answers haven’t been all too satisfying and there was no intrinsic feeling, no urge for Jack to go out there and find love. Or sex. He’s found Aurora now, that sweet girl, that perfect girl. She liked him a lot, he knew it. Two weeks are enough to fall in love, it seems. 

Jack isn’t in love. He knows it. Love feels different. Dean and Castiel both have described for him what love feels like. Their wording has been totally different but it was clear they mean the same thing. And they love each other, despite their differing descriptions. 

Why is he with her then?, he asks himself a lot. Because she is nice? She is pretty? She makes him smile? She laughs with him, not at him.

To her, Jack is just a quirky shy boy. He’s not the Spawn of Satan, or a Nephilim, or a Time Bomb. He’s not a tool. Not a weapon. Not an abomination.

He’s just that kid living with these three middle aged weirdos who live in a bunker outside of Lebanon. She never judges. 

What is love then?

Jack has an answer to that. He feels butterflies in his stomach, but it took him a while to understand it was a figure of speech. There were no actual butterflies in his stomach. But it was a tingling, a pull, heart pounding in his chest. Sweating. Shaking. Becoming super dumb all of a sudden, because Jack would confuse words, form abstruse sentences and just completely messes it up. He feels all that. He has dreams about this person and his underwear is wet the next morning. He had googled it and it seems to be a normal thing to happen to boys. But he feels embarrassed every time and hates it when someone else does the laundry. He doesn’t want other people to touch his dirty laundry. He also daydreams about kisses, and hugs, and heavy breathing, of noises that sound like Jack’s in pain, but he clearly isn’t.

Sometimes he would stare at the wall for solid minutes before he snaps out of daydreaming or someone catches his attention. Either by door slamming, “Kid, you there?” or - what Dean likes to do - throwing chocolate bars at him. Jack has angel reflexes, nothing ever hits him. Dean knows it. 

Jack also has been exposed to “adult magazines” already. Dean seems to hide his magazines all over the bunker and it was just a matter of time til Jack found one and took a close, very close look. He was confused about the nudity first, he was told nudity is for showers, bedrooms and birth apparently. He’s been born naked and Sam told him, babies were born naked. And people got naked when they ‘made love’ but that was something Sam didn’t talk about. Jack had asked, but Sam denied telling him how one ‘makes’ love.

The nudity wasn’t the only thing Jack was astounded about. What these people did looked very, very peculiar. And Jack put the magazine back, when his body from belly button down felt tingly, hot and somehow itchy. Even his ‘down there’ started growing. It got hard. It confused him for a while but when his crotch grew soft, he felt relieved and never looked at something like this again.

Later he found out there was a way to make it go soft ‘down there’ again. He just needs to touch himself and what happens then is bombastic. And messy.

This feeling, love. Was he ‘making’ it? But according to Sam two people were needed to make love together. Feeling it all by his own couldn’t be the same then. Jack was confused. 

To add to his confusion, when he was at a case with Dean, Dean had talked about courting and ‘the sex’ and Dean has made fun of him when he came home two weeks ago and announced he had a girlfried. 

“Which base? First? Second?”

Sam gave Dean a scowl and a slight punch against the chest.

“Don’t listen to him, Jack. We’re happy for you.”

When he was in his room at night, he barely slept. As a half angel he didn’t need as much sleep as a human. And he knew that Castiel never sleeps. Sometimes they met in the library to talk and play chess or Go. On some other nights when Castiel wasn’t in the bunker or with Dean, Jack would just read whatever came in handy. They had a large library, but Jack was a fast reader and soon he had to download books to his eReader that Sam gave him for his first birthday. But also, this tiny piece of electronics didn’t have enough capacity to download all the books Jack would read in a week, that’s why he asked Sam for a new microSD card for his smartphone. Sam didn’t say no to Jack very often. Jack read Victor Hugo and Jean-Paul Sartre, also Marcel Proust and he had a great time reading Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. He wished James Joyce was still alive, because Jack wanted to tell him what a great and funny piece of literature he had written.

He asked Sam to summon James Joyce. 

Sam thought he was messing with him, then said ‘no’.

Jack doesn’t like it when people tell him ‘no’ and that makes it even harder now for him to say no to Aurora. 

It’s their second week and she’s so in love with him. Well, that's what she tells Jack. And he likes her pink lips, they look like flower petals and he wonders how they feel. 

Exactly what Aurora wants him to do, outside the waffle’s place. She wants to kiss him and she looks pretty, her closed eyes, a tiny raindrop caught in her long eyelashes and she smells of vanilla and there’s still powdered sugar on her chin. 

Jack backs away. Her pouty lips look nice and he wants to feel them. With his finger.

When she realizes Jack isn’t leaning in to kiss her, she opens her eyes. She looks hurt.

“Did I do something wrong?”, she asks. 

Jack feels incredibly bad about the situation and he doesn’t even know what to say. He can't explain why shies away from a kiss. 

He hasn’t been kissed ever before. And he thinks of someone else when he closes his eyes at night, hand under the cover, rubbing himself through the fabric of his pajamas.

“I’m sorry, I…I have never kissed someone before, I’m…I’m nervous.”

That isn't a lie, he tells himself. It’s not a lie. Lying is bad.

“Oh”, she mouths. A perfect O shape with her lips. 

“Are you mad at me, Aurora?”, he asks, feeling very bad and guilty. 

Jack hates disappointing people and he avoids it at every cost. Usually. But he can’t kiss her, it wouldn’t feel good. He knows, deep down it won’t feel good at all. It won’t be catastrophic, but kissing someone he doesn't like that way is wrong. Sam told him he shouldn’t be physical with people he doesn’t know well. Sam told him he should be physical with someone he really really likes and that more than just as a friend. 

Aurora feels like someone more than a friend, but there’s no nocturnal pining for her. That’s for someone else. That’s why he has to go home now, before he makes it even worse with Aurora.

“No, Jack, it’s okay, I didn’t know…I thought…I mean you said you’re 21, I kinda just thought you already have…you know, kissed someone. Or even more.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. 

“Even more?”

Aurora hides in her pastel pink scarf. 

“Yes, sex, you know?”

With a sigh, Jack looks away and he can feel his face start burning. He has no idea how to have sex, he doesn’t even know exactly what it should be. It was a part of relationships, like Dean and Castiel’s but…all Jack can think about in regards of ‘making love’ and kissing and sex was…Sam.

“I’m not experienced”, he replies, slightly trembling. “I never did it.”

-

Later in the bunker, Jack is sleepless. He would like to sleep this time, because he feels exhausted and hurt. There’s something Aurora said. She said, if he kept people at distance he would never experience love and sex. Even a kiss was a problem already. This view on things was very weird to him. He doesn’t have a problem with kissing or finding out what love is. He just doesn’t want to kiss her. It feels wrong.

She didn’t text him since they departed on unknown terms.

And another thing creeps in his mind. Maybe the problem is that he doesn’t just not like Aurora, maybe he doesn’t like girls at all? And Sam is a man. Maybe he likes men, like Dean does? Dean often talked about women, he seems to like both. Men and women. And Castiel doesn’t even raise a brow when Dean talks about ‘casual sexual encounters’ how Castiel calls them. It’s still unknown territory for Jack. 

There are people who like girls, there are people who like men and people who like both…and what if their body doesn’t matter at all?

Jack doesn’t know where the difference should be, except that a man looks different from a woman. 

The whole sex thing is driving him up the walls. 

He gets up, puts his slippers on and goes to the library. Dean is there, a bottle of whisky in front of him. He doesn’t look deadly drunk, but drunk enough. Sometimes Jack is afraid of Dean when he had too much of this stuff. He can be very mean, aggressive and violent. 

Jack braces himself and joins him at the table. Dean looks up. His green eyes are glassy and his face is red. 

“Can’t sleep, kiddo?”, he asks, wrapping his gown tighter. 

Jack nods.

“No. I was naughty. And now I’m upset.”

Dean’s head jerks up, now Jack has his full attention. The smirk gives it away, Dean will make fun of him for sure.

“Naughty? As in, you finally did sweet lovin’ to her or?”

Jack shakes his eyes, frowning. 

“Now, she wanted to kiss me but I didn’t want to.”

He sighs, sinks back in the chair, looking at the ceiling. There’s silence, Dean just chugs down the rest of the whisky, but he has another already on hand and opens it.

“Need a sip?”

His first instinct is to say ‘no’, but then he agrees and takes a drink directly from the bottle. Whiskey tastes like paste. He hates alcohol and it doesn’t make him drunk. He could drink ten of these bottles and still wouldn't feel a little thing. He knew that Cas also could drink immense amounts and he never feels even dizzy. 

“How do I know if I’m gay?”, he asks and avoids eye contact.

Dean bursts out in laughter. It takes a while for him to calm down again. Jack feels very embarrassed. 

“I shouldn’t have asked”, he murmurs and attempts to get up again but Dean stops him.

“Ey sorry. I’ll give you some advice okay? You will know when a man or a woman drives you crazy. Just, I don’t know. Try it. Get Grindr or whatever, chat with some guys, meet up. And try it.”

Dean’s eyes are really teary now. That was maybe a little too much. 

“Are you okay, Dean?”

“Ya, ‘m fine. No worries.” 

Dean is not okay, but Jack has learned his lesson. Dean will always say it’s okay, there’s no problem, I’m fine. 

Sam is a lot different from him. He’s strong and calm, his hands are so big and his broad shoulders would be perfect to lean on. 

Dean is different. Never at peace, restless. Always on the run from whatever is going on in his head. 

“Is Sam…is Sam gay?”

Jack is shocked by his own words. Dean freezes. And then slowly, very slowly turns to Jack. There’s nothing friendly in his face, it’s a grimace.

“No, he’s not, Jack. Never was. Never will be.”

His heart feels like it’s sinking down to Jack’s groin. It hurts. He gets up.

“I should go to bed. Good night.”

“Sleep tight.”

Tonight Jack cries, hugging his moose plush toy.

*

“Grindr or whatever.”

“Chat with some guys, meet up. And try it.”

Dean’s statements from that night stick with the poor innocent boy. He rolls these thoughts in his head and they roll from one corner to the other, like marbles. He also dips his tongue in them, tastes them. Makes them slide from his teeth down to his throat. But he never swallows them. 

Sam is not gay.

“Never was. Never will be.”

Sam doesn't like men. He doesn’t like boys. And Jack is a boy. Does that mean he has to give up on what he feels? But, what if Jack isn't gay himself? He has no experience. Not with girls, not with boys. He only knows it feels wrong to kiss Aurora. She is one girl of billions. And Sam is just one man of billions.

Maybe, even when Sam is not interested in men, Jack is an exception. He is half angel!

Grindr. Or whatever.

What is Grindr?

Jack didn’t eat this morning, because he  heard Sam and Castiel fighting over something Jack didn’t want to be part of. It was enough to see Dean drink so much, but he wouldn’t participate in any of the tensions that his behaviour caused lately. Dean had told him, he would kill him. Well, maybe he won’t do that anymore now since Jack helped to save the world more than once. He said Jack isn’t family. Maybe he still thinks so. It hurts Jack, because he loves his three father figures and he looks up to Dean. He’s a strong hunter, a leader. He’s the muscle of this team. Sam is the brain. Castiel somehow is the heart. But what is Jack? Always willing to sacrifice himself to make Sam and Cas and Dean love him. 

These thoughts are dark enough and going out there and witnessing another fight wasn’t Jack’s favourite start of the day.

He rather hid in his room after showering. 

Dean has offered him some breadcrumbs like the ones Hansel and Gretel left to find their way back home from the forest. But he needs to go the other way. He doesn’t need to find his way out of the forest and away from the witch’s gingerbread house. Jack wants to find exactly that. 

Wrapped in his towel he sits down on his bed, takes his smartphone and opens a search engine tab. Aurora has texted him but he doesn’t want to reply right now. He feels bad about how he let her down and didn’t kiss her. 

He isn’t sure what he is supposed to search for, he just types grinder. Several online shops appear. Obviously it’s a name for a tool to crush herbs and marijuana. Did Dean mean that? He should grind some herbs and perform a ritual? Nah. Dean was drunk, he surely didn’t think that far.

Next step is to look it up in an online dictionary.

It says a lot of things about molars (pressing together with a rotating motion), grinding as a verb to pulverize material, and then something caught Jack’s eye.

to rotate the hips in an erotic manner

Now, that makes sense in a way, that makes Jack blush deeply. It’s a motion he sometimes imagines when he’s hot and aroused. When his body works up, his cheeks hot and his spine tingly. He imagines sitting on Sam’s lap, both kissing and sighing, and then Jack would...grind. 

Jack has to put the phone away for a second. Thinking of this clouds his judgement. 

After a minute of breathing in and out and trying to tone these thrilling images down Jack is ready to now search for: “Grinder gay men”

The search engine reports “No results for Grinder gay men found. Do you want to search for Grindr gay men instead?”

Jack is irritated about the missing “e”, that’s a typo, right? but he presses the tab ‘yes’.

What pops up now is an article from an online encyclopedia and describes Grindr as a mobile app for gay, bisexual and trans men to chat and meet other men of the same interests. 

The second article is a link to his smartphone’s app store, which Jack opens. 

Dean wanted him to find this app. To meet other men. Try it. Now it all makes sense! Jack is happy about this. Dean wouldn’t be so mean to him after all!

He downloads the app Grindr - Chats, Meeting and Dating for Gays. The app’s icon is black with an orange mask in the middle. Looks plain but also makes Jack curious.

To use the app Jack has to sign up. Since Castiel once has given him permission to sign up in a social network he just thinks it applies to this stuff too. 

There’s a lot of text about privacy, which he just accepts to go further. He signs up with his e-mail address and password. He struggles with his birthday. He tells people he’s 21 years old, which makes his birthday for official purposes May 18th somewhere in the nineties. He has to do some funny verification procedures, the last one is verifying his phone number. 

The app wants him to upload a picture of him, and because he doesn’t have any he just takes one. He doesn’t mind that he's naked except the tiny towel around his waist. The first step is easy. He’s Jack, 21 and looking for Chat, Dates, Meeting up and Friends. He wonders why there’s two options for meeting people. One sounds like it’s for impatient people and the other one is for people who are patient. Like Sam. Sam would be patient. 

He’s now transferred to the next page. And he now sees a lot of other people using the app it seems. A lot of very muscly men are there. They all like to show their body, but Jack doesn’t really like this. Their nudity even makes him feel icky. 

Some men have nicknames like “BigTrunkBear” or “LikeItRough” or “Creamlover”. Jack’s confusion is growing. 

There’s also a lot of men having no photo at all, but how should Jack know how they look? Also the photos of legs irritate him. 

The app notifies him he needs to complete his profile. There’s some multiple choice questions but also dropdown menus and input masks.

It’s easy for him to type a few sentences about himself. 

Jack is as blunt as it could be. 

“Hello, I’m Jack. I like nougat, my fathers and shadow show.”

Age and height are no problem, but he has to google what ethnicity is. His skin is pale, then he must be white. 

Every question after that is confusing to him. He doesn’t know what “position” (Top, Bottom, Vers) he is, is he a “Bear” or a “Twink”? What is all that?

The confusion grows and Jack closes the app for a moment. He thinks about googling all of it. But then his phone chimes and there’s a text message in the app from a man with the nickname “OralPlesaurer”. Which is funny to Jack, because it’s a typo. And no one’s name in real life is OralPleasurer or Creamlover.

Cream is cool, yeah, whipped on pie. But Jack’s not a lover in the sense of the word. Weird people there.

Jack opens the message, it’s a simple “Hi”.

Jack sends a "Hi" back.

What happens then can only be described as…unexpected.

Shinin’ Like A Fiery Beacon

Sam has no suspicions what’s happening in Jack’s mind, but he notices he’s shy around him. Maybe even a little uneasy. The last months have been rough and Sam knows Jack has gone through a lot. Mostly he tried to gain Dean’s trust again, make him and Dean forgive him. But Sam was never mad at him. He couldn’t. 

There is a lot in Jack that reminds Sam of himself and that makes it hard for him to look at the situation objectively. 

Jack was destined to be a weapon for his father, Lucifer. And Lucifer was a special kind of topic for Sam and it has granted him a very twisted satisfaction that Jack helped to kill him off permanently. Three times. Jack’s struggle with his heritage was something Sam totally understands and yes, of course he also understands why Dean is angry and hurt. 

But why does he treat Jack like that still? 

Why is he so determined to stick to his anger and his grief? It doesn't even seem like he is trying to get over it, to forgive Jack. 

There’s something else on Dean’s noggin’ and Sam knows it, even when Dean doesn’t talk about it. The empty whisky bottles, all the sex with nameless strangers and his risky behavior aren’t new to Sam or Cas. 

But that Cas puts up with Dean’s bullshit is astounding. He wouldn’t let that happen. And Sam fights a lot. With Cas. About Dean. With Dean. About Dean. And Cas. And how he treats Jack.

Lately Sam noticed a feeling deep inside of him, flourished for Jack. A gentle, fragile feeling and he didn’t dare to touch this topic. Not even when he was in his room alone at night, rolling around in his bed. It’s a special kind of affection mixed with a frustrating amount of attraction. Sam hates himself for feeling like this. It’s just not right. Jack is nothing like his father, yes, but that's also not the problem. He’s barely 4 years old by now, he came into the world in the body of a young man but little knowledge and childlike naivety. How could Sam take advantage of that? Jack clearly wants to gain his friendship and maybe a platonic kind of love. It’s wrong of Sam to wish for more than that. And that’s why he keeps it hidden and rather tumbles into new fights about Dean’s alcoholism.

It’s his turn to do the cooking today while Cas and Dean are on an investigation and he’s alone with Jack. Sam notices once more that Jack hides in his room a lot, he won’t come out unless Sam calls him to lunch or dinner. Mostly he skips breakfast. So far there’s nothing weird about it, maybe Jack needs some privacy. Sam thinks of his youth with Dean and Dad on the road and how he hated to never be alone. 

Taking ‘long showers’ was always suspicious and a lot of things he and Dean did were blurry to him now in his late thirties. When Sam fled to Stanford and finally had a room for himself, actual locks and actual keys for them, doors he could close...it was better than heaven. That’s when he finally could explore what it meant to be a teenager and deal with the rampaging hormones on his own. Also, he could finally be away from Dean’s hypersexual behavior. Maybe Dean thought it was cool to be like this in front of Sam, especially when they as brothers became a little too close and it was his way to dodge the bullet. 

In the light of his own memories Sam knows what is happening.

And he’s sure Jack’s kind of blossoming at the moment. 

With his super cute and lovely girlfriend, Aurora.

Sam hasn’t met her yet and he has no idea how to react. Of course, he’d be nice and polite and make her dinner and ask her all the nice and polite things for small talk and tell Jack how lucky he is but there’s something primal inside of Sam. Jealousy. He hates being jealous and he has no right to feel that way. One more reason to just let this blooming feeling die and not feed it with anything. 

Not with his weird daydreams or the thoughts at night that keep him bothered and not the moments he’s alone in the shower, rubbing one out. Afterwards he’s just more frustrated, instead of feeling any relief. 

Sam needs another cup of coffee, a strong one. Before Cas and Dean went out, there had been another argument. It was hurtful. Things were said and then taken back, Cas’ puppy eyes all over, Sam's yelling and Dean almost breaking shit. Like always. Maybe after this one they’d calm down, all of them. Dean and Cas were alone for a while, maybe doing some reconciliation. Sam would be happy for them if they could get over whatever was going on. 

In the meantime Sam is just happy with cooking, doing laundry, generally cleaning the bunker and reading. It may sound boring for some people but for him it’s heaven. They’ve had too much going on for fifteen years, some peace is pretty nice and just what he needs right now.

Jack’s an active reader too and he reads the good stuff. Sam educates him about most things he’s comfortable with and he knows he should’ve given the kid ‘The Talk’ already, but Dean kinda started it and Sam is a bit of a chicken regarding this topic. Sex isn’t his favorite thing to talk about. And so far, there seems no reason to rush it, even though Aurora is there. Dean told him about a week ago that Jack has refused to kiss her and if there wasn't anything else going on Sam was unaware of, that was the sexiest thing Jack had achieved so far. A kiss from a girl.

Sam burns his tongue on his coffee because he chugged it too quickly. With a curse he bangs the mug on the table and that’s when Jack walks in. Lately he abandoned his adorable pajamas and wears some of Dean’s and Sam’s old shirts and flannels he grabbed out of the sacks for the clothing drive. That looks wrong in all the right ways, but Sam can’t really say anything about it without letting his guard down. And he won’t let his guard down. Never. 

“Morning, Jack”, Sam utters, trying to cool his tongue with a sip of water. “I didn’t expect you to be up that early. Want some porridge?”

Jack looks up at him and there’s still a sleepy veil surrounding him. He seems to be just woken up. He is wearing one of Sam's old shirts, which is too big for him and the sight makes Sam gulp. A little.

“Yes, sounds good.” Jack sits down and yawns in his hand while Sam gets him some porridge and a cup of coffee with a lot of milk in it. 

Now Sam notices that Jack carries his smartphone with him, which is unusual. Jack mostly uses it for chatting with Aurora or doing some research but he never carries it around like some other teenagers do who are maybe a little too attached to it. It vibrates a couple of times before Jack takes it and mutes all notifications. He looks…guilty?

“What is it? Is Aurora chatty today?”

Jack looks up and puts a spoonful of porridge in his mouth, shaking his head. 

“No, it’s um…it’s nothing.”

Sam is suspicious. Does Jack talk to someone else? Would he need to give him a talk about keeping options open? He doesn’t want to approach the issue by himself, so he rather sits down and eats his breakfast too. Jack seems a bit nervous, always throwing stolen glances at his phone and the screen lights up every couple of minutes. Jack doesn’t reply to any of these messages, he just turns the phone screen down on the table and keeps eating. 

The day goes by, Sam just gets cosy in the library. Dean messaged him it’s a vampire nest and he and Cas will hunt them down tonight. Which is a good sign. Sam also told him to take some time off after it, maybe go to Vegas. Dean hasn’t replied yet. It’s a bit selfish but Sam likes the quiet peace in the bunker. They have thought of moving out a couple times but none of them could really think of somewhere else to live. They were hunters after all and so far they didn’t think about retiring. The bunker was still the core of their family. A home. Dean’s and Sam’s home after years on the road or couchsurfing at Bobby’s, the only home Jack knows. Sam even started to make his room look like an actual bedroom. It had been bare and clinical for years when he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea to settle down with Dean. He thought the bunker would maybe one day be taken away from them again. 

His phone chimes and Dean promises to be back in a couple of days. Couple of days. That could mean they’re back tomorrow or in a week. But he’s happy that Dean takes the chance anyway. 

Sam is totally sucked in by the book he’s reading and he jolts when Jack appears in the library, a hot chocolate in his small hand and a slight disturbed look on his face. 

“Sorry, you scared me a little bit”, Sam says and feels bad about it. 

Jack only smiles and takes a seat across the table.

“It’s okay. Sam, can I ask you some questions? I wanted to ask Dean, but he’s away and not replying to my texts…” 

“Of course. What’s the matter?”

Jack looks up to him, big blue eyes piercings through Sam’s skin. He hates when that happens, Jack has an unsettling effect on Sam. He’s not used to feel like this. 

He squirms in his chair now and then with a sigh, Jack takes the phone out of his pocket to place it in front of him. Okay, so there is something up with the phone. Sam was right about it. 

“How do I know if I’m gay?”

Jack doesn’t look at Sam, he stares at his phone. Sam can see his ears getting red and Jack just blushes so easily… and also very intense. His face is burning red, Sam would bet his ass on it. 

The question itself is nothing Sam would classify as weird. It’s obvious Jack’s going through a phase of finding himself. Contemplating his own sexuality is part of it. Thing is, it makes Sam slightly uncomfortable talking about it. It’s partly because Jack is so young, the other part is that he’s attracted to Jack. Sam didn’t feel attracted to anyone for years and he hates labels. He loves who he loves and he wants to sleep with people he has a strong connection to. And a life as a hunter doesn’t provide much space for a romance to unravel.

How is he supposed to talk about it when he has no idea where to start?

He isn’t a good measure after all.

“Oh, that is as simple as it is complicated”, Sam starts, folding his hands on the table. He takes deep breaths, before he starts to speak. 

“First of all, I can only speak for myself and I don’t know if I'm for much use. In regards of sex you really better ask Dean, but since he doesn’t seem to look at his phone at the moment, I will try.” 

He has already told Jack about making love instead of sex and Sam has thought about his choice of words and regretted some of it. It sounded way too much like purity culture and Jack shouldn’t think sex was bad. Sexual attraction isn’t bad at all.

