#but yeah sam's bone structure is wild

[pynkhues]

Just to add to the "wow they really did make Lestat look insanely gorgeous at the trial" discussion

His bone structure/face outline (is that a thing?) is just really exquisite

https://www.tumblr.com/klaushargreeveses/765434656143360000/i-offered-louis-myself-instead-what-i-am-my?source=share

It's funny, I watched Sam in Belle years ago and Jacob in GoT, and I remember thinking that both of them were really good-looking when I watched those things, but I feel like they both got even more handsome in their 30s because now I'm like, these are two of the most beautiful men alive

Yeah, it's a really interesting thing, but I think they've both matured into their features? Jacob was so baby faced for so long and has finally shed some of that in a way that almost amplifies his features, and I think Sam's kind of looked the same age (mid-30s) for a decade, so has typically looked older than he's been, and has finally caught up to his own features in a way that makes them just make more sense, haha. Levelling up into leading roles and getting all the styling, attention, good lighting and job security probably helps too though ;-)

[ejzah]

The Agent and the Fireman, Part 15

***

Deeks managed to get his arms in front of him before he hit the ground, saving his face from a face full of gravel but the impact drove all the air from his lungs with a painful whoosh. He couldn’t hear anything past the ringing in his ears.

The weight on his back lifted, making it slightly easier to breathe.

“Deeks. Deeks, are you ok?” Kensi demanded from above him, her voice tinny and faint. He rolled over with a groan, pressing a hand to his chest. Kensi leaned over him, her eyes wild with concern as she grabbed his shoulders.

“Ye—” His response was interrupted by a grating cough, that crackled up his throat. “Yeah, I’m ok.” His ears were still ringing slightly and it felt like the entire building had landed on his chest, but he was alive. “Yeah. Your cheek.”

He reached up where a thin line of blood streaked down from her cheek bone to her jaw.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “You’re looking a little rough though.”

Beside them, Callen and Sam were getting to their feet. “Everybody ok?” Sam asked, his voice raspy. He pressed his finger to his ear. “Castor, you clear?”

Once Sam ascertained there weren’t any casualties, Kensi offered Deeks a hand, and he stood, shaking shrapnel from his hair. Now that the initial shock was over, he felt the sting of little cuts along his exposed skin.

Billows of smoke poured from the partially demolished factory, flames flickering from where the roof once was. It had already created a dark cloud around them, bits of debris still lingering in the air.

“We need to get farther away in case there’s a secondary explosion,” he warned. “We have no idea what might be stored in there.”

“As soon as we secure the area. The bomb squad is on the way, but it might be too unstable for them to safely get close enough to check,” Callen said, leading them back across the street. “The second team’s making sure there aren’t any civilians we missed.”

Deeks eyed the building nervously; it was one thing when he entered a burning structure with protective gear and the training to recognize a worthwhile risk. An NCIS Agent with only a bullet proof vest and rifles against possible blazing fire was an entirely different story.

Callen, and Kensi had started rooting around the nearby alleyway, and he could see Sam sizing up the the main entryway.

Hey, everyone needs to get back,” Deeks repeated, taking on an authoritative tone. He saw both Sam and Callen turn to him in surprise. He didn’t give them time to object again. “You may be lead in this case, but I know fire better than any of you.” The sounds of sirens signaling the approach of trucks and squad cars reached them. “Let us check it out before you go running in.”

He expected more pushback, a reminder about their federal status, but Sam looked more impressed than anything, and Callen relented with a nod.

“Ok, we’ll follow your lead then.”

They moved towards the adjacent building as a group, the other team of agents led by Agent Castor joining them after a minute.

“Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical of you to preach caution after some of the stunts you’ve pulled?” Kensi asked once they were at a safer distance.

“Probably,” Deeks agreed. “I’ve seen some nasty things with fire over the years. It sneaks up on people. Besides, I know you guys like to bend protocol. Do you not approve?”

“Actually, I thought it was…very attractive,” Kensi replied with a sly grin. “I always do when you stand up to us like that.”

“Ooh, interesting.”

The arrival of emergency vehicles ended their conversation, and Deeks headed off to grab an extra set of gear and assist with the fire while the others coordinated securing the scene.

“Be careful!” Kensi called after him.

He lost track of her in the melee of it all. First, they let the bomb squad analyze the remains for further signs of explosive devices before taking over. Since most of the outer infrastructure was concrete, it didn’t take long to extinguish the remaining fire.

Deeks and a fire investigator did a walk through to ensure it would be safe for further investigation. When they were finished, he sought out Kensi, Sam, and Callen again.

“Did you find anything?” Callen asked.

“Whatever might have been there is long gone,” Deeks answered Callen’s question grimly. With a frustrated sigh, he tugged his safety helmet off, ruffling his matted hair. “The interior is completely gutted aside from anything metal or stone-based. We were so close.”

“Hey, we’ve closed down one of his avenues,” Kensi pointed out. “Eventually, he’s going to run out of places to hide.”

“Well, we still have his mother at—”

Deeks held up a hand, interrupting Sam mid-sentence. “How many officers did LAPD send?”

“Nine,” Kensi responded instantly. “Why?”

“Because now there’s 10. Guy at your 6 o’clock.” While keeping his body and head oriented towards Kensi, he watched the man lingering near the caution tape. “He’s got a clipboard, and appears to be collecting evidence, but the fit of his vest is a little off, and he’s about McHenry’s height.”

“You’re sure?”

Kensi shifted her body so she was facing Callen, and snuck a discreet glance beyond him.

Deeks inclined his head. “I can’t be positive, but he hasn’t gotten within three yards of anyone else and we know he’s returned to at least one scene previously.” He brushed Kensi’s shoulder in warning as the man turned around, and she hastily looked away.

Callen slowly scanned the entire area, pausing in the direction Deeks had indicated for a few extra seconds. “Ok, don’t make any fast moves, we’ll try to get close enough to him without making him suspicious. Keep an eye on him while we get reinforcements.”

Callen and Sam took off towards the lead LAPD officer.

“Too late,” Kensi growled a minute later. “He’s on the move.”

Sure enough, the man had started walking in the opposite direction, heading away from the man road and building.

Kensi put a hand on Deeks’ arm as he started to pursue. “Wait, where are you going?”

“You really want him to get away again?”

Kensi considered his question for a few seconds, and then dropped her hand, letting out another growl. “C’mon,” she said, which was all the encouragement Deeks needed to break into a run, Kensi easily keeping pace with him.

***

A/N: Ooh, look at that, we’re getting closer! I hope you’re still enjoying this story, fireman Deeks, and all the many liberties I take with fire protocol.

[cdroloisms]

i love all your super angsty stuff, but sometimes i want to see dream go apesht and be powerful and confident and frightening again, y'know? maybe a little unhinged still but making everyone realize that THEY made this monster by putting him in the vault O_O

OH YEAH ,, unhinged c!dream my beloved (/lh) 

c!dream when he’s a hot mess, ever so slightly (or not slightly) off the rails is SO much fun to write and read ,, he’s so messed up to himself and others and makes me go like >:D the entire time 

im not sure if this is what you wanted, exactly, but boy was it fun to write. c!sam,, is not having a good day lmao 

tw: blood, violence, implied torture, offscreen murder, death threats, mental instability, emotional distress, dark content, prison arc/pandora’s vault, c!sam critical (not really? But I digress)

Ranboo is in the wrong place in the wrong time.

He thinks, halfheartedly, that that could be the name of his autobiography. What To Do If The Universe Hates You, an Advice Book By Ranboo T. Beloved doesn’t sound too shabby, all things considered - it’s applicable, at the very least. It’d been true with George’s house, true for the Butcher Army, true when he’d been the one that Techno found in search for his armor back, true now, with sirens blaring from the prison that he’s coincidentally probably the closest to out of everyone on the server. Part of him wants to just ditch the place for Snowchester, as he was originally planning to do; unfortunately, caring about pretty much everyone means caring about what’s going on with their greatest enemy, especially now that Wilbur’s been revived.

Ranboo hurries towards the prison, dunking water by his feet to activate his trident. It only takes him a few Riptides (what can he say - he did say he was close to the prison) for the beach in front of the giant, dark-walled structure to come into sight, two figures stood in front of the smaller box containing the Nether Portal. One of them, standing tall and wearing glinting purple netherite, is clearly, unmistakably Sam, which means he other stranger- well, not stranger, exactly, must be Dream.

Ranboo skids to a stop on the hillside, not wanting to jump into the fray until he knows exactly what’s happening; Techno’s voice rings in his head (the element of surprise is one of your greatest weapons in battle) then Phil’s (what he means is don’t be an idiot, mate) and he settles, silent, to observe with an enderpearl readied in his hand.

It’s no wonder he didn’t recognize Dream, at first - he looks nothing like the man that Ranboo remembers, almost doesn’t look like a person at all. His hair is long and tangled, hanging in clumps around his face. Even from the distance, he looks like a wreck, all sharp edges and skinny, shaking limbs, a heavy netherite axe hefted in one hand. Ranboo shudders at the sight of the blood already on the blade, at the various injuries painting the orange of his prison uniform more red than orange, and looks to make sure his sword is close at hand.

“Prisoner,” Sam’s voice is gravelly, tight with stress. He sounds the same way he did that one time he confronted Ranboo about the prison books he didn’t remember signing, the pages filled with strange runes that he somehow could understand- “Stand down.”

“Sam-” Dream laughs, high-pitched and grating, and Ranboo’s tail lashes anxiously. Dream’s hand raises to his face, his shoulders shaking as the other hand tightens over the handle of his axe, “Awesam. Sammy- I told you, didn’t I? I fucking told you what would happen.”

“Dream-”

“Unless you want to end up like Quackity, I suggest you stop talking, Warden.”

It’s quite a sight to see someone in fully armored netherite cower from someone completely unarmored, looking more dead than alive, but well - it is Dream, and Ranboo finds himself cringing back at the words even though he’s not even in the area. He steals a look at his communicator; the rest of the server has noticed the sirens, it seems, but nobody seems to understand what exactly is going on, much less be ready for a potential fight, and a nervous shiver runs down his spine.

