#i get such a visceral reaction even hearing little kids

[1337wtfomgbbq]

I love how I have like maybe 3 days a month tops where my mind is like, "You know what, having a relationship and a kid would be nice."

Meanwhile the rest of the month I'm like...

Sees toddler have a melt down, thinks: Thank GOD I don't have a kid to try and raise and probably fuck up along the way.

Hearing about people's relationship drama, thinks: Thank GOD I am single and don't have to deal with that crap.

[milogreer]

so uhh this is gonna be scatterbrained. but i'm gonna ramble about milo and (what little info we have on) colm. sorry in advance if it doesn’t make sense i just had to exorcise this demon 🫡

i believe "camping with your alpha boyfriend (2021)" is the earliest mention of colm in an audio. obviously we don't actually know milo's side of things because it's told from david's POV, but we still get the mental image of little thirteen year old milo sitting shotgun in his dad's pickup as they drive to their camping spot. gabe's goofing around in the truck bed to make david and asher laugh, and colm joins in the fun by swerving the truck to mess with gabe. very basic dad thing to do, my dad's done the exact same thing to me and my siblings. it feels familiar and silly, and david frames it as a good memory, so it feels like a good memory. which is important to the point of this post

in "celebrating the new house (2022)," we get a little more colm lore:

My dad was forever blowing any cash he made on fucking bets and gambling and shit, chasing some fucking high. My mom was the only reason we didn’t end up out on the fucking street. He didn’t pull his head out of his ass and get some help until after I’d already moved out. So I never got to have that feeling of being in a house that was actually ours, ya know?

already this is a stark contrast to what we've previously heard of colm (i don't think there's any real mention of him between sept 2021 and dec 2022?) and it kinda makes me look at that old memory in a different light, especially with regards to david saying marie was "nagging [colm's] ear off about being irresponsible and a bad example." like. ykwim? like i'm just thinking about that interaction and wondering how far along those problems were at the time, if they were present at all. was this a normal, fun family outing? or would milo have rather been in the truck bed with david, asher, and gabe?

(and the fact that it wasn't until after milo moved out that colm tried getting any help?? i could make a whole other post speculating about milo struggling with wanting to move out of that environment ASAP vs not wanting to leave marie on her own to deal with colm)

so then i'm re-listening to "your werewolf boyfriend is worried about you" and having a visceral reaction to (re-)learning that colm was also an alcoholic:

But what he chose to do with that frustration and that feeling of powerlessness was not his job’s fault, those were his choices. He’s the one who decided to lose himself in booze and gambling and never being home. Never being there for the people he said he loved but apparently couldn’t stand to be around.

the last sentence especially is just an absolute heartbreaker because milo's, what, thirty now? and he's been dealing with this since he was a kid. clearly he's not on great terms with colm. the only times he ever talks about him is when he's shit talking the department. that is a crazy weight for someone to carry their whole life. i don't have experience with the gambling side but i do have an alcoholic family member who i used to be really close to as a kid but grew up to intensely resent as a result of his actions, so it hits a little close to home to see that reflected in milo

but i digress. umm. i bring up the camping story to highlight the most recent mention of colm from milo and how there were good times and sometimes maybe it hurts to remember them when the person involved devastated you as you grew up because they weren't what you thought they were. and how these things follow you through life and impact how you approach certain things. milo has to live with the fact that the same system that royally fucked colm is potentially going to do the same thing to the love of his life; i never drink more than one shot or half a beer, if i drink at all, and i don't like being around drunk people. even though we don't hear about colm very often, his influence is still there whenever milo has to deal with the department in any way

anyway i guess TLDR; imagine living the majority of your thirty years of life feeling like your dad couldn't stand to be around you because he was too busy drinking himself stupid and gambling away every penny he had as a way to deal with the strain that his job put on him. imagine having to witness your mom struggle constantly to keep you cared for. imagine the few good childhood memories you have with your dad being overshadowed by thinking he didn't love you or your mom enough to change. imagine watching the department run your soulmate into the dirt physically and mentally the same way it did your father and wanting to be supportive of them but also being so worried for them. it's a really interesting situation for him to be in and i enjoy it but it hurts me. the end

[et-cant-phone-home-no-signal]

The Last of Us HBO - Episode 2 thoughts

Warning: Pure yapping ahead! More thoughts and things I've noticed watching the show, it's not serious and I don't invite arguments (fellow yappers are more than welcome though)

(continuing with my episode by episode analysis of the tlou show, it's a long one folks! all chronologically written as i was watching the episode. spoilers under the cut)

Fantastic opening - love that we get to see the initial discovery in Jakarta and that they speak Indonesian only! It removes the show from a purely American pov and makes it international, which is something I personally missed a little from the game so it's a welcome addition

The little detail that the military men walk so fast, she has to jog a little to keep up

I like the fact that they didn't even try to cover the dead body at all - why would they?

Same girl I'd have that exact same reaction too 💀💀 visceral as shit

The following visual of the cordyceps reaching out of the corpse's mouth.... Eugh

Ibu Ratna's reaction after hearing 14 workers are missing - her shaking so badly she has to put her cup of tea down, her face reads of pure undiluted horror 🙌👌 - worth mentioning that the casting of Christine Hakim is absolutely top tier (she's basically the Dame Judi Dench of Indonesia fr) and she really brings a gravitas to the role

I find it fascinating and refreshing that the first thing the military man does is to ask about a vaccine or medicine to fix this situation, but the scientist/professor, instead says with absolutely certainty that there is nothing, and then proceeds to say with an eerily calm and assertive tone and face that they must bomb the city. Terrifying yet wonderful that they've finally used a different format to this conversation

Ibu Ratna stifling her sobs and asking to go be with her family, because she knows there is no other solution - Brava

That soft, gentle opening shot of Ellie curled up in the sun on a lush bed of green, a single butterfly crossing over *chef's kiss*

Her turning to see Joel and Tess, sat in the shadows on chairs, Joel with his gun drawn lmaooooo that's comedy right there

Ellie's sass at the interrogation 🤌

"There's not gonna be anything bad in here?" "Just you." "Oh, funny." 💀😂

The fact that Joel broke his hand beating that guy to death - the way Tess looks at Joel, all knowing and vaguely soft

Tess defending Ellie indirectly by wanting to continue with bringing her to the state house - Joel wanting to return to the QZ and saying it would be better for FEDRA do shoot her than them 💀

"You need to stop talking about this kid like she's got some kind of life in front of her." Damn Joel, Tess' face says it all

Joel: struggling to break of a piece of EXTREMELY dry and chewy jerky, Ellie: sammich

Ellie in the warm light, Joel in the cold dark, and Tess in the middle of the two?? Gorg

It's so funny how terribly Joel and Ellie get on at this point, like, they basically hate each other my god

"If she so much as twitches.." *Ellie immediately starts twitching* and then Tess's "Don't." She is so done with these two already lmao

The iconic scenery 🙌 the two massive skyscrapers with one leaning on the other? Oooohhh yeah

The fact that Tess stops and answers Ellie's questions :')

I can't stop looking at Ellie's bag it's just so accurate I love it

"Well, I mean, you got some balls on you, sister." SLAY girls support girls ✨

The specific way Ellie says "no" at the boyfriend question 💅

It's interesting that Tess' reaction to hearing the description of what we know to be a bloater, is "shit, I hope not", insinuating perhaps that she and Joel haven't dealt with those before, but then the way that she looks at Joel after Ellie asks about clickers tells me they know exactly what she's talking about with that one

Immediately after we hear a loud ass creepy scream in the distance, okay!

The set designers got this shit so extremely right goddamn, the hotel gotta be one of my favourite locations fr - I love that they still included this location even if it's at a completely different place in the original story, it works so well here and with Tess added on, the humour is great and the way the characters interact is fun and interesting (Joel's little hop into the water especially gets me, he's such a shit lmao)

Ellie is genuinely so fucking funny I love this kid

Joel offering his hand, immediately snatching it back once she's mostly up cause it's his broken one (but you can see it's more than that)

"Fuck, holy shit." "Come on, it wasn't that bad." "You try climbing ten fuckin floors with our knees. See how you feel." 😭😭

Joel's face at being left alone with Ellie lmao

"Nice knife." great conversation starter Joel, but also, reference to his pocket knife Sarah held in the previous episode? He doesn't have it, when did he have time to grab it after all, but yeah. Maybe I'm overthinking this lmao

"Where'd you learn to do that?" "The circus." *Joel rolls his eyes with such exasperation taht I can feel it through my screen*

"How long do infected live?" "Oh, I thought you went to school." "It's a really shitty one."

Joel avoiding answering the question about the FEDRA dude he killed due to Tess returning is peak writing

I really enjoy how the infected are portrayed in the show - they're not just individuals, they're part of a hive mind in a way, the mycelium connects them all one way or another, and they act like it (the way they all react to sunlight and extra so because they all react to each others pain as well, wow)

Added onto that, this extra lore about the way the cordyceps works is fantastic, it makes it even scarier that, according to Tess, you can accidentally wake up and attract infected from somewhere totally different - this means you're never actually safe 💀

Really love how Tess is so damn nice to Ellie all things considered. Still answering her questions, telling her she has to be careful, that just because she's immune doesn't mean there's no danger

"I have a spare hand." "Congratulations." 😭

I do love how quick Joel is to run over to Ellie whenever something happens (her swearing, falling over, gasping loudly)

The look that Joel and Tess share - they think they know and they're probably right

Dad mode™ activated

That building is anxiety central for me

Joel is so jumpy and twitchy it's a little funny tbh, I like it

Ellie's "oh shit whoops" face

Joel helping Ellie up :')

The sound effects 😭💀😭 they got the same team that did the game clicker sounds to do the show ones and I can TELL

The anxiety is palpable!! My stomach is in knots!! The entrance of the first clicker is terrifying!!

Joel's silent, almost sign language like, explanation for Ellie 😌

The clicker actors are fucking amazing jesus christ. And the special effects and makeup? So GOOD wow absolutely grotesque <3

Not me gasping with Ellie

If I were there I'd probably just hide under a table and hold my breathe 😭

I find the clickers to be quite bird-like, in game and in show

The silence as Joel reloads his gun, the sudden much closer clicking, the flashlight shining directly in its face 🤌

Joel now being the one to step on something crunchy 😩 THE WAY THE CLICKER LAUNCHES ITSELF AT HIM AND ELLIE ACROSS THE DISPLAY

Ellie crying out with pure fear and Joel holding the clicker back more so it's on him not her - HIM PUSHING HER BEHIND HIM!

BIG TESS SLAY

Impressed by how calm their reactions all are to seeing Ellie get bit (?) again (I thought it was more of a scratch at first but I assume it to be a bite due to their reactions to it)

"That was scary, this is wood." HA

The way Tess looks at Joel when he's busy wrapping her foot with diligence and care

I think this is the first sign that Tess had been bit, Joel seems to be looking at her like "what the hell is your problem" but listens and goes to watch Ellie anyway

The view line 😭🤌 love how we basically get this exactly from the game, including Joel looking at his watch :'(

The music 🙌

Second time you can really notice that Tess is differently - she handles Ellie harshly for basically the first time ever and totally ignores Joel

Joel moving Ellie away from the dead body

The squelching of the blood EUgH

Go makeup team go!

Oeiii screaming match :( mom and dad are fighting

The step back speaks volumes

"Oops, right?" just stab me it would hurt less, Anna's delivery of that line is heartbreaking

In fact little quick note of love to Anna Torv, she's such a fucking amazing actor and I love her portrayal of Tess so so much, she brought warmth, strength and balls of steel to the character fr!!

The fact that Tess basically confesses her feelings here, proclaims the knowledge that she feels something for Joel that he was never entirely able to reciprocate back, my god - her BEGGING him to take her because she knows nothing about the future but she believes that Ellie can change it in some capacity

Pedro's eye acting here is so potent, he says nothing but his eyes and face say it all

The mycelium!!!!!! Terrifying that in show canon, infected can basically call for backup!!! Brilliant addition and makes them so much more intimidating (also I HATED seeing the mycelium creep under that infected person's nails that really got a shudder out of me)

God bless the extras

Tess my beloved you make me cry so much you're amazing and you deserved better 😭 she's brave as fuck for this

Joel shaking, his lips quivering because fuck, she's going to die, and now he has to be fully responsible of this kid and he can't do this without her but he's gotta - the anxiety and fear in his eyes, his firm resolution after she says "save who you can save", the way he SNATCHES Ellie and walks away, Ellie fighting him tooth and nail but he knew she would, thats why he grabbed her like that.... I'm honestly just in so much awe and pain from this scene

The fear is Tess' face is so 😭😭

FUCK NO THAT ALMOST MADE ME THROW UP I WASN'T EXPECTING THAT JESUS FUCK. That was disgusting what the fuck 😭😭 don't know how to feel about watching the fucked up kiss of death like, eugh

The feeling when after failing to light the damn thing, she finally gets it, feels almost like a relief after all of that

Joel "big sad brown eyes" and Ellie "big traumatised brown eyes" will be the death of me

This is such a fucking sad ending to Tess' character but also, satisfying since she didn't die in vain

That final shot of Ellie alone with the burning state house in the background, sun beating down and a soft breeze in her hair, damn

If you make it to the end, thanks for reading! It's literally just my running thought process whilst watching!! Do you agree with some of my notes, was there anything you noticed that i didn't? Comments and reblogs welcome <3

Episode 1 thoughts:

Episode 3 thoughts:

[vodkacheesefries]

Was not prepared for the emotionally visceral reaction listening to David Archuleta talk about his mom would give me. These days most stuff about the church just rolls off me because I'm legitimately over it and I don't care but MAN. Wombo combo mommy issues and religious trauma and you have a recipe for disaster I suppose 🫠

Wistful queer exmo rambling under the cut because I gotta get it out somewhere.

Like! His mom just leaves the church because she loves him more than anything the church tells her or could say and it's hard not to draw the conclusion that mine doesn't because if anything, she's doubled down in some ways on Mormonism since three of her kids have left and one of them turned out to be a gender fucky dyke.

And I don't want to sound bitter or ungrateful because I wasn't even expecting her to take my coming out as well as she did, and that was a miracle in and of itself to me and I am so thankful for it; but she is still so Mormon that she believes someday when we're all resurrected this "burden" of being queer will be "lifted" from me. Being queer has never been a burden for me. The church and how it treats people like me and rips apart families as a result of that is the burden. She doesn't quite understand that, even though my sister and I have tried explaining. I don't know if it's because she just doesn't get it yet or if she is choosing not to get it.

Hearing how someone else's Mormon mom just so immediately heard how her child didn't feel welcomed in her church and that was enough for her to say "I'm done" so she left and mine has heard how I feel over and over and over again and hasn't left hurts more than I anticipated.

And I wanna be clear I'm not angry or upset with David or his mom. I'm so happy for them that they have that relationship and that he has her in his corner. It just kinda makes me sad a little bit.

[elliebyrrdwrites]

I Don't Belong Here

a continuation upon a continuation. One, two and,

Three:

This girl is staring at me, peering through the dark billowing over us due to the lack of sun and abundance of shadows thanks to the castles and the green houses and the trees and she’s trying to figure me out because I’ve just slapped myself instead of returning her informal greeting.

Her eyes are glassy, reflecting the glare of the moon. They’re scanning over my body and I can see her scrutiny. I can feel it against the press of the pants against my thigh. I can hear her mind working as she notes all of the dirt and sweat trailing my hairline.

This, the way her eyes miss nothing, the way her mouth twists into a little rose bud, is ,why I hate this girl. I didn’t want to see her, because she stinks. Not actually, physically stink. She doesn’t actually insult my olfactory receptors. She smells like lavender and damp grass just after it rains. No, Granger stinks in the way where all of the fun in the room dies as soon as she enters.

I bet she’s a terrible lay. I actually feel bad for Weasley. She probably avoids putting cock in her mouth and she probably scrutinizes it for lint or loose strands of hair. When she finally agrees, she grimaces and refuses to swallow it. Weasleys cock probably gets all wobbly by the time she gets her mouth on it.

Yeah, there’s no doubt in my mind that Granger is a real boner killer.

Granger looks at me, like I’m an idiot. She reminds me of my parents. Because she’s dismissing me, her shoulder lifting in a shrug and she takes her eyes and she puts them somewhere else. She takes her eyes away like I hadn’t even stumbled upon her. She takes her eyes and puts them onto the castle where we all died. Or maybe we didn’t.

The point is, I don’t belong here and she’s looking at the castle like it doesn’t belong. She never belonged in my world, but somehow, she seemed to belong more than me.

She looks at the castle like it’s haunted and she cannot dismiss it the way she dismisses me. She sniffs and rubs the back of her hand over her nose. “You missed the sorting.”

That is actually a relief. Listening to that stupid hat babbling on and on before going through every first year and telling us where the damn kid belongs. As if that makes a fucking bit of difference. Nobody can tell you where you belong. You either belong or you don't. Nobody can tell how to belong, least of all a talking hat.

