#fics tag

[wilsonthemoose]

Warning Signs

John doesn't mind that they play so much basketball. It lends itself quite naturally to their training.

Whumptober Day 10: Blow to the Head

Teen and Up | John, Sam, and Dean | Pre-series | Sports | Head Injury

.

Sam is four days old the first time John thinks he might lose him— the jaundice sets in fast in the middle of the night and they don't notice till next morning. They're told they did the right thing bringing him into the hospital and in the same sure tone of voice assured that it's quite common and Sam should pull through by day seven.

They bring him back in a gift shop romper with 'World's Greatest Basketball Player' printed on the front. John has mixed feeling about the romper but Dean insists on saving it when they're sorting through clothes Sam has grown out of.

Sam is two months old when he's gifted his first basketball— it's a plush toy with a long tag that Sam tries to use to fling the ball around. He's five months old the first time he manages to clear the top of the crib and Dean yells with delight.

Sam is six months old the second time John fears for his life and after that, no matter how much he may try to temper that fear, it never quite goes away. John doesn't try very hard, and then not at all.

Sam is a few weeks short of three years old when he manages to copy Dean and bounce the ball up and down twice; Dean proudly declares that Sam will make a fine dribbler the way he's going and John agrees as he lifts him up into the air, shrieking.

John doesn't mind that they play so much. It lends itself quite naturally to their training— Sam at eight is fast, a sprinter off the blocks, a rabbit leading a chase, changing direction quicker that John can think to suggest it, and Dean is strong, puts his weight quite naturally into his punches without John ever having to say a word about proper technique.

Sam is 14 when John is forced to admit— not in so many words— that he's afraid for Sam's life. Sam sneaks away behind John's back and gets tested to see if he's a match for donating part of his liver to the wife of one of John's friends, Laura, who took care of the boys when they were younger. John yells and shouts when he finds out, threatens and punishes, forbids. "You're fourteen which means I have to okay this thing and I'm not okaying shit!" he yells, flinging a ceramic mug into the wall next to where Sam is standing. Later, when Sam is sitting on the steps outside, arms around his knees, shivering, John goes out and puts an arm around him. "How am I supposed to protect you from dying on an operating table, Sammy?" he asks and hopes it answers a lifetime of doubts.

John will stop the car outside basketball courts or on empty backroads in the middle of the night when cabin fever is likely, otherwise, to provoke a fight, and let the two of them out for a game or two. He doesn't encourage rough play but he does turn a blind eye to it. They get rowdy as they get older.

Sam, at fifteen didn't quite know what to do with his long limbs, awkward as a doe on ice, but at sixteen he seems to have grown into them. He'll dodge out in front of Dean, snatch the ball right out of the air and dribble away. He's good, in his way. He doesn't make as many baskets as Dean but he's good at making Dean not make as many baskets as Dean. He provokes Dean into taking risks and forces him to make stupid mistakes. Dean ends up angry, Sam ends up smug. John recognizes the tune of their lives but decides to use this too as training: he yells at Dean from the sidelines to keep calm, to not be so stupid. He yells at Sam about proper technique, ("Get low if you want to jump high, Sam") and just to wipe the smug look off Sam's face, steps in himself. He walks away impressed.

If circumstances were different, Sam might've made a hell of a college player, maybe even a decent pro.

They stop playing so much. Dean provokes Sam instead into sparring with him. It's almost a shame.

They get good at taking care of their own scrapes and bruises. Sam will fish out bits of gravel from his elbows under a flickering light. Dean will wait till John turns his back to take a furtive swig of the whiskey he's supposed to be using to clean his wounds. John wonders if it's possible to pinpoint exactly when they stopped playing. Was it on the broken court in Colorado with a camping lamp for light or was it in the parking lot of the motel in Indiana when Sam stumbled back and Dean didn't stop to let him get up again?

John tires them out by putting them through a mini boot camp every time he comes back from a hunt, or by making them do drills in the early hours of the morning when they're with him.

Sam is seventeen when John thinks this time he really is dead. The gunshot echoes in his head, his heart stops in his chest, tumbles to his knees, his lungs feel suddenly empty, and he hurtles through the door, trips down the stairs, and throws himself out of the house to where he stationed Sam to keep watch. This wasn't supposed to happen— he was supposed to be safe out there. He was supposed to be—

Sam takes a ragged breath, his face shines pale in the darkness. The bullet's torn into his side. John holds his hands over the wound, presses down, whispers "Sorry, Sam," when Sam bites down on a yelp, and presses harder. Dean lead-foots them to the hospital with John on his knees in the backseat holding firm pressure on the wound.

In the waiting room, John paces like a caged animal and Dean sits hunched over in a chair.

They're allowed in to visit when Sam comes out of surgery but they're told he might not wake up for a few hours yet.

The gift shop is near empty when John goes in to re-check, see if there's anything Dean missed. Surely, surely, there has to be something in Sam's size sitting around there somewhere. He's shown the same white shirt with the large orange basketball emblazoned on the front that Dean's already bought for Sam. John wonders if he can convince Sam to wear one of the unwashed shirts lying in the trunk instead but then thinks better of it.

Confined to bed for days, Sam reaches an arm out from under the covers and dribbles the ball on the carpeted floor. When the man in the room opposite bangs on the door and tells John to put a stop to the racket, John tells him to go to hell.

Sam bounces back pretty fast. He always does.

Sam was seven the first time he came to John with his head all bloody, swaying where he stood until John looked up from his journal, then he stumbled into John's lap. He was nine the first time John felt he was getting past Dean without Dean letting him. He was ten the first time John had to break up a fight between his sons. He was fourteen when an errant fist crashed into John's arm instead of Dean and Sam froze in horror, genuinely apologetic, earning himself a hard left hook to the jaw from Dean before Dean had a chance to check his blow. He was sixteen the first time he ended up with a concussion bad enough to have John worried. He complained every single time John tried to check up on him that weekend. He's nearly eighteen and John doesn't take it seriously for a long moment as Sam's arms flail, one almost reaching up to his face. John almost dismisses the gesture as reflex. The ball seems to float in limbo, one bright speck of fresh red imprinted just under a black rib of the ball. John sees Sam's pupils, pinpricks, blow out. Or maybe he imagines the detail. The ball thumps to the ground and rebounds thrice, rolling away. "You okay?" Dean calls over his shoulder as he moves to get the ball, then turns around again, confused. It starts to rain, softly. A drop falls to Sam's face, joins the tiny rivulet of blood dripping out of his nose. There's very little of it. Hardly any at all.

John feels himself move forwards, registers pain as the concrete crashes up into his knees, he leans over Sam, takes his shoulder, gently for some reason when he should be shaking Sam, telling him to get up, get in the car. Telling him he doesn't want the two of them taking damp clothes into the car so skedaddle. A drop of blood splatters on the faded grey-blue concrete of the court. John moves his hand under Sam's head— he doesn't remember lifting to cradle it but he must have— and finds a small wound. Small enough that it doesn't even need stitching. Not even a bandage.

"Okay kiddo?" he asks like he honestly expects an answer. Dean's still standing where he stopped, fingers bunched in his hair, palms pressed against his temples. He looks somewhat crazed.

John gathers Sam up, snaps at Dean to help him and they get Sam into the car, make it, somehow, to the hospital. John doesn't want to let go when they tell him they need to take Sam in for a CT, some insane part of him protesting that it's futile, but he signs the form they give him and signs again later— hemorrhage? half listening when the doctor explains about the surgery.

Dean's at Sam's bedside, trying to apologize and trying not to cry, garbling his words so he achieves neither objective.

