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autisticlancemcclain · 2 years

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Lance was very… particular about things, Keith noticed. And it wasn’t just him, obviously. Their whole team was pretty particular. Hunk, for example, had to have all his tools organized and straightened before he could work on something. If they weren’t, he’d stop whatever he was doing to straighten them out again. Keith had taken to polishing his knife (and other small tasks like that) in Hunk’s workshop, so he could straighten the man’s tools for him, and then he wouldn’t have to start over. (As an added bonus Hunk had all the drama — Keith would rather make friends with the business end of Pidge’s bayard than admit it, but he enjoyed listening to the gossip now and then.) Allura was very particular, too. Her holoscreens and data files for the Coalition were so meticulously organized and colour-coded that they were beautiful even to Keith, who didn’t much care for folder organization.

All of them had their quirks, their strange hills to die on. But Lance? Lance had a particular way of doing everything, it seemed. Which made sense, given who he was as a person — aka someone who could, in one word, be described as ‘extra’. (And, yeah, Keith is well aware that he’s telling on himself by having noticed all Lance’s quirks at all. He knows damn well that the only reason he knows that Lance is — and he’s saying this with all the fondness in his heart — a weirdo, is because he watches Lance, all the time, and does everything he can to be around him. He knows. He’s had his embarrassing realization. He’s accepted the L. He likes watching Lance, because he likes Lance. A lot. It’s whatever.)

One specific thing that Keith noticed is that Lance plans out who he’s going to sit next to at dinner in advance. There’s no real real rhyme or reason to it — Keith spent a while trying to figure out a pattern, but gave up after about a week of complete randomness. He seems to sit next to whomever he pleases, for very specific reasons that only he knows.

Hold on, now, you might be saying. It really sounds like you’re just reading into it, and Lance just sits at random places every day.

And, yeah. That would be a fair assumption.

If it weren’t for one small thing.

See, no matter what time Lance arrives in the dining room, he’s the last to sit down. Always. Even if he’s the first there, even if he’s the one to cook. He’s somehow the last one to sit down. He waits for everyone else to sit, looks at the table for a moment, visibly makes a decision, and then sits beside whomever he’s chosen. It’s because of this that Keith’s sure he’s right. (Again. Keith knows it’s a stupid thing to put so much effort into observing, but he can’t very well turn it off. His brain focuses on things it finds interesting. It follows the dopamine. And, as humiliating as it is, Keith’s brain has decided Lance is a great source of said chemical.)

There is some pattern, Keith supposes. If Lance knows someone has had a rough day, or looks tense, or hasn’t been taking care of themselves, he sits next to them. He does it when Allura is particularly homesick, so he can subtly steer the conversation into happy memories of Altea to cheer her up. He does it when Shiro is tense and shaking from a day of bad memories, so he can joke and tease until Shiro is laughing so hard he sprays milk through his nose. He does it when Coran is weary and exhausted, making sure everything Coran needs is in reach so the advisor feels a little less drained at the end of the meal. He does it when Pidge hasn’t done anything but code for several days, quietly scooping extra portions on her plate and nagging her into an early bedtime. He does it when Hunk is fidgeting anxiously and shivering, keeping a constant hand on Hunk’s person and telling wild stories from home until Hunk’s smiling again.

He does it for Keith, too, although it took him a while to realise. Whenever Keith is snappy and irritable or blank and sad, Lance will invent some stupid game where he’s ‘definitely better at than you, Mullet, so eat that!’ until Keith has perked right up and started arguing right back and playing along with so much intensity that he forgets why he was so upset in the first place.

Yeah. It’s definitely one of the many reasons why Keith likes him so much. He’s always had a soft spot for the kind ones.

Most of the time, though, everyone’s feeling pretty good. There’s no one who needs Lance’s strength or wit or humour to go to bed with a weight lifted off their shoulders. No one Lance needs to care for.

On these days, Lance sits with whomever he carefully chooses. (Keith is pleased to note that, on a good chunk of these occasions, Lance sits with him, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Today, Lance is sitting with Hunk, who’s deep in conversation with Shiro. To entertain himself, he’s taken to playing out some dorky drama, using his utensils as action figures and silently mouthing out dialogue. (Keith wants to repeatedly bang his head on a wall, because holy shit, that’s such a dweeb thing to do and it shouldn’t be endearing but it is and Keith wants to kiss his stupid face so badly.)

Suddenly Coran sneezes across the table, one of those great big dad sneezes, and Lance startles, his fork going flying.

“Aw, man,” he mutters, immediately bending down to grab it.

Without breaking away from his conversation, Hunk reaches over and covers the corner of the table with his hand, so when Lance shoots back up, he only brushes Hunk’s fingers instead of braining himself on the hard edge or the table.

Keith blinks. As soon as Lance is upright, Hunk pulls his hand back, and Lance goes back to playing with his utensils like he never dropped one in the first place.

Hunk looks completely unchanged. Lance doesn’t offer thanks, or even acknowledge what Hunk did in the first place.

Neither of them noticed the reaction. At all.

Keith hides a smile in his hand. It figures that Lance is so clumsy that Hunk has security measures in place for something as harmless as eating dinner, and even more so that Hunk has to do them so often that he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. It figures that Lance spends so much time watching other people and anticipating their needs that he’s completely oblivious to any of his own.

“What’s funny?” Pidge asks, squinting at him.

Keith shrugs, but the smile stays firmly on his face. “Nothing.”

Pidge squints harder. “There’s definitely something. You look all… squishy.”

“It’s nothing,” Keith insists, but can’t quite stop himself from flicking his gaze towards Lance.

It does not escape Pidge’s notice, unfortunately.

“Oh, I see,” she says with a smirk.

Keith rolls his eyes, ignoring the flush on his cheeks. “Whatever. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Just embarrassed on your behalf. Personally, I can get through a meal without making painfully obvious heart-eyes at my super embarrassing middle school crush, but to each their own.”

“It’s not a middle school crush,” Keith says, elbowing her in the side. “It’s — whatever. He’s just kind of cute. That’s all. I can just — I’m just saying, objectively.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Loser.”

At the very sound of ‘Keith’ and ‘loser’ being spoken in the same sentence, Lance perks up. “Why’s Keith a loser? Besides all the regular reasons.”

Keith cuts a slightly panicked look to Pidge. He swears to god, if she even implies to Lance that Keith maybe kind of admitted he finds the blue paladin a little tiny bit cute in, perhaps, certain lighting —

“He drinks all of his water before touching his food,” Pidge says instead, and Keith lets out a sigh of relief before registering what she said.

“Hey, that doesn’t make me a loser,” he argues.

“It kind of does,” Allura interjects gently. “Sorry.”