“Sammy,” Dream stalks forward, his axe braced in front of him, “Look at you. You’re so goddamn pathetic-” He spits the words like venom, back hunched, center of gravity pulled close to the ground - he looks more mob than human, watches Sam with the same wild-eyed desperation that Ranboo’s seen in a starving wolf chasing down prey, “Such a fucking coward that you couldn’t do shit yourself. Well- good for Quackity, isn’t it? It sure ended up well for him.”

Ranboo shivers, looking at the blood staining the netherite blade with ice rising in his chest. No- he didn’t-

“You know how good it felt to plunge this axe into his neck?” Dream laughs, the sound raspy and unsettling, making Ranboo shrink back in his hiding spot, “You know how many times he threatened to do the same to me? You know how many times he’s used this exact fucking axe to cave my ribs in?” He hurls the blade down and Ranboo reaches out with a wordless shout, watching as the axe strikes the earth in a spray of sand, “HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES, SAM?”

“Dream-”

“Don’t- You don’t get to call me that,” Dream pulls the axe back, looks up with another round of breathless laughter. “You- don’t you fucking dare.”

Sam draws back- Ranboo can’t place the expression that flashes over his face, something a little like fear, something a little like guilt. He doesn’t seem to try and say anything, a sword appearing in his hand.

“So you want to try this too,” Dream’s voice pitches low, becoming something hysterical, almost amused, “Sure! We’ll play. Try to last a little longer than Quackity, will you?”

He flashes forward, much much faster than he should with the amount of injuries that claw over his arms and legs, brings the axe down in a heavy clang that is only barely met by Sam’s sword. Ranboo looks left and right, tries to find others coming to the Warden’s aid, finds none. Dream’s pace is ruthless, bringing down the axe again and again, hardly reacting when Sam catches him by the arm on his blade. Sam hisses in alarm as the axe handle is swung into the inside of his arm, loses his grip on the sword as the back end of the axe catches it at the base. Dream heaves in shuddering breaths, axe clanging against Sam’s armor and sending the creeper hybrid toppling to the ground with a sharp exhale of breath, presses the bloody blade beneath his chin.

“You know-” He smiles, pressing the axe forward further, making Sam lift his head as he falls back against the sand, “You were kind of useful, you know? You and Quackity, I mean.” Dream hisses angrily, words pitching lower, “Do you know what’s the easiest way to make someone hurt? Do you know where to hit someone for it to cause the most pain? Do you know how it feels to break every bone in your fucking body? Quackity said he’d make every fucking day of my life a living hell.” He raises his axe, foot ground down on Sam’s arm, “How about I return the favor?”

Ranboo throws his enderpearl.

He raises his sword, braces against the vibrations running up his arms as the axe crashes down on it with a grimace as he readies himself to fight. Dream draws back for a second- “‘Boo?’

“Ranboo, run,” Sam shouts behind him, pulling his arm to his chest as he moves to stand, “Get out of here-”

“No, no, I think he can stay,” Dream’s eyes flash, harden. “Figures that he’d play the traitor once again, doesn’t it Ranboo?”

“I was never your ally-”

“You and the rest of this damned server, ‘Boo,” He laughs dangerously, draws back as Sam gets to his feet. Ranboo watches as he kicks up Sam’s sword, catching it in his left hand. “Oh well. As much as I would’ve liked to take another life-”

A flash of blue-green, and there’s someone else standing there, a crossbow loosely held in one hand, smiling lazily through his hair.

“-it looks like my ride out is here.”

“You’ve made quite  the mess,” Wilbur drawls, rolling his eyes at the man beside him, “I have to say- I’m a little impressed.”

“Wil,” Dream breathes, shoulders visibly falling, looking at the other man with a sort of soft-edged reverence that makes Ranboo shift uncomfortably at the sight. It feels off, wrong, to see him go from a raging, frothing thing to someone docile, expression filled with a mockery of adoration.

“We’ll be off then, gentlemen,” Wilbur salutes with one hand, lips quirking up. “No hard feelings, Ranboo, Sam,” he nods at each of them with their names and tosses an enderpearl into the horizon, Dream doing so at the same time, “We’ll see you around.”

Ranboo watches, lungs heaving, as they disappear.

“...you know, Sam, I think we might be in a little bit of trouble.”

[books-letstalkaboutem]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Quotes that I Loved

This is just a list of quotes or excerpts that I highlighted while reading the book- literally all of them and there are a lot. I’m going to go ahead and say spoilers below just because there are so many quotes and while I don’t think the quotes actually spoil anything, I don’t want to accidentally spoil something for someone.

Some of the quotes might seem a little weird out of context but these are quotes that hit close to home, made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!", quotes that made me laugh, and then basically all of the other quotes that I loved while reading.

I know that I didn't completely fall in love with this book like so many other people did, but it was still so beautifully written and there were so many amazing quotes in this book.

And just a heads up, I read this on my kindle, just in case the page numbers I list don’t match with your copy of the book.

Spoilers Below:

Quotes that Hit Close to Home

“Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.” Page 39

“The day passes like a sentence. The sun falls like a scythe.” Page 41

“[...] and when she dies it will be as though she never lived.” Page 42

“I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all. I—” Page 46

“[...] she swears sometimes her memory runs forward as well as back, unspooling to show the roads she’ll never get to travel. But that way lies madness, and she has learned not to follow.” Page 61

“His parents meant well, of course, but they always told him things like Cheer up, or It will get better, or worse, It’s not that bad, which is easy to say when you’ve never had a day of rain.” Page 97

“But then a night would go long, and a day would start late, and now he feels like there’s no time at all. Like he is always late for something.” Page 119

““I see someone who cares,” she says slowly. “Perhaps too much. Who feels too much. I see someone lost, and hungry. The kind of person who feels like they’re wasting away in a world full of food, because they can’t decide what they want.”” Page 140

““Life is so brief, and every night in Rennes I’d go to bed, and lie awake, and think, there is another day behind me, and who knows how few ahead.”” Page 167

““I mean feeling like it’s surging by so fast, and you try to reach out and grab it, you try to hold on, but it just keeps rushing away. And every second, there’s a little less time, and a little less air, and sometimes when I’m sitting still, I start to think about it, and when I think about it, I can’t breathe. I have to get up. I have to move.”” Page 177

““Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”” Page 179

“It was such a lovely jar she had kept them in. But the glass is cracking now. The water leaking through.” Page 215

“Moments of joy register as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretch long and unbearably loud.” Page 225

“[...] you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach. Page 226

“[...] in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.” Page 226

“He lets it ring, holds his breath until it stops. He tells himself that if they call again, he’ll answer. If they call again, he’ll tell them he is not okay. But the phone doesn’t ring a second time.” Page 229

“He misses the structure, misses the path, misses the purpose. And maybe it wasn’t a perfect fit, but nothing is.” Page 257

“That he’d blinked and somehow years had gone by, and everyone else had carved their trenches, paved their paths, and he was still standing in a field, uncertain where to dig.” Page 283

“And those first two years, he was happy. He had Bea, and Robbie, and all he had to do was learn. Build a foundation. It was the house, the one that he was supposed to build on top of that smooth surface, that was the problem. It was just so … permanent.” 283

“Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?” Page 283

““The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”” Page 333

“He is all restless energy, and urgent need, and there isn’t enough time, and he knows of course that there will never be. That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.” Page 421

“The world is wide, and he’s seen so little of it with his own eyes. He wants to travel, to take photos, listen to other people’s stories, maybe make some of his own. After all, life seems very long sometimes, but he knows it will go so fast, and he doesn’t want to miss a moment.” Page 438

Quotes that Made Me Laugh

“Henry loves his sister, he does. But Muriel’s always been like strong perfume. Better in small doses. And at a distance.” Page 120

““Sorry, Book,” she mutters, lifting the cat gingerly onto the back of the old chair, where he does his best impression of an inconvenienced bread loaf.” Page 248

““It’s Halloween!” defends Robbie. “It’s the twenty-third,” says Henry, but Robbie treats holidays the way he treats birthdays, stretching them from days into weeks, and sometimes into seasons.” Page 274

Quotes that made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!”

“If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.” Page 31

“[...]from this moment forward, her life will be her own.” Page 48

“There is a defiance in being a dreamer.” Page 117

““It has only been two years,” she says. “Think of all the time I have, and all the things I’ll see.”” Page 132

“It will take time, but time is the one thing Addie has plenty of. So she opens her eyes, and starts again.” Page 192

“But then Addie straightens, lifts her chin, smiles with an almost defiant kind of joy. “But isn’t it wonderful,” she says, “to be an idea?”” Page 261

Quotes that I Love

“[...] never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Page 7

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?” Page 15

“The things that last, even when memories don’t.” Page 16

“As if you couldn’t like one place and want to see another.” Page 23

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.” Page 35

“The kind of place where time slips and blurs, where a month, a year, a life can go missing.” Page 39

“[...] attraction can look an awful lot like recognition in the wrong light.” Page 56

“The rise isn’t worth the fall.” Page 56

“Being trapped, buried alive, these are the things that scare you when you cannot die.” Page 57

“Funny, how some people take an age to warm, and others simply walk into every room as if it’s home.” Page 58

“Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu. Already seen. Already known. Already lived.” Page 66

“[...]a lifetime of knowing brushed away like a tear.” Page 73

“[...] and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.” Page 77

“[...] ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.” Page 77

““These days, everyone’s looking down,” muses Sam. “It’s nice to see someone looking up.”” Page 101

“Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?” Page 103

“If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?” Page 103

“Dreamer is too soft a word. It conjures thoughts of silken sleep, of lazy days in fields of tall grass, of charcoal smudges on soft parchment.” Page 11

“She considers the cut of their clothes, the absence of bone stays or bustled skirts, and thinks, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, how much simpler it would be to be a man, how easily they move through the world, and at such little cost.” Page 129

