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tintentrinkerin · 3 years

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Harness & Spears

Chapter 5: Father’s Eyes

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Researching for a case a year after they quit first feels weird to Sam, he has to get used to all the programs, his usual agenda. Today it’s so much easier with some computer skills. No more libraries, no more grainy scans of articles in local papers. Today, you just have to open a search engine app on your phone or a computer and you will be able to find dozens of cases in an hour or two. Of course, there’s still the work of sorting the wheat from the chaff, but Jack is a big help. They sit in the library together and go search for cases. Cas is really sweet to them, just like a butler he offers hot beverages and sandwiches, even though Sam must really hold him back to go full on “Yes, sir”. They want a case, and there are hundreds of them, but also, after Jack became God he brought all the hunters back that Chuck had banished. Donna and Jody, a couple now, as they announced just months after Jack’s ascend, and her girls, all in the hunter business. They heard from Eileen sporadically, but after all that happened and how uneasy Sam felt about the whole manipulation (and he was absolutely certain Chuck pulled the strings there, even though, when they originally met, Sam was drawn to her - but nothing more), she kept her distance and operated in Ireland and also all over Europe. The hunters from the other universe also just hunted in small groups. Charlie and her girlfriend retired for good. And Sam was still bitter about his own behaviour - projecting ‘his’ Charlie on this woman, who was so much different. He knew she hacked some computers every now and then to prank some potential Dicks. Sam was connected to the hunters, most of them. He has been clear about him and Dean, Cas (and later Jack) not going hunting anymore. But now things changed and Sam needed to check if any other hunters were on the cases him and Jack might find interesting. Running in another couple of hunting buddies is not a problem on a personal level, but the mutual sabotage will happen. It’s Murphy’s Law. That’s why Sam has a plan. They will take cases other hunters wouldn’t like to do. There are several reasons for hunting in the first place and reasons which cases to pursue and which not. Let noble monster hunting and cleansing the world be some hunter’s motivation, revenge, the thrill (some people really were that sick and hunted monsters for the kicks) and of course. The money. Oh yes, the money. But the Winchester conglomerate doesn’t worry about money, that’s why Sam won’t look for cases that have to do with wealthy people or towns announcing rewards. Also, when he knew the kind of monster and that a lot of hunters were after these creatures for killing their kin or loved ones, he better didn’t interfere. You could hunt monsters for their venom or psychic abilities, their blessings or whatever. Something a friend of Dean did not so long ago and got himself killed for it.

It shouldn’t be anything exotic, the New Age brought new monsters, at least that’s what Jack says.

“I was God, yes, and I knew everything that Chuck knew, but believe it or not, not even Chuck knew all of his creatures. His mind is packed with the stuff he wanted to do or not to do - if you ask me he was a little like George R. R. Martin. Got lost in his own massive universe and all the detail. I tried to give all of it structure, that’s why some things on Earth changed, but after some time I thought my head would explode and I uh, outsourced some good stuff in new universes. Amara is way better in doing all of that, she created way more universes and new forms of life as I did. She and her brother - don’t get me started.”

Jack looks exhausted. “Does it sound weird, Sam? That I wanted to be down here with you, all of you, but especially you, and give Amara all that power?”

Sam smiles about Jack’s outbreak and that he obviously read Game of Thrones. “No, it’s not weird. You were with Amara and I bet she’s very pleasant company but she wasn’t what you longed for. You didn’t want to be God who’s in every drop of rain, and all that. It was noble and pure hearted and generous of you to try, but you were allowed to fail. But, speaking of Game of Thrones, I have a few questions regarding--”

Sam is rudely interrupted in his chatter with Jack when Dean comes into the library and sits down two chairs away from Jack. Jack immediately gets up.

“Uh, Sam, I will -errm, go pack my bags. I think you will find a good case.”

Sam sighs.

“I’ll be with you soon, baby. Just gimme a minute.”

Jack is quick as a flash and out of sight within seconds.

Dean scoffs while thudding his mug on the table. Coffee pours out and stains the wood.

“Easy on the furniture Dean, it’s not your enemy”, Sam says without looking up. He can’t show Dean his face right now or he will just erupt. He feels the heat in his cheeks and a hot tickle up his neck. Since Dean threw a mug after Sam yesterday they haven’t seen each other and to be frank, Sam could totally renounce any other encounter with Dean for a while. Plus, Sam has a hickey, because Jack went a little passionate, clingy and possessive last night, for whatever reason.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you and… baby. ” The last word is like venom. As always. Dean wants to start another fight.

“I remember that I heard you calling Cas ‘daddy’ multiple times. You think that was really soothing for my wild imagination?”

“You call Jack what he is. A baby.”

“Another word, Dean, and you know I’ll knock you out. I have enough of your bullshit. You act like a jealous housewife. No, wait, more like a cuck!”

Dean scoffs and leaves.

“Do whatever you want, but don’t do it when I’m around or I’ll tear him apart.”

Sam sits here in shock. He has heard a lot from Dean about Jack, he has always been nasty to him and yes, even threatened to kill him twice, even was willing to execute him as part of Chuck’s evil plan. Yes, he was bitter about Mary and hell, how bitter Dean has been as Jack brought so many people back. All the ‘others’: Bobby and Charlie with her girlfriend. All these people. He brought Eileen back, and Dean thought it was to make Sam happy (and yes, that has been Jack’s intention, but ultimately it didn’t) and he was resistant to the arguments, that Mary was happy with John, she didn’t want to go back in this world she never felt like she fit in. He couldn’t be comforted by the messages Jack as a medium brought to Dean, that Mary loved him no matter what and that she will be happy when they meet again. Nothing could’ve soothed Dean’s aching. Sam understands that he’s hurt, but now, it just feels like Dean is angry at Jack for simply existing and then being so bold to love Sam.

Jack brought Cas back for Dean. He had risked a feud with the Empty that could only be avoided by Amara and Jack forcefully put the Regent of the Empty asleep. The Empty wasn’t sealed though, Rowena still reigned in hell, and still demons went to the Empty. But there are no angels on Earth anymore, Jack has naphil powers and even Cas regained some faint strength back, but Jack didn’t make new angels.

Jack really built a world in which it was possible for Dean and Cas to be together, he risked being invaded and maybe killed, since no one knows how really powerful the Empty was.

Why is nothing Jack does, no matter how universe shattering, unbelievably cosmic and holy and insane it is, not finally letting Dean the old grudge go?

It seems like everything he does just makes it worse.

Sam hides his face and in the safety of his own palms he allows to cry in fear for his own spiteful brother and soulmate. This will end badly if they don’t find a way to reconcile.

“You have to stop that, Dean” Cas says when Dean is back in the Deancave.

Cas is in his robe, nothing beneath. He looks pale and a little skinny. The last weeks have been hard on him and Dean knows it’s his fault. He makes his angel boyfriend sick. And yet he’s sick himself, and he’s kicking and fighting, with talons and teeth, words and throwing things after his brother. Also, he erupts the second Cas dares to mention it.

“Stop with what?”, he asks.

He picks the remote and wants to turn on the TV, loud metal music blasting but with a snap of a finger, the TV silent and it won’t turn back on.

“Castiel. Don’t fuck with me, I swear, I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re ‘not in the mood’ for weeks, maybe months. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? Why won’t you let me help?”

Dean’s eyes narrow dangerously as he faces the seraph.

“Help? How could you help? My brother fucks a toddler.”

Cas sighs and it sounds so endlessly sad. Defeated. Dean doesn’t want to see it, acknowledge it, that he is indeed very wrong. Jack is no toddler, Jack is no brat, Jack is so mighty he could really smite the whole bunker with a hiccup still, even though he’s not God anymore. Dean should be so damn careful. Dean should see how much Jack begs for his forgiveness and his approval.

But Dean can’t. And Dean won’t.

“Dean.”

Dean is so full of sorrow and fear, it hurts to hear his own name so gentle, so loving yet somehow fatherly. Cas loves him and Dean should be happy. He has been happy. The Empty had taken him away and Jack had fought to get him back. So they could be a family.

But this isn’t family to Dean. He’s around the person he loves the most, the person he loves with a burning, blinding insanity. He will never be happy like this.

Cas dares to come closer, around two steps away, offers Dean a hand. Dean can’t even look at him but he takes Cas’s hand and then pulls him in a desperate embrace.

“Shit, ‘m sorry, Cas. I don’t want to fight with you.”

It’s been a while, actually the last time Dean slept with Cas was the night when Jack asked him if Sam gay. This question is carved under his skin and if you look closely, you can see them shine through like thin red scars.

The streak won’t break today either.

“Will he ever stop hating me?”, Jack asks.

He has his suitcase packed, same as a backpack with snacks, water, headphones, his teddy Marvelous Marvin, a powerbank and, something he’s very proud of - his own angel blade. The only angels on earth are Jack and Castiel but the blade kills monsters just as well. He kneads the bundle of the purple blanket in his lap when he looks up to Sam.

Sam’s still tense from before, his eyes red and narrow, Sam must look like he didn’t sleep much or has been on a bender.

“I don’t know… I wish I knew what’s wrong with him.”

With a deep sigh Sam sinks beside Jack on the mattress. The bed creaks and a spring nudges in Sam’s butt cheek. Either they need a new mattress or they move in a room together, but Sam doesn’t dare to talk about these things yet. So far, he’s happy about the privacy. But he’s also constantly longing for Jack - a stalemate.

Jack leans against Sam’s shoulder and shyly feels for Sam’s hand. Sam is too glad to take it, intertwine their fingers and kiss Jack’s knuckles.

“It makes me sick, Sam. I’m afraid all the time he’s around. I’m afraid he might want to…”

“Hurt you?”

Jack nods, his lips a thin line.

“I won’t let him. And most of all, you won’t let him. Right?”

Another silent nod.

“Don’t worry about it now, our bags are packed and I found a case. I told you about the parameters I used to find a case no one else would investigate, and this one here is especially weird, but not weird enough for us to follow, and a bit boring, but not boring enough for us to NOT follow it. We’ve been to haunted houses before, right?”

“Yes, it’s mostly vengeful spirits or poltergeists, right?”

Sam nods. “Yes, exactly. Sometimes triggered by the plans of tearing the house down, the same can happen with big bodies of water, when they are threatened to be dried out, spirits of people who drowned will start going on a rampage. Haunted houses are like level 1 of every hunter. Rocksalt, shotgun, holy water, fire. Boom, ghost gone.”

Jack frowns a little. “Really, we’re going on a case that any newbie hunter could solve?”

Sam chuckles.

“Yep.”

It’s absolutely a thinly veiled reason to go on a hunt, but it’s the same that Dean and Cas did weeks ago when Jack sneaked out. In the end they also ‘just’ took on a vampire nest with five vamps and their Creator and the rest of the time they had a blast in Vegas, why should Sam not do the same? He wants to be alone with Jack, because Dean definitely ruined the pleasant experience of the tantra massage. Sam had been so happy back then and oh, crap, he was close to do more to Jack than just the massage. He wouldn’t have slept with him on this massage table, that was utterly uncomfortable, but he had been turned on so bad, that didn’t happen very often.

Sam really falls for Jack deeply and seriously. It’s a wonderful and frightening feeling at the same time.

Jack slides on Sam’s lap and straddles him, arms tight around his neck. Jack squints a little when he’s so close, his big blue eyes will never cease to amaze Sam.

“How can you not be Castiel’s son?”, Sam blurts, his hands cupping the naphil’s face and brushing away some strands of hair.

Jack’s mouth opens slightly, his tongue sneaks out to lick his upper lip.

“I am Castiel’s son.”

“I know, I just mean, genetically. You have his eyes. Does that sound stupid, baby?”

Jack shakes his head with a grin, his neck and face turn tenderly pink.

How did the biggest monster of all create this perfect boy?

“No, not stupid. I like the way you look at me”, Jack silently admits and the blush turns berry red.

“How do I look at you?”

Sam kisses Jack’s parted lips, feels the hitched breath and how Jack tightens up his back.

“First you looked at me with fear, when I was born. Then you looked at me in sympathy, in worry… Then gentle, loving. Just now, longing… You see a man, not a child, right? That’s the look in your face how you look at someone beautiful you want to be with…?”

Sam’s big hands creep under Jack’s pullover and Jack sighs, a light shudder down his spine and this tiny, quiet noise of content.

“You are beautiful, and yes, I want to be with you. All the time”, Sam whispers, he sounds rough, feels like he needs to clear his throat.

Jack lays his hands on Sam’s and guides him down his sweatpants. Sam squeezes. A slight gasp.

“We will have a lot of time for fun stuff once we’re out of here.”

That makes Jack jerk up, jump and drag Sam on his feet.

“Come, Sam! I can’t wait to be out of here.”

#harness&spears #rating: teen #sin is sinning #winkline #samjack

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unkemptgardens · 4 years

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CHAPTER FOUR

The following morning Tesla was awoken by the timer kicking the lights on in her face. She squinted against the purple. The plants all had fully-formed buds on them. She shot out of bed to investigate.

Completely frosted. A mix of white and amber trichomes, fully covered, like a cupcake. The buds were then layered with a thick coat of orange hairs. The buds themselves were dense and gigantic, taking up the majority of each stalk's length. Tesla rushed to find Daisy.

A few hours later the bud was harvested and spread out in a mesh hanger to cure. Harvesting had been promising. They had went through a few pairs of scissors because the trichomes kept gumming up the blades. Each plant was different. Daisy had loved picking out the different terpenes with her nose. She inhaled the bud she was holding. “Beta-caryophyllene, limonene...a little humulene?”

“I think that's the Girl Scout Cookies. It smells like my last bag. Only a million times better.” Tesla had never seen weed like this in her life. She couldn't believe it. Daisy was the real deal. She even did magic to speed up the curing process – they were hoping the faint grass smell would be gone by tomorrow.

It was Sunday so the shop was closed. Daisy didn't feel like working on the website on her day off so they hung out and relaxed instead. Daisy did another tarot reading for Tesla which turned out to be hopeful and encouraging. Tesla then tried her hand at doing one for Daisy, but the messages were conflicting. Tesla helped Daisy repot some of her plants and even ate some of her peanut-butter tofu stir-fry (worth eating). They checked on the weed.

Tesla smelled a perfect nugget. “It smells ready. Shall we try it out?”

“Me?”

“We'll compare notes.”

Daisy didn't say no and didn't kick Tesla out when she started breaking a bud up. She sat down at the table where Tesla finished loading a bowl into a rainbow pipe that had a large chip on the side.

“Okay, I'm gonna need you to corner this. You don't want to get too high. Just burn a small bit and then stop. Don't get brave,” instructed Tesla.

Daisy took the pipe. She did as she was told, nailed it, and then handed the pipe back. She waited. “I don't think I feel anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Wait, no.”

“........”

“Wait, no,” Daisy repeated and then she burst out laughing.

Tesla eagerly took a puff. Her body instantly melted and suddenly she had a big, goofy grin.

“How do you feel now?” she asked Daisy.

“Like I wanna go on a walk.”

“Where?”

“The backyard?”

“You don't have a backyard.”

“Damn.”

They settled on the park. Daisy was having the time of her life looking at all the different trees and was completely incapable of playing it cool in public. Tesla had little success hushing her.

“LOOK AT THE WEEPING WILLOW, TESLA!” She did this with each new tree. It was a park full of trees.

Somewhere between an oak and an elm Tesla was hit with a full-blown munchies attack. She needed food, and she needed it now. “Daisy. Daisy we have to leave.”

“Is that person over there with the binoculars sketching you out too?”

“They're bird watching.”

“Oh.”

“No, I've got the munchies. Let's go get food.”

They couldn't find Tesla's jeep. It took them a quarter hour to realize they were on the wrong side of the park. Then they got lost on the drive back to the shop. Finally they made it back. Tesla realized that she had completely forgotten to stop and get munchies and had to settle for Daisy's weird pantry. They gorged themselves on spicy dried fruit, granola yogurt bites, dark chocolate, baby carrots and humus, and kelp chips.

“This might be the weed talking, but these kelp chips are really hitting the spot,” said Tesla, slouched on the couch, covered in crumbs.

Daisy looked out the window. “It's already dark! How long has it been?”

Tesla checked her phone and sat up. “Wow. Hours. Usually you don't feel it for this long unless you, like, eat edibles or something.”

“Well I think I'm getting sleepy. I'm going to go to bed.”

“Me too.”

The next morning they were both still high. “Okay, this is weird,” said Tesla, accidentally buttering her phone instead of her toast. “We shouldn't still be high.”

“....was it all of the magic?”

“Probably, Daisy. I have a confession to make. I was doing magic every night too! You kept going on and on about intention magic, I figured it wouldn't hurt to talk to some plants. They're honestly a good audience.”

“Tesla! So we're too high?”

“I mean, I am, and I can only imagine how you feel, never having smoked before.”

“I just thought this was what it was like!” All of Daisy's clothes were on inside-out.

“Just give it a little bit.”

It did eventually wear off, much to Daisy's relief. She kept losing things. On one occasion, after a half-hour of searching for her keys, Witchcat brought them to her, rabbit's foot in mouth, and released them at her feet with an exasperated sigh. On another occasion, while cooking, she had looked all over the kitchen for her spoon only to realize she had been holding it the entire time.

“A day and a half!” said Tesla excitedly. “This weed is magic.”

“I don't know, you don't think it's too strong? I forgot the word 'door.'”

Tesla waved it off. “It's fine. I'll start selling tomorrow.”

And away she went! The next morning Tesla's very first stop was the library. She marched right up to the librarian's desk. “Meet me in the occult section.” Five minutes later they were face to face with Tesla's backpack between them. “It's magic.”

Charles looked up from where he was inspecting a fat purple nugget. “Yes, but what do you mean?”

“We grew it with magic! Daisy did her green witch thing and I talked to them a lot!”

“Magnificent. I'll take a quarter.”

Then Tesla went to the local college campus where she had pretty good luck. Finally, she found herself inside of The Third Eye. She did feel a little guilty, but then Jack spotted her and came over with a wave.

“Tesla! Right?”

“Haha. Yeah. Haha.”

“You didn't bring your friend, did you?”

“Don't worry, I think she hates you just as much as you hate her.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, hey, I actually came in today because I just grew some just absolute dank. I'll smoke a bowl with you and you can decide if you want some.”

