#The records will still be there???? check Dean's computers and emails | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

onlysarah235678 · 4 years ago

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A Little Bit Part 20

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x female reader

A/N: 🙃 Hi. I hope everyone’s had a nice weekend. Here’s more of your favorite medium, but first, look at this gif.

Warnings: angst and mention of dead animals

The rest of your time at Billie’s had been more enjoyable than you could have hoped for. The two of you spent a lot of time together, with Milo too of course, and you even risked going out again. Luckily you had been able to enjoy your time together without incident and you were reluctant to go home the next morning. You would have loved to stay with Billie for longer, but it was time to go back to work.

You and Milo had finally returned home on Sunday, and you’d immediately realized how much you had to do before work on Monday. You’d gone shopping, did laundry, cleaned a lot of your apartment before collapsing at 10. You wake up Monday morning torn between excitement and dread about going back to work. You are excited to be busy again, and to see all of your patients, but you aren’t excited about potentially facing the media and tiring yourself out.

You didn’t bother texting anyone to see if the reporters are there because you doubted anyone would be at work yet. You lock your door behind you before leading Milo down the hallway. You stifle a yawn before leaning against the wall while you wait for the elevator to reach your floor. You consider texting Billie but it was really early, so you decide to at least wait until you got to work.

You are leaving a little early because you want to have time to catch up on what you missed, so you and Milo arrive a whole hour before opening. Most of the assistants aren’t even here yet, but you hadn’t run into any reporters so you’re happy. Since you are here so early, you take Milo upstairs with you and after putting his bed back under your desk you both settle in.

When lunch time rolls around, you are grateful of the fact that Dr. Stewart put breaks into your schedule this week. You’re feeling okay, but your headache is starting to come back. You’re stressing about how much you have to catch up on when your phone goes off. You sigh before realizing that it’s Billie, and you smile widely as you read her message.

You know she has a busy week, but that doesn’t start until tomorrow, so you are going to take advantage of any free time Billie has. It doesn’t even seem odd to be so excited to talk to the blonde again. It’s barely been 24 hours since you’ve seen her, but you’re quickly responding to her message. You’re not really free, but you figure a few minutes on the phone won’t hurt.

You glance to the schedule before you skip ahead a week to double check the time that you had scheduled all seven of the cats to come in. Before leaving Billie’s yesterday, Bit had escaped outside and neither you nor Billie had been in the mood to run after her. Milo had of course, but luckily he had already been attached to his leash so he didn’t get far. You had joked that whenever she came back, Billie would have to bring her in to get spayed. She could get into a lot of trouble relatively quickly.

You had been kidding of course, but then you’d actually talked about it for a while before Billie decided that she wanted it done ASAP. So now you had Bit’s surgery in the morning, and Billie’s appointment with the other cats late enough in the afternoon that she could just take them all home at once.

Guess who made it home?

Billie had attached a picture of Bit sitting in the living room grooming herself and you laugh. You ask Billie if she wants to keep her appointment before turning your attention to lunch. You leave your office and walk down the hall to the kitchen so you can grab your lunch. You’re glad that you went shopping yesterday because you really don’t want to chance an encounter with reporters this week. You sneak a peek at the boarding cats before heading back to your office with a sigh. You sit back down before turning your attention to your computer when it chimes at you. You answer some emails before you finally get to you lunch, and at that point you remember to check your phone.

Yes, please.

You smile before asking how her day has gone so far before returning to work. You’re typing up a medical record while eating your sandwich when your phone lights up again. You’d turned off the sound because it had been aggravating your headache. That said, you don’t realize that you have a new message until you have two and you curse under your breath as you grab your phone.

How has your day been, sweetheart?

You’re on lunch now right?

You respond by telling Billie how your day has been and that you honestly are ready to go home. You talk for a while before you have to get back to work, but you ask Billie when she’ll be free. You are already dreading the idea of having to go back to your apartment alone tonight, but you suppose that’s what you get for spending so much time at Billie’s.

Billie spent most of the morning figuring out her week. She talked to Michelle for a while about the many things she had planned and how she was going to be kept busy up until her show aired. Billie was conflicted because she was glad to work, but she was also exhausted. She wanted a break, and she certainly didn’t want to deal with more assholes like she had on Friday. She and Michelle had talked about this a lot and the solution you’d both come up with was deceptively simple.

Just stick to the same story every time, and don’t crack under pressure. Billie still hadn’t told you about what Dave had asked, and she wasn’t sure if you’d bothered to look it up. This meant that she hadn’t been able to ask you about what she could say on TV. You had agreed to her telling the basics about you, your job, recent move, and all of that, but nothing about your personal life.

You certainly hadn’t mentioned your dad which is why Billie was trying not to either. That said, it was only working so well when people zeroed in on that one article or anything else they could use to bring him up. She knew you hadn’t gotten over his death yet, for several reasons, but she didn’t want to be the one to bring it up again. Billie knew that you had to come to terms with it on your own time, but it just made things difficult for her. Well, she was the one making things difficult for herself by refusing to talk to you about it. She didn’t want to risk you asking about the interview, so Billie was sticking to her ‘nothing more than the basics’ for now and hoping that it didn’t backfire again.

After Bit had returned from her sudden, albeit brief escape, Billie had tried to look her over. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t gotten hurt or too dirty while out there, but she’d had limited success. She only got as far as scratching her head and reaching for her stomach before Bit hissed and fled upstairs. Billie didn’t bother trying to stop her, she seemed fine enough, and Billie spent the rest of the morning alone.

It was odd having the house so empty. After you and Milo had stayed for a nearly a week, it was difficult to get used to the silence. Neither of you had made much noise honestly, but even just the sound of you shifting on the couch, or Milo’s collar clinking made Billie smile. She’d grown to like having the two of you here, but still she’d let you leave.

It was too early in your relationship to think about that, so Billie just pushes the thought to the back of her mind. Maybe in a few months you two can talk about the idea of moving in together.

You and Billie text for a little while longer before you have to go back to work. You’re glad that your afternoon is full of wellness visits, and as you get ready for your first appointment, you wonder if that was intentional. You don’t think about it long before you are meeting your assistant for the afternoon to get a history for the next patient.

You’re seeing an older dog, Rudy, who is relatively new to your practice. He’s a very sweet dog, but his owners are a little odd. Maybe you’re just too introverted for them, but you think that even an extrovert would find their questions a little invasive.

Luckily, it’s a quick visit and they don’t even mention your relationship which is a relief. The focus is on Rudy, as it should be, and you are grateful that no one seems to really care about you today. In between appointments you’re drinking water and working on medical records. You occasionally check your phone to see if Billie’s texted, but you have no new messages. You frown slightly before forcing yourself to get back to work.

The end of the day sneaks up on you, and you have maybe half a dozen records to finish when Dr. Hahn tells you she’s leaving. You curse under your breath after she leaves as you look at the clock. You need to feed Milo, but you still have maybe an hour of work to do. You sigh before jumping up and taking the stairs two at a time. You smile at Mina before running into the kennel to get your dog.

“Hi Milo. Do you want dinner?”

Milo of course just barks and spins around until you let him out. You smile before scratching his head and waving him along. You feed him before letting him out in the yard for a while. You didn’t give him as much time outside today as you usually would and you feel a little bad about it. For this reason, you end up sitting with him for nearly 15 minutes before you remember you have work to do still.

You lead Milo back inside and up the stairs to your office. You don’t like leaving him in the kennel after hours, and since he’s good and just sits at your feet you let him stay with you. You’re yawning by the time you’ve finished the first couple of records, and you are tempted to leave when your phone goes off. You sigh and force yourself to finish the section you’re typing up before looking to see what Billie says.

No one else has texted you today, so you assume it’s her.

You’re right and you smile when you realize that Billie is checking in on you. It’s almost 8 and you groan when you realize how late you’ll be here tonight.

Are you still at work?

You respond saying that you are and will be for a little while before putting your phone back down. You glance down at Milo, confirming that he’s asleep and snoring before you start typing again. Billie is in the middle of trying to wrangle the kittens when your reply comes in. Since you and Milo left, she realized that it was safe for the kittens to roam around supervised. She was downstairs with all of them now, and definitely regretting her decision to do this.

As Billie holds Mickey in her sweatshirt pocket, he was almost getting too big for it, she hurries to pick up two other kittens that were at her feet. She was attempting to get them all back to the laundry room after being out for a while, and it was proving more difficult than she imagined. She sighs in defeat as she watches the other three attempt to jump on the furniture, or bother Bit. She was going to need a drink after this.

She had underestimated how tiring it would be to spend time with them like this. One hour had quickly turned into two. It was adorable watching them all wobble around, and clumsily chase clumps of Milo’s hair that they found on the ground. They were all getting so big that Billie wasn’t sure how she’d manage to get all of them to the vet next week.

Her main concern right now though was getting them all back into their room. She knew she had to spend more time letting them out like this, but she was going to be busy for the next few days. She had a couple of meetings with her producers and Michelle in addition to another couple of interviews. Billie opens the laundry room and sets the three kittens on the ground before going back to get the remaining three.

She tries to chase one down, and he or she, she’s not sure, runs into the kitchen and Billie sighs in defeat. She follows the little one to the back door and watches as she jumps up and puts her paws on the glass.

“Come on little one.”

Billie reaches down and grabs the kitten, smiling slightly as it purrs so loudly that Billie feels the vibrations. She turns to go track down the other two when her phone goes off again. She smiles until she realizes that it isn’t you, and she leaves it be for now before going off in search of the last two stragglers.

You finally finish working around 9, and you’re exhausted by the time you finish locking up. You take Milo’s leash in one hand and grab your things with the other before heading to the parking lot. You don’t even spare the rest of the lot a glance, not caring if they’re there before you throw your things in your car. You get Milo situated in the back and pretty soon you’re on your way home.

You stifle a yawn as you turn onto the road with an exhausted sigh. You’re not looking forward to going home despite feeling like you’re going to fall asleep the second your head hits your pillow. You get home in record time too since there isn’t much traffic and you sigh as you pull into the closest parking spot you can find. You sit in the car with the engine off just staring off into space before you’re interrupted.

“Shit, Milo stop.”

You push Milo away as he sits up and licks your face to get your attention. He just whines when you tell him to sit, and you only get another few seconds reprieve before he’s pawing at you. You groan in defeat before getting unbuckled and opening your door. Milo isn’t going to let you delay this any longer, so you don’t bother even trying. You get him hooked up to his leash before grabbing your things and leading him inside. You make it to your apartment quickly and you close the door behind you before watching Milo run to the couch. You look around with a frown before heading toward the kitchen. You drop your things before opening the fridge for a drink. It’s late and you should just go to sleep, but you don’t want to.

Instead, you sit next to Milo on the couch with your phone and a glass of wine. You sigh as you look to your phone with a yawn. It’s late, but you are sure that Billie is still up. You want to at least say goodnight, or let her know that you’re home. She had asked you to check in after all.

You didn’t expect her to pick up on the second ring.

“Hi, Y/N. Are you finally home?”

You smile before nodding to yourself with an exhausted sigh. You tell Billie how you just got back and that you are tired enough to crash. You hear her laugh at this and you can’t help but wonder what she’s doing right now. You turn to Milo before patting your lap, and you smile as he hurries to lie down on you.

“What are you up to, Billie?”

Billie smiles as she turns to Mickey who is bouncing around on the floor at the end of the bed. She’s watching him from where she’s leaning against the headboard with a glass of wine in one hand. She mentions what she’s been up to for the past 15 minutes and you laugh when she mentions her kitten adventures from earlier today.

“Really? All 6 of them? How did that go?”

You laugh as Billie groans under her breath. She was glad that she’d been able to give the kittens some much needed play time, but she was exhausted. She was close to crashing despite not having worked much today, but she’d wanted to wait at least until she heard from you.

“It was hectic for sure, but they were so cute. I wish you could have seen them.”

Both of you smile at the thought before you’re nodding in agreement. You scratch Milo behind his ears, your smile widening at how cute he looks as he just stares at you.

“Me too.”

The two of you sit in silence for a little while just lost in thought before Billie finally speaks up. You’re looking at your empty glass on the table in front of you while Billie’s picking up Mickey to take him back to his siblings and Bit.

“I miss having you here, sweetheart.”

You smile at Billie’s words blushing slightly as you lean against the couch with a sigh. “You do?”

Billie just nods before she returns to bed and sits down with a frown. She looks to the empty side for a moment and wonders how a few nights of sleeping in the same bed with you did this to her.

“I do. I wish you were here with me.”

You picture Billie lying in bed as she says this, and you can’t help but want to be there with her. You just know that when you go up to bed you will miss being near Billie. You’ll miss her presence, her warmth, and you will especially miss the feeling you get when she holds you close. You don’t realize that you haven’t responded until Milo snaps you out of your reverie with a loud yawn.

You smile and Billie chuckles before you manage to find your voice again. You try not to sound too much like you’re pouting when you speak up.

“Me too. We need to have another sleepover, Billie Dean.”

Billie laughs before agreeing with a wide smile. The two of you talk for almost an hour before you aren’t able to stop yawning. You don’t want to, but you end up hanging up and heading to bed. You tell yourself that you can wait until Friday rolls around to see Billie again, but you’re not entirely sure. It’s going to be a rough week not only because you’re easing back into things, but because of your impending birthday. It will definitely be on your mind, and not in a good way.

You try not to worry about that now as you get ready for bed. You go through your normal routine and half an hour later you crawl into bed. You watch as Milo does the same at the other side of the room, and you just sigh before turning off the light. You close your eyes and groan in defeat as you roll over and hide your face in your pillow. You turn again until you’re staring at the ceiling, and your mind begins to wander to a certain medium.

You close your eyes again and the first thing that comes to mind is Billie Dean’s charming smile. You imagine her smiling at you, and you can practically smell her perfume as you picture being pulled in for a hug. You smile at the thought of her laughing at one of your dumb jokes, and you are eventually able to fall asleep at the memory of Billie lying beside you.

Billie on the other hand was not asleep yet. She was tired enough for sure, but she couldn’t relax enough to lie down. She was on her second cigarette when she decides to look at her phone for a while. Mindlessly scrolling sometimes helped her sleep, but tonight it was stressing her out. It just made her think about everything that she had to do tomorrow, so she put it down quickly before heading downstairs.

She gets another stronger drink before heading back upstairs. She doesn’t make it back to her room because Bit is yowling and needs to be let out before she wakes the neighborhood. Billie sighs watching as Bit runs down the hall and down to the first floor before she sticks her head in the laundry room. Most of the kittens are sleeping, but of course there was one straggler.

“Mickey.”

The kitten turns, either at his name or Billie’s voice, and hurries over to her. She smiles as he comes to a clumsy stop at her feet and she laughs before picking him up. She holds him close and lets him play with her hair, but when he reaches out for her drink, she shakes her head.

“Not for you, little one. It’s time for bed.”

After she gets Mickey settled, Billie heads back to bed. She’s already finished her drink watching Mickey, so she leaves the empty glass on her bedside table before heading to the bathroom. She needs to get to sleep soon. She’s already going to have one hell of a week. The last thing she needs is to be sleep-deprived.

Billie isn’t convinced that this won’t be the case whether she sleeps or not. Last night she’d had difficulty sleeping, and she doesn’t want to think about why. Instead, Billie sits in bed and finishes off her cigarette, dragging it out for nearly a half hour before she falls into a fitful sleep.

You’re so deep in sleep that you don’t hear the series of knocks at your door the next morning. It’s almost half an hour before you alarm is supposed to go off, and you do not want to get up yet. Milo; however, hears them and he sits up before looking at your door. He starts growling as the knocks continue before he stands up and heads out of your room and downstairs.

He yawns on his way to investigate when the knocking stops. There is nothing out of the ordinary, and Milo hurries to the front door to sniff around. He smells something on the other side of the door and he starts pawing at it insistently. He whines as he tries to stick his face under the door, but not even his nose will fit. He lies down on his side and sees that there is something in front of the door. He tries to reach under the door but his paw is too big and he just whines again before scratching at the bottom of the door for a minute.

Eventually he gives up and just stares at it from the floor. About twenty minutes later he hears something shift from behind the door and he sits up suddenly. His ears twitch and he starts to sniff again before he hears the sound again.

He barks a couple of times before he runs back upstairs to your room. He barks again, startling you from your sleep, before jumping on you with a series of loud whines. You groan in annoyance as you roll over and try to push him off of you.

“Milo go away! It’s only 6!”

You honestly consider giving Milo to the next person you see when he pulls the covers off your bed and leaves you cold and very much awake.

“Milo!”

You sit up and glare at your dog who just drops and steps on all of your sheets before coming back to jump on you again. He whines as he tries to grab onto you, but you’re not really wearing many clothes, so he gets skin and you curse under your breath. Clearly he wants your attention.

“Alright, Milo. Stop! What is it? What do you want?”

Milo jumps off the bed and runs to the door before looking back at you. He barks and you groan loudly before following him down the hallway.