““I remember you.”” Page 135

“The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.” Page 163

“She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.” Page 165

““I think there are many ways to matter.”” Page 179

“But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”” Page 210

“He is full of roots, while she has only branches.” Page 212

“Easy to stay on the path when the road is straight and the steps are numbered.” Page 229

“Outside the window, the day just carries on as if nothing’s changed, but it feels like everything has, because Addie LaRue is immortal, and Henry Strauss is damned.” Page 235

“[...]I didn’t want to live forever. I just wanted to live.”” Page 236

““There’s this family photo,” he says, “not the one in the hall, this other one, from back when I was six or seven. That day was awful. Muriel put gum in David’s book and I had a cold, and my parents were fighting right up until the flash went off. And in the photo, we all look so … happy. I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”” Page 239

“God, it feels good to be wanted.” Page 256

“[...] And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”” Page 261

“Homesick—Henry knows that one is supposed to mean sick for home, not from it, but it still feels right.” Page 262

“Dressing up, he thinks, is just like watching cartoons, something you enjoyed as a kid, before it passes through the no man’s land of teen angst, the ironic age of early twenties. And then somehow, miraculously, it crosses back into the realm of the genuine, the nostalgic. A place reserved for wonder.” Page 274

“Bea always says returning to campus is like coming home. But it doesn’t feel that way to Henry. Then again, he never felt at home at home, only a vague sense of dread, the eggshell-laden walk of someone constantly in danger of disappointing.” 282

“He doesn’t know what he believes, hasn’t for a long time, but it’s hard to entirely discount the presence of a higher power when he recently sold his soul to a lower one.” Page 284

““You can’t make people love you, Hen. If it’s not a choice, it isn’t real.”” Page 290

“He has asked the wrong god for the wrong thing, and now he is enough because he is nothing. He is perfect, because he isn’t there.” Page 290

“A life reduced to a block of stone, a patch of grass.” Page 299

“The present folding on top of the past instead of erasing it, replacing it.” Page 306

“She knows the paint will fade, rinsed off by a puddle, or simply wiped away by time, but that’s how memories are supposed to work. There—and then, little by little, gone.” Page 307

“Without the bells, the organ, the bodies crowding in for services, the church feels abandoned. Less a house of worship and more a tomb.” Page 311

“God is so large, why build walls to hold Him in?” Page 311

“Once you know about a thing, you start to see it everywhere. Someone says the words purple elephant, and all of a sudden, you catch sight of them in shop windows and on T-shirts, stuffed animals and billboards, and you wonder how you never noticed.” Page 314

“There is a freedom, after all, in being forgotten.” 325

“Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps—perhaps—they are in reach.” Page 327

“They’ve been lucky, so lucky, but the trouble with luck is that it always ends.” 329

““You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.”” Page 332

“She closes her eyes, reminds herself there are many ways to leave a mark, reminds herself that pictures lie.” Page 337

“She may not feel the years weakening her bones, her body going brittle with age, but the weariness is a physical thing, like rot, inside her soul. There are days when she mourns the prospect of another year, another decade, another century. There are nights when she cannot sleep, moments when she lies awake and dreams of dying. But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world. And she does not want to miss it— any of it.” Page 342

“Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”” Page 351

“It is a sign, when even gods and devils dread a fight.” Page 367

“And this, he decides, is what a good-bye should be. Not a period, but an ellipsis, a statement trailing off, until someone is there to pick it up. It is a door left open. It is drifting off to sleep.” Page 419

[cowboyified]

Below are some WIPs I’m releasing into the wild. They were all written at different times over the past two years so any mistakes/cliches you can blame on past June, I don’t know them. 

Go, be free.

This first one I think is the one I’m most fond of. I had such a vision for it; bottlecaps in trees, river swimming, making out against the fridge, all that good stuff you get with weecest. 

The summer Sam is seventeen they stay in one place for long enough Dean starts referring to it as ‘home’. 

It’s an old farmhouse, miles from any other structure, bar an outhouse and hay shed. There’s a porch running the length of the front and back, the wooden boards pulled up from their nails, wavy with the weather. Weatherboard paint peeling, wallpaper inside torn and missing in most places. 

They’re squatting, technically. The property owned by a family saved by hunters once, friends of friends of Bobby’s, too distraught by what they’d witnessed to raise their kids on cursed land. Dean had told Sam that Dad had been told by Bobby that had been told by Pastor Jim that it was chupacabras. A whole pack of ‘em, feeding off the lambs in the back paddock, tried to take a bite out of the baby girl and Sam had said, “As if man, those things are tiny, I’ve seen pictures, you could kick one and it would limp away like a fucking chihuaha, you scared of chihuahas, huh, Dean?” But Sam still hikes his sheet up under his chin when he hears scuffling under their window between sleep. 

There’s remnants of the house’s past inhabitants still scattered around the place. Sam had stood and slid two inches on the wheels of a tiny replica car that had been jammed under the couch the second day they arrived, piffed it at his brother’s head, who’d caught it, exclaimed that it was Camero, dude, treat her with some respect and had sat it on top of the fridge. 

The bookshelf in the corner of their shared bedroom holds mostly dust and tattered occult books stolen from libraries from all over the country, left by hunters who have found what they’ve needed and moved on. There are a few of the worst Stephen King novels shoved haphazardly on the top shelf and Sam finds something funny in that, the irony in enjoying bad horror when the real deal lurks behind the screen door. 

Dean gives him a look when Sam pulls down and cracks open a copy of The Tommyknockers, snorts, “Haven’t you read that one already?” and Sam says, tucking himself into bed, “Yeah, it fucking sucks, King was royally off his head while writing it, that’s why it’s so good.” Sam finishes three quarters of it in one sitting while listening to Dean’s quiet snores from the other side of the room. 

It’s a ten minute drive to the closest town, an off the highway, invisible to the outside world, kind of one-street community. No reason to take the exit if you don’t already know it’s there, one store, one gas station, one bar in an old brick post office building, unfitting, the carpet pulled up at the corners but home to the best fries Sam has ever had in his life. 

Sam follows Dean out to the courtyard, neither of them are legally old enough to drink but there’s nothing else to do but to get respectably drunk in a place like this, anyone that has lived long enough in the true country is some kind of functioning alcoholic, so Dean orders a beer and isn’t asked for ID. In a town small enough for everyone to know every intricate detail in the threads of dirty laundry, they are foreigners. No one knows where they’re from or where they’re going and Sam knows that Dean likes it that way.

It’s never been a secret that Sam prefers to feel like he has a part in everyday normalcy. Dean thrives under anonymity, gets a kick out of it because it makes him feel dangerous. He had stopped accompanying Sam to school two states ago, a silent agreement with their father when Dean had come home early and helped John cut splits into the tips of bullets instead. Like hell I’m signing up for compulsory extra curricular activities. What’s the point in making friends with people whose biggest concerns are the answers to whatever bullshit test and who fucked who last Friday? 

Finding comfort in a nine-to-five kind of community is a flaw Sam’s been burdened to deal with. 

It’s early afternoon, the courtyard is empty and the table they chose rocks on its legs every time Dean slides his drink over for Sam to share. It’s bitter and Sam hasn’t had enough beer in his life to know if it’s supposed to be like that or if it has just soured from the long journey it took to get from the brewery to their glass. He drinks it and doesn’t grimace because his brother is looking at him through the rays of warm country sun. 

“Tastes like piss, huh,” Dean says, leaning forward out of the light so Sam can see him clearly again. He takes back the glass. 

“S’not that bad,” Sam replies, rubbing the leftover condensation into his hand, doesn’t look at Dean, finds it hard these days, twists in his gut all wrong. Sam knows why. 

His brother hums, “There’s gotta be something else to do around here.”

Sam thinks, Dad’s left the car, we can go wherever we want, but doesn’t say it because his brother is loyal to a disastrous fault. 

That’s a recurring thought. Sam in the shotgun seat, his brother behind the wheel, driving away. Just away, to someplace else and they’d be okay because they’d have each other and all Sam ever needs is his brother, like water. But John will be back in two weeks, term starts again in a month and he needs his father to sign the enrollment forms. Two more years. 

“You see the old dredge outside of town?” Sam asks, remembers passing it when they arrived, all twisted, rusting metal, the bones of it against the setting sun.

“What did I tell you about respecting your elders?”

“You told me that they all smell like porridge and are easily susceptible to sleight of hand. No, Dean, Dredge,” Sam stresses. “Big rusty old machine that pulls minerals out of water.”

“Looking to strike big, Sammy?”

“Yeah, you see, my family is poor, brother at home too dumb to get a job. Our father went to get milk and never came back,” Sam sniffs for effect. “I can’t go home empty handed again, sir.” 

“Ah, a real sob story,” Dean nods in understanding, tips his head back and finishes the beer. “Let’s get out there then, sonny. We shan't let that simpleton, downright fool of a brother go hungry.” Dean jabs Sam in the ribs when he stands, hard enough for him to gasp, gets Sam’s head under his arm before he can recover. Sam claws embarrassingly at his brother’s torso, face pressed warm into the side of Dean’s waist. 

“I will pray for us young Samuel, for I too, dream of riches,” his brother is exclaiming, tripping them out and onto the street. “I only ask that we share whatever bounty dredged as I saw the most exquisite pony a few miles back and I simply must have it.”

And Sam thinks - with his flushed cheek hard against Dean’s skin through the thin sweaty fabric of his shirt, heart beating too fast against his ribs in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion - you can have it all. 

---

Sam’s brother’s perpetual state of being is ten miles over the speed limit; this can be applied to almost every aspect of him. Dean goes and goes and rarely stops. They’re pushing double that out of town, north of their property, into the forever stretch of flat land and Sam loses himself in it. That idea of away, of going and going and that Dean could take him because he’s an expert in the field. 

The Impala blasts Born To Be Wild and Sam imagines the lyrics spreading out over the dry grass. He rolls the window down and throws his head out, trying his best to keep his eyes open against the road’s wind. The sun beats down, warmth soaking through and into his bones and Sam laughs as the cattle turn to catch a glimpse of them soaring. 