They went to a back room, where there was already a bong out on the coffee table. It was surrounded by loveseats in a circular fashion. She picked the one in the middle, small and cushioney.

Tesla's backpack reeked. She pulled out the bags. “Look at this madness.”

Jack was thoroughly impressed. “Okay, I want some.”

“Just wait! Bong?”

“You bet.”

Tesla loaded her up and offered him the green hit, which he took in a practiced manner. The effect was immediate. It was an indica, and he grew very still and soft, eyes unfocused. “That tasted exactly like berries,” he said finally.

Tesla threw her arms up in a touchdown. “It’s the best!” She took the bong for herself. She hesitated a moment, remembering how completely baked she was last time. Had she been too high? Impossible. She took a big rip. The lights got brighter, the colors more vivid. Suddenly she heard every single lyric coming from the small laptop in the corner, which she hadn’t noticed before. Then she forgot where she was.

“I think this is the highest I’ve ever been,” she heard. She looked over at Jack staring at his outstretched hands and remembered. Then she felt ridiculous and giggled at herself for a bit. “Do you want some?” she asked. She sold him an eighth. It was hard for him to count out the money but they managed. They both sunk further and further into the couch, letting the music play. It was wonderful.

“What is this?”

“I don’t remember.”

They talked a little. “What’s the deal with your friend?”

“Daisy. Get this: she owns an occult shop. On the other side of town. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah I think I’ve heard of it. Six Roads?”

“Five Roads.”

“How’d she get that name?”

“Said it came to her in a dream.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, she’s just as weird as you, don’t hate her. I know she was a lot when she was in here, but she really isn’t that bad. She just kind of lost it when she found out about your shop.”

“She didn’t know about it?”

“I don’t think she gets out much.”

They stared dreamily off into space for a bit. “You think I’m weird?” asked Jack after a minute.

“A little.”

“Why?”

Tesla laughed. “I’m not into all this.” She gestured around her at the room in general, hung with tapestries and filled with candles and incense smoke. “I think it’s cute though.”

“You bought enchanted lube!”

“I mean, I couldn’t not buy the enchanted lube.”

“Do you like it? I enchanted it myself.”

“How do you enchant lube?”

Jack grinned. “Trade secret. Now that I know you’re friends with the competition.”

“It better not be weird.”

“It’s not. It’s very normal.”

“Enchanting lube?”

“Yes.”

Tesla’s phone vibrated. It was Daisy, wondering if she wanted dinner. Tesla smiled at the thoughtfulness. “Well, I better go. It was nice talking to you again.” They said goodbye and Tesla left in a blissful haze. She couldn’t get her jeep open. It took awhile for her to realize she was pressing the lock button. But the ride home was fairly uneventful and soon she was in Daisy’s tiny, delicious-smelling kitchen, dumping her cash from that day onto the table.

“Are you kidding me?” squealed Daisy. “This is enough for rent!”

Tesla rolled up her sleeves and started flexing and kissing her muscles.

Daisy squinted. “You’re super-stoned again!” she accused.

Tesla laughed. “No I’m not!”

Daisy crossed her arms. “If I have twelve apples and I take away five and add seventeen apples, how many apples do I have?”

“What, are you dealing apples? Another day at the ol’ apple factory?”

“See! You couldn’t figure it out if you tried!”

“Daisy, sometimes the answer comes from within.” Daisy rolled her eyes and set a plate of steaming vegetables down in front of Tesla, who glady dug in. She had eaten more green stuff since living with Daisy than she had in the past six months.

“Well I’m not smoking the stuff anytime soon again. It was fun and everything, but that is just too much for me,” said Daisy.

They discussed what they still had left to do for the website, and how the new source of income could benefit the shop. Tesla was too super-stoned to be helpful. “Let’s get one of those crazy, inflated floppy men out front!”

They talked about their day.

“Don’t be mad, but I sold weed to the guy at The Third Eye.”

“Tesla! He’s the competition! Don’t associate with him!”

“I said don’t be mad. His money’s just as good as anyone else’s.” Tesla didn’t mention his soulful eyes or pretty smile. Or that he only bought an eighth. “Well, how was the shop today? Any new customers?”

Daisy sighed. “Not yet.”

The next few days flew by. The shop, as always, was slow, but gave Daisy plenty of time to work on the website, which they got up and running. Daisy reorganized and looked at adding new inventory. She also started considering taking ads out in the local newspaper or perhaps having a commercial run on the radio. She had the funds now. Tesla, who had taken to wearing sunglasses inside and smoking cigars, brought in a steady stream of cash everyday from selling. Tesla noticed her repeat customers were all still super-stoned, but that they just wanted different strains of her “magic weed.” Each time, they went on and on about how good it was. She could recognize her customers, many of them college students, throughout town from a mile away. Many of them were conspicuous in some manner. For example, one girl looked like she had accidentally slathered toothpaste all over her face instead of moisturizer. Tesla didn’t have the heart to tell her. She had come down from her own magic high and had opted to take a break from the World’s Best Bud. She didn’t see it as a problem, however, until things started hitting close to home.

Tesla recognized that some of her campus customers worked at Arby’s, which, naturally, she frequented. It started out small. No Arby’s sauce in the bag. Barely noticeable, normal even. Then, no curly fries. No curly fries! How could they? Soon, the entire order was missing. It was just a paper bag with one measly napkin in it.

Tesla went inside. “Who’s in charge here?” she asked at the counter. The three employees, all super-stoned, all looked at each other blankly, as though they had forgotten.

Tesla held up the paper bag. “You forgot my entire order!” The employee at the register, Kyle, who had bought an eighth, looked into the bag and broke into a lopsided grin.

“Whoa,” he said.

Tesla waited. “Well?”

“What did you order again?”

Ten minutes later, Tesla left with extra fries, dessert, and two extra sandwiches. She was a little worried though. Would things be like this forever? She noticed things amiss on the way home too. Everyone was driving with a blinker light on. At a four-way, no one knew who was supposed to go and then everyone tried to go all at once. It might’ve caused an accident but everyone was driving too slowly. “Does this whole town smoke weed?” cried Tesla in frustration.

Shortly at Daisy’s, Tesla brought it up. “We have to do something!”

“Just stop selling it! It’ll wear off eventually.”

“Will it? Samantha only bought a gram and today I saw her give her entire order at Arby’s to the sign without the speaker in it.”

Daisy’s expression brightened and she snapped her fingers. “I know! We can go visit Charles and see how he feels!”

#the fools #writeblr #witchcraft #weed #chapter fourrrrr i did it

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hyperfixateandchill · 3 years

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aaand because I can’t stop thinking about it i’ve written down my ranking of post-finale deancas scenarios including a non-exhaustive list of pros and cons for each. read on at your own discretion.

1st place: Deancas open up the new Roadhouse. My personal favorite because, again, Dean’s canon dream. I think Dean would LOVE running his own bar and playing host and serving people food and drinks is basically his love language. Cas isn’t as into the bar vibe specifically but he enjoys seeing people come and go and getting to know the locals who come by and just being with Dean. They get to stay connected to the hunting world without being actual hunters which is probably the perfect win win situation for them.

Other Pros of the Bar scenario (i’ve thought about this a lot): Claire and Kaia come by increasingly often to visit until eventually Claire basically works part-time at the Roadhouse when she’s not off hunting and Dean starts only semi-ironically calling it the “family business.” Claire puts up pride flag stickers on the front door and Dean makes a thing of it at first but then warms up to the idea. People start catching on and now local queer people will come from several towns over to visit the bar because there aren’t exactly that many queer friendly spaces in their corner of Kansas. Then it’s pride month and Claire and Kaia secretly update the bar’s online info to explicitly draw in queer customers and on the evening of the nearest pride march the bar is PACKED with all the local gays and Cas has the pop music blaring and he will NOT let Dean change it but it’s ok because Dean’s made friends with a drag queen who’s a professional comedian and now they’re comparing calendars to see when she might be able to come do a set at the Roadhouse and basically their bar is now a gay bar. “LGBT friendly”, Dean insists, because 1. he’s not gay and 2. he still caters to the local straights and the hunters. but now hunters come in and end up sitting 2 stools away from a flamboyant!gay and some are slightly weirded out but most don’t care at all and all of them end up making some kind of comment about how they’d heard about Dean Winchester and his angel... guess it’s true huh? And Dean shoots them a cocky grin and says ‘yep’ but he still holds to the rule that pop music is only allowed on tuesdays and thursdays and maybe very late at night on the weekends when everybody’s drunk and dancing. The Roadhouse is a second home to Dean and it’s the perfect mix of middle american dive, hunter’s hangout and lgbt space, and that’s literally DEAN so it’s perfect and he gets to work with his family by his side and be a part of a community (or several) and he feels useful and happy.

Cons of the Bar scenario: Doesn’t work great with having a small child or hobbies. very long hours and unusual work schedule. would encourage Dean’s drinking habit. I.e. it might be more intense than some alternatives (unless the bar is more cafe/diner during the day and Claire/Kaia/whatever other youngins can mind the place on their own if deancas aren’t in and the bar is located quite close to their house to they can come and go).

Overall works pretty well for a more active/energetic take on deancas’s lives post-finale. 8/10

2nd place: Mix of mechanic!Dean and retired!deancas. Dean’s never had a proper job before or much of a social circle who aren’t hunters, so I find it hard to imagine Dean working at an autoshop and playing mr. normie with his coworkers. Same with Cas and a regular job.

What I can imagine, however, is Dean having his own small business where he fixes up old cars (for like, vintage car enthusiasts). It starts as a hobby but then he realizes people would pay him to do it so now it’s a business. Deancas obviously have a a house on a big plot of land near the woods and a lakeside, so there’s plenty of outdoor space for him to set up a small shop and most of his customers call ahead so he doesn’t have people just coming in anyway. The work is not quite enough to pay all the bills but again, Charlie’s magic credit card, so who cares. Cas gardens and beekeeps and occasionally sells the extras at the local farmer’s market. Dean cooks and fishes and uses Cas’s ingredients whenever possible. They spend their days on their own property, doing their hobbies on their own time and making enough money from them that they don’t feel useless and still have plenty of time left to get over-involved in Jack’s pta. It’s a very calm, contented life. the millennial hipster dream, fulfilled by two 40-some year old dads.

Pros: deancas getting to spend their days doing what they love, being ridiculously domestic and married (even if they’re not officially married), both being absolute malewives in their own ways and it’s disgustingly sweet.

Cons: this scenario doesn’t have quite as much excitement and opportunity for shenanigans as the bar scenario. Less connection to a community, more living like hermits. Dean might appreciate the more social atmosphere of a bar. Cas might be equally happy either way, but he’d probably like having Claire help them out at the bar so that’s a plus for him.

Overall a good scenario for a more placid semi-retired life. 7/10

3rd place: a bait and switch. Cas is the one who ends up still having something you could call a ‘job’, Dean is the househusband. It starts with deancas still helping saileen with HOL (hunters of letters) stuff but eventually Dean is very decided that he wants out now that things are in good hands. Cas agrees with him but still consults with the hol network since he’s got all that lore knowledge. Dean very occasionally helps with research/strategy for a hunt but that’s IT no more hunting for him, and so it ends up that Cas still comes by the bunker fairly often and works from home the rest of the time on research and translations etc and Dean’s 100% amateur chef-in-training and papa bear because now nobody can look down on him for being a housewife (or nobody he gives a shit about anyway) so he’s gone all in. and whenever he comes by the bunker these days is after he’s picked up Jack from school and he comes to join their family to cook them all dinner while they finish up the work.

Pros: love me a Dean who’s gotten over his hypermasculinity and is now comfortable with doing whatever he likes even if (sometimes specially if) that thing is considered stereotypically feminine. It’s his big fuck you to his dad and it’s the life mary had wanted when she was young and dean is mary and therefore he’s honoring her memory when he spends his days on a bright airy kitchen making lunch for his 4 year old and waiting for his ex-soldier husband he adores to come home and doing not one bit of hunting. except dean never had to lie about his past and cut ties with his hunter family to get this. which is why this time for him it works, when it didn’t for mary or sam. love that energy.

Cons: Dean is not in fact just a malewife and would probably still want some more action in his life. might feel kinda useless with Cas having a ‘thing’ to do when he doesn’t. Cas would be perfectly happy regardless though.

Overall heartwarming and sweet but not as realistic: 6/10

4th: Disheveled-magic-shop-owner!Cas (+ Sam and Dean). Just thought of this. Cas knows his shit about spell ingredients and magical objects and supernatural weapons, probably more than even Sam. And Cas gardens. And Cas most likely enjoys pinterest and mom blogs and finds out about etsy... So Cas may or may not start growing/hoarding specific goods he knows are useful in the hunting world. at first it’s just to help HOL out but eventually Dean realizes like... we could profit off of this? And Cas eye-rolls because he doesn’t care but then again he knows his shit so he sets up a poorly-designed website to sell hunting stuff. and maybe Sam goes in on it with him because Sam also knows his shit and it’s kind of cute because they work together and Dean probably does the mechanic/barkeep/househusband thing though he does help with making the special bullets and dropping off parcels at the post office and so on. And maybe eventually they open up a small magic shop where they sell their shit. And maybe the shop is next door to the Roadhouse and it’s all become ‘your one-stop shop for everything a hunter might need’ (and you know the gays like their new age shit too so it all works), and the bunker isn’t even far away either and all three business are interconnected, the ‘family business’ that AU John Winchester of Hunter Corp wished he’d created.

Pros: Cas gets to do a thing he’s knowledgeable and passionate about and Deancas get to leave hunting while staying adjacent to the community. Cas as a disheveled shopkeep who’s not particularly nice to customers but who provides them with insights and mysterious comments that make people certain he must be legit.

Cons: Cas using his knowledge of the supernatural to profit off of hunters sounds too capitalist and not very Cas-like. He would be the type to gladly give people stuff for free and methinks that Dean and Sam would feel that way too. Cas helping with HOL stuff is basically established in options 1-3 already and so is him gardening for potentially useful ingredients. He doesn’t need to sell this stuff in a shop.

Overall makes sense theoretically but doesn’t vibe well for me. 5/10

5th: full on retirees, doing basically the same things as no 2 except with maybe some more travelling and less caring about making money from any of it.

Pros: the “and they lived happily ever after” they deserve after all the shit they’ve been through.

Cons: boring. uneventful. Dean and Cas are still quite young and neither’s had a chance at something even resembling a normal life for more than a couple of months at a time. They should get more of a middle aged married life experience before moving on to full retirement.

Overall valid but less interesting: 4/10

6th: Cas gets a job at a local library or shop, Dean is either a mechanic or a househusband. To preface, if Cas were to get a job out there in the world, my favorite would be like a magic shop or a bookshop with *unique* books. But I find that unlikely unless Cas is running his own shop (see 4th place for that). So here we’re talking about a regular normie shop.

Pros: Cas has a job he likes and feels useful in? And he’s not completely tied down to Dean all the time (though not sure that counts as a pro). More of the ‘normal life’ vibes.

Cons: Cas working at a random bookstore or library or shop or whatever would be passably interesting but not as fulfilling or useful or fun as any of the other options.

Overall valid but not interesting or all that heartwarming. 2/10

6th: deancas don’t know any life outside of hunting so they keep on doing it, except now with lower stakes than before and they go on less actual hunts.

pros: umm... consistency? they keep working closely with saileen and the new hunters who start coming by/moving into the bunker.

cons: everything. Dean’s wanted out and he should get it. Cas literally died several times over and he should get to experience a human life with the man he loves and not just do more dangerous shit.

Overall a terrible idea. 1/10 (because 0/10 would be the Cas never comes back and Dean dies and goes to heaven scenario)

#spn #supernatural #deancas #destiel #dean winchester #and #castiel #deserve a happy life

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askthebunker · 4 years

Text

Another familiar face returns and Adam gets some answers about how everyone is being brought back...will he tell anyone or keep it between him and the source of the truth?

“Where were you?” Jack asked curiously, tilting his head when Castiel appeared in the library, taking a seat across from him at the table. He’d been working with Adam, who simply sighed when the angel appeared, looking a little annoyed but not saying anything.

“I was taking Sam and Dean to their appointments,” Castiel said simply, “It is...odd, seeing them talk things out.”

“Yeah, well, most people tend to use basic communication skills,” Adam mumbled, tossing a pencil down, realizing it was basically pointless to try to work on Jack’s schooling while anyone was around to distract him, “I guess having an incompetent bastard for a father doesn’t really help...case in point,” he mumbled, looking Castiel up and down.

Cas narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything, quickly changing the subject, “Seeing the three of you go through this has made me evaluate myself...and all my mistakes,” he explained, “It has been good for all of us.”

“Mistakes?” Jack asked.

“I’ve made many,” Cas shrugged, “I mean, most people do...I just make a little more than most people sometimes, I think.”

“Like what?” Adam snorted, “You seem to be the local favorite angel, I can’t imagine you making many.”

Cas actually scoffed, “Oh, there have been plenty...some I don’t care to mention in front of Jack,” he cleared his throat, “When I was under the control of Heaven, especially Naomi, I made many mistakes. I even took the life of another angel,” he smiled sadly, “Jack, he really reminded me of you. He was young and bright and had so much faith in humanity. I wish you two could have met.”

Jack looked down when he saw the look on Cas’ face, “Do you miss him?”

“Yes,” Cas nodded, “Sometimes. I didn’t really know him well, but he...admired me, in a way.”

Adam glanced at the look on Cas’ face before clearing his throat, “Hey, Jack, let’s get back to work, okay? I want to make sure we wrap up this unit before your Uncle Mike and I go out.”

“Okay,” Jack mumbled.

“I will let you get back to your work,” Cas stood up quickly, “I am going to go and speak with the others and see if they’ve made any progress on Chuck,” he said, touching Jack’s shoulder before heading out.

“That’s so sad,” Jack said, looking up at Adam, “It always feels like they’ve lost so many people...it makes them sad and I don’t like it.”

“It’s part of life, buddy,” Adam smiled sadly, “Things happen, y’know? Can’t change it or dwell on it...we just gotta honor the people we lose that deserve it.”

Jack smiled slightly at that, “Like going to visit my mom’s grave and giving her flowers?”

“Exactly like that,” Adam nodded with a smile.

...

“You okay?” Gabriel asked an hour later, appearing in the office waiting room as Sam walked out, scaring some poor other hunter shitless, probably.