"Sir? Do you understand?"

"Yes."

They wheel him away.

He can tell by the long walk along the corridor from the elevators, by the way the doctor looks at him for a fleeting moment and then lowers his eyes for the rest of the way until he reaches the chairs, knows it before the man opens his mouth to break the news. "We did everything we could—" and so on.

Actually, he's still alive, in a technical, not-really-there sort of way. They didn't let him go, when his body gave out. "I'd like to talk to you about organ donation." A new voice this time. Sympathetic tilt of the head, hushed tone, muted, sober clothes like this is the exact conversation they keep her around for. He should never have let them cut him open. His head is bandaged as if it makes a difference. John thinks maybe he should shout and tell them to leave him alone but he can't bring himself to do it.

"Sir?" She asks, gently.

He looks up. "No," he growls. "And fuck off," he adds.

Behind him, for the first time since the court, Dean speaks up. "Yes," he says and clears his throat. "He's a match for Laura," he says "She needs a liver—" this to the woman. "He promised her."

"Shit happens." John hears himself reply. "She can find her own liver." The kind of flippancy that Sam always hated.

"He's eighteen in a few hours," Dean's voice cracks. It's probably that, John thinks, that makes him walk out of the room and let Dean sign away Sam's organs.

"He might not have liked hunting but he liked saving people, Dad," Dean tells him later. The woman tells him about a man with cystic fibrosis who will live another several years because of Sam, a little girl who won't need dialysis anymore, a woman who can plan for more than the next few weeks and for more than hospital visits and bills, a firefighter just four beds down who just might make it now. John can't be bothered with saying he wishes them all a speedy death and he supposes, someday, he won't think it either.

They bury him— what's left of him— in the same graveyard as Mary. They never visit.

Laura tries to get into contact, leaves him tearful messages, "He was like a son to me too, John." John blocks her number. When Dean strikes off on his own for the odd hunt here and there, John doesn't object. He tosses the basketball into a storage unit and doesn't bother to go in and look when it bounds into something and breaks it.

Days and weeks muddle past. One day suddenly Sam is nineteen years old except that he never even got to eighteen. They've stopped talking about him.

Given what he knows— what he's learnt about Sam— it might be all for the best, except that he doesn't believe in that kind of thing and since when has fate dealt him a kind hand anyway? At least he died innocent, John thinks sometimes, usually at the bottom of a bottle.

Weeks and months turn into another year, then two, and three. John will stop the car sometimes outside basketball courts and stand there for hours, remembering the squeak and scuffle of shoes on asphalt, the huffing of breaths, cut-off curses, the snatch of a laugh.

Given what he knows— what he'd learnt about Sam— he really should have seen it for what it was. When he hears about the man in Oregon, the little girl with the half-familiar name, the woman, the firefighter, Laura— he doesn't do anything. When he gets a call from a payphone in Illinois and hears Sam's voice, panicked, "Dad?" John realizes it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

[voidstilesplease]

zenith

word count: <1000 words | tags: lovers to enemies; mancers or magic users Stiles and Theo. Theo is a Necromancer (a magician of death), while Stiles is a Dismancer (a magician of discord/chaos). Based from this tumblr post. Complete AO3 chapters here.

after years, i finally completed this au series. phew!

—-

Stiles has waited years for this day. He’s fantasized dozens of scenarios for when he and Theo cross paths again but somehow never imagined it happening this way. It was always some version of Stiles waltzing into the den of the Dread Doctors – the supernatural scientists responsible for taking Theo away from them almost two years ago – saving Theo and bringing him home.

Despite the initial distrust they had of Theo – the only Necromancer to be born in the last three centuries – once Theo proved himself and his loyalty to the House of Magic by bringing Kira back to life, endangering himself, and fighting the hunters, they couldn't deny anymore that he was one of them. Despite the type of dark magic he had – the darkest magic that every single magic user in existence fears – he belonged with them.

And he was Stiles’. Before those Dread Doctors came and disappeared with Theo in the shadows, he and Theo were discussing the lives they could and would like to have someday outside the House of Magic, outside Beacon, outside their ability.

But now, it is evident that those fantasies will never come to pass. 

“Was this your plan all along?” Stiles quietly asks, kneeling in a pool of blood. He can’t even tell whose blood it is mostly – just that it’s a mix of everyone he loves. Every one of their friends who wanted to get Theo back just as much as Stiles did. And now everyone Stiles may not get back.

Were any of those plans he made with Stiles even real for Theo? Even a little?

Theo steps forward, gesturing at the chamber, healthy and seeping with power, not at all the magic-depraved, sickly, and tortured man they were worried he would be. 

“What do you think of it, Stiles? The walls, floor, and ceiling are heavily infused with iron and lead, enough to incapacitate even a powerful magician.” When he looks at Stiles, he grins. “You know, like that one that we planned to build in the House as an isolation room? Of course, I made it ten times worse and added a little touch of fatality, but yeah. As envisioned.” He sweeps his hands around proudly like he expects Stiles to applaud his genius.

He can’t if he wants to since Theo has his arms and wrists bound in poison iron.

“I think,” Stiles replies, throat raspy from misuse, “you’re a piece of shit.”

The smile doesn’t slide off Theo’s face. He shrugs easily like the weight of what he’s done to his friends is not weighing down on him at all. “I guess, I deserve that after this... poor reception.”

No, Stiles disagrees. What he deserves is pain. An endless flow of it. Stiles has a lot of it from his friends; from himself, even more. If only he could inflict it on Theo.

“Was this your plan all along?" he asks again, looking at Theo, willing him to tell the truth. Willing him to stop his lies, for once. "Lure us in, slowly kill us to feed your magic, and then give us to the Dread Doctors to be their plaything as you were? Why wait years, then? Why didn't you let us find you right at the beginning? Why were you so confident we wouldn't just give up on you?" Quieter, he adds. “I guess that's where I come in: this stupid magician who makes a habit of upsetting the balance just to keep the people he loves. Was none of it real?” Was anything between us real?

The smile does drop, then. All charades gone. In place is a cold look. Theo shrugs again, “Does it matter now?”

Stiles exhales shakily, “It does.”

Theo frowns at his reply, “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me, Stiles?” He steps forward, suddenly enraged. “You’re the expert in creating illusions inside people’s heads, aren’t you? So, you tell me. Was any of it real?” 

Stiles scoffs. “When have I ever pretended with you? I'm here, am I not, as you knew I would be? My magic feeds off of pain. I create nightmares, Theo, not fantasies.”

“But when those fantasies fall, what is left, Stiles?”

Against his better judgment, Stiles’ eyes begin to prickle. “I’m not the one who betrayed us. We came here to save you. I came to get you back, you worthless son of a bitch.”

Theo stands abruptly, hands tightly fisted at his sides. “I don’t need saving,” he spats, turning and making for the exit. Then he stops and looks over his shoulder to say, “You never should have trusted me.”

“No,” Stiles says, hollow voice above a whisper. “I never should have.”

For a moment, Theo only stands there, looking at Stiles, at the unconscious and bloody bodies of their friends. The only reason Stiles knows they’re not dead is because he can taste their pain. He cannot use their pain, not inside this room, but he can still feel it in the prickling of his fingertips.

“I can feel your pain, too, you know?” says Stiles a moment later. His eyes meet Theo’s. “That’s how I know some of it was real for you. In a perfect world, we can still escape and live the life of our dreams.” Stiles watches the hard way Theo swallows and hears his sharp exhale of breath. “But we’re done living in that fantasy.”