Dean pulls him in, tugs at the back of his shirt, says something along the lines of, what are you, a dog? Should get you a shock collar for all the times you’re a little bitch, but Sam can’t hear him over the roaring of the open window and the look of transparent glee on Dean’s face, it’s loud and assaulting and Sam has to turn away because seeing Dean like that wobbles him dangerously from the nonchalant facade he has going on in relation to how he feels about his brother. But mostly his face hurts from smiling too wide.

Used as a warm up last year. Boyking!Sam

He thinks he’s in Louisiana, maybe. That he got here in the tray of a pickup and that he couldn’t feel the wind in his hair like maybe he should. The driver had stopped for a piss-break and Sam had snapped his neck without his hands.

He rubs them together now, tries to feel guilty but there’s nothing to feel guilty about because his hands are clean; he doesn’t have to use them anymore. 

Sam thinks he’s in Louisiana because he stepped out of the truck and into a wet kind of heat. There’s a church with thick greenery growing over the roof and white wood that’s been mold-blackened by the humidity. He laughs to the darkness because it's very funny to him that he’s driven himself subconsciously to a place of grace. 

He skips up the steps, two at a time, gleefully. The smell of the bayou and rotting wood has put him in a good mood. The lock snaps when he blinks, the chain unraveling and snaking into a coil at his feet. The doors open for him and maybe he did that with his mind too, or maybe they were just expecting him. 

The church has been used recently, its interior better kept than the outside, bibles tucked neatly in the backs of pews, ribbons tied into plaits. The white of the moon falls in blankets through the windows, shadows of leaves moving over the floor like rippling water and the bust of Mother Mary prays for him at the altar. 

Sam spreads his arms and addresses her, says to the room at large, “Shall I repent for my sins, oh Lord?” and it echoes, gives him goosebumps, a current under his skin. He has an audience here because God is omnipresent, this is a place of worship and Sam has always been good at that. 

A church in Louisiana, standing before a plaster of his mother’s namesake in a church for a God he used to think could have some defying factor in a destiny that was always going to be concrete. It’s funny, blatantly. Sam puts his hands gently to Mary’s cold face, kisses her on her lips before crushing her head, spraying ceramic. 

Sam stands behind the lectern, hands red with his own blood now, sticking the pages of the Good Book. He’s read it before anyway. 

“Am I to be forgiven?” 

Last is a casefic I had planned out in 2019. I didn’t get very far into the actual writing part of it, but I still think the setting is cool, less so the plot I had in mind. 

Just outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut there’s a community built on a sandbar. A small secluded semi-island, connected to the mainland by a mile-long beachfront. A town of forty to fifty now abandoned, vandalised residences.

The police find the bodies of the boys there, bleeding out and into the sand, each other’s skin caught under their fingernails. 

Sam watches as his brother pulls the sheet back from one of the corpses, laying blue on the steel morgue tray. He’s a kid, a boy, not even eighteen. Hairless, lanky, multiple stab wounds puckered around his belly and Sam thinks he does not look peaceful for someone who is meant to be at rest. 

Dean is quieter than usual, his body language stiff. They’ve seen their fair share of dead kids but Sam thinks that this one might look a little too much like an adolescent version of himself. Shaggy brown hair, too long limbs, college on the horizon. Sam blankets the sheet back over the boy’s face and hears his brother exhale in what he thinks might be relief.

The coroner tells them that the other two are the same, besides the youngest one. He’d been blinded, thumbs pushed through his eyes until they popped like grapes. He asks if they want to see him too and Sam says no, thank you, we’ve got what we need.

Which is a whole lot of nothing, but they’ve only just arrived and there’s evidence that doesn’t involve corpses that needs to be checked.

“Pussied out in there huh, Sammy?” Dean says as they’re walking down the funeral home’s front steps, past the manicured roses and trimmed lawn. You see these perfect hedges? We’ll treat your dead mother with the same detailed care!

Sam pulls at his tie and scoffs because he knows he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable standing in the morgue; cases that involve kids always rub them both wrong.

[whatcouldgowrong-ohthat]

To Kiss or Kill

Hey, guys! Be sure to check out @kitkatd7​‘s challenge!

Pairings: Bucky x Curvy!Reader

Dialogue Prompt: “Is it still considered murder if I give them/you a warning?” is in italics

Warnings: Bit of Reader being self conscious, but that’s it. It ends fluffy!!

Summary: Bucky and Y/N are fantastic Avengers. As long as they aren’t on the same team. Between the pranks, name-calling, and constant teasing coming from both sides - the team can’t handle them on the field. But what happens when a prank goes a little too far?

Word Count: 2556

Everyone was on edge. Tension was rising and it seemed all eyes were fixated on the guy sitting on the couch. Their target didn’t even seem to notice. Bucky’s smug grin was never wavering. Those bright blue eyes were watching the TV, staring opposite of the rest of his team.

“He’s too happy,” Scott told Sam. He didn’t like it. He didn’t trust it. No one did.

Because they were waiting.

Waiting to see what he did that would make James Buchanan Barnes so relaxed and so confident.

“You think I don’t know that? I have no fuckin’ clue what – “

“JAMES!”

Oh.

“BUCHANAN!”

Oh.

“BARNES!”

Uh oh.

Several heads whipped to the door, looking similar to bobbleheads that had just been flicked. The doors to the common area opened and a familiar…well, a familiar body ran inside. The hair on the other hand – that was something else. It was bright. It was neon. It was blue.

Wait.

Blue.

Bucky looked over his shoulder, snorting and bursting into a fit of laughter. Her hair was still damp from the shower she had taken, falling around her and looking closer to seaweed with this vibrant new color.

“She sees her hair is blue, yes?” Vision asked, looking at Wanda.

“I think so, Vis.”

“Lookin’ good, Y/N,” Scott called, trying to help soothe the situation.

Y/N’s shoulders tensed. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, attempting to take slow and calming breathes. Sam and Vision already knew it wasn’t working. Everything about her looked like a wild animal ready to pounce. And right now – there was still a chance that they wouldn’t be prey.

“Might I recommend that we scatter?”

No sooner had the words left Vision’s mouth than the rest of the team were bolting out of the room. It was just Y/N and Bucky. His eyes never left her, arms stretched across the back of the couch and face still wearing that arrogant smile. He was damn proud of his accomplishment.

“Yes, Smurfette?”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

She launched at him, diving over the couch. He spun around, metal arm wrapping around her and pinning her to the couch. Bucky laughed as he looked down at her. Y/N squirmed and wiggled underneath him, face flushed from embarrassment and anger. But she was wiggling, trying to find some leverage. And while that distracted Bucky very well, she found her angle. Her knee pressed against his crotch and he tensed. If it weren’t for the fact that she was threatening to cause more pain than he would have liked, he would have thought she looked cute.

“Don��t you dare.”

“Let me go.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Then let me go!”

It seemed to be an odd little match. Both were waiting for the other to yield, to admit defeat. But they were both a little too damn prideful.

“Truce?” Bucky’s warm breath fanned over her face, eyebrow raised and waiting for her answer.

“You want a truce? After what you did to my hair?”

He grinned. And if it weren’t for the fact that she was still fuming over it, she’d have to admit that he might just look a little cute. Just a little. She didn’t want to admit it out loud, but she liked him. She liked their friendship. Their constant battles.

But oh, she was going to kill him.

“I’ll let you up if you move your knee.”

Y/N hesitated. Did she really want that? Warmth practically radiated off of him. It was a contrast to her naturally colder body and she liked it. In all their teasing they had never been this close before. It was making her heart beat faster and any sense of anger was changing. She didn’t want it to. She needed to stay angry and plot her revenge. Which meant…

A truce would have to do for now.

“Fine. Fine – get off.”

Her knee dropped and he released her wrists. Bucky was very proud of himself. That glint in his eyes was so prominent and it was a rare sight. If it wasn’t at her expense, she might have even been proud of him. But nope. Because she now had that stupid nickname to add to his already growing list. Smurfette.

Rolling off the couch, she stood up and ran her hands through her hair. Wincing at the thought of having to wait to redye her hair, she started thinking of a new plan. “This is not a truce.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Bucky said, crossing his arms as he watched Y/N walk away. “Good luck!”

Her hand flew into the air, middle finger raised high and proud, directed straight at him. His laughter echoed in her ears as she stalked down the hall, the doors closing behind her. Schemes were already running through that chaotic brain of hers. It seemed she was so distracted, she missed Sam leaning against the wall by her door.

“So…how’d that go?”

She glared at him, a low growl slipping out of her throat as she asked, “Is it still considered murder if I give the person a warning?”

Sam laughed as she went inside her room, slamming the door behind her.

This was war.

And so it went on.

Y/N’s retaliation had been to cut off a chunk of Bucky’s hair. But it backfired. Bucky went to get his hair cut and returned looking just as handsome as ever. And just as sneaky.

He had replaced all of her coffee with decaf and the sight of her falling asleep in the middle of a meeting? Priceless.

Y/N’s retaliation was to take all his black shirts…and threw them in the washing machine with some bleach.

And back and forth. On and on for weeks and weeks. Every time one of their teammates thought something couldn’t be outdone, Y/N or Bucky found a way. It was escalating quickly. Too quickly.

Sam watched from the window as Bucky was fixing his bike. Y/N’s latest payback had been covering it in Hello Kitty stickers. Everywhere. So now he was having to peel them off one by one before they were permanently stuck. And Bucky’s bike was his baby. Everyone knew not to mess with it. Running a hand over his face, Sam shook his head. He knew very well that this wasn’t going to end well. It just wasn’t.

But he was also curious. What could Bucky possibly do to get back for this one?

-.-.-

It didn’t take long. And it wasn’t even what Bucky planned.

Y/N had been sparring with Natasha. Since coming to the compound, she had grown a lot. Especially as a fighter. To the untrained eye, her curvy figure would come across as something easy to take down. However, she wasn’t. She was good.

But Natasha had years on her. And she had far more advanced training.

That being said, Natasha knew what Y/N wanted a distracted. When she needed it. The two had talked about why Y/N had let this little prank-war go on for so long and it turned out, it wasn’t just because she enjoyed Bucky’s company and attention. It was proving to be the distraction she needed to get out of her depression.