“So, there is a god after all.” I say and I don’t know why.

Granger snorts and shakes her big oversized hair out of her face. “There’s only a handful of us, anyway.” She says with a shrug, her eyes still on that stupid castle. But my eyes are on her. I’ve gone and I’ve taken my eyes and stuck them onto her. I can’t seem to pull them away.

There’s something sickening healthy about the way she looks. Like she didn’t spend the summer being broken into little fragments. Like she didn’t get destroyed before being built back together again.

Her eyes attract the moonlight and her lips are matte pink. There is no makeup, no lip gloss. No nothing. But there isn’t a flake of dry skin on them.

Her cheeks are streaked with tears that make me feel like scratching her skin off. I scratch at the spot where I killed the ant, instead. It’s mutilated little body is gone, somewhere, drifting into the unknown. Giving itself back to the earth that it abandoned for a piece of glory. Sacrificing itself as it climbed its way towards the heavens all for what? A single piece of flesh to take back to its queen? I bet the queen doesn't even notice that it's gone.

The point is, that when I see Granger, something inside of me jerks and flinches. It’s like my body has this natural, visceral reaction that tells me to hurt her, to insult her, to hate her. There's some kind of natural process at play here. I can’t fight it. I wont.

“Why are you so dirty?” She asks, this time, angling her body towards mine, her eyes quickly sweeping over me. Her robes are left unbuttoned. She’s wearing muggle jeans, tight and pressed against the curves of her body. Her pink shirt is lowcut, there’s two round tits staring up at me and the natural process of things take over again.

“Why are you?”

Her matte pink lips quirk to the side, and I think she might frown but I’m afraid that she might grin. She looks down at her body, her rount tits, her fucking jeans. “I’m not dirty.”

“Not on the outside, I suppose.”

The point is, I’m an asshole. I’m supposed to be an asshole. It’s what my parents expect of me. It's why they sent me to a place where I can be beaten back into shape.

Granger’s eyelids lower, her lips flatten out. “Some things never change, huh.” She isn’t really asking me, just stating it more to herself. But I feel it, the dismissal of her words, her body language as she turns away.

And the point is, I have changed. Over and over, I change. Over and over, I break down into a puddle that used to resemble a man but now I’m just this thing that is suppose to spew hate and I'm ancient and jaded and bored.

The point is, I don’t belong. And even Granger knows it. I can feel the dismissal that tells me she is just like my parents. She's taking the choice away from me.

She’s taking my insult and she’s balling it up into some kind of trash that needs to be thrown away. But, she just drops it to the grass, littering the school grounds with it and she turns away from me, and she takes her big brown eyes and she walks away from me.

Between us, stretches all of the balled up pieces of trash with all of the insults I’ve lobbed at her over the years. There's the retorts, the sting of her hands, the curl of her lip, the tears in her eyes. They're all thrown onto the grass and disregarded. They string between us, tight and loose as she moves away from me, as she disappears around the corner of the castle.

I seek her out. I follow the trail of trash and find her in the Great Hall. She’s settling onto the edge of the Gryffindor table and she’s surrounded by familiar faces. None of which I care to label with names or ideas or sounds or smells.

There’s just Granger and she’s pressing her lips into a tight smile as her friends greet her with enthusiasm.

I slide onto the edge of the Slytherin table and a first year whimpers when I smack at my arm, squashing the life out of a little ant that had found it’s way up the sleeve of my shirt. Another sacrifice for the queen!

These kids are getting worse and worse with every passing year. They’re grubby little hands reach for the food that suddenly appears in front of them. It’s like they’ve been hungry all their life and they’re grabbing at the food like they wont ever get enough.

Here, there’s dishes cluttering the table. All of the usual crap. Platters full of boiled potatoes and rolls of bread, asparagus slathered in butter. And there’s every animal you can think of, slaughtered and shredded into little pieces just for your enjoyment. Pigs, chickens, cows, lambs. Their throats were slit, or their brains were blown out and their feathers were plucked or they were skinned alive and they were chopped into little finger friendly pieces and all for your enjoyment.

Until one day, you’ve enjoyed yourself one too many times and your accidently choke on a wish bone. Or you eat so much fucking pig and cow that the plaque inside of your arteries harden, clogging the blood flow. It forces your heart to work harder, forcing it to become enlarged. And then it stops working and you die.

So, dig in, little fuckers.

I take my eyes and I scan the table where the staff is and they’re teary eyed and smiling with wet sloppy cheeks and maybe their sloshed or maybe they’re feeling something I can't ever know.

But their eyes, they pass over me and inside, they flinch. They wince at the knee jerk reaction that comes with who I am. They want to squash me, like an ant. The point is, these professors, they want to kill me. And they don’t even understand that they want to.

The point is, they look at every other student with doe-eyed wonder. With me, their brains stall out. With me, they feel something insidious and angry.

Because, I don’t belong here.

So, I take my eyes and I move them somewhere else.

Granger, she calls to me. She’s denied me something I need. She wont trade insults with me. She wants to dismiss me.

And so I take my eyes and I glue them onto her as she pokes and prods at this salad on her plate. There’s no flesh there, just bright greens and reds and oranges and she’s using her fork to chase around a little red tomato. She’s chasing it and begging it with her teeth bared, to just let her stab it.

She’s chasing around this little tomato like it’s the most interesting thing in the world and when her fork finally sinks into the tender, red flesh of it, it’s bloody guts squirt out, tainting the rest of her salad.

I watch as her eyes flare in delight, as she lifts the fork to her mouth and closes her matte pink lips over it, and as she chews and chomps and eats the thing before it has a chance to scream, she smiles.

That bitch has the audacity to give a little piece of fruit, maybe a vegetable, a hard time but not me?

The point is, I don’t belong but neither does she. Except, when I insult her and she fights me, something feels right. Suddenly, there’s somewhere we both belong. And it’s at each others throat.

It’s then, as I stare across the hall, to where Granger is sitting, her little bushy head floating around her, that I decide to make sure we end up where we belong.

It’s at this time that I realize that this year, I might be able to find a piece of myself that used to be here, hidden and tucked away within the confines of this school. That maybe, she had stolen it. Somehow, the little mudblood had stolen it, deprived me of it when she refused to come back to school last year. And maybe that was why my parents sent me to the facility that was tucked away in a foreign country that overlooked the sea or a large lake. I couldn’t ever tell.

But through the bars on my windows, I could see that the air was heavy with impurities, and the smog was so thick that when the sun rose, the sky turned a shade of topaz. A blend of brown and gold.

The point is, when I think of those sunrises that would turn the sky that obscure shade of topaz and the oxygen was thick and heavy with humidity, there was one face that kept coming to mind.

And that face was currently sitting across the hall from me, murdering little baby tomatoes and smiling quietly to herself.

The point is, what a bitch.

[hauntsect]

It's thundering, storming harshly outside the wards – every patient prompted to stay inside. Yet, despite them being protected from the heavy rain and the lightning outside, the strong noise of a calamity reached every single room. Not just that, the screams of one particular patient reverberate throughout every corner. The noise must be getting to them.

"Someone, please, sedate whoever is causing such a ruckus." The doctor says and the nurses hesitate to speak. It's one of them who ultimately informs what the others wanted to say, he himself seems shaky about it, too.

"It's Hyles, sir." The man speaks and the doctor stops scribbling on paperwork. He turns over to the nurse, he stares back at him, eyes squinting in disbelief.

"My little boy? Is he in pain?" It was the only explanation for this and even that was shaky. He wasn't one to complain so audibly about his ailments. Why, the man called him his best patient due to it. He had even visited him earlier today, gifted him a nice book to read and all. Hyles had said the pain was bearable. Now, though, even he could hear his shrieks and wails from the other corner of the ward. Sounded like those of an agonizing, wretched creature. His poor kid...

Rushing to room 125, the scenery took a drastic change. From white, pristine walls to a shocking crimson, there's blood splattered all over. Pieces of skin fall roughly along with it. On the once white bed sits the boy, ripping and tearing at his own skin with both fingers and trembling scalpel. All of this, done as he cries out. The bodies of both nurses and doctors decorate parts of the floor and even the corners of the bed – it seemed it wasn't only his blood spread around.

He looked grotesque, flesh ripped apart, tears staining even the parts of his face that were bleeding out. Hyles is desperate, he screams and shakes, he wails, and speaks...

The language is foreign — to the people seeing it happen, it's all gibberish. Yet he cries out... and the doctor listens.

"Hyles... Hyles, it's me. Are you listening? If you cry out like this, we can't help you. Use the words you have learned. Use them." He encourages and, somehow, in between the wails, his carving of skin, blood-splattering comes to a halt, trickling down in discreet puddles. The scalpel falls over to the crimson bed, just as he is downcast. Finally, it seems like he is breathing.

"It hurts..."

"That has never caused such a visceral reaction. Go on, keep using your words." The doctor encourages while slowly approaching the boy.

"It is killing me. I'm dying, but... the stars. They're too high up, I cannot reach them. And the things they demand, and the things they want, I cannot do it. They're calling to me, I see them, I hear them. They're everywhere. I'll die before I make it. I... cannot... Cannot let it happen. Cannot, I must extirpate this decease, before it stops me... But I can't find it. I have to go deeper."

"No, Hyles, sweetest little saccharine dew," the doctor calls to him sweetly, mimicking the ways in which Hyles himself liked to speak towards his favorites, it keeps his attention steady, it was a language shared between them – proof of affection, Hyles would oftentimes call it, a weapon the doctor quietly surmised. The very weapon he used right now to keep Hyles calm. Crazed eyes land upon the older man's, who smiles back at him, calmly. He approaches and Hyles raises his hands towards him.

"I can't find it..." He cries out vaguely, tears running down. The man nods at him before he covers the bloodied boy in an embrace... and injects him a vivid blue liquid in. For a moment, there was silence, the grip of the boy slowly growing weaker and weaker... He gives in to the doctor's embrace, eyes closing, a relaxed sigh coming out.

"I thought our sedatives didn't work on him..."

"They don't... This was a different medicine." He comments, a blatant lie he hides neatly as he remains there, hugging his dear boy for a while longer... Worried that this might be the last time he could.

He thought maybe Hyles would turn into a crazed monster, much like the other subjects exposed to such a vial... He acknowledged he was crazy for even thinking this might help, for even trying it out on him, of all people. After he had done it, he was sure he would come to regret it. Yet, no growling, no twist or turning, nothing comes out of it. Instead, peace. Hyles sleeps, and the doctor places him softly on the bed. When he turns over, the fellow nurses who saw everything were still there, unable to decide if to leave or not. The scene was enough to make them want to run, but...

"Stitch him up. I'll take care of the rest." He wouldn't say it, but he was kind of an expert when it came to fixing a scene... "My nephew is not to be disturbed, once you're done. Just stitch him, wrap him up, and leave the room as is."

Nauseous and unsure, the nurses comply, and their hard work begins...

Hyles knows it has taken him long to wake up, despite the rain still pouring so soundly. It seemed the storm wouldn't let up, but it looked quite dark outside, despite the intensity of the lights keeping his room from succumbing to the void. The pain is gone, it has subsided, his organs no longer burning, no need to twist and turn, wail or scream. His muscles ache, his body aches, but the sting seems so far-away, nullified by the bandages spread all over him, and some form of painkiller.

He hears a scrubbing by his side, he turns over and realizes the walls have been rendered pristine white again... Only remnants of crimson remain on the floor. No bodies to be seen. Right, he recalled ripping one of his least favorites apart... and some others. He sits over, his uncle is doing quite a good job at this, he never believed him when he said he used to be a cleaner... Even the book he had been reading – the very one the man had gifted him – was no longer stained with blood. His bookmarks intact, as if nothing had happened to them.

We are not alone in the universe. I am not alone. I am a part of this universe, too.

"What did you do to me?" A hoarse voice asks and the doctor turns over, smiling as he usually does with his favorite patient.

"I might have found your cure."

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Caring For His Boy

First posted: December 17, 2018

Focuses on: Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne

Favorite bookmark: None worth noting

Tier: In the bottom 3rd for most metrics; in the bottom 10 for comments

This is my “behind the scenes” series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

Another BatFam Christmas stocking fic, another attempt at a dual meaning title. They just make me happy, okay.

This one was for @renecdote: "Created to fill renecdote's BatFam Christmas Stocking prompt "Bruce worrying over sick or injured kids." I don't know that this is quite what you had in mind, but hopefully it's okay."

It was my first time writing Alfred POV, which made me nervous, but also it was fun—though I hadn't yet befriended Audrey to be my Brit speak check. Alas.

It was 8 AM in Sheffield, a glorious, soft morning with a whisper of a breeze and birdsongs that filtered in through the open window.

Why Sheffield? We don't know. That's just how the opening line popped into my head, so then I had to scramble to figure out what was going on and why.

Bruce had never been one to show emotion, even as a boy. Animation was doled out purposefully, as a tool, as a distraction, as a lever. Alfred had more practice reading him than most, and he didn’t think he was imagining the quiver of tension in Bruce’s voice.

This is one of those bits that I work myself into a frustration over, because do I think that Bruce was a generally reserved child? Yes. Was that heightened further after the death of his parents? Also yes. Would stiff-upper-lip British reserve Alfred note Bruce's own emotional reticence as something exceptional? I'm not sure. Whether a thing is true or not is irrelevant when the question is whether the POV would note it.

What did sick mean? A reaction to fear toxin? A new horror from Ms. Isley?

Alfred is so exceedingly British.

It had certainly been a learning experience, one filled with more than a little uncertainty on everyone’s part, but Alfred had yet to hear Bruce sound so shaken.

Ah, the true terror of help, I need an adult... what do you mean I am the adult???

He wondered how Bruce was dealing with the vomit. The boy had always been a bit of a sympathetic puker.

Alfred would not say puker. This is a from-real-life trait I pulled from the males in my family. Weak stomachs, all of them.

“Master Dick will need to stay hydrated. I recommend alternating ginger ale for the nausea and one of those obnoxious sports drinks you so enjoy for the electrolytes. If he continues to complain of aches, you may give him the paracetamol in the upstairs medicine cabinet, but mind the dosage.”

I did the googling for this and then years later had to do the googling again for my first fic in the Mutual Aid series. Ah, parallels. At least I remembered to have Alf call it paracetamol. Also, when I was a kid, I only associated Gatorade with vomiting for this very reason and couldn't drink it for years. Same with Sprite. (Don't drink Sprite, the sugar will make your nausea worse.)

Alfred had several fond memories of sitting next to the bedside of one sweaty-haired boy, a hand pinning open a book, and the other resting atop small fingers. He also had other memories, dimmer but no less visceral, of being a relatively young man himself, faced with the enormous responsibility of caring for a vulnerable life. Of keeping a brave face while internally despairing of the task before him. He was glad that one set of these memories had stuck with Bruce, while the other had not.

Ah, adulthood. It's scary to look back and realize how much your own parents were likely panicking over things you trusted them to handle. 😅

Alfred fics always get some of the lowest engagement and it's such a pity.

[vulpinesaint]

hi bracken 8 28 34 hehe

hi reid!!!!!! yay questions :D

8. any reacquiring dreams?

assuming that the original poster meant reoccurring dreams. little enamoured with the possibility of what a reacquiring dream might be. honestly though i do not dream that much!!! the last dream i remember having was like,,, god, upwards of three months ago? over winter break? when i had a really devastating dream about having a kid and taking my baby boy everywhere with me and looking down at him and realizing that he had my eyes and my freckles and then like. waking up. just fucking wrecked at the realization that i didn't have my child anymore. terrible.

accidentally deleted a whole paragraph just now i hate it here... anyway! 😭 definitely have repeating elements in my dreams. i've had a bunch where i am being chased and can't manage to run quite fast enough to get away from whatever's chasing me. i've had a few dreams where i can fly, too :) i wake up from a lot of dreams with a really strong sense of deja vu, and there's the whole thing where like. you are always dreaming once you hit rem or whatever it's just that you don't remember it, so there is the possibility of many more reoccurring dreams that i just do not remember...