This better be good.

You follow Milo downstairs to the front door thinking that he just wants a walk. He jumps up on the door and claws at it and you quickly push him down with a scowl.

“Milo, no! Go get your leash.”

You are surprised when he doesn’t listen and instead just whines and tries to open the door again. You sigh before moving him out of the way before you unlock the door. You are about to step out into the hallway and see what has him so riled up, but you don’t make it that far. You nearly run into a box that was placed right in front of your door. You frown as you look down at the sketchy cardboard box in front of you.

You’re reluctant to open it, but Milo doesn’t give you much of a choice as he comes up behind you and practically shoves his face into it. You move him away before you peek in and you nearly curse as you realize what is in it.

“What the…?”

Billie Dean is already at the studio getting ready for her next interview when her phone rings. She had only gotten 5 hours of sleep, and she’d had to ask Michelle about a half dozen times who she was being interviewed by. Billie was on her third cup of coffee and she nearly spills it on herself when she jumps in surprise as her phone vibrates.

She curses under her breath as coffee spills on the floor, and she’s more than a little annoyed when she grabs her phone. When she sees it’s you; however, her frown turns to a smile and she answers quickly despite the fact she doesn’t have but maybe a minute to talk.

“Good morning, Y/N.”

You don’t respond immediately because you’re too busy staring at the box you’d managed to put on your counter. You didn’t really want it there, but Milo kept trying to get to one of the kittens inside.

Yes. Someone had left kittens at your doorstep. The first and hopefully the last time someone did something so cliché and quite frankly cruel to you. There had been five kittens in the box but only two were alive by the time you got to them. You had checked three times before separating them from their live siblings and hurrying to get dressed for work. You couldn’t help them much here, but from what you could tell they were in decent condition.

You’d wrapped them up in towels and piled them back in the box before realizing that there was a note at the bottom of it. You held it in your hands, and were still staring at it when Billie picked up. You open your mouth to say something, but you can’t find the words.

“Y/N?”

You had almost forgotten that Billie was supposed to be at an interview now, or soon, you weren’t really sure what time it was. This had thrown you off so much you honestly didn’t know if you’d walked Milo yet. Luckily he was just sitting by patiently, watching you and sniffing for the kittens that were almost as young as Billie’s had been when she’d first brought them in.

“Hi Billie. Uh-.”

You trail off as you try to figure out how to explain this. You read the note one last time before throwing it on the counter with a sigh.

“Something’s happened.”

Billie is still a little distracted when the interview starts. She had only been able to talk to you for a few minutes before she had to leave. You had told her as much as you could before apologizing for interrupting her morning. You had to get to work anyway, but you couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on. Rather, who the hell had left you a box of kittens and a creepy ass note?

You make it to work on time, somehow, and despite your hectic morning you smile at the first person you see as you enter the building. Erin. You had already put Milo in his kennel after giving him a little extra breakfast for making him wait much longer than usual, so you are only holding the kittens when you greet Erin.

“Good morning, Erin.”

Erin smiles as she sticks her phone and keys in her pocket before doing a double take. She wasn’t sure what you were holding, but as she gets a little closer, she sees that the box is not a box of donuts like she’d originally thought. You notice her looking and you’re quick to explain the odd arrangement in your hands.

“Morning Dr. Y/L/N. What do you have there?”

You sigh as you put the box down on the treatment table. You really had wanted to get a different one because this one was falling apart, but you’d already been running late and you really didn’t have a suitable alternative, so here you were. You watch as Erin peeks into the box before repeating what you’d told Billie. Minus the cursing of course.

“Five kittens were left in this box in front of my door this morning. Only two were alive, and they seem pretty weak.”

Erin frowns as you say this, and she reaches into the box to pet the smaller kitten that is still wrapped in a hand towel. You don’t mention the creepy note. You’d only told Billie because you were a little freaked out. However, she’s managed to calm you down and say that it was probably some random creep from your building, not Doug.

You push these thoughts to the back of your mind before you nod at what Erin says next. You were only half listening but you hope that you assume correctly.

“That’s so sad and messed up. Who do you think left them?”

You sigh in defeat as you take the three dead kittens out of the box and set them on the table. You want to make sure that they’re taken care of before your first appointment.

“It really is. I’m not sure who left them. I honestly don’t know many of my neighbors.”

With Erin’s help, the two of you take care of all five kittens and figure out what you’re going to do with them before your first appointment. You know that they need to be taken care of and checked on frequently. You can’t ask any of the technicians to do that because they already have their hands full with surgeries this morning. So you spend all of your free time in between appointments taking care of them when you can and feeding them formula.

Your boss isn’t in today, but almost everyone knows about the kittens’ presence before lunch time. You know it is a lot of responsibility, taking care of practically newborn kittens, so you aren’t surprised when no one jumps at the chance to take them in. You are already thinking of places to call when your phone starts to vibrate from your pocket.

You put the kitten in your hands, you’ve named them already despite your better judgement, back in the bed you’ve made before you reach for your phone. You see it’s Billie and sigh before looking at the time. You are done with appointments for the morning, all you really need to do is walk Milo.

“Hi Billie.”

You answer the phone as you walk to the kennels to grab Milo. You can’t really hear what Billie says immediately because it’s a lot louder than you thought it would be. You grab Milo quickly before retreating to the yard where the labs are already playing. You smile at some of the assistants sitting on the benches before heading out further into the yard.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Billie had returned home a little while ago, and she had decided to check in on you since you should be on lunch. You had told her about the kittens and the note, but she’d literally been on her way to the interview so you hadn’t been able to really discuss it. She realizes that you are outside with Milo because she hears barking and traffic, but she doesn’t get to ask before you’re speaking again.

“Shit, I forgot. How was your interview this morning?”

You’re wandering around the yard, making sure not to step in any mud puddles or anything other than grass. You glance over to your dog who is running back and forth between dogs trying to steal a tennis ball, before you focus back on Billie’s voice when she speaks up.

“It was fine, Y/N. Not nearly as exciting as your morning though.”

You smile at this before you shake your head in disagreement. You weren’t sure why Billie never seemed to want to talk about her interviews. You always assumed that they were more fun than she made them seem, but you knew now wasn’t the time to talk about this.

“So you talked about your show?”

Billie sighs more to herself than at you as she takes another drag of her cigarette. She was exhausted already, and it was barely noon. She had a lot more to do today, but she definitely wasn’t in the mood. She would much rather help you take care of these new kittens.

“We did. Only a couple of weeks before it airs.”

You smile at this before nodding to yourself. You pet Milo as he comes to say hi to you, and you take the ball that he offers you with a smile. You look at it for a moment before you realize how covered in mud and saliva it is. You groan under your breath and chuck it across the yard before responding to Billie.

“That’s so exciting Billie. I can’t wait to watch it!”

You mean this and you smile wider when Billie laughs in return. You two talk a bit about how you are going to watch it together as soon as it airs. You throw around ideas and you’re already looking forward to a night of cuddling on the couch with Billie.

Eventually you change the subject to the kittens that you need to check on again. The smaller one that you’ve dubbed Charlie wasn’t doing so well. He, or she, you honestly couldn’t tell, wasn’t eating as much and barely moved. The other kitten, Bo, was bigger, more active, and would definitely be trouble. You could already tell from how much he moved around and refused to listen to you. Not that you really thought either of them understood much at their age.

Billie laughs at the news of the new kitten’s names. She wasn’t sure why she thought you wouldn’t have names for them yet. You had only told her about half a dozen times how you made sure every single animal you met had a name.

“You said Bo was the troublemaker?”

Billie’s putting out her cigarette as she watches the clock on the oven. She only has a few minutes before she needs to be on a conference call. You laugh before telling Billie a little more about the kittens. You are already head over heels for them, but you really can’t keep them. You sigh as you say this to Billie before throwing the ball for Milo one last time.

“They’re adorable, but they’re a lot of work as you know. I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

You have a full-time job that you may not be working full time at right now, but you will be once you recover. Milo is honestly the only pet you can have right now, but you can’t just dump the kittens on someone else. You just have to see what you can figure out. Make a few calls and hopefully find these two adorable gray kittens a good home.

It’s only 6 hours later that you are on your way home with Milo and two kittens. You aren’t surprised that you ended up in this situation. Despite all the effort you put into finding a shelter, foster family, literally anyone else to take these kittens, you had come up with nothing. Well, that wasn’t true. You came up with a possible lead that someone needed to check on, but that would take at least a couple of days. You weren’t sure that it wouldn’t fall through and you were already preparing yourself to take care of these kittens until they were, well as old as Billie’s cats were now.

You sigh as you open the door to your apartment carefully. You watch as Milo walks in first. You honestly hadn’t bothered putting his leash on because you had your hands full, but he was good and stuck by your side. This was mostly because he wanted to play with the kittens, but you would take what you could get at the moment because it seemed like you were getting very little.

You shut the door behind you with a sigh before locking it and heading to the kitchen. You’d gotten rid of the dirty old box from this morning and now had a small litterbox that was going to house the kittens until you bought a more suitable alternative. You look under the blanket that you had laid on top of the kittens and you smile as you watch them squirm. They are just waking up and you set the blanket back on them briefly before you put your bags down.

You brought home a lot of things for them and you were just now realizing how much as you set it all down in front of you. There was formula, more blankets since you didn’t have a bed for them, and an assortment of bowls. You cursed your inability to make decisions before you got to work making the kittens’ next meal.

Milo just watches as you run around the kitchen and feed the small mewling furballs. He tries to jump up and get a better look once you put them down, but he stops short as you grab the box they’re in and head to the living room. You sigh as you look around and try to figure out what to do next. How the hell are you going to make this work?

Billie is finally done working for the day. She is just about to check on the kittens for the last time when you call her. She’d asked Michelle to buy a pen that she could keep downstairs so they could spend more time outside of the laundry room. They were really starting to spend more time awake and it was entertaining to watch them sometimes. Billie returned to the kitchen for her phone before she headed toward the kittens. She saw it was you and smiled before answering.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

You smile despite how tired you are before collapsing on the couch with the kittens in your lap. Well, the box is in your lap and you just stare down at them as you sigh in exhaustion.

“Hi, Billie. How was the rest of your day?”

As Billie tells you about her busy day, you just watch the kittens squirm around. They aren’t very active, which isn’t surprising, but you still feel the need to watch them closely and make sure they don’t get into trouble. You don’t realize that Billie has stopped speaking until she calls your name twice. You cringe at the fact that you spaced out and missed who knows how much before you sigh again.

“Sorry Billie. I just got distracted by the kittens.”

Billie frowns slightly at this and she glances to her own kittens who are bouncing around excitedly. Mickey is tackling one of his siblings, and Billie swears her heart melts at the sight.

“You weren’t able to find anyone to take them off your hands?”

You shake your head before thinking back to what Mina had said. You relay this to Billie before you have to stifle a yawn. You don’t do a very good job though because Billie clearly hears it.

“Not yet. Mina might know someone, but she’s got to get in touch with them first. For now, they’re with me.”

Billie’s frown deeps as she thinks of all the reasons why she doesn’t like this. You’re still supposed to be taking it easy, and she knows firsthand how time-consuming taking care of kittens is. You sound exhausted and Billie is already thinking of different ways to help you out.

“I hope she finds someone for you soon, Y/N. You already sound exhausted.”

You know that Billie is only concerned about you, but you frown in annoyance because you don’t really have another choice. You’re going to take care of these kittens whether you really want to or not, but hopefully it won’t be for more than a couple of days.

When Thursday rolls around and you still have the kittens, you realize how naïve you’d been. The first couple of days were hell like you thought they would be, but there were little reprieves throughout the day while at work. Someone else would check on Bo and Charlie, everyone loved their names, or a cancellation in your schedule gave you more time to play catch up.

However, Thursday morning you’re not even at lunch yet and you have a raging headache. You’d stayed up late last night taking care of the kittens because when you went to check on them before bed, you noticed that Charlie wasn’t moving. You had hoped he was asleep, but he was actually blue and barely breathing. You had done what you could before rushing to the hospital where you stayed until only a few hours before you had to go to work.

Now you were falling asleep at your computer while you tried to work on a medical record. You reached for your water bottle since you couldn’t take any more pain meds right now, but you miscalculate and it tumbles to the floor spilling water everywhere.

“Shit!”

You hurry to pick up the bottle you stupidly left open and looked around for something to clean it with when there was a knock on your door. You turn, abandoning the mess for now, to see Mina standing in the doorway with a concerned look.

“Everything okay?”

You just nod before getting off the floor and sitting back in your chair. You cringe slightly as you nod which undermines your response but that’s okay for now. Luckily Mina has some news for you.

“All good, thanks. What’s up?”

Mina smiles as she tells you about her friend’s friend that finally figured out how she could take the kittens.

“She says that her parents will take her dog for a couple weeks so she can keep them until we can adopt them out.”

You sigh in relief before smiling widely at the news. You shoot Mina a grateful look before feeling yourself relax. The tension and stress that has built up for the past couple of days leaves your body and you feel lighter.

“Thank you, Mina. That’s great news! Do I need to meet them somewhere?”

Mina shook her head and said that she could take them to her after work today. You were tempted to hug her, but you had a lot of dog hair on you and probably some water, so you held back. Still you were smiling as you thanked her again. You were ready to sleep through the night again for sure.

“Thank you so much. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

The rest of the day goes much better for you because simply knowing that you will sleep better brightens your mood. You still have your damn headache, but even that gets better after the first couple of afternoon appointments. It’s not until the end of the day, that you realize you have to say goodbye to the kittens. At least for the next couple of weeks. You wander back to isolation where they’re being kept with a frown. You watch them just sleep and occasionally squirm for a few minutes before you realize that you’re no longer alone.

You move out of the way so Mina can join you in the small room before asking despite already knowing the answer.

“Time to go?”

Mina has all of her things and she just nods before moving to collect the kittens. They mewl a little at being disturbed and you smile at the adorable sight before holding the door open for her. You follow the brunette out and sigh as she turns to leave.

“See you soon kittens. Please thank her again for me?”

Mina just nods in agreement before she heads out to the parking lot, and you sigh again before remembering that you have your own things to collect before you can leave for the night. You don’t work tomorrow or this weekend, so you have a nice long time to catch up on some sleep. You’re so eager to get home and sleep that you forget your phone upstairs, and you’re so tired you consider leaving it there. Deciding against it, you hurry to your office to grab it before running back downstairs to where your dog is whining impatiently. You silence him with a quick scratch before heading for the parking lot. You put your phone in your pocket without bothering to check it, so you miss the fact you have a couple of missed calls and two new text messages from Billie.

Are you still at work, sweetheart?

Do you want to come over after?

Part 21

TAGLIST ❤: @madamevirgo, @illuminated-blue, @delias-bitch-craft

#american horror story #ahs #american horror story fanfic #ahs fanfic #ahs imagine #ahs murder house #billie dean howard #billie dean howard x reader #billie dean howard imagine #my fic #a little bit #proofread this while sick so....sorry in advance lol

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spnsimpleman · 6 years ago

Text

With the strike of a match.

Dean x unknown Daughter, Sam x unknown niece,

Anonymous asked: Hi this is a weird request so stay with me, I was wondering if you could do a spn x reader series where the reader is deans unknown daughter and when he finds out about her he goes to get her but when he finds her she's nothing like he expected, she would be a cold hearted badass, hopefully a street fighter or gang leader (weird I know) and she knows about the supernatural because demons or something killed her family. Like I said this is weird but I've wanted fine like this forever!Thank you!!!

This will be a short series based on this ask I received a little over a year ago... I think. Sorry anonym, but if you’re still with me, I hope you love it!

Word Count: 1413

Arsonist’s lullaby by Hozier

The strike of a match. A quick inhale of its cleansing fragrance before its fall to the ground. Within those milliseconds, I gazed at that little piece of wood with its tiny flame and marveled at how something so small, so common, when put in just the right environment could tear down cities. The giant felled by a pebble.

How such a big splash could come from such a miniscule thing. A tsunami in the making.

A quiet whoosh accompanies the intensifying sweet smell of my chosen accelerant and then the heat of the slow building flame. It reaches for the accelerant along the ground, the wind helping it along as it devours like the greedy pure soul it is, slithering along the ground following the path I mapped out for it. Pure. Competent. Obedient.

I take one last look at the picture with four smiling faces. Four kids who thought they had the world by the balls. They were the exception. They would be different from all the horror stories. Just four more kids that found out they were wrong. They knew nothing of how cruel this world could be. Nothing ever changes.

There are no exceptions in this world. Not in this neighborhood, at least.

I press my lips to the slippery photo paper already heated by the air around me.

I say my final goodbyes.

“For you,” I drop the photo into the flickering flames in front of me. The explosion of heat from the nearby building barely touches me. “I’ll see them burn.” My insides match the heat but, in this moment, I am numb.