Y/N landed on her back with a loud thud, grunting and squirming as Natasha pinned her down. She huffed, tapping Natasha’s thigh to get her to release.

“You’re going to get this move,” Natasha assured her, helping her stand. “It just takes time.”

Meanwhile, Bucky was also working out in the gym. He snorted when he heard that comment, catching Y/N’s and Natasha’s attention.

“What, Barnes?” Natasha asked, brow furrowing.

Bucky set the bar down, sitting up and leaving behind the bench presses he had been doing. “You’re showing her a move designed for someone half her size.” He came across harsh. Cold. But he didn’t mean it in such a way. “There’s no way she could do that. Ever.”

Still, neither woman knew he meant well.

Y/N felt her stomach twist in knots as Natasha scowled. “What the fuck, Barnes?”

“It’s true.” Bucky shrugged. “Training Y/N to do a move meant for someone your size could get her or her opponent killed. And it wouldn’t be intentional.”

Y/N was already stepping off the mat, picking up her jacket and bottle. Natasha watched her leave, the door to the gym slamming shut behind her. Turning to face Bucky, she asked, “Do you realize how much of a dick you just sounded like?”

Bucky was staring at the gym doors, brow furrowed. What did he say? Shaking his head, he looked at the redhead. “Nat, she has six inches on you and she’s thick as fuck. Her bone structure, the muscles she has – it’s all different from you. The moves you should be teaching her should be taking advantage of that.”

“Then say it like that! Don’t make it sound like she’s some lard ass incapable of handling herself!”

Bucky froze, staring at Natasha like she grew a second head. “What are you talking about?” Natasha just stared at him, waiting for that lightbulb to switch. Luckily, it didn’t take long. “Oh fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky bolted up then and there, running across the room and out the door. Natasha watched him leave and chuckled, shaking her head. Walking over to the punching bag, she continued her workout. Maybe now that ridiculous prank war would come to an end.

Bucky stared at the door like it would swallow him whole. Honestly, a part of him wished it would. It would be so much easier than apologizing for coming across like an asshole. Pressing his forehead against the door, he kept pondering how he could ask her to forgive him. He remembered that broken look on her face. The way she looked so torn up because of what he said. He made her sound like a failure and that wasn’t what he meant. At all.

It was here, in front of a stupid door, that he realized why he enjoyed teasing Y/N. Why he enjoyed their pranks and the nicknames and the constant rivalry. He thought it was because he was being treated normal. Sure, that might have been some of it, but there were other reasons. Bigger, far more important reasons. So he needed to find a way to make this up to her. Gnawing at his lip, he started piecing together a plan. It wouldn’t take long.

It was just time to call an actual truce.

-.-.-

A couple hours later and Y/N was still curled up in bed. She had changed into a shirt twice her size and pj shorts that hugged her thighs. Her hair was probably a mess from her cuddling her body pillow and she had long since stopped paying attention to whatever movie was playing on her laptop. She didn’t like that Bucky’s comments had stung like they did, but she couldn’t help it. She was dwelling. She was human like that.

“Y/N?”

The muffled sound of Bucky’s voice made her tense. Why was he here? He got back at her for her last prank. He won. She didn’t want to come up with something. She didn’t have anything else left.

“Y/N, please open the door.”

“G’way, Buck,” she called, voice muffled against the pillow.

“No. I want to apologize.”

Y/N huffed, pausing whatever mindless movie was on. She grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed and wrapped herself up in it, stumbling to the door. “Why can’t you just go,” she asked, opening the door. She frowned as her gaze landed on Bucky. Well, more like the contents in Bucky’s arms.

Two pizzas, a six pack, cookies, and a tub of ice cream.

“What a way to make me feel like shit, Barnes.” Y/N moved to close the door, but it was stopped by Bucky’s boot. She groaned, meeting his gaze. She didn’t care that he was seeing her blotchy, puffy face or her red eyes. “What,” she whined.

“I really am sorry. What I said earlier – I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

Y/N watched him, clutching the blanket tighter and raising an eyebrow. Where was this going?

“You didn’t?”

“No. Not at all. Y/N, I just meant that Natasha wasn’t teaching you the right moves. Your capable of other abilities that she isn’t. That’s just – “ He was fumbling. Screwing it up. He knew it, but it seemed he wasn’t able to get himself to shut up.

“Bucky.” Y/N offered a smile, letting him know it was okay to stop.

He sighed. “Can I – Can I come in?”

She opened the door wider, allowing him the room to step inside. He set the food down on the dresser and turned. It was the first time he’d been inside her room since he had dyed her hair. There were more photos. A lot of plants. It seemed everything in the room was meant to remind her of good things and to keep her calm. Good. Maybe that would help with this. Facing her once again, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I…I didn’t realize why I liked the whole prank war thing until today.”

She was silent, not sure where he was going with this.

“I – I like having your attention. I like frustrating you and seeing you get excited when you come up with something different. Any time you have a new idea, your eyes practically glow. And your smile…It always makes my day seeing that.” Y/N felt her cheeks heat up and ducked her head. He crossed the room, tilting her head up and holding her gaze. “’M not done, Doll.”

“Oh…”

“You are curvy and thick and strong. It’s amazing. And you are the only person who could risk destroying my bike and I wouldn’t just kill you.” He sighed. “What I’m trying to say is – “

“I like you too, Bucky.”

Bucky froze at those words before the biggest smile slipped over his features. He leaned down, pulling her into a sweet kiss as his arms wrapped around her waist. She moved her hands around his neck, tugging him closer and kissing him back. It was sweet. Simple. Everything they needed in that small moment.

When they needed to breath again, he pressed his forehead against hers. Those endless baby blues watched her intently. “Want to cuddle and eat all the junk food I brought?”

Y/N laughed, fingers lightly dancing along his chest. “I would like that very much.”

He picked her up, hands under her thighs and wrapping her legs around his waist. He kept his metal hand on her, the other grabbing the pizza before dropping her on the bed. She squealed, laughing as she curled into the body pillow and he curled up behind her. He pressed play on the movie, elbow propping his head up as his free hand lightly danced along her arm. His eyes fixated on her though, hardly paying attention to what happened on screen. Her face was so soft, so at ease. And her bright blue hair looked alarmingly cute.

Chuckling, he took a couple strands and twirled them around his fingers. “You know,” he kissed along her shoulder. “I’m starting to like the blue.”

Y/N laughed, curling back into him and shivering under his light kisses. “Shut up, Bucky.”

—-

Tag:

@kitkatd7​ (SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG!)

[ifridiot]

⭐ for About The Living For The Dead

okay, so this one ain’t done yet, but I am admittedly Super Fond of this idea. The crossover no one wanted (yes, I am aware of the What If comic, yes it’s good, no it holds absolutely no bearing on how, why, or what I am doing with this fic). Punisher symbiote fic: About the Living, For the Dead.

First of all, can we talk about the title? I think it’s been made pretty evident in my fics that I fixated pretty hard on David’s little speech in the episode ‘Danger Close’. That whole conversation was so good, and the way the show handled it it felt like real, natural concern from David for Frank at this moment when Frank was displaying real suicidal intent in his search for vengeance. Memento Mori and the Let Them Eat Flesh series are both heavily drawn from that scene, and of course Puncture Repair. 

So I decided to title this fic as it is because obviously Frank himself is gone. That’s kind of the ugly point, isn’t it? Frank is gone and now David is doing what Frank did. Frank didn’t ask him to finish what he started. Frank probably didn’t want him to, for any number of reasons. Frank just asked David to save the symbiote because otherwise it would die with him and if he could save one more life out of the mess then he was going to, by god. David (with Punisher’s support and encouragement) really takes it on himself to go after Billy. To set himself up in the basement of his family home so he can track Billy down, confront and kill him. On this, even in the haze of grief and loss, David is single-minded; the symbiote is the one reminding David to spend time with his family and take care of himself. It’s David that has the fixation, the bloody mind; it’s David forgetting to ‘live his life well’. I haven’t gotten to publishing the scene where it’s made explicit yet, but in this fic it’s the symbiote who’s concerned more ‘about the living’, while David is motivated by vengeance ‘for the dead’.

Favourite bits under a cut, because this fic is multichap and there’s some good bits in each chapter.

Chapter One:

Madani is not watching. Madani can’t hear Frank’s dying rasps – Madani is taking care of clean up, giving them space because she knows what it’s like to hold someone too late, to take on the responsibility of being the last thing they see.

Ugh, just... Dinah really understanding what David’s going through here. The obvious fact that they can’t save Frank, so David’s left in the same place as she was with Sam, and she knows exactly how painful that is, exactly how awful. The responsibility of being the last thing they see, I just like that.

Frank’s fingers are clutching his, shaking and seizing, every breath labored and wet. Each exhale sends little flecks of blood flying, and David thinks he might be drowning, suffocating on his own blood. From the looks of it, Rawlins had worked him over expertly before he’d managed to break free and kill him, but the exertion had cost Frank dearly.

Those fingers guide his hand to Frank’s gut, to the squirming, charred surface of the symbiote. David has never dared touch the creature, and is surprised when it flattens against Frank’s skin, spreading thin, away from David’s hand as though shy. Frank presses David’s palm into it. He’s making desperate eye contact with David, dark eyes flicking over David’s as he struggles to stay, but there are no more words. David curls his fingers against the oil-slick darkness, and knows that Punisher and Frank are having one of those conversations David can’t hear but can see. Franks lips move as though he’s trying to speak, but he can’t hear him however close he leans.

Frank working so hard to stay together, to stay alive long enough to be sure Punisher bonds safely with David. The display here that Frank and Punisher are so well bonded; a conversation David can’t hear but can see. 

He will die he will die if I leave

“Yeah,” David says, and he can see his tears splash on Frank’s bloodied torso. “He will. We can’t save him. But I can save you. Lemme save you.”