Lance laughs, and Keith is so caught up in the sound that he forgets to defend himself.

He scowls at Pidge’s widening smirk.

Whatever. It’s — it’s just a crush. A measly, tiny, itty-bitty crush. Keith’s sure he’ll get over it soon.

He risks a quick glance over to the crush in question, who has abandoned his utensil telenovela in favour of enthusiastically explaining the intricacies of Terran marine biodiversity to the Alteans. His smile is so wide it crinkles his eyes, almost completely hiding the warm brown irises.

Keith huffs, shaking his head at his own audacity. Get over Lance? Who’s he kidding?

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ask-the-sworn-partners · 2 days

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have either of you killed a man and hid the body?

DDD: Wouldn't wanna reveal any government secrets now, would ya?

(It's ketchup guys relax)

#mod 🌧 art #main #kingdedede #ask the sworn partners #guys this is my first time drawing dedede be nice #he is mewing #erm bright color warning I think #i liked drawing his ridiculously fluffy robe its so silly #alr gn guys

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befuddledmackem · 5 months

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Title: Hold Me, Lover, Like You Used To

Author: Mackem

Fandom: Alan Wake 2

Characters: Alice Wake, Alan Wake

Pairing: Alice Wake / Alan Wake

Rating: Teen

Word count: 2,677

Summary:

Alice is on her tiptoes, pulling flour out of an overhead cupboard, when she feels a presence at her back. She can’t help but let out a surprised noise, even though this was her goal when she started puttering about in the kitchen. It dissolves into a sheepish laugh when arms curl around her waist and a chin rests on her shoulder, slotting perfectly against the line of her throat like they were made to fit together.

“Sorry.” Alan’s voice is thick with sleep, dozy and quiet in the soft light of the kitchen. Alice hums as his lips brush against her neck; she still isn’t used to the feel of his beard, but she finds that she likes the scratch of it against her skin. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

#Alan Wake 2 #Alan Wake #Alice Wake #fanfiction #fanfic #my fic #this is a purely fluffy happy ending #but i haven't even finished the game so I have no idea how canon-compliant it is #i am ridiculous and i know it i promise

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see-arcane · 1 year

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Meward

Summary: Within the mad and macabre months caught in Dracula's fangs, we have seen wolves and bats and rats forced to work toward evil results.

Now let's see the difference a cat can make.

For a proper visual for the eponymous Meward, head to Tumblr user @myroomismytardis' amazing blog and take a look at all the cat-ified characters from classic literature on display. Jack Meward, the little black cat with the gigantic eyes, is just one of many fine furry friends in The League of Extraordinary Kittyfolk. Thank you for making such an inspiring design, friend.

Ao3 link here

“Intolerable, unacceptable, and utterly, irrevocably insufferable. That’s you, you pretender. Yes, I said it! Pretender! Fraud! The most insidiously false example of your kind there ever was or will be! No, don’t you dare deny it. These last few weeks have been more than proof enough that you are entirely unsuited to the task required, to say nothing of your whole line. Nay, your full genus. And look at you there gloating! As if you were as proud to disappoint your bloodline as much as me! You little cad!”

Dr. John Seward had been standing outside the door with two attendants for the past five minutes listening to this and similar diatribes concerning some unknown traitor to a joint cause. There had been insults flung their way and apparent insults implied in silence as the man scoffed and gasped over his affronted sensibilities, stalking the room as he did. So far there had been rants and rancor and richest ire thrown about in such a way as to make the most churlish heirs pale before their fathers. Indeed, there was such a lilt to Renfield’s aggravation that it spoke of an almost paternal disappointment. He had worked and he had slaved and reared this unknown other up with his own two hands, and for what? Disobedience! Abuse! Mockery!

And so the ramble would circle around again.

John passed a glance to the men bookending the other side of the doorframe as if he might read an explanation on their faces. But no, his own confusion was reflected there. It was a strange twist in a madman already so full of sporadic facets, but this one doubly so for its seeming divergence from the major habits of his illness. Whether he was plying John for bait and animals to feast on for power’s sake or hailing the sudden religious apparition he had crowned with the imagined ability to bestow nameless gifts, there appeared to be a central focus on acquiring new strength for himself as constant motive. An impetus that always involved turning his gaze upward to cozen or coax for boons.

Now here he was inventing some entity to berate; an accomplice responsible for deceiving him or spoiling some goal outright. It wouldn’t be an entirely shocking result in other patients. Even ordinary prisoners of long sentences were known to either seek out or manifest some subordinate other to exercise authority over. But Renfield, he of the legion of flies, spiders, and birds, oh my, was already a veritable Cronus lording over a throng of tiny lives at his mercy. Perhaps he’d assigned some personification to one them..?

But no. That way laid the issue of many a new farmer or butcher who found themselves abruptly unable to take the blade to whatever livestock they’d made the mistake of naming and petting as they fattened.

“Look at this!” Renfield suddenly barked, stomping his way to another corner of the room. “Just look how simple I made it for you! Sitting there, whole and ready, and still you go for only a sip and nibble of what’s brought in the other way! Disgraceful. Wholly disgraceful. What? Oh, don’t you pretend it’s a matter of inability. You’re well past drinking alone. Yet even with what you’ve gained, still, still you are a mere mote. A speck. A crumb among the veritable giants that slink and prowl so efficiently on their lonesome. I could flick you right back out, do you know that? I could! You are that laughable a specimen!”

Renfield stalked and stomped and huffed. Then, in a conspiring tone:

“In fact, I will. I will flick you out. But not by the way you slunk in, oh no. You’ll not break in again, you cheat, you burglar of time and effort. There are authorities about who can deal with you in expert fashion. You are evicted as of today. Oh? Think I’m bluffing?” There was a sudden pounding against Renfield’s side of the door, so quick and heavy it rattled the thing in its frame. “Doctor! Get Dr. Seward here at once! There is an intruder in my room! Doctor!”

The attendants looked to him. John nodded. When they unlocked the door, Renfield was in his usual safe distance from the threshold, his arms crossed in a manner that seemed more fitting for a landlord smug at the sight of the police coming to remove an itinerant tenant.

“Well, what fair timing that you were passing by.”

“So it was. I heard you have someone here you want to be rid of?”

“Most expediently. I have tried, Dr. Seward. Most earnestly and most fruitlessly I have tried to wring the results and compliance I’d hoped for from this lost cause of a fellow inmate, but I can try no more. The cause with him is hopeless because he is hopeless. Mad I may be, but at least before him I did not suffer the madness of one trying to grow a tree from a beansprout or, more aptly, trying to yield a full harvest from a field of salt. If ever there was an entity made on this Earth who could order their very anatomy to be an instrument of sabotage, it is the preening villain who has imposed on my hospitality and patience.