Theo tears his eyes away, moves past the entrance, and presses a button to close the chamber's mechanical doors. 

For a moment, their eyes meet one last time as Stiles and Theo, the magicians who fell in love and dreamed of getting out. There’s no getting out after this.

“Welcome to your nightmare, Theo.”

And the door shuts.

—-

steo a-z: part 26

[frankierotwinkdeath]

Y’all want Taylor Swift to be gay so bad but you won’t even write femslash about her

[priceoftheduchess]

i have baby fever so…

Single Dad!Simon Riley whose daughter is so sweet.

You, a sweet and humble hairdresser in your salon which you’ve bought and built from the ground yourself, having a walk-in appointment with a 6’4” hulking man, and his most precious angel. A black surgical mask covering his jaw, mouth and nose.

His little angel, who you learn to be Amelia, climbs into your chair with the cutest grunts of struggle and eventually a triumphant sigh. Her dad, in his effortlessly silky, gruff voice, explains that her hair is now down to her knees practically and he needs help. Her mother left when she was young and he’s only ever had one brother.

You chuckle softly and nod, and his daughter looks up at you after you explain that you’ll be trimming her gorgeous hair and demonstrating some simple braiding techniques to her father, and in the tiniest, cutest little Londoner accent:

“Thank you for helping my Daddy.” You nearly burst into tears at her shining hazel eyes and her big, toothy smile. You nod and begin sectioning her hair after placing a pink apron over her front. She beams to her Dad, “Look! She gave me pink!” He laughs and his eyes shine with pride. She’s so good at communicating, even though she barely looks five. She’s so adorably tiny, too.

At the end of the appointment, Simon has learned three different braid styles. He’s a natural, you assure him. You curl his daughter’s hair just before she leaves, and she does a little dance around the place in her princess dress. Her dad picks her up, and he smiles at you. Thanking you in that knee-weakening voice of his. He promises he’ll be back with any hair concerns, and he even tips you extra.

Before he leaves, his daughter points at you and asks if he can take you home. He responds, without missing a damn beat:

“Mm, only if she wants to come home with us.” He winks at you for good measure.

You think that maybe that idea isn’t so bad.

[gongyussy]

deepthroating a gun without breaking eye contact...... he put his entire gongyussy into that | SQUID GAME 2

+ the video because the sound he makes when he puts the gun in his mouth? [redacted]

update: he improvised that. the man really said i'll go full slut.

[noelledeltarune]

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

[bugstung]

Drawing fanarts of my own fic before I even write the fic

Edit: it's now out

[emberfaye]

You know what?

I love you, fics that take months to update. I click on the newest chapter and have no memory of this place and get to go back some chapters and rediscover how much i love everything about this story.

I love you, fics that take years to update. I think of you fondly, and know your names, go search for you and see an update from this year and scream, diving in uncaring of any missed details (i will finish the update and read you in reverse because this is a treat you have bestowed)

I love you, fics that probably will never update again. Thank you for being a roman empire for my mind, thank you for teaching me about the ephemeral fandom experience, for inspiring a thousand million what if-s, for being a comfort read and a nostalgia read and a reread.

I love you fic writers, who jump into projects and stories with enthusiasm. I love you when you succeed in pumping out those chapters and that love doesn't go away when you stop.

I love you fic writers who post and then get in your own head and never feel confident enough to update, whether it's at all or whether it's just that one story.

I love you fic writers, who have a fandom or media hurt you to the point of abandoning or having a hard time with their WIPs.

I love you fic writers, who lose interest or have life changes or illness or bad memory. Thank you for being part of the fandom, a core part of the fandom. Thank you for the time spent in the fandom.

I love you, fic writers who try out something new and then stop. You're so valid.

I love you, WIP fics that may or may not ever get finished. Thank you for brightening my day in the way only you could have.

[ao3-anonymous]

What in the fanfic hell is this?? 😂😂

[finleycannotdraw]

we need all types of art in fandoms

[wilsonthemoose]

and after the fall, getting up again

Dean holds a spoon out in front of Sam like he's a kid again in bed with a fever. Sam expects the sickly sweet taste of cough syrup but gets a mouth full of blood instead.

Picks up after Dean has rescued Sam from a group of hunters who'd been using him as weapon to fight demons by force feeding him demon blood.

Written as a sequel to and if I swallow anything evil

Season/Series 05, Drug Withdrawal, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Detox, Implied age regression just a bit, Canon-Typical Violence

1.

Dean's colt houses seven rounds and can hold another in the chamber. Sam's Taurus takes eleven in the magazine plus one in the chamber and Dean's made a joke or two in the past, about Sam needing the extra ammo because his aim is just that bad, which is untrue, really but instead of calling him out on it or setting up a line of cans to illustrate like Dean would, in his shoes, Sam instead would say that he needs the extra ammo because of how often he needs to haul Dean's ass out of whatever he's got himself into, and they'd continue in that way until Sam took the high road and said, bitchily, whatever, or until Dean took the low road and mock-imitated Sam's voice in a childish whine that Sam could only roll his eyes at. These days Dean keeps Sam's gun concealed under his jacket at his back because Sam can't.

___

The world is only sound. At first distorted and unrecognizable, then resolving into discrete notes, crickets and owls, creaking wood, the sibilance of a voice heard from another room. Then sensation emerges, a chill first, then pain like a heartbeat, thudding against his chest, toothpicks driving into his brain, sandpaper throat and cotton-tongue. Hours or what feels like hours later, thoughts emerge but refuse to come into focus. Then the heartbeat of pain picks up, arrhythmic, and darkness closes in on him in waves.

___

Sam screams. And without 16 feet between them to take the edge off, Dean feels every sharp note until his entire body cringes in horror. He's there with a towel for Sam to bite into, there with hands to hold him down, there with a glass of water and a straw much later when he rouses, a little, and there again with stolen valium which he injects into Sam's arm with a shaking hand and watches, sagging in relief, when it works and Sam's body relaxes and settles back against the mattress. He is not there when Sam falls off the bed, but he's there to pick him up again. He's there next morning to mop up blood trickling thickly from Sam's nose. He is not there when Sam starts screaming again nor does he get there as quickly as he should, eyes screwed shut and hand clenched around the neck of a bottle, but he does go in time to hear Sam's voice start to break and fade, failing to keep up with the pain. Dean quickly twists the towel and sticks it between Sam's teeth, then incompetently, he has to run back out into the living room to fetch the kit he really should have left at Sam's bedside. He injects Sam's arm again and watches the arch of his back start to look less exorcist-y. He smooths Sam's hair back from his sweaty forehead and watches his breathing settle into a raspy rhythm.

He holds Sam's wrist, waits to feel his heart beat something like normally but every few fast beats, there is a discordant spike, like a stumble going down the stairs and he wonders how much longer Sam can take, really.

2.

There is a febrile turn to his dreams, a vividity and horror that evaporates when he wakes but lingers thick in the air until he falls into sleep again when it drips back down onto his skin and seeps into him. Faces loom above him, blood drips from a crack in the ceiling, Sam cranes his neck to catch a drop, the crack widens, splinters, the drops become a rivulet then a deluge. He tries to get away, arms catch him and hold him down. Dean's voice tells him it's okay so he goes still. Blood clings to his body, warm and sticky and unclean. He moves his head again and this time manages to catch a mouthful of the blood and wants to cry in shame and relief.

The Dean in his dreams shushes him and tells him it's okay and everything will be okay and Sam doesn't believe him but humors him with a smile nonetheless, licking the last drop of blood still lingering on his lips.