“Yeah,” Sam mumbled, “Can we just...get out of here? Please?”

“Sure,” Gabriel nodded, giving Dean a sarcastic-polite smile before linking his arm with Sam’s, “Where to?”

“Home,” Sam sighed, “No where extravagant, Gabe, I’m exhausted.”

“As you wish, my dear hunter,” Gabriel said and they appeared in Sam’s bedroom at the bunker, “Sorry for going straight here, but there’s a little powwow going on in the living room, figured you just wanted some peace and quiet.”

“Thanks,” Sam smiled slightly before flopping back on his bed with a sigh, “I get that this was kind of my idea, but it doesn’t make it any less exhausting.”

“I figured,” Gabriel said, moving to lean on the wall and looking at him.

Sam patted the spot beside him without looking up and Gabriel plopped down beside him, staring up at the ceiling.

“You feeling okay?” Gabriel asked.

Sam just sighed, “It just brings up a lot of shitty memories, y’know?”

“Trust me, I know,” Gabriel said, linking his hand with his and stroking it with his thumb, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I just want to relax and be here with you,” Sam mumbled, “Maybe some other time, yeah?”

Gabriel nodded before smirking slightly. He raised his hand and the ceiling was replaced with a night sky full of glistening stars, “Since you wouldn’t let me take you somewhere extravagant, I’ll bring it to you.”

Sam stared up at the stars, a smile on his face. He moved slightly, putting his head on Gabriel’s shoulder as they stared up at the stars, holding hands.

...

“I’m just saying, he can’t beat all of us,” Charlie said, “It’s like the Power Rangers! We team up and take down the big bad all together!”

“For some reason I think God might be a bigger problem than a one-off thirty minute villain,” Kevin sighed, looking over at Balthazar, who was leaning back in his chair, his feet on the table, “Can you at least try to act like you’re helping?”

“No,” Balthazar said simply, looking up when Adam and Michael came into the room, “Where are you two off to all dressed up?”

“Paris,” Michael deadpanned.

Balthazar rolled his eyes, “Any specific reason you’re going to Paris?”

“It is the anniversary of the first time Adam and I spoke to each other,” Michael said, grabbing his hand.

“We’re going to Fouquet's,” Adam smiled, “Hence the blazers.”

“Disgustingly adorable,” Balthazar rolled his eyes.

Jack suddenly leaned over the banister, “Can you bring me back macarons again?”

“Yes, but you cannot have them until morning, you are getting ready for bed,” Michael said simply.

“Yes!” Jack cheered before rushing off to his room.

Michael wrinkled his nose when he saw the group staring at him, “What?”

“It’s just nice to see you acting like you have emotions with someone other than Adam is all,” Dorothy mumbled.

Michael rolled his eyes before turning to Adam, “Ready to go, darling?”

“Yup,” Adam said simply and they disappeared from the room.

Kevin sighed, looking where they were standing, “Do they make anyone else feel grossly single?”

“Yes,” Cas deadpanned.

“Haven’t you and Dean worked your shit out yet?” Benny scoffed.

Cas narrowed his eyes at him, “No. Why don’t you give me some advice on that?”

Benny held his hands up in surrender.

“Well,” Charlie said, closing her book, “On that note, I’m giving up for the night,” she said, getting up, “Some of us actually need to sleep.”

“Same here,” Dorothy said, getting up and grabbing Toto in her arms, following Charlie out of the room.

“Your room is the other way,” Balthazar called to Dorothy, earning a middle finger from her, “Someone has certainly adjusted to the time period.”

“If the world ends and we all die and I’m still single at the end of it,” Kevin said, watching the two walk out together “I’m going to be pissed.”

...

“I am in need of a vessel again.”

“But how...I thought you were gone...”

“I thought I was too.”

“Well, I’m game...not like I have anything better to do.”

“I appreciate you, Matthew.”

“Anytime, Al.”

...

Balthazar had disappeared within the hour, Benny went...Kevin probably didn’t want to know, Cas went “out,” leaving Kevin alone to continue researching. If Gabriel hadn’t swept Sam away, he’d probably be up with him, given they were both insomniacs.

Kevin rubbed his eyes tiredly and sighed. He looked confused when he heard the sound of...knocking, from downstairs.

He immediately grabbed a gun and shoved went up to the door. Sure, there were a ton of angels running around, but he could handle himself after everything. If it was just someone screwing around with the bunker, he could easily handle it.

He finally found the source of the noise: the garage door. He stood on the tips of his toes to look out the windows and saw some guy standing there. He sighed, putting the gun away and opening up the door, “Look, you can’t be screwing around this place...it’s dangerous,” he shrugged, “And warn all your urban explorer friends too.”

“I am not...” the man trailed off, confused, “I am looking for Castiel. I tracked him to this location but I was unable to enter. Is it warded?” he asked curiously.

“Who are you?” Kevin demanded immediately, stepping back, his hand going to the gun in his pocket.

“My name is Samandriel, I am...was an angel of the Lord,” the man said formally, “I was dead and now I am not. I am looking for Castiel.”

“...Right,” Kevin sighed.

He didn’t know why he was surprised by so many people turning up alive at this point.

“C’mon inside,” Kevin smiled weakly, “He’s around here somewhere. I’ll find him for you.”

“What is this place?” Samandriel asked curiously as he entered, the garage door closing behind him. Kevin noticed him flinch slightly when the metal door closed, but didn’t comment on it.

“The Men of Letters Bunker,” Kevin explained, “Sam and Dean’s place, basically. It’s kind of our headquarters right now.”

“Headquarters for what?” Samandriel asked.

“The fight against God.”

...

“I just don’t understand how this shit keeps happening!” Dean said, pacing back and forth. Everyone was awake now and anyone who was out had returned. All the necessary tests had been done and it was definitely Samandriel, Grace and all.

“Can’t be just be grateful it’s happening?” Sam sighed tiredly, “It’s someone else to help.”

“Look, I’m not annoyed or anything,” Dean put his hands up, “I’m just trying to figure this shit out,” he looked at the large group of people in front of him...most of them were in pajamas, looking half asleep, “Anyone got any answers to this?”

Silence.

They all looked at each other...Adam looked at Castiel and Jack. Cas was looking at the floor and Jack was looking away awkwardly.

Dean rubbed his eyes, “Yeah, I figured.”

“It seems to be some unknown source resurrecting former allies,” Michael said simply.

“Thanks, genius, real helpful,” Dean sighed, “We already knew that.”

"I will search for an answer, but I doubt I will find anything in Heaven,” Michael said before disappearing.

“Was that...?” Samandriel mumbled in shock.

“Michael, yes,” Castiel nodded, “Along with Raphael and Gabriel.”

Samandriel dropped down on a knee immediately, “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Oh, jeez,” Gabriel looked uncomfortable, “Uh...you don’t gotta do that, kiddo, just a handshake is completely fine,” he said and then elbowed Raphael.

“You do not have to do that,” the other archangel agreed.

Samandriel stood up, “It is an honor to meet you though...I should have said the same to Michael. I cannot believe you’re all here, in one place...” he trailed off.

“Fighting against dear old dad? Crazy, right?” Balthazar scoffed.

“Look, we’ll get you set up in a room,” Sam said to him, “I’m sure you’re...tired?” he trailed, “Do you need to rest? Cas rests sometimes.”

“It would be nice to have somewhere to settle down, thank you,” Samandriel nodded.

“C’mon, I’ll find you an empty one,” Sam smiled at him, leading him away with Gabriel in tow.

“Okay...back to bed, all of you, or whatever the hell you were doing,” Dean grumbled, rubbing his face, “I need sleep,” he said before walking off as well.

Adam waited until everyone had cleared out except Cas before speaking up, “Castiel-”

“Don’t,” Cas said quickly, “Adam, I am...begging you. Do not bring this up to Dean.”

“You talked to Jack about Samandriel, now here he is!” Adam said quickly, “Is Jack bringing these people back?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Cas sighed, “The same thing happened with Benny...I told Jack about him, he went to bed, then he was back when we were out looking for you.”

“This is...” Adam trailed off, “You’re worried Dean will freak?”

“Yes,” Cas said firmly, “Dean and Jack...they got off to a rough start. Things are as good as they can be with Jack getting his soul back now, but I won’t have Dean convinced Jack is some kind of monster in need of hunting.”

Adam swallowed and nodded, “So we keep this between us and us only.”

“You won’t tell Michael?” Cas asked.

“No,” Adam shook his head, “Mike is kind of in the same boat as Dean, I guess. He’s still a little freaked by a nephilim just being here, it took forever for him to warm up to Jack,” he explained, “He’s so happy being his uncle now, I don’t want anything to change that.”

Cas nodded, not sure what else to say except, “Thank you.”

“So, what? Did you have some big storytime the night everyone came back?” Adam asked.

“No,” Cas sighed, “But I remember that night and I think I know what happened...”

...

2 MONTHS AGO

Jack Kline peered around the door to the kitchen when he heard the sound of shuffling. He figured Dean was a little tipsy again, which was nothing new, but it was Sam and that was certainly new.

“We’ve done so much,” Sam whispered, “An-And it was all for nothing. We lost so many people and now it’s just gonna end? Just like that?”

“C’mon, Sammy, you’re gonna wake Jack up,” Dean sighed, obviously the sober one here, “We can talk tomorrow when you’re feelin’ better- Jesus, Sam,” he grumbled when his younger brother hugged him tightly, burying his face in his shoulder. He just rubbed his back, not saying anything after that.

Jack stared at them with watery eyes. Sure, he’d seen them upset before; he’d seen all of them upset before. But lately Sam seemed so hopeless and that was something he wasn’t used to.

“They’re all gone,” Sam choked out, “All our allies, all our friends and family, they’re just gone and we have nothing to show for it. Everyone is gone,” he whispered.

“C’mon, Sammy, let’s get you to bed,” Dean sighed, trying to console his younger brother.

“Jack,” Castiel interrupted his watchful gaze, suddenly appearing behind him, “I thought you were sleeping,” he said before looking over to Sam and Dean. He quickly stepped in front of Jack’s view, “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“How many people, exactly, have they lost?” Jack asked quietly as they walked down the hallway, he looked over his shoulder, back towards the kitchen, despite not being able to see them anymore.

“Many,” Castiel said softly, “But...it’s nothing you need to worry yourself about.”

Jack sighed and nodded, walking with his father-figure back to his room.

…

Jack turned fitfully in his sleep. He didn’t sleep often and when he did it was usually only for a few hours. Castiel said it was the angel side of him fighting with the human side, as an explanation. It was more mixing dreams with what was really going on in his life, but Jack wasn’t going to bring it up.

He loved Sam and Dean so much, they were like fathers to him...they are his dads. Seeing them suffering hurt so much. He just wanted his loved ones to be happy and together.

He didn’t see why things were so unfair.

He just wanted to bring some of them back, just so they could have some help.

Just so Sam could have some hope again.

…

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

Jack blinked awake after what felt like just a few moments, but he knew it was morning now. He sat up quickly and ran to his door when he heard yelling outside.

“This is some shit,” an unfamiliar voice said, “We were just...changing a-and we were here all the sudden. Did you really have to kidnap us again?”

“Oh yes, sure looks like you two were changing, kiddo,” a voice that sounded like his Uncle Gabriel said.

But it couldn’t be...his uncle was dead.

Jack walked down the hallway quickly, trying not to run as he continued to listen.

“Shut up,” Dean barked quickly, “And when the hell did you get another vessel?”

“Shortly after you and Castiel went to Purgatory,” another voice said simply, “Can we leave now?”

“I didn’t bring you here!” Dean said, sounding frustrated, “I don’t even want you here-”

“Nice.”

“I didn’t...mean it like that, man.”

“Sure.”

“Adam-”

“Well, as fun as this is,” an accented voice said, “What exactly brought us all here?”

“Uh…” Jack said awkwardly, standing on top of the stairs, looking down at several unfamiliar faces, along with the face of his Uncle Gabriel, Dean, and Castiel.

“Jack,” Castiel said quickly, hurrying up the stairs, “We didn’t know you were up yet,” he said, looking over at Dean helplessly.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked, looking at all the people; six he didn’t know all together, along with definitely being able to sense some Grace in a few of them.

“I leave for...ten years, your time, and you break one of our most serious laws,” one of the men growled, his voice getting louder. He blond man put a hand on his arm and Jack didn’t know if it was to calm him or hold him back.

“Oh please, calm down, Mikey, we all know Cassie doesn’t get lucky,” Gabriel scoffed, “It was Lucie...duh,” he added for good measure, “I figured you’d sense it.”

“Well, my powers are...not what they used to be,” the guy, Michael, Jack realized, huffed, his hands still gripped into fists, “But still…”

“He’s just a kid,” the blond guy said softly to Michael.

Michael took a deep breath through his nose and nodded, obviously listening to the guy.

“I was just chilling in Heaven,” a red headed woman said, “And trust me, it was good, and now I’m here. Wanna explain, guys?”

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” the blond scoffed, earning a glare from Michael.

“I...I think I may have...accidentally-” Jack started, but he was quickly hushed by Castiel.

“Who knows what’s going on,” Castiel said quickly, “With everything going on, we shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, walking down the stairs with Jack this time, “Jack...this is…” he trailed off, pursing his lips and looking over at Dean.

Dean sighed, gesturing to the people in the room as he went, “This is Michael, your uncle, the real Michael; Adam; Charlie, total genius and freakin’ queen; Dorothy and her damn dog from the Wizard of Oz; Balthazar, your other uncle; Kevin, he’s family, got it?”

Adam snorted, “I’m family too, by the way...blood only.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“He’s, uh...our younger brother,” Dean said, looking away, obviously unsure.

“Half-brother,” Adam added, “Dad’s side. Shocker, right?”

“Oh, I like you already,” Gabriel commented.

Michael glared at him, putting his arm around Adam.

“Give it a rest, big guy, I’m not after your human boytoy,” Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Sam emerged then, looking like he was half asleep still.

“That human boytoy, on the other hand…” Gabriel smirked.

“What…?” Sam trailed off.

Hungover, Jack thought to himself and Balthazar snickered.

“...we’re gonna need some drinks,” Dean finally said, breaking the silence.

“Is this real?” Sam blinked a few times.

Kevin ran over to Sam suddenly, pulling him into a tight hug.

“I agree completely,” Charlie added before running over and hugging him as well. She grinned, looking back at the others, “Anyone else wanna join in on this?”

“Hard pass,” Adam deadpanned, his arms crossed, “It’s been fun, but we need to go.”

“Wait,” Michael said softly, “If we are here, there must be a reason. We should stay and help them.”

Adam just shook his head, taking a deep breath, “I’m going outside for a cigarette, let me know when you come to your senses,” he mumbled, stalking out quickly.

“He’s your brother, why doesn’t he want to stay?” Jack asked, looking at Dean and Sam, confused, “We’re family.”

“It’s...a long story,” Dean swallowed.

…

“So...you think the universe is telling you to keep fighting our dad by bringing all of us back here?” Gabriel asked, leaning on the counter.

“I mean...that has to be it, right? There’s no other explanation,” Sam said, sitting at the table, now drinking his coffee, “Whoever brought you guys back, brought back some of our most powerful allies. It’s a sign.”

…

“I think...I brought them back,” Jack breathed out, sitting with Castiel, “It was an accident, I don’t know how I did it. But...seeing Sam hopeful again, I wouldn’t take it back.”

“Jack,” Cas said quietly, “I understand wanting him to have hope again, but this...it can’t happen again. It’s amazing, but it’s not right. We don’t understand your powers or the repercussions this could have.”

Jack stared down at this feet.

“This can not happen again and no one can know,” Castiel told him, “For your safety, if anything. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

...

NOW

“So this entire time, you’ve known?” Adam asked.

“Yes,” Cas said quietly, “I don’t like keeping secrets from Sam and Dean, but...I’ve explained this to you. It’s for Jack’s safety that this stays between us. I...love you having a place in Jack’s life, Adam, you genuinely care for him and want to protect him in the same ways that I do. Help me protect him from this.”

Adam nodded, “I already told you, man...this stays between us, for Jack’s sake.”

...

“I hope this is okay,” Sam explained, “I mean...I know this probably isn’t okay, but...” he trailed off with a shrug.

“I just need to rest, thank you,” Samandriel nodded, “Thank you for giving me a place to stay, Sam Winchester.”

Sam smiled slightly, “No problem, Alfie.”

#cutscene;

19 notes · View notes

florenceandthemachine · 4 years

Note

i need u to talk to me about stiles and jackson and their baby girl. i need u to talk to me about how they name her claudia and how they spoil the actual everloving shit out of her and how all the single moms at the supermarket lose their entire minds when they see jackson walking around with her strapped to his chest and how stiles absolutely cannot blame them because his man is literally the world’s biggest dilf. i need u to talk to me about happy domestic stackson thank u and goodnight.

Honestly boo, I told you I had to prepare for this and sit down at a computer and I accidentally wrote a novel. But I had to, because here’s the thing.

Nothing in Stiles and Jackson’s life has ever been easy.

Stiles would start recounting the happiest moments in his life by talking about the time he almost died in high school (he remembers it fondly). Not because he’s fond of the fact that he almost died, but because while he was lying on Deatons table, bleeding out, pixie claws still dug too deeply into his chest, Jackson kissed him for the first time. Jackson was crying, and he was crying, and Jackson was begging him to stay alive, and Stiles, honestly, could have died a happy man right then and there with Jackson kissing him.

He and Jackson get married, less than a year after Stiles graduates with his masters in mythology and Jackson finishes an associates degree in Criminal Justice. Stiles gets a part time job in a local library, and Jackson starts work as his dads newest officer, and Stiles never lets him forget how good the uniform looks on him; and, he thinks as he looks over Jackson, writhing beneath him, cuffed to the headboard, it looks even better off of him.

(The wedding is a small ceremony, with the pack and Stiles’ dad there. Stiles cries the entire time. Jackson only makes fun of him a little. When the justice of the peace asks if they’ll be hyphenating their last names, Jackson snorts and takes Stiles hand and “no, absolutely not. I’ve been waiting my entire life to be a Stilinski.” Stiles cries again. Jackson just beams at him, the asshole.

[Later that night, Lydia almost passes out when a group of rouge banshees breech their territory, screeching like… well, banshees. It happens during their wedding reception, of course, because as previously stated, nothing in Stiles and Jackson’s life has ever been easy.])