The smiling faces turn grotesque, sneering then melting completely away.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

For a single brief second, soil falling on a coffin dominates my vision and I shake the image away. Not today.

I turn my gaze to the building and wish it could melt just the same, but things built with that kind of workmanship take time. I know a thing or two about time and how much patience it takes to make things right.

“My boys, I love you.” I had thought about carving their names into a wall of the building but I wouldn’t disgrace them that way. Their names deserve a better place and I vowed to give it to them.

I pull my hood up and turn away from the inferno. The roar of the sirens so far away but in eight minutes, they would be in my path. Not enough time to save the building, not with what I’ve done, but they will try because fires spread and the mayor wouldn’t want our trash to spill into his precious streets on the east side.

His deal was quite clear about that.

For Darius and Marco. For JJ and Serenity. After years of work, I was finally ready to rip it all down, brick by fucking disease riddled brick. I will watch it crumble and it will be my hand that caused it. I’ll make sure he knows it.

I may not be the beginning but I will be its end.

Sam Winchester sat in the library of the Men of Letters bunker going through his emails and checking all the alerts that came in overnight. He brought his coffee mug to his lips as he cleared another false alert and questioned his search parameters. He tipped the mug all the way back but still nothing. He looked into it with a sigh and glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen trying to remember if there had been any coffee left. Dean didn’t always refill the pot but he might have skipped that step this time too.

He rubbed his face, deleted the junk email that somehow got through his damn filters and growled. Today was not going to go his way.

The next email filled the screen, an APB with the picture of a scowling teenaged girl suspected of Arson. “What the hell..?”

Sam leaned forward, placing the mug on the table and skimmed the bulletin. He looked at the subject of the email, thought you might want to see this. It was from a Sheriff they had worked with on a case years ago. But why send him this? It didn’t look like it had anything to do with their kind of work.

Sam frowned and clicked on the connected file. Her arrest record was impressive for a twenty-year-old. He scanned the charges, everything from loitering to resisting arrest to a handful of different drug and assault charges.

He looked at the picture again, not really the face of an addict. There was something familiar about her but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He skimmed the information again and his gaze froze on the guardians listed.

Mother and stepfather deceased- apparent animal attack.

A list of old foster home placements and a final note by the last one. She fled at sixteen.

DNA link: Dean Winchester. Deceased. There was an attachment with his arrest record.

“Holy shit.”

“What?” Dean strolled into the room with a coffee mug in hand, his robe tied around his waist, his slippers scuffing across the floor.

Sam turned wide eyes on his brother, opened his mouth, and closed it. He swallowed then looked back at the screen, scrolled up to the top, and turned the screen toward him.

Dean walked over and leaned down scanning the email. “Damn, girl.” He scrolled down, clicked on the link and whistled. “Kid’s been busy. So, what’s with the arson charge? Changeling? Wendigo?”

Sam shook his head and clicked back to the girl’s information, scrolled until the guardian portion was in the middle of the screen. Then he took the coffee mug from his brother and waved at the screen.

Dean frowned at his mug Sam placed on the table before turning his focus back to the screen. He scanned the info, leaned closer, and then jumped back. “What the fuck is that?”

Sam’s brows rose as he stared at his brother, “what does it look like?”

“Like bullshit, that’s what!” He looked back at the screen, “who the hell does DNA tests for a fucking APB.”

“Well, considering her rap sheet, I’d say it was done before and put on her record for a reason. Maybe the cops really wanted a reason to put her behind bars.”

“Looks like they never succeeded. Most of the big offenses didn’t stick.” He smirked at that.

“Spoken like a proud parent.”

“Shut up! This is obviously some kind of set up.”

Sam quirked a brow, “for who? You think you’re being set up?”

“No, this kid obviously is. Cops are probably pissed because the kid is smart and got out of everything they tried to put her away for.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, “yeah. Her parents were killed and she was shoved into the foster system, that she apparently didn’t agree with, and now after years of building a rap sheet, the cops are trying to pin a pretty big arson on her.”

“What the hell are you looking at me for?”

“I don’t know. Guess I’m trying to decide whether to say I told you so or not.”

Dean stabbed a finger at his brother, “I am always careful.”

Sam raised his brow, “hmm… what was that Amazon kid then?”

Dean frowned, “extenuating circumstances.” His hand fell to his side and his gaze veered back to the computer.

Sam shook his head, “condoms don’t always work, Dean.”

“What are you saying? That I should drive there and help this kid who probably doesn’t even know who I am? You really think that kid is gonna give a shit that I was her sperm donor?”

Sam scrolled up to the picture, a mug shot probably a couple years old and understood what it was he couldn’t pinpoint before. “I think she deserves someone to give a shit about her. Whether you like it or not, she’s a Winchester.”

Dean clenched his jaw and looked back at the screen. She had a few of his features and looked a little too much like Mary for him to completely turn away and ignore the DNA as false.

“Fuck!” He snatched his coffee from the table before Sam could drink it and spun away, stalking back the way he came.

“Where are you…”

“Taking a shower and then prepping for a drive. If you’re coming, take a damn shower, you smell like a wendigo.”

Part Two- With a wink and a smile.

#spn fanfiction #dean x unknown daughter #spn x reader #spn fanfic #dean winchester fan fiction #sam winchester fanfiction #spn badass reader #with the strike of a match #any errors are my own

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fanfic-from-a-67-impala · 6 years ago

Text

I’m a Believer

Fulfilling a square for @spnonewordbingo: BRUNCH

Characters: Charlie x questioning lesbian!reader, Sam, Dean

Word Count: 2466

Summary: You were never one for romance, and the idea of love seemed as out of reach as ever. You figured maybe it happens for some people and not others.

But then you saw her face...

Warnings: teensy bit of angst at the beginning

A/N: I’ve been sitting on this idea for a while. I swear I’m getting to requests soon.

Listen to the Monkees song here.

The bunker door opens and closes, followed by Dean’s heavy, uneven steps clanging down the stairs. He reaches the library, where you and Sam lounge in the chairs.

You glance up from your book. “You’re home early.”

“Finished early,” Dean replies, flopping into one of the chairs.

He left for a bar only a few hours earlier to blow off some steam, which usually involves him stumbling through the door in the wee hours, the smell of perfume still lingering on his skin.

“No luck?” Sam asks.

“No, no—plenty of luck,” Dean smirks. “I thought I hit record time last Valentine’s day, but my God, this girl—”

“Okay, thanks, man. Don’t need to hear any more,” you interrupt.

“Sure you do,” Dean says. “Isn’t the deal that you live vicariously through me?”

You shake your head. “What makes you think I have to?”

“Oh, even Sam sees more action than you.”

“Dude, come on,” Sam warns.

Dean holds up a hand. “All I’m saying is—how long have we been riding together?”

“Too long,” you mutter.

He rolls his eyes. “Well, in all our ten years, give or take, not once have you, you know, spent the night out.”

You set your book on the table and cross your arms over your chest, raising an eyebrow.

“I’d offer to help, but—”

“But you know I’d knock you on your ass before you could get out the words ‘last night on earth,’” you finish for him.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “And not in the sexy way.”

You sigh. “I guess it’s just nice to have some kind of connection before I end up in bed with a guy, you know? And, so far, I… haven’t.”

“Sure,” Sam says. “But you don’t want to find someone you do connect with? Dean and I both have at one point or another.”

“I used to,” you shrug. “But I don’t know. I’m starting to think it’s never gonna happen for me.”

Dean scoffs. “What, are you kidding? You could have any guy—”

“You know what?” you cut him off. “How did this become about me?”

“You’re right. It’s none of our business,” Sam concedes.

He turns to Dean. “Anyway, it’s a good thing you’re back early. I just got an email from Charlie. We’re meeting her for brunch tomorrow.”

“Brunch?” you question.

“Yeah,” Sam shrugs. “Right, I forgot you’ve never met her. Charlie’s a hunter friend of ours.”

You furrow your brows in confusion. “What kind of hunter eats brunch?”

Dean chuckles. “She’s got her quirks, that’s for sure,” he admits. “But you’ll love her.”

“Good enough for me,” you nod. “What time are we leaving?”

A bell dings above your head as you follow the boys through the doorway of a cafe in town. The air is tinged with the bite of roasting coffee and something buttery.

A waving hand catches your eye from across the room. The woman it belongs to waves and smiles in your direction.

Definitely not Charlie, you think. You can’t possibly be meeting someone who looks like she belongs on the cover of a magazine.

Still, the boys head in her direction.

Following them, you smooth out your clothes, suddenly regretting your casual choices this morning.

She slides out of the booth and jumps into Sam’s outstretched arms.

“What’s up, bitches?” she says when he releases her.

Dean scoops her up. “Hey, kiddo.”

She pulls away and smiles up at him. She has a beautiful smile, really. It lights up her vibrant green eyes. Long red curls frame her face, and light freckles pepper her cheeks and nose.

You feel your heartbeat start to pound when her curious green eyes land on you.

“(Y/N), this is Charlie,” Sam introduces. “Charlie, (Y/N).”

“So, you’re the famous (Y/N),” she says.

Heat rises to your cheeks. “I don’t know about ‘famous.’”

“Are you kidding?” she says. “These guys told me all about you. Man, I would’ve killed to be there when they first discovered the angels.”

“Well, I would’ve killed to be the one who defeated the leviathans.”

She ushers the three of you into the booth where she was sitting.

“So, Charlie,” Sam says, “what have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know. Hacking big bads, burning bones—the uszh,” she answers. “I was in Missouri on a ghost hunt, decided I’d come by and visit.”

The waiter none of you noticed rounding the corner gives Charlie a disturbed look.

“Uh… what can I get you?” he asks.

Once you’ve all ordered, Dean looks around the restaurant. “Nice place. Very hipster.”

“I know, right?” Charlie says. “I found it online. It got four and a half stars on Yelp.”

“Sorry, ‘Yelp’?” Dean questions.

Sam clears his throat. “It’s a site where people—”

“I know what it is.” Dean turns to Charlie. “I just didn’t peg you as a Yelp kind of girl.”

“Don’t judge me. It’s helpful,” she retorts.

“Sure would’ve been helpful a few weeks ago,” you mutter.

Dean groans. “Oh, don’t remind me.”

“Why? What happened a few weeks ago?” Charlie leans forward in her seat, interested.

You chuckle. “So, we roll into this small, middle-of-nowhere town. It’s before the crack of dawn. It had been a while since the last food break, and there’s one place with its lights on in town, so this one—” you point an accusatory finger at Dean— “drags us there. We take one look at the menu. Turns out it’s a vegan place.”

Charlie laughs and turns to Dean next to her. “You, Dean Winchester, actually stepped foot in a vegan restaurant.”

“Okay, in my defense, we’d been on the road for twelve hours.” He shakes his head. “I wish we’d never taken that case.”

Sam scoffs. “Right. You’d have let those people die so you could have meat.”

“Damn straight.”

You and Sam continue the story while Dean frowns at the memory, pausing only for a satisfied sigh at his burger when the food arrives.

Well into the meal, while Sam is recounting new information he found in the Men of Letters’ archives, your foot brushes against someone else’s. You glance across the table at Charlie, who darts her eyes downward when you meet them, withdrawing her foot.

“All right, I’m going to go get this settled,” Sam says, holding up the check as he slides out of the booth.

“And I’m going to hit the restrooms,” Dean adds before heading to the corner of the restaurant.

You take a sip of cold coffee while Charlie wraps her hands around her glass.

“So,” she says, “this was fun, right?”

“Yeah, it was nice,” you say. “Thanks for letting me tag along. I’ve never done brunch before.”

She bites her lip and leans her hands on the table. “Well, how’s about we have a real meal? Maybe dinner? Tonight?”

You almost choke on your coffee in surprise. You stare at her, convinced you must have heard her wrong.

“Who am I kidding?” she says. “Of course you have plans tonight.”

You shake your head, almost too quickly. “Free as a bird.”

A wide smile grows on her face. “Cool,” she says. “There’s a place across town—Giovanna’s. Say seven?”

You hesitate a moment. You should tell her that you have no intention of getting involved with her, that you don’t even like women.

But don’t you? Doesn’t the overwhelming feeling of wanting to see her again as soon as possible mean there’s something there?

“Sounds great,” you nod.

You walk through the glass doors of the restaurant at thirty seconds past seven.

After brunch, you went back to the bunker and spent an hour deciding what to wear. You’d never cared much for the way you looked before, but tonight, you suspected, was special. You wanted Charlie to see you at your best, something you’ve never wanted of anyone.

You shouted to the boys that you were going to run some errands, and you slipped out, drove into town, and waited in your car a block away from the restaurant until seven o’clock rolled around.

You freeze in the doorway. What were you thinking showing up here alone? By “we,” she obviously meant you and the boys. How stupid will you look when you waltz in by yourself expecting a date when she’s expecting a group dinner?

“Hi,” the hostess greets from behind her stand.

The restaurant smells like rich bread and wine, not even a hint of the greasy odor you’ve become so familiar with at your regular diners. The tables are lined with tablecloths, each set with utensils, wine glasses, and a small flickering candle.

“I’m meeting someone,” you tell the hostess.

“What’s the name?” she asks.

“Uh, Bradbury, I think.”

Across the room, you spot Charlie at a table. She sits at a table for two so that her side faces you. She wears a maroon-colored dress that complements her hair, which she pulled up into a bun.

You barely pull your eyes away to tell the hostess, “I found her.”

Charlie smiles when she glances up at you.

“Hey,” she greets, standing up to give you a hug. “Wow, you look great.”

“Thanks. You look really nice, too,” you say as the two of you settle into your seats.

You stumble over your words at first, but the longer you talk with Charlie, the more relaxed you feel, and conversation flows easily.

She tells you she’s from Kansas and bounced from places like Chicago, where she met the boys, to Michigan. She tries to downplay her computer skills as nothing important, but the enthusiasm in her voice tells you that she’s exceptional at what she does.

You tell her about your hunter’s childhood, growing up on the road, living by motels and dusty backroads like any hunter does. You exchange stories of life on the run—whether it’s from monsters or law enforcement doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Halfway through the entree, your phone buzzes, the screen lighting with Sam’s name.

You look up at Charlie with a wince. “I’m sorry. I should probably take this. The boys get worried.”

“It’s no problem,” she waves you off. “You do what you gotta do.”

You head outside the restaurant and press the button.

“Hey,” you answer.

“(Y/N),” Sam greets. “Just checking in. You okay?”

“I’m fine, Sam. Just got caught up in something.”

He pauses, listening. “What kind of something?”

“Nothing,” you assure him, listening to the gears turning in his mind. “I’m just in town, nothing funky about it. Promise.”

“All right,” he huffs. “Well, as long as you’re in town, do you mind picking up some lighter fluid? We’re running low.”

You let the line go silent for a moment as you construct some story that would offer a reason why you won’t be coming home with lighter fluid, or any supplies, really.

“(Y/N)?” he asks before you think of something.

“I can’t do that,” you spit out.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of… on a… a date?”

“You’re on a what?”

“What?” Dean’s muffled voice sounds through the speaker.

“She’s on a date,” Sam says. “You’re on a date?”

You sigh. “Yes, and you two are interrupting it.”

“Wait a second,” Dean says. “Who? Where? Wh—”

“Date now, details later,” you insist.

“All right, all right,” Sam says. “I guess we won’t wait up?”

“Yeah, don’t,” you say. “Good night, boys.”

You switch off your phone and dart back to your table, where Charlie waits patiently.

“All good?” she asks.

You nod. “All good.”

Again, you slip into a natural back-and-forth of light anecdotes and shy advances.

A lull settles between you over a shared dessert, and you decide to break the silence.

“You know, I’ve, um—” you pause to lick your spoon— “I’ve never done this before.”

“Had a chocolate souffle?” she suggests. “That’s a crying shame.”

“Well, that, too,” you shrug. “But I meant I’ve never done this before.” You gesture between the two of you. “The date thing. With a woman.”

Realization fills her features as she smacks her lips lightly and places her spoon on the plate.

“Well…” she drawls. “What did you think?”

As you play the night through in your mind, storing some moments to remember on a rainy day, you can’t help the smile that crosses over your face.

“Five stars.”

The next morning, the bunker halls are cold and quiet, but you hear the boys’ voices as you round the corner of the kitchen.

Their chattering ceases as their expectant eyes land on you.

“So?” Dean says after you say nothing.

“‘So’?” you repeat, pouring a cup of coffee.

He rolls his eyes. “So, how ‘bout that Chiefs game?”

“How was your date?” Sam interjects.

You take a sip of your coffee and turn to them. “It was good.”

Dean throws his hands in the air while Sam stares at you with wide eyes.

“It was… better than good?” You bite your lip and sigh. “It was great, and it was magical, and I think I’m in love. Is that what you want to hear?”

Sam looks to his brother, then you. “That’s great, (Y/N), but are we ever going to meet the guy?”

You turn your attention down to your coffee. “Well…”

“We already know him, don’t we?” Dean says. “God, tell me it’s not Garth.”