28. do you collect anything?

not on purpose haha. don't rlly have the space for it atm and i'm not really a collecting guy even though i really enjoy having stuff :) if anything! books and weapon-themed jewelry. it's me and all my sword and knife shaped necklaces and earrings and rings

34. any pet peeves?

i am the pet peeves guy of all time. the hater ever even. not gonna say i have misophonia as a medical diagnosis or anything lmao but chewing and breathing sounds make me like. god. i try not to be an asshole about it but it is So Bad for me. whole body shudders just at the thought of it it makes me Viscerally upset/angry/disgusted and i have like Physical Reactions to it 😭 very sensitive to small noises in general; can't sleep if there's small inconsistent noises happening that i don't control. gotta be silent or white noise or music or smth haha. if i can hear the sound of someone breathing i Will Not be able to sleep to the point where i get so angryfrustrated over it that i cry real actual tears. being aromantic is actually not just a romantic orientation to me it's a defense mechanism against the possibility of being expected to share a bed with someone for the rest of my life lmao

sometimes it's just the sound of someone's voice too which is the WORST cause none of this is anyone's fault but when the sound of my mother's singing voice in church makes me like. sit there clenching and unclenching my fists and my jaw with repulsion just because Something about it grates (she is a professional singer and i have listened to her sing my entire life it's not a rational or reasonable response) it feels so shitty 😭 anyway... other pet peeve is people leaving stuff out in shared spaces haha

ty for sending little numbers i adore you <3

questions I think would be fun to be asked

[anonymityisfunwriter]

🥇 Comment Hall of Fame 🥇

I really like when people comment. What better way to encourage interaction than by rewarding it? Here's a running list of some of my favorite comments, the ones that made me laugh, the ones that made me cry, the ones that kept me going. I love all the comments I get but these are just some of my faves from AO3, Tumblr, and Wattpad. You guys are all the best. 💛

"This series has the same equivalence to the mini episode cartoons like teen titans go but like BETTER I LOVE THIS SO MUCH" - @/thatboyisagunn · I remember watching the OG Teen Titans as a kid, so I really loved this comment. Plus, it sort of gave me the idea to do like one-shots as 'mini episodes'.

"“…morally ambiguous, sarcastic, charming brunette“ I know this is supposed to be referring to Flynn Rider, but it sounds an awful lot like Bucky to me. Loved this whole story! I was smiling the whole way through." - @/bookish_irish_dancer ·I laughed for an hour when this lovely commenter said this, because, yes, that is absolutely what I was going for.

"T Swizzle is a national treasure and I will fight to the death for her." @/aswiftlytiltinguniverse ·I will too. Okay, maybe not to the death, but I will post a lot of fics with TS references.

"I GODDAMN LOVE THIS SONG DUDE. THE ANGST, THE PAIN, THE CONFUSION AND GODDAMN JOHN I HATE YOU. BARNES I LOVE YOU AND SAMUEL YOU BIG BROTHER. I'm LOVING this Tay Swift-ness author." @toomanyfanficsbruh ·I like inciting John Walker hate. Especially all caps hate. This just made me laugh so hard tbh.

"Sis, as much as i love your stories and this story.. THIS WAS A PUNCH TO THE GUT, WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS *VIRTUALLY PUKES BECAUSE YEAH, I HAVE A FULL STOMACH RN* (but whatever i still love you uwu😊🤣😭🤗)" @/youraveragehotmessofabisexual ·The "why would you do something like this" really had me cheesy grinning like I know I just hurt my entire audience, but wasn't it fun?

"“LeTs NoT gEt EmOtIoNaL” my ass. I’m emotional. Let me emote 😭" @/BuckySimp101 ·This comment made me emote. And keep going with the GrumpyxSunshine series after Two Sides of The Same Coin.

"I challenge you to a duel anonymityisfun. You hear me duel, I hope you have a blood donner cos you're gonna need it ( I'm hating where this is going but loving your update speed. Keep it up )( side note I moved to mars so you're going to have to come here for out duel. )" @i-wanna-burn-the-world ·I can say with absolute certainty that I'd never been challenged to a duel before this comment. It's happened a few times since then to be honest.

"THIS MADE ME CRY AND I DONT MEAN JUST TEARED UP I MEAN I FUCKING CRIED MAN" @/Jwritesstuff ·If you couldn't tell, I really love comments that yell at me about what I made people feel. I love it.

"WHY WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS TO US IM LITERALLY CRYING RIGHT NOW WHY OH GOD WHY ARE THEY TREATING HER LIKE HOW HYDRA TREATED WINTER SOLDIER 😭😭😭 THEY DONT EVEN LET HER TAKE HER BELONGINGS ITS LIKE SHES NOT EVEN HUMAN THE WAY THEYRE TREATING HER OH GOD YOU'RE PAYING MY THERAPY 😭😭😭😭 THE TITLE ITSELF GOT ME HOLDING MY SEAT LIKE WDYM LAST KISS" @/Marquiserose ·This comment always makes me cheesy grin. I love the enthusiasm.

"SAM YOU BITCH! YOU CANT JUST LEAVE US! RULE NUMBER ONE!!!" @/any_ways ·Now, you guys didn't know what I knew, but the visceral reaction everyone had to Sam at the end of Two Sides of The Same Coin was *chef's kiss*

"When I gave this story my heart it was under the impression that you wouldn’t tear it out of my chest and stomp on it" @/HopeMAnd21 ·I know it sounds silly, but I like knowing that I can make people feel things. That the words I write can actually impact a person warms my little heart.

"I always have no feedback, criticism or words, but…I once again am lost. This whole this has twist and turns, one right after the other. I really don’t know what to say. This should be a mini book that I can hold in my hands and it has that little penguin on the spine, and anonymityisfun written under the title. I’m going to cherish this. When I’m bored and want twists and turns and sorrow, this is what I’ll read. You should be very proud!" @/any_ways ·Listen, I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a crier, but this comment made me cry. Being published, being able to call myself an author, even the idea of ever getting to put something out into the world, it's been my dream since I was a kid. Ugh, it just made my heart swell.

"you really did take all these characters and made them your own. from all the fanfictions i've read, your version of marvel characters are by far my favourite. i also feel very happy seeing this full circle moment because i still remember very vividly how sad i felt when i read how alone sunshine was. thank you for this series and i hope this is not the end!!" @/khirtelt ·This felt so important because, while legally I own very little rights to these characters, they do very much feel like my characters and my stories. They all have little pieces of me, both good and bad, and I'm very proud of the work I've put into these stories.

"110% babygirlification of Bucky Barnes" @/thesweetestheart ·I do not mind being attributed to the continued babygirlification of Bucky Barnes. It's now my life goal.

"I was thinking of you when the Taylor swift album dropped I HOPE U LOVED IT 🕺🏾🕺🏾🕺🏾 Also another Drabble masterpiece as PER USUAL" @buckbuckyoongs ·When you think Taylor Swift, I hope you think of me.

"I need a friend that loves me as much as Sam and Sunny love each other... AHEM, I SAID I NEED A FRIEND THAT LOVES ME AS MUCH AS SAM AND SUNNY LOVE EACH OTHER. please? (Now I just sit and wait until someone starts talking to me... I'm gonna be here for a while.)" @i-wanna-burn-the-world ·We all need a friendship like Sam and Sunshine.

"i ADORE THIS. I LOVE ITI WOUL KILL AND DIE FOR THIS. YOURE AMAZING AND I APRECIATE YOU POSTING YOUR WRITING, SO MUCH. I LITERALLY WIND DOWN AT NIGHT WITH YOUR STORIES-" @/ValerieQ "TYSM💜 AND OFC YOURE LITERALLY A GODDESS I DONT THINK YOU UNDERSTAND-" @/ValerieQ ·This was all one comment thread and when I tell you, I was having a rough go of it, I needed this. You all hype me up so much, but this comment just made my heart melt. I'm so glad that my silly little stories are a place you guys can go to unwind and hang out. I love that so much.

"another beautiful work from @/anonymityisfunwriter and i can’t tell if i love or resent them for the pain they put me through. every. time." @mediocre-daydreams ·I wonder if they decided if they love me or they resent me yet. Either way, I'm glad I make you guys feel all the feelings. It's my goal.

"Binged the shit out of this and fell in love. I cried, I weeped, my heart swelled with so much love for these two. Honestly this series felt like a hot bowl of homemade soup on a cold day." @kjdara ·"A hot bowl of homemade soup on a cold day" Please, the way that made me choke up. One of the best, sweetest comments I've ever gotten.

"I found the sound on TT literally just scrolling through and screamed "Bucky don't leave her! She's your sunshine"... Needless to say I have a meeting with the boss man about time theft" @/MandaRinne ·The time theft part made me laugh, and also worry, but I'll take it as a good thing you guys think of the Grumpy x Sunshine series while scrolling TikTok.

"I'm glad they made up and love love the twist at the end. Because it truly signifies that sunshine is a fighter. And I love sunshine and I try to strive towards adopting the better parts of her personality into mine everyday. Fr." @/youraveragehotmessofabisexual -This, and I'm not even exaggerating, left me a little speechless. It will never not blow my mind that anyone actually cares about anything I've written.

I'll be adding to this every now and then. I just wanted to do this to show my appreciation to everyone who's supported me, it's the greatest feeling in the world. If you're here, if you've ever left comment, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I love you all so much. 💛

And please, take this as a sign to show support to other amazing creators and authors, comments, reblogs, kudos, it makes a world of a difference. 💛

And, if for whatever reason, you're on this list and don't want to be, just let me know and I'll take it down. 💛

[titstraction]

1, tie between dreamers and abyss (with roots as a solid third spot, which will probably change when i get farther in lemon tree or reread something else again)

6, vividly vividly vividly remember my gut emotional reaction to the reveal that regulus named his kid sirius in dreamers!! all of dreamers is incredibly emotional, esp the later chapters, but something about sirius hearing that while visiting regulus’s grave (and regulus’s wife not knowing who sirius was, not realizing the significance to him!!!!!!) was such an OOF. i reacted the exact way sirius did, oh my heart might stop. (on a more selfish note i also remember the moment where i read you putting remus meeting sirius’s kitties in abyss after i mentioned wanting to see it in an earlier comment. we hadn’t even been talking long and it made me🥰🥰🥰 it was such a nice surprised you are the sweetest )

7, more than anything, the end of dreamers. no surprise here, my thoughts have been incredibly painstakingly detailed in the comments section but there is really no other answer there. everything that happens at the end is so visceral and emotions, and the reveal of what he had done is such a Reveal. even more, emotional though, is the knowledge that he is still the good person we know him to be and he deserves love! it is so much to sit with and process and such Commentary on humanity and how we care for and value each other.

also a special shout out to the end of blue, such a good ambiguous ending that really hit after your depictions of their love for each other but all the tensions between the and in their lives. the heat in their final discussion! “You know I’ll get you that time around, yeah?” ouchhhhh. you write a great ending.

8, your voice! you find and articulate the meaning in things so well and you’re so deliberate in your choices. i’m always impressed by how you maintain themes and threads throughout stories. it’s very delicious and you make me feel things so hard when reading. this makes a lot of sense with how (as expressed in my earlier answers) i love your endings. they are also my two favorite chapters of my two favorite fics! you make everything come together in such a satisfying way.

10, never thought i would love a silly little toad named ruth as much as i did in lemon tree!!! on a more serious note, your portrayal of peter in roots made me much more invested and interested in him than i every thought i would be. you created such an interesting narrative around his motivations and descent to joining voldemort and it was fascinating to read and talk about

12, i am currenty re-reading lemon tree and she is hitting tee hee🍋🤭

shut UPPPP 😛💓💘✂️✂️💗💗🏳️‍🌈🙏🏼👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏼👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏼👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏼🫦🫦🫦🫦💓💓🙏🏼💘💘🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈💖💖👅👅👅🤩🥰🥰😛

[pizzapasta23045]

Thank you for responding (and explaining flanderization! Very helpful word I hadn’t encountered before). You put it into words very well- I was struggling a little with how to word it but you got it and said it quite well. I was thinking about the windblume trailer when mentioning the puns- and just. Cyno really does have a sense of humor that makes you think about it, and fairly deadpan delivery. Which is fantastic

Fandom can be a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand- you can get some fantastic characterization, headcanons, and breakdowns of a character. But on the other…. Yeah sometimes what they do to a character is a lot more of a… why would you do that? And it’s treatment of Alhaitham is just- it feels more like it’s what they want him to be, or stripping him of nuance. Or in general like- no this character can’t possibly be x marginalized thing, they’re too attractive for it. Which baffles me to no end. Like sometimes it’s not even a reach or subtext or anything- sometimes it’s literally just text.

Thank you (I have vocabulary so obscure you wouldn't even believe it (nothing actually useful in my life I still stutter through most sentences))

And yeah... Fandom is like democracy in a way. Like it's great that everyone can contribute and shit but sometimes you hear someone just... Say the most insane shit imaginable and you're sitting there like... Seriously? This dude can talk?

(I am not advocating for dictatorships, obviously)

Some of fandom can write even better than the original, while others are just.... Idk... Very weird about it? Like, you do you obvs but idk... Do you actually base you hcs on lore or are you just playing puppeteer with a bunch of characters?

(not that you HAVE to base hcs on lore. A lot of them are pretty funny but... People treat them as though they're canon and that's my main issue with it, you know?)

And Al Haitham I talk about a lot because it's pretty blatant but it happens with a lot of the characters... It's like... A lot of people have a visceral reactions to him being hc as autistic it's like... They don't enjoy the fact that they're attracted to an autistic character? Like they find that weird.

Also, with Al Haitham and autism, a lot of people don't seem to see it because he's... Just smart? Like they say no he doesn't have any traits when he's very clearly got a lot of trait and has had them in childhood. He's quite literally confirmed to be hyperlexic and most of the people who can read well at an early age, like almost too well, tend to be autistic of the genius/gifted kid variety.

So yeah...

But I feel like the attractiveness thing is the main reason they react with such vitriol to autism HC about him in particular.

[nocturnical]

I don't know if this will become my spiritual/philosophical abyss to shout in but I changed up the format on my writing blog & I'm only posting shit I've published. & some of this shit I don't want to painstakingly arrange/organize into something publishable, nonetheless search for a market for it.

But tonight I tried to go to bed early because I keep fucking myself with my erratic sleep schedule & woke up an hour into being asleep because SURPRISE you have to take a gd excederin immediately or you are going to spend the rest of the night puking! & as I was lying on the couch eating crackers & waiting for the claws to retract from my temples, I decided to put some random shit on & ended up watching the first episode of Nick Groff's show Deathwalker.

The premise immediately connected w me because as a writer who has been researching the occult since I was a kid to build magic systems to tell stories in — what makes the most sense to me is that consciousness is alone in the universe & all the supernatural/paranormal things we can possibly experience are the edges of space-time read as fucky through individual consciousness. It's a grand theory of the paranormal in that there is no paranormal, it is all perception but what we understand as time is the old persistent illusion & everything is happening at once so of course there's bleed through for various reasons. Partially because the hardware of the human body/brain is imperfect, partially because the software of consciousness maybe doesn't so much glitch but has parameters, edges to the programming that we don't readily understand.

While I was really unimpressed by the first episode & feel like it didn't really do anything to press his idea any further & the dude that he was circle jerking his philosophy with was obsessed with some shit psychics told him. Which how the fuck do psychics play into your grand theory bro? Maybe there are people who can see more possibilities at once but they're still possibilities. Everything is happening at once & we are disseminating the information in real time. There's no set future or past only probabilities that belong to a specific place in conscious space-time for a moment before it shifts again.

But what it did remind me of is an EVP I heard a years ago on a podcast called Astonishing Legends. I was listening to the ep on headphones while I was working & I ended up ripping them out. I felt physically ill listening to the EVP. I heard a few people online say the same thing, it obviously affected one of the hosts pretty viscerally as well. But some people were like ya'll are stupid it's just feedback (& no it wasn't any feedback noise I've heard as someone who has been & musician for years & even ran sound for shows back in college). But again the theory is that paranormal shit is a shift in conscious perception & sensory data that triggers one person wouldn't necessarily trigger another.

Although I have migraine gremlins ripping out the little threads of nerves in my head right now, I decided, what a time to revisit the EVP & see if anyone had debunked it. They did use a famously unreliable EVP recorder & it was captured in The Sallie House & I'm not particularly fond of the story around it nor do I get any visceral feelings around the story or any of the photos of the house so I'm not hyped up imaginatively outside of the EVP itself.

But I played it again & immediately the loosening threads cutting around my eyes dug back in, my stomach turned, it felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Why? It's not even a particularly frightening noise? But I also get a little bit of a gut drop when I hear a foghorn for some reason. It ain't nothing but a thing, I've had uncanny reactions to other sensory input but for me there's something about certain sounds that fucks me up.

Anyway, I can find no video debunking it. Which apparently according to a reddit post I found they were having the sound examined by an audiologist. With all the video essays ripping Zak Bagans apart (justified), I just don't understand how nobody has gotten around to this really unsettling EVP attached to a very prominent haunted house (& I say that as someone who doesn't think haunted houses actually exist but that some people are open enough in consciousness to engage with either the story or the vibes (& by vibes I mean visceral sensory reaction) of the house).

I want to know what my malfunction is to have this reaction? Yeah, I've got the brainfire jingle jangles right now but the first time I heard the EVP I was on my bright eyed, bushy tailed type A bullshit. It pulled my guts out while I was plugging data points into a calendar spreadsheet. Every synapse in my stupid potato brains was shaking hands & getting along until that sound hit my eardrums & I noped the fuck out body & soul.

I also want to know what the scientific explanation for the sound is. Maybe there's a reason for it somewhere in the rationale. I don't know. It just plagues me, makes me wonder what is going on upstairs, & if the truth of it's all in your head is that yeah but so is everything else & in that there are universes.

