#augh oh my this au is so perfect it hasn’t left my head

[eeblouissant]

!!! @queenofquestions & I chatted briefly about a Tudor period au of sorts for the girls, & naturally I got to doodling lol!!

[shirtlesssammy]

14x20: Moriah

The Road So Far:

How is Team Free Will 2.0 ever going to beat Michael, the Big Bad of the season?

Now:

We open right where we left off last week. Jack escaped the Ma’lak box by blowing it to smithereens, and took most of the bunker’s storage room with it. “You lied to me.” And then he blasts Team Free Will before flapping off.

The guys assess the damage and discuss Jack. And by discuss, I mean Dean and Cas continue to fight about their differing parenting choices. Dean wants to kill their son; Cas wants to save their son. Quite frankly, it’s obvious their therapist is done with it all. And by therapist, I mean Sam. #prayforSam. (I particularly liked the last bit of the fight when Dean had to walk closer to Cas then he already was, and Cas had to clip Dean’s shoulder as he walked away.)

Sam and Dean continue to discuss the plan for Jack. Dean insists they have to find him and “do the hard thing.” They have to kill him. Sam is visibly upset by the prospect.

Jack, meanwhile, is wandering around a city, listening to people lie to everyone around them. I particularly liked the lines that were filler for the lines that we were supposed to pay attention to:

“You should have seen it. I caught a steelhead this big.”

“I saw ‘em at Coachella last year!”

“That’s not porn. I don’t know what that was.”

Jack flashes his gold eyes and commands everyone to stop lying. This is going to solve all the world’s problems! (Sidenote: I liked this post by @eveiswaywardaf)

Sam and Dean pull up to a company called Mirror Universe. Ahem. Sam’s on the phone with Rowena (oooOOOOooo) --she’s in on their little plan.

The brothers head inside to hopefully use the company’s facial recognition program to locate Jack.

Dean calls the whole room nerds, but Sam calls him out on that bit of hypocrisy. DEAN WATCHES JEOPARDY!, guys! (ofc, he does.) Dean tries flashing his FBI badge at the receptionist, but instead of giving a fake name and reason for being there, he spills the truth.

Oh, it seems Jack’s truth command works on everyone everywhere. Dean tests the situation by asking Sam who his favorite singer is and Sam responds, “Celine Dion.” Oh Sam, Vince Vincente (and Balthazar) are very disappointed in you right now. Dean tells Sam that they can’t lie.

Then, all hell breaks loose in the company. I mean, what show are we even watching? (iloveitwithallmyheartandamnotsurewhatiamgoingtodowithoutit) The brothers escape to an empty room. There’s a TV broadcasting the news that the president spilled his tax history, deep ties to Russia and North Korea, and a “demon deal” with Crowley. Out of context, this might be my favorite part of the episode. I mean, the absolute shade! I can’t think of another show I watch doing this --especially one with a conservative audience like we know Supernatural has. In any event, the brothers quickly put it together that Jack’s behind it all.

And then we’re gifted with my favorite part in context (if that’s possible):

THE STAPLER QUEEN!

Cut to Cas in the alley trying to get access to Hell. The demon monitoring the door won’t let him him. Blerg.

For I’m Going to Hell Science:

But Chuck shows up! Uh-oh. He says he’s here because Cas called him, and “him.” Jack’s a problem.

Jack shows up at his grandmother’s place.

The poor lost cause wants to talk about Kelly. (bby boy, you’re so creepy rn.) She’s visibly upset and tells him that they made phone calls and no one knows who he is, and that others think that Kelly is dead. “What did you do to my daughter?!” Agh, her screaming makes Jack get angry and he demands that she stop (so much like his other grandmother...AUGH). The next shot we see is Jack fleeing from the house. Oh dear.

Meanwhile, Dean’s living his best life NOT lying and talking about the parenting blog he follows. MY HEART. Cas and Chuck show up. Dean wants to know where he’s been. “It’s a funny story. Reminds me of a song.” And the Chuck proceeds to pull up a guitar, which Dean promptly smashes to bits and pieces.

He shouts at Chuck to answer him, and with equal force Chuck responds, “Don’t!” Ugh, I think Dean just remembered he’s not just dealing with cuddly, affable, nebbish Chuck here. He’s dealing with God. To lessen the tension, Chuck snaps them all back to the bunker.

That doesn’t stop the questions that Sam, Dean, and Cas have though. Chuck admits to being around, but he’s hands off. If they want to <insert bad event> that’s on them. He only needs to step in when there’s an Apocalypse.

He stops the truth tellings and sets all the world back to order. Sam wants to know if Chuck can stop Jack. He tells them not exactly, but they can with a special gun. He just made it and hasn’t named it yet, but is leaning on “The Equalizer” or “The Hammurabi”. It’s a gun that sends a wave of multi-dimensional energy across a perfectly balanced quantum link. So shooter and shootee get the same treatment with this gun. Cas asks why he can’t just fix Jack’s soul. “Souls are complicated, even for me.” Dean says that this is it. Cas utters Team Free Will’s motto: There has to be another way. Dean doesn’t think so, and tells Cas to “get on board or walk away.” Cas walks away. (Spoiler: DID Y’ALL SEE CHUCK’S LITTLE SMILE AT THAT!?!)

Jack walks the streets replaying his conversation with his grandma. He’s troubled…

So is Dean! He’s tucked himself away in a corner of his bedroom, steadily working through a stash of liquor. He sits Sam down for a special talk. No, it’s not about how two people can still love each other very much, but need to be apart for a while. (#DeanCasBreakup) Dean is, of course, ready to kill himself to take care of the “Jack problem.” Dean. Bean.

Sam refreshingly calls him on his self-sacrificing bullshit.

“We always have a choice,” Sam tells him. He admits to Dean that he’s angry about their mom and a part of him does want Jack dead as well. But they have a responsibility to try to save Jack first. Jack lost his soul to save the Winchesters. Furthermore, he’s FAMILY. “You want my permission?” Sam asks. “You want me to say I’m cool with losing him and losing you all at once? ‘Cause I can’t do that.” GOD, SAM I LOVE YOU. This was the best, most emotional, most needed speech.

Cas continues his desperate search for Jack, heading to the cemetery where Kelly is buried. Jack isn’t there.

But Jack flaps in. He’s been looking for Cas! Castiel, that beautiful, majestic raven, pulls Jack in for a big hug.

Back at the bunker, Chuck’s a giant dork, playing with an AU archangel blade. Sam asks how many AUs exist. Chuck’s not sure, but we do learn about:

Reverse

No yellow

All squirrels (Thanks @consulting-cannibal for your contribution to the world’s cumulative joy)

At the cemetery, Jack talks through his failures with Cas. The lying experiment? Huge fail. Coffee and love with the Klines? Catastrophic strike-out. Grandma Kline accused Jack of killing Kelly, and Jack says that he did, just by being born. UGH that is a terrible guilt to lay on a child, soul or not. (Of course, she didn’t know…) Anyway, Cas is a good dad and talks about Jack’s experiences with him. Jack used to hate himself for Kelly’s death, but the feelings are gone. We also learn that Grandma Kline survived her interaction with Jack. Phew!

Sam asks Chuck an ultra-mega-pertinent question: is their world just another throw-away experiment? Chuck insists that this world is the best and he LOVES following the adventures of Sam and Dean. Sam gets pissed off at the idea of Chuck just watching them suffer through terrible near-ends. “You’re my favorite show,” Chuck says with a little side smile.

Sam demands an answer for why all these world-saving burdens have to fall on them, but Chuck offers up the “non-interference” answer. Anyway, he’s not here to argue cosmic ethics with Sam. It’s time to address the Jack problem. Sam finally asks where Jack is, and Chuck reveals that he’s already told Dean. Dean has left the bunker, gun in hand. Y I K E S.

At the cemetery, Jack and Cas talk.

For Beautiful Feelings Science:

Jack is desperate to do the right thing, but he doesn’t have a soul to guide him anymore. Oh, Jack. Cas will be your Jiminy Cricket! Jack WANTS to love. He wants to feel. But he can’t. “You can’t yet,” Cas tells him. They need to go hide somewhere in the world until Jack gets better.

Enter Dean with his metaphorical gun. Cas stands between Dean and Jack and EMOTIONS ARE HAPPENING PEOPLE. Jack refuses to run. He knocks Castiel away and faces Dean, knowing why Dean is there. Jack kneels. He’s ready. And I’m getting tears in my eyes. Because Dean looks at Jack. He REALLY looks at him while Cas and Sam watch the story unfold.

This metaphorical gun, while almost a joke because of its obvious symbolism, is actually perfect. This death would tear into Dean’s soul just as much as it tears into his body. And when Jack tells Dean that he knows he’s a monster just like Dean’s been saying all along, Dean looks at Jack and sees……...

Sam, meanwhile, has been joined by Chuck who is having the time of his life. Drama! Yes. Despair! Yes. Terrible soul-killing sacrifice! Mmmhmm good. Chuck watches Dean while Sam watches Chuck with growing horror. “Are you enjoying this?” Sam asks and Chuck shushes him like he’s in a freaking movie theater.

Dean cocks the weapon, grits his teeth. Finger tenses. He looks at Jack. And he LOWERS THE GUN. And here, I’m going to take a little crying break. This moment means so much to me.

Dean tosses the weapon aside. Chuck springs to life and orders Dean to pick the gun back up. “This isn’t how the story is supposed to end.” And HERE is where Chuck flips from adorable weird bunny to, idk, red-eyed god-bunny of doom.

The gravitas dies. Chuck goes on a rant about wanting to watch the father-killing-his-son storyline. The epic man paaaaaaain! Sam tells Dean that Chuck’s been playing them for fools. Playing WITH them like they’re game pieces.

“Our entire lives. Mom, Dad, everything. This is all you because you wrote it all, right? Because, what? Because we’re your favorite show? Because we’re part of your story?!”

Chuck tells Dean that if he picks up the gun and kills Jack (and himself) that he’ll bring Mary back. Dean confesses that his mom is his hero (cries) and he misses her (cries more) but she would not want this (cries the most).

“Why the games, Chuck?” Dean demands. The Winchesters unite in outrage. “When does it end?” Sam asks.

Chuck snaps his fingers and SMITES Jack. It isn’t fast, or painless. Cas tries to help him while Jack screams. Meanwhile, Sam picks up the metaphorical gun and shoots Chuck. NOOOOO SAAAAAAM!

(Okay, but the metaphorical gun symbolized Dean’s self-destruction but for Sam, it symbolizes how he fights to protect the people he loves. SAM you have come into your own this season. Truly. I am so proud.)

Sam only shoots Chuck in the shoulder and, as Chuck advertised, gets a wound in his shoulder as well. (At least he won’t have to dig out a bullet?) Pissed off now, Chuck throws a cosmic tantrum. “Story’s over,” Chuck says. “Welcome to The End.”

The sky goes dark. Jack’s dead, wing burns scorching the ground.

Sam’s still injured as they gather around Jack. We fall into a camera spiral, dipping down into Jack’s burned out eye socket (ew?) to the tune of Motorhead’s “God was never on your side.”Jack wakes in the Empty and looks around.

The Shadow greets him and draws a smile on their face. (What Would Mister Rogers Do?)

Billie greets him!!!!!!! “We should talk,” she says. Suddenly, all my crops are watered and my skin has cleared!

Down on the world, shit goes down in the cemetery. As an epic score screams about God’s betrayal, the dead claw themselves from the earth.

The woman in white appears. Gacy resurfaces. Bloody Mary rides again. These souls are all back, despite all the work and the death and loss…

It’s The End, and Team Free Will stand together as the dead converge on them. The camera cuts away and we lose sight of them in the pressing of the zombie horde.

I AM SO EXCITED. What a damn gloriously operatic note to linger on for…months.

D:  h o l d   m e

Quotes Lie:

Dad, none of this woulda happened without you.

You should never have tried to lock him away!

We’re gonna have to do the hard thing. We’re gonna have to do the ugly thing. It’s not like it’s the first time, right?

I’m Dean Winchester. I’m looking for the Devil’s son. This badge is fake.

“Hey I slept with your wife.” “I know. I’m kinda into it.”

And I saw Springsteen on Broadway, man’s a genius.

You want to go up against the British Men of Letter? Little weak, but ok.

Souls are complicated, even for me.

I’ve already lost too much.

What are you?!!

No offense, but your brother is stupid and crazy.

This isn’t just a story. IT’S OUR LIVES.

Writers lie.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[garden-ghoul]

Aubrey is married to every single member of the Six, and also Samot. Let’s boogie.

Notes: This is some kind of used-the-right-fucking-knife AU I guess? Doesn’t matter, the point is Samothes is still alive but Aubrey also lives with Samot.

“Aubrey!” Samot’s voice comes floating in from somewhere in the main house. “You should come inside, we have to get ready.”

Aubrey is halfway up the side of her enormous printing press, which is presently gutted, trying to reach a bolt she’s tightening while maintaining her footing. “Just a second!” she calls. “I’ve got to—augh!” She catches herself on one of the bars that’s almost too far to reach and stands there, leaning precariously sideways. She tries to prevent her tail from switching in frustration, because it’s going to unbalance her, but it’s difficult to concentrate on how to get out of this while she’s working so hard to keep still.

She hears footsteps coming into the workshop, and sags in relief. Unfortunately, this means she falls. She hits her elbow on a jutting corner and braces for impact, but it’s Samot’s arms she lands in. When she cracks an eye open he’s straightening up—she can tell because the floor is much further away than normal—saying, “You really should be more careful. And honestly, what is that thing? I know you’re no mechanic…”

“It’s a surprise,” says Aubrey. “You’ll like it.” She hopes he’ll like it, the amount of time she’s spent nursing bruises and scrubbing machine oil off her scales.

“I like almost everything you make. I just think that maybe you could use a stepladder.” He still hasn’t put her down, and is instead carrying her into the house. Held against his chest, she can’t help but think of Sige.

 --

 (She never had to worry about getting Sige greasy, or what it meant when he held her. Well, maybe that last one wasn’t quite true. She used to think all he felt for her was protectiveness. She remembers the day when she figured it out. She was curled into his chest around the notes they’d stolen, securely held by a hand as big as her torso. She could feel it when Sige turned suddenly and swung; she could feel through his bones the wet crunch when his fist connected; she could smell blood.

On top of singed flesh. Sige had already taken a few nasty wounds from the Fontmen’s canes, and she could tell he was slowing down. She peeked just in time to see all the hair burned off the arm that was holding her. Sige growled in pain and fell back. Aubrey was beginning to think they were going to lose, which was honestly unacceptable. She spent a tense thirty seconds fumbling with her vials, trying to find the right one, and wasn’t quick enough to stop the Fontman from putting a hole in Sige’s side. But she was quick enough to save him from death, that was something.

They ran while the Fontman lay choking on the ground, because Sige didn’t want to risk kicking him. Ten minutes later found Sige slumped against the wall in one of the safehouses no-one knew about, panting. His breath hitched every so often in pain, and he still hadn’t let go of her. At the time she thought he had forgotten, and carefully extricated herself, trying not to step on any of his wounds. His hand seemed to cling to her until it fell back onto his chest. “The notes didn’t get damaged,” she said, quavering. She cleared her throat as she checked the labels of her vials, and tried for a steadier voice. “You’re hurt.”

“But you’re not,” he muttered. His eyes were still closed, and she could tell he was keeping his breathing even only through force of will.

“You’re right, I’m not, so stop worrying about me! That’s what almost got you killed in the first place. Oh, look at this, this is awful.” She started applying ointment to the wound in his side, a burn that was already blistering.

He was silent for a while except for small noises of pain, and then suddenly he said, “I’ll never be sorry I protected you.”

Aubrey’s face flushed, and she glanced up at him from under her brows. He looked kind of sleepy, and his face was still tight with pain, but he was smiling softly at her. He lifted a hand to cradle her head, folding her ears forward a little. One of them flicked automatically as he disturbed the hairs inside, and her face burned even hotter. That was when she realized.)

 --

 “What are you working on?” she asks Samot, thinking that maybe being carried will be a little less awkward if she makes conversation. “I’ve hardly seen you these past few weeks.”

He lets out a little breath of a laugh. “That’s as much your fault as mine. Whenever I go looking for you you’re inside that thing’s guts, or in the stillery.”

“It’ll be ready soon,” she says. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Deep magic,” he says. “I hardly have time for anything else these days. I’m worried…” he sighs, and she knows that it’s the Heat and the Dark on his mind again.

To distract him, she says, “I can walk on my own, you know.” It’s a peculiar mixture of pleasant and humiliating to be carried. She knew where she stood with Sige, at least. On his shoulders, normally. Well, Samot stops and sets her down with probably unnecessary gentleness, and she has to walk a little too fast to keep up with him. “Remind me why I need to go to this party with you?”

“You don’t need to. I gave you the opportunity to say no. But it would be rude to change your mind now, since you’re already on the guest list.” He glances down at her, and there’s something particular in his smile. “It won’t be so terrible, will it?”

His smile reminds her of someone, too.

 --

 (It’s the smile Ethan used to give her sometimes. That’s one of the ways she could tell him from his brother: Ethan gave her that smile, but when she smiled at Edmund he just blushed. He never seemed to figure out that he was so easy to read, but nobody else seemed to notice either. Then again, the rest of the Six probably thought Captain Hitchcock was just kind of an inconsistent person.

Today Aubrey was copying her notes (though it pained her to write neatly, literally, her wrist was killing her), leaning against Frank’s warm side. In the next room Sige was probably having tea, and the atmosphere was so nice it was easy to forget they were three stories underground. Hitchcock came in, sheened with sweat, and she computed the probabilities: tonight was a dueling class, so it was Ethan, unless Edmund had been running away from something. To test her theory she gave him a wide-eyed smile, and he grinned back. “What are you up to, Aubrey?” he said, and came to peer over her shoulder. “Nice to see a friendly face after class. Today’s youth are hell.” Frank gave a soft snort and looked toward the other room, disinterested, and three data points made a convincing argument.

“It’s nice to see you too, Ethan,” she said, though she couldn’t at the moment. He was kneeling behind her too look at her notebook, so she held it up for him. “It’s probably not very interesting to you, though.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” said Ethan. She could hear he was still smiling. “But I’m glad you do.” He leaned closer to look at her notes, so his shoulder brushed hers, and pretended to try to decipher the formulas she’d written out for far longer than he needed to.

Compare to his brother:

The day before, Aubrey had found him practicing dueling forms in the studio as she went out, and nearly called him Ethan. But when she waved at him as she passed he stumbled over his feet trying to bow. She put a hand over her mouth to conceal the fact that she was almost laughing, and said, “Your form is so good I thought you were Ethan.”

Edmund turned faintly pink and smiled back. “Well, well, thank you, I suppose that’s quite a compliment. We did both serve in the military, though.”

“I sort of assumed you had an arrangement where Ethan did all the swordwork,” said Aubrey, climbing up onto a stool.

Edmund began to look more affronted than flustered, which had been the goal. “We did not. I’ll have you know I’m the one who defeated Thackeray. Almost certainly.”

“Almost certainly?”

“You know how it is,” Edmund mumbled. “Sometimes when you hear a story enough times you start to think you were there.”

“Well, do you mind if I watch you practice?” Aubrey asked. “I’ll be quiet.”

Edmund brought his blade up in front of his face and bowed to her, and then started practicing again. He didn’t do so well this time, since he kept glancing over at her.)

 --

 “I’ve left your clothes on your bed. We’re supposed to be leaving in half an hour, but it shouldn’t take you that long.” He raises a hand and walks toward his own room, leaving Aubrey to go inside and look at what he left. It’s at least simple, although only after she puts it on does she identify the moss-green item as a tailcoat. It actually, she thinks, looking in the mirror, makes her look almost dashing. She twirls a little, and the tails fan out behind her. Now she just needs to figure out whether to wear the pale yellow skirt with it, or the dark trousers. She does the skirt first, on the grounds that it’s the easiest to take off, and twirls a little more. She does like to twirl, and she certainly likes the look of skirts. But when she tries on the trousers she can’t bring herself to take them off. She looks a bit like some intimidating secret agent, she thinks, like a Fontman.

When she emerges Samot is sitting in the hall, pinning his hair back with the aid of a system of mirrors she rigged up for him a while ago. He looks up and gives her that smile again, says, “You look good.” He leans forward as she comes closer to fix her collar. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but he likes things to be just so. That would be why he looks so good, sharp and soft and perfect, as beautiful as only a god can be. She stands still under his hands, looking embarrassedly in the mirrors at the gold ornaments on back of his head. It feels familiar.

 --

 (Castille did just the same thing once. That day Aubrey was sitting in her apartment, watching her try on clothes for the new season. Castille was so stylish, and really just, very very pretty, and Aubrey loved to look at her. Castille spun around, making her blue dress flare out around her. She looked toward Aubrey, laughing, and it was all Aubrey good do to keep her voice steady—to say nothing of keeping the starstruck expression off her face. “It’s really good,” she said faintly.

“You say that about all of them!”

“You look good in everything! When you, you know, when you put on something that doesn’t look good I promise I’ll let you know.”

“You’re too sweet.” Castille smiled warmly at her, and her heart thudded twice. “For now I think I’ll go with winter colors. Maybe a dark hat this season…”

Aubrey watched her swish around the room for the hats she’d left lying everywhere, listened to her bare feet clacking on the tiles. She was almost too glamorous to be a criminal, but then, probably no-one wanted a pala-din at their society balls.

Castille bent down in front of Aubrey to peer at her face. “I can see you don’t have an opinion on the hat either. That’s all right. Buuut… I think you should dress up too!”