They live together. They love each other. They love the pack. They still do things like patrols, once in a while, and of course it’s during a patrol that their life flips again.

They’ve only been back in town for a week after taking some time off for their wedding anniversary when they come across a woman on the side of the road. Jackson is still in full uniform and swoops in (Stiles swoons, he can admit it) to help the very dirty, very young woman, and her very small, very loud, very much a newborn, infant. The woman is crying, talking about how she didn’t mean for this to happen, she doesn’t know what to do, and the baby is crying because it’s a baby. Stiles is out of the car right behind Jackson, jacket in arms, ready to help warm the baby up.

In hindsight, he probably should have realized something was up when the woman seemed all too eager to let Stiles take the child from her. Because in less than three seconds, when Jackson and he are both focused on the baby, the woman is gone.

Whelp.

Jackson takes to caring for a child immediately. While Stiles is meeting with a social worker and loading a bassinet into the Jeep, Jackson bounces her in his arms—god, she couldn’t be more than three months old—and Stiles has to stop himself from looking, worried he might start to want something he can’t have. High school Stiles would have been shocked by the sight, but older, wiser Stiles knows that Jackson is one of the most caring, warm people on the planet, just beneath a crunchy exterior. Stiles loves him for it, so much, but watching the two of them interact makes his bones ache. The social worker assures him it will be temporary. Two weeks at the most, before they’re able to find some blood relation.

Two weeks turns into three, and three turns into five, and soon Stiles has worked their routine around a child that they just call “baby” because they have no right to name it (“and besides, Jacks, it’s not like she’ll remember any of this anyway”).

Stiles is glad, though, that he’s not the first one to approach the topic of adoption. Their idiot social worker does, when five weeks turns into three months with no luck. The topic comes up, about what a match they would be, and how well they work with the baby, and Stiles rudely cuts her off by dragging Jackson into the hall, knowing that Jackson wolfing out was the least of their concerns if the conversation carried on any further down that path.

Because at the mere mention of adoption, confident, smooth Jackson almost broke Stiles hand squeezing so hard. His eyes widen minutely, his smile freezes in place, and to the untrained eye, it might seem like Jackson was just a little surprised. Stiles knows Jackson well enough to know that his husband just plunged into a hell of his own making, through stress and fears and issues that years of therapy have eased, but not entirely. Sure enough, no sooner than the door closes is Jackson leaned against the wall, clutching Stiles close to him, breathing in his scent as Stiles soothes him.

His heart is breaking as he tells Jackson it’s okay. They don’t have to adopt her. It’s just an option. And he knows he’s a terrible liar but he isn’t lying when he said he would never ask Jackson to do anything that he isn’t comfortable with.

It takes a good twenty minutes before Jackson calms down enough to pull back from the embrace, eyes red with tears and hands shaking. But it’s with the same stubborn determination that he approaches everything with—everything he really wants—even if his voice is shaking when he meets Stiles eyes.

“I want, Stiles. I… I do. With you.”

Stiles can only smile, his heart soaring, terrified but optimistic. He clears his throat to speak, but once more, Jackson beats him to the punch.

“We could name her Claudia.”

Stiles is crying again.

Less than a week later, as Stiles is pouring over every single parenting book he could find, Jackson makes a grand entrance into their bedroom and announces that he got Claudia to go to sleep. In the same breath, he tells Stiles that he’s transferred his entire inheritance into a college fund in her name.

Stiles drops the book he’s holding and pulls Jackson to the bed with such vigor (in the name of higher education) that he’s shocked they don’t end up waking the baby.

They are both passable parents, but if you ask either of them, it’s because Claudia is such a chill fucking baby. She cries when she’s hungry and that’s about it. She naps when she wants to, she chatters when she wants to, she giggles and grabs Jackson’s sideburns when he wolfs out for her amusement. She has Jackson wrapped around her finger in no time flat, and when she takes her first steps well before her first birthday, Jackson is the asshole dad in Mommy and Me class talking about how advanced his baby is. Stiles would find it really annoying, but something about watching Jackson push a shopping cart with a baby strapped to his chest makes him forget anything but love. He’s a sap.

Getting Jackson one of those baby bjorn things was the best ideas of Stiles’ entire life, because there was nothing that Stiles loved more than watching Jackson go on his early morning run, in a tank top and shorts, nasty green smoothie in hand—and a baby strapped to his chest. Stiles wasn’t sure what he loved more—getting the early morning kiss from his husband (and puckering up to smack one on his daughters head), or the deeper, sweatier, longer kiss that Jackson woke him up with after coming back from his run, which Stiles regularly fed back into, tugging Jackson into the bed without a second thought.

Jackson loved any time he could spend with his daughter, but his favorite times by far were the random days that he had off. Call him... boring, or old fashioned, or lame, or— “Jackson, shut up. There is nothing wrong with spending time with your family. We’re your family, you idiot, we love spending time with you too.” ...well, whatever the case, he loved it. Running errands on a Saturday became a family affair.

The old ladies in the natural grocer near their home love them. Stiles take full advantage of that, kissing his husband and cooing at his baby whenever they’re nearby to score an extra free sample of free range bacon or to get the latest gossip from the retirement home. He has a few of them on Sheriff Watch, and it would honestly be sad that Stiles’ dad couldn’t eat a jelly doughnut anywhere in town without Stiles knowing about it If it weren’t so funny.

Stiles finds his natural enemies in the yoga moms, though. Or at least, he would, if Jackson wasn’t Jackson. He could honestly watch hours of these single moms trying to flirt with Jackson in the produce aisle, while Stiles is standing right next to him, only to have Jackson completely dote on their kid and completely ignore them. He only intervenes once, when a busty blond thirty something mother of three reaches forward to pinch Claudia’s cheek. Stiles smiles, reaches forward, gently pulls the woman’s wrist away, and tells her that if she ever touches his daughter again, he will break her arm.

So maybe Jackson wasn’t the only one Claudia had wrapped around her pudgy fingers.

Claudia’s first word is “Papa”, directed solely at Jackson, and Stiles... well, Stiles couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous, because Jackson was staring at Claudia in shock and wonder, and Stiles is falling in love all over again with him. Jackson takes in a deep breath and smiles, letting her grab on to both of his fingers, his voice crushingly soft as he nods his head.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I’m your Papa, and you’re my baby girl. Can you say baby? Bayyy-bee?”

She giggles and smacks him in the cheek, and the moment is over, but Jackson’s smile will be burned into Stiles brain forever.

(Two months later, Jackson is trying to get a clean onesie on a very fussy Claudia when Stiles walks in, and she goes ramrod straight in his arms, reaching for Stiles, making grabby motions and yelling “Dada! Dada!” in her adorably desperate little baby voice. Jackson feels his heart swell as Stiles jaw hits the floor, but only for a moment, before he swoops in and plucks their daughter from his arms.)

Things are easy with them, and honestly, Stiles should have been suspicious—because, rule of thumb, nothing is ever easy with Stiles and Jackson. Claudia is two and things are easy. Claudia is two and she falls while toddling across the kitchen. Claudia is two and Stiles is picking her up, comforting her while Jackson kisses her booboo. Claudia is two, in Stiles arms, her tears turning into laughter. Claudia is two, and she hiccups, and suddenly Claudia has golden eyes, sharp little nails, and an alarming amount of facial hair for a two year old.

Stiles and Jackson both freeze—Stiles, because in all the parenting books he has read, nothing has prepared him for the possibility of raising a werewolf baby. Jackson freezes for a slightly more dramatic reason, his own eyes burning blue in response to his daughters gold, mouth hanging open in shock. She’s not crying anymore, at least, and Stiles can count that as a win. Hell, out of the three of them, the person who is most surprised is Claudia, who is now giggling and smacking Stiles’ cheeks, clearly enjoying the hollow sound his gaping mouth makes when hit.

Stiles immediately invites everyone over, thinking it would be easier to show everyone in person. Derek will need to do some Alpha thing to cement her place in the pack, he rationalizes, pacing the living room while texting up a storm, and Jackson... Jackson is nervous for reasons he doesn’t fully know how to articulate, bouncing Claudia on his hip. He’s come a long way since he was the angry, self obsessed sixteen year old, asking for the bite, and he knows that, but there will always be a small part of him that worries Derek is on the verge of kicking him out. He’s can feel his heart picking up as he starts to sink into his own thoughts, because what if Derek—

He doesn't get a chance to follow that rabbit hole, because a tiny, disgruntled noise is all it takes from Claudia to garner Stiles entire attention, and it isn’t even a second before Stiles is up close and personal.

“I know that look. Jackson, stop thinking. This doesn’t change anything—they already love her, and they already love you. Now they just know to count her in for future training sessions and full moon parties. Breathe, baby. Claudia and I are here to stay.”

Jackson doesn’t know when his anchor expanded to include their daughter, but honestly, it probably always did.

Erica and Boyd show up first, Erica heavily pregnant with their own kid, and Scott and Kira arrive shortly after—they’ve been looking into following their lead in the adoption game, though Stiles secretly wished any adoption they go through was no where near as eventful as theirs. Derek arrives last, unintentionally making the dramatic entrance he’s known for, and he is barely in the door for a half moment before he freezes, eyes wide, looking at the baby in Jackson’s arms.

In his surprise, he moves quickly, too quick for Jackson’s liking—Derek is an arms reach away from him and Jackson growls, his eyes flaring blue, instinctively clutching Claudia closer to his chest. Stiles swallows and grips Jackson’s hand a little tighter, gearing up for this to be A Thing, and the rest of them are equally confused, considering they are still looking at a purely human child. One that Derek has babysat for, for fucks sake. Derek, though, has a huge grin on his face, and moves much slower as he reaches to put a hand on Jackson’s shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.

Derek takes a knee and takes Claudia’s little pudgy hand in his own, and honestly, it would be a hilarious sight, except Derek’s eyes are burning red and Claudia wolfs out immediately, sitting shock still, mesmerized by Derek’s own eyes. It only lasts for a moment before she’s screams with joy, reaching for Derek’s sideburns, but Derek is already standing again, pulling Stiles and Jackson into a hug. The air almost crackles with electricity and even tiny, human Stiles feels something settle as the new pack bond takes form, with Derek’s arms tight around the two of them—

—the three of them, sorry, because Claudia is currently giggling like a fool from where she’s more or less suspended between the two wolves.

It was kind of perfect. Derek’s first beta raising the first born wolf of their new pack. If Stiles could pause that moment in time, he would have. Because raising a toddler was easy when Claudia was a relatively chill human baby. Now, though, it was like she had been saving up all her energy for the past two years—and now that her wolf was awake, it was time to let it loose.

Claudia became a terror. A terror they loved, of course, but a terror none the less because apparently “the terrible twos” were a very real thing, even for werewolves. She pushed every limit and every boundary, getting to the point where even Derek was wary about agreeing to babysit—Derek, the worlds biggest pushover when it came to babies. “No” became her favorite word at two—by three, it was “stop”—and when she was four, she had only one thing to say to a very sleep deprived, very emotional Stiles when he brought down the wrong pair of shoes for their weekly trip to see Papa for lunch.

“No, daddy, no! I want blue shoes, not green shoes! You never listen to me! I hate you! I hate you!”

Stiles was aware that he’s probably a little hysterical at that point—but when he hears that, something inside of him just breaks. He drops the shoes and just stands there and has to remind himself to breathe, and suddenly he’s crying, and somehow Claudia’s tantrum is over before it even begins. The first tear falls, and then ten seconds later his arms are full of his daughter, frantically scrambling to be close to him, apologizing profusely for being mean, her shouts turning into tears of her own.

Stiles is beyond comprehension at this point, but it feels like a switch has been flipped, as he and his daughter dissolve into tears while sitting on the kitchen floor.

At some point, Jackson comes home when he realizes he’s being stood up for lunch. They had more or less calmed down; though they were still on the kitchen floor, Stiles had fished his tablet off of the counter and was entertaining her with old pictures—of his mother, of Jackson in high school, of her as a baby.

He had just flicked to a picture of the three of them on Claudia’s adoption day—Stiles was beaming at the camera as his dad snapped a photo, and Jackson had a look of wonder on his face, looking down at the tiny baby swaddled in Jackson’s arms. Like he was summoned by the photo itself, Jackson comes in through the side door after parking his cruiser, takes less than three seconds to assess the situation (husband and child; on floor. scents; tears and sadness. threat level; moderate.) before shucking his utility belt and his badge and scooping them both into his arms. Claudia is crying again, but softer this time, still worn out from her earlier tantrum, apologizing in between hiccups for being so mean, but nothing could prepare either of them for the tumble of words that leaves her lips as she buries her face into Jackson’s shoulder.

“You and Daddy are still gonna keep me, right?”

Jackson is heartbroken, but... not surprised. He had gone through the same thing, more times than he can count, growing up. His parents had always brushed it off with platitudes—don’t be silly, Jackson, you’re overreacting Jackson. He finally had the chance to right some of their wrongs, the seriousness in his voice reflecting

“You got mad, and that happens sometimes. Daddy and I can get mad sometimes too. But we never stay mad at one another, and we always apologize, right sweetpea?”

He waits for Claudia to nod before he continues, aware that Stiles is staring at him too.

“Well, you already apologized to Daddy and I. You apologized because you realize you made a mistake, and it’s okay to make mistakes. You apologize because you love us, and we love you too. We love you, Claudia. And we are never, ever going to let you go.”

(Stiles and Claudia fall asleep in Jackson’s arms, and Jackson takes a selfie, sending it to the sheriff with an apology for missing his afternoon shift. He waits until the Sheriff responds, with a laughing emoji of all things [who taught him how to do that?!], before uploading it to their digital album too.)

When Claudia turns five, she begs for a ladybug party at the Hale House with all her “woofpack”. Honestly, Stiles was just thankful that Derek was an absolute pushover for all of the kids in the pack—between all of their original betas, there were six little rats running around at any given time, four of which were human, and Derek was a sucker for all of them.

(Boyd and Erica’s son had popped his fangs five days earlier. Claudia is ecstatic to have a new member of her woofpack. Jackson spends a lot of time playing with the baby chubby cheeks. Stiles grins and gives them a very brief warning about the terrible twos, before calling this karmic payback for the time Erica clocked him with a piece of his own Jeep, because he will never let that go.)

Stiles was just happy that it meant he didn’t have to clean up after the party, even if he did spend the entire night beforehand icing about a million ladybug cupcakes.

“It was three dozen, Stiles, and you’re the one who didn’t want to pay a baker to make them.”

“Aw, thanks babe, your devotion and respect for me really knows no bounds.”

Jackson smirks at him and Stiles smooshes a cupcake against his nose, throwing his head back in laughter as Jackson pulls back, looking incredibly offended. They’re on the second story balcony overlooking the yard, and Stiles is only half paying attention to Jackson’s protests as he hears shrieks of joy coming from the grass below. Their daughter is running through the field with a red and black cape flying behind her, eyes gold with mirth as she avoids Erica’s outstretched hand in what appears to be a very fair game of tag.

He lets his free hand sneak into Jackson’s, like it was some kind of secret—Jackson, who has no chill, pulls him close, arms going around him from behind. Stiles laughs again as he turns to his husband, basking in the warmth that pools in his chest with another happy shriek sounds from his family below.

“Hey Jacks?”

“Yeah baby?”

Nothing in Stiles and Jackson’s life has ever been easy.

“… I want another one.”

And neither of them would change a damn thing.

#stackson #stiles stilinski #jackson whittemore #teen wolf #kidfic #ask #jacksonstilinskis #lmao you wanted something fluffy and domestic #how about whatever this is instead?#lmao sorry #kill me fr #flospeaks #mutually assured devotion

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letterboxd · 4 years

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Kid Detectives, Adult Problems.

As The Kid Detective becomes “a surprising darling” of a hit with our members, Jack Moulton talks to its Canadian writer-director Evan Morgan about broken projectors, the pressure of proving yourself, and what happens when precocious kids grow up.

“The premise felt immediately funny but it also felt immediately sad and painful.” —Evan Morgan

A growing number of indie films over the past decade recognize that ‘coming-of-age’ is not a teen-exclusive life event—indeed, that it often takes decades to work out who we are, versus who people perceive us to be. The Kid Detective takes that premise and steals off into the night with it, blending noir with indie slacker in an offbeat, genre-flipping tale of a washed-up, thirty-something private eye who was once a star solver of local mysteries.

Adam Brody (Ready or Not) stars as Abe Applebaum, the detective in question, who seizes a chance to step back into the small-town limelight when a young woman (Sophie Nélisse) asks him to help find her boyfriend’s murderer. Veep’s Sarah Sutherland also stars as Abe’s secretary, taking calls about lost cats and other inane mysteries.

Reviews on Letterboxd praise the “delicious premise” that explores “the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America”. They also appreciate Brody’s “phenomenally pathetic” performance, and the unexpected swerve in the final twenty, noting that “sometimes movies don’t recover from a shift in tone in the third act… but here it all [falls] into place”.

The Kid Detective is the directing debut of Toronto filmmaker (and Letterboxd member) Evan Morgan, who first received attention for The Dirties (2013), an alternately funny and upsetting micro-budget dark comedy in found-footage style, which he produced, co-wrote and co-edited. Morgan’s work is drenched in pop culture: Abe’s talent for deduction is demonstrated by how he digests movie narratives; The Dirties, too, has endless movie references. So we were chuffed to quiz Morgan about the films that have played an important role in his life.

What was premiering The Kid Detective at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival like for you, under the current conditions? Evan Morgan: We were in quite a rush to get the film finished for the online platform that they had made—I signed off on the final cut on Thursday and then I was reading a review of the movie by Saturday. I was still in that mode of trying to scrutinize everything and implement my final notes, and then all of a sudden the movie was done and I could never touch it again. It certainly was a surreal transition to make that quickly.

It was also extremely gratifying to see people respond to it for the first time. We knew that we weren’t making a movie that was for all tastes but when you’re reading the first response from the first person who’s ever reviewed it and they’re picking up on stuff you intended, you start to let your spine unclench a little bit. You can sort of finally say goodbye to the process of making something and enjoy the process of people interacting with it.

Have you been reading the Letterboxd reviews? Obsessively. I’ve been refreshing Letterboxd all the time. I’ve been joking with my editor and composer a lot about how people posting their reviews on Letterboxd, on their YouTube channel, or other little outlets would never expect the filmmakers to be instantly reading their reviews.

