#@ shea learn how to spell your son's name

[safetybuzz]

can you spell kotkaniemi? (feat. a very unimpressed jesperi) 

bonus:

[macmilllan]

                                       “ i want to stay. i want to leave. i am                                           three oceans away from my soul. ”

cis male / he/his. ┊ if you’re looking for FINNIAN MACMILLAN, you’ll probably find HIM in the HUFFLEPUFF dorm with the rest of the SEVENTH years. they’re the TWENTY-ONE year old PUREBLOOD who looks kind of like ROME FLYNN. they seem CURIOUS, QUICK-THINKING, & JUDICIOUS to me, but apparently they’re also IMPATIENT, DISTRUSTFUL, & RECALCITRANT. maybe that’s why they remind me of waking up early, so it feels like you have the whole world to yourself; the salty breeze off the sea; making up your own rules to board games;   family photos and heirlooms locked in a trunk you don’t open; the adrenaline rush of thriving at the last minute; a feeling deep down that you’d never make it on your own. ( ooc: zoe, 22, cst, she/her. ) 

WARNINGS:  parental death, car accidents, manipulation, underage alcohol use ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:   finn’s playlist, stats page, & pinterest board  

i.

the macmillans were always a large family, sprawling and warm and bright.  generations ago,  they found themselves written up as one of the sacred twenty-eight and were,  if not quite baffled  (for they were proud to make and display beautiful family trees,  and thought it made sense they were one of the stronger pureblood clans around),  uncomfortable with the company that put them with.

for years they’d been more than content to exist as their own enclave, almost;  existing in the wixen world and attending hogwarts and welcome members of society,  but always,  always happy to return home to ireland away from the larger wixen communities.  it was rare to see a macmillan settle down in hogsmeade or godric’s hollow;  they preferred to do business with muggles in their communities when they could,  only went to diagon alley when it could not be put off any longer.  

it was strange;  but the sort of strangeness easily written off as eccentricity,  that didn’t seem to ruin their standing in good pureblood society.  

perhaps that was because they weren’t reclusive  —  for years and years,  they made friends with other families,  saw their children married off with greengrasses and abbotts and longbottoms and happily attended the large society weddings.   they were proud of their various children and their various accomplishments.

augustine macmillan was only one macmillan out of many.  he was the eldest son of an eldest son,  going back several lucky generations that made him favored.  

if the macmillans were the sort of family to call a certain child the heir over all the others,  it wouldn’t have been a question:  augustine was the heir.  the golden boy.  beloved not just by his family but by everyone who had encountered him at hogwarts,  where he met his wife,  briar shacklebolt.

no one was really surprised when they moved back to the macmillan family home. augustine’s father had recently died.  his younger brother was also recently wed,  and moved to spain to live near his wife’s family.  it fell on augistine to keep up the old macmillan estate on the sea.  he and briar were happy to take on the responsibility;  they agreed that there was no better place to start their family.  

and they did  —  they were,  like,  really good at starting a family,  actually.  they had their eldest son,  shea,  shortly after settling into the macmillan home,  and five years later had lark and lonen,  the twins.  the twins were joined by niamh three years later,  finnian three years after that;  when little astrid was born a year after finnian,  the couple finally decided they were done.   they had their perfect,  large family.  the macmillan-estate-on-the-sea was loud,  filled with love and laughter and a perfect amount of lived-in chaos.  everything was perfect.  

ii.

later,  all the wixen gossip and newspaper tributes would call briar and augustine’s death a senseless tragedy,  an unthinkable thing.  plenty of muggles die from car crashes;  but purebloods,  from good families,  heir to their names,  just  —  didn’t.  they died from well-earned old age or an illness that had them in st. mungo’s for months leading to their demise.  from spell inventions gone badly,  or from being on the wrong end of a duel.  those sort of deaths made sense;  they were noble or expected.  strangers heard news of the macmillans’ death and found it shocking enough to reveal disdain.