“Weeks! Nearly an entire month I have tried to make progress with the thing, and I’ve barely an ounce of proof to show for it on him! And his stubbornness! His stubbornness, or else sheer weak-willed cowardice in the face of instinct, has frustrated me as I never thought possible for so insignificant a creature to inflict! I cannot tolerate his presence any longer and I plead, no, demand you excise the lout before I am forced to take my own measures.”

John nodded cautiously at this. Inwardly he was ticking over the possible responses he might have to make to appease the man without sparking some new fury. Did he expect them to pantomime carrying out an invisible intruder? If so, where were they meant to grapple the air? It was as John was pondering this that his eye happened to fall upon two glints of color shining under Renfield’s bed. A pair of emeralds twinkling in shadow.

“Renfield—,”

But his patient had followed his gaze already. With a mix of triumph and irritation, the man darted down and swiped at the dark. Then plucked a piece of the dark away as if scooping up a ball of cinders. The cinders mewed thinly.

“Ah, thought you could hide from your ousting, did you? Think again. This is the criminal himself, Dr. Seward. A thief of potential and promise and, as you can see, a clear failure as a cat. Look!”

With his other hand he gestured to the corner of the cell nearest to the door. A freshly dead bird laid there. As did a small saucer that looked to be of the kind used for the patients’ meals, with some bits of nibbled food still present.

“Again and again, he chooses the plate over the prey! I tried only giving him birds, but he refused anything more than a sniff before he went sulking and starving away. I had no choice but to suffer his spoiled wants and feed him from my own meals or else lose the opportunity entirely. An opportunity that was itself a lie. He is too small, Dr. Seward, and he seems determined to remain so despite my best efforts. Even if he were a veritable rugby ball of a cat it would not matter, for he has no lives in him but his own useless nine! Oh, I know, I know, you will say, ‘But he is only a kitten, Renfield, growth takes time, Renfield, even stray cats will turn to scraps before they deign to hunt, Renfield!’ I tell you, he is an exception. He conspires, Dr. Seward. With his own body, he conspires. I shall suffer him no more.” Then, in a voice so small John almost did not catch the addendum that seemed almost to choke him, “I cannot risk it.”

Before he could register it, John found Renfield had cut the distance between them and thrust the tiny handful into his custody. The attendants tensed to act behind him, but Renfield shot just as quickly away to make a show of glowering out the window with his back to the lot of them. His arms were crossed again and his hands gripped his elbows so tightly they shook.

“Take him away, Doctor. Foist him on some pampering lady or other with room in her reticule for the ridiculous little thing. I wash my hands of him.”

“…Of course. I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Renfield.” The kitten gawped up at him. Then tried to turn and wriggle to face Renfield. Another half-mute mew escaped. Renfield bristled at the sound.

“Get it away, Doctor. Please.” John gestured to the attendants. They all retreated into the hall, locking the door after them. Almost the instant the bolt slid home, there was another shout, “Dr. Seward! Doctor, are you still there? There is one thing more! It’s important!”

“Yes, I’m still here,” he called through the door. “What is it?”

Then, quite clearly, so that the attendants could hear it too and only half-succeed in stifling their grins when they caught it: “His name is Meward.”

“…Pardon?”

“Meward. Doctor Meward in full, but we know each other well enough to dispense with titles.” John would swear he heard a smile in the man’s voice. “That’s all, Doctor.”

This was, naturally, not all.

Not when word of ‘Dr. Meward’ had circulated first through the staff, then the patients, and even to the occasional visitor to the asylum before the week was out. For reasons that defied logic, Dr. Seward found he did not have the heart—or, more pressingly, the appropriate opportunity—to donate the creature to another caretaker. He had thought perhaps there was a chance that Lucy might take him on. It really was a spectacularly pitiful animal and so was prone to pulling heartstrings with the power of his massive evergreen stare.

In fact, he had expected himself fully in the clear when he made a somewhat red-faced return to the Westenra estate in tow with Arthur and Quincey. Lucy, at first showing a slight pale strain under the ruddy vigor she had shown on their last encounter, had bloomed anew with delight on seeing the scanty mound of fur in his palm. Her jubilation doubled on hearing the creature’s regrettably unchanged name.

“Oh, that is a perfect choice, absolutely perfect!” she cooed as she cradled the bundle now purring in her hands. “He’s got much the same eyes as you, John.” But as soon as the compliment dared to light a blaze in his cheeks, her next words doused it: “I do wish I could keep him all to myself, but my mother always falls into hacking fits around cats. I’m afraid I can’t have him here.” She looked plaintively from Meward to John to Arthur. “Maybe..?”

“The dogs are amiable enough,” Arthur admitted, if sheepishly. “Though they’d need to get acclimated. They have a habit of chasing after any little thing that moves. But I’m sure once they got used to each other it would work out well enough.” An unspoken, ‘Maybe,’ hovered at the end of his words and glowed doubtfully in his face.

It was much the same as Quincey’s expression had been when he admitted, “Well, sure, I had a few old mouser cats as a boy. Only, I don’t claim to know anything about raising a kitten. I wouldn’t trust myself not to botch it, Jack.”

Regardless of these snags, Lucy spent the visit thoroughly enraptured with Meward to the point that she took one of her own hair ribbons off her head for him to play with. Once he’d tired of it, he allowed her to fasten the thing about him as a collar.

“You can’t have him going around bare, John. Otherwise they won’t know he’s anything but a stray. You must get him a proper collar soon.”

John had promised to look into it.

Some short and endless months later, the ribbon would remain. Meward would be too fond of it to let it go. Likewise for John.

But that was for later.

For now, John had to reconcile with his tiny shadow. More, with the unignorable fact that his presence seemed to have a positive effect upon the atmosphere of the asylum. Almost irritatingly so. What had begun as him simply running out of friends to trust with the animal, combined with his not having any personal home staff to entrust with the minding of him on top of household duties, was now a matter of ‘improving morale.’ So he languishingly informed his phonograph. Whether in his office or in the hall, Meward’s perching on a shoulder or chasing his feet seemed at once to quell anything from ire to melancholy to simple boredom in onlookers.

Often with shouted cries of, ‘Afternoon, Dr. Meward. And associate.’ Or else just, ‘Hello, Doctors,’ always nodding first to the kitten. Renfield appeared to be in much repaired spirits upon catching wind of this, now demanding to speak with ‘his’ doctor before offering any word to John.

“Ah, see?” he hummed to Meward as the animal stared at him. “Is it not wise that I shooed you from your lacking status as a failed catalyst for my purposes? Clearly your chicanery has endeared you to the medical profession.” Renfield gestured broadly at John. “You even have your own nurse.”

The obvious jab did not land as well as it might have on an earlier date. He had too much of curiosity and worry for the man to feel any real brunt of insult now. From the increasingly wild swings in his mood to the lapses of haunted lucidness, R.M. Renfield now stood nearly even with John’s distress for Lucy’s condition. Though if even a fraction of Arthur’s worry proved as true as his latest message implied, his own worry was due to triple. Laconic though Quincey may be, it was Arthur who was the fellow of infinitely fewer words in their trio. Whenever he deigned to offer a phrase in speech or text, it mattered. For the moment, he shelved such thinking in favor of his patient who sought to agitate to hide agitation.

“And have you anything you wished to share with doctor or nurse tonight, Renfield? You seemed upset over something from what the attendants implied—,”

“No!” Renfield gnawed his tongue so hard that it bled. He sucked at it, his face convulsing between exultation and concern. “No. I was mistaken. Or, no, I cannot say. And I cannot say why I cannot say. Never mind.” He gnawed, sucked, paced. Meward turned his owlish gaze up to John. A small paw swung gingerly at his mouth while his tongue flicked out and tapped his black nose. As he did, a whiff of briny breath puffed out on the air. Memory prickled. John cleared his throat.

“I’ve discovered something he likes to hunt. Other than bootlaces and pens.”

Renfield slowed in his pacing.

“Oh? What is that?” He cast a sidelong glance at Meward, who paused in his assault on John’s lapel to gape back. “He certainly doesn’t look much bigger. Though I suppose his coat is better.”

“As it should be. He’s taken a liking to fish.” He coaxed Meward’s claws out of his shirt collar and moved him to another hand. “It’s only an occasional treat, but he seems to be aware enough of where it comes from that I have caught him trying to prey on market displays of seafood when we’re out. Which I believe shows a clever choice on his part. Marine life is consistently healthier for the plate than any cattle or pork. And,” he was careful not to look directly at Renfield, but in a nigh scheming way into Meward’s eye, “they are almost always bloated with the nutrition of animals they’ve eaten prior to finding themselves in the fisherman’s net.”

Renfield’s pacing slowed to a stop.

“Is that a fact?”

“It is. I don’t often go poking beyond the edges of medical sciences, but recent reading from a French naturalist, Professor Pierre Aronnax, has been most illuminating. While hardly all of the ocean’s livestock are carnivorous, the bulk of sea life we collect for our own dinner is redolent with underwater hunters of little lives versus the farmland’s bevy of coddled cows, pigs, and hens.” He still did not look up any higher than Renfield’s frozen feet or Meward’s glistening stare. “Which is all without mentioning the miracle a man devours whole every time he treats himself to a crustacean. Lobsters especially. Not only are they fellow omnivores, but this Aronnax fellow theorizes that they may have properties suggesting an extraordinary longevity. It is only a hypothesis, he writes, but he believes that if the creatures are left to their devices without a fatal attack by a predator, they can live well over a hundred years.”

“Do you take me for a child?” Renfield snorted. “I am well grown out of such fairy tales as immortal beasts. Especially supposed immortals one can boil and set on a platter with a side of butter sauce.”

“Not immortal, simply endowed with an anatomy that lasts longer than the expected norm. I found it a strange supposition myself, but he makes a fair case, especially in tandem with the examples he’s put forth in the article—,”

“What article would that be? Some journal of quackery? You must not believe everything you read, Doctor.”

“I don’t. I only thought it an interesting concept, and one with impressive enough evidences that it was worth wondering about. Imagine tucking into a bit of shellfish only for taste’s sake, not realizing you were eating an animal who might have had more than a man’s whole lifetime ahead of it before you swallowed it all down. It is almost sad to picture.”

“Yes. Terribly.” Renfield fidgeted another moment. From the corner of his eye, John saw he was eyeing the window suspiciously. Perhaps searching. Apparently satisfied, the man donned one of his more familiar sycophant performances, sidling near enough that the attendants stood up straighter. Then, “Again, Dr. Seward, what article might you refer to? I am certain it will at least be good for a laugh and it would be such a welcome diversion from the usual softcover twaddle I flip through…”

John provided a copy of Aronnax’s piece a quarter of an hour later. That morning, he heard that Renfield’s latest crop of spiders had disappeared—flung out the window in a skittering spray that nearly scared a pedestrian out of their wits when a harvestman landed on his shoe. Not long after, Renfield had started wheedling the attendants to ask the kitchen if there wasn’t any seafood to come on the menu. Summer’s seasonable window was well past, he knew, but he had just now been struck with a terrible craving for seaside cuisine. He would trade every spider in the world for a crabcake and every bird for a lobster tail.

Hearing this, John had looked to Meward. The kitten had his own paperwork to ponder on the desk now; quite blank, but he refused to leave John, his forms, his pen, or his beleaguered hand alone until he had his own work to attend to. His unblinking eyes lifted up to find John’s.

“My thanks for the consultation, Doctor.” He set down his pen. Taking the sign, Meward trotted across the desk and bunched himself up under his palm. “A brilliant idea.” Meward purred his agreement.

A note was made to make inquiries as to budget and ability in getting the kitchen a stock of fresh seafood. He would see to it once this trouble with Lucy was taken care of.

Lucy’s trouble was taken care of. Twice.

R.M. Renfield’s only once.

It was not until after the Harkers’ trouble was seen to—this time finally, finally by seeing to the end of the one seeding trouble all along—not until after Quincey Morris went into the ground as a last miserable toll, that John could bring himself to visit any of the graves alone. Lucy’s. Quincey’s. Renfield’s.

On visiting the last’s simple plot, John brought along Meward in his coat. No longer quite a kitten, but still petite enough to fit in an inner pocket. The cat stared wonderingly at the marker for a time. He then paced away, seeming to search for something among the other graves. He returned on dainty steps with that something in his mouth. A dead bird. He laid it on Renfield’s plot and then curled himself around John’s leg, staring up.

If asked, even by Van Helsing, he could not have explained why this was the moment that burst the dam anew.

Nor why this eruption was so horridly raw compared to his past collapses. He had wept whole oceans since the loss of Lucy, it seemed. For twice dead Lucy, for Mina and her damned undying, for Quincey bleeding his life out on the snow, and now, here, last and so criminally considered least until it was too late, Renfield. Renfield who had died as a man neither comprehended nor heeded in his last desperate throes. Renfield who had died to shield a young woman he had befriended for all of an hour over simple kindness and equal regard. Renfield who Dr. John Seward had never healed, only housed or hindered or harkened to for study’s sake.