When he wakes up, Dean is there again, still, frowning in concern, pushing his shoulder back down into the bed when Sam tries in surprise and happiness to get up and fails. "Here," Dean says, "Drink," and pushes a straw against his lip, making it itch. Sam takes a grateful sip but the straw withdraws too quickly. "Give it a minute," Dean tells him and then he feels his stomach cramp and supposes it was probably a good idea.

"It's okay, Sam," Dean says again and this time Sam really does believe him because things actually do tend to be okay when his brother's around. He smiles. He's feeling better.

3.

Dean stands in Sam's doorway, leans against the door frame and watches Sam writhe and twist, face shining under a sheen of sweat. There is nothing violent about this. Nothing that would carry 16 feet into the room above. He's done this right, he thinks. Hopes. Doesn't quite pray but pleads out loud later sitting hunched over his knees on the edge of his bed.

4.

Dean scrubs blood out of the cuffs of his rolled up shirt and jacket, rubs it out from under his fingers though he'd be lying if he said it's bothered him in a very long time. He's stopped being able to tell the difference between his blood, someone else's, and a monster's. Time was he knew the source of each specific splatter or at least obsessed over it. He feels perpetually blood-soaked now, and has since before even hell, if he's honest. He thinks it should bother him.

___

"Here, Sammy," Dean's voice says and he tries to move forward, grateful for more water, tries to open his eyes. Dean's holding a spoon out in front of him. Cough syrup, he supposes, for his throat.

Dean always liked to play doctor, when Sam was sick. He'd ask their father if he could be the one to give Sammy his medicine and Dad would normally agree, even though he knew Dean might spill it on the blanket. His head hurts from thinking but he takes it as a good sign that he can think at all, his brain isn't totally fried. He moves forward, opens his mouth, expecting the molten berry-and-sugar taste of cough syrup. A sweet metallic taste fills his mouth instead and panic floods his body, clamps an iron grip around his throat, he chokes. Dean or the person Sam thought was Dean apologizes again and again. Sam curls up and cries.

___

Dean leaves the body to be found, after he's bled and killed the demon inside. Lets it be another unexplained disappearance and death rather than a total mystery, rather than disposing of it himself and maybe someone out there somewhere needs closure, maybe someone out there is looking and cares enough to keep looking in the way he should have. In the way it crossed his mind, fleetingly, when he first heard from someone that Sam hadn't been answering his phone. But he never stopped to seriously consider it. And that one fleeting moment of instinctual concern is not something he can offer Sam later, in the way of I-though-of-calling-a-hundred-times or I-just-didn't-want-to-impose-you-know-it's-been-so-long that he supposes people might offer to their friends or even to their brothers when they hear of a misfortune many months back that they offered no help with. As consolation. I thought of looking, for a very short moment there. Does that help? Does it show you I care?

___

Sam counts the popcorn cracks on the ceiling and gets disoriented at seven. There is a rat-bite on the index of his left hand that he's pretty sure needs attention.

___

Good intentions should mean something. Dean is not all that rational about things, generally, his thinking leans more towards emotion. He admits it, at least to himself though sometimes if a mirror is held up to his face he refuses to look into it. He admits this, to himself, too.

Good intentions should mean something, when actions are measured and a life judged. The notion is perhaps thin in the face of the end of the world but the thought pulls and nags, Sam only ever thought he was doing the right thing even if he felt that the means were wrong. Did he feel that? Dean has to suppose he did. Does. And then there's the matter of him screaming yes under Alaistair's pointy little ice-pick of a knife. So stones and glass houses then. There's plenty of culpability- it comes in a family-size pack. All self-defense dies bitter on his tongue. Sam thought he was doing the right thing the only way he thought he could do it. Dean has no such consolations for himself.

So then going against him is the problem. Dean's personal stick-up. Not the action, not the reason, the outcome only insofar as it turned out to support Dean's anger and the means in that he is entirely, even now, repulsed by the demon blood. But really the running away from that panic room. The lying. The walking out when Dean said he could never then come back. But then, like father like son, after all.

And look at him looking in the mirror. It only took so long.

5.

Dean's no good at guilt. Most things after long association, like loss perhaps, or hunting or shooting or drinking or anger or anything else really, you get to be pretty good at. But Dean's still no good at guilt. So he makes his apologies when Sam is asleep and does so in a whisper even he can barely hear.

It does no good to anybody.

___

Sam sits up, testing his strength. Dizziness threatens when he pushes himself up from the bed, his breathing becomes shallow, his vision goes dark, then slowly begins to clear again. He resists the urge to double up and heave. He sits back down on the bed and wraps his arms around himself, tries to get air into his lungs but it refuses to go further than the back of his throat and he's so out of breath he feels like he'll pass out just sitting there.

___

"I'm a screw-up," Sam tells him. "All I've ever done is screw things up," and Dean feels helpless watching him cry, fetal and shaking. He rubs circles on his calf and doesn't let go until Sam falls asleep.

6.

"They're giving you a wide berth, sounds like." Bobby tells him of the other hunters who'd been keeping Sam. Dean's gun houses seven rounds which he emptied into the bodies then corpses of the only two men he'd found when he'd gone to get Sam. From what they've gathered without ever asking Sam, there were three others and Dean's itching to empty another magazine and maybe drown some of his anger with himself in the process but apparently no such luck any time soon.

___

Dean isn't looking at him, he is, in fact, not looking at him. He comes up to the side of the bed, pours a spoonful from a flask and holds it up in front of Sam, says, "Here, drink."

Soundless with terror, Sam shakes his head.

"Come on, Sam." Dean clamps a hand down on his wrist and lends the gesture a gentle touch by rubbing his thumb along Sam's hand. Sam fails to feel comforted. "Just— just drink this. It's just for a little while. You'll feel better."

"Dean, no," pleading, begging, confused. "Dean. Please." Not you.

Dean looks tortured and determined. "Just till you start feeling like yourself again," and Sam's short fear-soaked laugh is cut off by the spoon darting into his mouth.

___

He wonders what it's like to drink blood and repulsion boils up in his stomach, somewhat dulled from when he first found out and no longer blinding but it still makes his skin crawl.

Sam is sitting curled on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, holding something in his hands. So he's out of bed, meaning he's strong enough to get out of bed. So Dean's doing something right. He sinks down to the floor next to Sam and holds out his hand. "Can I see that?" he asks, gently. Sam hands over the little figurine, a mantle-piece soldier in blue uniform, ceramic, warm from Sam's hands. Talking to a victim in a situation like this, Sam would've known what to say. Dean just hands it back mutely and watches Sam's hands curl back around it. He holds out the flask. In place of an apology this time he tells his brother he doesn't want him to die and Sam came far too close last time, in the panic room. Like it's for him to tell of. Like it happened to him and not to Sam.

"We take this slowly," he says, "Until you have your strength back. Then we kick it in the ass." He looks over at Sam, hoping for a flicker of determination but sees deadened eyes looking at the unopened flask in his hand. "I can't make you— " he starts and stops. "You can't do this cold turkey, Sam. It'll kill you." Almost did.

"I think I'd prefer that." Sam says. There is nothing of teenage petulance or melodrama in the statement. It is not thrown out but laid down. As it is.

There is something like a glint in his eye when he finally takes a swig though. Then he presses his eyes closed and doesn't even blink when his head falls back against the wall with a thunk.

Dean tries to draw the line at four drinks a night but usually allows himself a fifth because five feels more like four than four does.

He finds a small plush reindeer in a box of Christmas lights in the attic and leaves it for Sam to find.

7.

