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winchesterwords · 4 years ago

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“Keep Your Secrets” Part 1 - Sam Winchester x F!Reader

PART 2 PART 3

Summary: You are a professor at a local university who has been in touch with the younger Winchester brother. When Sam returns from a hunt to find you missing, how will he react when he finds a troubling clue in your office?

Word Count: 2373

Warning: None

Song I Wrote To: “Hold My Girl” by George Ezra

Note: This will be a two-part story! Let me know if you want to be tagged in the second part.

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The Men of Letters Bunker was lit with warm light as the inhabitants sat around a table in the library.

Sam Winchester lounged in his seat, his phone in his hands as a lore book lay open in front of him. “But why are their necks so long?” Jack asked, staring at a photo of a giraffe on Dean’s phone.

“That seems like a question for him,” Dean said, gesturing to the Angel that sat across from him. Castiel tilted his head, thinking over the question. Dean waited patiently as Jack continued to look up photos of the animal he found to be so strange.

“Why are you looking at me?” Cas asked, confused.

“Well you angels are the ones that made everything,” Dean said. “So, tell the kid. Why are giraffe’s neck so damn long, Cas?” The Angel looked between Dean and back to Jack and then leaned slightly forward.

“That was...not my department,” he revealed and Dean had to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing. Sam had also smiled, but from the way he was looking at his phone, it had nothing to do with animals of the African savanna.

“Why are you smiling?” Jack asked, as curious as ever. Sam didn’t seem to notice him.

“He’s probably looking up facts about the moon,” Dean snorted.

“Very funny,” Sam said, his eyes never leaving the screen in front of him.

“I don’t like the moon,” Cas said.

“Why?” Jack asked and Dean groaned, putting his hand up.

“No, no, don’t get him started,” he begged the Nephilim, “please.” Jack frowned but dropped the subject. Suddenly, Sam stood up, his fingers still flying over his screen.

“I gotta run an errand,” he announced, pushing in his chair. “I’ll be back later.” Dean, Cas, and Jack watched as he headed for the garage. Dean rolled his eyes and took his phone back from the kid.

“Where is he going?” Jack asked, staring after Sam.

“Kid has a girlfriend,” Dean explained. “She’s a lore professor at a local university. He thinks we don’t know about her, but we do.”

“He talks about her in his sleep,” Cas added and Dean looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“Again, Cas? Listening to us sleep? Buddy, we’ve talked about this,” Dean said.

“Wait, is that bad?” Jack asked. Cas tried to hide his smile, but Dean just turned towards the kid and then leaned back in his seat, his hands covering his face.

“Oh my god…”

-------------

Sam paused outside of the door to your office.

The whole drive over he had been nervous. It wasn’t the first time he had visited you at work. In fact, he had never seen you outside of the University at all. He had his concerns about people seeing you with him in public. It wasn’t because he wanted to keep you a secret, but if he could keep you away from the life of hunting to keep you safe, then that is exactly what he was going to do.

Sam could hear you shuffling around inside, most likely preparing for your next lecture. Knocking quickly, Sam heard a muffled, “Come in,” from the other side and he pushed open the door. You looked up from your desk with a big smile.

“Hi,” Sam said, shutting the door behind him.

“You know, you don’t need to come to office hours,” you said, getting up from your seat.

“How else am I supposed to catch you alone?” he asked, his hands going into his pockets.

“Okay, fair enough,” you said with a laugh. Gesturing to the small couch in the center of the room, he joins you, relaxing immediately.

“Oh,” Sam said, grabbing the messenger bag that hung on his shoulder. “I brought you a new one,” he said, handing you a leather-bound book. “It’s mostly on Japanese mythology, but there are other references in there too.” You took the book from him, running your hands over the cover. Reaching behind you, you plucked another old book from the table.

“Then I suppose I can return this one to you,” you said, handing it back to him.

“You finished it already?” he asked, placing the book of runes into his bag.

“The way you talked about it had me very curious,” you said. You placed the new book on your coffee table. “Thank you,” you said and he smiled at you. “So, tell me, how is your family doing? Is your nephew doing better?”

“Yeah, Jack is doing much better, thank you. It just took him a bit to adjust after his mom died.”

“Well, he seems like a tough kid to me,” you said, leaning back into the couch. “And your brother? He’s good?”

“Dean is great, though I think he has finally realized where I have been going all the time.”

“Oh, so I’m not your little secret after all?” you asked, teasing him.

“I wouldn’t say secret…” he said. “However, I do like that I have been able to have you for myself.” You laughed, running a hand through your hair as you looked at him.

“You really are something else, you know that Sam?” you asked, reaching out to play with the cuff on his flannel shirt. He leaned slightly into your touch, savoring the small moment. With everything going on right now with Jack and the different worlds, Sam needed a break and he was grateful for the time he spent with you.

“What about you?” he asked. “How’s your mom doing?”

“Great,” you said, your eyes brightening up at the mention of your mother. “Yeah, whatever was in that tea you gave me has worked like magic. She hasn’t had another migraine in weeks.” Sam smiled, trying to hide the awkwardness that had entered his stomach at the mention of magic.

Little did you know, it was in fact magic tea after all. A simple request from Rowena had her dropping it off with a smile and toss of her red hair. Sam, of course, owed her and she assured him she would make sure to collect when needed. He never minded owing the witch a favor. He would never admit it to Dean, but he actually liked Rowena.

“Well, I’m glad,” Sam said as he looked around your office. The entire room was covered in artifacts from your travels throughout the world. You had statues, art, and books from all over that covered most lore and mythologies. Sam had first met you when he needed a translation on an old scroll he had found in the file room.

He had reached out to the history department of the University and they had directed him to your office and you had decided to meet with him immediately. As soon as he had met you, he knew he had to see you again.

Soon, Sam was making excuses to come and see you. Whether it was because he needed “help” on a translation or just because he wanted to loan you a book from his collection. It was how the whole book exchange had come about.

As for you, you were just happy to see him. Even though he always brought you a new book, scroll, or small token, it was just his company that you craved. Sam Winchester was a mystery to you, but one you were very willing to figure out.

“Sam,” you said, regaining his attention, “when are you going to tell me more about what you do and how you know about all this?” you asked, gesturing the room around you. Sam smiled shyly, trying to come up with an answer that wasn’t technically a lie.

“It’s just a hobby, (Y/N),” Sam settled on. It wasn’t really a lie. Hunting had started out as a hobby of sorts when he was younger. It only really became a job once Dean had shown up at Stanford and they set out to search for John. Thinking about it now, he had never truly realized just how much of a job it had become. You stared at him, your lips pursed slightly.

“Hmm, alright, you. Keep your secrets,” you said. “But I’m still curious,” you said leaning forward to tap the center of his forehead jokingly.

“Aren’t you always?” Sam said as he reached up to smooth some hair off your face. He leaned in slightly, but of course, the universe had other plans. The shrill sound of a phone permeated the moment and you sat back with a light sigh.

“I had a feeling that was going to happen,” you said but urged him to take the call. Sam answered, not bothering to check the ID as he already knew who it would be.

“Dean,” Sam greeted.

“Sammy,” Dean said, “we need you back here. The kid found a case not too far from here and I have a feeling we’re going to need the machetes on this one.”

“You have a feeling? Or are you just hoping we will?”

“Is there a difference?” Dean asked and Sam could hear him throwing weapons into his duffel bag. “Look, would you just get back here? Cas is trying to convince Jack that we don’t need the entire arsenal and he could use the backup.” Sam rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered how his brother managed to do anything without him.

“Alright, I’m on my way.” Sam hung up the phone and pocketed it. He looked at you with a frown.

“Duty calls?” you asked.

“Unfortunately,” he said. “I would stay, but…”

“But your mystery job needs your attention,” you said with a shrug. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

“But do you?”

“Well, no, but I get that your brother is very important to you and he needs your help. So,” you stood and pulled him to his feet, “get going soldier before your big brother comes and drags you out by your ear.” Sam laughed, awkwardly pushing his hair away from his face.

“The two of you would get along very well and that honestly terrifies me,” Sam said, grabbing his bag.

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” you joked and Sam rolled his eyes.

“I’ll come to visit when I get back,” he said.

“You better,” you said and then Sam reached forward and pulled you in for a hug. You held him back, memorizing the smell of books, metal, and something else you couldn’t put your finger on. Campfire, maybe?

He pulled out of the hug and headed for the door. Giving you one last look, he waved and left your office, ready to deal with whatever monster Jack had discovered. Sam only hoped that it was something easy enough to make the hunt go quickly and so that Jack could get more experience. That way he could make good on his promise and see you again as soon as possible.

-------

Two Days Later

“Okay, be honest, kid,” Dean was saying as they headed to the kitchen, “how did it feel to kill your first vamp?” Cas rolled his eyes as he went to the fridge to get their usual post-hunt beers. Jack sat down at the kitchen table, blood still speckled on his shoes.

“I think it felt...odd,” Jack admitted, taking the cold drink from Cas. “Do heads always make that sound when you take them off?” he asked. Dean grinned as he looked at Cas and Sam who were shaking their heads in unison.

“You get used to it,” Dean said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “You know, it’s tradition to take your kid on a vampire hunt. Dad did it with Sammy and me and now we get to do it with you. I like it.”

“I don’t think decapitations should be viewed as a good bonding experience, Dean,” Castiel said with a frown. Dean just shrugged and lifted his beer back to his lips.

“As interesting as this conversation is,” Sam said, grabbing his beer. “I need to make a phone call.”

“Tell the Professor I said hello!” Dean called after Sam and his younger brother sent a certain gesture back over his shoulder causing Dean to laugh.

Sam entered his room and shut the door, pulling out his phone. He dialed your cellphone number and waited, but the call went to voicemail. He tried again and got the same result. Double-checking the time, he made sure he wasn’t calling you in the middle of a lecture, but today was your prep day. It was when you would spend the day in your office grading papers or preparing for the next class.

He then dialed your office phone but was greeted by silence once again. Sam took a deep breath, trying to not let his mind think of the worse possibilities. There could be many reasons why you weren’t answering. However, he needed to see for himself.

Without telling the others, Sam quickly made his way to the garage and grabbed a set of keys. He jumped in the truck Cas usually drove and hit the gas. Halfway to the University, Dean tried calling Sam after noticing his absence, but Sam ignored him. He didn’t want to have to explain unless he was sure about what was going on.

Arriving at the college, he calmly made his way to your department. Nobody batted an eye as he nearly ran towards your office. Your assistant had already gone home which, in itself, was odd. Ducking past his desk, Sam made it to the door of your office and braced himself before quickly picking the lock and pushing it open.

He froze in the doorway as he took in what he saw. Furniture was splayed all over the floor, papers were strewn across your desk, and a broken coffee mug was shattered against the wall.

He closed the door tightly behind him and quickly made his way to your desk when his nose picked up on a familiar scent. It didn’t take long to find the source, a yellowish powder that ran along the edge of the polished wood.

Sulfur.

Sam quickly pulled out his phone and dialed Dean.

“Dude, where did you go?” Dean asked, but Sam couldn’t speak. “Sam? Sammy?”

“Dean, she’s gone.”

#Sam Winchester Imagine #sam winchester x y/n #sam winchester x reader #sam x you #sam x reader #reader insert #Spn imagine #spn fic #supernatural #supernatural imagine #dean winchester #Jack kline #castiel #sam winchester #winchesterwords #apolloloki97 #sam winchester fic

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that-was-anticlimactic · 4 years ago

Note

Once many moons ago you asked for some avatar writing prompts and I’ve been thinking of it ever since. Anyway I’ve also been thinking a lot about your Tourette’s!Sokka hc and fics and I was wondering if you could write a lil bit about how Toph finds out? I know you mentioned that she’d find out after pulling him out of the hole... but I’d love to read more about it

Anyway no pressure and if i’m totally out of line please let me know

Hi!!! No no, thank you so much! You’re not out of line at all!! I could talk about this forever and this is exactly something I need to procrastinate!

for those who don’t know, they’re referring to this post and this oneshot! It’s a lots of headcanons about Sokka (atla) having Tourette’s Syndrome!

This takes place during Bitter Work (I mean... Sokka is a hole haha) and for purposes of speculation and plot convenience, we’re assuming he’s been in the whole for at least half of the day (I mean, maybe that’s canon??? He had trouble walking when they got him out and it was long enough to make Katara worry...).

I tried writing this in a different way, so if anyone has strong thoughts / feelings / opinions on how I portrayed his tics, let me know! The last thing that I want to note beforehand is that tics are... weird and you can’t plan them. Writing for them is harder than I thought because they are random. I, personally, found it easier to write his verbal tics as the same few words because you don’t think of tics, they just happen? So writing them was weird, haha!

Stuck

Word Count: 2,590

Tw: anxiety attack, tic attack (for those with TS or tics, I do write his tics in. They triggered some of mine, so proceed with caution)

----

“Rah-Rah-Rah-Rumble!”

Sokka sighed. “Maybe going to underground Earth bending tournaments was a bad idea,” the young warrior (nose wrinkle) said to himself. “I’m going to be rumbling-- rah-rah-rumble-- for ages now.”

He laughed. Then laughed again (blink, whistle). Then he shrieked in frustration.

Being stuck in this hole was miserable, and not just (whistle, nose wrinkle) miserable, it was terrifying. He couldn’t move his arms, he couldn’t move his legs, moving his fingers was possible, but he had clenched them so much that it was painful to continue, and he needed to move his arms, he needed to (whistle, whistle, whistle) tic.

The others were off training, and that could take hours. He was alone (blink, “yip yip, rumble rumble”) and they had no idea where he was, all they knew was that he was hunting.

The pain… it was hard for his brain to fathom the pain he was in. His legs (blink, whistle, blink) were numb but his arms (“Rah-Rumble”) were sore, they were aching and longing for the ability to move, to tic. It made his head (whistle, blink, blink, “yip, rumble, yip”) hurt. It was hard to breath.

“That’s-- rumble-- it,” he wheezed. “This is how I’m gonna-- rah-rah-- die. Oh, spirits, I’m gonna die!” Panic, pain, and loneliness were savages, wrecking the sanctuary and peace of his mind and body.

“AANG!”

Sokka’s voice clipped, his body feeling (“yip yip, you need to yip yip”, blink, nose wrinkle) awake once more at the sight of his friend.

The monk turned at his name, his face lighting up upon seeing the water tribesman. “Sokka!” he (nose wrinkle, whistle) cried, running to him. “Are you okay?”

He opened his mouth, prepared to make some witty or sarcastic comment, but (whistle, blink) all that came out was a stifled, relieved sob. “I-I’m-- fah-fah-fine, fine-- I just need to get out of this stupid hole,” he assured, tears of happiness welling up in his eyes.

Aang studied him for a moment (“yip yip”), then grabbed onto what he could of Sokka’s hands, trying to pull him (blink, blink, nose wrinkle, whistle) free.

Pain shot through his arms and up to his fingers. “Ow! Stop, stop! You’re-- rumble, rah-rah-- gonna pull my fingers off! And (whistle) I don’t think the r-- re-rah-rumble, rah-rah-rumble-- rest is coming!”

Aang sat down in front of him, panting. “I would try to airbend you out, but I don’t think that’ll do anything.”

(Blink, whistle) “Oh, you can Earthbend me out!” Sokka cried excitedly (blink, blink, “rumble”). “That’s what you’ve been working on, right?”

“I can’t.”

“Well, what about-- yip-- Toph? Can you get her so she can Earthbend me out?”

“I can’t do that either.”

“W-- Wah-Wah-- Why not? I’m stuck and-and I can’t move and--” Sokka broke off into an unstoppable stream of “yip-yip”’s.

Aang started, reaching his hands out, but drew them back. “Suppose you probably don’t want to be touched right now?” he said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Toph will just get mad at me if I go back. I’m a terrible Earthbender.”

“I just-- yip yip (whistle, blink, blink, nose wrinkle)-- I just want Katara.” The words stumbled out, and for a second, he felt like that young six year old again, asking for his mom when (blink, blink, blink) he had tic spasms during stressful training sessions.

Aang’s grey eyes were filled with sorrow. “I know you need help. I need to get over myself and just face Toph but… I just don’t want to let anyone down…” he trailed off, and (nose wrinkle, whistle) suddenly Sokka wanted to be out of that hole more than anything so he could give Aang all of the love that he deserves.

“Oh! Is that a baby Sabertooth Moose Lion?” asked the monk, a smile popping up on his face as the creature jumped out from the bushes.

“Aang, Foo Foo Cuddly Poops. Foo Foo-- rumble, rah-rah-- Cuddly Poops, Aang,” Sokka introduced nonchalantly, still mentally going through various ways to encourage Aang to get help.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Aang (“yip yip!”) stated, picking Foo Foo Cuddly Poops up. “Their moms are usually really protective.”

The Spirits must have something against Sokka, and maybe once he’s out of the hole he’ll ask Aang to visit the Spirit World and figure out what it is. Almost as if it were on cue, a loud roar shook the trees surrounding them, and Sokka soon felt overcome with blinking and screaming “yip yip”.

The roar came from behind him, but he couldn't move he couldn’t move he couldn’t move he couldn’t-- Spirits, he was crying. He was blinking so hard and so consistently that he was crying. His throat felt tighter and tighter with each “yip”, but he still held onto that small sliver of hope that Toph or Katara would hear him and come help him.

“Aang, I can’t-- ca-a-an’t yip-- I can’t see! I-- you need to yip yip-- can’t see! Is that- is that-thu-thu-- the mother? What’s happ-- yip yip-- ening? I can’t-- you-you, yip yip yip-- I can’t stop-- yip yip yip yip, RUMBLE-- AANG!” His words flew out of his mouth, they were uncontrollable, a storm that had been building up for the past however long he had been in here, festering and brewing. Sokka didn’t know what he was saying, his tongue was improvising, his words were a script never written. Honestly, he would be surprised if Aang could even understand what he said through his nearly constant stream of tics.

He couldn’t see, and not just behind him. His blinking was too excessive. His eyes hurt, his vision completely blurred. He was crying, from fear, pain, blinking too much, and because he just wanted Katara. The ringing in his ears returned, and he wanted to curl up into a ball, letting his tics run their course, holding his head in his hands.

A gust of wind ruffled his already messy hair, some of the longer strands falling into his mouth, but he barely registered it. Through the ringing, he vaguely heard Aang speak to him. And suddenly Sokka sobbed even harder because Aang was twelve and he shouldn’t have to worry about Sokka having a tic attack. The first time he had one around Aang, he had terrified the kid. Poor Katara had to run back and forth between making sure Sokka was alright and not in any pain and that Aang understood what was going on.

Spirits, Aang was probably scared out of his mind right now because they were being attacked and Sokka could do nothing to help him. They were in danger and it felt like he was cowering while the Avatar worked to save them both.

Moment after moment, he continued to tic, and, as Aang later said, continued to have an anxiety attack. It felt like an eternity when he finally saw the blurred face of Aang in front of him, moving in and out of focus. The monk’s mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t even think. The world around him had faded, falling into a grey abyss of nothingness where even feelings were numb and cold. He forced his eyes shut.

Suddenly, the ground beneath him began to move, it rumbled (much like he was), and out of nowhere, a hand gripped his hair tightly and pulled.

Freedom. He was free, but he couldn’t register it. He swatted at the hand until it let go of him, letting him crumble to the ground in a hysterical heap. The touch only worsened the feeling of restriction, even though he was no longer confined to the hole. The ringing grew louder and louder still, and through it all he could hear was someone screaming his sister’s name. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was Aang.

The curled into a ball position that he so longed for was finally attainable, and Sokka immediately fell into it. His legs were twitching, his hands continually flying to the sky and flashing the number three (a new tic he had picked up that replaced the fist pumping. Where his body picked it up, he hadn’t a clue, but he supposed it was better than fist pumping at everything).

“I can’t-- yip yip, yip rumble yip-- breathe-- bruh-bruh-bruh--!” he screamed it. How his vocal cords found the strength to scream, he didn’t know. All he knew for certain was that he felt like he was dying.

A tender, cool, calloused hand landed on his shoulder and he shuddered at the touch, desperately trying to shake it off. The hand would not relent.

Oftentimes, the light at the end of the tunnel was his name. The ringing halted to a stop, when through the blaring he heard: “Sokka”. The voice was loud but it was not forceful. It was commanding yet compassionate. “Sokka, can you hear me?”

Eyes still forced shut to calm the blinking, he nodded.

“It’s Katara. I know I’m already touching you, but can I hug you? Is that okay?”

Katara… his sister. His mind halted at once, the thoughts of death and breathing slipping away. Cautiously opening an eye, Sokka found his sister in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, the other hovering near his back.

A relieved sigh fell from her lips as he opened his second eye, blinked a few times, and then met hers. Her beautiful blue eyes felt like home. “Thank the Spirits,” she mumbled. “Can I hug you, is that okay? Aang chased away the mother Sabertooth Moose Lion and Toph got you out of the hole. You can move now.”

Realization hit him in full force. Toph didn’t even know he had Tourette’s yet. The chance to tell her never really came up. She probably hated him now.

He nodded once more, leaning into his younger sister’s touch, wrapping his own shaking arms around her, and letting her hold him as he whimpered.

Her touch was warm, heating the coolness of his fear into oblivion. He always liked when Katara hugged him. She always hugged him loosely, allowing him the room to maneuver or wiggle his way out if he felt uncomfortable.

Peace flooded over him, his tears vanishing with each passing moment and his breathing more stable with each breath.

“I’m-- rumble- rah-- so sorry,” he gasped once he extracted himself from the hug, finally calm and back into reality, as the world came back into sight.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Katara stated firmly, sitting beside him. “We should have looked for you sooner when you didn’t return. I was just so caught up in Aang learning Earthbending and Toph is kind of a mean teacher--”

“Katara, it’s-- yip yip-- fine, really.”

“You were stuck here for hours, Sokka, hours! I was so worried…”

Hand holding wasn’t his thing, not in the slightest. It made his fingers hurt and he could never get his hands to hold still long enough for it to be comfortable for anyone. Katara, though, was the one exception. He reached for her hand, holding it tightly and rubbing his fingers against the back of it.

“Thu-Thu-- Thank you,” he whispered. “I love you.”

Katara leaned her head against his shoulder, finally allowing herself to breathe, all of her worries and fears slipping away with every exhale.

From the corner of his eye, Sokka noticed Aang slowly inching towards him, Toph lingering at his side. He gulped. “Aang, sorry I f-- fr-fre-fuh-fr--freaked out on you. Did I-- rumble rumble-- scare you again?” he asked.

Aang nodded sheepishly. “A little bit. Sorry I couldn’t Earthbend you out. I should’ve gotten Toph right away.”

Sokka shrugged, careful not to jostle his sister’s head. “Eh. It’s okay. You just started l-- luh-luh-rumbLE, LE, LE-- learning.”

The large grey eyes grew wider by the second. Aang bit his lip and glanced anxiously at Sokka. It was a look that Sokka had learned early on. “Come here,” he sighed, gesturing to his other side. “Not too close, though, okay?”

Aang immediately zoomed over and into his side, scooting away slightly before settling.

Sometimes, Aang just needs to be loved and reminded that he’s just a kid and that it’s okay to feel worried and that it’s okay for him to not believe everything was his fault. That look, that look was one asking for forgiveness, one of asking for affection.

And then there was Toph.

It was funny, really, how quickly Sokka could go between completely freaking out and needing someone to help him to him being the comforter, the calm and collected one. He supposed it was because his tic attacks weren’t very frequent, and this one was more extreme than most (probably due to being stuck for hours and having an anxiety attack), so he was used to jumping back into normalcy.

Toph, on the other hand…

“Hey, you,” he called. “Blind Bandit-- yip yip, you need to yip yip-- come join us!”

The hesitant and frightened look (Spirits, she was only twelve too) on her face was a huge contrast in comparison to her pale and usually uncaring complexion. And for a moment, she faltered. Being new and all, Sokka really couldn’t blame her. She barely knew them.

“I’m f-- fuh-fuh--fine,” he assured her. “I have Tourette’s so sometimes-- rumble-rah-rah-- when I can’t move my body freaks-- yip yip (whistle)-- out and sometimes I panic. Then we got attacked by a Sabertooth Moose Lion, I think? I kinda blanked out for that part-- rah-rah-rah--, but anyways, point is, I’m okay. And, I’m sorry for sc-- yip yip-- scaring you.”

The young Earthbender cautiously took a step forward.

“Don’t worry-- wah-wah-worry--, it’s not usually this bad. I guess me getting trapped in a hole-- rumble, rumble, rah-- wasn’t enough torment for the Spirits so they threw a large animal at me. It’s usually just small, normalish things like making hand gestures or my neck twitching,” he continued to explain, his tone gentle and trying his best to suppress his vocal tics for the moment to coax Toph closer. “Are you okay?”

Toph snorted. “I’m not scared, Snoozles. I just… I just couldn’t see what was going on completely and I was confused!”

“And worried!” Aang piped up from his side. “Don’t forget that you were also worried!”

Sokka smiled while Toph growled. She stomped her foot on the ground and a beam of Earth collided with Aang, sending him flying through the air and roughly hitting a tree.

“Ow,” he mumbled, rubbing his head.

Toph just shrugged, quickly making her way to steal Aang’s spot next to Sokka. The young warrior saw the Earthbender raise her fist towards him, then falter.

“Yes, you can touch-- yip yip-- me now,” he laughed. “Uhh, also, sorry for hitting you earlier.”

A hard blow landed on his arm, but he couldn’t have felt happier about it. The trio learned very early on that punching arms was Toph’s way of showing affection. “No biggie. I can take it.”

Aang came stumbling towards them, pouting. “No fair, Toph! I wanted to sit next to Sokka!”

“Well then, make Sugar Queen move and take her place.”

“But Katara has first dibs, she’s his sister!”

“Snooze you lose, Twinkle Toes.”

“But--”

Katara opened her eyes and then proceeded to roll them. “Just come sit next to me, Aang,” she interrupted, extending an arm for the airbender to lean into.

Aang’s face lit up and he raced to her side.

Sokka sighed. Ah, normalcy.

----

Ahhh okay! I hope you liked it!

In case anyone was wondering, the reason why I stopped writing the tics in during the tic attack is because tic attacks (in my own personal experience) are kind of a constant stream of tics where something is always happening, and it would be really hard to write. So, when he had his anxiety / tic attack, I let it flow from there because there’s no way I could write that well or portray it right!

Thank you for reading! I’m always open to Sokka with Tourette’s questions, comments, concerns, etc...! I enjoy talking about it haha! I would also love to hear anyone’s personal Sokka with TS headcannons or ideas or any TS character stuff!

I am also always up to procrastinate, so if anyone ever has any writing prompts or fic recs, please lemme know!

and as always, Katara is FANTASTIC:)

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faithfully-writing · 4 years ago

Text

Jealous/obsessive TFP Knockout X female reader [NF NSFW]

~your point of view~

I had been friends with Jack for a long time since we were children, even though there was a four year age difference between us. Me being older obviously. But lately, I've noticed that I've had to pick up more of his shifts at the burger house then usual. He would usually beg to have my shifts but more often than not he's begging for the opposite where I take his shifts. He worked so hard to save up for a motorbike but now all of a sudden he's disappearing somewhere I don't know. I was walking home after a tiring day of part-time work at the burger joint, having taken my shift and Jack's in a row. I just wanted to be home and sleep in my comfortable bed.

The sound of cars in the distance could be heard, around this town I figured they would be racing. As I wrap the jacket closer to my body, a sudden chill in the already chilly air brushes against my (s/t) skin. Just because it went dark for the moon to rise, the weather decided to get cold. Now I miss the bright warm sun, the sun that warmed my back and made me feel safe.

The sound of the car engines were getting closer. I was walking past the service station when my (e/c) eyes spot what I'd like to think was a sweet ride. A bright red Aston Martin, which I only happen to know because my father had a love for cars. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the red car and such without thinking I cross the road to look at it. "Woah..." Is softly gasped as I look at the sleek lines and shiny paint job. Noticing the gold on the inside of the wheels, I bend down to look at the glinting paint, shining at my eyes under the dull yellow street light. "You're gorgeous," I mumble. Sure I couldn't understand what goes into a car like this one before my eyes but I could admire the paint job. I stand once again just to admire. "Damn I wish I could afford a car like you," I say, running a hand from the front hood to along the roof. I wasn't even sure if the driver was inside or not for the windows were tinted black, and if I looked close enough I could see white and a brighter red details running along the car, heightening its beauty.

I stand there, just admiring the car, not worrying about the fact that the cars had drawn closer and that it was getting later at night when I was supposed to be home. I turn around when the car in front of me suddenly lights up as several car lights land on myself and the Aston Martin. Looking ahead into the bright lights I see a couple more cars, more like eight all behind each other. One of the cars drive forwards and turns on its side, the window rolling down. A wolf whistle is heard, and I'm unsure whether it's directed towards me or the car but I flinch anyway. "Sweet ride there sweetheart. Now how did a girl like you get a car like that? Must have done some... jobs? Am I right?" The sleaze behind the wheel asks, winking at me.

I shiver at what the man said and the fact that he was even trying to hit on me. "W-well at least my b-beast is far better looking than your s-stingy unfinished paint jobbed t-thing." I stutter, very uncomfortable with the male and just wanting to run and hide as a blush takes over my features, the shyness taking control. "a-an-and I-I-I-I would n-never do su-such a thing."

"You sure honey? You wanna hop in my car and prove it to me?" The man said, annoyed by what I had said.

Feeling threatened I look around but I see no way to escape away from it. "n-no. I need. I ne-need to go."

"This baby can go from zero to a hundred and twenty in ten seconds." The man says proud of his car, patting the door by hanging his arm out the window, almost as if he was trying to show off his scrapheap. "Now hop in. And I'll show how I can go that fast too."

Now I was honestly grossed out. "N-no w-way. I-I'd rather sp-spend the n-n-night with t-t-th-th-this car." I turn my back on the cars and trail my hand along the roof until I reach the boot, and without a second thought, I move to the other side of the car, hoping to be out of view of the other cars. Crouching I hide, knowing that myself against eight cars was never a good idea. But I was too shy and scared to do anything else.

"Oh, I wasn't giving you an option sweetheart." The sound of a car door slams close, these people were ready for a race, and now I had become the prize for one of the racers. "Now come to me and nothing will hurt much."

I also hear the sound of a motorbike, knowing that I could possibly be safe if the person was kind enough. The bike stops in front of the other cars, the shadow casting itself into the red paint job and though the window. Poking my head around I see Jack take the helmet off and hop off the bike. I was shocked. So he did save enough to buy himself a bike, that would explain why he didn't have any need to be stealing my shifts or working his own. "Jack!" I shout, drawing attention to both myself and Jack. Running out from behind the sweet red ride I'd found, I run at Jack, wrapping my arms around my best friend. "I-I'm so g-glad y-y-you're here."

"(y-y/n)?" Jack stutters in shock, taking a step back to regain his balance. "What are you doing here?"

"I w-was going home w-when I saw t-that car. I wanted a-a closer look at the paint job as from a distance it looks gorgeous, and it was on closer inspection. I-I stayed too long and that man." I turn around and point at the sleazebag who was trying to get back into his car, "t-t-tried to h-h-h-hiit... o-o-on me and wanted to-to-to.. do things to m-me." I inform your best friend, my voice stuttering over simple words as I shake from having to talk to a stranger. I rub my toe against the ground, after telling Jack, in worry and look towards the said ground.

Jack eyes the male and narrows his eyes, he hated when people put his friend's safety at risk. "Scrap," Jack says, making me look at him oddly.

'What a strange word to say.' I think, taking a couple of steps away from Jack. "I-I-I need to get home be-before my m-mum worries, or c-c-calls the police to s-say I'm missing." I stutter, "I h-h-have go, nice s-seeing you again Jack a-and thanks for arriving, th-th-though ni-nice timing."

I start to turn and walk away, the cars speeding away, fighting to overtake each other. It seemed the race started. "I'll take you back, I was going home anyway." Jack grabs my hand and drags me over to his bike. "Hop on." He hands me his helmet, and I purse my lips at the thought of Jack without his helmet.

"B-bu-but don't you have t-to wear this?" I ask.

Jack shakes his head, already sitting on his bike. "I trust Arcee," Jack says.

"G-great, he n-named the thing," I mumble to myself. "Alright t-then, if you're s-sure." I agree, my voice soft and quiet, and I hop on behind Jack, wrapping my arms around his middle. As soon as I did the bike was off, and the red sports car was too, it drove after the group most likely wanting to begin the race too. my eyes widen at the sudden change of speed and my grip on Jack tightens, frightened that I may fall off the speeding vehicle. Within minutes you reach home. Feeling dizzy from the adrenaline I stand for a few moments before handing his helmet back, "T-th-thanks Jack." I say nervously before turning my back on him and walking away to the front door. Looking over my shoulder I give a small wave before entering the house.

Entering the house, I miss Arcee talking to Jack, "Who was that Jack?"

"That is (y/n), an old childhood friend," Jack says.

"Why does she stutter so much? Doesn't she have any self-confidence?" Arcee asks.

"She does, but only when she is by herself or around people she trusts. She's just really shy, and even around me she's shy like that." Jack informs, looking at the door that was now closed.

"Then why was she with Knockout? Does she know we exist? Because if she does she either has to go or we put her under protection."

"Relax. She doesn't know about you guys. And his model must have just appealed to her. Her father used to work with cars." Jack put his helmet on, "Now let's go home." Jack hops on Arcee and she drives to Jack's home.

"Hey, mum! Dad! Guess what car I saw." I say, no longer feeling shy or nervous, I was inside my home with only my parents.

"What car did you see slugger?" Dad asks, looking at me with a grin.

"It was a red Aston Martin, it was sleek and shiny in its paint job. It even had gold wheeling." I describe the car.

Mum listens intently along with dad. Each smiling at my excitement. "You have to show me next time we're out (y/n). It sounds like you fell in love with a guy."

I pause and blush a bright red, almost like a tomato, "I-I-I didn't I just never s-saw such a ca-car like it. I bet y-you would too if you saw i-it." I say, wanting to go and hide now. "Anyway... what's on?" I slouch on the couch between my parents, putting my feet up on the coffee table.

"(tv show that's not tfp) is on." Mum says before tapping my legs as a way to say get them off the table. "You should be going to bed (y/n)."

"It's Sunday tomorrow though," I whine, not wanting to go to bed yet. "There's no school."

"Doesn't matter, I don't want you tired tomorrow," Mum says back, wanting me in bed this minute. "Now chop chop." She gives me a hug and a kiss on the forehead which dad does the same before watching me leave for my room.

Not even bothering to change into pyjamas I collapse onto the bed and roll about, trying to get comfortable amongst the pillows and blankets that I have on my bed. I toss and turn, unable to get that car out of my head. It was a different car for this town. Sure there were sometimes people who came to race on the longer roads out of town but each car was different much like that Aston Martin. I couldn't fall asleep no matter how much I tried.

I wake up, opening my (e/c) eyes and looking around the now brightened bedroom. Today was Sunday. And I felt excited for no reason. It was just like nearly every other Sunday. I crawl out of bed slowly, not really wanting to leave it before changing out of yesterday's clothing. Leaving my room, I grab an apple, eating it as I leave the house after a quick goodbye to my sleepy parents. I stuff my phone in my pocket and have music blaring through the headphones. I walk into the town, enjoying the sun on my skin after last nights coldness.

Walking along I spot Jack up ahead who looks like he's talking to somebody. Without a second thought I stuff my headphones into my pocket where my phone was and started to run towards Jack, he was facing towards an alley so I had the element of surprise. I was close enough to see that it seemed like Jack was talking to someone but I didn't know who. Jumping on his back I whisper boo in his ear.

"(y-y/n)!" Jack stutters in surprise, almost toppling over from my added weight before catching his balance.

I freeze in shock as I look in front of me and Jack. There, crouched down to hide was a massive blue robot with female features. My (e/c) eyes widen as I just stare. "Jack. Now, look what had happened. I told you there was too much risk."

"Sorry, Arcee." I let go of Jack and take a couple of steps towards the oversized robot.

"What are you?" I ask.

Arcee doesn't answer but instead, she just changes into her alt form and Jack hops on. Putting the helmet over my head and getting me to sit on the bike behind him. "Everything will be explained soon (y/n). I'm sorry Arcee, I didn't think anybody would see us." A hum is heard before she takes off. Driving faster than before along roads, gasping I grip on Jack is like a boa constrictor on prey.

Arcee drove along the highways outside the town, the empty roads drifting away from town and further into the orange desert landscape. Coming up to large mountain Arcee just keeps driving. Growing increasingly worried the closer it came, "Jack!" I scream as I cling tightly to the man's back, hiding my face in his blue jumper. The mountainside lowered, revealing a hidden passage but hiding my face I don't notice it until Arcee stops and Jack lifts me off the bike's seat.

"It's alright (y/n). You're okay." Jack calmly says, rubbing my back in an effort to stop my shakes.

"Arcee. Who do you have here? You know it is dangerous to reveal yourself to humans." A deep commanding tone bounces off the walls, soundly slightly electronic much like Arcee's.

"I'm sorry Optimus but the human saw me speaking to Jack. I know it was irresponsible of me."

Upon hearing the voice I look around at the massive dug in military base, but massive was too small of a word. Standing in front of Arcee, in her form, was an even taller robot. He was painted blue, red and white and had a red print in the middle of his chest. I dubbed him as Optimus as he seemed to be the one talking. Staring at the oversized robot I quickly as possible hide behind Jack who had turned to face the talking things. I cling to his back, peeking around him slightly as the robots notice me. "Rachet, bring Knockout back. I have a feeling that this one will help us all with him." Optimus kneels on one knee in front of me and Jack but it doesn't make him appear any smaller. In all honesty, he frightens me. "What's your name small one?" He asked, his voice making the ground tremble.

My (e/c) eyes widen and I bury my face back into Jacks hoodie, too shy to speak to the strange ones. "They're not going to hurt you (y/n)." Jack comforts.

"(Y/n). That's a nice name. My name is Optimus Prime." He notices that I wasn't going to tear myself from Jack's side and so he stood up. "And we are the Autobots. Guardians of Earth." He gestures at the bots in the same room. "Over by the workstation is Ratchet, our leading medic." The white bot, that wasn't as large as Optimus but was still larger than Arcee, just grumbles under his breath about another human to look after. "And the other three are out at the moment, have you caught on to Knockout yet?"

"Not yet Optimus sorry. It seems he's racing again but in this place called Tokyo, where the people who Meiko call parents live." Ratchet pays you no attention as he speaks to who I gather is the leader.

"What about Bumblebee or Bulkhead?"

"I've gotten in touch with them and they're going to arrive as soon as possible."

And within those moments the sounds of two cars echoed from within the tunnel behind me. Turning around in fright I spot two cars. A bright yellow muscle car and a dark green SUV came racing towards me and Jack. Squeaking in fright, I quickly move to the front of Jack and cling for dear life, afraid that I'd be run over. Metallic noises and grating can be heard. "That was awesome Bulk! We need to do that again!" An overexcited feminine voice shouts in joy. Looking over Jack's shoulder and the said friend laughs at my reaction, I spot two more humans.

One looked Japanese with black hair and hot pink dyed tips in two small ponytails and a pink fringe that was side swept. She wore a light pink shirt with purple hemming, over the shirt she wore a navy blue tank top. Her denim shorts were short and held up by a bright yellow belt with a light blue and light green pig heads clipped on. Her two shirts were tucked into the shorts. On her legs, she wore purple and navy blue striped stockings, with knee-length brown pink books with purple laces. She overall looked punky and eccentric while she jumped up and down fist pumping the air in excitement.

"Maybe another time Meiko." The large green robot says, his voice unsure. Looking at him I could see that he was wider and taller than Optimus. I shrunk back as the girl shrieked with joy. I really disliked loud people for I wanted to stay quiet and out of people's way.

The yellow muscle car had transformed and a small boy with brown hair spiked back and red glasses on his nose. He wore a light yellow button up long sleeved shirt that seemed too large for the small boy, with an orange vest over the top. His navy pants were baggy from the knees down and on his feet, he wore orange and silver sneakers that somehow were wide enough where the hole for the foot went through to go around the bagginess of the pants. He seemed young. Younger than the others and I felt unsure if it was okay for him to be around such large transforming Autobots. But overall he looked like a nerd that would get bullied or wedgies from the older kids, making me feel like protecting the seemingly quiet kid which was strange for me.

I look up at the smaller yellow Autobot, he was smaller than Optimus and Ratchet but larger and taller than Arcee. He made a series of beeps, buzzes and tones as his bright blue eyes looked down at the small nerd boy. "Haha of course Bee! Let's go and play right now!" The kid laughs looking away from the bot he called bee to where the small group of seemingly three stood.

The kid froze and the bright yellow bot made a series of sounds once again, catching the attention of the other two, Bulk and Meiko. "My scout, you are right." The deep voice of Optimus echoed around, frightening me and I practically jump into Jack's arms, hoping I could hide. But even that action itself was embarrassing and my face grew a bright pinky red as I looked down at the silver coloured floor. "We do have another member and I'm hoping that she can help Knockout understand why we must protect humans. As well as stop him from racing." Optimus says, seemingly to infer that I'd play a large part in things.

"What about Grumpypants?" Meiko asks loudly, pointing at the white and orange bot by his station. "It could help him too."

"I-I'm not a-an it..." I quietly speak up, unsure if I were to even speak at this moment.

"Jack let's go. You wanted to take that girl out again." Arcee speaks up.

Jack looks down at me and smiles, "(y/n). I need to go now. I promise you that no-one here is going to hurt you."

I look away and instead look around at the Autobots and humans talking to each other, jokes going around and smiles about.

"And you like video games, right? Why don't you go and play them with Bumblebee and Raf." Jack offers, pointing out where the small bot stood by a high platform where a couch, TV and Raf sat, with controllers in their hands. "Go on. I have a feeling that you will get along finely." Jack gives me a small push before jumping on a transformed Arcee and going through a large green circle that closed behind them.

"Wha-What was that they just went through?" I ask, not noticing that all of the eyes and optics were looking at my form.

Rachet just huffs and looks away, muttering something about stupid human. "That was a ground bridge little one. It transports those that go through it to a destination given by coordinates." Optimus informs me, his voice loud in my own ears, unused to how those larger creatures spoke.

"Oh okay," I say and turn around, growing rigid as I see that everyone's eyes were on me expect Rachet who I guessed was still trying to get in touch with this knockout person, well bot possibly and most likely.

I slowly made my way over to where the yellow bot and Raf were, the game already started and from what I could see was a racing game. I waited until they finished before wanting their attention. "Uh... H-Hi." I stammer out awkwardly as I rub my arm.

The yellow bot replies in buzzes and beeps. "Hello," Raf says pushing his glasses up and holding out the controller. "You wanna go?" He asks, moving over so there was room for me to sit on the couch. I had a feeling that Jack was right with me being able to get close to these two. Smiling I nod my head, unable to trust my voice as I sat on the couch, sinking into its softness. Grabbing the controller I press start and such a round against Bumblebee starts

"That's not fair!" I whine realising that I had crashed. "You're a car so you're good at this." I turn around and face the blue optic bot, who seemed to be cheering at his win. Pouting I look away, handing the controller over to Raf. Bumble makes a series of noises as if asking if I were fine. "I'm fine Bumble, but I can't believe I crash every time. You need to teach me." I say, already comfortable around the pair that is made up of an energetic yellow bot and a genius child.

Bumble makes another series of beeps and Raf translates, "He said he'd be glad to."

"Yay!" I cheer, quickly moving to where Bumble laid his hand and hugging one of his fingers before realising what I did and moving away with a blush on my cheeks. "O-oh so-sorry," I mutter.

"It's fine." Raf translates a whole series of fast beeps and buzzes as if he shortened what the bot said.

"I'm in contact with Knockout." Ratchet said out of nowhere, informing the whole room which at this moment only consisted Bumblebee, Raf and myself. Meiko and Bulkhead had left to do some off-roading and Optimus was in his berthroom.

Bumble lets out a series of beeps and buzzes as he holds out a hand. I watch Raf jump on the boy's hand and Bumble looks at me, expecting me to follow. I stand unsure and awkward, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. Apparently, I took too long for the bot encircled me with his cold metallic fingers and lifted me into the air, it seemed the cheerful bot was taking care to not squish me into a mess of blood, grounded bones and a clump of pulp.

The sound of metal hitting concrete echoes into my ears as Bumble moves about, coming to stand in front of a short, wide circular tunnel with wiring and things along the sides. From somewhere I could hear Optimus' steps as he makes his way, arriving to stand beside his scout. His hand is out as if asking for me.

"Don't make me fall off your hand," I say as Bumble lowers me onto the silver hand before letting go.

"Servo." Ratchet corrects from seemingly nowhere. "It's a servo."

"Teach her about the anatomy after she greets Knockout." Optimus points out, sighing as if he expected Rachet to of spoken.

"I have better things to do than teach a simple-minded human about how our forms work." Ratchet huffs, pulling a switch down.

The car transformed into a tall bot, his eyes were startling as they were a bright blood red colour, brighter than his paintwork. He had a slender face, if they called it that, and seemed more sexually appealing then the other bots. I gape at the change. To me, he was more gorgeous, even sexy, in his bot form them his car form. "Shit," I mutter under my breath, in both awe and worry. What happened if he remembered last night?