[almightyellie]

butterflies

in which jake is annoying, but mostly, he's endearing.

author says kari look away, top gun content incoming :/ been a while since i wrote anything so who's to say if this is anything but it definitely exists! everyone say thank u mo for making sure this isn't the worst thing ever published <3

word count is 2.5k

title song is butterflies // kacey musgraves

jake seresin loves a challenge.

he always had; he was a competitive kid who had grown into a cutthroat man. once he set his sights on something, he didn’t know how to stop. it was an undeniable urge, an inward propulsion. he was a winner. he got what he wanted.

until you. you, so entirely unimpressed with him. he’s never met someone so unabashedly disinterested in his accomplishments; with such little experience in rejection, of course he takes it as a challenge.

you stand behind the bar, pushing out drinks and handling cash and listening to the rowdy conversation of the patrons. you’re almost busy enough to miss him making his way over to you. 

every time jake seresin steps up to your bar, you know you’re in for it. 

whether it’s a pickup line so bad that it makes you gag or a remark so smart that you might not even feel bad about cleaning his teeth off the bar, hangman has an amazing power to bring out the most visceral reactions in you. sometimes he infuriates you, but usually he’s just a slight nuisance. some nights, you even look forward jake’s teasing, not that you’d ever tell him. he certainly doesn’t need the ego boost. 

penny, for one, finds a great deal of entertainment watching seresin try and fail at flirting with you. such an accusation is silly, you always think. it was clear to anyone who watched that jake enjoyed getting under your skin, but it wasn’t flirting. no, he was just doing as he knew best: being annoying. 

even now, as he sidles up to the bar, you’re preparing yourself for whatever ridiculous thing jake was going to say next. “hi, beautiful.”

you don’t bother rolling your eyes anymore. with a quiet chuckle, you ask, “what can i get you, lieutenant?” 

“do i have my pick?”

brow arched, you put a hand on the bar. “don’t annoy me tonight, seresin.”

he beams. “darlin’, how else am i supposed to entertain myself?”

you begin grabbing his usual. he had been frequenting the bar long enough that you had his order (and all his pickup lines) memorized. “go annoy rooster,” you suggest.

“he’s not nearly as cute as you,” he drawls. 

sliding the bottle toward him on the bar, you lean in close. “go. away.”

jake throws his head back in a good-natured laugh, standing from the bar and turning around toward his buddies. you watch his retreating form, watching as he claps rooster on the shoulder and begins teasing him about his pool skills. he’s always such a charmer, whether he’s talking to you or his team. penny leans against the bar with you, nudging you with her elbow.

“he’s so cute.”

you bark out a laugh, entirely aware of the look jake sends over his shoulder, curious, and maybe a little jealous that someone else has made you laugh. “he’s a total cretin,” you respond. “but yeah, i guess he’s a little cute.”

penny giggles, shaking her head. he could get a little unbearable sometimes, but it was entirely obvious why. he was head over heels for you. penny had seen this over and over again working in the bar—and in her own relationships. there’s always some poor sap who’s too eager, too infatuated, that they’re willing to make a fool of themselves for someone else. hangman, as it it turned out, was not immune to making a fool of himself, all his charm aside. 

as much as you liked to complain, she wondered if maybe you kind of liked having his attention on you. she wouldn’t blame you if that were the case. she had enjoyed the attention of a few aviators herself. 

with a soft sigh, you stand straight. “he wearing you down yet?” penny smirks.

you reach for an empty bottle on the bar top, hiding your smile when you turn away from her. “you’d never hear the end of it from him if he had.”

there’s something in him that’s impossible to turn away from. maybe it’s the tiniest hint of southern charm, or the little glimpse at some actual humanity every once in a while, but for some reason, you can’t seem to find it in yourself to actually get annoyed with him. it doesn’t hurt that he’s not entirely unpleasant to look at. if you thought there was any weight to his advances, you might even accept, but you know hangman’s type. especially after starting at the hard deck, you’d met your fair share of charmers. 

jake watches you, ignoring the conversation happening between his friends. it was clear to everyone—including him—that he might have a little more luck with you if he weren’t so abrasive, so smug, so cocky. for now, though, he liked the game that you played. he liked the way you rolled your eyes, but sometimes couldn’t contain a tiny smile. he liked the rare laugh he managed to get out of you, and he liked that you always acted surprised at the tips he gave you. and, self-assured as he is, maybe he likes the safety of the game. if he was playing around, there was no need for you to reject him. there was no need to make it real.

it’s a truly perfect summer night. the bar is just empty enough that you and penny enjoy conversation, but the time doesn’t drag. in fact, it feels as though the night disappears through your fingers, between grabbing drinks and cleaning up after penny leaves. as the crowd begins to disperse, you glance over at the tables overrun by jake and his friends gathering their glasses and wallets.

hangman has looked better, you must admit, but he still musters a half-charming smile when he and rooster approach the bar. “have fun, boys?” you ask, hiding your smirk at jake’s normally slicked hair looking disheveled and messy.

he sits with a decisive nod. rooster claps a hand on his shoulder, sharing a knowing look with you. “keep him out of trouble for a minute, will you?”

you mock salute him. “yessir.” when rooster heads back to the table, you smile at jake. “you ready to close out your tab?”

“please,” he answers easily, voice thick. “thank you.”

“how very polite, lieutenant,” you chuckle, turning to the till.

while you’re closing out his tab, jake watches you silently. he spends a great deal of time watching you, but he’s just drunk enough to not bother to hide it. he heaves a quiet sigh, resting his chin on his folded arms, listening to your quiet humming, barely audible above the music still playing lowly.

the sight of him softens you slightly, your shoulders falling. you hate the bloom of affection in your chest, the unbearable weight of adoration that crushes you when he gives you the tiniest little smile you’ve ever seen. mindlessly, almost without realizing, you smile back.

“you’re so pretty,” he whispers, eyes heavy, and you grin with a shake of your head.

“thanks, charmer. you’re pretty, too.”

you plant your hands on the bar and he stares up at you. you’ve seen him truly drunk only a few times since the two of you met and he’s always so…pleasant. when sober, jake seresin is brash, arrogant, and more than a little obnoxious. he’s known to fan the flames of every mild annoyance until everyone around him is burning, but right now he looks like a little boy, and he’s frank like one too. it makes you wonder how he can even be the same person.

“when’re you gonna let me take you out?” he asks, and you scoff out a laugh. 

but his eyes are so serious—lit with a tiny smile, but still earnest, and you tilt you head. “seresin…”

and then rooster is right there, flanking the aviator at your bar, and you smile shakily at him. “c’mon, man. let’s get you home.”

jake turns to rooster with smug smile. “y/n and i are speaking, bradley.”

you chuckle and hand jake his card. rooster gives you a mischievous smile and then suggests, “maybe if you ask y/n really nicely, she’ll walk us out the car.”

“thanks, rooster,” you murmur, rolling your eyes jovially. you know now that jake has heard the idea, he won’t let it go, so you wipe your hands on your jeans before making your way out from behind the bar. jake leans his weight against rooster, and you fold your arms across your chest, walking steadily beside them.

rooster looks over jake’s head to sneak a peek at you. “you two were getting a little cozy at the bar.”

“oh, were we?” you asked, looking over at him. “standing five feet apart?”

he laughs. the coastal night air washes over the three of you when you open the door. “close enough for me, gorgeous,” jake butts in, and you huff out an indignant chuckle.

“i’m sure it is, big guy.”

“okay, charmer,” rooster rolls his eyes, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “get in the car.”

he opens the door for jake, who turns to look at you, his eye dropping in a slow wink, and you tamp down a smile; it’s so typical of jake to still be flirting when he can’t keep his eyes straight, and even still, it’s near impossible to resist. “get in the car, seresin.”

“i’ll see you soon.”

rooster barks out a laugh and forces jake in the car himself, closing the door on him after a stern insistence to put on his seatbelt. “you’ve got to get sick of him.”

you watch jake fumble with his seatbelt through the window, and you smirk softly. “it’s kind of cute.” rooster gapes at you, and you feel your ears heat, pushing his chest gently. “shut up.”

“i’m just…surprised,” he responds, affable. “good surprised. i think you two would be great together.”

your eyes dance with mirth at rooster and you offer a shake of your head. “really?”

he shrugs. “you know how he is when it comes to you.”

did you? you thought you had, but you’ve begun to second-guess your first judgment on hangman. the idea of all of jake’s teasing coming from a place of honesty makes your heart beat just a touch faster, makes you look at him a little softer. makes you feel a little sweeter. “yeah,” you whisper, staring past rooster to look into the bronco. you don’t know, but you think you’re beginning to.

the case of smirnoff is too heavy for you to carry on your own, and penny knows this; every shipment day is free entertainment for her, watching you struggle to carry cases inside until she finally grants you with her help. you hear the back door swing open behind you and you huff, the summer air making the back of your neck sticky. “uncle, penny, uncle. i’m giving up.”

“so easy?”

you shriek in surprise, spinning around to look at jake. he laughs, tucking a free hand in his pocket. “jesus, jake.”

your eyes zero in on the small bouquet of flowers in his hand when he says, “i’m sorry, sweetheart. i really didn’t mean to startle you.”

“s’okay,” you exhale sharply, squinting under the sun. 

he nods at the case. “y’want some help with that?”

you grunt, kicking the case gently. “no, but it’s sweet of you to offer.” his pleased little smile makes your physical struggle and embarrassment worth it. “what’re you doing here? you’re about—” you facetiously look at your watch and jake smirks, raising a brow. “six hours early.”

flowers rustle in his hand as he takes a few tentative steps toward you. “rooster told me i was a little unbearable last night,” he admits, smiling softly at you. “i wanted to apologize if i came on too strong. or made you uncomfortable in any way.”

you smile at him, unable to tear your eyes from his. “i think we both know that you’re in the business of coming on too strong.” you accept the flowers when he holds them out to you, your stomach flipping when he gives you a grin so pretty that you have to look away. “but thank you. i really appreciate the gesture.”

jake nods once, sticking his other hand in his pocket, and all of a sudden you’re feeling shy. you know now that this, whatever he’s doing, is real. if teasing was all it was, there wouldn’t be flowers in your hand. jake wouldn’t be standing in front of you, clean-cut despite his almost guaranteed hangover. you feel a rush of adoration, a feeling you’re becoming increasingly familiar with.

“well, i guess i’ll let you—“

“hey, can i ask you something?” you ask, cutting him off. he raises a brow, urging you to continue, and you purse your lips for a moment. “why do you do that? flirt with me like that?”

he stares at you in surprise for a moment, his mouth opening and closing before he finally settles on, “you really don’t know?”

and you suspect you already know the answer, but it’s easier—and less dangerous—to play coy, so you return, “know what?”

jake says your name so softly, like it’s sacred. “because—because i like you.” 

and it’s juvenile. it’s so silly, how such simple words make your entire body burn, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. you can’t even find it in yourself to suppress the smile that splits your face. “oh.”

he chuckles, tilting his head just slightly in surprise. “you really didn’t know?”

“i thought you were just…like that,” you admit, shoulder lifting in a tiny shrug. he throws his head back in a loud laugh, hand pressing against his abdomen. 

“sweetheart, you are so clueless.”

yes, you are. you really are, but you don’t mind one bit, because the way he looks at you, a soft mixture of wonder and pure affection. that look is going to be burned into your subconscious for the rest of your life. in fifty years, you’ll pull this memory out on a cold day and you’ll remember how the sun beating down on you still wasn’t as warm as the look he gave you. you’ll remember it perfectly.

“if you like me so much, why haven’t you asked me out?” you ask quietly, and he purses his lips.

“do you want me to?”

you hadn’t, not before. not really. but now it seems like a foolish question for him to ask. can’t he see you? the way you look at him?

“do you want to?”

jake rolls his eyes and wraps an arm around your waist. “clueless, sugar.” and then he’s kissing you, one hand on your waist and the other cupping your cheek. you melt into him, entirely consumed by jake seresin. it’s so perfectly natural, the way you lean into him, the way he smiles against your mouth, the way you wrap an arm around his shoulders. 

and the rest is history, he always says, but you think that’s too clean. too brief. 

you like the long version better.

[somnambulants]

omg i think it’s considered a little bit of a pride mont hate crime that you don’t have MORE nat fics 🥺 so hehehe how about i request some pouty jealous!nat?

Notes: omg thank u! happy pride 💛 this went super off topic BUT i hope you still like it! jealous!nat is my new favorite thing. 

Summary: Natasha may have a little bit of jealous streak. You discover you don’t mind. Word count: 3.8K

You are not a jealous person.

That’s not to say that you aren’t prone to bouts of insecurity, you definitely are, and especially at the beginning of your relationship with Natasha. For the first few months after you’d begun dating, you’d been on edge the entire time; in a constant state of wondering, agonising, for the day she’d finally realise you weren’t good enough for her and up and leave.

Through all of that, you’d never given a lot of thought to whether your girlfriend is the jealous type. Mostly because Natasha is the most beautiful person you’d ever seen but also because it’s not like she would ever have a reason to be jealous; the minute you’d met, you had never so much as wanted to look at another person.

The thought never crossed your mind. It was laughable to you.

As unbelievable of an idea as it is, you’ve been together for just a few months when it slowly begins to dawn on you that you may not be the jealous type, but Natasha most definitely is.

--

In all – although admittedly, there weren’t a lot – of her relationships, Natasha has never cared enough to worry about being jealous over a significant other. 

This is why the visceral reaction she has to watching people flirt with you comes as such a surprise to her.

The first time it happens, you’d only just begun dating and were at one of the many events the avengers were required to attend. Still wanting to stay as low-key as possible, you’d both privately agreed to not spend the night attached to one another. 

Something Natasha is now beginning to regret. Immensely.

Currently, you’re across the room, talking to a woman Natasha vaguely recognises as a reporter and all she can focus on is the way the woman is looking at you. 

It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up because Natasha knows that look; has given you that look many times over the course of your relationship – a hungry, I want you right now, kind of look.

“Nat!”

Steve suddenly materialises beside her and the fact that she didn’t see him coming is evidence of how distracted she is. It makes her scowl even harder. Taking in her expression, he all of a sudden looks like he’s trying not to laugh as he follows her gaze to where you were standing. “You feeling okay? You’re looking a little…green.”

She resists the urge to kick him in the stomach. “Bite me, Rogers.”

He snickers and starts to say something else, but whatever it is, it’s lost on her as the sound of your voice across the room acts as a honing beacon and regains her attention immediately.

She watches, grip tightening around her drink, as you throw your head back, laughing at some joke the woman must’ve made. Seeing this as a green light, the woman leans in, brushing a lone piece of hair over your shoulder. 

It doesn’t matter that Natasha can see how your spine immediately straightens up, or how you step back to widen the gap between you and your admirer.It doesn’t matter that you very clearly don’t return the attention being given to you. 

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters because all Natasha can see and feel is red. If she had the ability to burn people with her eyes, that woman would have been incinerated on the spot. There wouldn’t even be tiny little dust particles left behind.

In the midst of her rage, she doesn’t even register the glass in her hand shattering until she’s covered in glass and red wine and there’s blood running down her wrist.

The sound of the glass breaking makes a good portion of the room’s occupants turn around to stare, you included. Instantly, you’re at her side, cradling her hand between your own.

“What happened?”

In its current state, Natasha’s brain seems to be lacking its usual quick thinking, and she just stares at you dumbly for a second until she spots the reporter you’d been talking to skulking in the background, watching with a petulant look on her face, evidently irritated by the interruption and the white-hot rage comes flooding back even more ferocious than before.

God, that insipid woman is lucky this event was specified no weapons allowed because if Natasha had a gun right now, she --

“--Natasha?”

You’re looking at her with worry in your eyes and as much as she’d love to go ‘accidentally’ push that woman off the edge of this very tall building’s balcony to a very certain death, she feels her insides soften into mush as they often do when you’re around.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Accident.”

It’s a flimsy excuse and one that wouldn’t fly on a normal day, especially not with you. She watches you purse your lips, giving her a doubtful look but you seem to make the decision to let it go as you lead her out of the room with the intent to find something to clean her up with.

--

You may not be a trained spy or even the most perceptive person on your best day, but you can still sense it when something is up – especially with Natasha. After the party, you’d had an inkling that maybe your girlfriend wasn’t telling you the whole truth and that something else was actually going on but after seeing the look in her eye, you hadn’t pushed her.

In spite of her unwillingness to share, a few weeks later your inkling is confirmed.

“I’ll order this time,” you yell over the loud music at the bar you were currently at. It was not your scene at all – or Natasha’s but Carol had recommended it on her last trip back to this earth and after a long, long week, you’d both agreed you deserved a night out, away from avengers’ duties and this is where you’d ended up.

Natasha gives you a nod and you stand, only having to wait at the bar for a few seconds before the bartender makes a b-line for you, ignoring the grumbles from the patrons that had been clearly waiting a lot longer than you.

“What can I get you?”

