#I DID IT I WROTE A DOCTOR WHO FIC FOR THE DOCTOR WHO PROMPT LIST

[saywhatjessie]

And You and Yours

Day thirteen of the Advent calendar! Using this list. Day 13: Caroling/Carolers Fandom: Doctor Who - Pairing: Donna&TheDoctor 2.9k[Ao3]

Donna Noble didn’t think carolers were really real for most of her life.

Sure, you’d see groups of singers in the squares by the shops and churches put on little Christmas concerts but people didn’t really go door to door. Maybe they used to, back before serial killers or prime time telly you might be interrupting, but certainly not anymore.

But then the winter after her funny turn where she’d lost her memory, there’s been a knock on the door. Mum was out and Grandad was still depressed from whatever happened when he’d disappeared for a few days. So Donna got up and answered the door.

And there, on the doorstep, were three smiling people bundled up in Christmas sweaters. There was a beautiful redheaded woman with a round and honest face, as tall as the two men. There was a mousy gentleman, a little more reserved looking, with thatched hair and an embarrassed smile. And then between them was a skinny man in a red bowtie with floppy hair and a large chin, grinning at her like they were best friends.

“Can I help you?” she asked, a little bewildered. There was something familiar about the skinny man.

“Hello, good lady.” The man said, his grin spreading wider. “Fancy a carol?”

“You’re carolers?” She laughed. “We’ve never had carolers here. I didn’t think anyone did this in real life.”

“We don’t have to,” the shy man broke in. “Sorry for interrupting, thanks for opening the door–”

“Hang on,” the woman broke in. “She didn’t say she didn’t want one, let her decide for herself.”

Scottish. Donna appraised her and the woman appraised her back. They nodded at each other in mutual respect.

She crossed her arms. “Yeah, alright. Let’s hear it then.”

The skinny man bounced on his toes a little before counting them in.

They were terrible. They sang “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and none of them were on pitch or on tempo.

At least the song was short.

When they were finished, the skinny man spread his hands like ‘Tada!’ Donna clapped, politely.

“That was terrible,” she told them, kind of undercutting the politeness of the clapping. But she was smiling. “Think you lot might need to rehearse a bit more. Did make me more cheerful, though.”

“Then our work here is done!” The skinny man cheered, not looking at all offended by Donna’s bluntness. “Thank you for humoring us, kind lady. And Merry Christmas to you and your family.”

She smiled back at them. “And to you and yours.”

She went back to grandad, curling up next to him on the couch.

“Who was that, dear?”

“Just some carolers.” She smiled. “They were right awful.”

He laughed, a sad sound. “You don’t have to be good at something to spread joy with it.”

“That’s true,” she smiled. 

It was quiet between them before a grinding clunking sound came in from outside and grandad sat up straighter.

“Did you hear that?” he asked Donna, urgently. “That whirring?”

“Wouldn’t call it whirring,” she snorted. “Great scraping and clamoring, more like.”

“But you heard it!” he said, brightly. “Good. Good, I was afraid I was hearing things.”

“Nah, you’re not senile yet.” She kissed his cheek before resting her head on his shoulder. “You should have seen those carolers. I hope they come back next year.”

Grandad laughed, kissing the top of Donna’s head. “I do think they will.”

The next year, she’d moved house. Only down the road, but still. She had a new husband and a baby on the way and she was feeling quite content with her life.

And the carolers do come back.

“Oh, hey!” Donna greeted them, grinning. “You found me again!”

“That we did!” The skinny man said, his bowtie green this time. “Care for another tune?”

“Are you any better than last year?”

“Not at all!” He told her cheerfully. “We can do Silent Night, though.”

Donna laughed, wrapping her sweater tighter around herself and leaning on the door frame. “All right then, let’s hear it.”

They sang. It was still off pitch but at least the song was slower so the timing wasn’t nearly as bad.

And, again, at least the song was short.

She clapped again when they’d finished.

“Very nice. Song choice was a little basic but,” she shrugged.

“A note we’ll take for next year.” The skinny man smiled, his expression soft. “Thank you again for listening. And for opening the door.”

“Thanks for the Christmas cheer,” she smiled back. “And merry Christmas to the three of you.”

“Thank you!” The woman said.

“Thanks,” the quiet man said.

“Thank you so much,” the skinny man said. “And to you and your family.”

“And you and yours.”

The next year, the skinny man is alone.

He’s dressed a little oddly: like someone from a play. He wore a top hat and a velvet waistcoat with a pocket watch chain and a long jacket.

He looked out of time. And heart wrenchingly sad.

“Just me this year, I’m afraid” he said, attempting a smile.

“That’s all right,” Donna said, softening automatically. She wasn’t sure what happened to the other two, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. “I hope you can carry on without backup. I’ve been looking forward to your song all year.”

He laughed, a soft sound, like it was punched out of him. I’ll do my best.

He sang ‘Joy to the World’. Donna would have laughed at the irony if not for how defeated he looked.

He was just finishing up ‘and heaven and nature sing’ when the little one came toddling up, running into Donna’s legs.

“Hello, my baby,” Donna said, stooping to pick up the toddler. She turned back toward the man who had stopped singing, his cracked open with an emotion Donna couldn’t place. “Do you want to thank this nice man for the carol?”

“Thank you,” said the tiny voice, dutifully.

The man let out a choked laugh, nodding emphatically. “Of course. Thank you for listening. And Merry Christmas.” he gestured at the baby. “To you and your family.”

Donna smiled, reaching up a hand to keep the baby from grabbing her hair, and answering more sincerely than she maybe ever had. “And you and yours.”

The next year he was back with a new girl, small and pretty with dark hair and a smile full of light. And he was smiling again.

They sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”and the new girl was much better than the other two had been.

Donna clapped and complimented her and the skinny man looked very fond.

“You better start training up, mate,” Donna told him. “She’s outsinging you. Might go solo next year.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “Merry Christmas–”

“To you and your family,” she finished for him.

He smiled, his eyes lighting up so brightly, like they had on that very first Christmas. “And you and yours.”

He didn’t come back the next year. She did, though. Accompanied by an older Scottish man.

“I was joking about you going solo,” Donna told her. “What happened to the skinny bowtie lad?”

She stifled a laugh, sucking her lips into her mouth as she looked at the older man.

He sighed. “He’s just feeling a little poorly,” the man promised Donna. “I hope I’m a worthy substitute.”

“Well, I dunno,” Donna said. “I kind of liked him. Even if he was tone deaf.” She tilted her head. “Can you sing?”

He blinked, as if he hadn’t considered that. “Well I guess we’re all about to find out.”

They sang “Jingle Bell Rock” which was not a Christmas Carol but sort of fit the new man’s vibe anyway. He was better at singing than the younger man.

Donna decided she liked him. He was familiar to her, like the last man had been. Did he remind her of grandad? Was it because he was Scottish, like the woman from the first two years had been?

He nodded his head in acknowledgement when they’d finished and Donna clapped.

Donna turned to the woman. “I can see why you ditched skinny.”

She laughed. The man smiled, indulgently.

“It was a lovely song,” Donna said. “And I hope to see you back next year.”

“I hope you will,” the man said, taking her in with a smile. “And a merry Christmas to you and your family.”

She paused for a moment, at the familiar words from an unfamiliar mouth, but her answer was the same regardless. “And you and yours.”

And they did come back, the both of them.

They sang “Little Drummer Boy”, their longest song yet. If someone had asked Donna, “Would Little Drummer Boy work in a Scottish accent?” She might have said no. But it did actually sound nice.

Donna’s four year old scampered up halfway through, listening in with quiet curiosity.

The man softened immediately at the sight, smiling through the lyrics and keeping time more jovially. The woman brightened and waved, absolutely melting when she received a tiny wave back.

Both Nobles clapped vigorously when the song finished.

“That was lovely,” the little one said, and both carolers tripped over themselves in thanks. “Can you sing Rudoplh?”

“Oh come now, baby, we don’t want to–”

“I would love to sing Rudolph,” the man cut in. “Would you like to sing with us?”

And Donna watched as these two grown adults played and sang with her child until they were both laughing too much to sing.

She was laughing, too. “All right, all right, thank you both, really, but this one needs a nap.”

Whining sprung up at the nap word but the grown ups bowed out with good grace.

“Merry Christmas to you and your people,” Donna said, changing the script just a bit.

The man grinned brightly and she wondered not for the first time if the skinny man was his son. Their eyes had the same manic joy. “And you and yours.”

The woman was gone the next year but the new one was just as delightful.

They sang “Deck the Halls” which, again, was pretty basic, but the new woman was a dreadful singer, and this song could at least be sung with brash enthusiasm. She was very jolly, her large curly hair swaying with her head and hands pointing into her deep brown smiling face as she sang the word ‘gay’ with an emphasis that made Donna laugh.

“You’re a riot,” Donna told her, when they’d finished singing. “Cannot sing a lick but you brightened my spirits right up.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Oi!” Donna snapped. “None of this ‘ma’am’. Makes me sound old.”

“Oh, no of course not!” The woman said. “Just trying to be respectful. I’ve heard all about you.”

Donna snorted. “What, about a random woman you lot sing carols to?”

“The woman who isn’t afraid to call us terrible,” the man clarified with a small smile. “You’re a very genuine woman. It’s a valuable quality.”

Donna blinked, something funny coming over her head. “Thank you,” she brought a hand up  as something throbbed in her temple. “Oh, hell, I’ve just got a headache.”

The man looked alarmed. “Well then we won’t keep you!” He reached for the woman and turned her around, calling behind him as he walked down the steps. “Merry Christmas to you and your people!”

She called after him, bewildered, “And to you and yours!”

The headache faded almost as soon as she’d closed the door.

They didn't come back the next year. Or the year after that.

Donna was disappointed but Grandad was devastated. He never answered the door with her if he was visiting when they came but he loved hearing the stories. He always asked Donna every detail about the men or their companions, what they’re wearing or what they sing.

When no one shows up to carol, Grandad acted as if someone had died.

And who knows? Maybe they had. That older gent had been old. And the skinny man had been poorly for a while.

She didn’t get carolers for four years. A couple times she thought she heard that whirring grinding sound but there was never a knock at the door. She put it up to hearing things like Grandad.

Until, finally, in the fifth winter, she got a knock at the door.

Only when she opened it, she didn’t recognize any of the people.

And there were four of them this time. There was an older white man, but not as old as the last man, and a young black man beside him. There was a young woman with tawny skin and another woman, blonde, with a dangly ear cuff and manic glee on her face.

“Hello!” The manic woman said. “We would love to sing you some carols.”

“One carol,” the other woman corrected. “Sorry to interrupt, but if you’d like a song?”

“As many as you want!” The manic woman was really quite manic. “Anything for you. You doing well? You’re looking well.”

Donna just blinked. “Who the hell are you? I haven’t gotten carollers in years.”

“Oh,” She looked startled briefly before bouncing back. “Right! Yes!” The woman bounces a little on her feet, her long coat swirling. “So sorry if, uh, grandad worried you by disappearing. He had. Stuff. But he’s fine! Everyone’s fine, we’re all fine.”

“Yeah?” Donna asked, skeptically. “Then where is he?”

The woman hesitated but barreled on. “Well, you see, my brother – the skinny lad with the bowtie? – he had a rough turn. He’s fine now!” She rushed to reassure. “But he really missed being able to come out and carol. And grandad felt bad enough for doing it without him for so long. So they stopped. For… how long has it been exactly?”

“Five years.”

“Oh! That’s not so bad. Right, he stopped for five years. But now! He’s sent me and my fam out to carol instead! Said he’d been hogging the lovely neighbors.” She gestured at Donna.

Donna snorted. 

She was more relieved than she expected to hear the men were okay. He’d been worried about the redhead and the shy man and then about the pretty little brunette and now definitely about the young black lesbian, but just because they didn’t go caroling didn’t mean anything bad had happened. Not like the men with the bright and gleeful eyes.

“Yeah alright,” Donna agreed, deciding to roll with it. “Can you sing then?”

The woman grinned. “You tell me!”

They launched into ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ and kept going through five verses until Donna stopped them.

“Okay, yes, you can sing just fine!” She laughed before pointing at the young black man. “You don’t know the words, though. Did you think you could just mumble along and we wouldn't notice?”

The older man laughed. “That’s exactly what he thought.”

“She sprung this on us kind of fast!” The young man protested. “And I didn’t already know the words like you both seem to.”

“Oh, leave him alone, Graham,” the blond woman grinned. “I’m just happy he came out with us. And I’m happy you,” she said, gesturing to Donna. “Are just as brilliant as you ever were. Or so I’ve heard.”

Donna smiled, leaning her weight on the door frame. “Well, you heard right. I am brilliant.”

The manic woman grinned and Donna saw it again. That same frenetic joy. The smile like one would give their best friend.

It was a weird way to find a family resemblance but Donna couldn’t think what else it would be. Why they would all look at her like that.

“Well thank you for opening the door. And a merry Christmas to–”

“Me and my people?” Donna asked. The woman nodded, her face soft. “Thank you. And the same to you and yours.” Donna smirked. “But I’ll bet you knew that.”