I love the way Punisher talks, the difference between structured sentences when it forms a physical mouth to speak from and the stream of conscious dialog, no punctuation when its speaking between itself and its host.

also just. ow. 

We do not mourn the loss of a host

Frank’s eyes drift, and glass over, and he heaves a shaking, weak sigh that has no follow up, no reflexive inhale. His body is so warm and so heavy across David’s lap.

We mourn a friend a love

Immediate, and i mean immediate use of the word we for Punisher and David. No hesitation, they are a team now. Also i feel like this part is so rude emotionally lmao, like it’s really just kind of a punch.

Chapter Two:

Bad David bad brain phenethylamine dopamine norepinephrine all low unhealthy mourning mourning mourning we have to focus

David understands that. That’s why he’d let himself go on autopilot for the last – he glances at his watch and curses. Seven hours? They’d been down here for seven hours and he hadn’t finished the array?

I like to think Punisher uses more clinical terms for what it needs with David and it did with Frank, because David either already knows them from the research he did on the symbiotes (re: hacking the Life Foundation and also probably a bunch of military sources too) or because David is curious enough about new words to look them up, while Frank just understood he needed to take a supplement or else Punisher would die/kill him.

the time loss due to depressive dissociation is also a big Thing to me. 

“Frank felt deeply. We adapted. He took care of himself, of us, mindful. Curtis taught him. It was… difficult.”

It comes in a rush of images and impressions, memories not his own – Frank meditating, Frank focusing on their bond, Frank loving – them, not just Punisher, but them, both of them, and latching on to that love to pull him on and on. The realization that Frank had cared for him as much as he cared for Frank is –

Well.

“You did not know?”

David scoffs, shakes his head, looking away. “Of course I didn’t know. Half the time he looked like he wanted to kick the shit out of me and the rest of the time I wanted to kick the shit out of me.”

I just love this conversation, the gentle revelation of it. Punisher having taken it for granted that David would have understood on his own that Frank loved him too. 

“He chose, David. It wasn’t for any lack of yours. The moment we bonded I knew I would lose him. He belonged to the dead more than he would ever belong to us.”

David can’t imagine that. He can feel Punisher’s pain – the pain of loving someone and knowing their heart, despite the effort they put into the relationship, wasn’t really in it. The pain of knowing that your love was willing to die, just waiting for the chance really. He’d never really thought of Frank as suicidal, but seeing him through the symbiote’s eyes, he has new perspective. Frank dreamed of death, courted it, counted on it.

He loved so many things, so deeply, but his losses had been too great. Finding out that the work he’d done in Cerberus had been illegitimate, had made him a murderer of who knew how many innocent men had been the end of him. He didn’t believe in redemption, certainly not for himself. He’d loved David, loved Punisher – he’d loved Sarah and the kids too, David felt that in the memories Punisher shared – but he had hated himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says...

Just this whole exchange is Good. For an extra hit, allow me to point out that Punisher says ‘It wasn’t for any lack of yours’. Not ‘ours’. Just ‘yours’.

Also the Punisher loving Frank and having a front row seat to his self-destruction, his lack of self preservation. Uh, can you imagine, for a minute, what Frank bonded to a symbiote was like? The risks he’d throw himself into because even if he took a bullet or broke a bone, Punisher would heal him before he died from it? yeah.

“Look, Russo is out there, right now – that smug piece of shit thinks he got away and –”

“And he is hiding. Like a rat, like a roach. When we find him, we will eat his pretty face off his skull and he will die screaming, begging our mercy and there will be none. It will be delicious and we live for that moment. But that is future. This is now. Go up stairs. This… moping… is unbecoming.”

Haha i love how much they both hate Russo. I really treasure that. And the whole way Punisher talks about what they’re gonna do when they catch him is just Nice.

Chapter Three:

So when David twists and writhes in bed, Punisher tastes his anguish, his despair, and wakes him before he can wake Sarah. It soothes him into rising without a noise, but drags him from the dream swiftly, baring it from further examination. This is easy for the symbiote, sort of like throwing the thought in a box. It’s not David’s thought, it’s theirs, and if they have to share it, then Punisher will deal with it.

Part of what I like so much about this chapter is the narrative perspective bleeding back and forth between Punisher and David. Because they’re bonded quite well at this point, and their experiences still have distinct flavours but more and more they function as one. So Punisher coming forward and just boxing up David’s Bad Thoughts is just kinda cool and nice.

He’s cut off by the image, definitely not his own, of himself, sitting at the desk in the power station. He looks tired, and distant, not focused on anything in particular, just looking off to one side, gently lit in the low lights but somehow distinct. His hair is wild, longer, tangled around his face in a mess that somehow reads as endearing; his eyes – they’re not even focused on them, but they’re so blue its unnatural. And in this image – it’s a memory, but it’s not, it’s something more, enhanced by so many emotions that Punisher is pushing through their bond

protect beware infuriating love love love

in this image he looks up, straight into his minds eye – Frank’s mind’s eye because who else would he have been talking to there – and he smiles, and his own heart twists with the fondness and delight he feels, emotions high and unnatural for ‘him’ at the time. He feels a distant stirring of arousal, and again it’s not his own, but the pounding of his heart certainly is.

The memory dissipates all at once, leaving him feeling shell-shocked and wide-eyed in the basement dark, and Punisher curls protectively, sweetly, around his ribs. It’s a physical presence; he can feel the symbiote in his chest, winding around bone, caressing his thudding heart. It should be disturbing, but somehow it’s a comfort.

This whole exchange is just Wow and also Romantic to me. Punisher being able to give David Frank’s memories and let David perceive himself how Frank did. I just really like that as a concept. bombarding David with the feelings Frank felt when he looked at David. That ‘beware’ was one of those emotions.

“Maybe he deserved them more than me, okay? Maybe that’s what it’s about, maybe I’m not scared of him – why the fuck would I be scared of him? I loved him so much I would have died for him and now he’s gone and he shouldn’t be, he should be here – Sarah would be happier with him, someone strong and steady, not some loser who hid from her for a year!”

Those white eyes are wide in shock, though they are mentally entwined and David thinks it had to have known… but then, he hadn’t known Punisher was angry about his nightmares until it spoke, either.

“Everything he did he did for your survival. For you, David.”

“Yeah, so you say! Maybe you’re just fucking with me, trying to make me happy – gotta make those brain chemicals, right? Make it comfy in here for you, right?”

He regrets saying it even as he says it, his own eyes widening at the surge of hurt and upset he feels wash through him, followed by a coiled sort of anger. All at once he’s slammed back into the futon, and he can’t move; Punisher looms in front of him, dangerous teeth on gruesome display. For all that it always seems to be grinning, there’s nothing amused about it’s visage now.

lmao just... god, being so nicely bonded and still having this kind of miscommunication is Good. They’re still alien to one another, especially in emotional experience. David saying something ugly and regretting it even as he’s saying it. Being able to feel how hurtful the words are to Punisher. Punisher rising up righteous in retaliation.

“What was that he said?”

Again, like an instant replay, Frank’s eyelids fluttering, his back pressed against the cold tiles of the shower they’d used in that hellish basement, his hand squeezing just slightly as he moans David’s name.

“Ah, that’s right. You, he was thinking about you.”

The words are so smug yet so bitter – Punisher proving a point.

Did i make it obvious yet how Frank loved David more than Punisher?

Frank could have gone after anyone. That Karen woman, hell, he could have been thinking about Sarah and it would have been more understandable, but he wasn’t. He was thinking about David, he wanted David, yearned for him, and David – oh, David was lost in that revelation.

“You think I was was lying? Manipulating you?”

It’s accusatory, mocking, but David knows he deserves it. Punisher would not, maybe could not have lied, he understands that now. But still he can’t move, can only shiver when the symbiote makes a soft sound, a click of the tongue maybe, and then his legs slowly part. He has no control over it, but he makes no effort to stop it, nor does he stop his hands when they move to shimmy down his pajama pants. His breath hitches and Punisher shushes him, nuzzling against his cheek.

“He wanted you. Loved you. Wanted you happy, David. So let’s be happy.”

How about now?

Also I rarely :eyes emoji: at my own work, but... :eyes emoji:.

David only realizes tears are leaking out of him when Punisher hums, leaning in to lick them away. “No, David, no tears. We are happy like this.”

The weirdest part of it all is, he is, and it’s not just fuck-happy, it’s genuine, bone-deep, actual joy.

I just dig the idea of Punisher comforting David, telling him not to cry.

You have me I have him all of him in me so you have him too

Romantic!!! Sweet!! I REALLY LIKE THIS LINE.

[crispychrissy]

Lost and Found - Part 1

Summary: Waking up in a field with no memory, your path crosses with two strange brothers who promise they can help.  Pairing: Eventual Sam Winchester x Reader, Dean Winchester, Castiel Word Count: 2505 Warnings: Mild angst, language A/N: This is part one of a new miniseries I’ve been working on. It just kept pouring out of me and I couldn’t stop. The first chapter is similar to the season 2 episode Roadkill, but it takes a completely different turn after this chapter. Beta’d by the stunning @saxxxology and if you want to be tagged in this series, please send me an ask!

Lost and Found Masterlist

Have you ever felt like you were floating? Like everything around you is gone and you’re completely weightless? Like your body is just drifting out into nothingness and no matter how much you squirm or fight, you just keep floating further and further away?

You blinked your eyes open and groaned, feeling cold droplets bounce against your exposed skin. A shiver ran up your spine and you felt something hard and wet against your back. Slowly twitching a hand out, you grabbed ahold of what was surrounding you: Grass. Wet grass. Okay, I’m outside, you told yourself.

You tried remembering where you were, but your memory felt like it was blocked by a brick wall. Upon rolling onto your side, you instantly felt like you were going to throw up. You brought your other hand to your forehead and rubbed, trying to push through the dizzy feeling and stave off the nausea.

After several seconds, you slowly sat up, trying to see where you were. Hopefully you could find shelter or someone who might help you. It was nighttime, the only light available was from the half moon when it peeked through the clouds, but you could tell you were in a field or some sort. There were several rows of trees around you, but no structures. You shifted up to your knees and stood, your legs wobbling with the exertion.