"Only drawing it out," Sam says when he sees him watching. He's lying on the floor of the bathroom Dean really should have washed, in hindsight. He's on his side and curled, one arm wrapped around his stomach. His eyes are red, skin flaking and faintly yellow.

"I don't know what to do, Sam," he admits, softly, then regrets it when fear flashes across Sam's eyes. He blinks and it's gone, replaced with something that looks an awful lot like forfeiture.

"It's too much," Sam says, almost to himself before he passes out, right there on the floor, the reindeer's green ribbon poking out of his hand.

8.

Sam kneels on his knees in the bathroom, lets himself heave bile into the flush. Braces his hands against the floor and doesn't really try to stop shaking so much as let it happen and wait it out, not caring when his long hair falls on the porcelain of the toilet. He's beyond caring. Beyond dignity. A twitching pile of limbs shaking with spasms.

He hears Dean's boots thudding down the hallway, pausing at his door, receding again down the hallway and returning. And it is Dean. He's convinced of it now though when the tries to unravel the thread and trace it back to its beginning he finds that it's been cut and he feels lost in the weight of everything that he doesn't understand. But it is Dean. He kneels down in front of Sam, on the chipped and stained floor, pushes Sam's hair back from his forehead, gently tilts his head up and holds a flask out in front of Sam. It beggars belief.

"You of all people," Sam tries to say around his raw throat, sounding like a gasp rather than a voice. He clears his throat. Before he can try again, Dean begins telling him it's just for now, just until Sam gets his strength back, and they can taper him off, slowly, doesn't say anything this time about Sam feeling like himself again— hasn't since that once— so maybe he's noticed enough to want to spare his feelings if nothing else. Sam clamps his mouth shut and scrambles back until his back meets the wall. Dean holds the flask out again and Sam takes a sip.

Nothing makes sense.

Dean apologizes again when Sam scrubs his sleeve across his mouth and sits back on the floor across from him, drawing his legs up under him.

Sam supposes colour probably seeps back into his skin in tandem with the sickness receding from his stomach and is ashamed of it. The evidence that he needs this. That it works.

___

It goes. It doesn't go well but it goes.

Sam takes his first shower in— Dean doesn't even want to think how long it must have been— and comes out looking like a drowned kitten, shaking violently. Dean steers him over to the fireplace and runs out to gather some wood and foliage as fast as he can. He builds a sooty spluttering thing and resolves to gather something that will give off actual flames soon.

Pain, shock, habitual compliance, addiction, withdrawals, exhaustion or some combination of the six makes Sam do as Dean says.

Most things will become routine, routine will fall into habit, habit will become unthinking. Sam hasn't been protesting at all and Dean isn't sure if it makes him feel better about the whole thing or worse. And he doesn't examine why a cross-roads demon turns up at every summons to be bled out and gutted every few days. He even gets used to the bottles of blood in the ice-box.

He keeps the laptop charged and stares at the screen obsessively. He even sets up his phone to get alerts— credit-card fraud, he's always been good at, this is hardly much different. He stares at the small professional ID card pictures of the two men he'd killed when he'd found Sam and keeps his anger at a steady simmer.

Sam walks around the cabin like a caged dog, all bones and purple-blue blood vessels, several pounds the worse for wear. Back hunched and hands in his pockets.

He watches cartoons and sleeps with a pillow clutched to his stomach.

Dean temps him out to the porch one morning for fresh air. The hunting lodge they're squatting in offers not much in the way of a view, surrounded as it is on all sides by sparse woods and thick undergrowth, but the air is still crisp and fragrant. He breathes it in wheezily and faints going back inside, later, and Dean doesn't manage to catch his head. There's little blood.

9.

Minutes stretch into hours, hours inch forward into days, days tick on into a week. Sam's pretty sure it's been a week. The road-runner runs into painted mountain-sides, the pink panther paints the detective pink, Daffy jumps up and down in outrage, Dean sounds slurred even when he laughs. Sam feels cold all the time and his teeth hurt from clattering so much. Everything hurts, even breathing. He sleeps all the time and is still exhausted. Dean frowns when he brings it up and tells him there are no rats here.

___

Dean broods. He goes on supply runs, flirts with waitresses, builds a fire, sometimes. He takes a little too much pleasure in killing the cross-roads demons and has to remind himself he's doing it for a purpose. He finds himself drawing it out too much nonetheless and begins to feel like anger is the only thing he can really feel, anymore, which is the sort of lousy lie he shouldn't be telling even himself.

He checks the laptop obsessively.

Sam goes on walks and comes back in breathless. He manages to make it all the way around the cabin one day and Dean can see his legs shaking even under the too-loose jeans. Dean decides he'll let him have another day like this, just one more good day, then start tapering the blood down from four times a day to three to zero.

___

He didn't know it was possible to feel this cold.

10.

It goes. It doesn't go well but it goes.

Sam doesn't make it off the bathroom floor for about four days. Dean piles pillows, towels, and sheets under him and tries to get him to eat and drink. The violence of Sam's condition takes him by surprise and when Sam begs for blood, Dean almost gives in. He summons another demon, even bleeds it out and kills it but then upends the little bucket of blood into the sink and goes back to Sam empty-handed. He promises pain-killers if Sam will eat.

There is something broken in the way Sam acquiesces.

___

Time stops moving at all though he can hear an extraordinarily loud ticking from a clock somewhere. His gums start bleeding and fill his mouth with blood that does nothing for him. He is soaked in cold sweat and in dire need of a shower but only just breathing seems like a tall order mostly. His head thuds with pain.

___

It goes. It doesn't go well, but it goes.

Sam makes it out of bed and to the little dining table once a day, even assists Dean with a cross-word he's pulled out of an old newspaper. He starts eating like it isn't a punishment and goes for walks again.

11.

It goes. It starts to go well.

Sam loses the hungry, bruised look. He walks around the cabin sometimes twice a day. The tendons on his hands stop standing out so much and Dean takes him to a diner for breakfast one morning where he orders waffles and a milkshake and his eyes go a little cross when he looks at the straw while drinking.

Slowly, the hollows in his cheeks fill out. Lines smoothed out, Sam starts looking disquietingly young, like a lost child.

It's late in October so Dean asks if he's ready to move on, ditch the cabin and find a motel in a warmer state. He blinks, wide-eyed at being asked and nods, "If that's what you want."

On the drive Sam points out a herd of cows in a field and holds his arm out of the window where the sunlight makes his skin look almost healthy. Dean finds music he knows Sam likes too and stops along the way much earlier than he'd like because Sam's been squirming in his seat. In the motel they watch cartoons again.

Dean stops for meals, finds roadhouses and diners. Sam kneels down to pet a chained dog at a gas station once. It goes really well.

Until something breaks.

"Can we— " Sam hesitates, hedges, slowly ventures "Find a pinball machine?"

Maybe the break isn't new. Maybe he's just seeing it now.

Or maybe he saw it all along just didn't clock it for what it was. Or maybe that's a lie too— maybe mirrors aren't the only things he doesn't like to look into.

"Sure, kid," he hears himself say. Sam even smiles like a kid.

___

Sam chews on his collar, fiddles with the button on his cuff and is just about to ask, when Dean's phone pings with an alert and he lurches the car off to the side of the road, sending Sam barrelling into the dashboard. He doesn't get a chance to ask as Dean looks at his phone, announces they're going hunting and digs his foot into the pedal with much less reverence for the car than Sam would've expected.

He doesn't feel like hunting.

___

They drive across three states without stopping much at all. Sam squirms in his seat, even asks once when they'll stop, but Dean takes the drive in long stretches, stopping only to sleep.