It just doesn’t fit for Sam.

“Does your question have anything to do with how you feel about Aurora?”

Jack nods. Slowly, a little unsure.

“She wanted to kiss me but I didn’t want to. It didn’t feel right. And I wondered if it has something to do with- I mean- maybe I like boys and not girls?” 

His face is so red by now, Sam could swear he feels the heat radiating from the boy.

“There could be several reasons for it, it doesn’t mean you’re gay. Most people kiss and make love because they’re attracted to each other. Attraction is a very tricky feeling. It feels like butterflies in your stomach, heart pounding, you maybe even feel dizzy. That’s when most people say they’re in love. Do you feel that when you are with Aurora?”

Jack shakes his head.

“No.”

“Then maybe, you’re just not in love with her, and that's okay. You will fall in love with another girl in the future. Or you fall in love with a boy, which is also totally fine. Also you can feel attraction to people who don’t fit in the girl/boy categories. It’s all just about how you feel around them and if you want to kiss them. Or go further.” 

Sam rubs his hands. He really feels uncomfortable educating Jack about love and sex. Now would be a great moment for Dean to show up and take this conversation.

“You know, Dean likes both. Cas is an angel, I don’t think a concept of gender applies to him at all.”

This is when Jack looks up. 

“And what do you like?”

Sam now leans back in his chair, his heart aches a little and he feels heat creeping up his neck. He hates that question.

“Well, Jack…” he sighs heavily, “I don’t care much about gender too. I’m not gay, but I’m not straight either. And I’m also not bisexual, like Dean. It’s hard to say. When I like someone, I like them and I don’t see gender. Boy, girl, queer, it doesn’t matter.”

Now Jack takes a long, careful sip of his hot chocolate. His smartphone chimes again and Sam just has to ask.

“Do you think you’re gay, because you didn’t want to kiss Aurora or is there something else on your mind?”

He knows it’s not his business but he also takes it very seriously to be a good role model, be a father figure to Jack. When Jack needs help, Sam will provide it. Same goes for Cas and sometimes even Dean has his bright moments of fatherhood. 

It’s obvious Jack doesn’t want to answer right away, he looks like he is tasting words in his mouth, rolling them over his tongue, putting them in his cheeks for a moment, before he says something that surprises Sam. 

“There is something else. A man asked me out, but he asked me things I don’t understand.”

Sam stiffens. 

“A man? How old?”

Jack shrugs. 

“Couple years older than Dean maybe?”

Now Sam leans forward, skeptical and on alert. 

“What do you mean, he asked you out? Where? How?”

Jack now shows Sam his phone and Sam recognizes the push messages. The icon is black with an orange mask in the center. 

Oh no, that’s not good. Like absolutely bad.

“On this app. He lives close and he asked me if I like bareback? But I don’t know what he means with that. Does he want to go horse riding with me on a date?”

Sam can’t help but laugh. It’s a diminished, unhappy sound. 

“No, he doesn’t want to go horse riding with you, Jack. He wants to have unprotected sex with you.”

You Got That Medicine I Need

“What do you mean by… that he wants to have unprotected sex with me?”,  Jack asks. 

He was utterly confused about this statement and how Sam came to that conclusion. There’s so much he doesn’t know and so many things he got wrong. Sam also doesn’t help much with his shooting questions and… things like this. Jack furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head. 

“You have to delete this app and stop talking to these creeps.”

Sam looks very upset and Jack doesn’t get why. 

“Answer my question please, what is bareback then? Sam, why do you think he’s a creep? He seems actually nice, he says he likes my eyes and my lips, look!”

He shows his phone again to Sam and he just takes it. Then Sam gets up and starts fumbling on the screen, his eyes narrow. Jack knows this kind of facial expression, he usually sees it when Sam is upset with Dean. Should Jack maybe tell Sam it wasn’t his own idea to install the app? Would that help? Would he then be mad at Dean? But Jack doesn’t want that either, he wants Dean to like him. 

“Jack, it’s gay slang. And this guy”, his voice rises in irritation and suppressed anger, “he looks fishy. Why the hell do you use these apps anyway? You’re with Aurora and… you have no idea about sex yet, casual dating shouldn’t be something you … you like. What is this all about? Jack?”

Jack feels like he’s shrinking to a tiny puddle of shame under Sam’s piercing eyes, his sharp voice and how his chest heaves. He’s also annoyed at the same time. It’s his fathers’ fault he knows so little about sex and how to court people, no one really feels responsible to help him with it, except Dean! Jack looks up to Sam, even when it hurts right now, he hates it so much when Sam is angry. And he feels like he was a dog that took a shit on the carpet and now has to feel utterly guilty for… having essential needs? 

That it’s Sam who tells him to stop makes it even worse. He’s trying to figure out what he feels for Sam, it’s hard enough to see him all day and feel this tickly, hot and cold feeling all over his body and only be able to release it in the silent darkness of his room, quietly moaning and thinking of Sam kissing his tummy and thighs… and even more. Jack feels all the heat building up inside him, it makes his skin crawl and his eyes tear up.

“I want to know if I’m gay or not!”, he says, way louder than intended. “And Dean said it’s a good idea to meet up with men and find out what I like!”

Sam stiffens, chest heaving even harder when he drops his hands and bangs them on the table. 

“Dean told you to install this app?”, he asks. Voice dangerously gentle.

“Yes.”

Jack crosses his arms, defensively. 

And then Sam nudges the smartphone back to Jack. He looks so angry while appearing so calm, apart from his deep breathing. Jack can see the breath vibrate in Sam’s chest and he wishes so badly to lay his head there and hear Sam’s heartbeat, feel his pulse and how his chest moves while breathing. 

Sam’s mouth is a firm little line before he speaks.

“I guess Dean didn’t think his advice through, Jack. This app and many others are made for casual sex and hook ups, and I wouldn’t let you meet any of these guys you’re talking too. You could get hurt”, he then combs through his long hair, fishing for words, “You know that there’s people out there who want harm. It’s too dangerous. Delete it.”

Jack doesn’t attempt to take the phone again, looking at Sam, angry himself.

“No. I need to find out who I am and you keep on handling me with kid gloves!”, he says, voice raised and aggressive. 

This is when Sam slams the table with his fist. “It’s because you are a fucking kid and I don’t want you to be whoring around!”

Wow. 

That feels like a punch in the guts. Jack knows what a whore is. He has googled it after Dean has told ‘whore stories’ at the dinner table when Sam was out with Cas once.

His eyes tear up heavily and there’s a choked sob before Jack grabs his phone and gets up. 

“I’m not a whore, Sam. But good to know you think of me like this.”

Sam's frozen solid for a couple seconds, can’t act on anything but wants to. Jack fumbles on his phone with shaking hands and then shows Sam.

“See, app deleted. No ‘whoring around’ for me.”

And then Jack storms off. Sam calls out after him “Jack, I’m sorry, please come back!” But Jack doesn’t come back. He grabs his jacket and goes outside. He needs some time alone.

*

In the evening, alone in his room, Sam is extremely downhearted. He tried to talk to Jack later, when he came back into the bunker. He even came up to Sam himself to show him the app was still gone, but didn’t talk anymore. Of course Sam apologized every time they saw each other, but Jack didn’t react. 

Damn, he has fucked up so hard this time. And he can’t even lie to himself saying it was just a stupid thing he said. That he didn’t think. Well, he really didn’t think at that moment. There was just … that moment, that hot red moment of possessiveness, of jealousy. And this fata morgana of pure, asexual Jack that Sam could protect and nuture, versus this dark fucked up desire to kiss him, ruin the literal angel. Be the one to show him love. 

To show him how Sam could make him feel, make him come in thousands of ways. Sam’s so touch starved and drawn to Jack and he is so endlessly ashamed of it. It’s not right, he keeps telling himself. It’s wrong to feel attracted to a child. To the child of his rapist. Even Sam cries in bed sometimes, like today. He cries about his stupid words, about how he hurt Jack and how filthy he feels all the time in contrast to the pure and utter arousal picturing the nephil in his bed, sweat covered and hot and willing and moaning Sam’s name when he spills all over his firm stomach. 

Fuck. Holy fuck. This is so bad. 

*

Jack retreated in the forest for a while, listening to angry music on his phone, kicking sticks and stones around till he reached the pond where he just sat down, stared at the glistening surface for an hour or two. He cried a little, too. Sam’s words have hurt him incredibly. Sam is Jack’s role model and the person he wishes to be closest with. And that Sam, especially Sam implies Jack ‘whored’ was so excruciating, that his half human body even threw up the rest of dinner. With his knees pulled to his chest and his face buried in his eyes he cried and cried, before the childlike side in him started rebelling again. Sam has hurt him, but Jack still wants to know what’s wrong with him. Why he feels for Sam, and if it’s because he’s male… or because he’s Sam. 

The feeling hurt even more now, it even hurts now when he’s in bed, staring at the ceiling, still listening to angry yelly music. His body is terribly worked up again, but now Jack reinstalls the app, his profile is still there. He doesn’t know what to do with the old guy who wanted to ‘bareback’ him but he had googled it while staring at the pond and Sam was indeed right. But this old sack wasn’t the only guy Jack was in touch with, there was also Hunter, 25, from Gilead, Kansas. Jack likes the name hunter, because him and his fathers are hunters and hunters are mostly good people. He also likes the name of the city where he’s from, Gilead. It refers to a mystical place in the Bible, which he read a couple times already, but also was the name of the USA in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood, which he loved too. And Hunter is nice, very nice and when Sam demanded Jack to delete Grindr, Jack was afraid Hunter would be mad if he didn’t reply to his last message.

But of course Jack wants to reply to Hunter, and there’s two new messages from Hunter which he answers quickly. He gives Hunter his phone number and then decides to delete the app really, just in case Sam wants proof again. Which Jack would maybe deny next time, he is so sick of being treated like a child. Because he’s not. His body is fully developed, and he knows a lot about the world. He knows facts, but it’s hard to find out about all the social stuff. Jack feels alien most of the time, because he has intimidating powers and his angel self works different from his human self. He just has too little experience in human and social interaction and Sam even tries to take away the chances Jack could have to be better at being a human being, which is the side he picked long ago. He wants to be human. Normal. And he wants to be accepted, respected and loved. Not patronised and cared for like a baby. Of course, he knows. He’s defiant and petty but he’s tough and brave enough to learn more about the world and love. 

Aurora isn’t forgotten, he feels bad when he thinks of her, but she also didn’t reply to his last message. Which makes it easier to attach to Hunter, who says in his profile he’s a “vers bottom” (and since no one seems to care about giving Jack a proper talk he googled it and now is indeed in the picture what that means), wants to find true love and relationships. His favourite movies are Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and he likes novels like Lord of the Flies and Fahrenheit 451. He sounds so intelligent and nice, Jack trusts him already after a few days of texting. He seemed able of critical thought and he liked books Jack also liked and they spent a day just talking about religious imagery in The Great Gatsby. But yeah, Jack was totally whoring around. Surely.

Tonight he’s too hurt to let his usual thoughts of Sam go too far, instead he opens his messenger app and he doesn’t have to wait very long after messaging Hunter to get a reply.

Jack smiles when Hunter asks if he is in bed already and what he’s thinking of. Jack texts back he thinks of a certain dark haired, brown eyed man he likes. Hunter looks a bit like Sam and Jack can lie to himself casually here. The texts turn hotter with every turn and Jack’s heart starts pacing, his hand sliding under the seam of his underwear while he reads Hunter’s latest message, describing how he would undress Jack, kiss him and let his hand wander where Jack wasn’t touched by anyone else than himself so far. 

In the morning he feels way better. Hunter’s messages have given him some very nice moments of pleasure but he also feels a little guilty. He hasn’t replied to the hot messages because he’s a total newbie and doesn’t even know what he likes himself. When he told Hunter in the night he’s a virgin, Hunter was very nice and understanding and told Jack he doesn’t have to reply if he feels insecure. 

This sort of validation is something Jack wants to have from Sam but after what Sam said and how deeply it impacted Jack’s trust in him, he tried to let go of this hope. Sam thinks he’s a child. Or a whore. Or both. Jack knows about Nabokov’s Lolita and wonders if Sam thinks he raised him to be seductive to old creeps like the bareback guy. 

One way or the other, Jack is hurt and pissed off, but overall he feels better and steadier today, his ego is petted very thoroughly by Hunter. Maybe one day Jack won’t need Sam’s approval and affection anymore. Seems a nice thought today.

When Jack gets dressed he sneaks up to the kitchen and he can hear from across the floor already Sam is talking to someone. He’s loud, his voice full and usually Jack likes how deep, low and growly Sam can sound when he’s in some kind of situation he’s passionate about, no matter if positive or negative. 

But this sounds like he’s yelling at Dean and that’s never good. 

“Why the actual fuck did you tell Jack to install a gay hook up app, are you out of your rotten mind? He took your word for it and now I am the one who had to clean up this mess!... Yes, he used it and a guy he talked to wanted to meet up and bareback…. Jesus FUCKING Christ Dean that’s not funny-- stop fucking laughing! He could be hurt! You’re such an asshole. I wonder why you fucking hate the kid so much, after all he did for us!... No, I didn’t forget about mom, never will. But you know it wasn’t him. I don’t give a fuck about your feelings right now... Leave the child alone or I swear you’ll regret it!”

A long silence. Jack counts from 50 downwards and stops at 7, when Sam’s voice rises again. 

“Yeah you better. Gimme Cas, I need a word with him.”

Jack has heard enough. “The kid”. “Clean up a mess”. “The child”.

Mary Winchester.

He’s suddenly not hungry anymore and retreats to his room, where his smartphone vibrates the moment he closes the door. It’s Hunter, of course.

Looking To Get Fucked Hard

It takes Jack a day and a half after the phone call to make the first move towards Sam and accepts his apology, which is very well-considered, diplomatic and remorseful. He still feels very hurt by Sam’s words and the fight over the phone with Dean also didn’t help him look over the fact that Sam has a certain edge in his voice when it comes down to explaining ‘adult stuff’ to Jack. Jack, who is naturally curious and eager, but also blunt and innocent, doesn’t quite understand what his problem is. When Jack hears Dean talk about sex with several people, sometimes at once, it doesn’t sound like something he feels ashamed of. He’s even proud of it. 

But Sam is so much more secretive and retreats from any question Jack has from now on. Is sex something bad? And why does he think Jack is acting like a promiscuous person for talking with people online?

It takes another five days in which Jack secretly talks to Hunter over his messenger app and Jack avoids looking at his phone when Sam is around. He doesn’t want to get in another argument again but he also likes the way Hunter makes him feel. Even though Jack is a virgin and inexperienced, Hunter takes him seriously. He treats Jack like an actual adult, with adult needs and adult opinions and an adult body, that is longing for another human’s touch. Jack kind of came to the conclusion that being in love with Sam won’t go anywhere good, not after all the things Sam has said to him. And how he thinks of Jack. As a child, something he has to protect and nourish but for God’s sake don’t touch it. 

Jack doesn’t want protection. He wants to be loved as a man, even though he’s barely a man now. 

Sam’s apology doesn’t change his way of thinking about Jack. 

Damn, why does he have to be in love with Sam, from all people? Maybe it would be even easier with being in love with Dean. Scruffy, grumpy, spiteful, asshole, loyal, troubled, vulnerable Dean?

Is that maybe any better?

But even Dean doesn’t take him seriously as someone who has needs. He gave Jack this damn idea about the app and he probably knew it would cause Jack trouble when Sam found out. 

Over the next days Cas and Dean don’t show up and Sam is worried even when he tries to hide it behind research and angry texts and treating Jack even more than a kid. Makes him his favourite food and drinks, even lets him drink some beer. 

It makes Jack feel even more like someone you need to treat like a timid fawn.

Does nobody see that Jack is no fawn anymore? That he’s ready to grow, that he has intimate, sexual urges. He is prospering for everyone to see, but Sam just squeezes his damn eyes shut and Dean makes fun of him.

And Castiel probably doesn’t even know what it all means because he’s a full grown celestial angel, or an ‘eldritch horror’ as Dean sometimes puts it. 

Time to sow his wild oats.

After a week of absence it seems clear, Cas and Dean are either having a good time or they’re getting lost somewhere in a brothel or a casino or whatever humans do in Las Vegas. Sam doesn’t tell Jack where exactly they are, but Jack thinks they got somewhere to also let off some steam. 

Jack decides to meet with Hunter, after they had some very thrilling conversations at night. It’s mostly that Jack still imagines Sam when he touches himself but Hunter is giving him a lot of things to think about. He doesn’t feel that naive and innocent anymore, now that someone tells him he’s hot, he’s cute, he’s desirable. He is equal. 

No more thinking of ‘down there’s and that kissing is oh so sacred. It’s a change that would scare Jack if he wasn’t so eager to show off to Sam he was mature enough to be treated equally. Hunter presses the right buttons. And all of them at once. 

Jack wants to know how it feels to kiss, to be touched in places, he even wants to touch someone else. And if he keeps telling himself it’s Sam, while he’s with Hunter, he might even enjoy it more. They look so much alike, or at least how Jack thinks Sam looked when he was way younger. Maybe Hunter’s smaller, and what Jack saw from his body wasn’t that defined and muscular, but he can dream. His imagination is going strong. 

His hormones and his contact with another man who shows interest in him make Jack cocky.

They set the date already two days after the fight with Sam and today is the day. Sam and Jack still don’t spend much time together and in the morning Sam announced he will be doing some inventory in a room he was able to unlock with a smell Rowena left him. He told Jack about shelves full with old scripts and mason jars labelled with ‘icky stuff’ and he thinks that in no way the Man of Letters Cuthbert Sinclair would’ve left such a mess and vague labels. Icky could mean a lot. 

Jack doesn’t mind and tells Sam he wants to read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

“That’s a piece of work, Jack”, Sam says, a little proud maybe. “I never made it through it.”

“Well I read some articles about it already and I’m very interested about the portrayal of eroticism, life and death.”

He can’t leave it. He has to tell Sam about the sex stuff he’s interested in. The protagonist of the novel is said to be bisexual and Jack would really like to read it. 

But not today, he will drive to Gilead to meet Hunter, as soon as Sam will drown in his inventory. 

“You also should focus on the motif of time and its correlation with life and death”, Sam says, ignoring the eroticism. He’s unapproachable with the issue at all. It drives Jack up the walls, since his hormones, hurt ego and the cockiness took over his thinking.

“Thrilling.”

Jack means it sarcastically and catches a glance from Sam that he can’t quite ignore. The tension between them grows weirder every day instead of resolving. 

He gets up now, he needs to shower and get ready soon. 

Jack doesn’t know why, but there pops up a thought in his head. About making love.

He wouldn’t do that today. In his nightly thoughts he still couldn’t wrap his head around the difference. 

Of course he’d never admit it, but Jack still knows nothing about love but that he feels something for Sam that comes pretty close.

Sam knows something’s off. That something is still off. Jack is reserved, but sometimes also irritating. Passive aggressive. Mopey. Yes, of course, Sam has apologized as often and honestly as he could but nothing seemed to help Jack and him to find a common ground again. He understands Jack wants to be treated differently, like something he isn’t just yet in Sam’s eyes. It’s his need for being the guardian that doesn’t let him treat Jack like an adult. Let him drink whiskey, watch porn, have sex. The contradiction of his own sexual attraction to Jack and the need for control and guidance drives Sam up the walls too and he has no one he could talk to about it. Dean is distant in his own manner, he’s fled with Cas and after Sam had yelled at him over the phone about letting Jack use this sex app there’s radio silence. Just a quick heads up from Cas now and then. Sam feels like the trip for just the two of them isn’t helping the way he wished for.

This is why he needs to do the damn inventory. Keep himself busy. Think about something else than Jack being a little jerk all of a sudden, Dean’s whiskey consumption and Castiel’s helplessness. Is Castiel even helpless? Or does he just pretend he doesn’t see something is terribly off? Being alone with Jack makes it really rough. Either Jack’s too close, or he’s too reserved, there’s no balance at the moment, and in his mind, it’s also either Jack grinding on his lap or Jack, far away with Aurora or that nasty creep from the app. 

Gladly he’s deleted it and they didn’t need to have a talk about it again. Sam would be furious if Jack lied to him. Furious, because he’s jealous, helpless and sexually gone rogue. 

Why is it so wrong to feel this way? 

In the storage room there’s utter chaos and Sam will probably spend two days in here. Today, he embraces chaos. Chaos is good, because he can break it down and bring it into an order. His order. His system. He even brought instrumental music to have something to drown his own dark, sorrowful and horny thoughts. It will get over soon. He won’t be crossed in love with Jack forever. He can push through this.

But does he really want to?

Sam is so busy with tidying up that weird room that he doesn’t notice anything else is going on. Jack can hear faint flute music across the halls when he sneaks around. He has put on his best shirt, ripped stone washed jeans and a leather jacket that Dean inherited to him. Involuntarily, because he actually wanted to throw it away and like some old shirts, Jack just picked it up and kept it. 

He also did his hair the way Sam said once, it looks good on him. Then maybe Hunter would like it, too?

Jack takes one of the keys for the Volvo in which Sam had taught him to drive. 

Ironic. Sam lets Jack drive, but God forbid he does other adult things!

With the key in his shaking, sweaty hands Jack sneaks off to the carpool garage. The Volvo is purple and has two scratches (long ones) from Jack’s driving lessons, but Jack owns the shame about it now. He unlocks it, gets inside and opens the navigation app on his phone. It says he will be on the road for around 90 minutes, which is okay. He has brought an audiobook, three bottles of water, some protein bars and a charger for his phone. Better to have a fully charged phone, Sam says. Not everything Sam says is bull, even when it feels to Jack like it. He’s gone through a lot of feelings for Sam lately, one of them was anger because he also felt like Sam would patronise him in the most hypocritical way. As if he didn’t try stuff out when he was younger! Dean has told a story or two. But Dean also said Sam’s not gay and that’s not completely true, he found out. Sam is about the person, not gender. So, yes, he’s not gay. But he’s also not straight. If he was just in love with Jack, too. It would be so easy and Jack wouldn’t be so worked up about it.

Jack tries to shoo the thoughts away when he texts Hunter that he’s on his way, but of course he can’t. Sam is always on his mind.

*

If Sam knew he caused a moderately severe teenage rebellion and a sexuality crisis, he probably would’ve never said such bad things to Jack, and he would’ve tried to reconcile even harder. But this way he’s wound up in his inventory distractions, trying to shut the whole issue out. 

Sam jerks up when he hears a noise from the hall. It’s probably just Jack walking around. Maybe the damn Magic Mountain and its discourse about damn eroticism was too much for Jack and he looks for something else to read. Sam sees him with all the heavy stuff actually. He read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the complete works of W. B. Yeats and the baroque geste The Fairie Queene by Edward Spenser in the Middle English original and he wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks. Sam has a hard time reading this epic poem, it’s complicated and he feels like he needs to have graduated in literature or linguistics to make sense of it. The problem is, Sam is maybe smart, but Jack is a fucking genius. Sam hates to admit it but the kid is so smart, he outwits Sam vertiginously.There’s not much Sam can actually teach him but what he can teach he doesn’t want to. Sex for example. But Dean is a shitty substitute and maybe, yeah, maybe Sam should do it. It will be embarrassing and awful but Dean would drag Jack to a fetish club or something and he can’t let that happen. It’s enough that his three father figures all are a bit weird, Jack could end up like a vanilla type of person and do something remotely decent for a change. 

Maybe he should consider giving Jack some sappy romance novel, some light fare. Something that won’t stimulate Jack’s curiosity about the deep endless pits of the human mind, or human sexuel desires. Something that would scratch surfaces but not go too deep. Nora Roberts maybe, but when Sam thinks about it he remembers her novels as repetitive, and not without a problematic approach of gender dynamics, masculinity and love.

Damn. Now he’s thinking about Jack again. 

It will never stop.

Sam considers a break. Just to get himself a sandwich, maybe sit together with Jack and give him another honest and more straight forward talk about how and why Sam is the way he is and why he is so different from Dean. He’s pretty sure he’s given very honest and clear answers to Jack’s questions before they had that stupid fight. Labels really aren’t Sam’s jam, but maybe Jack feels better to know labels and then decides they fit or they don’t. And Jack should know that Sam has been vulgar, unfair and downright wrong with his wording and with patronising him like that. It was not his place to send him to his room like a stubborn kid. He kind of realizes now, that Jack is so much more. He deserves a chance to understand the complex dynamics of human interaction in any kind and Sam should let him.

On his way to the kitchen he hears even more clanking of plates, a running coffee maker and sizzling. It smells like steak. 

This is weird. Jack doesn’t like coffee. Jack also doesn’t know how to make a steak, that’s Dean’s thing.