“I, I doubt you have anything in my size,” Aubrey stammered.

“As it happens, I do.” Castille whooshed over to open her wardrobe and emerged with a pile of folded clothing, which Aubrey saw on closer inspection was cobbin-sized. “I stole all of these from the Office of Lost Materials. Try them on! I promise, I only picked cute ones.”

Obligingly Castille turned around and started looking at some small detail of a patterned jacket, so Aubrey retreated behind a screen and put on the easiest thing she could find, a yellow sundress of some light, floaty material. Thinking of Castille, she put on the broad-brimmed hat with ear holes, and came out. She’d never worn a skirt before that day, and her ears were pushed back in embarrassment, but Castille took one look at her and clapped her hands in delight.

“Oh, you look just as cute as I thought you would! Twirl for me?” Feeling  a little silly, Aubrey did, but her reward was Castille’s beaming smile, so it was all right. “What do you think of the skirt?”

“Um… it’s a little… breezy?”

“Oh, right, not really your style. I also got a really smart waistcoat. Oh! And I think I got a cravat too. You should do those! I probably put in a pair of black slacks. Don’t know why a cobbin had those made, to be honest. Go on, go on!”

Aubrey felt a lot better wearing trousers again, and when she came back out she felt practically confident. Castille’s face lit up. “Oh, I think that’s even more you. One of your lapels is stuck though, let me fix it.” She gently tugged some part of the shirt out of some part of the vest, and smoothed it down. Smiled at Aubrey for a moment, and then continued fussing with it. Her fingers lingered on Aubrey’s shoulders; the knuckle of her thumb skimmed Aubrey’s cheek, brushed her whiskers.

The clothes had made Aubrey feel rather dashing, and bold indeed. She put her hand on Castille’s, keeping it on her face. Something seemed to light up in Castille’s blank white eyes, and she smiled, leaning forward. Neither of them really knew the mechanics of kissing, but they had a go at it anyway. Castille’s lips were hard but not cold, with the sun streaming into her apartment, and she went so gently that they almost seemed soft. Dazed, Aubrey sat down hard on the floor.

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” she said.

Castille, backlit, was radiant. “We can try again, if you want. We might get better at it.”)

 --

 “Aubrey, are you all right?”

Aubrey’s eyes briefly land on his face before she looks hurriedly away again. She’s not sure, really, how to ask if he’s flirting. It seems awfully presumptuous to think a god has any interest in her, and although she’s never seen him like this with anyone else maybe that’s just what it looks like when he’s friends with someone!

“Fine,” she says, after way too long. She’s blushing, and irritated with herself for it. “I just maybe… sort of wondered… why you’d want to take me to a party like this.” He doesn’t answer for a moment, so she panics and tries to fill the silence. “Since, you know, you could get absolutely anyone to go with you! Everyone likes you! Not to say that no-one likes me, but, you know, I’m not exactly the god of knowledge and wine and being beautiful.”

When she glances at his face again it’s a strange mixture of confused, bemused, and reassuring. “As if none of those is your domain?” he asks, totally failing to address any of what she said. Irresponsible. “Do you think I asked you because I pity you?” She shakes her head, hesitant. “Do you think I wouldn’t want to show off the most brilliant friend I have? Looking dashing in tails?” He grins for a moment, and then gets his face under control again. “At a party where my husband will be, almost certainly taking his aunt as a date?”

A little incredulous laugh escapes Aubrey, and she claps her hands over her mouth. She gaps her fingers slightly to mumble, “Are you saying you wanted me to make Samothes jealous?”

For the first time he looks away. He’s frowning slightly. “It was terribly rude of me not to ask,” he says at last. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have… perhaps galas aren’t what you would choose.”

“If we’re going on a date I’d much prefer something simple,” says Aubrey. A moment later she realizes what she said and tightens her fingers again over her mouth, trying to get around Samot to burrow into the wall.

“Next time we will do something simple,” he says, catching her gently by the shoulders. “You can choose.”

She can’t look at him, but she manages to headbutt him in the chest, which is her compromise. “Me and my big mouth,” she says into his coat.

“Don’t be too hard on your mouth,” he says. “It got you a second date with the god of wine and books and being beautiful. And the first one hasn’t even started.”

 --

 (In the end it isn’t clear if Samothes is jealous or not, but Aubrey is so nervous she drinks three glasses of wine and kisses Samot, which, no matter how mortifying, makes the evening not a total loss.)