It takes three days, even once they've arrived in the city, and Dean's beginning to lose patience, beginning to think they've probably moved on, beginning to think it might not be them— what kind of idiot uses the credit card of their discovered and dead partners anyway, and he's getting sick of sitting around in car parks outside motels, watching, of sitting outside diners and bars, watching, of driving all over the city chasing down people he wouldn't recognize even if he found them. He's getting tired of Sam always asking when they can go home and tired of wanting to snap that there is no home, tired of feeling like shit, tired of Sam looking like he's bored, and then on the third day, driving by what looks like an abandoned apartment building in the evening, thinking about giving up the chase, he sees Sam freeze in his seat and turns to follow his line of sight to the building. He asks if he recognizes it and takes Sam's tight nod as confirmation.

Dean's gun holds seven rounds in the magazine and another in the chamber but he leaves it with Sam in the car. He takes the stairs two at a time, runs at a low silent crouch across the halls, slinking from shadow to shadow until on the sixth floor, he hears sounds above. He walks the final flight of stairs and pauses until his breathing evens out completely. The deadened cold rage he feels surprises him. Sam's gun feels heavy in his hand, loaded with eleven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He flicks the safety off and favours rage to good judgement as he kicks the door open. Three people leap up, three hands reach for weapons, three pairs of eyes go wide in recognition. Dean shoots the fastest draw in the hand just as her pistol comes up, and levels the gun in between the other two, making a show of looking between them as the girl doubles up screaming, and clutches her bleeding hand.

"Guess I've got the right place," he says coldly.

He's got the gun leveled between the other two and one is clearly injured already, but the room is too small for there to be enough distance between him and them— it's the sort of thing he's supposed to be aware of, keeping enough distance between himself and whoever he's pointing his gun at that they can't charge him or relieve him of his weapon without getting shot themselves. But he isn't thinking, isn't as cool headed as he'd thought he is. It happens too fast. One minute the two men are standing with their arms raised and the woman is cursing at him, doubled up, the next thing he knows, the men leap at him at the same time without warning. Dean's shot grazes one in the arm, if that, and then he's pinned down to the floor and watching the woman stumble towards her gun while the two men secure their hold on him. His hand holding Sam's gun is crushed under a boot, and then the gun is kicked away.

A hand grabs his hair and uses it to pull his head up from the floor and one of the men is gloating about how he's been waiting for Dean to turn up— they've got a score to settle— when two shots ring out in quick succession and two bodies thud to the floor. Dean kicks the legs out of the only man left standing before he can think to react and rolls to a crouch before standing up. "Your aim is shit," he tells his brother, watching one of the men clutching at his bleeding stomach, screaming curses out of clenched teeth. The other has his hands up in surrender. The woman is dead.

Sam is breathing heavily from his run up the stairs but his eyes are almost vacant as he looks at the third man. Dean gives him a minute, standing completely still, then goes to retrieve Sam's gun from the floor where it'd been kicked in the scuffle.

Walking back to the car, he returns Sam's gun empty and reclaims his own.

12.

They drive for hours, play pinball on an old-fashioned console with flashing neon, stop at a laundromat where Sam tosses the reindeer in with his clothes and fishes it fondly out of the drier, looking relieved to have it back. "So what else?" Dean asks. "Mini-golf, chicks? What'd you miss?"

Sam leans back in his seat. "Yeah I could go for mini-golf," he says.

[voidstilesplease]

yearn

word count: >800 words | tags: Mob Boss!Theo (but vague), Powerful!Stiles, this is in the same verse and directly after this eros x thanatos ficlet.

Hi! I'm back with a little steo :))) Been a while.

----

“Congratulations, Eros.” Gerard’s voice drawls as soon as the call goes through. “You have once again evaded me and disposed of some of my best men while at it.”

Theo’s fists clench, his jaws flexing, and his nose flaring. “Touch him again, and you will find your throat torn open by the vengeful end of my claws, you old bastard.”

“Oh, is that contempt I hear?” taunts Gerard. The malicious grin he must be sporting is clear in Theo’s head. It makes his blood boil. “But nothing ever fazed you before. Here I thought your heart was made of stone.”

“And yours will be made of bloody ribbons.”

Gerard chuckles, “My, my. What an improvement this is. You don’t usually make direct threats to me.” 

Theo could hear him lighting up a smoke on the other side, inhaling, and blowing. His claws dig in his palm, and he wants nothing more than to smash Gerard’s face and mark him with the epithet Stiles gave Theo with his own filthy blood.

“All this rage for a stripper, Theodore? It seems I have succeeded in finding your weakness.”

Theo sharply looks up, flashing his cold blue eyes and snarling when the door opens. He explicitly instructed Josh not to disturb him while he was seething in rage inside his office. But the sound immediately dies in his throat when it’s not Josh who enters, but Stiles, pale as ever and reeking of dried blood. His clothes and hands are covered in it as well.

Stiles smiles at the sight of Theo, closing the door and crossing the distance to Theo’s large mahogany desk, walking around it to stand right in front of him.

Lowly, Theo growls, eyes on Stiles the entire time. “You have succeeded in nothing but expediting your own demise.”

Gerard laughs, clicking his tongue, but Theo couldn’t care less now that Stiles is back home to him. He couldn’t care less – not when Stiles sinks to his knees and lays his head on Theo’s lap. His fingers run through Stiles’ sweat and blood-matted hair, curling gently at the tips. Slowly, Stiles turns his head to look directly at Theo.

“You foolish dog,” Gerard jeers. “Of all the monsters in the world, you chose to love a fragile human. Do you see how easy this will be now?”

Stiles blinks at him and smiles again while Theo wipes the little bloodstain on his cheek. He inhales, smelling one, two, three, four different types of blood on him – and four varied lingering scents of fear clinging to Stiles’ skin. Theo knows he must have enjoyed this one from the proud look on Stiles’ face.

“Did you ever wonder if they begged for their lives?” Theo asks, pressing the phone close to his lips, answering Gerard’s taunt with one of his own. “The countless poor men you sacrificed because you were too coward to seek me out yourself?”

There’s a short pause, then a hiss. “You best believe I am coming for you, dog. It’s going to be my wolfsbane bullet that kills you.”

“They couldn’t,” Theo continues, ignoring the threat. Theo has received numerous threats from endless lines of enemies – it’s nothing novel now. He has worse enemies than Gerard, who is but a petulant old bastard who can’t accept that humans aren’t the only creatures crawling on God’s green earth. But giving credit where it’s due, Gerard has been the first to touch Stiles. Everyone turns their nose up on Stiles, hired in his club to entertain his guests – friends and enemy spies alike. Rumor has it Theo offers his human bitch to his business partners, letting them fuck him on top of a table in the VIP booth alongside lines of wolfsbane and coke, surrounded by the smoke of cannabis. Of course, Theo would sooner claw his eyes out than give Stiles to anyone that way. 

“They couldn’t because their tongues had already retreated down their throat in fear. They had no idea what was coming for them.”

Stiles quietly giggled, rubbing his cheek on Theo’s palm.

Gerard snaps in outrage, “Yes, they did. They all deserved to die dirtied by the brand of a psychotic monster for their incompetence in putting one werewolf down. I buried my men without washing the name Eros on their skin to remind me of the disgrace they brought to me and the ever-growing spite that keeps me eager to end you.”

He looks into Stiles’ eyes, and an understanding passes between them without words. Stiles’ eyes glaze in excitement. “Pity. Who’s going to bury you, Gerard? Because you’re next. You’re next.”

Theo hangs up and crushes the phone into debris with his hand.

Stiles nods, grins, kisses the open palm of Theo’s other hand, and buries his head on his lap again.

Gerard will be disappointed to know that Theo has no weakness – he only has Stiles, his little angel of death.

---

steo a-z: part 25

[thundersoothers]

john price, his wife, and... the dog (derogatory)

who: John Price x wife!reader

what: inspired by this thought about john price being an absolutely softie for his wife. continued here!

word count: 2.4k

warnings: mentions of cheating but it’s NOT TRUE! you’ll see… just fluff that reallyyyyy makes me want to marry this man.

It’s 2AM on a Saturday in the summer when John Price thinks he hears his wife cheating on him. 

“Shhh!!  You have to be quiet, you’ll wake up my husband.” 

He opens his heavy eyes to see the TV paused at the end credits of some movie he can’t even remember the name of.  The screen reflects in the crystal of the empty rocks glass on the coffee table next to his feet, holding only a warm whiskey stone.  

He groans and stretches, his old t-shirt riding up to show a dark happy trail disappearing into low-waisted flannel pajama pants.  He has one sock on with a hole in the toe.  You told him to get rid of them and got him a pack of 20 of the same sock (he’s very particular about his socks), but he still wears these ones, anyway. 

“Stop moving, I’m trying to concentrate here.  Damn lock… can never— oh, shit.  Heh. Wrong key.” 

He can hear you muttering and giggling and the scratch of the key against the lock as you struggle to get it in. 

It’s your girls’ night and he likes to wait up for you to make sure you get in safely.  He saw you off around 8PM, pouring himself a glass of whiskey as you took a shot of tequila.  You planted a big kiss on his cheek, leaving a red lipstick mark that he didn’t bother to fully wipe off. 

“Sorry, I know you’re eager to get inside.  I bet you’re so cold, all naked.  Here, you can go in my dress, is that better?  Fu—ow!  Don’t bite my tit, Jesus!  Sharp teeth…” 

Price suddenly feels much more awake.  He pushes himself up from the couch and starts to walk to the foyer. 

“This damn door… ah!  There we go.” 

The door creaks open and he hears you tiptoe inside in your heels (wearing heels and tiptoeing—are two actions that are mutually exclusive, especially when you’re plastered). 

“Remember, we have to be quiet.  My husband waits for me to get home, we don’t want to wake him up.  He’s very nice, you see, but he can’t know you’re here.” 

Apparently, you have gotten home safely—with an extra guest who just bit at your tit.  And you’re being louder than your guest, who you keep telling to be quiet. 

“My husband is gonna be soooo mad.  He’s gonna be so mad at me, but once he sees how cute you are, I think he’ll forgive me.  He’ll understand.  I had to.  I just had to!” 

He hears rustling as he gets closer to the foyer, you fumbling around in the dark. 

“Stay there, don’t move, okay?  Stay, yeah?  You know that, don’t you?  Mummy will teach you if not.  Just stay right there.  Lemme get these damn heels off…” 

There’s an odd sound of something quickly clicking on hardwood floor that makes his eyebrows furrow, and then you gasp—

“Wait, don’t run—“ 

Bang! 

You groan loudly. 

Price flicks on the lights.

You’re lying face down on the rug.  You have one heel on.  The second heel is twisted around your other foot—what you fell over.  Your little dress is flipped up over your ass and your arms are outstretched. 

“You okay there, love?” John asks, torn between amusement and concern. You just groan.  “Sounded like you fell pretty hard.” 

“I tripped,” you say into the rug, sounding very sad. 

“You hurt?” he asks.  “Anything broken?”

You shake your head and curl up a little.  “I’ll just sleep here.” 

He laughs softly.  “Come on, none of that.” 

“It’s so comfortable.  I’ll just—“ 

There’s that clicking sound again and he’s almost startled by the abruptness of your movement.  You push yourself up with one arm, stretch the other out and fucking snatch the quick-moving little brown blob that’s moving toward you.  You pull it to your chest and cradle it, shielding it from John’s view. 

He blinks. “What you got there, love?” he asks after a second. 

“Nothing,” you say innocently. 

“Right.”  He crosses his arms, looking you over.  “Who were you talking to just now?” 

“No one,” you say quickly.  “Myself.” 

“Right,” John says again slowly. “Show me what you have.” 

You look over your shoulder up at him through your lashes, vision blurry.  “No.  You’re gonna be mad.” 

“Just show me.” 

“Promise you won’t be mad.” 

He sighs.  “I won’t be mad.”  You give him a look.  He sighs again.  You’re wasted—he can tell by your eyes. They’re unfocused and heavy.  “Promise.  Now show me.” 

You look down at whatever you’re holding to your chest.  “Okay,” you whisper (to your tits?), “you need to be very well-behaved, okay?  No biting, please.  Be very nice for Daddy so he will like you, okay?  Can you do that?  Yes?  Okay.” 

You glance up at John again over your shoulder and then turn yourself around in a very clumsy movement.  Then, as if presenting whatever it is like you’re Mufasa from the Lion King, you lift it up in the air toward your husband. 

It’s a puppy. 

It’s quiet. 

The little dog wriggles in your hands, wagging his tail so hard his whole body shakes.  He barks up at John, high pitched.  A small pink tongue lolls out of his mouth. 

It’s still quiet. 

You lower the dog a little so you can look up at John.  “You said you wouldn’t be mad!” 

“I’m not mad,” John says, sounding mad. 

“You look mad.” 

“I’m not mad,” he says again.  “It’s just… dirty.” 

You gasp.  “He’s not dirty!” you exclaim, sounding offended on behalf of the dog.  You pull him to your chest.  “He’s just a little mangey, you see.  But that’s okay.  It can be fixed.  You know—they have medicine for that.  Or lotion, or whatever it is.  He’s very nice, John, I swear.  I know he’s a little… skrunkly but he’s very cute and—ow!  That’s my hair, no biting Mummy, please.” 

“You’re already calling yourself his Mummy?” he asks, bemused, eyebrow raised at you.  Yep.  You’re fucking wasted. 

“Yes, and you’re his Daddy.”  You hold the dog up again, this time facing him toward you.  “I think you’re very cute, puppy. You’ll grow on Daddy.  Just be very good for him, you can do that, can’t you?  Yes, you can.”  You whisper, as if John isn’t standing right there, “We’ll wear him down. Don’t worry.”

“I thought it was something else,” Price says. 

“What did you think it was?” you ask, not looking away from the dog.

“Where did you find it?” he asks instead of answering. 

This is much better than what his traitorous mind momentarily supplied.  You, cheating? As if.

How silly of him to even think that. For a moment, his stomach twists with the guilt of doubting you. He should have known better. 

Of course it’s this.  What else could it have been?

A puppy. 

A puppy! 

“Oh, hello, there.” 

You crouch down in your dress and heels and hold out your hand to the little puppy emerging from the bushes by the side of the road. 

“What are you doing here, all alone?  Come here, love, I won’t hurt you.  Come on, puppy, come to me.  Yeahhh, there we go.  Oh, look at you.  You’re so cute.  You’re all mangey, though.  Oh,” you say pitifully, “you little baby.” 

You’re drunk as fuck at 2AM on a Saturday in the summer, halfway through your walk home from the bar, squatting in the middle of a back road in England, about to cry while petting this puppy clumsily—but he doesn’t seem to mind.  He wags his tail and nips at your fingers. 

“Where’s your mummy?  You shouldn’t be out here all alone.  No collar… oh, goodness, what should I do with you?  I don’t want to leave you.  I’m not sure what to do.” 