it wasn’t altogether strange for a pureblood family like theirs to have a car.  even the ministry used the muggle vehicles,  charmed to weave through traffic with an ease everyone felt wixen had earned.  briar and augustine didn’t have anything flashy  —  just a nice family thing,  affixed with an extension charm so all six of their children could ride in it comfortably,  if they needed to.  

technically, the extension charm was illegal;  but everyone who knew about it looked the other way.  after all,  the youngest macmillan kids attended a muggle school at the local town,  so they could have friends and socialize before moving on to an intermediate academy.  people whispered about that  —  the illegal magicking of the muggle vehicle,  the fact that their children attended a muggle school  —  in the wake of the couple’s death.  the macmillans had spent generations currying enough favor for people to willfully forget that,  despite their perfect lineage,  they were a little too comfortable with muggle things.

no one brought it up,  at briar and augustine’s funeral.  no one wanted to punish those six kids for what they knew were the sins of their parents,  and their parents alone.  little shea macmillan was only eighteen,  barely an adult in the wizarding world and still at hogwarts;  there was no way he would have a car,  and charm it,  and drive it around roads where muggles go like that’s at all safe.  

no,  people were quick to help him,  and jump to his defense and his aid.  because they were quick to want him to turn out different from his parents.  

iii.

finn was seven when his parents died and suddenly everyone turned to his oldest brother like he was the head of the family now,  the one in charge of the gaggle of macmillan kids.  shea was still going to hogwarts.  even the well-meaning strangers who wanted to meddle in their lives didn’t want to steal a hogwarts education from shea.  he had three years to finish out;  everyone knew he’d step up as caretaker as soon as he was done,  because that was the right thing to do,  and everyone was sure shea would do the right things.  

an older woman,  somebody’s grandmother,  if she wasn’t theirs,  came to stay at the macmillan-estate-on-the-sea with the kids during the school year.  finn and niamh and little astrid were still too young for intermediate academies;  so she took it upon herself to pull them out of the local muggle school and homeschool them.  

she was kind and helpful,  and shea was too grateful to wonder at how determined everyone was to keep the last of the macmillans away from muggle life.

she never stuck around during holidays and summers,  when shea was back from school.  finn liked her plenty,  but he was happy when shea finished school and strongly encouraged her to stop sticking around at all. the macmillan home never really felt like it used to;  finn was seven when his parents died and that was old enough to remember what life had been like with them around.  

but it was amazing to have shea back for good.  finn felt like things returned to normal,  a little,  when he had his brother around for good.  their house was filled with love and laughter and a perfect amount of lived-in chaos.  no,  life wasn’t all around perfect anymore.  but it was good.  

iv.

their parents had left more than enough gold in the family gringott’s vault that life was always comfortable for the six macmillan kids.  shea could easily fall into the role of guardian for his siblings without worrying about money.  by the time shea was done with school,  finn still had one more year before it was time for him to start at an intermediate academy.  it was a golden year,  him and shea and astrid,  with lark and lonen and niamh coming home for holidays,  everything feeling as right as it could.

all six kids remembered all too well how often people had popped into their home,  trying to load their ideals off on them.  those distant cousins and family friends never seemed to be around now that shea was back for good.  finn,  for one,  was glad.  he’d been raised to be polite,  and kind,  and so he’d sat and nodded and listened to all those adults like he knew they wanted him to.

but you could only take so much of hearing near-strangers try to disparage your parents without explicitly speaking ill of the dead.  even the not-grandmother who’d looked after him and his sisters when their brother was at school had made more than one snide remark about the troubles that came with forgetting that wixen stood apart of muggles for a reason.

finn didn’t feel all that charitable towards the attempted correction everyone seemed to think he’d needed,  grief-stricken at seven.  pureblood society had seen the macmillan family floundering after a tragedy and leapt on them like vultures.  the intent,  he was sure,  was to sway the kids back towards wixen society.  it probably did the opposite.

the macmillans were still an upstanding pureblood family that no one would look down their noses at;  especially not knowing now that the remaining family members were all orphans,  deserving of canned sympathy even years removed from their parents’ deaths.  people were kind to finn,  and he was kind to them in return,  polite in his careful dismissals and practiced brush-offs.  he had his siblings and had learned at a very young age that he just couldn’t rely on anyone else like he could rely on them.

shea was protective of his siblings,  especially finn and astrid who had been so little when they were thrust into his care like he knew what to do with them.  he encouraged the two of them,  and niamh and lonen and lark,  to keep their distance from anyone who seemed too intent on getting them to believe a certain thing or act a certain way.  

people had ulterior motives,  and they were ruthless in getting children to believe those motives were right and just.  the macmillan family had always been self-sufficient,  and they were all determined to keep it that way,  now that they didn’t need to rely on anyone for anything.  

v.

everyone had their job within the macmillan home  —  the thing they did for their siblings that kept things running smoothly,  everyone useful,  everyone loved.  

finn had learned to cook at the elbow of lark and their brief not-grandmother;  when he was home from school,  first his intermediate academy and later hogwarts,  his first stop was the kitchen.  it was a huge,  spacious room in the macmillan-estate-on-the-sea,  the place where so many of his well-worn memories of briar lived.  he felt most connected to his mother there and insisted,  along with lark,  to be in charge of meals.  he and his older sister were a well-oiled machine.  

it was no surpise to any of them when he followed her lead and was sorted into huffelpuff.

she owled him all the best spots in their common room and the best snacks to request from the kitchens,  and her twin lonen wrote to him with old pranks he’d pulled as a gryffindor,  in case finn felt like keeping up family tradition.  niamh was at hogwarts with him,  and rolled her eyes at how much everyone seemed to coddle little finn  —  but she had a mean right hook and promised her fellow slytherins would have finn’s back if anyone tried anything with her baby brother.  

shea owled him,  too.  but just to say he was proud of finn.  finn glowed with love at that one and decided he’d keep all three letters for the rest of his life.  maybe it was a silly,  sentimental sort of choice to make,  when he was fourteen now and supposed to be a grown-up hogwarts student,  but finn stood by it.  

he’d had an early growth spurt and carried himself with the sort of well-worn confidence that made other people decide he was cool.  he had a tendency to play his cards close to his chest and slap on the same practiced niceness with everyone  —  if other people thought that lent him a sense of mystery,  that it made him cool,  that was fine.  it just meant everyone would leave him alone,  for the most part.  that was how finn liked things.  

there was this potential in him to be soft  —  he was the youngest boy in the family,  and for a while there,  when he and astrid were the only ones not in any kind of school,  everyone looked after them as the babies of the family.  he used to need an army of stuffed animals on the bed at night to keep him safe,  used to cry any time he smelled something like his father’s old cologne.  it wasn’t just that there was a potential in him to be soft;  he was soft,  deep down,  and always had been.  

but that didn’t really serve him well,  did it?  all those well-intentioned strangers had swooped in on him and his family in their greatest moment of weakness.  finn was a good guy,  a sweet boy.  that’s what adults always used to call him,  when they were trying to weave their way into the macmillans’ lives.  

but he could wrap all that goodness and sweetness in steel and wield it like a weapon if need be.  it was safer for him and his family,  that way.

vi.

finn loved himself a task.  he wasn’t a believer that idle hands were the devil’s plaything or anything so brimstone-y as that,  but he just didn’t like to sit doing nothing.  some part of him always had to be moving,  lest his mind take over and decide to race in the stillness.  one summer,  he and lark worked their way through julia child’s mastering the art of french cooking.  it felt like a kind of fuck you to all the wholesome,  magical,  english cookbooks people had left them as gifts when they’d seen how many muggle ones were in the macmillan kitchen.  

they owled their uncle,  still living in france with his wife and kids,  progress reports on each recipe.  when he came to visit during christmastime,  finn and lark cooked his family increasingly elaborate french meals until his wife laughed at them and snorted wine out of her nose.  they just ordered a pizza from the muggle place in town,  after that.