You closed your eyes as you felt your breathing and heart rate start to increase. You had no idea how you got there. Why couldn’t you remember anything? The last thing you remembered was saying goodnight to your dad and heading upstairs in your shared house to go to bed.

You opened your eyes wide and you instantly looked down at your clothes. You were wearing jeans and a fitted button up dress shirt that were both soaked from the rain. No visible cuts, bruises, and you didn’t feel anything broken. Drugged and kidnapped? You shook your head and felt around your pockets… nothing. No wallet or car keys; you were obviously dumped here.

You had no time to think further as you heard a low rumble of a car echo throughout the field. Your eyes darted around until you saw the faint glow of headlights off in the distance. A car, perfect. You began to take a few tentative steps towards where you think the road would be, making sure to give enough distance so you would be able to get there before the car. Your legs wobbled at the first few steps, but you quickly regained your footing and began to jog.

Your mind was racing just as fast as your heart was, but you didn’t need answers now. You needed help and to get out of the cold. Your fingers were starting to feel painfully tingly and you knew it was only a matter of time until there was permanent damage. You kept an eye on the bright headlights through the trees as they curved around the outside of the field down from where you were… they were still headed your way.

You slowed down and began to walk as you came across the road, your chest heaving due to the sudden athleticism. You could clearly see the headlights as they got bigger and closer to where you were. When the car was only a few hundred feet away from you, you stepped out into the middle of the road. Now or never.

“Stop, please! Help me!” Your voice came out as a raspy whisper and you cleared your throat. “Stop! I need help!” You waved your hands in front of you, trying to get the driver’s attention. You couldn’t tell if he saw you, so you closed your eyes, preparing for an impact just in case.

The impact never came. All you heard next was the screeching of brakes. You opened your eyes and saw the headlights stopped about ten feet in front of you, reflecting the light rain that was falling in their glow. Two car doors opened in succession.

“Hey, lady, are you okay?” One of the voices called out.

You looked up and blinked your eyes, trying to make out the faces of the people in front of you. You blocked the light from the headlights with your hand, but you were only able to make out silhouettes. One was standing behind the open driver’s side door and a taller one was standing behind the passenger’s side door.

“I,” your voice broke and you took a breath, “I don’t know. I don’t know how I got here. Please, I need some help.”

“Okay. Are you hurt?” The man on the driver’s side stepped around the door and took a few steps closer to you, making you instinctively take a few steps back. He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, my name is Dean, that’s my brother Sam.”

“Y/N,” you said as the man stepped closer to you again. “I don’t feel safe with you. How do I know you guys weren’t the ones that left me here in the first place?”

“We’re FBI agents. I’m reaching in my pocket for my ID, okay?” Dean said, and you nodded. He slowly reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small rectangle, throwing it over to you. It landed at your feet with a wet plop.

You slowly bent down, keeping your eyes on both men, and picked up the ID. Your hands were shaking as you flipped it open, revealing an FBI badge with a picture of a very attractive man with brown hair. You looked back up and closed the badge. You took a few steps closer to the man you figured was Dean, just close enough to be within arm’s reach.

“Sweetheart, you’re shaking,” Dean said as you handed him his badge back. “We have the heat going in the car. Let us give you a ride into town, okay?”

You nodded weakly as the world around you began to fade out and become blurry. Your legs began to wobble and your whole body began to shake as darkness overtook your vision. The last thing you remember was a strong pair of arms wrapping around your torso and murmurs of the two men talking to each other.

“… can’t leave her, dude. She might have been hunting what drew us here in the first place.”

Hunting? Were these FBI agents on a hunting trip? You slowly opened your eyes and realized you were in the back seat of the two FBI agent’s car, a soft blanket wrapped around you. The shivering had stopped and you had feeling back in your fingers.

“If she doesn’t remember how is she going to help- Oh, hey. How are you feeling?” The man in the passenger’s seat was turned around and looking down at you, long brown hair falling in his face.

“Warm and wet,” you shifted uncomfortably, your wet clothes making a squeaking noise against the leather.

You saw Dean smile. “That’s what-”

“Not now, Dean.” The long haired man scolded. What was his name again?

“Whatever,” Dean grumbled. “Sam here gave you a once over after you passed out, just to make sure nothing was broken and you weren’t bleeding.” Sam, that’s right. Wait… he had his hands on me when I was unconscious?

Sam seemed to notice the change in your expression and his eyes went wide. “Oh, no. Don’t worry, we didn’t touch you or anything. I mean, I had to touch you to feel for broken bones, but it wasn’t anything inappropriate. I didn’t touch anywhere that I shouldn’t…”

“I get it, Sam. Thank you for checking,” you interrupted his rambling, offering a small smile to sooth his panic. “So you’re FBI agent brothers?”

Dean and Sam exchanged a look and Dean offered a shrug as you sat up in the back seat, swinging your legs around in front of you.

“Yeah. Our last name is Winchester,” Sam said, studying your face.

“Oh cool, like the shotgun? My dad taught me how to shoot when I was growing up. The farms in Nebraska get a lot of wild animals,” you rambled, adjusting your shirt.

Deans brow furrowed and eyes met yours in the rear view mirror, allowing you to make out more of his features. He had bright green eyes and a dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He was even more attractive than his picture.

Sam was also looking at you with a confused look on his face, causing you to speak up. “Why are you both looking at me like that?”

Sam pointed at the tattoo on your left forearm. “Do you remember where or why you got this?”

You looked down and ran your fingers over the design: a pentagram surrounded by flames. You shrugged. “My dad had the same one and he got me a matching one for my eighteenth birthday last year.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, you’re nineteen?”

“Yeah, I was born in 1989,” you looked between Sam and Dean. “Why, is that a problem?”

Dean looked over at his brother, concern all over his face as he spoke up. “Y/N, what year is it?”

“It’s 2007. Mid-April, I’m guessing based on the weather. Nebraska is all but predictable,” you shook your head and let out a small chuckle, “so I’ve been missing for a few days, I’m guessing?”

You looked back up at Sam, who was staring at you with his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. You looked to Dean and saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Your heart skipped a beat and your smile disappeared. “What? What’s wrong?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Y/N, it’s October of 2017. And we’re about fifty miles outside of Missoula, Montana.”

“What?” You stared deep into Sam’s kaleidoscope eyes for any signs of deception. “That’s impossible.”

Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a small and flat tablet-looking thing. Was that a phone? He tapped the screen a few times and a calendar appeared. He lifted it up to show you the date listed on the screen.

October 10, 2017.

Your eyes darted across the text on the screen a few times, but you still weren’t able to comprehend it. How could ten years of your life just disappear? Your eyes began to sting with tears as you dropped your head and stared at your hands clasped in your lap.

“How do I just not remember ten years of my life? How do I know you’re not tricking me?” You asked, growing suspicious.

“You remember using a cell phone back then, right?” Sam asked and you nodded. “Here, take my phone and click on the news app that’s there. It’ll show you the date at the top.”

You took the phone and stared at the screen. There were so many boxes, you didn’t know where to start. You saw one labeled News, and you tapped the screen. “I miss my Blackberry.”

You heard a soft giggle from Sam as the news app popped up on your screen. The first item you saw was an article about President Donald Trump. “Donald Trump is the President? What the fuck-?”

“Don’t even get me going,” Dean grumbled, shaking his head.

You raised an eyebrow at the date on the article. It confirmed that it was written today, October 10, 2017. You really had no memory of the last ten years. Tears began to fall down your cheeks as you passed Sam back his phone with a shaky hand.

“It’s okay, Y/N. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this.” Sam flashed a sympathetic smile and passed you a tissue. “We’re headed for a motel in town, stick with us for now, we might be able to help. We do need to have chat first.”

You wiped your eyes and choked back a sob when Sam mentioned talking. “About what?”

Sam hesitated, but Dean spoke up. “Well, not to pile on top of the shit-sundae that’s been your day, but we’re not FBI agents.”

“What?” You practically yelled, immediately trying the both the passenger and driver’s side rear doors, only finding them to be locked. “Let me out of here!”

“Y/N! Calm down! We’re not FBI, but we’re not bad people. We’re hunters,” Sam said before he heaved a heavy sigh. “We hunt monsters.”

You arched an eyebrow at him and parted your lips. Part of you wanted to scream, but all that came out was a laugh. “You’re joking, right? Did you two escape from a psych ward or something? You’re both nuts.”

“It’s been said,” Dean interjected. “But we’re serious. The tattoo on your arm is an anti-possession symbol, sweetheart… and if your dad wanted you to get one, he obviously was a hunter as well. Is he still alive?”

You closed your eyes and thought back to when you were a kid, running around the living room in a fit of giggles while your dad chased after you. He would always make up a new monster that would be chasing you. Wendigo, shapeshifter, rougarou… could they all be real?

“He is… um was, alive. Oh my God,” you leaned forward, folding your arms on the back of the front seat. “You have to take me there, now.”

“Hold on,” Sam said, turning in his seat to look at you. “We still don’t know how you got to that field. Something obviously wiped your memories, and we don’t know who or what that was. It could still be coming after you. Come with us back to our bunker, it’s protected against evil beings. We have a few resources there that might be able to help, and I can call around to other hunters and see if anyone remembers your father.”

“A bunker? Are we talking about some hole in the wall with metal bed frames, thin mattresses, and water leaking from everywhere?” You shook your head and sat back against the leather seat.

Sam smiled. “No, nothing like that. It’s… well, it’s more of a home for us than anything. There’s actual beds and hot water.. You’d have your own bedroom and there’s a library and a kitchen.”

You perked up at the mention of a kitchen. “A kitchen? I was in college studying to become a pastry chef.”

“Pastry chef? As in desserts,” Dean licked his lips, “and pie?”

“Yeah. I cooked every night for my dad, it was just me and him since I was a kid. He always told me I made the best pecan pie in Nebraska.” You smiled at the memory of you and your dad sitting in front of the TV watching football and enjoying slices of pie.