Dean’s thing.

Oh no. Sam hurries to the kitchen, before Jack maybe sets something on fire and when he appears in the doorframe, calling out for Jack a very confused Castiel and Dean are in the kitchen, Dean almost drops the hot pan. Cas jerks in surprise and burns his hand with hot coffee.

“Jesus Fuck, Sam! You scared the living shit outta me!” Dean exclaims, looking confused. 

Cas wipes his burnt hand clean of the spilled hot coffee.

“Why are you here?”, Cas asks and looks at Sam. 

Sam is just as confused as they are at that point.

“Better question is, why are you two here? I thought it was Jack in the kitchen.”

He doesn’t even have time to be relieved about seeing Dean in good condition. He really looks good and relaxed. But at his brothers’ question he raises his eyebrows and turns off the stove. 

“I, uh, actually sent you a message a couple hours ago we’re comin’ home Sammy. Enough Vegas. You didn’t reply and then when we parked Baby in the garage, the Volvo wasn’t there. That’s why we” - Dean gestures to Cas - “deduced you and Jack are maybe going somewhere and you didn’t check your messages.”

Sam’s confusion grows. “No, we didn’t go anywhere. I unlocked a secret storage room right on the way down to the pool areas and I’m doing inventory. Jack is in his room. He reads some old dusty Thomas Mann novel, because he’s into phalluses all of a sudden.”

Dean coos a laugh and Castiel clears his throat. Then all three get a glimpse on the fact that something may be wrong here.

“Well, if we’re all here, who took the Volvo?”, Cas asks, silently healing his burn.

Sam could swear Dean mumbles a “son of a bitch” under his breath before he says: “Well, not everyone is here. We should look for Jack.”

Jack isn’t in his room. His shoes and his shoulder bag are gone. The Volvo keys are missing. The situation is pretty clear. Jack has gone somewhere and didn’t tell Sam.

Son of a bitch.

Screwed Up, Scared, Doing Anything That I Needed

The date doesn’t quite go as Jack imagined it to go. Hunter is indeed the man he texted with, but he’s only ever seen the chest or his face and now Hunter looks distinctively older than he claimed on Grindr to be. Jack is too shy to ask him about it, he feels like it’s maybe rude. Hunter has used an old photo on Grindr, that’s for sure. They sat down in a bar anyway, it’s fall and it’s dawning already. Hunter offers to buy Jack drinks and given the fact Jack wouldn’t get drunk he accepts. 

But Hunter seems weird. The conversation stops a couple of times and he asks a lot about Jack’s love life, but Hunter knows already, he’s inexperienced, right?

After an hour and two cocktails Jack retreats to the toilet to wash off the weird feeling he has. Hunter is nice to him, there’s no reason for him to be more suspicious. Maybe Hunter was just embarrassed because he’s lost some hair already, and the started balding on the back of his head. When Jack turns around, he gets stuck at the restroom’s stalls door and his phone nosedives in the sink where the water is still running.

“Oh shoot!”, Jack cries out. That can’t be real right now!

He tries to dry off the phone best as he can but he knows it will be best to turn it off and put it in rice. He has no idea about how to get home though and he kind of wants to go home soon. There’s no connection to Hunter as he wished there would be. 

Back in the bar Hunter awaits him with what he calls a Gin Tonic. Jack chugs it down and he doesn’t like the taste at all.

“Oh you can take a lot!”, Hunter says and Jack gets the idea that he isn’t amused about how much Jack can drink. 

“Yes, I umm, maybe it’s my very fresh liver”, Jack says, but he doesn’t go any further.

“Look, Hunter. You are a nice person, but I don’t feel a real connection. I’m very sorry”, Jack says, being very guilty of wasting the man’s time. 

Hunter shrugs it off. “Don’t worry about it, Jack, we just wanted to meet and find out, right? But would you be so kind and ask the barista for his number for me? He seems to be flirting but I’m shy, as you may have … noticed.” 

Jack is a bit irritated, but he wants to do the man a favor and agrees. “I wanted to order a coke anyway”, Jack says, getting up. “Do you want something more?”

The older man just gives him a crooked smile. 

“Nah, I’m good, champ.”

Champ. Who says champ?

Jack goes over to the bar where the barista (tall, handsome, eyeliner and old school tattoos, maybe as old as Jack passes with). As innocent as he still is in his rebellion he asks him about his name and number.

“Who do you want that for?”, the barista asks him, pouring him a glass of coke.

Jack hates lying, that’s why he points over to Hunter with his thumb. 

“My date over there.”

The barista huffs and shakes his head.

“No, but if you want my number I’ll give it to you.”

Jack declines.

“That is very nice of you, but I’m already in love with someone and I think I won’t be with anyone else very soon.”

“I’m Baz, if you change your mind”, that’s when the barista gives him a slip of paper with his instagram URL on it. 

“Thank you, Baz”, Jack smiles at him and waves when he takes the coke in his hands and goes back to Hunter. 

He’s on the phone, texting someone and Jack just remembers he maybe needs to get a phone call or some maps print to find his way home. His phone shouldn’t be turned on again and he should maybe call Sam to pick him up. That’s really a dumb situation he’s in. Hunter doesn’t look up at first but eventually does and Jack sits down.

“I’m sorry, he’s not interested”, Jack says and takes a sip of his coke. 

Hunter sighs but he kind of doesn’t look all too disappointed. “Thanks for the effort though.”

“Hunter, I have a little problem, my phone got wet in the restroom and I need to print a map or call my dad to fetch me here.”

That’s something he seems to like hearing and Hunter relaxes. 

“Not a problem, you can come home with me, it’s not far. You can use my printer if you like and I can give you a bag and some rice to put your phone in. It’s no big deal.”

Jack sighs in relief and relaxes a bit. It’s dark outside already, the kind of darkness, that’s not all consuming, but creepy enough. Jack doesn’t like being outside alone for too long and he’s glad Hunter is willing to help.

He wants to pay for himself, this is why Jack gets up and pays his drinks at the register. When he’s back he exes his coke, that tastes strangely bitter this time and maybe it’s just some residual from the cleaning agent. Hunter smiles and gets up too to pay. Jack buttons up his jacket and they leave the bar together. 

The air is crisp and there’s a hint of rain. Jack can taste the drops already. 

The walk is a little longer than expected and when they arrive at the house, Jack finally gets suspicious. Hunter claims to live on the second floor, and there’s light in two of the rooms. Did he leave his lights on? That is wasting resources and Sam doesn’t like it when Jack would leave the lights on. 

Jack doesn’t give it any more thoughts. Somehow Jack feels a bit icky now, there’s a bitter taste in his mouth and his sight is getting a tiny bit blurry, frayed on the edges. Hunter lets him in. 

“If you like, you can wait here for a second, I uh, I think I didn’t tidy up very well, I didn’t think we’d come home”, Hunter says, giving Jack a crooked smile. The apartment is tiny, the fitted kitchen just has a small fridge and two hot plates. There’s a microwave and an electric kettle, a toaster and a coffee maker. All in all it looks tidy, but worn, the wallpaper of the corridor looks yellow-ish and it smells of cigarettes. Jack doesn’t like it when people smoke and he’s glad none of his dads do so. Hunter hurries to a door that maybe leads to the living room and sleeping room. Jack has very good senses and he doesn’t feel like he’s alone. There’s footsteps and breathing and the smell of something clinical. 

Jack needs to lean against the counter of the kitchen unit and close his eyes. He feels uneasy, something is wrong and he knows he should go. His body feels heavy and his thoughts delay.

And that’s when Jack can hear another man as clear as a bell saying something to Hunter.

“Dude, why did you bring him here? He’s still conscious!”

Then Hunter.

“I had no choice, I gave him the whole bottle. That shit could kill an elephant but he’s still walking straight. I had no idea what to do!”

“You fucking retard!”

This is so loud now, Jack would even hear it if the men didn’t whisper. Jack knows he should react much faster but he feels like he’s walking through water when he reaches for the door and opens it.

And what he sees is nothing he expected.

Jack’s phone is dead.

“What do we do now?”

Sam is clearly panicking and Dean is moderately concerned now, too. Cas kind of holds his shit together, but he also worries. 

The angel also is the one to make first assumptions. 

“Every of our cars has a GPS tracker, right? We can find him like this, we just have to consult the app.”

Sometimes it sounds like Cas thinks there’s a breathing person on the other end of the line looking the GPS signal up for him, but neither Sam or Dean really bother to make fun of him for a change. 

“This is my fault.”

Sam of course blames himself. He has been unfair to Jack, he even insulted him. Something that Sam would never do. If he was still a bit sane, but he seems like his feelings for Jack just turn him inside out. But then he looks at Dean, who really makes a guilty face right now and Sam has an idea.

“No, actually it’s your fault, Dean. You told him about the damn app. We had a fight about it and a couple days later he sneaks out? He must’ve kept contact with someone.”

Dean frowns and crosses his arms, defensively. 

“Well I didn’t expect him to pull it off, I mean the boy is clearly in love with you, Sam. I thought that would help him enough through his identity crisis.”

Sam just ignores Dean’s suggestion, Jack would be in love with Sam. Sam would know that, right? He would notice, if Jack was seeking his attention? And given the nature of their relationship that would be absolutely inappropriate.

As inappropriate as his own feelings for Jack.

“Stop making fun of him, I swear, I’ll strangle you myself if something happened to him.”

“Whatever.” Dean says and shrugs. “I know I’m right about that. You should’ve just, dunno, give him a hand or so.”

“You’re unbelievable!”

Before Sam could really reach out and knock his brother unconscious, Castiel interferes. Physically and vocally.

“Sam, Dean. This isn’t helping. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is that Jack is gone, we need to find him. The GPS app says the car is parked in Gilead, Kansas. That’s about an hour and a half away from here. I turned on angel radio, but Jack isn’t responding. Something has happened. We need to go. I’ll zap us to the car and from there, I can maybe sense him. We have no time for rituals. Let’s hope, he’s okay.”

Sam feels like he is about to collapse and cry his heart out. Jack is out there and maybe he’s in danger. 

Life Imitates Art

What is irritating Jack the most isn’t the camera on a tripod in front of the bed. It’s also not the three strange guys surrounding the bed or Hunter’s surprised and frightened face. It is the tarp spread over the mattress. A black shiny huge tarp and Jack doesn’t have a single idea why it should be there. His vision shifts slightly and there’s a distant ringing in his ears. 

“What is..?” Jack wants to ask but the sentence won’t leave his mouth completely. 

Of course, even he gets now he’s been tricked into something. He’s been so incredibly stupid.

“Come on, boy, just relax”, one of the men says and Jack recognizes the voice. 

It’s the one who called Hunter a retard and complained about Jack still being conscious. That’s why the coke tasted like soap. Hunter tried to drug him!

The man comes closer now, Jack smells his sharp and heavy aftershave and his head is spinning. Gladly, Jack is half angel and the drugs didn’t knock him out. That’s why Hunter gave him too much it seems. He isn’t going to faint or something but Jack is clearly handicapped and when a second guy also comes closing in Jack looks for a way out, but Hunter behind him locks the door. He looks around, panicking, but all he sees is an XXL bottle of massage oil and sex toys. Oh holy shit.

“Don’t come near me!”, Jack says, retreating, but nudging Hunter with his back and Hunter grips his arms. “Don’t touch me!”

Jack knows how it is to be afraid, but this is a whole new level of fear. He fears for what these men will do to him if he doesn’t manage to get out. The familiar sensation of his powers start tickling. First in his stomach, then his arms and then a piercing pain behind his eyes.

“I said, don’t touch me!”

The men won’t stop but one of them is looking at him like he’s a ghost.

“What is happening with his eyes?”, he yells. “Shit, something’s wrong with his eyes!”

This must be the moment Jack’s eyes start glowing golden, like they do when Jack is in a state of emotional distress and he does good so. Because the next thing Jack feels is like his chest is erupting. 

“No one touches me!”

And then the world turns red.

Castiel drags Sam and Dean across the city, all three of them panicking. The Volvo is abandoned, parked in the city but no sign of Jack. They have no idea where to look first and Cas’ doesn’t receive any signal from Jack, and, well, you can see he’s trying very hard to get even a tiny bit of information.

Dean and Sam are still yelling at each other, like that’s helping anyone right now! But Cas is too focused, too worried to care about the mortals fighting like children. 

When Jack’s powers surface, Cas can hear Jack’s enochian voice in his head and it’s shrill, it’s blinding but he knows exactly where they have to go now. He grabs each Winchester and says, following Jack’s call “Shut up, you two. I got him!”

Jack feels dizzy and sick, and he vomits all over the floor. It’s coke and alcohol, gastric acid and the drug Hunter gave him. Everything’s coming out in spurts and Jack is happy to get rid of the poison. The dust in the room settles, three bodies are scattered around him, all of them still breathing but bleeding but one of them, the fourth is crawling towards the door. Jack wants to stop him, because he thinks the man might hurt another boy just like this and he can’t let him get away with it, but his human body is cramping and throwing up bitter fluids. 

The man wails when Sam shows up out of nowhere, sided by Cas and Dean. Jack sees them through a veil of tears, but he can’t get up, all he can do for now is whimper. There’s distant grunts and yelling, hectic moving. Cas helps him sit up and his warm healing light helps Jack regain some conscience. 

“They’re all blacked out”, Jack hears Dean say. “God damn, look at this, Sam. Camera, bed, latex bed sheets, dildos, lube….”

“Gang rape”, Sam just says and Jack can hear his voice shake with anger. 

Then - sounds of plates clashing on the floor and Sam yelling at Dean. And then yelling at Jack who’s still held by Cas to be healed. 

“For fuck’s sake, Jack! What did you do?!”

“We need to leave”, Cas says, “we can’t stay, the eruption didn’t happen unheard. Police will be here soon.”

“Sam?”, Jack moans. “Sam?”

Sam crouches in front of Jack and places his hand on Jack’s cheek. There’s no smile in Sam’s face, which Jack would die for. There’s disappointment and anger. So much anger. 

“I didn’t mean to…”

Jack regains his strength and gets up. “I’m okay, Cas. I can walk.”

It’s no difference if Jack wanted it or not, it happened. He has almost been assaulted and videotaped because he trusted the wrong person. Because he wanted to show Sam he’s an adult, he can make his own decisions. He’s mature enough to date. 

The bitter truth is, that Jack was just a brat and it almost cost him something important. His innocence.

On the way home, Jack and Sam don’t talk much. Dean and Cas zapped back home, but they needed to get the car away from the parking lot and Jack doesn’t want to be zapped, he still feels sick. It’s not only because he threw up all of his meals and drinks today or that he used his powers to defend himself. It was the look on Sam’s face that was utterly sickening. Jack could live with Sam yelling at him again, even calling him a whore or whatever. Call him stupid, childish, bratty, cocky. But the silence is gnawing on Jack’s nerves like a hungry rat. But there’s not much he can say, because if he just told Sam what’s gotten into him he would maybe spill he’s in love with Sam. That he wanted to know what is going on with his body and mind and why he desires Sam of all people on this planet … that Jack wanted to know how it feels to be taken seriously by someone who desires Jack. And if there was a way to forget about Sam with someone else. It didn’t work with Aurora, hell it didn’t work with Hunter. 

Jack wonders if he’ll just be in this state forever. Seeing Sam and immediately daydreaming of his big, strong hands all over Jack’s body. 

Sam doesn’t talk to him for the whole ride except necessities, he doesn’t talk much when they’re home. There’s another very nasty fight between all three of his dads, when they think Jack is already asleep. Cas looked after him half of the night, helped him shower, brought him sandwiches, water and anti nausea pills. He even attempts to talk about what happened but Jack just can’t. Not yet. Not with Cas. How could a seraph, a celestial being, understand Jack’s human nature? And his failures? He tries and Jack is happy about it. He apologizes to Cas more than once but Cas just says, it’s okay, it happens, we all make mistakes. 

But the yelling of Sam and Dean is deafening.

Sam accuses Dean of getting Jack willfully in danger. Dean yelling at Sam for being a fucking coward. A hypocrite, a prude. A liar. 

Dean is a drinker, an asshole, a narcissist, relationally disturbed and overall a bad person. 

If you believe what they say to each other, which Jack doesn’t. 

He doesn’t know what or whom to believe these days.

It takes Dean two days to come up to Jack and apologize. There’s a lot of words being said, all saying the same. That Dean was a prick for saying that, he didn’t mean Jack to get in danger. And somehow Jack thinks, no, he didn’t want Jack to get hurt. He wanted to teach Jack a lesson, whatever that lesson was. Jack wasn’t getting behind it and Dean just manipulates sometimes. He maybe knows the answer and Jack would’ve done a lot to be able to read minds. He could also make all of them stop lying again, but the last time ended in so much chaos… Jack better doesn’t act up at all these days. He’s just happy his fathers found him on time. 

Put Your Hands On My Waist, Do It Softly

It takes Jack three nights to finally go up to Sam’s room and knock. He knows Sam is awake, he may not be able to read minds, but he senses Sam’s distress. 

“Yeah?”, Sam calls.

“Sam, uh, it’s me, Jack. Can I come in?”

A loud sigh, creaking of the bed. 

“Sure. Come in.”

Jack feels like the damn newborn fawn he didn’t want to be mistaken for in this moment when he worms into Sam’s room and closes the door behind him. Sam is in his shorts only, Jack in his pajamas, but when Jack is honest, he didn’t sleep a single minute since they got back to the bunker. He is afraid of the dark and the loneliness and he misses Sam around him so damn much, he cries until his eyes burn and his face is swollen. 

“Sam, I wanted to say, … I am sorry, I shouldn’t have lied to you about the app. I shouldn’t have snuck out to meet a shady guy so far away. I’m really sorry.”

Sam looks up. 

“Jack, what you did was stupid, rash and irresponsible but I’m not the one you should apologize to. I should apologize to you, but all of this won’t make it undone, you know?”

He tears up again when he sees the hurt look on Sam’s face.

“Look, I know I was mean to you and I was overprotective, rude and I didn’t even tell you why I’m not telling you everything about love and sex you want and need to hear. I should have because I’m your caretaker and I should’ve known better. I don’t blame you even half as much as I blame myself.”

At first Jack wants to protest, but Sam is right. There’s been mistakes on both sides with a hint of Dean spicing things up. 

“Can I sit down?”, Jack then asks, still standing in the corner at the door. 

Sam gets up and puts his laundry away from the only available seat. Except his bed. 

Jack sits down, rubbing his face and squeezing his legs together. Damn tears. He even has a headache. 

“I wanted to understand”, Jack mumbles, looking down at his lap. “Why I feel certain things for certain people-”, he looks up, Sam’s face is still a stiff grimace, “... why is it all so confusing?”

“Love?”, Sam asks.

“Yes, love. Sex. All of it.”

There’s a minute of nerve wracking silence, before Jack has the guts to say it.

“I only ever wanted to know how it is with you.”

It’s so quiet now, Jack imagines he could hear a pin drop at the gas station out of Lebanon. He knows he dropped a bomb right here, but he overheard another fight with Dean calling Sam a hypocrite -again- and ‘having the hots for the kid’. Apart from being called a damn kid again, Jack checked what that means. Having the hots. And well, yeah, Jack himself has the hots for Sam and he doesn’t want to live with the uncertainty anymore. He won’t meet anyone else he wants to be with, not in a very long time and if Sam doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, he can still try to move on. But there’s no moving on in a vacuum. Like now.

“Dean is right?”, Jack asks carefully, his voice is thin.

“Dean is right”, Sam finally admits and buries his face in his hands. “But it doesn’t mean it’s right. You know?”

“I know.”

Another second passes.

“No, actually I don’t know, Sam. I don’t think it’s wrong. You said you’d never judge. But why did you do so when I needed your approval the most?”

Sam looks helpless, wringing his hands. 

“Because I was jealous and I shouldn’t be.”

“I would’ve liked your jealousy more than being insulted by you.”

It’s visible how uncomfortable Sam is, he’s fighting emotions. Jack is, too. But he’s crying already. What happened to Jack was terrifying, but what he really, truly fears is Sam’s rejection.

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Stop being sorry and start being honest with me… Don’t you think I deserve it now? I know I’ve changed very radically. I used to go to town in my damn pajamas. That’s barely four weeks ago and it feels like years already.”

Sam smiles now. Even a little sad.

“Yes, it was actually very adorable. Seeing you like this.”

“I’m not adorable anymore. I’m not that naive anymore. Why can’t you just… see me like Dean sees Cas?”

“That’s a very bad example and you know it.”

Now Jack laughs and wipes away some cold tears from his face. 

“And I already see you like this, Jack. But I feel guilty for it. I’m here to keep you safe. I want to be the person you turn to when you’re lost, I want to guide you, but also be the person that’s your safe haven. Can I do that when we… Jack, when we get together, our relationship will change. We will get to know each other in ways that might scare you. Or even scare me. I’m afraid of that. And if I’m afraid, you should be, too.”

When Jack gets up and sits beside Sam on the bed, without asking first -- it feels like a very bold move for Jack. He likes being close to Sam and feeling his body radiate warmth and safety but also desire and a pull that’s hard to resist, Jack knows it’s the right thing.

“I’m not afraid. I’ve been afraid in Gilead, but when I’m with you, I know nothing bad will ever happen to me.”

Sam’s face yells OBJECTIONS but Jack ignores it.

Jack leans on Sam’s shoulder, the touch feels electrifying and at first, Sam stiffens, but then relaxes and puts his hand around Jack’s shoulders.

“I’m not afraid”, Jack says again. 

Sam nuzzles his nose against Jack’s hair and kisses him right behind his ear. Jack feels violent hot shudders all over and that is the most intense thing he’s ever felt for anyone.

“It feels good”, he mumbles, turning his face to Sam. 

Sam is close, incredibly close and despite the hot shudders Jack gets goosebumps all over. It feels like that one time he had fevers, when he was dying, but in a good way. The best possible way. 

Jack doesn’t receive a kiss on his lips, as he wished for, Sam kisses his cheek and his jaw. Just slightly. But to Jack it feels like he’s a dying sun out there in the universe and he’s being eaten up by heat and flares of light. 

And then Sam’s hand reaches for Jack’s.

“I still need time…”, he whispers, “we both need some time. To be sure.”

“I’m very sure.”

“Give it a minute”, Sam says, hot breath lingering over Jack’s face. “Just a minute…”

Even Sam can’t wait the damn minute before he kisses Jack. Gentle and soft like a hummingbird.

"This is Heaven, what I truly want."

#winkline #winklinebingo #sin is sinning #fanfic #samjack

[gerbiloftriumph]

The Silence Between Snowflakes

(also on ao3) ~ 3/8 - The Stories That Really Matter

~*~*~

The storm was bigger than expected. Daventry woke to a fresh blanket of snow at least two feet high in places, and more still on the way. The guards grumbled and manned their shovels.

Rosella and Alexander sat in her room while the snow continued to fall, playing the new and improved Battle of Wits—when Valanice walked past, she could hear them laughing (laughing! Her boy, laughing!) and Alexander whimpering in pain as another arrow nicked his thumb. They were playing less to win as they were to hit each other, it sounded like.

Siblings.

After a hot lunch, Graham held his usual audience hours. He wasn’t sure if anyone would show up in this weather, but if anything major was impending he needed to know about it. Between the potential goblins and the endless snow, he was sure something would come up. Alexander quietly asked if he might try sitting in, too, to see what Graham did as a king. All those walks had done good, it seemed, sparking his curiosity. Graham was absolutely delighted, stocking the lad with blankets and hot drinks and making sure he had a good view in case people came.

And they did. Crusted with snow, peeling slushy gloves and scarves from their hands and faces, they came to make their reports. They were uneasy about the weather, primarily. It was too early in the season for this sort of thing, and Graham was quite sure it wasn’t going to ease up as the winter went on—his people felt the same.

“I just don’t know if we have enough wood stockpiled,” Amaya warned.

“Whisper is happy to collect more, but Whisper isn’t sure about being able to support the whole village,” Whisper added. “But Whisper has been emphasizing arm day, so Whisper can do it.”

Graham considered. They had some options: they should definitely cancel the annual huge marshmallow roast, that was easy enough. Perhaps they could also thin out some of the encroaching trees on Pillare Hill, if she would be amenable to that suggestion. She’d complained once about how gloomy her hill was starting to look, and clearing back some of the branches might brighten it again. He made a note to talk to her about it as soon as possible, told Whisper he wouldn’t need to do everything himself, and promised they could certainly keep warm for a good long while together no matter what.

The fear about the village roofs groaning under the snow was valid—one of the older houses on the edge of the wall had snapped under the pressure, timbers shedding snow inside the rooms. No one had been hurt, but Graham immediately dispatched a team of guards to clear the rest of the rooftops now, and invited the displaced villagers to stay in the castle.

Nervous questions about goblins were repeated again and again, and Graham listened patiently to each new worry. Concerns about consumables were constant. If they were stealing clothes, might they steal food next? What might happen if the flour ran low? If they dug their tunnels into the vegetable cellars? Graham ordered another fully updated inventory done of the castle’s holdings, and walked the villagers through the plans No1 had put together, careful to point out what each villager would find most relevant.

Bramble was especially apprehensive about the wedzels trying to break into town to escape the chill in the forests. She’d heard them howling in the forest in the night, thought she heard them prowling the streets outside her shop. Graham would have the gates reinforced and extra torches placed around the paths. He explained that they tended to scare away from blue-flamed light in particular; he had learned that in the knight tournament all those years ago. She smiled, satisfied with the response.

Hours whirled past like snowflakes. Graham stretched out the knots in his back between petitioners, glancing at Alexander to make sure he was comfortable. He was curled on the bench like a cat, watchful, with an unreadably blank expression as he absorbed everything his father did. Every word he spoke, every movement of his hand.

They were prepared. Daventry was capable of surviving even the bleakest winters, Graham knew. But it wouldn’t be easy, and the wary looks on his citizens’ faces told him they knew it wouldn’t be, either. And if the second half was worse than this first, then they would want to start getting ready now.

“What did you think?” Graham asked later, breaking open a heel of bread and dipping it in his soup. No standing on ceremony or manners on a frozen night when there was no one but his family around him. The fireplace crackled and snapped behind him, pouring blessed heat into the informal dining hall.

“Interesting,” Alexander said. “You’re...very patient.” The unspoken words: Unlike Manannan.

“I’ve got to be,” Graham said. “You’ll hear a lot of the same questions again and again, but you’ve got to give them all your full attention like they’re the first person to have brought it up. It helps them trust you, shows that you’ll listen, that you’ll care. I’m not sure every other kingdom works like that, but this one does.”

“Still,” Valanice said distractedly, swirling her spoon through her bowl, “this is the strangest winter I can remember. I wonder what the Hobblepots would have had to say about this—maybe it’s like this every hundred years?”

“They weren’t that old,” Graham protested. “Still. I’ll have a look through the history books. If there’s anything like this, it’ll be mentioned somewhere, I’m sure.” And maybe give me some clue about what might happen next.

“It’s good for snowmen,” Rosella said, mouth full of bread. “Packs together really well.”

“Hard to shovel,” No2 groaned, wincing, as he carried a pitcher of water around the table. “I’m going to feel that for a week.”

“Someone needs to make sure you stay in shape,” No1 said drily from his post near the door.

Graham smiled. “I asked Olfie about hiring him and Pillare to scoop out the main roads. That should free up the guards for patrols and other tasks.”

“I can’t imagine she was best pleased at that.” No2 gently put the pitcher back on the serving board.

“As compensation, she wants the castle to fund an order with Acorn for a new winter cap and matching gloves. She wants embroidery. Birds, is what I heard last. She keeps changing her mind. It’s going to take ‘til the end of winter to get it done, Acorn says.”

“Her hands are as big as he is!”

“It’s a good challenge, is what I told him,” Graham said. “He’s even looking forward to it, I think.”

Outside, the snow continued to drift.

~*~*~*~

“Alexander.”

He didn’t look at Rosella. His chin was in his hands, and he was staring out the window with a look of intense thoughtfulness, mulling over something. His lips were moving as he thought, but he made no sound.

“Alexaaaander.”

Still nothing.

Very quietly, not sure it would work or should even be said: “Gwydion?”

He instantly leapt to his feet and tumbled into a haphazard bow, all awkward limbs and nervous babble, “Yessir, sorry, sir, what can I do—oh. Um. Sorry, hi. Sorry.”

“Oh no, no, no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t think that you’d...I’m so sorry. But. Look, Alexander, are you okay? You’ve been sitting there for at least twenty minutes. I’ve walked past twice and tried to talk to you each time and you haven’t noticed.”

It had felt like just a minute or two. “Fine.”

“You’ve got this look on your face, though. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes.”

She leaned against the bookcase. “What’s the question?”

“Sorry?”

“You always have some question about Daventry when you get that look. So, what is it? I bet I know the answer.”

He looked down at his hands. “I’m trying to figure out what this means,” he admitted, and he thumped his fist into his open palm. “The king...uh, Dad does it a lot. Especially before audience hours. I just...is it some spell, or something?” It didn’t feel magical, and he was quite sure he would be able to tell, but maybe he had missed something.

“Oh! No, no, that’s an Achaka salute.”

“A...a what? Ah—chaka?”

“You’ve been here for weeks and you haven’t heard that story yet? Dad’s slipping. Here, let me introduce you.” She went to the entrance hall, Alexander lagging behind her a few paces. “This,” she said, gesturing widely, “is Achaka.”

Alexander looked around, but the only person here was Royal Guard Number Two standing post by the door, and Alexander was quite sure his name was Matt. Not that he was supposed to call the royal guards by their real names. Rosella had told him everyone’s names but had also mentioned that No1 was pretty big on formal protocol, which made Alexander immediately want to forget them so he couldn’t make a mistake. Regardless. Not Achaka. He looked again, and then realized. “The statue?”

“Well, the real Achaka died ages ago. Waaay back when Dad first came to Daventry. They met, and Achaka helped him get through the Knight Tournament that Dad needed to win if he wanted a chance at being king. So, they were looking for an eye, ‘cos Number One said they had to have one for their entrance tickets, and Achaka hadn’t come back to turn his in, and there was this dragon, and...” she stopped, and looked at the statue. “This is a boring way to tell the story. Dad does it so much better.”

“Pardon me, Princess Rosella,” No2 said, leaning forward. “I think I know a better way to tell it.”

Ten minutes later, Rosella, Alexander, and No2 were tearing the sitting room apart, putting cushions here and there to represent different cave entrances, building up a little maze of small spaces, all the while explaining the backstory of what was going on to Alexander. Rosella handed him a decorative bowl and said, “This can be a glowing mushroom, so you can put that wherever you want.”

Royal Guard Number One said from the door, “What are you doing?” Alexander froze, almost dropping the bowl in his sudden nervousness.

“Oh! Number One!” Rosella clapped her hands. “Excellent! Will you help us?”

No1 stared at the mountain of pillows they’d stacked precariously by the window. It was teetering madly, and looked like breathing on it wrong would knock the whole thing over. “Help?”

No2 got to his feet. He’d been tying curtain pulls together to make one long cord. “We need you to be Achaka,” he said.

“...I’m sorry, I must repeat myself. What are you doing?”

“Reenacting the dragon attack for Prince Alexander. We wanted to explain what an Achaka salute was, and this is a better way of doing it, we thought. More...emotional.” No2 surveyed the pillow pile, and then began climbing.

“Indeed. And you want me to play...”

No2 swayed to keep his balance while tying the rope he’d made to the top of the window frame. “Achaka, yeah. You don’t have to say anything, or really do much. Except maybe you can say ‘Achaka’ if you really want to get into it. Otherwise, you can just stand there looking stern. Pretend to shoot an arrow. That’s probably about it for the most part.”

“Right. And who are you playing in this...?”

“Young Graham, of course.” No2 slid down the pillow mountain. “For my bubbly and likeable personality and terrific bouts of energy.”

“I’m the dragon,” Rosella interjected.

“Of course you are,” No1 said.

“Raaar.” She made a face and held her fingers up like claws, then broke down giggling, enjoying herself tremendously.

No2 clasped his gauntlets together and made a pleading sort of noise. “Please, Number One, it’s for the young prince’s sake. We wouldn’t ask you otherwise.”

“Yes, Number Two, you would. And have. And I refused last time, too.”

“Yeah, but this time it’s for a good cause.”

“The radish eating contest opening ceremony was ‘for a good cause,’ too,” he said, sharply.

“It was, though.”

“Please, Number One,” Rosella added, putting on her brightest diplomatic smile.

Alexander fidgeted with the bowl behind them, watching. There was no way. He’d seen how No1 acted around the other guards. Seen how stiff and stern he was, how dry and sarcastic and...

About ten minutes later, King Graham walked past the room. He froze mid step, then walked backward past the door again, staring at the bizarre tableau in the sitting room. No1 was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, looking like he was regretting every single decision he’d ever made in his life, while Rosella clung to his leg, pretending to bite it. No2 was running across the room holding onto a curtain rope as though he was swinging on it, and Alexander was supervising the whole thing from a pile of cushions in the corner, an audience of one.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, Your Majesty. This...” No1 glanced at the disarray, at the princess clawing at his boot, and said, dry as bone in an unquestionable tone, “Training. We’re trying out a new form of training.”

“Rosella, is that your mother’s green eye makeup all over your cheeks?”

“No, of course not. It’s the lighting in here, it’s very dim,” Rosella said, from around No1’s leg. The room was perfectly lit with that bright, cold, sunshine-on-snow white light, what with the curtains held open with cushions. The curtain ties were all clutched in No2’s hands, a single long cord that looked like a vine in his hands. Or an escape rope.

Graham took a second look, and then dawning realization crossed his face. He grinned. “So, I’m going to guess Number Two is me?”

“Got it in one, Sire,” No2 said cheerfully. “On account of my bubbly and likeable personality and terrific bouts of energy.” (No1 couldn’t quite stop his exasperated sigh.)

“Naturally. I wouldn’t expect anyone else.” Graham looked at Alexander. “Does this...performance make any sense?”

“Um.”

“I think you need a narrator to actually explain what you’re doing to your audience,” Graham said to the three actors. “Shall we take it from the top?” He smiled. “Let me tell you a story. A story about what it means to be brave even when you don’t think you can be, even when you’re facing the biggest threat imaginable. Ready?”

~*~*~*~

A castle couldn’t be stuffy. It was huge, with spiraling passages and enormous rooms and high ceilings. It was full of the hustle and bustle of people, but it was easy enough to find quiet little corners and stay away from everyone.

But Alexander still felt hemmed in. As the weeks turned to months, as the calendar spun deeper into winter, it started feeling even more claustrophobic, somehow. Surrounded by choking tapestries and detailed paintings of people he didn’t know and endless rows of doors lining labyrinthian hallways. The walks with the king helped him feel less trapped, but he started slipping out by himself whenever he could. It was weird to have the freedom to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. No one ever stopped him or demanded to know what he was doing. No one ever watched him.

Except...someone was watching him now. He felt the familiar prickle on the back of his neck, a sense he’d refined over the years living with...that wizard. He pushed down the forest path a little faster, trying to act uncaring like he figured a prince probably should be. Most of the trails were too snowed under to walk, but someone had been keeping this one fairly clear—he realized he was about to find out who.

“Your form is all wrong,” a voice called out.

Alexander skidded to a stop, slipping in the snow. “I’m...sorry?”

“You’ll never manage to get to a decently paced jog with that sort of biscuit placement. You’ll trip over your toes. You must build up to the more intensive leg days, but if you haven’t got a good form, you’re defeating yourself.”

It was a booming, boisterous, braggy sort of voice. Alexander nervously stepped back a pace. “Have we met?”

“Surely you haven’t forgotten Whisper!” The voice was offended now.

“Oh. Oh!” Usually, Alexander had the shield of the king or his sister to hide behind when one of the Daventry citizens approached. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now, by himself, without their cues. “Sorry. Whisper. Of course.” He clamped his mouth shut again, afraid he was going to do something wrong.

The knight was leaning against a directional signpost. “This is Whisper’s jogging trail,” the knight said, thumbing at the well-trodden path. He had earmuffs on over his helmet, which seemed entirely to defeat the purpose of earmuffs. “Whisper is more than happy to share the traffic, but only if the traffic stays in the correct lane. You aren’t ready for the fast track yet, Prince Alexander. Not with that mediocre run.”

“Oh, please, not...not Prince. I’m just…just Alexander. And I wasn’t actually running,” Alexander said warily. “I was only walking. I can, um. Walk somewhere else, though. Good...good day?” He tried a nervous little half bow and started to creep down the path.

“Aaah, wait, wait, wait!” Whisper said, standing in Alexander’s way. “Come now, if you have forgotten Whisper, then that simply isn’t good! We have yet to exchange tales of bravery, because had you heard such a tale then you could not have forgotten me!”

“I don’t have any tales of bravery, though,” Alexander said, sidestepping into the snow. “It’s, uh, good to see you again, Whisper. I’ll just...”

“But your tale is the bravest of them all,” Whisper said, and now he seemed confused. “Isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Grand escapes, magic, dragons—”

“—there wasn’t actually a dragon. I don’t know why everyone keeps thinking there was a dragon.”

“Oh. But. Dragons add such a spice to a story. Perhaps we should add one.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I can help you pen your tale, if needed,” Whisper offered. “Whisper is good at adding outlandish details that grab your audience’s attention and whirl them through the tale!” He leapt from place to place as he spoke, making elaborate hand gestures, and then added, much more quietly, “Even if the tale isn’t strictly true.”

“I’d really rather not,” Alexander repeated. “Thank you, but another time.”

“Whisper shall be here! Whisper is always here! Unless Whisper is with Amaya, and then Whisper is in town. With Amaya. You understand, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Have you met the beautiful lady Amaya?” Whisper asked, fully distracted and starting up the conversation again as though they hadn’t just been moving through the niceties of farewell. “She is most delicate. The sweetest flower, the fluffiest cloud, the tallest peak, to be adored. The finest, most talented, most clever lady in all the lands! Her stories shall be trumpeted from the mountaintops! By yours truly, of course,” he added, pointing to himself so hard that his thumb bounced off his chest plate with a metallic ringing sound.

“Delicate,” Alexander repeated, wondering if he was thinking of someone else. Maybe there were two Amayas in town. The one he had briefly met could hammer together an iron gate without breaking a sweat. But maybe there were different types of delicate?

“I shall expect you to carry on her tale as well,” Whisper said earnestly. “A tale must be retold by many to become a legend, and once it is a legend, then it creates immortals, and my dear Amaya shall indeed be an immortal legend! Like me. But first you must hear the stories, since you have not lived them with us. And then we shall work on your own tale.”

Expectations. Stories. Things he didn’t know.

He thought about the story the king had told about Achaka. What that story had meant. Daventry, as far as Alexander could tell, thrived on the power of tales, perhaps in part because of its leader and his delight with words. But Alexander didn’t know any of the stories himself, and he didn’t want to tell the one that he had survived.

The problem was that everyone knew each other so well already. He felt like an intruder crashing in on a story in the third act, an audience member trying to fill in the gaps of a play after they’d missed most of it.  

No one had said anything to him about it yet, but he had felt a weight of expectation settling on his shoulders the moment he’d woken up in that sickbed with his family hovering over him. His family that, incidentally, happened to be royalty. He was heir to a throne he hadn’t even known about until a few months ago. Daventry had been a name written on a map in the wizard’s office with throwing darts embedded in it, and that was about it.

Until now.

Now, he could sense the confidence from its people that he would learn the stories and tend to it, like King Graham did now. That Alexander would continue his father’s legacy. His story.

He had gone outside of the castle to get away from the sense of being tied down, from the tapestries and the paintings and the weight of hundreds of years of leadership. All the stories, endless and complicated and wrapped together and important to its people.

But the expectation of stories had followed him out here, too. Whisper was certain Alexander would listen and understand. The knight was watching him with a puppy’s eagerness, excited to explain why he loved the blacksmith so much, another story to Daventry’s history, another tale that Alexander should already know. That he would have known, if he hadn’t been in Llewdor, been a different person.

There was guilt, and frustration, and a desire to know, all shoved into a box in his mind that he dared not open.

Alexander could probably understand these people and their needs, but Gwydion definitely couldn’t. He didn’t know any good tales. He wasn’t good at playing games. He wasn’t even coordinated, apparently, as Whisper had pointed out. And he was terrified everyone was going to find out that he wasn’t a prince, wasn’t even “just” Alexander, that he was still Gwydion.

After hearing Graham’s story about Achaka, Alexander had gone to the tallest tower he could find in the castle. Standing there, alone, looking out at the snow-covered country, thinking of the expectations that were starting to press on his shoulders, he had tried out the salute. It hadn’t felt like anything at all. It had felt pointless. Graham had said it was supposed to help center you and help you find courage, but he still felt lost and afraid.

If he’d been Prince Alexander, someone who belonged there, maybe things would be different. But Gwydion didn’t deserve the salute. Didn’t deserve to be in Daventry.

Still.

Whisper wanted to tell him a story right now. And enough stories, enough knowledge, could change things. He had taught himself magic and escaped the wizard’s manor. Maybe more stories about Daventry would help him escape Gwydion. And, cautiously, he nodded. He let Whisper tell him another story, and he listened, and he learned.

~*~*~*~

Gwendolyn lifted her head. “Grandpa? Did Dad really say all that?”

Graham smiled. “Later, he did mention some conversation with Whisper, and the general gist of it. I confess, I wasn’t there. Storyteller’s discretion, you know.” He sipped a glass of water and waited for her to continue. She had a look on her face that said she was possibly finally ready to explain what had been bothering her earlier.

“It’s just.” She had been sitting on the bed, holding the canopy’s bedpost and running her fingers along the carvings as she listened, but now she slipped down, wandering toward the fireplace. “It’s just. That’s. Kinda what Gart said to me.”

“What did he say?”

“That I don’t belong here.” She sank into the rocking chair and started kicking herself back and forth, back and forth, while Graham blinked, at a complete loss for words for the first time that night. “He said...that I shouldn’t be too comfortable, that I’d be going back to the Green Isles with Dad again soon. I don’t think he meant to be mean about it. I think. I don’t know what I think. I don’t think he likes me in Daventry very much.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Graham said, after a pause. There was anger in his voice, a sharpness that felt too cold for the storytime bedroom.

“Please, don’t!” Gwendolyn said, looking up quickly. “I don’t want him to know that I took it wrong. It was probably just nothing. Just talking.”

Just shouting, if I remember correctly, Graham thought.

“I do belong in the Green Isles, though, he’s right.” She drew her legs up onto the chair, squeezing herself into a little ball, and dropped her head onto her knees again, staring at the floor.

“You belong wherever you want to be, my dear,” Graham said, gently. He cursed his weak knees and broken arm and inability to rise and go to her, like he would have gone to her father. “It can be here, there, or anywhere. We Crackers are pretty good at figuring out who we are and going where we’re needed.”

She hesitated. Then, clearly wanting to go back to the story and stop talking about personal things, she said, “So...what happened after that?”

Graham distractedly pushed away thoughts of his grandson and spread his arms (arm, singular, the other being broken) wide, and said, “The snow kept on falling.” And the story continued.

~*~*~*~

“I don’t understand this,” Valanice sighed, standing by the bedroom window and rubbing her arms through her night robe.

As the days faded and weeks stretched, the blanket of snow grew yet deeper. The trolls were making good on their promise to keep the main roads clear, but it was like walking through gray tunnels to get anywhere. Graham felt like his castle tower was an island above puffy clouds. This reminded him of the tower he’d been trapped in with Valanice and...well, Valanice, the two princesses who shared the same name. The day the tower had walked through a cloud and soaked them all had been quite an experience, leaving all three spluttering and shivering and laughing. He missed the warmth of those spring days.

“Maybe the villagers should all come here,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and squeezing her close in front of him, his chin resting on her shoulder as he studied the white expanse. The clouds had broken and the sun was peeking over the horizon, making the whole thing blindingly glittery. But rather than feel cheered by it, Graham felt apprehension in his stomach. The clouds would roll in again, as they had for days. This wouldn’t even begin to melt before another layer would come down. “I don’t want anyone to get snowed in to the point where they can’t take care of themselves.”

“I’m not sure they’ll agree to that,” Valanice said. “That feels like giving up.”

“It’s weather. There’s nothing to fight, and the only puzzle is how we shore up our own supplies,” Graham pointed out. He reached toward the window panes with his free hand, feeling the icy chill against his skin.

“They won’t feel that way, and you know it.”

“Soon, though, I might have to make that decision for them.”

“At least the goblins can’t strike in this,” she said, sighing. “Their escape tunnels are probably all plugged up with snow.”

“Small blessings,” Graham said, and kissed her cheek.

It had been cold (of course it had been, it was winter), but Graham's breath caught as soon as he stepped outside. The chill was so much more than expected, a bone deep ache. Despite the weak sunlight, the cold sank into his chest and made him want to cough. His breath appeared as dragon-smoke, white bellows preceding his every step. He tugged a scarf over his nose, which helped a little bit, and went to find No1.

More than the cold, more than the daily snow: the silence unnerved him most. Graham felt the stillness like a blanket around his ears. The recent threat of goblins had roused up old nightmares, and the silence of his beloved kingdom, normally so crowded with birdsong, squirrel chatter, music, life, even in winter—it reminded him of his goblin cell. Of the shadows and the stillness. Of the fear that laced his every echoing step. Of impossibilities and distress.

Valanice was right: so far, the only good result from this weather was a lack of goblins. There hadn’t been any signs of attack since the missing winter clothes and ice picks. Which meant that Graham hadn’t needed to travel down those tunnels to see the goblin king. At least, not yet. Should another instance happen, Graham knew he would have to set that appointment, and the very idea made his throat threaten to close. But he would do it, if he needed to.

Stars, I hope I don’t need to.

“Report, Number One?” Graham said, once he’d found the guard huddled over a cup of tea near the drawbridge. His mittened hands clutched the mug like someone was trying to take it from him, and he was curled over it to hold in every trace of warmth. His earmuffs were slipping.

“Not much to report, Sire. Just snow. Incredibly unexpected and surprising, I’m sure.” No1 sighed, his breath mingling with the steam of his tea and creating a white cloud that instantly froze in his mustache. “I rather think—” He cut himself off and saluted stiffly, “Sir, apologies, the cold makes me forget myself. I was thinking aloud.”

“Feels like?” Graham pressed. No1’s intuition was always sharp and frequently accurate.

“It’s nonsense, hardly worth the effort of saying it. And yet. It feels like something’s coming, Your Majesty. There’s a center to this storm, and it’s getting closer. Which is ridiculous, and I’ll thank you for not repeating it. The sort of fanciful thinking one of the younger staff might have. Who ever heard of menacing weather?”

“Stranger things have probably happened,” Graham said. “I wonder...”

“It’s colder today than it was yesterday. And there’s more snow than there was the day before. Keeping this only between us, Sire, it’s keeping me awake at night wondering if maybe I’m right.”

“You know, I really, really hope you aren’t,” Graham said, and the two men stared out across the snow hiding everything as far as the eye could see.

#i confess i can't decide: should ch4 go up thursday in place of a standard illustrated gerbil or should it wait until monday #should we just get all ye fic out quickly or alternate posts? any preferences out there? #kings quest #King's Quest #King Graham #rosella (king's quest) #alexander (king's quest) #neese #vee #this post is protected by the royal guards #fic'ing #ch4 #whisper (king's quest)

[terrifictomholland]

ohmygod yes please, i loooove your writing! can you write about cooking/baking with tom pls? 💞💞

this has an ungodly usage of the word choux buns and tempering and chocolate. my apologies! Please enjoy! 

being a baker was something you’d worked so hard to become and now you were teaching your incredibly inept boyfriend how to bake. Having that said, you meant it lovingly that he was inept. The poor boy nearly set water on fire once. 

“What are we making today babe?” He asked looking at you adoringly as you tied the apron around your waist. You glanced at him seeing his full focus and attention on you.

“Just some choux buns with vanilla custard and tempered chocolate,” you smirked smugly seeing his face fall.

“Chew bons?” 

You let out a pitiful groan slapping a hand to your face at his butchered pronunciation.

“No baby, choux buns. You know, profiteroles? Eclairs?” You hoped it would jog his memory. 

“Oh those are yum!” His excitement when he realised that he knew what it was made you laugh.

“Yeah we’re making that,” 

“Wait, aren’t those really hard to make?” He whined two seconds later when realisation hit. 

“Choux buns are really tricky to make yes,” you laughed seeing his face turn ghostly pale.

“Fuck me,” he bemoaned leaning on his hands against the counter.

“Oh man up it’ll be fine!” You grinned going over to him, your arms around his waist as you kissed his cheek.

“You’ll help me right?” His voice wavered slightly and his bottom lip jutted out in a pout. How were you able to turn him down when he looked like that?

“Yes I will help you baby,” you smiled letting your fingers dip under his hoodie and you gently ran them along the warm, taut skin of his side.

“Thank you,” he smiled pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

“Alright, let’s get the ingredients measured out and we’ll go from there,” you encouraged getting to work. 

You had the recipe on your phone as the two of you worked seamlessly in the kitchen, well apart from a few stumbles that Tom made, everything was set out on the counter. 

“Okay, we’ve got everything now, what we need to do now is to mix our wet and dry ingredients.” You smiles sneaking a glance at him seeing his pinched eyebrows nodding in concentration. He had already started doing the dry ingredients so you did the wet ones. 

“This is fun,” he spoke up after a while and you smiled seeing him taking this so seriously.

“It is and you’re doing a great job baby,” you praised making him flush before he threw you a wink which made you laugh.

“Alright come here now, let’s put this together so you can pipe it,” you giggled seeing his eyes widen. 

“I’m piping?” 

“Yeah baby, you gotta start somewhere,” 

“Alright, well let’s crack into it then,” he straightened his shoulders watching you get the perfect consistency of the choux before putting it in the piping bag and handing it to Tom.

You did the first one just so he had a point of reference then you simply stepped back and watched him. 

While he was so into piping you grabbed your phone, filming him and posting that little clip to your instagram with a simple caption of #bakerinthemaking which you knew would drive his fans crazy, but you liked to indulge them in the little things like this, just to let them see a slightly different side of him than they were used to. 

“Am I doing this right?” He asked as you started on the custard, you peeked over seeing the wonky and messy shapes but you were so proud of him because he was doing a very good job for his first ever attempt.

“You’re doing so good,” You grinned and he smiled nodding to himself as he finished the last few ones.

“What’re you doing now?” He came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your middle after he put the choux buns in the oven, peering over your shoulder as you began to explain the process of making your own custard. You could tell he was listening intently with the way he was nodding and asking questions here and there. 

It made your heart squeeze in your chest at just how genuinely interested he was in your passions and how he put up with you when you simply had to test a new recipe at 2 in the morning for the bakery. He was always your guinea pig when it came to desserts, not that he ever complained, I mean - who would? It was free sweets.

“That looks so good darling,” He smiled kissing your temple when you finished the custard and put the pot to the side. There was no time to waste though because the trickiest part was yet to come - the chocolate. 

“This is advanced stuff I’m telling you now, you can give it a go if you want baby but you don’t have too,” You told him as you got the chocolate out.

“Are you gonna temper the chocolate?” He asked as his eyes went over everything you were pulling out.

“Yeah, you can give it a go if you want but like I said, you don’t have too,” 

“No I wanna give it a go,” His lip jutted out again, this time in concentration which made you laugh.

“Okay baby, I’ll instruct you as to what you should do,” 

He started rubbing his hands together, “Right, okay tell me,” 

“We’re essentially heating and cooling the chocolate now. So first what you need to do is just melt the chocolate, that’s easy,” you started explaining, standing by his side as your arm snuck around his middle keeping your eyes on the chocolate as it melted. 

“Now what?” 

“It’s got to get to the right temperature so you need this now, keep stirring,” You handed him the candy thermometer which he placed in the chocolate. 

“Is this right?” He watched you as you shook your head, “Not quite there, almost,” While it was coming to temperature you grabbed the rest of the chocolate that needed to be added when it did reach the right temperature. 

“It’s there now,” he said just as you came back, “Excellent, add this chocolate and stir it ‘til it’s melted as well. What you need to do now is bring the temperature down.” 

“Why do I need to bring the temperature down?” 

“Because by tempering the chocolate you’re controlling the crystals in it, thus making a better quality chocolate,” You told him the easy version of why tempering the chocolate was the best.

“So it tastes better?” 

“Yeah pretty much, also it sets better. Properly tempered chocolate won’t leave any chocolate stained fingertips when you hold it and it has a gorgeous snap and shine to it if it’s done right,” 

“You know so much,” He breathed staring at you in awe making you flush under his scrutiny. 

“Oh stop,” You flushed gently guiding him to check on the chocolate instead, he just grinned pecking you quickly before returning his attention to the chocolate. 

“How’s this?” 

“It’s good, take it off the heat,” He did as you instructed, setting it up.

“Do a test strip,” You suggested, seeing him give up the spatula for you so you smiled and took over, grabbing a piece of glad wrap and coating chocolate on it, before setting it on the counter to cool.

“This way we’ll know if it’s tempered. It sets really fast and it should have a nice gloss and shine to it and a very satisfying snap,” 

“I hope we did it,”

“I think we did baby, could you please check on the choux buns?” 

“Oh right,” he popped over to the oven,

“I think they’re done?” 

“So take them out, they need a bit of cooling time before we can fill them,” 

With that said, the two of you worked together to finish your bake, cracking jokes the way you’d cracked the eggs earlier, both of you a giggling mess by the end of it.

“What a dream team we are,” He stated proudly taking in your counter that was filled with profiteroles and you fell easily into his open arms, breathing him in.

“We’re such a good team, thanks for letting me teach you how to do this,” You murmured puckering your lips.

“You’re a great teacher,” He smiled lovingly as he ducked in, meeting your lips halfway in a sweet kiss.

#greenorangevioletgrass #tom holland blurb #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #my blurbs

[rchtzr]

reddie fic rec

I started this list a while ago, but here’s something to help us while we self isolate

COMPLETED FICS

Winterbreak (Push and Pull) by @thegloryof Summary: Oh baby, I think we both know this is a love we won't get right. Still, if you said that you wanted, I know I'll always have one more try. (Five times Richie and Eddie get it wrong and the one time they just might get it right.) My thoughts: This is it, my FAVORITE Reddie fic. I’m currently on my fourth re-read. Why I love it: 1) the Stozier friendship that is depicted here is *chef’s kiss*. It’s Richie centric and his friendship with each loser is presented really well, but this is the Stan & Richie content I’ve needed in my life. 2) The angst is perfect. If you’ve ever had a close friendship deteriorate this will probably hit you where it hurts but like, in a good way? I can’t recommend this story enough I love it.

Skin&Earth series by @hanscom Summary: A love song to both the Losers' Club and Lights' Skin & Earth album. My thoughts: This was the first Reddie fic I ever read. I hadn’t read fic in y e a r s, but I was still devastated after recently viewing It ch 2 and was like, eh. why not. I have been hooked since.

the edification of eddie kaspbrak by @kaspbrak Summary:ed·i·fi·ca·tion (n.) /ˌedəfəˈkāSH(ə)/ the instruction or improvement of a person morally or intellectually.

Eddie thinks that sometimes, the saddest stuff life is made of isn’t the permanence of death, but the tragedy of losing something you can still have.or, Eddie Kaspbrak falls and learns how not to hit the ground. My thoughts: I feel like it’s a fandom classic? But if you haven’t read it you need to. This fic spans years of Eddie’s life and his relationship with Richie. I’m just saying that maybe film canon could’ve taken a few notes from this final battle with IT

Satan Is My Username by @toziesque Summary: The delicacy of a man made numb by a life long effort to keep it all out, and the archaic entrance of a trigger in the form of an anti-Trashmouth Twitter activist.

@doctor_k: Richie Tozier's comedy is duller than the ache in my left testicle. #trashmouth

"It consumes us from the inside until we don't have a choice anymore."

(A slight AU in which the phone calls don't come, but Richie and Eddie find each other, anyway) My thoughts: There is a playlist that goes with one of the chapters and it is... incredible. I ugly cried to this fic in the best way. I downloaded a few of the songs from the playlist and whenever they come on shuffle I become that Kermit meme where he’s looking out a window into the rain. You know the one. Read this asap let me name the stars for you by @rchtoziers Summary: “So. To summarize. I’m stranded on Mars, entirely alone. I have absolutely no way to communicate with my crew or with earth, since our communications antennae turned me into a human shish-kabob. If the oxygenator becomes compromised, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer stops working, I’ll dehydrate. Breach in the Hab means I’ll go poof. And if, for some god-forsaken reason none of those things kill me first, I’m gonna run out of food and starve to death. Oh, and we can’t forget that everyone I know thinks I’m dead. So… yup. Totally fucked.” * On Sol 6, an unexpected windstorm cuts the Ares III Mission short and six astronauts retreat back to Earth.On Sol 7, the astronaut they left behind wakes up gasping for air.(Or, The Martian au) My thoughts: This part is completed but it’s part of an on-going series. When I tell you I cried. I saw the movie The Martian years ago because a friend wanted to see it and I enjoyed it. BUT I LOVED THIS. The love Eddie and Richie have for each other is PALPABLE. And while it focuses mainly on Richie, every character feels substantial and real and like their personalities work. You simply have to read it. In Fact, Everything's Got That Big Reverb Sound by @dystopiary Summary: Richie Tozier deals with dry socket, the prodigal sister, shifting dynamics in his friendships, babysitting, and the maddening unavailability of Eddie Kaspbrak. My thoughts: I am a Richie Tozier lover first, and a human second, and I really loved this Richie and thought this story was refreshing and different and really well written. I Would Have by @blissymbolics Summary: “I would’ve let you. You didn't even need to ask. I would’ve let you.” My thoughts: Anything that deals with Eddie and Richie regretting time lost with each other really hurts me deeply and this is written really well. I also really like their other one shots!

WIPS

ribs by mikeshanlon  Summary: // you're the only friend I need sharing beds like little kids laughing 'til our ribs get tough but that will never be enough // --- Almost every time the lights turn off and they cram in the shitty twin bed, Richie seems to become a different person. Maybe not different, per say, but the stupid jokes and teasing die down, the guard of nonchalance dropping. Eddie feels lucky to see this side of Richie, soft and caring-- vulnerable. It’s not like he hates the other side of Richie, he secretly enjoys their constant banter and his dumb jokes. No, it’s that this side is rare, and it’s something beautiful. Here, safe in the soft flannel sheets, it feels like they are the only two souls for miles, and they can be themselves, and that is terrifying and reassuring all at once.“I’m gonna miss this. When we go off to college,” Richie admits, the weight behind his words telling Eddie he felt the same about their shared nights.“Yeah,” Eddie agrees softly, “Me too.” My thoughts: I... I love this fic so, SO much. I read each update as soon as I can. I feel completely immersed in each scene. The yearning... I feel like I’m drastically underselling how great I think this is. Just read it. pls.

& That’s For All Time by @tossertozier Summary: It's the summer before college, and Richie Tozier is prepared for approximately nothing to change. The club works at a Renaissance Faire, and somehow in between the turkey legs, marathons of Super Smash brothers and cheap beer, some of them have time to fall in love. My thoughts: This is more Losers Club focused than straight Reddie, and each loser is really well rounded. The tags “you think you’ve read slow burns, you wait, you just wait” are the most accurate tags. I never thought I was into playlist fics until ch 25. (I think it’s 25? idk when you get there you’ll know and it is AMAZING) Honestly the fic could never be updated again and I’d be completely satisfied with where it’s at currently so if you’re wary of wips it’s worth it. there's an angel and he's shaped like you by @89tozier Summary: "Guess I owe you one, huh?" Richie chuckles.Across the table, the boy blinks at him with those dark eyes, slow and calculated like a cat. For a moment Richie is struck with the terrible fear that he's going to end up in shreds and spatters of gore, too, but then the boy simply shrugs his narrow shoulders, digging his spoon back into the bowl and helping himself to another mouthful of Froot Loops. In the yellow kitchen light Richie catches the remnants of blood on his chin."I'll take that as a yes." Or: Richie, on the cusp of fifteen, knows he should be worrying about kissing girls and sneaking out and keeping his grades up just enough to warrant fewer trips to the principal’s office. ‘Harboring a runaway half-vampire in my bedroom in exchange for saving my life’ was never supposed on that list. Richie still isn’t sure it should be. My thoughts: @owlpip’s art for this fic is what initially inspired me to read it. I looooved this story. Very angsty and sweet at the same time. I want to say a lot but I feel like you just need to read it. Angels in Outfields by @reddie-for-anything Summary: He slams his locker shut just in time to see Stan walking over, smug look on his face and something clutched in his left hand.“I think I might have found the perfect thing for you,” he says. His voice is smooth and easy and his eyes read trouble. He raises his hand and holds a flyer in front of Richie’s faceDerry High School Baseball Tryouts Week of February 25th Please come with running clothes, a baseball mitt, running shoes, and cleats.“Oh, fuck no,” Richie says. He doesn’t even need to read the whole thing to know that this isn’t his jam. Nothing about this has is name on it and no. Fuck no. This isn’t happening.Except it is.Richie takes solace in his inability to play any kind of physical sport ever. He knows he’ll hate this, but he also knows he won’t make the team. Not in a million years. My thoughts: Do I know anything about baseball? No. Do you need to know anything about baseball to enjoy this fic? Also no. If you enjoy Stan/Bev/Richie being good friends, blonde!Eddie, jock!Eddie, angst, slow burn.... You’ll love this.

ONESHOTS

I Would Not Wish Any Companion In The World But You by @queen-sock Summary: 9th January 2003 // 06:24amThere are fifty four seats on the subway. Fifty four seats split across two carriages. Eddie knows this because he’s counted them. He’s counted them, over and over again, when he boards at seventy-eighth street, and takes the blue line south into the city every day at 06:24am. The air whips around his head cruelly, a mocking tempest that whispers in his ear, the rest of the world slumbers, the rest of the world sleeps like the dead. The subway station is buried deep in the underbelly of the street, five flights of stairs below the surface. Eddie descends every day, Persephone to her kingdom beneath the earth, a daily pilgrimage that he’d rather not take.The air whips around his head, a bizarre faux-breeze created by the whooshing of the subway trains, and Eddie seethes silently. [OR: Eddie gets the 06:24 train into the city, Richie joins the train at 06:45. Somehow, they always seem to be on the same carriage] My thoughts: This and De Profundis are really beautiful fics and they’re unlike any other stories I’ve read in this fandom. Highly recommend! De Profundis by @queen-sock Summary: Considering it was the first time in just under a month that they had spent more than brief moments in the hallways together, small waves and tiny smiles at each other over the raging sea of other students, before one of them got swept up in the tide and was pulled away before greetings could be exchanged.“I’m going to take a lit elective,” Richie said, as easily as if he’d just told Eddie that it was going to snow the next day. “Oh, and it’s supposed to snow tomorrow”“Pardon?”“Yeah, the weather dude said we were supposed to get a few inches over-night, but I’ve got a few inches I can give him overnight if you catch my drift,” Richie said, grabbing at his crotch gratuitously.‘What? No -- gross. I’m not -- No. I meant the lit elective, you’re taking a lit class?”“Yup,” Richie said, popping the ‘p’ like it was bubblegum, “I got it all sorted a few weeks ago, actually. I’m taking the ‘poetry and experiment’ class” [Or, Ben starts a new literary journal for the University of Maine, and, unbeknownst to each other, Eddie and Richie start submitting poems under psuedonyms] little pieces of the nothing that fall by @spunknbite Summary: Eddie shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh.“I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.”This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot.*Or, the one where it's 1998 and Richie sits down at the bar next to an asshole with a Palm Pilot. My thoughts: You HAVE. TO. READ. THIS. You just. Have to. Slow down, you crazy child by @anderbum Summary: Richie looks down at his own body and like the bed and the bedroom before it, he doesn’t recognize what he sees.A broken sound escapes his lips and he slaps his hand to his mouth. Then he pulls his hand away, looks at it again, and slaps it back in place before his mouth gets any smart ideas.“What the fuck,” he says against his not-hand. (A 13 Going on 30 AU, sort of.) My thoughts: Such a good idea and so well executed. Boyfriend by Anonymous Summary: Based on this post by tumblr user chenetic: Imagine Eddie being harrassed by someone at a party who can’t take a hint until Richie comes over and wraps an arm around his waist and says “sorry babe, they don’t have the drink you like here, who’s this?” and Eddie plays along until the person leaves and Eddie thanks him and asks for his name but Richie just says playfully, “you don’t know your boyfriend’s name?” and all through the night Richie follows him around as if they didn’t literally just meet.(In which Richie and Eddie don't remember that they know each other, when they meet at a college party) My thoughts: A meet cute but they’re both human disasters. In the best way. Okay I’ve had to save this draft a few times and the formatting of the post has become a nightmare so I’m going to stop here for now. If anyone has any fics they want to rec me, pls do!

#richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #reddie fic #fic rec #the fact that on desktop everything is bolded correctly but not on mobile is driving me nuts #but i also can't edit it on mobile #so #i'm sorry

[isthisthingeven0n]

a day in the life : d.d

brief summary: carly and erin follow you for one of their videos, living a day in your life as a hollywood actress who has recently been involved in the mcu. they see what your days are like, and how they compare to your downtime with david.

word count: 2.2k requested: yes, by an anon - i really love this idea so thank you doll! warnings: literally none

* masterlistin’ 

“Hey guys, so we’re currently on our way to start filming for today’s video.” Carly starts off, reaching for her Starbucks as Erin drives. “It’s actually nearly 6am and I am dying inside, but to be truthful to her day we gotta do this.” 

Erin pulls up to a stoplight, glancing over to the camera with a dead look in her eyes. “If you haven’t read the title, we’re following around our good friend and brilliant actress Y/n today.” Erin claps before she begins to drive again, heading down the lane toward your house hidden away. “We can’t show you anything else yet until we’re in her house, cause privacy and all.” Erin explains and Carly lowers the camera. 

As they arrive at your house, the pair walk in to be greeted by your dogs. “Babies!” Carly happily laughs as she sits down amongst your dogs, letting them climb all over her as you run down the stairs, camera in hand.

“Hey, guys.” You call out as you bring them into hugs. “I can see Dexter is happy.” You chuckle as Erin continues to film. 

“And as you can see, Y/n is all ready for the gym, at 6am.” Erin heavily sighs, watching as you roll your eyes and step forward.

“It kills me inside too, guys.” You tell them as you whisper to the camera before wandering toward your kitchen. “Do you want a drink before we go?” You ask them as you sit in your kitchen, picking up a bottle of water.

“How about vodka?” Erin jokes, and you chuckle. 

“Bottom drawer.” You motion before picking up your keys. “But if you’re driving, stick to water girl.” You say with a smile as you walk with a skip in your step, having looked forward to this day for weeks since it was arranged. 

*

Reaching the gym, you walk up to your personal trainer and give him a high five. “So, this is Pablo, he is the one to thank for these.” You motion to the muscles across your stomach and you flex your arms, unable to take yourself seriously. “But, he is also to blame for my bad moods.” 

Pablo nods, “It’s true, I take all the blame if it means she is in the best physical shape she can be for filming.” 

Resting your hands on your heart, you sigh contently. “He’s just too good to me.” You give him a side hug, only for him to squeeze you tightly before you make a start. “So, what’ve we got today?” You ask, resting your hands on your hips as you glance to Carly and Erin who already look exhausted.

“Okay, we’ll start with a ten minute warm-up, do some cardio and work toward the ropes. Finish up with some boxing and then thirty minutes on the treadmill.” Pablo explains and you fight back the groan, knowing it’s for your own good.

“What the fuck?” Erin gasps, turning the camera on herself as she struggles to hold her jaw together. “You do this, every day?” She asks and watches as you shrug it off.

“Part of the job.�� You tell her, laughing lightly as you pat her shoulder. “If you can’t keep up, I won’t blame you. Just do what you can, Pablo is a nice guy to those who don’t pay him.” You kid and Pablo nods along with you. 

As your work out goes on, Carly and Erin collapse down on the gym floor. “I don’t think I can hold the camera up much longer.” Carly groans loudly, both of them are dripping with sweat and panting heavily. “Look, Y/n is still going.” She turns the camera around to watch you, you're still giving it your all despite Pablo pushing you to work harder. 

“I don’t get how she does it, but I am in awe of her strength.” Erin comments as she struggles to sit upright. “After this, we’re getting breakfast, and then heading to set for a few hours.” 

“Grind never stops!” You call out to them both, letting out a heavy sigh as Pablo tells you to carry on squatting. 

“That ass ain’t building itself!” He reminds you. “You wanna fit in that costume, you gotta fill your ass out girl.” He encourages you, helping you laugh through the pain that spreads as your muscles are being worked. 

Walking out of the gym, you slip your sunglasses on and walk with ease whilst Carly and Erin stumble behind you. “How she is walking as if she’s just done a quick jog beats me. I am walking like I’ve been fucked like a ragdoll.” Erin groans as she follows you to your car where you wait for them both. 

“Dave wants to meet with us, that chill?” You ask them and they simply nod. “He’s got a bit of time between meetings to hang out.” They watch as your smile grows at the thought of having downtime with your boyfriend.

“So, Y/n. Why don’t you tell us how you met David then?” Carly questions as she slips into the backseat whilst Erin sets her camera up on the dashboard as you drive away from the gym, nearing your favourite coffee shop. 

You smile to yourself, thinking back to the first time you actually met him. “Well, for those who’re new ‘round here, hi.” You tell the camera with a bright smile. “David and I met when I was doing press for Infinity War. I had a few interviews planned in the same building as he did and we naturally clicked.” 

“Not to mention, David freaked the fuck out when he told us you met,” Carly adds, leaning over from the seat behind you. “he couldn’t believe you were actually in his presence or would spare five minutes to talk to him.” 

A laugh escapes your lips as you think how different it all seems now. “Gotta say I’m glad he did, I couldn’t imagine things without him in my life.” You think aloud, not realising how sentimental the statement is until you hear them both make a sound of awe. 

“Y/n, that’s so sweet.” Erin tells you genuinely and you tuck your hair behind your ear, looking for a distraction.

“Well, he’s my sanity amongst the madness of Hollywood.” 

*

Sitting down for breakfast, Erin lets the camera just run as you curl up next to David and rest your head on his shoulder. Your relationship was pretty lowkey considering you were both pretty big in your professions. When you went official, you knew you didn’t want everyone to obsess over your relationship, that you would remain two separate individuals. But in moments like this, it gave insight to fans how much you clearly adored one another. 

The way you would smile up at David and how he’d squeeze you gently, making you laugh. It was evident you were in love, and that you brought out the best in one another as you sat together. 

“You got time to visit my trailer?” You lift your head up to look at David as he pulls his cap off, ruffling his hand through his hair before he sighs.

You pull away, knowing that sigh all too well. “I don’t think I can today, babe.” He tells you quietly, leaning down and kissing you softly. “I gotta head back.” 

Watching closely, you wave him goodbye as you turn back around, trying to hide your disappointment. “And that is part of the struggle.” You tell both girls truthfully, knowing this is supposed to be an accurate day in your life, not a version that is sugar-coated. 

Carly reaches over, taking your hand in hers as she squeezes it lightly as tears briefly pass over your eyes. “Anyway,” You clear your throat as you pick up your coffee and head out of the cafe. “I better get to set. I’m due to film a few action sequences then I’ll just read my lines ‘til it’s dark.” You list everything off that’s still to happen today, and the girls nod along. 

“Is every day like this?” Carly questions as they return to your car. 

You shrug your shoulders. “Only when I’m filming.” You tell her with a smile. “Endgame is definitely easier than Infinity War was. I guess I can’t say much,” You laugh nervously.

“Oh don’t worry, we’ll make sure this is out once Endgame is.” Erin reassures you and you let out a sigh of relief. “It’ll probably take us that long to edit so it’s fine.” 

“Well, I still can’t say much but, what I am in is intense.” You simply state before sealing your lips and throw away the key. 

“I mean, I have no idea but okay.” Carly states causing you to chuckle as you pull away and head toward the studio. 

*

“Welcome to my trailer bitches.” You pose in front of it over dramatically. “This is where I crash out, rehearse lines and often end up watching TV with Chris.” You explain, giving them a brief tour. 

“Chris as in Evans?” Carly states and you nod nonchalantly.

“Yeah.” You reply with a small smile before collapsing down on your sofa. “I think I’m due in hair and makeup in about five minutes, but make yourselves at home.” You tell them as you rise to your feet. “Unfortunately, this is one part you guys can’t see.” 

“Oh come on.” Erin whines and you shake your head.

“Can’t guys, the Russo’s would have my head.” You joke, but secretly you know it’s true. “I’ll be back in about an hour, just chill.” 

Walking out of the trailer you head to hair and makeup, leaving Carly and Erin to their own devices. “I still can’t believe this is her life.” Erin says quietly, and Carly nods in agreement as her eyes widen. “This is insane.” She laughs lightly, only to be interrupted by a knock on the trailer door. 

“Y/n, someone left you flowers.” They hear a voice call out, and slowly Carly walks to the door and pushes it open. “Oh,” The man stutters, looking to Carly who swallows her tongue back into her mouth. 

“Hi.” She speaks softly, “I’m a friend of Y/n’s,” She’s trying to not stare, but it’s bordering impossible not to. 

“Chris, I think I’ve heard Y/n talk about you guys.” He says with a smile. “Anyhow, can you give her these when she’s back?” He asks and Carly nervously nods. “Thanks.” He pats her arm before walking off, and Carly looks down at her arm before turning to Erin in a state of shock.

“I think I just met Chris Evans and he gave me flowers. I officially win.” 

*

With a loud yawn, you walk back to your trailer. “Hey guys,” You call out as you close the door behind you, kicking your shoes off as you remain in your costume. “I am exhausted.” You laugh lightly, collapsing down between them as they share a look. “What’d I miss?” 

“Well,” Carly sits upright. “Chris Evans brought me flowers. I mean, he brought you flowers that someone left for you.” Carly motions to the bunch of flowers resting on your window ledge.

Uneasily, you rise to your feet and walk over. Buried in the sunflowers is a small letter. Instantly, you recognise the handwriting and smile to yourself. 

‘I’m sorry I can’t always be ‘round to keep you going. but I promise there’s more to come. D x’ 

You hold the note to your chest before slipping it back underneath the flowers. “From anyone we know?” Erin raises an eyebrow to you, watching as you shrug a shoulder, trying to hide your smile.

“Possibly.” You reply coyly before sitting down and shutting your eyes for a while. 

*

“Well guys, we’re going to call it a day as it’s nearly eleven pm and Y/n is still filming.” Erin yawns as they walk out of the filming lot. “I actually had no idea what to expect, but all I can say is wow.” She huffs and Carly nods.

“Yeah, Y/n is a badass and I had no clue this is how much she does on a daily basis when filming.” Carly takes hold of the camera as they reach their Uber. “But I can honestly say my respect for actors has shot up, trying to do their routine is insane.” 

“And maintaining relationships outside of the job too.” Erin adds. “I mean, I know you guys don’t see everything we do, but all I can say is that David and Y/n make each other extremely happy.” 

“Exactly. Anyway, we’ll get going as we have not stopped since Y/n started.” Carly states as she yawns. “I need to go sleep for three days. But we’ll see you on Tuesday.” 

*

“And that’s a wrap for tonight!” You hear a voice shout and you hold your hands up and dance to yourself alongside Pratt. 

“We did it!” He high fives you as you weakly walk out with a few of your cast members, talking about how it went. 

“See you tomorrow, Y/n!” You wave a few of them off as you walk up to your trailer and shut the door behind you, only to see someone sat down. 

Turning your head, you smile softly as David sits there, holding a bunch of red roses. “Told you I had more coming.” He says with a smile as he stands up and moves toward you, wrapping his arms around your waist and bringing you close into his chest. “This okay?” He questions as you nod into the crook of his neck. 

“This is perfect.” 

#bit different #but i hope you like the finish result! #it was definitely fun to write something like this #david dobirk #david dobrik imagine #david dobrik imagines #david dobrik fluff #david dobrik angst #david dobrik x reader #david dobrik writing #david dobrik oneshot #vlogsquad #vlogsquad imagine #vlogsquad imagines #vlogsquad fluff #vlogsquad angst #vlogsquad x reader #vlogsquad oneshot #vlog squad #vlog squad imagine #vlog squad imagines #vlog squad fluff #vlog squad angst #vlog squad x reader #vlog squad oneshot

[nachohypno]

The Daylight Club Ch. 3 - Missing In Action

Donnie’s POV

I woke up in the middle of the street. ‘What the hell happened?’ I wondered, as I got up and moved out of the road just in case a car wanted to try and pass me over.

I was in front of my house, so I just walked inside as soon as I noticed my situation. My phone wasn’t in my pockets, and I had no idea what time was it.

Probably morning?

…Fuck. My phone, where I had all the information, was gone. This is why going in groups to the missions is important, Bobby or Molly could have taken a backup if they were down with me at the maze.

“Dad! I’m home!” I yelled, before he made a scandal about my whereabouts last night. He liked to play the worried father from time to time.

No answer. That was weird, the old man was usually at home at this point.

Never mind, I’ll check the time and see if I can still sneak into school.

I went to my room and turned on my computer. 9 am. Geez, the longest blackout I’ve ever had. I checked my pockets again and the USB drive wasn’t there anymore. It was obvious that this would happen, something got me last night and I was lights out until now.

I should have hidden it somewhere. ‘Stupid Donnie’ I thought.

Anyway, I got my school bag and went outside. Dad seemed to be out for the morning, which was really strange. But I shrugged it off.

That meant that the old man wouldn’t ruin my morning. I smirked at the thought.

I went outside and walked to school. Bobby should already be there.

The streets were empty, not a single soul outside. I wondered if the curfew was extended into a perpetual lockdown, but that didn’t make sense. People had to keep their lives going around town.

Finally, I found someone at the school’s entrance. The main security guy stopped me right on my tracks, fuck.

It was a relief, though. Finding someone, I mean.

“Brandon Thompson, what a surprise” The guy was Jeffrey, we all liked Jeffrey— We used to like Jeffrey, before he got mind-fucked like all the adults in town. “You know, I can stand letting you enter after the first class is on session, but I can’t let you violate the dress code that the Powell family declared for the school”

Dress code? What the hell was this all about? And what does Patrick’s family had to do with it?

“Wait, there’s no such thing as a dress code—”

“Yes, there is” He said, getting a measuring tape from his pocket and starting to measure my frame. I wanted to complain, but strangely I couldn’t. It was like I didn’t know what to do. And this was obviously not normal, because why would a security guard have a fucking measuring tape?!

“Hmm… a large one will do…” He mumbled, before putting the measuring tape back on his pocket and pointing to around the building. “You won’t be able to enter without your uniform, go get one at the locker room”

He pointed to a separate building from the school, near the library and the sports area.

I shrugged “Yeah, whatever” And went directly for the entrance door. Jeffrey didn’t try to stop me, and I know why.

The door wasn’t moving at all. I could hear chatter inside, but I couldn’t open the door.

“Get your uniform, then you’ll enter” said Jeffrey, still at the entrance. I just noticed he wasn’t moving, and he stared straight ahead like a robot.

Shit, seems like I don’t have a choice. What the hell is going on, anyway? How long have I been asleep?

I walked to the sports area’s locker room and found it was… completely different.

I’ve been here before, I used to play sports before being expelled from the boxing team, when the whole voices and the shape thing started and my hatred for school spirit started to arise.

It seemed like some kind of clothing store now. Anyway, I needed a uniform if I wanted to look for my friends.

I… I really don’t need it… right? I mean, it’s not needed if I just want to enter my school. What the hell is going on? This isn’t… this isn’t normal, right?

The supposed new uniforms were stacked in two rows, one for guys and the other for girls. I rolled my eyes and went over to the stack at the left, looking for a large uniform. ‘This has to be some kind of fucked up dream. Maybe all the club members have this happening once they’re caught for the first time’ I thought, heading to the dressing room with the uniform in hand.

“So… I’m doing this. It’s okay, play along ‘til you wake up” I mumbled, as I undressed. Once I undressed, I couldn’t help but to flex to the mirror front of me. It was a nice habit I have, but I reminded myself to keep going.

The dressing pants were… surprisingly comfortable, and not restricting at all. I felt like if I had to run out of school for whatever reason, I would perfectly be able to.

I examined myself in the mirror of the dressing room, mumbling a “You look ridiculous” to my reflection. “But I’m apparently in some kind of nightmare… so better try to progress, maybe I haven’t woken up from the blackout yet”

I felt proud of myself for figuring that out with barely any help. I’m not the best lightbulb of the box when it comes to thinking, but hell, I’m really into this “resistance” kind of thing we’ve settled in our town against the voices, and CHORUS.

I’m a good leader.

I left the dressing room, and the locker room/clothing store. I was doing good so far, can’t wait to wake up though. This dream or whatever is getting boring pretty fast.

I walked over to the front of the school again, and tried to open the main door. Still closed.

What. The. Fuck?!

“You missed something in there” Jeffrey sighed, still standing at the entrance. “Here, take mine. It would be a hassle if you had to go back there” He took off what seemed to be some… earbuds, then passed them to me.

“What’s this for? I’m going to school, not the gym” I mean, I’m supposed to have my ears uncovered to pay attention to the classes. This would be counterproductive.

“There’s… a cat trapped in the vents. It’s making a lot of noise, yeah. Wear those for protection, or you won’t be able to enter. Orders from above” He finished, as soon as I opened my mouth to complain.

“That’s bullshit— A’ight. Then I’ll be able to enter the damn school? I’m already late, dude!” Not that I really care, but what shitty game is he playing right now?!

“That’s the last detail, yeah” Fucking finally. I placed the earbuds on my ears without a second thought, then ran towards the front door, which opened in front of me.

FINALLY!

I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about entering school. Now, to check on the others!

-----------

Kevin’s POV

I woke up on the closet’s floor. I opened my eyes and realized I was back at Donnie’s room.

I thought about staying at the hideout for the time, using the ‘dorms’ there. But Donnie suggested me to stay on his house instead, since he wanted to keep an eye on me after my “spectacular entrance to this chaos, with bike and everythin’”.

And funny enough, this… gave me a pretty good view of the events of last night. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening.

Everyone got trapped by the shape, which wasn’t as invisible as they said it was.

They were running around with their eyes closed, but I could see it perfectly running towards them.

Grabbing them by their necks.

…I assumed it was disturbing for them. Seeing their friends floating in the air and then acting against each other all of a sudden.

I was mostly surprised when the ‘wings’ appeared. Bobby and Ryan started screaming “THE SHAPE! IT'S LIKE AN ANGEL!”

I wanted to go out and do something. Anything, to help out. I was in the club, right?

But they dismissed me and told me to stay in my position because there “were already four members out on field”. Such a dumb excuse, and look at how it went for them.

The thing didn’t look like an angel at all, by the way. I still remember the cocky look in Adam’s face as he helped me get out from OceanVille.

Funny things about angels: They can’t kill humans. I should thank William for turning me into one during our confrontation.

The angel had no other option than to let me go and live my now mortal life, to avoid having me around William, worsening his PTSD.

I snapped my fingers.

Nothing happened.

I was too weak for that. I tried to summon a rainy day to avoid heading to school. If I’m going to pass as a normal student around here, I should play the whole act, right?

But first, let’s get cleaned up.

I went to Donnie’s closet and checked out the stuff. ‘My home is your home’ he mentioned, before leaving for the mission ‘Just try to not cross paths with my dad. I haven’t told him you’re staying here and it’s better if the enemy doesn’t know you’re here’

‘Don’t worry, big D. Your dad is dancing on the palm of my hand’ I thought to myself before leaving the room with a clean towel.

I went to the bathroom to take a shower, undressing and leaving the dirty —or ruined— stuff on the ground. Been a while since I took a shower. I would normally just snap my fingers and ta-da, I would be clean.

Warping the reality was amazing, but going back to my human behavior was… a nice change of pace.

I won’t share the details of my shower, but it was relaxing. My body was still a bit sore-y after falling straight to the pavement from my bike. It was also a nice and relaxing place to think about what the heck is going on here.

Like, for example… What is the shape, anyway?

I have pretty good knowledge of supernatural beings, or powers and stuff.

Mind controllers were a thing, I’ve seen one. But this wasn’t their doing, I could tell. Their power was almost limitless, as long as they trained their minds to handle it. But… no, it couldn’t be. A whole town was way too much, unless it was an especially powerful one.

Body hoppers? The only one I’m aware of is still at Riverwood. And even if there was one here (since some people seems to change completely after being mind-fucked) there wouldn’t be many of them for every adult in town. They’re almost extinct, as far as I know.

These voices… I’ve never heard of such a thing, but apparently they’re real. That, or these guys have a severe case of schizophrenia, and just imagine them to have someone to blame.

But that didn’t seem the case. They were really convinced of their existence, that was obvious.

And what’s with that CHORUS thing? They’re the principal manufacturers and tech service providers of the town, without any competition.

That HAS to do something with everything that’s happening at night. Otherwise, why would a modern town be so… isolated, if they’re welcoming technology like this town seemed to be?

I went back to Donnie’s room and grabbed some clothes from his closet.

A tee, a hoodie and some jeans. He was bigger than me, so the clothes would look baggy on me, still better than being naked. And, I had to be presentable for my first day at school.

…Again.

I checked my bag. The papers I made up for when I had to enter William’s school were still there, and still looked useful. I could just say that I’ve been repeating the senior year over and over, or something like that. I’m still 18, supposedly.

“You REALLY are eighteen? You don’t seem to be aging well, kiddo!” A goofy voice said, and it caused me to fall backwards because of the surprise.

“W-Who’s there? Matthew?” But I got no answer back. Fuck, that confirms it, then. The voices are definitely real, and I’m being watched even at this very moment.

I looked at the street through the window, trying to distract my mind from the recent scare. People passed by, taking their dogs for a walk. Some were teens heading to school.

And then, I noticed Tweedledum walking towards this house, scratching his head in confusion. Bobby rang the bell a few seconds later, so I grabbed my bag and walked downstairs.

I opened the door, and he seemed surprised to find me there. “Hey… Where’s—”

“Donnie? I was waiting for him to reappear after yesterday’s failure of a mission” Bobby rolled his eyes, then motioned me to follow him. “And I’ll assume he hasn’t contacted you yet… maybe he’s at the hideout?”

“He would have called; I guess… But he probably is, no need to worry. Donnie would call us pricks if he saw us worrying over him” He said, reassuringly and patting my back. Like I’m the one that was worrying over him.

Truth is, Bobby seemed a bit down after hearing that Donnie wasn’t at his house. Funny, he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would worry a lot. Not saying that he doesn’t have the right to worry but… He and Donnie don’t really seem like nice cupcakes when you first meet them.

And he was now pretty silent. I don’t know him enough to bring up a conversation topic, so I just followed him to school and he would sometimes look out to the side, probably to check if I was still next to him.

The girl from yesterday at the hideout, Molly, was at the entrance wearing a cotton beanie that covered most of her hair.

“What’s with the beanie?” Bobby said, apparently cheered up at the sight of his friend.

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. I-get-trapped-and-wake-up-with-perfect-hair!” ‘It isn’t, hun. Have you looked at this guy’s head? He looks like he just fought with a grizzly bear’ I thought, smiling at my mental dialogue. “I didn’t have time to shower after waking up from the blackout, so… this is the best thing I could find”

I honestly didn’t care about their conversation. Not because I don’t like them, I find them hilarious actually. But I feel like the disappearance of Donnie (Or better yet, what were they doing after being trapped yesterday?) are more important questions rather than ‘Oh, does my hair look nicey?’ ‘Oh no, look at my hair!’.

Priorities guys, priorities.

“Do you know where the principal’s office is? I still gotta get transferred here—”

“Wait, you’re still a student? How come you arrived at town without your family?” Bobby interrupted me. It was alright, but I sort of assumed he would have made the connection already.

“I’m emancipated, that’s why” I lied. It was much easier than saying ‘I’m an all-powerful —not so much anymore- demon that’s older than all of you’.

“Huh, weirdly enough, that sounds cool with the parenting situation around here” Molly sighed, before grabbing my hand and guiding me inside. The corridor looked boring and gray, which I didn’t find weird. According to these guys, adults (and the things controlling them) want order around town.

Colorful places could inspire imagination? I don’t know, I saw it in a movie once.

The bell rang as we walked in silence and Molly guided me through the corridors. “Shit… I have to be in time for class, perfect assistance record and stuff. Just turn around this corner, keep going forward and you’ll see it. Got it? I can go with you if you want” Huh, nice girl. I liked her.

“Nah, I’m good with directions. I’ll see you in a bit” I told her, and the distressed Bobby behind her. They both nodded, and wished me good luck, then walked away together.

“Aw, I ship them” The random voice appeared again in my head. I looked around but couldn’t see anything. Then…

‘Close your eyes’ Donnie said when reciting the rules yesterday. I did as he said, and found some kind of… footsteps? I could only see them when my eyes were closed, and they seemed to go around the corner.

A few moments later, alternating between closing my eyes and looking out to not bump into people, I arrived at the principal’s office. “What the…” I mumbled, wondering what was that all about. Were the footprints guiding me here? Why?

This is definitely weird, but I’ll take it, I guess.

I walked into the principal’s office, and the older man just looked at me with curiosity “I… We’ve never met before, right?” Wow, if I were a student this guy would have come off as an asshole.

I shook my head “I’m here to join. I used to study at home due to anxiety problems before, but my parents decided it was time for me to socialize more with my fellow seniors and have a good high school experience during my last year” I tried to sound as convincing as I could, while handing him the paper works I had used to sign up at OceanVille High.

I’m aware that they’re outdated, but maybe I could… use my mind control power to change his mind about me entering? It was worth the try, at least.

He looked at the papers with a raised eyebrow. I snapped my fingers behind my back, trying to focus on this guy’s mind but… It was really difficult. I sort of felt like something was already in his mind, making it difficult for me to tinker with him.

In the end, I gave in and stopped trying, but that apparently made him dizzy enough to not register the papers as cautiously as he should have.

“Ev— Ev…” His face was twitching. Oh, okay. The voices are tinkering with his head right now, maybe? I pushed harder for him to ‘break free’ of their control, before giving in to me, but again, it was useless. “Everything… seems in order” He finally said, handing the papers back to me.

“Thanks so much, I’m excited to start my senior year in Greenwood High, sir!” I feigned a nerdy tone, hoping I would get on his good side.

He shook his head, like he just woke up from some kind of weird trance. “Y-Yes… I’m sorry, I have some trouble sleeping lately” Huh, just like the club guys said. “Head to your first class, my secretary will provide you with a schedule for the senior year. It’s…” Yawn “A bit late to begin your year but you still have time to take on some optative classes or extracurriculars”

Did he… Did he just yawn? I guess that all that sleepwalking while they’re enslaved at night is paying off during their daytime routine?

 I shook my head, my business here was done. If I tried to push my weak mind control further he could snap or something, so I preferred to just head out to my first class.

“I’ll check out the options later, thanks again!” I said, before walking out.

Geez, this place is filled with crazy people, apparently.

-----------

Donnie’s POV

The corridors were empty, just like the town outside. Seems like I’m still in the mind fucked world.

Funny enough, I tried to turn towards an empty corridor but it was… closed?

The door to enter the corridor was apparently locked with a chain, which was a weird thing since I’m supposed to be at a normal school day. “Is this the best you can do? Fuckin’ lazy, bro…” I mumbled, scratching the back of my head as I turned around.

I had already found my classroom, but I decided to not enter and just explore this weird place. My detective skills wanted me to try and find some info around these blackouts in here.

I tried something out: Closing my eyes. The footsteps didn’t appear on the ground, so I couldn’t guide myself, but I did notice shape-like figures outside of the school building. ‘Shit, nice thing I’m inside or I would have freaked out while out there’

But as I thought that, a pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders and started moving me away. “You were late, dude. You need to learn when to enter your classes in time” Jeffrey’s voice said, as I was pushed through the corridor and into the detention room I spent so many hours before.

I entered unwillingly, which made no sense at all because it was still morning. I’ve been at detention before and the asshole principal likes to have it after class to make sure we lose time of the evening.

“Fucker” I mumbled, as the door was closed behind me. I looked in the room, and noticed Bobby was there along with Ryan. They sat next to each other, and were dressed in the same shitty uniform I was.

“Hey Brandon” Bobby said, as I walked over and sat on the desk chair beside him. This was already not right, noticeable by the point that Bobby was dressed like a fucking prep and acknowledged me as ‘Brandon’.

“Hey dude, got sent over here too?” Nevertheless, it was comforting finally seeing a friendly face around here, so I stood my ground and didn’t lose my cool. Yep, that’s me. The guy trapped in a dream fantasy with fucking preps.

“Yep. Detention class is cool, though. I heard we’re having a new professor!” New professor? Detention class? What he said didn’t make any sense,

A man I’ve never seen before entered the room, carrying a book and a coffee mug. He was wearing a sort of lab coat, and seemed to be in his mid-30s. Made me curious, mostly because we already had a biology professor.

“Good morning. I’m the new professor taking care of the re-education course you’ve been sent to. We can’t have you little troublemakers running around school and skipping classes”

“Uh, sorry dude, but—” I started, before the guy dropped his book harshly on the desk in front of us. Bobby and Ryan looked at me with disdain, like I just said ‘Hey, I fucked your mother’.

“Dude?! I’ve heard some stuff from the other professors about you, Brandon Thompson, but I will not tolerate a student not addressing me by my surname, or my title, especially not in this class. I didn’t serve in the military for a little brat to disrespect me like this…” He finished, rubbing his face with his hands like some kind of cartoon character.

“Uh, aren’t we supposed to be at class? How come we are in detention right now? Isn’t that counterproductive, dude?” I finished my question after he rudely interrupted me.

His mad stare made me think that he was about to throw the book he just dropped at me, but teachers aren’t supposed to hurt their students. ‘You’ll have to step up your game, TAO’ I mumbled, taunting the voice that was probably behind this all. Think-As-One (Shortened as TAO).

The name alone already implies the hive-mind mechanic that the sleepers and lucids have been reflecting in the real world at night.

“Let’s start with that as the first lesson of our class” The new professor, who didn’t even state his name yet, said while ignoring my question once again. Apparently, logic reasoning wasn’t the forte of people in this world.

I looked beside me at the fake Bobby and Ryan, both wearing uniforms like I was, their hair was perfectly combed to the side… Their eyes were glazed over, so I was right. I couldn’t trust in them during this weird sequence. How long until the blackout ends? Me don’t know!

“Properly addressing your superiors! Robert, what can you tell me about it?” The guy continued, looking at my best friend beside me. Huh, I almost forgot Bobby was just a nickname. Bobby doesn’t like being called Robert though, so it was just another signal of my friend not being himself right now.

Bobby/Robert raised his hand and answered in a ridiculous nervous tone. “Yes, sir! We have to always show respect to our superiors by addressing them as their title, like Mom and Dad, or Sir, when it’s not a relative, Sir!” Then he sat back down, looking proud of himself and with a big grin.

That answer disgusted me. I knew Bobby was usually the ‘polite’ one of the duo, but he still wouldn’t call a professor ‘Sir’ even if his life depended on it.

Ryan lifted his hand beside Bobby, and waited for the man in front of the fake classroom to notice him. “Yes, Ryan?”

“May I add that showing respect to our superiors includes principles like doing what you’re told to do without complaints, and always trying to look your best to avoid embarrassment?” I noticed both guys beside me had earbuds on their ears, which made me realize I had signed my death sentence.

I’m not dumb, but I should have been more careful before entering here.

“That’s a good answer! Are you taking notes, Brandon?” The professor said, looking over at me as I struggled to move my body and take off the earbuds off. It was useless though, it was like when you want to do something in a video game, but that action isn’t programmed in so you just can… play along.

“S—Suuuuuuuuur—YEaaaa—“ I couldn’t speak nor lie properly, and that was pissing me off. Then, I felt like my body entered some kind of autopilot mode. “No, Sir!” I felt myself saying, and I swear I wanted to puke so bad.

“Hmm… That’s too bad, young man. But I’m glad you’re being honest. What do you think of your fellow classmates? They are brilliant gentlemen, aren’t they? Model citizens of the future!” He sounded like some fucking commercial.

I wanted to lie again, but my voice wouldn’t complain. “They’re disgusting, Sir! I couldn’t feel more embarrassed of them even if I tried!” Bro, what the fuck?! I would never say something like that about Bobby! I mean, I could do it to Ryan, but Bobby is a nice friend!

My club mates beside me looked at me with sadness, their eyes seemed teary but still glazed over. “Oof, that was really mean, Brandon. Look at what you’ve done, are you proud of yourself for making your classmates sad? I’m sure you feel like a cool guy right now…” He shook his head in disapproval, and that sort of made me feel bad?

Like, I didn’t care about this guy, but at the same time I was beginning to care a little that I disappointed my supe—WHATTHEFUCK!

“I’m sorry, guys. I shouldn’t have referred to you like that” My body finally said, and weirdly enough, I meant it. I couldn’t care less about these fake copies of my club mates— but I really wanted to apologize for my bad behavior and talking like that.

“That’s more like it, Brandon” The professor said, and I gave a shy nod before answering a weak “Thank you, Sir”

I noticed my mind getting number with each passing second. Every bit of this that seemed to not make any sense suddenly started making sense as an unknown influence kept trying to take over my mind.

And the influence... It made it very difficult to resist, so... I might as well give in... Right?

“Nice progression we’re having here” The professor said. “Now, let’s have a quick summary of the school rules, shall we?”

The three of us nodded, excitedly. I’ve never been so excited to hear about rules, except maybe when we made up the club’s rules…

I… An image seemed to appear in my mind… Me, along with the rest of my classmates proudly looking to the front of the classroom. I was sitting beside Patrick, my best friend, as we carefully paid attention to the professor.