one summer,  finn taught himself to play guitar.  he was awful at it for a while,  and niamh,  whose room was next to his,  cast a silencing charm on it until he promised to keep an eye on the clock when he was practicing so he didn’t keep her up until three in the morning.  he got better,  like,  eventually.  his siblings had never been under the illusion his peers were under,  that finn was cool.  

mostly they made fun of him for picking the guitar when the family had a perfectly nice piano in the living room he could have used,  instead of the guitar he bought second-hand from a shop in the town next to the macmillan-estate-on-the-sea.  

the six of them had elaborate board game tournaments,  and games that weren’t quite board games with rules they made up themselves.  exploding snap was an event at home,  everyone tipsy on mulled wine and cider,  well-fed on whatever finn and lark had made for dinner that night.  they organized three-on-three quidditch games on the beach and yelled at anyone who let the quaffle fall into the water.  

vii.

it was different,  in school.  finn was less himself at hogwarts than he was at home,  where he could laugh with his siblings as they laughed at him and feel like not even his missteps would be looked down on.  despite his years at school fully immersed in the magical world,  finn still felt wary around people who weren’t directly related to him.  it even took him a while to warm up to his uncle and his wife and kids,  once they finally started coming around again.  

finn couldn’t help but feel like he couldn’t fail in front of anyone he didn’t already trust with his life  —  and the list of people he trusted with his life was a very short one.

his peers weren’t as bad as adults were  ( there was not a single professor finn had ever trusted.  the ones who were nice and likable were worse than the ones who everyone else disliked )  but there was something about being simultaneously abandoned and conditioned by strangers when he was a kid that made him not want to let his guard down around anybody.  it felt like both a personal failing and an act of survival.

making friends for him was both very easy and almost impossible.  

people tended to like him.  finn wasn’t sure what it was  —  maybe he just had a face,  or his habit of being unfailingly nice to everyone paid off in unexpected ways,  but there had never been a shortage of people willing to walk with him to class or sit with him at breakfast.  he could talk to them,  and joke with them,  and even fall into something that looked enough like a friendship that he was never really alone.  

but finn wouldn’t have cared if he was alone all the time,  which  —  he was reasonably sure was not most people’s reactions to having friends.  it was fine;  he was fine.  at the very least,  it made it easy for him to satisfy that itch under his skin that said he had to keep moving at all times.  people with friends never sat alone at quidditch games,  and they always knew when there was something fun going on.  there was always someone willing to play wizard’s chess with him,  or go to the library to work on notes.  

finn was technically thriving at hogwarts.  his grades reflected as much,  and he knew he’d have no trouble making it in the world outside of the castle.  but he never really felt like he was thriving,  and was mostly just happy thinking there was a world outside the castle.

viii.

shea and lark ganged up on him,  sometimes.  both of them thought he was doing himself a disservice by phoning so much of his life in.  it was true that all of the macmillan kids had been messed up,  in some way,  by their parents deaths and the three years immediately following them.  finn just carried it differently than any of them;  and despite it all,  he was still one of the babies of the family,  coddled and looked after.  finn preferred to be the one looking after things.  it made him uncomfortable to be seen.  

for them,  only for them,  finn promised he’d try to live more in his life;  to not be so distant and practiced and kindly removed.  it didn’t feel right on him,  like a borrowed coat.  he wasn’t sure anyone else would’ve noticed he difference.  he’d gone through the motions of being involved,  of being a friend,  for years now  —  and he’d been good enough at going through the motions that trying for real felt more like faking it.

honestly,  just this once,  he wasn’t pleased his siblings were looking out for him.  he’d coasted through most of his hogwarts career and then spent his last three years floundering,  trying to act like a real person and then remembering it wasn’t supposed to be an act at all.

the world was changing,  malleable and more malicious than ever,  right outside the warm glow of his family home.  during christmas break,  the ministry made changes to the auror’s office that made all the macmillan kids look at each other with worried eyes.  there were several warring forces shifting under the surface of things.  their home was a safe enclave,  and everyone felt he and astrid were protected enough within hogwarts’ walls.  

but there was no denying that things weren’t going to sit peacefully for much longer,  if there’d ever been any real peace.  finn was just enough of a pessimist to think it was only a matter of time before the world boiled over,  like a pot unwatched.  it sure as hell felt like he had picked a poor time to try and give himself into feeling things for real.

[shy-violet-soul]

Try to Remember (2)

Summary:  Continuation: A forgotten memory surfaces and breaks Rae’s heart.  How will the boys, with their own heartbroken history, help her heal? (Read Part 1 HERE) Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injuries/fatal injuries; grief; parent death; depression; angsty fluff Pairing:  OFC Rae Himmel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel  Rating: Mature due to descriptions of canon-type gore Word count: 1300-ish

A/N:  We all love the funny moments with the brothers.  But their sensitivity to someone else’s pain has always broken my heart a little, and I wanted to explore that. This is a companion piece to Life is Good (for you) & Just Desserts. You don’t have to read them to understand this story. This is my OFC Rae’s “origin” story. 

A huge, sparkly, fluffy hug to my 2 betas @pinknerdpanda and @thesassywallflower. Ladies, you get all the Sam cuddles!

This is a work of fiction based upon characters created and owned by the CW. My work is not to be copied/distributed elsewhere without my written permission.

To listen to for this part: Try to Remember by Harry Belafonte

After a half hour of just sitting on the shower floor, letting the hot water pour over her, Rae finally found the energy to get up. Busting out her fancy, boutique soap and expensive, impressive in-shower lotion, she scrubbed. The debrided bits of painful memory from her careful box washed away, soothed with shea butter and the newer notes of Winchester hugs. A little achy, a little empty, Rae felt both tethered and light as she bundled her favorite fleece robe around her. A knock on her door frame caught her attention as she combed out her wet hair.

“Cas! I didn’t know you were here!”

The angel took in her genuine smile along with the puffy, drawn pallor as he accepted her hug.

“Do you mind if we sit a moment, Rae?”

“Of course, please.”

A methodical, analytical thinker herself, Rae had never chafed under Castiel’s considering stares. She only smiled as the blue eyed angel tilted his head as he pondered her.

“I know you have questions, Rae. About your parents’ death.” Rae only nodded, waiting for him to continue. “I also want to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. It’s always awful to watch someone you love die.”

Rae dropped her gaze to her hands, feeling the echo of her pain in her ribs. It thrummed anew as she thought about the times Cas had watched his own loved ones die. Two of them repeatedly.

“No, it never is.”

“I have those answers for you, Rae. Dean and Sam had me follow up on your case while they cared for you.” Cas sighed gently as he glanced around her room. “Knowledge. It doesn’t always end pain. In the millenia I’ve watched God’s children on this Earth, I’ve learned something. I think that the resonance an answer carries depends upon the heart that receives it. A soul fueled by anger, by fear - answers can trap them. Anger and fear take over their lives. But a soul led be compassion and hope accepts the pain along with the truth. They let it be their freedom.”

Cas’ words cast about in her ears. More weary than she could ever remember being, Rae braced herself for anger, more tears; but numbness lapped at her instead. The achy spot where her cobbled box sat empty in her chest pinched at her, but with no true threat. She lifted her eyes and met Cas’ gaze unblinkingly.

“What is my soul led by, Cas?”

After a moment, the angel smiled at her with heart-tugging gentleness, and took her hand.

“The Thule Society is a splinter group of the Nazi Party.  They’ve practiced the dark arts and necromancy since before the second World War. Another group of Jewish Rabbis known as the Judah Initiative have fought against them for decades, their mission to stop their evil ways once and for all. The Thule High Command also made up Hitler’s inner circle, with their chief goal being to bring Hitler back from the dead. The leader of this effort was a man called Nauhause. After he died, his son, Christoph, swore he would abandon all heinous deeds of his father. Sam and Dean believed him.

A few weeks before your parents’ death, a member of the Judah Initiative contacted the Winchesters. He said he’d discovered that a sect of the Thules had happened upon a list of supposed Judah Initiative operatives who had immigrated to America after the war, and was systematically killing who they saw as enemies. The name of one of them was Aleksender Himmel.”

Cas’ heart thumped in sympathy as Rae’s eyes widened.

“My...my father’s name was…”

“Alexander Himmel.”

Rae honestly didn’t think she could hurt anymore, but the tightness in her throat wringing out fresh tears proved her wrong. Cas squeezed her hand, offering her wordless comfort.

“The worst part of the whole thing, Cas? My father was adopted. He wasn’t Jewish by birth,” a sob choked off the word as Rae covered her face and cried. “My parents were murdered by a monster because of a spelling mistake.”

Cas twitched as her pain emanated in cold, chilling waves, poking pinches against his vessel. After a moment, Cas couldn’t subdue the urge any longer.

“It’s appropriate in many societal groups to offer an embrace to one in pain. I would like to offer you an embrace, Rainbow, as I’m reasonably certain this societal group finds it acceptable.”

Rae snuffled out a chuckle as she flopped her arms around Cas’ shoulders.

“Your reasonable certainty is correct, and I accept, Cas.”

The two friends sat in a companionable silence for a moment before Rae leaned back, wiping at her eyes. She offered him a shy smile that was all fatigue and flusterment.

“Thank you, Cas. I mean it.”

“Rae, nothing will ever erase the pain of your loss, I know. But I can tell you I’ve seen their souls in heaven. They remember nothing of that moment, and their heaven is all moments with you.”

Bittersweetness trembled on her lips as Rae nodded her thanks. Dean suddenly poked his head around the doorway.

“I hate to break this up, but movie night is on in the Dean Cave in five. C’mon, you two.”

Rae huffed a chuckle as she let the men bundle her along the hall to the Dean Cave. The elder Winchester had commandeered one of the rooms, tricking it out with a couch, recliners, and a non-possessed flat screen that shone in a place of honor in all its HD splendor. Rae was given the comfiest seat, the middle of the recliner-couch combo unit. The brothers had gone all out - someone made an emergency run, and an array of theatre candy was waiting for them. Twizzlers, Junior Mints, M&M’s, Dean’s nasty black licorice, and Skittles.  Each one of them had their own bowl of popcorn, and Sam produced a surprise with a smiling flourish.

“3-D glasses! And, I did some research. The best movies to watch in 3-D are ‘Iron Man’, ‘Kung Fu Panda’, and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. We’ve got all three. Rae, you pick the first one!” Sam urged, holding out the DVD cases excitedly.

Rae went with ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ first with a promise to Dean that ‘Iron Man’ would be second. While Cas blandly pointed out that night fury dragons didn’t really look like that, and that their belly scales were more dark blue in color, Dean started a personal contest on how many popcorn bits he could flick into Sam’s hair without him noticing. Dean and Sam got into a heated debate on how possible Tony Stark’s tech actually was. Rae stealthily dropped Skittles into Dean’s beer, laughing until tears smarted her eyes when he gagged at the first chewy, fizzy swallow. And as Master Shifu said goodbye to Oogway in a beautiful billow of blossoms, Sam slid his fingers into Rae’s hand.

“See? ‘There are no accidents’. You’re here. We’re here,” he whispered to her, wishing he could see her eyes behind the 3-D glasses.

Rae was glad he couldn’t. Her heart wasn’t ready to look too closely at the softer, warmer feelings she had been ignoring for weeks. She knew she couldn’t forget the pain of her past. To heal, she needed to remember. But, not just the pain. She would try to remember the love of her parents. Her dad’s Old Spice cologne, her mom dropping socks, and them holding hands. She would try to remember Cas’ compassion, and the safety and comfort she felt right now - resting among her friends, sugar high in her veins, laughter in her ears.

For now, Rae offered Sam a soft, tender smile, and snuggled herself in a hug around his arm. Rubbed her cheek against his shoulder just a breath. And studiously ignored Dean’s approving, ‘go get him’ wink.

She would try to remember it all.