You recite Natasha’s drink, then your own and the bartender makes them with record speed. When you try to hand her the bill to pay, she waves her hand dismissively and gives you a grin. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t –“

The bartender, who you now realise is quite pretty, runs a finger along the back of your hand and gives you a wink that is definitely more flirty than friendly. “Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”

You sigh in defeat, giving her a smile in thanks and turn back around, making your way back to your table in the corner of the room where your girlfriend is still sitting but now with a face like thunder. 

To anyone else, Natasha would probably look neutral but to you – well, you can see the irritated look in her eye and the slight crease between her brows and you know she’s pissed.

In the future, you’d look back and want to slap yourself for not seeing it straight away but in the present it just makes you a little worried.

“Everything okay?” you ask, setting the drinks down on the table. You think about all the possibilities of what could’ve happened in the short time you’d been gone and try not to panic. “Did something –"

“No,” Natasha says and then seems to realise the sharpness in her voice because her face softens in apology. She leans over to give you a quick kiss and it makes you relax slightly. “Everything’s fine.”

Comprehension starts to trickle in when she scoots over so she can wrap an arm around your shoulder to pull you closer, and when you follow her line of sight, you realise she’s glaring over your head at the bartender, who pales immediately and doesn’t so much as look in your direction again.

Oh, you feel your eyes widen as it finally hits you: oH.

You look down into your drink and try to hide your disbelieving smile as you finally understand: she’s jealous. 

If it were anyone else, you think you probably wouldn’t feel like this – would likely be outright irritated and a little offended at the behaviour -- but with Natasha you can’t help but find it kind of … cute.

A little giddily, you lean over to press a kiss to her jaw and feel her relax a little against you. “Wanna go after this one?”

Natasha’s face doesn’t change but you see a little shift in her eyes as she nods and pulls you in for another kiss, this one a little more heated – for your benefit or the bartenders, you don’t know, and don’t particularly mind either way as you let yourself get lost in it.

--

After that night, it becomes so apparent to you and you don’t know how you’d missed it all this time. It happens all the time. All. The. Time.

On the street, if someone so much as glances your way, she’s already staring back at them with an expression that would be terrifying even to you if she directed it your way.

At work one day one of the new recruits, a kid, really, comes up to you and asks you, voice trembling if you’d let him take you out someday and the next day Natasha knocks him on his ass so hard and so many times that you’re kind of surprised – and a little impressed—that the poor kid doesn’t quit right on the spot.

Even in your apartment building, one of your maybe-slightly too friendly neighbours gets similar treatment in the elevator one night when you and Natasha are returning to the building at the same time as her. 

Just as you enter the elevator, you hear the voice of your neighbour calling out.

“Hold the door!”

Panting, your neighbour enters the small space. “Thank you so much, I have had the worst, oh –” her eyes land on Natasha beside you and she looks at her with something you can’t quite place in her eyes. “Who’s your …friend?”

“Oh!” you exclaim and you know you must sound surprised. Was it not obvious from how Natasha was always here that you were dating? “This is Natasha. My girlfriend. Nat, this is Charlotte, my neighbour.”

You can see Natasha in the reflection of the elevator walls, so you see the smug self-satisfied look she gives your neighbour as she wraps an arm around you possessively.

So, yes while you notice it all now, you still don’t say anything because a small – and by small, you mean large, massive actually – part of you kind of likes it; likes the fact that the Natasha Romanoff, the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen in your life is somehow yours and even more unbelievably, somehow she thinks you’re worth getting worked up like that over.

--

At this point, you’ve been dating for over a year and somehow it must’ve slipped the memo to let all of the avengers know because somehow every time you’re at the office, it seems like a new person is finding out about your relationship. 

It’s really hard to keep up with everyone and their individual missions, which is how you find yourself in your current predicament.

“--ah, well-well,” a familiar voice calls out and you look up from the report you’d been studying. “If it isn’t the most attractive and coincidentally my favourite honorary avenger.”

In the doorway of your office, Sam is grinning at you in that playful, flirty but also joking kind of way that’s distinctly Sam Wilson. You grin back and stand to let him pull you into a hug.

“Did you just get back?” you ask, vaguely remembering him telling you he was going on a mission at least six months ago. You think it was in Istanbul, but you can’t quite remember the specifics. 

Sam pulls back and goes to open his mouth but doesn’t get the chance to speak as Natasha appears in the doorway.

“Samuel,” she drawls his name, eyeing his arm around you. She visibly brightens up when she looks at you, though. “Y/N”

You can’t see yourself, but you know your face must light up as your eyes land on her by the sudden realisation that crosses Sam’s face. The casual kiss she drops on your cheek comes as confirmation.

His mouth drops open as he looks between you both. “Oh damn, you two?” he asks, smiling genuinely. “Damn!”

To the naked eye, Natasha doesn’t seem amused by his revelation, but you know her well enough by now to be able to spot the glimmer of humour in her eyes. 

Sam, however, doesn’t seem to be adept at reading her as you are and so when she advances a little closer, his eyes widen and he immediately backs away.

“I didn’t know! I didn’t know!” he exclaims, hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry!”

The expression on Natasha’s face turns sinister in nature. You watch and try not to laugh at her theatrics, attempting to adopt a sympathetic expression when he desperately looks to you for help.

“Well,” Natasha says, faux-friendly. As she passes by him, she gives him what looks like a bone-shatteringly hard arm squeeze – if the pained expression on Sam’s face is any indication -- and comes to stand beside your desk. “Now you know, buddy.”

“That I do,” he says, backing up until he reaches the door. “Anyways, I gotta, uh –"

Not even finishing his sentence, he high-tails it out of the room so fast you barely see him leave. You turn to Natasha with a frown. She looks back at you innocently, but you catch the way her lip twitches a little bit before she breaks into a full blown smirk.

“You’re going to give someone have a heart attack one day, you know,” you say, half-serious. “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t already.”

Unbothered, Natasha shrugs and reaches out to tug you closer to her in order to kiss you, a little more intensely than you would normally allow at work. You melt into it with a sigh, smiling a little. 

Eventually, you have to pull away when you start to struggle to breathe and your head starts spinning. Natasha makes an unhappy sound, trying to follow, but you stand firm.

“Nope, you’ve got to go before I’m the one that has the heart attack.”

With a pout, she gives you one more kiss before she gives into your request.

--

You’ve never seen Natasha drunk before – hadn’t even thought she could get drunk but tonight she’s definitely wasted -- all thanks to Thor and whatever is in the mead he’d bought with him.

One thing you quickly realise about drunk Natasha is drunk Natasha also means confrontational Natasha.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about –”

Her and Tony are almost nose to nose at this point, about ten minutes into what was now a heated conversation, and you’re kind of wondering if either of them even knows what they’re arguing about. You don’t think so and by the looks on the other avengers faces, they seem to have as much of an idea as you do.

As Natasha and Tony continue to argue, you look to your left and the young waiter who’d been hovering by your table a little too attentively all night is immediately by your side. 

So Natasha can’t see you, you quickly mouth the word water to him and thankfully he seems to understand because he gives you a quick nod and then disappears, reappearing just as swiftly with a glass in his hand.

“Here, Miss –"

“No!” Ending her argument with Tony as abruptly as it began, Natasha jabs a finger at the waiter, who looks to you for help while she glares up at him balefully. 

The poor guy looks terrified, so you quickly intervene, touching Natasha’s knee to bring her attention back to you. It does the trick, but she seems to underestimate how close in proximity you already are and she ends up half in your lap to the delight of the other avengers in attendance, who all let out various different whistles.

“Mine,” she says childishly into the crook of your arm. You only just manage to pick it up so you know you must be the only person who heard her. With your help, she sits up a little and makes eye contact with you as she repeats herself, more seriously, as if you hadn’t understood the first time: “mine.”

“I – oh --okay,” you say, grabbing her hand as it starts to creep a little too low to be polite in your current company. “How about we get you home?”

After hurriedly saying your goodbyes, twenty minutes later you park in your driveway and begin the not-so-small feat of getting her inside.

“Damn,” you grunt a little under her weight as you help her up the stairs to your apartment. “What do they put into that Asgardian mead?”

You make a mental note to ask Thor about it and then promptly forget as you reach your front door and fumble around, looking for your keys. 

Even in her inebriated state, Natasha somehow pulls herself together enough to reach into your bag and pull them put for you so you can unlock the door.

Which she promptly falls through. You just manage to catch her before she hits the floor, and she leans against you, burying her face into your neck.

“Come on,” you order gently, softening as she groans into your skin. “Bed.”

“No.”

As if to emphasise the word, Natasha shakes her head, but to your surprise, she starts to make her way to your bedroom anyway. She’s still a little unsteady on her feet but nothing like you’d be if you’d drank as much as she had. If it were you, you would definitely have been comatose about seven shots and multiple hours ago.

“Alright, you get into bed,” you say. “And I’ll get you some water, okay?”

Natasha scowls. “No,” she says. You bite your lip to hold in your laugh at the petulance you hear in her voice, shadowing her to the bed, where she immediately sits down and attempts multiple times to take off her heels with little success.

“No?”

Finally having enough of watching her struggle, you lean down and undo the straps of her heels, gently pulling them off her feet. You watch as she flops back on the bed and then covers her face dramatically with a groan. “You don’t get it,” she says unsteadily.

“I don’t get what?”

“You’re mine,” she repeats her earlier words, uncovering her eyes to look at you.

You raise an eyebrow. “Am I now?”

You thought you’d managed to cover your amusement pretty well until you see the glare she shoots you that says she can see it loud and clear. After a beat of silence it becomes clear she’s not going to say anything else.

With difficulty, you slowly manage to get her into a sitting position and help her out of her dress, pulling the covers up around her and retrieving a glass of water that you place on her nightstand so she can drink it in the morning.

You then change yourself and go the bathroom to remove what makeup you’d had on. To your surprise, she’s still awake when you emerge, half-propped up against the headboard and looking at you with bleary, unfocused eyes. It makes your heart turn to mush immediately and you get into bed beside her as quickly as your feet allow.

She immediately curls up into you and you wrap an arm around her, pulling her as close to you as humanly possible. 

“I am yours, just so you know.”

There’s a second of silence where you start to think that maybe she’s fallen asleep, until she shifts against you to meet your gaze, looking a little more alert and coherent but still out of it.

“Good,” she says softly.

The next morning, you wake before Natasha and slip out of bed to make her coffee and to find some pain killers, having a gut feeling she’ll probably need them. Your feeling turns out to be right. When you re-enter the bedroom, she’s laying face-down but clearly awake by the muffled groaning you can hear coming from her.

“Whys’it so bright,” she mumbles into the mattress as you approach the bed, turning her head ever so slightly so she can meet your eyes. You grin down at her.

“Ah, it awakens.”

She scowls up at you and you laugh, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek as you slide back into bed, careful not to jostle her too much. She leans her head against your leg, slowly sipping the glass of water you’d left for her last night before reaching for the coffee on the nightstand.

You fall into a comfortable silence; you running your hand through her hair as she drinks her coffee, humming contentedly.

“How are you feeling –"

“I don’t like it when people look at you,” she interrupts suddenly, staring down into her coffee mug and sounding uncharacteristically nervous. You freeze but since she’s not looking at you, she doesn’t seem to notice. “But it’s not because of anything you do. I just don’t … like it.”

“Okay?” you hedge cautiously, not really understanding.

“I’m sorry if it bothers you,” she says. “Me. Being like that. I didn’t know I was even the type to –"

“It doesn’t bother me.”

At your quick interjection, she looks at you for the first time and whatever she sees on your face makes her smile faintly. “It doesn’t?”

You bite your lip. “Not at all.”

She mirrors you, now smirking. “Oh.”

After this, it starts to become a game: one you feel like you win every time.

[babesonly]

fic recs 2.0!

hello kings (gn) ive got significantly more fic than last time which means this is gonna be a little more organized than the last post bc it is much longer <3 categories in order are non casefic canonverse, casefic/roadtrip fic, finale fixits, endverse, non supernatural aus, and then non destiel ones. titles will be in bold for my favs! also within each category they’re in order from shortest to longest

Canonverse

I’m a tulip in a cup by godtiering (1.2k)

I worry that I never really came back from hell. I wonder why, if I got remade by heaven, I’m still the same screwed up kid that I always was.

Sometimes I worry I’m not into women at all.

"Guess not,” he looks at his shoes.

a REALLY good fic that’s basically just a look inside dean’s head during my bloody valentine do not read this looking for a fun time but please do read it

on vessels by flightsofangels (1.9k)

“You know,” Cas mutters into Dean’s bare skin. “When I was still… an angel, I used to dream that I would take you as my vessel.”

hello consumehimnatural fans!!!!! read newt’s fic right now its incredible

dean winchester is not a nicholas sparks protagonist by microcomets (1.9k)

Dean fell in love with Cas the way you fall asleep--slowly, and then all at once. Or some other hackneyed and trite bullshit. God, this is embarrassing.

dean is in LOVE. he’s also a disaster who keeps staring at cas’ hands. sigh

Stay by aeli_kindara (2.5k)

Coda to 13.06 (Tombstone). In which Castiel reckons with the aftermath of Dean's grief.

hello fellow widow arc fans <3 click here to see cas find out abt the events of advanced thanatology !

walking on a string by swordfishtrombones (2.7k)

Between the doomed offensive at the Firmament and the impending retreat from the ravaged northeast border, Castiel left camp long enough to answer one of Dean Winchester's prayers.

S6 DEAN IS A WAR WIFE. been really into early seasons deancas lately and this one is very good. god

the flesh of the mighty by Mudprophet (2.7k)

Ezekiel 39:17 "you shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth."

MY GOD. anyone who saw the @autisticandroids​ purgatory cannibalism talk and was interested read this right now. also anyone who enjoyed nbc hannibal OR raw (2016). if romantic cannibalism is remotely aligned with your interests read this right now. god

Sam Winchester, Ally At Law by alittleduck (3.3k)

Sam was pretty sure he could read every single gay friendly guide to coming out or supporting queer family members ever written and literally none of them would even imply that arguing with gay people that they were actually just homophobic constituted as "ally behavior". However, Sam was equally sure that none of those book authors had found themselves accidentally watching their brother get pounded by an Angel of the Lord at 9 am on Tuesday, so Sam was pretty sure he might actually still have the higher ground. Now, if only Jack would stop trying to bond with Dean using gay slurs long enough for Sam to convince everyone of that, he might just be able to cobble together some remnant of sanity or, failing that, dignity.

Or, the one where Sam desperately wants to invent PFLAG but Dean won't stop teaching Jack gay slurs

JACK VOICE HEY COCKSUCKERS. 

hummed low by microcomets (3.3k)

Dean pulls the Impala over at a cider barn about thirty miles out; doesn't really think about it, just sees the hokey orange lettering off the roadside and lets his hands guide the Impala off the interstate with gravel spitting under the wheels.

they get a nice day out together and dean has a gay crisis and it’s written beautifully mwah

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit by pyrebi (3.9k)

In which angelic marriage bonds are apparently stupidly easy to trigger, Cas wages multidimensional war in Heaven, Dean can't catch a break like ever, Sam rather enjoys being a dick, love saves the day, and nobody consummates anything.

sometimes i think about this fic and it hits that at this point dean and cas would have been married for more than a year. cas my beloved...

an exploration of gender; angelic by sometimeswelose (4k)

Castiel's true form is made of electromagnetic radiation. He has spent the majority of his life, if you really want to add it all up and average the whole thing out, as a wavelength of celestial intent.

The thing about being made of light: it's light in the physics sense of the word. Castiel's waves are gamma, x-ray, micro, and radio. He's visible light too, of course, a visible light so intense that it is blinding to most humans.

hello trans cas community <3 he’s literally trans he was assigned genderless and then went hm actually i will be a man! love of my life

Some Boys are Sleeping Alone by prosopopeya (4.2k)

This isn't something that's okay, not for him, but it chases him through the years until it turns into something he can't -- doesn't want to deny. 

ohhh deans tenuous relationship with his sexuality my beloved...

love. worship. consummation. consumption. by redeyedwrath (4.3k)

ConsumehimNatural (copyright marcusantonius) the Series!

These are all snapshots centered around the idea of you know. Hunger in Supernatural. Both carnal hunger and other kinds. Fics are shown in semi-chronological order but this series is generally nebulously early seasons.

for ANYONE who is a consumehimnaturual this is required reading it is INCREDIBLE and gorgeous and very visceral and i am so very obsessed with it. thank you redeyedwrath for enabling my brainrot

the reach of human sense by perilously (4.5k)

“You know what Jimmy Novak looked like. You think he was beautiful—gorgeous, hot, all of it. It’s him. Not me. This isn’t my face.”

“But,” Dean says. He doesn’t know where he’s going with it. Just that Cas’ face is right there, brows drawn together and cheekbones gleaming in the lamplight. It’s a face that’s made his heart skip probably a couple hundred beats collectively since they met.

And it used to belong to someone else.

this one is just very nice <3 cas gets uncomfortable w dean calling him attractive since dean has never seen his trueform and they work it out

Down in the River by Ias (4.7k)

Alone in Purgatory and hunted by Leviathans, Castiel finds himself praying to the one person who can't hear him.

cas i love you <3 cas alone in purgatory praying to dean bc dean is the only thing he still worships i love you so much

Creature of Habit by trinityofone (5.1k)

The more you love someone, the more you want to kill them. Or: How Cas developed some bad habits, and Dean coped surprisingly well.

written in s5 when cas was depowered and completely nails the later seasons bitchy husbands dynamic it’s very good and fun <3

sink by crackers4jenn (5.4k)

"Where to?" A 9.06 coda.

very bittersweet very well written and also canon compliant so do not go into this one looking for a happy ending but i DO recommend it it’s very good

Sensational by castiowl (6.1k)

“When I first came to earth, it was advised that we temper the senses bound to our vessels. They were a distraction, we were told. An antiquated form of experiencing existence that would hinder our ability to complete our missions, whatever that may be. My true form can better facilitate these experiences. What you would recognize as heightened senses of sight and sound, among other things.”

Or, how Dean helps Cas experience all five human senses for the first time in one night.

early seasons deancas man. i love the sound part i love dean being so worried about doing a good job with this. god. read this please

Something to Protect by Sass_Master (6.2k)

Dean’s violent reaction to being unexpectedly woken has become something of a running joke among them, but Castiel can’t help but look past it to the underlying cause. It makes him ache to think that Dean feels so unsafe, so persecuted, before he’s even fully conscious.

Secretly, Castiel has been determined to work on that, to ease Dean into awareness in a less jarring way, smooth away one of the many stresses that follow him even in sleep. Now’s as good a time as any to try.

oh to sleep more soundly in the presence of someone you love...this fic is very nice i enjoyed it a lot

all this and heaven too by ftmsteverogers (7k)

“Hey,” Dean said. “I’m not ashamed of you, okay?”

Cas raised skeptical eyes to meet his.

“I mean it,” Dean insisted.

“I understand you mean it,” Cas said. “But I don’t think it’s any better if you’re only ashamed of yourself.”

hello trans dean community here is 7k of trans dean having to deal with his internalized homophobia now that he’s sleeping with cas <3 it is SO good

The wilderness. by orange_crushed (8k)

He takes a shower and the pressure is not especially good, but it doesn’t matter. It’s warm and he stands under the spray a long time. Human skin, he knows, constantly renews itself, shedding the dead cells of the epidermis. He wonders how long it will take until he is an entirely new person, until every cell on his surface is a new one. He looks at his hands under the water. It might take less than a month.

this might be the only post 9x03 fic on here with a happy ending actually? plenty of good melancholy leading up to it though <3 canon divergent after 9x03 though which means no 9x06 fanfiction gap but it is absolutely worth reading

till the juice runs by deathbanjo (8.4k)

Apparently whoever drew up the venn diagram of Dean’s sex life decided the circle labelled ‘good sex’ and the one labelled ‘sex with men’ should be kept far apart.

hello this one is SO funny dean finally gets comfortable enough with his bisexuality to start having sex with men and it goes so very bad every time so sorry about your shitty choices beloved </3

First Date by aeli_kindara (8.9k)

“We should go on a date. You and me.”

Castiel wishes he could see Dean’s face. He wishes he had any idea what to say.

“I’m asking you out, Cas.”

this one is very sweet i liked it a lot <3 good refreshing little fic where they just get to have a nice evening together

Entertaining Strangers by cadignan (9k)

Dean settles on to his side, lying in the bed facing Castiel. “So you had sex without me and you bit all my moves. I think I deserve to hear about it, at least. What was her name?”

op im in love with you. premise is established relationship deancas and cas mentions he did have sex before dean and not only that it was a threesome. good for him <3 this fic is cas describing the story of what led up to the threesome and what happened during it while dean interrupts regularly. incredible

the shape you take by noviembre (10k)

“What?” Dean says, fake-offended. “I’d be hot as a girl, you know I would.”

And this is when he really, really should have stopped talking. When he shouldn't have whipped back around and asked, “Cas, if I was a woman, you’d fuck me, right?”

Because if he hadn’t said that, then he wouldn’t have had to deal with this:

Cas, meeting his eyes, forehead wrinkles all smoothed out like there’s nothing to be confused about anymore. Cas with something at the corner of his mouth that might barely be called a smile.

Cas saying, calmly and without hesitation, “Yes, Dean.”

--

Dean Winchester fucks around and, with the inadvertent help of some witches, Finds Out.

dean winchester your gender is diabolical. this fic is insane and its the only thing that matters actually. dean fully convinced its normal and straight to think about being a woman so you can fuck your male friend. incredible. op im proposing to you

Sinnerman by a_good_soldier (10k)

Dean listens to Nina Simone, reads Anne Carson, and makes out with a dude (sort of).

yall want to read about dean realizing he’s in love with a man as a direct result of learning to better respect women right?

you’re fooling yourself by cowboydeanwinchester (13k)

Dean Winchester and Castiel retire from hunting to raise baby Jack. Dean struggles to allow himself the things he truly wants.

Jack is two, Castiel and Dean are idiots, and Sam's gotta solve everyone's problems.

love a married couple who doesn’t know they’re married <3 everyone say thank you sam for bullying dean 

The Girlfriend Experience by rageprufrock (15k)

While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.

a classic for good fucking reason. we’ve all talked about dean thinking holding hands is too gay after having just had gay sex but my personal favorite was sam accusing dean of cheating on cas because dean bought condoms. incredible

No Kingdom To Come by domesticadventures (16k)

“We should fuck,” Dean says.

Cas looks up from where he sits on his bed, hair still damp from the shower, frowning as he places a finger on the page of his book to mark where he left off.

There are a million things Cas could say here; Dean has rehearsed them. After lunch, his restlessness had given way to a vague panic, a dread that matched his every step and crept along with him from room to room. Eventually, he had returned to his bedroom and spent the rest of the afternoon pacing back and forth, playing out all the possible scenarios. When Cas asks him Why? or Are you being serious? or when he sighs and says, in that way he has, Dean, he knows exactly what he’s going to do. He’s going to shrug casually, like he isn’t invested in the answer, like he isn’t desperate for an outlet, and say, Why not? He’s going to raise an eyebrow and say, What, are you not interested? He’s going to crowd into Cas’ personal space, he’s going to shove himself right up in there and whisper Cas against his ear.

Instead, Cas says, carefully, “Okay.”

literally the only quarantine fic i’ve ever bothered to read in any fandom and completely worth it it’s SO good. they become fwb and dean has an existential crisis and he keeps bringing up meaninglessness and death during sex

Bodies by Speary (18k)

It was a secret they never acknowledged even with each other. It would change everything, end everything if either of them ever dropped the act. So they became very good at acting, at keeping up the lie that gave them what they wanted. Even if that lie involved constantly seeking out temporary, consenting female vessels, Cas would do it. He told himself it was worth it for Dean. He just hoped that he could stop wanting more, or maybe one day Dean might stop pretending that he wasn't really sleeping with Cas every time.

i don’t even have anything to add tbh if that summary did not immediately make you click we are very different this fic is incredible. god. fellas do you ever make yourself a woman so you can fuck the man you love without him having to talk about it or confront his sexuality

it’s such a mystery (the way you know me) by fleeceframe (20k)

So the man crouching in front of Castiel is named Dean. He wonders if that’s supposed to mean something to him.

“Cas must’ve got hit with something earlier. He just dropped like a sack of fucking potatoes a minute ago. By the time I was checking on him, he had already woken up again, but now he doesn’t fucking know who we are.”

“I’m right here you know,” Castiel says testily.

Sam’s eyes are wide even as his eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks between Dean and Castiel again.

“What do you remember, Cas?”

“Firstly, that I’m not Cas. I don’t know who Cas is, but it’s not me. I don’t know who either of you are, either."

or the one where castiel is hit with a memory curse that makes him forget the winchester brothers and is stunned to find out he has a family... also why can't he stop thinking about dean?

BEST amnesia fic oh my god. cas my beloved you deserve the world. everyone read this that is not a request.

More Than Ever by Sass_Master (20k)

Dean’s getting some pancakes together for breakfast when Cas saunters in after a run.

He’s trying to focus on whisking batter, unfairly distracted by Cas a few feet away, breathing heavily and shining with perspiration. Dean’s been painfully aware for a long time that Cas is pretty easy on the eyes, but he’s used to seeing Cas buttoned-up and unflappable, looking straight-laced in a stiff oxford and an unflattering trenchcoat.

Now Cas is sweating, Dean’s borrowed t-shirt clinging to his skin, flushed from exertion and Dean really can’t deal with that in his kitchen right now.

this entire series is really good i enjoyed it a lot, i’m just putting this one specifically on the list bc the rest of the series is very explicit and this is really good as a standalone for anyone who wouldn’t be into the rest of the series!!

Being Dean Winchester by Anonymous (20k)

"You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in."

Who the fuck was this bitchy "warrior of God" doing talking to him like that? Fuck Cas-tee-el and his dumbass trench coat and abrasive motherfucking attitude.

Dean was done with this shit.

***

Wherein a monster of the week steals the essence of Castiel's vessel, so he must use Dean, recently raised from hell, as a vessel instead.

it is at this point i realize that there are more fics than i expected there to be on this list that involves a threesome with only two people/using the presence of a female body to act like what’s happening is heterosexual. deangirlism is a disease 

I Shall Not Want by domesticadventures (20k)

His grace is burning out, and the wasteland it leaves inside him becomes an echo chamber for all the memories, all the fear and doubt and self-loathing he's collected over the years. Things said and done hound him on endless repeat until he's convinced they’ll break through his skin and fill the silence of the bunker.

His head is killing him, and he sits hunched over an open book, not really reading, just digging his fingers into his skull and praying nothing slips through the cracks.

this one is GORGEOUS i love it so so much. dean and cas are both struggling so much to get by and they’re trying to support each other but fucking it up and they have to grow together and learn to cope with the fact that this is where their lives are and they fall in love i need everyone to read this

To Boldly Go by 8daysuntiltheapocalypseiguess (24k)

Title: Just One of Those Things Author: Impala67 Series: TOS Rating: M Summary: Four years into their five-year mission, and all the planets start to look the same.

In which Dean is not Gene Roddenberry, but he does write Star Trek fanfiction.

mx winchester writing star trek fanfiction to process his own trauma <3 this is a wip but it’s SO good and i also have not consumed a single piece of star trek media so it IS definitely readable to anyone who isn’t a star trek fan. please read this

where the weeds take root by deathbanjo (30k)

“Are you happy? Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.”

this is on here just for the 1.5 people who were putting off this one like i did for no reason. it’s extremely good and it is just gentle. i enjoyed it a lot

Heroes for Ghosts by pantheon_of_discord (42k)

After Sam and Dean are arrested, Castiel is left alone and scrambling to find them. He knows they’re locked away in a government facility, and he’s still able to hear their prayers, but no matter how he tries Castiel can’t seem to track them. He chases leads and even attempts to hunt on his own, but Mary is AWOL, Crowley refuses to help, and Castiel’s options are running out.

Weeks pass, Castiel’s hope dwindles, and through it all Dean prays, keeping them connected. His voice is comforting, frustrating, and occasionally annoying, but in his solitude Castiel comes to cherish it. But then one day, without warning, Dean stops praying, and Castiel is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about his feelings.

yall ever wonder what it would’ve been like if the sam and dean arrest storyline in s12 was interesting? yeah <3

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara (52k)

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean.

(A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

cas learning about humanity through poetry before dean and thats what led to him developing enough emotion to be lobotomized....cas i love you so much

Emergence by ellispark (58k)

Something’s been missing from Dean’s life for the past three years, a void left after a hunt gone terribly wrong. He often feels a sense of longing with no discernible cause, a need to talk to someone who isn’t there.

A call from an acquaintance leads Dean to James Novak, a man who disappeared more than a decade ago, and suddenly Dean gets the feeling he’s found what he’s been missing. But James isn’t really James — he’s the angel Castiel, who’s wanted by angels, demons and hunters alike. And he may be at the center of the storm that wrecked Dean’s life all those years ago.

another cool amnesia fic!! for unknown reasons everyone forgot cas three years ago but cas didn’t forget anything. cas deserves so much love and support. god

a turn of the earth by microcomets (95k)

Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run.

Frigging fantastic.

(Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)

cas getting to meet and fall in love with pre hell dean just as much as he loves the dean he already knows oh my GOD. i love this fic so much. turn of the earth my beloved

Crossing Lines by sometimeswelose (122k)

Two Deans, one Cas - it's not as sexy as it sounds

Or

An ethics lesson from Hell

Or

The one where Dean from the past meets Dean in the present. They're not sure they like each other very much.

deans intense self hatred vs cas’ unwavering love for every version of dean oh my GOD also this is a wip fair warning but it’s so worth waiting for updates i’m having such a great time with this one i cannot wait to see how it gets ended

Plot Holes by saltyfeathers (160k)

Of course it wasn’t over after the apocalypse.

There was season six. Then there was season seven. Against all expectations, there was season eight. There were the alphas and purgatory, and then the Leviathans, and then the angels fell. Enter season nine. Loose threads Metatron, Abaddon, and Crowley have to be tied up. Sam, Dean, and Cas have to try to tie them while at the same time dealing with their evolving relationships and newfound graceless states.

Amidst all the chaos, someone has started publishing the Supernatural novels again. Convinced there’s something amiss in the pages, Charlie starts her own quest to suss out the truth behind the Winchester Gospels.

With the help of various faces, old and new, they must now not only deal with the typical runs of demons and recently fallen angels, but also reconcile the battles raging inside themselves, as the fate of the world, once again, quite literally lays in the palm of their hands.

saltyfeathers said i WILL make the plot holes in this show mean something because the showrunners are sure as shit never gonna adress them ! and i thank them for it bc this was a really cool read

Casefic/Roadtrip Fic

Deprived Of Every Planet by KelpietheThundergod (9k)

Dean's breathing is audible in the scant space between them, irregular. The motel room is dark, pale blue shadows falling in through the gaps in the blinds. Throwing a pattern of uneven white stripes over the bunched up covers. Over Dean's fingers twisted in the sheets. One half of him in shadow, softened by the dark. The heat of his skin. The tremble of him under Castiel's touch.

He caresses a hand over Dean's chest, slowly. Dean's mouth falls open, his body arching into Castiel's touch. Castiel stops over Dean's heart. Through the fever of his desire, he rejoices about the wonder of experiencing another's heartbeat through one's own senses.

Dean gasps, but then he turns his face away and towards the dark. Eyes closed tight and brows furrowed like something is hurting him.

Castiel stills.

“Dean?”

the case is background on this one but it Does take place over the course of a case so im putting it here. god touchstarved dean trying so hard to work through his shit for cas head in my hands i love this fic so much

before and after breakfast by spocklee (10k)

The monster of the week is a ghost who hates meat, alcohol, and feeling yourself. Guess who it is during the commercials.

chapter 2 of this one.....god. dean and cas you are both so unwell <3 i love everything abt this fic everyone read it now

we shovel all the ashes out by xylodemon (15k)

Dean’s always known things were headed this way. He just figured getting dragged under would be cleaner and easier than jumping in feet-first.

fics that make you go Oh they love each other...also there’s lesbians in it literally what else could you want.

thunder road by dothraki_shieldmaiden (20k)

After Chuck is defeated and the Winchesters settle into life without God, Dean Winchester is bored.

OR: Dean and Cas take a road trip and figure out some stuff along the way.

this fic is just like. it’s kind! this fic is kind it’s just a pleasant experience and i enjoyed it thoroughly. they’re in love and it’s good

Suck It, Judy Garland by GlitterDwarf, midrashic (20k)

It had to be St. Louis. Or, the one where Sam and Cas get fake married for a case, and Dean loses his mind.

actually im gonna defend dean here imagine youre dean and cas gives what definitely sounded like a deathbed love confession while making eye contact with you and then immediately afterwards fake dates your brother. who among us would not have been a bitch about this

best friends without benefits by lizbobjones (20k)

It’s nearing three a.m. and they’ve been on the road a long time. Sam’s been asleep in the back seat since eleven. Giving up and handing the wheel over to Cas and letting the guy who doesn’t sleep drive had seemed like a good idea.

the premise of this fic is so funny. cas voice dean you want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid. everyone read this

the taste of gravel in the mouth by deathbanjo (22k)

This is what Cas gave up Heaven for: greasy diner food, shitty motel rooms with even shittier cable, long car rides spent in complete silence except for the same six tapes playing over and over again, and a burnt-out husk of a man who can barely hold a conversation anymore.

alt version of getting rid of the mark of cain, the darkness never happens. this one is VERY heavy but it’s so good and it has a hopeful ending. ive read this one twice and loved it both times

Someone Who’s Feeling For Me by ellispark (45k)

Dean sees her for the first time in nearly six years in some no-name town in Idaho, and it's panic at first sight.

Lisa Braeden, the one woman Dean ever actually had a shot at a real life with, back from where he buried her in his mind. And her hand is on Cas's arm like it's no big deal, like it belongs there. Cas, Dean's dorky, sweet, badass, angelic best friend, and he's just standing there next to Lisa and not moving her hand away.

Dean feels the jealousy rising, and it's not directed where he expected it to be. Because it takes this exact moment for Dean to realize he's in love with his best friend. He's in love with his best friend, and Lisa is looking at Cas like he's the best thing since automatic rifles, and Dean is utterly fucked.

hello op please contact me. please contact me and let me see the inside of your brain. this fic was an unparalleled experience and everyone should also go through it. i love it so very much

Bumper Cars by mansikka (111k)

Two teenagers are missing from an abandoned carnival, and there’s enough to raise suspicion that their disappearance involves a ghost. Dean, Sam, and Cas arrive in town to investigate, though what they find leads them away from those teenagers, and on the trail of a ghost story that churns up things from their past.

Can newly-human Cas, and Dean, with the help of shipper!Sam, work out the mystery behind the abandoned carnival and its ghost, and along the way, figure out the riddle that is them?

one of my absolute fav case fics it forces dean to confront some aspects of johns parenting and work through some shit and also him and cas fall in love and it’s really well done. love this one a lot <3

Finale Fix-its/Finale Denial

Sorry Jimmy by K_K_TiBal (2.1k)

Based on the tumblr textpost:

jellydeans: so are cas and jimmy novak just up in heaven existing at the same time katebushstandean: #jimmy moves to heaven timbuku so that dean stops trying to make out with him every time they run into each other at the heaven grocery store

this one is just extremely funny. local midwestern heterosexual man is forced to play relationship counselor to the dumbest gay people in existence because one of them wore his face

Dean Winchester Really Needs To Make Some Gay Friends by AreYouReady (2.2k)

“Like, I’m trying to think if I’ve had, I don’t know, crushes. If I ever had a gay thing before you came along and just didn’t notice,” Dean said.

Cas suddenly looked down, and away from Dean. If Dean didn’t know better, he would swear Cas looked guilty.

“What is it, Cas?”

“You have had several… gay things before.” Cas still wouldn’t look at him.

“What? When? How come you know this better than I do?”

There was no way the answer to this question wasn’t funny as hell.

dean learning about gay ppl via the memories of dean smith...incredible.

tiny difference (between ending and starting to begin) by sunforgrace (2.4k)

Sometimes Dean catches Cas staring at the sky.

It doesn’t happen often. Not when Dean’s around to tell, anyway. But often enough that he starts to notice.

Eventually Dean starts to recognize the pattern.

Cas just doesn’t watch the sky. He watches the birds.

Chuck is gone, Cas is human, and the world is safe. In the quiet aftermath Dean and Castiel find each other again.

i really don’t have much to say abt this one it is just very good and they love each other so much

Bring Home by cenotaphy (3.8k)

Dean's phone doesn't ring on the drive back to the Bunker, but that's okay. Because—well, maybe Cas lost his cell, what with getting shuffled back and forth between a cosmic void dimension and all. And anyway, Dean doesn't want this conversation to happen over the phone, he wants to—he wants to talk to Cas face-to-face. They should talk face-to-face.

Dean will tell him—

Dean doesn't know what he'll tell Cas. Dean is, in fact, terrified by how utterly and completely he does not know what he'll say to Cas.

cas being forced to face the consequences of sending the risky text that was despair <3

dean’s coworkers vs the heteronormative agenda by cowboydeanwinchester (4.1k)

Dean started working at a local auto repair shop in Lebanon, Kansas about a year ago. His coworkers don't know much about him. Except that he has a wife. Or maybe he doesn't. But he has a kid. Who is either a toddler or a high schooler. Who is either named Jack or Sammy. He also might have a best friend named Cas, but that also might be his wife.

Truth is nobody knows what to make of Dean.

obsessed w people not knowing a single fucking thing about dean because he talks so much and never explains anything. this fic is SO funny

Enhanced Extraction Techniques by goldenraeofsun (5.8k)

The Empty takes Meg’s shape, Samandriel’s, Duma’s, every one of the thousands of angels Cas killed up in heaven. But in the middle of lecturing Cas in the form of Balthazar, it explodes in a burst of light and sound.

Dean Winchester stands in the aftermath.

the empty playing mind games on an awake cas bc it can’t put him to sleep is a thing i like a lot and this is very very good 

Speak Silence No More by rea_sunshine (8.1k)

When Dean imagined this moment, it went like this:

Dean bursts into the Empty—guns blazing, chin high, righteous anger coursing through him. No matter what form his plans and fantasies and whiskey-drunk-whispered-promises took, he is always, always successful. When he imagined it, he was finally the hero Cas deserved.

The reality of the moment is this:

It’s fucking cold.

dean and cas STILL managing to not communicate with each other properly after the confession is so funny to me and this fic does it really well. also i like that a human being in the empty, where humans do NOT belong, had some like. consequences

my heart is a compass by lagaudiere (10k)

“There you are,” the Empty says, in Dean’s voice. It’s cold, like Dean’s eyes are cold, his expression set in contempt. It’s the expression Cas feared, he realizes, all the times he thought about saying it. Revulsion. It makes him feel sick in the way that goes beyond physical, here where there is nothing physical left.

The moment before it happened had been so sweet it covered up all the hurt. For years, Cas had been holding back those words, biting down on his tongue to keep from saying them. And now he had said it, and he knew that it was good, knew that it was worth it. But on the other side there is only this.

--

In the Empty, Cas dreams of his regrets, until someone comes looking for him.

one of thee best dean rescues cas from the empty fics out there i love the way his memories are written i love how many of them were ones that this fic came up with to give me new things to have brainworms over instead of just making me more fixated on He Watched Him Rake Leaves than i already am

killing time by orestespdf (11k)

It's been four years since Dean saved Cas from the Empty and confessed his feelings in return, and in their Vermont lakehouse, the retired couple is now learning how to heal. One morning, Dean gives Cas a haircut.

(A character study of Castiel.)

perfect fic perfect fic no notes no complaints they love each other so much and now dean is giving cas a haircut and they’re spending the day together. god.

and every time we kiss, i swear i can fly by knameless (14k)

Every time, Dean tells himself it’s the last.

--

aka, twelve times dean and cas kiss.

a just boy best friends kiss for every season <3 mwah

for which no words exist by MediaWhore (14k)

'a prayer for which no words exist' // richard siken

"Dear Cas who art in my bathtub, give me the strength to be honest about how I feel. For your sake and for mine. Forgive me all the times I wasn’t in the past, all the words I should have said but didn’t. And please stay. Please stay with me when all is said and done. Amen. "

Dean rescues a newly human Cas from the Empty. That's the easy step.

mediawhore i am in LOVE with you oh my god this fic. this fic. dean taking care of cas after rescuing him dean wrapping cas in a blanket oh my GOD

swimming with the fish pond fish by februyuri (17k)

Some time between Dean bleeding out on a makeshift hook in a barn in Ohio and Sam making marshmallows on his funeral pyre, Dean was brought back to life. By Castiel. Again. Dean agreed to it if only to give Jack time to work out the glitches up top. So, now Dean’s back in the land of the living and things are ... actually good, for once.

Or, as good as they can be when demons are attacking Earth, Dean’s failing to get over why he died in the first place, and Cas is suddenly, inexplicably taking every opportunity to casually tell Dean that he loves him.

this is a wip! but it is so good and so worth the read i love it a lot and am very excited for the last chapter. it IS pretty heavy though dean has a LOT to work through

looking like a true survivor (feeling like a little kid) by courfeyrac (20k)

"Jack’s a clever kid—has been ever since he was born, maybe even before that—but Dean’s pretty sure he hasn’t figured out where they’re going yet. And Dean’s… Dean’s excited about it. He remembers planning surprises for Sammy when they were little—saving up quarters and sneaking off to the arcade the year he turned seven, or slipping a book Dean had seen Sammy admiring into his jacket before sprinting out of the store the year he turned twelve. There was only so much Dean could give him back then, hindered by lack of finances and transportation and a father who paid attention. Now, though, Dean’s got a wallet full of cash, a tank full of gas, and the freedom to give his kid the kind of birthday he deserves."

Or, it's Jack's fourth birthday, and the kid wants to go to Build-A-Bear.

EVERYONE READ THIS RIGHT NOW. that is not a request this fic undid me. oh my god. oh my god. they’re a family and they’re going to build a bear and they love each other. oh my god. also no it isn’t a baby jack fic he is 4 and he is also alcal

what’s missing is found (our souls can exhale now) by sobsicles (27k)

It's not the first time Claire has ever gone missing. It is, however, the first time Kaia panics about it. Dean's dragged into the mess, but he soon finds that it's the best thing that could have happened to him.

~~~

"But have you ever just met someone and maybe it wasn't from the first moment, maybe it was after all these other moments that meant more than you ever expected them to, and it seems like your soul just—just—" Kaia makes a helpless gesture with her hands, pushing out, and she breathes out loudly. "Like it can finally exhale. And that person isn't guaranteed to make you happy, but they're—they're important. You just know it, you can't even escape it, you can't let them go. Ever met someone like that, Dean?"

"I—" Dean halts, his mouth hanging open. He's looking at Kaia, who's looking at him, and his heart is fluttering in his throat like a caged bird aching to soar again. His mind threatens to spiral out of control, but he focuses, swallowing hard. "Yeah. Um. I—yeah, I have."

deancas AND dreamhunter we love to see it also dean DOES smoke weed with kaia and apologizes for pulling a gun on her what more could you want in a fic

Command Me To Be Well by prospopeya (28k)

Dean did a lot of thinking about when and how he would get Cas back. Months of it, actually, stretching into a year, because while Sam and Eileen were settling into their new lives, Dean was stuck. He was stuck in a faraway corner of the bunker, dark and empty and hollow, ringing with the sound of a vibrating phone.

So when he falls to his knees in that same room, exhausted, hurting, breathless, and he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Cas, he realizes that he doesn't have a single clue about what to do now. Getting Cas out had been easy--actually, it'd been the opposite of that--but the planning of it, the methodical desperation of one attempt after the other had been a familiar rhythm. It'd been soothing almost, solid, something to focus on that wasn't Cas's eyes, watery and jubilant in a way Dean hadn't ever seen that up close on anyone, let alone Cas.

And now Cas is pulling him to his feet, and Dean's stumbling, and he instinctually grabs Cas's arm, and his hand lights up with a fire that he isn't prepared for.

"Hello, Dean."

oh post despair lack of communication....oh dean refusing to work through his feelings...this fic is incredible i love it everyone who enjoys dean doing everything in his power to avoid talking about feelings up to and including having sex with the guy who’s in love with him multiple times should read this

break the skin (to break the barriers) by sobsicles (29k)

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment.

SOBSICLES TATTOO FIC MY BELOVED. dean grieving and getting tattoos and it turns into tattoo therapy. im SO in love with mitzi it’s insane. requires some suspension of disbelief for how long a tattoo takes but it’s an incredible fic and an unparalleled experience. sobsicles does not miss

ascend by quiettewandering (53k)

Something in the world is wrong.

Demon activity is rising where mysterious black substance oozes and unusual ecological events are shaking the world. Dean, grief hanging on his shoulders, restlessly searches for answers that might lead him to the Empty… and to Cas.

But what Chuck wrote can’t be undone. The narrative thread pulls Dean along, forcing him to comply. Because once a story already has an ending, it can’t be rewritten.

Or can it?

SUPER cool concept i liked this a lot i’m pretty sure everyone’s read it already but just in case someone hasn’t you absolutely should

oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith by sobsicles (62k)

Getting used to Heaven is something of a marvel. It ain't perfect, and Dean thinks he'd hate it if it was, which is probably why it isn't.

~~~

"You don't understand," Dean whispers, exhaling shakily. "I know you don't, because even I don't. The instant you were gone, I wanted you back. Cas, I wanted you back. I wanted—I wanted—"

Cas stares at him, searching his face. After a moment, his own face falls slack, eyes widening just so. "Oh," he breathes out.

Dean wants to be furious that Cas has figured it out before he has—whatever it is—but he's not even that surprised. Cas knows him too well, always has, even more than Dean knows himself. He's been kicking Dean in the goddamn teeth with how deeply he understands him, even about the things Dean doesn't, ever since they first met. You don't think you deserve to be saved, that's what Cas had said. All bundled up in impossibilities and power, this being that looked at Dean Winchester and knew every single inch of him, as if he had a right to each part.

"What?" Dean grits out.

"I love you, too."

the ONLY heaven fic. i do not read heaven fics bc i refuse to budge in my finale denialism i refuse to read fic where it is accepted that dean dies. i was hesitant to read this but god im glad i did it was so good. literally the best possible outcome of dean dying

Endverse

final fantasy. by orange_crushed (1.9k)

“If I’d actually been born human, would I have gotten sick like everyone else? Would I be running around gnawing on the neighbors?” Castiel tilts his head up and even from here Dean can see the black ring of his pupils, wide and dark as dead stars. He’s high as fuck and he’s been loading the guns for forty-five minutes. He stares into the space where Dean is. He smiles and shows his teeth. “Maybe you’d have already put a bullet in my head.”

"This is why you don’t lead storytime anymore," Dean says. "This kind of shit."

endverse last night on earth fics are something that can be so personal actually. god

The Last Song by Moorishflower (3.5k)

The very last song is the Song of Solomon, and Castiel sings it only for Dean. Set in "The End."

this is like. pre endverse and the tone is so like. wistful? is the best word ive got? it’s gorgeous i love it but fair warning there is graphic description of like. viscera and infected wounds

to think that we could stay the same by cipherwriter (6.5k)

cas has all he needs; himself, his creation, and enough power to continue this cycle for a long time. he's fine. dean wants to take care of him anyway.

oh my GOD this one is good it’s based off the thing of how originally endverse cas was supposed to be just sitting in a room killing and resurrecting the same cockroach over and over. very bittersweet at some points i love it a lot, do not read it if youre looking for something happy though lmao

the first church at the end of the world by withbloodstainedclothingon (11k)

The angels don’t eat the brain. Only Croats do that.

this one is fucked but it’s incredible it contains very heavy and violent subject matter and cas is an Actual cult leader he doesn’t just have orgies it is SO well done and i had a great time reading it i recommend it very highly if the warnings sound like something you can stomach

Down to Agincourt by seperis (1.1 million. i know. yes it’s a wip)

There is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to war.

The outcome's known. Why try? Return your rusty sword to battered sheath, bow your head and bend your stubborn knee. Why take the field when you cannot win the war? But Harry -- he went down to Agincourt.

PLEASE. i know the length is intimidating i KNOW it’s a very long fic but please. please read down to agincourt i am begging you. head in my HANDS this series is incredible.

Non Supernatural AUS

Long-Term Relationship by bendingsignpost (2.7k)

Castiel says, budging over to make room for Dean on the couch, “I thought we should have a serious talk about our relationship.”

Reflexively, Dean laughs.

Castiel does not.

“Uh, Cas... you know we’re not dating, right?”

look man it’s bendingsignpost okay. it’s bendingsignpost it’s good and it’s sweet and you should read it

One White Lie by komodobits (11k)

Castiel takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. He doesn’t need to run through what he’s going to say – he’s already planned and edited and rehearsed it a thousand times. He is going to ask Dean Winchester out to dinner. If it’s not too forward, he’ll say, perfectly charming. You see, I’ve seen you around the neighbourhood and you always seem so earnest and I’d really like to get to know you bette— The door swings open, and Castiel panics.

He intends to excuse himself. He means to apologise and come back some other time. However, in a moment of blind fear, what comes out of his mouth instead are the words, “Could you spare a moment for Jesus Christ?”

do you ever pretend to be a jehovahs witness for months to hang out with the guy you like because you fucked up asking him out? yeah.

separate ways and sleeping dogs by sobsicles (53k)

Dean is three years sober when Cas comes back into town.

~~~

For a moment, they just stare at each other. Dean, once again, has to swallow the urge to offer to swallow something else. It's very hard to resist the gut-wrenching pull of want that hooks in his chest whenever he looks at Cas. And to think, he used to have him, used to be able to act on that want.

God, he's so fucking stupid.

Well, there's no point in kicking himself three years later for shit he can't change. He'll just sit right here and pretend that his fingers aren't twitching with the urge to reach out and touch. He can't do that anymore, and it's his own damn fault.

"Three years ago," Cas prompts.

Dean huffs a weak laugh. "Yeah. Eventful."

this fic hit me SO hard emotionally oh my god. don’t have much to say bc most of my thoughts on this fic are very personal but my god read this please

Everyone’s a Critic by Englandwouldfall (109k)

The one where uninspired chef Dean Winchester has a one night stand with the male (!) food critic who described the flavour of his garlic bread as 'closeted' and accidentally ends up dating him to try and prove that he's a kick ass chef, thank you very much.

(He may have a point about the 'closeted' thing).

this one is SO fun. dating the food critic who called your garlic bread closeted and lying about your career because you’re embarrassed and you want to redeem your food in his eyes but then you fall in love with him

Non Destiel Centric

gender? you mean that thing i have that pisses people off? by bigender dean winchester (homosexualitie) (946 words)

sam and dean paint each other's nails and dean abuses the technicalities of her gender. what more could you want? 

HELLO HE/SHE DEAN COMMUNITY oh my god the pure rush of euphoria reading this. oh my god. oh my god. 

the quiet road to a distant city by rottingbrains (1.2k)

Sam stares out the windshield again. They’re approaching a city, and she can see the lights in the distance. She’s past the danger zone, and she feels like the world around her reflects that in some way she can’t put into words- as if God is telling her that it’s okay. She did the right thing, and soon she will be past the lonely unknown and into the warm, forgiving light of acceptance. Or something. Come to think of it, the lights only look warm from far away, and she knows that the actual city will seem far less welcoming. Still. Best not to imagine the worst when it’s already going well.

required reading for transfem lesbian sam fans. fics that live in your ribcage to make your heart feel good

Four People Ruby Seduced & One She Actually Fell For (Or: Ruby's Epic Love Affair with Humanity in General and Sam in Specific) by tuesday (3.7k)

In which Ruby has a lot of sex, is not any kind of therapist that would be legal, and helps a few people out for her own reasons. (S4/S5 AU)

for everyone out there who enjoys ruby being a girlboss <3

Fractured Link by Trell (orphan_account) (5.5k)

Meg goes on, resolute despite the way Dean flinches, "He likes me. He likes me a lot, and I like him back, and that's probably good enough for both of us. But fuck me for saying so, Dean-o, he loves you, probably more than anything else on his daddy's green Earth, and you need to man up and give back what Clarence over there has been devoting to you for years."

this is meg/dean/cas which is not smth i really seek out but this was extremely good. set in s7 so it’s meg and dean and honey cas and it’s a lot of dean figuring his shit out and trying to forgive cas and i love meg a lot in this

[persephone-plasmids]

Trying

A Danse and Nora fic

[Part 1]

[Read on AO3]

Danse woke up before the sun, his chest heavy with the memories of the night before. Nora had kissed him. But she’d also been drunk, so it hadn’t counted.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from reliving the moment in his mind over and over again. He’d hardly slept as he wondered what was worse: Nora remembering the kiss and regretting it, or forgetting about it and the two of them never addressing it again. He wasn’t sure what he could even hope for if she did remember. She’d never reciprocate his feelings. And he couldn’t fault her for that. He was a Synth. An abomination.

Danse scowled up at the ceiling before rolling out of bed, pulling his boots on, and leaving the partially destroyed house in Sanctuary where he now stayed. The settlement had turned into a place for all of Nora’s strays to reside; himself included.

Fog hung heavily in the early morning air as Danse began his normal jog around the perimeter of the settlement. He’d run up the rocky hills to make sure no Raiders had taken up residence overnight then splash through the river a few times to cool himself down before making the jog up the hill to the entrance of Vault 111.

Today, the sight of the large metal vault entrance only made his stomach turn. It reminded him of his interaction with Nora the day before. She’d been grieving the loss of her husband. She’d gotten drunk. And she’d kissed him.

Had he taken advantage of her compromised state? He tried to assure himself that he hadn’t. He’d pushed her away. He’d been the one to stop things before they went further. But he also couldn’t deny that he’d kissed her back. That he’d enjoyed kissing her back. And he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t spent the entire rest of the evening replaying the kiss in extreme detail, imagining what it could have been like if it had gone further.

Danse shook his head, ashamed at his own thoughts as he jogged back down the hill to Sanctuary.

The sun was beginning to melt away the heavy fog and by the time Danse had showered and donned his Brotherhood jumpsuit for the day, the haze was nothing but a distant memory.

There’s no avoiding it forever. I’ve got to go check on Nora, Danse thought to himself as he exited his home and stepped out into the streets of Sanctuary. Settlers were just starting to make their way to their assigned tasks for the day. Some held rifles to guard the perimeter while others grabbed gardening tools. Danse rolled his eyes as Hancock stumbled through the streets with a dazed smile on his face.

“Just getting in, Hancock?” Danse asked, the disapproval heavy in his voice.

“It’s my duty as mayor of Goodneighbor to check on my citizens every now and then,” Hancock replied, the lazy smile still on his scarred features.

“Funny how it’s only the patrons in The Third Rail you seem to check on,” Danse answered.

He hadn’t intended on harassing the Ghoul today. In all honesty, he was trying to be better. Mostly for Nora’s sake, but also because of his own revelation that he wasn’t as purely human as he’d always thought. Danse hated being a hypocrite. But purging his deeply ingrained prejudices from his mind was proving much more difficult than he wanted to admit.

“It’s not my fault I know how to have a good time, Danse,” Hancock said. “If you ever want to loosen the leash Maxson put on you, you’re welcome to join us.”

Danse shook his head at the Ghoul but didn’t respond. He knew he wouldn’t have anything kind to say. Instead, he made his way to Nora’s house, ignoring the stinging reminder from Hancock that he was no longer a member of the Brotherhood.

Standing in front of the door to Nora’s home, Danse squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and knocked. His body told him he needed to leave immediately, because whether or not she remembered the kiss, this interaction would be painful. Seeing her would remind him just how incredible it felt to kiss her… and that he couldn’t do it again. But he didn’t run. He stayed right where he was.

His heart hammered in his chest as the door knob turned, but it wasn’t Nora who greeted him. Instead, Deacon stood in the doorway wearing Nora’s old flowery apron over his usual T-shirt and jeans, raising his ginger eyebrows behind his sunglasses.

“Morning sunshine,” the spy said with a grin.

“Deacon?” Danse asked, his confusion slowly turning to anger as it always seemed to. He needed to work on that. “What are you doing in Nora’s house this early?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, soldier?” Deacon asked. “But a gentleman never kisses and tells.”

Danse set his jaw firmly as he stared at the man in front of him. He was already calculating how much physical damage it would do if he punched Deacon right then and there. The spy would live. But Nora would never forgive Danse. So he refrained.

“Oh man, I can see all those little Brotherhood cogs turning in your brain. It would be adorable if it wasn’t so sad,” Deacon said with a laugh. “At ease, soldier. I was totally kidding. Just wanted to get a rise out of you. I didn’t realize it would be quite so effective.”

Danse could hear the laughter in Deacon’s voice, but it was muted by the sound of his own blood rushing through his body.

He definitely needed to work on his anger management skills.

“Where is Nora?” Danse asked simply, refusing to acknowledge just how close he’d been to getting into a physical altercation with Deacon.

Danse was usually close to getting into a fight with Deacon, but the idea that the spy had slept with Nora was definitely the thing that would have pushed him over the edge… had it been true.

“I feel like out of the two of us, you’re the one who should know she headed over to the Prydwyn before dawn,” Deacon answered, turning around and heading back into Nora’s kitchen without another look in Danse’s direction.

The Paladin followed the spy and perched on one of the barstools at the counter.

Deacon, still wearing the flowery apron, was stirring mirelurk eggs in a frying pan.

“Nora went to the Prydwyn?” Danse asked, his mind trying to play catch up. “Why?”

“Personally, I don’t think she needs to keep things friendly with the Brotherhood of Bigots anymore now that The Institute is destroyed, but she said something about an open line of communication between the factions and blah, blah, blah.” Deacon shook his head. “Maxson said he wanted to meet with her about something or other. Probably wants to start a fun petition forbidding Ghouls from speaking or something.”

“Maxson asked for her?” Danse repeated. This gave him pause.

There was a time when Danse had worshipped Maxson. He’d thought the man could do no wrong. That was, of course, until Maxson had wanted him killed for being a Synth. Danse could understand the difficult position Maxson had been placed in, but after their years of friendship, he still had a hard time with just how quickly the Elder had turned on him.

He also saw the way Maxson looked at Nora when Danse had still been allowed aboard the Prydwyn. The Elder was young and Nora was beautiful. It only made sense that he’d look at her the way he did. But Danse didn’t like it, even though he was fairly certain the only reason he was still alive was because Nora had been the one to convince Maxson to spare him. Danse wasn’t sure anyone else could have swayed the Elder the way she did.

“Do I sense a love triangle? Because you know I love some juicy gossip,” Deacon said, grinning over at the Paladin and plopping some eggs onto a plate for him.

“That’s inappropriate, civilian,” Danse said, staring at the eggs in front of him and wondering why on earth Deacon would ever make him food. They hated each other.

“Hate to break it to you, tin can, but you’re a civilian now too,” Deacon said, taking a seat beside Danse with his own plate of eggs.

“You and I are not the same,” Danse emphasized, taking a bite out of the eggs. They were surprisingly good.

“You’re completely right,” Deacon agreed, though Danse could tell from his tone that he wasn’t going to like what came next. “I’ve been able to let go of my bigoted ways, while you still look at Hancock and Valentine like they’re Mirelurk scat on your boot.”

“That’s…” Danse began, but he didn’t know what to really say. Deacon wasn’t wrong. Danse wasn’t doing a great job of changing his deeply ingrained beliefs.

“Admitting you have a problem is the first step, champ,” Deacon said, with a soft pat on Danse’s shoulder.

It would have been a kind gesture, if the spy hadn’t immediately snorted from trying to hold back his laughter.

“I’m… trying,” Danse managed to say, even if it felt like injecting a Stimpack directly into his temple to utter the words.

Deacon glanced over at Danse for a moment, but it was hard for the Paladin to read his expression behind the sunglasses. He had to remind himself that this was probably the reason the spy always wore them.

“A good first step would be to actually spend some time with the people you hate,” Deacon offered, being surprisingly helpful. “You might find that you actually have some fun with Hancock. Plus, you and Valentine are a bit more alike than you might think. He’s a giant stick in the mud too.”

Danse huffed under his breath and simply said, “Noted,” before taking another bite of eggs.

The two men chewed in silence for a moment before the front door opened and Nora strode in wearing the all-black Brotherhood of Steel jumpsuit reserved for high-ranking officials.

Danse’s eyes involuntarily roamed over just how perfectly the jumpsuit fit her curves, though he immediately hated himself for the very visceral reaction the image gave him.

“Deacon Marie Jones! What are you doing in my apron?” Nora asked dramatically, walking up behind the spy and wrapping her arms around him in a familiar embrace.

This did nothing to lessen Danse’s animosity towards the spy.

“Your middle name is Marie?” Danse asked.

“I just make up names for him,” Nora replied. “Since he won’t tell anyone his real name.”

Deacon leaned backward into Nora’s embrace as she held him tightly before finally releasing him. Danse hated how casual their physical contact was. She wasn’t like that with the Paladin.

“I thought we agreed the apron looks better on me,” Deacon said.

“Everything looks better on you, Deacon,” Nora agreed with a laugh, walking over to the frying pan and scooping a few eggs for herself. “I bet even this ridiculous black jumpsuit would look better on you.”

Danse refrained from pointing out how false that statement was.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone look so good in a jumpsuit before.

“Give yourself some credit, Charmer,” Deacon said, his voice as smooth as ever. “There are only so many people who can pull off a dog collar.”

“It’s not a dog collar,” Danse mumbled, finding himself irrationally annoyed by the comment.

Nora’s lips quirked up into a grin as she set her plate down and walked over to Danse. The Paladin swiveled in his barstool to face her but he didn’t anticipate just how close she’d get to him. Nora walked right up to Danse, positioning herself between his knees as she grinned down at him.

Danse swallowed hard as his dark eyes met hers. She took one finger and hooked it under the metal ring at the neck of Danse’s Brotherhood uniform and gave it a soft tug. She didn’t manage to pull him closer from his sitting position, but it did cause her to take another step closer to him, now standing squarely between his thighs.

“What exactly would you call it then, Paladin?” Nora asked, raising a challenging eyebrow at him.

Danse felt like his heart might actually beat out of his chest as he stared up at her. She still had a firm grasp on the clasp at his neck and he worried she’d be able to visibly see the nervous way he swallowed.

“It’s… It’s an attachment for the Power Armor,” he managed to choke out.

He hated that Deacon was here to witness just how easily Nora could set him off balance.

“I guess your big brown puppy dog eyes just make the term ‘dog collar’ feel more fitting,” Nora answered with a smirk.

He could feel the heat of her hips against his thighs but tried with every fiber of his being to ignore it. Their close proximity was only making it more difficult for him to focus.

Thankfully, Nora released her grasp on the metal ring and stepped back around the counter to retrieve her eggs. “Thanks for the breakfast, Deeks,” Nora said casually, as if she hadn’t just upended Danse’s entire world.

“Just paying off my debt to society,” Deacon said, finishing his own plate off and rinsing it in the sink. “I should have never suggested that game of strip poker.”

Danse’s eyes widened at this comment but Nora just shook her head with a laugh.

“He bet me that I couldn’t convince a Diamond City guard to give me their uniform.”

“I didn’t take into account that she wouldn’t use stealth to get what she wanted,” Deacon said with a scowl. “I still think it’s cheating if you use your feminine wiles.”

“You’re just mad that you have to make me breakfast every Tuesday for a month,” Nora said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Deacon shook his head and grinned. “Well I’m off to go start some rumors around Diamond City that Piper is actually a Ghoul. Wish me luck.”

“You’ll need it,” Nora replied before the spy disappeared, leaving her and Danse alone.

Danse took a deep breath, wondering if he wanted to come right out and ask Nora if she remembered what had happened the night before, or if it would be better to just ignore it.

He decided on the coward’s way out.

“What did Maxson want?” Danse asked, trying to sound uninterested.

“Ugh, that man,” Nora began, exasperation heavy in her voice. “He wanted to try to convince me to pledge my exclusive loyalty to the Brotherhood again. But I told him, for the millionth time, I’m not going to abandon The Railroad or The Minutemen. There’s no reason we can’t all play nice.”

“I’m sure he loved that,” Danse answered, a genuine smile now playing on his lips.

“He threw a bit of a tantrum,” Nora agreed. “Luckily no one was around to see it. He had me meet him in his private quarters this time.”

Danse raised an eyebrow, still trying to pretend like he wasn’t incredibly interested in this particular point. “Oh?”

“I think he thought it might intimidate me if we were alone,” Nora laughed. “He poured me a drink, stood in front of his Brotherhood of Steel flag, and tried to look super intimidating.”

“And?”

“And it didn’t work,” Nora said, giving Danse one of the smiles that made her eyes crinkle in the corners while his heart melted into a puddle inside of him. “My affection isn’t that easily swayed.”

“Of course,” Danse responded simply.

He could feel Nora’s eyes on him as he looked back down at his now empty plate. He was running out of reasons to be in her kitchen but he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

“How are you feeling?” Danse began cautiously. “Do you have a headache from that bourbon last night?”

That was casual, right? That was something a totally normal friend would say whether or not they’d kissed the night before… wasn’t it?

“I had a bit of a headache this morning,” Nora began. She was pushing the eggs around on her plate with her fork but not taking a bite. Her eyes were no longer on Danse; now she seemed laser focused on the food in front of her. “I told you I wasn’t that drunk.”

Danse’s cheeks instantly flushed at her words.

She remembered.

She remembered and she really was lucid enough to know that she was kissing him.

What did that mean? Did he ask her about it? Did he ask if she regretted it or did he even dare to hope that she actually somehow felt something for him other than friendship or fondness?

“You can hold your liquor well,” was all the Paladin said, also staring intently at his own plate.

If anyone had walked by the scene in the kitchen, they’d think the two were Synths whose recall codes had been read to them.

The silence between them pressed on for a few moments before Nora softly cleared her throat.

“Listen, Danse… I’m sorry about what happened. You were totally right that I wasn’t thinking straight and… I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

Danse felt his entire chest tighten at her words.

She regretted it. She wished it hadn’t happened. He’d made her uncomfortable.

And now that he knew she remembered everything, he felt even worse for kissing her back. What could she possibly think of him now? That he was just like the rest of the Wastelanders; ready to take advantage of an inebriated woman at the drop of a hat?

What did he say to make this better?

“I’m… I shouldn’t have… engaged,” he said quietly. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but Danse had never been good with things like emotions. Synth or not, talking about his feelings wasn’t something he ever thought he’d be comfortable with.

Danse dared a glance up at Nora who was still looking down at her plate. She was frowning with something like disappointment in her eyes.

“I should probably get changed out of this jumpsuit,” she said after another moment of awkward silence. “Preston has a place nearby that he wants me to check out to set up a possible settlement.”

“Of course,” Danse responded, a bit too quickly. “I’ve got some work to do on my power armor.”

Nora nodded as Danse stood up and made his way towards the door.

Before he touched the handle, he heard Nora’s voice, soft and hesitant.

“Would you… want to come with me?”