You’re also a member! How do you use Letterboxd? I’ve always been a big film nerd. Ever since I was a teenager I was making lists at the end of the year and obsessing over an order that would always change. A friend of mine, Matthew Miller, who produced The Dirties, recommended that I hop on Letterboxd and instantly I was going through the library rating and organizing everything, and it became a real slippery slope. I remember spending hours on it in the first week.

Now, after actually having made a movie that’s on a larger scale, I’ve found that my sensitivity has changed a lot in the last year. I’m less inclined to give a star rating. I’m happy just to catalog the film so I can reflect on it and just use the ‘like’ button. That’s been an interesting shift in my relationship with how I see movies after having finally completed this project.

I know this idea had been gestating a while for you, what was the seed of the story? I’d written a short film in film school, which I never shot, that was about a child detective who was still a child and was solving grisly murders. I was obsessed with the first season of The OC and I thought Adam Brody was so funny. I was impressed with how he broke out of the formula of that show. I knew he was someone I really wanted to work with and we happened to cross paths at Sundance because The Dirties was premiering at Slamdance. It was clear to us that we shared a similar sense of humor and taste.

I was looking back on my old ideas and I saw an opportunity to re-conceive this one for him because I immediately identified with the protagonist. I’ve always known I wanted to be a filmmaker and thus had that sense of expectation where people would joke: “he’ll grow up to be the next Spielberg!” It’s incredible encouragement when you’re young but it also creates this unfortunate sense of pressure where you’re beholden to a future that you actually haven’t achieved or lived.

When I graduated film school, I was suddenly left in the space of my own apartment where now it was up to me to actually make this happen, to write and direct a feature film. The process acquires this unfortunate pressure because it’s not just about watching ideas unfold in front of me, I also have something to prove. I was at a point in my life where I was doing a lot of writing and not having great success in terms of actually finishing a script so this premise resonated with me and I saw an opportunity for people to connect to this character in their own way.

I revisited The Dirties after watching The Kid Detective and I finally understood why there were those huge The OC posters in Matt and Owen’s edit suite. I assume that was your idea? Yeah, it was. We were all big fans of that show. The cultural references they made were things that were important to us at that particular moment and we loved Seth Cohen [Brody’s character]. When I ran into Adam at Sundance, I shared a link to The Dirties, forgetting that his face was in the background of about twenty minutes of our movie. We were back in our hotel that night and it suddenly just occurred to us—“wait a minute, shit. We should probably warn him that his face is a big character!”

How did you conduct your research into detective work? What excited me about this premise was the character and not so much the genre. I think the genre is alluring in a sense that it’s so hallowed. The set pieces are so familiar in terms of the PI office, the receptionist and the glass of scotch. That stuff was all super cool and enticing, but I was never a big mystery person. I was intimidated by the process of writing because it felt very much outside of my wheelhouse.

The first thing I did was buy a bunch of Raymond Chandler books from the Philip Marlowe series. I read those super quickly and thought they were super funny. I also read a bunch of Encyclopedia Brown books. So, the world of The Kid Detective exists between these two realms. I started watching bad TV procedurals where the detectives try and find the victim within the span of 42-minutes just to absorb as much as I possibly could.

Here you have a whimsical directorial approach while the film reflects upon a cynical, changing world. In comparison, The Dirties also deals with young adult trauma but couldn’t be further from this in style. Can you talk about your use of juxtaposition this time around? There was no more fun experience than shooting The Dirties. It really was a film made by four best friends having an endless sleepover in their parents’ basement. That’s where the energy, the life, and the humor of the film comes from. We were always relying on the darker component of the dramatic payoff to provide us with a structure so that we could goof around as much as we wanted knowing that it wasn’t all for nothing. Those dramatic stakes would provide it with a different kind of technical legitimacy. We didn’t have any money to make it but it didn’t have to look like a big Hollywood film because it was made by the characters.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to recreate the same dynamic with The Kid Detective in terms of dealing with dramatic issues in a very light way. The premise felt immediately funny but it also felt immediately sad and painful. I wanted to find a way to wrap them together without forfeiting the humor or the reality of the characters. It’s interesting how a lot of people are responding to the way the movie reveals itself to be dark because, for me, this was always inevitable. If you’re going to tell a story about a stunted adult, like a kid detective who never really grows up, the only way for the character to grow up is to confront something that is so sinister that it would break them from their selfishness.

Which detective movies most influenced The Kid Detective? The biggest films that were in my head when I was writing this movie—and also in terms of our aesthetic—were Chinatown and Blue Velvet. Chinatown was a movie that I had more of a relationship with as a teenager than I did the older Humphrey Bogart movies like The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. Blue Velvet also has a suburban setting that reveals this darker underbelly—two characters driving around in a convertible, interviewing people, and putting themselves in greater and greater risk. Those were the movies that we wanted you to be able to put the film on the shelf with.

Jim Carrey in ‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’ (1994).

Which film made you want to become a filmmaker? This is an easy one for me. I was a very big fan of Jim Carrey when I was eleven and I remember seeing Ace Ventura: Pet Detective for the first time and having my mind blown. I didn’t even know what some of those jokes were referring to, but I was so delighted by his energy and the absurdity of that movie. It invited this ferocious interest in acting and consequentially, the world of film. I got really excited when I heard he was working on his first dramatic feature and that it was going to be directed by Peter Weir since I was already a fan of Dead Poets Society.

I remember going to see The Truman Show with my family on the first night that it played and the projector broke about an hour into the movie. I was broken—I knew that was I watching my favorite movie that I’d ever seen. I was absolutely blown away by the world and the story. After about 30 minutes, the theater staff came out and started offering vouchers to see it again but I wouldn’t let my parents leave—I said “no, we have to stay and finish it!”—and then I was rewarded with what remains my favorite movie ending ever.

That was the point when my interest shifted from wanting to be in front of the camera and the center of attention. I was kind of the class clown as a child. If you’d asked at the time, I’d say I wanted to be a comedian. This was the moment where I decided I wanted to tell stories and start writing scripts.

Which coming-of-age protagonist did you relate to the most as a teenager? Not super original, but I was obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager. I don’t know if I necessarily saw my experience reflected in a movie—I’m sure it’s out there. Rushmore was another film that Adam and I used as a reference when we were pitching this movie, in how The Kid Detective exists between that and Chinatown. It’s also about a character dealing with his own expectations of himself and ultimately having to evolve out of his selfishness.

I think that there’s something about the coming-of-age genre that is very special to me and I continue to really appreciate and recognize it. I really enjoyed Adventureland, which came out about eleven years ago and it’s sort of underrated. I guess in its own way, Blue Velvet is a coming-of-age story too. Those are the ones that are the top of my list.

What are your favorite Canadian films that really could not be made anywhere else but Canada? It seems I should have an immediate answer to that question. It just proves how bad Canadians are at celebrating themselves. There was a movie called Monsieur Lazhar that stars Sophie Nélisse, who’s the leading actress in our film. It was her first film role at eleven and it’s an incredibly sensitive and quiet movie that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars that year. That’s a really amazing example of Canadian filmmaking at its best.

If you’ve had time to watch any films this year, what is your favorite film of 2020 so far? This is another tough one for me because I was honestly so immersed in trying to complete The Kid Detective—we were editing intensely from the very beginning of the year and throughout the lockdown. I was so exhausted by that process that I lost track of what was happening in terms of new releases, so I watched quite a few old movies and there were a few movies I revisited.

The movie that probably had the biggest impact on me was Midsommar, from last year. I couldn’t believe the precision and how unshakable it was in terms of those images. It got me excited again in the way that sometimes you feel when you have to see a movie more than once in order to truly see it, because the first time you’re dispensing your expectations. Maybe you wanted to like it or maybe you didn’t want to like it, but the second time you don’t have the same anticipation, and as a result you notice things that you didn’t notice previously.

Related content

Melissa’s list of films about Detectives, Private Eyes, Mysteries, Film Noir, Neo Noir, Thrillers, Erotic Thrillers, Cat and Mouse, Chasing, Crush, Obsession, Stalking, Escaping

Phillip Marlowe, Private Eye: RetroHound’s ranked list of films featuring Raymond Chandler’s famous detective

MovieMaestro’s Teenage Wasteland list of coming-of-age movies

Follow Jack on Letterboxd

‘The Kid Detective’ is in select US theaters now.

#evan morgan #adam brody #the oc #film noir #noir #kid detective #the kid detective #sony #crime thriller #murder mystery #sarah sutherland #letterboxd

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killergirlfuria · 4 years

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Here there be a fic, birthed by my anger and sheer indignation at Beemov’s newest cash grab (1,200$ for a game of, if looked at through the lens of the price, really lacking quality) featuring power imbalance, emotional manipulation, and threats of bodily harm and death all aimed at the poot wallflower MC who can do nothing but take it as six vampires illegally squat at her house and don’t give jack shit about common decency.

Ergo, I pour all my salt into this found family fic with, hopefully, a much more plausible setting for potential situation.

Vampire Daycare: Summary

After long last, Eloise has decided to return to her family home, a manor in the woods that she inherited from her long-since-deceased parents. However, what was meant to be a slow vacation and research in the place full of childhood memories jumped straight out of the window, when Eloise came face to face with six men who have been illegally squatting on her property for what seems like years.

Eloise would have thrown them out, absolutely. Any normal person would. But then, her old teacher came around, all smug and secretive, and offered the squatters a deal; their rent will be paid off, all of backlog and year into the future both. For a favor, of course.

And now Eloise is stuck running a kindergarten for six vampires high on power, with the only other remotely intelligent person in the household outside of her being her pet goat.

Wonderful.

Warning: This fic has not been proofread.

Prologue

Eloise Kerrigan returns to her childhood home to find it already populated, without her knowledge, and without her consent.

She is not amused.

(She’s also a miser with a moral compass, and that saves six lives.)

~(0)~

The air was crisp and fresh as Eloise walked through the forest, relishing in the calmness of forest after dark. She has arrived in the town earlier that day and, after a brief bout of tourism, turned towards her destination—the Kerrigan Estate. She grew up in that place, and despite the fact that she took a long sabbatical shortly after her parents death and hasn’t visited it once, she yearned to return to her childhood home. She didn’t worry about the dilapidation, there were measures set in place to prevent that.

She enjoyed the cold autumn evening in the forest that many would find creepy, surrounded by whispering of the wind and an odd hoot from an owl. It was tranquil, natural, and relaxing. The leaves, crisp with cold, crunched under her boots, and her knitted woolen scarf protected her easily from an odd bout of wind between the trees.

Odd as it would seem for a bystander, she didn’t have any luggage with her, save for a small handbag. Eloise didn’t find it odd at all, and there were no bystanders in the forest.

She took a deep breath as the trees began to thin, heralding a clearing upon which she knew Kerrigan Estate was built hundreds of years ago my her many-times-great-grandparents. He played in these woods a lot as a child, and they hadn’t changed much, despite the time that has passed. Whether it was the nature of the house itself or the respect the nature had for the house, she wasn’t sure, but didn’t complain.

Last few steps, last few turns-

There it was, in all its Victorian glory, overgrown with ivy, a house exactly like the one in child-Eloise’s memories. She almost choked.

God, it was so long.

She sighed, hastening her steps, to make it there quicker, up the familiar narrow pavement, up the loose cobblestone stairs, through the squeaking black gate that nobody has ever bothered to oil properly as long as it stood, forward between father’s brown roses, through the oaken with a worn-out, brass wolf knocker—

Eloise stopped the second she stepped inside. She closed her eyes, took a breath, instantly on alert, searching for—something.

Something was wrong. She knew this house intimately, could almost hear it speak to her, and something was wrong—

Oh. There, Eloise, in the library, a presence, and another, upstairs, and then in the attic, and—

She reached her senses out farther and farther into the bowels of the house, past the hidden trapdoor child-Eloise wasn’t allowed down, searching for the wardstone she knew was there, she knew should have been there—only to find it missing. An oddest thing, because the only time she’s ever been allowed down that trapdoor was with her mother to calibrate and place the stone. She saw it placed, helped place it, and now it was gone.

And the only other person allowed to enter the Manor was her teacher, who was also a smug bitch with agenda nobody understood. Which explained everything, Eloise supposed, because if there was someone that was an asshole enough to let strays invade Eloise’s ancestral home, it was without a doubt Baba.

There was a murmur of a presence on the ground floor with her, and in the library, and upstairs, and more. She counted six, thrumming in a very distinctly not-human way. Wonderful. She pushes that problem into the back of her mind—it can wait a few minutes. Instead, she turns to the stairs and up, fourth step sings under her feet, and she can’t help but step on it again giddily, seventh croaks and she winces, because she always forgot that one.

The rooms were exactly where she remembered them being, in the exact same floor plan she could navigate with closed eyes as a child. It’s been years, but maybe she could still. The doors, she was pleased to find, were the same beveled and sculpted oaken slabs. The rooms behind them, however, Eloise wasn’t certain of. For now, she’d have to hope that the vermin currently infesting her house has not damaged her ancestral home—the whole building was an antique in a way, and restoration would be a pain.

It was her grandmama’s legacy after all, dating all the way back to early 1800s. If something was changed, Eloise could just rally antique conservationists and they would, in their righteous rage, fix everything right back up.

But that’s neither here nor there. Yet.

If the old journals of her parents—particularly her father’s research notes, because those weren’t put in the basement—were lost, Eloise would be particularly unhappy, however. What she remembered of her father painted him as an alchemical genius, and everyone always told her she inherited his talents. Now that she learned all she could on her own, his notes would aid her greatly.

As Eloise calmly strolled through the hallway, a shiver ran down her spine.

Ah, it would seem they crawled out.

Eloise headed downstairs, slowly, down the creaking step and the singing step, until she reached the main hall. Sure enough, a man was there, tall, with a mane of wavy dark-purple hair, and wearing nothing but a white pajama.

Oi, oi, ain’t ye gettin’ a wee bit fookin’ cozy in me house?

“Hey, who are you?” he asks, and Eloise blinks at the audacity of him. He disregards her, though, calling out; “Vladimir, some chick’s walking down the main staircase!”

Eloise could feel the vein pop throughout the entire length of the right side of her neck and cheek. Don’t blow them up, she thought to herself over and over again, it’s not worth it.

Another one comes out of where Eloise is fairly certain she remembers library being, this time in golden out-of-date smock and an blindfold across his eyes.

“You could show a bit of respect!” he scolds the pajama-clad asshole, and Eloise silently thanks the heavens that at least one of them seems to have some working braincells that did not undergo necrosis. “I can understand why she’s hiding. You must have scared her. Please don’t run off, young lady…”

Or not.

A'm standin richt fookin ‘ere ye arsehole.

Ah, slipping into thick Scottish now, as always, with anger. She didn’t doubt that if she started speaking now, she’d also use proper Scottish slang that she could bet money the quasi-immortal bloodsuckers would have trouble understanding.

Oh, papa, papa, why did you teach me to cuss in Scots.

Eloise gently massages her temples with one hand, supporting herself with the other on the railing, letting the vampires bicker. Another one emerges, this time a willowy-looking blonde in Victorian suit. This must be Vladimir, Eloise concludes, from how he scolds the pajama-clad moron, who she learns is named Beliath. She lets them bicker—not the first time someone wandered into the manor and isn’t that the red flag—as they seem to completely ignore her. Eloise lets them, more interested in listening to the bloodsuckers literally infesting her mansion before kicking them out.

Because she was going to. Current residents or not, they’re illegal squatters and she doubts they’re even registered with the local Committee branch, which is an absolute must with Class A Dangerous Creatures living this close to a populated town. Eloise hopes she can do away without actually killing them, too—which she should do, if they’re unregistered, despite her strong dislike of destroying creatures with cognitive ability.

However limited said cognitive capability wouldn’t appear to be.

And then Vladimir calls her an intruder, and Eloise barks out a sharp bout of laughter, loud enough to return their attention to her.

“Funny, how things are,” she says, voice amused but with an edge to it, “that you’d have a gall to call me an intruder.”

“Pardon?” the blonde—Vladimir, but should she even bother remembering?—asks.

“Let’s start with introductions then, shall we? I’ll even go first—my name is Eloise Kerrigan, your landlord, apparently, though not by my choice nor with my prior knowledge, and I’d like to know one thing; where the fuck is my money, you useless squatters?”

They look at her dumbly for a moment, while Eloise just stands there, arms crossed on her chest and her best ‘I’m better than you and disappointed’ face on. The pajama-clad moron snorts, and moves to speak, but she cuts him off before he even can.

“Now, I don’t quite need you to introduce yourselves. I won’t even remember your names, I’d assume. After all, you’re all going upstairs now to pack your things and leave, no?”

“Uhhh… No?” the pajama-clad moron says with amusement shining in his eyes. Eloise looks at him, very unamused herself.

“In case you’re even less adapt at thinking than you make it seem, that wasn’t a question,” she says, not bothering to stop an eyeroll. “Now, how many of you are here?”

“Six,” the willowy blonde answers, as if expecting that to somewhat scare her. “Also, you can’t just come in here and tell us to pack out bags, we live here-“

Eloise snaps her fingers instead of answering and, in a flash of flame an outdated-looking scroll appears, and unfurls showcasing a Title Deed, complete with a wax seal and signatures of all previous owners—all Kerrigans before Eloise—and everything else. The thing thrums with magic.

The one in the blindfold must have sensed it, because he gasps.

“You’re a witch,” he says.

“I am. And you are Class A’s trespassing on a Witch’s Dwelling, of which the Title Deed I have just pulled out,” she answers. “Do you know what that means?”

“Raphael?” pajama-clad moron asks, as the willowy blonde frowns.

“It- It means that, even if we were Registered, she has every right to kill us on the spot,” the blindfolded one answers with a grimace.

“And you’re not registered?” she presses on, and he fidgets.

“No,” is the answer that eventually comes, and Eloise wants to bang her head on the wall.

“What the hell?” someone asks from the stairs, and Eloise turns to see a pale, asshole-looking Jack Frost knockoff, followed by a tall, tanned man who looks like he has more sense than just two braincells rubbing off of one another. “What Title Deed? Registered to what? Who are you?”

“Eloise Kerrigan, owner of the house,” she answers flatly. “And you’re unregistered Vampires trespassing a Witch’s Dwelling. In the eyes of law, it’s double death sentence.”

“What the fuck? Nobody ever told me that!” the pale asshole argues.

“It’s the duty of the one who turned you, and not my problem,” Eloise shrugs. “It’s been in effect since Dracula’s uprising in late fourteen-hundreds!”

The tall, tanned man winces. “I think I’m actually registered,” he says carefully. “But I haven’t been in the Office for years now, so-“

“So you didn’t turn in a Plea of Renewal. I suppose you didn’t think to inform them of your change of whereabouts either?”

“We didn’t exactly have a landlord,” he says with a wince. “And none of us owns the house.”

“So you preferred to let your Registration expire and trespass in peace?”

He turns his head away, and it’s answer enough. It would have been very comfortable, indeed, if any and all owners of the house were dead or didn’t claim the property, and even if they did, the vampires probably thought they could easily deal with a human owner.

Only two of them seemed to know what the punishment for trespassing a Witch’s Dwelling—especially one so saturated with magic and tradition, not to mention built on a intersection of ley lines—even was in the first place, and the rest seemed blissfully unaware, or blissfully ignorant, of seemingly all the laws that, despite their ignorance, still dictated whether they were allowed to live or set for extermination.

After Dracula’s Uprising in late 1400s, vampires were put under high scrutiny, and for a good reason. Nobody liked crazy and powerful magical creatures attempting to seize control over the whole world in order to turn it into a feeding ground.

Therefore, Draculean Laws were put in place to vampires’ chagrin and relief of all other occult races, and that was that.

“We had no idea we were trespassing a Witch’s Dwelling,” the blindfolded one says softly and apologetically. The willowy blonde glances at him in surprise, and then turns to Eloise.

“Look, I don’t care for the so-called laws I’ve never heard of-“

“Vladimir!” the tanned one snaps, and the blonde shuts up. “There is much more to the world we live in than you possibly imagine, or care to learn! Just because you all are content to live in a bubble of unawareness, doesn’t mean we’re all ignorant to the laws! We’ve grown complacent, yes, and it’s probably my fault—I should have dragged you all to be registered, even if it would have turned out we were trespassing a place like that. But no, I was content to just live somewhere not far from a city, and—God. There’s just so many laws—I can’t believe I—just how many laws have we broken in our complacent idiocy?” he asks, horrified.

“How do you feed?” Eloise questions.

“I don’t know how that’s even important!” pajama-clad moron rears his ugly head again. “Is nobody going to acknowledge that she knows who we are?”

“Beliath, shut up!” the blindfolded one snaps, more out of panic than actual irritation. “You’re one of the oldest here, you should know what she’s talking about!”

“We bite people and then make them forget,” the tanned one answers her anyway. “We don’t kill, though. We make sure we don’t. We wipe their memories after.”

“So you attack people all willy-nilly and then use internationally banned mind magic to be rid of the evidence?!” Eloise snarls, and he turns his head in shame as her hackles rise up. “Feeding on people without killing them, that you could spin in your favor and get scoot-free off of, but mind magic? Nobody is allowed to use mind magic without a really damn good reason, not just you, you special, fucking, bloodsucking snowflakes! It’s not even Draculean Laws you broke with it, it’s the International Statutory Law!”

By gods, Eloise wanted to rip her hair straight out of her scalp. The ignorance of these bloodsuckers, while blissful up until now to them, was causing a potential mess of incredibly epic proportions. Draculean Laws were one thing, Trespassing of her house was another, she could, maybe, let go of those, but—breaking of International Laws? As a repeated offense?

Could she even, in her right mind, kick them out now? Let them go, and not kill them outright? Or at least bring them to the Office, even if it would have meant even more certain death than by her hands?

She just wanted to curl up and cry, honestly.

Gods fucking damn her bleeding heart and unwillingness to kill, but may it never be mistaken for inability. She wasn’t necessarily unwilling to kill either—just so very tired of it.

“Look, lady, we don’t even know these laws!” the pale asshole argues, and Eloise smothers an urge to throw a lamp at him.

“Ignorantia legis neminem excusat, boy,” is all she has to say in return. “You must have came in here good few years after I went to the Academy, otherwise the residual presence would have kicked the magic into high gear and obliterated you on the spot, since you were uninvited. And since you were able to find this place to begin with, someone must have taken the wards down, and there’s only one person who actually can do that outside of me—what the fuck are you plotting, auntie?” Eloise hisses, looking skyward as if for answers, but all she sees is the tiled Victorian ceiling.

~ k̽́̅́͡i̋̊̒̀͞l̑̂̕l̃̓͠ t̛̒́h͑̔̀͝e̽̃͞m҇̒̽ ~ William hisses straight into her cerebrum, and Eloise closes her eyes, listening to the demonic yet soothing voice of her familiar. ~k̽́̅́͡i̋̊̒̀͞l̑̂̕l̃̓͠ t̛̒́h͑̔̀͝e̽̃͞m҇̒̽ a̒͛͗̂̿͞l҇͛͊͌l̛̈́̈͊͌͐,̓̅̒̊̒͞ ẗ͗̋̆̈́͝h͊̄̂͡è̄̚͠ỳ͐̈́͠ d͊͋͛̚͡e͂̒͛͞ṥ̔̽̕e̓́͛̕ȑ͛͞v̛̅̔e͊͊͌̎̇̕ ì̍͞t҇͒͂̏ â̿̓̕n͐͂̆̀̐͞d̛̽̂̒̐̚ ẏ̏̋͠o͌̈́̈́͡u̓͒̄͠ s҇̈̆͊̈́̚h͛͆̏͋͝o̾͊͞u͌͒̓̀̑͠l͛̑͞d̒̚͡ñ̇̏͠'͛̎̆̔̽͞t̀̿̄̾̔̕ b̈́̄̔̐͡e̎̋̑̕ ḋ̿̎͠ẽ̈́͞a͊̈̏̚͝l̈́̐̒͝i̒̓̒͡n̍͂͂̒͒͝g̊̅͛̾͡ w͛́͆͂͠ǐ̛̋̔t̛̃͋́̀h̀̂͛̆͊͡ t̾̚͡h҇͊̐̚i͑̿͡s͂̇̐̆͠ m͐͌̌͠e̿̔̑͒̂͞ś͒͗̀͗͝s̛͒͆̎̈

~I really should, shouldn’t I?~ she sends back, and gets a humming agreement as her only response.

~t̛͌̅̅͊h҇̓̀̐̀͊e̒̽̽́̏͞ý͊͒͛̕ r҇̆̆̎̀ë́͛͌̈͋͞ḕ̎̕k̛̿̉̉ ỏ̄̀͑͠f͆̎͠ ď̓̕ë́̓̑́͛͡a҇͋̃͗̓̔ṫ̽̒͞h̔̀͞,҇͐̈́̏̊ Ì́͗̐̂͝ d́͐̕ò͐́͋̑͡n̂̒̅̚͠'͑̈̀͊̏͡t̍͊͞ d͆̊̐̌͠ȍ͐͡u͊̅̕b̈́̊̀͠t͊̒̂͡ t̛̽̋̚h̓̅̒͠ē͗͠ẙ͋͐͡ k̒̒͑̕i̎̀͛́͞l̛͗̍̉l̛͗͛̐ĕ̊̀͡d̛̃̓̄̓ b̍͌̅͂͡e̍̕̚f҇́̇͌̎͐ơ̈̓̀̚ȓ̄̄͡e҇̀̂́̔,̉͐͡ ả͒̂̚͞n͆͒̈́̌̓͠d̓̓̕ k̛̂̋͑̄i҇̀̅l̈́̀͋͞l͑̃͞e̒̍͞d̋̅̊͊̉̕ m̈́̒͠a̛̎̅̿̓n̛̎͗͐y҇̄̔.̈́͐͐̕ d͂̾̕ȏ̽̐̈́̓͞ w҇̾͆ơ͐́̈́͑͛r̅͐̇̚͠l͌̔̋̃̕d͆̈̊͡ á̽̆̚͞ f҇͂́̈́a̒̀̀͡v͑̾̑̉͡o҇̆̆̓r̅͂̃̒̈͠,̀̇̀͞ M҇͗̃͛͐̃i̿͒͑͊̑͝s̈͐͑̐̕t̾̔͑͆̕r҇̉̉e̓͌̉̾͆͡š̈́͞s҇̍̂͋̋-̃̅͋̍͞-̓̎͛͠d̛́̋̇́̆ớ́ y҇̎̀o͑͆̓͞ǔ̃̏̃͠r̓̀̒͋͞s̃̓́̾͞ȇ̍͛̕l͆̋͡f͒͑̍̏̃͡ a̛̾̔̔͊̀ f̒̑̇͠a̋̉͊͑͝v̋́̀̋͡o̔̌́̕r̐̂͝.̾̋́́̏͠ I̛͗̔̽͗ s̄̄̒́̄͝h̐͂̀͝ä́̿̒́͝l҇̃̅̚l̓͋͝ d҇̇́̓e̛͒͐̽̈͂v҇̂̇̈̀̚ō̌͡u҇̔̏̇r̆̽̄͒͂͡ t̔̈́͞h̿̈̾̄̕e҇̀̐i̛̍̄͐r̈́̅͒̈́͠ b҇̑̒̌̏̚o҇̎̎͑d̏̂͑͞i̛̊͑͑̉̎e҇͌̊s̾̎̽͝ a҇͗̏̀̒n̂̀͊́͠ď̛̀̃ w͑̑͠e͌̽͊̓̕ w̆̂̓́͡i͊͑̂̿͌͠l̎̿͗͂͒͞l҇̈́̌ f̈͋͆̾͞o̓͌͛̒͞r̽̑͋͠g̑̏͛̒͞e̿̉̽͑͞t̔͆̔͞ o҇͂͆́f́̌̒́͡ t̉̀̐̉͆͝h̛̀̀͒i҇̾̇͗s̃͐̃̄̎͞ i̒͐̑́̽͠n̛͑̀̈́c̈̄̾̏͊͞î́̐͝d̛͋̑̆̓e̾̇̀͡n҇̎̑̍͂t̛̏̀͊͐

~But if it really is Baba Yaga who’s behind this? She’s literally the only person alive I don’t want to piss off. She had to have a reason to let vampires infest our ancestral home, no?~ Eloise asks hopefully, more the world than William.

~B̀͋̈͝ä̛́͒b̛̌́̔͋a͂̉͛̆͝ Ỳ͑͌͡a̾͋̒͠g̽̈́͂̿͡ä̾͋̒͡ w̛̍̒̏̅i͑̆̀͋̚͠l̈́͆͠l̍̈͡ b̏͆̾͝e͂̿̒̕ ȁ̛͐͋m̛̃͊͗u͐̊͌͠s̛̅̌̾e̐̀̆͠d̄̓̐̇̽̕ a͑̾̾͡t҇̿͋ w͛̇̌͞ó̊̑́̕r̓̓̾̊̈́͞s̓̆̌͡t̛͐̑.͐̏̆͠ Ẏ̾͋̓̐͝o̾̄͂͡ú̎̓͞ k̊̓̇̅͡n̽̆̀̂̆͡o҇͗͊̓w̛̆̄́ h̽̎̀͡o̊̃̅͝w͑̂͝ s͂̈́͡h̛͆͊̂̋̉è̛͋ i͗̆̐͛̆̕s҇͋̏,̄̐̒͝ a̛͗̔̓̍̇l̛̄̓̌̔̌l̾͂̚͞ s̛͑͑́m҇͆́ȕ͂̾͞g҇͋̅͋ ȃ́͞ń͋͆̕d̽̃̕ m̄͒͞i͛̄͠g҇͌̎̂͗h̛̊͑͌̐̚t̔̒̆͡y̛͌͑̔̃͌,̆̏̽̕̚̚ a͊̉͡l҇̄̿̌̂̽w̆̇̏̈̚͠à̉̃̊͋̕ỳ̛̊̆̍s̛̆̋̓̈́.̑̿͝ s҇̀͐͗̆̽h̛̉̀̇e̛̓̿ r҇̊̈́͒e҇͐̈̆e̛͗̓̚ḱ̛͆͊s̔̊̚͝ ō̾͡f̎̅̃͞ p̈̑̈͠o͛͆̈̎̅͝w҇̀͛̅͂e̋̓̽̏̅͝r̓̌͞,̓̾͂͝ b́̋̓̀̉͠u҇̔͗̑̊͑t̓͋̓͞ s͒͗͆̎͂͡h̃͌̑͠e͐͗͠ h͊͑͊͝a̋̍̒̽̕r̛̽̂d̆͛̓͝l̽̌͑͞y͂̔̀͠ í̊͒͞ǹ̓͠t́̆̎̑̕̚e҇̀͌̉r҇͌̏f̊͛̓̓͡e̛͊̔̚r̛̈́̆̑e҇͑̚s͂̀̏͐͐͝ n̾̈̚͝ơ̌̉̄̌̿w͆̈̓̎͌͞a̓͊̊̅͡d͗̓͡a҇̑̂͒ŷ̛̾͑ś͌̍͡~ William says, shooting down Eloise’s attempts to still, despite all evidence to the contrary, weasel out of killing the vampires. Then, after a brief moment, he adds: ~Î͗͝ m̎̂͊͋́͝y̛̒̽͆͊̋s̽̐̈͝e͌͑͌̑̄͡l̛̿́f̛͗̍̇̈ t̛̐̐ĥ̇̋͋͋͞i̎͂͗͡n͑̂͌̕k̛̃̋͑̚ s͐̌͞h҇͛͆̑ë́̂̔͞ i͗̍̾̔͡s̛̎͑͋̚ g҇͆̉r̓̊̄̚̚͡o҇̉́̈́̀w̉͐͛̀̋͠i҇̆̎̇͆n͑̌̆̕ǧ̛̾̽̂ s̾͛͊͠e͐͂͒̍̌̕n̾̅͆̕i̅͊͡l̄̔̿̅̽͞e̛̐̀̄̏̀ i͒̏̋͡n̑̀̒͞ h̀̾̀͂͞è̌̉̐̈͠r̔̉̂̀̂͠ o̅̈́̓͂̚͡l̿̈́͠d҇̌̌͌ à̛͗̽͗g҇́̍͐e͋̓͝

Eloise can’t help a snort at that offhand comment. There are, after all, very few people who have guts to actually call Baba Yaga out on how they see her, and Eloise usually isn’t one of them, maybe due to power difference, or maybe due to familial connection. Her familiar, however, has no such qualms.

“What’s so funny?” the pale asshole asks from where the tanned guy was quickly bringing them up to speed on all the laws they have broken and any and all punishments potentially awaiting them.

“Nothing, just the voices in my head,” Eloise answers. “They’re the only intelligent conversation partner in this house, after all.”

William snorts.

“I don’t understand why we can’t just get rid of her!” the pajama-clad moron asks in agitation, and both the blindfolded one and the tanned one look like they want to rip his head off.

“Oh, I don’t know?” Eloise asks. “Maybe because I’m rather well-known in my circles, and it would raise many eyebrows should I disappear? Because all my friends and superiors know exactly where I had gone? Because I’m to call some of them soon, or else I have been threatened with a surprise visit before I can settle down? The list goes on, and none of the option ends well for you.”

“Oh quit the big-talk!” the moron snaps, and makes a move to throw himself at her, despite the tanned one’s warning shout—

William bursts from Eloise’s shadow in a flash of hell-red flames and impales the vampire on his wicked horns. He misses all the vital spots, merely skewering him through the shoulder-blades, muscle, tendon and bone, but it drives the message home, seeing as the rest rear back in shock at the sight of the half-demonic, half-undead goat with four wicked horns.

“And there’s also William,” Eloise says in amusement as the moron winces and all but hangs on the Bakhrahell’s horns in attempt to not to agitate the wound too much, the blood seeping into his white shirt and slowly trickling down William’s upper horns.

“What is this thing?!” the pale asshole shrieks, backing up the stairs, as if it would help him if the Bakhrahell decided to go against him next. The other three tense and also back up.

“This is William, my familiar,” Eloise explains calmly. “I apologize for not being a typical witch with a cat, but demonic battle-goat suits me more.”

“y̛͌̀̉ṑ̑̏͡ũ̾̚͞ w̓̈͒̀̈́͠i͋̾̏̉͝l҇̌͌l҇̉̈̈̚ n̑̌̋̇̉͡o͐̀̽́͡t͐͌̈̄͝ h̑̽͋̐̏͠ä̛́͐͌r͐̅͞m̃̔͝ M̓͊͛́͝i̛̋͒̂̚s̈́̿̏͡t̉̐͞r͛̑͐͞e͐͆̚͞ṡ̊͡ṡ͌̈́̓͞,̀́̀͡ v͂̓͝e͒̀̓͂̚͞r͌̃̄̄̚͞m͊̂̉̋̕ĭ̋͆̑̕ń̀̏͛̈́͝,” William snarls in synthetically echoing, demonic voice, before lurching forward and knocking the moron back, and sliding his horns out of vampire’s shoulders. He gives the remaining vampires a very unimpressed look. “f҇͂̉͐́̐ơ̎͂͒r͂̓͗̾̓̕ t͗̀͒̒̕h̔̊͡é̒̔́͠ r҇̈̊̑͒ë́̌̃̋̽͠c͐̽̇̀͠o͌̄̿͊͞r҇̈̇̍̍d҇̃̊̈́,̆͛̔͠ I͋́̈̀͝'̈͆͂̕m̊́̐̄͌͠ v̒̿̓͆̊͠ë́̂̓̕ṙ͒̕ẙ͂͞ m̄̀̀͝ú̃̐̿͑͠c҇͛̇͛̈́h҇͊̈͆ i̇̏̀̅͞ň̎͋̕ f͒́͌͡a͒͆̅̑̚͝v͌̒͗̇̕o҇͒̄r͗̐͝ o͒̿͡f҇̃͆ k҇͒͂̃͂̐ì͛͠l̀͐͝l͐͂͠i͆̽͠n͒͐̀̎̀͞g͑̿͡ a͆̅͞l̛̽̍̃l̀̄͠ o҇̐̅̈̍f͊͒͊̑̕̚ ỷ̍̎̎͆͞o͌͑̐͂̚͠u̔̒̾̓͝.҇̏̈́̅ Ĭ̃͋͞ h҇̾͂̿a͋̿͛͡v҇͊̓͗̄ë́̿̏̔͠n̛̂͋̍'̛̄͑͂t̽̎̉̚͞ e̛̾̓ȃ̋̆̿͂͡ẗ́̽̄̓͛͞e҇͒̃̔n̒̿̎̄͠ à͒͞ v͒̂͝a̓̊̕m̽̽̌͠p͌̾͆̓̀͡i͗̈̅͝r̅̌͋͞ē̒̎͠ i̛̓̋̏̒̊n̔̊̏͐͞ q̅̓͒̕ŭ̀̈̒́͞i҇͗̋̀ť̆̄́͡e҇̈̓̓̉ s̍͑̀̐͠ȯ̌͌͞m̏͒͐̓͞ě̃͡ t҇̆͑ī̛̉̈́̔̾m̛̐͐̇̍e̊͐̄͒̐͠,̐́̏͞ a͊͌̂̓͞f̌̒̄̊̏͞t҇̓͋è͋̍͠ř̛̂̐ à̋̏͝ĺ͑̓͛͞ĺ̓͛̕,҇̃̐ ả͑͐̉͠n̋͐̊̕d̛͗̃̂̈̄ t̿́̎̅̚͡h̿̑͠e̎͒̈́͌̏͠ ơ̈́̄̒n͛̑̏̆̕l̓͋͝ỳ̈́̑̔̿͝ t̎͒͂͝h̛̏́i̓̃̌͊͠n̓̒́͡g̀͐́͝ s̔̏͞t̅̎̃̒̚͞a҇̋́̂n̏͋̂̐͝d̀̿̎͞i̛̾̌̏͗ǹ̈́̿́̈̕ǵ͆͛̿̕ b̛̋̐ȇ͌̉̓̕t̐̚̚͡w̛̆̈́̀̒è̑͋͡ȅ̑̋̕n̔̏͡ m͐͂͂̕e̅̎͝ a̓̽̓̋͡n҇̀͂̽d̛͛̾̆̍̃ m̾̓͗́͝y̾́́͠ m͛̽̽̚͝e͌̀̕ȃ̛͆̓l̛̏̈́́͑̚ i̛̾͛̃͗s̓̂͆͑̓͡ M͑̋̈͡i̔̂͠s̛̈́́t́̉̏͠r̛͋͗ē̏̕s̀̓̎͡s̛͒̃̈̀'̾̈́̍́͞s̐̃̊͝ m̛̈͆o͗̈́͑͊͆͡r̾̔̚͝ȧ̈́̓̇̚͡l҇̋̽̇̓̉ c̓͗̍̚͞o͆̆̔̽͠m̛̓̀̐p̓̉͞a͋̆͋͠s̀͊͂͊͝s͊͋͞.̛͐́”

“William, you’re ruining the moment,” Eloise chides him gently. “If they know I’m actually on their side, they’ll get cocky.”

“Ḯ̊̈̕'҇̔͆m̊̈́̍͠ n҇̄̒ô̍̍̊͝t̀͗̓́̚͝ s҇̇́ó̃̕̚r̃̓͌̅͝r̀̀͠y҇͌͆͌̄̇.̋̄̀̉̅͝ t̏͛̂͠h̛̄͋e͒̑͐̊͞y̛̋͌̄ n̅̒͊̋͝é̛͆̅͌e͌̇̀̊̐͡d͊̐̉̓̕ t̛̂͊̉o͛̎͂̕ k̀̌͞n͌̏̏̀͆͝ơ̋̅̀̎w̛̒͛ t̐̾͠ĥ̔̍̃͡ë́͆̔̍̐͝i͒̓͡ŕ͛̿͝ ṕ̽́͠l҇̎̀a̓̆̕c̃̒́̂́͠é̈͠.̃͛͒͝”

Eloise pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Aight, listen up—where’s the last one?”

The blindfolded one purses his lips. “I’m—I’m not sure it’s a good idea to call him down.”

“Why not?”

“He’s—”

“He only got turned two months ago,” the pale asshole says with a shrug, but he’s still shaking a bit and looking at William with suspicion, with William glaring right back. “He’s not good at controlling himself.”

“There’s a fledgling in the house?” Eloise asks, blinking with disbelief. “And you’ve—you’ve just, like, what? Left him to his own devices? Without round-the-clock care? Next thing you’ll tell me is that you feed him so little he actually gets hungry and aggressive!”

“We can’t let him feed on people without killing them, so he is,” the blonde speaks up, looking at Eloise in challenge. She just blinks at him, mouth ajar in shock.

“You—You’re—You’re starving a fledgling?!” she shrieks, well and truly losing the grip on her anger for a moment. “You—Fledglings need nothing as much as they need a constant stream of fresh blood if they are to develop themselves and their power correctly, and you—you’re telling me, you’re not feeding him? Almost at all? And you expect it to go well?!”

“Don’t tell us how to care for a recently-turned vampire!” the blonde snaps, pacing towards her, William temporarily forgotten. “I think we’d know better than you!”

“And yet you prove you don’t!” Eloise snaps right back, also moving forward, before they meet in the middle of the room, face-to-face. Eloise, with her one hundred and eighty centimeters, is almost as tall as him, downplaying his attempt to loom over her.

“Who do you think you are?!” the blonde hisses, attempting to loom and intimidate. Eloise just glares at him with her unsettling, almost-white eyes. It takes a lot of mental control to not to combust his pretty face on the spot, so instead Eloise grabs him by the shoulders with nothing more but her magic, and abruptly drags him few steps back.

“The owner of this place, and the person who decides whether you live or die,” she snarls, as he tries to shake off the invisible hands still firmly holding him down, well away from Eloise’s personal space. “And you’re not making a good case for yourself, blondie. Now go upstairs, pack your bags, and OUT before I change my mind and kill you all!”

They all flinch at her tone, because Eloise can muster a rather powerful roar-like shout if need be, even if it makes her throat ache uncomfortably. But it’s authoritative, and Eloise was almost-attacked twice today already, and she’s starting to actually want to kill them.

Getting bloodstains out of the carpets and wooden floors, after all, was only difficult as saying an one-sentence chant and focusing a bit.

The pale asshole all but pounces upstairs when William takes few steps towards him, almost barreling into a sixth figure, a boy in a dark cape, standing at the top of the stairs. This must be the fledgling, Eloise decides.

“Aren’t we even given an option to stay?” the pajama-clad moron asks, wincing all the time at the holes in his shoulders. They’ll heal—maybe, not that Eloise cares—but that doesn’t mean it’s painless. He deserved it, though—things like these happen when you attack people.

“That’s right. Why can’t you just keep them?” a smug, disembodied voice sounds from the direction of the door, instantly putting everyone but Eloise and William on high alert. She, instead, merely turns around to face the materializing woman, because using the door is outdated and teleporting in is the thing nowadays, apparently. The woman is tall, pale, and bony, with creepy, almost-white eyes, and cascades of wavy, red hair.

Baba Yaga, the most potential reason for the vampires being in the Kerrigan Manor to begin with. Eloise suspected the woman would pop up sometime tonight to be her smug, powerful self and lord it over them all mere mortals, but her arriving so early put a wrench in Eloise’s plan of kicking the vampires out without having to kill them.

Instead of addressing any of these points, however, Eloise elects to tackle the point raised by Baba instead.

“Their backlog rent counts in literal hundreds of thousands in cash,” she says angrily. “And I’m under no illusion that they would never be able to pay it off, because I doubt any of them got an actual job, and I would never let them stay before that happened! Besides, two of these fuckers tried to attack me already, and I’m not sharing my roof with aggressive creatures!”

“Ah, so you’d instead allow them to get away, scoot-free, without paying you your thousands in cash, and with their lives?” Baba chuckles. “My, my, dear niece, how altruistic.”

“Don’t hold it against me that I’m tired of killing!” Eloise snaps at the woman. “Which… Admittedly, I am actually obliged to do… And you can report me if I don’t… Ah fuuuuck, what a mess. Fookin’ ‘ell. Ye haed tae come haur, hadn’t ye!”

“Careful dear, your Scottish is showing,” Baba says bemusedly.

“Dinnae care!” Eloise snaps, full Scottish accent just to be contrary. “Canae ye juist let me kick thaim oot an break soum laws by nae killin thaim?!”

“No, I can’t,” the woman answers, unbothered by the outburst and without a care for the six vampires, all ready to strike. “Eloise, consider it, and do so carefully. The second the word gets out, to anybody, if one of them tattles, and one of them will because it’s how life goes, they will be killed regardless, and you will face consequences for them not being killed by your hand.”

“An why dae ye care whit A dae an dinnae dae?” Eloise growls.

“For crying out loud, you stupid child, you’re my family, of course I care about you!” the woman snaps. “Just because I act like I do most of the time doesn’t mean I don’t!”

Eloise blinks at the outburst, leaning back a bit in surprise.

“That’s… Awfully sweet of you, Baba,” she says eventually, carefully, and Baba snorts. “Doesnae change the fact thon it's yer fault tae begin wi! Dinnae deny it, ye're the only ane wha coud ave done this!”

“Alright, hold up, what the hell is going on?” the moron grunts out painfully, pressing at his wounds. “Who on earth are you?”

“Baba Yaga,” Baba says smugly. “The most powerful witch in existence, among other things known for putting an end to Vlad Dracul during the Vampire Uprising, at your service.”

“Very humble,” Eloise mutters. “Baba is the only other person with access to the wards, so you being here is most likely her fault. What are you plotting, Baba?” she asks the woman.

“What if I told you I’d be willing to pay you all of the backlog rent of theirs, and additionally pay them off for the whole year in advance?” Baba asks, and it’s not something Eloise was expecting at all, but also exactly what she was expecting. “You get the money, they get to stay, you can go register them tomorrow or someday soon, and nobody has to die.”

Eloise grits her teeth. The money is definitely enticing, but is it worth it to become a babysitter of six vampires?

“With coverage for any damages done to the house, including but not limited to unauthorized refurnishing, wear, and lack of proper care?” she asks before she can stop herself, because it’s money they’re talking, and Eloise is really bad saying no to a significant influx of cash.

“Yes. And I’ll throw in a little extra for the attack.”

Eloise grimaces, looking at Baba. “I’m selling their souls to you by proxy, aren’t I?”

A chorus of ‘what’s and ‘don’t you dare’s resounds through the room, and Baba chuckles in a very telling way.

“And what of their registration? Their crimes?” Eloise presses. Baba just smiles, and pulls an envelope out of nowhere, handing it to the younger witch. “You really thought of everything, huh.”

“Of course.”

“I—I’ll need to think about it—” Eloise tries, but her resolve is slipping. They’re talking a really big amount of cash here, and the vampires will get registered and Eloise won’t be breaking the law, and honestly, everybody gains in this situation, even Baba who orchestrated the mess. Or maybe especially Baba, if she will have six vampires indebted to her.

“One million two hundred thousand pound sterling, darling,” Baba all but purrs, and Eloise can feel herself swallowing the bait, hook, line, and the shiny, £-shaped sinker. “All yours.”

Eloise wasn’t even surprised how Baba could calculate their backlog on the spot—if anyone knew how long each vampire stayed in the manor, it was her, but—

Oh who is she fucking kidding.

(She will regret it, she knows. Babysitting six vampires is not something anyone should hope to get through with their sanity intact.)

“y̅͑̐͋̕o҇̇̒͒́̈́u҇͐̍̎,͑͌́͡ m̈́̌͡y͆̊̋̊͠ d҇͌͐e̛̎͊̀̽a̽͋͗̆͡r̐̈́͝e̽̽̿́͡s̒̑͝t͒̄̒͝ M̎͒͝i̓̿͌̇̄͡s̀̽̂́͝ẗ̛́͋͐r̛̍́͒ē͗̀̃̇̕ś͊͡s͗̇̾͞,̛̋̐” William says knowingly, “a̓͗̐͗̆͝ȑ̑̾͝e̛̽̓̚ a̍̈́̎͡ h̃̐͑͛͡o͌̾͝p̓̌͊̂͡e҇̏̅ľ̛̋̍̃ě̓̊̎̈͝s̛͑̆̔̂̚s͒͊̈̚͝ ć̊̂͆̐͞a̔̒̕s͌̽̀͞e̛͂̍̏ o͐͌́̊͊͝f̛̏̋̃ a̾̎̆̔͡ m̍̑̒͝i͆́͝s͋͗͞e̍̏͠ř̂̐̑͂̕.”

“Deal,” she says, ignoring her familiar’s very true jab, and Baba smiles, because she knows, and Eloise does too, that the younger witch was sold the second money was mentioned, even if that meant herding vampires. She’s been through tougher babysitting assignments.

Eloise extends her hand to Baba, and Baba takes it, and magical chains encircle their clasped hands, because of course Baba would make it a magically binding contract. But Eloise isn’t the one it’s directed at—the chains don’t latch at her, instead shooting forwards at the vampires, to the cacophony of yelps, leaving barely-visible, bracelet-like thin scar-tattoos around their right wrists.

“For your information,” Baba says, “I left the fledgling alone. He’s all of two months since turned, and I’d feel bad if a literal baby were to pay the debts of others.”

“Who’s the altruistic one here, now?” Eloise snorts.

“I am. Maybe. He’s barely an adult by mortal standards as-is, and lacking a sire, or a nurturing environment. It’s a miracle he’s still alive, truly. I hope you’ll rectify it.”

“A pet project?” Eloise asks.

“Maybe,” Baba hums noncommittally. “Or maybe just a pet.”

Eloise glares at the ancient witch, who just smiles and vanishes as abruptly as she appeared, but this time with a crack of displaced air, leaving the younger witch, once more, alone with six vampires and her familiar.

Eloise looks at them all, then exchanges a glance with William, and groans.

Why did she agree to this?

Ah.

Money.

That’s why.

“y̏̍̀̚͠õ̅͞ü̍̆̊̿͠r҇̃̆̅̀ g̛͋̒̚r҇̌́̇̒è̈́̿̿͞e͑́̄͂͞ď̛̎̄͗̓ w̌̾͌͠i҇̀͐̌̾̐ĺ͐͝l͆̿͞ b̛̊͊͋͛ế̌͑̃͞ ỷ͊̿͝ȏ̾̍͆͠ü͋̂͠r̈͑̑͐͂͝ d̔͌̈͡ŏ͗̍̚͡w͂̄͠n͗̍̉̂̕f҇͛͆ā̾̓̕l҇̍̓͌l͊̎͞ ŏ̔͡ń̛̑e҇̆̌̍͑̆ ó͒̾̌͝f̍̾͡ t̛͋̃h̋͋͠ẽ̛̌̏s̽̿̄̚̚͡e͌́͞ d̃̽͒̉͠a҇̋̀͛͋̋ẙ̈́͑͒̓͠ś̾̋̅͝,̃̿͛͠” William huffs in exasperated amusement, and pounces straight back into her shadow, vanishing from the physical realm.

“So I guess you’re staying,” Eloise says to nobody in particular. “Fine. Okay. It’s—Fuck. Okay, okay, I got this. I’ll lay ground rules first thing tomorrow. Whoever decided it was a good idea to appropriate the Master Bedroom will find his things outside the door.”

The blonde looked like he wanted to argue, but Eloise just looked at him flatly.

“You may have been a top dog before, blondie, but I own the place, you’re staying here only thanks to the good grace of my heart and Baba’s money, and I’m too retired to deal with your shit today,” she says. “If you want to challenge my authority, door’s right fucking there. That all? No, that not all. Kidlet, when have you eaten last?” she asks the fledgling at the top of the staircase.

He startles a bit at being singled out, looks around for a moment, and only then answers. “Two days ago. Ma’am.”

The overwhelming need to bang her head on the wall so that the world maybe starts making sense again returns to Eloise with vengeance.

“William please tell me you have blood stashed somewhere in the Shadowrealm,” she pleads instead.

William pokes his head out of her shadow. “d͊͐̂̒͋͡ē̊̆̀̚͝e͑̾͝r̓̒̑̀̕̚,҇͛͆̀͊̚ w̍̿̿̎͗͠o̒̇̅̾̾͞l̿́͒͞f͆͛̾̐͞,̾̓͒͡ a͗̽͞ň̍͝ḋ̛̍̏ s̆̃͠o͗͛̍̉͡m҇̌̌ȅ̉́͞ g̛͑̄r͗̔̔̈͝i͒̃͡f̀̽̍̓̄͞f̛̿͌i͒͛͂̓͠n̛͛͛̇ f̛̅́r̛̒̓̎ơ̍̊͛͋̚m̛͂͛ ȏ͆̏̇͞u͂̈́̔̏͞r̒̑͡ l̛͊͌a͊̌͊͆̿̕s̃̽͋̋̂͡t͑̀͐̇͋͡ h̏̈͌̚͝u҇̍̂͑̏n҇̊͐̽͒t́̀͆͞.͒̈́̚̚͠ I͂̎͒̂͞'͌̊̃́̽͠m͗́͞ ń͆̐̕̚ȯ̚͝t̑̀̏͛͠ g͑͂̃̃͛̕í̛͒̓v͒̽͡i̓̽̎̇͝n̆̾͠g̔̈̉̅͞ t̾̓͡h̋͌͞e͆̊͒͊͞ g̈́̎͐̄͂͝r̓͊̓̔̇̕i̍̓̿̎̕f̛̎̏͐̐f̀̏̕i̽̃́͒͒͝n̒̀̑͝ t̎̏͠h̓̄͂̅̏͡ő͑͡ũ͋̽͑͝g̎̊̈́͠h͊̋̾̆͠.”

“Give the deer,” Eloise says, and few seconds later she has an armful of glass jugs filled with blood. “Thanks.”

With that, she moves upstairs, dumps the jugs—three of them, five liters each, full—into fledgling’s arms, and barges into the Master Bedroom. As promised, she gathers and teleports blondie’s things outside the door, throws few cleaning spells around, changes sheets, changes into pajamas, and throws herself onto the bed.

Everything else seems like tomorrow’s Eloise’s problem, and she leaves it at that, falling asleep without a care.

(And maybe with a nasty surprise on the door that zaps the pale asshole when he tries the doorknob.)

(https://picrew.me/image_maker/43267)

#moonlight lovers #ml #eloise #ml eloise #ethan #ml ethan #vladimir #ml vladimir #beliath #ml beliath #raphael #ml raphael #aaron #ml aaron #ivan #ml ivan #fanfiction #prologue #beemov

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marril96 · 5 years

Text

The Distance Between Us

Chapter 9: Witch’s Familiar

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: The time for the Halloween dance has come.

Editor: @cherrypierowena

You loved Halloween, you really did, but your idea of it was more sitting in front of the computer as the latest horror movie played on screen than a dance full of people you couldn't stand clad in cheap costumes and getting blackout drunk.

Yet here you were. At school. At seven PM. Dressed up as a cat; furry suit, fuzzy ears, and fluffy tail, all black as night.

You looked ridiculous.

No more ridiculous than the girls dressed as slutty nurses, but still ridiculous.

Your friends begged to differ, but then, they looked no better than you so it wasn't like they had any place to comment.

Sam and Dean had showed up in plaid shirts, worn jeans, and brown boots. Basically their everyday attire, but they claimed to be monster hunters. They carried ridiculous looking plastic knives (which still earned them odd looks from teachers at the entrance, one of whom had demanded to inspect said "weapons" despite their quite obvious fakeness) and had painted on some scars and tattoos on their arms. Dean had given himself a scar over his entire face, stretching from the right side of his forehead to his left cheek. Claimed it made him look more badass. Which was actually, strangely, true.

Castiel was an angel, dressed in all white (including the trench coat). He'd stuck a fluffy halo atop his head, and had on a pair of wings, big and feathery. You were tempted to rip out a feather or two. His glare at having seen right through you stopped you in your tracks.

Meg was clad in black leather from head to toe. Her eyes were full black, courtesy of contacts, and she had on wings that looked identical to Castiel's, only his were white while hers were ink black.

And Crowley…

Crowley had on a suit, one that almost looked tailored specifically to him. A crown was perched on his head, black with blood-red crystals. He wore red contacts, making his eyes look like menacing rubies.

"Lemme guess," you'd said the first thing you saw him. "A demon."

He'd looked at you with such offense, as if you'd just insulted his mother. Throwing a quick glance Meg's way, he'd made a face and told you, "King of Hell."

Because of course he was.

What else would he be?

Stupid you.

You didn't exactly have many ideas for your costume. Dressing up wasn't your thing, especially when it came to school-related events.

Browsing the local costume shop, nothing stood out to you as special, as you. You were there more as a courtesy. You weren't even sure if you would show up to the dance.

Then you remembered Rowena. Remembered her smile, so happy, so bright, as she showed you her dress.

You had to see her in that dress.

You didn't know why. Didn't understand the euphoria that went through you at the image of her clad in it, of the fabric hugging every curve of her body.

That was when it occurred to you that you could be a cat. A black one.

Witch's familiar.

You wondered if she would get the reference. If anyone would, for that matter.

It was silly, really, but oh, well. It was a school dance, not a castle gala. Silliness was basically law.

"Drink?" Crowley asked. He looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then pulled a flask out of his inner pocket and took a big swig.

Whiskey most likely.

You made a face. "No, thanks."

He shrugged. "More for me."

He took another swig. Then another.

Nice.

The dance had just started, and he'd already started working on getting drunk.

"Easy there, your majesty. Leave some for later."

With a sly smirk, he opened up his suit jacket, revealing three more flasks neatly stashed in each pocket. "A king always comes prepared."

Of course he did.

"I'm not driving you home because of your preparations," you threatened.

He held his hands up in a placating manner.

"And I'm not helping you walk. You're not drooling on my shoulder. Again."

One time, a few months ago, was more than enough.

"Thanks for the warning, love, but I can handle my liquor," he said in a modest tone that was faker than his title.

You laughed out loud, right in his face.

"What's up?" Sam asked, breaking through the crowd of costumed bodies with Dean in tow. Both held plastic cups filled to the brim with foamy amber liquid that didn't look like juice.

"Crowley's a drunk," you said. Before the king could utter a response (which earned you a middle finger from him instead), you asked, "Where'd you get that?"

"Some seniors snuck in a six pack," Dean said with a shit-eating grin. He took a sip of his beer, then another before finally downing half a cup.

Beer. One of Dean Winchester's weaknesses, right alongside hot chicks, porn, pie, and Jack Daniel's.

You stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. How did one sneak in a six pack?

You decided you didn't want to know.

They were seniors. It was explanation enough. Just like that time Garth Fitzgerald did something that got the entire school evacuated and guys in hazmat suits called in. How? It didn't matter. All that was known was that whatever he'd done occurred in the chem lab and it was an honest to god accident.

It had happened, and everyone had gotten a day off.

And tonight, everyone who wanted would get to party properly.

Crowley opened up his jacket again, flashing the goodies right in the Winchesters' faces. "Amateurs."

Dean's face lit up. "Crowley, my man!"

Crowley held up a hand. "No."

"Come on."

"You get nothing."

"Don't be a dick."

"I'm proud of the title."

He looked it.

"I'll pay you," Dean said.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "How much?"

The elder Winchester peeked into his wallet. "I got two bucks."

Crowley looked offended. A flicker of amusement flashed over his face. "Generous, but no."

"You're an ass!" Dean whined.

Crowley sighed. "Need I remind you what happened last time?"

Dean, drunk out of his ass, had stolen and then drank his entire stash. And had gotten so sick he'd almost ended up at the ER.

Crowley knew better than to let his guard down around him. Fool him once and all that.

"I was wasted back then," Dean said.

"And you'll be wasted this time. Not on my account." Crowley shooed at him as if he were a pesky stray. "Off you go."

Dean did, in fact, go away, became one with the crowd, but not before holding up a middle finger.

"Charming," Crowley quipped with a smirk.

"You guys should just fuck and get it over with," you teased.

You knew Crowley would happily take that option. He never said anything, but you could tell he was attracted to Dean. And Sam. And Castiel. Maybe even Meg and you.

Crowley was attracted to everyone. Flirted with everyone. And, if given the chance, slept with everyone.

You still loved him to bits, but only as a friend. He was attractive, and funny, and could be sweet when he wanted to, but he was your friend. That was what you loved him as. Nothing more and nothing less.

"I'm in if he's in," Crowley said suggestively.

You laughed. If he were a girl, it most likely would have happened yet.

Sam, through a laugh, said, "I'm gonna go find Eileen. See if she wants to dance."

Eileen Leahy was a cute and sweet Sophomore girl Sam sometimes saw in the library. They would make an adorable couple.

"Leaves just you and me," Crowley said, cocking up a teasing eyebrow. "Up for a dance?"

"I can't dance," you pointed out.

"You can stand and watch me dance."

An offer you couldn't refuse. "Sure."

It wasn't like you had anything better to do.

Grabbing your hand, he dragged you into the crowd. People were drinking. Dancing. Moving and swaying to the rhythm of the loud, deafening music blasting through the speakers. So many different costumes surrounded you; some good, some terrible, but, despite the quality of their attire, everyone seemed to be having an amazing time.

Without warning, Crowley took your hands into his and started dancing. He was a great dancer. A rather sophisticated one. He moved just the right way. No mistakes, no slip ups. Just good, old-fashioned dancing.

What the hell.

If he could do it, if all these other kids could do it, so could you.

Talent didn't matter.

It was all about enjoyment.

You let Crowley spin you around. Let him pull you in and out. You were stiff, more robot than human, but you moved alongside him, copied everything he did to the best of your — rather limited — ability.

No one paid attention.

No one pointed and laughed.

Everyone was lost in their own joy.

"Where did you learn how to dance?" you asked, shouting to be heard over the music.

"Dance school," Crowley said.

Seriously?

He didn't seem like the type.

But then, it was Crowley. Everything was possible.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"You don't look like the type to go to an extra school."

Or school in general.

"Mother signed me up," he said, shrugging. "Quit when I was ten. Seemed like a waste of time."

Now that was more like him.

You chuckled.

"Still got the moves."

"They're great moves," you said.

He spun you around again.

Right into someone's back.

Shit!

"I'm so sorry," you said.

The person you'd crashed into whipped around, pissed to high heavens.

Then your eyes met and all anger vanished in a blink, replaced by surprise. A quite welcome one.

"Y/N?"

"Rowena," you breathed out.

It took everything in you to regain your composure. She was gorgeous. Stunning. Mesmerizing. The sparkly black dress fit her perfectly, hugged her every curve as if molded on her body. Her nails were painted black, and she wore a pointy hat adorned with spider web patterns.

Dear god!

She was the most beautiful witch you'd ever seen.

"I didn't think you'd come," she said, flashing a bright smile.

Neither did you.

"Thought I'd have some fun, after all the math," you said.

She gave a small laugh.

"How's that going for you?"

"Good. When I'm not crashing into people."

"Och, it was nothing."

Right.

That was why she wanted to rip your head off — until she noticed it was you.

Did that mean you weren't on her shit list anymore? That her mean girl persona didn't apply to you?

What a privilege.

Rowena narrowed her eyes at her brother. "Fergus."

"Sister," he retorted in a rather uninterested tone.

Such sibling love.

"It's so nice to see you guys," Lucifer said cheerfully.

He was dressed in all red, with red contacts and horns stuck atop his head.

The devil.

Fitting.

You flinched, having not noticed him. You were too distracted by the beautiful witch to notice the garbage that came with the package.

Rowena may have become nicer to you, but that didn't make her choice of boyfriends any less disgusting.

"The feeling's not mutual," you said, then turned to Crowley. "Come on, I wanna get something to drink."

"You're leaving?" The devil pouted. "What did I do?"

"You exist," you replied.

He dramatically slammed a hand over his heart. "Ouch. That hurt my feelings."

Good, you thought. Fucking awesome!

Rowena gave you a polite smile on your way back. A tad… apologetic.

No.

You were seeing things.

She loved that asshole and, despite the recent change in your relationship, hated you.

And, for some strange reason you couldn't put your finger on, it made your heart feel like it was being picked apart by dull knives.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @gaysnakess @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a @tasyahilker @a-queen-and-her-throne

#rowena #rowena macleod #rowena x reader #spn #supernatural #crowley #sam winchester #dean winchester #lucifer #spn family #my fics #fanfiction #high school au

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clamydomona · 5 years

Text

Impressions of Game of Thrones after watching the show (because my local library had the first two seasons on DVD and I thought what the hell, why not watch the whole thing now that it’s done):

Spoilers for the whole show!

- I thought it would be this epic masterpiece, since half the world seemed so crazy about it, and was surprised that 90% of it was a medieval soap opera with family feuds and intrigues, illegitimate children and (accidental) incest

- I loved the intro, both the music and the animation. But half the time I have no idea which of the characters are actually in which of the locations shown in the beginning.

- I guess some of the battle scenes were pretty impressive, but I honestly couldn’t care less about all of them. The only time I really enjoyed the fight scenes was with Arya, because she was so cunning and elegant, and to a lesser degree with Brienne and her brute force, but during the full blown battle scenes I always paid little attention (partly because some were really terribly lit and it was hard to see something on TV during the day).

- Since I knew the most mayor players in the last season due to twitter osmosis, I found it hard to connect to a lot of characters since I knew they would bite it at some point or other. Mostly Robb who I couldn’t connect to at all (though I was surprised that he looked pretty attractive when I rewatched the Red Wedding, before that I thought he looked pretty bland). I also didn’t notice Theon at all in the first season and it took me a while to understand who he was when he got a bigger part in the second.

- In the first season, the only Stark children who I thought could act convincingly were Arya and Bran. I’m very glad that Sansa and Jon improved throughout the seasons, they were great later on. I didn’t much care for Robb, since I knew he wouldn’t win anyway.

- I’m surprised how many characters were put on hold in some seasons and just didn’t do much. Like Jaime in season 2, where he was almost completely absent, or Sansa before she returned to Winterfell.

- I didn’t fully get the religion plot in season 6 and I didn’t really care for it, but Cersei’s acting was great.

- The person I hated most was Joffrey. I already knew about Ramsey going in, since I watched him raping Sansa and his death in a college class, and most of the other “evil” characters were at least interesting to watch, but he was such a whiny sadistic piss baby. At least Jaime could actually fight, even though I found him also very annoying in the beginning. I’m sad that Arya never defeated him in a duel and cut his head of or sth. Though his death was very satisfying and I watched it more than once on youtube when I found him annoying. I would love to see Jack Gleeson in something completely different because he was a pretty good actor.

- I felt similar about Daenerys’s brother, and I looked forward to his death, but he got humanized during his death and I was surprised I felt a little bad for him as well. But had he lived, Cersei would have crushed him.

- I also loved Littlefinger’s death scene and watched it more than once, but compared to his masterful manipulation in the beginning he got very sloppy in later seasons, to be bested this easily. But Sansa also got very good at looking through manipulation and deception and playing that game herself.

- I could have watched the Stark siblings fucking shit up in the North for ages.

- I didn’t expect that so much tension came from waiting until various family members reunite again. I wouldn’t have expected that it takes 8 seasons for Arya and Jon to see each other again.

- I was surprised how much I liked Bran in the early seasons, since I knew he would end up on the throne in the end and most of the internet was disappointed by that and most of the pictures I saw of him were pretty lackluster. I still feel bad for him considering that he was pushed out of a window in the first episode and would never see his parents alive again. Regardless, he got very creepy once he became the Three Eyed Raven or whatever and actually seemed to lose the ability to act. He would have been the last person I put on that throne.

- Why didn’t every kingdom do what Sansa did and declare independance? Seems like a better deal.

- The show was very good at this buddy comedy road trip plot that it had going on for various unexpected characters. I liked both Jaime and Brienne a lot more after their road trip and I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed Arya and the Hound. They were my favorite reunion in season 8. Also Tyrion and Jorah to a lesser extent.

- I love Emilia Clarke and I was impressed how much control she had over her eyebrows. (I mostly saw her on Graham Norton and she has the most expressive eyebrows I have ever seen). Sadly, I lost more and more interest in her story, mostly because she was so far removed from all the other action, I think. But I’m glad I finally know what a Khaleesi is because I was so confused whether she was called Khaleesi or Daenerys or what.

- I’m further confused by how much time has passed in the show. Based on how much Cersei’s younger children were aged up from season 2 to season 4, you’d assume around five years or so, but based on Gilly’s child it looks like the show as a whole only took 4 years. Also seems weird to me that Arya, Bran and Rikkon spent years wandering around the country. Really?

- One of the most unrealistic things to me is that I am expected to believe that Tyrion is four years younger than Cersei and Jaime. He looks so much older than them.

- I love Sam. I love that he found the place he best fit in in the end, where he was appreciated for his talents and taken seriously. And I loved his story with Gilly.

- Considering that half the seven Kingdoms knew in the end that Cersei’s children were Jaime’s and most people couldn’t care less, was it really necessary to push Bran out of a window? (Though I guess that got out after Robert’s death, so it might have gone differently.) Additionally, who the fuck ordered the attack on Bran to kill him? It sure as hell wasn’t Tyrion, so was it Littlefinger who told Cat about the knife? But how did he know about that all the way in King’s Landing, since it takes 4 weeks to get there from Winterfell and they were all on the road. I guess someone could have sent a raven to him and he ordered someone he trusted to kill Bran with his knife, but in that case that someone with the knife had to have been there already. Logically, it should be either Cersei or Jaime (probably more Cersei, since she’s the mo0re ruthless of the two). So did Littlefinger just pretend it was his knife when Cat asked? Though I guess he could have ordered someone to steal the knife from Tyrion to frame him later on. Or Cersei did.

- Also, why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to assume that Tyrion was responsible for Bran’s attack or Joffrey’s death?

- Why did Shae completely turn on Tyrion and on top of that also sleep with Tywin? Was she this hurt by Tyrion sending her away?

- Pity that Tyrion and Sansa didn’t work out, he was the only one who truly respected her and her intelligence.

- Because I was shown Sansa’s rape on her wedding night and Ramsey’s death in class once, I spent a lot of time confused after I saw some gifs of Sansa and Tyrion’s wedding. I didn’t really recollect what Ramsey looked like, so I thought for a while that it was Tyrion who raped Sansa while Varys looked on, since someone in class explained that the guy who was forced to watch was castrated and Varys was the only castrated guy in the beginning of the show. And then I was confused why everyone liked Tyrion so much, since I thought the character raping Sansa wasn’t very well received.

- They cast Cersei’s and Jaime’s children very well. Especially after they cut off Cersei’s hair, I wasn’t sure whether some of the pictures I saw in passing in the last years were of Joffrey or Cersei. Furthermore I’m very glad that Jaime got a more rugged appearance in later seasons. He reminded me so much of a Ken doll I had as a child (who always lost one of his legs, poor guy) that I couldn’t take him seriously and actually thought he was just as much of a phony as his son as a knight. But, how the hell was Ned Stark only the second guy to notice that all children are blond while Robert’s relatives are all dark haired? And how is that considered proof? Jon is a Targaryen and he’s not blond, so Ned of all people shouldn’t judge by the hair color.

- Also, why didn’t Ned tell Cat that Jon was his nephew? Everyone else could still assume that Jon was Ned’s, but Cat could have known the truth. It’s not like she would have told Robert.

- While I thought it took ages for some storylines to move forward in the early seasons, I think it was preferable to the fast pace in the last two seasons. They felt more rushed, but also very surface level due to the huge cast.

- Also, why did everyone say Walder Frey’s daughters were so ugly and terrible? They looked like perfectly normal and nice girls. (I loved that moment when Walder introduced all of them to Robb and one corrects him on her name and he says “fine”. I laughed out loud at that.)

- Lady Olena was like every snarky twitter and tumblr comment come to life. She was awesome and her death was a really great moment.

- I was under the impression that Jon and Daenerys were some star-crossed lovers or something since all of Twitter seemed shocked that he killed her in the last episode, but they seemed like such an afterthought to me, especially since they only met for the very first time in season 7. (But kudos to that meeting, the way Ser Davos introduced him was awesome.)

- Also, for someone who told Jon he shouldn’t hold her responsible for the sins of her father, she sure likes to bring up the crimes of relatives to others. (Like Gendry in season 8, who didn’t even know who his father was for most of his life.) Seriously, that was so annoying to me.

- An finally, I cannot stress enough how much I hate that fucking phrase “Winter is coming”. By episode three I was fed up with it and it didn’t get better, not even when winter finally arrived. Honorary second place is “bend the knee”. I could have strangled everyone in season 7 and 8 who said that.

#Game of Thrones #GoT #Spoilers #Game of Thrones spoilers

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