He barks at you, high pitched. 

You nod at him seriously.  “Oh, yes, good point.”  He barks again.  “Mhm.  Yes, yes.  I thought so, too.  Exactly right.” 

He runs in a circle around you. 

“What are you, a month?  You should be with your Mum, you shouldn’t be all alone.  Oh, you little baby, you must be so scared.”  (He’s wagging his tail.) 

“It’s so cold.”  (It’s summer.) 

“Maybe you can come home with me?”  (Your husband would be so mad.) 

“Yes,” you decide.  “You’ll come home with me.”  (Your husband is going to be so mad.) 

That’s how you end up stumbling home with a puppy in your arms, rambling to him about yourself and your life. 

“Well, puppy, my name is Mrs. Price.  I’m from around here.  I live in a nice three bedroom house with my husband, I think you’ll like it very much.  It’s very cute, but that's mostly because I decorated it. He doesn’t understand feng shui, you see. You should see his office, puppy, it’s so bland. No taste for interior design.”

“Our house is only 10 more minutes away.  See that big tree there?  That means we only have 10 minutes left until we’re home.  I’m not great with street names, so I go by landmarks.”  He barks.  “Yes, yes, you get it.” 

“Anyway.  So, I’m—stop wiggling please, Mummy’s going to drop you—I’m married to a very nice man named John.  I love him very much.  You’ll like him, too,” you tell the dog seriously. "He’s very likable.  I like lots of things about him, puppy.  Actually," you say, "I like everything about him.” 

“He says I can’t have a dog, though.  He says it’s for my own good—booooo. Boo! But maybe we can sneak you in.  What do you think, puppy?  Should we do that?  I think we should do that.  We’ll have to be very quiet, though.  Very quiet.” 

“John waits for me to get home safely—he’s so nice, he’s so kind to me, I love him sooooo much—but we have to make sure not to wake him up. This is one of them—uh, covert operations. He’s very well-versed in those. My husband is very talented, puppy, he’s a military Captain. So we’ll have to be extra careful.”

And that’s how you end up trying to sneak into your own house and then trip over your shoe and fucking slam! your face on the rug. 

“Where did you find it?” John asks you as you sit on the floor after you presented the dog to him.

“On the way home from the bar, kind of my that big tree.” 

“By Notting Street?” 

You furrow your eyebrows.  “Notting Str—I dunno.  Maybe?  I just know the big tree.  The one with all the branches.” 

“‘The one with all the branches,’” he repeats, nodding slowly.  “Right.” 

“But he was there all alone so I took him home.  I couldn’t leave him, John, he’s so little.  And he’s very cute, look at his little ears?  And his little feet?  His toes are soooo small.  His little teeth are sharp, though—like a shark.  Fuckin’ hurt, he almost bit my tit off.” 

“Yeah, I heard.” 

“You heard?  Oh.  I was trying to be quiet.  I didn’t want to wake you up.” 

He smiles at you.  “I know.” 

You smile back. 

“Give me the dog.” 

You frown.  “No.” 

“The dog, please.” 

“No.”  You hold him tighter.  “You’ll take him from me.” 

“Well,” he says, “yes.” 

You sigh heavily.  “Be gentle.”  You hand him to John and he takes him in one hand and holds him out, frowning, as if it’s offended him. 

A puppy. 

“Can we keep him?” you ask hopefully. 

He glances at you and then back to the puppy and then back to you and then back to the puppy.  “No.” 

“Please?” 

“No.” 

“But…”  You trail off and he looks back down at you.  You’re starting to tear up. 

“Oh—love, don’t cry.” 

“He’s so little and soft and nice and he’s all mangey and he’s all alone and he’s just a little baby and…” 

“Okay, okay, darling, we can keep him.” 

(By that, he means you’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’re sober, and by ‘talk about it’, he means, ‘no.’) 

“Really?!” you gasp.  

The way your face fucking lights up makes John pause.  For a second, he almost feels like he lost his balance.

“Oh, John, really?  Oh, thank you so much!  Puppy, did you hear that?  Daddy said yes!  See, he’s very nice, just like I told you, remember?  He’s very nice and kind and he’s very handsome and I love him very much, and I—“ 

“The dog can’t understand you.” 

“You don’t know that,” you say defensively.

He looks down at you. “Right.”

You stare up at him, standing over you as you sit on the floor.  “How are you handsome even from this angle?”  You frown deeper.  “Stupid face,” you mutter. 

“What was that?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Let’s get you up.” 

“I’m so comfortable.” 

“Hand.”  He tucks the dog under his arm and extends his other hand toward you.  He crooks his long, thick fingers at you.  “Now.” 

You look between his hand and his face, and then slip your hand into his. 

“Good girl.”

He fucking yanks you up and, in one movement that’s somehow graceful, bends down and throws you over his shoulder. 

He, naturally, slaps your ass and you squeal.  “Hey!!” 

You kick your feet (still with only one heel on) and he laughs, resting his hand on your hip, heavy fingers digging into the plush of your butt, as he makes his way up the stairs with you on his shoulder and the dog in his hand. 

Gently, he drops you onto the bed and you fall back with an oof! and stare up at him. 

“Well,” Price drawls, “aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” 

You grin.  “I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too.”  He takes off your shoe (singular), your dress, and your makeup as you hold the dog, curled up, on your chest. 

“You’re so good to me, John,” you say, your eyes closed.  “I’m so lucky.  I don’t know how I got so lucky.  And, you, puppy,” you mumble, petting him slowly, “you’re so lucky, too.  You’re about to have the best Daddy in the world.  He’s so good to us.” 

“‘Puppy’ is asleep,” John says.  “And,” he adds, scooping him up in one hand, “puppy is not sleeping in the bed.” 

You just groan, too tired and drunk to argue. 

He holds the dog out in the air again, turning him around and upside down to examine him.  He yips and wriggles in his hands, but John shushes him.  “Hush now.  Your Mummy is asleep.”  He shakes his head and sighs.  “What am I going to do with you?” 

He takes the dog to the bathroom and puts him down on the floor. His paws slip a little on the cold tile. John puts his hands on his hips, staring down at the dog.  “I can’t believe this.”

He reaches over to turn on the heated floor (which he got installed for you), throws a fluffy towel onto the ground (also for you), and says to the dog, “You are so, so damn lucky I love your Mummy.” 

In the morning, despite John Price’s best efforts to say no to you, you end up convincing him to keep the dog. He’s a military Captain but the pleading of his wife is enough to make him crumble.

The happiness on your face when he finally says yes, makes him wonder why he ever said no in the first place.

note: thank you for reading! this is my first time posting in years–and in a totally new fandom. thank you for your patience and your support. let me know your thoughts! merry christmas!

posted 12.26.2024. revised 02.17.2025.

do not repost or modify any of my original words on any other platform.

to masterlist.

[foreststarflaime]

Sure sure romantic pairings are fine and all. But more people should perhaps consider two characters loving each other to the point of incomprehensibility. To the point that there is no simpler way in english to define or describe it than just to say those characters’ names together, joined eternally by the vague conjunction ‘and’. There’s so many types of love and dependencies and emotions in general thrown in there that you can’t tell what colors they are anymore, they’ve just joined into a giant blobby mess that’s almost black, but when you look closer glistens with more colors than there are names for. Just a thought

[eydilily]

break like an artist.

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a collab between me and @slashmagpie for hermitadaymay's Solstice Social Collaborative Event! make sure to check out magpie's amazing fic for this too :D

(alternate ver under the cut)