“What? No—”

“It’s Garth, isn’t it?” he says. “I swear, that guy keeps making the eyes at you.”

Sam furrows his brow. “‘The eyes’? That’s not even a thing.”

“It’s a thing. You just don’t—”

“It’s not Garth!” you shout.

Dean’s shoulders relax as he huffs out a sigh.

“Then, who…” Sam trails off as his eyes drift to your left.

Charlie stands in the doorway, wrapped in a grey Men of Letter’s robe.

“Morning,” she says, stepping toward you.

You smile at her, frustration at the boys melting away. “Good morning.”

She wraps an arm securely around your waist before turning her head to the boys.

“What’s up, bitches?”

They stare at you for a minute, mouths gaping.

“Charlie?” Sam finally manages. “Charlie’s your guy?”

“Hey, I am a lady,” she remarks. “A queen in some realms.”

He nods. “Of course.”

“We just didn’t think you…” Dean gestures to you.

“Oh, me neither,” you admit, draping an arm over Charlie’s shoulders. “But it feels right, you know?”

Even with sleepy eyes and unbrushed hair, she flashes you a smile that makes your heart flutter. As if to return the sentiment, she tilts her head up to peck your lips.

“Now,” she says, “about that ‘I think I’m in love’…”

Tags: @ellie-andthemachine @gaybrieljax @electraphyng @emerald-watermelon-199 @mersuperwholocked-lowlife

#Supernatural #Supernatural x reader #Spn x reader #Supernatural oneshot #Spn oneshot #Spn #Charlie Bradbury #Charlie Bradbury x reader #Charlie x reader #Charlie Bradbury oneshot #Charlie oneshot #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #oneshot #crimson and clover #wlw reader #writing is hard #fluff

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thedosianexplorer · 7 years ago

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Immortals, Long Cons, and the Building Fury of the Art History Department

I’ve mentioned my favorite art history professor to @systlin a few times, but there’s one story of him that stays with me. So for you, Plant Aunt, I’ve crafted a tale of one immortal spitefully making sure another immortal finally gets his:

The running joke among David’s students is that our beloved professor is clearly an immortal. How else could we explain his small office crammed with illuminated manuscripts, Scythian and Mongolian bows, 3rd cent. Roman gladii, near-Eastern rugs and ancient swords? The way he sighed wistfully in class and told us how beautiful the Parthenon was when it was new and, “not just a damn tourist attraction”? It wasn’t uncommon for us to see him hefting a sword over his shoulder, leather trench coat flapping in the wind, flipping off the head of security who really should have stopped trying by now.

It was also a running joke that our favorite immortal just did not get technology. I worked at our Help Desk for all four years of college, and David would always request one of his students to come and fix his computer. “This computer isn’t fast enough,” he told me once, polishing an enameled chalice. Google maps was still loading on the page, trying to parse the coordinates he entered. It was likely looking ten centuries too late. “It needs more of that RAM. Really. I could be soaring over ancient Rome like a bird!”

After repeat requests, he got a brand-new Macbook Pro, which he promptly abandoned for his antique slide projector.

“I just don’t get the new technology,” he shrugged. “You can’t get the feel of things.”

That was the only sentiment he shared with his nemesis.

There was another David in the art history department, older than ours, and he hated “that David” with a passion. We assumed at some point, centuries ago, he’d lost to our David in battle (probably Hadrian’s Wall) and just never got over it. David B (not to be confused with our David, David C) studied the same periods of history as David C, but to him all great civilization had stopped with the Romans and our David was a heathen for believing otherwise. (Told you, it had to have been at Hadrian’s Wall). I never studied with him, not after a girl in my class told me that he’d grabbed her arm and pushed her hand down for “interrupting him with questions”. David B was not to be questioned, just listened to, and any other professor who taught differently just wasn’t doing their job properly.

The only hallowed ground where the Davids met in truce was the slide library. Our college kept a meticulous record of every slide, sorted by topic, but only the Davids ever used them. One of my other jobs was scanning these slides, reconstructing the faded image in photoshop, and uploading them to online image database that the rest of the department used. It wasn’t uncommon for either David to check out all the slides the other might need, or to let them linger in their offices longer than necessary, but they’d scoff if you told them that they could just use the same image online.

That changed just before senior year: the deans decided that the slide library was obsolete. Our college was growing, and the art building could finally get the extra classroom space they had requested for years.

The Davids were distraught. Well, David B was distraught. David C was enraged. I was his only student in the slide library, so he’d come to me and complain. Did I know that the college was throwing out the slides at the end of the year?! They weren’t being stored! They were history! He needed those! Yes, yes, of course they’re on that “LUNA database thing” but that’s not the same. As a concession, my boss sent an email to the art history department telling them that the slides were free to any of them at the end of classes, but yes, they were being thrown out. David C left with armfuls of them, and I expected to see them again for our class together senior year. He did have his own projector, after all, and he did hate our database with a burning passion.

Senior year, David C was the lone David of the art history department. Apparently David B had thrown a fit over the loss of the slide library, cursed out the dean of students, and that (combined with every other previously unheard complaint by former students) was the last straw. He was “encouraged to retire”, my boss told me, and that was that.

David C now taught in the new classroom where the slide library once stood. I took the seat next to him, and watched in disbelief as he fired up his Macbook Pro, no slide projector in sight.

It went on like this for weeks, no slides to be found. He still brought in his armor, and his weapons, and his lyres, but I never saw the projector again. Then one day, he asked me to carry the armful of swords with him up the freight elevator to his office.

“I’m getting too old to carry them,” he said, unloading thirty pounds of steel into my hands, hefting a spangenhelm in one hand. “C’mon.”

As always, he asked about my work, my research, my friends. Then, once we were inside the elevator, he turned to me.

“You know how they tore down the slide library?”

I thought of how often David stormed into my office, ranting about how out of touch the deans were, how no one cared about his department, and fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Yeah, you were really upset about it.” I said, as diplomatically as possible.

“Hm, I was.” A pause. “I told them to do it.”

What. “What?!”

“I had a student who studied with the other David years ago, before you came here.” His tone was darker, urgent, and I hugged the swords closer to my chest as he went on.

“She was a brilliant kid, loved the work, and she studied with us both her senior year. When he found out she was one of my students, he failed her. She didn’t have enough credits to graduate. Because she took my side.” His knuckles were white, helmet steel pinched tight in his hand. “I got the school to let her take a summer class with me, gave her an A for going to museums, and she still got to go to grad school.”

Graduation. Grad school. That motherfucker was willing to ruin a woman’s career because his ego couldn’t take her disagreeing with him. David must have seen my pale-faced rage, because he went on.

“That’s when I started mentioning to the dean that we needed a new classroom in the art building. I told the board that we needed to digitize to stay with the times. It took a while to learn the database, but it’s not that hard.”

I thought of the armfuls of slides David loaded into his car last spring. All the slides the other David would need. The Macbook Pro he coaxed from the IT Department. A replacement for his ancient computer, one that could run LUNA without crashing.

David sighed. “I still love the slides. I miss it. But I can adapt, and I knew David couldn’t. It was the only way to get rid of him. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.”

And that was that. The elevator doors opened, and David scooped the swords out of my arms like so much cardboard before he stepped out. Normally I towered over David, but he stood the tallest I’d ever seen him, and looked me right in the eye.

“Don’t fuck with my kids.”

#Storytelling #Real talk we would all march into battle behind David #He would lead us to (spiteful) victory #Man I haven't written in forever this felt pretty great

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melanie-writes-supernatural · 7 years ago

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Professor Winchester (8)

A/N: How fitting that this part is today. I was up all night shivering because I had a fever, then sweating once it broke. I think I might have gotten two hours of sleep. How strange that this part I wrote weeks ago is the one that lands on today.

Pairing: Professor!Sam Winchester X Reader

Warnings: Skipping class (is that a warning? I’m not sure so I’m including it), Sam being a sweet and caring professor.

Word Count: 1320

Series Masterlist

My Masterlist

Want Dean Instead?

WEEK 8: THE EMAILS

You feel like shit, and it’s all you can do to push through your criminology class without passing out.

You still have Sam’s class after this, but you don’t think you can make it.

You’ve never once skipped a class; you’ve always forced yourself to go anyways so that you don’t miss the material.

You’ve also never felt this shitty before.

You look down the hall to where his class would be, and you stare at it for four or five seconds.

Fuck it.

You collect your bag and head for your car, deciding to go home and snuggle with Snowball and choke down some medicine.

And just your luck, you pass Sam in the hallway as you’re ditching his class.

“[Y/N], where are you going?” he asks, his face contorted into concern once he sees your face.

You’re sure your hair is a mess, and your nose is red because it’s been running nonstop, and you’re pretty sure your eyes are swollen from waking up so much last night from coughing.

“I’m sick,” you tell him. It’s best to be honest. “I’m going home, I think I almost passed out in my last class.”

“Are you okay? Do you need to go to the doctor?” he reaches out unconsciously and presses his hand to your forehead.

You’d say something about the gesture out in public if his hand wasn’t so cool on your face.

“I think you have a fever,” he says, looking at you.

“I’ll be okay,” you try to smile at him, but start coughing instead. “I’m just gonna go home, take some meds, and crash.”

“I’ll email you the notes from today,” he tells you, and you nod as he pulls away. “Be careful going home, [Y/N].”

“I will,” you agree. “Thanks, Sam.”

He doesn’t even smile as you use his name, the worry doesn’t leave his face.

You just walk to your car, feeling just a tiny bit better at how he seemed to care so much.

You drive the five minute ride back home and unlock your apartment door before tossing your things onto the couch.

A deep meow greets you, and you rub your hand over her head as you lock the door behind you.

Snowball meows again, and you check her food bowl.

“You have food, why are you yelling at me?” you ask her, collecting her into your arms as you carried her to your room. You set her down on your bed and she looks up at you as you chug a quick dosage of NyQuil and then crawl under your covers.

You pull her close, hugging her to your chest as you closed your eyes. She tries to get away, but you hold her hostage for a few more seconds before releasing her.

“I’m sick, why won’t you love me?” you call as she hops off your bed, and you pout as you pull the covers up over your shoulders.

You don’t recall falling asleep, but you wake up feeling slightly better than you did before.

You feel well enough to feed your cat her dinner and make yourself some soup before crawling back into bed. You check your phone and find an email from Sam.

[Y/N],

I hope you’re feeling a little better. I’ve attached the notes from today’s lesson and an audio recording file.

Make sure to drink plenty of water and eat something. Don’t overwork yourself. Your health comes first.

Sam Winchester Pre-Law Department, Room 102

You smile at his email, then send him a reply.

Professor Sam,

Thank you for the notes, I’ll try to look them over before the next lecture. I appreciate how accommodating you are for my cold.

I’ll see you next class.

[Y/N] [L/N]

You take a drink of water from the bottle on the table by your bed, and your phone pings it’s email sound.

You check your email, and sure enough there’s one from Sam again, this time on his personal email, not his school one.

[Y/N],

I’ll help however I can. Don’t worry about making it to my next class if you’re still sick.

Drink lots of water to stay hydrated!

Sam

He’s worried about you, and a part of you tells you that he’s taking much more of an interest than a professor should.

The other part of you doesn’t care. It rejoices in the fact that he does have an interest. It agrees with Tess about how you should put yourself out there.

It’s the part that supplies all those wonderful images of Sam while the first part is repeating your mantra.

You smile at your phone and type a message.

Sam,

I can’t afford to miss two classes, your tests are hard :P

I am staying hydrated! I’m snuggled in bed and I just had soup for dinner too.

[Y/N]

You bite your lip and wait for his reply, wondering if he’s still online.

You can imagine him sitting at his desk, grading papers with his computer on his emails, waiting for yours to come back through. Or maybe he’s sending emails off his phone, you’re not sure.

Another one pings through.

[Y/N],

As long as you study you’ll do fine on my tests. You always do. :P

Good, you need to let your body relax. Is your cat snuggled up with you?

Sam

You can’t help the smile on your face. Why are a few emails making you so happy?

God, are you that in love with him?

Sam, <— This takes forever to type

Your tests still suck.

No, Snowball is avoiding me. She hates me. :(

[Y/N]<—This also takes forever to type

You send it and turn to your back, looking up at the ceiling.

God, if you could just have him, you’d do so in a heartbeat. You’d think that in eight weeks you’d have been able to talk yourself out of your feeling for him, but they’ve just leeched inside of you deeper and deeper every day.

Your phone pings.

[Y/N]<—You don’t have to type it every time if it’s so annoying

Glad to hear you like them so much.

Snowball was old and cranky when I would visit the shelter. She probably doesn’t hate you.

Sam<—But you have to put my name ‘cause I like it

The last line makes your heart jump in your throat.

He likes it.

He likes it. He likes when you say his name.

Okay, calm down. I’m sure most people like to be called by their name instead of Professor.

You write out another reply, smiling.

Sam, <—Happy? ;)

Probably is a strong word. It leaves room for doubt, which is why I think that she probably hates me.

You hit send and feel butterflies in your stomach. Does this count as flirting? You want to ask Tess, but she’ll read way too far into it.

Your phone pings again.

[Y/N],

I think you’re probably wrong.

I have a meeting to go to in a few minutes. I just wanted to check on you before I go.

Sam<—Very happy. ;)

He sent a winky face back!

You fist pump the air, then tuck into your covers.

Sam,

I’m okay, go to your meeting. I’m going to go back to sleep and try to sleep this thing off.

Good night :)

A reply comes nearly instantly.

[Y/N],

Sleep well. :)

Sam

You set your phone down after checking the email and stare at nothingness for a moment.

You press your hands above your chest and feel the racing there, and you sigh happily.

Maybe... Maybe Tess was right. Maybe you should see if something happens.

He obviously liked you back.

What’s the worst that could happen? He turns you down? Cool, then you finish his class and never see him again. He decides to do something about it? Score on your part.

It’s a win-win situation.

Why don’t you listen to Tess more often?

Tell me what you thought!

Forevers: @dslocum89 @thesupernaturalmoose1967 @queencflair @sisterwinchesterwriter @timidnefelibata @ria132love

Series Tags: @reidreader @zombiewerewolfqueen @greieba @stevieboyharrington @smutty-dcs

If you want to be added to a tag list, shoot me a message or drop a comment below!

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magickmoons · 7 years ago

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famous!Dean part 2

continuation of this fic -- this is what’s going on with Cas that evening.

Cas entered the lecture hall with his eyes glued to the journal article opened precariously on top of his stack of class materials. He wore the title of absent-minded professor proudly, and students and faculty who frequented the building generally knew to give him a wide berth. He was a few steps into the room before he realized that something felt different. Placing his papers carefully on the desk, he looked up to find nearly every seat filled. Not that he didn't find his subject fascinating, but even if everyone registered for this section showed up, they still wouldn't fill more than half the hall.

He blinked at the expectant faces and thought about asking what was going on, but then decided it was probably some bizarre campus game he wouldn't understand -- like that zombie war last spring.

So instead, he launched immediately into his lecture. He paced as he spoke, watching his audience. It was easy enough to differentiate who was there for the material vs. those who had just shown up, although a fair amount of his students seemed unusually distracted as well.

As he came to the end of his planned remarks, he leaned against the edge of his desk.

"Any questions?"

Dozens of hands shot up eagerly. Okay, something really weird is going on today.

"Do you really know Dean Winchester?"

Castiel tried to ignore the crushing feeling in his chest that still appeared when someone mentioned that name -- even after all these years.

"I ... yes, I did; but I meant questions about the material."

All the hands went down.

What the hell? Why is this coming up now? Has something happened to Dean?

"What's he like?" someone called out from the rear of the hall, when no one asked on topic.

"It was a long time ago," he said stiffly. Too long, or not long enough, Cas was never sure. "I'm sure anything I could tell you would no longer be relevant."

"You've changed, Dean."

"You bet your ass I changed. I'm finally free. And you're the same small town kid with a stick up your ass."

Cas swallowed roughly. "Perhaps it's best to end here today."

A chorus of groans met his pronouncement.

"For those of you actually in this class, please read the next two chapters in your text by our next meeting. Office hours as normal this week -- only for course-related discussions." He kept his eyes fixed on his hands as he stacked up his notes and fled the room chased by the memory of sparkling green eyes and a beautiful smile turned cold and mocking.

Back in the quiet, controlled chaos that was his office, he ran through some breathing exercises to calm himself. No meditation he'd ever tried had managed to completely erase the memories of Dean -- the good or the bad -- but he'd found that it was helpful when he felt overwhelmed.

Somewhat calmer, he decided to be responsible and check his email before allowing himself to do an internet search on Dean. It had taken a long time before he'd finally managed to stop googling Dean's name every day; he wasn't going to change that now. Even if something had happened, it couldn't have any possible impact on him. Their lives had been separate for nearly 15 years.

As he read email, the phone rang. He answered absently.

"This is Bela Talbot with the Enquirer. I have some questions for Dr. Castiel Novak."

With half his attention still on his email, he suddenly realized that he'd only caught about a couple words of what his caller had said.

"I'm sorry. What is your inquiry?"

A suggestively feminine laugh answered him. "About Dean Winchester, Dr. Novak. I understand you two were involved."

Dean again. "I'm afraid I can't give you any useful information. I haven't spoken with Dean for years."

"Oh, that's fine. This is background for a story. For instance, was Dean faithful to you?"

Cas froze. How did she know? "What? I ... " What did she know? Abandoning his email, he quickly pulled up a browser window and typed Dean's name into the search bar.

"I mean," she continued as if musing to herself, "an affair with a married man doesn't look very good. I'm trying to get a feel for Dean's character."

"Dean wouldn't ... I mean, that is... " Cas trailed off, unable to finish his thought. Certainly the Dean had gone to high school with, fallen in love with would never have engaged in an adulterous relationship -- especially not after seeing how his father's affair had impacted two families -- but then he'd moved to California to pursue his acting dream. Cas had limited experience with CaliforniaDean, and what little he did have did nothing to suggest that Dean put the same emphasis on fidelity that he once had.

"Hmmm," Bela purred. "Sounds like you might have some useful information after all. I can fly out there tonight and meet with you first thing tomorrow morning."

"What? No, I --" He stared at the search results on the screen. Most were articles about Dean's apparently recent public admission of his bisexuality, but several implied, or outright stated, that Dean was having an affair with Benny Lafitte.

"It's no problem, Dr. Novak. Of course, you would be compensated for your time. And then you can tell me all about what Dean did to you that has you so spun about."

Fuck. Oh fuck. She said she was a reporter, didn't she?

"I would like this to be off the record." That was something he didn't think he'd ever say in his life.

"Certainly, Dr. Novak. Everything from this point on is off the record."

His heart sank. "No, I ... "

"Thank you for your time."

He put the phone down and clicked into one of the articles alleging that Benny Lafitte was cheating on his wife. He scanned it quickly. There was lots of crap about how everyone knew that the happily married image Benny presented was faked, how he'd been too wild in his youth to have truly settled down. A couple of screens down was a photo of Dean and Benny at a pool: Dean was leaning back against Benny's chest as they lounged on a small couch, and he had tilted his head back to meet Benny's lips in a gentle kiss.

Cas chuckled sadly when he realized that the timing of the photo was all wrong for the article's premise. One look at Dean's face told him that it had been taken only a year or two after that night -- well before the article indicated that Benny had met his wife. He stared at the photo; Dean looked so calm and content and healthy, so different from the last time they had met. Obviously, he had cleaned up his act by the time this photo had been taken. Cas had always suspected that Dean hadn't continued down that path of self-destruction -- he'd never heard any reports of arrests or other troubles -- but it was good to see that he had found some measure of peace, even if it made Cas's heart ache that he had not been the one to provide it.

"So, is this just another crazy campus rumor, or did you really date the Dean Winchester and just never saw fit to mention it to your bestest bud."

Cas jumped when Gabriel's voice cut through his musings. He looked up to see his friend leaning against the door jamb, eyebrows raised.

"It was a long time ago." Cas started shutting down his computer. "And it ended ... badly. I prefer not to think about it."

The phone rang, and Castiel stared at it apprehensively. It rang again.

"Aren't you going to answer it?"

"I'm afraid it will be that Bela woman again." He pushed the button to send his calls to voicemail and the ringing stopped. With a frown, he sorted through his notebooks, trying to remember what he had wanted to take home for the night.

"Bela who?"

"Um ... Talbot, I think she said. A reporter of some sort."

Gabriel slid off the wall to stand up straight. "Wait a minute. Bela Talbot called you? About the Winchester thing?" Gabriel shook his head, chuckling. "And you have no idea who she is, do you?"

Cas zipped up his bag. "No, I don't. Just that she wanted to talk about Dean. And Me. Dean and me."

"I bet. She is the queen of salacious gossip columns. She will dig up and air anyone's dirty laundry provided the money's right. And you talked to her?"

"I did, but I can't remember if I said anything ... 'salacious.'" An unsettled feeling came over him as he listened to Gabriel's description of the reporter.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough." Gabriel pulled out phone, quickly pulling up an article. He scrolled through and sighed.

"Yep. Updated just a few minutes ago." He mumbled through the first couple of paragraphs -- just clear enough that Cas knew she was taking the approach that Benny was cheating on his wife with Dean -- before speaking clearly.

“Castiel Novak was particularly cagey when speaking of his ill-fated relationship with the movie star. This reporter wonders whether the Winchester camp has paid him off to stay quiet.”

"See there, Cassie?" Gabriel easily fell into stride with Cas as he walked through the building. "Doesn't matter if you said anything or not."

"But that's ... " Cas sputtered. "How can she write that?"

"Well, if you'd occasionally read something other than musty old bibles, you'd realize this is how the world works now."

As they exited the building, several reporters approached, much to Castiel's surprise and Gabriel's quickly fading amusement.

"Just keep your mouth shut for now," he whispered to Cas before snapping "No comment," to the steady stream of questions as they walked toward the parking lot, until:

"Do you think Dean made a mistake getting involved with Benny Lafitte?"

Gabriel huffed and stopped walking. "Hang on a sec, Cas. This is too good to pass up." He turned to face the reporters. Holding his hands up to get their attention off Cas, he said loudly, "You guys want to know the biggest mistake Dean Winchester ever made?"

Everyone fell silent, waiting. Cas watched him curiously, the glint in Gabe's eyes all too familiar.

"That damn octo-cobra movie. I mean, a paycheck's a paycheck, and I'm sure we all enjoyed the numerous shirtless scenes, but seriously, what was he thinking?" With a grin and a wave, he hustled Cas into his car, while the reporters stood still, looking at each other in stunned consternation.

His cell phone rang periodically as Cas drove home, a jarring punctuation to the dismal memories that he couldn't shake. It was ringing again when he let himself through his front door. He tiredly dropped his bag in the foyer and dug the phone out of the pocket, accidentally answering it when his thumb brushed the screen. He stared at it for a few seconds before ingrained courtesy had him reluctantly holding it to his ear. "Hello?"

"OMG! It's you! Thank god, I thought you'd never answer, please don't hang up, I'm Charlie Bradbury, I'm a friend of Dean's," came the response in one long breath.

Cas hesitated, unsure whether she was being truthful or not.

"Plus I'm his Social Media Manager as well. And kind of PR and sometimes just general moral support and cheerleading."

"I see," Cas said flatly. "And you're calling to ask me not to say anything?"

"No." That was surprising enough to stop Cas from disconnecting the call. "I mean, I guess I really should, given my job description, but Dean said to let you talk if you wanted to, that you deserved to say whatever you wanted, and he's kinda right, or at least not totally wrong, considering what he did --"

"You know what happened?" Cas interrupted. He felt the hot burn of humiliation across his cheeks when he thought about Dean sharing the story, strangers laughing at his naivete.

For the first time in the conversation she stayed silent for more than a breath, and when she spoke, she sounded subdued and a little apologetic. "Kinda. He's only ever talked to me about you once, and only after a truly staggering amount of alcohol, but yeah, I do."

He wandered into his living room, unable to form words, and sank into an armchair.

"For what it's worth, Dean's not that guy anymore," she offered.

"What, did the orgies lose their appeal?"

Silence.

"I'm sorry." Cas rubbed his temples. "I wasn't expecting to have to deal with any of this today. Maybe I'm not as over it as I thought I was."

"No, I'm sorry. And you have every right to be angry -- both about what happened back then and what's happening now. And I really wish I didn't have to ask, but are you planning to talk to anyone? I'm not asking you not to, but it would be helpful if we at least knew what was coming."

"What are my options?" he asked tiredly.

"Oh. Well, you could probably make some good money for an exclusive tell-all ... although I guess I shouldn't have told you that."

Cas chuckled. "Oddly, that doesn't sound all that appealing."

"Okay, good. Great." Charlie let out a relieved sigh. "So then your options are either total silence -- which doesn't really deter them all that much. They'll probably just make up their own stuff."

"I think I found that out already. I was called by a Bela Talbot earlier."

Charlie sucked in a breath, and the soft tap of computer keys came through the phone. "Hmmm... cagey huh? Eh. That's not too bad.

"Oh!"

"What?"

"You're kinda dreamy, Cas."

"What are you --"

"I just googled you."

"You can google me?"

"Yep. Right here. Dr. Castiel Novak, published in numerous academic journals -- impressive -- written two books, tenure-track at a prestigious university. And definitely super dreamy. Ever had any of your students write 'Love You' on their eyelids?"

"What? Why would someone --"

"Or you could issue a limited statement." She switched topics without even a breath. "Something like 'Yes, Dean and I dated. Our relationship ended when he moved to pursue his acting career.' Short, sweet, not a lie, but not too specific either. We can issue a similar statement from our camp. It's a little harder for them to run wild if there's actual words on record. And it might blow over faster."

"That sounds good. Better, anyway."

"Well, okay, then."

"Miss Bradbury?"

She squeaked. "Charlie, please! Miss Bradbury belongs in a Jane Austen novel."

"Okay, Charlie, then. Can I ask a favor?"

"Abso-tively."

"Could you .. would you write the statement? Something along the lines of what you said already. I can pay you. I just ... I wouldn't want to say anything to make this more difficult for Dean."

"Oh." She hesitated. "Sure, I can do that. And we should probably coordinate with your university public relations office. At least give them a heads up. I can do that as well. And I'll see who in the area can get the message out the best."

"That's ... that would be tremendously helpful, Charlie. Thank you." He felt a slight lessening of tension along his shoulders.

"It's no problem, Castiel."

"Is there going to be any trouble for Benny Lafitte or his wife?"

"Nah, Andrea's a sweetie -- and she already knows all about Benny's past with Dean. It's actually the press that needs to watch out there. The first one who implies to her face that Benny cheated is not going to leave that encounter unscathed."

Cas chewed at his lip before asking, "And Dean, is he doing okay?"

"Well, he's currently locked in his room with numerous mini bottles of alcohol. Don't worry, Sam's on top of things. He'll get him back on track."

"Well, that's good. I guess I should let you go." He felt strangely reluctant to hang up.

"Cas?" Charlie's voice softened. "Do you want me to tell Dean you were asking about him?"

Cas stared at the carpet beneath his feet. Dean had betrayed him, broken his heart, shaken his ability to trust anyone, including himself. Saying yes, reaching out to Dean, would mean opening himself up to all of that again. He should say no, wait out the temporary whirlwind of semi-notoriety, and then back to his regular life -- his safe, protected, predictable life.

"Cas?"

It was enough to know that Dean had people looking out for him. He didn't need Cas to get through this.

Cas sighed, resigned.

"Yes, please."

ETA: now continued here

#castiel #gabriel #charlie bradbury #professor!cas #au #all-human au #bela talbot #angst #ani's fanfic #s:fdff #stll haven't revealed what happened that night #but there's lots of hints in this one #have no idea where i'm going from here #destiel #kinda #mentions dean/benny #mentions benny/andrea

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caiotlyn · 8 years ago

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Working on Mother’s Day

Title: Working on Mother’s Day

Pairing: Parenting AU - Dean Winchester x Reader

Words: 1007

Warnings: just a whole lotta fluff (…and maybe one small curse word, but what did you expect from me? XD)

A/N: Happy Mother’s Day to all you lovely moms out there! Thank you all for everything you do. Here’s a little one shot I wrote that’s sort of a continuation of Daughters Are Great Wingwomen, but this can be read as a stand-alone if you haven’t read that one. :)

Feel free to check out the rest of my masterlist!!

~~~

Mother’s Day was usually the only time you had to relax before the school year ended. Only today, your day was filled with people yelling at each other and papers flying around the room.

The office was busier than usual. Clients were making last minute appointments, many of them deciding to get work done before the summer, and changes in previously-made plans and documents were being sent in.

Being the CEO, you had to make sure everything turned out perfect.

“I told you, P-176 has already been sent in,” you spoke into your phone.

“Yes, ma’am, but we don’t have any record of it,” the man on the other end replied.

You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose. “I’ll talk to Jill and see what I can do. If you don’t get a response by Thursday, then just call me again. Thanks.” You slammed the phone down, closed your eyes, and leaned back in your chair.

“Mrs. Winchester, we have the forms from HR that you requested.”

Eyes still closed, you answered, “Just put them on my desk. I’ll look at them in a little bit.”

You heard the papers be placed down and the man’s shoes shuffle away hurriedly, almost as if he was scared of you.

Everyone in the office knew you were supposed to be off today, but too many people were away at meetings or on vacation that it was too much for your usual staff to take care of.

You recomposed yourself and sat up, giving the papers a once-over before logging into your computer. Your fingers clicked away at the keyboard, rapidly sending emails and filling out documents.

You wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

You glanced at the clock. Only ten minutes had passed, and you still had dozens of more clients to take care of.

Groaning, you put your head down on your desk, hitting your keyboard and pressing a few random letters.

“Seems like someone’s having a rough day,” a voice said from behind you.

You lifted your head and spun your chair around, your eyes meeting your husband’s.

“Dean!” you exclaimed, jumping up to hug him. “You have no idea what these people have put me through,” you mumbled into his shirt.

He hugged you tight and rubbed your back soothingly. “Everything’ll be okay, I promise. You just have a few more hours till you can come home.”

You groaned in response, and Dean chuckled.

“What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t ###you### be at work?” you asked your husband.

“Bobby closed the shop early. Said that I needed to spend time with my girls.” Dean smiled down at you.

You furrowed your eyebrows at the mention of your daughters. “But I dropped them off with Sam this morning.”

“Mommy!” two little voices called out simultaneously.

You and Dean turned to face them, just in time for both Mary and Emma to tackle you with a hug.

“Hey, girls.” You smiled at them and looked up at Dean. He grinned at you, hinting that he’d tell you soon enough.

“Happy Mommy’s Day,” Emma whispered in your ear.

Mary pecked you on the cheek before adding an “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You looked around the office and saw Sam standing in the corner, his hands shoved in his pockets and Jessica at his side.

You mouthed a “thank you” to him, Sam simply nodding in response.

Sam and Jess started to make their way over to you, and you handed off the girls to Dean.

You stood and met Sam and Jess halfway. “Hey, guys.”

They both enveloped you in a hug.

“Hey, Y/N/N,” Sam said.

“Thanks for bringing the girls over.”

“It was no problem, really,” Jess replied. “Dean called us and said he got off of work early. Said he was going to meet you here, and he thought it’d be a nice surprise if we brought Emma and Mary along.”

You hugged Jess once more, saying thanks again before she and Sam left the office, allowing you to return to your husband and the kids.

“I guess you should probably head home, and I can meet you guys there in a few hours,” you said to Dean.

“Actually, we’ve decided that we’re here to help,” Dean responded, putting his hands on the girls’ heads and grinning proudly. “If you’re okay with that.”

You chuckled at his eagerness. “I’m not really sure what you can do.”

“I can get you coffee!” Mary exclaimed.

“And I can help Daddy get you those cupcakes you love from Suzy’s!” Emma added.

Dean wiggled his eyebrows. “Huh? How ‘bout that? We provide you sustenance, and you work your pretty little ass off till we can take you home.”

Emma scrunched up her nose.

“Ew!” Mary squealed. “Daddy, that’s gross.”

You and Dean laughed.

“Okay, fine,” you relented. You knelt to the ground and spoke to your daughters. “Mary, if you’re gonna get me coffee, make sure you ask Charlie to help so you don’t burn yourself.”

“Okie dokie!” she said, skipping away happily to the break room.

You turned to Emma, smiling. “And you know which cupcakes I like.”

“Yep! Those pretty ones with the rainbow sprinkles,” she stated proudly.

“Good job.” You winked at her and stood up. “I love you,” you said to Dean, pressing a kiss to hips lips.

“Love you, too. C’mon, Emma.” He picked her up with a small grunt. “Let’s make this the best Mother’s Day ever.”

“Yeah!” she agreed.

Dean walked to the elevator and turned back to you after pushing the button.

“Emma!” you called out. “Watch after your father!”

“Hey!” Dean shouted, and Emma giggled, giving you two thumbs up.

You blew Dean an exaggerated kiss before he stepped into the elevator, and he rolled his eyes at your silliness.

You stayed in place until the doors closed.

Walking back to your desk, you felt much better than before.

Maybe working on Mother’s Day wasn’t going to be that bad.

#caitlyn writes spn #supernatural #spn #dean winchester #reader insert #dean winchester x reader #reader x dean winchester #dean x reader #reader x dean #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #parent au #parenting au #dad!dean #daddy!dean #mom!reader #mommy!reader

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notdeadyet-bpd · 6 years ago

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week in the life of a med student: monday

Thought I’d write a bit about med student life for anyone interested. Note: I’m in Australia, so my experience will likely be different to those studying medicine in the US. Also, I’m a first-year student.

5:45am: I wake up and I would curse the sun, except the sun isn’t up yet because it’s too early. (I’m clearly not a morning person.) I procrastinate for a few minutes over getting out of bed because, again, I’m not a morning person. I eat breakfast and get dressed and ready to leave.

6:30am: I drive out to the train station because I hate buses. The escalator at the train station is still broken. I swear that station has been without a working escalator all semester, and my semester started in late January.

~6:50am: Board the train and start working through some flash cards on Anki. (It’s a popular flashcard app among med students. There are others, but Anki is the most powerful and therefore one of the most popular.) I work through them in lots of 50 and try and look up for a bit between sets to look after my less-than-stellar eyesight. (I wear glasses full-time and have done so for years)

~7:20am: Get off in the city and board my next bus. Meet a classmate on the bus and start talking.

~7:40am: Arrive at the medical and dental library, which is where my first class is. Spend some time talking to classmates before going into class.

8:00am: Immunology tutorial. The lecturer starts the class with a Kahoot (a quiz website). Someone sets their screen name to an Avengers: Endgame spoiler. The next person sets their screen name to “i hate u.” Even though the Kahoot quiz doesn’t count towards our grade, the competition is pretty intense as you get more points on Kahoot for answering quickly. The main bulk of the tute involves a discussion of a case study of a Russian family with a rare immune system defect. Someone else in the class finds a textbook that discusses the exact same case study and shares it with the class over Facebook, so I guess it’s not just Avengers spoilers going around class today. Final exam timetables are also released while we’re in class. We only have two finals, but each exam covers the content for the entire semester. One exam is a short-answer question exam and the other is a “visually-aided exam” (pictures are shown on the screen at the front of class and we have to answer questions about them). The short-answer question exam is worth more. Unfortunately, we’ve been assigned the very first exam after study break: 9am on a Saturday morning. This means that we have little over a week after classes end to revise roughly 200 hours’ worth of lectures (bearing in mind that the lectures tend to be very content-heavy).

10:00am: A couple of classmates and I go upstairs in the library for some silent study. I have a look through the anatomy lab worksheet for the afternoon and try and answer some of the questions. Once I’ve done that, I do some more flashcards on Anki. During this time, we get an email telling us that our histology lab in a couple of weeks’ time has been cancelled, and we silently cheer.

11:00am: Grab some lunch from the kiosk and a hot chocolate from the cafeteria before heading over to meet up with the MD1 Sub-Dean of Student Affairs. Along the way, I bump into a bunch of people I know and get caught up in conversations with them, but I still manage to make it to the appointment just in time. We have a chat about how I’ve been going and I explain that I’ve been feeling much more relaxed since the study break that we had last week.

12:00pm: Head over to main campus for the anatomy lab in the afternoon. I take the bus because it looks like it might rain.

12:30pm: Go to the anatomy museum for some self-study. The hot chocolate and/or anxiety appear to be getting to me, though, because I constantly need to pee. I go to the loo twice in the half-hour period while waiting for class.

1pm: Anatomy lab. I need to pee again but since it’s probably just an anxious false urge, I hold it. Today’s lab is a dry lab where we are just looking at skulls to see if we can identify various features. A few classmates and I sit around a table and we try and identify all of the structures listed in the anatomy lab worksheet. One of my classmates has done anatomy before, which helps. There are also demonstrators floating around to help. Unfortunately, though, anatomy lab still often feels like the blind leading the blind.

2:15pm: Even though anatomy lab technically goes until 2:45pm, my classmates and I decide to leave early because we feel we’ve gotten as much out of it as we possibly could. Since we have no more classes, I finally go pee again (yay!) and head home.

~3:30pm: Arrive home and start making myself comfortable, but then I receive a text message from the optometrist telling me that my glasses are ready, so I head back out again. My new glasses are quite different to my old ones, so the sales assistant tells me that if people don’t notice the difference, they need to get their eyes checked. (Spoilers: it’s been over 24 hours as of the time of writing and nobody’s noticed yet.)

~4:15pm: Arrive back home. I open up a mindfulness meditation recording on my computer but since I hate sitting still and focusing my mind, I procrastinate over doing it. Heavily. I end up just mindlessly surfing the web for some time instead.

~5:15pm: Finally overcome my procrastination. I do my meditation and watch a couple of videos. The first one is about mindfulness and compassion and the second one is about autonomic nervous system drugs and their effects on the eyes. I watch the first video at 1.5x speed and 1.25x speed to save time.

~6:15pm: Dinner time. I still live at home, so I just eat what my parents make (yes, I know, I’m spoilt). Tonight, dinner is salmon, steamed broccoli and carrots, and rice.

6:45pm: Start heading out for community band practice. (I play clarinet.)

7:15pm: Arrive at band 15min early. I’m the first one there. When the next few people arrive, we go into the room and start setting up. When the conductor comes, I tell her that my first exam is on the morning of the upcoming band championships, and I’ll probably want to rest afterwards. The conductor essentially tells me that I’m irreplaceable and that though she can’t force me to be there, she would really really really really really like me to be there. Le sigh.

9:15pm: Leave band. Normally band goes until around 9:45pm, but since medical school started, I’ve been leaving after the 15min break in the middle.

9:45pm: Arrive home and have a shower. I’m more or less ready for bed by 10:15pm, but I stay up late reading dumb Facebook comments. (Someone I know shared an obvious scam post and some of the comments on the original post were pretty funny.) 10:45pm: Bed.

#medicine #med student #study #dayinthelife

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caranfindel · 8 years ago

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Recap/Review 12.23: "All Along the Watchtower"

THEN: Carry on, my wayward son! BMoL, nephilim, etc. Family hug! Not shown: Single-layer Sam in a torn bloody shirt, or anything involving hammers, so to Hell with the THEN.

NOW: We open on a beer commercial, with inspirational music and a man looking over a crystal clear lake. Oh, no, wait, it’s Cas. He turns toward a small house. Inside the house, Kelly Kline looks to the heavens and asks God for help. Oh, no, wait, she’s on speakerphone with the IKEA helpline, trying to put a crib together. That was actually a pretty cute little fake-out. Sven from IKEA joins the long list of people who are completely unable to help her. Cas chastises her and says he was going to put the crib together because he’s very good at following instructions (ha ha ha ha NO) and she should be resting, but she insists on doing this. Since she won’t be able to raise her son, she wants to do this one thing she can do for him. Aw, Kelly. I’m starting to resent you less. That’s usually a bad sign. Cas assures her that he will “give my life for your son, and I will raise him,” and you know what, Cas? Those things are kind of mutually exclusive. Unless you plan on raising the little spawn and then giving your life for him. But there’s no reason to worry about that right now, is there?

Meanwhile, at the bunker, Sam explains how Lucifer is loose and Crowley is dead. Or, allegedly dead. As Dean points out, Crowley’s a “freakin’ cockroach,” and he’ll believe he’s dead when he sees his body.

Pop that booty, Dean.

Right on cue, we cut to a crane shot of a patch of dirt, and a familiar rat, and a flashback of Crowley smoking out of his vessel and into the rat right before Lucifer stabs him without noticing the cloud of red smoke or the lack of flashy lights.

Okay. If you’ve read Misery, (or seen the movie? I think it’s in the movie too) there’s a part where crazy Annie complains about the serial movies she watched in her childhood, where a character would be placed in peril at the end of one movie, and would be shown surviving at the beginning of the next one because of something that clearly didn’t happen earlier. Like, their car would plunge down a cliff into a river, and in the next movie you’d see them fly out the open door, even though that didn’t happen in the previous movie. She hated that, and I do too. I mean, I’m not going to tie anybody to the bed and take a sledgehammer to their legs over it, but it is pretty annoying that they’d play it this way, when they could have easily shown Crowley and the rat and then panned away to show no one looking at them, instead of what we actually saw, which was that Crowley was being watched during the time he allegedly smoked out of his vessel.

However, having said that, I’ve got to say Crowley thrusting his hand out of his grave is a nice parallel to Dean clawing his way out of his own grave in “Lazarus Rising.”

(Essay question: Compare and contrast the following: parallel, homage, and blatant rip-off. Give an example of each.)

Carrying on.

Sam says they don’t need Crowley, they need Rowena, because she’s the one who can re-cage Lucifer. But when he calls her, we cut to her phone (I’m disappointed Sam doesn’t have his own ringtone) on a blood-spattered table in a blood-spattered room that contains a charred corpse. Aw. Fuck. Also in the room, holding a long red curl: Lucifer. “Oh, hey, Sammy,” he answers.

Title card!

Sam is understandably horrified, and puts the phone on speaker. Lucifer gleefully informs Sam of Rowena’s death, but you can’t blame him, because he can’t raise his son from a jail cell. He also pulls a blonde voodoo doll out of Rowena’s belongings. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a Lucifer doll or what. He asks if they know where Cas is, and Sam tells him to go to Hell. “Witty,” says Lucifer, “I’ll use that in the future.” He tells Sam he doesn’t matter, since he doesn’t need the Sam suit any more, but come on. Mark P. is pretty great, but that Sam suit… that’s a once-in-a-lifetime, absolutely gorgeous bespoke suit. You’re gonna want that. Lucifer tells the guys that they can’t kill him, and with Rowena gone they can’t cage him, so they don’t matter. Bye bye!

This scene reminds me of why I love Mark Pellegrino, and why I tend to love characters when they’re pitted against the Winchesters. Lucifer mocking Crowley? Meh. Lucifer mocking Sam and Dean? Glorious. Especially Sam’s little freaked-the-fuck-out face.

Mmmm. Especially.

Back at the lake house, Cas and Kelly have gone shopping. They pull up with the crappy old truck full of diapers. Kelly is struck by a pain and rests her hand on the truck. A yellow glow appears under her hand, and as Kelly and Cas walk away, the glow floats off in a yellow cloud. Hmm!

Bunker. Dean’s still limping. Sam suggests they find Cas and Kelly and keep them moving, so Lucifer can’t find them. Because the way Lucifer finds you is by physically walking around. Sam hopes they can still siphon off the Lucifetus’s grace, and if not, they’ll “figure something else out.” And Mary’s always wanted to punch the Devil in the face. Hmm! They figure that since Kelly is due soon, weird things will be happening around her. Storms, plagues of locusts, etc.

Lake house. Kelly is painting the nursery. In a few minutes we’ll see she’s painting a mural with a rainbow and apple tree. An apple tree in Lucifer’s son’s nursery, for fuck’s sake.

Why not paint a serpent at the bottom while you’re at it?

While she does this, Cas notices the glow outside. It now looks like a strip of fire, floating in midair. He pokes it, as one does, and finds himself transported into different world. A gray world, full of weird spires and storm clouds and red lightning. He’s quickly attacked by a snarling, horned man, and before he tries to defend himself, the horned man is shot by a hooded figure carrying a machine gun. “You,” Cas says. (Who? We’ll have to wait.)

Kelly plugs a USB drive into her laptop and starts recording a message for her son, who she’s named Jack. She tells him she loves him, and that he’s being watched over by an angel so she knows he’ll be okay. And we know that’s true; it worked so well for the Winchesters.

Bunker. The Winchesters are on the hunt for weirdness. Nothing they’ve found is weird enough. Sam says “Whatever this thing is, it’s gonna be big and bad -”

“You rang?” interrupts Crowley. “Hello boys.”

Dean immediately punches him in the face, which is all kinds of awesome, and is also a nice reminder of the time he met Samuel Campbell after having promised to kill him the next time he saw him. Welcome to next time, indeed. Dean draws the demon blade out of his pocket before Crowley even hits the floor, puts it to Crowley’s throat and asks “did you do it?” and I like this. A lot. Crowley appeals to Moose for help, because he knows who’s the rational one here, but he’s probably disappointed when Sam points out they should see if he knows how to work the cage spell. And if not, then they can kill him. See? Rational.

And ironically, wearing that shirt that makes me completely irrational.

Crowley’s surprised to hear that Rowena is dead. Surprised and maybe doesn’t believe it? He explains why he kept Lucifer, thinking that having the Devil on a leash would stop usurpers from challenging him. But his tenure inside a rat gave him time to think about how much he actually hates his job. Sam asks why he’s there, and he says “Whenever there’s a world-ending crisis at hand, I know where to place my bets. It’s on you. You big, beautiful, lumbering piles of flannel.” And Sam does this cute little thing looking down and it’s probably not supposed to be that he’s embarrassed to get a compliment from the King of Hell but I’ve decided I’m going to take it that way, because I love “aw shucks” Sammy. He loves you, Sam! He wants you without the flannel! Your brother is still Not Moose on his phone!

Yes, they are big beautiful piles of flannel.

If they’ll forgive him, and let him help cage Lucifer again, he’ll seal the gates of Hell, locking up every demon except for himself. Because they’ve stabbed him in the back, so “I’ll happily stab them in the front, the sides, and right up their little black-eyed asses.” (But what about the crossroads demons, with their red eyes?)

Lake house. Kelly can’t find Cas, and she’s in a lot of pain. He comes up behind her in an alarming way and as Kelly has another labor pain, the lights flicker and the portal of fire flashes outside. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he says.

Sure.

Bunker. All three Winchesters are tapping away at computers. “Is this what you do when I’m not here?” Crowley asks. “Type?” Sam finds a report of a massive power outage in the Pacific Northwest. “They tracked the outage to a house in North Cove, Washington, to a house currently being rented by one James Novak.” Oh, dear god. Seriously? They couldn’t think of any more realistic way to explain how the Winchesters find Cas? (Also, if a massive power outage had been tied to one particular house, wouldn’t we see lots of power trucks there?) I’m disappointed. They really could have done this better. Sam could see Cas or Kelly in the background of a crowd photo in that news story. Dean could remember Cas’s password and read his email, revealing the delivery address for the IKEA crib. Oh well. Carry on. Now that they know where they’re going, Crowley’s eager to hit the road, and he and I are both surprised when Dean pins his hand to the table with the demon knife and tells him he’s not going. Surprised because Dean tried this trick before, last season, and it didn’t work. But I guess hope springs eternal.

Lake house. It’s nighttime. Kelly’s in bed, breathing through her contractions (or pressure waves, as Cas learned in his online doula class) and Cas is not being particularly helpful. But he’s trying, and he’s sweet. He peeks out the window to check the fiery portal, and it’s still there.