I liked spending time with Patrick before… Why did we stop… The club...

The club… It rang a bell inside of me, but I could also feel myself not overflowing with joy every time I thought about debunking all the shit that had been going on at the town.

I just wanted to be a normal student now. I wanted to be with my real best friend again, Patrick Powell. He left the club, and I should do the same. For him.

Bobb- Robert was a good best friend, but he wasn’t as good best friend as Patrick was. He was the one I liked...

I… I had to leave the club then… That sounds about right, yeah. I wanted to be a normal student. I wanted to be back with my best friend… Hell, I’d do anything for him.

I could feel my mind being fully filled with fog as I stopped resisting the influence. It felt…

Good.

It was like my worries and any thoughts of resistance just faded away. A feeling of proudness covered my body every time I complied with this man, for some reason, and I wasn’t going to complain about that. 

“First rule,” The professor said, while writing it down on the blackboard in front of us. “You must always remain respectful towards your superiors”

“We must always remain respectful towards our superiors” My two classmates repeated, and looked at me.

“…We must always remain respectful towards our superiors” I noticed some faint music playing over the earbuds I had on. Music like the one that plays at the maze? I couldn’t tell. I had to pay attention to the re-education course, it was more important.

I had to remain respectful towards the professor.

“You will do as you’re told by your parents and elders, without second thought” The guy continued writing, placing all the points in little bullet points to make it all better looking.

“We will do as we are told by our parents and elders, without second thought” The three of us droned this time around. It was alright, I had to be respectful towards my dad, my professors and stuff.

They’re always right.

A sly smile appeared on the professor’s face. I noticed he hadn’t told us his name, but it was alright. I could refer to him as ‘Sir’, if I had to.

“You won’t take place in clandestine and/or Illegal activities, like breaking the curfew at night” The man finished a new rule that seemed to obviously target at…

At…

I wasn’t a club member anymore, that’s for sure. I’m not a troublemaker, so I don’t have to go around breaking the rules.

“We won’t take place in clandestine and/or illegal activities” We droned again. It felt good to say it. We had to be good citizens for the future, hah.

The professor drew a little line at the bottom of the three golden rules, and just turned towards us. “Now you three, I want you to go out and follow these rules like your lives depend on it, they’re the key for a better you, understood?” He finished, a big grin on his face.

We got up from our seats calmly and said “Yes, Sir!” Before heading out toward the door. The door seemed to have a weird reddish color around it, all of a sudden. Sort of reminding me of the ones that the shape uses to…

It must be my imagination, I just had to go back to class.

I had to be a good student.

-------

Kevin’s POV

Being at school sucked, and that’s one thing I didn’t miss from being a human.

I must say, my new classmates are very nice indeed. Patrick tried to take me on a tour around school, but I asked him if we could go later. I wasn’t in the mood for tours right now.

The first class went by fast, nothing interesting happening besides Ryan’s reappearance, and he seemed to be just like he always was, according to Bobby and Molly.

We met up at the corridor as I tried to open my new locker. “Here, lemme help’chu” Bobby mumbled, gently pushing me aside and harshly pulling from the locker’s handle. The thing seemed to open without much effort, even when I apparently used the correct combination.

“These lockers are shit, but anyone with enough strength can open them” Molly explained “The locks are a joke, just pull the handle as hard as you can and… voila” She finished, opening her own locker.

‘Huh, interesting. I should remember to not place anything valuable in these lockers if anyone can open them’ I thought, after mumbling a quick thanks to my new club mates.

As the three of us were chatting, something unexpected happened. I noticed him passing besides us, without even looking at us.

I stopped Bobby’s speech and moved towards the other guy. I grabbed his shoulder and he turned to me. “Donnie?” I said.

The guy was wearing almost the same clothes as Patrick was earlier today. A green polo shirt, tucked in his khaki pants. Like some kind of uniform, now that I think of it. Or… “Preppy”.

I recognized that style, it was one of my favorite stereotypes when I was a demon. Warping a guy’s mind to fit the stereotype, becoming well mannered, ‘boring’ some would say. And one important part…

“I’m Brandon, not Donnie” He said, as he took my hand off his shoulder and went back to walking away from us. I wondered if he noticed Bobby and Molly beside me. I’m not someone he’s fond of but these two are supposed to be his friends, right?

Patrick was a few lockers away from him, and stared at him in awe.

Brandon went up to him, and they shook hands. His new friend placed an arm around him after that, as they started walking deeper into the corridor.

I turned to my fellow club members, who were in a mix of confusion and surprise, as well.

“What the hell… That was… That was Donnie, right?” Bobby asked. Molly seemed too shocked to add something, she just stared at the guy who saved my ass a few nights ago walking away like nothing ever happened.

I cleared my throat, trying to set all the pieces together in my mind of what could have happened. But in the meantime…

“Alright mates, we need a plan. ASAP.” I said, with determination. This shit was already going way too fast, and it was only my second day in town. “Let me… I think I have an idea, let me think it out a bit more” I finished, as I watched the club’s leader walking away.

----

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#The Daylight Club #mind control #brainwashing #brainwash #gay hypnosis

[give-me-back-my-rhodey]

Oh to be a Pirate King - AUgust Day 10

Title: Oh to be a Pirate King

Author: Purple_ducky00

Rating: Mature

Warnings: N/A

Pairings: Rhodey/Bucky/Tony, background Carol/Maria

Link: Read on AO3

Summary: Pirate Captain James Rhodes was looking for a one-night stand. He ends up with two crewmates who make him RICH.

++++++++++

Captain James Rhodes is looking for a partner… or at least a good night’s lay. After ten months at sea, he really needs to get his whistle wet.  He walks into the pub and looks around for a suitable person. The busty woman at the bar? No, she’s got tons of men hanging all over her. The man in the corner, taking requests? No, he seems to do this nightly. The woman at the… no, James sees the best candidate. There’s a man who is sitting at the table by the window. Not well-dressed enough to be anyone important, he seems to be the correct amount of everything James would want. He sidles up to the man and asks, “Do you have anywhere to be tonight?”

 The man looks him up and down. James could get lost in those honey brown eyes. “Hmm… not bad. However, I have a husband, and he’s buying me a drink as we speak.” He nods to a Navy captain standing at the bar.

 James’ eyes widen. He’s a pirate, and Navy captains hate him from the get-go. Imagine if this Navy captain knew James was trying to proposition his husband! “Well, thank you very much. I must go.”

“Wait.” The man grabs his wrist. “My husband and I were talking of spicing it up a bit, if you know what I’m talking about. Why don’t you wait until he comes back?”

 “How do I know you’re not telling me to wait here so he’ll try to kill me?” James challenges.

 “Oh, my James is pretty level-headed. People hit on me all the time, and he’s never tried to kill them.”

 “Even pirates?”

 “Even pirates.” Tony’s eyes search his. “I guess that means you’re a pirate.”

 “I was curious.” James tries to play it off.

 The Navy captain approaches the table with two ales in hand. “Well dearest, who’s this?”

 The man stands up to kiss the captain. “Hello my James. This man may be our bed partner tonight.”

 “interesting.” The other James narrows his eyes at Rhodes. “And you are?” “James Rhodes. Nice to meet you.” Rhodes holds out his hand to shake.

 The man at the table laughs. “Ok, two Jamses? This will not do. You will be James.” He places a hand on his husband’s shoulder. “And you will be Rhodey.” He lays his other hand on Rhodes’.

 “Tony, are we sure about this guy? We don’t even know him.” James warns.

 Tony shrugs. “He was very respectful of me when I told him I was married. Come on James. Just give him a chance.”

 “Fine. Meet us here at 7 tonight.” James looks Rhodey in the eye. “Be prepared for whatever.”

 The now-dubbed Rhodey nods. He leaves to make a few purchases. Got to be back at the tavern by 7. By the time he makes it back – a few minutes til 7, both James and Tony are there. He nods to them, and they make their way to the back steps.

 In the room, James says, “Ok, these are the rules. Be safe, make sure everyone is comfortable. If anyone says stop, we all stop, ok?” Both Tony and Rhodey nod. “Ok, get started.” Tony pulls Rhodey in for a kiss, unbuttoning his shirt while he’s at it. Rhodey in turn does the same. Once they both pulls their shirts over their heads, they reach for the other’s britches. They both quickly step out of their pants and undergarments. Taking a quick look at James, Rhodey notices he is palming himself through his pants.

 Tony pushes Rhodey on the bed and slithers up to suck him off. Quickly James joins the mix, and they take their time working each other up. Once they all come, they all fall back on the bed, worn out. The next morning, Rhodey thanks them for the experience and tells them he has to leave with his ship.

 James mentions that no royal ships are scheduled to go out today. He looks at Rhodey to figure out his ship, and Rhodey quickly gets out of there before the Navy captain figures out that he’s a pirate.

 Carol Danvers, his first mate, comments on his late arrival. “Did you have fun last night?”

 “Not all of us can have our fun on board,” He grumbles. Carol and her partner Maria are on the same watch so that they can sleep together during their rest times.

 “Sounds like a personal problem to me.” She grins.

 Rhodey spends most of his voyage wondering about James and Tony. He had had such a great time that night. Would they want him back again? Did he cure that want once-and-for-all? He guesses he will see when they return to that port.

 After a few raids and a couple bad storms, the War Machine docks again for new supplies and new sailors. Rhodey once again returns to the tavern, hoping to see Tony or James. To his disappointment, he does not see them.

 He returns to his ship the next day, dejected. He’s about to walk on back to his cabin when he hears a man’s voice. “Excuse me, but do you know a James Rhodes?” That’s Tony!

 “Who’s asking?” Carol demands.

 “This is James Barnes, and I’m his husband Tony. Many months ago, we spent a euphoric night with Mr. Rhodes, and he mentioned to me he was a pirate. Well, Jamie and I have had a falling out with the Queen, and we’d like to join your crew.”

 “Let me talk to the captain.” Rhodey can hear the suspicion in her voice.

 Spotting Rhodey, she walks up to him and asks, “Did you hear that exchange?”

 “Yes,” he says. “Bring them on board. I will speak with them.”

 Carol leads them to him. “How can I help you?” He is aware of the pinned-up sleeve at Bucky’s left shoulder where an arm had been the last time that he’d seen them.

 “Oh, Rhodey!” Tony smiles. “We’ve missed you.” Rhodey looks at Barnes who nods but does not smile. “You see, Bucky lost his arm in battle with a French ship. Now that he can’t ‘sail’ anymore, as deemed by the British Navy, he was forced to resign and is now jobless. You see, I can work for the both of us, but we both hate the British now, so we thought it would be best to join you on your pirate ship if you would have us?” Tony adds a questioning tone to his last sentence.

 Rhodey considers. “Do you know how to work a ship?”

 “Of course. I am the son of a sea merchant. I have accompanied him on many a voyage. Bucky here does as well, but he may not be able to help in much of the physical jobs.”

 “I would love for you to come aboard, and as Captain, I ultimately have the last word, but let me check with my officers.” Rhodey advises. He calls his advisors to his cabin, and they talk it out.

 Sam Wilson, the second mate, sighs with relief. “Use the old Naval captain as your second mate. I’m going to sit this one out. Go back to my husband on land.” Carol also gives her assent.

 Rhodey is happy to welcome the two on board. Tony is promoted to ship carpenter as they had yet to find a new one ever since Mr. Rocket was killed in battle. They set sail the next day.

 The crew of the War Machine knows there are only a few set rules. No fighting between crewmates, consent is necessary, and always obey the captain. As second mate, James has his own cabin. Tony and he sleep there when they are not on their shifts. Rhodey wants to join them, he really does, but they have never asked him again.

 He spends a month staying in his cabin unless needed. Even when James comes to help him plot a chart, Rhodey stays aloof and reserved. James doesn’t comment on it at all. Rhodey almost spits out his coffee when he overhears Tony ask Carol. “Is it illegal to sex up the captain?”

 “Not that I know of,” Carol replies. “He’s a little oblivious, though. You might have to spell it out for him.”

 Rhodey doesn’t here from Tony until two days later. He walks back into his cabin, exhausted from a hard day when he notices there is something on his bed. It’s Tony, dressed only in one of Rhodey’s white shirts and a red pair of lacy undergarments. Rhodey stutters, unsure of what to do. “Do you want me to go?” Tony asks.

“Never!” Rhodey blurts. Embarrassed, he pulls himself together. “Do- uh- Does James know you’re here?”

 “I’m right here.” James steps out from the shadows. He also is wearing close to nothing.

 Tony kneels on the bed. “We want you to be with us always. How does that sound?”

 “You-you mean, like, always? Like, you sleep here with me each night? That kind of always?” Rhodey wants to make sure he’s getting everything right.

 James nods. “That kind of always. We are asking you to court us, Rhodey.”

 Flabbergasted, the only thing Rhodey can do is nod. He never would have imagined that they’d want him forever. He is sure to shout his approval, though, when James and Tony slowly and sensually give him the best night of his life.

 The next day, Rhodey is riding a high like he never has before. He’s sitting in his cabin when Carol knocks on the door. “We are coming up on a merchant ship. Do we engage?”

 He’s about to answer when Tony barges in. “Oh, apologies,” he says when he notices Carol. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and motions at him. “Ok. So, we’re coming up on my father’s prize ship. Can we blast it to Davy Jones’ locker?” He asks excitedly.

 “Daddy issues?” Carol comments. Tony nods and she smirks. “I get you.” They shake hands on the understanding.

 “If you want it to go down, it will go down. Do you know anything about the ship’s defense systems?”

 Tony smiles dazzlingly. “Unfortunately for you, I created them. But fortunately for you, I built a machine to go against their defenses. Follow me, let me show you.” He leads them down to his work area on deck where there is a machine shaped like a large fan. “So, they basically have a force field they put up around their ship. Nothing can penetrate it. I can make us one, if you’d like. The only different thing I’ll need is a sapphire and a ruby both bigger than my hand.”

 “So how does this penetrate the force field?” Carol queries.

 “It doesn’t. The only thing that can is vibranium spears from Wakanda, and they don’t just give them out.” Tony pats his machine.  “This thing will suck all the ions holding the force field together into one area. This will pull the force field to that one area. We can attack the rest. Aim this at the mast, and we can bring the boat down for sure. Usually they don’t have many fighters because no one has yet to cut through the force field, but as this is the SHEILD, he might have some people there, just in case. This boat is his pride and joy. I’d like to see it sink. The best thing about it sinking is he’ll know I had a hand in it.”

 James had walked up while Tony was demonstrating and is now watching silently. “What if the Navy catches up with us?”

 “Well, it would be better if I found that sapphire and ruby sooner than later.” Tony snarks back.

 “Just steal it from your dad’s ship.” James says it like it’s a no-brainer, causing Tony to smile widely.

 He kisses James and says, “You are amazing. See, that’s why I love you.” Then, making sure Rhodey doesn’t feel left out, he walks over and kisses him, too. “You both are my favorites.”

 The crew gets ready for attack. Once close to the SHIELD, Tony starts up the machine and aims at the mast. Rhodey calls to fire the cannon, and the deck of the SHIELD splits on impact. The crew is up in a frenzy – no one has ever breached their defenses! The battle is quick. Rhodey’s crew quickly ransacks the ship, even pulling the force field parts to the War Machine. Howard’s ship is left burning.

#winterironhusbands #winteriron #ironhusbands #pirate au #poly ship #background carol/maria #i write!

[stetervault]

Has there been a "Stiles rescues Peter" rec list yet? I'm looking for anything from monster of the week to Eichen House to the Wild Hunt. The idea that I've already read them all is too terrible to contemplate. (Thanks for running an amazing blog!

Not specifically as far as I can remember. But it’s always a genre I can get behind :) Here are some I think fit that category, either as the whole fic or part of it. And thanks for following my blog!

A Moment, Then Silence by Therapeutic_Steter

anonymous asked: Stiles takes care of a heavy injured Peter, who has permanent damage since then. The pack doesn’t care, but Derek and Cora realise that he is family.

Scale Tales by Therapeutic_Steter

Connected drabbles revolving around Dragon!Stiles and his werewolf Mate, Peter.

Rhythm of the War Drums by HyperLittleNori (Shiguresan) (this one’s more them taking care of each other and saving each other)

The foreboding song of the drums rumbled through the stands above, made his heart, his blood pound with their increasing rhythm. He’d seen this so many times now, heard the sickening, morbid excitement of the rabble. He readied himself for the carnage, but even nearly a year after he’d first stood in this spot, it still filled him with dread.

As always, he watched the sandy arena through the barred steel gates. They vibrated with the movement, with the almost deafening sounds of the crowd and the drums. A sea of guards stood at his back, but they were not there for him…

Hooverville by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)

Town to town, train to train, tent to tent.

By 1932, the dust had begun to blow and the jobs were gone.

Anonymity was a byproduct of looking for work, which made it both necessary and convenient.

Stiles had enough secrets of his own to know to look the other way when he saw something that shouldn’t be possible.

The ghost of a tail giving enough balance to disembark a moving train.

Near silent Latin whispered on the edge of a tent encampment.

A flash of burning eyes.

He had more than enough to worry about without adding the oddities of others, and besides- having unusually sharp teeth certainly didn’t make a man worse than the ones running from the wife and kids they couldn’t feed.

So Stiles kept his observations to himself. He kept his everything to himself.

Until he met a man. One with eyes so blue they seemed to glow- and then they did.

Stiles tried to look away, but for the first time he was stopped.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart. Aren’t you curious?”

If I Could Kiss You Again by Triangulum

“Summer plans?” Peter asks, eyes on where Isaac is now trying to inch along the ceiling beam toward the wall where he can slide down a pipe.

“Leaving for Stanford in September. Saving the world and working in between now and then,” Stiles says. “Why, gonna miss me?”

“Considering I’ll be left alone with Derek? Yes,” Peter says.

“You’ll have Cora,” Stiles says. “And Isaac will be here to make up a few high school credits.”

There’s a shriek and a thud as Isaac loses his grip, falling on top of Erica and Boyd, sending them all to the ground in a heap.

“Yes,” Peter says flatly. “Thank god for that.”

OR

Five times Stiles kisses Peter and one time Peter kisses him.

Stravinsky by rightsidethru

Duke Orsino:If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Twelfth Night; Act 1, scene 1, 1–3

Wolf Within by wynnebat

Instead of convincing Scott to regain his humanity by killing the Alpha, Derek offers another possible solution.

Fashion. Police. by Bunnywest

In which Stiles is a cop with an interest in menswear, Peter’s the owner of a menswear store with a definite interest in Stiles, and why is there always some maniac running around throwing tins of red paint and making death threats?

Fashion, baby.

Under the Songbird’s Wing by mia6363

Captivity easily destroys the will of escape. It can break the fiercest of animal. It can strip the most regal man and woman down to nothing but animal needs.

Captivity can, if met with unwavering determination, shape a person into something unimaginable.

Stiles is sixteen when he’s captured. Stiles’s first thought is, “I won’t die here.”

The Promises Of Yesterday, The Pledges Of Tomorrow by ShippersList

Stiles is a kid with serious concentration issues and definitely not a guide—let alone a guide strong enough to calm down a feral Sentinel wolf. It’s just not possible.

Keep You (Safe) Within my Shadow by lavenderlotion

Stiles has never been scared of the dark. The shadows are his friends.

Dance Under the Moonlight by Therapeutic_Steter

Anonymous asked: Fae!Stiles saving Peter from Pack’s stupidity and washing his hands of them. Please?

Through Space and Time by MaroonDragon

When Stiles pulls the body of Peter Hale into his ship, he doesn’t expect him to be alive. He also doesn’t realise he might have gotten more than he bargained for.

Promises We Never Made by Green

Peter runs off to wreak havoc without telling Stiles where he’s going. Then Stiles has to rescue him.

Rainwater, Morning Dew, Ozone. by lavenderlotion

When Peter is kidnapped, Stiles is left to come to the rescue.

Peter ends up hard.

Fear (Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Fight) by azerblazer

Peter is the damsel in distress, the Sheriff is the hostage, random unnamed hunters are the bad guys.

Stiles has a bat, a hoodie and a willingness to do anything to protect those he’s loyal to.

Bring it on.

Bone Rot by neglectedtuesday

Stiles watches Peter from across the room, although he feels like he shouldn’t. Like he shouldn’t try to insert himself, even by proxy, into the moments Peter is experiencing. Autumn spills into the living room through the open doors, lighting Peter from behind. He is bathed in soft light and Stiles lingers in the shadows, ignoring the symbolism of that. He’s bored of all the different metaphors for longing.

Slice by syriala

Blood magic was dangerous magic, but Stiles’ teacher was one of the best, and Stiles wasn’t too worried that it wouldn’t work out. It would cost him, dearly even if his teacher was to be believed, but Stiles had learned all about the sacrifices for this and he couldn’t care less.

Not This Again by RebaK1tten

There’s a rumor that the last episode of the show will have Peter getting killed, again. Perhaps to give him a redemption arc or something.

So this is a fix it fic. I decided Stiles has finished one year of college. And Peter’s back again!

Cleanse My Soul by Mysenia

cywscross asked: “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?” + Steter? Thanks:)

Call My Name by KouriArashi

After moving to Beacon Hills, Stiles starts having recurring dreams of a man in some kind of prison, who needs his help. Things get so bad that he ends up in Eichen House, where he finds out that the man is real.

Shelter by ShippersList (more hurt/comfort than straight-up saving Peter)

A magical attack leaves Peter vulnerable and in agony, and it reminds him way too much of his time in a coma.

love me lights out by veterization

Stiles and Peter get snowed in together. (Or: what happens when you accept phone calls from people you haven’t spoken to in over five years.)

labyrinth by sinequanon

Stiles prefers goblins to werewolves. Except maybe Peter.

Til Death by Bunnywest

“How long do we have to find him someone?” Stiles asks.“Two weeks,” says Derek, eyebrows pulling down even further. The fierceness of his expression tells Stiles just how concerned he is.“He marries, or he goes to the camps. And you know what your father told us,” Scott reminds her.The camps……aren’t camps.Peter either finds a wife, or he dies.

Bigfoot Told Me You Were Coming by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)  (Stetopher)

Peter and Chris are on the run when they stumble across Stiles’ home in the woods.

You Got Me Now by syriala

Stiles stormed into the warehouse, eyes roaming around, desperate to find Peter. The pack was close behind Stiles, but he didn’t pay them any mind when his eyes fell on Peter.

He was on the floor, not even shackled, like someone had just discarded him without a second thought.

Peter was naked except for his pants, and Stiles could see the wounds that marred his skin. He decided not to think about why they weren’t healed.

Bittersweet Creek by Guede

When Stiles finally steps off the westward trail to California, he’s the last of his pack. He starts building a den, but then he finds a dying man next to a burnt-down house and it turns out he’s not really much of a settler, after all.

The Alpha by Therapeutic_Steter

An Alpha always protects what’s theirs.

…..

“Has anyone seen Peter?” Stiles asked at the next Pack meeting, trying to play his concern off as his typical curiosity. It wasn’t like he and Peter had been trying to keep…whatever it was that was developing between them a secret, but most of the Pack was notoriously self-absorbed and hadn’t noticed yet. As it stood, Stiles was only sure that Lydia and Derek knew about it; Lydia because she put it together and warned Peter off hurting Stiles and Derek because he came back to the loft to find them snuggled on the couch looking through an old tome and he’d also warned Peter about hurting Stiles.

Why did they not think Stiles could hurt Peter? Stiles could totally hurt him. If he wanted. Which he didn’t, but that was beside the point.

Let Me Run Away With You by Whispering_Sumire (Steterek)

“So,” Peter says, after an hour or so of driving in tense silence, “I assume we’re going back to your beloved Beacon Hills?”

“No,” Stiles tells him, without even looking up from the restorative paste he’s administering to Derek’s wounds. And isn’t that surprising?

“No?”

“I took the GPS out of Roscoe and I hacked into some of your accounts to get him travel-ready. I don’t care where we go Peter, but I don’t want to go back to Beacon Hills,” there’s a desperation in his voice that makes Peter’s skin crawl, though he has no idea why, “please.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees softly.

[Or: The one where Stiles is in a very bad place, and Peter and Derek manage to unwittingly save him from himself while he saves them from themselves.]

Hostile Takeover by kiranightshade

Alternate season 4 where Peter gains a new roommate in Eichen…for about five minutes. Then all hell breaks loose.

For Great Justice! by Green

Stiles is a vengeance demon, drawn to Peter just as he’s waking from his catatonia.

“Whoever did this? We will make those fuckers suffer. I promise you.”

Enemy Action by pprfaith

Once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is far too many bodies on the ground.