The woman grinned a manic grin and the three people with her stared between them in wonder.

“Right then,” Donna said. “Off you pop. And I better see all of you next year. This is the best vocal arrangement we’ve had yet. And make sure this one knows the words.”

The other woman laughed. “We will. Thanks again. And merry Christmas.”

Donna waved them off and closed the door, watching through the window as they all turned down into an alley. A blue box was just barely visible.

She turned back with a sigh, happy to know that everyone was fine and she’d see them next year. But before anything else, she had to call grandad. She knew he’d be thrilled.

The same gang came back next year. They sang “The First Noel” and it really was beautiful. It was.

The next year, the two men had gone and were replaced with a new one. They sang Frosty the Snowman. It was very sweet.

And the next year, she knew them all. She knew who they’d been, she knew their names and their adventures, and she had her doctor with his old face living in the TARDIS in her backyard.

And the oldest doctor – the bigenerated one that she’d helped pull out herself – was standing on her doorstep.

“Care for a carol miss?”

“Oh, you cheeky little cmuppet,” Donna yelled at him.

And he threw his head back with that same manic glint in his eye, that look that she was his best friend, and he laughed.

[snapeaddict]

Ooh prompts! How about albus handling the post-lily year a bit too heavy-handedly, it goes south, and minerva is LIVID :3

Minerva focused

Loved this prompt, such a thing had been on my mind for quite a while as a continuation of one of my fics - I'll be posting it as the next chapter too. I have just changed the timeline, as I do not imagine Minerva vehemently defending Severus in their first year as colleagues. This is the beginning of his third year. I suppose I could write one where Severus gets furious too, but I am sure this would not work in his first year as a teacher; rather ten years later ahah

Power play

Well, let’s see. There were five essays left to grade, including that one still soaked in black ink – that is unfortunate, she had told Mr Longbourg before picking it up with the tip of her fingers. She lowered her gaze. Bugger. They were still stained.

Then there was patrolling to do for an hour, and some sewing to tackle, because her right sleeve was in dire need of mending – ah, and before that, a short meeting with Albus, to get the updated list of next year’s young recruits. She sighed heavily and turned around, heading towards the headmaster’s office. She hoped that this time, he would be mindful of his handwriting. Albus Dumbledore was a talented wizard, but he wrote as neatly as a muggle doctor when he was in a rush, and she spent enough time already trying to decipher her student’s poor attempts at calligraphy.

“Truffe au chocolat”, she said in a dry voice as soon as she stepped in front of the gargoyle. She felt a tinge of regret at the thought she was the one who had encouraged Albus to go back to Savoie in the Summer when two students behind her glanced over their shoulder, and started sniggering.

She climbed the flight of stairs quickly. The door to the office was opened. She was about to get in when the echo of a voice stopped her in her tracks: it was Albus’.

His voice was cold, almost menacing, unusually low. Her mind, still infatuated with the image of the adorable, foolish old man who had not ceased to speak about Chambéry chocolates since the beginning of the term two days ago, did not quite comprehend how that voice could be emanating from the same person. She froze completely.

“I expected better from you. Do you not see how Mr. and Mrs Sweeney will be valuable assets to us when the time comes, Severus? Is there any need to treat their son this way? Do you take pleasure in belittling children?”

“I don’t understand what you mean, headmaster. I have... told you before that your definition of a “harmless prank” differs from mine. Mr Sweeney deserves the detention, and I stand by my decision.”

“You are hounding the boy.”

“No. He is neither special nor important, and I intend to teach him so. You usually do not meddle with my decisions, headmaster. Am I to understand Mr Sweeney deserves special treatment?”

Minerva raised her head. That is bold of him.

“Mr Sweeney deserves equal treatment, Severus – all Gryffindors do. You will call off this detention at once.”

A pause.

“I cannot do that, headmaster. With all due respect, this would embolden the students to -”

A chair being pushed back.

“This is an order, Severus. I am not leaving you a choice. I am tired of your methods, and tired of the parents’ complaints. You cannot rule by Terror alone.”

“I have no other choice, headmaster”, Severus replied. It was subtle, but even Minerva did not miss it: his voice was trembling slightly.

There was another pause. She thought of clearing her throat, or perhaps turning back – but Albus’ voice rose again.

“You have a choice, Severus. You always do, and yet again you take the easy way out. You do not try. I don’t know what I am to do with you.”

There was no reply.

“Do not forget why I have taken you in, Severus. We are building a network. I will not have you jeopardize the school’s reputation or my plans because of your personal vendettas.”

“Headmaster-”

“Do not disappoint me again, my boy.” A pause, clearly planned. “You owe me as much.”

“What is the meaning of this?”

Both men turned their heads towards the threshold of the office, taken by surprise. Minerva, herself only half-conscious of her movements, made her way towards the desk.

“What, Albus, is the meaning of this?” she repeated, stopping right next to Severus. The young Potion Master was hunched in an armchair, his shoulders down in defeat; the headmaster, standing tall, was on the other side of the desk, his hands clenched on the edge of the wooden surface. He was looking at her with slight confusion.

“Minerva”, he greeted her. He took a step back from the desk. “I apologise; Severus and I had not planned for this meeting to last this long. Please, have a seat.”

The Potion Master immediately rose to his feet, his face a mask of complete indifference.

But his eyes, there was something in his eyes, pain, anger perhaps– Minerva caught his arm.

He froze, his gaze locked on her hand.

“Albus,’ Minerva said slowly, still peering at Severus, “of all the vile things I had to hear in my life, what you have just said to Severus must be one of the worst.”

There was a slight change in the headmaster’s countenance. He frowned, and his face contorted – it was both sudden and disconcerting.

“Minerva, please”, he told her quietly. “This only concerns Severus and I.”

“Severus was right to punish Mr Sweeney”, the deputy headmistress replied, still refusing to let go of Severus’ arm. “And I will make sure his parents pay for the acquisition of his classmate’s new cauldron. I often complain about Severus’ methods, they are rather harsh, I must admit – you have consistently insisted on each teacher’s right to their own modus operandi. You know that I disagree with that.” She paused. “You cannot speak like this.”

“This does not concern you”, the headmaster repeated blankly.

Severus’ face had turned as white as a sheet. He did not dare make eye contact with either of them, and looked obstinately at something in the far distance.

“But it does concern me, Albus”, Minerva replied, thin-lipped.

Her tone was hard to describe, many-layered and, or so it would seem to the careful listener, surprised at itself, respectful still, perfectly certain of its legitimacy.

Albus’ gaze made direct contact with his colleague’s.

“It does”, she went on. “Aren’t you the one who told us last year that the boy’s well-being concerned us? That this whole situation requires collective effort? Or does this only apply to us? Enlighten me.”

The headmaster was looking at her gravely. He had recovered from his surprise, regained his natural charisma: one glance from him and Minerva felt herself wavering, for a second incapable of justifying to herself why, out of the two men present, her enemy wasn’t Severus.

It should have been natural. She and Albus on one side of the office, the boy on the other. It should have been natural.

Was there something new?

“My dear professor, please be mindful of your tone”, Albus told her politely, though his voice was firm and low. “It is my responsibility to keep the staff in line, as you know.”

Minerva pursued her lips.

“I am aware. And does that involve humiliation? Power play? Albus… I have seen you do better.”

He flinched, and once again she felt her assurance falter – but she was right, and she wanted to tell him acidly, to mutter angrily, need I remind you that the boy is fragile?

And there was more. An awful feeling of discomfort, the uncovering of something truly vile that terrified her.

“As my deputy, I ask that you follow my lead, Minerva. I assure you there are no hard feelings between Severus and I.”

As if the mention of his name had broken his trance, the Potion Master finally freed himself from Minerva’s grasp, taking a step back. He cast a defying glance at Dumbledore, he could not help it – the headmaster raised an eyebrow. He lowered his head.

“There is no need for this, profess- Minerva. This is nothing serious”, he told her drily.

For a moment, the deputy headmistress looked as though she was going to burst out. Her jaw contracted painfully as she closed her mouth tightly, at a loss for words. She used a few precious seconds to calm down, careful for her silence to not last too long. She did not want to look upset: it was not the kind of person she was. She was composed, and grave, and rigid, and that was how she would handle the matter.

“Like I said before, Mr Sweeney deserves this detention. As his head of house, I insist on it.”

Dumbledore took a deep breath in. He, on the other hand, did not bother to hide his growing frustration.

“I have already established that this detention is not justified, Minerva. You will handle the matter accordingly.”

A pause.

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You have heard me, Albus.”

A longer pause – one filled with tension, almost electric, terribly heavy. It was the first time Minerva was opposing her superior, her friend, so frontally; never before had any of their many disagreements turned into a violent confrontation.

Under his scrutiny she felt like a little girl, like the young teacher that had cried in his arms after the marriage of Dougal. He had been there too, when Dougal had died. The boundless empathy he had shown, the strong and reassuring hand he had extended to her each time - she had thought, vaguely, foolishly perhaps, that it had been extended to Severus also. Albus had taken in him, had defended him, had nursed him, and this all was genuine, she could swear it.

But there was something foul. A sort of… a repulsive kind of submission that Albus demanded as payment.

He liked the boy. But the boy was complicated: he was defiant, and stubborn. She had thought that, like her, when he showed signs of frustrations, he could simply not understand this behaviour. She had shared his annoyance. She had complained about the Potion Master, confronted him, called him out sometimes even during staff meetings. And this had been carried out, always, on equal footing. There had even been some cup of teas shared afterwards, in her office. But Albus did not expect to argue. He did not expect Severus to yield before reason. He expected him to yield, because he had been brought to the castle under such condition.

Was it servitude? When Severus had lowered his head just a moment ago?

“Severus”, Albus said slowly, “you are excused.”

The Potion Master was looking at Minerva, a strange expression on his face. It seemed as though he was going to say something, his muscles contracted in contradictory ways.

Finally, and not without violent struggle, he seemed to decide against speaking, nodded confusedly, and turned back.

He disappeared in the staircase. Albus’ gaze lingered on the threshold for a moment. When it returned to Minerva, he looked furious; still, when he spoke again, his voice was calm.

“What has gotten into you, Minerva?” he asked simply, his tone exaggeratedly casual.

He was looking at her intensely. She looked back; he held her gaze. For a moment she felt as though he was going through her mind, looking for clues – then, slowly, he sat down.

“Do not patronise me, Albus. This is not about me.”

“Indeed. And yet we have not closed the subject.”

She squinted slightly.

“You gave the boy a second chance. I thought it was generous of you. He does owe you his life. But you, of all people…” she was lost in thought for a second, searching for the right words. “Why do you hold this above his head? Why do you… expect him to bow before you for that reason alone? We have always spoken. Argued, even. You listened. Why do you not extend this favour to Severus?”

Albus smiled.

“I am glad to see that you now care for the boy, Minerva.”

“That is not what this is about!”

She was livid. Albus tilted his head, searching for her gaze once more.

“Answer me”, she said sternly.

He sighed.

“The boy needs to be disciplined, Minerva. For his own good.”

“Perhaps. But even when you disagreed with my choices, even when we held vastly different opinions, Albus; I was never, in all these years, under the impression that I could disappoint you.”

He frowned.

“You could never disappoint me, Minerva”, he replied, and for the first time since they had started talking there was a slight trace of weariness in his voice. “I care about Severus. He is important; more than he knows. I need to bring him in line.”

“You had countless colleagues – employees – that proved to be more or less insubordinate. It never really mattered. But Severus… he is different, is he not?”

The older man did not reply. He handed her a long parchment, which she recognized to be the list of addresses she had come to retrieve. She did not move.

“Indeed, Minerva. He is different.”

She put the parchment under her arm.

“I have disagreed with you countless times tonight, Albus. I have shown myself to be defiant, even insolent at times. You listened to me. You replied. You expected reason, and not mere hierarchy, to settle this matter.”

She glanced at Severus’ empty chair.

“You will extend this courtesy to the boy, Albus.”

_

It had been both an order and a plea.

Minerva McGonagall held on to a strict, crystal-clear image of Albus Dumbledore, one that comforted her even when her own moral compass wavered. She was brave, intransigent, heroic; but she was not fearless. One thing only could trouble her, and it was the disturbance of her strongest beliefs, of the pillars of her soul. For her sake, Albus Dumbledore needed to conform to the idea she had of him.

Severus had not. Severus had changed everything.

Her mind, her neatly ordered inner-self could not afford to be derailed again.

[nitewrighter]

For the directors cut ask: the Volskaya Incident fics?

I remember when I read those one thing that I really enjoyed about that arc was how, despite jumping between multiple POVs and the action constantly moving around the facility, I never felt like I was lost/confused as to where the characters were or what they were doing. You also did a really good job of this in Breach and Dragonback IMO.

(Also I get if you don’t want to talk about OW so if you’d prefer take a star emoji ⭐️ and use this as an excuse to talk about a different fic if you want)

*takes a long drag from my cigarette holder like I'm Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard* Ah... the Volskaya Incident... I was a star back then.

I don't mind talking about my Overwatch fics--honestly talking about them even though I'm pretty burnt out and disillusioned about Overwatch's canon plot these days really kind of relieves the whole sense of sunk cost with those fics, because it's like... even if I really can't summon up the mental stamina for Overwatch that I used to, it's nice that people liked those fics in the moment, you know?

So we're gonna go way way way back to the ancient year of 2017 (SEVEN YEARS?!?!) when I was working off of a giant pile of shippy Valentines Day prompts from a list I had put together myself-- god, it's been years since I've written a prompt list. In February, I got a prompt for a Gency "confession" (that was the prompt--confession) and the framework for this confession was, "oohh what if this was in the aftermath of finding out Reaper's Identity and Mercy's also recovering from a dire injury." This was 2 years before Michael Chu's "Valkyrie" short story came out which established that Mercy knows Reyes is Reaper in literally the most underwhelming way it possibly could. Back in those days I think all of us who were feverishly combing through every single lore drop were kind of operating off of the assumption that the story was set up for a lot of dramatic "I'm not dead! And I'm actually this guy!" reveals. We had everyone's background, and we could fill in certain things, but we also didn't actually know how much the characters knew about each other. So I wrote that confession fic back in February, but I also knew I was setting myself up for having to write this dramatic, action-packed fic later on.

Thankfully, in what was kind of an arbitrary choice at the time, just my placing the fic in the Volskaya map ended up filling in significant details for how I was going to set up and progress the fic. I can tell you I picked that map because I always LOVED the lighting on that map--it was so soft, and I loved how this soft quiet lighting contrasted against all these big mechanical structures. I know it sounds stupid now, what with the... everything... but a part of me always wanted to visit Russia, drink tea from a samovar and ride the Siberian express---the Russian setting kind of reinforced this sense of SWEEPING VASTNESS AND EPIC ROMANCE---again I must stress that this was back in 2017, fucking five years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Also I saw the Julie Christie Doctor Zhivago at like... 14, which even at 14 had me like, "Hmmm this perspective seems skewed, with regard to the class struggles and all" but just the sheer scale of the story and the sense of these characters being caught up in historical events so far beyond their control and still trying to love each other in spite of everything probably permanently fucked up my brain with regards to Eastern Europe.

I wrote the 'confession' fic in late February, but the actual Volskaya Incident fics didn't pop up until June--and I can tell you why that is! The truth is, I was always a hardcore Gency propagandist, but I felt if I was just pumping out gency fic after gency fic, then people wouldn't take me or my beloved ship seriously, so I made a point of working on plenty of short, non-demanding prompts for the rest of the cast, and also for the purpose of actually getting a stronger grasp of the timeline. Every fic I wrote that wasn't Gency, was, in the back of my mind, contributing to the 'slow burn' factor of Gency, giving it context and passage of time.

Like, for all my love of the Narrowly-Avoided-Robot-Apocalypse worldbuilding, I'm willing to admit that the Gency romance was always pretty much always the emotional heart of my entire fic continuity in general, but also I really wanted to make it feel well-woven into both the action and plot progression, so this wasn't just the Mercy whump fic. The romance needed to be grounded in the world because if what I was writing didn't feel like it could be canon Overwatch, then I felt like I had already lost. So this was also the Reaper Reveal Fic, which quickly also turned into the Jack and Ana Reveal and Recruitment fic, and the Zarya recruitment fic--but of course that was already kind of established by virtue of the Zarya name drop in the confession fic. I also had a desire to like... kind of give it the chaotic feel of an actual round of Overwatch back then. I was honestly surprised at how well the hero kits fit into the narrative progression fo the fic, and honestly I think this was the fic that, for me established the rhythm of character and physical conflict throughout my fic continuity.

It's wild to me that they've taken all of the the 2Cap maps out of regular quickplay--so like, not only has this fic been blown out of the canon water by the Valkyrie short story and Cassidy's "New Blood" comics, but the map it takes place in isn't even really in the mainstream game lobby anymore and can only be accessed either in custom games or on certain days of the week in the Arcade.

[the--highlanders]

20 questions for fic writers

super late but tagged by @penny-anna, thank you!!

How many works do you have on ao3?

203 apparently! which is like, a lot but also doesn't feel like that many for how long I've been posting now

what’s your total ao3 word count?

1,060,055, and I'm still SUPER proud of hitting a million words. don't think I'm ever gonna write as much again as I did in 2022 (how did I write almost 400k in a year????) but apparently I'm over 100k for this year so. happy with that even though I haven't written nearly as much as I'd like due to like, general life stuff

What fandoms do you write for?

just second doctor era dr who! I definitely get like, story ideas for other fandoms I enjoy, and occasionally I'll idly imagine writing some of them, but never really seriously. I've kinda made an active choice for this to be my niche and I don't seem to have run out of ideas yet so

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

ok I'm gonna cut out like, 'fics' that are actually compilations of prompt fics etc bc I feel like that's cheating but. let's see

in the night i lie and look up at you (when the morning comes i watch you rise)

Sacrificial

Revelations

Vigil

tell me how you'll kiss me when i touch down

weird list tbh! big fan of the first and last one being there but like... sacrificial in particular I was NOT happy with ahgjklfdjgf. I do like vigil tho

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes absolutely!!! they fill me with so much joy & serotonin so I like to reply, & also I love love love discussing stuff w/ people in the comments (hi @galacticlamps ahjkgfd). I'm very very behind on it right now but I will get around to them all I promise!!!

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending

oughfkdjg this is tough. I do think if only we could have been brave on time was pretty angsty, I don't usually write fics that toy so much with major character death.

there's a few others but the first one that jumped out at me while scrolling through my fics was i'm trying to reach you (before all the ghosts do). minor character/oc death this time but like. the whole fic was very much born out of the image of its angsty ending, so.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

hm I mean I do write a lot of angstless fluff!! so like, any of those. but I'm gonna go with litany for a reunion, because so much of it is angsty that I think the ending seems happier because of it.

Do you get hate on fics?

not yet! but this fandom is pretty chill so.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I am very very sex-repulsed ace it would not be a good time for anybody <3

Do you write crossovers?

not in the sense of like, bringing characters from one fandom into another. if I had the stamina/confidence to do proper longfics I'd absolutely do more aus, some of which are inspired by other media (if you guys could see the fairytale aus that live in my head.), and I /do/ have a daemon au.

the only crossover I've really done is Lifeboat, which is like. still a concept I enjoy. ark/its lore is something so close to my heart, so it was a lot of fun to fuse it with dr who. plus I just like imagining that victoria's dad was surrounded by so so so many unhinged mad scientists. & I also find it very very very funny that the ark character in question is now voiced by david tennant

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I'm aware of! again like. small and chill fandom. who's going to be doing that.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, and I don't think I'd want to - I'm a little bit too precious/sensitive about my writing to even have like, a beta reader or anything. I don't think I'd do well trying to co-write with someone. the closest I've come is kind of co-plotting out fics with other people (the plot of the selkie au is as much @ettelwenailinon's brainchild as mine <333)

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I have been so deeply invested in two/jamie for so long that I can no longer untangle it from myself.

What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

the fic I want to write most is a super comprehensive multichapter spanning about two years between jamie getting dropped off at culloden after the war games and two coming to pick him up again for 6b. I have a general sweep of the arc, some summary notes, and pages and pages of historical notes for it. unfortunately I don't think I'm ever going to feel like I've done enough historical research to justify writing it, even if I do somehow magically get myself to buck up into writing proper longfic.

What are your writing strengths?

hm idk! I'm quite pleased with some of my prose/descriptions sometimes. & I've had a few comments over the years saying I'm good at characterisation, which is always nice to hear.

I never really know what's good about my writing tho. not out of any sense of inferiority or false modesty or anything, I just. don't think that deeply about writing in general. the words come out & if I like them I like them

What are your writing weaknesses?

^^^ as I am always saying I wish I could break down the mental block that's stopping me from writing longfic

kinda related but like. I'm definitely a perfectionist and that can paralyse me sometimes when I'm trying to write a first draft.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I need to do it more often!!

my absolute dream would be to be able to translate all my fics into gàidhlig tbh. but I love love love giving jamie gàidhlig dialogue, or even just dropping little turns of phrase into his english dialogue, stuff like that. I definitely feel like there's some space between how I write/characterise jamie and how he is on screen, but to some degree that's a conscious decision. I'm always trying to strike a balance between like, writing him in character and writing him in a way that feels authentic to his time and cultural background. but dropping in bits of gàidhlig is a fun way of doing that (and also of getting myself to write in the language which is definitely good practice)

First fandom you wrote for?

hm I mean technically ig it was the saddle club. I was like 3 years old and I wrote a 'book' about the horses.

in terms of like, actively writing fic with the conscious knowledge of what fic was, probably fic about warrior cats ocs when I was about 11/12.

Favorite fic you’ve written?

old ghost's waltz, always. I loved how it came together, it was my first real dip into doing super historical jamie fic & a sort of replacement for the post-war games longfic I may never write, and it was a response to the phantom piper, which drives me absolutely insane in both good and bad ways. like it gave me so many ideas but god I could fix her.

unsorted is a very solid second though. it had all the historical fic joy of old ghost's waltz (even more so in some parts - the scene with jamie and connie might be my favourite scene I've ever written), and it was just. so cathartic to write as an expression of a headcanon I'd kind of hidden for so many years bc I was worried it wouldn't be well-received. it's my favourite fic to get comments on just because it always feels like a relief to see people enjoying it.

tagging @galacticlamps, @p0stscripter, @ettelwenailinon and anyone else who wants to do this!!

[killerandhealerqueen]

Hi Sass! Hope the packing is going well :)

I saw your WIP list and was wondering what the 2 Tumblr ones were about.

Also, has there ever been a time where you've had difficulty transferring a plot point/idea into any of your fics? Like, the way you wrote it didn't turn out the same as what was inside your head the first time.

Hi!! Packing is...going as well as you'd expect. I have accumulated a lot of stuff in two years so it's kind of like...1) how the fuck am I going to pack this all away without it being ridiculous to carry down a flight of stairs and 2) why the fuck do i own so much shit

Anyways. As for the two tumblr prompts, they're both Killer and Healer mafia aus (from when I got that sudden urge to write mafia aus) that @gem2117 sent to me. She always sends me multiple prompts so I can choose whichever one I want to work with, but her prompts are always so good so I usually end up doing all of them.

The first one is where Jiang Yuelou gets assigned from his boss to take out a target and said target is Chen Yuzhi. Now for this one, I'm not really sure where I'm gonna go with it...it's gonna be a mob hit, obviously but I'm thinking that Jiang Yuelou and Chen Yuzhi are both going to be assassins or maybe Chen Yuzhi is on the run from another triad/yakuza (I do like the idea of making him yakuza/former yakuza, like I did in my fic The Past Comes Knocking). Idk, all I know is that I'm going to have Jiang Yuelou abandon his boss's orders and protect Chen Yuzhi at all cost. (And maybe Chen Yuzhi protects him in return when Jiang Yuelou's boss decides to retaliate because those who don't follow orders get snuffed).

As for the second one, that one is where Chen Yuzhi does his first kill and Jiang Yuelou comforts him. I'm thinking for this one, Chen Yuzhi might be going home and stumbles upon Jiang Yuelou being attacked (or Jiang Yuelou comes running towards him beaten and bruised) and as they're trying to escape, the people who attacked Jiang Yuelou try to attack them. Chen Yuzhi, of course, is a healer, not a fighter so he's doing his best to try and avoid getting hurt and manages to knock out one of the attackers before noticing that the other attacker is going to kill Jiang Yuelou if he doesn't do something, so he takes the knife his attacker tried to use on him and stabs the other attacker (either in the neck or in the abdomen, idk). After he does that, he feels very sick because he just took a life, that's the opposite of what a doctor's supposed to do, until he remembers that Jiang Yuelou is there and still injured. He takes the man home, bandages him up/takes care of him, all the while trying not to be sick. Cue comfort.

(It's funny, I literally had no idea what the fuck I was going to do with either of these prompts until literally this ask)

As for your other question, yes. The Red-Light District went through three different drafts (the third one being the final one that I went with). I had like...the first paragraph sort of figured out but after that it just wasn't...giving. So I actually watched a few episodes from my favorite TV "The Cleaning Lady" to give me inspiration (as I had always wanted to write a fic based on a couple of episodes from that show) and then the fic became what it is today. And I'm very happy with it.

Soul Bound was another fic that turned out differently than I had originally expected. Remember, this was the one where I thought about doing a boss/subordinate soulmate au but then I realized that I know jackshit about office work/office life so I decided to do an enemies to lovers, xianxia, inspired by The Journey of Chongzi au where Chen Yuzhi was an immortal and Jiang Yuelou was the demon king and they were soulmates and neither of them was happy about it.

I'll Be There For You was also another fic that turned out differently. I had started writing the outline one way and I was like...no, I don't like that. And then I scraped the outline and wrote a whole new one, which was much better.

I'm sure I have other fics that I could think of, but these are just the four off the top of my head that I know were different originally in my head than on the page.

[forbiddendrabbles]

Masterlist and Links

Links

Art Blog Main Blog Fanfiction.Net Profile AO3 Profile Prompt Masterlist Drabbles/Original Work Masterlist

Masterlist

Current In-Progress Works (Updated 2/28/2024):

✍️ Physical Education AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: The akuma class came to school expecting a normal lesson. They did not expect to be frisked and told they won’t be going home for the rest of the sexual education unit. Marinette and Adrien especially didn’t expect to be to be demonstrating as live models.

✍️ A Pretty Good Bad Idea AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Explicit Summary: For The More The Merrier Poly Ship Event 2024, hosted by the Miraculous Writers' Circle. ~ “We’ve been, uh… discussing the possibility of having a threesome,” he admits, quiet enough that only she hears. “With a woman,” he tacks on. Marinette takes a moment to appreciate her former partner and his husband. She traced the lines of their figures, eyes dancing across their muscular forms. Downing a shot, she looks at the two men before her. “I’ll do it, if you want.”

On-Hiatus Works (Updated 9/10/2023):

✍️ The Queen of Mean AO3 FFN

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: Inspired by "The Queen of Mean" from Descendants 3 and a deleted fanfic. When Lila pushes Marinette too far, she finally snaps. It's up to Adrien to figure out if he can bring her back. Love square-centric. ON TEMPORARY HIATUS. READ THE TAGS (Author Profile on FFN!!!). I do my best to keep triggers updated in the tags and in each chapter's notes. (It's too long of a list to put on here)

✍️ Save Me  FFN

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: Mature (Explicit) Summary: Eliora Turner was not your average girl. The physical/mental abuse that went on at home destroy her. Until one day, a man calling himself the Doctor decides to help her. If she can stop trying to kill him, that is. TW: Rape, Self-harm, Abuse, Mentions of Substance Abuse, Sexual Assault, Eating Disorder(s), Depression/Anxiety, Violence, Scars, light BDSM elements. SMUT. On-Hiatus. (9/1/2023) Current Status of Save Me: I'm probably going to put it on permanent hiatus/discontinued and post what I have left, but I need to sit down and actually get that uploaded, which I haven't had the time or concentration for.

Completed Works (Updated 3/5/2024):

✍️ Dead Girl Walking  AO3 FFN

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: One-shot Songfic based on "Dead Girl Walking" from Heathers the Musical. Inspired by a line at the end of Chapter 14 in designnette's "Surfaced" on AO3, where Adrien asked if Ladybug broke his window, and that lead me to writing this fic. When Lila tells Marinette she has until 8am on Monday before her social life dies, Marinette can think of only one thing she wants to do. Or rather, one person. Smut. Oneshot. TW: Drinking, Dub-Con (if you squint), Panic Attack, light BDSM

✍️ Our Hope AO3 FFN Tumblr

Fandom: The Thundermans Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: Backstory for this: was in the mood for some good old-fashioned thundercest and came across @bbshipper21‘s fic “Brownies, kisses and confessions.” Then I was scrolling through to see if there were more pieces farther back in their blog and came across this prompt. I don’t know if the people they tagged ever wrote anything, but I really wanted to try. I’ve never written for this ship, and I normally write in the first person, not the third, so this is probably a little bit awkward, but I figured I would post it anyways. I don’t know if @bbshipper21 is still active, but if they see this, I hope I did it justice. TW: Incest (Max/Phoebe), Brief Suicidal Thoughts/Actions

✍️ I'm Gone, Gone, Gone, Gone AO3

Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics) Rating: Not Rated Summary: He thought of Robin. Robin is magic, he once said. Robin is a symbol of hope. Jason didn’t have any left. TW: Suicide, Self-harm, Alcoholism, Sleeping Pills, Depression, Gun Violence

✍️ Coffee is Still Better AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: My gift exchange fic for the Maribat? Get In! Discord 2023/24 New Years Gift Exchange! ~𐀔~ The noxious aroma polluted the streets, subjecting the poor Parisians to the smell of burning gingerbread cookies. Wait—burning gingerbread cookies?

✍️ Crushed Shell  AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Title says it all, honestly. TW: Major Character Death

Series - Requests

✍️ Sweet Sixteen and Ten Emotions AO3 FFN

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Requested by JBlaser on Fanfiction.net. When Chloe's mother breaks a promise, her best friend tries to show everyone who Chloe is inside. It doesn't quite go as planned, though. Reveal, but not a big part of the plot. Oneshot.

✍️ Hard Earned Knowledge AO3 FFN

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: Requested by Raxius on Fanfiction.net. After Shanghai, Adrien begins to tutor Marinette while Mei Shi begins to tutor Fei, and Gabriel…well, he’s coping with the things *he* learned. Oneshot. TW: mentions of death, grief, unhealthy coping, therapist making light of the situation. If the Mandarin is wrong, blame Google Translate XD

✍️ Pink AO3 FFN

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: Requested by Raxius on Fanfiction.net. Set during Mr. Pigeon 72, Adrien can’t help but turning a little bit pink when he notices someone’s pink swimsuit. Or: Adrien, unfortunately, is a teenage guy. Oneshot. I did my best to make the story realistic to canon age-wise, but closer to reality in content. Puberty is rough, man. I am not a male, so I apologize if his actions are not 100% accurate in the eyes of someone who has a male appendage. I hope I did it justice though, as it was a big part of the plot. TW: Sexual situations/thoughts of minors, puberty

Series - Miraculous Writers' Circle Sprint Fic Challenges

✍️ Secret Passageways AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: When sneaking into the Agreste house to secretly meet up with Adrien, Marinette accidentally finds a secret passageway and decides to investigate.

✍️ Love Child AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: Surprise! Character A has been hit by the ray of an akuma and is now pregnant! The catch? The other parent is the last non-familial person they said 'I love you' to... and Character A doesn't remember who that was! Write about A's journey solving this strange conundrum.

✍️ Hello Darkness, My Old Friend AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! Marinette has lost an earring, and is understandably freaking out. Well… we understand. But I want you to write this from the perspective of someone who doesn’t. A classmate or a parent or a passing citizen who can’t understand why Marinette is panicking so much over a €5 pair of earrings. It’s no big deal, right?

✍️ What's in a Name? AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: The first thing Marinette realized when she woke up was that she was cold. The second thing she realized was that she was laid on a steel beam at the top of the Eiffel Tower, in her pajamas…

✍️ Tag Teamed on the Tower AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: The first thing Marinette realized when she woke up was that she was cold. The second thing she realized was that she was laid on a steel beam at the top of the Eiffel Tower, in her pajamas… NSFW version Part One of Tag Teamed on the Tower: The Series

✍️ Joined at the Hips AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit (to be safe, could probably be Mature) Summary: An Unexpected Day Off: your character woke up this morning to find their kwami gone, and their miraculous still there, but powered down… with no explanation. Write about how they feel, and what they do. Are the other holders in the same position?

✍️ You See Me on the Cover of a Magazine AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Mature (to be safe, could probably be Teen and Up Audiences) Summary: While reading their favorite book, your character is hit by an akuma and magically sent into the book and is now the main character! Write about what happens!

✍️ The Sound of Soul AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Luka enjoys hearing other people's music as it gives him such a clear view of that person and their personality... Except for [character]'s music has always confused Luka... and he wants to figure out why.

✍️ Tipped Off AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: An anonymous tip on the Ladyblog has warned that Adrien Agreste is Hawkmoth’s next target. Ladybug wants one of them to be with him at all times until the threat has passed. Adrien isn’t too worried about pulling this off, apart from the confusing issue that his father has taken a sudden interest in his life… Write about Ladybug staying for a very uncomfortable dinner with Adrien, Gabriel, and Nathalie.

✍️ It's Not Buggabye AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Marinette’s identity is revealed very publicly and she has to renounce guardianship to save the miraculous. Marinette is now famous and loved for protecting Paris. The problem is she doesn’t remember any of it and has no idea what’s going on.

✍️ Suspects to Agreste AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: Reclusive fashion designer Gabriel Agreste has gone missing. Who are Roger’s prime suspects and more importantly - why?

✍️ With a Kiss...or Four. AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Chat Noir and Ladybug are simultaneously knocked out during a battle and, not knowing what else to do, Plagg and Tikki go on the search to find someone to defeat the akuma in their absence... ... enter Luka who is now in possession of the cat and ladybug miraculous and the task of saving the day.

✍️ The Mother is in the Basement AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: A woman claiming to be Emilie Agreste just called Ladybug and Cat Noir on Ladybug’s communicator, begging for help.

✍️ A Big, Bright, Beautiful World AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Oh no! Baby August has been hit by a grow laser and is now ten stories tall! But, weirdly, it's not an akumatization! How will the heroes deal with this?

✍️ Like a Thief in the Night AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Chat Noir only breaks into the MDC boutique because his father's heard rumors of a lost jewel, part of the miraculous collection. Instead, he discovers just how much the neighborhood-loved business has been struggling when he finds a blow-up mattress in the back. And a petite woman swinging a frying pan at his face.

✍️ Buzz Buzz Bitch AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: It's common knowledge that catnip has a strong effect on cats... however, no one thought they'd encounter something similar for ladybugs! Now Chat Noir, Viperion, Rena Rouge, and the rest of the team have to figure out how to defeat an akuma while also dealing with their increasingly affectionate, blissed out leader.

✍️ I'm Very Bemused. Is This The News? AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: “Don’t be bemused, it’s just the news: Breaking news: Ladybug and Cat Noir are currently… robbing a bank? I… bear with me a moment, viewers… am I reading this right? …Yes? Yes, this just in! Our favourite superheroes are robbing a bank, apparently? Uh… we go live now to our reporter at the scene…”

✍️ Mend the Bond AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: His mother always told him tales of the knitting fairy. Every time he fell and ripped his clothing, he would leave a small trinket of offering and she would visit in the night to mend them. Of course, now that he was grown he knew she couldn’t possibly be real. Couldn’t… possibly…

✍️ You Can't Always Get What You Want AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: When Tikki awakened after a hundred years to a new holder, she was expecting someone young and ready to go. She wasn't expecting a middle aged rock star with a pet alligator as her new holder! What had Fu been thinking?!

✍️ Signs of Hearing Loss AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: The Sound of Silence - the entire world woke up today unable to speak. There’s probably an akuma behind it… Nothing else seems to be amiss so everyone has to go about their day as normal and sit tight, waiting for Ladybug and Cat Noir to fix things. Slight problem with that - Marinette and Adrien can’t transform.

✍️ The Time Xavier Ramier Kidnapped a CatBoy and Got Away With It AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Mr. Ramier was enjoying a beautiful day in a secluded area (away from RogerCop) in the park with his pigeons when thump Chat Noir hit the ground next to him and was knocked out cold. What really surprised him was the hero detransforming right then and there. Write about what happens next!

✍️ KittyNoir AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Oh no! Hawkmoth’s akuma backfired and now every adult in Paris is a toddler! Write about how our heroes tackle their newfound responsibilities and deal with teeny tiny parents and super villains!

✍️ 9 Things to Convince Bunnyx to Never Have Children AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: General Audiences Summary: Somehow, some way, Bunnyx was left in charge of Growing Up Miraculous, the daycare for children of miraculous holders! Between the chaos of dealing with Carapace and Rena's inquisitive (read: gets into everything) child, Mino and Polymouse's new bundle of joy, and the half dozen children between Chat Noir, Ladybug, and Viperion, Bunnyx doesn't know how she'll survive the day. Write about how our daring heroine deals with the hardest job she's faced since having to teach Hawk Moth how to do maths.

Series - TalksToSelf BirthWeek 2023

✍️ 7 - Breeding Kink (Honorable Mention: Babies) AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 7: Breeding/Babies Pairing: Adrinette

✍️ Tag Teamed on the Tower: *Double* Double Penetration AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 6: Threesome Pairing: Lukadrinette Sequel to Tag Teamed on the Tower, but can be read as standalone. Part Two of Tag Teamed on the Tower: The Series

✍️ 5 – Vampires (Honorable Mention: Crayons) AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 6: Crayons Day 5 : Vampires Pairing: Félinette

✍️ 4 – BDSM (Honorable Mention: Ukelele) AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 4: BDSM/Ukelele Pairing: Félukadrinette (TW: Incest ship)

✍️ 3 – Fireball + Creamer ;) AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 3: Fireball + Creamer ;) Pairings Ch1: Lukanette, implied/mentioned Lukadrien and Lukadrinette Ch2: Kagaminette, implied/mentioned Adrinette and Adrigaminette There are two versions, hence the two different sets 😉

✍️ 2 – Voyeur (Honorable Mention: Among Us) AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 2: Voyeur/Among Us Pairing: Félukadrinette (TW: Incest ship) Standalone but can be read as same AU as Day 4

✍️ 1 – Sofa AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Summary: For the TalksToSelf BirthWeek Prompts! Happy Birthday, Nils! Day 1: Sofa Pairing: Lukadrien

Series - MGI Third Server-versary

✍️ Day 1 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 1 Prompts: Thunderstorm Foodfight Lovers to Enemies

✍️ Day 2 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Superboy (Comics), Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 2 Prompts: Language Barrier Read/Seen [x] days ago Wildflowers

✍️ Day 3 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 3 Prompts: Sharpie/Permanent Marker Halloween Four Seasons (Rated T for the one time Jason says Fuck)

✍️ Day 4 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Super Sons, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 4 Prompts: Silver Lining Pet Names "If the world comes crumbling down, I'm not going to stick around to pull you from the rubble." - downwithwritersblock (Rated T for the one time Jon says Fuck)

✍️ Day 5 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 5 Prompts: "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full." - Henry Kissinger "What have you done" Follow (Rated T for the one time Marinette says Damn and for implied violence/drugging to make Tim sleep)

✍️ Day 6 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 6 Prompts: "I thought I knew you." "Go on. I dare you." Broken Mirror (Rated T for unintentional self harm)

✍️ Day 7 AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Super Sons, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: MGI 3rd Server-versary Day 7 Prompts: Shiny Spelling Mistakes "Blanket thieves don't deserve rewards." - downwithwritersblock

✍️ Revenge of the Sleep Deprived Safety Hazards AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Superman - All Media Types, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: My gift exchange fic (and art!) for the Maribat? Get In! Discord 3rd Serverversary (Serversary?)! "They’re talking about Goldilocks, Peter Pan, one of the SpyKids, Hello Kitty, and Captain Underpants. One of them stole and/or destroyed the magic beans."

Series - MGI CIVIL WAR 2024 - DAMIAN DOMINANCE

✍️ We Can Meet in the Space Between AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: For the Maribat? Get In! Discord Civil War Event ~🦇🐞🦇~ "She slips through the veil formed in the in-between, allowing us to meet.” He pauses, voice thick with tears as he finally gets to speak of the woman he loves more than life itself. “…Our love was written in the stars. Her soul just got there before mine.”

✍️ Innocent AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: For the Maribat? Get In! Discord Civil War Event ~🦇🐞🦇~ “No, you- you must be mistaken. There’s no- No! Take me there. I- I can save her. I can save them! There’s got to be--!” Dick holds him back, keeping him from leaving. His heart shatters as his little brother breaks down in his arms. “No,” he whispers, voice broken as he sobs. TW: Major Character Death, implied suicidal thoughts (if you interpret the single line that way), Loss of Child Part Three of We Laughed. We Loved. We Lost.

✍️ A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, No Fandom Rating: General Audiences Summary: Any artwork/collages/mood boards/etc that I make for the Maribat? Get In! Discord Civil War Event

✍️ Over Before It Began AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Summary: For the Maribat? Get In! Discord Civil War Event ~🦇🐞🦇~ “Marinette! What, exactly, did you do?” “I…attacked a man for being happy with his partner, screamed at him for betraying me, and ran away. I think I hit him like three times, oh my god.” ~🦇🐞🦇~ Rated T for cursing and the singular use of the word 'erection', in the context of crudely saying one person is interested in another (ie. to have a hard-on for someone), but make it formal Part One of We Laughed. We Loved. We Lost.

✍️ A Work of Art AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Explicit Summary: For the Maribat? Get In! Discord Civil War Event ~🦇🐞🦇~ “Now, listen to me,” he growls. “You’re going to very carefully sit on the pedestal and spread your legs as wide as you can. And then, you’re going to keep your legs spread while I devour you. If you mess up my paint, I’m not going to be pleased. Do you understand me?” A wide-eyed nod. “Words.” “Yes, sir.” “Good girl.” ~🦇🐞🦇~ This is a oneshot. Second chapter will be the same thing, just with art. Actual fic length is ~9.4k words. Can be read as stand-alone. Or as a Sequel. Or as a Prequel. Or both. you can't see me, but I'm doing jazz hands Part Two of We Laughed. We Loved. We Lost.

Series - Bad Idea AU

✍️ A Pretty Good Bad Idea (See In-Progress Works) AO3

✍️ I (Don't) Need A Bad Idea AO3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Mature Summary: The alternate meeting scene from A Pretty Good Bad Idea, which got nixed for not being as good. It was the initial draft, though.

[theoremproved]

My 2022 AO3 in Review

(List of questions taken from @sarriane)

Total number of completed stories: 17. 15, if working on/planning sequels means a story isn’t completed.

Total word count: About 175k words (since I don’t remember where did the 2021/2022 cut-off occur in TCFM)

Fandoms: Doctor Who and Doctor Who alone. I really do put the O in OTP.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?: More fics but less fic, if that makes sense: I expected to do another longfic in the autumn, but wrote a lot of one-shots instead.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?: Curator/Shalka!Master. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one…

What's your favorite story of the year?: Time Calling For Me. It was such a relief to finish it and publish it after a year of work!

Did you take any writing risks this year?: Well, does simply publishing my writings count? I haven’t really participated in fandom as an active writer before, mostly lurking in read-only.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?: Finish my main WIP at the moment. Write at least one more longfic from those I have planned. Fill the prompt from the D/M Anon Kink Meme that concerns the enthusiastic sexualisation of Crispy!Master. Begin the sequel to Time Calling For Me.

My best story of the year:... This is an unbearable choice to make. I’ll go with Time Calling For Me once more. It was a lot of effort that ended up very much worth it.

My most popular story of the year: Time Calling For Me. A bit of an unfair competition, given that it’s a longfic against a lot of one-shots, but still, it is (and deservedly so!)

Story that was most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: None, I state with pride. The universe had already appreciated me far, far more than I have expected it to when I published my first fic.

Most fun to write: There isn’t a story that wouldn’t be fun to write (or I just wouldn’t have written it), but I’m going to go with Time Calling For Me yet again. Spicing the Key to Time up with the Master is fun.

Single sexiest (or cutest) moment: Prove Piercing Earnest (in its entrety) for sexiest, the epilogue of Time Calling For Me for cutest.

Hardest to write: my current main WIP, which I expected to finish in 3 weeks but only got a half of it in 3 months. I feel like I’ve never done as many rewrites on a fic as I have with this one. (Still, I know it will be worth it. It has to be.)

Biggest disappointment: Devoting less time to writing in the first few months in the year than I would want to.

Biggest surprise: The experience of posting fics and seeing that someone out there actually appreciates and loves them. That’s it.

Favorite lines:

“Your scarf,” the Master croaked in that unique tone of a man who can’t believe a single word he’s hearing, “can bring me back to life.”

The Doctor nodded and reached for another spoonful of peppermint ice cream.

(c) Next to the Skin

“I think you are a fool, Doctor,” [the Master] said. “It’s a new development. Your third self was much more sensible. But you… you completely lack the instinct of self-preservation and the ability to stop. And for that, I am going to take advantage of both these qualities and give you just what you deserve.”

(c) Prove Piercing Earnest

Death, death incarnate. Face so twisted it was hardly still a face, skin like parchment and fingers like claws, pain in every cell of this body, warped before it could fully come to life – death taking life into its arms, dragging it along with itself. Only [the Master’s] eyes stayed the same: danger, burning even through this husk of a shell. Truly the mirrors of the soul.

(c) Your Mind Makes it Real

But that night, the Doctor, the Master and all three thirds of the universe rested well.

(c) Time Calling For Me

2022 was fun! here’s to more writing in 2023...

[thisbluespirit]

Meme: Top 10 AO3 works vs Personal Top 10

I was tagged by @captain-aralias Thank you @captain-aralias! <3

Rules: List your "top 10" (or up to 10 if you haven't written that many) fics ranked by kudos on AO3. Are you surprised by what's most popular to your readers? Then, under a cut, provide your ranking of your personal top 10 fics (with explanations if you want!), and then tag a few fellow writers!

AO3 top 10 by kudos:

The Spirit of St Mary Mead (Miss Marple)

So We Meet at Last (Miss Marple/Dracula 1968)

it's the rain that will strengthen your soul (Star Wars Prequels)

Five Times the Doctor Got in the Way of Captain Janeway (and One Time They Got Along Just Fine) (DW/Star Trek: Voyager)

By the Book (Original)

Observation (Miss Marple)

We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It (Hist RPF)

Not Bad For a First Attempt (Georgette Heyer)

Some With Arrows, Some With Traps (SW Prequels)

Dodging a Bullet (Doctor Who)

My own top 10.

A lot of these are fine as top stories, I think! Even if I think something is good, I don't trust that it is, if other people haven't said so. I mean, proof of the pudding is in the eating and all that. That said, there are definitely some random things that have got into this list.

(Dodging a Bullet has been pretty well unloved for YEARS, but looking at it it seems like maybe someone recced it last year somewhere or something? It suddenly had a bunch of bookmarks and has pushed out other things. Plus all the Star Wars ones have moved positions again.)

If I sort by comments, I think those are much better, so in no particular order:

The Spirit of St Mary Mead (Miss Marple yuletide fic, where Miss Marple is a Genius Loci, but it's still just canon. It was a great prompt, I think I wrote it fine, and it's top of my works by every measure, and there's no ship effect, so... who am I to argue?)

We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It (William of Normandy/Harold AU in which the Battle of Hastings involves a lot more sheep and bees and a lot less people being killed. It's 'found texts' type fic, another Yuletide one, it was huge fun to write and it got a great response, so again, I'm not going to disagree!)

By the Book - I am SO happy and amazed this is on both lists. It was original fic written for Het Exchange (the tiniest exchange, lol!! XD) a few years back, for the prompt of Librarian/Demon she accidentally summoned. I got to use all my rl library knowledge and it, er, sort of stormed the exchange (it was VERY tiny, did I say?), and I would place it in my top ten, yes. I don't know how people still keep finding it, but I'm so delighted that they do, and they still like it.

it's the rain that will strengthen your soul - again, yes. This is a five times Padme Lives Obidala AU where they go on the run with the twins post RotS. It was another for an exchange (Space Swap, I think). I wrote it in mid lockdown, I buried myself in the Wookieepedia, and I was pleased with this one, and it's gradually got more love as the time has gone on, and I think it is a good fic; a very gentle story of healing that was probably a lot due to the times.

Okay, but there we diverge, because I think all of these are that bit better than the others in that list (which include at least 2 pieces of flash fic, one of which was written to cover a wrangling error I made long ago). Mind you, I think in some cases, it's because I Did The Research Dammit Appreciate This People, or because I plotted harder than usual, but most of these are or have been in top ten positions on AO3 as well:

(5) movements of the mind (Twelfth Night) - I wrote Shakespeare fic for Yuletide (about Feste & Olivia), and pulled it off. I had to watch TN a lot and then got 16th C jokes off the internet.

(6) Truth and Compromise (Discworld) - so old I hesitated a while over it, but I think I genuinely got the tone right (which is never easy for something like this) and I occasionally still read it myself if I want something to follow up The Truth with Wiliam/Sacharissa.

(7) Cul-de-Sac (No hawkers, traders, cold callers, canvassers or purveyors of religious knowledge) (Sapphire & Steel) - I've written a lot of S&S I'm really pleased with. It was hard to choose one (I do think I've done some good and unusual things for it), but this stands up and was very well liked.

(8) One Step Forward (Two Steps Back) (Jonathan Creek) It's very timey-wimey and I had to write accurate Maddy and Jonathan and be funny, and I do think I achieved all of the above, even if it took quite a while.

(9) Salt of the Earth (DW) I always include this one in my self-recs, but there's a reason. I still think it's good. It's about a very minor character, but it was one I'd wanted to write ever since I first watched Image of the Fendahl.

(10) i love the rose both red and white (Shadow of the Tower) Maybe this is another 'i did the research' one, but it's very obscure and still has done pretty well in my stats, so I don't think it's just me. But I did do the research, and I tried to push myself as to style for it as well, I think.

I do like Some With Arrows, Some With Traps, but it's another SW Obidala exchange fic, and it is very surprising that it's as high in kudos because it has never got many comments, and I just thought it wasn't much liked. But it has an OC droid and was as much 'SW fun adventure but Obidala canon divergence' as I could make it. (Still, I it's a short story that clearly in my head should have been 80k and never ever will be, so I think it's fair to swap it out for variety.)

I do not know what is with the Miss Marple thing. It just happened. (Those are pretty much my only Miss Marple stories! It's a rare fandom! It is a mystery.) It's pretty funny, though, and I will be sad if one day the ships beat Miss Marple from the lists!

Tagging (if wanted/not already tagged): @maryellencarter @pers-books @lurking-latinist @herawell @scarletmanuka @human-nxture @bunn1cula @foreignobjecticus @jurijurijurious

[practically-an-x-man]

Fanfic ask game

E (King, but I may have already asked you this before?), L, N, T, U, V, W

thank you!!!

E: If you wrote a sequel to [King], what would it be about?

Well, this one's tough because I don't have the full story in King and Lionheart to go off of. I imagine it would involve the Corinthian tracking down the cause of Lee's untimely death and... let's just say, bringing swift justice to whoever's involved. But honestly I haven't really thought about a sequel for that one.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I have no freaking clue. I revise as I go, and then do one final sweep when I post it to AO3 (largely because I need to input all the bolds and italics that don't transfer over). Usually when I open the document, I start by re-reading what i did on the previous day and editing it before I add more.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

Not really? Even if I managed to find the absolute best writer in the world, it wouldn't be the same story as if I wrote it myself. That's not a vanity thing, just that there's a way I want these stories to go and it wouldn't be quite the same if someone wrote them for me

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

I avidly avoid ABO stuff, I find it intensely uncomfortable. Or anything that involves strict possessiveness or domineering, really. I can appreciate a character who is protective of their significant other, but I have problems when it veers into possessiveness.

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

(To keep this even, I'm avoiding writers that I'm friends with. Bestie I love your writing and there's several others on here too that have INCREDIBLE writing styles and easily make the favorites list, but I want to stay 100% impartial)

sunstones on AO3 - They haven't posted anything in a while, but I was an absolutely avid follower of their Spider-Man fics. They have an incredible penchant for descriptions and extended metaphors, a writing style that's chock-full of hidden details and foreshadowing

a_reader_and_a_writer on AO3 - They've written oneshots and drabbles for easily a half-dozen of my favorite characters, and every single one is delightfully written and effortlessly in-character

brigid1318 on AO3 - Similarly, they haven't posted in a while, but they were one of the first authors I read when I got into fanfic. Not only is their writing style absolutely lovely and their plots delightfully unique, they offered support on one of my earliest fics (even though it had to be a bit of a struggle to read through, since I was still pretty new to writing) and are a big part of why I'm so active in writing now

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Hmm... this is a little tough because so many of the fics I read are unfinished, so I don't know how they'll end or where a sequel would go. In terms of finished fics, I'll go with The Demons Within by your_dragon_just_shot_at_me, it's a crossover between X-Men and Doctor Strange, and it's just so wonderfully unique and well-written that I'd love more! (plus so few people write for Alex Summers, I want more wherever I can get it lol)

For fics I'd love to see an update/continuation on, I'll go with The Empty World by strawberry_jam_and_sunsets. Again, such an interesting premise and main character, and wonderfully in-character for Donald Pierce. It's a slowburn too, so I'm currently dying of tension waiting for an update!!

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?

I think it depends? If I'm writing something small, like a warmup drabble to spark motivation, I'd rather have something specific. That way I can think more about the characters without having to worry about what direction I'm going with it, and I can get warmed up for more "high-intensity" writing later.

But if I'm writing something longer, like a gift fic, I'd rather have a more general prompt so the final product can still be a surprise.

Fanfic Asks

[groundcontrol21]

Sicktember #22

Prompt #22: Common Cold/Flu

Character(s): Anatoly and Dr. Rosenbaum

Title: Not Alone

Summary: Back to our regularly scheduled snz programming! Read this fic for some callbacky goodness. When Anatoly comes down with a bad case of flu, he feels ashamed to call for help when he needs it. Dr. Rosenbaum tries to cure him of both his ills and his foolishness. 

Notes: Would you believe me if I said this prompt was one of the last ones I wrote? It’s true; I just kept agonizing over how to fill it because cold and flu! Too many options! 

His heaviest quilt folded across his shoulders like a cape, Anatoly dragged himself from his bed and to the rickety table in the kitchen, plopping down in the chair so ungracefully he was briefly afraid the wood would give out beneath him. That would be all he needed on a morning like this. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he dialed the telephone, pressed the receiver to his ear, and tried not to moan at how much his throat hurt. 

“Daniel Abramovich?” Anatoly’s voice came out somewhere between a croak and a whisper, and he cleared his throat, long and painful, though it proved futile in making his voice sound any stronger. “It’s Anatoly Ivanovich.”

“If you’re calling for a diagnosis, my diagnosis is I feel myself getting sick just listening to you,” Doctor Rosenbaum said, and Anatoly could almost hear the wince in his voice. “You sound horrid.”

“I feel horrid,” Anatoly said with a hoarse, humorless exhalation that might have been a chuckle if he had the energy. His breath hitched briefly, a scant warning, and he did not have enough time to turn away before he sprayed the receiver. “Ehh’KISHHH! Snf!” He sniffled thickly, his nose beginning to run. “I-I think I have the flu—Ih’hihh’HISHOO!”

“I’m willing to bet on it.”

Anatoly realized, with a sinking feeling, that he had left his handkerchief in bed. He cringed at the lack of hygiene, but wiped his nose on a bit of the blanket, vowing to wash it ten times in boiling hot water and soap once he was well again. He sniffled once more, swallowing back a groan at how stopped up his whole head felt.

“Are you busy today?” he asked as a shiver jolted down his spine.

“Christ, you really think you have to ask?” Doctor Rosenbaum clucked his tongue, and Anatoly couldn’t help but smile; the man was surely shaking his head as he spoke. “I could have ten surgeries and I would sooner revoke your medical license than let you around a patient sounding like that.” 

“Heh’KDSHHH!”

“What do you need me to do for you?” Rosenbaum asked, his voice low, soft, and brimming with concern.

Anatoly gave a few wet, sore coughs, covering the receiver as best he could to spare Rosenbaum’s ears, before he cast a tired glance at the calendar on the kitchen wall in which he scribbled all his appointments. He read down the list: a follow up with a man who had passed a kidney stone, a mother whose baby had been too fussy to sleep for the past few days, a check-up on an old woman with a thyroid condition, a little boy who needed a vaccination.

“And the rest of the week?” Rosenbaum asked. “What appointments have you scheduled?”

“Thank you but I–Ehh’TSCHOO!. I–I doubt that’s–Snf! Hehh’ihhh’ISHHH’uhh!--necessary. Heh’RSHHHH!”

Anatoly could feel Rosenbaum’s unimpressed glare through the telephone, and he gave a controlled sigh before bowing his head and reading off the rest of the week’s appointments. He was shivering consistently now, and he pulled the blanket more tightly around his shoulders, hoping his teeth wouldn’t begin to chatter. He flicked a glance at the kitchen window just to be sure Mashka hadn’t opened it, but it was shut, and she was sunning herself in the pale winter light. 

“And it’s done, Anatoly Ivanovich,” Doctor Rosenbaum said. “Don’t you worry.”

“Thank you,” Anatoly said emphatically. “I know you’re–Ihh’KSHIEW!--a busy man. I don’t know how I’ll repay you.”

“You let me worry about that,” Rosenbaum said magnanimously, coaxing another little smile out of Anatoly. “I’m sure I’ll think of something for you to do.” 

Rosenbaum was silent for a beat, before asking, “Do you need me to pay you a visit?”

“No,” Anatoly said quickly, resolutely, forgetting that the man could not see him shake his head and instantly regretting the action. He swallowed, dizzy, but pushed on. “The last thing I need is for you to–snf!--catch this, too.”

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Rosenbaum said, sounding a bit as though he doubted Anatoly’s judgment on the matter. “Metaphorically, of course, since I don’t want you leaving your bed. Doctor’s orders.”

Anatoly laughed hoarsely. “Aye, aye, sir.” 

Doctor Rosenbaum made a satisfied noise at the back of his throat, before bidding him farewell. “Feel better, Anatoly Ivanovich.”

Anatoly thanked him again, before hanging up the receiver and shuffling back to bed, intent on not moving again for anything short of the end of the world. 

********

A few days later, Anatoly found himself back in the same position, at the kitchen table and dialing Doctor Rosenbaum, but feeling, if possible, even more miserable than before. “Hello?” Anatoly said, praying his voice was loud enough to be heard. “It’s–” He tried to force his voice louder, but the strain was too much, and he bent forward with a relentless fit off coughing. 

The fondness in Rosenbaum’s voice was a thin mask for his concern. “Still haven’t shifted your flu, Dr. Kulyakov?”

“No, and I…” Anatoly trailed off, swallowing harshly, suddenly feeling very flushed and very, very nervous. Perhaps he was being over-dramatic, calling Rosenbaum like this, but then again, his wheezing chest had kept him awake all night as he sweat his fever into the pillow and trembled beneath the blankets. 

“Anatoly Ivanovich?” The worry in Rosenbaum’s voice was open and palpable now. 

“Could you come over?” Anatoly asked in a small voice. His head was spinning. “I th–thihhh–think–Ehh’KSHHH’uhh! Snf!--it’s developed into bronchitis and I–Ihh’TSHHHIEWW! I don’t have it in me to make it to town for the pharmacy.” The length of the request and subsequent explanation left Anatoly winded, and he crumpled forward into another fit of coughing, knuckling at his chest in an attempt to disperse the pinching ache there. 

“I’ll be there straight away,” Rosenbaum said, and the receiver clicked before Anatoly had even finished catching his breath. 

In a haze, he shuffled to the couch and burrowed into the quilt he had left there. His thoughts were a muddy, jumbled soup laced vaguely with guilt at having added one more patient to the list he had already foisted upon poor Rosenbaum, but Anatoly hadn’t the energy to spare for feeling guilty for long. All he could muster was to lie there and watch the short winter shadows dance across the floor. 

There was a knock at the front door, and before Anatoly could even contemplate moving, it swung open to reveal Dr. Rosenbaum, bundled in his great trench coat and scarf. Relief flooded through Anatoly at the sight, and he was too tired even to be angry at himself for leaving the door unlocked. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as Rosenbaum divested himself of his outerwear. 

Dr. Rosenbaum set his bag on the floor, fished out his stethoscope, and gave it a demonstrative shake. “In the interests of being thorough,” he said, “although I trust your judgment. And mine, given how your cough sounded over the phone.”

Anatoly begrudgingly shrugged himself out from under the quilt, shivering and hugging his arms around his chest. A small part of him felt embarrassed to be seen by the senior doctor like this, like a sickly little boy curling into his sweater for warmth, but the much, much larger part of Anatoly was feeling entirely too wretched to care. 

Rosenbaum pressed his large, blessedly still-cool-from-the-early-spring-air, palm to Anatoly’s forehead and nodded decisively. “Mmhhmm.”

Anatoly chuckled hoarsely, the sound more like the crackle of radio static than any discernible noise. “Not very scientific.”

“Do you have a number for me, then?”

“It was thirty-nine even, earlier this morning.”

“Mhhmm,” Rosenbaum hummed again, satisfied. He placed the stethoscope in his ears, then carefully insinuated the chest piece up underneath Anatoly’s sweater. Even though he pressed the instrument gently to Anatoly’s back, Anatoly could not suppress a slight jump when the icy metal made contact with his feverish skin. 

 “Breathe in.” 

Anatoly endeavored to follow Rosenbaum’s directive, but his breath snagged before he had finished inhaling it, and a coughing fit punched its way out from his lungs between desperate, gasping breaths. Dimly, he was aware of Rosenbaum rubbing his shoulder blade soothingly as he coughed. 

“It’s alright, Anatoly,” he said, voice low and gentle. “It’s alright.”

When at last the fit backed down enough for Anatoly to draw in one shaky breath after another, he peered at Doctor Rosenbaum through watery eyes and swiped the back of his hand across his cheeks to brush away the tears that had spilled over. 

Rosenbaum gave his shoulder a final squeeze before straightening up and removing the stethoscope from around his neck. “Well the good news is, your illness has not clouded your diagnostic capabilities.” He went back to his bag and exchanged his stethoscope for a small bottle of pills, which he handed to Anatoly. 

“For your bronchitis.”

Anatoly accepted them gratefully. “Thank you,” he said, only for his breath to hitch. “Heh’KSHHIEW!”

“And for you.” Anatoly raised his head, to see Rosenbaum holding out a container of soup to him. When Anatoly had blinked in astonished recognition of the object, Rosenbaum nodded and placed it on the table in the kitchen. He smiled. “When it’s not a midnight sandwich, I don’t mind being summoned to bring a little food.”

Anatoly’s chest felt tight in a new way, one that had nothing to do with his illness. “Thank you,” he said, even though the words felt inadequate. His vision was growing blurry again, and he pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes to stave off the growing wetness.

Rosenbaum, to his credit, did not comment on that. “I have to make sure you regain your strength,” he said, a devilish grin creeping across his lips. “How else am I suppose to work you like a horse to get my repayment for all this, eh?”

[strawwritesfic]

Bruce Banner x Female!Reader: Trigger Warning

Summary: Sacrifices are not only taken. In a pinch, one can be created.

Rating/Warnings: All (-ish; threats of physical violence; no present reader; set during canon events of Avengers (2012); not canon compliant; implied mind control)

Fic Trade Prompt:  “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Notes: Before you pull out your pitchforks and torches: This is not in any way, shape, or form intended to be a “take that” at actual trigger warnings! There’s nothing in here that makes fun of them. Back in June of 2013 when I wrote this, I thought the title was a bit of clever wordplay. Obviously, wordplay is not my strong suit.

Tag List: @imaginesfire​

Trigger Warning

“To what do I owe the pleasure of the good doctor’s company?”

Bruce knew, even before he caught Loki’s Cheshire grin, that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near Loki’s prison and should not have risen to Loki’s bait. If anyone in the tracking room happened to turn on the video feed and see Bruce there, he’d be in trouble. Tony might try to buy him some time, but no one else would.

Despite time pressing on his shoulders, Bruce did not hurry as he walked closer to the immense glass cage. As he neared, Loki drew closer to the window, smiling all the while. The twinkle in his blue eyes only made Bruce feel worse.

“So?” Loki asked.

Instead of answering immediately, Bruce looked down at his fingertips. They didn’t shake; he’d had years to perfect obscuring his emotions. He did not even have to breathe in before he looked steadily up at the man in front of him.

“You took a friend of mine,” he answered.

“Friend?” Loki repeated. His smile widened and he threw back his dark head to laugh. “Oh, she’ll be disappointed to hear that. The way [Name] told it, you were quite a bit more than friends.”

Bruce had decided to come along to talk with Loki, that was true. But he didn’t plan to fall for anything else. He kept his expression blank. “I want to know what you did to her.”

“How do you know I did anything to her?”

Did Loki think Bruce dim? Obviously. He allowed the barest hint of a frown to appear on his face. “You already told me her name, which I didn’t give you. What did you do? Did you have a little talk with her, like you did with Agent Barton?”

“Oh, our talk was quite a bit more extensive than my talk with Barton,” Loki said. The way the ends of his lips kept popping up gave the impression that he was having to try very hard not to grin his way through the entire conversation.

“What did you talk about?”

Loki began to walk sedately along the edge of his confines, pale fingers pressed against the glass. “Harlem. The incident. India. Mostly you. Don’t worry; I think I convinced her not to be quite so taken with you.”

“What do you mean?”

With a click of his tongue, Loki turned back toward Bruce, still smiling that damned smug smile. “Keep up, Dr. Banner. You’re hardly making this fun.“ When Bruce only stared impassively back, Loki shook his head. "You won’t recognize her. I made sure of that. Not the inside, not the outside. Not from far away, not from right in front of her. [Name] is different now.”

“So you took her and changed her,” Bruce said. It was not a question.

“I think she would disagree with both of those suggestions,” said Loki. “After all, you’re the villain here. You’re the monster. All I did was…make [Name] aware of that.”

Bruce felt a drumming in his palms that almost hurt, but he still wasn’t going to let Loki see that. Let him think that he didn’t care. Somehow, though, Loki knew anyway. His smile grew quieter, but also more dangerous.

“Does that make you want to crush me, Dr. Banner?” he whispered. “More importantly, will it make you want to crush her?”

The heat rising in Bruce’s body did want to crush Loki–into a million, smug, unfixable pieces, starting with his mouth. But SHIELD needed Loki more than they needed Bruce. If the Hulk could even manage to crack the glass in that prison, he’d be taken out before he could wrap his hands around Loki’s pale neck.

“Quite frankly, all the information does is make me want to get out of this freak show more than I did already,” Bruce answered levelly. At least, he thought his voice was level. But the almost imperceptible rasp there apparently reached Loki’s ears because his expression twisted with glee even farther. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you do it?”

“There is an old Midgardian phrase,” said Loki as he settled into a bench across the room. “I believe it goes, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ You’ll either fight [Name], or the rest of your little team to prevent them from fighting her. I benefit either way.”

“Yeah.” Bruce wheezed out a single laugh, then took a step closer. His nose nearly touched the glass. “If I have to break [Name],” he said, in a low, threatening voice, “I’ll break you, too. Just the same. I can promise you that much.”

Loki only laughed again. “We’ll see, Dr. Banner. We’ll see.”

The sound of his amusement followed Bruce all the way back to the lab.

[simplyclockwork]

SIMPLYCLOCKWORK'S 2021 YEAR IN FIC

I'm a bit behind on this (whoops), but here are some of the fics I wrote in 2021 (listed by which fic proved to be the most popular for each month I posted a new work).

--------

January:

A Pleasant Surprise

Sherlock's first birthday after his return from the grave.

WC: 3645

Kudos: 349

--------

February

The Cherry on Top

John's never shown any interest in his Alpha flatmate, despite Sherlock's pining. When a case requires a different approach than usual, Sherlock finds himself struggling to keep his feelings to himself.

WC: 7875

Kudos: 883

(This is currently my most popular work. Thanks, Omegaverse!)

--------

March

Waiting (For the Rising Sun)

No one has looked at you like that in a long time. Possibly not ever. But he looks at you, he lays your life out before you, and he doesn’t stop there.

WC: 2648

Kudos: 240

--------

May

Hired Gun

After faking his suicide in response to allegations of fraud, two years into dismantling Moriarty's network finds Sherlock Holmes in Morocco. Nearing the end of his mission, he is apprehended by a man with the mercy of a doctor, the control of a soldier, and the brutality of a mercenary.

Through capture, betrayal, and unexpected danger, both Sherlock and John Watson, gun-for-hire, will have to learn who can really be trusted.

WC: 232,524

Kudos: 642

(Now, technically, I started this fic in 2020. But I finished it in 2021, so I'm claiming it for last year).

--------

June

The Mystery of the Red Pants

A few spectacular laundry mishaps lead to revelations between Sherlock and John - and maybe a bit more.

WC: 3203

Kudos: 274

--------

July

Kindred Spirits

A struggling Sherlock Holmes is forced into rehab by his older brother after Serbia. Doyle House, a recovery facility for celebrities, ex-military, and government agents, is the last place Sherlock wants to be. Angry and at odds with the world, he meets John Watson, a doctor on staff. As Sherlock navigates his recovery, he and John discover something growing between them.

Will an unexpected situation at Doyle House finally push them past the point of no return?

WC: 46,310

Kudos: 317

--------

August

Under His Skin

While shaving the face of a partially incapacitated Sherlock, John discovers something new about his flatmate - and himself.

WC: 3016

Kudos: 323

--------

October

On the Edge (Part 1 of the 221B Kinktober Fic Series)

Day 1: Rimming

WC: 221

Kudos: 105

(Doing Kinktober entirely in 221B ficlets, with one ficlet posted per day, was a fun little challenge).

--------

November

Like You Belong Here

In the aftermath of a firefight that killed half his squadron in Afghanistan, John Watson is back in London on forced leave. But with his parents long dead and his sister lost to the bottle, he finds himself alone. Unable to ask for the comfort he craves, John turns to the promise of a pleasure establishment. As luck would have it, there he meets a sharp-eyed man who seems to know what John needs better than he ever could.

WC: 11,289

Kudos: 206

--------

December

Sunspots

After Sherlock's overdose on the plane, John finally finds the courage to confess his deepest secret.

WC: 4021

Kudos: 173

--------

WIPs of Note:

Noise Complaint

One loud upstairs neighbour and three days of non-stop party music lead Sherlock to an unexpected meeting.

Current WC: 56,497

Current Kudos: 322

--------

I didn't write as much this year as previous years (Pandemic life really sucked all my energy away and I went back to work, so writing time has really changed for me). However, I did finish my longest work to date (Hired Gun) and completed two more works for Fandom Trumps Hate.

Looking forward to what 2022 brings! I promise I have lots of new stories, prompt fills and WIPs planned for this year. Stay tuned!

--------

Tagging some folks who might want to do this as well, but absolutely no pressure. Please feel free to do one even if you're not tagged and want to participate. Otherwise, a friendly reblog will never go unappreciated! 😘

@annecumberbatch @heyblinken @discordantwords @jbaillier @helloliriels @calaisreno @therealsaintscully @keirgreeneyes @vulpesmellifera @arwamachine @totallysilvergirl @shelleysprometheus @kettykika78 @7-percent @slow-burn-sally

[bookyeom]

Hello everyone! Winter is my absolute favourite season, and I’ll be honest, I’m going to miss the deep Canadian winter since I’m spending this one in South Korea. I wanted to do this winter fic event so that we could all be inspired by the cold, snow, cosy sweaters, hot chocolate, etc. Frankly, this season gets my writing going like no other, and of course I wanted to extend the invite to anyone who wants to join!

If you’ve read any of my fics you know I’m a big fan of fluff, but I wholly welcome some angst, so feel free to join if you’re interested in either of those things! I really just want this to be a fun event that will hopefully spread some joy during the cold weather through our favourite boys :) I can’t wait to see what you all come up with - we’ve got some amazing writers on board already. Please reblog if you can to boost, and message me with any questions!

OFFICIAL MASTERLIST

The rules and the list of Sentence Starters are under the cut :)

RULES:

Select a sentence starter (or two! Or three!) from the list and message me to let me know which one(s) you’ll be doing, and for which member(s). More than one person can use the same prompt, as long as it’s a different member from one that’s already chosen! You don’t need to include the sentence starter in your fic - you can treat it more as a prompt for inspiration.

Your fic must be at least 1k, and it can be a oneshot or a series - it’s up to you!

The deadline to post and tag is December 25th.

Please reblog this post!

Disclaimer that your fic doesn’t have to be Christmas by any means - it can involve the holiday season, or simply just the actual winter season!

Your fic can be any trope, I just ask that you include it in the description as well as any warnings :)

There will be a tracked tag (#hellojkwinterwonderland), as well as a Masterlist that I will be reblogging and adding to up until the deadline.

SENTENCE STARTERS:

A/N: I’ve obviously put myself on a lot of these because I’m feeling super inspired, so don’t judge me for that and also feel free to do the same prompts as me if you want xx

“My mom knitted you a jumper.” - @hellojeongkook, reader x Seokjin

“I slipped on ice and broke a bone…” + “Can you stay a bit longer?” - @moon-write, reader x Seokjin

“How did that happen?”

“I wrote my first Christmas song. You were a huge inspiration for it.”

“You know you didn’t need mistletoe to get me to kiss you, right?” - @sunshinerainbowsbts, reader x Hoseok

“Look, I get that you love Christmas but your lights are kind of keeping me awake at night.” - @hellojeongkook, reader x Jimin

“Are you drunk?”

“I am in desperate need of a hug.”

“I thought you’d like this.”

“I broke a bone slipping on ice and ended up in the hospital and now the cute doctor won’t stop laughing at me when I told him the reason why I fell” - @reliablemittenmain, reader x Namjoon

“You look so cosy.”

“Can you stay for a bit longer?”

“I’m so sorry for spilling hot chocolate on you.” - @sunshinerainbowsbts, reader x Namjoon

“Was that you singing?” - @hellojeongkook, reader x Jungkook

“Your feet/hands are freezing, please stop touching me.”

“You hate me, so why did you remember that I like marshmallows in my hot chocolate?” + "Are you drunk?" - @kooks-cookie, reader x Jungkook

“Well, we’re stuck together because neither of us is going home in this weather.” - @tae-bebe, reader x Taehyung

“Aren’t you cold like that?”

“No one’s ever done that for me before.”

“What’s with the box?”

“Look, I get that you love Christmas but your lights are kind of keeping me awake at night.” - @fluffyydumplings, reader x Seokjin

“I’ll be honest - I hate the snow.”

“I’m personally offended that you didn’t get me to be your fake date.” - @hellojeongkook, reader x Taehyung

“Did you mean that?”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“It’s three in the morning.” - @taeshobipop

“You told me you knew how to skate!” “I lied.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I bought this because it reminded me of you.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s hand-holding season.” - @sunshinerainbowsbts, reader x Yoongi

“Are you blushing or are you cold?” - @parkdatjimin, reader x Jimin

“Is that my sweater?”

I slipped outside your house and you ran outside without shoes on to help me - @hellojeongkook, reader x Jungkook

“Please don’t let go of me.”

“Kiss me. Please?” @hellojeongkook, reader x Yoongi

[writing-in-april]

Erotica Explained

Spencer Reid x Female Reader (Spencer’s POV)

Summary: Spencer discovers his girlfriend’s writing.

A/N: Hey Heyyy- this is my twenty-sixth fic for my 30 fics in 30 days for April! It’s based on this request- and I did end up using a small snippet from one of my other fics! Sorry this ones out late too lol had a very difficult day. Feel free to leave me an ask here (I promise I don’t bite) Thanks for reading and hope y’all enjoy!

Warnings: 18+, Smut, Sub!Spencer, Unprotected sex, A little bit of grinding, A little bit of overstimulation, Creampie

Main Masterlist Word Count:1.7k

I don’t use technology often, if I can help it I don’t use it at all. But, I had to use it right now, there was something I needed to look up on the computer. It wasn’t for a case or anything, I was just too curious and too impatient to wait to go to the library.

Because I don’t use technology often at all, I didn’t own a personal laptop. The only one I regularly used was the one I was given at work, and that was done begrudgingly. Though I couldn’t use that one right now as I was at my apartment I shared with my girlfriend. My girlfriend however, happened to have a laptop that she wouldn’t mind me using.

When I opened up her laptop, it was already unlocked with a tab already opened. My eyes unintentionally quickly glazed over the page, my eyes widening as I flitted across the page. It was some sort of story, one that contained things that made me blush. At the end of what was visible without scrolling down it read,

His fingers twitched at his side when you blew cool air onto his length, you sneered again, “If you touch me I’ll stop.”

My own trousers started to grow a little tight after reading that, then confusion made its way into my face, wondering what in the world I was reading. I clicked around, not really knowing what I was doing and I fell into a wormhole of reading. It wasn’t until I glanced up to see who owned the documents it all clicked together. They were my girlfriend’s stories.

They were her stories about a slew of characters that already existed in other media, the first one I had read even happened to be about a Star Wars character- Poe to be specific. Once it all clicked together I slammed the computer shut, feeling like I had invaded her privacy. Then I swiftly got into a cold shower, ready to freeze my arousal and wash off my shame.

—-

My foot was tapping even crazier than normal as I sat next to my girlfriend. We had decided on a night in, choosing to order take out and watch a few movies on a rare night off for me. It was her turn to choose, and unsurprisingly she chose Star Wars.

“What’s wrong?” She asked me when I started to basically vibrate when Poe came onto the screen. I couldn’t keep it in any longer, the guilt was eating me alive sitting here while I watched a constant reminder of what I read.

“I’m sorry-“ She was about to open her mouth to probably ask me why I was apologizing, but I steamrolled over it by ranting, “I looked at your writing- the erotica you write. I- I think it’s about already existing characters? Which I hadn’t heard about before-“

She finally did get a chance to cut me off by calling out my name, getting me to stop my nervous rant, “Are you mad- that I umm am writing about someone who’s not you?”

“No! It’s natural to be attracted to different people even while you’re with someone…” I was already falling down into another rant, this time however I caught myself and found the point I had been looking for, “I actually think it’s kind of hot.”

“Oh yeah?” Her eyebrows had shot up almost high enough that they were up into her hairline. I flushed a little at that, feeling vulnerable under her gaze even though I knew she always kept me safe.

“I- um actually was wondering if you could do to me-“ The words died on my tongue when my eyes met hers again, and just by her eyes I could see that she knew what I wanted. She just wanted me to say it out loud.

“What do you want me to do to you?”

“Wh-hat I read- can you umm-?”

She didn’t let me stumble any longer, cutting off my stuttering, “You want me to do the things you read about to you?”

I nodded vigorously, but that wasn’t enough for her. She leaned forward, grabbing my cheeks between two of her fingers, then prompting me, “Use your words.”

I whimpered at that, remembering seeing it in one of her writings. I learned from the character, who had mouthed off in the fanfic, instead breathily answering, “Yes, I want you to use me like you wrote.”

Soon enough my clothes had been taken off by me as I had to follow her command to ‘strip’. She did so as well, then straddling me, starting immediately to grind on my cock. I moved my hands to her hips to try to get her to do something more, but they were quickly pushed off. She then pinned them above my head, leaning forward to whisper into my lips, “No you don’t get to touch unless I tell you too.”

“Yes, Miss!” I gasped out instantly, wanting to be perfect for her.

“Mmmm good boy.”

That made me keen even more, loving the praise she gave me a dash of, I craved her showering it onto me. She kept her course of action, grinding onto my cock until her own arousal completely soaked it. All it would take was for the head of my cock to notch at my entrance, she was so wet I could slip in easily. But, all I could do was wait until she let me have her. I’m sure if I begged she’d only smirk at me, so I kept my mouth shut and took what I was given.

She finally sunk down onto my cock, though it was excruciatingly slow. I tried to fight my instincts, keeping my hips flush with the couch so I wouldn’t get scolded for moving without permission.

When the backs of her thighs finally hit the tips of mine, I groaned unintentionally. She seemed to love it, starting to buck her hips enthusiastically at my response. My hands balled up into fists, knuckles turning white from how hard I was gripping them. It was taking so much to not cum already, her hands pinning me and how beautiful she looked above me making it overwhelming.

“Awww are you already so close? You love getting used like this don’t you?” She goaded once she realized how much I was fighting my release with my squinted eyes.

It took me a minute to find the words, as all my mind could focus on at the moment was how she felt around me. My IQ was completely slashed to 60, but I did eventually get out, “Yes miss”

She sped up her pace at my words, alternating from grinding down into me hard and bouncing vigorously on top of me. When she lent forward to give me a bruising kiss, she swallowed all the noises I was making, until she dipped her head down to mark up my collarbone. It was all too much; I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.

“You’re such a good boy for me Spencer.” She gasped above me, writhing on my cock while she continued to bounce. It was getting so hard to bear, especially with more praise, but I wanted to wait until she came. She looked like a goddess, especially just as she was about to cum, which she soon signaled by saying, “Oh god baby, you’re gonna make me cum!”

All I could do was watch as she removed one hand from where they were wrapped around my own to rub circles into her clit. She tipped her head back, mouth dropped open in a moan, and thighs shaking as her orgasm washed over her. She shook above me for a minute, hips stuttering as she tried to continue the pace she built while her orgasm was ripping through her. Once she had come down from her release she then focused on mine, building the pace back up to be even faster than her original one.

“Go ahead and cum baby boy.” With one more swivel of her hips, I fell off the edge at her command, filling her all the way up with my release. She held my hands up above my head still and still moved her hips while I rode out my high. When she stopped her movements once I whimpered loudly out of overstimulation, she finally let go of my hands.

I let myself relax as she slumped over onto me, resting her head onto my still somewhat heaving chest. With my hands once again free I wrapped my arms around her middle, entrapping her this time.

Looking up I then noticed the movie was still going, completely unobstructed by our actions. It was towards the end of the movie already, telling me how long we had been going at it. Though I didn’t care that I missed it, I got to act out a partial storyline from it, even if it was a made up one. The movie could only hold my attention for so long, there was someone far more interesting with me.

“So are you gonna write some with me?” She giggled out while tracing her fingers up and down my chest, lingering over my sternum. Her proposition was an intriguing one for sure, especially now that she explained some of it to me. Though, I think my writing style is more suited for more of an academic setting.

I snorted a little, giggling a little myself, then brushing my hair out of my eyes so I could see them more clearly. When I tipped her chin up with my fingers and their eyes met mine, they were full of mischief. She was definitely trying to get me riled up again, but I had a quip back of my own, “I don’t think I’d be good at it- but maybe you’ll let me read from now on? I wouldn’t mind editing some as well, it sounds fun.”

Ask Me Anything

——

Tag lists (fill out this form to join):

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All Works: @shotarosleftpinky @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar @spenxerslut @boxofsparklingmuses @multixfandomwriter @takeyourleap-of-faith

All MGG characters: @muffin-cup @willowrose99 @princesssmooshie @peterpanouat @anaagraceeberr @ashcakes1918 @reid-me-a-story @cosmic-psychickitty

Spencer Reid/CM: @calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss @slutforthegubes @onlyhereforthefanfics @jareauswifey @princesssmooshie @peterpanouat

Sub Spencer: @thatsonezesty13 @pastathighs @virtualpeanutartisanjudge @calm-and-doctor @princesssmooshie @peterpanouat

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts) 

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

*

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

*

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

*

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

*

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.

[glowingspence]

can we get a part 2 to the fic you just wrote (#14 hurt prompt list)

Part 1

"What I am about to tell you is really important, so when you don't understand something, you can ask any time okay?" Hotch starts as he sits on his bed with Jack,

"Okay"

"Alright, so you know people in wheelchairs right? Like the kid in your class."

"I do"

"Well he has a disability which will most likely be a part of his whole life"

"He will never walk, he said"

"No he won't." Gently Hotch lets his thumb run over his hand, "And there are many many types of disabilities."

"Can they all not walk?"

"Some can walk"

"Oh"

"Some maybe can't move their hand, or not move at all and some you can't tell that they have one." Hotch expands. "And there is one disability that I am going to teach you about and it sounds scary at first but it's okay I promise you."

"Felix said his disability doesn't hurt him."

"They don't always have to hurt." Hotch agrees, "Well to come back to the disabilities that we can't always see-"

"How can you not see a disability?"

"That I am going to explain, okay?"

"Yes"

"So there is one, at it's called autism-"

"I know that one!" Jack exclaims, much to Hotch's surprise.

"You do?"

"Mommy read a book about a boy who has it with me." He exclaims and Hotch can feel his heart soften. Haley had been from the beginning supportive of him and Spencer and of course she would do something like that. "He hates loud noises and touch."

"That's right, well autism-"

"Comes in all forms, it's always different." Perplexed Hotch looks at his son.

"You know a lot"

"Mommy teaches me"

"Well then I am going to cut right to the point." Hotch announces, "I am sure you know also adults have that disability."

"I do"

"Well Spencer has it aswell which is why we three gotta talk about some important things to make him feel comfortable around us." Hotch exclaims and for a moment Jack is quiet before he starts crying and Spencer walks into the room, "I've got it."

"Can I?" Without waiting for permission Spencer sits down on the bed next to Aaron and takes the boy into his arms, "It's okay, it’s scary first, I know”

“I don’t want that” The boy whimpers, pressing himself against Spencer, “I don’t want you to be sick-”

“Jack, don't say that.” Aaron tries to interfere.

“No it’s okay, I need you to take a really deep breath and then I will explain why this is a different kind of being sick and why it’s not that bad.” Soothing he rocks them back and forth on the soft mattress, Jack crying for a little bit longer before he lets Spencer wipe his tears away. “Why don’t you take this?” Spencer reaches forward and grabs his own stuffed animal from under the blanket,

“What’s his name?”

“His name is bear”

“Does he not have a name?”

“It’s just Mr. Bear.” Spencer tells him with a smile while Jack lets his hand run over the soft fabric, “Mr. Bear is specialist in cuddles.” Hesitant the kid hugs the bear in his arms and leans back against Spencer’s chest, “And Mr. Bear was also with me when I found out that I am autistic.”

“Do you remember?”

“I do, I was seven years old and I went with my mom and dad to the doctor and I had to answer tons of questions.” He tells him, and gently moves them from side to side as they are both facing Hotch, “And then, my mom knew why I did some things the way I did them and she would make sure to tell me that that is okay.”

“And when Spencer started working for me, he told me as well so I could also find some ways to make sure he is healthy.” Aaron expands.

“The kid in my book doesn’t like to be touched, but you love cuddles.” Jack states, “Right?”

“Well you are right, I do love cuddles but only when I know they will be happening and not when people touch me as a surprise and I don’t like strangers touching me.” Spencer explains, “For example, right now I very much enjoy cuddling you, but sometimes, when I don’t expect it, your dad wants cuddles and then I scare easily.”

“But not with me?”

“No one is going to be mad if you forget it sometimes, but it’s important to ask if Spencer or really anyone, except mommy and I, want to be touched.” Aaron answers, he knows that if Spencer got the chance to answer he would have lied and told the kid to just go ahead whenever he wants, “And what is even more important is, that we don’t touch Spencer with dirty hands or wet hands.”

“Why?”

“Well for starters, germs scare Spencer so when we get inside we always need to remember to wash our hands, I know you do an amazing job with that already, I am very proud of you for that and when it comes to wet things, they make him feel sick and we don’t want that, right?”

“No” Jack shakes his head, “Do you like going swimming?”

“Not so much.” Spencer admits before he guides him back to the topic, “And what’s also important is that I have very sensitive eyes and ears so sometimes I can get very tired and exhausted from loud noises.”

“Why?”

“Because your ears filter important sounds and then you almost only hear them, like our voices, Spencer often hears everything.”

“That’s so cool!” Jack exclaims, “Can you really hear anything?”

“He can hear lights, isn’t that pretty cool?”

“That’s like a superpower.” Jack concludes and gets on his knees turning to Spencer, “Can you hear the lamp in the hallway?”

“Yes, because it makes a loud click every two seconds.” Spencer explains, “And you are right it’s really cool but it’s also very exhausting.”

“Which is why it is important that we make sure to use our inside voice and when Spencer asks you to stop with something, even if it makes a lot of fun right now, it's important that we respect that, okay?” Aaron tells him and pulls the kid into his arms, wrapping his arms around him, “It’s okay to ask questions, it’s always okay but when Spencer tells you to stop with something, you stop, alright? Sometimes for Spencer things hurt, that aren’t hurting us and we will always find a solution but it is really really important that you stop what you are doing.”

“I listen to Papa”

“Listening to Papa is more important than listening to me, okay?”

“Why?”

“Well Spencer does fun things with you, right?”

“Yes!”

“And he lets you get away with things I wouldn’t, and you are allowed more things when you are with Papa right?” Aaron continues.

“Yes, he is more fun”

“So when Papa tells you to stop something, it’s either because you are in danger or because he is. And sometimes it seems unfair that you can’t do a fun thing because Spencer said no, but I think it’s probably better not to do the fun thing than hurting Spencer right?” Hotch asks and the boy nods, “But what is even more important is that when an accident happened, it's not and never your fault, sometimes, Spencer’s brain gets all messy and filled with a lot of nonsense and then it hurts really really much and maybe he starts crying or yelling or makes noises or maybe even nothing at all and then it is really really important that you get me or another adult and if no on is there, you can just leave the room, you don’t have to stay with him.”

“Why do I have to get another adult?”

“Because sometimes, there is, as you dad said, so much nonsense in my head, I maybe will hit something or me and then it’s better if you are not around even though, I promise you, I would never hurt you, you don’t have to be scared but it’s okay if you are, you don’t have to feel guilty.”

“I am not scared of you, I love you.” Jac exclaims, still holding the bear, “Can I hug you?”

“Of course” Eager Jack rushes forward and wraps his arms around Spencer’s neck, “I love you too, you are the smartest kid I know, I love you so so much.”