Later, Kelly’s in more distress, and she asks Cas to tell her again what he saw, what the Lucifetus showed him. “I saw the future. I saw a world without pain, or hunger, or want. I saw the world that this child - that your child - will create. And it is a world without fear, and without suffering, and without hate. I saw paradise.” The lights flicker, which is probably the Lucifetus laughing at how well he tricked Cas, because really, Cas? It didn’t occur to you that Lucifer’s baby could lie to you in order to stop you from killing it?

They’re interrupted by the rumble of a familiar car. Cas goes downstairs and is surprised to see all three Winchesters, who ask if the house is warded well enough to stop Lucifer. “We’ll work through our crap; we always do,” Dean says, “but right now we’re here to get you, get Kelly, and get gone.” Unfortunately, Kelly’s too far into labor to be moved. If they really did plan to extract Lucifer’s grace from the Lucifetus before it was born, now would be the time to do it. But no one brings it up, so I guess that’s not the plan after all. I wonder how they thought they were going to save her life, then?

Dean asks if Cas would be able to torch Lucifer the way he torched Dagon, and Cas doesn’t know, since he was channeling the power of the Lucifetus at the time. But he does have enough juice to heal Dean. Dean seems kind of surprised by that, even though Cas was clearly able to heal Sam’s “s'mores foot” earlier. But maybe the healing itself is different, since it has a yellow light instead of blue, and it makes a high-pitched ringing noise.

The guys go outside to check the warding and are all, hey, why is the eye of Sauron in your backyard? Cas explains that it’s a “tear in space and time,” which is wonderfully explanatory, isn’t it? It’s a doorway to another world, an alternate reality. The brothers accept this immediately, since they’ve been thrust into an alternate reality before, where Sam was a polish actor. Apparently the power of the Lucifetus is “puncturing the fabric of our universe.”

And what is on the other side?

You don’t want to know.

Probably. But we need to.

I love that Dean is so resigned. Not freaked out, not scared, just yeah, here’s some MORE weird shit I’m gonna have to deal with, awesome.

Cas touches the portal and they all find themselves in AU!World. It’s daytime now, but nicely unsaturated, much like Purgatory. And everyone looks hotter in Purgatory. The ground seems to be covered with ashes, and we can see corpses scattered about. Cas tells the Winchesters they’re on an Earth locked in an eternal battle between Heaven and Hell. On a scale of 1-10 in terms of badness, Sam declares this an 11, and Dean agrees.

Oddly enough, Dean isn’t a mechanic in this AU, and Sam isn’t an asthmatic working in a bookstore.

Cas says there’s nothing to worry about, because he has faith that the Lucifetus will close the portal he opened. Dean says he’s a dumbass. It’s possible they’re both right. But the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Cas’s “friend” from earlier, his head covered by a scarf. The Winchesters draw their guns and the veiled figure draws closer and closer and only his nose is visible and I’m sure it’s Dean. I know this guy is going to pull his scarf off and it’s going to be AU!Dean. He pulls the cover aside and oh! It’s Bobby! Bobby’s here, y'all. We didn’t have a Bobbyless season after all. Thank you baby Jesus! (The Husband clutched my hand at this point. He knew how important this was to me.)

Maybe I misjudged you, Lucifetus. Maybe you ARE going to give us a better world. A lovely, desaturated world with Bobby Singer in it.

AU!Bobby doesn’t recognize Sam and Dean, and it’s cute that Sam is so surprised. Kind of like he was surprised to meet an angel who hadn’t heard of the freakin’ Winchesters (waves to dead Metatron). Dean takes it right up, assuming this Bobby in a world they didn’t even know existed will recognize them as soon as he hears their last name. The only Winchester AU!Bobby has ever heard of was a man named John who died 40 years ago, leaving behind Mary Campbell, who told stories about her lost love until she was killed by Azazel ten years ago. Come on, guys. You know this is an AU. You know how they work. Same names, different plots. They’re not all coffee shops.

(Sidebar: I want a crack fic where the guys step through the portal into a post-apocalyptic AU world where mankind’s last stand is a coffee shop. The Starbucks at the End of the Universe.)

Cas explains what happened. “This is a world where you were never born. It’s a world you never saved.” And yes, the camera is on Sam when he says this, since you asked. You did save the world, Sammy.

Hold me.

(Essay question: Did Lucifer and Michael find other vessels, or were they forced to fight without vessels, since theirs hadn’t been born? Discuss.)

Lake house. Kelly’s labor is going strong. Mary asks how she’s doing, and Kelly says “I’m dying. But that’s okay. Because wouldn’t you die for your sons?” Yes, Mary would. She’s already tried once. I mean, she also basically sold one to the Devil, too, but she didn’t know that’s what she was doing at the time, so we’re not going to hold her accountable for that.

AU!World. AU!Bobby says that when the portal opened, it set off alarms at his place (I desperately want to see AU!Bobby’s place). He calls Cas’s attacker a Tempter Demon, but I didn’t find anything tempting about that demon. Angels seem to be equally unsavory here in AU!World. Apparently they wear necklaces made of baby ears. Ew. Who’s having babies in this hellhole? AU!Bobby adorably goes on about killing angels - his hobby and his passion. He shows TFW his gun (Rufus!!! It’s named RUFUS!!!) and Dean geeks out over his angel-killing bullets, which is kind of like when he proudly showed off his witch-killing bullets to Max, the witch. At least he gives Cas a guilty look.

The gang emerges from the portal back into this world to be greeted by Crowley, who once again escaped from Dean’s pin-the-demon-through-the-hand trick. Who would have guessed he could do that again? But they’re lucky he did, because he’s the answer to all their problems, or so he says. Cas goes up to talk to Kelly alone, while Sam and Dean arm themselves. We don’t get to see his conversation, just the end, where he tells her not to worry, everything will be fine. Meanwhile, Dean says: “You know, Cas has faith in this kid, and I hope he’s right. But me, I have faith in us. You, me, Mom, Cas… and Crowley, sometimes. This is gonna work. It has to.”

I don’t know what Crowley told them, or what Cas told Kelly, but it must have been something along the lines of “Lucifer is right behind me,” because no one is surprised to see him when they go back outside. Dean looks angry, Cas looks scared, and Sam looks freaked-out-but-holding-it-together. Sam tells Lucifer that, whatever he’s planning on doing, God will stop him. I don’t know how Sam could actually believe this, and I think maybe he’s just stalling, or bluffing. Lucifer finds it amusing and isn’t the least bit concerned. “See you on the other side, boys,” says Dean, and Cas lunges forward with an angel blade. Lucifer laughs and easily swats him aside. The Winchesters exchange a frightened look and then take off like the six-fingered man fleeing Inigo Montoya. Lucifer follows them behind the house and finds them standing next to the portal, which they immediately vanish into. He follows.

In AU!World, Dean has AU!Bobby’s angel-killing machine gun. “Say hello to my little friend,” he says, and opens fire on Lucifer. He claims they had a bet on whether this gun would kill an archangel, which seems like a sucker bet, since normal angel blades won’t kill an archangel so there’s no reason to think bullets made from normal angel blades would work any better. But as Sam meets Crowley behind a rock, we see it’s just a way to hold Lucifer back while they perform a spell to seal the portal and lock Lucifer in AU!World. Thanks to Crowley for stopping to explain that to Sam, even though Sam was obviously part of the planning, because otherwise we wouldn’t know what was going on. Seems like a mean trick to play on the residents of AU!World, though. Dean runs out of ammo, and as he gets the stuffing beat out of him - it’s a good thing Lucifer always like playing with his prey before he goes for the kill - Crowley tells Sam they need one more ingredient for the spell: a life. Hmm! He then interrupts the beat-down, and Sam runs in and drags Dean away, which is awesome.

So much better than a coffee shop.

As the Winchesters watch from the portal, Crowley tells Lucifer how much he hates him, and how much he’s going to enjoy wiping the smug, self-satisfied look off his face. He then draws an angel blade, which doesn’t scare Lucifer, turns to the Winchesters to say “bye, boys,” and plunges it into his own gut. And this one does look like an actual death. Well! I guess that completes the spell. The flame in the spell pot flares up and the portal narrows and I really think the guys need to be running through it. I really do.

Suddenly Cas steps out of the portal, with his own blade, and stomps toward Lucifer. Dean tries to stop him, but Sam yanks his brother back into the portal. Was this part of the plan? It doesn’t seem to be part of the plan. As the Winchesters tumble onto the ground, Kelly screams through a push, gets veins of yellow light in her face, and suddenly becomes peaceful. She says “I love you” and her hoohah explodes with light and knocks Mary onto the floor.

AU!World. Cas sinks his blade into Lucifer’s gut. Lucifer’s eyes glow red and he doubles over in pain. Is this it? Is the power of the Lucifetus going to supercharge Cas to the point that he can kill Lucifer?

Back at the lake house side of the portal. Cas bursts through, but just as Sam greets him joyfully, a blade protrudes from his chest because someone is right behind him, stabbing him in the back. Why yes, this is exactly how you killed Billie, isn’t it, Cas? Light streams from his eyes and mouth, and from the wound, and he collapses to the ground, revealing Lucifer behind him. “That was fun,” Lucifer says.

Not fun.

But before he can smite the brothers, Mary shows up. Lucifer is pleased to see her and thanks her for all the help. Mary’s hands are behind her back, and we get a shot of the Enochian-engraved brass knuckles. I’m glad she got to keep those. She tells the boys she loves them, and then punches Lucifer in the face, marking that one thing off her bucket list. She keeps punching, pushing him closer to the portal, and Lucifer falls through it, grabbing and dragging her with him, just as it closes. Just like Swan Song! The last we see of them is in AU!World, with Lucifer yelling “no!” and getting glowy red eyes and Mary realizing that things are well and truly fucked. But I’m not worried about her. AU!Bobby is out there to save her.

Back at the lake house, the brothers are horrified and grief-stricken. Sam notices a bright light upstairs in the house and runs off to investigate, while Dean kneels in the mud next to Cas’s body, and we get an overhead shot just like All Hell Breaks Loose. The first time I watched this, I thought, “That’s stupid. We know he’s not dead. There aren’t any wings.” And then I got on Tumblr the next day and saw wings. Huh. In my defense, I really had to adjust the exposure on this cap to get them to show.

And why are they coming out of his head?

Upstairs, Sam enters Kelly’s room, which is no longer filled with light. Kelly’s lying on the bed, arms crossed peacefully over her chest, not sweaty or bloody. Either Mary straightened her up, or the Lucifetus did it, just like he freshened her up after she tried to kill herself. Her eyes are wide open, though, so Sam closes them. He hears footsteps and walks out into the hallway, where he sees a set of footprints burned into the floor. Terrified, he follows the trail into the nursery (complete with apple tree, for fuck’s sake) and sees someone crouched in the corner. Someone adult-sized, with a creepy smile and glowing yellow eyes. I guess that truck full of diapers is going to waste.

Oooh, maybe there’s a serpent under that tree after all!

Well then! In my pre-finale poll on LJ, only Xparrot responded that the finale might have something to do with Game of Thrones, and yet here we are with our own version of the Red Wedding. (Sidebar: 14 of you correctly predicted the grenade launcher would be involved, but only two of you voted for “a plucky group of hunters, possibly led by Claire and Jody.” Hmm. Come to think of it, I feel fairly prescient for even coming up with that option.)

That is, if you actually believe they’re really most sincerely dead. My completely unspoiled opinion is that Rowena is probably dead, and yet I won’t be surprised at all if they bring her back somehow. Lucifer was still holding onto a lock of her hair, and he’s not the sentimental type, so there must be a reason. That uncharred hair is going to have some regenerative properties, perhaps, and she’ll grow back from the roots. If this is the end, she deserved better. She deserved an onscreen death.

Crowley? I’m 50/50. I do think he’s meant to be dead for good, because he got to be a hero, he got to say goodbye, and he got to tell us he didn’t like being the King of Hell anyway. But again, even a demon who lit up when she died (looking at you, Ruby 1.0) was able to come back, so I’m confident they could bring Crowley back if they chose to.

Cas? Ha ha ha ha ha no. Even unspoiled, I have no doubt we’ll see the little tree topper again.

I’ve read a couple of theories on Tumblr. One theory is that at some point, Dean went to an AU!version of the lake house instead of the real lake house, so the Cas who died there is not his Cas. I don’t really buy into this one. Dean was always with Sam, and this theory uses some subtle points of Sam’s behavior to show that he’s an AU!Sam instead of real Sam, so I don’t see the logistics of it.

The other theory is that the Cas who died is actually an AU!Cas from AU!World. This makes more sense, but it doesn’t explain how our Cas and AU!Cas switched places. But maybe angels in the other world have wings growing out of their heads. That would explain at least one oddity.

I’m sure this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I’d be okay if Cas died. The Cas I love is from seasons 4 and 5, when he wasn’t the Winchesters’ lapdog. When he wasn’t always on their side. When he was a BAMF who had his own agenda that didn’t always mesh with theirs. When he couldn’t be counted on to solve their problems. I’d truly love a Cas who served a Bobby-like role; there as a mentor and occasional resource but not a Cas ex machina. But even later-season Cas is fine as long as he’s involved in the Winchester plot. I find his heavenly B-plots boring as fuck.

And Crowley. Well, I love the Limey bastard, but only when he’s with the Winchesters. As foe or friend, I find him delightful. As King of Hell with his own storylines, I find him tedious. Same with Rowena. I love, love, love her when she’s fighting for or against the Winchesters. But I’m not interested in her otherwise.

Anyway. I have questions, of course. Why did Cas to back to AU!World to attack Lucifer? Surely that wasn’t part of the plan? What was the bright light that drew Sam upstairs? It wasn’t the birth of the Lucifetus, because Mary was already outside. Was it Jack growing to full size? Because there’s no way Kelly was carrying that being we saw in the corner.

In general, I was pleased with this episode. It feels odd saying that, since some of my friends disliked it so much that they’ve literally sworn off watching the show. But I’m satisfied with much of it. Mary is off the board, and yet saving her may end up being an interesting storyline. I’m sure Cas is coming back. Crowley got a nice send off. Sam and Dean were both instrumental in the end. Really, there was a lot to like.

So, as Dean said, see you on the other side. And please help me remain spoiler-free for anything that’s already known about season 13!

#spn #recap #tv recaps #12.23 #12.23 all along the watchtower

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gordonwilliamsweb · 5 years ago

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Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage

As the coronavirus roils the economy and throws millions of Americans out of work, Medicaid is emerging as a default insurance plan for many of the newly unemployed. That could produce unprecedented strains on the vital health insurance program, according to state officials and policy researchers.

Americans are being urged to stay home and practice “social distancing” to prevent the spread of the virus, causing businesses to shutter their doors and lay off workers. The Labor Department reported Thursday that more than 6.6 million people signed up for unemployment insurance during the week that ended March 28. This number shattered the record set the previous week, with 3.3 million sign-ups. Many of these newly unemployed people may turn to Medicaid for their families.

Policymakers have often used Medicaid to help people gain health coverage and health care in response to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But never has it faced a public health crisis and economic emergency in which people nationwide need its help all in virtually the same month.

“Medicaid is absolutely going to be in the eye of the storm here,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. “It is the backbone of our public health system, our public coverage system, and will see increased enrollment due to the economic conditions.”

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Meeting those needs will require hefty investments ― both in money and manpower.

Medicaid — which is run jointly by the states and federal government and covers about 70 million Americans ― is already seeing early application spikes. Because insurance requests typically lag behind those for other benefits, the numbers are expected to grow in the coming months.

“We have been through recessions in the past, such as in 2009, and saw what that meant,” said Matt Salo, who heads the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “We are going to see that on steroids.”

The majority of states have expanded their Medicaid programs since 2014 to cover more low-income adults under a provision in the Affordable Care Act. That may help provide a cushion in those areas. In the 14 states that have chosen not to expand, many of the newly unemployed adults will not be eligible for coverage.

It’s possible the pandemic could change the decision-making calculus for non-expansion states, Salo said. “The pandemic is like a punch in the mouth.”

But even without expansion in those states, the Medicaid rolls could increase with more children coming into the system as their families’ finances deteriorate. Many states don’t have the resources or systems in place to meet the demand.

“It is going to hit faster and harder than we’ve ever experienced before,” Salo said.

The unique circumstances of social distancing impose new challenges for those whose jobs are to enroll people for coverage. In California, where more than a million people have filed for unemployment insurance since March 13, much of the workforce that would typically be signing people up and processing their paperwork is now working from home, which adds a layer of complexity in terms of accessing files and documents, and can inhibit communication.

“It’s going to be certainly more difficult than it was under the [2008] recession,” said Cathy Senderling-McDonald, deputy executive director for the County Welfare Directors Association of California. She said that although strides have been made in the past decade to set up better online forms and call centers, it will still be a heavy lift to get people enrolled without seeing them in person.

In some states, the challenges to the system are already noticeable.

Utah, for instance, has seen a 46% increase in applications for Medicaid. (These applications can be for individuals or families.) In March 2019, about 14,000 people applied. This March, it was more than 20,400.

“Our services are needed now more than ever,” said Muris Prses, assistant director of eligibility services for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, which processes Medicaid enrollment. The state typically takes 15 days to determine whether someone is eligible, he said, though that will increase by several days because of the surge in applicants and some staff working at home.

In Nevada, where the hotel- and casino-dominated economy has been hit particularly hard, applications for public benefits programs, including food stamps and Medicaid, skyrocketed from 200 a day in February to 2,000 in mid-March, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. The volume of calls to a consumer hotline for Medicaid and health coverage questions is four times the regular amount.

In Ohio, the number of Medicaid applications has already exceeded what’s typical for this time of year. The state expects that figure to continue to climb.

States that haven’t yet seen the surge warned that it’s almost certainly coming. And as layoffs continue, some are already experiencing the strains on the system, including processing times that could leave people uninsured for months, while Medicaid applications process.

For 28-year-old Kristen Wolfe, of Salt Lake City, who lost her job and her employer-sponsored health insurance March 20, it’s a terrifying time.

Wolfe, who has lupus — an autoimmune disorder that requires regular doctor appointments and prescription medication ― quickly applied for Medicaid. But after she filled in her details, including a zero-dollar income, she learned the decision on her eligibility could take as long as 90 days. She called the Utah Medicaid agency and, after being on hold for more than an hour, was told they did not know when she would hear back.

“With my health, it’s scary to leave things in limbo,” said Wolfe, who used her almost-expired insurance last week to order 90-day medication refills, just in case. “I am pretty confident I will qualify, but there is always the ‘What if I don’t?’”

Others have reported smoother sailing, though.

Jen Wittlin, 33 — who, until recently, managed the now-closed bar in Providence, Rhode Island’s Dean Hotel ― qualified for Medicaid coverage starting April 1. She was able to sign up online after waiting about half an hour on the phone to get help answering specific questions. Once she receives a check for unemployment insurance, the state will reassess her income — currently zero ― to see if she still qualifies.

“It was all immediate,” she said.

In fact, she said, she is now working to help newly uninsured former colleagues also enroll in the program, using the advice the state gave her.

In California, officials are trying to reassign some employees — who are now working remotely ― to help with the surge. But the system to determine Medicaid eligibility is complicated and requires time-intensive training, Senderling-McDonald said. She’s trying to rehire people who’ve retired and relying on overtime from staffers.

“It’s hard to expand this particular workforce very, very quickly by a lot,” she said. “We can’t just stick a new person in front of a computer and tell them to go. They’re going to screw everything up.”

The move away from in-office sign-ups is also a disadvantage for older people and those who speak English as a second language, two groups who frequently felt more comfortable enrolling in person, she added.

Meanwhile, increasing enrollment and the realities of the coronavirus will likely create a need for costly medical care across the population.

“What about when we start having many people who may be in the hospital, in ICUs or on ventilators?” said Maureen Corcoran, the director of Ohio’s Medicaid program. “We don’t have any specific answers yet.”

These factors will hit just as states ― which will experience shrinking tax revenue because of the plunging economy — have less money to pay their share of the Medicaid tab.

“It’s all compounded,” said Lisa Watson, a deputy secretary at Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid.

The federal government pays, on average, about 61% of the costs for traditional Medicaid and about 90% of the costs for people who joined the program through the ACA expansion. The rest comes from state coffers. And, unlike the federal government, states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets. The financial squeeze could force cuts in other areas, like education, child welfare or law enforcement.

On March 18, Congress agreed to bump up what Washington pays by 6.2 percentage points as part of the second major stimulus bill aimed at the economic consequences of the pandemic. That will barely make a dent, Salo argued.

“The small bump is good, and we are glad it’s there, but in no way is that going to be sufficient,” he said.

Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 5 years ago

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Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage

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Meeting those needs will require hefty investments ― both in money and manpower.

It’s possible the pandemic could change the decision-making calculus for non-expansion states, Salo said. “The pandemic is like a punch in the mouth.”

“It is going to hit faster and harder than we’ve ever experienced before,” Salo said.

In some states, the challenges to the system are already noticeable.

In Ohio, the number of Medicaid applications has already exceeded what’s typical for this time of year. The state expects that figure to continue to climb.

For 28-year-old Kristen Wolfe, of Salt Lake City, who lost her job and her employer-sponsored health insurance March 20, it’s a terrifying time.

Others have reported smoother sailing, though.

“It was all immediate,” she said.

In fact, she said, she is now working to help newly uninsured former colleagues also enroll in the program, using the advice the state gave her.

Meanwhile, increasing enrollment and the realities of the coronavirus will likely create a need for costly medical care across the population.

These factors will hit just as states ― which will experience shrinking tax revenue because of the plunging economy — have less money to pay their share of the Medicaid tab.

“It’s all compounded,” said Lisa Watson, a deputy secretary at Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid.

“The small bump is good, and we are glad it’s there, but in no way is that going to be sufficient,” he said.

Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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dinafbrownil · 5 years ago

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Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Please confirm your email address below:

Meeting those needs will require hefty investments ― both in money and manpower.

It’s possible the pandemic could change the decision-making calculus for non-expansion states, Salo said. “The pandemic is like a punch in the mouth.”

“It is going to hit faster and harder than we’ve ever experienced before,” Salo said.

In some states, the challenges to the system are already noticeable.

In Ohio, the number of Medicaid applications has already exceeded what’s typical for this time of year. The state expects that figure to continue to climb.

For 28-year-old Kristen Wolfe, of Salt Lake City, who lost her job and her employer-sponsored health insurance March 20, it’s a terrifying time.

Others have reported smoother sailing, though.

“It was all immediate,” she said.

In fact, she said, she is now working to help newly uninsured former colleagues also enroll in the program, using the advice the state gave her.

Meanwhile, increasing enrollment and the realities of the coronavirus will likely create a need for costly medical care across the population.

These factors will hit just as states ― which will experience shrinking tax revenue because of the plunging economy — have less money to pay their share of the Medicaid tab.

“It’s all compounded,” said Lisa Watson, a deputy secretary at Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid.

“The small bump is good, and we are glad it’s there, but in no way is that going to be sufficient,” he said.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/medicaid-nearing-eye-of-the-storm-as-newly-unemployed-look-for-coverage/

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nahoo883 · 6 years ago

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Tufts expelled a student for grade hacking. She claims innocence

As she sat in the airport with a one-way ticket in her hand, Tiffany Filler wondered how she would pick up the pieces of her life, with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt and nothing to show for it.

A day earlier, she was expelled from Tufts University veterinary school. As a Canadian, her visa was no longer valid and she was told by the school to leave the U.S. “as soon as possible.” That night, her plane departed the U.S. for her native Toronto, leaving any prospect of her becoming a veterinarian behind.

Filler, 24, was accused of an elaborate months-long scheme involving stealing and using university logins to break into the student records system, view answers, and alter her own and other students’ grades.

The case Tufts presented seems compelling, if not entirely believable.

There’s just one problem: In almost every instance that the school accused Filler of hacking, she was elsewhere with proof of her whereabouts or an eyewitness account and without the laptop she’s accused of using. She has alibis: fellow students who testified to her whereabouts; photos with metadata putting her miles away at the time of the alleged hacks; and a sleep tracker that showed she was asleep during others.

Tufts is either right or it expelled an innocent student on shoddy evidence four months before she was set to graduate.

– – –

Guilty until proven innocent

Tiffany Filler always wanted to be a vet.

Ever since she was a teenager, she set her sights on her future career. With almost four years under her belt at Tufts, which is regarded as one of the best schools for veterinary medicine in North America, she could have written her ticket to any practice. Her friends hold her in high regard, telling me that she is honest and hardworking. She kept her head down, earning cumulative grade point averages of 3.9 for her masters and 3.5 for her doctorate.

For a time, she was even featured on the homepage of Tufts’ vet school. She was a model final-year student.

Tufts didn’t see it that way.

Filler was called into a meeting on the main campus on August 22 where the university told her of an investigation. She had “no idea” about the specifics of the hacking allegations, she told me on a phone call, until October 18 when she was pulled out of her shift, still in her bloodied medical scrubs, to face the accusations from the ethics and grievance committee.

For three hours, she faced eight senior academics, including one who is said to be a victim of her alleged hacks. The allegations read like a court docket, but Filler said she went in knowing nothing that she could use to defend herself.

Tufts said she stole a librarian’s password to assign a mysteriously created user account, “Scott Shaw,” with a higher level of system and network access. Filler allegedly used it to look up faculty accounts and reset passwords by swapping out the email address to one she’s accused of controlling, or in some cases obtaining passwords and bypassing the school’s two-factor authentication system by exploiting a loophole that simply didn’t require a second security check, which the school has since fixed.

Tufts accused Filler of using this extensive system access to systematically log in as “Scott Shaw” to obtain answers for tests, taking the tests under her own account, said to be traced from either her computer — based off a unique identifier, known as a MAC address — and the network she allegedly used, either the campus’s wireless network or her off-campus residence. When her grades went up, sometimes other students’ grades went down, the school said.

In other cases, she’s alleged to have broken into the accounts of several assessors in order to alter existing grades or post entirely new ones.

Tiffany Filler, left, with her mother in a 2017 photo at Tufts University.

The bulk of the evidence came from Tufts’ IT department, which said each incident was “well supported” from log files and database records. The evidence pointed to her computer over a period of several months, the department told the committee.

“I thought due process was going to be followed,” said Filler, in a call. “I thought it was innocent until proven guilty until I was told ‘you’re guilty unless you can prove it.'”

Like any private university, Tufts can discipline — even expel — a student for almost any reason.

“Universities can operate like shadow criminal justice systems — without any of the protections or powers of a criminal court,” said Samantha Harris, vice president of policy research at FIRE, a rights group for America’s colleges and universities. “They’re without any of the due process protections for someone accused of something serious, and without any of the powers like subpoenas that you’d need to gather all of the technical evidence.”

Students face an uphill battle in defense of any charges of wrongdoing. As was the case with Filler, many students aren’t given time to prepare for hearings, have no right to an attorney, and are not given any or all of the evidence. Some of the broader charges, such as professional misconduct or ethical violations, are even harder to fight. Grade hacking is one such example — and one of the most serious offenses in academia. Where students have been expelled, many have also faced prosecution and the prospect of serving time in prison on federal computer hacking charges.

Harris reviewed documents we provided outlining the university’s allegations and Filler’s appeal.

“It’s troubling when I read her appeal,” said Harris. “It looks as though [the school has] a lot of information in their sole possession that she might try to use to prove her innocent, and she wasn’t given access to that evidence.”

Access to the university’s evidence, she said, was “critical” to due process protections that students should be given, especially when facing suspension or expulsion.

A month later, the committee served a unanimous vote that Filler was the hacker and recommended her expulsion.

– – –

A RAT in the room

What few facts Filler and Tufts could agree on is that there almost certainly was a hacker. They just disagreed on who the hacker was.

Struggling for answers and convinced her MacBook Air — the source of the alleged hacks — was itself compromised, she paid for someone through freelance marketplace Fiverr to scan her computer. Within minutes, several malicious files were found, chief among which were two remote access trojans — or RATs — commonly used by jilted or jealous lovers to spy on their exes’ webcams and remotely control their computers over the internet. The scan found two: Coldroot and CrossRAT. The former is easily deployed, and the other is highly advanced malware, said to be linked to the Lebanese government.

Evidence of a RAT might suggest someone had remote control of her computer without her knowledge. But existence of both on the same machine, experts say, is unlikely if not entirely implausible.

Thomas Reed, director of Mac and Mobile at Malwarebytes, the same software used to scan Filler’s computer, confirmed the detections but said there was no conclusive evidence to show the malware was functional.

“The Coldroot infection was just the app and was missing the launch daemon that would have been key to keeping it running,” said Reed.

Even if it were functional, how could the hacker have framed her? Could Filler have paid someone to hack her grades? If she paid someone to hack her grades, why implicate her — and potentially the hacker — by using her computer? Filler said she was not cautious about her own cybersecurity — insofar that she pinned her password to a corkboard in her room. Could this have been a stitch-up? Was someone in her house trying to frame her?

The landlord told me a staff resident at Tufts veterinary school, who has since left the house, “has bad feelings” and “anger” toward Filler. The former housemate may have motive but no discernible means. We reached out to the former housemate for comment but did not hear back, and therefore are not naming the person.

Filler took her computer to an Apple Store, claiming the “mouse was acting on its own and the green light for the camera started turning on,” she said. The support staff backed up her files but wiped her computer, along with any evidence of malicious software beyond a handful of screenshots she took as part of the dossier of evidence she submitted in her appeal.

It didn’t convince the grievance committee of possible malicious interference.

“Feedback from [IT] indicated that these issues with her computer were in no way related to the alleged allegations,” said Angie Warner, the committee’s acting chair, in an email we’ve seen, recommending Filler’s expulsion. Citing an unnamed IT staffer, the department claimed with “high degree of certainty” that it was “highly unlikely” that the grade changes were “performed by malicious software or persons without detailed and extensive hacking ability.”

Unable to prove who was behind the remote access malware — or even if it was active — she turned back to fighting her defense.

– – –

‘Why wait?’

It took more than a month before Filler would get the specific times of the alleged hacks, revealing down to the second when each breach happened

Filler thought she could convince the committee that she wasn’t the hacker, but later learned that the timings “did not factor” into the deliberations of the grievance committee, wrote Tufts’ veterinary school dean Joyce Knoll in an email dated December 21.

But Filler said she could in all but a handful of cases provide evidence showing that she was not at her computer.

In one of the first allegations of hacking, Filler was in a packed lecture room, with her laptop open, surrounded by her fellow vet school colleagues both besides and behind her. We spoke to several students who knew Filler — none wanted to be named for fear of retribution from Tufts — who wrote letters to testify in Filler’s defense.

All of the students we spoke to said they were never approached by Tufts to confirm or scrutinize their accounts. Two other classmates who saw Filler’s computer screen during the lecture told me they saw nothing suspicious — only her email or the lecture slides.

Another time Filler is accused of hacking, she was on rounds with other doctors, residents and students to discuss patients in their care. One student said Filler was “with the entire rotation group and the residents, without any access to a computer” for two hours.

For another accusation, Filler was out for dinner in a neighboring town. “She did not have her laptop with her,” said one of the fellow student who was with Filler at dinner. The other students sent letters to Tufts in her defense. Tufts said on that occasion, her computer — eight miles away from the restaurant — was allegedly used to access another staff member’s login and tried to bypass the two-factor authentication, using an iPhone 5S, a model Filler doesn’t own. Filler has an iPhone 6. (We asked an IT systems administrator at another company about Duo audit logs: They said if a device not enrolled with Duo tried to enter a valid username and password but couldn’t get past the two-factor prompt, the administrator would only see the device’s software version and not see the device type. A Duo spokesperson confirmed that the system does not collect device names.)

Filler, who wears a Xiaomi fitness and sleep tracker, said the tracker’s records showed she was asleep in most, but not all of the times she’s accused of hacking. She allowed TechCrunch to access the data in her cloud-stored account, which confirmed her accounts.

The list of accusations included a flurry of activity from her computer at her residence, Tufts said took place between 1am and 2am on June 27, 2018 — during which her fitness tracker shows she was asleep — and from 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on June 28, 2018.

But Filler was 70 miles away visiting the Mark Twain House in neighboring Hartford, Connecticut. She took two photos of her visit — one of her in the house, and another of her standing outside.

We asked Jake Williams, a former NSA hacker who founded cybersecurity and digital forensics firm Rendition Infosec, to examine the metadata embedded in the photos. The photos, taken from her iPhone, contained a matching date and time for the alleged hack, as well as a set of coordinates putting her at the Mark Twain House.

While photo metadata can be modified, Williams said the signs he expected to see for metadata modification weren’t there. “There is no evidence that these were modified,” he said.

Yet none of it was good enough to keep her enrolled at Tufts. In a letter on January 16 affirming her expulsion, Knoll rejected the evidence.

“Date stamps are easy to edit,” said Knoll. “In fact, the photos you shared with me clearly include an ‘edit’ button in the upper corner for this exact purpose,” she wrote, referring to the iPhone software’s native photo editing feature. “Why wait until after you’d been informed that you were going to be expelled to show me months’ old photos?” she said.

“My decision is final,” said her letter. Filler was expelled.

Filler’s final expulsion letter. (Image: supplied)

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The little things

Filler is back home in Toronto. As her class is preparing to graduate without her in May, Tufts has already emailed her to begin reclaiming her loans.

News of Filler’s expulsion was not unexpected given the drawn-out length of the investigation, but many were stunned by the result, according to the students we spoke to. From the time of the initial investigation, many believed Filler would not escape the trap of “guilty until proven innocent.”

“I do not believe Tiffany received fair treatment,” said one student. “As a private institution, it seems like we have few protections [or] ways of recourse. If they could do this to Tiffany, they could do it to any of us.”

TechCrunch sent Tufts a list of 19 questions prior to publication — including if the university hired qualified forensics specialists to investigate, and if law enforcement was contacted and whether the school plans to press criminal charges for the alleged hacking.

“Due to student privacy concerns, we are not able to discuss disciplinary matters involving any current or former student of Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University,” said Tara Pettinato, a Tufts spokesperson. “We take seriously our responsibility to ensure our students’ privacy, to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity, and to adhere to our policies and processes, which are designed to be fair and equitable to all students.”

We asked if the university would answer our questions if Filler waived her right to privacy. The spokesperson said the school “is obligated to follow federal law and its own standards and practices relating to privacy,” and would not discuss disciplinary matters involving any current or former student.

The spokesperson declined to comment further.

But even the little things don’t add up.

Tufts never said how it obtained her IP address. Her landlord told me Tufts never asked for it, let alone confirmed it was accurate. Courts have thrown out cases that rely on them as evidence when others share the same network. MAC addresses can identify devices but can be easily spoofed. Filler owns an iPhone 6, not an iPhone 5S, as claimed by Tufts. And her computer name was different to what Tufts said.

And how did she allegedly get access to the “Scott Shaw” password in the first place?

Warner, the committee chair, said in a letter that the school “does not know” how the initial librarian’s account was compromised, and that it was “irrelevant” if Filler even created the “Scott Shaw” account.

Many accounts were breached as part of this apparent elaborate scheme to alter grades, but there is no evidence Tufts hired any forensics experts to investigate. Did the IT department investigate with an inherent confirmation bias to try to find evidence that connected Filler’s account with the suspicious activity, or were the allegations constructed after Filler was identified as a suspect? And why did the university take months from the first alleged hack to move to protect user accounts with two-factor authentication, and not sooner?

“The data they are looking at doesn’t support the conclusions they’ve drawn,” said Williams, following his analysis of the case. “It’s entirely possible that the data they’re relying on — is far from normal or necessary burdens of evidence that you would use for an adverse action like this.

“They did DIY forensics,” he continued. “And they opened themselves up to legal exposure by doing the investigation themselves.”

Not every story has a clear ending. This is one of them. As much as you would want answers reading this far into the story, we do, too.

But we know two things for certain. First, Tufts expelled a student months before she was set to graduate based on a broken system of academic-led, non-technical committees forced to rely on weak evidence from IT technicians who had no discernible qualifications in digital forensics. And second, it doesn’t have to say why.

Or as one student said: “We got her side of the story, and Tufts was not transparent.”

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