Whiskey is My Kind of Lullaby by taylorpotato

Peter is a simple saloon owner on one of the outer planets between the Aaru Belt and the Olympus Galaxy. He’s done with trouble. Done with adventure. So fucking done with rustlers. That is, until a cute young outlaw named Stiles wanders into his bar. Peter has this problem where he can’t seem to resist charming narcissists (perhaps because they remind him of himself). And when said narcissists turn his life upside-down, the worst part is he’s not even that upset about it.

#teen wolf #steter #fanfic rec #bamf stiles #hurt peter #awyeahitssam #ask #rec list

[raidbossmadi]

People Like Us : Chapter 8

8. Bonds of Blood Last chapter: Here

Sloane found herself just outside a rural village or at least that’s what she assumed what it was, every time she found herself in this place it was always here, a large temple structure rising into the sky above her and when she looked behind herself there were buildings that ascended up the many mountains in the distance.

As always she felt compelled to walk into the temple and marvel at its high stone walls adorned in ivy and plants of varieties she had never seen in the waking world. A pool of water ringed the room and at its center sat a large statue of a veiled figure bearing four arms extended upwards towards the heavens. At the base of the statue sat two women, who stopped the conversation  they were having and looked at her as she entered.

The one of them was a familiar sight, a tall well built woman with braided white hair and siren markings that trailed up her face to just under her  right eye; she was Helga Steele, the  previous wielder of  the siren power Sloane possessed. The other was slightly shorter than Helga,with long black tucked behind her ears and sepia skin that her blue siren markings contested against, hers also curled up under her right eye; which was a striking ice blue. The markings showed the both of them as adult sirens who had come into the full aspect of their powers. The stranger stayed perched at the statue base while Steele approached the newly arrived Sloane.

“Well met little sister, so you have found your way to Pandora. It is an inevitability that our kind will always be drawn there at some point or another.” Steele said, wrapping her arm around Sloane’s shoulders as she led her back toward the statue base.

“A dangerous inevitability. You should know that better than anyone Helga.” The stranger chided. There was a familiar affectation to the woman’s voice though at the moment Sloane couldn’t place what about it was familiar.  

Steele stiffened at the other woman’s words, a scowl forming on her face. “You have some gall to lecture me. You are not so innocent yourself considering what you did Leda.” Sloane felt a bit awkward hoping the two women weren’t about to fight but was relieved when Leda raised her hands in an appeasing motion.  

“We aren’t here to point fingers Helga, I’d like to think that the reason we are here is a bit more important than the faults we both made while we were alive.”

Steele made a ‘hmph’ of appeasement and gave Sloane a bit of a nudge forward. “Before we continue I think introductions are in order, little sister, this is Leda. She was the wielder of our powers before me. Leda, this is Sloane, current holder of our line.”  

Sloane gave a shy wave not sure how to feel about meeting another Siren who had once had the powers she had now, meeting Steele had been a lot to process the first time. After all it wasn’t normal to travel to an ethereal plain and meet people who were no longer in this world, all connected by a thread of power that had been in the universe for millennia.

“As I was saying, you have made it to Pandora. Leda and I had both been there ourselves in lives and we both understand the danger it contains. I however, do not think you understand the danger, little sister.” Steele said retaking her seat at the base of the statue. “Leda however has more faith in you, which is why she asked to come met with you. You should listen, she is one of the wisest of us.”

Sloane took a seat on the lower step of the statue's base letting the older women have their place on either side of her.

“Why thank you Helga, good to know you still hold me in high regards, even if you don’t agree with my choices.” Leda said, offering the other siren a genuine smile that again reminded Sloane of something. Steele’s lips pursed as she refrained from starting another debate between herself and Leda.

“Helga is right though when she says Pandora is dangerous. If not for its colorful inhabitants I can’t say much good about it at all. I know as well that you are not alone in this journey, which is good. It is always safer to be on Pandora with people you can trust and three Sirens are a powerful force to be reckoned with. Listen closely, the danger of Pandora is one that most Sirens cannot resist. You must understand the map is not what it seems.”  When Leda spoke it was with a soft motherly tone that bade Sloane to listen and heed her warnings.  

“Two Sirens, sister. You really must stop with the boy, surely you can see he is not like us no matter what you want to think.” Steele said, shooting Leda a glance, one that Leda returned in kind colder and with an anger that belied her gentle appearance.

“Is this really what we’re doing right now Helga? Whatever petty bullshit you’re trying to stir up must we really do this in front of the girl?” Leda hissed.

“For last ten years, I have been the one guiding Sloane. Then out of nowhere you decide to finally get involved, I know what games you are playing Leda.” Steele shot back crossing her arms and standing up.

Sloane scooted back up til she bumped into the statues feet, she just really didn’t want to be in the middle of the argument that the two women were having.

“She wasn’t ready to know what I have to teach her, she still isn’t ready for it all. She doesn’t understand the bigger picture, none of them do. You might be angry at my choices  but leave him out of this.” Leda frowned then looked back at Sloane with the same gentleness she had before. “Sloane, sweetheart it was lovely meeting you. We will talk again soon but for now I think Helga and I need to work out our differences alone.”

Sloane watched as the edges of the temple began to dark unnaturally and before long the scene before her faded into the nothingness. ——

Sloane woke up on Tyreen’s couch where she had settled down hours before to watch a movie while the twins were out only to have ended up falling asleep.

“Hey! Sorry I was trying to be quiet, didn’t wanna wake you up, anyway are you hungry?” Tyreen asked peering over the top of the couch. She was still in her God-Queen outfit and given  her apology, Sloane reasoned that her entering the room had been what had woken her up in the first place.  As she looked up at the face of the other siren her memory of the dream came back. Tyreen’s facial features  and complexion were similar to that of Leda's, from the cat-like eyes to the shape of her lips. Sloane of course wasn’t about to assume that Tyreen having a face vaguely similar to a woman she’d barely met meant anything beyond being a strange coincidence.

“Hm? What time is it?” Sloane asked as she rubbed her eyes. The twins rooms were lacking in windows due to security concerns and while she could understand that it made time in the Cathedral bleed together to a degree.

“About noon, I was at my morning meetings. We got our food delivery today so if there’s anything you want that we didn’t have last night now is the time.” Tyreen said in a sing-song tone as she shrugged off her coat and hung it up on the door to her bedroom.

“Do we have those pizza bagels again?”

“Fuck yes we do! Be a dear and start the oven while I change and I’ll take care of the rest.” Tyreen said as she disappeared into her room.

Sloane shrugged off the blanket she’d been burritoed in and went about prepping the kitchen for lunch. She also pulled out her echophone and looked through the notifications on the home screen. A notification that the morning sermon had been streaming, the weather, and several texts from Troy; all of which she scanned and when none of them appeared to be emergencies she swiped them away. She hadn’t seen the male Calypso since the incident and while she respected that he was giving her space if they were going to talk she would prefer it be in person.  

As if on cue Tyreen waltzed back into the room something clearly on her mind. “So Troy, really wants to talk to you. Would you mind if I had him come here, that way you don’t have to feel like you’re alone with him if you don’t want that.” She looked at Sloane expectantly, it was obvious that Tyreen meant well and Sloane had mentioned the last time this came up she wasn’t mad anymore.

“Yeah whatever we can talk, just so long as you’re nearby.” Sloane agreed, not particularly sure she trusted Troy by himself at the moment. She thought of how easy it would be for him to bully her into whatever he wanted with that giant arm of his.  

Tyreen’s demeanor changed, she perked up and flashed Sloane a smile. “Yeah, I'll tell him to come over, go ahead and get ready. I'll take over lunch like I said.”  

Sloane went and changed from her pyjamas into more casual wear  and tried not to overthink the coming interaction with Troy. It would be fine wouldn’t it? This was all just a lack of communication and if the twins wanted to do better she couldn’t fault them for that.  

It wasn’t long before there was a  knock on Tyreens door and Sloane forced herself out the bed room as Tyreen called “Come in Broooo.”

The door slid open and Troy walked in looking a bit awkward himself. When he caught Sloane’s gaze he  gave a small wave then quickly looked away, turning his attention back to his sister.

“Uh hey Ty, Sloane. Hope you ladies have been doing well.” He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head as he made his way further into the room and leaned against the back of the sofa. It was then that Sloane realized that he was nervous and not at all like the self assured man she thought he was before now.

“Yeah things have been fine, sit down and let’s talk.” Sloane said.  She walked around to the sofa sitting so that there would be ample room for Troy to sit with there still being space between them.

The twins shared a look before Tyreen decided to take her leave heading back into her bedroom but leaving the door open so that she might be easily summoned should things get uncomfortable.

Troy then took his seat on the other end of the couch, his human hand immediately moving to fiddle with his  eyebrow piercing then to pick at the fur collar of his vest as he meant her gaze. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I shouldn’t have waited so long as to not be able to explain things to you.”

“But you’re not sorry for what you did?” She asked, watching him intently. His fidgeting stopped for a moment before his hand went from his collar to picking at the edges of his shoulder plate.

“N-no.” He said after a good minute of silence between them. “I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear but…”

“Stop.” Sloane leaned over and caught his wrist in her left hand. “You’re going to hurt yourself like that.” She said gently.  He squirmed in her grasp and she let go but watched to make sure he wouldn’t go back to picking on himself.

“Tyreen told me you’re sick. She didn’t tell me much but she said it was serious, that it’s killing you.” She watched him shy away from her as she spoke, it was obvious that talking about this was something that made him uncomfortable.

“Yeah that’s my whole life in a nutshell. Ever since Ty and I were born it’s been a never ending cycle of me getting sick and our Mom or Ty stepping in to bear the burden of caring for me. It was a lot worse when I was a kid but…. it’s never going to get better and that’s just something I have to live with, So I don’t want your pity,save it for something that matters.  I know it’s not a burden I should have thrust onto you so suddenly, and while I don’t regret knowing that you can feed me the way Tyreen does I do wish I’d not let my emotions get the better of me and wait so long to try. I should have told you the truth about my health conditions and what we expected from you in regards to them.”

“It’s ok Troy. This is new to me but it’s been both of yours for your entire life. You’re right though if you had told me out of gate I would have been confused but I would have agreed because you need it. I don’t want you to die Troy, and I don’t want you to suffer either. I just want to understand.” She said gently. In her time away from him she realized that she was angry because she just wanted to understand.

Looking at Troy from an outside perspective no one would ever know he was sick, he stayed out of the spotlight that Tyreen craved and when he did appear it was often for short periods of time or calculated that you never really got a good look at him. Here close to him though she could see through those cracks, she could see the bags under his eyes that were usually covered by make-up and how the vest he wore gave the illusion of filling him out when in reality he was dangerously thin. He’d gone out of his way to make sure she hadn’t seen him undress when they had spent the night together and now it was all falling into place.

“It’s… It’s not easy to admit that I need help, not when ya know everyone expects me to be God-King Calypso all the time and I’m not I’m just Troy. If most people knew they’d think I was a freak… I’m not fully convinced that you don’t think I’m one either.” He sighed running his hand through his hair.

“Then I’ll just have to keep working at it until you believe me Troy. I understand the part you both want me to play in the Children of the Vault and it’s one I’ll take willingly. I want to help, to be here for you, both of you. I want to do what I can to make your lives easier. All I ask in return is that you stop hiding from me. I’m an adult woman, I can handle you at your best and your worst if you just let me in.” She knew it wouldn’t be easy. It would be hard work now that she understood how fundamentally broken the twins were but that only made her want to help them more. They had obviously been hiding what they’re really like for a reason and those reasons ran deep, far deeper than she could have imagined.

“You mean it! Really?” Troy let himself slip from his reserved manner before catching himself and going right back into it “I-I mean of course, I’m glad to hear that. Tyreen and I were hoping that you would agree.”

“Yes of course I mean it Troy, why would I lie to you? You and Tyreen haven’t given me a reason to feel like I should be, and this is a big deal for all of us really.” Sloane made sure to keep her time even and calm, it meant a lot to her that Troy was willing to show the vulnerable side of himself even if only for a moment.

“Right yeah, anyway I’m glad to hear that. I’m sure Ty is too. Especially since we’ve been prepping for you formal induction to the CoV. Of course we wanted to wait until things were smoothed over so it’s good to know that we can move ahead with our plans.” Troy went to talking business as it was a deflection from the feelings that were welling up inside him, feelings he still didn’t quite know how to process. Business though, that was easy, clinical almost. It was safe.  

“Oh really? What does that entail?” Sloane’s interest has been caught, when she had seen the twins videos in the past she’d never really focused on their ritual based stuff but it seemed more interesting now that she was in the thick of it.

“It’s a big party.” Tyreen chimed in stepping out of her room. “We all get dressed real nice and present you to the whole of our followers, you pledge your loyalty to us as your twin gods, get a little tattoo, then we have a good time for the rest of the night. Or head back early if partying isn’t your thing but I think you’ll have a good time.”

“Yeah it’s a good time and we don’t get to do it very often so we try to enjoy it when we get the chance. Just think about it, every eye in the children of the vault, seven billion people all tuning in to see you.” Troy purred, gesturing as if the wall were full of screens.

“I’d rather not think of that bit too much all things considered.” Sloane said blushing a bit when she realized just how many people that was.

“Awww are you camera shy? Don’t worry I’ll make sure we get only the best angles. You’ve got nothing to worry about. This is gonna be great, cinematic even.” Troy smirked and seemed to relax now that he was back in his element and Sloane couldn’t deny that it was nice to see him nerd out about camera work.

“Well when you put it like that…”

“See! Nothing to worry about you’re in good hands chica. Plus Iris is working on the cutest outfit for you and I know you’re gonna rock it so you know, don’t worry about it.” Tyreen encouraged.

They both seemed so happy about the event and even if Sloane was feeling a little shy about it she had said she wanted to know what life outside her forest was like. It was only fair that she continued to leave that comfort zone and see what the universe had to offer.

“Alright I think I’m sold, sounds like a good time and I mean the CoV is my family now so I can’t imagine denying you a celebration like this.” She was thoroughly convinced that the event would only strengthen her ties to her new family.

The twins were both beaming their wolfish grins in perfect copies of each other and they high-fived as Tyreen walked past Troy’s spot on the couch.

“Let's get a start on these preparations then why don’t we?”

#calypso twins #Tyreen Calypso #Troy Calypso #borderlands 3 #Sloane the Siren #People Like Us #My writing #My HCs

[ashisbaeee]

Are You Happy?

A/N:  while planning out chapter 10 for Her, this idea came to mind. I didn’t want to wait til the end of the series to post it, so here you go! haha. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed writing this for you all. sorry for any errors.  as always, your feedback is greatly appreciated. enjoy💗

2.3k words(as you can see I got carried away😬)

italics are Y/N’s thoughts 

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     You couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that now resided in the pit of your stomach. Something was up and you couldn’t lay a finger on what it was exactly. Maybe it was the amount of stress that you’ve been dealing with for quite some time due to the fact of being short-staffed for a couple weeks now; everyone scrambling about in your unit, their bodies running on a few hours of sleep and consuming rather dangerous amounts of caffeine. Stress and work loads were through the roof, while morale ran on the opposite side of the spectrum. Every single one of your fellow coworkers trying their absolute bests to push through and  do their assignments for the day. Maybe that was the probable cause of your uneasiness. Who knows, because you sure as hell weren’t. Due to your long (and I mean long) long hours spent at work, you kind of neglected everything else. You were so focused on your job that you put everything-your life, your family, your friends, and last but not least your boyfriend, Tom on the back burner. They have all in some way became an afterthought, as terrible as that sounds. 

       But it could also be your current relationship with Tom that has you feeling this way. If you were being honest, you can’t remember the last time you guys did something together. It had been a few weeks or so since you guys had last gone out on a date. Tonight, you were going to change all that; after coming home from work you decided that you were going to spend some much needed quality time with him. Even if it ends up just being you both cuddled on the couch as a movie played-just enjoying being in each other’s company and feeling the heat of his body against yours as he lazily ran his fingers through your hair like you liked as you returned the favor and drew imaginary shapes and lines on his arm and chest, or  if you did something totally different and you guys cooked dinner together. Literally anything, you didn’t care what the activity was, as long as you were together spending time, that’s all you wanted. 

    During your break, you sent him a text asking if he wanted to eat something specific for dinner or if he was open to do something when you got home from work. About an hour or so after hitting ‘send’ you felt your phone buzz. Sure enough, it was your man. He replied saying he was open to do anything not before saying that he’d be a little late in coming home, about 45 minutes after you’ve arrived home since he and the boys had gone out to the golf course. 

   7pm couldn’t come any sooner. After giving report to the night shift nurses, you hurriedly ran to the locker room to grab your belongings and headed out the door. As soon as you got to your car, you took your phone out to text him. 

Y/N: Hey babe. I am on my way home. Would you like me to pick something up for dinner? Or do ya wanna cook something up together? 

Tom🥰♥️: hey, I don’t care. Anything sounds good to me. The guys and I are on our way home. Mind if they join us? 

Anything. That doesn’t make things easy! I was kinda hoping you’d give me options so it would make things a bit easier. What would they like? Pizza? Chinese? Italian? I was kinda hoping it just be us two, but I guess they can come over for a while. I mean it has been a while since I had last seen them anyways. So I guess it’ll be nice to catch up for a bit. Maybe tomorrow we’ll spend time together, just the two of us.  I wonder if I should ask if they’d like me to pick up some beer. 

Y/N:  no, of course I don’t mind. It’d be nice to catch up with them. does pizza sound ok? do you want me to get beer? 

Tom🥰♥️: yeah that’s fine.. get pepperoni, Hawaiian and plain. we already got the beer. 

Is it me or does he seem angry? Annoyed maybe? There’s definitely some kind of tone to these texts. Our conversation all day has been dry. This isn’t really like him. This is not his usual texts. I guess I’ll have to see when I get home. Let me be wrong, please. 

Y/N: ok. Got it. I’ll see you soon. I love you. 

Tom🥰♥️: k, see u

Well damn, okay. He hit me with the ‘K’ response. There is definitely something wrong. He didn’t even say ‘I love you back’. He ALWAYS says it. Did I forget something? An important day? His birthday? Someone in his family’s birthday? Our anniversary? Or did I say something?  Did I do or did not do something, did I say something for him to act this way towards me? Ugh, I guess I’ll find out sure enough once I get home. 

During your drive home you replayed everything. You frantically looked through your calendar to see if in fact you had unknowingly missed an important event, but there was no indication of anything. From what you could remember, there was nothing that you said or an event that you had missed. nothing , absolutely nothing came to mind as your mind tried to conjure up a plausible reason for his new found coldness. 

As you pulled into your driveway, you saw Haz’s car, signaling they were all home. As aforementioned earlier, Tom said they’d arrive some time after you but seeing as you stopped to pick up the pizzas, they managed to get home before you. Miraculously, with everything you were holding, you managed to open the front door. As soon as the guys were aware of your struggle, Sam jumped up from his seat on the couch to lend a hand. Once he set the boxes of pizzas on the coffee table, be brought you in to give you a hug, not before asking how you were doing and stating how he and the rest of the family had missed you dearly. One by one the rest of the squad, Haz, Harry, and Tuwaine and greeted you and briefly hugged you. Tom was the last one. He gave you a short smile(a pretty fake one) before he hugged you and kissed your forehead. Your forehead for crying out loud. It wasn’t like you guys never showed any PDA in front of the guys but this, this was way out of character for him. There was clearly something bothering him, and you were going to make it your mission to find out what it is. It would have to be delayed a bit since you had no intentions of causing a scene with all the guys here. 

You quickly went into the kitchen to grab plates and napkins as well as a bottle of water for you. Once you arrived back into the living room, you passed each one a plate as you all began to eat. During dinner, you managed to catch up with everyone. All the lads telling you what was new with them and updating the group with whatever was new on your end, and venting about work. They had then proceeded to ask you when you’d be able to take time off of work so that collectively y’all would do something. They lads sharing that they have all missed you dearly. You had missed them too. You told them that you’d talk with your manager the next time you were scheduled to work to see when that would be; hoping it was sooner rather than later. The stress was really taking its toll on you. 

Hours passed and many many laughs later, the lads decided it was time to call it a night. You took a look at you phone-2:30am. Everyone not really wanting the night to end. This was long overdue. During your laughs and when one told a funny story or was just talking about something, your eyes always found your way to Tom. Usually, he’d lock eyes with you. But not this time. This time around, he made eye contact with everyone BUT you. Whenever you spoke or if someone had asked you a question, his eyes went straight to the floor. Whatever was there was way more interesting than you. You took in his appearance; he seemed rather tense, as if he was on guard or something. And you kept replaying your whole interaction when you came home. How when you looked into his eyes, his eyes looked different. It appeared to be more dull, there was no sparkle or glimmer in his eyes. And as you sat where you were and indeed looked over at his direction and watch his facial expressions, it validated that there seemed to be no sparkle-no joy to be found. Something was off with him.

Wow, it’s half past 2? It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. This was nice. It was amazing to unwind and just chill with friends. Oh how I’ve missed this. 

You bid the guys good night as you went on to clear the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles that littered the living area. Once all was said and done, you went upstairs to your shared bedroom. 

As you laid in bed, you took this time to catch up with your man. 

You sat up, your head against the headboard as you initiated the conversation. 

“Hey babe, how was your day? I’ve missed you”

“It was fine. Yeah missed you too”

“Tom, can you please look at me?”

“I’m trying to sleep, Y/N”

“Just for a second, please?” you shamelessly begged. 

With a deep sigh, he finally complied to your wish. 

“Yes?”

Sure enough, it was the same lifeless stare. 

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine” 

“You say you’re fine, but more importantly are we fine? Because you seem a bit distant. Did I do or not do something? I know I have been so focused with work and all but did I forget something? An important date? I looked at my calendar and I didn’t see any events scheduled. Or did I say something? Can you please talk to me and let me know what I did wrong? Because I know something’s on your mind and I would like to try and help you. Y’know we can talk about anything, right?”

Silence. Absolute silence. And it was eating you alive, absolutely killing you. This dead air between your bodies was unbearable. 

“Tom?”

“Just thinking is all”

“Thinking about?”

“About us. Where we stand” 

S I L E N C E 

He sighs again before continuing on. 

“Just how things changed between us”

“What changed between us? Besides us not really spending as much time together?”

“I-I uh, I uhm, I don’t know”

“A-are you not happy? Are you not happy in this relationship? Do I not make you happy anymore? Tom, please. I’m begging you, please talk to me. Can you please let me know how things have changed between us? Is there someone else?” 

“No, there’s no one else. I, I don’t know. I mean yeah, I was before. I was happy, uh, I think I’m happy. I don’t know. I guess you being busy and us not being able to spend time got me thinking is all”

He’s not happy? What? He was happy before but doesn’t know if he is now? he doesn’t know? He’s been thinking? Of what? How can he say this all cool and nonchalantly? 

“Y-you-you’re not happy?” your choked response pierced the air. As you shamelessly started to break down and dissolve into tears. Not caring how you would look, not even bothering to wipe the ceaseless tears that fell from your cheeks, to your sweater and ultimately unto the blanket.  

He sat across from you in bed as he watched your face contort in this newfound pain. He hated seeing you cry. His actions may not have shown it, but this was painful for him too.This was pain on a whole different level. This pain affected you mentally, physically and emotionally. He sat in silence. I mean, what does one say to that? How does one respond?

As you cried, you felt his eyes on you. You dared not look in his eyes. As you bawled your eyes out, a part of you hoped that he would say something, anything. Anything to break this unbearable situation. But nothing. 

His lack of response was in fact a response. You’ve got your answer. Message received, Tom. 

With that, you got up and walked to your closet. You pulled out a duffel bag as you haphazardly threw your clothes in it. 

He watched you intently as you stuffed your bag. Still not saying a word. 

Once you were done, you turned your body to talk to him, eyes glued to your beige colored carpet. 

“I know work has been crazy but never would I have thought that it would lead to this.  If you aren’t happy being with me, who am I to stop you from finding your ultimate happiness? I’m not cruel and evil; I would never do that to you. That would be so selfish of me to do so. You have every right to be happy. You truly deserve to be happy and everything more. I am sorry for wasting your time and I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to do so. I want you to be happy, even if that means us not being together. What a ride this has been. So go out there, go out into the world and find that person that truly makes you happy. Someone that brings you nothing but joy. Take care of yourself, Tom” you murmured as you  slung the duffel bag straps on your shoulders and proceeded your way down the stairs and out the door. Out of his life forever.

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tagging some mutuals: @hollandroos @parkeret @gab-spidey @roses-hxlland @unholyholland @sleepybesson @moonlightom @peterpcrker @hollandinq @ihrielloyer @spideybitey18 @jackiehollanderr

#tom holland imagine #tom holland angst #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you