"Bring him in. It's time he met who he's to protect." Optimus changes topic, knowing not to rile his medic up too much. I watch as the wires and things light up, creating the ground bridge that Arcee and Jack had gone through. It didn't take long for a red car to come speeding through the portal before it closes with a flick of the switch. I stare wide-eyed at the car that I recognized from the night before. It was the red Aston Martin. The red paintwork shone in the light but there seemed to be a large scratch on the side. "Knockout."

"Those humans thought that they could just scratch this beautiful paintwork and get away with it! Do they not know how long it takes to buff and shine this body for this look. Like seriously. They barely spend any time on their scrap heaps and when a much better and more appealing worked on car with an awesome finish arrives they want to destroy the hard worked on paint. It just hurts my spark to know that they can't appreciate beautiful sexy things like myself." The newly transformed bot rants. Looking closer he seemed to have a different mark than the others. Maybe it stood for what he did? Or maybe it was for something different altogether.

"Knockout." Optimus states trying to catch the attention of the ranting bot. "Knockout. I have something for you."

"Is it a new buffer? Oh Primey, how'd you know I needed a new one? The old one just wasn't shining this finish enough for it to look perfect like I am." I know it's going to be pretty bad when I'm introduced now.

Optimus shakes his head. "It's nothing like that. Hold out your servos." Optimus moves his hands that were covering me above Knockout's. He was just going to drop me on to the servo. Like I'd allow him to do that.

"No. Please don't. No." But he does anyway. "Ahhh!!" I scream as the world spins and turns around me until the breath is knocked out of me.

"What's this?" Knockout looks down at me with a look of disgust, "Is it going to stain my paint?!" He panics as I try to catch my breath back and cough.

"It's the fleshy you're to guard," Optimus states, ignoring how the red bot stared at me.

"Why is it so squishy?" He just simply asks, as if he never heard the guarding part. A single silver digit made itself known above me as it lowers and pokes my stomach before poking my legs. "Would it stain if I squished it?"

"C-can you s-stop? P-please." I stutter, rolling away from the unwanted pokes and hiding my blushing face.

"No, but it would make a mess," Ratchet speaks up from nowhere once again.

"Ewww!" He scrunches his eyes up in disgust, "Get it off me. I need my buffer now."

"You're to guard it," Optimus says once again, this time successfully grabbing the vain bots attention.

"What? Why? I don't want to. I can't be seen with such a disgusting thing. It would make my image go bad. And it's so plain. Like, look at its pedes." He uses two of his digits to grab a hold of one of my legs and lift it in the air.

Not realising what he's doing I'm soon off his servo and hanging upside down by a leg. "Bu-bumble. A L-little help. P-p-please?" I beg the yellow bot who was looking away and at Raf.

"Put (y/n) back on your servo Knockout." Optimus orders, his tone saying he doesn't want to be disobeyed.

"I don't want to look after a fleshy." So instead of putting you back on his silver servo he just let's go of you. "Hey look, one less fleshy to look after." A shrill scream echoed from my lips as the ground came closer.

The sound of shattering glass echoed as well, "Don't make so sudden sounds. I needed that before you made me drop it." Ratchet thundered.

I landed heavily on the yellow bot's hand, rubbing my side which hit the metal. "Are you okay (y/n)?" Raf asks, nervous about your welfare.

"I-I'm f-fine." I shakily say, wanting to hide from the red bot. "C-can we g-go some-somewhere else?"

I look up at Optimus who nods his helm. "Knockout. I need a word with you." Optimus states annoyed that a human's life was put at risk by one of his own members.

"Bee. Let's go for a ride." Raf offers, wanting to get me out of the hideout for a while. Bumble makes his series of noises before transforming, Raf and I found ourselves in the front seats with seatbelts tightly done. I smile at Raf just as Bee takes off, driving as fast as he could out of the hideout and onto the highways. I started laughing as the world flashes by quickly, forgetting the events that had taken place moments before.

"This. Is. Awesome!" I cheer, enjoying myself.

I hear Bee make a series of beeps. "Bee says he's glad that you're enjoying yourself." Raf translates as normal, his excited tone proving to me just how much he was enjoying it too.

"Thank you Bumble," I said with a laugh.

We speed and drive for what seems like a couple of hours until my stomach growled loudly. "Bee let's go back. Maybe Meiko and Jack are back. Then we can all get lunch." Bumble buzzes and beeps in agreement and quickly start driving back to the base, getting there in record time.

"Good to see you three back." Optimus greets beside a silently peeved Knockout. "Knockout."

"Fine. But I am never doing this again." Knockout scrunches his face up. "I'm sorry that the dazzling me tried to kill the plain you."

"Wow what an apology," I mutter to Raf from the transformed Bumblebee's servo.

Raf agrees with me as Knockout speaks again, "To make up for it, allow the awesome me to drive you to lunch." I knew that Optimus was forcing him to say this but I smiled anyway with a nod, agreeing to go with the bot.

"Yaay!!" Meiko screams from where she was tuning her guitar unnoticed by me. "Let's go get lunch!"

I flinch as her voice echoes in my ears, "RIP ears." I quietly mutter, too quiet for anyone to hear. Knockout holds out a servo looking bored. I jump the small height and land on the silver metal, clinging to a finger as I almost slip through. I'm quickly encircled by knockouts servo as he stops me from falling from the height that would surely kill me.

"Let's go. I have to finish my buff when we come back so the sooner the better." He turns and walks towards the exit back into town. Transforming and placing me in the passenger seat. Meiko and Raf follow behind in their guardians.

Once the six reached the cafe the humans jumped out of the cars and walked through the doors after a quick bye to their rides. Raf and I stayed outside and found us a table close to the curb where the bots could park and listen to our conversations. Meiko comes back and slouches into a chair beside me minutes later, a large smile on her face. "The food will be here in a few moments." She announced, bouncing in her seat.

I looked like a babysitter as I sat with the two. As our time went on and we talked over our food, I got to know more about the two. Like the fact that Raf has an older sister called Pilar and he can hack into any technology. You learnt that Meiko's parents lived in Japan and she felt like she was pushed into what she did while looked down at for what she did. Sure you felt like she was too loud at times but during that lunch thing, you really connected with them both.

The Autobots watch from the curve as the three humans spoke. One of the boys was paying careful attention to (y/n), the one he is now to protect. He could see her beautiful (h/c) hair catching the sunlight like it was a halo that surrounded her and proved her purity. Her glimmering (e/c) eyes sparkled as she laughed at a joke Raf made. From when he was holding her in his hand and how she sat in his car seat he could feel how smooth and soft her (s/c) skin was. She was almost as perfect as himself. But he would never admit it. Afterall, it would be bad if anyone knew what he was thinking or if someone thought they could upstage him.

~Time skip of a few months~

Overtime I found myself spending more time with Bee and Raf, allowing KO to run off to his races. It was a comfortable silence that filled the air. Bee and Raf had gone out for some time together, Ratchet was at his station playing with something that he wouldn't tell me. I felt like I had gotten closer the Ratchet more than my own guardian who was still grumpy about the fact.

"Ratchet!" I complain, hanging upside down on the couch. "I'm bored."

The white and orange bot just huffs, probably not used to my complaints. "I preferred it when you were more quiet and shy."

I just stick my tongue out at the human hating bot. "Well tough luck princess."

This gets his attention, never having been called a princess. "What did you just call me fleshy?"

This is where my fun begins. "A princess. What else?"

He sighs and makes his way over to me, hiding something in his servo. He picks me up in his other servo, making sure to keep a firm grip on my body. He brings out what seems to be feather, holding it dainty within two digits. "This is your fault fleshy." He then proceeds to use the feather against me. The soft flittery feel of it tickling me made it draw out loud laughs and screams as I twist to get away. Ratchet chuckles at my actions, finding torturing me amusing.

"Please. Please Ratchet!" I laugh. "Please stop! I'm begging you!" But he doesn't stop, not even when Optimus makes himself known in the room by clearing his throat. It was amusing to the white bot. How could something like this make a fleshy laugh so much? He was sure it was something only the fleshy in his hand would respond to as such.

"Ratchet." Optimus finally interrupts, letting me catch a breath as tears ran down my face. "What are you doing with (y/n)?"

Ratchet places the feather down on his work bench, making sure to put it where it won't get lost. "Experimenting with reactions."

I look up to the bot and pout, "Bonding I think you mean."

"Bonding?" Ratchet looks down at me and Optimus almost looks regal.

I nodded, "It's when you get to know the other person and make memories with them." I bite my cheek, "It's not like the bonding in terms of animals." It was like a light went on in both their heads as they nod at my explanation.

"And what do fleshies do with the animal bonding?" Ratchet asks. "You are of age to bond right?"

I choke on my own saliva. Who in the world did this bot think he was to be asking that so casually? "Yes I'm of an age where I can do so."

"And so how do you do so?" Ratchet asks, writing down everything he noticed about my reactions. I was completely flabbergasted. I look to Optimus for help but he looks just as curious as Ratchet. "Because when I looked it up it mention sex and the basics but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for."

I just wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Ratchet's questions were making me uncomfortable and they were quite personal too. "Well Ratchet I just can't say as its different for each girl. Some like it one way and another might want it differently."

This seemed to confuse the medic even more as he scribbles as fast as possible. "What do you mean by that?"

I didn't know how to answer. "You can bond in different ways. Like you said the different positions." I start blushing, this was so embarrassing to be explaining. "Well girls prefer different ones to another. Or they prefer different roughness."

That seemed to set Ratchet and Optimus into deep thought. Ratchet placed me back down by the gaming station before returning to the medic bay and Optimus went back into his room. I look to where they both left, scratching my head at their sudden disappearance. It was strange. I return to my game, boredom filling my veins again. I just had to wait for Bee and Raf to return, and possibly Knockout.

Once Bee and Raf returned it was my turn to be curious about how the Autobots ran. Apparently Bee had hit his helm quite hard and some blue stuff had been running down his face for a bit. I watch as Ratchet looks after him, how nimbly the grumpy bot could fix him up.

"Is Bee okay?" I ask

Ratchet doesn't respond, instead letting Raf tell me. "Yeah he'll be fine, after all he's a strong Bee."

I hear Ratchet cough, "Young. Not strong. There's a difference." Bee beeps at Ratchet once it's said, sounding annoyed.

"Wait how does that work?"

"He hasn't been around for as long as the others. So he's considered younger." Ratchet informs me.

"What is the liquid though? Does it run inside you?"

"Let me finish patching this one up and Bee can help you."

"So what's the liquid that runs inside you?"

I ask Bumble after he finishes explaining how they work and playing a few rounds of helm, shoulders knees and toes.

From behind me, I hear Ratchet start coughing as he spits out his high-grade energon he was drinking as he finished some work. Bumble makes a few noises that Raf translates, "In our fuel lines?"

I nod my head, stretching back out across the couch as Raf sat on Bee's shoulder. "What other liquids would I mean?"

I look over at Ratchet who wouldn't stop coughing as his face lit up a bright blue. "Oh dear Primus. Bumblebee is too young for this."

I didn't understand what he meant, I thought they were asexual beings. "Does that mean that you're not asexual?" You ask, addressing Ratchet more.

But all you get is stutters from the bot. "Another time (y/n)."

From the other side of the room, I could hear Knockout grumble about some messed up paint and needing to fix it, as well as feel his red optics burn a hole in my body. Since joining the group and Prime forcing Knockout to be my guardian the red bot hadn't changed at all.

"They have energon running through their systems." Raf translates, getting my attention back on the two of them again.

"Oh. And so to have more energon as you don't replenish it like we humans do you drink or eat it?" I ask hoping to be on the right track. Bumblebee gets excited and nods his helm, his bubbly personality on show.

"Why don't we stop this lesson and I'll take it from here." Knockout informs, growing slightly jealous that Bee had all my attention.

I smile up at my large red bot, he was slowly beginning to like me the big softie. "It's fine KO. I've learnt all I need."

"It's not fine!" He suddenly raises his voice, "I want to teach you everything else about us. Not those other Autobots. They're not as fabulous as I am. They don't even deserve to be near someone like you." It was a shock to my system to hear him talk like that. "And I'll teach you about the reproduction, not Ratchet."

Ratchet is suddenly on guard and walks over. "Back up." He says, his servo coming to shield me. Sure he still didn't really like the humans but I knew he had a soft spot for me like the other three. "Bumblebee why don't you take Raf and (y/n) out while I speak with Knockout." Ratchet states, keeping a servo on the red bot.

Knockout glares at Ratchet as he speaks of me leaving. "No! (Y/n)'s not leaving." His silver servo reaching to grab me, "I don't want to lose her. And I'm her guardian, not the yellow bot. I'm the one looking after her. She's mine to protect and keep." His servo clasped around my body as he quickly lifted me into the air. "I've been the one looking out for her, not you."

"Woah! Slow down, big boy!" I exclaimed in shock at being picked up, those months with the group really took you out of your shyness. "Just put me back on the couch and we can talk about this later."

Knockout's red optics look down at me who now sits comfortably on his servo. He had gotten over the fact that he was my guardian but he was still grumpy about it whenever I got in trouble, using it as a way to make me feel guilty.

"Don't you need to fix up your paint?" I ask making sure to change the topic before any damage could be done. Knockout looks down at me in his servo and scrunches up his face, most likely annoyed at me for making him remember. "Aww lighten up KO, let me help you." You tease the vain bot, knowing exactly what buttons push now after the months being with the bots.

Knockout grumbles under his breath before turning on his pedes and stalking to his berthroom. I wave goodbye to Bee, Raf and Ratchet before they were out of sight. I start humming and bobbing my head to some unsung tune, around KO I felt the calmest and safest. He seemed to make it much easier for me to come out of my shell, yet not completely.

Once in KO's berthroom, he places me in the corner of the room where he had placed a stolen garage with all sorts of things to look and keep a car clean within it. He transforms back into his vehicle mode of the Red Aston Martin and drives to the front of the garage, waiting for me to open the roll-up door. As it rolls up he slowly drives into the garage, parking in the middle of the large room. I sigh and grab a bucket and a sponge, walking over to KO and setting the bucket of water beside him.

"Why do you constantly have to be cleaned? And by me precisely?" I question as I dip the sponge into the bucket. He doesn't answer as I start to clean the hood, leaning across the shiny paintwork to reach the other side without having to move too far from the bucket. What I didn't know was that as I pressed up against KO, he was thinking about all the things he could do to me. He could feel the softness of my body caressing his build and the slow easy circles of the sponge were making his mind run amuck. "KO what would you say?" I ask my guardian.

He just hummed, not seeming to listen to me at all. I stop cleaning and take a few steps back waiting for his attention once again. "What?" He asks with a grumpy tone of voice.

Sighing I get back to cleaning him, "Bee wants to take me out to one of the big cities for a few days, saying that there's this awesome place he wants to show me." You inform the red car, "And I wanted to know if you okay with that."

"I am absolutely not letting that happen (y/n). I'm your guardian and you're to stay with me." KO demanded driving backwards, he wanted out so he could transform. I huff and open the garage door, watching as the red Austin Martin turned into the tall and handsome bot. He places a hand on the ground waiting for me to climb on it. "I'm your guardian (y/n). I'm the only one who can protect you. If you went with BB his thoughts will constantly be of Raf and if something goes wrong over there he wouldn't think for a second about you and leave you wherever you are to save Raf." Knockout says, his voice deep and soothing.

"Bee wouldn't do such a thing. He cares for me." I say, scrunching my face as I'm lifted up to optic level.

"Are you sure (y/n)? We have to protect our chosen human over the other humans." KO didn't like lying to his little human but it was the only thing he could do to get her to change her mind and to stay with him. Over the course of the months, he grew to like and respect the tiny being that looked after his bodywork and hung out with him even when he was annoyed, even if it was only because he was her guardian.

I cross my arms, "I don't believe you. Bee would always protect me. Raf even translated that to me."

KO was getting annoyed with my behaviour and it was starting to show "I am your guardian. If I say no then I mean no! You're never leaving my side." He demands squishing me within his servo. "Do I make myself clear."

This wasn't the Knockout I knew. This wasn't the Knockout that broke some of Rachet's stuff just for fun or who was so vain that it got on everyone's nerves. No. This was a completely different side of the otherwise overly self-confident bot. A side that frightened me senseless. "Y-yes." I go to hide my face, not wanting to look at him and just wanting to go and hide somewhere where he wouldn't get me.

"Do you know how much I care for you?" He asks, red optics looking at me as he loosens his servo. I shake not wanting to answer him after his last outburst. "I'll show you just how much you mean to me." He places me back down next to the garage and walks off to the door, pressing something as a loud clunk is heard. "There. Now nobody can disturb us."

"Huh? What do you mean?" I ask watching the bot walk over to me. But something seemed different the closer he got. He seemed to be getting smaller until he was a human size he the time he stood in front of me. I look up, straining my neck at his large height. He was still far larger than a human. "I'm going to show you exactly how much you mean to me. You will look wonderful beside this beautiful bot." He gestured to himself as he speaks, still appears vain. I back off, sure I thought the bot handsome but I had no idea what he wanted.

"H-how come you're smaller?" I ask in shock at his size, finally speaking."

"It's called mass displacement." He seemed to have this dangerous smirk on his face as his red optics scanned my clothed body. "Now no need to be frightened, I've seen the way you've looked at me. And I'll treat you far better then BB could."

He walks towards me, arms outstretched to grab me as I take steps backwards. We enter the garage and he closes the roller door behind him, cornering me into the corner as his arms trap me.

"Your eyes are so beautiful, you can only look at me with this face." He whispers, a cold digit stroking my cheek as he leans down and rests his forehelm against mine. "And only I can touch your soft skin." His alloy metal seemed to be heating up the longer he stood near me, almost like he was conducting the warmth. His digits slipped into my hair and started to massage my scalp. I tilt my head back and into his touch, relaxing against him and closing my eyes.

I miss the devilish smirk that splits his face as he hides it in the crook of my neck. His glossa slips out of his dermas and licks up my neck to my earlobe where his dentas nibble it teasingly. A soft unfiltered moan leaves my lips at the pleasurable soft sensations that KO was giving me. His servos gripped my hair and bent my head back as he starts nibbling back down my neck, biting rougher as he reaches my shoulders. I wrap my arms around his build and let my fingers dig between his amour plates, groaning as I feel his cold dentas bite my skin.

Knockout felt like his processor would short-circuit from the sounds that entered his audio receptors. He didn't want any bot or fleshy to touch his soft skinned fleshy. He should feel the skin under his servos as he lets go of his fleshy's hair to trail his digits down her neck and to her shoulders. He could feel the breath brush his dermas.

His servos start to tighten around my forearms. Pressing me against the wall in a rougher manner as he presses against me even more, almost as if he wanted my shape to be engraved into his metal. His glossa came out from his dermas and forced its way through my own lips which were pressed tightly against his own. I could feel the tips of his digits playing with the sleeves of my shirt, fiddling with it and pulling at it. I hum into the kiss as I melt in his arms.

Since he had to bend down quite the fair bit to reach me, KO lifts me up against the wall so I was eye level and sits me on his tibulen so I was straddling it as his knee pressed against the wall. His servos pressed my shoulders back against the wall aggressively as my thighs clench around his single thigh in an effort to stay upright. I can't help but squirm as I feel the cold seep through my pants and underwear from his tibulen.

He smirks down at the effect he causes me to have. Squirming on his knee as soft moans exit my mouth as his servos slowly trailed to the bottom of my shirt, slipping under the hem and drawing small patterns on my stomach.

I suck my stomach in at the strange cold sensation and try to bury deeper into the wall to escape his trailing digits. "Ah! You-you can't. Not there!" A low chuckle escapes his dermas as his fingers find purchase on my skin. His dermas latch onto the skin on my neck again as he nibbles softly down to my collar. His fans click on and softly hum showing that he was heating up, but he was still taking his time.

"And why not my shy fleshy? Your flesh is mine and only mine to keep and protect." A low rumble leaves his voice box and he trails the cold digits from both his servos up and down my body; playfully dancing up to the underside of my breasts then back down to my belly button.

"Because... because..." I didn't know what to say. My thoughts left and my voice got lost. His movements left me breathless and my heart fluttering like a small hummingbird. He didn't seem to mind my stomach or the size of my breasts and I was glad that he wasn't saying anything about them if he disliked the size of either. He blinks his red optics and his optical ridges furrow.

Leaning his cheek against my own his breath drifts over my ear sending shivers down my spine, "You are perfect in every which way (y/n). The perfect piece for the perfect bot. My missing piece."

I grip his bitarlueus tightly as his digits rise even higher during their dance on my exposed skin, forcing a breathless moan to pass my lips as they lightly pinch my nipples. I intake a sharp breath of air and arch my back into his hands, gasping at the new sensation.

Knockout smirks at the sounds and his fans start to him faster. "Only I will ever hear these little noises from you my fleshy. I'm the only one perfect enough to hear them." He groans into my ear as his dentas bite my lobe softly and pulls on it. His servos cover my (c/p) size breasts and he starts to kneed them. Squeezing softly, to begin with as he breathe fans the side of my face before his movements get rougher. Pinching and pulling at my nipples as his glossa runs down the side of my neck and he bites the crook of my neck.

"Kn-knockout." A low groan is dragged from my lips as his digits continue to play my skin like it was his buffing supplies.

His digits dug into my sides and he lifts my shirt off my body. "I'm going to frag you senseless so the only bot you'd even think of or laugh at their jokes is me." His digits start their dance again. Moans leaving my lips at the cold and pleasurable sensations. I start to grind against his knee, trying to control the building heat and neediness. I couldn't cover my naked body from how he held me and I could feel my heart beat faster and my cheeks flush a bright red. Almost as red as Knockout's paint.

A low sexy chuckle is heard in my ear and I shiver. I could finish just by hearing his voice and by feeling his digits. Knockout starts to help me grinding by moving his knee roughly against my clothed clit. I could feel the wetness pooling in my underwear the more I grind and moan. His digits slip their way past the hem of my jeans and lightly tease my hips and skin through the underwear. Growing bored and wanting to hear different noises from me he slips his digit under my underwear and then lightly trace up and down my clit, the knee now gone and his chassis and other servo holding me up by pressing me into the wall. He slips two of his cool digits into me and starts to move and wiggle them about. My breath hitches as the air gets trapped from the feeling and I arch my back pressing my hips against him even more.

For a robot from space, he really knew his way around the female human body as his dentas slowly sink into my skin and two of his digits pump in and out of my vagina making wanton moans leave my open mouth. He had me openly grinding my hips on his two digits as they fuck me mercilessly and I was meeting their thrusts in a needy wanting manner as I begged for more.

"Kno-knockout. Please more." I beg slightly out of breath as my hands grip around his neck and my hips meet his thrusting digits. They spread and massage the insides of my walls with each stroke they make. The moans and noises escaping my lips like a waterfall as I repeat his name like a mantra.

"Not yet (y/n). And you're not to overload until I say so." His digits work faster making it harder for me to think straight or breath. I lean my head back and close my eyes as my mouth drops open in a loud moan. I was so close but I held on. My walls tightening around his digits in an effort to both keep receiving the pleasure and to hold onto the climax until KO says.

"Puh-please!" I beg not sure how much longer I could hold on as my mind was growing fuzzy with pleasure and all I focused on was the delicious feeling of his cold digits in my warmth.

Knockout ever so slowly draws out his digits, making sure that they brushed against every part of me to extend this pleasurable torture he had me in. I feel my body shamelessly rock and grind against him as my walls try to keep the digits buried within them. But he pulls them out, glistening with my wet translucent pre-cum as he studies his two digits. My hips move against him in an effort to quench the heat, it was like I became a slut within two minutes of being in his presence. A needy hormonal slut that just wanted to be fucked by the massive robot from outer space. Let alone me not even knowing if he had anatomy the same as us humans.

He wipes his wet digits on the inside of my thigh on the pants that covered the skin before he lowered me to the ground. "Pants off." He growls lowly, his fans getting faster once again to my notice. It seemed that the fans were a way to tell how hot or turned on he was.

Without a second thought, I shimmy out of my pants, hopping about on one leg to get it off the other leg and almost falling flat on my face because of it but saved by Knockout. After righting me all he does is stare and watch as my body jumps and moves as I remove my pants. My breasts capturing his attention as they jiggle and the showing cheeks of my butt do too.

As soon as my pants and underwear were off Knockout had me once again against the wall. His dermas harshly pressing against my own in a lustful kiss. His servos gripped at the meat on my hips as his digits left red marks to show that he had been there.

"I'll be gentler as it'd be your first time for our reproduction system." He whispers almost to himself as his dermas leave mine and travel back down my neck. His pelvis jerks against me roughly, betraying his calm movements of his kisses and soft bites. "And you'd no longer want to hide or shy away from me after this."

He seemed to groan against my skin as his smooth pelvis rub against my own, my own eyes flutter shut from the feeling as his dermas reach my right breast. I felt so on edge with his sharp grinds and soft kisses. It was like my body was milking all the attention as it struggled to find enough friction. My senses tingled as he continued his actions on my body.

He left me no time to try and hide away from him or to overthink the fact that I was completely naked in front of a robot. I move my arms to push him away and cover myself yet Knockout seemed to be one step ahead as he grabs my arms in his servos, breaking off the kiss and looking down at me with mild disappointment. "(Y/n)," He starts, not using the word fleshy at all, "Why cover yourself? From me to you only I will say this. You are perfect, maybe not as perfect as me but you're up there. You are everything I could ever want beside to be able to keep my smooth paint job, but that doesn't matter. I want you and I care for you with all my spark. I don't care if I was forced to be your guardian because I no longer care. I just want you to stay by my side and look at me only no matter what happens or who speaks to you. I want to become the most important thing to you like you have to me. I care more about you than my paint job or buffing up my shine."

I stare up at him with admiration, never having heard him say something or someone was more important than his looks. I look down and away from him, unable to hide my shame at my thoughts and the growing blush on my cheeks. He lifts up my chin and presses a kiss to my lips again, slowing his movements down to match the speed I am comfortable at. He presses up against me even more, knowing that my lips was most likely soaked from his actions.

I hear a faint click and a whoosh as something happens to Knockout's body. Looking at him I try to see what had change but instead I feel it as he grinds up against me. Something cold was pressing between my legs and against the lips and clit. I let a groan leave my mouth as I move, it was cold compared to my body but Knockout didn't allow it.

"Ready my little fleshy?" He asks as his fans are kicked to maximum. I nod my head and he moves me upwards just a tad. The cement on my back is cold, but not as cold as whatever was between my legs. I couldn't believe that I was about to do it with a robot, well autobot possibly. He had the different marking decorating him compared to Bee and Optimus. Being like this with KO made me feel even more shy and awkward, I had no idea what I was suppose to do and it must of shown for Knockout spoke up, "Don't worry about a thing. Just let me do it all."

All of a sudden he thrusts his pelvis up and half the cold thing enters me, high pitched squeaky moan exits my lips as my eyes shut. My nails scrape along the back of his helm which he grumbles lowly about as he patiently waits for my human body to get use to his form. From what I could feel it was thicker at the base and tapered into a round tip that was still thick. But not as much as the base. I was glad that he didn't try to fit the whole thing in one go because with how it seemed to be going, the length seemed much more and it got thicker to the point it was thicker and longer than a normal human male's.

I groan at the cold feeling as my walls loosen and tighten trying to get use to the strange shape and lack of warmth. "Do you know... what that is called?" He softly pants out, his grip on me tightening as he holds his pelvis from jerking up any further. I shake my head, breathing roughly as I got more use to his cold cock. "It's called a spike... from its shape."

I couldn't concentrate on his strange fact as I slowly roll my hips, testing how my body reacts. A low groan exits from both of us and he takes it that he could push more in. He moves slowly, stopping whenever I felt uncomfortable as he does so. He stops when his pelvis is flush against me. The whirring of his fans and my harsh pants are the only things that could be heard in the air as he waits for me to once again adjust fully. The shape of him was truly different yet pleasurable in a completely different way. Whenever I breathed out, I could feel the very tip of his spike brush against something deep inside me. He was far bigger than a normal human being and based on what he is and the small size he became just got me it was very proportional.

He waits until I'm ready before he slowly pulls out and pushes back in, testing to make sure that I felt completely comfortable. I groan. It felt weird but not uncomfortable. As the smooth metal pushes back in I arch my back as it reaches further then it did before. The rounded tip definitely pushing against something that was deep within my body. I panting harder as he starts to speed up once KO realises I was comfortable.

His digits grip my hips tightly as he keeps the same speed. Resting his forehelm against mine he locks eyes with me. "I'm taking you racing after this. I want you to see me in action." He growls out, not missing a beat with his actions. He just seemed to move so smoothly that it seemed pink he wasn't putting any effort into it, while myself on the other hand was having trouble keeping up as moans spill from my lips and my fingers grip anywhere they can, being careful not to dent or scratch his paint.

"Wh-why?" I moan out, feeling myself flush and grow hot from the pleasure.

Knockout presses his dermas against mine, "Because I want to show off my cute shy girl and let everybody know she's mine. That not even BB could live up to what I can do."

"Wh-what?"

"Hush. I just want to hear you." A sharp gasp of breath is heard from me as he thrusts harder once he said that. "Only I can hear these noises. Only n you look at me like that. And only I can touch you like this."

His thrusts were getting hard and fast as our hips slapped when flesh met metal. I felt like I was going to tear or be ripped apart as he pounded into me with his spike, growling dirty talk into my ear as he licked it with his glossa and tugged on the lobe with his dentas. It was completely different and more animalistic compared to when he first entered which was slow. He just wanted to get off on this as much as I did now.

His vents were full power and sounding like a jet while his body had heated up considerably. Groans and grunts were leaving his dremas as the heat crept up on him. My eyes were rolled in the back of my head as he hit deep in me, rubbing and stretching my walls in a delirious effort to reach our ends.

The pleasure was all I could think about as we grind and thrust together. I wanted to reach my end, it was almost painful at how much pleasure was overloading my nerves and senses. "Kn-knockout!" I groan out in a small shout. I want shim to realise just what I was feeling.

"I know my little fleshie. I know." He groans back his thrusting even more powerful as he presses me Eben tighter against the wall. He was feeling the same as me but he was holding on. He wanted to end at the same time as me.

His fingers dance along my skin. Tickling in some places while firm and pleasurable in others. His glossa glides along the side on my neck and collar bones. This combined with his thrusts soon sent me over the edge. Screaming his name loudly as he slams his dermas against my lips in an effort to quiet me down as he finishes too, groaning lowly against my lips as I'm pressed against the wall even more as his body tightly presses against me. His digits find purchase on my hips and my fingers grip his neck win all their might as I close my eyes tightly.

He thrusts slowly, wanting to ride out his high as much as possible as well as relax my now tense body. "Hey relax my little one. Relax. Your in the brilliant hands of the most fabulous bot."

I groan against him, slumping against his strong metallic body as his arms wrap around me in a comforting warm hug. His thrusts slowing until he slips out and his spike clicks back into his body. His fans start to slow down before clicking off and he lifts me up. I waste no energy on lifting my head as it rests on his chassis and instead I relax further into his arms.

He starts to dress me in the clothing from the floor, before returning to his original large size and hold me in his palm. "I love you fleshy." Knockout softly whispers as he walks out the room.

"I love you too KO." I whisper back, smiling up at him and curling up in his palm. "Now let's go see you race!" I yawn while trying to seem excited, when I was in fact really nervous. What if I meet new people? What if they hate me? What of they like me?

"It will be fine my girl. I'll stay by your side no matter what and nobody will get between us." A smirk graces Knockout's face as he walks into he hall where everyone was. "I'm leaving for my next race." He announces, seeing Bumblebee and Raf's head turn to face him from the TV screen.

I hear Bee let out a series of beeps and buzzes which Raf quickly translates. "Can Bee take (y/n) out to see the town or she can video game with us?"

Knockout growls, "No. She's coming with me. I'm no longer allowing her to go anywhere or be with anyone without me there."

Bee holds up his hands in a surrender and Knockout transform into his vehicle mode and drives out of the base at high speeds, the seat belt buckling me in automatically.

In record speeds he reaches where a series of cars, sports or otherwise, were lined up. People, men and women, were in groups talking and some were even waving money around. He locks the doors and slowly rolls into his place at the front. People stopping to stare as he smoothly glides. "See how they draw their attention to me. That's how you draw my attention." He whispers quietly. "Now give me a few moments."

A bold boy starts to make his way over to me and the car. Knockout rolling the window down so that I didn't have to get out. "Y-yes?" I stutter, looking down at the steering wheel.

The boy whistles, seeming impressed. "What a cutie driving a car like this. Do you need someone to handle this beast for you?"

I was confused, sure Knockout was a beast but I never had the need to control him. Afterall, he controlled me. "I-I'm s-sorry. What d-do you mean?" I question, making sure not to make eye contact with the stranger.

"Excuse me." A deep voice speaks up from behind the male. It sounded just like Knockout. "But I'd like to get to my girl." The male spits out the my part aggressively and I knew it was Knockout.

Standing behind the boy, staring down at him with red eyes was a fire red haired male. His arms were crossed and he had a dark look on his face. "I-I'm sorry." This time the boy stutters and quickly moves away from us as he gets whoops and hollers from people who I suspect are friends and where the ones who egged him into doing that.

"Would you like to see my world now little one?" The male asks, his red button down shirt rippling with his movements as he opens the door and leans down, bowing as he holds out and arm. His shirt was tucked into his black pants and ended with black shoes. Even in a somewhat strange humanised form, which actually really surprised you, he was still handsome and can be seen that he carried a large package in his pants. But I didn't stare for long as I got out the car with his help and I walked with one of his arms around my waist to where the large crowd was. It was time for the bets to be placed.

He walked with such confidence that everybody knew that he owned the Austin Martin with ease. High bets rolled into Knockout's favor and he just smirked. The money was just going to roll into his hand at the end of this. And with his girl by his side the money was rolling in even larger amounts.

Keeping the smirk on his face he leans down and rests his forehead on mine, eyes watching my expression of surprise and uncomfortable. He presses his lips tightly against mine, hands wrapping around my waist as he presses his crotch against mine. Grinding slightly letting me feel his already hardening member. "KO!" I gasp into his lips, a bright red blush staining my (s/t) face. I couldn't believe he was doing something like this in front of so many people. All he does is smile and then walks me away from the people back towards his car.

"Two minutes left!" Some girl shouts from in front of the cars, she held two black and white checkered flags, waiting for the drivers to get sorted.

"We can do a lot in those two minutes." He whispers heatedly into my ear. I blush even deeper at his words as he leads me back to the car. Getting into the driver's seat and pulling me onto his lap as he rolls the window up and closes the door, once again locking all the doors. "Now let's get started."

He presses his lips against me. It was weird feeling the soft warm lips of a human then the cold dermas of his robotic form. He let's nimble fingers run up my shirt and along my spine, making me shiver. "Knock-Knockout. Not now."

"And why not? It will get me all pumped to win if you show affection."

I couldn't say no, not with how he was touching me. His fingers dancing along my body as he chuckles against my skin, biting harshly along my neck to make sure I, as well as everyone else, knew just who I belonged to.

"Start your engines!"

Knockout breaks away from the kiss as his fingers reach into my pants and using his other hand he moves my hand into his pants. He slips in two fingers as he makes my fingers wrap around his cock. Moving my hand up and down his member he starts to pump his fingers in and out of me. J start moaning loudly against his neck where my head falls as I start moving my own hand on my own accord. I couldn't fit my whole hand around it so I just did what I could. I move faster as he starts to breath heavily, letting grunts leave his lips as his eyes closed, no longer fixated on getting me off but getting himself off. He starts to thrust up into my hand and against me each time.

"Ten seconds!"

His breathing gets heavier and he bits my neck as he groans loudly, his cum covering my fingers and hand. He kisses me just as the lady starts to count down from five and he disappears. "We'll finish this tonight." He whispers as he finally starts the engine and as soon as the lady reaches one the seatbelt is buckled and he takes off quickly. Knowing that he'd be able to win the race with ease like usual.

#transformers #transformers prime #knockout #autobots #x female reader #x fem!reader #smut #knockout smut #knockout x reader #lemon #jealous #obsessive #commisionwork #commission

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dotthings · 4 years ago

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I recommend reading @occamshipper‘s post here [x] that does a whole lot to further unpack some spn fandom dynamics, beyond what I touched on myself earlier today, but more, discusses the evolving nature of SPN itself. Which got me thinking further (as you do).

With 6 episodes left of SPN left on the clock, it seems like a good time to talk more about my love for this series as a whole, and my perspective on the earliest seasons of SPN vs later seasons.

I’ve tried to articulate this on various platforms at different times, but it’s sometimes hard to explain, because it’s a dichotomy but not mutually exclusive.

People will make all kinds of assumptions just because I’m expanded cast friendly, because I’m a Cas fan, because I’m ride or die Team Free Will, because I ship Destiel. Some will think but of course I couldn’t possibly have loved S1-2 with a bone deep love, couldn’t possibly have internalized Sam and Dean and relate to them and see my own weaknesses and strengths reflected there, didn’t have 15 years of emotional roller coaster with SPN. Not just 15 seasons, 15 years. I did have to step away a few times and took breaks from it but not years-long, so I have witnessed every stage of fandom and every stage of canon as it unfolded.

Min brought up in her post how earliest SPN started with archetypes. While the characters were also layered characters, they mostly stayed in their archetypal boxes. Not just how they mirrored archetypes of other media SPN has always been a response to (Dean is Han, Sam is Luke and so on) but how they fell into archetypes established of themselves. Early SPN had a start on overturning those self-created archetypes and expectations, a beginning. Dean in particular very quickly turned out to be not what even the show’s creator expected and they ran with it. Kripke created a show he envisioned as being about monster hunts, like Kolchak, like X-Files, and it was Bob Singer who said no brah it’s about the emotional bonds, it’s about the emotional story, that’s our unique hand to play, and whatever issues I have with EP Bob Singer later on, I respect how right he was about that.

The irony of Dabb era constantly being ripped down and attacked for...being that, simply because it’s not only the brother bond any more.

One popular negative meme in spn fandom involves complaining SPN isn’t scary any more. True, the style of its horror changed, it changed visually, and I do appreciate the early visual style, but the flip side of that statement is that SPN started out relying on jump scares and mere style for its frights, when even in the earliest seasons it was clear the most horrifying or wrenching moments were going to be emotional. As I said on twitter, over time SPN became an increasingly complex study of its main characters, with escalating moral quandaries, and increasingly a rumination on emotional horror, conquering of inner demons, and most of all the importance of love of all kinds.

See, the thing is, I really really REALLY loved S1 and 2. No you really can’t even know how much I loved SPN in those seasons. It had a gestalt that cannot be recaptured, and I dove in head-first. The dusty back roads, the intense familial emotional storylines, the haunted houses, the monsters, the dilapidated or forgotten places, the cursed apple orchards, the abandoned buildings, the brothers, the tears. Yes, it’s gorgeous. Let’s light a candle and remember it fondly.

When I rewatch it holds up well enough...it also feels claustrophobic. Limited. Small. So small. Yes still beautiful. But much as I loved the Winchesters and their story and their family already then, a lot of that love is also bleedback because of learning so much more about them. So much more. After that.

When I rewatch anything before Carver era it feels like that, too small, and I miss the full breadth of what the characters became. I do have some issues with Carver, but he did a lot of great things too.

By S3 the magic was dwindling for me a little. S3 is when I started to think I was going to just get tired of the show and that was bewildering tbh, because S1-2 were just SO DAMN AMAZING to me. But that’s how it goes sometimes.

S4 banged the doors open and blew my mind. It wasn’t just Cas’s arrival, but Cas was a herald of it. Cas the most of any member of Sam and Dean’s extended family got the closest to them, could carry stories of his own, and most embodied some of SPN’s biggest themes. But it wasn’t about Cas’s arrival alone.

I thought I knew all SPN was capable of and S4 showed me otherwise and I was a giddy, proud SPN fan about S4. LOOK AT WHAT OUR LITTLE SHOW DID. The canvas got bigger, the character stories got even stronger, more powerful, and more painful. Let’s pedal to the metal and see what she can do.

Season after season and showrunner after showrunner. Even my least favorite showrunner had something more to show me about these characters, something more to learn. (There are a few arcs with every showrunner where I did feel like SPN was spinning its wheels, I’m talking in aggregate, by era, although I don’t love every era the same).

When I rewatch earliest SPN I miss the Sam and Dean I’ve gotten to know because of course they aren’t there yet, they are just beginning. I have a mirror to that with Cas. When I rewatch S4-6, even parts of Carver era. S4/5 Cas is still exciting. Those are his beginnings, like S1-2 are Sam and Dean’s. But I miss all Cas became. I miss how far he grew. Watching Sam, Dean, Cas on screen while also missing Sam, Dean, Cas. They also don’t feel complete to me without their earliest seasons in my mind to build forward from.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about the goodness of modern SPN, but they could at least admit that the SPN they loved left the building long ago, eons ago, instead of staying around season after season just to tear down, to hate, to attack. Everything from character development existing as a concept to the basic easy to grok idea that people can love more than one person to *insert repetitive wanking here on how Dabb ruined SPN by utilizing themes SPN has always always had there since the start and took them farther* to just being mad that S15 isn’t S1. Modern SPN gets torn to shreds for being SPN only stronger with more complexity, more character pov, more emotional unpacking, more and more about family and how family is constructed, and with a rich visual language and use of symbolism that can hold its own with earlier seasons, and it’s just plain fact, this vitriol was aimed at Carver as well as at Dabb, FYI, and I have my own issues with both of them.

Is it really REALLY necessary to hate on a show that has always been billed at being about family for being...about family. Really? Do people even go here?? What is UP with that. Season after season of hard core stans preaching “SPN is about family” and now they’re pissed that...SPN is about family. Upteen repetitions of whining about “too soap opera.” As others have pointed out, if you didn’t already figure out that SPN was and is a family soap opera with monsters, there isn’t much help to be had for you. Upteen repetitions of whining that SPN grants redemptive arcs. What show have folks even been watching all these years????? Upteen rages because on a 15 season show characters grow, things change, and S1 and S15 are not the same.

SPN has always been about the characters most of all, it’s always been about the emotions most of all, it’s always been about relationships most of all.

SPN is not eternally 2 boys in a car shooting monsters in the face on a back road dilapidated barn while those 2 boys repeat their first look archetypal roles, undisturbed in an endless loop. I can recognize how beautiful S1-2 were without discarding all that came after, and I’m realizing more and more how Dabb era is making me reflect over the whole series run, and giving me a new perspective on the long journey of the characters.

Speaking as a fan who has loved this show since September 2005, but is also intrigued by current storylines, that melding of old and new, of new light shed over the past, while bringing the story forward, moving the characters forward, is also beautiful to me.

#spn #supernatural #spn meta

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arcticfox007 · 4 years ago

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The Only One That Matters

Destiel December 2020 Challenge

Heads up, this ended up being long! Continuation of Days 2-6, the Master List is pinned to my profile :)

Day 7: Peppermint (on AO3)

*Charlie never died in my headspace, so, yeah. She threw her laptop into that Nazi’s face, kicked him in the groin, and got away – because that’s what should have happened.*

***

With only 4 days left until Christmas, Dean had decided that going Christmas shopping was another holiday tradition that Cas had yet to experience. Sam had his doubts about this one, he was fairly certain that Dean hadn’t actually been near a mall or shopping plaza this close to the holidays, and possibly didn’t know what he was getting into. In an attempt to avoid disaster, Sam found himself calling Charlie for back-up. If anyone would help him with Operation Angel-Impala (which was the name Charlie quickly gave Sam’s not-really-a-plan), it was the Winchester’s adopted sister.

“Yeah, shopping at a mall right now will probably not encourage warm fuzzy feelings. I’d be shocked if they even made it home without Dean punching someone in the face. I’m really surprised he even suggested it.”

“Charlie, he’s thrown himself into giving Cas the whole Christmas experience. While sickeningly adorable, it’s not like Dean and I even know what that is. I’m pretty sure I was still an infant the last time we had a real tree.” Charlie let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Okay, okay. Give me a minute.” Sam tried to be patient as he heard soft tapping noises, likely from Charlie’s keyboard. “Here’s something. It’s maybe ninety minutes or so away from you guys, but it’s not far from where I am. There’s this historic riverside city that has something called Midnight Madness where all the stores are open late into the night. They have a bunch of sales and decorations, but from the event listing it looks like mostly locals show up, and it’s semi-remote. Ooo, didn’t you say they’d been baking together?”

“Yeah. I’d say that I’ve never seen so much pie in my life, but I live with Dean.” Charlie snickered.

“Well, they have a chocolate making event that people can sign up for. Here. This thing runs every night up until Christmas Eve.” Sam’s phone pinged and he saw Charlie had sent him the link to the Midnight Madness event. He clicked on the chocolate making link and grinned.

“This is perfect Charlie! Now I just need to convince them this is better than the mall.”

“Oh, I have got you covered.” Sam didn’t have the chance to even ask before Dean walked in waving his phone in the air.

“Hey, Charlie just texted me asking if we wanted to go to some Christmas shopping thing with her tonight. I thought this would be a good chance for Cas to get in some more holiday experience.” Sam just laughed and told Dean that they should get ready if he wanted to go and his brother rushed off to tell Cas.

“You’re my favorite sibling Charlie.”

“Well, you got to pick me. You were just stuck with Dean,” Charlie teased. “Anyway, I’m getting us all tickets to the chocolate making thing. Dean can’t say no if it’s a Christmas gift from me and I kind of want to see this new Christmasy Dean for myself. There’s a restaurant and bar called The Phoenix Emporium; we can meet there.” Sam wrote down the bar’s name and address looking forward to having someone to plot against Cas and Dean with (for their own good, of course).

“Thanks again Charlie, we’ll see you later tonight.”

***

Cas had already gotten gifts in preparation for Christmas, so he wasn’t sure why going out Christmas shopping mattered. Even so, he didn’t argue when Dean said they were going out. Dean had been in such a good mood recently that Cas was more than happy to do whatever was asked of him.

Castiel did wonder why Dean was in such a good mood. He’d like to know what it took to get Dean into this type of mindset, for future reference. Maybe it was just celebrating Christmas, but Cas had known Dean for a long time and he’d never seen a holiday make him so happy. Perhaps… well, maybe there was something to what Sam had told him yesterday. Sam had said Dean was better when Cas was around which wasn’t something the angel had ever thought about before. Cas knew that Dean had made him better, and he preferred it when he was with Dean. It had taken him years to work out that he was actually in love with Dean, but he’d been satisfied to just watch over him until Metranon stole his grace and Castiel had become human.

When Cas had woken up after being stabbed by a reaper to find Dean’s concerned and pain-stricken face in front of him – felt Dean’s warm calloused hands cradling his face, well, he hadn’t been able to control his emotions as easily. It didn’t help that Dean had left him on his own only to show up again still acting like he cared. Regaining his grace had did nothing to get his desire for more with Dean under control, despite knowing how unlikely it was that Dean felt the same way. So, why was he even allowing himself to consider the possibility? Cas sighed deeply.

“Cas? Everything okay?” Cas looked up to see Dean’s hypnotizing green eyes glancing at him in the rearview mirror. Cas had conceded ‘shotgun’ to Sam because his legs were so much longer. Sam had his headphones on listening to a podcast and Cas must have stayed quiet for too long after Dean had been talking to him.

“Yes Dean. I apologize, you were saying something about your mother?” Dean’s eyes were back on the road as he responded.

“Uh, yeah. I was just saying that she said she’d stop by the bunker in about a week. I’d hoped she would come for Christmas but she can’t make it.” Cas reached his hand out to gently touch Dean’s shoulder for just a moment, wishing he had a reason to keep his hand there longer.

“I’m sorry she couldn’t be there for Christmas,” Cas said softly. Surprisingly, Dean reached back to stop Castiel’s fingers from moving away. Cas froze, not daring to move a muscle.

“Thanks Cas. I – I just wanted to say that I’m happy you came back home when she left.” Dean briefly squeezed Cas’ fingers before returning his hand to the steering wheel. Castiel slowly pulled his hand back into his lap breathing out a quiet ‘you’re welcome’ in response to Dean’s words. The way Dean had been acting recently, this was why Castiel had started to hope. The car fell silent as he stared at the hand on which the angel could still feel a ghost of Dean’s touch.

***

Dean couldn’t really say no to participating in the chocolate making event when Charlie gave them tickets to attend as a Christmas present. He didn’t even grumble much about it; he didn’t want to make her unhappy and for whatever reason Charlie and Sam were unusually excited about making chocolate. Dean could hear them animatedly debating the merits of milk versus dark chocolate as they walked ahead of him and Cas.

So, Dean had sucked it up and let her lead the way through the Christmas lit streets of the historic town. He had to admit that the town was a great location for Christmas events. The old stone buildings were dripping with colorful lights and there were lit candles in most of the windows. He was happy to see how Cas was looking around with a small smile on his face as he watched a family take their children to different stores looking at the windows and checking something off of a list. Dean looked around and noticed there were a lot of people carrying around the same list. They must have some sort of scavenger hunt going on. He caught Charlie’s sleeve to get her attention.

“Charlie,” Dean whispered. “Do you know what’s up the scavenger hunt?” Charlie gave Dean a confused look.

“Really? You want to know about… alright, hold on.” Bemused, Charlie pulled out a booklet and flipped through. “Here.”

Dean took the paper from her as they continued walking. It was listed as an all-ages window and store hunt with different prizes every night and Dean laughed as he saw what they were supposed to be looking for.

“Cas!” Castiel caught up to Dean a few moments later. “We should do this.” Dean pointed to the event page. Cas gave Dean an all to rare laugh when he saw what Dean was showing him.

“Angel scavenger hunt. You’ve already found plenty of angels, Dean.” Dean playfully bumped Cas’ shoulder.

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one that matters.” Crap, did Dean just say that out loud? “Uh, I mean, c’mon, don’t you want to participate in Christmas traditions? You did ask me for help with that, right?” Cas was staring at him, as if trying to solve a puzzle but Dean just nervously pushed the event booklet into the angel’s hands. “Er, if you don’t want to look for ‘angels’ you can see if there’s something else you’d like to do.” Cas gave Dean a quiet smile and put the booklet in his pocket.

“We should go to Charlie’s chocolate class first, then we can look for other traditions to try.” Dean readily agreed and they hurried to catch up with the others.

***

Sam was impressed with Charlie’s devious but brilliant maneuvering. The chocolate making event was almost entirely couples, and there was only room for two people at most stations. She had managed to get Cas and Dean set up at one table and then set herself and Sam up at a table about two rows back. Charlie had informed Sam that they needed a good vantage point to better access what they were up against for Operation Angel-Impala. Sam could tell that she was entertained by the entire situation, but also honestly invested in Dean’s happiness.

“Y’know Sam, I’m not sure we have to do all that much here. Dean asked me to find out what the scavenger hunt thing going on was, and then I heard him asking Cas if he wanted to do it.” Sam’s jaw dropped.

“Huh, maybe you’re right. I mean, I figured a lot of Dean’s recent effort was because he felt guilty about something Cas told Mom, but volunteering for a cutesy Christmas event seems bit above and beyond if that were the case.” Charlie nodded eagerly.

“And look how they’re all in each other’s space. Anyone else here would assume they are already dating.”

“Yeah, but they’re always like that. Staring at one another for long stretches of time, finding excuses to touch each other… recently Dean is being a lot nicer to Cas though.” Charlie smiled brightly.

“Sam, maybe you should let Dean know you’d be happy for him. If he was with Cas I mean.” Sam looked puzzled.

“Charlie, Dean doesn’t want to talk to me about his feelings. He doesn’t even want to admit he has feeling outside of a love for pie and Baby.”

“Uh-huh. Not to state the obvious but Cas has a dude’s vessel. Have you ever seen Dean hook up with another guy?” Sam’s eyebrows raised and then dropped to a deep furrow.

“Um, no? I don’t care about that though. I mean, maybe that’s part of Dean’s hang-up, but I just want him to have someone in his life that makes him better, happier, more willing to live. Cas does that.” Charlie let out an exasperated sigh.

“Sam Winchester, you need to tell him that! If you’ve never known Dean to have even considered hooking up with a guy, it will help him to know you support him. I’m sure part of him understands you wouldn’t be bothered, but it helps to hear it.” Sam nodded solemnly still looking at his brother who was busy flipping through the chocolate making menu and laughing at something Cas had said.

“Alright Charlie. I can do that. I think I have an idea but we may have to explore some of the art tents later.”

“Deal. Now, to the chocolate, Sam!”

***

Cas didn’t actually care what they were making. Dean had seemed shocked when Cas said he wasn’t familiar with peppermint, so they began working through the instructions on how to make something called peppermint bark. All Cas cared about was how easily Dean was laughing. How often Dean put himself into Cas’ space when it used to be Dean who would lecture the angel about personal space. What Cas really couldn’t stop thinking about was how Dean had told him that he’d found the only angel that mattered when looking at Cas. Cas couldn’t be completely sure what Dean meant by saying that, but he did know that the words had swept through him in a rush of warmth and joy.

Glancing behind Dean, Cas noticed his right wing had wrapped itself around Dean without the angel having been really aware of it. Ever since his wings started to heal Cas found himself wrapping them around Dean more and more. Castiel was still hesitant to share with Dean that he was in love with him, but he was starting to learn new ways to show it. He saw the way Dean relaxed when his wing curled around him. Even though he couldn’t quite feel it, he was somehow sensing their presence.

Cas smiled as Dean wiped chocolate on Cas’ nose. Then he smugly retaliated by sticking a chocolate covered finger into Dean’s ear.

***

“Eugh! No fair Cas!” As gross as the feeling of melted chocolate in his ear was, Dean couldn’t help laughing. Their peppermint bark was in a freezer to help it set faster, although they had been told by one of the volunteers running the event that two bars takes a lot less time than a whole pan. When he looked up at Cas’ self-satisfied grin and chocolate smeared nose Dean dissolved into laughter all over again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good.

“I can’t help that I have had billions of years to develop my tactical expertise. I’m very good at picking the most advantageous targets for attack.” Cas raised a single eyebrow, the haughty look only ruined by the smile Cas was fighting to hold back. Well, that and the chocolate still on his nose.

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, let’s get this cleaned up before they bring back our candy bars.” Dean took one of the wipes the volunteers had place around the room and before he could think about it too much, he raised the cloth towards Cas’ face. Dean gently wiped the smudge from Cas’ nose as the angel stared at Dean with a soft look in his blue eyes that Dean couldn’t quite identify.

“There ya go, Cas. Nose smudge eliminated.” Dean winked at Castiel. He wasn’t even that surprised when the angel returned the favor, softly wiping the chocolate from Dean’s ear. Cas kept staring at Dean the whole time. Dean gave the angel another quick smile and finished cleaning up their station, wondering for just a moment what was going on between him and his best friend. Dean decided that he was just going to go along with it for now, he’d try to actually figure it out later. Or possibly never. Either way, he wasn’t going to screw up the awesome night they were having so far.

“What is Charlie doing?” Dean glanced behind him at Sam and Charlie’s table. By the time he looked Charlie seemed to have quickly put away her phone. Dean shrugged.

“I dunno, maybe she’s looking at the other stuff to do here since her booklet is in your pocket.” Cas looked unconvinced but turned back towards Dean anyway.

“Do you really want to participate in this Angel Scavenger Hunt?” Cas asked Dean skeptically.

“Yeah, if you think it might be fun. We are good at hunting things after all. Also, I’d like to go into a few of the stores anyway. I want to get Charlie something for Christmas since she put this all together for us.” Cas thought for a moment and then looked back at Dean.

“Alright. If nothing else I agree we should find a gift for Charlie.” Dean grinned and bumped his shoulder on Cas.

“You asked me to help you with Christmas traditions, Cas. I just want to do a good job.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel replied seriously. Then Cas turned to see one of the volunteers bringing back their peppermint bark experiment. Dean reached out to take the wrapped bars while Cas thanked the volunteer for helping with the event.

“We should try some before Charlie tries to steal it.” Dean broke off a piece and handed it to Castiel.

“Sam won’t steal it?”

“Nah, he hates white chocolate. Something about pretending to be chocolate and it being a lie. I dunno, he’s dramatic.” Cas tipped his head to the side examining the colorful candy. After another moment he took a small bite. Dean knew he couldn’t really taste much human food, but he also knew peppermint had a strong flavor. Cas chewed slowly. And then took another small bite.

“I can taste some of it, I think. It reminds me of toothpaste.” Cas half smiled as he ate more.

“I’m glad we found something else you can kind of enjoy. We can also get coffee while we’re walking around.” Dean just kept feeling like he had to smile tonight.

“You should try as well, Dean.” Dean took another chunk from one of the bars and was pleasantly surprised by the burst of flavor on his tongue.

“Hey, we did a good job on this stuff!” Cas looked at Dean fondly just before they were interrupted by an energetic redhead grabbing a piece of the bar still in Dean’s grasp.

“Peppermint bark, excellent. Wow, this is good guys, you have hidden talents!”

“Hey, hands off! Where’s yours and Sam’s? We can trade.” Dean was tall enough that he easily held the candy out of Charlie’s reach.

“Sorry Dean, that’s long gone!” Charlie snickered as Sam joined them.

“She’s telling the truth Dean; I barely had any myself.” Charlie snorted in response to Sam’s accusation.

“Don’t listen to him, he had half a bar. So, what do you guys want to do now?”

“Charlie,” began Castiel sincerely, “I want to say thank you for the Christmas gift.” Charlie practically beamed at Cas.

“You are very welcome, Castiel. I’m happy you guys had fun!” Sam and Dean also thanked Charlie.

“Oh, hey. We should get a picture. Go stand in front of that Christmas tree over there. Dean, hold up your bar with Cas.” Charlie took longer than Dean though was needed to make sure he and Cas were posing the way she wanted, but he wasn’t going to complain seeing how the whole night had been her idea. Some passerby even took a picture of all four of them together.

“Hey guys, you mind if we split up for a while?” Sam asked. “I sort of want to check out the crafts tents and Charlie said she’d go with me. I know it’s not really your thing, Dean.”

“Yeah, sure. Cas and I were going to go check out the stores up on the main street. You guys want to meet back at that bar where we started, in maybe two hours? We can get dinner.” Everyone agreed easily and Dean led Cas over to the volunteer station to get the Angel checklist. Dean was really looking forward to finding more ways to make sure Cas knew he belonged.

***

@jellydeans, @galaxycastiel, @my-favourite-hellatus, @nguyenxtrang

#destiel december 2020 #destiel december #destiel fic #destiel #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #sam ships it #charlie supernatural #supernatural #supernatural fic #spn #spn fic #christmas fic #so much fluff

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myownsuperintendent · 4 years ago

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Fic: “Through the Years”

Scully, Mulder, Emily, and William experience life as a family through the years. Family fluff. I moved Baby #3 up five-ish years to make it less ridiculous. Rated T for mild sexual content. Also here at Ao3.

.....

They come up the stairs to her apartment, Scully carrying the bags. “This is it,” she says. “This is…this’ll be home.” Emily doesn’t say anything; she’s been quiet since they got on the plane this morning. Scully tried talking to her, pointing to the clouds and the tiny houses below, telling her about the fun things they’d do once they got to Washington. Eventually she let her sleep. She knows this won’t be perfect, not all at once. But she can’t help it: she has so much hope.

“Do you want to go in?” she asks. “See your room?” Emily nods, after a moment, and Scully unlocks the door and goes in.

Emily’s room should be ready, even though Scully’s been staying out in California with her. They ordered furniture from a catalogue—she let Emily pick out her new bed and sheets—and they packed up the things from Emily’s old room and had them shipped. She wanted it to be here for Emily when they arrived. Mulder’s been a help to her with all of it; he came over to her place to supervise the delivery. “Everything accounted for,” he told her over the phone yesterday. “I didn’t even injure myself setting up the bed.”

She laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “Really, thank you so much for…for everything you’ve done.” She hasn’t said anything to him, but she is worried that this will change things between them; she knows she won’t be able to travel as much, for one thing, and so the way they work will have to be different. She worried he might resent that, but so far there aren’t any signs of it; he seems as excited about the new direction her life is taking as she does.

“It’s nothing, Scully,” he said. “Any way I can help. Let me know.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, softly, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

And when she opens the door to what used to be a spare room, a place for her to store extra books, it’s Emily’s bedroom: everything they picked out is there. The new sheets are on the new bed, Emily’s picture books and stuffed animals are on the shelves, and there’s a night light on the wall. “Here we are, sweetie,” she says. “What do you think?”

Emily goes over to the bed. “What’s that?” she asks.

Scully looks; there’s a teddy bear sitting in the center of the bed, along with a little book. A card is propped against the bear. “Looks like it might be a present for you,” she says. “Should we read the card?” Emily nods, and Scully opens it. “Dear Emily,” she reads. “I hope you like your new room. Since I missed your birthday and Christmas this year, I wanted to give you some belated presents. Maybe I’ll see you soon. Mulder.”

Emily’s already holding the bear. “What’s belated?”

“It means late,” Scully explains. “Since it’s after your birthday and Christmas.” He didn’t have to get Emily presents at all, of course. He didn’t have to, but he did.

“Can we read the book?” Emily asks.

“Sure we can,” Scully says. She takes a seat on the bed, and Emily leans against her; she’s shy sometimes, but she seems to like this kind of proximity when Scully is reading to her. They do that a lot, because sometimes it’s the simplest way for them to be together: one that doesn’t bring up any troubles or uncertainties. The book Mulder gave Emily is called The Little Fur Family, and it has a fuzzy cover, which Emily touches gently while Scully reads.

When the book is finished, Scully shows Emily the rest of the apartment; Emily follows her, still not saying much. She carries the bear under her arm. “His name is Buttons,” she says, while they’re eating supper (Scully really needs to get groceries, after a month and a half spent in California, but luckily she found a box of macaroni and cheese in the cabinet).

“That’s a good name,” Scully says. “Would you like to call Mulder after we eat? I want to tell him we’re back, and you could tell him that you named Buttons.”

“Okay,” Emily says.

Mulder answers quickly when she calls. “Hey, Scully,” he says. “You home?”

“We’re home,” she confirms, looking down at Emily, who is sitting next to her on the couch. “Thank you for setting up the room. It looks wonderful.”

“Really, it was no trouble,” he says. “Glad to do it. Did Emily see her presents?”

“She did,” Scully says. “She has something she wants to say to you.” She hands Emily the phone.

“Hi,” Emily says, her voice coming out whispery. “Thank you…The bear’s name is Buttons.” She seems to have run out to things to say now; she looks up at Scully questioningly, and Scully takes back the phone.

“She really likes them,” she says. “Thank you so much, Mulder. You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” he says. “She deserves them.”

Scully smiles. “Well, thank you. I want to…I think we’ll take the next couple of days to settle in, the two of us. But after that…we’ll see you soon?”

“Of course,” he says, and she’s happy, when she hangs up the phone.

Emily wants to read The Little Fur Family again before bed, and Scully reads it to her before tucking her in, pulling the new comforter gently up under her chin. “Sleep well,” she says. “You remember where my room is?” Emily nods, sleepily. “Well, I’ll be right in there if you need me. I’ll leave the door open.” Emily nods again. “Good night, Emily. I love you.” She hugs her daughter tightly. She still can’t believe it all.

“Good night, Dana,” Emily says, in her soft voice, and Scully kisses her cheek and turns out the light.

It takes her a while to settle down—aside from the events of the day, her body’s still on California time—but she’s asleep herself when she hears Emily’s voice, suddenly. She sits up, trying not to panic, and turns on the light next to her bed; Emily’s standing next to it, crying. “Dana,” she says, “I had a bad dream.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Scully says, jumping out of bed, stooping down next to Emily, putting her arms around her. “It’s all right now. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

“My mommy…” Emily sobs, in the most heartbreaking voice Scully has ever heard.

“I know, sweetheart,” she says. “I know it makes you sad.”

She walks Emily back to bed, tucking her in again, drying her tears and stroking her hair. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep again,” she says. “How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Emily says, still with a choke in her voice.

“I’m right here,” she says again. “And I love you so much.”

She lies down next to Emily, although there isn’t much space on the little bed. She strokes her hair back and forth, humming a lullaby off-key. She isn’t sure when Emily falls asleep. At some point she falls asleep too.

.....

Scully’s mom called to say that she’ll be late—there’s a lot of traffic—so the three of them are waiting in the living room now. Emily’s huddled into a corner of the couch. “Where are you going?” she asks, not for the first time this afternoon.

“To dinner, sweetie,” Scully says. “But you’ll have lots of fun with Grandma. And we’ll be back later.” Mulder nods.

“Why can’t I come?” Emily asks.

Scully isn’t sure what to tell her. She kissed Mulder for the first time a month and a half ago—on this very couch, while Emily was sleeping down the hall, after the three of them had spent the day together—and since then the two of them have been, well, dating she guesses is the word for it, although it feels a little simplistic considering the history of their relationship. So far it’s going well. More than well. But she hasn’t wanted to tell Emily yet, just in case. She knows it’s not a good idea to introduce things like this into kids’ lives too quickly. And that’s even in cases where those children haven’t already gone through a lot of upheaval.

So she just says, “Mulder and I are going to spend a little time just the two of us. Because we’re friends and—”

“Mulder’s my friend too,” Emily says. “Aren’t you?” she adds, quickly, glancing up at him.

“Of course I am, Em,” he says. “What I think your mom is saying—”

“Why don’t you stay here anymore, then?” Emily asks. “Why don’t we all play together? We used to, and now…now we don’t!” And she bursts into tears then, her face pressed against the cushion. “Why doesn’t Mulder stay?” she asks again, sobbing.

Scully scoops her up, feeling horrible. Emily has a point: it used to always be the three of them, whenever Mulder came over, and now it isn’t, not always. She’d thought they were still spending plenty of time together aside from their dates, but apparently it isn’t enough for Emily. She’d thought she was protecting Emily from change; instead, she’s just made it worse.

“Oh, Emily,” she says. “I’m so sorry. Don’t cry, sweetie.”

“We didn’t mean to make you sad, Em,” Mulder adds, hovering over them, looking as upset as she feels.

“Why…do you…eat dinner…without…me?” Emily asks, in between sobs.

Scully makes a snap parenting the decision, the kind she’s had to make a lot of since last year and doesn’t feel used to yet. But she’s hoping the truth will be less painful for Emily. “Emily, Mulder and I…we’ve been going on dates. Do you know what that means?”

“No,” Emily says.

Scully tries to think of an explanation that will be within Emily’s frame of reference. She’s seen a number of Disney movies, which have probably been her biggest exposure to romance, but they tend to go for the love at first sight angle. But she can’t think of anything better, not quickly enough, anyway, with Emily still crying in her lap. “You know in Beauty and the Beast,” she says, “when they eat breakfast together and they play in the snow? And then they dance?” From the way Mulder is looking at her, she guesses she sounds insane.

But Emily latches on to the explanation. “Oh,” she says. “So it’s like falling in love?”

“Well…” Scully begins. She hasn’t used that word yet, with Mulder. She’s thought about it, but she hasn’t said it out loud.

Emily hasn’t stopped talking, though. She turns to Mulder now. “Do you love Mommy?”

Scully’s breath catches. But before she can say anything, tell Emily that she shouldn’t ask that, Mulder speaks. “I do.”

“Oh. That’s good,” Emily says, although Scully’s only dimly aware of it. “But why does that mean we can’t have dinner together?” She wipes her eyes.

“We…we can,” Scully manages. “We just…we didn’t tell you everything before, because we thought it would be a surprise for you.”

Emily looks at her, her head tipped to one size. “No,” she says, finally. “Not a surprise.” Scully is beginning to get a little annoyed with this kind of reaction. Her mom (“Well, it’s about time, dear”) was one thing, and Skinner’s knowing look when he bumped into them holding hands last weekend was another. But to have her four-year-old daughter tell her that it’s not a surprise…At least Emily looks happier now, though, and Scully gives her a hug.

“How about we stay home tonight, after all?” she says. “And when Grandma gets here, we can all have dinner together.” She gives Mulder a half-apologetic look, but he doesn’t seem upset at all. And looking at him makes her think of what he just said. He loves me, she thinks. She has to tell him; she can’t let him think it’s all on one side. But there’s Emily sitting right in between them.

She gets her chance soon enough, though. Her mom arrives, and Emily wants to show her the drawings she did in preschool that day, and Mulder offers to help Scully make dinner. He follows her into the kitchen, standing close to her as she takes vegetables out of the refrigerator and pasta out of the cabinet. “I didn’t plan to tell you like that,” he says. His voice is soft, almost self-conscious.

She turns and smiles at him. “I’m not complaining. Maybe Emily knows how to run this thing better than we do.” She steps up, takes his hand. “I love you too,” she says, the words coming out in a breath.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Really.” His smile makes her feel warm. And she stretches up and kisses him, fairly chastely since her mom and Emily are right there, but hoping he’ll get the intention behind it. From the way he holds her, his arms tightly around her waist, she thinks he does.

Emily comes running into the kitchen then. “What are we having?” she asks.

“Spaghetti and vegetables,” Scully tells her.

“You want to help me and your mom?” Mulder asks. He hoists her up into the air, and she shrieks with joy. Scully knows how she feels.

.....

Mulder hears the door creak open, and Emily bounds in, landing on the foot of the bed. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Emily,” Scully says. “Remember that talk we had? About knocking?” They’re both fully clothed, because they know she’ll forget, but they’re hoping the message will sink in one of these days.

“Sorry,” Emily says. “I did remember. But I was just excited for today.”

“So’re we,” Mulder says. He ruffles her hair as she slides up to lie between them.

“What time are we going?” she asks.

“Our appointment’s at eleven,” Scully says. “So we have three hours.”

“That’s so long,” Emily says, pouting. “Three whole hours?”

“It’ll go faster than you think,” Mulder says, even though he secretly agrees. “Should we get up and have breakfast?”

Making breakfast distracts Emily a little, although he can tell that she’s still excited; she bounces up and down and pours extra maple syrup onto the pancakes. Scully catches his eye and smiles, and he smiles back at her. Emily’s right. It’s a momentous day.

They’re out of the house at last, in the car, driving to the courthouse. They’ve all dressed nicely; he’s wearing a suit, and Emily is wearing the blue dress they got her for the wedding. She’s still smiling, although Mulder’s a little nervous, and he thinks Scully is too. He doesn’t know why they should be—they were told that this second hearing was largely a formality—but maybe because it means so much. They each take one of Emily’s hands as they walk into the courthouse, and she looks up at them. Her face is serious now; maybe she’s caught the mood.

But everything goes as it should, as they’ve been told it would. They leave the courthouse with a copy of the adoption certificate: his name is on it, listed as Emily’s father. She’s already been calling him her dad since he and Scully got married, but it means something that now it’s official. They all feel it. He stoops to hug Emily before they get back in the car, kissing the top of her head.

They go out for lunch afterwards, and they get ice cream too; that’s part of his job as Emily’s dad, he thinks, buying her ice cream. She sits by his side in the restaurant booth, scraping the bowl with her spoon, and leans against his shoulder.

When the waitress brings the check, he says to her, “Would you mind taking a picture of the three of us?”

“Sure,” she says. “Not at all.”

They hang it on the refrigerator, the picture of him and Scully and Emily, all sitting together, all smiling. A family in print.

.....

William’s the most incredible thing Mulder’s ever seen—and he’s seen a lot of incredible things. He’s been alive for twelve hours now, and the novelty hasn’t worn off one bit in that time. He can’t take his eyes off his son, a tiny bundle in Scully’s arms.

“Hi there,” Scully says to William, who’s staring up at them both. His eyes are blue. “Do you know that we love you more than anything? Because we really, really do.”

“Your mom’s right,” Mulder says. William yawns, and he marvels. “He just…he’s amazing, Scully.”

“Isn’t he?” She looks exhausted and overjoyed.

Maggie stayed with Emily overnight, but they should be on their way to the hospital now. Mulder wonders how Emily’s going to take to her brother. A part of him can’t imagine anyone not adoring William, but he knows that Emily’s been anxious about not being the only child anymore. Especially during the last few months of Scully’s pregnancy, she clung to the two of them, wanting seemingly constant attention. “Will you love me as much as the baby?” she asked, only a few days ago, and even though they told her that of course they would, trying to reassure her with hugs and soothing words, she still looked unsure.

There’s a tap at the door to the hospital room. “May we come in?” Maggie’s voice.

“Yes, come on in!” Scully calls.

The door opens, revealing Maggie and Emily, who’s clinging tightly to a bunch of flowers. “Mommy! Daddy!” she says. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too, sweetie,” Scully says. Mulder takes William, and she holds out her arms. “Come here so I can give you a hug.”

“Gently,” Mulder adds, as Emily runs towards her mother. She stops for a minute and then slows her steps, giving Scully a careful hug.

“We brought you flowers,” she says, as if just remembering; the bouquet is a little crushed now from the hug, but Scully takes it anyway, smiling.

“They’re so beautiful,” she says. “Did you pick them out with Grandma?” Emily nods, and Scully kisses her cheek. “Well, thank you both so much.”

Emily’s looking up at William. “Is that him?” she asks.

“Yes,” Scully says. “That’s your brother. Do you know what his name is?”

“William,” Emily says. “Grandma told me. After she talked to Daddy on the phone.”

“That’s right,” Scully says. “Do you want to say hello to him?”

“Okay,” Emily says. They all crowd around; Mulder moves, carefully, to sit on the bed next to Scully and Emily, and Maggie comes by too, wanting to get a look at her grandson.

“This is William,” he says, softly. “William, this is your grandmother. And this is your big sister, Emily.”

“Oh, he’s so sweet!” Maggie exclaims. “Look at that face! I think he looks like you, Dana.”

“I think so too,” Mulder says.

Emily is staring. “He’s so little,” she says finally, in a soft, awed voice. “I didn’t know he’d be so little.”

“Well, he’s brand new,” Scully says. “Not even a whole day old. Do you want to say hi to him?”

“Hi,” Emily says. Her voice is still soft, almost a whisper and very, very gentle. “Hi, baby William. I’m Emily. You’re so, so little.” She looks up at them. “His hands are so little.”

“They are,” Mulder says. “If you touch his hand with your finger, he’ll grab it.”

Emily looks astonished. “Will he, really?”

“Try and see,” Mulder says.

Emily places her index finger gently against William’s hand, and his own fingers curl around it, gripping tightly. “Wow,” she says. “Wow.”

“Would you like to try holding him for a little bit?” Scully asks.

“Oh,” Emily says, “oh, could I?” There’s longing in her voice.

“Why don’t you sit in the chair,” Mulder says, “and I’ll bring him over to you?” Emily nods quickly, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed, and Mulder hands her William, carefully, supporting her arms with his own at first. “You have to keep one hand under his head,” he tells her. “Like this, see?” Emily nods seriously, mimicking what he’s doing. Even when he takes his arms away, he hovers near the chair. Emily’s right: William is so little, and so precious.

“I’m your big sister,” Emily is saying to William. “Your big sister. And I’m going to take care of you. Because you’re so little.”

So far, so good, Mulder thinks. She doesn’t seem like she’s upset about William being here. He looks at Scully, who’s watching Emily hold her brother with an incredible smile on her face. He bends over to kiss her cheek.

They go home from the hospital the next afternoon. They settle William into his crib, and then Mulder helps Scully get settled too, putting her things away for her, arranging her pillows until he’s sure that she’s comfortable. “Mulder,” she says. “You don’t have to do all of this.”

“You just had a baby, Scully,” he points out. “Two days ago, in fact. You know, I couldn’t do what you did.”

“Yeah,” Scully says, grinning. “I don’t think that’s physically possible.”

“You know what I mean,” he says. “You’re incredible. A force of nature. And you deserve to rest now. While William’s sleeping. You will rest, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll rest. Since William’s sleeping, and all.” He can tell she’s tired from her voice, from the way she settles back on the bed. He leaves her to sleep then, thinking he’ll look in on William. He wants to make sure everything’s okay with him.

As he heads toward the nursery, he can hear Emily’s voice. Hoping she’s not waking William up, he opens the door carefully. William’s awake, but he’s not crying or fussing, just staring at his sister. She has her face pressed up against the bars of the crib, and she’s reading aloud. Mulder can see the book in her hands. The Little Fur Family.

“Em?” he says. “What are you doing, sweetie?”

She turns to look at him. “I’m just reading to him. To keep him company. He likes the book.”

Mulder smiles at her. “Can I sit with the two of you?”

“Yes,” Emily says, and Mulder takes a seat in the rocking chair, his eyes on his children. Emily finishes the book, closing the covers carefully. “I can read you another book later,” she says to William. “I have a lot of good ones.” He blinks at her, and she turns to Mulder. “Daddy?”

“Yes, Emily?”

“I really love him,” she says. “I think I’m going to love him forever.”

“Me too,” Mulder says. He stoops down and hugs her. “And I’m going to love you forever too.”

They sit quietly in the nursery, the three of them, until Scully comes in to join them. She feeds William, then, while Mulder gets dinner together for the rest of them. He’s tired too—he can feel it, somewhere in the back of his mind—but right now he doesn’t care.

.....

It’s one of those days when William just keeps fussing and fussing. Emily usually likes to play with him, but not right now, not when he just cries whatever she does. Mommy says that he might be getting new teeth; she’s trying to get him to stop crying by giving him things to chew on. But Emily’s tired of it, right now, so she goes to see if she can find Daddy.

She finds him sitting on the back steps, looking out at the yard. She sits down next to him. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi, Em,” he says. He doesn’t look at her when he says it, so she tries to figure out what he is looking at. The flowers, she thinks.

“Are those the ones you planted?” she asks. “For…for Samantha?” She isn’t sure if she should say Aunt Samantha, because Samantha was Daddy’s sister and that would make her Emily’s aunt, if she were here, but Emily never met her. She died a long time ago, she knows. That’s why Daddy planted the flowers when they moved into the house, earlier this year, and Mommy helped. They planted them at the house, because Samantha was dead but Daddy didn’t have a cemetary to visit for her, like you do with most dead people. Emily couldn’t see them then—they were just seeds—but now she can; they’re bright yellow ones.

Daddy nods. “Yes.”

“They’re pretty,” she says. “Do they make you sad, though? To look at?” His face looks a little sad.

“The flowers? They don’t make me sad, exactly,” Daddy says. “They just make me think about Samantha. And that makes me sad, sometimes. Because I miss her.”

Emily nods. “I’m still sad when I think about my other mommy and daddy, sometimes,” she says. “Even though that was a long time ago too.”

Daddy puts an arm around her. “I think we all feel sad,” he says, “when we think about people we miss.”

“Was it a really long time ago?” Emily asks. “When she died, I mean.” She thinks it must be, because she’s seen a picture of Daddy with Samantha, and he was only a kid in it. An older kid, but still.

“Yes, a long time ago,” Daddy says.

“How old were you?” Emily asks.

“Well, I was twelve the last time I saw her,” Daddy says. “And she was eight then.”

Eight’s not a lot bigger than Emily. She doesn’t really like to think about it. “Did you play together?” she asks. “Like me and William?”

“We did,” Daddy says. “Sometimes we’d play outside, on nice days like this. That’s why I decided to come out to look at the flowers. Just to remember her. Just to think.”

Sometimes people like you to be quiet when they think, Emily knows. “Do you want me to go back inside?” she asks. “So you can think?”

He smiles at her. “No, that’s okay, Em. You’re not keeping me from thinking.”

They sit and look at the flowers together then. “I think they’re really pretty,” Emily says. “I bet she would like them so much.” Daddy doesn’t say anything. “Would we all play together?” she asks. “If she were here?”

He smiles at her, but his eyes look sad. “I bet we would,” he says, and he hugs her tight.

She hugs him back. “It’s okay to be sad,” she says, because Mommy and Daddy tell her that sometimes.

“Yeah, Em,” he says. “You’re right.”

They sit there for a while longer, and when they go back inside she gives William a hug too. Because he is her brother, even if he fusses a lot.

.....

It's been a busy several weeks. They’ve both been swamped at work, and then the kids have been passing a series of bugs back and forth between them. Scully knows it’s entirely out of their control, but after the third week of sniffling and coughing she wondered if they were doing something like licking the walls in the school bathrooms. Childhood illnesses are something she’s equipped to deal with, and she’s very grateful that her children are facing nothing worse, but that doesn’t make it any more fun.

She’s barely had any time to spend with Mulder, either, outside of the daily round. They’ve been tag teaming work and childcare and housework (the latter pretty minimal at this point), but something’s had to give, and unfortunately that something’s proved to be them as a couple. They’re too exhaused, most nights, to do anything more than smile at each other over the dinner table and then fall asleep as soon as their heads touch the pillow. She remembers days in the office, in the car together, in motel rooms, when she was sure she was going to die if she didn’t get to touch him. Now she’s got the chance, and she doesn’t have the energy to take advantage of it.

She tucks in Emily one night; she thinks Emily’s getting over whatever she has, although she doesn’t want to count on anything by now. “Are you feeling any better, sweetie?” she asks.

“I think so,” Emily says. She still sounds congested, but not as much as she did yesterday.

“Well, I’m sure sleep will help you,” Scully says. “Good night, Emily.”

“Good night, Mom,” Emily says. Scully turns out the light and leaves the room.

Mulder’s sitting on their bed, working on something on his computer. “Hey,” he says, when she comes in. “Just trying to get this lesson plan done. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says. She opens her drawer to look for pajamas. “I’m behind on that too.” She sighs.

Mulder looks up. “You doing okay?” he asks. “I mean, I guess none of us are doing great right now, but under the circumstances?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says. She flops down next to him, just for a minute, and promises herself she won’t fall asleep in her clothes. At least tomorrow’s Saturday, thank goodness. “I just hate feeling like I’m dropping the ball.”

“You’re not dropping the ball,” Mulder says. “Life happens to everyone.”

She knows he means it. She knows she should accept the comfort. She thinks it’s probably easier to extend yourself that kind of grace when you’re not trying to be a woman in a workplace that’s still dominated by men. When your male students don’t talk to you with condescenscion. When you’re not being told what you have to do to be a good agent and what you have to do to be a good mother and finding impossible gaps in between them. She knows if she told Mulder this he would listen. But she doesn’t feel like it.

“I guess,” she says.

“Also,” he says, “I know we haven’t had much time to think about it, but do you have any ideas about what you want to do next Sunday?”

Sleep for fifteen hours, she thinks. “Is something going on next Sunday?”

“Yeah,” he says, “our anniversary.”

Shit, she’s an idiot. Add good wife to the list of impossible roles she’s trying to play right now. “I lost track of the dates. Sorry.”

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay.” He kisses her cheek.

“It’s not okay,” she says. “I just…I wish we had more time for us.”

“We’ll get through this,” he says. “The kids are getting over their…whatever it is they have this time. And then we’ll catch up on work and…we’ll get through this.”

She knows he’s right, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. “I’ll think about next Sunday,” she says. “Try to come up with something.”

“Surprise me,” he says. “You’re good at that.”

“You’re good at it too,” she says. He’s never stopped surprising her, in all these years together. That’s one thing she can be glad about.

They don’t talk about it more right then, because they’re still exhausted. He finishes up the lesson plan, and she puts on her pajamas, and they both fall into bed.

Scully does try to think about their anniversary though, in between all the other things that make up her day. What she’d really like would be just for the two of them to have some time alone together, some time to relax and enjoy each other—that seems special enough right now. Maybe she can enlist her mom, she thinks, get her to take Emily and William for the day. She calls her, in between classes, and her mom says she’s happy to do it, that she’d expected to be asked, even. So that’s one part of the problem solved. Now she just has to figure out what to do with the rest of the time, if she should plan something or just let it unroll spontaneously. She doesn’t want to half-ass things, but then sometimes the spontaneous days, with the two of them, are the best ones.

She doesn’t have that much time to dwell on it over the course of the week, though. Emily and William are both healthy again, back in school, but that means extra time to devote to catching up on the work she let slide when they were sick. In her spare time, she wonders if Mulder is planning anything. It would be nice to let someone else do the work for once. Still, she wants him to know how much she appreciates him too.

And before she knows it, it’s Saturday night, and she still hasn’t come up with much of anything. At least she has the babysitting locked down. “My mom’s going to watch Emily and William tomorrow,” she tells Mulder. “So we can have some time alone.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mulder says, and, in response to her inquiring look, he adds, “I called to ask her, and she said you’d already arranged it.”

“Oh,” she says. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“Absolutely,” Mulder says. “Do you have a surprise planned for tomorrow, Scully?”

“Sure,” she says. She doesn’t add that if there’s a surprise, it will be a surprise to her, too. He smiles at her. She’s afraid he’s planned something elaborate, something to which anything she can plan in the next few hours won’t possibly measure up.

When he’s gone downstairs to look for a book, she digs through her underwear drawer—maybe there’s something she can wear in there, something special that he hasn’t seen in a while. They don’t often have time to make an occasion out of sex these days; of course, it’s still enjoyable when it’s not an occasion, but since it’s their anniversary, well, she wants it to be at least a little special. A lot of what she finds is depressingly practical, but near the bottom there’s a black set…She’s not even sure when she got it. But it’s pretty. Lace trim, red ribbons at the hips and the cleavage. She picks it up, looks at it. She likes what she sees. She wants Mulder to like her in it, but she thinks it might make her feel good too.

She stuffs it back into the drawer when she hears Mulder coming down the hall, but she’s smiling now. At least she has something planned. Even if it’s not elaborate, it’s special.

Her mom picks the kids up late in the morning, and then it’s just the two of them.

The energy feels different, as soon as the door closes. A day for her and Mulder, with no responsibilities. She feels like a kid playing hooky. She feels delicious. She feels like she wants Mulder to find out what she’s wearing under her t-shirt and jeans.

She thinks he feels the same, from the way he’s looking at her, and that’s before he presses her back against the wall and kisses her. She kisses him back, abandoning herself to it. Today she wants to be exhausted again, but only in the best way.

“So I have to admit,” Mulder says, drawing back from the kiss, “that I didn’t come up with much of a surprise for today. Because I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“I want that too,” she says. “Mine’s only a little surprise. But I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure,” he says. “Right now, I want to take you upstairs and make love to you. How does that sound?”

“I like what you’ve got in mind,” she says.

“And we can do that until we get tired of it,” he says, “or until our limbs don’t work any more. Whichever comes first.”

“I don’t think,” she says, “that I’m going to get tired of it.”

He half-carries her up the stairs.

This is what she needed, Scully thinks, as they kiss and kiss and kiss. As they pull at each other’s clothes; she tugs his shirt off and runs her hands down his chest, and he grabs her shirt too, pulling it over her head. And then he stops and looks.

“Scully,” he says. Just that word, just her name, but that and his look are enough. Even before he says, “God, you’re so beautiful.” And he says that again, when he has her jeans off and he’s looking at her. And “You’re so fucking sexy.”

They make love until she feels boneless, utterly sated, more content than she’s been in weeks, and so full of love for him. Then they drag themselves down to the kitchen, where they make a meal out of various leftovers. It’s not exactly a fancy anniversary dinner, but Scully can’t think of anything she’d rather do than be here with him. From the way he’s smiling at her, she can tell that he feels the same.

“So I did get you a little something,” he says, when they’ve finished eating. He opens the freezer, takes it out, and presents it to her. Rocky road ice cream, the good brand, the kind she doesn’t keep in the house because she knows one of two things will happen: the kids will eat it before she gets a chance to, or she’ll have to scarf it down to keep that from happening. But the kind she likes the best.

“Thank you,” she says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says. “And hey…I wanted you to know that I’m proud of you. You do an amazing job with everything, even in crazy weeks like this one.” He smiles at her. “You deserve to feel good about that.”

She didn’t tell him how she was feeling in so many words, but he knew. She doesn’t answer him in so many words either, but she kisses him long and slow.

She eats the ice cream right out of the carton; she offers Mulder some, out of obligation, but he doesn’t take any, except for a little that he licks off her lips. “What time is your mom bringing the kids back?” he asks.

She looks at the clock. “Around seven, I think. She said she’d give them supper. We still have a few hours. Back to bed?”

“You read my mind,” he says.

They make love again, and then they doze next to each other, which is almost as pleasurable, in its own way. She’s so happy they had this day for just them. But she’s truly happy, too, when the doorbell rings and they go down to hug their children hello.

.....

Emily’s really good at baseball. She plays with high schoolers, a lot of the time, even though she’s only in middle school, and she’s the shortest one and the only girl, mostly. She’s William’s favorite baseball player. He likes some other ones too, but Emily’s special because she’s his sister and he actually knows her. The other baseball players he likes he only gets to see from far away.

He also gets to play with her. Even though she’s so good, she’ll always play catch with him. She can throw the ball really fast, he’s seen her, but when they play together she throws it slowly so he can catch it. She helps him practice hitting too, and she’ll run around and catch the balls he hits, even though a lot of them don’t go where he means them to go, and sometimes she has to run a really long way.

“It’s okay,” she’ll tell him. “That’s why you practice. I had to practice a lot, to get to where I am.” Sometimes when Emily says things like that, their dad says that she’s twelve going on twenty-five. William’s not sure what that means, but he thinks it’s a good thing, because he always smiles when he says it.

William wishes he could be as good as Emily, even though she tells him she wasn’t that good when she was six. Everybody in their family likes baseball. They all like to watch it, but William’s the only one who can’t really play it. When Emily practices with just their mom and dad, they can go fast, but when he plays with them, they have to go slow. Emily’s a lot older than him, and mostly he likes that because she can teach him things and stick up for him and they don’t really fight a lot. But sometimes he wishes he could be bigger, so that he could be good at things like she is.

They’re playing catch together in the yard one day when their dad comes outside too. “How’s it going?” he asks them.

“Good, Dad,” Emily says. “I’m trying to show William how to throw the ball overhand. Want to show Dad, William?”

So he tries, but the ball doesn’t go where he wants it to go. It almost goes into Emily’s face, but she ducks. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s hard.”

“That’s okay, Will,” Emily says. “You just have to keep trying.”

“You’ll get it soon, buddy,” their dad says. But William doesn’t know if he will or not. He knows Emily says she had to practice a lot to be good, but he doesn’t remember her ever not being good.

“I guess,” he says softly. They play for a little longer, and then Emily says that she has homework to do, and she goes inside. William sits down on the steps.

His dad sits down next to him. “Everything okay, Will?” he asks.

“I wish I could be good at baseball,” William says. “Everyone else is.”

“You’re still learning,” his dad says. “What matters is that you have fun with it. Do you have fun playing?”

William thinks about it. Sometimes he does, but sometimes he doesn’t, because it’s hard. “I guess I do,” he says. “Usually.”

His dad looks at him for a minute, and then he squeezes his shoulders. “You don’t have to play if it’s not fun,” he says. “You can take a break.” But that just makes William feel worse, like his dad doesn’t think he should keep playing. Because maybe he’ll never be good like Emily. He just shrugs then, and he stays sitting there while his dad goes inside. He bounces the ball up and down, and then it rolls away.

He's watching it when his mom comes outside. “Hey, Will,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” William says.

“Your dad told me you were feeling a little sad,” she says. “About baseball.” She sits down on the step behind him, and he leans against her legs.

“Emily is so good at it,” he says. “And you and dad are good too. But I’m not.”

She smoothes his hair. “It’s hard sometimes, when you’re younger,” she says. “I remember when I was your age. I wanted to be able to do everything Bill and Missy could do.” That’s her older brother and sister, William knows—Uncle Bill in California, who they sometimes see at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and Aunt Melissa, who died before William was born. “You know how we moved around a lot, right?” William nods. “Missy was so good at making new friends, wherever we went. I wanted to be able to do that too.”

“So what did you do?” William asks.

“Well, I sulked some of the time,” his mom says, and she laughs. “And then I tried to copy whatever she did, but that didn’t work so well either. And finally…I tried doing things I was interested in and finding people who liked to do them too.”

“And that worked?” William asks.

“It did,” his mom says. “Much better than trying to be exactly like Missy.”

William can tell she’s trying to tell him something. “I don’t want to be exactly like Emily,” he says. “It’s just that she’s really good, and I think…I think that’s nice.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” his mom says. “It’s good to have things you want to do, Will. But you shouldn’t get down on yourself if they don’t happen exactly like you expect them to.” She kisses the top of his head. “And there can be different ways of playing baseball. Just like there can be different ways of making friends.”

William doesn’t understand that. There’s a way you’re supposed to play baseball; it’s in the rules. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“Well, think about it,” she says. “First of all, you can play lots of different positions, right?”

“Right,” William says.

“So you might be better at one than at another,” his mom says. “And then there are different reasons you can like to play. Like Emily likes to play with her team. And I just like to play with you and Emily and your dad, so I can spend time with all of you.”

That makes sense, William guesses. “Are you saying I should just play at home?” he asks. “Instead of on a team?”

“Not exactly,” his mom says. “If you want to be on a team, I think you should keep practicing for that. And I’d be happy to help you. But if you’d rather just play with us, that’s okay too. It doesn’t mean you can’t be good at baseball. Or that you can’t love it.” He looks up at her; she’s smiling. “One of the reasons I love baseball is because your dad showed me how to play it. And that’s a really good memory for me. It might not be the reason anyone else loves baseball, but that’s mine. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

William thinks about it. He thinks about going to a baseball game for the first time, with his mom and dad and Emily, and eating lots of popcorn, and all of them wearing matching baseball caps, and cheering so loud. He thinks about Emily playing catch with him, every day sometimes, in the summer. “Yeah,” he says. “I understand.” And he hugs his mom. She hugs him back.

.....

The first time Scully went away for a conference, after they had the kids, she called at least twice each day to check in, to tell them she missed them. (Mulder would make fun at her, if he hadn’t done exactly the same thing.) Now, when Emily’s sixteen and Will’s ten, she’s a little bit more calm about it all. She’s away until Saturday; today’s Thursday, and she told them she’d call this evening, and Mulder doesn’t expect to be hearing from her ahead of schedule.

When he gets home from work, he decides to ask the kids if they have any ideas about what they want for dinner. “Pizza,” Will says. He’s doing his homework at the kitchen table.

That sounds pretty appealing. “Good idea,” Mulder says. “Do you know where Emily is? I’ll check with her too.”

“She went up to her room, I think,” Will says, and, as Mulder turns to go, he adds, “She was mad about something.”

“Mad about something?” Mulder asks. “What do you mean?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know. I asked her what was up and she told me to leave her alone. And I didn’t even do anything.” He looks faintly injured.

“It’s probably not anything you did,” Mulder says. “Thanks for letting me know, though. I’ll check on her.”

He heads upstairs to Emily’s room. The door is pulled closed, and he knocks. “Emily? It’s me. Can I come in?”

“Okay,” she says, and he opens the door. When he sees her face, he can tell that Will was at least partially right: she’s definitely upset about something. He doesn’t think she’s mad, though. She looks more sad.

“Are you okay, Em?” he asks her. She shrugs. “Is something bothering you?” She nods, after a minute. “Want to talk about it?” She’s getting older, and he might not be able to help solve her problems as easily as he once did, but he’ll always try.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “I’d kind of…I’d rather talk to Mom about it. It’s that kind of thing.”

He’s not one hundred percent sure what that means. “Okay,” he says. “You can talk to her when she calls tonight. Are you all right physically, though?”

“Oh, yeah,” Emily says. “It’s not about menstruation, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He has to smile when she puts it like that, because it was one of the things he was thinking, and because she sounds so much like Scully. “Good to know,” he says. “Well, then…”

“It’s about a boy,” she blurts out, as he’s hovering between staying and going.

“Ah,” he says. He hopes the boy in question hasn’t broken her heart. It seems so early in life for that to be happening, although a part of him knows that he thinks that because she’s his daughter and he wants to keep her safe and happy.

“Well, sort of,” she says. She doesn’t say anything more, but the way she looks at him makes him think that she wants to talk now, not wait until the evening. Scully’s not here, though, so maybe he’ll have to do.

“You sure you don’t want to talk to me?” he asks. “I know some things about boys. As they were when I was one, anyway. Maybe they’ve changed since then.”

Emily almost smiles at that. “I don’t think people really change in how they act,” she says. “Okay, well, it’s…there’s this boy at school. And we’re in a lot of classes together. And we talk sometimes. And…I kind of like him.” The words are soft, like an admission, and Mulder nods, trying to look as understanding as he can. “So we have the spring dance coming up next month, and I thought I would ask him if he wanted to go together. I mean, why not, right?”

“Good for you, Em,” Mulder says. She’s braver in some things, at sixteen, than he’s ever been.

“So I asked him today,” Emily says, “and he said no.”

“Just like that?” Mulder asks. “Just ‘no’? What’s the matter with this guy?”

“It wasn’t just no,” Emily says. “He was nice about it. He just said he was sorry, but he didn’t feel like that about me. I’m not mad at him or anything.”

“I get why you’re upset, though,” Mulder says. “Still, you should be proud of yourself for asking him. That kind of thing’ll stand you in good—”

“That’s not exactly what I’m upset about,” Emily says. “I mean, I am disappointed. I’m just…I was talking to one of my friends after and I started wondering about why. She was saying…well, that maybe it was because of what I’m like in class.”

“What you’re like in class?” Mulder asks.

“Yeah,” Emily says. “Because I always answer a lot of questions. And I talk a lot, when we have discussions. And she said it’s not that boys don’t like it when girls are smart. But they don’t like it when the girls are smarter than them. And that’s just…I mean, I’m not going to stop talking in class. That would be an idiotic thing to do. But I just wonder if that means I won’t ever get a boyfriend.” She’s biting her lip now. She looks young, and confused, and sad.

So maybe Emily’s not mad, but Mulder is. “What kind of friend is this?” he asks. “To tell you something like that.”

Emily shrugs. “She’s not my best friend or anything. But she didn’t say it to be mean. She was being honest.”

“Well, maybe she thinks she was,” Mulder says. “But Em, that’s not something you should be worried about at all. You will meet plenty of people who will love how smart you are. Guys included.”

“How do you know?” Emily asks.

“You’d say your mom was pretty smart, wouldn’t you?” he asks, and Emily nods. “And that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her. One of many reasons,” he adds. “And if you love someone who’s smart, like that, you can have much better conversations, and…I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to be with someone smart.”

“Yeah, but you guys are older,” Emily says.

“That’s true,” Mulder concedes. “And I will admit that a lot of people in high school don’t really know what they want or where they’re going. But some do. I know you’re one of them.”

“Sometimes, I guess,” she says.

“Sure,” Mulder says. “It’s not always simple. But you were brave enough to ask that guy. And you know you’re not going to stop talking in class, no matter what anyone says. Those things are important, Emily.” She’s watching him, listening. “I bet you’ll meet other people who know those things too. And if you don’t…you won’t be in high school forever, either. There’s a lot more out there.”

“Thank God,” she says, and he chuckles. She smiles too.

“Your mom and I are really proud of the person you are,” he tells her. “And you should be too. Don’t waste your time with anyone who acts like that’s not good enough. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and she hugs him spontaneously, which she doesn’t do as often as she used to. “Thanks, Dad.”

“What I’m here for,” he says. “Will and I were thinking about getting pizza for tonight. How does that sound to you?”

“Good,” Emily says. “Can we get extra cheese?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “And you can talk to your mom by yourself tonight, if you want to. Will and I will go, after we’re done saying hi.”

“Thanks,” Emily says, and then, after a minute, “I already feel a lot better, though.”

“I’m glad,” he says.

.....

Emily and Will have been sitting in the diner all morning, and even though it’s not crowded or anything, the waiter has been giving them looks. They’ve tried to keep ordering, but there’s a limit to how much you can eat (at least Emily thinks so—she’s not sure about Will, but she feels like it would be irresponsible to let him have a third plate of bacon). And she’s already too amped up for another cup of coffee.

“How much longer do you think it’s going to be?” Will asks.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “These things take a while.”

He’s quiet, fiddling with his utensils. “I hope Mom’s okay.”

“Mom will be fine,” Emily says quickly. “She said everything looked really good at her last appointment, remember? She wouldn’t lie to us. And she’s got good doctors. And she’s got Dad.”

“Yeah,” Will says. “But still…it’s hard, right? They say it’s hard and it hurts and…” He looks worried.

“I know,” Emily says. “I’m sure she’s…it’s not like a fun day or anything. But she’s done it before, right? With you.” Not with Emily, herself; she knows the whole story now, and sometimes she’s mad about it, but it’s never made a real difference in how she feels about her relationship with her mom, with her dad, with Will, with this baby who’s coming into the world today. “And she was ready to do it again, so that must mean something.”

“I guess,” Will says. “Do you remember it? When I was born.”

“I wasn’t there,” Emily says. “I was at home with Grandma. I don’t think I was worried about Mom or anything. Too young, probably. I was just worried that Mom and Dad were going to love you better than me.”

“They do,” Will says, and she makes a face at him.

“But I came to see you all the next day,” she says, “and I liked you a lot better than I thought I would. And Mom was fine. And she’ll be fine today, too.”

Will nods. “Can we get pancakes?” he asks, after a minute.

She doesn’t feel like arguing with him right now, and besides, pancakes sound good. “Sure.”

“Aren’t we supposed to smoke cigars?” he asks, when they’re eating. “While we’re waiting for the baby. Don’t people smoke cigars?”

“Well, we shouldn’t smoke cigars at all, because it’s disgusting,” Emily says, “but I think that’s for after the baby anyway. And it’s for the dad. He’s supposed to give cigars to people, or something.” She laughs. “I can’t really picture Dad doing that.”

“Nah,” Will says. He pours a lot of maple syrup onto his pancakes. She does the same.

It’s mid-afternoon and she’s lost track of how many meals they’ve had when her phone rings. She sees it’s their dad and grabs it. “Hi! Is the baby here?”

“She’s here,” their dad confirms, and she knows he’s smiling, even though she can’t see it. “She and your mom are doing great.”

“Who does she look like?” Emily asks.

“She’s got your mom’s eyes,” he says. “But brown hair. You can decide for yourself what you think.”

“So we can come over?” Emily says.

“Yeah,” he says. “We can’t wait to see you both.”

“We can’t wait either,” Emily says, and they say goodbye.

She fills Will in while she’s paying for a truly outrageous amount of food, and then they walk over towards the hospital. There’s a florists’s on the way, and they stop there; Will says they should get blue flowers, because their mom likes blue, so that’s what they do.

They make their way in by the visitors’ entrance. Their dad texted her the room number, with directions, and they find it pretty quickly. Will’s carrying the flowers now, so Emily taps at the door. “Come in,” she hears her mom’s voice say, and they do.

It was strange, finding out she was getting a little sister now, when they’d only be in the house together for ten months or so before Emily went off to college. She was excited about it, but sometimes she wondered if she’d be able to be close to the baby the way she was close to Will.

But when her mom says, “Here she is,” and they go over to look at the baby, she decides that was silly. It might not be exactly the same, but she knows she loves her little sister. She knows she’s excited to have her in her life.

“Hi there,” she says. “Hi, sweetie.” She touches one of the baby’s hands.

“Wow,” Will says. “She’s so little.”

Their dad laughs. “That’s what Emily said when she first saw you,” he says.

“Mm-hmm,” their mom says. “Doesn’t seem that long ago, does it?”

“Are you okay, Mom?” Will asks.

She smiles at him. “I’m great, sweetheart. Thank you for asking.” She touches the baby’s head, and she looks so happy.

“Did you figure out the name?” Will asks. They’ve been going back and forth about different ideas.

“Yes,” their mom says. “Susanna.”

“Hi, Susanna,” Will says. Susanna yawns. They stand together and watch her.

#my fic #the x files #msr #family fic #fluff

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sinnabonka · 4 years ago

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Hey Hun! Lots of love to you. For starters I wanted to say that there should be no cell in your body blaming yself in any way. You and your blog were hope for so many people. You were the "you are not crazy" of the final weeks, and I'm forever grateful to you. Instead of dying of anxiety I managed to have a blast in this time of waiting, thanks to you. I passed my master thesis, because you gave me strength to see past the fear. I laughed in those weeks more than in last 5 years, and all of it because of the hope you gave me.

The rest of the msg is going to be pretty emotional rant about the awfulness of it all, and I know my opinion doesn't matter to anyone but I wanted someone important to me to hear my thoughts, if that's ok. It's also ok if you don't want to read it ofc. It's like my breakup letter to the show.

I hear many people cheering for the finale and i find it really hard to deal with. I always considered myself an open person who fights for healthy love as the only redeeming quality of the universe. I could see people's point of view, even if it didn't sit well with mine, and I would always try to hear them out respectfully until they weren't being respectful themselves. That said, I'm fully unable to understand cheering for this type of spiteful content and hearing those cheers makes me feel like the entire world is listening to "this is how you treat your fans, this is how to abuse your power over naive sheep, this is how to keep dumb, hopeful minorities in check" and taking notes.

It also upsets me that the people who gave this show all of themselves and tried to understand it to the core are given no resolution, are spitted on and buried under the rug for doing their best to appreciate the art and the story it was telling. Yet people, who just hang around and watch the show doing the dishes, with no consideration to it's story or characters, got as nonsensical ending as their whole idea of character development in SPN.

I know people say that it was good enough, because it leaves space for guessing and own interpretation, but I feel it's really undermining the extend to which the finale was awful and hurtful to the fans. There is no end that realistically could stop fanfic writers from finding way around it in the world of Supernatural, so saying it was thoughtful of them Is like excusing abusive partner because "they could hit me harder, but they didn't. That means they care"

Lose ends, characters being written in a way that is totally not true to them and their development (personally my biggest allegation), dismissing years of story development, proving that it was all 'queerbaiting' in big part in the end (hell, even the whole "Cas is in heaven so do with it what you will" is a shameful way of appalling to LGBTQ community after using them so hard.

In the pie scene, the roles should be swapped, it's Dean who should say that Cas is on his mind and Sam explaining him that it's only right to keep on living doing good in their name. That's what Dean told Sam at the beginning of the season, when Sam lost Rowena, so it would be at least a bit poetic. This would at least give us some truth from Dean for once, but he died how he lived, in shadow of his fear to be true towards his feelings and needs. And as he died, he bound his little brother to the hunting till the end of his days, by guilting him into it on his deathbed. Guess Dean took after his father.

Have you realised what that emotional "love speech" from Dean to Sam resulted in? It was writers taking back Cas' confession after they didn't need our viewership anymore.

They basically gave us love confession to get us to follow the finale and when they didn't need us anymore, not only they didn't commit to the confession, but they undermined it by having Dean's speech to Sam go the way it did with obviously higher emotional charge, successfully taking back the value of Cas' confession and making it about a bait for "Tumblr idiots"

Finale killed my feelings towards Destiel, not because it wasn't confirmed canon, but because from what I see in the episode, they canonically confirmed that

- for Dean, Cas was only means to an end, which is such an awful way of ending Cas' character arc. They gave him everything he was scared of and nothing close to consolation price and they dare to tell us he had a happy ending, "because they said so". Well, I didn't see him being happy, and knowing what i textually know i can empathise enough to say that he faced a miserable finish. Even Chuck got an end that was better than Cas' fate.

- Dean, given power to do anything he could dream of, chooses to not even greet Cas, after Cas gave his whole life to Dean, told him he loved him and died for him. I know some people consider the little smirk of Dean confirmation of his feelings, but let's be real for just a second. If someone you deeply loved for years confessed to you, told you they thought you don't love them back, you would be freaking running to see them and tell them how much you love them. That smirk to me reads as "I'm relieved to know you're not going to spend eternity in mega hell that i left you in" and we really need to stop giving credit to writers for scraps like this when it's the last episode ever and we know this isn't going anywhere.

Not to mention that by having Jack bring Cas back behind the scenes it just highlights the fact that Dean didn't ask him to do that in episode 19.

As result, I'm unable to look at any Destiel scene and not think "in here Cas already loved him and in here Dean already abuses the power he had over Cas, because of his one-sided love"

And yet, the episode and endgames for everyone (maybe not Sam, but he was seriously pinning for Dean his entire life. Wincest much?) managed to be so bad, that not even bringing Cas back or following up on Destiel would make a difference in my eyes. I know you believe that Destiel would save it, but for me as much as it would be a redeeming quality, it wouldn't be enough to save this awfulness that writer doomed characters with.

And all the Wincest scenes in the finale... I low key expected them to make out and it made me feel physically sick. Also, cutting Misha out because of coronavirus is a cheap excuse. We all know better than to believe that, so let's not fall for the self pity play from the abuser.

If you managed to stay with me till this point, thank you so much for hearing me out. I hope i didn't anger you with my monologue. I will always think of the lamp when i think of you. The reality is that you were the lamp for so many of us in this darkness.

Love you so much, wish all the best to you, take care of yourself and stay safe!

Oh my god, if I didn’t cry with the final, I definitely am crying now. And now I have to explain my partner why I’m staring at my laptop and sobbing ugly. What have you done?

First of all, I hear you pain, my friend! I share it! I didn’t spend a second after the final without the feeling of my heart being shuttered into million pieces, being stitched back just to break again, and so on and so on.

I had my first panic attack in two years yesterday, when I kept thinking about the message the show sent to the fandom via Dean’s fate. I have a few posts in my draft on the matter, but I am not sure I will ever share them, because it is one strong depresso, and I don’t think people following me should see how fucked up it really is (if they didn’t get it by themselves, of course).

I want to remind you, my gentle soul, that the story belongs to us. We know Dean, we know Cas, we know Sam and others. We know that the final is not who they are! I know it’s hard to ignore the text, the canon, because it’s kinda godsent, but the truth is essential. And the final is not the truth.

The truth:

Cas loves Dean, he sacrificed himself for him, he saved his life on multiple occasions, he told all those beautiful things and he meant every word.

Dean loves Cas, he was on his lowest every time he lost him, Cas was his “big win”, his best friend, his brother, his white light that lead him out of his anger, hatred and despair. He took a dog and called it Miracle, he was looking for a job to retire from hunting, he didn’t kill Chuck - all of that, because the sacrifice Cas made was not in vain! The message was clear.

I choose to ignore the “Carry on”, the only attention it is going to get is me creating 20 more mails just to put a one star review there and to drop some more salty or bitter comments with it. Maybe I will read through some reviews, too, add them to my collection.

Maybe I will one day write here an article from scriptwriting perspective how fucked up in was, because that’s what I can do about it, without throwing up.

If you can’t ignore it, I understand it. It is painful, it is disrespectful, I hate it as much as you do, probably.

If there’s anything I can do for you to feel better, just drop me a message, we can talk about it. I am on the lowest, too, but maybe we can help each other.

You say I was your lamp. Let me lead you our of the darkness one more time <3

CW can suck my metaphorical dick (I’m tagging every angry post with it), but Supernatural is not just the show on CW, it’s a big family.

And you can’t give up on it! You can’t give up on Dean and Cas, you can’t give up on Destiel! It’s so much bigger then the show itself.

Rediscover the show for yourself, remind yourself that Dean and Cas are real, it was never one sided, it was always something amazing.

What is real? We are.

Don’t you ever change.

I rather have you, cursed or not.

It’s love, hun, and love always wins.

#the15yearshow #spn #destiel #cw #can suck my metaphorical dick #sinnabonka answers

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missperfectlyfine13 · 4 years ago

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A Bandaid For Your Bullet Hole - (Chp. 2/?)

Read Below or on AO3/FF

TW: Mentions of overdose

August 2009

“Mom, I’ve got all my stuff in the ca….” Chloe’s sentence is swallowed back up into the atmosphere when she walks back into the living room, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Chloe’s mom is sitting in the middle of the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around a scruffy looking man in a mechanics uniform. There’s a few half empty bottles of booze on the coffee table and a lit joint between her mother’s fingers. She laughs airily at some dumb remark the stranger practically underneath her makes. She’s as high as a kite and probably drunk to boot.

“Chloe!” her mom’s eyes light up at the sight of her only daughter, “come have a drink baby.”

The only good thing about her mom getting high instead of drunk is that she is much happier. Her mom is an angry drunk, she turns into someone that Chloe scarcely recognizes. At least when she’s high she somewhat resembles someone Chloe used to know.

“What happened to taking me to college today?” she snaps, completely ignoring her mother’s request.

“That was today?” she asks dumbly, bringing her glass tumbler to her lips, taking a long sip of dark amber liquid.

Chloe groans frustratedly, “We’ve been talking about it for weeks.”

“Calm down princess, we can still do it,” she’s got to be kidding, she’s not going to let her mom drive anywhere like this.

Chloe shakes her head vigorously, “No. It’s fine, I’ll just stuff everything into my car and do it myself. You clearly have more important things to do.”

Her words must permeated through her mom’s hazy brain because she’s jumping up from the sofa, some of her drink sloshing out of her glass and onto the cream colored carpet, “No, Chloe let me do this. I want to do this.”

“I’m not taking you anywhere like this,” Chloe motions up and down her mother’s body, “you would just be an embarrassment.”

Her expression almost looks hurt before it turns bitter, “If that’s how you feel about me, then fine do it all on your own. See if I care.”

Chloe turns around without another word. She mindlessly shoves all her belongings into her little chevy impala, barely getting in everything she needs. She doesn’t even bother to go inside to say goodbye before driving down the road. It’s time for a new beginning, a new life, one she doesn’t have to hate. She has a good feeling about Barden, hopefully her gut is right.

************

December 2012

The winter air is crisp, sending a shiver down Chloe’s spine as her and Beca walk towards her dorm. They just left Bellas rehearsal and the air almost feels good after all the exercise.

“So, what are you doing for winter break?” Beca breaks the comfortable silence, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her coat.

Chloe shrugs, “I’ll probably stay on campus, I might go visit my brother, if he’s going to be around.”

Beca looks at her dumbly for a moment before composing herself again, “You aren’t going home for Christmas?”

Her and Beca have gotten really close this semester, Chloe might even dare to say she’s her best friend…if she didn’t have a heart stopping crush on the younger girl that is. Even so, she’s not sure if she wants to unpack her reasoning for never going home yet.

“Nope,” she answers the question simply, hoping Beca will just take the answer and let the topic drop.

She knew she wasn’t going to be that lucky, because Beca doesn’t care about anyone…anyone but her it seems. Chloe is the only person Beca goes the extra mile for, at least from Chloe’s point of view, that’s how it seems.

“Why?” the question barely surprises her as it come out of Beca’s mouth, her breath leaving a puff of white in the air.

“It’s a long story,” Chloe tries her best to deflect, but she knows Beca won’t give it up.

Maybe opening up to someone else would feel good. Maybe to weight of her problems would feel a little lighter.

“I’ve got time, we can go get coffee?” Beca looks at her hopefully, “My treat?”

“I thought you were having a movie night with Jesse,” Beca had been talking about it all week, the excitement of a new relationship and all.

That’s another thing that has been making Chloe feel even worse than she does at this time of the year. She had a bad feeling Beca would end up with him…she had a bad feeling she was straight. Chloe loves their friendship, but it just makes everything that much more painful.

“You were literally coming to my dorm to hang anyways, that’s not until later,” Beca laughs.

Chloe’s cheeks burn red, “Oh yea, sorry, blonde moment I guess?”

“You’re not even blonde, you don’t get to use that one.”

Chloe gives Beca a playful shove, “Shut up.”

After another five minutes of walking, they finally end up at the coffee shop. Before Chloe knows it, there’s a steaming hot cup in her hands and Beca looking across the table at her expectantly.

“So now, why don’t you go home for Christmas?” Beca parrots the question from earlier, making Chloe squirm uncomfortably in her seat.

“So, I guess it all really started when my dad died,” Chloe twirls the paper cup in her hands, attempting to channel her nerves into something else.

Beca nods, encouraging her on.

“My mom kind of self-imploded after his death…it started with drinking. It just spiraled from there, drugs, lots of sex with random men. It made all four years of high school miserable for me,” Chloe can feel tears threating to spill, she never talks about this, “after my first Christmas back home in college I vowed to never go back until she got her shit together.”

A hand reaches across the table to settle over her own. Chloe looks up into Beca’s eyes, which are sad and empathetic. It makes her feel comfortable, grounded, Beca’s hand against her own. Her fingers twitch underneath the touch, she never wants to break the contact.

“I’m so sorry Chloe,” Beca says softly, “that must be really hard…so I take it she’s still pretty bad?”

Chloe nods slowly, “Uh yea, I’ve tried to get her to go to rehab but she won’t listen, I’m worried she never will.”

“I know this is nothing compared to what you dealt with,” Beca looks vulnerable as she speaks, “but high school was really rough for me too. My parents got a divorce and my dad married my now step monster. I felt so betrayed, I felt like nothing would ever be right again. I felt like my dad was giving up on me.”

“I’m glad you shared that,” Chloe turns her hand so it’s holding Beca’s instead of lying limply below hers, “I’m glad I’m not the only one with a shitty story.”

“I mean you definitely win if we’re comparing, but yea, it was nothing to write home about,” Beca smirks.

Beca finally pulls her hand away and Chloe instantly misses her touch. She quickly moves her hand back to her cup, lifting it to her mouth, not wanting Beca to know how much the little contact affected her.

“Do you want to come home with me for Christmas?” Beca asks after a few moments of silence.

The question practically makes Chloe choke on her latte, “I couldn’t do that Bec. Your family doesn’t even know me.”

“They know of you,” Beca replies nonchalantly, “plus they would love you.”

“So, you’ve talked about me to your family?” Chloe quirks an eyebrow.

It’s Beca’s turn for her cheeks to fade into a light shade of red, “They were asking if I made any friends…so I told them about you.”

“Don’t be embarrassed Beca, I love that you’ve told them about me. If I talked to my mom, she would know about you, because you’re one of the best things about this semester,” Chloe says honestly, hoping the blunt truth doesn’t weird the other girl out.

A smile the size of Texas spreads across Beca’s face. She doesn’t seem sure how to respond, but Chloe knows she probably feels similarly if her expression is to judge.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Jesse to go home with you for Christmas instead of me?” Chloe suddenly remembers Beca’s boyfriend.

Beca shakes her head no, “He has his own family to go home to, plus I’ve only been dating him for a month. I’d much rather have you come with me…especially because I want to save you from having to be here for three weeks.”

“I’ll think about it,” Chloe finally answers Beca’s offer.

She’s going to have to think hard about it, the last time she went home with someone for Christmas…well let’s just say it’s not a fond memory. It was an almost eerily similar situation. She had known Aubrey for one semester and after the blonde found out about her mom, she had invited her home for Christmas. She also needs to remind herself that it was a very different situation all together.

************

December 2009

There’s no hiding the fact that Chloe is scared to go home for Christmas. She’s scared about what she’s going to find. It’s the first time her mom has been alone for that long. Chloe watched out for her more than a teenage daughter should.

She also left on bad terms in the fall.

She could walk into anything really, which is terrifying. Which is why the whole drive back to South Carolina, Chloe is practically shaking with nerves. She probably shouldn’t have loaded up on coffee like she did, the caffeine isn’t helping. Aubrey has called her on and off, offering her support…and the reminder that she can go to Aubrey’s house if it’s too bad. Chloe was determined to make this work though; she didn’t want to run away on her mom completely. Chloe is not a quitter.

About an hour later she finally pulls into the driveway of her mom’s house, the windows are dark even thought the sun set hours ago. That’s already not a good sign. Chloe puts the car into park and takes a deep shaky breath. She gets out of the car after a few moments of composing herself.

She slings her bag over her shoulder and walks up the path to the front door, her hand shakes as she lifts the key to the lock. Chloe pushes the door open slowly, she can hear the TV blaring some infomercial for air tight containers. It’s the only light illuminating the living room. As Choe steps further in the door, she can see her mom’s identical mop of red hair flowing over the arm of the sofa, her hand hanging limply down onto the floor. She can’t make out much else with how dark the room is, the blue-ish light of the TV making everything look a little eerie.

An ice-cold feeling courses through her, her heart rate picking up. Something isn’t right, she can just feel it. Chloe throws her bag down onto the floor and rushes over to the sofa. It barely looks like her chest is moving up and down, her lips look a little blue. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a baggy of pills on the coffee table. Shit. This can’t be happening.

“Mom,” Chloe says firmly, “Mom!”

Nothing.

Chloe kneels down next to her and shakes her vigorously, “MOM.”

Her hands shake as she pulls her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. Her fingers can barely hold still as she dials 911.

The operator is calm and comforting. She walks Chloe through checking to see if her mom’s heart is still beating. She feels like she’s floating through some nightmare as she rips her mom’s shirt open and starts chest compressions. She has no clue how long she hammers into her mom’s chest before the door busts open and the paramedics are pushing her out of the way. Her vision blurs as she finally lets herself cry.

She’s not quite sure how she gets to the hospital. The world finally comes back into focus when a nurse carefully approaches her and asks if there’s anyone that she can call for her.

“Um, my best friend, Aubrey,” her voice sounds foreign to her.

************

When Chloe’s mom finally is stable and back at home, Chloe leaves to go back home with Aubrey. Before she leaves, it isn’t pretty, her and her mom scream and fight, but there is no way she’s ever going to come back home to that again. Chloe gives her a final ultimatum: Go and get some help or I’m done here.

Christmas is miserable, even though Aubrey’s family is warm, inviting and sympathetic. They make her feel like she’s family. Even so, Chloe has never felt more alone. She feels like she has nowhere to go. She has no one to bake her cookies to take back to her dorm or give her a hug that feels like home when she needs it or give her boy (or girl?) advice. She’s all alone and it’s something she’s going to have to get used to.

************

December 2012

“I’ll go home with you,” Chloe offhandedly mentions to Beca as they sit on the bed in Chloe’s room at the Bella house.

Beca’s eyes light up and the chips she was munching on practically fall out of her mouth, “Really?”

Chloe nods, after thinking about it, the idea of having people to spend Christmas with would be really nice. It’s something she hasn’t experienced since Christmas her freshman year.

“I would love to,” Chloe smiles happily at the younger girl next to her.

“That’s awesome!” Beca exclaims, “Oh shit, I’ve got to book the flight like now then.”

“You haven’t done that already?” Chloe looks at her quizzically.

Beca shrugs, “I was waiting to see if you would want to come first.”

“You could have missed out on getting tickets Bec, you shouldn’t have.”

“I know, it’s ok though, I wanted to,” Beca looks down at her phone, which has flight listings to Seattle already displayed, “get your snow boots ready Beale, it’s been chilly out there this year.”

“You know, I’ve only seen snow a couple times in my whole life,” Chloe already feels excited thinking about seeing the fluffy, white precipitation.

Beca’s eyes bug out, “Dude, we are so going sledding.”

For the first time in years, Chloe is starting to feel excited about this time of year. This might be the best Christmas she’s had in a long time…

#bechloe fanfic #pp fanfic #bechloe #my stuff

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goldenraeofsun · 4 years ago

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Would you have me, would you want me?

Part I Part II Part III

Part IV - complete

Castiel jumps at the sound of voices outside.

“Will we get in trouble if we’re caught in here?” he asks in a hushed voice.

Dean snorts. “Who cares. It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal in here. Just hanging out.”

Castiel bites his lip and gets to his feet. “If we’re only talking, then I suppose we should move to more sanctioned areas.”

“Sure, if you wanna be a total spoilsport about it,” Dean says, but he hops off the table and stretches his arms above his head. “Christ, I can’t believe my back hurts already.” He shoots Castiel a look. “Don’t tell my kids that. They already think I’m an old man.”

“If they think you act older than your age, I don’t want to know what they would think of me,” Castiel says mildly. He pushes his chair back under the table and starts for the door.

“They’d probably be hot for teacher.”

Castiel freezes in his tracks. He spins on his heels to stare at Dean. “Excuse me?”

Dean has the grace to look away. “What?” he says defensively. “The past ten years have treated you good, ‘s all I’m saying.”

“I - thank you?” Castiel says, taken aback.

Dean shoulders past him, saying brusquely, “Forget I said anything.”

Castiel doesn’t move he reaches out to grab Dean’s shoulder, thinks better about it, and calls instead, “Wait, Dean.”

Dean turns around, his face resigned. “What?”

“Why did you do this?” he asks, gesturing around the library. “Help me, I mean.”

“I told you, I owed you,” Dean says, but he won’t meet Castiel’s eyes. He looks like one of Castiel’s students. Like Alfie when Castiel caught him texting during class, or Ambriel when she forgot to do the reading.

“I don’t think that’s the whole story,” Castiel says evenly. “It’s been ten years, you could have let things lie between us.”

“But that’s just it,” Dean says, frustrated, “I can’t. I tried. Man, I tried so freaking hard.”

Castiel sucks in a breath, mind whirring. Dean had thought about him more than a few times over the past decade? Why?

“I was-” Castiel starts before breaking off into a different direction, “Dean, it was one night. One night together and a couple months of the cold shoulder. That’s it.”

Dean shakes his head. “Not for me, it wasn’t,” he says bitterly. “You have no idea.”

“Then tell me,” Castiel says, his tone brooking no argument.

Dean sighs. “I was so hung up on you. You were … so yourself. Doing your own thing, not giving a shit about what anyone else thought about you. And when I heard you were the one tutoring my sorry ass, well, I thought I was the luckiest son of a bitch in school.”

Castiel’s mouth falls open.

“And then I got to know you,” Dean says, his green eyes trained on Castiel’s face with an intensity he’s never seen before, “and you got along with Sam, and it was everything I’d ever wanted.”

“That can’t be true,” Castiel says, his voice shaking. “You left me. You left me there, in a house full of strangers. If that was how you really felt, how could you do that?”

* * *

Cas jumps at the sound of voices outside.

The movement jostles the drips of semen on his stomach, and Cas grimaces in disgust. At some point after he’d orgasmed but before he jerked Dean off, they’d both lost their shirts. But he isn’t cold, not with them lying skin to glorious bare skin.

“Fuck,” Dean swears, his eyes going wide. He jumps off the bed.

“What are you-” is all Cas can get out before Dean begins throwing clothing at him.

“I’ll lead ‘em off.” Dean hops on one foot, yanking his pants up.

“Dean-”

“What?” Dean asks distractedly.

“I - we should talk.”

“Talk?” Dean freezes in place, shirt rumpled and cheeks red. “About what?”

“About what happened between us,” Cas says hesitantly.

Dean looks away. “I - sure - maybe. We were just letting off steam, right?”

Heart sinking in his chest, Cas nods. Yes, he desperately wanted to get off with Dean. But it was also so much more than that.

“I should really let them know…” Dean jerks his head towards the door and the people right outside.

“Yes, of course,” Cas says quickly. “We’ll talk after?”

Dean gives a funny little spasm that might be a nod.

Cas leans over to root around in the nightstand for tissues or anything to dry himself off. He settles for his briefs, a little damp anyway with precome. As he stands up to shove his legs into his jeans, Dean, already fully clothed, leaves without a word.

Numbly, Cas folds up his briefs and shoves them in his back pocket.

The voices outside get louder.

Vaguely, Cas can make out Dean telling the group he had to puke, and the downstairs bathroom was occupied. Cue the laughter.

The voices fade.

Dean does not return.

* * *

Castiel waits.

Dean shoves his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“What?”

“You’d always taken care of yourself just fine,” Dean says, the barest undercurrent of heat in his words. “You never needed me.”

Castiel’s mouth opens and closes before he says, “We were friends. Did that mean nothing to you?”

“Of course not!” Dean hisses. “But we were both drunk and horny and, you told me yourself, you’d never done anything like that before - so forgive me for thinking you wouldn’t want anything to do with me when you’d gotten what you wanted!”

“That’s…” Castiel drifts off, at a loss for words at the sheer magnitude of Dean’s fallible logic. He runs a hand down his face. “I can’t believe it.”

"And when you said you wanted to talk," Dean continues, head shaking, "Well, I know how your head works. You were gonna make me go over everything that happened in that bedroom, pick it apart so you could have more facts to store in that big brain of yours." He takes a step back, eyes darting everywhere but at Castiel. “Well, this has been enough reminiscing about the glory days for one night. I’m gonna head out. Try to forget any of this ever happened. Have a nice life, Cas.”

“Dean,” Castiel grinds out, “Wait one moment.”

“Yeah, no can do,” Dean says quickly, his face one shade away from terrified, “I have an important appointment-”

“I waited for you for a full hour at Tessa’s house,” Castiel says coldly. “You could grant me at least a minute.”

Chastened, Dean shifts his weight to his other foot. He stares stonily down at the floor, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“I thought you saw me as convenient,” Castiel says once he’s ready to speak, “so that’s why you chose to make your move. It seemed impossible you’d pick me for any other reason. I had heard you chose a new person to sleep with at every party.”

“What the hell?” Dean murmurs, his green eyes wide in the dim light filtering in through the front doors. “I mean, I did do that, but, Cas, that’s freaking nuts. Obviously you were different.”

“Because I was an awkward teenager with no friends,” Castiel asks, eyebrows raised. “You were the most popular boy in school. Everybody loved you.”

“I mean - debatable,” Dean says, rolling his eyes, “But none of them knew me like you did. You knew how screwed up my life was. How screwed up I was.”

“I could say the same for you,” Castiel points out.

Dean releases a breathy laugh. “I guess so.”

Castiel stares hard at Dean’s face, waiting for some sign of rejection as he takes a step forward, right into his personal space. “I came to the reunion hoping to run into you.”

“So you could finally let me have it after all these years?” Dean asks, only half-joking.

Castiel shakes his head. “I was hoping for some closure.”

Confused, Dean’s eyes narrow. “Happy to give it to you,” he says slowly, “Like I said, I’ve got shit to make up for.”

Castiel shores up his resolve. “Now I’m hoping for a date.”

* * *

Cas waits.

He isn’t sure for how long, but he feels the vibrations from the music downstairs change tempo several times. He doesn’t hear any more voices outside.

Feeling smaller than he has in his entire life, which is saying something, he creeps out of the room. He steals down the stairs, nearly tripping over his and Dean’s abandoned, empty cups.

He lingers on the threshold of Tessa’s house. Maybe Dean got side-tracked by something in the party. Maybe he really intended to come back to Cas. Maybe he is waiting for Cas to find him and prove his interest.

Too many “maybes” for Cas, who prefers to deal with cold, hard facts.

Fact #1: Dean never showed romantic interest in Cas before

Fact #2: Dean only made his advances known after several alcoholic drinks

Fact #3: Boys like Dean don’t fall for boys like Cas

Maybe Cas is just delusional.

Dean is probably with the rest of the partygoers, relaxed and happy with one orgasm under his belt, and looking for more before the night is over.

He can picture Dean’s face if Cas were to track him down: shocked and confused, a little angry Cas is clinging on even after their time together was clearly over.

Cas lets Tessa’s door slam behind him. He should never have come here.

A little squeak to his right nearly sends him jumping out of his skin.

“Cas?”

He squints. “Charlie?”

Her red hair flashes in the darkness as she pushes her bangs back from her face. “Hey, man. I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Same,” Cas says weakly. “I - ” He breaks off at the sound of a large sniffle. “Are you alright?”

“’M fine,” Charlie says, ducking her head so her hair falls back in front of her face. “I was getting,” her breath hitches, “some fresh air.”

“It is crowded in there,” Cas says, at a total loss for what to say. But he can’t leave her alone out here, clearly upset.

The worst thing is being alone.

He tries, “I - are you sure you’re alright?”

Charlie noisily sighs through her mouth. “What’s it to you?”

“You’re crying.”

Charlie flinches. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“I - is there anything I can do to help?” Cas asks.

“Unless you can convince Gilda to take me back, not really,” Charlie says, shoulders hunching as she crosses her arms over her chest and stares out at the empty street beyond. She sniffs. “Nobody meets their True Love in high school, or at least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.”

“It is statistically unlikely,” Cas offers tentatively, “assuming true love exists as well.”

“You don’t believe in true love?”

Cas shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

Charlie turns to him, her eyes wide with surprise. “You too?”

Cas looks away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh,” Charlie says, and, impossibly, her mouth tips up into the smallest of smiles. “Come on, tell me about it. Misery loves company, right?”

Cas swallows past the lump forming in his throat. “I had my first kiss tonight.”

Charlie’s face falls. She takes a step closer and wraps her arms around him. She smells like a berry-scented shampoo and cheap vodka. “That’s rough, buddy.”

Frozen in shock, Cas doesn’t move. It takes an extra hard squeeze from Charlie to get him to return the hug. Once he does, he finds it strangely comforting.

He doesn’t know Charlie all that well, but in this strange liminal space outside the horror show of Tessa’s party, so far removed from his safe haven in the library, it is exactly what he needs.

Maybe making new friends isn’t as hard as Cas thought.

* * *

“You want... me ?” Dean asks.

“If you’ll have me,” Castiel says, nodding.

“But…” Dean says, looking more than a little lost, “We can’t?” He phrases it like a question.

Castiel tilts his head. “Why not?”

“Because,” Dean splutters, “our history!”

“Our history consists of mutual romantic interest and a few stupid teenage mistakes,” Castiel says evenly. “Hardly insurmountable. You clearly are still attracted to me. I can say the same of you.”

“C’mon, man,” Dean says - pleads, really, “With our baggage, it’ll never work out. It’s been ten years. We’ve changed.”

“I hope for the better,” Castiel says, his eyes narrowing. “Yes, you were a dick back then. But you were also my friend.”

Dean exhales an explosive sigh. “Are we really doing this?”

“If you don’t want to,” Castiel says, his stomach already clenching in anticipation, “I’m not going to force you.”

“No, no, of course I do,” Dean says quickly. “You doing anything now?”

“Other than attending my high school reunion?” Castiel asks with raised eyebrows. “No.”

“Great,” Dean says, his face breaking out into a wide smile. “I think we’ve both maxed out our free drinks a while ago, so what do you say to ditching this snoozefest early?”

“I don’t think I’ve ditched anything in my life,” Castiel says honestly.

Dean laughs and holds out his hand. “Christ, I don’t know how you survived without me.”

Castiel rolls his eyes as he gives Dean’s fingers a squeeze. “I’m starting to wonder about that myself.”

Instead of leading Castiel out of the library, Dean pulls him closer. “Wait a sec, I wanna try something.”

“What?”

But before Castiel can say another word, Dean’s mouth lands on top of his. His lips are warm and slightly dry, and wonderfully devoid of the taste of alcohol.

Castiel buries his hands in the loose material of Dean’s shirt, keeping him anchored in place as he opens his mouth to let Dean’s tongue slip inside. Butterflies take flight in his stomach, and he would probably float away if not for Dean’s steady hand resting on his waist.

Dean breaks the kiss first. But he makes no move to step away, letting his forehead rest against Castiel’s. They stand there, sharing breaths.

Dean breaks the silence. “I’ve always wanted to do that here.”

“You have?” Castiel asks, chuckling almost giddily. He feels, more than sees, Dean’s nod. Cas presses a barely-there kiss against Dean’s lips, whispering, “I’ve always wanted you to blow me under the desks, but at least we were able to satisfy one teenage fantasy today.”

Dean chokes with laughter. Eyes crinkled with the joy of his smile, he gestures to the tables. “I’m down if you are.”

Castiel looks askance at the door. “Maybe when there aren’t as many people to walk in on us. We aren’t even supposed to be here at all.”

Dean surreptitiously adjusts himself in his jeans. He scowls. “Then why torture me like that?”

Castiel shoots him a dry look as he heads for the exit. “Because you owe me, remember?”

“This is some effed up revenge plan you have,” Dean grumbles as he follows.

Castiel holds open the door. He eyes Dean critically. “You aren’t really bothered.”

“Tell that to the boner I popped in my pants like a teenager,” Dean retorts.

“I think it’s flattering.”

“I think you’re enjoying my pain,” Dean says under his breath as they pass the empty welcoming table and cross the threshold out of Edlund High.

“You caught me,” Castiel deadpans.

Dean swings his arm up to wrap around Castiel’s shoulders. He presses a smacking kiss to Castiel’s hair. “Man, I missed you.”

Castiel turns his head to see Dean properly. He’s gorgeous like this, standing under the faint twinkling of stars overhead, a wide grin adorning his face, his expressive eyes dancing with mirth.

“I missed you too, Dean.”

#destiel #destiel fanfic #fanfic #popular dean #loner castiel #hs au #high school reunion #teacher castiel #teacher dean #would you have me would you want me #complete #the story of us verse #rae writes fic

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