“You’re coming back with us to the bunker,” Dean’s eyes lit up. “Sammy, call Jody and some other hunters to see if we can get an idea about if her dad is still alive. What’s your dad’s name, Y/N?”

“Steven, Steven Novak.”

Tags: @katymacsupernatural @queen-of-deans-booty @your-modern-shakespeare @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @wheresthekillswitch @holyfuckloueh @just-another-busy-fangirl @growningupgeek @ididntasktogetmadedidi @trashimaginezblog @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @atc74 @sofreddie @percywinchester27

[samwinlover-blog]

Probable Fear of Abandonment- Part 4

Part One Here Part Two Here Part Three Here

Pairing: Sam x reader Characters: Sam, Dean, the reader Warnings: happy endings!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)  Request: The reader and the Winchesters have hunted together for years, but when the reader is hospitalized and the Winchesters have to go save the world they leave her behind. The plan was for the separation to be temporary, but when the reader wakes up earlier than the doctors thought she would and sees the Winchesters gone, she thinks they left her. So, with both her heart and a few bones broken. she moves on with her life and starts hunting solo. Years later, fate will bring the three of them together again. On an impossible hunt, not only will the reader see her ex-boyfriend, Sam, but his brother again too! A/N: This took forever, I’m so sorry guys<3 Tag list:  @amanda-teaches@myplaceofthingsilove@spectaculicious@bambinovak@bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@padackles2010@mamaredd123@milkymilky-cocopuff@iwantthedean@zeppo-in-a-trenchcoat@spntrista@d-s-winchester@just-another-busy-fangirl@winchesterprincessbride@waywardjoy@supernaturalyobsessed@whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname@sandlee44@fangirl1802@kittenofdoomage@evyiione@winchestersmut@purgatoan@mogaruke@therewillbeblood@megansescape@taste-of-dean@leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @scarlet-soldier-in-an-impala@deathtonormalcy56@wildfirewinchester@notnaturalanahi@jensen-jarpad@impalaimagining@fangirlextraordinaire@itseverythingilike@jesspfly@love@mysteriouslyme81@mrswhozeewhatsis@aiaranradnay@supernatural-jackles@girl-next-door-writes @spnsasha @27bmm@spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches@myplaceofthingsilove@spectaculicious@bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@spn-imagines-to-feel@spn-ficfanatic​@cleverdame@saxxxology@jensen-jarpad@keepcalmandcarryondean gabriels-trix @gallifreyansass@raylin19 @missdestiel67 @spn-ficfanatic @lucyketch

Apparently looks could be deceiving, because the inside of the bunker was a fortress compared to the out. Hallways upon hallways wound through the structure, housing seemingly endless doors that led to seemingly endless rooms. The Winchesters kept it short; only showing you the kitchen, firing range, garage, living room and a bit of the basement, but you knew there was a lot you missed. The tour ended back where it started, in the kitchen, with Dean hovering next to you and Sam keeping his distance near the refrigerator. 

He’d been reserved the entire day. Always keeping his distance, walking behind you and Dean while you explored the bunker, little things like that which were so out of the ordinary for the Sam Winchester you knew. While Dean hadn’t left your side since he first laid eyes on you, his brother was the polar opposite. And you knew exactly why. 

Sam hadn’t changed a bit, and that age-old self blame he’d never stop harvesting had manifested itself. He was such a great guy, an amazing guy, but you knew he hated himself for what had happened. So at the end of the day, after the three of you had talked and caught up for hours, you decided to say something- instead of letting him suffer in silence like he was content to do. 

“Sam,” You walked over to where he was seated after Dean finally left the room, “Talk to me.”

The moment you say down his eyes lit up like Christmas trees, “Hey, um, yeah, what’s up?” 

“I don’t know, you tell me.” 

“What, uh,” A small, tense laugh, “What do you mean?” 

You paused for a moment, weighing what you were about to say. It would be abrupt, it would be blunt, and it would undoubtedly wreak chaos upon your little universe. But even then, fully realizing the gravity of it all, you took a deep breath and said it anyways, “I mean what’s going on with us, Sam? You’ve barely said a work to me since we got here, you’re using Dean as a buffer, and I don’t know what to think about any of it.” 

He sucked in a breath, eyes going soft with what you could have sworn was remorse, before he said quietly, “You were the love of my life….” 

His words hit you in a way nothing Rob said ever could have. 

Maybe it was insane, maybe even a little bit toxic, but in that moment, you fell in love with him all over again. All of the memories, the laughs, the long nights spent curled together in the back of the Impala, and you wanted it all back. 

You didn’t trust your sister anymore, how could you after what she’d done? All of the harm she’d caused? And truth be told, you missed it. Hunting. The thrill of it all. 

You wouldn’t even try to lie to yourself: ever since you settled down, you’d had this itch under your skin, this gaping hole where your life with the Winchesters had once been. All you’d wanted to do was run wild, kill demons, and drink whiskey with your best friends on earth. 

But they’d been gone, so over time you’d convinced yourself that you were okay with having such a cookie cutter life. Rob had been a replacement for Sam, you finally understood that. He was the polar opposite of the man you actually loved, and fit perfectly into your cushy, new world. 

You blinked, realizing you’d been staring at him while you thought, “I-I, you were the love of my life too.” 

When he didn’t respond you chewed your lip a bit before continuing, “And I miss you- hunting with you, j-just being with you and Dean generally. I miss it so god damn much, Sam. And I just cant, I can’t believe that, my sister- my sister would keep me away from the two of you for years. I just…..” 

Your voice trailed off when you felt it begin to wobble, and instead of finishing your love-soaked rant, you just looked up at him instead- searching for some type of confirmation. 

And you got it in the form of thick crocodile tears leaking down his face. 

“I still love you,” He blurted suddenly, probably not fully realizing what he said until he saw the shock so clearly written on your face. 

But before you could respond, Dean burst through the door, “We got a nest of vamps just South of Oklahoma. Seems pretty bad- Bobby wants us there ASAP.” 

The information begged the obvious question: what were you going to do? Both of the Winchesters were looking at you to answer, to make your own decision. So you just shrugged and said, “I’m coming with you guys.” 

Dean didn’t seem opposed, but he did ask, “What about your sister? What about your life?” 

“Fuck it,” You replied, shrugging again before angling yourself towards the both of them, “I’ll tell you all about it on the car ride up. But long story short: all I want to do right now is kill some vamps and get drunk with the two of you. So if you’ll have me-” 

Just as your voice began to trail off, Sam straightened and cut you off, “We’ll have you.” A small smile formed on his face, “We’ll definitely have you.” 

You him a soft smile in return, and noticed Deans shoulders sag as he groaned, “Oh god not this again.” 

“What?” You and Sam said in near unison. 

“The two of you- with your gross, kissy, flirty, gross-ness.” He rolled his eyes and ran a hand over his face in mock disgust. 

You’d forgotten about that aspect of your relationship with Sam- how the two of you used to piss off Dean. It had started out as little things, like a peck on the cheek while he was in the room, or overly-mushy comments just to make Dean uncomfortable. But over time it had progressed into full on hilarity, as things usually did when the three of you were together. It even got to the point where Sam would grab your ass right in front of his brother, just to see how red it would make him. 

Just after Dean said it, Sam seemed to understand too. Because instead of making things tense, or awkward, he just rolled his eyes and said, “No promises.” 

“Chuck save me,” Dean grumbled before heading to his room to pack, and leaving the two of you alone once again. 

“God, I missed that.” You sighed and inched closer to Sam, feeling him do the same. 

“What?” 

“Making Dean sweat,” You laughed and he put a hand to his face to suppress a smile, “Oh my god, remember how red he used to get??” 

“We were so mean!” 

“Okay you were the meanest,” He countered, shaking his head while his shoulder shook from laugher, “By far,” 

You hit his chest and felt a smile of your own creeping on, “No way! You’re the one who used to initiate full on make-out sessions in the kitchen!” 

“Okay yeah,” He shrugged and shook his head, “That’s fair. I did used to do that.” 

Silence fell, but it was short lived. Since the theme of the day with you two seemed to be blunt, brutal, honesty, you decided to hold nothing back, “So what’s happening with us?” 

“(Y/N), I love you,” He ran a hand through his hair before reaching down and finding your own, “I’ve known that since the day I met you, but let’s take it slow. See what happens. The job’s crazy and- okay don't take this the wrong way- but you haven't hunted in years. And it's not exactly like riding a bike.....so we'll take it slow. Get used to being around each other all the time and see what happens then?"

 "Hmmm," You hummed, squeezing his hand before pecking him once on the cheek and saying, "I think I can live with that."  

[pynkhues]

but yeah sam's bone structure is wild

I feel this way too, his face is so striking to me beyond just the standard "handsome man with cheekbones" thing, and I'm trying to articulate why, so I'm curious if you could say why his bone structure is wild to you? If that's not a strange thing to ask lol

I don't know if I have that many thoughts on it beyond the fact that he has a face I like looking at, haha, but I will say that I think he's got a pretty early-Golden Age Hollywood face in terms of his features, which is just not really a look that we see very much on screen anymore?

The sort of preferred appearance / beauty ideal for Western actors usually changes with shifts in cinema history and popularity of genre, and that sort of masculine, square-jawed, high cheekboned face shape with delicate, almost feminine, almost pretty features was just a lot more popular in the 1930s / pre-WWII cinema era (see also: Tyrone Power, Robert Montgomery, Robert Donat, Leslie Howard, etc.)

I do think there's a shift post-WWII, where you see more of the rise of gristly looking Men Who've Seen Things (i.e. Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Glenn Ford, Cary Grant, etc.) which isn't to say there wasn't crossover - there was, a lot of those 30s film stars had very long careers - but Western masculinity looked very different pre-and-post WWII, and movie stars reflected that.

(It also reflects the rise, I think, of the American movie star, given most of those 1930s actors I listed above are English, and most of the ones I listed after WWII are American.)

So yeah, I think Sam just has a very 1930s movie star face - like, I actually think in terms of bone structure and features (if not in colouring) he looks a lot like a young Laurence Olivier: