#he was just younger. it's not that dean suffered from more responsibilities and expectations than sam

[lilacpaperbird]

wrong. say your last words I have a sniper pointing at your head through your bedroom window

#I hate when ppl compare their childhoods like it's a trauma competition #when both sucked equally #some times in different ways with different struggles. bcs they're different ppl with different personalities #but they literally lived in the exact same conditions lmao #and sam didn't know the supernatural was real until he was 8 but from that point on he was trained to be a hunter #and he had to face the same shit as dean #I don't get where they get the idea that sam was protected from the hunting life #he wasn't #sam wasn't babied and kept on a bubble #he was just younger. it's not that dean suffered from more responsibilities and expectations than sam #it's just that they happened to dean first and then to sam when he reached X age too #sam & dean #sammy <3 #fandom thoughts #⚝

[fandom-hoarder]

listen I have so many questions about Stanford Sam, like this kid who was raised in the wild, barely aware of acceptable social conduct arrives with his 2 ectoplasm stained t-shirts at his dorm and like ????? is he very aware of it at first? or does he think he's hiding it well? and like moving in with Jessica?????? he doesn't know how to water plants and that you have to pay electricity bills ??? Like obviously he's not stupid, we know that!! But there are certain things about ordinary everyday life that are just impossible to pick up when you're raised like that. And this is just surface-level stuff, like I feel overwhelmed just thinking about how many tiny things I do in a day, just normal life stuff that I've always done, that Sam would be like ???? so weirded out by, or maybe creepily fascinated ??? Would he try and copy everyone around him maybe??? and then all the odd things that he'd probably do !!! like just basic marine survival nonsense he's dad probably taught him applied in mundane life situations that would make him stand out and he wouldn't even notice !!! And he thinks he's doing fine, people seem to accept him, but then suddenly someone mentions like... TRL or something and he's like ??? and then Dean picks him up and it all falls to pieces, because it's so EASY and ingrained and he doesn't have to pretend and it puts it into perspective how not okay he was doing at Stanford even when it felt like he was ?? god I'm just rambling, like I barely even have headcanons, I'm just so overwhelmed by all the possibilities of how this would play out !!!!

Holy crap, first I wanna apologize if this has been sitting here awhile. The Ask notification location in settings instead of notifications on the app is so weird and I get them so rarely I don’t think to check. (and the website shows that I have 4 but this one is the only one it’ll show? How does tumblr work? Oh yeah, it doesn’t lol.)

Anyway, I have so many thoughts on this! But they’re not necessarily cohesive?! Like first we all know Sam is super smart. He’s curious. He’s inquisitive. But he’s also sheltered in weird ways. There are things he’s known about the world that most people would never know about, let alone kids his age at any given time; yet the existence of those things--and the understanding that therefore potentially anything could be real--also lends itself to keeping him childlike--he had an “imaginary friend” at age nine and believed in the Easter bunny through age eleven, which is much later than the average probably???

By middle school, he definitely would’ve been feeling the strains of his otherness around his classmates, even if they weren’t constantly moving around, but of course the nomadic lifestyle just makes it even harder.

I think Sam is a very observant person, though. He figured out something was up with their dad and The Truth at age 8! So people watching is Sam’s saving grace for getting along in the mundane world. He definitely learns to mask his otherness by mimicking mundane people.

And I get sidetracked here because then I start thinking about exactly how their childhood went. We know John used Pastor Jim and Bobby as childcare/parenting support to some degree. I don’t think we really know anything about Caleb, maybe I’m forgetting something, but my headcanon is that Caleb functioned as a “fun younger uncle” type to Sam and Dean: cool, responsible in a pinch, but mostly not given childcare responsibilities because of his wilding tendencies. (they learn swears accidentally from Bobby and John, but Caleb TEACHES them.) Sam and Dean didn’t even know about Missouri until s1, so she’s off the caretaker list. They had that babysitter they met up with in uhh... Swap Meat! But largely we assume that Dean had a lot of the caretaking responsibilities; maybe with temporary babysitters in other places the same as Swap Meat.

And lbh you just can’t expect well-rounded, informed child-rearing from a kid only four years older. There’s a reason I associate a lot of weechester flashbacks with Sammy watching TV like in Something Wicked, because literally little siblings are A LOT and sometimes you just want them to sit still and quiet and leave you alone for a bit omg.(wait, give me a minute, I’m imagining little 6 year old Dean on the phone with Bobby because John ran out for food supplies and isn’t back yet and Sammy is still asleep but Dean’s creeped out in the longterm room they’re staying in because he KNOWS about the supernatural already. but then bobby gets on John’s case about it--and instead of never leaving Dean alone with baby Sam again, Dean learns from John’s belt not to call anyone when he’s left alone unless it’s an ACTUAL EMERGENCY. Or maybe, because marine, John doesn’t use his belt; maybe he uses PT instead and every time Dean thinks about calling Bobby for that reason again, his abs ache from the memory of punishment situps, or his arms get suddenly shaky thinking about doing pushups til he just couldn’t anymore.)

I haven’t read all of John’s Journal, and I know it’s not actually canon, but IIRC the bits that I’ve read from the wiki show John and the boys staying with a family friend in Lawrence for a few weeks, MAYBE a few months before John visits Missouri and everything STARTS. I think if he hadn’t picked up and left with them then, the family friends would’ve been contacting CPS because they’re starting to think John’s grief is making him unhinged. (I really want to read the journal tbh--there are bits I’ve seen that make me fantasize even more about boyking!sam storylines... but I’m getting even more off track.)

So we’ve got this weird/interesting dichotomy of kids that are groomed with these hyperspecialiizations, too weird to really fit in with other kids but sheltered from the actual hunter life also--like the fact that there ARE other hunters, like as a THING, not just their dad’s rando friends that, as kids, they may just assume know about the supernatural because their dad told them! (jfc they’re SO PRIMED to be each other’s entire world omg I’m gonna die)

So like, by being quiet and observant (an imaginative kid, by nature and by nurture as John starts to take Dean out more and leave Sam alone with his own thoughts), Sam would pick up a lot of things. But they’re never anywhere long enough for him to fully grasp everything and he would definitely suffer a bit from the Dunning-Kruger effect--not having enough knowledge about a thing, but having just enough that you don’t realize you don’t.

Let’s say Sam observes and picks up some things about normal residential life by being around a few mundane babysitters. The nature of John’s “work” would mean that, even if they were in a more in-home-daycare-like situation, they’d be likely to be the “after hours” kinds of kids that are still there when everyone else is picked up and the babysitter would normally be doing their normal life stuff: changing clothes, cleaning up from the daycare kids, making dinner, etc (sam and dean would definitely help, either out of kindness or duty or because it’s agreed that if they help out John will get a discount on their care costs--don’t mind me, just projecting my childhood onto the winchesters hahh. I’m NOT going to go off on a tangent about Dean already having so much experience caring for babies cuz of Sam. He definitely doesn’t have all the under-4s following him around begging for attention while he burps one of the three babies their babysitter cares for after a bottle. it DEFINITELY didn’t make Sam (age 4, 5, 6 maybe) jealous enough to repress the memory so that over a decade later he would claim that Dean doesn’t even LIKE kids.)

Uhh... what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Sam. Observing normal life. Anyway so maybe after things settle for the day, sometimes a babysitter will sit at the dining table with the weekly bills and their checkbook and do the bills. And Sam kind of loves things like this: it feels like something important; it feels like playing school before he was old enough to go (quick aside here: John totally enrolled Sam in school early, both because that’s the only way his age works with canon timeline and because it would make life easier if Sam was in school just like Dean--more cost-and-time efficient.) And maybe Sam goes and sits at the table and just. Watches.

And then he asks questions. When he’s curious, he doesn’t keep his questions to himself as a child (unless the subject is expressly forbidden: see Dean’s reaction when Sam brings up Mary). But his age would inevitably limit the scope and understanding of those questions. Adults are generally disinclined to fully explain the adult world to children, especially when it comes to finances, and in the 80s and early 90s?? With most of the adults of that time that I knew, those kinds of questions were considered rude and nosey. He might understand that adults have to pay bills; he may even understand something about utilities; but he wouldn’t necessarily understand all the requirements and frequency.

Though their nomadic lifestyle wasn’t stable by any “normal” definition, one thing to be said about mostly living out of motels is that your power is never cut off, or your water, or your heat. There’s always television, usually with cable. And the only form of payment you see going on is dad handing over cash or plastic at the front desk--one and done. My headcanon usually disallows the idea that they would’ve squatted in empty houses when Sam and Dean were kids (John makes plenty of bad decisions but I just don’t see him staying in a place without power or water with CHILDREN. Teenagers? SURE.) They would learn how to clean house and make proper beds even when it wasn’t always necessary with housekeeping available--both because of John’s military parenting style and because John would be most likely to opt out of daily housekeeping to lower the risk of having people ask questions.

So yeah, there are so many little intricacies of the mundane world that Sam wouldn’t be conditioned to even think about. Even the realization that he doesn’t know enough about regular life, as he grows up and longs more and more for that very thing because he’s never had more than a glimpse of it, wouldn’t necessarily be enough.

Would his natural curiosity lead him to ask those questions? He can’t ask John because he already asked Dean and got a dismissive answer because ‘what does any of that matter, Sam? we’ll never have to worry about that shit.’ and if Dean seems borderline offended by the sheer audacity of the questions in the first place, he knows John will be worse.

In the 90s, life skills were still kind of a thing in most U.S. schools. But in a really inconsistent way. Sometimes it was in health class curriculum; sometimes your math class would actually do a short focus on balancing a checkbook and banking if there was a chapter, but a lot of times those parts get skipped. You never use the whole textbook. Sometimes life skills was only in Home Ec, but H.E. was completely elective in my area when I was in middle school (the same exact years Sam would’ve been in middle school) and I’m assuming the same for most of the U.S. Sam may have taken it, or he may have taken something else instead (wood shop or computer class were the alternatives in my area). Maybe the nature of school hopping meant that he HAD to enroll in Home Ec, because resources for the other electives were finite, but somehow always managed to miss the bills and budgeting portion. Maybe he couldn’t even take Home Ec due to class size or resources and they just put him in a study hall for that period. (Maybe they put him in the computer class, where he mostly does book work until he gets a turn on the PC he has to share with his classmate.)

As an observant person, Sam totally would’ve known about TRL, I think. There’s no way at least one group of kids in the halls or lunchroom wasn’t talking about it every day in high school, especially with the advent of Britney Spears and Eminem and Jesse freakin Camp. Maybe he goes to someone’s house to try to hang out or to study and they turn it on and Sam watches raptly because it’s such a strange phenomenon and he hardly ever gets to hear new music, much less watch the videos. But he can’t actually get into it because the fangirls are annoying and his analytical mind won’t let him suspend his disbelief about how the voting works. (Maybe he tries giving it another shot in their motel room sometimes, but Dean vetoes that bubblegum pop shit IMMEDIATELY--no Sam, look, that shit isn’t REAL music; most of them don’t even play instruments. And it’s really not fair because Dean TOTALLY watched MTV’s The Grind in the early 90s for his fix of suggestively gyrating bodies before he figured out how to access porn without getting caught.)

Sam and Dean actually make a LOT of pop culture references, which always fascinates me. I imagine they did a lot of TV watching and VCR/movie renting in the times they weren’t working on a case with/for their dad (projecting again; my dad’s house was a very boring place on his weekends). The nature of Dean’s idolization of John and disinclination to let Sam have his own separate likes means they have a mix of age-appropriate pop culture knowledge and a lot of Boomer-era TV and movie knowledge--Dean more than Sam, maybe when it comes to things like cowboy movies and TV lol.

Anyway, as the realization that he doesn’t really know how anything works crept in, maybe Sam would try to lowkey create situations where he could ask his friends/his friends’ parents those normal life kind of questions. But maybe after his first few tries, he’s become so uncomfortably aware of how weird he is to even need to ask that he stops asking. Maybe he starts to tap into his specialized skills and starts snooping/creeping around their houses to try to glean knowledge. Maybe he scours the library for books on ‘what you need to know for life’--I have the urge now to do a google search on actual titles of books on this subject that may have existed at the time, but I’ve already spent a lot of time on this without going into research spirals. lol Maybe he can’t find exactly the things that are pertinent--still doesn’t fully realize that, though--and in the meantime his cache of esoteric knowledge continues to build.

So he gets to Stanford and he mostly understands how the financing works; enough to get by with enrollment and stuff. He understands that he’ll need to get a job of some sort to make ends meet because he’s there to be normal and normal people don’t pay for everything with scammed credit cards and billiards money; he knows that much. But he doesn’t really know about wages, minimum wage, freaking payroll taxes, etc. (I feel like Dean would’ve had odd jobs as a teen, some legit some under the table, but that the nature of John (and Dean) wanting to keep Sam home and safe would’ve made the subject of Sam working through high school a banned topic. And anyway, much as I’m not a fan of the characterization in Drag Me Away (From You), what Dean said to Sam about the impossibility of getting into college with the way his academic career would look is accurate. So Sam would’ve probably spent most of his free time on academics so he could get the fuck out, rather than trying to get a job.

Maybe having to buy his textbooks would be a surprise? John probably always qualified for Sam and Dean to be on free lunch/free book programs in public school, not to mention the likelihood of the records being at least partially counterfeit. But at the same time, John was probably very hands off with their school enrollment crap once the boys were old enough to handle it themselves, so Sam would at least have an inkling.

Sam would be a weird mix of no-boundaries and too-secretive, and his first attempts at acting normal would be a bit too put-on. He’s got experience acting per 1x16 (oh, maybe he did drama instead of home ec somewhere lol), but acting on stage is so much different to acting in a more personal setting. On stage you have to exaggerate your movements to project all the way to the back. Early-Stanford Sam, I guess, is a bit like Soulless Sam. He knows there’s something off about him compared to the people around him, and he just does his best to pretend he’s the same as them without calling attention to his differences, which ends up coming off robotic. A little Stepford. A little uncanny valley. He learns to bite his tongue every time he’s about to let something normal only to his family roll off it; learns to be even more vague than he used to be, because now he’s around strangers ALL THE TIME.

At some point, Sam has a little-but-big breakdown about a payment he missed or the fact that he had to steal shampoo because he didn’t even have toiletries in his budget and couldn’t even afford a bottle of White Rain or Suave, so since he was stealing anyway he got the special brand he really likes and then feels too awful to even use it and doesn’t wash his hair for a week. Brady takes pity on the cute but hapless puppy-boy who is a physical and academic behemoth but has obviously been living off-grid on some kind of militia commune for the past forever--at first the rumor was that he was Amish on rumspringa but the amount of times Sam has busted out some supremely random survival knowledge in casual conversation changes that rumor quickly--and has no understanding of the world. And by the time he moves off-campus with Jess, Sam has this masking thing down pretty well; he can almost forget he’s not normal sometimes and Jess only knows about his previous helplessness in a cute, anecdotal kind of way.

And then Dean comes and gets him and Sam’s all “you and Dad still doing credit card scams?” and Dean’s like “well hunting doesn’t pay the bills.”

AND SAM’S LIKE, NEITHER DO YOU DEAN! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BILLS ARE?! BECAUSE I DIDN’T AND IT WOULD’VE BEEN NICE TO KNOW!

#ask #@princessconsuelapark #stanford era #sam winchester #pre-stanford era #sam n dean #john winchester's a+ parenting #long post

[halothenthehorns]

TLTNL- SEEN AND UNFORSEEN

Sirius easily caught the book and began thumbing through pages, muttering this would have been far easier if his twat of a friend would just hand it to him rather than losing his place every time. James ignored this and went to retrieve his son from Remus, quickly stepping out to change his diaper in the slight delay and then nestling back next to his wife with their child between them as Sirius started with residual triumph for Harry's finally able to speak out like he did.

Luna said that Harry might have to wait for the next issue for his article to be published, as her daddy was expecting an expose on the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

"It's good to know I'm not everybody's top priority," Harry said indulgently. He may have a good feeling about that paper, but he still wasn't sure how much good it would do, so best to put it out of his mind for now.

The whole experience hadn't been easy for Harry, as Rita had demanded every detail Harry could remember.

Lily huffed in agitation that vile woman was pressing her son for those details, hating the irony that Skeeter had finally gotten her exclusive article she'd always wanted, but at least happy enough Harry was on board with this one.

Knowing this was his chance to speak out, he'd given everything he was asked, but still wondered if anyone would believe it. Yet the breakout of Azkaban left Harry with a burning desire to do something!

At dinner, Dean overheard what Harry would be doing and said he couldn't wait to see what Umbridge would do when she found out. Seamus was on his friends other side and apparently ignoring them, but Harry could tell he was listening.

"Guess it's better than calling you a nutter again," James frowned at this continuation, clearly the Death Eater breakout hadn't been good enough to push someone who should know Harry on some level back into reason.

  Neville agreed it was the right thing to do, people should be made aware Voldemort was out there, what his Death Eaters could do. Harry caught Seamus' eyes, but the other quickly looked back down at his plate.

"You think Dean's secretly helping Seamus with all the spells he's learning from the DA?" James asked.

"Well I'm sure Dean hasn't exactly told where he's learned them from," Sirius reminded of Hermione's little spell with a proud smirk, "but I wouldn't be surprised either."

His dorm mates left not much later, but Harry stuck around waiting for Ron's Quidditch practice to be over.

Remus let out a low whistle of surprise for such a long running practice, his two friends looking far more disappointed they hadn't gotten to hear about that instead of two-thirds of that Hogsmeade visit.

Cho was spotted first, coming in with her friend Marietta. Hermione saw this and asked why he'd shown up so early before without her?

"At least Hermione can talk you through it," Lily told him, glad that her son had seemed to follow their commentary well enough, but it would still be even better if someone had explained this to him in his time.

"I'd rather just never speak of it again," Harry grumbled.

Harry stated it was a complete fiasco.

"Well I'm glad you're chatting with her about this," James smirked, "far more than I ever got, you've now experienced Sirius' advice first hand."

"Hey!" Sirius yelped, "it's not my fault the woman's the most stubborn creature at school." Sirius clearly repeated an old statement.

Lily raised a brow at him, before looking at a suddenly uncomfortable James, and asked, "exactly how many of your blasted attempts were of his doing?"

James had the grace to fail to answer that, Remus was laughing too hard to answer, and Sirius kept going loudly so he wouldn't have to.

He explained the whole instance, ending with her storming out, and asked of her what on earth had been going on?

Hermione told Harry he was tactless.

"Hey!" Harry spluttered, now much preferring his mum's words.

Lily was still watching James critically, and he was happily ignoring her look by playing with his son's fingers.

Harry was outraged that was her conclusion. They'd been having a nice chat until she'd brought up Roger Davies, and then it had all gotten out of hand.

Hermione began to patiently explain as if to an over-emotional toddler,

All three boys got a chuckle out of that, though none of this was improving Harry's mood at the lot of them ganging up on him in past and present.

that he shouldn't have mentioned her halfway through his date.

Harry spluttered in protest Hermione had asked him to, how was he supposed to bring Cho along without telling her?

Hermione said he should have phrased it differently, still with that maddeningly patient air.

Lily was smothering her own laughter now, finally distracted from eyeing James. Hermione, with her two male best friends, should know better than anyone what if felt like to explain these things to them.

He should have made it seem like a drag Harry had to do this, he'd much rather spend all his time with Cho, but Hermione really had made him swear so he now had an obligation and to really make her feel as if she was more important by pleading with her to come along. It would have helped if he'd also mentioned how ugly Harry found Hermione.

"That is so unnecessary," Remus stated as he eyed Lily, "I'm sure she'd find it just as insulting his pandering to her need."

Lily just shrugged. She wasn't going to try speaking for Cho. She was privy to knowing what Harry had meant and so understood her son's position better than Cho likely had. Plus she'd never had much insecurity in the man in her life, he'd never been secretive about his intentions. Yet at the same time, it was clear she was the only one in here who understood why Hermione had said it that way, it would have helped soothe Cho more than what Harry actually did.

Harry's only response to that was to say he didn't find Hermione ugly.

"At least I could have told you that wouldn't have been helpful in the face of Cho," Sirius offered.

"Thank you Padfoot, I think I could have worked that one out," Harry rolled his eyes.

Hermione just laughed, saying he was as bad as Ron, or perhaps not she amended with a sigh,

All five of them couldn't help a soft snort of amusement at Hermione suffering her own plight of love.

as Ron himself came stomping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy.

"I'm guessing practice didn't go well," Remus said conversationally.

"I still can't imagine coming away from a practice in such a bad mood," James stated, his tone enough to state the idea was lost on him. "Quidditch is how you relieve stress."

Hermione continued explaining for Harry that Cho was trying to make him jealous after he'd bought Hermione up, it was her way of seeing who Harry liked more.

Harry protested why couldn't she have just said that? Ron clearly wasn't joining in the conversation just yet as he sat down on the bench and began pulling every plate towards him.

"Dessert for dinner, that's got to be some consolation," Sirius chuckled.

Hermione just said it wasn't common for girls to be asking that.

"I love my wife," James needlessly declared as he grinned at her.

"I've never asked anything like this of you," Lily rolled her eyes at him.

"I know," he smirked as she made his point.

Harry said they should! He could have just told her he fancied her, instead of her bringing up Cedric again!

Hermione agreed it hadn't been sensible, but she was just trying to help Harry understand how Cho had been feeling.

Harry just muttered something about he wasn't looking forward to a repeat, or if he had to, maybe he could sneak Hermione along under the cloak so it wouldn't go as bad again, or maybe Ginny if she'd help him out in trade of getting her out of a Quidditch practice she so clearly hadn't wanted to be in...

Ron told Hermione she should write a book, translating things girls did so boys could understand them.

"That would be a bestseller," Sirius agreed.

"I love Ron just automatically took to the important part of that conversation," Remus snickered.

Harry agreed at once, but as Ginny joined decided to change the subject and asked how practice had gone?

Both said it was a disaster, Ginny stating Angelina was nearly in tears by the end.

"That poor girl," James said with honest sympathy. He'd been lucky to have such a fantastic team his final year, yet every time Angelina turned something happened to hers this year.

The two ate quickly without much more detail and then vanished to clean themselves up, Harry and Hermione finally going back to the common room to start some homework. They were interrupted by the twins showing up, asking if their younger siblings were around yet? When confirmed they weren't, they decided to share more details, having looked in on the practice, and stating what rubbish the team was.

Lily struggled to hold back a new wave of pig headed comments about the new mischief makers of this school, her restraint not helped at all by the sympathetic look growing on James.

George did defend Ginny wasn't bad, an oddity as none of them had ever let her play.

Hermione inserted this was because she'd been stealing their brooms since she was six and practicing on her own.

"Ginny keeps getting better with every mentioning," Remus chuckled.

"Absolutely better than the little fangirl," Harry agreed full heartedly, even if he did look back on that with far more humor than he would have thought.

George now looked impressed as he said that explained things.

"He's so casual about having his stuff being nicked," Sirius grinned as well even if he knew he'd have gone off on Regulus for doing the same.

Hermione tried her hardest not to look up from her work as she asked if Ron had saved one goal?

Fred rolled his eyes as he stated he was quite good when he thought no one was watching. Therefore all they had to do at the next match was have the whole crowd turn their back when the ball was at his end of the pitch.

All four boys groaned and shifted restlessly, James wishing more and more someone would offer Ron some actual helpful advice rather than just complaining about the problem.

Then Fred shifted restlessly as he looked out the window, saying Quidditch had been the only thing this place had been worth staying for.

"That was true several months ago now," Sirius scoffed, "I've no clue why they stuck around after what Umbridge pulled, I haven't heard a lick of revenge from them about it."

"Sirius," Lily said in exasperation. "They've been at it this long, even if they don't care about the grades they may as well finish school by this point they're so close."

"I thought the reason they hadn't bailed was because they didn't want their mum to have more worries," Remus reminded. "That's hardly gone away, if not worse with their fathers recent injury."

Sirius turned back to the book in hopes the twins would give some better answer.

Hermione looked sternly at them as she reminded of their exams.

Harry burst out laughing that the closest thing to have crossed their minds in here was his mother's words, and even she hadn't seemed that concerned about it.

Fred scoffed they were not worried about that one bit. Their Snackboxes were now good to go, Lee had turned them onto this essence of Murtlap and that had cured the boils.

James gave a loud applause at his son yet again helping out the twins, this time even unintentionally! Sirius though cracked up even harder as he realized it was Hermione who'd been the pin in this one, and wondered if anyone ever realized the connection.

"I want to know what possessed them to put that in what they eat," Lily crinkled her nose.

"A bit brilliant though," Remus grinned, "considering the essence is to help ease sore skin, and I can't think of a place they were more sore. If they'd put it on those boils, and realized it made them go away, then the next step would be adding it to their batch."

Lily narrowed her eyes with worry in here that this idea clearly didn't bother a single one of them, there was a reason she cooked in this house.

George kept on point and stated he didn't even want to go to the match this weekend, he'd kill himself if he saw Zacharias won.

"Kill him more like!" James scolded.

Fred corrected kill him instead.

Sirius whooped with laughter and James even joined in that time with glee.

Hermione said this was the whole trouble with Quidditch, it created too much bad blood between houses.

The boys looked properly scandalized at this, but Lily defended Hermione on this one. "I may not like the sport much either, but I think a few things could be altered to make it more bearable for those who aren't obsessed with it."

"Like?" James challenged, clearly already convinced she could offer nothing for this.

"What if, instead of pinning the house teams against each other, any person from any house could be on four separate teams? Captains would still be chosen one from each house, and you'd have to create some structure for how each team got players so that nothing too dirty could be abused during selections, but it would do even more good to support a school unity rather than having another way for them to compete against each other. We already have the House Cup for that."

Her speculation ended there, for now, but she looked around and grinned further when she saw none of the boys were immediately dispelling the idea.

Sirius scrutinized her for an extra minute, but failing to come up with an argument against that, continued for now.

She looked up in the silence to see all those around her looking at her with incredulity.

"Well she did say that to the three players who'd been booted off the team for something entirely not their fault," Sirius defended.

Hermione insisted it did, it was only a game.

James opened and closed his mouth in outrage, and Harry was quite thankful his friend wasn't here now, or she may have gotten her ear chewed off.

Then she snapped at least her happiness wasn't dependent on Ron's goalkeeping ability.

Remus inhaled through his teeth as he watched his friends blanch at that spurn even through the book.

Harry would rather have jumped off the Astronomy Tower than admit it to her, but by the time he had watched the game the following Saturday he would have given any number of Galleons not to care about Quidditch either.

"I blame this on your father," Lily told him.

"It's half Ron's fault," Remus said fairly, "he got Harry into the details of it."

"No," James shook his head to try and distract himself from his own disappointment, "I take full responsibility for this."

The nicest thing to be said, it was short. It was debatable what was worse in the twenty-two minutes, Ron's fourteenth failed saves, Sloper hitting himself with the bat instead of the Bludger, or Kirke actually falling off his broom in surprise after Zacharia had startled him.

"I'm going with that last one," Sirius said critically.

"I'm crying on the inside just hearing about it," James moaned at the display.

Ginny was the only saving grace, managing to make their team only lose by ten points, as she'd caught the Snitch under the other Seekers nose, the final score coming out two hundred and forty to two hundred and thirty, Hufflepuff.

All four boys simultaneously groaned at the idea so many goals had been made, but tried to cheer slightly Ginny had pulled that off! Harry in particular found it a novelty at all to be watching a game from his school and with his disappointment still had far more fun watching Ginny play his usual position than he would have thought.

That evening Harry at least congratulated Ginny on her catch, which went unnoticed in the common room which resembled a particularly dismal funeral.

"I can easily imagine," James hung his head in agreement, he couldn't claim his team had won every game either.

Ginny just said she was lucky, Summerby sneezed at the right moment.

"She shouldn't downplay her own win," Harry rolled his eyes.

"Like you would have done," Sirius snorted, which Harry failed to answer.

Then she changed to saying when Harry was back on the team-

Harry corrected he had a lifelong band.

Ginny corrected right back only so long as Umbridge was here,

"How did you need her to remind you of that," James shivered, "it's the only thing getting me through these."

"Really James? The only thing eh?" Lily demanded of him.

He denied answer, even if he wouldn't take his comment back.

and once Harry was back, she'd go try out for Chaser. Angelina and Alicia were leaving after this year, and she preferred goals to Seeking.

Harry had a very bemused smile in place the others all put down to him trying not to remember something about whether this happened or not.

Harry had nothing to say to that and instead glanced to where Ron was sitting all by himself. Ginny whispered Angelina still wouldn't let him resign, she knew he had it in him.

"Credit to her then," James agreed with enthusiasm, though Remus shook his head in a bit of pity as well, at some point that must feel as much like a punishment as encouragement.

Harry liked Angelina for her faith, but at this point may have found it kinder, especially after the pitch had yet again been filled with another chorus of Weasley is our King.

"I can't wrap my head around the fact that somehow banning the teachers from virtually talking to the students was okay, but not this song!" Lily seethed.

Fred and George wandered over again, Fred saying he didn't even have the heart to take the mickey out of his kid brother yet.

"It's really no fun if they're so despondent they won't react," Sirius agreed, Lily scrunching up her face at him as she thought he was entirely missing the point of not picking on someone when they were down.

Though it was tempting after that last one, then he mimed doing a doggy paddle in mid air as demonstration for Ron's abilities, but when no one looked around, decided to save that for parties.

"I'm sure he appreciates your restraint," Remus said deadpan, while Harry felt a nasty prickling feeling wondering why he couldn't remember Fred doing that again.

Ron took himself up to bed not long later, and Harry waited a few moments so he could pretend to be asleep.

"There's a proper mate," Remus said in understanding, before unbidden the idea of which one of his friends were more like that, and it wasn't the two in the room. He blasted that idea away quickly before it could poison more of his life.

When Harry went up there as well, he was snoring just a little too loudly to be believed, but Harry let him be as he sank into his own bed, still thinking about the game. If only he hadn't been banned, he may have been able to save his team some grace, he'd seen the Snitch fluttering by Kirke's ankle five minutes before Ginny had caught sight of it.

"He really is getting as conceited as you, at least about this sport," Lily snipped at her husband, before properly scolding Harry, "you don't know what you would have done in that moment as well, you've hesitated over the Snitch before so the other Seeker wouldn't come in as well. You might not have even seen it from where you were, you were in a different angle in the stands."

Harry did look a bit abashed at his moment, he'd never want to undermine what Ginny had done.

Umbridge had been sitting a few rows below Harry and Hermione.

"And we snuck down and pitched her head first to the ground below. After setting a teacher on fire, this was nothing!" Sirius kept going with absolute conviction as if reading.

"Technically Hermione did that," Harry pouted, "and you're never going to let that one go, are you?"

"No," all four said at once.

Harry shook his head at all of them before continuing to address Sirius, "and you know perfectly well there was no such thing said in there, even Dumbledore couldn't stop me from getting Cruicio'd by her if we'd tried-" he abruptly stopped, as if his tongue had rolled into his head and he'd had no other choice from the sting of his mind warning him further.

Sirius ignored where Harry had stopped and kept going with a mutter of wishes.

Once or twice she had turned squatly in her seat to look at him, her wide toad's mouth stretched in what he thought had been a gloating smile.

"Oh yes, because that's so much better than what I said," Sirius snarled in outrage, wanting nothing more than to sick a wild dog on her already and make this problem go away.

The memory left him raging with anger, and it took him several extra moment to remember he was supposed to be emptying his mind for his Occlumency practice.

"Have you once managed to do that?" Lily asked, an edge of fear trying to push out her exasperation.

Harry denied answering, which was answer enough.

He tried to do so, but his anger only managed to double and now he couldn't push past his hate for both teachers.

"I know that's what puts me to sleep every night," Sirius agreed with a smirk.

When he did nod off, he started with a dream about Neville dancing with Sprout in the Room of Requirements while McGonagall played the bagpipes.

"There's something really interesting in there," Remus said with a raised brow.

"Yeah, how come you didn't mention her wearing a kilt along with those?" James smirked.

"I thought only blokes wore kilts?" Sirius corrected.

"It was the first Scottish thing that came to mind," he shrugged, "that and potatoes."

"It was a dream!" Harry protested this conversation before it could go further.

They frowned at him for ruining their fun, but since McGonagall wasn't here as their foil, nor would they possibly have even dragged it out this far if she had been, he let it go.

He watched for a while before deciding to find the rest of the DA, but when he exited the room he found himself once again in the long dark corridor with a locked black door.

Harry made a guttural noise of frustration at being reminded of this again! Days weren't even passing in here, he wasn't even having the frequent dream as his memory returned except the two times so far, but as often as it was mentioned he may as well be.

For the first time, there was a crack around one edge, a hint of blue light creeping out. He moved forward, reaching his hand out to push it open no matter how futilely, but then Ron gave a rasping, genuine snore and Harry awoke in his room, with his arm outstretched to something miles away.

Sirius couldn't deny he'd had a rising sense of interest at this new alteration to the dream, but it also made him quiver with unease just as much.

He glanced up at Harry shivering at his side, there was some unreadable look on his face Sirius was more convinced than ever he didn't really want to know.

Remus either didn't notice, or as usual was muttering for himself and didn't seem to realize others could hear. "Well this can't be good, sounded like Voldemort's getting closer to whatever this thing is."

Sirius gave a heavy sigh in agreement before continuing loudly.

Breakfast the next morning started as usual, everyone else receiving their owl mail while Harry poured himself some juice, but then an owl landed in front of him. Considering he'd received all of one letter this year, he was sure this must be a mistake.

Sirius tried his best to hide his anger at this being true. He couldn't believe he was scared away from communicating with Harry! He'd even offered his pup another solution and the little birk had denied that out of some skewed idea he was protecting him! He wasn't even sure himself what it had been, but for Harry to clearly have just forgotten about it and not even bothered to check was maddening! He continued reading with far more hostility than a bit of mail should have offered.

He even checked the address on it, but the recipient was clear as day. Before he had time to react, half a dozen more arrived.

"This isn't like what happened to Hermione last year is it?" Lily asked in concern, remembering the amounts of hate mail the poor dear got.

"Luna said the article wasn't even out yet for him to be getting any," Remus disagreed, though now Sirius felt even more justified in his haste of reading.

The whole hall was watching in confusion at the flock of birds trying to surround Harry, but Hermione reacted first in digging one in particular out with a long, cylindrical partial tied to its leg and said Harry should look at this one first. When he unwrapped it, he found a copy of The Quibbler, with his own picture on front with the title declaring Potter Speaks Out: The Truth about You-Know-Who.

"Luna jumped ahead of schedule," James said with glee.

"Still not sure if I'm a fan of the rest of this showing up," Sirius said grumpily, eyeing the rest of the text with worry. If anyone had sent his godson a cursed letter, that meant Umbridge had let that through her screening of Harry's mail, and that wasn't going to go over well.

Luna appeared, shoving her way onto the bench near him so she could say her dad had got it out yesterday and sent Harry a free copy, she supposed all of these were letters from those who'd read it.

Hermione asked if they could go through them, and Harry bemusedly told them to help themselves.

"That's a better reaction than you usually have to getting attention," Lily chuckled.

Ron found one that was from a guy telling Harry he was off his rocker, while Hermione read out one detailing how Harry should be put in St. Mungo's for shock therapy.

Remus scrunched up his face in agitation for that particular suggestion, Harry was tortured enough thank you.

Harry found one that actually concluded in someone agreeing, and believing Harry.

Fred had one that said he couldn't decide what to think, and declared it a waste of parchment.

"Everybody wants to put their opinion out there, even if it isn't an actual opinion," Sirius said in an attempt at Remus' wise voice.

Remus rolled his eyes for his friend.

Hermione managed to find at least three more of people who Harry had convinced!

Ron found one from a woman who Harry had converted, and she'd sent a picture, he trailed off with a wow.

"Err," James said with concerned curiosity.

"I never got to see the picture," Harry answered with that bemused expression lingering in here, so he had no clue if Ron's reaction was to be a good thing or bad for that.

Inserting her girlish voice into their conversation, Umbridge arrived to demand to know what was going on.

"He sent out a request for toad repellent, he still didn't get enough," Remus said with a straight face.

Fred demanded if getting mail was a crime now?

Umbridge told him to watch his tongue or she'd start issuing detentions.

Lily bite down so hard on her tongue from shouting out in frustration for the grounds of this her eyes began welling up in pain. She could never stand the idea of that woman anywhere near Harry, never mind the casual way she dished out torture and no on in that school had done a thing to stop it!

Harry tossed his issue of The Quibbler at her for explanation, and then quickly looked to the staff table to see Dumbledore. He'd felt for a moment his headmaster was watching him, but for now it looked as if he was talking deeply to Flitwick.

"I've yet seen your instincts fail you," Remus said blandly, "so I wouldn't be surprised if you were right." It made none of them feel better this treatment was being continued as casually as Umbridge's.

Umbridge was gazing flabbergasted at the article, demanding what he meant by this interview?

Harry responded a reporter had asked him questions and he'd answered them.

Sirius let out a triumphant bark of laughter, everyone else getting a giggle out of that as well.

Her voice growing higher with anger, she asked of him when this had taken place?

Harry said his last Hogsmeade trip.

Her response to this was to ban him from further visits.

The three Marauders blanched in further outrage from that pond scum. The detentions were still worse, but if there was one thing she could do to strike them hardest, it was ban them from their home turf. She grew luckier by the page they weren't there in person to teach her a thing or two about how she was treating their boy.

Then began hissing how he dared!

"Yes, how dare he have a voice in saying what happened to him that doesn't conform to you," James said dangerously, that smile still in place turning eerie as he thought of yet more curses he planned on using on her someday soon.

Then she decided her message had not yet received, and took fifty points away from Gryffindor as well as another week of detentions.

Harry let out a low whistle even if his face was bland while he stated, "whoever would have imagined Umbridge would do me a favor in getting me out of an Occlumency lesson."

"This isn't funny Harry," James said flatly, his voice flat and his eyes flashing.

Harry raised his hands in surrender at once, wincing and regretting trying to make it funny even if in his own head he was still weighing the two on levels of awful and couldn't quite decide which was worse.

She stalked away with the magazine still in hand, and by midday had issued a new decree that anyone caught with this would be expelled.

Lily felt her mouth flop open in true resignation of the stupidity of these. How did they manage to keep getting more ridiculous with every one?!

The boys were so sick of these being made up on the spot and being passed as actual laws they'd even run out of insults for them, something they wouldn't have believed possible before.

For some reason, every time Hermione caught sight of one of these signs she beamed with pleasure.

"What do you mean, for some reason?" Remus asked Harry, he found the woman's own idiocy almost brilliant.

"Everyone already thinks I'm a nutter, and just cause I said something in a paper wouldn't really change that," Harry said, his spirits clearly hadn't kept hold of that warmth pushing back at the Ministry this had originally given him. "Now there's no way anyone's going to risk getting expelled just to hear my account of being a madman even more."

"Oh Harry," Sirius chuckled, while James shook his head affectionately. "You have no idea what Umbridge just did."

Harry continued to just look around at them, but Sirius kept going before Lily could explain like she was clearly fixing to.

Harry asked what had her in such a good mood, and Hermione explained that if there was one thing Umbridge could have done to make sure every single person read that, it was banning it.

Harry still didn't seem to get it, and was opening his mouth to interrupt again to say so, so Lily did state, "remember back to your first week, how you suspected everyone was talking about your first detention in hopes you'd start shouting at them as well?"

He didn't have to think long before the realization hit, and he nodded as she finished, "they do want to hear you, it's far easier to form an opinion of a first hand account rather than what Dumbledore said. I'm not promising it will change everyone's minds, but those letters you were sent was the perfect example of how this will put things inside school as well."

Harry suddenly turned eagerly back to Sirius now, hope finally filtering through every bit of him! Umbridge had managed to take away yet one more thing about school he loved, now he had managed to circle back around to being banned from Hogsmeade again. In return, she may have gifted him with his best weapon yet in spreading his story for him.

Hermione's statement turned out to be very true. They could no longer walk down the corridor without hearing people talking about the article, but not a corner of The Quibbler ever came into sight. Hermione even said the girls restroom was filled with telling each other about it.

"There's evidence as if we needed it," Sirius snickered.

Then the occupants had spotted Hermione and knew she knew Harry, and they'd bombarded her with questions, and they all seemed convinced of him now.

It was amazing to finally see him smiling in here, practically glowing. The idea of what he'd been put through this year had weighed on him for so long they'd hardly been able to recognize it until it was being lifted away before their eyes. Finally, something had gone right for Harry, and no one, not even Umbridge was taking that away.

Meanwhile, Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets: Harry knew she was looking for copies of The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her.

All four of them already had that flippant smile set in place, one Harry had grown to associate with their idea they'd never be caught by the teachers of that school. The lot of them weren't long from their own teen years and hiding things from anyone and everyone, and they couldn't wait to see how others were doing the same.

The pages carrying Harry's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to pursue it again.

"Passable," Sirius said reasonably.

"Sometimes subtler can be safest," Remus shrugged.

Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it. The teachers were of course forbidden from mentioning the interview by Educational Decree Number Twenty- six,

"I never thought the idiocy of that one could be passed, could I please stop being proven wrong," James rolled his eyes.

but they found ways to express their feelings about it all the same. Professor Sprout awarded Gryffindor twenty points when Harry passed her a watering can;

"My favorite thing that teacher's ever done," Sirius chuckled.

a beaming Professor Flitwick pressed a box of squeaking sugar mice on him at the end of Charms before hurrying away;

Lily giggled affectionately for her old favorite teacher.

and Professor Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during Divination and announced to the startled class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Harry was not going to suffer an early death after all, but would live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children.

All five of them got a crack out of that one. They seemed to forget a lot how much fun Trelawney could be and enjoyed the reminders.

The best part of all was Cho catching up to Harry, lacing his hand with hers as she whispered in his ear that the interview had been really brave and made her cry.

"Was, that an apology, or...?" James trailed off with a furrowed brow.

"She was holding his hand, I'll take that as a sign of forgiveness for meeting up with other girls," Sirius rolled his eyes at the girls further dramatics.

Harry had a soft smile in place, he was happy he'd found some more even ground with her, and they all wondered if they'd been dead wrong at the end of Harry's first date. Maybe he and Cho did make up and further on from there.

He was sorry to hear she had shed even more tears over it,

Lily couldn't help a further smattering of giggles, all boys considered crying a bad thing, even tears of joy.

but very glad they were on speaking terms again, and even more pleased when she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and hurried off again.

Harry touched the spot on his cheek, his smile growing more as his face took on another tinge of red, and for once he could easily ignore the snickers of those around him. He could still feel something for Cho, and though it didn't feel nearly as powerful as he thought it would if he'd married her, perhaps his full memories just hadn't been returned yet and he'd have even more happy memories of sharing time with her.

Unbelievably, no sooner had he arrived outside Transfiguration than something just as good happened: Seamus stepped out of the queue to face him.

"Finally!" Remus said in relief. It hadn't exactly been a major drama, but it was still boggling the idea one of Harry's roommates had taken so long to believe Harry. Even not being close friends, Seamus really would have been expected to be one of those who'd know better.

He spoke to Harry's knee as he mumbled his apology, but firmly said he now believed Harry and had sent a copy of that magazine to his mum.

"It's a start," Sirius raised a brow at that.

"I accepted it," Harry said agreeably, that smile was finally so carefree in here, they were all still smiling as well.

Still better, was that whomever would have retaliated such as children from the Death Eaters he had named, could do nothing,

Lily smiled grimly to herself, beyond pleased as she realized they now had names for all of Voldemort's inner circle. There were still more out there, there would always be more Death Eaters, but if she could find one good thing in the throes of these wretched things happening to her son, it was the justice those vermin would get.

because in doing so they'd admit to having read the article themselves.

James pumped his fist in triumph while Sirius cackled, all five of them beyond words at this level of comeuppance.

To cap it all, Luna told him over dinner that no issue of The Quibbler had ever sold out faster.

"Imagine that," Remus said dryly with a friendly chuckle.

Excitedly telling him that her dad was reprinting, people found this more interesting than the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!

"Miracles," Sirius almost managed with a straight face.

Fred and George chose to celebrate this by hanging up a large banner in the Gryffindor dorm, the poster of Harry's face that they'd enchanted to shout 'Ministry are Morons' and 'Eat Dung Umbridge' loudly through the room.

All four boys got yet more laughter out of this, though Lily thought that was pushing it just a touch too far. Umbridge hadn't yet, but she half feared at this point the woman would show up and give the whole house detention.

The charm wore off after a few hours, and by the time night rolled around it was merely squeaking 'Dung,' and 'Umbridge.'

"I'm actually quite confident it would still be amusing," James corrected, thinking of some clever things he could do if he figured out the timing of those words.

Lily didn't argue the point even as she watched his calculating look with exasperation.

To the disappointment of people still chatting to Harry about the article, he excused himself for an early night as his scar began to prickle.

They hated how short lived Harry's happiness was, but before their eyes they saw he was already starting to twitch with unease again, rubbing at his scar, his eyes taking on that glazed look of pain all over again.

The dormitory was empty when he entered, sinking onto his bed and rubbing at his forehead which was paining him worse every moment. Hoping sleep would help, he laid down, and instantly fell asleep.

Lily shivered down to her bone even before Sirius could catch his breath to keep going. Harry hadn't stopped rubbing his scar in here since it was mentioned, and he was looking just as sick as described. She wanted to make Sirius stop, to go get him a cold press for his forehead if that helped him even for a second, but she knew the truth, she was just delaying. They could all feel it was happening again, Harry's fingers trembling and him pulling into himself as some new terrible memory was resurfacing, and the faster they pushed through it the better.

He was standing in a dark, curtained room lit by a single branch of candles. His hands were clenched on the back of a chair in front of him. They were long-fingered and white as though they had not seen sunlight for years and looked like large, pale spiders against the dark velvet of the chair.

Sirius hung his head, shook it for a moment in agitation for having to be right about this, and then took a very long, deep breath before reading the latest travesty of Harry's life in having to see what Voldemort was up to. It was lost on no one this was yet another level of advanced, Harry now seeing directly into Voldemort's mind, the only thing that could be said was at least Harry hadn't been awake as well, he'd fallen asleep, so there was some consistency in this. Even that smallest moment of understanding and knowing one thing about this was of the vaguest comfort.

In the small pool of light was a huddled man. In a high cold voice resonating from Harry's throat, he spoke about how he'd been ill advised.

Sirius looked wildly around, and waited very impatiently for Harry to meet his eyes. He didn't quite manage it, looking more above his left ear, but Sirius said with such determination, that Harry felt he had no choice but to look him full on, "that is not you!"

Harry had no response for that, but clearly Sirius wasn't doing a thing until he got something, so Harry gave a wobbly nod to his head.

The kneeling man craved his pardon, Harry responding that it was not Rookwoods fault.

Sirius twitched harshly again at having to say that, Harry half expected him to chew off his tongue in frustration, but thankfully he didn't call Harry on it again, they all knew it was only in Harry's mind so that would be how he'd describe it.

Then he demanded Rookwood was sure of his facts?

Rookwood seemed to agree, having worked in that Department after all.

Harry responded that Avery had told that Bode would have been able to do it.

Rookwood corrected Bode, the man himself would know it, which is likely why he'd fought so hard against Malfoy's Imperius Curse.

Remus could feel the usefulness of this information relating to a past event they'd heard about, but for now he was far more concerned hearing Harry wake up already and filed it all away. Unless Voldemort was going to be revealing his mortal weakness, seeing Harry in such intense pain from remembering this would never be worth it.

Harry whispered for Rookwood to take to his feet, and the man was in such haste to do so he nearly fell to the floor again. Even having accomplished this, he still stayed stooped, as if terrified to meet Harry's face.

James felt a disgusted taste lingering in his mouth at such an act he could never comprehend. Such proud Death Eater's treating any man like this was beyond him.

Harry praised Rookwood for this, murmuring they would have to begin again on new schemes with this information. Then he asked that Avery be summoned to him.

For the moment he was alone, Rookwood scrambling out of sight to do as told, Harry turned and found an image of himself in a cracked mirror. His eyes were red with slits in a flat white skull.

Harry hollered loudly in pain, screaming no! Ron found him like this, tangled in his bed curtains.

Sirius closed his eyes in blessing that was finally over, his grey eyes looked ready to shatter as he looked back to Harry with more concern than he ever had for anyone in his life.

Harry wasn't looking at any of them, his eyes tight shut and his jaw aching from clenching it so hard to stop his own scream. He hated these visions, hated how they kept inexplicably reminding him of this connection to Voldemort he had no control over, but most of all he couldn't stand to look at his parents while they were happening. The monster that had cut their life short, and Harry kept reminding them of it all happening just by continuing to live.

Inexplicably, they refused to think the same. That was the only explanation for Lily saying in a tone he could have easily found in Molly Weasley, "Harry love, we should take a break."

He opened his eyes slowly, breathing steadily through his nose to find the pair huddled into each other with, well him in their lap. Maybe they just couldn't disconnect the two from the infant who'd done nothing to the life he was cursed to live dragging everyone else around him with.

"No," he whispered, still unable to look at any of them, how his dad and friends were probably trying to stop themselves laughing silly at how he had to fight back tears every time this happened, wondering when Ron would start accusing him of the boy who cried wolf as it seemed he couldn't go any length of time without panicking over something. "No, I just want to," he gestured vaguely back at his stupid biography, trying to grasp hold of anything to take away these poisonous thoughts from himself. He felt like a curse, any managing of happiness seemed destined to be dragged back into the reminder of how quickly he could lose all of it.

Sirius couldn't make himself immediately keep going, sick with worry as everyone else for just what was going through Harry's head. At least no one he'd cared about had been attacked this time, but for a reason his godson could not explain, the more frequent these visions, the more Harry seemed convinced his life was going to end in ruin. He couldn't imagine how these could continue to get worse, but surely if they were to get better he wouldn't be treating these like a death omen.

Remus had to nudge him hard to get his attention before whispering in his ear, "we can only help by continuing, that's proven to work already, don't let him dwell on whatever he's blaming himself for."

Sirius gave a jerky nod of agreement, fighting past blurry vision for the print again rather than focusing on his distraught godson.

Ron had to struggle with his friend for him to roll free, before demanding if his dad was okay, had that snake attacked again?

Not one of them could blame Ron for this assumption, they would have thought the same if they hadn't knowledge of what it had been.

Harry sat up wildly, convinced his forehead was on fire as he explained in gasping breaths what had happened. Ron at first couldn't grasp what had happened, Harry had seen You-Know-Who?

Harry shivered, his seat the only thing keeping him upright. He couldn't understand how Ron had never looked at him with revulsion like he felt for himself during this. Yet he'd found it no more in Ron's face than any of those around him. He wanted to believe that meant something, but he was too stuck in his own pit to grasp anything else except how much worse this was all going to get before these stopped, if they ever did.

Harry corrected he had been You-Know-Who.

Sirius at least looked a little quailed from his earlier outburst. Harry wasn't even referring to Voldemort by name, he was trying to put some distance into what he'd just witnessed. Harry could never really think he had more to do with Voldemort other than the constant...bother he was in Harry's life.

Then Harry went to talking about Rookwood, and Bode's involvement.

Ron realized that Bode was bewitched to remove something, the weapon.

That feeling of significance from before settled on all of them now, Ron and Harry working this out for them feeling like just a little weight had been pushed away so they wouldn't have to immediately speak of it again while in here. Sirius wished he could be closer to done with this already, he wanted to force Harry to take a break from all of this, but he seemed determined now. Any time Sirius stopped for too long or glanced towards the kitchen, Harry actually would meet his eyes. They were too hard, a distance in them he seemed unable to beat away, but he could still look at Sirius with an expression clearly saying he wanted past this and the only way to do that was for him to keep going.

The door opened then, Dean and Seamus entering. Harry straightened himself at once. Seamus had only just stopped thinking him a nutter, and he didn't want him thinking anything else odd was going on.

"Priorities," James managed to say. It came out far too high pitched, but Harry gave him credit for trying when he still couldn't stop rubbing at a scar that wasn't even paining him in here, only in his memories.

Ron kept himself close to Harry in the guise of getting himself some water as he told him he had to tell-

but Harry said he wasn't telling anyone anything. He wasn't supposed to have seen this at all because of his Occlumency, they wanted him to shut this out.

Both Sirius and Remus flinched like Harry had tried to curse them. In this future of trying to convince him he needed to stop these, now Harry had clearly convinced himself more than ever he should be keeping all of this to himself rather than asking for help.

James noticed, and said firmly, "Harry couldn't have told you even if he'd wanted to, there's no way he could get a note like that out." He finished internally he didn't even blame Harry at this point for not wanting to tell anyone else like Dumbledore. If the man couldn't be bothered to explain his actions towards ignoring Harry's existence than his son certainly shouldn't force himself to be in his company.

By they, he'd meant Dumbledore.

Sirius had looked just a bit better at James' reminder, but it was both of some comfort Harry hadn't meant him, and also just a touch more hurtful he hadn't crossed his mind in wanting to say something about this.

He got back into bed and rolled over so Ron couldn't do anymore, yet could not fall back asleep as his scar continued to burn across his forehead. He bit his pillow in his urge not to shout out in pain, as somewhere far away, Avery was being punished.

Lily made a high pitched noise of concern, her infant in her lap making some fussing noises at his mother's distress. She spent several moments just crooning to him it was all going to be alright while watching her elder child, who was watching back with a look she couldn't place.

The next morning, the two told Hermione all of this over morning break.

She quickly put it all together that this was why Bode had been killed. He'd been regaining himself back and could tell what had happened, and they couldn't have that. Malfoy must have done all this, as often as he was in the Ministry and all of his connections.

"This really is all making a disturbing amount of sense," Remus grumbled, this wasn't helping with their whole trying to change the subject thing. Of course it was a good thing Harry was finally getting some answers, it was absolutely fascinating one scrap of information and Hermione was putting all of this together so easily and saving them from false theories that would only hurt Harry in their speculation.

Harry agreed he'd been there the very day of his trial, though Arthur had only said he was trying to sneak down there for that-

Hermione cut him off by gasping out Sturgis. She realized that Sturgis had been another victim of all this, Malfoy must have tried the same ploy on him, shooting the curse in hopes of catching someone guarding the door, but the Imperiused Sturgis had been caught even earlier in his attempts to break in, hence where he was in Azkaban.

"Oh Merlin," Lily sighed as that was crammed down their throats. As if the Order wasn't suffering enough these days. They supposed if they'd thought about this one after the last revelation of where the weapon was being hidden they would have put this together, but considering all the terrible things they'd been trying to keep track of while also trying to keep Harry's mind off of them, it was almost a relief Hermione putting this for them.

Harry finishing now Rookwood seemed to have told how to really get that weapon, and would probably be sent to fetch it next.

Harry had hated his premonitions from the very beginning, almost afraid of this knowledge in his head he couldn't access in knowing these answers, and somehow the worst of all was the feeling he was getting for who it was that would be sent for this.

Hermione went from nodding in agreement, to abruptly telling Harry off for having seen this at all.

"Well he's hardly been given a suitable way not to," Sirius scowled for her sudden change.

Lily frowned deeply, wishing Severus had given something more useful to Harry than the same repetitive advice that clearly wasn't being of much help.

Harry was taken aback at her change, but Hermione sternly insisted he was supposed to be closing his mind to these things and should be practicing harder at his Occlumency.

"It's almost hurtful she thinks I'm not," Harry grumbled, shaking his head and honestly wishing this whole thing would quit being mentioned lately.

Harry was so angry with her he didn't speak to her the rest of the morning, and his day didn't improve from there. The students were still laughing loudly about the last Quidditch game, and Weasley is our King erupted so frequently in the corridors Filch banned it from sheer irritation.

"The first good thing that man's ever done," Remus groused, Harry's mood feeling like an infection. They hadn't kept him smiling for a whole chapter before his high anger was pushing them all back on edge.

The week wasn't going much better, he couldn't shake that dream, but didn't bring it up again as he knew Hermione would only further tell him off for it.

All four of them could be seen rolling their eyes as Hermione continued to act more like a paranoid parent than anything, it wasn't soothing any nerves she couldn't be of any more help than Snape with anything to say other than more practice at something that was just causing Harry pain.

He wished he could talk to Sirius about it, but as that was out of the question, he tried to keep the idea at the back of his head.

Sirius chewed on the inside of his cheek unhappily for a moment, but was all the more agitated he couldn't come up with anything to tell Harry either except more transparent hope.

Unfortunately, the back of his mind was no longer secure these days.

His next Occlumency lesson went the same as always, constantly finding himself on the floor with a swirl of memories, mostly from his primary years and Dudley's old humiliations on him.

"Oh because that's really going to make me feel better," James said bitterly, fighting back the urge more every moment to walk out of the room and find something to curse.

Snape had again cut the connection, and demanded to know what the last one seen was?

They all jumbled together so much for him, Harry thought he was asking about the toilet.

"Err," Remus began, unsure if he wanted an explanation or it would only make things worse.

"I was eight," Harry began prattling off just for the sudden possession of not having to think about magic for a moment, who ever would have thought being bullied by Dudley would be considered a simpler time for him. "Petunia had just got done cleaning the bathrooms, and Dudley was bored so he wanted to see her yell at me. He tried to pick me up and put me in so I'd have to walk around the house with wet feet. That's where the memory ended for Snape," he finished, but continued on even though he didn't really want to, Remus had been right the first time, this probably wasn't going to make them feel better. "I bit Dudley so I wouldn't go in though, and then I ran out of the house till I came back near dinner, which I was denied and locked in my cupboard for because Vernon said the the teeth marks were still there. He told Dudley to bite me back, but he didn't want to because he said it was gross. So I said back I thought I should spend the night in the bathroom, I'd already been throwing up all day from nicking him."

He finished and looked around at them again, expecting to see yet more anger or something, but instead he saw an almost proud smirk from James. "Always love hearing you gave them hell back."

Harry managed an honest grin at him, hoping he'd return the favor by telling him some story from his youth again, and James happily provided. "Reminds me of the time Sirius bit Remus, and we got into this whole argument about what would happen if a werewolf bit a person while he was still human."

Harry busted out laughing more from surprise than anything as he demanded the obvious from his godfather, "why did you bite him?"

"I told him if he took one more of my sugar quills I would," Sirius shrugged, "he clearly didn't take me Siriusly."

Harry doubled up laughing all the harder while Remus rolled his eyes at the lot of them and tried to take the book away from Sirius to keep going. Sirius bared his teeth, Remus rolled his eyes harder, but Sirius kept going.

Snape corrected the one with the kneeling man in the dark room.

Harry denied knowledge of it as Snape tried to bore into Harry's eyes. Remembering eye contact was key in catching a lie in Legilimency, Harry looked away.

"I'm disturbed he's parted wisdom on you," James tisked even as he approved of this.

Snape was not fooled, asking how that particular place wound up inside his head?

"He has a very vivid imagination," Sirius snarked.

Harry tried to play it off as a dream, but Snape cut him off by demanding if Potter remembered why Snape was giving up his evenings for this tedious work.

"As opposed to counting your friends again?" Remus smirked.

"All none of them," Sirius agreed.

Lily frowned lightly at them, and James who wasn't bothering to repress a smile. She may be angry at Snape for treating Harry the way he was, but she still knew she'd never devolve into such petty insults.

Harry responded it was to learn Occlumency.

Snape said that Potter was correct and dim as he was, Harry finally looking back to him with hatred,

"That went without saying," James groused, Lily's eyes flashing in agitation again at once. Even for the one second she'd wanted to defend him it was gone again as he continued insulting her boy who in no way deserved it.

he would have expected after two months some progress. Then he asked how many more of these dreams had occurred?

Harry lied and said no more.

Again, Snape did not believe him, then asked if Potter was even trying? Perhaps he enjoyed these visions, thinking it made himself special, important.

Harry snapped how untrue this was.

Snape coldly responded that was true, he was in no way special or important. It was not of his business what the Death Eaters got up to.

Harry shot back that was Snape's job.

Sirius cocked his head to the side, some amusement for Harry snapping at him in there, but mostly wanting to make the jab Harry could do Snape's job and they wouldn't need the man around at all. It was all lost though before he'd even formed the idea, he still didn't want Harry having to deal with this, let Snape take the risk.

There was a glint in Snape's eyes as he whispered that was true at least.

"You impressed him," Lily said, narrowing her eyes curiously at such a response.

"I think I'm going to faint," James declared, they all looked astounded Snape hadn't just told Harry to shut his mouth again.

Then he at once pushed Harry into going again, hardly waiting past the count of three before Legilimens was used on Harry, and again he was flying through a whirl of memories. He was surrounded by a hundred dementors, he could see their shapeless mouths coming closer, but then he was back in Snape's office, the two overlapping each other and wobbling...Harry collected himself long enough to shout 'Protego.'

"Oh dear," Lily turned flat white in shock, but she hadn't a second to say anything even if she could have hazard a guess what this would do.

It did nothing to stop the flood of memories, but suddenly they weren't Harry's. A little boy sat in the corner crying as an unfamiliar man with a hooked nose shouted at a cowering woman with greasy black hair- a teenager sat alone cursing flies off his ceiling- a girl was laughing as a scrawny boy was thrown from a bucking broomstick-

She wasn't sure if Sirius just didn't care, or didn't know what that would do, but by the time he'd realized it, he'd simply kept going until he ran out before looking around at his friends with a contemplative look on his face.

"Well, err, I recognized that last one," Remus said awkwardly for Harry. "That was Mary Macdonald laughing anyways, our flying practice during first year."

Harry hardly heard him, the same stunned look on his face as the rest of the boys, before they all looked to Lily, who sighed deeply. "I'm not telling you, it's private." She said flatly without looking at any of them.

The fact that she knew what that first memory was about somehow made it even more awkward for them. Still, Sirius turned back with the same look on his face he always did when reading about Snape, he didn't consider how a parent treated you any excuse for what the guy kept doing to Harry.

Snape cut these off, Harry falling back as if shoved in the chest. He again found himself on the floor, looking up at his potions teacher.

Snape spoke in a carefully controlled voice that had actually been of some improvement, brushing his hand against the Pensive that was again in the room, as if checking to make sure the rest of his memories in there were intact.

"And now we see why," James muttered, his eyes still narrowed as he thought back to many insults he'd made in the past, and actually feeling a little bad for a few of them. He knew Snape would never do the same though, Snape knew everything Harry had gone through in his life and continued to treat him the exact same way.

Harry did not speak, feeling in the most danger yet. He was reeling that the same crying child had grown into a man with such loathing gazing down at him.

Lily had a hard time swallowing for a moment, stinging tears in her own eyes as vivid memories from her own childhood resurfaced. Realizing he'd run to her house in the dead of night and throwing rocks at her window until she came sneaking down. The two staying up in their little grove till sunrise wishing there was some escape from those who hated them. At least her own parents had been a bridge between her and her sister, and she'd tried to be that for Sev and his parents, but it had never truly worked, and she'd never even bothered to find out if it got better after she'd stopped speaking to him. She blinked back into the room to find James with his arm tight around her, brushing at the baby's hair and actually holding his tongue against whatever that look meant until she nodded to Sirius to keep going.

Snape instructed Harry to get to his feet, they were going again. Harry did so with dread, knowing he was about to pay for what he'd just seen.

Sirius ground his teeth together hard in frustration for that. Harry was about to be punished again for something from Snape's past.

Harry had not a second to collect himself before it started again, but this time he was revisiting the dark corridor from his memories. As always he ran down, and the blue light was peeking through again. Harry reached for it, and this time, the door opened.

He was in a circular room with floor and ceiling black as night, even more doors on every side of him, the only light coming from blue candles mounted on the walls. He had to keep going, push through into one of the next doors- but then he was back in Snape's office, the man glaring at him with more anger than ever.

Harry gasped wildly, startling so bad he nearly fell out of his seat. Sirius glanced to him in concern, then looked to the others for some sort of explanation. They all looked just as stunned though, unable to understand what was happening here.

"Harry's never been this far before, and Voldemort shouldn't have either!" Lily protested what she was hearing vehemently. "No one should be seeing this!"

"Maybe, maybe Rookwood has though," James ruffled up his brow as he considered the latest Voldemort news. "He worked in this place, right? So he would have shown Voldemort everything he'd seen, and now, now Harry knows as well," he finished sounding just as confused as when he'd started.

"Should it really work like that though?" Harry sounded just as panicky as his mother. "I don't want to know this, see this! I don't want all of his memories and anything he knows in my head!"

He sounded so desperate and panicky by the end, it truly broke the others hearts to see him like this.

"Oh Harry," Lily pleaded, letting the words tumble out on pure instinct. "You can't keep thinking like that-"

"How else am I supposed to think when it keeps being shoved at me!" He snapped back, but Lily wouldn't be deterred.

"You remind yourself why you're doing this! If you want Voldemort out of your head, then you work on every available way to do that! You're worried Voldemort's taking over your life then you remind yourself of all the people who are on your side and fighting to get rid of him!"

Harry kept watching her like he hoped she'd keep going, but she met his eyes and waited as they ebbed back into that calm, that understanding that had pushed him to cope with every terrible thing he'd relearned while here.

She nodded fiercely and waved Sirius on. It seemed to take him a moment, to watch the fifteen year old girl crying over the loss of her childhood friend be flipped into that mother who refused to see her child fall into the same hopeless feeling. He went back to reading with a smile of pride on his face.

He was panting as though he really had experienced all this in person.

Harry couldn't believe how grateful he actually felt towards Snape for stopping this. It was the first time in his life he looked past the hateful potions teacher and knew Snape could actually be of some help to his life if he'd quit insulting him every step along the way.

Snape demanded Harry explain that one, and Harry rubbed at a lump on the back of his head from falling down again while honestly saying he had no clue what that had been, he'd never been that far before-

Snape cut in hatefully he wasn't working hard enough!

Harry rubbed at where the lump used to be, suddenly more ashamed than ever for is poor Occlumency skills. His mother was right, and so was Snape, he'd never really tried to do this. It was of some comfort to him his father and friends rolled their eyes for Snape's jab, that they weren't blaming Harry for this...yet. He pulled away from that at once, there would never be a time they'd blame him because of whatever this connection was, right?!

Potter was lazy, and sloppy, it was no wonder the Dark Lord was-

Harry cut in to ask why Snape called him that, he'd only known Death Eaters to refer to him as such.

Snape opened his mouth, a crude retort clearly awaiting, when a woman screamed.

Sirius startled so bad he nearly dropped the book from surprise. Then he cast his mind out before anyone could get too panicky, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Finally, something entertaining is happening around there!"

Remus gave him a look of great concern as he demanded, "just what could a scream be used for as a good thing?"

"For shame Moony!" Sirius wagged his finger in his face. "Scream of surprise, scream of delight, hell even screaming in laughter! Don't get so dower on me a scream is only a bad thing now."

"I worry about him," Lily told James in an almost conversational tone of voice.

James agreed, but instead he told him, "well get on with it then, or we'll be spending the next hour with you recanting the last time you made a girl scream, and no one wants to hear that again."

Sirius rolled his eyes but complied anyways.

They both looked sharply to the ceiling, Snape asking if Potter had seen anything this would relate to on his way down here?

"Someone standing in the middle of the school screaming? Oh yeah, just slipped my mind," Remus rolled his eyes.

When Harry said no, Snape strode out, and Harry only hesitated a moment before following.

"I'm not even sure why you hesitated," James scoffed.

The scream appeared to have resonated from the large ring in the Entrance Hall, and Harry have to shove his way to get a view. The first face he registered was across the ring, McGonagall looked faintly sick at the proceedings.

Lily felt goosebumps erupt on her at this. If whatever was happening was upsetting McGonagall, but she wasn't stepping in, then what the bloody hell could be happening!?

Then he fully saw Trelawney in the middle, looking more mad than ever. She'd clearly fallen down the last flight of steps, her hair was flyaway and her glasses askew, all of her beads in a pool around her as if she were melting. Even her luggage looked strewn around at her feet. She was gazing up at someone Harry couldn't quite see, who must be standing at the foot of the stairs.

"What in the world..." Remus tried, and failed, but the shock was keeping them all from saying much of anything, Sirius hurrying through words so fast they were mashing together. None of them had a very fond feeling for Trelawney, but it was impossible to believe she was a spectacle without anyone stepping in to whatever mayhem this was!

Trelawney shrieked this wasn't true, she couldn't accept it!

A girlish voice responded surely this wasn't a surprise.

Harry finally got around the last person to see Umbridge, brimming with glee as she gazed down, her voice more feminine than ever with her own delight as she explained that though Trelawney was incapable of predicting the weather, she must have seen this coming.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Lily shrieked, the baby in her lap now fussing in his blankets in her lap. "That is, this isn't, how could she-" she forced herself to stop screaming because her child had joined in, but the anger wasn't being cooled one little bit.

"Why can't this stupid curse kick in early already," Remus scowled. "I want her gone well before the end of the year, like the staircase collapsing on her right now!"

Sirius was too shocked to keep going for a moment. Like Harry had said before, this had been forthcoming with how obvious it was Trelawney may not be around the rest of the year, but no one could have foreseen such a brutal showing like this.

Trelawney had tears pouring down her face as she stated this couldn't happen, Hogwarts was her home!

"Does she even have anywhere else to go?" Remus whispered. He really didn't know much about her except for her classes, but suddenly he wondered if she was like Hagrid, if she had no other place to call home like a few of the other teachers did.

He hadn't expected an answer, and it was probably kinder he hadn't gotten one, no one wanted to consider the alternative.

Umbridge stated this was her home,

"This is..." sick didn't begin to cover it, but James was failing to come up with another word. He'd never even seen some of the Death Eaters out there enjoy watching someone else in so much pain, in such a public way!

until an hour ago when the Minister had co-signed the Order of Dismissal. Umbridge requested Trelawney escort herself off the property, she was embarrassing them.

"How she dare!" Lily was still fired up over every detail of this. "Them! She's no right to put herself in line with anything to do with that school, with a decision no respectable person would ever dream of putting together!"

Even as she said it, her own gloating euphoria didn't dim, she was clearly enjoying the show as Trelawney sobbed in place. There were some muffled crying to Harry's side as well, and he glanced over to see Lavender and Parvati clutching each other with tears in their own eyes.

James was shaking his head in honest sympathy for the two. Though he couldn't imagine just standing around crying during this scene, he knew he would have been in Umbridge's face telling her what's what about this even for a teacher he didn't like. The woman may have the audacity to kick a teacher out of his school, but she couldn't force that teacher to leave the premises...yet.

Then his mind offered one last desperate hope, where was Dumbledore? Surely he'd find some way to stop this? The idea was dashed as soon as it had appeared though, as Dumbledore hadn't seemed to be doing much of anything these days.

McGonagall did step in then, marching to Trelawney's side and offering her a handkerchief and a firm arm around her shoulders.

Lily finally felt herself relaxing, just a touch, as she hummed with approval. McGonagall could always be counted on to offer up some comfort to those who needed it, she was still stunned it had taken this long for their old Transfiguration teacher to step in for this injustice.

McGonagall comforted Sybil she wouldn't have to be leaving anywhere, while Umbridge tried to contest whose authority Minerva had to be saying that?

The front doors opened in that exact moment, and Dumbledore made his entrance.

"I feel the need to reiterate the book now," Sirius beamed, "what an entrance."

Remus smacked him lightly and called him an idiot even as he was smiling as well. Finally Dumbledore's timing felt like it was back on their side.

What he'd been doing on the front lawns was anyone's guess, but he swooped right in on the scene and informed Umbridge that was not her position to claim.

Umbridge made a tinkling laugh as she said she was afraid Dumbledore had misunderstood the position she was in.

"I'm afraid you've misplaced your soul, but I won't be the one getting it back from the dementor," Remus groused.

"Actually, I heard that if a dementor kissed her, she'd suck out its soul," James stated.

Sirius laughed, the first time he'd really been able to do so when mention of those things had come up.

She again flashed the Order of Dismissal, and her role as High Inquisitor gave her power to fire Trelawney, whom she'd deemed not up to scratch.

Harry waited for Dumbledore's reaction, but he only continued to smile.

"What's he got up his sleeve?" James demanded with sudden eagerness, his kindling of hope finally being given life again Dumbledore would pull through on making this actually somehow better.

Dumbledore did not argue that she had the right to dismiss his teachers, not not to ban them from the grounds, that was still his ruling.

Trelawney tried to cut in through her sobs she would not be somewhere she was not wanted-

but Dumbledore kindly cut in it was his wish for Sybil to remain here with them.

"Ha!" Sirius barked in triumph, all five of them seconds away from pumping the air in victory. "Dumbledore's not going to let Trelawney just walk away from this!"

Harry was still grinning along with the rest of them even as he distantly wondered if Dumbledore had some ulterior motive for this other than just proving a point to Umbridge. He wondered if he was growing paranoid, surely Dumbledore didn't have to have a second reason for doing everything.

He turned and asked McGonagall to escort Sybill back to her lodgings, and McGonagall kindly did so, Sprout hurrying forward to Trelawney's other side. Flitwick came up behind them and enchanted her luggage as the four went back up the stairs.

"I love this place," Remus said wistfully. His best memories had been collected in those walls, and now he was adding another from a time outside his own. He'd never underestimated how lucky he was to even be going there, to be treated like any other student on a daily basis, and now he was getting the fortune of watching the teachers band together for one of their own again. He didn't even pity Umbridge, but continued waiting impatiently for that toad to be ostracized from such a place already, for daring to tamper with such a home for so many.

Umbridge watched all this with a frosty expression, and demanded of him what was to be done with her when the new Divination teacher was appointed and needed lodgings?

"You'd have to put her in that exact place eh?" Sirius said poisonously. "No other bloody room in that grand castle would be good enough, you also need to invade her room!"

"Dumbledore won't let her," James said with conviction once again, even this small win of Dumbledore's against Umbridge had finally restored his lacking faith in his old headmaster.

Dumbledore pleasantly informed that wouldn't be a problem, his new Divination teacher would prefer a ground floor.

"He works fast," Lily said slowly as they all paused in confusion of this. Apparently this had all taken place in less than an hour, which means someone very close to the Minister must have warned Dumbledore this was fixing to go down and the man acted lightning fast in getting a replacement set even before Umbridge had gotten the paper herself. It couldn't have been Percy, but they couldn't think of anyone else who'd know about this and been able to warn Dumbledore in time for him to go fetch, well whoever was getting the new job.

Umbridge shrilly cut in he'd found a new teacher? By Decree number Twenty-two-

Dumbledore cordially said that the amendment was only there if, and only if, the Headmaster was unable to find his own teacher, and on this happy occasion he had succeeded.

All three Marauders burst out laughing, a near euphoric mood at their headmaster pushing such a loophole into that doughy face!

He waved back to the grounds of the school still visible from the left open doors, and offered to introduce him now. Only the soft sound of hooves was warning before half a man stepped into the light, with pale blond hair matching his palomino body on his horse half.

Dumbledore announced this was Firenze.

Harry gave an awkward smile for this announcement amongst the shocked faces. His only memory of the centaur wasn't a particularly fond one even if his life had been saved by him.

"Well, who would have seen that coming?" Sirius blinked in surprise.

"This certainly is, unprecedented," Remus agreed as Sirius passed Harry the book, very obviously keeping it open for his spot with an obvious look at James who didn't get it.

Lily ignored the lot of them. Though happy Trelawney got some kind of win out of this, couldn't help but say, "well considering he once saved Harry's life, let's at least hope he won't pick up on Trelawney's trend of telling Harry he's going to die."

HPHPHPHP

Glory this was an emotionally messy chapter!

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #OotP #Marauders #Jilly #James Potter #Lily Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black

[kyber-kisses]

Sleep Demons

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: sleep paralysis, nightmares, cursing. That good ol angst and fluff

Summary: Being a hunter, nightmares are just another part of the gig, the only problem? The readers are worst than most.

A/n: Once again, I’m throwing another Dean comfort!fic at you. (Try and stop me.) anyways, hope you guys enjoy and my SPN taglist is still open! I also based this off my own experience with sleep paralysis.

Nightmares were the bane of your existence.

You would think that being a hunter for so long that you wouldn’t be afraid of anything. You had seen everything from ghosts to the very devil himself. . . So what exactly was left to be afraid of? You would have thought the answer would be simple, but it wasn’t. It was about as long and complicated as the life itself.

As a life long hunter the days can easily blur together, and many times it can feel like you haven’t slept for days, but when sleep did come it was rarely ever relaxing. That was when the nightmares replaced the horrors of the waking hours, weaseling their way into every crack and crevice of your mind and paralyzing you with fear. . . Literally.

Your nightmares were worst than what most people had. They were twisted and warped and strong enough to partially make it into your conscious. Most of them were about people you had failed, people you had lost- and then there were the ones about people you were afraid to lose. Like Sam and Dean.

But the absolute worst ones were the sleep paralysis demons that came much too often. It was usually the same shadowy figure sitting at the edge of your bed when it happened. You had done some research on it when sleep didn’t come at all only to find out that it was the concoction of your body waking up but your brain still in dreaming mode, resulting in your nightmares being projected into the real world.

The end result was that the nightmares disrupted your sleep cycle and tried to jerk you out of it early, leaving your body in lock down mode while you were fully conscious. You had lost count of how many times you found yourself paralyzed in your bed. Sometimes you would even try to scream but nothing happened. The noise unable to escape your throat.

You of course didn’t tell the brothers of your problem. . . Especially Dean. He could usually read you like an open book but you tried hard to keep this hidden. You were a hunter. Hunters didn’t get scared. You didn’t need anyone’s judgment- so you suffered in silence.

And that’s the way it stayed for a very long time.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

“Y/N?. . . Y/N!” Dean sighed, his voice raising as he snapped his fingers in front of your face, snapping you out of your zoned out state. He had been talking to you for the past five minutes but only now noticed your lack of attention.

Blinking out of your thoughts, you looked across the table at Dean, finding his face screwed up in concern. “What?”

“I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes- what the hell is going on with you?”

Shit. He was on to you. He knew something was up. Quick, feed him a lie.

“I’m fine! Just thinking about the case.”

At that you watched Deans face fall further, eyes filling up even more with concern. “Y/N we aren’t working a case. Now tell me the truth.”

In truth Dean had been concerned about you for awhile now. The bags under your eyes were there more often than not and this wasn’t the first time you had zoned out. He just didn’t know what was wrong specifically.

“Dean, I’m fine!”

The older Winchester let out a deep sigh, crossing his arms over the table as he leaned forward. “You’re sitting here drinking coffee at 11:30 at night. Sweetheart that ain’t fine.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “I’m just. . . So into this research. It’s a real attention grabber. Didn’t want to pass out.”

The hunter across from you rolled his eyes, clearly not taking the bait. “Well hate to burst your bubble there but that’s decaf.”

“Sam-“ you grumbled in annoyance, shoving the useless drink away from you along with your book. This whole conversation was turning into a train wreck. “I’m gonna kill him.”

The faint trances of a smile crossed Deans face, even if only for a moment. “Please don’t. Sure he’s annoying at times but he’s actually a decent brother.”

He was hoping to at least get a small smile out of you. . . But nothing came. Rolling your shoulders you gave him one last look before pushing yourself out of your seat. There was no point sitting here if you were eventually going to fall asleep. Plus, you really wanted to avoid telling Dean the truth. You didn’t need to burden him with more problems.

“I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” You yawned, already dreading the coming hours. “Good night, Dean.”

You didn’t even give him a chance to answer before you were stepping out of the library and down the dim hallway towards your room, leaving Dean in silence as he watched you go, expression still heavy with concern. He wanted to run after you, make sure you were okay- but he didn’t want to pester you, not when you looked so tired. He didn’t need to annoy you. . . Especially not at this hour.

It was maybe five minutes later that Sam strode in, claiming your now vacant seat as his own, only to find his brother staring off into the distance, deep in thought.

“Dude, you okay?” He paused, seeing he had yet to catch his attention. “Dean!”

“Hmm?”

“What the hell were you thinking about? You were totally zoned out.” Leaning back in the wooden chair, he folded his arms, waiting patiently for an answer.

“Has Y/N seemed off to you lately? Like not her normal self?

There was a pause from the younger Winchester before he answered. “I mean, she has seemed more tired lately, but that’s about it. Why?”

Dean chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to decipher the problem at hand. He missed the usual you. The vibrant and energetic you. Now that he had come to think of it, he hadn’t seen that part of you in a long time. You tried to act like your usual self but Dean suddenly realized there was a tint to it. What he and Sam had been seeing these past few months was just an act.

“God, I’m such an idiot-“ he sighed, head falling forward into his hands at the realization. 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Y/N! What else?” He half shouted, eyes darting back to the door to makes sure you weren’t listening in. “I mean, Ive been worrying about her for awhile now, but I just-.” he took a deep breath. “ Shes struggling with something.”

“Struggling with what?”

“Hell if I know!” Dean sighed, throwing his hands up. “I just tried asking her and she shut me down.”

“Then go talk to her.” Sam tried, seeing clearly that his brother wanted nothing more than to help you. Dean was always looking out for you, even if you didn’t always realize it.

“She went to bed. . . I’ll have to try talking to her in the morning.”

Sam tapped out around an hour later, going off to bed without a word, leaving Dean in a lonely silence. He was only half paying attention to the work he was doing, his eyes having gone over the same paragraph several times but not processing any of it.

It wasn’t until the clock on the opposite wall read 1:30 that he knew he had to surrender and give up. Maybe if he tried he could still squeeze in his average four hours of sleep before he had to get up and get back to work. Maybe it would help get his mind running again.

Peeling himself out of his seat and slightly stretching, Dean set off towards his own room, turning off the many lights that were still on as he went. The silence becoming almost deafening without the buzz of electricity.

It wasn’t until he was reaching for the handle of his own door that the silence was broken, a crash echoing down the hallway from the direction of your room and making him pause. Before he could register his own movements he was walking down the hall. He wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or worry that was pulling him along. Maybe it was both.

The hunter side of him wanted to throw open your door and burst in, but he kept himself calm, raising his hand to rap his knuckles against the door softly. “Y/N?” He paused, only twisting the knob a few seconds later when he didn’t get any sort of response.

He mostly expected to see you tucked under the covers and sound asleep, but instead he was met with a totally different sight.

You had your back pressed firmly into your headboard, knees tucked against you tightly while your hands were planted firmly against the headboard, almost like you had scrambled back in terror. Your eyes wide and glossed over with fear, tear stained cheeks a rosy red.

“Woah, hey. You okay?” His tone rushed as he stepped over the threshold, eyebrows knitting together in concern. He had never seen you like this and it made his stomach drop.

“Just-just a nightmare.” You panted, dragging a shaky hand down your face. “I’m sorry.”

You didn’t want to annoy him anymore than you probably already had. He needed his sleep too and now your stupid little problem had stopped him from that. You should have known this would happen sooner or later. If you had just put your damn laptop on your desk instead of leaving it on the bed, then you never would have kicked it off when you had snapped out of your paralysis.

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.” He breathed, “I get em too.” kneeling down, he picked your laptop up from the ground, setting it on your side table. Nightmares. He should have known. God, now he really did feel stupid.

“You- you can go back to bed. I’m fine.” You stuttered, looping your arms around your knees in hopes of finding some sort of comfort.

“Y/N, you’re shaking. That’s not fine. Now tell me what’s going on.”

Slowly he lowered himself to sit on the edge of your bed, watching you intently and giving all of his attention over to you. He wanted to help. He needed to help.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up. I didn’t mean to.”

“I wasn’t asleep. . . Plus I don’t sleep much as it is. Like I said, you’re not the only one who gets nightmares.”

“Oh.” You say in a lame response, looking down at your hands. You had been clenching them so hard that there were now crescent shaped divots in the skin of your palms. “I think mine can out beat yours though.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look up at him. He was probably giving you some sort of pitiful look. “Not really. But I know that if I don’t you’ll just keep worrying about me.”

“I’m always worrying about you.” He swallowed, “ain’t nothing new there.”

“As a hunter I thought I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything.” You explained, tugging your comforter back over your tucked in legs. “Yet somehow damn nightmares are the thing that is tearing me apart. I think mine are worst than most.”

“Why do you think that?”

Letting out another sigh, you finally looked up, eyes locking with his jade ones. He looked concerned. He looked sad. “The sleep demons. The paralysis. They used to be rare but now it happens almost nightly.”

“I’m sorry, sleep demons?” His tone slightly raising in surprise. He wasn’t expecting to hear that. Hell, he didn’t exactly know what you were talking about.

You let out a soft hum, nodding your head in defeat. “They’re hallucinations linked to sleep paralysis. It occurs when a person is jolted awake in the middle of dreaming.” You paused, trying to find the best way of explaining it. “Basically you wake up - but your brain is still dreaming, and it projects your nightmares into the real world.”

Dean was silent for a moment, taking in the information slowly. You had been dealing with this by yourself? Alone? Why didn’t you come to him or Sam?

 “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you sooner.”

“Didn’t want to bother you- plus, I hate even thinking about it, Dean. Everything about it is terrifying.”

Chewing on the inside of his lip, Dean dared to venture further into the conversation. If he wanted to help you, he needed more answers. “You could never bother me. I need you to know that.” He paused. “Now what is this sleep paralysis or whatever like?”

There was a stretch of silence from your end before you answered. “Awful. In every sense of the word. The first thing I usually see when I wake up is the same shadowy figure sitting on the end of my bed. I don’t know who or what it is, all I know is that it’s a concoction that my head made up. Maybe it’s how I envision fear, I don’t know.” You shrugged. “And when it happens I can’t move. I can’t blink. I sometimes try to scream but nothing comes out. Sometimes it lasts a few seconds. Sometimes a few minutes. And the whole time I just have fear coursing through me. It’s basically like starting a dream and waking up in the middle of it.”

“Y/N, you should have come to me! You shouldn’t have to suffer alone like that!” Dean let out a sigh, giving you one of his defeated looks that made your heart break in two.

He couldn’t imagine going through what you did on a nightly basis. Being awake and not being able to move? Not having anyone to help you? Sure, he had nightmares but those were nothing like this. They were usually about losing you or Sam. . . Or about the people he had failed to save.

“I’m sorry- I just-“ you panted, unable to form words as tears formed in your eyes. You were so tired, and still so scared. Your own mind would be the thing that killed you if this kept going.

“Hey, hey it’s okay.” Dean hurried, shifting so he could pull you into him, his arms wrapping around you to rub soothing circles on your back, almost instantly calming you. “It’s alright. I got you.”

You couldn’t help it that you were practically clinging to him like a life line. He radiated safety and comfort in way that nothing else did. Resting your forehead against his shoulder, you inhaled. He still smelled like cheap motel soap and something distinctly himself. It was calming. You almost didn’t notice that one of his hands had gone to cradle the back of your head, or that his cheek was pressed to your temple. he was just that gentle.

Dean Winchester. Both soft as cotton and tough as nails. That was one of the reasons why he was so dear to you. . . Along with everything else that made him him.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Y/N. I’ll always be here if you need me.” He muttered, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to your head.

“You can go to bed. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” He gave you a soft grin as he toed off his shoes, taking up the empty portion of your bed, and hooking his arm around you, pulling you close. “I ain’t leavin you. Not now. Not ever. Sometimes even the monster hunter needs to feel safe.”

You should have resisted. Told the stubborn man to go back to his own room and leave this all in the past. . . But he felt so safe and warm. He was like a magnet and all you could do was let him pull you in, securing you in his hold.

“Also, just so you know- whenever I get a nightmare I’m coming and crawling into your bed.” Dean mused, nuzzling into your shoulder. “You just signed a contract.”

and that is exactly what happened. Because for almost every night after the first, You and Dean helped fend off each others nightmares. When you woke up frozen in fear, Dean was there besides you reminding you that you were safe until eventually the shadows slipped away. As for Dean, only reality was the woman held fast in his arms.

End.

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#dean winchester #dean winchester one shot #dean winchester x reader #spn x reader #supernatural #bi-danvers writing #bi-danvers0

[thecleverdame]

The Oath - 4

Parings: Dark!Alpha!Sam x Omega!Reader

Masterlist

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Summary: After an unsuccessful escape attempt, the reader finds herself taken as a spoil of war. She ends up in the bed of a ruthless Alpha, the son of John Winchester, leader of the kingdom of Gilead. She struggles to conceal her true identity and navigate a society where being an Omega means nothing more than serving at the pleasure of powerful men.

Warnings: non-con, sexual assault, rape, attempted suicide, sexual slavery, branding, torture, ownership, voyeurism, anal play, smut, violence, and murder.

Sam is dark in this story. If any of the warnings are triggers for you, I would suggest skipping this one. Please read and heed all the warnings.

Beta: ilikaicalie

Chapters 1-11 are currently available on Patreon.  To get access to this and many other stories, subscribe for a pledge of 2.50 per month. CLICK HERE

-

FOUR

The Next Morning

A hand shakes you awake and you forget for a moment where you are. Sam’s sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and pulling on his boots. 

“Get up,” he stands, looking down at you. “You should eat.”

Wrapped in nothing but Sam’s cloak, you sit at the table, attempting to peel an egg one-handed as both the men wolf down plates of eggs, meat and bread. They eat in silence, paying you no attention until Dean finishes and sits back in his chair. Sam has sent a servant to find you a dress, but until then you’re careful not to let the cloak fall open. 

There are men swirling around them, packing up each item with care. They must be getting ready to move the camp. 

“How far do you think we can make it before the storm comes?”

“If we’re lucky we may get to the base of the mountains. But I doubt we’ll make it that far.” Sam forks a hunk of meat, popping it into his mouth. “You hear the wind? By nightfall the snow will start.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing. We’re closer to home every day. How far out do you think we are.”

“A month before we join up with dad’s regiment. Three until we’re in our own beds again.” 

“I can barely remember what it feels like to get a good night’s sleep. To not smell like blood and dirt. I’m ready to be done.” Dean sounds energized at the idea of heading home but Sam’s indifferent. 

“I don’t mind being out here in the trenches.”

“That’s because you enjoy it...I like to strategize but you love to get your hands dirty.” 

Sam’s half listening, watching you out of the corner of his eye as you fumble with a boiled egg. You’re useless with one hand, you wouldn’t have lasted long thrown in with the soldiers. 

“You set her arm?” Dean’s talking to his brother, but staring at you with unnerving intensity. 

“Of course,” Sam confirms, ripping off a bite of bread with his teeth. “She took it better than expected.” 

Sam sighs at your half-peeled egg. He takes it from you and peels the rest before handing it back.

“Are you left-handed?” Dean grins, looking from you to his brother. 

“Yes,” you respond quietly. “I’m no use with my right.”

“Well, let's hope you heal quickly. We can’t follow you around all day,” Dean chuckles, taking a drink. 

“I’m going to address her condition with the men first thing this morning. They brought us an Omega with a broken arm. Can you imagine what else they’re up to that we don’t know about? I’m going to make an example out of them. We can’t have this kind of insubordination going on right under our noses.” 

“It’s best coming from you. They’re already scared of you.” Dean nods, both arms on the table.

The younger Winchester’s reputation is known throughout the lands. He’s a ruthless killer with little to no regard for anyone or anything. All the Winchesters are brutal but he’s gone darker. 

Sam shakes his head, ripping off an appropriately sized chunk of bread and setting it in front of you. 

“Thank you,” you whisper, taking a bite. 

“They nearly ruined her.” Dean taps his fingers on the table. “And they’ve been hoarding gold and silver. When I find out who’s responsible there’s going to be hell to pay.” 

All attention shifts to you. You stop chewing and look from Alpha to Alpha. 

“You said they touched you. Where? How?” Sam asks, resting his forearms on the table. 

Both men stare at you expectantly as your fingers curl around the bread, cheeks flushed red in embarrassment.  

“My breasts,” you whisper, wishing you were somewhere far, far away from this camp and these awful men. “One of them put his fingers...inside me.”

“Jesus Christ.” Sam grimaces, utterly disgusted at the idea. “They’re dogs.” 

“Yes, they are.” His brother agrees as they both turn their attention back to the food in front of them. 

-

Dean stands at the head of the tent, looking at the line of men standing at attention. Sam’s pacing up and down the row with you frozen in place next to Dean. If they didn’t know why they were summoned, they figured it out as soon as the Winchesters brought this new Omega back to the scene of the crime. 

“Do you remember who touched you?” Sam asks. 

You look up in horror as every man looks at you with murder in their eyes. 

“No, I’m sorry.” You lean forward in hopes of only Sam hearing the confession. “I was delirious, in pain and riddled with exhaustion. I can’t remember the faces.”

Sam and Dean have been displeased with the men for months now. The soldiers are compensated well and allowed free reign save for a few exceptions. There are so few rules and they can’t seem to manage to follow them. They’re expected to hand over precious metals and stone, and of course, keeping an Omega is strictly off-limits. 

Last month someone slipped a note to Dean. It was a tip about men stealing away gemstones. It turned out to be an entire operation, almost a dozen men involved in the scheme. Ever since, tensions have been rising. 

“Which one of you found her in the woods and brought her to the camp?” Sams walks up and down the line. 

“I did.” A man steps forward. 

“And you saw fit to throw her from your horse?”

“I didn’t realize she was so delicate,” he chuckles and behind him other men laugh. 

“Who touched her? One of you had your hand between her legs, tell me now.” Sam’s question is met with wide eyes. All of them are silent. They all know what happened was a serious transgression. 

“Either the man who stuck his fingers in her cunt identifies himself or every man here will suffer his punishment.” Sam looks down the line of soldiers as Dean crosses his arms over his chest. 

After a moment a man steps forward, looking nervous as he raises his hand. 

“It was me, my lord.”

“Your honesty will not go unnoticed.” Sam nods, his mouth pressed in a grimace. “And her breasts. Which of you touched her breasts?”

You want to crawl away. This sort of public shaming is nearly too much to bear. 

Two more soldiers came forward, remaining silent as Sam stares at each of them in turn. 

“You, who threw her from the horse. For breaking her arm, you’ll have yours broken as well.”

“Please,” the man breathes, as two larger soldiers take him by the arms. 

Sam ignores him, moving forward to the next two.

“For touching her breasts, each of you will forfeit a finger. Thumbs, I think.” Sam walks down the line, coming to stand in front of the man who touched your sex. “And you, a beta who dared to put his hands inside an Omega, we have a fitting punishment. Your right hand seems like a fair trade.”

“Please don’t do this!” The man pleads. “We didn’t know what she was. Would have brought her straight to you if we even thought she was-”

“Enough.” Sam hisses. “There are rules in place for a reason. You find an Alpha officer and you have him scent her. No exceptions. Let’s hope this is an example for all of you.” 

-

You’re loaded into the back of a horse-drawn cart, nested in fur and wrapped in a cloak. Several servants bring more blankets to lay over you until you’re sufficiently protected from the elements. The snow has started to fall and they’re moving the entire garrison. Headed home after months in the field. 

“Thank you.” You offer a smile to the shivering man, as he lays yet another blanket at your feet. 

The moment you speak he looks at you in horror and scurries away as another woman is helped into the cart. She’s older but unmistakably Omega, her scent is slightly soured, a sure sign of abuse. She settles in on the opposite side, a servant tucking her in. The cook who washed you the night before approaches, handing each of you a cup of hot pine tea.

“Thank you,” you try again, only to have the woman grunt and turn her back. 

“They’re not allowed to speak to you.” The other Omega shifts, cupping her tea in one hand and pulling her hood down to shield her face from the snow. “In Gilead servants aren’t allowed to speak directly to Omegas.” 

“Why not?” you ask. The cart begins to move and you grab your arm, wincing as the pain surges. 

“They’re Betas, and slaves at that. According to the law of the Gilead, they’re not good enough to lick the bottoms of your feet.” The woman stares at you, then your arm. “Who did that to you?”

It’s such a strange mix of sexual slavery and social status. You’ve been reduced to nothing more than your pussy and yet you’re considered elevated. 

“I fell from a horse.” You don't want to get into the details, it makes you sick to think about what happened. And now the men who will be disfigured because they didn’t follow protocol. Being an Omega has saved your life and will now seal your fate. 

-

“Do you have your flask?” Sam asks, guiding his horse beside Dean’s. His brother reaches into his cloak and fishes out the metal canteen. 

“You’re not one to drink in the morning.” 

“It’s not for me.” Sam takes the flask from him. 

“For the Omega?”

“She's in pain. And she’s only going to get colder. The snow is just starting, the storm will be bad.”

They ride in silence a moment longer before Dean pipes up. 

“You fucked her?” Dean poses it as a question but he’s not looking for confirmation. He already knows. 

“What of it?” Sam shrugs. 

“You’re not normally interested in much more than getting your dick sucked.” Dean looks ahead at the line of soldiers stretching as far as the eye can see. “Are you developing a soft spot?”

“Have you smelled her?” Sam asks deadpan, his grip tightening on the reigns. He can scarcely think about you without his dick getting hard.

“I did.” Dean’s not sure what his brother is getting at. You smelled appealing but nothing to elicit this kind of reaction. “Her scent wasn’t out of the ordinary but she’s quite the beauty when she’s not covered in mud and snot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Omega like that, that pleasing to the eye as dad would say.”

“She doesn’t know how pretty she is.” Sam’s horse whinnies, hot air puffing out in the frigid air. He’s quiet for a moment and turns toward his brother. “She doesn't smell different to you?”

“You’re stuck on that?” Dean’s eyes narrow, trying to suss out exactly what Sam is getting at. “Well, you know what they say. Some Omegas are better matches.”

“Perhaps.” 

“Or it’s entirely possible that the notorious Sam Winchester has found a pretty face he can’t ignore.”

“I’ve little interest in women.” Sam shifts in his saddle, ready to end this conversation. 

“She’s not a woman. She’s an Omega and a rare one at that. But if you’re so indifferent, why don’t you let me have her tonight. I did see her first after all. Fair is fair.”

Dean gets the reaction he’s looking for, a locked jaw from his brother. 

“No, you’ll ruin her. You can have her when I’m done with her.”

“Right,” Dean chuckles and Sam reaches over, slugging him in the arm. “I won’t hold my breath.”

#alpha!sam x omega!reader #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester fanfiction #sam winchester smut

[sam-winchesters-lost-shoe]

Shivers

Ship: none

Characters: young Sam Winchester, young Dean Winchester, John Winchester

Summary: Takes place before the show even begins, when Sam is 16 years old and a hunt goes wrong. Sam is kept hostage until Dean and John find him, but he’s in bad shape.

Warnings: Blood, exhaustion, angst, near-hypothermia

(A/N) i did go back to edit a few mistakes I had missed. lol

————————

The sound of water dripping was slowly starting to drive Sam insane.

Every part of his body ached, but all that Sam could really feel was an overwhelming sense of cold. 

His shoes had been taken from him and he was held up by his wrists, his toes barely scraping the cold concrete beneath his feet. It almost felt like he was frozen in place. The icy water pooled around his feet and made him seriously question if it was possible to get hyperthermia in this weather.

The ceiling above him was rotting and leaking rainwater onto his back. It had been raining for a few hours now, and he couldn’t stop the constant shivering as the ruined the roof sent ice-cold droplets down the back of his neck.

It had been 3 days now. 

3 days of nothing but hanging by his wrists in the dark and empty barn, straining his ears in hopes of hearing the familiar hum of the impala’s engine.

The vampire who had taken him hadn’t been back in about 24 hours, which meant that it hadn't brought any water with it. Sam tried to catch some of the water droplets in his mouth, but it wasn’t enough to quench his thirst. Fatigue was really starting to seep in, and his head hung limply against his shoulder. 

The only good thing about the vampire that hadn’t returned was that it had stopped feeding on him. Twice now the man had come into the barn with a bucket and knife, cutting a slash on Sam’s side and letting gravity bleed him dry. When the vampire had enough to satisfy him he would bandage Sam up so he wouldn’t bleed out, but Sam had passed out quite a few times from blood loss. The vamp decided not to put his shirt back on, however, since that would just make more of a hassle for it to bleed him again later. Sam had been wearing only his jeans for days, and he felt like the chill in his bones would never leave no matter how many hot baths he took.

And then there was the bruising. He had put up quite a fight when the vamp originally grabbed him. John has taught him well, but since he was still a fairly scrawny kid, he didn’t really stand a chance against a vampire. He had bruises all over his ribs and face, slashes on his cheek, and what was probably a broken nose. His wrists had been rubbed raw by the rope he was tied up with, and the gashes in his side ached more and more as they probably grew infected.

“Dean?” He cried out as loud as he could, but his voice was hoarse and raspy. Another shiver ran down his spine and a spasm made him move his arm out of reflex. The movement was enough to cause a whimper as his sore joints were forced to move and a tear slipped down his cheek wish a choked sob.

He was only 16. He hadn’t even taken his drivers test yet, or applied to college. His dad and Dean refused to just let him be a normal kid and finish high school.

Even when they were hunting, him and his dad didn’t get along. He had tried telling his dad that they weren’t facing a werewolf, they were facing a vampire. John hadn’t listened. He told Sam to know his place and follow his father who was more experienced. Dean had listened to Sam, but it hadn’t gotten them anywhere.

John led the hunts. They were there for backup.

This time John had screwed up. And Sam was the one suffering for it. No matter how much he tried not to, he was starting to resent his dad for it. He didn’t even want his dad to rescue him, he just wanted Dean here. Dean, who actually believed in Sam and thought that he was a worthy addition on the hunts instead of bait for the monsters.

He had gone along with Johns plan, and look where it had gotten him.

Strung up in some freak vampire’s barn. 

He couldn’t stop shaking, both from the cold and the tears that were threatening to spill over his dirt-streaked cheeks. All he wanted was a warm shower and a log nap, but that seemed to be nowhere in sight. 

Until he heard Dean.

“Sammy!” 

“Dean.” Sam croaked out again, trying to let him know that he was there. He could hear his brothers voice getting closer, but it didn’t seem close enough. His dad was out there somewhere too, calling his name. 

Sam stood up a little straighter, his tears slowly drying as he cleared his throat the best he could. They must have killed the vamp, which was why it hadn’t come back for more blood. They were so close. They had to know that he was here.

“Dean! Dad!” He called out and strained against the ropes holding him in place. 

The voice seemed slightly quieter this time, and Sam’s heart plummeted. They were going the wrong way.

No, no they had to come back, right? They had to.

“Dean!” Sam called again as loud as he could. He didn’t get a response which only made everything worse. It was like the last bit of strength he had was drained from his body and if he wasn’t still tied to the ceiling he would have completely collapsed.

He was going to die here, and they were so close to finding him. So, so close.

Then there was a cracking noise outside the barn and Sam snapped his head around to try and see what was going on. Was it the vampire! Had it somehow made its way back to the barn to finish him off? Sam listened as closely as he could, trying to pick up anything that would let him know who it was.

There was another crack, and then.....

“Sammy!” Dean called out. The younger Winchester almost burst into tears with relief, realizing that the sound was Dean attempting to break down the door to the barn. A few seconds later there was a fist pounding on the door that separated Sam from the outside, and Dean called out for him again. 

This time Sam really did start crying, his response to Dean coming out as more of a slur than his brother’s name. A deafening crack echoed through the barn as Dean shot the lock the vamp had left on the door. 

A few seconds later his brothers face appeared in Sam’s view. Dean took one look at Sam’s blood and tear stained face and felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

“Dad! I found him!” Dean shouted and pulled out his knife to cut Sam down. 

“Dean...” Sam croaked and let his eyes drift closed as relief flooded his entire body. He could have died from happiness then and there.

“Shh, it’s okay Sammy, I got you. Just hold on, okay?” 

Sam nodded in response as Dean sawed away at the durable rope tied around Sam’s wrists. There was a snap as the rope finally gave way, and Sam almost dropped to the ground before Dean caught him. 

White-hot pain shot through Sam’s shoulders and torso as his arms were finally allowed to move. He almost blacked out from the harsh wave of pain that he hadn’t exactly been expecting. He forgot that when you keep your body in one position for long periods of time, it tended to cramp up. And then when you force it to move, it can be excruciating.

“Hey, hey, I got you.” Dean said reassuringly as he clutched Sam to his chest. Despite only being a few days, the younger Winchester had lost a few pounds and had bags under his eyes that were even more dramatic than John’s. 

Sam wasn’t able to force his legs to move at all. He couldn’t even support his own weight and was relying on Dean to support him. Luckily, Dean didn’t expect Sam to walk himself out. 

Dean swept an arm behind Sam’s leg’s as gently as he could so as not to hurt his brother any more. It was at that moment that the impala pulled up outside of the barn as John arrived, climbing out of the drivers side to hurry over towards Sam and Dean. 

The anger Sam had felt earlier towards his dad had momentarily boiled down beneath his relief for being rescued. He knew that after this the anger would come back, but Sam was just too damn cold and tired to care.

“Thank god.” John mumbled and put a hand on Sam’s cheek, only to frown a moment later.

“He’s freezing.” John muttered to Dean. Sam’s lips were practically blue as he gripped onto Dean’s shirt for dear life. The trembling had only intensified and his teeth chattered as Sam attempted a small “Hey, dad.” 

John put a hand on Sam’s cheek and gave him a sad smile. “Hey kiddo. We’re gonna take you back to the motel and fix you up, okay?”

Sam nodded and closed his eyes again as Dean trudged over to the back seat of the impala. He carefully set Sam inside and went to climb into the passenger seat when he paused. Dean stripped off his jacket and flannel before spreading it over Sam like a blanket. He then climbed into the back seat with Sam and pulled his brother to his chest. 

Dean supported Sam’s head with his shoulder and ran his hands up and down Sam’s arms to hopefully warm him up with friction.

“Dean-“ Sam mumbled quietly and reached for his brothers water canteen. Dean immediately knew what he wanted and unscrewed the lid before holding it to his brothers lips. Sam took a few sips and then started coughing so Dean had to take the canteen away.

“Alright, there you go.” Dean patted Sam’s back to help with the coughing as he continued. “We’re gonna take you back to the motel, get you all warmed up, and then we’re gonna get you something to eat, okay?” Dean said gently as he brushed Sam’s hair out of his face.

John clambered into the drivers seat and slammed the door, but Dean hardly noticed as he concentrated on making sure Sam was okay.

“We’re gonna stitch you up and make sure you’re alright, okay? That’s what I’m here for, to take care of you. Even if you can be a pain in the ass sometimes, I’m never letting you out if my sight again.”

John met Dean’s eyes in the rear view mirror and Dean’s jaw clenched. Sam had known that they were facing a vampire. He had known what to do and tried to tell them that they were chasing the wrong creature, but their dad didn’t listen. John was the reason that Sam got taken, and the reason that Sam was shaking so damn hard that Dean was starting to panic.

John looked away first when he saw the steely look in Dean’s eyes, instead focusing on fumbling for the keys to start the impala.

“Just go to sleep, Alright Sammy? I’m gonna take care of you.” Dean said quietly and wrapped his arm protectively around Sam’s shoulders.

Sam did his best to mumble a thank you, but his head dropped down to rest on Dean’s collarbone.

Sam succumbed to sleep before John had even started the engine. His breathing steadied, but the shaking didn’t stop.

Dean was glad that Sam had fallen asleep for two reasons. One, he wasn’t in pain anymore and he probably really needed to sleep. But two, Dean wanted to say a few choice words to his father about what had just happened without Sam listening in.

Dean tightened his hold on Sam and then pulled his jacket up to Sam’s chin.

He didn’t let go of his brother for the rest of the night.

#winchesterbrothers #supernatural one shot #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #hurt!sam #protective!dean #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester one shot #sam winchester #sam and dean #dean winchester #young sam #injured #spn fanfiction #spn

[rowecommaadam]

Terran Trade Authority Interview

Okay, this big text-heavy post isn’t from me. You can find it online over at this website. It’s a great interview with Stewart Cowley, author of the Terran Trade Authority sci-fi art book series from 1978-1980. 

I’m just reposting this as kind of a backup. Cowley doesn’t have many interviews out there, but his candid thoughts are the best secondary materials out there on the TTA. There’s no reason why the original site would go away (and honestly no reason why this tumblr post won’t be erased either!), but a few redundancies can’t hurt. The rest of this post is in the voice of the original interviewer, Philip Banks:

Some time back I got a very pleasant surprise in the form of an email from Stewart Cowley himself. In fact it was something of a shock for me - it simply wasn't something I expected to get despite having had contact from the other Stewart Cowley who is also writing books. Not only that but he supplied a lot of information on the hows and whys of the books. Accordingly, with his permission, I've taken the emails he sent me and edited them into an interview of sorts. I hope fellow TTA fans find it as interesting to read as I did.

Without further ado, here is Stewart himself...

(Stewart Cowley) Someone mentioned your site to me so I checked it out. It brought back a host of memories. Spacecraft 2000-2100AD was the first book I ever wrote and represented a major point of change in my life. I was working as a graphic designer when I had the idea. I was doing work with an illustration agency called Young Artists based in London UK. They happened to represent a new generation of brilliant artists working in the SF arena, and I was really excited about their work. The only outlet for their illustrations at the time were paperback covers, but I felt convinced more could be done with the amazing images they were producing.

I persuaded them to loan me file transparencies of art samples and had them stuck on my lightbox for a couple of weeks. I'd look at them every day, trying to think how they could be utilised. Then one day I remembered a book I'd had seen as a child. It was Jane's Fighting Ships - a survey of the world's navies - and it hit me. Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD was born. Being a designer rather than a writer, I tried to find someone to author the project but couldn't find anyone with the same vision as I had. I wanted someone who could not only create specifications for the spacecraft shown, but set them in a believeable historic context.

I had already discussed the project with Hamlyn Publishing who wanted to do it and issued a contract. As I was running out of time, I started writing it myself and sent sample text to them to keep them quiet to buy time until I could find a suitable author. They liked it, so I thought, what the hell, and finished it. The rest is history as they say.

(Philip Banks) That actually answers a question I was going to ask , which was whether Janes Fighting Ships was an inspiration for the first book particularly.

(SC) The book went on to sell 800,000 copies in eight languages so they asked me to do a sequel. Space Battles was produced in 3 weeks and as you rightly point out in your review, suffered in quality as a result. That also did well, nevertheless, and they commissioned a further title. The strong sales of both books gave me more clout and I was able to insist on having more time to complete the following two titles; Spacewreck and Starliners.

I'm afraid I must also own up to the Galactic Encounters series by Steven Caldwell. I'm not proud of those six books. I was approached by another publisher to write for them, and they offered me enough money for me to quit my job as a designer and become a full-time writer. I confess that I just did it for the dough and all I had to work with were the images that I had rejected for my earlier books. It wasn't only for contractual reasons that I used the pseudonym of Steven Caldwell. So that's the story behind the TTA in a nutshell.

Incidentally, there isn't a combo of the second two TTA titles as far as I'm aware.

(PB) What was the idea behind the combo books? Simply a way for the publisher to re-use material and get more sales or was it a way to do a reprint of the first two books when the later two came out?

(SC) The combo was the publisher's response to requests from their customers who apparently felt there was a demand for it.

(PB) You mentioned pretty much authoring the series entirely yourself - how did Charles Herridge, co-author on Great Space Battles, fit into the picture?

(SC) Charles was the publisher who commissioned the books from me. Because of the almost impossible deadline he contributed some of the storylines and worked closely with me on others so I felt he should share the writing credit.

(PB) Whose idea was the 'Space Warriors' book? It seems to have been the idea of the TTA Books stripped down and targeted at nine to twelve year old readers, so was it a publisher request?

(SC) The request for a title for younger readers came from a publisher (Deans, I think). I was still living in the world of TTA and decided to keep the context for the stories in this title.

(PB) Is this the only direct spin off book from the TTA series?

(SC) Yes, as far as I'm aware. However, there may have been references to the TTA in the Galactic Encounter series, but I haven't looked these for about 25 years so might be wrong.

(PB) It has to be asked, what was the story behind the 'pasta master' modelmaking running joke?

(SC) I'd forgotten about this but it was a nickname I earned at that time because as my friends constantly reminded me it was the only thing I could cook. In order to try and interest some interest in my limited catering, I used to build exotic constructions out of pasta shells, giant clams, alien heads etc.,and stuck together with melted cheese to hide the unchanging sauces beneath.

(PB) Did any of the artists featured in the books thank you for promoting their work via these books? Do any keep in contact with you?

(SC) Yes. After the success of the first book, some of them got more involved and I worked with them on the selections. One or two had not done a lot of work before and the exposure in the books got them more work. I did stay in contact with one or two, like Chris Foss who went on to great things, but the currents of life eventually took us different ways.

(PB) Where you aware that the TTA books were a big influence on the two Homeworld games made by Relic?

(SC) Not at all. I didn't even know about them. If that's true, it's nice to know that the books meant something to some people. Most writers don't really get much in the way of feedback on their work and positive responses mean a lot.

(PB) Which is your favourite book of the series and why?

(SC) The first one was a milestone because it helped to change my life and created lots of opportunities for me. As a book, though, Spacewreck is my personal favourite. Space itself is a mysterious place and I loved the idea of astro-archaeology - starting with a mysterious artefact and working back to try and unravel it's story. Even if it is fiction, the process embodies the same sense of curiosity and a sense of the truly alien.

(PB) Was it a surprise to find a website out there dedicated to your books? Indeed are you surprised at how popular these books have turned out to be?

(SC) A complete surprise! Especially after so many years. When I wrote these, I don't remember there even being a world wide web available to people!

I want to thank Stewart for taking the time to answer these questions in such a candid fashion. Not only were the answers informative but it has solved a long standing mystery as readers of the TTA pages had been emailing me for some time about the Galatic Encounters series being very similar to the TTA books.

#terran trade authority #Stewart Cowley #interview #text

[huntertales]

Part One: It’s Not Fun After The First Time. (Remember the Titans S08E16)

Episode Summary: Sam, Dean and the reader are stumped when they investigate a possible zombie case where an amnesiac man, simply known as Shane, dies and then revives himself once a day. After Shane is attacked by the goddess Artemis, the reader and the Winchesters realize he's not a zombie but instead a God, more specifically, Prometheus. Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader. Word Count: 7,608.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

Every morning for the past nine weeks you've been greeted by the same kind of routine every morning; wake up, complain about some kind of new symptom or pain that showed up overnight, and your least favorite—running to the bathroom to either empty your bladder or puke your guts out. Sometimes you had the pleasure of doing both. All the suffering was worth it, not only because it meant you were progressing well into your pregnancy, but also you finally were about to get a break. The fourth month was upon you, which meant you were supposed to finally start feeling more like yourself again. And while it was true, you had a whole other problem about to come your way. One that you never expected.

It started a week into your fourth month; things seemed to have been going fine at first. Your morning sickness was subdued into a little nausea when you first woke up, but you still had the frequent urge to pee every five minutes. You still had a sensitivity to certain smells and bizarre cravings that made the boys uneasy whenever they saw you happily munching away. While it seemed like everything was going according to plan, you noticed that you craving something you didn’t read about online or the few baby books you owned. You were starting to crave...Dean.

You didn’t know where this sudden burst of affection came from for the man you loved. It came a few days into the fourth month when you woke up morning alone in bed, needing your man. You  wanted to be near him every second of the day, and whenever you saw him you felt a sense of happiness rush over you. There was something about Dean that made you go crazy. You complimented on how adorable he looked first thing in the morning, or how handsome he was while doing the simplest task.

Dean had to admit at first he enjoyed being showered with compliments and seeing this rare side of you. You were always too busy with a case or crisis to make time for your love life. But as the week passed on, you were only getting more persistent to let him know how you felt. The compliments turned into you wanting to be by his side almost all the time, which was the complete opposite of how you used to be over the past few months. He could give you a simple look and you’d accidentally snap at him. Now you were kissing him and sitting on his lap, your fingers always trying to be on his body. On his shoulders, holding his hand in public. Running his fingers through his hair, telling him he’d look good with a beard. Dean wasn’t used to this.

Both of you showed your love and were no strangers to getting frisky when the mood called for it, but you knew there was a time and a place. And while it was always Dean who made a cheeky remark masqueraded as flirtation, you were doing it all of a sudden. He liked this new side of you for a little while...now it was starting to worry him. Dean brought up his concern when you offered him an innocent drink one night while he was skimming through the books in the library, it was a new kind of whiskey in one of the fancy Men of Letters glasses. You mentioned that you made a pit stop at the liquor store after running into town for some supplies and groceries. The final straw came when you told him how particularly handsome he looked without even trying, along with how you picked up his favorite for dinner: bacon cheeseburgers and pie. It made Dean cautiously eye the glass you handed over to him. One of those things made you sick to your stomach just a few weeks ago, now you were willingly making it for him without complaint? “Are you drunk?” The question was random for Dean to  ask you something like that, but it still somehow made you break out into a smile. You didn't verbally answer the man, instead, you wrapped your arms around your neck to bring yourself closer to him. Dean balanced the drink when you nestled yourself into your favorite spot, right next to him. You continued to stare at him with a casual happy expression “Please tell me you’re not drunk.” You felt your smile grow wider at the sight of his concern about your well being as and furrowed your brow from his odd sounding accusation he knew you'd never do in your condition. You quietly chuckled to yourself, as if you were finding all of this amusing. “What? Where did you get that idea?” “I don’t know. You’ve been acting...” Dean tried to think of the proper words to say to explain without sounding too paranoid for his own good. He wanted to share his concern, without making it seem like he was being overprotective like how he promised he wouldn't. “Weird.” “I know I've been all over the place the past couple of months. But I feel different. Good different. Like, 'I want to be by the man I love' good. You know what I'm saying? My body is, you know...craving things.” You explained to him, showing him what you meant when you pressed your body closer to his and hovered your lips over his, just close enough that the slightest movement would connect yours to his. “Well, someone I should say.”

Dean thought about it for a second as you stared at him with an arched brow, waiting for him to connect the dots all on his own. When they did, you saw his lips stretch into a smirk. The kind you knew all too well. "You trying to tell me you're horny?" "Sort of. But it's more than just sex. I just want me and the baby to be near you." You admitted to him the best way he would understand what you were going through at the moment. "I like our family being close. It’s comforting.” “Well, then come here, sweetheart.” Dean whispered. He wrapped a free arm around your waist, pulling you even somehow closer to him. In doing so, he felt your stomach that once was a little bump, barely there to be seen and could be camouflaged. Now it was a little more rounder and prominent when you wore shirts that were starting to become tighter. He loved the feeling. A few moments of silence fell between the both of you, enjoying this rare moment, until Dean thought of something he wanted to share. “You know, you got me thinking.”

"Hmm?" You leaned back slightly to look at him better in the eye as you arch your brow upwards in curiosity, quietly humming your response to hear what your boyfriend had to say. "What is that big brain of yours trying to tell me?"

"Over the past four years of being together with you, I've seen a few different sides of you. From  crazy to bad ass. And while you never cease to make me feel like the luckiest guy in the world," Dean said, his voice dropping to a whisper from what you heard him say next. And the subtle hint he was getting at. "I've never wanted you more than I do now."

You felt your lips stretch into a smile at hearing his own words that somehow managed to make you feel a few different ways. Only Dean could fill with your stomach with butterflies, and yet at the same time make your raging hormones want to jump his bones even more. Whenever he did let his guard down to show you a genuine thought or emotion, you always loved it. You reached up to his level to express your reaction, not with words, but with actions in a way he would understand. You pulled on the collar of his shirt and pressed your lips against his own.

The both of you stood there letting a simple kiss turn into something much more deeper, and more than romantic. While you weren't the one for PDA, liking to keep your affection for one another in private, especially around Sam, the thought of him being in the bunker along with you and stumbling upon the sight of you uncomfortably pressed against Dean's body after he stumbled against the bookshelf with his only free hand still wrapped around your waist, the other still trying to hold onto the glass of whiskey you offered him that started all of this. You had all intentions of acting on your sudden changing hormones, that was, until you heard the inevitable clearing of the throat, coming from Dean’s little brother himself.

You pulled yourself away from Dean when you realize it wasn’t the two of you anymore. Your cheeks felt like they were starting to feel a little too warm for your liking when you saw Sam standing there, innocently coming to the library to do something. Instead stumbling upon the sight of you and his brother getting a little too hot and heavy for his liking. You pretend like everything was normal, quickly wiping your mouth with the back of your hand and tugging your shirt back down in its place. Dean took a sip of his drink, knowing the both of you weren’t going to be getting back your activities until later tonight.  

“I’m gonna go...make dinner. I’ll tell you boys when it’s ready.” You said, trying to come up with some sort of excuse to get yourself out of here before things could get even more awkward than they already were. “Hope you’re hungry!”

“Not after seeing that.” You made a few steps across the way before you heard Sam mumble something underneath his breath. You didn’t miss a beat when you stopped in your tracks, turning back around to give the younger man a glare from his remark. You let him think he accidentally set off your temper, but you quickly broke out into a smile, knowing he was only joking.

You were about to let out a laugh to brush off the situation, but the thing that came out instead was a cough. You quickly covered your mouth and turned away from the boys, a sense of fear coming over you at what was happening. You slowly pulled your hand away when you felt the coughing stop, leaving behind something that felt wet on your skin. You expected to see the same dark red color you’d seen after driving back from your last hunt. Even though it was a little droplet and it happened once, you were driving yourself paranoid that it would happen again. You opened your palm and expected to see blood on your skin you needed to wash away immediately before one of the boys could find out. Only what you saw was nothing. It was just saliva, good old clear spit You let out a sigh of relief from what you saw, wiping it on your shirt and going on your way back to the kitchen to do what you promised. It didn’t take you too long to forget all about your worries, like how you had done just before, going back to your little world where everything was okay.

+ + +

A few days later arrived your second formal appointment with the doctor you fussily picked that was going to overlook your pregnancy, and in five months, deliver your baby. You felt a little overwhelmed thinking about how fast your pregnancy was already going. You still had so much to do, and so little time when you thought about it. You laid on the examination table after one of the nurses directed you to a room after waiting for the doctor to finish up with another patient before getting to the both of you.

Dean occupied his time by looking around the room and slowly pacing around the small area, eyeing the medical thingamajigs and all sorts of informative posters about child birth. Dean promised you he was going to be there for you and the baby ever step of the way, from every doctor's appointment up to the day you were going to greet the new addition to the family in the next handful of months. And he stuck to his word. No matter how this new world was starting to freak him out.

Dean found himself staring at an informative poster about pregnancy and birth, going into very specific details about the female reproductive system and the development of a fetus in the womb. He read all about everything that he knew about from health classes he took what felt like a lifetime ago, instead of boring him like it had when he was a teenager, thinking he'd never been in this kind of situation—a sense of fear came over him. He knew he was going to be a father, he wrapped his head around the fact that you were carrying his kid after seeing the first ultrasound picture. Today was the very first time he was going to see it in person, see their little movements. Hear the heartbeat, too. Discuss how Baby Winchester and Mommy was doing.

What he was freaking out at this very second was the fact that five months or so he was going to watch as you gave birth to this baby. They were going to be doing exactly what he was seeing in the poster. When you spoke his name after seeing him standing there for an awfully long time, you saw him turn around, looking much more paler than normal. You gave him a concerned look and how he was suddenly acting. When you asked him what was wrong, his response was surprising to say the least of what he was so worried about. You leaned back and dropped your concern, knowing there was nothing to worry about. For him, at least.

"I forgot how freaky childbirth is. I mean, there's really gonna be a baby..." Dean tried to form the right words for what he was trying to say. Your brow scrunched up slightly when you saw him make a sliding motion with his hands, as if he was trying to demonstrate what he was getting at. Your confused look as to how he was handling this made him drop his arms back down to his side. "Popping out of you."

“You know I'm the one who's gonna have to do all the hard work, right?" You told him for classification, wondering where he was going to the one who was in labor for God knows how long. You went through the ringer a few times when it came to torture and pain, but none of it quite covered contractions and pushing out a baby. "All you have to do is literally show up, hold my hand and pray I don't break any of your bones from squeezing too hard. And try not to take to heart what I say while I'm pushing out your child."

It was Dean's turn to give you a look from what you said, making you smile at what he was in for. You heard a quick knock on the door before it opened, revealing the doctor that you had met a few times before. Dr. Linda Miller was one of the best in Kansas, that's what a mother of two—soon to be three—told you while you were in the waiting room for your first appointment. Both of you got to talking while you were filling out your paperwork. She figured out this was your first child from your nervous foot tapping and lack of concentration. The mother reassured you were in good hands. Dr. Miller was an older woman who had been delivering babies long before you and her were even born.

Dr. Miller greeted you with a warm smile and a formal hello, like how she had for the first time meeting her. You returned the friendly behavior before you noticed her gaze fell onto the person she'd never met before. It wasn’t hard to guess who he was from his nervous behavior. You’d mentioned him in conversation before, and now she could finally put a face to the baby’s father.

"So, I'm guessing the cat's out of the bag, huh?" She You felt your cheeks start to feel slightly warm from how you admitted to her about how you didn't tell the baby's father just yet. You were too nervous to see how he would react, and now he was the one freaking about all of this. "You must be Dean, right? I'm Dr. Miller. I'm going to be overlooking everything. You’re in good hands. I’ve been doing this since you two were in diapers of your own.”

The appointment went on like normal; you answered all the question she asked you about how you were feeling, what your diet consisted of, and other important information. She weighed you and checked your blood pressure to make sure you were on track, along with measuring your baby bump to make sure they were growing at the speed they were supposed to. All of it was boring things that you figured Dean wouldn’t be interested in. Whenever you glanced over his way to see how he was doing, you always expected him to be staring off into space or looking like he was regretting coming along. But he never did. He sat there and watched all of it unfold with complete and total concentration.

Near the end of the appointment came the part where you were the most excited about; the ultrasound. You lifted up your shirt and watched as Dr. Miller placed on a hefty amount of cold gel she needed in order to properly see the baby. In the matter of seconds you felt a slight uncomfortable pressure on your stomach, all of it was worth it when you saw it on the computer monitor; the fuzzy outline of the baby that you were carrying at this very moment.

Dr. Miller seemed happy from what she was seeing with the baby, everything seemed to be going on the right track with you and then. As if this couldn't even feel more real, Dean realized he was seeing his unborn for the first time. He stared at the screen in awe, realizing the little gray blob was...his. His child.

“The baby might look small now, but this little peanut is gonna be growing a lot more over the next few weeks. So far, everything looks good. Which makes me happy. Now, let's get to the fun part, huh?" Dr. Miller suggested what you had been waiting for before the appointment started. She fussed around with a few buttons until she got exactly what you’d been anticipating since this morning. “You hear that? Music to any new parents’ ears.”

The sound wave on the screen showed you how fast and strong the heartbeat of the baby was. It was a reminder that everything was okay, Dr. Miller remarked about how strong the heart sounded. You felt your hand slip off the exam table and towards the other you knew was creeping forward at what you were hearing. You and Dean slowly intertwined your fingers together and squeezed the flesh, as if to remind one another that this was real. The both of you were hearing your child’s heartbeat for the very first time and seeing their progress together.

You looked away from the screen and to your baby's father, the man you loved with every fiber of your being. The one you planned on marrying and raising a family together. The both of you smiled at one another, in a kind of way that seemed like it was relief. And yet somehow all of this felt like you were finding out you were expecting for the first time. This was happening. You were getting your chance at starting a family and ending a curse that followed you for too long.

The baby was okay, they were strong. Despite what the both of you had went through with the first trial. They were going to be like their parents. In the best way possible.

+ + +

Three weeks passed in total total since the last case you took, and with no progress from Kevin and radio silence from Cas. You and the boys could do nothing more than twiddle your thumbs to pass the time by. You had never waited so long for a case to drop into your lap. Most of the time somewhere in the country something creepy was going on. But...nothing. At this point you'd do anything to get out of the bunker. Maybe you'd pay Kevin a visit to encourage him to work on translating the tablet just a bit faster.

April was coming sooner than you thought, and if the prophet didn't find out what the next trial was before then, Dean would win the deal you made with him. It was to help ease his mind a little more about what you were doing, you had no intention of keeping your word.

You hadn’t thought much about the next trial you were going to have to face, or what happened a few days afterwards when you completed the first one...and coughed up that little bit of blood. You had to admit it freaked you out a from what you saw. Blood was always a warning sign that something bad was going on. But it only happened once in the weeks that passed since then. The doctor said you and the baby were in perfect health. Long as you had her word and you were still keeping up with the same pregnancy symptoms, you weren’t going to worry yourself about something small.

You were showered and dressed for the day before anyone else, having had enough of trying to lay down and get more sleep. You had enough over the unexpected break to make up for the years of sleepless nights. to the times you were lucky to get a few. You were catching up on some notes Sam took from the books he'd been reading, along with trying to find a headline that might turn into a case. You took a small break after finishing off your glass of water and got up to get yourself another one.

During your questions about your diet, Dr. Miller reminded you to drink the eight glasses a day to stay hydrated for you and the baby. Even if it meant you had to pee every other hour. You filled it up from the sink that was conveniently in the war room as you dubbed it and headed back to where you had been working. Bringing the cup to your lips, you tried to take a sip of the drink, expecting the tasteless liquid. Only you stopped when you felt something else fill your mouth. It was warm and tasted a bit like iron.

Your face scrunched up in disgust at the bitterness and quickly spit it out into the cup, wanting to get it out before you threw up what little breakfast that you had. You lifted up the glass for inspection to see what it might be, presuming it might be your body’s way of reminding you about the morning sickness you were lucky enough to avoid for the past few weeks. Perhaps it was a bit of mucus. You had been complaining about a stuffy nose that was turning into a cold. What you saw was none of the above. It was something you thought was never going to happen again.

Your eyes widened at the once transparent color had turned into a dull orange shade. You knew what made the water turn that color. And why your mouth suddenly tasted like you were sucking on pennies.

You headed over back to the sink and spat out what was clearly blood, lots more of it from three weeks ago. This wasn't a few droplets, it was a good amount to give you a scare. And there was no denying what it was from how the dark crimson color clashed with the porcelain white sink. Your tongue lightly brushed against your gums, wondering if you had accidentally brushed your teeth a little too hard. Dr. Miller warned you about how your gums might be more sensitive around this time of month.

Either way, you mindlessly dumped out the glass of water and turned back on the faucet, rinsing out the blood and your mouth as well, washing away any sort of evidence to prove something like this happened. It was bleeding gums, you told yourself. Nothing to worry about.

"What's up with you?"

A familiar voice took you by surprise, making you jump slightly while you raised your mouth out from the blood that lingered behind. You spit out the water  out to see that it was clear. Problem solved and avoided any questions. You wiped your damp hands on your jeans, turning around to see it was Dean who stumbled upon you bent over the sink. He stood there with a skeptical look on his face, clearly wide awake enough to know something weird was going on. You gave him a causal sort of smile in hopes it’d be enough to change the subject.

“Nothing.” You replied. “Why?”

Dean didn’t seem to believe one word you said from the way he kept staring at you for moment, to the point it was making you feel uncomfortable. It was as if he was trying to pick up on some kind of clue you weren't telling him about. He gave up after you stood there and gave him an annoyed glare at his ever present cautious behavior, deciding for the best to change the subject.  "Heard from Kevin?"

"No." You said. You headed over to the table you saw Dean do the same and pulled out a chair to sit down and enjoy his cup of coffee. "Nothing yet."

"What's it been, like, three weeks? What's taking that little brainiac so long?" Dean complained. "It's a book. Read it."

"Just a guess," You said, a bit of sarcasm in the tone of your voice from his impatient behavior. "but translating an ancient language with zero help might be more difficult than we think."

"So, no word from Cas, Kevin's taking his sweet little time, and you're acting all sorts of weird." Dean said. You gave him a look from his unnecessary remark about your behavior that you couldn’t control. "We need a lead before I start climbing these walls."

"Well, in that case, I can give you zombies." You grabbed the newspaper you had been reading this morning and plopped it right down in front of Dean and took a seat next to him. You pulled out a chair next to his after he reached for the paper, slightly curious as to what you found. "Guy gets hit by a car, left for dead overnight, guts spilled out all over the road, then gets up and walks away from it."

"Nothing about brain munching?" Dean asked, wanting more details before he decided this was something worth your time of looking into.

"Remember Bobby's wife? She didn't..." Your face scrunched up slightly from the rather nasty image he painted in your head from what you were about to say. "Munch on any brains.”

“Well, who’s the witness?” Dean was nothing but persistent when it came to questioning you about things he really didn't want to be apart of. Sure, he was itching for a case, but a zombie wasn't on his list or priorities he wanted to be dealing with right now.

“Montana state trooper, twenty-year vet. Checked his pulse, saw his insides spilled out all over the place, pronounced him dead with a capital ‘D.’” You told him what you knew from the news article was able to give you, which was enough to make you curious to see what this was really all about. You reclined back in your seat and placed a hand on your belly to start slowly rubbing in a small circular motion, something you had been since after you were starting to show more. “What do you say? Good enough for you, or do you want to see if you're Spider-man?"

Dean shut the newspaper he skimmed after you told him everything he needed to clear about becoming convinced. It wasn't everyday he got to hunt some zombies. You raised your brow in curiosity, waiting for his answer. He reached for his cup of coffee and began to drink it, knowing he was going to need all the caffeine he could get. it a little faster. You got up from your seat and smiled at him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek for agreeing to the first case you had in almost a month before heading off in of search for Sam, telling him all about the hunt you found.

+ + +

The next morning you and the boys were at the Great Falls police department to speak to the sheriff who had found your John Doe zombie, Jack Wilson. Twenty year vet who didn't seem like the type of person who'd lie about such a thing. Even in a small town you were sure the officer had seen his fair share of crazy. Seeing a dead body run off? That wasn’t an everyday thing one sees while on the job. You found the officer at his desk, a little confused as to why three federal agents were wasting their time on such a strange case when there was more pressing matters going on around the country.

“Since when have the feds started tracking zombie activity?” The officer asked all of you.

“We don’t track zombie activity because there’s no such thing as zombies.” You informed the man, Jack didn't seem to believe the lie you were feeding him from the way he responded. You cleared your throat and folded your hands in front of you, wanting to get down to the reason why you were here in the first place. "Why don't you tell us what you saw?"

“Article said it all—dead as dog poop, guts pecked out, face frozen. People don’t walk away from that.” Jack said. It seemed he was sticking to his story, and there was nothing you could say to change his mind. You pretended to believe what he was saying was some kind of joke from the way you turned your head, hiding the smile that crossed your lips. The real reason why you were smiling was because he might have been right. And it was more than just the kind of monster he saw in the shows and movies. "Zombies do."

"And you don't think something could have dragged him away?" Dean asked, hoping for more solid proof that you were in fact dealing with a Night of the Living Dead situation than someone who was losing his marbles.

“One set of footprints, no drag marks.” He said.

“You didn’t go after him?” You wondered.

“That’s grizzly country. You couldn’t pay me enough to hike those woods.” Jack said, knowing it would be a suicide mission not even his twenty years of service made him prepared not. Well, not without some kind of assistance that made him crack a smile. “Not without a bazooka.”

“Uh, Jack? I got something here.” Your conversation was interrupted when his assistant came across a police report that seemed like something all of you would be interested in. You looked over your shoulder to see she had a coroner report pulled up on on her computer, along with a dead body that seemed pretty torn up. "Came across the wire from Livingston."

All of you headed over to her desk and bent down to see what the report had to say. You stared at the people of the dead body with deep wounds on his chest and body from what you could see. “John Doe—presumably mauled by a grizzly.” Jack read the report before looking over at the picture of the deceased. It only took a second for the dots to connect together as to why the dead body looked so familiar to him. “Holy crap, that’s him.”

“That’s the dead guy?” Dean asked.

“Dead my ass.” Jack mumbled. He backed away slowly and pointed a finger at the screen from what he was about to accuse the dead body of being. After all, he seen the face just a few days ago before he vanished only to pop up again in the next county over. “That’s a zombie, kids.”

“Uh, you know what, trooper? Why don’t you stay here? We’ll take care of this one.” Sam said, persuading the officer to stay where he needed to after he hastily put on his belt and get himself ready to head out. “We need someone to hold down the fort.”

“You sure?” Jack asked all of you, concerned for what kind of danger you might be walking into.

“Yeah, if things go all ‘Dawn of the Dead’ on us, you’ll be our first call.” Dean reassured him.

You managed to make it a few steps before the officer caught you attention, wanting to give you all a bit of advice for what you were about to get yourself into. As if you hadn’t dealt with people back from the dead before. “Kids, aim for the head.”

You smiled at his what he thought was helpful piece of before heading back around for the front door. This wasn't your first rodeo when it came to a zombie who liked to eat an organ here and there after being resurrected from the dead. The real problem was trying to figure out if you were in fact dealing with a flesh-eating monster. Or a cop who was going crazy and you were wasting your time on a case that was going nowhere.

+ + +

John Doe was good as dead. The body lying on the metal table was of the same face you saw back in Great Falls, the one that lead you here to Montana in the first place. You stood next to the coroner with your arms over your chest while the boys stood beside the corpse, finding anything that might indicate a sign of undead life. The deep scars on his chest and face were just as deeply disturbing as they were in the picture, indicating he was in fact mauled to death. The real question was who he was, and how he was able to run to another county—only to face his fate. Human or zombie, there was no way anybody could win a fight against a grizzly.

"No I.D. on this guy?" Sam asked the coroner who did the autopsy, wondering if he had any luck with dental records or fingerprints. Anything that might be able to put a name to a face.

The coroner shook his head from the lack of answers he could provide. "Fingerprints came up blank, too."

Dean took the opportunity to take a better look at the body. He stepped forward to the victim's mouth, pushing up his top lip to reveal a set of teeth that looked in tact with gums that looked bloody from the injuries he sustained. But nothing to cause suspicion on your end. You let out a sigh of defeat when Dean shook his head at the lack of psychical evidence of your own that might help figure out what was going on here.

Sam inspected more of the body and lifted up part of the white sheet, discovering a rather deep gash in John Doe's side that seemed worth mentioning. You took a few steps forward so you were standing next to the younger Winchester, wanting to take a peek at it for yourself when he asked the coroner about it. "What's going on down here?"

"Liver was eaten." He answered. "Best guess a bird got at it."

You and the boys quickly exchanged a glance at one another at what you discovered here that looked like a bunch of nothing. The evidence and testimony from the sheriff weren’t adding up. There was no way your John Doe was a zombie. You took a wild guess and presumed he made a run for it after being discovered by the officer. He was probably in and out of consciousness from his injuries he sustained. His brain set off some adrenaline that made him run for the woods for some kind of safety, only it ended up with him having a face to face with a grizzly bear that ended his life once and for all.

You'd call his death a mercy killing after what the poor bastard went through. From the injuries on his body he went through the ringer a few times with Mother Nature being the winner. He could finally be put to rest after running for his life, for whatever reason that might have been. You thanked the coroner for his time and help before following behind the boys after discovering this wasn't your type of case to waste your time on. John Doe would end up like the rest of unidentifiable bodies in America, unless someone came forward to claim him. You were a little bit bummed at how things turned out. Dean was, too. Just not for the reason you were thinking about. You wanted a case to keep all of you busy while Kevin continued translating the tablet for the next trial, Dean wanted to see a little undead action. It'd been a few years for yourself since you got to see and play with one.

"I got to say," Dean said, letting out a sigh from the dead end all of you hit. You didn't even need to hear his words when you rolled your eyes from how this turned out, heading into the empty hallway to find your way out of here."I am a little disappointed."

“Yeah," Sam said, knowing exactly the reason why. "'cause you wanted to shoot zombies."

"Damn straight I wanted to shoot some zombies. Look, guys, this is about as open-and-shut as it gets, all right?" Dean came to the conclusion you had after inspecting the body with a closer examination. You stopped in the middle of the deserted hallway to talk a little more about the case, your back to the window that looked into the morgue. "Guy gets Mack-trucked, goes down for a nap, wakes up, takes a detour to mama bear's den—end of story."

"Then why would he run?" Sam asked the question that was bothering him the most about this case. Nothing felt like it was adding up right. "He was injured. That trooper could have helped him."

"I don't know." You mumbled, shrugging your shoulders. "Shady past?"

"Y/N, don't guys with a shady past usually have fingerprints on file?” Sam asked. You had to agree with that point, unless your John Doe was good at cleaning up his tracks. It didn't seem likely from how he ended up. Dead in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.

You placed your hands on your hips and racked your brain for what possible reason why a man on the edge of death would run from the only possible chance at him surviving his injuries. You and the boys were so wrapped up in the conversation of trying to make sense of this, you didn't realize your John Doe was about to revive himself back from the dead.

"Maybe he wasn't running from trouble. What if he was running from danger? And he was too scared to get help?" You thought out loud, finding yourself poundering on the idea that this might be your kind of thing again. You bit the inside of your cheek from how your theory was turning you down the supernatural path. It wasn't likely he was killed by a monster that you hunted, but what if he witnessed something of the sorts? He was too afraid to trust the cops, if he told his story it might end up with him spending a few days in a mental hospital. "Whatever it was, the guy's dead now. I guess it's case closed for us."

"Remember what Bobby said, hmm? 'Wood chipper beats everything.'" Dean said. You felt a small smile tug at the ends of your lips from the mention of the older hunter and his words of wisdom. You let out a loud sigh from how you thought this was a case, only to be solved by nature itself. "Yeah, well, so does grizzly bear."

"Guess so.” You turned around to take one last look at the dead body before heading out of here for good, thinking your job was dead. It was now in the hands of the police to pick of the pieces and figure out who the man was. When you peered into the window, you felt yourself suddenly feeling very confused as to what you weren't seeing. You furrowed your brow at the sight of the metal table...now empty. "There was a dead body in there five seconds ago, right?"

A presumed dead body running around the police station was enough to freak anyone out. You and the boys quickly made a run for it after finding out your John Doe wasn't so dead after all. Luckily for you, the basement level of the station was empty without a soul besides your own and the one walking down the hall wearing nothing more than the white sheet. Dean managed to grab your John Doe before he could get too far, pushing him back into the room where he woke up in, making him cooperate from the loaded gun pointed at him.

"You better start talking. What are you?" Dean questioned the man, pushing across the room until he shoved him face down on the metal table where he once laid. You headed over to the window to shut the blinds to give you all privacy, not wanting anyone to stumble upon your own interrogation. Or explain why a man once pronounced dead was breathing all of a sudden. Dean shoved the barrel of his gun against the man's neck to prove he wasn’t fooling around. "If you say 'zombie,' I swear—"

"What?!" The man exclaimed, growing fearful from everything that was happening at once. You weren't' sure what was making him scared. Waking up naked in a morgue, or having a stranger pointing a loaded gun at him asking him all sorts of questions he couldn't answer. "No, I'm not anything."

"Look, two minutes ago, you were room temperature." Dean said. His voice was serious, almost threatening sounding towards the stranger. "You're something."

"Look, I don't know what I am, okay? I don't know who I am. All I know is all I do is die, so if you want to shoot me, shoot me.” The man said, giving you some insight on his life. And how none of this was new to him. “Just promise me you'll finish the job, 'cause I can't take this anymore."  

You weren't a stranger to death yourself, you lost count how many times you had your life cut short. But you weren't to the point where you were wanting to embrace it with open arms. You and the boys were confused as to what was going on here. As a sign of trust, Dean backed away from the man allowing him to stand up, but he remained on the cautious side when he kept the gun pointed at him if he tried to pull a stunt that would end him back where he was a few minutes ago.

You examined the man’s body that was once covered in bear claw marks after supposedly being attacked by a grizzly that was the cause of his death. He seemed in perfect health. There was nothing you could see. Not a single claw mark, no open gash on his upper torso. Not even the faintest scar of the attack was on his body. It was all as if nothing happened.

"All you do is die?" Sam repeated after the man. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Once a day, for long as I can remember." The man explained best as he could for you and the boys to understand. "After a few hours, I'm back."

"What are you, like a real-life Kenny?" Dean wondered, referencing a character on a TV show the man didn't seem to watch from his confused reaction.

“Who?” He asked, not sure what the older Winchester was talking about. You rolled your eyes from how Dean's timing could be when it came to these kind of things. "No, my name is Shane."

"All right, well, listen Shane, we're not gonna find out what the hell you are in here, so you're gonna come with us, okay?” Dean said, telling the man how things were gonna go for him and all of you. “We're gonna run a few tests, make sure everything's kosher."

The word tests made Shane a little nervous to trust three strangers he never met before up until just a few minutes ago, not sure how this was going to end. But what was the worst thing that could happen? You kill him? He already proved that not even death could hold him. Lucky for him, it was your job to figure out strange things like him. And how to put them down for good.

[Next Part]

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[lgbtqiahistoricalromance]

*LGBTQIA+ Historical Romance Novels w/Cowboys, Ranchers, and People of the Frontier and Old West (Includes Fantasy, Steampunk, and Horror offerings this time.)

A River of Time by Dale Chase

- It's 1895 when Luke Straily returns to Gunnison, Colorado, after a twelve-year absence and reluctantly heads to the cattle ranch owned by Jack Hinch, the only man he’s ever loved. Looking to make amends for an intolerable act, Luke hires on at the ranch, but Jack makes it perfectly clear he's unable to forgive or forget just yet. It'll take everything in Luke's power to set things right with the man he wronged and placed in jeopardy before he ran away, but he aims to earn back Jack's trust no matter the personal cost.  Complicating matters, though, is ranch foreman Tim Dutcher, who’s been enjoying a sexual relationship with the handsome rancher during the intervening years and thoroughly resents Luke's intrusion. As Luke and Jack gradually rebuild their severed friendship and renew their former passion,  jealousy flares, leading to a volatile confrontation. Can the men settle matters without any shots being fired?

Devil’s Paw by Dale Chase

- Lloyd Lasky is a seasoned operative for the Whitlock Detective Agency in Denver that often infiltrates outlaw gangs in order to thwart stagecoach robberies. When he’s assigned to infiltrate the Bonner Gang based in Devil’s Paw, Arizona Territory, he’s unprepared for the personal ambush his heart suffers over gang member Frank Metty. Taking up sex with Frank, Lloyd convinces himself that doing so is part of his job in solidifying his place in the gang and learning of their plans. But as time passes, Lloyd not only starts to care for the younger man, but jealousy also rears its ugly head when it becomes clear the gang leader, Merle Bonner, also has a sexual claim on Frank. When the line between self-indulgence and detective work blurs to the point where Lloyd considers not only breaking agency rules but breaking the law, will he be able to ignore his ever-growing sexual desires and successfully complete his dangerous mission?

Untamed by Anna Cowen (Gender queer MC!)

- Outspoken and opinionated, Katherine Sutherland is ill at ease amongst the fine ladies of Regency London. She is more familiar with farmers and her blunt opinions and rough manners offend polite society. Yet when she hears the scandalous rumours involving her sister and the   seductive Duke of Darlington, the fiercely loyal Katherine vows to save her sister's marriage - whatever the cost.

Intrigued by  Katherine's interference in his affairs, the manipulative Duke is soon fascinated. He engages in a daring deception and follows her back to her country home. Here, their intense connection shocks them both. But the Duke's games have dangerous consequences, and the potential to throw both their lives into chaos...

Stealing West by Jamie Craig (Stealing series #2)

- Leon Stroud is wanted for robbery and a murder he didn’t commit. On the run to California with his partner-in-crime, Kenneth, he spots the relentless bounty hunter, Thomas Grady, on the train. The only way to protect Kenneth is to create a distraction, and that’s what Leon does when he flees the train at the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He forces Thomas to chase him, but nothing can prepare him for what it means to be caught. Thomas Grady always gets his man, and Leon Stroud is no exception to that rule. But almost from the moment Thomas touches Leon, he wants the outlaw for something besides his bounty. Driven by desire he doesn’t understand, Thomas repeatedly claims Leon’s body on the long journey from Soda Springs to San Francisco—and Leon only begs for more. An even bigger threat, with a larger bounty, could be the very thing they need to drive them together...or tear them apart.

Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton (Longer review on this site, but suffice to say the cover and description don’t do this novel justice. Robby is as smart as a whip, Trace is a cinnamon roll, and this novel has a lot of tender moments surrounding the MCs as well as the Crabtree family.)

- Being a fugitive in the old west shouldn’t be this much fun. The year is 1860. Robby Riverton is a rising star on the New York stage. But he witnesses a murder by a famous crime boss and is forced to go on the run--all the way to Santa Fe. When he still hasn't ditched his pursuers, he disguises himself as a mail order bride he meets on the wagon train. Caught between gangsters that want to kill him, and the crazy, uncouth family of his "intended", Robby's only ally is a lazy sheriff who sees exactly who Robby is -- and can't resist him. Trace Crabtree took the job as sheriff of Flat Bottom because there was never a thing going on. And then Robby Riverton showed up. Disguised as a woman. And betrothed to Trace’s brother. If that wasn’t complication enough, Trace had to find the man as appealing as blueberry pie. He urges Robby to stay undercover until the danger has passed. But a few weeks of having Robby-Rowena at the ranch, and the Crabtree family will never be the same again. Damn, what a kerfuffle. If only Trace can get rid of the fugitive while hanging on to his own stupid heart. 

The Bibliophile by Drew Marvin Fraye (This was a pleasant surprise of a novel, with multiple examples of healthy LGBT relationships. The author did some good research surrounding the treatment of native tribes and health practices of the time. The May/December relationships are sweet, and not one-sided.)

- Nathanial Goldsmith is the only son of the richest man in the Idaho territory, Jessum Goldsmith, the Silver Baron of the Western Lands, as he is called in all the newspapers. But life in the late nineteenth-century American West weaves no magic spell for Nathanial, who longs for the academic worlds his father has forced him to leave behind. To toughen him up, Nathanial’s father has indentured him to a ranchman, Cayuse Jem, a large, raw-boned, taciturn man Nathanial’s father believes will help teach his son to “become a man.” Cut off from his books and the life he has always known, Nathanial is not only forced to co-exist with Cayuse Jem, but to truly get to know him. In doing so, Nathanial discovers there is more to this silent horseman than meets the eye. And, in the process, Nathanial also learns a few things about life, about human nature, and about the differences in being a man and a boy…  

A Place to Call Their Own by Dean Frech

- Frank Greerson and Gregory Young have been discharged from the Army and are headed to their childhood homes. They both defied their parents in 1861 when they joined the Army. After battling southern rebels and preserving the Union of the United States of America, the two men set out to battle the Kansas Prairie and build a life together. Once they find their claim, they encounter common obstacles to life on the Kansas Prairie in 1866:  Native Americans, tornadoes, wild animals, and weather. When a prairie fire destroys their crops and takes their neighbor’s lives, Frank and Gregory are instructed to find their young son’s aunt. Faced with leaving a destroyed claim, the railroad coming through their land, and dwindling funds, Frank and Gregory must decide whether to leave the place they have worked hard to make their own or fulfill their friends' dying wishes.

Looking for Trouble by Misha Horne

- A trip across the country just might lead to a trip over a cowboy’s knee… Trouble seems to follow Jesse Morgan. No matter how many times he tries to clean up his act, drinking and fighting and picking pockets are about the only things that make him feel good. All he wants when he boards a train headed for Nevada is a fresh start. He might not even know where it is on a map, but nobody knows him there. He just needs a little change, a little adventure, a chance to shake off the dark cloud he seems to be stuck under. What he doesn’t expect is to meet Will Kaplan. A tall, handsome cowboy with a chiseled jaw who pulls him out of a jam five minutes after he steps off the train. He’s ever met anyone like the no nonsense stranger who offers him a temporary place to stay. Will might be stern and have a lot of strict rules, but he’s patient and fair, and he makes Jesse crave things he’s never thought about. Makes him want to cause trouble, just to see what might happen. Will makes him want to do all kinds of things that are definitely a bad idea. Will Kaplan couldn’t care less about people. Everyone he was ever close to is long gone, and he’s perfectly happy on his farm with his animals and just enough to get by— alone. He only heads into town when he has to, and sure never expected to come back home with a mouthy stranger who seems dead set on driving him crazy. Will doesn’t need a farmhand. He definitely doesn’t need one who’s stubborn and reckless and has an ugly temper, even if he’s sexy as hell. Just because Jesse is good company when he isn’t being irritating doesn’t mean Will is interested in having another person in his life for more than a week or two. Excitement and disruption are not things he’s fond of. Just like he’s not fond of this sassy, sullen city boy who seems determined to cause trouble, almost like he’s begging for a firm hand…

Gunslinger’s Lullaby by Jovana (MMF, Bisexual MC!)

- Easy McClure is a hot-headed little spitfire named after her father’s favorite saloon girl. When her father is killed in a range war, she inherits his ranch. Alone now, and facing the responsibility of taking care of a large spread, she packs away her bloomers and corsets and wears tight jeans with a six-gun strapped to her hip. One day, a bleeding cowboy rides up to her house with a bullet in his shoulder. By the time she learns he’s a notorious gunslinger, his whole gang arrives. She has never seen such hot, sexy cowboys in her life, and has a problem resisting their advances. As time passes, she is slowly drawn to them and puts her better judgment aside, surrendering to their steamy seduction. Then the day comes for them to leave. That’s when she must admit she’s in love with each one and faces a painful dilemma -- can her love tame all four men, or will they forever be a group of hard-riding gunslingers dodging bullets and running from the law?

Finding Forgiveness by Ari McKay

- Boston in 1888 is quite urbane, but unfortunately for Gil Porter, that isn’t the same thing as being understanding. When his sexuality is exposed by the scandalous suicide of his lover, Gil is exiled to the small town of Mercy, Texas, by his domineering father, George, who believes life on Vernon Porter's ranch will cure Gil of his “unnatural” desires. Grieving and ashamed, Gil is determined to keep his distance from everyone until he can return home. To his surprise, he finds acceptance at Bent Oak Ranch, especially from Matt Grayson, the handsome son of the ranch foreman. Knowing he must fight his attraction to Matt, Gil courts a local girl, but an unexpected encounter with Matt leads to his discovery of Matt’s feelings for him. Torn between Matt and his desire to be “normal," between returning to his old life and building a new one in Texas, Gil is faced with a choice—appeasing his father or becoming the man Matt knows he can be.

Heart of Stone by Ari McKay

- Stone Harrison never knew he had an aunt; he certainly never expected her to bequeath him one of the largest spreads in central Nevada. But something about Copper Lake Ranch and its foreman, Luke Reynolds, speaks to him, offering a chance for the home he’s never really had.Luke wants Stone to succeed as a rancher and put the legacy of his shiftless father behind him, but he’d also like Stone to share his bed. Unfortunately, Stone is convinced that the world is a harsh place that will never accept two men sharing their lives. Much to Luke’s dismay, he refuses to risk Luke’s life despite the intense attraction they share.The tension between them escalates when a series of calamities strikes Copper Lake. An unexpected and unwelcome visit from Stone’s dandified cousin, James, only makes things worse. Stone’s ability to run the ranch comes into question, but the threat of losing it means less to Stone than the threat to Luke’s life. Stone will do anything it takes to protect the man he loves—even if it makes him a murderer.

Carnival Cowboy by Dale Madison (Trans MC!)

- At the end of a bloody trail, Johnny Redd finds an incredible secret. While struggling with a bullet in his chest, he crawls along the ground until he finds himself surrounded by a maze of quaint carnival tarps. Inside is a world of color, costumes, false hair, nails, eyelashes -- and a man who dresses like a woman. It’s a world of trickery, deception, and lies. Johnny makes it just inside the tent when his strength fails and he faints dead away. When he awakes, he’s reminded of the bizarre reality that surrounds him. It’s that he learns he has been taken care of by a man – er. woman -- by the name of Frenchy Starr. The name rolls from the tongue of this fallen angel, this princess of darkness, this twilight queen. She’s a mystery, a dangerously beautiful mystery, and Johnny slowly becomes ensnared in the trap which she sets. After one night of incredible love, a jealous fan shoots Frenchy. Thinking her dead, Johnny’s heart is broken and he leaves in search of something to fill the hole she left in his heart. Enter Kit Dalton.

The Redemption of Nathaniel Bane by RL Merrill (Novella from The Banes of Lake’s Crossing series, but can be read as standalone.) (Native American MC!)

- In 1860, Nathaniel Bane and his brothers dug deep into the earth on a mission from God, searching for a cache of silver to help fund their new religious civilization. What they found altered them forever and set off a chain of events that changed the course of Nevada's history. Nearly twenty years later, the constant hunger and restlessness has made Nathaniel desperate for relief. A chance encounter in the desert and a meeting with an incredibly powerful holy man will set Nathaniel on a path to redemption—a journey filled with love, blood, and revenge. Will Nathaniel find peace with his soul’s mate, or is he destined to walk the earth alone?

Cowboy Dreams by Terry O’Reilly

- Store clerk Chadwick Algood dreams of leaving his small New England town and becoming Chad Armstrong, a cowboy living a life of adventure in the Wild West. However, Chad is the sole support of his widowed mother and younger sister, so knows his cowboy dreams may never be realized. Chad’s life is turned upside down when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show comes to town and Chad meets Bo Miller, a roustabout with hopes and dreams of his own. A relationship quickly develops which deepens the young store clerk’s longing for his dream for a new life. Eventually, news from England sends Chad’s mother and sister across the Atlantic. Chad decides to stay in the US. Traveling from town to town in search of Bo and the Wild West show, Chad meets ranch owner Leon Scruggs in a bathhouse and feels an instant connection with the hot cowboy. Which cowboy dream will Chad choose? Or will fate choose for him?

Grow Wild by KM Penemue (f/f!)

- Josie has been drifting from town to town for years, surviving on whatever work she can find. When she rolls into Rio Plato, however, it's not work she's hunting, but an old enemy. Dahlia Wheeler owns the Sentimental Lady saloon and brothel, where Josie stays. But though Josie feels the pull between her and Dahlia, she refuses to get involved and risk dragging Dahlia into her plans for revenge and the aimless life she leads—assuming she doesn't wind up with a noose around her neck.

A Cowboy’s Heart by JM Synder

- Ranch hand Tommy Prout thinks he's in love ... with his boss, Hal Bolstrum. Problem is, Hal's engaged to be married to the ranch owner's daughter and, though he knows of Tommy's crush, he sees it as nothing more than harmless affection. When payday rolls around and the other cowboys want to ride into town to check out the girls at the Wildhorse saloon, Tommy tags along to throw off any suspicion anyone might have about his feelings for his boss. He sure as hell doesn't want to spend his money on any of the soiled doves the town has to offer. At the bar he meets Lila, an enterprising young working girl who takes a liking to him. When Tommy says he wants to be left alone, Lila suggests he rest in her room -- with the promise they don't have to actually do anything. But Lila isn't like the others, and when she discovers Tommy is more scared of her than attracted to her feminine charms, she lets him in on a little secret. Lila's real name is Stephen Marsh. He lives as a woman, moving from saloon to saloon, pleasing men for money. He loves men and enjoys his work, and what others don't know about what's under his skirt doesn't bother him. In all his years on the prairie, he's never met someone quite like Tommy. When he discovers Tommy is sweet on Hal, he suggests teaching the cowboy just how to please a man. He doesn't mean to lose his heart to Tommy in the process. With "Lila" in his life, Tommy begins to dream of someone softer than Hal, someone pretty when dolled up but still man enough where it counts. Someone like Lila. As his feelings deepen, can he use Lila's own teachings to win the heart he really loves?

On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch by Shelter Somerset

- It’s 1886, and Chicago is booming, but for nineteen-year-old Torsten Pilkvist, American-born son of Swedish immigrants, it’s not big enough. After tragically losing a rare love, Tory immerses himself in the pages of a Wild West mail-order bride magazine, where he stumbles on the advertisement of frontiersman and Civil War veteran Franklin Ausmus. Torsten and Franklin begin an innocent correspondence—or as innocent as it can be, considering Torsten keeps his true gender hidden. But when his parents discover the letters, Tory is forced out on his own. With nowhere else to go, he boards a train for the Black Hills and Franklin’s homestead, Moonlight Gulch.Franklin figures Tory for a drifter, but he’s lonely after ten years of living in the backcountry alone, and his “girl” in Chicago has mysteriously stopped writing, so he hires Tory on as his ranch hand. Franklin and Tory grow closer while defending the land from outlaws who want the untapped gold in Franklin’s creek, but then Franklin learns Tory’s true identity and banishes Tory from his sight. Will their lives be forever tattered, or will Torsten—overhearing a desperate last-ditch scheme to snatch Franklin’s gold—be able to save Moonlight Gulch and his final shot at love?

Eden Springs by Ada Marie Soto

- In the boomtown of Eden Springs, someone is spilling the blood of children. Desperate, the sheriff calls in ex-Union scout Aaron Byrne to stop them. For the lawman for hire, it's just another job-until he meets Jonah Mann, the town's Oxford-trained astronomer-cum-schoolteacher. Aaron never stays in one place for long, but a few stolen glances from the eccentric professor begin to test his resolve to move along once the job is done. Now a telescope, a whorehouse bathtub, and a cup of Chinese tea could change Aaron's own stars forever. A Timeless Dreams title: While reaction to same-sex relationships throughout time and across cultures has not always been positive, these stories celebrate M/M love in a manner that may address, minimize, or ignore historical stigma.

Bitter Springs by Laura Stone (POC MC!)

- In 1870s Texas, Renaldo Valle Santos, the youngest son of a large and traditional family, has been sent to train with Henry “Hank” Burnett, a freed slave and talented mesteñero—or horse-catcher—so he may continue the family horse trade. Bitter Springs is a sweeping epic that takes themes from traditional Mexican literature and Old Westerns to tell the story of a man coming into his own and realizing his destiny lies in the wild open spaces with the man who loves him, far from expectations of society.

The Dino Rancher’s Winter Bride by Eloise Sumner (f/f!)

- Eleanor Fields is from a well-to-do big-city family that’s looking to expand its industry out West. Looking to make connections, her father arranges her to be married to Jacob Hammond of Vanwell Ranches.After years of work, Jesse Vanwell has just won back her family home, the Vanwell estate, from the vile Jacob Hammond. But taking his assets comes with a surprise – a city bride.Jesse’s got no need for a wife, but Eleanor doesn’t want to be sent back to her family. A storm is brewing on the horizon, as is the threat of Jacob Hammond returning to reclaim what he lost.

To Hell You Ride by Julia Talbot

- Big Roy is a hard-rock miner with a not-so-secret love for the theater, so when he hears a new troupe of actors are coming to the Telluride Opera House to put on a Shakespeare play, he saddles his mule and makes the trek into town to see it. The play doesn’t disappoint, but the beautiful lead actor, Edward Clancy, certainly does. Clancy is rude and arrogant, and Roy figures he’d never have a chance with such a man. He’s wrong, because Clancy needs some entertainment himself, being stuck in a hellish mining town for the long, snowy winter. Come spring, though, Clancy knows he’s going to want to move on, and he thinks Roy will be easy to forget. Then tragedy hits, and Clancy has to rethink his entire life. Can these two strike gold?

Home Before Sundown by Tinnean

- George Pettigrew and his papa must leave the California rancho they'd lived on since his birth. They end up in New York City, where Papa marries and George gets a new beloved mama. George also meets Frank and Bart who become fast friends, and in Bart's case, even more.The start of the Civil War leaves George the man of the family, but although he’s found a job, it’s difficult to pay the ever-increasing rent. Then Papa dies at Appomattox and Mama falls ill.After Mama dies, her father takes George’s siblings. When George learns his younger sister is being abused, he rescues the three children. But will dressing his sisters as boys and himself as a woman be enough of a disguise to keep them safe until they can reach the valley he’s dreamed of? Will Bart leave behind his own family and go with the man he loves?

A Hard Ride Home by Emory Vargas

- It’s hard enough returning to his birthplace to replace a dead man as sheriff. The last thing Emmett needs is to find himself smitten with Jesse, the whore he arrests almost immediately upon arrival. Especially since Jesse works for his half-sister and at her thoroughly disreputable saloon. But being smitten with a whore is only the beginning of Emmett’s troubles. Silver Creek is a town full of secrets and people too terrified to talk. Why does Emmett’s father, the mayor of Silver Creek, have such a strong hold on the town—and on Jesse?

A Little Sin by Sionnach Wintergreen (Just finished this one the other day, and it’s such an intelligent read. Having lived in the area where this takes place, I can say Wintergreen was totally accurate with her details involving the treatment of “racism, homophobia, and sexism“. The mystery portion is solid, and a WOC is shown as bright and appreciated by Garland and Avery.)

- Sheriff Avery O’Rourke has tried to obey his strict Christian faith and lead a “normal” life. In 1923 in a rural East Texas town, “normal” means heterosexual. A cholera outbreak has made Avery a young widower, so he is married to his job. When a murder investigation forces him to confront his truth, will he finally be able to accept being gay?

Veterinarian Garland Sands has returned from Europe to take over his father’s practice. Struggling with shellshock (PTSD) and heartbroken by the suicide of his French lover, he resigns himself to a quiet, solitary life as a country vet. But the murder of the town doctor brings the sheriff to Garland’s doorstep looking for help with the investigation. Seeing Avery awakens dormant feelings. Can he love a man who hates what he is?

This isn’t the lavish 1920s of The Great Gatsby. This is the flip side of that coin—rural East Texas. No electricity. No indoor plumbing. No flappers. In 1923, the timber barons have left and racism, homophobia, and sexism thrive.

A Little Sin is a realistic mystery with unlikely heroes and a timeless romance between lovers caught in a world where their love is forbidden. This book contains steamy sex scenes and is intended for adults only.

Interested in some Fantasy, Steampunk Western or Horror with your Western by some of your favorite historical romance writers? Try these reads below the cut...

The Devil’s Land collection from @lessthanthreepress includes more traditional historical novels, fantasy, and steampunk offerings in frontier areas that are real (US, Australia, etc) and fictional.

Bushrangers series by Jack Byrne

- Having long ago lost his wife and children, cattleman Jim Kelly works the family farm in the harsh 1800s Australian outback, most days wondering why he bothers. That question is foremost in his mind when a venomous snake takes him by surprise. Another surprise comes when a skilled doctor is in the vicinity to save his life. But the third, and biggest, surprise for Jim is falling hard and fast for that man. Life on the lam is tough, and bushranger Mark Turner simply wants to maintain his freedom as long as he's able. Unfortunately, being a doctor, his conscience won't let him leave a snakebite victim to die. Before he thinks about the consequences of his humanitarian actions, he's both saved Jim and become smitten with him. But considering how Mark's past could negatively impact any possibility of a future, maybe falling in love wasn't such a great idea after all.  

Venom Valley series (Cowboys & Vampires, Stakes & Spurs, Blood & Stone) by Hank Edwards

- In the frontier town of Belkin’s Pass, as a vampire quietly feeds on the local saloon girls and their customers, a tragedy teaches resident Josh Stanton he has the ability to raise the dead. Knowing he is now a wanted man, Josh flees into the arid plains of Venom Valley.

Dex Wells, the town deputy and Josh’s best friend, catches up with Josh. During the confrontation, both men realize their friendship is truly something deeper, and Dex has to decide if he’s a man of the law, or a man in love.As Josh and Dex ponder a viable course of action, the vampire circles ever closer, drawn by Josh’s power and gathering his forces against them.

Once Upon a Time in the Weird West by Jamie Fessenden, Andrew Q. Gordon, Jana Denardo, Kim Fielding, Shira Anthony, Tali Spencer, Venona Keyes, Lex Chase, C.S. Poe, Nicole Kimberling, Ginn Hale, Astrid Amara, Langley Hyde                           

- This isn’t the same old Wild West. The usual suspects are all present: cowboys, outlaws, and sheriffs. There’s plenty of dust, tumbleweeds, horses, and cattle on the range, but there are also magical gems, automatons, elementals, airships… even dinosaurs and genetically modified insects. Roaming among the buffalo and coyotes, you’ll encounter skinwalkers, mad engineers, mythical beings cloaked in darkness, and lovers who stay true to their oaths… even beyond the grave. On this frontier are those at the mercy of their own elaborate devices as well as men whose control of time and space provides a present-day vision of the West. There might even be a dragon hidden amongst the ghost towns and wagon trains.If you like your Westerns with a splash of magic, a touch of steampunk, and plenty of passionate romance between men, these genre-bending tales will exceed expectations. Hold on to your hats, cowboys and cowgirls. The West is about to get weird, and you’re in for a hell of a ride.

Brought Forth by Josie Finch (I know MPREG isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this was an engaging novel with lessons on family and acceptance.)

- Henry Merrill escaped the abusive family from his childhood and has built a life as the kindhearted handyman for the small town of Ashford in the 1880’s. Henry has every intention of living his life alone, serving the town he considers home. But an angel named Cory-Elle has other plans for Henry. With a soul that needs to be brought to earth, Cory-Elle gives Henry the opportunity to raise the family he never imagined he would have. Dr. Lawrence Turner has a bad reputation in Ashford for attending to poor patients who cannot pay him and for being the only physician the town has ever seen make house calls to the local brothel. So when a young man claiming an angel has made him pregnant arrives in his office, Dr. Turner is not surprised. Despite his disbelief, Lawrence has few things to lose in tending to Henry—though Lawrence never counted on his heart being one of those things. With the help of the doctor’s assistant Ben Lockhart and a saloon woman named Lily Mae Pepperidge, Henry and Lawrence must challenge everything they thought they knew about faith and family. Together they encounter pain, joy, sorrow, and pleasure. But among it all, they discover love. Standalone. HEA. Mpreg (Male Pregnancy) is a primary theme.

The Serpent and the Angel by MD Grimm (The Shifters Book #8)

- In the year 1866, Sheriff Tobias Goldstein guards a small mining town in the Colorado territory with a cold and merciless hand. A rare rattlesnake shifter, he lives by a code and expecting others to do the same has kept the peace—until a nameless stranger wanders into town. Intrigued by the lone man, Tobias names him Angel Smith, and sensing he’s trustworthy, he deputizes Angel.

A guardian at heart, golden eagle shifter Angel protects the townspeople, but his dedication is to an ancient scroll capable of great destruction. For generations, Angel’s family protected the artifact with their lives. Now something has returned to hunt down the scroll. Forced to leave his tribe, Angel enjoys the quiet he’s found with Tobias, who hides a warm heart under his aloof exterior. Angel knows the quiet will not last and fears the battle on the horizon. But with Tobias at his back, Angel might stand a chance against his enemies.

Wild Wild Hex by Jordan L Hawk (Hexworld 3.5)

- After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

The Mechanical Chrysanthemums by Felicitas Ivey (POC MC!)

- Hachisuka Narihiro is a pilot in the Shogun’s elite unit of musha-ki, robotic armor automated by steam and magic for the defense of Nippon in a slowly modernizing 19th Century, when he’s requested to help with political negotiations. Compromises are difficult, with American Admiral Perry determined to open Japan to the West but only on his terms. Like most Western leaders, the admiral is unaware of the advances the Japanese have made with steam and thinks Nippon is an isolated and backward nation. Narihiro’s uncle, the twelfth Tokugawa Shogun, believes Narihiro is the best man for the duty. Despite his extensive training, plans might not go as well as expected.With the American delegation comes closeted former Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, Maarten Zook, a shy translator who catches Narihiro’s interest. As negotiations stall, the Japanese are left with few options to convince America that Nippon is its equal. Japan is ready to open its borders, but a show of force may be needed, and that force may destroy the budding relationship between Narihiro and Maarten.

Heartaches & Hoofbeats by Maz Maddox

- Like all centaur shifters, Sheriff Calhoun is the epitome of honor. He protects his small town of Stallion Ridge and its people from any threat large or small.When word comes in that the notorious Iron Bandits are making a play for a train in his territory he’s both livid and invigorated. If anyone can bring these thieves to justice it’s him and his crew.What he did not expect was having a charming, whiskey-eyed outlaw dumped in his lap that challenged everything he thought he knew.

Honey From the Lion by Jackie North

- Soulmates across time. A love that was meant to be.In present day, Laurie, tired of corporate life, takes a much-needed vacation at Farthingdale Dude Ranch.The very first night a freak blizzard combined with a powerful meteor shower takes Laurie back to the year 1891. When he wakes up in a snowbank, his only refuge is an isolated cabin inhabited by the gruff, grouchy John Henton, who only wants to be left alone. His sense of duty prevails, however, and he takes Laurie under his care, teaching him how to survive on the wild frontier. As winter approaches, Laurie's normal fun-loving manner make it difficult for him to connect with John, but in spite of John's old-fashioned ways, the chemistry between them grows. Sparks fly as the blizzard rages outside the cabin. Can two men from different worlds and different times find happiness together?

Song of Oestend series by Marie Sexton

- Symbols have power…Aren Montrell has heard tales of the Oestend wraiths – mysterious creatures which come in the night and kill anyone who’s not indoors. Aren’s never had reason to believe the stories, but when he takes a job as a bookkeeper on the BarChi, a dusty cattle ranch on the remote Oestend prairie, he soon learns that the wraiths are real. Aren suddenly finds himself living in a supposedly haunted house and depending on wards and generators to protect him from unseen things in the night. As if that’s not enough, he has to deal with a crotchety old blind woman, face “cows” that look like nothing he’s ever seen before, and try to ignore the fact that he’s apparently the most eligible bachelor around.Aren also finds himself the one and only confidante of Deacon, the BarChi’s burly foreman. Deacon runs the BarChi with an iron fist and is obviously relieved to finally have somebody he can talk to. As their relationship grows, Aren learns there’s more to Deacon and the BarChi than he’d anticipated. Deacon seems determined to deny both his Oestend heritage and any claim he may have to the BarChi ranch, but if Aren is to survive the perils of Oestend, he’ll have to convince Deacon to stop running from the past and finally claim everything that’s his.

Brothers of the Zodiac: Earth by Maxwell Thomas

- Stories of the three Earth signs, Virgo, Capricorn, and Taurus

Virgo: Needles has just lost his brother, and goes to the florist that pays the Outfit for protection. But when he goes to collect money from him for the Outfit, he realizes that the florist is not as gentle as he seems.

Capricorn Jack Casement has two months to find his heir because the Lady Ishtar finds him wanting. Will the man he chooses be his lover or his heir?

Taurus For the third time Isaiah has been kicked in the ribs and realizes he needs a ranch-hand. What he gets is something much more.

Cast From the Earth by Leandra Vane (Frontier zombies, but mainly a wonderful metaphor for social acceptance for LGBT persons and persons with disabilities as well as important concepts on what a family truly is. MMF poly relationship and FF relationship.)

- An epidemic that turns men into monsters has seized the nation. At first the disease only spreads in cities but soon cannibals are roaming the prairie, threatening the quiet little towns of the late 19th Century heartland. At an isolated poor farm in rural America, Sara Warren has survived a tumultuous life of loss and an accident that leaves her with one leg – but she is hopeless of any other future until a woman named Cordelia arrives at the farm and changes Sara's life forever. Along with Dan, a man who can't hear and Grace, a young woman who is more concerned with her sewing needles than people, they face the oncoming apocalypse with their wits and their bare hands. When it seems like all is lost, a man from Sara's past named Jack returns to her life and they all realize the only way to survive is together. A story of romance, violence, sex, and the wild prairie that proves broken bodies still feel pleasure and broken souls can find love – even at the end of the world.

Jack Wolfe by Kay Walker

- Henry Dalton is sent across the country by train to the western town of Woolridge in order to investigate the werewolf problem they’re having during the monthly moon cycle. The townsfolk are not forthcoming with information, making it difficult for Henry to solve the case. Even more distracting is Jack, a handsome older lycanthrope. Known for his rebellious youth, Jack has settled down into life and routine in Woolridge, working as the local blacksmith. He assures Henry he’s no longer trying to stir up trouble, that those days are long gone. Henry must attempt to ignore the spark between them, the indication of their potential to become mates, which is rare because Henry is human. Henry remains professional and focuses on his job, but each meeting with Jack adds to the draw, and Henry isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to resist. A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2015 Daily Dose package "Never Too Late."

*“Homos on the Range” How gay was the West?

NOVEMBER 1, 2005 by JANA BOMMERSBACH

#historical romance #lgbt romance #queer romance #bisexual romance #m/m romance #f/f romance #lesbian romance

[justanoutlawfic]

Robin’s Revenge: Part 8

Based on a plot twist that I was sent by @queen-of-the-merry-men, but with a bit of a happier ending (if you could call it that?). For OQ AngstFest...Prompts: 20, 28, 35, 38, 42

Also on AO3

Regina had been nervous when Evie said she wanted to move out to California for college. It was all the way across the country and it wasn’t like she could drive there quickly if anything went wrong. Evie also had a huge heart. A good kid, she cared about others, but she went out of her way to help people and that sometimes could land her in a boatload of trouble.

 Robin had talked her into it. He reminded her that because of her big heart, it meant she was a smart kid, a good kid. She could take care of herself, he trusted her. He trusted that she could handle all of what life threw at her.

 “It’s time we let her spread her wings,” he had told Regina after they had visited San Diego State University.

 So, Regina had relented. On the condition that Evie called at least once a week and e-mailed frequently so they knew she was alive, she could go out west.

 The day they dropped her off at her dorm and headed back to the airport was the hardest of Regina’s life. This was the fourth child she was putting through college (they had already dropped Bryony off in Boston) and this was the furthest any of them had gone. She had been worried when Henry chose New York, but that was nothing compared to what was going on now.

 Overtime, Evie seemed to prove that she was doing just fine. Her first semester she made the Dean’s list and showed off lots of friends on Facebook. She even worked a part time job during all of it. She seemed like superwoman in Regina’s eyes and Robin just reminded her that she took after her mom, so hardworking and sociable.

 Little did they know, despite how great she was doing…Evie was holding back a huge secret.

 Regina would never forget the day she got the call. She had just gotten through putting together a seating chart for a wedding she was planning when an unfamiliar number came through her personal phone. She almost pressed ignore, thinking it might be a sales call, but then she noticed it was a California number. Sliding the green bar over, she held the phone to her ear.

 “Hello?”

“Is this Regina Locksley Mills?”

“Yes, this is she.”

“My name is Detective Weaver, I’m calling you from San Diego.”

Regina’s heart shot to the bottom of her stomach. “Is my daughter okay?”

“I’m sorry to report that she’s just been rushed to the hospital. She suffered a gunshot wound.”

“A gunshot wound?!?” Regina jumped out of her seat. “Wait, wait, I’m confused. Was she mugged?” She began pacing the area around her desk. This was what she was afraid of. San Diego wasn’t like Storybrooke, there was far more crime. “Who did this to her?” The tears burned in her eyes and it was taking all she had not to cry.

“Mrs. Locksley Mills, your daughter wasn’t mugged. She was at a known drug dealer’s house when a rival cased the place?”

“Is she…is she okay?”

“She’s in critical condition. The hospital will have more information for you.”

 Weaver gave her the name and Regina quickly scrawled it down, throwing open her laptop to look up the first flight to California. Henry could look after his younger sibling, she’d go get Robin at work. As she was typing in the travel website, she swallowed a bit.

 “Detective…what was the drug dealer’s name?”

“Zelena Greene.”

Robin had once thought the longest ride of his life was when he got the call that there was a baby for him at the hospital. He hadn’t even known that Zelena was pregnant and suddenly, there was her baby waiting on him. A little girl that was his, that would be his daughter.

 Little did he know at the time that someone had interfered and he wouldn’t end up with the baby Zelena had delivered, but he had still be afraid.

 That was nothing compared to the ride to the airport, followed by the nearly 6 hour flight to California. It was about as silent as the first ride, Regina hadn’t said anything since breaking into Aesop’s, tears streaming down her face. He had shouted some orders at Will, confirmed that their youngest child was being taken care of and off they went.

 He thought of Zelena, the biological mother of his second daughter. He hadn’t heard a word from her since she signed away her rights, as far as he knew she had denied any contact with Evie. How had the two of them been in touch? Since when was Zelena a drug dealer? The last time he had known her, she had been a dancer, she was just trying to find her way in life.

 How had he allowed any of this to happen? Regina had been convinced that California would be a bad idea, but he insisted. Evie was a good kid, she had her head screwed on straight. If it had been Bryony or Roland, he would’ve been worried. They were also good kids, but not the most responsible. Though, he wouldn’t have even expected them to get caught up with a drug dealer of all people.

 He knew he couldn’t have predicted it, but guilt burned his gut. He was supposed to look out for his kids, he was supposed to tell when something bad was about to happen. Robin had known that Bryony wasn’t really meeting up with friends the night she snuck out to a wild party. He had known that Henry was dating someone in secret long before he introduced Jacinda to their family. The kids liked to joke that he not only had eyes in the back of his head, they followed them everywhere.

 How could he have not seen this coming? How could he not have been able to protect his little girl?

 What if he lost her?

 Oh God, he could lose her.

 Because of Cora, he had missed 3 years of her life and he had never been able to shake that. Over the years he had found ways to make up for it. They spent as much time together as they could, they bonded over soccer and cooking. He was the one she went to when her first boyfriend broke up with her. He knew how to make her smile, how to get her to open up. They had come a long way from the little girl that sobbed and claimed she didn’t want a father. They had 16 amazing years as father and daughter.

 And Robin could lose it all due to some drug dealers with guns.

 As soon as they landed, they got in a cab and headed to the hospital. They didn’t have a hotel room, their duffel bags were packed with things that Regina thought they’d need but they still weren’t sure of her condition. They got the run around at first, but when it became clear that they were the parents of the 19 year old that had been gunned down, they were directed to a doctor’s office where he explained it the best he could.

 Evie had been found in Zelena’s apartment, she had been shot twice in the stomach and once in the shoulder. They had done surgery as soon as she arrived, but things were still pretty touch and go. Evie had lost a lot of blood and they had done a transfusion, yet the next few hours were going to be pretty crucial. Already, the bullet was going to hinder the use of her shoulder for the next year.

 Zelena had gotten out of all of it unscathed, which angered both of them. They didn’t want her dead-or maybe Robin did, he wasn’t sure what was the anger in him and what was the rational-but the fact that she hadn’t been hurt and their little girl had was too much. She was arrested given the amount of drugs around, which meant less answers than anything. They were lead to Evie’s room and prepared that she’d be hooked up to some machines but they were all for her own good.

 Seeing her laying there in that hospital bed, she seemed so tiny, so much younger than 19.  True to the doctor’s word, she was hooked up and her left arm was in a sling. Regina inched her way forward, pushing a strand of the young girl’s blonde hair out of her face. She kissed the center of her forehead and let out a deep breath.

 “Oh Evie, what the hell happened?”

 Robin walked to the other side of his daughter, taking his hand into hers. He noticed her self-made manicure, remembering back to the days when she’d paint his own nails. Shutting his eyes, he tried to picture her happy, healthy…only to have his heart break when they opened again.

 “Are we good parents?” He whispered.

Regina looked up at him, surprised to hear his first words in over 6 hours. “Robin…”

“I mean, you’re a good mom,” Robin rambled on. “The best mom in the world. This is my fault, though. I told you we should let her go, I promised you she’d be fine and…”

“Hey.” Regina met his gaze and shook her head. “This isn’t your fault.”

“But…”

“This is the fault of the bastard that shot at her and we will make sure he pays for what he’s done. We didn’t do anything, you didn’t do anything.”

“We could lose her.”

“We’re not going to.”

 He could see the doubt in her eyes, though and it scared him. Reaching over, he grabbed her free hand and they squeezed each other tightly.

 “Just don’t blame yourself,” Regina continued, her voice in a whisper. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

Evie didn’t wake up that night, but her vitals were good and according to the doctor, that was all they could ask for. While Regina called to Storybrooke to check on their children there, Robin put in a call to Boston. Henry had promised to let his siblings know and Bryony had been blowing up his phone, clearly worried about her sister.

“Daddy,” Bryony whispered as soon as he answered the phone.

“Hey Peanut,” he said, softly. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m scared. How is she?”

“Her vitals are good, that’s what matters.”

“Did they catch the guy who did it?”

“Yes. He and Zelena are both locked up right now.”

He could hear her swallow on the other end of the line. “Daddy, this is all my fault.”

Robin sighed. “Oh Bry…” Sometimes they were too much alike.

“No, just hear me out. I…I knew about Zelena.”

He paused. “What?”

“Evie told me. Zelena came into the café she worked for and she recognized her. She was a regular and they got to talking…soon Evie was hanging out at her place a lot, though she didn’t tell Zelena who she really was.”

Robin shut his eyes. “Did she know about the drugs?”

“…Yes.”

“And you did, too?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell your mother and I? Why did you lie to me?”

“Evie made me swear not to. She was afraid you’d make her come home.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

This wasn’t the first time that Bryony and Evie had teamed up to hide things from their parents. This was just the first time that they had gotten away with it. Though, Robin was starting to wonder if that was true.

“I am so sorry, Dad,” Bryony continued. “I didn’t think this would happen.”

Robin sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “This isn’t your fault, Peanut. It’s not Evie’s either. You two should’ve told us…but this was bigger than both of you. You couldn’t have stopped it from happening.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“I know you are. We’re going to talk more about it later, but I just need you to promise me that you’re going to take care of yourself.”

“I will.” A pause. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t be too hard on Evie when she wakes up. She…she just never wanted to hurt Mom.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly helping your mother either.”

Evie didn’t wake up for two more days. They had gone 36 hours without seeing those beautiful blue eyes and they had feared that they never would again, but she persevered. They didn’t talk about the situation much at first, they let the doctors run their tests and explain the injuries to her. She wouldn’t be able to return to school for a few weeks at least and her best bet would be to withdraw from the semester, retaking it at another point.

 It wasn’t until hours later that they had the chance to sit down and talk about it. Evie looked between her parents and knew what was going to happen.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never thought this would happen.”

“You knew Zelena was on drugs,” Regina said, not judgmental, just matter of fact. “Why would you go to her apartment?”

“I just…I wanted to know her. Maybe if she saw who I was…”

“Then she’d want you?”

Evie ducked her head. “It was stupid, I know that now.”

“You could’ve died, Evangeline,” Robin bit his lip, shaking his head. “We could’ve lost you.”

“I didn’t think this was going to happen. I…I never thought…”

 Tears built up in her eyes. All she had wanted was to get to know her birth mom and it had gotten her shot. The memories of the men with the guns…

 Robin and Regina saw the look in their daughters’ eyes and they each moved a hand to her arm. The lectures could wait. Their daughter needed time to heal, both emotionally and physically. They weren’t going anywhere, they were going to help her through this.

#oq angstfest #oq #oq au #outlaw queen #outlaw queen au #confessions verse #evie locksley mills #bryony locksley mills #locksley mills family #locksley mills family au #hood mills family #hood mills family au

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Recap] HBO’s SHARP OBJECTS Episode Two: Dirt

Sunday night’s airing of Dirt, the second episode of HBO’s tantalizing new miniseries Sharp Objects showed viewers that not only is there a lot to be unearthed in Wind Gap, but that all of its inhabitants, including our heroine Camille, have some dark secrets buried deep within themselves.

Sharp Objects Recap: Episode 2

If you have not yet watched Episode 1, Vanish, or Episode 2, Dirt, I suggest you hightail it back to the previous page as this is obviously going to include spoilers!

While Vanish fulfilled its purpose by laying down the important groundwork answering our main who, what, and where of the series’ plot line, Dirt really sets in the why intrigue.

Dirt introduces us to new characters, obvious potential murder suspects, and ups the ante on existing characters’ troubling idiosyncrasies. Like any good mystery, the more subjects exposed to the audience with as little exposition as possible, forces us unto to slip into Camille’s abused skin and hunt for the murderer along with her. Although this episode seems to move a little slower than Vanish, we have to keep in mind that every scene, every flashback, every character interaction, and every flash of a seemingly random word serves a purpose to this story’s ending.

  “Dirt introduces us to new characters, obvious potential murder suspects, and ups the ante on existing characters’ troubling idiosyncrasies.”

  Now that you’re familiar with the peculiarity of words and what they mean to not only Camille, but to the message of the story, pay attention to each one as they’re carefully selected by Gillian Flynn herself as she shared in her latest interview with Vanity Fair. Flynn details the influence words have on Camille’s psyche, emotional levels, and her relationships with those around her. Like a slight poke to the hip, the words we see flash so suddenly in the strangest of places can have the most literal of meanings, but most are more than skin deep.

Communication between Camille and her father-figure editor Frank Curry strengthens. Him being her only toe dipped in her Chicago reality while her standing relationship with her mother is slowly beginning to unravel down the Wind Gap rabbit hole. With the second missing girl, Natalie Keene, now found dead and propped up like a doll missing all of her teeth due to some force and a good pair of sharp-edged pliers, Curry urges Camille to push her reporting forward, to get the details – a perfect line for a series’ second episode. Here is where our big red content train leaves the station. The foundation is poured, Natalie is found, and the moving parts are now in motion.

Unlike the novel, viewers are able to watch relationships among the secondary characters expand. Whether it be a pissing match between Chief Vickery and Detective Willis, a drunken Jackie O’Neill spewing useful nonsense to Camille, or the backhanded comments courtesy of Wind Gap’s less sensitive citizens like John Keene’s attention hungry girlfriend, Meredith.

    A majority of Dirt focuses on the town’s adults and Camille, (much to her mother’s resistance) while attending Natalie’s funeral. Adora persists in fear of embarrassment due to her daughter’s proclivity toward reporting horrible, wicked things that unfortunately exist in the real world. The entire event is emotionally charging as we see Natalie’s mother gives a tearful memorial and her older brother John, so different from Natalie, torn apart over her death. Natalie is described as a “spitfire”, a “tomboy”, and a girl who loved to “explore”, having a lot to say when she believed in something. Sound familiar? It all resurrects harsh memories of Camille’s younger sister Marian’s untimely death and the neglect she received from her sterile mother once the ‘favorite’ passed away.

Following the service, the mourners gather at the Keene home for what could easily be mistaken for a neighborhood pot-luck. Here we meet Camille’s simple, shallow classmates like Katie Lacey, we get a deeper look into how much of an outcast Natalie truly was. We exploring her bedroom and belongings with Camille, and watch as community gossip begins the finger-pointing at who might have a possible motive to kill two young innocent girls. Natalie’s father, similarly to Ann’s has an alibi, yet comes off a little cold and defensive especially when Camille questions John’s whereabouts at the time of her disappearance.

Being the natural investigator she is, Camille turns her attention to Wind Gap’s youth for answers. She finds a compelling and eerie tale from a local boy, James Capisi, clearly born of a family of Have Nots in a town full of Haves. He is the last to see Natalie alive in the broad afternoon daylight in the park and when questioned by police he claims she was taken by a ‘woman in white’. Camille conjures up the image of a witchy woman in white silently beckoning the girl to follow her into the forest in a scene so out-of-place, it sent chills down my spine. We learn it is a bit of town folklore not to be taken seriously as James is a known storyteller spinning innocent lies to make up for his poor family life suffering at his mother’s debilitating illness. His penchant for pretend is written off quickly by a clueless, but desperate Vickery who is certain of only one thing – a man is responsible for the murders. While this situation rises and is quickly suffocated, Willis decides to test just how hard it would be to plug a tooth from a deceased pig’s head using domestic pliers.

  “Camille conjures up the image of a witchy woman in white silently beckoning the girl to follow her into the forest..”

  In Dirt, Camille’s struggle with self harm escalates as she toys with a sewing kit needle and temptation of the highest pressure. We can feel her internal battle being faced with bad memories, ‘friendly’ faces, and the emotional reminders of her own existence in Wind Gap. After coming to a semi you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine understanding with Willis, she returns to her mother’s home to find an indifferent Alan, childlike Amma, and borderline neurotic Adora playing house, while building a replica one, in the sun room.

Amma, fashioned like an inappropriate American Girl doll throws a tantrum in the manner of a four-year old that Adora claims to be due to Ann and Natalie’s deaths. Camille and Adora begin to get into it, with Adora cradling and fawning over Amma like an infant while telling Camille she wished their relationship could be better, but it just is not. It’s a pretty harrowing scene bouncing dependability and emotional stability off of the women in the room like an out of control racquetball. Amma comments wearily that Camille “can be good”, she “wants to be good” while relishing in her mother’s attention. Camille, though concerned and alarmed by this behavior, turns her back to it by retreating to the solace of her sepia bedroom armed with a sewing needle against a smooth patch of skin below her navel.

No matter what she can mask from Curry or what Amma whimpers into Adora’s arms, things for Camille and Wind Gap are not good, they are far from it.

Analysis

Hopefully you’ve never had to experience a funeral or memorial for a well-known local who died a tragic death in a small town like Wind Gap. But if you have the nauseous musings of false modesty, distasteful gatherings, attention seeking strangers, and hushed judgments, they all may be rushing back to you upon viewing Dirt.

Thw second episode not only digs deep into Sharp Objects‘ characters, but it also sets the scene for a town that, for all intents and purposes, is a character within itself. The whodunnit mystery is more alive than ever and the list of suspects lengthens with each new scene. Who is to blame? The sad James Dean brother of Natalie? The eccentric drunk Jackie? One of the defensive, odd fathers? Alma and her rollerskating posse? The police chief in denial? The untrustworthy pariah, James Capisi? A supernatural ‘woman in white’? One of the Crellins? Have we even met the murderer yet? All is yet to be determined, but that would never keep the townsfolk from talking. Nothing ever does.

    I want to save some insight into what living in a town that slightly resembles Wind Gap is like while being the ‘outcast’ myself. There is so much more to come from Sharp Objects that I can relate to and I’m sure so many viewers can as well. Of course, none of the social pressures I experience reach the intensity Flynn describes in Sharp Objects, but I do live in a small southern town and, from experience, it is easy to identify with Camille Preaker. Being a curvy, “edgy”, northern artsy lover of all things dark and spooky sometimes draws a fine line in the sand between me and the wholesome, fair, athletic, Christian girls and women I find myself surrounded by. Over time I have learned the ways of southern men and women, of judgments that can be passed by those less open-minded, and the hypocrisies many remain ignorant to all while ultimately loving and valuing myself.

When Camille tells Willis that when people in town say “Bless your heart” they really mean “F**k you” that is completely, albeit unspoken, truth. That common phrase can have a range of meanings from “poor thing” to “you are a legitimate moron and this is the only way I can say it to your face” and it comes in a variety of sympathetic tones and smiling expressions. Southern etiquette it sadly a psychosocial topic less explored.

Camille suffers that same atmosphere and in Dirt that juxtaposition and the creeping submergence Wind Gap possesses slowly comes to life. We are now fully aware that our leading lady is flawed and real just like me and you. Flynn and the show’s writers have created a modern world stuck in time where people, women especially, are expected to behave a certain way when others are looking. It maintains the ongoing theme that no matter how good we want to be, we’re always going to be a little bad no matter how many eyes are on us. Just because someone may be different or considered an outcast, like Camille, Ann and Natalie, the Capisi’s, and even John Keene, that does not make them any less valuable or important as an individual, a notion places like Wind Gap seem to keep buried. Camille makes mistakes, she relapses, she shuts off one minute and submits to her feelings the next and because of that we are just as vulnerable in this haunting ride through Wind Gap with her.

Why is all of this important?

At some point in most, if not all, of our lives we feel misplaced or different from everyone around us and the effects of that stigma can vary. If we look close at these nuanced characters it is easy to see who belongs, who doesn’t, and who pretends to be. Sharp Objects is just beginning to set up a very interesting, relevant angle within this seemingly typical story of murder in a small town here in episode two – however, we’re not going to delve into that topic just yet.

We are left with our anti-heroine still believing the biggest threat that lies in Wind Gap is a faceless serial child murderer. She can do her best to endure her family’s oddities and should be able to repress her past traumas before they become more than silent thoughts so long as she remains good.

Oh, bless her heart.

We’ll see if she can put that sewing kit to deliberate use before things unravel beyond control next Sunday with Sharp Object’s third episode, Fix – on HBO.

  The post [Recap] HBO’s SHARP OBJECTS Episode Two: Dirt appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[mrmacdiarmada]

intro.

「 Was that JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN walking around the Village? Oh no, it’s GARRETT MACDIARMADA, the FIFTY year old PLAYWRIGHT who resides in one of the WAVERLY PLACE TOWNHOUSES. They define themselves as a BISEXUAL CISMALE and we heard they can be very ENCHANTING and AMIABLE on their good days but on their bad days, they tend to be SELFISH and HAUGHTY. Everyone in the neighborhood knows them as THE VISIONARY. 」 

EARLY LIFE IN IRELAND (BIRTH - AGE 31):

- born and raised in a small town on the west region of ireland - actively participated in the one theatre nearby since he was young, playing small background parts for the sake of being around the magic, directing and sharing his ideas whenever possible - moved to galway for university where he met who would become his first wife, ingla, and eventually received his degree in playwrighting  - garrett and ingla got married straight away after college and soon after came their first two children, twin boys that equally delighted and overwhelmed the first time parents  - worked as a stagehand at town hall theatre in galway while perfecting and pushing his scripts until he eventually got one of his works to be the spring production, he’d never felt more accomplished than in that moment - garret and ingla’s relationship had grown rocky, he was always locked away writing when he wasn’t working and they grew distant. news of a surprise pregnancy brought them back together again for a while as they prepped for the arrival of their baby girl. caireann’s presence healed them for awhile but they began bickering more and more, establishing himself in the theater community was difficult to do as is, but with ingla constantly complaining that he wasn’t around enough he grew tense. - the aunt of their children and ingla’s twin sister, eloisa, began visiting often to help care for their young children when garrett was working. - every night once the twins, caireann, and ingla were in bed -- garrett and eloisa would sit on the porch of their home to share a cigarette and talk, for what typically ended up being hours. sometimes he would share his WIPs with her and she’d give him her critiques and opinions. - eloisa wasn’t jaded by him like ingla was. they had pleasant conversation like he hadn’t had with his wife in a long time. eloisa believed in him, in his dream and his talent and the fact that he could be so much more than he was. garrett’s broadway fantasies were usually just that, fantasies. but eloisa made him believe that it was possible and that he was good enough to make it. - one of those nights on the porch, the two of them confessed they had begun feeling more for each other and shared a kiss that they vowed to pretend never happened. but that one kiss turned into a messy affair and within the span of a few months, ingla found out about them and served him divorce papers. 

UPROOTING TO NEW YORK CITY (AGE 31 - 47):

- a combination of his immaturity, selfishness, the impact of losing the life he was comfortable in despite feeling stuck, and eloisa’s encouragement led to him making the impulsive decision that was taking off to new york city as soon as the divorce was finalized. leaving his kids behind broke his heart more than anything, but at this point he believed they were probably better off without him. he was too ashamed to face ingla again and too proud to admit that. - the adrenaline that came from uprooting and chasing his dreams of being a famous playwright with his work on broadway was a heavy distraction from the guilt he buried deep, and in the heat of the passion, he and eloisa made the not so smart decision to marry once they were settled.  - without the responsibility of a full family and the need for distraction from feeling any negative emotion, garrett was able to bury himself in work in hopes of making a name for himself in the off-broadway community before taking a step toward the big time. - garrett sent occasional letters and birthday presents to his children in ireland but every single one of them wound up back on his doorstep with a big, fat, RETURN TO SENDER label that made his stomach turn. he received a letter in the mail from ingla a year and a half later with photos and updates, telling him this was the last time he would see his children if he didn’t stop trying to reach them. she would continue sending photos but only in secret, after all, the children were better off without him after suffering the abandonment of their father. he didn’t disagree. - garrett had several of his plays brought to life in theaters all around new york over the next couple of years, and in time with a lot of perseverance, one of his most popular works fell into the lap of a big time producer on broadway and debuted at the helen hayes theater. - this gained his work much more attention, and with more attention came more opportunities and praise, in time -- he became an immensely respected broadway playwright with several shows opening over the years. - garrett’s marriage with eloisa lost a bit of it’s steam overtime because they were both working constantly and barely had time to maintain their relationship. still, it worked for them and they cared deeply for each other. eloisa had made her own way into broadway, acting in various roles, and they made good arm pieces for each other. respected playwright and broadway actress. - when garrett got the call about ingla’s tragic death, it shook him to his core. he couldn’t seem to look at eloisa anymore without a mixture of grief and guilt, wondering if it could’ve gone differently if he hadn’t done what he’d done. - garrett and his ex wife’s fifteen year old daughter, caireann, who he hadn’t seen since she was a toddler was now in his custody and moving from ireland to live with him and his wife, who was also her aunt. trying to build maintain a relationship with your teenage daughter was hard enough as is, but after missing thirteen years of her life and being a monster in her eyes, it was near impossible. she was headstrong, like himself, and didn’t even bother to say a single word to either him or eloisa for months. garrett tried to make it as pleasant as possible for caireann, but he was stupid when it came to showing (or feeling) emotions, so his ‘pretend all was well and dandy between them’ attitude probably didn’t help caireann feel much other than that he was an insensitive jerk. connecting with his sons, while rough, seemed to be much easier than reaching through to caireann but he saw how well his three children took care of each other and decided to put the brakes on trying to form bonds because of his own insecurity. - caireann moved out immediately after high school and the household became cold. his relationship was never the same with eloisa after the death of his first wife and the return of his children into his life. they developed a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and garrett drowned his negative feelings in that freedom. - one night at a jazz bar garrett frequents, a talented young man by the name of eli jackson was playing piano. he was delighted by the music he was making, the melody playing right to his soul. the attention eli gave him in return certainly did not go unnoticed, it fed garrett’s ego for sure and made him all the more interested in the musician. he had the bartender bring him a drink on his behalf, which was successful in bringing him over, and the two of them had a few more while delving into deep conversation for the next couple of hours. this night spun into a year long affair full of passion and excitement, it was heated and captivating, all the way up until garrett realized how real it was becoming for eli. the younger man very much expected garrett to leave his wife, like he told him a number of times, but he just wasn’t ready to give up on his marriage. his relationship with the pianist was not something he saw in the long run and he couldn’t say eli’s vision was the same. - garrett and eloisa ended up having a long discussion about the turn of their personal lives, eventually coming to the decision to work on rebuilding their marriage and rekindling the passion they had at the beginning. he didn’t see eli again.

STARTING ANEW IN THE VILLAGE (AGE 47 - PRESENT):

- garrett and eloisa’s relationship became quite the roller coaster. it was good again for a while but continued to have more lows than highs. they agreed to separate for the time being in order to figure out whether to go their own ways forever or salvage what was left instead of throwing a 19 year long marriage down the drain. - garrett moved out of his and eloisa’s home on the upper east side of manhattan, letting her have the house. - he has officially relocated to greenwich village where he is now renting a townhouse on waverly place, right across the street from washington square park. he is still in the process of moving in. - garrett is now completely comfortable in his career and wants to, for the first time, focus on repairing his personal life. starting with what is the most important and should’ve been all along, his daughter caireann, who resides in the village as well.

i would absolutely love to establish more connections and plots for garrett presently, so please, send over an IM if you are interested in your character meeting him or having a storyline with him. i’m all for characters mingling and developing!

#「about garrett」 #// yo this is long as hell if you read it all i love you please plot with me

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Internal Conflict:  Five Conflicting Traits of a Likable Hero.

1.  Flaws and Virtues 

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but characters without flaws are boring.  This does not, as many unfortunate souls take it to mean, imply that good, kind, or benevolent characters are boring:  it just means that without any weaknesses for you to poke at, they tend to be bland-faced wish fulfillment on the part of the author, with a tendency to just sit there without contributing much to the plot.

For any character to be successful, they need to have a proportionate amount of flaws and virtues.

Let’s take a look at Stranger Things, for example, which is practically a smorgasbord of flawed, lovable sweethearts.

We have Joyce Byers, who is strung out and unstable, yet tirelessly works to save her son, even when all conventional logic says he’s dead;  We have Officer Hopper, who is drunken and occasionally callous, yet ultimately is responsible for saving the boy’s life;  We have Jonathan, who is introspective and loving, but occasionally a bit of a creeper, and Nancy, who is outwardly shallow but proves herself to be a strong and determined character.  Even Steve, who would conventionally be the popular jerk who gets his comeuppance, isn’t beyond redemption.

And of course, we have my beloved Eleven, who’s possibly the closest thing Stranger Things has to a “quintessential” heroine.  She’s the show’s most powerful character, as well as one of the most courageous.  However, she is also the show’s largest source of conflict, as it was her powers that released the Demogorgon to begin with.  

Would Eleven be a better character if this had never happened?  Would Stranger Things be a better show?  No, because if this had never happened, Stranger Things wouldn’t even be a show.  Or if it was, it would just be about a bunch of cute kids sitting around and playing Dungeons and Dragons in a relatively peaceful town.

A character’s flaws and mistakes are intended to drive the plotline, and if they didn’t have them, there probably wouldn’t even be a plot.

So don’t be a mouth-breather:  give your good, kind characters some difficult qualities, and give your villains a few sympathetic ones.  Your work will thank you for it.

2.  Charisma and Vulnerability

Supernatural has its flaws, but likable leads are not one of them.  Fans will go to the grave defending their favorite character, consuming and producing more character-driven, fan-created content than most other TV shows’ followings put together.

So how do we inspire this kind of devotion with our own characters?  Well, for starters, let’s take a look at one of Supernatural’s most quintessentially well-liked characters:  Dean Winchester.

From the get-go, we see that Dean has charisma:  he’s confident, cocky, attractive, and skilled at what he does.  But these qualities could just as easily make him annoying and obnoxious if they weren’t counterbalanced with an equal dose of emotional vulnerability. 

As the show progresses, we see that Dean cares deeply about the people around him, particularly his younger brother, to the point of sacrificing himself so that he can live.  He goes through long periods of physical and psychological anguish for his benefit (though by all means, don’t feel obligated to send your main character to Hell for forty years), and the aftermath is depicted in painful detail.

Moreover, in spite of his outward bravado, we learn he doesn’t particularly like himself, doesn’t consider himself worthy of happiness or a fulfilling life, and of course, we have the Single Man Tear(TM).

So yeah, make your characters beautiful, cocky, sex gods.  Give them swagger.  Just, y’know.  Hurt them in equal measure.  Torture them.  Give them insecurities.  Make them cry.  

Just whatever you do, let them be openly bisexual.  Subtext is so last season.

3.  Goals For the Future and Regrets From the Past

Let’s take a look at Shadow Moon from American Gods.  (For now, I’ll have to be relegate myself to examples from the book, because I haven’t had the chance to watch the amazing looking TV show.) 

Right off the bat, we learn that Shadow has done three years in prison for a crime he may or may not have actually committed.  (We learn later that he actually did commit the crime, but that it was only in response to being wronged by the true perpetrators.)  

He’s still suffering the consequences of his actions when we meet him, and arguably, for the most of the book:  because he’s in prison, his wife has an affair (I still maintain that Laura could have resisted the temptation to be adulterous if she felt like it, but that’s not the issue here) and is killed while mid-coital with his best friend.

Shadow is haunted by this for the rest of the book, to the point at which it bothers him more than the supernatural happenings surrounding him.  

Even before that, the more we learn about Shadow’s past, the more we learn about the challenges he faced:  he was bullied as a child, considered to be “just a big, dumb guy” as an adult, and is still wrongfully pursued for crimes he was only circumstantially involved in.

But these difficulties make the reader empathize with Shadow, and care about what happens to him.  We root for Shadow as he tags along with the mysterious and alternatively peckish and charismatic Wednesday, and as he continuously pursues a means to permanently bring Laura back to life.

He has past traumas, present challenges, and at least one goal that propels him towards the future.  It also helps that he’s three-dimensional, well-written, and as of now, portrayed by an incredibly attractive actor.

Of course (SPOILER ALERT), Shadow never does succeed in fully resurrecting Laura, ultimately allowing her to rest instead, but that doesn’t make the resolution any less satisfying.  

Which leads to my next example...       

4.  Failure and Success 

You remember in Zootopia, when Judy Hopps decides she wants to be cop and her family and town immediately and unanimously endorse her efforts?  Or hey, do you remember Harry Potter’s idyllic childhood with his kindhearted, adoptive family?  Oh!  Or in the X-Files, when Agent Mulder presents overwhelming evidence of extraterrestrial life in the first episode and is immediately given a promotion?  No?

Yeah, me neither.  And there’s a reason for this:  ff your hero gets what they want the entire time, it will be a boring, two-dimensional fantasy that no one will want to read.  

A good story is not about the character getting what they want.  A good story is about the character’s efforts and their journey.  The destination they reach could be something far removed from what they originally thought they wanted, and could be no less (if not more so) satisfying because of it.

Let’s look at Toy Story 3, for example:  throughout the entire movie, Woody’s goal is to get his friends back to their longtime owner, Andy, so that they can accompany him to college.  He fails miserably.  None of his friends believe that Andy was trying to put them in the attic, insisting that his intent was to throw them away.  He is briefly separated from them as he is usurped by a cute little girl and his friends are left at a tyrannical daycare center, but with time and effort, they’re reunited, Woody is proven right, and things seem to be back on track.

Do his efforts pay off?  Yes -- just not in the way he expected them to.  At the end of the movie, a college-bound Andy gives the toys away to a new owner who will play with them more than he will, and they say goodbye.  Is the payoff bittersweet?  Undoubtedly.  It made me cry like a little bitch in front of my young siblings.  But it’s also undoubtedly satisfying.      

So let your characters struggle.  Let them fail.  And let them not always get what they want, so long as they get what they need.  

5.  Loving and Being Loved by Others

Take a look back at this list, and all the characters on it:  a gaggle of small town kids and flawed adults, demon-busting underwear models, an ex-con and his dead wife, and a bunch of sentient toys.  What do they have in common?  Aside from the fact that they’re all well-loved heroes of their own stories, not much.

But one common element they all share is they all have people they care about, and in turn, have people who care about them.  

This allows readers and viewers to empathize with them possibly more than any of the other qualities I’ve listed thus far, as none of it means anything without the simple demonstration of human connection.

Let’s take a look at everyone’s favorite caped crusader, for example:  Batman in the cartoons and the comics is an easy to love character, whereas in the most recent movies (excluding the splendid Lego Batman Movie), not so much. 

Why is this?  In all adaptions, he’s the same mentally unstable, traumatized genius in a bat suit.  In all adaptions, he demonstrates all the qualities I listed before this:  he has flaws and virtues, charisma and vulnerability, regrets from the past and goals for the future, and usually proportionate amounts of failure and success.  

What makes the animated and comic book version so much more attractive than his big screen counterpart is the fact that he does one thing right that all live action adaptions is that he has connections and emotional dependencies on other people.  

He’s unabashed in caring for Alfred, Batgirl, and all the Robins, and yes, he extends compassion and sympathy to the villains as well, helping Harley Quinn to ultimately escape a toxic and abusive relationship, consoling Baby Doll, and staying with a child psychic with godlike powers until she died.

Cartoon Batman is not afraid to care about others.  He has a support network of people who care about him, and that’s his greatest strength.  The DC CU’s ever darker, grittier, and more isolated borderline sociopath is failing because he lacks these things.  

 And it’s also one of the reasons that the Lego Batman Movie remains so awesome.

God willing, I will be publishing fresh writing tips every week, so be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future advice and observations! 

#the author speaks #writing #writing tips #writing advice #stranger things #supernatural #american gods #toy story #batman #dean winchester #shadow moon #laura moon #dc cinematic universe #not my gifs

[deamonangelus]

Kiss Me

Summary:  You met Sam through your shared lifestyles, specifically hunting.  There was never any other option for either of you, in the end the two of you fully expected to die bloody, or at least alone.  Neither of you expected to find each other, and one look at your eyes had Sam falling like he’d never fallen before.

Hey Hey make a story with sam but you have to use the lyrics to an ed sheeran song. 

Warnings:  Nothing outside the average Supernatural episode.  It’s pretty long though.  Mentions of alcohol, some angst.  No spoilers for new episodes, but if you haven’t gotten to the post-Leviathan era there are spoilers.  Songfic for Ed Sheeran’s ‘Kiss Me.’

Pairing: Reader x Sam (as per the request)

A/N: I HAVE RETURNED!!  I’m so sorry this took so long Anon!!  I’m so, so, so sorry!!

Settle down with me

Cover me up

Cuddle me up.

Lie down with me

And hold me in your arms.

 You were both hunters, you knew that when you met.  You were stopping by Bobby’s place, checking up on the old grouch that rescued you from the demons tracking you when you were only 10, and the old man had convinced you to stay for Thanksgiving.  You couldn’t say ‘no,’ he had been the only family you had since your parents were killed, a side effect of coming from an extensive line of untrained and overpowered psychics.  He was sure to teach you, give you the space and everything else you needed to get a grasp on your abilities, and had raised you like you were his own.

You loved that old bastard like he was your own father, even called him dad instead of Bobby.

Of course, being a few years younger than the youngest Winchester, Bobby had saved you a few years after John cut off all ties to his fellow Hunter.  You had never met the Winchester boys, but you saw the pictures and knew Bobby still loved them like they were his own sons, even if he couldn’t see them.

With your busy life, and their own chaotic lives, it was a few years until you actually met Sam and Dean.  You were in the kitchen, you loved to cook, making a big Thanksgiving dinner for the family of four.  You were worried, Bobby loved these boys like they were his own and you wanted them to at least like you.  Little did you know the scent of the apple pie in the oven would be enough for Dean to immediately welcome you as his baby sister.

As for Sam…well…

The second you looked up at him he caught sight of your eyes, hell your eyes were beautiful.

The second he saw your eyes, he started falling for you.

And your heart’s against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck

I’m falling for your eyes, but they don’t know me yet

And with a feeling I’ll forget, I’m in love now.

 It was an…unexpected turn of events, to be honest.  After the final seal was broken and the Apocalypse started, Sam didn’t know where else to go.  He knew Bobby would welcome him into his home, but he also knew Dean was going to be there.  Calling you and asking where you were being the logical response…no…it was his instinctual response.  He had come clean to you about everything over that one phone call; the demon blood, Ruby, starting the Apocalypse by killing Lilith, everything.  He was so scared you’d reject him. 

You just gave him the exact address to meet you at, and told him the two of you would take some time off until he felt up to hunting again-even if he never wanted to hunt again.

You hadn’t even thought about it.  You knew what it was like to be the freak in the Hunter community.  Perhaps not nearly as much as he did, but you were still an overcharged psychic and you were still treated like a freak.  Sam needed a safe place, and even without the crush you harbored for him, you were family.  More than that, he was one of the closest friends you ever had, you loved Jo dearly, but there was a difference between the freak with the knife collection and the freak that could speak to the dead and move objects with her mind.

He found home with you.  Even as he rejoined Dean and the family was back together again, you were right there with him.  Every second he looked in your eyes he fell farther in love with you, and he couldn’t look away from your eyes.  It was painfully obvious he was utterly smitten with you.  Every second you helped the Winchester brothers fight off the end of the world, he fell deeper and deeper for you.

 Kiss me like you wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

This feels like falling in love

Falling in love

We’re falling in love.

 Looking into your eyes, he felt ashamed.  He was deeply in love with you, irrevocably in love with you, and he couldn’t bare the thought of what he was about to do.  You knew everything, you were his support system, but he still couldn’t let you see him like this.  Knowing you would never think any less of him wouldn’t have allowed him to let you seem him drinking demon blood by the gallons, only to try to overpower Lucifer himself.  He just couldn’t let you see him like this.  If everything went wrong, he wanted you to remember him as anything but what he was.

He wanted you to remember him as the guy that cuddled with you as the two of you watched crap movies or binged Netflix or Hulu.  He wanted you to remember that, admittedly unwelcome, trip to Heaven the three of you shared as it was revealed meeting you was one of the best memories he had.  He wanted you to remember him as the one you’d trade favorite books with, binge reading as Dean drove the Impala and talking about the books you just read. He wanted you to remember him from that that first, and possibly last, kiss the two of you shared only seconds before he asked Bobby to make sure you didn’t see him like that.

You barely held back the sobs by holding your breath as long as you could, but that didn’t stop the tears or the way you shook.

 Settle down with me

And I’ll be your safety

You’ll be my lady.

I was made to keep your body warm

But I’m cold as the wind blows, so hold me in your arms.

 Sam had attempted to get you to promise to live a ‘civilian life.’  The two of you argued, you had gotten to the point you were screaming because you couldn’t even consider life without Sam anymore, but you came to an agreement as he held you close.  No matter what happened, you would find a place for yourself, not far from Sioux Falls, and stick to making a living as a Psychic and an expert for Hunters.  You did as you promised, but you still tried to reach out to Sam.  You failed to find a way to free him, but you could at least offer a form of comfort during his suffering.  It took a lot of effort, and a lot of practice, but you managed to reach him, even though his soul was in the deepest pits of Hell, during deep meditations.

You were utterly shocked to see him at your doorstep only 48 hours after speaking with him, last you knew he was still in Hell.  During your, then weekly, deep meditation you reached him yet again and were more confused by the situation.  Sam, even without his soul, felt an inexplicable attraction to you, and a physical need to keep you alive and close when he arrived at your doorstep. 

“Sam…” you whispered as you looked up at him, your eyes glistening with tears.  He didn’t answer verbally, instead pulling you into a heated kiss, picking you up with ease and kicking the door to your home shut as you wrapped your legs around his waist.  There was a physical satisfaction from carrying you to your bed and pinning you down against it he couldn’t explain, but he didn’t care.  The sex was, frankly, euphoric, for the both of you.

 Oh no

My heart’s against your chest, your lips pressed to my neck

I’m falling for your eyes, but they don’t know me yet

And this feeling I’ll forget, I’m in love now.

 It wasn’t until Cas admitted to leaving Sam’s soul in the Cage that you had your answer, and as Sam lie comatose in Bobby’s bunker you could barely leave his side.  As he wandered the land of the living, without a soul, you barely had enough power to reach his mind and keep him from doing things he would regret.

You should have known he was missing his soul.  You should have known.  You were kicking yourself, you couldn’t believe you didn’t figure it out earlier. You spent hours, sitting by him and wiping the sweat from his brow.  By the time he woke up you had been up for days, despite Dean and Bobby’s attempts to get you to sleep.  They had even slipped you alcohol to try to get you to sleep, Bobby even tried mixing sleeping pills with food, and it never succeeded. Cas offered what condolences he could, but nobody would feel better until Sam woke up.

You were at your wit’s end, you had run out of tears and couldn’t live with yourself if Sam…

The signs were right in front of you, and you still couldn’t figure it out.  Hindsight is 20-20, but you should have known better-

“[Y/N]?” Sam’s voice was groggy as he woke up for the first time in days, registering it was you before he was conscious enough to register the dark circles under your tired eyes.  Your attention snapped directly to him, and once again he was lost in your eyes.  He didn’t know why his head was pounding, or why he felt what he could only describe as a mental itch, but as he looked up at you he couldn’t say he cared. You kept telling him it was nothing, something he’d get used to living with.

Something he should just leave alone.

He wished he had listened, as visions of Lucifer haunted him and taunted him with the idea that you were just a fever dream.  Being safe with you and Dean was just a pretend world, and any minute he could be ripped from the safety of your arms and your lips against his and land right back in the Cage.  There were times pressing on the cut in his palm didn’t help, and at those times he would desperately seek you out and pull you as close as he could, pressing a desperate kiss against your lips.

 Kiss me like you wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

This feels like falling in love

Falling in love

We’re falling in love.

 Yeah I’ve been feeling everything

From hate to love

From love to lust

From lust to truth

I guess that’s how I know you

So I hold you close to help you give it up.

 Things had gone unsaid, but understood.  You couldn’t say the two of you ever actually proclaimed your feelings for each other, not seriously anyway.  You vaguely remembered telling Sam you loved him when he got you the Chinese you were craving after about six or seven too many tequila shots with Charlie.  It wasn’t until Dean and Cas disappeared after killing Dick, ending the Leviathan threat, that things were finally put into words.  You would never be able to completely retire, you were a psychic, but Sam had a chance.  You were willing to split up, let him live a peaceful life, but he couldn’t let you go.

“Please!” he begged, eyes searching yours as he held your hands in his own, “I’ve lost everyone else…I can’t lose you too.  I love you.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” you gently hushed as you pulled him down into a hug, standing on your toes as he was an entire foot taller than you, “I love you too, sasquatch.”

With a small, grateful, smile and a chuckle at your nickname for him, gently bumped his forehead against yours.  You couldn’t help but laugh, calling him a giant nerd and pulling him in for a gentle, loving kiss.  You weren’t going anywhere, you were going to stay right by his side as long as he wanted, for as long as he needed you.

 So kiss me like you wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

This feels like falling in love

Falling in love

We’re falling in love.

 Kiss me like you wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

You wanna be loved

This feels like falling in love

Falling in love

We’re falling in love.

#supernatural #fanfic #request #sam winchester #reader #songfic #ed sheeran #kiss me

[webcricket]

Catch a Falling Star

Characters: CastielXReader ft. Sam and Dean Winchester, and special guest, Crowley

Word Count: 2101 (Part 5)

A/N: Part 5 of a Soulmate AU mini-series.

Summary: What if angels didn’t end up just anywhere when they are banished by sigils…what if sometimes they end up exactly where they need to be? Turns out you are Castiel’s grounding stone, and it’s more complicated than either of you realizes. Crowley magnanimously tips the Winchesters off to a brooding danger regarding their feathered cohort. Cas gets a taste of the ordinary life.

Completed series Masterlist:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/165166387163/catch-a-falling-star-masterlist

“I’m telling you. Stone cold, it was weird,” Dean alleged, six-pack of ice cold lagers clinking as he set them on the library table. Condensation oozed out onto the polished mahogany surface of the wood from the mushy edges of cardboard. “I mean, we both know I’m hilarious and I didn’t get so much as a single giggle out of her.”

“Yeah,” Sam snorted mockingly, “weird.” Dean garnered minimal sympathy from his brother on account of Sam’s long-suffering endurance of Dean’s habitually incessant jocularity as a method to diffuse stress between hunts. The hilarity, with repeated exposure, had devolved into background noise – something akin to the monotonous humming tread of the Impala’s tires on asphalt rather than humor. Sam thought from Dean’s account of his conversation with you that you sounded like a perfectly reasonable and discerning individual and someone whose personality matched well to the angel’s decidedly temperate wit.

Dean snapped the metal cap off one of the bottles, the sharp wet hiss of pressurization bubbling in the air. He continued speculating, “I’d bet you anything…”

The younger Winchester noticed the dapperly dressed figure idling in the alcove of bookshelves first.

“…she’s…,” Dean trailed off, spying his brother’s annoyed glower.

Crowley made no overt attempt to conceal his presence, taking full advantage of Dean’s self-indulgent deliberation to surprise the brothers. Rule one of ruling: You don’t become King of Hell without taking advantage of every opportunity, however quaint, to vaingloriously make an unannounced entrance.

Sam’s scowl deepened into the line of his brow, his eyes trained cagily on the shamelessly shrugging demon.

Dean followed his brother’s irked gaze and proceeded to choke on his beer, sputtering, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Hello boys,” Crowley crooned, a conciliatory smile toying upon his lips. He held up a half-empty carafe of whisky to his nose, disapproval glinting in his piercingly cool mien as he swished the amber liquid around and inhaled. “By the way, where do you keep the good stuff?”

“We don’t,” Dean groused, losing the will to drink his beer.

“Hmm,” Crowley frowned critically, “then how do you expect to entertain your esteemed guests while they wait?”

“We’re not here to provide you with entertainment,” Sam retorted through a clenched jaw, his frustration over their repeatedly failing errand to locate a mysterious all-important treasure chest and deliver it over to the demon boiling his blood.

“I beg to differ, on the whole I find you boys moderately more entertaining than a box of rocks,” Crowley observed smugly, revolving to set the carafe on a side table. “Marginally less intelligent, but you can’t win them all, can you?”

“You leave the door unlocked again?” Dean accused his brother without looking at him.

“No,” Sam’s voice wavered, not actually one-hundred percent certain of his answer, realizing he might have forgotten to lock it after his morning run. They’d exited later from the garage egress so it would have been overlooked. “Maybe?”

“Sammy, how many times do I have to…”

“Kids!” Crowley interrupted. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” He sauntered into the golden glow of lamplight, burying his hands in his pockets, the glossy sheen of his coat fabric attesting to a keenly refined taste for extravagance. “Speaking of which, I thought you boys could use a cheerful pick-me-up in the form of, well, me. You know, to liven up the empty nest and all.” He flashed an affable grin at the brothers to no avail.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean snarled, shooting a chagrinned here-we-go-again glance in Sam’s direction.

Crowley stepped nearer the table, feigning interest in an open book placed thereupon. Leisurely extricating a hand from the deep recess of his overcoat pocket, stretching out the torture of the brothers’ aggravated anticipation of his reply, his tongue grazed the tip of a pointed finger in preparation to leaf through the brittle yellow folio. “Rumor has it your beloved homing pigeon has flown the coop. Got his feathers all ruffled over some pretty dove in New York,” Crowley elucidated casually, persevering in the pretense of studying the text before him while gauging the brothers’ response to this sensational suggestion regarding their stowaway seraph in his peripheral vision.

“And?” Dean rolled his vibrant green eyes, allowing the tenseness seizing his shoulders to relax.

Sam, too, appeared more at ease – alert scowl dissolving into a passive glare.

Crowley cursed internally, not permitting his chagrin at not being the one to deliver the lurid news to the brothers to shroud his debonair disinterested demeanor. “And, if you’ve any hope of retrieving my box and holding up your end of our mutually beneficial little arrangement, you’re going to need your goose and his golden halo to fall back in line.”

“We’ll find your stupid box,” Dean grumbled. “And enough with the bird metaphors already, Hitchcock.”

Crowley sneered impudently at Dean.

“How did you hear about Cas anyway?” Sam quizzically arched an eyebrow.

“A sparrow chirped in my ear just before I broke his neck,” Crowley stated ominously. “Between you and me, I’m afraid I’m not the only one who heard him sing this particular song.”

“Who else– son of a!” Dean swore at the currently empty space previously occupied by the now cheekily decamped demon.

Second rule of ruling: Startling arrivals must be punctuated by inconveniently timed exits. In other words, always leave your audience wanting more.

“Castiel?”

The convalescent angel felt the light tickle of your fingertips trace beneath the tufts of dark waves ringing his forehead, perceiving your whispered prayer as a resonant echo in the stillness of his mind. Hours ago, the consciousness of his vessel had succumbed to the warmth of the dappled late afternoon sun streaming through the treetops, the rhythmic splashing lap of water on the graveled lake shore, the joyful harmony of bird and insect venerating the glorious day, the comfort of the oversized generously stuffed lounge chair, and most of all to the waking dream of you tending to a shaded patch of the garden tucked below the porch railing. Before his marveling eyes, your nurturing hands patiently teased life itself from the barren soil.

“Are you awake?”

A small smile tugged at his mouth. Despite the finally stymied hemorrhage of grace from his shoulder wound and his rapidly recharging vigor, he could not deny an intense fondness for your continued yet wholly unnecessary doting care.

“You’re doing that eyes-closed super-relaxed thing you insist isn’t sleep again,” you noted with a grin, taming the mop of his unruly hair with your fingers, prompting him to open his eyes.

He grasped your dirt-smudged hand, guiding it to his lips to pepper your knuckles with feather-light kisses, appreciating the fact these very same hands that worked tiny miracles in the earth had also sparked something vital in his own heart that bloomed under your tender affection. “Disengaging awareness from my surroundings is the most efficient method by which to expedite my recovery.”

“Uh huh,” you chewed your lower lip skeptically, “it’s uncanny how much that description sounds exactly like sleep.”

Cas’ smile widened, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, wavering when he spotted his cell phone clutched in your palm.

“It’s Dean,” you offered him the phone, adding, “I don’t think he likes me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” the angel accepted the cell, focus following your retreat back into the yard amidst the rainbow of flourishing flowers. He held the phone up to his ear, an indignant gleam in his expression, “Why don’t you like Y/N?”

“Geez, hello to you too, Cas,” Dean grumbled.

“She thinks you don’t like her,” Cas reiterated, “why?”

“I was under the impression she doesn’t like me.”

“How could she not like you when she doesn’t know you?”

“She doesn’t laugh at my jokes.”

“I don’t laugh at your jokes,” Cas stated matter-of-factly.

After a lapse of silence which prompted the angel to check the screen to ascertain if the call had been dropped, Dean again spoke, “I, uh, yeah, I guess you have a point. And for the record, I never said I didn’t like her. She sounds great Cas, really. Sam and I, we’re both happy for you. I’m glad you took my advice to heart and gave her a chance.”

For friendship’s sake, Cas permitted Dean to believe his drunken anecdote had a smidgeon of influence where it had not, responding, “Me too.” In reality, the angel never had any choice. The stubbornness and insubordination in affront to universal will to delay the inevitable? Certainly. But choice? Never – you were always something that was going to happen to him and he to you.

“So, you, uh, you keeping busy out there?”

“This morning we went to a farmer’s market to purchase seasonal produce. Are you aware there is more than one variety of sweet corn grown for human consumption? There’s silver queen, with pearlescent kernels that are so tender it doesn’t require cooking to render it edible. In the butter and sugar hybrid, the kernels are a mix of white and yellow…”

“Sounds exciting,” Dean’s tone indicated he thought Cas’ bucolic foray sounded like it was the exact opposite of exciting.

“Tonight, Y/N is going to teach me how to make something called some mores.”

“You mean, s’mores?”

“That’s what I said, some mores.”

“No Cas, it’s called a s’more, not some more.” The fleshy smack of a palm striking a forehead sounded in the speaker. Sam could be heard heartily chuckling in the background.

“You’re not making any sense, Dean.” Cas could hear Dean’s eyes sardonically rolling around in their sockets. The disconcerting noise only added to the angel’s bewilderment.

“S. Apostrophe. More,” Sam spelled it out, having seized control of the conversation from his flabbergasted brother.

“Oh,” Cas nodded, “thank you for the clarification, Sam. That explains my inability to find any information regarding them on Google.”

“Anytime, Cas. Have fu…” Sam’s words faded as Dean grabbed the phone again.

“Look, not to rain on the co-ed scout camp jamboree thing you’ve obviously got going on out there, but we thought you should know according to Crowley, who dropped by for a pleasant chat about his stupid freaking box, we’re not the only ones who know about you and Y/N.”

Dean’s warning devastated Cas’ reigning sense of calm, reminding him about the dangerous world lurking beyond your enchanting lakeside realm. Bolting to his feet, he anxiously scanned the garden. Finding you safe and sound stringing a vine up a trellis, he breathed a relieved sigh as he sat on the top stair to better keep a watchful eye on you.

Dean continued, “We got a salt and burn a few states over, then we’re heading your way. So just watch your back until we get there, okay?”

“You don’t have to do that, Dean. You should continue trying to locate Crowley’s box. If he wants it that badly, we can’t let him get ahold of it until we know what it contains.”

“Right,” Dean agreed, “which is why we need your help finding it.”

Cas understood. He understood the Winchesters, his brothers in arms, were coming to take him away from you and that he would go forth willingly by their side as he’d always done. He understood he could stay to defend you within the boundaries of your home, or he could soldier away to better shield your exposure to the gruesome minutiae of the never-ending battle of good versus evil within which he was forever firmly entrenched. “How long until you get here?” he asked Dean, observing your figure meandering up the cobblestone walkway toward him.

“Three days, maybe less if this ghost cooperates,” Dean answered. “You know what, just call it three days. We’ll snag a motel in town if we get there early to stay out of your hair. Enjoy the s’mores.” The call ended.

“Are we expecting visitors?” you bounded up the stairs and settled beside the angel, head dropping to rest on his mended shoulder.

“Sam and Dean will be here in a few days.”

“That’s great!” you beamed, “I can’t wait to meet them. I know how important they are to you.”

Cas wound an arm around your waist, pulling you nearer and planting a kiss on the crown of your head. He inhaled the scent of your hair, honey and lavender riven with the rich loam of the earth and sunshine. For an angel, three days seemed only a slightly longer timeframe than the fleeting span of milliseconds marking the blink of an eye. It’s worth every minute, Dean’s sentiment echoed in his mind.

Part 6:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/164058430460/catch-a-falling-star

#castiel x reader #castiel x you #castiel x y/n #castiel reader insert #castiel fluff #castiel angst #castiel series #castiel fanfic #castiel #cas x reader #cas x you #cas x y/n #cas reader insert #spn reader insert #castielxreader #castielxyou #spn series #casxreader #casxyou #cricket writes cas

[chokememrstark]

A Dangerous Game // Samifer

Chapter: 1/15

Words: 1347

Summary: Sam comes across a very interesting book that describes a ritual in which one can play a game with the Devil. His curiosity is sparked and even if he doesn’t think he will ever actually do it, Sam soon finds himself face to face with this very entity. Things take a very unpleasant turn, but despite that, Sam is going back, as if something pulls him towards Lucifer.

abuse, violence, bullying, black magic, no hunter!au

Note: The chapters vary highly in words usually, I apologize for that. It’s my longest fic for a while, so I hope you like it ^^ Also, because I feel I need to add this: Dean is pretty much an ass in this story, so if you’re uncomfortable with that you might want to reconsider reading it (or tell yourself he is completely ooc, fine with me too xD)

Thanks to @sassysupernaturalsweetheart & @brieflymaximumprincess for their wonderful beta reading and keeping me company while writing this story ♥

Tagging: @spnyoucantkeepmedown @bustarose if you want to be tagged, just drop me a line.

Ever since he could remember, Sam had been different. Not in a way that others could see at first, but it was obvious to himself all along. He was a quiet kid, who rarely ever cried as a baby, even though his brother had been the complete opposite. At only six months old, he had lost his mother in a horrible car crash that had left police and medics in surprise and shock as to how the little baby had survived without so much as a scratch on him. For hours he had laid next to his dead mother, screaming and crying to the point of exhaustion. After that, it seemed as if all screams and cries were gone from the little boy.

Life went on and Sam retreated into himself more and more each year. It soon became obvious to the child that his father, the one who should be happy that he survived, blamed him for the accident and for the loss of his wife. For Sam, as he grew older, this was hard to accept, but at least he still had his brother, Dean, who was four years older than Sam, was never the perfect big brother, but Sam knew he loved him - in a way.

They bickered as brothers did, they fought sometimes and played pranks on each other - Dean more than Sam - but at first, Dean was Sam’s protector when things got rough. After a while, around the time Sam was ten, however, things changed. He couldn’t recall what he had done, but Dean didn’t protect him anymore from the bullies in school and he didn’t stand up for his little brother anymore, instead most of Sam’s suffering was now caused by his brother, rather than prevented.

It was rarely physical damage Dean did, he was too clever for that. Instead, he pushed Sam away emotionally and after some time, the younger brother gave up trying to get the older one’s affection. Sure, Dean was fourteen and a teenager now, of course he didn’t want to hang out with a little child like Sam was anymore. So, Sam spent more and more time by himself, reading books and wandering the streets - anything that got him away from his family and gave him some silence.

Thanks to the fact that they constantly moved, due to his father’s inability of keeping himself out of bar fights and worse, Sam never found any friends either - unlike Dean, who seemed to be the most popular kid no matter where they went. At first, Sam had tried to find friends, of course, but friendships never lasted anyways and when he was twelve, he decided to stop trying altogether. It wasn’t worth the time and effort he put into it, not to mention that he had to bend himself backwards just so anyone would even talk to him.

Sometimes, Sam felt invisible to other kids his age. The only ones he was visible for were the older ones - the ones that beat him up after school or played the worst pranks on him he could think of. There was never anyone Sam connected to, no matter where they went or who he was with. Not even the teachers seemed to care if Sam came to school bruised and with a swollen face. Worry about a child that was obviously bullied and never talked? Of course not.

Sam didn’t know when it started, but at one point he just stopped caring - at least that’s what he told himself. He began dressing in a way that showed how he felt inside, he changed the books he read and the places he went to when he wandered a town or city and by the time Sam was fifteen he had become someone others avoided on purpose, rather than just because he was no one they remembered when they met him.

This change of style and behavior sparked a new problem, one Sam did not expect. His brother, who was now nineteen and proudly following their father’s footsteps by drinking and fucking around, began treating him worse than before. He made fun of his little brother practically every day now, whenever they saw each other he would have a degrading comment or a new, hurtful name for Sam. It was as if the younger one had become his center of amusement and Sam hated it with a passion. Sam went through this for one year and three schools, until he just couldn’t take it anymore.

On his sixteenth birthday, Sam did something that provoked his brother once more and that earned him a pretty bad beating from his dad. He convinced someone that he was nineteen already and came home in the evening with a piercing through his right eyebrow. This, combined with the fact that he once again wore dark makeup around his eyes and a father who was drunk out of his mind, almost landed him in the hospital that night. His dad was furious, completely out of his mind when his son came home looking like a ‘drag queen in black’, as he called it, and Sam had a hard time defending his face from the blows into his direction. After almost thirty minutes of verbal and physical abuse, Sam was finally able to escape the wrath of his father and locked himself in his room.

It was early morning when someone knocked at Sam’s door and woke him from an almost comatose-like slumber - Dean. Naive as Sam was, he hoped Dean would take his side when he opened the door, but his brother proved him wrong once again.

“Wow, Sammy! You’re taking this chick-thing pretty serious now, huh?”

Sam immediately knew Dean, too, was pretty drunk. He wished he could excuse those words with the fact that his brother wasn’t himself, but he knew better than that.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam asked instead, having a hard time to articulate himself with the swollen lip his father gave him.

Dean laughed in response and slapped Sam’s shoulder hard.

“First the makeup and now you’re getting a fake piercing, too?”

“It’s not fake!” Sam spat back and pushed Dean’s hand away - it was disgusting when Dean touched him while being drunk, Sam absolutely hated it.

“Yeah, right,” Dean scoffed and then - not even paying attention to Sam’s protest - tugged on the fresh piercing on his brother’s eyebrow. Sam immediately screamed in pain and slapped Dean’s hand away before covering his eye.

“That hurts, asshole!”

“Stop being so emo, geez,” Dean shook his head and pushed Sam out of the way to get to the bed. “You’re such a loser, really.”

Sam couldn’t even answer before Dean crashed onto his bed and kicked his boots off - right into the younger one’s direction and with one hitting him directly in the stomach.

“One day you’ll have to stop being such a coward and become a man, Sammy.”

Seconds later, loud snoring filled the room.

For a few minutes, Sam simply stared at his brother with his hands clenched to fists and his face hurting like mad. He couldn’t believe how Dean managed to be such an ass toward him, even though he never did anything to deserve this. Hell, a big brother should have asked him what happened, not just go back to push him down even further!

“I hate you, you stupid, drunk idiot,” Sam eventually mumbled, his voice filled with anger and despise. “You are a fucking jerk!”

There was no reaction from his brother, but Sam knew he wouldn’t get one. When Dean passed out, he was gone for a while. Summoning all the willpower he had, Sam stepped forward and kicked Dean’s ass that had slid off the bed half-way. Again, there was no reaction. With tears building up in his eyes, Sam grabbed for his backpack and stormed out of the room, past his dad - who was passed out just as Dean - and smashed the door on his way outside so hard the windows next to it clinked.

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