He crumpled to his knees there among the dead who’d died ill and insane for lack of understanding. Face in his hands, all the horror and hate of self folded back on itself a hundred times over. Arthur did not need his shoulder. Van Helsing did not need his confidante. The Harkers did not need his brave face. His staff and his patients did not need his professional posture or imposture. Nothing was needed here, for no one was alive to need anything.

So out it came. All those deepest acidic tides of unshared grief that could never be dared in the audience of friend or phonograph or the fierce eyes of those who saw and judged the faintest failure of mind as failure of soul, because that was what he was, a failure of psyche and ability who was nothing, who could do nothing but look on, be a warm body, a recorder of others’ misery while he sat and stared and failed and failed and failed them—

A warm ball of fur was worming its way onto his lap. Then up under his jaw, trying to squeeze itself between his hands and his tears.

John looked down. Meward looked up. Blinked once, slow. Then resumed trying to grate himself against John’s face and hands and neck and anywhere else he could reach, purring like thunder as he did. John snuffled and swallowed back another hoarse noise. He laid both hands on the cat to stroke him. Minutes passed on and on until they became an hour. John picked himself up, cat in hand.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he breathed, pausing to tidy the skewed ribbon. “You have a true talent.”

Meward mewed. It was a purely affected sound. The kind he made either to win another round of petting or a treat or a dash of catnip. John supposed he could pay for his services with a medley of all three at home.

A year later, with the asylum behind and the future ahead, the private psychiatric practice of Dr. John Seward was making elated waves through the medical grapevine. It was recommended by most anyone in the Purfleet area—likewise for even the most distant neighbors—that Dr. Seward was the man to go to before anyone started throwing around panicked thoughts of sanitorium stays or the druggist or a mesmeric cure. Go to Seward first, comes the suggestion from all walks.

Talk to him. Talk until you’re blue. Let him hear it all, however strange, however haunted or haunting, and he will neither balk nor sentence you to a straitjacket. Dr. Seward actually listens. More, he keeps confidences. He lays out alternatives the patient themselves might take before being flung headlong to the pharmacy or a locked room. Talk. Be heard. Be helped.

And don’t mind the cat staring in the corner.

He is a colleague and he’s there to help too.

#taking a break from tormenting Jonathan Harker for fluffy kitty fic time :3c #Now Back to the Horrors #really though little bitty Jack Meward's design is ridiculously charming #I made my own plushie of the little guy I loved him so much #and now he's got his own fanfic #fanwork turducken #jack meward #meward #jack seward #john seward #r.m. renfield #dracula #my writing

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andy-clutterbuck · 1 year

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9x03 | Warning Signs

#AND THE BEARD ON HIS CHIN WAS AS WHITE AS THE SNOW #me doing a wildly different coloring than my norm just to play up the Santa vibe? it's more likely than you think #HELLO MY GORGEOUS OLD MAN #Rick Grimes #*#rg #S9 #hurry down the chimney tonight #💕 Fuzzy Daddy 💕#hello i am ridiculous #it's me hi i'm the problem it's me #SANTA BABY #look at his big beautiful rectangle head i love it #B E A R D #so plush so FLUFFY #straddle him and nuzzle into the santa beard #winter is cold we must huddle for warmth #it snowed here all day leave me alone with my dumpster flames #also his arm hair but i'm not gonna be that weird right now #some AU where Santa is really hot #hello mr. grimes please come inside #come as often as you'd like #it's been 4 years now and i still don't know what it is about this look #one second i'm fine and then there he is and i'm like fill me to the brim #check.....check.....yep this look still has me open like Motel 6 #my apologies to tom bodett #that really aged me didn't it #oh well #KING RICHARD #still want to rub his head like it's a crystal ball and i'm a cheap ass fortune teller at a county fair

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theflyingfeeling · 6 months

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Ninth Day of Gift-Giving: Nice Compliments

Prompt: "You definitely have a talent for this. It’s awesome."

Resuming the sappy with this piece of the cuties making some music together (Rilla helped, of course, even if it's not explicitly implied; you just know she did 😌). Read the previous part here (yesterday's story was another horny standalone)

A pair of hands wrapped Olli in an embrace from behind as he was loading the coffee maker. Immediately he lost count of how many spoonfuls of coffee grounds he had already measured – and suddenly he didn’t really care either.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Aleksi asked, his tone as soft as the kisses he was leaving on Olli’s neck, so Olli knew he wasn’t actually upset.

“Didn’t have the heart.” Olli thought back to waking up to fluffy-haired Aleksi sleeping peacefully beside him, offering Olli a chance to study his each and every feature until he couldn’t procrastinate going to the bathroom any longer. To make up for his absence, Olli had lifted Rilla on the bed and nearly awwed out loud at the dog slithering under Aleksi’s arm. Olli had only barely been able to keep himself from joining them, but he really did need to pee, and while he was up he thought he might as well start their breakfast preparations, like any good host would.

Aleksi kept holding him while he started the coffee routine again from the top; Olli had had enough of kitchen disasters in the past few days, and messing up something as simple as making coffee would be the cherry on the top of that cake. With Aleksi’s hands caressing Olli’s stomach and his lips sliding along Olli’s jawline, focusing on counting the spoonfuls wasn’t an easy task.

“I was thinking–” Olli started, pausing just to collect himself when Aleksi’s fingers momentarily slipped under the waistband of Olli’s sweatpants. He cleared his throat and continued: “Would you like to work on some music stuff today? Not for the band, just…”

For us, he wanted to say, but swallowed the words; he was still a little unsure of how sappy he was allowed to get at this point of their… whatever it was they were currently doing.

(Indeed, maybe there was another reason for Olli to make his silent escape before Aleksi would awake: at times, despite all that had happened these past few days, there was a small voice in Olli’s head that still managed to trigger his self-doubt if he stopped to listen for too long. This voice, although much more quiet now than it used to be, kept trying to convince Olli that he was being too eager, too hopeful about it all and that all Aleksi was in for was just a bit of fun between friends. Alas, Olli was yet to gather the courage to bring it up with Aleksi properly, to sit down with him and make sure they were on the same page, because Olli for one was more than ready and willing to see if something real would come out of this, his fears and worries aside.)

“Could be fun,” Aleksi said. He had abandoned his task of peppering Olli’s jaw with kisses and was now in the middle of burying his nose in Olli’s hair. “It’s not like Rilla’s gonna want to spend much time outside anyway, not in this weather. So a day in sounds nice actually. Cosy.”

“Day in it is then,” Olli hummed. When Aleksi began leaving small kisses on Olli’s earleaf and temple, Olli closed his eyes and bit his lip to keep a blissful sigh from escaping his mouth. Then, when Aleksi simply laid his chin on Olli’s shoulder, his hands still petting Olli’s tummy, he decided to let the sigh out after all: with Aleksi’s touch so loving and gentle, how could Olli ever doubt his affection?

~*~

If someone asked Olli what the two of them had been working on in his home studio all day, he’d tell them they had finished a song. Mind you, he wouldn’t even be lying, merely stretching the truth a little; they had, very much indeed, finished a jazzy little tune on Aleksi’s laptop, with Olli providing the guitar riff and Aleksi, well, everything else more or less, with Olli’s enthusiastic help and commentary. However, it was only one minute long, and it had, in fact, taken them the whole day to finish, not because they had been polishing it to perfection for that long, but rather because they had constantly been distracted by each other. In Olli’s defence, where else was Olli supposed to sit when his legs got tired of crouching by the desk if not on Aleksi’s lap, since he was occupying Olli’s only office chair (fetching a kitchen stool for Olli had somehow not crossed their minds)? How else was Olli supposed to react to Aleksi sneaking his hand under Olli’s shirt if not by grinding his ass against Aleksi’s crotch, feeling his slight bulge? What else was Olli supposed to do when Aleksi’s mouth kept searching for his own if not turn around and hold Aleksi by the back of his neck, guiding their lips together over and over and over again?

It was unreasonable to expect anything else, if Olli was being honest.

At around nine in the evening, with just a couple of snack breaks and walkies to interrupt their long slog, they were finally listening to the finished product. Olli was standing behind Aleksi, his fingers playing with his fluffy hair, and Rilla, having lazed around the whole day due to the low pressure weather, was sitting on Aleksi’s lap, as if she, too, wanted to be part of the premiere of their music project.

From the first notes sounding from the speakers, Olli was in love. Even though he did have a music degree of his own and was more than familiar with the processes of music production, he was still blown away by how something that had started off with a few simple chords played on his old, slightly-off tune acoustic guitar could be turned into an actual song with just some clicks from Aleksi’s mouse, in just a few hours (excluding the time they had spent focusing more on each other than the song).

It had to be some kind of magic.

"Have I ever told you you really have a talent for this kinda stuff? It’s so awesome."

Aleksi didn’t say anything for a while, and Olli almost forgot about it as they listened to their little creation on loop. When Aleksi finally spoke, his voice sounded small all of a sudden.

“Thank you.”

If Olli hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought Aleksi had been moved by Olli’s praise for him. In truth, he was probably just tired.

Nevertheless, Olli decided to say nothing of the quiet sniff he heard a moment later, almost inaudible from under the music. Instead he planted a kiss on the top of Aleksi’s hair and took his sweet time nuzzling the soft hair there.

Olli was in love, and maybe not just with the song.

#blind channel fanfiction #blind channel rpf #24 days of gift-giving by theflyingfeeling #ollixallu #so so sappy and fluffy it's getting almost ridiculous at this point 🥰#i promise there'll be some good ol' heartwrenching pining in tomorrow's story! 🖤

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laulo821 · 4 months

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i mentioned it yesterday in some tags but here's rooster boy Eiji!! (he honestly looks awful)

and dogboy Esus <3 he's specifically a basenji

found this back rummaging through my old art but since i brought up the subject recently i figured i'm not gonna plan post / queue that but just . send it. enjoy

#art #eiji mercia #esus mercia #tenyoxin #esus never beats the fluffy hair allegations #idk why i put feathers on eiji's head btw this looks ridiculous #but he's sexy in pink tho #the mercia brothers ... loving sigh #also esus being Not Pale makes him so pretty wtf give my boy his blood back he needs it to Serve and Slay

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workingforitallthetime · 7 months

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Going home for Garrett means QT with Nash

#PUFFY DOGGO #BIG WHITE FLOOF #ARMLOAD OF GIANT FLUFFY GOOD BOY #so happy to be held in such a ridiculous manner #what a good dog

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themightymoose · 8 months

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okay but real talk for a second... could there perhaps be more fanfics where the Mane 6 are in a polycule? Like... they literally have so much chemistry with each other just listen to Best Friends Until the End of Time (y'know. Where they play really upbeat music over several people literally trying to kill Trixie)

#the fanfics don't have to be long #maybe just fluffy oneshots or hurt/comfort #pls I am begging or else I might have to do it myself #on a completely different note I still find that moment in bottled up to be so ridiculously funny #mlp #my little pony #mlp g4 #my little pony gen 4 #mlp fim #my little pony fim #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp gen 4

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sayovc · 1 year

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Modern!haino brainrot

Alhaitham asks Cyno to accompany him to his doctor appointments whenever he has an ear exam or needs to change his hearing aids. Although the appointments aren’t incredibly serious, it still will rattle Alhaitham and remind him of the accident and a bunch of other repressed memories of trauma he has about being deaf. Having Cyno, one of the few people who knew him before he became deaf and stayed by him afterwards, is a comfort to him. Cyno is more than willing to come to his appointments, even goes as far as to skip classes, and treats his boyfriend more softly than usual on those days.

#genshin impact #cytham #haino #genshin headcanons #I really love haino being all domestic and fluffy #I imagine cyno will fight everyone and anyone who ridicules his bf #also he v much loves his bf #‘I don’t care if you’re deaf or whatever you think is wrong with you; I love you and that’s never going to change’#I have a bunch of other modern haino things sitting my drafts lol so I’ll be adding to this

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green-fifteen · 1 year

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Day 6: Stretch

Fandom: Supernatural

Relationship: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Word count: 2,988

written for @fluffyfebruary

read on ao3 instead

Dean’s boyfriend is an angel. Probably lots of people say that, but when Dean says it, it’s actually true.

Castiel is the whole package: wings, good looks, asshole parents, you name it. Dean asked him if he kept a halo lying around and he’d just never seen it, but Cas told him that those 14th century paintings were rotting his brain. Well, he didn’t say it like that, but that was the gist. He even has a special, terrible, otherworldy form that he won’t show to Dean.

“I do not want your brain to leak from your eyes,” he’d said, but Dean thinks he’ll wear him down eventually.

Despite being an actual angel, Castiel is getting the hang of living with humans pretty well. Dean worked very hard to socialize him and teach him all the right vocabulary. There are still hiccups, but they’re working on those as they come up.

Like, the other week Cas had gone with Dean to buy groceries. While he was in another section, Cas had found the free samples. Dean arrived in time to see the kosher sausage saleswoman begin to sob. Dean rushed to comfort her while Cas chewed a frank with scientific interest. What did you say to her? he questioned in the car. Cas looked impatient. I told her the sausage was not actually kosher. And that her mother won’t kick her out for dating the girl at the cheese counter. I was being kind, Dean. Dean had given him a dubious look and lectured him about boundaries until they got home.

Anyway, even accounting for the occasional misstep, Cas is doing much better in human society than he had been four years ago. Sure, people can usually tell he’s an angel just by looking at him, but it’s not like that’s a secret. In fact, Dean practically writes it on his forehead in the mirror every morning, he mentions it so much. I CAN KISS AN ANGEL WHENEVER I WANT!

And it’s not that Dean is smug about locking down a divine creature of unknowable power (although he is), he just thinks Cas shouldn’t have to hide in his own town. He’s aware that some angels do hide, when they live among humans. Cas’s brother Michael moved to Tulsa and wears straps to keep his wings down inside his power suits. He says it’s only until he can find a job, but Dean doesn’t want that for Cas. Not ever.

Even before he really knew Cas, he was fascinated by his angelic nature. The first time he saw him, they’d both been sixteen. Dean was coming home with Sam, who was in the same school as him for once and taking the same bus. He was taller than him at only twelve years old. (Yeah, his brother was a genius who skipped grades. Dean was sick with pride but pretended to make a fuss about his kid brother harshing his game with the high school chicks. Sam just rolled his eyes and told him to stop blustering. ???)

A boy with gigantic wings had been standing in the driveway of the house next to theirs, helping the adults move boxes from an oversized U-Haul. His back had been turned to them, so he hadn’t noticed either of them slowly walking up the path to their front door. Dean and Sam both were staring openly, forgetting themselves in their surprise at seeing some kind of bird-boy in a weird linen shift.

It was Sam who gasped softly and said, “Dean, I think he’s an angel,” which is why he’s the genius. The angel kid had turned around and seen them then, but he didn’t react except to stare, creepily. His parents noticed him looking and made some hand gestures and then the boy sighed and walked over. They were frozen on the paving stones, watching him approach.

“Mother and Chuck said to introduce myself. I’m called Castiel, in your tongue.”

Just as he finished speaking, the door to their house opened and their father called, “Hey, Stretch, get the good rune-chalk from the cellar, would you? We’re re-doing the basement tonight.”

Sam stomped off rudely, obedient and irritated. Dean didn’t have the talent for wards like his brother did, which was just as well in his book because he didn’t have to do stupid shit like play twister with chalk lines in the cold-as-hell basement.

Dean and Castiel watched as he rounded the house, then focused on each other once more. They made eye contact and Dean wanted to smile at the serious expression on his face, but he didn’t.

“I’m Dean,” he said and reached out a hand. It hovered lamely in the air when Castiel didn’t take it. He pulled it back and wiped his palm on his jeans.

“So, you guys just move to town?” he asked, awkwardly.

Castiel glanced back at the U-Haul. “Yes.” His tone said obviously.

“Uh, how do you like it?”

“We arrived 40 minutes ago.”

Dean was beginning to wish he was better at drawing runes. He made a few more lame attempts at small talk, hoping Castiel would remember he was supposed to be helping his parents with the truck full of boxes and let Dean escape inside. He didn’t, just answered Dean’s inane questions with bone-dry syllables and never stopped looking directly in his eyes.

“Listen,” Dean said eventually. “I’ve got homework to do and dinner and stuff.” And to be polite, he said, “Maybe you could come over for dinner? Anytime you want to, you guys are welcome.”

He cringed at himself. His dad would probably not like hosting the neighbors for dinner and honestly, Dean didn’t even know these people. What if he’d just sentenced his family to an entire night of conversations as awkward as this one?

The angel had accepted the invitation with disproportionate gravity (I thank you for opening your home to us, Dean) and they’d parted. The next night, he showed up at the Winchester’s front door at 5 o’clock, alone.

“Is this too early?” he asked, peering around Dean into the house.

Dean shook his head mutely, gave him a polite smile, and waved him inside. When he stepped in, Dean’s dad looked up at them, gave Castiel a quick once-over, then quirked an eyebrow at Dean.

“This is Castiel,” he explained quickly. “His family moved in yesterday, next door. I invited him over for dinner.”

John looked like he wanted to laugh. “How neighborly, son,” he said. Dean flushed and escaped to the kitchen, dragging Castiel behind him.

The big white wings were tucked modestly against his body and Dean was distantly grateful, considering all the glass jars and framed pictures they had in the kitchen. He made himself busy with setting the table, ignoring the persistent awkwardness Castiel summoned in him.

“You can get the cups down from that cabinet,” he said, pointing. He followed each of Dean’s instructions until the table was ready, heaped with enough spaghetti and meatballs to feed a small Italian town (as long as they weren’t that particular about eating sauce from a jar.)

Sam crashed into his chair when Dean hollered and their dad came leisurely to the kitchen a minute later. Sam gave Castiel a toothy smile.

The angel seemed perturbed when they started eating.

“You won’t say grace?” he asked.

Dean felt caught. He looked at his dad, who glowered slightly.

“Not anymore,” he said curtly. Castiel just looked thoughtful.

The humans ate quietly, focused on their plates. Castiel was eating slowly, watching the others and copying their behavior. He saw Sam mop the edge of his plate with a piece of buttered bread.

“Stretch,” he said, politely. “Please pass me the bread.”

There was a confused silence before Sam hesitantly passed him the bag of Wonder Bread.

“You meant me, right?” he asked, muffled through a full mouth of food.

Castiel just said, “Yes. Thank you, Stretch.”

Dean stared at him for a second and then lost it. His laugh started strangled as he tried to keep it in, but he really couldn’t stop himself. He had to put his fork down on his plate.

That night had been Cas’s first lesson in humanity. Sam had formally introduced himself (Dad just calls me that because I’m tall, he explained, red-faced) and Dean eventually stopped laughing long enough to finish his dinner. When the food was gone, he pulled Cas out of the kitchen, saying Dad and Sam’ll clean up, I cooked and you’re a guest.

Cas asked him what he liked to do for fun. Grinning, Dean took him to his bedroom and climbed out the window. When they were both on the roof, sitting silently and listening to the soft noises from the town and the woods behind the neighborhood, Dean realized Cas was surprisingly easy to talk to.

And that had only been the beginning. After that night, Cas was at their house all the time, listening to Dean talk with the focused attention of a congregant. Dean took the responsibility of educating him very seriously and taught him the funniest swears first. He had a lot of fun with that until Cas absently called Dean’s (admittedly crotchety) grandma a ‘shithead’ where she could hear him. He’d had a hell of a time explaining himself while simultaneously guarding Cas from rapid elderly thwacks.

Dean doesn’t spend as much time at Cas’s house, which is how they both like it. Cas’s parents make John Winchester look like a stoner hippie Kindergarten teacher. They’re really strict, is the point. And startlingly conservative, for a pair of people who were pooh pooh’d out of their angel community because Cas’s mom had a second marriage. Needless to say, they aren’t terribly warm toward Dean. They’ve never been rude to his face, he doesn’t think. But their lack of approval is clear.

Even before the first time Cas had kissed him, they sometimes made excuses why he couldn’t see Dean and, around Dean’s seventeenth birthday, took him along on a business trip to Springfield, even though there’d been nothing for him to do there. Cas had missed his party and been angry with them for weeks. Dean thinks Cas’s parents knew about them before they did, which is why they told Dean things like Castiel is studying for his exams, after he knew Cas’s homeschooling program was already finished for the summer. And Castiel needs to rest, he has.. the flu, on a clear August day. (Dean was pretty sure angels coldn’t get the flu, then Cas had barged past them out the door, looking very hale and pissed off.)

They did figure it out eventually, though. It started when were both newly eighteen and sitting on a blanket in the park, watching The Matrix Reloaded. Sam was in front of them, eyes glued to the side of the white plaster building where the movie was being projected. Dean had made dumb jokes all throughout the first movie, much to Sam and Cas’s irritation. He was distracted as the second movie played, looking at the side of Cas’s face. Cas was just so focused and interested.

On screen, Persephone was bargaining with Neo. You have to make me believe it’s her, she was saying. Neo kissed her briefly and she pulled away. Terrible. Forget it.

When the movie ended, they took a break to stretch their legs and walk around a curving path opposite the building. Sam stayed behind, happily snacking and waiting for the third movie in the marathon to start.

“What did you think?” Dean had asked, kicking rocks in front of his feet.

Cas made an assessing noise. “There is... a lot going on in these films,” he eventually said, voice as starched and diplomatic as Dean had ever heard it. Dean laughed, punching him on the arm.

“You must have liked some of it,” he insisted playfully.

Cas was quiet for a long moment, walking next to him and looking at the ground. He spoke as they reached a bend in the path. “I was curious about one scene,” he said slowly. “The character-- what was his name, the important one?”

“Neo.”

“Neo was trying to convince that woman to show them to the Key-person. And he had to kiss her.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Her husband was cheating on her and she wanted to hurt Trinity’s feelings, I’m pretty sure.” He hadn’t been paying that much attention, but Sam had made him watch these movies eleven million times before tonight.

“He had to kiss her well. She could tell when he did it wrong.” Cas stopped walking and turned to Dean. “Is there a way to kiss wrong?” His eyes were a little panicked, like he hadn’t even thought about kissing anyone before but now he had to worry about doing it incorrectly.

Dean smirked. “I’m pretty sure there is, yeah.” He made a showy gesture to his own face. “Not that I’ve had any complaints.”

Cas looked unimpressed. “I believe you have to have customers first, to recieve complaints.”

Dean had flushed and spluttered, “I’ve kissed people, dude! Last summer, I kissed Alexis Ford at her birthday party! With tongue!

“Alexis lost a bet,” Cas said, cruelly recontextualizing the one and only kiss of Dean’s young life. Dean glowered and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I bet you’d be a bad kisser,” he grumbled. He didn’t mean it. Actually, he’d thought about kissing Cas earlier that evening, during the first Matrix. And in the car on the way to the park. And the day before, when Cas greeted him on the lawn after work. And at least forty other times since they’d both graduated high school. None of those imagined kisses had been bad. They’d been pretty embarassing, though, which is why he slam-dunked them into the “do not talk about to anyone” drawer in his head. And then locked it.

Cas looked offended. “What is your evidence? I’ve never kissed anyone. There’s no data.”

“I just know. It would be slimy and horrible, somehow.”

They were behind the building now, out of view of the picnic area. They were almost alone, except for a few people hurrying to the restrooms.

“You’re just being hurtful,” Cas said, sounding cross. “I think I could kiss well if I were able to practice. It has to be a skill, like anything else.”

He stopped walking, suddenly. Dean halted in place, looking over his shoulder at him.

“I’ll kiss you,” he said, head tilted. He grabbed Dean’s hand and pulled him.

“Ack! Hey!” Dean protested.

“You can tell me if it’s bad. If I need practice.” He had that look on his face then, the one he got when he was gung-ho to learn something about humans that only Dean could teach him.

Dean swallowed, keeping his eyes on Cas’s resolutely. “Um, are you--” he swallowed again. “Are you sure?” The idea of pulling away from him had occured to Dean and he knew it was probably the better one, but instead he stayed right were Cas had put him, heart hammering.

Cas nodded, then stood looking at him for a long moment.

“Dean?”

“Uh, what?”

Cas rolled his eyes, huffed a little can he be this stupid? sigh and kissed Dean on the lips.

A terrible, pleased noise escape Dean’s throat and his hands moved up without his input, catching and holding Cas’s shirtfront. When Cas pulled away, his eyes were wide.

“That was--” he cleared the gravel from his voice. “That didn’t feel very bad.”

Dean had been zapped into goo and couldn’t speak. Cas touched his own lips with an awed expression and Dean wanted to kiss him again, so bad. He gathered himself enough to croak, “Beginner’s luck.”

The angel’s eyes immediately flashed at the challenge and he reeled Dean in with a hand at his back. They made out behind the building until Sam came looking for them midway through The Matrix Revolutions.

After that, it had been zero to sixty-- Dean was Cas’s boyfriend to everyone they met. Cas met him on his lunch break from the garage and kissed him in front of his dad. Dean dragged him out onto the roof to take his clothes off of him and dig his fingers into the clean white feathers of his wings.

Now, Dean has been kissing Cas (and a little bit more than that) for two years. Cas checks Zillow every day and sends him houses he likes the look of. Dean has programmed ‘This is not in our budget’ into his texting app so he doesn’t have to type out all the words every time Cas sends him the listing for another million-dollar development property.

Chrissake, Cas, you’re a guidance counselor and I fix cars. Think a little smaller, babe, he told him. Cas made a face and told him not to swear.

Dean can see a future for them and he wants it more than anything. He keeps teaching Cas human things like replacing the goddamn toilet paper and how much detergent to use in the washing machine. He’s still weird in an obvious way, and Dean still doesn’t want to change that. He thinks they’ll be sitting on their front porch, Dean old and gray, Cas looking however the hell he’ll look in sixty years (Dean should ask him, actaully), and Cas will still make remarks like Dean, these adult diapers do not wick nearly as much moisture as the packaging claims. He thinks he’ll still smile at him, every time. He’ll still feel the same way he did when Cas made him laugh for the first time at the dinner table. He’ll want to keep him. Forever.

When he looks at Cas, wide eyed like a newborn and holding Dean’s hand in the supermarket, at the park, in line at the DMV-- forever doesn’t feel like much of a stretch.

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